♪ .. including 1960, silent cal's almanac and his relse, 1948.

>> host: david pietrusza. what was it about the presidential elections that made you write books about them? >> guest: it all starts one step at a time, and the 1920 election, i had been playing around with factoids and just about presidents, and presidential elections, and i looked at that one, and i started calculating the math and it was like 1961, you had really -- or 64, you had one president, lyndon johnson, and mostly you would get three. you would get kennedy and nixon in 1960, and '68, you'd get nixon, and you would get reagan. so you might get three. usually get two 1920, you have six. you have -- >> host: six? >> guest: six in contention in one way or another. all though sever people said but

tr is dead. i know that but if he is not dead. , he is the nominee and is the president of the united states. wilson is sick but he sends his secretary of state to the convention to stampede the convention. he wanted the nomination, and harding, coolidge, hoover, fdr, on the ticket as the vice presidential candidate so you have this hook, and you've got so much else going on with the league of nations, and every other thing, and 1960, well, we move on from there to where you have three titanic personalities. we don't have six but three of the biggest name brands in presidential personalities ever. kennedy, nixon, johnson, and so very, very different. so very, very different ambitiouses in terms of dynamics or personal, and something which

i think res nate with folks who are reading books today. 1948, the great cliff hanger, and we love to get the weather report, and they're always wrong, and the polls are always wrong, and the experts are always wrong, and by god, we love it when we're smarter than they are, and it turns out we can look back in hindsight and see how wrong they were in 1948. they saw that election night. and with the supreme court, we see that people are reminded of that dewey defeats truman thing with the supreme court health care nomination, and not only the chicago tribune, fox news, but the new york times, cnn got he headline wrong real quick. >> host: to go back to 1920. herbert hoover won two democratic primaries? >> guest: yes. new hampshire and michigan. he had some trouble deciding what he was. he had been raised as a

republican. there weren't a lot of democrats in his home town of west branch, iowa. he said the only one he could remember was the up to drunk, which was very illustrative to him as to what the parties were about. but also he had been a progressive. he had been a progressive for tr, and some folks switched over to wilson. he had been a member of the wilson administration. as domestic food administrator. he had gone with wilson to versailles. i think john maynard came said he is the only guy who came out of the conference with his reputation enhanced. and he is a great admirer of wilson after that. he writes a book called "the ordeal of woodrow wilson." so he says, look, you have the democratic party has three wings, southern reaction areas, big city crooks, and agrarian nuts, and he says, i don't want

any part of them, and i think also didn't want to be part of a blood bath where he would be carrying the flag for a party which was going down in flames that year. >> host: in your book, 1920, the year of the six presidents, published in 2007. you said the republican is faced difficult at the. the candidate was dead. the democratic party was worse, a living president who would not get out of the way. >> guest: that's woodrow wilson. he was a great orator. you look at woodrow wilson, and see the silent films. he has this thin face, looks like the caricature of the blue nose, and looks like he is going to be very reedy voice, and you listen to the record examination he has a great baritone voice, and that made his reputation as

a speaker, a fellow who could convince crowds, and he says he's going out there again. he has the stroke in colorado, comes back, is an invalid, but he never tells anyone he is not running again. the premiere candidate, the real front runner, is the former secretary of the treasurery, william gibbs mcadoo, who but together a lot of the progressive agenda, the federal reserve, had helped avert a big stock market crash at the beginning of world war i. took over the running of the railroads, and the war economy, with the war, and the problem is he is the boss' son-in-law. woodrow wilson's son-in-law. he didn't marry the boss' daughter but he got to get to secretary of treasurery, he is the secretary, but now he is family, and he can't make the move unless wilson gets out o the way, and wilson never gets out of the way.

which blocks it for him. and so you get this dead lock at the convention between him, another cabinet member, abe mitchellle -- mitchell palmer, is not shy about announcing his candidacy but no one wants him. so it goes to james m. cox of ohio, sort of a dark horse. sneaks in when there's a deadlock because there's a lot of deadlocks for the democrats of the era, and does not do well, cannot swim against the. >> host: what was woodrow wilson's reputation that with the american people. >> guest: pretty awful. on all ends of the political. spectrum. the stand-pat republicans or democrats had not been in favor of him, but the progressives, people progressives, the liberals, had been turned against him, i think because of the repressiveness of the war.

you take a look at the statement by eugene v. debs, the socialist party candidate for president that year and several years before that, who was in the atlanta penitentiary for violation of the espionage acts , and he will face -- woodrow wilson is alienated from the hearts of the american people at that point. a very tragic figure. but more than that, more than recoiling from the war -- this is a common theme in 1920 and 1948, those books. and anytime you have an administration which gets us into a war, fights a war, it may be successful, but the american people, any people will turn against it. 1920, wilson with the republicans, went into congress in '46. lyndon johnson not being able to

succeed himself. and the bushes. it those a very hell of a good war leader, winston churchill. so there's a problem with that. but more than that, add one more gigantic thing it to, it's the economy, stupid, and the economy is a miss. more strikes than ever in american history. >> host: in 1920? >> guest: 1919. 1920. the boston police strike with calvin coolidge. the seattle general strike. you think the world is about ready to blow up after the war. and the unemployment rate, the inflation rate, are terrific. we would easily be satisfied with what's going on now rather than have that. >> host: in 1919-1920, was it a given or general thought that whoever won the republican primary would win the presidency? >> guest: yes, i think so. i mean, you have to be dreaming to think as the year went on that democrats could pull it

off, and there is this massive, massive landslide. so, if it's not theodore roosevelt -- now, theodore roosevelt -- the republican party split wide open in 1912. that's how woodrow wilson gets in wilson, i think, has, what, 41, 43% of the popular vote that year. i think he gets less of a percentage of the popular vote in 1912 than william jennings bryan does in getting killed in 1908 or something like that. or against mckinley. one of those years. it's really a low turnout. but the party heals itself in 1916, comes damn close to winning. >> host: tr is a republican again. >> guest: it's all very grudging but the party comes together enough where, you know, charles evans hughes goes to bed thinking he is the president elect, and he ain't.

and woodrow wilson, before that, was putting together a scenario where, in case he los, he was going to resign and appoint secretary hughes secretary of state, and end the vice president could quit and republicans could take over, because otherwise you have to wait until march back then. republicans win the congressional races in 1918, and you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing. >> host: so, back to the first part of that statement. republicans faced an unprecedented problem in 1920. their logical candidate was dead. would tr, if he lived, be the nominee? >> guest: absolutely. he was not only physically ill, -- and it's interesting. i think he makes the statement early nobody his life to a sister, he's going to live -- going to live life the fullest until he is 62, and he dies about -- right on schedule. he had also been hurt very much

by the death of his son, quintin, in world war i. he was an aviator on the western front, and i think there's a book about t.r. and lodge and albert, called the war lovers, and he loved the war and was willing to die himself, but to have his son die was -- may have been the last straw which literally killed him at the end. but his health really was bad. but if he is in, he wins. host: you write about herbert hoover in your book, 1920. hoover was a great humanitarian but not a great human. he could rescue the starving mass office europe, but he could not do it with the noble words of woodrow wilson, the energy of a theodore roosevelt, the aimability of a warren harding, or the grinning charm of a franklin roosevelt. he merely did it. >> guest: yes. and herbert hoover, until he

becomes president of the united states, really has this remarkable career of achievement, and despite his personal lack of charisma, he has an amazing story. an orphaned boy in iowa who goes to oregon to be with his ununcle with a dime sewn into this pocket. and then goes to stanford, continues on to the gold mines of nevada or california. australia. rising up and up, getting richer and richer. into china, where h constructs, being an engineer, the great engineer constructs the battlement which saves the europeans and the americans from the boxer rebellion. saves millions of lives of people, americans stranded in europe when war breaks out. no one kws how to do it. he put together a private

effort. got people out. might have even got my great-grandmother out. that was one of the worst decisions of the family to go to europe in 1914. but got those folks out. and saved people after the war who were starving, saved people in germany. saved people in russia in the middle east, probably saved two million people from starvation, and was a very energetic secretary of commerce under harding and coolidge after this election, but in terms of personality, dower, pragmatic. you listen to -- one of the reasons why franklin roosevelt comes across like gangbusters in the depression with these fireside chats, is the act he is following. after herbert hoover, you know, anybody could have sounded good. >> host: moving on to 1948, this is your 1948 book, hari truman's improbable victory and the year

that electrons formed america, published last year. you write: victory has a thousand fathers, defeat, in 1946, had one. harry truman. if he seemed ineffectual. he seemed outright repulsive after it. democrats fault him and not the effect of 16 years of their rule for their deback kell. the wanted him out and they wasn'ted him out now. >> guest: yes, they did. he was not -- we thought in this last presidential round of primaries, with the republicans, where everybody was saying you're the next -- i'm the next reagan, this guy -- no, no. there's not another reagan. and there wasn't another franklin roosevelt. and harry truman, sure as well to use his lawrence wasn't franklin roosevelt. franklin roosevelt could make the word sing, and harry truman

did not have the gravitas, the persona. and also he was the -- as we explained earlier, you're coming off a war. you're coming off a war, and people recoil from that. the party in pour. -- the party in power, and he is the man, gets the blame pinned on him. you get that similar outbreak of strikes in 1945, 1946. amazing, that similar outburst of inflation, and the fear of things worse. they expected a full-blown depression after world war ii, as had occurred in world war i. everyone expected it. and that fear, the fear gets played into the political picture as well. so, the democrats good down in flames, almost -- what's interesting, is -- the congressional elections in 1946, people talk about how the republicans in congress were so

much more conservative than dewey going into the are 48 election. they're more conservative than true. the democrats in congress, because almost all that is left, almost all that survived that blood bath, were the southerners. >> host: how did harry truman win the democratic convention in 1947-1948? >> guest: well, there aren't any primaries, and there's an old saying that you can't beat somebody with nobody. okay? i think one of the things that, having a president for 12 years, is franklin roosevelt, is it kind of destroys your bench, okay? he was the big man. so there wasn't this array of towering figures in the democratic party who could place hem. and that's one of the reasons

teary truman who -- harry truman, until he does this investigation of the war instries during world war ii is basically a nonentity. he is not anything, any great shape. but at that point he is elevated, and also as the experts say, he is anyone that fills the slot the best. he does the ticket the least amount of harm in 1944. he goes on because the guy who is theice president, henry wallace, is the guy who can do the ticket the most amount of harm. the expert, the guys behind, in the back room go to franklin roosevelt and say, he could cost you a million votes, and he is saying, if i cut that by half and half again and if they're in the right states, i've got a problem. and i don't want a problem. henry, basically, i forced you on the ticket four years ago, i can't do it again. >> host: did henry wallace run for president in 1948?

