committee. he was a freshman on the committee and he distinguished himself with the cross-examination of the witnesses and with the wit and with the steadfastness that he exhibited in the cause of the republican candidate. it was really a case of who had done the most thorough going job of suborning the process? and the republicans managed to persuade the world at least themselves the democrats had outlied and outfilched even them. >> how -- i know that he served in congress with james garfield who ended up being president. >> they were great friends. yes, they were. >> you pointed out he was a book of henry cavitt lodges. >> yes, he was. he was a friend, he was -- he was the great hero of theodore roosevelt, who roosevelt looked up to reed as just a wonderful figure, a mentor. reed was among other things a very accomplished writer.

he had a professional author's facility. he wrote for the north american review and for all the braniac journals of the day. he was a professional author, and roosevelt admired his style. he admired reed's political skills. >> as long as we're talking about people, he was a friend of mark twain's? >> he was. that was much later in life after his congressional career. reed went to wall street to practice law with a firm that's still extangt tact. very much so, simpson, thatcher. it was reed, simpson, thatcher and bartlett. and he lived this great life in wall street. you know, he was a very financially successful guy. but he hobnobbed with the really interesting people in the city of new york including mark twain and he -- reed gave a very funny testimonial talk at twain's birthday party just a few months

before reed died. >> reed was 63 when he died, i think. >> let's see. 1902, yes. >> served in congress from 1877 to '89. speaker three times. >> three times. >> as you were doing your research on him, when did you start to really like him and why -- and how many books have been written and why haven't there been more? >> i'm afraid that my sales will bear testimony to this hypothesis. my hypothesis is that what people want to read are lives of people they know, and so there are an end to the inth number of biographies. and one of lincoln -- conrad

black came out with a great doorstop, a wonderful book. so i think that the commerce, the powers that be in commerce line up behind the biographer who is taking up a known subject, and fortunately, i have got a pretty good day job and i was able to do this for the sheer love -- and believe me, it was a deep-rooted and abiding love for this character. but, you know, -- so you're kind enough to ask me about reed. most people are happy to go through their lives without knowing about even so estimatable figure as reed. you can't know them all, and one must pick and choose. but to me, one would do worse by picking and choosing reed. >> but when was it? you had the diary and what else did you do to get yours familiar -- and when did you start writing that four-year period? >> oh, of course, one procrastinates writing as long as possible. nothing like reading about a subject and planning the great work to come. so i suppose i spent the last

two and a half years, the last two years writing. the first year or so reading. what also interested me about reed was not merely reed, although that was enough. reed's life and times, the times were also intriguing. my day job is largely -- has largely to do with our monetary affairs, meaning the nature of our currency, interest rates, the federal reserve, our financial markets. and reed's life, the last quarter of his life when he wassive in politics was a time of turmoil. and so today we talk about this kind of mysterious thing called wa quantity tayive easing, this phrase which really means money printing. we are in a pure paper dollar standard, the fed conjures dollar bills from its computers.

they don't even print them anymore. to reed, to people of his age, that would have been an astonishing revelation. they debated the basis of the dollar should be either silver or gold, but in any case it ought to be something. the idea that the government itself should print money backed by nothing except the good intentions of the united states treasury and the congress was to then the heresy they reserved to the populace and other renegades. they became the mainstream. now, if you advocate a gold standard, as i do, you're patted on the head as a tea party eccentric. so you see, everything changes. all cycles come around and those who are last shall be first and vice versa. >> the last year this country was on the gold standard was what? >> well, the last year there was a remnant of the full body gold standard was 1971. august 15th, 1971, richard nixon

gets on the tube -- sorry, the television. i should be more respectful of this medium -- and interrupts "bonanza" of all things and says, hence forkt the door will be what we say it will. no longer gold. you may no longer exchange your dollar bills, 35 to the ounce. that's over. so for the past 40 years we have been on the pure paper standard. >> you mentioned that the fed doesn't bother to print money anymore. how do they invent this money then? >> well, they materialize it. there's a guy in new york city sitting at the federal reserve bank of new york who -- we don't have a computer keyboard. otherwise we could demonstrate it. it's a much more form of alchemy. he credits to the accounts of the commercial banks doing business with the fed hundreds of billions of dollars at a -- at a moment in time, just like that.

