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Speaker 1: On this episode of This World. The lives of these

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Speaker 1: men are essential to understand the American form of government

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Speaker 1: and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played

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Speaker 1: key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and

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Speaker 1: in the creation of the government of the United States

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Speaker 1: of America. And now the life of Benjamin Frankman. 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 an 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 Declaration

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

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

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Speaker 1: of contributions, Benjamin Franklin literally is an immortal. He also

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Speaker 1: is a great sign of what was making America really

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Speaker 1: different because he was someone who rose by his own efforts,

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Speaker 1: not because he was an aristocrat, 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 What if you think about

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Speaker 1: it is a very common sense, non theoretical experiment. And

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Franklin is born in Boston in seventeen o six, the

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

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

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Speaker 1: number 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 produce money than

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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, had

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Speaker 1: such a great capacity to work. You know, here he is,

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Speaker 1: for example, at eleven years of age, inventing swim fins

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Speaker 1: for his hands. He's eleven years old and he's inventing

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Speaker 1: fins he can put in his hands so he can

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

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Speaker 1: has left his father's candleshop and now he's apprenticed to

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Speaker 1: his brother. His brother, James, has a printing shop in Boston,

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Speaker 1: and at the age of twelve, Franklin is there, busy

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Speaker 1: working away learning how to print. His brother starts publishing

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Speaker 1: The New England Current, which is the first American newspaper

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Speaker 1: to use literary ideas and humorous essays, and this will

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Speaker 1: become an important part of Franklin's own style. Franklin doesn't

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Speaker 1: just look at facts. He has a very deep sense

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

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Speaker 1: I understood the human condition, he was quite willing to

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Speaker 1: write about it. And he also must have been an

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Speaker 1: amazingly fast writer. Remember this is an age when people

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Speaker 1: are setting type one letter at a time, so type

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Speaker 1: setting is a big deal. And if you write as

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Speaker 1: much as Franklin did, you spend a lot of time

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: uses the pen name Silent do Good, invents himself he

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Speaker 1: was a fictional widow of a country minister. You're already

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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 entritated

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

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Speaker 1: he and 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 Kimmer,

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

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Speaker 1: the time he had no idea, but ultimately becomes his

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

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Speaker 1: and a parent. He was a very good conversationalist, so

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Speaker 1: people liked him and you go to taverns, Hey, we

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Speaker 1: got an extra seat here. Come on over, Ben, sit

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Speaker 1: down and chat with us. Yeah. One of the people

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Speaker 1: who did that was the Pennsylvania governor at the time,

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Speaker 1: William Keith. So he gets to know Franklin. He says,

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Speaker 1: why don't you set up your own print shop. Well,

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Speaker 1: Franklin goes back to Boston and asks his father for

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Speaker 1: a loan. His father says, you know, Ben, I mean

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Speaker 1: you're not old enough yet to do this. So Franklin

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Speaker 1: goes back and says to the governor, I'd love to

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Speaker 1: do this. My dad won't loan me the money. The

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Speaker 1: governor loans him the money. No, here's a guy who

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Speaker 1: has only been in town a couple of years and

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Speaker 1: has made such a strong impression that the governor thinks

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Speaker 1: he's a good business risk. Not only does the offer

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Speaker 1: to pay the bill, he offers to send Franklin and

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Speaker 1: pay for Franklin to go to London. Franklin gets to

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Speaker 1: London and the lesson that he will learn many times

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Speaker 1: in his life. The governor forgets to pay for him

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Speaker 1: to come home, so Franklin stuck in London. You can

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Speaker 1: find the money to come home. But he does come home.

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Speaker 1: And when he comes home, remembering that he had been

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Speaker 1: lodging with John Reid and he'd gotten to know Deborah Read,

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Speaker 1: he asked her to marry him. However, at this point

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Speaker 1: in his life, he's only eighteen years old. Deborah's mother

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Speaker 1: is thinking, you know, this is a guy who's a

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Speaker 1: little bit strange, so she says, please be patient, be patient.

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Speaker 1: But when Franklin is abroad in London, Deborah's mother tries

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Speaker 1: to convince Deborah that she ought to marry John Rodgers.

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Speaker 1: But Rogers is really a bad guy. He spends her dowry,

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

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Speaker 1: Indies and they think he has died. Franklin, who has

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Speaker 1: not gotten money from the governor come back home, is

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Speaker 1: working at Samuel Palmer's print shop in London in order

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Speaker 1: to publish enough stuff to make enough money to be

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Speaker 1: able to get home, and in seventeen twenty five he

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Speaker 1: publishes his first pamphlet in London, which is called a

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Speaker 1: Dissertate on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, and argues

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Speaker 1: that humans actually lack free will and are therefore not

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Speaker 1: morally responsible for their actions. Now, this is a fairly

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Speaker 1: radical idea, and people sort of thought Franklin had lost

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Speaker 1: his mind, but it does not, in the long run

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Speaker 1: a fit who Franklin is, because he certainly did, in

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Speaker 1: fact believe in free will and thought you could make

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Speaker 1: your way, and later in life will write a whole

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Speaker 1: series of articles and books about it. But it doesn't

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Speaker 1: hurt him many. This is the guy who's learning the

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Speaker 1: hard way that politicians don't always keep their word. Because

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Speaker 1: the governor has not brought him back home, so ultimately

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Speaker 1: he does in fact get back to Philadelphia. Took him

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

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

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Speaker 1: of their dowry and apparently may have died in the Caribbean,

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Speaker 1: so he tries to make her feel better. He gets

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Speaker 1: his job back at Samuel Kimeron's Prince and the very

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Speaker 1: typical Franklin behavior. Franklin, all his life will see an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to get something done that requires founding an organization

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Speaker 1: of some kind, because he understands that organizations create a

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Speaker 1: life of their own. Well, he founds what's called the

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Speaker 1: Hunto Club, and the hunter Club is a group of

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Speaker 1: young men. They meet on Friday evenings and they discuss everything,

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Speaker 1: the intellectual stuff, personal stuff, business stuff, community stuff. So

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Speaker 1: it's a free, willing dialogue. But it does encourage them

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Speaker 1: to read books, It encourages them to think about ideas.

