welcomed to the 13th annual national book festival. six hours of live coverage on book tv on c-span2. space, evan thomas and rick atkinson are three of the authors you'll be hearing from today. the first call and interview is available on the web site at booktv.org and you can phyllis on plater and facebook to get schedule updates throughout the day. now in just a minute to the surprise when author a scott berg has come out with a biography on what row wilson and kicks off the even that the national book festival on the mall in washington d.c.. you are watching live coverage on book tv on c-span2.

.. >> introduce you to people who came generations before

and connect it in realtime. my favorite instance when i was nine years old. the first day of fifth grade sitting at my desk reading before classes began. a news today came into the classroom holding her mother's hand when she saw me reading she said look, she reads the same kind of books that i do. she quickly became my best friend and matron of honor at my wedding in hess shared many books since the fifth grade at wells fargo we would all children to have the same love we try to inspire that through reading first in interactive every allowed program to support early childhood literacy. wells fargo team members have donated more than 1 million books pre-k through second grade and we read aloud bin donate to the classroom libraries. although we're not teaching

them to read we read out loud to share our enthusiasm we feel that modeling that is teaching children to love reading. in addition we gave away 1500 bucks to children last year at this book festival in their doing so again this year. please visit the intent behind weeper most corporate philanthropy involves the challenge in neighborhoods i am proud to share in 2012 we invested over 350 million and 19,000 nonprofits around the country. recognize the importance to support organizations to build a healthier lives and grow tomorrow's leaders. that is why we're here today. think you for allowing us to be a part of this celebration began this year. we're honored to be here to

take part of the festivities. know i will introduce a special guest who has asked me not to share his name so i will simply point in the late kim to join the stage. think you for having us. [applause] >> thank you for the 2013 national book festival it is the perfect first day of autumn if you were here at the end of the program yesterday you nova contrast i and jonathan yardley the book critic at the "washington post." [applause] thank you very much. it has been a sponsor since the inception 13 years ago it plays be active in the enthusiastic rule. i instructed to remind you

that this presentation is being taped and you should stay off of the camera risers' located at the back of the pavilion. at the national book festival in 2001 the final event of the one day festival was a presentation by scott berg in the madison building with his extraordinary biography of lindbergh did he is back today it is a pleasure and introduce one dash honor to introduce in for the second time i have known him for 35 years he came to my yummy promoting his biography of maxwell perkins in the end we struck up a fund -- a friendship although a great physical distance ever

since. off as the author of lynchburg and also a wonderful memoir of katharine hepburn know this find extraordinary biography of woodrow wilson that i will say almost coelom understands the president is a human being as well as a policy maker and has placed great emphasis from the personal and private life of a man who was extremely interesting and extremely important. [applause] >> stake you very much did for being here this afternoon. it was a wonderful introduction that means all the more coming from the man that i consider the best literary critic of this country. your some of the luckiest

people in this city. [applause] enough about him. [laughter] let's talk about me and woodrow wilson. i will tell you this much on a personal level i have been interested since i was 15 years old when i read a book and became so entranced i have been reading about him ever since it went off to his alma mater princeton because wilson had gone there. for the last 13 years i have been writing this parker free and i thought before i talked i should tell you to main principles that have guided me in the riding of the book that jonathan has alluded to already. the first plank of the platform i know white

minimalist contentious city in the world but please hold your tomatoes until the end and i proved my point he was the most influential president of the 2521 dash 20th century were the ones to do years later we lived in a world of largely his creation. the second point is that i don't think there has been a more dramatic personal life that has unfolded in the white house then woodrow wilson. says jonathan suggested to him is to integrate the two things because they belong to each other her personal life or in the denny's it does inform his professional life. his professional life profoundly affects the

world. and i think we're joe wilson was the first president to affect the world so profoundly. let me run it buy you. since time is limited i have a big book, and dealing with a very big life really have time to give his greatest hits but i thought if i threw out a couple of superlatives because i like superlatives, it may give you some greater sense of woodrow wilson our at the very least some take away this afternoon. the first thing you must remember, again this integrates personal life with later professionally that he was the first southerner elected president of the united states since the civil war. most people don't think of him as a southerner but he was born 1856 in virginia

his very first memory his father was a presbyterian minister then they moved into three were states a book became a confederate states that during that period when the wilsons were living in a vested georgia, thomas woodrow wilson, his first memory almost four years old that the election of 1860 had just taken place in this little boy remembered hearing lincoln just got elected there will be a war. wilson carried that with him all his life. memories of the war as well. growing up in disgust he was paired actually seen day-to-day horrors of the war with anybody who grew up in the south really experienced the devastation.

