television. our guest walter pedrazik coauthor. >> this is book tv on c-span2, television for serious readers, here is our prime time line-up, tonight starting at 6:45 eastern david provides history of civil wars around the world. then at 7:45 p.m. how everyday items and occurrences can help explain physics. on book tv's afterwords programs at 9:00 p.m. eastern tracy martin, parents of the late trayvon martin remember their son's life and death. at 10:00 his or -- historians describe john adams fears of influence of the wealthy, we wrap up prime time line-up with brad snyder who reports on a political salon during early 20th century.

that all happens tonight on book tv. [inaudible conversations] >> hello, everyone, thank you so much for coming out this afternoon. my name is davis shoulders, it's our honor to just on behalf of staff it's honor to welcome you here for this event for the brad snyder, foundations of american liberalism. i have a few housekeeping notes i want to cover right before we get started. if you will take this time to silence any cell phones or noise-making devises, we don't have any unnecessary

interruptions during the event. i will also mention that if you're a regular here, sometimes you know that we ask you to put up the chairs, we are going to have an event following this one, so after the event is over leave the chairs as we are. we are honored to have c-span book tv, comes out to many of our events. this is being recorded but as a part of that, we really like to have whenever you ask a question because there's going to be at the second half of the reading there's going to be time for questions and answers, we ask that you come to this microphone here on the side of the column so we have a record for the tv c-span book tv, that would be greatly appreciated. and after the event is over, we have all the copies are available behind the register and the signing line will start immediately to the right of the table. that'll be it. so between 1912 and 1933 a group of washington rising movers and shakers met in a dupont house

for informal political discussions drawn together with taft administration, felix among others debated communism, the role of the u.s. after the great war and much else. the third group from a strong progressive believe that government should protect workers and regulate monopolies something closer to the liberal stand that government can improve lives without infringing on civil liberties. accomplished history. with his deep understanding of history and the law brad snyder crafted illuminating and refreshing book deeply research and finely written. the house of truth help shape what became known as the american century. brad snyder is a university of

wisconsin law professor, teaches constitutional law, civil procedure, sports law. he has written two books about baseball and constitutional history including the supreme court's mishandling of the case of julias and chef justice john roberts based on judicial clerk sips and the unknown segregationist to robert jackson. contributed to articles to washington post and appeared on espn, c-span, hbo documentaries. if you can please join me in welcoming brad snyder. [applause] >> wow, there are a lot of people here. i just want to first thank politics and prose. it's an honor to be standing right here. i have seen so many great authors present the work here so

it's an honor to be here for the third time. i also want to thank all of my family and -- [laughter] >> there's a lot of them including my daughter lili and my son max and my wife shelby and my parents who flew up for this event and a lot of my friends and a lot of former coworkers and a lot of people who help make this book a lot better. john cooper is here, dan is here, victoria, a bunch of people who read this book cover to cover when it was in manuscript and let me tell you that's a huge undertaking. i'm really grateful to all of them and they are all here. the last time i gave a talk like this was to my daughter's third prek class of 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds and it was about what a constitutional law professor does and like a good con law professor i made up powerpoint slides, one of the supreme court and one of the white house and after about five

minutes i opened it up for questions and my first question was why are you waring a whale on your shirt. i hope -- i hope -- [laughter] >> i hope that i can do a better job of -- of questions about my book and why isn't there a whale on my shirt. the argument i'm going to make today is that liberalism was founded and thrive as opposition movement. before i make that argument and sort of delve into it, i want to give you background about the book. i got the idea for the book when i was living at 1920s street in northwest which is only about two blocks from the house of truth, the house of truth is still standing at 1727 19th street northwest between s and corkrin street.

