WEBVTT - Episode 861: Founding Fathers – Benjamin Franklin 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:07.960 On this episode of This World. The lives of these 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:11.320 men are essential to understand the American form of government 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.920 and our ideals of liberty. The Founding Fathers all played 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:18.799 key roles in securing American independence from Great Britain and 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:20.840 in the creation of the government of the United States 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:38.279 of America. And now the life of Benjamin Frankman. Of 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:42.960 all of the Founding fathers other than George Washington, who 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:47.919 literally was the moral strength in which America was created 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:51.919 and really was the father of our country, but of 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:56.600 all the other Founding fathers except Washington, the one who 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.680 most deserves to be considered an immortal was Benjamin Franklin. 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:04.440 You can make a case, and some people will for 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.440 Thomas Jefferson, who helped with Franklin to write the Declaration 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:14.559 of Independence, who became president, but for sheer scale of achievement, 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:19.880 for range of ideas, for the number of different kinds 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:25.160 of contributions, Benjamin Franklin literally is an immortal. He also 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.720 is a great sign of what was making America really 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.600 different because he was someone who rose by his own efforts, 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.680 not because he was an aristocrat, not because he'd inherited 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.440 a lot of money, not because he had a unique position, 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.080 but just because he worked really hard and he was 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.959 really smart, and the result was because he had this 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.760 endless interest in life that every time he turned around 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:54.240 he was doing something fascinating, and much of the time 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.320 he was doing things that were historic and that literally 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.280 changed history for all of us. When you wear bifocal glasses, 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.360 you are, after all, dealing with an invention of Benjamin Franklin. 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.440 When you think about having a lightning rod to divert 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:14.600 the lightning so that your house doesn't burn up, you're 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.799 dealing with an invention of Benjamin Franklin. The whole concept 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:25.520 of constantly tinkering, constantly learning. The discovery of electricity, which 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:27.560 is a true story. He goes out he wants to 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.200 figure out how electricity occurs, and so he flies a 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:35.600 kite in the middle of a thunderstorm and he attaches 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:41.280 metal so that lightning hits and he suddenly has discovered electricity. 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:46.120 This was at the time comparable to Einstein in the 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:51.519 twentieth century discovering relativity. People across the planet were stunned 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.800 that this American had undertaken What if you think about 0:02:55.840 --> 0:03:00.720 it is a very common sense, non theoretical experiment. And 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:04.320 that is sort of what marks Franklin. He just applies 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:08.480 common sense with a lot of intelligence, a real willingness 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.480 to work, and a kind of funny stubbornness. Now, remember 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:16.680 Franklin is born in Boston in seventeen o six, the 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.639 beginning of a new century. He's the tenth son out 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.040 of seventeen children. And that was an era where the 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:27.160 number one attitude was you got to earn a living. Frankly, 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.000 if you want to leave town, we got other kids 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.560 here too, and we'd rather have you produce money than 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.880 get a degree. Franklin has stopped schooling when he was 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:40.240 ten years old. He worked in his father's candleshop. He 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:44.680 made money, and he listened and paid attention to everybody. 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:49.520 The fact is that there was nothing that didn't intrigue him. Now, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.160 he also understood that having money was good. So if 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:56.040 you watch Franklin's long career, and he is at the 0:03:56.160 --> 0:04:00.000 end the oldest person at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.760 he's constantly aware of the fact that having money beats 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.080 not having money. Franklin thought it was good to acquire wealth, 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.440 that if you acquired wealth, it liberated you. And in fact, 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.720 his goal was to be rich enough by forty to 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.760 be able to go into politics. And so he really 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.560 was working constantly at this question of can I find 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.479 a way? And he tried many different things simultaneously. He's 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.279 also focused on invention. He's focused on writing. He's one 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:32.280 of those rare people who had so much energy, had 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.520 such a great capacity to work. You know, here he is, 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:41.400 