halloran recounts the life of political cartoons thomas nast. a regular contributor to harper's weekly, mr. nast made popular the dog and elephant as symbols of the democratic and republican parties. this is about 40 minutes. >> good evening. welcome to the filson historical society. i'm the director and want to thank you for joining us tonight for what i know the other interesting program, "thomas nast: the father of modern political cartoons" with fiona deans halloran. i want to thank you for being here. i was just remarking for the first time a government and while that we've had sunshine when we started an evening program. so appreciate you coming in and being with us to our mission is to preserve and tell the significant stories of kentucky and ohio valley region system and culture.

a part of the culture and political culture or cartoons. weaponize cartoon collection your. we have one example of actually thomas nast cartoon over here that our speaker might have time to point to later, and we'll see. if we have any additional questions, the curator concerted bring up to speed. if you're not a member, we would love to have you join us. we are private, nonprofit historical society and not supported by government funding. we would appreciate your membership. this is the commercial part of our program. i will now move along to watch you were here. i want to thank c-span for being here, and also i see a number of students here from presentation academy and i believe trinity, so we always welcome you and thank you very much for joining. dr. fiona deans halloran is a department chair of u.s. history and ap history teacher at

rowland hall-st. mark's school in salt lake city. prior to the position, she was an assistant professor at eastern kentucky university and a visiting assistant professor at state college. she earned her ba at american university and a ph.d in american history from the university of california, los angeles. she has been a research fellow at the huntington library, university of oxford in addition to "thomas nast: the father of modern political cartoons," she has contributed to europe, working, and encyclopedic of early american world. dr. halloran published numerous essays and chapters including shell i trust again? and fathers, preachers, rebels and men, 1820-1925. and oppose everything, propose

nothing. please join me in welcoming dr. halloran to the filson. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you, mark, and think you did judy and jayme and scott who helped to bring me here. and to help answer any questions people of god today, and for my very closest friends and instinct and e-mailed me to stop worrying. that was very nice, thank you. and effective. such as before weekend i would like to mention that image on your right, because it's not actually a cartoon in the sense of public attended satirically charming example of things that thomas nast it all the time which is a thank you. rather than send traditional thinking is, he would draw

himself, very typically as you can see, short, chubby and unkempt. he loved to draw facial hair all over the place. he wrote this little note to say the family of henry watterson, the editor of the local paper, for welcoming here in legal. he did all the time with drawings of himself. partly because people really like. and partly because having grown up in new york city as i will tell you with a very inadequate education he was not capable of writing a thank you note. so if his wife was unable to do for him and she would almost everything, if she couldn't do for him he didn't do it because his spelling was phonetic german accent spelling. his handwriting can only be described as horrible. so people often want to know how i came to write about thomas nast and it's a story that originated in gretchen school in california, where i was contributing material for an

encyclopedia and produced by my visor, and i chose his name off of a list thinking it would be entertaining. and then my what to look for me to about him i couldn't find any and i thought i'm the world's worst graduate student and they should take me out. i called by pfizer and said i don't know what i'm doing. she said let me look. she looked and she said it's fine, it's not you. there is nothing about him. so it turns out that what existed at that time was a biography published in 1904 by albert bigelow paine who is a newspaper writer for children's magazine and newspaper, and this was his big break writing this book. there was a picture book published in 1968 which has wonderful text but approximately 57 pages of it so that's not enough. then there was quite an odd book but a great book if you're interested in -- published in mid '90s by roger fisher which is both a book about nixon and

nast. it's not the usual book, but it is really an interesting book when you get around to that. then there are a few very good specific articles and that's it. it seem like a good idea to write about him as a dissertation topic and as a way to bring his life back and provide them with a historical legacy what you think he deserves which is not enjoyed. it has been a passing way to spend a decade, and it's make me a tiny bit evangelical on the subject of mass value to american history which i think is neglected. i'll introduce to you to him briefly so you will have the sense to you know the basis of his life. he was born in 1840 and landau, which at the time was part of bulgaria. he emigrated in 1846 with his mother arriving in new york city. he was not a great student. he arrived precise at the moment that he would become a letter, except that he was expected to

perform -- his mother enrolled him in school, he went to school. on the first school. on first aid and globally global it directed him into life after the that was a spanking line. so he went home at lunch and said i'm never going back to school. although she did the other schools forum, german speaking schools, it. made one catholic school, it didn't fit. i 13 he was basically on the streets every day. the result of which was at 15 he gave up entirely on education of doctors way into a job with the illustrated press, frank buckley. this is a drawing of himself doing that. into the always they like to draw himself a short and messy and not terribly defined. so he worked for frank leslie and then more meaningfully and much longer for harper's weekly. oath of which were dueling banjos so to speak of illustrated newspapers.

