again, so when it comes to ngs r own . . horrible things, um, you know, we need to be the america that people think we are, and, you know, nobody can touch us if we have our act together, if we're doing the right things, if we're being an example to the world, if we're the shining city on a hill, we'll continue to be number one, and we'll be number one for a reason. not just because we're powerful, but because we're good. >> thank you.

>> ievelt. i just sort of drifted into it. my field is naval history and at one point i was thinking of writing a book about the obscure historical footnote concerning the attempt to build a naval base on the mexican coast of a hot california. franklin roosevelt have been assistant secretary of the navy in woodrow wilson's -- and i was

interested in what papers he may have had related to magna ban of day so i drew for my home in connecticut to the franklin d. roosevelt library and hype park. at the time i had no interest whatsoever in writing about fdr himself. sometimes things happen. the fdr library library is an amazing place. you have to wonder how any one man could have lived a life crowded with so much manoush up. hundreds of thousands of shelf feet given over to zillions and zillions of telegrams, legal briefs, state papers, personal letters, schoolbook scribbles, secret tables, position papers, children's drawings, warnings, threats, scraps and details of vitally important political landmarks and long forget and grand schemes that ran out of

this theme before they could be acted upon. i quickly discovered that there was the whole lot about it in the library. i wasn't that surprised. the crisis i was investigating had been more or less settled by the time franklin roosevelt arrived in washington in 1913 to take up his duties in the navy department. but what did surprise me was that even a cursory glance through the library's indexes revealed franklin roosevelt that i knew nothing about. i had grown up with fdr. he was the only president i knew until i was 15 years old. like everyone else i was up where he had strong emotional ties to the sea and to the u.s. navy in particular. his home which i visited in the past and which is next-door to the library is filled with naval prints, ship models, paintings and other not akel paraphernalia

clearly he identified with the navy but until i examined various items in the library i had no idea how deep that identification ran or how early it manifested itself. we look at drawings of boats that he made when he was only five years old and they are remarkably sophisticated. he understands gaffe reading. he gets the sales right. he knows where the halyards belong and how they work. it occurred to me that the fdr library might hold something more interesting to me than the magdalena bay crisis. this is identification with the navy represented not just one of his interest but was in fact a very basic part of his character. to a very real extent, he seemed to have built his entire intellectual worldview around his understanding of the navy. that is, he did not see the navy is part of his worldview.

he understood the world based on his view of the navy and that was an interesting idea. such was the case one could view his entire political career especially as his years in the white house as a reflection of his naval centric worldview, the new deal, his foreign-policy come his fight for congress and the supreme court, his leadership in world war ii, his entire political career representing an inherently naval intelligence. that might make a book. so i began researching franklin d. roosevelt in earnest. and eventually it resulted in this book, "roosevelt's war" the education of a warrior president, 1882-1920. as his case i came upon surprises. undoubtedly the biggest surprise to me was the more i looked into franklin roosevelt early years,

the more i kept bumping into another roosevelt, theodore roosevelt. and it quickly became evident to me that the influence of theodore roosevelt on the young franklin which is generally overlooked in most accounts of his life, was profound and far-reaching. it would have to play an important part in the story of fdr and the navy that i wanted to tell. but i get ahead of myself. the story begins like most stories, at the beginning and i would like to read a little from chapter 1. a boy sits alone quietly reading it look. elsewhere in the house the familiar sounds of servants going about their daily chores are punctuated now and then by the calm authoritative voice of his mother or father supervising their to these.

but the boy is oblivious to everything except the book in his hands. the time is somewhere in the early 1890s and the boy is franklin delano roosevelt. he is about 10 or 11 years old and the book he is reading represents something of a challenge. it is filled with unfamiliar technical terms, complicated charts and curious diagrams but because it is also filled with the class of combat and the smell of gunpowder and is crowded with thrilling accounts of daring, the boys enraptured and greets with the focused intensity of youth totally lost in its pages. he is sitting in the library of springwood, his family's country home in the village of hyde park overlooking the hudson river about 70 miles north of new york city. we cannot be precisely sure when he first read the book he was

holding but we know that he read it at an early age certainly before his teens and we know that it would have a powerful influence upon him throughout his life. it is almost certainly the single most important book you will ever read. the book that's so captured his attention is entitled the naval war of 1812. from early childhood franklin has been fascinated with the sea of things maritime. he is an avid sailor and under his father's tutelage he has learned of small craft and served his crew on his father's 51-foot sailing yacht. during some berzon campobello island where the family keeps a cottage. but it's not the subject matter that has drawn into the naval war of 1812 so much as the fact that the book is written by his distant cousin, theodore

roosevelt of the oyster bay branch of the family. young franklin knows and greatly admires his brilliant fun-loving 35-year-old cousin ted who enjoys inventing strenuous games for children and who after a day of running likes nothing better than together everyone around the fire and tell them ripping tales of his adventures bob of the cowboy in the dakota territory. at this point in his life he adore has already make a considerable name for himself as a writer that has not yet progressed as far as he was like in his other chosen interests, politics. at the moment, he is still a relatively obscure washington functionary in the civil service commission. fame still lies in the future but to those who already know him his dynamism am boisterous energy already defined his character. throughout his life frank lindh will habitually referred to his fifth cousin theodore with

ginnie went off as the most wonderful man i ever knew. the book is filled with theodore's infectious patriotism and his delighted exploits of the gallant and glamorous, dorsey led america's early navy. stephen decatur oliver hazard perry david porter and the rest. theodore roosevelt is not limited his narrative to heroes alone. woven into a celebration of their dentures of broader points on the strategic value of babies in general and the unique role they play in shaping and carrying out national policy. he explains how warships can reach across the globe to enforce the national resolve thousands of miles from home as a tiny american navy amended -- managed to do. off the coast of africa and as far away as the waters of

brazil. cousin ted points out that when navies are large enough to be organized in the fleets they can wield devastating power and combat much as nelson did or equally effective manner choke off an enemy supply lines by blockading his coast. and he makes it clear that navy searches is important in peacetime if they are in war. unlike armies which are apt to become expensive nuisances in a time of peace, navies continue to serve the nation long after the battles are over. properly deployed that can foster and protect the country's foreign trade and their very existence will tend to discourage an attack by any potential enemy. again and again cousin ted hammers home his basic message, that navies are vital to a maritime nation's welfare and young franklin uncritically absorb said all.

