>> now barry estabrook investigates the pork industry touching on food safety issues and alternative methods of pork production. [inaudible conversations]

>> so welcome everyone to trim and weight barry estabrook. i am helen labun jordan an address book with how key thing to go over before we get started. throughout the year come to bear upon branson speakers and host special events that we are kicking off a new series of events now. over by the refreshments as the cup book event series and we will be having events throughout the summer kicking out for dinner at sol café june 11th tickets include a copy of honey and company and a tasting menu prepared for the cook book.

july 20th will have a cookbook potluck featuring the csa code book at august 25th we have a book launch party with discovering flavor. i totally recommend you all read it. you can go to our website. you can follow us on twitter and bike us on facebook and you can sign up for ponderings. our twice a month newsletter. i will be passing around a sign-up sheet. if you want are announcements of events and book recommendations i will pass this around. i think tonight will last until around 8:00 with various talk in a question-and-answer session and book signing. we do have c-span recording tonight and they do ask for the q&a if you could wait until you have a microphone, obviously it does mean people can hear you on the recording. they'll be great. we are happy to be able to prove

that this event is free and open to the public and the best way to support having these events and the authors who come here is to buy their books and the cash registers will be up in following the event. if you need to come in or out. check that your cell phones are off, please. now, barry estabrook is an investigative journalist into the politics of food. his writing is featured in magazine articles and also books. his book tomato plant with the next essay of the environmental cost of the. and now he's turning the pork with his latest book which is "pig tales" that includes a dark side of the pork industry and also examples of alternatives. we are happy to have him here

tonight. [applause] >> thank you for setting this up. it's not easy to be on schedules. i probably wouldn't come out. is this a wonderful store? [applause] i get to say about his independent bookstores these days and if you're feeling depressed and bad in general, go to an independent bookstore because they're such wonderful places and they are full of such great people. the ones still hanging in there are just excellent and this one is a prime example. thank you very much.

so i am just to sort of talk about my story my quest to find pork, everything i could find out about pork and whether i wanted to eat it afterwards. before i start, i want you all to feel sympathy for a moment for my partner. it is not easy living with someone who writes investigative stuff about how food is produced. believe me. when i told her a couple years ago i was going to write about pork, she stared at me and said this better not mean i have to give up bacon. [laughter] so basically i spent two years answering whether we would have to give up pecan. it's certainly from time to time

looked like we were. i start out by saying if you are going eat a at the very least you owe it to find out as much as you can about the animal. what is its world like? luckily there's been a lot of research done on pigs. cognitive research. we all know the pigs are supposed to be smart. i need that. they'd even raise spades. before getting into my research i had no idea how smart pigs are, how intelligent how sensitive they have an emotional intelligence.

i spoke with a woman who did her phd thesis by teaching periods on turn pigs how to operate a computer game and they became very proficient and then she started to train the pigs and eventually they mastered this computer game. it's nose encounters an acorn. opens his mouth, continues routing.

this somehow figure out when they move the joystick on the computer screen in front of them. separated again in distance and time a little green dot, cursor would move and if i push this, that makes the cursor move. if i push the cursor over into a target area it will make this machine across the room stayed out eminem's. she kept making the target area smaller and smaller and moving it to other places on the screen. they shouldn't have. it was totally alien. british researchers at cambridge

university claimed that pigs they have worked on have the cognitive abilities of a 3-year-old human child. think about that. all said they done research that shows pigs have what psychologists call a sense of self which is something that until very recently they thought only humans and advanced had a sense of self. they could look at another pig and say if i were that pig i would grab a nice kudos -- plate of food. they could look at themselves in mirrors. try that with your dog at home

tonight. but a mirror in front of them. nothing. but a mirror in front of a pig and you will wonder what that is amenable go around and finally figure out that is me which is kind of cool. the same researchers took a pig out of the road and give it time to forget. it does reflect in the mirror they put a nice big old food. it was behind a partition and it opened the door and let the pig who learned about his face in the mirror and paid no attention to the mirror. they looked around figured out what was going on and it knew what it was selection bias. so those are just a few things about the animal we are dealing with here. a friend of mine kept a pet pig kept him for 14 years.

he was like a hippopotamus. he was 750-pound and the most gentle creature you could ever know. her parents died during sa normally was quite rambunctious. he was a constant taker for food each time he was quiet. if he didn't like you forget it. she had a lot of men in her career and she was saying this is a period they did not like the guy.

too little girl move next door and they ran over and befriended pig. they gave bats for shampoo. so very high emotional intelligence. much more than her dogs. so we have got this animal. we have got this animal in my next step after learning that list user to venture into what i call called and industrial farm. so i spent a lot of time in

north carolina and iowa. iowa is the largest producing state by far. north carolina is second. you know looking at these enormous, awful factory farms that produce 97% of the pigs in this country. 97 pigs raised in this country are raised on these factory farms. i took to a lot of professors at iowa state university. there's 40 million pigs racier and iowa. 3.5 million people live in iowa. iowa state university is the harvard of hog studies. it's got this wonderful livestock science department best in the world.

i went there and talk to these people who certainly drink the kool-aid. they are the ones figuring it out, the scientists they are of industrial pork production. i asked them, i want to go to one industrial farm. according to all your modern formula, give me a name. you've got to track to craig growls. he is great. good guy. he will let you in. so i wrote a very polite e-mail and got a cell phone call about 30 seconds later and this voice on the other end of the line said why would i ever let you step on my property? you are a muckraker. so i started talking fast and i

basically said first of all that might have won this importance they don't think it's politically "washington post." i said what i will do is i'll make you a promise. i will report on what i see and i will stop in what you say accurately and that is all i can promise you that i will do. i've seen these pita photographs and talk to the people and the humane society people and i've seen the films that i've talked to workers and i've got the other side of the story which i'm going to go with and i make you this promise. i know i'm going to kick myself for this, but okay. i flew out to iowa when cold november morning and met with this guy in his office.

this man versus 150,000 pigs a year. 150,000 pigs every year. he's got 40 employees. 70 or 80 different of this long, low white warehouse building. if you picture the biggest cow milking barn in madison county referring to an county, they are like that. he has got 70 of those. turned out he was friendly or in person than on the phone. after he and i talked in his office i'm going to start reading what happened next. so his name is craig growls two fumble questions. did i have any symptoms of a cold or flu because humans can transmit viruses to pigs and vice versa.

too, had i been on a farm in the previous 48 hours. after i answered no to both questions, he and i set off in his pickup truck. we are going to pharaoh weinke said. kerry missed a turn for females to lib. sara wan houses 2400 south. each south produces a litter of piglets every five months. on average the letters contained between 10 and 11 surviving piglets meaning sarah one alone produces about 60000 pigs a year. a small cities worth.

