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>> then, john lott argues that thanks to president obama, we're on the verge of economic and social collapse. at 9:15 eastern, we'll hear from melanie warner, author of "pandora's lunchbox: how processed food took over the american meal," followed but our weekly "after words" program. a point/counterpoint discussion of gay marriage. and we conclude tonight at 11 p.m. eastern with eric deggins who argues that the media plays upon the fears and prejudices of their viewers to garner larger audiences. visit booktv.org to learn more on this weekend's television schedule. >> next on booktv, kay goss recounts the life and career of the late wilbur mills, democratic representative from arkansas and the longest continuously-serving chairman of the house ways and means committee. it's about 45 minutes.

[applause] >> thank you. i hardly recognize myself. [laughter] i think i must be a hyperactive person. [laughter] thank you so much for that warm welcome, and thanks to everyone who's here. when i look out in the audience and i see so many of my favorite people here in one room, it feels like a family reunion more than it does an event here at the school. but i couldn't feel more at home anywhere than at the clinton school of public service, because when i was about 8 years old, i committed myself to public service and to politics in arkansas. and as angie mentioned, i was very, very proud of arkansas and all of our high-achieving people. and i've always believed in arkansas exceptionalism with an

exclamation point. and you presented a lot of facts that we can prove that. so, you know, and i was thinking because many of you heard my discussion yesterday at political animals club, some of you heard me at the christmas party at the wilbur mills treatment center, and then some of you have just had long conversations with me throughout my whole life and yours. so i thought i'd take a different tack tonight, because we do have some students here. and so i wanted to talk a little bit in the form of my old full-time profession of being a professor. and historian. and one of the things that i wanted to point out is that when i was a student and a professor of political history, i often read the writings of of george mason. ironically, i live where he lived now there in virginia many fairfax county -- in fairfax county.

he was one of the founding fathers at the philadelphia convention. so in 1789 he wrote about the u.s. house of representatives. and he said it's the closest thing we have in the u.s. to being a repository of our democratic principles. and so he said a member of the house of representatives, unlike, you know, members of the senate, for example, should be very close to their constituents. they should think as they think, they should feel as they feel, and they should be residents among them. and mr. mills took this very seriously and never bought a home in washington. and he was always here when congress was not in session. and then when i was a professor and teaching the brilliant skip rutherford what i knew about the constitution, we looked in many article i of the constitution as

the legislative article. it sets out the powers of congress. and it says that congress has the premier power in the country. and then when the first congress in 1789 created the first committee, they created the ways and means committee. and so it was from the start an interesting position to be in, because it dealt with all the tax and trade and financial issues, interstate highways, social security, medicare, medicaid, all the things like debt ceilings and martial debt versus -- national debt versus annual deficit and that kind of thing. so when mr. mills was elected to congress, it was in a period when presidential power was at its peak because franklin roosevelt was president. but the peak of presidential power was when abraham lincoln

was president. and i hope if you haven't had a chance to see the movie "lincoln" that you will, because i think i it's quite inspiring. after lincoln was assassinated, congress became very, very powerful. and woodrow wilson was a professor of political science at that time, and it was before he became president of princeton and governor of new jersey and then president. and he wrote a book called "congressional government." and and he called the committees and the committee chairmen lord proprietors. so ironically, when he became president and t.r. was president and fdr was president, it was the president that was so powerful. so he got to rewrite his book, i guess, in his head at least. mr. mills was elected in 1938 to congress at the peak of presidential power. and he had so many interesting

stories about president roosevelt. one was he went down to talk to roosevelt and, actually, roosevelt had asked his chairmen to come down. his father owned a bank, and he had done a lot of work there. and so president roosevelt was asking his chairman of this committee how his legislation was going to fare, and the chairman said, oh, it's going to pass, mr. president. and then he said, looked at mr. mills. he was trying to remember his name, and he said what do you think? and mr. mills said, oh, mr. president, i don't think it's going to pass. and he just threw a fit. he said, my goodness, did those constituents in arkansas send you up here to be so negative? he said, no, they sent me up here to tell you the truth, mr. president, and it's not going to pass. [laughter] and instead, it failed. and president roosevelt called him back down there and said, well, i want to be speaking to you more often so i can find out

