look at what happened in northern ireland. it was some sort of coexistence. to create prosperity and jobs for the people. the war between the dash on the catholics.

we need arab monies with the wilson expect these to work together and to benefit the whole region. once the people find a job come at good governance they will coexist and they will try to keep this bus if they are frustrated, humiliated and marginalized i think this will create the rules are the seeds of instability. we have a lot of money and the middle east. should he spent by a wise guide of the west in the region in order to make it better to make a development in this case definitely will have a much better middle east. plan b is to develop the middle east and to encourage coexistence and liberalism in that part of the world. >> next question please. >> it was only two years ago but

obama declined to intervene with chemical attacks by assad it seems was the islamic state was born almost overnight. i think arm person still is the islamic state is a bunch of militarized men who fled their defending territory. even putin said in a recent address to the general assembly there are mercenaries and he knows the price of which you can buy it back. you are presenting a different view what is happening. this is an organized government and they have a health care system. can you give us better information than what we are receiving from western media outlet -- media in addition to your book and for example or children going to school. what is happening really? we are hearing women are being recruited great how will a change in the coming year? >> in the western media we see the pictures of the executions and the brutality and the chaos that might be present in the

islamic state. can you say just a bit more about the day-to-day administration, the way health and education and public services are being done in rock and mossel bay? >> you know a year ago i was lecturing at a book fair and while i was talking and after that there was a signing ceremony for the era book version of my book. nice smart man were with his two daughters and he said to me i arrived three days ago from raqqa, a year ago exactly. i said from raqqa and he said yes. from the islamic state and he said yes. i said he looked very westernized. how do you see the situation there? he said sir it's the most secure part of iraq. but they are imposing this

coming code on women and girls and westernized women. he said look people in the middle east, people in iraq in particular are looking for security, looking for law and order. before the islamic state there were several militias, warlords terrorizing the people. so now you have one government to deal with and they said water is fair and safety as they are, the police are there and traffic is there so he said the needs of the people are satisfied. yes it is brutal and yes it is savage but if you don't provoke them, if you accept their loss at least temporarily you are not touched.

many people think the islamic state consists of those people with a dirty beard and baggy trousers and they can manage one thing, to burn people to death. this is a very wrong concept here. they have highly educated people they were educated in west point and other universities in the west and they administered the expertise to the islamic state. iraq was a very modern state. the dictator was very brutal but the country used is to be run. it was under siege for 12 years but at the end of every month everybody has food and medicine and equal terms without any differentiation. those people are running now the islamic state. as i said water is running come,

lecture city is running, taxes are collected. they don't want the dissidents to be there. they don't want the yazidis to be there. but the problem the majority of the people, they try to live under this rule. it is brutal and i wouldn't live one day enter the islamic state. i know i can see the differences that i can see the democracy, the human rights and the rule of law. in that part of the world and comparison with the surroundings it's not that. >> i thought a remarkable picture a couple of days ago a city worker in raqqa fixing a water main under a street. he had the uniform on and he was part of the public service of the water department in raqqa. we have kept you very late this evening. it's almost time for you to wake up in london so we very much

appreciate you getting up and spending such time with us. [applause] >> i'm really thankful and grateful to spend time with you and i wish i am with you in person. i was really looking forward to come to you, your highly reputable organization but unfortunately that feeds the question deprived me from actually being among you and now you face to face which is a great great loss honestly for me. >> we look forward to hosting you when your next book come out which is probably three months from now, yes? very good abdel bari atwan latest book islamic state is available in the lobby. thanks to buck incorporated. thank you all very much. good evening. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] next up former white house deputy chief of staff karl discusses his book "the triumph of william mckinley" that looks at william mckinley's 1896 presidential campaign. he is interviewed by richard brookhiser senior editor for national review magazine.

>> host: we are here with karl , the author of "the triumph of william mckinley" why the election of 1896 still matters. mr. rove was a senior adviser for president george w. bush and the architect of his election and re-election in 2,002,004. his publisher asked me if i would read his book and blurb it and i did so i just want to begin with what i said. karl rove shows how william mckinley eustis watershed election to change his party, the political process in the nation. it's all here, the big themes, the backstage maneuvers of personalities in the hoopla. a great read for historians political junkies and in own wild election cycle americans. guess who i will pay you for that later. that was awfully generous of