cousin ted's enthusiasm and his tightly organized arguments will form the foundation for his personal philosophy and provide the boy with a matrix with which to define the world around him. over the years to calm franklin d. roosevelt will read voraciously but that one book, the naval war of 1812, will always remain of singular importance in. 50 years onward when fate and circumstances put him in command of the most powerful military force in history, it will be to his distant relative theodore that he turns for inspiration and guidance. and cousin ted's book will never be far away, its lessons never ignored. throughout his presidential years fdr kept two copies in his personal library, one for the white house and the other for his boyhood home in hyde park.

franklin roosevelt's education was that of a sheltered, privileged child. private teachers and governesses were imported to instruct him and because the family regularly toured through europe by the age of 12 he was a veteran of half a dozen atlantic crossings and was more or less fluent in french and german. and but for all his travel and learning, there were important deficiencies in his education it would take him years to fully overcome. the most significant of these was the fact that he was taught almost exclusively at home. he did not actually go to school until he was 14. while academic lessons can be taught anywhere, some of the most important lessons in childhood can only be learned in the rough-and-tumble of school.

such lessons include the complex and sometimes painful ones involved with learning how to get along with one's peers. is sometime exhilarating and sometimes humiliating competition in the press room with this rivalry for attention and good grades, could the cut and thrust of the schoolyard where students are sorted out in ways that are often unfair and undemocratic that always realistic. the problem of dealing with bullies, the agonizing li be learned in order to make friends in the further compromise needed to keep them, the bargaining and lies, black lies and white lies required to hold their position in the crowd. these were the life lessons franklin roosevelt missed as a young boy and which would later take him decades to master. although he was neither spoiled nor pampered, his sheltered life would leave him in a social disadvantage for many years.

several years after we first met him reading theodore roosevelt's history of the naval war of 1812 franklin at last went off to school for the first time. significantly the school he went off to the groton school in massachusetts have been pounded by a close friend of theodore roosevelt named indicated peabody. it was a deliberately -- the school was deliberately modeled on the great public schools of england that educated britain's leaders for centuries. it seemed a good fit for young franklin and indeed it proved to be so. but even here there was a problem. students in keeping with their standard english practice were expected to attend groton for six years which mended rolling in the first forum at age 12 and continuing through the sixth forum at age 18 but franklin's mother could not bring herself

to part with her only child so soon and held him back two years so he did not enter groton until the third forum when he was 14. unfortunately for him by that time while his classmates had long since established the friendships? , wearable wares and other social strategists of adolescent males, young franklin was left an odd man out. he found solace in studying the writings of captain alfred mai hanh of the united states navy. he was probably one of the most largely forgotten military theaters of his day. he is one of the first radishes to understand what we call geopolitics the idea that nations and cultures are largely shaped by their geography and their validity to defend themselves in order to attack others governed primarily by their shorelines and waterways.

importantly, like indicated tv my hand was a close friend of the of the roosevelt. he had come upon this series will station off the coast of peru. one day he was a relaxing in an english library in lima when he was hit by an important epiphany. all that business of hannibal crossing elephants to attack rome was a large waste of time and money. if there was this sufficient navy to defeat the roman navy there would have been campaign through spain and across the pure reason that helps and finally down into italy because they attack rome directly. inspired by his new understanding of navies and their importance my hand wrote a book called the influence of sea power on history which became a

worldwide textbook or modern navies and deeply influenced young franklin roosevelt. just how deeply they influenced young franklin could be seen as notes for a formal debate held on january 19, 1898 when fdr was 15 years old. the subject of the debate was resolved and hawaii be promptly and next. the issue is very much in the news at the time in the bill provided such a step introduced in congress. the case for the affirmative would be presented by the headmaster himself. afterwards young roosevelt was to respond with a rebuttal. to put the subject into context, it is well to remember that the issue of hawaiian annexation was being discussed in a world in which there were plenty of empires but as yet no aircraft,

no radio, no panama canal no world in which kohl had been replaced by a oil for fueling ships and a world in which $100 million was worth millions in today's currency. reading his notes today, it's abundantly evident that young franklin understood his subject and truly remarkable depth and managed to presented with uncommon clarity and conviction demonstrating an impressive grasp of geopolitical issues naval strategy and relative national strength. the note for just how sophisticated intellect he was developing and how it deeply the naval naval presets that helped

define his own understanding of this country and the world. after mr. peabody presented his case in favor of annexing hawaii his youthful opponent began his rebuttal with a sweeping generalization that let his listeners understand that today's subject was of global significance and establishes naval importance. this is a real quote from franklin roosevelt, the notes he made as a 15-year-old. of all the great powers of the world the united states and russia are the only ones which have no colonies to defend. all their territory is on this continent and all of it except alaska is continuous. therefore, the united states and russia are the only two countries no part of which territory can be cut off by a naval enemy.

at present we have no vulnerable point. now the annexation of hawaii by us would affect the feelings of european powers in two ways. first it would anger them because hawaii is a common stopping point and secondly it would embolden them because we should for the first time in our history have it vulnerable point. mr. peabody has told us that our country cannot be saved without hawaii. i shall try to disprove this. if we owned own owned the island means we must protect them and to do that we should have to fortify the islands but also maintain a much larger navy. now to do this we should have to spend at least $100 million every year on our navy besides a large sum on a rack in forts and maintaining soldiers on the island. it goes on from there but i have read enough to make clear that this is a sophisticated