barrel wednesday mile or so down a gravel road off route 30 and east-west highway that bisects iowa. it can fix that a cluster of low-slung buildings with a few pickup trucks outside. after pulling into the parking lot the enemy. shaped clear plastic bags and kept a pair for himself. he told me to open the door to pick up and stick my feet outside, making sure they touch nothing. only after he pulled on the booties over my shoes could i put my feet on the ground. once we had a .., we shuffled to a small addition to the barns and stepped inside. the rank odor of ammonia walloped me but they didn't seem to notice. he told me to hang my coat on a hook by the door and sit on a bench that dissected the space they resemble the locker room.

keep your feet on the site he said. this is the dirty side you take off the booties in your shoes and lay them on the floor here. the clean side before putting them down again. when we finish that retained he pointed to a locker. but your clothes had become a notepad and cell phone everything. we will get you a pen and notepad. walk through to the other side. there are towels and close their at which point he dropped his pants. bet you've never stripped of the new analyses interviewed he said. that is how you enter an industrial iron.

it will always stick with me and the poignant gut wrenching scene in the whole two years was when he took me into a bar for 1200 at the 2400 south lived and had an effect like one of those asher at james because it was just rose that these cages. each cage held a single style. the south could not even begin to turn around. in fact, most of them protruded through the bars on the cage. they could not take a step forward or backwards.

they couldn't turn around. all they could do was lower their heads to the trough to eat food and out the other end. this has had these animals spend their entire lives. this begs end-to-end, smart animals. they are in those crates for four months and moved into something called a fairway and trade before they have their piglets, which is the same thing except a little crate on the side of piglets live in. they kind of have this site great so any interaction they have with their mothers through the bars. i went into rooms where tablet -- pigs were growing out. the piglets and five months go from three pounds to 270, 80 90 pounds. and they do so within the

aspiring that are smaller than the area you are sitting in now and there will be 30 of them. when they are little, there is a bit of space. when they get there, there is no -- the floors on these places are hard material usually, some sort of concrete plastic with flat and their excrement either falls through our more often a squish through when they walk over and falls into a basement directly underneath where it stays for up to a year. all of this now all of the gas is, these are poisonous gases. ammonia and hydrogen sulfide can

kill you, both of them. the pigs are kept alive because at the end of the building there is these huge jet engines of giant fans that blow enough air through so that the animals can live to five months. they wouldn't move their term except they are kept on constant low doses of antibiotics. doesn't matter whether they are well are sick. it would be like you waking up each morning and taking an antibiotic just in case you caught an infection that day. or giving your kid an antibiotic before she went to school just in case. you would be jailed or they would say you are insane. farm animals take 80% of the antibiotics. most who don't need them.

they are healthy. what this does of course is that it's a perfect reading ground for antibiotic resistant bacteria. these are bacteria use to cure but the job of penicillin or a couple pills at tetracycline but now nothing will kill them in our arsenal. 23000 people died in the united states every year from infections are used to be able to be cured with a simple antibiotic and no longer can. about half of those antibiotic resistant bag area. it used to be mostly hospitals. now more and more it is not hospitals. its farms. the pigs have kept on those drugs. the manure is toxic waste spread on the field. then back again.

60000 pigs. i don't know how to put this delicately, but pigs produce a lot more than human. the three-pound pig in six months becomes a 300-pound animal. you have to eat a lot to do that. there is a science that eating a lot because opposite reaction. 60,000 pigs produce the manure at the 2000 human beings would end yet these farmers are required to treated in any way. could you imagine if somebody wanted to start a ski community or something of vermont to say 5000 people were going to live there. iowa gathered in a big lake and once or twice a year and was spread on the fields.

it's the same. even to the very end these animals are guaranteed a painless death, it is death. the usda's own monitors have audited pig slaughter houses, some of which got her to 5000 pigs the day. one guy worked in a slaughterhouse where he pig had to be killed every four seconds. they don't die are stunned and the next step in the process and is where they are dumped into bristles. that is the usda's own auditors saying that. from the human point of view the suspect there's can't do their job anymore.

the lines are going too fast. they are flying by and you can't get in and inspect. bad stuff. maybe i'm not going to get to eat bacon anymore. the last year of my research i spent i set a time called flying pigs farm which is just over the border from manchester vermont and upstate new york. i chose that because i had a pork chop from their years earlier which got me interested in it was so good. it was like the perfect pork chop. it was rich. it was that other white meat. it was rad full of great flavor. more like a really good prime steak and pork, which you think of end it turned out that came

from flying pigs. i will start there. i sort of followed a pig for a year that lived there. first of all, there were no gestation crate. these pigs the pregnant sows about the size of a football field with a high area with maple trees and a low area that had a small swampy area as sort of an open sunny area and it was like a spa. you will see them covered in matted and they would be besides each other. when the time came they were put in a spacious style that would hold they waited until they get

these. and then they went back to depend and the babies went into the open fields where they could rad and make friends because they are highly social animals. a pig can recognize 80 other pigs and know them personally throughout their life. so running up and down these beautiful hills and upstate new york. i loved it because the farm was going to be developed and divided into law. it looks down on the river they

were enjoying distorted view of park avenue lawyers and wall street so that was her life. they have little hut and the pigs occupied those in informal groups of about 10. i came back in the winter and it moved to a different field and they spent more time in the pigs pigs -- the last day they went to a small neighborhood 10 minutes away. very professionally treated through the whole process from the killing to the butchering.

you know right then pork was either at the very worst meet you could eat from any perspective. animal rights, cruelty, treatment of people who work there. drug resistance, any perspective was the worst order was the best for the same reasons. you know, break down to the way people were treated and in the end for the people who need it because you know i tell people if you've ever tried -- how many here have had -- you find it impossible to go back.

even if he didn't know the rest just because it is good. and so the answer is yes we still eat bacon. we have just become a lot more picky about where it comes from. you have to get a microphone man various. he will give you the microphones to the camera the camera picks up any questions. if you have any fire away. don't move your hands if you don't because i'll call on you. you moved your hand. >> did you send a copy of the book to the farmer and what did he think? >> the bad guy? >> i haven't heard from him.

i got some grief from another large iowa farmer when i was talking last week. you know i am sure he's not happy with it, but i would produce well guarantee he would have to say it was factual. i know i wrote it and went back over with him to show him what i was going to write but basically tried to cross for many reasons, not the least of which was the lawyer at the publishing company. >> how much money as they are in pork? could a man like that feed his pigs humanely and to make money? >> the margins tend to be very slim. on commodity pork because there

is a system set up for companies smithfield, tyson xl and jb swift. it is for companies process two thirds of the pork in the company, over 66%. in reality, it is much more concentrated because the companies divide up the geographic regions. if you are a farmer in north carolina smithfield to say. in iowa you might have two choices. generally speaking, farmers have to take people -- have to take what these companies are offering because once they are ready to go you've got a little time but you don't have minds. it's not like corn that you can put it into a silo or send them. there are alternatives coming

out. you see it all over this state and on a larger scale in iowa the diamond rich pork producers are producing because they are guaranteed a price because of the company. they don't have those problems. >> with the farmer be out of business if they try to treat it takes humanely? >> that is hard to say. i spent some time in denmark which has a pork industry that is every bit as big an industrial and as sophisticated as ours. it is an export industry to compete in the world market. they undercut us in price sometimes. if you look at those barns come you say things name.

