[applause] >> we are very honor today to have doris kearns goodwin is our special guest. before i give her background for a moment and start some questions, how many people here have read a book by doris kearns goodwin? okay, all right. how many people have read two books? three books? for? five?

six? all of them. okay. how many people are going to buy her book today and get it autographed? okay. so doris kearns goodwin is obviously a leading presidential scholars. she is a person who has written books on some of the most important president and today we'll talk largely about her new book, "the bully pulpit," which is about teddy roosevelt and william howard taft and a bit about the muckrakers. before we do so, a little more background about her another book she's written. she's of course written works on lincoln, eleanor and franklin roosevelt and a book on lyndon johnson with whom she worked when she was a white house fellow. she is from brooklyn. [cheers and applause] a big fan of the brooklyn dodgers that she wrote a book about them as well. clap back the brook when dodgers

don't exist any longer come associate shifted her legions to the boston red sox. [cheers and applause] and she was the first woman to go into the boston red sox locker room. she is a graduate of colby college, phi beta kappa naturally. later when a white house fellowship and is a white house fellow was assigned to the white house and worked with president indirectly. after she left as a white house fellow, she went to harvard, finished her teaching assignment there. she taught at harvard, got a phd as well and then she began her career after teaching of writing extraordinary books. so i would like to start by asking you this. you have written books about presidency obviously couldn't know. abraham lincoln, teddy roosevelt, franklin roosevelt, john kennedy. if you had a chance to have dinner with on a one of those, you only pick one, who would you want to have dinner with? >> it would have to be abraham

lincoln. you know, i keep going people say to you suppose you could have dinner with one of your guys, what would you ask them? and i know i should ask abraham lincoln, which are done differently about reconstruction had you lived, but i know i wouldn't ask you not. i would just say mr. lincoln, would you tell me the story and if he started telling me a story his whole face would change. his smile would come on. the story might be a funny story. might have been an act, might have a moral, might be a dirty story and i would see him come alive in the idea of this man, abraham lincoln who i thought about every day for 10 years coming alive and soothing his melancholy by telling a story to me would be my favorite dinner i could possibly imagine. >> suppose you had a question to ask one of each of the others. what would you ask of franklin roosevelt? >> i guess of franklin roosevelt it may well be empowered as i just went to the holocaust

museum today, i would want to ask you when you think back, is there more you could have done, i understand once world war ii once world war ii have been, hitler close for a per, but is there more you could've done to bring more jewish refugees to the country before that moment. [applause] >> what would u.s. eleanor roosevelt? >> i think what i would ask eleanor, in fact it happened when i was working on the boat. they were so many times what i felt there what i thought they were such love between eleanor and franklin in as such hurt because he had had an affair so many years before. i would ask her again, just forget that affair. i know he loves you. i would talk to her when i would write the book could just tell her, just remember you are so much better than any other women in his life. just absorbed the fact that you are eleanor and just be closer to him because he was boldly in those years and there was still

a present and understandably that separated them from their beds from each other, but made them this incredible part errors. i guess i was trying to tell her, i know him and i know he wants to be with you more and if you could stay home a little more, i think it would be good. [laughter] >> if you hadn't been a presidential scholar, you would've been a marriage counselor. [laughter] what would u.s. teddy roosevelt? >> wow, these are great questions. i would ask teddy, why couldn't you wait to run for the presidency until 1916? u.n. taft was such great friends. he loves you. you do what you did not dare he not running against him in 1912 that the chances for the republican party would split the democrat would win. why couldn't you wait? i think i know the answer in part he loves being at the center of attraction so much he could bear the knot of power. this is the part of him i leaf

like even though i love the fact. his daughter allison said he wanted to be the bride at the wedding and the court and the corpse at the funeral. had he thought, had he been able to way he would've been president in 1916. he would've been the world war i later and got what he wanted to be the most romantic time, but he couldn't wait. i would say why couldn't you wait? >> how about john kennedy. what would you like to know from him? >> wow, you know i guess this may put me back in the marriage counselor rue because i would say that the presidency is so exciting and it's the greatest job in the world and you've got such talent, why would you ever take a chance by having the them all visit these other women while you were president? it seems to me incomprehensible that it's not an adventure enough to be president. and yet he was an extraordinary fellow. i better stop.

