Focus 580; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

In this hour of focus 580 we were talking about the life of Benjamin Franklin and our guest is writer Isaacson He is president of the Aspen Institute. He has been the chairman of CNN and managing editor of TIME magazine and he is the author of a newly published biography of Ben Franklin which is titled Benjamin Franklin An American Life. The publisher is Simon Schuster and it's out here fairly recently. If you're interested in learning more about Mr. Franklin you can head down to the bookstore and take a look at the book. Questions here on the program also welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 so whatever works for you you can join in the conversation the only thing we ask of callers is people destroyed so we can keep the program moving. But Anyone's welcome to join the conversation again 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign-Urbana turned 3 800 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Mr. Isaacson Hello. How's it going. Thanks and thanks very much for talking with us today. Well I appreciate it.

Yes but one thing about Franklin I think really that you certainly know didn't that makes him stand out from the others of the founders is that it's seems easier to think of him to imagine him as a person rather than a statue. And yes it's pretty Celestion guy. You've got also it's quarks and he's not like George Washington up there on a pedestal. But I sort of feel that's why we can relate to on and we can learn from easy sort of a guy who winks at us from history's stage. Yeah I like that quote. That was one of the ways that you one of the lines that you craft for the book and I think that it's very nice the idea is that you know one can and again as you write in the book you can you can imagine you can kind of imagine sitting down and having a beer with Ben Franklin. You can least I can't think about sitting down having a beer with George Washington it just doesn't work but Franklin Somehow I think yes I actually could do that especially because Franklin is one of us I mean for better or

worse we can relate to him because he's he's a little bit like our generation a little bit entrepreneurial into the information age a lot of gadgets and technology somewhat ambitious as an urban middle class entrepreneur China start his own business so I think he certainly speaks to our age. The other thing about Franklin that I think is striking in and contrasts with the record of some of the other founders is that probably more than any other of this group of men has image the way people have thought about him has gone up and down dramatically over time since he dyed it a bit too which is sad because we find him so excessive on we see our reflection in him. I do reflection of certain values in him. So curious when we're very romantic or with the idea of practicality has fallen out of favor it seems like some boys WA middle class

value. We tend to object frankly and I think you find that any 1820s 1830s when you have a transcendental period in the Romantic period in America. People like Emerson and thorough unhorsed on catalysts needed to bat at Benjamin Franklin as being too practical and pragmatic of a guy. And likewise you find in the 1920s a sort of romantic period in the wild period I type. But there are certain times when we have lost track of our basic values when we've gone through a period in which tolerance and a little bit of humility are what we need. Then I think Franklin comes back in the favor and you sort of see that happening now. Yeah that's it. It's interesting it does seem to be that when people have criticised fine klyn it has been because they felt that he exemplified more but materialist virtues I guess rather than spiritual ones and a good way to put it.

But at two points to be made there first of all some of those critics confuse Benjamin Franklin with the character he sometimes portrayed of himself and Poor Richard's Almanac or even his autobiography Going around spouting maxims about a penny saved being a penny earned. Let's not forget this was the most philanthropic of all of our founders This was the most generous man we had in that century. Here's a guy who did. I did not to take patents or copyrights on some inventions like the lightning rod of a Franklin stove or bifocals because he felt that it was important to share scientific advances with everybody. Here's a guy who quit is planning business at you know age 40 to many is a big success because he wanted to form civic organizations and libraries and universities and stuff. And when his mother wrote him and asked Why are you doing this. He said I'd rather have it said of me that he lived usefully than that he died wretch. So this image of Benjamin Franklin

that he sometimes betrays of himself in is Paul Richard Almanac all that early to bed no way to write stuff. You have to realize that's not the real Benjamin Franklin. Well that's something again about him that maybe gives us an opportunity to connect with him or at least understand him has also a nice turn of phrase in the book where you you know the fact that he was known as an inventor but that the most interesting thing he invented was himself. He he did craft this image and although I think one has reason to I find some difficulty in separating the. The image that he crafted and that he gave to us and separate that from the real Franklin. Yeah you know that's the most interesting thing in trying to be writing about him because the image becomes part of the reality. For example when he was a young tradesmen he decided he wanted to make a list of the virtues that they had to have in order to be great. You know young middle class entrepreneurs. So he makes a list

