populate oregon and washington so that the population would be such that we would not have a military conflict with the british. they were pretty well encamped cup of me. it was designed by the british to have this territory. congress is very interested in claiming this part of the northwest. in november of eight keynote three -- 1803, he accomplished his work. tomakes the decision not stay there, not to stay there for the winter. he makes the decision to move south.

then the indianhead canyon camp and down to this conjunction. e we are right now is near bend. milespassing for several over the plains, the trail entered a beautiful pine forest in which we traveled for several hours. and that we descended into a valley of another large band. the street was very swift and eat. among the timber here, it is over three feet in diameter. we have the side of the rainbow. sitefremont came upon this

on december 4. they had some cattle they are bringing along. mules.d 104 horses and this time they're using a teepee. two american indian guys. here on thathrough day in the afternoon at least, you would see them putting up the teepee and several fires getting started and taking all of the material and so far out. he was busy writing in his

journal and getting his equipment out to hopefully have the weather be such that he could get a lot of readings at night. when he was successful in reading the latitude, he was using a telescope and timing a particular moon going around jupiter. he was very in likely on his horse and outward he could see this little canyon and do his drawings of the sketches of the map. they would start each day actually moving at about 10:00 and maybe even 11. it has been a long time. during that time, it is very

likely they were out trying to find a good route if they weren't already on a trail of some kind. and saw thisived for the first time, it was on 5, 1843.f december yet.hadn't seen it to an area where there is a huge amount of loss activity geologically -- of lava activity geologically. this going to a place and is right by ryan ranch. it was all pine forest and

beautiful weather made our journey delightful. everything was melting rapidly. principal ofbe the the river. it was sometimes narrow to 50 feet. river.nded along the it's banks occasionally black and with rock. there must've an old camping ground. the name of the stream is similarly characteristic. you could hear the roaring of the false.

this is the first initial falls right here. it talks about it in his terminal. -- journal. you can see what he is talking about, particularly down below a little bit. if it see what he is talking about. i don't really think it has changed any since he was here.

this is a place where fremont was many years ago. this is the main span of the river. it is one of the very few rivers in the united states that flows to the south and the north, but it does that. the cartographer also talks about the number of false along this area that they were in. we are at the upper end of dylan falls.

just about 200 yards, 300 yard there is a nice big meadow called ryan ranch. it was in this clearing that camped thexpedition night of december 5. at some point, fremont discovered a hole in the rock. in this meadow where the water was draining, he said at the time there was almost a small stream. it was raining down into the lava rocks below. that hole is still here.

he made a comment in his journal that the -- that they located or happened to see a set of freshly atp.d poles for have the owners been here -- as they were not, they merely left the old ones in their place. we talked a couple of times of how long it would take. for the native americans that -- the comeback in the find some old ones. then they went south. down to this marsh.

he went down here to summer lake . he went down to water valley and out into nevada. after this trip was made, the information was published in a report. some 10,000 copies were made. almost every major wagon came out to oregon. they also came to california country. carson was an indian agent for the u.s. government. an author spoke with c-span's

connecting history about his biography of kit carson and his role of the conquest of the western united states. kit carson is one of those guys that i think is almost better known for his fictional aspect. this is a guy that was the subject of hundreds of comic lpoks and these original pu novels that were called "blood and thunder" and a bad tv shows and bad movies. what we note about this guy is punitived muddied by a ulative history of fictionalizing. when i decided to write a book about him, i wanted killed back the layers of the fiction and get to the real guy.

we find his characters to even though he was in a sense powerless, he was an illiterate run away from misery. the westernyone on stage. he intersected with all of these historical figures and was intimately involved in the and theion of the west mexican-american war. this intersected with history. in an intimate way. inecided to devote a book about 45 is my life and figure out who this guy was, kit arson. he came out and escape america. he was a runaway. he had heard all of the stories about the wild west and wanted to be one of these mountain men, one of these trappers.

he became an intimate part of their world, which is mean in french-based culture. he learned french and became the went in french and lived with these guys and learned the river systems of the west. basically a hunting beaver pelts. he knew all the rivers. that was a key to understanding the typography and understanding how to get around here. when they explore the west, they needed a guy. they realize that these mountain men knew the west better than anyone. the cap the expedition on track.

became -- there was a best-selling book. carson be kind -- becomes a kind of hero in these stories. no one could seem to find this guy. he was living in new mexico and was never coming back east. he was kind of this mythic character that people wanted to know a little bit more about. kit carson was often the central character in these stories. the authors who wrote these terrible stories, i would dare you to read them actually. they are not good, but in terms of literature -- these authors never really made any attempt to understand who the real kit carson was. they didn't get his consent to use his name. it carson didn't make any money

off of these books. he hated these books. they were gross exaggerations. they would say things like kit carson was the kind of man who would kill two american -- indians before breakfast. in fact he was married to a native american and was a very close friend to many tribes in the west. these are the kinds of things he had to spend most of his life living down. he didn't understand where this was coming from white people that east so desperately seem to need this hero, he would manifest and whenever he went back east people refused to believe he was the real kit carson because the real kit carson was 5'4" and he was awkward around

people. he spent most of his life on a mule. so he had this kind of awkward gait and wasn't this heroic action figure type guy that was portrayed in the "blood and thunder." so there was this disconnect. you're not the kit carson i'm looking for. they were sorely disappointed. so i spent a lot of time in the ok sort of trying to explore the ways in which carson tried to deal with this celebrity. it was very awkward thing for him. with these "blood and thunder" books, carson had another problem which was he couldn't read them. because he was illiterate. so he had to have other people perhaps around the campfire read these books to him. which was a source of embarrassment. and it just -- it just made it all the worse. there was one time in which

carson's celebrity from the "blood and thunder" and sort of intersected with the real kit carson. and that was in the 1840's when he got a -- an assignment to go try to find a woman, a white woman, ann white was her name, who had been kidnapped by apaches. and he followed the trail for five, six, seven, almost -- closer to two weeks before he did find ann white. and the element of surprise was compromised. and various things happened. and she ended up getting killed. and when they -- when carson and his men went down to the campsite to sift through her belongs, what did they find? they found a "blood and thunder" book that she haddestly been reading. and the star of this "blood and thunder" book was kit carson. and the plot line of the book was kit carson was sent out to go rescue a woman who had been kidnapped by indians.

so here she was reading this book perhaps thinking kit carson was near she gets killed and carson in the real story was not able to save this woman. and this just haunted him for rest of his life. and he ordered the book burned. he thought these "blood and thunder" books were terrible. so interesting ways in which kind of like mythology intersects with reality in his story. one of the most famous stories about kit carson that was told during his time that is actually true. now, you got to understand a lot of these stories are not true. the more you dig into them, pretty suspicious. but one of the ones that's actually true is during the mexican war, he was in a battle near san diego called san pasqual. and the american army had come surrounded by a mexican californian army that was wielding lances, almost like

don quixote and remarkably proficient with these lances. and they were just butchering the american army. they were really good at it. and they were -- these -- the american soldiers were getting gored. and just ripped to pieces by these long lances that -- almost like a jousting kind of thing in medieval times. so they were completely surrounded. and it was just a matter of time before they were all going to be killed. and kit carson was given the assignment to try to make it to san diego where there were supposedly some marines on -- out in the bay on a ship. and maybe go get help somehow. so carson at night slips through the -- this ring of mexican soldiers somehow. but in the course of slipping through their -- this line of soldiers, he lost his shoes. d he had to walk 30 miles to