he primarily moved to harper's weekly because frank leslie didn't like to pay, which is awful. at harpers he built a career that catapulted hi into fame and fortune for a while, and enduring place in american art history and political history. in this time he was the most famous cartoonist in the tiny. he produced not just cartoons but also illustrations and christmas drawings until the 1880s. the illustrations from the civil war are famous now, and this is one of the illustrations he produced which depicts the attack on the border town i grew up fighters. so what's great is they're doing everything you can imagine. drinking, vandalism, hanging a baby upside down by his ankles. they killed some kids puppy. they're stealing pocket watches, it's really very bad. so he like hyperbole as you may have guessed. unfortunately, his career ended

not so much with the bank but with a whimper. the frantic pace with which he produced cartoons, particularly in the early 1870s began to wear out his arm and shoulder. and as a consequence he had to stop cartoon for a while several times. he also got his work began to decline. it was less detailed, less precise, and people start to move onto other cartoonist who they thought were better. and then after th a conflict wih his editor and publishers at "harper's weekly" in 1877 he began to get very dissatisfied. in 1880 he returned to frank leslie and left the newspaper for good. he tried to build a career as a painter and failed. he tried to establish his own paper called nast weekly. that also failed. and, finally, the only complete collection the university of minnesota archives, when you meet him you think, no.

finally, he turns to his connection and theodore roosevelt administration, one of the people had also worked for abraham lincoln and nast as a result of known him. so he called up theodore roosevelt administration, looking for someone who could help him pay his bills and give them some honorable retirement. he succeeded at this but it was unfortunate because he got an appointment in july 1902, or to contract yellow fever and he was dead in early december. so this did not in with the way he hoped. when it comes to massive legacy which some people like to talk about a lot, he's famous for three things. primarily for, first, upon precision of the elephant and a donkey as symbols of the democratic and republican party. the he did not originate the use of the donkey. that predated him by decades.

he did so link the elephant to the public and party, and that connection was exploded quite frequently as part of a larger symbolic world that he filled with lions and lambs and dogs and gadflies, people as animals and animals and symbols. whatever animals were useful to them at the moment. your own not so much this one, this is one of the earliest ones he drew. during the civil war he started to produce these drawings to go in harper's holiday tradition but usually the first paper of january. the paper appeared almost a week before its date. so the last week of december would be dated the first agenda. so those illustrations rely on patriotic sentiment. you can see santa has arrived

and has distributed toys to the little drummer boy. said it was for sentimental and very patriotic in its requisite -- reputation for the need of cheer. later sent a drawing tended to appear more completely towards family oriented ethos. but if you find a little overwhelming, these are more typical of the later ones where family is at the heart of the. and he helped to create the christmas at which we're all familiar, which did not preexist. that is, it starts to develop in 1840s. prior to that it was a very different holiday but it comes in this period of 20 years around the civil war to be very oriented, very child focused. said is transformed into this fat, jolly. sometimes fight smoking get laid in person. nast was a big part of the

creation of those images. you can see him doing that here. the children are the kids you see in these pictures one of the great fun things about watching these pictures is if you go year by year, there are more and more children, reckless that's how that works. they often sometimes surprisingly -- so that's children are the children seen in these drawings and they're often the center of demonstrating the value of christmas. so they are the ones who are waiting capitalize on christmas eve and they're the ones who got presents and they're the ones who are pleased before a roaring fire with stockings and things like that. he was a very great lover of family, and he incorporated that into his work by putting these children in his own home, many of the background drawings in the his own home in new jersey filled with this stuff which he loved to collect stuff. things like the centennial

expedition in 1876. he bought a whole staircase. christmas drawings by nast are still around today. that is a drawing that was colorized for a cover of the library of congress telling book which i happened upon which i was in d.c. a couple years ago and i walked in a gift shop and thought, nast is stalking me. this on the lower left is a plate that up until last year you could buy from william sonoma at christmastime. the others of course our christmas ornaments which are always available. so if you would like to santa drawings you need not be without. the third is of course was his crusade against boss tweed. tweed oversaw the democratic political machine in new york out of a building which the

