from the 30th and will miami book fair on the campus of miami-dade campus a discussion with doris kearns goodwin author of "the bully pulpit" theodore roosevelt, william howard taft and the golden age of journalism and sub 15 -- a. scott berg, author of six -- "wilson." >> thank you for that great introduction and welcome to this great book fair now in its 30th year. let's hear it for at wardrobe and mitchell caplan.

[applause] doris kearns goodwin and scott heard it's wonderful to have you here and welcome to miami. this is our premier annual cultural events so it's great to have you here. you both have written books about presidents who are part of the progressive era. really, it was really started by eva roosevelt. of course he was affectionately known as teddy so doris kearns goodwin how did he start the progressive era and what propelled him to act? and what were his successes that are still with us today? >> i may indeed call him teddy even though he didn't like to be called teddy that but i think he has lost that data with history so teddy roosevelt came into power at a time when really the aspects of the industrial age had not been dealt with since the civil war. there was no real worker's compensation. women and children were exploited in the factories. huge monopolies were heating up, the gap to train the rich and

the poor had grown wider sounded familiar to situations of today. additional revolution may have produced an economic change. even though he was a conservative when he started in certain sense and certainly a republican when he started he realized republican party would not able to continue as a major force and a majority for some less it began to deal with these problems of the industrial age. even as governor he tried to introduce legislation angering the political bosses. of course mckinley is assassinated and he becomes president. it's not really that he did it on his son. he understood that the only way he could move his reluctant congress to take a legislation that was necessary was to mobilize the country to push them from the outside in so that's why he defined the word bully pulpit as the president's power, to educate on morally

move the country forward but he needed help and he had help from the press at that time. the most remarkable set of relationships with the press and they too have their own agenda as did the social settlement groups. there really wasn't up rising from the country at large to know that something had to happen. he was at the helm so his name will forever be identified with the progressive era. i taught a seminar on him and the progressive era and i was lot wanted to live with him. finally after all of these characters i got a chance to be with his most colorful exacerbating extraordinary figure. sometimes i wonder what i'm doing spending by life with dead presidents but i wouldn't change it for anything in the world. [applause] >> scott we are going to get to you but let's continue in chronological order. taft came in and you decided to include taft in your book as well. how did they become close? there were 400 letters between them. how did they become less and how

did the rift have been? >> i didn't know that much about taft. i needed to follow the progressive movement up to the time when his guide beats these two. so i knew of course that taft had succeeded teddy and they'd run against each other 1912 but then you always go back and i know scott is too mad. you want the primary sources of letters and diaries and private journals so when i found these 400 letters between the two i realized they had become friends in their early 30s. an odd couple. teddy is marching around everywhere doing wrestling in doxing and taft of course weighing between 250 and 350 is not doing much wrestling or boxing at that point that they liked each other. the opposites almost attracted so teddy brings him into his cabinet and becomes the most important person in his cabinet even though all of this life taft just wanted to be a judge never a politician. he decides this is the man i want to succeed me. he runs caps campaign, gives him

advice at every moment. the only thing he didn't give them advice on was his campaign song which i don't think teddy would have approved of a cousin was get on a raft with taft. if you gone on a raft with a traded -- three and 40-pound taffy wouldn't be on the raft very long. [laughter] teddy goes to africa to give them space and he comes back from africa and he's been told by his progressive that taft has become too much and coziness with the old guard of republicans in the congress. it really wasn't that because he did try to do what he thought it was doing but he didn't have the skills of the public leader. he did did not detail of the press and did not give a speech so teddy decided because the progressives wanted him to run against taft in a brutal campaign in 1912 and of course because there are two republicans running one in the republican nomination that taft wins and then of course roosevelt runs on a third-party campaign opening the door for the democrat to win.

what was so emotionally moving for me was the heartbreak when they broke was much greater than i realize because the friendship ended stronger. i love writing about emotional thing so it allowed to be much more than a straight linear story. >> scott berg woodrow wilson came to the picture and he was elected. talk about that a little bit trades be woodrow wilson went back to progressivism big time taking the foundation. roosevelt, not teddy took woodrow wilson out but really built upon it and what wilson wanted to do and it's kind of ironic as most people's image of wilson is of this very presbyterian minister son. that in fact he was extremely human. he was extremely emotional and very passionate and what he wanted to do above all was to humanize the presidency. so where theodore roosevelt had created this relationship with

