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Moore History Tackles Presidents Harrison and Tyler · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

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  Speaker 1: And here we go.
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  Speaker 2: Third hour of the radio program here. The Morning Show
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  Speaker 2: with Preston Scott.
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  Speaker 1: Good to be with you.
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  Speaker 2: Choking it along best I can. Saving the money maker
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  Speaker 2: with my throat coat. I should be an investor in
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  Speaker 2: throat coat. But pleased to have with me. the host
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  Speaker 2: of more history on the morning show with Preston Scott, Dr.
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  Speaker 1: Ed Moore. How are you doing, bud?
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  Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty good. I sound better than you right now.
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  Speaker 1: Well, that's debatable. I think we sound more like brothers
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  Speaker 1: now with my raspiness.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, yeah, I have that permanent raspiness.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, you do.
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  Speaker 3: I was actually at a United Way event. They had
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  Speaker 3: their annual luncheon the other day and talking to somebody
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  Speaker 3: and this lady walked up and goes, you're Ed Moore, right?
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  Speaker 3: I recognize the voice.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: I don't think my voice is that distinctive, but it
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  Speaker 3: happens all the time.
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  Speaker 2: You are the David McCullough of the radio. David McCullough,
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  Speaker 2: people don't know, narrated a lot of the, I think,
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  Speaker 2: National Geographic or something like that on TV, and then
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  Speaker 2: he narrated the movie Seabiscuit.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And so you've got that raspy kind of quality.
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  Speaker 3: How do I monetize this voice, you know? Well.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know, man. We're paying you well.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: You could double, though, what I'm paying you.
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  Speaker 3: Triple even.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking presidents that don't get a lot of love
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  Speaker 2: for various reasons. And we're now at William Henry Harrison.
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  Speaker 2: Set the time, the stage of when he was president.
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  Speaker 3: 1840, he had run in 1836 against Martin Van Buren.
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  Speaker 3: He and three other Whigs decided four of us will run.
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  Speaker 1: And Whigs are not transsexuals.
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  Speaker 3: That's correct, yeah. Okay. Yeah. We'll split the country all up,
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  Speaker 3: and somehow we're going to win. Van Buren won. And
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  Speaker 3: then so in 1840, the Whigs got smart and just
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  Speaker 3: ran William Henry and said, you're the guy. And he
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  Speaker 3: won overwhelmingly. He won 19 states, and Martin Van Buren,
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  Speaker 3: the incumbent president, only won seven. So there were only
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  Speaker 3: 26 states then. And when I'm looking back at that history,
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  Speaker 3: that's the thing that fascinates me is where's America at?
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  Speaker 3: What is our country at that point in time? And
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  Speaker 3: if you look, challenge the listeners. Google U.S. maps 1940
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  Speaker 3: and look at what everything is. I mean, you still
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  Speaker 3: had the Oregon Territory that England, Great Britain was largely
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  Speaker 3: part of, and Russia was up in Alaska, and Mexico
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  Speaker 3: controlled California and parts of Arizona. Texas was on their own.
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  Speaker 3: They had seceded from Mexico and found their independence. great
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  Speaker 3: battles that occurred then, and then a lot of territories
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  Speaker 3: in between, in the middle, that were now part of
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  Speaker 3: the U.S., but they weren't states yet. And guys like
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  Speaker 3: William Harrison, his career, and I keep thinking nowadays we're
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  Speaker 3: looking at somebody like AOC who was a barista or
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  Speaker 3: a bartender and then found a path into Congress, never
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  Speaker 3: really did anything. And then compare back to the resumes
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  Speaker 3: of guys like William Harrison and John Tyler. The resumes
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  Speaker 3: are a mile long, the stuff that they did. The U.S.
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  Speaker 3: used to look to people, and it was backroom politics
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  Speaker 3: that picked these guys to run. I mean, there was
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  Speaker 3: no social media, no mass media. But they built a career.
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  Speaker 3: William Harrison spent over 40 years doing public service stuff,
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  Speaker 3: territorial governors and all over. Even down in Louisiana, he
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  Speaker 3: was an ambassador. Down in Columbia, his resume prior to
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  Speaker 3: being president was so extensive and impressive. And you think,
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  Speaker 3: we don't demand that anymore of anybody. You just go,
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  Speaker 3: I want to be president. Okay, you've got a good
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  Speaker 3: presence on TV. We'll run you. Very, very different. The U.S.
