[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":101},["ShallowReactive",2],{"episode-elementary-mr-president":3},{"id":4,"slug":5,"title":6,"subtitle":7,"pubdate":8,"tags":13,"thumb":14,"excerpt":20,"content":21,"transcript":22,"transcript_file":23,"audio":24,"resources":28,"segments":29},79,"elementary-mr-president","Elementary Mr. President","Sherlock Holmes, the Supreme Court and Dr. Spock",{"utc":9,"short":10,"medium":11,"long":12},1532704713,"07.27.18","Jul 27, 2018","July 27, 2018",[],{"src":15,"caption":16,"derivatives":17},"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Fimages\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Fwebsite-Rathbone_as_Holmes_-_FR.jpg","Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes (1939 film series). Source: Wikimedia Commons",{"square_small":18,"square_medium":19},"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Fimages\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Fsquare_small\u002Fwebsite-Rathbone_as_Holmes_-_FR.jpg","https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Fimages\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Fsquare_medium\u002Fwebsite-Rathbone_as_Holmes_-_FR.jpg","On this episode of BackStory, Ed, Joanne and Brian explore the history of filling SCOTUS seats, the connections between Sherlock Holmes and U.S. presidents, and consider how Dr. Spock's book changed America.","\u003Cp>\u003Cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ed, Joanne and Brian explore the history of filling vacant seats on the Supreme Court, discover the secret connections between 221B Baker Street and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and find out why the publication date of a successful child rearing manual is a Day that Changed America.\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fp>\n",null,"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Ffiles\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Ftranscript\u002F7.27.18FirstDraft.pdf",{"url":25,"duration":26,"formatted_duration":27},"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Faudio\u002Fepisodes\u002Felementary-mr-president.mp3","2296","00:38:16",[],[30,50,65,82],{"index":31,"title":32,"description":33,"audio":34,"tags":38,"transcript":44,"episode":45},0,"Borked","\u003Cp>In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to fill an empty seat on the Supreme Court. What followed was one of the most contentious confirmation battles in modern history. As President Trump presents his nominee for a vacant Supreme Court seat, what can we learn from the candidate who got “Borked”?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Music:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Ffreemusicarchive.org\u002Fmusic\u002FPodington_Bear\u002FElectronic_1224\u002FChrome_Muffler\">Chrome Muffler by Podington Bear\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cbr \u002F>\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Ffreemusicarchive.org\u002Fmusic\u002FJahzzar\u002FRawDub\u002F02_-_The_Guitarist\">The Guitarist by Jahzzar\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cbr \u002F>\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Ffreemusicarchive.org\u002Fmusic\u002FPodington_Bear\u002FBackbeat\u002FFingernailGrit\">Fingernail Grit by Podington Bear\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\n",{"url":35,"duration":36,"formatted_duration":37},"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Faudio\u002Fsegments\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Felementary-mr-president-01.mp3","388","00:06:28",[39,40,41,42,43],"Robert Bork","Supreme Court nominations","U.S. Supreme Court","polarization","political ideology","\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Major funding for Back Story is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, and the Robert and Joseph Cornell Memorial Foundation.\u003Cbr>\nFrom Virginia Humanities, this is Back Story.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Welcome to Back Story, the show that explains the history behind today’s headlines. I’m Joanne Freeman.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: I’m Brian Balogh.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: And I’m Ed Ayers.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: On June 26th, 1987, Justice Lewis Powell announced his retirement from the Supreme Court. The “courtly southerner,” as one news outlet described him, had been the swing vote for the nine ideologically divided justices. Given Powell’s role on the bench, Americans were anxious to hear who President Ronald Reagan would tap to fill the empty seat.\u003Cbr>\nWithin days, he named conservative judge Robert Bork as his pick for the job, setting off a contentious nomination battle. Senate Democrats feared Bork would move the court and the law of the land decisively to the right.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Senator Kennedy: Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters [crosstalk 00:01:16]-\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: This is Senator Edward Kennedy speaking out against Bork’s nomination less than an hour after it was announced.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Senator Kennedy: … and school children could not be taught about evolution.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: And what it did was, it froze things.