machine was called by the name of the building. tweed was the face with african political corruption for those americans who are most concerned about reform of politics and particularly reform politics in cities. significant obsession of late 19th century, protestant reformers. nast, until he became embroiled in this crusade, was sincerely interested in urban corruption. he was to the extent he lived in the city and there were some things which it comments upon before, particularly swill milk which was the selling of tainted milk in the cities that was trucked in and at chalk in it or listen sick cows. it could make people very sick. he had participated in an effort to stamp that out in his very early years, but he was very interested in national politics and in the republican party. and not super focused on new york's political machine. but when "the new york times" initiated a brand-new paper,

kind of irritating to see them in their infancy in this candidate has ever things about the paper but in the fact of the moment they were a scrappy underdog. so in "the new york times" initiate an investigation on city projects which are overseen by tammany hall, nast joined them as the illustrator from the point which they were trying to make. and his cartoons ultimately were as important some ways as the evidence produced by whistleblowers because the cartoons help to show the way that tammany was skimming funds office government contracts to the visual evidence in the cartoon was unmistakable. anyone could understand what was the complaint, famous complaint by boss tweed. so this is not complicated, right? if a person who is illiterate knows what is happening here. boss tweed always worth us big time and stick them so they would know just who that was. and nast's cartoons, tweed was bloated with ill-gotten gains and he was totally unrepentant to the tiger is standing there

and he's of what he to do about? that was typical of tweed. tweed is up on the left on the stand watching. tweed just really rejected the idea that anything could touch them. for quite a while during the scandal, and nast got more and more forward in his description of what was wrong with this urban corruption and why people should care about it even when it benefited them in a short-term way. and one of the unrepentant -- vultures and the caption says they are waiting for the storm to blow over which, of course, is a scandal to underwrite this is a very famous picture, where it says who stole the people's money? oh, it was him. many of these cartoons were reproduced about a decade ago during the enron scandal when "the new york times" would run like the moneybags, the brains, and suggest no one was willing

to take accountability. when he champion u.s. grant, these cartoons are made his reputation. and really launched him into fame on a level that he had never anticipated, though he welcomed warmly. but these are the things to which everybody already is interested in nast. i would suggest he ought to be famous at least in part or in addition for three other things. the first is that he insisted in his lifetime that people treat him as an artist. he was trained at the paper when he dropped a school. what he started do was go into museums and paint paintings that he thought were interesting, and he managed to talk his way into couple of odd jobs. e-consults at a private institution like this one and convince that guy to let him take entry fees at the door, indeed part of it. as like a job.

and then he would sit there and paint the patients. this is pretty great for 14 euros. so we had this training and he produce oil paintings is alive, sketches, drawings, watercolors. he displayed them, exhibited him, tried to seven. he really wanted people to understand that part of him as an artist and he worked as an illustrator for a consistently throughout history. sometimes satirical. but he also did lots of books, dickens, and lots of other books which are not intended to be funny. he was really illustrating a story. he was not a modest man. he reveled in the thing that cartoon provided to them, but he also thought of himself as an artist and he thought just because his work employed politics did not mean that that was a form of fine arts. he asserted a connection between art as it appeared in newspapers and art as it appeared in

galleries and museums. i think many people that i also feel that what they do has an artistic that in addition. second thing i think he should be known for for which i have a picture, he insisted that people in his life, here is the owner of harper's weekly and his editor, offered him the respect that was due to his position as a political thing in its own right. that is, he was an employee. as a young man he learned how to do what he did. he tested his gift under the leadership and tutelage of the man on the upper left, fletcher harper, one of the harbor brothers who founded harper and brothers, later harbour publishing, now harper and welcome one of the first important publishing houses in the training and helped to create a domestic market for books. fletcher was a baby of the family and he founded harper's weekly as his pet project. each of the brother had a thing for fletcher being the baby

founded arbors weekly. he supervises personally. but in the late 1860s, the support of fletcher harper who seems to have treated nast much like a son certainly in the office, that support has helped master ruby, and independent contributor to harper's weekly. he had an idea can he just drew. of other contributors including the then political editor who would later be the editor-in-chief just like the position, that was too bad. eventually after fletcher harper's death in 1877, nast lost the battle but once fletcher died, he knew this was a moment and he struck at nast to try to force him to knuckle under to whatever he thought. nast tried again to fight back but without fletcher harper's support he couldn't do it. but for nearly 20 years he did succeed in building a position that allowed him to decide what