what's really going on. [laughter] but after roosevelt passed away, legislative reform act was passed in 1946, and it gave power, a lot of power, to congress. well, by 1946 mr. mills was really a rising star in congress, and he was viewed as a future chairman of ways and means, and he was viewed as a future speaker of the house. and he was a constant companion with sam rayburn. and robert doughton of north carolina was chairman of ways and means. and mr. doughton was 40 years older than mr. mills at that time, so you could see there was quite a change in congress coming on. mr. doughton was very hard of hearing, and he didn't wear hearing eyes. he used a horn to hear. and mr. mills said you could

always tell when the chairman was bored, he'd put down the horn. [laughter] and he didn't have a very good relationship with sam rayburn. so from the time mr. mills went on the committee, he was the one who was doing the committee research, and he was the one that was carrying messages from the chairman to the speaker and vice versa. and so went on, proceeded -- mr. doughton left congress, and a couple of other people died and left congress, and in 1958 mr. mills became the youngest person ever to become chairman of ways and means. and he ended up serving longer than anyone else had ever served as a member of the committee. so 1971 comes along, and his power is at its height. and that's when i met him, because many 1971 -- because in 1971 when i was teaching skip or he was teaching me, maybe a

little of both, the university of arkansas department of political science went to washington to establish internships in the offices of our members of the delegation. and so we met all of the members of the delegation. we were very proud of them. so i had studied congress a lot at that point as a student and as a teacher. and so, and i read everything i could find in newspapers, magazines, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts about the arkansas congressional delegation. i was proud of them. i think we all were. and dr. richard -- [inaudible] was a professor of political science, and he was basically the icon for congressional research. and he called on political scientists to not just write about theory and not just write about philosophy or not just systems analysis, but to write

about on the basis of participation and observation, actual members of congress. and he was a pig advocate -- big advocate of writing about members of the house of representatives because he thought they were closer to the people. and he said they're widely discussed, they're narrowly understood, they're lead subjects in newspapers, but it's just short sound bites, it's not in-depth analysis. and he said they're very rarely ever the subject of any kind of political science and almost never a close, actual realistic observation. so i made a mental note to myself. but i never expected to know a member of congress well enough to do that kind of research or insight. and so then once i did, many other people were or considering writing books, and many other

people interviewed mr. mills at length and started books. and all of them, basically, except for one guy dropped the idea of writing a book because they thought it was too complicated a life to analyze. so i tried to help all of them and, of course, i had a pretty high profile position for many years with president clinton and governor clinton, almost a total of 20 years. so during that time a lot of people would invite me to come speak, and often they would ask me to come speak about mr. mills. and so -- and i was often asked to write articles. the arkansas historical quarterly, an article on county judgeship in white county. on his social legislation.

the arkansas historical association, i made a couple of presentations. arkansas political science association, a couple of presentations. a couple of articles for the white county historical society. some speeches at the wilbur mills treatment center when we broke, when we cut the ribbon, when we broke the ground or whatever. and colleges and universities throughout the state. encyclopedia of arkansas asked me to write the article on him. encyclopedia of congress, congressional quarterly. herschel friday asked me to write an article when he nominated him to be inducted into the agricultural hall of fame here in arkansas. people over in tulsa asked me to write an article about him for the induction into the arkansas river historical hall of fame. so, you know, i finally decided, okay, if it's not going to be me who writes this book, who is it? [laughter]

and so it was sort of an aha moment. and also i liked the story because, and i hope you all will enjoy it for the same reason, it shows that a small boy many a small town -- in a small town in a small state can have huge aspirations to be on the ways and means committee, chairman of the committee, the most powerful position in washington except for the presidency. and sometimes there was some discussion about that. [laughter] when mr. mills was the subject of a draft mills for president in 1971-'72, sam gibbons, who was a member of the ways and means committee, said, well, it'll never happen. and when people asked him why not, he said, well, why would wilbur want to step town to become president -- ten down to become president? [laughter] but seriously, you know, he, he goes forward, and he achieves

all of this, and it shows that no matter how powerful you are, you can stumble, and you're human like everyone else is even though you don't allow yourself to really think in those terms. you are human. and then if you stumble, you can recover, and you can lead your best life yet of service. and leadership. and so after his recovery after the tidal basin incident and after appearing on stage with the stripper in boston -- [laughter] he went to palm beach institute because he became convinced after that, those two incidents, that he was an alcoholic, and he was very ashamed of himself. and he felt he had disgraced himself and disgraced his family and disgraced congress and disgraced arkansas and disgraced his friends and constituents and

his staff and everybody. so he was very down on himself and, basically, did not want to live. and so when he came back to congress after undergoing treatment and mrs. mills, also an alcoholic, went with him for the last six weeks of the treatment and received treatment herself, when they came back and came back to congress and came back to the committee both times, they were given wonderful standing ovations, and people were so warm and so understanding and so welcoming them back that they didn't go through the humiliation that they were fearing, i think. and so he spent the last 17 years of his life counseling individual alcoholics and speaking nationwide at his own personal expense in behalf of alcoholism and treatment programs and this kind of thing.

