0:00

So,

0:01

you know, Franklin is probably the first

0:03

person to found a university and then

0:05

cut it completely out of its will. He

0:07

founded the Philadelphia Academy, which went

0:09

on to become the University of Pennsylvania. He

0:11

had hoped it would be a working class school.

0:14

He wanted practical education. And

0:16

when he came back from Paris after

0:18

the revolutionary war, you know, he discovered

0:20

he'd become a real finishing school for the

0:22

gentry of Philadelphia. oh my gosh, they were teaching

0:24

Latin and Greek. You know, they weren't teaching accounting

0:26

or public speaking.

0:30

I'm Chris Hill, and that's Michael

0:32

Meyer. a professor of English at the

0:34

University of Pittsburgh, an author of

0:36

the new book Benjamin Franklin's LastBet,

0:39

the favorite founder's divisive death,

0:41

enduring f life and blueprint

0:44

for American prosperity. Robert

0:46

Brokamp talked with Meyer about the founding fathers'

0:49

mistakes and successes in estate

0:51

planning. how Franklin popularized

0:53

microfinance and open source technology

0:56

and the power of small anonymous

0:59

donation

1:03

So

1:03

Ben Franklin was a lot of founding father,

1:06

politician, post master author, inventor, kite

1:08

flyer, he

1:08

also became relatively wealthy.

1:11

So where did most of his wealth come

1:13

from? He certainly wasn't born into it, and

1:15

unlike some founding fathers, he didn't marry

1:17

into it. That's

1:18

right. And I thought his wealth would

1:20

have come from his many inventions, but

1:23

in fact, it didn't. And, you know, Franklin

1:25

today is often cited as the founder

1:27

of the open source movement because although

1:30

there weren't patents while he was alive,

1:32

he could have had exclusive commercial

1:34

licenses on his many inventions But

1:36

instead he said, just as I've benefited from

1:38

the technology of others, I want

1:41

others to benefit from my technology as well.

1:43

Franklin was a bit of an inveterate borrower

1:45

as we're gonna see as we we talk about his last

1:48

one testament whose ideas largely came from

1:50

somebody else. just like many of his

1:52

famous sayings originated with someone else.

1:54

But to go back to your question, you know, he

1:56

he was a very good business person. He

1:59

he

1:59

married well and we'll talk about his wife Deborah

2:02

in a little bit as well because he did

2:04

benefit from the property her

2:06

parents owned when he started this printing shop.

2:08

it was really his press from what she derived

2:11

most of his money. Not only

2:13

did he benefit from as deputy

2:15

Postmaster, he could enjoy free postage,

2:17

so he could Stan Port Richard's Almanac

2:19

and his Pennsylvania Gazette up and down

2:21

the eastern seaboard. But

2:24

as he retired at age forty two, to

2:26

devote himself to a life of philanthropy, as

2:28

he called it, and science. He

2:30

also started franchising, printing

2:32

shops. up and down the seaboard as

2:34

well. And so he benefited from that. And that's how

2:36

he accrued a lot of his money. The

2:38

title of your book says, that he had

2:40

a divisive death. What was divisive

2:42

about his demise?

2:44

Half of the country didn't seem to mourn him

2:46

that much. you know, that our own

2:48

congress, where they met in New York City a few days

2:50

after his death, were really divided

2:52

on how they should show their respects

2:54

to this person. Thomas Jefferson,

2:57

who was then secretary of state,

2:59

had asked president Washington to wear

3:01

a badge of mourning, you know, a black armband

3:04

in Washington, while Franklin didn't die in

3:06

office and he didn't die on the battlefield,

3:09

so I don't want to set that precedent. The

3:12

House of Representatives decided to wear

3:14

those badges this morning. The senate under

3:16

the ages of John Adams than the vice president

3:18

and Franklin sort of nemesis said

3:20

they wouldn't be doing that. And so, you know,

3:22

I was surprised to find two in the beginning

3:24

of the book about this that there was no

3:27

state funeral for Benjamin Franklin. That

3:29

still just flabbergasted me and

3:31

his official eulogy wasn't

3:33

read till nearly a year had passed

3:35

since his debt seventeen ninety death.