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  Speaker 3: population at the time was only about 17 million people.
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  Speaker 3: So we were still pretty small in New York. was
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  Speaker 3: the biggest state and the biggest city, but Florida wasn't
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  Speaker 3: coming around yet. Florida still was a territory now, but
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  Speaker 3: 1845 we became a state as he was, as John
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  Speaker 3: Tyler was leaving office. Before we get to the break,
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  Speaker 3: I want to talk, though, about Harrison.
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  Speaker 1: You got 30 seconds.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, when he became president, he went out in the
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  Speaker 3: cold rain with no coat on or anything, and then...
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  Speaker 3: In his inauguration. Got really sick. Okay. When we come back,
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  Speaker 3: I'll talk about quickly how they treated him. But he
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  Speaker 3: got really sick. He only ended up being president of
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  Speaker 3: the United States. Built a whole career to get there.
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  Speaker 3: 31 days he was president of the United States and
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  Speaker 3: he died. Oof. Amazing.
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  Speaker 2: I'm on time. 11 past the hour. Second segment here
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  Speaker 2: with Dr. Ed Moore, a little more history. We're talking
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  Speaker 2: about a couple of presidents today, William Henry Harrison.
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  Speaker 1: You set the stage. What happened in those brief days
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  Speaker 1: of his office?
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  Speaker 3: 31 days he was in office and, uh, he got
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  Speaker 3: deathly ill. He called his doctor, a guy named Thomas Miller.
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  Speaker 3: And I'll look at my notes here because the, what
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  Speaker 3: they did and talks about how development of medicine is too. Right. Fascinating. Uh,
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  Speaker 3: He had a severe chill after he actually went out
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  Speaker 3: and took another walk in the rain. He never would
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  Speaker 3: wear a coat, so he'd go out in the cold
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  Speaker 3: and the rain. And back in those days, they thought, oh,
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  Speaker 3: if you get wet and cold, you're going to get sick.
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  Speaker 3: That's what they thought happened. He applied a mustard plaster
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  Speaker 3: to his stomach, gave him a mild laxative, thought that
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  Speaker 3: was going to cure him. He said, I feel a
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  Speaker 3: little bit better. Then they did some bloodletting until his
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  Speaker 3: blood pressure dropped so low they had to stop and
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  Speaker 3: the pulse rate dropped. So they had to stop. Then
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  Speaker 3: they put heated cups to his skin to try to
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  Speaker 3: warm up and maybe get the blood flow going. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: modern medicine in 1840. They gave him casserole, a medicine
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  Speaker 3: to induce vomiting. And then they called in another team
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  Speaker 3: of doctors, and they confirmed that he had pneumonia, bad
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  Speaker 3: case of pneumonia. So they administered laudanum, opium, and camphor,
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  Speaker 3: and copious amounts of wine and brandy.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, that had to help.
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  Speaker 3: I would have just gone right to the wine and brandy,
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  Speaker 3: and then he died. Huge changes in medicine. Imagine that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sick, Doc. Well, I'll just drink a little whiskey.
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  Speaker 1: Have a Tylenol and some whiskey and wine.
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  Speaker 3: And some opium.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go.
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  Speaker 3: There you go. We're going to cure you well. So
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  Speaker 3: he died, and the president then became John Tyler, who
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  Speaker 3: was his vice president running.
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  Speaker 1: Let me ask you.
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  Speaker 2: It's interesting to me as I looked at the biographies
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  Speaker 2: of these two men. With William Henry Harrison, he was
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  Speaker 2: born just before the American Revolution. John Tyler, just after,
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  Speaker 2: if you will. These are young boys that grew up
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  Speaker 2: as this country was birthed.
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  Speaker 3: They experienced the birth as children, the birth of our country.
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  Speaker 3: Harrison was the last one born when we were still
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  Speaker 3: with Great Britain. He was the last president to be born.
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  Speaker 2: Is there any way of kind of nailing down how
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  Speaker 2: much those years and how their parents raised them to become,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, two guys that became president.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would think it, for some reason, these two guys,
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  Speaker 3: and that's how I get fascinated by the lesser known presidents.
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  Speaker 1: Sure.
