>> i just wanted to know what your hope was with this book? >> i will just tell you the story about another agency. it's called the commission combat police -- the scandal was in the early 90s. it was about cops robbing drug dealers and nader giuliani created this organization through an executive order and made a big deal out of it and said hey this agency is going to stop corruption. and then he proceeded to -- for the rest of his term and mayor bloomberg led the front and ended up -- it still exists. it has a budget of less than $1 million is completely ineffective. no one writes about it.

that is called the commission to combat police corruption so to answer your question as long as it has the teeth and the funding , it could be effective but politics in the city -- the mayor needs the police department to show the numbers and there's there is an inherent conflict here between those two agencies. yes, sir maam? [inaudible] when you're talking about the roll call are you talking specifically about not reporting violent crimes or what kinds of crimes are diminished?

>> it's the major seven rape robbery assault burglary grand larceny auto and grand larceny. yeah. [inaudible] >> yeah. the question is the police commander is encouraging downgrading major crimes and also in courage and arrests for smaller crimes. that is definitely what they are doing. there's something called a c summons. a c summons is basically an arrest for open container some kind of minor crime. but if you get a summons you have to go to court and take a day off of work and go to court at 246 broadway. they are encouraging those kinds of arrest that the thing about those arrests is more than 50% of them are dismissed so it's kind of an exercise in bureaucratic craziness.

it's part of the agenda. yes, sir? >> it sounds like they have to show that crime is down while showing that they are doing something. no? >> yeah. he said it sounds like they are showing that crime is down but showing that they are doing something. >> so that is why if you are doing a crime --. >> exact weight but it also has to do with promotion and ambition and careers. that's the other piece of it. one more question. >> are these tapes available to listen to in the media or any links to them anywhere? >> yeah. if you could look at the web site there are some. we are we are working on a more comprehensive thing.

that is the next piece in this. if you want to see me later we can talk about it if you're really interested. thank you very much. i really appreciate you guys coming. [applause] >> the political philosopher michael novak is next on tv. he recounts his participation in politics and his ideological shift from the political left to the right. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> my name is mary ever said a senior fellow at the ethics and public policy center and author of several books. most recently how the west really lost god and i'm also the founder and president of this

organization the kirkpatrick society a group comprised of women bloggers look authors journalists and other types who share an intellectual and moral commitment to a broadly construed set of ideas about what's best for societies and for human beings. the kirkpatrick society advances these ideals to share our work with one another to broaden our intellectual horizons via exposure to new ideas and to benefit members through these and other activities. toward all of these ends i am delighted to introduce our guest speaker today michael novak. as mentioned in the invitation to today's lunch, come michael's biography defies easy description. in fact we could easily spend this entire time enumerating his books honors and titles and in so doing we wouldn't even touch on his essays columns reviews

blogs and many other contributions to the world of ideas. let alone to the many other worlds he has helped to shape. therefore we must strive to be pithy and may i say it's an exceptional challenge in this case. michael has been by turns a novelist, essayist, book author, ambassador, theologian, philosopher, poet, professor and resident intellectual here at the american enterprise institute who currently teaches at ave maria university in florida. he is the recipient of 26 honorary degrees. that is at last count and among many other honors was awarded the most is tedious annual award for religious thought on the planet. the templeton prize for progress in religion 1994. he has been an advisor to some of the greatest public figures of recent times.

among them pope john paul ii, ronald reagan and margaret thatcher about him we will be hearing more as well. his friends and acquaintances have ranged from the lowest to the highest of society as did those of his late wife are just mother and beloved friend karen novak. michael has work of hers that he is passing around for those unfamiliar with her art. in addition to all of this michael is also unflaggingly generous and a dear friend who could alone have been known as a stalinist given his gifts of ronkonkoma printer worship. instead he decided to become one of the foremost intellectuals of the past century. michael's written work is impossible to summarize here but his 1982 book the spirit of democratic capitalism is a must

for any educated person and it has been called among other things the most important contribution since adam smith. it changed the course of history in eastern europe the course of intellectual history in the united states and perhaps also events beyond in ways that are still reverberating. also, do read please and discuss and facebook tag and otherwise share and reflect upon his outstanding new memoir "writing from left to right" my journey from liberal to conservative. he is here to talk about that new book today and about much else. he will do this in two parts. i think michael wants to begin with some personal reminiscences including some of the people you have read about in the history books and then rudnick out to ideas. how fortunate those people all were to have known michael.

the kirkpatrick society members and guests welcomes michael novak. [applause] >> mary has done so much to put this all together and i'm extremely grateful to her. it's such an honor to take part with the cub patrick society event -- kill patrick society event. karen and i were lucky enough to be very close to -- who would get my vote is empress of the world if there were such a position. it was for me all those years aristotle said you learn wisdom by turning into a model of it. practical wisdom and that is why karen has a drawing of her image of practical wisdom which is the archer of karen's work. the archer who has to hit the bulls-eye in no matter what the

wind no matter what the way of his arrow. he has to size that all of in a second and let it fly. she felt that struggle was her art. there are no rules for everything you have to do but you just have to concentrate on what is the right thing here, bear and the right way at the right time and that did it perfectly. a peak performanperforman ce some people thought but that is what every work of art is so she loved that archer. we are passing around a few things of hers because she was the axis of my life and nothing would have happened without her. i am forever grateful to her. let me mention this one that i think has gone all the way around already i think has that?

