within the depression. why the great depression? we had others but this was the duration and this a very get even as it seemed everything started to get better there was a crash again. the depression in the depression that was captured.co it is interesting that you raise thatnt because that is adr controversial set of numbers. and since i grow a forgotten man many have said we think we know why. the answer was the government labory policy the of the wagnerabo act or the fair labor standards act or the nationalrati recovery b administration and.

pushing those up at a level they could not afford. . .national recovery association? >> guest: the government's deal that would stimulate the economy was given this giant plan to make the industrial sector booming again. roosevelt signed it early on it in '33. when you look at law it is a bunch of political impulses expressed on a piece of paper,

instatued and then enforced. so the impulses were economy of scale is good. big is always better because at that time we because at that time we are all hostage to fashion. the economy of scale bigger is better was hot. bigger is always better and you want to question that i am not sure if it is necessary. another premise was consumer choice is bad. if the consumer pics he slows down the assembly line. because if u-uniform and u-uniform is faster and better. you told that to the starbucks

shareholder because it is a product premised on choice. we can take that extra 18 seconds to pick exactly what kind of milk to have in our law take. they believe choice slowed it down and you can't even in the case if you couldn't even pick your chicken from the chicken coop you have to take the chicken you've got in the name of efficiency those are the principles in that law. >> host: from 1929, octobe october 1929 to 1940 how big does the government get, what was the change in the tax revenue cracks. >> guest: the government got a lot bigger than before. imagine a country until the 1930s the state had in total a

bigger government in washington. he went there may be a few felt like it but you couldn't get sick. that is what the family thought there was an air conditioning either. it didn't seem to me to go there. what mattered was the state capital. he always said that the united states and plural. they were at the power then in the 30s the government began to spend first under her birth h to her and then of course under franklin roosevelt and by about 1936 if you look at the charts and the tax foundation from the government you will see all of a sudden the federal government is bigger than the state. that didn't happen before but now in peacetime we didn't really go back. that was the change is that as great as we got now backs

nowhere near as great as might be five, 617, eight, nine or ten. but it was a lot bigger than before and it was the expectation that it was the rescuer, the three d. manner, that was the new thing in the 1930s. 1930s. >> guest: when you think about hobby lobby. they have a religious concern about the health care law. maybe it relates to something that's important to the owner which is contraception or abortion. it was challenged and what was

interesting and i've wrote about this in the national review, too, it was challenged by the case that had an element of real agenda in brooklyn new york, and i liked them very much. one of the pieces of fun was researching the sectors because they didn't expect the government to make them heroes that the government challenged them and invited their business from breaking the rules including letting people pick their chicken. maybe the government contended that they sold a sick chicken. they were going to go to jail. they were paying the wrong amount or maybe too little in him wage component. maybe people were working different hours and rules and a sony were addressed. they were selected politically. they were selected to beat the case because they did have to be tested. it was an emergency law and then

they were for roosevelt. >> host: yo the right they were frustrated to government didn't understand the consequences of its own allegations. they broke the code and that was all the government lawyers understood. but to suggest they were not fit is also to suggest something that they view it as far worse. it was to suggest that the kosher slaughterhouse wasn't really kosher so unworthy of customers and other words the poultry code officers have done something worse than angered the sectors. they had affected their dignity. >> guest: this is something interesting. you have the washington law and the higher power. in the census we looked up the

sector and it says about their father, the rabbi. maybe it means he's read a lot of books in the congregation and what it meant is that he was a serious father when it came to religion. they would be shamed in their market and community. and you want to remember today health is a big story. they had no antibiotics just. so it happened often that it was bad. must have tuberculosis all the time so this was a life or death obligations for the sectors. that's what makes the case kind of interesting you see one against another they took it very serious.

there was attention and i tried to bring that out because there is an element that makes sense so they had one old o law and oe new fighting with each other. >> host: clearing out the forces that brought the crash in the first place seemed to be the new dealers. it had been a year of experiment. 1934 would be a year of prosecution.

it wasn't for th of the qualityt you expect. in the new deal you have some spectacular growth numbers that you are not getting back to where you started. if you find success is back where i was in 1929, we were not there so the government got angry and they began to assign blame and go after companies prosecuting him a new way. one was the poultry business and in the forgotten man i talked about a much more significant company, the great electricity man in chicago they are like the tramways we have in chicago and he y one year to the city and it

was wiped out by the prosecutions of people that grew up in chicago never heard his name. i never knew he built the opera house where i went with my father said there was a sort of the racing of business leaders through the prosecution. they were very aggressive business. he called it the princes of properties which he was more aggressive than either party would be. >> host: post their conflict with people speaking out against it was at u-uniform of people were supporting him in his efforts? >> guest: people knew the business had some responsibility in the crash. mr. whitney here in new york and so the economy wasn't getting better maybe we should blame them more and roosevelt felt the public was on his side and he prosecuted these people then he

won 46 out of 48 states. there was also dissent particularly in the newspapers. to get our modern technology. you can see a lot of the papers were skeptical about whether it would bring recovery. they went after the treasurer to imagine one secretary now going after mr. paulson or mr. greenspan from the other arab they went after the treasury secretary in the 20s and mr. 30s mr. morgan paul did that and he ordered his staff newgistics ordered his lawyers to go after mr. melvin

just because it kind of felt good. very grason and political. one secretary brings down another. i was going to say the newspapers noticed this. they were less progressive and less left-leaning than they are today and they fought back quite a bit since the new deal. >> host: how did the tax code change? >> guest: well, the great achievement was to bring down the wartime tax levels. the taxes have gone quite high. coolidge and harding and even wilson about the taxes down to the top marginal rate of 25%. 25% is often they think 25.

then already under cooper because of the trouble and the downturn after 29 it went up into the 60s and roosevelt pushed it even higher so that i don't know, when our parents were younger it was in the '90s come even 1950s the top marginal rate many of us look at was in the '90s and roosevelt said no 25% of the have to pay more. he also liked whil both taxes. the most diverse for the attacks in the new deal was the so-called undistributed profit tax. what's with wax lets see, you save your money, don't distribute your money, that tax is controversial and it was a big new deal idea to get the rich people holding onto their money they must disparage it to the government. >> host: here's a letter that

you include in your book the forgotten man from fdr to the irs commissioner. dear commissioner, i'm closing my income tax return for the calendar year 1937 with a check of $15,000. i am wholly unable to figure out the amount of tax for the following reason and then it goes on to list the reasons. the president of the united states cannot figure out the tax code. >> guest: i can't figure out what the authorities want. they tried. it's kind of mischievous and amusing and kind of lovable and that is an example of him playing the lovable and humble. i can't figure out my taxes to the dark side of that is that he

could ask and not get in trouble. a lot of us have dealt with the irs they don't always tell you what's right. there is a lot of uncertainty and that caused sphere. it was pretty ironic that roosevelt himself couldn't figure out his taxes and we talk about that in both versions of the book. >> host: welcome to the in-depth program and this month we are in our new york studio with historian and a common us and the nich amity shlaes, the e within which came out in 1991

followed by the forgotten man and a vancouver which is her most recent book safe for the graphic novel the forgotten man which just came out as well and you reference to this. >> guest: this is a cartoon history of the great depression. it's very popular. the graphic novel of the cartoon books that are like movies. i think they are like art. it's not dumbing down, so we took the artists and made the whole story and pictures and some of them are little because the tax rate has been overruled. a lot of the new deal was about people not getting what they thought they would get. we often failed.

there is a lot of sorrow in the new deal when the government figures realize the policies were not working so we try to capture the humor of that and in the back of the book there is a cast of characters. every character is drawn beautifully so we are offering this as a teaching tool and a lot of people use it as a gift for clients because it is a fun take on the new deal. >> host: but there is a superhero. who is the superhero? >> guest: wendell wilkie. he was the electricity man who had accompanied the thought he would light up the south.

instead they trashed the compa company. the book is a self the story becoming angrier and angrier and the climax of it is when he speaks truth to power. by being so obnoxious with business and putting our documents think we are hurting the whole country because we cannot hire people. if you are bitter you don't get very far. you can be angry. i love drawing and more seeing paul draw him.

he comes out in the end and has the lowest claim that existed in the news and the literary editor of the tribune so that was going to draw her and i want to say thank you to the familie familyt have all helped me with learning about wendell wilkie. there is a great attorney and his brothers, so that was a fun story. and if this book is a demon and we had trouble trying to decide thabut i didn't vilify him but i don't know i guess it is henry morgenthau and then there is also a great figure for saying what the government meant i think i could be fair to say it's like rahm emanuel today. he's a little bit of demon in the cartoon version.

he was the head of the farm security administration and it didn't even make it but he was definitely the bright mind. the economist, the enthusiast, very lovable but wrong in my view and he was thrown out because he was too far left and he went off looking for a job and we traced back. but i admire people who served even if i don't agree with their ideas because service has cost. >> host: 202 is the area code if you want to participate. 585-3880 in the east and central time zones, 585-388 585-3881 ine mountain and pacific time zones. if you can't get through on the phone line and still want to communicate try social media.

@booktv is a reporter handle you can send a tweet for our facebook page facebook.com/booktv or e-mail booktv@c-span.org. we will be taking calls in a few minutes. you seem to be working your way backwards through history. start with the 30s and now your last book, calvin coolidge. >> guest: i like positive stories. the forgotten man could be called how they blew it. they are democrats and republicans, politicians through prophecy -- policy. how do you make something that better? you think about eastern europe

and they say that it's easy to make fish soup from an aquarium. they did fix the economy so it's kind of an inspiring story and i went back to it and i looked at president harding who did more than people say. he has a terrible reputation. if he were a stock he would be in the toilet. you read these as stocks. he was wrongly evaluated in history. how harding and coolidge and he does deserves a much higher rank so that became a lifework restoring this hero unknown. c-span gives him some time but most people don't. let's see if we can give him the

everything that he deserves. he did have that tax rate that's lower than ronald reagan. he balanced the budget and he cut the budget and today if somebody gets on c-span and they talk about cutting the budget they mean reducing the rate of increase. coolidge actually cut the budget. you can go in the same tax foundation tables and in the government tables and the national accounts that he cut the budget. so why didn't we know about this quiet silent guy? i became very intrigued with him and wrote his biography. >> host: and in the book that came out last year, you write that coolidge wasn't particularly proud of being

president. he walked around quietly touching things from time to time and smiling to himself. he still wore the suspenders of a vermonter and that made him a site in the great quarters. nonetheless starling also sold at coolidge wasn't afraid. he slid into the office naturally. after all the pediments over the doors in the office were not so different from those of the governor's office in montpelier. >> guest: that's right. there are different notions of how you use the office. so, theodore roosevelt, doris kearns goodwin, in my pool but i'm going to enjoy it. we all know people who do their job as if they are driving a racecar. this is my racecar, my paper, my office. he said i'm serving and i am here as a servant. a very old-fashioned. it's not about me.