and then also raising funds for treatment centers. and helping support the establishment by health resources of arkansas of the wilbur mills treatment center. and he had two requirements of the treatment center in his name. he said, first of all, if people can't afford to pay for the this treatment, give it to them anyway. and secondly, if you're going to have my name on it, it has to be the best in the country. well, they're still working on that. but, because betty ford is better known. but when john daly was suffering some challenges along the way and he kept going to betty ford, i thought, you know, mr. mills if he were alive would have been on the phone to john daly because he felt that the mills treatment center actually offered stars more anonymity,

you know, than they could at betty ford because at betty ford there was so much television coverage of alcoholics going there for treatment, and he thought he could, thought he could protect john daly. so i think that also another compelling thought that i had about writing the book was that a person's life shouldn't be summed up by its lowest point, but by its total body of works. and so i think all of us here in arkansas are somewhat keenly aware of some of the products of his work. and i remembered as i was driving over here today on several of our interstate highways on the day of mr. mills' funeral, a dell -- a delegation from massachusetts was here. so they said, wow, you know, we wish we had a congressman like

this, because our traffic so bad, and our interstate highways are so far apart and all sorts of things. and he said, you know, this is really important. that you've had this congressman. also another point that came to me was that it's important to get the message out that alcoholism is not a disgrace. it's a disease. and it needs to be treated as such. i know mr. mills was so proud of uamf, because as they established the wilbur mills endowed chairs on alcoholism and drug abuse prevention, they named pharmacologists to those positions. they didn't name psychiatrists so they weren't dealing with it as a character flaw or a mental health problem, but as a chemical reaction in the brain.

and when after he became sober, we would ask him, you know, how are you doing today, and he would say, no good. i'm terrible. and just nervously rub his hands. and about six months after he had been sober we said, how are you, and he said, i'm fine. i no longer -- he said i don't even remember the last time i wanted a drink. and it was like magic. he suddenly had that burden lifted. and his aa sponsor said later that he thought he had been able to do that because he told him personally you've got to say this a thousand times a day until you believe it, alcoholism is not a disgrace, it's a disease. so that's why i wrote the book. now, just a quick summary of the

life, and that is-born in 1909 in kinseth, and when the doctor delivered him, the doctor said the baby's dead. and he was a blue baby. and they happened to have an african-american bid wife who was there -- midwife who was there, she said give that baby to me. and she took the baby in the other room, and pretty soon they heard a cry. and on the day mr. mills passed away, he said -- his brother said, roger mills, some of you may know him, roger said, well, you know, that's wilbur for you. he looked like he was dead when he was born, and he looked like he was alive when he died. [laughter] so he graduated, he went to kinseth to school, and then he went toker is or si where he graduated as valedictorian, and

then he went to hendricks, and he was on the debate team, and heed kitted the newspaper. and he was preparing to be a member of congress all the while. he was sal youtarian there and then he went to harvard law school. and at harvard, actually, his father went with him to the train when he left for boston, tried to talk him out of going. why don't you stay here, why don't you go into business? i think i can buy the bank in searcy for you if you'll stay. and so, you know, that was a pretty chancy deal, but he went on to harvard. and then when the depression hit really hard, it hit the bank of kinseth as well as all the other banks. so in 1933 at the end of his studies at harvard law school, he came back, and his father met him at the train and gave him the keys to the bank, and he said my cashier just left this

morning, so you're going of to have to take it over. and so he ran the bank of kinseth for a while. and then he got to the point where he wanted to, um, actually become county judge. he thought he needed to start running for office. so county judge in white county in 1934 was judge foster o. white, the grandfather of jim "guy" tucker. and so mr. mills went to his father, and he said, dad, i'm going to run for county judge. what do you think about that? and he said, well, i can't support you. judge white is my friend, and he's a perfectly fine county judge. [laughter] so they did something that is pretty interesting, they had debates in every county -- every precinct in the county. and white county is a huge county. it's second only to union county

