A year in a life of our country.

good evening this is k pr presents i'm j mcintyre today on kbr presents we look at a year in the life of our country a year when the us government engaged in an unprecedented level of domestic spying on its citizens a year of terrorism and acts of violence a year when american troops were sent overseas for reasons that turned out not to be true when they got there and found themselves involved in a civil war a year when america was still staggering from the effects of avian flu that gripped the world the year nineteen nineteen that year is the focus of a new book by a kansas city native and hank adorn hagedorn within lawrence recently to talk about her book savage peace hope and fear in america nineteen nineteen and now for a good faith physically to be here lawrence's a home away from home when my earliest book signings was here and those days i really believe that i am all i had to do was read from the book so

yeah i really i had never been here again for a day in my life that i really thought you know i i wrote the book so now it would expect and supposed to be a public speaker so easy to say or hide in the pages of the book and an read from it but now they're hit with years of experience i've come to see that it is a great opportunity to be to connect with readers and arm i sort of feel like my age now is describes it as a docent that when you go on the road to promote a book and i just promoting the book to sell books other side who's used to it probably beg to differ on that light that here you are actually giving people a chore you're opening the door to your world and all the things that excite you about writing the book and on you know i teach writing i always tell students that basically writers of nonfiction are conduits between mounds and mounds of material in libraries and archives and declassified that you know military intelligence records or fbi records memoirs diaries

letters old newspapers when i fear primary sources were the conduits between all of that and you and it's our job our responsibility as writers to sift through that find the most significant details are the most exciting details the details that are possibly on the verge of falling into the abyss what i call the abyss of forgotten history and deliver them to you in an entertaining way mean that's what literary nonfiction is it's its writing in a weary way an entertaining way to an end basing everything on facts savage peace is an example narrative history which are basically you utilize is the mine's preference for storytelling and personalities too odd bring alive in here are individuals events are coming out of the actual coming out of all facts and my quest is to make history as accessible to the general public as

possible to write it in an entertaining way but not to dumb it down in any way or to our sacrifice any you know quality of research in the process and also i really do try to find individuals and maybe yours years in this case are that are very significant to our history that we really need to know about and odd that are not exactly are our being covered every single day and they're there aren't that many books about actually are two people in this room right now who have written about nineteen nineteen one is built on all who wrote about the race riots in chicago and i at nineteen an enemy but not that many people have written about nineteen ninety eight to meet the missing page in history and a very important one you know doris lessing in her however autobiographies said that was in nineteen nineteen anyone who had any

association with it at all was hugely affected by it she was born on october twenty second nineteen nineteen and city into a bit in the womb in nineteen ninety you know was a big event the arm and an architect and talks about it at the beginning in the introduction to a distant near she compares the aftermath of world for one worldwide arm to the aftermath of the black plague and says these are the two most which is what a distant nears about fourteen century as the two most intense years and periods in history and so odd ah i agree especially disappointing now almost five years studying nineteen nineteen i see it is hugely significant every one of us today might be just two of us who've written about that every one of us in this room has been dramatically affected by a year on

just eat you up the tiny glimpse into it it's really dangerous thing to put an observer five hundred page book on the microphone that i have evolved brought four year tense is a sleepover know just get there but there's a lot to say and disconnect did you as you're to work it into the plot i just can't get you if you will are high points that i like to draw attention to him and also do read a few paragraphs i had an editor at the wall street journal who used to say tom never fall in love with your own writing you know the idea behind it being integrated calendar self evident gonna throw things out that you might really like that that interrupt the flow of the writing so i have that i think i defy that you know i have a couple paragraphs of like to reach you because i love it's so simple but i'm going to read those do it anyway the significance of nine to nineteen to the reno week we study world war one we

study the nineteen twenties right there when we know of nineteen nineteen we associate it worth arm i am with her will send the league of nations the paris peace talks but what about america and ninety nineteen on if you've read bell tolls book you know that there were odd at twenty six race riots and that the summer of nineteen nineteen and so some of us associate year with that there's also arm ah the first red scare was in nineteen nineteen but mostly we we we don't we don't know that much about it and it ended my quest you know was too odd really enlighten people about this year and part of the reason is because of the impact of it on our lives today and how some of the parallels between then and now just to give you a few examples