of course i mean. but i'm going to try to suppress it in the name of service. very different conception of politics and i was attracted to this. i think there's a lot to learn from it and a lot of others are attracted, too. i took a snapshot this spring at the foundation in plymouth vermont where he's from and if you look at his grave is it isn't bigger than all the other ones. it is huge but the coolidge monument is pretty small because he believed in modesty. he wasn't comfortable with what was going on at mount rushmore. maybe the heads are too big. he did into the lead in the great men of history. he was all about service. you think of cal ripken junior

the baseball player that also shows up for good. they are generally about service. and that mark is on the presidency. what you see when coolidge is fixing the environment because there were scandals when harding was a -- he was meticulous about cleaning up. i think that he did make a living aquarium fish soup. he absolutely a port of the scandal. the exploitation of the presidency, how much? while committee would cut the name out of his suit because someone would sell them as the president and make a profit commercializing the office. it's what they accepted from the gifts, there were not many. they made his son dress up for dinner and play around at the white house.

he was strict but it was for a reason. we are serving the public. we are not just here because of our self. >> host: how did he become the vice president and what was the relationship between harding and coolidge? >> guest: he was with harding just to remind the viewers. i think that he wanted to be the presidential candidate and he had a good argument. he was the governor of massachusetts and as of now there is a big issue may be very far, maybe take over the cities. that is what happened. remember, there is an enormous pommel after world war i and the workers were not paid well enough. they were right about that and the inflation and it is somewhat similar.

they were at that time thinking about it and in the chain of command he was at the top for the police in boston. the policemen that for his constituents mostly irish he was famous for getting the irish voted into the gop was the immigrant party, there were rats in the station houses. he had 18 reasons to go on strike. they affiliated with a nice union, not the communist union and they were fired and coolidge backed off the commissioner that fired them. he said there is no right to strike against the safety by any wind or anywhere or anytime.

>> the public sector was going too far and here was the governor drawing the line the way the governor can and you see that and everyone looks. then they actually lined up behind the governor. he had showed up. i don't think they should because there were riots and death and he had to call out the guard in the state. everyone riding in on the train with bayonets and it was terrible. he thought he had an election coming up and thought i might not win this. you could see that in the correspondence with his father. a wonderful book that we have. well maybe i am not going to win this time. but i think it was the right thing to do yet he was reelected

as the governor and that gave him a national standing he went on the ticket of calming things down. normalcy was the phrase and they did get along although as i noted in the buck this is harding was tough. she was hard on mrs. coolidge and mrs. coolidge was younger. every color looked good on her and mrs. harding -- they are evident and mrs. harding didn't want them to have a very nice house so a hotel was fine. but there is no evidence of dislike between coolidge and harding and harding did something extremely magnanimous. he invited the president into the cabinet meetings. not every president did that. he was grateful because being

vice president is purgatory as many of the noted. and therein the senate he was still the president of the senate but the real president was of course the senator from his own state and massachusetts who gave him an unrelenting hard time so he was grateful to harding and respected him and very sad when he died in the summer of 1923. >> host: very quickly before we go to calls where did calvin coolidge become the president and how long had it been since he had seen warren harding priod prior to that? >> guest: we hope the viewers will come this summer to that anniversary in early august when he was sworn in by his father and his father's authority was that of the notaries. he was a notary, justice of the piece. a very small in the middle of the night and some of our loyal members at the coolidge foundation are notaries.

one of our board members is the longtime head of the notary of the national notaries because that's something very american. they said mr. coolidge hell do you know you have that authority you can do that? well, nobody told me i couldn't. it was in august of 23 don't let me get this wrong at the birthplace plymouth vermont not far from massachusetts if you drive up the road we will read out loud aaloud the autobiograpd reenact. >> host: what is your association? association? >> guest: i'm the chairman of the foundation which is in plymouth. we have a house we drive up

there and visit and look at the town and we are partners which does an outstanding job of managing this historic site. it's in northern monticello. please, bring your grandchildren and go to the foundation you can sign up to read aloud from the short money savings and the autobiography. >> host: how did you come to that position? >> guest: it was founded by john coolidge, the son of president coolidge. it supports the state and together we built a building where we have classrooms for the kids from new england to the kids from new england, all year to work with our educator. i have two wonderful colleagues, the director executive who made a coolidge blast that you can sign up for and he said no and

yet they got plenty and we have another colleague who is going to be blogging for us. he is giving a gorgeous audio of the president's autobiography. and my favorite thing about the site is no excuse to not come that if you don't, if we have a web cam just like at this key resort you can see the president place winter and summer what the weather is doing if you feel like going so we hope everyone comes. >> host: martha in maine e-mails i have listened to you for years on c-span. why did you switch from the economy to the biography? perhaps it isn't such a big jump giving the economic slant to your historical perspective blacks.

>> guest: hopefully one could do both. he was a living economic avatar for the markets. he really was the president economics, so i made that trip and i think that it was worth it because i learned a lot about economics through coolidge into sometimes you can learn better through a person and i think many people were about not only economics of course the lo but f other things, patients, the law, leadership. >> host: amity shlaes, prior to working on the books and on the coolidge foundation, what else have you done? >> guest: i'm a journalist so for many years i worked at dow jones at "the wall street journal" and the editor there is the reincarnation. he was the reincarnation of the editor that we work for, and if

you look he is gone now but he was an editor and you will see it was kind of a shy smile and the other journal, robert bartley had a little tackle and i understand although there is no audio, coolidge had a tackle a thoughtful man so a lot of people you have on your show were trained by mr. bartley. my husband and the editor now david brooks to write that "the new york times." you go out in the world and one writer after another was shaped by bartley and his leadership and character. >> host: he was the editorial page editor. >> guest: he wa >> guest: he was technically the editorial page editor but out of respect the trustees called him editor.

sometimes there was tension because the side said wait a minute are indeed be editor in the news? but they did give the title to bob barkley. that's where i trained. >> host: 585-3881 in the mountain and pacific. a amity shlaes is our guest. rockville maryland, you are on the air. good afternoon. >> guest: good afternoon, peter and a amity shlaes. enjoying the show this afternoon. i lived in washington, d.c. right outside of washington, and in washington, d.c. and the downtown area, there is a large brick building that was built in the 1920s that's called the district of columbia jewish community center and there is a

different picture built during the presidency of the 20s and they ha had to the initiation wn it was open and then that depression in the modern times. what struck me is that president coolidge went to this building when it was opened in the 1920s and it was unusual for a president to do at least i thought and he went there and gave this wonderful speech about how jewish people and christian people could be friends and neighbors and how it featured u2 their friendship with him and his administration that they would -- that this great building would be opened up and i got the impression -- i've

never read anything about this but being a historian and i want to ask you about this, he was a very good friend of the jewish people, the jewish citizens in the united states -- >> host: is that your question? -- amity shlaes. >> guest: you know, i've been criticized for not writing enough about his relationship in the coolidge biography. he had a relationship for a methodist. you can see them. he really had a respect for faith. he would go all about to talk to every group. the coolidge did a conference

call with jewish philanthropists in the 20s that were famous in my book because he said i like about your people that you try to take care of your own. that is a very old-fashioned idea. he said that to all the groups. you build hospitals or what all. he understood how important the faith-based charity was. that's kind of gone from the culture now that they had to be built by somebody. it didn't have to be the federal government. and in the same conference call that he did with the jewish leaders coming to talk about budgeting and he acknowledged something. he said it's kind of an obsession with me. they made me seem like a scrooge but you understand if i budget while it will be good for the country. the interest rate will go down.

i don't do this because i'm mean but i do it to help us all and he kind of confessed some of this in the conference call that you can see him talking negatively about the plan to the veterans. he talks to every faith. >> host: you referenced somebody earlier at the coolidge foundation. we have a call coming in from new hampshire. >> guest: this is him. >> guest: can you tell us why you came to coolidge? >> host: first what do you do for the foundation? >> caller: i am of the program editorial associate it so i organize all of the events so like the july 4 reading he was

the only president who won on the fourth of july. i organized it and we will have our high school debate program on july 8 come attend an august 1. we need judges. everyone please applied. so i organize those and i do research about president coolidge and blog about him. i run the social media for the foundation, and any other things that matt and amity shlaes want me to do a century. >> host: and what is the answer to how did you come to calvin coolidge? >> guest: . >> caller: i was at a symposium this past february and i was one of the behind-the-scenes helpers for the speakers and a amity shlaes and i started talking because i

read her book previously and we kind of hit it off and fortunately i went on to graduate my master's degree in political science and she said he would be great for this job so i applied and the rest is history. >> guest: what do you like about coolidge? the qualification is that he found coolidge. the main thing i love is that he left the government smaller when he left office it's important for the government to be limit limited. he's like a new england original in my opinion.

the american people rewarded him for that and i think that in politics today we don't have to see all of our enemies as the devil in order for us to win. the younger people are the readers of the coolidge foundation. >> host: we may never see the likes of him again. we seem on track to value personality more than platform.

>> guest: i don't agree. i think the caller is rate only when interest rates are low. when we have economic trouble in a country like the united states we suddenly look for character and someone that can execute certainly policiepolicies. when the "coolidge" book came out it was the same time ms. thatcher died. and i had to write a column on what she was like. the tory party would never have picked her when times were good. they wanted to be compassionate and forgive student debt or whatever it was. put nasty edges on the conservative party. but england had real economic trouble and someone had to say we have to cut back. and then the more substance candidates.

even the tough ones become attractive in that situation. so it is hard for any party to have a dramatic policy oriented candidate. interest rates will not always stay low in the united states. hopefully we are preparing to have people of substance ready to lead when that moment comes. >> host: you refer to or calvin coolidge refers to himself as an administrator. >> guest: he wrote to the hebrews to sit under the trees and being terrified of referring to the bible. he said he thought of his job if

the provider. >> host: harbor springs michigan you are on the air with amity shlaes on c-span2. >> guest: was at one of the major problems that it was deflation, and by the extra price. he kept the country from dipping into the extremism and the overwrite.