this was karen with president reagan on a date while i'm away somewhere. i have to tell you the story. it's very funny. let me begin with lady thatcher for a couple of those full reasons and a couple of just plain fun reasons. she once told me the story of her first meeting. i don't remember it was g7 or g. a dart g. nine, i can't recall, as prime minister and it was in france that year. they rotate them and that put the president in the chair. when he took the chair he never introduced her. she was getting more and more uncomfortable and squirming. he never paused but when he did he said something that made her another black cloud come up over her head. he said of code i almost forgot to introduce the new prime minister of the united kingdom margaret thatcher.

he said i am sure as it says in the bible first god created adam and then he pulled a rib to make a help mate and i am sure the prime minister will be a big help mate to our deliberations which just went -- [laughter] i have to say if she had a fault she didn't much like difference. she said as cooley coolly as she could that she thanked him for his courtesy but she said we must read a different bible in the united kingdom. she said in our bible it says that first god created adam and then having learned from his mistakes he created each. [laughter] on another occasion with evidence of her attitude on her first visit to washington to

visit the white house she came to a dinner jointly sponsored by aei and heritage and she began by saying how she was always happy to visit the greatest and longest lived republic. she said that such a refreshing contrast. a friend of mine recently went up to the library in oxfordshire and requested a copy of the latest french constitution and the library and looked up over her glasses and said my dear, we don't carry periodicals. [laughter] margaret took great pleasure in that. we were lucky karen and i in spending about a week with her in the home of a friend and having breakfast and lunch with her. just telling stories.

we just hit it off from the very first. at that very dinner and forgive me for being very boastful but so many great things have happened to me in my life. washington wrote that one of its presidential orders for thanksgiving that no people in the world have no reasons for giving thanksgiving to god for his many signal interventions as a people from the united states. interventions we have experienced. things we have lived through. and i must say no one has greater reason to be grateful. first of all for caring but also for the things that happen. she said to me that very night at the reception. we would go out and shake hands and lights would flash for all the aei and heritage fellows. and their spouses.

oh michael novak she said. it was the first words out of her mouth. she said you are doing the most important work in the world. now that was sweet. the sweetest part came right after this. there was no men are more admire. he is so smart and so able in many ways. he is right behind me overhearing this and he says of go and you too irving he said. [laughter] oh wow. ready to die. and then to be serious he said you must come and visit me at downing street. as a matter fact i had a trip to britain and so i did show up. she said oh michael i'm so sorry. an emergency has just come up and i must rush to the cabinet room but come with me to my

office. this was a very motherly hostess. she said now look and she handed me the spirit of democratic capitalism and she opened it up and said see, just what i told you. every page is marked. in some pages he was translating american into british. she said you must come back. promise me you will come back. i had a longer visit with her. now when she said the most important work in the world she said because you are making the moral character of capitalism. and of course market was nothing more than a moralist. she was deeply and privately religious woman, methodist and cared very much about the virtues of the british people.

the virtues that made them what they were and that may have been her greatest accomplishment. the understanding of british virtue. but she understood really the key point that capitalism is not markets. we have had market since biblical times. markets are pre-capitalist and it's not even free enterprise exactly. but what it is, it's a culture of the mind. it's a culture of redemption and discovery. almost everything in this room, these lights and certainly the television, the microphones and even the plastic and even these plastic things, none of these were in existence at the time of the american founding.

they have all been invented and behind virtually every corporation, every nonincorporated as this there is an idea come to a discovery or a new way of providing a service or a new service provided. so it's a mind-based system and it requires a kind of attentiveness. and then a willingness to sacrifice, to give up the pleasures of today to make this thing work. for the sake of things tomorrow which you may not see. i'm not going to linger but boy was she on that wavelength. now, let me jump to this photograph of karen at the white house. i was probably on assignment in either geneva or byrne for the president.

he asked me to be ambassador for eight weeks. gene was responsible for it. jane me in the dining room here on the day after the inauguration of ronald reagan and said michael i have something i need to ask you. she said they need an ambassador in geneva and you're the only man i want to send. i said, when? she said on the 30th. that's nine days. i said i have to talk this over with karen. we have a son in high school and i'm not sure this is the right year to leave him. and it wasn't. [laughter] anyway i said can you allow me 24 hours quick she said not a second more than that. i have to know.

she said we will clear up all the papers and have all your papers done. i said i would love to have a message from the president or something. i want to go over there and say i talk to the president this is my mission. anyway so all that was arranged and they sped me through my hearings. in fact i'm not even sure i had hearings before the senate. i think they had escaped those provisionally. there i was in europe with everybody deemed me a reaganite. they inspected my boots. they were surprised i wasn't wearing a stetson. it was as if i had green hair or something. they would look at me with great intensity. at the first dinner called the western european -- the free

world alliance and they had dinner. after a little while i said this seems like an ancient jewish and christian festival where every so often people get together for a life offering and tonight i met. [laughter] anyway they wanted to know what happened and then i read on the plane going over, really this is what i get. the assignment. the briefing put out by the association. it's like 109 issues. and, i read it very slowly and carefully select that first dinner i was asked what changes would expect from the united states.