for example, at eleven years of age, inventing swim fins 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.680 for his hands. He's eleven years old and he's inventing 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:46.800 fins he can put in his hands so he can 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.200 swim better. By the time he's twelve, he's an apprentice, 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.320 has left his father's candleshop and now he's apprenticed to 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.440 his brother. His brother, James, has a printing shop in Boston, 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.599 and at the age of twelve, Franklin is there, busy 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:04.160 working away learning how to print. His brother starts publishing 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.400 The New England Current, which is the first American newspaper 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.200 to use literary ideas and humorous essays, and this will 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:15.400 become an important part of Franklin's own style. Franklin doesn't 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.159 just look at facts. He has a very deep sense 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.440 of humor. He has a little bit cynical sense of humor. 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.039 I understood the human condition, he was quite willing to 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.560 write about it. And he also must have been an 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.360 amazingly fast writer. Remember this is an age when people 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:36.320 are setting type one letter at a time, so type 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:39.520 setting is a big deal. And if you write as 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:41.960 much as Franklin did, you spend a lot of time 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.440 setting type in order to send this stuff out. So 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.200 you have here a person who's constantly writing. Now, by 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.760 the time he's sixteen, he's publishing his first letters, and 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.320 he always publishes fourteen of them. In the current he 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:00.040 uses the pen name Silent do Good, invents himself he 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:03.800 was a fictional widow of a country minister. You're already 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:09.760 seeing the Franklin who is very imaginative, very cheerful about 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:12.880 pretending to be a widow. At the same time, when 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.159 his brother finally realizes that Silent do Good is his 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:19.680 younger brother, Benjamin Franklin, he ain't very happy with him. 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.520 Franklin somehow sort of faking people out, which he was, 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.880 but he's doing it really cheerfully. So he gets entritated 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.560 with his brother and he runs off to Philadelphia because 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.520 he and his brother can't get along anymore. Now at 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.440 this point he is a ripe old seventeen years of age. 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.800 Philadelphia then was the biggest city in America, the most bustling, 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:44.240 had the most commerce, had the most ships coming in 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:48.880 from London. Franklin finds work as a printer with Samuel Kimmer, 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.160 and he lodges the home of John Reid, who at 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.520 the time he had no idea, but ultimately becomes his 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:59.440 father in law. Now, Franklin is a very sociable person 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.480 and a parent. He was a very good conversationalist, so 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.840 people liked him and you go to taverns, Hey, we 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.160 got an extra seat here. Come on over, Ben, sit 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.200 down and chat with us. Yeah. One of the people 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.840 who did that was the Pennsylvania governor at the time, 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.680 William Keith. So he gets to know Franklin. He says, 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.640 why don't you set up your own print shop. Well, 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.640 Franklin goes back to Boston and asks his father for 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.920 a loan. His father says, you know, Ben, I mean 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.600 you're not old enough yet to do this. So Franklin 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:30.520 goes back and says to the governor, I'd love to 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.680 do this. My dad won't loan me the money. The 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.040 governor loans him the money. No, here's a guy who 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:38.360 has only been in town a couple of years and 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:43.160 has made such a strong impression that the governor thinks 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:46.000 he's a good business risk. Not only does the offer 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.520 to pay the bill, he offers to send Franklin and 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.520 pay for Franklin to go to London. Franklin gets to 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:53.920 London and the lesson that he will learn many times 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.560 in his life. The governor forgets to pay for him 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.280 to come home, so Franklin stuck in London. You can 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.240 find the money to come home. But he does come home. 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.520 And when he comes home, remembering that he had been 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.920 lodging with John Reid and he'd gotten to know Deborah Read, 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:12.280 he asked her to marry him. However, at this point 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.360 in his life, he's only eighteen years old. Deborah's mother 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.440 is thinking, you know, this is a guy who's a 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:24.040 little bit strange, so she says, please be patient, be patient. 