and these dollars are gathered up and electronically deposited in what is called the excess reserve bin of the federal reserve. it sounds implausible, doesn't it, brian, but it happens. >> who has to approve that by the way? >> the open market committee of the federal reserve approves of this. >> as long as i've got such an expert here i might as well tap into your reserve. when will the interest rates go back up? >> my call is 2005. interest rates are -- i mean nobody is getting any younger. i myself having trouble seeing these interest rates that i'm supposed to be observing, they're so tiny you can barely make them out. a couple of weeks ago i had one of the guys in the office call the american -- the association of aarp, whatever it is, the association of retired people, and ask them, tell me, do you have a view on the no interest that your members are receiving on their hard one savings

balances, you have a point of view on this? oh, we don't have a point of view on the federal reserve. no, not the federal reserve. no, is it bad that your people have earned zero on the money they is set aside for their retirement? they said we'll get back to you on this. and then they got back and said we haven't heard from our members. i'm from new york, and i say it stinks. i say this is an affront to common sense. these interest rates and this monetary policy. furthermore it is an affront to equity, to plain justice. >> but based on what you know from past experience, when do these rates go back? >> well, these rates will go up when -- well, that's no time -- the trouble is that the precedent is only so helpful in international matters. if form held, the historians would have all the money and as it is they have so little. every time is a little bit different.

rates this time will go back up when the fed is forced to reconsider zero interest rate money printing policy and it will be forced probably when inflation becomes not just evident to those who shop, but also undeniably manifest to those who look at the numbers. as it is, the fed insists -- our government insists the inflation is 2.3% year over year. well, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. some think it's higher. those of us who shop thinks it's a lot higher. the world still thinks that it can accept dollar bills for our debts. we americans are uniquely privileged in that that we have what's called the reserve currency franchise. we print money at home, we pay for our goods that are imported. we send, you know, send money west to walmart suppliers, and they deposit the dollars in the central banks in the people's republic of china, and people's republic of china buys it with the newly created local currency

and sends the dollar back to us as investments in treasuries. and let's talk about reed. it's much too complicated. but the substantive difficulty with our present day monetary regime as in reed's time, then there was some tangible check on money. now there's none. >> but i want to go back after -- i did want to ask you about that but i want to go back to something. aisle read this braf again and see how it compares with what's going on in the country today. this is on page 232. the 36th congress and you're talking about holman here, congressman from indiana, was holman's first an it was the last before the war. it enacted 384 laws and appropriated $61 million. d 44th congress which convened ten years after the war enacted 579 laws and appropriated $299.1

million and only six years later the 47th congress, 1881-83 managed to spend $529.3 million -- of $230 mill in just six years over the outlays of the 44th. surely, holman went on, this enormous increase does not indicate the necessity -- coming down to the last kon going gres, the fifth 199er 8 to 17890, democratic, 1, 824 laws were enacted proposing for both sexes r5 $43,632,004.85. what's happened -- >> favorite page of the book. because it crystallizes what reed us up to. and the form he affected. it crystallizes the libertarians and the democrats and it shows the reed's rules, this reforms, seemingly arcane parliamentary reform shows how this brought

into being this leviathan, this great, enormous state that absorbs so much of the income and the wealth of this country. what holman was protesting was the apparent exponential rise in the -- in the money power of this government. if you read on in that paragraph, in that speech, he got -- he got himself worked up. he was talking about how the government's going to -- you can see it coming. you can see the patterns in every empire ever existing on the face of the earth. they built grant billings, they built zoological parks, great navy, an empire. an empire, he said. before long, the people who don't trust -- the politicians who don't trust the government erect this great structure of power with which to protect themselves from the people. and before long, you have an

em pair, and everyone at length is subject to arbitrary political power and, people, as he almost said, is broke because empires do go broke. they spend themselves into bankruptcy. so that was holman in rhetorically flamboyant response to this parliamentary gambit, by which reed was able to untooth, so to speak, his libertarian opposition. so when reed rules -- when reed effected this reform, when he could introduce and run through legislation in the name of progress, and modernity, he was setting the united states of america on the road to a much bigger government. either you like that or you don't. that's a political judgment, but holman saw this coming, whereas reed didn't. >> what was the disappearing quorum? >> disappearing quorum was when someone calls roll call, and the

minority party simply doesn't open its mouth to answer aye, here. >> they're in the chamber? >> they're in the chamber. they're core porlly present but vocally absent, and by simply saying nothing, they brought the business of the house of representatives to a halt. and, you know, so you can see just how frustrating it would be to the -- to anyone who is elected to do business in congress. they come all this way. it wasn't an easy place to get to if you come from the far west, the midwest. they come all this way to sit there and read the newspaper. >> so how did he stop the disappearing quorum? >> okay. so one day early 1890, congress is in session. reed's in the speaker's chair. and there comes a controversy having to do with a contested election. as you know in the constitution,

