Travis colin, im a bookseller here and in charge of the exhibitions club lets get to some quick housekeeping and we can jump right in. Im going to takea quick second to remindeveryone to silence your cell phone. Ndwe are also recording video and audio. So lets just get into it. Also when it comes time for the q a portion, we have a standing mike right here. Again at the aisle, we you speak clearly and you keep your question to aquestion. And then following everything , we have all the books on sale behind the Cash Register at the front of the store. So if you just want to get up and get those come back we would be more than happy to p sign and then we just askthat you keep your chairs inplace. We will have another talk after this and we greatly appreciate. But and also, we have as many of you know we both a lot of events this year or every year really. And joining us, if you need any help keeping track, we have the calendars at the info desk and also just checked your website. We update that all the time sowe just ask that we get an information. We cant push that enough. I had the pleasure of hosting matthew algeo. He is an awardwinning journalist who is on marketplace and market condition and is the author of many books. Harry trumans next maadventure and the president is a sick man among them. He is here to discuss his new book all this marvelous potential, Robert Kennedys book about the election, the story tells of kennedys tour starting in midfebruary less than four months before his assassination. Looks like a legality, have recast the midcentury apparat election like what decisions were in place to generate the world as it became myself having with your cumberland for years, ive seen how the story is told in the book title alone will resonate as a population. But even deeper into the pages, readers familiar with the stories economic withdrawal will find much to discover and ill jump right in. Everyone join me in welcoming matthew. [applause] thank you travis. Hows everybody feeling . Everybody feeling okay . Its great to be politics and prose again. Ive said it before, or authors like Madison Square garden. It just smells better. Travis as you mentioned in some of my earlier books, i kind of like where this fits the previous books ive done. With a little background about myself first is in order. Its always good to let people know the person who wrote the book. The person who you will be giving your money to, hopefully. I grew up in a town about 30 miles north of philadelphia. Its an indian word that means we are not for craft and i went to college at university of pennsylvania in philadelphia and i majored in folklore. So ive got that going for me. I met my wife in st. Louis in 97. We were very denied it. T. In 2005 she was hired at the state department and join the foreign service. So since then i have been able to write these books because my wife has a real job. This string of nonbestselling books has given me something to do at least while we are overseas. Quick plugs for somewhat earlier books if i could. First book was last Team Standing. That is aboutoo thank you. The 1943 merger of the steelers and the eagles. S. They became the nfl is so short a place during world war ii. They had to merge to make teams. The quarterback is blind in one eye and the running back as ulcers. Its all flores and somehow they are not the last Team Standing the publisher insisted calling the book the last Team Standing. Its an good book. Next book retraced the road trip harry and best treatment took in the sum of 53 right after they left the white house. This was before expresident had pensions or secret service protection. Harry and bess got in the chrysler drove for independence, missouri, to the east coast to visit the daughter margaret who lived in new york at the time and it drove back. Its a sweet book. They are staying in motels and eating at diners and its really, speaks to a bygone era. I dont think expresident now i basically midsize corporations under themselves, but when truman less office he was last president to return to something recently a normal life. It was a lot of fun to do that story. Real quickly come did the president is a sickes man whichs but the secret operation Grover Cleveland to remove i cant just rumor from his mouth. How are these not bestsellers . I can believe this. Pedestrian is in, the history of competitive walking in the 1880s. A sixday walking race. Widely acknowledged as the greatest biography of written of lincolns dog. I mean, lincoln plus dog, come on. What do i have to do . We will see about all this marvelous potential and how well that fits into the scheme of things. This book came about in 2016 after the president ial election. Youre probably aware donald trump is president and a lot of people were surprised when he was elected and they went and looked at the numbers and were especially surprised at the overwhelming majority he picked up a lot of counties in appalachia a people start writing about this and i thought thats interesting. I wonder how that happened. I knew about the kennedy trip. Just as piece of political trivia, that Robert Kennedyju in 68 hadnd gone on what is same as poverty tourist Eastern Kentucky. At the time kennedy was not officially a candidate that was considering running against Lyndon Johnson in the democratic primary. It was in effect type of the campaign stop. It at all the toppings of the camping trip with Photo Opportunities and the hearings a in the speeches. I just thought it was interesting that Robert Kennedy in 1968 as a liberal could go to Eastern Kentucky and very credibly campaign and 50 years later use donald trump when these counties with 60 or 70 vote. I thought i should write a book about that but then it would else thought the same thing. This book intose being a little different. It focuses more on the trip itself. I dont really get into that much of the analysis of why things have changed. I look at more how things have changed and delivered up to the reader l to decide what the changes are for better or for worse. They are for the worse. I went down to kentucky. I began researching the book in 2017. 