Captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 this one is written by a Pr Department for the white house in jerry fords time. Those of you who might remember with inflation now or wind, poor jerry ford couldnt even get that part of his administration correct. That came and went with incredible speed. Keep cool with coolidge is not generally remembered or win with wilkie because they lost. There are many slogans which are still current in an Ethnic Community or in a smaller segment that were just not generally aware of because they never became generalized but those are slogans which tried to be i am not a crook, certainly was there. But i am not a crook is like a mission accomplished. Its like one of those slogans which characterize an era or a person and im sure that people in love would rather they didnt remember them. The subgroup of snarky slogans or catch phrases. The one which has lasted the longest and you and i have talked about this is once deliberately not in the book but an old one, probably not solely american, but the only good ex, you put your own now in there, is a dead ex, has been with us for a very long time, will probably always be with us, but partly because the function of history is to say who we are. Who are we as opposed to them and were the people who did x, y, z, who did or believe x, y, z and only good is a dead is a perfect example of whos part of we and who isnt. Its the quick and the dead. Weve talked a lot and you write about slogans in American History. What about overseas, do other cultures do this or dont they need to . Other cultures do do it. I have asked people, contemporaries in other cultures, you get a few but you dont get the incredible wealth we have here. In england its everything from we shall fight on the beaches. We are not amused. In france its [ speaking Foreign Language ] germany has them. But we seem to have made i mean russia has them. The only article ive ever seen on slogans that was theoretical was done not surprisingly by lennon because they made a serious study out of slogans. So yes, theyre in other cultures, but they dont seem to be as pervasive as here and i think the reason is, particularly in the 19th century, and in certainly the late 18th century, this was a strange place. Every other country in the world that existed had been there forever, right. There was no before and after. There was its all in some vague evolving past. I mean they all had moments and a king died or there was an invasion or the goths arrived, but in the United States there was a before, it was called the colonial period, there was an after, there was a brief time of almost like the explosion of the universe where we had we created ourselves and people remember knew people who lived before the time and they were living after and it was a clear separation so this was a created thing and so it was so precious that we had to remember it and all these things developed as a result. You dont i dont think you see the same thing, certainly dont see the same thing. The only country that thats thats the exception here is switzerland, but it was a very small republic and they had william. But england certainly has the one culture i know quite well, certainly has some likeness but not the same. We talked before about the internet and mass media and what that does to slogans. Theres also a sort of conventional wisdom, at least among some of us of a certain age that words are less important than they used to be, that people read less, that this is the age of the image and maybe instead of slogans and catch phrases we have videos that go viral. What happens to the slogan if people arent thinking of words so much and are expressing themselves in other ways . The people who invented the crucifix would be interested to find out that the image was coming on as an important communication device and i have a problem because i think images create words in your mind and words in your mind create images and if theres anything that barack obama has proved at least in a public oratory sense its not dead. Power has been misused or unused for so long. Ronald reagan was an excellent public speaker and occasionally so was bill clinton. Its been rare weve had somebody as powerful as this as a speaker. Im not sure what goes on. Yes, you can have images, but im not sure. Look, im of a certain age and older than you where im at the point where half of me wants to say like every grumpy old man, its true, things are going to hell in a hand basket and the young kids dont know squat. I have one at home and they dont know squat. Thats not true. Hes very smart. Dont trust anyone over 30. There you go. Another says to me, this has all happened before and it will happen again and it wont really change. I dont know what the answer is, and i guess i prefer writing about history because its happened and i dont have to worry about it. Writing about the future or writing fiction is so stiff cult its beyond my ability to think about. Which means you wont like the next question, which is this, what do you expect from an Obama Administration by way of slogans and catch phrases and use of language . Is that going to be a deliberate part of the strategy . Will it happen spontaneously . I dont think well have it. I think weve been through a time which was so consen tratsd on the spin, the selective use of words, i think were about to enter in a time where we have an honest dialog from somebody who is not afraid of talking to us. Yes, we dcan. Yes, we can. But what youre saying is that slogans arent going to work, messages arent going to work im not saying messages