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  Speaker 3: How'd they get there? What was their ambition? What did
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  Speaker 3: it foster? Both of them had extensive resumes. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: they went to the territories and they fought the Indians.
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  Speaker 3: And I mean, both of them were doing all kinds
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  Speaker 3: of crazy stuff.
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  Speaker 2: So how does John Tyler fit into this now? He
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  Speaker 2: becomes president because he was vice president.
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  Speaker 3: He was vice president. And oddly, one of the linchpins
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  Speaker 3: of history was John Tyler becoming president because John Tyler said, OK,
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  Speaker 3: the president died. I'm vice president. I'm going to be
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  Speaker 3: president now and went in and started doing the job.
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  Speaker 3: There was no real provision for succession.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, really?
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  Speaker 3: No, no. That didn't happen until like 127 years later
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  Speaker 3: with the 25th Amendment, Section 3 that laid out how
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  Speaker 3: you did the.
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  Speaker 1: So he just moved into the office, literally.
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  Speaker 3: He just moved in, said, I'm vice president. I'll take over.
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  Speaker 3: I'll do the job. And people went, okay. And there
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  Speaker 3: were some battles with Congress and arguments over how to
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  Speaker 3: do it. Maybe we should vote and pick one and whatever. No,
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  Speaker 3: I'm president now. And I mean, he he created that.
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  Speaker 3: He did that. And it took him over 100 years
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  Speaker 3: to fix it in the Constitution to say, here's the
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  Speaker 3: order of succession. Here's what happens. And then how do
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  Speaker 3: you appoint a vice president? Now, all of those kinds
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  Speaker 3: of things. When he became president, he was president and
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  Speaker 3: there was no vice president. So, I mean, very different
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  Speaker 3: country back then.
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  Speaker 1: How did he and Harrison get along?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, fine. They had a good team. They did well.
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  Speaker 2: So Tyler was comfortable picking up the agenda of William
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  Speaker 2: Henry Harrison or not?
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  Speaker 3: Harrison didn't really have much of an agenda because he
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  Speaker 3: didn't have much time to get her down.
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  Speaker 1: But he ran on something.
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  Speaker 3: He ran on I'm not Martin Van Buren. Okay.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it was very— I'm not him.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was no social media, no mass media, none
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  Speaker 3: of that. So, I mean— He would have gatherings of
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  Speaker 3: like 60,000 people would show up to see William Henry
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  Speaker 3: Harrison in Ohio and in these areas. He was very
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  Speaker 3: beloved by the common folks. So it made a vast
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  Speaker 3: difference in their approach to the office. And once you
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  Speaker 3: got in the office, where's the accountability? Who's really paying
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  Speaker 3: attention to what's going on? Congress. Congress is important. big
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  Speaker 3: influencer back then. Guys like Daniel Webster and Henry Clay
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  Speaker 3: and John Calhoun. They thought they were running the country.
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  Speaker 3: Harrison and then Tyler created a good part of what
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  Speaker 3: the Oval Office. Tyler started vetoing stuff. They weren't used
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  Speaker 3: to it. But wait a minute. He vetoed and sent
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  Speaker 3: it back, going, no, we're not doing that. Well, you
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  Speaker 3: can't do that. I did it.
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  Speaker 2: Back with Dr. Ed Moore, a little more history, final segment.
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  Speaker 2: We're talking about the presidency of John Tyler.
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  Speaker 1: What makes him notable?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, other than creating the succession process, establishing the precedent
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  Speaker 3: for presidential succession that's a pretty big.
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  Speaker 1: Deal yeah it proved to be just that.
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  Speaker 3: Uh annexation of texas that was a texas territory that
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  Speaker 3: ended up being a lot of other parts out there
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  Speaker 3: uh you know after the war with mexico and texas
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  Speaker 3: was the republic of texas they were on their own
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  Speaker 3: they're the only state that used to be a country
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  Speaker 3: basically yeah uh tyler uh facilitated the annexation of Texas
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  Speaker 3: as a territory, and then it became a state into
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  Speaker 3: the U.S. That's why I keep going back to the
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  Speaker 3: growth of our country and the expansion, the Northwest Territories,
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  Speaker 3: where Harrison and Tyler had served. People don't understand the
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  Speaker 3: Northwest Territories. Well, that was Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan.
