there are american leaders as they came to term what it meanses to have the language of love and commitment. and what it means for americans. it's feel-good book. >> is it composed of essays? what is the compilation like? >> well, it's chronological. beginning with harvey hillary clinton. speeches primarily. or essays or interviews done recently. and sometimes just material. for bill clinton, for instance hef allowed to sort of make his indication. something he had written. i able analyzed it a little bit. to make it a little more awe then -- authentic. did you include any editorial on the speed if changed? >> yes. madeline, my coed or it, the governor of vermont and the

incredible woman politician she did that more because she's 80 now. when she came to office, of it a big deal she lee easied with the gay community. it was a controversial and making a value statement by doing that. she also has a lesbian daughter that happens to a friends of mine. the factors trying to understand how she can represent her constituents in a meaning of the way and be brave in the face of a culture that habit changed yet and her relationship with her daughter. and her understanding as most people understand the importance of gay marriage and gay people because they have gay friends, relatives, loved one. she shares that in the book. >> tell me about signing a publisher. the publisher found me. johnny is the incredibly rock tar. he's a friend and we're both, i think progressive activists in

the publishing world. i had done a book about the project i was working on about abortion and they did something on the book. he just called and said, you know, i want to do a book that captures incredible trajectory. ting should be speech by 0 politicians. can you think of anyone that would edit it? i would. it was casual. that's how easy it is. but then, you know, i got madeline to be involved as well to add her exeerp. and it was a pleasure to do. it's a very -- like i said a happy story. >> great, thank you for your time. >> thank you. kay bailey hutchison is next on booktv. former republican senator hutchison presents her book "unflinching courage." this is about 40 minutes. [applause]inson.

[applause]pplaus >> thank you verye] much. thank you for coming out early to start getting the flavor ofor this wonderful treasure that is the library of congress put onis for our country and especially country our children andan book lovers. . this is my third presentation. as carlos mentioned, i have written two books about american women trailblazers. i think alexis started out talking about the women of america in his famous trip here in the 1700s. he said when it gets down to the end, when it gets down to the end, i would say that the most important attribute of this

state and country is the superiority of the women. he talked about that they had strong opinions and that men listened to them. so i thought that that was a great beginning. knowing that the earliest women showed a spark that was different. showed an independent and a resilience to them. my first two books were about the american women who broke barriers in the different fields. i was able to show the first woman who made the starting getting into a field, whether it was aviation, politics, education. and i was able to interview the women who were still breaking barriers in the same field. in my first book, american

heroine, i was able to talk about women in an interview madeleine albright, condoleezza rice, and sandra day o'connor, who were breaking barriers in states and politics. after my first two books of my wonderful publisher, harpercollins, they said well, would you like to write another book. and then i came in to the great state that i represent. texas. the role of women in history generally has been less on the market then our great nation than the state of texas. so i thought i would do something on 19th century texas women. it was for a couple of reason. number one, i love my state.

number two, there is something special about texas. and i believe that the spirit of texas was created in the 19th century. there has been a lot of talk about it, as i came into the national scene in the senate. i would see people roll their eyes and we would talk about how great texas was or how big we were or how important we work, so i got used to that as well. and so i thought, you know, there is something different about us. some people like it, some people really do not. but there is a spark in the spirit. i wanted to continue my insistence that women be included in history by writing about this texas spirit. our history is different. we are the only nation that

fought for our independence and became a nation. we fought for our independence from mexico. we were part of mexico in the early 1800s. that revolution and the women who were there during the revolution really showed a resilience. but there was something else with revolution and the trail drives in the ranching and settling of west texas, harsh land in harsh conditions. it was a spirit of not only resilience, but a positive attitude and a happiness and a deity that had impact on our generations, thank goodness, to give us a kind of spark that i think is special. i will quote from a couple of people about texas.

someone said get another person -- yet another person has made another decision and a hard decision as they throw themselves in front of a runaway train. then there is molly ivan, who was a dear friend of mine. who broke the mold after molly ivan. and she said that i dearly love the state of texas, but i consider the harmless provision, which i only discuss with consensual adults. so i know that we are controversial. but i want to go back and look at the beginning. in the early 1800s, it was part of mexico. the women who came to texas would basically -- they were genteel southern women.

