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Speaker 1: On this episode of News World, it's part of Founding

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Speaker 1: Fathers Week. I'm talking about the lives and legacies of

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Speaker 1: our original founders and the impact they've had in our country.

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Speaker 1: On this episode, I'm going to talk about one of

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Speaker 1: my favorite founding fathers, somebody that, having been born in Hasburg, Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 1: spent a large part of my childhood going to Philadelphia

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Speaker 1: surrounded by Franklin and the impact he'd made in the world.

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Speaker 1: I've always felt that the breadth of what he did

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Speaker 1: the extraordinary range from business person to publisher, to writer

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Speaker 1: to invent her not just inventor in the sense of

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Speaker 1: physical things like lightning rods and bifocal glasses and the

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Speaker 1: Franklin stove, but inventor in the sense of inventing the

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Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania, inventing the Volunteer Fire Department, inventing the

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Speaker 1: American Philosophical Society. Franklin had such an extraordinary love for life,

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Speaker 1: such a deep work ethic, and such a cheerful willingness

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Speaker 1: to go out and turn ideas into projects and projects

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Speaker 1: into achievements, that there's almost nobody like him. There are

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Speaker 1: lots of other people who've done great things, but almost

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Speaker 1: nobody has covered the range from business to politics, to diplomacy,

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Speaker 1: to science, to invention to social leadership that Franklin personified.

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Speaker 1: And so I think he's well worth spending some time.

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Speaker 1: And he clearly is by any standard and immortal of

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Speaker 1: all of the Founding fathers other than George Washington, who

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Speaker 1: literally was the moral strength in which America was created

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Speaker 1: and really was the father of our country. But of

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Speaker 1: all the other Founding fathers except Washington, the one who

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Speaker 1: most deserves to be considered and immortal was Benjamin Franklin.

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Speaker 1: You can make a case, and some people will for

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Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson, who helped with Franklin to write the Declation Independence,

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Speaker 1: who became president, but for sheer scale of achievement, for

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Speaker 1: range of ideas, for the number of different kinds of contributions,

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Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin literally is an immortal. He also is a

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Speaker 1: great sign of what was making America really different because

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Speaker 1: he was someone who rose by his own efforts, not

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Speaker 1: because he was an aristocrat, and not because he'd inherited

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Speaker 1: a lot of money, not because he had a unique position,

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Speaker 1: but just because he worked really hard and he was

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Speaker 1: really smart, and the result was because he had this

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Speaker 1: endless interest in life that every time he turned around

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Speaker 1: he was doing something fascinating, and much of the time

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Speaker 1: he was doing things that were historic and that literally

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Speaker 1: changed history for all of us. When you wear bifocal glasses,

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Speaker 1: you are, after all, dealing with an invention of Benjamin Franklin.

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Speaker 1: When you think about having a lightning rod to divert

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Speaker 1: the lightning so that your house doesn't burn up, you're

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Speaker 1: dealing with an invention of Benjamin Franklin. The whole concept

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Speaker 1: of constantly tinkering, constantly learning. The discovery of electricity, which

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Speaker 1: is a true story. He goes out he wants to

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Speaker 1: figure out how electricity occurs, and so he flies a

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Speaker 1: kite in the middle of a thunderstorm and he attaches

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Speaker 1: metal so that lightning hits and he suddenly has discovered electricity.

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Speaker 1: This was at the time comparable to Einstein in the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century discovering relativity. People across the planet were stunned

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Speaker 1: that this American had undertaken But if you think about it,

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Speaker 1: is a very common sense, non theoretical experiment, and that

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Speaker 1: is sort of what marks Franklin. He just applies common

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Speaker 1: sense with a lot of intelligence, A real willingness to

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Speaker 1: work and a kind of funny stubbornness. Now, remember, Franklin

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Speaker 1: is born in Boston in seventeen oh six, the beginning

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Speaker 1: of a new century. He's the tenth son out of

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Speaker 1: seventeen children. And that was an era where the number

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Speaker 1: one attitude was you got to earn a living. Frankly,

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Speaker 1: if you want to leave town, we got other kids

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Speaker 1: here too, and we'd rather have you produced money than

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Speaker 1: get a degree. Franklin had stopped schooling when he was

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Speaker 1: ten years old. He worked in his father's candle shop.

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Speaker 1: He made money, and he listened and paid attention to everybody.

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Speaker 1: The fact is that there was nothing that didn't intrigue him. Now,

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Speaker 1: he also understood that having money was good. So if

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Speaker 1: you watch Franklin's long career, and he is at the

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Speaker 1: end the oldest person at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: he's constantly aware of the fact that having money beats

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Speaker 1: not having money. Franklin thought it was good to acquire wealth,

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Speaker 1: that if you acquired wealth, it liberated you. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: his goal was to be rich enough by forty to

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Speaker 1: be able to go into politics. And so he really

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Speaker 1: was working constantly at this question of can I find

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Speaker 1: a way? And he tried many different things simultaneously. He's

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Speaker 1: also focused on invention. He's focused on writing. He's one

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Speaker 1: of those rare people who had so much energy. I

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Speaker 1: had such a great capacity to work. You know. Here

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Speaker 1: he is, for example, at eleven years of age, inventing

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Speaker 1: swim fins for his hands. He's eleven years old and

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Speaker 1: he's inventing fins he can put in his hands so

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Speaker 1: he can swim better. By the time he's twelve, he's

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Speaker 1: an apprentice, has left his father's candle shop, and now

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Speaker 1: he's apprentice to his brother. His brother, James, has a

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Speaker 1: printing shop in Boston, and at the age of twelve,

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Speaker 1: Franklin is there, busy working away learning how to print.

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Speaker 1: His brother starts publishing The New England Current, which is

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Speaker 1: the first American newspaper to use literary ideas and humorous essays,

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Speaker 1: and this will become an important part of Franklin's own style.

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Speaker 1: Franklin doesn't just look at facts. He has a very

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Speaker 1: deep sense of humor. He has a little bit cynical

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Speaker 1: sense of humor. I understood the human condition. He was

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Speaker 1: quite willing to write about it. And he also must

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Speaker 1: have been an amazingly fast writer. Remember this is an

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Speaker 1: age when people are setting type one letter at a time,

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Speaker 1: so type setting is a big deal. And if you

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Speaker 1: write as much as Franklin did, you spending a lot

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Speaker 1: of time setting type in order to send this stuff out.

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Speaker 1: So you have here a person who's constantly writing. Now

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Speaker 1: by the time he's sixteen, he's publishing his first letters,

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Speaker 1: and he always publishes fourteen of them. In the current

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Speaker 1: he uses the pen name Silent do Good and vents

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Speaker 1: himself as a fictional widow of a country minister. You're

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Speaker 1: already seeing the Franklin who is very imaginative, very cheerful

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Speaker 1: about pretending to be a widow. At the same time,

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Speaker 1: when his brother finally realizes that Silent do Good is

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Speaker 1: his younger brother, Benjamin Franklin, he ain't very happy with him.