you. >> host: let's introduce the man. 1896 begins who was william mckinley mckinley and what has he want? >> in the most immediate sense he is the governor of the state of ohio. and throughout his entire career and the congress from 1876 through 1890 he has become the leading voice within the repugnant party for the policy of detective tariffs. that's at the surface of it. governor for critical battleground state. no president is elected as a republican between the civil war in 1904 who is not in born in the state of ohio so is governor of ohio he's an immediate prospect. >> how big is ohio relative to other states? >> guest: is the fourth-largest state in the union the most populous state is new york. followed by pennsylvania illinois and ohio. interestingly enough to the

states have been consistent battleground states in the gilded age politics, new york and ohio. pennsylvania and illinois had tended to lean reliably republican however 1992 cleveland carries the state of illinois by three percentage points defeating benjamin harrison of indiana. >> host: so what are his ambitions as 1896 begins? >> guest: his bride from one of the founding families confides upon their return from their honeymoon in new york and washington that her husband has been defeated for the county attorneys job and wants to be president of the united states. she is thrilled by the prospect of this object is the republican party has been beaten in 1892

election. grover cleveland has come into office and mckinley has been the governor ohio and seen the country descend into a deep depression. republicans think the election of 1896 is going to be theirs and he wants to be the nominee but he's not the front-runner. he's not the favorite of the party bosses. >> host: the depression happens after he is elected. >> guest: he gets elected in november and by the time he takes office in march the economy is moving downward rapidly. its enormous play damaging. the long-lasting deep depression literally 15% of american workers have lost their jobs. they don't have good economic statistics like we have now but we are talking hundreds of thousands of men tossed it at their jobs each and every month. one day alone one county in upstate new york, 10,000 workers

were let go in a factory. >> host: as bad as 2008 or worse? >> guest: worse in some respects because to some degree these were not self-inflicted wounds that they had on the american economic system in the fall of 2008. some of these were large forces that we suffered through because fewer developing countries forget the american economy in the 1870s the 1890s were terribly dependent upon foreign sources of investment and the open lines to operate smelters to build railroads and to open up the territory to the west. what happened was a series of international events, the failure of the crop in argentina and the failure the banks. then that accelerates what many blamed on the cause of the

recession which was the declining in america's gold reserves. the government was rapidly getting to the point of $100 million in gold which is going to be the minimum amount necessary to sustain the value of the american currency. they dipped below that 100 million level as foreigners took their investments cash in their investments in the took their golden era. there was a concerned american power have become worthless. >> host: the dollar than is backed by gold. >> guest: that's right. we have paper currency but the paper currency was a matter of convenience. rather carry been carrying around a portable of large gold coins we could care around paper money or conduct your business but you could always take it to the treasure up as intended in. this. >> host: the economies in the bank -- in the tank in their hopeful. he was a front-runner? >> guest: the front-runners to thomas racket read the speaker

of the house by maine. yet the largest, one of the private largest libraries. yet a french tutor and he had a classic wit. in the run-up to the 1896 election he talked about the incoming elections in 1894 midterms and said the democrat losses will be so plentiful that they are defeat will be buried in unmarked graves. so he was renowned. he was the fellow who said that the party could do worse soviet great wit. he was the candidate backed by the figures in the republican party who were the combine is what they were commonly referred to. they were the party bosses led by the easy bosses of new york thomas collier platt and his running buddy matthew s. quayle. they have allies around the country and not reflection of

characters including one of the principle agents was james clarkson publisher of "the des moines register" whose nickname was rat and he got that nick name rat because he apparently had atrocious handwriting and he was always sent to the copywriters in the column it written any with that are e.t. clerks at the top because they would -- he was afraid they wouldn't be able to decipher his handwriting. a fellow named joseph manley who was an aide to read in maine. he had been an ally of farid's great agger party rival the magnetic man who has been secretary of state and senator. >> also maine. two men from maine who have been lifelong rivals. one of them is now out of politics and death 1896 and the

other one is taken the dominant role in the state of politics and picked up manly to be his own man. >> host: what is the vision for winning the election? >> guest: their business first and foremost oriented to what's in it for me? they are very pragmatic people. they wanted somebody he can win the general election and they think they can best be figured out at the convention is chaotic and they get to hold all the cards that make the decisions. what they do as is they sort of nominally pledged their support to read who is the front-runner in the leading republican. benjamin harrison was the discredited former president. read us the coming man and the speaker of the house. the other part of strategy as let's get lots of favorite around the country who will unite their state delegation and then when we get together at the convention nobody will have a majority of the delegates.

