David McCullough on "The American Spirit"

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you you you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] came in again I was about to say how special this night is but you've all beat me to it which is great welcome my name is Steve Rothstein I'm the executive director of the John F Kennedy Library Foundation and on behalf of all the colleagues in the foundation and Jamie Roth and all the colleagues in the library we are really thrilled you can be here all of our forms are great but tonight is really a treat because the speakers who are here it's also the beginning of the John F Kennedy centennial weekend and we planned this months ago and we really literally thought who would be the best pair about speaker and moderate we could get for this historic time and this is what we've gotten so we're thrilled that they're both here before before I introduce them as to a few brief announcements first I want to thank our underwriters and sponsors the lead sponsor Bank of America the Lowell Institute including Bill and and real over here tonight our media sponsors the globe xfinity bu our and our media sponsor for the Centennial WCVB TV as I say we're kicking off the Centennial and there are information when you leave or maybe on your chairs about we're doing over the next few days but over the next few days there are opportunities from seeing a new exhibit with a hundred items including 40 that have never been seen by anyone publicly before opening tomorrow on Saturday in this room we'll be doing a special Peace Corps day on Sunday we have an astronaut here as part of our tribute to NASA and Monday we're having bands and music and the Navy to honor President Kennedy's service in the Navy and at 3 p.m. exactly a hundred years to the minute that President Kennedy was born we'll be having two f-18s flying right overhead to honor President Kennedy and then and then we'll be eating a cake we need help doing this the cake that will serve a thousand people designed by the same company that did the cake for their engagement many years ago so I hope you'll join us for some of those activities but tonight tonight we have a literally standing room only in this auditorium we also have an overflow in our other auditorium we're also thrilled that we're streaming this and there there are watching parties and places including the John F Kennedy Museum and Hyannis and others and c-span are here so we appreciate all of you there here and those that are participating online we have many many distinguished guests and I'm not going to list them I do want to highlight a few of the risk of offending some who I miss but there are many members of our board here and appreciate their leadership throughout the year and what they do and this is because it's our centennial we invited our call of presidential libraries around the country and we have representatives with us tonight either from the presidential library or their accompanying foundation from the Franklin Roosevelt Harry Truman Jimmy Carter George HW Bush and Bill Clinton library again the library or the foundation we also have former United States Senator and his wife Paul Kirk here tonight and former ambassadors Alan Solomon Nicholas Burns and several members of the New England Consul General Corps so join me to thank all of them for their trouble so there will be after the first hour of dialogue there will be a chance for questions and there are microphones on either aisles you can get up and ask those but if you don't want to get up or if you're in the other room or if you're streaming you can also just tweet us at JFK library so literally you can stay in your seat and then somebody will read the question or you can get up in line we'll do the best to answer as many as many as we can after the event this will cause graciously agreed to sign books so if you're and if you have them great if not the bookstore has them if you're interested in sign and having a book sign go out at the end my left your right if you already have that or not interesting waiting line go out my right your left just to help the traffic flow to go to go smoothly for that if you haven't read this yet this is a treasure this just the the American spirit who we are and what we stand for there are so many speeches here if I had an hour I just asked mr. McCullough questions for an hour but I promise I won't do that but I do want to introduce before I get to miss McCauley Charlie Gibson I feel based on the applause I think I speak for most people here who feel we know him even though we may have just met him and that for much of what I know I learned from listening to him on the news for 34 years that both anchoring ABC world knows and then co-hosting Good Morning America he interviewed everybody including nine US presidents so it's just a remarkable history and we're honored that he and his lovely wife are here tonight and then David McCullough what do you say about David McCall at first I feel bad because he hasn't been recognized very much in his life I mean you know everyone pretty much has two Pulitzer Prizes right and two National Book Awards and the Francis Parkman Prize twice and the Presidential Medal of Freedom the nation's highest civilian honor everyone I know has been recognized by 54 honorary degrees right actually no one else I know join me to welcome this amazing panel thank you very much so we're going to do a just a colloquy here for about an hour and then as Steven mentioned you can come up and ask questions and if people are going to tweet questions from outside the room whether those are going to be pretty concise questions I must say but the most famous tweeter in the world probably isn't watching so I don't think I doubt we'll get one of those and I shudder to think what it might be but we do look forward to this and and it is a treat for me as somebody who was a very undistinguished history major in college to have a chance to talk to a David who is something of the legend as Steven mentioned and I'm so pleased that there are representatives here from so many different presidential libraries and we do gather in the Kennedy Library which leads me actually been wondered and I ask you how many books do you think they'll be in the Trump Presidential Library well he he is you've doubtless sought in a interview with The Washington Post said that he'd never read a book about a president either a biography or a book about the presidency and that he might someday he said and he doesn't read books because his mind reaches beyond that and I began to think about the great presence down the years who have been avid readers of history many of them wrote history including John Kennedy and even those who didn't have the benefit of a college education like Harry Truman read history all their lives and realized that it's essential to the role of a leader whether it's the presidency or leadership about any kind not cause and effect history matters if I have one message that I would like to get across in my work and in gatherings like this is history matters a lot and and when were slipping in our responsibilities of teaching history to our children and grandchildren going on a good long time a number of us who in a sense become evangelical preachers of the importance of history and I've lectured colleges and universities a great deal and I'm astonished at how much these wonderful young people don't know about our country and his story I had one young lady come up to me after I gave a talk and college in the Midwest and she said that she wanted to thank me for coming to the campus because until she heard my talk that day she had no idea that all the 30 original 13 colonies were on the East Coast well there may not be and then I had another one asking him a question and answer period which is maybe my favorite this was the University of California aside from Harry Truman and John Adams how many other presidents have you interviewed well there may not be many books in the Trump presidential library but there'll be one hell of an edifice name and big letters what actually leads me to a second question as an historian what specific steps could Andrew Jackson have taken to prevent the Civil War we could go all night in this game yeah well if we're not gonna stick on questions on that I don't have anymore you could be interviewing Frederick Douglass tonight oh my oh my can you believe it really it's um well I I'm I want to restore power our recognition of who we are and why we are the way we are and what we stand for and I think more and more that as important as grade school high school college university advanced degrees all of that is and essential that may be is as important as any of it is how we are