← American History Hotline
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- [00:00]
Megan Gorman
And Jefferson, I think you can't mention on Money without talking about his two buddies, Madison and Monroe, because the three of them, as brilliant as the three of them were, they were all horrible with money.
- [00:14]
Bob Crawford
You've reached American History Hotline. You ask the questions, we get the answers. Leave a message.
- [00:22]
Megan Gorman
Hello, America's sweetheart. Johnny Knoxville here. I want to tell you about my new true crime podcast, Crimeless Hillbilly Heist from Smartless Media, Campside Media and Big Money Players. It's a wild tale about a gang of high functioning nitwits who somehow pulled off America's third largest cash heist.
- [00:44]
Bob Crawford
Kind of like Robin Hood, except for.
- [00:46]
Megan Gorman
The part where he steals from the.
- [00:48]
Bob Crawford
Rich and gives to the poor.
- [00:50]
Megan Gorman
I'm not that generous. It's a damn near inspiring true story.
- [00:55]
Bob Crawford
For anyone out there who's ever shot.
- [00:57]
Megan Gorman
For the moon, then just totally muffed up the landing.
- [01:00]
Bob Crawford
They still $17 million and had not bought a ticket to help him escape.
- [01:05]
Megan Gorman
So we're saying like, oh God, what do we do?
- [01:07]
Bob Crawford
What do we do? That was dumb.
- [01:09]
Megan Gorman
People, do not follow my example. Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:22]
Bob Crawford
Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu. Every single episode.
- [01:32]
Megan Gorman
32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop What?
- [01:36]
Bob Crawford
It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:55]
Megan Gorman
There's a vile sickness in Apostown you must accept. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out from iheart podcasts and Grim and mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:23]
Bob Crawford
Sacred Scandal is back, the hit true crime podcast that uncovers hidden truths and shattered faith. For 19 years, Elena Sada was a nun, the Legion of Christ. This season, she's telling her story.
- [02:35]
Megan Gorman
When I first joined the Legion of Christ, I felt chosen. I was 19 years old when Martial Macel, the leader of the Legionaries, looked me in the eye and told me I had a calling.
- [02:45]
Bob Crawford
Surviving meant hiding.
- [02:46]
Megan Gorman
Escaping. Took courage.
- [02:48]
Bob Crawford
Risking everything to tell her truth. Listen to Sacred scandal, the many secrets of Martial Maciel on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, American history hotliners. Bob Crawford here. You know the drill by now. Send us your questions. We'll get you some answers. And the best way to get us a question about American history is to record a video or a voice memo on your phone and email it to AmericanHistoryHotlinemail.com that's AmericanHistoryHotlinemail.com okay, today's question is about the men on our money and how they made their money. I'll explain more in a second, but first, let me introduce my guest for the day. She is Megan Gorman, author of the book all the President's Money, how the Men who Governed America Governed Their Money. Megan, thanks for joining me today.
- [03:46]
Megan Gorman
Bob, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.
- [03:49]
Bob Crawford
Wow. It's my pleasure. Okay, Megan, here's the question we were hoping you could help us to answer. It comes from Mike in Des Moines, Iowa. He says, I just visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, and I learned that Thomas Jefferson died broke. It's hard to square how someone who could be so accomplished in one part of their life but have no grasp on money. Megan, this is one of my favorite questions. I'm always asking myself the same question. Before we get to Thomas Jefferson specifically, can you tell me which presidents were the best and the worst at handling their finances?
- [04:32]
Megan Gorman
Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So, you know, it really is a random mix who were really, really good with money. But let's start with president number one, George Washington, phenomenal with money, which, and I know we just asked about Jefferson, but he's living in the same time period as Thom, Thomas Jefferson, same asset base mix, and yet Washington's phenomenal. Jefferson's quite a failure when we think about other presidents who are really good with their money. Don't laugh. Warren G. Harding. Right? He always ranks at the bottom, right? Like, who wants to be Warren G.
- [05:04]
Bob Crawford
Harding is at the bottom of every list. But. But personal finances. So talk about this.
- [05:12]
Megan Gorman
Yeah. So let's talk about Harding because to your point, he's always the worst. But Harding grows up in Ohio in where there's a lot of change like there is today. And things like newspapers were really becoming a megaphone just like our social media. And as he's growing up, he's trying to figure out what he wants to do. He's a. Tries to be a teacher, tries to sell insurance. And then he and two other friends decide to buy a local newspaper called the Marion Star. And they buy it for $300. And he eventually buys the other two out. And the Marion Star is something that just clicks with him. He is really good at sort of developing a newspaper. And some of the ideas he does are really obvious. Like, he convinced locals, like, let's advertise for snow shovels in the fall and winter and not the summer. Right. Like seasonal advertising. And so he builds up this newspaper, and then he obviously marries his wife, Florence. And she's really good with money, so she runs the finances, and they create this newspaper where the environment has a great esprit de corps. And when you look into his newspaper, what you find out is his employees love him. He has, like, an esop, an employee stock ownership program, where the employees own the newspaper and they call him WG and they think he's great, and he's very laissez faire. So remember, sometimes the traits that make you good at something make you bad at something else, right? So in this case, he was a very good leader, very good with the newspaper, really grew the newspaper. And, you know, what you found was he cared about the community. And so when I was talking to the woman who runs the presidential site, she said, you know, WG Used to go around town, and if you were a new business, he would frequent you, or if you had a new company, he'd buy stock because he felt it was about the community. And I say this because when you go back to 1923 and he's dying, well, he doesn't know he's dying, but he's on that tour of great understanding, right? Goes up to Alaska, and then he comes down to San Francisco. Besides the fact that he's visiting Americans, he's also rewriting, writing his estate plan, and he's trying to sell the newspaper. And he is trying to figure out what he's gonna do post presidency. And he decides what he's gonna do is he's gonna write a column in the newspaper that he sells. And, of course, he dies at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, doesn't get the transaction finished, his wife completes it. But over his course of his life, he was just very organized financially. And so he's not someone that we all aspire to be, like when we're president. But when it comes to money, this idea of being involved in the community and thinking of others and really supporting others is incredibly important and incredibly key. To understanding who he was as a person.