we can get in the backroom and carve up the federal government to our advantage and unite behind a one-man who will give us what we want. >> host: as favorite son is a placeholder? >> guest: some of them thought they could be candidates. >> host: someone has to be the candidate. >> guest: someone has to be the candidates for governor bradley who is iced a republican which is not frequently seen he thinks of himself as one. senator davis of minnesota is an expert in foreign policy is flattered enough to be one. the governor of the state of new york former vice president morton is put forward as a favorite. he is a potentially plausible candidate candidate for president but his principle purpose is to keep every new york republican pocket of thomas collier to platt. there are also a couple of candidates who are potentially real candidates the most

prominent of which is william allison of iowa who is a workman like solid legislator who creates the interstate commerce commission and is actually a legislator gets things done. most of them are people who think they can be president. shall be column, uncle shelby the senior senator from illinois he is put into the field by the bass congressman william j. larimer. he's an interesting character and john riley tanner to ellen i republican party chairman who does become governor. >> host: so while these players are essentially out for themselves. what is william mckinley out for? >> guest: william mckinley is out to restore prosperity. his fervent belief is that the policy of detective pair of

fifth advocated in the congress for a great many years the path to return to prosperity. >> host: he is not a free trader. >> guest: he is not a free trader. his focus is the american worker. he wants rome bust domestic markets, high wages for american labor and protection for cheap labor imports. he is not a defender of high tears for the purpose of making rich people richer. back when he passed the mckinley tariff of 1890 which helped contribute to the republican defeat in the house that year and is remembered by many republicans is the thing that brought them defeat and was an obstacle for them, and the passage passages that he was constantly asking people in essence not how much do you need to get rich but how much does your industry need in order to be properly protected from unfair foreign competition? economist today agree that in

all likelihood the protective policies he advocated did not advance america's economic beyond what it would have been otherwise. it's hard for us to understand why people felt so strongly about it but they did during that time. his whole vision was a nationalistic program of economic progress that benefited the american worker. >> host: in those days was your path to the nomination if you are breed or mckinley or entities other hopefuls, what hurdles do you have to jump through? >> guest: that's a very interesting question because this becomes the first modern presidential primary nomination now. before 1896 what you did is in the parliament at the time you put your faith in the hands of your friends so you had somebody on your behalf move around the country while you stayed as far from as possible. you got your state and a couple of other states and friends around the country to rally to your cause but be expected to go

into the convention with some generalized sense there was a front-runner and some generalized sense that there were other candidates and then through this process of multi-ballots in the convention somebody emerged and became generally became people second choice. rarely do the first choice become the nominee and eventually everybody settled around by making deals. in 1888 benjamin harris receives the nomination after james g. blaine who was the front-runner who is literally at andrew carnegie's castle in scotland on a saturday and sunday morning it's reiterated that he is not a candidate. benjamin harrison becomes the front-runner because he was born in ohio and b he is a former senator from the state of indiana one of the battleground states and his agent makes a deal, steven b. elkins of west virginia seemingly makes a deal

with thomas collier platt and in return for their support plat will receive all the patronage. the most valuable office in the country was ahead of new york city and new york city and this would ostensibly be the last choice and obviously all the patronage was connected to platt. which could make him not only for secretary of treasury but the next president of united states. >> host: the process we now have in iowa and january in new hampshire and february and even stars before that you were saying before 1896 it's all at the convention. >> guest: if you have a favorite sunday gathered together and reunite behind them and they instruct for their favorite son. by simply saying we are sending the delegation composed of sherman from ohio orb blame men

for massachusetts. >> host: how does mckinley confront this? >> guest: first of all he goes about in a methodical organized fashion. i'm going to organize for the primaries organize for the convention is likely organize for primaries today. i'm going to identify from a long set of points developed during my years in congress friends inside the states were going to become my agents and their object will be to systematically organize the local county convention in order to influence the congressional district, in order to generate conventions at the state level that are dominated by mckinley and who will not be concerned. he's not concerned with his own that delegation. all the wants it for that delegation to be instructed to vote for him. he doesn't try to pick and choose who's going to be on the delegation but he does pick people and emboldens them and authorizes them to organize a separate, mesa and hopefully a victory at the state convention.