15-year-old boy who could put together a position paper worthy of presentation in the presidential cabinet meeting. it was around this time young franklin announced his parents that after graduation at groton he wanted to apply to annapolis and pursue a career in the navy. his parents were distressed. they were not happy with the thought of their darling boy being sent to the far corners of the earth for years at a time. it took all of his father's efforts to persuade him and convince him he should go to harvard instead. those were the days when if he wanted to go to harvard you went to harvard killed it's a little different now. so he went to harvard and then to colombia law school which he never bothered to finish because he quit school for minute he learned he passed the bar exam. something rarely that -- said that the franca managed to do so is further evidence he was a very bright young man trick of

the fact that he worked hard to describe the lots e-doss style he had acquired to make up for his lack of a more relaxed self-confidence social behavior. over the years he would lose much of that awkward pose but not all of it. that voice fits so put off his groton classmates would remain today and. then he got married to another roosevelt. theodore's favorite niece, eleanor. significantly the marriage transformed theodore's relationship to have vr from cousin ted to uncle ted. also significantly uncle ted by this time was president of the united states and here we must pause for a minute to examine briefly just how theodore roosevelt got to be president tickets at their strictly on franklin's subsequent career. around the time the franklin was

preparing his debating notes at groton theodore had been running the police department in new york city. he was having a grand time rooting out corruption at the powers that be in the republican party decided he was becoming a nuisance in that post so they looked around for a job they could offer him to get him out of new york. someone remembered theodore had written a book about the navy and the war of 1812. would he be interested in a job as assistant secretary of the navy and washington? fdr jumped at the chance. then only weeks after he was sworn in the spanish-american war broke out. theodoric immediately created the roughriders, sailed and became a hero. then only months later he was elected governor of new york and the year after that vice president and elected mckinley president. it happened as fast as i can recount it. needless to say this young cousin took note of every step.

which brings us back to franklin hit by this time it joins a prestigious wall street law firm. he found the work boring and constricting which led directly to a remarkable scene somewhere near the end of franklin's first year on wall street. on a slow day at the office he and his five fellow law clerks sat at the roll top desk casually discussing their hopes and plans for the future. when he came his turn franklin surprised his listeners by stating clearly that life and of all was not for him. he would instead when the opportunity presented itself going to politics and run for the new york state legislature. after an indeterminate stay in albany he said and there was no hint of irony, he would somehow our range to get himself appointed assistant secretary of the navy and washington. from there he would run for

governor of new york and then explained in reasonable tones anyone who is governor of new york has a good chance to be president with any luck. of course it was not lost on any of his listeners that at t.r. was precisely the meteoric rise of theodore roosevelt. the most significant reaction on the part of his fellow law clerks to his amazing pronouncement was that it provokes neither laughter nor hooting. they heard him out quietly apparently accepting at face value the entire legal reasonable nature of his plan. when we know fdr's career path eventually fulfilled its casual letter, one item stands out in bold relief. his plans to be named assistant secretary of the navy. apparently not just any subcabinet office would do. only as the job that t.r. had once held. and how was he going to manage that you ask lex it was not

enough as he could campaign for normal sense. only one person in the world could appoint him and that was the president of the united states. what president you ask lex who knew? nobody. somehow he would get that job and it would with any luck as he put it lead directly to the white house. he ran again and won again. only weeks after that, he began negotiating with the governor of new jersey if fallin named woodrow wilson who would eventually be his appointment as assistant secretary of the navy. how he managed to land such an

important job so quickly is something you'll have to find out for yourself. it's all in the book. the ins and outs of american party politics are byzantine and while they can make interesting reading they are a little too complicated for a brief talk like this. what i would like to touch on in my remaining time is a brief but important trip franklin took to the panama canal still under construction in 1912. the canal had been theodore roosevelt single most pathetic their achievement and it would make a singular impression on franklin. the canal was being built specifically to conform to the strategic theories of admiral sub13. basically two mahand's for us -- the panama canal would make such a swift gathering of the fleet

practical. without a panama canal the theory went america would be forced to build or maintain two main chain fleets to protect its thousands is thousands of miles of coastline. franklin into traveling companions his brother-in-law and a fellow member of the new york senate arrived at colón in april 1912 and thanks to the roosevelt name would but give him vip treatment. after touring the atlantic crystal ball they traveled 50 miles by train to panama city to the pacific coast marveling at the best nature of the enterprise. and getting to my last quote here. the enormous size and best ambitions of the canal did not become truly evident until the next morning where the three were taking on a guard -- guided

tour. it was here where most of the 65,000 men in the workforce were literally moving mountains and the battle of the canal with be neither one nor less. gigantic steam shovels built for the impressive work towered over the landscape loading six-ton boulders onto flat cars where they were then sent to the coast needed in the breakwaters for the terminals. is still awed franklin would describe the scene from the mountaintop looking down on a huge rift in the earth's crust at the base of which pygmy engines in ant like forms for rushing to and fro seemingly without plan or recent. the constant was deafening and the strident clank clank of the drills being their way into the rock, the shrill whistles of the

locomotives, the constant uninterrupted rumble of the chains in the in the end the creaking of machinery all punctuated by the shouts of the workmen. that afternoon they inspected the great blocks of pedro miguel, designed to raise the vessel 85 feet to the level of the cut. i can't again to describe it franklin wrote bubbling over with enthusiasm. the two things that impressed most were the colossal homemade in the ground and the locks because of the engineering problems and size. manchin intricate concrete structure nearly a mile long and three or 400 feet wide with double gates of steel weighing 700 tons apiece. the rest of his life franklin roosevelt would draw inspiration from his brief visits to the

canal. dear he left nice to his political oldness of a very high order, vision that dared to change the world. ever afterwards someone in his memories of the trip would lie his new understanding of presidential power and understanding that in later years with time and again generate visionary concepts that would always astonish and sometimes baffle and on occasion infuriate the world with its daring. grand far-reaching projects like the north sea barraged, the new deal, the tennessee valley authority, the land lease act and the manhattan project, the united nations. with the canal theodore roosevelt brought his last great gift to his young cousin. he showed franklin how to think like a roosevelt.