wilson grew up during reconstruction they've moved to south carolina. he really took the memory of devastation with him. this will have a deep effect later in wilson's life because he will be called upon to decide if his country would taken -- going to agree world war and of course, wilson resisted then jumped in but the reason for the great resistance is he remembered the boyhood images in remembering the devastation of what happened to the south. as a result of woodrow wilson is feeling the american president who never grew up in a country that

lost the war. that was the confederate states. he carried that he emotional baggage also and that changed with the south was and whose southerners were and wilson said time and again during his life there is one place in this country, in this world that nobody needs to explain to me and that is the south. it was another country. so his selection was a great reintegration of the country of the south. here is another. he was the most educated president we have never had. i hesitate to say he was the most intellectual i will not forget jefferson standing here but i will tell you woodrow wilson attended the

college of new jersey in princeton, graduated 1879, is -- his great aspiration was to become he had once made a business card homemade that said thomas woodrow wilson senator from virginia. and the way to achieve that dream becomes a lawyer because most presidents began their lives as lawyers also the senator from virginia had said more men to the white house. he went to the university of virginia law school where he studied law the he did not like the study of it so much after a year or two he moved to a man to it -- and

clinton to open a law office and was a terrible liar -- boyer he obtained no clients he loves spending the afternoon readings he read a lot of history all lots of what was becoming a new discipline in this country called political science he read a lot about politics government and how they would melt into the new thing called political science after he realized he was not making a living as an attorney he decided he would go to graduate school. one good thing came out of his amanda gears one big piece that his family had thrown to have.

so wilson went to georgia where he was tying up loose ends where he a presbyterian ministers signed met a woman who was a presbyterian ministers daughter, and the two fell in love and had an old fashioned 19th century court ship. will extensive than most because although he was desperate to marry her realized he did not have the resources to do it just yet so they had an engagement that went on several years during which they exchanged thousands of letters. let me restate this. they exchanged thousands of love letters. this is one of the romantic correspondences ever put down on paper.

i am not forgetting the atoms or browning's, very occasionally hot stuff in fact,. [laughter] many of you can at least picture woodrow wilson the presbyterian minister son with a long face, but the fact of the matter is he was incredibly passionate and intensely emotional all of this comes out in these letters. if becomes very interesting space in retrospect we will get a president who is this emotional to feel things this deeply so unabashed he can put any thought or feeling down on paper. he knows how to articulate his inner self which is rare among presidents.

upon getting gauge goes to john hopkins where he will be the first president to have a ph.d.. before he even received the degree realized in order to marry her he had to make a living so he chose academia and felt politics was the unfair playing field and felt he had no chance not having money, a family background and could never get ahead. he could get a foothold so he began to support his family by becoming a college professor first the very day they opened the school he was in the first cohort of professors with an open its door to just women.

he was not that happy they're teaching just minutes and but even unhappier was mrs. wilson for the obvious reason but also she thought they were not quite worthy of her husband so he got another gig teaching history and political science at wesleyan in connecticut's been in a few years he got the call he was hoping for was a job offer from princeton. he returned to his allman matter where he took the school by storm as he had as the undergraduate but this time he became the most intimate presence on campus in the small team down in the state of new jersey as he becomes a public

figure, an intellectual in travelling all around the country city is becoming a rather famous thinker in the country. in 1902 he proved himself so indispensable they made him president. this was a real shock to the beautiful campus whose president before wilson described it has the greatest country club and all of america. and wilson really wanted to change the image almost overnight begin to reform what was then called princeton university. introducing numerous educational reform will said not only changed education act princeton but affected

