President ial library here at his home in hyde park he envisioned it becomeing the people Year Research study for the roosevelt era and is one of the busiest Research Rooms in the president ial library system. We get to see the fruit of the labor of all the people who use our Research Room through the years. So its our pleasure to have how here. Would everyone please take out your Electronic Devices and turn them off so that our presentation is not interrupted today. Thank you. Second housekeeping matter, if youll find somebody on the staff here today, theyll be have to givedown of this Roosevelt Library buttons and that will get you into free admission to the new permanent exhibit we opened just a year ago after our three and a half year renovation. So i encourage you to check out the new exhibit. Finally, i want to thank our friends from cspan who are film hearing today. Theyre always great at showing support for Public Programs at the Roosevelt Library. The format of the session is that our distinguished guest will speak for 30 minutes, after which there will be an opportunity for questions and answers. Because cspan is filming in this room, what id like you to does come up and line up at the microphone here so they cannot only capture your question on tape and your smiling face to see how much youre enjoying yourself. And then after the question and answer period, i will whisk the guest out to the lobby where he will be happy to sign all the books youre going to buy at the museum store. So david cross is a free lance writer and Trial Attorney some lives in philadelphia. His trial manual, how not to think like a lawyer,as a best seller on amazon in 2013. His earlier book is a collection of his published essays on literature, history, music, and travel. His new book, choicing history, came about from the desire to flee the courtroom of philadelphia in order to get to know the president s a little better. When not writing or litigating he quotes bob dylan and trying to decide which three cds to a Desert Island and no box set is allowed. David is married to his lovely wife, nicole, and the loving father of several children. Our good friend, david cross. Good morning. Well, it is a delight and an honor for me to be here at the franklin Roosevelt Library to discuss my book. When i decided to take a road trip across the country to visit all of the president ial libraries, i really had no idea what it was i was going to find. And i had no specific point of view at that time. I had heard some of the academics criticisms, that these are all giant moss mausoleums to an ego, they dont confront us with both side of the president s and the most damning of all criticisms that academics have levied, theyre like theme parks. That young people might actually come to some of these places for fun. So, when i came i didnt know what i was going to find, and the First Library i visited happened to be the franklin Roosevelt Library, and that was just pure serendipity. I live in philadelphia so its the nearest one. I came to this library and fell in love with this place, and i as i traveled across the country, i cant say none of these criticisms are ever worthwhile, but i found so much that was positive about the libraries, and i think, Franklin Roosevelt did a lot of things, but this is one of the big ones. I think everybody interested in american history, and everybody interested in the president s, needs to thank Franklin Roosevelt for coming up with the idea of the president ial library. We didnt have this before and theres nothing like this in other countries. And i just thought when i started me trip, who would be opposed to those . To having a president ial library. And when roosevelt was president , most of the president s used to put their documents into the library of congress. But documents went all over the place, and we all know that lincolns documents went all over the place. Some president s had a bonfire, and many of the papp papers were eaten by rats. George washington is the first person to have the idea of the president ial library. He was meticulous about keeping his paperwork, but Franklin Roosevelt came up with the idea, and we all talk about how were in the most partisan of times but if you read through the arguments that went on about whether or not to allow for this library thats right here, whether or not to allow it to take place, youd realize that theres been partisanship through our history, of course. A lot of people thing to it was a bad idea, and the man who thought it was the worst idea of all was hamilton fisch, who is from this district. And if roosevelt said it was sunny, he said it was dark. So this is not a new thing. And he said, this is a terrible idea. First of all, it is this giant monument to this mans ego. And more importantly, we got the library of congress. Why dont we put him there . And what he said was, were going to hive to drive all over to because if root has one, everyone is going to want one of these libraries. I thought thats a great title, driving to poduny. My publisher didnt think so. So i didnt call it that. But when you come to the Roosevelt Library and come to a lot of other libraries you see this wonderful thing which is that when you go to where roosevelt was, when you see the hudson heir he used to actually look at, when youre in the house that he lived at, you get closer to him. And its one thing to read about a president and its another thing to be where he is, and if youre a writer, this is a wonderful opportunity. Its a wonderful opportunity. And let me get started. Ive got a power point presentation here. So, this, of course, is the Roosevelt Library. This is actually a different room from where the Research Take place now in the Roosevelt Library. This is what you would find if you went to the back room and saw where the researchers were doing their work, and as you see the gentleman back there with his camera, thats how most