Hello. My name is kai bird. And executive director of the leon leavy center for biography at City University of new york, and we are sponsored by the Leavy Foundation when we do events like this to promote the arts and crafts a biography among other things. We had been a sponsor of the National Book festival for some years, and were here on a session with of the 20th anniversary i chose of the National Book festival and the theme this year is american ingenuity. We are going to be talking tonight with two notable intellectuals, Harold Holzer is one of the countries leading lincoln scholars big is currently the director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at hunter college. Ted widmer is himself the author of eight books. Professor is now on the faculty of holy Honors College for today will be discussing his latest book, lincoln on the verge, story about a 13 day train journey that lincoln took from illinois to washington, d. C. , to be inaugurated as president. These are two very different books. I want to hold up each of them. This is literally a mini biography, well, not so many but its a substantial book that it focuses on 13 days. This is the book, the presidency vs. The press. They are very different books but they are both about president s. Both offer deeply versed lincoln and the civil war era. To my mind both books have a theme which is the notion that american politics is always been deeply partisan, contentious and downright toxic. Toxic. So ted, lets begin with you. You give us a vivid description of lincolns dangers train journey, and at one point you refer to it, to the toxic climate of 1860. I wanted to ask you right off the bat, is it worth today . [laughing] no. Its horrific today. Might but it was worse in 1860. Its such an honor to appear with harold because he literally wrote the book on this. Matt, the lincoln president elect wisconsin on my bookshelf as writing this new book, and so hes read every newspaper in statement by lincoln and all of his contemporaries, and i read a lot of them but i think youll has read more of them. It was a nightmare. There was a a presidency fallig apart, the James Buchanan presidency which have not been especially distinguished even in the better years that preceded 1860 but it was having a strange kind of immolation. Buchanan personally was failing. He was having a lot of trouble making decisions. He was trying to please the very angry southern members of his cabinet and then promising things he couldnt really promised to the northerners are getting upset about the southern promises, and the treasury didnt have very much money. There was mounting evidence of very serious financial corruption among his cabinet but also the sending of armaments from northern forks and armories down to southern installations, almost as if the civil war had begun, although it had not yet begun. While rumors sweeping washington about militias who might take over the government buildings at any moment. Lincoln was very far away without that much power to affect anything in washington here so as he got on that train he really didnt know what he is going to find at the end of the journey or if you would even make it into washington. As i tried to show, it was a close call. He made it but only barely. So turning to harold, why do you call in your book complied you refer to the endless battle between the white house in the media . What is it an endless battle . All of our president s go back to George Washington, and even in the founding period winter was a distance between the president and the press, no press conferences, no scrums as washington was ready to build his helicopter to go to the golf course, no press secretaries. There was still a partisan print press that in a way resembled the television dichotomy between msnbc, say, and foxnews news, or the extremes of liberal and rightwing media on the internet. So at the beginning washington established a special relationship with federalist journalists and editors who were friendly to his administration and his policies. And sort of to top anything that we hear about today about leaks, that displease the current president , George Washington had a cabinet member, thomas jefferson, who held the highest rank in the cabinet as secretary of state who actually helped create an opposition newspaper in the capital, philadelphia at the time. And not only encouraged its creation specifically to criticize the policies of George Washington, but gave its editor a job in the state department as the translator in order to help him make his way in the new city. He had to travel to philadelphia to set up shop. That in a way set the example of president s being wary of and sometimes in open hostility against the press. We mention the inaugural journey of lincoln. Within six months of that inaugural journey, a brand lincolns administration was encouraging the shutdown abraham lincolns antirepublican, antivolunteerism volunteering for the military newspapers. He was imprisoning editors without the writ of habeas corpus. He was closing down newspaper offices. The antipathy on occasion in American History become quite overt. As i point out in my book, and as ted said, not as bad as it was then. Today the crackdowns in the complaint are nowhere near as bad as they were under john adams, abraham lincoln, woodrow wilson, maybe even fdr in some ways. So harold, lets keep with you for a moment to follow up on that. Why did you have to, after writing so many books about lincoln, turn to this topic, the press and the white house . Was it because of the Trump Presidency and his particularly hostile relationship with the press . Did you start this book before trump was elected . I started it a bit before, i would say, but ive written a book about lincoln and his long relationship with the press, as an anonymous journalist for the press, as a manipulator of messages, as a Master Technology that helped him get his message across. I i think i was motivated in a y nostalgically by my own courier, which is at least as secure us as teds. I