3:38

Interesting. So A

3:40

lot of your book is about his estate plan.

3:42

Of course, when you talk about estate plans, you start

3:44

with families. So what was

3:47

Franklin's family like? It

3:49

was also quite fractured. You know, I

3:51

think that just like his family

3:53

his his reputation in America

3:56

had sort of fissured along

3:58

lines. It was he too close to France

3:59

because he had spent nine years during the revolutionary

4:02

war, you know, raising men material and money

4:05

for the for the rebel cause. His

4:07

own family was fractured through that

4:09

war as well. You know, for the Franks,

4:11

it wasn't it was a civil war, I

4:13

should say, at the same time, and his His

4:15

first born son William, who was illegitimate,

4:17

had been raised to be his heir

4:20

apparent. You mentioned Franklin the kite flyer. It

4:22

was probably William actually who held

4:24

the string. in that pony

4:26

shed or that paddock of of the Northern liberties

4:28

in Philadelphia when Franklin touched

4:30

his knuckle to the string and felt that charge

4:32

of electricity in his famous experiment.

4:34

he and William had fallen out. Frankly,

4:36

you know, William was a loyalist during the war,

4:38

was actually imprisoned for many years, and Frank

4:40

Washington would not perroll him even to

4:42

be there for the death of William's

4:44

wife. So William ends

4:46

up living in London on a dead end street

4:49

near to Farber Square, and Franklin makes

4:51

sure that William receives nothing of

4:53

his estate and even lists him first

4:55

in the will that he gets all

4:57

the land that he attempted to deprive

4:59

me of. which way in his time was

5:01

nothing. Yes. And

5:03

so, you know, there was there was William and

5:05

then there was his daughter, Sally,

5:07

who he he loved the great

5:09

deal, but also never let

5:11

her journey with him to London and to

5:13

Paris the way he allowed William to go.

5:16

and we'll talk about that. There was Sally

5:18

comes back and has her revenge with her request.

5:20

And then there's two grandsons. There's Temple,

5:23

who's Williams, illegitimate son, illegitimate

5:25

certainly written in the Franklin family, who's

5:27

a bit of a cat and a and a layabout

5:30

and had fallen out of favor. You know, he'd sort

5:32

of ingratiated himself. He was Franklin's

5:34

private secretary Terry when he was in Paris.

5:37

But Adams and Jefferson didn't see much

5:39

in him and didn't see a real future for

5:41

a temple. And then there's Sally's

5:43

young son, Benny, who was primary

5:45

school age when he went with his grandfather to

5:47

parents. And it's really Benny

5:49

is is the person that Franklin

5:51

pins most of his hopes. And and

5:53

he's the one that he says, you know what? I made

5:55

a big mistake. I did not train

5:58

Temple and Sally and

5:59

William in my trade.

6:01

But to Benny, I'm gonna train him to become

6:04

a printer. And we really see this, you know, this

6:06

this turn in Franklin's life as he

6:08

ages, that he even begins his will for all of

6:10

his accomplishments. You know, he begins the

6:12

will I Benjamin Franklin printer.

6:14

is

6:14

really staking that I'm I'm a tradesperson.

6:17

I'm a I'm I'm a skilled labor and

6:19

I'm different than the other founders. And

6:21

I don't want my family to fall follow

6:23

their paths, rather than follow mine.

6:25

And so part of it was basically putting

6:28

some conditions in his

6:30

last will in testament. So it wasn't he didn't

6:32

just give stuff away. There

6:34

were some conditions on what people either had to

6:36

do or what they could do with what they inherited.

