>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. >> Please, welcome to the stage Mr. David McCollough and Mr. David Rubenstein. ^M00:00:14 [ Applause ] ^M00:00:40 ^M00:00:56 >> Thank you, then. >> David Rubenstein: David, you were at our first national book festival, the very first one. How many people here were at the first one, anybody? How many have been to every one? How many this is the first time? Okay. How many people like the price of admission? ^M00:01:18 [ Applause ] ^M00:01:22 So we're very honored to have David McCollough and let me just give you a brief background of David. David is a native of Pittsburgh, grew up as one of four boys in a family, where his father had a small electrical supply company, not quite General Electric but very impressive you said. David went to Yale, where he did quite well, graduated in 1955. He then went to New York, did not go back to Pittsburgh despite his parent's interest in his doing so, went to New York, joined "Sports Illustrated," which was then a novice, new publication and then ultimately came to work in Washington at the USIA., and while at the USIA, got interested in something that he was interested in from his time in Pittsburgh at Johnstown Flood and then wrote his first book about the Johnstown flood, which was a bestseller, that was his first book. He has now written, with this book we're going to talk about today, with "The American Spirit," he's now written 11 book. He is now working on his twelfth book, which we'll talk about shortly. Every single one of his books is still in print, which is very unusual. His first book is now almost fifty years old. ^M00:02:42 [ Applause ] ^M00:02:47 David, has won the Pulitzer Prize twice for his books on Harry Truman and John Adams. He has won National Book Prize twice. He has been given the presidential medal of freedom by President Clinton. He has been asked to speak to a joint session of Congress and given virtually every honor a citizen can give. He's been also give 55 honorary degrees, which must be a record. So that's very impressive, but even more impressive is he has five children, 19 grandchildren and the love of his life, Rosalie, his wife of 63 years. Where's Rosalie? ^M00:03:25 [ Applause ] ^M00:03:32 Okay. So did you ever think when you were growing up in Pittsburgh that you would one day become the most famous chronicler of American History? >> David McCollough: Of course. >> David Rubenstein: You did? >> David McCollough: No. I never imagined such a thing. >> David Rubenstein: What was your ambition as a young boy in Pittsburgh? What did you want to do? >> David McCollough: I wanted to get good grades in school but not to spend too much of my time worrying about that and then I got interested in girls and took out a lot of my thought and preparations. And once I got to college, I knew that I either wanted to be an artist, or a writer, or an architect, or an actor, but I couldn't make up my mind. So when I finished college, I thought, "I know what I'll do. I'll go to New York and see what happens." So I went to New York and a lot happened. >> David Rubenstein: Now, did your family say, go to New York, or did they say come back to Pittsburgh? >> Oh, no. My father would call me after my second or third book had been published, he said, "Well, now it's time for you to come back to Pittsburgh and get a real job." He never understood but I'd go back to Pittsburgh all the time and I'm very grateful I grew up when I did then at that time in that city and it was a lesson in history, in itself. It was a simulation for the Arts and the literature, the principal by school, leading the public school, was one of the founders of the first PBS station in America, Carolyn [phonetically spelled] D. Patterson and KDKA was the first radio station in America and I was invited to do a little voice over for KDKA when I was still in high school, so that interested me too. >> David Rubenstein: So yo went to "Sports Illustrated." That isn't American History exactly, a very nice publication, but what did you work on there? >> David McCollough: Well, I worked in the circulation promotion department and we had these test mailers, as they called them, where they would four or five different letters to people asking them to take an interest in this new magazine, and I asked if I could contribute a competitor in the test, and I told, "Yes, but you have to do it on your own time. Don't waste office time doing this" a ten-year job, I was a trainee. So I wrote the letter and submitted it and they decided to use it, and it won the test. From that point on, I was looking good. But the wonderful thing about it was the "Sports Illustrated" was brand new, and nobody really knew exactly where it was going or how to make it go. It was a very exciting time and the whole spirit of the city then was amazing. I went to work for 5000 dollars a year. They allowed me an extra ten dollars a week because I was married. The stereotype for women was not just in salaries, it was expressed in other ways too, but I also found right away how many wonderful there were