i'm about to defend him. >> you obviously would've been a great marriage counselor. so let's talk about lyndon johnson. how did you actually get a job working for him because most white house fellas don't work for the president of the united states. the usually work in some department. how did you get to work for them? >> there's no question that every part of my career as a presidential historian goes back to lyndon johnson. when i was selected as a white house fellow with the big dance at the white house and he did dance with me. there were only three women out of the 16 white house fellas. but you're right, he could've been assigned anywhere in the white house, but he whispered that i said he wanted me to be assigned directly to him. but then it was not that simple in the months leading to my selection like many other young people i was a graduate student at high harvard. i'd written an article that, the new republic because i was involved in the antiwar movement with the title, how true bill

clinton john and from power. [laughter] it came out two days after the dance at the white house so i was certain he would kick man of the program, but surprisingly he said were her down or per down or for a year enough i can win her over, no one can. i did eventually work for him. not right away. i worked for this fabulous man on the secretary of war in the labor department. once he was on the race who say they should be out of power. i expect to work for me so i ended up staying with him until his presidency was over and accompanied him to his ranch to help an honest memoir. i saw him in the sad last years of his life with nato's legacy had them cut into about he'd been doing such great stocking filler rights in the up and any open up to me and wave he never went up, so we talked and talked and i listened and listened and it was the greatest experience of the world. half of the stories they later discovered were true, but they

were great nonetheless. more importantly i developed a certain empathy because i had been so much a judge from the outside on him and i saw what it was like to be president. i saw what it was like for the joys, i saw the sadness is that it made me forever onward trying to look inside the people that i would be studying for their point of view to understand what they were going through rather than judging them from the outside in and not let them learn from lbj i would like to believe made me the kind of historian i eventually became. >> is it easier to read about people you've never met or easier to read about someone you actually met? >> in some ways it is hard to write lbj having met him because i wanted to be fair to him, but i felt such a tangle of emotions about him. the more you knew him, the more you wanted him to hopefully feel good about what you've read. i still had the antiwar feeling when i was writing the book. i still do there were parts of them. there is a character to be

around them at some level i probably loved the person that i got to know. i think there are lots more emotions involved in writing about him though they were about these other people. in a certain sense once they spent 10 years of abraham lincoln for seven years of teddy and taft or six years with franklin and eleanor, i feel like i am living with them. i'm thinking about them. so that same sense of i feel it to missy and yet i have to withdraw myself so i can understand them and i want to be fair again i want to like them. i think the tables have been there the whole time that nasa makes it so exciting. >> we got an anonymous amount of tension because it's a bestseller, well-written of course it made into a movie. the story a understand is when you told steven spielberg you're writing a book about lincoln county said i won an option you haven't read the book yet. how long did it take to get the book finished?

>> that is correct. he was doing a documentary on the millennium of the century in 1999 and i met him a lot with other historian said he always wanted to make a movie about lincoln. when he found out he started on lincoln, he said she can't all have the first chance and there'll be 20 people lined up to make a movie on lincoln. so while i was finishing chapters, he put to he put to script writers on they did a really good job, but he wanted daniel day-lewis to be a fluke and i did know didn't accept either one of those until finally after i had finished the book, tony kushner came on a murder script and did nothing guess i'll be abraham lincoln. as soon as that happened comest even called me and asked me to take daniel to springfield, illinois to go to the sites. he was coming incognito because they didn't want to announce he was lincoln yet because he wanted time to become lincoln. he becomes the person.

who were supposed to even the hotel. he was under an assumed name, but he wanted to go to a bar. we went to a bar and immediately someone came up to us and offered us drinks. i thought i got a 30 overpeer but they didn't recognize him. it was me they recognize. so we laughed and laughed and laughed. so anyway, we got through it and for an entire year he had me send them looks about clay and webster in the revolution and finally went to hinchman, virginia to see the filming, but he was no longer my friend into which he had been for a year. he was mr. lincoln. you couldn't talk to them as if he was daniel. i didn't get to see daniel again until the awards ceremony started in the premieres so the first one in new york the premier said we had to go to a bar to celebrate, to remember that night before when he was just becoming lincoln. the way of a couple drinks, old cubans, his favorite drink and i

only had to yet more than me which is an important part of the story. a few weeks later he won his first award in stephen kamen gave him the award. incomprehensibly he talked about he rejected the role so long and he finally said yes and it was so great. cedeno gets up and said i don't reject everything. when doris goodwin afscme to go been a streaky weather, i accepted out once. [laughter] was a "wall street journal" reporter there was in the paper next day, so as a, so it's a great adventure. i saw this man walked away like and want only because someone told us he walked like a labor coming off the end of a hard day. he talked with a high-pitched voice we knew because someone told. he had the sense of humor. he told the stories. he was melancholy and i truly felt the lincoln i knew had come to life. >> or book covers much of lincoln's life. were you surprised the movie only covers about four pages of the book on the 13th