first time having to do with domestic intelligence you know at the end of world war one that we had the largest domestic intelligence network ever put together in the history or world in any country and spent on the war ended there is here a suspect us what the network domestic spies did not shut down in fact it intensified as the year progressed because instead of showing it damages created a new enemy the enemies were the enemy was the eu germany and the germans in german americans the potential enemies in world war one and then in the aftermath that was german americans or any american who might be sympathetic to germany or eight and we knew to germany during the paris peace talks and then it evolved into communism bolshevism don't forget that this is the if you wanted to sort of get into the intensity of this year just a will

but just remember it's not just the aftermath of a world war with the aftermath of a flu pandemic and the russian revolution their intense than that the espionage law the sedition law you probably heard of all those put into place during work emergency measures burden to place during the war were it became prominent in in in nineteen nineteen they were not dismantled and we had that i'm not just spies in the secret service and a man of the pri which was the fbi it at that tahir juncture on that and military intelligence but we had battalions of private industry spies and actually just volunteer spies there or this additions lammers the boy spies of america at american protective league there are three and fifty thousand at least in the american protective league and they worked with local police forces and the pri to shadow people

on within that it was a group within the arm an agency within the military tells totems called the negro subversion unit and these were agents who shadowed african americans and who also infiltrated black communities and send reports back on what was going on and that network like i said was not dismantled the air for the sake because we developed a new enemy so the emergency measures were put in place in time wore on there was sort of a cascade of fear in the aftermath of war and so they stayed in place and they became on it because we had an enemy that was an excuse to attack or to use this domestic force are to attack a democratic rights so there's a lot about spying and savage peace and it gets pretty interesting a lot of my research was based on armed dea agents reports so i found out about a lot of the individuals in the book what they were doing that year

and add a lot of fresh information that's not an aa other secondary source is odd because i read the agents reports you know there's who don't repeat voices shadows an end to boys by the way knew he was being shadowed talk to the governor that and set it's ok because i know that when you're agents sand reports they all if they're telling the truth you'll find out that the problem in the black communities in america is about democracy and black soldiers fighting african americans fighting in world war one you need to make the world safe for democracy is will sunset in a comeback win a piece of the pie in fact they i'm they get lynched their eleven soldiers african american soldiers in full uniform who were lynched in nineteen nineteen so to boise decided that it was pt he would let the government know he knew this was happening because he really believed that

they would find out the truth about african americans and ninety nineteen and and what happened was that they did because the head of the agents major walter loving are compiled a report in august of nineteen nineteen after reading all the agents reports over ten months i think and came to the conclusion that a problem an african american communities it had to do with jobs and working conditions and expectations after the war and also segregation that there was a problem and the problem was segregation and so he wrote that an and submitted it and an august of nineteen nineteen the government memos if you look at them the assignment for walter loving was to show just to what degree bolshevism had infiltrated black communities that was his assignment he writes in the and may there is a fifteen page a call that an

aha moment you know the kinds of things that as a former librarian and as the light burns the audience know this exciting moment where you know a researcher has really fine found a treasure but i found a city page report that actually that walter loving had written that actually said that the agents had had found the problem which was segregation well it happened that that very week a young j edgar hoover at age twenty four became the head of the general intelligence division is brand new job and he was going to congress to ask from more money for his new division because of bolshevism was causing the race riots himself and a little very interesting example some very intelligent i actually filed a freedom of nation act two find out how far that report went and i don't think it went any further than on the secretary of war is desperate but as that period of time we eat me up a foundation for a domestic intelligence me that those are ambitious

young i j edgar hoover he was actually mentioned for the first time in a newspaper article in the washington post in nineteen ninety nine they described him as a slender bundle of highly charged electric wire he's an authentic that any rape and so on and we have an example of what happens when fear takes over you know i want it hughes is the subtitle of savage peace the year that made modern america that on that's my ism pointed out that there are about five books coming out that subtitle and then when you go on the road and you have to defend that all the time so i am just wanted ninety nine thing to stand out and i'm so we said so we decided on the subtitle hope and fear in america which really says at all because there was that an actually are there's less injury wasn't mentor to me from around this book wanted to be called the clash of hope and fear in america that that implied that any rate i hope is obviously the expectation of what would happen