6:39

That's

6:39

right. And I think, you know, Franklin was aware

6:41

that his will would be published. You know, he was the

6:43

first American celebrity. He was certainly the

6:45

most famous American to die when he did at

6:47

that point in seventeen ninety. And

6:49

so, you know, to each of these requests, he

6:51

gives his kids, there's a condition attached to

6:53

them. So to Sally, for example, this

6:55

is an era of laws of COVID where

6:57

a married woman is no more free than

6:59

a dependent child. And in

7:02

Herbiquess, he says clearly, this

7:04

is meant for you and yourself alone. This

7:06

is no disrespect for your husband, Richard,

7:08

but I want you to have an an income

7:10

independent of a man. He

7:12

also gives Sally the most precious

7:14

item in his estate, which is a portrait

7:16

of King Louie the sixteenth ring by

7:18

diamonds. And he tells Sally that

7:21

whatever you do, don't

7:22

take these diamonds off and fashion them into

7:24

jewelry because that's wasteful. Now

7:26

what he thought a mother of seven was going

7:28

to do with, you know, a portrait of the the French

7:31

king especially one that was about to be

7:33

beheaded, would you know, I

7:35

don't know what he thought she would do with that,

7:37

but Sally sort of went around at a sneaky

7:39

way. I like what she did. She started about a

7:41

year after Franklin dies. You see in

7:43

in the Philadelphia newspaper notices

7:46

that the Franklin House is for rent.

7:48

And

7:48

then and you start following the trail and

7:51

said Sally was selling off individual

7:53

diamonds from the portrait so she could finance

7:55

her first trip abroad. and she

7:57

goes to London for a period of over two

7:59

years, including her her portrait painted

8:01

for the first time. It's the only image we know of

8:03

her. to his lay about, you

8:05

know, no good grandson

8:07

temple. He says, I'm giving you all my papers

8:09

in hopes that you'll collate them

8:12

into an edited edition, and you'll make

8:14

a name for yourself, and you'll have your own

8:16

career free of patronage. I don't

8:18

want you bad during politicians for your

8:20

posts. But, you know, tempo,

8:22

Napoleon comes to power. There's a revolution,

8:24

Napoleon comes to power. A lot happens

8:26

in those years, but it takes temple, you

8:28

know, nearly thirty years for those

8:30

papers to be edited and collated and put out. So

8:32

I think people suspect is about temple or

8:35

write on. And then depending his grandson, you

8:37

know, he gives him his printing press. And

8:39

he says, I'm giving you

8:41

what to me emotionally is

8:43

the most important of all my items, which is my

8:45

trade. And I expect you to go forth

8:47

and use it. And it's actually Benny

8:49

that moves into Franklin's

8:51

former newspaper shop and

8:53

takes over his former newspaper

8:55

and becomes a real muck

8:57

raker. You know that he was he was

8:59

calling out president Washington for

9:01

owning slaves, for example. You're that you're supposed

9:03

to be the disciple of liberty and look

9:05

at what your behavior. And,

9:08

you know, his detractors started calling

9:10

him Lightning Rod Jr. And

9:12

in fact, I was shocked to learn that

9:14

the first American prosecuted

9:16

under the Alien and Sedition Acts

9:18

was Benjamin Franklin's grandson,

9:20

Denny. for the prep for his

9:22

his speech, you know, diatribes

9:25

against the federalist and president Washington.

9:26

One

9:27

aspect of his will highlighted

9:30

his So we say

9:32

complicated relationship

9:34

to slavery. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about

9:36

that.

9:37

Franklin, both benefited from

9:39

and opposed slavery for much of

9:41

his life. You know, early on as a

9:44

printer, he would print notices

9:46

for runaway enslaved people,

9:48

for auction of its slave people in in

9:50

Philadelphia. At the same time, he

9:52

published the first abolitionist tracts

9:54

against slavery. in Philadelphia.

