e-mail us at booktv@c-span.oail. >> here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on c-span network. .. >> including artifacts related to president lincoln's assassination. find our complete television schedule at c-span.org, and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at 202-626-3400, e-mail

us at comments@c-span.org or send us a tweet,@ tweet,@c-span@comments. join the conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> welcome to columbus, georgia, on booktv, located on the chattahoochee river. the river served as a major trading post and created a booming textile industry in the city's early history. >> the boats would come up the river and bring finished goods like, you know, furniture, machinery or agricultural implements x the farmers from east alabama and west georgia would bring their produce -- especially cotton -- into columbus, and it would be shipped down the river. our port on the gulf is apalachicola, and from there the cotton would be shipped mainly to england or to the textile mills in the north. >> the help of our mediacom

partners, for the next hour we explore columbus' literary scene starting with local author dan crosswell as he recounts the life and career of general walter bidell smith. >> basically, eisenhower was the good cop. so what he needed was a bad cop and smith was ideally cast for that role because he was a hard driver. he had a very sharp edge. churchill, the english bulldog called smith the american bulldog because he got results. he joined the national guard because he always wanted to be a soldier. as soon as he was old enough he went down to the armory in downtown indianapolis and signed up. and that really begins his military career in the indiana national guard and then world war ii -- the american entry into world war i, given his prior experience he was, he was allowed to go to officer candidate school, maim a 9046 day -- became a 90-day wanderer or a seres and row buck

lieutenant. served in the first american offensive, was wounded within 24 hours. stayed in the army. pretty dull prospects very limited in the war period, so he remained lieutenant and a captain for a very long time. what changed his career, interestingly, was right here in columbus georgia. actually fort benning. he went to the advanced infab try, infantry school, then was asked to stay on at the staff and one day he gave a lecture. and general marshall was the assistant congressman b cant and he was very impressed with smith's presentation. t went back to his main office and talked to one of his assistants then-major bradley, and said there's a man down there who'd be, you know a wonderful instructor. well, years later marshall is now chief a of staff of the army, and bradley was no

wordsmith. nobody else in the secretariat was, and so he remembered beetle smith, this very insightful mind and could write with great facility. and so marshall had a very bad memory and didn't remember the episode and didn't remember smith, but just on the advice of bradley they brought smith into the secretariat, and he becomes not only the secretary eventually of the general's staff, but at that time pearl harbor american entry into the war, churchill arrives, they soon craft the combined chiefs of staff. so myth's only a major at -- smith's only a major at that point, soon to be lieutenant colonel. but he is one of the main architects of the structure of the combined joint chiefs of staff. that work made smith virtually indispensable to marshall. but eisenhower was kind of foundering as a theater commander in england.

and the allies were still fighting over whether to launch a direct attack against france in 1942 or really in '43. the british wanted to conduct the peripheral strategy. nothing was really happening because it was all contingent upon american buildup in the u.k., and that was stalled. and so marshall sacrifices smith to become eisenhower's chief of staff. and he begins as chief of staff through the north african campaign sicily italy and then joins him in london in december/january of '44 -- '43-'44. and as chief of staff of spring headquarters through the end of the war. so smith not only was the chief of staff, but he was essentially foreign minister for the supreme headquarters dealing not only with the british, but also with the french. p it's interesting because

eisenhower doesn't sign the italian capitulation, beetle smith does. and eisenhower doesn't sign the german capitulation beetle smith does. in both cases eisenhower was afraid there'd be repercussions or it'd wash back on him. so smith did a lot of the dirty work, the heavy lifting. that allowed eisenhower to be above it all and be the effective leader that he was. when it came right down and eisenhower was forced to make a decision -- and he was always reluctant to make decisions -- the last person he turned to was beetle smith. and the most dramatic example of that would be d-day. the weather, it was the worst storm in 70 years, and if they'd pushed back the invasion for a month, that would shorten the campaigning season with very dire consequences.

and everybody was already at a fever pitch to get this thing going. and a lot of the ships were already at sea because they were being staged out of northern ireland. and so they're sitting in what's called telegraph cottage. southhampton. it was very convivial sitting around the fireplace having some sherry, probably, and they're looking up at the windows and they're being pelted by rain. it looks like they're going to have to delay again. and this this meteorologist who worked for the raf with a very thick scottish accent came this and said there's a window of perhaps 72 hours, probably less, where it'll allow for the invasion. and so eisenhower walked over, looked at that rain pelting on the window then he turned to

his air commander naval commander, turned to montgomery who was ground commander and says if i were you, ike i'd go. hen this he turn -- then he turned to beetle, and beetle says, you know, ike the weather might work in our advantage. the germans will make the same assumption that we're making, that the operation can't be staged. and so i agree with montgomery it's a go. and eisenhower thought for a second, and he says it's a go. [gunfire] ♪ ♪ >> he was not your traditional

u.s. general in terms of the you know, of the heroic leadership style. he was a manager. he was a manager of people. that was his great strength. and then when people fell out he'd stick beetling on him, to beat him back into line. and in 1947, of course, they create the cia, and it was not -- it had not gained any traction. and they needed somebody who was going to go in there and kick butt and take names. and also restructure the cia. and, clearly, truman thought that beetle smith was the guy. so, essentially, he brings beetle in, gives hum carte blanche, and -- gives him carte blanche, and beetle goes to work. so the structure he puts in place was an entirely functional structure. americans don't like functional structures, for whatever reason. i could explain that but it'd take a long time. and smith learned from the british example and the way their staffs worked in world war

ii that the functional approach was far better. and what he does is -- well the structure he puts in place survived until after the cold war when clinton made some small changes. but, essentially, the structure that smith put in place still survives. the other thing he didn't like was that a lot of the people who were in the cia were -- well, there were two types. one was the dominant type and these were from privileged families in the northeast who went to prep schools, went to ivy league schools many of them had spent some time on wall street and were in it for the adventure. they did things like dropped oversized condoms over the soviet union to convince the russians that americans were he-men. they also had a program where they would float in propaganda on balloons. smith said if any of you sons of

bitches come in hoar again with any -- in here again with any kind of project dealing with rubber -- [laughter] so he tried to restrain these guys to professionalize these amateurs. the other side were the hard core analysts, and he shifts the focus from covert operations which were universally failures because they were amateurish and placed that over to the people who drove fords, not mgs. the analyst side. so he had a profound impact on the cia. great men took advantage of people and eisenhower knew exactly beetle's strengths, beetle's weaknesses, and he employed beetle to achieve what the objectives were. and one of those objectives, of course, was eisenhower's rise eventually to the white house. and beetle just thought payback would have been just a place as army chief of staff. and sit in the chair of his real

hero who was not dwight d. eisenhower, it was george marshall. and that was denied him and that was why he became so bitter. one of the reasons his legacy is so important is that he along with eisenhower but on different tracks, was key in really sealing that relationship between the british and the americans and making it work. and that lasted obviously, in the postwar period. and that legacy continues. >> and mow on booktv a literary tour of columbus, georgia, with the help of of our local cable partner mediacom. during our trip to columbus we spoke with author virginia causey, the author of a comprehensive history for the city. >> i've lived in columbus for 40 years and was a teacher and a professor and got really interested in the history of the city as a historian.

but nobody had ever done a comprehensive or analytical history. you have to think about how to organize it in a way that makes sense. as the researcher, i am rivetted by the history. i mean i just find it fascinating. but i have to think about what a general reader would be able to take from the history and understand. so what i've done is tried to organize it around three themes, basically. one of the themes is that columbus is situated both physically and sort of metaphorically on a fall line. the fall line is a geologic feature in southern rivers, and north of that line the rivers become rapids and waterfalls so that at the fall line that would be the farthest inland point of navigation. back in the, you know 1820s

