recommendations of the commission in its report i keep calling the commission of the committee in its report become put into legislation. the chief. if one of the recommendations had a lot to do with tracking the money of these criminal organizations. a lot of the investigation involved trying to understand, you know, these folks who didn't pay their income taxes on all of this, this funding and its how all of that funding made its way into politics. and there wasn't a lot of change, i think, in the immediate term with how a lot of that operated. it takes much more investigation and operations in the sixties to get real new laws on the books to tackle the mafia and organized crime. on the other hand, i think every and every investigation hopes to connect with the broader american public in a way that the kefauver committee does to allow people to to see the information that is out there in

a new light and to bring it together in a way that's coherent and and available to them to really kind of understand the extent of a problem. and i think in that sense, the kefauver committee is very successful and holds up well against other investigations of the period. i'll also add that the committee is very successful in my mind, in that it did all of this work in a sober minded, fair, as much as fair as they could, way. that contrasted greatly with the ongoing investiga tions in the 1950s into communist subversion and led by joseph mccarthy, which are often held out as the the polar opposite of of a committee with the chairman who stepped over bounds unfairly accused people. the kefauver committee, i think, built a reputation for being a very fair minded and sincere and well-organized organization. and i think, you know, in terms of its legacy, i do think it's, you know, if you're going to talk about federal action

related to the mafia, the mob, organized crime into the sixties and seventies, you have to start with this committee, even if it didn't immediately have successes. i think it's really a jumping off point for the public attention moving forward into the late 19, into the 1960s and 1970s. are the records of the key flavor committee available on the u.s. senate. historians website. so there are a lot of records, and so they are not available on our website they are available at the center for legislative archives and they are open for research. if decide that you want to go look at them. i plan on spending a lot of time there or taking a lot of pictures of documents to be able to digest later, because there is a wealth of correspondence, a wealth of memos detailing the operations of local law enforcement and criminal connections in various cities.

there's an awful lot of stuff in there. and just on how an investigation to the extent to which they try to make sure their information was organized properly, that communication was always being shared properly. and you can really learn a lot about. what a mid-century investigate mission is like. but those are those are maybe too many to put up on the senate website at the moment. dan holt is the associate u.s. senate historian. thanks for taking part in but tt

hoover presidential library museum, one of 15 presidential libraries operated the national archives and records administration. i'm tom schwartz, director and we are cell. 150th anniversary of the birth of herbert hoover with. two very special panelists i also might add that we're also celebrating 150th anniversary of mrs. birth, which was back in march. we also appreciate c-span being with us to record these

discussions, later broadcast. before i introduce the panel, i want to bring to your attention items of interest. first, a listing, all events running into evening hour in the lobby. so please take advantage of all the exciting events being offered at hoover. 150. please visit our museum galleries, which feature a temporary exhibit on how the hoover celebrated birthdays over the years and take advantage of seeing our permanent exhibit galleries for the last time. we are planning on closing in early 2025 to completely replace the exhibits with new information and displays to better reflect. the inspiring story of herbert and lou. while the museum closed in 2025, our research from remain open for use and the herbert hoover

historic site will also be open for visits to his birthplace cottage. quaker meeting the jesse hoover blacksmith shop and, the hoover gravesite. we hope your visit the museum again when it reopens. in 2026. a quick program note, alan hoover, the third, had a family emergency that had has prevented him from participating in the family panel today. he sends his apologies and we send our thoughts and good wishes to his family at this time. please silence all electronic devices. i also want to thank the staff here who's done a marvelous job to get ready for this day. richard nash, who's done family activities and the museum galleries throughout the day. the presidential foundation. and you'll find girl scout

cookies for consumption during the break and the national park service that the herbert hoover national historic site for everything that they've done. not only make this day possible also all of the efforts they've contributed to get us to the point of being able to do this important renovation. so now let me introduce the panelists that we have leslie hoover-lauble, bill is one of lou who henry and herbert hoover's great granddaughters. her father being herbert hoover, the third. she takes pride in being a descendant of her of herbert of henry hoover and herbert hoover. lou. henry and herbert hoover. and especially passionate about her great lou henry hoover. her legacy after living in

europe with family as a young girl. the family relocated to southern california, where she remained until her adult could. leslie attended oregon state university and majored in family studies with an emphasis on early childhood development. leslie has married to her husband, todd, for two years and has three adult children and five grandchildren. she volunteered with many organizations the years, which appears to a genetic trait. margaret hoover is the host to pbs firing line with margaret hoover, a public affairs multiple form program that engages in long form interviews and a rigorous exchange of ideas. with the guiding principle that civil discourse is a civic responsibility. a cnn contribue reader. ms.

hoover has served in the white house under president george w bush and, the department of homeland security on capitol hill, and to presidential campaigns. she is the president of american unity fund, a political organization focused on achieving full freedom and equality for lgb teams. a bestselling author her writing has appeared in new york times. the wall street journal, the new york daily news, the daily beast, cnn, wsj.com and foxnews.com. ms. hoover serves on the boards of stanford university's hoover institution, the hoover presidential foundation, the belgian american education foundation. the markel foundation. and radio free europe. radio liberty. raised in colorado. hoover has lived in. china, mexico, bolivia and taiwan speaks spanish and

studied mandarin chinese. so maybe you can give us some chinese wisdom later on on at i know both of these individuals very well. i'm sure you'll find not only engaging and interesting and entertaining, but probably one of the most frequently asked questions i get are are there any living descendants of president hoover? and of course, there many. which is why we're doing this panel discussion. i thought, what better way to celebrate the birthday than to the family? talk about herbert hoover and the stories have passed down.

so we'll start again. i notes in your biography, some of was covered, but just talk about how you related to herbert hoover and you were made aware first of where that you were related to a president. so, leslie, do you want to start? can you hear me okay? well, i'm a great granddaughter of lew henry and herbert hoover. i came to the realization of being somewhat important because of great granddad when i was much when i was younger. we didn't really talk about it. i guess was just an assumption, but i really involved with his life and, especially lew henry when i was actually young adult. i became aware of who he was not for my own family telling me, but my experiences, other people telling me who he was. so yeah. margaret margaret it's a shame

isn't here because has the best story. i'm going to give allen story because my story is lame allen has the best story for, how he discovered that he was herbert hoover, his great grandson. and it's his our my our grim. so leslie and i, our cousins herbert hoover had two sons. i'm a great she's a great granddaughter. herbert hoover had two sons. herbert hoover jr, who is her grandfather. and allen hoover, who is my grandfather. so our were brothers. each of the sons, three children and i'm waiting for leslie will tell me if i'm wrong and and my grandfather took my cousin allen to the waldorf-astoria, which was the place you've been to the library here. it was the ended up it had it housed the residents the 31st president in his post-presidency

for 31 years. this is where herbert hoover lived and outside until this day almost there is plaque on the outside of the waldorf astoria where the residences are because. it's of course, it's a hotel, but it's also there are permanent residences. there. for the longest time, the u.n. ambassador to the united nations, the american ambassador to the united nations, also resided at the waldorf astoria, george macarthur. general macarthur also resided on the 32nd floor of the waldorf astoria, taught my dad how to play with soldiers, told him how to make a flank properly, but he took so grand, our grandfather took him there and him the plaque and said that there's a president hoover. president herbert hoover resided here from 19, i guess it was roughly 32, 33, 34, 30 until 64. so it was and and there's a picture of him being snapped as he's going has apparently he's saying, well, that's your that's

grandfather, that's your great grandfather. and he had no idea that he was related to a president. so there's a there's actually he had this photograph that he actually brought here to share with that i, i actually just remember coming here as a kid and remember thinking, you know, herbert hoover has this description in the video that you see here on this film. this just the best 21 minutes you'll ever have on herbert hoover. if you want a quick and honest synopsis of his life. this video still every single time i see it, it makes me cry. you too. and and hoover says, you know, he has this quote, how being in quaker meeting as a child was just like oppressive. he couldn't move and he couldn't wiggle and he couldn't do anything. and that's kind how i felt when i would come to west branch i was a kid. it would be 100 degrees, 100% humidity, and my mom would put me in dress with tights and have my hair curled. and i just kind of probably felt like herbert hoover did in quaker meeting. and so i know there was something very important happening here and i didn't it

at all. very good. so what were your experiences like growing up? hoover it just said so much. okay, our family trees are very different. my side of the my father was herbert hoover. the third. so his name kind of was out there. there was no way you could get around it. when my was a young boy, after his father left, his grandfather, the presidency, so people disliked great granddad that they took it out on my dad and they would if he was playing the playground with kids, it would not be unusual. people would take their children away as if this five year old was responsible. so in our family, the favorite is private and. so we really weren't out there as much.