and if anyone has got a question, and i hope they do, i am told you have to go up to the microphone over there and embarrass me. [laughter] [applause] >> it's funny, i come from a family that never had a good word to say about franklin roosevelt and i remember one time after the 1936 campaign, and something had come up and i had heard something on the radio. i asked my mother, why do some people hate president roosevelt so much, really hate him? and my mother was looking around for some way to answer a

question about politics from a little boy who had never said anything about politics before. she wanted to make the answer is simple as possible and she finally said, well, there are people who think his eyes are too close together. [laughter] i was six years old and even at that age i kind of knew that it didn't make any sense. but then i figured well what she was really saying is, don't bother me little boy. it was too tough a question. do you have a question? >> first of all you have an astounding use of language and someone who knows a little bit about it er and particularly his early life i think you really hit the nail on the head with

your motivations for writing it. again i want to compliment you. i go back to the day where he was married in the scene being married in a townhouse in manhattan with peabody presiding and none other than the president of the united states walking eleanor down the aisle to him. >> is something else, is that? >> there is a wonderful article at in "the new york times" reporting all the guests of one of which was a young sumner welles by the way and it goes back to the fact that the royals tend to marry within themselves and of course, nor was an orphan and uncle ted was her favorite uncle. i tend to think maybe there was some sort of magnetism that he

had towards eleanor on the basis of the fact that she called him uncle ted. but, i am astounded by your use of language in your adjectives and the narratives that you have used in this book and once again i can say nothing other than i think you hit the nail exactly on the head and i think you. >> wow, i don't know how to take that except don't try to talk to me for the next 24 hours. thank you very much. as people know who writes, it tends to be a sort of lonely trade and you are constantly making funny little decisions of their own as to what word to use or what element to bring in or whatever. and to get feedback, even negative feedback but positive feedback is thrilling and wonderful and greatly

appreciated. >> i am sure that you, as i, were astounded at a 15-year-old debate notes. now that you are call it, the first time i read your description of that debate. why still can't believe it. i read it over again and i founded on a web site. i read it over and over and it's an amazing piece of logic. his knowledge of current events was remarkable. was that part of school itself or was this an innate ability

and what we know comes later? >> i think he has always been shortchanged or very often shortchanged by commentators for being you know not the brightest extremely bright and i think it was his demeanor that may have been a little offputting to some people. but yes, i've put the entire text of those notes in the book and i was worried that it might slow it down. it does not slow it down at all because it's sharp and as you say it covers current events and it covers everything that needs

to be done. what is impressive to me is today you say yeah the kid just went to wikipedia and stole the article or something like that but this was not the case. he had to put that whole thing together and had to be good enough to be with the headmaster of the school. i am sure that the reason he kept it -- kept those notes was because he was dam well proud of them and i guess he must have won that debate although i don't know if there's any record as to how that went. do you have a question? >> he attitude or at home also because there were also some letters from his father appearing for those debates in which his father went on and on about points.

[inaudible] which is kind of interesting especially because his father had tried that one time before. >> the famous nicaragua canal, yes. again, he grew up in a very sophisticated surrounding where people knew what was going on and it works well that way. >> i am sure that the iron he did not escape you that december 7, 1941 that very vulnerability that you describe came to pass. >> it's amazing how much pearl harbor comes into his life. it's it is almost like a motif. there is a discussion of it in the 1898 debate and there is

another discussion of it where there's a problem he ran into in his first year as assistant secretary of the navy where the navy have made a couple of mistakes in trying to build a -- they wanted a dried dock and they had a lot of problems with it. it was at pearl harbor and it became his most important issue then and by the time you get to december 7, 1941 the sky knows pearl harbor backwards and forwards. it's really very fascinating. [inaudible]

was that fact of any significance tactically during world war ii? >> he what effect that has an world war ii? >> either in the planning or fighting for in any way? >> well certainly, yes. certainly it was in 1940 that franklin roosevelt moved the pacific fleet to pearl harbor as a warning to the japanese. of course immediately almost within weeks of the debate in january of 1898 came the spanish-american war and we picked up all these pacific

islands as well as annexing hawaii and picked up the philippines which was a key factor in world war ii and which i think he probably had he had his way as a 15-year-old he never would have picked up all these places and we might not have had it and he still might've gotten caught up in europe somehow. it's interesting and it's a good question. i don't think i have probably -- i'm still trying to defend a 15-year-old. rather than a 15 year -- 50-year-old. >> i think we are just about out of time but i would like to thank you for coming here today and if you want to speak more he will be over by the bookstore signing copies of his book after

this session. >> thank you. [applause] 's been now more the searcher is about reading festival from me franklin d. roosevelt museum. mary stuckey presents his book "roi ottley's world war ii" the lost diary of an african-american journalist. >> thank you very much. good morning. i am very pleased to be here with you. and i hope you will be okay with me starting off with just a little bit of a revelry if you will about libraries. at such a pleasure to be here. right ought late's world war ii as an exercise in historical editing. and, that work requires council

and the good offices of many librarians and archivists around the country and for those of us who revel in archival research, this is one of the methods of being able to come here and see this place. there are those of us who trade our archival experiences like some people trade baseball cards. that is a measure of nerdiness that i am not ashamed to share with you. [laughter] i mention this because i think that obviously with research libraries, teaching libraries, archives, without these things we can't do our jobs. and i think that you can measure in many ways the health of

