charles taft the half-brother of resident william howard taft, had commissioned a lincoln statue, created by george grey bernard, which was on failed instance and that a, 1917. here it is, if you've you've seen this i would guess, this famous one in chicago. so this was put up in 1917. charles taft was pleased, so pleased that he wanted to have a second one made, and exact replica and send it over to london. he was going to pay for the whole thing. it seemed as though this would solve the problem that they've been having -- having a good their projects underway. -- made an offer, the heat sucked in, it seems like that would be the end of the story. but then firestorm in the media broke out. high levels of leadership on both sides of the atlantic,

theodore roosevelt challenging his chosen successor, william howard taft. when he loses, he runs as a third party candidate. you have a socialist party candidate that we haven't even talked about. he gets 900,000 votes in that election and the former president of princeton, woodrow wilson, who as a result of the vote splitting becomes the first democrat in the white house ince grover cleveland. that's a much more chaotic election than the one we went through with a lot of populism and cross cutting. host: who was responsible for naming it the house of truth and did they really think have truth? guest: it was self-mocking name for the house. the person who is attributed is holt who had the gift of language. i don't think holmes named it. the person who holmes thought named the house of truth was a dennison. host: i know you have 200 pages of notes. how hard was this book to write? guest: it was hard to write because i thought i was telling four books in one, frankfurter's ann. , lip pn i don't know if i was successful but tried to make their stories . ow and

the republican president howard taft was getting the traditional support. >> did they stop that behavior? stha >> it put a halt on it and the presidential primaries were not as important. they were not always connected to the delegate selection. they got somewhat important. >> when did the smoke filled back rooms fade away? they faded away in the 1800s not so much because of presidential primaries but other out siside influences. you started getting polling in the 1930s and since the aim of the convention is to nominate a poplar presidential candidate. it might not have been a formal following of it but it seemed to have influence. there are more outside pressures from interest groups, media providing more coverage with radio and television so that sort of that thinking. winning in iowa or new hampshire gives the candidate a lot of media attention, more campaign con fwrugz -- contributions and this should help them win. momental doesn't always last. you might thing of that in the way of barack obama with the ability to overtake health care in 2008 as the hillary clinton was the frontrunn

one of the people most outraged about his nomination was then ex-president william howard taft , whoseomments privately about the brand as nomination or pretty ugly -- the brandeis nomination were pretty ugly. there were some anti-semitic stereotypes. thatn't say in the book taft was anti-semitic. he was making become us to a jewish person. but the comments talking about and his theoretical research incision so he could -- cumcision wasecir pretty ugly. brian: brandeis has a university named after him in the boston suburbs. waspresident of harvard anti-semitic, and they had a jewish quota. what was that about? mr. snyder: during the brandeis confirmation process, before merrick garland, brandeis waited longest for agents it is eerie -- for a senate judiciary committee hearing. no one had waited that long until merrick garland. there is a huge petition in lowell, they president of harvard, anti-semitic, asking the u.s. senate not to confirm brandeis. they felt like he was dishonest and a trickster, and all the sort of stereotypes. with the new republic did which was really brilliant was

in the middle is the former president of the united states william howard taft. hat is he doing there? mr. snyder: taft has the unique distention of being a former president sitting on the supreme court as chief justice. a move that people speculated might be in obama's future. i doubt it, but people speculated that. taft really helped remake that court into a much more conservative court. when warren harding becomes president and a liberals like felix frankfurter are kind of in the wilderness, harding, and a short period of time -- he only spent three years in office -- a point four members to the court, including taft. after that, he helps harding select very conservative people to the court and tilted in a conservative direction. these three liberals in that photo are brandeis, the man in the upper right corner of the photo, and some people would say that holmes is a liberal, although he is difficult to categorize. not liberal by today's standards. brian: they are both from kentucky. tell us that relationship. mr. snyder: both of them nominees of woodrow wilson

charles taft the half-brother of resident william howard taft, had commissioned a lincoln statue, createdgeorge grey bernard, which was on failed instance and that a, 1917. here it is, if you've you've seen this i would guess, this famous one in chicago. so this was put up in 1917. charles taft was pleased, so pleased that he wanted to have a second one made, and exact replica and send it over to london. he was going to pay for the whole thing. it seemed as though this would solve the problem that they've been having -- having a good their projects underway. -- made an offer, the heat sucked in, it seems like that would be the end of the story. but then firestorm in the media broke out. high levels of leadership on both sides of the atlantic, among people who really didn't like the lake and that was portrayed in this particular statue. as you can see from the quotation from his surviving son -- one of the biggest critics of this statue. he sees it as monstrous, grotesque, inflammatory. she doesn't like the fact that it was made -- doesn't want this to be the image of lincoln that is proje