which is industry and I honesty and for Galatea and all these things and he practices each one of them and marks him on a chart to see how well he does on each of those virtues and eventually he masters of each of those virtues and he shows it around to his friends in his little discussion Quabbin one of them says of him says to him you know you've forgotten a virtue you might want to practice. And Franklin says What's that. And the friend says humility you might want to try practicing that one. And the great thing about Franklin is he said I was never able to master that virtue I can never get the reality of humility. But I was very good at giving the appearance of humility and I found that the appearance of humility was just as useful as the reality of it because it made you listen to your fellow club members that made you care about what they thought it made you make compromises and the common. They shouldn't take their opinions into account until you see the appearance is becoming part of the reality in Franklin as he tries to make himself a more virtuous person.

I'm thinking you know there's this in his autobiography he tells the story and used to start with the right at the beginning of his arriving when he was 17 year olds old riving in Philadelphia looking really scruffy and he buying these. The buying this bread and rocking on the street munching it and he talks. He says he passes by the house of his future wife and he says she says she sees him and he writes She's standing at the door saw me and thought I made as I certainly did a most awkward ridiculous appearance now. The thing about that story is we have every reason to believe that it never happened. At least he did not pass the House by the house of his future wife who saw him and so you could have my on one hand his is little bit of self-deprecation on the other hand you wonder what exactly the story about what was his purpose in telling the story that way. Because it probably indeed didn't happen that way. Well first I would not sure it didn't happen to me. He certainly does walk up Market Street that day we know the boat he landed on we know he was poor we know he struggles of our history and we know that she lives on Market Street so I wouldn't dismiss the

possibility that it's there. And of course he's spending this image to show himself being his poor and humble roots because unlike most Americans at the time he was proud of having been you know born poor and made a success of himself you know his rags to riches tale that later on became part of America's values. And if you want to understand that that scene in the autobiography you probably have to look at the first two words of the autobiography which are dear son because he's writing. At my church later in 1771 to try to find his son has become very potentia sinister Craddick and royal asked to mind his son his humble roots and say remember where you came from we're not part of an aristocracy and we're not trying to create an aristocracy in this new world to recreate the class system of the old world so be proud of your humble roots. It's it is remarkable when you think about where he started where he ended up being

the son of a man who was a tradesmen he had a large number of children. Franklin didn't get much in the way of formal education and he became among other things probably the best known scientist of his time not only here but also in Europe. That's that's a big that's a big jump from where he started his time. He became the best writer of his time. He became the ship the best diplomat we've ever had in America. He became the most important philanthropists and civic leader and one of the most practical political thinkers we've ever had. And you're right he does it without a formal education. I mean here's a guy whose father was going to send him. Harvard because his father wanted him to study to be a minister. Now Franklin wasn't exactly cuts of the cloth and he's aged 12 and his father there salting away all the provisions for the winter one evening and Franklin says How about if I say grace over right now one and we can get it done with once and for all for the entire year and so's father realizes it would be a waste of money to send him to Harvard and Sally Apprentice ism

to his brother's trench shop and in some way that was a great education as well because he pulled down all the books from the shelves and started reading Plutarch's Lives in Bunyan's tokens progress and all those books that you and I were reading when we were age 12 and made himself a best self-taught person in the colonies. And this was something that his identification with that craft is something that he held for its entire life. Proud to be a presenter you felt that you know the for its flow of information and the flow of ideas was the backbone of a democracy and what empowered people to have their liberties. So age 17 he finally runs away to Philadelphia and such working as a printer and a pet shop they are and he said signing himself the Franklin printer and you know really I guess it's almost 70 years later when he's dying in his 80s he's still signing themselves the Franklin planet. Our guest is part of focus 580 is Walter Isaacson. He is the author of a recently published biography of Benjamin Franklin which is titled Benjamin Franklin An American Life