9:57

Actually, in in the entire colonies, he

9:59

and his family themselves owned

10:01

up to seven human beings

10:05

Franklin called them servants, which I

10:07

think was typical of urban Americans

10:09

at that time. And again, this

10:11

was news to me because growing up in Minnesota,

10:13

I'm a northern, you know, American, it was always, well

10:15

slavery is something that happened elsewhere that happened

10:17

in the south. And he realized, no,

10:19

enslaved people were held

10:21

throughout the big cities on the eastern

10:23

coast. So Franklin, you

10:25

know, later in his life has a major

10:27

about phase. He befriends a lot of leading

10:29

abolitionists, including Grenfell Sharpe, when

10:31

he's when he's working in London.

10:33

And Paris too, because Paris in France

10:35

had abolished labor before any other country,

10:37

or it was about two, I should say, at

10:39

that time. And Franklin is a

10:41

massive about face. And when he comes back

10:43

to Philadelphia after the revolutionary

10:45

war is finished and he's there for the constitutional

10:48

convention, It's Franklin, actually,

10:50

who is ready to propose an amendment

10:52

banning the slave trade. And

10:54

his leading his fellow abolitionist in

10:56

Philadelphia said, no, it's not time for

10:58

that. It's too contentious right now.

11:00

Instead, after the constitution was

11:02

ratified, Franklin presented the

11:04

first ever petition to

11:06

ban the slave trade. in

11:08

front

11:08

to the senate.

11:09

And and that House of Representatives. The

11:12

House of Representatives actually considered it. They put

11:14

it to committee. the senate shouted it

11:16

down. Another reason his death was quite

11:18

divisive with people that here you have someone who

11:20

talked about compromise during the constitutional

11:22

convention, and here he is now

11:24

you know, sort of appealing against the very

11:27

compact that he had that he had helped to

11:29

ratify. Franklin died

11:31

as the president of the

11:33

Pennsylvania Society for the abolition of

11:35

slavery. It was probably an

11:37

honorific title. I in the book, I make very

11:39

clear, I don't think Franklin did I

11:41

can't say he took the actions that

11:43

other governors and other abolitionists

11:45

did in in the United States at that

11:47

time, but he did make sure in

11:49

his will after

11:51

the other people he had held had either

11:53

died or run away without being formally

11:55

freed by him. In his will,

11:57

his son had lost Sally's

11:59

husband owed him a great deal of money, and he said

12:01

that debt is forgiven. If upon my death,

12:03

you release your,

12:05

what he called, your servant. And

12:08

the man did. And so, you know, in the book I say that

12:10

Franklin finally freed his first slave, but

12:12

it wasn't a human being who he had

12:14

owned.

12:15

So let's move on to

12:17

Franklin's last bet, as you call it,

12:19

involving the quest to Boston

12:22

and Philadelphia. Tell us about those.

12:24

So, you know,

12:25

Franklin is probably the first person

12:27

to found a university and then cut it

12:30

completely out of its will. He founded

12:32

the Philadelphia Academy, which went on to

12:34

become the University of Pennsylvania. He had

12:36

hoped it would be a working class school.

12:38

He wanted practical education.

12:40

when he came back from Paris

12:42

after the revolutionary war, you know, he

12:44

discovered he'd become a real finishing school

12:46

for the gentry of Philadelphia. Oh my gosh.

