Latest / Brian Thomas / The Businessman Who Built Our Libraries - Big Picture with Jack Atherton

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The Businessman Who Built Our Libraries - Big Picture with Jack Atherton · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: Jack Atherton for the Big Picture with Jack Atherton and
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  Speaker 1: Jack Azidon. Great to have you again. You're on fifty
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  Speaker 1: five KRC. How you doing good.
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  Speaker 2: We had a captive audience for a while on seventy
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  Speaker 2: five North. But people can get to work or maybe
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  Speaker 2: on vacation. Maybe some of them are going up, you know,
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  Speaker 2: toward Michigan or other parts North.
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  Speaker 1: It's going to be then being stuck in traffic like that.
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  Speaker 1: That is a fact.
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  Speaker 2: That's the worst.
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  Speaker 1: Always you Jack.
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  Speaker 2: We were right in the middle of summer. The kids.
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  Speaker 2: Summer is about getting out of the schoolroom. Yay, so
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  Speaker 2: you can swim, play baseball, soccer, especially after this World
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  Speaker 2: Cup when America is so impressed the world, partly with
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  Speaker 2: our play in the earlier rounds, especially our hospitality and
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  Speaker 2: standard of living. Though it must have been tough to
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  Speaker 2: en for President Trump to award the Cup to Spain,
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  Speaker 2: our worst ally in Europe, and that's saying something. I think.
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  Speaker 2: One reason the President for three months has been shrugging
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  Speaker 2: off the reopening of the Straight of Horn moves is
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  Speaker 2: that he received no help from Europe, which needs that
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  Speaker 2: oil while we don't thanks to Trump energy independence. Anyway,
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  Speaker 2: summer is about playing games, but it's not about putting
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  Speaker 2: down books. Most every library has a fun summer reading
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  Speaker 2: program for children. Competition is a chance to meet other
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  Speaker 2: kids who like to read, and once you found a
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  Speaker 2: good book, is nothing more fun than diving into it
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  Speaker 2: at the pool or the beach. Who are just under
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  Speaker 2: her tree? Dan, do you remember any favorite books you
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  Speaker 2: read one summer.
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  Speaker 1: One summer, a couple of summers ago, I picked up
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  Speaker 1: the Trump Book that Bill O'Reilly wrote, and I remember
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  Speaker 1: I actually posted it on my social media. I was
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  Speaker 1: on vacation and I said, I'm going to read this
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  Speaker 1: book by Bill O'Reilly, and it was a book about Trump,
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  Speaker 1: and I gave a little red view of it. I
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  Speaker 1: thought I might make that a regular thing, but it
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  Speaker 1: didn't take. But in any case, that is the most
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  Speaker 1: recent example for me.
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  Speaker 2: Whether he's writing about Jesus or Lincoln or anything you
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  Speaker 2: can imagine. O'riley's books are always worth looking at.
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  Speaker 1: I agree.
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  Speaker 2: For me, A girlfriend and I when I was fifteen,
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  Speaker 2: discovered iron Rant, and I think that explains pretty much everything.
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  Speaker 2: That girl Darcy ultimately found somebody else to read with.
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  Speaker 2: But somehow, forty four years ago, I managed to marry
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  Speaker 2: another girl who's also a conservative and devours entire libraries.
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  Speaker 2: Books even more than making out can help you find
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  Speaker 2: a soulmate at the library, as long as you keep
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  Speaker 2: your voice down. Now, Brian and I once discussed the
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  Speaker 2: most famous library in history, the ancient one in Alexandria, Egypt.
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  Speaker 2: Its mission was to own a copy of every book
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  Speaker 2: in the known world. That library was accidentally burned down
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  Speaker 2: by Julius Caesar's troops. Hundreds of years later, when the
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  Speaker 2: Roman Empire itself declined and fell into illiteracy, which is
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  Speaker 2: what we're facing today. Even with ivy League graduates, classical
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  Speaker 2: learning was preserved by monasteries with help from Islamic scholars.
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  Speaker 2: Books were so scarce then, even during the Renaissance they
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  Speaker 2: had to be passed around and copied. This a wonderful book,
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  Speaker 2: a modern one called The Swerve, about the rediscovery of
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  Speaker 2: a Roman book by Lucretius. You might say, who's Lucretius?