after the after winning the world or write and everyone had their own over you know visions of what life after the war would be in the fear is is this paranoia that developed in the aftermath in the chaos of such an intense time and also the fear in a sort of a a a a spillover from war because war is a mentality it's a habit that is hard to break and when you were about nineteen ninety yuri read savage peace you can see how high this park mentality of defining good and evil and creating enemies and then he rose is is dangerous and also a habit that's heartbreak but so in terms of impact we have the domestic intelligence community of race relations and looking at segregation as a solution and not a dime as a problem and not a

solution any a solution and the problem and are and also it out of that came basically an urban apartheid bright white flight after the chicago race riots so we got the northern suburbs in chicago and are you know on some patterns of behavior arm another another impact on our lives it has to do with the cold war you know we define the cold war after world war two armed but any new label at my relationship with salyers a cold war after that period time but that the cold relationship really began much earlier and in the aftermath of world war one in the aftermath of the russian revolution and two ways for one candidate you know that we were at war with russia we had seven thousand american troops still fighting in north russia may recall the polar bears on it is

very cold in north russia so high it in the apparent nature that the soldiers who were recruited for these battalions were from michigan mostly from coal states you know that god betty when the a is some of them didn't even know that the armistice was declared at the isis had occurred until all the end of january of nineteen nineteen ahmed they were in such remote areas and male wasn't delivered for months but then there are a lot of congressmen didn't even know that we had seven thousand americans still at war and spa we were basically in the civil war fighting with the rockaway army against the red army in north of russia so rhyme raymond robbins who was the head of the red cross and russia during world war one was having lunch and see instances go with a republican senator hiram johnson who by the way coined the phrase the first casualty of war is truth and that came

out of this conflict with russia from tom in the cause that hiram johnson would get involved in vietnam he was having lunch with hiram johnson and told him and hiram johnson what we'd still have soldiers fighting it this was in december so brian johnson who hated woodrow wilson who wasn't an isolationist and wanted to be president in nineteen twenty on the pod this was the cause for him but he also if you read as his letters i think he was greece's her about that he mounted a cause to bring the soldiers home and i'm in it what's a couple things are interesting about that was that one of them is that hiram johnson knew what he was up against an and he's a very good example of the power of love the spirit that i'm talking about and the creation of this new enemy so that any government to send anyone who is standing up for the rights of a democracy protesting petitioning or disagreeing

with the attorney general or j edgar hoover or wherever i was labeled a bolshevik and so here is this guy who is an extremely conservative an arm he was very worried about that he wrote in a letter to his son that time right after he began campaigning to bring the troops home from russia because he said they were we were lied to they were lied to they should not be there in there the midst of a civil war and we should not be fighting in the civil war and russia sochi he wrote out a letter to his son sang that i'm a dummy and that american boys should not be sacrificed to the rigors of a russian winter in conflict with a desperate people will be termed a defense of the red flag during the war it became fashionable to call all they disagreed with any governmental policy pro german now the fashion has changed and any man who will not accept the wrongful edict of entrenched power is by that token a bolshevik

ii and so it was a bolshevik so on this there's an interesting little aside and when you when you find a subject like this it's i actually did do like three weeks when i i teach writing on how you start thinking about structuring the story because there is just so much information in fact at one point i really wanted to do or to bali am arm two volumes on ninety nineteen nineties so much on the cutting room floor i could only give two more books that i am that you have to all parties a matter of selection in and my job is to entertain you and inform you at the same time so odds are you have to do a lot of sustaining a lot of cutting and there are a lot of interesting characters and events that are not included in the army i had a really hard time that it in and actually my editor and i agree on all points except the week he