working there and later when I came to Washington, I found some of the best people I had worked with in my life were the women at the U.S. Information Agency. What happened when Kennedy ran, I thought this is really exciting. He was going to make a difference. He was going to give us all a chance to take part, and when he gave his magnificent inaugural address and said, "Do not ask what your country can for you but what you can do for your country," I took that entirely to heart, and I quit my job. I knew no one in the Kennedy crowd, I knew no one in the government here. I came down and went door to door looking for some place in the federal government where my training and my education would be appropriate and wound up, luck would have it, and luck is a big factor not just in our lives but in history -- it's not sufficiently paid attention to, but as luck would have it, I wound up working at the USIA when Kennedy had appointed Edward R. Murrow to be the director, so it was a very exciting time. It stayed an exciting time for the three years until the president was killed, but during that time, I happen to be in the Library in Congress doing some research for some articles we were going to include in the magazine I was editing and chanced upon this big table at the library in the Princeton photograph's division of photographs taken at Johnstown right after the famous disastrous flood of 1889. And I had heard about the flood all my life but I really knew nothing about it and I looked at those photographs and saw the devastating destruction and couldn't believe my life and I thought, "What happened?" So I took a book out of the library, which was okay but the author didn't really understand the geography of western Pennsylvania, which I did understand. So I took another book out of the library and it was pot boiler written at the time, full of inaccuracies and so forth. But while I was in college, I had the good fortune to cross paths with Thorn Wilder, the great playwright and novelist, and he was asked, at one point, why do you write the plays you do, the subjects you choose, why do you write the novels you do and subjects you choose? He said, "I imagine a story that I'd like to be able to read and if I find nobody's written it so I can see it on stage or read it in a book, I write it myself so I can read it in a book or see it performed on stage and I thought, why don't you try and write the book you wish you could read about the Johnstown flood? And I soon as I started working on that book, here at the Library of Congress, primarily, I knew this is what I want to do for the rest of my life? >> David Rubenstein: So did you quit your job at USIA? >> David McCollough: I did not. When Kennedy was killed, I was asked to come back to New York to work at "American Heritage," the wonderful American History magazine, which was then published with hard covers and no advertising. Bruce Catton was the editor. ^M00:10:43 It was an exciting, marvelous and adventurous time and I worked there for six years, and I wrote "The Johnstown Flood" on nights and on weekends for three years, carrying on my job as usual but after I had written the book and then I after I got the idea for the next book on building the Brooklyn Bridge, I thought, "I got to quit and see if I can do it full-time," and because I was married and married to a very brave, wonderful woman -- ^M00:11:21 [ Applause ] ^M00:11:25 -- she said, "If that's what you want to do, we'll do it." We had no outside income. All we had was an advanced on the new book, and after my Johnstown book was published, several other publishers came to me and one of them wanted me to do the Chicago Fire and the other the San Francisco earthquake. So I was hardly 30 years old and I was already being type casted as "bad news McCollough" and I didn't want that. I wanted a symbol of affirmation, a symbol of positive affirmation and I must say it took me a while to come up with the idea. People say, "Where do you get your ideas?" I get them from all over the place and I was having lunch with two friends, one was a science writer, the other an engineer. They started talking about all that the builders of the Brooklyn Bridge didn't know they were in for when they first set out to do it and I thought, "There's my subject." I came out of that lunch. It was down on the lower eastside, and I went to straight to the New York Public Library, the marble stairs to the card catalog -- the old card catalog days -- and pulled out the draw and there were over 50 cards on the subject of the Brooklyn Bridge but not one describing a book of the kind I intended already to write. And I knew this is it. So it was on the basis of that idea and the willingness of my publisher, Simon and Schuster, to go behind me and give me an advance, that I was able to stop working full-time. And I've never changed publishers. Simon and Schuster have published all my books and I always figured if I was loyal and faithful to them, they would be to me and they certainly have been. >> David Rubenstein: One wife and one publisher for 63 years. >> David