>> guest: certainly did. it's almost like -- one of the great back stories of this election -- not really a back story -- the main story is this grudge match, personal grudge match, an ideological grudge match between the wallace wing and the truman mainstream of the party. wallace had been dumped and truman took over and wallace had been dumped from the presidency by truman. roosevelt put him in the cabinet as the secretary of commerce. give a speech in madison square garden which puts him at distinct odd with the truman foreign policy, and truman fires him. so, any human being, any human being would be upset, and wallace is upset and falls into the hand of basically the communist party u.s.a., which puts together this progressive party and runs against truman, basically not to win the

election but to punish him. >> host: what role did dwight eisenhower play in the 1948 election? >> guest: dwight eisenhower -- when you see the movie, "white christmas" with danny kay and binge bing crosby. everyone loves the general, and everybody loves dwight eisenhower. don't don't know if he is a republican, democratic liberal, conser tut, by they new he was a general and the could win. the republicans wanted to draft him first and he turns that down early on in the year and the republicans go off on their own. the leadership wants to do with their own thing and put their own people in, whether it's dewey or taft or stassen. the democrats, however -- just before the democratic election, week before the convention, there is a cabal of this crazy

quilt of coalition of democrats, southern segregationists. strom thunderstorm, --strom thurman, or jake harvey of chicago, hubert hum frisk members of the roosevelt family, they go all, we want ike. but ike draws back again. crashes the whole thing. there's another explanation of why truman is able to pull this off, even though people are so wary of him, and i can't repeat his exact words but he -- when he hears the words of the truman -- or the eisenhower cabal collapsing before the convention, he says, well, you tell those people that any blank who sits behind this desk can get renominated. and that's a large part of it.

it's very hard to dump a sitting president in the nominating process. >> host: welcome to book tv's monthly in-depth program. we have one author on and talk about his or her body of work, this month it's historian david pietrusza, and mr. pietrusza began writing about baseball. his first baseball what minor miracles about minor league baseball. lights on, the wild century-long saga of night baseball. his third buck, thely and times of judge kenesaw mountain landis, and then rothstein, the life, times and murder of the criminal genius who fixed the 1919 world series. came out in 2003. major leagues, the form yeah, sometimes absorption, and mostly inevitable demise of 18 professional baseball organizations, 1871 to present, 2005.

baseball's canadian-american league, a history of its inning sense, was his next book, and then, presidential history, from there, 1920, the year of the six presidents, came out in 2007. 1960, lbj verse jfk vs. nixon, the epic campaign that formed three president siz, in 2008, and his most recent book, 1948, harry truman's improbable victory and the year that transformed america. he is our guest for the next two and a half hours. we're going to put the phone lines on the screen if you want to dial in and talk presidential or baseball history with david pietrusza.

>> host: how did you get from bake to write about u.s. presidents? >> guest: i was trained as an historian. that was my goal when i was a little kid. what do you want to be? historian, and after a while they got used to that answer and i got two degrees in history, basically the american history from the university of albany, in upstate new york. and then went off to -- because history is a damn hard thing to make a living in. unless you're teaching, and so i went off to make a living. actually designing office space. but kept -- yes. and kept kind of dabbling in writing, doing a little radio or this or that. then became more and more active -- i was elected to city council in new york. after a year i said, that's

enough fun. got off that. said, i reallyon't want to know -- don't want another term. no second term. i'm going to have a lot of time left in my life? i whatnot to do baseball. so, baseball was sort of a detour, but it got me writing again. taught me some very valuable lessons on how to write. it was like my undergraduate degree again to go back into writing, standard history, as we call it. nonbaseball, nonsports history. and there were two transition books, really, the kenesaw mountain landis book there was one earl 'er biography of him, the first commissioner of baseball, judge landis and 25 years of baseball and this book here, which i had done, concentrated a lot on what had preceded those 25 years. what was he doing for the 50 years before that?

and we got into the progrsive era. we got into the sedition trials of world war i, the antitrust cases and rothstein was a similar book. people would say to me, you wrote rothstein because you wanted to write about the 1919 world series. no. no. what i wanted to do at that point was to write -- want to write a book about new york city and the 1920s. but i didn't know what to take. do i take organized cri? did i take culture? did i take immigration? did i take politics? and i found out with rothstein, he was involved in everything. and from there we went on to 1920. so, in a way, a lot of it is to use another baseball analogy, i was like roy hobs. i was away from the game for a long time, but then all of a sudden i came back into the game

of history. >> host: we should also mention that david pet tush should is a coe author of a book on ted ill williams and editedal's almanack, the home-spun witness and wisdom of vermont's calvin coolidge. who was arnold rothstein? >> guest: arnold rothstein was the father of modern organized crime. a gangland figure. a mobster figure. but he is not one of those dees, dem, and does guys. he doesn't have a scar on his cheek or brass knuckles or commanding as part of his main business an army of thugs. although he will employ the muscle guys to collect debts and such. but he is, as one of his earlier biographers called him, the big

bankroll, and he is a gambler when gambling is big and farcable and semi legal in new york and moves into so many things from there, as his big bank roll, where he is putting together the money for rum-running and bootlegging and financing both side of organized labor disputes, even financing at one point the folks from the communist party. i guess the shipment of cash had not come in fro moscow that month. but he is lending money to build broadway theaters and put broadway shows on and financing the modern drug trade so he is involved install -- involved in all of these things, no to mention fixing the 1919 world series, fixing a few high-stakes horse races where he could win $300,000 or lose $300,000 on a horse race or on a card game.

and, and he is involved -- this is also very political book because you see how all these things are tied in to the teens and the 20s. >> host: did he ever go to jail? >> guest: ah-ha. no. even when he fixes the world series, even when he shoots three cops, and the rope he -- reason he shoot threes cops, the big bank roll had been robbed one time, and all -- sometime after that, they're having -- the oldest established permanent floating poker game in a hotel, there's a rap at the door. guys come bounding in. rothstein draws his gun, which he had a permit for. shoots three times, and shoots really -- really wings, doesn't hurt them but shoots three cops through the door. you would think one would go to jail for this. cops don't like that. even if you mistakenly shoot

them in the course of an illegal activity. but he has enough clout to get away with that, not be indicted, not have his pistol permit yanked, and the cop who makes a big stink is harassed and harassed and thrown off the force for years. >> host: was he a known figure in american culture? we see in the great gatsby a character who is modeled on arnold rothstein. we also see in guys and dolls, which comes much later, the nathan detroit modeled on him and there's a movie based on his death done in 1934, which is -- stars spencer tracy, which seems would go against casting. he is called murray golden in that. but, yes, he is well-known, and

the interesting thing about when he dies, you think the headlines would say, arnold rothstein, fixer of 18919 world series, shot, and it's none of that. that is way, way down if at nail stories because he is so much more involved in everything else than that. >> host: before we go to cls, 1960. how contested was the 1960 democratic primary? >> guest: that's interesting because it's so very different from the process today. and when you said, primary, it's interesting, because we should be talking primary but in 1960, we're talking primaries roughly, plural, two. there's only two of consequence for the democrats. there's zero of consequence for the republicans. but the democratic primary involve the wisconsin primary,

hubert humphrey and john f. iannedy, and the west virgin primary, same two contenders, and humphrey is almost like a stalking horse. >> host: what does that mean? >> guest: a fellow who is kind of saying he is operating on his own but really at the bee lest of behess of someone else. humphrey wanted to be on his own but lyndon johnson wanted it more because johnson wants power more than anyone ever but lyndon johnson wants to do it the indirect way, the back-slapping, in the cloakroom sort of way, and if he's going to get the nomination, that's howl he is going to get it. so he does not enter any primaries. he enters the democratic race like a week before the convention convenes in los angeles. and you know he almost pulls it off. he almost pulls it off. because jack kennedy is not

nominated until -- until they call the roll on wyoming. now there's no state that begins with z, okay? that's far down in the role call. robert kennedy says if jack doesn't win it on the first ballot, he doesn't within at awesome but those two primaries, jack kennedy's father doesn't want him to enter wisconsin. thinks it's dangerous. that's a good pick for him, because it's the most heavily catholic state in the midwest. he has a leg up there but hubert humphrey has a leg up because he comes from next door in minnesota. but the polls get it wrong and humphrey exceeds expectationness the delegates and goes on to west virginia and the polls, which had been been up for jack kennedy before wisconsin and west virginia, before the norfolk realized he was catholic, all of a sudden takes a downturn. but kennedy then really

perfects, really perfects his style going before the people. and i think also seeing the poverty of the people in west virginia, it kind of chaes him because it's so just terrible, and awful there, and i think it opens his eyes to some things which he had been shielded from, even as a senator from massachusetts. >> host: we want to give you a taste of what david pet tush should writes about. we're going to begin with joel in north carolina. >> caller: nice to here from you. my question is, what are the obstacles obstacles to unifying the major leagues by qualifying the designated hitter rule. >> guest: unifying the major leagues? i think not. but i wouldn't put it past bud selig because bud selig really has -- and baseball for quite a while has had no respect for the

traditions of the game. the history of the game. what separates the game. this whole interleague play thing. which gave the leagues their character. which enabled a fan to know who was in the league. now you have to study so many teams, it makes its difficult. it's like a fulltime occupation. but whether it will happen again? if the lords of baseball decide it is profitable for them to do that, they will do whatever is necessary, because it is a very much corporate profit and loss. it always has been. when people talk about the game, some golden era when people didn't care about the ledger sheet. well, i think we adult utopia. utopias can exist, neverland can

exist in the past and the future. >> host: vita, you're on book tv on c-span. >> caller: hi. good morning. want to say to the author, really appreciate you this morning. i'm looking at sports and you talk about character and respect and then you look at the media and different subjects and you have them coming on tv, c-span, and the media, and they get on tv and the interview the author and the information that the book the author wrotes so unrealistic lies, half tuition, and the interviewer does not challenge that author on the material they're writing, and we're fans, just like we go to a baseball game. we don't get the opportunity to have the press on that you guys have, and the information you put out. and it phones me as americans we

are dumbed down each other and destroying our literature and our media in this manner. >> host: we're going to leave it there. is there anything you would like to respond to? >> guest: amen. >> host: we will move on to the 1948 election with buford. >> caller: i had a question about the 1948 election. always fascinated me mitchell question is, how the polls could be so wrong in that election and a lot of the experts, who should have non, were calling it for dewey. how did that happen? >> guest: the polls were interesting that year because truman is up and down like a roller coaster, basically his whole tenure in the white house -- his whole political career he is up and down his whole time. he loses his second race for local office in jackson county,

missouri, and comes back and is always in trouble and then gets out of and it that's one of the things that gives him the strength to go on in 1948. but the polls, he is down at the beginning of the year, but he starts coming back up. he also starts coming back up in support within the democratic party. the people within the democratic party have been opposed to him for a long time, and then he was sort of starting to -- and people wereoticing it, that he was first solidified that report. then you also saw -- which happens with every third-party candidacy. people thought he was a cooked goose because the democratic part was split not just two ways in the general election but three ways and that had not happened since 1860, and we know at -- that was a disaster for the civil war and the democratic part. it was a the civil war. so 1948 he has trouble but he

starts coming up. he's going around, people ignore the data, theying know the data of the huge crowds and dewey isn't drawing as well, and the polls -- now, the roper organization stops polling a month before. we're not going waste your time, our time, our money on this. it's all set. and then one of the polls -- i think the gallup, a week before, it's within 5 percentage points. now, you take 5 percentage points, take the margin of error, which could be 3% or so, then you take the falloff of those third party candidacies, which always, as you get closer to election day, they melt like the snows of winter in the spring, and they do, and they do, and that's one of the things which helps truman, carries him over the finish line, and also