brought up at home how are we raised to behave about telling the truth to example or treating people with kindness tolerance empathy and hard work I grew up in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania where people not only worked hard but if you were a hard good worker that counted high in how you were appreciated by other people I remember my father used to say old Charlie he he drinks too much but he's a good worker or Freddie he had he's a terrible exaggerator and tells stories that I don't quite believe it but he's a good worker and if you were good worker that forgave all other failings in effect and that's what we how we got to where we are by working very very hard when I was doing my Wright brothers book their two young men who never had the chance to go to college they've never even finished high school but they were brought up to have purpose in life they were brought up with values at home to learn to use the English language on your feet and on paper so that you read their letters that have survived and the Library of Congress as their their humbling in the in the quality of their vocabulary their capacity to express themselves superbly and and never to boast about yourself never to get too big for your britches one of the things I so impressed me at the time and impresses me even more given the situation we're in now is that John Kennedy almost never talked about himself imagine as you say didn't use the first-person singing oh no almost never used the first-person singular about anything a man who could have gone on and on to say the least with justification and pride of what he'd accomplished you met you mentioned that actually in the in the book you say I'm searching out for the quote talking about JFK you say the first person singular never entered into anything he said in contrast to so many others since hmm want to name names oh there's a good line up but no it has become sort of what you do in public life is talking about how nifty you are and in many cases that's justified but let me turn to the book you mentioned that for 50 years you've been since the age of 50 you've been giving a lot of speeches many extemporaneous but you must have voluminous records ages that you've given the Jew written down you chose 15 for this I'm curious why you wanted to do a book of speeches now and why you chose these 15 I was writing my book about Harry Truman I loved the idea that he went out for a walk every morning and so I thought maybe I should try that as a way of sort of tuning up your head not necessarily your body and you start thinking in a way that you you don't if you're not walking and so last summer when the comments being made by the Republican candidate for the presidency were to me not only appalling but unimaginably out of place I thought what could I do to provide some counter a point of view to this and I started thinking about some of the speeches that I gave at national occasions such as the 200th anniversary of the Congress the anniversary of the White House Kennedy's Morial service at Dallas which I was asked to be the speaker and and commencement speeches and speeches that I have given at particular occasions of importance to the history of other organizations and/or universities and found that there were great many where I was voicing what really matters to me and why I think history is so infinitely fascinating and how essential I think it is as a means to enlarging the experience of being alive why should we limit our our lives just a little bit of time in our biological clocks offer provide when we can have access to the whole realm of the human story going back hundreds or thousands of years and and so I set to work to take a look at which of these speeches might be appropriate and had the help of my daughter Dorie Lawson who who arranged all these talks that I gave and who kept the records of what I said well when I read the book the first time when I finished it and put it down I thought oh he's writing in The Times or he's picking these speeches because they might be apropos to the current time and while and I've heard you say before historians basically don't really have a role in talking about current politics but he's talking about current politics with these speeches but I was talking about before current politics came on the scene these are none of these speeches was written but by budwiq I went back and read them a second time I'm thinking what's the sentence what's the paragraph what's the point he's trying to make here that might be taken to heart by people who were in politics right now so I went back and read it a second time and each time I was looking in the speech what's the one point he's trying to make here that might be taken to heart by somebody who I don't know might be elected president who knows yeah so let me pick out a few of them wonderful I won't do each one but I will I think 12 out of 15 I found the pertinent point example one first speech in the book from 1989 you quote Margaret chase Smith of Maine who had the guts to rebuke Joe McCarthy she said I don't want to see the Republican Party and she was a Republican from me ride the political victory on the Four Horsemen of calumny fear ignorance bigotry and smear smear smear is the interesting word here and why did you think perhaps that had application to the current time Charlie you'd be perfect if you only had a sense of humor could you imagine somebody reading that in the current political climate what they like what wouldn't it be wonderful wouldn't it be wonderful and a Republican to stand up as she did and she's a woman and she's one of the rare cases were women in the Senate up at that point in our history and most people they have no idea who Margaret chase Smith was she's one of the bravest most admirable political figures we've ever had and not many Republicans are standing up now not enough 1998 a speech quoting Benjamin Rush not perhaps as well-known as some other Patriots of that time one of the original signers of the declaration speaking of good nature that mattered most in human relations he said and you quote him in the book you said this is his quote I include candor gentleness and disposition to speak with civility and listen with attention to everybody and then you added in 1998 in the speech words to the wise then but perhaps in our own day more than ever indeed Benjamin Rush is one of my favorite characters from our past and absolutely remarkable man a polymath of eighteenth-century polymath and someone who's interested in almost everything and he was an accomplished physician he was one of the first people to encourage the fair and humane treatment of people with mental illness and not to just just something away in a cell as if they were animals he was extremely courageous in his ability to go into places where the plague the commit was rabid particularly the yellow fever epidemic he risked his life over and over and he was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and when he signed the of Independence he was all a 30 years old we forget how young those people were Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence was a 33 imagine Oh Washington when he took command of the Continental Army was 44 years old we see them later on with their white hair and their wigs and their elderly statures and so forth but they weren't that way then they were very very young and I think that that's an encouraging factor of that part of our story I am I don't think we can ever know enough about the American Revolution and by the way the new museum of the american revolution is just opened in Philadelphia is a must for all of us it is marvelous and particularly as a place to take your children your grandchildren to get them hooked on history and it's brilliantly organized it's spectacular a building by Roberts but Sir Robert sir is human and as right in the center of where all the historic neighborhood is it's only a few steps down the street from Independence Hall but we who lived in the Boston area to sort of take the reality of the miracle of the era as part of our environment part of our art world and that's good that's great but I love Kennedy's Profiles in Courage I read that when I was still young and not really aware yet and what I want to do with my life I love his regard for John Quincy Adams for example quotes him right at the beginning yeah but what I like in that quote and I'm not here to come in in anything but what I like so much in that quote is the word civility which is a lost art in the public discourse of America today and the sense of comity that existed among people who who share a common goal in a common and know that there needs to be a common end it's gone it's gone and you write that