accordingly, the first obligation of courts was to facilitate those judgments and not to question them as a matter of habit, sentiment or impulse. in an age with cynicism toward government became endemic, justice white believed in the good faith of police officers, school boards, local officials, juries and administrators charged with the public trust. to be sure, the assumption was rebuttal, the confidence couldn't be broken. he never expected or demanded perfection for he well understood that neither human beings or any institutions they create could be flawless. public officials were accountable under the law for transgressions, but they were allowed discretion to perform their public duties. when justice white died in 2002 at the age of 84 almost a decade after retiring from the court, "the new york times" struggled to capture the significance of his career. his own judicial legacy remained a complex and somewhat ambiguous one. he never achieved the start of pub recognition on supreme court. an authentic celebrity in an era before fame became an everyday commodity, he was the most reluctant of celebrities dealing

viewing with intense distaste which remained with him the rest of his life the media strut any that he encountered in his early life. the passage is telling to be sure, i think it reveals much more about popular notion of the supreme court than it does about byron white. the decade he joined the court was a period that produced celebrities and rogues, either because of what the court did, think earl warren, or because of how they fashion themselves for the public and publish themselves for the press. think william o. black and william doug lags. white developed an early allergy to stardom. when asked at retirement what his legacy would be, he replied i don't have a doctrinal legacy. i shouldn't. as one former clerk observed, being nonit logical and

nondoctrinondock drink -- very important to white just as being higgs own person and not worrying about his place in history was. he recognized that being a justice who believes in a more limited constitution is not the way to gain historical notoriety. if we look with clear eyes at white's three-decade career, what emerges is a record less of ambiguity or inconsistency than one of constant questioning, not of first principles but of their application to new situations in light of new experiences and with new consequences. as the last connective tissue to john f. kennedy, the new frontier and optimism about the capacity of government that so energized the 1960s, white seemed to be a paradox, dissenting from progressive

decisions, declining to be a full throated member of the white's revolution and voicing skepticism about judicial prour. there are two flaws i think with this view, first remember that kennedy liberalism in the early 1960s was tough on crime, tough on communists and committed to strong national power. the extent that either kennedy or white thought in categorical terms, there was little daylight between them. second, as liberalism developed in the 1960s, the initial emphasis on equal rights symbolized by the segregation decisions in 1954 became a campaign for individual rights. byron white came to the court bruised by his experience in alabama, but he served as a central figure invalidating federal power to protect nonwhites, particularly under the voting rights act of 1965. in that area, the constitution and congress were at one, but as the 1960s wore on and as individuals pressed to squeeze

more rights out of the open-ended language of the new process clauses, he balked. there the court was at sea with no democratically accountable support and little historical guidance. the lessons of 1937 haunted him. whatever the nature of byron white's liberalism were his roots. here again, several theories are unauthored. one views that white was the last new dealer committed to power at the expense of the states. the new deal was a sprawling political movement, not a single, stable, philosophical construct. in the low lags united segregationists with. the theory has very little explanatory power. another view claims that white became enamored at yale law school with the legal realist movement, a novel theory at the

time he was in school emphasizing policy at the expense of formal rules and categories. if you carefully read his opinions, you'll find numerous appeals to formal structures and routine efforts to clarify legal rules so people know where they stand. anyone who works so hard to clarify the law could hardly be cynical about its foundation. a final theory, not often pressed, but necessary to consider in this venue is byron white's complex views were shaped by the west. there is no doubt that he loved this part of the country. he returned annually to ski in the winter and in the summer to prowl the waters of points up and down the front range. as wallace stegner has written, the west holds a powerful grasp on the imagination and affections of its innocents. empty bar wren land is ripe with opportunity and danger. it doesn't translate into philosophical conviction.