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: That’s NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: Politicians went, “I’m not sure I want to get way out in front of this. I think I’ll just wait.”\u003Cbr>\nIn the meantime, Kennedy, who was an incredibly hard worker, started working the phones to make sure that happened, talking to leading interest group people, talking to moderate republicans.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Jeffery Rosin: And it just was a constitutional drama unlike any we’ve ever seen before.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Jeffery Rosin is President of the National Constitution Center. In December of 1987, he interned for Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Joseph Biden. This gave him a front row seat for the Bork drama.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Jeffery Rosin: There had been contested hearings before.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: But this was the first one in modern memory, when out and out, front and center, there was an ideological fight.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Jeffery Rosin: Bork had been an extremely prolific and opinionated scholar who had expressed views about all the contested issues about constitutional law.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: He had opposed the public accommodations provisions of the civil rights act.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Jeffery Rosin: He’d questioned landmarks of the Warren and Berger eras, including, most notably, the Griswold decision creating a constitutional right to privacy.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: He had written a lot of things that were considered just unacceptable to large numbers of people, and not just liberal democrats.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Bork’s supporters welcomed the prospect of a much more conservative court. But they were careful to champion the nominee’s qualifications, not his ideology.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: The debate raged all summer. Finally, Robert Bork appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September of 1987.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Robert Bork: I want to begin by thanking the President for placing my name in nomination for this most important position. [crosstalk 00:03:28]\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: He did not do any practice sessions with the White House, what are called “murder boards.” He thought those were for sissies.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Robert Bork: I am quite willing to discuss with you my judicial philosophy and the approach I take to deciding cases. I can not of course [crosstalk 00:03:43]\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: The committee was especially interested in Bork’s judicial philosophy, based on the theory of original intent.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: The idea of original intent is the meaning of the constitution that the founding fathers had that it’s not a living document. It doesn’t change with time.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: In Bork’s view, recent decisions in favor of abortion and desegregation did not fit the founders’ original intentions. And so the question of precedent and whether Bork would uphold those decisions dominated the hearings.\u003Cbr>\nBork back peddled on some of his more controversial views, trying to appear more moderate, and he told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he took precedent seriously.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: And I think it was Kennedy who said to him, “Did you ever say anything different?” And he said, “No.” And then Kennedy played a tape of Bork at Canisius College saying …\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Robert Bork: I don’t think that in the field of constitutional law, precedent is all that important. And if you become convinced that a prior court has misread the constitution, I think it’s your duty to go back and correct it.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: Which was exactly contrary to what he was testifying about at these very hearings. And I thought it was a devastating moment because it put his word in question.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: The senate ultimately voted to reject his nomination to the Supreme Court.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Nina Totenberg: Republicans have not to this day gotten over it. They call it being Borked.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: The Senate eventually confirmed President Reagan’s third Supreme Court nominee, Justice Anthony Kennedy, but the battle over Robert Bork’s nomination had long term consequences.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Jeffery Rosin: And, it was the beginning of this process of polarization that basically turned the confirmation process into partisan war zones.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Rosin says that politics have always been a part of the nomination process, but recent presidents have been careful to nominate judges without paper trails, or judges who advertise ideological leanings for fear they’ll be Borked.