they had refinement, a quality of life that was pretty good. they married husbands who were adventurers. why would men from the east coast in the southern states that were already in the united states, why would they come to america -- i mean come to texas, when it was so primitive and pretty open, pretty lawless. here is why. because then so many of the young men are born into families with a lot of kids. a lot of boys and girls and in some families there were 10 kids. even if they had a good life, there wasn't going to be much to be passed down. so the lower of free land is what really brought the men and the adventurers. if you live in texas back then when they were just getting started, and they were trying to encourage people to come from

america into this part of mexico, you got free land. as long as you would harm its end user, you are were able to keep that feeling. so the southern belles came with their hearty husbands and what they found was a stark reality. there was nothing there. there was harsh land, harsh weather, no houses whatsoever. certainly no furniture. so i have a couple of quotes from letters that were written and things that were said back then. my great-grandmother was one of these southern belles. her father was the governor of tennessee. she married her young husband who just graduated from medical school and was setting up his

medical practice and they moved from saint augustine, texas. it was pretty primitive back then. but she wrote this letter that just touched my heart. out in this new country -- she was writing to her sister. dear lizzie, in this new country i have seen no one but strangers. but they are the kinds of people that i have met and the society is a good portion, as good as any portion in tennessee. there seems to be as much refinement as you'll see in any place. there is no such thing as fine houses or furniture because there are comfortable houses but you cannot get give furniture. we are too far from navigation to get such things. by the time we make the money, they will navigate the river. then we can all get the little notions that we fancy that we need. if i had been in tennessee, i would have bought the house.

i thought the house we occupy was not that small. we live in two rooms, it has a passage but not a plain plate overhead, with all these inconveniences, we are getting along finally. i mean, just a positive spirit that that shows in a new place that was really nothing. another book was written in 1831. her cousin is considered the father of texas, was trying to encourage people to come from the east and subtle. he encouraged them to come back from north carolina and write a book to encourage people to think that this was a great land of promise. and she did. she was actually taken with texas in the time that she spent

here. it is not uncommon for them to ride long distances on horseback and attend balls with silk dresses and saddlebags. vigorous constitutions, it re-spirit and spontaneous ddr does, indeed and continue a rich legacy to their children. it is to be hoped they will proficiently value the blessing and not squander it away in their eager search for the luxuries and refinement of polite life. use on 1831 that spark that said things are tough, it is hard. but they are presenting a deity in society and so much fun.

read about two of my captors and margaret houston and sam houston. sam was the commander in chief of the war with mexico for independence and he had already been governor of tennessee but he left tennessee after something happened that has never been really discovered by the historians. that was a disastrous marriage. he married a young and beautiful girl, a liza allen. that's something terrible happened, and it was so bad that he resigned the governorship of tennessee and left. he went and lived with indians, where he had lived several times in his life and was actually a great help to him. when he came to texas and understood there was trouble

with the indians. when the settlers moved in, the indians way of life was to be severely as disruptive. but he understood the indians and he loved the indians and considered himself an indian. in many ways. when he came to texas, he became an immediate hero because he did have a military background and he had thought in a war with the indians. he had a special character and he is really the most famous of the lawyers in texas. he became one the first two senators from texas. but when sam houston came to texas, he had this glory pass and he married margaret houston. he he's gone so much of the time. he was gone to start writing the parameters of the new republic of texas and he was part of the

leadership of texas and texas became a republic and we were a republic for 10 years. and he became one of the first two senators. he and margaret were married. there are two chapters on them because they wrote so much, which was a godsend for historians because it told about life in the early struggles of texas. but margaret was very quiet and very shy. she did not even a company general houston when he became the governor. and he was president of the republic at one point. she didn't even go to austin with him very much because she was very shy. she had the same wit and determination, she was an alabama girl. she met houston after winning the battle of saint gel.

after she had her second child, she had a tumor in her breast and it became very painful. well, he was in washington and she didn't want to trouble him. so she reached out to his best friend, who is a yale educated physician who was also in the revolution and also a great friend. and she said that i have this, i know that there is something growing and it's very painful. and i feel that we need to do something without it. while, he came to see her and he agreed and said we need to do something, i am not the best qualified, but i'm going to come back in a couple of weeks with a the surgeon, and we will take this out. so she wrote sam houston that said, i am in pain, but have a little surgery, it's going to be quick. it will take two minutes and not to worry.

well, she had the operation to take out the breast tumor and because she had been so strong with her husband, sam, that he not drink, but she refused to take the alcohol that doctor smith was urging her to dull the pain and she refused to take it and smith wrote a houston and said, she took it like a soldier and endure this and survived and had more children, and she had a very long and regular life. but of course, with no anesthetic. she had that amazing resilience, just like those girls that came in. thomas rusk, who was the other for senator of texas, he was

actually the secretary of war and he and sam houston were best friends, bonded, and elected by the texas legislature to be the first senators from texas after the tenures of the republic and texas came into the union. i am going to digress for a moment and say to texas to come in to the united states first under a treaty because we were a nation, of course, and the treaty was signed. but they could not get the two thirds vote in the senate to ratify the treaty. so president tyler said, all right, i'm going to introduce a resolution and we will pass it along to let texas into the united states. well, john quincy adams, who had come back to the house of representatives by then after being president, filibustered

the entry of testis into the united states for days on end, every day. every day he did so until finally he was worn out. at the end, texas came into the united states by one vote in the house and one vote in the senate. so i like to tell my friends in texas when i'm going back, and we have had all of the wars that we have been fighting in the senate for texas, but it's not you that don't love us in washington. they never have. but thomas rusk was the first senator along with sam houston. because they were in the revolution, i thought he wrote something in the report to the president of the new republic about the battle that again told the tale of the greatness of texas women. he said the men of texas deserve much credit.