they're ignore the sheer blandness of the dewey campaign. >> host: did thomas dewey respond the pop uist attacks? he wanted to but his advisers said-don't get in the gutter with that guy. you're going to be president. stay away from these issues. and even at the beginning of the campaign, foreign policy gets taken off the table. and dewey is counsel eled to do this. he says we all have to work together once this is settled out, so don't muddy up the water. >> host: arthur vandenberger, a republican. >> guest: the fellow who started the bipartisan foreign policy thing, which we had for a while up until vietnam. and we haven't had pretty much

since. then truman would launch these attacks about big business and even where like fascists were in back of dewey and over the top stuff, where even truman would -- he would look back and like, i said that? that's sheer demagoguery. and some of his advisers even recoiled but the advisers in the republican party, the neighbors in dewey's home around putnam county, new york, a well-to-do area, and his wife are saying, hold back, hold back and that's exactly what he does, and it's one of the mistakes he makes. >> host: what was the so-called vincent mission? >> guest: the vincent? that would be the -- >> host: chief justice -- >> guest: right. i'm thinking of john carter vincent of the state department. the vincent mission is where truman gets this idea to -- i

think it's kind of to woo back the wallace wing of the party, because they're saying, well, he is a warmonger. we want piece. we want to show we can cooperate with our former partners, the soviet union, and truman gets the idea to send -- we're back with these chief justices of the supreme court again. chief justice vincent -- to send him on a mission to moscow to negotiate the limitations on atomic weapons and such. and people say, my god, this is a terrible idea. this is a politicalization of the supreme court, particularly since it's coming out of nowhere, a month before the election, and it's a bad idea, and, again, what is the dewey reaction? up in. none. >> host: why did george marshal

resign as harry truman's -- >> guest: didn't resign but came close. he thought about it. he was on the bubble. and that is about one of those things where -- one of the key decisions -- when we talk about how america's -- what changes america and the issues in the back story of this campaign. and that regards, the formation of the sta of israel. there had been a lot of back and forth between the united states and great britain as to how much immigration to israel and how much arms going to israel -- wasn't even called israel then, into palestine -- and so relations between the ash our two countries were fraying. the british league -- because they're broke you talk about, we're broke, get out of iraq and afghanistan. britain really is broke in '46

and '47. they get out. in '48 -- truman jumps within the first minute to recognize israel. and there are decisions about what statements were going to make in regard to pressuring britain and what we're going to allow coming in. the state department is urging caution, is saying, look at the big gee opolitical picture, look at oil, okay? look at the fact there's 400 million or how many million arabs and look at this before you're just looking at israel and palestine per se. and marshal is supportive of that view. and he damn near resigns from the secretary of stateship in that spring, and if he does -- and he is such a well-respected figure -- that might have been what caused -- what remained of

the truman administration at that point just go crash, and maybe, too, have lost it to if haye done the unthinkable. >> host: did his opposition to that decision become public. >> guest: not until afterwards and eventually what caused marshall to draw back was his military training where he says it's not for me to quit because a fellow who is entrusted and empowered with the authority to issue an order, orders it. >> host: what -- is it fire compare that, to let's say, if colin powell had resigned prior the iraq war because of opposition? >> guest: um, it's all -- well, that's an interesting question, because you've got the same military background, and so much happens in hindsight, particularly with iraq and all the unintended consequences. we might be very wise to look at -- to think about

unspendinged consequences for everything before we go laid with it, but, again, both of the them probably wrestled with the decision and both decided to stay on. >> host: e-mail. i would like to hear your opinion on a controversy issue, truman's decision to drop the bomb on japan. the record shows vas laying on truman's part except when he was in the company of the secretary of state james burn. i believe that burns had more reason than truman to use the bomb as a trump card to frighten the soviet. why burns more than truman? because burns champion's fdr's yalta agreement. >> guest: i'm not familiar with burns' influence on that. i will speak about the decision to use the bomb. and i think at the time, there was no questioning about it. and i do not think it was that great a decision. when you think about what the

losses had been in the pacific, when they dug in, iwo jima, okinawa, those areas, the south weren't even part of japan formally until, like, 50 years beforehand, and the japanese had fought such a bloody battle, the lowses were so heavy, and america looked forward to that. there was no love lost between america and japan, and now we're hearing more and more as time goes on, really the extent of american antipathy to the japanese, that there were massacres on our side as well. it was -- i think there was more hostility from american people the japanese than there were to the german forces. anyway, i think that it's not a controversial decision -- not as hard a decision as we think of it today. i think it was more natural and

i also think it was the right decision, and i think the fact that truman needs to drop the first bomb, is driven home by the fact that he needs to drop the second bomb. >> host: this tweet from daniel, what were the positions with regard to women's suffrage and voting rights during the 1920 election and the 19th 19th amendment? how did that play out in the 1920 election? >> guest: that's a wonderful question. because -- and it illustrates a point i like to make about that 1920 election. history generally. if you kind of look for a straight line where people are on one side forever, a countian, democrat, liberal, conservative, and you keep looking and everyone is going -- it's all going to be nice and neat 100 years ago or 100 years forward. well, it isn't at all. and the women's suffrage thing is a very good example of that

where you see that the struggle for women's suffrage is largely a republican organization. you take a look at the votes in the congress, which come up to send it off to the states for ratification. you look at the numbers of -- in the state legislatures, they're overwhelmingly republican. and so it comes down to the wire. some women were going to vote for president, no matter what that amendment did or passed in 1920. but what happens is, it comes down -- because the legislatures are not always in session, and it comes down to tennessee, the governor of tennessee had promised during the primary ex-if you vote for me i'll call the legislature back and we'll reconsider the amendment. and oddly enough he kept his promise. he calls the legislature back,

but some folks, who had made promises to support it in the house all of a sudden say, no, we take it back. it goes to the senate first. in tennessee. they vote for it. it comes back to the house. the speaker of the house, who had previously been in favor, as i said, waits until he has all the votes lined up to defeat it, and it comes down to a roll call, comes down to where it's going to be defeated by one or two votes. there's a switch. there's another switch. and a republican legislature, burns, from east tennessee -- the traditional republican area of the state, young fellow, first time, he had been wearing the identification floral display, red rose or yellow rose as to whether you were for or against and he had been against. but he stands up, and he says,

i -- and there's silence and people all of a sudden realize he is deciding vote, if everything holds for the rest, and all hell breaks loose in that room. and he pulls out an envelope and a letter, and he says, this was a letter i received from my mother. son, do right. do right by me and all the women of america. so it was a mother's letter to her son which gav women the vote nationwide. i think that's a great story. and then they chased him out of the chamber into the attic. >> host: next call comes from judy in wisconsin. judy? last chance. we're -- >> caller: hi there. >> host: please go ahead.

>> host: you're on the air. >> caller: thank you. >> host: judy ask your question or we have to move on. >> caller: yes, david so nice to speak with you. i am interested in your inspiration that kept you writing about this wonderful period of my childhood, my father was the mvp in 1947 and i'm mr. king's daughter from to boston brave weather was the star of the world series in '48. >> guest: what kept me write about baseball or whatever? >> caller: how did you get inspired to write about the canadian american league -- snow oh, my god you. mean that. that's because that's where i'm from. okay. and that was actually -- that was actually my first book. and that started out as to be a newspaper article, or a magazine article for some sort of

journal, and i got carried away. but what that book -- aside from giving me my start and realizing could dully put out a book, talk me a few things. one, i thought i would have to self-publish it, and i thought if i have to pay for every word, is every word wonderful? and he answer was, no. not if i have to pay for it. so i edited 25% of that book out. and you know, that was a valuable lesson for me. not all of my words are wonderful. i also realized in writing that -- i got to talk to a lot of old-time ball players and people who were involved in administration, and the fans, and i realized, and learned -- my father had told me about the games. my mother told me about the games. i went to the games before i was born. but how much these things meant to the people in small

communities, and meant decades afterwards, and we looked at certain historical markers and certain historical -- we look at a grist mill from 1760 and get all excited about it as historians or something but there are so many sources of history in these localities regard what really touched the mass of the people on a daily or nightly basis, whether it is baseball, whether it is their local culture, whether it is the movie theaters they went to or the vaudeville houses, and these things are often overlooked by historians, and cultural history, i think, speaks a lot, and it tells you how people lived and what they thought was important. >> host: this e-mail, and this is from evelyn in new york city. david was president of the society for american baseball research when he told me that

grace coolidge talked to death and i have been intrigue with her ever since. john calvin coolidge forbade any public speaking on her part but the school for the deaf in wbc was holding commencement and grace's opening words were, my husband, who is known as silent cal, has forbidden me to speak as first lady, i have obeyed that restriction, i am not speaking today, aim, whereupon she used sign language as she gave her speech. my question, evelyn writes, what kind of relationship did the coolidges have with judge landis >> ow were right. we were going to learn sething today. i decide not know that story. the relationship that coolidge had with judge landis was actually -- i don't know what

coolidge thought of landis, but i do know that landis could not stand coolidge, and was -- maybe it was because of his origin as a progressive republican, and he thought, coolidge was not sufficiently progressive as president, it might have been a clash of styles, because landis was so flamboyant and coolidge certainly wasn't. but there was another factor in that coolidge became president and judge landis' best friend, governor frank lowden of illinois, had been one of the prime contenders, the two prime contenders at the 1920 convention. he didn't get the presidency. and in fact lowden was so kind of cheesed off, i think, at the whole process, he turned down the vice-presidency in the 1924 convention, which is rather an unusual thing but actually september a telegram saying he

didn't want it. so, cool ying -- coolidge and left-hand. >> not close. >> host: what was the first lady like? >>uest: she was very popular. she was very fashionable. an attractive woman. and charming. she had, like, all the charm that calvin did not. he could be very rough with her. that is one of the things i will say, which is not wonderful about cal. you look at some of the things he said to his family, and they are not magnificent, but she was an amazingly popular first lady. >> host: and eddie tweets in to you: coolidge presided over some real economic and cultural prosperity. why hasn't he and his presidency been more championed? >> guest: well, after -- i think it is a function of the -- well,

okay. first off, somebody said along a long time ago -- and i read it a long time ago now -- that the happiest days of mankind are written on the blank pages of history. hence, if you haven't managed to get us into a war or have some great catastrophe going on, if you merely make things work, there's a good chance you'll just be forgotten. the good that men do with them is buried with their bones but there's also a thing where the new deal historian, the people who really love franklin roosevelt, dominated the writing of 20th century american history for a very long period of time, and part of that was not only building up franklin roosevelt and the new deal but

saying, look who they followed, coolidge, and hard, and they caused all this, and they did nothing, et cetera, et cetera. so, i think there's a good part of that as -- and also what we look at is that he just misses being on sound film; that we go to look at our news reels, and if they're silent, like silent cal, we generally don't pay any attention to these characters. >> host: why was he chosen as vice president? >> guest: well, that's a consequence of the boston police strike of 1919, where the boston police, who were not really well paid, all decide to go out on strike. the strike vote is over, over, overwhelming. they go out on strike. oddly enough, there's some chaos, there's some looting. >> host: he is governor of

massachusetts. >> guest: governor. he is not the mayor. he appoints -- actually his predecessor appointed the boston police commissioner. wasn't a mayorol opinion or prerequisite. he calls out the national guard after the mayor had illegally called them out. order is restored. but it's not the strike itself that catches the public imagination but samuel goers, head of the afl, demands the striking police be put back on the job, and coolidge says, no. there'so right to strike against public safety anywhere, anytime, nape. this causes a brief boom for presidency, and at the 1920 convention,, which is the smoke-filled room, the boss convention which gives us warren harding, just stampedes, from the floor. insure... black, there's a mildly

progressive, not antiwar progressive out of wisconsin, he is supposed to be the nominee. he is posted to be the nominee... because -- i nominated a great leader for massachusetts, but now another great massachusetts leader, governor calvin coolidge. he barely says more than that, and the convention goes wild for it is almost figuratively and literally stampede and they put coolidge on the ticket and in the press box, they all say, oh, oh one karting is a dead man.