that we has been ever thus that we have many instances had deep chasms of division you know in this country but we come out of them yes well it's going to bring us out of this one the two sides seem so unalterably opposed when politics Trump's policy when the sense of of a national national goals is gone and party goals matter more than national goals what brings us out of this leadership leadership of the best kind leaders who have the courage to stand up for their convictions who have the backbone to do what's right irrespective of what it means to their political future or their chance of being reelected and it has to come mainly from the people and we talk about the three segments of government that legislative judicial and executive but there's a fourth factor the people all of us and when we stand up and say no more of this we don't take this anymore when we stand up and say there's a person right there who's saying the right thing and doing the right thing and we're going to get behind her or him and make sure that that attitude becomes potent and maybe even just decisive someone like Margaret when someone reads about Margaret chase Smith that's it that's what I'm going to do somebody in the government right now it will happen it will happen out of out of the necessity to to survive in order you're going to expect that but David we are I believe and you actually right there were a centrist nation we are basically a country where 30 40 50 60 percent of the people are in the middle and who want government to get something done yep absolutely we ain't we ain't doing it well that doesn't mean we won't we have come through very hard times very baffling times very pessimistic times and the end and inappropriate behavior times in the part of our leadership but we've come through them all we and very often when we do come through them these difficult times these dark clouded sky times when we do come through we're better off than better for having done it people talk about oh well good that was a simpler time back then no it wasn't never it was a simpler time or the things have never been so bad so dark so so four-bit foreboding yes they have and if you don't understand that you don't understand the reality of our story I like to point out that the influenza epidemic which my parents and your parents probably went through 19 18 19 500,000 Americans died of that disease a disease they didn't know where it came from didn't know when it would ever go away if at all or how to cure it if that were to happen today given the size of our population proportionate to our club a million five hundred thousand people would die in less than a year now imagine if that were on the nightly news every night and we're all being led to be even more terrified with who who would be next in our family to die and just as the the Depression and the Civil War horrible horrible times but we came through them because among other things we had the faith that we would and could and because we understood that nothing of a much consequence has ever accomplished alone it has to be a joint effort that's what they have to come back understand in the introduction to this book you write the fundamental decency the tolerance and insistence on truth and the good hearted good-heartedness of the american people are they're still plainly and then you add into 2004 speech that you assert that ninety percent of americans share those values how does that square with what we did in the election last night well this isn't an answer this is a part of the answer let's not forget in the popular vote the Hillary Clinton won by almost three million votes so it isn't as over a landslide you and and Donald Trump really won by an a very narrow margin I think part of we have certain we have several major problems obviously one is it is the poisonous effect of big money in politics the idea that people members of Congress are dialing for dollars every day half their time half their time the fact that we're inclined to become or have become a nation of spectators we sit around and watch things all the time watch television watch athletic events let somebody else do the performing to amuse us to entertain us we're not doing things as much as we should and we're not making things are on our own we're not getting out there and and helping to solve these problems now that's not true everybody of course we are immensely generous we are immensely philanthropic we care sincerely and with fervor about education still and we should be infinitely proud of what we've achieved in the last 200 years in the way of the greatest universities in the world yes they have problems yes the cost has gotten out of hand but there's no there are no institutions of higher learning anywhere on earth comparable to our own and never has been in all of history this is an immensely admirable and important accomplishment just as it's immensely important and admirable but that we are making advances in medicine such as no one ever imagined I think in future historians when they're looking back at our time right now will say yes the politics in them and the military and the threat of a warrant of political upheavals all over the world all very important today but look what was happening in medicine look was happened just in our lifetime we were just looking at the diseases that John Kennedy in the in the new exhibit that's about to open the diseases that mrs. Kennedy Rose Kennedy John Kennedy's mother put on a little card vial card that he had had as a child my wife and I each had a brothers who had infantile paralysis doesn't even exist anymore scarlet fever all of that doctor mentioned the DNA or the successful transplant of organs we were spoiled we've been given so much that we just take it for granted and we should be grateful and we should be making our teachers heroes we should be celebrating their we should have major awards we should have statues in our towns to the great teachers that have shaped the lives of so many people I feel that our teachers are doing the most important work of any of us and we all ought to get behind them and make sure they understand well we're all for them being married to an educator I would second that and add that they ought to be paid more absolutely no question before I leave the subject of our current president because we could stay on that forever what do you think John Kennedy would think of Trump's act Oh Trump yeah oh you know we all know he'd be embarrassed Ella we would be appalled he would be he wouldn't believe it um no it's we've never had anything like this happen as a country never had anyone even remotely so inappropriate for the responsibilities of the of the presidency in the job never and and virtually every day he makes sure that we know that's even worse than we thought it's um it's as if we put someone in the pilot's seat who never flown a plane and who never think who doesn't think it's important to know how to fly to claim he's just a little surprised at how much more complicated it is and even though I [Music] love the fact that the fellow who is going to solve all of our healthcare problems suddenly discovered that healthcare was complicated I'm going to be president I was a college history major and one of the things that always struck me were the differing prisms through which history is seen social historians economic historians political historians demographic historians natural resource historians it goes on and on but whatever prism you're looking through you see history or can't see history differently in your mind what are you what kind of an historian are you I'm not under story I'm not I have no advanced degrees in history I've never studied history as and the way I would if I were an academic I'm a writer who took up the writing of about people about real people and events that really happened and my job is to tell that accurately as possible with the basic conviction that history is human it's about people it's about the human potential and human limitations it's about put people and bad people it's about the whole mix and it's about stories that really happened Barbara Tuchman who have great influence on me as a writer of history said that there's no no trick to teaching history effectively or writing about history tell stories and that's what I've tried to do I've also tried to bring down to front and center stage people who've been in the background more than they deserve to have been like John Adams like the builders of the Brooklyn Bridge for the people who made the success at Panama happen for us roster yeah and and and and women Abigail Adams Emily Roebling the wife of the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge and now Katherine right the sister