in size. it's about 44 miles long, i mean, yes, long and about 70 miles wide. so it's a huge -- so they had 80 debates during the county judge's race. finish. [laughter] and people turned out by the thousands. and you wouldn't think so. i mean, it wouldn't happen today, that's for sure. but, you know, when you think back to 1934, there were a few weekly newspapers, there were one or two radio stations, but there weren't any television stations, and so people came out to politics for entertainment. it was their social life. they saw their friends. they saw their neighbors and that kind of thing. and so at the same time, 50% of the people were unemployed, and they had a $16,000 debt in the county. and so those were some of the things that he made as an issue,

and he ended up beating judge white by a few votes. and he became the youngest county judge in arkansas, because he was barely old enough to meet the minimum requirement of the constitution which is 25. he'd actually declared his candidacy when he was 24, and so won it then later when he was 25. so he served a couple of terms, and he established a small medicare program in the county. remembering that 50% of the people are unemployed, so they're not able to afford health care. so he asked mrs. white who ran the hospital in white county which is white county memorial hospital now if she would charge only $2.50 a day for keeping patients. and then he asked the doctors to see the patients free of charge, and he asked the drugstores to provide the drugs at their cost.

and the process was that if you had a family member or if you yourself were ill and you wanted to get service, you would have to come to the justice of peace in your district and tell them the story, and then the justice of peace would make the decision and come to the judge. and he would then have a little fund of $5,000 so he could cover those minimal costs of the drugs and the hospital. and, you know, in many respects he was quite a populist county judge. he did, had a terracing program where people could have terracing equipment or tractors or whatever that were owned by the county, and they could come borrow them for a period of time. and he, joe t. robinson made sure he had as many wpa funds as he could get for county roads,

and that's, you know, road graters, and that's gravel. it's not highways necessarily, but they were laid out and then later actually paved. so in 1937 joe t. robinson, who was senate majority leader and very, very close to president roosevelt -- in fact, president roosevelt, and he lived out here on broadway, president roosevelt came to joe t. robinson's funeral, and joe t. robinson had in his pocket when he died the court packing plan for roosevelt so that they could get those decisions made. anyway, joe t. robinson passed away of a heart attack unexpect edly, and so the state democratic convention nominated governor carl bailey for the nat seat. the senate seat. and some people, this is the

first time i've ever heard, and last time i've ever heard of this happening in arkansas. but some people were dissatisfied with that nomination. they thought there should be a primary, or it should have been open to more people or, you know, that kind of thing. so they held a rump convention, and 2200 people showed up, and they nominated john e. miller. not the johnny miller that we know so well from the state legislature, but the one that eventually became federal judge out of fort smith. he was the congressman from mr. mills' district. and so they ran against each other, paley and miller -- bailey and miller, and miller was elected. so that opened up the seat for congress that miller had held. and so mr. mills ran that year and won, became the youngest member of congress from arkansas. in 1942 then he went on ways and

means. so he finally realized his childhood dream. and he helped get, right away he helped get interstate highways because that was under the transportation and public works committee. and they were going along with president eisenhower who wanted to fund the interstate highway system by bonds, and many mills didn't -- and mr. mills didn't want that long-term debt. and so he said we'll fund it with a one-cent gasoline tax and put it in a highway trust fund. and so public works committee kept turning that down, and mr. mills said, okay, that'll be fine. we will do it in ways and means committee, and then every year thereafter all these interstate highways will be funded thruways and means, not by public works and transportation. and they said, oh -- [laughter] not so good. and they realized he was serious

because he was actually speaking for speaker sam rayburn when he made those discussions or threats. [laughter] in 1961 he started moving on health care, and they got a kerr-mills bill passed that was, basically, hospital coverage. but then in 1965 after he had, after the '60 census, he got but las key county and faulkner county in his district, and so he was able to do some things that he had not been able to do before because he had the backing of labor, and he had the backing of the arkansas gazette, and that had not been particularly true before that. so he, after the '64 election, president johnson won such a majority he was able to get more democrats on the ways and means

committee, and that made it possible for them to do medicare. and he had drug his feet up to that point because he didn't think that, um, the bill was large enough or comprehensive enough. because be you just cover hospital coverage and you tell people you've covered their health care, they're going to be very mad at you when they discover drugs are not covered, doctors' visits are not covered and so on. so he did can, he asked them to put together a three-layer cake, and it was really funny. and i hope i was able to convey in this the book, because after dragging his feet many years, wilbur cohen who was representing president johnson before the committee was testifying, and they had the american medical association version, and they had the president's version, and they had some congressional proposals. and mr. mills said, well, wilbur, can you put all of these together in something like a three-layer cake?