boards he wanted me to take the part out about the legion what i wouldn't do it because we support was the most popular item and in america in an sales item you know on and on nineteen nineteen because today was an obsession with dust and people you know wanted to bring people back so many different variations of the week g borat and a very popular books ah by people who said they had been guided by the dead to write them you know bomb that would be a good experience actually what less work you now can i get a review board next week no disconnect that i'm howie tell a story like this you know how do you bring alive a year he now i can be a series of essays it really is series of profiles that you know how do you tell it as a story a year is a story so that was a very big challenge and so i decided that i would find the most important themes of the year and and then fined by individuals who represented those veins and that iran

to head story arcs that began i know that in november of nineteen eighteen and sort of came to some sort of resolution on by the beginning of nineteen twenty and each one of those being the main character may be main characters in minor characters and each one of them had a touch each other in some way and then come together at the end so that it really does read like a novel but i am it was it was hard to let me two years in an active tiger i feel like i'm interviewing you know a dead people in my office who was it was sort of at an interview process you know i would read awful lot of that obviously just mounds and mounds of information travel all that over the country to find these the right people to represent sitcom the most important and most significant themes in the year and so a lot of wonderful individuals you'll know are also some had to be

famous because i because that nineteen nineteen is not so well known that if you're gonna sell a book is the battle rap the unknown people on the forgotten people tightly with celebrity own celebrity names so so oliver wendell holmes says says well albert einstein to the beach boys helen keller on woodrow wilson course j edgar hoover i'm william monroe trotter astray say women were total we monroe trotter soprano with i always say that you're the audience and the fewer people i know the easier it is to talk to you know they're about a billionaire many other ordinary think women are otello trotter i'm terry ed to voice all these different people that any rate and so and before interweaving narratives represents time on race and race issues the civil liberties issue a man imperialism slash self determination

nations are through the eyes of woodrow wilson om but mainly rescinded baker who was his press secretary a really fascinating guy muckraking journalist tom and i think it works i mean and there's some people here who've read it an and i really i think it does work on and on a desert will flyer that they passed it was suddenly gone owen reidy is an enviable say reed's recycler sweeping novel on that that was my intent but of course the most important that's just to deliver the message the structure and ah what always happens in a book like this is that you begin with a concept you know that that the subject is very significant that its important right but just like a painting a picture and looking at it envisioning it at the beginning and you do many sketches then you see it at the end and you see things you never saw before and so what i didn't really realize that they were while i was working on at which is so very obvious now is that this

book is really about democracy and your stress it's really about the struggle to maintain a democracy i mean at my third book was about that because it's about the anti slavery movement and there are certain times in our nation's history where people stand up for what this country is really about and derek denigrated sometimes sometimes they're incarcerated ah you know fifty years later of course they're heroes and their houses are on national landmarks you know but aren't but this is one of those times and and so it's in a decade the struggle to rhyming democracy is not you know a cheap democracy is very clean at odds step by step process of achieving equality its owner it's really messy and its sometimes zen and deadly sometimes and then you see that an end tonight in the year nineteen nineteen anna i think that people were i think one of the reasons that nobody has

written a book about america nineteen nineteen before any arm is that it was overwhelming and scary in our very scary time an icy it says as dodd yes it's scary but exciting in that way because of the courage of many of the people in this book and on one of the other themes that sort of comes out of that is this bad habit that we have that i say that are referenced a second ago which is that we seem to denigrate the people who are standing up for what we now take for granted we denigrate them during that period of time that they stand up for when the time at the harry days talking about aig civil rights movement or whatever it is they leak over and over we god denigrate the people were standing up for what we believe is a democracy and you see that in nineteen nineteen and let me read you

a couple favorites time and say i have some favorite people and i have some favorite stories within the book and one of them actually said that should be my next book one of them had to do with oliver wendell holmes who issued two very important opinions are from the supreme court in nineteen ninety one in march and one in november and the one in november kind of turns around the one in march and so at age seventy eight oliver wendell holmes basically odd and harmed by within a six month period basically sent a message to america that hey i was wrong back in march but i'm so angry when i was writing this i actually called my agent from the road i said wow i really have a great idea for my next book i want to write about the americans who had the courage to say i'm wrong and so there's a silence on the other a no why i'm thinking you know this is great because i really got it she really was that you know in al