higher education in this country if you know, somebody who went to college if you majored in something of a sequence of course, is that you to collectives maybe with an honor code that is woodrow wilson that is the model to combine those elements and basically that would spread across the country. woodrow wilson became or i should say had cover the most meteoric rise in american history. in 1910, woodrow wilson was the president of a small men's college in new jersey. it was a small men's college

not a small man's college. [laughter] although james madison did go there. [laughter] so it cuts both ways for him. october 1910 woodrow wilson is still the president of a small college. if you can believe this new jersey was the most corrupt state in the union. [laughter] with the most corrupt political machine in the union in they thought we need a puppet a squeaky clean puppet who can we get? let's go to that professor president wilson if he has aspirations and he agreed to

run on behalf of the regime. what they did not realize the first thing he would do after being elected in a landslide is kicked up the machine. he literally physically shut the doors the into the machine from showing up in the government building. over the next 18 months woodrow wilson introduced the most progressive agenda of any state in the union and got it passed. this was quite stunning because oh my god this college professor has a very sharp political elbows and it was standing up everybody in the country is turning to new jersey and they think who is this guy in 1912 william jennings bryan as a leader of the democratic party losing three national elections it was now in

search of a new face, a new image into better than this progressive very proper squeaky clean governor of new jersey? three river the most meteoric rise? october 1910 he is president of a college november 1912 woodrow wilson is elected president of united states. the 20th president. this is where the roller-coaster ride really begins he comes in with the the first two years was calling his first term even but even then he passed for the most progressive agenda the country had ever seen.

with the economy of this country but it was in favor of it was a fair way to go to a level the playing field for most of america. then to get past the federal reserve system. of the eight dash hour workday with workmen's compensation the first issue on the supreme court every week, every month there was a new idea that wilson would say were some new ideal to be passed something he would present. for what wilson did in his first few years in his first

term of office he not only redefined the possibilities of a president but the executive powers being a political science therefore he can basically do anything he wants until someone tells him pecans that would be the congress or the supreme court. that is the first thing he did. the second thing though that has resonance will soon redefine the way the president of the united states interact with the congress. he had a crazy belief that

the executive branch and the legislative branch should cooperate. [laughter] and i mean that quite literally. he meant the two bridges should:operate the government and that meant he thought the white house and the presidency must be personalize the and humanized indignant he should make appearances, not just in public but in the congress. he did something extraordinary even members of his own party resisted he began showing up. he realized a president had not set foot in the congress since john adams left in 18 '01. that we have this great institution of the "state of the union" address with the big ceremony but that did that exist for 112 years

until woodrow wilson decided i will come forth and i will present the "state of the union" and what i foresee it as being. he did that such that it became a washington institution. but he also had a highly progressive agenda he thought to pass it or emphasize its importance erwin to say how important it is but i will do it so he called 25 joint sessions of congress, once every few months he will show up, give a speech that this is important for the federal reserve system is important

important, wilson would show what to give the talk and then leave. was extraordinary. they needed something more extraordinary and show up the next day and sit in a little room in the capital that basically was an unused since woodrow wilson the room has a complicated name called the president's room. it is an idea aha george washington had been there should be a small room possibly the most beautiful room it is small, high ceiling in the purpose of the room was to have the eggs of the real office in

which the president of the united states could come whenever he wanted to just sit there to discuss the laws they he wanted. and wilson did. he would come back four or five times a day to set the desk and grab senators when they walked off the senate floor to sit them down and have a discussion. he would run of a classroom sometimes with a professor never leaves him with this part of his personal life note influencing his professional life. so now we have a new mode of governance. he did keep us out of world war i for a couple of years in famously ran in the summer of 1914 and kept us out and tell 1917 running for reelection. but rather famously april

april 2nd 1870's wilson gave a speech to a joint session of congress in here is what he said one line of the one speech maybe the most important foreign policy speech ever given to this day coming this week, to obama talking one week ago about our role in syria or not, whether there should be a moral component to american foreign policy, all these questions is america the policemen of the world? as does every major policy decision involving the american incursion goes back to one line the road must be made safe for democracy.

