time, and in 1921 i believe, and he wanted to meet debs. >> he ran in 1900, 1904, 1911 and ran from prison in 1920. >> he got almost a million votes. >> i think of debs as separating american socialism. we forget now when we throw this socialism out to democrats that socialism at the turn of the century was a very viable philosop philosophy. and there were socialists who were elected as a few in congress, a couple mayors, and eugene debs is the one who separates from the european variety, but he's unable ever to make the case to workers that

there can be socialism. and yet i think, again, he's a very principled, important contender. >> september the 23rd. we're back to your favorite, as you started off this program, william jennings bryan. ran in 1896 against mckin lee. 1904 against taft. lost all of those. what else can you remember? you mentioned -- why was that such a big deal? >> here's what intrigued me about william jennings bryan. he's so misunderstood. he's heard of him as matthew harrison brady. and this great play that was brought back after 9/11 and it's originally written during the mccarthy period. it's supposed to be a morality tale against the red scare. it's brought back to be a morality tale not to prosecute muslims. and williams jennings bryan

based it was on the monkey trial. and he's in the play and in the book and on television and all the movies. he's the baa foonish figure. but williams jennings bryan wasn't against darwin itch because he was a flat earther or an uncaring big got. he was against it because it was conflated with social darwinism. and he was very much worried that darwinism would be used in excuse to not help the poor and not help children and not help people with disabilities. and would be used in a way that would just have this determinism. that's what he was really arguing against. and he's -- i picked him out because he's the singularly misunderstood guy whose today's liberalize shouldn't criticize.

>> who would you compare him to today? his politics? >> let me tell you what i think about him, and maybe that will help generate a modern political figu figure. i think of him, and this is why it's so ironic that he loses, he's really good campaigner. those speeches there's several of them, that are quite memorable. he also is committed to really campaigning. he's one of the first modern prezes who g prez presidents who gets off of his porch and travels around. i think he even campaigns in an automobile, is he not the first? it's an amazing statistic to

show you how much bryan transformed the campaigners. in 1896 more more thamericans t out to see bryan and mckinley in person. more people turned out to see them in person than 10 years later turned out to see clinton/dole/and perot in person. it was an extra oordinary time where people defined themselves. it was as polarized as anything today. one other quick thing about bryan. the speech so galvanized that convention. without that speech, he would not have been nominated. jump forward, stevenson, who does not want to run, delivers a

welcoming address to the democrats. jump forward 50 years, barack obama, in effect, delivers a keynote. so you can still -- the the connection between bryan and obama is one speech can make a career. >> did he have any other government jobs? >> he was a congressman from nebraska. and he was a lousy secretary of state. >> for whom? >> for woodrow wilson. >> i wouldn't say he was lousy. he retired and resigned over a principled issue. and i always wondered why people like cyrus vance, why americans don't design when there's an issue of principle? >> his commitment to principle and still think he was a failure. >> you remember what cyrus vance

resigned about? >> he did not. he opposed something and it did not. >> i thought he stepped down? >> i don't think so. we'll check. >> i thought he quit over the attempted rescue. i thought it was the rescue. >> i thought he -- >> so you think he did resign? >> i think so. >> so we're giving him a bad wrap. >> we have a big hole in this program. >> he's no williams jennings bryan. >> september 16th. it will be james g. blain, 90 minutes. my favorite story, it's not a great story though, is when lewis gatow is citying in the park and garfield president

walks across lafayette park on the way to blain's apartment supposedly and gatow is sitting there. there's nobody around james garfield. give us the james g. blain relationship with garfield. >> not good. the thing about blain, though, is he was the kind of guy that burned the bridges with lots of people. i think of blain as brilliant. >> there's another one of those. why continental? >> ran in 1884 against cleveland. ironically, it was blain who prevented grant from coming