i did not have the honor of when i was a child to west branch much so i think the reason that our family was so private was because of name. it was so visible that he couldn't get away from it so i think he tried to protect us. and like i said, he didn't reveal us, my brothers and i, who were we related to? we were admonished once about our name and told my brothers and i, you didn't do anything. you're just the name. so please don't that your name will get you into doors or they're to treat you, especially because of your name. i was like, okay, i won't do that. and as we got older. then i think felt more comfortable in sharing of the stories that he remembers. and so i have a few. they're kind of nice. it came through, dad, but were not my brothers and i were not exposed. it west branch for whatever reason until we were much older. so i'm so glad you started

because. no, no, because you. so leslie and i are sort of different generations, even though we're both just because the brothers, while they were four years apart, they had families relatively apart. and then their kids and their kids. so because of that, you so i witnessed a little bit about what you're talking about through dad's experience because i think our fathers had very similar experiences and and that this is this is the thing that, you know as we move further away from the great depression and into the next century, i mean, what are we to years into the next century now? but and we're almost 100 years apart from herbert hoover's election and from the great depression, which, by the way, in the new museum, i think will give us ample opportunities, begin to to reexamine what happened, the great depression, because as we all know, the hundred pound gorilla in the room when it comes to herbert hoover, his legacy is the great depression. and leslie, just articulated a

real emotional experience and sort of backlash that happened against the family because herbert hoover was the first person who was personally connected to the worst economic calamity in american history, and it was the politicization of him personally to economic times and to the discontent that the country was feeling. that was, by the way, incredibly perpetuated by herbert hoover successor in the white house. right. this was a political strategy. democrats and by fdr to blame person for an economic phenomenon that nobody for another hundred years. and and that there was a real effect. i mean what leslie experience what i think our fathers experienced was that that personalization really impacted the family in a way that kept us all kind of on that in a

defensive crouch for multiple generations. i mean, some people say like, oh, did anybody go into public service? no, except like what? you know, herbert hoover, your actually did serve in the eisenhower. and this is just, by the way, during a period of time where hoover had kind of seen a little bit of a resurgence in his reputation after he was brought back service by a harry truman he helped feed europe after war two. he was really sort of this elder statesman period of his life. and that's a period when your grandfather was an undersecretary of. but nobody else. i mean, you know, my dad would tell a story that he got black eye on the playground because his great grant, his granddad, caused the depression right. there was just there was so much animosity towards hoover personally that just seeped into everything, you know i saw a little bit of it when i was growing just because hardcore democrats were like, oh, she's related to a president, but he was really bad president. you know. so i mean, it's just it's it's it's watered now. like i was taught in my history books that hoover caused the great depression. my dad had go in and talk to the

head of school and say, look, there are a lot of different views about the depression was caused how the was caused but it was just it was so personal that it impacted, i think, the family and i think that, you know, younger generations, perhaps less. but that was real. and i'm so glad you started with that because that's you know, we begin to forget that history so we know that neither of you went to stanford or majored in geology or engineer green. oh, wait a minute no. and by the way, to your point like we were all told like you're not special you're not special because of anything like you have to do these things on your own. i wasn't allowed apply to stanford because i knew that we were not allowed. see, we're not allowed to fly. so we weren't allowed to play. well, there also been a really kind of cantankerous, like bad relationship between stanford. hoover, because the hoover institution there and there was sort of a bit of about the holdings of, the hoover institution and whether they

might not properly belong to the soviet union because there were original russian papers that george nash lost. i'll tell you all about that. the russians disputed their whether whether they should have been properly at the hoover institution or and the custody of the soviet government anyway. so we were just not allowed. i it's interesting you weren't either and by the there's a there's sort of an interesting wonderful thing that has happened with lesley and i, too, because our grandfathers while they were brothers they had at times are quite close. they at times were not close at all. so lesley, i also didn't grow up knowing each other really until our adulthood because the politics really impacted the family and in a really serious way. but you so you talk about where you wanted to. so your choice of schools then really had nothing to do. any ancestral to herbert hoover. it was not going to be allowed now. that was not going to be allowed, just like margaret, we

were told, don't even bother applying. okay? and by the way, both of your parents had gone to stanford. oh, i thought your mother. oh, okay. dad had a semester at stanford. oh, it was the rowdy. he was a he was around mom never went to stanford. yeah. so we've kind of dealt with some of the negative aspects that you've experienced, but what about what aspects of the hoover story do you find the most interesting and inspiring. single thing? don't know that well, when i actually met great granddad twice in my life, when we moved over to europe, i was almost three and we stopped in new york and the overriding thing i remember was looking out the window from the first floor and

going wow, that's really a long way away. great granddad. i don't have a lot of memories him on that trip, but when we came back i remember him much more he my brother he gave both of my brothers a copy of de metallica. they were 11 and nine so whatever but i was much. he didn't give you one. well i got something better. okay, better. i was young enough and what he gave me, i have today and treasure is a little plexiglass box that on the lid is embedded little starfish and sand and you know something really cool and i was like, oh, that's really great. so i've had it all my life. and then when my dad died in 2010, going through his office and his file cabinets, i found this lighter in the bottom of one of the drawers and i pick it up. i was like, oh, look, it's the same is my box. so in all reality, great

granddad had given me a cigaret box, but it was empty. it was empty. and i thought, well that that was so cute. i'm sure he just probably looked at his desk and went, okay, well, oh, this maybe she'll like that's okay. i don't mind, you know, i treasure that little box, but i love the fact that it was a cigaret box. ordered to serve. so what aspects of the who do you find most interesting or inspiring and i'll answer that i mean i actually didn't know that story that's an amazing story. i, i am deeply inspired every aspect of who hoover is and how he who he was is american. and as this sort of individual. uncommon individual in american life and, you know, from from sort of the right to rise element of it, this boy who was born in this cottage over there,

who, you know, explored the world, you know, at the advent of the 20th century when, you know, he explored the world living in and working in 50 different nations. right. just, you know, as a tourist, but working with the governments and working with the people and being in the mines and really understanding and having this firsthand experience of how governments work and what what systems of government better and then others and having like real knowledge and working knowledge and experience like why bolshevism ended in rivers of blood. as he said and that it was a worthy experiment for man to have tried it. but now that we know it didn't work we shouldn't try it again. you know he wrote that in. 1921. you know i just everything about sort of who he was as a person and frankly his inclination to service. and by the way, lou, to i mean, we leslie has really brought lou forward and we are beginning to talk about lou as much as she deserves to be talked about, partly because of you.

