oh, this whole business about russians meddling with our election is over because my counterpart denied it. think about how -- so that sound you hear is one o'regan rolling in his grave in simi valley, california,. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. ..

the >> so good evening, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to the kansas city public library. roberts ran to come his fact that presentation at the kansas city public library, five sarah library district from the library journal. [applause] is a graduate of the university of washington. he has a masters degree from columbia university school of journalism. he's been a reporter for the observer, "the wall street journal," managing editor come executive editor and editor-in-chief of congressional quarterly and more recently the editor of the national interest in the american conservative. the american conservative is collaborative, but it sounds a lot like robert merry. this is a description of their philosophy purely blue and constitutional government, fiscal prudence comest on monetary policy, clearly delineated quarter summer production of civil liberty come up in premarket and strengthen

foreign policy makes a diplomatic acuity. we dear closely to our institutional maximum ideas of radiology, principles of our party. one could wish there were more of that kind of true conservatism wandering around the beltway and some who profess to be conservatives. he's also the author of books on the ultimate journalistic insider comes stuart and joseph also. he's written the theme for the entire analysis and something of a lament for american foreign policy in a country that designs rehabilitation of james polk, president james polk and now president mckinley, architect of the american century. both polk in mckinley county makes the case for the importance and expansion of america in a pure geographical sense of extending our boundaries further than anyone other than thomas jefferson and the louisiana purchase.

mckinley in the non-colonial imperialism i quote him that did bring us geographical expansion with the annexation of hawaii with the acquisition of puerto rico, but more importantly, the expansion of american power, concern and engagement as a world power is manifested in the spanish-american war, the battles in cuba and the battles in the philippines in the control over cuba and the philippines for an extended period of time. the open door to china and the vast expansion of the american economy. polk has been called the most successful president in that what you propose to do as president in corporate california, oregon, texas can reduce the tariff and reinstate the independent treasury, you can see in the after class. the only president who saw his entire program written in the

law. he's also called one of our morally degraded because the shenanigans associated with the mexican war, which in a part of that possible. he sank to of successful politician when mckinley can get a more subtle case that there was a less overt but perhaps just as important program of the president to give the united states a place in the international stage. the only state of programming can make campaign for president was on terrorist, which was more than anyone else identified the high tariff. historians had a hard time discerning important policy and his plans, that makes a strong case that he was the guy do was the guy who gave us empire. it wasn't larger roosevelt or john hake, but the very subtle mastery of william mckinley. this book is a continuation of an ongoing effort to reverse the trend of contemporary academics to come i academics to come i quote him devour our heritage their anachronistic moralizing

from a safe distance the ivory tower and as such created a sympathetic character study of one of the architects of the american century, ladies and gentlemen, and robert "president mckinley." [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. it's a great pleasure to see all of you here. this is actually my third time at this library and i certainly remember libraries. so congratulations. he didn't mean to. so, i entitled my introduction to this volume on mckinley, the mystery of william mckinley and i was pleased to see "the wall street journal" picked up on that in writing a

headline over my boat, which by the way was very capable, and that's my efforts to emulate donald trump. i have to say that i didn't set out to solve the mystery of william mckinley for the simple reason that i really didn't know there was a mystery. i didn't understand mckinley well enough when i started this project to understand their something strange, something mysterious about him explain in perhaps two sentences, which is given the consequential things that happen like his presidential watch, why is does he not rise higher in america's historical consciousness of today appeared put another way, given the fact that he was such a non-flamboyant undramatic personage, how did all those consequential things happen on

his presidency? so as i get into the project, but i started driving me crazy because i had a hard time getting a handle on it. he was not a force of men in all these things happen on his presidency and i was having a hard time bringing this to life. the historical consensus was the act coming after my big things happen on his watch, they didn't have anything to do with it. he was just president. that didn't really think totally credible. that's what i call the leaf in the wind theory of william mckinley. if the high alum like men in which is a very good but not just about mckinley but how the president where, but they have an right that he enjoyed one of the most successful and

cumin seeds in american history, but then they add that he found himself benefiting in part from circumstances beyond his control. beyond his control he was seen as the sum of his deeds, which certainly also always talk about in this hall seven years ago any kind of sin not exactly middle average, he comes in like 16, 15, maybe 14 occasionally. often below such undistinguished , chester arthur but nevertheless a caretaker president, martin van buren who was a terrible depression that

he couldn't control. rutherford hayes on the basis of one of the the great stolen election scandals of our history. grover cleveland who served two nonconsecutive terms of making him the only two-time one term president in our history. and john quincy adams who stuck away at the behest of andrew jackson. so, the mystery defense of a think about what happened on his watch my energy to not think about what i will take off as just bullet points on a piece of paper, but the political drama likely to attend these things.

