. >>> who was arnold rothstein? >> arnold rothstein was the father of modern organized crime. a gangland figure, a mobster figure, but he is not one of those, dees, dem, and dose guys. he doesn't have a scar or brass knuckles or commanding as part of his main business an army of thugs. owl -- although he will employ muscle guys to collect debts but he is the big bank roll, and he is a gambler when gambling is still very big and very fashionable and semi legal in new york, and he moves into so many things from there, as this big bank roll, where he is putting together the money for rum-running and bootlegging, and financing both sides of organized labor disputes, even financing at one point the folks from the communist party. i guess the shipment of cash hadn't come in from moscow that month. but he is lending money to them. lehning money to build broadway theaters and put broadway shows on, and financing the modern drug trade. so that he is involved in all of these things, not to mention fixing the 1919 world series, fixing a few very high-stake horse races where he could win

sort of talked to him and said i'd be happy to have lunch with you and discuss anything but arnold rothstein [laughter] but i think he has consulted -- but i found very little in my research on rothstein which connected him to atlantic city. there was only one thing i really found, it was somewhat tangential about the rum-running operations. >> host: next call here on booktv on c-span2 comes from delane in granada, colorado. please, go ahead. >> caller: good afternoon. i was just calling to see what your take on the teapot dome scandal would be during the

. >> host: dave tweets in, have you read the wikipedia article on arnold rothstein? would you change anything? >> guest: i imagine at some point, but i can't think of anything offhand. my memory of it would be, minimal at this point. >> host: richard from vermont e-mails into you. in his book, the case against the fed, economist murray rothbard is less than flattering of president coolidge and has interaction with the federal reserve bank. what are your understandings and or impressions of the coolidge presidency regarding federal reserve actions and policies? >> guest: rothstein is often not in favor of anyone. [laughter] [talking over each other] >> guest: there's a great divide between conservatives and libertarian. i do know that there was some issue as to whether reagan should have had a little more control over the federal reserve, and in that case, rothbard. unless they had completely messed up, he would ask for them -- they would ask for their head. up until that point, he was kind enough to let them have their head. >> host: marine from san rafael, californi