This is the Big Picture, an official television report of the United States Army, produced for the armed forces and the American people. Now to show you part of the Big Picture, here is Master Sergeant Stuart Quain. There is today an increasing awareness among Americans that preservation of our way of life requires constant vigilance. We accept heavier military budgets as the price for that vigilance. At the same time, we can offer a greater willingness to understand the problems of our protecting services. On the personal side, too, there has been a happy development. The citizen has come to recognize the military as a cross-section of his own American neighbors. He also finds daily contributions made by the military to his community life. In turn, he has been welcoming the military man to a fuller participation in his own activities. Nowhere has this growing understanding and affection born happier results than in the city of Alexandria, Virginia. Georgian brick buildings and quiet, tree-shaded streets, many of them built by Hessian soldiers after the Revolutionary War, give to Alexandria the imprint of history, a history that dates back as far as 1695. For its citizens of tomorrow, the latest in educational facilities recaptures the flavor of that past. Pride in history has not blurred vision. Today, the city has become a center for electronic research, a logical growth from an earlier industrial era and an even earlier position as the agricultural market for northern Virginia. The old farmer's market still stands in dramatic contrast. Behind rises the modern Georgian building that houses the city's municipal offices. Old and new are never far apart. Here, George Washington recruited his first command. From its steps made his last public appearance. The old apothecary shop knew our first president as a customer and an order signed by Martha Washington may still be read. The lady watched carefully over the welfare of a large family of plantation workers. Her order was for one gallon of castor oil. In historic Christ Church, the president worshiped and here many presidents since have attended services. Here too, worshiped another soldier's son in whom Alexandria takes pride, the immortal Robert E. Lee. Carlisle House marks an even earlier link between city and military. Here were organized the campaigns of the French and Indian wars. Just outside Alexandria lie other reminders of our early years. Mount Vernon, now maintained as a national shrine, stands unchanged from the days when Washington presided over its stately mansion and well-planned acres. Mementos of our first president are preserved in the same state as when he used them. The family Bible in which he sought comfort and guidance. The desk at which he worked. Of more than passing interest is the key to the Bastille, alongside a model of that symbol of tyranny. The key was a gift from Lafayette, whose role in the French Revolution received inspiration from Washington, the good friend who carried our own revolution through to victory. The gold-handled sword and wooden-stocked pistol never failed to draw the tourist interest. George Washington was 16 when he first came to live at Mount Vernon. Except for the interference of great circumstances, he might have had an entirely different reputation. He had wanted to become America's leading agriculturalist. Two dates with immortality prevented. First, the call to command the Continental Army. Second, to become president of the new United States. After each mission, he hurried back to the peace and beauty of Mount Vernon. After that second call, there was little time. A mere three years before his death in 1799. By actual count, over a million visitors each year pause to pay homage before the final resting place of the father of our country. Today's Alexandria has newer ties with the military. Only a stone's throw away stands the Pentagon, that citadel where our combined forces fought for defense, plan for the maintenance of the peace and the preservation of our way of life. Nearby is Fort Meyer, part of the military district of Washington. While just south of the city lies Fort Belvoir, home of army engineer training, research and development. These and other installations play an impressive role in the community's life. Alexandria's population finds economic benefits from the large army community living among them. Beyond history, tradition and cold economics lies another time, perhaps the strongest. The give and take of personal contact, from it mutual understanding. To signalize this mutual interdependence and friendly understanding, Mayor Leroy S. Benheim, before a presenting committee of military and civilians, signed a proclamation, designating the week of June 9th as Alexandria salutes the army week. A week in which the city would pay tribute to its military community. Moving spirit behind the project was Alexandria's Chamber of Commerce, in whose handsome new building directors meetings traditionally open with prayer for guidance in the work before them. Within the Chamber of Commerce are to be found these representative businessmen, dedicated to making their city a happy community in which to live and work. In these objectives, their own women's division plays its important role. Popular Bob Duncan, the Chamber's president and its business manager, Ernest Corso, brief the membership on the campaign that must enlist support from all of Alexandria's 87,000 population. Set up by the Chamber of Commerce is a steering committee of more than 40 civilian and military leaders of the community. These include representatives of church, civic, fraternal and veteran groups, along with officers and enlisted men from the local military installations. The steering committee is in turn assisted by 25 subcommittees, each with three to five members. From small items like window cards, to Captain KF Amende's project for operating a helicopter shuttle service to Fort Belvoir, no detail is overlooked. Capable management plus enthusiasm and cooperation bring into reality the long-awaited June 9th. The streets of Alexandria are in holiday dress. Their shop fronts compete to combine attractive window display with the spirit of the program. Where possible, they present two reminders of the city's historic past. Appropriately, the new army uniform is featured for men, nor is the new feminine look forgotten in my lady's shops. The hotel named for George Mason is the scene of daily luncheons given by each of Alexandria's civic groups. Here at the Kiwanis gathering, Major General John G. Van Houten, commanding general of the military district of Washington, is introduced as honored guest speaker. Not to be outdone in friendly hospitality, the Lions present Mayor Benheim and General David Tully, commanding general of Fort Belvoir. A feature of the week-long celebration is the counterpart program, a program which brings together military and civilians engaged in similar work. In Alexandria's council chambers, army administrators learn of the problems confronting city management. Similarly, representatives of the Provo Marshall and Judge Advocate's offices sit in on the courtroom sessions of Judge James N. Colosanto. The friendly discussions that follow promote understanding of procedures. Their similarities, their differences. People rarely think of banking as a military function, yet local bank vice president Marshall Beverly finds a guest of group finance officers interested in comparing accounting systems. Further evidence that many military functions are merely extensions of their civilian counterparts. Over at the Alexandria hospital, a nurse finds an interested audience in Colonel Carlton D. Goodill, surgeon for the military district of Washington, and Lieutenant John Nino, sanitary engineer of the Medical Service Corps. As happens so often in this world, there is also the happy coincidence of two old friends suddenly finding themselves brought face-to-face in new surroundings. Elsewhere in the hospital, there is a stimulating exchange of ideas between technicians who are well aware of army medical contributions to radiology. A highlight of the program is a visit by city, chamber of commerce, and military guests to Alexandria's busy waterfront terminal. After an inspection of warehouse and docking facilities, the party boards the Canadian freighter, Marklin. The ship carries a cargo of newsprint for the Washington area from its home port, Liverpool, Nova Scotia. And the operation of unloading the giant holds commands the visitor's attention. As neighbors in the community, the military is understandably interested in Alexandria's role as a port of call for foreign shipping. This interest is not restricted to transportation personnel who find counterparts to their own work in the activities around them. Engineers from Fort Belvoir are even more vitally involved. Plans are now underway to revive and expand the city's former importance in overseas commerce. One phase of the plan calls for dredging and deepening the harbor to accommodate ships of greater draft. When this operation is undertaken, army engineers and city interests will be found working in even closer cooperation. Largest manufacturer in this country of refrigerator cars is the organization known as Fruit Growers. Company representatives play host. Mutual problems of food processing and shipping are explored. The interested guests are from the important quartermaster core installation, Cameron Station. Army sanitation officers are guests of the sanitation authority in its newly installed plant, part of a project to end pollution of the Potomac River. Alexandria's Traffic Control Center sees one of the most successful of the counterpart programs. For it brings together men whose work is constantly before the eyes of a concerned public. Their work is measurable in terms of lives and limbs in an area that can be an irritant between these good neighbors. All ranks in both military and civilian groups welcome the informal discussions for their work frequently overlaps. City police are well aware of the army's effective aid in cutting down traffic fatalities. The city's traffic director and his counterpart from Fort Belvoir look to continued cooperation for safety on street and highway. The housing problem is one that Alexandria has shared with most American communities since World War II. With the cooperation of the military, the community has met that challenge. Both the residents and salute to the Army Week visitors take pride in Temple