it would be a change but it's like an aircraft carrier. if we change our direction by a degree or two we are going to land much further away across the ocean. but you have to change slowly or youtube all the planes. so you can expect few changes. i read through the minutes and 103 or 109 issues that there are. i think you can expect us to vote the way the carter administration voted. there was nobody there to hear me. i will often give you different arguments for why we make a decision. often a decision it was really a

decision he did not want to make. none of that is going to come. anyway and sorry i am associating here but at the end of it the ambassador from norway came and said he made a hero of you. this is exactly what i wrote to the home office. they didn't believe me. that's the way it happened. that was a nice step. it was like i wrote to gene. why did you send me to the sewer? i feel i am under the constantinople of the sewers with sludge and the rats. they are doing nothing but

nobody is praising human rights. they are honoring human rights. all they are doing is demeaning. they had their agenda. they tried to keep the commission are busy. they would never get around to the soviet union. never in 39 years and in violation of human rights ever been denounced. never. we determined that would change and we figured out the way it works. i assume we got the confirmation from poland from marshall law because they were so many people in south poland. remember reagan at christmas lighting the candle in the window asking americans to be in

solidarity with the poles? and to honor that in december the president of poland on the anniversary called me back and european metals are very garish. they are all over and then they give you want to sleep with. [laughter] or they give you a second one. anyway, go they asked if i would go down to the reagan monument which they put up. a beautiful monument and light candles. the president spoke about we need to worry about russia and ukraine is not solid yet and there are lots of cases of liberty and we must all do for others what the united states did for us.

now the story about ronald reagan that i love best. there are a number of them but the one that i like best is while i was gone they had a night at the white house and i guess it was with solidarity. and marshall law. wasn't there a movie made her something called let poland be poland? so the president invited both of us to go and i wasn't there. i said sure, come. it turns out all the central eastern europeans that they knew rostenkowski and kroll, and he noted person with a slavic background they invited. they were all standing in the reception room all men and karen when the door suddenly parted and president reagan walked in and natural light flows from him

when he walks in. all the men turned their back on karen. reagan spotted it instantly and cut right through and walked over and took her arm and led her over to the tables and seated her beside him. when i came back karen was saying he is so gallant. he is just so gallant. then she told me another story how rostenkowski was sitting across from her. this must have been 82 and the economy was suddenly starting to turn after a very bad first year. the first thing she said to the president was they don't call it reaganomics anymore. [laughter] we had moved to washington and we were going to buy a house.

mortgage rates were up in the 20s or 19 to 21. we had just sold the house in syracuse at 5% and it was 7% when we left and expected to buy a home here at 19% and anyway it was unbelievable and the unemployment and the rest. you can go back and look at the facts. reagan used to call them misery facts. and you remember his slogan or his question at the debate with carter was are we better off? are you better off than you were four years ago? this was when he was getting elected against carter. okay there are 100 stories about that too that is what i liked about this, i came back to get my report to the president and

we had a moment together. i said mr. president my wife thinks you are so gallant and i recall the story. you came over in took her by the arm and brought her over and seated her beside you and entertained her all evening. should he said i remember. i said she thinks you are so gallant. i think you does have an eye for the most beautiful woman. [laughter] he slapped me on the arm the way men do and he said you nailed it a day the or something like that. [laughter] anyway, a little bit about john. these are the greatest stories. of course i was very excited when he was elected suddenly, quite suddenly.

i had been getting the word late in the afternoon here at aei. .. and i was in a conference and the slovacs overseas, and i was

invited. the wealthiest novak in the world is a man in canada, who happened to buy huge properties which contained most of the world's uranium. and now he deals only with heads of state. but he paid for this extravaganza. and when we met the pope -- we came up each one met the pope for a moment, shook hands, and as the pope leaned over to me, he put his finger on my tie. he put his finger here on my button,, which i had got through the back door before they were freely available, and i was wearing an adam smith tie. i didn't have the heart to

explain that to him yet. i didn't think he was quite there yet. but many chances to talk about it later. first, we were -- you're not going to believe this but it's true. the pope's secretary took a shine to us, and the pope really liked karen vary -- very much, and he gave us an invitation, anytime we were in rome to call, and if there was time on his schedule, he'd see us. so we must have been there for morning mass at least five times with him, and visit with him afterwards, and then maybe ten times for lunch or dinner. just amazing. and about mass, first. mass is in a very small chapel, very need and orderly, and nicely done but nothing special. in the vatican, right near his bedroom. and he is kneeling there long

before mass in the front, and a small group comes in, only 16 places, i think, something like that. and he is just hunched over, and he is just in another world. he is conversing with god in the presence of god, and the silence of his heart, and he is just rapt. i've heard the word but never seen it was i saw it with him. and then when he speaks in the prayers in the mass, you know, most of us would say, our father, who art in heaven. we would recite it. he didn't. he was talking. our father, who art in heaven. just talking to him. it was just very, very powerful. the man was a saint.