he begins this process early. most of the time the maneuvering begins late in the year before the election. he begins it immediately after the 294 election. in fact he could make the argument he travels the country some 12,000 miles i believe is from 1894 campaign. the midterm elections travels the country discredits protectionism and prosperity. he immediately begins in early 1895 to systematically organize and he does so by going on vacation. mark hannah has a place in the palm beach at this time. >> host: who is mark hannah? >> guest: mark hannah, first of all he's misunderstood. he's not the mastermind of the mckinley effort. he's not in the campaign manager manager and we will come back to that later but he's a close friend of mckinley's amanda

underwrites the primary campaign and he's a successful iron and cold magnet from cleveland ohio. he comes from relatively modestly because his family were brochure in. they had a good education company in southeastern ohio and moved to cleveland and cleveland began to take off. he has a mind for business. he starts out at the very bottom. he is selling tickets and collecting fares on one of their steamships and working as a clerk. he's working as a delivery man but he ultimately rises to the management of his family's firm and when he marries into a wealthier family in cleveland he takes over his father-in-law's firm and becomes enormously successful businessman. only financial failure he had was his vietnam in the immediate aftermath of the civil war he tries to build an oil were finer and almost loses everything and is forced to sell the refinery with a loss to a high school

classmate named john d. rockefeller. >> host: how do he and mckinley hook? >> guest: they meet in 1876 so neither one of them remember. hannah has no remember -- memory of meeting mckinley paid mckinley is getting to ready to make his first run for congress and there is a minor's dispute in western start county and the miners go on strike. they burned mines and beat it by the superintendent of one of the line mind spray the mines are owned by one of the companies that mark hannah had. they arrest these miners and try them and nobody can be found to defend them until somebody pressures william mckinley into stepping forward and defending the minors. he gets all the one of them off. then when it% proceed to give him a $120 fee which is it big sum of money people refuses the

fee and contributes contributed to the relief fund for the families of the miners thereby creating a lifelong reputation as a working man. the company pursuing charges against these miners on by hannah, hannah is sitting in the courtroom as the case goes on. he's hired the best law firm in canton ohio and we have this young lawyer was then practicing law for basic rate 10 or 11 years. he's in his early 30s and he takes on the biggest law firm in canton and beats them both hannah has no recollection because he's suffering from an attack of the hives and the slathered with sulfur ointment. he can only walk with a cane and as a result he's in constant pain and has no memory of meeting william mckinley. they come together though eight years later at the ohio state republican convention with mckinley over his objection is elected as a delegate to republican national convention.

he doesn't want to go to the national convention. hannah is for senator john sherman of ohio. mckinley doesn't want to impose his chief but over his objection he gets sent to the national convention where he supports deal to the winner of the nomination while hannah is supporting sherman paid. >> host: their first encounters they are on opposite sides. >> guest: in 1888 they both go back to the republican national convention and by this time they have got a little bit of a semi-rivalry going. the third ohio characters into the scene. joseph b. foraker who runs for governor in 1885 and is defeated and is elected in 1887. he gets elected in 1885 and as governor of the state in 1888. they go to the national convention and hannah and mckinley aren't support up

senator sherman. foraker is desperate to try to make himself a presidential nominee or the vice presidential nominee. at this convention mckinley comport himself in a way that causes hand not to recognize him as presidential -- at this convention by ken lay has been the leader on protectionists played a role in the convention of 1884 as a young man he has demonstrated a maturity and ability to control the crowd. in 1888 convention there begins to be conversation about him running for president. he's committed to senator sherman so when word gets out that there's a movement to draft him he and hannah are sitting in a hotel room and he grabs a telegram slip right to comment on it shares it with hannah and says that this continues this is

what i'm going to say. the next day they vote on the presidential nominations and a delegate from connecticut gets up and goes for mckinley. there's talk all across the floor. most of the texas delegation is ready to vote for him and new jersey says we are ready to vote for him and when a delegate from connecticut comes to vote for him the kimmie rises on the floor stands on the chair to get the attention the chairman of the convention and recites what is written on a telegram which is that he does not want anyone to consider him for president tape because he is committed by the convention of the republicans in ohio and by his heart to the support of john sherman for president. this would be of light on his personal character if anyone were to vote for him. this is astonishing to hannah. here's a man who could have potentially swept the convention by stating and letting things go his way. clearly a lot of people as second choice for president

which makes him a potential nominee. and yet he says no. then spends the next two days when the convention is in recess brutally pushing his fellow at delegates where everyone fear something's going to happen he shows up and says no don't do this. i would rather cut off my right arm than to be the nominee to of the party. i would deserve to lose if i were to allow my personal character to besmirch by this. he wakes up in the middle of the night and sunday night and here's an external ohio delegates talking about how they will go about getting evan nominated. he throws open the door and said stop it, don't do this anymore. hannah is passionate about it. it was a matter of character. he committed to sherman and bike that nothing was going to stay in his way. >> host: mckinley is another