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Speaker 1: Franklin somehow sort of faking people out, which he was,

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Speaker 1: but he's doing it really cheerfully. So he gets airtate

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Speaker 1: with his brother and he runs off to Philadelphia because

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Speaker 1: he getting his brother can't get along anymore. Now at

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Speaker 1: this point he is a ripe old seventeen years of age.

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia then was the biggest city in America the most bustling,

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Speaker 1: had the most commerce, had the most ships coming in

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Speaker 1: from London. Franklin finds work as a printer with Samuel,

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Speaker 1: and he lodges in the home of John Reid, who

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Speaker 1: at the time he had no idea but automately becomes

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Speaker 1: his father in law. Now, Franklin is a very sociable person,

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Speaker 1: and apparently he was a very good conversationalist, so people

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Speaker 1: liked him. You go to taverns, they've got an extra

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Speaker 1: seat here. Come on over, Ben, sit down and chat

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Speaker 1: with us. Yeah. One of the people who did that

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Speaker 1: was the Pennsylvania governor at the time, William Keith. So

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Speaker 1: he gets to know Franklin. He says, why don't you

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Speaker 1: set up your own print shop. Well, Franklin goes back

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Speaker 1: to Boston asks his father for a loan. His father says,

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Speaker 1: you know, Ben, I mean you're not old enough. You

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Speaker 1: had to do this. So Franklin goes back and says

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Speaker 1: to the governor, I'd love to do this. My dad

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Speaker 1: won't loan me the money. The governor loans him the money.

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Speaker 1: Now here's a guy who has only been in town

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Speaker 1: a couple of years and has made such a strong

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Speaker 1: impression that the governor thinks he's a good business risk.

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Speaker 1: Not only does the offer to pay the bill, he

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Speaker 1: offers to send Franklin and pay for Franklin to go

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Speaker 1: to London. Franklin gets to London and a lesson that

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Speaker 1: he will learn many times in his life. The Governor

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Speaker 1: forgets to pay for him to come home, so Franklin

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Speaker 1: stuck in London to can find the money to come home.

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Speaker 1: But he does come home. And when he comes home,

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Speaker 1: remembering that he had been lodging with John Reid and

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Speaker 1: he'd gotten to know Deborah Read, he asked her to

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Speaker 1: marry him. However, at this point in his life he's

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Speaker 1: only eighteen years old. Deborah's mother is thinking, you know,

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Speaker 1: this is the guy who's a little bit strange, so

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Speaker 1: she says, please be patient, be patient. But when Franklin

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Speaker 1: is abroad in London, Deborah's mother tries to convince Deborah

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Speaker 1: that she ought to marry John Rogers. But Rogers is

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Speaker 1: really a bad guy. He spends her dowry, he runs

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Speaker 1: up debts, he takes off for the West Indies and

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Speaker 1: they think he has died. Franklin, who has not gotten

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Speaker 1: money from the governor, come back home. Is working at

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Speaker 1: Samuel Palmer's print shop in London order to publish enough

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Speaker 1: stuff to make enough money to be able to get home,

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Speaker 1: and in seventeen twenty five he publishes his first pamphlet

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Speaker 1: in London, which is called a Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity,

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Speaker 1: Pleasure and Pain, and argues that humans actually lack free

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Speaker 1: will and are therefore not morally responsible for their actions. Now,

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Speaker 1: this is a fairly radical idea, and people sort of

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Speaker 1: thought Franklin had lost his mind, but it does not,

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Speaker 1: in the long run a fit who Franklin is because

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Speaker 1: he certainly did, in fact believe in free will and

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Speaker 1: thought you could make your way, and later in life

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Speaker 1: will write a whole series of articles and books about it.

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Speaker 1: But who doesn't hurt him any. This is the guy

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Speaker 1: who's learning the hard way that politicians don't always keep

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Speaker 1: their word. Because the governor has not brought him back home,

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Speaker 1: so ultimately he does in fact get back to Philadelphia.

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Speaker 1: Took him two years instead of one, and he sees Deborah,

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Speaker 1: and poor Deborah is there with the guy who's run

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Speaker 1: off of their dowry and apparently may have died in

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Speaker 1: the Caribbean so he tries to make her feel better.

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Speaker 1: He gets his job back at Samuel Kimeron's print shop,

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Speaker 1: and the very typical Franklin behavior. Franklin, all his life,

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Speaker 1: we'll see an opportunity to get something done that requires

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Speaker 1: founding an organization of some kind, because he understands that

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Speaker 1: organizations create a life of their own. Well, he founds

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Speaker 1: what's called the Hunt Club, and the Hunter Club is

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Speaker 1: a group of young men. They meet on Friday evenings

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Speaker 1: and they discuss everything that intellectual stuff, personal stuff, business stuff,

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Speaker 1: community stuff. So it's a free, willing dialogue. But it

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Speaker 1: does encourage them to read books, it encourage them to

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Speaker 1: think about ideas. It gives him a space to begin

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Speaker 1: to create a personal following because inevitably, in any group,

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Speaker 1: Franklin will be the smartest guy, he'll be the best storyteller,

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Speaker 1: and it'll be the funniest person. So now he's been

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Speaker 1: back home, he's worked once again for somebody else, But

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Speaker 1: by seventeen twenty eight he's in a position where he can,

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Speaker 1: now at twenty two years of age, open his own

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Speaker 1: print shop with Hugh Meredith, and Meredith actually gets a

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Speaker 1: loan from his own father in seventeen twenty nine, they

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Speaker 1: purchase the Pennsylvania Gazette from Samuel Kimer, and at that

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Speaker 1: point Franklin begins to really roll. Because he likes to write.

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Speaker 1: He can write a lot. He has a style that

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Speaker 1: people are attracted to, and it both increases his name,

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Speaker 1: idea and modern parlance, and appears to create more money.

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Speaker 1: He writes a modest inquiry and the nature and Necessity

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Speaker 1: of a paper currency, which called for an increase in

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Speaker 1: the money supply to stimulate the economy at this stage

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Speaker 1: of his career, something which will change by late in life.

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Speaker 1: He's basically what we would call an inflationist. He thinks

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Speaker 1: if we have more paper money floating, people will have

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Speaker 1: more purchasing power, and therefore the economy will work better.

