>> i think you all for coming on behalf of the manhattan institute. thank you. >> you're watching book tv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. here is our prime time lineup for tonight.

>> recounting the life of a late entrepreneur who financed housing projects throughout the world and championed privatization and limited government. this is about half an hour. >> hi, everybody. thank you, harvey. thank you, gail, they said everybody for coming today. tell wave that figure at me. [laughter] it makes me a little crazy.

it's enthusiastic, and that's good. i wanted to think rv. he really was a reporter's dream he was always available when i came to talk to him. he had a great memory. except in the end bonito me like to bucks. what to think patty brown. this is really the big show in which a top. everyone says, you're going to rotary. you're going to rotary. so i'm here at the big show and happy to be here, let me tell you. special guests today. i want to thank them a great deal the publishers of this book. i appreciate the hard work. i know the effort they made to be with us today. thank you. and thanks to the front row here. ever supportive, always supportive and tell me that i could do it even when it seemed like gutted not want to anymore.

and it came to be. i'm happy to share some of it with you today. from massachusetts rotary. it's about 5 miles north. as it turned out, the population is about 55,000. when i was writing this book i subleased a ten by ten office space from a local architect who was in fact a one-term rotary president and now signing up for a second term. he told me before i came in and told them i was coming to speak to one of the most prestigious and oldest and certainly friendliest rotary's in wichita, may be bigger he said, keep it short. these people around the lunch break. [laughter] but i did hear an awful lot. i'm glad to hear you guys don't sign each other. sure did not know how to keep the short. i think some of you in toward

that. he was a faithful rotarian for more than 50 years. this was his club. he joined in 1950, and you can usually find in here without fail on monday. if he was out of town they often made it a point to visit with the rotary clubs like we have today. different cities in the united states. they claim -- it became clear. i have two books of features. he gave an awful lot of speeches here robbery this group gave him the service above self award, and it was something i know that meant a lot to him and his family members that are here today. i want to get an idea of who i am dealing with peaches for kicks, how many have you thought you ? okay. that's a good crowd. i came to find out that he was many things to many people. the book try to capture some of his many facets of this epic life.

he epic ambitions and epic achievements i did not know how to describe it. so involved in so many different facets of business of life. i needed to move to enter history. in the book we learn about the pioneering spirit of his ancestors, the ranks of the great depression, and the dirty 30's era known. he talks about the uncertainties of war on the family and its community in the communist scare of the mid-20s century among other things. so this book is really not only a story of his life but an

american story. it is seen through the eyes of an independent campus entrepreneur. now, he came from some pretty good stock. he was the oldest sun and a second of four children born to re and ellen kirby. in the kansas business hall of fame out in topeka. they had their own fascinating histories, and a touch upon some of that in the book. willis started his life may live for eight years in colby, kan., about 290 miles north and west of here. and where his father launched a massive week and farming business. in 1928 mostly at the urging of all of their rig about the family here to wichita. all of the children needed better schooling and more of an urban environment. he came here in 1928, stay here, raised his family here, and died

here in 2002. he likes to say that he left wichita because it was the furthest he could get from both coasts. some of you might feel that way. but it was his love for this community and the impact he had here and elsewhere that went well beyond. petroleum ink, garbage international and nevada first to name a few. but he called himself a builder. if you look around town you concede that he did just that. he began building small world war ii brick homes the ec. returning veterans. he went on to build bigger developments at least eight commercial properties like parkway which was one of the first shopping plazas in wichita . and the late 1980's he had a vision or maybe he was crazy

enough to build the epicenter, downtown is tallest building in the hopes that it will become a beacon for downtown revitalization. he lost the building and something like $5 million in the process of two years after it was built. he never regretted building the project. in northern nevada where i first ran across them working in my first newspaper job right and of college, that's another story. willard was a rancher who spoke out against the bureau of land management. in the bill the state's largest private dam and reservoir creating a valuable resource in the process. it's really a beautiful place today. he dabbled in the newspaper and television business and a host of other investments the crab is a tension along the way including something like the flour mill in trinidad

he launched a project called world home. an innovative oversees housing project. and what he wanted to do their committee felt that if you meet people capitalists you would help ford communism. he set out to ms. brown's matta was to make every man a capitalist and every man of honor . an amazing collection of the world's tom's. storm and a salt mine. it was just an amazing resource. amelie used a few examples of it to try to show some of the things he was going toward. willard r. b. was an employer, but not always an easy man to work for.

