clashes took place in the senate chamber between members who supported those who opposed the policies of the president. and would soon come together in a political alliance known as the whig party. the events that unfolded between 1933 and 1937 reflected and sharpened the disagreements. they tried to censure president jackson and did and then it was expunged. that's not a very friendly thing for senator clay to do. >> he hated jackson. and jackson -- it had to do with the withdrawing money, funds, government funds, from the bank, the quasi-public bank of the united states. it was one of those defining issues between the whig -- the democrats and it helped make the whig party. the whig party really grew out of this particular issue, and so clay seized on the issue. he had a majority of votes in the senate, and so they condemn the behavior of the president.

there was no constitutional requirement or even permission to censure a president, but they did it anyway. and then in 1837, in january of 1837, when the democrats got a slight majority, tom has hart benton of missouri made it his life's work to get that censure, the word, you know -- it's not a word we use very often, expunged. they literally had the secretary of the senate come in and draw a nice straight black box over the original resolution as it appeared in the senate journal. and crossed a line through it, expunged by the order of the senate this january, whatever day, in 1837. then the democrats went off and had a huge party. i mean, this went to the fiber of who they were as a party. they were so excited, so happy, we -- and it was coming up on the last day of andrew jackson's term as president. so, this is a huge deal. >> did you ever make any senator mad over the last 34 years?

>> once. >> can you tell us that story? >> no, i can't. actually, yeah, probably just once. >> can you give us a hint? >> it was a misunderstanding. and it -- but it's not what we're there to do. we're there to help. we're there, you know, to make information available, to draw people in, and it was just a, you know, a miscommunication. >> but has there ever been a case for you where a senator said i want to go out and make this statement and make this case, and you say, well, senator, you can't? >> that's not -- this doesn't come as part of our daily activity basically. they -- when it comes to the institutional history of the senate, there's speech writers, there's staff, the senators themselves, both ask us for help. and then they don't come back to us and say you're full of hot air, why did you say this? they take us as experts on our subject. but we don't go in and volunteer

or look over their shoulder when we're not asked to do that. >> the first day you took the job, how many people worked in the office? >> two. we had authorization for four. a photo historian, a former republican photographer for the senate, everybody loved. he went in, he used his camera to make friends all over the senate. and he was offered the job of senate photo historian, and -- but then those -- yours truly, i hired a secretary. i hired a research assistant. and then another eight months passed before i hired don richie and he's been my partner in historical mischief for the last third of a century. >> and now he's got your job. >> he's got my job. and i'm so glad about that. >> so, how many are in the office today? >> nine. >> that's everybody. >> that's have been. >> i mentioned photographs, and i asked you to bring a bunch with you. and i'll hold them up and ask you to tell us what they are

because they all have a little story behind them. here's one of the bunch. >> i love that picture. imagine walking down the corridor of the russell building and opening the door and peeking in for a meeting and having that scene confront you? that was the senate spouses club in 1959. this photo was given to me by senator williams proksmeyer's wife. and there they are all, the spouses club began during world war i. they were a red cross chapter. they rolled bandages for the wounded troops, so they continued on into the 1970s, early 1980s. but imagine a meeting of the senate spouses club today. first of all, it wouldn't be all women. >> isn't that senator nixon's wife? >> vice president nixon's wife pat is in the upper -- midleft-hand corner, right. >> you wouldn't see this today. >> you wouldn't see this today, no, you sure wouldn't. >> i'll just keep holding them up and you can comment. who's this? >> this is a big day in the

history of the senate chamber. this is winston churchill on december 26, 1941, addressing a joint session of congress just weeks after pearl harbor. they were -- it was because it was over the holiday, they were concerned that if they held it where they usually do in the house chamber, it would look half empty, so they did it in the smaller senate chamber and the place was packed. >> there are three people here, only one of them i recognize, in the middle. alvin barclay. >> alvin barclay who was majority leader of the senate. it was taken in the early 1940s, i think it was taken by a press photographer, and pictures are banned in the house chamber, and pictures hike that are the reason why it is. alvin barclay and the man in front of him, democrat of tennessee, and behind him is j. hamilton lewis, the whip of the senate, from illinois, but barclay had been instrumental in