started 50 whingers ago my first job was as a cub reporter, been a reporter, then an editor as the rest of the real professional staff peeled away for want of money of the weekly newspaper in new york run by a very political guy who was very closely aligned to the kennedy family. There i spent years in politics as a press secretary to political candidates, none of them under my watch ever won an election, but thats another story. I have seen this from several angles but this just seemed like a natural subject to tackle, the origins of the pervasive contentiousness between president s and journalists, and the varying peaks and valleys of those relationships. So coming back to you, ted. You described at one point in lincolns journey, you say that this is the first time a president had quote, direct conversations with the voters, unscripted with the Media Standing by. Meaning that the reports, reporters were standing listening to these conversations leak would have along the way on the railroad journey. And then they would telegraph their accounts of these conversations in newspapers across the country. This is really the first time that there was like an instant press conference as such, right . I dont think thats too big a stretch of i dont think anyone used the phrase press conference at the time. It was a very volatile situation, and lincoln understood very well, as heralds work has shown, just how powerful the press was. He had his antipathies and he got unbelievably frustrated and angry but he also was skillfully using the power of the press to his advantage. He knew that reporters were listening and there were reporters embedded on the train within as hes come from springfield to washington, some very talented reporters here sometimes they even helped him get his message out, very famous farewell address at springfield was, he gave the speech and then a few minutes later after the train started, a reporter named henry went to lincoln on the train as it is moving and asked him to write it out, and lincoln, theres a famous document in the library of congress that shows half of the speech written by lincoln and squiggly handwriting because the train is literally moving, if any handed it to his aide who finished it and then they give it to henry who telegraphed it to the rest of the country, an extremely important lincoln speech was made available because of the cooperation of the reporter. But he also got angry and sometimes the message got distorted severely, sometimes reporters wrote things that were not true at all. While hes on this train people on south are running the most hateful things i can think about it. Anything went in the southern papers at that time. Ted, how did you come to write this book . I understand you sort of emerged out of your work for the New York Times in 13 days, 13 essays. Can you tell us about that . Sure. I feel lucky because i had been a pretty academic historian and i thought of serious academic topics which you could almost substitute the word tedious for serious. This story crept up on me at a think it was a better story for that reason. I was working with some friends some were historians come summer journalists who wanted to put the story of the civil war day by day into the online section of the New York Times at a time this was 201011 when he began when the online part was not considered that valuable. Its funny because ten years later it very valuable but at the time it was in a sort of ms significant part of the papers real estate. They gave us some space and it was all like virtual space. It didnt even matter if we could write fairly long pieces and harold contributed to the sears very meaningfully. I think we all kind of spurred each other on and some of the writers were very good tellers of stories and it would not put in that category but i was lifted up by their example and i liked how they were doing it. My friend Adam Goodhart who harold also knows was really writing beautifully in those early months and so i was just looking had a little bit and i noticed that make it at the train trip coming. February 1861 is when it happened so february 2011 is when i was was thinking about writing something. I pitched it to the editors of the times and they said go for it. So for 13 days in a row i wrote essays about what happened on that day. I just fell in love with the story. I had harolds look right at my desk dan and and i read the orl newspaper accounts, some of which i read on the website of the library of congress and it was an immersive experience. It was a kind of adventure and im not really found adventure in history until this project came along. Its a very vivid tale and i have to say i was surprised at your ability to tell the story with such suspense. I had not realized how dangerous the journey was. I hadnt realized there was indeed a very serious conspiracy. To try to perhaps prevent lincoln from actually getting to washington. It reads like a thriller at times. You really learn a lot of the history but its a very narrative driven. I wrote a very long manuscript that both of you could relate to this century both such good historians. I would have published it but fortunately had a really tough editor, alice who is been harolds editor, too, she jumped all of me and made me cut half of it, and if so glad she did. She died in february but i included a memorial page to her, and she was a great editor. She helped me to find that story. Really having a great editor helps so much. Coming back to harold. You actually have chapters devoted to any number of president s, not all of them. You had to pick and choose. For instance, you dont write about eisenhower or treatment. How did you pick out why did you pick the president that you picked to talk about the relationship with the press . Its not a perfect linear process. Like ted come in a World Without editors i mightve written a two volume book with the chapter for each of the president. Because there are things to say. But in the case, heres what i decided to do. For the 19th 18th and 19th centuries, i basically