and it's published by Simon and Schuster and it's fairly recently also if you're interested you could head down to the bookstore to take a look at it. And on this program questions of course always welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 0 9 4 5. Something I think is interesting is that it apparently until fairly recently there wasn't a lot of interest out there in the world among readers in the revolution. People seem to be quite interested in reading about the Civil War and about World War Two but not so much in the revolutionary period and just recently that seems to have changed. We've had a number of very successful biographies of Ivers of the founders published and we've actually had a couple years and at least one other that I know of Franklin published as we head to the three 100th anniversary of his birth in 2006. And I guess I find this curious and I wonder if you think about what you think about Wyatt. Is that now suddenly people are

becoming more interested in they have been in the past in the revolutionary period. I think it was a time when our country had a great leadership group and a great group of leaders who understood the need for nonpartisanship for coming together and finding common ground and for rejecting sort of the fanaticism of fundamentalism that was so pervasive around the world in order to create a society that was tolerant and especially tolerant of different religions and different tribes a pluralistic society because they understood democracy and that in order to have a democracy that works you have to have a tolerant pluralistic society where all people all considered having the right to be part of society. We've kind of lost that air in the 90s. We got beset with fundamentalism and fanaticism

and people who thought that they had the guided way from the Lord or something. And I think that there's a rising tide of people who are yearning for good values and even spiritual values but spiritual values based on humility based on the fact that you're tolerant of other people's spiritual values and other people's lives. And it was that tolerance that we began to lose in our politics when it became so fanatic at times and likewise were attacked by that around the world. So if you look at our founders you have a great group of people. You have somebody like George Washington who is revered and respected a man of great authority. You have people like John Adams and Samuel Adams who are unbending in the pursuit of their principles. There are great philosophers like Jefferson and Madison. And then you have a guy like Benjamin Franklin who can hold them all together he's older than the rest of them 30 40 years older than most of the people I just mentioned. But he's the guy. You

can say to them luck compromisers may not make great heroes but they do make great democracies. We've all got to work together in order to have a democracy that respects everybody's rights. And I think there may be times when we're on crusades and we feel that reading about the civil war a war to help them Boldin us just like the times in our lives when we're reading Shakespeare we find Henry the fifth's to be the play that we should be reading the most. But nowadays I think. Going back to the revolutionary period with its enlightenment its sense of practicality its sense of scientific understanding and its sense of tolerance its capturing what we needed these days. We have a caller authors would be welcome to call into the show 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free. 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 coheres in Bloomington Indiana and online number four. Below. Hi I'd like to correct a misconception you just said that Ben Franklin tried to spread tolerance tried to introduce tolerance

because the fundamentalist Christians weren't very tolerant. Let me quote Patrick Henry you remember Patrick Henry. So I'm not sure I said fundamentalist Christians want tolerant. I think that there are fanatics and fundamentalists who are tolerant however but go ahead sir. OK. Here's what Patrick Henry said about he by the way he was a fundamentalist Christian and he said this. It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists but by Christians not on religions but on. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and then he said Now listen to this for this very reason. People of other faiths have been afforded asylum prosperity and freedom to worship here. I think I don't know that quote from Patrick Henry. I do know that both Franklin and Washington and Jefferson and others were more devious. They didn't emphasize a particular dog or a particular creed. And they felt that as Franklin put it the most important thing we learn from God

is a certain sense of humility and a sense that he would want us to love all of his fellow creatures because he loves them all and more and there's no there's no doubt about. But let me let me correct you. Washington was not deist. You read some of Washington's prayers. They are the most evangelical prayers that you could do that you could find it there. My. And of course. It's just you almost be inspired by reading them at least FNM a beautiful prayers as well Franklin wrote his own prayer book. And they're very you know deeply religious people. I do think that they're deeply tolerant and especially Dr. Franklin during your lifetime Franklin donated to the building fund of each and every church built in Philadelphia. It's sadly tolerant but which side I search through my tolerant of Christ now let me finish my tale if you don't mind sir. So if you want to stop me. And at one point they were building a new home in Philadelphia. And for I