Village, which houses the families of many locally stationed servicemen. Most Americans are aware of the eyesores presented by housing projects that have mushroomed up unplanned. Temple Village had a more foresighted development and within its own precincts, there is a management committee which sees that rules for care and maintenance are rigidly observed. Temple Village is a community of families where servicemen and civilian live together as understanding neighbors. The city's small fry add their bit to saluting the Army and get a thrill themselves when the first ball is thrown out by Colonel David L. Edwards, Chief of Staff, Military District of Washington. The staff side is not forgotten and a luncheon of the women's division is to hear a talk by WAC major Violet M. Burkhardt. It also honors guest Betty Carey. Mrs. Carey has been selected by the magazine U.S. Lady as Lady of the Month. The wife of an Army Master Sergeant, she is herself employed in the Pentagon. Nevertheless, Mrs. Carey has found time to raise her own family and adopted war orphan and to arrange for the adoption of other unfortunate waves. In honoring her, the women's division honors the embodiment of American womanhood in a member of the military community. Since Salute to the Army Week was planned to include National Flag Day, the Elks Club observes the occasion by presenting the colors to the chamber's president, Duncan. The flag is one which has flown over the nation's capitol. A landmark of the area is the 333-foot-high replica of the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt. This is the well-known Masonic Memorial to George Washington. In friendly return for an earlier concert by a civic music society, the United States Army Band and its choral group perform a more appropriate setting than this commanding site chosen by his brother, Masons, to honor our first president. Here at the Old Dominion Boat Club, there is opportunity to take note of the lighter side of the week's activities. Today's event is the Gunston Cove Sailing Regatta. It's an annual event that takes on greater importance for Alexandrians this year. Sponsored by the Potomac River Sailing Association, the race starts at the Old Dominion Boat Club in Alexandria and moves downriver to a point just below Fort Belvoir Boat Club. The race is open to both military and civilian, and it's a kind of aquatic free-for-all in as much as craft of all sizes and classes are eligible. Handicaps are established by timing the starts, but that's all. Because there are no limitations, entries frequently total as many as 100 contestants. It's fun for all, and the winner may easily turn out to be a homemade 15-footer. Traditionally, the winner of the regatta is presented with the Belvoir Cup by a high-ranking member of the Army. This year, it is Colonel Ray Adams, Fort Belvoir's chief of staff who awards the trophy. Besides sporting events, Alexandria offers a program of top-notch entertainment. Coal groups and a barber shop, or should we say a hairdresser's shop quartet, provide an ear treat for guests and fellow citizens. There's a full bill of carefully rehearsed variety acts on the stage of a local school auditorium. An impressive array of special talents is put on for this gala evening, and the hosted products of Alexandria's dramatic and dense schools all combine to produce an evening of fun. The lighter side of such a week must include a chance for pretty girls to show off their best gowns. The service men's lounge provided by the city for its soldier neighbors is the logical scene for such an occasion. To cap the evening's fun, there is the crowning of Miss Alexandria salutes the Army. The week's program chairman, Bob Mitchell, does the honors for a happy Mrs. John Rose of Cameron Station. A past commanding general of Fort Belvoir is appropriately honored with the dedication of a new armory named for him. The occasion is also marked by the very first public display of the new United States Army flag, the same flag which now stands in the White House. The new armory is a symbol of the close interrelationship between hosts and guests. The building, a former warehouse long unused and fallen into neglect, had become an eyesore to the community. The Army took over the scarred shell and rebuilt it. Alexandrians look with pride on their newly dedicated first street armory. Later in the week, another reserve installation will be put into active operation, and feelings of dedication as well as pride will attend its opening. Named for Colonel John Singleton Mosby, it will honor the daring Virginia cavalrymen who served with distinction in the war between the states. The AC Lieber Training Center is formally dedicated by Major General C. Rodney Smith, who stresses the ties that have traditionally bound the Army and its host city. It is worth noting in this connection that almost all of the Chamber of Commerce directors, as well as the civic leaders directing the salute to the Army Week celebration, are themselves members or former members of local reserve units. Once again, the lighter note is struck when a pretty little miss, a drum majorette from a local high school, is adopted by the training center as Miss Engineer Reservist. Earlier in the week, this young lady had fascinated audiences with her exhibitions of baton twirling. An additional bit of color is given to the ceremonies by the appearance of the Mount Vernon Guard's Fife and Drum Corps, sponsored by the Civitans. These future reservists add an appropriate note of pageantry. The Army puts on an exhibition of its own. When a crack ceremonial team of the 3rd Infantry Regiment from Fort Meyer executes some smart drilling in Old Market Square. It was here that George Washington first drilled his own troops. Our earliest commanding general would have been quite as impressed as this generation of Alexandrians, for the men from Fort Meyer are executing their movements without benefit of spoken commands. But the Army is about to put on an even more impressive exhibition and provides Army-style taxi service to the scene of the big show. It's to be an engineer demonstration at Fort Belvoir. Grandstands have been erected to accommodate the expectant Alexandrians. They will now see Uncle Sam's combat engineers in action. With simulated nuclear explosives, it's a preview of what may come one day. Best reason in the world for keeping our defenses strong. Today's demonstration is an assault river crossing, in which combat techniques, equipment and unit organization are adapted to a modern concept for battle in an atomic war. To get those first troops over, there's covering fire from the near shore. Amphibians can start on their job while that first wave takes care of enemy defenses. Helicopters carry over additional troops and materiel, despite enemy efforts to knock them down. For later study and evaluation, cameras cover the action. Helicopters have another role to perform. From rear areas, they bring up the pontons and wide variety of craft needed to secure for hold. Retrieving is a ticklish job, with an aggressive enemy waiting to take advantage of the floating targets. Combat engineers live up to their reputation. Now, as opposition stiffens, they must operate under heavier gunfire. Tricky currents in the rapidly moving stream make their task an even tougher job to accommodate. Here's no that the immediate objective of any river operation is to get assault units across quickly and economically and to establish a bridgehead which will protect the crossing of the remainder of the command. Our attacking forces can depend upon these army engineers to provide the means for that crossing. New units quickly work on assembling the latest craft dropped by the helicopter. These will carry heavy rolling equipment to the far shore. Enemy batteries aren't ready yet to call it quits. There's a direct hit. But the attack is on schedule and the heavy stuff starts moving over. Some of the spectators are interested observers from friendly nations. The assault is a success and a footbridge now spans the current. The far shore is ours. Alexandria's citizens have seen an exhibition they're going to remember a long, long time. They'll remember and they'll take pride in their close association with our army. A banquet at the George Mason Hotel marks the formal closing of this week of friendly tribute to the army. Mayor Benheim presiding introduced the guest of honor and speaker for the occasion, the honorable Mr. Hugh M. Milton, Assistant Secretary of the Army and himself and Alexandria. Including a speech that traced his home city's historic ties with the military, Mr. Milton reminded his audience that this particular day marked the 182nd anniversary of the establishment of America's oldest fighting force. Then, in words that merit quotation, he pointed out that for Americans there is a common effort that unites soldier and civilian. Said Mr. Milton, like Alexandria, your army is preserving the traditions of the past and keeping itself in constant state of readiness to ensure that the American heritage shall be passed on to our children and our children's children. Alexandria's gesture in saluting the United States Army with a week devoted to expressions of friendly cooperation is a milestone in civilian military relationships. Even more important, however, is the spirit behind it. This is a spirit that can be duplicated throughout the country, happily for us, wherever the civilian lives in close contact with the citizen-turned-soldier. Now this is Sergeant Stewart Queen, inviting you to be with us again next week for another look at your army in action on The Big Picture. The Big Picture is an official television report for the armed forces and the American people, produced by the Army Pictorial Center, presented by the United States Army in cooperation with this station.