\u003Cbr>\nEver since the Bork hearings, nominees have faced the relentless gaze of 24 hour news networks and attack ads from interest groups.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Jeffery Rosin: I guess what’s unfortunate is just that it’s a political process that just seems to have broken down, and that’s something that the Bork hearings set into motion.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp> \u003C\u002Fp>",{"id":4,"slug":5,"title":6,"subtitle":7,"pubdate":46,"tags":47,"thumb":48},{"utc":9,"short":10,"medium":11,"long":12},[],{"src":15,"caption":16,"derivatives":49},{"square_small":18,"square_medium":19},{"index":51,"title":52,"description":53,"audio":54,"tags":58,"transcript":59,"episode":60},1,"The Justices that Never Were","\u003Cp>There’s nothing new about failed Supreme Court nominations – from the founding era on. Ed, Joanne and Brian talk about the candidates who never made it to the High Court.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Music:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Ffreemusicarchive.org\u002Fmusic\u002FJahzzar\u002FHiFi_City_Tales\u002F05_Botanic_Garden\">Botanic Garden by Jahzzar\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\n",{"url":55,"duration":56,"formatted_duration":57},"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Faudio\u002Fsegments\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Felementary-mr-president-02.mp3","432","00:07:12",[40,41],"\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Which brings us to today. Justice Kennedy, the man who filled the seat Bork could not, has announced his retirement from the bench. President Trump recently announced his pick for the position.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Pres. Trump: Tonight it is my honor and privilege to announce that I will nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: But it’s not clear that his confirmation will be smooth sailing either. After Justice Anthony Scalia died in 2016, Senate republicans refused to consider President Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland. Trump filled that seat upon taking office this last year, and it’s now filled by Neil Gorsuch.\u003Cbr>\nGiven this recent turbulence, it’s not clear how Senate democrats will handle Kavanaugh’s nomination.\u003Cbr>\nJoanne, Ed, just how likely is it that a nominee is going to fail? How many nominees have failed since the founding?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: You know, it’s really surprising to think about these numbers. There have been 160 nominations to the Supreme Court, and of those, 36 were not confirmed by the Senate.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Wow.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Even when you count the six who were later confirmed, that still leaves two dozen who were not, so it’s not that unusual for the Senate to confirm what the President has sent forward.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Is this a recent phenomenon, or does this failure of nominees go all the way back to the founding?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Actually, all the way back to George Washington. Washington actually put forward the nomination of John Rutledge of South Carolina, and Rutledge made a public statement, gave a public speech at around that time in which he was upset about a pending treaty with Britain, the Jay Treaty, which was sort of reconciling some issues that had been leftover from the Treaty of Paris, from the American revolution, and a lot of people thought that the treaty was too soft on Britain, and John Rutledge was one of them. And supposedly he said in this public speech that, as much as he dearly loved George Washington, he would rather see Washington in his grave than to see him actually sign onto this treaty.\u003Cbr>\nSo in this original nomination that gets rejected, you end up with the quirky position of people from Washington’s own party, Federalists, denying and refuting and opposing the nomination from essentially their own party. They vote against Rutledge’s nomination.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: It’s remarkable that did not require a tweet or a secret recording to still have that impact. It’s just something he said out loud in front of people, and it apparently still counted?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Shocking! Shocking!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Wow. And you know, Washington was such a popular guy. I shudder to think what happened with people like Adams.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Oh, poor John Quincy Adams. Yeah, the Adams’s always had problems Presidents. They’re the one term-ers for good reason, actually, because they were kind of independent-minded guys, but in this case, John Quincy Adams has his very own failed nomination, but it’s not for doing anything particularly outrageous. There’s the death of a Supreme Court justice, and John Quincy Adams nominates John Crittenden, who was a Kentucky lawyer, in 1928. And as luck would have it, this happens after there has already been a presidential election, and Andrew Jackson has been made President of the United States.