and she was she was extraordinary. i mean, they had the model sort of, you know, forget the sort of second wave feminism. i mean, they really pioneered a new model of a partnership that that sort of a modern marriage. right. where there's this sort of partnership and there's couple and they have these extraordinary abilities and they complement one another. so, so many aspects of, you know, his his his his writing and his political philosophy and his reflections, american life. i mean, there's so much that that they both did and this country deserves to have them as role models and not to be sort of besmirched by the partizanship of that and the hangover of the great depression that i think is improperly cast on their shadow. leslie, do you want to talk about lou? how to care for a few days? oh, darn, lou. lou henry died in 1944.

great granddad. her personal papers sealed 50 years post-death. they brought here. and so 1984, her papers were and the public could actually find out who this woman was at time. we had a great foundation, tom walsh, who recognized that this is someone who's pretty outstanding. so for a long while, for several years, there was a play that put on. it was a one woman two act play about lou henry hoover that actually went over to the smithsonian in d.c. and sandra day o'connor was able see it. lou's growing up was very different from her works growing up as you know he was an orphan and. his life was not so easy she, on the other hand, had a father who was quite devoted to her and didn't mind that she was a girl person because lou henry knew how to shoot she knew how to do archery. she could stand up with the best of them. and she did so many things that

no one is really aware of. here's just little tidbit. she was very much in girl scouts, and when met milo, it was like, yes i met a girl scout my whole life. let's let other do that. but she was the one who was responsible originally the girl scouts made their own cookies. and you can imagine after a while that's kind of her big job. so she the one who suggested, let's find a company that can make the cookies and then we can have more. so thank you, lou, for making girl scout cookies much more available now with many different flavors. but i want to go back to the original question. what i realized i became an adult watching not only my grandfather, but my father. i realized there was a trickle down and that down was sort a service to others. my parents had didn't have, but they would at because of red cross. they would just leave the house for several weeks to go to disaster relief. they felt nothing about doing things for others. and i know that my dad really upheld his both of his

grandparents as ideals and morals and tried best to push them forward. and i think he was relatively successful. so yeah, but there's a really long story. it was extraordinary. i, i really don't know what to say about her. she was just i wish i'd met her, but i was people ask me, have you met? i'm not quite that old. thank you. but and i know this is another question, but i can segway it right now. my father was 16 when his grandmother died, and he did indeed had a few stories her and he indeed got some of his mission first from his grandmother. but what he did acquire was when henry died, she willed her diamond, which great granddaughter given her to the oldest grandson and that was dad. so. 1949, he presented my mother with diamond solitaire, which she wore until her death in 2015. in the meantime, my mother was

quite fond of emerald. dad had the ring reset with lou's solitaire and emeralds on the side. yes. what? i got it. so in some ways, i kind of like it because. it kind of makes me feel like i've got the power of lou with me. but what i really wish is that this thing could talk because it has been around the world. so many times and seen so many things. but it is biggest and best treasure from the hoovers for sure. yeah. so one of the most interesting i made coming here. of many interesting discoveries about both of them was in the archival stacks and. i saw 18 boxes that were labeled

misrepresentations and i wondered, that's hard. and i pulled it off and. what i realized is that what herbert hoover did throughout his life is when he saw something appear in print that he knew was incorrect. he created a folder and, put the document, the refuting document in the folder. and i thought that that was that that was a kind a nice way of refuting what he thought were lies. but he used the word misrepresentations. so so what do you think are some of the misrepresentations about lou and herbert hoover that are you know you encounter among the general public. well, lou, oftentimes when mention her name, i get who's he okay ron because lou was not an

exuberant and in-your-face first lady which is how most people would probably know about her unless you're a girl scout and then you know she detested the press because not only did the maligned great granddad, but they also came after her and she did not appreciate it. so i don't know. you know, it's it's interesting. i think it's side note. herbert hoover had a file. it's called the nut file. and we've carried this tradition on. you know, it's just whenever you got a crazy letter, maybe a threatening letter or something from somebody who just thought he was, you know, disagreed with him or was maybe or in some way because, you know if you're a former president, united states, a lot of people don't like you. so they send you crazy things, which you get in the mail. and for the most special ones, they went in the nut file. i have i have kept that tradition going.

it's always nice, but i look at, i think dealing with the i want to visit those files actually time because the misrepresentation have continued i mean you've not had in this presidential election in 2020 for almost 100 years after herbert hoover was president. i mean we're coming up approaching 100 years, 90 years after he was president. both candidates at least. well, kamala harris hasn't done it yet, but both biden and trump have invoked hoover pejoratively to refer to economic hard times, that enduring, negative and incur sense of of a former president is unparalleled there is simply no other president whose name has been a associated with a moment in history.

such that it has become an enduring synonym for you know, anything but in this case economic hard times you can't say anything about aaron burr and have people like. oh, yeah, no, no, exactly that. you mean that you know, the duel with hamilton, i mean, maybe people know now because of the broadway play, but musical it's or you know and we had you know was it tyler who who actually left the united states and became after the confederacy and had you know abdicated from the american his american citizenship. i mean we've really bad presidents i mean the fact the fact that hoover is the one who is like invoke on a presidential debate stage in 2024 is so crazy. and so but i but i just think you know if we don't deal those mischaracterizations and by the way we in the 92 renovation in the 92 renovation, when you go into the the sort of the part about depression, it deals with some of the characterization and the mischaracterizations. the crazy thing that has happened, though is in the last

intervening 30 years, we've actually mainstream economists, sort of mainstream historians have begun to sort of coalesce around view that the federal reserve had something to do with the great depression, that it wasn't just fiscal policy, there was monetary policy problem. you know, people like ben bernanke had had who who's frankly, you know, big book, the great depression was published in the nineties as you know, and then, you know, helped steer economy through the global financial crisis in 2008. like there are there are much more savvy and sophisticated views about what happened during the great depression that we know now. so i think we have the tools to tackle those mischaracterizations in a new way years later as we do this renovation and we have this opportunity to retell hoover story, reintroduce hoover, and also tackle that. i mean, truly the largest calamity in american history that that had such a long tail in terms its impact, both economic quickly on people, but also socially and how you know it just it you know when you

think a quarter americans were out of work and by the women didn't work so as a quarter of you know quarter remains were were men right that in whole families were sustained by a person who was out of work. i mean, this had a massive effect, of course and it and we all know it didn't turn around until world war two. so there is just there's hoover's reputation and legacy and the mischaracterizations are all up out of that and beginning to, i think, untangle and tackle. that is something that we're going to tackle this next iteration of the library and museum. and just to expand on what margaret has said while, there's no consensus on what caused the great depression, probably one of the leading scholars of the great depression and former federal reserve chair benjamin bernanke has wrote a whole series of articles six boring the question and his conclusion is that the two main components

and driving forces of it were that the federal reserve did not lower interest rates quickly enough, so it shrank the money supply. by 30%. and the second cause was the economic dislocations that continued after world war one. my mostly most if you know it reparations but so that it was a global depression and both of those things were obviously beyond any president's control. so. some of you you've already some stories, but you know, you have stories that were passed down on your family that were particularly meaningful for you. you cherish. there were a couple, lou. henry hoover also was responsible for designing a house on the stanford campus,