Greetings from the National Archives. I'm David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States and it's my pleasure to welcome you to today's virtual book talk with Benjamin Justuson, author of Forgotten Legacy. Before we begin though, I'd like to tell you about two upcoming programs you can view on our YouTube channel. On Thursday, February 4th at 1pm, Alice Baumgartner will tell us about her new book, South to Freedom. In the years before the Civil War, thousands of people in the south-central United States escaped slavery, not by heading north, but by crossing the southern border into Mexico. South to Freedom gives us a new perspective on antebellum America and the causes of the Civil War. And on Wednesday, February 10th at 1pm, Alec Tresniowski, author of The Rope, will relate a story of a murder investigation in 1910 that helped launch the NAACP. When William McKenley was inaugurated as the 25th President of the United States in March 1897, the era of Jim Crow in the American South was firmly entrenched. Reconstruction had been over for nearly 20 years. African-Americans voting rights were suppressed, and the terror of lynching was real and widespread. Among our records, you'll find heart-rending petitions and letters to the federal government appealing for justice and for protection of citizens' rights. Against this backdrop, it is surprising to learn that President McKenley, in his four-and-a-half years in office, supported measures promoting racial tolerance and the advancement of African-Americans, even appointing a number of African-Americans to federal office. In his new book, our guest author, Benjamin Justison, makes us aware of this forgotten legacy of William McKenley. In telling this story, he reveals an unlikely alliance between the last president to have fought in the Civil War and the nation's only black congressman at the time, George Henry White of North Carolina. Although the cause of equality would need decades more to fulfill its promise, the efforts of McKinley and White flesh out our historical knowledge of the struggle for rights. Benjamin Justison is the author of five books on historical subjects, including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated biography George Henry White and Even Chance in the Race of Life. A former journalist and teacher, Ben currently works as an editor. He was also a commissioned Foreign Service Officer for the United States Department of State for more than 14 years serving at embassies in Jamaica, United, Denmark, Suriname, Singapore, and Latvia. In addition to articles for scholarly journals and magazines, he has also written the script for a 2012 documentary film about White, American Phoenix. Now, let's hear from Benjamin Justison. Thank you for joining us today. Let me begin today by thanking the National Archives for the opportunity to offer this lecture today. The Archives have been one of my favorite research hangouts since I began researching my first book by George White in the 1990s. Many thanks to Douglas Sponson for arranging this, and a special thanks to the Archivist of the United States, David Ferreira, for encouraging this wonderful series of presentations. 120 years ago, this past fall, another Republican president was running for reelection to a second term. The former congressman and governor was now running against the same man he'd had when we defeated four years earlier, but each was now accompanied by a new running mate. The former vice president running to reclaim his own office on the other party's ticket. McKinley's mate, a very popular young war hero, was being kicked upstairs by his jealous elders, or so they thought. The end of the hour was William McKinley, our 25th president, his new running mate was Theodore Roosevelt. Former vice president Adler Stevenson was on the other ticket. If rarely celebrated now, McKinley was enormously popular at the time, arguably the most popular president ever elected before 1900. A century later, the average American probably knows only a handful of facts about him. We're ever lost in the shadow of the far younger, more charismatic, and much more unpredictable, that he Roosevelt, however, is often overlooked. How much do you know about William McKinley? Like any former college instructor hoping to get his classes attention quickly, I'm going to stop here and give you a virtual pop quiz. Oh, great, obviously. Just raise your hands. The first thing you remember about our 25th president, if you answered six-term congressman and governor of Ohio, go to the head of the class. If you said almost elected speaker of the house, the gerrymandered out of his safe district by democratic legislative force, you can teach my next course. Today is his birthday, January 29th. Four and 18 years ago, born in Ohio, life as a junior but dropped it later in life. Born in 1843, dropped out of college after a year, fought in the Civil War, then went to law school, raised as an abolitionist. Like some of you, perhaps, the most memorable things I remember learning about William McKinley, from when I was growing up, involved the very short Spanish marathon four, which happened on his watch against wishes, and the fact he was assassinated in Buffalo, New York, the third president to be murdered in just 36 years. Only a few of us have probably ever handled a $500 bill, but McKinley's portrait still adorns that piece of U.S. currency. Produced in 1928, and still a real currency. Many of some of them were produced during the Great Depression. Now, he might have remained more familiar if this portrait had stayed on the $10 bill when it started out in 1902. I remember his other portraits. McKinley rarely resembled a charismatic leader. He always looked stern and unapproachable and not very exciting, although that is a distortion of actual fact. He was extremely popular and drew large adoring crowds wherever he appeared. At 57, he was still young by historical standards. Only three presidents re-elected to a second term, had ever been younger. Lincoln Grant and his predecessor, Barbara Cleveland, and only five presidents that ever been younger, the first to elect. But he looked older than he was, perhaps because he rarely smiled, perhaps because of the shape of his face. He had the misfortune to be followed into the White House by the youngest president in American history, who acted even younger than he was, among the most charismatic ever, TR, who seemed over somehow larger than life. An overgrown kid, some called him, TR instantly overshadowed McKinley. TR is one of four faces on Mount Rushmore, and that may have something to do with it, with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. McKinley is not there, of course. But McKinley already held an impressive geographical honor. The highest mountain in North America, now called Mount Denali, was named after him in 1898, just after the Republicans had nominated him for the presidency before the election. By a gold prospect, renamed WA, it proved in advertising here the unofficial name became the official name when Congress approved it in 1917, and it hung around until 2050. Back to the subject of my remarks today, forgotten legacy. Why did I write a book about William McKinley and not one of the more exciting presidents? That's a good question. If you want to know the truth, short answer is I like reasonably unexplored topics and obscure historical figures who have hidden depths. The long answer, I've always been a student of history, especially American history, just can't get enough of it. Our presidents have always intrigued me from the truly great list to the ones whose names you barely remember. Bill Moore, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce. I knew all the trivia. At a very young age, I could name them all, including the dates they serve for most unmemorized names of their wives and vice presidents. Some of those I still remember. For McKinley, the striking facts to me, the ones I have remembered longest included a few personal quirks. His loving devotion to his wife, Ida, a semi-invalid who sometimes suffered brief, quiet seizures during state dinners, and whom he assisted against all protocol that ever seated next to him. The story may be apocryphal, but it was said that he would draw out a clean dinner that can arrange it over her blank face and continue the dinner until she was able to rejoin the conversation. I always thought that was a loving and somewhat daring thing. His 1900 campaign for reelection wasn't much of a campaign in the typical sense. He made no speeches, no campaign appearances. He depended on his choice as vice president, that energetic, pugnacious war hero to bear that burden. It was not until I began researching books on George Henry White, the so-called prophet of the White House, that I began to look seriously, or more seriously at William McKinley, the president under whom White's heard. There were a number of good biographies, including two that have been published in my book on Mr. White, 2001. But the more I dug, the more puzzled I became. I began to notice a disconnect between my research and all those biographies, and it worried me. No one else seemed to notice just how devoted President McKinley was to the cause of African-American issues. Those noticed it, ignored it, or said it was just politics. But the deeper I dug, the more that excuse sounded like a very bad generalization. When McKinley ran in 1896, as it turned out, he did have a kind of secret weapon. A near unanimous endorsement of a relatively small but significant demographic group, black voters, who later argued, not without good reason, that they had helped elect him by submitting his narrow emergence in certain key states. Ohio, of course, and New Jersey, Pennsylvania, to a lesser degree. He did not carry any southern states, although he came very close to North Carolina, and had strong showings in Virginia, Georgia, and Texas, where black men were generally still able to vote without obstacles in 1896. Now, the exact numbers for black voters in the 1890s were not readily available. Both estimates are, out of 8.8 billion blacks in the country in the 1900s. Perhaps 20, assuming that at least half of them were theoretically available. A large majority, perhaps 80 to 90 percent of the 750,000 to 1 million black votes were Republicans, at least in the South and Ohio. But there was a catch in 1900, more than 6 million U.S. black citizens in certain other states that were carried somewhat narrowly by McKinley, Ohio, Kentucky, Maryland, and West Virginia, for instance. And where black voters faced few or no restrictions, even a solid small block of black votes could easily have provided that narrow margin of victory. Or at least, let me read you a short newspaper article from early 1897 that helps provide a little context for this. The writer was a black Washington, D.C. lawyer and newspaper editor, one W. Calvin Chase. And this article appeared the weekend for McKinley's first inaugural hearing. Last Saturday noon, the members of the Afro-American Press Association of the United States met at the office of the Washington State. Editor Chase informed