very important ally from chicago >> guest: he is born in ohio to charles g. dodd's graduates from law school and heads west and mckinley meet him sometime early 1994 when dawes comes to visit him in columbus ohio and he says if you run for president want to help. they meet in october of 1894 were mckinley stops in lincoln nebraska for a campaign stop in the mid-term. >> host: why is dawes so taken by this guy? >> guest: pcs and mckinley someone of enormous integrity and the man looking to the future and the key talent pity is not the kind of patronage republican at the gilded age. dawes was there a former like this. he's a young lawyer and lincoln

nebraska has taken on the rover is what he thinks are charging farmers to have a price to get their goods to market. he is a reformed republican andy likes a reformed republican. huskies an interesting character. he is sort of tall, his heirs read any parts in the middle. he practices law and in the same small law office as a lawyer by abusing the denham, william jennings bryan. they had a reading club called the roundtable at two of them often had lunch with the third pal the rotc instructor at the university of nebraska west point first lieutenant john jay pershing. everybody shows up in the story. dawes makes money in real estate and investments and decide he will become a notch but arendt moved to chicago which he does in january of 1895. what is going to do is buy gas utilities not been together get economies of scales and make lot

of money. some mckinley has a new strategy for winning the nomination with royal capable supporters. when does he want to take the party? >> guest: mckinley has began to demonstrate that he's a different kind of republican. the republican party party is the party of white anglo-saxon so mckinley realizes that country is changing. our demography is becoming vastly different. relatively fewer immigrants from england scotland wales and ireland and germany comparatively more in scandinavia, central and eastern europe and southern europe. we have spanish tenors, we have italian craftsmen. we have ukrainian tailors. the country is becoming very diverse demographically. mckinley recognizes many of these people are catholic and the republican party has inside

of it a against catholics. as the largest american protective hosts association which is the aerial way anti-catholic anti-immigrant founded in iowa. passes a scorecard out on republican and democratic candidates for president of the test is it into the control of the papal influence, the papal power? and there are big. its it's 13 billion members and their powerful. >> host: the biggest group is irish catholics have been democrats. >> host: for a long time. >> host: there were some german and polish catholics that they hated the catholics. in 1890 when he's getting ready to run on 1893 getting ready to run for election in as governor of ohio. >> host: this is mckinley. >> guest: he is one base 20 some odd thousand votes in 1891. there are 60 some odd thousand

members of the apa in ohio and they called him up literally on a friday and said the two prison guards, they are catholic and you have to fire them. they are two prison guards and we found out they were if you need to fire them and replace them with protestants and we'll call you back on monday. they call back on monday at mckinley said the men kept their jobs. as a result the apa draws mckinley from their ballot. they sent out instructions to their members and asked them to leave the governor's race in it he wins by a bigger majority in part because catholics take notice of it into members of the catholic -- catholic hierarchy traveled the state to parishes and say governor mckinley defended catholics who work for the state needs to have republican party needs catholics and immigrants partly because they have lost a big chunk of their traditional boat.

>> guest: that's correct. that's correct pretty messed up the votes of black republicans who might republicans are being stolen by fraud deception or violence. think about it, in 1896 we have four states in the union that have a black majority of adult male population and that means and blacks are voting in the south 95-5 for the party of lincoln. the mckinley does dismally in the teens and low 20s and everyone of the states. if you take a look turnout in the north is 88%. 75, 70, 80% in some states in the south that runs in the 30s essentially for the period of 1873 or four on there is a systematic effort to basically wipe out the black vote in the south. >> host: eric foner said the ku klux klan are as popular as the democratic party. >> guest: was and is the clan clan but local his groups in south carolina that wore red

church in order to hide in a blood. there is no election that goes by without violence being perpetrated on a large scale is hard-pressed to understand today on black voters in the south. people are being routinely murdered for the simple exercise of the ballot. >> was there any pushback nationally? >> guest: there was that for the mckinley champions. their efforts to take away the remaining detections and mckinley is one of the strongest components. another course after the republicans win the white house in 1888 henry cabot lodge leads an effort to pass a bill to provide protection in federal elections in the south. democrats label it the force pill in this defeated by a combination of silver republicans from the west to favor the bill but want to hold it hostage for legislation to create the free and unlimited coinage of silver. southern democrats who would oppose federal interference.

