>> four days before the election. ever the party regular, finally gave hoover an extraordinarily e fusive public endorsement. in a prearranged telegram that evoked headlines. hoover he declared showed his fitness to be president. saying he was able, experienc trustworthy and safe. >> american history tv. all weekend, every weekend. only on c-span 3. >> the c-span city tour together with our cable partners travels the country to learn about american history. we select a particular city to feature. tonight we're showcasing state capitols. for more information visit www.cnn.com/city tour.

>> welcome to the main state house. the state house was built in 1829. and it was designed by charles bull finch. a very famous architect. in fact he's appeared to be the country's first architect. he designed the building at the same time he was actually rebuilding the nation's capitol building in washington dc. as he was under taking the rebuilding of the capitol after it was substantially destroyed by the british during the war of 1812. he was designing our building. when maine gained state hood. our city was portland. that was a temporary arrangement and there was several reasons. the fact that people thought the portland was too far south. to remain the capitol for very long. on february 24, 1827. governor signed the bill naming

awe g augusta. the first official use of the building which was actually the first legislative session happened 1842. it shouldn't be too surprising there having changes made to the original building. in 1890 the rear section of the building was added. where you see the floor tiles change. from that point back, is the 1890 addition. and by 1990 state government had out grown the origin building. in order to enlarge the building and accommodate all the needs. some of the original had to be taken apart first. the roof over the entire original building was removed. the front wall and the front facade however were left in tact. what's out there today in the front of the building is original. from 1829. another original feature of the state house is the floor on which we are standing. this floor is italian marble.

the tiles on the floor are individual tiles. tiny tiles which were laid one tile at a time. it took a year and a half. to lay all the tiles on the floor. occupying obvious space of honor here in the middle of the hall of flags ss a bust of baxter. governor of maine from 1921 to 25. he's hon norred for his extremely generous gift to maine. after his public life around 1931, until his death in 1969. governor purchased using his own money. he purchased about 200,000 acres of the land. which he then of course gave to the state of maine. and that land now comprises a state park, which is appropriately named in his honohonor there's hunting allowed in only 25% of the park.

he intended it as a wildlife refuge. margaret chase smith. she was from. she had the distinction of having been the first woman in this country ever to be elected to both houses of the united states congress. in 1940 she was elected to the u.s. house of representatives. she served there until 1948 when she was elected to the united states senate. thereby becoming the first woman to accomplish that feat. when she was elected to the senate in 1948, she became the first woman ever elected to the senate as well. she had the distinction of having been the first woman in the country ever to have her name placed in nomination for the president of the united states by a major political party. that happened at the republican national convention in san francisco in 1964. the republican nomination went to the senator from arizona. but the mere fact that so many people thought so highly of this lady was quite significant that

they wanted her to run for president. for a lady for a lady in 1964, and the fact she was from maine gives us here a great deal of pride. the portrait of thomas bract reed. a congressman from maine. served in the u.s. house of representatives in the late 18 hundreds. several times as the speaker of house of representatives was an extremely powerful speaker. earning himself the title, czar reed. many of the rules that he instituted as speaker of the house are still used to this day. reeds rules. i especially like congressman bracket for his various servic wit. he was once asked if he would attend the funeral of a political rival. he said no but i do approve of it. he was asked if he thought his party might nominate him for president. the republican party.

he said they could certainly do worse and very likely they will. and finally a fellow congressman at one point very stated i'd rather be right than been president. and speaker reed said well, the gentleman need not worry he'll never be either. we're in the house chamber. means house consist of 151 members. each represents about 86 or 8,700 people. the representatives serve two year terms. in maine we have term limits. they can serve no more than four consecutive two year terms. the term limit law was passed in 1992. took effect in 1996. and so it's a result of a citizen initiative. it was not enacted by the legislature. it is a citizen legislature.

a part-time legislature. the average regulator could be described as the average mainer. we have people from all walks of life who serve here. teachers, plumbers. people who work in paper mills. so the population of the legislature is very good mirror of the population of the state. when the speaker moves an item, he uses a gavel to move that item. very often, the speaker will it's a wooden gavel. and very often the speaker will be a little too aggressive and break the gavel. and because business cannot be conducted without a gavel, then the clerk of the house who stands here is prepared with additional gavts. in her drawer. maine senate consists of 35 senators. the districts are portioned according to to population.

there's a quaint rule in the senate. that prohibits anyone from sitting in a senators chair other than the senator to whom the chair is assigned. even staff people when they come into work at the desks may not sit in a senators chair. if they want to sit as a straighten out the desks they have to move the chair out, and bring in their own chair to sit down. we're standing in the rotunda. it's on the third floor. and in the rotunda we have portraits of governors. the governors rotation. because the governor has his portrait displayed here. this is the immediate past governor. when page is no longer in office his portrait will come here. governor king will move over. and all the governors will move over to make room for governor la page. that's what we call it the

rotation. this is a portrait of governor mckernen. married to one of the two united states senators. olympia snow. whose picture can be seen on the which governor is leaning. there's a photograph of he, his wife, and his son from a previous marriage. who tragically died when he was in college. from a previously undetected heart condition. as we tour through the building, we see certainly in comparison to other buildings of this type throughout the country other state houses other capitol buildings, that our building is somewhat plain, somewhat simple. there's no opulence at the main state house. there's nothing at the main state house that will take a persons breath away. it's very simple nature speaks volumes for the puritan ethic. it was prevalent in maine. if you want to use one word out of the english language to

describe mae and its people. the perfect word would be frugal. so you can see frugality. that's an excellent picture of the people of maine. and the entire state. >> we are standing in the historical chamber in the original 18th century portion of the the maryland state house. and it's also a space which between november of 1783 and august of 1784 was the hem of congress. then operating under the article of confederation. three of the most important events in the history of the united states took place in this room. in that nine month period between november 1973 and august of 1784. amazingly we're standing in the third state house on this particular site. the origin nam state house