san diego barefoot. across this country that was just -- just unbelievably difficult and thorny. and full of cactus. and so he does do this. he makes it to san diego. he makes it to this ship. they immediately take him to the infirmary. his feet are just completely torn up. and he's just a bloody mess. he can't walk. but he gets there. he alerts the marines of what's happening. the marines come and save the american army. and carson is meanwhile in the hospital for three or four weeks because his feet become infected. and he never told this story and never talked about it. it was something that -- always reluctant to put himself in the center of a story. but in a way he saved the american army in this situation. and there are stories like this throughout his life. whenever something is going on

that the chips are down, carson somehow gets the assignment to fix the situation. and he does. and this certainly is one of the best known. by the end of his life, when he dies, the transcontinental railroad is being built. most of the tribes that he was close to had been rounded up and sent to various reservations. his main impact, though, i think, what he's probably most famous for is for one of the very last things he did in his life which was the round-up of the navajo indians. the large -- what is really depending on how you count numbers, among tribes, and bloodlines and this sort of thing, it's the largest tribe in the united states. he succeeded in rounding up the navajos and moving them to a reservation 500 miles away. and the destruction of the navajo culture and this long walk as they call it is

something that is -- it's almost like it happened yesterday in terms of the navajo and their memory of this. and they hate carson. they think he's a genocidal character. and they think he's -- you know, everyone hates their conqueror. but their hatred of carson is palpable. and so he's very controversial character out here in the southwest. and i was drawn to that. because here's a guy who's the subject of all these juvenile biographies and he's considered an american folk hero. and yet he's also considered a genocidal maniac. and so how do you reconcile these two very different images? i structured the book into three parts. the first part, the new men, is really about the arrival of the americans into the southwest. during the time of both the mountain men era, leading to fremont's expeditions into the

west and then finally the american army's arrival during the mexican war. so it's really just kind of from shifting perspectives it sort of shifts from various native american points of view to mexican points of view. and who is this new arrival? the new men? what are -- what are they about? why are they here? what do they want with this desert country out here? so that's part one. part two is called a broken country. and basically, it looks at the beginning of what you might call occupation. it's like the conquest of the west was remarkably easy. and fairly straightforward. but conquest was one thing. occupation is something different. i think we've as a nation discovered this and learned this very hard lesson in afghanistan and certainly in iraq. it's like it's one thing to cofpker a -- conquer a people. least on paper.

it's an entirely another thing to try to occupy and govern land. especially one as complicated as this. this desert kingdom with all these different languages and religions and, you know, basically for the first 50 years, almost -- you know, certainly first several decades, people back in washington were saying, what have we done here? we've conquered this land but we do not understand it. and we can't govern it. we should just give it all back to mexico. it's too hard to run this place. just a little -- there was so much violence. there was slavery. there was the hostage taking. and it was just unfamiliar country that people in washington didn't know what to do with. so that's part two. part three is really about kit carson's role in the conquest

of the navajo people. and everything he did with that monster slayer it's called. this is the final act of his long career. and it's probably what he's best known for. this sort of scorched earth campaign that he led into navajo country that resulted in their conquest and their removal from their beloved lands. and this great experiment that went on to try to force the navajo to become -- to settle down and become farmers and christians living in this sort of reservation. and on the border with texas. so it's -- it's a big sprawling book that has many parts. and the remarkable thing is that kit carson kind of is the through line that makes it -- that makes it make sense. he just intersected with all these different aspects of history out here. when i read the book, i was really worried about the sort of political correctness aspect

of it. and because the book is constantly shifting its point of view. i'm writing about pueblo indians and then i'm writing about the apaches. then i'm writing about anglo americans and the frefrpbl folks from the mountain men days and the spanish of course. and it's easy to put your foot -- it's a mine field. let's put it that way. and i was worried that i was offending people. left, right and center. because there are so many people out here. so many different cultures. but that didn't really happen. i don't think -- you know, certainly there's some criticism. there's always criticism when you write a book this big. but i was surprised by how many -- how many people have responded favorably to the book. even the navajo who cannot stand kit carson and who have asked me at various times, why would you write a book about this guy?

he's -- he's as evil as hitler something. han or and i gave a talk at shiprock and a nice woman bought the book and stood up to ask me a question. and she was holding the book and said i bought the book and i'm going to take it home and i'm going to try to read it. but most likely i'm going to use it for target practice. so she had a sense of humor about it and was very polite about it. but spoke to the depth of the feeling that's out there against carson in indian country. started out the book believing that carson was one of the great indian killers. that he was this somehow an indian hater. that he had this ferocious dislike of indian culture. because that's what you will certainly hear, for example, out in navajo country. but when you get into his life, you realize it's very complicated. he spoke numerous indian

tongues. his first wife who was araphaho, singing grass, was the love of his life. they had two daughters. his second wife was cheyenne. he was very close with the ute tribe and with the taos pueblo indians. and with the -- many of the plains indian tribes. so it becomes much more complicated when you realize that -- you can't say this is an indian hater. he was someone who allied himself with certain tribes. and was sort of a bitter enemy against other tribes. he didn't really think monolithically about american indians. he thought specific tribes. and sort of last tribe that he affiliated himself with was if you want to call it that was spanish -- the spanish tribe of new mexico. he became spanish almost. his third and final wife was

spanish. they raised their kids here in new mexico. he converted to catholicism and they spoke spanish. and he dreamed in spanish. he thought in spanish. his last words right before his death were in spanish. so the enemy of the spanish and those times here in new mexico, the sort of mortal enemy was the navajo. so i think that's kind of the way he thought in terms of tribal allegiances that ran deep. and so when he got the assignment to go round up the navajo he was willing to do it. it doesn't mean that he hated indians. it meant that he still thought, i think, in this kind of tribal way. and i think that explains a lot better his motivation for doing what he did. >> tonight's look at the people, places and events of westward expansion is part of c-span's city tour where we

aspect t the literary of each city we visit. -- k on the series tab on c on c-span.org and cities tour. c-span's american history tour continues with our look at westward expansion. in 1846 animal trapper miles goodyear established fort buenaventura, the first permanent anglo settlement in the great basin region in what is today nevada, utah, and oregon. e spoke with an historic interpreter from fort uenaventura. >> we are at fort buenaventura in ogden, utah. it is the site of the first permanent settlement, documented settlement in utah. miles goodyear lived here and his wife pamona, their two

children, william and mary, also lived here. others came and went. but miles and pomona built it and lived here for less than two years. miles goodyear traded all over the west. he was an historical figure in utah, idaho, wyoming, and california. so he was all over basically traveling and trading in approximately 44 -- 1844, he decided that he wanted to go back to where the ogden and the weaver river flowed together. and build a trading post. and of course he at that time still believed that trading was going to be lucrative. he came here to this site, fort buenaventura, and built the cabins in 1845. miles built the cabins believing that the fur trade would carry him through which it had ended and so he discovered that horses were going to be an excellent source of income. and as people were traveling from the east to the west, and

there were thousands of people coming into the west by then, he built the cabins here next to a sand hill which is over here. miles climbed the hill and built fires on top of that hill to indicate to all of those people who were coming across the rockies, which is to our east, that there was a settlement here. and he wanted people to come here and trade with him. and he had four cabins. this one has not yet been rebuilt. it was originally a vertical cabin. it had vertical logs. and it was used to house people who traveled through and needed shelter. this cabin here where miles and pomona lived. they had a chimney which is the only cabin with a chimney so they could cook and be warm in the winter. and inside the cabin, they have beds and blankets and the items that would have been normal for miles goodyear to have had, the

bed as you can see would have a little bit too much give in it. and so they would have a tool that they would go down here and twist it, twist it, twist it and retie it. and that is how the saying sleep tight came about. is sleep tight, don't let the bud bugs bite. and why did the bed bugs bite? because the mattresses were made of straw. and there were bed bugs in them. so the bed bugs bit. and the springs weren't always tight. so sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite. this cabin is a reproduction of what existed in 1845. the original cabins collapsed. but there was one cabin that survived. it was taken off the premises sometime after 1850. used as a chicken coop and later on donated to the daughters of the utah pioneers. which is now sitting about a mile and a half away from here.