- [07:52]
Bob Crawford
Okay, so let's get back to Thomas Jefferson for a minute. At least he liked the finer things in life, right? To put it mildly. How did he make his money and what did he spend it on?
- [08:05]
Megan Gorman
So first of all, when you think of the first six presidents of the country, I want you to think about the fact that all of them had money from land, okay? You know, from Washington to Quincy Adams, all were land owners. Obviously, Adams and Quincy Adams didn't have slaves. And so Jefferson had his wealth from the plantations, from the slaves he owned. And he was the landed class here in the United States. And where he makes mistakes is some of them are his mistakes, and some of them are more macro issues. So when you think about the time period he's living in, right, you're living in a situation where crops fail, Then we go through a period of great turmoil. So there's inflation on currency, by the way. Currencies depended on what they were. You have panics that go on during his lifetime. And then he sort of doesn't put himself into the right position because he makes loans to people that he shouldn't make loans to. And he also assumes the debts of his father in law. So part of Jefferson's mindset is he is a gentleman, right? He has a belief on how people are supposed to behave. He also goes to France and learns how to live the good life. And I think a lot about him. And I think when I think about him, I think about the losses he had in life, right, that, you know, losing his wife. You live in a time period where people don't live long lives like they do today. And I think it ends up sort of getting to be, look, I'm gonna live in the moment, right? And that was part of his challenge. And so when you go through the Jefferson coffers, right, and all the sort of budgeting that his team does in sort of running his household, particularly when he's in the White House. He does, like, the great things in life. The beautiful wines, the cheeses, right? Champagne. It's just an amazing lifestyle. But where Jefferson sort of struggles, right, is he's never. If you're not good with money, your role then is to find someone to be your steward. And Jefferson is never able to find that steward who to manage the money. And part of it was these were very, very complex assets, right? You compare him to Washington, and Washington, even during the Revolutionary War, even as president, he's actively managing his assets. And he's also very strict on things Washington will only take real cash. He will not take cash certificates, which were popular at the time. And so I think with Jefferson, he just never gets his arms around it. And he just, I think, believes in a nobler cause. Now, to the question asked, when he gets to the end of his life, Monticello is falling apart. It's not what we see today, right? He didn't have the money to keep it up. He ends up doing a lottery. And I talk about this in the book, in the Saturday Evening Post. There's an advertisement. There's a lottery that you could win Monticello. And of course, they start selling the tickets. And a group of Americans come together and say, look, let's not do this bad luck. Let's go fund me, right? They don't actually raise any money for him. He continues to struggle, and he dies in debt. And we see in his estate plan him doing things to try to protect his daughter so she could keep Monticello. But that fails, and Monticello goes up for auction, as do the slaves. And one of the slaves writes a book many years later. And the real tragedy of the story is slave families who had been on the plantation for decades, for generations, were split up. And that's really heartbreaking. So Jefferson, and Jefferson, I think you can't mention on Money without talking about his two buddies, Madison and Monroe, because the three of them, as brilliant as the three of them were, they were all horrible with money. Really, really just weren't able to wrap their arms around it. And Madison, to me of all of them, is interesting because Madison and Joe Biden, I feel like, are like twins in a weird way.
- [11:52]
Bob Crawford
Oh, explain.
- [11:53]
Megan Gorman
Okay, so Madison, you know, marries Dolley Madison, right? But Dolly Payne, her original name, she was previously married, and in Philadelphia, she had a husband and two sons. And in the yellow fever outbreak, her husband or son dies. Her other son survives, and then she meets James Madison. They marry, and there's been a lot of trauma, and they dote on this little boy. Almost too much. Too much overindulgence, right? And so what goes on to happen is Madison always goes out of his way to smooth the path, right? To give his stepson everything he could want. And his stepson struggles with alcohol addiction, gambling. He's not a hard worker. He squanders every opportunity, and it gets to the end of Madison's life. He's trying to sell his papers to Congress because there's value to them. He knows that he wants to get, like 100,000 for it. He doesn't even get Them sold before he dies. Dolly sells them after his death for about $30,000. And then she has to sell the home, move in with a friend, and the son is still sucking money out of his mother, and she eventually dies. He doesn't die that long after her, but he's just been this mess of a life, right? And if you look at Joe Biden, Right. What I find the parallels with them about is we have a great trauma that happens with Joe Biden. Joe Biden. There's two big traumas that impact him. The first happens when he was born in 1942. His family's wealthy, they're out on the Cape. You know, they're living a nice life, right. And then after the war, his father's manufacturing business closes down. And that's when Scranton starts, right. We all think of Joe from Scranton. No, Joe was. Joe's family's living a good life. So that's Trauma one is to fall from an economic standpoint. Trauma two is, as we all know, he loses his first wife and baby daughter in that car accident. And so when you go through Biden's finances, what you see is someone who, when it comes to family members at times, can be a little overindulgent. Very James Madison. And so I have a lot of empathy for both Madison and Biden because they have a lot of love for their family. They want to do the right things, but just by how they handle them with the money, it just never works out. And so I found really interesting is when I was writing the book and doing the research was no matter what time period we were in, the issues were all the same. And so the fact that our most recent president, who just left the White House, has the same issues as the fourth president of the United States, it's like, wow. Like, money has a common theme to it when it comes to personal finance.