a philanthropist, a strict father for a commanding grandfather. he was most certainly a devoted husband who would check in with his beautiful wife every day at 530 of his way home from work to see if she needed anything for him to pick up on a whale. some vehemently disagreed with his anti-government views and watch the other way when this time coming. it never worked. [laughter] others saw him as a profit-sharing businessman who criticize government it welcomed federal money to programs that would support his projects. what will it would say in response to that which is what his father race said is we operate under the program, we don't start it. newspaper readers man also cringe when they saw his cox -- caustic letters to the editor of

the socialist public schools in the regions to support and lost to private schools here in town, one collegiate and later the independent school. in his front yard. i was just out there, and they have a beautiful new football field getting closer and closer and closer. is just a beautiful thing. but he was never too busy for wichita. he headed up campaigns to stop bond issues for public projects such as the new jail, and he fought any and all the taxes. most news stories about his efforts began with the words billionaire willard derby is opposing or proposing. but to others he epitomized the spirit of kansas. he was a true entrepreneur who can spit out ideas rapid-fire. but a fish farm that the grain elevators.

even the catcher. the executives said to me, will it has 10,000 more ideas in the time he had to put them into action. there was another story that bob page told me. agassi had to introduce himself to a group of people once and he said my job each month is to prepare your 31 ideas that will occur be his turn out and carry the 29 of them. that. [laughter] this guy was like -- but he wanted his best ideas to come back to wichita. he wanted to make a model city to be admired and imitated by communities elsewhere as the best place to work, raise a family, and enjoy life. so whether he'd love to read, there was a lawyer about him, and i try to provide a sampling

of it in the book. and many people knew that billy was an avid swimmer, a great contributor to a ymca program and helped start the wichita swim club. will it was actually at championships, who swam competitively while in london during world war two. every day in his 80's. so if we were going to say back to the forest campanology instead of ron, forest, jen command would be swim, willard,. there would be stories of bathing suits and briefcases. he was an exhaustive traveler with the influential friends the beaches and the layers of wichita aviation. parents and friends of people in

this very room. he likes to talk about people in the places he had been, and cleaned the exclusive bohemian club in california. he ran around talking with everyone. he loved to brag about the people that he meant. and from the stories i heard he was a downright hazardous driver and definitely a worse pilot. i thought about a title why stop at red because apparently red lights and will it did not really agree. [laughter] i am sure i will hear some stories after this. but he was a fantastic gambler who once landed himself in a pool after one too many aesir and steps goes to the edge. he went home to and changed into a new taxi appointing the other guests of the party to assume that he was the only man in town with two texas.

i was not sure the store was really true. i told that at though meeting and someone said, was at that party. and last night, she was at home the night he came screeching through the front steps. did not say anything. changing the tax. but they're sure was a lot to remember. the fast-talking fellow in the back gate dozens of speeches over the years and later stood up under the guise of asking the speaker question and then going on and on and on and on. and always about the same thing. reminded me of this, slant down in his chair here is a sample of a sound bite from one of his talks to this very wichita club. it should sound familiar to those of you followed him.

[inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> here is the thing. that was from 1969. that was 44 years ago. he likes to say that he was a voice in the wilderness and it took the rest of the world that long to catch up. in order to write the story of

the man i really didn't know when to start here in kansas. here i found a romance that was very different from what i found in the dusty desert where first met him when i came to know is daughter and later all the members of the family. it was a romance. i came to kansas again and again and again to talk with some of you. sunland passed on. people we have -- architect said pratt, prolific historian. will it sister. of course jean and i was so happy to get there voices down. but with the strike came to find the wind that blows incessantly along with the freight trains before they built the overpass

in the sight of that mile long grain elevator. on one of these trips up to this house a friend and i under if the collection of letters that will head stayed in a truck somewhere. from world war ii, letters from as high school days. you know, we found them in his home, and it turned out to be an amazing resource. turned up to be a glimpse not only of a young man pushed into a bill world war of really a window into his parents' pain and worry and longing for a child of war in a city coping to deal with the exodus of him and. and i have a reading. by august of 1942 when it was promoted to first lieutenant go through like eagle scout's

congratulate him on a promotion. i think you have the temperament , ability, and ambition to be a fine officer and soldier. there were not easy words to write even though i knew them to be true. easier for re to write about the little duplexes and 56 houses of the 20 fourplexes is completed. with so much effort and materials being diverted to the war, the problem was getting quite critical. plenty of carpenters but only 34 laborers. materials and utilities, particularly water lines are hard to get. it gets more difficult all the time. since the war was taking all the young man, those left behind were either too old and young. but as his departure drew near, he swallowed hard before letting his son, you mentioned once but

