History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. Next on the presidency, a conversation about William Leuchtenburgs new book, the american president from Teddy Roosevelt to bill clinton. Douglas with historian brinkley about the president he has met and shares his insight on others like william taft, harry truman, and Calvin Coolidge. The New York Historical society hosted this 90 minute event. [applause] good morning, thank you for being here. One Public Service announcement. We will be taking questions. When that happens, we ask you to just ask one question, tried to keep it brief, but also tell us your name. We will try to get as many people through the microphones as we can. Two Staff Members will be on hand. We will be going back and forth and picking up people to ask questions. It is an absolute thrill for me to be here, because William Leuchtenburg is a hero of mine. I did my doctorate in u. S. President ial diplomatic history, and his books were a seminal reading when i was coming through the ranks and getting my doctorate. I still now use and teach his books at my class in Rice University on the american presidency. I found that one of his books about fdr, was just an absolute classic. You have not even considered understanding our modern times without reading that book. What a long legacy fdr passed on to our politics after his death. We want to begin today by asking you congratulations on the new book. It is epic. Dream of yours, to write a book that covers all the 20thcentury president s . How did that idea come to you . Mr. Leuchtenburg i was at a conference at the university of pennsylvania, about eight years ago. The conference was on the presidency. I was surprised and delighted to ofe a distinguished scholar medieval the elegy, to me, and say that the foundation wanted to commission me to write such a book. I couldnt get to it immediately, because i was finishing one book, and hadnt started another book. Asked me tosinger write a short biography of Herbert Hoover for a series of published by times books, so i had to get that book finished in the next started and done before i could get on with this. Being was a sense of given an opportunity for a capstone of a lifetime of writing about american president s. That youroosevelt, have just written about, but to wellnd educate myself, as and all of the president s, starting with the assassination of William Mckinley and ending in january of 2001 with bill clintons last night mr. Brinkley in office. Mr. Brinkley we associate your career often with fdr. I know you are great friends with Arthur Schlesinger, and the two of you have dominated thinking on Franklin Roosevelt. Well is your relationship with Arthur Schlesinger junior like . Mr. Leuchtenburg i first onountered him when i was the National Staff of americans for democratic action in washington. And then i was the massachusetts state director, and when a Rocky Mountain organizer for them. The first conference that was held in washington, in march 1947, i remember hubert humphrey, who is the 37yearold young mayor of minneapolis on and saying he wished his parents could see him because they would not have imagined he and Eleanor Roosevelt were on the same stage. To arthur, i talked schlesinger junior about a Research Project that, i as a graduate student was interested in, and that started a lifelong friendship. Not many years later, i was appointed to the faculty at harvard, and we were colleagues together. In the years i was teaching at columbia, he was in the Graduate Center and the City University of new york so we saw one another. Mr. Brinkley the late historian Stephen Ambrose once mentioned to me, we use as a test, abandon the chronology at your own peril. Bits go little chronologically today through the president s in your book, beginning with the assassination of when William Mckinley in theodoreand how roosevelt becomes president. How would you describe the personality of three door Roosevelt Theodore roosevelt . Mr. Leuchtenburg [laughter] ofad the great pleasure working with ken burns almost from the beginning of his career. The most recent one appeared on screen, was the roosevelts. And in it, another friend tells the story of a man calling on Theodore Roosevelt, and explosive sounds coming from the room. Afterwards, when the visitor walked out, someone said to him, what did you say to Theodore Roosevelt . The man said, i told him my name. [laughter] people talk about the progressive era, and we talk about Theodore Roosevelt as being a progressive president. Do you consider him a bleeding progressive . Mr. Leuchtenburg i spent so many years teaching that progressive era, and i think i was mentioning, medieval the eology, trying to define what was meant by progressivism, it has interested me for a long time. I found out i would never define it. Roosevelt a was change maker . Yes, i think he was. It was one of the surprises in writing the book. Many historians have said, the modern presidency begins with fdr. The more i wrote about Theodore Roosevelt, the more i read about him, the more i was convinced what i said was wrong. The real turning point in the wasory of the presidency when Theodore Roosevelt offense ascends toidency the presidency. That