>> guest: you've hit on the two main things that we hear. it can be fatal for an economy and the other is that president roosevelt as a moderate. it's terrible the way that they were better than hitler, that of installing and mussolini. that is what we grew up with and many of us feel that. there was deflation in the 1920s into the economy didn't die. it ran in between on television. they are about a lower price. it is lower prices. it can be good. in the early 30s there's a lot of deflation during the international events that credited bunch of factors.

what i found in reviewing the forgotten man boo by candidatesa lot of research and years and years america wasn't ready to go. we work to follow hitler and mussolini. the u.s. and i love the clothess that i found when i was researching by a european woman journalist so they come over to see the great john lewis or how we are having our revolution and she was honest enough to write what i found about american

labor is american labor is conservative. it's not the way it was in europe so i guess that is a long way of saying to the caller that i don't think that we need to say roosevelt saved us from communism or extremism because as a people we were not ready. >> host: where did you grow up? >> guest: chicago. >> host: what did your parents do? >> guest: my mother was involved in politics had worked for the governor walker who was the key governo governor kind oe jimmy carter, not a machine democrat, and my father was a real estate appraiser and developer. >> host: where did you go to school? >> guest: sometimes they say the school of hard knocks. i don't say that. i went to yale in connecticut.

i didn't get to graduate degree the following college i had good luck to get a fellowship to go to berlin germany, and that was the beginning of my journalistic career because i wrote little articles for "newsweek" and "the new york times" or the correspondence and from berlin and at tha the time the wall was still there. >> host: it came from your travels in germany did it not? >> guest:. they didn't think anything would ever change. i didn't think it was going to

change necessarily and we have two kinds of stories that we wrote. there was a correspondent amed ted sangar who i worked with at news week and we wrote about how people did currency arb triage and take the money from the east because it was make money compared to the west german money. or we would write is hitler coming back? i interviewed a man who was a guard of hitler in the bunker. >> host: this emails is from harry ram. given germany's history its need for aialer the reliable source of energy and experience since 1914 will germany turn west or east or play a greater role between? >> guest: i think she will

play a greater role. if you want to be optimistic about life you should look at germany. there is confusion now. but i remember when i started my career they were quite suspicious. they should never be reunified because they might go again. you can even see that in mrs. thatcher's reaction when the wall came down. well i don't know. germany did a pretty good job of unifying and being a wonderful country. and it's a leader in europe and it's close to russia. you don't understand the constraints. i never did until i saw the kremlin wall. you can't understand at germany at all and to let you see russia and you can't understand scandinavia until you see russia and no what they are up against and who might march in any day. there is no obstacle they just

march along for a day or two from the east that is. so i think they are often only situated to the broker. they have a lot of historical memory and just a very important and interesting country in which we should place our faith. >> host: how many generations before they lose that? >> guest: you think about the hyperinflation in germany there was a hyperinflation where your money -- >> guest: that was almost 100 years ago, 90 years ago. they remember that. and that is one reason that germany wasn't the country to have the crisis. greece was.

they remember that. some things people remember more than one generation. hyperinflation is one of them. there you go. succumbing it's important that you know you see them maybe hitler was right or so on. it's not the way that it was when they wouldn't dare say that. but sitting here i still have a lot of faith in the german policy. dick calvin coolidge deal with the fact that they were going through? >> host: this is a weak area for coolidge. he said you see them coming down the road nine of the ten would go in before they get to you. he didn't like to intervene very much. sometimes he would have intervened. he understood that europe needed interest rates to pay back its

debt so imagine europe and the 1920s is like a person under water in the house. they didn't earn that much. so the treasury secretary said let's see if we can get that lower interest rates. in the lower interest rates that the administration pushed they were nowhere near as well as ours today. and you realize absolutely. they go bankrupt and default and not honor that. but they didn't understand is at the same time they were being nice, they were being nasty with tariffs. that was the goc policy. they make it harder to earn money so you can't pay back the

debt. it was an absolute failure and contradiction by the republican party which coolidge ever fully acknowledged and what i like very much is he had a friend that worked at j.p. morgan international finance and figured out that they were not good for europe so he shifted the books to try to instruct his friend in the tariffs and economics and he said i've read these books. i've already been through them. but i discovered in practice they work. he just got through telling us how. welcome here's what i discovered in the research. i was trying to figure out how could he be for the terrorists and this is what they debate. when brian lamb was here and

they deviated the protection of of plymouth notch, the answer is from the point of view of the little company. if you have a lot of pressure from labor from your employee saying we want our money and higher pay you can't pay the higher pay unless you're prices are protected and you have no competition from abroad. so he was for the terrorists to cause his party was but also because they reduced in the short term labor on the rest. so i have never figured that out, but imagine that you are of the factory. you don't want competition from overseas. maybe you can pay better wages if you have no competition. that's something that is lost to us in our memory. they forget what it was like to be a factory owner with the competition coming from europe

are coming from australia you have to lower your prices. it was the scenario that was in the economic education. >> host: edward in new york you are on amity shlaes. this is booktv. >> guest: . >> caller: good to talk to you again. i would like to know how you feel as the current president in new york city and if they employ some of the same techniques that roosevelt used whether they succeeded or not in raising taxes on the rich and the commerce and the middle class today. >> well, thank you for that question and it's good to talk to you. the coolidge foundation has no opinion on that. it is a bipartisan foundation. coolidge himself when you look at the record tend not to like

that kind of thing. i took tend not to like which government and i don't think it is the answer in new york. new york has the blessing of being a gorgeous pedestrian trading capital. when you raise the tax rate what happens is those millionaires, where do they go? they go right to florida and they only come here on some of today's depriving new york of the key capital gains revenue stream and maybe they may want to study it. that is what keeps it going to take the senior citizens around, that's what pays.

and when people choose to realize capital gains or somewhere else because the new york taxes so heavily or taxes their income so heavily they lose the revenue that they need. so usually that is an education process and usually they discover that. we have a new mayor and he's kind of a redistributionist class lawyer but he doesn't understand that in new york when the wealthy thrive there is a trickle-down because that is how the pensions are paid. >> host: how they try americans crazy and what to do about it you write about the tax system and that the government likes the fatal illusion. we should tax and tax and spend. that roosevelt's advisor. federal tax revenues jumped by tens of billions by the korean war the correction from the income and profits taxes was

$50 billion. more than 25 times what it had been in 1940. there were those that questioned the progressivity. he was one of those, but you write that most economic thinkers and politicians from left to right and embraced it even the most famous of the austrian economist that endorsed a progress of rate structure in those years allowing that some progression of direct taxes need not only be permissible but necessary to offset the tendency of the indirect taxes. >> guest: this is what i wrote a long time ago. the greedy hand, that is from thomas payne, the government making our prosperity is pray.

and they actually know the progressivity is. most americans don't wear a kind of know, but what it is is you have a base rate and then they go up as you earn more money for the last dollar is taxed at a different rate than the first. the average isn't your marginal top grade under the progressive code. the rich pay more they just pay the same rate with more dollars. there's a great confusion about that. the progressivity is used often as they class to attack a class. it is a way of garnering the revenue to spend money in new york or anywhere. but it's also a class attack. let's make it harder to earn the last dollar. one of the things we looked at so often in "the wall street journal" and i know the journals

told us and this is the history of the journal when you go back to explain when you tax the last dollar of the last marginal dollar people might work less. they might go to another state, europe, luxembourg, they might rearrange their income so you can't see it or put it in bermuda were so long. either way, it is a deterrent. it's human nature. should i try that extra hour? that is the concept i was trying to get. and of course he made the code less progressive. president bush allowed the taxes to go up. president clinton let them go up more. and of course we brought them up again. the progressivity is for the politicians and that is another of its negative aspects. i think as bad as the progressive rate is if you know who the top rate is it is so

obscure and complicated that people just gave up. we definitely need a tax structure that people can understand and we don't have that right now. >> host: next call comes from jeff in forest grove oregon. >> caller: good morning. i was so pleased when i turn on the television and i thought you were going to be on. i enjoyed the book immensely. one that people don't hear or see much anymore and he's a humble man and understated man is one you spoke about the illinois governor daniel walker. i think that he was probably the only illinois governor in my 60 year old lifetime he was not invited. is that right clicks. >> guest: he was, but only

afterwards. in illinois it seems a lot of them go to jail. you don't go to jail for the savings and loan issue. >> host: did you have any other questions? >> guest: were you hoping i wouldn't say that? [laughter] >> host: go ahead. >> caller: i grew up the next state over. franklifranklin roosevelt is als been frustrated by the fact that he was so popular but yet his programs, as you say, did very little if anything to help the nation recover. and i guess the question that i have is that because he then became after a few years of a celebrity.

certainly wendell wilkie in 40 roosevelt crushed them in the elections so i just wonder how did he become almost godlike to so many people in the country if i may put it that way. >> host: thanks. >> guest: that is worth a lot. an educated and cheerful man. and he has that -- with his own disability and people knew about that, he was fighting and they should fight too and to this day you can't help admire when we drew him for the cartoon but i didn't want to draw the discussion of it but i didn't want to capture the energy that you see when you look at a cartoon book. the cartoon book. we show him swimming for example. by 1940 the war was coming so people were not voting on the

economic policy. they were voting on who is the better leader. roosevelt had served in the department of the navy in world war i. he was the navy president and he knew everything in the east coast personally and americans knew that and that made him a good leader for the war that was on the atlantic coast to start. so i think what are the presidents elected on? you've seen the right one even if he served before. >> host: in the forgotten man, you write that the republicans of 1940 were bitter. were they concluded accurately enough that the sideline would be not only their parties at their record of accuracy when it came to the economy? they had been right so often in the 1930s and they wouldn't get credit for it, the great era of the isolationism is what stood out and the bitterness made them small.

>> guest: that's the way it is. one reason we like coolidge and the executive director of the foundation is he was so positive. he would criticize the substance but not people. in the long run when you criticize people, you fail and in the short run you when. but you see them making this error over and over again let's attack those people instead of their policy and it was through the war trumps economics. it's kind of a sad story for those that like economics but the war will trump every time. in the news and in the opinion it is that much more important. >> host: how close did wendell wilkie actually come to winning?

>> guest: he won a lot of popular votes. he won more than hoover in the back of the book. >> guest: he was a businessma businessman. wendell wilkie was a businessman and hoover was coming too, that he beat hoover. he hadn't even heard of him a few years before but he wasn't a ververy good at that electoral politics so he didn't get a lot of states. he was like i don't know. a lot of people that we know in that way. he didn't get a lot of states. we have the electoral college process. so i taken very seriously. he did go in 1940, and i think that contributed to his loss. he opposed to si the six monthse in the big campaign. >> host: jack says was at

coolidge's decision not to run related to his sense of humility or something else, did he sense that it would end tax. >> guest: both. he didn't want to be responsible when it ended because he knew how hard it was for the government to say no. he knew the government should say no but he didn't know he had the stamina. remember he had been president for quite a while in the term and a half. the two preceding people in the office had been more or less killed by it. harding and woodrow wilson. it was a difficult thing to be president and he didn't want there to be saying no anymore. he vetoed 50 times while he was president. he is a low character because of that i don't think so.

but like washington he thought you should go back. he writes about this quite eloquently in his autobiography. he says you better change presidents from time to time, i'm paraphrasing, but something to the effect everyone panders to presidents and they become vain. one of the things i want to say about president bush 43 is that he understands that and works very hard to make whatever he does now his library and so on dot about him, but about his service. it's awfully hard to leave the presidency when you're at the center of the world and become no one, but you have to do it for the republic. he absolutely explicitly made this point. and i want to add was his party grateful that he was so noble and so on and so forth? not at all. they wanted to kill him because he would have won.