coolish will be president before that term is up. >> host: you're watching c-span 2. this is our monthly "in depth" program. our guest is david pietrusza. he has written books about 19201948 and 1960 elections, as well as a book about arnold rothstein and several books on baseball. the numbers are on the screen. the next call comes from xenophobia, mississippi. >> caller: good afternoon, thank you for taking my call. i have a question about hebrews, in the hall of fame, will it ever happen. how is instant replay going to take that up. >> guest: the rose question is one i have been taking him it for quite a while, but i don't know about the instant replay. it is different in a couple of ways. when i used to edit baseball,

and we would do these, you know, not we, but people markum who is the master statistician. he would do the rankings of the great ballplayers. the great ones. he said when asked he was right, he said he wasn't really dead. he played so long, being carried to get that record. it knocked his numbers down. his record is suspect. somewhat suspect. the question of the integrity and the integrity of the game. if you don't like pete rose, the worst thing you can do to him is to put him in the hall of fame. because when you are the most famouserson not in the hall of fame, and now there's going to be a few of these steroid fellows who may jump ahead of

him. but once you put someone in the hall of fame, there used to be great discussions about ralph kiner and others in the hall of fame. once they went in, people stopped talking about them. so if you want to put hugos in history, make a bronze plaque out of him, put them on the wall in cooperstown, and we can go on to discussing something else. >> host: how often has baseball intersected with congress and investigation. pete rose, roger clemens was just on trial. the antitrust issue. >> guest: that is held judge landis comes into the picture. judge landis is given -- there's a federal federally good start during the time of world war i.

they say, hey, these baseball guys -- antitrust, okay? were trying to break us. and they have addressed. and they send the case to federal court they go out of business, and they try to take the crumbs. one of the crumbs of the ballpark in chicago. it goes back at least that far. every time there is an expansion, some of the pressure for expansion was because of congressional investigations. as to what is going on. the first round of it. and we think sometimes, i'll use the expression -- the quote from mickey mantle, when mantle was

testifying about something before congress in the early 1950s. in single goes on and on and he is talking sideways and upside down and nbody knows how to follow him. and then they turned mickey mantle and say, mickey mantle, your comment? >> and he says i agree with everything that he just said. except that i have to say that. i don't know what i'm talking about. >> host: bay city, michigan. please go ahead for your question for david pietrusza. >> caller: hello, sir. i wanted your opinion on a play. i think it is one of the most historical plays in baseball. 1908, the regular-season game between the new york baseball giants and the cubs. fred merkel was involved. i wanted to go through the whole

detail, what is your opinion? you remember that? >> guest: it has been a wild and baseball. you are talking about the fred merkel blunder. in terms of detail, i'm going to have to pass on it on this episode. >> host: when was baseball is popular in 1908 and 1919. >> guest: it was bigger. there is a book that came out about 25 or 30 years ago just on the 1908 series. that was the cubs versus the giants. i think he was the last game of the season. one of those things where somebody forgets this and something of that nature. it was big remarkably early on. it starts is becoming -- the civil war. wars have, you know, we talk about one of the things that

world war i does. it creates that great migration of blacks to the north. why? because you cut off immigration from europe. the cheap labor supply from europe is cut off. now, all of a sudden, the blacks can move up and take these jobs. and in some cases, they take jobs and that is what you get -- that is why you get really crazy race riots. east st. louis and chicago, chicago is about different things. but where white people are incensed because of black people taking their jobs. anyway, you get these things were the civil war, the civil war brings everyone together and where baseball was centered in massachusetts and new york, very primitive examples of the game. it spreads to all these army

camp and that is what really sets it off. >> host: caroline wilkins e-mails to david pietrusza, kenny speak about the role the black vote played in truman's 48 victory? >> guest: yes. early on, it is a factor. the democratic party insiders prepare documents for truman, like what he has to do to win. one of the factors, and there are some factors that we don't think about a lot, like the west, the farmers, labor unions, but also blacks, of course, and truman has -- they are fighting a war on two fronts as they go into the campaign regarding the black vote. one is the emergence of henry wallace. wallace has been foursquare

against segregation. really going much further than the democratic party is willing to go. fdr provided public relief jobs and such for blacks, as he did for whites, during the great depression. herbert hoover really helped turn him off, i will say. which is another story. but truman, truman is looking at an early poll which shows 90% of the blacks are favoring wallace. 90%. he also is facing a problem on the republican front, where tom dewey has a very liberal, pro-, civil rights antidiscrimination record in new york. the first antidiscrimination law

in the country is that when i zack and new york advance determination. yesterday someing. one of the things he does is put forward a mission to look into civil rights issues. he looks into a wide range of things. that leaves the south to revolt. that issomething we haven't really talked about too much. the dixiecrat revolt. the document which i talked about earlier, which was in the candace -- campaign strategy -- the deep south wasn't prepared to take anything on this issue. that is why truman eventually integrates the armed forces of

the united states. which is tied in. the hip bone is connected to the shin bone and whatever. the cold war is connecting to civil rights activities of harry truman that year. that is because they're going to have a peace contract, and the blacks that put up with the draft, a segregated army in world war ii, they were going to put up with it again. there are 30% of blacks who are not going to register and it was going to be a massive march on washington led by philip ran off in the middle of the election. harry truman, all of a sudden, he said i'm going to integrate the armed forces. on the other side. >> host: david stokes e-mails how big of a factor was henry wallace in 1948? he had been a heartbeat away from the presidency. by 1948, was he more of a pariah in serious political? >> guest: increasingly so and within the democratic political

spectrum. truman decided, except he really doesn't address the wallet undreamt contract was issued very often. when he does, that she actually hammers them. he hammers them. he says the rockies are a mighty fine place. if he doesn't like it, he can go to soviet russia. but he has maybe 10% of the vote. 10% of the whole vote at the beginning of the year. that place down to 1.2%, and he never -- he never goes beyond a very small niche of even the democratic party, and we think of the dixiecrat is being a

regional threat for truman. the wallace thing, almost all their votes, not almost all, but disproportionate amounts, come out of new york state and come out of los angeles in that area. they also could come out of illinois, but the ballot access is so important. henry wallace never makes the ballot in illinois. >> host: did strom thurmond when electoral votes in 1938. >> guest: yes, he had a bit more of a strategy where the folks who have brought this up. he's a late comer to the game. he just sort of meanders in. he shows up, this is the danger of showing up to meetings. don't show up, you may have to be chairman of guam is. so at the beginning of the year, truman is putting up these proposals for civil rights. there are meetings called.

there is an entity out of the field and right, very much segregationist. the strategy, i think it was -- someone who had a job in washington with the library of congress. the control of the currency or something, they write a book about the electoral college. you can bring these guys in line if you basically hijacked the mechanism of the electoral vote in your state. and thrown into the electoral college. they might have turned that off, except for tom dewey did not carry out his part about giving up electoral votes. but here's where the strategy was flawed. if you look at the map for the previous election, harry truman -- actually, print and roosevelt had not even one single electoral vote from the solid south to win any of those four terms. so harry truman has a margin

despair. .. i am looking into them, particularly in 1840 election so. but my question, sir, is regarding how harry charming guy nominated for the 1944 vice for president. ard i race conflicting stories aboup how that have been. for example, i heard when they dropped the powerful people wan. he wanted his vice president douglas, but he was too liberal. they didn't know who to pick, so

they picked jimmy burns. and jimmy burns asked harry truman no give him his nominating speech. and at the last minute, they changed their mind and made harry truman the vice presidential candidate. and jimmy burns said to tell harry truman he had to get off the stand so he could make a speech for him. is this a true story? >> guest: you've, basically, got that right. i mean, william o. douglas was not vice president, of course. he was on the supreme court then, and there was -- he was a sharp fellow, one of the sharper new dealers. still a young guy, very liberal. truman had put out a memo that, or a little handwritten note, i think, that either truman or douglas had, would be acceptable to him. and the myth was for a long time and it appears to be not true that the folks in charge of this behind-the-scenes stuff switched

the words and put truman first ahead of douglas. but douglas was a problem because he was untested, he had never run for political office and never would in his entire life. he was a little too libal probably for the ticket. jimmy burns had a bunch of problems. burns had been a senator, a governor, he was kind of like the war coordinator for the new deal. people called him the assistant president. he was a talented guy, but he was from south carolina, he was too segregationist for the blacks in the north, he was -- he had an anti-labor union record which was really the killer for him. and also he was a lapsed catholic. so the catholics weren't going be crazy about him, and probably the vociferous anti-catholics were probably still wondering whether, which team he was playing for. so he didn't make the trip.

that is the election where the phrase "clear it with sidney" comes from. head of the first big pac, the cio pac. and that was a big labor union thing. and dewey kind of got up and vociferous about that. he kind of got alive and was saying that truman -- or, roosevelt was turning over the country to hillman and the communists and all that and making a big fuss about that issue. but he got blowback on that from his advisers, and that's one reason why he never touched, like, the communist or extreme left-wing issue in 1948. he had a million excuses for not touching any issues in 1948. >> host: bob in st. george, utah, thanks for holding. you're on with david we tuesday

ya on booktv. >> caller: i'm born in 1935, so i transition from my war heroes, soldiers and sailors to baseball. [laughter] but my question was about harry truman. in all that i've read, how much was he aware -- he and the people around him and the military people -- as to the destruction that would be caused by this atom bomb? most especially the terrible radiation effects that came after? were they really aware of this, of this awesome power of this, that's my question. >> guest: i'm not entirely sure how much they knew. i suspect they did not know a great amount, although the -- if you listen to the reminisces of the -- reminiscences of the

surviving, i think there's only one surviving member of those crews, and the orders that they were given, that they were given by the people who actually knew the nuts and bolts of this operation were to drop that thing and get the hell away as soon as possible. whether it was from a fear of radiation or whether it was from a fear of just being incinerated by the heat like in washington today or just the force of the blast. but they were told to get out. in terms of a fear of radiation, however, back then consider, you know, you're born in 1935, so you may remember this, maybe you weren't a kid then, but i remember in the postwar era we would go into the shoe stores, and they would x-ray our feet. they would x-ray our feet for those buster brown shoes to make sure we had the exact right-fitting shoe. so we would go to a shoe store and get x-rays.