\u003Cbr>\nSo Adams, at this point, is essentially a lame duck president, and so the Senate, which at this point is dominated by Jacksonian democrats, is not really excited about the idea of Adams being able to name a Supreme Court justice, so they pass a resolution in which they declare it … And this is actually the word that they use … Inexpedient for them to consider the nomination at that particular moment.\u003Cbr>\nAnd so the Senate basically does not consider the nomination, and even though there’s some discussion, and an attempt even to pass an amendment to that resolution that says it is the Senate’s job to consider these nominations, the amendment does not pass. The resolution does pass, and it’s not until Jackson is made president basically … It’s not that long after his inauguration that he then is allowed to appoint a new justice.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: But I’m assuming a guy as popular as Andrew Jackson had no trouble getting his nominees through.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Well, as it turns out, not only did Jackson shoot people before he was president on the dueling ground, but ended up shooting himself in the feet quite often. Yeah, because he comes in, and he’s pushing very hard to really change things, and he feels that he has this huge mandate for the American people, so he decides that the Bank of the United States is a corrupt institution that’s really ruining the nation, so he’s going to do whatever it takes to get rid of it.\u003Cbr>\nSo Jackson was so determined to ram through this destruction of the Bank of the United States that he appointed a man that he knew would be compliant with his plans, Roger B. Taney of Maryland. For the first time in American history, Congress refused to confirm Jackson’s own nomination to his own cabinet. So Jackson thought, “Well, here’s a great idea. If that failed, let me nominate him for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Let me compound my error, since we’re talking about the bank.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Yeah, and so not only then did Jackson see Taney being rejected twice, first as a cabinet member, then as an associate justice … He says, “Hey, here’s a great idea. I’m going to put him forward at Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.” And his opponents blocked the vote on the last day of that session, and even tried to reduce the number of seats on the Supreme Court by one.\u003Cbr>\nBut when the Senate reconvened, Jackson saw his nomination confirmed by a very slim margin under the new democratic control. So Roger B. Taney ended up becoming a very famous Supreme Court justice, one of the most influential in American history. Taney presided over the worst decision in American history, the Dred Scott decision, which declared that no black American, free or enslaved, had any rights that white Americans were bound to acknowledge.\u003Cbr>\nYou have this guy who is … Barely squeaks into the Supreme Court, does so only on a partisan vote, and then presides over it for 28 years until almost the end of the Civil War, and it shows you how you can’t predict how something’s going to turn out depending on how it begins.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: And to inject a very contemporary note into things, partisans today on both sides of the aisle are acutely aware of the age of the people they’re putting forth for nominations on the Supreme Court.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: I think what strikes us is how anomalous it seems to have something of such enduring consequences decided by such contingent expedient or inexpedient partisan tussles. You know, it sounds like something that the whole idea of the Supreme Court is to stand above all this tawdry pushing and pulling, but it’s the pushing and pulling that creates the position in the first place.\u003C\u002Fp>",{"id":4,"slug":5,"title":6,"subtitle":7,"pubdate":61,"tags":62,"thumb":63},{"utc":9,"short":10,"medium":11,"long":12},[],{"src":15,"caption":16,"derivatives":64},{"square_small":18,"square_medium":19},{"index":66,"title":67,"description":68,"audio":69,"tags":73,"transcript":76,"episode":77},2,"Bringing Up Baby","\u003Cp>Dr. Benjamin Spock’s “\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.amazon.com\u002FCommon-Sense-Book-Baby-Child\u002Fdp\u002F4871879690\">The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care\u003C\u002Fa>” was published in 1946. Spock’s biographer \u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.thomasmaierbooks.com\u002F\">Thomas Maier\u003C\u002Fa> explains why that was a Day that Changed America.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Music:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.audioblocks.com\u002Fstock-audio\u002Farrivals-%26-departures-70185.html\">Arrivals and Departures by Albert Marlowe\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cbr \u002F>\n\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.audioblocks.com\u002Fstock-audio\u002Fmanhattan-montage-77012.html\">Manhattan Montage by Albert Marlowe\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\n",{"url":70,"duration":71,"formatted_duration":72},"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Faudio\u002Fsegments\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Felementary-mr-president-03.mp3","561","00:09:21",[74,75],"Benjamin Spock","parenting","\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: One of the big changes of our time has been the way in which Americans bring up our children. In little more than a century, the American child has gone from being seen and not heard, barely tolerated in some instances, to being listened to, cherished, and placed right at the center of 21st century family life.