it didn't take -- it's not going to tame canyonization -- canon ization to be a saint. you can't have too many saints. but it's just impressive to see. and i learned very early that he loves jokes, and so i tried to come armed with a joke everytime. the one he enjoyed best was, we were talking about poland after it had been freed for two or three years, and started in 18991, just to place it for you. and how in this current election there were 39 political parties

vying for position. one of them called the biersch drinkers party, and the pope just raised his eyes to heaven. and the joke goes that there's only one solution for the polish crisis. the pope was supposed to have said. and he says, our lady of -- the great patron of poland and all its wars and the long as the banner is in front of the troops, the pols never lost. won the battle of vienna which saved us from turkish occupation in 1681, september 11th. and also the war against the

swedes, the russians, lithuania. and our lady must appear with all the prophets and angels and all the saints, and he said, and there -- how did he' it -- only two practical solutions, he said. impossible -- only one what will work. the impossible solution is if the pols ever learn to cooperate together and solve the polish crisis. he said he real solution is for our lady to come and solve the polish crisis. he kind of liked that. i won't bother you with others, but just what a man. the last chapter of the book is about him, and i was lucky

enough to be invited to go over to the funeral, and i was lucky enough to go with the president, but karl rove told me they had run out of planes and only had a kind of post world war ii vintage, no heating, no -- bring very warm clothing. and he didn't say it was going to be air force one. but anyway it got it through the gates fast and spent some time at the popes -- as he was laid out and then to be present for the next day when the book of the gospels was out in front of st. peter's, beautiful day but overcast and the wind was sharp and would blow the pages in front of us.

and when people were calling out, spontaneous shouts -- i forget how many million people there were but i think might have been five. people called it the largest crowd in human history. and no crime, no nothing. just -- anyway, i'll let it go at that. a bunch of other things and i'll stop. after i got my masters degree at harvard in 1965 -- actually in '66 it came. but i got -- i was teaching at stanford, my first position.

and i was only 30 years old myself. the students were practically the same age. and in 1965, the antiwar movement really seized berkeley, across the bay, and -- but it was beginning at stanford, and we had by the second year a young man other elected president,. really a remarkable young man. but some of in the group were really very radical left. i think i have a little evidence there was some connection

between moscow and cuba but i don't have enough evidence. there was some bad stuff in the background. and but nonetheless i thought it was necessary to march with my students, who were protesting the draft. and -- well, anyway, i thought i had to stand with them, and i did. and i then -- the group -- the vice president humphrey visited the campus, dear friend of my father-in-law, and a really great guy. i liked him a lot. but he just gave an awful talk. just off the hand, in a way that was -- they didn't realize how sensitive and acute and on the edge everybody was. and a bunch of us on the faculty encouraged people to wear

protest bandages if the wanted to, but not to rise and walk out or cause a ruckus. and i remember thinking, i would love if albert -- i would like to love my country and justice at the same time. and then hubert spoke very badly, and there was a huge riot outside as he left, and those of us in the faculty, just went down in the eyes of the others, and it was -- then i was invited by the university of new york for a new experimental campus to come to there, and there's only one student who took elections as not a fraud and able to take part in them and that was eugene mccarthy. all the other elections are just

a bourgeois front and wanted nothing to do with them. one of the first arguments was about doing anything they wanted, and of choice and openness. we spent most of the first quarter having demonstrations and sit-ins, and endless discussions, and if i had imagined myself radical as i did, i was soon disabused about how crazy things would get. and all in the name of -- good point but really just twisted to the bizarre. and in any case, while at stanford i helped organize a california movement to put eugene mccarthy on the ballot.

and january 1, candlelight parties all over california, and then in june, bobby kennedy came to campus -- came to california, and i got a call from john seeingen thaller. editor of the national tennessean, and john called me and said, bobby is coming to california tomorrow. he'll arrive tonight. he wants to see you first thing in the morning. and he had just announced he was running for president. and he said he wants to see you first in california -- first one to see. and he wanted to identify with the youth vote. that's what it came down to. but he said he decided to run. wanted to see me because he decided to run after reading an article i wrote in the magazine, national magazine, "the

methodist" which comes out of nashville, tennessee so seegnthaller probably gave it to him. it was an article on the secular fate, especially the book, "the plague," and about how even athiests are so often moved by compassion and fellow feeling and the need to improve the world, thy kingdom come, and he asked what do they lack but churches, these athiests of our generation, loving the poor. a fundamental christianization, even of atheism, going on in our culture, and you can't explain it by ancient paganism. anyway, -- and bobby was wonderful.

my favorite political leader for many, many years. so young and vigorous and brave and courageous, and the more the new-talked about, the bad bobby, the mean bobby, the dirty bobby, the better i liked him and the catholic population loved him. steel mills. they wanted a tough s.o.b. in there, and clean gene was -- people with wine wanted gene, and that's one kind of democratic. and that's another kind of democratic -- my grandfather was a miner and my other grandfather was a miner for a while, and then his wife came to a village near his family -- in fact the same village in slovakia, and where they in slovakia they have

a general store. they started in america general store, meat market general store, and my grandfather was a butcher, and my grandmother ran the place. i mean, business heads in slovac families tended to be the women. they managed the money. so i was always conscious -- my father insisted on it, too. identify with the -- don't forget where you came from. identify with the people at the bottom. these are your people. and i can't get away from that. and i love it. i'm glad that is true. but that what bobby kennedy stood for, for me, so i called gene mccarthy, hardest thing i had to do, gene, i'm sorry to say i'm going to drop my support. i'm going to support bobby, and i think -- i said i think he's

the only man who can get the vote in the cities i know of both blacks and white ethnics. he can bring them together because nobody else will, and gene said, i'm sorry you think that. but it was true. then beeny asked me to go up to attorney campaign for him, and i did, and they lost. the first time a kennedy lost an election. and in later years the republicans gave me an award, as the republican's favorite democrat, providing i never worked for a republican. and anyway -- and then i did some things with bobby in california the next week, and he'd explain to me that it all depended on mayor daly, who won the election in illinois, and he said, daly doesn't trust me yet. and he told me, you in california, we can talk.