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.080 But when Franklin is abroad in London, Deborah's mother tries 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.400 to convince Deborah that she ought to marry John Rodgers. 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.080 But Rogers is really a bad guy. He spends her dowry, 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:38.920 he runs up debts, he takes off for the West 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.760 Indies and they think he has died. Franklin, who has 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.440 not gotten money from the governor come back home, is 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.920 working at Samuel Palmer's print shop in London in order 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:52.480 to publish enough stuff to make enough money to be 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.880 able to get home, and in seventeen twenty five he 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.400 publishes his first pamphlet in London, which is called a 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:04.760 Dissertate on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain, and argues 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.120 that humans actually lack free will and are therefore not 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.840 morally responsible for their actions. Now, this is a fairly 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:16.480 radical idea, and people sort of thought Franklin had lost 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.000 his mind, but it does not, in the long run 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:22.040 a fit who Franklin is, because he certainly did, in 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.480 fact believe in free will and thought you could make 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.960 your way, and later in life will write a whole 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.640 series of articles and books about it. But it doesn't 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.400 hurt him many. This is the guy who's learning the 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.600 hard way that politicians don't always keep their word. Because 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.479 the governor has not brought him back home, so ultimately 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:45.199 he does in fact get back to Philadelphia. Took him 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.800 two years instead of one, and he sees Deborah and 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.120 poor Deborah is there with the guy who's run off 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.120 of their dowry and apparently may have died in the Caribbean, 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.200 so he tries to make her feel better. He gets 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:01.880 his job back at Samuel Kimeron's Prince and the very 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:07.280 typical Franklin behavior. Franklin, all his life will see an 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.960 opportunity to get something done that requires founding an organization 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:16.960 of some kind, because he understands that organizations create a 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:20.439 life of their own. Well, he founds what's called the 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.120 Hunto Club, and the hunter Club is a group of 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:26.640 young men. They meet on Friday evenings and they discuss everything, 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:31.480 the intellectual stuff, personal stuff, business stuff, community stuff. So 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.040 it's a free, willing dialogue. But it does encourage them 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.040 to read books, It encourages them to think about ideas. 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.720 It gives him a space to begin to create a 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.880 personal following, because inevitably, in any group, Franklin'll be the 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.960 smartest guy, he'll be the best storyteller, and he'll be 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:53.400 the funniest person. So now he's been back home, he's 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.520 worked once again for somebody else, but by seventeen twenty 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.640 eight he's in a position where he can now at 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.920 twenty two years of age open his own print shop 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:09.400 with Hugh Meredith, and Meredith actually gets a loan from 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:12.960 his own father. In seventeen twenty nine, they purchase the 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:17.400 Pennsylvania Gazette from Samuel Kimer, and at that point Franklin 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.200 begins to really row because he likes to write. He 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.720 can write a lot. He has a style that people 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:26.720 are attracted to, and it both increases his name id 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:31.240 in modern parliance, and it begins to create more money. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.600 He writes a modest inquiry into the nature and necessity 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.000 of a paper currency, which called for an increase in 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:40.080 the money supply to stimulate the economy at this stage 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.160 of his career, something which will change by late in life. 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.280 He's basically what we would call an inflationist. He thinks 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.719 if we have more paper money floating around, people will 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:54.000 have more purchasing power, and therefore the economy will work better. 