the press, woodrow wilson really wanted to advance fat and what he did was he started holding press conferences which a president had never done before. everything he did was toward personalizing the white house and toward that end, wilson came in with really the most aggressive and progressive agenda that we have seen. he brought it about largely through this process of humanization and he did it by showing up in the congress. wilson had an extremely peculiar view of how the legislative branch and the executive branch should function. he thought, being a political scientist, that these two branches and now get ready, you've got to work with me on this. he thought they should cooperate. [laughter] [applause] it's bigger than that. he thought literally they should

cooperate the cover so wilson did something presidents have not done since john adams in 1800. he showed up in congress to conduct business. he brought out the president appearing to deliver deliver the state of the union address. woodrow wilson delivered 25 addresses to joint sessions of congress and he actually showed up in a little room that sits in the congress, which was designed for presidents to come and work with the congress. now i think a lot of presidents have failed to find this room. i'm not naming anyone. but i think they have failed to find it existed as a rather tricky name. it's called the president's room. [laughter] >> lbj found it. >> yes, he didn't really he

founded big time. that why so much legislation got past i think. these were guys and johnson was in many ways in the wilsonian tradition of getting in there, rolling up your sleeves and navy cracking a few legs and arms and twisting them and that is what wilson did. with that, we immediately saw in the first few months of the wilson administration the lowering of tariffs, the introduction of the modern income tax which had a graduated scale so the rich are paid more. we saw the establishment of the federal reserve system which has been basically the basis of the american economy for the last century. he went into eight overworked days, worker's compensation and so forth. he heard the first jewish man on the supreme court.

he was not anti-wealth, he was not anti-wall street but he was antitrust. he was against unfair competition and anywhere he saw it he tried to fight it. >> so you have both alluded to the fact that there are a lot of parallels between today and those times. are we in another gilded age? >> i do think one of the things that produce that great gap between the rich and the poor at the turn of the 20th century was as i said the whole economy had shifted. it used to be that if you are living in some country town, the richest person might be the doctor or a lawyer on the house on the hill and suddenly with these massive trusts forming the big railroad spanning the country and the oil industry coming, it you have these millionaires side-by-side with the immigrants and their tenement slums. at the turn-of-the-century the pace of life that sped up and because you had telegraphed replacing letters and local

horrors exploited in the tablet press. people were saying there were a lot of nervous disorders because the pace of life has so sped up. think about it today with the pace of life speeding up even more. the problem is i think yes we are in some ways in another gilded age but that progressive era that mobilization of the country to handle these problems has not seemingly emerged. so as a result i'm not sure "the bully pulpit" has the power it did. in both wilson's time in teddy's time when they would give a speech it would become the common conversation in the country and it would be reported in full even by the time that fdr went on his fireside chats. he could hear 80% of the people would listen to his chats. saul bellow said you could walk down the street on a chicago night and not sure if what they were saying because everyone was listening to the radio. primarily you would listen to

the whole speech. now the network is divided. the national newspapers came at my time, the turn of 20th century. even sometimes when i'm writing checks i am writing 1913 instead of 2013. the national newspapers have emerged in the early 20th century replacing partisan press. in the old days you would only read your newspaper if you are republican or democrat. lincoln gave a great speech that was carried out on the shoulders of his people and the democratic news he fell on the ground and he bade ludham and histamine in the same speech. national newspapers and radio and television here we are again divided media. you only hear a part of the president's speech. her attention span has so diminished. the guys that wrote about them in the magazine were given two

years to write a the thousand word thesis month after month and people read them and talked about them. i'm just not sure that anybody would be given that amount of time by newspaper or magazine today and expense accounts they had and the camaraderie they had and the attention span to talk about it. so i worry about where the country is going in terms of our influence on the government. mcclure, the guy who ran at one point said there's no one left but all of us and sometimes i think that's true for a stu. where are we? we just complain about what's going on a motion family of an ticket out how to do some about the paralysis that is there. >> yes think the fragmentation of the media is only going to continue because people make up their own media all the time. the social media and the fact free media. that is happening all over the place.

scott berg how is president wilson treated by the media? >> was treated pretty well by the media especially by theite tarbell's and ray sanders they are. >> i love baker. he was my favorite. >> he spent his final years not only working for wilson but an 8-volume biography of woodrow wilson he so adored him. one of the most glorious thesis about wilson was written byite tarbell in fact. it's so wonderful i find myself not quoting it. i thought it was too partisan in woodrow wilson's favor but i think it's quite true what you have said just about this great fractionalization of the media. because what we have lost and your ticket waited why, we just don't think as much anymore. we just react from the gut so much. that is why we flock to that cable station that speaks what we think even though we haven't

thought it yet. i think that's a big factor today. wilson had a very good relationship with the media up to and just into the first world war which wilson ultimately brought us into. at that point in this becomes one of the great ironies of the wilson story, the most progressive resident we had to date not even forgetting t.r. but this president became the most suppressive of the press which he did during the war, read vitalizing alien sedition acts that really had been quiet certainly since the days of adam and somewhat with lincoln they were brought back. in fact wilson used to cite lincoln all the time. that's a good cover a thing.