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Speaker 1: It gives him a space to begin to create a

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Speaker 1: personal following, because inevitably, in any group, Franklin'll be the

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

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Speaker 1: the funniest person. So now he's been back home, he's

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Speaker 1: worked once again for somebody else, but by seventeen twenty

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Speaker 1: eight he's in a position where he can now at

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Speaker 1: twenty two years of age open his own print shop

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Speaker 1: with Hugh Meredith, and Meredith actually gets a loan from

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Speaker 1: his own father. In seventeen twenty nine, they purchase the

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania Gazette from Samuel Kimer, and at that point Franklin

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Speaker 1: begins to really row because he likes to write. He

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

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

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Speaker 1: in modern parliance, and it begins to create more money.

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Speaker 1: He writes a modest inquiry into 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 around, people will

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Speaker 1: have 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's dangerous, and in fact, one of the reasons

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Speaker 1: we end up with the Constitution is to block those

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Speaker 1: who would inflct currency. The reason that mattered is once

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: as an older wealthy guy, he's with people like Washington

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

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Speaker 1: picked to be the official government printer for Pennsylvania, and

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Speaker 1: there's a reason that this really matters. Government then, like

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: He owns his own company and at twenty four, having

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Speaker 1: become the official government printer, Deborah Read's parents think, you know,

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Speaker 1: probably would be a good thing to have. Benjamin Franklin

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Speaker 1: has a son in law. Now he marries her, even

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Speaker 1: though they have no proof that her husband was dead

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Speaker 1: John Rodgers member had married her, spent her dowry, run

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Speaker 1: up a whole bunch of debt, fled to the Caribbean,

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Speaker 1: never been heard of again. And the question was what

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Speaker 1: proof do you have? And Franklin, as he often will,

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Speaker 1: just ignored it. And so he marries Deborah and she

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Speaker 1: plays a huge role in his life as somebody that

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Speaker 1: he leans on. She did agree to raise Franklin's illegitimate son, William.

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Speaker 1: Truth is, historians are not quite sure who the mother was.

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Speaker 1: William becomes the deep part of Franklin's household, and later

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Speaker 1: in life will disappoint him deeply by being a loyalist

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Speaker 1: in staying with the British and becoming the governor of

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Speaker 1: New Jersey for the King against the Revolutionaries, which embitters

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Speaker 1: Franklin substantially. Deborah works with Franklin, and this becomes a

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Speaker 1: very very important part of his life. She's really his

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

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Speaker 1: when he goes off to politics or he goes off

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Speaker 1: to a diplomat, she's the one who stays home. She

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Speaker 1: didn't particularly want to travel, and given the way ocean

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Speaker 1: travel was in that generation, that's understandable. She ran the businesses,

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Speaker 1: kept unprofitable, made him money, and it all seemed to work,

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Speaker 1: and they worked for a very long time until she died.

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Speaker 1: She is a key hidden part of why Franklin was

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Speaker 1: able to be as effective as he was. She also

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Speaker 1: put up with him. She was willing to focus on

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Speaker 1: the mundane business and household side, which would not have

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Speaker 1: made him an historic figure, but was the base of

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Speaker 1: his ability to have the time and energy and resources

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Speaker 1: to be a historic figure. So Franklin got to play

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Speaker 1: at being Van Franklin in large part because he had

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Speaker 1: a wife who was willing to tolerate him, willing to

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Speaker 1: support him, and was smart enough and hard working enough

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Speaker 1: that she could make a bunch of money while he

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Speaker 1: was doing other things. Franklin, now that he's married and

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Speaker 1: he owns his own business, and he's the largest printer

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. Now he turns and he begins to really

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Speaker 1: define himself as a citizen. By seventeen thirty one, he's

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Speaker 1: done all the stuff I've been describing to you, and

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Speaker 1: he's twenty five. He joins the Freemasons, which were a

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Speaker 1: very very important social and quasi religious group that era.

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Speaker 1: He helps establish the Library Company of Philadelphia, which is

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Speaker 1: the first lending library in America. He aggressively defends the

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Speaker 1: freedom of the press. I would clearly be on the

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Speaker 1: side of those who favor the First Amendment rights of

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Speaker 1: the press, And at twenty five years of age, he

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Speaker 1: publishes an Apology for Printers which defends freedom of the press.

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Speaker 1: He also enters into a partnership, gets more printing equipment,

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Speaker 1: continues to get wealthier. By seventeen thirty two, they have

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Speaker 1: their first child, Francis Folger Franklin. Sadly, Francis dies from

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Speaker 1: smallpox at the age of four. Franklin never forgives himself

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Speaker 1: because he should have been inoculated smallpox. Inoculation was increasingly popular.

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Speaker 1: People knew about it, and it worked. Franklin would later

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Speaker 1: write in his autobiography quote in seventeen thirty six, I

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Speaker 1: lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four

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Speaker 1: four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way.

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Speaker 1: I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I have

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Speaker 1: not given it to him by inoculation close quote. Franklin

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Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty two publishes a German foreign language newspaper.

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Speaker 1: In the eighteenth century, there were so many Germans migrating

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Speaker 1: to Pennsylvania that there was serious talk of making German

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Speaker 1: the second language of the country. There was a very

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Speaker 1: large German population. Franklin was deeply opposed to making German

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

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Speaker 1: So he publishes a German language newspaper whose only difficulty

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Speaker 1: as it fails financially and again it's an example entrepreneurs

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Speaker 1: don't always succeed. Entrepreneurs have to be able to get

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Speaker 1: back up, go back and try it again, and see

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Speaker 1: what they can get done and what they can learn.