he would portray and how he would portray that, what he would say about it. so if he disagreed with the line the people is taken as a whole, and that was how it was. that independence helped to establish the importance of editorial freedom for the work that cartoonists do. and, of course, it's not the last battle between editor and contributor, but he used his celebrity to make the point of editorial cartoonists understand the political world in a unique way and they cannot be treated as or understood to be an employee. nor can the talents be hardest to the idea of an editor. so he made a big deal in public about you couldn' could just cap and say send him a letter, sent him a letter as they wouldn't it be funny? you should do this. and on very rare occasions he did come forward about the hearing that and respond with cartoons. but most of the time into the second file. third of the things is that he took the center of a complicated

web of interconnected 19th century figures, including james redpath is on the upper right, i know people are saying -- redpath is an amazing person. this is a man who fought for free soil in kansas in 1850s. befriended, support and defended and with the first letter of john brown, represented -- travel to the south under a pseudonym before the civil reporting on slavery, advocated irish home rule so strenuously he became a leader of the land late in new york, let the attempt to create an integrated school system in charleston, south carolina, after tha the cy fell to the union forces in the civil war. but wait, there's more. helped to edit autobiographies of jefferson and davis. published the early works of louisa may alcott.

and found the most famous beer in 19th century america. not bad, right? that's a nast met redpath. for many of the most famous lecturers of the time including henry ward beecher, the famous preacher, and mark twain. redpath originated a management system for lecturing which made it possible to lecture at the forefront more people into commit more professional. he personally identified speakers and softer participation. so he literally chased them down. nast wouldn't letter -- wouldn't answer any of redpath's letter. pcor mr. nast and talks to him. nast is in a desperate effort to get them to go wit. and he said if you can convince by wife, so redpath jumped off at the next four, goes back to morristown and talks her into it. which worked out great financially but nast it is lecturing really, really badly.

this is a passing person and asked me very well and who, through whom nast knew lots of other people. nast was also friends with his wife's cousin on the left. he was a note about for come widely read and participate in a lively political and -- in addition to being a full-time writer for newspapers, and his wife was a novelist, and also an essayist in her own right. she had built a career from the ashes of her early private life, despite her family's disapproval did she want to be an early feminist and an abolitionist and influenced nast in his. one fec in his later works defending friedman after meditation is the influence of this woman who his wife despite and disapproved of.

then, of course, i think new the gentleman on the bottom, another fine of nast, mark twain. the two men constantly sent each other funny letters and discuss a collaborative lecture tutelage which i think is tragic that never happened, but it didn't. so mark twain went on to higher nast's biographer as his own biographer and to initiate a relationship that lasted into the end of mark twain's life. his papers as we know them were produced by albert bigelow paine. but, of course, last but probably not the best with u.s. grant it in some ways, grant is the most important influence on nast's life beside from his wife. beloved president grant starting when he was agenda and help to getting elected president twice.

nast loved being close to the white house but he also had a true and tender affection for grant as a man, and they occasionally entertain one another. so president grant sometimes came to morristown but one example was after grant's world tour, when he ended his presidency, was not a great time in his life, he went on a world tour in a foreign was super excited. he gets home and comes to them in morristown and nast says, sal wants to know what he wants. and grant says, if he knew what they had served me all around the world, all i want is corn beef and cabbage. that's what the server to the president of the next eight. that's what he wanted. evidently he was very satisfied. so that's a lot of people that you didn't come to hear about, but so what. i would say that his wide circle of friends which this is a tiny sample helps to demonstrate the way that 19th century networks operated. humorous the writer to editor to

politician activist to preacher. and on from there. the way in which nast stood at the center of some of these networks, he knew people. he new interesting people. he knew important people. and incorporate everything in new cebit, the world around him, his friends in the work you produce. so understanding him and the world that requires understanding the people also related and very complicated ways, and his cartoons are the product of his artistic training and his political thinking and is emerging in this world of interesting people. thomas nast was very entertaining, right? he was friends with of photographer in new york. i guess i used a photo sessions with they would dress up. he was like i need a blanket and a rug, okay. good times. he's a fun person to spend times with. there's a great story from harper about how one of the younger generation of the harpers came home one day and he walked into -- these are tall,