of the two Wright brothers who without whom I don't think they would have succeeded and she's never gotten adequate credit for that I hope that my book does that and brings her to the point where she's recognized as not only having been important but interesting and admirable as a human being I'm also struck by how history gets revised over the years that there are people who are seen as heroes than perhaps they don't fare as well in the in story ins eyes then they make a comeback and there's a renaissance etc how do you think John Kennedy is bearing up I think he's bearing up very well but I also think it's we're only at a point where we can start to really pass judgment Truman said you have to wait 50 years for the dust to settle it's now been 50 years and he will begin to because it's it's not just who went before him who has followed him and how does he compare to them and what are the consequences of decisions he made or didn't make we need to look much more at the importance of decisions the presidents didn't make that were as important as decision as they did the decision that Eisenhower made not to go into Vietnam for example the decision that John Adams made as president not to go to war with France which the whole country was dying to do which would have been absolutely catastrophic had me done so and and there this is all a big part of it Kennedy's the problem with Kennedy will be this it's cut off too so soon and we did we very rarely take a president serious as seriously as the others who has only served one term and here as the president didn't even serve one term but yet look what a what a footprint what mark he left on our on our sense of who we are one of the interesting parts to me is as somebody who has read the volumes that Robert Carroll wrote about Johnson yes which are terrific books and tell great stories yes indeed it is interesting that you really have to look at the Kennedy presidency it seems to me and the presidency that follows because Johnson who might not have been inclined to be so ideologically attuned with his predecessor really took his predecessors agenda to heart and it became his destiny it's a it's amazing how how that really in many respects Johnson may have been able to do things that Kennedy couldn't have done happier maybe hard to find two men more different from his yes and I'm sure you I'm not but you say you interviewed eleven present 9.9 I catered with John Quincy yet I don't good I become interview I think seven or six or something like and that was it and I've gotten to know those who through the research that I've done on past days what strikes me is how different they are when from another really different Jimmy Carter compared to say George HW Bush or or Bill Clinton and some of them in my view deserve more focus and attention and the way that I've just my instinct is that Gerald Ford deserves more attention than he's received he deserves a first-rate biography because when you think of all that happened in that very brief time that he was president and when you think of of what he coped with is to try to kill him twice is his wife suffering from alcoholism and I was here on the profiles and courage panel the year we gave Gerald Ford Profiles in Courage Award because of his pardoning Nixon and when he did that he knew it would probably cost him reelection almost certainly would but he did it anyway did the right thing and saved us all kinds of grief and contentious behavior on all kinds the part of all people in all roles and but the big difference today is you go you take a certain taking a look at Gerald Ford and I discovered this when working on area trip the volume of material that you have to deal with as a researcher as a as a biographer is overwhelming and otherwise you're just sort of skimming through all this material what's in this collection here could keep one doing research for a full lifetime and never get through to all of it not that that's not not of importance that we have all this wonderful material but it's a staggering mountain to try and climb and every book of the kind that I write and others write biography and history is a is a joint effort it's a group project because you've got editors and copy editors to ensure but you also got archivists and librarians and specialists that you want to interview so when you see those acknowledgments in the back of a biography here you see that's those people aren't just there to be sort of tip your hat to friends or something those people all contributed enormously to the result of the book represents and to make it one more point Charlie I we have a problem that we're not teaching as well as we should and we're not requiring history as as course that is required in college in universities anymore 80% of the college's the universe require no history to graduate that's wrong I'm for I believe in required courses because for one thing I think it's important young Americans at that stage in life ought to understand that in life some things are required surprise surprise yeah but the the satisfaction the gratification that comes from working with good people such as are in this library of having the help of their not just their what they know but their ideas their suggestions on which path you should to might take to make new discoveries are of invaluable importance and should never be underestimated and and we have right now some of the finest writers ever writing marvelous history and biography and it's and they're reaching a very large audience and that is encouraging people like Robert Caro and many others many others and we have superb documentary films being made and broadcast by PBS and other networks all that all that's important as in in part I think is because so many people today reach the age of 35 45 50 and they realize I don't really know much of the history that I ought to know I'm going to read that book or I'm going to watch that documentary tonight talking about how history gets revised there's some interesting things going on today you're a proud son of Yale I'm a proud son of Princeton Yale has taken the name Calhoun of one of its colleges because of his background and things he did in his life Princeton has gone through Agony's trying to figure out exactly how to depict Woodrow Wilson who was his name is so closely associated with the college and now there are statues in the south built to Civil War leaders that are coming down to the consternation many who live in the south what do you think of that kind of revisionist history and are those things proper in your mind well I think you start renaming everything because someone did something that's no longer acceptable as being virtuous like owning slaves there's no end to how much here and have to rename including it the capital of our country and you have to take down a Washington Monument and so forth I much rather see us start to raise statues or rename named new buildings or monuments to those who didn't own slaves and who did so contrary to the mode of the moment most importantly John Adams the only founder founding father president who never owned a slave out of principle and this next president in line who never owned a slave was his son John Quincy and there there are no great buildings named for either of them no great statues for either of them I think the taking the statues down in the south is the right thing to do because most all of those statues as you doubtless read recently were put up during the Jim Crow era they weren't done at the time of the Civil War they were done in the early part of the 20th century and they were really saying that we who believe in inequality of racial citizenship are professing where we stand on this I would not have renamed Calhoun College and I I certainly wouldn't take what Wilson's name off of buildings at Princeton for my decision and I don't want to start renaming our cities and towns and the rest I'm more interested in giving more attention to people we have ignored then getting too worked up about too much attention to the wrong people you mentioned and you've talked number of times here about the importance of history and yet we are in a situation in this country where things are changing so fast the dislocation of the job market for instance is incredible there are those futurists who say in 20 years half the jobs maybe even more but people will occupy haven't been invented yet think of that I was on the board of my college for eight years and the graduating seniors would stand up and we the board who confer the degrees would be sitting up on the dais looking at them and when I went on the board the first graduation I had was 2007 and there were a handful of graduates in computer technology when I left the board in 2015 