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Speaker 1: He also in seventeen thirty two something historic happens in

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Speaker 1: the history of American literature and in the history Benjamin

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Speaker 1: Franklin as an American citizen. He publishes the first edition

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Speaker 1: of Poor Richard's Almanac using a pseudonym of Richard Saunders.

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Speaker 1: Why does poor Richard's Almanac matter? It is extraordinarily successful.

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Speaker 1: It's a best seller, and it's going to be a

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Speaker 1: best seller for a generation because he writes it. There's

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Speaker 1: a new almanac every year. It is filled with common

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Speaker 1: sense things like waste not, want not, a stitch in

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Speaker 1: time saves nine, penny wise and pound foolish, things which

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Speaker 1: in our era may not make a great deal of sense.

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Speaker 1: For example, we don't use the British pounds, so the

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Speaker 1: idea of being penny wise and pound foolish meaning you're

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

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Speaker 1: a big thing. When it does finally get to be

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Speaker 1: obvious who's writing it, it just spreads his fame across

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Speaker 1: the whole all of the colonies. He becomes the Grand

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

307
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Speaker 1: he's rising in status and influence. He has a bigger

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

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Speaker 1: the age of thirty, he's appointed Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

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Speaker 1: So now he's helping organize and taking care of the

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Speaker 1: politicians at the same time that the colonial government is

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

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Speaker 1: is helping make him increasingly wealthy. In many ways. Franklin's

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Speaker 1: greatest business accomplishment came from the publication of Poor Richard's Almanac.

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Speaker 1: You know. He published it once a year for twenty

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Speaker 1: five years, beginning on December nineteenth, seventeen thirty two, originally

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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 are to hear,

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00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:35,080
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. Men

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Speaker 1: are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it.

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Speaker 1: If you would not be forgotten as soon as you

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Speaker 1: are dead and rotten. Right things were reading or do

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Speaker 1: things worth writing? And the way his life was both. The

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

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Speaker 1: 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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00:21:16,560 --> 00:21:20,560
Speaker 1: speak little do much. A friend in need is a friend,

340
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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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00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:32,119
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: ciight or alone, let him catch his horse alone. Fools

347
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Speaker 1: need advice most, but wise men only are the better

348
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Speaker 1: for it. So that was classically Franklin. Somebody who listens

349
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Speaker 1: the people picked up common sense language, and in fact

350
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Speaker 1: wrote out a set of advice to everyday Americans, some

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

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00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:13,359
Speaker 1: of which he cheerfully ignored. He helps organize the Union

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

354
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Speaker 1: Fire Company Philadelphia was to train and organize fireman because

355
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Speaker 1: the city is getting big enough. It's the largest city

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Speaker 1: in the New World, and it's getting big enough that

357
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Speaker 1: you need to have an organized fire department because you

358
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:32,359
Speaker 1: have a real challenge of taking care of houses that

359
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:37,680
Speaker 1: start to burn down. He also becomes the postmaster of Philadelphia.

360
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Speaker 1: Now this is again an interesting example of Franklin. He

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

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

363
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Speaker 1: makes money. Postmasters back then were commercial assignments, so they

364
00:22:55,760 --> 00:22:58,919
Speaker 1: make money out of many different things. And then he

365
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 1: does something which truly changes history, but in a way

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

367
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Speaker 1: he invents a freestanding cast iron fireplace, which is known

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Speaker 1: as the Franklin Stove. Franklin Stove, by the way, is

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Speaker 1: still available today. You can go online. You can buy

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

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

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Speaker 1: with greater efficiency than the stoves which preceded. And interestingly,

373
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Speaker 1: in terms of Franklin, he didn't patent it. In fact,

374
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Speaker 1: he didn't patent any of his inventions. His idea was, look,

375
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Speaker 1: if it works for me and my life is better,

376
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Speaker 1: why shouldn't you be able to build it and your

377
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,200
Speaker 1: life can be better. He thought of this as part

378
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Speaker 1: of his civic life, and he's inventing as a citizen,

379
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,920
Speaker 1: not as a businessman. Now on the business side, he's

380
00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 1: very tough minded and he's independently wealthy. But as an inventor,

381
00:23:53,960 --> 00:23:57,119
Speaker 1: he just liked inventing things, and of course probably his

382
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Speaker 1: most famous as the vocal glasses by but he just

383
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:03,880
Speaker 1: had a constant looking at things, thinking as a way

384
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Speaker 1: to do it better is their way to do it differently.

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Speaker 1: In the same time period, by the way, in seventeen

386
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Speaker 1: forty three, when he does have a daughter, Sarah, they

387
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Speaker 1: have her inoculated. They'd learned the lesson tragically from their

388
00:24:14,640 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: son dying from smallpox. They're not going to take the risk.

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Speaker 1: And the same year that his daughters born seventeen forty three,

390
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Speaker 1: he writes a pamphlet called A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge,

391
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Speaker 1: and that leads to the American Philosophical Society. And one

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Speaker 1: of the offshoots of the American Philosophical Society is the

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Speaker 1: Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, which I first visited

394
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:41,119
Speaker 1: when I was about ten, and went to a couple

395
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Speaker 1: months ago. It is a great institution. It has all

396
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,600
Speaker 1: of Lewis and Clark's material because at the time of

397
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,800
Speaker 1: the Lewis and Clark expedition, he was the only major

398
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Speaker 1: science museum in the country. It's a remarkable place. If

399
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:55,959
Speaker 1: you go to Philadelphia to go by and see it.