and mr. cohen went, yes. yes, we can. [laughter] and so he told president johnson that, president johnson was saying are you sure you heard him correctly? he said, well, yes. he said, well, get it done immediately. so they did, and it sailed through. and, of course, now the funding of it is still current issue. one of the things when i was writing this book that i found so interesting is that all the issues that were issues in the '40s and the '50s and the '60s and the 'p70s and the '80s and the '90s while we were up there, you know, are still the issues today. it's like, you know, constant, constant concern. 1969, accomplished an amazing comprehensive tax reform that caused people that are rich to pay more than they ever had before. and it was interesting that

lawrence rockefeller, winthrop rockefeller's older brother, worked with him for several days to show him, you know, where the loopholes were that he could take advantage and not pay any taxes. so, you know, that was a great service from that great family. 1971 there was the draft mills movement, and he entered a few primaries and changed his mind a bunch of times. dave parr says we found out that no means yes and yes means no and that a man can change his mind as much as any woman ever did. [laughter] and those of you who spent some time in new hampshire know that he came up there and got a pretty good vote. he was always proud of manchester voting 28% for him although it was a write-in and although it was of the first time they'd ever had a write hundred candidacy. write-in candidacy.

so fast forward to 19 -- well, in '72 i'll just say this, after mcgovern got the nomination, he indicated that mr. mills would be his first choice for secretary of treasury. and wall street went really bullish, and then mr. mills said i don't remember that conversation. [laughter] also in '73 and early '74, he was torn about whether or not to run again for re-election because as his power had waned in the mid '70s, his alcoholism -- or alcohol consumption had increased considerably. and he was very frustrated because he could no longer accomplish all the things that he wanted to do for arkansas and had always been able to do. because more power was given to the democratic conference rather

than to the ways and means committee itself. and so he would ask a lot of different people from the state, you know, do you think i should run again, and he would say i don't think i should because i think maybe somebody who's new cuddle -- could do more. and people all said, well, we think you should run again because you can't do as much as you once could, but you can do better than any other freshman congressman from arkansas could do. so he decided to go ahead and run. and then in october of 1974, the tidal basin incident occurred. and george jump began sent the day with him that day. they were out at the little rock airport, and george tells me that mr. mills got about ten calls from one lobbyist asking him not to testify the next day at the watergate grand jury hearing.

and so, you know, george thinks he knows that mr. mills was set up, but i always thought it was right, and i always thought it was interesting that mr. mills' take on that was i don't care whether i was set up or not because it was my fault that i was in that situation. i should never have done that. and so, you know, if i put myself in that place, i deserved what happened. and then, then eduardo batastella talked mr. mills into going to boston where she was appearing at the theater. of course, the press coverage never said that the husband was along and that he was the reason he went. he said mr. mills' explanation was i was just like any other congressman trying to help a perp's career. [laughter] person's career. [laughter]

so, you know, the people that were interested in his recovery process and were his sponsors and his mentors in this process said, okay, this shows us that you are, indeed, an alcoholic. do you realize that you're an alcoholic? and he said i'm not an alcoholic. the typical denial. and so they said, well, if you can take a drink and you don't want another drink after wards, then you're not an alcoholic. and so he said he went home, and he bought a couple of gallons of vodka because he might have guests. [laughter] and he said, you know, actually no people were gonna come over and visit with me because, he said, people had stopped visiting me several years before that. so he woke up in new york, and

his aa sponsor and his doctor were there at the foot of his bed, and they said now do you realize what you are? he said, okay, if it'll make you feel any better, i'm an alcoholic. and they said, well, it's not what makes us feel better, it's what starts you on your road to recovery. so in 975 he spent $1975 he spent ten weeks at palm beach institute. and they came back and got that wonderful reception. so then the next question becomes would he run again in '76, and several friends came to him with unscientific polls saying that he could win if he ran. and his reaction to that was, you know, i don't know if i'm well enough to run. and he said, but, you know, he always had a sense of humor about things. he said, but i guess, you know, if i could talk the people of arkansas into electing me to congress when i was drunk, i

could probably talk them into it when i'm sober. [laughter] but he decided not to run and retired from congress in 1937. 1977. and then practiced tax law at shea and ghoul with bill shea of former shea stadium fame. so that is to say, you know, in terms of summing up mr. mills' life, he was a very honest person. except to himself on alcoholism, he was very honest and very open about his life, very caring about people and a very hard worker. but, you know, never gave himself a chance to ever slow down. he was a workaholic from the start. and so i hope that you will enjoy this book. i enjoyed writing it, and, you know, now that it's done i'm glad i did. but i'd never, you know, i never thought i would. [laughter] i surprised myself.