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Much of that seat change is down to one man, pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose bestselling series of parenting books transformed the way generations of Americans potty trained, fed, and burped their little ones.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: In a new segment for Back Story, Spock’s biographer argues that the publication day of one of America’s most successful parenting manuals is a day that changed America.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Speaker 10: Dr. Benjamin Spock from the Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care:\u003Cbr>\n“Soon, you’re going to have a baby. Maybe you have one already. You’re happy and excited, but if you haven’t had much experience, you wonder whether you are going to know how to do a good job. Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Thomas Maier: I’m Thomas Maier, and for me, the day that changed America was July 14th, 1946: the day that the first edition of Dr. Benjamin Spock’s Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care appeared in book stores. It was a book devoted to child rearing, and it revolutionized the way that families would raise their children.\u003Cbr>\nDr. Spock’s book arrived right at the end of World War II, as World War II was finished, and a lot of GIs were coming home looking to start families, and looking to Dr. Spock’s book as a guide to how best to raise their children. This was the beginning of America’s suburbs. A lot of people moved out of the cities out to suburban homes, and they were starting families. So Spock’s book was almost like a guide or map. Virtually any type of question that you would have, that book had some practical advice for, but it also provided an emotional framework for raising children.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Speaker 10: “Don’t be afraid of your baby.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Speaker 12: Mama! Moo.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Thomas Maier: Parents before Dr. Spock came along relied on child rearing advice that was much stricter, and it was much also emotionally cooler. It was more what they called behaviorist. A strict set of rules would be employed, and a lot of it was based upon religious views, that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Speaker 10: “All parents expect to influence their children, but many are surprised to find it’s a two way street, and they learn from their parenting, and their children. In other words, parenting is an enormously influential developmental step for adults in their own lives.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Thomas Maier: The first line of Spock’s book is “You know more than you think you do,” and that was a line that was terribly reassuring to parents. That was something that was the perceived wisdom that Spock had had as a pediatrician, but also as somebody who had been trained in Freudian psychology as well. And so I don’t think American had any idea how much this famous baby book that sounded like it was the perceived wisdom of a country doctor was actually the translation of Freud’s theories of infantile sexuality.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Speaker 10: “If a boy around the age of three sees a girl undressed, he’s apt to say, ‘Where is her wee wee?’ If he doesn’t receive a satisfactory answer right away, he may come to the conclusion that some accident has happened to her. Next comes the anxious thought ‘That might happen to me, too.'”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: But it wasn’t sex, rather war that got Spock into trouble. Specifically, protests about the Vietnam war, which turned the wholesome family pediatrician into a political activist, and eventually, a prisoner.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Dr. Benjamin S.: I was just trying to stop the war in Vietnam by telling the American people work against it. Tell the president, tell your senators, tell your congressmen. We were tried, we were convicted, we were sentenced to two years in jail. Fortunately, a year later, the Federal Court of Appeals reversed the decision, so I didn’t have to serve any time on that rap, though I did, for the first time in my life, experience the inside of a jail. I spent a night in jail six or eight times as a result of civil disobedient demonstrations.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Thomas Maier: He had raised a whole generation of children, and he was not going to stand idly by while so many of this generation was being killed in what he considered to be a foolhardy war.\u003Cbr>\nSo I think what’s really interesting to see by today’s standards is how much Spock put on the line. The sales of his baby book suffered considerably. I think went down by about a third, but he did it all for the sense of principle, and it was something that I think is quite admirable when you look back on it.