pretty thin but their experience in montana started getting towards the mountains, towards this ariane and that meant it is not going to be as easy as it had been even though they were pulling up river. they have to transport all the stuff out of the mountains in order to find that northwest passage. .. an island it is right in the mouth of this canyon and that's

where they're able to stop for the night. we always joke, yes, he gets to the gates of them out and it was dark and gloomy that he saw. if you're here today, look, it's a beautiful place, coaches. once they got in amounts they realized there goes all the game. we will not find nine beads of -- nine pounds of meat a day. we have to rely on our native american friends to find a meet and the trail. that was what both the indian tribes were very instrumental in helping them. they met sacajawea in present-day north dakota at a place called the knife river villages which is where the indians lives. she had been kidnapped from our birth tribe and brought to the villages where she was either traded or bought by a french trapper. she was married to a french

trapper when lois and clark came through, and since they're looking for translators and people to interpret, they looked at him and he looked at her as also equals, being of their interpreters as they traveled up the river. she would have been -- she delivered her son, i think it was february 11, 1805, and that would, i think he was like three months old when they started out and she carried him on her back the whole way. a lot of people, especially when it comes to having this young native american woman with them, are unfamiliar with the fact, a lot of times in history we condense things down to the simplest element, and a lot of people are raised thinking she's the one that pointed the way. she brought these white guys. what happened was she the action along for the journey. just by her shirt -- her sheer presence the other indian tribes would see her and the baby and

the dog and they would say this is not a war party. these people are doing something else. they are not coming here to start fights. just by her physical presence she was kind of a token of peace. there was a place over by bozeman where she identified a path that her people used, and she was able to say this is the way we went. captain clark called for my pilot at that point. there are instances where she recognized landforms and was able to take the captain, i'm recognizing this, we are in the land of my homeland. another place is done by beaver had rock. i like to say that her intelligence and her worthiness to the expedition was based on the fact that she paid close attention when they're sitting around a campfire with her people and they would be talking about we are going to go to where the bison are now, and we go by this route that goes by a big rock that looks like a beaver's head. she could've really been almost

a cartographer in her own right just because she remembered the stories and people would travel seasonally depending on if it was very ticking time or time to go hunt bison. they moved around according to where their food source would be. when she got down, that was all but the lesson because they stayed put. they were farmers. the women raised the crop so she knew a lot about plans from them. her worthiness i think it's a lot more complicated than people think. the misconceptions around lewis and clark are that they were friendly the whole time, that they always got along, that they were brothers in arms and they're always united. i think that there were times when lewis really tested the friendship of clark because he was kind of the more moody one, and clark was more the glue that held the expedition together. oftentimes lewis would be on the short gathering specimens are walking with his dog and hunting, where as clark was with

a man on the boat with the day-to-day orders and keeping them in proper form, and all those kinds of things. so these guys are really working hard. and also they were trying to know all this equipment, all these boats, basically the whole enlightenment up the river to get, to find the northwest passage. they were trying to do a job that one of the most brilliant leaders in our history ha have given them, had hand-picked basically these people to do. so they really did not want to let anybody down and i think that added to their cohesiveness. there was maybe one guy who just left the expedition. he went awol. but the rest of them, they were relying on each other and they really believed that if they remained a core unit that they would come upon and they would get that land grant and they would be able to tell all these

great stories. the important role that lewis and clark played in u.s. history was that they came out of every told jefferson what was out here. they were the surveys. they were the ones who took the notes, they gathered the specimen that tried to keep a list of the languages, the vocabularies of the native americans. they really were scientists, citizen scientists sent out to just get a count of everything that they sell. somethings like i said, ma the bison, you couldn't even count there were so many of them. but they wanted to come back and give their journals as a report to jefferson so that he could say, here's what we are going to encounter as our generations fill up the canvas, as he would say. here's what's out there, this amazing wealth resource. they were the ones that brought it back. they brought the report back, told jefferson yes, that purchase was worth it. >> booktv took a trip to helena to explore the history