i was written notes by a great historian, biography of holmes and written that not a lot had been written between holmes and young friends from the house of truth and that sort of set a lightbulb in my head. well, i can finish this book if two or three years with a little bit of research and here we are six, almost seven years later and i'm finally done and it was a bigger undertaking than i thought it was. i wrote a law review article about it first and where i knew i had a book was when i discovered the papers of the man who owned the house. he was task commissioner of indian affairs, a guy that probably no one has ever heard of named robert valentine and he was was the one who started the salon by inviting winford, justice department attorney for taft and felix to live in the

house. well, robert valentine's papers were in a barn for a long period of time in connecticut until this wonderful archivist rescued them and donated them to the historical society where they remained unprocess and the reason why were so important to the book was that -- and the reason why valentine started sort of this group house was because wife and daughter were living in massachusetts, so he was writing about the daily comings and goingings to his wife and daughter and what about everybody was up to and who they had over that night in these letters that was in this unprocessed collection at the society. it was really when i discovered valentine papers that i knew that i could help people understand what the house of truth was, what the people that were going there were doing and what types of things they believed in. basically, the house was a bunch of people who thought that

president taft was the world's worst president. they were a bunch of progressives, he was disinterested and would give rambling, not thought out speeches and didn't really care about the issues that they cared about. specifically the rights of organized labor and minimum wage laws and maximum hour laws and lots of things we take for granted and they thought, the way to achieve those goals was to reinstall theodore roosevelt in the white house. roosevelt had handed the white house to taft and then regretted giving up the opportunity to run for president again and started stabbing taft in the back and in

1912 sort of orchestrated a draft and challenge, the sitting republican president, first as a republican primary candidate and then as a third-party candidate, what was known as the bull-moose campaign. robert valentine, winford dennison and felix who made the house of truth a defacto campaign headquarters for anyone that we wanted to reelect theodore roosevelt to the white house. roosevelt was a hero of the white house, of the house but that didn't really last long because roosevelt lost, valentine actually quit his job in the taft administration, this was front page news in "the new york times" at the time, he quit his job in the taft administration, he was the highest-ranking taft administration to quit, to join roosevelt's campaign but after roosevelt lost, valentine went up to boston and remade himself as an industrial counseling expert and became sort of an

expert in labor management relations but a lot of other people including felix frankford decided to stay. a three-person race between taft, roosevelt and wilson and that enabled wilson to become one of the first democratic presidents in the white house for a long, long time. so wilson and all of these guys would stay in the white house and the house of truth was alive and well as a political salon and what they did was they founded a magazine, the magazine they founded in 1914 along with herbert and litman and felix was one of the original incorporators was the new republic and that became the magazine that was the outlet for their liberal ideas. the editors of the new york public split with roosevelt. roosevelt referred to editors after he got angry with them

about foreign policy, three anemic and three international jews. so they sort of for a time became wilson partisans because they were internationalists and they believed that the u.s. should get involved in the first world war, but there came a time where they too parted ways with widrow wilson. the progressives named liberals. litman in 1919, litman describing the development of liberalism. he say that is liberalism doesn't have a coherent set of ideas, what it's against is against old corrupt party politics of the past and i actually think there's just this weird rebranding going on here from progressivism, progressives

believed in government, they believed the government could solve most of the problems. i think the liberals from the house of truth still believed in government but also around 1918, 1919 start today recognize its excesses, let me give you some examples. litman was really shocked and told wilson and other administration that they shouldn't be censoring newspapers during the first world war in 1918 and then in 1919 wilson was in paris in the run-up to the paris peace conference and he became more disenchanted with the administration because they were sensorring the foreign war correspondence, felix served on mediation commission which enabled him to go out west and report on two major events, one was called the deportations where they were deporting against federal law, some immigrant laborers and another

was the case of tom who was a labor leader who was convicted of murder for a bombing on preparedness day based on purr injured testimony. i think on both litman and frankford began to see that there was too much power and that specially in in wartime to sensor and silence war critics. the last piece was espionage act which was passed passed in the wilson administration to really silence and jail antiwar critics and in 1919 in november oliver went to holmes home and decided to call case abrams and that was when holmes started to articulate our foundational principles about free speech and

really began sort of the supreme court's free speech juris prudence. holmes become the the hero of the house and what the people at the house did was quite remarkable with holmes, in 1912 when holmes met all of this people he was obscured justice, he was marking the days until his retirement, he felt like he hadn't really escaped the shadow of his famous father who was a physician and a po et -- poet and one of the founding fathers of the atlantic and he would have served ten years in the supreme court and he would have been entitled to a full mention. his relationship with these people at the house of truth took someone who was sort of disenchanted being on the supreme court and sort of just looking to get out into an american liberal hero. and the odd part about that is