members that he had arranged a 20-minute survival clock at the association headed by Editor Chase, and President W.H. Stuart arrived at the executive mansion. The editors repaired the Secretary Porter's private office. Editor Stuart delivered the following address. The country has shown its confidence in you personally, as well as in the principles you represent, and now look forward with the brightest anticipation for a revival of business and a return of good and prosperous times. This is not a formal meeting of our association, but their names I thank you most heartily for the honor done to us. I again wish you a long and happy life and a successful administration. Among those who met McKinley that day were a remarkable number of well-known black journalists and professional men, including John Dancy of North Carolina, Dr. Samuel Courtney of Boston, Lenroy Morton, and Jackson McHenry, Georgia, Professor William Grader, Jesse Lawson, first held. At least two dozen of them heard McKinley's reply thanking them for their visit quote and assuring them that he has always held them in high esteem. McKinley would allocate so much time on his first week in the office, still unpacking 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to meet with a group of black journalists he did not know. McKinley was unusual in one respect. Unlike many of his white Republican colleagues who paid lip service to the need to have a racially integrated party, McKinley actually seemed to feel comfortable in the company of African Americans. Colleagues were content to seek black folks at election time, but once the elections were over, rarely felt the need to cultivate their most equal members of the party. They were useful, yes. And many Republicans did adhere to the creative party at a certain limit. Social interaction outside the strictly defined rules of political gatherings, however, was a problem area. For McKinley, unlike any president before him, then almost all after it, there was no such problem. He considered himself president of all of me. And anyone who came to his office was treated with the same unfailing courtesy and warmth. During his years in Congress, he'd already served with black congressmen. Eight out of 18 elected to the House since reconstruction, from 1876 until he left Congress in 1891, and alongside the nation's only full term black U.S. senator, Mike Bruce. During his term, McKinley would carefully cultivate their support by making an astounding number of mid-level and high-level appointments of black men. Perhaps not surprisingly, including several of them. He met on that Saturday in early March, 1897. And by actually consulting them while considering those appointments and other issues that concern black Americans.  Intassantly, at least, encouraged employment of African American women as clerks by his administration. He told me not to overstate this. I found no evidence that McKinley ever took a meal with black acquaintances from the White House or elsewhere during his presidency. And he was not, to my knowledge, a public advocate of social equality between the two races due to the politician's work. In the political environment of the day, it was ordered on political suicide to breach the Jim Crow era segregation rules that had begun to calcify the separation of races to set the new rules of segregation. But he was a man of principle, and he believed permanently in that political equality was sex. He had fought in the Civil War as a true believer in abolition of slavery and had endorsed the unsuccessful federal elections bill of 1899, which barely passed the Republican House, failing in the Senate. As governor of Ohio, he had insisted on listening to what the small handful of white legislators in Ohio's general assembly had to say carefully and sympathetically. The act to stop the notorious attempt at mob violence aimed at lynching a convicted rapist by sending out the Ohio National Guard to Fayette County in 1894. As he planned his quest for the presidential nomination in 1895, he had met repeatedly with white leaders in groups small and large and listened to their advice. In Jacksonville, Florida, he received a delegation of black Republican leaders in his hotel suite in March 1895, almost unheard of, and very nearly sparking a revolt by white and Florida Republicans. He won the 1896 Republican nomination for president with the enthusiastic endorsement of almost every black delegate to the St. Louis Convention, many of whom became his forces for appointment of federal patronage officers after his presidency. And with their enthusiastic help, he would go on to win convincingly in 1900, becoming the first sitting president to win reelection in almost three decades since U.S. C.S. Grant in 1877. I will pause here for another short talk. Can you name the most popular president of the United States of the 19th century, at least in terms of popular ones? Well, if you guessed William McKinley, you're right. In 1896, McKinley piled up the largest popular vote of any president before him, 7.1 million. Price as many as U.S. C.S. Grant had won in 1872 at 2 million more than Benjamin Harrison, but he was defeated for reelection in 1892. In 1900, he would also go on to win more electoral college votes, 292 out of 447, more than any candidate before him. Part of the reason, of course, was that more men voted in the 1896 election than in any U.S. presidential election industry. Just under 14 million votes cast compared to just 12 million, just four years earlier, and of course there was one more state, Utah, that joined the union that year. I prefer, generally, approved of his presidential actions during his first term, but on one issue they all dismissed his achievements. They acknowledged, sometimes, if rarely, his few black advisors, and that he won the nomination in 1896 for almost every single spot in all of his vote in St. Louis. There were only 100 of them I found, as I drilled down into the records. They tended to attribute all of this to why only strategy by his campaign manager and handwork, Mark Hanna, as if McKinley simply followed Hanna's lead with little enthusiasm and almost cynical ambition. But there were other signals for biographers. I wouldn't pick them up, in my opinion. Time for another pop quiz. Who was William McKinley's first vice president? The answer is Garrett Augustus Hobart, known to his friends simply as Gus. An amazing character, a wealthy but little-known New Jersey state senator. He came highly recommended, although McKinley did not even know him before 1896, and selected him for regional balance as much as anything else. But the two men took to each other quickly. Gus and Jenny Hobart rented a house in Washington near the executive mansion called the Little Cream White House of Lafayette Square, still standing if no longer used as the residence. And became close friends with McKinley's who often ventured across Pennsylvania Avenue for afternoons. Gus Hobart was also unique in another very important way as a very good manager. He was the first vice president ever to take an active part in helping the president from the government, both as president of the Senate, which he ran behind the scenes like they will or will machine. And as a sounding board for the famously private McKinley, Hart became known as the assistant president. The first time that term was used and the last time for about a century that any vice president served as the assistant park. Mondale for Carter in the 1970s, Gore for Clinton, Biden for Obama, almost all of them or all three of them had just left the Senate, making their presidency of the Senate extremely useful. In similar fashion, Vice President Cheney, a former congressman, long time government appointee, served the second president. Hobart took his duties a step forward. When McKinley's first attorney general, former federal judge Joseph McKenna, set down in early 1898 to become McKinley's always Supreme Court nominee, it was Hobart who recommended his protege, New Jersey Governor John W. Griggs, to become attorney general. And here is where fate put the right man exactly where he was needed at the precise moment. He did an activist with a conscience. In the mid-February 1898 coincidentally the same week in which the USS Bain was destroyed in Havana, Harvard, setting off use to the Spanish-American War, a black U.S. postmaster was shot and burned dead along with the Senate's daughter by a group of masked white men in Lake City, South Carolina. Hobart's almost certain advice and at President McKinley's quiet urging, Griggs became a strong advocate for investigating and prosecuting 13 alleged law members. That investigation was supervised by Griggs that President McKinley suggested and went to an extraordinary trial in Charleston a year later. The most vigorous prosecutions ever melted in U.S. history against co-accused winters, which seemed ironclad. The trial also supervised by Griggs over from a distance was actually for conspiracy. Murder was not a federal crime at the time except from federal lands like military reservations and Indian reservations with no death penalty involved. But it was a dramatic trial, nonetheless. Two defendants turned states' evidence against co-accused winners, although brave witnesses of both races testified in open court against fellow townsmen, something being recruited by them for the lynchmen. The postmaster's widow who was shot but survived the burning of her house and escaped with five of her children, two of whom were wounded severely, testified to the grizzly circumstances. But she could not identify any of her family's attackers. In the end, however, the case simply unraveled. The dramatic trial produced a hung jury, one with a majority of jurors, apparently favored guilty verdicts against seven of the post-defendants, and one report of an 11-to-1 violent against the lead defendant. An extraordinary, astonishing outcome in the notion itself. Had the case ever been retried, both Griggs and the actual prosecutors wanted that to happen. A conviction might have still been obtained, but it did not happen. Witnesses and defendants quickly began disappearing and sealed the criminal. The case remained open technically for ten years despite Griggs. A very disappointed attorney general next turned his attention for advising George White on introducing an anti-witching bill to the next U.S. Congress, which opened seven months after that, this trial. Witchings were painfully common at the time, perhaps 