skinny houses. he asked his housekeeper what is happening, and apparently nast said something but since he wasn't home, it's not that into the nursery and got all the children out and were leading them on a game of chase throughout the house. thomas nast died broke. he lost his fortune industries of bad investments. he died relatively young. today, his work survives by merely in -- will be a job for strong of the american river to demonstrate he was anti-catholic and so was evidence. there will be a shot of sent. there will be a repurpose image of one of the tweed cartoons in your time, when the financial papers to demonstrate some point. that's partly because he left the world cup he left his wife employment with almost nothing. his wife had to auction his belongings in several auctions

in order to make ends meet. and she sold his correspondence. she sold his collection of stuffestuffbut as a result thers basically no large collection of visitors anyway. the biggest ones are in places like the viper was 91 items, some which are repetitive so that have two copies of the inventory of his stuff when he died in ecuador. and if you're riveted by how many diesels some and found when he died, that is for you. but if you have questions about why he -- it was just a cover. there's just not a lot of them. it's a shame. because his limited legacy is in part a reflection not of the power of his pencil, but of the power of documentation in history. if you die without money, if you die unexpectedly, if you let your papers scattered to the wind, then you may sacrifice for legacy. and i think that nast deserved better than that so i came in the course of writing the book

to hope that somehow it would help to restore him to the center of our understanding of the 19th century. or at least more in keeping. [applause] >> i think there was an intent of the questions and answers. mark sanchez. >> -- mark says that yes. >> [inaudible]. what about the bosses like boss tweed and pendergast and michael curley and honey fitz? didn't they serve a useful social purpose for the immigrants, provide jobs and

entertainment and so forth? >> so as immigration spike in late 19th century, it filled the city with immigrants from a variety of places. one of the ways that those communities got accessed to political power, to voice in a place with the lead, was by dumbing the politics. and yes, it was a symbiotic relationship. you which use the leadership for the political machine. complain if something wasn't right. with access to some of the money from into the city, people who oppose that tended to, from the nativeborn, from the protestant and from the elite. they absolutely dislike the idea that immigrants and often catholic citizens would have that much power within the city. so one of the discussions swirled around this tweety during a particular around all urban corruption is to what extent you want to see the reformer as obnoxious do-gooders

who are really mad because they don't get to have say all the time. and to what extent it's true any kind of capital sins, but people like tweed were corrupt and that that is bad in and of itself and, therefore, that he had to go. and so people find the position they find most congenial. as i said, nast was aware of it of course, and one of things about nast was if you got on his bad side, if you irritated him, that was a big mistake. you don't want a dragon to turn its attention to you. and so up until a certain point he was like just not that into it. tweed made a mistake according to nast of sending a lawyer to speak to them. he lived in harlem, an and this fellow came by and said oh, mr. nast, aren't you tired? wouldn't you like a vacation?

like to your. i know people who would give you $100,000 you could go on the fact is true. that is a fabulous trip in 1871, amazing, right? and nast said -- he said, well, do they have $200,000? and the lawyer said, yes. what about $300,000? yes. what about $400,000? at which point the lawyer realize he's being played and a list. a few days later now said he saw big hulking thugs outside his house. this was a mistake because now he's mad. also to go to more than new jersey and buy a nice house for his wife. he worried about his wife and children. so he moved his family to new jersey, part to this very, partly to get away from the rough-and-tumble of the crusade in the city. and partly i think because he's

becoming upper-middle-class and he wanted people to know it. and the also then becomes much more committed to this thing because it's clear to him that it has attracted attention on one hand he doesn't like to be told what to do. and on the other hand, nast is an incredibly ambitious person to if he sees something bothers you he would just keep doing it. he once was in washington, d.c., and a center pull him aside and complain, you make me look ridiculous. i'm going to make you stop the and nast just laughed in his face. then wrote a letter home like ha ha. he doesn't know, i will give him. it was a terrible mistake to attract his attention in that way. one other thing that happened, would have been an elite attack on a particular kind of political struggle was transformed i nast into this mortal crusade in ways that

maybe could reflect all issues. >> [inaudible] >> he needed money because a couple of terrible investments were invested in grants and awards which was an investment house run by u.s. grandson and which failed because ward turned out to be a double corrupt and stole everybody's money. this is a tragedy which participated grants declined. nests lost all his money, too, and he had all of the development which invested in a silver mine in colorado which turned out to be also a scanner to defend itself with no money. i mean no money. he tried to get a diplomatic appointment. the problem is that everyone wants diplomatic the point. he got a letter from roosevelt's administration which should listen, people buy in the sadd

