dislocations of what he calls the innovation society. >> if he had done that, we'd be talking about his speech on race and not the speech about the american is my suspicion. >> there is -- i like the speech and i think the origins of it are great, but there's a sense that the white house just sort of found this new nationalism address, look, they're talking about fairness and i believe in i. if you read his book, "audacity of hope", there's hardly any mention of teddy roosevelt. i hope they study some of the roosevelt legacy more, but some of his inspirations were more in the fdr/martin luther king mode when you think about his own background. this is from his own book. there's no -- there hasn't been a history of president obama embracing teddy roosevelt in in i way. i guess the question will be, you know, is this a sustained effort to really sort of

transform politics the way that roosevelt and the progressive party were trying to do it, or it's a good campaign message that will probably work in tough economic times. i think that's -- i'm not trying to be cynical because i agree with the content of the speech, but i think that -- when i mention that people discount presidential rhetoric these days there's not a sustained dialogue about the origins of the progressive era. >> i agree. but it could have been a little bit of both. as we know, the speech was in production for some time. perhaps peaking when the occupy movement, before it started to -- >> wall street, not washington. >> but they kept to it. you know, like doris kearns good win has been pushing them to take up the t.r. model and those kind of things. >> oh, god. >> i think the more interesting question is whether not he started to look at t.r. in particular, but does this movementack to this argument, is this consistent with argument per se which is as he chooses to

go to the progressive speaker here as to other options he had, i think it would have been more unifying. but he chose to do this. presidential speeches aren't chosen for no good reason. these are serious questions and i don't think he was merely passing through the precincts of kansas looking for a place to give his speech. so there's -- there's some unseriousness to it, which we pointed to. but i think it suggests that this is very much in line with his own thinking. >> well, it will be interesting -- >> there's more to call out. consistent with his earlier comments going back before he was president, before he comes in. talking about the, you know, the transformation of american politics and, you know, and his references to the declaration, about the changes in how they weren't radical enough in many

ways. i would argue this speech is consistent with obama rhetorically previous to this. >> i want to give a footnote to john, i don't want to discount your cynicism, but the one time that president obama did invoke roosevelt is when he was fight for the national healthcare, pointing out it began during the progressive party campaign. this speech, it was a great opportunity to take what was -- is the single achievement. if we weren't on c-span i would invoke joe biden here, this is a big deal and i think it needs to be defended in prbroader terms. is this a reasonable compromise of the right of property for essential human values that all americans believe in? this was a great opportunity to explain, to defend the most important program that has been enacted. so john brown thing i'm curious

about, but i'm astonished that he didn't mention healthcare reform. >> a couple -- >> a footnote. >> just a footnote. i happen to love doris kearns-goodwin and not just because she was a red sox fan. she had talked about t.r. but claim it came before that. it seems to me that if you are -- i do not know what i'm about to say, from sort of inside knowledge, but it is my assumption that if you want to make the next campaign a big argument about the role of government and the progressive position, you are wiser to go back to the progressive era when this all started. >> right. >> than to stop -- >> that was my point. >> and roosevelt and the new deal. i think it's logical that he did this. >> i completely agree. i think that's consistent with where he's coming from. i think that's his thinking is naturally to go back to the progressive thinking.

i think this establishes that. >> mr. cohen? >> david cohen. picking up on javitz and ancestors, even if theodore roosevelt is a distant ancestor to president obama, there's an effort at making him an ancestor. and so i wonder if you could all comment on another missed opportunity which is theodore roosevelt laid the basis for dealing with the abuses of money and politics and apart from rhetorical flourishes all of which i share about citizens united, where is the emphasis on finding ways of changing the system so the missed opportunity is in dealing with some of the political democracy deficits that we have from money and

politics? >> just very briefly, everybody is talking about what wasn't in the speech and the omissions they cared about. that was the omission that really struck me. is because t.r. had such strong language about this in the original speech. in citizens united in some ways is a repudiation of a system that started when t.r. was president back in the -- when we passed tillman act. i think in 1907. so that there was i thought an opportunity for him to address this concern, which also by the way is a concern of occupy wall street. and so i wish he had done just what you said he should have done. >> he lacks credibility on this because he's the person who killed public financing. >> yeah. >> but he sort of abandoned public financing. >> yeah. well, as a distinction almost without a difference, but i