>> 's interesting people have asked me what would teddy roosevelt have done in today's world with twitter and i think he would have loved it. his great strength was to reduce complex problems into shorthand language. a square deal. anything that scott said the wilson believed in about fairness, i'm not going after the rich must they have accumulated their wealth with unfair means and i'm not going after the poor as long as they are taking care of their opportunities. he would say it's the rock on which the country will flounder. he gave maxwell house the slogan, good to the very last drop. it is said that he drank 40 cups of coffee a day. that explains the incredible energy of this character. >> i think t.r. would have loved twitter because you couldn't shut them up. >> you loved being in the center this was his strength and his

weakness. his daughter alice said he wanted to be the bride of the wedding and the corpses the funeral. [laughter] >> all of this of course made wilson cringe. he thought t.r. was just at duke caricature of a man. in fact somebody once pointed out to t.r. that colonel roosevelt you have the same objectives here. you have some of the same principles and plans that you believe in. you are really so much alike. why do you attack him every day? roosevelt thought and he said i guess wilson is just the weaker version of me. [laughter] >> wilson was the president of rensin university before he was president. environments affect did him in a positive for a negative way. >> ivory tower helped him very much.

he was trying to tear down the ivory tower. woodrow wilson was the son of a presbyterian minister who had the good fortune to go north to college from georgia and the carolinas where he grew up in virginia where he was born. he went to princeton in new jersey and there he found a very exclusive campus. he resented it as a graduate and he came to resented as a professor there. he then became president of the college and it was at this time he decided, now i have the ability to change with this college is. wilson's predecessor in the presidency of rensin was a man who used to brag that he ran the finest country club in america. and he did. there was no question about it. this was an enclave for the sons of the very rich. wilson tried to tear that down and it was in doing that but he began writing about what he was

doing and speaking about what it was doing. this is how the most meteoric rise in american history occurred because people began to look at wilson who use the princeton campus is a great metaphor for america. he believes higher education should read the great catapult for people, that anybody from any class in the country that has not classes, but in such a country anybody who is educated and works hard should we able to leapfrog, should be able to go was to or a rung or two above the latter. wilson became famous for this so much so that some of the bosses in the demo that it party were attracted to him thinking you is a perfect combination to be their puppet. namely he sounded very progressive and reformist but also he was perfect or so he would be very weak. little did they know when he got elected governor of new jersey,

which he served for about 18 months, the first thing he did as governor was kicked out -- and put them in office so everybody saw this was no weak college professor. >> let's turn to the women in these president slides. i'm always interested in the women behind the man. i am interested in how these women help these presidents. >> what is so interested me is that there are three women that i'm writing about, edith roosevelt nellie taft andite tarbell. they each made choices that they had to make. there were narrower choices for women at that time that we have today. edith roosevelt came from a family where her father had been wealthy and he had lost a shipping business and became an ogg-aholic. she had lived near teddy when she was the young girl in a

wealthy area and they had to move to more modest homes. she drew a protective curtain around herself. she loved teddy from the time she was young. they were boyfriend and girlfriend through college. they had a fight in his soft warrior of college. they have broken up and he felt madly in love with this beautiful girl from us -- boston. he married alice and alice died a few years later. he went to the badlands depressed and thought he would never love again. the light had gone out of his life but he went back and married edith and it was an extraordinary strong and joyous marriage. all she wanted from the marriage and her first leadership was to give companionship and strength and a sanctuary tour ever restless husband. she said when she became first later she had no intention of ing of public parsonage. what mattered for a woman was only to be in the newspaper twice when you are married and when you are very. she left the first ladyship little known by the public at

large but very much known by her family. nellie taft growing up in cincinnati had ambitions from the time she was an adolescent to do some bring. her father center brothers to harvard and yale and not she. she just started to start teaching to her mother's dismay. she decided she might not marry as a result she meets young will taft. he adored her and respected her independence. he made her his partner in his whole career. she is really partly responsible for him choosing politics eventually instead of the judicial route he was on. she wanted that more expensive life. she helped with the speeches and help with the strategy and became an extraordinary first lady. very activist concerned with working women. she brought the cherry trees to washington. she opened her guest list to more people than it in their before. created a public park with free concerts.