and literary culture of montana's capital city. during our visit we sat down with nicholas vrooman whose book is "the whole country was...one robe: the little shell tribes of america." the little shell tribes, a fascinating group of people here in montana their official name is the little shell tribe of chippewa indians of montana. but actually that's a name that has come into formal use only in the 1970s as part of the way that this tribe deals with the federal government and their petition for federal recognition. they are a group of chippewa indians as their base, but they're really a poly ethnic group with the representing more of what was occurring on the northern plains in the 17th, 18th and 19th century as europeans came in on the east coast of the continent and moved

their way west. indians relocated, dislocated, and he married, confederated and became new people's. and so this group, the little shell tribe of chippewa indians, really is more complex than their name suggests. the upper missouri country that montana on this side of the divide, the eastern slopes that we are on right here, really the first on the federal government negotiate with the people who were already living here was in 1855 as part of the isa guy stephenson treaty to come to terms -- who was where so that the united states could assure safe passage for the northern route of the railroad coming through all the way from chicago to minneapolis to puget sound,

seattle. so there was a treaty in 1855, but that treaty was really not about land although the government afterwards used that information they gather to say who was where. the people who are the ancestral people of today's little shell tribes were party to that gathering. and rather than a negotiation, there really wasn't a negotiation for treaty rights. it was more, the native people telling the federal government we are here, they are over there, this is disputed land. so that the government got a sense this is where the blackfeet are, this is where the crowbar, the flathead are over on the other side of the divide, the shoshone are down south. and people got a chance to say this is our territory and their head chief, a man by the named

broken arm, signed as a quote unquote witness. but they weren't part in the eyes of the federal government, at least in subsequent years in interpreting what this treaty was about, they were not a party to the treaty. and that's because the treaty was really about all the land south of the missouri river, and most of the tribes, mixed heritage, they were north of the missouri river at that point. and what was supposed to occur was another treaty was supposed to take place. that degree would be treated in all the land north of the missouri river up to the canadian border, the 49th parallel, that those lands would

be considered along with the blackfeet and that would be assessed. the problem was the civil war occurred before that treaty could take place. and then after the civil war, the united states basically had had it with indians. so they didn't bother with any more treaties. so the creed, the confederacy sometimes called the -- and native term, that alliance of aboriginal peoples were never dealt with, and it just sort of was just left ignored. and then the united states went right into defining the border. and so by 1872-1874 was when these boundary commissions went along the 49th parallel actually putting the boundary markers on them. and how a nation defined itself,

it has to control its borders. and so the people who are living in that country with these ancestral little shell people, this poly ethnic group of people. and so all the people who were living there, and this group of people, because they weren't treated with the treaty, the blackfeet were on the reservation. the crow were on the reservation. the flathead were on the reservation. the shoshone were down in wyoming on the reservation. everybody else was on a reservation but this chippewa poly ethnic group of people, they want on a reservation. there was no treaty so they had to be ethnically cleansed from the territory. and that's basically from the early 1870s, there were a couple of examples in 1868 after the civil war, but really it started in earnest in the early

1870s all the way to 1896. there was an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing of this group of people from the border region. this modern group of people, they had towns. there were fully developed towns with blacksmith shops and schools and churches and framed buildings and logged buildings, and still people live in their skin lodges or the canvas tends and there was a mixture between the townspeople and the buffalo hunting people and they would maintain their winter ground. what i mean to say is there was a full developed society, a modern aboriginal society. troops would come in and they built the fort up on the high lines now we can't have her, man donna -- montana. is indian fort was built

specifically to clear in the ends from the border. most montanans are really unaware that there was this active campaign by the u.s. military, supported by the political establishment ride in and literally burn these villages to the ground, burned all of their possessions, and with troops, drive them over the border, or drive-in and dispersal so that they were not a cohesive community. these folks would come back and they would build their villages up again, and troops would come back and drive them out. it was really a great hardship. and after the buffalo went away, then what? where did the people had to go?