you go into those barns and talk to the farmer and find out they don't use gestation crates. illegal. they cannot give antibiotics to help the pigs. even if you give antibiotics to pigs better say, if you give too much the government steps in says you have to fix what you are doing because you have too many sick pigs. the pigs have a small amount of room. they are left on their mothers a week longer. they pull industrial pigs off their mother here are three weeks because as soon as you pull the pigs off her she goes back into heat and gets pregnant right away. they find an extra week improves the health of the herd. there's lots of small steps that could be taken and there are some larger steps that we have

to ask ourselves about. should a pig farmer had the right to pollute public waterways no matter what the cost. if you are opening up his hands that required you to dump pollutants on the land willy-nilly and not treat them as part of the business plan you couldn't do it. so there's questions like that. there's the other things that if every farmer does that, no one is added damage. if every farmer dropped antibiotics are every farmer put a newer handling is. if one did it he would be in trouble unless he had one of these other marketing systems.

under the current system he would grow go broke. >> i'll get back to you. >> a sound like the government approves of the system you describe to us. is that selig can we do anything about it? >> in 1978, the fda which is the body responsible for protecting human health in the united states. 1978 sad it is not right. we should stop giving farm levels antibiotics. unequivocally 78. after research came out in 75 per vedic could go from barbara

person. so you think the big drug companies, 70% or 80% of the antibiotics sold in the state got a healthy animals. you can imagine the reaction of big pharma and the reaction of big agriculture. that is exactly what happened. they said to the fda you need to study this more. they have been studying since 1978. interestingly, it is made donalds and the fast food joints and big food service companies who are moving. that is why we care about tyson pulling away from antibiotics in its chicken's and all the farms pulling away from crates for female salads. it is not the government. the government hasn't budged but

the big companies are aware of the risk of public backlash. government i would say forget it. the department had to be sued in order to carry out the law. des moines iowa is drinking water is undrinkable because of agricultural waste. did you have a question? >> i have a follow-up comment. there is federal legislation right now introduced in the senate and the house to ban antibiotics in animal agriculture for prophylactic use. they've been organizing around that in vermont if anyone is interested.

>> the main sponsor was a congresswoman from someone in western new york and she's been putting the bill forward for years now. it is the protection for human acts. >> preventing antibiotics. [inaudible] >> that's the interesting thing. >> it is not a lone battle but it's been a long battle it is the farmers who did it in 10 15 years ago. they decided this is a problem

double and to give us a competitive advantage in the world if we all got together and took our lumps together they instituted all of these and it worked. there's got to get the microphone and a little exercise. there he goes. >> i want to hear about feed. >> no you don't. >> i'm assuming china arms are giving them some awful green not sure what it is. can you talk about what you saw as a healthy diet? can pigs still has lots of left over like they used to? >> you can't have that on any realistic large-scale. the well raised pigs, a lot of

smaller farmers feed a vegetarian diet, primarily corn and soy. an industrial pig something called feather meal, which is ground up from turkey chicken processing, ground up dehydrated others something called later mail, which is ground up dehydrated chicken and turkey. there is protein in it. certainly they can meet any products of a slaughterhouse. turkey, chicken byproducts. cows are ground-up cow and rendered, if a pig dies it is

taken to a rendering place and can be fed back that thing is they are omnivores. they will eat anything. in this day and age you don't automate them cannibals. or how good is the meat going to be from something that eats the chicken letter. you do have small farmers in vermont that feed their pigs on way, which is great because that is what it on trans-pigs are supposed to do. >> are there certain crops amid talk about pasture raised pork? >> what i've seen is they have a

good type of bank and it's not that they had a lot of calories but the guys i know contends that they do get a lot of flavor. not a lot of calories, but a lot of flavor, not the act of walking and routing pack slavery and to meet. -- packs flavor into the meat. >> i think it is a good crossover of my question with her investigative reporting and the pasture raised animal versus commodity farm animal.

not the flavor but because you have your omega-3 omega six and how that influences eyes. >> lots of people raise pasture pork who have done studies like that and find a different profile. i didn't find anything i can absolutely trust enough. i didn't want somebody calling me out and saying that study was baloney. but there have been people who find a different profile just because they eat staff other than chicken letter. >> what about the commodity raise truths?

>> in terms of nutritional? the people who claim the higher omega-3 farms raise heritage breed of hashish had dared to all hundred europe was buried that were around before it was created to grow fast on as little feat is possible. but that essay. heritage pigs pigs had to have babies and raise them properly. take turns. >> i wanted to ask you about the movement to ban gestation crates

in the u.s. as you write in the bucket is a move that power by consumers and also the humane society that took us on as a priority. producers who are banning gestation crates are moving test how housing so it is much more humane. i was speaking to an industrial farm that is trying to make the transition and he told me bluntly the pork industry is moving very slowly towards group housing. the hs u.s. comes out saying this chain will band pork at gestation facilities, et cetera, there are very few farms transitioning. i want to ask if you've heard anything about that. >> you are right.

the hs u.s. got a lot of a lot of states have referenda to pass them. typically five, 10 years down the line before they have to take action and they put similar things for their own barns. seven, eight, whatever years down the line and not stringent obligations to recommend people who raise pigs for them. all you can say is it is reversing that trend. it is the first break in this country. again and denmark europe, the style is very group housing. crates become a self-fulfilling

prophecy because in the old days you had to pick fast they wouldn't fight with each other. they were healthy, wouldn't fight with each other could raise piglets properly paired with crates you don't know ornery for mild so it's become like a self-fulfilling prophecy. now they say you need crates. yet because they've only been bred to grow fast stick these nervous pigs in these crates and you don't know which one is going to attack their neighbor. you had a question that they are. >> what is the breed of commercial pig? >> is a couple different. the direct pig which was developed near albany 100 some years ago as a foundation breed

them a lot of europe share and land raised pig on trans-pigs. if you look in the magazines they have their own minds within the breeds, their own specific strains. they artificially inseminate pizzazz. they're sort of lines with landmines. [inaudible] [laughter] >> well, now that we know each other i came to the end of a 100-mile long row of crates and there is a larger pattern and in

it was the biggest, wackiest meanest looking for a nicer to set up low -- they said that -- they had a name for them. he is what is called a teaser. he was there simply to throw off the end they would rate him up and down alleyways that cage these females and now bring the females into heat and he would identify those in heat and start doing whatever pigs due to initiate romance and then the poor guy was pulled away and he

came in with an artificially low device. an sow you just had to put it in the right place and she is pregnant. a sow has to get worked up to the point where she will drive them. the farmhand has to massage her back and grab her and after the boer has passed by to give her the idea. [laughter] even one passing grades. they are notoriously good at it and tries to they don't like and you can never have -- there is a legendary guy in colorado.

that is his claim to fame. [inaudible] [laughter] >> so we are going to break, but harry will still be here to sign books and answer questions. there are refreshments over on the side. thank you all for coming out this evening. [applause] sadsack -- [inaudible conversations]

>> here's a look at some books being published this week.

