WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.510 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:02.510 --> 00:00:03.740 align:middle line:90% All right. 00:00:03.740 --> 00:00:06.580 align:middle line:90% Mormons. 00:00:06.580 --> 00:00:09.310 align:middle line:84% Whoops, no, I want the poem page. 00:00:09.310 --> 00:00:10.600 align:middle line:90% I want the poem page. 00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:14.230 align:middle line:84% It's actually every single time I 00:00:14.230 --> 00:00:16.329 align:middle line:84% go to a new technology it's totally different, 00:00:16.329 --> 00:00:17.900 align:middle line:90% I swear to God. 00:00:17.900 --> 00:00:24.313 align:middle line:84% OK, it's like we're all good because some of us-- 00:00:24.313 --> 00:00:26.230 align:middle line:84% OK, this is the Mormon one I want to show you. 00:00:26.230 --> 00:00:28.990 align:middle line:84% There's also a polygamy one that's a fun one. 00:00:28.990 --> 00:00:30.490 align:middle line:90% I love the polygamy stuff. 00:00:30.490 --> 00:00:32.823 align:middle line:90% I mean, that might just be me. 00:00:32.823 --> 00:00:33.740 align:middle line:90% All right, here we go. 00:00:33.740 --> 00:00:34.660 align:middle line:90% [VIDEO PLAYBACK] 00:00:34.660 --> 00:00:41.000 align:middle line:84% - Brigham Young to General Dodge, Union Pacific, 1869. 00:00:41.000 --> 00:00:45.230 align:middle line:84% The locusts' hum, at first, was like a line of flame, 00:00:45.230 --> 00:00:48.680 align:middle line:84% then the air burst into reds, silver-edged, 00:00:48.680 --> 00:00:52.040 align:middle line:84% and filled with mouths like snapping scissors. 00:00:52.040 --> 00:00:55.190 align:middle line:84% They ate our wheat, blacked out the skies 00:00:55.190 --> 00:00:59.060 align:middle line:84% until the falling bodies settled like a fog over great salt 00:00:59.060 --> 00:00:59.690 align:middle line:90% lake. 00:00:59.690 --> 00:01:04.700 align:middle line:84% The carcasses brined to a black and growing wall. 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:07.250 align:middle line:84% We thought the soil here was rich, 00:01:07.250 --> 00:01:12.020 align:middle line:84% but who knew how rare rich was, how terribly fragile, 00:01:12.020 --> 00:01:14.060 align:middle line:84% and how temperamental we'd become 00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:16.400 align:middle line:84% trying to sustain these plots too 00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:19.600 align:middle line:90% alkaline to keep a crop alive? 00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:23.740 align:middle line:84% Nothing natural, but made in the beauty of this place. 00:01:23.740 --> 00:01:27.490 align:middle line:84% To create a home, we imported trees and water, 00:01:27.490 --> 00:01:31.210 align:middle line:84% we slashed and burned to excavate a state where nothing 00:01:31.210 --> 00:01:33.490 align:middle line:90% lived, nothing ruled us. 00:01:33.490 --> 00:01:35.590 align:middle line:84% And yet in all this nothing we were 00:01:35.590 --> 00:01:39.580 align:middle line:84% subject to the rules nothingness demanded and allowed, 00:01:39.580 --> 00:01:42.880 align:middle line:84% which requires every drop of blood from our bodies 00:01:42.880 --> 00:01:47.410 align:middle line:84% all that we might plant, and tend, and love that demands all 00:01:47.410 --> 00:01:51.100 align:middle line:84% might still be taken from us and fed to the abyss 00:01:51.100 --> 00:01:55.630 align:middle line:84% not the faith on which I believe each soul is nourished. 00:01:55.630 --> 00:01:59.200 align:middle line:90% Nothing natural here, but need. 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:02.410 align:middle line:84% Our symbol, as you know, is the hive of bees. 00:02:02.410 --> 00:02:05.740 align:middle line:84% And yet in our strength of will, our number perhaps 00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:09.160 align:middle line:84% you might picture us now like the locust, which 00:02:09.160 --> 00:02:11.980 align:middle line:84% arrives in waves to feed without society, 00:02:11.980 --> 00:02:14.290 align:middle line:84% which visits more regularly than rain 00:02:14.290 --> 00:02:17.110 align:middle line:84% and covers the earth not out of spite, 00:02:17.110 --> 00:02:19.990 align:middle line:90% but because they will survive. 