saddle. the club is doing is. so it couldn't get any other good ones. he thought just to me to be in the. that would be great, but they didn't. they sent him to ecuador. descent into place that was notoriously deadly. his wife was very unhappy, very worried by to pay $4000 a year and that was enough to keep them afloat through to the job. i think there's a lot to be said he would'v would have gotten a r deal had been a less under virtual person. the problem is you spend your whole life making enemies, then even your friends are limited in their ability to offer you something. and by 1902, his career was in declines that wasn't as if to say it offended him, he could really hurt them. he couldn't. somebody like that, that was one of the reasons he ended up in such an unlikely place.

>> [inaudible]. >> lots of letters with drawings. he wrote these letters letters, and he kind of settled in and was living in a boarding house and it okay and then get sick and illiterate lay down and have a pen with an a week he was the. >> final question. no? well, thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> you're watching the tv on c-span2. 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> look, the old adage, wonderful book, you want to move the mouse, you've got to move the cheese. if you want to chase behavior can have to change yourself.

has never been strong incentive for focusing on issue of inefficient technology, technology in general. it's not lost on any of us that the last group of people that are going to come in and advocate in a budget crisis for technology over health care or over programs for seniors. they just don't exist. people don't light up with stickers. they don't line up and buses coming down to city hall in state government demanding more information technology. and so the challenge for governmental leaders is to realize its potential and its possibility. and its meaning and its purpose. that said, does it surprise any of you that last week, big headline in the "l.a. times," but apartment of motor vehicles just gave up -- the department of motor vehicles just gave up on a 40 year old technology for the issuances of licenses. we have already spent more than half the money. it's not even close to halfway

done, and they just end of the contract. is it a surprise to any of you, talk about scandal in government, that the court system of california in 2004 identified $260 million upgrade that was to be complete in 2008, $260 million. today, the estimate is $1.9 billion, to connect 58 counties and the case made that system with no expectation inside that it will be done before 2015. the payroll of grades in california, the contract was also just fired, got less attention a week ago than the dmv. the calpers consolidating 49 data centers into one, the cost overrun at $228 million, they're going now is more upset with consolidation than they were

previously. yet we fix it, don't, on something all of you know in california, and that is what if you extra million dollars in the red racial and parks department that we didn't spend, but the money is still there and it was in use during the downturn. there's been hundreds of articles on that and not about billions of dollars of waste. and inefficiency. and i would argue, corruption by those that served the industry but did not service it will. spent so the state parks money they didn't know the money was there. it sort of went underground. >> no one is pleased with it and it deserves a lot of attention, but my gosh, think about all these other examples. those are just some examples. speak of the government is not working as it should be. speak up not focused on this. >> so where do the citizens coming? speak of increasing my argument in the book is there's this new

-- it's less and less. five years ago if i were on your show and i was, we were talking about free wi-fi, the fortitude with social economic issues of technology, providing access to broadband and high speed not just access in terms of ubiquity and our public utilities. increasing the beginning to take shape with the cost of these devices dropping, cost of him as relates to access this year but using access to around the rest of the world, 63% of people in india have access to cell phones. only 47% access to toilets. a world remarkably where we become more and more lost. but with government, this divide gets wider and wider in what appeared you were used to world of amazon. you can shop 24/7 from have something delivered and then you go to the dmv. you go down to your local building department. eco-and engaged to pay a parking ticket office at me realize that

divide. so my fear is this, citizens are now more engaged pashtun more engaged. appear as we move through a framework of not just social networks but mobility, localization of services and have access and ubiquity of the club. we are stuck with this old top down i.t. cartel mindset. i say lovingly. [laughter] this notion that we can build the systems and servers in a were when i had this on demand resource, the cloud when you're always getting the great, the next best iteration. we are still building in government speak of you say and you both the cloud potential everything but it almost sounds like you're impressions on the scribbled in utah but engagement assistant assistant we're talking about a virtual engagement, aren't we? >> i talk about peer-to-peer i think about donors. i think a kick starter, i could