>> host: now it's turned to the democratic party. who was defending that nomination? >> guest: the nomination in 1896 starts in 1893 because as the economy deepened grover cleveland stands for maintaining the gold standard and does so by cutting deals with wall street and financiers to basically bail out the united states by buying bonds and transferring gold to the united states treasury. this makes them enormously unpopular inside the democratic party which has an agrarian movement angry up the concentration of wealth and wall street infield that the demand for friend unlimited coinage of silver. >> host: cleveland even though he's in his second term can run again. there is no prohibition. >> guest: there's a thought that they cleveland democrats, they cleveland will run again. he does not want to.

some early point in this process he decides not to. no early than 1895 but he doesn't make that clear clear so there is nobody who is allowed to emerge on the subject. the democratic front-runner for president that emerges is richard park land to interest the congress in the early 70s and becomes the leading proponent of free silver with this inflationary currency. >> host: waisted inflationary? >> guest: the idea would be that rather than setting as you might do now at target we will expand the money supply by those% grade with free and unlimited coinage if you have this silver mine in aranibar they can show up at the u.s. mint and turn that silver over and he will be paid 1 dollar in gold for every -- one unit up old for every 16 units of silver, 16-1 and that will then be point and two, made into

money and circulated. the problem was the value of gold and silver fluctuated and at the time we were talking in the run-up to the 296 election the value of silver, dollars with the gold with bayou $2 worth of silver. in other words each dollar of silver was worth it to 2 cents in gold. if you created a silver dollar you would have half the value of a gold dollar and obviously bad money chases a good people that hold onto that golden circulates silver and we would have inflation. >> host: but that's not bad for debtors. >> guest: not bad for debtors. >> host: or the debtor's? >> guest: 's? >> guest: the debtors in american 1890s or southern armors who by and large accepted accepted -- except the plantation owners are sharecroppers. they don't have any money so they go to what is called the furnishing merchant and he gives

you all you need to live on the knowledge you need to put out your crop and then you bring in the crop in the fall and he figures that value and surprise surprise the value of your crop is less than the money that it lends you. in other words you are giving a dollar deeper in debt and that's where the old phrase comes from. the midwest the farms are more lucrative but they also have to go to the merchant and many of them have mortgages. mortgages are held by specialized companies are insurance companies not at the normal thanks but special private banks insurance companies or mortgage companies and while we are in a deflationary period interest rates being charged by insurance companies are between eight and 14%. you talk about people that are hard-pressed to hard-pressed comments people hard-pressed to come its people that the mortgage particularly in the south or the midwest. >> you have a gold faction which is led by the incumbent president and it's not clear

what he is going to do. and you have land of mystery who is the champion of the silver -- so tell us what happens at the democratic convention. >> in the run-up to the democratic convention at the state conventions and the sober democrats decide we are not going to settle again. will actively discourage anyone from offering themselves to instead we are going to focus on two things. one is getting each day to go on record in favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver and repudiated economic policy and sending a silver delegation to the national convention. like it to the convention the democratic rules are as it takes a majority to write the platform and two-thirds to dominate. the silverman say we want to get a silver platform and force a candidate who ever used to agree to that platform because we will never get to two-thirds of the convention. we are going to be able to nominate a truce over man but we want to buy into a silver

platform. but they succeeded beyond expectations. and by the time the democratic convention opens up there with an whisper of getting two-thirds. what stands as a the ways an extraordinary pair of victories in michigan and minnesota. at the last minute cleveland prevails on political friends the former postmaster general and the national committee man in minnesota step forward and make efforts to keep delegations from falling into silver hands. although the states are expected to go silver in both of them and of going gold. >> host: they are close enough two two-thirds so why doesn't lamb walk into it? >> guest: because the goldman say we have more than one third of the delegates so what we are going to do is we we are going to hold onto that one third and use it for power and influence to pick between the two silverman and the less objectionable solar man. this is all convinced was for the time.