a huge success. we destroyed the spanish empire with two spanish fleet. we became an empire, puerto rico, guam and the philippines and liberated in the caribbean we argue me to commit to that we wouldn't. turned it into an american league and acquired hawaii through annexation. he set in motion the events that led eventually and he gets a lot of credit for that and he deserves the period leading mckinley who is an

anti-expansionist and said we are going to move and set in motion the actions and the planning that led to the canal. he brought about the open door which save china from being carved up by the european and japanese power. in the 1980s when i was a hot issue in "the wall street journal," it was then called fair trade, so that you can have the exchange of good back and forth across borders. he came up with the concept of imperialism, which was picked up by franklin roosevelt when he was transforming the world through world war ii.

he was on his watch we established a special relationship with britain, just a previous couple of years earlier over a border dispute, but after that we never had anything like that in terms of tensions with grape britain because of the special relationship and he created the strict gold standard we tend to look down on gold standards these days, but in those days it was a big deal in his turn to issue is the hardest in our history and essentially solved that in his first term. so this is a big collection of accomplices and developments and to what extent does he deserve the credit? i myself came to conclude that the idea was a myth then i sat

out to expose the myth that misspoke. whether i succeed in on-demand happy to do that because he can't decide unless you buy the book. [laughter] so who was this man? born in 1833, eight of whom lived to adulthood. he grew up in ohio, small-town ohio in which you might call the ohio culture of the time which is a reflection of what people at those times considered christian values of optimism, modesty, hard toil. his father owned and worked very hard. he had a strong senses that make and religious duty. she worked very hard for her church in her community.

they were in poland for most of their growing up years. her mother was also of those things i just talked about them in a so-called christian values. one of my favorite stories about her when she took a train to columbus later in her life. you can visit her son, the governor of ohio. are you going to columbus? yes, i am. dear family there? i have a son named. that's all she said. she didn't feel any need to explain her son was governor of the state. so william mckinley goes off to pennsylvania. he develops an illness, an ailment and it never was quite explained or understood what it was, they was, they be at returned to poland where he recuperated. he couldn't go back because economic difficulties had

rendered in need for all family members go to work. so he got two jobs. he was a schoolteacher, 17 at that time, 18 and incomes the civil war. i can't say he must immediately. he gave himself two days to think it over and try to figure out whether this was the right thing to do. very strong abolitionists, subscribe to the weekly tribune which is reinforced the sentiment. so they decided within a day and a half or so they simply couldn't stay out of the war and they enlisted. he had what i can accurately describe as an amazing war record. he entered doesn't eat a mere private. immediately his commanding

officer, rutherford b. hayes, but was announcer and became a general, became a congressman, governor and president. and he saw the this young man had remarkable organization of ability. so either sort is taking care of supplies. the single most bloody day of battle in our history, he was two miles behind the lines because his job was to provide provisions and he heard about a unit that had gotten caught and trapped essentially in the area of the battle where they couldn't move, they couldn't get out, nobody could get in to help them and they were starving and they have run out of the water.

i began very early in the morning they said they hadn't had breakfast. noah's afternoon and they hadn't had lunch. so these troops -- young mckinley concocted the idea was hard tack and some bread and coffee and water and a few other things and getting out wagon to these troops when he had to go into battle to do it. he gives a friend or some other young soldiers to help them build up the wagon and they had out to the surrounding cord. they encountered two officers who say this is ridiculous. you can't do this. go back. after they left, mckinley and his associate ignored it. they got to the clearing and they made a run for it. we've seen by overhead, the back of the wagon were shot away, but

they manage to get the provisions to these troops. god bless the lads. immediately as a result of that, he was promoted and he had other experiences, some like that they put themselves directly in harms way, and each time he got another promotion. so he ended the war is a private nature, 22-year-old major. so, he goes back to poland, decides he wants to become a lawyer and he wants to run for congress like his mentor, rutherford hayes. and he sent the letter telling him that this is what he wants to do, basically what he did.