1850s steam boths would come up -- steam boats would come up the river, and the fall line was as far as they could come. so columbus was found in 1828 as a trading town on the chattahoochee river. we were located at what was then called kaw ta falls. whites had traded here and knew about it. in 1826 and '27, georgia had forcibly removed all of the creek indians from the state and so that opened up western georgia for settlement. the state reserved this land around the fall line because they knew that it would be real valuable and wanted to have a town there. so the idea from the beginning about columbus is that it would be this mercantile center, it would be a trading town. the boats would come up the river and bring finished goods like furniture machinery or agricultural implement, and the farmers from east alabama and west georgia would bring their

produce -- especially cotton -- into columbus, and it would be shipped down the river. our port on the gulf is apalachicola, and from there the catton would be shipped mainly -- cotton would be shipped mainly to england or to the textile mills in the north. the other advantage of being on the fall line is that all that water as it comes down the river creates great potential power. above column pus for two and a half miles the river falls 125 feet, and it creates, potentially, 66,000 horsepower: so really quickly industry began to be built along the river and would use the river for power, especially extiles. but column -- textiles. but columbus was prison diverse economically. we had iron foundlies, gristmills furniture factories but textiles especially by the late 19th century dominated the city's economy. we had one textile mill that was one of the biggest in the south.

60% of all the workers in the city worked for that one mill, so it just was dominant. early on in its history the river was critically important and development of the river was important, and we just didn't really have people who were completely competent at engineering dams and doing what needed to be done. in i augusta, for example -- in augusta, for example they built a canal which allowed them to control the flow of the river. the city helped pay for that canal. it was a public works prompt. here all the development was private, private capital privately done. and the first dams that were built were not effective. in high water they would blow out, the raceways to the factories would blow out. so i think that had we had a little more engineering expertise, the early history and the development might have been more successful. now, in 1850 we do have a guy

come in who knows what he's doing, william h. young came, and he's the one that built the eagle mill. which becomes after the war, it was burned in the war, and it becomes the eagle and phenix it rises from the ashes. the demand for war goods caused our industries to convert to war industries. the textile mills turned out uniforms and tents and backpacks, and the eagle mill made india rubber which they used, that was their raincoats that they had. other stores converted to shoe factories. we had one of the large shoe factories in the confederacy. the ironworks here became a producer of steamship boilers for the confederate navy. we had a confederate naval yard here that wasn't all that successful it only produced one ship, and it never did get

finished so it never did get into the war. but the industry we had a famous ford factory, the hayman ford factory. so lots and lots of industry during the civil war. the population of the city booms during that time. there's a lot of wealth that's generated by the war. it does create ill feeling at the same time because there were people who felt that profiteering was going on, that these industries were overcharging the confederacy for their goods and overcharging the civilians for what they had to get. georgia had a law that be you grew cotton -- that if you grew cotton, you had to sell it to the confederacy. there are at least six seven, eight of the postwar fortunes that i've found that were based on cotton that these men hid from the cop fed rassi, and -- confederacy, and then once the war is were able to tell at high prices, and that gave them the

capital to rebuild after the war and keep going. and, you know, that's a good thing for columbus, but it's not exactly, they weren't exactly confederate patriots. most of the other histories have focused mainly on the elite, so one of the things that i really am intent on doing is having the diverse voices of the people in columbus be a part of the history. so, for example through our history about 40% of population that be african-american. a little bit more than that now, but that's about the historic average. in the years before the civil war, most of those were slaves. urban slavery was a little different from what people understand as the plantation gang system, you know, agricultural slavery. an urban slave might have been a skilled worker. of he -- we had a lot of slaves that worked in the industries. they did carpentry, brick laying blacksmithing.

and sometimes their workers -- their owners would allow them to rent themselves out and keep part of the proceeds. so you had a little bit more independence. the newspapers in the 1840s and '50s are always complaining because slaves are in town, and they've set up a business, or they're selling stuff on the streets and there's no white person controlling them. so i think there was maybe a little bit more independence within the system of slavery when it was an urban system. a couple of kind of famous, at least famous locally slaves. one was named thomas wiggins, and he became one of the most renouned performers -- renowned performancers in the cup in the late 19th century. his stage name was blind tom. he was born with blind and was what we probably now would call autistic. but he was a musical genius. he could hear a piece played on the piano one time and then play

it note for note. he composed some of his own music, and that was mainly based on natural sounds like birds or a thunderstorm. one of his famous pieces is the recreation of a civil war battle on the piano. the sad part about blind tom's story is that the family that owned him as a slave kept control of him all of his life. when the 13th amendment freed the slaves that family went to court and had tom declared mentally incompetent and so for the rest of his life til the end of the 1900s, 1800s they toured him in europe and around the united states and they would keep the proceeds from it. the other slave has a little bit happier story. his name was horace king and was the slave of a man who was in construction and was a bridge builder, and he taught horace king those skills. they really worked more like

partners than master and slave and in 1846 his master gave him his freedom. so horace king can then becomes a bridge builder across the south in the years before the civil war and after. he built warehouseses he built mills, he was just renowned for the quality of his work that he did. and that's very unusual for an african-american person in the prewar or postwar south. once the civil rights movement comes along, of course that jim crow system is challenged. one of the most important people in our history was dr. thomas brewer. he as a doctor was not quite as much under the control of whites as someone who actually worked for a white person. and so he was able to be a little more independent, constantly was challenging jim crow asking for parks, paved roads, sanitation in black

neighborhoods. one of his fights in the 1950s was to try to integrate the golf course the pluck -- the public golf course. after brown v. board of education came out he agitated for the desegregation of public schools and became a lightning rod for white resentment. he began to get death threats, began to carry a pistol and in 1956 he was killed. the grand jury ruled that a white store owner who, actually was renting a store that dr. brewer owned, dr. brewer was his landlord that this store owner killed dr. brewer in self-defense. however, there were at least two columbus police officers in the store at the time, and there were more outside the store. the black community believed and still believes that dr. brewer was killed in a police

assassination. there's, you know -- and then the man that killed him a year later is found dead and the grand jury ruled that suicide under very suspicious circumstances. so it had a really chilling effect on civil rights in columbus. black professionals moved out of the city because they feared for their lives. there was no -- there was kind of a vacuum of leadership in the black community. in the 1960s a civil rights organizer came here, and he said i couldn't get anybody to do anything, you know? they were scared. martin luther king wanted to come and speak in columbus, and he couldn't find a church that would host him because people were afraid. the masons provide a place for him to speak. as a historian, i look at the past through the lens of people's stories. and all of us are historical

actors. we all have a part in our history. so you have to understand where you are and how the community that you live in got to be ass it is. as it is. we can believe the old myths but i think that if we take a harder look at where we came from, we end up loving our city more. >> you're watching booktv on c-span2, and this weekend we're visiting columbus georgia with the help of our local cable partner, mediacom. up next we visit with author john ellisor whose book "the second creek war" explores an 1830s land conflict p between georgia and alabama. >> it's sometimes referred to as the creek war of 1836 or the so-called creek war of 1836 because these commanding officers proclaimed its end in

the matter of a few weeks, we looked at it as a simple police action. not very significant in the whole story of creek removal. i had heard the term "second creek war" before, but i don't think that was a widely accepted term. but since i thought that i had discovered this conflict was a real war, was more long lasting, was much more significant than others had thought, i really you know, accentuated the second creek war. we're right here in the center of what used to be the old creek nation. at one point they claimed lands, most of georgia, a good part of alabama and down into florida. now, of course as -- with the creation of the young american republic, we start to push all these native americans and others as we start west building as a nation. the state of georgia is particularly anxious to get the large creek body of natives and

the cherokees out of georgia, so they become quite virulent in pushing for indian removal. now, this will kind of take place gradually over a period of years as we sign treaties with the creeks take chunks of land, moving them west toward the chattahoochee river here. and finally in the late 1820s they are con finded over into -- confined over into about nine counties of alabama. that area was called new alabama, the old creek nation. and so finally in 1832 there was a treaty called by some washington treaty. i like to refer to it as the cassuta treaty of 1832. it was an agreement by creeks that, all right, we will allow you to survey our lands in alabama, the last lands remaining to us, and then you will -- the united states government issue lands in several to individual families who will get their own lands.