i would submit that we were not fully cognizant of the dangers of radiation even in the 1950s. >> host: next call for david prize ya comes from pensacola, florida i'd never heard that before. >> guest: you can look it up. >> host: i believe you. go ahead. >> caller: good afternoon. i just wondered if you could give any credibility to a story about harry truman's train trip in 1948 when he was campaigning. he got as far as oklahoma, and he ran out of money. and the governor, governor roy turner, bailed him out. but is there any truth to that, and could you comment on it, please? >> guest: yes. he did run out of money. and when he started his campaign, democrats traditionally start their campaign at cadillac square, i

think n detroit, labor day. and, you know, at the start of the campaign, well, of course, it was a government-provided train. but, you know, paying for everything else they really were terribly short of money. at the end of the campaign, the numbers, the numbers flip, and you take a look at the receipts of the campaigns. the democrats actually take in more but that's like a lot of checks that come in, you know, after the game is won. it's like, oh, i'm your friend, i'm your friend. but, yes, they had terrible, terrible problems in putting together a campaign. one of the other things where they were short of money on was -- and they did, you know, catch as catch can -- this is the year that the television starts. only, basically, on the east coast and a few other areas like, you know, from boston maybe down to washington, and you flip out to cleveland or somewhere. limited networks. but what is still a big factor because the movies ain't yet died is the newsreels.

and dewey puts together a documentary, tom dewey, next president of the united states, unity, efficiency, the man for the job, working with congress, blah, blah, blah. and dewey -- the truman people either forget and/or don't have the money to put something together. but what they do have is the presence of mind to go to the people in the film industry and say, you know, no matter who's president of the united states, boys and girls, there's a good chance we're going to control the senate next year. we can investigate you. we can investigate you, and this was the time when they were breaking, finally breaking up the film industry. this had been going on for a very long time because it was a vertical monopoly. they owned the theaters, they owned the product they were selling, the films, they made the films. and this is one of the things that causes the fi industry to

collapse. so they go to that, and the film industry says, okay, we'll do what you say, and we'll make a film for free. and they make up a film which is made up of shreds and patches of footage they have of truman. and it has a documentary quality of reality to it. has him, you know, with this little crippled girl from the march of dimes or something in action and the dewey thing looks so slick, and the truman thing looks like cima very today because it's done on the cheap. and it is ten times more effective than the dewey film because they had no money. >> host: there's also a comic book that's put out -- >> guest: yes, yes. malcolm ader. and ader is, you know, this was the age of comic books, you know? and they were very controversial. congress would have hearings that they were corrupting all the couth and everything like that -- all the youth and everything like that. and little did they know what was to come and everywhere else. but the comic books, ader goes

to the republicans, and the republicans say we're republicans, we don't do comic books, mr. ader. but the democrats, they're democrats. they're fun guys, and they do comic books. and he can print these things up for, like, a penny or two apiece, i mean, really roll them out. and he does the life of harry truman, you know? he's on the front lines with the artillery and every other damn thing. but they leave off the corrupt machine he was in in kansas city. >> host: and also you write in 1948 with regard to the train trip about thomas dewey taking his train trips, but not getting off the train to greet the -- >> guest: yeah, yeah. truman has, you know, two whistle stops tours for truman. and it's always good to try your act out on the road. so truman tries his act out in the spring and goes around, and the first part of his trip he makes all kinds of mistakes. he's kind of like joe s. biden,

quite frankly. he's pretty, pretty rough out there. but coming back he gets a little better, and he's doing it for real and very well in the fall which is when it counts. but dewey, dewey goes into -- now, he, he stops in oklahoma. the fellow was mentioning oklahoma. dewey makes about seven or eight stops or ten stops in oklahoma. his wife is from oklahoma. but oklahoma, it's oklahoma. ohio is always the game then and now. truman makes all these stops in ohio, dewey makes, like, two. and when he does, they've got a crowd of people outside waiting for him to come out on the train, say hello to them, say a few words, he won't come out. worse, he has a rally with the republican leadership the state, robert a. taft, who had beaten him for nomination, mr. republican. they fought the leader of the republicans in the senate. he's on the stage with him, he

snubs him. he won't even say hello to him. and ta is just, like, i don't know why that man hates me so. but it was his personal style which is, which was a big problem. the man was a real icicle. as they said, you really had to know him to dislike him. >> host: burbank, california. roger, please, go ahead with your question for david pietrusza. >> caller: thank you. i'm just wondering if martin rothstein who -- [inaudible] kennedy in the prohibition days? >> guest: i don't know if he did or not. i never ran across any connection. but, of course, old joe -- they were both in the same business, and they were both in the business of importing scotch and very high-grade scotch from across the sea. rothstein gets out of that very quickly though. very, very quickly. they might have also been involved in a wall street speculation. kennedy makes his, one of his

fortunes in wall street in the 1920s. rothstein is involved with protecting the crooked bucket shops. bucket shops were a phenomenon of, a pre-crash phenomenon and, you know, it's one thing to gin up sales with, you know, just churning accounts. but what they would do at bucket shops is they'd say you should buy anaconda copper or something. and it was designed that it was going to crash. it was going to go down. but they would never buy the stock. and then they would, they would pretend to buy it and then sell it back or just give you part of the proceeds. and rothstein would be involved in protecting these things which were protected, also, by tammany hall, whicwere protected by tom foley who was the patron of al smith and one of the big ball club owners, horace stoneham's

father was a big bucket shop operator. >> host: roger, you had a follow up? >> caller: yes, if i may. i wonder, also, what role did organized crime play in the '60s election? my sense has been they really backed both sides to protect their cuban interests. >> guest: i haven't heard of organized crime being involved with the nixon campaign in any way, shape or form. the kennedy thing, there's a lot of stories about them bringing money into west virginia which i tend to discount simply because joe kennedy didn't need money. [laughter] he doesn't need 50,000 or $100,000 to pass around. he can figure out ways to do that on his own. but the, there are questions of them being involved in some of the wards in chicago and, of

course, there's the question of jack kennedy and the mob leader sharing judith campbell exner as a mistress that year. so there are connections. i'm not sure if all of them are valid. >> host: we are talking with david pietrusza here on booktv on c-span2 in our monthly "in depth" program, and we're going to ask you this question on this e-mail, and then we're going to show some of your favorite books, etc., and the interview we did with you at the conservative political action committee earlier this year. but this e-mail for you to think about is, in your opinion, can you give us the names of the five worst and five best presidents before jfk in terms of how their directions improved or hurt the nation. and this e-mailer asks before jfk because he or she believes we need time to pass good judgment. so something for you to think about. but here are the covers of david

push ya's book. his first books we about baseball. minor miracles in '95. lights on, '97. judge and jury in '01. rothstein in 2003, major leagues came out in 2005, baseball's canadian/american league also in 2005. and in 2007 1920 came out: the year of six presidents. and then the next election that david push shah wrote about was 1960, lbj v. jfk v. nixon. and last year, harry truman's improbable victory and the year that transformed america. mr. prize shah is also the editor of silent cal's almanac and booktv on c-span2

continues in just a minute. >> we're here at the conservative political action conference talking with david we triewsh shah about his new book, "silent cal's almanac." tell us about it. >> guest: what he did was to come press the wisdom of nservativism and americanism into a few well-chosen words, primarily talking about something which is significant to this day, the importance of low marginal tax rates for creating investment, for creating prosperity, for making the american system work for the average american. because when he was in vermont, he saw how his father would go around, collect tax money from people. he realized it came from ordinary people by the sweat of their brow, and it should be collected wisely and no more than was absolutely necessary. taxation, he said, in excess of

what was absolutely necessary was theft. >> host: how long did it take you to, essentially, gather all of this home-spun wisdom? >> guest: ah, gee. well, it was not a full-time project. it was something i did in my spare time, collected it over the years, read through all the speeches. oddly enough, his collections -- we would be surprised by this -- but people would buy collections of his speeches in the 1920s. they were issued one after another, they were very popular. so doing the research was fairly easy, and then assembling them and then publishing them in this book, but also adding introductory essays like why calvin coolidge to people who would be mystified about this topic, and then there were a lot of anecdotes about him which are pretty amusing which people always like to tell. so we threw that in. and also as appendices thrgh his inaugural address so that people could get a full flavor of what the coolidge intellect

and powers of persuasion were like. because he rose all the way from be alderman to mayor to state senator to representative, lieutenant governor, governor, vice president, president. he held more elected offices than anyone else in american history. he worked his way up the rung which is the way you're supposed to do it, and you never do it!

>> host: and our live in depth continues with author david pietrusza. mr. pietrusza, you listed robert

benchly as one of your favorite authors. who is he? >> guest: yeah. he was a humorist of the '20s, '30s, '40s. you'd see him in movie shorts which, frankly, aren't that funny, but his essays which were written for just about everybody back then and which fill probably about that big a space on my bookshelf are laugh-out-loud funny. you know, you'd sort of get the teacher in the library, why are you laughing in the library? do you have funny books? so if people say to me your material, your books can be very funny, it's because i have a love for that sort of written humor and one of the other -- i don't know which version i ended up sending, but fran leibowitz, her life on metropolitan life, i met her right after that came out and asked her if she had been influenced by benchly, and

she said, no, because that's how she talks. [laughter] but, yeah, just, just i love -- and the books i have on my list are just, you know, the words have to sing on the page. they have to have a certain flow. >> host: well, you also wrote to tonya davis, producer of this program, also favor the histories of edward wagonknecht. >> guest: yeah. >> host: who is that? >> guest: he was in business for a long time, from the '20s to maybe the '60s, early '60s, and he did some books on tr., and he did a book on the first decade, longingish essays on that -- longish essays on that first decade of the 20th century. and he did a book "movies in the age of innocent." and what i liked about him was he was writing about stuff i liked to read about. the seven ages of theodore

roosevelt, that was one. he would have this great, meandering kind of style where throwing all kinds of stuff, almost stengel-esque. but yet it all came together in this wealth of information. and being able to husband large amounts of information and still keep it together in a story that moves is something that identify tried to accomplish -- that i've tried to accomplish because otherwise not only would i drive my readers crazy -- i wouldn't have any readers -- i'd drive myself crazy. >> host: well, we left off prior to going to that short break asking this e-mail about, in your view, the best and worst presidents before jfk. >> guest: yeah. um, each with the list -- even with the lists of books i was thinking, you know, it reminds -- i feel like one of those guys called to ask to name

names. [laughter] like i understand why they didn't want to do that now. so i'm going to give -- i'm not going to answer it. but i will say that i was involved in this huge questionnaire that sienna college puts out on ranking the presidents. it occurred to me as i was -- and it's like, you know, every category for each president five, ten, and it's like -- at the end of the process i had come to the conclusion that 70-80% of our presidents were below average. which mathematically is impossible. but when you start thinking about it, it's like, my god, we must be a great nation to survive the people we elect. >> host: what about underrated? or a president that you think more attention -- >> guest: well, of course, calvin coolidge, my favorite. and these things change so much.