he writes back and says, yes, that is pretty good, that you know frankly, all of this industrialization going on, i think maybe you should go into business. he could become a wealthy man by the age of 40. well, mckinley carefully preserved the letter that he discarded the advice. he knew what he wanted. silliness to can't, ohio where his sister had become a schoolteacher and he becomes a lawyer and hang out a shingle and becomes a civic leader. he joined everything. he joined veterans groups, the church come he joined the chamber of commerce and immediately he was pulled up into positions of leadership. there was something special about this guy that led people to turn to him for leadership, even though he was not a flamboyant person.

and i have a little passage in my book here, describing him after his southern more experience and i think you're in the book, the first tenant is what becomes an element of the mystery of william mckinley. so it transforms young william mckinley much as his father had strayed from gridiron ready for a more sophisticated use. he went to her as an unseeded teenager with only a vague sense of who he was or what he would do with his life. he left the army severely tested administrated ability, leadership and courage. he passed these testing demonstrated they gravitated to the side and were drawn into rows of solicitous mentorship. they settled upon them softly without authentication.

but the simplicity of temperament to produce his demeanor of heavy quiet. that which didn't need explicit expression of intentions or motives and he didn't seem bothered by it. plus some of the element to be congenial and easy-going demeanor, charmaine increasingly restless. so he becomes a congress, becomes chairman of the ways and means committee when he approaches his pet issue, terrorists, protectionism to protect the american manufacturing and agriculture at a time when american is burgeoning as the machine and

even as chairman of the ways and means grassley bill, a tariff bill, very high tariff bill he called eight of 1890 turned out to be a bad move. the tears didn't go into effect for quite some time and a lot of businesses took the opportunity in the american people didn't like that very much and the result was a disaster in the 1890 elections and mckinley is sitting in his office says returns are coming in and the office is all messed up and be sitting there smoking a cigar with his good friend, the editor of the newspaper and says it's all over.

and mckinley looks out what they look on his face and says in the time of darkest travail, victory is nearest. he couldn't get pessimistic about anything. so, a year later he runs for governor and now he's ready to run for president of the united states at the beginning of his campaign in 1895. his good friend in the man who serves in so well, mark hanna, a very successful industrialist of ohio in cleveland, santa monica very important mission. he wants to find out who basically own the republican

party. they had all the patronage and they sort of look under them because if they did, he was the front runner and probably would have nomination and it wouldn't even be a battle. so he comes back to cleveland and they are there with a nice dinner and they go into the hanna study a new put them in overstuffed chairs, light up their cigars and save governor, there are conditions. he didn't seem disturbed by the conditions. he said what are they? corry pennsylvania and he wants the whole new england and he kicks up a couple others.

gunmen also wants to be treasury secretary. eight years earlier at the beginning of the administration he's done a similar commitment for his report, but the treasury secretary want a promissory note. became a sort of looks ahead, pass on a cigar, walks a couple steps back and weapons back aboard the says mark, they're sent to that is worth nothing to me and it's worth less than the american people. hold on, governor. we can beat these guys. that's what they had to do because these guys were so upset that they went through other politicians to try to become and deny mckinley a first

obligation in which case they thought they could pull up somebody else who would be their game, pay their price. but he beat and then he became the nominee and then he had to go up against william jennings bryan. we know this story. 36 years old when he ran for president. he had two terms in the house and then he lost that we, ran for the senate and lost. he was one of the greatest and we all know that he got himself on this platform, a podium on the democratic convention and gave his famous speech. thou shalt not press that throwing of stones upon our hat. you shall not crucify --

[inaudible] and the reason was the country was in extremis. the panic of 1893 was still very much with the country in the rural areas were really suffering in their view and so what they needed and became the man who is going to read that charge and he did. he was all over the place with an amazing amount of time. yet days in which you would get up in his first speech at the 7:00 in the morning in his last speech of 10:00 at night. he had a wife who was confirmed and we can talk about that media and q&a. it's pretty interesting but i will try and keep this thing going. he didn't want to take her on the tour and he didn't want to

leave her a kitten when washington. so he concocted his famous front porch strategy. 750,000 americans came to canton, ohio and came and spoke with the governor on his front porch and destroyed his yard, by the way. it was amazing effort. you know what you say in politics? he controlled the message because the various groups which was a church group or labor group or african-american organization of various things they do send a letter saying with such a common mistake that works for us and what works for you and i may say what are you going to say? what questions do you have?