00:02:19.990 --> 00:02:23.680 align:middle line:84% Dear General, all this we have endured, 00:02:23.680 --> 00:02:26.110 align:middle line:84% and now you think we should not remind you 00:02:26.110 --> 00:02:30.910 align:middle line:84% of the debt we're owed, we who lobbied for this railroad, who 00:02:30.910 --> 00:02:33.250 align:middle line:84% agreed to unite this nation with you 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:37.720 align:middle line:84% and bring the riches of the East West to tame its wilds? 00:02:37.720 --> 00:02:41.170 align:middle line:84% Do you wonder at our anger and our exigence? 00:02:41.170 --> 00:02:46.030 align:middle line:84% General, we worked your grading to Monument Point and thousands 00:02:46.030 --> 00:02:49.990 align:middle line:84% drilled and blasted, rent the very foundations of the earth 00:02:49.990 --> 00:02:53.710 align:middle line:84% until these hills swarmed with our fresh encampments. 00:02:53.710 --> 00:02:57.340 align:middle line:84% We are patient, but we aren't fools. 00:02:57.340 --> 00:03:00.640 align:middle line:84% If we'd been a collection of mere individuals linked 00:03:00.640 --> 00:03:03.100 align:middle line:84% by money long ago you'd have seen 00:03:03.100 --> 00:03:06.250 align:middle line:84% us crushed by weather, luck, and the Indian. 00:03:06.250 --> 00:03:10.780 align:middle line:84% Together in faith, we have brought this place to heel, 00:03:10.780 --> 00:03:12.700 align:middle line:90% we can do more. 00:03:12.700 --> 00:03:16.390 align:middle line:84% Even the locusts which once again have come to plague us 00:03:16.390 --> 00:03:20.090 align:middle line:84% make little dent in our labors, their dark 00:03:20.090 --> 00:03:23.210 align:middle line:84% trails that waver in the heat like iron bars 00:03:23.210 --> 00:03:25.250 align:middle line:90% are merely a mirage. 00:03:25.250 --> 00:03:29.480 align:middle line:84% Our kerchiefs dipped in camphor smell not like sweat and earth, 00:03:29.480 --> 00:03:31.490 align:middle line:90% but sweet water. 00:03:31.490 --> 00:03:35.510 align:middle line:84% They do not stifle nor blind us to the promise of the money 00:03:35.510 --> 00:03:38.780 align:middle line:84% your company offered, a promise which has gone 00:03:38.780 --> 00:03:42.320 align:middle line:90% now too many months unanswered. 00:03:42.320 --> 00:03:45.050 align:middle line:84% We are hungry for an answer, sir. 00:03:45.050 --> 00:03:47.450 align:middle line:90% We wait for your reply. 00:03:47.450 --> 00:03:50.120 align:middle line:84% Each morning, your railroad tunnels 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:53.300 align:middle line:84% shakes with the reports of our artillery, 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:56.150 align:middle line:90% you can hear them if you listen. 00:03:56.150 --> 00:03:59.720 align:middle line:84% The mountains reverberate from base to summit 00:03:59.720 --> 00:04:03.260 align:middle line:84% ringing back our volleys with thunderous echoes 00:04:03.260 --> 00:04:07.467 align:middle line:90% as if in anger. 00:04:07.467 --> 00:04:08.050 align:middle line:90% [END PLAYBACK] 00:04:08.050 --> 00:04:11.120 align:middle line:90% Oh, yeah, that's a lot easier. 00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:12.440 align:middle line:90% Oh, I love the [INAUDIBLE]. 00:04:12.440 --> 00:04:13.550 align:middle line:90% This is great. 00:04:13.550 --> 00:04:16.760 align:middle line:84% OK, it's like I also love that I don't have to read, 00:04:16.760 --> 00:04:17.570 align:middle line:90% it's just great. 