the surgeon general has origins in early american history. it was in 1798 that congress passed the first bill which eventually led to the establishment of the public health service as we know it today as part of the department of health education and welfare. the department is the newest in the federal government having been established by congress on april 1st 1953. this program has come to you from washington. and was a presentation of the combined radio and televisio

so let's get started. do you mind if i sit? no. okay, now there is. i'm just afraid i'll fall off front of this. welcome to the panel of presidential descendants here. and we're delighted to have the panelists. i'll introduce them in a minute. and i think the way we'll handle this is each we'll a few minutes and tell you what he or she wants to tell you about anything that's there and then. so it's going to be very loosey goosey. and then when we've all had our word, we'll have an interchange amongst ourselves and with you all. so let's just have a conversation as we go on. a couple of housekeeping things to begin with. this weekend, for those of you that don't know, is the society of presidential descendants first biannual gathering, as i

call it. this is a new society, presidential descendants. there was no such thing before till i created it. it and we have a partner ship with long island university who takes care of much of us. we really appreciate the tremendous amount of work they've done and sign of it is this roosevelt house here, which, if you haven't had a sea bed to see, you haven't had a chance to see it yet. do walk around it. you'll each go who are staying for dinner? we'll go to a different dining room. and the way that'll work is we'll have a cocktail reception in front of the house and then everybody will to their dining area and then as dinner finishes, we'll all come back in here where doris kearns goodwin will receive the first biennial presidential historian award of society. and then she will give a what i think is going to be a fascinating talk on presidents use of leisure time. the thought theme of the weekend

has been things you don't know and we've mostly focused on tr because that's the site for this particular one. but she's going to focus on all or not all but her collect her, whoever she wants. among the presidents, the whole theme of the weekend has been what you don't know about the president, particular presidents there is in the room next door are silent auction and even those of you who are not coming to dinner, feel free to bid everybody bed. and if you're not coming to dinner, you better bid. hi as a start because that's the only way you'll get the item people do. and afterwards, if you're not staying to dinner, there's a staff in there. tell them you know how to reach you. if you win, they'll they'll take care of that. so and as things go on here, if you have any questions, fine, let me know. so let me see. is there any other housekeeping i forgotten? anything you've done?

find arenas with restrooms. oh, they are there. there are a whole bunch of restrooms down there. feel free to really go out and and i've already thanked elihu, which is, you know, just extraordinary what they've done this house. i'll tell you, four months ago, i came here, it was a work site. there was nothing i mean, you know, i was stripped basically back to the walls. it's the old e.f. hutton house, and the place was a total mess. and two months ago, you know, dr. klein, the president university was right back there was do you want to say anything to this group now? okay. assured me it was going to be fine. and i'm thinking to myself, no, no. and look at it i mean, it's just unbelievable, right? 9/10 of the work, not quite as done in the last 10 minutes of, you know, like all projects, things had to be done at the last minute. it is spectacular and it's going to be a lot more spectacular. and this is going to be a destination in long island for

all kinds of people here. i mean, this is it's not a replica of the white house. it's the white house theme. and we see providing a major resource. first of all, to all kinds of, you know, schools and the like here on long island. and other groups will be hosting. you know, people can come and give parties here and get married here. you know whatever. so the roosevelt school, the newly created roosevelt school here, which is a degree granting operation, just getting into going, which will be on public policy and international affairs. we are focused both the society of presidential descendants and the roosevelt school on training. first of all, on training the next elite group of leaders of our country in various ways, and in providing a forum for all kinds of thought leaders in the country to come here and wrestle with the issues. of course, this country has issues now, right? there's nothing to worry about.

and two of the major sort of initiatives of the society of presidential descendants, other than just meeting every other year, one is civics education. one of the real problems face in this country is we've completely forgotten to educate our citizenry. you hear all the time about my rights. my rights, who has not told them that you don't get rights without responsibilities? and, you know, that seems to have completely disappeared. so we want to be part of a national effort to recruit. eight civics education at all levels, at all levels. and first step we took was to create a national civics day, which is on october two, seventh, not because that's year birthday, which it is but that's coincidental. it's date of the first publication of the first federalist paper back. and so 1789 i think it was in any so civics education we think is really important and so example coming to this

presidential the senate we have some high level government elected officials and others who trying to interest in this. and the other thing is presidential studies. we want to encourage studies. our first effort at this was to create bi annual presidential book award, which we held last october in in new york. the the book winner was a great book by ted widmer called lincoln on the verge from the time when he was elected to the time when he was inaugurated, which is only period of a few weeks. and how dangerous it was. it's a terrific book for showing us today that this is not the first time we've faced major constitutional crises. and that was an excellent thing. and every other year we'll do that. it was a substantial award. we gave $10,000 to the winner, which puts us in the in the top and the runners up. got something. so anyway, that's what we were all about. but let's get to what we're