so he knew exactly what they were going to say in all the reporters from all over the country were there taking a basically it was all quite that orchestrated. well, it worked and he became president. so now i'm going to describe what kind of man that had emerged to these experiences starting with the civil war and that sort of sense of self that he developed as a result of this success in war appeared so he seemed on the outside to be a very present person, congenial. he didn't seem to be a man of force and a lot of people wondered whether he was really a leader. he was an incrementalist in the wake country in terms of the way

he managed he didn't try to push too hard. i will say that he was not a visionary. he was not a man of imagination. in his day, theodore roosevelt was a man of imagination. henry cabot lodge, these were men of imagination, great vision about american greatness and how they can best get out into the world. that wasn't where mckinley was, but it turned out he had a capacity to see events as they were unfolding with clarity and find a way to sort of match them in ways that would allow them to advance in a favorite direction. this gave him a great deal of sort of subterranean force as bad as the quiet i was talking about. on top of that, he had iron well

he always seemed to give way somehow and sometimes he did it by convincing people to do what he wanted them to do while thinking that it was their idea. one of the great players of his time and his war secretary said that he didn't care who got credit. that just wasn't important to him that all. he had a close friend who said i don't think mckinley would ever let anyone stand in the way of his own at enhancement in the life of intermittently and ally and adversary of mckinley, more often and adversary talked about being an affable man. he was present.

he was generous, but behind those masks was this iron will and this desire to succeed. my favorite example of this is what word from the congressman, then pouring her, i'm sorry, utter words. i came across in a number can of papers with a lot of letters going back and forth. i initially concluded that butterworth might be part of that with politicians and now has a clustered around hannah. it became clear as i got more and more in today's letters that although weary but mckinley, came across a "washington post" article in which butterworth was talking about mckinley

inserted how mckinley operated. he said we were walking through an orchard in that treaty had but two apples. he took a bite out of the other one and then he returned to me and said you like apples? butterworth was trying to say he was very congenial, but he always seems to get in managing the shadows. so i'm going to talk a little bit about these elements with examples that the mckinley

resolve that emerged in big ways during this presidency. one would be the book on mckinley and i'm going to talk briefly later about why i think what has kept him from having the reputation he desires. but the book on mckinley is that he didn't really want to go to war and the american people and congress basically thrusting against his will that he didn't want. my view is if you study this carefully and you understand mckinley, you realize this isn't what happened at all. when he was arrested, there is a terrible, very bloody, very awful insurrection going on in cuba. the indigenous folks want independence and this had been

going on with the previous ten-year insurrection that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. and they had settled finally, but now it is sort of reemerged. it was putting americans who are trying to visit cuba at risk. it was also opening up the possibility that other european powers can see the chaos and come in and take over cuba, which would be the last thing the united states would want. it would be one thing to have the saving power in the caribbean, which we consider to be our syrian influence, with the legacy of imperial power, but to have germany say or other european power say that's untenable. and so, there was a great deal of anguish and anger in congress around the country. based on humanitarian grounds,

that was a factor as well. and mckinley comes into the presidency and takes over for grover cleveland. grover cleveland had favored the spanish over the cubans. that's because he was a status quo guy. he wanted stability. his viewers as soon as you can take an insurrection go back and everything will be stable in time. not very realistic. mckinley rejected that from almost day one. from day one, he concluded that the record is very clear, he wanted spain out of cuba, but he didn't want to go to war to do it. so what did he do? open at the negotiation, sort of a program of diplomacy and

realize that america is becoming a pretty powerful country and this is our neighborhood and it would be very difficult if they went to war with us and so they entered into the diplomacy as well. pretty soon they could see that mckinley, his diplomacy was behind this affability in the iron fist and he was essentially saying to them, we want this war to end. we don't care how you do it. you can win it or you can negotiate an end to it and that means more economy is the cubans would accept that, but they don't seem to want that. that's a possibility. but you've got to get this war over because you saved lives in the region and its untenable and the american people are not going to put up with it for much

longer. so he finally stood aside, you can't talk to us like that. we're a sovereign country. cuba belongs to us. it doesn't matter how close it is to your shores. mckinley never wavered. he got more and more angry. and who knows what would've happened, but the fact that was beyers was also to mckinley's resolve that he was going to make sure that the spanish were out of the caribbean because extensively was to protect american lives that might be at risk as a result of the insurrection because people in cuba are getting increasingly angry. nevertheless, it did go up in war became inevitable.