12:48

They were teaching Latin and Greek. they weren't

12:50

teaching accounting or public speaking. He

12:52

was really upset about this. And

12:55

he was upset too, I think, at the

12:57

consonant I shouldn't say I think. I know at the

12:59

constitutional convention of the lawyers had

13:01

sort of carried the day, and he felt

13:03

different than your George

13:06

Washington's and your James Madison's and your

13:08

Thomas Jefferson's who had

13:10

huge plantations and

13:12

profited off of slavery he had made the turn at

13:14

that point. And so Franklin said, you

13:16

know, what's really

13:16

important for our republic to survive

13:18

is that working class people have to have a

13:20

voice in it. how are we going

13:22

to ensure there's more people like me and

13:24

less people like John Adams, a lawyer,

13:27

and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and

13:29

James Madison, etcetera. And so

13:31

he remembered there was a French

13:34

admirer of Franklin who wrote a satirical

13:36

essay and had sent it to him and it was

13:38

all about the power of compound

13:40

interest. And in this essay, instead of

13:42

poor Richard, it was about a man named Fortune

13:44

Richard. And fortunate Richard

13:46

is told by his grandfather just put a little bit

13:48

of money in an account and watch it

13:50

accrue with compound interest. And after a

13:52

hundred years, you can give it

13:54

away to charity. And then keep

13:56

some a bit back and give it away again

13:58

two hundred three hundred. So in this essay, the

14:00

man decides, you know, he's going to

14:02

create training schools for women, so women can

14:04

join the workforce. He's going to create

14:06

a European bank So European

14:08

countries won't go to war. He's gonna create

14:10

libraries, etcetera, etcetera. Franklin,

14:12

when he comes back to Philadelphia remembers

14:14

this say anything, so you know what? I'm gonna

14:16

borrow that idea and

14:18

change my will. And he actually puts in his

14:20

will. He says, I'm to my family, I'm

14:22

giving a large portion of

14:24

my estate to an idea that you may find

14:27

distasteful because the money is not going to you, but to

14:29

me, it's very important. And in

14:31

this in this Kona sale, he added ten

14:33

months before he died. He takes

14:35

two thousand pounds. The British dollar

14:37

was not yet official currency.

14:39

But he takes this money and he puts it in two

14:41

pots. And one goes to the city of Boston,

14:43

a thousand pound sterling. One goes to

14:45

the city of Philadelphia, a thousand

14:47

pound sterling. Boston, his

14:49

hometown where he was born, Philadelphia, the

14:51

town to which he ran away and broke his own

14:53

indentured servitude and found

14:55

his fortune. And he says, what this money is going

14:57

to do? He essentially creates microfinance

14:59

because if what this money is going to do

15:01

is be lent in small amounts

15:04

to apprentices who want to open

15:06

their own businesses. They're gonna

15:08

repay it in ten years at

15:10

five percent annually, below market rate

15:12

at the time. And with that money,

15:14

the the principal the the the

15:16

seating fund, as he called it, the principal

15:18

will accrue and accrue and we can lend more money to

15:20

more craftspeople. And so he

15:22

really wanted to fund the next generation

15:24

of carpenters and printers and

15:26

saddlers and glaziers and masons

15:28

and so forth. with the hopes

15:30

that they would then turn to

15:32

public service and have a voice in

15:34

the American Republic. Well,

15:36

you

15:36

you pointed out in your book out. That didn't quite

15:39

work out. I mean, I think you you

15:41

cited a survey that said about half of

15:43

Americans consider themselves working class, but

15:45

only two percent of Congress

15:47

has had that type of background.

15:50

But talking about those what

15:52

happened over the next two hundred years,

15:54

which is really the story of the book. And it is a fascinating

15:57

story because it's really the history

15:59

of the American

15:59

economy, the history of

16:02

finance in America, the history of how our

16:04

labor market changes. So

16:05

definitely read the book. But I would

16:07

love for you to highlight one

16:10

good thing each city did with the money and

16:12

maybe one mistake that each made.

16:14

Well, I'm glad he mentioned the two hundred year part. I

16:16

forgot to say that that he's so ambitious that it's

16:18

not just lending money to, you know,

16:20

tradespeople for ten years. It's gonna last for two

16:22

hundred years. That's how ambitious he is. He's

16:24

like, ensuring that he's going to keep his name

16:26

in the headlines. And this is at a time when

16:28

the demise of America certainly see

16:30

more certain than its

16:32

success. And this is two years before the New York

16:34

Stock Exchange opens. You

16:36

know, this is two years before

16:38

the dollar is made official currency.

16:40

So Franklin, there's a lot of wishful thinking

16:43

involved here. And further to

16:45

that point, to get to what the cities did

16:47

well, you know,

16:47

he also expected that

16:50

kindly people in each city would

16:52

manage this loan fund for

16:54

free with they would have oversight over it

16:56

and make sure that people were getting their money.