the number was huge the number of engineers that stand up is growing exponentially Bill Gates the other day said if you're a student in college you should study one of three things artificial intelligence energy or the Biosciences and talk about history you didn't talk about the humanities you didn't talk about the social sciences the pertinence of those things are they given how fast things are changing you really the pertinence of those things stand up or should kids be more worried as they graduate about what's changing how to change how to adapt how to prepare themselves for a job market that is so uncertain well I may be stuck in my ways and and in my maybe so out of rhythm with the realities of the modern high-tech society and I confess to it I don't use a computer I don't know how to work a computer I write on a type manual typewriter I what kind of a phone do you have you talk you talk into a pop-tart are you ready sure Ament where the hell is it I'm Way ahead of all of you there it is now they tell me about all the things that can do yeah that's wonderful I only went as a telephone but I I think that the decline of a human of the emphasis on the humanities is a very serious mistake I really do because let's suppose that you come out of university with a degree in chemistry or your degree in high-tech communications or whatever and that might get you a very good job right away that it might lead you into a very important and constructive career but if you come out of college knowing how to use the English language you're going to be a rare bird of great value no truly almost half of the law schools in our country today now require their incoming freshman we're all of course college graduates to take a course in basic writing because they don't know how to write a presentable letter or report or analysis and that sort of thing they don't know how to express themselves in our language and this is not only a handicap it's a risky trend in any kind of reasonably civilized society and didn't know to be incapable be using the English language expressing yourself in in words and also have no sense of the paths of our of our country of our nation is to be really held back to have serious drawbacks to your qualifications for leadership in all fields and it must be encouraged among our students and among our universities and colleges and a lot of us who are working hard to bring back humanities and and with good and with good reason think of the jobs that are open to people who can use the English language who know how to write who know how to think in the English language words are what we think with and of our count vocabularies are declining which they are there's very specific proof of all this our children today have lower Macavity is less less than what our generation has but wait and words are what we think with I'm thinking thinking by the way is important one of my favorite of all discoveries in the diaries of John Adams and he kept Marvis Diaries not by the way nobody in public life would dare keep a diary anymore that's true we can be subpoenaed and used against you in court but he was an entry for January 15th or whatever to say at home thinking can you imagine somebody in Washington today where to write that in his or her diary as an honest record of what they did that day I thinking I would add one addendum to what you said and it perhaps reflects the profession from which I come but there's no question that the ability to write is something of a lost art for students a very good friend of mine who is a actually past president of Princeton I had dinner with recently and she was about to read five or have five oral argument presentations for PhD candidates and I said how good were their theses and she said well two of them legibly written and three of them were not very good but I would the addendum I would add is also the ability to present your argument verbally oh yes under absolutely absolutely to be able to present to be able to defend your argument orally Warren Buffett said recently that he could predict that anybody who was a good speaker and who could logically present an argument and do it verbally to a crowd and urged people to learn to speak publicly he said you'll make fifty percent more in your lifetime than you will if if you can't do that work for me I guess it didn't watch well it's a lord knows what I could have known if I've been able to write I might have but anything but but it's important both of those things and I think what you're saying is so important because of that dislocation of the job market you don't know what you're going to be doing twenty years from now and so in a basic grounding in in moral thought in the humanities and the social sciences in history because the critical thing is that you be adaptive that you can adapt yourself to to to a changing environment in the in the workplace I'd like to read something if I may from one of John Kennedy's speeches that I think could not be more valid or relevant to today's situation I think this is a man who's new to the job so but not new to what the proper objective of Education and learning and civilized society should be I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft I look forward to an America which commands respect throughout the world not only for its strength but for civilization this country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor art is the great unifying and humanizing experience the life of the Arts far from being an interruption a distraction in the life of a nation is very close to the center of a nation's purpose and is the test of quality the test of the quality of a nation's civilization I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities we too will be remembered not for our victories or defeats in battle or in politics but for our contributions to the human spirit yes so with that let me invite any of you who have questions and I I do ask you to keep them brief I always say to audiences when they want to ask questions don't don't make a speech and while you're making your way to the microphone just two quick questions for you most interesting person you've ever met most interesting person you've ever researched one of the most interesting people I've ever met is man named Tom Starzl who just died within the last few months Thomas Starzl should have been a name everybody knew Thomas Starzl changed history in a way very few human beings ever do and yet he's largely unknown except within the medical profession Thomas Starzl was the physician who successfully made the first double transplant organ transplant success he changed that whole realm one man and who kept who kept out if I'm a theme in this book it is a line I quote at the beginning from George Washington I think it couldn't be more true and it's certainly true Tom saw Thomas Arthur was interested in everything Washington said perseverance and spirit have done wonders in all ages you got to keep at it you don't give up and if you if you get knocked down you don't lie there and whimper and whine you get back up on your feet and again and continue on and I think that that's something that we all need to be reminded of and art it reminds by the examples set in the story of our own country most interesting person you've researched who you be anything what mister I think right now a man named Manasseh Cutler who I talked about in my commencement speech I gave it oh hi oh University Vanessa Cutler was a preacher in Ipswich Massachusetts he had a church there he was also a doctor he was also a lawyer and practiced all three of these professions having achieved degrees in all three and he was the man who convinced the Continental Congress in the summer of eights 1787 before we had a constitution to create that what was known as the Northwest Ordinance and that was the territory ceded to us by Britain at the peace treaty that ended the Revolutionary War an area the size of all of our thirteen colonies and all wilderness and no roads no bridges no towns nothing but wilderness and Native Americans and wolves and Panthers and rattlesnakes and bears and you name it and they specified in this Act passed by Congress that there would be total religious freedom in this area which would be made in two states five states five states would be Ohio Indiana Illinois Michigan and Wisconsin there be total freedom of religion there would be government support for education from grade school all the way through college hence the beginning of the first state universities and and there would be no slavery imagined so even before we have a constitution B before we have a gun national government or present United States we've eliminated slavery from what was half geographically leave half of