amendment. we disappointed a small knot was covered or you thought that was appropriate? >> on the contrary, when he started he had 600 pages and it covered more of the book and then it got down to 500 pages. but they sound and this is not something i could've found. it shows a visual person is different from the wording person i am. they found a story within a story in the story of his political genius in the 13th amendment passed with the larger story i told about his local genius. the person i knew was there. that was what i cared about that lincoln came to life. it didn't matter with this. i could never thought of making it. that was the genius of tony kushner. >> is that there's more books

britain. what made you think you could write a book about lincoln would say some and somebody else didn't say in the team of rivals concept when did that come to? >> to be honest, when i started it was terrified because of the question you're asking. 14 of the books have been written about him and i knew they were lincoln scholars who i'd net who had spent their whole life on lincoln and i was a rookie going back to the 19th century. so it was just because i want to limit them. because it takes me so long i have to want to like the person. i could never write about stalin or hitler. i would want to wake up in a newer wanted to know abraham lincoln but i couldn't figure out how to have my own ankle. at first i thought i'd write about mary and a period so many books about him, but their partnership during world war ii became the team. as they started sending the first couple years i realized

she couldn't carry the public side of the story the way eleanor did. somehow luckily it went up to stewart's house, his secretary of state earlier the research that it's a wonderful museum that is preserved everything about secretary of state's life. ibm to get interested and i read his letters and his wife is away from washington for a year so he wrote her letter after letter and then i got interested in the other guys in the cabinet. changes since antenna while the male cat diaries or letters. so it's probably three or four years into it i realized this is the story i can tell. his relationship with all these guys because they talk about them in a way not everybody else has to they tell me what they felt about each other in a team of rivals became the subject of the book. >> to president obama call you and say i have an idea about a secretary of state. did he say your book influenced

him? >> what did happen was when he was running against hillary clinton away behind her i got a cell phone call and he said hello this is barack obama. i just read team of rivals that we have to talk. he wasn't talking about putting her in the cabinet. he was fascinated a link in the emotional intelligence. how was he able to forgive stanton who humiliated him when he was a lawyer and bring them into his cabinet? i would be able to not let reset bit faster? so we talked about that and he had read the book and then he read it again at what happened he finally won the nomination reporter said would you really be want to put in your inner circle a chief rival even if his or her spouse for an occasional pain in the and he then quoted lincoln and fed lake and said this is a type of pero i need to start with the most able people to country. when he put hillary clinton in the cabinet, the luck was this

is years after the book has come out that the term team of rivals became a term for what he had done and she teased me when i saw hillary right before the nine duration. she came up and came up in figure was possible possible for my being secretary of state. [laughter] >> so when you write a book, do you do all your research and then write it later or do you do little research and write research and how do you do this? was the process for you? >> it is research and write, research and write. i remember in college i read arbor top guns of august. for me as a woman to read that incredible account of world war i by a female historian, she became a mentor she became my mentor and away. she once wrote an essay i took to heart when i started writing. she said you have to be careful when you're researching not to research too much or go get paralyzed. you will have all the stuff and

you have to start writing when you've begun researching and she also said technology is the spine of time the story and i believe that. academics a lot of times can read a story, but then they know so much that they stuff stuff into it that they only knew later. what she said his only tell the story from the point of view of what the people at the time knew. because everything i write is chronological, i really can research the beginning and write the beginning and then research more and keep going until their going until her life comes again. >> said you read in the daytime or night? what do you do to relax after you write? how many pages can you write a day? >> i wish i knew. it's the research that takes most of the time. say 10 years of work, probably would've been six or seven research compared to the writing. i wake up early. i love early mornings. i've always been a morning person. i was a night person a single, but once you have kids you can't

be a morning person and a person. my husband doesn't wake up until 7:00, 7:30. i wake about by the clock and i've got to an hours before breakfast is called and he is a writer, too. my husband, richard goodwin who just had an e-book come out from his book or member america is now finally an e-book and it's fabulous about his experiences with kennedy, johnson, solar rights movement, said he's writing one part of the house and i write another and work until 1:00 or so and then we go to lunch. we go in the town we live in, bring the newspapers which i try not to read in the morning because then i come home and writes more until dinner and every night of relaxation for not going to ball game, with season tickets to the red sox. if i'm not going to a ballgame is to go to dinner where we have a couple local bars in concord