16:58

In the book, it's set up as a race because

17:01

Philadelphia and Boston did keep an eye on each

17:03

other and how much money each one was

17:05

accruing and how many loans each city

17:07

was making. These are very

17:09

different cities anyway. Philadelphia is

17:11

diverse. It's a working port.

17:14

It's the center of finance

17:16

at that time and publishing

17:18

and business. And Boston

17:21

is very homogenous and

17:23

knowing more for its academies and for its

17:25

churches. And so to go

17:27

back to your question, which is actually, you know,

17:29

Philadelphia, I think the best thing they did is

17:31

they kept the money in play. They

17:33

tried to honor Franklin's wishes and

17:35

they kept making these loans

17:37

even through the war of eighteen twelve and

17:39

the capital moving to DC and

17:41

the opening of the Eyrie canal and

17:43

the industrial revolution where

17:46

apprentices and tradespeople are falling, you

17:48

know, by

17:48

the wayside and on and on and

17:50

on. Boston, on the other hand,

17:53

a

17:53

city that in the book every count is

17:55

is busy inventing the mutual fund

17:57

is busy inventing the

18:00

investment bank they

18:02

decide, you know what, it's not

18:04

working out. Franklin's idea

18:07

isn't going to allow any money

18:09

to be left over for future generations

18:11

to use. And so we're gonna actually take

18:13

it away from working class

18:15

tradespeople. and we're gonna put it in an investment bank

18:17

and get a guaranteed return. And so

18:19

there's very different, you know, and people always ask me, like, who

18:21

do you think did a better job of managing the

18:24

money? it depends. You know, again, like, was the

18:27

idea to start as many small

18:29

businesses as possible? or

18:32

was the idea to let the money

18:34

accrue as largely as

18:36

possible so the citizens of Boston

18:38

and Philadelphia at the end of two hundred

18:40

years could cash it out and build benefit

18:42

the people of those cities.

18:44

Any mistakes you'd like to highlight that

18:46

each city made? There's always

18:49

bad investments of Philadelphia.

18:51

It's funny. Current Philadelphia's when they

18:53

read this book, including city officials will say, well,

18:55

we're just as corrupt, you know, where our city

18:57

got administration is

18:59

just as dysfunctional as it was in

19:02

Franklin's stock. Philadelphia, I

19:04

think the mistake they made is they they

19:06

grouped Franklin's loans or

19:08

this bequest in with the

19:10

dozens, if not hundreds of

19:12

other requests that people had

19:14

left. You know, money to be left

19:16

for widows to for winter

19:18

soup or fuel or whatnot, yellow fever

19:20

victims for their, you know,

19:22

recuperation. And you can still it's a public

19:24

record. You can still look at the annual

19:26

report of these funds that have been on the books, you there's

19:28

well over a hundred of them. So they didn't

19:30

manage it carefully. They didn't have a

19:32

dedicated person. It was a city treasurer

19:34

that was over seeing. And that city treasurer made some very

19:36

bad investments when they did try

19:39

to emulate Boston's model.

19:41

And they didn't realize that some of the things in

19:43

which they were investing were,

19:45

you know, basically controlled by

19:48

Philadelphia's equivalent of Tammy Hall. You know,

19:50

they were machine backed

19:53

pyramid schemes in many ways. And so

19:55

the money took a step backward.

19:58

Boston, I think their great failure was their

19:59

lack of imagination. There was

20:02

one person that managed the fund for

20:04

nearly six decades. He

20:06

tucked it safely into an investment bank,

20:08

and it was only when a second person, I think

20:10

he's one of the heroes of the book. takes

20:12

over its management. He says, you know what? What Franklin

20:15

called tradespeople or apprentices?

20:17

Nowadays, we could consider

20:19

medical students in Boston. them.