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  Speaker 2: Who cares about that? Well, his ideas led to modern
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  Speaker 2: atomic theory. But even more, The Swerve shows how a
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  Speaker 2: love of books created the modern world. Somebody who loved
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  Speaker 2: books more than most anybody I can think of, because
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  Speaker 2: he had been deprived of a good education. Was the
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  Speaker 2: old time industrialist. Pardon my language, Andrew Carnegie. So Carnegie
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  Speaker 2: built libraries, free public libraries, three thousand of them all
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  Speaker 2: across the English speaking world, including more than one hundred
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  Speaker 2: right here in Ohio. Folks, you and your family can
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  Speaker 2: find some of the most beautiful libraries anywhere in Walnut Hills, Avondale,
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  Speaker 2: across the river in Covington, the one I go to
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  Speaker 2: all the time on Main Street in Lebanon. They're beautiful
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  Speaker 2: because Carnegie wanted to inspire reverence for the wit and wisdom,
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  Speaker 2: the sheer joy of learning to love books. Andrew Carnegie
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  Speaker 2: was a privileged white European male. No, actually he was
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  Speaker 2: one of those things. He was white, I have to admit.
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  Speaker 2: But he was born dirt poor in Scotland to a
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  Speaker 2: family of weavers, not not waivers in a factory, weavers
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  Speaker 2: at home. After immigrating to Pennsylvania before the Civil War,
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  Speaker 2: the twelve year old worked his way up from being
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  Speaker 2: a boiler room attendant and telegraph operator to creating, among
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  Speaker 2: many other businesses, a little one. You may have heard
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  Speaker 2: of us steel in Pittsburgh. Nobody would have been more
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  Speaker 2: appalled than Andrew Carnegie to see how modern day democrats
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  Speaker 2: and establishment Republicans shipped so much steel manufacturing and American
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  Speaker 2: jobs overseas in exchange for cheap labor. Thanks to Donald Trump,
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  Speaker 2: those jobs are coming back. Carnegie was a hard task master,
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  Speaker 2: and critics say he was an unscrupulous businessman. But in
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  Speaker 2: retirement the philanthropists donated the equivalent in today's currency of
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  Speaker 2: seven billion dollars. Not just for libraries. Think of Carnegie
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  Speaker 2: Mellon University. It originally was called Carnegie Technical School. Mike
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  Speaker 2: grow would love that, as we all should. I love
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  Speaker 2: classical music, so I'm also grateful that Andrew built what
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  Speaker 2: came to be called Carnegie Hall in New York. But
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  Speaker 2: his most lasting contribution dan continues to be all those gorgeous,
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  Speaker 2: well stocked public libraries. So while New York's Mayor Mamdani
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  Speaker 2: boasts about the socialist grocery stores he plans to build
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  Speaker 2: with tax dollars so they can put private groceries big
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  Speaker 2: and small at a business, how about taking your kids
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  Speaker 2: or grandkids to a local Carnegie library where they can
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  Speaker 2: learn the history of socialism and how it has never worked.
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  Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, maybe next week our topic
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  Speaker 2: will be a series of books my dad helped me
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  Speaker 2: discover as a kid at the library, the Lanny Bud
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  Speaker 2: Novels by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair isn't much known anymore, but
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  Speaker 2: he was America's most famous socialist in the nineteen thirties.
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  Speaker 2: But guess want by the nineteen fifties, when he completed
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  Speaker 2: the series, Upton Sinclair had become a bigger and better
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  Speaker 2: anti communist than Senator Joel McCarthy. Mean times, Anne, I'm
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  Speaker 2: sure you want to put it in a good word
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  Speaker 2: for public libraries.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Jack, I'm listening to you talk and as always,
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  Speaker 1: thought provoking as always, and I was thinking about how
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  Speaker 1: books and reading, I think really is part of human nature.
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  Speaker 1: And what made me think about that is we have
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  Speaker 1: a granddaughter now who is just turned one year old,
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  Speaker 1: and so and so when she comes to visit we,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we've got a number of toys around the house.