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.839 And this is part of what has been a permanent 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:01.760 running debate in American society between sound money people who 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.120 believe that money ought to attain its value, and inflationary 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:10.680 people who believe that having money gradually depreciate actually increases 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:15.040 the purchasing power and increases the economy, and that fight 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.200 goes on for a long time. Franklin automately decides that 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.360 paper money's dangerous, and in fact, one of the reasons 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.240 we end up with the Constitution is to block those 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.080 who would inflct currency. The reason that mattered is once 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.760 you have a lot of property, if you're loaning out 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.000 money that's worth a dollar and they're going to pay 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:38.320 you back with money worth ninety cents, you're losing on 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.600 the loan. So people who are propertied really dislike having 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.720 an inflationary currency. Franklin goes from a young guy with 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.480 a theory to an older, wealthy guy with money, and decides, 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.280 as an older wealthy guy, he's with people like Washington 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.240 who don't want to have an inflationary currency. Now he's 0:12:56.280 --> 0:13:00.280 picked to be the official government printer for Pennsylvania, and 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:03.840 there's a reason that this really matters. Government then, like 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:08.120 now is a major purchaser of goods and services. Everything 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.600 that the state needs published is going to be printed 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.439 by Benjamin Franklin. So he now has a steady stream 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.199 of revenue which enables him. And remember at this stage 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.000 he's twenty four. But at twenty four he's able to 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:25.960 buy out Meredith. He becomes the most successful printer in town. 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.880 He owns his own company and at twenty four, having 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.600 become the official government printer, Deborah Read's parents think, you know, 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.960 probably would be a good thing to have. Benjamin Franklin 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.680 has a son in law. Now he marries her, even 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.600 though they have no proof that her husband was dead 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:50.000 John Rodgers member had married her, spent her dowry, run 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:52.280 up a whole bunch of debt, fled to the Caribbean, 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:56.240 never been heard of again. And the question was what 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.079 proof do you have? And Franklin, as he often will, 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:03.200 just ignored it. And so he marries Deborah and she 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.920 plays a huge role in his life as somebody that 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:10.600 he leans on. She did agree to raise Franklin's illegitimate son, William. 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.520 Truth is, historians are not quite sure who the mother was. 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:19.600 William becomes the deep part of Franklin's household, and later 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.600 in life will disappoint him deeply by being a loyalist 0:14:22.680 --> 0:14:25.520 in staying with the British and becoming the governor of 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.160 New Jersey for the King against the Revolutionaries, which embitters 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:36.120 Franklin substantially. Deborah works with Franklin, and this becomes a 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.280 very very important part of his life. She's really his 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:43.160 business partner, and when he goes off to do other things, 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:44.800 when he goes off to politics or he goes off 0:14:44.840 --> 0:14:48.000 to a diplomat, she's the one who stays home. She 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.760 didn't particularly want to travel, and given the way ocean 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:56.080 travel was in that generation, that's understandable. She ran the businesses, 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.360 kept unprofitable, made him money, and it all seemed to work, 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.280 and they worked for a very long time until she died. 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.960 She is a key hidden part of why Franklin was 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.400 able to be as effective as he was. She also 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:10.520 put up with him. She was willing to focus on 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.880 the mundane business and household side, which would not have 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:16.680 made him an historic figure, but was the base of 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.800 his ability to have the time and energy and resources 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.680 to be a historic figure. So Franklin got to play 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.400 at being Van Franklin in large part because he had 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:29.160 a wife who was willing to tolerate him, willing to 0:15:29.200 --> 0:15:32.120 support him, and was smart enough and hard working enough 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.480 that she could make a bunch of money while he 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.360 was doing other things. Franklin, now that he's married and 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.880 he owns his own business, and he's the largest printer 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:46.320 in Philadelphia. Now he turns and he begins to really 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:50.760 define himself as a citizen. By seventeen thirty one, he's 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:52.720 done all the stuff I've been describing to you, and 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.280 he's twenty five. He joins the Freemasons, which were a 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.520 very very important social and quasi religious group that era. 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.160 He helps establish the Library Company of Philadelphia, which is 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.120 the first lending library in America. He aggressively defends the 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.320 freedom of the press. I would clearly be on the 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.880 side of those who favor the First Amendment rights of 0:16:14.920 --> 0:16:17.840 the press, And at twenty five years of age, he 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.080 publishes an Apology for Printers which defends freedom of the press. 