in hawaii not a particularly entirety savory about americans, but hawaii had been with americans for decades in other countries as well, but ultimately end they settled there in the world for generations, mostly running sugar plantations, getting fabulously wealthy in the process. and pretty soon they had so much financial power that they felt they should have political power to go with it and they ended up offending the loyalty, the polynesian loyalty that had been covering the man presiding over the hawaiian islands for decades, centuries.

that happened on benjamin harrison's watch. cleveland in the second term was very upset about it and even contemplated going in there and removing those people, but he really didn't want a war. he didn't want to have americans fighting essentially americans are former americans, so that was a state of play. mckinley again ejected the policy of his predecessor and made it very clear through subterranean diplomacy he liked subterranean diplomacy, that he was very interesting in acquiring for through annexation and they were now running through also. but it generated a lot of anti-expansion of sentiment and fervor in congress and other places among the intellectual writers, mark twain and others, but he never wavered.

he got the negotiation. he sent it to congress. he couldn't get it through the senate as a treaty. he didn't give up. he sent it to congress to be dealt with by both houses with two thirds vote and that is how we got hawaii. and then there's the philippines. when the spanish suit for peace after three months about war, he said okay, fine. but here's the deal. we'll take it temporarily, but it's going to be independent. they have to leave puerto rico.

that came out of nowhere. i may have to give us an island in the pacific, turned out to be palm was entered into negotiations and that's really tough diplomacy. and then he basically says as for the philippines, which he has essentially acquired, took over after admiral dewey destroyed the spanish freedom, he said the disposition philippines is open to negotiations. well, thank you, mr. mckinley spanish. they asked the french ambassador for the united states to operate on their behalf to negotiate and he said you can't really get it

any more than you've already gained in this war of yours, so i'm assuming will be very generous. it turns out he wasn't generous at all. but was he going to do about the philippines? of the negotiations were going on come in peace negotiations, he pondered it in a kind of concluded ultimately that we were building this big baby and saying you couldn't have an station without controlling the territory around the globe. and so, he had to have a polling station the best place would be today -- the day. the whole rest of the philippines was not going to be able to keep the philippines at all. the people of the philippines headed the spanish, so now that

they've been defeated, they were going to be able to go back in there. it wasn't going to be the filipino people, and fortunately, so they have to be either rest or germany or some other european power. her possessions or colonies and if germany had all these other irons, that the securing basically decided i'm taking the whole thing. that fighting two wars he knows very much like the vietnam war. he was the the insurrection and it was global warfare is very difficult and have a figure from my view ran that insurrection, ultimately captured in that kind of went up the back of uncertainty and into teddy roosevelt administration.

so, as i say, that seems to be a controversial equipment fee. why does that make it more credit? why does he get no respect? one reason has to do with his successor, teddy roosevelt. i'm a great admirer of roosevelt. i think is a genius. he might've been the greatest genius ever became president. what that guy could do is pretty amazing. but he never shared credit for anybody and he was self absorbed. even his kids said he longed to be the bride at every wedding in the corpse at every funeral. when mckinley was killed in buffalo, teddy roosevelt

immediately said i intend to covering just as my predecessor did in his agenda will be my agenda. within two days he gets to the white house in buffalo, brings in a bunch of reporters and he didn't feel like he had to say those things anywhere. developers have elected me as president cannot mckinley. the kidney was flying in the capital of the time the, the roosevelt was always conscious of the narrative and put himself at the center of the narrative and over the succeeding decades, his admiring geographic, adoring biographer's basically bought the narrative and they didn't

kind quite work if they said well, they do these marvelous, credible things, that the foundation was laid by his predecessor. in my view, they can make it kind of the short end of the stick in terms of that interpretation. in describing these events in these historical narrative building, i describe tr an output of a impetuous, amusing, grandiose, prone to marking his territory with political defiance, he stirred the imagination of the american people as mckinley never had. safety and cotton, by flashes or wednesday's sudden impulses as he quite describe it. he took the american people and the political roller coaster ride and to me it was thrilling. and do a significant and it