so he was all alone in his sanctimony as we often are when we do the right thing. they didn't say you did the right thing. they said you trust the party by not running again and that was hard to take. >> host: he announced it in south dakota, correct? >> guest: i don't think that was an accident. i hope to go to south dakota. i had a nice correspondence and i'm friends with the president of the university. i want to go because here is what happened. he went to south dakota for vacation for a number of reasons. one is that was an agricultural state that didn't do very well in the 1920s with agriculture he was trying to get the votes for the party and another is that he wanted to promote the american tourism that was taking off and as it happened while he was there very nearby the sculptor was sculpting away to

make mount rushmore. and coolidge noticed that if he was saying give me appropriations for this great bust of theodore roosevelt and lincoln, washington and jefferson. did coolidge approve of this? not particularly. did he give an appropriation of? yes. through andrew melling. but he didn't really like the big presidency as we mentioned before, if there is footage of coolidge at rushmore honoring in some way the beginning of the sculpture and you can see his incredible discomfort with his adulation of presidents and he gets carried away and says he should be on the wall. he didn't like that. and you can go on. there's more to the story if you want to talk about it but he

really didn't like the grandiose executive. .. >> guest: interesting people are asking about this. there's some correspondence among the hardings that said can we have someone else instead of coolidge as vice president next time in '24? but unfortunately, harding passed, he died in the summer of '23 when that swearing in of coolidge happened. and coolidge was absolutely meticulous in his demonstration of respect for the hardings. mrs. harding stayed in the white house with her doggy, i believe he was an airedale, and he had a special black mourning ribbon on his neck, and the coolidges had to cool their heels until mrs. harding felt like moving out. rather line lynn don johnson --

lyndon johnson, peter, to fulfill harding policy to perfection. he was the caretaker when he came in the way lyndon johnson was caretaker after the sudden death of president kennedy. and coolidge didn't say and now we'll have new policies since his unfortunate accident gave me this job. he said i will fulfill what we promised in '20 to perfection, and he executed the same things harding had promised, but i would argue more efficiently. he took it farther. >> host: ron, stillwater, oklahoma, good afternoon. this is booktv on c-span2. amity shlaes is our guest. >> caller: yeah. i have a show comment and then my question. you might be -- >> host: go ahead, sir. >> caller: -- sure and let people know that there is a broadcast delay between what they hear on the phone and what they hear and see on tv. and then my question is, have you done a comparison between coolidge's time and the more

modern government, seems like the government keeps getting bigger and bigger and more invasive on our personal rights. i just wondered if -- >> host: thank you, sir. god it. >> guest: great question. yes. i've written a lot of articles. my book about coolidge is a history book. there isn't much today in it because history speaks for itself. but i've written a lot comparing coolidge to modern leaders and so have other authors. i'll name some for you. one is charles johnson who wrote a book called "why coolidge matters" which addresses directly what analogies we can see today. there's another book that was published before mr. johnson's. in fact, by the coolidge foundation and the notaries with all kinds of politicians, democrat and republican -- i believe michael dukakis is in there -- writing about why

coolidge might be a model today. one of the groups we often hear from, whatever party, both parties are state controllers. they want to know about coolidge because coolidge was the maestro of budgets. he was the isaac stern of budgets. so whatever their party at the state level are, officials have to control bums, and they turn to -- budgets, and they turn to him over and over again. >> host: and i'll just mention to ron from oklahoma, that's the reason when you call into c-span and meg tells you turn down the volume on your tv, that way you don't get confused by the little bit of delay. just listen through your phone, and you'll, it'll be on tack. john in grapevine, texas, you are on c-span's booktv. john? >> caller: thank you very much for taking my call. my question for you is on the book which i just finished and enjoyed very much. what was it when you decided to write the book, were you

surprised that there hadn't been that much written about calvin coolidge? and what really drove you to write the book? >> guest: thank you for that question. when i was writing "forgotten man," i realized the '20s were really pretty good, and i didn't see a lot of books about them. so i went and looked, and i thought i'd write a book about the '20s, and then i thought, oh, my gosh, this man, the president personifies the '20s. let's try and do him. there are some excellent earlier biographies of coolidge. all of us stand on the shoulders of other people, and hopefully we don't trample on them, we honor them. one of them was so bell. unfortunately, he's gone, but he wrote an economic biography of coolidge. phillips andover the big fat bio of coolidge a few years ago. there's why coolidge matters, the two volumes, and there's always more to come.

i noticed bill bryson wrote about him in 1927. i mean, one way to ask this question again is why look at texas? because it's what the united states could be if it were growing faster. it's kind of a model. you're from texas, right? why look at coolidge? he's what we could be, very inspiring. he's better than ronald reagan in many ways. oh, my gosh. that's blasphemy, right? but it's true. so i like the dare of that. here is someone whose tax rate is lower than reagan's. let's figure out how much better he is than his reputation. >> host: dan cecil, athens, alabama. ms. shlaes, you describe coolidge as a prequel to "forgotten man." would you suggest a new reader read "forgotten man" before coolidge? >> guest: no, i would suggest you read coolidge first, but i don't know if i pulled it out. we're all connoisseurs of "star wars", right? and we have our opinion about which show to see first.

i would say read "coolidge" first, and i would also say please read the graphic novel. it is a new genre for standard history as far as i can tell. although there is a book "march" about the lawmaker john lewis and civil rights that's beautiful. please have a look at this. we're hoping to translate into it spanish. and, because we have so many hispanic readers who are interested in the material, sophisticated about it but might be learning english and aren't up for a 500-page book as, indeed, most americans aren't. >> host: bill from jacksonville, florida. hi, bill with. >> caller: hello, good afternoon. i have a very pithy question. but first, i'd like to get an opinion from amity. amity, please name the conservative presidents serving since 1900.

what is the import -- >> guest: oh. name the -- >> host: bill, go ahead and finish -- >> guest: oh, sorry. >> host: finish your thoughts, bill. >> caller: well, i would like to get the import of the answer that she provides. >> host: you'd like to get the import of the answer. what do you mean by that? >> caller: i mean, what is the significance, what does it mean? >> guest: well, i like a lot of presidents. one of my conservative presidents is john f. kennedy, because john f. kennedy understood that free enterprise is very important. and you can see that in ira stoll's new book which i'm sure has been on this show. another is "coolidge," is -- coolidge, another is reagan. i like a lot about eisenhower myself, too, and his humility towards job recalls coolidge. and you see the debates now about what kind of memorial

eisenhower should have and should it be grandiose. truman i like too when he went home. he didn't make a show of himself. so, well, what are you getting at? >> host: bill is gone. i apologize for that. what about ronald reagan? george w. bush? >> guest: oh, i like the bush bes very much. you know, i was a germany scholar when germany happened, and i was astounded how well president bush handled that, 41. and i -- >> host: the fall of the wall. >> guest: fall of the wall. because we could have trampled all over it. we could have gotten away. maybe we didn't like the way they did their currency union. their currency union was kind of suicidal because it made labor too expensive in east germany, forcing unemployment there. but we could have gone over there and said you can't reunify germany without doing it our way economically. but the u.s. pretty much sat back. you want to give credit to the statesmen who were involved.

zelico, i think zoellick, maybe condoleezza rice. i haven't been thinking about this today who, secretary of state, right? who all went and said, oh, it's okay for germany to reunify. i respect that. and president bush behind them -- on germany's schedule, more or less, germany reunified. wow, there was much more spin in england over it. oh, my gosh. they had stronger feelings, right? about germany. so that, i will never forget that president bush 41 did that and the skill with which he did it. he just saw the moment ofly, he was able to work with helmut kohl. about president reagan, it's been said -- i think the viewers have heard this before. i'll say about bush 43 with whom i have worked at the bush presidential foundation that he understood the economy, and he fought to reduce government when he could, in the tax area

particularly. those tax cuts right, you know, as he came in early, you know, were very good for the economy and made a recovery of quality. >> host: you're watching booktv on c-span2. every month we have one author on and his or her body of work. this month author amity shlaes. we've heard a lot about her history, some of the places she's worked. she's also the author of these books: "germany: the empire within," 1991. "the greedy hand: how taxes drive americans crazy and what to do about it" was 1999. "the forgotten man," a new york times bestseller, 2007. "calvin coolidge" last year came out, another bestseller. and just this year, "the forgotten man: a new history the great depression, the graphic edition." came out. and i want to let regular viewers of booktv know that

every month we have a new book for our book club, and this month we have chosen "the forgotten man," either the original edition or the graphic edition. so if you would like to read along, it's about economics, it's about the depression, you can tie a lot of things in to today as well, amity shlaes' "forgotten man" is our book club section for the month of june. pick up a copy, digitally get a copy and join us in reading. if you go to booktv.org, you'll see right up there at the to be -- top there's a tab that says "book club." and beginning this afternoon we will start posting your comments. we want to hear what you have to say about "the forgotten man," our book club selection for the month of june. well, tonya davis is the producer of this program. she's down in washington, and she works with the author prior to the show, and we try to find out a little bit more about the

author, some of her influences and some of the books she's reading right now. here's a look at what amity shlaes said.

>> booktv of covers hundreds of author programs throughout the country all year long, and here's a look at some of the events we'll be attending this week. look for these programs to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. on wednesday we'll be covering michael waldman, president of the brennan center for justice at new york university law school. he'll be talking about his book,

"the second amendment: a biography," and he'll be speaking at the national constitution center in philadelphia. on thursday night, booktv will be in columbia, missouri, at the daniel boone regional library hosting a talk by travel writer william pete moon, he'll be discussing his best-selling book, "blue highways." on that same night, we'll be covering james oakes on his book "the scorpion sting: anti-slavery and the coming of the civil war" at the new york historical society. and then on sunday, june 8th, we'll be at the center for african-american history art and culture in aiken, south carolina, to record south carolina congressman james clyburn talking about his memoir, "blessed experiences." and that's a look at some of the author programs booktv will be covering this upcoming week. for more, go to booktv.org and visit "upcoming programs." >> here's a look at some books that are being published this week. jack devine, former deputy of director of operations at the

cia recounts his 32 years of service in "good hunting." in "sally ride: america's first woman in space," journalist lynn scherr details the life and career of the first female astronaut. journalist nell bernstein argues the juvenile prison system does nothing to rehabilitate young offenders and needs to be reformed in "burning down the house: the end of juvenile prison." in "america: imagine a world without her," dinesh d'souza analyzes the sociopolitical climate in the u.s. civil rights scholar charles cobb describes the role guns played as a form of self-protection in the 1960s in "this nonviolent stuff will get you killed: how guns made the civil rights movement possible." in "big money" ken vogel, a reporter for politico, reports

on the impact the citizens united decision has had on politics and democracy. look for these titles in bookstores this coming week, and watch for the authors in the near tush on booktv -- future on booktv and on booktv.org. >> here's a look at some of the upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. this weekend booktv is talking with authors and publishing executives at the publishing industry's annual trade show, bookexpo america, in new york city. watch booktv in the coming weeks to see these interviews and more. on june 7th and 8th, we're live from the printers row lit fest. that weekend also features the first sacramento black book fair. and on saturday, june 21st, the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library will hold their 11th annual roosevelt reading festival which features numerous author talks on the 32nd president. look for our coverage on a future weekend. and let us know about book fairs and festivals happening in your area, and we'll be happy to add them to our list.