two months after he was inaugurated when she just had an article in "the new york times" about how extraordinary she was she fell on a presidential yacht and had a devastating stroke. she recovered her power of walking but never to speak connected sentences again. he spent days and days trying to teach her how to say short phrases, glad to see you and happy to be here so she could participate. you never know how things alter but this contributed to his troubles this presidency. lastly ida tarbell growing up in northwestern pennsylvania watches the frustrations of her own mother. her father's and it ended and oil reducer. j.d. rockefeller comes from the standard oil and the octopus and this is business. the mother but declined to higher education. ida praise from the time she's 14 issue will never take a husband and she does not ever

get married and becomes the most famous journalist. indeed when she writes her standard oil exposé the newspapers kept recording the john d. rockefeller was willing to pay anyone who would become her as an intake or a church around the world and never let her go. it's so interesting to think today however much trouble we have this women balancing home and family and work, those choices are so much broader than they were. it's interesting for me to see they each made a choice that fit their own needs and their own desires and it's that's the way women were. they were indispensable to their husbands. those 21st ladies in very different ways. >> scott? >> he has a bunch of women. >> i didn't mean it that way. >> no, no you certainly did not. [laughter] i feel a little as though we are on queen for a day. you have to come up with the most pathetic and most romantic story that you can. woodrow wilson had to wives, not

at the same time. but the first was a young woman he had met in georgia when he was a struggling lawyer in atlanta. he was a presbyterian minister son. he met a presbyterian minister's daughter and the a little town called rome, georgia and fell instantly in love. he was realizing he didn't really have a career as a lawyer so he took up academia at that point. the good news for me the biographer is she and he woodrow wilson began exchanging 3000 of the most passionate love letters i have ever read. yes i'm talking woodrow wilson. [laughter] they are almost hard to believe. they are emotional. they are sexual. they are revealing. yes, woodrow wilson. it's true, it's true and she gave as good as she got.

>> what the's that mean? [laughter] just let your conscience be your guide. they married. she became a professor's wife and a college presidents wife. she poured a lot of tea and the interesting thing is she was a very good artist. she painted extremely well. she could have had a career as an artist. gave it all up to be a proper wife is indeed the world of women was dictated back then and she was the most supportive wife all the way to the white house and one year into their living in the white house, ellen wilson died. the president was crushed. he could barely get out of bed. he being so religious did not talk about suicide but he did

say more than once he wished somebody would just shoot him. he couldn't deal with it. two things got them out of bed. the first was the very weak she died a war broke out in europe and they are now wrapping rapping on the door saying mr. president something is happening we need you here. the second thing that happened over the course of the next few months is, woodrow wilson had -- and he was introduced to a very attractive young widow who lived in washington d.c. and over the course of the next year, the president went courting. he is having private dinners in the white house, always chaperoned and he is writing hundreds of the most passionate love letters you have ever read to this one. the other letters to ellen, that was puppy love. i mean this is now a man in his late 50's having his last stab

at romance. he woos her and he wins her, and marries her within a year and now she became the most supportive presidential wife one can imagine. they never left each other side. it reached a point where wilson who often used to walk to other departments just to stop in and have meetings, mrs. wilson would invariably go with him. she was trained in all the memoranda he was writing. it was almost as though fatalistic hate it because what happened was after the war, after wilson came back with his league of nations he went around the country to try to convince the american people that they should condense the republican senate to ratify his treaty which the republicans did not want to do. in the middle of this tour woodrow wilson collapsed.

and he was rushed home to washington from the middle of the country and there a few days later woodrow wilson suffered a stroke. here is where mrs. wilson comes in. she and a handful of doctors engaged in what i consider the greatest white house conspiracy in history. three or four people decided they would never tell anybody the president had suffered a stroke. and so for the last year and a half of the wilson administration, for all intensive purposes, edith bolan wilson became the first female president of the united states. [applause] bring it on. she was making no decisions on her own she insisted. she said she was merely a steward but nobody saw the president. of the thousands of people who