which has now been deemed as the sitting president residence. and my dad, when he was younger, would visit his grandparents in that house and she built an entire playroom for them with a stage. so they could do that. and so she could show her movies. took a lot of movies and dad, the best part of her showing movies to the grandkids was running them backwards. thought that was hilarious. so she and her father back on the road. but remembers riding his tricycle down this very long hallway. and that was one remembrance. and then he had this story. and i'm not sure how old he was lou also liked to drive her own vehicles when she was the first lady. she wouldn't do that. so what happened was the chauffeur go down about a block where no one could see her and then they would just trade places and she would drive so that that worked out. well, but at one point she took my dad and i think probably his sister and else and they were going to go have a picnic somewhere in the california

mountain areas. so they started driving. they were on a very narrow road and here comes a logging truck and lou henry was just sitting in her car when he wanted to. i think she had a secret service person or someone like that. so the trucker was like, i'm not moving you. and she's like, i am not moving. so she sent her lackey there to talk and probably the chauffeur talked to this truck driver and tell him she's not going to move. she's waiting for him to go by which he couldn't. so long story short she invited him to join the picnic. the driver so he did. so they all had a picnic with the truck driver. and then i think he allowed her to go by. so you know, she was a she was a force to be dealt with, didn't look like it. but she was. and to your point, leslie, you say, you know, you wish you wish you were your ring could speak, but, you know, it's it's reminds me of one of the things that david mccullough said about both harry truman and john adams, you know, subjects of his know

multiple years of research, scholarship and then and ultimately these really important books that helped really helped with the reevaluation of both of their reputations is president truman and adams were really brought forth to the american public and, the american conscience. and in any way after those books that mccullough wrote and mccullough would say that he knew them, that he spent so time with them by their letters and getting to a real sense who they were. and that's what the letters here you mentioned the letters that were opened to the public in 1984. i to do is go into these archives and go into the reading room and have them pull some of lou henry hoover's letters and the way don't even have to do it in person because we're beginning to digitize and so it's possible that they can be emailed to you and they will eventually be digitized and you can read. the letters of lou henry hoover to her sons, the that she wrote to them as she departed europe and left them in california. explain for them only to be

opened. she died explaining how she would always be with them and she she she took, you know a thousand words just beautifully, like immaculately sort of explained to her sons that she was always with them and how they would look at certain things. they would know that she was there. right? this were never open, but they are. and you get a sense what an exquisite intellect she was and what a deeply compassionate and then just like a bond, very rare. how do you say this is? i'm not a french student, like she's just a force of life. right? she was just you and you just it's end. so you really can spend time with the hoover's. even though you don't, you even though your ring can't speak. yeah. so is the archives. she also had an incredible sense of humor. yeah. and you talk about the nut file or whatever it was. so lou was you can find several books that she had in her own

possession. there was one that was written by someone, did it anonymously, but she knew who it was. and you can see the pencil notes lie. why did she say that? and just all these questions about did she know she was talking about and that's how lou did it. you can see letters that were sent to her, which had things in it works were not accurate and she'll just put in. no that's not how it was so she didn't have a nut file but she had no problem penciling in her opinion, own views. there's one story my father always told me. my dad was, i guess. he would have been 24 when herbert hoover passed away, but he so he spent some time living the waldorf astoria inn when he was nine or ten and he lived there with herbert hoover while his brother and sister were in greenwich with his mom and dad he he does have the story, as i referenced earlier, where general macarthur came down to visit him and taught him actually how to properly put put a song, an army together to

build a proper flank. but then he he also has the story know. so hoover, he was an orphan and so he wasn't he didn't he has these memories of west branch our idyllic and they're nostalgic of like this perfect childhood that was really, you know, ripped away him when his his mom died and he was sent west to live with distant relatives. so i think he he loved children and he made a point of his public policy and, as you know, the boys clubs. that's because he just he he wanted to protect. i think just devote himself to the how perfect important those childhood years are. that was, i think, born out of his experiences being an orphan. and so he loved having kids around and he loved having young people around. he always responded to every letter that children wrote to him and when my dad had the chance to live with him, he one of the things my dad learns also. i mean, think he also had a very stern upbringing after. his mother died. i think the uncle he lived with was by the way, if you're ever

in salem, oregon, go visit the house. because in newberg, oregon, which is just south of salem, the house that herbert hoover was raised in by this uncle, tells this part of the story that didn't know until i went there, which is that like really most of a lot of his values as a young man were formed there because was a stern but hard working really industrious quaker household. and so of hoover's industriousness and his his ambition and his sort of focus on on rising must have come from there. but i think they were very stern and my dad had this experience where as a young boy, he was fishing with him, florida. and he was supposed to be somewhere at a certain time. and my dad couldn't have been i know he was somewhere between like 11, 12, something, you know, he's a boy and he was late. he was late to. get to the boat for fishing and he held up the boat and his grandfather told him, there's one thing you can take from people that you never return.

and that is their time. and and it was a very severe and important that i learned from my dad. you never can take anything from people but that you can replace, but not their time. so whoever chrism when i working on a blog about hoover martinis, herbert hoover loved a good martini and he always had to before dinner and he would limit his guests to two but in looking at oral histories of people who we call kind of hoover's proportions gin to the vermouth and they were over the place. and i couldn't figure it out. and i mentioned it to your dad, margaret, and he goes, oh, i know.

you know, he said, because i made them for him. and so he gave me the the proper proportions. but what are they? you have check the blog. it's good advertising for the blog. and he used onions, not olives right because he he believed the story of the gibson martini that hugh gibson a very good friend of his who worked in the state department who gibson would go out with his colleagues at the end of the day and he couldn't hold his alcohol like colleagues and so he made a deal with bartender that when they were going the second round to put a pearl onion in his and just water as so that he everyone thought he was keeping up with them you know, and having a martini and so herbert hoover

always had gordon's gin and oily pat pratt for muth with the pearl onion. ah, when he began to have health problems later in life, you visited the doctor and hoover like to tell the story and of the doctor said, do you drink? and he said yes. he said, you have to stop. and he said, i can't. he said, how much do you drink? he said, two martinis before dinner. he said, well, can you cut it down to one? he goes, yes, can do that. so he went back and told the staff at the waldorf, i can only have one martini, but i want it a bigger glass. but yeah. so leslie, you about some of the

the treasured family possessions any other stories of treasured family that you have. have a of his fishing poles and that's what there are a few things that were columns got his eyes on them income of the house we acquired of the things that were gifted to great granddad i have turned around and given back to you some of them because. yes, what do i do with them? there aren't very personal things. now. the last time i saw them was the year before he died. so he was old and he was in ill health. but some of the things that dad acquired again, that privacy thing, he would turn around and give you guys. so i have a few things left that i can have that i can pass to my children. but i think one of the biggest things, even though he never talked about it, dad was very, very proud who he was related

to, and he was very dedicated to his his visions and tried his best to kind of. do the same thing in his life. and i think he did. so instead of being introduced to great granddad, like margaret was here at a young age, as i said before, i got chance to watch my dad and my grandfather's behavior. and once i learned about great granddad and what he did, it kind of explains some the behavior of my grandfather and my dad, because they were both very conscientious and of other people and. i volunteered a whole bunch to make people, you know, have a better time. so that is one of the biggest things i get. but stories were not a lot forthcoming. there weren't very many because dad just didn't to share. there is one funny story that he went through though, when he was about 15, ten and he was living in calif and at that time in palo alto and he was supposed to visit his back east for the

summer. for some reason, dad, he wanted to be a blond, so he bleached his hair unfortunately it turned orange. so his mother said, you are not going to see your grandparents. so she said and dude ranch in montana it was nice try, dad, but that didn't work well so yeah. margaret. that's i mean the stories i think the general mcarthur story the times story are the stories that i know most of i mean canasta is a story there a lot of stories about canasta hoover would always have oh actually tell you one of the people who has come into my life is an extraordinary thing is a woman who was one of herbert hoover as research assistants in the waldorf astoria. her name is mary louise pratt, been out here to iowa. many of you have met and i've

actually a lot of stories there, different kinds of stories than i did for my dad. i think there's lot of, you know, a feeling, the family that you didn't want to we didn't want to sort of make this too precious mean this is it was an extraordinary thing that he but not it wasn't it didn't make better like our lives had to be forged ourselves on our own terms. and it was up us to to serve our communities and but marie louise pratt was a research assistant from 1955 to 1957, roughly. she was there when herbert hoover. she helped on the book the ordeal no, not the ordeal of woodrow wilson. what was the other one with gibson? george, i'm looking you. i know like george will know george. well, no, no, she was she did work a little on the magnum opus, but on the. huh. not american. it might have been the ordeal of woodrow wilson actually would have been writing that around 55 to 57. okay. george is nodding that.