accept your point. >> there is -- and this goes to the distinction that john was making earlier about the different strands of progressism. maybe it isn't an accident, right, that he's staying away from the kind of democratic or populist element of progressism as embodied in notions like the initiatives of referendum and the primaries and new campaign finance reform. he is instead emphasizing the kind of administrative state piece. >> it tells you a lot about where progressism has gone over the course of the 20th century. i agree e.j.'s point, which is that the early progressives had a much richer tradition. is this a democratic argument? the speech was focused on much more of the programmatic administrative aspects, but

that's what progressivism has become and that's decline -- really lost its mojo in a way. this is what's left. i think it creates the great opening for a reform conservatism to step in and not only take the high ground of opportunity and arguing for these things. but also, you know, really challenging them in a day when they're really focused on maintaining the status quo which is increasingly much less efficient. >> i just wanted to say quickly because e.j. came back about the public option thing. i honor the term public. i teach at a public university. but the up -- but the term i didn't like is option. that's sort of an academic term that embodies for me how progressivism and its rearguard status has got disconnected from the rank and file americans.

who out there understands what public option is? that's what i meant. >> just -- just on obama, he is a critic of citizens united. he has at various points called for reform of this system. one of the reasons people are getting out of the system it's structured in a way that doesn't match the political system as is. there are other ways you can reform the system. i still think quite consistent with everything he said he could have done what david wanted him to do and should have. >> [ inaudible ]. >> in fact, a lot of groups on the left have benefited immensely, particularly environmental groups. >> not as much on rights. that's for another day. >> for another day. >> next to mr. cohen? >> [ inaudible ]. >> who has written more powerful stuff on the whole -- >> that's who obama should listen to.

>> having hung around john mccain when he was t.r. -- [ laughter ] -- i'm beginning to think if the politicians pick t.r. and pick and choose of what they want. -- but he picked the campaign finance part of it. e.j. in particular, because you know obama so much better than the rest of us, was this a speech or is this really going to be what he is going to -- what he is going to be for a long time now because we know consistency is not his greatest virtue. >> first of all, i salute the point about there being many t.r.'s. david brooks and i like t.r. he likes the authentically conservative and patriotic t.r. and they're all there.

>> or a fight to struggle for the soul of t.r. >> right. so i think that was a very important point. the answer is i don't know. i think you're question has an assumption that's correct which is he has not been consistent in the court se of this year. i think it's a course correction on his part. i think it's a right one to go in. it is consistent with who he has been as a person and politically over time. if you go back to both the '08 campaign and what he was before the '08 campaign, so i have a sense that this speech is part of a template he's going to stick with. that he believes and i think he's probably right about this and i think some of his opponents think he's right about this, that the bigger you make the election the more it is about a very large choice. the easier it is for him to argue that, yes, there are still

problems with the economy that i haven't solved, that we are still trying to solve. but you can't just make this a referendum on what you think about the economy because bigger things are at stake. so i think the strategy that's implicit in this speech is likely to be something like the strategy he pursues in the campaign. and, you know, it goes to matt's point about the center. i think the center, there's a whole lot of i think misunderstanding of what the center is. first of all, there's a lot of different people in the political center who disagree with each other. second, that the people in the political center like strong leadership and like people who seem to have conviction. i think one of his problems in the summertime is he thought he could win the center by being the guy who's conciliatory. but in the process i think he undercut his image of strength. i think this is an effort to get that back. >> i just would add, i think it points to the fact this is for numerous reasons a turning point election.

that will to some extent be a watershed in terms of where liberalism goes and as a result, you are seeing in this case president obama trying to find his place where he puts himself in that position. i do take it very seriously. whether he sticks with it or not. the other thing i would add to the minutia of signal, this year's white house christmas tree ornament is teddy roosevelt. >> well, i think the question of will he be consistent i'll get to in a moment. roosevelt left the progressive party and his waning years were pretty bad. i bring this up because -- >> she left the party too. >> the social reformers had a consistent long term agenda to try and create social democracy.