under cover. so it is being protected. and it was one of the original cabins. this cabin here was used bridles, for saddles, everything miles would have needed for his horse herds. the people coming through here traded their lame animals for healthy animals and he would nurse the lame ones back to health. so basically he would trade two lame horses for one helty. miles named it fort buenaventura. and it means "good venture." he was in hopes that it would be the best venture of his life the trading post. and if -- some things i would like to show you. this is a bedding lamp. bedding lamps were used during this period of time as a source of light. the rich people had candles made out of beeswax but a candle burns and is gone. the bedding lamp has a wick.

and inside this little container is fat from food. and you would light this wick. and hang it from your ceiling. so this is what the poor people used for their lighting in their homes. and the other thing that we could probably find some interest in is tea. and tea was of course considered money. and tea was traded. and this is how it comes out of china. the east indy company brought it out of china in the 1500's, 1600's, 1700's into the british port, ships would then trade these tea bricks. and as you can see on the back, it's scored into 16 pieces. so the rich people would run down to the ships, buy a brick of tea. and frame it. to prove their wealth. and then they would buy another brick of tea and they would cut into 16 pieces and sell

1/16th brick to poor people. this is solid tea. and so what you would do is in order to have your tea, you would scrape it with a knife. and boil -- and put it into your boiling water and it is exactly like tea today. so this is how it was transferred out of china. this is what was thrown off the ships at the boston tea party. it was bricks of tea. and they're very heavy. the other thing i want to show you is cards. these are historically correct playing cards as you can see. there are no numbers and no letters on these cards. so people were killed in card games. and frequently. because if i had three kings, and you had three kings, we didn't know who had the kings. and so people killed each other over their hand of cards. nd about the 1870's they

started putting j.'s, k.'s and q.'s and the women were obvious. you could tell the women. you had a difficult time telling who was the king and who was the jack in any given deck. many people were killed. and the cards became numbered and lettered, it became a family game where people could play cards without danger. i opened the store primarily because my interest in the fur trade had blossomed to the point where i wanted to give other people the opportunity to see what it would have been like to shop in 1840. so this would be the wal-mart of the 1840's. in 1845, as i mentioned, miles built the cabins and in 1947, the mormons, the l.d.s. church arrived in salt lake which is about 30 miles to the south. and 30 miles away was an

incredibly close neighbor. in the west, people didn't live that close. and the tradition was that you built your settlement and then you claimed all of the land around you. the mormons came in with 124 people and all lived in a very close proximity. so miles wasn't exactly happy about having that many neighbors and that close. and so he figured that he might be better off going off to california. which he had been on numerous occasions. with horse herds. and he decided that he would buy some land in california. so he contacted the l.d.s. church officials and offered fort buenaventura and everything that you could see from every vantage point from this location for $1,900. the mormons bought it. and he got interested in the gold mines in california. and found that horse trading to the gold miners was very lucrative. and he did that.

but he also did a little bit of gold mining himself. and he discovered goodyear's bar. in california. still named goodyear's bar. and he got quite wealthy off of gold as well. miles died in his early 30's in california. which was considered kind of a normal life span. and he died of what people assume was pneumonia. well, i think he's important because he is our mountain man and the one who lived here and the one who loved the area and built here. and because he developed the first permanent documented residence in what is now utah, he is really our first resident. other states have their mountain men. but miles is ours. >> the crystal gold mine was one of the first mines in coeur dalene, idaho. it was rediscovered more than a century ago. c-span got a tour of the mine

rom its present day owner. >> welcome to crystal gold mine in kellogg, idaho. let's step through the portal and go way back in time. be careful coming through. this is where we like to capture how the old miners back in the day even decided to drill and blast in a mountain. how would you drill and blast in a mountain? south of the coeur dalene river, when this was being done, hardly anybody around, the river just flowing through the valley and could have been panning for gold. the technique for hard rock miners liked going upstream when they were panning and having fun getting gold in their pans and going upstream. the source of gold stopped. going upstream like that where the source of gold stopped and possibility where in a gold could be coming from and use that as a reference to drill and blast in the mountains. re than likely -- gold

originates in quarts rock. this is what they were hoping to find. here's the initial quartz vein. it looks likes they had fun following quartz leads. we got some highlighted spots still visible in the surface in a couple of spots. and the cement was put in for the tour but look what's in it. iron rails for mine -- miners to have iron rails, miners seeking their fortune in the northwest were lucky to have materials to make old rails like this out of wood. you see a lot of the old mine photos and wooden rails were made. the mine car was found refurbished and old hand push carts. imagine hand pushing the cart up and down the tracks. empty mine car uphill. full mine car down hill. back in the old days in the early 1900's bunker hill was one of our main silver mines around the valley. they were known to do exploratory drifts all around here looking for other opportunities. so we figured they equated this possibly being related to that. imagine this being very remote rugged country. anybody who was in a source of

gold odds were they were keeping something like this a secret and want to protect themselves and protect their gold. pretty good mystery behind the mine. it was caved in pretty good and a lot of fun stuff, candles and a lot of impression they were come back. 1991, the owner of the property saw a lot of water coming out of it. hoping to tap into spring water for drinking like a lot of folks like to do, took a backhoe and dug in the hill in 1991. and comes along a retired miner by the name of bill lane. grew up in beaut -- bute, montana. and a nickname we call the contract miners that drill and blast for the mines. the same name for the contract loggers and stuff. they bid on different jobs and traveled. he was able to purchase the property. got -- made a living on and cleaned the mine out and do educational tours for friends and family. and thoroughly cleaned it out the tracks got further exposed and old candles and hand stills and a little bit of quartz with

gold and lived his lifetime dream out. notice how they engineered this old mine. they maintained a vertical red. one-armed sweep pattern off the natural formation all the way through the mine. with hardly any timber required. we like to call this a bald mine. we're walking -- the entrance of the mine from portal to ceiling, usually you don't have an opening at the other end. so the main horizontal entrance like this to a mine is referred to as an at it. i see that in crossword puzzles and allows the water to drain out in the day. a cross cut drift a. known technique to explore out and actually try to find a better source. we're drilling and blasting underground, and when the miners are doing that, that process is called stoping. when they don't pan out a lot of times they're backfilled for miner safety or this slip here that's natural hard rock and they're safe, they're taking advantage of for some kind of room, storage or even a lunch

room because it takes too long to get miners way back outside so-called a stope. this is why bill and judy named it the crystal gold mine for what was found growing in here. and crystals get longer with the extra moisture. people refer to these as bacon crystals and look like strips of bacon as they grow. if you come over here and stand where my light is circling and keep you back in time. and keep your technology away from me. because they didn't have technology like we have it today. they didn't have flashlights. they didn't have electricity for lamps. they didn't have anything. and what's really fun is you wave your hand in front of your face because you can't see it move. we could be in here for hours and you would never adjust to it. imagine trying to find gold in the old days with no technology like we have today. this is called a miner's candlestick holder. the blacksmith made these and different sizes and shapes how they are made and stuck them between rocks and that's what was found in the mine is candles which is quite something.