says yeah that's not even a magazine piece and so when juliet so anyhow that but this one story is really really powerful and i actually thought that would be the part where he made sure to include it but because in civil liberties stray and in the narrative it focuses on a twenty one year old girl russian girl who gets a fifteen year prison sentence for distributing leaflets protesting us intervention into russia and so holmes got in march holmes ha issues an opinion in the eugene debs case and in that he says the id you are you've all heard a clear and present danger right that's in march he issued an opinion saying effect a way that the right of free speech could be taken away if the speech or circular contained were wording that presented a clear and present danger of causing unlawful

acts that was march so that summer on the summit at felix frankfurter some of the guys at riot chafee's and you probably know these names i mean mostly of it that i'm visited our homes the summer place in beverly farms in and they tend to reconsider his view of free speech because they use it they argued that the expression could not be censored on the bases expression cannot be centered on the basis of the possibility that it might sites such acts as the ax could be punished when if they occurred and so in november he modified his few dramatically in the case involving the twenty one year old girl it was a dissenting opinion but it's one of the benchmarks of audio and free speech in the history of his country and in it he wrote it is so beautiful in fact for a while it i would take it with parts of it with me wherever i would go and pull them out and read them to people

in our answer of bed at you know i have a lot of very tight france there was the einstein facing i really got so into the theory of relativity and for a while i just end and how einstein became well known for the expeditions nineteen nineteen to study the eclipse of the sun and may of nineteen eighty and then there was my oliver wendell holmes period when i just i was so in love with this odd at his writing and it's just so beautiful the one industry to eliminate your comparison the book and then we'll take questions but i'm when men have realized that time has upset many fighting face they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desire is better reached by the free trade of ideas that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market we should be eternally vigilant against the attempts to check the expression of opinions we load and believed to be fraught with death unless they sell

eminently obviously threatened the media interference with the lawful purpose of the law then the media checked is required to save the country but again in nineteen nineteen you you arm wrestling you know opposes words out but the hysteria i'm the year that he wrote them and bought in it nineteen use you you relay party really get a feeling for the struggle for free speech and the birth of civil liberties basically because before that year you know relate you don't happen it's not defined as an issue and again because the epa gets a very happy good deal of attention in that year and because of the arm battles in the year it's it's it comes and it comes to life that i'm a young man one of my favorite the other favorite characters in the book is by name harry weinberger who was an

attorney who represented pete victims of the espionage law and he was the republican who was very i'm excited about being in politics he's gonna run for office as a new york attorney and then on and then he god heard woodrow wilson's speech in nineteen sixteen his anti war speech about how we would never go to war and so then he became a democrat and work for wilson and then when wilson took a stop or a year later he became very cynical he decided that he was going to drop our politics entirely and devote his life to do it he was molly star as a twenty one year old girl's prom attorney in many higher celebrity radicals over the course of about three years that varied sing it write something that i i am write something about democracy rights many things about moxie in his closing arguments in his yale at yale university has the archive which is just i mean he was a beautiful writer and closing arguments in a lot of his

cases are incredible non in when he was approaching mate that's you know the supreme court in the steinhart place one of the things he said was democracy of lives on the exercise and functioning of democracy as a child learns and grows by doing a people learned democracy by acting and democratic way as i know from the history of other countries that even the best democratic constitution's did not prevent dictatorships unless the people were trained in democracy and hell themselves eternally vigilant and ready to oppose all infringements on larry we really like that you know ok so on your very important part of writing literary nonfiction his cadence ann and i actually i try love love it when i get a couple and death i am the container senses right niro but are so i end it with a match or numb because i want to be sure it is a it is john gartner in the art of fiction talked about how you

can get in your unconscious mind year engages wise your souls connect through cadence and so armed so so once awhile we might hear a nice full sentences here and there a region couple paragraphs that i like not supposed to but they do on there at any rate it's true that that i that wall street journal editor was actually right you should never followed through writing because you can't then you can edit out things that that caused bumps in the flow south through the first paragraph somewhere beyond the mist and misery on that november morning six man met in the railcar to end the war news of the truce moved through the trenches on the trembling lips of soldiers waiting for the streams of flying shells deceased before they believed what they were told some heard it first on their captains who distributed strips of paper that read