wanted to see him nobody saw him a handful if that, without passing through mrs. wilson. all the documents the things that require signatures, memorandums, nothing appeared before the president of the united states ice until mrs. wilson decided what and when the president would act upon. so she became a pretty supportive wife. >> i guess so. if i could underscore something that scott said which i said earlier buts of barely talk about letters. i don't know what's going to happen 200 years from now on we don't have handwritten letters as historians to look back on. people had the only means of communicating through letters and when you find the letters it's a treasure. there was a military aide to both teddy and taft and in those days the military aide was with the president all the time. teddy loved him like another

son. taft adored him. when the break occurred he wrote letters every single day to his family which are absolute gold. he talks ,-com,-com ma it's the way we know how deep that rupture was especially for taft. he called them a puzzle with and a fat head. this relationship had been so strong. finally he was supposed to take a trip in the spring of 1912 before the nomination began to heat up. at the last minute when teddy threw his hat in the ring he said i can't go. i have to stay with taft. he needs me. he tells thaddeus canceled the shipping orders and taft says you have to go. now is your time to go. will be back when i really need you. he goes to europe and goes for four weeks and he comes back on the titanic. taft was stricken yet again. he felt like he was missing this man. this man as the ship titanic was

going down was telling somebody who wrote a letter to taft said he had these letters that were in storage and he hoped maybe they would he remembered some day. they have been gold to biographers. >> all i can say to young people is keep track of what you're writing to people so the biographer who comes along you will have stuff for us. >> and take a pen out every now and then. it's different and we have shared in this. the man we have written about and the women too for that matter road so beautifully. when you take the time to write you compose a thought. this is a nice thing. you put it in lovely language. >> i'm going to ask you both one more question then i'm going to open it up to the audience so if you'd like to start coming up to the microphone we will hear from you as well. my final question is this.

president obama's having such a difficult time right now. what advice would your presidents give him? [laughter] >> you can go first. >> president wilson would say, get to the presidents room. go there, start a dialogue. woodrow wilson had a very contentious senate in the end, very contentious house of representatives as well. he did not give it everything you wanted but here's what woodrow wilson engaged in. it was a sustained dialogue for eight years. there was a lot of consternation. there was a lot of argument and a lot of disagreement but there was an ongoing chat between these two houses, these two branches of the american government. i think that is something wilson believed in so strongly. the second thing and it's

related to it, and it's especially ironic because we do have such a stiff figure. the fact is wilson personalize the presidency. he was not afraid to go down to the congress. he did not just sit in the imperial white house. again very anti-ivory tower. he was willing to go there and he was willing to do anything to open the conversation. at one point he even had the foreign relations committee of the united states senate come to meet in the white house. he said let me open the house to you if that's what it takes to get something passed. he was always keeping the dialogue going. >> i agree with scott. in addition to going to the congress more it is using the tool of the white house. those congressman wanted to come there. i know there've been difficulties because i know the president has invited various republican members who have not been willing to come not wanting to be seen because of the terrible wrath that has occurred

between republicans and democrats. it looks like they are disloyal to the base of their same with the president but there there's still something special about coming to the white house. he would call them up in the middle of the night. there was one senator he called at 2:00 a.m. and said i hope i didn't wake you up. he said no i'm just lying there looking at the ceiling hoping my present would call. the big difference it makes it so much harder today is the whole political culture in washington is has changed. they used to stay around on weekends before they raced home to raise these funds to make their stupid ads on television. campaign finance is the answer actually. [applause] it's absolutely the poison in the system. they would play poker and drink together and they formed friendships across party lines. when johnson needed to get to do dirksen to break the filibuster on the great civil rights act they were friends. there are so few friendships now

between these people. none of them have served or a few of them served in the war together and many of them have been a world war ii together. it doesn't matter where you are coming from, you have a common mission. something has to bring that back in if we can bring teddy and wilson lbj and our presence in their to dig out those sites of the aisle congress and the presidency it's time that we are able to start dealing with their problems. [applause] >> thank you. thank you so much. alex, please introduce yourself. >> i live in washington d.c. and i have the privilege of being a founding member of the national museum of women in new york. my question to mr. berg is given the education we had in our training we were asked to read a

book called jail for freedom which was a series of essays written by the suffragettes who were lawyers, physicians, judgee fighting for the right to vote and president wilson totally ignore them. i wondered if you encountered this in your research? >> i don't think that's exact he write that he totally ignore them. he was quite aware of what was going on. wilson believed that women should have a vote. he believed there should not in 19th amendment for many years and he came around on that. he famously in 1915 got on the train and went to new jersey because he thought it was a states rights thing it should happen state-by-state. by 19 -- 1915 and 16 there were protests outside the white house. suffragettes were being arrested and taken to jail and wilson said let them go. don't put them in jail, just let

them go. i know what the issue is and i'm not prepared to fight for the 15th amendment. she could've walked out anytime. she clearly wanted to stay and she was fighting for attention and maybe her point. by 1917 wilson was bringing the country to war and it was at this time he had a major shift. he had been playing to the more conservative wing of the suffragist for years who believed in state-by-state adoption but getting in 1917 he was coming around for two big reasons. first of all we were fighting in europe for peace and freedom over there and he said how can we not have half the women in this country voting? that seem to be a huge thing to him. the second thing he saw during the war once we were and that was the role women were playing.