McCollough: One wife and one publisher. >> David Rubenstein: You might describe, as you might describe elsewhere, your style of writing because it's a little unique in the sense that your wife is involved in the process of helping you with the writing. Can you describe how you do that? >> David McCollough: Well, I've been confessing to this truth more lately than before but I don't consider myself an historian. I have no degree in History. I have no PhD. I didn't major in History. I majored in English. I only took the History courses that were required and I've always believed that one ought to write for the ear as well as the eye; all the great did it, Dickens and all the others because when you hear what you've written, you begin to hear words that you're using too often. You begin to hear sentence structures that become repetitious and you hear when you are starting to be boring and I had two or three wonderful writers help me along the way, Conrad Richter, the great novelist, whose work is really beyond imagining, still Paul Horgan, wonderful writer and Charlton Ogburn, I don't know if any of you know his work, a brilliant, wonderful band, and writer, and nationalist and they helped me a great deal understand you have to cut back. you have write and rewrite. I'm not a writer. I'm a rewriter and all the best of them had been that way. Rosalie reads everything that I write to me out loud and she sometimes reads a chapter three or four times because I'm rewriting it three or fours. When we were working on my book about Theodore Roosevelt -- may I tell this story? ^M00:15:36 [ Laughter ] ^M00:15:40 -- we were in the next to the last chapter, I think, and she was reading aloud and she just said, "There's something wrong with that sentence." I said, "Well, read it again." She read it again. I said, "No, there's nothing wrong with that sentence." She said, "Yes, there is." I said, "Give me." I read it aloud to her. I said, "See?" She said, "No, there's something wrong with that sentence." I said, "Just keep going, please." Well, she kept going and I didn't do anything about that sentence and the book went to the publisher. The publisher published it and it came out. It got wonderful reviews including a very fine review in the New York Review of Books by [inaudible], up until he was about to end the review, he said "Sometimes, however, Mr. McCollough doesn't write very well, consider this sentence -- ^M00:16:37 [ Laughter ] ^M00:16:45 >> David Rubenstein: Some historians do a lot of research and then they write. You perhaps do something different. You research and write, research and write. Can you describe why you do it that way? >> Well, for one thing, I never undertake a book about a subject I know much about. If I knew all about it, I wouldn't want to write the book because the search process would not be an adventure, and, for me, each subject I undertake is a new experience. I'm setting foot on a continent I've never been to before and working on a detective case, and I really don't know much about the research for the last half of the book and I don't want to know that yet. I want to be involved with the people who were involved in the story. I want to be with them. I want to know them. I want to be inside their time. When you say to me, "You're working on a new book," I say, "Yes," but I really say, "I'm working in a book." You have to get in that other time and you have to understand those human beings. History is not about statistics and memorizing dates, and boring quotations. History is about people. It's about human beings when in the course of human events and we have to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of those other people and know what the life that they lived was like, what the hardships, adversities that they faced that we don't even have to think about and what spoiled brats we are that we have so much that we owe all to them, and yet we don't bother to know who they were. It's not right. ^M00:18:23 [ Applause ] ^M00:18:29 So I do the research as I go along and as you do the research and as you learn more, then you have different questions. You have to ask questions all the time. Why did this happen? Where was he? Who was he? What was he or she worried about? And you have to keep learning more from the original sources, letters, diaries, unpublished memoires and the like, and, of course, that's where the gold, all, so much of it is right here in the Library of Congress. When I was working on the Wright Brothers Book, all those letters that they wrote to each other, and to their father, and to their mother and sister, Katharine, are all here in the Library of Congress and you read those letters, these two young fellows who grew up in a house that had no running water, no indoor plumbing, no central heat, no telephone and you could put ten of them in this room, tiny little house but it was full of books, and their father insisted that they all read and that they read above their level. ^M00:19:47 And those letters that they wrote expressed what he drummed into them, learn how to use the English