helped define america in the 20th century. but behind him was william mckinley who may be mysterious , that is a consequential president and i think even worth the three years of coil i put men on his behalf. thank you very much. i think we can have some questions. [applause] >> would you please come up to the microphone and questions for the people at home on tv can hear you. >> have you changed your ranking of mckinley since your book, where they stand? >> i don't offer my own rankings. i talk about what presidents

have done and what constitutes greatness and mediocrity or whatever. but the answer to that, sir, my own estimation is the outcome is higher than the president that i consider to have been either failures are not particularly consequential, i would certainly put them above his people. i can't see beyond something like that. i focus on where you put them directly, but somewhere beyond that. >> can you talk about an invalid and how that shaped mckinley's american public's compassion for him in the death of the children? >> when mckinley moved as a young lawyer after he been there

a while, he encountered john ida saxton. she was the daughter of probably the richest man in canton. her father bought a printing press from pennsylvania, started the canton repository and then her father went into mining and banking and other things and she was quite lovely, a bubbly personality, scintillating in many ways and she had many, many suitors, the shoe sorter fixated finally i mckinley. they were married. there were a thousand people at their wedding according to the repository on by her father. nevertheless, it was a big, big wedding in big vacation at the

time. he was moving up into politics. and so a year after they were married, their first daughter arrived, kde. and about a year later, a little more than a year after that, their second daughter arrived, becoming pregnant for the second time. during a pregnancy, she learns that her mother is dying of cancer. they were very close and it affected her greatly. she had a troubled pregnancy and her daughter lived only five months. that sent her into a tremendous depression wasn't clear that she would ever come out of it. she was coaxed out with tremendous patience and letting go. sometime after that, her first daughter, katie died and then

she went packing to a terrible depression. during this time, something else happening. it's described as the carriage i too nobody knows exactly would have been. i suspect she fell backwards and hurt her spine in some way. she became rather immobile. sort of intermittent, but she was often combine to a wheelchair in which it was that she walked with a cane. they're in the white house she could walk down the stairs with a cane because the elevator didn't work with the time. it didn't work she would walk down the stairs but he would have to carry her up the stairs, which he did. on top of all of this, she developed epilepsy can know which in those days this could better mental illness. he didn't want anyone to know you are mentally ill. but these seizures would calm. and so, it affected their marriage, it affected their lives. it affected isaac tremendously.

her father let her run that they had as a young woman in her 20s, she was running this thing, which is very unusual in those days. for now, she's reduced to sedentary life. she crochets and does other things like that which it becomes rather sort of nero in her outlook of a very devoted her husband, things are as that is the greatest politician and his array of america, the she becomes somewhat heathenish and somewhat difficult. he never wavered in his devotion to her and basically accepted that is just sort of part of life. so this became kind of normal as he was emerging as national figure politically. it became an element of identity for mckinley, the man who took such good care of his wife.

there are some people who suspect that it was manipulated to some extent as a sort of political advantage. so that is the story. yes, sir. >> the first vice president, what happened to him that tr was able to get on the ticket? >> gary hobart died of cancer in the first term, so the result was mckinley did not have a vice president for a significant part of his first term in tr, meanwhile, his assistant navy secretary, which he wasn't sure he wanted to get that job. but a new study tended to be impetuous and got into rows as he said to one of tr's good

friends who is pushing for him to have that job and they promised him that tr is not going to do that. he's going to be controllable. well, he was then. but he did an amazing thing. he designed the office. he put together and did it extremely courageous maybe to the point of insanity when he ran up san juan hill on the san juan ridge and because one of the two greatest heroes from not war. the america made the love him and he knew exactly how to play it. when the second convention comes up in the night a hundred, the convention just goes crazy for teddy and they couldn't be

resisted. and he tried to resist and he had to send a note saying cease-and-desist did you can't put me in the position in the convention. so he becomes vice president. mark hanna sends a note after the convention saying that came out fine. he had to admonish me but i'm fine with it. your job is in the next four years and when he died from his quoted as saying now that cowboy is going to be president of the united states. >> i am curious as to how mckinley handled the confederacy. at that time, of course the south is still sort of in and out for the union and of course that brings up civil rights, but what was his policy towards the farmer confederate state?