400
00:24:56,480 --> 00:24:58,480
Speaker 1: He wakes up the way he thinks, oh, why don't

401
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: we have a philosophical society? Well, because he writes so fast,

402
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 1: I think I'll write a proposal for it. And by

403
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:06,879
Speaker 1: the way, since I'm a publisher, I think i'll publish it.

404
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 1: So he's publishing his own pamphlet. At the same time

405
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: he's offering to sell Franklin stoves, and Franklin stoves sell

406
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:17,959
Speaker 1: very well. Now he wasn't patenting it. Anybody else who

407
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 1: wanted to could make a Franklin stew but he didn't

408
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 1: mind making money off it himself. By seventeen forty seven,

409
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:27,959
Speaker 1: he publishes a pamphlet called Plain Truth and proposes the

410
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: formation of a Philadelphia militia. Let's just think about it.

411
00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:32,919
Speaker 1: This is the guy who wakes up in the morning,

412
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: has a big idea and writes it down and sends

413
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: it out, and people beg are in the habit now

414
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:42,120
Speaker 1: thinking I wonder what Franklin's up to next. What makes

415
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:44,959
Speaker 1: Franklin amazing is at forty two years of age in

416
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: seventeen forty eight, he retires. He's now made enough money.

417
00:25:49,560 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: He takes on a partner who gives him additional income

418
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: the rest of his life, and the partner runs the

419
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 1: daily operations of the printing business. And because he now

420
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: has free time, he becomes a member of Philadelphia City Council.

421
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 1: So now you have businessman, inventor, writer, now politician. And

422
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: by the following year, in seventeen forty nine, he writes

423
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: proposals relating to the education of youth in Philadelphia. There's

424
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: a great story by one of my favorites about Franklin is.

425
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 1: At one point during his political career, he took a

426
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 1: very unpopular position, and a number of people wanted to

427
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:32,960
Speaker 1: sort of Browbeaty into giving it up. And so one

428
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: evening he invited them to dinner, and they all came

429
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 1: over to his house, and they had a very nice house,

430
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: and they all sit around the dining room table and

431
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: he serves them this very strange porridge which they all

432
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: can barely taste so bad. And he finishes, he cleans

433
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: his ball, and he says, gentlemen, this is actually sawdust. Now,

434
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: if I'm prepared to eat a bowl of sawdust, what

435
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:03,639
Speaker 1: do you think you're going to do to intimidate me.

436
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 1: It was so clear that Franklin wasn't somebody that you

437
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 1: can intimidate. By seventeen fifty, what I think, after his

438
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: bifocal glasses is his most interesting invention. He proposes using

439
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 1: lightning rods to keep houses safe. Franklin figured out that

440
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 1: if I could put up a pole that was above

441
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:28,240
Speaker 1: the house so it would attract the lightning, and if

442
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,879
Speaker 1: I could ground the pole in the ground so that

443
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 1: the electricity would come straight down the pole go into

444
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: the ground and never touch the house, that your house

445
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: wouldn't burn down. Well, it may have been after his

446
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: bifocal invention the most practical and most widespread improvement in

447
00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:48,640
Speaker 1: life that anybody made. It's incalculable today how many houses

448
00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 1: did not burn down because of Benjamin Franklin. But the

449
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:54,920
Speaker 1: numbers would be in the hundreds of thousands by now.

450
00:27:55,359 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: He continues to be involved as an active person. In

451
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:05,080
Speaker 1: seventeen fifteen, he is developing lightning rods. The following year,

452
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 1: he decides, in passing he'll help found what was then

453
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 1: called the Academy for Education of Youth, and we call

454
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: it the University of Pennsylvania. And so he's going from

455
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,280
Speaker 1: place to place, almost like a Johnny Appleseed of a

456
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: better life. He's also mentally exploring the world. So the

457
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,880
Speaker 1: same year that he's helping found what becomes the University

458
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania, he also is writing an article on the

459
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: experiments and observations on electricity. He's also that year, by

460
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: the way, elected to the Pennsylvania Assembly and as a

461
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: city alderman. All this is happening simultaneously. The following year,

462
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty two, he builds on his article on

463
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: the Experiments and observations and electricity, and in a classically

464
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: American model, he leaves the laboratory. He steps outside and

465
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: he flies a kite, and the kite attracts lightning, and

466
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 1: the lightning is elected. And he then publishes how you

467
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: can conduct the experiment because he thought through the key part,

468
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: which is, all right, if you attract the lightning, where's

469
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: electricity going? And he made sure it wasn't going through him.

470
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: He also in Passing the same year, I remember he's

471
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,080
Speaker 1: making money. He's serving as a city alderman, he's serving

472
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: in the Pennsylvania Assembly. He's still writing a lot. And

473
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty two he founds the Philadelphia Contributionship. Now

474
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: what is a contribution ship? Well, you and I think

475
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: of it as a fire insurance company. And so literally

476
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,479
Speaker 1: in Passing, he says, now, if we all contributed a

477
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: little bit, then if one of us had our house

478
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:43,360
Speaker 1: burned down, we could collect on the value of the

479
00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: house based on our contributions. And so the Philadelphia Contributionship

480
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: sets the base for a mutual fire insurance company, which

481
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: becomes a model that's very, very widespread. The next year,

482
00:29:56,040 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty three, he's appointed Deputy Postmaster General of

483
00:30:00,160 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 1: the Colonies. Now think about this. The British government now

484
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: is saying to Franklin, we trust you enough, we think

485
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:08,800
Speaker 1: you're smart enough, we think you're a good enough businessman.

486
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: We want you to help run all of the post

487
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 1: offices in the entire thirteen colonies, which of course also

488
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 1: gives him an excuse to learn more and more and

489
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 1: to think beyond Philadelphia and to think beyond Pennsylvania. Now

490
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: he'd already been born and grown up in Boston, so

491
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: now he has an increasing sense of the East coast

492
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: of the United States, the Atlantic Coast, and all the

493
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: different colonies from Georgia up through Massachusetts. He also that year,

494
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty three, he gets the Copley Medal, which

495
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: is the highest award the Royal Society of London can give.