\u003Cbr>\nSpock’s book had a number of different editions, and his book was kind of a living document. It was something that changed as America changed, and it did reflect some of the changes in America with each different edition.\u003Cbr>\nWhen he got married to his second wife, Mary Morgan, she was very much of that hippie type of culture. Vegan diets, and I think his book became more and more progressive. Some might say politically correct.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Speaker 10: “Is gun play good or bad for children? For many years, I emphasized its harmlessness, but nowadays, I’d give parents much more encouragement in their inclination to guide their children away from violence. Americans have often been tolerant of harshness, lawlessness, and violence. We were ruthless in dealing with the Indians. I believe that the survival of the world now depends on a much greater awareness of the need to avoid war.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Thomas Maier: Of course, his approach at home was different than the advice that he was actually giving to America. He felt that he was repeating kind of the strict, emotionally cool disciplinarian approach of his parents, and he carried it onto his two sons. And later on in life, he became aware of this dichotomy, and realized how difficult it can be for parents to be more emotionally responsive to their children. Particularly, if you grew up in a strict household, that it was a dramatic, revolutionary change to treat children more amiably with a balance of discipline and love.\u003Cbr>\nWhen we look at America, Spock’s book is a really good example, emblematic of the American spirit of that time. That can-do type of approach. It was a time of abundance. It was a time of great optimism, and Dr. Spock’s book really reflects all of that optimism. The optimism of new parents starting a new family.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Thomas Maier is the author of Dr. Spock: An American Life.\u003C\u002Fp>",{"id":4,"slug":5,"title":6,"subtitle":7,"pubdate":78,"tags":79,"thumb":80},{"utc":9,"short":10,"medium":11,"long":12},[],{"src":15,"caption":16,"derivatives":81},{"square_small":18,"square_medium":19},{"index":83,"title":84,"description":85,"audio":86,"tags":90,"transcript":95,"episode":96},3,"Elementary, Mr. President","\u003Cp>Two American Presidents have been members of a secret society which exists to venerate the work of a famous English Detective. What connects the White House to 221B Baker Street in London? \u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Fwww.bsitrust.org\u002F2015\u002F01\u002Fvolunteers.html\">Terry Hunt of the Baker Street Irregulars\u003C\u002Fa> explains.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Music:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.audioblocks.com\u002Fstock-audio\u002Fbrahms---hungarian-dance-5%2C-classical-70975.html\">Hungarian Dance by Johannes Brahms\u003C\u002Fa>\u003Cbr \u002F>\n\u003Ca href=\"http:\u002F\u002Ffreemusicarchive.org\u002Fmusic\u002FJahzzar\u002FBlinded_by_dust\u002F15_-_In_the_museum\">In the museum by Jahzzar\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\n",{"url":87,"duration":88,"formatted_duration":89},"https:\u002F\u002Fs3.amazonaws.com\u002Fcdn.backstoryradio.org\u002Faudio\u002Fsegments\u002Felementary-mr-president\u002Felementary-mr-president-04.mp3","780","00:13:00",[91,92,93,94],"FDR","character","fandom","literature","\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: And now the Back Story Players present The Strange Case of the Famous Detective and his Unlikely Admirer.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: It was a chilly July evening, as the wind whistled down Baker Street, rattling the shudders at 221-B, and groaning around our chimney pots. My friend lay deep in thought on the couch, his eyes half closed, when suddenly from the street, we heard the sound of vehicles screeching to a halt.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Oh, my goodness! Mr. Holmes! Mr. Holmes!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Now, listen, Watson. If I am not very much mistaken, our redoubtable landlady Mrs. Hudson is about to tell us about the arrival of a convoy of heavily armored vehicles at the door of our bachelor digs.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Some burly men are at the door! They say they’re from the secret service, but they’re making quite a racket!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Is there anything you noticed about their vehicle, Mrs. Hudson?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Well, yes, it’s marked with a seal.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Not that kind of seal.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: Well, round it is, with an eagle on it. And they gave me this note.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: What does it say, Holmes?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: As it happens, Watson, a great deal. The paper is fine as vellum, the color a distinctive off-white, the seal unmistakable. This letter has come from the desk of the President of the United States, and if I’m not mistaken, it is a sign that the resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has an unlikely enthusiasm for the resident of 221-B Baker Street.