having kenneth mckeller brought from his hotel apartment in the mayflower up to establish a quorum to cut off a filibuster. and mckeller realized, didn't know, that's why he was being brought up and he was very angry at alvin barclay and this is in november of 1942. and as a result, he made it clear to anybody that listened, including president roosevelt, that alvin barclay's desire to be on the supreme court died that day. he would -- he would filibuster that nomination and so it never went forward. so, there's smoldering tension between those two gentleman who are sitting there so calmly on the senate floor. >> what's that? >> this is a photograph taken in 1963 in the senate chamber at the behest of the u.s. capitol historical society taken by "national geographic" photographers. it's the first official -- well, it really isn't. there was an official photo taken in 1939, but this is the first in a series of official

photos of the senate in session. the thing that strikes me about that picture is all of the senators have their backs to the camera. and in subsequent versions of that photo, you can be sure that all the senators are looking precisely at the camera in a much more media-savvy age. >> the next photograph is outside in front of the senate chamber. >> that was on the hottest day of june of 1988 during the 100th congress, and its 85 senators including senator majority leader robert byrd, and that is reminiscent of an earlier photo that was made in 1874 in the same location of all of the senators out celebrating abraham lincoln's birthday, his anniversary, in 1874. >> is that the photo i have right here? >> yes, it is, right. and senator byrd being the great student of senate history saw that picture, and he said, we've got to re-create that. we've got to get it for the

bicentennial of congress, for the 100th congress, we got to get all the senators out there on the capitol steps to do what they did in 1874. >> have you ever just looked at just the change in the dress? >> yes. we have photos of every -- almost every person that's ever served in the senate, all 1911 people since 1789 and just to look at those photos tells you a lot about the dress styles. >> is that available on the website? >> yes, it is. >> and what's this? >> this is senator harry truman standing at his desk in the russell senate office building. and years after he left -- or soon -- even when he was still president of the united states, he said, the happiest years of my life were when i was a united states senator. and there he is, sort of at, you know, the peak of his days in the senate. >> the next series of photos, i actually, it seems like i've seen a lot of it, and they were taken by a "new york times" photographer george thames.

tell us about these. >> there's a series of seven of them, and that is senate majority leader lyndon johnson, trying to convince foreign relations committee chairman theodore frances green of rhode island, in an indirect way, that it was time for him to give up the chairmanship of the foreign relations committee, and lbj engineered a move to get him off of the committee, but then when green kind of resisted a little bit, lbj came back and said, oh, it's such a shame, you know, they're so ungrateful for all of your kind services and, you know, your effective work, you know, and so that for a temporary -- for a time derailed the effort to get him off the committee. green, said you're right, i have been very effective, i think i'll come back on the committee. finally they got him off. >> this photo? >> 1953, the setting is georgetown park, a baseball field in georgetown, the umpire

is -- and these were all freshman senators, that's mike mansfield of montana, the catcher is john f. kennedy of massachusetts and the batter is henry johnson of washington. it's a posed photograph. henry jackson's son told me fairly recently that they had to wait for john f. kennedy to pull up, he was late for the picture, jumped out of his convertible and assumed the position and off he went. >> this photo shows a senator over here in this corner. >> yeah. >> who is that? >> that's milton young of north dakota. milton young was facing a tough re-election battle. he was a student of karate. and somebody in his staff said, why don't you get a photo of your karate class and the fact that you can chop up a block of wood in half with your fist, with the side of your hand, as a campaign picture, to show that how vigorous and up to the job you are. and so they did. and for whatever reason, he won the race. >> how many photos do you have

in your collection in the senate? >> about 40,000. >> how do you get them? >> we inherited a lot from our first photo historian, arthur scott, who was the republican photographer. and then our current photo historian, heather moore, spends a good deal of time taking pictures of the senate committees in session. we were able to take advantage of the old harris and ewing photo morgue when they went out of business. we purchased a lot of their photos. >> what is this? >> that's a good examples. that's 1959, the most prominent figure is senator dirksen, it is the unveiling of the portrait of the five outstanding senators. in the background you see senator john f. kennedy chair of the committee, vice president richard nixon. it's quite a picture. >> it brings up the subject of