ceased firing on all fronts eleven slash eleven slash eleven general john j pershing others would never know they were the unlucky ones killed in the fragile hours before eleven am before the fighting abruptly stopped the silence so unfamiliar was almost as unsettling as the sounds as if a giant hand suddenly lay across this land of rotting flesh to hush the din of battle silence prayers tears then came the roar of cheering and the popping of bonfires piled high with cache of ammunition and anything that could burn the madness was ending or so it seemed and fear was giving way to hope that's joan didion higher will track you know raised anthony a lot when i teach writing because she had a lot of nice cool tricks with that dropping one phrase in that are beginning paragraph that syrup sheikh you through many pages and thats the or so it seemed the madness is ending or so it

seemed you know and here was giving way to hope that all these things are manipulations know skating ok this ah this is a i was so ready soon sticky paid a new book in your pocket because you just never know i mean you have to practice practice practice right every day and keep going and sundays a good and some days are bad then sometimes you just sitting somewhere and eat a metaphor occurs to you or you've been really researching off her months and then something you just start writing and so this happened to me has been a lot of days and weeks in harlem at a harlem branch of the aid on your public library for this book doing a lot of research and and so one of those days i was just sitting out by the hudson river on having seen much a cup coffee before going to the parliament ah and wrote this and it really worked well you never know where those things are going to work but this worked well because this is the

beginning of when the african american soldiers are coming home in your carver during the first half of nineteen nineteen dozens of ships coming from france delivered thousands of soldiers who are leaning over guardrails reached out for their homeland as if touching it as soon as possible my transport them just as quickly back to the world they had left behind new york harbor was the place where prayers were answered as soldiers and their loved ones spotted each other across the slowly narrowing gap between ship and sure it was there that the rolling wave of hope than the western trout not the rising tide of fear and intolerance back home carl sandburg as a character in the book caught in two ways you know and he's so the divisions in the book a us travel in the two narratives and says the domestic intelligence a civil liberties and also the race because he argues a rusted ah on christmas day nineteen eighteen when he got off of his show up yeah

from coming in from stockholm where he'd been covering the war and actually interviewing a lot of people and writing profiles of finland and russia and one of his sources it turns out was very close to land and and that made the government very paranoid so they seized all of his reporter's notebooks and on his bags in and arrested him so that's one way he was he's in the book and then the other way is that he covered the odd chicago race riot and actually are some of his coverage is came together in a book by him the bomb so i began and at chapter on this cover race riot on is called weapons in their hats because tom all the aid the agents reports and making a lot of asians from india suffers and in that time you know are infiltrating the advance in new people looking around in an inn and three the agency pored said we can find the weapons

and the african americans so far they must be in their hats so i'd say it's i call the weapons in their half like that that i'm on that law see a third round anyhow her spirit in his stirring review of coral sanders book of poetry cornhusk years chicago journalist ben hecht describe the poet and fellow journalist as the minstrel of our rallies he said that sandburg was always looking at the world through his heart anyone who had read anything by carl sandberg would likely have agreed and if there'd been any dispute it would be set aside after july of nineteen nineteen when i was the month that sandburg spent nearly every day in the alleys and streets of chicago's black bout reporting and writing a series of articles for the chicago daily news articles that hummed with the anxieties and hopes of an entire race in july sam berkes heart must have eight this is the beginning of chapter thirty to nineteen nineteen was a time in america when the pent up hopes of a nation at war clotted with the

chaos of war's aftermath it was a time when bombs exploded on porch steps and grown men through sharp edged rocks at little boys his skin was a different color and it was a time when working people having experienced the highly organized collective the character of waging war came to believe that through organized labor they could claim the power to achieve the happiness they felt they deserved after surviving such a war it was a year when race riots erupted in twenty six cities labor strikes occurred an average of ten a day and always there was the looming terror of the new enemy bolshevism he was indeed a year of struggle and apocalyptic time some would say others would say was only a dark moment preceding a new day a struggle can also be a sign of progress and the foundation on which all change must be built struggles the cost of transforming dreams into reality is the way we progress the reach of this bomb beginning of the chapter called i'll stay with you mary designated dresses the arm the