so she happened to be there when hoover decided who to endorse in was it was it in 54 or 52? maybe it was 52. when was there a contested presidential primary? it was taft and eisenhower. i think so. she was there? yeah. she has extraordinary stories about herbert hoover. so she's a young woman, 20 something single living in new york, working for a former president and. there are. and she that, you know, he would always take he was a man of complete habit. a creature of habit. he would, you know, work all day. but then at a certain time, he would have his martini he would sort of he's refers to cocktail time. that is something about the time that the day where i'm going to the pause between the yes, the pause between the sort of something of the day and the and

dreams of the evening or something like that, completely butchering it. i hope c-span will cut that out. but yeah, he would spend time with her answering her questions, talking to her, telling her about his philosophy for the republican party, his ideas about, you know, the conservative, the modern american conservative movement had not really begun in earnest then. but he he there hadn't been a successful republican presidency since know or a republican presidency at all, since he had been president. but he had formulated these thoughts and he had sort of held torch for a certain set of ideas on the domestic and in the republican party for for many years and and he took time he cared and she the things cares most about is that he is pursue even as a as a deeply. caring and emotional person at that stage in life. and because hoover is so portrayed as this, the guy who didn't care. well, well, the americans were working and out of work and america was suffering or in the great depression he was this

uncaring, unsentimental. there's also this sort of caricature of him in his sort of elder years in new york, sort of lonely and estranged. and she she resents that because that not the man she knew, she knew man who was deeply sentimental who who cared so much about her and her future and what she was going to do. she ended up resigning because she got engaged and he wanted to come meet. he went he she invited the fiancee to come meet him and bless the marriage and she, you know, he really she she was she was so touched by his sentimentality and by really caring and and interested in her and the people around him, he was and and that that, i think is a tidbit. i think that gets lost when you think of sort of the towering herbert hoover he was actually like deeply caring soft sweet person in his later years. yeah and and i should underscore what what leslie indicated is

that, you know, the entire hoover family been extremely generous in donating original materials here, as well as often in our temporary exhibits, you know, loaning things. i remember when we were doing the goodwill tour, which is about when hoover was kind of that lame duck period between his election in 1928 and when he actually took the of office in 29, he actually because he and coolidge were the best of friends, he essentially said, can i borrow a naval vessel and take me around to central and south america, which coolidge was happy to do and. when leslie found out, she said well, i think i have a flag that flew on one of those. and indeed she did did when we were doing a book on our an

exhibit on, hoover and baseball, he was a big baseball. when james hoover heard about it, he said, well, i think i've got a baseball that. babe ruth signed for president hoover. and indeed he did. and of course, hoover's hoover's favorite story about is that a little girl asked for if he she could have two autographs from him, and he said, oh, is one for your little brother. and she said, no, it takes two of yours to get one of babe ruth's. so yeah but yeah and i know the the hoover kind of quiet continues this day so before i open it up to the audience. one last question how do you

think we should celebrate the 150th anniversary this year. the best way i can think of is margaret spoke the misrepresentation of great granddad just telling the truth letting people he's more revered in european countries and he is in the country that he served, which seems a little backwards to me. and lou henry hoover, like i said, people me i'll say yeah and they'll go is he no, but i think people deserve to know about these two individuals who really made large impact on our world but really didn't want accolades, didn't want people saying, oh, they did that. so you don't really know about it. but i at this point, people deserve know what extremely extraordinary both of them were and how they worked together. there were an excellent team and how made so many changes not only in our but the millions of lives that they helped to save

in europe. i just think people deserve the truth is why i'm so excited about the remodel, because now we get a chance to tell the story the way that we it is, as opposed to i in history classes. when i was in high school. oh yeah, the depression president excuse me. and that has to go away. i mean, that's, that's just not fair. so yeah. just telling the truth of who they were and, letting other people know what, you know and i won't. i can't, i can't, i can't improve upon that. well done. tell the truth. that's how we should celebrate. hoover. tell the truth and begin to tell the story. thank you all for being here. thank you for being here. and can i just want to plug here's how you should celebrate it learn more about herbert hoover and the best to do that is to stay for next session with george nash and oh sorry, the audience will be able to ask you some questions. oh, okay, okay. but if you want to learn more about herbert hoover, stay to

learn more from. ken white and ken white, who's right over here with his wife. and it's her first time here at the hoover library because i every time they're talking, i want to listen. i'm always learning something new about herbert hoover from these gentlemen. so so that's that's best way to attribute it. and i also want to call out real quick. we also have some interns in the house. so hilda hoover, who was? herbert hoover. his mother was a mean thorne and the mentors ended up raising herbert hoover in oregon so the hoover is the family. i mean, this is the thing about family. it's like there are a lot of descendants, but some of us have the bug, like some of us are just so interested in the legacy and the history and, the mentor and have it. and leslie has it. a few of us cousins have it. so yeah, it's wonderful to have george and cam here too. so at this one quick comment, i mean, it's like parallel i have is my grandmother grew up with herbert hoover here we can go

the microphone to. yeah i was saying the slide parallel i have is i grew up with the hoover story too because my grandmother grew up with herbert hoover in newburgh and my great grandfather raised herbert hoover from age 11 to 18. and so that stigma was always, wow, you know, i have this close connection to a president, but it's herbert hoover. you know who was in the depression and, you know, in and what's interesting for me and i want to learn more about is the influence of my great grandfather on herbert hoover for for good and bad and you my i know two of his sons died my grandmother and by was an incredible person and her sister

was a doctor who traveled all over the world so you know men dawn that raise that herbert hoover obviously some of hoover's qualities came down from him even by evidence of his his natural daughter as well. so that's one of the reasons we we come back and we're trying to learn more and fantastic. by the way, you should write the book. my spare time. so if you have a question raise your hand and aaron, the red shirt, i'll pass the microphone you and just remember to talk right into the microphone microphone. okay. thank you so much for presentation and just want to acknowledge herbert hoover's as secretary of commerce and then

all that he did for the world after world war one and world war two. this is mostly a comment we could definitely use his expertise as secretary of commerce today. how of you wish that there was one way to recharge your computer, whether it was a mac or whether it was standardize the happy words hard is that. yeah i mean i mean i often wish where was he today we could have use that expertise. thank you again. aaron. thank you. what do you think is the greatest accomplishment herbert hoover ever made. you mean an invention? no. just anything that he his

accomplishment, i mean. oh, sorry. no. i was going to say one of the most obvious ones is ones that a lot of americans don't realize. and that was that he saved children like. you from starving to death and saved millions of people. and if it hadn't for that, there would have been a whole missing in that population. so i think his greatest accomplishment was his desire to make sure that children he wrote a children's bill of rights. and one of those was that you deserve to have something to eat. and so he made sure that happened. and it just building off of that comment from leslie because i agree what hoover did was figured out how could deliver food relief to an entire country for an entire course of an entire world war. so he figured out that there were 10 million people that needed food and they needed food every day for four years. and he pioneered the model for