did he want them back? was he a forgiving person? did he want to reconcile the south and indirectly to that approach is civil rights decisions? >> that's a very good question and it can't be ignored. you really have to go back to his great mentor, rather behaves. brother hayes became president by making what you might call a deal to fund reconstruction and a lot of recent historians who are sort of getting a revisionist view of reconstruction consider that to have been a terrible thing because they killed african-americans in the south for the next hundred years. but the deal was essentially, look, we've got a stitch this country back together and it not going to be easy.

so, we're probably going to have to sacrifice civil rights for a period of time. rutherford hayes and mckinley were abolitionists and they were liberal on civil rights, but they cut that deal. so by the time he was president, he still was concerned about bringing them back. now, i'm dried up lake, but it got -- [inaudible] yes, thank you. he gave him a command and when he was in cuba they got the spanish on the run. he kind of loses -- a kind of lost sight of where he was in bad we've got those yankees on the red.

but his position towards african-american senate been what i would call patronizing and basically he was a good relationship with a lot of african-american organizations and he praised them for working hard under difficult situation, but ultimately towards the end of his president week, some of these groups were becoming quite agitated against him. >> one quick follow-up. was in his -- [inaudible] >> no, he wanted to get somebody who is a southerner, ended up getting the one person who was sort of assumed to be sympathetic in the south was from maryland and now is as far

as the god. yes, sir. >> who would be the politician in recent times he was essay is most similar to mckinley. >> eisenhower. in fact, i see very significant between eisenhower and mckinley. about how eisenhower managed from the shadows and people thought he was sort of humbling and when he didn't want to explain something, you'd be an articulate and especially stephenson backers would say this guy can't even express themselves, but it was all with the purpose. and i think i was somewhat the way mckinley operated. i think those two people are quite similar. >> i have two questions. the first is you mentioned the

mckinley's relationship to imperialism or empire. in 1898 there was an anti-imperialist league when james harvard professor was strongly against imperialism. can you say something about mckinley and how he reacted to that criticism on imperialism. .. and mckinley was done somewhat. so many people of his friends, but he never took personally any

of the turmoil of politics, and so you all so had sort of up the incidence of the president talking to the american people. he traveled a lot and made a lot of speeches. some of them designed to be major policy addresses, and he would explain what the policy was and why he had done it. so we understood he had this opposition. it was particularly bad when ford affairs got to be bad with the korean, the philippine insurrection and he was on the defensive, but he basically just handled it as part of the great american debate. assassination, he was supposed to be at the great pan-american exposition in buffalo in the spring of 1901 but he was traveling in california as part

of that policy he had, or that practice of traveling around giving speeches explaining himself to the american people. he thought that was very important. one of the things that led one of his academic biographers to suggest that he was the first modern president among other things, i nevertheless, i think he developed an infection that got into her blood and she almost died. they went right back to washington as soon, they were in san francisco. on the way to washington state but they never made it. so his appearance at the exposition was postponed to the fall, to september, and that's when the darkest -- at august concocted the idea of assassinating him. mckinley was very realistic about may maybe part of the opm of this about the prospect of anybody could possibly harm the

president, and so he would talk openly with people. secret service people went crazy. but he didn't worry about it very much. mckinley reached for his left hand, and is right in, he put the pistol in his chest and fired it right point-blank. it did not penetrate very much but mckinley went back on his heel, and he fired the gun a second time. they couldn't find the bullet. they operated rather quickly. they couldn't find the bullet but concluded looking for was probably more dangerous than leaving it. so they did and he was recuperating nicely but in those days they didn't really understand infection and sepsis and those things in that emerged in that took them down. i think he lasted somewhere in

the neighborhood of less than two weeks after the assassination for he died here. >> i believe that it. >> robert, thank you very, very much. [applause] >> robert will be signing the book in the hall. thank you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> here's a look at some books being published this week.