496
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: So he's being recognized worldwide as a scientist. He is

497
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:55,640
Speaker 1: the postmaster for all of the colonies. He is serving

498
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: in the city government, the state government, and he's active

499
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: in founding various organizations, and he's continuing to be a scientist.

500
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: All of this is simultaneous and as a scientist in

501
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 1: passing because remember never went to graduate school, never took

502
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:15,360
Speaker 1: a science course. He is recognized as a worldwide contributor

503
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: because of the work he's done on electricity. He's also

504
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: concerned about what we would call national security, and he's

505
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:26,720
Speaker 1: concerned about the French and Indians in the West. And

506
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:29,479
Speaker 1: remember that the French Indian War will start in what

507
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: we call Pittsburgh, then called Fort Duquine, which was a

508
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,880
Speaker 1: French outpost coming to the French are coming down from Canada.

509
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 1: We're coming from the Atlantic coast, and we're about to

510
00:31:40,160 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: collide in western Pennsylvania. And seventeen fifty four Franklin, Prince

511
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: of Cartoon, Join or Die, which argues that the colonies

512
00:31:49,560 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: have to work together in confederation, they have to protect themselves,

513
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: that no single colony is going to be capable of

514
00:31:58,560 --> 00:32:02,880
Speaker 1: developing defenses. Now, this is a pretty radical view at

515
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: the time, and one of the signals it's a radical

516
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: view that year seventeen fifty four is the British government Fireshi.

517
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 1: They say you're now not the Deputy Postmaster General. Your

518
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,600
Speaker 1: political views are too radical. And for the first time

519
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: Franklin is faced with the consequences that if he really

520
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: believes what he says he believes, he's going to pay

521
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: some real cost for that. In the midst of all this,

522
00:32:24,520 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty five, Franklin, with doctor Thomas Bond, founded

523
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania Hospital, the nation's first hospital focused on the sick,

524
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 1: the poor, and the insane. And again, when you go

525
00:32:37,240 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 1: to Philadelphia, you just see case after case of Franklin's impact.

526
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: Two hundred years later, the French and Indian War starting

527
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: in seventeen fifty six, and you remember that it's Washington

528
00:32:49,320 --> 00:32:51,920
Speaker 1: who plays a leading role in starting the French and

529
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: Indian War. Franklin was asked to lead Pennsylvania militia against

530
00:32:56,120 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: the French who were defeating the English troops. Accompanied by

531
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: his son, Franklin fought mercilessly to take back land, establish

532
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: new forts, and push back against the French forces. He

533
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,320
Speaker 1: served as an officer in the militia without even receiving pay,

534
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 1: because his devotion to duty was so deep. He was

535
00:33:15,040 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: a wealthy businessman, so he could afford to be a

536
00:33:18,160 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 1: volunteer for free. In seventeen fifty seven, while the French

537
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: and New Wars underway, Franklin is elected to go to

538
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: England to talk about colonial disputes with Parliament. He stays

539
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 1: for five years, and this is I think one of

540
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: the most important examples of change in leading up to

541
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: American independence. Franklin leaves the colonies as a loyal British servant.

542
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: He finds out over time that in fact, he'll never

543
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: be accepted. He can be wealthy, doesn't matter. He can

544
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: be a world class scientist, doesn't matter. He can win

545
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:02,800
Speaker 1: elections back home, an't matter. He can be the funniest,

546
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: best storyteller in the room, doesn't matter. He's not an aristocrat.

547
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 1: He's never going to be accepted as an aristocrat. And

548
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: I think it's the bitterness of beginning to realize that

549
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 1: which begins to turn him against the English government and

550
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: making him begin to think of himself as an American.

551
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,919
Speaker 1: He stays from seventeen fifty seven for five years, goes

552
00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 1: back to Boston for two years, and in the process

553
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: he invents the glass harmonica. This was a very sophisticated

554
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:35,960
Speaker 1: device which made a series of sounds. It was widely received,

555
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,959
Speaker 1: probably ranked along with the lightning rod and the bifocals

556
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 1: and the Franklin stove among the most widely received of

557
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 1: Franklin's inventions. Both Beethoven and Mozart used Franklin's harmonica. By

558
00:34:51,080 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty four, he loses his seat in the Pennsylvania Assembly,

559
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: but goes back to London as a colonial agent, and

560
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: the next year the Stamp Act is passed by the

561
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 1: House of Commons. Remember, the Stamp Act is designed to

562
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:10,360
Speaker 1: raise money from the Americans to help pay the cost

563
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: to the French and Indian War, which the British reasoned

564
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:17,399
Speaker 1: had protected America from attack, and therefore the Americans ought

565
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 1: to bear some burden. The Americans, of course, resented the idea,

566
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: did not want to pay the Stamp Act, and that

567
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,880
Speaker 1: was the beginning of the deep disaffection that would autoly

568
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 1: lead to the Revolution, because Franklin knew that Americans were

569
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:33,839
Speaker 1: against it. In seventeen sixty six, just one year after

570
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 1: the Actress passed, he testifies in the House of Commons

571
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 1: in favor of repeal of the Stamp Act, proving that

572
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,399
Speaker 1: his loyalties are to the colonies. Yet the very same year,

573
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: while he's testifying in the House of Comments, he's elected

574
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: as a member of the Royal Society of Sciences. He

575
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 1: may not be an aristocrat to the aristocrats, but he's

576
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:57,680
Speaker 1: clearly an aristocrat to the scientists, and they have the