e-mail us at booktv@cspan.org. >> host: amity shlaes, you list willie brant is as one of your greatest influences. who was he? >> guest: well, the part that made me be influenced by him were his speeches as mayor of berlin during the period when the soviets and the east germans put up the berlin wall. and as i was answering this question about a month ago in preparation for the show, i was listening to billy rund speak out from berlin to communist that they were doing wrong by erecting this wall, and he said, in english he'd say the sow -- soviet union gave her lap dog, the east german regime, a little bit of string, a little bit of leash, that's all that's happened. they're just rooting up, they're

wrecking all of international law. by building this terrible berlin wall in my city. and the way he did it was so dramatic, so tough. and here was the little mayor in a big, international game. it was geopolitics, and he stood out for his toughness like a tiny dog himself fighting against the monster of the soviet union, and i was just touched by the bravery of the speeches. why did i mention him? because the audio of that just became available. so you can hear old german radio and hear exactly what transpired as the german democracy was built. we have the same thing with mayor daley of chicago, what he said in the '60s. that's fun too. >> host: you also list a woman named sofie raven. >> guest: let's give her some credit. that was my fifth grade english teacher, mrs. raven.

we all have a teacher or two like that. sofie raven was a wonderful teacher and had a lot of faith in her students. you know, you just have that one teacher that says you can do it. she was that teacher at the university of chicago laboratory school in 1970. i hope her daughters know how much we all adored her. sophie raven. >> host: laboratory school. >> guest: it was a school that belongs to the university. >> host: and what was -- was there anything different about it, its curriculumsome. >> guest: it was founded by john dewey, the great educational progressive. it was just basically, i mean, we still had things that were different like girls did shop in those days that was new. but it was supposed to be a laboratory for education and, of course, the education students at the university of chicago used it to run little experiments, but they weren't too intrusive. >> host: is that the school that the obama girls went to? >> guest: it is. it is. and, you know, one of the wonderful things about that school is that it was always integrated.

so i remember having black friends and white friends, and i only learned much later that was not the average for the rest of the country. and you'll see great friendships came out of it across races where race did not matter. >> host: 202 is the area code if you want to dial in and talk with amity shlaes, our author for this month's "in depth." 585-3882 in the east ask central time zones, 585-3881 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. if you can't get through on the phone lines, you can also get through on social media. @booktv is our twitter handle, facebook.com/booktv, and finally you can send an e-mail to journal@c-span.org. the next call for amity shlaes comes from greg in ohio. hi, greg. >> caller: hello there, how are you? my question -- >> host: fine, sir. please go ahead.

>> caller: my question is, has to do with the portrait of calvin coolidge that hung in the cabinet room during the reagan presidency. i find that significant. i find interesting. i'd want your, the author's thoughts and comments on that. >> guest: that's right. president reagan, thank you, ohio. president reagan gave the coolidge portrait rom innocence by putting -- prominence by butting it in a prominent -- by putting it in a prominent place. i believe it was moved after reagan with somewhere else in the white house. i happen to have a picture of myself with president bush taken under it, you know, some visit to the white house. i just don't know which room it was in. so it's not as though coolidge was cast out of the white house which some allege. he was, he was moved around. i think the significant part is the moving in of coolidge, many republicans don't really like

him, and reagan understood. i heard stories about coolidge, reagan when someone tried to assassinate him, he was in the hospital, and he was reading a bio of coolidge. i don't know which one, probably the bio. oh, he cut taxes how many times? one, two, three, well, gee, i hope i can do that. reagan admired coolidge. >> host: some people who know your economic philosophy might be surprised to see paul volcker on your list of greaters influences. >> guest: well, paul volcker is a man of character, and he does what he thinks is right no matter what party it is, and i like that very much. and he's been a great friend to my work even though he doesn't agree with it because i'm not a monitarist, and he still has a lot of that in his philosophy. this is the former fed chairman. and, you know, he has been extremely respectful of my work as has, fortunately for me, chairman greenspan.

so i, there's something about monetary authorities that i like, and they like me. what i see with volcker is why is he here though besides that we're friends is that when the interest rate needed to go up, he put it up even though he knew that would force the recession. and the fed chairman is going to have to do that again one of these days. hopefully it's a coolidge or a volcker who dares to do it. >> host: amity shlaes, you're working your way backwards as we talked about earlier. depression, fdr, willkie then coolidge. what's the next project? >> guest: well, the next project is actually forward, so we're making a trilogy of triptik, fending on your -- i would like to make it visual as well. so it goes forgotten president, that's calvin coolidge, forgotten man, that's the 1930s and then silent majority which is the book for which i'm

under contract with hard per collins. this is -- harpercollins. i think you would just say it was bad america that was a little suspicious or skeptical of the progressive project and marched forward and did pretty well, and it sort of seemed as if right sector -- private sector would prevail. the emphasis in this book is a new emphasis for me but one dear to my heart and my passion which is urban planning. i don't -- i'm kind of -- i like the great philosopher jane jacobs who doesn't like big planners who came and build things -- built things for government purposes or for private sector purposes that had little to do with the community and who believe that neighborhoods grew organically. actually, jacobs and high yak are alike -- hayek are alike in that way, the economickist philosopher. a big group comes and says there needs to be a 30-story tower building here because we feel like it, and the tax lawsuits

that. that doesn't mean it's good for the neighborhood. and what i hope if i can to add value, what i hope to add value with is my portrait of the abysmal work of urban renewal, of the terrible failure of urban renewal along with welfare, along with all the great society programs. but especially urban renewal. and, you know, how many cities have we wrecked? we asked earlier in the show why do people like new york? well, we like new york because it wasn't totally wrecked by robert caro. this will be a controversial book -- >> host: by robert -- >> guest: the great empire builder, the man who wanted to run a highway through greenwich village or all those places, the children you know want to buy condos from all over the world because they are pedestrian zones. so i want to write about the kind of stealing of the soul of cities by modern planners, and

that will -- people don't expect that, but i'm going to give a lot to that. i think that planners are to blame for a lot, just as hayek said. >> host: next call for amity shlaes comes from gary in st. simon's island, georgia. hi, gary. >> caller: good afternoon. the reason i was calling, i've gotten at least two of your books and a number of your columns, but i particularly wanted to ask you in "the forgotten man" after the 1936 election roosevelt and the democratic overwhelmingly democratic congress passed a tax increase, and as you mentioned in the book, the unemployment rate which had slightly gone down after the depression or was starting to go down then jumped back up, and world war ii saved it. i want you to fast forward, and i don't know if you do any predictions, but i see the affordable care act that we're now implementing and rolling out

and chief justice roberts has famously referred to it -- or infamously, i should say -- refers to it as a tax. do you see any parallels between the two? that's kind of the basis of my question. >> guest: well, i personally do, yes. i think too much law is unfortunate. coolidge said give administration a chance to catch up with legislation. you know, too many laws create a kind of social chaos. and when nobody thoughs the answer, then everyone starts to feel sneaky. of it's bad for civics as well. so i see a parallel, yes, between some new deal laws and the affordable care act. others may not. >> host: amity. >> lace, for whom do you -- shlaes, for whom do you write now? >> guest: right now i write for "forbes" print, david malpass, my good friend the economist, and i also write for national review. and i want to say just because i've been writing for them just

a couple of weeks, national review is an awesome crowd. they make a lot of noise. they're a party that's fun to be with, and they are particularly interesting on the subject of faith. so wherever economics and faith come together, which sometimes they do, or i've never met such an interesting, receptive audience. >> host: do you maintain a web site as well so if people want to get the aggregate columns that you do? >> guest: oh, not right now. right now all is for service of coolic and the -- coolidge and the coolidge foundation. what we'll be doing all summer is bringing young people up to the coolidge foundation to debate economics. so i write for the coolidge blast which is edited by rashad and matt denhart. >> host: and do you still have an association with the manhattan institute? >> guest: well, i do chair the jury for an important prize recently won by casey mulligan of the university of chicago, the hayek rise. and be this is the prize for

free market journalism. and it's very exciting. this prize will be awarded on the 25th of june. the two, you know, finalists behind casey were ger stand das of india for india grows at night and -- [inaudible] and the can co-author, i think is -- [inaudible] i'm sorry if i mispronounce it for another good book about india because india's key right now, is it going to go free market or not? and we hope they're all coming to the awards dinner on the 25th. what casey does, which is hard to do, gets at that issue of marginal tax rates we spoke of before. he establishes not what the law says, but what the effective marginal tax rate, what it really is even, you know, when the law, sometimes you'll have a law where it doesn't say in the statute, but was there's a surcharge, that's the functional, effective marginal

rate. what he's doing is the work of showing what the rising tax burden means. >> host: and casey mulligan is an economics professor -- >> guest: he's a professor at the university of chicago. i don't believe i've ever met him, but i -- the jury found his book extremely solid, and that also gets at our theme of substance. it's not a polemic, it's extremely hayekian, but it doesn't say i don't like the other guy because of obamacare. it says here is the evidence that our recession was made worse by government redistribution. and he basically indicts those who would argue that income inequality needs to be fixed. he says by redistricting in our attempt to stop inequality we made the recession worse. so that's some statement. >> host: casey mulligan's book, "the redistribution recession." amity shlaes, you also say that you're reading elizabeth

warren's book. >> guest: oh, i am, yeah. no, and my husband actually wrote a column about it. elizabeth warren is concerned about bankruptcy and how hard it is for people down at the bottom. and i share that concern that's "the forgotten man," right? her approach might be different from mine, but her concern -- and she writes about it beautifully -- is worth paying attention to. nickel and dime is a book that -- >> host: barbara aaron right. >> guest: how you're, i don't know, trashed when you live at the bottom. all of us agree that at the bottom and in the middle it could be better. we disagree how you so that problem. >> host: ralph nader recently wrote a book talking about how the left and the right are coming together on many of thesish shoes. >> guest: well, it is true. i once started writing a book about emma goldman -- the great left-wing anarchist -- and ayn

rand, she's a great libertarian. who are they? they're two russian girls who came to america and made a lot of trouble, right? but very, very interesting and not that different because there's right anarchy and left anarchy. we're all closer than we believe. >> host: frank is calling from the center of ohio, wooster, ohio. hi, frank. >> caller: hi. thank you, i'm fortunate to get a call in. my question was back under the roosevelt era when you mentioned the working weren't really ready for communism that much at that time. and i read whitaker chambers' book, "witness," and those statements in there where he almost alluded to hopkins, the right-hand man of roosevelt, as a communist and how our policies were so affected in the war from a communist influence on our government more than just stealing secrets, etc. and then on to a marcia west