and i'd like to say hello to jim faulkner because jim in 1971 did this marvelous documentary that's still the most outstanding piece on mr. mills called "the congressman from kinseth." i thought about bringing a copy of that tonight and showing it afterwards, because it's a masterpiece. you did a great job, jim. so i don't know if you all are still -- [applause] >> fascinating, professor goss. very, very good. [applause] very good. you can see why she was a great teacher. if you didn't like arkansas politics and the constitution before you got in her class, you sure did before you left. terrific. okay, questions. this is a good opportunity.

we have some questions. there's a question right over here. yes, sir. >> i'm a native of white county and resident, lifetime, and i visited a church in searcy that does a lot of work with the wilbur mills treatment center. my question is i've been reading the book, and what was it that foster white did that made wilbur mills' dad angry enough that he ended up supporting him in the white county judge's race? and also if you could elaborate on the congressional race that he won, especially roy richardson's behavior. [laughter] >> well, those are two great stories really. first of all, you know, in those debates, like i said, about 80 of them in every precinct, and they had a lot more precincts in white county then than they do now even. so, you know, the father attended all of these debates and was very proud of his son. but his good friend.

and so for the first several debates, you know, that still i can't, i can't really support you. but judge white helped a.p. mills change his mind by saying some critical things of his number one son. so -- [laughter] after that he said, well, i'm going to finance your campaign. and so he provided $17,000. and mr. mills said he did the same thing in the congressional race in 1938, another $17,000. those are the good old days. and said his father said i don't want you to be beholden to anybody. but mr. mills said his dad lobbied about the highway, you know, whether it should go through searcy or through kinseth. [laughter] he said so even fathers have vested interests. [laughter]

that's right. so roy richardson, he was from dalton up in randolph county. and so they were having a political rally up there, and roy richardson invited mr. mills to come up. and when he got there, mr. mills was always early. so it's amazing that this could happen. but roy richardson was already speaking. and so he went in, mr. mills went in and sat down, and roy richardson said, you know, young mills is here, and it's, you know, we're sort of tired of these whippersnappers from white county, these young whippersnappers coming in here and telling us who to vote for and stuff, trying to run up this scheduled to on this vote -- schedule on this vote. and a few disparaging things. but it didn't bother mr. mills too much. so he went on, paid his speech, finished his speech, and then

mr. mills made his speech. and then afterwards roy richardson got the microphone, and he said i want to ask all of my friends from the dalton area in randolph county who are supporting me for congress to come forward and welcome mr. mills to our county. and show this hospitality. he'll be a fine congressman someday when i'm through with the job. [laughter] and no one moved ap inch. [laughter] and so roy richardson extended that greeting and that invitation again, and no one moved. so finally mr. mills walked up and took the microphone, and he said i suggest that all i don'tu come forward so both of us can say hello to you and get to know you better. so they all rushed up, and they rushed up to mr. mills -- [laughter] and he carried dalton, and he carried randolph county by a big majority. so thanks for asking me those

questions. >> okay. >> are hey, gordon. >> you know this one, i'll be fast. mr. mills got us that meeting with president h.w. bush in the white house. i wasn't there, but dan begunner went with mr.-- garner with mr. mills, and dan started stuttering. >> yes. >> like he had when he was a child. he said he apologized to the president for being nervous. the president turned to him and said, that's okay, dan, i get nervous in the presence of mr. mills also. [laughter] >> that's one of my favorite stories. well, and, you know, the story of h.w. bush, mr. mills and he went back to when bush was first elected to congress in '66. prescott bush, h.w. bush's father, had been a senator from connecticut, and he was on finance committee. so when they had conference committees on tax legislation, they would always be together. and so prescott bush, when