language on paper and on your feet. Their vocabulary, their handling of -- is breathtaking and they never even finished high school, and when I see the writing that is produced by college students today -- when I learn that nearly all the law schools in our country are now requiring incoming freshman, who, of course, are all college graduates, to take a basic a writing course because they can't write a respectable, presentable letter or report, or proposal of some kind in the work that they are going to have to be doing. We have to knuckle down and get back to learning how to write, learning how to read with concentration and understanding and teaching history. We're raising a generation -- we're raising several generations of young Americans -- and I know this because I lecture or teach at colleges and universities constantly all over the country. We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate and it's not their fault and I think that some of the brightest people I've ever met are some of the students that I'm involved with in colleges and university. And we have to stimulate curiosity, ask questions, ask questions. don't think you always have to have the answers. I don't have all the answers. I hope I never reach the point where I think I have all the answers, and curiosity, and I forgotten who said this, and I wish I could remember. One of the great writers said, "Curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages." ^M00:21:46 [ Laughter ] ^M00:21:50 >> David Rubenstein: So when you are writing, do you type it? Do you use a typewriter, a word processor? Do you use long hand? >> David McCollough: Are you ready? >> David Rubenstein: What is the answer? >> David McCollough: I am proud to say I work on a manual typewriter. >> David Rubenstein: Okay. When it breaks, where do you get the parts? >> David McCollough: It's never broken. >> David Rubenstein: Really. >> David McCollough: I bought it second hand in order to write my first book, "The Johnstown Flood." I'd always work at Time and Life with the issued typewriter on the job, which was manual Royal typewriter. We were living in White Plains, New York. I went to a typewriter shop and bought a second hand Royal typewriter that was in 25 years old. I paid 75 dollars for it. I've written everything I've ever written, every speech, every article, every book on that typewriter for over 50 years and there is nothing wrong with it and there never has been. >> David Rubenstein: Wow. >> David McCollough: Talk about -- by no means was the notion of planned obsolescence enter in to the minds of the manufacturers of that machine. It's fantastic. Now, why this typewriter? Why not word processor? It goes too fast. I don't think all that fast and if you hit the wrong button, you can eliminate months of work. ^M00:23:27 [ Laughter ] ^M00:23:31 I have a friend, Bill Fowler, a very good historian, a very good book writer, lost 5000 words because he hit the wrong button. Also I love to take the paper out of the typewriter and after I finish the chapter, put it up on the clipboard. If it's a good weather, find a nice comfortable place to take an outdoor chair and sit under a tree and let the editor, me, show that mug who wrote that stuff how it should really be done and you're editing on the manuscript. With a machine, all that it's eliminated. You never see that again, but with this, you can see the process. Now the only other avid, devoted typewriter man that I know is Tom Hanks. And Tom Hanks writes all of this letters, everything, on a typewriter and he has, what must be, the world's greatest typewriter collection, more than, I'm sure, there are at the Smithsonian, and he understands perfectly why I work on a typewriter, and I urge others to do it and I urge others to remember how much work goes into writing a book. >> David Rubenstein: I think Robert Caro still uses his typewriter as well. >> David McCollough: Yes, he does. >> David Rubenstein: How many words do you do a day before you say, "Okay, that's it." >> David McCollough: Well, in the old days, when I was full of beams, I would do four pages a day when I was growing underway. Now, I try to do two pages a day. Two pages a day is ten pages a week or more because I often work seven days a week and by the end of the month, you've got a chapter, or the beginnings of the chapter. >> David Rubenstein: Right. >> David McCollough: I'm often asked how much of my time I spent writing and how much of my time I spend doing research, perfectly good question. Nobody ever asked me how much of your time you spend thinking. >> David Rubenstein: How much of your time do you spend thinking? >> David McCollough: Yeah. >> David Rubenstein: What's the answer? >> David McCollough: There you are, David, you're the first man. >> David Rubenstein: All right, so what's the answer: >> David McCollough: A lot. If you were looking in the window where I work, you might think the guy's asleep but I'm thinking deeply. >> David Rubenstein: Well, in my roles at the Smithsonian, whenever you do retire, can you give us that typewriter? >> David McCollough: Well, I'm not sure. I have to talk to the boss. >> David Rubenstein: Okay. Let's talk about this book. You've written ten books before. This is your eleventh book. >> David McCollough: Yes. >> David Rubenstein: We're going to talk shortly about your twelfth book called, "The Pioneers," which is going to be out in 2019. >> David McCollough: Yes. >> David Rubenstein: This book is a compilation of your speeches and honorary degree of commencement talks. You've got 55 honorary degrees. That must near a world record. When you give a commencement speech, what do you have left to say that you haven't said before. Do you get tired of saying the same things to students? Are they really listening to these commencement speeches? >> David McCollough: No, because the setting of every talk, like everyone you meet, is different. So you want to know something about the university where you're speaking or the college where you're speaking, or if you're invited to speak let's say at some event at the White House or capitol, you have to do the homework. >> David Rubenstein: So you do the research. >> David McCollough: I do a lot of research and I'm very conscientious that what I'm saying is going to go on the record at the university or at the -- [inaudible] >> David Rubenstein: All right, so let's talk about some of these speeches and this is a highly readable book. I highly recommend it and let's talk about one of the first speeches in here. You were asked to give a speech to the joint session of Congress. Very few citizens, private citizens, are ever asked to do that. How did that come about and what did you want to talk about to the members of Congress? >> David McCollough: There was a gathering of historians and biographers that spoke at a conference here at the Library of Congress on the Congress and after that was over, when it came time -- it was the bicentennial, 1989, I was asked to come and give a shorter version of the speech I gave at that gathering at the Library of Congress. >> David Rubenstein: Shorter version because members of Congress don't like long speeches or? >> David McCollough: I would imagine they were afraid that I would run away with my excitement and go on forever. >> David Rubenstein: All right. >> David McCollough: But it was a very, very high compliment and honor and I worked extremely hard on preparing this. >> David Rubenstein: One of the people you talk about there was John Quincy Adams -- >> David McCollough: Yes. >> David Rubenstein: -- who had been a member of Congress for 20 years after he left the presidency. Why did you talk about him and what do you think is so appealing about John Quincy Adams? >> David McCollough: John Quincy Adams had been a diplomat, served in several diplomatic post, very important diplomatic post. He'd been a senator and he'd been president of the United States and after he left the presidency, he was asked if he, by any chance, run for Congress. He said, "Certainly," so he went back and served in Congress until his death and he died on the floor of the Congress. He died in the, what is now, Statuary Hall, in the little room off to the side. ^M00:29:04 He died in "heinous," as they said then. He didn't have to do that. He didn't have to be a congressman as he was, but he had a mission not only to represent as best he could his constituency in Massachusetts but to represent the country and more than that the constituency, and he was ardently against slavery. So he was battling slavery on the floor of the Congress until the day he fell dead or fell down and died a few days later. And talk about devotion, talk about integrity, talk about truth and honesty and loyalty, his father, John Adams, was the only founding father present, only one in the presence who was a founding father, who never owned a slave out of principle, and his wife, Abigail, was even more adamant on the subject. The next president who never owned a slave was John Quincy Adams, so it ran in the family, as did dedication to public service. It ran in the family. He was also brilliant. He was interested in everything. He spoke many languages. He was, in many ways, I think he may have had the highest IQ, the most fertile, versatile mind of anybody who has been president, even including the greatest among the founders, but as chance would have it, he was only a one-term president and one-term presidents don't get the attention that others do. It's the same now as it was then. >> David Rubenstein: Let me ask you about another president you've talked about. You spoke on the 4th of July at an Immigration and Naturalization ceremony at Monticello, which is held every 4th of July. Monticello is Thomas Jefferson's home. Thomas Jefferson gave us the creed that all men are created equal that he wrote in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence but how do you swear that with the fact that he was a slave owner and how do you address that issue and how do you think he addressed that issue of the fact that he was a slave owner but he thought all men should be created equal? >> David McCollough: I don't. I can't. I don't