sherman or gershwin? who's more important to american history? sherman or gershwin? and, of course, they were both important but we must not, i said to myself -- we must not leave gershwin out of it. history is much more than politics and the military. i'll say it again. history is much more than plugs and the military. [applause] >> many of you appreciate than know certain ancient civilization business which all we know is their art and their actech tour. so we must take art and architecture and music and poetry and drama and dance and science and ideas seriously as a subject for history. it's who we are as human beings. take away willa cather, take away mark twain, take away gershwin, take away winsler homer. take away the poets of our time and the times before, walt whitman it's as if you took away the mississippi river or the rocky mountains, we wouldn't feel the same way about who we are. and, of course, some of our greatest statesmen of all have in their own way been masters of a literary form, read abe lincoln's second inaugural address, for example. it's a wo