they weren't able to sustain themselves in their own communities. so they moved to wherever there was resources for them. and that means either working on trying to get work on the new cattle ranches that were developing at that point, and some did that. and so many a long highlight of montana all the way through the north dakota border from here, many of the small towns had enclave populations of little shell people to this day who got work on local ranches or agriculture work and stuff. but there were a lot of folks who were not able to find that, there were only so many kinds of jobs and they're still living in a band environment, and aboriginal band society. and the cohesiveness of those family relationships, they knew nothing else.

but they had to disperse because large populations couldn't live together. they are just what the resource for that so the family band would go off to places like helena, right here, right over here, or mozilla or buildings or great falls and to live on the outskirts of these newly forming anglo-american communities. they would pitch in lodges and other tense next to the dump and next to the slaughterhouses. and that's the resources that they have. these new committees, all of a sudden they started realizing, who are these vagabond poverty-stricken indians doing on the edges of our town? aren't indian supposed to be on reservation? what's the problem your?

who are these people? and they are 100 -- welcome in 1896, though do most americans no, on the other hand, most americans do know about the chinese exclusion act and what happened with oriental people in that american racism that occurred at the end of the 19th century. but precious few people ever heard of the creed deportation act, where congress passed in 1996 a creed deportation act. creek is the name that was given his poly ethnic group of people. they were referred to en masse as cree, and i really became, the cree was the language of the tribe during the 19th century. and was the main language that this poly ethnic group of people spoke along with multiple other languages, but the thing was cree were considered to be

canadian indians, although they had been here, documented since the 1600s. we have primary source accounts of the cree being in montana. so the congress passes the cree deportation act which was kind of the last who raw for the u.s. army of the american west where john j. pershing who became "blackjack" pershing the first five star jump and the mistakes during world war i was a young lieutenant up at the ford. those are all also soldier troops. those were all african-american troops that this one america lieutenant out of west point on his first assignment was leaving

to go all of in montana and literally round up, human round up of all the half breeds, all the vagabond life ridden garbage can indians down to great falls to helena, over to missoula, back across the divide, up the range to augusta, and literally rounded up and drove in the human cattle drive to great falls and placed these people on cattle cars, and on the railroads, shipped them up to canada and alberta just north of the border and dropped them off. the last group when it ran out of money they've forced march them on foot to the border. most of the folks in back. family groupings snuck back across the border and head along the front range here, and ended up back at the dump's in the same cycle because they had no other option.

and so that went on and that went on until 1916, that, that outrage, the white outrage about indians not been on reservations continued. but the fear of, the fear of indians was gone by 1914, 15, 16. wounded knee had happened, and all of a sudden we're in the progressive air in american history and all of a sudden there's a new compassion for the unfortunate. and indians are not the threat that they were in the 19th century, even in 1896 when the cree deportation act. so all of a sudden there's a different case on how to deal with these unwanted leftover displaced people living on the margins of these white

communities. and this time around, what was created for was no longer necessary, so it had been decommissioned and it was this military reservation sitting there, and the idea came around, well, let's create a new reservation, take care of these people. so in 1916, the rocky boy's reservation was created. rocky boy being one of the chiefs, the numerous banshees who comprise this larger group of quote unquote landless indians as we called them here in montana. that was good. that was good, but the problem was there weren't enough resources to take care of all of the landless indians. all of the displaced people unaccounted for through the

treaties in the 19th century. so a number of families, 570 families show up in box elder, the reservation and are taken in. but there are at least twice as many, if not three times as many people still left out of the settlement. those people left out of the settling in 1916 are who we today call the little shell tribe, chippewa indians of montana. so we have today with little shell tribe is a group of people that are directly related to the integrated history of the northern plains, but a cross between miscommunication and

misunderstanding and negligence had been left out of settling. there's another one that i'll add to that, just not enough money. at certain points in history of the u.s. government dealing with the little shell tribe, really up until and through world war ii they recognize the responsibility to deal with these landless indians of montana. the only reason they couldn't deal with them, and they understood this when the rocky boy reservation was created, but they didn't have enough money. congress wouldn't allocate indian affairs enough money to purchase more land so that more people could settle there. and so it really came down to congress, the ending in the barton said it's not our fault. we understand, he would love to deal with you, we would love you -- would love to give you a place to live but congress won't give us money and we can't lobby