that has been geared to, interpreted, misinterpre ted like it not or agree or not for love or hate woodrow wilson, it does not matter that has become the foundation of american foreign policy. as a result it underwent the greatest mobilization in history to that date. we as an isolationist country was big oceans and each side we were going to war, a country with an army the size of portugal was now going to send 2 million in overseas we're talking of of the romantic ocean in america went to war in as a result they merge as a first

great modern superpower as the military industrial complex. wilson's main reason with all sorts of chapters in the book but the main reason i believe he sent us into this for he believed we could be a part of the peace and dictate the peace and came up with 14 points to describe that. the 14th was the most crucial the creation of the league of nations. in international parliament that countries could gather together to set the same table like a dream there they could diplomatically iron out differences before they exploded.

it was idealistic it was a noble ocean. but it was politics in the real deal. no reason not to do this. when prairie reason it did not woodrow wilson went to paris to negotiate the peace and was gone six months. let me rephrase that. woodrow wilson was gone for six months. the president of united states left december 1918 until july 19191 quick trip was in between a that was it. he came home with the treaty that was not perfect he knew was flawed but one thing it incorporated the league of nations.

here is the hitch as all of you know, no matter what that is fine but the senate has to ratify it he returned to the extremely republican senate and they wanted no part of it. i found doing research that while wilson was a way they were determined not to expect anything that wilson came home with and that proved to be the case. i don't want to diminish a genuine belief this was not a good treaty are not a good idea to have a league of nations because also had attached collective security

if there was a violation against one nation all of us would chip in to fight to. that still happens to this day. realizing he was getting nowhere with the senate embarked the greatest political mission of president has ever a undergone. here he decided to take disguise to bring it to the people to circumvent the senate with a 29 city tour around the country. this was the first time a president, sold himself but not for personal and

aggrandizement but to sacrifice his life literally to sell the people on an idea. or as wilson just corrected me on the idea. that is what he wanted for the country. something that i track in great detail wilson collapsed in the middle of the two were they rushed him home days later he suffered a stroke and now begins what i call another superlative the greatest conspiracy of white house history because the second mrs. wilson the first died after one year in office in trudy breaking the president's heart, he really suffered a major depression. combative ted to fight the war but now in 1919 the

second mrs. wilson and a handful of doctors conspired to keep from the united states, from the world, the fact the president of the united states had suffered a stroke. for the last year-and-a-half of his second term virtually nobody saw the president of united states. indeed every document that entered the white house that he did presidential approval , every decision come every person who may be granted an audience had to pass through mrs. wilson as a young attractive widow whose family ran a jewelry store. she had no political experience in very little education but arguably she

became the first female president of united states. certainly acting at least as chief of staff plywood's say a very fortified status. wilson left the white house with the exception of those assassinated the latest data ever in then suffered painfully tragic final three years the only president to remain in washington d.c. after his white house years. there is almost a magical inspiration and to his life which is his final years each afternoon to take a drive with his wife and the

chauffeur with a handful of people just to see him more and more people would come to the house to pay a poker rich sometimes 200 people on veterans day there were 10,000. the next year there were 20,000. people come from all over the world just to see the house which i urge you to visit open most days of the week. but i want to leave a motive for a question but we are not put into this world to sit still and know we're put in it to act in he gave every ounce of his being to make that come true and i hope all of you will take a moment to sit still perhaps nobody will know more and

perhaps he will help to spread the word about him. thank you very much. [applause] think you. >> ag for your presentation. i want to ask you of his 14 points no reading how they felt about it id with a stated was give wilson in the 14th point of the league of nations we can get anything we want with the initial 13 points that

wilson basically sacrificed in order to feed his audience. >> that is a valid question. but if you go to the points he did not sacrifice 13. certainly the essence or most of them are incorporated in the treaty. there are a few there is no question about it. maybe in retrospect but at the time everything seemed quite believable when wilson went over there he thought it could be manageable. he said it was asserted that perhaps wilson was duped in he did not know the extent of the alliance to end. i don't believe that.