perhaps you ought to make a well. of sending a couple of forms in case you wish to do it now. if you wish to send it tell we could put it in the family safety deposit box. he signed off like he did so many of his letters with best wishes sincerely pop. so many beautiful examples of the motions coming out. very slowly in the way that the kid. the army was really the place where he got his first taste of bureaucracy, and i think it affected and for most of his life. [laughter] i'm glad you after that. so i have on one of his letters back to his mother. typical lot of tests. an administrator. he would write that he was unhappy in did not like it. he wrote to his parents about this charisma with the bureaucracy and this continued restlessness over is job. here redeveloped his animosity for wanting government spending.

someone in the government to look at at 90%. those parasites herself generating. so he was saying it when he was in his 20's. after the war he came back to wichita and married jean pierre recall that his best partnership ever. the romance was well documented around town. gene get fixed up with willard of blind date and saw him in his uniform, major would get out of the work. to set her heart skips a beat. it went out on a date in the city was the most fantastic cancer she had never seen and they started talking about marriage in the second date. in gene will it found the perfect partner. friends and family say she was the one who suffered so many of his rough edges, charges belligerence and patients to his fuehrer, attended family business meetings and came to understand the inner workings of the successful garvey companies,

it involved in a host of community projects and respected their husbands energy and enthusiasm of every step of the way. it was jean, observers say, often made with more tolerable. [laughter] in loaded he found a good looking and athletic man who idolized his parents, valued his siblings command believed in american production and liberty. also reliable. after a day of roughing of people in the office, floating a dozen new ideas, barking out challenges of the cost of materials will it would call seen every evening at 530 to ask him if she needed in to pick up anything on the way home. he would come in and give her a big smooch and it would have dinner together every night. a beautiful partnership in many, many ways. sure he made a lot of money, but it was not always motivated by profit. his ability of with the bottom

line was a small detail that used to make his father and siblings kind of angry. we learn about that and that the chapter about world homes. he lost millions on an overseas housing project a took great pride in having to no people have affordable housing in peru and places like that. he build a neighborhood in lima. there's a plaque dedicated to him for providing housing to people in that community. gene got to see it. c-span2 on the trip. they gave her little reception there. the architect, a delightful man at age 90. because he had to build. he had to build. and he may have been an international businessman, but wichita was where he chose to make the difference.

he did his most influential work in this city. if you resolve the problems where you are, if each person will help their neighbors of the goals were he is kamal problems disappear because they're solved . he said, i can look down at city hall from the sidewalk. again. but he also offered solutions. something we don't see today, i don't think. here's a guy that he was dissatisfied that he came up with an alternative. he did not want an issue. he felt the proposal was too

expensive. he urged voters to turn it down because he said he could build a different design for much less. we hear of many people taking the time to do that kind of thing? here is another example of one of willis longstanding ideas, one in which many people may agree with today. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> so back up his arguments for

statistics and figures that could turn your head around. i watched the debate. the sunday morning thing. trigon numbers. you know, can say this not the money in that amount of money. real slow about ten times if i could hear what he was saying. and from that speech we heard in 1969 to a long winded questions the some of your endured, he never give up this fight against the governor. cnn will it lead to the museum. offered a chance to play reporter in front of the white house backdrop. ♪

♪ ♪ [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> they even cut him off, right? ready to go for another 20 minutes. that was the fun thing to find. he was hard-charging up until about a year before he died he launched the school of law in lost the present college school of law, an idea that he first ran in the 60's to get business people a better understanding of the law. he helped build. he started that and then ran into financial trouble. after a past. it's no regard the institute of law. he ran in to dixie. so excited over there in this program. it's another thing that will lead put his mark on. of course the football field to looking beautiful. he never really stopped building even up to his last days.

this seventh term republican mayor certainly wasted his share in person and in print as evidenced in one of his last letters to the editor, a volume of which could be written in a book. why does wichita mayor bob knight as the person responsible and accountable for city all confirm again and again the city was a cheap. protests over the plan for a new downtown tax district. we did not agree on a sentimental political values. years after is death he believes both he and wichita have lost something significant. had enormous resources and he could have taken an easier path, noting that he purposely chose

to focus on the minutia of local government. the former mayor consumer called his voice meeting. ..