i said, bobby, we got to win california. and i guess he told a million people that's why i need you. anyway, the most impressive thing was he called me on the -- his staff called me the night he was going down to los angeles, where he was shot, to ask me to go on the private plane with him, to go with the family down there. so, as i perceive the chance is i would have been with him, as they walked into the hotel. i don't know literally what would have been done, but i said i was -- really wanted to go but we just had our second baby, and very young, and i'd been away a lot and i thought i'd better not. i'd better stay home. and anyway -- i don't have much time to say what changed me from left to right except it was an accumulation of little things. it wasn't like being knocked off

a horse on the way to damascus. it was having supported the war on poverty in the beginning, and then moving to new york, moved to long island and worked in new york, and watching crime rise by 600%. and watching families break up. and schools deteriorate. i thought, this isn't what i wanted, what i voted for. and then finding denial. people wouldn't talk about it. and like that. and -- i was very anti-vietnam war, and went around the country preaching against it, talking against it, and -- but then i didn't mean that we should let the people who fed vietnam, perish on the seas or be raped and robbed by pirates, and go desperately to find a haven. i didn't mean that. i didn't want that. and i didn't mean we should be

so humiliated in our leaving of vietnam -- it's oning there -- oning there to get a girl pregnant, which you ought not to do. but it's an even worse thing to abandon her. it just seemed to me. and i thought we were bad in our getting in and worse in our getting out. and it was very humiliating period. i thought from this, i knew a little bit about the russians, and if you're a slovac you have to know about the russians. and i thought -- and i knew also about about the chinese by this time, that, boy, are they going to learn from this, about how weak the united states is. so i promised myself i would work for a stronger defense and a more aggressive foreign policy, liberty foreign policy, and human rights foreign policy.

this is why gene picked me up for this and so on. but all this went -- i didn't do this. i didn't ask to go to geneva. i didn't try for that job. whatever. it was all just done for me. so, it's been a blast, and i've enjoyed it. and the only thing that went wrong in the whole thing is ken broke our contract. i was supposed to die first. not her. i thought that was really mean and cruel. and deserved by me, but -- anyway, that's it. thanks very much. [applause] >> be glad to do questions and answers, whatever you like. >> do you have time for questions? >> i do if you do. >> this could go in so many directions and i'm just spinning

through a few of them. i will start with -- would love it if other people have questions. i would like to start with a sort of nuts and bolts question because the women, anyway, in the room, are all writers or bloggers or people interested in that kind of media. your work is so stunning in every sense and prolific. how prolific you have been. do you have any advice for people about how you disciplined yourself as a writer, anything from which hours you work in, what your schedule is, or when you read or anything that you would want to impart that way, i'm sure would be appreciated by everyone here. >> yes, even when i was -- well, i was in the seminary for 12 years, and was trying to become a priest.

i thought the best way i could serve people. poor people, too. and more. and entertained the thought of being a missionary as my brother a couple years later did. but by the end i was getting terrible headaches and i just knew i should not become a priest, and -- anyway, so after a really deep struggle, i left and so i did what every red-blooded american would do. i got myself my first nonblack suit, my father bought for me, and took $100 from him and head off to new york, hitchhiking. and -- i could tell you about drivers on coal trucks in pennsylvania. wow. but anyway, i found an apartment for like ten dollars a week, and the old leo house. i don't know -- an old house built to receive german

immigrants, about the 1890s, and still going strong. well, going weak, but -- i had a room that was quite small. but there was nothing else for ten dollars a week. and to open the dresser i had to mutt my feet up on the bed. the one thing i didn't like it everytime you came in at night and turned on the light switch, the cockroaches would scare you and i didn't like the two on my pillow. those worry me. okay, so my plan was not to work. my plan was not to go to work. and i figured with $100, which i still had 30 left, gave me three weeks to work and i would try to sell a book review or an article or whatever, and whoever would take me, didn't matter. when you're young you just want to publish. i did it in the church bull e

bulletin. and the enterprise newspaper you just got to write. i met ten thousand people in my first month in new york who said they were writers. only one difference between them and writers. the writers wrote, and by wrote i mean my regimen was six hours of writing every day. and if i missed three hours or i missed a day, make it up. and it's all the difference in the world. you have to create your own style, your own voice. style is not the right word. your own voice, almost unmistakably you, and takes 500,000 words at least. so get started. get them out of your system. and like they say, it takes 100,000 mistakes to learn the language. well, just start speaking. don't worry about the mistakes. just plunge in and take chances. that's the way to learn.

well, okay. i was lucky -- i had started a november veil in -- a novel in the seminary and i still had expect was lucky enough to sell it in june, and then through old friends, got a job writing speeches for aspiring congressman, which that led to my writing a new frontier speech, because he wanted to invite kennedy to come and impress him with this speech, and -- but it's before kennedy was nominated, and so i sent a copy of it to the speech-writing headquarters at harvard. what was the poet's name -- archibald mcclush. and it's funny. all the staff and all the people of the congressman, the leader of the naacp, and the -- hated it. this is nonsense.