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Speaker 1: And this is part of what has been a permanent

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Speaker 1: running debate in American society between sound money people who

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Speaker 1: believe that money ought to attain its value, and inflationary

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Speaker 1: people who believe that having money gradually depreciate actually increases

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Speaker 1: the purchasing power and increases the economy. And that fight

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Speaker 1: goes on for a long time. Franklin automately decides that

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Speaker 1: paper money is dangerous and in fact, one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons we end up with a constitution is to block

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Speaker 1: those who would inflate currency. The reason that mattered is

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Speaker 1: once you have a lot of property, if you're loaning

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Speaker 1: out money that's worth a dollar and they're going to

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Speaker 1: pay you back with money worth ninety cents, you're losing

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Speaker 1: on the loan. So people who are propertied really dislike

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Speaker 1: having an inflationary currency. Franklin goes from a young guy

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Speaker 1: with a theory to an older, a wealthy guy with money,

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Speaker 1: and decides an old wealthy guy, he's with people like

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Speaker 1: Washington who don't want to have an inflationary currency. Now

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Speaker 1: he's picked to be the official government printer for Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 1: and there's a reason that this willly matters. Government then,

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Speaker 1: like now, is a major purchaser of goods and services.

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Speaker 1: Everything that the state needs published is going to be

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Speaker 1: printed by Benjamin Franklin. So he now has a steady

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Speaker 1: stream of revenue which enables him. And remember at this

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Speaker 1: stage is twenty four. But at twenty four he's able

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Speaker 1: to buy out Meredith. He becomes the most successful printer

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Speaker 1: in town. He owns his own company, and at twenty four,

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Speaker 1: having become the official government printer. Deborah reads, parents think

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Speaker 1: you know, probably would be a good thing to have.

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Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin has a son in law. Now he marries

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Speaker 1: her even though they have no proof that her husband

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Speaker 1: was dead. John Rogers member had married her and her

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Speaker 1: Dowry run up a whole bunch of death, fled to

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Speaker 1: the Caribbean, never been heard of again. And the question

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Speaker 1: was what proof do you have? And Franklin, as he

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Speaker 1: often will, just ignored it. And so he marries Deborah

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Speaker 1: and she plays a huge role in his life as

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Speaker 1: somebody that he leans on. She did agree to raise

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Speaker 1: Franklin's illegitimate son, William. Truth is, historians are not quite

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Speaker 1: sure who the mother was. William becomes the deep part

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Speaker 1: of Franklin's household and later in life will disappoint him

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Speaker 1: deeply by being a loyalist and staying with the British

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Speaker 1: and becoming the governor of New Jersey for the King

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Speaker 1: against the Revolutionaries, which embitters Franklin substantially. Deborah works with

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Speaker 1: Franklin and this becomes a very very important part of

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Speaker 1: his life. She's really his business partner, and when he

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Speaker 1: goes off to do other things, when he goes off

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Speaker 1: to politics. He goes off to be a diplomat. She's

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Speaker 1: the one who stays home. She didn't particularly want to travel,

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Speaker 1: and given the way ocean travel was in that generation,

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Speaker 1: that's understandable. She ran the businesses kept unprofitable, made him money,

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Speaker 1: and it all seemed to work, and they worked for

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Speaker 1: a very long time until she died. She is a

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Speaker 1: key hidden part of why Franklin was able to be

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Speaker 1: as effective as he was. She also put up with him.

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Speaker 1: She was wanting to focus on the mundane business and

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Speaker 1: household side, which would not have made him a historic figure,

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Speaker 1: but was the base of his ability to have the

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Speaker 1: time and energy and resources to be a historic figure.

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Speaker 1: So Franklin got to play at being Van Franklin in

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Speaker 1: large part because he had a wife who was willing

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Speaker 1: to tolerate him, willing to support him, and was smart

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Speaker 1: enough and hard working enough that she could make a

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Speaker 1: bunch of money while he was doing other things. Franklin,

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Speaker 1: now that he's married and he owns his own business

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Speaker 1: and he's the largest printer in Philadelphia. Now he turns

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Speaker 1: and he begins to really define himself as a citizen.

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Speaker 1: By seventeen thirty one, he's done all the stuff I've

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Speaker 1: been describing to you, and he's twenty five. He joins

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Speaker 1: the Freemasons, which were a very very important social and

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Speaker 1: quasi religious group of that era. He helps establish the

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Speaker 1: Library Company of Philadelphia, which is the first lending library

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Speaker 1: in America. He aggressively defends the freedom of the press

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Speaker 1: and would clearly be on the side of those who

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Speaker 1: favor the First Amendment rights of the press, and at

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Speaker 1: twenty five years of age, he publishes an Apology for Printers,

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Speaker 1: which defends freedom of the press. He also enters into

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Speaker 1: a partnership, gets more printing equipment, continuous to get wealthier.

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Speaker 1: By seventeen thirty two, they have their first child, Francis

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Speaker 1: Folger Franklin. Sadly, Francis dies from smallpox at the age

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Speaker 1: of four. Franklin never forgives himself because he should have

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Speaker 1: been inoculated smallpox. Inoculation was increasingly popular. People knew about it,

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Speaker 1: and it worked. Franklin would later write in his autobiography,

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Speaker 1: quote in seventeen thirty six, I lost one of my sons,

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Speaker 1: a fine boy of four years old, by the smallpox

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Speaker 1: taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly in

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Speaker 1: still regret that I have not given it to him

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Speaker 1: by inoculation close quote. Franklin in seventeen thirty two publishes

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Speaker 1: a German foreign language newspaper. In the eighteenth century, there

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Speaker 1: were so many Germans migrating to Pennsylvania that there was

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Speaker 1: serious talk of making German the second language of the country.

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Speaker 1: There was a very large German population. Franklin was deeply

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Speaker 1: opposed to making German the second language, but he wasn't

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Speaker 1: opposed to making money. So he publishes a German language

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Speaker 1: newspaper whose only difficulty as it fails financially and again.

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Speaker 1: It's an example entrepreneurs don't always succeed. Entrepreneurs have to

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Speaker 1: be able to get back up, go back to try

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Speaker 1: it again, and see what they can get done and

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Speaker 1: what they can learn. He also in seventeen thirty two

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Speaker 1: something historic happens in the history of American literature and

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Speaker 1: in the history of Benjamin Franklin. As an American citizen,

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Speaker 1: he publishes the first edition of Poor Richard's Almanac, using

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Speaker 1: a pseudonym of Richard Saunders. Why does Poor Richard's Almanac matter?

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Speaker 1: It is extraordinarily successful, It's a best seller, and it's

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Speaker 1: going to be a best seller for a generation because

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Speaker 1: he writes it. There's a new almanac every year. It

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Speaker 1: is filled with common sense things like waste not, want not,

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Speaker 1: a stitch in time saves nine, penny wise and pound foolish,

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Speaker 1: things which in our era may not make a great

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Speaker 1: deal sense. For example, we don't use the British pounds.

