whenever they ask people do you want to make it easier to vote, do you want or early voting days, the want it to make it easier to register to vote vote, do you want absentee voting, do you want to be able to register on line, it's already very popular. all of these reforms are very popular whereas on the other side people who are passing voter i.d. laws and restrictions on voting or having to do it mostly under the radar because they know that when polls may show people support voter i.d. people can't understand that well but once there becomes a debate in the media and the public sphere about the stuff people don't like it. people like democracy and they want more of it and that's why in the end despite these assaults i'm very hopeful.

>> i wanted to give it up for zach roth. thank you so much for joining us today. [applause] i really can't say enough about the book for anybody who personally knows me. i don't read that much but i read this in a couple of days but i loved it. it was awesome. it really is a great, comprehensive overview of the state of our democracy not just today but through her history. after i read it i thought everyone i know should be reading this. i hang courage you, you can purchase the book at the bookstore and zach will be here signing books right here today. we appreciate all of you coming. >> thanks to rama. [applause] >> welcome to peoria illinois on booktv. next we speak with author --

about the city's mishaps to greatness in his book it didn't play in peoria. >> will it play in peoria came from the vaudeville days where peoria was basically the kingmaker of the life writing acts that would come through town and if you could make it there and appeal to peorian then your chances of success nationally are in hands. it did play in peoria -- it's "will it play in peoria" missed chances and a middle american town. i looks looked way back in history and found that peoria's first miss chance was probably occurred over 10,000 years ago when the future town of peoria was on the western shore of the

mississippi river however the glaciers came through and pushed the ancient mississippi, the original mississippi riverbed over to 100 miles west of its present-day location one just has to think that with the major cities on the mississippi like the twin cities of minnesota, st. louis, memphis and new orleans that peoria might have been there too have the mississippi continued in its original position. the illinois river has actually filled in the riverbed of the mississippi and that's where peoria is today. our first source was charles.

he is a historian from memphis tennessee first and he had talked about all the possibilities of the automotive industry here, the airline industry, he had heard where lindbergh had first come to peoria for sponsorship of this famous flight across the atlantic. peoria would have been a very, very good town for him to try a trial balloon, so he would have have -- of course peoria is smaller and in the 20s had a very strong community. he would not waste a lot of time and with all his marbles in st.

louis, all his contacts were there, so he would have, if he didn't plan out his pitch to st. louis, it could have dashed all hopes and eliminate -- because his best hopes or in st. louis so having an engineering mind that he had he would want to do a trial run. peoria would have been a good city to try but you can't blame peoria for fighting the prospects because in six weeks before he went around for sponsorship or thought about it, he had bailed out of his plane twice on the way to peoria in chicago so pr area money men knowing that would think well he

can't can make it 150 miles between peoria and chicago, how are you going to make it over the atlantic? it could have been a matter of a great idea but the wrong time. >> plus lindbergh had eight nick name from his barnstormed days, daredevil lindy. there is plenty of reason to think you might be betting on a dead horse. obviously he then did go to st. louis and did fly successfully over the atlantic. but given that st. louis certainly profited with the airline industry and the airline manufacturing, airplane manufacturing with the lindbergh connection it's not inconceivable that had peoria said yes to his sponsorship, that peoria would have been in a

good situation to follow lindbergh in his superstardom. back in the late 1800's, cities were facing a pollution scourge known as the horse in droppings of the horse and there were dire predictions that there would be ponied pooh piling as high as third floor windows in manhattan by the 1930s, so that's when the peoria plant the jury a brothers, charles and jay frank came into the picture and in 1893 developed the first gas powered car in america. they first started their

experiment in peoria however their neighbors and other peoria and subjected to this sounds of the car because it startled their horses and they also objected the odor of gasoline to which years later when charles wrote a letter the father of aviation and complained about that they had to change their location of experiments on the car to springfield massachusetts , because of the peoria and objection -- the

peorian objection to the odor of gasoline he wrote back saying he actually preferred the thing behind the horse but the experiment started in peoria and certainly contributed to the final product which was the first car. >> just to get a little background who were the brothers? >> they were two brothers born and raised outside peoria and they both had an engineering mind. especially charles. charles started in the bicycle business and had several patents for bicycles in the late 1800's and jay frank his younger brother was a more, could take the engineering aspects and the

creativity of his brother and translate translated into a mechanical entity so they first started out with bicycles and peoria was big into bikes in the 1860s in the 1870s and so it was a natural progression to gas powered automobiles and henry ford himself thought that the duryea car was an engineering marvel however the duryea brothers were not henry ford when it comes to car production and builds very few cars. so have they been more like henry ford peoria would have been in the driver seat in the industry. another opportunity in the educational round for peoria was in the late 1800's where

washington coring timmy wiltsey peoria farmer who himself was illiterate for most of his life that taught himself how to read and write and became a fanatic advocate for education and in the late 1800's he changed his will to endow a university that he wanted to call the corrington university as long as there would be no football team. and when he died in 1903, and his children discovered the contents of the will, they protested his will saying that their father was adult when he made the will and part of his

handling with the idea of that the oxygen was gone and the court sided with the children and so peoria lost another chance at a university however part of that will still exist today and that there is no college foot off in peoria. >> what do the stories tell us about peoria? >> well, and appreciation of the town of peoria is not some kind of a bland backwater community and that the phrase will it play in peoria just means that you are dull. this town is vibrant and has plenty of entertaining folks, plenty of innovation and just

because they may not aspire to be a metropolitan area like chicago or st. louis doesn't mean that they cannot be proud of themselves. i think the book shows amply that some of the missed chances just were not up there doing, it happened and the main thing is just to be proud of what you have and happy with what you have. i think the townhouse that. i think that they are not interested in being a new york but the perception nationally is that the phrase meaning the average person as if the average person is worth listening to, i think he is.