>> look for these titles in bookstores this coming week, and watch for men at the authors in the near future on booktv on c-span2. >> there is a a new 25th addition of her best-selling book race matters, and in the new introduction to that book, cornell west, you write we live

in one of the darkest moments in american history, a bleak time of spiritual blackout and imperial meltdown. >> yeah, spiritual blackout, i mean the relative eclipse of integrity, honesty and decency. i mean that we have normalized, we have made life a normal way of life and we've naturalized criminality which is to say we make crimes look as if they are natural. drone strikes, they could be wall street elites engage in predatory lending, market manipulation. none of them go to jail. it could be so many different ways in which peoples community is violated. and what we need is a call for prophetic fight back. because in a moment of spiritual blackout it's not just a political issue. it's a moral and a spiritual issue as well. it's only by example, we need young people to say look, the

conservative brother, progressive brother, still have love, still have respect willing to fight, willing to disagree. not in an abstract, by example. they want to see, they just don't want to hear them. why? because right now the dominant empire is a neoliberal soul craft smartness, smart come smartness. how many times a year do you hear the word on television obvious, obvious. obviously this, obviously that. that's a word from the in crowd to show their part of the smart crowd. but brother bobby and i we don't believe in smartness and isolation. we believe in wisdom at its deepest level. smartness is tied to richness. no that donald trump believes he's really the smartest in the room and the ridges in the room. that's just this side of his spiritual emptiness but he's a sign in symptom of the society

that has idolized smartness and richness here we want -- we won't talk about bombs. barack obama 26,000 boxes last year. last year. he got the nobel peace prize. >> five times as many drone strikes -- >> he got 506 but he wins the nobel peace prize. what happens is the spectacle can hide and conceal what the substance is when it comes to morality and spirituality. this is what breaks to ideology. not just right-wing left-wing center. moral and spiritual substance that so steeper than any political ideologies. what i'm trying to say in this introduction is we are in catastrophic times, nuclear catastrophe, moral catastrophe, survival of the slickest and the smartest. there's also economic

catastrophe. the top three individuals in america have more wealth than the bottom 160 million. three brothers have wealth equivalent to 50% of our fellow citizens. this is grotesque. this looks like louis xiv times and so forth you see. of course we have the tax bill now. well-to-do off tightening the benefits for the poor. wait a minute, as christians we say what you do to the least of these you do unto others. the orphan, the widow, the poor, the immigrant, a balsam, the jew, the black, indigenous people, they gay and lesbian so on and so forth. that's a moral orientation. this book is very much about where are we 25 years after i wrote the book and 93 and times are bleaker. spiritually and morally. >> i agree with the basic crux of it. cornell and i disagree with things about markets, whether inequality itself is a bad

thing, economic inequality is a bad thing. i think our problem is not market economy. i believe in the market economy. it has lifted millions out of poverty. my critique is that we have traded in a true market economy for a crony capitalist where big and powerful forms can use government, can use big government to regulate competitors off the field. big firms kind of for the price of regulation and sometimes welcome it because small upstart competitors cannot welcome it. when it comes to economic equality i do not mind it. i think in any justices in the will be economic inequality. i don't have as a goal economic equality. i have as a goal equality and dignity, that equality of the declaration of independence when this is all men are created equal. i have chosen a career as an academic. i know that's not a high paying

particularly high paying field. i could have gone to law school. i would have made a lot more money. i could've come to business school and made a lot more money than that, generally loaders work for people to make more money than they do. so i don't have any problem as long as it's fair. i'm having fun with people having even a lot more money than other people. my worry is not for equality, economic equality. my worry is opportunity. my big worry about our society is where losing and have two considerable extent lost the prospect of upward mobility for a lot of horse fell citizens. i grew up in western virginia. i remain close to people there my entire family system active. my parents are there, my brothers are there. all of my family, my high school friends, so me and my friends and relatives are due. this was donald trump country. why?

because they are feeling the effects of being neglected, of being left behind, economically, culturally. they feel without bigotry and prejudice, but certainly on the basis of their own experience as if there is a cultural elite, a wealthy, powerful cultural elite that's only its own interests in mind. not the interests of working people in places like central appalachia, and have nothing but contempt for the values of people in central appalachia. those were trump voters. i'm not one of these guys who condemns trump voters. i'm not a fan of donald trump. i wasn't from the beginning and i'll give him credit for some good things he's done but i will still criticize him for some bad things he's done but i think it's a mistake to imagine that those supporters of donald trump are just racists and bigots and horrible people.