100 to 150 each year. Most were in the South, most were with Black victims. The bill was conceived by the nation's only Black congressman, and its language was carefully tweaked by Mr. Griggs, and by former Massachusetts Attorney General Albert E. Pillsbury, who later helped found the NAACP. White's final bill would have carried a federal death penalty for any participants in Witchings. And in one early draft, it sought to establish a precursor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. To handle Witching investigation, that language was struck, however, in an affirmative, broad support, in an uncertain cover. What state-level office was held by both President McKinley and Congressman White? This is a tough one, I admit. Both men, however, had once served as the elected prosecutors. McKinley's first elected office, where he had a Congress. White had been a district prosecutor in North Carolina, the only Black elected solicitor in the country for eight years, in fact. And he had no problem with the death penalty in theory, as long as it was administered after a fair trial. But White was adamantly opposed to vigilante justice. Postmaster forage for Baker's murder affected him deeply, possibly because Baker lived less than 100 miles from White's birthplace. And he was a fellow school teacher just a few years younger than White. They were not personally acquainted. But White's fault, unsuccessfully, to obtain federal compensation for the Baker family. The bill failed, in part, due to a technical dispute between George White and Ida Wells-Barnett. They took equally passionate interest in the case. A year later, after the mistrial of Baker's killers, White's anti-Witching bill then took center stage among Black and American women. But the most direct result of Baker's murder was creation of the first truly nationwide civil rights organization. This was the National Afro-American Council, founded by A.M.E.'s Zion Bishop Alexander Walters and journalist P.T. Thomas Fortune. More than 150 African-American leaders assigned Walters his national call for such a called Black organization, citing Baker's murder and other racial violence and lynchings, and formally established it in Rochester, New York in September of 1898. It lasted until 1908. People remember the NACC, but most remember its successor, the NAACP, founded in 1909 and 1910, open to Whites and Blacks. It endures today, but it would never have succeeded without the NACC Black NAACP leaders, members, along to the NACC first, and cut their organizational teeth. The council, however, was important for another reason. Its leaders regularly consulted with President McKinley at the White House before and after their annual meetings, and they brought their annual addresses to the nation directly to him, seeking his assistance on major civil rights issues, lynching Southern disenfranchisement and other forms of racial discrimination against American blacks. The relationship was anything but perfect. Many council members, including Fortune, openly criticized McKinley for not acting more forcefully in resolving such issues, and for attempting to conciliate Southern Democrats who were the major culprits in America's ongoing racial battle. Most, but not all of the members of the NACC were Republicans, many independents, and Democrats joined the officially nonpartisan council, which often fragmented along philosophical lines. But never again was the White House a regular gathering place for such an impressive gathering of black leadership, freedom of the cross that were lawyers, clergymen, professors, and journalists, and no president after McKinley would ever provide such personal encouragement on the issues they raised. The anti-lynching bill, which George White drafted and introduced appears to have enjoyed McKinley's personal backing, although other factors intervened to kill the bill itself. The tide in the U.S. House Judiciary Committee was outreaching a form of vote. Perhaps the single most crucial factor was the death in November of 1899, or vice president of House Hobart, the man who would almost certainly have wed the fight for the bill in the Senate. But no one else could shepherd the bill through the Senate and avoid a filibuster by Southern Democrats. George White must have realized that when he was attending Hobart's funeral in New Jersey, along with McKinley, his cabinet, most of the Supreme Court, and dozens of congressmen and senators and all the government officials, which he used to give up. With Griggs' help, he finalized the bill's language and introduced it in the House in January 1900. But earlier in December, President McKinley's annual message to Congress restated his personal opposition to lynching, as stated in his inaugural address, not towards the death. And indirectly tacitly encouraged George White in his mission, but White made tactical errors in the House, including a fatal error, as it turned out, by not obtaining any cosponsors for such a controversial bill. There were other obstacles, of course. There was no Republican consensus that the bill was introduced. And 1900 was a re-election year. McKinley's hopes of carrying one or more Southern states in the fall would not be helped by a public endorsement of the bill, no matter how strongly he might have favored it. And by this time, George White was a marked man in North Carolina called him an angry public battle with the publisher of the state's largest Democratic newspaper, Josephus Daniels. As North Carolina prepared to vote on a constitutional amendment, literacy restriction for voters. And aimed squarely at blocking black Republicans from exercising their right to vote. There's also another severing congressional issue. This one was plans by a group of Republican House members led by Indiana's judge, Edgar Cumpacker, to punish Southern states by reducing their representation in Congress accordingly. When reapportionment, based on the 1900 census, was discussed. This bill was quietly opposed by McKinley, who believed such a move both unfairly unfair and politically dangerous. It would be the death knell for the Republican Party in the South if it was passed.  McKinley did not favor the willy-white movement, I should say. The point to me at least is that the political situation was a very complicated one, and President McKinley, whatever he felt privately, was rarely willing to get out in front of his own party on issues that he could not be sure would succeed. There were no guarantees. This was not his style. He worked behind the scenes. But according to one estimate, he took the lead on jobs. McKinley radically increased black American employment at all levels by the federal government during four years in office, up to 12,000 according to the Wichita Kansas Searchlight in early 1901. That figure might be somewhat inflated. Included in that number are more than 100 black postmasters, including at least two in Ohio. If that number is accurate, he appointed more black office holders than all predecessors combined, or exceeding Benjamin Harrison, whose administration hired at least 2,000, and who appointed about as many black postmasters as William McKinley. He did not overpromise, especially to the hundreds of requests he received for appointments to the federal workforce, but he listened patiently. Not surprisingly, more African-Americans received federal appointments in his first seven months than all presidents before him had ever granted in that period. And according to a New York Times article in October 1897 dealing with jobs in Washington, they see that number was 179 plus another 125 promotions for existing workers. The Times article did not cover federal appointments given black Americans as local postmasters. In his first seven months in office, McKinley nominated at least 43 black U.S. postmasters folks, temporarily after the special session of Congress adjourned in July 1897, and they still needed formal Senate approval. Now, a pointless of white postmasters did not require a white congressman or even a Republican congressman. In states with neither, party leaders recommended black appointees as in both South Carolina and Georgia. Two black postmasters already appointed by McKinley there, Isaiah Lofton and Hopkinsville, Georgia, countable about 3,000, and Frazier Baker and Lake City, a tiny owl-white village of 400, wanted to become national figures if for violent reasons. Lofton was shot, was survived in September 1897, and continued working as postmaster. And Baker, as recounted earlier, was murdered six months later in 1898. McKinley, like Harrison, went on appointing black postmasters. Each named roughly 100 African American men and women as postmasters during four years in office, about four times as many as per equivalent in two terms, 23. My research shows at least 330 individual appointments of white postmasters between 1865 and 1901. Some appointed more than once, at least 12 appointed by McKinley, three appointed by McKinley, were recycled from Harrison's administration or that of another Republican. One named more famous over a later president was Minnie Cox of Indianola Pacific, one of the nation's early female. Black appointed by Harrison in 1891, replaced by Cleveland, three appointed by McKinley in 1897. She finally resigned in 1903 in a scandalous episode that ended only when theater was about closed for post office, rather than accept for resignation under pressure from white supremacists. Yet notable as they were, white postmasters were simply the most visible presidential appointments. High ranking state level appointments went to blacks under McKinley, across the south in Central, in the U.S. Treasury Department, especially in the U.S. Customs Office Service and Internal Revenue Service. It's still not clear just how many federal white officials McKinley appointed directly, but he encouraged appointments for many more indirectly by allowing an atmosphere of racial tolerance to the included new and lower levels in Washington and beyond. So it's time for a break. One last talk. Who is the first president to speak at four different historically black colleges? Bonus points that you can name any of those schools and its leaders. Okay, whoever said McKinley Tuskegee Institute and the Booker T. Washington gets the prize. That was his first speech at an HBCU, historically black college or university as president in December 1898 during McKinley's peace tour of the south. On that same tour McKinley also spoke at another