what i mean by that is actually back in the day, imagine nobody around. no resources or anything close by. a day's travel to get supplies. if you're in these mountains back in the day trapping or prospecting, you're probably using grease lamps or any form of grease to create a grease lamp so having candles is evidence of doing good. i'm packing a spare like they did. not easy to come by. they would want to go to great lengths to conserve it and using a wood match because they didn't have these fun lighters like we have today. imagine working in the old days with no technology and a grease lamp or a candle to find gold. we do adjust after a while. again, they would want to conserve them as much as possible. not easy to come by. bill is in here with his friends and family cleaning it out and discovering things like these candles and evidence of dynamite instead of black powder. could you imagine lighting the dynamite fuse trying to keep the candle lit while you're running out of here? they were known to have some tricks. the more i learn about it, one of them an option they would get everything ready to go and light the dynamite and grab the

mine car and follow the car down the tracks. a lot of us believe they were going in and out of these old mines in the dark as much as possible to conserve their candles and how they were able to discover and actually follow quartz leads without using the candles. they used hand drills and keep them sharp and that blacksmith was an important job and a lot of old camps had a blacksmith. they can't see very well. they probably blasted the last time they were here. when they're drifting back in, they were doing a technique called scaling. they would want to hear that nice solid sharp sound as they're coming in and tapping on rocks all around them. if it sounds like a dull thud or hollow sound that's loose material and can't see that very well but it sounds funny. that's when they get their picks and tools and start scaling all that loose rock off. working hard. scaling that you will loose rock back down that nice solid rock before they start all over drilling and blasting. so starting to believe they would like to hold their hands

still like this and the proper way for safety. a lot of them didn't and our natural instincts to hold them like this. but they had tricks. they like to use their thumbnail to glare off the candlelight and give them a target to swing at as you start drilling. imagine, old days, hardly anybody around. that type of injury might put you out of business so the safe way was to hold them like this. they would hit it. and a quarter of a turn and turn it and hit it and that's how they drill that hole in candlelight. that quarter of a turn like that is really important to maintain the round hole because these hang up easy if you don't do it that way. this is called the starter drill. they start them with the short ones. hand stills longer and some his torns -- had i storns believe they blew out their light source to conserve them. and finish the hole in the dark. this is called a miner stone. and they usually go in the hole. clean out all the drill cuttings and make room for the

explosives. and they didn't have no geeologist on their team. they were known to have tricks. they would like to clean them out and save all their drill cuttings and pans or any containers. that way when they're going outside in the daylight they could see what kind of rocks they're drilling in and that's how they natch gated into the mountains looking for gold back in the day. on the left-hand side of the rim the mineral iron coming through so fun to capture the minerals in this mountain. that's what iron looks like when it rufts. that orange iron coming through. on the right-hand side this gets a lot of photos. we got some purple over the cal site like that. and in this old mine, named after james smithson, the founder of the smithsonian institute. he was quite a mineralologist and chemist back in the day. we keep this covered up and really fragile. and actually quite rare to see. this really captures how we became one of the world's largest producers of silver and recognizes the silver valley in

idaho. notice this one right here. got little wires coming out of that. that's wire silver. what's exciting about wire silver is it's almost pure silver. very high grade ore body of silver in the mountains to have that and represents our industry and history. if you were here prior to the 1884 in these mountains prospecting, that was banner waste and nothing they could do with silver. no place to process it. they would have had to go to great lengths to get the concentrate way east down in san francisco, so all they were after was the gold back in the day. prior to 1884 in the valley. we got a couple of spots here. please don't pick at them. they're good for education and we like to let you rub on them for fun. kind of soft yellow stuff. that's embedded in the quartz stain here. nice smooth soft yellow stuff. probably got a little silver in it. not as yellow as you'd like to see it and nice and smooth and i'm rubbing on it. you go a little further up here. here's another big chunk that we rub on.

this one has cubicle structure. that cubicle shape and structure identifies brittle material. that brittle stuff will get you. that you will glitters is usually not gold. quite the interesting quartz vein that's still in here that nobody came back to whoever they were for some reason. what's funny, though, is they scaled up to a beautiful slip. perfect spot. and nice slip they followed and followed this quartz main down 60 feet this time. and there's a ladder they built out of trees down in there preserved from the cold water. a little old ladder built out of trees. they put next to it timber and figures it goes down 60 feet and nobody has been to the bottom of it. the hoist bucket that was found. it used to be a bucket anyway. so the -- holding those sides in, that used to be the bottom and the sides. and then they had to deal with

water and wasn't full like this but they had to contend with the water while they were mining in here and why they liked going downhill like this. this one caused a lot of discussion with had i storns we've been involved with. old wood plug on this hand pump. and imagine coming in here having somebody pump that and let it drain. the neat thing about this hand pump is it was very expensive and hard to come by. even if it was related to an exploratory drift or the old days, it shouldn't have been left in here. one of the theories is they blast the hillside in and go back to get family hoping to come back to idaho territory and homestead with a possible beautiful future to raise your family. and didn't make it for health reasons. they didn't know, we've learned from them over the years the average life span for a miner doing mining like this back in the day was known to be five to eight years once you started. especially the old widow maker drills which compressed air and no water flow. and no evidence it looks like -- matt hatter, using mercury to separate the gold out of the material. so they could have had health

proshes. so a true mystery behind who did this, what the mine does for us today and continues to do that is since 1997, it's been educating folks on the true old ways of how things got tarted around these parts. >> tonight's look at the people, places and events of westward expansion. is part of c-span's cities tour. where we travel across the country highlighting the literary life and history of each city we visit. you can see more from c-span cities tour on our website. c-span.org. click on the series tab. then click the link for c-span cities tour. the tour closes tonight with the story of the black oakies. african-americans who migrated to rural california during the dust bowl of the 1930's.

>> a decade ago if you drive down highway 99 and that zipper of the road that goes down the heart of central california and you look to the side of the road, you would see this shaq standing. and i remember the first time i saw it, that's something that had been lifted out of the mississippi delta in 1930's. who lived there? as i was driving you looked a little closer and see puffs of smoke coming out of the roof. and it wasn't someone who lived there. somebody was living here in 2002 and 2003. so one day myself and matt blackhawk a. photographer who is kind of the modern day dorothea lang or walker evans we pulled off the side of the road and came up over the railroad tracks. and we pulled up to this shack and a little better shape and basically a tarpaper shack. and as we walked up we could see that there were rabbit furs

that had been -- that were -- ammered onto the wall. i knocked once, twice, this place was on stilts and the door creeked open and there stood this black man who looked like he had been lifted out of the mississippi delta, 1930's. he had a stutter. and later he told us that he came west with a stutter. one state at time. his name is james dixon. 95 and living here and had lived here since the 1940's. he was part of this migration of blacks who did something that no blacks in america -- went against the grain of the great migration. that great migration went from south to the northern industrial cities. and if it came west, it came to oakland and san francisco and l.a. but there was a tribe of blacks, black oakies, from the south and southwest. who wanted to retain the rural lifestyle.