reference welcome all of whose kids are grown go together we've made so many good friends there with it are in totally relaxed and go home and go to bed and do it all over again. >> let's talk about this book. >> i got a terrible letter from a women who said she was loving the book were greeted before she went to sleep that fell on her nose and broke her nose. [laughter] >> you know, 200 pages or so. excellent book of course. well researched, well written. you don't really want to put it down. it's a terrific book. what made you think the world needed another book on teddy roosevelt? why did you think you needed to write one about him and what was the idea -- where the idea come from between past and roosevelt, not relationship? >> i think what happens is it's

not when you start to get in the world might need another book about teddy because i couldn't have answered that question again at the start. but i knew i wanted to live with him. given a seminar at harvard and i was young about the progressive era in that time had always interested me, the wonderful era where you've got the robber barons at the turn of the 20th century in the industrial revolution and all his inventions happening, telephone and telegraph is an exciting era and yet also a difficult area because the gap between the rich and the poor were so great and you so great and you had people in in slums of little being done for worker's compensation and then teddy roosevelt comes along as a republican and understands he needs to get the government involved in softening the affects of the industrial order. so i taught him that way 20, 30, 40 years ago when i knew what a great character he was. i knew the air was the one i wanted to go back to. when you go back to a person is

not just that you are living with him or her, but you live in that era and i wanted to live in that era. once again, it'd just been a great trilogy by admin or is on teddy roosevelt so i couldn't just do a biography. i was searching for why can my new angle b. i found early on this 400 letters between teddy antagonized on the run against each other in 1912, but i idea how close friendship has developed an early 30s. i guess i love human relationships. the idea these two men had in such a has friends and eventually ran against each other and felt betrayed and eventually came back. that story intrigued me. >> cincinnati roosevelt crew up in his father died young and then he married someone yet in college who is in kind of didn't marry someone he had known much

longer. then his wife more or less after childbirth dies in the same time his mother dies so he goes into a bit of a depression. and then he moves out why sydney abandons his daughter. how did he abandon his daughter and then he made his famous speech that nixon later used in a light has gone out when my wife died, but yet he never again mentioned that wife to anybody his entire life and he didn't take his daughter back a few years. how do you explain that? >> is a really complicated relationship to the roosevelt had to sadness and death. when his father died when he was a sophomore at harper, he felt then that he couldn't go for it. this is the man who said i was closer to than anybody else in my life and his only way of dealing was direction. he immediately got involved in ames said he would not to think about it. unlike lincoln who said when he lost his 10-year-old son,

willie, felt the best way to honor his life was to keep his scrapbooks and every time somebody came in he which of the palm's willie had. we would share stories because he believed he keep the data lives by talking about them. somehow teddy roosevelt different philosophy webzine got to keep moving forward with something that happens. when his father died he just got involved in activities. when his wife died in the life is gone out, he died he would never marry again, he goes to the badlands and is just on a horse for 10 hours a day. he said finally bit that night because constant activity prevented over thought and then he did come back and eventually marry and have a fulfilling marriage with edith,'s girlfriend and monitor as much as they could've loved anybody. the little girl who was born when his wife died i think represented the dead wife he

couldn't remember and didn't want to remember because he had to move forward. it's a terrible thing in some ways. so we did give ally to his sister for a while but edith, the new wife in old friend brought her into the family. in his memoir he never mentioned the name. and comprehensible and just the opposite of somebody who wants to believe the more you talk about the people you loved, the more you keep them alive, he just had to keep moving forward. when he was ready to go for the roughriders experience of the spanish-american war, he loved edith know much now come of it if she were on her deathbed, you would have to go because that was his mission in life. so there is a hardness in msl is a sentimental side i could never quite figure out. >> explain this. he was a civilian in the spanish-american war goes forward any volunteers to go down there and lead a troop of civilians. how'd that happen?

would have no civilians doing that today. did he kind of exaggerate what he did down there and that led to his becoming governor because of the reputation he developed. without a well-deserved reputation? what was he doing leading a similar group of the mountains? >> in those days you really did volunteer for the army and the lady i was so much less a part of our lives. similarly the civil war. general started out being politicians and then they became generals. so he offered to raise a regiment, which he did. he was under a general at the beginning but eventually when he went up the hill, he did show courage. there is no doubt about that. when he was a child he said he was afraid of everything and the only way to get away from the fear was to do the things you're afraid of. so they are marching up the hill the spanish on the top of the hill being mowed down by bullets because they are going to slow. so he gets on his horse.