that by 2017 standards, holmes wasn't all that liberal. he basically believed in differing to government with the small exception on free speech and fair criminal trials and he played a role and the move that turned progressivism to liberalism. let me explain about that. liberalism as opposition movement really began during something called the palmer raids. the last attorney general was a. mitchell palmer who began rounding up radical immigrants and who were critical -- many were critical to war but some weren't and scheduling them for deportations and frankfurter, huge first amendment theorist were asked by a federal judge in

boston to defend 20 of those immigrants. and frankfurter and chaffey entered into investigation in rounding up these immigrants and found scoirs of fourth amendment violations. i should just add that for person leading this immigrant round-up was a young justice department official named j. edgar hoover. to make a long story short, 16 of those 20 immigrants were saved from deportations by frankfurter and chaffey as a result of friend of the court intervention to the case. they took not only a. micher palmer and hoover in the case, they took them on in public. they wrote a report detailing

constitutional excesses and they challenged a. mitchell palmer to go under oath about those raids. and then in 1920 president hard ing gets elected on america first slogan. liberals find themselves out of political power for the next 12 years. [laughter] >> during the 12 years when liberals were out of political power, liberalism must have been at its best. what happened was the house of truth had broken up as a formal political salon but liberals began forming networks, lawyers, journalists, artists, networks that really started in this house, politicians and began standing up for things that they

thought were unfair and unjust, frankfurter opposed the 15% quota on jews at harvard college that they tried to establish in 1923. he tried to save the job of an college president alexander and then justice holmes gave the liberals some real ammunition in 1923 with the majority pending in the supreme court case that people have heard or. more versus dempsey, black arkansas sharecroppers and remanded their case for a new trial and for the first time they found that a state criminal conviction violated the due process clause that said those black sharecroppers trial for murder and other things known for the elaine riots were so mobbed dominated that they violated the due process clause and i think that really put fair criminal trials on the liberal agenda. they didn't give up party

politics either. in 1924 frankfurter but not lippman supported third-party candidate for president, robert, you could kind of think a bernie sanders-like candidate for president and frankfurter and lippmann wrote about the presidential election and frankfurter had it out with lippmann privately and frankfurter wrote lippmann, i'm not thinking about 1924, i'm thinking about 1944. others championed the idea of house of truth. lewis who was on the supreme court and had been a regular wrote famous free speech in whitney versus california. in 1927 was really a high-watermark for the people associated with the house of truth. there was a case of two italian anarchist who were tried and

convicted of robbery and murder and felix frankfurter by writing a book about the case really turned into a cause celeb. frankfurter was able to rally the liberal network not the idea that they were innocent because most historians think that sacco definitely wasn't, but around the idea that they hadn't had a fair trial, the judge was prejudice and made comments about the case while the trial was going on saying that he was going to make sure that those two italian were hung. he enlisted lippmann who was an editor which made the world quite liberal really the national voice for a new trial for sacco and manzeti, they went to holmes and they even enlisted someone who wasn't so liberal

but associated with the house gutzon borglum. in 1928 they backed the first catholic major party candidate for president al smith and even though smith lost they remained engaged in electoral politics and were really able to shape the supreme court even with herbert hoover in the white house. they -- both organized labors and the ncaap protested hoover's second nominee and successfully blocked the nom face to the supreme court and when justice holmes retired in -- in 1931, they were really able to lobby lots of people in the hoover administration and get benjamin to be holmes' replacement.