- [14:28]
Bob Crawford
Is it easier as a historian to learn James Madison's financial picture, or is it easier or harder to learn Joe Biden's financial picture?
- [14:41]
Megan Gorman
Yeah, I would tell you. James Madison, right? So the more recent. Right. You know, from, like, Reagan on, a lot of their stuff is still classified. It's. I mean, some of these people are still living, right? You know, and so you either have to really look for what was out there, what was put in the public arena. Right. Or look in the newspapers and those types of resources. When it comes to people like James Madison, there is a lot of primary source documentation that, you know, just has a lot of meat on it. I mean, God bless John Quincy Adams. The man kept a diary every day of his life. I mean, it's like he knew we were gonna be looking for it. So when you think about these presidents, right? One of the things that we have as Americans that I would tell you they're crown jewels, is the fact that we understand that their papers have value, that these archives that are out there and anyone who's listening, regardless of your political affiliation, our presidential libraries are awesome. And the amount of archives, like, what they have, I mean, I remember I reached out to the Truman Library. Cause everybody thinks Truman was poor, right? Not true. He dies wealthy. But it was amazing because the archivists, we were going back and forth over email, and he said, I got a letter for you. I'm gonna send it to you. And they scan it and they send it to me. And it's a letter that Harry Truman writes his wife Bess in the early 1970s. And he started saying, look, if I pass away, I want you to know what we have and where it is. And he lists out all these bank accounts and this there. And it's about $750,000, which is in our money, probably between 5 and 6 million dollars, right? You don't think. You're like, wait, what happened to poor Harry Truman? So let me tell you what happened with Truman. He was not financially successful for a large portion of his life, but he gets to the White House, his salary is $75,000, and Congress raises it to 100. And Congress gives him a stipend of $50,000 a year that he's going to get. And it's going to be tax free and doesn't require an accounting. Right? So if you go back in that time period, what's going on with Harry Truman in the White House in 1948, 49, they're doing a massive renovation. So the family moves to Blair House. They're not entertaining. So he saves this. And of course, Congress eventually comes back and like, ooh, we really need to be, like, managing this stipend. But. But he's able to save the money. And because he had failed so much. You know, I think with Truman. With Truman, you run into a little what we call bag lady syndrome, which is you have people who make money and they're frightened that the next day they're gonna wake up and be a bag lady. And it's very real. I have clients with this issue. So what. What I. Going back to the primary source data, you know, why we didn't know this about Harry Truman is until Margaret Truman passed away, his daughter. In the early 2000s, it was still a classified file in the National Archives. And finally it gets released as she passes. So when you think of the presidents today, it's going to be the next generation that will know really what went on with HW's money or Obama or Biden. Because at that point the people who are alive today will have passed and a lot of the releases will allow that information to be out in the public.
- [17:50]
Bob Crawford
Let's talk about a president who we're pretty sure grew up in poverty. Abraham Lincoln, everyone knows he was born poor, very much salt of the earth kind of a guy. What was his financial journey like?
- [18:05]
Megan Gorman
Oh my God, he was a hot mess for a long period of time. But you gotta love Lincoln. Lincoln and Washington are really interesting because you have to think about it. We have a, we have a group of presidents who were not educated, right? In fact, if you think about it, our three, when they always rank them, it's Washington, Lincoln and fdr. FDR is clearly very educated, but the other two were self educated. And Lincoln grows up and he doesn't know a lot about money and he doesn't really like his father. So what's really important in Lincoln's story is once he turns 21, he is not required by law to give any money he makes to his father. So Lincoln goes out in the world, he gets, you know, and he gets partnered with a gentleman who they decide to buy and create a store. And they take out all this debt to buy this store. The gentleman's name is William Berry. And then they decide very quickly on to buy another store. And they rack up all this inventory and all this debt and the business is not doing well. They're struggling. Cause remember, he doesn't have the experience to run a business. And then William Berry conveniently passes away. He's an alcoholic and he passes away. And so Lincoln has to absorb all of this debt. And he's a funny guy and he always called it his national debt. And it was probably equivalent of about $40,000 in our money today. So you think about it, it's sort of like his student loan debt. And so he has this debt and you see him again and again trying to pay down the debt in the early part of his life. And he eventually does, but it's taught him a really important lesson. And so when you look in Lincoln's finances in the early years, you see a lot of mistakes. He gets brought to court for some of these mistakes for not paying bills. But he gets to a point when he's in Springfield. He marries up, he marries Mary Todd and he's in Springfield. And what does he do with his money? He does a lot of loans to people. When Lincoln becomes president, he actually rents out the house in Springfield. If you go to Springfield and you see this house, it's an upper middle class house, like he had gotten money and he rents the house out, he goes to Washington D.C. and what we see in the documentation is he takes every bit of his $25,000 salary and he's saving it in treasury notes and treasury bonds. Right. Backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government paying him 6, 7% interest. And I love that about him because what that's doing is it's aligning his financial interests with that of the country, with that of the union. And you gotta give him credit for that. To me, he made that connection. Unfortunately for Lincoln, his wife is in New York spending money. She's like racking up all this debt. She tries to pass bills off to different departments within the white, within, you know, the executive branch. She's chaotic with money. And she even says to her dressmaker at one point, look, if he doesn't win the reelection, was it.