distributing international humanitarian food relief. and that was so successful it had never been done before. it was so successful then it was then copied. now we have famine. there are international food organizations that basically use the model that hoover developed. this is what unicef is. unicef, the u.n. food program. they have methods for delivering food relief on a massive scale that hoover essentially pioneered when he figured out how to get food to keep the entire country of belgium and the communities in northern france sustained through relief throughout the whole period world war one and that's honestly that's what sort of brought him into international recognition and it came out of his ability operate efficiently which i think came straight from their quaker roots in oregon. yeah. yeah. and just to pick up on what leslie and margaret are when hoover, the commission for

relief belgium, he a group of talent had young people surrounding him men and women which he essentially mentored. and after world war two, many of them headed the relief organizations. yeah, maurice paid. so one of the people, the young of the met. i'm sorry. i didn't even finish the thought. thank you, tom. that's the. the one of the gentleman who worked for him on the commission for the relief of belgium, maurice pate, went on help, found unicef and posthumously for unicef, received the nobel peace prize because maurice pitt's leadership. right. so it was basically taking the lessons from the for the youth of belgium and sort streamlining them into a mainstream international organization that would continue to to provide this kind of food, sustenance in times of famine to countries around the world in need. i got that. yep. yep. well, kind of another kind of connection. that i would have never made

that the director and producer of the 1932 movie king kong, merian cooper worked for the american relief administration. and he he served in war one. he was still in europe. he then volunteered to be part the american relief administration. he was sent to poland and. he was a young guy and. he was asked for kind of a recollection and. he said, you know, as a young guy, i went to poland and i was assigned to region and there were three kind of rival factions that couldn't get along. and so the food wasn't being distributed and people are potentially were dying because the food wasn't being distributed properly. and he said, i was, a young guy, they didn't know me. but when i invoked name herbert hoover, all three factions

stopped. they started paying attention, he said. and i was able to success awfully get the food distributed so people got fed. and he said, i'm a democrat. but i have never met anyone in my life that i respect than herbert hoover. so i think, you know, you you see that in many ways. hoover while he was attacked in a partizan way during. and after his presidency, harry truman saw that he served a much larger purpose. and that's when hoover really becomes this public that. is a bipartisan cause, a larger cause party, but of country. so we have any other. oh right here.

thank you. first, i hope that martini takes off nationally. i'd sure like to try one. it sounds interesting. during his childhood here in west branch or his formative years out west through his quaker upbringing, what do you think he learned most from that or took away from that that he used on the national stage. great grandad also a talent. i'm going to get back to that great granddad had a brain that was pretty. he could see a large problem. he could see where it started. he knew what had to happen in between to get to the end result. they have the word networking then, but as tom mentioned, he knew all the right people had the skills and he would bring them on board so it would be successful. and then your question again, because my leadership i'm sorry about his formative years, his

quaker. okay. so i am not a quaker, but i do know some of the quaker tenants and they are pretty wonderful. one of the biggest ones that i saw not only in great granddad, but also in lew who was not a quaker, is that you are not born to get glorified yourself. the life that you are given is supposed to outward, not inward and great granddad. and lou henry both were not the kind of people wanted accolades for what they did. there's a famous story about lou that will tell you when she was in the white house, times were tough. she would have letters to her by people who were in financial need asking her for money. and depending on what the cause was she would send that person money. and oftentimes people would reimburse her. so after she died, they opened up her desk and inside were all cash checks, which were reimbursements from people that she had helped.

one of the things she said is when you are benevolent to somebody, between you and the recipient no one else needs to know. so she was not going to accept the fact that she was really great by giving money to people no one else needed to know. it was really none of their business. so that just to her character, that it's not important and unimportant and. i think from here it's it's it's quaker values. i think it's humility. it's being understated. it's your point. not seeking attention. and it's service, right? i mean, hoover ultimately could have he was in a position, if you think about it, he was in a position at the outbreak, world war one, as a person in the mining industry who had the ability and the and the know how to move amounts of materials around the globe was in a position to profit probably more than most people from the war. should he have to instead of move wheat and corn and flour

around the globe to move minerals, copper and zinc and the materials of war around the world. and he he did. he a day to think about it. right. i mean should he embark upon this philanthropic mission to try to feed an entire nation. which began him on the slippery road to public life. and he said ultimately you know something to the effect of let the fortune go to hell which embarked him on the slippery road to public life. right. but it's it's it was this sense of service to his fellow man. and it didn't matter that they weren't american or they what, you know, or that or they were bolshevik. and we were not for the bolsheviks. it was it was in service to humanity and that is straight from west branch that straight from the quaker meeting house right over there, saying that exemplifies his quaker values, if you will. you will probably never find a statue of great granddad standing up except on a

pedestal, except at the west at the middle school. at the school, he's not standing, margaret. he's sitting on a bench. this like you can come sit in. that might be his only likeness, to your point. yes, but he was very adamant. don't do that, please. if you do, do not put it up on a pedestal, because i'm not the one looking down on anybody. someone's looking down on me and they're watching. so i'd better do the right thing. so he was very humble that way. just did not need that. so one on that note. let's thank our panel.

one of the great joys. there's a lot of great things

about working at shenandoah university, but one of the great joys for me is is getting to interact with historians of considerable note who have contributed much to the field over the years. historians who i've admired from afar, his who have influenced the way that i think and the next historian is one such historian i haven't met dr. paul finkelman until about 9:00 this morning, but certainly have been very, very familiar and, heavily influenced by his very, very sound insightful and really at times revolutionary. so dr. paul finkelman is currently visiting professor marquette university school of law and he has had, needless to say, a very distinguished and continues to have a distinguished scholarly career. he is the author editor of more 50 books, has published more than 200 of you articles scholarly articles and book chapters. dr. finkelman is widely

recognized as a leading expert in a variety of areas, including the american civil war. american legal history, constitutional law, slavery and law and religion the united states supreme court is quoted and cited. dr. work or mentioned him in six decisions. has lectured on human trafficking, on human rights issues. at the united nations and more than a dozen countries in. 2017 he held the fulbright chair in human rights and social justice at the university of ottawa. so please join me in giving a warm welcome to dr. paul finkelman paul finkelman. thank you. it's a delight to be here. in case you're wondering, the thai has the people who ended slavery in the united states on it. ulysses, general sherman,

general sheridan and various other united states army generals. during the civil war. i'm not going to talk a lot about slavery today. but slave obviously looms over everything we do. and it is important to understand when we think of the the war in 1861, 1865, by the way. do you know what the official for the war is, right? it is the war of the rebellion. it is not the civil war. it is not the war of southern independence. it is or the war of southern treason, depending on which side you're looking at. it is the war of the rebellion. but the. the. can you hear me now? i'm not. which mic i'm supposed to be. how about. do i need to repeat all that, or did you get enough of it?