the collections of senate materials that, like, in illinois, you have the dirksen senator, and you have the richard russell senator at the university of georgia and you have the hubert humphrey school of public affairs at the university of minnesota. how many are there? >> margaret chase smith library in maine. >> have you been to these places? >> yeah. one of the things that i'm happiest about in recent years is the establishment of something called the association of centers for the study of congress, and to answer your specific question there are about 40 of those centers. basically surround the papers of a significant senator. people can go there and do research. but these centers need to talk to one another because they all have common problems. and so now they are working together. >> okay. i can hear somebody saying who pays for that, and i know the money comes out over here, and why is this necessary? >> no, no, in that case, that's entirely private. >> some of these centers have federal money that have either been given to them to start them

or some aspect of it. >> it's hard to generalize about that, some comes from leftover campaign cash when a senator retires. some of it is state money, some of the asset universities agree to take on these papers and it's not only papers now it's electronic records, enormous cost for preserving and updating those records. >> i read somewhere where you were talking about senator ted stevens who was convicted and the charms were dropped after he was convicted. >> right. >> of some misdoings over here in the senate with -- it's a long story. we've covered it here. anyway, 40 years in senate, what happened to all his papers? >> up to the university of alaska at fairbanks. >> how does that work? >> they put them in a truck or in his case multiple trucks and move them on out there. >> but what role did you play in all that? >> not a major role at any one time. senate archivist karen paul

advises every senators' staff and is a great missionary, because some senators don't give us any thoughts until they retire, which is not a good idea. from the very first day a senator's a member, we begin the campaign to get them to think about preserving these papers. and it's not so much just a matter of vanity and ego, it's a matter of a senate office is the eye of the needle through which the concerns of that particular state flow, and sometimes it's the only place that you're going to find out the issues important to alaskans or missourians during a period of time. >> from what you know, which of the senators' historical materials have been put to the most use? >> well, certainly the papers of lyndon johnson, his senate years at the lbj library. the papers of john stennis, at mississippi state university. margaret chase smith up in

maine. howard baker, bob dole have recently opened centers in their states and are gradually opening up their papers. >> if some young person came to you right now and said, okay, 34 years you were the senate historian, i want that job. what would you recommend? >> it depends on how young the person was, but i'd say -- i would ask them if they enjoy reading biographies. >> let's say they're into history. they're in college. they really, really want this. it's not just a pipe dream. specifically tell them what they should do. >> read, read, read, write, write, write. we want people who have good communication skills both with the written word and also be able to stand up and speak to an audience fairly easily. we like people who have an interest in civics and government. a person -- i remember as a teenager going to the meetings

of the board of aldermen of my town of melrose, massachusetts, and being fascinated by what was going on, the political alliances. and that's at the most elementary level. and, you know, take it on up to the senate. >> so, was it a good job? >> it's a terrific job. it was the best possible job. and i really have mixed feelings about leaving it for sure. >> why are you leaving? >> well, the numbers add up. i've been on capitol hill for 41 years. i'm going to be 70 years old in a couple of months. and i want to be able to take more control of my own time, time for some writing, structure my life a little bit differently. >> you have been writing i know because we talked about it before the history of the rules -- >> yeah. >> -- in the senate. >> right. >> when did you start that? >> about 15 years ago. >> but what are you doing? who's going to read it? >> probably three people. you know, it's one of those i hope when this book is finished that it will go on the shelf of

sort of -- the small shelf of fundamental works about operation of the united states senate. it is -- by focusing on the rules and the fights -- i mean, the rules are how -- are essential to the operation of the senate. and it's possible to coax out all the blood and the thunder and the hurt feelings behind the changes in senate rules right from the very first time that thomas jefferson when he drafted the rules of the continental congress in 1776 which were then plagiarized in effect by the rules makers of the first senate in 1789 and have been evolving and tinkered with ever since that time. these rules exist for a purpose. and they, you know, for instance, talking about you only address the presiding officer. why is that? because if a senator looks at another senator in a heated moment and begins to use, you know, the word "you" and start pointing at that senator, the