heroism question an issue and it's it's a really touching story out of chicago now the two one one says scott i'll stay with you mary for some people a mitchell palmer he was the attorney general in nineteen ninety nine and j edgar hoover are heroes trying to save america from and the quickness forces for others they were the villains those who saw them as those miniatures in eugene debs or we monroe trotter alice paul for their heroes was an american hero someone who protested injustices inequality and prejudice or was it someone who protected the american public from the disruptions and confrontations of such dissenters and protesters was it the man who rounded up a mob to attack an allegedly murder or was it the man took a bullet trying to stop him was it the worker went on strike to improve wages and conditions was that the manager who struggled to keep production moving during the strike america's ideals of individual ism and freedom sometimes confuse the notions of the loans and heroes so often those americans most feared in their own times for

their willingness to oppose the popular current we stand up for the oppressed would become heroes of the future or those lauded as the heroes of the day might later be regarded as the most destructive people of their era nineteen nineteen was a year of numerous heroes in america including the hundreds of thousands of returning soldiers the daring aviators in the peacemakers in paris the press always eager to boost circulation grasp and hear stories of every kind they're national heroes and local heroes summit tried to be heroes and some are just happened to do something that people needed to proceed as heroic it was as if the numbers of heroes emerging from a culture at any given time might be proportionate to the level of pain and struggle of its people in chicago for example at the end of its tragic summer of rioting three euros emerged in just such a way and one woman and two seemingly little man who's very big sacrifices must have reminded the people of chicago that there was still dignity and love in their world one was weaned pitch can earn a cashier the chicago offices of the baltimore in ohio railroad

he was thirty nine years old his wife was thirty eight they lived on lyndon avenue in winnetka a north chicago suburb and they had three children one monday night williams mother volunteered to stay with the children while the cameras went to the cinema to do so they had to take the north bound train a cage street to get to the north down tracks they had to walk across the southbound track when they arrived at the track they saw the flag man's signal vehicle traffic to stop that the tehran is thought that the southbound trains seemed far enough away that he could easily cross with time to spare and so they rushed across the track suddenly was the scanner stop my foot scott she told her husband trying to extricate her foot from between abortion or rail he tried to in a hastily called the flag when john miller both men fail to the tree the flood my god it's hopeless said naylor has the chain of closer the engineer saw them and threw on the emergency brakes but

miller and tanner struggle to wrigley's <unk> dinners but until the engine was nearly upon them then what with with the train only seconds away says tanner begged her husband to leave her and to save his own life i'll stay with you mary he said and wrapped his arms around her miller was at the track side of the tracks still polling at the board that was holding her foot when the train struck them hurtling all three people fifty feet into the air miller who was fifty two years old lived but he fractured his right arm and his left arm was so severely crushed it was later amputated both tanners died chicagoans recognized all three as heroes miller for nearly sacrificing his life or two strangers <unk> tanner for staying with his wife and this is dinner for bay your husband to save his own life benefits were held in chicago for the six children affected by the accident noise three in the tanners three contributors names with the size of their donation were published in the local newspapers stories about the tragedy ran for weeks chicago's imagination continues to be gripped in its purse strings loosened at the

thought of the tanner tragedy the chicago daily tribune other cities including new york and kansas city denver san francisco los angeles cleveland and st louis health benefits as the words i'll stay with you mary echoed across america and this chapter is about time ah heroism including helen keller a funny moment in the editing of this book which are polishing revealed that it's it was odd you know it shows how careful simon schuster is at the copy editors art i'm helen keller is in this book because helen keller it was speeches that year hands was actively involved in a lot of causes but also because she produced and starred in her own movie and august of nineteen nineteen and movies have dropped in here and there that's