back -- or rather 1880. it was blain who prevented grant from making a comeback and winning a third term. >> besides being secretary of state for james garfield and arthur -- >> and harrison. he was secretary of state under three presidents. >> what else did he do? >> he was in congress, he was speaker of the house, he was a very effective iron-willed speaker. >> he changed some of the rules in the house. i'm not sure which rules they are. it seems to me speakers of the house are always changing rules somewhat to their advantage, but a smart, capable guy but corrupt. >> and this was the period after the civil war when congress was much more central, much more potent than it had been. so to be speaker of the house, to be a power in congress in the 1870s, meant a lot more than

perhaps it would today. >> do you have anything to say about mr. blain? >> what do you think would have happened if he would have won? >> i think it would turn out to be -- i think he would be regarded as the best president between t.r. he was assertive because he had intellectual heft. because he had a lot. people are consumed by -- they luft after the president. it's a distorting malignancy that they suffer from. if they survive it and they win the office, i think blain is someone like clay. clay and blain have a great deal in common. they are both very charismatic, polari polarizing figures, who i think in office, would have distinguished themselves. >> i would like to throw out the

idea that sometimes we overdo the presidency and es e personally in this era. there's not much we would have changed if we shuffled these men around and put one place of the other. there are other exceptions. they are worth talking about. there is this jump from the contenders from 1884 to 1824 in henry clay. do we have a moment to stop at a critical election in 1860? and where it really did make a difference who was elected. you know, i think it's like a chess board. it's so utterly centrist that it's there over here on one issue and that's out of line. they are going to move a little

bit back into the center. >> if you look at the republican, often, dark horses who were elected, those bearded nonentities, they all swim in popular memory. thomas wolf called them the waft americans. blain stands out both in terms of personality. the fact that he was a man of congress, that he had demonstrated a capacity to control or govern in congress. all i'm saying is -- the presidency itself was a diminished institution after the civil war. i'm agreeing with you. all i'm saying is counterinterpretation that there wouldn't be this blank wall of forgettable and forgotten. >> he is memorable in congress for the blain amendment. the blain amendment that you

cannot take public moneys and use them for religious institutions. >> interesting for someone who took public moneys for everything else. >> thanks to our producer that mr. vance did resign in 1980 over the whole rescue in iran. >> can we ask mark to look up -- i'm not ready to give up yet. if there was another issue that might be resignable over. >> and stick with your larger point. except for vance, why don't more of them resign? >> let's go to september the 9th. our first program and those who have just joined us during this discussion, c-span's special, 14-week series. on scene we'll have cameras on scene in their homes and libraries and things like that around the country. the first will be henry clay.

henry clay ran three times. >> he was nominated three times. he ran five times. >> i have him running in 1824. >> 1824, 1832, 1844, but he was a candidate in '40 and '48 and probably would have run from the grave. >> it would be at his home. but has there ever been anybody that ran for as many offices, high offices like speaker of the house, he was elected speaker in his first day in congress. >> exactly. he's a man of superlatives. whatever you say about clay, he's a larger than life figure. i would argue he's the best president he has ever had. . >> not arguing that he's the best president, but i am arguing that they ran for as many

offices as anyone we have been talking about today. >> governor of minnesota and president six times. >> but he became a joke. >> was clay ever a joke? >> no. his ambition was the subject of considerable -- >> i don't know whether he was a joke, but henry clay was a nasty guy too. he used to pick on people in congress. one of the people that he picked on was buchanan. >> who you wrote a book about. >> yes. james buchanan worked hard to be what he called a working senator and congressman. he was both in the congress and senate and all these other people who were mute. he would say something in congress and henry clay would call him an antsy man and make these terrible personal comments. james buchanan was cross eyed,

so henry clay would sit in his seat and point to his eyes or go like this. and clay for all his brilliance. >> you couldn't make fun of eyes. >> except they are not our cameras and the senate wouldn't show you a cut away of the eyes. very important to note. we could go quickly through them again. and maybe talk about something personal about them. of all of them, the best speaker. is it obvious the best speaker? >> no, there's some great speakers on there. >> over time. >> but why don't we just go around. i bet we have different answers. >> hubert hooumfully. >> stevenson. >> henry clay. >> let me ask then, who would

