so without further ado, william hazelgrove. [ applause ] >> thank you for coming. thank you for the national trust for historic preservation for letting me speak here. i thought i would start with an overview and go through the story. i'll probably talk a lot the way i write, everything gets thrown in a blender and i spin it up. let's start there. i was reading scott berg's biography of wilson, big thick book. and he had an interesting quote in there that really threw me. and it is basically he said that edith wilson was almost the president. scott berg is a fairly conservative historian, i thought that was a very strange thing for him to say. and actually he went on and i'll just -- i'll read a little bit from his book. insisting that she never made a single decision regarding the disposition of public affairs, miss wilson failed to acknowledge that commanding nature of her role. that in determining the daily agenda and formulating arguments thereon, she executed the physical and most of the mental duties of the office. then went on to say that edith wilson did no