wont work. Of course messages work. There were slogans and messages and spin as far back as when Alexander Hamilton was helping washington write the speeches and tom payne was spinning the news. And they just happened to do a better job of it. Messages will be important but they wont substitute for reality. Im currently reading a book about kissinger and nixon and the odd thing is when you look at what happened with johnson and then nixon and now, the arguments for whats going on overseas have not changed. They use the same words. Its really odd. And theyre substituting a belief that if you substitute words long enough, that it will become reality and i dont think this administration will do that. And i think if they try, theyre going to meet a wall of angry disappointment. We have an eager looking audience. You look eager. Questions at this point . Lets throw it open . Who would like to jump in . Do we have a question and we have a microphone. You mentioned messages are more important these days than words. Ha sort of message not messages but visions, what sort . I think what alan was trying to say was that as the internet and texting and youtube and alls the things that are available now are destroying the written word as a primary form of communications, books are read less, comic illustrated novels are preferred, it all detracts from the ability to have civil discourse in print or in public, and i suppose thats true. What i was just trying to say, messages will still be important, but images yeah, i just dont know enough. I dont portend to know enough about Communications Theory to answer when because im not sure i see the difference between words and images and i think one creates the other and vice versa. But im old fashioned. Any other questions . I was just thinking wait. Hold on. Help is on the way. Oh, yes. I have a microphone now. Okay. Its official. I was just thinking when you were discussing slogans and i was thinking about the old game telegraph. Yes. Sit around and what starts out as i want you to draw your rifle and aim and this whole speech turns into the slogan, when you talk about the internet i was thinking about cut and paste, passing along oral history seems to limit itself to slogans but cut and paste doesnt. Cut and paste youre held to the words, email. Its not the same as sitting around a fire by the time someone says what jan said around the campfire it turns into a good story and by the next time it gets even better. How do you see this oral tradition continuing . Im not sure it continues now. I think the oral tradition is pretty evolved. Yeah. At least in this country. And not at your house . Thats only the excuses part of my existence. On the other hand what youre saying is for a slogan really to be a slogan and really to take hold, it has to evolve. People have to take it on and work on it and bring it forward. Are you saying that that stops happening . I dont know. It will be interesting to see what happens to yes, we can. That is easily adaptable, but then so was i have a dream and i was shocked when a Company Started using got permission to use that for its Corporate Image campaign. You know, using it makes it more valuable and cheapens it at the same time. Yes. Wait. The microphone is coming. Maam. Mr. Van meter, which slogan that you wrote about is your favorite and why . Oh, my. In many ways its probably hit them where they aim for an odd reason. People have known for years that nobody could find the source. I did. It is not a tribute to me, it is a tribute to searchable texts which nobody had bother to do before and the Brooklyn Eagle is now online with searchable text so i found the exact article where it was a rained out ball game and Willie Keeler and his friends are talking about betting on baseball, which was fairly common in those days, and this is well before the scandal, and he turns to the reporter and says, you know, everybody and he goes into what his secret to his hitting is its ten inches down in a long article inside sports pages of the Brooklyn Eagle and its a wonder nobody found it before and i probably wouldnt have either if i had to use micro film. Thats one of my favorites. When you think about memorable slogans and you touched on this a little bit, is it more important that it be selfcontained, chicken in every pot, thats understandable in itself or that the meter or some other factor helps, tippecanoe and tyler too, i dont know what it means its like you remember 50 or fight. The angelo making poetry. I think most important thing is for almost all of them is what value its teaching and why the culture is keeping it in its sort of group memory. There are things like tippecanoe and tyler too, and 54 or fight or even i like which is the most innocuous Campaign Slogan known to man and yet it also got them elected, there are some that are there for total nonsense reasons and i cant explain why and why anybody should remember the election of harrison and tyler when harrison died a month after getting elected and tyler was eventually thrown out of the party for being such a bad wig. He wasnt a wig to begin with. So it was a complete failed administration and you had that sticks around. I dont know. Just dont know. Anyone else . Well give them a pause. We have more time. And i wanted to ask, yes, eager as you might be and i wanted to ask about life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Is it a slogan or catch phrase or none of the above . It is just as all men are created equal, theyre not in the book because the one thing that i figured everybody really did know was the declaration of