it was very important for them to feel the wind at night, to be out in places where no one bothered them, to be close to the land. and about 25,000, 30,000 of them didn't go to the industrial cities and went from rural to rural. they followed the cotton trail west. and james dixon was one of them. he was from louisiana. he worked in the railroads for a while. as a porter. when i met him, he was -- he had a little water pump here. and a little pecken tree. -- pecan tree. and he was cutting down the pecan tree to burn fire to keep himself warm. he was 5'5". sleeping on a little iron crate. the iron crate was too small for him. so he had a wooden bekeeper's box for his head. there were -- i remember looking inside, and there were vienna sausage cans, empty ones, that he was -- they'd put

in the crevices to keep the place from falling. i mean, literally, he was -- chickens have a better roost than he did. and this is where he was living. he had come and we found him a half a century later. and he was nervous. he thought we were government workers here to maybe inspect the house, shut it down, whatever. i told him no, we were here to tell his story. we're standing in the old tulary lake basin. it was the biggest body of fresh water west of the mississippi. 800 square miles of lake right here in the middle of california. and these cotton growers from the south, they were chased out y the bo weekly came west. they claimed this lake land. rivers, and the dammed them and shunted that

flow to where they wanted to grow cotton. and at some point they had to go back and find labor. and a number of folks came to the tulare lake basin and their narratives played out here. white oakies, latinos, and then black oakies, that no one had ever written about black oakies. they came in the 1940's when the cotton picker was just starting in the fields. it was clunky and big. and it couldn't -- it could take the middle swath of the fields in the 1940's and 1950's. but it could not pick the edge of the rows. and so the black oakies were literally in fields working alongside the machine that would eventually idle them. picking the edges of the cotton. and in 10 years' time they were idled. the women ended up becoming maids and house keepers for wealthy white farmers. much like the south. and the men, where they could,

found work. but many of them were idled and the children left this place. so when we came upon it, it was mostly old folks. when i wrote my last book, "west of the west," i came back to find them because i wanted to open up that book with the black oakies. and every place that i had gone to, a decade earlier, it was empty. they had died. and in some cases the places were still standing like this place. there's that yellow house just two fields away. is is where we found minny patterson. she had come in 1945 and 1946 and she was dying and set up a room for her in the front where she could see this grapevine that her husband had planted when they arrived here in california. she said she had come to this patch of brown surrounded bay sea of white cotton in the fall of 1945. she decided that first night she wouldn't be staying. what kind of land have you

brought me to, she asked her husband? driving three miles to fetch water, reading scripture by kerosene lamp and you might as well kept me hitched to the plantations of east texas. she wanted a home. nothing fancy. in the civilized city and a tract house up the road in bakersfield would do. but willie patterson her husband kept pounding nails in boards on to that crooked hut in the middle of horn toad country and the black people kept trickling in from oklahoma and arkansas and texas and louisiana. they come looking for a place where the cotton grew a little taller. and the white folks had been raised up a little nicer. they found the taller cotton, i'm not sure they found the white folks any nicer. they found the taller cotton. i'm not sure they found the white folks any nicer.

>> the black oakies thought coming west they would leave racism.he the sun did shine a little more benignly on them here. number of thema telling me that it was even a racism.el kind of a smile on the face, but a dagger behind the back is how described california. they were not allowed to live in any of the cities, not even the small towns, they were locked out. so the only land that was theseble to them were patches of alkali land much literally when you ride up on at it,d and you look it's so salty it looks as if it snowed there. and this is the land that was available to them. and they built their little wooden shacks here. water. had to go into town to fetch the water. no city sewer age, they had outhouses. police roamed this area. land. a no man's

basically glove find squatter villages -- blor filed squatter villages. by the civilsed right movement, the war on poverty. a tough life. >> one of the things dickson he died, he was stuffing action cardboard boxes househe plywood of that to keep it insulated. and he looked up and he said, i all my days in the cotton field and on the railroad. lazy.'t what happened to my life? some of thending in poorest places in america right now. you'd have to go to the border land of texas or appalachia to have here.y that we and that really is a function of the agriculture we have. have big industrial agriculture that concentrates hands.in a few and that depends on a constant

supply of cheap labor. for most of the century that cheap labor has come from south of the border, and farmers here are reaching deeper and deeper peasant heart of mexico to bring out the labor much but there have been problems with this flow now and that's why the farmers have reached to other came here,bs chinese, came here, japanese. although they're more small farmers. then the black oakies and the from oakies were brought the south and southwest to come crops.d pick the some of them moved up the ladder, became tractor drivers, truck drivers, business owners. that's happened with the white oakies, it happened with them.s, some of

the back oakies though had to leave this place to fine economic prosperity, and the original family members who came the old folks remained, stayed behind. much.ever acquired i any theirs is the saddest groups, and those they stayed behind here, simply because they loved the rural lifestyle. we went by pa that williams' house today, it's no longer there. but she was an 86-year-old widow of an arkansas share chopper and with her son in a sagging house. don't feel sorry for me, said, this is a shack, but it's my shack. god gave it to me. i ain't got nobody coming to me owe me rent, i sleep as long as i want to and get up when i'm ready. the beautiful wind gets

to blowing, i can flap my wings flap them. to i sleep easy at night, right rundown shacktle by the highway. treatment -- your it may not be your dream. but it's mine. turn around and leave us alone. >> tonight's look at the west water expansion part of c-span cities tour where we travel across the country highlighting the literary life and history of each city we visit. see more at our website, c-span.org. click on the series tab, then the link for c-span cities tour. >> here are such highlight for this coming weekend. today at 6:30 on the former fccrs, .ommissioners with campaign 2014 gearing up,

watch the latest debates on c-span. .unday at noon tonight on book tv's after words, mike gonzalez on how he republicans can make gains. at noon our three-hour conversation and your phone calls with the former chair of the u.s. commission on civil rights. 3, the building of the hoover dam. and sunday night at 8:00 the ford'ssary of president pardon of richard nixon. let us know what you think about you're watching. a tweet, ord us us.il like us on facebook or follow us on twitter.

next a discussion on class in america. a forum examines the political and humanitarian implications of the israeli-palestinian conflict. after that, the nebraska supreme court hears oral argument keystone xlhe pipeline. on "washington journal" we had a in america,n class callers were divided by income levels. we're going to show you a conversationat now, included in the segment is a discussion with a reporter on the guilty verdicts against former virginia governor mcmcdonnell and his wife. this is an hour. >> washington journal continues. host: this morning, race in sorry, class in america. that was a show we had on the radio show. class in america. income, equality, inequality, class warfare. the top 1 hkt.

99%.om you all heard the phrases and the terms. you want to get your thoughts on them. to hear your personal story. where you think you fit in the american economic spectrum. up next, tom in tolohoma, tennessee. do for a do you living. how much do you make? i'm a a manager and schoolteacher. somewhere in there. host: in tennessee, is that enough to make you feel comfortable? is, we have two kids in college, but it doesn't feel like it right now. you know, i guess you would ourthat we're living beyond of the trying to give your kids a chance, a step up in the world and education is way to do it. but i really think that those eople in that capitol building behind you are playing games with the american people.

and they are pandering to the wealthy. and manage those they've brought us down so hard, so deep, so hard. latest ooked at the book, he kind of explains how he justice system actually works against these people and under more penalty and more penalties. they're almost making a slave class out of them. what we're doing with the low-paying jobs and, you know, very good ability to have choices in life and what we're economy.lly ruining our and i think we have some real problems with those people in capitol building right there in the back for pandering to the wealthy. tom, when you say pandering to the wealthy, what to see them do? caller: very rich should not be

and pay with the same type of costs that the rest to pay.ve host: such as -- lawsuit. had a federal and the property i sued breaking the law. and the judges -- the judges my specifically planned in federal lawsuit for my federal lawsuit. political the manipulation and how these there ians in the back sell out so that the laws are not enforced against the very me it's just -- it's so corrosive. most people don't see this side what's happening in washington. but those people in the back are away the opportunities from everybody else and concentrating it on the hands of very wealthy. the hat's going to reduce opportunity. i'm not talking about class

equality. the alking about opportunity of my kids, your kids, everybody's kids to be to be upwardly mobile. typesen we had such sorry of politician, it pervades us country.he whole host: thank you, sir. publication line called vox. this article, the class war in over.can politics is and the rich won. chart and puts a median net worth of current members of congress in 2012. worth was net $1,800,000. the senate, $2.8 million. epublicans, about $1 million average, an increase of 10%.