our country a phenomenal accomplishment and this one man it personally pulled it off and he was a he was a classic polymath like Benjamin Franklin he was a brilliant botanist he was an astronomer he was well you're asking me who was the most interesting man yeah he he qualifies high yeah I noticed that four out of those five states went for Trump Hillary Clinton language that he did he'd taken a pass yes sir over here would belong to the property of most liberal state the country Massachusetts Rhode Island and I'm just worried about four years from now it doesn't seem to be only a leader in the Democratic Party we have a guy named Seth Moulton that looks pretty damn good but he's not married he's single an ex-marine and I wonder what your feeling was where the next leader of the Democratic Party would be well I can tell I could tell you who I personally would be for absolutely Joe Biden Joe Biden is a man of character he's also had experience both personal and professional where he's been knocked down and gotten back up in a way that is admirable in the extreme he oh don't tell me about not he doesn't want it right now but I'm somebody will come forth and somebody be a very strong character and admirable attitude outlook could come forth in the Republican Party if this present occupant doesn't last much longer it's interesting that you I'm so glad that you cited Jerry Ford it was the first time I had a chance to be a White House reporter for ABC when Jerry Ford was president and the decency of the guy to do that what he did with Nixon his first sentence when he went to the chamber of the House and wasn't there he said but he said our long national nightmare was when at the day he assumed the presidency our long national nightmare is over is the right man for the law absolutely and it's amazing the genius of the American system how it tends to bring those people to the time he was a drunk knew you as a grown-up yep and a gentleman I don't know what that chuckle from the audience I did bespeak but I think I do over here mr. McCauley you have your books based largely on newspapers and documents letters those sorts of sources and so few people write letters today newspapers seem to be in decline what sources do you think future writers of history will use I think they're gonna have a lot of trouble truly they'll have no letters or Diaries to go by they won't really know what we were like we don't what we write by computer might not last so I'm told it's very good chance an awful lot won't last and it isn't exactly heartfelt personal expression of the kind of letters and diaries have traditionally been it's too bad if any of you have by heart by any chance are interested in immortality start keeping a diary write about anything you want every day and keep on doing it until you reach the point where you think the curtain may be about to come down and then give it to the Massachusetts Historical Society and it'll be quoted forever again it'll be the only diary in existence just as an aside you mentioned in the book where you mentioned somewhere on interview I think you're doing that you're reading the diary of Elizabeth Drinker Pennsylvania what late 18th century early 19th so I'm not you not know Oh somebody else not a mother god yeah hi mr. McCullough huh your book is about speeches speeches that you've given and I was wondering if you would comment upon the ability of President Kennedy in his capacity as a person who gave speeches as you stated I mean he had a very brief presidency yet it seems he gave many many many memorable speeches I think more so probably then any other politician who was around in the television age where we can actually see here and listen to the speeches I was just wondering if you would comment upon that ability if he had done nothing but give the speech as he gave he would be someone of immense value and importance in our history he he was extraordinary and his speeches stand the test of time in a way that isn't used isn't the usual case except for Abraham Lincoln and of course Franklin Roosevelt - no one has used words with such power and effectiveness and and pertinence to the moment as Kennedy did and when I gave the memorial address at the site in Dallas where Kennedy was killed I devoted most everything I said to excerpts from what Kennedy's own words were and because it is not only then to use you sense the nature of this man as his personality in his his talents as a leader but the gift he had to use the language he was in his way a master literary figure and a great reader and he understood the use of the language the power of words you know it's a pertinent question it's not a lost art totally no of course I lead I would make the case and I carry no water for any current politician but Barack Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic convention and then and I thought of Kennedy's speech on religion which he gave in West Virginia that was so important in diffusing that issue in Obama's speech on race in Philadelphia was one of the great speeches I think any president Barack Obama is a is a very powerful speaker and and and and a thinker of considerable importance and I think that he has been an inspiration to many young people in a way that President to be without that 2004 speech I doubt he did his bedroom thank you very much and pleasure to meet both of you my name is carol cohen and firstly i wanted to say thank you for all of the information on John and Abigail and John Quincy I was a park ranger for a summer at the Adams historical site and everything you say and more about those people he needs a presidential I both of them to UM and and also as a mother of an actor but I want to just further comment on your belief that history should be required and asked a question because I'm a professor of social studies methods and I teach both in-service and future teachers and who are elementary going to be elementary school teachers and you say that it's the families and the lack of learning about history and culture and learning to live with others and appreciate differences that is not going on in the house but what about in the elementary school I go around to lots of elementary schools hundreds and I'm told there's no time for social studies we only have half an hour a week and we have to do math science and reading and I brought this up at the National Conference and couldn't get an answer so I'm wondering what jaws is well my feeling very strong feeling is the way to get young people involved in history the best time to get them is in grade school because they want to know about they want to know about presidents and and heroes of accomplishment and so forth and they love stories and they're wonderful books that can be used in at the grade school level in my own case I was swept away as a grade school student by a book called Ben and me about a mouse that lived in Ben Franklin's hat absolutely marvelous book and I can't go into that Ben grew up as one of a very large family in the famous old church in Philadelphia but Ben the mouse name is Amos the mouse and I can never be go into that church and wonder if any was that that family's descendants still behind those walls one of our granddaughters was in a class in Hingham grade school and the children were also you could pick a first lady or a president that you're going to be and we're going to have to put on a pageant or show for all your mothers and fathers and you're going to introduce yourself as as president so-and-so and he'll talk about yourself and my granddaughter Caroline was Harry Truman and and the other good friends was Franklin Roosevelt well the night of the gathering for the parents these little people came out there and gave a wonderful account of who they were and what they did and why there should be known about and and all of us were just amazed and I know for certain that not one of those children will ever forget which President they were it will be with them for the rest of their lives and that's the kind of thing that can work wonders in many ways I think we need to bring the what I call the lab technique to teaching history more than we have and this is true all the way through high school and college get them involved in a project where they have to do the work if you dig in and get their hands dirty and do the research we shouldn't just hand them everything and say here's what you need to know here's here's what why this is important this follow this follow that and it's going to be on the test on the next month in no get them hooked by getting involved in the detective case aspect of it and that works like nothing else yes sir mr. McCullough you mentioned the importance of universities and the world-class universities that we have