book, russian archives and a lot of confirmation. so i'm kind of wondering has our society moved in the direction more towards communism than it was then or less, or is it it about the same? because i see a lot of pushback on the debates, and i just -- i don't know. i don't have a feel for that. and just a comment -- >> host: thank you, sir. >> host: very quickly. >> caller: time's up. >> guest: thank you, sir. >> host: just a second. go ahead, frank. very quickly. >> caller: well, there was -- i can't remember the name of it, korean war vet sponsored by south vietnam on trips back to south vietnam, and the young children even thanking them for their service and maintaining grave sites, etc., and be in effect saying thank you that we're not -- north korea, i'm sorry, and that's south korea. and thank you that we're not north korea. so i'm kind of wondering about

that. >> host: thank you, sir. amity shlaes. >> guest: thank you, frank. i think there are two questions. the first is what happened in the '30s, and there's a lot of debate about that. it's a hot topic. what i discovered was many new dealers were influenced by communism. and others have rib about that -- written about that, including ben steele and diana west. whether they were traitors, that is, did they work for the communist government? i'm not an expert on that. certainly, harry dexter white is especially key and did work for the other government, for the other side. but you want to draw that distinction because if you get caught up in a fight about who actually works for communism, you ignore the important part which is which of our policies were influenced by communism or, for that matter, mussolini was a great hero over here in the '30s, and that's what's important. so to that, no, i don't think we're going communist now at all. however, i do think -- and i

think you're getting at this too -- that we're giving, those of us who know that markets are good and that freedom is good are kind of giving away the future when it comes to education. and we, we're awfully cavalier about it. there's a big emphasis right now on politics, you know, and it's an election year, you can only talk about the candidates, and nobody talks about how little young people know or how we might communicate with them. it's my work for the rest of my life to know that younger people know stuff. they can make up their own minds, but they have to know stuff. and that's what the graphic novel is, we have the coolidge foundation. we must give the young people a chance to engage with these ideas wherever they come out. >> host: kevin e-mails in to you, amity shlaes, i always thought the modern day equivalent of calvin coolidge is mitch daniels, former governor of indiana, current president of

purdue. >> guest: i try not to compare people to coolidge, and one of those is governor and president mitch daniels. what a mind and what a temperament. he's a lot of fun to be around, that's important too as vooz svelte showed. another is paul ryan, another is ted cruz. do i endorse these people? no. i'm just saying who has a coolidge-like bent, that is to say cares about budgets viscerally. some of this is temperament, isn't it? we were talking about coolidge and money, he liked to hang on to his money, even tired a white house house keep enwhen she -- when she spent too much, right? that was coolidge. and you want to look which candidate has the temperament that he likes to save? who were those guys? who likes books? who likes to keep books? who likes excel? coolidge would have loved excel had he lived.

>> host: you write in your biography of calvin coolidge that his salary was $75,000 which was a lot of money back then, but he had to pay for food and housekeeping. >> guest: oh, and he didn't like it. why do we know this? because he offended a lot of the white house staff because he wasn't a very good tipper. scrooge, right? and they wrote books. it was just as now, it was just as bitter, and one of them, the housekeeper, told her story to cosmopolitan, owned by hearst and published. she really wanted to succeed. she went around in a horse and carriage to to shop for the white house, and she would say, look, mr. president, look at this spread. we talk about pork today, we mean it figuratively, especially on c-span, right? budgets, pork, you know? items in the budget. she said, look, look -- coolidge took it literally. look at my dinner for the

foreign diplomats, coolidge said that looks like an awful lot of ham to me, mrs. jaffe ray. you're spending too much of my money, and soon she was gone, and he replaced her. we have the documents where her successor, who kept better records and didn't shop in specialty shops, went to, i don't know, the supermarket or something, the new supermarket. of all her savings and every time she overspent, the new house tokeeper, she would -- housekeeper, she would explain why. so this is not just he was nasty, though i'm sure he appeared nasty. it's that he was principled. if he wanted the nation to save and spend less government money and veto things people might even need or wadly want -- badly want, then he better live quietly himself. and he did. >> host: herbert hoover, that's the first federal presidential library, correct? >> guest: i believe so, yes,

sir. >> host: and calvin cool you can was the president right before that. >> guest: right. coolidge wasn't too friendly to the idea of a federal presidential library, and i've spoken about this with president bush and other leaders. the presidential library law is a great gift because the government supplies the librarians. they have a wonderful librarian, alan lowe, at our library in dallas by smu, right? that's a government -- the presidents have to build the building. and president bush and, you know, his father before him and certainly president clinton and president carter labored mightily, and they raised the money for the building. you know, it's a partnership. the president raises a lot of money, and the goth supplies -- the government supplies the scholars and archivists. it's a wonderful marriage. that was too much for calvin coolidge though, he didn't like the idea of being partners with the federal government. though he gave some things to

the library of congress and the archives. he thought a politician should be friendly with the state. that's where it was. i almost laughed. i shouldn't laugh. or even with the town. so he kind of cut off his archival nose to spite his face because he gave a lot of stuff to the library in northampton, massachusetts, where he spent much of his career as a young attorney, rose in politics, and he gave, you know, some to, some of it was in vermont. and in his spirit, we partner -- we, the coolidge foundation -- with the state of vermont. we don't partner too much, although we've taken grants before, with the federal government because the president would have liked it that way. and john coolidge himself, we did get a large federal grant, called it pork. the son of the president. the coolidges have a bit of a hesitation about taking federal money. long live the coolidges. it's very interesting. but as a result, there's no

grand library to coolidge. he would have liked it that way. we're going to make the coolidge site in prelim moth notch a grand monument to restraint. very interesting. the anti-- how do you make a monument to someone who hated monuments, especially to himself? we have young people debate there and see his beautiful house. he didn't live over the store like margaret thatcher, he was born behind it. there's a difference. one donor gave the money, so the wires could be buried so it would look old-timey like williamsburg. another got easements, paid for easements so houses wouldn't be built all around so that prelim moth notch would look like it did in coolidge's time when it was a tiny electricity-free village. so it's a different kind of monument but very, very compelling, plymouth notch.

>> host: michael phillips asks via e-mail, for an english major from yale, where did you get your profound knowledge of economics? >> guest: oh, thank you for calling it profound, i don't know if it's. one is i worked in eastern europe, and when you work in eastern europe or are position zed to it -- exposed to it as i was, you realize what doesn't work. and that is a collective government. i want to give credit to my father, jared shlaes, who is an economist though he is in real estate. he taught me a lot, and his business experience taught me a lot too. finally, wall street journal. got to say that, right? >> host: elaine is calling in from getted that da, colorado. thanks for holding, you're on with amity shlaes on booktv. >> caller: yes, i've enjoyed "the forgotten man," and that's the only booktive read from you, but i would like to ask you what the teapot theme, dome scandal had on the harding and coolidge, and i'll hang up and listen to your answer. thank you.

>> guest: oh, thank you. so elaine wants to ask about teapot dome. teapot dome was the scandal of the harding administration. what they wanted to do sounded kind of good. the government had extra oil. well, they should privatize that. sounded like something the reason foundation might advocate, right? privatized excess reserves. but the way that the harding administration did it was too close to friends for comfort. friends got contracts, people who gave money, new people who got contracts, and so it became teapot dome which is the name of the place where the oil, where the energy was. a scandal that lived down the centuries in name. there was another scandal much relevant to today regarding veterans. they had a new veterans bureau. it was supposed to build hospitals. instead, people took kickbacks, and the veterans suffered in pain. and remember, many veterans in that period returned from world war i, one-third disabled, and there were no antibiotics. so you can imagine all this

money was spent and often for corruption. the head of the veterans bureau, charles forbes, ended up in leavenworth prison. so that was harding, you know? where it was his -- whether it was his fault, it was his fault at least in his choice of friends, and coolidge was extremely horrified by the whole thing. you can see the physical tension. there was, i think it's fort myer, a cannon went off every morning at sunrise and he'd say how i hate that sunrise noise, because he knew that every day as vice president he'd be deeper embroiled in a scandal that was not of his own making by any means and about which he probably knew very little. so as president he endeavored to clean up, to shine up the presidency again. and i think he did a pretty good job. >> host: and just a quick clarification, marsha grace e-mails in that when you were talking about hur newest book -- your newest book, that you mention to be talking about robert moses, not robert caro.

>> guest: oh, i'm sorry, you're right. i'm getting tired. i'm sorry. robert caro wrote about robert moses -- >> host: right. >> guest: getting tired. i love robert caro's book. >> host: and david holmes e-mails in: in the '20s, fascism rose to the commanding heights of the economy in italy and germany. our current president and big government supporters appear to want government again to command the economy here. is there anything coolidge had to say in opposition to fascism in the economy that we today can use as a guide to protect our constitutional freedoms? >> guest: oh, well, men do not make laws, they do but discover them. you didn't really like a lot of law which comes with big government, fascism or no. he always respected the individual. have a look at his vetoes. they're poetry. you know, i like veterans, but

if i help one group, maybe i'll hurt another, that forgotten man. right on the senate web site you'll see beautiful statements by coolidge. >> host: amity shlaes, "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression," is your book, and david e-mails in this interesting fact, the german version of "the forgotten man," has a subtitle that translates to "a new view of roosevelt, the new deal and the state as savior." why the difference from the english version? >> guest: well, actually, i don't have it in front of me, so i can't confirm that, but it doesn't sound wrong. because the german version understood that so-called austrian economics would get the forgotten man. and austrian economics isn't about roosevelt, it's about the state being too big.