tell you it preachers anybody even if he was writing a fundraising thing said even if the mosque type of Constantinople were to send somebody here to preach Mohammed to us we should be tolerant. We should open our ears and we should have a place for them to preach. And right before he dies he was the largest individual contributor one of three to the mix the Israel synagogue the first synagogue in Philadelphia. And so at his funeral instead of his minister marching with him to the grave all 35 ministers preachers and police of Philadelphia and the rabbi of the Jews accompanied his casket to the grave because he wanted to emphasize in a pluralistic society the need to be tolerant of all faiths and all documents and all religions. You know that's that's very I mean that's timely for you to say that one of the people who respect and love the Jews probably more than any other people right now are evangelical Christians where the world is being anti-Semitic. And by the

way David had a program just as well as yesterday David about anti-Semitism Friday was Friday. Daniella Christians love Jews are tolerant of them. I mean do we have respect the Jews do and do we ever learn from because they know the Bible. They know some things about the Bible that just instruct us. Anyway I just wanted to I just wanted to make that contribution and you got an interesting program. Well thanks for the call here so much. Let's go to someone else here we're back where we are in urban line 1. Hello hello. Yes I was just wanting to comment about the fact that the definition of all the people speaking of Franklin and those leaders making things right for the people and of course they were tolerant for their time and all the people has been redefined now to include women and blacks and so forth. And I wonder

if you want to comment on that. That's a probably the most important point to understand about our democracy which is that there's been a relatively steady although at times fitful progress to including more and more people and the concept of We The People. And that's the notion of end of it. Empowering people or tolerating individual liberties Franklin was one of those people had to wrestle with it himself. He was very somewhat enlightened when it came to women and he believed in educating women and he often wrote under the pseudonym his very first pieces are written under the name silence to God because he was writing as a wise woman etc.. But you're right they did not give women the right to vote in the Constitution even though Franklin was much more tolerant of women's rights than other founders. Likewise during his life time early in his career and Mina's mid-career Franklin own two slaves and he allowed the advertising of

slavery in the Pennsylvania because that his newspaper. And then he realizes that this is appalling. Obviously he frees a slave but he spent his life fighting tyranny and injustice. And he realizes how appalling slavery is. And you have to wrestle with slavery when you wrestle with the founding of this country. And when you wrestle with the founders and Franklin wrestled with that and say oh not only does he for his slaves but he helps form schools for free blacks in America. And then at age 84 after the Constitutional Convention he decides he has. You embark on one last crusade to make up for this horrible blot in his character which is having tolerated slavery during his early years. And so he becomes a president for the society of the abolition of slavery and helps create committees for employment opportunities and mentor ship and education as well as petitioning and fighting for the abolition of slavery. So these are very flawed individuals but they wrestle and that's why at the very beginning of the show we were talking about this

man is flesh and blood he's not up saint and he made mistakes and he tried to wrestle with them. And when it comes to leaving people out of our democracy they did that at the beginning and part of the inspiring nature of the American tale is more and more people over the years get to dissipate and what we call we the people. Thank you. Thank you again to another caller. This is someone in champagne and wine too. Hello. Oh yeah thank you. I misread it. I want to thank you very much for the book I found it to be extremely interesting and fascinating. It's an excellent job. Abortion historian discusses Franklin scientific endeavor endeavors as being very American in that he was taking an empirical approach and not being bogged down with Syria as Europeans were at that time and that he became going to burst in as it became more in vogue

with Europeans. He abandoned his scientific approach is in the experimental kind of empirical approach is more towards the European theoretical approach and if that was really were Frankland kind of turned away from science about that time. Did you see that in your research. Do you agree with. Well I agree in part and I also think Dr. Borsen is one of the greatest thinkers and writers we have to assessing American history and I found his work very useful. FRANKLIN As we said earlier in the show never went to college much less university or higher education so he didn't have the formal training in mathematics or physics or science at times. So he became a very practical scientist. Let's take a Lexis a day for example his electricity experiment to come up with the most important theory of that time other than 90 of the