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Speaker 1: So the idea of being penny wise and pound foolish

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Speaker 1: meaning you're really smart about a small thing, but you're

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Speaker 1: dumb about a big thing one It does finally get

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Speaker 1: to be obvious who's writing it. It just spreads his

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Speaker 1: fame across the whole all of the colonies. He becomes

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Speaker 1: the grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Mason of Pennsylvania. Again,

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Speaker 1: he's rising in status, he's rising in influence. He has

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Speaker 1: a bigger and bigger network of friends. By seventeen thirty six,

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Speaker 1: at the age of thirty, he's appointed Clerk of the

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Assembly. So now he's helping organize and taking care

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Speaker 1: of the politicians. At the same time that the colonial

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Speaker 1: government is hiring his firm to print all of the printing,

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Speaker 1: which is helping make him increasingly wealthy. In many ways.

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Speaker 1: Franklin's greatest business accomplishment came from the publication of Poor

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Speaker 1: Richard's Almanac. You know. He published it once a year

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Speaker 1: for twenty five years, beginning on December nineteen, seventeen thirty two,

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Speaker 1: originally under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, but then ultimately

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Speaker 1: everybody knew it was Benjamin Franklin. It captured all sorts

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Speaker 1: of information about the calendar, weather predictions, sayings, poems, recipes, trivia, advice.

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Speaker 1: He thought it was a vehicle of instruction for common people,

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Speaker 1: folks who couldn't afford books normally. It was a literature

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Speaker 1: for the masses, and he was onto something because almanacs

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Speaker 1: were the most read secular books in the colonies. He

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Speaker 1: had little phrases from different years, but to give you

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Speaker 1: a feel for Franklin's sense of what people ought to hear,

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Speaker 1: he wrote, three may keep a secret. If two of

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Speaker 1: them are dead. Lost time is never found again, And this,

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Speaker 1: by the way, captures his entire life. He did not

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Speaker 1: like to waste time because he felt it could never

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Speaker 1: be found again. He said, love your enemies, for they

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Speaker 1: tell you your faults and the affairs of this world.

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Speaker 1: Men are saved not by faith, but by the lack

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Speaker 1: of it. If you would not be forgotten as soon

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Speaker 1: as you are dead and rotten, write things worth reading,

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Speaker 1: or do things worth writing. And way his life was both.

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Speaker 1: The way to see by faith is to shut the

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Speaker 1: eye of reason. Women are books, and men the readers be.

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Speaker 1: There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking,

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Speaker 1: speak little, do much. A friend in need is a friend.

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Speaker 1: Indeed to all apparent beauties blind, Each blemish strikes an

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Speaker 1: envious mind. Fish and visitors stink in three days. That

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Speaker 1: may be one that's remembered as well as anything he

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Speaker 1: ever wrote. Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.

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Speaker 1: Now there's some advice very seldom followed. Search others for

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Speaker 1: their virtues, thyself for thy vices. He that drinks his

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Speaker 1: side or alone, let him catch his horse salone. Fools

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Speaker 1: need advice most, but wise men only are the better

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Speaker 1: for it. So that was classically Franklin. Somebody who listened

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Speaker 1: to people, picked up common sense, language, and effect wrote

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Speaker 1: out a set of advice to everyday Americans, some of

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Speaker 1: which he followed in his own life, and some of

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Speaker 1: which he cheerfully ignored. He helps organize the Union Fire

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Speaker 1: Company of Philadelphia, and the duty of the Union Company

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Speaker 1: Philadelphia was to train and organize fireman because the city

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Speaker 1: is getting big enough. It's the largest city in the

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Speaker 1: New World, and it's getting big enough that you need

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Speaker 1: to have an organized fire department because you have a

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Speaker 1: real challenge of taking care of houses that start to

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Speaker 1: burn down. He also becomes the postmaster of Philadelphia. Now

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Speaker 1: this is again an interesting example of Franklin. He is

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Speaker 1: now thirty one years old. The British government appoints him

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Speaker 1: postmaster of Philade, of which is frankly an office that

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Speaker 1: makes money. Postmasters back then were commercial assignments, so that

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Speaker 1: they make money out of many different things. And then

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Speaker 1: he does something which truly changes history, but in a

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Speaker 1: way that's very practical rather than political. In seventeen forty two,

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Speaker 1: he invents a free standing cast iron fireplace, which is

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Speaker 1: known as the Franklin stove. Franklin stove, by the way,

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Speaker 1: is still available today. You can go online you can

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Speaker 1: buy a Franklin stove. It was a very intelligent contribution

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Speaker 1: to a better life because it used wood to generate

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Speaker 1: heat with greater efficiency than the stoves were preceded and

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Speaker 1: interestingly in terms of Franklin, he didn't patent it. In fact,

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Speaker 1: he didn't patent any of his inventions. His idea was, look,

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Speaker 1: if it works for me and my life is better,

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Speaker 1: why shouldn't you be able to build it and your

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Speaker 1: life can be better. That he thought of this as

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Speaker 1: part of his civic life, and he's inventing as a citizen,

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Speaker 1: not as a businessman. Now, in the business side, he's

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Speaker 1: very tough minded and he's independently wealthy. But as an inventor,

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Speaker 1: he just liked inventing things, and of course probably his

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Speaker 1: most famous as the vocal glasses. But he just had

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Speaker 1: a constant looking at things thinking is there a way

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Speaker 1: to do it better as or a way to do

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Speaker 1: it differently. In the same time period, by the way,

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Speaker 1: in seventeen forty three, when he does have a daughter, Sarah,

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Speaker 1: they have her inoculated. They'd learned the lesson tragically from

403
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Speaker 1: their sun dying from smallpox. They're not going to take

404
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Speaker 1: the risk. And the same year that his daughters born

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Speaker 1: seventeen forty three, he writes a pamphlet called a Proposal

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Speaker 1: for Promoting Useful Knowledge, and that leads to the American

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Speaker 1: Philosophical Society, and one of the offshoots of the American

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Speaker 1: Philosophical Society is the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia,

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Speaker 1: which I first visited him when I was about ten

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00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,920
Speaker 1: and one two a couple months ago. It is a

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00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: great institution. It has all of Lewis and Clark's material,

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Speaker 1: because at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition,

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Speaker 1: he was the only major science museum in the country.

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Speaker 1: It's a remarkable place if you go to Philadelphia to

415
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Speaker 1: go by and see it. He wakes up in the

416
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Speaker 1: morning thinks, oh, why don't we have a philosophical society. Well,

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Speaker 1: because he writes so fast, I think I'll write a

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Speaker 1: proposal for it. And by the way, since I'm a publisher,

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Speaker 1: I think i'll publish it. So he's publishing his own pamphlet.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, he's offering to sell Franklin stoves,

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Speaker 1: and Franklin stoves sell very well. Now, he wasn't pattenting it.