he's got a red indiana and he moves the true story. he could've been the best target for the bullet and the journalists there writing about him and eventually they do overtake the spanish. so there was rock urged there. there's no question. but also the fact that what touched the country if you are roughriders and they're both cowboys and add guys in the west and then there's harvard and yale elites. he brought together this motley group and it captured the imagination of the country. >> he gets elected governor, but is targeting seems a little bit to settle on business so they promote him to maybe being vice president under mckinley and then he becomes vice president, but then he didn't enjoy being vice president? what happens to mckinley? >> is being vice president. he was going back to study law. he was so bored.

he said at the time you got your being put into a dead end as the vice president was not the stamping point towards the presidency later become. of course mckinley was shot on september 6 of 1901 and it changes the whole treasure hurry of teddy's life and he becomes the thing he would've always wanted to be, the youngest president of the united states. >> he becomes president at the age of 42. after that time was appointed by mckinley and he was doing a great job fair. but they admit before and had bonded even though they were different. how did they develop a close relationship with roosevelt was president of what did he do with cast in terms of bringing about iraq's >> what happened when they were both in their 30s for the past was solicitor general and teddy with civil service commissioner, they moved near each other. their children were the same age and the use to walk to work together all the time. it's a wonderful thought of the pictures somebody described

teddy walk it with all this energy, taft even then listening to teddy who is much shorter and much more energetic, but they developed in part because they saw in each other the things they didn't have. past telling teddy the fighting spirit might not have had. teddy saw a teddy saw it pass the person everybody loves. he was so kind and so gentle and so good and when he did become governor general the philippines, the very job he wanted, he definitely would've given up the vice presidency in two seconds to become general of the philippines. taft did a good job. they kept writing letters and he finally brings him back to his cabinet as secretary of war as his most important counselor and he becomes really the closest person to him during his president the and when the time comes yesterday about the presidency because he had promised in 1904 after becoming

the first term of mckinley then he wins a second term which would've been two full terms almost that he won't write again in 19 away. he would have cut out his tongue to not make that promise because he wanted to stay in the job. instead he has a successor, taft, he thinks groomed for the job and he's given them all sorts of advice. don't play golf. it doesn't look good to the working class. don't get on a horse. you weigh 350 pounds. it's not good for the horrors. [laughter] incredibly the song at the time which makes no sense was get on a raft with taft. it would be a rather dubious proposition to get on a raft with taft. he was so happy when he won, thinking this is my guy. he will carry up and make us see. then he goes to africa, comes back and begins to question whether taft was the right person to follow him. >> so he goes for about a year. he left his family to go to africa and what did he do in africa?

>> you shooting game. a game hunting -- yet all these hobbits of the time he was done partly because he was asthmatic so he became a birder. he later became a hunter. he wrote books. yet more energy and vitality than anyone i've ever written about. so he is collecting things for the smithsonian, but mostly he went away because he knew he had to do some to take away the loss of the presidency. he loved that job every moment of every day and he had to somehow have excitement and that is what africa matters than it. >> the muckrakers you write about were very influential with roosevelt in a talk to them, listen to them for advice, responded. they supported him, but they turned on taft debate. do you think they're turning on taft is why he turned on taft? >> what happened when teddy was president, what he understood, the one in taft didn't understand, which is the president the past had he

defined the word, a bully pulpit to educate the country in the most power in a way the president has and he was brilliant at it. i mean, you would take train rides around the country. six weeks in the spring and fall and he talked about simple language. he said the harvard audis think i talk into folksy language, but i know i reached them. speak softly and carry a big stick. it summed up his entire administration. he then gave maxwell house a slogan, good until the very next stop. he was able with his relationship, but he was so interesting. he had a mid-a shave. when the barbarous shaving hand, he is answering their questions and they say the barber has to keep up with him as he's moving around. he understood the press was an important channel for him to reach the public and so he would read their articles ahead of time. investigative reporters would be

able to criticize him. they would criticize them. .. he didn't have the relationship of the press that he had so the

president was drifting and the progressives were moving further forward than teddy was at the time. it was a desire to be back in office and his feeling that he had to keep that pressure on the conservative ideology in the country that taft wasn't up to the job but he decided to run against him. >> so you rant against against him and he barely loses the republican nomination so he decides to run as an independent on the newly formed party and while his campaigning he is shot. somebody shoots right into his chest and he nonetheless go ahead and make his speech even though a bullet has been lodged into him. why did he do that? >> guest: is just part of him. it was an extraordinary moment. he was in a car. the assassin did shoot him and it did go into his chest and they said he can't give the speech. he said i have to give a speech so he goes into a green room and