congress. so it's one of these catch-22 situations. you see it all down the line where the indian department can't lobby the federal government for more funds, even though they understand that's what's necessary. and congress can't do it because they don't really understand the situation and their projects and their priorities are different than the indian situation. and it goes along, and the people end up just, everybody got used to the landless indians living in the enclave on the margins of montana communities, and living in poverty. and the people themselves got used to living in poverty as well, and so became a homeostasis. and if you just let it go, and didn't deal with it, if you ignore this, basically it wasn't there. and that's been the circumstance with the little shell, and

social people and the current situation. what we never talk about in this country, the foundational issue in the creation of the american nation is the dispossession of aboriginal people of the land and the genocide that occurred in that, in that event, the ongoing event that actually remains a current issue. the little shell people is one of those stories, because it happened right on our border. and it shows the ethnic cleansing that went in. it shows how we deal with nationalism. it shows how we deal with racism. because it is a quote unquote as we group of people. throughout the primary sources, many, many times along the way these are not indians. these are children of squaw men,

and that was a way the government didn't have to deal with the problem because they weren't indians. so this is one of the stories, and by reading the book, you see, it is a complex story but by moving through it, you date and -- you dive in and if you stay with it to the end to come out the other side, you come out, the complexities -- it is a path to the complexity that makes sense. you come to know that america is in all of its beauty its flaws and there are still places where we need to refine our society at our national identity. >> booktv took a trip to helena to explore the history and literate culture of

montana's capital city. this most recent stop on our city towards was hosted by our local cable partner charter. >> so we're standing here in the yard of the deer lodge state prison, which is today a museum. it was in use from 1871 until 1979. and it was originally a federal penitentiary that was established in 1871 the house federal prisoners but it housed not only federal prisoners but also territorial prisoners who were convicted in district cou court. and it was in use as a federal penitentiary in jail statehood in 1889, at which time the administration felt, the new state of montana. there was unfortunately no money to operate it, and so two guys formed a partnership and proposed that they would operate

the state facility as a private enterprise. and their offer was taken up and so it actually operated as a private business until 1909 when the state then did oversee the administration. frank conley became a very well known worden -- worden. is a very controversial figure but he did some good things at the prison but he also did some things that were maybe a little bit questionable. his main focus was to put men to work, and this was an idea that he had to convince the state that because there was no money to build a facility, the only thing that existed in 1889 was the old federal penitentiary building which is really nothing more than a brick shell. there was no heat, no lighting,

certainly no facilities of any kind. just a brick shell. it was really a terrible place to house prisoners. so under frank conley's regime, the first thing that he undertook was the convincing the state that he could use his contacts as laborers. so he hired a guy by the name of james mr. kelman it was a trained brick mason and stonemason to teach the prisoners how to construct things in brick and stone. the first thing that they undertook with the permission of the state was the construction of a wall around the facility. and so there was nothing but a board fence that had been built in 1875. the prison was notorious for a scabies. so it was very important to create this massive wall that stands today.

the theater was built as a donation from the son of the copper king in 1919 to it's interesting because warden conley and park had a symbiotic relationship where only used his prisoners to work in clark's mind and on his ranges. he had amassed a lot of property. and so in exchange for using the free labor of the convicts, clark endowed the prison with a library and paid for the instruments that equipped the men for a prison band. and he also then, later his son donated the cost of the theater. and the theater was built in 1919. and it was, again, designed by

the man who never do a plan but build it just from out of his head. it was equipped with a balcony so that the band could play for the men in the yard. but the interesting thing about the theater is at it was the first theater build in the united states within the confines of a prison facility. and it was not only for the benefit of the men but also for the benefit of the community. the matinees were for the men to attend, and the evening performances were open to the community. they showed movies here. they also showed, they have traveling troops became for broadway theatrical productions. it was a state of the art theater, seated about 1000. so it's very interesting that it was this prison facility but

also it was used by the community. and this was used as kunduz by warden conley as a reward for his men. connolly was removed from office in 1921 when joseph dixon became governor, and connolly was actually tried in court for misappropriation of state funds but he was found not guilty. but the theater continue to be used as a reward for the men. one thing that i learned about prison populations is that sometimes the men destroy the things that are most useful to them and most productive. and the prison was burned by an arsonist in about 1972. so the interior reflex that burned-out shell, and, unfortunately, the men destroyed the one reward that they actually had.

