hoover institution senior fellow on u.s. federal entitlement program. >> the entitlement program stems from the basic human desire to help someone who is in need of assistance. all of us have it in us. for politicians it is easier because you use somebody else's money. they still have that same basic desire that you and i do. they also have this desire to be reelected. once that entitlement is put in place, then the game has changed. formed arounds protecting that entitlement, pressing for more assistance. money starts flowing to politicians who protect those benefits and the game changers. that desire for reelection. >> john cogan on u.s. federal entitlement-- programs tonight on c-span q&a. with settlement of the

western united states picking up in the center of the 19th century, the missouri river was an important artery for the transportation of goods. a trip up this fast flowing river was not without a hazard. here about the sinking of the steamboat arabia and the effort to recover it after it went down. -- it was believed that scheme voting on this river was impossible. the missouri was a shallow river and very fast. 3-5 years is an average life of a steamboat on the river. arabia. folks like the into the mud it went and later buried, 132 years until we dug it up. the steamboat arabia was built in brownsville, pennsylvania in 1853. traveled the ohio to the mississippi. the mississippi for a time came onto the missouri river.

of boat itself was built white oak and the big structure behind you, behind myself is the back or the stern section. on the back of the rudder, it would go upstairs to the pilothouse and the wheel would be turned, turn the arm and help still the book -- steer the boat. travelers traveled on the main deck. , the arabiacargo sink within minutes. the passengers were terrified. they were not great swimmers nor were they dressed to swim. they escape i running to the top of the boat as it sank, them bring them boat, it to short one boat at a time. they all arrived, no one died in the sinking. they lost all of their freight. in the 1850's, the missouri river was the golden age of steamboats. more bolts then than ever

before. imagine yourself on a boat and you are on your way west. the wood deck that you see here was the size of the arabia, 171 feet long. dirty feet wide. there is a side wheeler, meaning that you had two big paddle wheels, 20 feet tall. one on the left and one on the right. standing on the deck, looking thats the missouri river, is what the river traveler of 1886 would see, main street. the warehouses along the riverfront. wood, the pitman arm. the wheel we have rebuilt, turns just as you see. one on the left and one on the right. steamboats and 400 have sunk on this river. no one knows for sure how many. st. louis to the far right and kansas city to the far left.

the names on this river map are those of the steamboats that came here over the many years the boats traveled. beginning in 1820, they have been sinking ever sense. we are now in one of the larger galleries of the artifact collection. we divide our collection into different groups. house where, tin or, fabrics and so forth. you are seeing behind me all of these dishes. a lot of these things could not be made yet in the states. a lot of this was imported. the dish is mostly came from england. flatware, the lives and the forks and all that came from england and had the name sheffield on there. from all around the world things came west on steamboats. imagine yourself on the front and having made pager money

your expected a steamboat to rise -- arrive any day and all of it has been lost and you will not get it. it will not be sold in the stores and your personal things are gone. i'm sure it was a really bad day for those people. has allowed us to keep these collections. they were not being used. the dishes we are seeing here have never had any food ever on them. there are no marks, scratches, they are pristine. they are big platters. it is remarkable to see. it is like stepping back in time, really. frontier. out on the when i think the frontier, i don't think of beautiful, spectacular dishes. i am thinking tin ware, all caps and saucers made of tin. and while we found some of that,

most of what we found is likely what you will see here. it was winter, it was cold and that was ok. we wanted it to be that way. steep to allow us to get down to the boat quickly, but it was all soft stand -- soft sand. but the cold winter nights in cold winter days, the water would freeze and the strength of that allowed it to be safe enough for us to be down the hole. it was very much a racing in time because we had to finish this date before it started to get warm. this all started -- in march it all starts to thaw and it is no longer safe to be there. we start in november and finished the third week of february. we were safe, but not many weeks later he would not have been a good place to be. one most of the artifacts coming back into the cold temperatures

of the winter days and nights were better protected because of that. be.dishes here would not they would absorb enough of the tosture, that to expose them the cold temperatures would allow them to freeze and break. whenever you found dishes, quickly you ran from the dig where you found them and to bring them into a warm trailer to keep them protected. from there, at night, we would transport them back and began to clean them at night. l weg during the daytime arrive back in town 8:00. and re-froze things. not the dishes with a brick of the iron, but all of the organics, the leather, the wood. we re-froze them in blocks of ice to keep it very cold. the artifacts we have not let -- not yet clean. shoes are one of the hardest

things to do. not because it is so technical, but mostly because it is tedious. you take the shoes that we found and cotton had to solve. they are being held because the mud is compacted. you have to get all the little parts of the shoes, the trim and the panel. we wash, we separate, clean the leather, put it back together again and re-soak. once reassembled, it goes into a chemicals where it saturates. it comes from there into the freeze-dried. finally, four months later, that she was ready for display. and wenths per shoe found about 4000 shoes. were only about half done with the shoes. a kid, photography became a hobby. left to it, still to this day. one day at the dig we found a box.

each had a different pipe filling. rhubarb, cherries, so well preserved to make a pie. i took pictures of those and got the pictures back to the lab and what that the photograph and thought, i bet that is the first colored photograph any photographer has ever taken of pre-civil war fruit in color. another thing, another day, a big box, larger than all the rest, when i open the door it was not a cargo box, it was an ice box with a cap the food cold. taken out the mud we found this big copper tray. on the tray was the leftovers from the last dinner in on the boat the day that it thinks. this was the dinner serving tray they carry the food for for the folks. we have the arabia's last supper. >> 80 miles east of here there is a boat playing in the earth like the arabia.

it sank 15 years before this one. in september 1841. its cargo was different. it was working for the american fur company out of st. louis. a guy named -- a guy named p or pierre was -- running the boat. something's getting off the santa fe trail tidbits for its near colorado in the southeast corner. thatd a core sample of boat last year to confirm that there was cargo that was still good on it. to the deckll got of the boat at 37 feet, you could feel the drill cut through the top of the bow. andent three feet down siding captured whatever we would find there. when it was brought to the surface we found 100 50 gold buttons, ceramics, fabrics, even

chunks of lard. a dig forhing for this fall and not sometime thereafter. it will be a remarkable collection. the arabia is a remarkable collection. it would be hard to imagine anything better than that. i would not say that the next boat for the next would be better, it will be different from a different time period. it would be every bit as revealing. our cities tour staff recently traveled to kansas city, missouri to learn about its rich history. when more about kansas city and other stops on our tour at c-span.org/cities tour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >>

by america's cable television programs and is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. springwood estate in hyde park new york is the birthplace and final resting place of franklin roosevelt. about fdr's stories time in the home from a national park service ranger who leads us on a tour of the national historic site. this was home. this is where his heart was. my heart has always been here and always will be. this is where he always grew strength and happiness. roosevelt,lano or the 32nd president of the united states was born and raised in this house and he was buried on e