577
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:01,280
Speaker 1: greatest admiration for him. Well, that's going on. The British

578
00:36:01,280 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: troops are being sent to Boston. The British government's getting

579
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: tougher and tougher. The fact is that Franklin was committed

580
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:13,280
Speaker 1: to representing the American side. It's also in this period

581
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:17,919
Speaker 1: that his daughter Sally marries Richard Bach. Franklin really wanted

582
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: her not to do that because Bach's situation financially was

583
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:23,720
Speaker 1: bad and he was afraid that Bach was just marrying

584
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: her for her money. Nonetheless, his wife, Deborah allowed them

585
00:36:27,719 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: to be married, against Franklin's wishes. He accepted the marriage

586
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:35,720
Speaker 1: after Sally had their first child. Ben helped Richard obtain

587
00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:39,120
Speaker 1: several loans help them set up a few stores. But

588
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:42,680
Speaker 1: the truth is Franklin supported Sally in her eight children

589
00:36:42,719 --> 00:36:44,879
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life. He was, in fact

590
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: a very generous family man and was deeply concerned about

591
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:50,839
Speaker 1: his family, even if he didn't spend very much time

592
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 1: with him. By seventeen sixty nine, the American Philosophical Society,

593
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: which he had helped found, has elected Franklin as its president,

594
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:01,799
Speaker 1: and then they reelected him every single year after that

595
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,320
Speaker 1: until he died. So he's the head of the Philosophical

596
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 1: Society he's inventing musical instruments. He's inventing practical things like

597
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:13,959
Speaker 1: the Franklin stove, the bifocals and lightning rods. And then

598
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,759
Speaker 1: the Boston Massacre occurs. British troops shoot at colonists. The

599
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 1: whole colonies are upset and are afraid, and Franklin tries

600
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: to find a way to bring Britain and the colonies

601
00:37:26,120 --> 00:37:30,840
Speaker 1: back together. In seventeen seventy one, he begins writing his autobiography,

602
00:37:30,880 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: which I can tell you if you have never read,

603
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 1: it is absolutely worth your getting and reading. It's a

604
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:41,919
Speaker 1: remarkable book. It's very candid, it's very wise. I don't

605
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,880
Speaker 1: care who you are. You will learn things you'll apply

606
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: to your own life if you read Franklin's autobiography. In London,

607
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: he gets a series of letters, Some thirteen letters come

608
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: to him from an anonymous sinder. The letters have been stolen.

609
00:37:57,680 --> 00:38:01,360
Speaker 1: There were a correspondence between the mass Governor, the Royal

610
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:06,080
Speaker 1: Governor Thomas Hutcheson and the Royal Lieutenant Governor Andrew Oliver,

611
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: who are writing English authorities. Somehow these letters had gotten

612
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:15,360
Speaker 1: stolen and they were given to Franklin, who then sends

613
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: them to Samuel Adams and authorizes them to be shown

614
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,160
Speaker 1: to the members of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, but

615
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: not copied or published. Now, this clearly is a totally

616
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: inappropriate act and will begin the process of really alienating

617
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 1: the English and Franklin. By seventeen seventy three, the Stampack,

618
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: not having worked, Parliament passes the Tea Act, which then

619
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 1: leads in Boston to people dressing up as Indians and

620
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: dumping the tea in the harbor in what we call

621
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party. And interestingly, Franklin, who of course

622
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,360
Speaker 1: was from Boston, originally has real ties emotionally back to

623
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: Boston as well as to Philadelphia. That same year, the

624
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: Massachusetts Speaker, Thomas Cushing, gives the letters that Franklin had

625
00:39:01,560 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 1: sent to the Massachusetts House, and the House concluded that

626
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: Governor Hutcheson intended to overthrow the Constitution. They decide to

627
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: petition for Hutcheson and Oliver's removal, and despite Franklin's wishes,

628
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:39,200
Speaker 1: the letters are published in the Boston Gazette. Franklin tries

629
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:43,440
Speaker 1: to communicate to the British through satire. In September seventy

630
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 1: seventy three, he publishes two articles in the Public Advertiser

631
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: in London, one quote Rules by which a Great Empire

632
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:55,840
Speaker 1: may be reduced to a small one, and the second

633
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: Edict by the King of Prussia. Both of them are satirical,

634
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: and both of them attacked the British attitude toward the colonies.

635
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,359
Speaker 1: Now remember, at this point, the aristocrats are amused. They

636
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: don't want to be lectured by some colonial, even if

637
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,520
Speaker 1: he's a famous scientist and a wealthy man. And they're

638
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: increasingly angry because they see the Americans as totally ungrateful

639
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: and treasonous. When Britain had fought the French, Britain had

640
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 1: defeated the Indians, Britain had protected the colonies and all

641
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 1: they get back in return his constant complaint refusal to

642
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: pay taxes, and people who clearly are not appropriate for

643
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:34,360
Speaker 1: English society. Two things happen in the early seventeen seventies

644
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 1: that really affect Franklin. First was that his wife, Deborah

645
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: dies he was still in England. They had been separated physically,

646
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 1: but they wrote to each other constantly. She had run

647
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: the business in his absence. When he did return home

648
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,120
Speaker 1: to America, he wrote a friend quote I have lately

649
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 1: lost my old and faithful companion, and I every day

650
00:40:56,120 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: become more sensible of the greatness of that loss, which

651
00:40:59,080 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 1: cannot now be I suspect you both realized how many

652
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 1: days they'd been apart, how much of their lives had

653
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: been separate, and with gratitude, how much she had done,

654
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 1: how she had enabled him to be Benjamin Franklin, because

655
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 1: she had run the business, she'd earned the money, she'd

656
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: paid attention to, all the details that he cheerfully ignored.