you think would be the friendliest person of these 14? >> i'll say hubert humphrey. >> he would be right up there. wendell wilke, there's some of that with him. >> who would be the smartest of the 14? >> henry clay. you probably would say thomas bully? >> brain smart, he wasn't politically smart. >> stevenson. >> who of the 14 wasn't very smart? and i know that's somewhat -- but who? >> it depends on how you're defining smart. there are people who are very good at running in office but not running for office. there are people who -- >> which one had the image of

not being very smart? you never know in politics. >> george wallace. >> who exploited him brilliantly. the irony is he exploited him. >> he had great street smarts. >> he almost bragged about it but he had street smarts. >> george mcgovern was a history professor. >> and a world war ii hero. a hero. >> let me change my answer. mcgovern is as smart as adly, but you remember this, runs one of the dumber campaigns. so what does that tell you? >> who would have been the nastiest? >> charles evans hughes. >> who would have been personally the nastiest? >> henry clay. >> what do you think? >> if you were african-american,

you might want to say george wallace. >> that's a different kind of nasty. >> all right. >> you have all done a book. if you had to pick another one of these, say, carl, you have done about four books. >> yes, but i shared some of them. >> if you had to pick one of these 14 to write a book on and spend a couple years with. >> wow. that would be fun. let richard go first. >> the fact is, and i mean this since sincerely, jeanne has written not only the best, but in many ways, a definitive book on the stevensons. on the other hand, the chance to spend a couple years with adly. whether or not i produce the book, i think to spend -- in the intimacy an author has with a

subject, the question is who is the best company, i think stevenson. >> that's not the question. the question e is who would you write a book about. >> gene debs. it doesn't have to be the first book. it has to be my book. i think it's the best kind of history. we're still arguing about it. it's about labor. what's the role of labor? how much rights should workers have? and who should speak for them? debs and the labor movement is a great chapter. we're still arguing about it. >> george mcgovern. >> why? >> well, for one thing, he's interviewable. and i think that's a tremendous help when you're trying to penetrate a career. and i think that his -- you know, he did get to sort of be a

joke, but he's a very honorable man. i admire deeply what he was trying to do during the vietnam war. he was obsessed with it. >> if i'm writing a book, it would be charles evans hughes. the world needs -- there's only one biography. it's been 60 years since a "washington post" reporter wrote a two-volume life in time, which is good, but 60 years later, it's a bit dated. and hughes -- hughes is what we claim we want in both the presidential candidate and a president. a man of absolute integrity who would not yield to the special interests. >> let me go down the list and ask you. if ross perot had not dropped out in june of 1992, he got 19% of the vote, but that was after

he dropped out. do you think he would have done -- he was 33% ahead of the other two candidates. >> people don't remember this. it wasn't that long ago. he was leading and he was leading an incumbent president. the guy was destined to win the election. bill clinton was a distant third. and june of that year, a friend of mine who worked at the democratic national committee called me and said i've been doing some research and i'm worried clinton is going to finish so far behind these other two, we would qualify for federal matching money. that's where perot was when he dropped out. this is june of the election year. in an eight-day period, ross perot drops out of the race. bill clinton chooses al gore as his running mate. they go to the convention. they have the democratic

convention. bill clinton emerges ahead in the polls. to this day, any mock heat bill clinton has never trailed a republican again. my point is, i'm not saying he would have won, but these things are not written in stone. there's nothing inevitable about him losing. >> what do you think ross perot has never agreed to talk about the election. he ran again and got 8%. but there's not been much written about him since then. >> it's curious. let's face it. he's an unconventional politician. i'm sure he would not regard himself as a politician. it's curious because he made a significant historical contribution. he arguably changed the course of american history. and the echoes of that are with us even today. so he may be one of these people who just on principle doesn't