they were leaving the house for work. they were actually doing a lot of good works were the war movement. wilson had an overnight change of heart and actually began actively campaigning for the 19th amendment such that by the time he came out he got called into another session of congress and told him that this was a war measure and that is how important it was. we had to have nationals universal suffrage in the united states. he thought that would get good way to get everybody to rally behind it. within a year it was a done deal even alice paul came around to thank woodrow wilson for it. i would say he was late to the party but once he got there he had the lights on. >> one last question and we are going to move on now. we are going to go to the next

question. thank you. >> good afternoon. what an honor to hear you and i want to ask a question. mr. berg you alluded to briefly the answer regarding present was at princeton. what was their relationship perhaps complicated relationship to status class? we get a sense that t.r. was with the common man but not of the common man. taft was a yale man. we also knew that t.r. was a princeton man. we know that t.r. was friends with jake reese who brought them down to the lower east side where my great grandparents set up shop. i am wondering on a specific note that the immigrant lower class and these three presence of the great immigration, were they part of the america of these three presidents?

>> it's a great question. i think what happened for theodore roosevelt was that when he first went to harvard he kind of was dealing with the people of his class. underlying that kind of attitude that he came from a wealthy family obviously new york at his father had always been interested in social justice and not joined the real estate business that made them wealthy, have become a philanthropist and worked with young newsboys. that instinct was somewhat in teddy. but then the real place began to shift away from the harvard class mentality was that he became a state legislator right after congress. at first he went in with the tobacco and cigars were in a different class than when he wanted to. he became the histrionic rhetoric guide yelling and screaming about. political bosses he was ice he was isaac and sat in a certain point he realized he wasn't

getting anything done because he wasn't reaching across to these other people. he realized he became a cropper and get to learn how to deal with people of dull all different classes. jacob reese became his great friend. originally he was against regulation of the tenements making cigars because he was from outlaws a fair tradition. he changed his mind and early on was for regulation. these reporters when he became police commissioner took him to where people were living in the middle of the night. what helped him was he had so many different jobs than when he was with the roughriders he had a whole group of people with him he kept his relationship with these reporters who were much more involved in the nitty-gritty than he was. they were able to criticize him which was the key rather than just becoming -- toward him. there was this guy mr. dooley who is the famous chicago bartender in and a humorous column written by peter dunn. he wrote a review of teddy's rough rider book.

he put himself so much at the center of the action that it was as if he were the only person, he should've called it alone in cuba. teddy writes him and he says i regret to tell you that my wife and entire family loved your book. now you owe me one. i want to meet you. come here and meet me. through the reporters and people like jacob reese and involved in the settlement houses he began to see the conditions of life regulator said when he gave his talks, my harvard buddies think my talks are too folksy that they are kind of homely but i know i'm reaching people because i now know those people. he took train trips months at a time going around the country talking to people in village stations, waiving to people on the trains. he would stand out at the middle of lunch. at one point he was waiving so much and it turned out it was a herd of cows that people were waiving at. [laughter] something had to jar him away.

he suddenly was aware that fate had dealt him an unkind hand reached out to other people who them the same thing it happened. >> wilson did not believe in a great class structure in this country. he was from a lower middle class being a presbyterian minister son. but he did believe in was the educated class and that was a class a matter for him. as i said before this was a man who spent most of his life and career on a college campus either as a student a professor or a president. this was a man who believed that was the great leveler of all playing fields in this country. and so the interesting thing when wilson became a politician and it was really a fascinating tool he used. as a politician he never spoke down to the audience. he never got folksy.