657
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: But the other thing which happened in the seventeen seventies

658
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: while he was still in London, when word reached Great

659
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: Britain that the official letters of the Governor and the

660
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:37,719
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor had been somehow submitted to the House of

661
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: Commons of the colony. There was an enormous uprising in

662
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,239
Speaker 1: Britain of interest, where did these come from? Who was responsible?

663
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: And finally Franklin cleared the air. In December of seventeen

664
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: seventy three, he wrote a brief note to the newspaper

665
00:41:53,520 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: saying I'm the person who released him. While that guaranteed

666
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: that the Privy Council, which was in effect the highest

667
00:42:00,760 --> 00:42:04,840
Speaker 1: political judicial body in Britain would see him and would

668
00:42:04,880 --> 00:42:07,399
Speaker 1: demand to know what he was doing and why he

669
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: was doing it, and he went twice. The first time

670
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:12,920
Speaker 1: he went, he frankly thought they were going to enquire

671
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,120
Speaker 1: about what had happened with Hutchinson and Oliver the governor

672
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor and why were they in such trouble. Instead

673
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: he found that the Solicitor General of Britain attacked him

674
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: for a full solid hour, and when they said, okay,

675
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: it's your turn, he just stood there quietly and said,

676
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: I didn't realize this was the point of this, and

677
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: I want a lawyer, and they agreed he ought to

678
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: have a lawyer. So two weeks later they came back together.

679
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: But in the interim the Boston Tea Party news had

680
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,320
Speaker 1: reached Great Britain that the Americans had dressed like Indians,

681
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:47,399
Speaker 1: gone into the harbor, thrown the tea from the East

682
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 1: India Company into the harbor, destroying it. And there was

683
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 1: a high sense of rage in the governing class in Britain.

684
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:59,279
Speaker 1: And so when Franklin shows back up, he is attacked

685
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: for for several hours in a very direct and aggressive

686
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 1: and nasty way, and it's quite clear that he is

687
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: the target, and that there's nothing he can do to

688
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 1: defend himself. He is wearing a blue coat, which, to

689
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:18,200
Speaker 1: show how Franklin's mind worked, he will wear again when

690
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:21,840
Speaker 1: he signs the Peace Treaty declaring the United States to

691
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 1: be free and independent. And somebody said, why do you

692
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: have this old coat? Remember the peace Treaty now that

693
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:33,360
Speaker 1: he's signing is more than a decade later. And he said,

694
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 1: for a little sense of revenge. Franklin was not a

695
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: man who one could attack easily or lightly, or expect

696
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: to ever turn the other cheek. So he goes home

697
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:47,839
Speaker 1: having been attacked by the British elites, and now he

698
00:43:47,960 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 1: is clearly committed to independence. He's elected as a Pennsylvania

699
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:56,680
Speaker 1: delegate to the second Continental Congress, and he also, ironically,

700
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: having been fired by the British as the postmas to General,

701
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:04,759
Speaker 1: which happened the day after the Privy Council meeting to

702
00:44:04,840 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: punish him, he is now elected as the Postmaster General

703
00:44:08,360 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: of the colonies by the Continental Congress. So at the

704
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: very moment that the British are losing control of the

705
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:17,239
Speaker 1: post offices, they are being turned back over to the

706
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: guy who had been in charge of the post offices

707
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: on behalf of the king, so Franklin knew what he

708
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 1: was doing and how to do it. In seventeen seventy six,

709
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,360
Speaker 1: he's asked to be one of five people who draft

710
00:44:29,400 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 1: the Declation Independence, and he is clearly a key figure

711
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 1: who people trust and plays a significant role in working

712
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: with Jefferson and Adams to get the final draft of

713
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:46,800
Speaker 1: the Declation Independence approved by the Congress. Then he's asked

714
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: to go to France to be a commissioner from the

715
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:55,800
Speaker 1: Continental Congress in order to get the French to help us. Remember,

716
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: at this point, without the help of France, the United

717
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,040
Speaker 1: States will lose use the war to Britain because we'll

718
00:45:02,080 --> 00:45:06,279
Speaker 1: have no money, we'll have no ammunition, we'll have no uniforms,

719
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:09,840
Speaker 1: we will have no effective navy. And so this was

720
00:45:09,880 --> 00:45:13,919
Speaker 1: life and death. And Franklin, who had the great advantage

721
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:18,200
Speaker 1: of being a world famous scientist, is a very major player.

722
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: And because he's also so personable, so amused by life,

723
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 1: and so engaging with people, he became a very very

724
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: widely admired and liked diplomat. Franklin plays a key role

725
00:45:34,680 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 1: is in Europe, not in America, works very hard to

726
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: keep the French on our side. And then after Cornwallis

727
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:46,320
Speaker 1: surrenders at Yorktown in seventeen eighty one, effectively ending the

728
00:45:46,360 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 1: military part of the war, Congress appoints Franklin, along with

729
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: John Jay, John Adams, and Henry Lawrence, to be a

730
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: commissioner to negotiate peace, and in seventeen eighty three they

731
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 1: complete the negotiations and they signed the peace Treaty. Franklin,

732
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:05,080
Speaker 1: by the way, is the toughest, most hard nosed person

733
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:08,040
Speaker 1: on the question of whether or not there should be

734
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 1: any compensation for Tories who had stayed on the side

735
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:15,880
Speaker 1: of the British and said absolutely no. These people were traders.

736
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: They should not get a penny, and he was just

737
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 1: firm that that was not going to be part of

738
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: the agreement. They signed the peace treaty, as I said earlier,

739
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 1: with Franklin wearing the same coat that he had worn

740
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:31,719
Speaker 1: back when the Privy Council tried to humiliate it. And

741
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: Franklin then returns because now he's no longer totally drowning

742
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,839
Speaker 1: and being a diplomat, so he returns to being an

743
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 1: inventor and a commentator. In seventeen eighty three we complete negotiations,

744
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:48,240
Speaker 1: we signed the peace treaty. Now the colonies are independent states.