>> this is a 1912 the cellblock, and 1969 there was a riot that occurred when several prisoners confronted the authorities and after one employee was killed. it was a three-day standoff. a guy by the name of lee smart and jerry miles holed up in the power of your. the national guard was called in, and the national guard fired off to world war ii bazooka's. one of them hit the window. you can see the damage. the other one went far wide of its mark and went over the tower and into the neighborhood beyond. fortunately no one was killed. it made national news and people who are employed here were locked into building, and the facility for three days.

people outside the walls had loved ones working here, were terrified and had no idea what was going on until the standoff was over. and it actually ended when the two guys that were holed up in the tower committed suicide. one killed the other and then committed suicide. you are looking at the prison, and across the yard all the way across to this doorway is where the women's facility was built in 1908. until 1908, the women were housed in the facility with the men in various buildings, outbuildings. there was no female staff. there was no matron and to finally this facility was built and the state been hired and matrix to take care of the women prisoners. they were never very many women here. no more than half a dozen. and after 1959, after the riot,

this facility was converted to maximum security for the worst of the worst criminals that were housed in the prison. and the women were moved out of the men's facility for the very first time. you can only imagine how horrible it must of been for the women, because when they were housed within the courtyard where the men are, they simply couldn't even take fresh air because they could have no contact with the male prisoners, and there was no way for them to participate in any of the work opportunities in those early years. they could simply do nothing but sit in the place where they were incarcerated, and contemplate their crimes i guess. so the women, when they were moved into this facility, it was bad enough but it was certainly

better than being housed in the facility with the men. and even to get fear they had to come through the men's facility. so it really was a prison that was never meant for women, and till this particular building was built. the prison closed in 1979 to a new prison was built also in powell county, and the prisoners, last prisoners were moved to the new facility in 1979. there were about 270 prisoners left in the last years. the prison was, unfortunately, a very important facility because before the federal penitentiary was built here and the territorial days, it was very expensive to send a prisoner out of the territory. so it really make sense to have a facility where they could incarcerate people. but also i think it's sort of a

social commentary that there were bad guys here as well as good guys. we had to have a place to house those folks. today, this is a museum where you can come and to see the remnants of the territorial penitentiary. you can see the building sequence, and whenever i think quite a lot about montana's development. >> here from jim robbins next from booktv's recent visit to helena, montana, with help of our local cable partner charter. he is the author of "the man who planted trees," about a man who made the mission of trying to clone the oldest trees on the planet. >> a fellow that i met in 2001. i wrote a story about his group which was then called the champion tree project. i wrote a piece for the new york

times science section and it was about his efforts to clone the largest trees in the world, protect the genetic so that if he were to clone, say a redwood tree, he would take a branch and just make copies of it. cloning and copy. it doesn't mean tissue cloning necessarily. just means making copies. so you would take a branch and grow it or take many branches and growth and. so you would have multiple exact genetic duplicate of that tree and his plan was to take those copies and planted them around the world to protect the genetics in case something happened to the trees. he first started cloning trees in the mid 1990s, 95, 96. he was working in tucson. they would borrow a pickup truck from his dad and a printer and they would go out and then ask land owners permission to cut a

few cuttings from the tree and bring those cuttings back and grow copies of them. at the time when he first had this vision, and i call the division because that's how he describes it, he says he had a near-death experience back in the 1980s. he had serious medical problems and was taken to the hospital and then brought home and he said he died on his bed. he woke up one morning at 3 a.m. and was told to outline this project to protect the trees. the largest tree of every species. and these trees were going to be important to these are the survivors and when climate change really gets going, that these survivors will be the ones that will make it through, to comment the other side because they have spent two or 3000 years on the planet and they know how to survive. they bring these cuttings and they are like the side of the pencil and they scrape a little bit of bark off the bottom of the cutting, still alive and then they would've been in this little meeting meeting and they