20:21

Right? They're apprenticing to open their own businesses and

20:23

hang a shingle. And so there's a series

20:25

of court cases that happen, which I

20:27

think are really interesting to read

20:29

because it's people reimagining the

20:32

funders' wishes, which is something that, you

20:34

know, estates have to deal with all the time, you

20:36

know, buyer beware what you put in your will and

20:39

your instructions because future generations might say, well, we

20:41

can interpret that differently and here's what we can

20:43

do with that. But in the end,

20:45

III think the biggest

20:47

mistake and the best thing each

20:49

city did was they tried to

20:51

adhere to Franco's wishes, but his wishes were

20:53

not crystal clear

20:54

what

20:55

the endgame should be. You know? Were you going for

20:57

the now or were you going for the two hundred

20:59

year payout? So

21:01

I've been talking

21:02

about Franklin's last

21:04

will in testament. Unfortunately, the majority of

21:07

Americans don't even have a will, let alone a

21:09

comprehensive estate plan. So,

21:11

what lessons can the typical American

21:13

take away from Franklin's last

21:15

one testament? And and maybe did

21:17

it change at all how you thought about

21:19

your own legacy? It did. I

21:21

mean, the big lesson is, like, he again, he

21:23

he he expected people

21:26

to manage this endowment of this request

21:28

for free, and that was a mistake.

21:31

It's nowadays, we have professional financial planners

21:33

and a state manager. So you have a large amount of

21:35

money. I would have absolutely say, be

21:37

as specific as you can about who's

21:39

your executor and who's the estate manager.

21:42

The other thing that Franklin did is I

21:44

think he put too many restrictions on how

21:46

his money was going to be used. And I

21:48

should say that Carnegie and Rockefeller and

21:51

and the Ford's and these different

21:53

foundations that came up a hundred years after his

21:55

death. We're very aware

21:57

of this. You know, the

21:59

tax code was eventually changed in our country.