game is over. so, it's one way of lowering the level of the heat of the debate to speak through the presiding officer. they put that there because this was a chronic problem. >> when was your favorite time? >> in this job? >> uh-huh. >> i like the -- two times, really, the bicentennial era of the late 1980s, of the congress, of the constitution, and also the work involving the capitol visitors center. something we'd be lobbying for for a very long time. and others as well. and we didn't sell the case for sure, but we were happy to help interpret it once it became a reality. >> you know, we have tried on many occasions to show the public the capitol visitors center and we tried even in this interview to set it up that you and i could stand there. >> right. >> and we were basically turned down by the speaker of the house. do you have any idea why they don't want cameras in there? >> no. >> if you're a tourist, you can

go in with a camera and show anything you want. >> it's a bit ironic, because the visitors center is all about openness and security. but i like to focus on the openness side of the occasion -- of the equation. to help people get a much better understanding of what goes on here on capitol hill. as opposed to just standing in long lines and not really having much of a clue of what was happening. >> what's your sense of it? i mean, you've seen this up close for 34 years. why would people say, and we wanted to do it before the tourists got there or after the tourists left. why would they make some decision like this? we find this all the time. this is not the first time this is happening. what's at work here? >> i'm the wrong guy to ask. i'm with you on this. i think the only possible concern would be if you open it up for one media outlet, you have to open it up for all media organizations which in itself is okay, except it's a lot of work and a lot of people and a lot of

time and a lot of credentialing, but i don't know. that's not my turf and i'm not really the best person to speak on that. >> i would keep asking you that question because i suspect we're not going to get any more. i'm not sure there is an answer because we've faced it so many times. >> it may be time. time will eat away at it a little bit. >> probably not after i brought it up here, though. a story that -- you and i have talked about this before, but when i read your historical minute on it, it gave me a lot more information and i want to go through it a little bit more than i normally do, and i still can't believe it happened, and that's the caning of senator charles sumner. i learned in reading this, this time, that the senate wasn't in session. i always thought the senate was in session at that time. but we just never talked about it. but go back to what that was all about and how much of that has happened in history? >> this took place on -- in may of 1856, may 22nd.

and it was all about the question of slavery being allowed in the territories that were going to become states. specifically with regard to kansas. and charles sumner had three days earlier stood up in that senate chamber and made a very long speech, and he was a 6'4", big bear-like man, and in his speech as the fashion of the day he began to make personal references to some of his colleagues including steven douglas of illinois who was part of this change. and he said he was a -- a squat animal, i won't go further on that one. but he referred to a senator from south carolina andrew butler and he said he has a mistress, i'm here to inform everyone he has a mistress and she's beautiful in his eyes, but she's ugly in the eyes of the rest of the world. she is the harlot of slavery. well, it was a kinsman of

senator butler, senator brooks, a house member from south carolina, who decided if he thought sumner was a gentleman, he would have challenged him to a duel even under the standards of that day, but instead he treated him like a dog. he wanted to cane him. he took a light cane. waited for him outside the capitol, and he went in -- finally as a house member he was able to go into the senate chamber and he sat in the back row until the senate adjourned at a quarter to 1:00 in the afternoon, he got out of his chair and walked down aisle and up to the republican side where sumner was sitting in the back row and if you were writing a novel or a movie set, you couldn't have done it with greater sense of irony. what was sumner doing? he was writing his frank postal frank on an envelope that contained a printed copy of the speech "the crime against kansas" speech he'd given three days early. and preston brooks raised this gold-handled cane, said originally he was just going to