eighteenth century which is a single fluid theory of electricity. And it did show that electricity is not two different fluids as a people it thought the one flow. From positive to negative Franklin even gives us the names we use for times that have a negative impression minus a condenser and battery and stuff. But unlike Newton he wasn't a great tourist in fact he even said of Newton you know Newton gives us great theories about why gravity works is needed done for gravity in the 17th century. What Franklin does for electricity in the 18th century but Newton had given us a great theory about and Franklin said well that's all very present but you don't really need to trade theories in order to know that if you let go of a plate it'll fall to the ground and break and it's fun to know the theory. But you can save your plates and your crockery from breaking even if you don't know the mathematics and the theory behind it all. He said The most important thing is to try to find a practical use for the theory of electricity. And he you know I've been knocked out by shocks and everything else and he said after two years he writes to his

friend in London. He says the main problem we have is that we haven't found a practical use for electricity. In fact the only practical use so far is that it tends to make a vain man humble for being affected kept getting shocked and knocked out. Out of course he did store up a lot of electricity in his battery and use it to kill the turkeys that they ate at the end of the season feast. And he said to the turkeys were uncommonly tender. So those of us who are from the south like to think of him as the inventor of the fried turkey. But eventually he understands what he calls the wonderful nature of pointed metal objects which is that if you bring a pointed metal object that's grounded in a ball that's charged up with electricity it will toss the electricity away from the ball even if it doesn't touch the ball. It will jar the electrons away from the highly charged ball and from that he comes up with the idea to have a lightning rod because he realizes that

lightning is really just the discharge of a spark from a highly charged bottom of a cloud. And if you have a lightning rod a pointed metal object it will draw away the charge and so he does that and it becomes the most important and practical invention of his time and the Royal Society and everybody else was employed. Now there are many reasons he sort of floats away from science after that and one of them as you say is that he got a little bit more mess than theory and he wasn't quite as practical. I think the main reason is he got more meshed with public affairs and policy becomes a diplomat in England. And then writer of the editor of the declaration of an. Tendencies of the Continental Congress and some of the electricity experiments fall by the wayside because as he said to one of his friends the most important advances in science are not nearly as useful to people as the most important advances in society and government. And it would be more important for him to become a statesman than a scientist but he was still tinkering at the time to oil on water explode a lot of the oil and water stuff and it was a metaphor by the way in my

mind at least for statesman things Mary is in England trying to settle this agitated seas between America and Britain trying to calm things down. And he loves playing with the fact that if you drop a little drop of oil on troubled waters it will settle the waters down. Of course you could never do the drop of oil on water that settled the troubles between America and Britain and he would mainly tinkering I think is a word for years and I think that's exactly right with science after that. Well how did we come out as my final question I know I'll leave it open for other. But how did we come with this image of Franklin as an old man with these electric the electricity experiments on you. He was fairly young when he was doing it. Yeah he was what so many cities in his full 40s and as a you know better we think of him as an old man is that what you are and we have new images of him I had on that bad picture that Benjamin West drew of the now old guy with the flowing our Benjamin West painted in the 1810 taking 15 or so and he

comes in and makes it look like old Franklin is in is 70s and some say just looking ridiculous flying a kite in the rain. Well of course he was. He's younger than me. He was you know younger middle age guy. So Adelphia trace him and when he did it I think you know one problem is we always think of Benjamin Franklin as old because by the time you know a declaration of independence and all these are 70 years old we forget that he was a young man watch we forget he was a 30 year old watch and really good looking and you know barrel chested and strong and that's what he was doing as electricity experiments were talking back at the beginning about the fact that various points in American history people have been down on Franklin and protect. Because they said he overemphasized making money. But one thing that's true is that Franklin While he he was very successful as a businessman a retired at a relatively young age when he was 42 I believe and then at that point decided to devote

himself to public life. What do you think was behind that's why dissension the letters mother wrote about his mother when his mother question Mary said I'd rather have it said to me that he lived usefully than that he died wretch. I think Franklin really did. He was about the most civic minded person you'll ever meet. Here's a guy who as I said we were talking about religion believe that the best way to serve God was help all of God's fellow creatures because God must love them all so let's help them all. And he felt that he had run away from the puritanism of Massachusetts with its doctrine of salvation through God's grace alone because he embraced the doctrine of salvation through good works. He believed that the best way to serve God in the best way to achieve salvation was through good works on this earth. And so I think that was a great motivating factor in making him help start you know everything from the first fire patrol the first police patrol our lending library the University of