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  Speaker 1: We also have a number of children's books. And I
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  Speaker 1: was watching her the other day and she was there
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  Speaker 1: with my daughter, and my daughter, thank god, is a
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  Speaker 1: voracious reader, and she always has been since she was little,
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  Speaker 1: and so I was watching her play with one of
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  Speaker 1: the toys and you know, you press the buttons and
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  Speaker 1: a light slight up and then it makes little music
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  Speaker 1: and all that. And then my daughter turned to so
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  Speaker 1: she said, let's take a look at this book. And
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  Speaker 1: so the toy she was able to throw that toy
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  Speaker 1: down and disengage with that. And during the time that
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  Speaker 1: she was looking at this book, you could just see
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  Speaker 1: her eyes looking at this book, and how engaged she
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  Speaker 1: was with this book from the very first page to
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  Speaker 1: the very last. And she was not rushed. She was
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  Speaker 1: and of course her mommy was reading the writing there,
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  Speaker 1: but she was looking at the books. She was looking
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  Speaker 1: at the pictures, and then the page would turn. You
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  Speaker 1: could see her head follow the page, and then she
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  Speaker 1: was taking in what was next. And it really dawned
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  Speaker 1: on me at that time that it really is human nature,
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  Speaker 1: I think, for individuals to be engaged in wanting to
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  Speaker 1: read and wanting to learn, in looking at what is
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  Speaker 1: on the page. I was talking yesterday about the Space
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  Speaker 1: program because I forgot to mention on July twentieth, that
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  Speaker 1: was the anniversary of Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon.
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  Speaker 1: And I talked about how when I was a kid,
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  Speaker 1: my parents always Life magazine around the House and Life
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  Speaker 1: magazine did extensive coverage of the space program, and I
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  Speaker 1: remember looking at those magazines and looking at the picture,
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  Speaker 1: the very first picture of the first space walk, and
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  Speaker 1: it was ed white out there in his spacesuit, floating
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  Speaker 1: outside the Gemini capsule, and I was thinking to myself,
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  Speaker 1: and I remember, I still remember today, just the wonderment
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  Speaker 1: of looking at and examining that picture for hours on
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  Speaker 1: end and thinking about how that made that drove my
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  Speaker 1: thirst to know more about the space program. So, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the internet, the phone device is all that stuff is great,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't think there's anything that replaces books and
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  Speaker 1: replaces actual reading and the printed word on the page.
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  Speaker 2: I think ever since humans learned to talk, we have
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  Speaker 2: been hardwired to be storytellers. And even before you know,
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  Speaker 2: we look at the cave paintings they have in places
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  Speaker 2: like Let's Go the Oddist, which everybody is talking about now.
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  Speaker 2: I had some reservations about the movie, not the casting,
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  Speaker 2: not that it's just kind of dark and gloomy, but anyway,
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  Speaker 2: read it. It's marvelous. Books, you know, unlike movies, books
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  Speaker 2: force you to tell and read stories at a human pace.
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  Speaker 2: You don't have all of that furious cross cutting and
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  Speaker 2: the kind of thing that drives people who have not
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  Speaker 2: learned to read yet, especially people in third world country,
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  Speaker 2: is crazy because you know, it just bombards your senses,
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  Speaker 2: and that's not really the way we're supposed to think
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  Speaker 2: or even just enjoy stories. As for libraries, if we
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  Speaker 2: needed government today to build three thousand libraries like Carnegie did,
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  Speaker 2: we'd be lucky to get one. And the government contract
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  Speaker 2: for that one library would go to some politicians donor
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  Speaker 2: and cost ten times more than it should and be
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  Speaker 2: filled with nothing but woke propaganda and politicians' autobiographies because
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  Speaker 2: nobody else buys them. But Dan a lot of this,
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  Speaker 2: and there's maybe thinking, is you just said, why do
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  Speaker 2: we need libraries anymore? More and more kids anybody, especially
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  Speaker 2: in our inner cities, people who can't read, much less write.
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  Speaker 2: Everything that they might want to read is right there
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  Speaker 2: on an iPhone or an iPad. Look, I love those
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  Speaker 2: electronic devices and I do use them to read every
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  Speaker 2: book you can imagine from Projects Gutenberg's collection of classics,
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  Speaker 2: they're all there to kindle, not to mention. Audible even
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  Speaker 2: one of my books is on audible. They'll take anybody,
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  Speaker 2: but I hope electronics never replace the fun of browsing
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  Speaker 2: bookshelves and stumbling on books you might never have thought
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  Speaker 2: to punch up on the keypad.