get roots on them. so they take those and grow them until they are four or five feet tall, maybe dollar. they are called a whip. and then they take those and they will plant those in different places around the world. there are some planted in michigan, where he lives. they grow them in a greenhouse, that's where they started and then they take them and plant them from there. to our son has planted on michigan and there is places around the world. the only new forest that has planted is i think a five acres where they used old growth redwoods and sequoias. the reaction at the time was, gee, i wonder what this is about? some people said, well, we don't really need to do this. in fact, we probably can't do it because these trees are old trees and i wouldn't worry too much about it. anywhere people who said hey, this is a good idea. we should have copies of these trees. why not? if something happens and they die off, we will have the

genetics to study. and what did happen not long after i wrote the story was the wye oak in maryland, which was 400 years, giant white oak tree, had been there for many generations, it blew over and died. he had already cloned this street, and so they have copies of the wye oak and the replayed that oak tree now on the site of the original as well as other places. the story, the oldest trees in the world, between four and 5000 years old, and they are dying and they're all going to die, or most of them are found in california, utah, nevada, very high elevations. they survived that long because they hav have gone to places whe it's cold and inhospitable. well, it's not cold and inhospitable there anymore so disease can survive. there's an evasive or exotic species to come from other

countries, diseases mostly, and insects. and they just kind of came together in a perfect storm and they're killing them and they will kill all of them. and so this is what climate change does, is it does things that are unpredictable and it changes the soil, it changes the insects, it changes the diseases. and all those things together are wreaking havoc on trees. and then, of course, there all the things we've done to trees by fragmenting force, cutting down the biggest specimen for generations and generations, leaving the runs to perpetuate themselves. so we really destroyed a lot of the genetics on our own, and who comes climate change and acid rain which was the big thing in the '70s, and diseases and so on. it's the death of a thousand cuts for a lot of these trees. i think a lot of what he said about trees and what's going to happen is coming to pass. old growth covered 95% of the continent, which is what was

your when the europeans came. it's about 95% gone. the trees that were here, the trees that learned to survive are gone, and a lot of the trees now are not that old, 50, 60 years or 100 years old at the most except for the old growth trees mostly in california and a few other places. so most of the old growth is going. what's important old growth is they have the genetics of survivors. something called epigenetics, as a tree gets older it learns from those things, those problems, diseases and insects and things like that and it stores memory of those assaults and so that next time around it does better. they can resist those insects. it learns how to resist diseases, and they can pass those resistances onto trees around it which is an unusual nature of things. so that's why it's important to protect what's left and that's what he's doing owning the

largest tree, the oldest tree of every species. i think people do pay attention to what's happening to forced entries, especially as trees died all around the world. that's what we are seeing. the long list of trees that are disappearing. they don't pay as much attention as i think they should because again, one of the themes of the book is how little we know about trees and how important they really are. they are much more important than we think, and the problem is there's not much research been done, but they are particularly important as climate change gets worse. they will be important in cities. they can reduce the temperature in cities that are mostly asphalt and concrete by 10 degrees. they filter out air pollutants. studies show few admissions the emergency rooms for asthma when you have more robust tree canopy in urban areas. they filter water. they cleaned up toxic waste sites with the roots. the filter systems are actually.

the wildlife habitat, they host birds which birds eat insects and other things. so there's a whole bunch of ecological services that come from trees. so what was his reaction to the book? you know, i'm sure there are parts of it that he didn't like. he also knows he's lived a larger-than-life kind of life. and so he told me all the stories that are in it, and those are things that came from him. i did hear from some in his family who thought i wish i put that in there or that in there, but by and large he likes it. he's bought thousands of copies to hand out to this project and help promote what his work is. and although there are some things that he may be less than absolute proud of, i think the fact that he quit drinking and he's been doing this project and kind of wreaking himself in a lot of ways i think is very happy about that and very proud

of that fact. i think in the end that's what the book is about, it's about retention. and i think that this is one way that one person found a way to redeem himself. i think that's really the hopeful message in the book. i think it's important to say that this is a book about how. i think as much as we need trees, we need no. planting a tree is planted no. is hope for other generation but also something people can do that makes them feel good about themselves in something positi positive. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to hell in a montana and the many other cities visited by our local content vehicles go to c-span.org/localcontent. >> this fall booktv as marking our 15th anniversary on c-span2 by looking back at some other notable authors, books and news from the world of publishing. here's some headlines from 2007.