is when the American People have the sense that the man in the white house can shape the nation. That was a view that had never been held before. Which heic way in president the task for was actually more important than the specific legislation that especially the area you have written about. The impact he had on american conservation. Be a mutual admiration society, but if you have not read wilderness warrior, you have a treat ahead for you. Mr. Brinkley thank you. What do you think of the accomplishments of the whatdents from 19011909, are the memorable accomplishments of that era . Mr. Leuchtenburg i think one of the remarkable aspects of this a that we have never had president who loved war more than the indoor roosevelt. Undert, nobody ever dies Theodore Roosevelt. Save with respect to the insurrection that had begun prior to that time. Was a a man who consummate war maker, but the First American to win the nobel peace prize. He is a welter of contradictions. But i think probably with respect to domestic policy, as to say what i said before, his extraordinary impact on american conservation, which affects not land and the saving of landmarks, in an imaginative way at pieces ofsed legislation designating areas of lesson all monuments with areas of National Monuments with a questionable view of the constitutionality of what he was doing, but something with which we bless him today. Mr. Brinkley in your chapter on bill clinton, you have an interesting little page, where you are discussing bill discussing, whether he will be a great president , and Theodore Roosevelt gets the very near great category, meaning ranked fourth or fifth most historians. Clinton is worried at that point, hes only in the middle, or that hes realizing he can never really be a great president , he doesnt have a major war, so he tries so become pr, maybe that is the marker you try to become a near great, not just average person. Rooseveltnk you door Theodore Roosevelt was one of the great president s . Mr. Leuchtenburg i have no doubt. What we are talking about is what Arthur Schlesinger anior, in 1981, created diagrammatic way of looking at american president s. Are grouped as great, near great, average, below average, and failure. Lots of historians are unhappy with that way of looking at greeting president s, because there are opportunities offered to some president s that are not offered to others, and greatness is an ambiguous term. You could be great by having an extraordinary impact on an era, or the worst. More or less, even historians who are unhappy with this kind zation, they use it in their heads even if they do not use those precise terms. Poll has been taken more than a generation since then, and it only comes out the same way with only three president s as great. Abraham lincoln, franklin d. Roosevelt, and George Washington. He used to be lincoln, washington, fdr, but more recently it has been lincoln, fdr in washington. In the judgment of historians, likely to move into that top category. And then there is a group just below that of near a great. Theodore roosevelt is always pretty much at the top of that group, or close to it. Mr. Brinkley Theodore Roosevelt won a landslide election in 19 i mean, in 1904, but by 1908 he decided not to run. He left in march with of 1909, turning over the Republican Party to William Howard taft. Who was taft, and what were the virtues of his presidency . Mr. Leuchtenburg he was a commissioner in the philippines , he had been a member of Theodore Roosevelt cabinet. When i was a graduate student, always trying to do our elders one better, that taft was actually more of progressive than Teddy Roosevelt. More antitrust suits under aft proportionately then there were under Teddy Roosevelt. Shaking, saying you dont understand, they had lived through that era. Of course, they were right. Maybe that is because i am an elder now. [laughter] teddyuchtenburg so much larger , taft said that he never thought of anybody as the president but Teddy Roosevelt, even when he was in the white house. Often, at contrast with progressives, Teddy Roosevelt, taft is thought of as there areve, although a number of ways in which taft did support progressive legislation and was far from being the right winger that he is often portrayed to be. Nonetheless, there is a decided change of atmosphere in washington from Teddy Roosevelt attached. Teddy roosevelt to taft. In that case, Theodore Roosevelt famously, part of his their chase hunting that famous scene in mississippi delta plan they had a ropear, and it around it, roosevelt said i will not shoot it, that is not hunting. There was a cartoon by a woman saying roosevelt draws the line in mississippi , and shell that bear writes, i would love to do a toy on that. And roosevelt said, you are welcome to, but nobody is going to care. But of course, the teddy bear becomes the most ubiquitous toy in history. Part of the magic with teddy bears, they were dinners with a teddy bear as the centerpiece. William howard taft decided he needed to do something, and he created the billy possum toy. [laughter] none of you have one or have ever seen one, we have never seen anyone cuddle one. It was a hideous looking stuffed toy. The point being, it was hard