of us get our information now. We bring in a digital camera, and im old enough to remember back in the time when you used to have to come in and you requested and they had to xerox. Now you can just come in and you get to snap the picture. And i came into that room and was interested the in finding out how to president ial libraries came about. How Franklin Roosevelt did this. So bob clark wheeled me up one of this carts, which you can see, and i opened up the first box, and i took out one file, and what is wonderful about this library is before the freedom of information act took place, and the archivist and the white house before franklin relevant left the white house, were able to organize the papers very well. And i looked at this first file and i saw about 20 pages crossreferencedful might be something a cabinet member said and then crossreferenced. And i thought if im a writer and i footnote this, it looks like ive done this for six months. So for all of these books we read this is why my book chasing history, i dedicate to the archivist. They may not even be alive anymore when you go to that file, but for the mcculloughs and they couldnt do what they do without their work. And why do they do it . In this world where everything is selfaggrandizement, and as i drove across the country and met archivists, never met so many people who loved coming to work every day and just love their role in this, and theyre not going to get their name in many books. Some are in my book but for the most part theyre just going to have the feeling they helped bring history about, and this is how it looks like, as this is a card youre going to get. These are for anybody to go to. A lot of people feel like, well, are you allowed to go . Yaw. Anybody in america can go and you can go and hold a document that Franklin Roosevelt signed or that Winston Churchill signed. Heres something with fdr, grand, and when you look at that, its hard to even describe how exciting that can feel to actually see the actual material. Heres a cartoon that came about when he was identifying to get this library put forward, and theyre saying, heres fdr at the hyde park memorial. Theres a lot of opposition. One lady sent to a check for one dollar and said, im sorry 20cents and said, i couldnt send more because of the economy. And so there was a lot of criticism about doing this. You learn sometimes by bumping into something about someone. Everything id always read about roosevelt was after pearl harbor, he was depressedcouldnt believe the navy was gone, and here he is thinking about his president ial library the next day. Roosevelt kept his hand in everything. And one of the things you do, you look at these president s and learn lessons how to live, see that roosevelt would never have had to say, this guy ran my bank account. I didnt know he invested in that. If you look at the documentation, its clear, he keeps his hand in every pot. And theres his car you can see. The mansion. This really affected me, looking at his elevator, and you all can good look at this today if you want to do that. Again, you read about somebody, you understand about somebody, and of course, we all know about his physical limitations enwhen saw this heavy wooden elevator and was told he would pull himself up and bring himself down on it for exercise, you realize and his wheelchair, of course, was not like a modern wheelchair. It was heavy. And you realize the Upper Body Strength he would have had to do that. This is the driveway. He used to try to walk down the entire driveway. So, again in a book i like a lot by tony horowitz, confederates in the closet, a character says he kos you that combination of history and landscape and that this brilliance of Franklin Roosevelts idea, to combine the history and landscape for scholars and for anybody else who is interested. Other and here you get the opportunity to sit and look at the cabin he created. And this library has been recently refurbished and i wanted to show that if you go to this library youll find both sides, both sides of Franklin Roosevelt, and a it bit more about that. The next one i went to was the Kennedy Library, and i write, the bay of what . Its a complicate issue. What should go into a library and what shouldnt. But, for instance, to understand john kennedy you need to understand about addisons disease and understand his physical limitations and theses are things that are bypassed in the library, and i spoke to the director, and the director told me well dont go into the personal things because there are still relatives. It was interesting because after i had that conversation i came out here to the Roosevelt Library, and im looking at that lucy mercer thing that you just saw, and i looked next to me, and i was here at the anniversary, and who is there but Eleanor Roosevelts granddaughter. And i was ready to catch her if she fainted. I was ready, but she didnt. So, just in case anyone at the Kennedy Library is watching this, i think its going to be okay. Beautiful library, though. Out on columbia point, with the jutting out into the waters that john kennedy actually sailed in. He had chosen to have his library in harvard, and there was such a fight. Harvard was so unhappy about that. He was unable to do that. And, again, theres a lot of talk about kennedy and Classical Music and the dresses that jackie wore, and right now theres sort of an argument going on between the bobby folks and the john kennedy folks because they dont feel like bobby has been given enough attention, and the Roosevelt Library does a good job in incorporating eleanor because she is such part of the story, and bobbys family is interested in maybe going off to a different place. I would go and i would do a Research Topic everywhere i went. I what i wrote about the new Kennedy Library is how this guy was pardoned. He is a jazz pianist. So if you want to hear that story, you know where to get it, chasing history. So