historically black school now known as Savannah State University. In 1901 on his last Southern tour he also spoke at two historically black colleges, two well-known colleges, the original Southern University in New Orleans, later moved to Scotlandville, now closed, and the teacher training school now known as Prairie View A&M University in Texas. At almost every stop in every speech he encouraged African American students to make the most of their education, to earn a trade or a profession and to continue participating in U.S. economic life as productive citizens. No other president took such regular pains to reach out to black citizens on their own ground. He also praised their past achievements, his most widely publicized address to a black audience was at Quinn Chapel A&M Church in Chicago where 3,000 Sunday worshipers heard him in October 1899 as he warmly praised the patriotism of black soldiers. Race has demonstrated its patriotism by its sacrifices and its love of the flag by dying for it. That is the greatest test of fidelity and loyalty. The nation has appreciated the valor and patriotism of the black men of the United States. They not only fought in Cuba but in the Philippines and they are still carrying the flag as the symbol of liberty and hope with our fresh people. And McKinley acted on those sentiments. Just a month earlier he commissioned the largest number of black army officers ever named at one time to that date, more than 17 one day. All went to the Philippines in the 48th and 49th volunteer regiments to lead white soldiers, white volunteer soldiers who were fighting Filipino rebels in that territory's bitter civil war. McKinley had already encouraged, excuse me, encountered opposition in his own war department over allowing black officers to lead black troops in wartime volunteer regiments but he insisted that state regiments be allowed to make their own decisions. As a result, several states including Ohio selected black commanding officers. North Carolina and Illinois are just two more examples. The post-war 1899 commissions were controversial but McKinley was determined to reward exemplary black soldiers at least as long as Philippines volunteers were needed until 1902. There's not a large number by today's standards or even those of World Wars 1 or 2 but still more than under any other president before him. That's it. No more pop quizzes. Your ears and eyes are probably put closing over now. I do have a closing gulf on history in general. It's often said that history is written by the victors, never by the vanquish. It was certainly that way when I was growing up. I never knew who George Henry White was until I came across his name in a press release from the North Carolina Museum of History in 1975. When the first exhibit honoring him and his black 19th century fellow congressman was unveiled at Raleigh, three quarters of a century after he left Congress. I was a newspaper reporter back then and I wanted more facts, not fewer. It started me thinking long and hard about the accuracy of what I had always been taught. All those missing facts covered up by all those louder but often far less accurate opinions that eventually to my first book, the biography of White, the deserve to have history told far more completely than he had ever experienced instead of the trouble-making militant that he had always been painted as the seat of sentence and other apologists for White's supremacy. In Jim Crow's segregation, he was actually a principal statesman who tried and failed in Congress but never gave up at trying to save his race from oppression. As a lawyer, banker, and land developer, the town of Whitesboro in New Jersey is his most lasting achievement. I should add a note or two about my research. I did quite a bit of this for all my books and two or three rooms of the National Archives, the Microfield Readers Room among others, as well as in the Library of Congress and in both settings never failed to fill an integral part of the history I was helping to refresh. I am a former journalist although a good friend and fellow print reporter corrected me once saying we are forever journalists in mentality and commitment. She said, and studying old newspapers as an intrinsic part of my worldview whether for pleasure or academic research. I'm hopelessly old-fashioned about journalism. Injecting myself into the story is just taboo except under very limited and my opinion is rarely acknowledged. After all, I'm not the story and probably one reason why I never returned to active journalism leaving it over the three decades ago. Today's agenda-driven reporting mostly by sincere broadcast journalists other than our sadly fast-dying newspapers. The stream of consciousness accounts are alien to me. They place the writer squarely in the middle of the story. I prefer to give out as many of the facts as I can neutrally and let them read or straw their own conclusions. But my use of newspaper research here, seven or more, led almost inexorably to this book which attempts to tell the complete story of another man, a famous leader that few people seem to know very much about today. Even after several excellent biographies that have been published in recent years. By George White, William McKinnon deserves so much more attention. Much more complete. And I am happy to have been the catalyst for a new conversation about it. If I have done anything worthwhile with my book Forgotten Legacy, I hope it is to help kickstart that new conversation. Excuse me, that new conversation. Through a new congregation, there's always something new to learn if you only know where to start digging and always something more to fight. It's been my pleasure to join you here today on a subject close to my academic heart. If you'd like to hear more, be sure to write to me. I have given the National Archives my email address that I promised.


Good morning everybody. My name is Mark Shklav and I am the host of Law Across the Sea and Aloha, welcome. Today's show is an interesting one. It's with an old friend of mine, an immigration attorney, United States immigration attorney who lives right now in London. His name is Richard Goldstein. Welcome Richard. It's good to see you. Aloha Mark and thank you for inviting me. I said you were an immigration attorney. What is an immigration attorney? Can you give us a little hint or a little bit of a description of what an immigration attorney does and what your practice is like? My practice is particularly international because we have an office in New York as well as in London. But the nature of our specific clients in both jurisdictions is both corporate and high-tech entrepreneurial people as well as individual family work. My work in the London office is primarily consular work. I deal with a good deal of expatriation cases, people giving up American citizenship. But in general we deal with all aspects of US immigration and visa law. Now what does that mean? That means people that want to come into the United States for some reason and they want to live here forever or just part-time? What type of folks are you talking about? Well it's both kinds of folks. People who want to come to the United States on a permanent basis where they need to acquire an immigrant visa. People who want to come temporarily, which are either people coming on visit his visas or people coming on temporary work permits. So we deal with both aspects of those kinds of individuals. And once again we also deal with people who want to leave the United States. Okay well let's try to divide those a little bit as we go forward. Now you're, when you started practice of immigration law, how long ago was that? I hastened to be resistant and reluctant to respond, but it's almost 40 years ago. And that's why we titled our segment today, Around the World in 40 Years. I see. And so has the practice of immigration law changed much over those period of time or is it the same type of practice? It's in some aspects very similar to when I got started. In other aspects it's quite different. Now in particular, especially in view of the forthcoming election, it's a much more political kind of discussion going on in terms of who should be allowed in, who should be prevented from coming in, as I'm sure the viewers understand, without going into the politics of it. When I first started as an immigration lawyer, it was much more focused on bringing people to the United States, either by family relationship or by job or by investment. Okay. And you mentioned that a lot of your practice deals also with people that want to give up their citizenship. Now why would somebody want to give up their U.S. citizenship? The answer is very simple, tax. That also, by the way, applies to people who are long-term permanent residents of the United States, who have green cards who want to give up their permanent resident status, people who acquire citizenship, primarily people who are deemed to be what we call birth citizens. They acquired it at birth because anyone born in the United States is constitutionally an American citizen, even if your parents were both illegal at the time you were born. And there are people like that who left the United States early on after their families left to return back to their home country and never even realized they had American citizenship. And later on, when they want to go to the United States, they apply for a visitor's visa or a work visa, and they find out, well, you were born in the United States, sir or ma'am, you're already a citizen. You don't have to do that. And you don't, well, yes, you don't have to do that. You can either re-enter by applying for a passport, which most of them won't have if they left very early on in life, or alternatively you can give up your citizenship, which we call expatriation. Okay. All right. I do want to go a little bit more into that. You know, you said taxes, but it seems to me somebody gives up their U.S. citizenship. That's a pretty big step to me. It's all about money. That's what I hear. I would say 99 out of 100 cases where people are giving up their American citizenship or long-term permanent residence, no matter what the client tells you as the lawyer initially, you have to keep questioning, questioning, questioning as to the real motivations. Usually we hear rather innocuous responses. I don't like the weather in America. I don't like the American president. I don't like the social system there. The schools aren't great for my kid. But when you push, the