to follow and act like Theodore Roosevelt, who had so much magic, and so many reporters and apparatuss, and press that backed him so much. Ways. Ft loved pr in many Theodore Roosevelt comes back and creates the most successful thirdparty in American History, the Bull Moose Party, aimed at destroying taft. Create the Bull Moose Party . When rooseveltg comes back from africa, when he went off to africa to shoot everyone was said that in wall street hope every lion would do its duty. [laughter] manages to dominate the newspapers by his exploits in africa during the taft presidency. He returns, he becomes considerably more radical, notably in a speech he gave in kansas. It was during the taft presidency. He is upset with taft, because , taft had taken tha a sign that Teddy Roosevelt was not only not progressive, but was disrespectful of his views. That he wasdecided going to run for another term. Technically, at a time when the George Washington example was still a strong move of not running for a third term, he had served two terms, but not eight years, so technically he was not violating it. Was,ctually what he said it is true that i said i was not going to run for a third term, but that is like saying you are not going to have another cupcake. He tries to get the republican nomination in 1912, but taft having control of the party machinery, is able to send him off. And runs as a thirdparty candidate, as a progressive candidate. In a dramatic speech, he says, i stand at armageddon, and i battle for the lord. Thethere is a notion of, band strikes up at one point, onward christian soldiers. It is that kind of element to it campaign that was saying, is the most successful thirdparty in history. In thetually runs third electoral college. Roosevelt did not have enough to win the presidency. As a result, a democrat, who has , is 42 of the popular vote able to get enough electoral votes to slip in. That is how Woodrow Wilson becomes president of the United States. Mr. Brinkley and Theodore Roosevelt takes the bullet from an assassin in milwaukee, hes bleeding, and he continues to speak. It takes more than a politico label moose. Kill a bullor to moose. He went on for an hour before they took him to the hospital. You become a folk figure when you survived that. 1919, for all purposes, that was his last major big political act. It is now Woodrow Wilsons moment. Link did soarthur many great books on Woodrow Wilson. Did ailton cooper junior biography of Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Who was Woodrow Wilson . These having a moment now. Hamilton is having a great moment. [laughter] Woodrow Wilson, there is a lot of controversy, where there is a Woodrow Wilson school named after him. But who was he, what should we know about him and admire about him . Mr. Leuchtenburg when i was a student, i went to Newtown High School in queens. Teachers weremy shipped Woodrow Wilson worshipped Woodrow Wilson. The great moment in their lives was the creation of the league of nations, and the failure of the United States to join. Ifried to remember nowadays, i mention a certain event which seems important to me, and i get a blank stare from younger tople that what i am saying them is what my teachers were saying to me when they talk about bosniaherzegovina. Part oferzegovina was that whole mythos of Woodrow Wilson, and americans lost the opportunity to become a citizen of the world, and a belief that if only we had joined the league of nations, we could have staved off no nazism, and avoided the death in world war ii. That is something that all of us of my generation grew up with. There has been a different sense of Woodrow Wilson. He is not the worlds most likable man. When you live with it as a , day in and day out one journalist of the time said, when i think of theodore of anelt, i think exuberant, cherubic, largerthanlife figure. When i think of Woodrow Wilson, there is a narrowness of the personality. And yet, numbers of things do get created under Franklin Roosevelt pardon me, under Woodrow Wilson. System wouldeserve be one example. There was a far greater intervention in the economy in world war i than the country had ever seen before. Legacy leave this it does leave this legacy of the league of nations. When word got out that Woodrow Wilson was dying, the numbers of in thelike pilgrims, snow, outside the windows of his home in washington, looking up at the window until the light that was at the window, that they had been looking at all the days since the end of his presidency, was extinguished. Mr. Brinkley how do we judge wilson as commanderinchief during world war i . Evenuccessful as though the league of nations failed, how was he has a wartime leader . The americanurg troops come in at a time of 1916, with a million casualties. The allied cause was reeling. Have ican troops spirit to theh allied effort. For the most part, not the kind of controversy about wilsons role as commanderinchief that there is about other american president s. Period of intervention was relatively short, only from april 1917 to november of 1980, and it took 1918, and it took time for the troops to get overseas. The main sense that one has is that wilson went along with the general staff that he inherited, and