Pennsylvania to help get people to sweep the streets of Philadelphia and stop. He just wanted to make life better for his fellow citizens. You know the thing that I want to have you talk a little bit about is the criticism perhaps. People have made of Franklin that he came to the revolution a little late or at least maybe later than some of the others and that he before that head seemed to be interested in trying to have some make some kind of accommodation between. That said a friend and he was a guy you felt you could always have common ground. But if you just worked on it hard enough you could find some accommodation some compromise. And he said In England you know so the 1760s trying to patch things up and even into the 1770s even as late as Christmas a 1774 in the beginning of 775 he's playing chess with Lord Howe and he's playing his sister and getting with Burke and others to see if he can work out some compromise because he thinks of the British Empire as a fine

noble China Vaizey cauldron once it gets cracked You'll never put it back together again. And the solution was that an American Parliament a Congress that had sovereignty over America and a British parliament that had sovereignty over Britain at birth would be loyal to the Crown of England and they would both have sovereignty and their own respective areas. And he thought you could work out a compromise in that regard but finally gets humiliated and comes back in 1775 and joins the revolution. We're coming into it. Our last 15 minutes of the program. Our guest is Walter Isaacson He is the author of Benjamin Franklin An American Life a recently published biography of Ben Franklin published by Simon and Schuster a mystery as he said himself as president of the Aspen Institute he's also been the chairman of CNN and managing editor of TIME magazine and questions welcome we have some people here again it'll help us if we're brief because if we're going to get everybody in we've got to kind of move along here. We'll

start out with champagne County and line one and oh yeah I will be. Well try to be brief and I won't digress like a fundamentalist friend I have the occasion to hear a quote from Benjamin Franklin given by the Alabama chief justice who was just relieved of his position and he was using it in the same fashion that are. Fundamentalist friend would too to show that he was godly and it was I don't know really what the quote it was. He's repeatedly to give it to the Constitutional Convention and he was calling on the power of prayer and meditation and of and calling us calling him back to the roots. Are you familiar with that quote at all or. Oh absolutely he made a nice speech at the conservation convention when they were tearing each other apart. Say maybe if we started with a little bit of a prayer it would help us in our deliberations. I might add my opinion is that he was probably being a diplomat which means not really saying what he meant but just basically trying to you know who the audience was and saying you

know maybe you know you know it's an interesting question and I won't try to go on to argue I know we have lots of others it's in the book I spend a lot of time wrestling with it. He believed in God he did not believe in what you call special providence which is prayers for specific things he thought of that was I being a little bit too arrogant to think you could pray to God to say Make it stop raining or help us with this constitution. But he believed in what was called the general Providence that there was a God who cared about us all and looked over us all and we owed him devotion. And I think the reason he called for prayers at the convention was not for specific prayer saying get this done of that time but just to remind people to have a little bit more humility and be a little bit calmer. And it was a way to get people to think that they were in the presence of a god greater than themselves and not a specific religion or specific dogma but just to. All I'm saying is down at the convention because it is becoming so heated and better. Well that might happen when you know Richard Perle at your Aspen Institute. I don't know whether you. I