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:26.360 He also enters into a partnership, gets more printing equipment, 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:30.600 continues to get wealthier. By seventeen thirty two, they have 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:36.360 their first child, Francis Folger Franklin. Sadly, Francis dies from 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.840 smallpox at the age of four. Franklin never forgives himself 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:47.960 because he should have been inoculated smallpox. Inoculation was increasingly popular. 0:16:48.000 --> 0:16:51.920 People knew about it, and it worked. Franklin would later 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:56.920 write in his autobiography quote in seventeen thirty six, I 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.000 lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.520 four years old, by the smallpox taken in the common way. 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.119 I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I have 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.800 not given it to him by inoculation close quote. Franklin 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:18.159 in seventeen thirty two publishes a German foreign language newspaper. 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.359 In the eighteenth century, there were so many Germans migrating 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.679 to Pennsylvania that there was serious talk of making German 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:28.240 the second language of the country. There was a very 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:32.359 large German population. Franklin was deeply opposed to making German 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.359 the second language, but he wasn't opposed to making money. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.399 So he publishes a German language newspaper whose only difficulty 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:43.680 as it fails financially and again it's an example entrepreneurs 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.200 don't always succeed. Entrepreneurs have to be able to get 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:50.160 back up, go back and try it again, and see 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:51.920 what they can get done and what they can learn. 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.960 He also in seventeen thirty two something historic happens in 0:17:57.000 --> 0:18:00.760 the history of American literature and in the history Benjamin 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:05.080 Franklin as an American citizen. He publishes the first edition 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:09.920 of Poor Richard's Almanac using a pseudonym of Richard Saunders. 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:15.840 Why does poor Richard's Almanac matter? It is extraordinarily successful. 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.040 It's a best seller, and it's going to be a 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.760 best seller for a generation because he writes it. There's 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.760 a new almanac every year. It is filled with common 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:29.960 sense things like waste not, want not, a stitch in 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:34.320 time saves nine, penny wise and pound foolish, things which 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:36.600 in our era may not make a great deal of sense. 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.399 For example, we don't use the British pounds, so the 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.600 idea of being penny wise and pound foolish meaning you're 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:44.760 really smart about a small thing, but you're dumb about 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:46.920 a big thing. When it does finally get to be 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:51.000 obvious who's writing it, it just spreads his fame across 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.240 the whole all of the colonies. He becomes the Grand 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:57.760 Master of the Grand Lodge of Mason of Pennsylvania. Again, 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:02.160 he's rising in status and influence. He has a bigger 0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.439 and bigger network of friends. By seventeen thirty six, at 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.000 the age of thirty, he's appointed Clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly. 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.359 So now he's helping organize and taking care of the 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.840 politicians at the same time that the colonial government is 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.280 hiring his firm to print all of the printing, which 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:39.120 is helping make him increasingly wealthy. In many ways. Franklin's 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:44.320 greatest business accomplishment came from the publication of Poor Richard's Almanac. 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.439 You know. He published it once a year for twenty 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:52.760 five years, beginning on December nineteenth, seventeen thirty two, originally 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:58.040 under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders, but then ultimately everybody 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.280 knew it was Benjamin Franklin. It captured all sorts of 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:08.800 information about the calendar, weather predictions, sayings, poems, recipes, trivia, advice. 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.280 He thought it was a vehicle of instruction for common people, 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.840 folks who couldn't afford books normally, it was a literature 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.600 for the masses, and he was onto something because almanacs 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.720 were the most read secular books in the colonies. He 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.679 had little phrases from different years, but to give you 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:30.840 a feel for Franklin's sense of what people are to hear, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:35.080 he wrote, three may keep a secret. If two of 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.919 them are dead, lost time is never found again, and this, 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:42.480 by the way, captures his entire life. He did not 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.360 like to waste time because he felt it could never 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.720 be found again. He said, love your enemies, for they 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.600 tell you your faults and the affairs of this world. Men 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.479 are saved not by faith, but by the lack of it. 