you will see in the book he is quite a savvy am perfectly aware what they're doing. here is the big problem he encountered in paris. they were sitting at the table with 24 other nations. each had a very specific agenda to gain more territory and treasurer. wilson arrives to did not he was not there to build an empire but you have won super natural -- super national goal so as a result some may say that he really did not go wind with a bag in maybe we should have controlled more of the world they he did not operate that way. but in the event you will

see yet the very least disparate in denying add a 14th the fax of them are there. but it is certainly a fair question that will be debated forever. >> what do you think of the autobiography of thomas marshall who was wilson's vice president? >> that is a fascinating question. marshall, who was from india a great favorite son of indiana, but the answer the question of the autobiography. his name only appear as a handful of times which is interesting for the vice president. at the same time he was seldom even in the white house during the wilson years.

i will now dine out on the story i knew alice roosevelt for the last 10 years of her life i used to go up to her house on massachusetts avenue to have tea and she loved to have me over because i love woodrow wilson in she lowe's tim said she would ridiculed me for two hours. i was in my early 20s she was in her early eighties. i was this mouse in the cat's paws. she claims so assertively i know it is not true. [laughter] but it is a great story but she claims when they finally did break weeks later that the president had suffered a stroke that vice president marshall fainted.

true or not he was probably ill equipped. and gas, and this goes back to why i call it a conspiracy because who is to say this man would not have become harry truman or they he may not have risen to something in this was a decision arbitrer lee made by mrs. wilson and the doctor. and as a result we now have a 25th amendment of the constitution that details presidential disability. spin he was the first southerner to become president since the civil war not only the south but the deep south during the era when the klan is in the ascendancy in redeemer politics is widespread so

good you say a few words how race and racism affected will send thinking in behavior? >> i am glad you asked that. it is not all pretty. this is not the prettiest also the alien in sedition act to and prettiest as wilson was extremely regressive about it must not be forgotten wilson did introduce jim crow, he did segregate the post office in the treasury which in essence sanctioned segregation it deemed it was important to do is reduce blood dash goes back to somebody who grew up in the deep southern society during the war in before a and this is what he hinders stood.

with that being said no matter what period context that being said i don't think he was a very island to racist 17 key hated african-americans. he only had hatred for a few individuals but the way i laid out and he really did believe the country simply was not ready to integrate. he said more than once it will take degeneration or two before the country can deal with that problem putting in the mid 1850's that may be exactly who was on his calendar. that being said ditties slow

the process because desegregated the city and government offices? probably a good bet i would say he simply didn't want to the revolution that did occur to occur on his watch. one more political point is in here we must end i am told, that will send realized that he needed the complete backing of the democratic party that fast block of the one-third of the senate's which were southern democrats. in those and ultimately pass on the backs of the african-americans of this country. thank you very much. [applause]

>> live coverage john booktv of the national book festival, the 13th the annual festival featuring a. scott berg his most recent book "wilson" will be joining us next to the tent in about two minutes to take your calls. this is the 13 d annual national book festival of first one held in 2001 the year of the mall between the capital in the washington monument to this is our

16th year on year we will take your calls and asking the questions we will start with washington and. >> caller: date you for taking my call. i will ask in his biography he cites the eugene smith book entitled big is he aware professional historians have criticized that book riddled with inaccuracies? it in light of cooper's recent biography why would i want to read his biography he is a career ed john milton cooper professional

historian and an expert don wilson. >> host: we will ask him that when he gets settled in another call from princeton and new jersey. >> caller: how were you? i am curious did mrs. wilson speak about her husband's will send progress and she lived many years after his death the end to vice president marshall what did he think what happened with the cover-up in his later years? >> host: take you so much now on our set is the author of "wilson" a. scott berg thank you for being with us while we were waiting we took a couple calls.