i think their biggest achievement during this type in opposition was turning the democratic party into the liberal party. they were able to nominate theodore roosevelt -- franklin, sorry. [laughter] >> even though lippmann hated roosevelt and try today -- tried to torpedo in 1928 roosevelt elected as governor of new york, they saw franklin roosevelt as great hope and they got behind him early and helped him elect him and the rest is history. liberalism became the dominant movement to american politics, but i would encyst that their best days may have been when they were out of power and so for the despairing liberals in

the group, i think there's a lot to be done by forming professional networks among journalists and politicians and even regular people and remaining engaged in all aspects of political life that you think are important and that you think are out rages in this country. i think a lot of liberalism during this time period was standing up for the underdog and that's what liberals should be doing today. with that, i'm going to open up the floor, i thank you for coming and fabulous to present some of the ideas of my book today. [applause] >> okay. thank you. >> thanks. >> certainly one of the ideas that you presented us with that

liberals and liberalism is at its best when it's kind of in opposition role. what do you think about the inverse of that that says, when liberals and liberalism are in power the things tend to go awry for some reason, is there any basis for that -- is that an implication or not an implication? >> no, i think governing is really hard, right. i think that's what president obama would say that governing was really hard. i think the new deal wasn't a walk in the park either. there were a lot of peaks and valleys, i'm not suggesting that the new deal was a failure by any means. i just think that government is hard, so i don't think liberals are incapable of governing or at their worse in power, i just think that there are some real power to liberalism standing up for the little guy which is a

lot of what liberalism is about. >> right. >> and that power, i think, is quite effective in opposition. >> right, okay. >> thanks so much for your question. >> the way you -- you presented it, makes me think that -- i don't know if this is what you're saying, it makes me think what you're saying that a bunch of intellectuals in the white house got president roosevelt elected. it's important in my mind because at least my knowledge of the period would also include huge factors like the legacy of william james bryan, the legacy of labor movement, the connections between these people in mass movements out there in the cross section of nonelite america in a way that that at least to my way of thinking is frustrating that it is much less

the case today of connections between the intellectual elite and the nonelite in america and the notion of -- of being, you know, that there's a synergy. i don't know if it's in the book or not, but can you comment about that? >> the people at the house of truth were pretty elitist, i'm not sure how much contacts valentine had with the average person. >> i'm thinking that frankfurter wrote the labor injunction and championed the right of unions. >> he did. >> connected with the textile unions, i know a lot of conservative critics attacked

the administration, bryanism in the next generation. >> yeah, i think wasn't thing you left out i think there was a lot of influence of the wilson administration on the roosevelt administration. you know, let's not forget that roosevelt franklin was in the wilson administration, right, he was assistant secretary of the navy which was a really important position at the time and i think roosevelt was influenced a lot by his experiences in the wilson administration. you know, some of what you mentioned about robert valentine, some of that is in my book, but, you know, i guess my point was that fdr was on the band wagon just before everybody else and certainly there was a populism that contributed of him getting elected. the person who was the most

populist or most thinking about the people was someone who we wouldn't think about liberal at all today but was the sculptor gutzon borglum and so he was someone who was involved with some of these grassroots movements in a way including the ku kluz klan, i might add, but he was involved with some of the grass roots movements in a way that a lot of the people associated with the house of truth weren't. but i don't think you're wrong, my book is not about those grassroots movement because i think some of these elites were just as elitist as our elites today. [laughter] >> one other thing you didn't talk about in your talk but hint to that in the. last answer, pre taken a lot of heat today, how did that play out, what were

their views? >> yeah, thanks, greg, a great question. i think they were really blind to race for a long time, the way i can best put it it wasn't the most issue for a long time, the rights of labor and the rights of unions, they thought that america's biggest problem is it wasn't an industrial democracy. ..

he wrote in one of his opinions, he said the world cares more for red than for black year 1000 fold worse cases of southern blacks come before me every summer first day of execution. in this case which of these guys at six years of appeals doesn't come close to the constitutional violations that i see in the south. in fact, home stay of execution of two black men from kentucky who had been sentenced to death for rape. that same summer. i would argue it was holmes that in the late 20s started opening the eyes of people like frankfurter and, of course, friend for joined the national committee the naacp in the late 20s but they were pretty late to the game. they were not upset about the wilson administrations absolutely horrid record on race. it didn't bother them at the black middle class which was