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Speaker 1: Anybody else who wanted to could make a Franklin stove,

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Speaker 1: but he didn't mind making money off it himself. By

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Speaker 1: seventeen forty seven, he publishes a pamphlet called Plain truth

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Speaker 1: and proposes the formation of a Philadelphia militia. Let's just

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Speaker 1: think about it. This is the guy who wakes up

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Speaker 1: in the morning, has a big idea and writes it

428
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: down and sends it out, and people in the habit

429
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 1: now thinking, I wonder what Franklin's up to next. What

430
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 1: makes Franklin amazing is at forty two years of age

431
00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: in seventeen forty eight, he retires. He's now made an money.

432
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: He takes on a partner who gives him additional income

433
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: the rest of his life, and the partner runs the

434
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: daily operations the printing business. And because he now has

435
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: free time, he becomes a member of Philadelphia City Council.

436
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 1: So now they have businessman, inventor, writer, now politician. And

437
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 1: by the following year, in seventeen forty nine, he writes

438
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 1: proposals relating to the education of youth in Philadelphia. There's

439
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: a great strike by. One of my favorites about Franklin

440
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 1: is at one point during his political career, he took

441
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 1: a very unpopular position, and a number of people wanted

442
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: to sort of brow Beatie into giving it up, and

443
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: so one evening he invited them to dinner and they

444
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: all came over to his house, and he had a

445
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: very nice house. And they all sit around the dining

446
00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: room table and he serves them this very strange porridge

447
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: which they all can barely taste so bad. And he finishes,

448
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: he cleans his ball, and he says, gentlemen, this is

449
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: actually sawdust. Now, if I'm prepared to eat a bowl

450
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: of sawdust, what do you think you're going to do

451
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: to intimidate me? It was so clear that Franklin wasn't

452
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:21,159
Speaker 1: somebody that you can intimidate. By seventeen fifty, what I

453
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: think after his bifocal glasses is his most interesting invention.

454
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: He proposes using lightning rods to keep houses safe. Franklin

455
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 1: figured out that if I could put up a pole

456
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: that was above the house so it would attract the lightning,

457
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: and if I could ground the pole in the ground

458
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: so that the electricity would come straight down the pole,

459
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:47,160
Speaker 1: go into the ground and never touch the house, that

460
00:28:47,240 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: your house wouldn't burn down. Well, it may have been

461
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 1: after his bifocal invention the most practical and most widespread

462
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,520
Speaker 1: improvement in life that anybody made. It. It's incalculable today

463
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: how many houses did not burn down because of Benjamin Franklin,

464
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: but the numbers would be in the hundreds of thousands

465
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: by now. He continues to be involved as an active person.

466
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: In seventeen fifty he is developing lightning runs. The following year,

467
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: he decides, in passing, he'll help found what was then

468
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: called the Academy for Education of Youth, and we call

469
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: at the University of Pennsylvania. And so he's going from

470
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,480
Speaker 1: place to place, almost like a Johnny Apple seat of

471
00:29:29,520 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: a better life. He's also mentally exploring the world. So

472
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: the same year that he's helping found what becomes University

473
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania, he also is writing an article on the

474
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: experiments and observations on electricity. He's also that year, by

475
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 1: the way, elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly and as a

476
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: city alderman. All this is happening simultaneously. The following year,

477
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty two, he grew up builds on his

478
00:29:56,200 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: article on the experiments and observations and electricity, and in

479
00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: a classically American model, he leaves the laboratory. He steps outside,

480
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:09,719
Speaker 1: and he flies the kite, and the kite attracts lightning,

481
00:30:10,080 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 1: and the lightning is electrical, and he then publishes how

482
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: you can conduct the experiment because he had thought through

483
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: the key part, which is, all right, if you attract

484
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: the lightning, where's the electricity going? And he made sure

485
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 1: it wasn't going through him. He also in Passing the

486
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: same year, I remember he's making money, he's serving as

487
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: a city alderman, he's serving in the Pennsylvanian Assembly, he's

488
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: still writing a lot. And in seventeen fifty two he

489
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: founds the Philadelphia Contributionship. Now, what is a contributionship, Well,

490
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: you and I think of it as a fire insurance company.

491
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: And so literally in Passing he says, yeah, if we

492
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: all contribute it a little bit, then if one of

493
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: us had our house burned down, we could collect on

494
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: the value of the house based on our contributions. And

495
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:01,719
Speaker 1: so the Philadelphia Contributions Ship sets the base for a

496
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: mutual fare insurance company, which becomes a model that's very,

497
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: very widespread. The next year, in seventeen fifty three, he's

498
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,760
Speaker 1: appointed Deputy Postmaster General of the Colonies. Now think about this.

499
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,959
Speaker 1: The British government now is saying to Franklin, we trust

500
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: you enough, we think you're smart enough, we think you're

501
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: a good enough businessman. We want you to help run

502
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: all of the post offices in the entire thirteen colonies,

503
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: which of course also gives him an excuse to learn

504
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: more and more and to think beyond Philadelphia and think

505
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: beyond Pennsylvania. Now he'd already been born and grown up

506
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: in Boston, so now he has an increasing sense of

507
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: the East coast of the United States, the Atlantic Coast,

508
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: and all the different colonies from Georgia up through Massachusetts.

509
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: Also that year, in seventeen fifty three, he gets the

510
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: Copley Medal, which is the highest award the Royal Society

511
00:31:55,680 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: of London can give. So he's being recognized worldwide as

512
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: a scientist. He is the postmaster for all of the colonies.

513
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: He is serving in the city government, the state government,

514
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 1: and he's active in founding various organizations. And he's continuing

515
00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: to be a scientist. All of this is simultaneous, and

516
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 1: as a scientist in passing because I remember, never went

517
00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: to graduate school, never took a science course. He is

518
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: recognized as a worldwide contributor because of the work he's

519
00:32:27,760 --> 00:32:32,160
Speaker 1: done on electricity. He's also concerned about what we would

520
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 1: call national security, and he's concerned about the French and

521
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: Indians in the west. And remember that the French Indian

522
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: War will start in what we call Pittsburgh, then called

523
00:32:43,080 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: Fort Duquesne, which was a French outpost coming to the

524
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: French are coming down from Canada. We're coming from the

525
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: Atlantic coast, and we're about to collide in western Pennsylvania.

526
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: In seventeen fifty four, Franklin Prince of cartoon Join or Die,

527
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 1: which argues the colonies have to work together in confederation,

528
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: they have to protect themselves, that no single colony is

529
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: going to be capable of developing its own defenses. Now,

530
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: this is a pretty radical view at the time, and

531
00:33:15,120 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: one of the signals it's a radical view that year

532
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty four is the British government fires. They say,

533
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: you're now not the Deputy Postmaster General. Your political views

534
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 1: are too radical, And for the first time Franklin is

535
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: faced with the consequences that if he really believes what

536
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: he says he believes, he's going to pay some real

537
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: costs for that. In the midst of all this, in

538
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty five, Franklin, with doctor Thomas Bond, founded the

539
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital focused on the sick,

540
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: the poor, and the insane. And again when you go

541
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia, you just see case after case of Franklin's impact.