- [20:57]
Bob Crawford
I'm sorry, Megan. Was it Elizabeth Keckley?
- [21:00]
Megan Gorman
It was Elizabeth Keckley, yes.
- [21:01]
Bob Crawford
Who is, who worked at a school, a girls school, a couple miles from my house here in North Carolina. Oh, I love post presidency. Anyway, go ahead.
- [21:12]
Megan Gorman
Yeah, so she tells Elizabeth Keckley, if he finds out how much debt we have, we're in trouble. And Lincoln had started to think about his post presidency. He had said to Mary, I'm probably gonna go back and practice law. Which is what a lot of them did pre Jerry Ford. And so when Lincoln actually passes away on April 15, 1865, he's worth about $85,000, which is really about $2 million in our money. But what's really shocking about it, Bob, is he passes away without an estate plan. This is a man who had premonitions of death. We're in the middle of a war, right? He's a lawyer. He doesn't have an estate plan. And so Robert Todd Lincoln calls in the Chief justice of the United States and says, help us, help us probate this. And they do. And they gather the assets and the bonds and the rents and they split it up. A third to Mary Todd, a third to Tad, and a third to Robert. And that's how the estate gets sort of distributed. But again, sort of an odd ending, not having an estate plan to someone who really did make the American dream when it came to finance.
- [22:16]
Bob Crawford
Incredible. Did Mary Todd come from money?
- [22:20]
Megan Gorman
Oh, yes, yes. She was very pampered. She grew up in Kentucky from a slave owning family. But she has, you know, history. I don't know if you've seen the play in New York, o'. Mary.
- [22:31]
Bob Crawford
I've heard about it.
- [22:33]
Megan Gorman
It's a fun show. You know, this is a woman who, she had a lot of challenges, and some of it probably came from the fact that, you know, her mother dies when she's very little. She gets the stepmother, she gets attention by causing drama. And, you know, her and Lincoln are a good example of someone, you know, he married up by marrying her. But the challenge the two of them had financially is they didn't have shared values. Now, to compare that. Eisenhower did not grow up with money. Mamie. Mary Geneva Dowd grew up with a lot of money. Her father was so successful, he retired at age 36 from this meat factory he had. And so what I find interesting about Ike and Mamie is that despite growing up very, very differently, they ended up having a lot of the same values about money. And they lived paycheck to paycheck until he basically did his memoir and became president of Columbia. But, you know, she used to say, Ike is so tight with a buck that when he squeezes a dollar, the eagle screams. Which is very Mamie. Mamie's a character. Like, one of the things that's sort of funny is Google Ike and Mamie when they're young, first of all, they're gorgeous. Like, you're like, oh, okay, I get it now. But what I find really funny about Mamie is she has these little bon mots, which give you a sense of who she was. And one of my favorites is I have a career and its name is Ike. And I could totally, like, I just. I get it. Like, all of a sudden, what you really understood, how she saw life. And, you know, we know her as that little lady in the 50s with the little bangs and the pink. But, yeah, she had a. She had a sassy side to her.
- [24:11]
Bob Crawford
We're about to take a quick break, but before I do, I want to let you know all about my new book that's coming out soon. It's called America's Founding Son, John Quincy Adams. From President to Political Maverick. Pre order your book today. It's available wherever you buy your books. Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu every single episode.
- [24:42]
Megan Gorman
32 lost nuclear nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop. What? Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s.
- [24:49]
Bob Crawford
Basketball player who still wore knee pads.
- [24:51]
Megan Gorman
Yes.
- [24:52]
Bob Crawford
It's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow. Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.
- [25:04]
Megan Gorman
What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?
- [25:08]
Bob Crawford
Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.
- [25:12]
Megan Gorman
I forgot whose podcast we were doing.
- [25:15]
Bob Crawford
Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's, let's, let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:33]
Megan Gorman
There's a vile sickness in Abbas town.
- [25:36]
Bob Crawford
You must excise it, dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged. Entire families have been consumed.
- [25:46]
Megan Gorman
You know how waking up from a dream, a familiar place can look completely alien. Get back, everyone. And if you see the devil walking around inside of another man, you must.
- [25:59]
Bob Crawford
Cut out the very heart of him.
- [26:02]
Megan Gorman
Burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town. As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio.
- [26:23]
Bob Crawford
App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:28]
Megan Gorman
The Devil Walks in Abbostone. All I know is what I've been told. And that's a half truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story. I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.
- [27:28]
Bob Crawford
That y' all said.
- [27:29]
Megan Gorman
They literally made me say that.
- [27:31]
Bob Crawford
I took a match and struck and.
- [27:32]
Megan Gorman
Threw it on her. They Made me say that I poured gas on her from Lava For Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y' all better wake the hell up.
- [27:50]
Bob Crawford
Bad things happens to good people and small towns.
- [27:57]
Megan Gorman
Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcast. At 19, Elena Sada believed she had found her calling. In the new season of Sacred Scandal, we pull back the curtain on a life built on devotion and deception. A man of God, Martial Maciel, looked Elena in the eye and promised her a life of purpose within the Legion of Christ. My name is Elena Sada, and this is my story. It's the story of how I learned to hide, to cry, to survive, and eventually how I got out. This season on Sacred Scandal, hear the full story from the woman who lived it. Witness the journey from devout follower to determined survivor as Helena exposes the man behind the cloth and the system that protected him. Even the darkest secrets eventually find their way to the light. Listen to Sacred Scandal, the mini secrets of Marcial Maciel as part of the My Cultura podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [29:23]
Bob Crawford
This is American History Hotline. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Today my guest is Megan Gorman. She's author of the book all the President's Money. How the Men who who Governed America Governed Their Money. We're talking about the people on our money who sometimes found themselves not having any money. Remember, send us your burning questions about American history. Record yourself using the voice memo app on your phone and email it to AmericanHistoryHotlinemail.com that's AmericanHistoryHotlinemail.com you can also write your question in the comment section of the Spotify app and we'll see it. Now back to the show. Megan, we gotta talk about fdr.