c on him and there was a heart a labor strike on broadway and and helen keller when her movie debuted was called deliverance and it's really the beginning of helen keller's famed and sit on that she would not cross the picket line on the con brio way to attend the debut of her own movie so i had it written that on helen keller had not crossed the picket line to watch the data about the premier of her movie and they probably had a role in the margin and how could she writes are like oh wow it's really embarrassing and it is entirely known that nobody not knowing any problems at all in all of america you know actor it's now off that and then all the sudden the american foundation blind coming out with a statement how could she be so insensitive she's our archives and now what he's done it it's just who while be a fiction writer someday lots of details you have to keep track of on and then i well i'm a newbie

to the last parity for the epilogue less careful about that on this ends with a sentence from one of cross timbers letters to his wife after he was detained and i'm here with i think three week old son he couldn't wait to get home to chicago sees somebody got arrested and so he wrote many letters to his wife and in the book of this have says art that i'm from nineteen nineteen american woodman remember a few heroes and legends but most of it's true here is that your would fade away consumed in a fiery crash of time and lost dreams all believers in real democracy champions of free speech lovers of liberty there early steps would lead to a place most of their contemporaries could not even envision indeed generations of americans would be affected by the battles and passions of nineteen nineteen and in the midst of such tumult few could grasp its significance for america nineteen nineteen was a nation immersed in struggle a nation laboring to give birth to a better world in which the toothpick only two enemies could one

day be courageous oppression and fear it was as carl sandburg that so astutely understood to be a stormy frightening time on the path hopefully to a more progressive future quote i have no criticism of all the waste and after birth poor ago with a child born the book is the new well we cede i have to say it's kind of interesting that might lie former newspaper the wall street journal reviewed it and i'm very lengthy review the guy is saying that time showing one perspective there have been left of center ed is there had been a right wing league is i mean it seems to be able to find something in nineteen ninety two you know promote their cause is then the journal i i chuckle because they said that on the end of it was really important because it shows that woodrow wilson was so i said to races stand and had so many promises made george bush look good so there was i got in a lot of radio shows because of that review all over the country you know as kind of an interesting experience and then and then on the

sound people who you know severe civil liberties are understood the importance of the free speech issue in the air and made struggle between han national security and civil liberties safety the constitution safety of that where is the tipping point which you can see in this year but i'm also outside on those radio shows to me is great but when i ate it you went to washington and i i had a really interesting experience and then take questions the er at the moment and this was put in the a to marry as a lecture to homeland security and i've got one in my head so i prepared a speech that began what it doesn't matter if you're a democrat early republic and push your against bush doesn't matter if this is a very important year in our history that we have to bomb on were about because we can perhaps i make less mistakes in the future if we understand on more about our past odd you know it

in nineteen nineteen and i would also as a democrat and woodrow wilson and i was giving our free rein to mitchell palmer who was squeezing civil liberties and j edgar hoover art who was rising to power and ends and so you know you have the democrats in that eerie have other things happening now and so i have i said that to the high end and they're ninety three people there and it's a book club it's a book club that any educator told them after a gate election there that i would just tell everybody in the country because it gives you a little more faith in the government i think the book club that i'm in and meet once a month they are not allowed to talk about partisan politics in its high level officials and homeland security treasury justice department you know fbi secret service and everyday their nod to say anything so began my speech like that and they stood up and i nearly sainted

really i was scared to death to my hands were cold and i thought ah i got started my phone or something what's going to happen after a good list black shirt no way is it really worth it should i just go home you know and there was wonderful and they're ninety people they'd all read the book and he had the one of the best discussions i have ever ever experienced so many more things to say of course about nineteen eighty we read the book and now if there are any questions we have been listening to kansas city native and had ignored talk about her book savage peace hope and fear in america nineteen nineteen recorded october night two thousand seven at the lawrence public library the recording engineer was chubby smith i'm j mcintyre kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas i believe that we

have to keep both slavery and ms rainer writes for women with seven example for the rest of the country next time i'm katie arteries and we step back in time to civil war kansas with an abolitionist and leisure corona nichols join as eight o'clock sunday night on campus radio as nicole speaks through kansas city historian and author diana i cause these are difficult times my friends but eleven must have been a hard times never last for heaven and the causes for which we gladly dedicate our lives will triumph in the end keep your present abolitionists prohibition us and suffragette corona nichols sunday night at eight o'clock on kansas public radio for

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