[inaudible] >> we are in the basement of the library building on the university of kentucky campus in lexington. where the king library press found by carolyn reading in 1956. caroline had used a price, sometimes called and decided it

would be interesting to bring her press to the library and get librarians on their lunch hour to learn to print. the printing press is unique for a couple of reasons. it is one of the few library prices in the country, perhaps the only one. there are the university presses tied to the english department or the art department in different locations. we have a range of printing equipment that more or less covers the entire history of printing from a wooden common press that would have been used in the beginning of printing and 14-15 down to the 1820s planted by the flatbed presses. they were used until they are probably using some parts of the

world. they were supplanted by the press in 1878 and then the new technology and make teams had was the flatbed press. we have examples and cellular printing history that is really working printing press. the print lots of ephemera for the library and further departments at the university. we always have at least one book in publication. we have two at the moment. we are in the process of printing a short lecture by john edgington called the importance of the library. all wooden common prices or screw presses. so, the people pulling the bar would work.

someone has to push a someone has to pull. small illustration. pretty simple to really do it. and the completed image. i worry findlay's hand taking a broadside by fritz cretul stalls, which he had done long ago illustrated a little book and these are some of them and in black and white they are charming line drive by bank holiday, live in a way not in black and white. we usually set all of our own type by hand gripped by hand,

do the binding of the book is a full book or a smaller piece all by hand. .. the book is called "the three-year swim club." what is "the three-year swim club"? >> guest: the "the three-year swim club" was a legend in it's

time. in the late 1930s and 1940s early 1940s the three-year swim club, members of the club had gone from obscurity in a very small town a sugar plantation town, giving the greatest swimming stars in america and in the world. swimming was a different thing back at that time. it was explored that people really did watch and follow almost in the way that they followed boxing more. so the way jack dempsey was followed at that time, people followed these swimmers. they became at a certain point they became the greatest swimmers in the world declared by "the new york times," l.a. tribune, "chicago tribune,"

sun-times, and they had an international reach that was astounding actually. >> host: who were the swimmers? >> guest: i will start with them. they were children, really children from nine to the age of 15 at the most when they began. some were a little bit younger. they were japanese-americans. they with the children of immigrants from japan, first generation, who would come to hawaii in search of a better life working on the sugar plantations come and in particular on maui. valley was one of the largest, now we has one of the largest sugar plantations at that time starting at the turn of the 20th century. these children grew up in

housing that looked not unlike sort of the ticky-tacky houses and the conditions of internment camps that later many of their relatives were living. the plantation was a place where you signed in. you had to sign in and out to get in and out. people lived in segregated camps. over the years has sugar developed, as a commodity in hawaii there was a really interesting shift of workers who came. they were portuguese workers and then to follow them were some standards, then chinese workers depending on the economies of each of those nations. and then followed that were some korean families, and following

that were japanese. and what's amazing actually is about even some former slaves from alabama came to maui to work just before the turn of the century. so the people lived in camps that were named after their ethnicity. there was alabama camp. there was spanish camp, portuguese camp and then the japanese camps were still named chinese names when the japanese came over and inhabited. so these kids live with their families, sometimes 10 to 12 people in a family and a three room house. they lived in a situation that was close to slavery as there could be in the united states at that time.

sugar -- >> host: this is mid 30s hawaii late '30s thank you yes. the children were born in the '20s and so their experience of becoming occurred in the late '30s. they were not upwardly mobile. the children -- >> host: was swimming considered an elite sport? >> guest: that's a great question. it depends on who you were. and the united states and in europe swimming was the sport it wasn't the sport of kings. that was paolo, but it was the sport of white men. and larger amateur white men who could afford to stay as amateurs and you probably know a lot about the issue of amateurism as those discussed in the 20th century and even today that amateurs at that time-limited

sports to a lot of white people who had money. >> host: who came up with the idea of this club for these japanese kids whose parents work on the sugar plantation? >> guest: they kids because they live in the middle of maui, they lived in the valley of maui, it's a very dry place and it's not near the ocean at all. we think of maui or some people think of maui as this lovely tourist place near the ocean. but this is about 30 or so miles from the ocean. so they were swimming for fun and pleasure and to cool off in a very hot agricultural region. and they were swimming in the ditches which were forbidden to them. the camp police would come on

workforce ago huge workforces and chase the children out of the ditches and with them and put them come in some cases put them in the stable naked. they were swimming naked in these dirty ditches that chicken coming downstream that had cows coming downstream. they had a teacher. the teacher was also japanese-americans. he was of a slightly different social class. his father was a shopkeeper and that made all the difference in the world. he most against his will, he wished to be something else in his career, was forced to become a teacher at a rural elementary school on a plantation. miserable, doing so and totally unsuited to that life he felt he was working out of school when one day fifth grade

science, he walked outside in 1932 earlier than quite the story begins but in 1932 he walked outside and saw the children and chase to out of the ditch, and something rose in him. whether it was a sense of injustice i don't know, but a sense of purpose. it always sensed he had been saved in some way, to live a life of purpose. he had a terrible accident as a child. so this man was named -- and he said to the kids and to the plantation owners, i will watch the kids every afternoon for an hour if you let me slow down the current on the ditch. the current could be there's a legend about a something up to 50 miles per hour. in fact, probably eight miles an hour at its fastest.

the ditches system and valley comes downstream from the mound a very elaborate system that without which they would not be able to have sugar on maui. and so comes down pretty fast. he said i will turn the valve off if you let me babysit them and watch them in the afternoon please let me do that. because there was only one swimming pool in the whole camp and wasn't open to them but one day a year. it was a white swimming pool. it was a nice swimming pool with a bowling alley and all these nice things but the one pager that the children were allowed to swim in it was the day before the white people cleaned it. because not a typical. the countup a little race and so forth. so the teacher watched the children and they did not to swim. he only had basic lifesaving.

and he said he had survival swimming. he could do a little side stroke by the almost failed his eagle scout lifesaving patch. he watched the children about been a particularly he was a very come he's very much a dreamer but he had not been he had not found his purpose as i was saying, and he become more analytical at the time. he married, he had children, he began to deepen as a person. he's thinking, you know there's children playing in the ditch, naked, nothing but he saw something in the. he said that one day he saw not as children anymore. he saw them as bright gems bobbing in the sun. and he said to them much against his own instinct, how about teaching something about swimming? that's where it began in 1932. >> host:1932.so that so started.