and it was a considerable acreage that's going to go to each family, like a half full half section of land. the rest you can open to settlement. now, these indians thought, i believe, their leaders believed, that this would be a way to stay in alabama, stay on the last sort of remnant of their ancient homeland and avoid removal to the west. what they could do is take their land allotments around their old towns, preserve their tribal integrity, and in a period of five years or so they could get legal title to these lands that would be protected by the state of alabama. but i think andrew jackson louis cass the secretary of war at that time and orrs thought this treaty -- and others is simply a market-based removal treaty. what we'll do, we'll open the rest of those creek lands to

settlement. they'll be in the midst of white settlers and everything else and it will be a simple matter for us to press them off the lands. they will not be automobile to compete. they'll sell out -- not be able to compete. they'll sell out and move west eventually. so there was that conflict about what this treaty's supposed to be that's part of the cause of the war. but right here across the river in these bottomlands of the chattahoochee, very fertile accountton lands. and that's what's -- cotton lands. and that's the last drive to get the indians out. grog shops were opened, people were cheated, there was impersonation where one indian was taken to a federal land office to one of the commission's land sales commissioners, claims to be another indian, he's paid off $10, sells somebody's land. there are murders. it's a terrible land fraud. it's a great stain on the american republic. these people are starving to

death. so a group of warriors here in the lower creek towns as they were called -- again right across the river -- they will rebel in that summer spring and summer of 1836 and start this event that i call the second creek war. these warriors will start basically attacking plantations travelers in these counties, lower creek counties in 1836. they're just driving the settlers out. that's what they intend to do. and they do a pretty good job of it. a couple of thousand people will fly into columbus, some will keep going to their old homes in georgia. they're just going to clear out the lands around their old tribal towns. they thought removal was imminent. they thought they were going to be forced to remove and that's one reason that inspired the rebellion. although i did read an account from one of their leaders who said we were simply starving you know?

we needed the food we needed to survive. but there are plan b their alternative plan i think if they couldn't hold the lands was to go to florida. and many of them did. and that part of the war has been almost wholly ignored until i, you know, decided to bring it out in this book. there really weren't great battles attached to the initial conflict that broke out in may of 1836. 10,000 troops came, 5,000 were stationed here in columbus, 5,000 over in tuskegee, alabama. the forces were split between these two generals. they were supposed to converge on rebel creek towns here close the chattahoochee river just outside our door. and the operation really didn't take very long. and so they thought it was over with. the indians either surrenders but some of them went into hiding. they escaped across georgia to join the seminoles.

the seminole war is raging at the same time. this appears to be more of a momentous struggle. the military wants to get on with that. general jesup then devoted his attention to creek removal removal in large part of the upper creeks who were peaceful during this conflict. and so they had larger issues to attend to. there were not big battles immediately. this war's a war largely because it deinvolved into a guerrilla -- devolved into a guerrilla conflict. it's going to take place in the wilds of georgia, florida alabama for years to come. but it's just people had other things to do. they got on to other concerns. and so that, you know, wilderness warfare, be you will -- which will bleed into the second seminole war in florida -- it just was passed over and has been for 150 years. it just wore itself out, i

think. there was a war of attrition. finally these -- i think the end of the second creek war had a lot to do with it. when the seminoles retreated to the everglades, when the more than government reached an accommodation with them, all right, you stay there we get the rest of florida, we'll all stop fighting, this was about 1842 1843. although there is an outbreak called the third seminole war in the 1850s. but that's really -- the violence doesn't end until then. @the 1850 -- it's the 1850s. and as i said before, they're still having conflicts with creek refugees fugitives in northwest florida in the 1850s. there are some people still getting killed. not a large scale, but there are these tit for tat murders going op. so i wouldn't say this thing really ends until the 1850s. and then some of these creek

indians will stay in the south. but they have the kind of give up a tribal identity to do it. and mix themselves with larger black or white communities to sort of, you know, blend in to southern society. incidentally we think of andrew jackson, you know, as being a spokesperson for the south as really being the driving force behind removal southern plantation owner and all that. but compared to some of these georgians and other states' rights party folks in the south in the removal era, he merges as almost -- he emerges as almost a liberal in indian affairs because he's concerned about the land frauds. he wants some of these things prosecuted and everything else. these businessmen at the local level, particularly georgians -- many of them in columbus because columbus is a real center of acquiring these lands and pushing the indians out -- he

has real political opponents over this. this was a real formative era in our economy. for example cotton's going to be our leading export. it's going to have economic benefits for northerners southerners, everything else. we get to that in part through the indian removal. i just think we need to know all of these aspects of our history to fully understand sometimes our own thoughts in the present day. we've simply got to know the dark side along with the late side of american -- the light side of american history so we can know ourselves, so we can know where we go from here. you can't do it on an ad hoc basis. you've got to have -- history is our track record. >> while in columbus georgia, we met with military historian dan crosswell to discuss the career of colonel richard hallock who served during the

vietnam war. >> here we sit in the special collection archives of the columbus state university library. behind you, you can see the 153 boxes of the hallock papers. as a favor to mrs. hallock the donor, i volunteered to index the papers. and in the course of that, i said to myself, well, you know, hallock would be a great topic of a book. hallock's story is interesting. you know, from a personal side it's, you know, actually kind of a story laced with a great deal of pathos. he's kind of, he's the gray ghost, but he's also a white knight because he's a true believer. and so he's fighting the battles against this increasingly corporatized bureaucratic army where you get ahead by being a weather vane officer.

whatever way the wind's blowing you point in that direction. in order to get along you've got to go by a mandate. it's called careerism. so you get all these tickets to punch in order to move up the ladder. and that's fundamental -- that fundamentally means people think about their careers before they think about the good of the service. and that's what we're talking about. it's a disease that takes root in the united states army before and during korea and has grown worse since. he never makes general. the question is why doesn't he make general. basically because of his career serving as really a window on the more than army from the -- on american army from the time he enters in world war ii through the korea war, through the cold war. he has a ringside seat because he is general clay's special intelligence officer in berlin during the airlift.