i mean, look at how both truman and eisenhower have come up so much from from, i mean, truman in the '60s, the democrats were hiding him at that convention. he was, like, the crazy uncle in the attic. and eisenhower was dismissed for a hong time as a great -- for a long time as a great mediocrity. and even with the roosevelts in terms of maybe not in ranking, and is by roosevts i mean three. you would see who was getting the books written about them and who was the publishing or the public idol, and they would vary. for so long it was franklin, and then, you know, theodore has been so hot for so long. franklin is starting to make a bit of a comeback now thanks to our poor economic times. but these things are so cyclical, it's only like, you know, james buchanan who never comes out of the woods or warren

harding. >> host: what role did eleanor roosevelt play in the 1948 election? >> guest: eleanor roosevelt was, you know, the keeper of the flame and did not like harry truman. did not like what had happened to the administration that truman had inherited from her husband. a lot of the new dealers left. not only henry wallace who she had liked a lot and wanted to keep on the ticket in 1944 -- eventually he sort of wore out his welcome with her -- but her sons were very active in dumping truman. and if you take a look at the statement she makes in support of truman just befor the election, they are, shall we say, very tend. >> host: this is booktv on c-span2. david pietrusza, historian and

author, is our guest. we'll put the numbers up on the screen as we take this call from bob in raleigh, north carolina. hi, bob. >> caller: hi. david, um, if you could comment on the fact that i think president reagan when he was handling the air flight controllers' strike, didn't he cite the coolidge situation in boston as precedent? >> guest: well, if he didn't, he should have. although coolidge, that's a -- yes, he should have. because that is really what rallied the public behind coolidge in 1919, helps make him president. both were considered tough decisions. i don't think reagan was completely confident that he would have public backing on that. it's always difficult when you're throwing individuals out of work or punishing them and they can be held up, and you can

come up with the sad story of this family, or this person had been a hero at one time. but you're tough to -- you're forced to make a very hard decision on that. coolidge had, after he had made that decision, had helped some of these fellows find jobs in private enterprise. but he was not about to bend what he considered to be an ironclad rule in bringing these people back to positions that they had, in fact, abandoned. you know, very much like a soldier going off from the front lines. >> host: this tweet from robert craig: the greedy koch brothers call calvin coolidge and warren harding heros because of their tax cut and anti-labor stances. >> guest: well, i can't comment on whether that's the -- if that's an accurate quote from the koch brothers. i suspect that's probably not the case.

and, in fact, warren harding is the fellow who when the republicans take over, right soon after he becomes president, they take help bring together an end of steel strike. and the republican, the steel industry they had, like, 12-hour days seven days a week, some crazy shift work. and it was under harding that they go to, like, an eight-hour day or six-day week, things like that which tend to be forgotten. and you also see -- i was looking at in the -- looking at in the other day. mother jones, one of the founders of the iww, goes to the white house in october 1924 and endorses calvin coolidge. so he was able to reach across the aisle without, you know, throwing his principles overboard. >> host: and there's a photo of mother jones and calvin

coolidge -- >> guest: efficiency. [laughter] >> host: warren harding is often ranked as one of the worst presidents. >> guest: yeah. and, um, kind of three things to look at there. um, one, the perm scandals which if we're going to rank presidents based on personal scandals, i don't know if he's the only one who should be held to that standard. but certainly a mess, a mess where he's even being blackmailed during that 1920 election which as far as i know is unique in presidential annals. and they have to send his former mistress and her husband off to japan until the election is over on a business trip. >> host: who saved those letters? because you quote some of the letters that he wrote. >> guest: i think, i think that comes from the phillips' family. and those letters have an -- >> host: nan phillips.

>> guest: yeah. they were originally in the shadow of blooming grove by francis russell, d the were massive lawsuits about what he could print and what he couldn't print and why, you know, there was stuff redacted out. the second part of his, of his presidency is, of course, the scandals of the people around him. albert b. fallith teapot dome, harry doherty who is his commerce or his attorney general and then his campaign manager, and the scandals which i think are the worst and the ones which are never mentioned are where they loop $2 billion from the veterans -- loot $2 billion from the veterans administration. but he has his accomplishments of the budget bureau, of cutting back spending and getting the country out of a recession or a depression very quickly. >> host: emanuel in boston, thanks for holding. you're on with author david pietrusza. >> caller: thank you. >> host: you've got to turn down the volume on your tv.

we're listening. you're on the air. emanuel, i'm going to put you back on hold. they're going to come on, they're going to talk to you about how to turn down the volume on your tv. we're going to go out to craig in las vegas. craig, you're on the air. >> caller: hi. listen, when i was living in south jersey, i guess it was a pbs program that talked about the roosevelt city which was a commune that waset up by fdr? >> guest: i don't think they were communes, i know there were kind of model cities or communities in maryland, suburban maryland? >> caller: we had one in south jersey. and they recruited people from new york. they were going to make shoes and some other things there. but it didn't work out. for obvious reasons. i was wondering, i guess people had to be recruited into the administration to set these

things up, and i was wondering what happened to them after, after roosevelt was out? >> guest: well, i mean, roosevelt used to say if one thing fails, try another. which is if you're an admirer, he's flexible. and if you're not an admirer, he's just sort of flailing around. so you had a number of things which were tried during the depression. i don't know about these, this sounds like fairly low-level thing. nothing on the scale of the civilian conservation corps. but millions of people went into administering these things, and they'd come and they'd go. something which was also very big at that time, you know, aside from workers', you know, all these public works things were the things which created the city guides which we see still being -- and state guides, histories, which you still see

in print today. and also there was a federal theater project which was one of the most controversial things of the entire new deal and really led to a lot of congressional investigations around 1937-'38. >> host: tom farraday e-mails to you, mr. pietrusza, i've read your books about 1920 and 1948 elections, enjoyed them both. my question is, are you going to write a book about the 1968 presidential election? >> guest: good lord. i just -- i keep getting asked that. i was asked that at lunch the other day. i don't know. the marketplace is a powerful break on the pen of authors. and we shall see if marketplace cooperates on that. but we may end up pushing that one. another one which we've been seriously considering is 1964. which, i think, is interesting beyond the goldwater story which is what a lot of people cover.

but also so many of the things which flow out of that. i think the back story to these elections as much as the nuts and bolts of the election and who stopped where and who used what sort of methods of campaigning, what was going on in the country or what was setting stage for so important. >> host: did barry goldwater have a role in the 1960 election? >> guest: yes. in the '60 election, it leads almost directly to '64. barry goldwater gets -- yeah, he had been criticizing the eisenhower administration with great alacrity, called it a dimestore new deal. wasn't shy about it. seemed to have of more patience for richard nixon than dwight eisenhower. but when eisenhower goes to capitulate, as they said, to nelson rockefeller on the campaign because rockefeller had been vying for the nomination and was causing, making all sorts of noise, goldwater gets all upset, goes to the

convention in san francisco and says to the gathering -- because he had been placed in nomination so he could make that speech -- grow up, conservatives, and we can take this party back. and voila, they did four years later. >> host: this e-mail, jim torborg. hi. on baseball, please, discuss the movie "eight men out." it is one of my favorites. did rothstein's men really threaten lefty williams and his family? >> guest: that's -- i have seen recent -- even though it's in my book in "rothstein," i will reveal that i have seen information now that that did not occur. that that did not occur. so maybe it occurred, maybe it did not occur. keep an open mind about it. in terms of the movie, it seems quite faithful to elliot's book.

i had the pleasure of meeting him a few years ago, nice man. and i would rank "eight men out" as one of my -- at one point would have ranked it and put it on the list as one of my top five baseball movies. fascinating story and wonderfully written. wonderfulfully written. but having to go into the rothstein book, i started to pick apart all the the, you know, all the little details sort of playing mystery writer. and the bookended up as a -- book ended up as a finalist for the edgar award for the mystery writers of america which was, like, i've written a mystery? and, in fact, i had. i had solved the mystery of his murder and of the 1919 world series fix where he was involved on not just one end, but two ends. >> host: next call let's go back to emanuel in boston. emanuel, you're on the air. please, start talking.

nope, i'm afraid that's not going to work. we tried. bruce in new york city. hi, bruce. >> caller: hi, how you doing? thanks for having me. >> host: good. >> caller: about baseball history, we often talk about integration of baseball on the field. what about the integration in the stadiums? how were black spectators treated both in the north and the south? were they segregated? >> guest: yeah. >> caller: were they, in some instances less likely to be allowed to buy a ticket? how does that work, and if it was fabricated in some sense of the word -- segregate inside some sense of the world, when did it change? >> guest: that's a good, that's a real good question, and it leads to a meandering on my part. in the south, certainly, they would be segregated and, of course, they were segregated to the extent of having their own leagues, you know? but the only major league grandstand or ballpark where the seating was selling regated --

segregated was in st. louis. now, why is that significant? well, because people say landis is blocking the game. and until he's dead, the game isn't integrated. well, there's two things which precede the death of landis. one is world war ii where are you going to -- what are you going to do in the middle of a war? and, two, ricky, before he's working in brooklyn which is maybe the most liberal city which you can pull this off on integrating baseball, he's working in st. louis. which is the most segregated, which is literally segregated in the seats. if there's one place he's not going to do it, it's is st. louis. he has to make that jump to brooklyn. >> host: chris gray about the 1960 election tweets in: amazed that you entirely discount president nixon's long, close friendship with the wanted

criminal bebe rebozo. did i effect the '60 election? >> guest: did not seem to, i don't think so. and i'm not even sure, i'm not even sure how close nixon was to rebozo at that point. i'm not sure of the chronology of the events of how close they were at that point. i suspect not. and i don't think, i don't think there was any factor involved. >> host: next call for behaved pietrusza comes from sew key, illinois. jerry, please, go ahead. >> caller: but it's actually gary, but i won't ask you to spell the last name. well, i want to compliment the man who you're interviewing on his wonderful voice. he could read from the phonebook and make it rollicking. and your voice is fine too. welcome to the voice of juan valdez. i think he should be president, he sounds so bright. especially if he doesn't want to.

they say people who are more reluctant would be better than the ones who want it. i got $8.50 an hour, i didn't like it when they threw out magazines. i wonder how many people will have -- what is a letter box movie or what they should do when they call your program? maybe future historians will wonder comparative value of tweets from those from people as well as -- and include a little side note for the rock group. i wonder if it's counterproductive to have music so loud that causes hearing loss. >> host: jerry, thank you for all those comments, we're going to let them stand. and here is an e-mail for you, mr. pietrusza. please, find out -- are you familiar with the betrayal of arnold rothstein on the television program "boardwalk empire" on hbo, and if so, do you feel it is relatively accurate? >> guest: well -- >> host: were you a consul tan,

first of all, on that? >> guest: no. i don't get hbo and, hence, have never seen the series. however, i received an inquiry from the portrayer of rothstein, and they had read the book, and they wanted to discuss how they should go about this. unfortunately, rothstein was under option to a film producer, and i thought it prudent to consult with him whether i should be talking with the actor. so i sort of talked to him and said i'd be happy to have lunch with you and discuss anything but arnold rothstein. [laughter] but i think he has consulted -- but i found very little in my research on rothstein which connected him to atlantic city. there was only one thing i really found, it was somewhat tangential about the rum-running

operations. >> host: next call here on booktv on c-span2 comes from delane in granada, colorado. please, go ahead. >> caller: good afternoon. i was just calling to see what your take on the teapot dome scandal would be during the harding to coolidge administrations through the oil companies and that scandal? >> guest: yeah. >> caller: and i'll hang up and listen to you, thank you. >> guest: well, teapot dome is, basically, the handy work of the secretary of the interior, albert w. fall. he controls the secretary of the navy. we talk about the strategic petroleum oil reserves, and this is what this is about. it's private oil companies tapping these. so the navy had them, and albert b. fall, you know, run into the secretary of the navy and says, hey, i need these. and it's like, okay.