george h.w. bush was elected, called up mr. mills and said, wilbur, my son george has just been elected to congress from houston, and i want him to serve under your tutelage on ways and means. and mr. mills said, well, you know, i appoint the democratic members to committees. the republican members are appointed by the minority leader, gerald ford. and prescott bush said, well, i'm sure, wilbur, be you want or him on the committee -- if you want him on the committee, gerry will put him on the committee. [laughter] so he said, well, a minute, prescott, and he put him on hold, and then he got on the phone. you know, they didn't have conference phones like we do now or whatever. and he said, gerry, i've got prescott bush on the other line. his son george has been elected from houston, he wants him to serve with me on the ways and means committee. but i told him you make those

appointments, i don't. and majority leader gerald ford said, well, wilbur, if you want him on the committee, i'll put him on the committee. and so he said, okay, put him on the committee. and so george h.w. bush became the first freshman ever to serve on ways and means. [laughter] they like to keep the prestige of the committee. so they wanted to, you know, have a freshman or a sophomore member of congress come in so they could look 'em over and figure out if they could trust them. and if they had political clout enough, you know, to get reelected time after time after time. because they didn't want people that were having a hard time constantly being reelected so they could focus on the substance of the issues. >> okay. >> this brings me back to my intro. i want to know what do you think it is about yourself as well that really inspired him and yourself to do all these great things? i was a blue baby when i was born, so i think i have a shot. but i need to know what i can

do. [laughter] >> that's pretty extreme. >> i'm taking everything i can get. so any advice you have. [laughter] >> let me say i think she's got a shot too. >> i think so, i definitely think so. no, i think that you have the philosophy of looking at the world and finding out in your own mind what you believe is possible. and i don't think you're going to waste much of your time, you know? there are a lot of things frivolously that we do in life, all of us. even those of us that are workaholics and, you know, devoted. but i think that you have in your mind the glorious possibilities of life. and i think if you focus on that, you know, the limitations that we each face are the ones we place on ourselves, not what other people place on us. that's my philosophy. and i am also a big optimist, and i've spotted that in you as well. >> my other questions? my other questions?

be you know, you sent me the galley proof of this book, i remember, and i sat up virtually all night reading it and made a whole bunch of questions. i mean, i'll bet i had 35 questions, and i thought, okay, i'm going to show her that i learned from her in this class. [laughter] i read this book, and i said, professor goss, here is my list of questions. and, i mean, i e-mailed them back to her. and can i'm telling you, within 24 hours there were 35 great answers. ladies and gentlemen, kay goss. [applause] >> every weekend booktv offers 48 hours of programming focused on nonfunction authors and books. watch it here on c-span2. >> were at the annual conservative political action conference in washington, d.c., and we're with david harsanyi.

>> hi there. >> how you doing? >> david is the editor for human events and a former columnist for the denver post. you talk about obama's four horsemen, four issues going into obama's second term. can you describe those for us? >> sure, there's dependency which is not just about welfare and food stamps and can things like that, but a general fundamental change in the way that people react to each other in government. we have debt which is self-ec plan story, but i think the problem's a lot worse than people imagine. there is surrender which is foreign policy chapter, and it's not a neo-con argument, it's more of a reflection of how we believe our place in the world and what it is, and finally it's death which is inevitable for most of us and is about abortion for the most part. >> so this book is being published now in march. how long did you have to put the book together, and were you thinking of obama's second term?

what was the timeline for this title? >> i didn't think mitt romney would win, i wrote that. but i pulled it together rather quickly. i had been thinking about it, but the book is -- it's not a huge book because how much can you read about the four horsemen really, but it is a slim book, but it took about a month to write. >> currently, we're in the budget situation. what are your thoughts on that? >> well, um, i think there's an ideological divide in washington now that's going to be hard to come to any sort of consensus or agreement on what to do, and, you know, we're in bad shape in that sense. i like the paul ryan budget just came out recently, i'm a fan of a lot of the ideas in that budget, and i think republicans need more ideas and less platitudes, so i'm happy sort of in the direction that party's going. >> what do you want people to take away from this book in regards to the second term? >> well, that politics matters and it's not just about popularity, but it's about policy, and politics can be really destructive. i'm sort of a libertarian about

the world, and that's my viewpoint, so i think that the book warns people that these problems are a lot worse than they think, and they don't just go away. we have to do something about it. >> can you tell us a little bit about what you do at human events? >> well, i'm a new editor there, and we put out what i'd like to think is accessible but smart content about politics and culture and books and all sorts of things that are going on, and we have some great writers, and we'll be bringing new contributors aboard soon. it's an old publication, since 1944, now we're just online. >> david harsanyi, author of "obama's four horsemen," thanks. >> thank you. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this week. in "keeping hope alive: one woman,ed 0,000 lives changed," dr. hawa abdi recounts providing medical treatment and a sense of order to a group of 90,000