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: You mean …\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: I mean that the President of the United States is an admirer of my work!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: How did you work that out, Holmes?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Elementary, my dear Balogh.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Terry Hunt is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, one of America’s most exclusive literary societies devoted to the study of Sherlock Holmes.\u003Cbr>\n“221-B. Here dwelled together still two men of note, who never lived and so can never die. How very near they seem, yet how remote, that age before the world went all awry. But still, the game’s afoot for those with ears attuned to catch the distant view halloo. England is England yet for all our fears. Only those things the heart believes are true.\u003Cbr>\n“A yellow fog swirls past the windowpane as night descends upon this fabled street. A lonely handsome splashes through the rain. The ghostly gas lamps fail at 20 feet. Here, though the world explode, these two survive, and it is always 1895.” Vincent Starrett.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Terry Hunt: Vincent Starrett is described in a biography as the last bookman, and he was incredibly knowledgeable in literature. He was an accomplished poet, and also did fiction pieces, did essays, and had a particular interest in Sherlock Holmes, and mysteries. And met Franklin Roosevelt when Starrett was a newspaperman in D.C., about 1914, and they had a shared interest in both Holmes and Franklin Roosevelt’s cigarettes. Starrett would come and strike up a conversation, and bum some cigarettes, and Roosevelt enjoy that, his company, and he even told him at some point if FDR was not in the office, the cigarette case is in the top left drawer of the desk. Help yourself.\u003Cbr>\nStarrett was seminal in the beginning of Holmesian studies. He edited a couple of books of essays about Sherlock that really brought interest in the early 1930s, and even before the initial creation of the Baker Street Irregulars’ organization in 1934.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: “Constitution, Article One: the name of this society shall be the Baker Street Irregulars.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Terry Hunt: The Baker Street Irregulars is the earliest Holmesian group in the world. It was started by Christopher Morley in beginning of 1934.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: “Article Two: Its purpose shall be the study of the sacred writings.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Terry Hunt: It takes its name from the group of street urchins that Sherlock Holmes utilized to get information for him in London. They could go everywhere, hear everything, see everything, as he put it. So this was the name that Morley adopted for the group.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: “Article Three: All persons shall be eligible for membership who pass an examination in the sacred writings set by officers of the society, and who are considered otherwise suitable.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Terry Hunt: It has grown from a group of Holmes aficionados, as he put it in 1934, for men only, and has grown to a large organization. That and the Sherlock Holmes Society of London are the premier groups in the world, and Baker Street Irregulars publish a journal. They have a book publishing arm. They have conferences, and they have an annual gathering in New York around January 6th every year. And January 6th is, by Morley’s figuring, Sherlock Holmes’s birthday.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: “All other business shall be left for the monthly meeting. There shall be no monthly meeting.”\u003Cbr>\nIn 1942, the Baker Street Irregulars’ Edgar Smith wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to ask him to join the society.\u003Cbr>\n“The White House, Washington. August 5th, 1942. Private.\u003Cbr>\n“Dear Edgar Smith,\u003Cbr>\n“Of course, I shall be delighted to accept membership on [foreign language 00:31:39] in the Baker Street Irregulars. I am glad to have a part in any movement whose purpose is to keep green the memory of Sherlock Holmes.\u003Cbr>\n“Now that I belong to the BSI, I cannot restrain the impulse to tell you that since I have had to give up cruising on the Potomac, I sometimes go off the record on Sundays to an undisclosed retreat. In that spot, the group of little cabins which shelter the Secret Servicemen is known as Baker Street.\u003Cbr>\n“Many thanks for the honor. Very sincerely yours, Franklin D. Roosevelt.\u003Cbr>\n“The White House, Washington. December 18, 1944.\u003Cbr>\n“Dear Buttons,\u003Cbr>\n“Please tell the Baker Street Irregulars how much I wish I could be with them on January 5th. Select indeed will be this assembly of the 40 aficionados, and it would give me a real thrill to be of the number. Gladly do I embrace this opportunity in absentia to send hearty greetings to the Irregulars in whose membership I am honored to be included.\u003Cbr>\n“On further study, I am inclined to revise my former estimate that Holmes was a foundling. Actually, he was born an American, and was brought up by his father, or a foster father, in the underground world, thus learning all the tricks of the trade in the highly developed American art of crime. At an early age, he felt the urge to do something for mankind. He was too well known in top circles in this country, and therefore chose to operate in England. His attributes were primarily American, not English.