okay, so. so one of the things to understand is that secession caused by slavery, everybody knows that in 1861, everybody knows it in 1860, when south carolina accedes and says, we are seceding because a president been elected who says that slavery should be put on the road of ultimate. now for lincoln that ultimate extinction might have been 19, 20, 1930. but for south carolina, that's way too close to 1860. we're out of here. alexander stephens, vice president of the confederate. she says that the confederacy is created not only to preserve slavery. that is slavery is the cornerstone of the confederacy says, but also in that same which people don't ever want to talk about. he says it the cornerstone of the confederacy is also the

understanding that black people are inferior to white people. and what we would today identify is white supremacy. so that is the cause of secession. secession is the cause of the civil war. the war is initially fought in sort different ideological, so that for the confederacy, it is about seceding so they can preserve slavery as the texas secession convention calls forever. and that is their goal for lincoln. it is to preserve the union. and, of course, in a very famous letter in 1862, lincoln will say that my goal is to preserve the union. i would preserve the union by freeing none of the slaves. i would preserve the union by freeing some of the slaves. i would preserve the union by freeing all slaves. but my goal is to preserve the union. now, what's fascinating about

that letter to the new york tribune is he's already written the emancipation proclamation. so the nonsense about freeing none of the slaves is simply his political argument. directed at northern, it has nothing to do with the reality. by the time lincoln that letter more than 100,000 slaves have not only been freed but are working in civilian capacities for. the united states army. he has already signed the militia act of 1862, which, for the first time since the revolution authorized, since the enlistment of blacks as soldiers in the united states army. and so his i would free none of the slaves simply is not on the table and the goal is to free all the slaves and as he says in that letter this reflects my position as president. my personal goal is that all men everywhere can be free. okay. so that's what this war is

about. but the war is of course also a civil war a conflict between neighbors, a between people who knew each other before the war. lincoln was actually kind of friendly with alex stevens when they served together for one term in congress. so this is the classic civil war and civil wars are often far more brutal than conventional wars, although not always, obviously. there's nothing more than the than german war in 1939 to 1945. and that is not a civil war. what is going on with czar putin is not a civil war. it is an attack on another country. and it is clearly brutal. so that's the first thing i'm going to get to the law of war, because it's important. i want to make a little bit of a comment on the wonderful talk we

just heard. by the way, we have not until today. but he is biography of general sheridan will be in a book series that i edited at routledge univer routledge press. so we corresponded and communicated in a number of ways. so the notion of the gingerbread war that we heard in our last talk and the notion of that you would sway a legion is by having a human chain war is conflict that will lead the law of war. and it is also a conflict in war theory. so it may be the general scott, who had, after all, only fought as a general, the mexican war and had never really experienced the kind of war that was about to place. and he wants a gingerbread war.

mcclellan didn't actually want a gingerbread. he wanted a war where he could parade around and have great parades and bands and never have to fire anything and anybody and, you know, lincoln, you know, wisely asked if he could borrow the army because mcclellan wasn't using it. and i remember know we heard a lot about soldiers letters. i remember reading a letter from a ohio officer riding home in 1864, and he says, will i vote for, you know, lincoln or will i vote for mcclellan? and he said, i would rather vote for jefferson davis than mcclellan, because jefferson davis is an honest traitor. unlike mcclellan. and weirdly, mcclellan is also on my tail, though i don't know why. but he did win antietam and that

mattered. so the alternative theory of war to the gingerbread war is by the greatest theorists of the 19th century. on war. and that, of course, is clausewitz. and clausewitz says war is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will. we must the enemy powerless. that is the true aim. warfare and clouds, which his theory of war is really quite different. humane war kills more people in the war and makes it much worse. what you should go do is go and smash the enemy and destroy the enemy and get rid of their army. get rid of their ability to fight the war. and that is the humane, because that will end the war quickly. you want to see a good example of it. you look at the second iraq war where united states destroyed, the army of saddam hussein in

about ten days and, it was shock and awe. that is that is closer which in action. unfortunately the the mop in the piece never happened and took forever and took many more lives than war took. so that's one way to think about the the conflict between the gingerbread war and the theories of war. i will be talking a lot about francis today. francis lieber was born in germany in 1898. his earliest recollection in life was when he was eight and napoleon's troops through berlin and it was the saddest day of his life because he was a patriotic german and this was horrible to see. this french army devastating prussia. he would move to the united states in the 1820s with a fresh

ph.d. in mathematics from from berlin, universal city. but he would end up being a professor of political economy, which they would call political science at south carolina college, which today we is the university of south carolina. he would stay at south carolina until 1850s when he was forced, not because he was openly anti-slavery, although he despised slavery, but rather because he soft on being pro-choice. he wasn't pro-slavery enough to teach at the university of south carolina in the 1850s, and he was out and he then went to columbia university and when the war begins, he be asked to, be a consultant, a helper to general henry halleck, who is the senior

officer in the united states army. halleck in addition to his west point training, had been a lawyer after he left the army in the 1850s. and lieber is brought to into the war department to write what will become general order 100, which is known mostly today as the lieber code and the lieber code is. first carefully thought out expert offensive, deeply thoughtful, set of rules that creates the law of war. now, today the lieber code is recognizes, even though, of course, in many ways we are beyond that. and oddly, a year after the legal lieber code you get the first geneva convention on the treatment of prisoners during wartime. so lieber is setting stage for what is today the modern law of war. somebody asked me, you know, is there a law of war? and the answer, of course there's a law of war.

and much of what jonathan was talking about was how the law of war was enforced or not enforced. so that the guy stealing cherries under the lieber code, it was permissible for him to take cherries to eat because it permissible to forage. would, however, have been a crime. the lieber code to take those cherries, sell them to somebody else because a is emphatic that. while soldiers may pillage and they may bring food and horses and whatever they need to fight the war, they may not personally profit from what they are doing. and so that is one of the rules of, the law of war that develop in the american civil war. the other is, of course, that

when one talks about the mild, the gingerbread war, we often forget the massive war crimes mostly committed by confederate troops. the best example is not the burning of chambersburg, which is clearly a war crime, but rather jubal early and i'm in a hotel on jubal early road or whatever it is which is a little weird. so when, when the gettysburg campaign begins jubal early and his troops spend most of their time kidnaping free of pennsylvania chaining them up and bringing to the south and using and his slaves because they find every free black person in pennsylvania they confine ed and bring these people back and enslave. the last time armies did that in large were caesar's legions. i mean, the show.

so in a sense, what a number of confederate senior are doing are harkening to the ancient world where there was no law war. and of course, then we can think about the younger james gang, quantrell paul and the various other massacres of civil ends by these bushwhackers who are in fact adjuncts of the confederate army. so let's let me now turn i want to give you one, one piece of the lieber code and then i want to turn to a more formal, you know, how we how do we get there. military admits of all destruction of life or of armed enemies and other persons whose destruction is incidentally

unavoidable in the armed contests of the war. it allows the capturing of every armed enemy of and every enemy of importance to the hostile government or of a particular danger to a captive. it allows for the destruction of all property and the obstruction of the ways channels of traffic, travel and communicate and of all withholding sustenance or means of life from the enemy and of the appropriation of whatever an enemy's affords necessary for. the subsistence and safety of the army. but it does not allow you to take things that are not for the subsistence. so for in sherman's famous march to the sea which of course there are different takes on that right? there's gone with the wind wind or there is the understand being that sherman's march to the sea

is the greatest liberal ocean of human beings in the history of the world. until the allies march on berlin in 1944. in 1945. sherman's march to the sea. probably liberates a million people from slavery, and it destroys the heart of southern slave system. but in sherman's march across the south, many of his soldiers pillage things. they go to get food and they come back with silver or bad or paintings or furniture. and there are wagons which have this personal property that they've stolen. sherman these soldiers executed under the lieber code, he executes his soldiers this because it is violating the new rule of war. private citizens. this is example of lieber code lieber code. private citizens no longer

murdered, enslaved or carried off to distant parts and the inoffensive individual is has little disturbed in his private relations as. the commander of the hostile troops can afford to grant in the overall and demands a vigorous war. and that is partially creation of the rule law in wartime. so condemnations of war are easy to find. social critics politician ins and generals often speak out against war. the philosopher john stuart mill called it ugly thing. george clemenceau, though the prime minister of france during, world war one, believed that war is too serious, a matter to leave to the soldiers. general smedley butler, who was twice awarded congressional medal of honor and was common down to the marines, said that war is, quote, a racket, but war

is also fascinating and alluring. robert e lee remarked, it is well, war is so terrible or, we would grow too fond of it. now the history of the united states is in many ways a history of warfare. by my calculus ation about one fifth of u.s. history since the revolution has been taken up in warfare. there are major wars, of course, there are big wars, but there are also numerous military adventures in china, mexico, nicaragua, dominican republic, the soviet. some of you may not know that during war one we invaded vladivostok, east, the pacific shores of the soviet in an attempt to march moscow to overthrow the new communist. soviet union.