this second was from new jersey and he wanted to know more whether he did in her later years talk about his illness and the time that was running the country. >> basically she talked about her illness privates the -- privately she became a society woman said democrats would bring her out and i will just add as a great little moment in history in 1961 when jfk was inaugurated there in the third row was a little baby that nobody knew but it was mrs. woodrow wilson. she talked about it but not about her role but how horrible it was for woodrow wilson to go run the country when he physically was not

able to do that mostly henry cabot lodge the leader of the republican opposition trevor blamed him to wage that fight. >> host: the other question with vice president marshall what he thought about the stroke. >> he remained pretty silent not only the stroke but woodrow wilson as i just mentioned, he wrote a memoir hundreds of pages haiti is barely a character you have to go looking for the president of the united states. >> host: the other call was from washington he said you referenced smith's book in he said the you know, if that was riddled with inaccuracies?

>> yes. it is putting captures the spirit. and f-15 i did not know what was riddled with inaccuracies will narrow my book i basically don't rely on anything but a primary sources of his book was not there as a reference book but something that i felt then instill to capture the spirit of this man at least to make a 15 year-old feel like to read more about john milton cooper what your thoughts? >> he is a great wilson scholar and has written many books he wrote a biography a few years ago which i must confess i did not read because i was deep in the middle of writing my own and i only use primary sources. above all i did not want to

be influenced in any way by his book. i will confess i did not pick up his book when it came about because i already had in my mind the opening and closing of my book i wanted to make sure he didn't and i was relieved it was nothing close. so eyestalks with what i thought was a dramatic opening. >> host: here is the cover the next call is from michael. you are on booktv. >> caller: i will ask my question then take it half -- take off here the area of segregation further rise in fall of the ottoman empire

and the influences of the islamic world affecting the backdrop that the time. >> data know where to begin i would start wilson in-house was a devout christian this is a man who read his bible every night you said grace before every meal. also being the son and grandson of christianity ministers a was a huge part of his life. the african-american situation is better defined i never came across anything that i read any anti-muslim

sentiment but that being said i didn't feel any negro as it was called then on his party there. if you looked at him 100 years later there is no question he was a racist in the white house but in 1913 he was a centrist. a period that klansman proudly sat on the supreme court set in the united states congress in woodrow wilson was attacked double sides does not do too much for the black man why are you even appointing him to positions of authority? and attacked by the northern the brawl saying why are you doing enough for these human being sources since of yours? i think the greatest betrayal of african-americans by woodrow wilson came after world

war i. i was reading "time" magazine and remember something about the black soldiers coming back from world war ii have they thought this would be a real moment for them to change their status having given their lives in shed their blood is a moment to be recognized as full blooded americans. that same sentiment was expressed after world war i wear black american soldiers went off to war, died in then to think this to be a great moment of integration and it was not. with the alien is sedition

act being acted. there was the worst single year of race relations in the united states. there was so much bloodshed in the summer of the riots. >> host: montana. good morning. >> caller: when he went on his tour around the country to sell the league of nations did he come to montana? >> guest: he did. he went to helena. when they put the two were together they deliberately selected the western states because not only did woodrow wilson to will bear but he did well for a reason that

is where the most progressive thought was coming from. the old-fashioned thinking came from the east most like the bankers but he thought by going out west he would talk to people who had the american spirit that there is something better out west. and with each city he found increasing support and i really believe that before he collapsed he really was turning the hearts and minds of the united states but i believe a lot of senate votes would have changed because of that. . .

>> she tragically doesn't live to see the rose garden completed, however. she is dying in the summer of 1914. she is wheeled out into the space outside in her wheelchair and she watches the gardeners work but she doesn't live to see

the completion of this vision she had for roses blooming at the white house. >> meet the first and second wife of president woodrow wilson tonight live at nine eastern on c-span and c-span3. also on c-span radio and c-span.org. >> now on booktv, robert wilson recounts the life of civil war era photographer mathew brady. the author reports that the civil war, the first work to provide a photographic history, was thoroughly covered by brady and his team of photographers, who took over 10,000 photos. this is a little under one hour. >> thank you, bradley. it's a great honor to be in this bookstore, the city of institutions. this is one of the great ones. and it's so wonderful to see it thriving