want to live in the past. or it may be that there are scars from that campaign. he may be bitter about the way he was treated in that campaign. who knows. >> the issue was the letters, the daughter. the daughter was getting married. there was a personal issue. >> he mumbled something about that, but there was never any satisfactory explanation to why he quit the race or got back in the race. i covered that campaign. i have no idea. and i'm not sure if perot knows. he may be bitter. he also may have some recriminations aimed at himself. >> a material figure. >> let's go to george mcgovern for a moment. how did richard nixon beat george mcgovern? and would it made a difference if he hadn't given that speech at 3:00 in the morning at the convention? >> probably. we're hyper managing campaigns

in the context of what really happens when voters go into the polls. i'm sure to get back to the perot issue that a lot of americans who might have voted for perot thought, gosh, he dropped out? what's going on here? and then because he was a third party candidate didn't vote for him. but i still think that -- mcgovern can pull on the party is not over in the title and mcgovern can draw presumably on this pool of democrats. where did they go? >> you know what, i think we tend, very understandably because the way the nixon presidency ended, we tend to overlook, and in fact to minimize, nixon's achievement in

forging, in effect, a new political consensus. by 1972 r for a whole host of reasons, including a counterreaction to the civil rig rights revolution, to the antiwar movement, i mean the silent majority was real whatever you think about it. and knicnixon, very skillfully, played to their fears, but also their notions of american exceptionalism. and mcgovern rather haplessly was sent over from central casting in some ways. he was a kwauz si academic. he was a war hero and -- >> but there was another war going on. and there's a moment in that campaign where mcgovern is asked on "meet the press" or one of these shows, you say you'll get us out of vietnam. what about our p.o.w.s and he

sneers and rolls his eyes and he said i'll go there on my knees if necessary. he doesn't mean that literally. he's just quarreling with the premise of the question which means pulling out would make it harder to get the p.o.w.s out. but to make a remark like that, if he gives his speech in prime time, if he doesn't mess up, the way richard says, he wasn't in touch with swing voters. that's the most mild way i can express that. >> and was he ready for prime time? that's the question. that might be a question to apply to some of these other candidates as well. >> who was and who wasn't? >> he carried the district of columbia and his own state. it was a landslide election. and there was the other thing he did in the macrothing. the way he ran that campaign is he and the democrats asked this question. do you really think dick nixon has the character to be president. to your question, watergate was

not fully known then, but it was starting to emerge. the answer to that was, no, not really. he is the president though. and the question is how is he doing? >> usually a reelection campaign is a referendum on the incumbent. 1972 was as much a referendum on the challenger, much as barry goldwater in 1964. >> how important though was the eagleton fee yas co. >> it reenforced. >> explain that. >> thomas eagleton was a senator from missouri. a moderate democrat. in many ways, a natural balance for george mcgovern. not his first choice for vice president, but nevertheless -- >> or his last. >> he was dominated. but subsequently it was revealed and he had not told the senator or those around him that he had

been treated for depression. i believe, it actually received electric shock. at a time with tennessee williams images and elizabeth taylor, who might have been a better running mate for george mcgovern. but in any event, he withdrew from the ticket. it e reenforced the notion that this man is not ready to be president. >> the vice presidential pick is often the first time the american people get to see this norm nominee make a big decision that's their decision. it's the first time. it sticks with them for good or bad. >> we only have a couple minutes left. i want to do one last thing. do any of you have recommendations for the audience of a book they can read that will be particularly interesting and fun for them in regard to all of these 14 contenders. >> all of them. there's an enpsych clo paid ya.

>> it's somewhat out of date, but readable, but irving stone whose best known for his novels and his ttorical fiction. it's called "they also ran." it's probably 30 to 40 years -- >> what about an individual biography of henry clay, williams jennings bryan? >> the married couple academics who wrote the clay biography. it begins with "h." the name alludes me. >> i'm embarrassed because i interviewed them. >> it's a wonderful book. >> they were from colorado. >> they were an excellent interview. >> let me have my own