- [30:10]
Megan Gorman
Yes.
- [30:10]
Bob Crawford
I think that you say he's, quote, terrible with money, but gets a gold star for charity.
- [30:16]
Megan Gorman
Yes.
- [30:17]
Bob Crawford
Tell me about him.
- [30:18]
Megan Gorman
So fdr, look, he's a trust fund kid, right? So, you know, we think of the Roosevelt money, right? The New York Dutch money. But he was also a Delano and that had real money because they had made the Delanos, had made a fortune in the opium trade, lost a fortune, and then remade a fortune. So he grows up very, you know, with money. It's something that's there. And so when you see him across, you know, his life, you know, he had a check every month from his trust. So did Eleanor. He becomes Assistant Secretary of the Navy. And they ask him how he wants his paycheck. He's like, I don't know, give me cash. And it took a few months. And finally Eleanor's like, where's the money? I gotta buy groceries. Like, he just. He doesn't think about money the way you and I do. But what's fascinating about FDR's story is the story of how he manages his money in relation to polio. So we all know FDR gets polio in 1921. And what's hard for the first three years of having polio is he becomes obsessed with trying to find a way to walk again, right? And he struggles with depression. You know, he's out on a boat with Missy LeHand in Florida. I mean, these are dark times. And in the FDR library, when you go through his correspondence at that time, God bless this guy, because people were writing him with crazy ideas. And he was always such a gentleman and so proper. He always wrote people back, even when the ideas were wacky. But one thing comes to him. In 1924, George Peabody, who today we know from the Peabody Award, writes and says, look, I have this inn in Warm Springs, Georgia, and these. It's called the Merriweather Inn, the Springs. You should go check it out. Now, interestingly, like, three weeks after he gets this letter, he gets a letter from somebody in Tennessee talking about, like a springs like that, a warm spring in Tennessee. So he goes to Warm Springs. He gets there, it's him, Eleanor, Missy lehand. Eleanor can't take it. She leaves immediately. FDR gets in the water, and it's like this aha moment. It's just like, oh, my God, for the first time in three years, I can move my legs. And what ends up happening, I'm gonna shorten the story, is he becomes obsessed with this place and he decides he's gonna buy it. And George Peabody was failing with this hotel, but he still sells it to FDR for probably the equivalent of about two thirds of FDR's trust fund, which is wild. And FDR has this idea that he's gonna have wealthy people there at Warm Springs and people with polio, right? And of course, everyone else is like, no, we don't wanna be around people with polio. Like, we forget today, polio was so frightening to people. And of course, Basil o', Connor, his business partner, says, hold on, I'M coming down. So he goes down there and he helps fdr. They get the place certified as a hydrotherapy medical center. They set up a charity called Warm Springs and they basically transfer the hotel into it. And they do two things financially that's sort of interesting. One is a technique that we do today. When they wanted FDR to run for president, FDR was like, but what will happen to the cure and pursuing Warm Springs? So he said, and he's like, if I die, Warm Springs will die. So they decide they're gonna have Warm Springs, the charity by life insurance on fdr. And so there's this legal issue of, is there an insurable interest? And so it's determined that yes, there is, because Warm Springs would cease to exist but for FDR's life, you know, being alive. And the other thing they had to figure out is could they insure fdr? Now, I'll tell you this cool story. I'm at the FDR library, and you know, I'm always calling these libraries asking for crazy things like Richard Nixon's orange juice company, you know, fdr, as I asked, originally asked about the lobsters, which is in the book. So I'm there and the archivist comes up to me with a box and she's like, we still haven't fully processed this box. It came in about a year ago. You can't photograph it, you gotta wear the gloves. But I think it's what you're looking for. So I open the box and what is in it? But it's the life insurance application and all these Western Union correspondence between the different insurance companies. And none of the insurance companies want to insure him. And so each company is writing the other underwriter at the other company like, what are you doing? What are we going to do? Like, this is not a great insurable risk. And they finally all decide that they're going to basically take a piece of the insurance to insure fdr. And of course FDR goes to the papers and is like, I might be 40 something, but they say I got the body of a 30 year old. And what you can tell from everything is this is not true. So of course they set up the insurance and when he dies, the insurance does pay out. It's the equivalent of $10 million today. It was $550,000. The other thing they do financially, which is interesting, is Basil Connor decides that they should have a birthday ball when FDR's president to raise awareness for polio. And he says, every American send in 10 cents. Could you imagine Them asking us this today.
- [35:17]
Bob Crawford
The March of Dimes.
- [35:18]
Megan Gorman
The March of Dimes. Eddie Cantor called it the March of dimes. And literally 2.7 million Americans send in dimes.
- [35:25]
Bob Crawford
GoFundMe.