just locks away from the house of truths was being kicked out of federal jobs and were really hurting as a result of the wilson administration. thanks, greg. >> hope you will humanize and share with us what was the termination of this historic recs how did you come about to write this story? what was your favorite part of the actual research? what was your favorite research story speak was a great question. i talked at the beginning about robert valentines papers who is the owner of house of truth and house papers were a window into the comings and goings of the house. i did have one other eureka moment during the research which was when is researching and came across the case of these two black men from kentucky who had been sentenced to death for rape but the execution was stayed by justice holmes, i really didn't know what case holmes was

talking about when he said the world care for "men in black." i had a couple of suspects. so i went through the national archives all of a bunch of suspects. the archives has the clerks office files from the supreme court. so i went to the clerks office files and i found his handwritten state execution in the, and his handwritten state execution is in the book. it's impossible to read, meiji. so i type it out in the text of the book as well but that was sort of a big eureka moment for me because it really showed me what holmes was talking about when he was chastising his liberal friends about being too excited about them and not about the case of southern blacks that had come before the court. >> and your favorite research part? >> that was it. that was it by far. that was my favorite research moment by far. thank you very much.

>> i'm very interested in the difference between progressives and liberals. and i want to just get to broad areas and see if you agree with this. so progressives, the emphasis was on long-range collective good without worrying about individual rights. first amendment and so on. and an example of this would be the holmes decision on the black woman who was sterilized spirit she wasn't black. carrie buck. i've got some experts any audience so i have to tread carefully here. >> okay. let's put that aside. but the fact that holmes did say whatever it was, and the eugenics movement and individual

states and in the 1920s the quotas for emigration. i think of that as all, the quote is duplicated 1890 census for immigration reform. cyber think of all those at the very minimum consistent with progressivism, but not consistent with liberalism. and then the application, as you mentioned, of the bill of rights to the states, like, in terms of fourth amendment. i would consider that consistent privilege the essence of liberalism, but not really in the purview of progressivism. not that they were against it, it was just not part of their plan. is that -- >> look, you sound like a law professor at one of my faculty talks, tried to pin bedevil the definitions of progressivism and liberalism.

i think, i don't think you're wrong. i think they're very both a morse of concepts, right? i think even, admitted to that when he was defining liberals as former partisans in 1912 and wilson democrats from 1916-1918. he said there's no body of principles that liberalism embodies. i just think as time changed come just like today if you liberals call themselves liberals. they call themselves progressives, right? i think there was a rebranding from progressivism to liberalism. maybe it was some other perceived failures of the wilson administration. i might add to our lot of successes in the wilson administration on their agenda. but i'm not willing to blame everything that was bad that happened on progresses because a lot of eugenicists among liberals. harold lasky who was frankfurter

strength and socialist socialisd out as a huge eugenicists. i could thought a friend because an expert any audience, but it was a wide swath of people who thought eugenics was good science. all along the political spectrum. so just sort of two tar homes as an biding progressivism i don't think i wanted to pick the other thing i might add is, the court first amendment jurisprudence was pretty impoverished before 1919. before his opinions, and had some in march that upheld convictions and then had some in december, or november that dissented from the espionage act convictions. before that holmes wrote an opinion in 1909 that said the only thing the first amendment protected was freedom from prior restraint. that was pretty much of the state of it. that just meant you could go ahead and publish but then you're going to suffer the consequences.

criminal or otherwise. i don't think there was a really talk about rights and killed so disturbing abridged during the first world war. >> and with the progressive are no longer in power. >> right, right, exactly. so that's my answer. i thought you might be onto something but i just want to say i think progressivism and liberalism are pretty broad categories and maybe just different nomenclature overtime. >> okay. >> thanks for writing the book. i had read this book on dupont circle a while back. i see your book is a bit thicker, so probably a lot more to it than on dupont circle which is kind of more general. what i just was wanted to digit in a relationship to that gentleman? >> i know people who know jim really well. he's a really good writer and really good historian. i started my book when he

started his pixel for a while i just thought well, i'm not going to read this until i'm done, right? i think he focused on different aspects. he widened his book from beyond the house of truth to other people who were living in dupont circle, and he was focused a little more on the foreign policy connections to the house. i think i was focused more on political connections. i would just go back to the beginning of a talk that it think what makes my book really different, access to robert valentines papers and understand who robert ballantyne was and have usually the house visionary and that most of the ideas from the house emanated from him. i think that most people didn't know that until massachusetts historical society process those papers and i was able to look at them. but i think jim is a really good historian. >> so is justice holmes house the one brick down on new hampshire avenue? >> justice holmes house was torn down.