>> if someone is reading devise built entirely by amazon.com. it's for blogs, newspapers, magazines and, of course, books. today we have over 125,000 books available for kindle. the key is its wireless which means you can think of a book, downloaded within 6 60 seconds n you haven't and you can begin reading it where ever your. the entire book. >> what does that cost? >> most books are $9.99 or less. it's always less than the print book's big right negative 125,000 titles on amazon kindle

that? >> that's right. we had 90,000, so since november we been able to add enough to get up to 125,000 we've been working with publishers have been supporting us very strongly. >> some of the authors who passed away in 2007 included a syndicated columnist -- keep watching booktv all weekend as we look back at 15 years on c-span2. >> when i was in the fourth grade this little girl in my class got killed. i wanted to ask her to dance but i was too shy. i showed up at school that monday morning and randy was telling all about it. scott, did you hear about gene? she got killed in a car crashed

yesterday? a tractor-trailer hit among other both do. i didn't leave members because randy was always making up stuff like this. is always going on about how his dad lived in england. his deadlifting for another woman and never came back. he just kept going on about it. my mom saw it on the news last night, she said. not knowing what's going on and wonder whether it was true or not. it was true all right. found out later from our fourth grade teacher, after telling us she said that and put her head in her hands. we're supposed working on our spelling words. everybody stopped and watched a. she's that for a second as she started to cry. listen to her cry and thought hallelujah, we will have to do any work today. another girl started crying. she walked over and asked if she had to go to the bathroom. amy nodded her head, yes. ms. morgan went to the bathroom of the island over and said what's up with that? she doesn't even know what that

will but inside my head i was jealous because i wish i could be free. finally, ms. morgan was able to compose or so. she's i know this is ou is a hoe thing. i know the be a funeral tomorrow. you need permission forms if you wish to go. i will be calling each of your parents tonight. she said it is too much for anyone we could stay behind and they were show a move. someone raised their hand and said what movie? mrs. morgan said she did know. she thought maybe a superman movie. i was thinking superman or the funeral? supermen on the funeral? i picked superman. the next it seem like everyone else picked the funeral. dumb kids. i got all dressed up, church shoes. we watche watch from the windowy got on the school bus. on a couple of us who didn't go that day. me and a special needs grow. we wanted to go by since he always pooped his pants the teacher made up an excuse he couldn't go.

we sat and watched the movie and as part of me saying this is great. two days in a row we haven't done any work. after only watching have out of superman i really something important this was horrible. you could see the wires on crystal reef up in the air. all of a sudden this special needs a girl started crying. i said quite, they will turn off the movie. the movie was getting better. to make matters worse, i start snowing something. i turned to kevin and i said you proved your pants, didn't you? >> you can watch this and other programs on like that booktv.org. >> i am a firm believer in what they called the unauthorized biography. unauthorized does not mean and true. it means that you're doing it without the cooperation and blessing of your subject. and i do believe it's a

legitimate, wonderful way to cover history. especially public figures that have spent many, many years and millions of dollars creating their own image, until i think it's about will sometimes to go behind the. so usually i'm the one who's trying to get behind that and tell you what's going on. >> presidential history, political intrigue and american culture biographer kitty kelley said stanford calls and comments life for three hours begin at noon eastern today on tvs in depth on c-span2. >> the chaplain countless i wrote because i was worried that people in business, first of all, there are very few people in government have ever been in business because it's hard. it's easy for an academic to go into business. they can leave and come back to