you would shove to the convention make a deal and end up on multiple ballots. they don't however count on william jennings bryan or charles dawes who conceives of himself as a presidential candidate. >> host: how old is it? >> guest: he is at the time of the convention 36-year-old. he's the youngest man nominated by either make your political party for president to this day and he's also the only candidate i can find who thinks of himself as a candidate that nobody else does the day before he is nominated as a candidate. what happens is that good convention and the two-front runners on the democratic side are land of -- an uncle -- but there's a big battle over the platform. everybody knows that platform is subtle. there's an overwhelming majority of silverman at the convention

but it's just going to be how many votes does each side get and how does the argument play out? it's a last stand of the cold convention. brian is chosen as the man in charge of closing the debate on the floor and it's completely by accident. there are six accidents that lead up to his being selected any one of which would have brought it to a different direction he wouldn't have been there. he ends up eating the man in charge of the silver men's -- he ends up being the concluding speaker. generally thought to be the opening guide but the other principle speaker is pitchfork then tillman of south carolina who wants to be the closer. senator hill of new york who is the leader of the gold for subjects because he knows if

tillman closes he will spend his entire time kicking hill around the hill of jack's peer what it does is enforce his tillman company fights over the issue of how much each side will have to close to make a final argument in tillman once the longer time to speak so he takes the opening argument of 50 minutes and gives the closing 20 minutes over to what is supposed to be 30 minutes but it's cut to 20 minutes over to william jennings bryan. the final accident occurs before brian is ready to speak and that is while the goldman are closing , the silverman opens the debate the goldman speaks, goldman speaks in silver man closes. what happens is the second gold man stands up. tillman speech is so disgraceful he brings up the civil war. he installs every northern democrat. he excoriates cleveland and he calls it a sectional argument.

senator jones of arkansas stands up and says i wore the color of the south during the civil war. this is not a sectional argument , this is an argument of mankind that is national in nature. for one brief moment the silver man and the gold man stand together basically cheering john zahn because they hate then tillman so much. finally what happens is the goldman are running out of time and they have one more speaker to give a speech and he's complaining about not having enough time. he says to fill the leader of the gold forces when we give each side to more minutes and that gives brian at chance to give not a 20 minute speech but a 30 minute speech in his brilliant piece of work that he delivers without a single note having outlined in his mind having played up the final moments of it several days before and had a debate in nebraska that he literally left chicago to pick up a speaking

fee and create nebraska. he gives the cross of gold speech and literally when he dishes finishes his speech saying you shall not press down on mankind and he takes his hands. and you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. his head is up in his chest is out in the finishes and is complete silence. he drops his pants and steps back. he thinks he has tanked. the atlantic constitution says the hall was silent for a few moments more. the hall was held in fearful silence for a few moments more and then the place explodes. men and women jump to their feet and they stand on chairs. they scream, they cheered and waved anything in our hands. the demonstration has got to be one of the great marvels of put convention. it moves this obscure nebraskan

who very few people think is people think is a candid and virtually no one thinks it's a serious candidate and makes him the nominee. >> host: this sounds like it's coming out of the democratic convention with a powerful force. how does mckinley counter him? >> guest: he doesn't initially. he and hannah appear on the front porch in canton ohio self-satisfied and as a basically the democrats really screwed up. we are going to win this easily and hannah is talking about how he's going to take vacation on his yacht sailing up the maine coast and doesn't expect he will return before the first of august and no campaign activity until the first of september. this is now early july. what happens is over the next several weeks the chemie puts in charge of his campaign headquarters in chicago charles b. dawes and hannah travels to these two. [inaudible conversations]

with -- conciliate the machine republicans and tries to organize and run a campaign. the state parties begin to do these campuses that they undertook in that era and began to get the bad news that there will way behind. >> host: campuses like an informal poll? guess who is even more than now. if you conducted a campus would say we are iowa. the guy was in dynamic melon. he conducted it campus in july or august which mean every precinct in iowa had a chairman to ascertain the attitude of every single vote in the precinct reported to the county they reported to the state see that not just simply a poll of 800 or 1300 i was chosen by random. you had a poll of every single i want to the precinct chairman was responsible for figuring out where were they. 25 or 30% of their voters have left and are in brian's camp which would have meant a huge

loss throughout the industrial midwest. this awakens mckinley along with a man he doesn't like them very much. benjamin harrison. he's got a problem. by mid-august preparing his speech for the acceptance or republican nomination in august he is made the decision i better do something about confronting the silver issue. he wanted to straddle it, pointed turn away from it and downplay pretties telling everyone don't worry the issue is going to be protected. he tells one of his friends charles day a judge in a month they won't be talking about this issue. and days as an amount they won't be talking about anything else. and he's right. he starts attentively find a way , two-thirds of the acceptance speech talking about free silver and less than a third talking about the issue about making the campaign about protective tariffs. is that he is against free silver.