i don't think obama is as opportunistic as t.r. he may be inconsistent. they have to continue on the -- of defending the old nationalism. so i think it's going to transcend obama in many ways. i think that's the most important lesson you get out of reading sid's book, t.r., he took over that in many ways. i think that was very consistent, and thoughtful work. it's the job to do the same thing, knowing that obama will not be around and he's not been the embodiment of progressivism as good as he has been in a constained environment. this conversation about the proper division between government and markets is a great abstract discussion. but what we have is an economic crisis that was predicated on failures in both parts and the americans are saying i don't believe the government can take care of this.

both sides have to figure out within a two party structure outside of it how they'll be able to address declining median wages which have gone down. the loss of savings, loss of job security. these are real issues and the american people are not getting the answers they want from the main -- the two main political parties now. there's movement, whether it's a tea party one or an occupy wall street or amalgam of things to answer the questions that i think you raised quite eloque eloquently up part. how do we keep the good incentives but have the economic opportunity that the teddy roosevelt state has been able to, you know, at least endure and provide a platform for over time. >> we have time for one more question. please, right there. again, need name and affiliation. >> john holiday, independent economist.

it seems that there's -- president obama's speech may have sort of leading us to chase a red herring with crony capitalism. and the same thing on the side of the conservatives of attacking crony unionism. the estion -- i think this was professor cesar's, aren't we missing the issue, or is this a fair place? t.r. had his square deal. obama his fair deal. and what kind of place do we live in? is it north korea, cuba? what is it? some sweat factories in industrial revolution europe? so that the question comes back to this thing, what size of government? and isn't government -- all these crime scenes with crony capitali capitalism, government is in every one of the scenes. i'm wondering if some of this isn't getting us off on the

wrong track and indeed professor cesar didn't hit this right on the head that there's a politics of evasion. any comments? >> well, there is this -- the core you could say of obama's speech which we didn't pay that much attention to is that the distribution of income has been changing over the last say 30 or 40 years. very much. the rich are getting richer. there's more difficulty getting into the middle class and less social mobility. these are facts. i don't know that anyone after stating the facts knows exactly why it's happened. you could say the exception was from the '50s and abo'60s where didn't occur. what is the solution to this issue? is there a solution at all? if the solution means taking from the rich and giving to the poor, i don't think that's where

the american people want to go. we know we can solve income equality tomorrow. just take from the rich and give to the poor. that's not where americans want to go. personally, if you ask would i like to see the income belt flatten out a little bit? yeah, but i can't wish it so and others can't make it so. when it comes to the question of what's going to happen, i'd much rather put up with a money going to private hands than have the government take it as its primary obligation to begin redirecting wealth in the country. i don't think that's where i want to go. i lived -- i live in the period when there was good distribution of income according to the current statistic, the '60s. i was no more happy personally, less happy than i am now. >> that's huge. >> yeah. the rich don't oppress me.

the rich don't oppress he today. i don't mind if the rich are not -- they don't oppress me one bit. i don't have envy towards them. i like their nice houses and i like what they do in philanthropy. but it hasn't changed my life. and the idea would be you can only begin to make this case against the wealthy in a legitimate way, if you can show what the wealthy is doing is harming the country. they're not harming the country. what's happening in the distribution of income may be unfortunate but the rich are not harming this country. >> i just like to offer up with last comment which is the choice here is not between north korea and ayn rand's paradise and no one on the progressive side has talked about sort of confiscating the wealth of the rich. what the argument -- >> in the tax rates. >> i'm sorry? >> clinton era tax rates. that's what obama proposed.

>> 15 and 25% capital gains, 35 or -- 35 or, you know, 41% top rate on the income tax. so, you know, this is about -- and if you look at our own history, we have succeeded in using government to do some -- a whole lot of things that we were happy government did. who it was and some -- and whether it was building the roads and the canals that when ray clay wanted to build that did help to create wealth in america. all the way down to the g.i. bill or social security. and so the question is not an absolutely equal distribution of income or wildly unequal distribution of income like we have now, but something more moderate if i may use the word moderate. it seems to me that people who are progressive are fundamentally in favor of

moderation which is they do not like the extremes of inequality that we have today. that's where the argument is. so i don't think the argument is fundamentally and this is just a political disagreement with the gentleman who asked the question. i don't think it's about the size of government. i don't long for a government of a particular size. i don't think most progressives do. they want government to do certain things with i leads to a government of a certain size. and it's more tested by what do you want government to accomplish than by some abstract sense of, gee, i think government should take 3.6% of the gdp. >> isn't there something in t.r.'s -- isn't there something radical about the notion that people should have the right to earn what they can so long as it is of benefit to the community? >> for the community. >> which is fairly --