2017 i grew up in philadelphia outside philadelphia have a lot of biases attached to it. To the story of appalachia and off the 1960s. My ideas the 1960s was woodstock, the chicago convention, san francisco, who dont really think of kentucky when you think of the 60s. At least i didnt. For i came from. But the 60s happened in kentucky a lot. There were a lot of crazy things going on in appalachia and Eastern Kentucky. Things to do with environmentalism and poverty. That really surprised me and i really thought maybe that was the way to approach the story it and look at what the 60s were like in Eastern Kentucky. Just by way of background, before the trip in 1960s is brother jack ran for president in West Virginia was important primary for john kennedy to win. Bobby was his Campaign Manager and this was the first time that jack and bobby were really exposed to american poverty of right to think it really stuck with both of them. Theres a funny story from the 1960 campaign and West Virginia were an old coalminer came up to jack kennedy and said is it true that you have never worked today in your life . And jack kennedy said well yes there is some truth to that in the coalminer said will dont worry you havent missed a damn thing. [laughter] so kennedy really was enamored with the people in West Virginia and appalachia and i think they stayed with him in july of 63, harry accardo who is a writer from Eastern Kentucky road a book called mike comes to the cumberlands. It was really an expose on the exploitation of the people in eastern contacted by the Coal Companies. And the major corporations in the u. S. That depended on coal. And then in october of 63, homer was a reporter for the New York Times wrote an expose about poverty in Eastern Kentucky. I think jack kennedy had seen both of these and made quite an impression on him. He had planned to go, to Eastern Kentucky to see with the conditions were like for himself, and that trip was scheduled for december of 1963. So of course, that never took place. However, after his assassination, lbj stepped up and really took up the mantle for anti poverty campaigns. In his january 64 state of the union address, famously declared a war and poverty. In august to 64, just seven months later, the bill, the Economic Opportunity act was passed. Creating the office of Economic Opportunity or a leo which was the agency that oversaw all the war on Poverty Programs. And they were so may programs, takes a page in the book just to list all the programs but some of them are headstart, medicare is something that came out of the School Lunch Programs, things like this. So rfk, when he went to Eastern Kentucky in january 68 he had a few reasons to go. One was i think it was still in the back of his mind that his brother had wanted to visit kentucky and 63 it had never made it appear he wanted to gauge the success of the war and poverty. The bill to re appropriate Economic Opportunity was coming up so he wanted to see what progress had been made on the war on poverty. To think Robert Kennedy also wanted to show that poverty was not an africanamerican problem or native american problem or a Mexican American problem but an american problem that affected every community and every group in the country in Eastern Kentucky, particularly he thought it was important to show that to the country. The trip itself was two days he held hearings in a oneroom schoolhouse. And then at a gymnasium and a town called Neon High School gymnasium. And as i was writing the book, i thought it was more interesting i mean Robert Kennedy, a lot of books have been written about Robert Kennedy. Larry tehran and excellent biography and he gave me a good blurb, which really is the most important thing. And i did not want to write a book about Robert Kennedy and a biography as much as explaining what he did on this trip and the issues he faced. Try to put them into some kind of context of what was happening in the 60s. And what is happening today. Also, to show what changes have happened since the 60s and what changes havent. Just a few of the issues that he discusses, he confronted in Eastern Kentucky, one was stripmining. At the time, there was a system called the broad form deed, i dont know why they called it the broad form deed may be as big. These are deeds that people and signed over, the mineral rights to their property, often 50 to 100 years earlier. These deeds, give companies the right to strip mine, to strip the land that the coal was on. And the companies were not required to repair the lambs, they were not required to do anything to fix the damage that was created by stripmining, and so people would see Coal Companies command, dig up the land and dig up the leave. I was very environmentally was disastrous, it stripped hillsides of all the cover, so the hollows would flood every spring. Not to mention very