542
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: Two hundred years later, the French and Indian War starting

543
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,240
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty six, and you'll remember that it's Washington

544
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: who plays a leading role in starting the French and

545
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: Indian War. Franklin was asked to lead Pennsylvania militia against

546
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: the French who were defeating the English troops. Accompanied by

547
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:16,280
Speaker 1: his son, Franklin fought mercilessly to take back land, established

548
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: new forts, and pushed back against the French forces. He

549
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: served as an officer in the militia without even receiving pay,

550
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,279
Speaker 1: because his devotion to duty was so deep. He was

551
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 1: a wealthy businessman, so he could afford to be a

552
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 1: volunteer for free. In seventeen fifty seven, while the French

553
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: and New Wars underway, Franklin is elected to go to

554
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:40,760
Speaker 1: England to talk about colonial disputes with Parliament. He stays

555
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:44,640
Speaker 1: for five years, and this is I think one of

556
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: the most important examples of change in leading up to

557
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: American independence. Franklin leaves the colonies as a loyal British

558
00:34:57,520 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: servant he finds out over time that in fact, he'll

559
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: never be accepted. He can be wealthy, doesn't matter. He

560
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:09,279
Speaker 1: can be a world class scientist, doesn't matter. He can

561
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:12,879
Speaker 1: win elections back home, it doesn't matter. He can be

562
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:17,600
Speaker 1: the funniest, best storyteller in the room, doesn't matter. He's

563
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 1: not an aristocrat. He's never going to be accepted as

564
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: an aristocrat. And I think it's the bitterness of beginning

565
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: to realize that which begins to turn him against the

566
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: English government and making him begin to think of himself

567
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:34,000
Speaker 1: as an American. He stays from seventeen fifty seven for

568
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: five years, goes back to Boston for two years, and

569
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: in the process he invents the glass harmonica. This was

570
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: a very sophisticated device which made a series of sounds.

571
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: It was widely received, probably ranked along with the lightning

572
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 1: rod and the bifocals and the Franklin stove among the

573
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:59,360
Speaker 1: most widely received of Franklin's inventions. Both Beethoven and Mozart

574
00:36:00,080 --> 00:36:04,680
Speaker 1: used Franklin's harmonica. By seventeen sixty four, he loses his

575
00:36:04,719 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: seat in the Pennsylvania Assembly, but goes back to London

576
00:36:07,920 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: as a colonial agent, and the next year seventeen sixty five,

577
00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: the Stamp Act is passed by the House of Commons. Remember,

578
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: the Stamp Act is designed to raise money from the

579
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 1: Americans to help pay the cost to the French and

580
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 1: Indian War, which the British reason had protected America from attack,

581
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,840
Speaker 1: and therefore the Americans ought to bear some burden. The Americans,

582
00:36:30,840 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: of course, resented the idea, did not want to pay

583
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 1: the Stamp Act, and that was the beginning of the

584
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:40,360
Speaker 1: deep disaffection that would altamately lead to the Revolution, because

585
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 1: Franklin knew that Americans were against it. In seventeen sixty six,

586
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,359
Speaker 1: just one year after the Act was passed, he testifies

587
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 1: in the House of Commons in favor of repeal of

588
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: Stamp Act, proving that his loyalties are to the colonies.

589
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: Yet the very same year, while he's testifying of Commons,

590
00:36:58,360 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: he's elected as a member of the Royal Society of Sciences.

591
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:05,799
Speaker 1: He may not be an aristocrat to the aristocrats, but

592
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 1: he's clearly an aristocrat to the scientist and they have

593
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: the greatest admiration for him. Well, that's going on. The

594
00:37:12,200 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 1: British troops are being sent to Boston. The British government's

595
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: getting tougher and tougher. The fact is that Franklin was

596
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 1: committed to representing the American side. It's also in this

597
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: period that his daughter Sally marries Richard Bach. Franklin really

598
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:32,279
Speaker 1: wanted not to do that because Bach's situation financially was

599
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 1: bad and he was afraid that Bach was just marrying

600
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:39,000
Speaker 1: her for her money. Nonetheless, his wife, Deborah allowed them

601
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:43,360
Speaker 1: to be married, against Franklin's wishes. He accepted the marriage

602
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: after Sally had their first child. Ben helped Richard obtain

603
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: several loans, helped him set up a few stores. But

604
00:37:50,680 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: the truth is Franklin supported Sally and her eight children

605
00:37:54,040 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. He was, in fact

606
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 1: a very generous family man and was deeply concerned about

607
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: his Emily, even if he didn't spend very much time

608
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:06,720
Speaker 1: with him. By seventeen sixty nine, the American Philosophical Society,

609
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 1: which he had helped found, has elected Franklin as its president,

610
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:12,959
Speaker 1: and then they re elected him every single year after

611
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: that until he died. So as to have the Philosophical Society.

612
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: He's inventing musical instruments, he's inventing practical things like the

613
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:26,040
Speaker 1: Franklin stove, the bifocals and lightning rods, and then the

614
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 1: Boston Massacre occurs. British troops shoot at colonists. The whole

615
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 1: colonies are upset and are afraid. Anne Franklin tries to

616
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: find a way to bring Britain and the colonies back together.

617
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:42,399
Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy one, he begins writing his autobiography, which

618
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: I can tell you if you have never read it,

619
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: it's absolutely worth your getting and reading. It's a remarkable book.

620
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:53,680
Speaker 1: It's very candid, it's very wise. I don't care who

621
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: you are. You will learn things you'll apply to your

622
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:01,480
Speaker 1: own life if you read Franklin's autobiography. In London, he

623
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: gets a series of letters. Some thirteen letters come to

624
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: him from an anonymous sender. The letters had been stolen.