hayek was a kind of austrian, right. >> in that pill soft call school -- philosophical school. and the germans and the austrians understand all this philosophy about how government being too big. and i am sure that germans like to poke at roosevelt, too, because he was their enemy in world war ii. but the book itself was not changed. it's the same book. and most of the german leaders i hear from -- readers i hear from want to talk about economics, not president roosevelt. >> host: brad is calling in from studio city, california. brad, good afternoon. you're on booktv. >> caller: good afternoon. good afternoon. thank you for taking my call. >> guest: good afternoon. >> caller: i'm a big fan of your books, mrs. shlaes. i got both "coolidge" and the other one, "the forgotten man." question for you, right next to calvin coolidge is my book called the forgotten conservative about grover cleveland. did coolidge have a thought

about cleveland? >> guest: i don't know, i don't think so because i would have nosed. you know -- noticed. you know, someone who's very interesting to read about is the poet, robert frost. there's a lot in common robert frost and coolidge. and robert frost actually campaigned for grover cleveland as a child, he's that old. and he got it. it was another kind of democrat, right? grover cleveland was a democrat from today's democrat. all three of them respected property rights. >> host: john in berry, vermont. did i say that correctly? is it berry, vermont? >> caller: yes, sir. can you hear me? >> host: okay, please. yep, we're listening, please. >> caller: greetings from a moxie addict in the socialist paradise here in vermont. great show, amity. i met you last summer at the coolidge event. and you do such a wonderful job with the young folks. but the reason i was calling

today is i recently finished a book called "the unique inauguration of calvin coolidge," and it leads -- >> guest: oh, yes. >> caller: and it leads into my two questions. that they drank a lot of moxie that night, and also what i alluded to with the socialist paradise remark. i'd like to put up a big banner in our statehouse that says "what would calvin have done" and beg our vermont legislature today to, please, listen to calvin. and i'd like the hear your thought on it. oh, also is there any chance of getting brian lamb back as a guest? i met him last summer. >> guest: oh, we'll consider it. mr. lamb from c-span came and judged our kids, and mrs. lamb, and then they -- mr. lamb interviewed the kids all dinner about their hopes and dreams, and there's a video of that on

youtube. he did a wonderful job. so, question, let's see -- let me -- >> host: what would calvin do? >> guest: calvin left vermont and went to massachusetts, but his dad did serve in the legislature while he was a younger politician. in vermont, well, he'd be like governor jim douglas who himself has a book coming out. he would say, well, moderation in vermont, please, try and cut back the government where you can, where you can, right? that's what he would do. i have great respect for vermont. there are vermonters of all kinds despite the reputation that vermont is uniformly progressive. so we'll say that. and rust orton was one of them, i believe was he not the founder of the vermont country store? is that right, listener? oh, he's gone. anyway, we have plenty of friends of the old-fashioned coolidge in vermont and plenty of friends who might not glee

with coolidge's tax policy but love other aspects of him; his respect for the constitution, for abraham lincoln and so on. so vermont is a great place for coolidge, and, of course, we should get a banner. i love the idea. >> host: amity shlaes, on our facebook page a lot of the comments are along this line, and this'll lead to a question. as if the 1% needed one more propaganda, revisionist history, etc., a lot of that. ask then jost -- and then joseph has this comment: amity, retrograde thinking is interesting, but nonsense for our future. globalization and the digital revolution has changed everything. forward, creative thinking is what is needed. >> guest: oh, thank you. well, i'll ignore the first part and do the retrograde part. don't worry about the first part. the retrograde part is what matters. what i noticed about coolidge is how intensely modern he was.

his main theme was networks. he believed in networks. as a young man, he studied the trolley network which was really electricity, right, of western massachusetts and what it did to commerce. and in that time you could take the trolley to amherst there north ham on the and back again, and -- northampton and there were three or four different lines of train you could take from boston in to western mass. if you're interested in trains, a lot of us are interested in trains because as vain as we are about the success of our internet network and our linking, we've failed in trains and in some areas of electricity, right? so i see a ton modern in coolidge. the other thing he liked was aviation, aviation wasn't unmodern, right? he believed in aviation as a vehicle of diplomacy. he sent charles lindbergh down

to mexico. and i'll say finally to those technicians who say history's old and retrograde, those are the same technicians whose stocks were really challenged in the market crisis, because they were unacquire that policy -- unaware that policy and the history behind policy could affect stock prices. history affects stock prices. it affects bond prices and interest rates. so those who operate in a purely technical area do so at their peril over the longer term. >> host: speaking of peril, you write about tax prepares in your book, "the greedy hand," and i just want to read -- >> guest: that's a long time ago. >> host: i think you'll be able to follow it. unlike other advocates, tax experts don't have a different opponent every time they go to trial. their opponent is almost always the same, the irs. and that irs is not just any opponent. it is the one in the enrolled agent's case at at least that

certified them in the first place. i knows them and knows that they have co-signed the returns they prepared. rejection by the irs can be the end of a taxpayer -- prepare's career. >> guest: well, that's right. and it's even more true today. maybe that -- i don't know the technical format, but that's the creepy thing about the current era, is that it's all about who you though and how you get along. so if you go to see an attorney or a tax preparer or a school or a bank, who's on the other side? i'll give an example with the bank. when you go to talk to the bank, sometimes you have -- i have the feeling here in new york that i'm talking to senator schumer, not the bank with. because the bank is talking the regulation that senator schumer wrote, and it's afraid of its regulators and senator schumer. that means the bank isn't working just for me, even if it says outside home equity loan extension or whatever.

everyone is we holden to someone -- beholden to someone else in a not transparent way, in an opaque way, and it makes us all creepy and nest. i mean, i read about this in chicagoland, actually, and a problem with chicago. for a city that's an options city where trading is important, chicago is a lot about deals and who you know, and it always was, right? ..

>> guest: the government response, and that will be bush and obama, was too large and we will all live the with consequences of that forever. >> host: jeff, fargo, north dakota. >> caller: i have been doing a lot of reading and i think the number one bill that has sent our country in this hundreds years of progressives is the federal reserve act of 1913 and once this next collapse comes will be get back to the george washington and thomas jefferson and take of our own because this $120 trillion of unfunded liability will bury us. >> guest: the list is talking about the law that created the

modern fed. it was created as a club for banks to help each other with liquidty in the crisis. their responsibilities have been expanded over the years and now the fed is supposed to run everything. i don't think at the time many people thought the fed would be running the economy in the way we should imagine it should now. a lot of us are concerned with this. thank you for pointing that out. >> host: next call is dean in stockton, california. you are on with amity shlaes. >> caller: thank you for that wonderful biography of coolidge. you changed my mind on him and i think he should rank high and that is based upon my reading in your book.

my question for you is if coolidge was here today and he was looking at social security and the medicare entitlement program and how that is making it impossible to lower marginal tax rates and grow the economy, what would he do if he was president and what would amity do if you were president on the issue of entitlement? >> guest: social security isn't that hard. you freeze the benefits so they increase with inflation but not with real growth and that reduces much of the problems like scholars you know have shown. maybe you invite some immigrants in and they pay a social security tax and that takes care of the rest. medicare is much harder. medicaid is harded. those other things.

but i would start with something you could do in social security. both parties are making the good, the enemy of the best there. it should be every high school's project to solve social security because a high schooler can learn statistics and do it isn't that hard. i would talk about the cutting the capital gains tax. that would make it easier to cut down other tax rates. the real question is when are challenged and we will be, then all of the steps will be more obvious. i think coolidge would be for a flat tax and best friends with steve forbes. he likes clarity and understand complexity was as bad as a high

rate. he would have certainly cut back the veterans service even though he had great feelings about them. and he would have been careful about foreign engagement. >> host: from amity shlaes' book "the greedy hand" social security is a fantasy. a comforting pleasant fantasy. one that has sustained many millions of americans over the decades but a fantasy. washington promised from the start that social security would be a trust. in reality there was no trust. mainly cash flow from con tributers and went out the same day to senior citizens. this was the root of the deception. >> guest: it is. it was edited a few times but that doesn't mean it can't be

converted we just have to do it yesterday or today over to something -- if you go back and look at the literature, i think in the "the greedy hand" i had pictures, roosevelt said you have an account as if your name is on it but the supreme court didn't think so. they have cases showing it is their money and we have no account. i think it would be to good save social security and made it a truth not a fantasy because that would restore trust. i have had debates because they would like to stop making payments to wealthy people and i think everyone who paid in should be getting something out of it and not because i think the rich deserve more money but because we should other than

this. and in the articles, it is a very important story, right? $2 $2 $2000 from a president but only 6-10 were published. and go for a meeting with the president and the president says exactly what the editor feels, oh, my, gosh, you published ten articles. and then i was asked what did coolidge do because he took out of his pocket a check that was already ready for $8,000. he gave it to the editor.

and my students say sucker. why did he do that. it says in the contract and it did say regardless he got to keep the money. what a fool! he did it was, and this is so important, because he wanted people to know he was reliable. that building of trust is what is missing in our trenches of this culture. we are just look, i fooled them, ha-ha. well everyone knows everyone in the world and we remember how we are treated. so it certainly isn't good civics, character, and not even good business to mistreat people you work with. what coolidge was saying is my articles were not what they

wanted. how can i improve? you would be more willing to tell me if i give you back your $8,000. much of what is wrong today could be fixed if he head this. >> host: what drew you to coolidge? >> guest: just that's he was quite. not many know his tax rate was lower than regan. and we are betting he is worth restoring because he has a lot it offer. >> host: e-mail, scranton, pennsylvania, earlier in the program you accused of new york mayor of engaging in class warfare, a study done by the

congressional budget in 2011 found the top 1% increased their income by about 280% after taxes over the period of 1979-2000. at the same time the bottom people grew by 8% and doesn't this prove there is class warfare going on in this country? the very wealthy against everyone else. >> guest: thank you for that question. i don't believe it matters if the rich are rich but i do believe it matters when the lower makers are not making more. use unemployment as a big program.

entitlement taxes continue to want to hold on. i will always ask and i share with you what does it look like at the bottom and what i i do changing it. and the number one thing i would say is for people to invest money here and they will create better jobs. there is nothing more important. this is an inquality debate that is relative to the question of why do young people not earn more. i would ask that. why is the process for starting a business so dense? why are all of the rules there to block when they start a business? why do they have the student loans? one reason is not wealth.

they have the student loans because the universities cost a lot because the education is so subsidized. it is all messed up. figure out a way to become great yourself rather than fall into a negative culture of envy. coolidge said you can't help the weak by pulling down the strong. >> host: next call comes from george in wichester, massachusetts. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i had the privilege of visiting the coolidge center in west plymouth and been to the western store and everything you want to

know about him is there. i picked up a cassette last time i was there by jan cook -- >> guest: jim cook, yes! >> host: please finish your thought. >> caller: was coolidge's father wo working for dun straight? >> guest: his father was sheriff, he did a million things, but as far as i know he didn't work with bradstreet but he might have. the voice you were speaking of jim cook, cranky yankee, is a coolidge impersonator and he is

going to be at the event on july 4th. he is a wonderful reader and actor. he has played coolidge at a lot of my parties for coolidge, too. >> host: michael is in chevy chase, maryland. >> caller: hi, it is michael pact. we are working on a film about calvin coolidge and it is an exciting project and i cannot wait to get started once we get the funds. my question is why did she approach me, and what do you hope to get out of it and accomplish. >> guest: i will tell all about this. coolidge is so great we cannot just be trapped in a book. he needs a graphic novel and a movie. on public television there are not many movies about a lot of our history and certainly not

about coolidge who is an in between for roosevelt. michael has new film about admiral rick over and did work on hamilton that attracted me. michael and i and many others are hoping it make a movie about coolidge that doesn't treat him in the throwback way or you know he had great personal tragedy but always looks at the tremendous economic contribution. michael is gone? i will say it is michael pack. man fold production. i thank him for calling in.

