the words that we're talking about whether in our bill of rights or in magna carta can be mere parchment barriers as one of the founders put it, unless they are supported by the people, in our case by we the people. over 800 years, the development of the rule of law or judge in your country and then in ours as well, is what underlies, it's what gives meaning to magna carta and it's continuing influence. and one reason i think the 800th celebration is so important , because it reminds us that we have the obligation to carry forward the values represented in that document so that it doesn't become simply a list of meaningless rights as it was in the soviet constitution.

>> alright, very well said and so that's why we do celebrate the 800th anniversary of magna carta. thank you very much for coming this afternoon. i hope you join me in thanking lord judge and chief justice roberts. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you very much. well done. i hope you'll join us for a small reception in the back of the room. we open our exposition tomorrow. it will be here through january 19 of next year. please come back and see it often. thank you. guest[captions copyright nationl cable satellite corp. 2014] watching american history tv every weekend on c-span3. forow us on twitter

information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. c-span is touring cities across the country exploring american history. next, our recent visit to madison, wisconsin. you are watching american history tv all weekend on c-span3. >> one of the great things i have been able to do is get a two campaignsst without accepting any contributions at all and spending less than $200 in each campaign. in 1976.77 and $.10. spent $145 in 1976, spending no money, i got more votes than anyone in wisconsin ever got. would you have allowed your other colleagues to do the same

thing? >> at least two thirds of them could be reelected. >> we are at the wisconsin historical society headquarters in madison, deep in the archives stacks where the public never gets to go. this is what the inside of any large archives look like, filled with miles and miles of boxes of unpublished papers. we have come to the location where the 200 boxes that senator his staff, and his family donated to look for specific things about the genocide treaty and the golden fleece awards. senator proxmire was a senator from wisconsin who took the seat of joe mccarthy when mccarthy left office in 1957. proxmire won the election in 1958 and successively won all through the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's. he served for 25 years through until the end of 1988. one of the remarkable things about him is he was devoted to

clean government. he thought campaign financing was one of the major sources of corruption, so he spent as little as possible. in his last two elections for the senate refused to accept any donations at all, and spent less than $200 out of his own pocket. he managed to get elected again and again because his constituents loved him and he managed the media well. he must have had iron hands because he was standing on sidewalks everywhere when not in washington shaking hands or giving speeches to local groups. thousands of voters felt like they had personal relationships with him. he understood there was unhappiness among his constituents with how things were done in washington. he himself was a frugal person. you see the euphemism "frugal" in many accounts of him. he was obsessively tightfisted. there are stories in the interviews with his friends

about him nickel and diming them for ice cream and coffee. when he got to washington, he looked at the way federal dollars were allocated and saw great waste. did his best to restrain it. in the 1970's, he decided to issue one press release per month on what he thought was this month's greatest waste of tax dollars. he called these "the golden fleece award." he issued one from 1975 to 1988. the golden fleece awards are simple. they look like any other press release coming out of his office. his junior staff were charged with coming up with ideas for these, discovering places where there was waste in government. senior staff would draft them. he would make sure they had the precisely correct ironic or sarcastic tone.

this is the first of the golden fleece awards, i believe, for march 11, 1975. it is typical of how he wrote them. senator proxmire said my choice for the biggest waste of taxpayer money for the month of march has to be the national science foundation's squandering of $84,000 to try to find out why people fall in love. the senator said this was the first of a series of monthly awards which would be climaxed by an annual fittest waste of -- biggest waste of the year award. the national science foundation is devoting $84,000 to study people's dependence on each other in what they call romantic love. they say they want to study this especially between men and women. i object to this because no one can argue falling in love is a science. not only because i am sure even if they spend $84 million they would not get an answer anyone believed. i am against it because i do not want the answer. i believe 200 million other

americans want to leave some things in life a mystery. at the top of things we don't want to know is why a man falls in love with a woman and vice versa. so that is the tone. he is always pointing the finger at somebody and then appealing to what the reader is supposed to think is common sense. this is another from the summer of 1975 where senator proxmire is not criticizing the cabinet agency but congress itself. he says, i'm giving my golden fleece of the month award to congress for living high off the hog while much of the rest of the country is suffering economic disaster. the senate has approved the addition of up to three new committee staff employees per senator at a salary of $33,976 each. while all senators may not use their full allotment it is , estimated about half the number would cost up to $6 million." >> without objection.