the doctor takes his clothes off. he is a big red spot from a blood but he says i can still breathe. i know i'm okay i can still breathe. he says he's going to to give the speech and he goes in and takes the speech out of his pocket and it was like 50 pages of speech, two-hour speech and i was folded over and he realized when he took it out of his pocket that the bullet hole had gone through the speech and it had also gone through a spectacle glass case which was the only reason he was not killed automatically. so he gives a a speech and he a speech and he starts throwing the pages down finally they keep coming up to him because he's beginning to get woozy. he says i can tell i finish. he says okay take me to the hospital. he's in the hospital for weekend as the sustained the rest of this campaign than i thought he might have had a reaction to the shot but it was i that crazy kind of courage that he showed all of his life that he felt compelled to do. >> he came second in the election. woodrow wilson is elected in 1912.

taft came in third. you think i'd have to not become the republican nomination that roosevelt would beat will send? >> guest: yes, do you think so. think roosevelt was still so popular then that i think yes, for sure he would have because roosevelt and taft together got 50% of the vote so i think it would have happened. the sad thing was because he did this i know, you and i know about this guy. the guy that got so into my emotional head when i was writing this book was a man named archie but who had been a military aide for teddy before becoming a military aide for taft and again for what you look for it as a historian or letters and diaries. this guy wrote letters to his his family of a single danny loves both teddy and taft. he was despairing when it turned out, he stayed on with taft and teddy thought it was fine at first and then went teddy started running against him he felt he was born into and he was

so depressed he was beginning to lose some of his vitality so taft said you had better take a vacation. he said okay i'm going to go for a while but i'll be back before this heats up. as it turns out went teddy finally announced that he was running against taft archie but says i can't leave you now. taft says go now, it will be fine, you will be back in time. he goes to europe and comes back on the titanic and he died. for taft it was yet another blow. he said every time i look in the room i think is coming in. i miss him every single moment but those letters are an absolute treasure in showing how taft especially felt betrayed and saddened by his great friend teddy running against him. >> to me the most poignant part of the book is taft and roosevelt were enemies even though they have been friends for so long so after the election wilson as president. taft and roosevelt don't talk at all and taft tries to talk to

roosevelt that roosevelt ignores them and finally they meet by happenstance in a hotel. what happened than? >> i was so happy this happen. what happened is when i finished the book up to 1912 i did not want it ended with a sense of betrayal but i didn't really know what the relationship had been like past that. i followed them in 1914, 15 and 16. people brought them together but taft says it was like an armed neutrality. in 1918 teddy was in the hospital with an operation that taft had once undergone any work undergone any wrote them a letter saying i know how painful this is an teddy wrote him back. it's often things a little bit so it just happened than some months later by happenstance they were both at the blackstone hotel in chicago and when taft checked in the elevator operator told him roosevelt was in the restroom -- restaurant eating alone. taft said bring me down immediately. he walked over to roosevelt and the whole room, 100 people dining in a broom and he says

i'm so glad to see you. they throw their arms around each other and teddy says please sit down and the entire restaurant collapsed. entire restaurant collapse. there's a journalist there to record this. i said yes i have my ending and then what happens is only six months later teddy dies. he's only 60 years old and he dies in his sleep at night and has a private funeral. taft is an honored guest at that private funeral. he comes and stands at the grave longer than anyone else and tells teddy sister i don't know what i would have done if we hadn't come together before he died. i have loved him all my life. it's ridiculous to say you want a happy ending that you want an ending that sums things up. i couldn't bear the idea of lincoln dying in the end so knowing what mattered to him so much was to be remembered after he died from the time he was young, that was his greatest dream that his story would be told. when i found this incredible interview with tolstoy given to

new york newspaper yes it shows he remembered him even then. tolstoy went to a remote area of the caucuses where they were barbarians who had never set foot outside the apartment where they were living so he was excited to have tolstoy. he said i told him about the napoleon and alexander the great but before i finish the chief of the barbarians stood up and said wait,, you haven't told us about the greatest ruler of the mall. we want to hear about the man who spoke with a voice of thunder and laughed with the sunrise. tell us about man, tell us of lincoln. tolstoy told him everything about lincoln and then said what made them so great after all not a great general not a great statesman. a greatness consisted of the integrity of his character in the moral fiber of his being. then i knew, here's ending ending for that book. your eyes looking somehow to