those who see white as a distinctively western justice point to his physical vigor, self reliance and blunt talk, extraordinary work ethic and his unadorned modesty. i would agree he bore all those traits, not because he grew up in the shadows of the mountains and the range. indeed, i think he could have been the same man had he grown up when he did in audubon, iowa, where his uncle lived and practiced law. the two little towns shared similar profiles in the 1930s, small, rural, agriculturally dependent and impoverished. the whites who remained in audubon when byron's and sam's parents moved west, manifested the same traits described to the justices themselves. time and locale, not the 105th

meridian shaped the brothers white. byron white always encouraged his children, his clerks, others to get as much experience as you can. and he meant that each new challenge would help to shape and reshape one's views. today, the pragmatic and modest approach to the role of the court that white forged from his own experiences now seems a relic of another area, curious anachronism. the curious members of the court on both the left and the right urged expansive areas of judicial power, living constitutionalism and so on. each condemns the other for lacking judicial restraint. on both sides policy preferences seem to bubble dangerously close to the surface. consider this data. since byron white retired, the

supreme court as invalidated more than 50 acts of congress, more than twice of the interwar courts of the 1920s and the 1930s. judicial restraint is dead. byron white is gone and largely forgotten. the fruit of self effacement is not enduring glory. from the beginning of his tenure on the supreme court he made a number of decisions that shape the way we now view him, to be his own man and not part of a block or a negotiating team. to treat his job very pragmatically and not as an academic seminar. above all, viewed in the best light, to treat his judicial office as a trust and not as an estate. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. [ applause ]

hosted by our time-warner cable partner, american history tv is in beaumont, texas this weekend to explore its history in agriculture. when oil was discovered there in 1901, the population grew from 9,000 to 30,000 in just three months. learn more about beaumont, texas all weekend long on american history tv. gladys city as we call it, it was part of the boom town -- by 1976, there was nothing left of what was the original gladys city, which was just across the highway from us about a half mile, so as a project for the bicentennial, it was a project to try and preserve the history

and memory of gladys city. gladys city is named for a young man in a sunday school class, we call him our dreamer, he's the one that came one a lot of the ideas for gladys city, and home run name was gladys bingham, and she was in his sunday school class and he was very smitten by her and he named the city for her. when petillo originally envisioned the city, it was really what he called -- or what could be called an industrial utopia. by the time spindle top came in in 1901, i like to say that there was no more time to be perfect and his other dreams really focused on this manufacturing part. and i think that's probably what some people wouldn't realize is

even they didn't know how much oil was under the groundout there. it surprised everybody when it came in. >> beaumont at that time was kind of rough and tumble and so he wanted something that was pristine and clean and that's actually not what he got. but that's the way it works sometimes. the gladys oil and manufacturing company was the first oil company in texas. they're still in operation today. they still have interests out in spindle top field. so they really put the engine behind trying to search for this oil. we'll just go in and take a look at a couple of things. what patilla higgins' vision was for gladys city, with the photographer, they platted out the city and there was much

given to the gladys city oil and manufacturing company. there were places for homes and schools and what he believed would be the oil fields and manufacturing areas. if you look up here at the top, you'll see this, this is a picture of gladys bingham. as a child. and then right next to it, you can see that the vision was more about manufacturing and an industrial area than it was about oil production. i will say that after the lucas gusher came in, their stock certificates and letter head changed very quickly to have the oil dericks out there in the oil field because their purpose changed very quickly when the well came in. >> why didn't this vision ever come to fruition? >> well, i think when you had so many people rushing in and, you know, everybody wanted to make their dollar on this huge event that was coming, and if you think about it, especially in this area, just a few months

prior, was the big galveston hurricane in september of 1900, a lot of people came from galveston when they heard about this because they were still trying to recover from that hurricane and so this was a chance for people to come and set up businesses and -- or work in the field and try to make some money. now it didn't -- as i have said, it didn't turn out that way, to be this perfect city. this is a drawing that represents -- from a photograph that was done and you'll see that it -- those buildings went up very quickly and looks very much like what we have here today. >> was it a safe place to be? >> gladys city, i understand was fairly safe. there were people trying to make their money, while there were honest people and there were dishonest people here, so you did have to watch out for card sharks and confidence men and things like that, that would

have tried to get money from -- you know, a lot of these men that came here probably came off of farms so they hadn't been in a city, even the size of beaumont, so they really had to be careful. that was gladys city, out on spindle top hill, where you were really in the middle of the oil field, it could probably get pretty rough. there are stories that it could get rowdy and people did lose their lives a couple of times just because -- you know, through fights and that kind of thing, so, it was more the wild section and then gladys city was kind of off the way from the city. beaumont had its own oil exchange for stock exchange for a time. this is the build that represents that stock exchange. there were over 600 oil companies that were incorporated after the big boom and when the gusher came in. and so, the trading floor, the