and then he is the primary agent of getting the m-16 adopted each though the army tried to sabotage it at every level. but the fight over the m-16 did end his career. because american boys were dying because these weapons were jamming. they were jamming because the army messed with the rifling of the gun and the load which guaranteed it was going to jam. army knew that. they sabotaged the tests that hallock ran back in the mid 1960s. again, this is very early on in the computer age, so they signed on with stanford, and they run a pulley computerized -- fully computerized test. what they did they tested the m-14, the army's favorite which they wanted to retain this saab strategy version of, what becomes the m-16 and very difficult to get the army to agree to this, another force

armed with the accomplish kalashnikov. and what's interesting is that despite the attempt to sabotage the web, the m-16 scored marginally better than the accomplishny cough can -- accomplishny cover and much better than the m-14. but despite that, despite knowing the problems the army sent it to southeast asia and of course, g.i.s and marines were dying because their weapons were failing. the army insists that marksmanship wins on the battlefield. well most combat takes place at less than 50 yards and frequent hi less than 15 yards. you don't need a heavy caliber to be accurate at 1500 yards. what you need is the rate of fire smaller caliber lighter weapon. especially when you're going, when you are engaged in operations like in southeast

asia. so the story of the weapon went through a series of army modifications that fundamentally changed the dynamics of the weapon. and, again, the rifling was different and the, and the load was different. and that guaranteed it would underperform. and if it wasn't cleaned properly in the field -- and that was very difficult -- then it was even more prone to jam. they were the early problems. and the army knew it. and this led to a major congressional investigation and the investigating body essentially charged the army of criminal negligence. nobody went to jail over this but that meant that hallock's career in the army was over. in that kind of situation the idea is you just close ranks and deny/defer. no one takes the hit. but it got to the point that he

got so disillusioned as a result of the it's, and he wasn't -- he wanted a brigade command in vietnam. he thought it was his due, which would come with a star. but he had serious reservations about american policy there. so those things combined, he decided he was going to walk. put his papers in. when he leaves the army he takes a job in the bureau of the budget. and that was a nice, nice non-military job, and he liked it. but because of his expertise and because he worked for the systems analysis people, the whiz kids, the holdover of the kennedy-mcnamara into the johnson period, he was asked to serve on a number of special committees blue ribbon panels including investigating the m-16. and then he's cherry picked by rand and so he's employed by

rand at the same time he's a consultant. and at rand he did two things, basically. he was primarily responsible for restructuring rand who had come under a lot of flak on to deepening problems in southeast asia. but he also was given the independence to conduct his own kind of studies. after a while he decides that well, i can do this by myself and so he creates his own consultancy firm in california. what hallock wants to do is -- he's very interested in third world military systems programs. so during the cold war there were these military systems groups in places like southeast asia and also in iran. and the problem was that the

iranian force would be given obsolescent american stuff inventory as new equipment came online. the shah has oil revenue opec. the price of oil spikes. gross domestic product in iran increases by 450%. they're awash with money. the nixon doctrine states that the united states is now prepared to provide analyze third world country allies the present and future generation of american military, naval and air hardware proviewedding they can pay for it. -- provided they can pay for it. well, there's only one country that can pay for it and that's iran. so things begin to go off the tracks. first, we've got a corrupt regime. the corrupt regime gips also

to -- well, that corruption begins to infect american suppliers, be they arms suppliers, be they construction engineering companies, be they telecommunication company, computer companies. everybody's bidding to rapp and that means -- to iran and that means if you want entree to those people who really make the decisions, ultimately that's the shah and those immediately around the shah, then you have to to grease the slides. and so it was a access pool of corruption -- cesspool of corruption. so the nixon administration ford administration wants this contained. so they send hallock out there and it's his job really to be a whistleblower. and he's effective in this to the point where the shah wants hallock to work directly for him. now, that raises the possibility

of conflict of interest. hallock is very keen on insuring that this is not a case of double dipping, and so the chief counsel -- marty hoffman of the defense department -- writes that there is no conflict of interest. now at the same time his company has contracts with department of defense. those contracts are ongoing. they have contracts in iran. they're developing user-friendly, cheap weapons that can be produced in iran. so what you have is the company's contracts with the defense department ongoing, these contracts with the iranian government ongoing and hallock as personal adviser to the shah. all of this looks a little dodgy. the carter administration are

saddled with the iranian revolution. so again just like who lost china, who lost iran? well, it wasn't ours to lose. not in either case, but certainly american policy. especially the runaway arms sales and much else was a major contributing factor in the push against modernization in the west. so what you want to do if you're the carter administration is push the blame back on ford, on nixon, nixon doctrine. and so the department of defense under another former whiz kid, secretary brown begins to leak information to investigative journalists pointing the finger at the gray ghost who's hallock. that hallock is, you know, triple dipping making a fortune. he is making a fortune but it was all legal. but the point was it was a political gambit in order to take the heat off the carter

administration. and so bottom line, there are reports in major more than papers -- major american papers. all things considered just began on radio, so they're awe coozing hall -- accusing hallock of holing up in mexico. in other words, it was an orchestrated campaign of character assassination. american policy was predicated upon the shah emerging as a regional power. not only in relation to the persian gulf, but in southwest and and really south asia as well. so, you know the potential was there that iran would be not a third world country but a real coalition partner playing a very important strategic role. when the shah is toppled then you have an enormous power

vacuum. and so the problem with iraq, persian gulf all fall in and we're still trying to sort out relations with rapp. you have to look at -- with iran. you have to look at hallock as being a true believer genuine professional. blessed with a very -- well a superior mind. but he also has well, he could have done well by going to dale carnegie program, how to win friends and influence people. because he was abysmal at that. he made enemies. he didn't hide the fact that he was half again smarter than everybody else. and in a corporate environment like the army he wasn't a good mixer. he wasn't that one wall at the officers' club. he didn't play that game in order to further his career, and as a result he got promoted on merit, but at the same time he produced enough enemies where

top prize always eluded him. in the end, he stayed in the army hoping he could make more change in the army than out but in the end, that pailed as well. that failed as well. >> this weekend booktv is in columbus, georgia, with the help of our local cable partner, mediacom. up next, we visit the columbus museum's exhibit titled "troublemakers and trailblazers." >> we're at the columbus museum in columbus, georgia and this is the "troublemakers and trailblazers" exhibition. our goal was to spotlight people from our area who were considered troublesome or not quite normal or going against grain when they were alive, but now we may see them in a different light. we're looking at artifacts related to the life of carson mccullers who is columbus' most famous author. she was born here in 1917 and spent all of her early life here and she really spent her

childhood exploring the i of columbus. so everything from the riverfront and the businesses on broadway to the fancier homes in some of the suburbs to the housing of white mail workers and also african-american neighborhoods including where some of the investic workers she knew -- domestic workers she knew would have lived. she had a wonderful eye for the stories and the feelings of people who were outsiders or outcasts. throughout her life she talked about having feelings of alienation or loneliness in different ways even though she always had many friends, and she did a wonderful job of capturing those feelings in her writings. the other wonderful part of all of her novels and many of her short stories is that most of them take place in a very thinly-veiled version of

columbus. if you are familiar with the city, it is very easy to pick out the mar -- the particular streets and businesses that she's talking about. many of her characters are inspired by people that she knew in her life or heard stories about from other people. so it's a wonderful way for us today to really get a sense of how she felt about her hometown, both the good and the bad and also just to capture a wonderful early 20th century, mid 20th century sense of what columbus really was like as a community. carson mcculllers left columbus when she was 18 years old, and though she returned frequently to visit her mother and her family her primary residence was really in new york city and in nyack, new york. she once told a friend that she

had to visit the south periodically to renew her sense of horror, tongue a little bit in cheek there. but really she felt more comfortable in some ways in new york, and she loved to entertain. so what we have here on loan from the carson mccullers center which is part of columbus state university are several artifacts from her home in nyack, new york, like the record player or the ice bucket would be essential for her, of course, for all the parties that she liked to throw. carson also, unfortunately suffered from physical malady cans throughout her life -- maladies throughout her life. she had a misdiagnosed case of rheumatic fever as a young teenager, and that affected her throughout her life and ultimately led to her having several strokes before her early death at the age of 50 in 1967. so this cane that we have here