this may be for harvard people but my folks want meat. bread. and red meat for our people. and then after jack gave the new frontier speech -- it wasn't mine but happened to be on the same wave length -- what a great speech. lesson number one in politics, nothing like success. all of a sudden you're a genius, and nothing has changed. nothing has changed. so, you just had to keep writing. i love stories like the story of "to kill a mocking bird" was brought in its 13th 13th submission. somebody told me, michael, everytime you send a manuscript

in, have an envelope at home addressed to the next editor. and they used to mail it back. you provide a stamped envelope and they mail them back, but justwhbelope and they mail the better off their journalists and magazine is. so you really have a good shot at it, and i didn't have an agent or anything. i just sent things in, and i later hired an agent just so i wouldn't make mistakes, but i

resented they took money out. so write, write, write. there's no other way. >> i just want to add a comment to that. what michael is saying is so contradictory to what you hear all the time in a post-internet age, which is the importance of branding and that you should stake out your tiny corner of commentary or research, and stick to it, and so you can be the expert on obamacare 2012 or whatever, and it's not that isn't important but what michael i saying you don't earn a brand until you have been through all the experiments first and tried without ever giving up to get everything you write placed. and i think that's really important advice. i don't know a single successful writer who has not followed some version of that kind of advice. so thank you.

>> yes? >> it's about -- as a followup to mary's question, i'd like to know a little bit more about your editing process. your self-editing process. you describe that you will write, write, write, put the words on the page and not -- but at some point you do have to become critical, and how do you analyze what you have written and assess what guess and what is not and what is that process like for you? >> this book got to about 880 pages before we started cutting it. so, it's down to about a third of its length. i would think every chapter in there is at least in the 15th 15th draft. so just keep going over and it over it and over it, and when you finish it, at least i always feel like shakes spear. -- shakespeare, and it's great, and in the coal light of day i hate it.

how could you let yourself say that? when you finish it, you're still in the fire of the vision and you're not attending to what it's like to see black marks on white paper, which is pretty grim. so, the temp -- i think it's in the 41st draft. so i really worked my butt off rewriting. that's why you need all those hours. i'm happy if i get ten hours of writing. i love going out to the beach for this reason. we have homes near each other in delware. work for three or four hours, get up, take a walk, come back 0 for two or three hours, take a walk, make dinner. i'd like -- i do it best when i'm alone. up to a point. and then go out for a walk, and then come back and try to get

three hours in before retiring. and -- but just part of being central european. just sit on your butt and work. just -- you don't have to be successful or don't have to -- life is hard and just -- and also being a child of the depression, don't expect things. you have to make them happen. and -- look, if somebody accepts something after 13 tries, that's wonderful. who cares about the 12th. and also about being brand. here's what happened to me. i read in college, i think as a sophomore or so two writers that said the same thing. if you want to write really well about metta physics bz or.

icings, don't expect to do it before your 60 years old. you don't have enough experience. things don't work out the way you plan them to and you have to live through them. they white i like to talk to gene because gene knew ways things could go wrong and i didn't. i always asked gene's opinion. i didn't always accept her advice, but i wouldn't do anything unless i had a reason, reasoned with her about it. and so i looked at what -- the first man who says this, i said, okay, what did aristotle do until he got to be 50? well, he went in the army. he learned about botany. started collecting fancy -- he apparently produced some dramas of his own which are lost to history, and -- but he wrote

about them beautifully, on tragedy and in his work on politics. and he just accumulated experiences in different human areas. i said that's what i got to do. and also i thought i was going to die young. if i knew i was going to live this long, i could have slowed up a little bit. so, i wrote on labor unions and in part honored my family, and wrote a book on ethnicity because i saw that was the most important things in life are for most people the kitchen table, the safety of your neighborhood, the happiness of your marriage. if that's good, it doesn't matter about the rest. no matter how good things happen outside, if that's bad, it's painful. and there are people who live like that. i call them the family people. and those people are individuals and just want to get out of that and go on their own way.

make a choice. but what has kept the slaves alive for a thousand years, the only institution that functioned was the family. couldn't trust the state. sometimes you couldn't trust the church. but family kept you going. and the irish and many others, the same. and so seemed family was the most important -- this pled know feel bad nor neighborhood peoples in the cities. usually lived in more or less ethnic neighborhoods and the elites didn't understand that anymore. so they were running this and that through them and breaking them up and not regarding the texture of life. i read a book on sports. how can you come from western pennsylvania, the quarterback capitol of the world, and not write books about sports. especially the holidayly door holy can trinity, baseball, football, basketball, made for

by americans for americans and you won't understand america unless you understand these three sports, and the year of researching that was so wonderful. my wife wanted me to clean the -- you promised to clean the basement. but this is research. watching football games. going off on -- it was such a happy year. i had to go out on field visits to watch michigan-ohio state, and auburn-alabama, and, man, it was great. okay. so,. >> you editors want to do city and ethnicity and some like this so the more profiles you create in a way the more helpful it is but that's not you. that's just an aspect of life.

and if you want to be wise about human life and understand how it works, the more of those aspects you live through, the better off you are, i think. i can tell more stories. >> well, all right. i will ask. so, to be reasonably reductionist about it, what would you say so far has been your most lasting contribution, would you say it's the spirit of democratic capitalism? i know it's a crowded field.