actual building was probably a -- much larger than this to accommodate the trading floor, this picture up here gives you some idea of what the original looked like. so they would be trading stock in the front. in the back of the building, you had a print shop, that was printing stock just as quickly as they could for all of these oil companies. and, you know, some of that stock was good and some was not good. but i was talking to a printer the other day, and, you know, that's not the printer's job to decide, so they were churning it out as quickly as they could. so while all these buildings are repli replicas, they do represent the buildings that were operating in the city at that time. this is gibson's dry goods store, this is where you would come to get clothing or your

sewing needs, that kind of thing. women still made their own clothes at the time. they would purchase their undergarments and that kind of thing, but you could get purchase -- most men at this time would come in and purchase their shirts and, you could actually by jeans, denim jeans to wear to work. and the women would have probably had a, you know, a day dress, maybe one sunday dress, and then same thing for men, they would have had their work clothes and then probably one nice, white starch shirt for church and they would have had to get their starched collars to go with that shirt. now if you had a little more money, you would have a derby hat or a top hat to wear to church or to nicer functions. i think people would be

surprised by how much some of these pieces actually cost back then. for instance, you know, on a cold day in january, you would have had to have your union suit, which is like a tighter fitting pair of what we now call long johns, but for $2 or $3, men and women could get their union suits. this is a copy of the sears & roebuck catalog from just before the boom. so this is what people would have been ordering from, either through the dry goods store, people could order just about anything from sears & roebuck. everything that i heard about patilla higgins and what motivated him was to be

somebody. i think he had a real need to find his place in history and to do big things and to do great things. and, sometimes, he made it, even later in life, he continued to wildcat for oil, going out to all over texas, to find new well sites, many of them are still producing today that he found, and spent most of his life trying to convince people in different parts of texas that, for sure there was oil. so he was on -- i would almost call it a personal crusade to be believed, to be taken seriously about his ideas and to be respected. while most of our collection fitting within the late 1900, we do dip a bit into the 1920s and

1930s with a few really special pieces. this is a 1931 model a ford that belonged to patilla higgins, he drove it for nearly 25 years after he drove his model t for over 25 years. so he drove this car all over texas as he continued to search for oil and wildcat different wells all throughout the state. i believe it's not on there anymore, but he actually had the steering wheel modified, you know, because patillo only had one arm. he actually lost an arm in a fight with a sheriff's deputy. you know, we talk about patillo being the big dreamer, but in his younger days, patillo would have been what you would like to call a rounder, he liked to carry guns and shoot guns, and one night he got into quite a scrape with a deputy sheriff,

shot and actually killed the sheriff and in the process was shot in the arm and lost his arm. he and lost his arm. he lost his arm and was acquitted of the murder. and not soon after he began to turn his life around. the story goes that one of the tent revivals was in town, and after going to the vivrevival h converted and became a sunday schoolteacher. he came back up in beaumont probably around 1951 for the 50th anniversary. and by that time i believe he was 81, in his early 80s. he was about 88, i think, when he passed away, so he got to see the full stretch of all the different thing that happened over his lifetime. the spindle top field began to

play out after about three or four years. the production began to really drop. gladys city remained out there. people began to build housing especially here in south beaumont. and by the late 1920s we had the second boom, what is called the lee boom. with new technology they came and drilled on the perimeter of the salt dome which is what spindle top the hill was at one time, and so that caused a second boom that brought new life to gladys city and to beaumont. then that kind of waned, and by the 1950s companies were mining sulfur out at the spindle top, and after that that's when it kind of dwindled away. there really was no major production out there. the booms were over. people began moving away, moving

into beaumont proper, and gladys city kind of deteriorated. by the 1960s there were some efforts to create a museum and make sure things were being preserved, and by the mid-'70s when they decided to build the replica at gladys city. >> in may of 2011, historian richard norton smith led a ten-day bus tour from asheville, north carolina, to austin, texas. the group stopped at several presidential and historic sites along the route. one of the stops was the sixth floor museum at deal y deal ya plaza, from the corner of this building, lee henry oswalt shot president kennedy in 1963. the curator talked about the museum and how the information is presented.