by 1937 he had gotten tickets to a place where they were competing really well on the island, and in 1937 in advance of the 1940 olympics, he said to them how about a teacher something about swimming? he said how about we go to the olympics in 1940? let's do it. they form a three-year swim club. it's a remarkable brazen think of you. >> host: we will not give away the ending. the book doesn't come out until october, but how did you find this story? did you find any other kids still alive today? >> guest: the best part of the experience of researching and writing this story has been connecting with the living swimmers. though it's been very sad over the past five years several have died. there were probably, i'm trying to think they were probably

about 10 swimmers. some of them original original. there's now just one. well, the other one just died. there were two three still living, in their 90s one on maui and one in a lot of. there's another in denver, colorado. post a breakfast of mind. so whatever it about this story and it was actually through my agent, which is so ridiculous, explain how this happened. i just made a documentary film and news about a subject that i enjoyed focusing on but there was a lot of calm and the person i was focusing on for many, many years, there's a lot of self-interest in himself. and then after i was finished with a documentary i was looking for something to do that would

be of value that would summer be focused on something to do with social justice or something larger than a narcissistic self. not that i am saying that about him but that was a lot of what he was about. so i started to write a book on research about. i live in utah. i live in salt lake city. i am not from there. i am from boston but my husband and i moved there with our children about 12 years ago. in 2009, there was a tremendously large raid in southern utah of what are called pot hunters. not pot as in marijuana by people who steal artifacts from ancient land and this has been going on for a hundred years. and that the this is a great topic, to look at this community in southern utah and try to examine what it means to steal

and own perishable goods like it was an incredible store because there was an fbi informant, a very, very big story, national story. then i started to research it and everything was really cloak and dagger and i thought there were guns involved and people, we are watching you. i thought young children i don't need this. it was terrifying. my agent called it one day. i taken a job at "the salt lake tribune" to try to find something to write about it may be a larger story come and to train myself. i was a trained long form writer but i have not ever learned to write on deadline. some agent called me one day at the office from new york and she said i just had lunch with somebody come in new york.

and she said i heard this story about the swimmers in maui in the 1930s come and they swam in ditches. do you think this could be true? i said i don't know, i lean. i mean, i don't know. i said it sounds like a legend. so i got on the internet and i started to look at what might be there, their only bits and pieces. they were short narratives. it was going to be a children's play about it. there was just tremendous mythology about this but not a lot of material that i could find at the service. i kept calling her a something this research. kept calling and saying they were swimming in the ditches. and then they didn't have bathing suit. and then they did this. we both said, this is really remarkable. what i need to find out really was was there enough material,

whether enough people remembering pashtuns living -- were there enough people living who remembered. try to figure out what the story was. because it calcified into this incredible myth or legend. no one had written it down. in any long form at all. and in a short form notebook, no one article, nothing on the mainland since the 1930s and '40s. so all of those newspaper articles existed. many of them in archives that were in japanese some in hawaiian, but a lot of them "new york times" and the things i mentioned, the places i mentioned, german newspapers australian newspapers, british newspapers. so as i began to look at what

that was and whether i could hold from the memories of men and women who are in their 90s, and poll found that out, only at, with the commission, work with them and ask them come in to give him and try to bring him to a deeper level of remembrance. i found that they could remember more deeply as we talked, and then i could take material the remembered and match it with the public record in the newspapers and then match it with her their scrapbooks. when i went into their homes people were incredibly incredibly kind and generous. they didn't have to be. in maui it'll do not archive things the way we do -- people did not. they are met -- there are very many reasons for the. part of it is the climate. part of it is the tradition of

talk story. in hawaii the notion of history is something that's very fluid. history is something you share with someone else. it's a movable in time. use it and you chat about it and you joke about it, that's wrong, i remember it differently. and so there were hundreds and hundreds of photographs thousands of photographs trophies ticket stubs from detroit tiger games. there were steamers, i will give it all away but there were menus from the fanciest steamers at the time that traveled from honolulu to many places. that gave away so much information. and i would sit and that would sicken me i look at these things? would that be okay to look at these things? i would spend many days with people. and they would say no no you can take them with you.

i visited the home of one of the eldest swimmers. i forget which day it was what i was thinking what do they think of me? do they think i'm okay? do they think ending exploitative? do they trust me? i want it and they said, take these, and they were three or four paper shopping bags with handles filled with memorabilia filled. and they said -- and this happen over and over and over again. with everyone i visited. >> host: quick preview of you on booktv of "the three-year swim club." julie checkoway is the author. >> is there a nonfiction author of book you would like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail to

booktv@c-span.org tweet us @booktv or post on our wall facebook.com/booktv. >> booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. >> first, "dead wake," erik larson i've read all of his works. this is a great book, sort of almost a minute by minute description of what happened to the lusitania. is very dramatic and it goes back and forth between what's happening in europe and what's happening in washington with president wilson was happening to the passengers on the ship. their stories. it's really a great read well well written and i think really brings that piece of history in 1915 back to life. really really makes it very human. it's not cold history. these are real human beings we can relate to the often lost their lives sound on the lusitania. great story. the illustrious dead by stephan

talty is all about how tight this actually really was responsible for destroying napoleon's army in the invasion of russia. a lot of the cold war with russia army to all those things to note that that the real killer was typhus. this entry conditions of the day simply didn't allow them to protect themselves against this bacterium and it was devastating. really devastating to napoleon lost more than 90% of his army in the invasion of russia. and a lessened by the way that obviously a century later, a century and half later adolf hitler did not attempt, to his regret. a friend of mine grew up across the street from a big chief historian at the university of virginia, and she wrote a great book on appomattox and that sort

of a revisionist history and in my view, a correct one about what really the outcome of appomattox, how robert ely and the south used and misused the agreement in appomattox to foster sort of reset rotation, recent russian of black americans after the union won the civil war and slavery was supposed to be over. they essentially invoked the free spirit of appomattox as meaning that none of them should be prosecuted for war crimes. robert e. lee had been indicted actually after the war and he invoked appomattox and insisted that u.s. grant dealt, invoked the agreement they had to protect robert ely. robert ely, to his death, remained a children reprobate on the issue of race in the south. he has a saintly give him some version of history but this is a

pretty, you know penetrating and compelling reassessment of how appomattox and what the meaning of appomattox was interpreted by the south and ultimate by the north, really did damage for the next 90 years in terms of race in america. this book "thomas cromwell" by tracy borman is a reappraisal of a very kind of historic figure during the reign of henry viii. those who are fans of st. thomas moore was the chancellor of england under henry viii and was ultimately beheaded because he would not agree to the remarriage of henry viii two in berlin who also lost her head. "thomas cromwell" is the answer of a both securing a divorce and arguing for the separation of church in england from the church in rome and ultimately for thomas moore's demise as well. ultimately ironically "thomas