limited the chapters to those president s who had the most consequential impact, relationships between the presidency in the media, if i may call it that. So washington obviously because he sets the tone for everyone. Adams because he was as sound with the press as he was with his political enemies. And because the ultimately side and enforce a sedition law that made it possible for the federal government to consider criticism, attacks against the president of the United States unlawful and he prosecute those cases. The jefferson who stands out as kind of come as much a hypocrite in his pronouncements about the press versus his actions. So i thought it was a remarkable story. Hes one of the great apostles of the free press, famously sang if we had to choose between an effective Government Free press we should always choose the press. But in effect was quite manipulative, quite compensatory about critical journalists, and, in fact, while the opposing the sedition law he did so only because he didnt believe the federal government had many rise in terms of a law that superseded state law. He was also prosecuting the press at the state level for bible and is quite enthusiastic about that. And, of course, he commissioned journalist, mr. Callender, to write pro republican articles and then when he refused to reward calendar with a very small federal job, calendar turned on him and published the Sally Hemmings story that of course did more to haunt his reputation than anything. I chose the more consequential once, jackson because he important to list into his official family and made them speechwriters, advisers, Kitchen Cabinet members. Lincoln for obvious reasons. And i try to get almost all of the 20th century president s if i could. I left out exciting folks like coolidge and harding, and hoover, although hoover held quite a few press conferences. I just did like the fact they had to submit them in advance. Wilson intended press conferences. He invented widescale Administration Propaganda during world war i. Teddy roosevelt who preceded him was, invented the informal back at the white house interview while he was being shaved in the back of the white house. Then i included president s who revolutionize communications in the ability to bypass the press and to speak directly with the people by utilizing cutting edge technology. The most obvious ones and the ones that dealt with in detail for Franklin Roosevelt who used the radio so brilliantly, but also and less acknowledged he also used newsreels. He was the second or third feature at the movie in some of the most popular days of the movies. His first radio address as president elect was also a highlight in movies during the time when i am a fugitive from a chain gang was showing. Franklin roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and obama and maybe i should add trump. Which of those four president s do you think were most effective at manipulating the press . Roosevelt who befriended them ingeniously, who got them to ignore and not write about or photograph his disability. Through what began as a gentlemans agreement because journalists and photographers simply liked the guy and ended with unchallenged white house rules about taking informal photographs of roosevelt in his wheelchair, even taking unflattering photographs, so he was able to censor his administration was able to censor while he remained a good guy. He held 998 press conferences in his 12 years and six weeks as president , so he was remarkably transparent about the wheels of government and decision making, although many things were off the record, reporters were able to ask him to make them on the record, and he often did that. So i would say also, you know, in 30 something fireside chats, which were so such a pervasive part of the culture in the 30s and 40s, that remembered walking in chicago on a hot summer day, during a traffic jam, and hearing a continuous fireside chat from open car window to open car window without interruption. So roosevelt was everywhere, and i think he was a great genius of communication, being out there and yet being somewhat secretive successfully. Along the way, in your story, you talk about how the press in their coverage of lincoln, sort of humanized him for the first time, and this is of course at a very delicate moment in his trying to get to washington to be inaugurated and it is on the verge of what we know becomes the civil war. And lincoln is like he suddenly becomes flesh and blood, and the press does this, and can you describe how this happened . I agree. First of all, the curiosity about him was i would say larger than that that had followed any president on his way in to office. It was overwhelming. Lincoln had come almost out of nowhere, not quite nowhere because the Lincoln Douglas debates had raised his profile in illinois certainly and even in the east, and then with the Cooper Union Speech which harold has written about, his profile went up a little bit more but he was still outside shot of the nomination which he got in may, and i think if that that nominating convention had not happened in chicago, his chanceses would have been much less. He got it. When people realized he bought the established candidates William Seward especially. There was this curiosity, what does he look like and think . What does his home look like . Weekly newspapers in new york are beginning to include illustrations, and thats important. So lincoln is the kind of political celebrity, and that word was being used. It had been used in some other context in the 1850s, and then suddenly, the biggest celebrity that america has ever known is getting on a train to come to the capitol to take charge of a government that is falling apart, and all of these things, the fear, the excitement, the hope, and the criticism, he got all of it, and every newspaper in the story wanted to cover it, and there were tens of thousands of newspapers i mean, this was a very literate society, especially in the north and upper midwest, so if the train was bringing lincoln within an