but moore was due to the women. armed men facing a foe could not but be brave. but the women, with their little children around them, without means of defense or faced danger or death with "unflinching courage" and that is the name of the book. it was true that that they face the perils of settling texas with so many obstacles. they feared that the mexican army was coming into the east and they fled in what was called the runaway street. many of the children died. my great-grandmother was in the runaway scrape going towards this and all four of her living children died. when she came back, her husband

was signing the texas this declaration of independence and she was going and struggling by herself. she came back to nacogdoches and reunited and have nine more children. so these hardy women did their part. it was a life that they embraced and loved. moving on, the next biggest challenge was the settling of the west. and that is where there was nothing, literally nothing. at least in the eastern part of texas they had trees so they could build the log cabins and have a place with a roof over their heads. but when they got out to west texas there were not very many trees. when you talk about harsh land, there are places where there is nothing but grass. there may be holes.

these women were going out, and this is where the indian raids became much more prominent because the indians were being moved out of their land, especially the cherokees, about whom much has been written. they were very harsh. i mean the comanches. not the chiefs. the comanches would -- they would brutalizes families that were out there basically with no means of defense. they would kill women, old people, children. one woman that was captured, and the great historian wrote that the ones that were killed were the lucky ones because the ones who were captured were really terrorized. one woman wrote and lived to write about her time.

she talked about the fact that she was 18 years old which is captured and pregnant. the indians let her have the baby, then they killed the baby in front of her and threw it in her lap. that was the kind of harshness when they started going out west. here again we are talking the 1850s, 60s, 70s. the women were so resilient and amazingly so in the face of such harsh conditions. one of the women who was a subtler, who started also going on the trail drives with their husbands. once you were out in west texas, you were raising cattle. but you have to get the cattle to market to make your money so that you could keep building. well, the trail drives would go

on these old historic trails like the chisholm trail or the goodnight loving trail, many of these would go on horseback or covered wagon in the cattle would be moved on foot from texas, sometimes the south texas all the way to kansas, missouri, colorado. the women would dare to go with their husbands. one of those women was a liza bunton johnson. this was lyndon johnson's grandmother. i didn't know about her, although she was in the books, but i have not dwelt on a part of the tarot books about lyndon johnson. but lucy johnson was giving me my children a 200 of the johnson

ranch which is a national park and a preservation area. she was giving us a tour of the house that they had grown up in and were part of that range. she talked about her great-grandmother, who had been out there in johnson county in johnson city in that area. and how she had survived an indian raid in their home by hiding under the house and putting a rug over the trapdoor that she had gone under and putting a diaper in her baby's mouth so that the baby wouldn't cry, and she heard the indians, in. she stayed down there, and she

took the horses outside and then she heard footsteps back in and her husband was crying or it just out loud, thinking that she had been taken or killed. so she opened the trap door and came out. this is what was passed down. and i said, oh, my gosh, she should be in the book. and i went back and did verify all of the things that lucy had said and a lot of it was in the caro books. there was also a letter that wasn't in the caro books, but we found it in our research that was written by one of the young cowboys. we put it on the payroll and he wrote to his father.

this was 1871 now. i am the hero of this account. writing out with mrs. johnson a mouse in advance of the train, i shot a deer. if they were in front of us, that means that this was the most change in trend dangerous part of the trail drive. that she had done that. it said it when it was written about her that a liza bunton was gently reared, she was one of the southern women who was genteel that took to the frontier life like the heroine that she was. she often saw horses -- it depends near the house with

airways sticking in their flanks. so she was another of the women that came forward. two other ones were women that presided over very famous ranches. the king ranch at one point was the largest ranch in the world. it started in texas with a hard drinking ship captain, richard king, who met this lovely creature who had come to south texas and her parents were horrified. but she was in love and they got married. it was great because she stopped drinking, she did stop enough of it to make him the productive person that he was.