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.600 If you would not be forgotten as soon as you 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:01.080 are dead and rotten. Right things were reading or do 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.760 things worth writing? And the way his life was both. The 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:08.080 way to see by faith is to shut the eye 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.960 of reason. Women are books, and men the readers be. 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.680 There cannot be good living where there is not good drinking, 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:20.560 speak little do much. A friend in need is a friend, 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:25.040 indeed to all apparent beauties blind. Each blemish strikes an 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:29.439 envious mind. Fish and visitors stink in three days. That 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:32.119 may be one that's remembered as well as anything he 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:37.080 ever wrote. Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices. 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.159 Now there's some advice very seldom followed. Search others for 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:46.200 their virtues, thyself for thy vices. He that drinks his 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:50.880 ciight or alone, let him catch his horse alone. Fools 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:54.080 need advice most, but wise men only are the better 0:21:54.119 --> 0:22:00.000 for it. So that was classically Franklin. Somebody who listens 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.280 the people picked up common sense language, and in fact 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:07.720 wrote out a set of advice to everyday Americans, some 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:10.120 of which he followed in his own life, and some 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.359 of which he cheerfully ignored. He helps organize the Union 0:22:13.480 --> 0:22:16.640 Fire Company of Philadelphia, and the duty of the Union 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:20.399 Fire Company Philadelphia was to train and organize fireman because 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:22.920 the city is getting big enough. It's the largest city 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:25.480 in the New World, and it's getting big enough that 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:28.480 you need to have an organized fire department because you 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.359 have a real challenge of taking care of houses that 0:22:32.440 --> 0:22:37.680 start to burn down. He also becomes the postmaster of Philadelphia. 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:42.000 Now this is again an interesting example of Franklin. He 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:47.320 is now thirty one years old. The British government appoints 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.080 him postmaster of Philadelphia, which is, frankly an office that 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:55.720 makes money. Postmasters back then were commercial assignments, so they 0:22:55.760 --> 0:22:58.919 make money out of many different things. And then he 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.280 does something which truly changes history, but in a way 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:07.080 that's very practical rather than political. In seventeen forty two, 0:23:07.200 --> 0:23:11.600 he invents a freestanding cast iron fireplace, which is known 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.760 as the Franklin Stove. Franklin Stove, by the way, is 0:23:14.800 --> 0:23:17.240 still available today. You can go online. You can buy 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:21.960 a Franklin stove. It was a very intelligent contribution to 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.640 a better life because it used wood to generate heat 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:30.280 with greater efficiency than the stoves which preceded. And interestingly, 0:23:30.320 --> 0:23:33.040 in terms of Franklin, he didn't patent it. In fact, 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.879 he didn't patent any of his inventions. His idea was, look, 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:39.040 if it works for me and my life is better, 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:40.760 why shouldn't you be able to build it and your 0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.200 life can be better. He thought of this as part 0:23:43.240 --> 0:23:46.639 of his civic life, and he's inventing as a citizen, 0:23:47.200 --> 0:23:49.920 not as a businessman. Now on the business side, he's 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:53.760 very tough minded and he's independently wealthy. But as an inventor, 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:57.119 he just liked inventing things, and of course probably his 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:00.679 most famous as the vocal glasses by but he just 0:24:00.720 --> 0:24:03.880 had a constant looking at things, thinking as a way 0:24:03.920 --> 0:24:05.840 to do it better is their way to do it differently. 0:24:06.359 --> 0:24:08.760 In the same time period, by the way, in seventeen 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:11.520 forty three, when he does have a daughter, Sarah, they 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:14.640 have her inoculated. They'd learned the lesson tragically from their 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.520 son dying from smallpox. They're not going to take the risk. 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:21.760 And the same year that his daughters born seventeen forty three, 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:27.120 he writes a pamphlet called A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge, 0:24:27.240 --> 0:24:30.960 and that leads to the American Philosophical Society. And one 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:34.320 of the offshoots of the American Philosophical Society is the 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:38.600 Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, which I first visited 0:24:38.680 --> 0:24:41.119 when I was about ten, and went to a couple 0:24:41.160 --> 0:24:44.000 months ago. It is a great institution. It has all 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:46.600 of Lewis and Clark's material because at the time of 0:24:46.600 --> 0:24:49.800 the Lewis and Clark expedition, he was the only major 0:24:50.520 --> 0:24:54.000 science museum in the country. It's a remarkable place. If 0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:55.959 you go to Philadelphia to go by and see it. 0:24:56.480 --> 0:24:58.480 He wakes up the way he thinks, oh, why don't 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:01.920