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  Speaker 1: No, you're absolutely right about that. And some of the
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  Speaker 1: some of the most memorable books that I've ever read,
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  Speaker 1: have come from the library. And I thought, you know,
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  Speaker 1: this is an interesting title. I'm going to pick this
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  Speaker 1: up sight unseen, not really knowing what it's about. I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to take it home and read it. And there
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  Speaker 1: have been many occasions where I've said to myself when
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  Speaker 1: I was done, man, am I really glad that that
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  Speaker 1: I that I read this book. I can tell you
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  Speaker 1: a story about one time George Rivashal, doctor George Rivashal,
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  Speaker 1: who at one time was named a great living Cincinnati
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  Speaker 1: and he is the guy who invented any histamines and uh.
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  Speaker 1: And he used to live in Indian Hill. He moved
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  Speaker 1: to a condominium in northern Kentucky, and one of the
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  Speaker 1: place I was working at the time, somehow we wound
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  Speaker 1: up with the job of disassembling the library in his
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  Speaker 1: home and moving that library and reassembling it, all the
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  Speaker 1: shelves and all the books and everything else to his
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  Speaker 1: new home in in Newport at a at a high rise,
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  Speaker 1: very luxurious, nice condo there. And I remember being in
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  Speaker 1: his home in Indian Hill and we're supposed to be
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  Speaker 1: working taking this library apart, and I remember just lingering
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  Speaker 1: on every single title a thinking to myself, man, man,
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  Speaker 1: look look at this. And his collection of books was
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  Speaker 1: was amazing and that brought just to focus of many memories.
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  Speaker 1: And his wife came in and this was a project
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  Speaker 1: that took multiple days, and I was in there one
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  Speaker 1: day looking at all the titles, and she just when
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  Speaker 1: we sat there and talked and she said, it's amazing,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it? And I said yeah. She said, he's read
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  Speaker 1: every one of these books and and and it was.
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  Speaker 1: It was just amazing to me that one person had
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  Speaker 1: the capacity to do that. But no, when when you
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  Speaker 1: talk about books, let me ask you this, Jack, If
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  Speaker 1: if they were ever to make a movie of one
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  Speaker 1: of the Jack Atherton novels with people say what people say,
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  Speaker 1: the book was way better than.
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  Speaker 2: The movie, the movie would have to be better than
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  Speaker 2: the book, and whoever would make that movie would have
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  Speaker 2: his head examined by some other doctor. Jack.
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  Speaker 1: Jack, if you want to sell, if you want to
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  Speaker 1: continue for another segment. Let me let me put you
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  Speaker 1: on hold real quick. We'll get to a quick break
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  Speaker 1: because Joe was getting in my ear telling me to
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  Speaker 1: take a break. It is set twenty at fifty five KRC.
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  Speaker 1: The talk stays the Chimney character seven twenty two On
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  Speaker 1: this Wednesday morning, Dan Carol for Brian Thomas continuing our
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  Speaker 1: conversation with Jack Adtherton in the Big Picture, talking about
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  Speaker 1: Carnegie libraries, libraries, books and all that stuff. And Jack,
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  Speaker 1: I guess I'm I'm lucky enough that I'm of an
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  Speaker 1: age now to where I can remember things before we
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  Speaker 1: had computers in every home, before we had devices that
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  Speaker 1: we walk around with, computers and telephones in our pockets
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  Speaker 1: and all those sorts of things. And so if you
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  Speaker 1: wanted to explore the world and you didn't have the
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  Speaker 1: budget to travel the world, you did that through reading.
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  Speaker 1: You did that through books, You did that through going
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  Speaker 1: to the library. And it's it's great to sit here
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  Speaker 1: and reminisce about those days. But I really think there's
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  Speaker 1: there's an important part of our humanity that gets missed
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  Speaker 1: out on because that we have entire generations now that
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  Speaker 1: can easily bypass that, and the importance of it, I
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  Speaker 1: don't think can be understated.