he doesn't know what he's doing. he's not a crook, but he doesn't know what he's doing. fall turns these over at bargain basement rates to a couple of oil companies. they're in wyoming,hey're in california, and he is given -- they track it down, basically, from a herd of cattle. there's a herd of cattle which mysteriously appears at his ranch from new jersey. and also there are denials. it's a very complex story, lies, and the money is laundered to, i think, the publisher of one of the washington papers, i think "the washington post," actually. so it unravels. this is -- it's difficult to know what harding knew about this, whether he knew this was one of the scandals that was a problem and which weighed his mind down and caused him to die. this all gets dumped in coolidge's lap. he had nothing to do with it, when he becomes president. and one of the things he does is, basically, simply get out of the way and let the justice

system take its course. not -- on this issue and also on the issue of the investigation of attorney general doherty. the congress wants papers from the attorney general. does this sound familiar? and coolidge, who is very wary of upsetting what he had inherited from harding before he took office in his own right, watches this go on for a while and then finally in march 1924 says, look, they're asking for papers, you're not an honest broker in turning these things over. your focus of this -- if you're not going to cooperate, i must respectfully ask for your resignation. and he gets it. >> host: in the 2012 election, are you seeing any similarities to past elections? >> guest: oh, there always are, and there's always differences. in regard to baseball, i would always say in regards to all things being equal, all things

are never equal. but some of them do remind you, and certainly in 2012 you think a lot about 1948 because you think of the congress flipping so much in 1946 as it did in 2010. you think of a president who starts out, you know, truman started out at 87% approval rating. we won the war, right after that dropped the bomb, things were okay. and then it goes down. and dewey and romney have a certain similarity of, oh, background in terms of being eastern governors and blandness, quite frankly. >> host: um, this tweet has come in, peter wesley. mr. pietrusza, was coolidge a vain man? he was the only president of the united states to have his face on a u.s. coin during his

presidency. >> guest: that is a true fact. that he is the only living president. it was a sesquicentennial of, you know, it was one of those things that, you know, washington and coolidge on the same thing. i'm not quite sure what role he had in picking that out. he did say it is a good thing for our presidents to know they are not great men or for people to know that. and i think he had a understanding of his limitations, certainly the limitations of power, federal power, presidential power, but also, you know, when he went out to the badlands and he'd put a head dress on he put a big cowboy outfit on. and, you know, one of his advisers said, mr. president, people are laughing at you. and he said, well, sometimes

it's good for people to laugh. now, a guy who says that can't be all stuck up on himself. of course, he was also decided he wasn't going to run for another term. so being on the way out of office sometimes is a good thing. gls and if you would like to e-mail or tweet to our booktv program with david pietrusza, e-mail booktv@cspan.org and our twitter handle is @booktv. worcester, massachusetts. manning, you're on the air. >> caller: yes, sir. >> host: we're listening. >> caller: i, having been born in the middle '20s, the '48 election was the first one that i was able to vote in. and when it came to the polls, i was, obviously, very aware of what "the chicago tribune" had done and came up with dewey having won. but there was also the literary digest, and their poll also came up with dewey. but the problem they had was the

sample that they had actually worked on was one of making telephone calls. and many people did not have telephones and, therefore, they got a sample that was not exactly the kind of sample that one needs. and after that election the literary digest just folded up and never existed again. >> guest: well, that leads into how polls are being done today and whether you're calling people at home, you know, all the young folks don't have land lines, they have cell phones, and are we going to be measuring opinion that way? also, are we going to be measuring, you know, people on the street, people just living and breathing, walking around? are they registered voters? are they likely voters? all those are -- what is the nature of the sample? is it balancessed republican/democrat at the right point in time? but the main thing about your question is right pew, wrong church. and the lit prayer digest was --

literary digest was no t the '48 election, it was the 1936 election, roosevelt v. landon. what you said was absolutely true, they were polling by telephone, they were spectacularly wrong, and they were well out of business by the 1948. >> host: what were the final polls in 1960 saying? >> guest: oh. that's where the people pretty much get it right. except for the private pollers in wisconsin get it wrong. and what causes him to campaign in the wrong areas and throw the results off is that they -- nail biter, all the way through. all the way through, all the way through is the neck and neck from start to finish. >> host: you quote charles kuralt in your book, "1960." i have believed that the outcome of that election might have been different had nixon been able to put his feet up at the end of the day and relax with reporters, explaining his positions over a glass of scotch and a cigar.

but he was not the drinking, smoking, explaining sort or the relaxing sort either. i think it cost him the presidency in 1960. >> guest: when you have an election that close, any factor can be put into that slot. you know, the black vote,he southern vote, the -- whether he goes to too many states or not enough states, if he's tired in that first debate. but, yeah, i mean, certainly his relationship with the press, i mean, nixon himself might have agreed with that. because he sort of agreed with it in not so many words, but in different words which were you won't have richard nixon to kick around anymore. >> host: needleland, texas. hi, robert. >> caller: hi. is it true that a mobster once said of truman, we bought him, but he didn't stay bought? >> guest: no. that doesn't sound familiar to he be at all. but -- no, doesn't sound

familiar. >> host: well, what about his kansas city, for those who don't know kansas city -- >> guest: oh, now, there, there you're getting into the neighborhood though. and there were mobsters involve inside kansas city. involved in kansas city. he starts out as a small town farmer. you know, haberdasher ri and all this. theachine, tom pender gas machine, puts him up for office in 1922. he's elected from the rural areas. he's from the farm areas, lifelong democratic family involved in the masons, involved in the fraternal organizations, in the veterans' organizations. all the boys go over as a bunch out to the trenches in world war i. but this is a, he's running the county after a while as the head of the county legislature, government. but he's taking orders from the boss, and they are skimming off millions. and this is something which he's, he's wrestling with.

am i doing the right thing? i let them take this, i didn't want take it for myself. am i an honest man, or am i a crook? he writes this down himself. he's wrestling with his conscious. and gangsters in before he wins for the senate in 1932 there's a big rubout in union station in kansas city of the machine-related gangster, johnny lanza, i think his name is. >> host: joe beatty from los angeles e-mails in to you, mr. pietrusza: why do you like louise brooks? in addition, what are your favorite historical movies? you listed louise -- >> guest: yeah. it was a favorite book. and that was because of the style of her writing a also it's such a surprise. it's such a surprise because here's this, basically, failed actress, and her book which is very n a way, very similar or

her story to pat jordan's "a false spring" which is about baseball and a young guy who really has all the chances in the world given to him. and through sheer jerkiness runs themself out of a job. or maybe not a good curveball in his case, but louise brooks was beautiful and makes a lot of mistakes. and it's a tragedy. you know, the frank sinatra song, "i did it my way," she did it her way. it lasted for a while because she was young and beautiful but did not serve her well in the long run. but in the long run, sometimes there are second acts in life. maybe you are a roy hobbs in many different ways. and by god, in her old age out of no training whatsoever, boy, she could write a sentence. >> host: rich lives in leland,

mississippi, and, rich, you're on booktv on c-span2 with david produce shah. go ahead. >> caller: i'm here. >> host: yep. >> caller: i'm right outside of greenville, mississippi, where a lot of authors are from, but i'm originally from wisconsin, and i remember the election in 1960 although i was very young. but what i'm -- i was over in the library studying in a book about fascism. and most americans really don't understand what a fascist really is, i think. and after i read that book, i, you know, i think a lot of republicans -- maybe all of them -- are really fascists. and i know that's a radical statement, but i'd like your comment on that. >> guest: fascism is, well, ancioinfis jonah goldberg has

icidr authoritarianism is a cult of action ofll a hhi at whthonevno w the goals are,ut we're going to act, we're going to act now. teeramtall letlo pare d't f i ol er na. ie >> caller: hi. i've been reading a book by a william luten berg aut franklde revan cr: i cke the condsnd ro--dr a through 1935 where the supreme court was making 5-4decisions,

and it included juic n rt ener. ueower y >>lees d e' pde ry eres 5-4 decisions were made at a time wh our nation s going through very similar paernstweno anistdef co mmon t yoow 'sg em t f,copag fight of, like, 1937 after roosevelt wins the big land an dedheot gg t aneysaheasnd yihae crt decisions follow the election returns. so that to, again,rote the grofth c s eieyoonou arpo teyl

degrhi they had previously been knocking out like the nra, national recovery anenyo sirtson. roelesge p econt or inflation of numbers, but simply by making new appointments. >> host: david pietruszado you write fulle? ueye osnyeag? >>st, oret lthut ac. ieorill s to teach, and the guidance counselor kind of called me in, and i ws thinki about the doctate. d ase,dwhdo stenihigrhi wok da jft ..

>> you know what avenuesyou wille purs. anntf r arnhs ad tndtt menyos ae thoue n bil s fo- platform of granite

foundation from which to work. and then it becomes co at some point, itafs. whyo.xd to f s e aes you and things. after a while, the material takes you. so much is now aiable, ecic, asll inatnoivou tmu aiyuwatue arttsi down. >> host: for any viewers that were not listening earlier, a >>stamin ida uarhtry h ond b neitri o electrical history, not as agn >>t:ivelra g: aymatt

d rtnghie heom is actually it is out there being shot, i have also written a oe eg aabt, tey,eeecsce os hrinvl? >> apoltical. it startedoff as something from a sportsacgr. isset thaee rcinou indolkaawshank redemption with sports. >>t:as a or cntquon thdapisz yoinat's health

problems would have prevented him from running in 1964? gu i'tw a kennedy gets a kind that kind of shot -- i think that lyndon le.nson is the senate majority algh iabbi dr m, m ola edeorn. h s hle elonth the country was still in the new deal a new dealcut dneze

kenny should've won by more about the money didn't come in when he didn't, the party i don't think we'll give him a conda stso thehdjt h whe eho50 1 >>sts,hihe was. not of eisenhower personally, he probably could hve had a third unndonene puanas a fdomeiid again. and they keep eisenhower for being peside. er tet acain thcintgn

p se.aid eihtsa w aterel wvee twe jaen cyeatv . >> host: paul in richmond, virginia e-mailed me, and he would like to askwhat general macarthur had on the 48 election, and if threiay lafi oe ras d oron sof ato ilia control. >> guest: macarthur is, there are fouradi ogo covel,mte 13

rng of the marchers out pe dt leen as a soldier, some heop i -tugh to run when you are ruling japan hevedvcee,uran, and also any s ong rgng baheifxpncs . an ol b erypr, so personal animosity could have played a role in that. how much, i would hesitate to h: c cr:low yo qet is, i eally don't think it is an indisputable fact, but over the years, we have seen come andthe publans vpnl

oua difatof an my naming some airports after hi so many buildings after him, dthnka wa ibant hut wis mai fe t sny ndes rning. my question to the author is is there any historical precednts ra ott go ak ndnasns eve rewriting history of his presidency when necessary. to createtilosgi th ie. hns it wouldn't have happened to

washington the federalist, it will look a that 1948 convention look at some the th t vnri u ajfock d er ey s ohe ing hud soeaat lioln is just o popular after tee, eiiwr, n o da od n ftse pules heim rated haile by historians, dominating figures, kind o sshacath a thaty.veta nt ta jack kennedy in philadelphia, all h way jfuld'l t

e. >>t:idtr, urk 92r x ren h odow on find out about theodore roosevelt death in what w his ratio? neate ptty anfot st c h kind of makes the grand tour in france, italy and it is still wildly opl. he s t ap ab it. which shows something about his character. he was not a big man abouthese things. my ofhenterrson tiiph u let t osrouia,ha chance. plea go ahead with yur question or comment. guest: i would like to know