- [35:26]
Megan Gorman
It's GoFundMe. And today we would never do this, right? We have. So we just don't think that same way. But this birthday ball thing was huge. And of course, he dies in 1945. We still don't have a cure. But all of that money goes into the pursuit of the cure. It does happen in the 1950s. And what was interesting is there were a lot of people who were very nervous about doing the vaccinations, and in particular, teenagers in the United States. So I talk about this in the book. What did they do on the Ed Sullivan show right before he goes on? They give Elvis Presley the vaccine and every teenager in America runs right out and gets vaccinated. But, you know, it's really a testament to FDR's ability to transform the mundane into a vision that everybody gets into. I mean, it's an amazing skill and the people who have it are huge. But, you know, this is one of those things where FDR was just simply unbelievable.
- [36:26]
Bob Crawford
So I have to ask, and I. Well, now I really want to ask about Richard Nixon's orange juice company. But first, Megan, I have to ask, what made you want to write a book about president's personal finances?
- [36:39]
Megan Gorman
Yeah. So, you know, I've always loved the presidents. I'm from a really small town in southern New Jersey called Cape May. And when I was growing up, we were very disconnected from the rest of the world. And I would be the kid that would go in the library and read about it, because a lot of the presidents, particularly starting with Andrew Jackson, they're boys from small towns, often poor boys, sorry, there's no girls yet going out in the world. So when I got older, I started working at Goldman Sachs, and I grew up middle class and I would be in front of CEOs and CFOs. And when you work with people, you want to understand where they came from. And they would tell their story and they would always say, and I worked really hard and I got lucky. Didn't matter how successful the person was, they always said that. And so I would read books about presidents and other historical figures and I would be like, well, you talk about him here buying a house. It's like one little sentence. I know how hard that transaction is. Right. And so that's what got. I wanted to sort of carve into that. And it was hard. It's really hard at first because you're really, especially with a lot of the older presidents, you've got to go into the letters, you know, you gotta, I mean, and then you get the fact that they save stuff. You know, I have Herbert Hoover's scanned copy of his power of attorney from when he was in Australia, you know, finding the gold mines and so on. So you're always sort of looking for this nuanced stuff because all of us talk about money all the time. It's just, it's sometimes not. You got to look, dig for the little nuggets like FDR and his lobsters or Richard Nixon and his orange juice company.
- [38:03]
Bob Crawford
Well, speaking of Herbert Hoover, that's an interesting financial journey, isn't it?
- [38:09]
Megan Gorman
He's amazing. He really was amazing. And he was, he's again like Warren Harding. Not a great president, but. But Herbert Hoover was a phenomenal person. And one of the things that sort of impacted his life is he was a Quaker. And the Quaker have certain beliefs about how you live your life. The spice is what they call it simplicity, community. And he was very focused on the community. And so he grows up with parents who are becoming successful and they both die. His dad dies when he's 4, his mom dies when he's 9. And the Quakers have a financial guardian for him and a physical guardian. So very early on he learns to budget. And when we look at. So people often ask like what should you be doing to make your kids savvy with money? There are certain ages you're supposed to learn certain abilities. Adding subtracting running budgets and Hoover times in perfectly with this. So he's running budgets as a small boy. Fast forward, you know, he gets, goes to Stanford, he's in the pioneer class, he graduates, there's no jobs panic of 1893. He's got a geology degree. So what does this guy do? He goes out to the Sierra Nevadas, he's desperate for a job and he takes a job in a mine pushing a cart. And the mines are run by Cornish people. Like they're the ones who are actual miners. And after first they made fun of him because they're like, what's this college kid doing here? But then he works really hard so they respect him and so they start to teach him things in the mine. So you think about this, he goes to Stanford to become a geologist and now he's getting hands on experience in the mine. He eventually gets a chance at a job, but the job requires him to be at least 35 years old. And it's a job. He has the. It's company owned and based in London to send him to Australia. So he has to go to London. He grows a mustache to look 35. He goes over, apparently fools them, and they send him to Australia. And while he's in Australia, he's paid well. And you see in his letters to his best friend, Lester Hinsdale, who was managing his money here in the United States, he would say, look after you, pay my bills. Like, if anyone needs any of our gang needs money, I want you to help them, but don't tell them it's from me. And this is a theme in his life, this idea of helping people. Now, going back to the mining part. He's on a camel, he's on a bike, he's going running. I mean, it's a miserable existence. The mining world in the 1890s and early 1900s in Australia. But he goes to a place that there was an abandoned mine, and he looks at it, and from all the stuff the Cornish guys taught him in the mine and all the stuff he learns as a geologist, he says there's still gold here. And so he convinces his employer to buy it and to make him a partner, and they strike gold. So what made Hoover wealthy was he had ownership interests in mines all around the world, and yet he was very focused on giving the money back. And that he was very, very. And he does it twice, obviously, in World War I and World War II, in feeding Europe, because he knew how to create stiff on scale, because he had the number knowledge, he knew how to run finances, but it was all about giving back. So a really phenomenal human being.
- [41:15]
Bob Crawford
This is incredible, Megan. Absolutely incredible. When we think of modern presidents and even presidential candidates, there's a lot of questions and criticisms about where they make their money, where and how they make their money. What are some of the main ways modern presidents like H.W. bush, George W. Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, how they made their money?