mounted on the wall was the cane that she used to help her get around. that was very important for her. toward the end of her life, she was bedridden unfortunately, for much of her time. and there's a wonderful photo of her drinking out of this drinking cup here which was gulf to her by -- given to her by her very dear friend, mary mercer and it has her name engraved on it. so that was something that she kept close at her bedside throughout her life. carson was married to reeves mccullers. he was a soldier stationed at fort benning that she met when she lived here and they had a very tumultuous relationship. it ultimately ended in tragediy when reeves committed decide, and there was a -- committed suicide, and there was a lot of misunderstanding and emotional and perhaps physical infidelity on both sides at different times

throughout their relationship. but there was also a real love there and something that connected them was their love of literature and of writing. so these are two books that reeves gave her as christmas presents, and in particular one you see here says "christmas 1936 for carson, these books and my deepest affection reeves." so even though their relationship was not smooth by any means, we still have these reminders of what drew them together and what kept them together and why this relationship was so significant in carson's life. one of my very favorite pieces related to carson is this challenge portrait. this was dope by artist -- done by artist scott eagle and it is an imagining of one of carson's dipper parties that she -- dipper parties that she had that really became a little bit famous.

so here in front we have carson. she's working on her autobiography which was ultimately unfinished, but you see her there pen in happened. and in the background we have a very wild dinner party. so over here we have author isaac deppnyson which, of course, is the opinion name of karen -- [inaudible] who was the subject of out of africa portrayed by meryl streep. we have author richard wright who was very significant in african-american literature at that time. and, of course, we have the marvelous actress marilyn monroe depicted in stunning fashion. and then this fellow over here with his leg up on the table is playwright tennessee williams. and he and carson were part of a literary circle and a cultural circle in new york that involved many famous intellectuals of that time living in what was called the february house. so he and carson spoke

frequently, and he would have been a frequent guest at her dinner parties. i think joy and the enthusiasm for life that you see in this portrait is really indicative of how carson tried to live her life and even as she wove these amazing stories the heart is a lonely hunter reflections in a golden eye even as she wove these stories of outcast and alienation, she still brought out the joy in human connection that was so essential to her. and it is reflected in all of her work. >> for more information on booktv's recent visit to columbus, georgia, and the many cities visited by our local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/localcontent. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this week:

>> look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv. >> that in germany you get two votes, one for somebody who represents your district your community, and one for somebody who represents your ideas. of and many that way you get a congress that's much more diverse and that can create

different kinds of connections depending on what the issue is. you don't -- people are not required to vote a particular way because there are only two parties. st just much -- it's just much it's much more engaging, and as a result i thinkbe we did something hike that in the united states, we'd have higher levels of participation. that's another thing that we don't admit that we really should and that is we have at the most about 60% 65% of the population voting. you go to other countries and they have 80% you go to australia, and you're required to vote. if you don't vote you're punished. here in the united states smu we want to make -- somehow we want to make it difficult more some people to vote or it's not necessary that -- it's not necessarily that we want to make it difficult, it's that we're comfortable having made it difficult for people who don't have access to a car, truck or

vanishing people who don't have a lot of -- van, people who don't have a lot of money in order to take time off from work to engage in political activity or to even vote, and somehow we blame the people as opposed to our electoral system. and say well, the fact that they don't have -- i'm thinking now of a case that i litigated with pam carlin who's a professor at stanford in arkansas in which we were challenging on behalf of some of the people in arkansas the decision that you had to have a, you had to get at least 51% of the vote even if you got -- let's say there were three people and you got more of the vote, you had to get more than 50%, 50% plus one. and what that meant many this

part of arkansas -- in this part of arkansas is that for many of the working class and poor people whether they were white or black they didn't feel enough of an incentive to participate, and it was too expensive because they had to have access to a car, truck or van b because of where the voting places were. so to me, that's about the -- it's not -- we tend to put burden on the individual and say, well, they could vote. the fact that they didn't walk 13 miles to get to vote, that's their problem. or we could say our goal is to get as many people as possible participating in the political process, number one, because it will influence the outcome of the process in a way that's more fair and, number two, it's a way of inviting everyone to reconsider our initial commitment and begin to think, well i may not agree with my quote, direct opponents, but

there's some measure of of the future, of potential if i consider what this third person or fourth person is saying. ..

next is eisenhower's personal account of the strategies battles and outcome of world war ii. rep. tom cole recommends jean edward smith portrait of the 34th portrait. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. book tv, television for serious readers.

>> here are some programs to watch this weekend >> here is a look at some of the current best-selling nonfiction books

>> how did an army officer so associated with george washington's legacy go to war against what we today consider george washington's greatest legacy, the union it was this question that ultimately june me to robert e lee's story and it is that

tragic tension in the knowledge that history could have turned out so much differently because on the eve of the civil war leaders on both sides of the potomac in richmond and in washington sought lee's services for high command, both knew about his connections to george washington. that was common knowledge and both sought tremendous significance in them. they also knew that winfield scott at the time was a ranking general and the u.s. army but lee was the very best soldier he had ever seen in the field. robert ely certainly looked like a fine soldier. powerful, brought soldiers a barrel chest, perfect posture. everyone who saw him said some version of the same thing, that man looks every inch the soldier. and so and so in april 1861

and emissary for abraham lincoln asks robert ely to ride across from arlington and come to the city of washington. that emissary's name is francis player command he makes an extraordinary offer to robert ely. he says will you lead the main union army to crush secession? and leave remember the story, but are story, blair tried in every way to convince robert ely to say yes. he said blair said to lee the country looks to you as the representative of a washington family command that was hardly the exaggeration. and so now only one word separator robert ely from the pinnacle of his profession, from command profession, from command of what would be the largest american army ever raised from glory perhaps, that know american since george washington and known and

what did robert e lee say? he said he opposed secession command he did. he thought it was illegal. equally significantly he thought george washington would have opposed secession people on people on both sides of this conflict claimed george washington for their own. unionists will say george washington in his farewell address set to prize the union above any allegiance. and actually robert ely is reading a biography of george washington and the month before the civil war command his hearing these arguments. he concludes that he basically agrees with the union's position, george washington would have opposed secession. what else does he say? that he would gladly washes hands of slavery gladly get

rid of all slavery if it can avoid war. then he says but how can i erase my sword against my native state and here he hesitated. he gave the answer once in that wants no. he turned down the command that is not yet turned in his commission. he returns to arlington house soon learns that virginia has voted to secede in their writes a letter resigning from the union army and his wife recalled that decision the severest struggle of his life. >> you can watch this and other programs online. each year that chief of staff for the air force assembles a list of books he recommends for servicemen and women. here is the 2015 list.

this is book tv on c-span2 television for serious readers. here is our primetime lineup.