higher education and the education project by the health of our libraries. we are in this extended period of scarce resources. the library budgets and their institutions of higher learning are unfortunately the first to be gutted in times of troubles. at least that it's been my experience. and it has an immediate impact on teaching and learning and research, so it's important for us i think to come to places like this, to come to events like this and to celebrate the efforts of the roosevelt library and bcm and their attempts to cultivate book culture and it really does mean a lot to me to be here and to participate. so i thought i would again this talk this morning with a short kind of description of the

genesis of war at all a -- "roi ottley's world war ii" and based on what i just said it won't surprise you that it was the intervention of a very fine library and, mr. paul spade at st. barnabas that put this project in motion in the first place. it was a random phonecall to my office, an invitation to look at a small cachet of papers that had long been hidden in the university archives there that created the circumstances and helped to make this book a reality. when paul first told me that there was a small collection of all the papers in the archive the name did not ring a bell. later i remembered that an article i had been working on years before, i used a biography that roi ottley of the editor

and publisher of the chicago defender, man named robert abbott at the time i didn't have a clue who he was. and so i went over and sat down in the archives reading room and began to leaf through a very small box of papers that was essentially comprised of a couple of scrapbooks and this unpublished manuscript. five minutes with the manuscript and frankly my job was on the table. what i was reading to my mind was remarkable. and i worked my way through it and then again no connection, a completely random event. i got an e-mail from the university of kansas and editor named -- i picture the ottley idea and look, we are all here.

[laughter] it has been a few years but you know here we are. these are the sorts of stories that you hear when you're a graduate student and somebody is working through cleaning out the attic and they find a box of photographs and oh my god god bears abraham lincoln or something like that. i actually had it professor at western carolina university who was out walking with his wife one spring day. it was spring cleaning time and he was kicking through some trash that somebody had put on the side of the road and found this beautiful leather-bound book. he picked it up and it was the diary of the civil war doctor. i will never forget the look on my professors face as he told the story and he looked to the heavens and said, it was like manna from heaven. [laughter] eventually he published that

book, but you know for me it was because of a library and, paul spade, and also to help of the university of archivists dennis frank. they knew their collections. i don't know if they knew exact way how important or interesting ought late's work was in the context of what historians are doing in this field right now but regardless the cause of their interest, this book exists today. now, let me ask a question. has anybody ever heard of roi ottley before? you have, sir. and tutu. in what context if i might ask? [inaudible] and you, sir? [inaudible] which made him a national celebrity.

how much do you want for that but? [laughter] otway i call him my favorite footnote and it is generally because of that look, because we still use it. published in 1943 and i will give you kind of a run down of ottley's life and how frankly ought late's experiences as a journalist and during world war ii offer a very very different vision and version of the conflict that we referred to in many ways as the good war. ought late's experiences highlight some of the divisions and complex that were at the core of american society as we mobilize to confront this evil in the world. vincent blushing 10 ottley was

born in 1906 and his parents were both caribbean immigrants. his father jerome was from grenada and his mother beatrice was from st. vincent. in a sense, it is classic immigrant tale. the father worked multiple jobs and took business classes at night at a local high school. the address ottley worked as domestic and a seamstress to make ends meet. eventually, jerome had accumulated enough hours to earn his real estate license and within a few years he had parlayed that into a very successful property management firm in harlem.

his best friend was the future congressman adam clayton powell jr.. he ran the streets with fats waller and w.c. handy jr.. he wrote of watching the garvey parades from the roof of clayton powell senior's church abyssinian baptist church in the early 1920s. he eventually would become an all city track star and one of the first black student sat stayed to -- st. bonaventure high school where he would eventually learn a craft. heart him was at the heart of the jazz jazz age, the harlem renaissance. ottley was obsessed with musical theater, with the plays of broadway, with the jazz music.

in the 1930s, in the years of the great depression, think these were formative years for him. he came back from school to help his family. he got a job in the city of new york's welfare department and bear witness first-hand the immense suffering of his enablers. and he also started writing. he started doing music and theater reviews for the amsterdam news in harlem and the parlayed that eventually into a regular column that covered all aspects of harlem life including and especially politics. harlem during those years was a sort of political hothouse and ottley was quickly sucked into the rough-and-tumble of the political life there. he was an active participant in the amsterdam news strike in

1935 and became very much engaged in labor issues in the 1930s. he covered the controversy surrounding the italian invasion of ethiopia. he participated in the organizing sessions of the national black congress. and away, like so many americans at the trough of the depression, ottley was radicalized but he was not a radical. he was asked to characterize his politics recently and he reminds me of political speaking of jackie robinson. i think he was an eisenhower republican in the 50s, so he didn't imbibe the kind of heady toe some of left-wing politics. at the same time circumstances dictated that he would be in

contact with many of the major political figures and of course in the broader circumstances of the widespread suffering that was going on in his community. this was the period where he was probably at his most politically engaged. his politics i think were shaped largely by the so-called popular front, this broad coalitional politics that united civil rights activists, organized labor, social uplift groups and the political left. now eventually ottley's labor activism cost him his position at the amsterdam news. he freelance for a while, and then as so many writers and artists did during nap period he landed at the progress administration's federal writers project, the ftap.