- [41:39]
Megan Gorman
Yeah, so it varies depending on the president. Right. A lot of these guys, when you look at Obama and Clinton, they did not come from money. How Obama makes money is sort of interesting because I wrote a book, I can tell you there's no money in publishing. If you think about the Obamas, Michelle is a very grounded individual. And we all know marriage is like that, where one spouse is grounded and the other spouse is like up in the air. And she talks about this. This is a woman who grew up in Chicago with parents who almost bought a house but decided not to because as Black Americans, they didn't feel they had the safety net to do it like anyone who would help them if they ran into trouble. And so Obama in the 90s, writes this book, Tales of My Father, Songs of My Father. And he gets paid $40,000. It does. Okay. But when he runs for Senate, the publisher decides to republish it. Well, it takes off. And so when you go through the Obama tax returns that are public, what you find is from the time he runs from Senate to when he leaves the presidency, he makes $10 million off the book. Phenomenal. Now they've gone on to do what I would call the Jerry Ford rule. So Jerry Ford is a very important demarcation of presidential money. Pre Jerry Ford presidents left office, they wrote a book. Nixon, Johnson, right, they died. Fdr, right. Jfk. Or they went back to practicing law. I mean, that's what Lincoln was going to do, right? Franklin Pierce goes back and does that. So Jerry Ford, president for two years, loses to Jimmy Carter and he doesn't have a lot of money. He's worth like a couple hundred thousand dollars. And he's just devastated because, as you know, Bob, the presidents will all tell you it takes two years to master the job, to be really good at it. And he was at that two year part. And it gets yanked from him. And he's like, I'm 61, I'm young, like, what am I gonna do? Play golf all day? And we know he does play golf a lot, but he ends up connecting with this gentleman named Norm Brokaw, who was a very famous agent in Hollywood. And they come up with a three part plan. He's gonna write a book. So he and Betty sell the first joint book deal. So everybody else should thank them for the joint book deal. He's gonna do speeches and he's gonna do entrepreneurial endeavors. And I get into a bit in the book. But the one thing he becomes very successful at is he joins corporate boards. And you know, Sandy Wheel of Smith Barney talks about this in the oral histories that are at the Ford Library. And he says, look, when Jerry Ford would come to the board meetings, you have someone there who sees the world very differently. It's a different insights, different ways to look at things. And this is someone who also came from a background. Remember, he was in Congress for a long time and he knew how to negotiate. So what Ford would do is he would negotiate with these corporations, very distinct comp packages and he would get equity and payments for being on the boards. And at one point, I think he was on 12 boards. He was really good at that. So the Jerry Ford rule is post presidency. You can go forth and do something to make money. Bill Clinton does speeches everywhere when he first leaves to pay off all the debt. The Obamas are in podcasting and producing, and they now have like a scholarship fund with Brian Chesky of Airbnb, right? So you see these people sort of evolve stuff. And what's going on in the news right now is there was an article because Joe Biden is not getting anything. He got a book deal. But what may worked for Ford and Bush and Obama and Clinton is not working for Biden because the Biden brand has sort of struggled. And so this is one of these questions. Is this just gonna be a one off where we don't have a president who takes advantage of the Jerry Ford rule, or is Biden gonna have to evolve it in the right direction? But I'll tell you one last thing that was interesting with the Presidents. You know, 50 years before Jerry Ford, we had Calvin Coolidge. And in 1928, Calvin Coolidge is leaving office. And Charles Merrill of Merrill lynch comes to him and says, hey, Cal, I'd love to have you on the board of Merrill Lynch. And Coolidge is like, look, I can't help you. What do I know about the economy, right? It's like, what? And Charles Merrill was going to pay him $100,000. He doesn't take the job. And Charles Merrill must have been. So Charles Merrill's also going around telling everyone there's gonna be a huge crash, which I find interesting is that Calvin Coolidge doesn't even invest at Merrill Lynch. He goes to another firm who puts him in the market right before the crash. And so, you know, so what I find so interesting about Coolidge to Ford is both men had really strong moral cores, right? Both men had really challenging childhoods. And yet the world had changed that much in 50 years. That the presidency, particularly post FDR, had evolved such that the President felt that they had the expertise to provide knowledge for boards, whereas Coolidge did not feel that way at all.
- [46:25]
Bob Crawford
I think I'll get called on it if I don't ask about the current President. And just because it's money, because he's someone who, who was a businessman and worked in real estate, filed for bankruptcy a few times prior to his presidency, kind of made his money in branding as much as in real estate, if not more so. And now he is seemingly profiting. He's profiting, profiting while he's in the White House. And you Know, that may continue on afterwards. But he's into crypto and, and selling sneakers, branded sneakers and guitars and whatever, all this kind of stuff. Like, how is this, is this just kind of like him and it's kind of, it makes really sense for who he is. Or is it. You think presidents after, after him will. Will make money while they're president?