00:04:17.570 --> 00:04:21.860 align:middle line:84% OK, soil, Brigham Young, the second president of the LDS 00:04:21.860 --> 00:04:23.720 align:middle line:84% Church and founder of Salt Lake City, 00:04:23.720 --> 00:04:26.660 align:middle line:84% was an enthusiastic proponent of the Transcontinental 00:04:26.660 --> 00:04:29.960 align:middle line:84% but wanted the line to travel through Salt Lake, not Ogden 00:04:29.960 --> 00:04:32.180 align:middle line:84% where the Union Pacific finally routed it. 00:04:32.180 --> 00:04:35.000 align:middle line:84% Both General Dodge and Stanford touted the benefits 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:37.970 align:middle line:84% of Young's Mormon workers since, as Dodge reported, 00:04:37.970 --> 00:04:40.700 align:middle line:84% they were teetotalers to the last man, 00:04:40.700 --> 00:04:43.910 align:middle line:84% tolerated no gambling, were quiet and law abiding, 00:04:43.910 --> 00:04:46.340 align:middle line:84% and concluded each day's labor with communal prayers 00:04:46.340 --> 00:04:47.630 align:middle line:90% and songs. 00:04:47.630 --> 00:04:50.120 align:middle line:84% But while the railroad companies liked Mormons, 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:51.650 align:middle line:90% they didn't pay them. 00:04:51.650 --> 00:04:54.410 align:middle line:84% Brigham Young, desperate to have the railroad completed 00:04:54.410 --> 00:04:56.780 align:middle line:84% to link the Utah territory to the Pacific, 00:04:56.780 --> 00:04:59.630 align:middle line:84% quietly paid the workers himself with church funds, 00:04:59.630 --> 00:05:02.510 align:middle line:84% but not without sending furious telegrams to Dodge 00:05:02.510 --> 00:05:05.210 align:middle line:90% about the $2 million owed them. 00:05:05.210 --> 00:05:08.120 align:middle line:84% The Union Pacific didn't pay because it had long ago run out 00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:10.340 align:middle line:84% of cash and just kept lying about it, 00:05:10.340 --> 00:05:12.780 align:middle line:84% though perhaps Dodge also didn't trust Mormons 00:05:12.780 --> 00:05:14.370 align:middle line:90% as much as he'd claimed. 00:05:14.370 --> 00:05:17.220 align:middle line:84% Travelogues by east coast journalists visiting the Utah 00:05:17.220 --> 00:05:20.460 align:middle line:84% territory worried over what DC politicians called 00:05:20.460 --> 00:05:24.270 align:middle line:84% the Mormon and Indian problem and the 1857 Mormon 00:05:24.270 --> 00:05:27.330 align:middle line:84% led Mountain Meadows massacre of the Baker-Fancher emigrant 00:05:27.330 --> 00:05:29.550 align:middle line:84% wagon train in southern Utah had long 00:05:29.550 --> 00:05:32.760 align:middle line:84% fed east coast fantasies of insurrectionist Mormons. 00:05:32.760 --> 00:05:35.010 align:middle line:90% Polygamy didn't help. 00:05:35.010 --> 00:05:37.260 align:middle line:84% Cartoons in American papers depicted 00:05:37.260 --> 00:05:39.810 align:middle line:84% desiccated Mormon men linking hands with women 00:05:39.810 --> 00:05:42.690 align:middle line:84% from other polygamist and conspicuously non-white 00:05:42.690 --> 00:05:44.790 align:middle line:84% cultures implying that Mormons were 00:05:44.790 --> 00:05:47.520 align:middle line:90% racially suspect, un-American. 00:05:47.520 --> 00:05:49.500 align:middle line:84% At the heart of all these reports naturally 00:05:49.500 --> 00:05:52.770 align:middle line:84% was the question of, who or what would control the territory? 00:05:52.770 --> 00:05:54.930 align:middle line:90% And who or what are Mormons? 00:05:54.930 --> 00:05:57.120 align:middle line:84% The Mormons worked the Transcontinental Line 00:05:57.120 --> 00:05:58.740 align:middle line:84% through a grasshopper infestation 00:05:58.740 --> 00:06:00.870 align:middle line:84% similar to the cricket infestation that 00:06:00.870 --> 00:06:03.360 align:middle line:84% occurred in 1848, which nearly destroyed 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:06.540 align:middle line:84% the crops of the Mormon pioneers before the miraculous arrival 00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:09.120 align:middle line:84% of seagulls that devoured all the insects. 00:06:09.120 --> 00:06:12.240 align:middle line:84% It's a story, of course, mostly made up, 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:15.770 align:middle line:84% just like this letter of Young's that I've composed.