he is for gold. guess that he has been a straddle her own issue in congress. on the first big votes he makes in 1870, in 1878 the first major vote he makes us for the passage of the bland allison silver act which raised it to his bimetallic currency was silver coin. an anathema to the gold man. throughout the 1880s he has a lot of farmers in his district and he has a lot of people who are small-town merchants who thinks there's too little money. >> host: is this a sudden conviction or opportunism? >> guest: it's a necessity. he does believe in an honest money. he does oppose free silver but like a lot of controversial questions politicians like to avoid it. they like to emphasize the things to unify people and protection unified laborers working in these mines and smelters amble gatherers with

sheep and they tend to be democrat peer this was an issue that brought those people into the republican camp were as free silver splits republican camp. the republican convention the western states walk out. montana utah nevada idaho colorado. they all walk out of the convention. one of mckinley's strongest southern supporters the only republican senator from the south jeter prichard of north carolina almost walks out because of the free silver issue. this issue has split the republican party in the source of mckinley was to stay away from it. afraid he needs the votes is so republicans to win but he finally realizes i can avoid this issue and in late august he begins to tackle the issue. it still takes two or three weeks to finally settle on the right kind of language. he does so with the help i believe of terrence p. potter lee who is the former head of the largest labor union in america. he gives a speech in new york sponsored by the new york mets in the bleak and in this rush is

is -- raucous crowd why it's important to have a currency backed by gold rather than a currency backed i silver. let's go so we have are two nominees and their two positions. how does each man campaign? how does mckinley campaign and how is brian campaign? >> guest: brian has one problem is to deal with which is he has the support of the papa's party but nominate their own vice presidential running mate so he has this complicated problem. guess to sum up consolidate the populace. they have a million votes and he wants to take the democrats to vote for cleveland put them at the populace who voted for general weaver and james weaver in 1892 and thereby sink the republicans. he's now got a democratic running mate and a populist running mate and he's got to finesse the issue of how do i get that populist running mate off the ticket and battleground

states where i can afford to devote to be split pretty decides he's going to storm the country in a fashion that's ever been done before pity is going to get on a training camp in the country he has three major trips he makes across the country. this is the first time it's ever happened. there've been occasions in previous elections in which a candidate michael on the road and go to and major grove and cam and ordered the gathering. the number of times they spoke on the road were less than a dozen. they had been a front porch campaign in 1888. benjamin harrison basically gave 80 speeches too busy delegations over the course of a four-month period. nobody had ever done what bryant did which was get on the train and go someplace. it's an amazing testament to his courage and his endurance.

most days until october october 7 come and knock this, september and october 7 he is generally making his own train reservations riding in a common car, grabbing a sandwich at a depot someplace and helping when he got to dandelion someone to pick him up and have a hotel reservation. sometimes he is a private car. he makes a trip to kentucky and tennessee virginia and up to washington d.c. in late september and is a private railcar provided him. sometimes he's just riding in the middle, the head of the populist campaign beginning senator from north carolina writes his compatriot the chairman of the senate majority at the democratic national committee senator james johnson says you have to give them a private railcar. i saw this with my own eyes. we took a late train to baltimore because they wanted him to be at this junction in delaware at 8:00 in the morning. we waited until 2:00 a.m. to

switch trains got them on the train and rather than catching the express to dover we caught a little train and there were a handful of people there prayed you are going to kill him if you keep doing this to him. if he had a private car he could fall asleep in the car and be moved done in the train would pick them up in the middle of the night. he could wake up refreshed and wash his face and get a mail but in until october 7 he's traveling by hook and by crook. >> host: said he is going everywhere. what is mckinley doing? >> guest: mckinley singh pressed by hannah to go on the road. hannah is panic. by late july and early august he's beginning to believe we have a race on our hands and he keeps pressuring mckinley units on the road to mckinley says to him look, i can do that. if i gone the broadcom he's going to get on a trapeze and i will have to mimic him. if i go on the road, i've been on the road beforehand what it's like.

hannah sends charles dawes to talk talk to them talk to them and their friend byron t. harry to touch him and then they mckinley says i have to -- the people are already showing up in groups. somebody and i think that somebody is mckinley, says let's make that my routine only lets get it organized. so these people don't simply show up on my doorstep in say hey we are here to see you. with set it up so we know who's coming and let them by the people who want it comes was not just people who want to volunteer to come but let's have them calm. if it's a critical voter group from a critical state liz colbert coming at them send us what they want to say in advance so we can edit it and figure out what i'm going to say so i have remarks each time i show up. we'll have a manifestation. we'll take him under an arch to the courthouse square and have them warm up there. we will have bands and all kinds of entertainment to keep them occupied them in the moment comes when i finished meeting with the last delegation we know how long it takes them