displaced citizens of somalia. david stockman, former reagan administration budget director, examines economic policies over the last 80 years in "the great deformation: the corruption of capitalism in america." in "the forgotten presidents: they're untold constitutional legacy," michael gerhart, constitutional law professor at the university of north carolina, recounts 13 administrations and the constitutional battles they fought. tom diaz provides an analysis of the gun industry and presents his thoughts on the issue of gun control in "the last gun: how changes in the gun industry are killing americans and what it will take to stop it." in "front row seat: a photographic portrait of the presidency of george w. bush," eric draper, the official white house photographer during the bush administration, presents a collection of his work. and barbara garson presents her thoughts on the current economic landscape in "down the up escalator: how the 99% live in the great recession." look for these titles in

bookstores this coming week, and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv and on booktv.org of. >> so let's think about how the typical american eats. 90% of the food budget goes towards buying processed food, 90%. 84% of americans feed their children at a fast food restaurant at least once a week. and when the consumer enters the gosh ri store, they are met by hundreds if not thousands of brands. so as they shop for beverages, they might bay a pepsi, a gatorade, a tropicana, lipton tea, sierra mist, muggs root beer, amp energy, aquafina, bottled quarter. if they're health conscious, they might buy naked juice. for breakfast they might buy captain crunch, quaker cereal, aunt jeff my ma's puffed wheat,

for meals and snacks they might buy lays potato chips, sun chips, cheetos, tostitos, cracker jaques, hickory sticks, do' toes or ruffles. what the consumer probably doesn't realize, that all of those brands are owned by pepsi. pepsi is the largest, um, food company in the united states be you want to call those items -- if you want to call those items food, and it's the second largest in the world. or they might buy a necessarily product. and i won't go through all the brands. but nestly peddles about 6,000 brands. they had 94 billion in sales and 10.5 billion in profits. pepsi had about 6.4 billion in profits. that's because nestle is the biggest food company in the world. not just in the u.s. so, you know, basically in every, um, subset sec sor of the

food industry -- sector of the food industry, we have just a few companies that are controlling all of those brands. twenty companies control the highest percentage of brands in the grocery store, and of those 14 of those brands control organic food. so big food is basically controlling what people eat. then we have the grocery conglomerates. walmart leads the pack along with kroger, costco and target. those are the four largest. but walmart is by far the largest. one out of every three grocery dollars dose to walmart -- goes to walmart. the walmart heaviers have more wealth -- heirs have more wealth than the bottom 40% of all americans. if we wonder why they have a lot of clout and political power. so these really big multi-nationals use this political and economic power to

basically dictate food and farm policy. they speak with one voice, and they decide what the pesticide regulations should be, what nutrition labeling is, every aspect of our food system. and they've partnered, of course, with the biotech industry which has also become so powerful that it can basically buy public policy. at food and water watch, we did a report a couple -- well, last year on the biotech industry. turns out there are a hundred biotech companies lobbying full time, and of those they've hired 13 former members of congress and 300 former staffers of the wows and congress. -- of the white house and congress. so the biotechnology industry has, they have a lot of clout. um, and walmart and monsanto are really partnering up in some ways. one of the ways was recently

with engineered or genetically-engineered sweet corn, you may remember this from last summer. i know food and water watch and a lot of other consumer groups were trying to get walmart because they say they want to be sustainable to not buy this sweet corn. but they did buy the sweet corn, and when walmart buys something, it creates a market. and monsanto plans to have very quickly 40% of the market for sweet corn be this genetically-engineered variety. and, of course, it won't be labeled. so, you know, those who say that walmart is going to reregionallize the food system really need to look at the lobbying record that walmart has. its model is, basically, putting pressure on its suppliers to cut costs and uses every trick in

the book to do this. i go into great detail in foodopoly about this, and we don't have enough time to really deal with it this evening. but one of the things that walmart has done effectively to really reduce its costs is buy most of its products whether it's food or consumer goods, a high percentage of products come from the developing world especially, of course, china. and walmart and these food processers and grain traders were the biggest proponents of globalizing the food system. they find it advantageous to process, to grow food where it's cheaper, in countries where the environmental laws are weaker, where they can have a even easier time dictating policies. and so increasingly our foods are being produced in these countries, and if you're talking about organics, it's very difficult to