he always used rather elevated language. he spoke invariably without any notes. he would just get out there and he could deliver an hour, arun have speech with a card with five bullets on it and speak in perfect sentences heightened vocabulary metaphors left and right. he could just do it. the fans loved it. they understood it and they felt elevated by it and woodrow wilson never look down on it. that was a wonderful thing for them. it was a great tool he used. as such he was pretty effective in that regard. >> lucky for roosevelt he did speak with notes. in fact in 1912 when he was campaigning he had his 50 page speech in his pocket when an assassin shot him in the chest. the bullet, yet go to the hospital and the bullet remained within him and he still delivered this speech despite bleeding inside.

because he had the 50 pages at this speech in his pocket and a spectacle glass that went upward or it would have killed them on the spot. they each have their own way of talking and living. >> i'm afraid we only have time for one more question. >> for mr. berg. about wilson and the league of nations, the thought is i have heard he was so intransigent not going to accept some of the reservations of some of the senators wanted i was wondering if you could reflect on that. and doris kearns goodwin i'm reading no ordinary time and it's incredible. >> thank you. >> i was wondering this is such an a question so choose whatever part you would like. either comparisons between t.r. and fdr similarities, dissimilarities, reflections given that yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the killing of kennedy and how in the world do we get to campaign

finance reform. everyone is so disheartened about where we are. what do you see in the future? thank you so much. >> i don't know if this is in my job description to answer that question. but i heard something about the league of nations in there somewhere, which woodrow wilson desperately wanted to have passed so we might have fought the war to end all wars. wilson was at transient gent and for a couple of reasons ,-com,-com ma one of which he was a stubborn guy is a rule. when he was over in paris and he was there for six months the president of the united states left the country for six months to negotiate this treaty. during that time especially toward the end he was saying gee i really have a country to get home to he began to make some compromises, some small ones and wanted to be compromises in the

end. he came back and i think when he found the senate that was going to be completely and willing to accept the treaty with its lead that is the moment the curtain came down for wilson and he said i'm not giving away another thing. indeed this congressional battle went on for weeks which is what prompted his tour of the country. even after he had come home to battle still went on in the senate. wilson even though compromises were presented would not hide them and it very and his great rival in the senate, the dean of the republican party and the head of the foreign relations committee henry cabot lodge did come in with an 11th hour compromise which was a few sentences and largely intact tickled. wilson simply would not lie it. so i feel he is the stuff of greek tragedy. this is a man who didn't just shoot himself in the foot.

he truly stabbed himself in the heart. >> i think what that raises is when you live but these people for so long you really do end up caring about them so when they disappoint you and they did things he wished they hadn't done, obviously i adored franklin roosevelt and eleanor and yet wishing that fdr had opened the doors for more jewish refugees before hitler close the doors forever. balancing in the end that he was the allied leader that won world war ii and ended the threat of adolf hitler that rate is threat to western celeb alsatian. my kids used to come in and they would hear me, franklin just be nicer to eleanor. she really loves you. eleanor, forget that affair that happened so long ago. similarly with the other roosevelt while i have such respect for his domestic policy and justice views on war i have

no respect for him. he would say the victories of war were greater than the pictures of peace at any moment. he had that romanticization of war. at war. i have a son he graduated from harvard college in june of 2001 and was going to go to law school. he volunteered for the army the next day. he was a platoon leader in baghdad and later got a bronze star and went back to afghanistan. .. lory of being a biographer. all human beings have their strength and weaknesses. it's up to us to really not forget the parts that is weak and bring it up. but at the same time, i could never choose somebody ultimately to write about that i didn't want to be with. i loved with them so long. i could never write about hitler or stalin. luckily i have found people i overwhelm overwhelmingly feel

affection for. >> the last word hold on. we have been given a ten minute reprieve. >> those who wanted to ask questions can come back. i want to give those chances to people in line first. enabling i'm the executive producer of "forgotten hollywood." what an inspiration you both are to all authors in the room and to everybody at the fair. [applause] just a very simple question. can you both speak to the importance of eugene in the election of 1912? regarding wilson, taft, and roosevelt? ? thank you. >> go ahead. >> well, --