but she started her life as the doyenne of the greatest ranch in the world, but she started it in a mud hut, because they were not trees other to build a log cabin. so she was happy in her mud hut and talked about what a wonderful honeymoon they had and the times that they were able to ride out together. that mud hut of which there is a picture in the king ranch archives, it didn't even have room for her kitchen utensils. so they were hung outside on the hut. they found women who came in and through their of influence helped to shape the men into the successes that they were. i transitioned into the 20th century with another woman that

i revere the did so much to blaze the trail from women. she was the woman who actually started this at the request of general george marshall when the war was just heating up in the late 30s, early 1941, george marshall said to her, because she had been volunteering in the run-up to the water, he said i want you to give me the things that women can do that will take the men and put them in combat, and we can have the desk jobs done by the women and let them be a part of this effort. she loved that and she drew up the things that she said the

women could do, which were 236 functions. then she gave him a list of the people that she thought she had worked with it would be qualified to form this great club, the women's of celery army corps. and she gave him all of this. george marshall said no, i want you. and she said oh, no, i live in houston, i have a husband and children in houston. not me. and then marshall talked to her husband who had been the former governor. and her governor has been said, of course you're going to serve your country when you are asked. and so she did so she put it together and they were an incredible success. what she said was that with all

of the things, douglas macarthur once said that blacks are my best soldiers. they are better disciplined than the men and they became so successful that in the end they had hundreds of other responsibilities because they had been such a great group of people that did a great job. so that was the transition. i have about 10 minutes left in trend left and i would love to take your questions. this is something that is dear to my heart. i am so pleased that i have been able to share with you some of the things about the great women that have really helped to shape america that was recognized as early as the 1700s that gave america the advantages we have.

thank you. [applause] >> you have a question? >> i have a question. >> that was wonderful, thank you. do you feel like if there are more than women in congress now we would have a little bit more productivity? [laughter] [applause] >> i have to say that my experience in working with my women colleagues has shown that we do find a way to go forward with wins on both side and make progress for our country. i have to say that. i have been the chairman and breaking member of the different committees with dianne feinstein and arba mikulski and we have a

way of getting down to business, kind of like douglas macarthur said. we are organized. we kind of say, this is where i am. you tell me where you are. and it's not that we compromise principles. we stand for the principles that we are able to move forward and do so many important things via allowing the basics of negotiation, which are that both sides can win something and move an agenda forward. then you have the people to decide if you are going the right direction. because thank heavens, we have great elections but we give the people the chance to say yes or no. [applause] >> the governor had a couple of daughters. i was wondering, excuse me.

i was wondering what their contribution to texas was? >> who did you say to governor hobby? >> governor hogg. >> oh, okay. he gave a great constitution per se. and he was a contributor to the great state of texas. he has given so much to the history and culture of our state. the home that she had in houston is called bio band. it is a house of treasures of beautiful artwork that she preserved through the years and then donated to the people of texas and the people of houston, texas, and it's one of the finest furniture collections probably in the world. it is open for tours, it has

beautiful grounds right in the center of houston. it is a park as well as a beautiful mansion with very refined furniture. so there were rumors that hogg had two daughters. it was kind of a joke that there was an ima and a ura. but it was a great governor, he was hogg. >> i read nine women and counting in micro-scout troop. it sounds like in this book you are focused a great deal on women who have a connection to the leaders of the state. do you have any reflections of some of the lesser-known, like maybe susanna dickinson?

>> absolutely, she is in the book. i have a number of lesser-known women whose stories have not been told before. the women who went on the trail drives in the first woman in trent woman known to have had a baby on trail drive. susan dickinson told the most accurate history of what actually happened during the fight at the alamo. she survived and did tell her story. jane long, who is called the mother of texas, as well. nine and counting, the first book, not counting my three, but the reason i met my publisher was that "nine and counting" was written by the topic of women in the senate at that time. maryland was still having terrible murders and assassinations, they were

fighting. we have the women who came from both sides of the northern ireland factions. they came and they wanted to meet with the women senators. we did. we met with them and we each hold her stories to try to encourage them that they could be a force for peace. because we all overcame obstacles and we talked to them about the obstacles that we have overcome and we also talked about the divergence of our backgrounds. we have conservative republicans like me. we had liberal democrats like the other women of the senate and we had such diversity in our way of being elected. but we all had obstacles. we all knew how to work together. when we came together in the senate, we made a difference. because the men listened to us on women's health care and the

thing that we knew that we had credibility on. every time the women of the senate, not one woman in trent woman voted against the violence ends women act. republicans and democrats came together. there were compromises to try to make sure that it was a write lock doing the right things. but when we came together, we passed legislation and we talked about that these irish women. the northern irish women. that was the first book, "nine and counting." we even had a sequel to it after others came to the senate. hillary clinton was elected, and of course there was so much of tristan hurts that we had a sequel to "nine and counting." and we agreed that it was important for us to donate all of the proceeds to the girl scouts. so they started a