cromwell" lost his head as well. but maybe more sympathetic portrayal of a very skilled statesman, a very skilled manager to manage the kingdom of england for henry viii but who also is responsible for the destruction of the monasteries the breakup of church holdings and properties and ultimately a separate of the relationship between england and the church of rome. and some of the real depredations that occurred under the reign of henry viii. it's a great read and coincidently comes out as people are watching wolf hall on public would also love "thomas cromwell." this is the single best blog i've ever read of napoleon. it's called "napoleon" andrew roberts and in one point it is a stupendous read and very accessible read about him that holding was and his triumphs and his failures. he won almost all of his battles

but enforcer the ones who lost a pretty dispositive. he was a brilliant statesman, a brilliant manager, a brilliant general but what kind of toward the end i think maybe because of hubris, kind of lost sight of his own techniques, his own lessons learned and ultimately they return to kinston. but this is a great read and a reappraisal come reassessment of the board of napoleon even down to modern issue. great read, must read. >> scott berg wrote this wonderful biography on woodrow wilson. also a bit of a reappraisal. wilson had this mix of incredible progressive record in the white house, especially in his first term statesman during world war i. but also certainly a retrograde attitude towards race relations in america.

and, but it's a great balance treat adults with one appreciate the sort of the progressive woodrow wilson boasts a rich advantage of to the benefit of america in my view. great single volume biography of woodrow wilson. this book "thirteen days in september" by lawrence wright i love this book because it humanizes diplomacy. it talks about the camp david accords and the 13 days anwar sadat, president bacon and jimmy carter spent together, not always harmoniously at camp david -- president menachem begin. the role of interlocutor by the president jimmy carter jimmy carter put a lot on the table including his own reputation. and it worked. at the camp david accord to this day remains the only lasting

peace accord in the middle east. and jimmy carter deserves a lot of credit, as do the other two as well. if you want to see at human levels diplomacy actually works great, great book to be read by every graduate school that studies international studies to another biography, walter isaacson on benjamin franklin, an american life. a wonderful biography. i mean, benjamin franklin comes to these pages as a very contemporary man. we would relate to them easily based on the portrayal in this book. and on balance this is a great man. great vision to live a long life. as a political figure in pennsylvania, on behalf of the colonies in europe, as a political figure back with the declaration of independence back to europe representing now the confederacy of america

during the revolutionary war. then comes back and actually serves as a key figure in the constitutional convention helping to save the day really for the constitutional convention, and arguing for it in what was a very close thing in the approval of the constitutional convention in the 13 states. "benjamin franklin," bigger than life figure quintessential american, homespun shrewd smart, entrepreneurial represents so much of the american character. this is a wonderful biography. and, finally dying everyday. i happen to love ancient roman history to this book i james romm is all about the roman poet seneca who was sort of the artist in the court of nero and sort of the odd juxtapositions between this thoughtful man, seneca, and this time and nero and how we tried to survive in

that time period while being on the other hand, a very senior advisor to nero. and it was a very tricky business. so it's a great piece of roman history about every controversial and not easy relationship. and a very easy and great read if you like ancient roman history as i do. so that's my summer reading for now, i'd hope to be back next you with an equal number of recommendations. >> booktv wants to do what you reading this summer. tweet us or and apple tv or post on our facebook page facebook.com booktv. >> here's a look at some books that are being published this week.

>> welcome to lexington, kentucky, on booktv. with help of our time warner cable partners for the next hour we will explore the history and literary culture of this historic city, also known as a horse capital of the world. >> what people don't realize is kentucky nearly lost the horse

business at the highest levels at one time, and this was after the civil war for a generation when it went up east. it was a case of there have always been horse is here and fast horses, thoroughbreds or can kentucky bred the highest number of them but the big money went up north to new york and new jersey after the civil war. because that's where the industrialists were. that's what the financiers, the capitalists, the stock market wizards were. it was a crazy era when people were making fortunes. there was no income tax and they were getting rich and they were displaying their wealth with racing stables. >> coming out of we will travel with author karl raitz at the highlights historic landmarks and chairs the history of maysville road, u.s. highway that played an important role in

kentucky's economic development. but first author tracy campbell talks about the rise and fall of one of the countries most promising political figures edward pritchard junior. >> that title is "short of the glory: the fall and redemption of edward pritchard." in the mid 1940s if you had asked who is a bright shining star in american politics on a national scale, someone who is going to be governor, senator, perhaps president to a lot of people, what it said ed pritchard of kentucky. he was one of those people who work in the white house when his in his early '20s. he seemed destined for great things and then came back to kentucky in the mid 1940s was indicted for stuffing of ballot box. went to prison and so that incredible promise just flamed out. so i spent the rest of his life

trying to rebuild out of the shadows out of the tragedy of the scandal. prichard seem to create one of two very distinct reactions in people. either they were just taken by his intelligence, his photographic memory, his wit and his ability to mimic people. on the other and a lot of people saw him as arrogant and too big for his britches. he could say things in parties that were filled with the washington the next editor a lot of feeling. and also filter out here in kentucky where people had two very distinct feelings about him as to whether he was an up-and-coming political genius or someone who is just too arrogant and too much of a know it all for his own good. prichard never infer anything when he was in high school. so when he went to princeton i'm going to princeton newspaper and there's this headline that is going to run the debate team

which can you imagine that can run for the debate team and having people elect you? so i thought there he is putting himself up for an election but let's see how this goes. so i scrolled ahead. found stuffed in debate team elections and no one quite knew what happened but they had to throw out the results. and so even in running for the debate team there were questions about pritchard's methods in getting what he needed to be. he was born in 1915 so when you go to washington franklin roosevelt, his political idol, is president. he didn't work closely with franklin roosevelt but they had enough interaction. at one point the story goes roosevelt was angry with the staff were leaking stories. so we called them all in and really took the paint off the walls about what would happen the next time someone leaked the story before the president had a

chance to announce it. and you realize you're probably going a little too far as we said well, sometimes it helps to get the story out there. he said there's a story coming out about salsas agree. maybe you could leak it to drew peterson. he said well mr. president, i already have. that was the kind of interaction he had with roosevelt. he wasn't a close adviser but it was enough so that he would write speeches for him but pritchard works under the political scene. mimosa remember the november election of 1948 for truman versus dewey. the famous image of truman holding up a newspaper. in kentucky there was a senate race between democrat virgil chapman and republican john sherman cooper. and in paris and in bourbon county when the sheriff went to open up the false to get the ballot box is ready that morning he said there's something at the bottom of the box is.