900,000 votes. >> he if mighty well. he was extremely important. i think he was more than just paprika in the big stew of that election. which was a really fascinating -- you know, there was an election really of ideas. and there was so much progressivism in the air. it becomes extremely important in wilson's life later on. he's one of the people who will be arrested under the wilson law, the alien and is and sedition laws. he was delivering the speech said i know i'm going to be arrested for this. and now i'll tell you. i have gone through the feature -- speech he gave. i keep looking for the sedition. i can't find it. he was basically telling the people some workers that this was a capitalist war, and that they did not have to be cannoned toker in it. and for that, he was arrested. he was put in jail, he was found

guilty and went to the supreme court. they came down against him 9-0. he was in prison. it will tell you a lot about wilson. the war is now over. wilson has had a stroke. in he's in the white house he's about to leave the white house. people in his government, his attorney general who basically had put him in jail came to him and said, mr. president, debs is an old man now. he's sick and served his time. the war is over. he's clearly not a danger any longer. here is the pardon all written. all you have to do is put your signature on it. and where the signature would go wilson wrote "denied ." you didn't cross wilson more than once. it was simply because wilson felt one we had gone to war that sort of speech telling people not to go to war that was sedition to him. and he said long i'm in charge

of two million people risking their lives, i cannot let anybody speak out against them. and so that is why he was just intransigent on the subject. >> partly of the question nobody is perfect. no president is perfect. i written a book -- [inaudible] and it deals with eastern progressives and their religious -- [inaudible] you mentioned tr and the rough rider that could easy by will called teddy roosevelt and the buffalo soldiers as many as -- [inaudible] and wilson -- my gosh he said -- >> he had a symbolic gesture he invited booker t. washington to

dinner and it produced outrage in the south and other part of the country there was equality of a social relationship that he backed down, i think, he -- but he also held imperialist attitudes. racist attitudes. these people are unfortunately men of their generation. his record on race there was a riot in brownsville and a group of blacks arrested because they couldn't figure out who started it. it was wrong, he was wrong. and these are those moments you're absolutely right, when all you can say is that you have to remember the context in which they're leading. even lincoln, you know, in the 1850s was against, obviously, against intermarriage. against blacks sitting on juries. hef for the black law. you say how could lincoln have done this? the important thing is he grew from the attitudes and eventually allowed the blacks to come in. they were so important as

soldiers in the army it changed the whole course of the war in many ways and issued the emancipation proclamation. there's no answering for them except to pave the context in which they are ruling and see if they are way behind the context or in the middle of it or sometimes if you're lucky, the person you're dealing with is ahead of that. >> jo ann. >> i have a question. -- [inaudible] this is such a magnificent high-level conversation. i want to go a moment of history and passion in a different level. and that is, what did it feel to be like in fenway park -- [inaudible] [laughter] >> i tell you, having been a passionate baseball fan all my life and having only experienced one vict i are with the brooklyn dodgers in 195, -- [applause] then obviously i chose another team after the dodgers abandoned and wednesday to california. i went to harvard and choose

almost like falling in love again with the boston red sox and he all the years and lost and lower house and almost win. finally in you're and '07. we have the season tickets to the game. so we were at every game, and every playoff. every division. and to be in our town and see them winning and share it with boston, i mean, that's what is so great about baseball. somebody asked me what would you have done if the dodgers had been against the red sox. how would you have dealt with the divided loyalty. i thought about it and my answer was the dodgers were my first love. my father growing up in brooklyn taught me to keep score. that's where my love of history began. when i was able to record for him the history of that afternoon's brooklyn dodger game going over every play. he made he tell i was telling a fabulous love. i had a first love of a boyfriend before i married my husband. but the boston red sox have been

my sustaining love for almost 40 years. and my husband i've been married for 38 years. the boston red sox would be my love now. [laughter] [applause] we have time for one more now. >> on that note, i got to tell you some quick thoughts. i didn't know you were having coauthor -- i brought one gift to you. is that baseball, my love for you through your writing and all you have done, and i always feel you're the tim rustin of the "today" show. you couldn't give me a better compliment. i love him so much. >> a couple of weeks ago you were to be speak to us in a way we could understand. i love your energy. on baseball, my wife and i's first date was to a cleveland indians game, which is the boston red sox farm club in the '60s and '70s. >> i know. >> our first date was an indian games. lennie parker pitched a perfect game.

>> and you are still married. >> oh. yes. >> hooray. >> we have a great thing every summer and it's called admitted night sun baseball game. it starts at 10:30 at night. my gift to you is to -- [laughter] -- and so -- >> it's beautiful, thank you. couch. an invitation to you if you would like to come a mid night sun baseball game. june 21st, every year. >> i see. summer -- >> we can get you up there it would be so great. >> thank you, thank you. >> and i will happily wear it! [applause] >> okay, any closing comments from our historians? scott?? any last words. >> what a pleasure it was to have this conversation. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] in program was part of the

miami book fair international. to find out more visit miamibookfair.com. with a few weeks left in 2013, many publications are putting out the year-end lists of notable books. these titles were included in the kansas -- "kansas city star" top book of the year.