understand it, nor do I understand the fact that he destroyed every letter he ever wrote to his wife and every letter she ever wrote to him. So we know nothing about her. We don't even know what she looked like and I can't understand. I can't understand that he kept very close track of every cent, every dime he ever spent on anything. He has incredible financial records but he never added it up. >> David Rubenstein: Well, that was why he probably was bankrupt at the end. >> David McCollough: He was never out of debt from the time he was a young man. He just kept spending. I don't understand it. But I also don't understand where that genius came from. The man was a genius and if he'd been nothing but an architect, now that alone would qualify him to be somebody we all should know about. And he served a brilliant service to all of us with this idea that all men are created equal, but he also said something I think has not been sufficiently played out and given. He hasn't been given sufficient credit for and that is his absolute belief in education. He said, "Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and never can be." We have to be educated. We have to be literate. We have to understand that there are no easy answers to big problems and so forth and nobody has glib solutions to big problems. They have to be worked out. I wish I'd have the chance to know him. >> David Rubenstein: Let's speak about that. If all the people you've written about, John Adams, Harry Truman, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, if you could have dinner with any one president who's not alive, who would you like to have dinner with? ^M00:33:27 ^M00:33:32 >> David McCollough: John Adams. >> David Rubenstein: John Adams? >> David McCollough: Because there are so many questions I want to ask him. >> David Rubenstein: All right, let's talk about John Adams for a moment. You gave a speech at the University of Massachusetts. You talked about John Adams. Of the founding fathers, he gets a little less attention than George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison. Why do you think so few people paid that much attention until your book came out and why do you think there is still no monument in John Adams in Washington D.C.? >> David McCollough: Yes, there is. >> David Rubenstein: Where? >> David McCollough: He's on the mantle piece in the White House. >> David Rubenstein: Oh. >> David McCollough: You know about that? >> David Rubenstein: I don't. >> David McCollough: John Adams was the first [inaudible] president to reside in the White House and his first night, he was alone, Abigail had not arrived yet and the next morning, after his first night, he wrote her a letter in which he said -- what he wrote in the letter, Franklin Roosevelt had carved into the wooden part of the mantle in the east room, the same dining room. When Truman was in charge of redoing the White House, he made sure that that quotation stayed there. When Kennedy became president, he had it carved into the marble of the mantle piece so that it would stay forever and what Adams had said in the letter to Abigail was this, "May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof." >> David Rubenstein: Oh! ^M00:35:07 ^M00:35:19 >> David McCollough: I think it's very important to understand, to think about, he put honesty first ahead of wisdom, honesty. >> David Rubenstein: So in your Pulitzer Prize-winning book on John Adams, which was also made into an HBO series and won a lot of awards as well, you went through about 1000 letter between John Adams and Abigail Adams. Have you ever experienced like that between a husband and wife before and what was it that struck you so unusual about those letters? >> David McCollough: The quality of the use of the English language, the quality of the use of the mind, how well read they both were, superbly read. John Adams advised his young son, at the time -- he was about 10 years old when they went off with his father to Europe to serve as a diplomatic -- he said, "You'll never be alone if you have a poet in your pocket," in other words, carry a book and that was part of the relationship attitude toward life. They were incredible readers and Abigail was right there and her letters are phenomenal. >> David Rubenstein: She was not college educated. >> David McCollough: No, she never to college. She never went to school. She was tutored at home as it were but she never stopped reading and she was brilliant and she was brave, and patriotic and she put up with incredible difficulties, running the family, running the household, trying to stay afloat financially when he was off serving overseas. And those children were raised by her in a way that they would never forget. At that dinner party you were asking who would I have, I would definitely want Abigail Adams there and I would definitely want Katharine Wright, the sister of the Wright Brothers. You can't understand what they did and how they did it if you don't understand the part played by Katharine Wright. Oh was she something. She kept at them and made them tell the line