$1.1 million average, 11.6%.rease of and they have a class war in politics, you need two sides but those political institutions. on the say that millionaires have a 5-4 majority on the supreme court and a man too.he white house again, this is from vox, if you'd like to read, it's the lengthy article. if you would like to read that, vox is the name of the website. here's the front page of this morning's richmond times dispatch newspaper. big news, guiltyals you can see, headline. bob mcdonald and his wife, maureen mcdonald found guilty on counts. and down in the virginia beach southern south eastern virginia, large metro pilot is theginian largest newspaper down there.

here's their front page. he virginia pilot, a global fight against jihadists as their headline. cdonald's case is down here, lower left, front page. by bill size tten more. staff writer for the virginian pilot. joins us from richmond. mr. sizemore, what was it like that courtroom yesterday where the guilty verdicts came through? >>en amazing scene. for hole trial went on almost six weeks was an amazing scene. former governor, mr. mcdonald, was clearly, it seemed to me, not expecting this verdict. as the -- as the verdict was read, he slumped in his seat. he -- he held his head in his began to sob.

his whole body was shaking. out,was a man, day in, day dragged along. chipper on the way out. of the court. of ys stop and had a couple comments with reporters. optimism that d exonerated.g to be he was unprepared when the verdict came. 11 counts of guilty, correct? that's correct. 11 out of 13. all of the core counts of the indictment. prosecutors got almost everything they wanted. he was only acquitted on a

secondary charges involving falsifying bank loan applications. cdonald, what m was your reaction. what did you see in the courtroom? guest: she maintained composure better than her husband did. stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. nd then after the court adjourned. tearful.e became very her family -- their family -- five children. they were friends. they were all distraught. sobbing.s much, much it -- it was -- it was just a very, very emotional scene. host: you're from the virginia area. that's governor mcdonald's.

kind of a little bit of a home base. do you know him well? have you covered him for a long time. guest: i covered him over the years. got the start. he ran for the state house and elected 8 together in office for 22 years. attorney general before he was governor. nd he -- he presumably had a very bright future, not only naturally, he was entioned permanantly as a potential vice presidential for mitt romney in 2012. is a s quite -- this precipitous fall for him. and by the way, this is the first time anything like this happened in virginia. and, you know, in 400 years of we've never had a governor convicted for crimes in

office. offered a he feels deal at one point, wasn't he? report a cording to a few months back in if "washington post," yes. had reported that he accepted one felony fraud count. he'd plead guilty to that, he have a fairly minimal sentence and his -- and his wife not have, you know -- would not have been convicted. but he rolled the dice. and he lost bigtime. host: you were in the courtroom throughout this trial. what was your feeling? did you -- if you had been adjourned. reporter in that position. but when you heard what you what in that courtroom,

did you think? this.: well, i'll say i was increasingly convinced as that the jury was going to convict then. the -- there was a lot of evidence, the prosecution, i job ht, did a really good of amassing just a huge kwauptty evidence. and the defense gave it their best shot. they put on an actually very novel defense. if not unique. was that ary argument despite seeming a couple in public

were actually quite estranged behind closed doors. that, in fact, their marriage is so broken, their communication they strained that wouldn't -- it was impossible to -- to o conspire settle at the office of the governor. very unusual defense. jury clearly didn't buy it. host: bill size more. two more things. we just showed the ront page of your newspaper's there is going to be an appeal by the lawyers. how does that process work? he going to keep the same law eam, the same with mrs. mcdonald as well? uest: yes, they have separate

legal teams. both have said they will appeal. to the als would go court of appeals here in richmond. the judge presiding over this sentence them on january 6 and presumably the have been filed by then. prisoner sentenced will be taken into custody. they will see mr. and mrs. go to prison in january.

realistically how much time may they be sentenced. guest: hard to predict. maximum sentence under the law for these corruption charge they're not bound by the guidelines. a complicated formula. will be much arguing back and the prosecution and defense over that calculation. realistically, the people i talk community say even

more. host: a bush appointee, isn't he? reagan appointee. he's a former federal prosecutor. very no-nonsense judge. nd, again, people i talked to seem to gal community feel he's not going to be mercy.d to show he'll probably follow the uidelines but might well announce a sentence to the somewhere in the upper end of range. least affluent family incomes are declining. fed survey shows economic growth

recession has improved. the portions of the most affluent americans even as the in wealth and most american families continues to decline. 10%, the st affluent average incomes rose by 10% from 2013 for the rest of the population, average incomes were flat or falling. families haveuent average st decline incomes dropped. families report in the triannual surveys, one of the ost comprehensive sources of data on the financial health of american families. the new report broadly the stent of the data on aftermath of the great recession underscores why so many economy thinks the remains in poor health while the are as grown, most people getting smaller slices. that's from "the new york times"

morning on the washington journal. we're spending three hours talking about class in america. received an e-mail from robert in new york. i think it was the last week, swefed this. we did a three-hour show on race in america. a show on class in america. seeing this ie are morning. $25,0003880 if you make or under, between $25,000 and 202-585-3881. if you make over $50,000. 202-585-3882. 3838 for those making over $100,000 and the social media sites as well. if you get through, chances are going to ask you how much you make, what do you do for a living. little reaction to some of the economic issues facing the

country, facing you personally as well. bill in canton, illinois. what do you do for a living, how much do you take? retired at this time. i make $45,000 a year. >> where is that income derived? > from investment, from pension, and from disability pay. you old enough or do you collect social security yet? security.t is social host: oh, it is. do you feel economically comfortable? guest: no. would -- i mean, my monthly income, yes. disabled re of two parents for many years and had to pay medical bills which wiped out the savings. host: so if you hear the term economic are, inequality. we talk about class in america,

what's your take? me, it's more like a one e-rouser trying to get the population in the united states to agree with their point of view which is totally wrong. y mom said it's not what you make, it's what you save of what you make. look at someone's home, they have all of the appliances of a middle class. talked about debt.

he was right. i realize that's almost impossible to do now. for the first 35 years of my loan. i never had a very fortunate that i could do that. so if you look at what people it's very day, misleading. insurance subsidized by the government, housing, food go there. can they get food stamps, free cell phones. if you add that all to their they're actually bordering middle class status. i mean, you know, to be honest. and the one thing i'd like hough say is, the minimum wage problem in the united states raised.s, it should be but a person just starting out could not get the high increase. it should get progressive increase where once you do your work d you have a good that you record,

should get that pay progressively. you take a lady as a cashier at kroger's, how is that fair that here comes a high school minimum wage is $15. so you're getting paid $15. you're not rewarding the and skills of the person who's been on the job for 25 years. read abill, i'm going to tweet reacting to something you said. we'll put it on the air. t will be on your screen in a minute. this is dana. dana writes in, no reason a child needs to pay for elderly parents' medical payments. not a very smart guy. right. she's exactly i ran a ened was -- business in the state of washington, aerospace business. had partners for several

years. i had no idea that putting my parents' medical care conch on cards, i would have been responsible for it after their death. that. was ignorant about but back in that -- there's no way that my parents immediate all bills would have been covered by the government or anybody. host: mike from michigan makes under $25,000. to listen in, see if you hear anything you want to to.pond caller: okay. host: mike in michigan. mike, good morning, tell us your story. tell us about class in america.