625
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 1: There were correspondents between the Massachusetts Governor, the Royal Governor

626
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: Thomas Hutchison, and the Royal Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver, who

627
00:39:18,160 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: are writing English authorities. Somehow these letters had gotten stolen

628
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 1: and they were given to Franklin, who then sends them

629
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 1: to Samuel Adams and authorizes them to be shown to

630
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,759
Speaker 1: the members of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence but not

631
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:39,399
Speaker 1: copied or published. Now this clearly is a totally inappropriate

632
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 1: act and will begin the process of really alienating the

633
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: English and Franklin. By seventeen seventy three, the Stamp Act

634
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: not having worked, Parliament passes the Tea Act, which then

635
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 1: leads in Boston to people dressing up as Indians and

636
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 1: dumping the tea in the harbor in what we call

637
00:39:56,400 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party. And interestingly, Franklin, who of course

638
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,680
Speaker 1: was from Boston, originally has real ties emotionally back to

639
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,319
Speaker 1: Boston as well as to Philadelphia. That same year, the

640
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Speaker, Thomas Cushing gives the letters that Franklin had

641
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: sent to the Massachusetts House, and the House concluded that

642
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 1: Governor Hutchinson intended to overthrow the Constitution. They decide to

643
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:27,760
Speaker 1: petition for Hutchinson and Oliver's removal, and despite Franklin's wishes,

644
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: the letters were published in the Boston Gazette. Franklin tries

645
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: to communicate to the British through satire. In September seventeen

646
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: seventy three, he publishes two articles in the Public Advertiser

647
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 1: in London. One quote Rules by which a Great Empire

648
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: may be reduced to a small one, and the second

649
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: edict by the King of Prussia. Both of them are satirical,

650
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: and both of them attacked the British attitude toward the colonies.

651
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 1: Now remember at this point, the aristocrats aren't amused. They

652
00:41:16,680 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 1: don't want to be lectured by some colonial, even if

653
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:22,839
Speaker 1: he's a famous scientist and a wealthy man. And they're

654
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: increasingly angry because they see the Americans as totally ungrateful

655
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,400
Speaker 1: and treasonous. When Britain had fought the French, Britain had

656
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: defeated the Indians, Britain had protected the colonies and all

657
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: they get back in return his constant complaint refusal to

658
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:41,279
Speaker 1: pay taxes and people who clearly are not appropriate for

659
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: English society. Two things happened in the early seventeen seventies

660
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: that really affect Franklin. First was that his wife, Debor dies.

661
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: He was still in England. They had been separated physically,

662
00:41:54,840 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: but they wrote each other constantly. She had run the

663
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: business in his absence. When he did turn home to America,

664
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: he wrote a friend quote, I have lately lost my

665
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: old and faithful companion, and I every day become more

666
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: sensible of the greatness of that loss which cannot now

667
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: be repaired. Close quote I suspect you both realized how

668
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,240
Speaker 1: many days they'd been apart, how much of their lives

669
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: had been separate, and with gratitude, how much she had done,

670
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:27,320
Speaker 1: how she had enabled him to be Benjamin Franklin, because

671
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 1: she had run the business, she'd earned the money, she'd

672
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:33,280
Speaker 1: paid attention to, all the details that he'd cheerfully ignored.

673
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: But the other thing which happened in the seventeen seventies

674
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: while he was still in London, when word reached Great

675
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:43,440
Speaker 1: Britain that the official letters of the Governor and the

676
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:49,000
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor had been somehow submitted to the House of

677
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: Commons of the colony. There was an enormous uprising in

678
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: Britain of interest, where did these come from? Who was responsible?

679
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,920
Speaker 1: And finally Franklin cleared the air. In December of seventeen

680
00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:04,839
Speaker 1: seventy three, he wrote a brief note to the newspapers

681
00:43:04,840 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: saying I'm the person who released him. While that guaranteed

682
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: that the Privy Council, which was in effect the highest

683
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: political judicial body in Britain, would see him and would

684
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: demand to know what he was doing and why he

685
00:43:18,760 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: was doing it, and he went twice. The first time

686
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:24,240
Speaker 1: he went, he frankly thought they were going to inquire

687
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: about what had happened with Hutchinson and Oliver the governor

688
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor, and why were they in such trouble. Instead

689
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: he found that the Solicitor General of Britain attacked him

690
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:37,919
Speaker 1: for a full solid hour, and when they said okay,

691
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:40,919
Speaker 1: it's your turn, he just stood there quietly and said,

692
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this was the point of this, and

693
00:43:43,520 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 1: I want a lawyer, and they agreed he ought to

694
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 1: have a lawyer. So two weeks later they came back together.

695
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 1: But in the interim the Boston Tea Party news had

696
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: reached Great Britain that the Americans had dressed like Indians,

697
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: gone into the harbor, thrown the tea from the East

698
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 1: India Company into the destroying it. And there was a

699
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: high sense of rage in the governing class in Britain.

700
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: And so when Franklin shows back up, he is attacked

701
00:44:11,040 --> 00:44:14,800
Speaker 1: for several hours in a very direct and aggressive and

702
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: nasty way, and it's quite clear that he is the

703
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: target and that there's nothing he can do to defend himself.

704
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:25,719
Speaker 1: He is wearing a blue coat which to show how

705
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: Franklin's mind worked. He will wear again when he signs

706
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:33,560
Speaker 1: the Peace Treaty declaring the United States to be free

707
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: and independent. And somebody said, why do you have this

708
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:40,640
Speaker 1: old coat? Remember the peace Treaty now that he's signing

709
00:44:41,360 --> 00:44:45,040
Speaker 1: is more than a decade later, And he said, for

710
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: a little sense of revenge. Franklin was not a man

711
00:44:48,360 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 1: who one could attack easily or lightly, or expect to

712
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: ever turn the other cheek. So he goes home having

713
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: been attacked by the British elites, and now he is

714
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 1: clear committed independence. He's elected as a Pennsylvania delegate to

715
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: the second Continental Congress, and he also, ironically, having been

716
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 1: fired by the British as the postmaster General, which happened

717
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: the day after the Privy Council meeting to punish him,

718
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:19,840
Speaker 1: he is now elected as the Postmaster General of the

719
00:45:19,840 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: colonies by the Continental Congress. So at the very moment

720
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,720
Speaker 1: that the British are losing control of the post offices,

721
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:29,359
Speaker 1: they are being turned back over to the guy who

722
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 1: had been in charge of the post offices on behalf

723
00:45:32,560 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: of the king. So Franklin knew what he was doing

724
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:38,439
Speaker 1: how to do it. In seventeen seventy six, he's asked

725
00:45:38,440 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: to be one of five people who draft the Declician independence,

726
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: and he is clearly a key figure who people trust

727
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:50,239
Speaker 1: and plays a significant role in working with Jefferson and

728
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 1: Adams to get the final draft of the Decliian Independence

729
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,800
Speaker 1: approved by the Congress. Then he's asked to go to

730
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 1: France to be a commissioner from the Continental Congress in

731
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 1: order to get the French to help us. Remember, at

732
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:10,840
Speaker 1: this point, without the help of France, the United States

733
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: will lose the war to Britain because we'll have no money,

734
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: we'll have no ammunition, we'll have no uniforms, well have

735
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:21,919
Speaker 1: no effective navy. And so this was life and death.