- [47:23]
Megan Gorman
It's a really good question. So, first of all, when you think about Trump, take him out personally. What he is very focused on, which is very common with these wealthy families, is there's a lot of multi generational planning going on. So. Right. We know about the loan Fred Trump made to Donald that got him started. When you work with these families, there's G1, generation one, G2, G3, G4. So Fred Trump is G1, Donald is G2, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany and Donald Jr are G3, and then their children to G4. So what you're seeing with the Trump money is this structure going on where the G1 wanted to eventually get everything to G3, G2, Trump wants to get everything to G4. So a lot of the entities and structures that you see, is that going on where Donald Trump sort of, if I had to give him a skill that he's very good with, he is very good with pushing the envelope with risk. Right. And that's something people struggle with when they're managing their money. And so he is always willing to push the line. So Donald Trump will do estate planning techniques that I do with my clients. When we do these techniques, we are very focused on making sure that they pass muster with the irs, that if the IRS was to audit them, that the audit would not be cancel out the gift that we made, the transfer that we made. When you look at the gifts that Donald Trump makes through techniques called a grant or retained annuity trust, he's always being overly aggressive. And what's interesting is you see the IRS auditing him, but not pulling back the valuations to the level that you would expect. The other thing about Donald Trump is he might have a core business, but his money's being made around it. So I'm sitting here today in Cape May, New Jersey. I'm 30 miles south of Atlantic City. The money that he made in Atlantic City was not really from the casinos. It was from bonuses. He was paid salaries, he was paid lawsuits in Atlantic City because a lot of time in the Atlantic City situation, which it's very complex to go through on a podcast, he was often paid to go away. So what he's done is he's able to figure out sort of the way around things. And so the question I struggle with all the time because I think about Trump and I think about George Washington. When George Washington was president, he was managing Mount Vernon on a day to day basis. Right. You see it in his correspondence. And yet he wasn't capitalizing on the presidency in the same way. So people, Washington clearly felt that it was important for people to believe in the presidency and in this new country. And he had to always do right. And he would get like, there's one story, he got a prize from the Commonwealth of Virginia as a thank you, $20,000 worth of stock for all he had done for the country in 1796. When he's president and he needs the cash, he's got very illiquid assets, but he donates it to charity because he just isn't. He knows that people have to trust him. Today, if we look at trust in politicians, regardless of Biden or Trump, when you look regarding political party, people don't trust. And so the question for Americans is, do we have to change our system on how we have the presidents run their money when they're in office? Because we all know the Jerry Ford rule, which is once you're out, you can go make a ton of money. And I think that that has to be restructured because the rules that were put in place in the 1960s and then obviously the Financial Disclosure Rules of 1978, they were made for a different type of financial system, one where there wasn't branding, where there isn't influencers. And today there's just, you can take too much advantage of the system. So I think post Trump, we really need to rework the system.
- [51:11]
Bob Crawford
Could someone today become president without being. If not a million. Yeah.
- [51:17]
Megan Gorman
Without being wealthy, I think it's hard. I think that Citizens United and other court cases have allowed a lot of money to go into the political process. You could make an argument. Ian Bremmer, who is a political scientist who I find fascinating, he talks about the fact that, you know, we may have become an oligarchy already because of the money that's come in. So you think about what's going on. Unless you're moneyed or you're celebrity, it is very hard to be the Abraham Lincoln who climbs from nothing and makes it. And when you think about it, when you go back to the presidents, I said this earlier, the first six came from money, but Andrew Jackson is one who really created the idea of a poor boy who could go off into the world and become President of the United States. And I worry that we've lost that ability to have future Andrew Jacksons. And I say Andrew Jackson. We have Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan.
- [52:15]
Bob Crawford
Let me ask you this, Megan Jackson. Wasn't he already very wealthy though? I mean, he sold himself off as a common man for the common man. But didn't he have like 150 enslaved people when he became president?
- [52:32]
Megan Gorman
When he became president, yes, when he.
- [52:34]
Bob Crawford
Started out in the Waxhaws of North Carolina.
- [52:38]
Megan Gorman
So his dad dies when his mom's pregnant with him. You know, he's taken prisoner by the British. He loses his mom and brothers. This is a guy who came from nothing, but he was clever and you see it and he fails. He fails early on. He has a store in Tennessee that fails and he goes up to Philadelphia to try to fix it. And he gets played by someone up there, but he's someone who, who's quick and clever and learns from his mistakes. And you see that with Jackson and you see that with Lincoln and you give them both a lot of credit. So to answer your question, I hope we get back to a point in time where a guy who doesn't, or a guy, a gal who doesn't have a college education can make it through and someone who's just a regular American can make it through. I don't know if that can happen today and where the system is.
- [53:20]
Bob Crawford
I've been talking to Megan Gorman. She is the author of the book all the Presidents Money, how the Men who Governed America Governed Their Money. Megan, this has been incredibly fascinating. Thank you so much for joining us today on American History Hotline.
- [53:36]
Megan Gorman
Bob, thanks for having me on and thank you for letting me share my love of the human side of the presidents. Because at the end of the day, we might all disagree politically, but we all sort of love these stories about the guys who helped create this country.
- [53:51]
Bob Crawford
You've been listening to American History Hotline, a production of iHeart podcasts and Scratch Track Productions. The show's executive producer is James Morrison. Our executive producers from iHeart are Jordan Runtal and Jason English. Original music composed by me, Bob Crawford. Please keep in touch. Our email is americanhistoryhotlinemail.com if you like the show, please tell your friends and leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. I'm your host, Bob Crawford. Feel free to hit me up on social media to ask a history question or to let me know what you think of the show. You can find me at bobcrawford Bass. Thanks so much for listening. See you next week.
- [54:48]
Megan Gorman
What happens when tragedy uncovers the secrets we thought were buried forever? See Paramount pictures. Regretting youg October 24th the powerful new romance film based on Colleen Hoover's best selling novel. Starring Alison Williams, McKenna Grace, Dave Franco and Mason Thames, this heart tugging story explores the fragile, beautiful bond between a mother and daughter tested by love, betrayal and loss. Bring your mom, your best friend, or your whole book club. And don't forget the tissues. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll leave feeling everything regretting you. Only in theaters October 24th. Johnny Knoxville here. Check out Crimeless Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from Smartless Media, Campside Media and big money players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the nimrods who almost pulled it off. It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer.
- [55:38]
Bob Crawford
That was dumb. Do not follow my example.
- [55:43]
Megan Gorman
Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [55:51]
Bob Crawford
Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu Every single episode.
- [56:02]
Megan Gorman
32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop What?
- [56:06]
Bob Crawford
Yeah, it's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [56:25]
Megan Gorman
There's a vile sickness in Apostown. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. From iheart Podcasts and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio universe.
- [56:44]
Bob Crawford
Starring Jewel State and Ray Wise.
- [56:47]
Megan Gorman
Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.