because of his local celebrity, is named popping up in the local newspapers once a week, it was placed in administrative -- given administrative duties and placed in charge of the fw p.'s harlan branch where he oversaw a remarkable group of writers that included ralph ellison, dorothy west, richard wright for a short amount of time. ottley's tenure at the project was controversial to say the least. he had a management style that really rubbed people the wrong way. ellison and wright especially -- they really hated the guy. this was kind of a one-sided argument unfortunately. part of the problem with doing this project was that ottley seems to have burned every piece of correspondence that he ever

wrote. there are no ottley papers outside of the small box set same bonaventure you so you had to kind of rely on what other people were saying about him and ellison and wright tip great glee in writing terrible things about him back and forth as if they were passing notes in class. but, it was really the conservatives in congress that disliked ottley the most because of his connections with the fw p.. in 1939 the harlan branch came under the scrutiny of congressman mark dees and his house un-american activities committee. and obviously found himself without a job. and just as a sidenote to this, i mean, certainly ottley's management style was brusque. he tended to play his cards close to the vast.

there was no transparency in his decision-making. he was very dictatorial in the way that he dealt with some very talented writers and artists, but i think one of the things are really upset people is that when he lost his job with the fw p. on his last day, he snuck into the office and ups gone but with 35 ox is of the wpa papers that had accumulated during his time there. he was responsible for the projects in those boxes but he had britain very little of the material himself. event over the next 15 years, use this material whenever he felt like it under his own name, and that really upset allison, who saw his own words popping up in some of the ottley's works. so there is -- there are some good foundation for some of the

problems of people had with the man. however, ottley was very well-connected in this period. he had a lot of connections especially in the labor movement. he freelance a little and he became the abu city chief for the national office of the cio. ..

>> to cover the war in europe. he went out in search of a correspondence position that fiercely individualistic it did not want to write to 41 of the black newspapers and

he par light -- parlayed his labor connections into with the new york newspaper called p.m.. that only existed for about four years was founded by a man named ralph ingersoll and "time" magazine was on the verge of seeing "fortune" magazine and "life" magazine go belly up he stepped in and to make those work. ingersoll was a fierce roosevelt partisan a hard-core liberal the democratic party party is then and he tested luce"s

politics looking for a way to get out from his thumb and pm became the vehicle for expressing his liberal bishop and. anti-racism at the core of the editorial position so they hired ottley as one of their war correspondents and sent him to europe. this was a senior position. very few papers hired black not even a copy editing department little lonesome dain to europe. because ottley was the right team for the all-white to

newspaper it gave him access to certain ports in europe. black writers covered jim-crow military. they wanted to provide their readers with stories about black soldiers in what was happening in the regiment in europe. it is a little dicey to say there was an audience for ottley foray into politics by this man was determined for what he was interested in. a want to give a context for the manuscript of the

so-called lost diary. it is his workbook and contains street diary entries. correspondence, notes for articles materials that appeared in the pittsburg career. i want to stress the important elements and the broader context of ottley wife. doing civil-rights history struggling to conceptualize

that history. that textbook history begins in 1954 with brown v board of education with a broader history with the body of work pushing back into world war ii some goes back as far as 1915 and the invasion of haiti. is a fluid field but the theme he chooses to focus on shaped by the political world he was experiencing.

>> the second thing corrective to the broader popular views of world war ii so much how we and stand is shaped by popular culture. this is the greatest generation. there is a ton of truth that required immense sacrifice that is almost incomprehensible today. we are quarantined from more

and its effects. but we're fighting nazis for god's sakes. japanese militarism with fascist ideology. classic good purses evil there is another important element to this story as it applies was the catalyst for social change it eliminates the contradictions americans carry a burden there has

always been the distance between the atil of american life and been the case of world war ii the contradictions were brought to into stark relief americans were denied the basic trappings and jim crow they were forced to endure white supremacist with the sanction of federal law. it is easy to say a majority of americans were ready to march lockstep but for people who were denied so much there was ambivalence

remember it was the ultimate test case of war to end all wars. african-american leaders urged their followers to support the effort to if they fell 10 daewoo win their freedom as well put it was in exact opposite of slaughter by washington d.c., a new were linds, a month this, sothos who

questioned the viability backing the federal government at the start of the war. black americans began to view their status in a new context as anti-fascism anti-colonialism mashed into a political program picking up momentum throughout the war. giving way to unify demands an end to the discrimination in employment, education black leaders tied southern racism in for a time

jim-crow was back on its heels. black americans began to see their struggles the tide in their fight to 500,000 troops had ringside seats to witnessed of crumbling of colonialism thousands believed jim crow would be the next to go. this was the context. he comments frequently on the effort to made by officers do transplant

between racism and he thought he was pigeonholed and broke away to observe race relations about the abuse with the coming in new world order taxpaying into a network of people like the future president of africa. those primarily concerned with contributions isn't clear if readers would have been interested in the new lonesome of colonial policy but as it ended in shambles

through suppression to and continued to travel abroad and this collects the best of eternal loathsome. there are two seems that make him worth taking note of. his shaved by the politics and his eyewitness abuse as well he was a great observer. nobody will be dazzled by his style.

he is chatty and colloquial at the same time he knew everybody and could poke his nose in the right door over and over the second part race relations over some time the lawyer-- the way we conceptualize the struggles. with the movement culture during world war ii no one life can provide the perfect context.

but by piecing together his experience and a trying to understand his life regains an opportunity to think of this political awakening as a vital international impulse that drove it. thank you. >> can you please use the microphone? >> have a black man working for the newspaper i would

assume the articles are supportive of the position in the army how does that play out today agree and was pm circulated in the south? it was a small paper comparatively speaking. and the context of readership he was preaching to the choir. the closest the local connections was the c. itoh and the liberal wing of the democratic party. it was a military censors

and had problems. there are sections where he writes censored across the top and a number of being -- entries with the sensors that to refuse him to allow to talk of certain things. there were conflicts of southern white soldiers covered in the british newspapers but not covered by the american press at all. and military silenced ottley. usually they would relent.

not as cut and dry as he painted it. >> he was one of the rare black leaders still may fed is one of the most interesting parts in new world coming there's a chapter on end japanese propaganda. they position themselves as people been color of solidarity all over the world. ottley was dismissive of the efforts but also we have got

to understand the treatment of people has real consequences. while most embraced their americanism, those will listen to extreme voices. you need to moderate the behavior for the long term national security health. this is one of the more interesting elements even if secondary to the narrative the talks the way it will lead insinuate itself there was danger and mistrust.