and to take it then that an extract there were some dollars that it already been marked almost all in for the democratic candidate chapman. and so someone had already stuffed some balance into these particular boxes. altogether 254. and so there was an investigation and it's interesting that early on in the fbi they had no interest in pursuing a case of 254 marked ballots in a kentucky county. it was only after prichard's name appeared in some of the memoranda going back to washington that j. edgar hoover wrote in the margin, presents is vigorously and thoroughly. i had only known as a seven year relationship that was not a warm one between ed pritchard and j. edgar hoover so it oversaw the name prichard as a possible suspect, that's when everything

changed. but like most rig tragedies that wasn't the fact that prichard was framed or it wasn't people out to get. he did it to himself. he later admitted that he stuffed the ballot boxes but it was something more. the sunday after the election, he went to see an old friend an old friend from his childhood, a presiding judge in bourbon county, kentucky and said that he apparently confessed to it and he's confessing what he had done to a judge is going to be calling a grand jury the next day. well, if we take it on down to win the indictments are handed down the thing that really steals the prichard state is the fact that they have to call the prosecutors call a sitting judge to the stand who says what prichard told him of the crime,

and they can't really cross examining the prichard is not called to the stance of of the jury said with a light read no other option but to convict taken to prichard is convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud. is given a two-year sentence in a federal prison. a few years after having worked in the white house, after having been mentioned as a possible congressional candidate the princeton alumni weekly said wanted pritchard will probably be someday the democratic national candidate for president. he was devastated. he could not return to the things that he loved. he couldn't return to politics. no one could really have him in their campaign without the notion of is there a jailbird working for you in capacity? i think he got very deeply depressed. friends try to help him out.

i interviewed katharine graham up in washington about him and in her papers she had a checkbook that was eventually collected by her husband. and what he would do is go around washington and ask people for donations to help prichard out. but the mine in an account come every few months would write prichard check. he would ask the attorney general, supreme court justices, it's kind of a who's who of washington and we've got to step up and help prichard. he went through periods of depression. he would have periods where he would quote-unquote submerged, we would usually go up to louisville to every book and magazine he could and just stay in a hotel room for days reading, not answering the phone. no one knew quite where he was.

and prichard come as any wasn't drink. it wasn't drugs. it was food. he just would eat a loss amounts to his weight ballooned and it caused eventually by the mid '60s severe health issues so that he had diabetes eventually went blind, and then he lost use of his kidneys so he would be on dialysis chains quite frankly for a long period of time what he would have people come in and read "the new yorker," the economist, "the new york times" to him. so it's a tough story from the 1950s on. there was a rumor that he did it for an election that that there was -- chapman would when so much of a% in bourbon county. he said he wanted to help himself out so that's why 200

ballots in a statewide election might make a difference. then there are others who say prichard had not paid his dues and that he needed to show that he was still one of the local courthouse gang, that washington had not made them too much an elitist, that he still understood the ways of local politics, and that it was something very common, prichard said. his father had done it. a lot of people in bourbon county in central kentucky new that's how politics work. and to help pay his dues, maybe that's what he did it. he never really explained it but later in 1976 he admitted that he did it and said it was a moral blind spot, that he had no explanation for. and never tried to come up with an excuse for it but that it was simply something that he regretted for the rest of his life. i wish people would see

political biographies are fascinating but they are not just fascinating about people who are elected or win office. sometimes people who run for nothing or maybe lose an office can have an impact in ways that you can't imagine. robert caro showed it is about robert moses who was unsuccessful in electoral politics but knew how to work the system in europe to create something behind the scenes. and also to see that american history is rife with tragic figures whose lives we can celebrate, and also just shake our heads at the same time because that's who we are that's the human condition. and that like i said when i started, historical research you never know once you've asked that first question were you going to be taken. and prichard's life took me on it was like a river i was swept up in.

i couldn't believe that i was that lucky to have a chance to write about a figure that was so complex, so dynamic so flawed and so gifted. >> while in lexington we met with mark wahlgren about his book "a dangerous stir: fear, paranoia, and the making of reconstruction"." >> -chasing reconstruction for many years in a lot of directions that i've been chasing down the corruption. i've been tracing down the way the newspapers got the wrong story. but for the book about a dangerous star, about paranoia, i was getting with america out of those devastating work again. our guests right now is three quarters of many americans died in this war. incalculable number. it's more than virtually all of

our other wars up into the middle of this century put together. and i was look at the way people respond to how you put the country back together again for many historians the idea is why couldn't the two sides come together? why wasn't there a kind of compromise between those that wanted to do as little reconstruction as possible and those who wanted to do things in a radical way? why wasn't there a reasonable alternative? you need reasonable people. but what happens if just about anybody out there has while paranoid fantasies that people are out to undermine the republic? what if they really think that the people they are dealing with are people that are not disagreeing with him about political positions but part of a conspiracy, a conspiracy to destroy american freedom and that they are bent on this. whether they began to evidence

that this is the case? wars don't just cause tremendous physical traffic and harm to human beings. they do. they don't just destroy towns. some destroy conceptions. they the stories -- they destroy people's sense of rationality things become suddenly very possible and you see them anywhere. you imagine what happened if you're a white conservative southerner and you know that when christmas comes is going to be an uprising of the former slaves and they're going to kill everybody. so that they take oldest olympic that they're going to butcher men, women and children. can you imagine what living that and ask what you do in terms of policy. among to introduce you start breaking almost all of the former slaves cabins. you take the guns and bombs. to get rid of the rights to bear arms. you clamp down on them and you

do a little judicial killing. was there really a black conspiracy? of course the. actually invented. was there in reality to the fear of black people separate after the of the work we're going to go raping their masters or the match is wise or the mass of children and butcher think what was that a bloodbath in the south? of course not. down a bloodbath that was in the south was white folks killing black folks. because while they were slaves they were property. they had value. they had respect for property. but now they are not properly. they are fair game. imagine louisiana where in the course of 10 to 20 or just 2500 black people getting killed by white people. imagine a georgia where in one year you've got over 500 racially motivated assaults and killings out of their of white against black. that's what you've got.