gerald ford, once he gets a library, its official, everybody gets a library no matter what. His library is very interesting. The one problem with the library, they have the museum is 100 miles away from the archives. So, as she told me, she wouldnt want anyone to have to go through the difficultyies she has to go through and its considered by everybody that was not a great idea. To have a little disco ball here to talk about what was going on. The ford library, he was willing to put good things and bad things. Theres the famous stair well we all recall from the end of the vietnam war, and when kissinger said, why would you put that in your lie center and ford says, its history. Now each of the libraries tends to create a replica of what the oval office looked like. Just as an example of the difficulties of the libraries, this is the type of videotape that existed for eight year, very, very difficult to access. Now the w library has to deal with the emails and theres a lot of technical issues that each of these places has to deal with. This is what i saw for about several hundred miles. And then we get to he hoover library, which was interesting because i came to the hoover library, a way a lot of people might come to libraries, not knowing a lot about hoover, knowing only what my teacher told me was that he didnt care about the depression and was very grumpy on that car ride with Franklin Roosevelt. And its a great library. Some of the funniest archivists they tell me, thats a quote, the third world of president ial libraries, from one of the archivists. He said, no one ever announces from the hoover library. So what they were doing when i was there was having a pool, and they were all guessing many of us are in offices and we have basketball pools. Their pool was, how many days a year did hoover spend in his vacation retreat . And i saw them all discussing this and i thought, this is cool. And i learned a great deal about hoover there, and this is the house he grew up in. A keynesian childhood, and after going to the hoover library, i was so interested i ended up getting his memoirs, and im the one who read his memoirs. But the first volume, i tell you, its very interesting and very funny. The guy had quite a sense of humor. And so thats one of the things that academics dont seem to comprehend when they criticize libraries for not showing both sides and so forth, and they say you cant be confronted. You can be confronted by positive information as well as by negative information, and i was confronted by thing about hoover, and of course its the first step. Its not the last step to go to a president ial library and then you learned everything. What you do if the president ial library does its job, youre going to go out and want to read about that president. And there he is. Tom swartz, he actually is one of the people who created the lincoln library, which changed the way we do these libraries, and now he is the director of the hoover library. So went from the top to the bomb. But he got tired of having to beg for money every 12 months from the state legislature so he is happy to be in the federal system with herbert hoover, and i youre doing a road trip you have to stop at captain james t. Kirks future birthplace. [laughter] then i get to independence, missouri, and this place is as interested in truman as springfield is in lincoln. Because he went back there after he was president. So, the town is really everywhere you go, its well, turn on truman street and have some truman coffee and lets go to the truman bar, and heres something we wont get in the future, letters. I just read all of his letters to his wife, bess, and theyre so touching. And you really are able to see a different time and a different place, and i am very concerned about the future of our president ial scholarship and this is the rope, nobody writes these things anymore. They do a great job at showing both sides of the issue, and it is funny, though. They did this incredible job about discussing trumans decision to drop the atomic bomb, and they attacked some of the many stories we have heard, and quote eisenhower saying this war would have ended soon anyway and then they quote other people, and they say leave your own thoughts and page of pain says the same this my uncle walt told me i would have died if he hadnt dropped the bomb. Only bun guy disagreed. Dude, that was so dumb. My favorite part of my visit to Truman Library was they took me downstairs. Theres more things downstairs at that place than upstairs. And heres his army cot that i saw downstairs. His cards, his i. D. , and interestingly, the hotel towels he and his wife stole as they drove across the country. [laughter] i went to abilene, kansas, and this was in 2011. Tough economy, tough town. Let me tell you, not a lot happening. This is main street. So, not a lot happening. And i went to the tourist spot there and i told this lady she was this elderly lady who seemed like she hadnt seen anyone come in there for quite a while. And she said what are you doing sneer i said im traveling across the country to visit all the president ial libraries. And she said, you dont know how lucky you are. We have one across the street. [laughter] a museum of telephony. I just had to have that on there. Eisenhower, interestingly there have been a slew of new books on eisenhower within the last couple of years, and people are now looking at him anew. The feeling has always been he was vague, unconnected, didnt understand what he was doing, and now people are looking at him and taking another look at that. Thats one of the interesting things that happens with president ial hoyt there never is an ending to it. But you look back at eisenhowers time and theres not a lot to complain about in terms of how the economy was going and many of the things going on. And of course, much of it deals with him as commanderinchief. Thank you, starbucks, when i did my trip i wa