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  Speaker 2: It's taking a toll on our vocabulary as well. I've
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  Speaker 2: been doing some research on a topic I think I'll
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  Speaker 2: be talking about with Brian in the next few weeks. Profanity.
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  Speaker 2: Profanity has replaced the beautiful words that people used to
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  Speaker 2: be able to write. Not that every book was beautiful,
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  Speaker 2: and it was a good thing when books became more
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  Speaker 2: realistic than they had been for a while. You know,
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  Speaker 2: certain French writers started a realistic school where they started
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  Speaker 2: to look at social problems and poor people who have
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  Speaker 2: been overlooked by authors. But now we really are in
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  Speaker 2: the gutter. And contrary to what Oscar Wilde said, we're
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  Speaker 2: not in the gutter looking up at the stars. We're
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  Speaker 2: just in the gutter.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and Jack, you're jogging my thought process on this,
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  Speaker 1: and I was thinking. Just yesterday there was a hearing
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  Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill regarding the smith's Sonian Institution, and the
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  Speaker 1: Trump administration did a report on what they call the
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  Speaker 1: wokeification of the Smithsonian Institution and really the cheapening of
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  Speaker 1: the displays and the exhibits that they had there at
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  Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Institution. And the director was there and the
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  Speaker 1: director was asked a lot of questions about some of
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  Speaker 1: the very questionable stuff that has been on display in
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  Speaker 1: recent times in the Smithsonian Institution. And this is an institution,
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  Speaker 1: to my way of thinking, that should be dedicated to history,
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  Speaker 1: should be dedicated to telling the truth about the history
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  Speaker 1: of America. And instead, you know, they've got things in
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  Speaker 1: children's areas that feature, you know, Sato Sato, masochistic harnesses,
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  Speaker 1: chest binders for non binary kids, a page from a
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  Speaker 1: diary of a six year old girl who prayed that
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  Speaker 1: her penis would grow, things like that. So you talk
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  Speaker 1: about the cheapening of institutions. God forbid if we let
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  Speaker 1: the Smithsonian, of all places, fall into a state of
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  Speaker 1: disrepair that it has. And of course those on the
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  Speaker 1: other side of the argument will come out and say
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  Speaker 1: that we are wrong and that somehow we're trying to
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  Speaker 1: suppress things. If we frown on this sort of thing
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  Speaker 1: being presented as meaningful literature and meaningful ideas to young kids.
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  Speaker 2: There's no such thing as history. Much as I love it,
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  Speaker 2: history is a construct, a way of looking at the
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  Speaker 2: past and trying to make sense of it. And history,
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  Speaker 2: as they've always said, is written by the victors. So
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  Speaker 2: even though Republicans and conservatives like us have won our
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  Speaker 2: share of elections, we haven't always dug deep enough to
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  Speaker 2: see what's going on in our institutions, whether it's a
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  Speaker 2: place like the Smithsonian Institution or it's our universities, even
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  Speaker 2: in science. You know, look at what happened with COVID
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  Speaker 2: that was taken over by people with an agenda. What
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  Speaker 2: we have to do is win elections. I heard you
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  Speaker 2: earlier in the show talk about how people who have
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: problems with certain Republican candidates at this point when they've
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  Speaker 2: already been chosen in the primaries and two few people
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  Speaker 2: participated in the primaries. We have what we have, and
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  Speaker 2: you have to look at the alternative. We have to
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  Speaker 2: make sure that we're the victims, not so that we
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  Speaker 2: can impose our form of propaganda, but so that we
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  Speaker 2: can try to be a little bit more even handed.
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  Speaker 1: All right, well, Jack, again, always a great time to
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  Speaker 1: hang out with you and discuss things, and always appreciate
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  Speaker 1: the topics that you bring to bear. But we're going
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  Speaker 1: to have to leave it there for now. Jack Atherton,
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  Speaker 1: as always appreciate your time here today and have yourself
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  Speaker 1: a great week and I know everyone will be looking
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: forward to next Wednesday with the Big Picture with Jack Afterton.
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  Speaker 2: And can I say I hopten, When we're long gone,
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  Speaker 2: our one year old granddaughter will remember that Grandpa gave
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  Speaker 2: her books.
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  Speaker 1: Jack, thank you very much. Seven twenty seven, at fifty five,