good morning. i'm a veteran, got a bad back. any pensions i had coming were gone. host: why. caller: a few years back, i called the place in washington, -- i don't know, the pension guaranteed fund or whatever. host: egbc corporation? caller: yes. so much told me it was money. but if i waited, i could draw the money. last year, and nobody has even heard of my name now at the place. that said, mike, what do you think about class in america? hat do you think about income equality or inequality.

caller: the money should go to the workers. they created that man's job. the workers didn't do it correct lip, he wouldn't make any money is the way i see it. rent.aid $270 in a great help. government job programs. 'm like two or three times i .ried to get a job

be unemployed to get a job. for me, that's wrong. would have left a job behind for someone else. that's not the way they do it. host: thank you, sir. mike in michigan. bill, hang on, we'll take one more call and get your reaction to what the two callers had to say. jerry down in crystal $100,000.orida over jerry, good morning. what do you do for a living? aller: good morning, i'm a technical trainer. host: what does that mean? caller: that means i go around country to industrial facilities and i train on things pumps, looking to fundamentals of electricity. i teach those skills. i have a unique perspective. called in. living with my mother and aunt after i graduated post great relate session in a house hold less than $25,000. and worked my way up with a lot

am rightork to where i now. asking d me -- you're call hertz about what they think about class in america. most of the world looks at most of america and they would say class. even when i was in much more what weshed conditions, would consider lower class in america, we lived like upper class. mean is we had air conditioning. that's what the pharaohs of envious of.be we were hungry but we food if e to go to get we really wanted it or didn't what was sarily available. everybody called in today has a phone line they can call in on. something our founding fathers would have been jealous

of, the ability to throw your all the way from florida up to washington, d.c. by button. a so i think in general, most of here in america. having said that, you know, i little luck and hardwork to get where i am today. baseline intelligence and hardworking. but to the poor people out there who are financially poor, who are looking for opportunities. you make your own luck by going to a place like north dakota, over the e all country. you know, i started making years ago.ew off because my -- the closed. was working at i went out but i believe the opportunities are there.

the american dream is still there. but we can do more on the policy side in america to make that happen. the policy issue is basic. you encourage what you you discourage what you tax. we tax earned income more than income in ype of america. the earned income tax credit. great ideas to get more jobs. simpler tax code, you know? tax things like, you know, have retail sales tax that taxes consumption. don't tax necessarily labor. you know? simpler tax ht-up code that's not so complicated that doesn't have -- a few callers have mentioned the between whether you dividends or y on capitol gains or whether you make it through earned income. lastly, the most important thing in this country if you ask education.ancial

too many people are not financially literate. people often think they're poor ecause of all of the advertising that's done in this country and because they feel needthey need this or they this or they need that. when really, with the right education, you may not be buying things on credit, you might not be paying interest on things. you know? and so there's a lot of people, upper middle class, who will call in and say they poor. feeling poor is more a reflection of our society than living r standard of today. host: jerry, crystal river, florida. in illinois.tioned you listened to the last two allers, one making less, one making more. any reaction to what they had to say? you know, there are things that are an exception to the rule. physically ome disabled, there's nothing you can do about that.

fortunate that this government tries to help people some type of monetary income. to the second caller, he was right on the money. in 1982, i worked at caterpillar. supervision. i had to move to state of washington because in illinois, was so high.ent my first job, i started out, i i think that a lot of people

don't understand that, you know, they look at the corporate heads and everything. the reason that they're paid so uch money is because they're keeping the companies floating keeping re -- they're them -- they wouldn't be there if they weren't the experienced that company, you know, above water. host: thank you for your time this morning as well. we're going to move on to jerry. moving on to re brian in dubuque, iowa. hi, brian, tell us your situation. caller: hi. make a comment about social security disability. in quite a while ago from new york, a woman -- i believeid she she said she was autistic and was receiving social security disability. host: right.

guest: i think she said she was in iving $7,000 a month social security payments? i know seven people different people including who receive social ecurity disability due to having a mental illness. and not all of us make less than $1,000 a month. host: i think she probably meant $7,000 a year. caller: i think she meant $700 a month. host: yeah. yeah. caller: if i was getting $7,000. would. i think we all brian, as somebody who survives $25,000 and under and has government-sourced income, when you hear the phrase "class in america," what do you think about that?

aller: well, that's a tough one. because i don't begrudge almost nyone, you know, certainly earning a living and making a good living. dream.the american for me to comment on. grateful for our assistance i receive, i tell you that. caller: if anyone thinks people on disability payments is living cushy life, they're mistaken. grateful to the government

for the help i get. host: thank you, sir. in livingston, texas. 26 to 50. dee, the phrase class in warfare.class what do you think? aller: we got the class part wrong. it's not whether you have a lot of money, it's about if you're a or a lady, you care about others, take care of family, your neighbors. you don't gripe because you have pay your taxes. ust class is not -- it's a personal thing. nd i am a retired federal employee and i worked from a which is nothing up to being the administrative officer at the division.

working ard work and part time, paying social security. the people who make a lot of money should pay more taxes. are protected by our family. they don't participate, mostly. roads and on our ridges and enjoy our parks and whatever. nd they should be paying more representative part of the cost of those things. wrong?t i hope not. ost: well, we appreciate your sharing your thoughts. on all of these issues. america.n, class in this is mike in douglas, massachusetts. mike, how much do you make a year? what do you do? aller: i'm a mechanic, i make

little over $50,000. combined income, we make a $100,000?er host: you feel you're a member of the upper class, middle class? caller: lower or middle class. host: i'm sorry. middle class. $100,000 in income? caller: absolutely. i think with the richest economy seeing that i'm my financially secure for future, i have a little bit of a to be , but that seems attacked every time i turn around. cost of living keeps going up. pay doesn't compensate that. so i think we could do a lot as a country. ost: you look for a large corporation as a mechanic? aller: no, i work for a city

bus company. host: all right, what your politics. caller: again dept, independent. issue-by-issue. i think there needs to be a labor party in this country. i don't think the democrats support the worker more than republicans do. but i don't think it's enough. host: what kind of legislative solution would you come up with. putting words in your mouth. forgive me if it's the wrong words. to ensure economic stability. or economic -- yeah, economic everybody. for caller: well, i think we should look at the cause of inequality. think it has though do as cuts to the tax clinton's glass steagall hurting the

pensions. two things that would be help and also single payer as health care. i don't think with the richest economy in the world we should have to worry about if we're to take lose our homes care of our mothers or ourselves loved ones. i think those three things would be a start. do you feel economically upwardly mobile? caller: absolutely not. our kids are playing for their own colleges. it's a struggle. have say that we should utopia and everything should be i don't think we put enough emphasis on having the itizens to get a higher

education without the high cost or be able to go to the doctors risk of losing our homes. thank you, sir. kathleen. day ton, ohio. under $25,000. caller: hey, great program, smart people. definitely think there's serious classism in the u.s. mobile by choice at 62. i raised three kids. 45.an income from 35 to top p.e. and rentals at this point. i chose to live a simple life. and so never took a dime from the state. taxes. but here's what i've seen. the last seven years in in day ar, i grew up ton, ohio, a manufacturing town. a union family, and also family members at wright