>> john raouls. >> yeah, it leads to a general increase in wealth so nobody -- lots of people are getting rich as long as this increases the wealth of everyone else. when it stops increasing the wealth of society as a whole you have to ask questions about the nature of the system. >> but that's different from -- >> but he just need wealth. he said the public welfare and that meant that this pursuit of material wealth had to take a back seat in certain respects in a great -- if america is going to become a great country. that's why he defended conservation. weird imperialism is a little pejorative. america has an important place to play in the world and conservatives have embraced that part of t.r. and that original part of progressivism. i want to add yquickly, there's

plenty of room for invasiveness on both sides. for first time in our history, there was no attention to the revenue that was required to fight the two wars of bush. t.r. stood for responsible governance. but you had to pay for -- you had to pay for the weird imperialism. >> last comment. >> i'm still struck by e.j.'s claim of moderation. we'll fight over who's the most moderate here. who is doing the good for the whole is to be made by government. the state. i -- >> no it's democratically decided. >> and i think the modern progressive has kind of abandoned that and they have clung themselves too much i think to this administrative model. and if they don't reinvent themselves i think they're going to be on the decline. and if they continue going in the path they're going in, i

think that we'll be sweden or greece or the problems that -- >> two very different places. >> sweden is doing quite well. >> i'll take sweden, not greece. >> we're out of time. let's thank the panel for a terrific conversation. all weekend long, american history is in shreveport, louisiana. you're watching american history

tv. 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. >> in 1911, booker t. washington came to shreveport and gave almost an impromptu speech on a temporary grandstand right to my right where the annex of the courthouse is today. no one was really told because the white establishment was really not interested. however, within an hour's notice, 2,000 to 3,000 people came right here. clogged up texas streets and clogged up marshall and wanted to hear it. photographer from the local newspaper, the times, took his picture. the photographs taken that day are typical booker t. washington. he's animated. he's preaching. he's giving a very, very well

received speech. and people loved it. he was -- he was a star. there was no doubt about it. four years later, shortly before his death, he comes back and he could not be here because there were too many people that wanted to see him. so the venue was moved out to the fair grounds which is where they are today. about four miles west of here. when shreveport had 20,000 people, 10,000 people came out to listen to him. i think the first time the draw was curiosity. this was a very, very vibrant downtown, a lot of people worked here. when they heard about it, people left their businesses and came. if you look at the crowd there's a lot of black faces of course but there's also a lot of white faces. people wanted to hear what this

man who is very famous had to say. when he comes back, both times he's on a tour. when he comes back people remembered the first time. there was advanced notice. and he really spoke to i think the needs of what people wanted to hear. birth of a nation. it had just come out as a movie. and times were tough for blacks. of course, in the south. but in georgia and alabama, it was a hard, hard time. and so he was on a tour to the western part of the south. and he came here and he was really well received. booker t. washington for his time was one of the two great african-american voices.

and they did not get along, they didn't see things the same way. they were opposed. and washington i think for southerners struck a chord because they understood what he was saying. and he still is an important voice today. often marginalized by more heated rhetoric. he is a voice of sanity. he in many ways is an earlier version of dr. martin luther king, jr. he preached hard work. he preached unity. he preached the fact that we are of one people. we may be different colors. we may be different religions. we may be different back growns,

but we are still americans and we are still southerners. if you look at any picture of him on the stage, he's moving, he's gesturing. he is animated. he's always pumping his fist. he's always pointing. he's moving and he's not looking up or around. he's looking right at people. and everybody there who was within earshot i'm sure thought for at least a while that he was speaking directly to them. he was looking directly at them. and as he looked at them he spoke. he touched a chord. >> all weekend long american history tv is featuring shreveport, louisiana. learn more about shreveport and find out where c-span's local content vehicles are going next online at