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  Speaker 1: That was the Northwest Territories at the time.
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  Speaker 3: That was the Northwest Territory, yeah. And then they split
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  Speaker 3: it up into two territories, but then gradually started bringing those.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, you're talking about Abraham Lincoln was from Illinois, okay?
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  Speaker 3: When he was younger, it was a territory. But then
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  Speaker 3: it became a state. This is from 1840. By 1860,
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  Speaker 3: Illinois was a state. So it was the building. They're
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  Speaker 3: putting mortar on these places and bringing the bricks in, basically,
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  Speaker 3: and starting to build, encouraging people to go out under
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  Speaker 3: the Tyler administrations. encourage the the original homesteading where you
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  Speaker 3: if you if you settled on a piece of public
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  Speaker 3: land because most of that at that point was public
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  Speaker 3: land yeah if you settled on a piece of public
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  Speaker 3: land and worked it and built a home and did
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  Speaker 3: it you could apply and i think it was about
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  Speaker 3: 160 acres 140 or 160 acres would become yours and
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  Speaker 3: so they people would you know if you were we
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  Speaker 3: were still into that primo genitor stuff where the first
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  Speaker 3: son got the farm and everybody else had to find
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  Speaker 3: something else to do.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Well, if you want to be a farmer and you
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  Speaker 3: want free land.
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  Speaker 1: You went west.
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  Speaker 3: You went west. You went over the mountains into the
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  Speaker 3: western territories, which really were only, you know, the west
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  Speaker 3: part of Tennessee and Kentucky and then gradually moving towards
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  Speaker 3: the river. That was the building of our country. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: that was the strength of the country. Like I said,
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  Speaker 3: there were only 17 million people in the territories and
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  Speaker 3: the states. That's not a lot of people.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: 17 million. He did that. There were various treaties. He
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  Speaker 3: did the treaty that settled the boundary between Maine and
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  Speaker 3: New Brunswick. Otherwise, we were leading towards war again with
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  Speaker 3: Great Britain over the Canadian boundaries. That got settled out.
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  Speaker 3: Maine then became Maine proper and didn't have to worry
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  Speaker 3: about The Englishters coming across the border and trying to
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  Speaker 3: take it. He settled, during his time, the Second Seminole War,
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  Speaker 3: 1835 to 1842, right down here in Florida.
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  Speaker 1: When you say settled?
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  Speaker 3: The war, they reached a conclusion to it, and there
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  Speaker 3: were no more shooting going on.
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  Speaker 1: No more hostilities.
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  Speaker 3: They tried to move the Seminole tribe, most of the
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  Speaker 3: ones they could gather, tried to move them to Oklahoma.
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  Speaker 3: And if you haven't driven through that Oklahoma, you'll see
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  Speaker 3: the signs you're on the territory that belongs to the
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  Speaker 3: Seminole tribe. And growing up, you think, well, Seminoles are
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  Speaker 3: just in Florida. Now there's a big tribe up in Oklahoma.
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  Speaker 3: The ones that refused to go and could not be
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  Speaker 3: captured moved into the south part of Florida, but the
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  Speaker 3: war was ended. And Andy Jackson had a big part
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  Speaker 3: of the first Seminole war. Tyler settled the second Seminole
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  Speaker 3: war that I talked about the preemption act of 1841.
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  Speaker 3: That's what preemption act was the one that enabled them to, uh,
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  Speaker 3: people to get land for free. Yeah. Uh, bankruptcy act
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  Speaker 3: of 1841, he had tariff legislation, tariffs never seemed to
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  Speaker 3: go away. Uh, and he really strengthened the power of
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  Speaker 3: the presidency. I mentioned earlier where he's the first one
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  Speaker 3: to start vetoing acts of Congress and sending.
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  Speaker 1: Them Didn't make members of his party very happy.
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  Speaker 3: Didn't make them happy, but it kind of crafted where
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: it needed to be done.
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  Speaker 1: A little more separation.
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  Speaker 3: He had a strong executive. Yeah. He built the strength
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  Speaker 3: of the executive. Nobody ever talks about John Tyler. Fascinating guy.
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  Speaker 1: Well, we just did.
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  Speaker 3: We did.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for the time.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Great to be here as always.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Dr. Ed Moore, a little more history here on The
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Morning Show with Preston Scott.