>> i am sorry? yes. >> [inaudible] >> that is true. your point* is well taken. she commented we haq lot of animosity now. and your point* was religion plays a role that people are pitted against one another? >> as a character he comes off as the snob particularly to african-americans and the superiority attitude based

on his own education and attitudes elsewhere. did you find that to? >> yes. he is a and the the this is not just a character flaw that has a lot to do with his upbringing. his mother pounded into 10 you are as good or better. you can achieve anything. that is what we proved you can do the same thing.

there is a cultural twist being raised in a household one that was better educated that had experienced living in a society of greater independence and that played into his character. there was a radical individualistic streak if told to walk into a straight line he would go right or left. and it would rub people the wrong way. >> context of colonial secretaries heidi you get

that spot? and he waited in line. who made that appointment? >> he was working 4:00 p.m. which is known a list face the known in europe as a predominantly white paper. this is circumstantial but they thought he was a white. they did not understand the was black. it says a lot yugo and sit in the offices sometimes waiting hours or days until

they would speak with him. in the diary he was a network her and people who could help him down the line with certain individuals who could pave the way to speak to a colonial minister. there were a number of factors to work in that respect. >> we are out of time but he will be over by a the new deal bookstore. thank you for joining us. [applause] >> i really appreciate it.

[applause] >> i think the most important saying to understand when you pick a president you pick up policy but also a definition of our national identity. if you feel called to the presidency then with a sense of of national self. everytime there is a presidential election and is

in important part of what the presidency does it is the way they talk a nation into being. i will talk about franklin roosevelt version of what it meant to be an american and this time in history. i want to go back at this talk to say prior derozan belts presidents tended to be hierarchical and exclusionary. their rebate immigrants or african americans who did not get to the citizens and not located in presidential rhetoric it was understood

more the way the south became a demon region. they were building coalitions one of roosevelt's great geniuses is he almost never actively excluded people but his notion of the inclusive sense of what that meant. this book goes back on the presidency as a whole. i examine the complex waves history is a struggle to live up to principles but yet class and race sell-off for stability.

they're all sharply contested making increasing demand for civil rights flexing put a goal muscles and being inc. all groups for interco to the new deal coalition has influence on politics. through policies he crafted a politician -- politics that is done the most complicated in our history. rooted that required flexible leadership and the metaphor was one of roosevelt's favorite ways to understand his job as president.

using inclusion deflections and then deferral in 193629 will get these as a finished product the prior to roosevelt it was these united states afterwards it was the united states one from collective to the actual nation. it was promised on the future and the present. he declared the basic thought is not nationalistic but the first consideration on various elements of the united states. the entire nation was

interconnected and in motion. it required constant attention and end adjustment importantly he and stood the nation as united perpetually contesting against each other he said alumax of people visit from other they and find it difficult it springs from many sources stretching 3,000 miles between east and west not only do we speak one they bridge and it is similar but we have repeated proof we are wrote willing to let go such advantage at the

expense of the country as a whole. the nation had common beliefs and interest some groups would be granted primacy others would be denied their claims and others could be deferred and others deflected. most importantly the administrations and had inclusion most clear differing sharply he treated all of the core as a favor deserving and relief under fdr was a matter of rate. it originated their demands earning no loyalty. heated to the mated labor in ways not previously seen.

with the recovery act he said the goal with the reasonable profit to industry without tyrannical methods and practices that have contributed to the ills of labor. notice the importance of capital and labor to make a distinction between honest business and roosevelt did not hesitate at all. and then will come to their hatred. the flip side is organized labor could see him as their champion even as policies were more pro-business. roosevelt became an advocate for labor saying it was important to to the life of the nation in distinguishing between good business and

radical business which it would not. it would include labor is already fully integrated while protecting business as a whole. a capitalism remain the foundation. then he became more suspicious of labor. his route-- such relationship was famous and increasingly begin to differentiate he helped labor become more visible and he expected them to be grateful for unwavering

the important side effect was americans remained suspicious with patriotism and their characters and stop me if this sounds familiar. [laughter] also equally doubtful groups people will refer to the edge you deal in their efforts to restrict to control the behavior of the new arrivals. he favored all of these the my favorite is in the spirit of other days and jackson looks down and the four corners of the square are girded from the leaders of

the revolutionary war. from the shores of france this keeps universal festival this goes back to the revolution. people were always inc. and big-time we recognize that. the least for those of us chasing the ancestors but to also exclusionary potential but well worth noting those who were marginalized it could be one reason they chose to go to with consistency they all of july

and the new deal with enthusiastic force. based on the centrality of shared values. their ancestors and mine were driven by deep desire of the enlarged opportunity for their children. it is true was of mixed population but with one thing we share did the purpose to rid themselves for ever internal or external yes, they sought a life of those of men fed up under government and wider opportunity for the average man.

i read this with the ronald reagan tax them. every president as use this invitation at one point or another but it was defined for us by roosevelt. it personified not those founded in nation but surveying as cultural differences. americans were defined with shared bath and they were united by the previous experience with the desire to be free and the will to act. that becomes extremely important. so all americans were

legitimate the senders of the founders. at least all americans who were fighting oppression they had some bastard children our many children economic royalist, appeasers and anybody who opposed fdr. they were excluded. you never spoke to asian american groups were visited the indian reservation are never spent time in hispanic communities or spent time on african americans. unlike some presidents no rhetorical effort he did not exclude them but ignored them.