736
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:26,000
Speaker 1: And Franklin, who had the great advantage of being a

737
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: world famous scientist, is a very major player. And because

738
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:35,320
Speaker 1: he's also so personable, so amused by life, and so

739
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:40,920
Speaker 1: engaging with people, he became a very, very widely admired

740
00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:46,840
Speaker 1: and liked diplomat. Franklin plays a key role is in Europe,

741
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: not in America, works very hard to keep the French

742
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: on our side. And then after Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown

743
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty one, effectively ending the military part of

744
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:03,360
Speaker 1: the war. Congress appoint Franklin, along with John Jay, John Adams,

745
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 1: and Henry Lawrence, to be a commissioner to negotiate peace,

746
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,880
Speaker 1: and in seventeen eighty three they complete the negotiations and

747
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: they signed the peace treaty. Franklin, by the way, is

748
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: the toughest, most hard nosed person on the question of

749
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 1: whether or not there should be any compensation for Tories

750
00:47:22,120 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: who had stayed on the side of the British and

751
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 1: said absolutely no, these people were traitors. They should not

752
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 1: get a penny, and he was just firm that that

753
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 1: was not going to be part of the agreement. They

754
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:36,600
Speaker 1: signed the peace treaty, as I said earlier, with Franklin

755
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: wearing the same coat that he had worn back when

756
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:44,359
Speaker 1: the Privy Council tried to humiliate it. And Franklin then

757
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:48,120
Speaker 1: returns because now he's no longer totally drowning and being

758
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 1: a diplomat, so he returns to being an inventor and

759
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 1: a commentator. In seventeen eighty three, we complete negotiations, we

760
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:59,560
Speaker 1: signed the peace treaty. Now the colonies are independent states.

761
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:04,320
Speaker 1: And one year later Franklin writes quote an economical project

762
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 1: for diminishing the cost of light, which is in fact

763
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 1: the first document proposing daylight savings time. He does this

764
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 1: in passing. He just thinks himself, gosh, wouldn't it make

765
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 1: sense if we change so that we had more time,

766
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 1: more daylight? And he writes this out, and of course,

767
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: well over a hundred years later it begins to be implemented,

768
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: so the daylight savings time that we currently celebrate can

769
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,799
Speaker 1: be traced back to an idea from Benjamin Franklin. Then

770
00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 1: the same year he invents the bifocal glasses. As he's

771
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 1: getting older, he notices this has one pair of glasses

772
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: seeing a close one pair of glasses for seeing in

773
00:48:39,800 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: the distance. He's constantly taking off one putting on the other.

774
00:48:43,440 --> 00:48:46,160
Speaker 1: You always have to carry extra glasses, And he thinks

775
00:48:46,200 --> 00:48:49,400
Speaker 1: to himself, well, what if I arrange itself. When you

776
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 1: look down, which is what you do when you're reading,

777
00:48:52,080 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: you have close vision, and when you look out, which

778
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: you're looking up, you have distance vision. He goes to

779
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 1: the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in seventeen ey seven. He's

780
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:06,800
Speaker 1: the oldest person at the convention. He occasionally falls asleep

781
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: during the sessions, but he also won the Convention is

782
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:14,360
Speaker 1: about to melt down in bitterness, in an hostility between

783
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:16,959
Speaker 1: the large states and the small states. And his most

784
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,799
Speaker 1: important intervention, he says, why don't we suspend for a day,

785
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 1: have a day of prayer and fasting, and have various

786
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: ministers come in and pray to us to get ourselves

787
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 1: back on the right mindset, which is in fact precisely

788
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,839
Speaker 1: what they do. And a very famous moment when he

789
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 1: is leaving the Constitutional Convention having completed the work, and

790
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,799
Speaker 1: the lady says to him on Independence Hall steps, what

791
00:49:41,960 --> 00:49:44,319
Speaker 1: have you done? And he said, we have created a

792
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 1: republic if you can keep it, and understood thoroughly that

793
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 1: in the long run it would be up to the

794
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: American people whether or not it would work and whether

795
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 1: or not it would survive. I wanted to comment, to

796
00:49:56,320 --> 00:50:02,240
Speaker 1: go and stand there at Independence Hall and think about

797
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: the people who signed the Declition Independence, To go across

798
00:50:07,040 --> 00:50:11,359
Speaker 1: to the great New Constitution Center, which is just remarkable,

799
00:50:11,719 --> 00:50:14,879
Speaker 1: To go to the Franklin Institute, and to realize again

800
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:18,239
Speaker 1: and again the impact that this guy had. To take

801
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: a map and go around and see all the different

802
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 1: places where there are universities or insurance companies or libraries

803
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:29,360
Speaker 1: or fire departments, things that Benjamin Franklin created in his lifetime.

804
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,680
Speaker 1: By seventeen eighty eight, he's begin to realize that eighty

805
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 1: two years of age, he likely doesn't have many more

806
00:50:35,400 --> 00:50:37,880
Speaker 1: years left, so he writes a will leaving most of

807
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: his estate to his daughter Sarah. Seventeenty nine, he's elected

808
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:46,280
Speaker 1: president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.

809
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 1: Here's a guy who constantly, endlessly fought for human freedom,

810
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: who steadily spread the opportunity for freedom, and who at

811
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 1: the end of his life is working on the abolition

812
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:04,600
Speaker 1: of slavery. In fact, submits the first antislavery perdition before

813
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: the US Congress. He had slaves very early, two slaves

814
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 1: who worked in his household, but when he was young,

815
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 1: But as he got older, he began to think, this

816
00:51:12,840 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 1: is an evil institution. And if you believe in the

817
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: principles of the American Revolution, if you believe in a

818
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: declaration that says we're all created equal, it's simply wrong.

819
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 1: And at a time when it was still a very

820
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:28,880
Speaker 1: very radical position, he was actively in favor of the

821
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:34,320
Speaker 1: abolition of slavery. Ultimately, in seventeen ninety, he dies, Washington

822
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:38,400
Speaker 1: is now president, the country is established. He leaves behind

823
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:41,280
Speaker 1: a fair amount of wealth for Sally and her husband,

824
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:44,800
Speaker 1: but he leaves behind for the world a whole series

825
00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: of inventions and breakthroughs and understandings that are just astonishing

826
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:53,120
Speaker 1: and that ultimately improve the lives of millions and millions

827
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 1: of people. Gives you a sense of why he is

828
00:51:55,600 --> 00:52:01,040
Speaker 1: an immortal and why somebody who really I think represents

829
00:52:01,120 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: the best of the American tradition of constant effort, constant dreaming,

830
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:10,879
Speaker 1: constant hard work to turn the dreams into reality. News

831
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: World is produced by Ganwich three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our

832
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 1: executive producers Debbie Myers, our producer is Garnsey Sloan, and

833
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,560
Speaker 1: our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show

834
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: was created by Steve Kenley. Special thanks to the team

835
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 1: at Gingwich three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newts World,

836
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate

837
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:37,359
Speaker 1: us with five stars and give us a review so

838
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: others can learn what it's all about. I'm new Gingwich.

839
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:41,880
Speaker 1: This is news World.