>> we have turned the civil rights era into kind of a morality tale in which, of course, all good people were for it. that is why it try out and transformed the country and why we don't have to deal with it anymore. but that is not how the participants in the civil rights movement saw themselves. they saw themselves as courageously but perhaps also in a way that was foolhardy risking everything not just their bodies but often there jobs the mortgages on their homes that could easily be foreclosed upon by local banks the futures of their children. everything for profound social change and were

deeply optimistic in the way that angry people can be. they were also profoundly pragmatic about what was happening the violence was indicative of broad social opposition. i think in that context they would have been astounded to see an african-american president 50 years later not surprised to see continuing resistance to the voting rights act but perhaps most tellingly and disappointed with that african-american president. i think they would have understood the incredible accomplishment and symbolism of his election but they might have been disappointed that obama did not bring the sort of fierce courage of change to the presidency that he did not see himself in a. in which he was really

optimistically but perhaps will hardly pushing profound social change. instead very soon after being elected pivoting and retreating from race and also from liberalism. here is how it connects politics. barack obama is a very sophisticated thinker about how race works, a very sophisticated understanding and over the last 50 years conservatives 50 years conservatives have linked liberalism to race with the basic narrative that says liberalism is about giveaways to minorities. demonize minorities, distrust liberalism. now we have a black democrat who will also be a liberal. it is like the perfect storm fine. i we will be a black democrat i will distance myself from minorities and from liberals and that way i can i can be above the fray

and not polarize the conversation. not realizing that trying to stay above the fray and that he would be ineffectual and changing the basic direction of this country which is to a decreased racial polarization, increased resentment toward government and increase turnover of government to the very rich. he solve of refused to intervene. and so we have this time 67 years into this presidency and only now that a barack obama who has some sense that he could be a change agent is really starting to surface. i wish i wish we had had this obama back in january of 2,009 rather than december 2014. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> here are some of our featured programs tonight at

10:00 p.m. eastern you blacks and white abolitionists to help fugitive slaves in the formation of the underground railroad.

next the founding fathers of the united states. the country would eventually be destroyed by corruption and argues that those fears of becoming a reality today. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> good afternoon and welcome to our book form. the cato institute today for a republic no more the

government and the rise of american political corruption by j cost. my name is john sample, vice president and publisher here at the cato institute. and i again would like to welcome you to this event today for this very important book. if you if you have been to both forms before you will notice our event will proceed in many ways the same as all other but forms have. you will hear from some participants him and him

they will for a few minutes give you some impressions of the book that have a conversation and we begin today you go straight to our event got the old joke the weekly standard. if you if you read the weekly standard regularly you will know his work well. we previously wrote for the horserace blog and real clear politics and had an earlier book spoiled rotten

and now threaten the american public. he received a ba in government from the university of virginia as well as an ma in political science from the university of chicago. in 2005 while working on working on his dissertation at the university of chicago he joined the staff of real clear politics and that then became a writer of the weekly standard in 2010. although his education background is in political science he claims that his come to rely more on his reading of the history of american elections than on political science and public opinion poll. our book today is the fruit of that interest in political history which many of us would say has an important message for political science and indeed for american politics. my colleague spent six years

as a member of the senior professional staff of the u.s. senate committee on banking, housing, and urban affairs. the position issues related to housing, mortgage finance and economics. prior to his service on capitol hill. housing studies the national association of homebuilders. the center for economic studies michael be the one

with the yellow tie chris is the director of tax policy studies from a top expert on federal and state tax and budget issues. a manager with price waterhouse cooper and an economist with the tax foundation. he has testified many times. i can say no one at cato really rails against political corruption better than chris edwards. he was a natural for our event.

there is a member of the fiscal future commission of the national academy of sciences. [applause] >> thank you for that very kind introduction. thanks thanks to mark and chris for participating today. thank you to everybody who is here and thanks especially to the cato institute for hosting. we we are here to talk about my new book republic no more big government and the rise of american political corruption. i was corruption. i was attracted to the idea of a history of political corruption because i like the idea of writing a history of a history of something that nobody studied in isolation before. it may be a lot don't particularly want to talk about but i thought i would

set sail on the grimy backwaters of american politics and see what i might find. my book is one part history: part civics, one part policy analysis. i was i was thinking about a way to tie all of that together. since mark is here i i am sure we'll talk about fannie mae and freddie mac which i analyzing the final chapter of the book. i'm looking forward to that because there behavior to talking about fannie and freddie because there behavior was probably the most of seeing example of legal corruption that i discovered. going to take an opportunity at the end of these remarks to bring them into the picture. let me outline exactly what my argument is. take a broader and more philosophical view. usually it is usually it is a matter of extortion or bribery or kickbacks.

and in my telling those are all examples of corruption but i view the problem much more broadly. james madison (was number ten with other evocative phrase the need to break control of the violence of faction. if you read the federalist papers hamilton is by far the better polemicist but that phrase still knocked me off my feet hundred. he defines of faction thusly a number of citizens whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or to the permanent in aggregate interest of the committee. that gives me a very useful definition of corruption. occurs in the government does violence to the public interest or individual rights by allowing factions

to dominate public policy for their own ends. it is incompatible it is incompatible with a republican form of government a republic must if it hopes to govern with the sake of all. madison rejected the idea that virtue could overwhelm what he saw as the inevitable human tendency toward factionalism. sewn into the very nature of man. he rejected he rejected thinkers who suggested that a small nation or city state would be ideal for public because in those instances small groups are less likely to bicker. madison observed the experience of the state government. indeed he makes a persuasive claim that even when men

don't have something substantive to bicker over they we will find and invent reasons to fight one another an alternative to this medicine embraces an institutional solution because after all if factionalism is sewn into the nature of man and popular rule is at the heart of republican project there is a problem. republican government is inherently unstable. a virtue does not cut it and a small size of the city state does not cut it what do you do? madison solution was institutional. he thought that so long as the institutions of government were well-designed action was to be thwarted. this idea is at the very heart of our complicated system of checks and balances an effort to build the institutions of government just so that the government works on behalf of everybody rather than a select few. madison call that they great

director of government. woodrow wilson once constitutional regime in newtonian system with forces carefully calibrated against one another. the rules of the constitutional game were to be structured so that the vast array of forces in society could combine within the government to produce something that is in the common interest, that of faction may have representatives that those agents only possess limited power selfish ambition. the only those proposal that should make it through the constitutional government and be enacted into law will be those that benefit. preserving a republican integrity of the regime. to be truly madisonian and

require something other than strict adherence to the constitution not strictly commitment to the document. the constitution cannot be understood. it is rather a compromise hammered out at the constitutional convention in 1787 1787 convene after the existing governmental authority have proved unworkable. the status quo at that time could no longer stand. a disagreed on many points. the 1st is how powerful the knew government should be dependent on local interest. one group led by madison hamilton and washington wants the powerful government, mostly immune from parochial concerns apart from a popularly elected house of representatives madison's madison's original proposal envisioned a government distant from localities. the senate was to be selected by the house for the president by both chambers of congress and the

pres. president would actually have veto authority of state legislation. a council of revision would have authority to monitor and veto state laws. meanwhile the congress would have enormously wide discretion legislating in all cases to which the separate states are incompetent or in which the harmony of the united states may be interrupted by the exercise of individual legislation. the virginia plan was a truly national plan of government. opponents rallied to a proposal by patterson which conference late alterations to the existing articles of federation which had a limited power and parochial orientation. under the new jersey plan the continental congress would require the power to tax and an executive council would be created to provide direction. the constitution occupy the

middle ground between these views. after months of debate delegates decided that the government should have more power and patterson proposed but less than what madison proposed. furthermore it would depend more him him. this is not merely a splitting of differences. you can appreciate this if you read madison's notes on the constitutional convention. you can see them taking care to make sure that this compromise actually worked, the different various pieces fit together. it was a remarkable compromise. this was a people deeply skeptical of centralized power and fearful of creeping monarchism. yet they were in desperate need of a central authority that can deal with urgent problems. the constitution gave the government enough power to meet the existing crises but not so much as to overwhelm state and local authority and distance the government