go on and on with examples where people are saying, kind of fed up with local government, state-federal. i'm sick and tired of the hagel hearings and haggling around filibuster, sequestration, who made that word up? i'm disconnected. i want to solve problems to want to engage. i want to make a difference. particularly this younger generation, 30 and younger, this generations ago the generation generation of choice, the net generation. world where everything -- >> you have a great deal of faith from them but i must tell you in many respects, aside from wanting to commit themselves because of course i work with them as college professors and so forth, they are around you to a great extent and we are certainly in the campaigns, but perhaps maybe some of your conference of their is a bit inflated in terms of optimism about their commitment. many of them seem quite apathetic. they care about him time and on education. fixing government is really what

you are talking about. reforming government. a lot of them checked out of that. >> i'm not taking them as an end of itself but as a means to deal with our great challenges. this generation is more apathetic than any other generation in history. this generation is more engaged. appear in volunteering for data bears that out. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> we have to take back media, independent media is what will save us. the media are the most powerful institutions on earth. more powerful than any bomb, more powerful than any missile. it's an idea that explodes onto the scene. but it doesn't happen when it is contained by that box, that tv screen that we all gazed at for so many hours a week. we need to be able to hear people speaking for themselves,

outside the box. we can't afford the status quo anymore. from global warming to global warming. >> taking your calls, e-mails, facebook, and tweets, in depth, three hours live sunday april 7 on booktv on c-span2. >> we are at the annual conservative action congress in washington, d.c. we're with eric draper, the author of the new book entitled front row seat, photographic portions. mr. draper was the chief white house photographer and special assistant to president george w. bush for his eight years in office. tell me first about this photograph right here, as the president and vice president. >> i'd like to call this photo

timing is everything. it's a picture of the president and the vice president checking their watches at the same time but it's one of those lucky moments that i captured during the first early parts of the administration, and what i like about this picture is it's a great example of how timely president bush was. he usually started his meetings on time or early, usually early, and so this is really a unique fund moment. and those are the moments that are unscripted, moments that are surprises between all the formal meetings and all the protocol. those are the fund moment for me to capture as the white house photographer. >> how did you become the white house photographer? >> in my case, i was a news photographer. i was staff with "the associated press," and after the election in 2000 you might remember the recount where the election was and decided that evening. well, during the recount i decided to pursue the position that i discovered i had a shot

at it, and i like president bush and i decide to go for it. i actually made it personal pitch and asked president bush in person for the job when i had the opportunity, the timing was perfect but it was right after he became president-elect, and i actually walked up to him at a christmachristmas party and i ta page out of his playbook because he would always say, i'm going to look you in the eye and ask you for the job. so that's what i did. it worked. >> another picture here, september 11, 2001, sarasota, florida,. >> that day for everyone is very intense. this image here shows the president -- this is after the moment of the famous whisper in the ear. when the president left the classroom he walked and begin immediately to prepare for his first statement in the action to the attack, the for statement to the country into the world.

and i pretty much follow the president that entire day from the classroom in sarasota, air force one and back to the white house. and yeah, it was an extremely intense moment that entire day. >> in the last photo we want to talk to you about is right here, personal photo, august 7, 2001, crawford texas speak of one of my favorite parts of the job was traveling to crawford texas and document the president as a texan. that's who he is. i was able to get away from washington, get out of the suit, and it was just another side to the president that had a privileged to have the opportunity to document. and this book really represents a full picture of the president, not only as commander-in-chief but as a father, as a dog owner, and so i really had a unique perspective on his life as

president speaker you spent eight years as the white house photographer. you also became special assistant to the president. what did that mean? >> it's a title. it's basically a perk. i get west wing -- the mess privilege and west wing but that was at one of the biggest perks. but it's one of those things that a commissioned officer and you were on the scene. you're a part of the administration. i was honored to have that title. >> do you still stay in touch with the president? >> i do but i seem quite quickly. i do work for his library. i cannot affect its opening next week. for exciting to look forward to the. and looking for to sing a lot of old friends and sing the president and mrs. bush against. >> eric draper, former chief white house photographer. thank you. >> thank you.

>> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers. watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> this system of mass incarceration is now so deeply rooted in our social and economic structure that is not just going to fade away or downsize out of sight without a major upheaval, a fairly radical shift in our public consciousness. now, i know that there's many people today who will say, oh, you know, there's no hope of ending mass incarceration in america, no, no. there's no hope. pick another issue. just as many people resigned to jim crow in the south and the sake yeah, yeah. that's a shame, it's a shame but that's just the way it is. i find that so many people today view the million cycling in and

out of our prisons and jails today is just an unfortunate but in alterable fact of american life. i'm quite certain that dr. king would not have been so resigned. so i believe that if we are truly, truly to honor dr. king, if we are to ever catch up with king, we have got to be willing, continue his work. we've got to be willing to go back and pick up where he left off and do the hard work of movement building on behalf of poor people of all colors. in 1968, dr. king told now is the time to come from the civil rights movement to the human rights movement. meaningful equality he said could not be achieved through civil rights alone. without basic human rights, the right to work, the right to

shelter, the right to quality education, without basic human rights, he said, civil rights are an empty promise. so in honor of dr. king, and all those who labored to end the old jim crow, i hope we will commit ourselves to building a human rights movement to and mass incarceration. a movement for education, not incarceration. a movement for jobs, not jail. a movement to end all these forms of legal discrimination against people, discrimination that denies them basic human rights, to work, to shelter, and the food. now, what must we do to begin this movement? first i believe we've got to begin by telling the truth. the whole truth. we've got to be willing to admit out loud that we as a nation have managed to re-create a caste like system in this country. we've got to be willing to tell the truth in our schools, in our

churches and our places of worship, behind bars and in the reentry centers. we've got to be willing to tell the truth so that a great awakening to the reality of what has occurred can come to pass. because the rally is that this new system doesn't come with signs. that are no whites only signs anymore but there are no signs to be alerting us to the existence of this system of mass incarceration. in prisons today, they are out of sight and out of mind. often hundreds of miles away from communities and families that might otherwise be connected to them. and the people who cycle in an out of these prison, typically live in segregated, impoverished communities. communities that middle-class folks, upper-middle-class folks rarely come across.

so you can live your whole life in america today having no idea that this system of mass incarceration, and the horrors it reeks, even exists. so we've got to be willing to tell the truth about what has occurred, pull back the curtain and make visible what is hidden in plain sight. so bad and awakening can begin, and people can begin to take the kind of creative constructive action that this moment in our history surely requires. but, of course, it's a lot of talk in consciousness raising isn't going to be enough. we've got to be willing to get to work. and in my view, that means we've got to be willing to build an underground railroad for people released from prison. an underground railroad for people who want to make a genuine break for real freedom. people who want to escape the

system and find work, find shelter, be able to support their families, find true freedom in america today. we have got to be willing to open our homes, open our schools, open our workplaces to people returning home from prison, and provide safe places of support for the families who have loved ones behind bars today. how do we create these safe places? well, one thing we can certainly do, we can begin to admit our own criminality out loud. our own criminality. because the truth is we've all made mistakes in our lives. we all have. all of us are sinners. all of us have done wrong. all of us have broken the law at some point in our lives. if you're an adult, you've broken the law at some point in

your life. now, i find that some people say oh, yeah, i'm a sinner, i've made mistakes but don't call me a criminal. don't call me a criminal. i say, okay, maybe you never drink underage. maybe you never experiment with drugs. but the worst thing you've done in your entire life is be 10 miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you put yourself and others at more risk of harm and someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of their living room. but there are people in the united states serving life sentences for first time drug offenses. life sentences. the u.s. supreme court upheld life sentences for first time drug offenders against an eighth amendment challenge that such sensors were cruel and unusual in violation of eighth amendment. the u.s. supreme court said no, no. it's not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a young man to life imprisonment for a first time drug offense.

even though virtually no other country in the world does such a thing. we've got to end this idea that the criminals are them, not us. and instead say, there but for the grace of god go i. all of us have made mistakes in our lives, taken wrong turns, but only some of us have been required to pay for those mistakes for the rest of our lives. and fact president barack obama himself has admitted to more than a little bit of drug use in his lifetime. he has admitted to using marijuana and cocaine in his youth your and if he had been raised by white grandparents in hawaii, if he hadn't done much of this illegal drug use on put him in white college campuses and universities, if you been raised in the hood, the odds are good that he would've been stopped, he would've impressed,

he would've been searched, he would have been caught. and far from being president of the united states today, he might not even have the right to vote, depending on the state he lives in. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> are you interested in being a part of booktv's new online book club? each month will discuss a different book and author. this month we were discussing michelle alexanders "the new jim crow." post your thoughts on twitter, and ride on a facebook page, facebook.com/booktv. then on tuesday at 9 p.m. eastern join our live moderated discussion on twitter. send your suggestions on which books you think we should include in a book club via twitter, facebook, or e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. ..