don't suppose you are relieved of your position because that infamous quote or memo that you sent about to pre-trade the the efforts of our military so well. I agree I realize that's a digression but I think you actually ought to be confronted and asked asked about that. I believe it always covering things fairly and always putting things in context and always giving all sides and that's what I've tried to do as a journalist my entire career and that's what I try to do here which is that's why I think Franklin would have us do. He always said that if you always let all sides in you always put things in context and in the memo you're referring to and I think I know what you mean I just said let's put things in context and watch all sides and not let's just focus on any one thing and that's that all I need is a story I've got to go. People are smarter. Well obviously there's this group but then it will go on to the next caller and that's line three or better. Oh yeah. FRANKLIN A lot of biography really difficult to read but it was kind of nice to hear that you would that's not a

swimmer and that you like to rhyme in a nude act. Both of points I thought were kind of fun. Yeah I want to know it. What did you have to remember is he was a funny guy. Sounds like it. I've wanted to know he he was there at the beginning and when he looked south and west and he saw the Spanish kind of doing at an end run around to where we would inevitably go. I mean do you read much about that. Did you have much of an opinion about what eventually became manifest destiny. Yeah he felt that it was very important in the treaty we made let's say in the revolution that nobody could help us and it was the French not the Spanish No the British should make the Mississippi the final border of America and he just felt that you were going to have an expanding American Empire.

Based on its values and when Dilla thought that the Spanish or the French or the English Even he wanted to make the Mississippi for example open navigation for everybody. But he didn't he didn't see any. I mean that sounds a little problematic. I mean it was somewhat partial to the French but he be got a treaty with the English as well as the French that was open and allowed for the expansion of America he wanted to actually get some lands in the western territories and retire there but he never quite did it. So would you say you had sort of antipathy toward the Spanish town or no I don't think so. I mean maybe I don't know enough about it I know that he was very partial to French but you have to remember that France and Spain were allies in the bourbon pact alliance and you know allied by marriage as well as by the bargain pact alliance and eventually he's sort of entices Spain and on our side in a revolution. Even though

France came in first without their bourbon. Act allies but I don't think you have antipathy to the Spanish. Well it just seems like the idea that he kind of thought that we should be expanding pretty freely. I kind of dispense with all the problems of crime and territory and yet I think I mean I don't think it was a particular problem to Spanish I just think you felt that America should and would and did he was right. Expand generally towards the west as a group as a nation and it shouldn't be too many limits on that expansion of Americas. You know the settlements. Oh it's interesting. Thank you thank you. Let's go to another caller. This will be champagne in line too. Hello. Oh yes yes I ran across the thing that I was familiar with but I didn't know who I could attribute it to. And in fact I found out it was attributable to Benjamin Franklin who was a part of a message he wrote to someone and it goes and

goes in his world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes. That's true that's true Franklin had so many sayings a lot of them come from Poor Richard's Almanac and a lot of them come from letters a lot of Maxim some of them even know what maxims that others have said before have any kind of polished them up or improved. I'm like a penny saved is a penny that's been said before it's a myth only put to bed in a way to rise but he kind of revised them and made him better. Nothing is certain but death and taxes are something else he said. Now about 200 or so and that's why it's always fun to read them it was a way to educate people and make them better citizens. OK thank you. Thank you for music. I mean you know I guess he was a funny guy did a session visitors stink after 3 days or is a fool that makes his doctor an error. Beer is God's way of telling us he loves us. He had a lot of funny sayings as well. He was criticized for not being a terribly good husband or father

and being someone who may be. Well maybe might've made a good friend. But even then he wasn't always very good to his friends did he strike you as being someone who had his depth was emotionally a kind of a chilly guy. Jim good friends and he was particularly had some strong relationships with some women friends but you're right he had a somewhat cold and distant relationship with his family especially his son who wasn't exactly cold it was tumultuous. He had an illegitimate son named William and that like most men of the time he took responsibility for a son he weighs assignee educated way you know and he brought William gangland. When I said I went over there to help negotiate the revolution and Franklin stays very middle class as I pointed out that autobiography seen as you know very middle class you know rags to riches type thing. Hard work. His son becomes very aristocratic and. Just a loyalist becomes a royal governor of New Jersey and when he comes back in 1775 Benjamin Franklin comes back