>> it is my understanding the chairman of the judiciary committee and ranking republican member will take up the implementation of the genocide convention. i would like to speak briefly on that subject. the genocide convention theementation act clears way for the united states to finally approve the genocide convention. >> another issue centrally important to senator proxmire was that the united states should ratify the u.n. genocide convention prohibiting genocide. example wasinent the deliberate murder of 6 million jews by hitler's nazis in europe before and during world war ii. these were women, men, and children who had committed no crime. they represented different to anyone. but they were gassed. they were lined up and shot.

they were starved and worked to death. >> he made a speech every morning proposing such a bill, proposing the senate take action, for 25 years. during his last weeks in office, they moved ahead and finally did ratify the treaty. this other document is his own copy of the speech he gave in 1988, marked up at the last minute with new points to be made, encouraging the united states embrace the convention, which they did in his last months in office. this last document is a letter novemberident reagan, 1988, congratulating him and saying he has just signed the bill. he was a person motivated by what was inside him. i don't think he had any expedient or political goals in this. he just thought it was the right

thing to do. he thought many things were right or wrong and could be extremely stubborn about them. this was just something he thought a country with our to andhad to step up could not dodge the issue. we could not be a renegade in the international community on this issue. senator proxmire was an icon in wisconsin politics. his family and, friends approached us to say, why don't we supplement the papers with interviews with people who knew him? we were able to contract with an excellent historian who interviewed 40 different people, family members, personal friends. one of the people interviewed was longtime washington commentator mark shields who was on his staff in the mid-1960's.

with the same vigor and colorful language you see on the news hour on pbs still every friday night, shields talks about his time with proxmire and what an example he was, what a mentor he was. >> taking on the major lending institutions and merchants of the country on truth in lending was a great example. you cannot comprehend the resistance there was. to somehow give the information to these consumers would be inarming, it would put them a noncompetitive position. it would be so unfair and unjust. -- these guys in $600 suits and $200 shoes, $6,000 suits, whatever, they made the argument.

with paul douglas from illinois, they stood up to it. he was unmoved. he was unthreatened. that was the wonderful thing about him. that is that wonderful characteristic, how liberating it is to know what you believe and not to be moved or terrified or inhibited. he was not a plaster saint. don't get me wrong. he was not a perfect man. he was a public man. he was a wonderful boss. >> among the best or two very long interviews with his wife, ellen proxmire, she is very candid, very sharp minded, very clearheaded and honest about his successes and failings. she was there for everything. she and he rejuvenated the democratic party in wisconsin. there have had been no

democratic party to speak up for 20 years in the 1950's when they and a handful of others brought it back to life. >> the democratic party did not exist in wisconsin. there was the progressive party and the republican party. there was a small group of men, including warren, carl began the murmurs of a political unit that would oppose or be different from the progressive movement and republican party. he ran three times for governor and lost all three times, so we thought the career was over. we have no plans ever to run again for anything. mccarthyfortuitously, died in the spring of 57. people started calling bill saying you have to run, you are the best-known democrat. >> she talks in the second

interview about how she found in his talk dresser drawer near the end of his career a pamphlet he picked up about alzheimer's disease and recognizing the symptoms in oneself. >> in 88, nobody talked about alzheimer's. nobody knew what it was. after he left the senate, i found the pamphlet about alzheimer's. he knew something was going on. i don't think he knew what it was. he maintained, after he left the he kept writing columns and making speeches and going on t.v. for a while. >> heelys was been a health fanatic -- he had always been a health fanatic. he jogged 10 miles a day and the job to his office.

when he recognized the symptoms of alzheimer's coming on, he started to learn more about it. but he did not talk to anyone about it. her interview describes how the h thef them went throug process of accepting he was losing his mental faculties and would have to retire from office. >> he continued to speak around the country when asked or would write a column. he would write a press release. on a saturday night, he would say we have to get in the car and hand-deliver these press the "star" and "post." bizarre. he would get lost if he was out walking. he served on a variety of boards of organizations interested in the same things he was like good government and consumer protection and so forth.

but certainly by the late 90's, he had withdrawn from public life. he lived in an assisted living center, i believe in maryland or in the district, and towards the end of his life used to get up and try to go back to his office in the capital and they would have to restrain him. the legacy he left behind was twofold. first government could be and should be clean. second, a person of real integrity could make a difference. lots of successful legislation through that guarded consumer interests, or the genocide treaty in the end, and exposed waste and corruption in government. those were the two legacies for the nation. it is hard to imagine today an elected official who could be such a maverick. he not only went after the opposite party, the people in his own party hated him. lbj hated proxmire. when he thought about running

for president at one point, he he quickly learned he could not raise the money to run for president because he took his orders from his and not from people who had money or the marketing consultants. least, hard for me, at to imagine any career politician being able to do that today. well, i suppose i'd want i worked remember that what i thought was right, followed my own to cious, and i helped some prevent the terrible perspective holocaust of a nuclear war. weekend, hout the american history tv is featuring adison, wisconsin, our city's tour staff recently travelled there to learn about its rich history. learn more