>> well, what i wanted to do is create a philosophy of american culture or a theology of american culture. a little of both. theology because you can't understand america unless you understand its religious -- what's the word i want -- dynamism, i guess. the thing that gave it energy. the very notion of progress is jewish and clinton sent. it wasn't greek. it wasn't middle eastern. it wasn't roman. they believed in life of eternal returns. going back to the heroes and having periods of revival and going back. and jude dimple was always

looking back to jerusalem tomorrow, the zion, a new vision. a new kind of human living. better, more peaceful, more just, more loving, more pursuit of the truth, and christianity picked up the same thing. our father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. thy kingdom come. it's not here yet. thy will be done. and so it's the job of christians to make the world a better place. and even our athiests have inherited that. it doesn't come from anything pagan. and it's not altogether inherent in science. could just as well be destructive, and great cataclysm. it's all by chance, isn't it, from a scientific point of view? and -- well, anyway, there's -- i sort of like this metaphysical

questions. for example, washington -- i was asked to do a life of -- washington's idea of god because they can't have that and people asked for it. and i was -- i was prepared to think the was deist. there's a god out there like my daughter said, my daughter was an athiest in high school, she announced, and when she went to duke, she decided she couldn't be an athiest because she didn't understand why she was being told the world is all by chance and yet everybody was making her study so hard. and there has to be a reason somewhere. so she decided she was -- what did she call herself -- aning a know -- agno-theist. and there was a nationalist in

things, which i this theist part. but what difference did it make in her life? what difference did it make? that's de iism. there's a guy. he doesn't really care about human beings or human life, and you cannot say that about washington. you just cannot say that. he praised too often. he has too much trust in providence. he acknowledges the role of providence. like when benedict arnold plans to betray ford, which would give away the hudson river, which would allow the king do separate the north from the south, which would be the easy way to collapse the american attempt at independence, one half at a time. it was very fatal. and these plans were discovered by an american patrol, not even searching for them, obviously,

but having to be at the right place at the right time with the right wit to pick up these guys. and their packages, and they found the plans of the surrender and were able to interrupt it. and that artillery turned out to be extremely valuable when washington was commander-in-chief of the continental army, going after boston, after bunker hill to rescue boston, which was occupied by the british already. and those cannons were dragged overland to arrive at boston, places on a hill of the british fleet so the british fleet was in a defenseless position. overnight. it wasn't true one day and during the night they hauled these things out, and how did that happen? the british were supposed to attack two days prior. but it rained too heavily and they couldn't, and the americans had four rounds of ammunition

the their pocket each so they knew they do. -- they couldn't hold out. and a munitions ship was intercepted by an american vessel and they got another supply of ammo. washington thanking providence for each one of these things, that the cannon got there they had the cannon, got them across massachusetts. got them up on the hill just in the nick of time. the first attack wouldn't be launched when it was supposed to be launched. the fresh ammunition came. i mean, whose side is god on? now, the argument against this is, well, it's god. he is not on anybody's side. besides the british pray to the same god. but tom payne answered the great question. he made fun of the bible, heated it, but he was great believer in god and said you cannot have human rights without god. he took ship under his own money

to persuade the french not to abandon god, not to turn to atheism, because you will lose any way of defending human rights. he was put in jail for his pain. but so tom payne wrote in one of his letters -- what were they called -- summer soldiers, winter soldiers, something like that. twice a week -- biweekly the pamphlet he put out. he was saying that there was no way god, who created man for his friendship, could support that robber baron, that robber king, george iii, in trying to keep his -- keep the citizens of the king, the royal subjects of the

king, away from the right -- the due rights of englishman and that's the way john adams taught the americans to conceive. they weren't revolting. they were insisting their rights be recognized. and this was very important for another reason, which is if they had been out on the cry of rebellion, how could they get the assistance of the french king? ...

because these quotes show up later and he collected the best sermons that his chaplain sent him and he published them as a book. well, kyra you know that vitality is in america. god bless america. now we are losing it. we are giving up on it and turning it away from it. i kind of stand with washington. our country does that, it's gone. this nation with its constitution cannot be maintained without a certain metaphysical view and a certain set of moral virtues. it just cannot and it will collapse. and i never wanted to believe that but i must say it makes -- it seems more and more credible

to me. i didn't want to believe it because i didn't want to argue god for the sake of the united states. do you understand what i mean? that would be just wrong. but, the older i get the more persuaded i am by washington's idea. it was not only his but hamilton said the atoms. you can't understand the united states if you don't understand that hope. my father used to put it in secular terms. michael, don't ever bet against the new york yankees, notre dame or the united states of america. for most of my life those have been saved it. i have come to doubt it.

the united states is tottering. >> we have got another question. >> your candor and your commitment to integrity is enduring to your own discovery of self and so compelling and inspiring. as you have navigated this dream from left to right, how -- and i expect that you were quite honest and open about that in the process of making that movement. how did you balance that or how did you'd -- [inaudible] the tea party or government? it can be quite difficult, but not difficult to personally reconcile it. >> hears the conflict as ambassador.

i was there to represent the president of the united states, not me and not my ideas. sometimes i adapt and defend positions that i wouldn't have done just that way. left to me but that is not my job and the difficulty for a country that big nation like ours as we have so many commitments and treaties and so forth the people have to be able to trust us and we can't be swinging this way and that way and changing with the wins. so i understand the president's job is different from mine. he has to set a course that is in line with things he is told other people and so forth and all kinds of commitments that i don't even know about. i didn't find that -- the great protestant theologian just a great mind. i think are most important theologian after jonathan edwards and a lot of people think that but he pointed out that there are many times when a society is better than the

person. i loved it when president reagan and tip o'neill had a furious argument may be back and forth from the white house to the house floor and on the tv news and then they get together for a cup of coffee and tell -- and tell jokes back and forth. i just thought that was terrific that they had a public role to play. they each played it but they also knew was important to be friends. washington was like that. it has gotten better. it in the middle of my life both parties are not parties of principle. they are parties of interest. we should be parties of principle. it's impossible to live with.