and behave themselves in a way that we all need. >> David Rubenstein: You gave a speech at Dartmouth and there are two people featured in that speech about whom you've written. One was Teddy Roosevelt. You wrote a book not about his presidency but about the time he left New York in the east and went west. Why did you find that such an appealing part of his life and what was the most important lesson you took away from that book? >> David McCollough: Theodore Roosevelt is like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. He was a child who was not expected to live. He suffered terribly of seizures of asthma, which were really life threatening. He was afraid of everything, fearful of everything and he outgrew it, and he outgrew it by facing adversity. He took hold of himself and he worked hard at it all the way through college but then onto life. His father's death was a devastating experience for him. Then his wife and mother died on the same day and he was a shattered man and that's when he went west. And this whole idea of going west is so American. It's a way of healing. It's a way of escaping. It's been traditionally and many historians have written and quite profoundly about this and he is the essence of that, but he never forgot who he was and where he was going back to and when he comes back, he then remarries and gets involved in politics in a big serious way. >> David Rubenstein: Now, you've also spoken to Dartmouth -- >> David McCollough: He was brilliant -- wonderful writer, and he was a historian. None of our great presidents has ever been one who had no interest in history, true. So he wrote about 40 books. ^M00:39:57 Theodore Roosevelt wrote many books including a very good book, I still consider a good book on the naval war of 1812, which he started when he was still in college. Woodrow Wilson, of course, was a professor of History. Dwight Eisenhower's "Crusade in Europe" is one of the best books about World War II ever written and he wrote every word of that himself. No ghostwriter did anything to help him. And, of course, Kennedy wrote several works of his, "Profiles and Courage," and kept referring to history, citing history, bringing history into the dialogue of the presidency of the executive office again, and again, and again. >> David Rubenstein: Now, you also in the "Darkness [inaudible] " talked about Harry Truman -- >> David McCollough: Yes. >> David Rubenstein: -- about whom you wrote another Pulitzer Prize winning book. Why was Harry Truman so unpopular when he left the presidency, 15% popularity rating, but now he's everything favorite president. What changed in the years since he left the presidency other than your book? >> David McCollough: Well, it began before I wrote the book, believe me. I grew up in a very old-fashioned Republic family and the night of the 1948, I was a high school student, and I was very interested in politics and I tried to stay awake to hear who won but, as some of you may remember, the final tally didn't come in until about two in the morning, and I just couldn't stay up that late. I fell asleep. The father was in shaving the next morning. I went in and I said, "Dad, dad, who won?" He said, "Truman," like the end of the world. Well, twenty or thirty years later, I was back home and we were having a chat after dinner and he started in on how the world was going to hell and the country was going to hell, and he paused, he said, "Too bad old Harry isn't still in the White House." But Harry Truman is a great American story. This wonderful gathering here is about the American story. If there was ever a story that is so American, I don't know of another one. He is Harry True man from a place called, "independence," and he never went to college. He had to go on in as his own. He had all kinds of bad luck and defeat but he never gave up. My favorite people are the people that don't give up. George Washington in 1776 had every reason in the world to say, "Well, that's enough. We can't win this war, the hell with it," but he would not give up and he knew how to convince others; we're not going to give up. The Wright Brothers never gave up. Washington Roebling in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, they had many reasons to say, "The hell with this. This is more than can be achieved," but they wouldn't give up. >> David Rubenstein: Talking about never giving up, you gave a speech at Ohio University -- >> David McCollough: Yes. >> David Rubenstein: -- about people who help build the northwest territories and you are now working on a book called, "The Pioneers," as I mentioned earlier, it's going to be out in 2019, what was so unique about the northwest territories and why did those people not give up? >> David McCollough: I was invited the speak at Ohio University at their 200th Anniversary commencement and I thought I'd better learn something about Ohio University and I found out the oldest building on campus was called, "Cutler Hall," and I thought, who's Cutler. I was told it was oldest university college building west of the Allegheny Mountains. Well, Cutler's