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James Monroe the Forrest Gump of Presidents EPISODE TRANSCRIPT James Monroe The Forrest Gump of presidents EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Listen to Presidential at http://wapo.st/presidential This transcript was run through an automated transcription service and then lightly edited for clarity. There may be typos or small discrepancies from the podcast audio. ARCHIVAL CLIP OF JOHN KERRY: President James Monroe, who was also a former secretary of state, declared that the United States would unilaterally, and as a matter of fact, act as the protector of the region. The doctrine that bears his name asserted our authority to step in and oppose the influence of the European powers in Latin America. And throughout our nation's history, successive presidents have reinforced that doctrine and made a similar choice. Today, however, we have made a different choice. The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over. The relationship -- it's worth applauding -- is not a bad thing. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: You're hearing a clip from Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking just a couple of years ago on foreign policy and invoking one of the enduring but twisted legacies of James Monroe. This is the fifth episode of Presidential. "PRESIDENTIAL" THEME MUSIC JULIE MILLER: I think Monroe doesn't get the credit he deserves. You want to go on a blind date with James Monroe? LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: I don't know. Do I? JULIE MILLER: Well, he was very handsome. So, maybe you would. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: That was Julie Miller from the Library of Congress. Alright, I'm going to be honest that, for a while, I've been worried that the Monroe episode would be a bit of a bore. He was president during the Era of Good Feelings, which basically sounds like the least exciting era ever. But it turns out that there is actually a lot to get excited about -- and not just because Julie Miller thinks Monroe is handsome. My favorite image of Monroe actually came from Greg Schneider, who's here with me. He's the editor who oversees all the business coverage here at The Post, and he went to interview the Monroe experts at the Monroe Museum. Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 1 LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: OK, so you came back all excited, and you said James Monroe is like Forrest Gump. What does that mean? GREG SCHNEIDER: Not the most intellectual comparison, but, you know, it's true. And actually, it was Scott Harris, the director of the Monroe Museum in Fredericksburg, that first made that comparison. But I think it's a good one because Monroe was this guy who just seemed to have an uncanny knack, almost, to be around important and significant events. So here's a guy -- as a teenager, he dropped out of college and went off and joined the army to fight in the Revolution. He wound up alongside General Washington in New York. You know the famous picture of Washington crossing the Delaware? That's Monroe holding the flag in the boat. Now that didn't really happen, I found out. He actually crossed the river before Washington did because he was on, like, a covert operation to spy on the British and the Hessian troops that were there. But anyway, so he's there -- he gets wounded, almost killed. He took a musket ball to the shoulder. It severed an artery, and he almost died. There were also paintings of this scene of Washington accepting the surrender at Trenton, and you see Monroe in the background being treated for his wounds. So, you know, again he's there in the picture. Then he goes on to join the Continental Congress. He was governor of Virginia. He went over to France and was there just after the French Revolution, just after Robespierre was executed. Then, he went back and actually saw the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte. He negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. He came back and served as secretary of state and secretary of war at the same time, which is -- you know, who else has done that? And then he wound up president himself. So, for a guy that a lot of people don't know much about, it's an incredible run of important events that he was a part of. I thought that was really impressive. And maybe more impressive: I did ask your question -- when I was at the Monroe Museum, I talked to Daniel Preston, who's the editor of Monroe's papers, and I asked him the question that you've been asking people throughout the podcast. That's: If you went on a blind date with James Monroe, what advice would you give someone? What would they expect? LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: So here's Greg talking to Daniel Preston. DANIEL PRESTON: When Monroe was in the Continental Congress, he was right out of the Army. He was in his 20s. And the Continental Congress in the 1780s was either elder statesman or these young men just out of the army. So, there's Monroe and there's a whole raft of others, and they're all young and they're all single. It's not correct to say he had a string of girlfriends, but there were women that he was interested in that there was at least some level of romance. So, he's not this nerdy guy who sits in his office all day writing letters on government policy and these sorts of things. There is one letter about Monroe at this time by a young woman who kind of makes fun of him Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 2 that he's sort of dull and awkward. And how ‘some of the girls think he's handsome, but I don't think so.’ So, there's that side of him. But, on the other hand, when he was in New York, he married Elizabeth Kortright who, by all accounts, was one of the great beauties of her age. He was mid-20s. She was 17. He danced. He enjoyed music. They didn't go out to the theater a lot. He liked art. He liked horseback riding. He did lots of things that he was interested in. So, he probably would have been fairly good company, I would think. He certainly had a taste for fine wine, for fine dining. So, I suspect if somebody had gone on a date with him, they would have had a really nice date. GREG SCHNEIDER: Was he physically imposing? DANIEL PRESTON: Yeah. He was 6'1. I mean, there's his clothes, sitting right there -- standing right there on that mannequin. And that's Mrs. Monroe's dress. So, he was 6'1. She was 4'11. But, yeah, tall, robust. One commentary was, when he was in Ohio -- he was heading for Zanesville, Ohio, and the local militias, the dignitaries, went out to meet him coming in and he was on horseback. And one of them commented that they couldn't keep up with him. GREG SCHNEIDER: So, was he, to use a modern term, sort of a bad dude? Or was he more of a functionary as he got older and worked his way through government? DANIEL PRESTON: I would not call him a bad dude. He was very serious about government service. Like all men of the time, he was a farmer. Even though he was an attorney, he owned several farms in Virginia. He thought of himself as Jefferson did, as Washington did, as first and foremost a farmer. But he felt a dedication to public service. I think he liked the sense of accomplishment. I don't want to say he's pragmatic. Although, in a lot of ways, he's more pragmatic than anything else -- but that seems to indicate that he's not interested in philosophy or principles, which is not true. He really was driven much by, and very vocally an advocate of, the ideals of the American Revolution. He talked about this all the time, but he really seemed to have liked the notion of being able to accomplish something -- that there were problems facing the nation and being able to help resolve those problems. LILLIAN CUNNINGHAM: That musket ball from the Battle of Trenton -- it remains lodged in his shoulder for the rest of his life. So Monroe, literally and figuratively, carries the American Revolution in him. Monroe is considered the last president of the Revolutionary War generation. He's also the last in a string of Virginians and Democratic Republicans to hold the office of president. Here's Greg talking to the director of the Monroe Museum, Scott Harris. GREG SCHNEIDER: Was Monroe the last president to wear the powdered wig? And the -- I don't know -- the knee breeches? SCOTT HARRIS : Well, he never wore the wig. He did tie his hair back in a cuve on occasion when he was younger and when it was longer, although he tended to be more short-haired by the time he got to the White House. But a number of people did comment on the fact that he did still tend Presidential podcast wapo.st/presidential 3 to wear knee britches, and he wore buckled shoes. His preferred mode of dress was very conservative and almost Revolutionary War-like. There are accounts where he'd like to often wear buff pants and a blue coat and then a weskit or a vest that were suggestive of a military uniform. In fact, he liked to be called, even as president, Colonel Monroe. He tended to very much identify with that point in his life when he had been in the Army.
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