from popular sentiment but certainly not without cutting it off entirely. over the ensuing two centuries and more the american population grew from 4 million to over 300 million in society changed straining the original, lies and gradually forcing effective revision of the governing charter. new problems emerge and repeatedly the government decided the power of the federal government had to grow. today washington dc has achieved the scope of centralized power that was envisioned in the virginia plan. for all intents and purposes the federal government can't legislate whenever it sees fit. rarely does the rarely does the supreme court remind washington in a constitutional limit. yet this is where we turn to the problem of corruption. the country never substantially revised as detentions that channel government's ever-expanding powers. we we have tinkered at the margins, tweets the electoral college, mandated

that the election of senators be direct and expanded the franchise. nevertheless from the growth of federal authority the basic institutions remain largely as they were when the constitution but was into effect. and from the madisonian perspective this is a problem. of our institutions require particular design then it is imprudent to give greatly expanded powers to institutions that were originally intended to do much less. that is exactly what we have done and have done so in a decidedly ad hoc manner. even if the trajectory in the growth of government has always been upward. as crises arise voters elect electing the governing class that expands power to deal with the challenge and the expansion is retained even after the danger has abated.

this haphazard process this haphazard process has left us with institutions that are far too parochial and tied to factual interest to permit the wise exercise of this expensive authority. perhaps not surprisingly her 18th century institutions wielder 21st century powers. lacking adequate lacking adequate checks and balances and this new redesigned regime they regularly till public policy to benefit narrow interest groups. madison called at the violence of faction, sometimes conservatives, cronyism. liberals are want to call the corporate welfare. i called corruption. this gets to the heart of madisonian is. it is not blind faith but a a commitment to the ideal of proper institutional design to make commitment to the principle that we must take institution seriously. they must be well-designed.

i do not i do not think this country has been very madisonian through history. put aside the debate of big government versus small government and think of it this way. if we expand the power of the government will the existing institutions be capable of exercising the powers responsibly, or will they need to be revised? that is a madisonian question and one that in my search through history i have rarely seen asked. having outlined my. i briefly want to tie fannie mae and freddie mac into the story. they had unsafe and unsound financial practices with an unprecedented lobbying operation to protect investors and pad bonuses of executives. and for and for those who study the subject fannie and freddie are government-sponsored entities not part of the government but instrumentalities private

corporations the public charters. my book starts by discussing the corruption inherent to the 1st two the 1st and 2nd banks of the united states, the states, the experience with the bank, the 2nd in particular eerily similar to the experience of fannie mae and freddie mac. normally when we think about the 2nd bank we are want to think of nicholas biddle who was a very farsighted financier. if we. everything beyond him we tend to think of the bank were andrew jackson comes across as much worse. but that is as far as the common understanding usually goes. it overlooks something which is that the bank have been in place for about a decade before bilking on board and was terribly politicized and self-interested bank managers abusing the public good out of ignorance benedick and banality all the while the government doing practically nothing about it until it was too late.

the reason why is that the bank was well connected into the political system. members of congress were given advances on their salaries, received campaign contributions, personal loans. his greasing may not have been as comprehensive then as it is in our age but they were nevertheless greased. as a consequence bad management and political influence peddling the 2nd bank harmed the country's economy in its early years. did not did not cause the panic of 1819 but reacted far too late and it overreacted delete because on the. it seems to me and i make this argument in the book of that history repeated itself. the same story i just described applies equally if not more so to fannie and freddie. better at politics and the collapse of 2000 it 2000 it was much worse than the panic of 1890. history we will repeat

itself in this way goes to show how little care and attention the political class and by extension the people at large. to the design of our governing institutions. franklin roosevelt was not aware of the 2nd banks troubled history when he created fannie mae. he just wanted to jumpstart the housing market. lyndon johnson was certainly ignorant of his history. his his motivation was to give fannie's obligations of the federal books. similarly richard nixon had no knowledge of history's presence. in this way leaders were simply following the american people's demand to solve pressing problems without abstract concerns like whether a system could actually keep these entities in line. this is an unfortunate pattern. for country founded by men

who were obsessed with institutions could ensure a truly republican result the citizenry and the political class over generations have been decidedly disinterested in such questions. they hardly consider pass institutional mistakes when designing new structures revisit core assumptions even when those institutions appear to be functioning poorly and almost unquestionably accept ad hoc structures with provinces aside the political. people are too people are too quick to blame personalities rather than institutional maladies when bad policy is produced. to put bluntly, it has been decidedly un-madisonian in un- madisonian and the country has been the price again and again. most recently most recently from the damage caused by fannie mae and freddie mac. [applause]

[inaudible conversations]

>> 1st let me say how much i enjoyed the book. some of the issues dealing with finance or close to my own heart. also as well my dissertation work was on regulatory areas during the progressive era. i i found that chapter to be very much of interest. let me make an emphasis. the subtitle of the book really is less about the size of government and the structure of government. if if you read this book and then immediately read marxist historian in the classic conservatism you would be hard-pressed to find differences. i really would suggest despite the big government tail, this really is about that anybody at any.in the political spectrum would enjoy. it is a great introduction to the history. some of my critiques would

be that -- and this is going to reflect my bias as an economist. there is a whole literature of economics someone corruption some unconstitutional design. this is a political science history book. despite my own temptations that every single book everywhere. a small slight. to me some of the conversation particularly about some of the bank wars my friend alex pollock a number of years ago were a very wonderful essay comparing fannie and freddie to the 1st and 2nd bank. it is always a wonderful parallel. a great introduction. a little bit frustrated in terms of can we really have

some fixes your? i guess i'll put it this way, if your looking for a laundry list of how we can fix all of this and go back in time, you will probably be disappointed. it's a great set of examples the thesis is clearly written out. i enjoyed it and look forward to the next one. >> thank you. you are clearly a historian by heart. the detail is tremendous. the rise of the patronage in the 19th century, the rise of the parties, the progressive movement chapters in here on farm subsidies and medicare. tremendous introduction. to be a separate cato standalone study. it it is a tremendous job with the history. three main critiques. the 1st is the in my view

big government gets down and corrupted wasteful than that of the basic structure. for example, farm subsidies are terrible policy, distortionary, unfair. but every major western country has big distortionary farm subsidy programs. governments of all types of british -- different systems so the problem with farm subsidies and this is sort of what i think. maybe mark was touching on it. jay gives us a special interest critique of government. what what he leaves out is the central planning critique of government. maybe that is a separate book, but the problem with farm subsidies is not so much the special-interest that the special planning problem.

really a tremendous a tremendous chapter. if you want a good introduction his book is a good place to go. go. the problem with medicare is not the special-interest. there's unfairness and loopholes and that sort of stuff. but stuff. but the central planning problem. medicare is a soviet style central planning price control system. thousands of prices on provider imposed on providers and doctors that cause a tremendous amount of distortion. but you see the same sorts of distortion and other sorts of government systems and other countries. he leaves out of his book the basic critique. complain about what he called the system the people who get in government and think that they can centrally planned economy is as if the economy's -- it --

as if society was a chessboard. that is the problem with big government. i think jay's critique is that the hamiltonian or henry clay kind of big government system could have worked with washington -- if we did change the institutions in washington over the decades. i don't think that's right. the government failed because it tries to centrally planned. i thought it was very interesting maybe more bit of an agreement. the madisonian view of checks and balances and factions and the extended republic would balance each other to the broader public good, madison apparently did not see the rise of law. logrolling is essential and crucial problem in j goes

into this in some detail. back back in the 19th century logrolling was a huge problem. the discussion of woodrow wilson observed that one of the big problems was the decentralized power structure in washington and no one no one knew who was responsible for failed government policies. a huge and central problem command you can see the difference in countries the united states with countries with the british parliamentary system like canada and britain were government time to power and it's essentially a short-term dictatorship. everyone knows who is at fault. the political accountability is a real problem. woodrow wilson was a terrible president but his observations about responsibility.