name was Manasseh Cutler. He was a classic 18th century poly-math. He was a medical doctor, a lawyer and a minister. He was a minister of a small church in Ipswich, Massachusetts. And a group of war veterans in Ipswich, Massachusetts, revolutionary war veterans', had the idea that because they had been paid with worthless money all the time that they served for eight and a half years, one way to compensate that would be propriety land in this new northwest territory, seated through our country by the British at the treaty in Paris, and that land was fertile in a way that nobody in New England would have even imagined, and it belonged to a government and there it was. This man, Cutler, was picked by these officers from the war to go down to the capital, which was then in New York, and sell them on the idea of creating a northwest territory, ordinance, whereby new states could be formed. Now, Manasseh Cutler had never lobbied anything in anywhere in his life. The word "lobbyist" or "lobbying" had never even entered the languages yet. He had never been to New York, never had been to New England, but off he went in his one-horse shay down to New York to convince the continental congress -- there was no constitution yet -- to go ahead with this. This was the summer of 1787 and they put the ordinance through. He did it -- one man. He did it. And the ordinance stipulated three things of immense importance. It was one of the most important bills ever passed by our congress even before we had a president. One, there would be complete freedom of religion, absolute complete freedom of religion. The number two, the government would be involved in education. There would public education all the way through college. Hence, the beginning of the state university system, for example. Third, and most important of all, there would be no slavery. Now, what that meant -- this territory was as big as all the 13 colonies. There were slaves in every one of the 13 colonies but it meant this new empire, this wilderness empire, would be free to everyone. All you had to do was get across the Ohio River, the northwest territory and west of the Ohio River. It now constitutes the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin. It's as big as all of France, no slavery. So half of our country would be no slavery. Imagine with one vote of congress, one man put it through and yet I never knew anything about it, and most people know nothing about it. Now, I go back again to Thornton Wilder. Thornton Wilder was once again about how he got his ideas and so forth, but I thought our town was one of the greatest things I ever saw on stage. I still love to see it when it's big and done again. And I've always wanted to write a book about people you've never heard to see if I can get you into the tent, as it were, without relying on historic celebrities. So none of the characters, expect one or two, are in periphery are people you've ever heard, but all their letters and diaries have survived and their in the archives at Marietta College in Marietta, Ohio and it was as if I had come into King Tut's tomb or something, really and truly. And oh my goodness and what they talk about, and what they reveal, and the adversities they faced and they would not give up. >> David Rubenstein: So as we wind down with the time we have available, two final questions, one, what is the great pleasure of your life today, as you look back on what you've achieved, is it exposing all these things to Americans so they know more about our history? What is it that has given you the greatest in your life? Other than your relationship with your wife and your children, what is the greatest professional pleasure of your life? >> David McCollough: Being an American. ^M00:48:39 [ Applause ] ^M00:48:46 >> David McCollough: Thank you. >> David Rubenstein: And when people talk about you, the legacy you would like to have left behind -- not that you're leaving any time soon -- but what would say is the legacy that you would be most proud of having achieved? >> David McCollough: He tried to do his best. >> David Rubenstein: All right, well, you've done a terrific job and a final thing about the Library of Congress -- The Library of Congress is a place you've done a lot of your research. How important is the Library of Congress to you? >> David McCollough: The Library of Congress is indispensible for me, professionally, but I also see it as a shrine on our metropolis devoted to the idea of education and it's available to all. Our whole public library system is something that's a miracle of imagined creation. ^M00:49:42 [ Applause ] ^M00:49:48 The Library of Congress is the greatest library in the world and we did it. We did it. And if you ever get down about American culture, you might like to remember that there are still more public libraries in this country than there are Starbucks. >> David Rubenstein: All right, David, thank you very much for a good conversation. >> David McCollough: Thank you very much. ^M00:50:17 [ Applause ] ^M00:50:29 This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov