 Hi, I'm here to read from this subversive book, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. This book was written during the Depression. It was published in 1939. It's had an illustrious history of being banned since then. It was burned in 1939 in St. Louis. It was banned in Buffalo, New York. And it was also banned in Kern County, California, where a lot of the novel takes place. This was in the 30s, and it was for vulgar words that were used. There have been many recent bannings or challenges to this book, starting in the 1980s in a New York school district, a Vermont school district, in Alabama, North Carolina, and most recently in the 90s in South Carolina. And the reasons why this book has been banned, people have said that it's full of filth, obscene language, and it's often been criticized as being dangerous. And I would like to read a dangerous passage today. The western states nervous under the beginning change, Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family moved from the land. Paw borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the land. The land company, that's the bank when it has land, wants tractors, not families on the land. Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours, it would be good. Not mine, but ours. If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good. Not my land, but ours. We could love that tractor then, as we have loved this land when it was ours. But this tractor does two things. It turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people are driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this. One man, one family driven from the land, this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land. A single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night, one family camps in a ditch, and another family pulls in, and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams, and the women and children listen. Here is the node. You who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart. Make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the foundation of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here, I lost my land is changed. A cell is split, and from it splitting grows the things you hate. We lost our land. The danger is here. For two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first we, there grows a still more dangerous thing. I have a little food, plus I have none. If from this problem the sum is we have a little food, the thing is on its way. The movement has direction. Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor, are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women behind the children listening with their souls towards their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It's wool. It was my mother's blanket. Take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning from I to we. If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Thomas Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into I and cuts you off forever from the we. The Western states are nervous under the beginning change. Need is the stimulus to concept to action. A half million people moving over the country. A million more restive, ready to move. 10 million more feeling the first nervousness and tractors turning the multiple furrows in the vacant land. Thank you and thank you, John Steinbeck.