>> what we sent out to do was to basically tell what happened and not draw any of our own conclusions about what it means but to present what history has told us, and there have been several investigations, and various developments over the years. most people according to the public opinion surveys have never been satisfied it was lee harvey oswald, but none of these other theories have been proven, and as far as many people are concerned, they've all been dismissed. the official explanation is three shots were fired all from lee harvey oswald and all from the southeast corner sixth floor window. the rifle that oswald supposedly used was his. it was traced to him and to his post office box. he was left behind in the building on the sixth floor. the warren commission had a reconstruction done, and one of the exhibits upstairs is a scale

model of diealy plaza to help them study how the shooting happened. ultimately the fbi and the warren commission decided that the first shot came when the car came out from underneath a tree. that tree is still there. it's much taller now than it was. from that moment to when that fatal shot is fired is about six seconds. then they had the problem of, well, could that rifle be fired that fast. not easy, and, of course, the faster you try to fire a rifle, the more inaccurate you tend to be. but the later thinking is the first shot was fired before the car went under the tree which adds a total of two or three more seconds, so if you have eight or nine more seconds to fire, then you can do it. the rifle had a scope, but that doesn't mean he had to use the scope. you would normally -- and i've talked to a couple dallas police officers who fired test shots from that window in 1978, the second investigation. they told me and all the

reporters present, these are easy shots. no one would miss. it's the timing that makes it difficult, but if you have enough -- if you have seven, eight, nine seconds, you can do it if you have used that weapon before. there is no hard evidence in the medical evidence that kennedy was hit from any other direction other than behind and above. now, whether there was another shooter who didn't shoot or didn't fire a shot and missed, that's a question that some people are still not comfortable with answering because they just don't know and they're not satisfied with not knowing. let me give you an example. you know, in a criminal investigation there's always -- there are always loose ends. every investigator will tell you that. were fired within 30 seconds, one of the dallas police officers doing traffic control at the intersection

started running down the side street here and he ran back to the area that's now known as the grassy noll in the parking lot. he ran in to a man in a coat and tie. the cop had his weapon drawn. he went up to the man, and he identified himself as secret service and flashed secret service credentials. the cop let him go and proceeded to search around the parking lot and found nothing. the warren commission was told about this and they asked the secret service, well, who of your agents were located on the ground. none. those of us who study the assassination would then look to see what happened as a result of getting this information. you would think there would be some sort of investigation, well, who is this guy, why has he not come forward, how come his supervisor hasn't come forward to say it's ralph. nothing happened. there was no follow-up whatsoever, and there are -- i

don't know what the total number is, but there are enough of those questions that make a lot of people scratch their heads, what's really going on here. is there more to it. of course, was that just some guy who for some reason did not or could not come forward at the time? we don't know. most people are just not satisfied with the kennedy assassination and how it ended. leaving some questions up in the air and no motive for lee harvey oswald, no known motive. so prograerhaps that's one of t reasons or two of the reasons that people come here. we have had members of the kennedy family here. we don't identify them by name, but the kennedy family is quite happy with what we do and how we go about it. >> for motion information about the sixth floor museum, visit

their website at jfk.org and learn more about tours with historian and author with richard norton smith, go to presidentsandpatriots.com. you are watching "american history tv," all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. this past monday the national archives announced the release of an audio recording of radio traffic on air force one made soon after president kennedy was assassinated. the recording made as the airplane traveled from dallas to washington includes conversations among pilots, aides, lyndon johnson and others and includes over 30 minutes of audio not previously part of the public record. here's an exert. >> in a c-140. the last three numbers are 497. >> 497. >> he's inbound.

his code name is grandson and i want to talk to him. >> we'll see what we can do. we're real busy with air force one right now. >> okay. you don't have the capability to work more than one, huh? >> we're running air force run on two different frequencies, we're giving them two different patches at one time, that's all we can do. >> i see. >> what are your drop, sir? are you dropping to washington switch? >> yes, drop 303. but if you can't work him now, it's too late. it will be too late. >> that was just a portion of a recording released by the national archives this week. donated to the archives by the rapp collection. the audiotape belonged to a senior military aide of presid