the congress itself is the judge of the suitability of the members. it decides does congress -- the outcome of contested elections and one of these was brought before the house. the republicans had the majority, if not enough to constitute a quorum. and the democrats knew they would lose the contested election vote if they allowed a quorum to form. so come the roll call. they said nothing. it was then that reed introduced the reform that reverberates to this day. he began counting names out loud. he said the clerk -- would the clerk please take down the names of the members who are present. and he began the roll call. and with this the place erupted in the most incredible fireworks. it was a sight. >> so how did he stop it? i mean -- >> well, he kept on reading. and there ensued some very dramatic moments and some very funny ones. someone gets up and, you know, face flushed with rage,

sputtering, tyranny, quoting from the parliamentary handbook that reed himself had used that seemingly sided with those who said this was out of order and was an act of tyranny and high-handedness. reed says to this fellow, so-and-so is present. does the gentleman deny it? so the republicans, you know, break up in sarcastic laughter and then the democrats howl again. so this goes on for three days. and finally -- >> and reed's the speaker. >> reed's the speaker through it all. at one point, a guy sitting in the back, he's a texas democrat. named martin. howdy martin. and he had been through to the civil war from the start. he raised a cavalry outfit in texas and he had fought through and he knew something about violence.

he carried a bowie knife on him, there being no metal detectors. what howdy martin wanted was to tell him now is the time to rush the speaker's chair and lift this fat republican out of it and get down to business. all he wanted was the word. someone said, crazy howdy, crazy martin has it in for you, and you'd better watch it. and reed didn't care, didn't flinch. his family records that when reed went home after one of the three days of this brutality directed against him, rhetorical brutality, he laid down in a cold sweat and shuddered. but the democrats would have been astonished to hear that because he seemingly -- he was unflappable to look at him. the way he fought back was by showing no emotion. the democrats finally had to admit this was some demonstration of -- >> so the disappearing quorum went away.

>> it did. he had the majority votes and he told them that they were here and they -- they finally could do nothing about it. the 51st congress got down to business. you know, the democrats, bill holman's worst nightmares were presently realized. they had began legislating in earnest. and by the time it was all over, the 51st congress came to be known as the billion-dollar congress because that's in -- in two sessions -- or in two years that's what it approach yated. and someone said -- not reed -- reed certainly approved of this equip. somebody said billion-dollar congress and the whip said in response, well, you know it's a billion-dollar country. >> at the time benjamin harris was a president from indiana? >> yes. >> did they have any relationship? >> i don't know. i can't imagine it was cordial. harrison in any case was known

as the iceburg and i think cordality was not his strong suit with anyone and i dare say it would not have been with this jeffersonian in holman. >> and in 1890 to 1891. you mentioned family. there's a picture of thomas reed and his wife in your book. what was she like? >> we don't know. the only thing we know about her is she was against women suffrage. reed was for it. he thought that it was absurd that the overbearing male sex in which was reposed, not all the wisdom of the world, he thought they would the political power. he set about in his way to change things. on the judiciary kmiet tell he wrote a report concerning the

suffrage. he was embarrassed to death of being the man by the way the men would patronize the women who came to washington to plead their case. patronize these women who came to washington to plead their case. in this great book you're holding in your lap, i think, is a very fnny account of reed reading to his wife on the subject. and she -- this is in a can -- he wrote in a letter to one of his great friends, a man named gifford, great bossom buddy, and he said she curled up in a sofa in a ball and just body language expressing the deepest, deepest embarrassment at what her husband was about to inflict on her because she would have to answer to her friends about this incredible eccentric view about women voting.

she couldn't bear it. >> where was he on race? >> he was one of the leading these these terms seem so patronizing when used in 21st century america. i would say he was a liberal or we would deem him progressive. in any case, he was for the declaration of independence. that's a way to put it. he believed in its literal truth, which went to such things as black people not being pulled off of railroad cars when they got to georgia, to conform with the bigotry of the state laws of georgia and being seated in a special car for colored people. so, reed was at his mordant, dark, humorous best when confronting these subjects in congress. he gave wonderful cutting speeches against those who would put this -- these terrible things over and who wanted to enact jim crow. he didn't always succeed. he rarely succeeded but stood up