it was better when the parties represented the coalitions. you could find -- you can always find a way in which you can get five people on one side and that is all you need. and that will shift to the other side. it seemed to me it was much more humane politics. it was pretty ugly then too. politics is about power and interest and you have to have an iron stomach. you have to do things personally you would not do that sometimes what the state's appeal is much better than what you would do personally. it's a morally higher note than left to ourselves we would do. we would be more selfish and narrow-minded about it just left to ourselves and then other times nothing will work without the personal integrity. consider those young men flying at midway and these rickety old

fighter planes they had pre-world war ii. they are down to three or four minutes of fuel before they have to turn back. just then the clouds break and they spot the japanese navy lying undefended. all of their planes are attacking the islands where the americans are and what do you do? you just turn around and go home? you know your wife and children want and you want, we just cannot let this opportunity pass and go down and make your dive or let the torpedoes go or whatever you do and then pray that you get home. a lot of those guys died. you can't make a decision on the spot like that.

that's what you do in a surprise and what you do on the spot. what people count on you to do. that's character. virtue is not enough. virtue now in virtue then, it's a calm and steady thing. >> michael thank you. i think that's a perfect note to end on and thank you for a most memorable lunch and let's hear it for michael novak. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> the statehouse dome is one of the most iconic and recognizable

symbols of the maryland statehouse but a lesser-known fact is that was not the first dome to cover this building. when the building is completed in 1779 it's topped by a small undersized cupola which is to write for architectural problems it leaks and by the 1780s it's being described as build contrary to all laws of modern architecture. in 1785 less than two years after congress was in annapolis construction begins on a new dome to the statehouse. they of course have to first dismantle the original cupola and it takes them 12 years to complete. the construction on the exterior is completed in 1797. it's the largest all wooden dome in the united states and built entirely without structural nails. it's held together with joints and elaborate iron which is truly an architectural masterpiece.

in the 19th century during the war of 1812 the statehouse dome is used as a lookout. it affords a commanding view of the southern river and the chesapeake bay so we have tremendous documentation of joshua barney going to the statehouse dome and using what he called his excellent glass up the bay in september of 1814. >> most of us went to school at a time when we heard the saying sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. tell that to the holocaust museum guard who was murdered by a neo-nazi whose evil violent delusions were kept alive in his on line community. tell that to the women who lived

in fear of being raped because of misogynistic on line threats that they see all the time. tell that to the cyberbully kids who stay home from school because they are traumatized by the taunts they have received anonymously on line. and tell that to tyler who was the student who committed suicide because of a tweet that ridiculed him for being. that old sticks and stones saying is simply not true in the world of web sites, twitter, youtube and facebook. in fact, in the on line world words and pictures videos and on line games are infecting the globe with a virus of hate that is a threat to people and to society. abe foxman and i wrote viral hate because the demeaning and potentially violence inspiring content are not the necessary by for product of freedom of

expression. we believe freedom of expression as important as it is, and it is, does not trump human dignity. we wrote our book because we believe people should not sit idly by when we see on line attacks on people because they are different. the anti-defamation league to 100-year-old institution where i chair the national civil rights committee as a mission to stop the decimation of jewish people and to promote justice and fair treatment for all. as part of this mission the anti-defamation league has worked for years on an epidemic of on line hate that without question is harming individuals and society. while certain aspects of internet hate have received national and international attention like cyberbullying unfortunately the problem in general is not high on the consciousness of the internet community. it's an educators of leaders. we believe that the indifference

to a growing and harmful problem needs to change. we care about these issues not just because they are civil rights activist and have seen the effects of attacks physical and verbal on minorities but this is also personal. abe is a holocaust survivor and is from the place and time where propaganda was the -- to the death of millions. the holocaust didn't begin with the ovens. it began with words. at the fourth global forum form on anti-semitism in jerusalem last month abe and i both explained that the virus of hate is spreading every day in ways that hitler's propaganda experts ever could have imagined. aid has been a towering figure in the fight against anti-semitism and hate for decades of his involvement in fighting on line hate is a natural. and i am now an openly man happily married and my husband is in the audience but growing

up i entered the epitaphs of degrading comments that were widely socially acceptable. hate speech on internet covers a wide range of things and as we explain in the book the internet has become an organizing and communicacommunica tions tool for extremists on the right and on the left. before the internet such people would meet in dark alleys and exchange their propaganda in plain brown wrappers and now with the push of a button and the click of a mouse it takes seconds. up next on booktv "after words" with guest host plant or piston radio host joe madison. this week craig steven wilder and his latest book "ebony and ivy" race, slavery and the troubled history of america's universities. and it the m.i.t. history chair discusses how the campuses of

many elite universities were not only built by slave labor but funded by profits earned on the practice of slavery. this program is about an hour. >> host: "ebony and ivy", professor wilder. i guess the first question is, how did you start down the road and we were laughing before you said 10 years ago when he first started you had hair. [laughter] >> guest: not a lot that i had hair. >> host: what started you down the road to actually put "ebony and ivy" together? >> guest: is actually sort of a long story that i can make sure it. i had just moved from one job to another in teaching because i had just finished a book project and i started out and it was going to be a simple book, a simple article actually. i