and joins the revolution. He tries to talk to said William and to join the revolution with them to resigning as royal governor. But will your board do it and they have this horrible falling out and barely speak again. And it's made all the more poignant by the fact that William himself had had an illegitimate son named temple and he didn't take responsibility for it but Franklin D had Franklin raises illegitimate grandson and when 1775 comes along this kid 17 a beautiful young lad and they are both father and son William and Benjamin Franklin are struggling for their soul and struggling for the loyalty of young Temple Franklin and Benjamin Franklin when temple becomes his ally and Secretary So is this relationship to this family were rather complicated. That's again it's sad kind of human how somebody out of someplace was saying to me gosh you know how could you you know deal with somebody who had such complicated relations with his family and I looked at this guy and this guy this guy was on his fourth

wife he didn't know the birthdays of half his children. I said yeah you haven't known anybody like that. So you know you have to remember these people were real I'm not as bad as some of us are today. He certainly made a number of important contributions to the revolutionary effort and to the founding of the country his involvement with crafting the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. I think some people might say that may be the most important thing or I don't know how you would rank this was the way that he represented the United States to the French and secured them. Cooperation on the side of the Americans in the revolution. Is probably the last guy we had to know how to deal very well with the handstand bit of a handful as you know. I bet he tried to appeal to the ideals of the French not just their national interests. In fact he wanted to charm them and bring them in control them to our side. But he went over there he realized that the French had read was perhaps once too often and thought of America as backwoods

wilderness and corrupted natural romantic man plays. And so instead of wearing the ceremonial wig and the swords in those special coats and all that. Franklin was a coonskin cap and a backwoods. Frock to pretend to be sort of the backwoods philosophy or the frontier sage You know you hadn't really been to the front that often in his life and the French absolutely adore him the women started to wear their hair in what was known as a quasi Frankland where they had it sort of died up as it were and I can skin cap and they were wearing little medallions of them became even was so amused by all this that he gave one of the women in his court a porcelain chamber pot with a Franklin medallion embossed on the bottom of it so that she could do whatever she wanted there but. But the French end up adoring Benjamin Franklin he becomes incredibly unpopular ne. He exposes the ideals of the French of the American you know

belief and Liberty and Tyranny and it helps get the French on our side which is crucial. Back then we are back to beginning we talk about the fact that perhaps more than any of the other founders his image has gone up and down over time that is the way people have seen him. Either having been a great American and and embodying the values that we believe in and then the next age will come along depending on how things go and they will say no no no that's that's not what we want to believe in and it's sort of gone up and down that way. We're coming up to an important kind of milestone that is would be the three in 2000 and six would be the three 100th anniversary of his birth. And at this point it seems that again where his image is perhaps on the upswing. Do you think that's that's always going to be the case that that Franklin is always going to be this kind of up and down in the way that people think about him. All right thanks because he's as I say somewhat of a mean are we going to see the reflection refract some of our own values and

you know there will be times when I think we need a more heroic passion in a romantic age and will probably look at a Lincoln or some you know more tragic figure and fear him. But I think right now though we need some practicality. We need some tolerance we need a little bit of humility. We need the simpler virtues to have them restored back to our lives. And that's why we look at Franklin. He was also somebody taught us how to lead a worthy life a life that was useful to fellow citizens. A life that had spiritual meaning and certain values to it. And I think that a lot of us set a yearning for that now who you know felt we've made too many compromises are trying times in our lives I know I've made a lot of mistakes and I've compromised some of things I felt I wanted to go back to Benjamin Franklin and say OK how do you try to correct some of those things.

How do you understand what's useful to your fellow citizens as opposed to just being more successful in a you know a corporate career and that sort of thing. And you know these are the type of things that make people like Franklin and the different types of times when you probably don't need to worry as much about Ben Franklin. Well there will leave it for now and again for people who want to read more on the subject you can look for the book Benjamin Franklin An American Life published by Simon and Schuster by our guest Walter Isaacson. He's president of the Aspen Institute and Mr. Isaacson thank you very much for talking with us. Thank you so very much it was a really interesting show and all your callers are particularly interesting.