doing now. so i want to start with just introducing everybody and just raise your hand now. sarah berry sarah garfield. berry yeah, you might guess that. garfield means something there. and she's a garfield next is james earl carter. where are you? there you are. he's the only member here, i think, who's lived in the white house. and so he may have a few things to say about that. george cleveland here on my right, as you might guess, is a cleveland ulysses grant deeds. now, wonder who he is and richard gatto, who is the whose ancestor is the earliest of the presidents get out of that trouble get. out of that trouble is monroe all the way back to monroe. and monroe actually is featured in our morning talks because of the monroe doctrine and tweed

roosevelt. i should have started i suppose with me i'm tweed roosevelt i'm a great grandson of theodore roosevelt. i'm, you know, the what do i call the chairman of the roosevelt school and a professor here at nyu and just delighted about it. iu i won't go about i like you. it's just a fabulous school. it is being turned from an almost dead private, small, private here on long island. and they had the good fortune. i don't want to sound like i'm of really groveling here too much, but anyway, we had the good fortune of having kim kline, dr. klein appointed president. and what she's done is i mean, the thing i'm most impressed about, of course, is that roosevelt school, there are only 31 veterinarian schools in the country. and she got the 32nd. and they're places like north dakota, a big animal state that

has no and an excellent university has no veterinarian school. oh, really? a fabulous achievement. and that's just one of many things been doing here. all right. enough of that. i'm going to start. i'm just to go around the room here. so why don't we start with you, okay? sounds good thank you, tweed. what if i'd known that about the veterinary? what about my cats down there? they. they need their shots. it's really good to be here in tweed. thank you so much for all that you've done in getting the society put together. and certainly and i echo his thanks to the long island university for the amazing job they've done. i am george cleveland. i live in tamworth, new hampshire. it's the the foothills of the white mountains. and i'm grover cleveland's a lot of people have a little difficulty and raise an eyebrow when i say that but it's really pretty easy to explain because how can somebody so young have a a grandfather who was born in 1837? the answer is simple. it's sex and math.

grover was born in 1837. he married my grandmother in the white house. in 1886. she was 21. he was pushing 50. my father was born in 1897. he met and married my mother in 1943 when she was teaching his from his first marriage. the resulting being i have two nephews that are older than i am. so we really we stretched it out about this far as you can. i believe there are i'm not positive on this, but i think there are only three living grandchildren, 18th century or of 19th century. excuse me. and that's myself, my sister. and believe it or not, harrison tyler, who's the grandson of president john tyler, who was president i think it was 1841. so born in 1798. 89, yeah. so it tells you something about the water and washing too i think it's is what that really comes, comes down to. grover was just briefly grover

was really kind of the last of what you might call the what i've called the log presidents, where he came from, literally very nothing. he was born in caldwell, new jersey, right across the river. caldwell, second most famous resident, first being, of course, tony soprano. and he was born his father, was a presbyterian minister. ministers. we didn't have megachurches then. they did not make a lot of money. and he followed them out to fayetteville when when teddy roosevelt was running around in the woods and capture animals and trying to figure out what they were and learning. grover was unloading long boats that came in to fayetteville in new york off the erie canal and delivering them throughout the neighborhood all all year long and at one point, he said he said, okay, i'm going out to cleveland, ohio, where your relatives is. long, long, distant relatives found that that town, he was stopped there by one of my uncles who said, why don't you stay here? and work on the farm, which he

did. one thing led to another and he became sheriff of erie county and talk about things you don't know. this one doesn't usually show up on jeopardy, but grover is the only president that ever executed two people. he hanged two people when he was sheriff of erie county. he also a point of saying it was a very task. the reason why he pulled the lever was because he did not feel it. usually a deputy did it. he did not feel a subordinate should have to the dirty work. so that's why he went and did that. he had a he had a be a meteoric rise, to put it mildly became mayor of buffalo governor of york and then was nominated to be president. and it's a it's a it's a really kind of get a kick out of the fact that new york state has its second governor from buffalo. so i feel feels a little it feels good about that. grover course was the jeopardy fans will know it he is the only non consecutive president and he

was one of the presidents that won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote and there's a lot of he and president since we are at the roosevelt school, had a lot of interaction together. and it was interesting because we've got two people from two parties. but those guys, they able to work together. although i have a feeling that grover really frustrated teddy roosevelt awful lot. grover was a pretty progressive reformer, not progressive as theodore roosevelt and i think that got got mr. roosevelt nose out of joint said he should be doing more be doing more but we have a wonderful letter that is in the back a box and some relatives basement right now it is a letter from president roosevelt to grover cleveland in his term. grover had written saying, i've got this guy who is a really great doctor and really ought to be that, you know, the surgeon general and, president roosevelt, wrote back and saying it would be my pleasure to appoint your friend as as general whatever the official term was right there.

so they had a lot of interaction together. and i think there was a great deal of respect for each other too. so it's and i guess basically thing that's most important i find because grover cleveland is kind of an unknown president, nobody knows a lot about him, except for those of you who have thousand dollar bills in your pocket, you know that that's where he is. and you know, when i talk to kids in, middle school, that's the thing that impresses them. absolutely the most. except i do not have $1,000 bill to show them. but one of the things that's so important about any president, about anything to do with history is not just lecturing to people. it's vibrational history and of the things the society is able to provide on civics day and year long is they get a real live presidential descendant can go into a school and and answer questions and the middle schoolers, i find, are always the ones that ask them the most. you know, they don't ask questions, the tariff and they,

you know, they don't questions about union issues. how much money did he make? you know, what kind of what were your pet's names? and, you know, these are very things, but it makes history a little more alive and maybe that is going to fill an interest in history a little more than just the fact they have to memorize all the presidents. you see some alphabetical thing i could not do all the presidents in order myself now. so that give you an idea, but that's kind of a pricey of the whole thing. also very to note, of course, is that grover cleveland does have a rest area named after him and the new jersey turnpike and for up for a while in, my small, tiny town in new hampshire, where i live, was a good friend of mine, tony halsey, i guess of his grandfather, was two people in a town of 2000 people in new hampshire who had rest areas on the new jersey turnpike after them. so, you know we just we we rest on that quite i think me that sort of about does for or for

what i've got at the moment. so move on then to richard great. here we are it's it's fantastic to be here you all for for coming tonight and tweet thank for this and kim thank you for everything you've done for the university too. so name is richard gasol jr and i've been born in baltimore and we've been from there for many, many generations and i'm glad to be up here today to get to know sort of the beauty of long island. i'm at home, i've got my wife, catherine, got two daughters, 23 and 21, that are off to college and just out of college. and i'm very proud to be the fifth great grandson of james monroe when i was six or seven, my parents told this. my dad told me this. my grandmother told me this. and i thought, fifth great fifth president, fifth great grandson. so i could always remember it. so it was it was easy to remember and remember when i read my grandmother's name one day. her name was elizabeth courtright, monroe emery gasol. she was named after the first lady after her third great grandmother. and she took this seriously. and at an early you said,

richard, that's something you need to be a good steward of this. you need to be a good ancestor, learn about your your family, about your ancestry and the importance of your lineage. but don't it doesn't make you any different any better, anybody else but just utilize that. and i've done that with my daughters. it's been great learning experience of taking pride in the history of our country. and i've learned so much about so great people and i think we can make a difference when it comes to civics and it's so in doing that i just the broad brush of james monroe is that my favorite book about him is called james monroe the forgotten founding father. and i was in the car today with someone. she goes, oh, isn't he the forgotten founding father? and i said? well, yes, yes, he is. but but for the five first presidents were from virginia and there really was the virginia dynasty. but he's, you know, much more overshadowed by the previous three. and that's okay. but he just had a different style. but one thing that if you're going to leave here tonight, a little fun facts are things. and i've got a bunch of them is that he started his service to this country in 1776 and it

ended 1825. he held the most titles and the most positions of any president. he had a 50 year run and he was a secretary of state, secretary of war. he's a president. he was ambassador to england. france and and and there's so many stories of him and his friendships with napoleon when was in france and in lafayette, he had a 50 year friendship and relationship with lafayette and and, you know, the whole fabric of this country. when he started, we were getting our our tails kicked in new york city. he first went up as a lieutenant working with george washington and then certainly the battle of trenton, a big turning point for things. and he was involved that. and then once again, you go 50 years later and he's 68 years old or 67 leaving the presidency and really going from an infancy of a of a country. that was an idea just a thought to handing off of sort of a growing world power to the rest of the country. that's a lot. and 50 years. and i just think we have a hard time kind of putting that perspective right now. but it's something i'm proud of.

and if i get another chance, i've got some sort fun little stories i don't want to get into the dates and things in the history book stuff, but there's some great sort of rich fabric stories kind of his life and. and then also just another thing i'll get into is about how, you know, it was painful, it was tough life was tough and it was didn't go into politics for the money or for the glory, did it because you cared and when you want to do a revolution. it ended one of three ways you won. that's a good story. or you lost and you die trying or you lost and you got shot because you know you're an insurrectionist. so two of the three were bad and one was good. and luckily, you know, he was on the winning side and. i think we're all on the winning side. so once again, it's great to be here. so pass it over to you, ulysses. thanks, richard. well, it's hard to follow you, but because you have your facts all in line. i've been listening to the lectures this i kept thinking, oh, i need to say this this afternoon, but i hadn't planned because i was going to say what tweed told me to say. i mean, generally speaking, not

specifically but but so i'm going to do both quickly. is that so? ulysses grant deetz my mother was julia grant married. john deetz new yorker. her father was ulysses s grant, the third who went to west point. his father was frederick dent grant, who went to west point. his father was ulysses s grant. so it's a direct line of descent. i was the last 41 great, great, great grandchildren born to ulysses and, julia grant. and i was the last one. and i got the name. i'm the only ulysses in my generation. and that was instrumental in shaping life, although i wasn't paying attention to it because being a descendant of u.s. meant nothing to me much until i decided to use my first name. i grew up as grant deetz and in syracuse, new york, where my family had a factory with the name dates on it and huge letters. that's who i was. i was a deetz boy, but my mother was julia grant and her friends

knew that, and she told me that grandfather, u.s. grant's third, never talked to me about it, ever, because i was the youngest grandchild and he didn't know what to say to me. he was an old man. it was all past history. and in the fifties and sixties was not good to be descended from u.s. grant was an embarrassment. people would make fun him when they learned what my name was. so i was a teenager. i went to phillips exeter academy, which is where u.s. grant junior went, who shares my birthday? coincidence? lee i feel there's some karma there. and then going away from syracuse, going to new hampshire to go to school, i decided i'm going to be ulysses now. so i changed from you, grant deeds, ulysses deeds and i've been ulysses ever since. and that's when i started to pay attention. i was offered in a history class. i didn't like history. i only learned to like history in my forties. i avoided history in college. i took it in graduate school, but in high school i learned to

hate because of it. one teacher and, the regents exams and i was offered and we and had to write a history paper about a major political figure of the 19th century and i chose not ulysses s grant because was difficult and embarrassing, but i chose my other political ancestor who i'll get to in my next part of this. who was elihu root? who was teddy roosevelt, secretary of state at? and that's a nice segway, i realized, because i wrote and it was the most boring book that i used as my resource and i still have it, but i would totally write a school paper on u.s. grant. now. and that's another story which maybe we can talk about. but i just the roosevelt thing, i'm really very startled, sort of i keep reminding myself how deeply involved teddy roosevelt was with family in a number of different ways. so mckinley is the president. teddy roosevelt is the vice president secretary of war is elihu root, frederick grant is

living in washington and living in new york. his father has died. he's gone back into the army. he knows teddy roosevelt because. they were on the police commission together. they helped clean up new york's police department and fred had dropped out of the army to help his father. and then nurse his father and help him with his memoirs when he died, helped him through the bankruptcy, which was a humiliation. fred goes back into the army and i'm sure that between elihu root as secretary of war and teddy roosevelt as. this bellicose vice president they helped get made a general mckinley made him a general. he wrote to mrs. grant and i still have that letter saying, oh, i have a secret. i'm making your son, a general. and then he got sent to puerto rico for the spanish-american war and then to the philippines. so his turned around and what does he do is he goes to his friend teddy roosevelt when he becomes president and says, my son is just about graduate from west point because mckinley, using a deathbed letter from

u.s. grant, made my grandfather go to west point in 1899 and then gets out of west point with douglas macarthur. by the way, they were classmates. and fred says to teddy roosevelt, you give my son a job with you in the white house. and he did. and my grandfather went to work in the white house in 1904, where he met elihu root's daughter, edith, who was my grandmother and so i've always thought and and of course, that coincidence changed my family's dynamic. i mean, for a brief, glittering moment, there was a political dynasty there. it very fast, by the way. so that was sort of consciousness i bring to this because washington, d.c., everybody in my family kept going back to washington. julia grant, a widow with grant's tomb, opened in new york city, went back to washington, d.c., dent grant, when his he died, his wife went back to

washington, d.c. everybody went back to washington, dc. my grandfather kept going back. i've never lived in washington, so i somehow got cheated out of all of that because i was the youngest grandchild. and we'll just leave you with that. and you can all wallow in my pity. thank you. hi. my name is sarah garfield berry. i live in mass outside of worcester. i work in investments recently. you know, for eight years now, i've been selectman in a very tiny town, probably smallest in the state where i have to pay a lot of attention to running some kind of a government is all about and how hard it is. so i'm the great, great granddaughter of james abraham garfield, who we all know was assassin's, aided by a mad frenchman uto who pursued trying to get any kind of ambassadorship, i think primarily to france within with

daily to the white house when garfield was in the white house. but most of my family i'm the oldest of knew about garfield growing up were this vast collection of books that told us what temperature was every wood, what his body temperature was. every day he was dying. there were there were two descriptions of mausoleum and draw drawings of the mausoleums. but what i really grew with i have to credit my father with was the values that garfield had. garfield wanted to be president. my favorite book that really turned me on to what he was about was destiny of the republic, which to me was a page turner and, an emotional book. and i like you came to loving history much later in life. and this place certainly solidified that. so i just want to say i'm a very new member of this society. it's made me look backwards and

see the values of work and thinking about others first, which is really what garfield to me was about. certainly my dad was, about where it's come from. i can certainly say it came from the integrity and the generations. i was fortunate enough to have known or heard of growing my father knew president garfield son as as his great grandfather, but i did not know of him. he was known as a bum. and that and i really couldn't tell you without going and looking at up what his real first name was. when i was little, my dad ran a school and left the morning prayers, of which there were essentially only two. his children were not particularly religious, but the two prayers that dominated our house, which to me come from president garfield, were teach us to choose the hard right against the easy wrong and to give us clean hands. of course, we'd all sit and look at prayers, looking at our hands.

but that wasn't what it was about. and you may garfield embodied all of this to us as i learned it. history governing is so hard. it consumes your personal. if you care about the responsible liberties that you take on. garfield was very charismatic and grew into all the roles he had with grace. i think he was 18 years in the in in congress before he was asked become president. but it was on multiple ballots that he got elected because no one could agree on the other candidates that were running for office. people just sat in a room and cast ballots at that point and it went on and on. well he did not seek office. he accepted what was thrust upon him after many of those ballots and in those days there was many lies and false stories that pervaded the election as there are today he survived them all. it was he was steadfast in his anti-slavery positions. he knew on election his first quite quiet life.

he knew in ohio was gone for the rest of his life because he was elected to. that position he would have survived his wounds had his medical doctors not been on such ego trips about which which procedure or what technique was going to help him the most. there's a new term. there's a new meaning to me for blissed out, because the doctor that kept thinking that he could cure is infection by jamming pokers him all the time killed him so blissed out doesn't mean to me to be happy anymore, but it's in the book and the is really more of a medical recounting of his life. so there's much similarity to the chaos of the time that we're in now. the extreme factions and parties give us a sense that the country is divided many ways and garfield really worked hard uniting different parties. he was a peacemaker. i've become a peacemaker in our town. i certainly am a peacemaker in

our family. and my dad certainly was that in the life that he led the roosevelt school recently founded here brings focus to civics. and i've learned so much because i'm one of the very new members in the society of what this school intends to do. and i just think it's one of the best things i've heard about in a long, long time. civics was taught when i was young. i think it's evaporated and our sense of responsibilities for our freedoms are missing in many cases. so i think what i'd just like to say that garfield's presidency for me was more about the values how to live your work hard and take care of others. there was a lot modesty in our in our house. we were never. patted on the head for, doing well every day.

we were assumed that we would go out and work hard, not need a lot of attention. i think it's because it was a pack of us in the house and my dad ran a school we all went to. so we couldn't be recognized, but nevertheless, i think is the most important thing is james garfield came from nothing. my dad pretty much came from nothing at the point of coming out of the depression and he worked hard and put six good kids out in the world. so that's what i look back to is because it was a very short presidency is the values that were there. thank you. hi, my name is james earl carter. the fourth i was at the end of february in 1977, a month after inauguration at bethesda naval hospital. and my first home was the white house until reagan came along.

yeah. so my experience is a little bit different than some of the other descendants at my presidential ancestors being alive. still and my having grown and been around when he was president and for the amazing post that he has had so i feel like i've been blessed and then i have a kind of behind the scenes view of history. like you can almost touch it. yeah. i have. i see the carter library on june 1st of this year posted a picture on instagram of me. tip o'neill. when i was four months old and you know, the caption is on this june 1st, 1977, and jimmy carter invited tip o'neill to have

dinner in the residence of the white. and so it's, you know, my mom, me in front of tip o'neill and we're meeting i also have pictures of me with anwar at at camp david, i believe it was on one of his preliminary visits, not on the big working visit that ended up in the accords, but so i have that those are, of course, pictures and not memories because. i was so young, but i do have memories of being in certain spots where you could almost touch the history one of our family vacations, which we take every year was at one point because a somali warlord was on phone and wanted to talk to my grandfather. and so he had to run off. we were in the middle of yellowstone park and he had to run off and find a secure

somewhere and he was gone, you know, the rest of that day and things like that happened fairly often. and we always kind of expected it and took it in stride because that's just the way it was. i also in the year 2000, in bill clinton's last year in office, he invited the family to come back to the white house and spend the night and the original plan was that he would be there to meet. and then he another thing that he had to go do and hillary was off somewhere else already and was not there. so we were just going to, you know, have the white house to ourselves. no, i mean, no. bill clinton is not known for being timely and holding a schedule and in this case, we benefited from that because he that he was going to have dinner with us and then dinner he and

my grandfather sat around the table in the solarium. me and my cousin josh and talked about middle east and african foreign policy for an hour and a half. and this was during the time that clinton was trying build a peace accord between palestine and israel and the discussion, which i won't go into, was i mean, amazing. i was just in oh, the entire time. both of them had encyclopedic knowledge of all of the issues from all of the various countries that they went even down to the level of knowing the name of the staffer on the ground that, you know, for instance, and some of the african countries where the carter center had staff, my grandfather knew who was in charge of what that program in

that country, which i was proud of. so like, yeah, you know, good job. and then clinton would come back and say the name the staffer in the embassy that was in charge of that specific issue. and then thing which which was just incredible. and it was every single country. it was like, okay, have your person get in touch with this person and we'll, we'll work it out. i mean, it was just it was such a display of like intellectual heft, but also history being right there, like behind the scenes current events like happening and kind of getting to look at it in a way that no one else did really. i mean, the very people knew what was going on behind the scenes. so that is my experience. i'm particularly blessed not only because chose the right

parents, but but just because my family, the way my grandfather is he is, you know, pretentious. he's very down to earth and family is the most important thing. so the family has been there for that. he has done, you know, all of it. he was never a prayed to invite family members to come on important things when the people who had invited him had not necessarily expected for other family members to come but you know that was that's just the way he is with his family. i want to thank the roosevelt like you. this been a great event. i've a lot and i just think done a wonderful job with the house and i have never been to this of

new york. it is beautiful and i'm glad i'm here. thank you. okay. well, thank you. is this live now? you're hearing me? yes, you can hear me. thank everybody. that. that was great. so now it's your chance out there to ask of us anything you want to, and maybe we'll even answer you. so go ahead. so. that i can. be president. okay. i'm just wondering, dad is how grandma is and what's going on? do you contact them and get touch with them frequently and see them well before covid, we did family dinners at the carter center for all the family that lived in the atlanta area. and we did them about once a month, sometimes they weren't able to make or whenever, but

about once a month. so we got to see them a and the ones covid hit, they were in planes in their and you know, nobody in the family wanted to be the ones that actually, you know, killed them and that it's, you know, that's not what you want really. so we haven't seen them as much since then, but my dad, who is chip? yeah, he goes down to plano a couple of days every week and sees them now we keep in touch through him. it's now to point where, you know, the secret service in planes have a covid testing machine so they can do tests pretty instantly so we can now go visit and so okay, first let me point out, by the way, c-span is filming this and by taking

the microphone, you are giving a sent to c-span to film this. so you don't want to be filmed by c-span. don't ask a and also wait when you get ready to ask the question, why wait until we can get you a microphone? so okay. well, let's start with the lady back there. hold on a second. they'll bring you the microphone. thank you. and congratulations, president klein, for creating this fabulous opportunity for our community. i'm victoria, publisher of the long island press and few other media and adult to be exact. not to tell you too much about me, but i did want to ask, you know, i read ulysses grant autobiography, biography, and i know he wrote it to be able to support his family after his death. and i'm wondering, are you still getting royalties. that's no one has ever asked that before. but in fact, so i'm retired and

i have a pension, but there was a trust fund and in my grandfather's will he said the money from ulysses s grant's memoirs is still there and is still generating interest for the family. i don't know how much that is, but so it's still supporting. and i would also say that his memoirs, i think are the single greatest thing he did in his lifetime because in less than year he wrote a 600 page book called dying of cancer in constant pain and, earned $450,000 in 1885, cash for his family. and julia did not spend it all. i always grew up assuming she just spent it all, but apparently she just lived on the interest and left it for her family. so it's an extraordinary thing. his death is a there's actually a whole book about his death called about it's about grant's tomb by louis picone. and but his death, a great epic. you could write an opera about it, except he was tone deaf, so

that would be a waste of time time. okay. okay. okay. we'll get to you. hi, ali mazara. and i'm actually with state university of new york. but i know dr. klein, president for years and just she's incredible. so it's great to be here. i run a program for young women to global leaders, and they're from disadvantaged, underserved communities. they're doing amazing. we're in 10th year. so the question i always ask is what advice would you give to young leaders or young people becoming leaders? and maybe particularly if you had any advice or wisdom, young women to become global leaders and addressed it, somebody, i'll look, cover it. i can i just say something to that because i think it's one thing that i think is really important is that we try and

resist the the desire to look at what happened in 1922, 1822, 1892 through a lens of 2022. it's not. one problem. all president have had, and i believe all presidents shall have, as long as they are human. and that and that is is, you know, they're going to air they're going to make mistakes. and to take to take certain things that, for a perfect example, grover cleveland did not think women should vote. grover cleveland's wife did not think women should vote. she did change mind later on. but you know, that. that's why studying history is so important. it wasn't just like here was this guy who just had like stupid idea, you know. it was there was a reason for it. so this is why the study history

is so important, so we can understand better. and by understanding history better, we're going to what's going on and just tell them, go for it. don't. no matter how many times people, tell you to stop. keep going. and i'll also add to that that well, here's a tr story. it'll first part of it'll make you cringe. when tr was a youngish man out in the west, he made a comment at some point about native americans saying, well, you know, people say the only indian is a dead indian. and he said, well, in my view it says maybe a nine times out of ten. that's and maybe even a little suspicious of the 10th. so that a statement he made early on later in life much later in life he developed a much more sort of balanced view of the problem of native americans and so on and did a lot for native americans. so even a book called, the five

friends of the american indians or something like that and he's one of them. so the whole issue then is of course, particularly somebody like tr, but most presidents, their views evolved over life and our views have evolved and that's got to be taken into consideration. so it annoys me when, you know, somebody says something about a particular, particularly the or that oh he was a you know he hated the indian or whatever. so it's the job of the teacher of this country to teach that and i think on the most part they're doing okay. but we've got to help them. one, one thought. i've raised two daughters, 21 and 23. and i continue to raise them right that the job's never over in confidence is the one word that comes to me of when they've started to shine and and and become leaders in their own right. it's when they had the confidence without confidence it's they weren't going as far. and the other thing is being able to shut down social media

and just not let that noise control who you are you just once they can get over that maturity level, then i think they they then become their own person. they're not become a person that they they want to be that becoming who they want to be. and that's that that would be a key thing for these young ladies that are trying to branch to become young leaders. confidence and avoid the noise of social media. i would add a couple of things one is to not be afraid to go ask, you know, what can i do in government or or i went to a work study college, but any small job when you're young will teach you how work. and i do think to your point that life is a perpetual confidence game. you know, some seem to have it right out of the box, but i didn't turn. you have to learn to speak up. and i think there are innate in many personalities. people that don't know they even want to lead, but they like to make decisions and take responsibility and they're not

afraid to try new things. so i'm let me just introduce myself. first of all. thank you. i am alice levine. dr. alice levine. and i am the director of the master of public policy here at the roosevelt school. and certainly i'm not going to pass up this opportunity. we're on c-span. we talk about leadership. we about education, we talk about gender. we about education, um, public policy and civics at a graduate level, even undergraduate, i come to the roosevelt school, please think about the opportunities that young people can have today across all demographics, across all different demographics different upbringing, different social statuses. the mpx program, the master of public policy that we are so pleased to start. and i thank dr. klein and, vp

randy bird, for allowing us to bring the master of public policy to the roosevelt school. we're very to be part of it and to bring academics to this already wonderful wonderful platform. thank you. thank you very much. we're delighted to have you. thank you. let me tell you, we're delighted to have you. okay. who's next? the equipment behind you. then we'll come back. go back. hi, rob lamb. just a question. i would have. you have the roosevelt school and ship of james jr, the fourth. i have the library. but what avenues other descendants utilize other than forums like this to you know get out the messages that you want to get out about your descendent and leadership leadership. well, there is a ulysses s grant presidential library, which is at mississippi state university, which a fascinating story. i'm on the board of that and they have become, amazingly enough, mississippi state

university has become one of the centers of civil war studies and politics of the second half of the 19th century, because of that interest, and it's drawing young scholars, male and female, the new executive director is a woman professor at msu. and so that didn't exist before, was a huge collection of papers that were of being privately published over the last 50 years. and now this public insta tution supported a school. by the way, tweed, in a huge way that has really made a lot of it possible. so that's that's one way and it's become an enormous clearinghouse for people who want sort of find the truth in the archives as opposed listening to what people say on social media. so thanks for bringing that up as a. anyone else that i go way we got we got from pennsylvania this

looking at that my. so so bertram taylor i'm a great great grandson rutherford b hayes and on the leadership question and the leadership question that was just asked i participate with the hermitage, which is the andrew jackson museum and library. they run a program called the future presidents of america, which i participated in for a couple of years. and they get a number of speakers from congressmen in tennessee and and leaders and it's high school students come and it's a weeklong camp and they get all these speakers that speak for about an hour and it helps them to gain confidence to to learn about you know, i teach them a little bit about my great great grandfather, but but also the principles of leadership. i think it's important to know, you know, i go through like colin powells statements. i mean, it's lonely be a leader, you know, they've got to be prepared for that. they also have to be a good follower it to learn how be good

in the group and they have to have the confidence to do something. but there are programs out there i think this is a fairly new thing future presidents of america and i think the benjamin harrison library started and it's starting to go around. so look for it. it might catch on. can i say that one other up to events that are going on, first of all, is the civics day that we mentioned. that's going to be growing by leaps and bounds to get the word out. there is also an organization called national history day and it is stronger in some states than it is in others. but it goes and gets kids in the schools to create projects multiple media projects about something of historical value. and it gets them involved. i was the keynote speaker national his the new york national history day out in cooperstown some years back and it was i was in a gym with 500 kids screaming like it was a pep

rally and question to them was how many of you going to go home from here today into, your little town, and have the fire truck escort you back into town? how many of you are going to be welcomed at the mayor's office like the football team is? it's we've got to build that up. there is no h in stem, unfortunately and we've got to get that h a little more in the forefront in my humble opinion. you got the mindset. yes, i'm cindy phifer and i work for the international association of first ladies for peace. so there's some nice first ladies behind these wonderful men to. but what i wanted to ask is, grant, you said you didn't want to admit you were with him. and i you know, they won the war. and so i was wondering what was behind that? why you had to wait to admit that you were with. i was curious, how much time do we have here?

so. well, the short of it is that even by once died and as the tomb was being built, which was a struggle, there's a whole book about that. the reunification of the country after the ceasing of reconstruction, a large part of that was a very conscious political effort to undermine his legacy, to build up robert ely's legacy. this was conscious and it's very well documented, and it did not make i mean, robert e lee died first, but he he would have had no part of it. but this was done without of them being a participant. but frederick douglass watched it happening and it happened well into the 20th century. and so his and the very the earliest biographies of us grant were written by confetti gates who were not known as confederates then, but were southerners who were writing history according to the mythology that they had been learning and promoting and so by the time by the time my

grandfather was in the military was in world war two, grant's legacy was butchery and drunkenness. and he was a bad president. he was not. he was stupid president. he was not. he was much higher in his west point ranks than people acknowledged. but all of this negative mythology had been built up, and no one had ever, including the mcfeely. i have never read the mcfeely biography of grant because. it's so negative that i don't want to read it because and my grandfather wrote his own biography of his grandfather. of his grandfather dedicate it to his three daughters, including my mother, saying, i need to set the record straight. most of it has been false from up until this point. and that's in 1969. so so that's why i grew up with that and that's why i don't think he knew how to talk to me. plus, i also think there were things that my grandfather was not a perfect person either. and i won't go into. but he had the prejudices of his time and i don't think he knew

how to talk about any of that to a 12 year old, which is i was when he died. but so i think that's really something you said about the first lady's my first entree into us. grant history is reading her memoirs, which are published in the 1970s at the behest of my mother and her sisters, because she didn't want them published in lifetime. because she didn't. well, probably because she didn't want to eat into the profits. his memoirs, which had been keeping her comfortable. but she also didn't want to take away the the light on him. and she fortunately died before it got too unpleasant. but her memoirs and her extraordinary insight into what i think is one of the great presidential in the history of this country. as great as john and abigail adams, at least, and really want them to make a movie about that. but but not a musical. so we time for one more question. let's say okay to do as well as,

you know, make it right has historian then written a balanced account of grant. oh a lot i mean. ron chernow yeah, but a lot of other people i've read a lot biographical books on u.s. grant. there's a brooks simpson wrote a great on reconstruction. so, you know there's been a lot of writing that's why i it's a i feel a lot better about it now. it's a great moment to be descended from you, u.s. grant. but it was not when. i was a child. there's one back there. i think you had your hand up. no. okay. back there it french. are you going to say something. high then? krista felt the art department faculty. can you talk a the the relationship between mark twain and and grant.

they were very good friends. twain created the book deal that made grant all that money. he did not one word of that memoir. no matter what you've heard, it's the manuscript exists. it's all in u.s. grant's hand. it's all handwritten in pencil, and it's in the library of congress. so. but twain really went to said, they're ripping you off these jerk publishers, but my son in law's going to have a publishing house, and i'll give you the best deal ever, which ultimately probably bankrupted his son in law. but that's not even the so. but, you know, it it's funny because if you read the gilded age, the original book by mark twain from 1873, not his first real novel, but not any. it's a collaboration, but not his best book. but one of his most interesting books. he sort of makes fun of u.s. grant as the head of this corrupt government in the 1870s. but changes his tune and becomes a really close friend toward the end of grant's life.

so i'm really sorry that we're going to have to cut this off. now, obviously could have gone on longer, but it's that's where we are so i want to thank everybody for coming. i want to thank my panelists for what they've done. i want to remind people those all people are welcome to. go to the silent auction in the room next door and bid if you're not staying for dinner and you want to bid. i said this earlier to the but everybody here now if you want to bid and you not staying for dinner you better bid i now if you want the if you want it and tell the staff in there, give them a phone number or something so they can call you for those who are staying to dinner, you can pass through that and then you'll be shown on to where the cocktails are. and thank you, c-span thank you, c-span. thank you. thank you. and i will adjourn the meeting. thank you all for coming. we appreciate it.

77 years ago american soldiers who had been fighting their way across europe liberated the war-torn continent and freed some of the few holocaust victims. still alive among those survivors were my parents. between the two of them. they had endured ghettos. concentration camps