when he did attack individuals symbolizes and sold on behavior. never for their class or race before rivera behavior. these advocates look selfish and cynical and he caricature them and made them the but of famous jokes and they were never the same. they said things that continued growth it is inevitably opposed bitterly and falsely at every step. is an amazing not treated as legitimate concerns but the obstructionist with the

viability of democracy. but they were not identifiable to the extent they have a collective identity with the seventh economic interest but he demonize those who were central in the american and regime and never those on the margins. he did protect the old hierarchy. the tendency to balance against one another ignored those of between groups it was true for labor and also of the criticism and african-americans who wanted more visibility but he did

understand african-american needs many desegregated well social justice was important if you were lynch to why fdr 10 bid to translate into an economic interest doing what he could socially. it is notable neither spoke when he could have been took no public position and his wife took the strongest and to sit in the middle aisle. he offered only a less than symbolic return he did very

little to address or alter that. he did stress fairness that demanded a deferral on the system he considered excessive but never favored one group above the others the relied on the english like we know the human factor that enters largely we tried to apply it to all groups not just to refuse scattered groups. that meant he would castigate u.s. selfish or unfair. and have powerful nationalizing plunge in rather than statewide communities. he believed in the importance the reality that

they were designed to promote and maintain that would work itself out over time. a good citizen was a good neighbor to except temporary sacrifice including dave prescription with the overriding commitment to the common good. these values to duck about self but making the arguments roosevelt made the challenge made it easier than it was. the local identity in favor of the commonality. it was a very real principal opposition to the in

defining rhetoric he did this with the invigorated presidency that was based on a strong sense of generals and priests. at his first inaugural he said "we now realize is as we never have before our interdependence on each other. if we go forward we must be a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice because no progress is made and no leadership is effective. we are ready and willing to give our lives to such discipline because it aims at a larger good. the vocation of the nation

with powerful was potentially dangerous. even here in hyde park nobody would argue the military is that ideal model. because there is the explicit combination and no doubt roosevelt has the view. cannot bring that rises the teaching has been widely suggested into the heart of the race. for roosevelt was predominantly judeo-christian if underpinned his leadership criticizing have president

combining leadership and wartime and religious authority mitt challenging the president was particularly difficult. all votes revoking religious leadership as models remain problematic in the context to be a protector of a democracy face that into the fear promoting a dictatorship. his success is that unquestionable. arguing for a strong chief executive it was premised on increasing international dependence end also is

economically defined group and those of the economic interest fayyad roughly equal plans in the main task was to ensure a balance so it would be just. in largely economic terms something was overlooked said it is not reducible and when the president put himself in charge those underprivileged decide when it might be appropriate to push the claim. roosevelt administration earlier they argued for the

hierarchy and fdr assumed his position in the ideological move with the common man while still levying the others untouched. roosevelt relied on civic nationalism rather than hierarchies and they have powerful warrants did it became incredibly important as african-americans and women and with the arguments in debates with the two unsettling financial order the way roosevelt could not have foreseen or endorse. center monday the madrid experience they were

presumed to be shared with specific sets of goals and expectations. one argued the world we live in is still franklin roosevelt's and better or worse is still his identity. thank you. [applause] >> [inaudible] >> i don't they get shift did all that much. there is very clear evidence roosevelt was on to hitler

very early on. restarted arguing in the mid thirties before the election he argues against dictatorship explicit the increase gin terms you saying light and dark and up and down and because the language was so consistent over time because they were on the side of the dictator than also of the speech of stalingrad to allow him to talk about the russians the same way he talks about the british. but he keeps the same movements throughout to the authorizes his domestic

policies and because his anti-interventionist all kinds of problems. they argue there is no moral principle at stake. hitler makes it to increasingly tricky. people have to say there are no american values at stake. that is absurd then you have to say no moral by use which is what happens to lindbergh. >> following up on your theme on the inclusion and diss and rich edson -- this infringes meant not only

white males put the property owners. >> it is the institution. >> did he take any active role? >> no. the last group no policies under him following world war i the argument is similar they shed blood for the nation they have a right to citizenship is an important to parallel. but there is no evidence he was asked all interested.

>> i am curious fdr a cure up with the wealthy of bringing. >> not relatively. >> he was a rich. lot of people of his class started to hate him for the downtrodden. would trigger the idea? he could have not cared. america did not have the instinct that he did. i am curious before it became the greatest.

>> there are two answers. there was a combination combined with the experience of polio that allowed him to understand the suffering from the inside out to they will come to him at the time when polio was day tricky dick zzzz yet and it was the poor people who welcomed him that is one answer. political science answer could be more political. cold water david price to

nixon. how about that? [laughter] of deal build a coalition? go hunt where the ducks are. the few want to get elected a have no money or resources put to build a political coalition you have big chances african americans were only vote came in the year urban north and only african-americans. >> i don't know if that helps. >>

[inaudible] all the ducks and. [laughter] >> okay. i did not know that. yes. i will get this wrong. it is completely unfair. you said there were concerted efforts made by the roosevelt administration to allow soldiers overseas to go to which have included african-americans although not specifically targeted and you save bet day anze? the justice apartment hopes

to overcome which is a spectacular lack of success. please go to a record from. >> fayyad offered unlimited help to the naacp of what became good decision of the supreme court to 1944. >> i could never have done that. >> as a follow-up it seems the prominent middle-class sprung for word after his administration and people third to his policies contributed to that. it is a definite part of our national identity. was that attentional?

was it his intention to create the great middle-class? >> i don't think he would understand it in those terms. i never sought a phrase like that in the documents at the time that he did feel strongly everybody have the right to to a living wage and the ability to feed your fami seemed to be a fundamental human right. he understood so many famous in economic terms and the wind speaks of economic rights. there is interesting

speculation what the world will book like other rise. thank you very much. [applause] cox