if you have an opinion of the prenadicoedt r4 e a t th he spoken to, feel like we have never had anyoneto vote soe the. vo agnst a oghvina bor another. but yeah, it is a different process, it is a dfferent ino umoyspnde tohednbe also, it translates into these guys is getting exhausted. you took a lookaroer eninh oundfha oc d jloe

winded i had theaso wh ete ogranted is so foreign to them that the next prident of the united states is forced to go to some litt neral ore ewshre fc iti aged v h 4 adhrhicen is a great mishmash, b it is also a reflection of our whol federal sysem. po tdiio co,taiki fh h thing is set up. if you want to go to something else, you're going to end up going a lot toback rooms. thsoleuedege ckoss

os2d et published "1920: the year of the six presidents." again, who are the six wa hdica dginvolved in that rbert hoover, and ink when eleanor roosevelt. >> host: hour each of them involved? uetrs isep ar11.rrdis nafr iowsr or o a state republican, wins the nomination of the course. kevin col lg fate cda 9 en sed xocepe. he bomesresint wn

harding dies. i skipped over woodrow wilson, deny? woodw wilson, resnto eds, nv. cotin frsc nchi staostt d h h s dn s a sointr.fio herbt hoover was a great engineer, secretary of commerce. he is elected ad 28. think when roovelt, democrat. unwi.staf e nae. ye.el id statng deyhen did the nntio

ueboouow ma fu yrso you know, it was amost down to the wire. afvocvte. 9agfrdhe stthacm g i ldll pna tales. pressure being put on people on whatkd hoededp yi, , tt daersona osreom actt a. al yla ur td ieo on. i pesed some old newspapers and i came across a count the death of his son. you know, i would like you to

comment on that incident a how ifdindwllse hisey. thnery o olsosjoge aty kn little bit, interviewed m at his home in plymouth notch. thyor n acl or ey pngni t itus enco. ybacju r . right around this time frame, teevs v ot ap besctn. eyngtoowom philadelphia t g this child is dying.

and the glasses falling into calvin coolidge's face. d coolidgis damr er. ittealtheda s coolidge was suffering from itfehision after this. of pde ft s lliu y ioot ow and see that tennis court, i see my boy out there. so it was a terrible thg. tao,ce,h o an k a hge are odte. he is not running, he announces h d puss e leavofce

thndto. bov inth pra fragwo liiau on e air. >> caller: hello, how are you doing? david, you might want to modify your resnse on thepre enha m o thig oecssm ytfascism should be called corporatism. e mrg oprad rn d sby am to mussolini. in the 1920s. the publanar, hi y,te at toerventer

comment? >> guest: we see corporations from both sides, working both sides of the aisle, wel as eyl. ntto fer hi on tes cto venmfrngd on them, and what we haveseen ceamnas hcm r obadston tai ort st,akeouts certain industries, not necessarily socializing something, but becoming partners with gm or chrysleor withthe health care th wthpaacc inorcenngours rtotth rreo co-pays or require thatgnrialted isdsfa t du. ha ip cyou

rrsswt h d or. and so he you can point the finger to a bunch of parties. i think that the pure forms of cova,ad tyhean par are pure eno afr ht >>t:idtr, he eioas e cror reandolph hearst lv inltrehbl iaea iadical figure, a radil democrat. t coqu nsto ir srtofcid. >>t: i that? >> guest: i'm not quite sure. i think that people, as they get

older i'm a chang their opinionsnd me l tgh tl emat a , s il mo. s the urging that edfa, w lpoove tgeemio he fhetecr na--nahe out of his seat,but he had been a good advocate during world wan inatl e.nde >> host: did he tend to suprt third-party candidates or supportive of the em et >>st w no on s ouotof own t hamc

hdthto ote republicans in the new deal. there was a poll in 1922 or 3 pe -mbnehey . is a l he -satic stat. ann harding was well below hat. co ahebns keag state in the midterms. 19ocsttyn ho si een,e 9othe vote. for long periods of time they tended to doetr nboger

isng a blt, on lsr, y , en g--nai 900 s ht year. there isaremarkable total. woodw wilson basically, hi nitipum ai aidkecri r sthtft g 1eagors deatsontste in jail, ended its harding, who is a very kindly man. that is one thing everyone wou say about them. personally, really nicg. h ge u fja ayih yge o f christmas.

heays this aut estuff b ou jhoanwa y o yo wyo di hgoelnsh g: aclybeause the senate is so fractured between progressive and what you coss pcuy evative wings of itic domt you have [inaudible name] and george morri there is a big miestern populist wing. and they areust, the ldnt -jo irrt24 >> host: next call for david pietrusza comes from jan in wilmington, northcolina. cr:nk vmu i a o- qio e t ou ng

ouhve atthfu f stnsta eyo on the computer and all paperwork in on phone where you can t your hands on a lot of it. thheteess ts howo h thonv w tisa radio. questions to ask and n ak. has it changed and how hy oohedi g: inenup itreorpol pe co ir own. it is good tohave these things t que re pae abot oh, it is not. and it never will be. you have to go through, and maybe more so thre is, you g

ugre manre yoveorouve whis dey t.tt t as they ve now, it is often a hit and miss process with warren rdin stgohag rvhouet posnt -- there's a harding, it's you, we're going to you, and is there anything in your background that wou keep you from being prent? 10mis swer. that should have been their first cause for alarm because there re all those wmen in trouble, but there were those. thnnarngduissoli escy

>> host: this e-mail from michae do you think charl evans prenes woulde ma a goo indui o san lkabi wl onight on american hisry tv, they are re-airing that. >> host: that is right yes mackey is aazigly cabl hem've e oeor ogiv under harding, even though he served under both the secretary of state, aa erveeftif sueu. no nirel hiantoy on s ca of governor -- reputation of governorf new york, hestaro ybst usr innc

h heldma kowelwae rethe 1948 election, and why was earl warren concned? >> gst: the question is how ani think he liked them a lot. they had these governor conferences. ey met them up so that hey actuallynew eaoh foeda suod h do we, however, look to this fellow, this progressive fellow, he is notike a ctry ljbicnehoeoe i44 iomclfo ittlwe in 1944, and duly turned them down. do he says -- one thinks that if

hu iety aotneaan yb tin prco iote s thng t as ey'te o. e igns don't match, and they don't meshed so mch that either one or one wipe end up in ainotnvmve 1gone da iza wet i find it silly to limit presidents to two terms while congre is unfettered any chance to go back. >> guest: i don't ink ere is huoticyi.ot yb . certainly no constituency among thsenators who want to succeed, so ihn t onhith g t pp th ositn em

et hradhr >> host: next callo david pietrusza prig of about 15 minutes left in this month's "in depth" program. joittt.ie cr: monou vee leof 196 agonioer h s inor s theirt to actually kn hole n90 holsidential thicescy alft tga biggest mistake was bush, and i wish that he had pked somone se >>stll 17k ea ry y g e leee around 1840 or two year before the election -- they would pick

the vice predenc tod rwiin pelv, h o ikt s rely the first i remember being at a meeting that dayof lk thasae natbutth a otealgca. terms of 1980 and picking bush, welcome if you aren't haeeppth fwbuh,wout leh tha oi gal rd ers sconqu bi aan f cket. but ford was basically asking not to be vice president again. buborsi, ynderstandable. nipent an wono c ata.

>> host: dave tweets in, have you read the wikipedia artle on arnold rothstein? uld c nin po b c t o hiffn my t old be, mimal at this point. >> host: ricrdrom veont iltoy ohesens e,eostrr ofsi cdgde interaction with the federal reserve bank. what are your understandings and impressions of the coolidge pridencyegarnger rvtisai? inor anyone. [laughter]

al o e >> guest: there's a great divide between conservatives and libertarian. i do know that there was some issue as to whether rean col ted rv n ita rothbard me uewo for them they would ask for their head. up until that point, he was kind enough to let them hav their carnyuwtaf cr:d infrte day. my questiois about the provenance baseball team in

providence, rhode ild. ou toco lkutssi stoftta 98ou90 know from postcards, there was not a lot from one of the ayerssn insty pna whs lrndee great aunt and he was from the providen braves. that is all i know abouthim. ere a picref hiin seotit >> guest: back when i wa president of american baseball research, never pretended to know everything about reech.

e a rhode island chapter of the society for american baseball research. gnlie,fouow thavmeg r ca?d gup ueno no. did a history of baseball's canadian american leue, and most of the teams were actually h w think there is on one canadian team in the major leagues? >> guest: oh, you have a limited numb iesac la oow realsateof-byi ever go to a game at the olympic stadium, what a tomb. there is no air in it. theris noectt

thououo es s avee d sadihe hihekeme literally. >> host: sonoma, california. hello, r >>lehaoumuor is pam anreerwec ey thas conversation was he will be the first cathol. i remember that. ho w b h irstr s to me that mormonism has any more factors of a cold abth. yhi th odut lle r r.

>> guest: i think that is being discussed. i don't thinit is -- i think these things are often not so much discussed in the open, nd ey are kind dssi cen urstnd i okeybig elected. johnson nt h maty toe asied.ther thodi jcrk om ke tueandheis th. o have the president come speaker of the house, and the majority leader of the senate. all catholics, bodyntc >>t: mn erg ae th60 ti >>stre >> host: how well-knn of the figure was he at that point in time. >> guestfairlyeasobl ll-kwn whislleri ona

t oeeetionsoy. viiodhe mnages to vies pe.vn shau'oio pr c w i e hifes ri thhet scott king, saying that we have to do something about this. swg lc vot h acor t ils pi olitundot o r veintetth at wll. >> hos theexcall ces misnne. heahe. al pna'my ou cof l ueyontbeyu >> cler: my favorite president is truman.

truman had what i would say integrity. every aspect of it. yoveprenat a solunttyl t, t artofi erpef a? and i equate the way this campaign is going todayas th ma t edngcth d a h >> guest: the comparison ofd oba truman figure.

has he been through enough adversity before an election to pull thisof yoav.3ydf ee plnt haetwo or 3% unemployment with truman. you had an poblem with inflation thatr. hesttr t iu u everything -- you have massive difference i think, in the eltion. mi. ue woveade it better vice present for dewey or eisenhower? s hetaedn ba

hak., wa chre >>st whe aoty reenve as from indiana where he took the seat afr the eath of s gebohe thatwas one of te up. e ve in re standing come also the weakness of dewey's campaign in the midwest and halleck wuld've stood out somewhat oe ca, hm.lomro >>le ha ti t 1 election.

whel t60 aso re igo ded pgr i ga?thihtapar in actual pictures. ueusy ol wsr s isca itr erado esevi they just don'twant the newcomers coming in. i also think e was the oriinal ckefler eic. ilismarob be sgo book written on the histy of [nadib] uei'ts. i't w ooue

e >>t:thapom jo scandal? guess oh, yes. the secretary goes to jail and he is the first one. anas-wlibsjor cn. wailica nan unair way. that helps derail his chances in 1924. so it has implications for both ie thsko en r g: nore has one. the ideology wasn't firmly i k o. ninnt t id ab t ic a still talking about. talking about deficits and mactg.g balances and the loss of

gisugn. d , s the past three hours have be talngitvi eta. aisks no olsnola se. amt 99 gh n tectuon o balle n 1997. judge and jury, the light of judge kennesaw. g iekne ite in 2005. baseball's canadian american league. also came out that year. in 1920, his first ok ' y 7 hebo s 0: yof