chastise sumner a little bit, but he brought it down on his head and he continued to do that for about a minute. and senators in the chambers either were shocked as to what was going on there or thought, you know, sumner's getting what he deserves here. well, finally, the two men were pulled apart. sumner bled all over the senate carpet. they thought he would die for sure. he was carried out of the chamber. preston brooks resigned from the house because the house was dominated by the north and they would have thrown him out anyway and he resigned and went back to his district in south carolina, was quickly re-elected, came back as sort of a conquering hero. this was the death knell of the union in a way. four years before secession, but it said here in this grand senate chamber reasonable men can't sit and listen to one another and change or modify their opinion what they are resorting to now in may of 1856 is clubs and concealed pistols. and, you know, four years later some of those same men were

standing on opposite sides of the battlefields trying to kill each other. >> i must say, i thought the last paragraph that you wrote was interesting. surviving a house censure resolution, brooks resigned, was immediately re-elected and soon thereafter died at age 37. sumner recovered slowly and returned to the senate where he remained for another 18 years, and then as you say, the nation suffering from the breakdown of reasoned discourse that this event symbolized, tumbled onward toward the catastrophe of civil war. what's the average age now of senators compared to in history? >> right about now it's about 62.9 years which is the highest ever. the very first congress in 1789 the average age was 47. it took until the 1840s for that number to top 50. and considering that it was a young man's job, the travel alone to get over, you know, the bad roads and sleeping, five to a bed, in a boardinghouse in the

capital city, so top 50s in the mi mid-19th century. and it wasn't about 2005 that it went over 60 for the first time. >> before we run out of time, that tie i know has some relationship to history. what is it? >> well, historians love anniversaries, and this year is the 100th anniversary of the russell senate office building, and we produced a booklet and senate website features on that. and the senate gift shop in an entrepreneurial spirit produced a series of three neckties that pick up the designs that are evident in this wonderful beax arts building. >> i'm trying to find to ask you more appointed senators now than ever before in history. is that true?

>> no. >> what's the story? >> we've got four currently appointed senators. >> kay bailey hutchison who is living and mel martinez is going to leave. >> that's true. it could be up to six. 1945-1946 there were 13. >> 13? >> 13. and i think one of the answers to this is better medicine. longevity. it was -- during a two-year congress it was not unusual for as many of eight members of the senate to die just of old age. that all changed in the late 1960s with the improvements of medication. >> senator byrd, november the 19th of this year, will be the longest-serving human in history in the united states congress. how's he doing? we haven't seen much of him. saw him vote in the sotomayor vote. >> right, right. that's the last time i saw him also. i don't know. >> how important is it? you know him. how important is it making that milestone?

>> vastly important. vastly important. i would say he's going to hang in for that -- for that milestone. he's got a long list of milestones that he's succeeded over the years and that's, of course, the ultimate. >> more than anything else, what do you want to do in retirement? >> continue to write history. history related to the senate. >> will there be a commercial book other than books published by the senate that you plan to wr write? >> yes, there will be. i'd like to take a look at the relationship between the senators and the public, you know, over time, over the last 220 years. how they communicate back and forward. we read about, we see about the town hall meetings and all the current frustration over health care legislation. it raises the question how has this communication gone over the last more than two centuries. i'd like to explore that a little bit. >> dick baker, senate historian emeritus, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, brian, very much.

>> for a dvd copy of this program call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about the program, visit us at q-and-a.org. "q and a" programs are also available as c-span podcasts. an air of mystery has surrounded this bronze likeness of alexander hamilton since the day it was unveiled in 1923. in his definitive book on the outdoor sculpture of washington, d.c., in dedicating the

ten-foot-tall figure, the great visitors to the treasury department building, president warren harding made reference to an anonymous donor. might have possibly been the gift of andrew mellon who admirers of the '20s like to describe as the greatest secretary of the treasury since hamilton himself. sculptured by frazier, he wears a slightly quizzical look on his handsome face. perhaps he is straining to recognize his surroundings. after all it was his famous deal with congressional supporters of thomas jefferson that led to federal assumption of state debt, for an entirely new city to be built on the banks of the potomac. the pedestal on which he stands makes no reference to hamilton's real estate transactions. it pays tribute instead to his financial genius. he smote the rock of the