22:02

So you could say the

22:04

reason your philanthropy exists

22:06

is to benefit humankind. that's

22:08

a viable reason these days. And it was the

22:10

Guggenheim Foundation that first attempted to

22:12

to make that change. Franklin

22:14

had all sorts of frictions on who could use

22:16

his money, who could benefit his from his money. You

22:19

had to be twenty five at least twenty five

22:21

years old. You had to at least be

22:23

married because was twenty five when he went into

22:25

a common law union with his wife

22:27

Deborah. You had to be a man in the beginning. He

22:29

didn't put any restrictions on race. or

22:31

religion or origin, which

22:33

was unique for his time. But it took

22:35

years of court cases, you know,

22:37

chipping away, including cases brought Franklin's

22:39

descendants, many of them women saying, you know,

22:41

we need to expand what his money could be

22:43

used for here to include women, and

22:46

I think for myself, the the lesson is

22:48

something that Franklin wrote about in his memoir,

22:50

which is that those with the

22:52

least usually give the most percentage

22:56

wise, and that he

22:58

preferred to be anonymous in his

23:00

philanthropy because he said if you slap your name

23:02

on something, it doesn't

23:04

encourage other people to give money

23:06

to it because it's just for your

23:08

benefit. Right? And so we could have

23:10

the Franklin University and the

23:12

Franklin library and the Franklin Fire brigade and

23:14

so forth, but we don't. He didn't want his

23:16

name on those things. And so one

23:18

thing I thought about with my own

23:20

legacy going forward as someone who doesn't have a

23:22

lot of money is that Franklin

23:24

also knew that a little can go a

23:26

long way. and that those five dollar

23:28

donations and those ten dollar donations

23:30

and those hundred dollar donations from

23:32

many people are sometimes more useful

23:34

to an organization or an idea than

23:36

a one million dollar one off that

23:38

gets spent and then you go, oh, who's checking

23:40

up on it? And so has made me think a

23:42

lot about parceling out money in small

23:45

doses and perhaps in ways

23:47

that can be released at fifty year

23:49

intervals or seventy five year intervals. But again, this takes

23:51

a lot of planning and would need a manager or

23:53

an heir who's willing to take this

23:55

on. Let's close by

23:56

asking you to mentioned a few

23:58

things about Ben Franklin that maybe you think

24:00

most people don't know about. And I'll

24:02

actually go first by mentioning some things I

24:04

learned from your book. So first of all, I didn't know

24:06

that Franklin was such a strong swimmer and that

24:09

he he used to swim for miles with a

24:11

suitcase of books on his back so that he'd be able to

24:13

survive a shipwreck. and

24:15

that he also invented swim fins and

24:17

was posthumously inducted into international

24:19

swimming hall of fame, which I think is hilarious.

24:22

Franklin has known as the father of the foreign

24:24

service. And between seventeen fifty seven

24:26

and seventeen eighty five, he only spent three years

24:28

on American soil. rest that time was

24:30

in England and France. And

24:33

like you said, he co founded the

24:35

nation's first hospital. Still in

24:37

operation today because he believed

24:39

that every American should have quality

24:41

healthcare regardless of income. So those are

24:43

my few things. What would you say

24:45

are some things that most people probably don't know

24:47

about then, He was very

24:48

insecure. And I think when I

24:51

was working on this book and reading his

24:53

letters, all of which are available online, we

24:55

have a wonderful arch of the Library

24:57

of Congress called founders online and

24:59

the national archives. Excuse me. You

25:01

can access these and you can search by

25:03

keyword. I was shocked at how

25:05

insecure he was because he was

25:07

self taught He only had two years of formal schooling

25:09

as quite a young person. Schooling was free

25:11

at that time if you were a male, but

25:13

he couldn't afford the textbooks. And

25:15

I was just struck by throughout his life.

25:17

He's always looking for a pat on the

25:19

back from father, from

25:21

his older brother, from

25:24

Deborah from his sister Jane. Do you see

25:26

what I did? And you really feel his

25:28

pain when he writes to his

25:30

older brother James, for example. and he

25:32

doesn't get a response or at least one that

25:34

survives. I was also

25:36

surprised that the Kite experiment, he

25:38

wrote about that as if someone else

25:40

had done it. he and he read about it

25:42

months later. It was a friend in England, Joseph

25:44

Presley, the man who's credited with the discovery of

25:46

oxygen or at least with Fizzy water that we

25:48

drink today. Presley,

25:50

you know, popularized

25:50

it widely in the British press when Franklin wrote

25:52

about it in the united

25:54

in the Americas. You know, he

25:56

said it was it's it's very

25:59

easy. Anyone could do

25:59

it. And I thought but, yeah, until

26:02

you no one had, you know. That it's

26:04

really remarkable to

26:06

me. yeah,

26:07

those are the things I think about his personal thing.

26:10

And the the last thing, because I'm a writing teacher here

26:12

at the University of Pittsburgh, you know,

26:14

he taught himself to write the same way

26:16

I my students to learn to write, which is he

26:18

pulls down great books from the shelf and

26:20

copies them. And he gets his feeling in

26:22

his hand for what that writer is doing.

26:24

And then he closes the book.

26:26

and he tries to remember what the writer wrote, and then

26:28

he tries to write it himself, and he often

26:30

finds that he's improving the text.

26:32

And in that way, he's finding his

26:35

own voice. he's making different choices and that impresses me a

26:37

great deal. He's very modern in that

26:39

way. Yeah. So he he

26:39

obviously loved books. He helped

26:42

found libraries and and when

26:44

he passed way he had more than four

26:46

thousand books in his estate.

26:48

Well, Michael Meyer, this has been a fascinating discussion.

26:50

Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks

26:52

for having me.

26:55

As always,

26:58

people on the program may have

27:00

interest in the stocks they talk about, and the

27:02

motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against,

27:04

so don't buy ourselves stocks based solely on what

27:06

you hear. I'm Chris Hill. Thanks

27:09

for listening. We'll see you

27:11

tomorrow.