patterson air force base. it is -- there are nurse's aides, i've been dealing with a of aging apartments, urse's aides making $9 an hour working their tails off with no education. higher and these private for profit -- you know -- you know, making buku bucks. patriots.the economic i don't begrudge people for going and making millions of allars, but they need to give fair share to the working class. host: do you feel you were werey compensated when you working at a p.e. teacher, etc.? did, i did feel it was fair wages and fair coverage. i did a kids' camp and did a lot things by choice after a

while. again, after i raised my kids, scholarships to small private schools. small private schools give the best scholarships. where you get the best education and best deals. but could this -- i just -- like up at the last democratic convention. e used the term economic patriots. where are the executives those g the tosh share billions of dollars? i'm going to give an example up in ohio like the education system. i'm basically, i'd say, on fair wages, access to quality health care.d i'm sorry if your parents beat you. that's not fair. need those three basic ools to access what we're all promised. in ohio, for instance. you know, in one county, last i checked, in one county because f the tax base, one kid will

have say $8,000 put on him a year. nd in a rich district, say arlington, ohio up near columbus, you know, they have spent on them per year. that's not fair. you know? want -- again, how do we apply compassion to those less fortunate? wages?we -- fair host: do you know what? stay on the line, let's thereon and i want callers to get your reaction to what they said. okay? so just hang on the line there, kathleen. we're going to hear from stephanie in highland, california. what's your personal situation. what do you think of the phrase, warfare"? caller: hi, good morning, steve, watchers/listeners. i am a government employee and i have been with the government for 25 years and haven't seen a raise in eight.

i do believe that there's class warfare. there is a that policy that can be changing congress, several, actually, that can help the middle class and the poor. trade policies, nafta -- we need to get rid of nafta. disaster for a the middle class. nd i think we cannot pay corporations to take jobs or give them tax breaks to take overseas to sell -- to determine if the product for a they're ice while making a high profit. i believe that the corporations say that there's a lot of education. education for some of the jobs. well, why don't the corporations in the colleges and then schools to train people for those jobs. o i think there's a lot of

names that -- host: do you have student debt? caller: i do not have student debt. i paid my student debt off. -- i sure that i did not gave myself a certain amount of money that i was willing to pay off. but it did take me about 10 years to pay off my student debt host: do you feel fairly compensate? caller: i do not. i said,point, i -- like i vice president seen a raise in ight years and my income is going -- is dwindling. higher gas prices. there's -- you know, the food are higher. trying to goadults to school. they have raised their families. i'm helping them and struggling with them. so, no, i don't feel that. feel like i have the opportunity to progress as i have. host: thank you, ma'am.

agree with the last two caller -- the caller in massachusetts was spot on. agree with the ohio -- teacher fromthe pe ohio. >> thank you, stephanie. and kathleen, just hang in there. call i want more to have you listen to and get your reaction. phil in miami beach, over $100,000. do for a living? aller: an attorney plus fuel spending investment. host: would you consider yourself wealthy? i have most of my life, not been wealthy. i'm in the poor range most of my life. wealthy, i consider that to be in mind. i live in the upper class, but lower income for the class most of our lives. so it's what you consider. upward ee where there's mobility and where it's being crushed. now, looking that

we had to bring up the incomes people.lower income we're doing it. unfortunately, we have the massive influx of foreigners that are coming in to this nation and completely destroying the income base of lower level of the society. and right now we have people coming in that are not even be considered for deportation for four years. class' rushing the lower income-making availability. it's intentional. that's the intentional position of people who have power. enforced.re not being citizens are not being taken care of. jobs are going overseas. crushed.eing they're bringing a range, how will it be resolved. left.obs are

the people are not taught to how to live within their means, how to be responsible. just a complete destruction. if weot going to end well don't do something right. host: do you think there's class warfare, class inequality it should bery and a legislative goal to make it more even? caller: not like a legislative goal. proper ly ly by there can be done.n that there is legislation that could be done to make sure that people get too great of a advantage over pooerm. one of the advantages is have educated, secure in what they're doing. people not taught to want so that they really don't need. getting this by

country back into production. cannot have a powerful country to do things if we don't have production. onre spending $6,000 a month somebody who just came in illegally. for each spent person, we could build a whole illage for family down in another country. up fortunately, it runs in the problem of corruption. allow that, you do something like that, the risk of the rich or the power down there it ever gets fore to construction. and we have that problem with corruption. we have it here in this country. it in the rest of the world. host: going to have to leave it there. appreciate your comments. you've listened to stephanie and beach. miami caller: you have so many ntelligent, well informed

callers. stephanie made great points. he talked about the government employee. my exposure to government employees, generally make a good wage. there's the fact she hasn't had a raise in eight years, that's course, people's income should be set to inflation. some great he made points, but, again, i don't employees government make great money. she did talk about corporations as phil.erseas as well he made some of the same points. being, again, in day ton, a town, you know we're there across the nation. but the city has crumbled for the movement of the corporations first down south because they were fighting unions up north. then overseas. think the focus should be on appropriations, the profit margins.

family members making, what, 150 million middle lass americans make -- that issue needs to be looked at very closely. again, and's term, economic patriots. where are they? when is it going to come up to the plate? both parties stole unions down the pike. grew up in union families. supporters made mistakes. created our middle class. i think they really need to look that closely. series to see a whole of the history of unions. the public needs to re-evaluate closely. host: thank you for your time this morning, from the u.s. bureau, how census measured poverty is this report. in 2012, there were 26.5 million in the united ty states. you can see here, the poverty the census s by

bureau. in 1959, the poverty rate, 22.4%.me, it goes down throughout the 70s 80s.he hen here in 2012, i want's about 15%, 16% is when they add some other facts and figures. here is the poverty rate and figure.er fact and the different colors here is the spm. supplemental poverty measure every year since 2010. released to has report the spm. official poverty measure by taking account the government benefits and expenses like taxes that are not in the official measure. so if you include them, all people, 16% of the poverty rate of age. under 18 years 18% are in the poverty zone. in 18 to 64.

and finally in the 65 and older, about another 15%. and here is the 2012 official threshold. 23,283ults, two children, in income. rubio in tor marco florida spoke about the war on poverty. and the way government could help. this is from earlier this year. offive decades and trillions dollars after president johnson first announced the war on poverty, the rules of the big government approach are in. here's where they are. 4 million americans have been out of work for six months or more. we have a stack of 49 million americans living below the line.y we have over twice that number. get 100 million people who some sort of form or food aid from the federal government. labor le, the

participation force is at a 35-year low. children raised in the bottom of 20% of the national income have 42% chance of being stuck there for life. now our current president and allies.ral what they propose to address, more on posal is spend the programs and increase the minimum wage to $10.10. -- this is their solution? to what the president called the time.ing issue of our raising the minimum wage may poll well. an raising the wage to $10 hour is not the american dream. our programs offer at best only a partial solution. they help people deal with poverty. but they do not help people poverty.rom the only solution that will lasting eaningful and results is to provide those who are stuck in low-paying jobs with the real opportunity to

to better paying jobs. the war on pover tiff accomplished neither of the two things. these two issue goals. first, we have the single of upward gine mobility in human history in our disposal. the american free enterprise system. host: as we continue to take your calls on class in america. the reason to do it. robert in new york. an e-mail last week, talking about the need to have a economic on inequality and class issues in the united states. robert, i hope you're watching. for three hours here. we're doing your v,