\u003Cbr>\n“I feel that further study of this postulant will bring good results to history. Very sincerely yours, Franklin D. Roosevelt.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Terry Hunt: And he had a correspondence that went on ’til his death with Edgar Smith and the Irregulars about Sherlock Holmes, and he enjoyed that, but he did ask that they keep it secret. That it just be known to the members of the Irregulars, because he felt that spending time studying and discussing the Holmes stories might be seen as frivolous, and in fact it was kept secret until his death.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: “It’s always good to hear of the activities of the Baker Street Irregulars. I am delighted to know that my postulant with reference to Holmes’s criminal background in America brought such heated discussion and debate. It only goes to show that interest in the whole field of Sherlockiana is perennial.”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Terry Hunt: His successor, Harry Truman, also had an interest in Holmes, and was invited an accepted honorary membership. But he didn’t take as active a role as FDR did. He did not write about it partly because when he was asked to send messages for the annual dinners, his secretary wrote that he gets so many of these requests, that as a matter of course, the White House has decided that he will not honor any of them because he can’t do them all.\u003Cbr>\nBut Truman did have an interest, and he was an honorary member.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: And in original research conducted for Back Story, Terry Hunt has discovered that the Sherlock Holmes connection reached to the desk of President Eisenhower.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Terry Hunt: Yes. This is something that I was able to find out through the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, and the Eisenhower farm in Gettysburg, that Ike had an interest in Arthur Conan Doyle. And Arthur’s son Adrian thought very highly of Eisenhower, thought that he was quite knowledgeable about his father, and told him so, and sent Ike a limited edition centenary volume issue that Adrian issued in 1959, and this was a gift.\u003Cbr>\nWell, Ike was seriously interested, and one of the great things that the staff in Abilene took me off to is there is a photograph of Ike as Supreme Commander of NATO, and he is formal in his uniform, he’s seated at his desk, and the one book on his desk is a biography on Arthur Conan Doyle. And, in fact, that is at the Eisenhower farm, and also a copy of the complete Sherlock Holmes.\u003Cbr>\nSo Ike, while not a Baker Street Irregular, did continue that interest that presidents had in Holmes.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Brian Balogh: Terry Hunt of the Baker Street Irregulars on Sherlock Holmes’s presidential connections.\u003Cbr>\nThat’s going to do it for us today, but you can keep the conversation going online. Let us know what you thought of the episode, or ask us your questions about history. You’ll find us at BackStoryRadio.org, or send an email to Backstory@virginia.edu. We’re also on Facebook and Twitter @backstoryradio. Whatever you do, don’t be a stranger.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Joanne Freeman: This episode of Back Story was produced by David Stenhouse, [Nina Ernest 00:38:09], and [Ramona Martinez 00:38:10]. [Jamal Milner 00:38:11] is our technical director, [Diana Williams 00:38:13] is our digital editor, and [Joey Thompson 00:38:16] is our researcher. Additional help came from [Angelie Bishosh 00:38:20], [Sam Blumstein 00:38:21], [Hannah Cho 00:38:21], [Emma Grigg 00:38:23], and [Gabriel Hunter Chang 00:38:23]. Our theme song was written by [Nick Thorburn 00:38:25]. Other music in this episode came from [Quetsa 00:38:28], [Poddington Bear 00:38:29], and [Jazar 00:38:31]. And, as always, thanks to the Johns Hopkins Studios in Baltimore.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Ed Ayers: Back Story is produced at Virginia Humanities. Major support is provided by an anonymous donor, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Provost Office at the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the John Hopkins University.\u003Cbr>\nAdditional support is provided by The Tomato Fund, cultivating fresh ideas in the arts, the humanities, and the environment.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>David Stenhouse: Brian Balogh is Professor of History at the University of Virginia. Ed Ayers is Professor of the Humanities, and President Emeritus at the University of Richmond. Joanna Freeman is Professor of History and American Studies at Yale University. Nathan Connolly is the Herbert Baxter Adams Associate Professor of History at the Johns Hopkins University. Back Story was created by Andrew Windham for Virginia Humanities.\u003C\u002Fp>",{"id":4,"slug":5,"title":6,"subtitle":7,"pubdate":97,"tags":98,"thumb":99},{"utc":9,"short":10,"medium":11,"long":12},[],{"src":15,"caption":16,"derivatives":100},{"square_small":18,"square_medium":19},1790963921943]