>> host: in your book, "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" you sent a bit of time on fdr's court packing plan. why? >> guest: it is a big piece of history. fdr found the cases were overturned and he got angry and the drawings of his anger of very good. he said i am going to change the supreme court. and he had the court packing plan after safely winning a big election. 46-48 states. he said if they are too old, some of them can go. we drew him questions the compitance because of their age and you see that today, too. maybe they are too old? the justices didn't like that and fought back and roosevelt's legislation didn't pass and some people said he went too far.

that was the story. however many of the cases that the supreme court heard s subsuquent to the packing effort were favorable to roosevelt. so that was with they had the court saved its own self going in the liberal or progressive direction. >> host: ruby is calling from riverside, california. >> caller: i admire fdr because he took on the special interest and fought for the people and established many work programs. my dad was in the ccc and i remember he got the economy going. isn't a reality these elite big corporations and special interest are influencing everything as proved on the bill

myer show alec: influencing public legislation. this doesn't sound like socialism but facism to me. and it means the cuts are going to hurt the people at the bottom especially with no jobs. i don't understand this or am i image all of this? >> guest: thank you for your solid and civil questions. it is true there were big interest in america that were conservatives. the trust and the big companies who got their way. roosevelt and his cousin didn't like them and we had an anti-trust law and action. right? and that is one special interest group. roosevelt on the other hand created his own special interest group. we are speaking of franklin.

senior citizens. the veterans. the worker. and that helped him win the great election and rewarded them. no one should be in a group. we should be seen as an individual regardless of race, gender and so on. and that went away with franklin roosevelt and it was all about groups. he liked women's group and thought they should join with labor and fight for political advantages. you see one grouping with the trust who were for the tariff replaced by another political grouping. i agree we should be aware of them but i way we should be aware of both. >> host: what was the relationship between coolidge and hoover? >> guest: not pleasant. >> host: why? >> guest: a lot of this isn't

about what your politics are like. it is about what you are like. hoover was the smartest guy in the room. i have a hard time liking him because he is arrogant. coolidge said rude things about him. not public but he wrote them down and we can read the books. he was secretary of commerce and vice secretary assistant of everything else because he butted his nose in everywhere. he was like the puppy that pushes himself in everywhere. it really bugs coolidge. no body is perfect but this really bugged him and it didn't show advantage because he would get sour with hoover sometimes.

and hoover same saying i have of of these votes. and if you have them you better keep them. when hoover had to run again in a terrible time when they needed the gop would loose coolidge was sick. his heart was bothering him and he went out and campaign and gave speeches for someone he didn't like. there is interaction between coolidge and sterling, his secret service man, and they would say when the down turn comes they will want him to spend money but not enough and the democrats will come in and spend even more. he thought hoover wasn't like him. that temperament thing and would cause trouble and was more of a progressive and by that time coolidge was no longer a a

progressive. >> host: what was his relationship with the tr family? >> guest: very interesting. the daughter of roosevelt was his good friend. they were in the same circles. mr. longworth mattered. he was an important republican and was speaker of the house or something like that. alice came to like president coolidge and president coolidge came to like her and when ally was going to have a baby she ran to the house and told ms. coolidge who was was a beautiful, nice lady. coolidge lived under his shadow of roosevelroosevelt.

obon his on -- on his honeymoon he went to canada and on the papers cause roosevelt this. as he grew up, as a politician governor and in washington, he wasn't roosevelt's kind of progressive at all and you can feel the tension. coolidge didn't believe in sliming your peers so you will not find a lot of it. >> host: charles in connecticut, go ahead. >> caller: i wanted to ask you about the person who edited the book review session of the tribune and was featured in a book called "the making of middlebrow culture" which was about the attempt to treat the general reader of someone of

intelligence and had an interest expanding their horizon and someone like virginia west, someone you like, could garner an audience. would you stab middlebrow culture of the '30's with whatever we have today. >> guest: i think it would be called highbrow culture, wouldn't it? because we are less bookish than we used to be. she was the girlfriend of wilky. and he was married. it is sad, but true, can't change the truth so we draw it. he was his mousse and helped him figure out he cared about the

forgotten man who wasn't in a particular group. middlebrow is a little mean because it has a tone that is c cond scending. we can't even imagine how important the tribune was. and laura ingles rider daughter and dorthy thompson, the woman who challenged hitler and it made the discussion interesting. we are loosing that now. you can see in the cartoon book

the artist loved her. see is the most beautiful in the book. and made a lot possible in the 1930's. >> host: from our facebook page, did coolidge transfer donte's divine comedy for fun? if so, has it been published? >> guest: i cannot find it, but i looked. he studied aaitalian and latin t amhust and there is information about him falling asleep in greek. he had a wonderful classical education. julie nelson, at the forbes

library pointed out a letter that said i want my son to be educated as i was. i don't want philosophy to be changed at all. so his formation and knowledge very literary for a president was important to him. >> host: amity shlaes, coolidge has lost a lot of talk in the whitehouse -- lost his son -- >> guest: things were going well, they missed harding and they had two sons. and calvin junior defies expectations. he was the second son and worked in the tobacco fields outside north hampton.

someone said if my dad were in washington i sure wouldn't work in any tobacco field and calvin, jr. said if your father were my father you would. he understood service. and someone wrote a letter now you are first boy. and he said i am not first boy because i didn't do anything to earn that title. he didn't like derived status. what a wonderful child. and he was taken in the cruelest way by infection. they had no anti-biotics. he was 16 years old. he was off for it summer and it was because of a tennis blister

that who died that went septic. and you can read how the president agonized because you are the most powerful person in the world but you cannot save your child. >> host: >> host: when and where did grace and coolidge die? >> guest: coolidge died in january of 1923. it wasn't a good time. he was wrong about history he felt but he looked forward. and grace much, much later, i believe it was the 50's or 60's. she was the first aerobic first lady. she would march with the special team and president coolidge would get jealous and fired one of them even. that was his worst behavior.

he fired his secret service man in the dakotas because she came back a from a walk late. ms. coolidge tried to help the man -- he wasn't fired truly but transferred. she visited the girlfriend's tea house to help the economy because she felt bad her husband fired jim, i think was his name. that is the hot coolidge. there was a hot coolidge. you just didn't see it a lot. >> host: joseph, pittsburgh. good afternoon. >> caller: i wanted to ask you about the rating system. the standard day rating system. you have murdoch getting a large portion of the s&p. there is a vested interest,

isn't it? >> guest: there is a lot of vested interest. we are making the cost of this public and the details private. the ratings agencies need competition. they don't need reinforcement. if an agency is failing and the agencies didn't predict the trouble there should be an opportunity for new agencies. >> host: amity shlaes, this e-mail from jerry in ann harbor. what do you think about money in politics? for example citizens united? >> guest: i don't have much to say about that. but coolidge was very careful and went through after having a

washington office because he didn't want to take a lot of money. one reason he was able to become the vice presidential candidate is many of the candidates in '20 were discovered to have taken money from this or that interest group. >> host: why don't you want to say about it? >> guest: i don't know a lot about it:. >> host: is there anything coolidge should have done different? >> guest: a lot of people say coolidge caused a great depression. there is not a lot of evidence about that. but he could have supported fair trade. he would have had to move the whole party. he could have reduced tariffs.

as the executive, he had the authority to fool around with them. he let it lie, though. he didn't like change or discretion a lot because that does its own damage. but he was a creature of his period. you cannot ask people to go outside his period so we didn't. i think that is the main one. >> host: andrew, logan utah. about ten minutes left in the program. >> caller: thank you for your work and educating the upcoming generations on economics. my question is related to the lost science of money and any parallels you see with economic philosophy of coolidge and what

do you think of the work of steven? >> guest: thank you for that. i know logan utah. i don't know zurlanga. is he a hard money author? >> caller: in 2003, he spoke before the u.s. treasury. the book he has written exhaustive work on the bases of economics and how money is defined and used in the philosophy. the book again is the loss silence of money. >> guest: thank you. i say coolidge was a hard money man. in fact one of his -- guest >> host: what does that mean? >> guest: he was for the gold standard. in 1896 he was just coming out of college and one of his first

debate was about the gold standard. and he was scared but he did it and he said i improved and began to understand this area because i was able to debate it. >> host: e-mail from joseph. calvin and ike were not as much a daily news item as the modern presidency has become. please have your guest comment on this. >> guest: ike had that because he was general in a terrible war. i find i work with ike people often. bruce coal is a great friend at the foundation and it is that uh-huh -- humility -- of someone

who worked hard. >> host: mike is on the line. >> caller: i am hooked on this and going to buy the book tomorrow. you know this was a civil rights disaster during this presidency. for someone who appeared moral and would return money. what did he do for civil rights? black people? women? what about the workforce? >> guest: thank you for the question. very important question. what did he do for civil rights. more than his predecessor or some of his successors. women got the vote and he supported that. they voted in the 1920 election and one reason harding was the

candidate was because he was handsome and that was supposed to affect the women. for the blacks, coolidge as a grown man was pretty admirable. you can see, for example, someone wrote him do you think a black man has a write to run for congress and he wrote back a letter i cannot believe you would even ask that question. and coolidge in the '20s, kkk was the main group and he gave a speech saying no more kkk in his second term out west. that is pretty tough. i don't see much evidence coolidge was racist.

he didn't desegregrate areas but neither did anything else. he believed the federal government can fix everything but if the economy is better things will get better. and that happened with lynchings and the kkk declined in the course of the coolidge presidency especially in terms of membership in the clans. he wasn't a civil rights president but he wasn't the shape of the cities as you suggest -- shame -- >> host: i want to remind you this month we have chosen the "the forgotten man: a new history of the great depression" as our book club selection of the month. it came out in 2007 and the

graphic novel just came out this year. if you go to our website you will see book club, click on that, and go in and make comments via our website about the book and we will be holding a conversation throughout the month and you can comment when you feel like it. but this will begin this afternoon. our book selection were the month of june "the russian gas matrix: how markets are driving change." phillip in fort mitchell, kentucky. >> caller: a question to you. what was the extend of facist thoughts on fdr's recovery program on the new deal? much is written about the communist but recognizing this thought didn't carry then the baggage it does now.

>> guest: very important question. one should ask "what works" -- what was the extent of this where everyone thought fascism was awesome. and the question of civil right and that was regard wasn't focused on. it wouldn't be just fdr. but it did influence him. i draw a picture in the cartoon book of the new dealer going to italy and checking out the fascist farms and it influences them and influenced republicans as well. germany versus russia depends on who you hate more. >> host: from the "the greedy

hand" and this is a quote that seems to carry through in your work or how you -- public choice theory, any other industry wants to survive and wants to compete, like a business in the market it will work hard to damage challengers and other parts of the government. >> guest: that is right. public choice theory is an odd name but an important philosophy. and george mason university, where it lives, has become a power house since i wrote that. james bucannon, the philosopher i learned from, is gone but his students have said government is another operator and now higher than the private sector. that is taught now. tyler cohen or pete becky the

dean of this area teaching this. and now many young people are learning this interest relevant school of economics. >> host: again your next book? >> guest: "the silent majority: a history of post-war america" is my next book. >> host: when is it coming out? >> guest: soon! >> host: and this summer at the calvin coolidge foundation what can they find? >> guest: please come and judge the debaters we will train you. and come to the anniversary of the swearing in. home schoolers of new england and partners with dartmouth and

kids are there all summer talking about economics and presidency. >> host: this has been in-depth on