exploitation since it really destroyed the land the people had and they got no benefits from the coal that was taken out. I think Something Like 1 trillion of coal is been extracted from Eastern Kentucky, and not much of that money made it back. Another issue that was pressing at the time was this concept of maximum feasible participation. The Economic Opportunity act, provided that people most affected by these programs, i. E. Poor people, would be given maximum feasible participation in deciding how the money would be spent. And what the money would be spent on, where the money would be spent. And so just as an example, there was a grassroots Citizen Committee and rapid counties that was organized, got a 40000dollar grant from the federal government to build new roads. This was a committee that was formed by minors in the counties. Seems like a really fantastic thing that they were able to get this money, but he you think did not like the fact that the federal government sent money directly to grassroots Citizen Committees. The state in the county politicians. They re seek to have the money go to them first and they would decide to that despite this to the world poverty in the economic act paternity act and the Economic Opportunity act with maximum feasible participation it was a fantastic idea but in a way, playing it a little seed of its own demise right there in the act. That it triggered such a backlash among the entrenched political interest. This wasnt only in kentucky but everywhere, and any of this money went. Of course, 1968, the president ial campaign was heating up at the time when Lyndon Johnson had not withdrawn yet from the campaign, that would come in march. Bobby would not announce his candidacy until march to february the trip takes place. We are about six weeks before Robert Kennedy officially announces his candidacy. But like i said earlier, really had the trappings of a Campaign Trip and its fun to have pictures in the book, kennedy aides did not expect quite the crowd of press to accompany the senator on this trip. So you would see these long caravans of cars following him and hed stop somewhere and go inside a house to talk to somebody he would be done and beyond to the next house before the caravan even finished pulling up to the house. So this kind of funny how much attention it got although i was surprised to learn that the networks did not archive nightly newscasts until august 1968. When the Democratic Convention came. So there would be an occasional newscaster that follows important essay once in a while the Network Newscast from kennedys trip was not able to find, i think they found they did not archive the newscast at that time. Their host of issues, one just real briefly, food stamps was one of the fascinating issues to me. That he learned about in this book. And mainly because people had to pay for food stamps. Which i hadnt really appreciated. But when the Food Stamp Program began, you paid for a certain denomination of stamps and then in addition to that you were given free stamps. So you would pay say 10 and get 15 with the food stamps. And the fee was determined by a number of factors the your income that sort of thing. They could be a fairly big price, kennedy, one of the people he talked to on the trip that one of the hearings was an unemployed miner main show wingo few gates. I love these nays. Who spent 72 a month for 94 in food stamps. So we had to pay 72 basically to get 22 in food stamps. Another minor was a guy name johnson who was a father 15 whose monthly income was 60. He paid 206 a month for 112 in food stamps just leaving 34 for all other expenses. Johnson said at to kennedy he said have you seen 15 kids in three beds . Robert kennedy said im headed in that direction. [laughter] he had ten kids at the time i think. And after the trip, one of the things that did come out of this was that eventually, the purchase requirement was lifted. Although it did not take effect until the food stamp act of 1977 and that did not take effect until january 1979 in the purchase requirement was finally ended and the participation in the Food Stamp Program went up 1. 5 million in one month. Set made a big difference in a lot of peoples lives just by lifting that purchase requirement. Was also interesting to find that food stamps or Welfare Program for people for the hungry. Also Welfare Program for walmarts, because about 4 of walmart sales come from food stamps. So its always interesting to see walmart, how they come down on legislation that makes it harder for people to get food stamps because it cuts into their revenue. Of course, after rfks assassination in june of 68, Richard Nixon was elected president. He had to appoint someone to oversee the office of Economic Opportunity to oversee the world poverty. Of course republicans for the most part did not like the war and poverty inhaled the programs. It kinda put nixon a tough spot who is he going to find to this thankless job that nobody wants. He found a congressman from illinois a guy named donald rumsfeld, who took over the office of Economic Opportunity and one of his first tires was a young ambitious congressional intern from wyoming, a guy named dick cheney. So in 1981, the office of Economic Opportunity oh eo, was finally abolished altogether. We couldnt give rumsfeld and cheney credit for ending at least one war, and that was the war on poverty. [laughter] what to soon . Finally, we took a couple statistics one is poverty was reduced, 1959 poverty wa