independence, but if theres probably the most powerful catch phrase no slogan i think is all men are created equal. We started going back to that when jackson started to enlarge the democracy, went back to it when lincoln was debating douglas and could to the not justify his feelings on segregation by the constitution because it was in the constitution, so he switched the focus of the argument to the declaration of independence which he saw as a prior and more important document. Every rights group in this country has begun on all men are created equal as a place to spring from. Its the most important and probably the most important american influence on the rest of the world. Its a very powerful vision. Some others may be less powerful but let me get reactions, lightning round if you will. Greed is good. I think only those of us who saw that movie had any idea what that means. What is it . Greed is good from the movie wall street with Michael Douglas and it was sort of the last time we hated wall street and now we hate it again. It hasnt survived because we hate it so much and the sentiment is so repelling that we dont remember it. We dont choose to remember it. Why you think we have the slogan on every dollar bill in god we trust and the message it sends, is that something that will endure . Does god belong with monetary pursuits . Its not really monetary so much as its the belief that debt that the Founding Fathers fell to a superior being. It was not for many of them a christian god. You know more about this than i do. But the belief in a god of some kind is basic to the country. Elizabeth doles last ditch attempt to stay in office was to accuse her opponent in North Carolina of being an atheist. Its amazing she didnt say that womans daughter was a thespian, which is used once in a Louisiana Campaign although it may be is it the proper place for money to be given the centrality of the capitalist Economic System in this country, its hard to argue that it isnt. Yeah. Irrational exuberance, any further life . No. No. For one thing, that gets into the area of epithets. Its not really a slogan or a catch phrase. Its like the tiny mountainous kingdom of or the embattled ceo. Its a lovely subject and one we used to spend a lot of time thinking about all the epithets baseball pitcher for the philadelphia athletics, Bobby Schantz, always called the dim mun native Bobby Schantz because he was like 5 in2 and you goto believing his parents named him dim mun native. Its not really a slogan. Will it be remembered . Probably not. It depends. The ability of newspaper writers and editorial writers and compen taters to be ladies about their choice of words and phrases is almost boundless. I was talking to actually talking to a reporter from the Washington Post, you will be interested, i talked to the reporters because i didnt do that before, and i said theres one thing that i want to complain to you about and he said what. I said, if i hear the term gate any more, im going to run screaming into the void. And he said, youll be interested to know theres actually a policy against the use of the word gate at the Washington Post unless it refers to the watergate or using it in a quote. It is automatic, it is just ladie lazy, lazy people. Watch them try to fill air time, its painful. Unless you had the bizarre holograms, someone today said looked like Princess Leia waiting to be beamed up. From another direction, you got to believe. You got to believe. You got to believe is great, but its so tied to new york or philadelphia. Thats true. But they stole it from us. They stole him. Its the saying, you got to believe, there are any number of those. Its in the future. Where you just have to wait until next year, the same one. And they only gave it up when they took the team to los angeles. Final question. Yeah. Weve talked about this nation, other nations, tribal identities. Is there a slogan or a catch phrase, can there be a slogan or catch phrase that stretches across boundaries that becomes a globalization or a, you know, a global catch phrase worldwide. Not until the awful thing happens and the world becomes a single culture. That would make our lives as boring as it could possibly be. I want to thank you all for coming. Appreciate it. American history tv on cspan 3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. Coming up this weekend saturday at 1 00 p. M. Eastern will mark the 57th anniversary of the march on washington with the nbc news broadcast the American Revolution of 63, which aired less than one week after the august 28th, 1963 march, and dr. Martin luther king, jr. s i have a dream speech. Sunday at 2 30 p. M. , john willingman discusses screening reality how documentary filmmakers reimagine america explores the history of nonfiction films and television from 19th century Thomas Edison films to 21st century reality tv. At 4 00 p. M. On real america, two programs from the cspan archives on civil rights leaders with James Baldwin at the National Press club in 1986 on racism in america followed by a 1992 cspan american profile interview with former congresswoman shirley chisholm. On american artifacts a look at women in congress with house of representatives historian matthew wasnewski using artifacts from the election in 1917 to stories about Margaret Chase smooth and lindy boggs. Watch American History tv this weekend on cspan 3. Up next on history book shelf, pulitzerprize winning author ron chernow recalls the life and leadership of ulysses s. Grant at the 18th annual National Book festival in washington, d. C. Mr. Chernow is the author of the biography grant voted o