the world. it's easy for a lawyer to go into government and then come out. it's very hard for a business person. if a small businessperson is their business and they have to be there. if you're in a larger corporation they get knocked off a letter and they are out. it's hard to reenter. as a result you people in business -- i'll admit it, confession is good for the soul, my wife tells me, but if you're in government looking at business, you understand it intellectually. but it's one dimensional. you don't have any idea what delay does if you're in government what government delay does the business. you don't have any idea what uncertainty does the business. you don't really feel the impact of the regulations. ice in my texan every year and a always add the letter, to whom it may concern, here are my

taxes. i want you to know, i haven't the vaguest idea if they are accurate. [laughter] i said, i went to college, you know, i've got average intelligence, and my wife went to college and she won't even read them because she knows she doesn't understand them. and i just want you to know that that's the case and i paid money to an account and hills become and i hope they are right. if you have a question, just give us a call last night -- [laughter] can you imagine this country with a lousy tax system like that? it's inexcusable. how many people here understand your taxes? let's see. i don't see many hands going up. but i wrote the chapter because i felt that i was in business and i know that a businessman has, in a large company, has

shareholders, customers and employees to their shareholders, customers and employs are all across the spectrum in political views and ideas in parties. and, therefore, business people are very reluctant to challenge the government, to criticize a government. they don't want to divide their stockholders or their employees or their shareholders. they also worry about the irs. they worry -- [laughter] welcome if you don't understand your taxes, you ought to worry. i worry. i mean, i know i don't know. they also, if you're in the pharmaceutical business like i was, you have the food and drug administration and how the security and exchange commission a all these alphabet regulatory organizations. and to the extent someone criticizes the government or challenges and approach they're

taking, they were that the government could be turned on them. and that is a mighty why this current irs thing is so critical because the american people don't want to feel that their government, it's their government, could be turned on them in a way that targets people. you can target one person, you can target someone else. it doesn't matter if you're liberal, conservative, republican or democrat. i think that's why that's so central. now, what i'd like to do is have sandy or somebody -- were are these people? do you have microphones? i think you do. i would be happy to respond to questions, as they say, and even answer some. and i'll do my best. and what you need to do i suppose is raise your hand and sandy will bring a mic.

i always hate to the first question. [laughter] anyone who pops up like a jack-in-the-box with the first question -- >> hello? >> scares me to death. >> boy, those lights are bright. make it a good one. i'm going to embarrass you if you don't. [laughter] >> here's what we will do, mr. secretary speak weight. someone will have to turn his mic on. you had the floor up there before, sandy. >> who passed the first question? okay. you've got it, okay. is your mic on? >> well, mr. secretary, i do have two quick questions -- >> no, no. and 81 in july. i do not, i do not need multiparty questions. [laughter] >> okay. >> its 17 but it's 10:15 in washington from were i flew in yesterday. single part questions. >> okay. spent but i mean feel free to go ahead.

[laughter] >> okay. first question is will you -- >> no, no. you only get one. [laughter] turn off his mic. [laughter] [applause] >> will you write a book or republicans called rumsfeld's that says that will not tax without doing a tax increase? now will not raise expenses without some sort of cut in the middle? i mean, i remember when i watched your interview on the letterman show you have suggested that there was a time in which our debt reached, i forget what was, like $100 billion or something like that and the world went crazy. >> i was there. it was in the presidency of lyndon baines johnson. i was a congressman and it was the first federal budget in our history that hit $100 billion. and everyone just gasped at the

thought. >> but now it doesn't seem like -- >> now we have a trillion dollar deficits. >> and it doesn't look like the republicans are helping us any, so will he write a book for them? >> well, let me say something about that. i think the republicans, you know, there are people all across the spectrum in both parties, but i was asked, i was speaking about my other book, known and unknown, at fort leavenworth, the military base, not the prison -- [laughter] and there were 1490 majors from mostly our country but from around the world to this big school there. and someone asked me, what's the biggest problem i worry about when i go to bed at night. and the answer was, american weakness. why do i say that?

i think the signal that's being sent out from this country is basically we are modeling american economy in europe, and it's a failed model. it doesn't work. there's no way you can have a deficits we have and the debt we are incurring without sending out a signal to the world that this country is not going to be what it was in the past. ..