this is a final.to the election of 1800 was a landmark. jefferson a landmark. jefferson promise to smaller government, a repeal of all internal taxation, spending cuts, balanced budgets. j argues that the jeffersonians were pretty quickly overwhelmed by federalist ideas and it just became federalists in subsequent years. i think that's a little off. i i think that a number of the jeffersonian ideas actually have real sustained power in american public policy. jefferson for example did follow through and repeal internal taxes. that policy held until the civil war. jefferson hated that.

he and his treasury secretary hated that and they promised they would cut it. they did cut it. that policy, the hatred of debt the favor of balanced budgets lasted through to the new deal with the exception of what's there is something here that culture plays a role. the idea that we are to have balanced budgets, pay down debt have seen it is just a sense which is an impressive record. i think that generally excellent book. one thing that is left out was the culture of our governing institutions which is a bit of a different issue. >> useful.

you think of a very specific definition of corruption. certainly you as five different people what they mean and get six different answers. definitions of economic literature but i think it would be helpful if you could lay out the very specific, you know, what exactly are you to find is corruption. >> that's a good question. it was something that i struggle with while i was writing the book. you book. you can win any argument depending on how you define your terms. the question the question became where should i plan my five. what is my foundational premise? and i decided that madison at least as i read command i think i read him reasonably madison his definition of

factionalism with the violence of faction. and that shows that because for a couple of a couple of reasons: first is that i think it illustrates pervasive problems that are often overlooked with two narrow definition. but i also chose it because i really -- you know my know my reading of history have been really struck by struggles of the 1780s leading up to the constitutional convention, leading up to the document that was produced. what produced. what were men like hamilton and washington and madison so worried about? and they were worried about factionalism. and i think that it is not unreasonable to use that as a definition because i look at the behavior of a lot of the state governments in the 1780s and see an awful lot of corruption. >> it is certainly worth observing. a lot of that corruption was

maybe all we would all commonly think of corruption as public officials and friends lining their pockets i guess you i guess you can certainly say the smallest faction is the faction of one. but i think that is helpful. to me the book is kind of about these concentrated groups taking advantage of the government for their own benefit at the public expense. >> i think i can tell you struggle with the idea. private interest versus public interest. we all want public policy. people on every people on every end of the political spectrum will say that is what they want. but but what does that mean? i am writing now on why the federal government failed. the definition of failure

has been the federal government does not do something the project or public interest. but no one -- it is hard to find a special interests like the one mark used to work for, they would argue that what they are proposing is in the general public interest. and it is hard to get a really good hard definition of how these special interests undermine the general welfare. >> it is. in fact is. in fact, that reminds me in the introduction or chapter one it was jefferson's telling which may be might make it a dubious accuracy but it was for his personal record permits personal notes. he recounted a conversation he had with john adams and hamilton about the british constitution. it would be the most perfect constitution if only it was purged of its corruption and given a quality of representation. hamilton said purge it of

its corruption and it will become a useless institution as it stands it is the most perfect government ever created. jefferson of course, was appalled by this. hamilton -- and this picture the question of what is the public good. hamilton thought that what is the problem if the king has to bribe small minded members of parliament to do what they should do anyway? and we have seen that at times throughout history. lincoln had history. lincoln had to dispense patronage to a congressman from new jersey to get the 13th amendment passed. and the response, you know when i read that command was very striking. one reaction would be think god he had the available patronage. at the same time it is a difficult, seemingly difficult thing to do find the public interest. but it sort of you know the way justice potter stewart described pornography, you know it when you see it.

we can talk about the difficulty of the public good in the abstract but then you start calculating the deadweight loss inherent to farm subsidy elected by the farm subsidies are going there is no question. similarly you look at the patronage regime by the end of the 19th century and you can make an argument are trying to hold the political coalitions together but you look for instance at the way the port of new york city functioned by the end of the 19th century. it was disastrous and harmful to the national interest. when you when you read the stories and see exactly what was going on there is not a lot of doubt. i think the concept of the public interest from a certain perspective is often hazy and informs a lot of public debate. but then they're are issues where the split is really 95 the five 95 the five which is getting the book. >> something that you can elaborate on the whole logrolling issue. was i right that madison

mr. logrolling problem? a well-designed system read about the constitutions but it does seem to me that almost as soon as the = of the constitution the logrolling started. you go into detail about starting in 1826 they started passing harbor army corps of engineers project bills where initially started passing these army corps of engineers projects singularly and a lot of the bill the legislature but then they get the great idea of bundling a few hundred together and putting them in an omnibus and that was the beginning. they realize they can do that with post offices and other stuff. you bundle it together. >> that is something i don't get into in the book. you know you have to select your stories and certain days get left on the cover for. your right.

i don't remember what the particular issue was. it was. it might have had to do with internal taxation. but he was the 1st or 2nd congress was very disturbed by what he saw. of course by the 1820s which is just a generation into the government and only do you get rivers and harbors legislation but then you also command by the way he don't think it's a big deal nowadays but if you think about the country in the 1820s it was hugely important. on on top of that you get the tariff of abominations which was 1827, 28 which was basically a a log roll between new england and the mid-atlantic states at the expense of the south and ultimately precipitated the nullification crisis. that was something he definitely missed. and of course today i talk about this in the 2nd half of the book twilight gross today usually don't exist on the house for. having, they certainly happen, but usually the committees a much better for

securing what political scientist so-called gains from trade. you hand discretionary power over to the process to committees and an people who want pork defense or technology gravitate to whatever committee has particular control over it. that was not forget which is why you get things like rivers and harbors. >> solway too much of that. i do want to go back to the think is interesting issue. good corruption. the use of the use of the examples that i saw on a regular basis. written on a very large grants and subsidies we give the states and localities. as you could imagine they want the check without any strings. on the receiving end. there's some senators can

you exempt us from the requirement. and of course my usual answer was am happy to have a conversation with you. the only one who ever took that position i never had anyone argue with me on principle. the expediency congress move this forward. others the mortgage finance stuff that is other areas of public assistance you do often hear this argument if not explicit if you don't know the special interest providers take some portion of the subsidy the nobody will lobby and thought have these great good things and poor people die in the streets. and so going to put it back to you. the average of the court mastercard about things like that. you know where is your evidence of you these

offsets, carveouts parker of deals outweigh the greater good is individual. >> that's a good question. >> ranking member for years on ways and means, you describe is the abc center. the writing of tax policy and ways and means comes in and says the policy you have is great but i need an exemption. a year later he comes in and says the exemption you gave a was perfect and wonderful but it has affected me in this way, so i need an exemption. but but i mean that is ultimately the question of whether it was hamilton right are all these deals the grinding necessity of managing the political economy? and the argument i make in the book and go through and kind of rank the chapter is one after another look at

farm subsidies and in the the porkbarrel medicare and corporate taxes and fannie mae. all five those areas the benefits are clearly outweighed by the cost. and i think that the waste -- i sort of -- it was sort of a spitball because you can't get precise estimates. i sort of rank the chapter so that the father in the book you go the more wasteful and pernicious the effects of the policy are. ..