for what i think was the right. >> 53 speakers and he's the 13th in length of time. >> i didn't know that until i sat down with you, brian, but i'm prepared to accept it as revealed truth. >> interestingly enough, the ones on top are familiar names to this era, sam rayburn is the longest serving at 17. tip o'neill, straight 10 years. >> joe cannon was a great friend, colleague of reeds. there's not a reed office building. there's a cannon office building. >> he served four plus years, cannon did. >> yeah. >> we were talking earlier that he served speaker three times. other names, when he ran for speaker, who ran against him? >> cannon ran. mckinley ran. >> william mckinley? >> william mckinley, mac. he was reed's -- kind of his

frenemy, to use a contemporary phrase, word. he was everything that reed was not. >> both republican? >> yeah, but mckinley was museless. he was bland. someone once said -- monsignor once said he should be a priest, he listened so well and sympathetically. he was everybody's friend. had his ear to the ground constantly. and, you know, once mckinley got into money trouble, he had distracted, absently minded co-signed a bunch of notes for an entrepreneur friend of his, starting up a factory in ohio, to manufacture tin plate and he was asked to sign a note guaranteeing the credit worthiness and then the guy came by said, i lost that one. would you mind signing another? and a third time, would you sign this note? yeah, sure. so he managed co-signing many, many dollars worth of notes in

excess of his own worth. this came to light when mckinley was very much in the public eye as a national politician and thought this is the end of me, said mckinley. this is the end of me. i can't even manage my own penny ante affairs. but people rallied to him, his old war buddies sent him five bucks, 50. here, you lent me this. here is the two bucks you lent me. and so people just loved him. now, reed was admired. people so admired him for his intellect, and the force of the power of his arguments. they feared his wit. not many loved him. reed, himself, got into money troubles. he entrusted his brokerage account to a childhood friend of his in portland and the geico mi -- guy comingled his funds and

almost bankrupted reed. he was not as forgiving of this guy as mckinley had been forgiving of the fellow who done him dirt. so, reed did not have that same mckinley-like winning, popular personality. but still reed defeated mckinley for the speakership. >> and he, in effect, eliminated the filibuster that was in the house at the time. >> yes, he did. yes, he did. >> when did he do that? >> first term as speaker. >> how did he eliminate filibuster? >> i'm lumping that with the disappearing forum. >> that changed the whole house? >> from that day to this. >> when he left in 1889, what were the circumstances? did he want to run again? >> he was through with politics. he could have stayed. he could have been speaker, but the mckinley government was waging this war, had waged this war of choice with spain.

reed despised war. he saw -- he had no -- not one ounce of martial vain, glory in him. he referred to decoration day, what we now call memorial day, as the day of the dead soldiers. he would not pal around with a grand army of the republic. he wanted no part of it. he wasn't a passivist but saw through the pretenses of war. he saw its essential effects on human life. so, so long comes this irreversible tide. the nation went nuts over this -- the glory of the certain defeat of spain. nation just loved it. john phillips, who has written the stars and stripes and strains of that wonderful march echo through the paragralors ou people with street music, people

walking down the street hearing this irresistible music. that was the spirit of the time. reed, it was lost on him. he wanted no part of it. he couldn't resist it. he wouldn't be part of it. therefore, he left. and the reason he gave for leaving was that he believed -- he said, tell them -- tell them that i believe in the declaration of independence. that was his line. because he was a thorough going partisan. he would never say a word against the republican party, which he loved. he would never say a word out of loyalty against the mckinley administration, but he would not do this thing, as he said. he would not do it. >> our guest's daytime job is grant's interest rate observer. real cheap. you can find it. and his nighttime and morning and weekend jobs, writing books. the book is called "mr. speaker: the life and times of thomas b.

reed, the man who broke the filibuster." thank you for joining us. >> brian, thank you. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q & a.org. q & a programs are also available as c-span podcasts. >> how do you approach book interviews differently than news reporting interviews? >> i think of the book interviews as gathering history. i think of interviewing when i'm working for the news side as

gathering contemporary information. >> how difficult is it to remain impartial in your reporting and not get caught up in the hype of one campaign or another? >> i'm going to try to, as best i can, give people as full an understanding of what is happening in this campaign. it's not that difficult to put your buy iases to the side. >> how has it changed your work in terms of reporting and getting your information? >> twitter, in particular, is now a primary news source for anybody who covers politics and anybody who pays attention for politics. twitter didn't exist four years ago for all practical purposes. sunday night, interviewing washington post dan balz. what's news worthy and the rise of social media sunday at 8:00 on c-span. you're watching american history tv on