745
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:53,000
Speaker 1: And one year later Franklin writes quote an Economical Project

746
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:56,680
Speaker 1: for diminishing the cost of light, which is in fact

747
00:46:56,800 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: the first document proposing daylight saving time. He does this

748
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 1: in passing. He just thinks to himself, gosh, wouldn't it

749
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,959
Speaker 1: make sense if we change so that we had more time,

750
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: more daylight? And he writes this out, and of course,

751
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:12,759
Speaker 1: well over one hundred years later it begins to be implemented,

752
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: So the daylight saving time that we currently celebrate can

753
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: be traced back to an idea from Benjamin Franklin. Then

754
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 1: the same year he invents the bifocal glasses. As he's

755
00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 1: getting older, he notices that he has one pair of

756
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: glasses for seeing up close, one pair of glasses for

757
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:31,320
Speaker 1: seeing in the distance. He's constantly taking off one putting

758
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: on the other. You always have to carry extra glasses,

759
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:37,320
Speaker 1: And he thinks to himself, well, what if I arrange

760
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 1: it so when you look down, which is what you

761
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:42,359
Speaker 1: do when you're reading, you have close vision, and when

762
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: you look out, which you're looking up, you have distance vision.

763
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:51,280
Speaker 1: He goes to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in seventeen

764
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,040
Speaker 1: eighty seven. He's the oldest person at the convention. He

765
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:58,000
Speaker 1: occasionally falls asleep during the sessions, but he also when

766
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 1: the convention is about to melt down in bitterness and

767
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: hostility between the large states and the small states, and

768
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:08,880
Speaker 1: his most important intervention, he says, why don't we suspend

769
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: for a day, have a day of prayer and fasting,

770
00:48:12,280 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: and have various ministers come in and pray to us

771
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:18,239
Speaker 1: to get ourselves back on the right mindset, which is

772
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 1: in fact precisely what they do. And the very famous

773
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: moment when he is leaving the Constitutional Convention, having completed

774
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:29,320
Speaker 1: the work, and the lady says to him on Independence

775
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 1: Hall steps, what have you done? And he said, we

776
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:36,239
Speaker 1: have created a republic if you can keep it, and

777
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:38,920
Speaker 1: understood thoroughly that in the long run it would be

778
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,279
Speaker 1: up to the American people whether or not it would

779
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:43,799
Speaker 1: work and whether or not it would survive. I wanted

780
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,879
Speaker 1: his comment to go and stand there at Independence Hall

781
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:54,279
Speaker 1: and think about the people who signed the decreation Independence,

782
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:58,759
Speaker 1: To go across to the great New Constitution Center, which

783
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: is just remarkable, to go to the Franklin Institute, and

784
00:49:02,760 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: to realize again and again the impact that this guy

785
00:49:05,880 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 1: had to take a map and go around and see

786
00:49:08,560 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 1: all the different places where there are universities or insurance companies,

787
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:17,320
Speaker 1: or libraries or fire departments, things that Benjamin Franklin created

788
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,279
Speaker 1: in his lifetime. By seventeen eighty eight, he's being to

789
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 1: realize that eighty two years of age, he likely doesn't

790
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:25,879
Speaker 1: have many more years left, so he writes a will

791
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: leaving most of his state to his daughter Sarah. Seventeen

792
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:33,040
Speaker 1: eighty nine, he's elected president of the Pennsylvania Society for

793
00:49:33,120 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 1: Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Here's a guy who constantly,

794
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:43,839
Speaker 1: endlessly fought for human freedom, who steadily spread the opportunity

795
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: for freedom, and who at the end of his life

796
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 1: is working on the abolition of slavery. In fact, submits

797
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:54,840
Speaker 1: the first anti slavery pradition before the US Congress. He

798
00:49:54,880 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: had had slaves very early, two slaves who worked in

799
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: his household, but when he was young, but as he

800
00:50:00,280 --> 00:50:02,719
Speaker 1: got older, he began to think, this is an evil institution.

801
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:05,760
Speaker 1: And if you believe in the principles of the American Revolution,

802
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:08,359
Speaker 1: if you believe in a declaration that says we're all

803
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 1: created equal, it's simply wrong, and at a time when

804
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 1: it was still a very, very radical position, he was

805
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: actively in favor of the abolition of slavery. Ultimately, in

806
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety he dies, Washington is now president, the country

807
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:28,760
Speaker 1: is established. He leaves behind a fair amount of wealth

808
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,560
Speaker 1: for Sally and her husband, but he leaves behind for

809
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: the world a whole series of inventions and breakthroughs and

810
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: understandings that are just astonishing and that ultimately improve the

811
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 1: lives of millions and millions of people. Gives you a

812
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: sense of why he is an immortal and somebody who

813
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:51,120
Speaker 1: really I think represents the best of the American tradition

814
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 1: of constant effort, constant dreaming, constant hard work to term

815
00:50:55,120 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: the dreams into reality. You can learn more about Benjamin

816
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:06,480
Speaker 1: Franklin on our show page at Newtsworld dot com. Newsworld

817
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: is produced by Gainwrish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive

818
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 1: producer is Guarnsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson.

819
00:51:15,360 --> 00:51:18,440
Speaker 1: The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley.

820
00:51:19,360 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 1: Special thanks the team at Ginrich three sixty. If you've

821
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:25,840
Speaker 1: been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast

822
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 1: and both rate us with five stars and give us

823
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: a review so others can learn what it's all about.

824
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:35,320
Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of Newsworld consign up for my three

825
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:40,200
Speaker 1: free weekly columns at ginrichsthree sixty dot com slash newsletter.

826
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: I'm new Gingrich. This is Newsworld