ultimate answer, especially if we're talking people with high income, substantial assets later on in life when they're starting to deal with viewing state and tax issues, they start thinking of whether or not it makes sense to maintain their citizenship. Okay. Now, most people think of immigration as to what we talked a little bit about was folks coming into the United States for various reasons. And now I want to go one more step. What is the process when you give up your citizenship? What is that type of a process? Because that'll be something new for most folks. Sure. Well, the first thing to point out is that whenever we see a client, and I'm sure this is the same for most of my colleagues who deal with this work, the first and most appropriate thing to do always is to find out whether or not they have received appropriate tax advice on the consequences of expatriation. Because it is quite feasible and quite likely that if they're high income, high asset at the time of expatriation, they may be subject to what we call an exit tax, which can be very innocuous and very expensive, and only the really very wealthy ones may determine that it still pays to go ahead and do this because contrary to what a lot of people think, Mark, a permanent resident like an American citizen is required to file a U.S. tax return every year on worldwide income. And there are many, many permanent residents, as well as Americans born in the U.S. who left the U.S. for a variety of reasons, living in Asia, living in Europe, or elsewhere, who never assume that even though they're receiving income for their work overseas, they're still required to file a U.S. tax return on worldwide income. So they need to get proper tax advice and in a no double taxation jurisdiction like most of the major countries in the world, if they've paid a substantial amount and sufficient amount of taxes to their country of residence and presumably nationality other than the U.S., they will probably not be subject to a double tax in the U.S. but that does not relieve them of the responsibility to file a U.S. tax return verifying that. And I myself, like my wife and my son, we're dual nationals. We live both in the U.S. and the U.K., primarily in the U.K. now. I travel back and forth, as you know. And we do have to report our U.K. taxes and U.K. income on our U.S. consolidated return. Okay, but all right, so you say what type of tax advice? Why do you want to leave the United States? Have you got tax advice? Then what is the next step for somebody that is contemplating and just wants to give up their citizenship? If they're confident that this is what they want to do and they've gotten tax advice and they found out about the consequences and the amount of presumably the exit tax, which may not necessarily be offensive to the very wealthy or it may not be offensive at all. How much is that? It will totally depend on their assets, on the date of expatriation. What is an exit tax? It's a tax that the U.S. imposes on people who want to give up their citizenship or permanent residence. When they leave? When they leave. The idea is to discourage them from doing so or to verify that they're up to date on their taxes. So if the client comes to me and says, well, I've got my tax advice, I want to go. I want to leave the U.S. I'm taking my family with me. We would then explain to them the procedure. The first and most important thing to explain to them is they have to deal with the expatriation at an American embassy or a consular post. They cannot do this in the United States while they're physically there unless we're in a period of declared war, which has not happened since the end of the Second World War. So the Vietnamese War, the Korean War, would not be deemed to be a place or an occurrence where one could expatriate physically in the U.S. So we then determine where is the most appropriate place for them to expatriate. Would it normally be in the country that they want to go to? It's usually in the country of their alternate nationality, which raises a very interesting point, Mark. We've talked about this earlier. From a technical point of view, you do not have to have an alternate nationality to give up your American citizenship. Consular offices who will interview the person for the formal expatriation process will usually require showing evidence of the alternate nationality. If they don't do that and the expatriation becomes finalized, which is a procedure we can talk about if you wish, then technically the person is given up their American citizenship. They've given up their passport. Once they walk out of the embassy, they're stateless. Now, the next question for them to deal with is, well, what do I do if I'm in the U.K. or if I'm in France or I'm in Germany or I'm in Japan and Korea and I've given up my citizenship? I've left the embassy. I'm stateless. From a legal point of view, under the local jurisdiction's laws, they're probably going to be out of status and illegal. How are they going to get out of the country? You need a passport to leave. Well, the U.S. does have a treaty with most countries which verifies that if they're an American citizen giving up their citizenship without an alternate nationality, the U.S. will parole them back in. Re-admit them back in. What happens then is questionable. We don't have great numbers of these people. And most of them would be dual citizens and they would already have that arranged before they decided to give up. And I think I've asked you this before in various times, but where do these folks go? They give up their citizenship.   Where do they go? They go everywhere, Mark. Usually they go to the country that they've been living in most of the time since they left the U.S. because they already have a social system created there. Their social status is already established there. Their center of gravity politically, economically, socially is there. So, for example, if I wanted to give up my American citizenship, which I have no plans on doing, or my wife Julie or my son Daniel wanted to do it and we wouldn't, we have no plans to ever do it, but since we've lived in the U.K. most of our time and we have U.K. passports, we would presumably want to go to the U.K., deal with the expatriation there and we have a U.K. passport to stay there, which at least for the next two years enables us to travel around the E.U. Okay, we'll get into that in the next part of this.  So how did that ever happen? How did a nice boy from New York get to London and why? What was that about? First of all, it's a long time since anyone called me a nice boy. So thank you. Well, I've always had an international focus in my education, in my traveling, pre-law school, and I always wanted to spend a considerable amount of time overseas, but when I got admitted to the bar, I thought that it made good sense to go to a place where, first of all, I could understand the language because I was not a great linguist and still am not a great linguist. So having been to the U.K. as a college student, it seemed to make sense if I'm establishing an international immigration practice, maintain the office in the United States in New York, and start spending a considerable amount of time in the U.K. where I felt physically, socially, and politically comfortable, where I thought it was easy to meet people and develop relationships, and actually I was one of two of the first two immigration lawyers, U.S. immigration lawyers, to actually open an office in the U.K. When was this, by the way? 1979. Okay, and how long had you been a lawyer at that time? I've been a lawyer since 1976. So a rather quick move, and you've always been in immigration? Always been in love with U.S. immigration law. I found it to be an extraordinarily rewarding profession. I've always enjoyed dealing with people from all over the world. We've had some wonderful clients over the years, and it's really been a pleasure to help bring good people to the United States. Okay, and we're going to talk a little bit more about bringing good people into the United States and also whether we should be keeping people out in a few minutes after we take this break. Hey, everybody, my name is David Chang, and I'm the new host of a new show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you secrets on giving yourself a smart edge in life. We're going to have awesome guests and great mentors of mine from the political, military, business, nonprofit. You name it, so it's something for everybody. Aloha, my name is Danelia, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. We are the co-hosts of Keys to Success, which is live on Think Tech live streaming network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. Aloha. Aloha. Welcome to ThinkTechHawaii.com. This is Johnson Choi, your host. My focus is Asia in reveal. We talk about interesting subjects in Asia. Be sure to check the ThinkTech.com website on the next topic. Thank you. Aloha, I'm Chantel Seville, host of the Savvy Chick Show on ThinkTech Hawaii. This show is for you. It's all about inspiring and empowering girls of the future to do what they love, get out there, and be healthy, fit, and confident. If you're up for that, 11 a.m. every Wednesday, I'll see you there. Hi, I'm Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist here in Hawaii, and I'm the host of Shrink Rap Hawaii, which is on Tuesdays at 3 o'clock. Have a great summit.  