even though he had donated it along with about half of his estate to the federal government, where justice holmes house now, like many other great monuments chinese restaurant. [laughter] i think it's 1720 i street is justice holmes' house. >> at the beginning of your lecture, your talk, use it to the liberals and progressives, or democrats in the audience, not to despair, that there was a time in history which is sort of similar to what we are facing right now, if you want a supporter of donald trump. but you thought, if i understand you correctly, you know, liberalism was able to flourish or at least became stronger during this period of obstacles,

of whatever. but was it the same circumstances where you had a senate and the house that was of the same party? is it similar in fact to the supreme court and the composition of the supreme court? give me hope. because their stuff going on out there like, you know, give me hope. >> so i don't know, guess it wasn't the case during the entire 12 years that that house or senate may been democratic during portions of those 12 years. i'd had to go back and look. i know there's a senate is doing any audience who could help me with this question, but i'm reluctant to make sort of one-to-one historical parallels. i was trying to be careful not to do that. i think what my book shows is that at the time when things looked hopeless for people who call themselves liberals, that they were quite effective.

i think that's my sort of message is that look, when liberalism started they didn't have a lot of people in the halls of congress or in the white house who were there people. and still they're able to get things done and still they were quite effective in really creating change and infighting for the underdog. i think i can happen again. in terms of today, i mean, i wouldn't despair for a number of reasons. i think our institutions and the rule of law are stronger than any one person, regardless of who the president is. i just don't think liberals should go into despair because all three houses are in control of the republican party, especially when history shows that they didn't need political power in order to succeed. >> thank you. >> thanks. >> any others?

don't be bashful. i could start calling o people like i do in law school. [laughter] >> i'd like to ask you about the relationship between what you study in your book, and one thing you haven't other two that i've always understood to have been a major precursor of the new deal was a lot of the governance that was actually going on in new york state and then some of the other more progressive liberal states during that period of time when they were shutout of washington. and basically it's always been my understanding that much of what was done in some of those leading edge states really became a major factor in the policies that were put in place by the new deal, and that that

was a very important foundation of the new deal. so i'd be interested in hearing how that relates to the aspect of liberalism that you did steady. >> you are absolutely correct, right, so a lot of what the people associated with the house of truth believed was that a lot of this political change should be occurring at the state level. i'm referring to minimum wage laws, maximum hour laws, you know, rights of organized labor. they were looking for those things to occur at the state level, and people like louis brandeis, frankfurter come when they'ryou're defending or arguig before the supreme court, particularly laws coming out of oregon, they were defending these types of loss. what they wanted for a long time was supreme court not to use the due process clause to strike down this legislation. so certainly part of the liberal agenda or even if you don't call them liberals at the time,

former progressives, was to go to the state level, get progressive legislation passed, and then hope the supreme court doesn't strike again. they certainly put a lot of emphasis on change at the state level. i wouldn't rule out with a wilson at their station did for them because it was a lot of progressive legislation and a lot of things they were able to accomplish during the war. for example, to able to start frankfurter was an eight hour day for were the war workers becomes a big deal to get, dilute workers to to eight hour day. yes, it was a huge emphasis on the state level. you are absolutely correct. some of things a that franklin roosevelt did in new york from 1928-1932 was done with the advice of people like frankfurter and others. i agree, that played a huge impact on what they were trying to achieve. and it is another reason why just because all three houses of

the federal government are in the hands of conservatives and liberals, that liberals should just give up. so great question. >> thank you. >> laboratories and democracies. >> that's brandeis. >> not think anybody else rushed to the mic, i'm going to double dip. >> they haven't cut me off yet. >> another one of the ideas that you sort of other two present us with, wasn't really until folks in the house of truth, especially litman i guess you're saying, we really i think you said came to grips with the real meaning of freedom of speech, free speech. so what with things like in the interval between the bill of rights and that time? wasn'was it just that things had never really, it was never really child in any way, are there weren't so many difficult issues with free speech over that time?