is a great asset to the country and there are two elements of universities today that I personally find very dismaying one is the emphasis on political culture PC and even administrators seeming to fall into the trap of protecting their students from controversial opinions providing bubble rooms for example and I wonder if you could comment on that and the second situation is I found it dismaying the other day to watch c-span in which there were two African American professors and there was also two feminist professors both in well-known universities who were talking about the irrelevance of the Constitution since they were not blacks and women were not part of the decision-making at the time I was wonder if you could comment on that as well very easy question when you say it is appalling it's very disturbing very unsettling and I personally and this may be to set this to simplified a response and it may be indicate that I really don't understand the actual workings of a modern-day president of the university's life and decision but I think it's when that happens is a lack of leadership on the part of whoever's running the university and and not not just the president but but the faculty the political correct vogue is awful it's awful and is and it's unrealistic it doesn't have anything to do with understanding reality and they were not that kind of a country we are able to we are still able to Express opinions let us hope without fear of being attacked or degraded or made of feel like a fool so when speeches are cancelled because of student uprisings at places like Middlebury yeah when a hundred students walk out of a Notre Dame graduation speech given by the Vice President or when speeches are canceled at California Berkeley because the students do not disagree or do not agree with the opinions of those who are about to speak I presume you would oppose that but so - are there people who are trying to be provocative in the way that they book these people well if if I were a the president of a university or a member of the faculty where something like this happened I would speak out strongly in favor of a different attitude and hope that the majority of the students and members of the faculty and alumni would be persuaded that the stand the stance I was taking was the right one I'm surprised at how few university presidents take any position politically I don't understand that is it because they are afraid it will damage their ability to raise money I don't know but the old days that but it wasn't how it was they spoke out and voice their opinion about the second part of this question involving the Constitution and the fact that perhaps there are people in this country because it did not represent them or did not feel that they were fully represented in earlier days that it's not important well we've had I think 17 amendments to the Constitution that have done a lot to straighten out in level the playing field yes over here all right things I know when you if I made one of the things we need to do is teach the Constitution absolutely I don't know how many of you have seen the test that new incoming Americans applying for citizenship after to pass on the history of the country I venture to say that probably two-thirds of the cup of the country couldn't pass that test but they have to pass it and they do and some of the most ardent readers and enthusiasts for American history that I've met over the years are immigrants who can't understand how few people among us know how many people among us know almost nothing about this area our country it's and it doesn't have to stay that way here hi I know when you are researching your books you like to visit historic houses and see what these people worked and lived what's the relevance in your mind of historic houses in today society and why we should preserve them I'm sorry I didn't importance of you have you actually mentioned in the book that when you are doing a history party of an individual that you go and see first of all you read what they read and you go and look at their houses and where they grew up and what their surroundings were why is that important and how important should we consider that as people who might be interested in a particular historic figure well I think it's essential we're we are us remember we have a very distinctive traits that are common among animals and one is that we're imprinted in childhood by our environment by arts the terrain what kind of a horizon is out there and all the rest we we grow up in some section or other and we don't realize how much of what we think peel say comes from that environment so if you want to understand somebody you have to go to that and bar and see how many other people have for example many of the common popular traits characteristics ways of Harry Truman if you go out to Independence Missouri and spend some time out there you realize that's the way a lot of these people are and the expressions they use the language they use and I stress very strong you don't know you not only do you have to read what they wrote but you have to read what they read and what were the books what were the guiding literary spirits of the of their youth their childhood that shaped them I remember reading a wonderful line in one of John Adams letters to Abigail in which he said we may not succeed in this struggle we may not prove successful in this struggle but we can deserve it and I've read that I whoa nobody thinks like that anymore we can we can deserve it even if we don't win and I was then some months later reading a letter that George Washington wrote and there was the same sentence the same observation the Adams was a plagiarist no and Washington a husband but in the 18th century they didn't use question marks or quotation mark and so you could it's often they're quoting something that you don't know it they know it this was a line by Joseph Addison from the play a famous play Cato which if they hadn't actually has ever seen the play they'd all read it it was one of the most popular literary accomplishments of the 18th century and this happens again and again and they're shaped by what they read is that we have been shaped by what they read and what we read it's it's it's character think of the time in which they were living I've always felt I had to go where the I can smell the night air with coal smoke or the whatever and I could walk the walk and feel I'm entering in to the lives of these people who are just as real and just as alive as we are but are no longer around a long long time ago Gerald Ford was my congressman so it's nice to hear the kind words that you have to say about him because lots of people really do not appreciate the kinds of things that he did for this country so thank you for those comments and I'll be looking forward to the book that's coming out about your Oh for that you said should be written so there's a wonderful historian actually Richard Norton Smith yes who was president of the Ford Library and I but I don't think he's written they about reveal yet no here this has been an amazingly profound evening for me hearing you talk one of the issues that I have had for many many years is that people kids are not taught civics anymore I talk I took civics in the eighth grade I've been a political junkie all my life when I talked to people about things like the Constitution and I studied two semesters of con law in college I was a history and government major I am appalled at their total lack of knowledge and disinterest in the Constitution but if kids are taught basic civics right in grade school the chances that they're gonna carry that interest in concern and responsibility on as it sells I think it's pretty slim so I'd like to hear your thoughts and I'd love to know how but there's what can we do to get it bring it back make it required ok truly absolutely just be required one of the things about the military academies that they all require that kind of course and in many ways they're graduates are coming away with advantage the students in the regular universities don't necessarily have when I was in college I took we had to take a science course to and the word was out pretty commonly understood but the easiest science course was geography they sued me geology my geology so I immediately signed up for geology called rocks for jocks presented and and the professor was the famous professor Flint Richard flyff and of course he was known as rocky Flint and rocky Flint was a very tall severe man sphere looking man and very pressive and I'll never forget and many of the others who went through the same course will never forget the first day he walked out on this stage and here's what he said imagine the Empire State Building now imagine a