Aloha, everyone. I'm Maria Mera, and I'm here to invite you to my bilingual show, Viva Hawaii on ThinkTech Hawaii, every other Monday at 3 p.m. We are here to talk about news, issues, and events local and around the world. Join me. Aloha. Aloha. How are you doing there, lassies and ladies? This is Angus McDuck here on ThinkTech Hawaii, and I have my favorite show, Hibachi Talk with my good old buddies, Gordo the Texara and Andrew the security guy. Please join us every Monday. No, it's Friday, every Friday from 1 p.m. to 1 p.m. here on ThinkTech Hawaii, and you can also find us on YouTube. Hibachi Talk. Aloha. All right, folks. We are back to La Crosse the Sea around the world in 40 years with Richard Golstein. Richard, we were talking about a concept that most people don't think of in immigration law, that is U.S. citizens that want to leave the United States. Now I want to come back and talk about bringing people in. You mentioned you like the idea of bringing good people into the United States. Who are those good people? What types of folks that you help come into the United States? Why are they coming in? I want to ask that. I also want to ask about do we keep people out? And what type of folks do we keep out? And what that has to do with this election that's happening right now? But first, what type of people do you help come into the United States normally? That depends on one's immigration law practice. There's a whole variety of aspects of U.S. immigration law that people tend to specialize in. We do not in our law firm, for example, deal with people who are subject to deportation or removal from the United States. We do not deal with litigation. That doesn't mean that that's not important. It's just that we don't specialize in those areas. And we have many colleagues who do, and they do an outstanding job representing individuals. The nature of our firm's work is primarily business-oriented immigration law, which means getting people either temporary work visas or eventually getting them permanent resident status in the U.S. It includes high-tech people, people in the medical and scientific professions, people who are teachers, students as well, who are going to university in the United States, as well as a whole variety of other people, including entrepreneurs who wish to make investments in the United States. So that's really the nature of our firm's practice, certainly in New York. In the London office, we also deal with people who have been denied temporary visas for a whole variety of reasons. Either they have committed some offense in the past, some criminal offense which requires, for the most part, a waiver of ineligibility, or they have had some political issues in the problems in the past which raise issue as to their eligibility for admission. There is a whole variety of about 38 grounds of ineligibility to enter the U.S. But none of them have raised the current issue of whether or not people should be religiously precluded from coming to the United States. Okay, so before we get there, so the people that you're helping are mostly in business. Correct. They're providing an economic benefit. Correct. You also have students. Correct. And the people that are coming in are temporary in the United States. For the most part. For the most part. So are the students. Let me ask you, why should they be temporary? Do we want these people to come in and stay, or do they have to turn around and leave after some period of time? Is that a good policy? Well, that's at the beginning really a decision for the individual to make. There are many young people who come here to the U.S. to attend American universities who have the desire to leave at the end of their studies and return home for family reasons, for business reasons. The United States is no longer the only country where people can succeed business-wise. There are many countries, as you know, which are economically very sustainable, very successful, and people often want to come to the U.S. just to get a good education. Where it becomes a dramatic problem is where we have put foreign students through the American university system. And at the end of that, we give them the option of what we call optional practical training, but then we make it increasingly more difficult for them to be able to remain in the United States and get a proper work visa to remain. How temporary work visa system is at the very center of gravity and economically concerned with the impact on the American labor union. It's a numerically limited visa. So for example, the H1 visa, which is a non-immigrant visa, which most students, particularly those who are highly educated, high-tech people, entrepreneurial people, people who have ideas for incubator companies, after they finish their optional practical training, they often want to remain in the United States and they look to the H1 visa, which is usually the appropriate visa. Regretfully and unfortunately, and due to the impact of the American labor unions, the U.S. has substantially restricted the numbers. And if you look to the major companies in the U.S. that are hiring high-tech people, they will tell you, it's absurd. We are telling the world's best, brightest students. Sorry, we have enough bright, best students here. We don't need you any longer. So go. We're telling companies like Microsoft, go build a factory in Canada. Which they did. Which they did. We're telling companies like Apple, Intel. You know, you can't get your work visas for engineers in suitable numbers for those you want. So as a result, go open factories overseas and hire them there. It really is absurd when our numbers are so restrictive on H1 visas that we're telling half the people, in some cases, two-thirds of the people who are being applied for it by companies who have real jobs who have passed through the Labor Department system so that we know they're economically qualified. They're going to be paid a proper wage. They're educationally qualified. But we tell two-thirds of them, sorry, we have no more numbers for you. So leave. And that to me is an absurdity. Okay, so, and that's why I asked you the question. It's because I thought that might be your answer. Because here you have these great young kids that we train and then we send away. And with respect to somebody that comes in on a business visa, not a student, how does that apply? Is the same rule they can stay for a while, then they have to leave? Well, it depends on the visa they come in. It depends on the temporary visa. Most of our visas will permit anywhere from four to six years, with the exception really of the E2 treaty investor visa. So if, for example, let's say you were coming from the U.K., Mark, you were born in the U.K. or the U.K. passport, and you said to me, Richard, I'd like to open a business in the U.S. How do I get a visa? I would say to you, well, tell me the nature of the business that you want to invest in and what your investment funds look like in terms of numbers. And if you have a substantial amount of money and I know you're going to say, well, what's the substantial amount of money? Fortunately, the system doesn't define substantial. They will look to the nature of the business and determine if the amount is substantial. So the amount of money you would need to open a efficient chip shop in Manhattan as opposed to a car factory in Detroit is substantially different. But as a general rule, setting up a new business, a small business, if someone is able to invest several hundred thousand dollars and they are going to be the primary investor in the business, they are going to be able to qualify as a general rule for the E2 Treaty Investor Visa, which will generally be issued on a five-year period of time and is renewable indefinitely until the business closes. Great. Can any of these people become U.S. citizens? Well, that's a good question. You'll have to look at the individual's background to determine eligibility for permanent residents first. You go from a non-immigrant visa or a work visa to a green card, which is permanent resident status. After you've acquired the permanent resident status, unless it was based on marriage to an American citizen, you need to wait five years in order to then apply for citizenship, providing you've had a sufficient amount of time physically resident in the U.S., no criminal convictions, no issues with arrest of any consequence. You should be able to acquire citizenship. So you don't go from temporary visa to citizenship. In between, you have to get the green card. So there is a pathway? There is a pathway. Okay. Although it sounds like it's a little bit long and you ought to follow some rules, which is fair, but you could get there. And it's worth pointing out that that's the same in most countries in the world. The U.S. is not unusual or unique. Okay. And you help folks with doing that? Myself and all my colleagues around the United States who do U.S. immigration work. Okay. Now I want to talk about something that is perhaps in political nature in a way, and I don't want to get too deep into who's saying what, but there's been talk about keeping certain types of folks out of the United States based on religion or race, where you come from. What's that about? Is it really something that's possible with immigration law to keep somebody out because of their religion or because of their race? Is it just political talk? What's going on here? Well, now we're getting political market. Yes, yes. I'm sorry. You know my feeling on it. I think if any effort were made to preclude Muslims from coming to the United States, and remember we have 11 million Muslims who are American citizens. So when a presidential candidate says, we're going to stop Muslims from coming, what are we going to do with the 11 million Muslims who are in the U.S. who are American citizens? Are you going to deport American citizens? I would not think you'd be constitutionally or legally able to do that. Are you going to be able to change our immigration rules to say if you are a Muslim or some other religious background, you're not eligible to acquire a visa to come to the U.S., either on a temporary or permanent basis. I abhor that kind of suggestion. So that's not, what I hear you saying is that's not a reasonable proposal. Well, it's totally illegal, unconstitutional in my view, to be rather strong and firm on it. So I think you know where I stand on that issue. Okay, and how about trying to keep other people out of the United States by building a wall or somehow putting some other barrier? Is that also a possibility? Well, let me first point out that our current problem with illegal aliens has very little to do now as it may have had to do 30 or 40 years ago with the Mexican U.S. border. 45% of people who overstay in the United States, which means they overstayed their visa status, which means they were legal. Almost half of them came on proper U.S. visas and just stayed. And the fact that we are thinking of or it's being suggested that we should put up this huge wall, to me is absurd. And the basic reason for that is we have a huge Canadian border. And who are we really afraid of? Are we afraid of Mexican workers who are coming to work in our farms, to mow our lawns, to cook in our restaurants, or should we really be focused on terrorists? Right. And you'll have to come back another time to discuss that because we are at the close of our program today. And I want to thank you very much, my dear friend, for being with me today on Law Across the Sea. Thank you, Ma. It's been a pleasure. And thank all of you who watched.