or is it we just didn't have -- >> i think what i would say, i think it was a lot of repression of free speech because until 1925, the free speech clause of the 14th amendment didn't even apply to the states. it only applied to the federal government. states could really run roughshod over the rights of peoples free speech and not even get challenged in court. one of the majorities in that case was free speech clause applied to the states. i think there was a lot of repression of free speech. i think where litman comes in is he's not really on t vanguard of free speech, but he becomes, h,he sees what's happening with the censorship of the press at home and the press abroad. he writes a really famous book called public opinion, which is how public opinion gets manipulated and people vote based on the pictures in their

heads rather than was actually going on on the ground because they don't have access to the information, a book which seems pretty timely. but that's where litman went. he was cheering the dissent. he breaks with a lot of people about of truth. litman goes from being a socialist in 1910 to joining "the new republic" in 1914 and becoming a progressive moving into the house of truth in 1918 and then he takes sort of a dramatic rightward turn and becomes that shrinking frankfurter part ways over some columns that frankfurter viewed as appeasing nazi germany before the war. litman is a completed character, as are a lot of characters in the book. -- complicated character.

>> two things. one is, the democratic party, to what extent were liberals and aa roosevelt administration and the roosevelt coalition, was it, did they recognize that they were not doing things for people know to keep the coalition together quick something that johnson finally reversed and, of course, 64 being a great demarcation. i wonder about their attitudes and then. not harry hopkins but one of roosevelt chief advisers who said well, he cared for fellows but he cared more for his southern fellows, that liberals were using southern white segregationist voters, their numbers, to stay in power. >> you actually write. it's beyond the scope of my

book. the book ends in 1933 with basically at the ours election and culminates with the death of justice holmes in 1935 which are absolutely correct that a lot of literature about this. others have written about this. but i think this goes into things that my book is about which is that liberals were sort of late to the party when it came to race. even during the period of 1919 1919-1933 that they were so great on race. and willing to overlook problems with race to get back into power. >> the hoover administration with out of the way to people out which, they ended up many of them started towards the democratic party even in the toys before roosevelt. and finally your friend was known, at least what i've heard, he absconded with money from stone mountain. he was not loved spirit that's

not quite the way it happened in my book. [laughter] to me what happened at stone mountain was a dispute between portland and the ku klux klan over the money. he didn't abscond with any money. when he was good at spending money that he didn't have. [laughter] spent that's an entirely different. [laughter] >> he's a colorful character but i don't think absconding with the money was in his dna. he wanted the money to put into the confederate memorial. of course he's the man to build mount rushmore so the confederate memorial became sort of the precursor and the first attempt at mountain carving when he built mount rushmore. i sort of youth mount rushmore as almost a metaphor for liberal -- >> that explains it. >> he died before mount rushmore was finished. >> mount rushmore took many more years. >> they destroyed what he did on stone mountain. >> one of my favorite political quotes of all time from jintao

much, the older they get governor from georgia. he was accused of taking someone isn't sure i stole $5000 but i did it for you. >> very good. thank you. spirit thanks for your talk. most of this has been very inward looking in terms of the united states. did people in the house listen to any voices and outside? an awful lot was going on, the rise of fascism, et cetera. did that have any impact? >> richard, this is a great question. thank you so much. so two people who lived in the house were not u.s. citizens. a canadian citizen work in the justice department was one of the original residents of the house. another person working in the british embassy -- i'm blanking, was also one of the house original residents. and then when you went to paris in 1919 a lot of the people of house ended up in pairs in 1919.

harold lasky who is a british political scientist, so there was a huge british influence on the house and a huge international influence on the house. particularly when it came to organize labor. frankfurter when world war i started on the u.s. started to get involved, said we can't make the same mistakes the british made during the war. he saw the war as an opportunity to reform the labor movement in the country. certainly there are both positive and negative influences come into the house and into the country because of the house network that extends well outside of the united states. great question. >> anybody else? >> thank you so much. thank you for coming out. [applause]

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