Bible lying flat on top of the Empire State Building now imagine a dime lying flat on the Bible the Empire State Building represents the history of the earth the Bible represents the history of life on Earth the dime represents the history of human life on Earth now talk about putting things in perspective and I quickly found that I loved geology and signed up for another term it wasn't required because its history and it's relevant to to so much that we just don't even bother to try and understand and I think that's what happens very often when young people are assigned to take some course or other and they find it suddenly remember this is great I've always advised students to take the teacher not the course find out who are the great professors who are the exciting lecturers who are the inspiring inspiring that will make the biggest different perspective of what they're teaching I would just add one thing because it's an important question I covered a lot of local government in my time when I was a beginning reporter and I covered city councils and I covered school boards and the interest in what school boards are doing is very varies a lot depending on how controversial they might get but school board members are very susceptible to lobbying by the public and if you go to your local school board people and say you ought to require civics and enough people do it civics will be required yep this is a question from Twitter I'm represent the library the question is if someone like JFK were to take office today how do you think you would approach the foreign policy challenges that we're facing right now knowledgeably he was a natural-born diplomat not to say that it was just smooth talking or something he understand that diplomacy is essential in life and in a relation between nations I was just in I tried I had it for I went back after I heard the inaugural speech delivered last November I went back and reread JFK's inaugural speech and I won't cite the well-known quotes because they are much remembered but he said one of these close that I don't think many people remember to those peoples in the Hudson villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery we pledged our best efforts to help them help themselves for whatever period is required not because we seek their votes but because it is right contrast that to last November every decision on trade or taxes on immigration on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families it's a real contrast yeah hello one of the youngsters in the crowd and good golly you've given me a lot of homework sir so my question is I've learned the amazing fact that you have 19 grandchildren what is one message that you constantly tell them as they grown up and as they are growing up what is that message that theme as such a well-known historian and writer what is that key that you think is so important nowadays and in the future well I am fortunately I have considerable Irish blood in my background and I don't just give them one I'm incapable of just one but one of one of my favorite quotes and I have it framed on the mantelpiece in our house they all see it they all know it is from Jonathan Swift who said may you live all the days of your life live every day live all the days of your life that's what matters getting the most out of life while you're alive and and that feeds energy feeds on expenditures expending energy and Theodore Roosevelt once said black care rarely sits behind the rider whose pace is fast enough you don't sit around and mope or feel sorry for yourself self-pity is a ugly human inclination but get up and do things accomplish something make make the make the world a little better every day if you can in some small way or other help other people who need help be kind be be have empathy put yourself in the other person's place and try not ever to be boring it's not fair to be boring besides unkind fear to your friends or your family and we'll go here to the final question good evening mr. Gibson good evening mr. McCullough I'm uh I'm a history teacher here in Cambridge Massachusetts and I have two brief questions for you on number one what are you currently reading right now mr. McCullough for enjoyment well when I'm working on a book I don't read anything but all that I need to read in order to be confident enough to write that book so right now I'm reading all about the Northwest Territory I'm reading biographies and autobiographies of a whole cast of characters I've always wanted to write a book about people you've never heard of I don't I would love to have the capacity in the story itself to get you into the tent and not rely on a historic um what's the word celebrities historic celebrities to get you into the tent and I was greatly influenced as a student in college by Thornton Wilder and his novels in his play and and the particularly to play our towns I don't always have what if he can write a book about real people in a real town and have sufficient material to get inside their lives inside their nature and to drawing on on letters and diaries and so forth and I found that in a collection in Marietta Ohio and which was the first settlement in the Northwest Territory by people who all came out from here from Massachusetts and two-degree other New England states but mainly from here they were veterans of the Civil of the Revolutionary War who had been that inadequately compensated with what was then called script instead of money and it was worthless bait by and large so they were going to compensate for that terrible oversight inadequate he can unfairness with land so most of these people were veterans of the revolution who'd been through eight years of torment and difficulty and hard hard slugging and then they go out and start this whole new community in the middle of the wilderness and I'm able to get into their lives in a way that you couldn't do before a group of people today because they we don't we're not gonna leave the kind of a record and they every imaginable thing that could go wrong went wrong but they would not give up they would not give up and and I think this is important we tend very often to misjudge people because they're they're members of this group or that group with this religion or that religion and one of the people among of those we've tended to misjudge are the Puritans there's this idea that they all wore black and they were all stuffy and boring and and there were against having any fun whatsoever in life and so forth not true they were colorful clothes they liked to have parties they liked to sing and dance and drink and they had many admirable objectives in life and one of them was education it was essential it was part of their faith and two-seated how they took that hit that ideal of Education that freedom of religion out to this hitherto unoccupied to the wilderness and created these towns these civilizations on hell there was exactly what they had been tried to achieve back here it's exciting and and it I want to know more about it I've never undertaken a subject I knew much about that's a quite a confession if I knew all about it I wouldn't want to write the book because that's the adventure money all about and I'm learning all about what it was like to be a pioneer in that day and age so with that we're going to wrap things up I'm going to ask David to do one more thing before I send you all on your way but I really do appreciate you spending an hour and a half being as attentive as you've been as somebody who used to do two hours of live television every morning I can tell you that that's an exercise in bladder control so is being here for an hour and a half and being as attentive as you've always been but I want as I read the book I wanted to find something that would be a coda for the evening that would be a good way to wrap it up and I think all of us profoundly remember the period after 9/11 it was a very special time in this country and it was a time that there was wonderful unity unity that that I wish were still we're still around in our society we were in a position now where we can't talk to each other in times and that's really dismay and on a speech that he gave just after 9/11 David said this and it's just a paragraph but I put it in yellow there on the left-hand page it said that everything has changed but everything has not changed this is plain truth we are still the strongest most productive wealthiest the most creative the most ingenious the most generous nation in the world with the greatest freedoms of any nation in the world of any nation in all time thank you you

Channel: JFK Library

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Length: 97min 37sec (5857 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2017