that's the reality out there. you've been around the you know what iraq was like in 2003-2004. iraq in 2004 is began in 1860. bloody, ugly terrifying. this is going on. is a scary time. you couldn't imagine that once the war was over the president has attended could be killed by an assassin commend the capitated the governments of the confederacy he -- a private entity would imagine but as an assassin we believe that abraham lincoln intended to make himself emperor. that abraham lincoln was a threat to the republic and that he was like brutus killing caesar. but that's the reality john wilkes booth. after that you can put anything. you can believe that maybe andrew johnson was part of the conspiracy to try to finish off the successor to the ticket to the top. you can believe that a conspiracy was part of a

long-standing conspiracy by the democratic party to kill any president who wasn't a democrat. and you may say that's not -- that's crazy, you say. but since the democratic party was founded under andrew jackson, who was the presence of the opposition party for the first was william henry harrison and within a month he died in office. they said it was pneumonia. and then the next one was zachary taylor, and he got in the way of the south and they said it was -- how convenient it was. then there was abraham lincoln and quite anything. if you got prominent democrats are saying to audience you should elect democrats because you can guarantee they won't die in office. what kind of message does that send you beginning to sense that there might be a wider brought

conspiracy out there that people believe it. they thought it was there. they wrote books about it. it's all part of the mindset. if you've got a president of the united states who believes that members of congress are out to kill him who compares himself to christ, who thinks that members of the congress plan to kill kill 8 million americans in the south, we're talking a level of irrationality that is incredible but supposing the president said today, well you want me to say who are traitors to the united states. eisai mitch mcconnell. i say speaker boehner. eisai the heads of fox news and all of their kind are traitors of the united states. are you aware that the plant of the united states congress is to kill at least 8 million

americans? congress, suppose that congress the body that claims itself to be the congress of the united states. supposing the president of the united states says that. what would you stick with this guy needs to be carried off to the cookie factory. this person clearly belongs in a rubber will. u.s.a. this is a serious nutcase. what i'm doing is andrew johnson, 1866 president and just doing exactly that. that's exactly what he's doing. now, you may think this is rational but i don't think this is rational but i think this is very dangerous. a guy that thinks that way, you beginning to ask if he is calling it the alleged congress are a body hanging on the edge of government that declares itself to be of congress and you might ask what is he going to do about it? easy going to use the army to toss it out put in the congress he wants?

it's possible, don't you think? that could happen, don't you think? that's where you begin to really get into a cold sweat. as america 1866. andrew johnson was a brave patriotic able, talented tennessee slaveholding politician who stood by the american flag when others would after the stars and bars became a military governor during the war, became president when abraham lincoln was assassinated, a democratic president elected on a century republican ticket in 1864. andrew johnson scourge principles can his belief that the constitution binds government in and it is not expensive are real and they are sincere. this contempt for black people is also very real, very sincere. andrew johnson wanted to bring

the country together as fast as possible. as a way of making sure that the bitterness of the war would not continue. so in 1865 he used his presidential authority to start the process going with state governments run by white southern conservatives who dominate the south and where, in fact even if johnson didn't want it, something as close to slavery as possible would be imposed upon free black people. when the congress tried to adjust and change this not to give blacks the vote but give them a central basic right to hold property, to me to come to sue and be sued, to testify in court. they thought johnson was on their side. in fact, when johnson vetoed the civil rights bill it became very clear that he was not only not on their side but even making arguments suggesting that this

congress had no right to pass such a bill because the southern states were not yet represented and that it therefore may not even be illegal congress. this is a man of in other words to again and again rejects compromise and in the most violent terms. in february 1866 he will make a speech in which he will declare that the congress plans to kill 8 million white southerners. you will declare that there is a conspiracy, a treasonous conspiracy against his life, that leading up to the congress are traitors to the united states, and he will charge that the congress may not be a legal congress. the result is that members of congress increasingly seen as a person you can negotiate with. you can't deal with come and the person who made designs to overthrow the republic that the republicans themselves are in the meantime johnson believes congress is filled with people who want to create not a free

america we have known but a dangerously different for radical america run by northern financiers and businessmen in wild eyed fanatics who believe in equality of mankind. you've got two groups on -- by 1867 this year is so great that people and the congress are terrified of what would happen if andrew johnson has full control of the army. as long as your general grant in charge of the army you are okay. as long as a defense known as the war department, you're okay. these people will never sell you out to the enemy. they will never let andrew johnson use the army to overthrow the republic and then the reconstruction. but when the president fires his secretary of war in violation of a law of congress come immediately your thought is this

is step one for the coup d'état. thaddeus stevens on the floor of the congress still around there and he said didn't i warn you he said? what did the jordanians do you? if you don't kill the beast -- leniency do for you? if you don't kill the beast the beast will kill you. that's why you impeach this man. because you are afraid that if he gets hold of the army the republic, certain reconstruction is gone. that's one reason why andrew johnson is acquitted by one vote because of johnson gives the guarantee to a number of wavering senators that a person put in charge of the army will be a person they can trust. and the general grant and custom that is not going to do those things they were afraid of. the moment that happens to a number of the wavering senators decided they're going to vote to acquit him which is why he escapes convictions by one vote. 35 votes to convict, 19 to

acquit. you needed two-thirds vote. and with the seven republican senators, this wouldn't have happened without johnson's office, those seven votes wouldn't have mattered. what is reconstruction looking like? even with reconstruction is done with the advanced it happened after and during the civil war are tremendous. you could go to a black family and say in 1900 and say well you know longer can vote in the south because they've taken that away from you. you were discriminated against. you are shot into jim white environment out there. your women prayed and any white man who wants to go after them and a no jury will convict them. is alleged law. wasn't adequate they looked and said you're crazy. when you talk about? i own myself.

people can't sell off my wife my kids, my husband, my parents. i can seek other jobs if you want to. yes, your schools are not as good as they were but i can read and write out and have a chance to go to school and it didn't have that before. it's true there's white line files and the rest but is that different from the time when you didn't go in yourself and we are being for any reason that your master wanted? of course it has changed. reconstruction made a lasting permanent difference. freedom even without full rights is a tremendous thing to cherish and to be part of your web to celebrate reconstruction in that sense. if i had anyone walking away with anything in my book there would be two things. number one human beings are in many ways not rational. their feces, fears dreads hopes can shape and twist the historical entity. not just after the civil but at

all times. the second kind of thing to keep in mind is will we often forget in reconstruction. reconstruction is not just a second chance for a new birth of freedom. it is fat but it is also a chance to bind this nation together, to reunite us. in many people's minds that's a done deal. but it wasn't a done deal. they didn't know how the story would turn out. they had no idea in 1865 that black men would be given the vote within the next few years. they had no idea of what the outcome was. it seems to me that looking back we have to remember that past. >> you are watching a booktv on c-span2. this week and we are lexington kentucky, with the help of our local cable partner time warner cable. next, university of kentucky professor karl raitz shows us

the maysville road from a historic high title used as part of the underground railroad. >> the maysville road is important because it was one of the major routes in kentucky, into the trans-apple -- west. it was regarded as the most coveted land west of the appalachians. and a lot of people interest in moving your, a lot of people from virginia or land grants you. this became the route weight on the north passage by which they can. henry clay was a sponsor of the american plan. and part of the american plan was internal improvement. you improve the economy by improving roads. he proposed that the maysville road from lexington to maysville be supported by federal government money to turn into a

hard surface turnpike. hard surface being stone covered. and an engineered road rather than simply and the track across the countryside. his argument was that it would serve a larger area and it would serve commercial traffic. andrew jackson in his literal interpretation of the constitution did not see the target that way. he said that the constitution said that any project that was essentially local in nature could that be supported by the federal money. ..