lebanon. grenada. kosovo libya. syria. somalia. it goes on and on and on. of america. american military. i am neither condemning nor endorsing these adventures. some of them, i think, were highly moral and worth doing. others are very problematic. but what are important to understand is, is that war is constantly part of u.s. history. i suspect, by the way, it is even more part of british history because course, britain always had a colonial war somewhere. the sun never sets on the military doing something right that would be that would be the warfare. you know and if you want to have fun, you get a map from the the the early part of the 20th century where the british were great britain and all the colonies will be in red and can

sort of see that the only place isn't red on the map are those time zones where there is no landmass or islands for the british to plant the flag. so. so war warfare is a occurrence occurrence. and that's important. understand? military conflict is also the manifest nation of politics as karl philip godfried von clausewitz succinctly put the point. war is merely the continuation of policy by another means. and mao tse tung, who understood the power of force as well, one of his favorite stagings was, power grows out of the barrel of a. he understood these things, but he also said that politics is without bloodshed while war politics with bloodshed. just as an aside and as we watched current events since you

pointed out how actually since you're dean pointed out how relevant this conference is i'm what i'm trying to figure out whether we'll be seeing kind bloodshed in the war that's currently going on within the fight to. decide who will be the speaker of the house for next couple of hours or and whether that will lead to bloodshed or not. but clearly know politics and war seem to be emerging even when there is peace. the law war aims to reduce civilian and military deaths. are diplomats, generals and scholars who've tried to develop rules for warfare, to eliminate unnecessary violence, unnecessary and suffering, and to protect as much as possible the lives and property of non-combat agents. and of course, we've just heard a lecture about the tension that within a war.

the law of war has also incorporated rules to protect the lives of captured soldiers and regulate their treatment, to ban the use of certain kinds of weapons such as poison or poison gas, small explosive projectiles, mustard gas or serrated bayonets. because these things are inhuman implements, even wartime. the law of war has developed to rein in the horror of war. sherman succinctly put it right. war is hell. but the law war is designed to reduce that helplessness as much as possible. but ironically these humanitarian restraints have condoned destruction of property, the killing of large numbers of human beings. and in the end we come back to

the problem that. the war of war. the law of war like war itself is about taking human lives as c scott sustained fully and brilliantly put it in his portrayal of george patton in the movie. no -- ever won a war by dying for his country. he won it by making the other poor dumb -- die for his country. the and that is part of the can i say, this kind of this language at this university? i hope so. because it's important. the war of law is about regulating the carnage, controlling the and reducing the horror and limiting the destruction. but the law of war there neither prevents nor condemns, per se. and thus condones, or at least allows. the killing of large numbers of people.

modern law of war begins 1863, when the lieber code is issued by abraham lincoln and the league lieber code becomes the law of war. thousands of copies. the lieber code the all hundred and 56 provisions of it are 157, depending on how you count them. the the thousand copies of the letter lieber code are and given to almost every officer in the united army during the war. so the officers have their hands. what the rules are and so that leads, of course, to to some of the questions about that we heard today after after the lieber code is put in place. why are some of these officers doing things which seem to be in

violation of the lieber code and why aren't they cracking down on soldier who are violating the code. and the answer, of course, is always because in what people call the fog of war lots of things happened that nobody knows about nobody's there to to implement. the code has a very special and secure place in the history of international efforts to use law limit war. the military historian sir adam roberts writes that they were responses to the wars of their time and to developments, science and technology. they seen as the foundation, stone, stones of the modern law of war. this of course, is the lieber code and the geneva convention, which is implemented here year after the lieber code and francis lieber is properly recognized along henry dunant,

who drafted the geneva code as the people who begin a careful law of war. now no scholar would argue that there was no law of war before the war began or before the lieber code. in fact, there were many rules of war in place. and one of the things that's fascinating about the law of war is both the confederate army and the united states army has a military code that had been taught at west point since 1806. and so when we see things like jubal early troops kidnap people and chaining them up and making into slaves. he is violating the code that he learned at west point and the code that the confer government had endorsed for its army. so you didn't need a new law of war to understand that we do not

enslave noncombatants and we don't enslave captured soldiers. so as early as 1621 king gustavus of sweden issues rule for his army. he is about to engage in war. what is today lithuania with, a russian army. so he's going cross over and among things his rule for the is it limits assaults, women, pillaging, burning churches or hospitals. so some some from at least in the 17th century, there is a law war that says these are things armies can't do. now, of course, the problem is what happens if the other army is putting its cannon inside a church. then you might have to bomb the

church, you might have to candidate the church, you might to take it down. so again, the law of war best when both sides the rules and there have been examples of that. you know where where where neither side is is using the hospital or the church or a mosque to or a synagogue or a temple to hide their military. if both sides are not doing that, then you're not going to be destroying these places places. francis lieber is asked by halleck. i said to write to the lieber code. it is implemented april 24th, 1863, and the document is approved by the president of the united states. now, of course, lincoln is a good lawyer. he's a very good lawyer. so he probably read the code carefully before approving it. and it's, as i said to every in

the united states army, quickly, just to follow for a moment. so, lieber is born in 1798, his earliest is napoleon's troops marching for berlin in 1806 at age eight at age 17. he enlists in the army to fight napoleon once again. and weirdly, both lieber and klausen which are fighting the battles of namur and waterloo in 1815, lieber is shot and severely wounded in war at battle of waterloo and left on the field for dead. but somehow, and ultimately is. in 1827, he moves to the united states. by 1835, he is at the university of carolina. he had expected he would have had a position teaching at one

of the more prestigious universities, harvard yale, columbia. that doesn't happen in part because he's an immigrant. he speaks with a german accent and in part because he's german and not an american. so they haven't yet recognized the value of foreign scholars. that will come later and at the university, at south carolina college, which is today university of south carolina. he struggles to deal with world that he's in. he does not instance believe in slavery, but also knows that if he condemns slavery, he will be fired. and if he supports slavery, all of his friends in new england, in new york will stop to him. so he's a real dilemma. and so what he does is pretty much says nothing about slavery for 20 years. he simply hides it as a professor at the college.

he is expected to maintain that certain kind of lifestyle and as you would all realize you thought about it in the 19th century that kind of lifestyle requires lots of household help. there's no electricity there's no indoor plumbing. there's refrigeration. dinner means somebody goes to the market either every day or, every other day to buy the fresh food that you're going to serve. you have to have lots of health and health. lieber solves problem initially by importing his nieces germany and this is a pretty good deal for them. you know these young teenage girls come, they work for for for uncle francis a year. they get some american money. they might learn some english. and then they go home with a dowry and they can get married and live happily ever after in in germany. but after about two years of this, he is pulled aside by the authorities at the college, told that