Historian John Sillito on the Irrepressible B. H. Roberts –Orator, Church Leader, Politician, Journalist, Public Intellectual and Mormon Historian (S4 E11)

**Brad Westwood** (0:00)
Welcome to the podcast Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history produced by the Utah Department of Culture and Community Engagement. I'm Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian. My job is to make the very best, the most interesting, the most accurate history of Utah accessible to the widest audience. I hope if there's one place, one podcast to get your Utah history fixed, I really hope this is the place.
B.

**John Sillito** (0:26)
H.

**Brad Westwood** (0:27)
Roberts is our subject in this episode. Well-known late 19th and early 20th century Mormon General Authority, orator, church historian, and would-be congressman for the state of Utah. My guest is longtime Utah historian John Sillito.
I will list as many posts, accomplishments, and publications in the show notes. Now Emeritus Adjunct Professor of History at Weber State University in Ogden. Before 2010, John was the Weber State University Professor and University Archivist in the university library system.
Essentially, John has been equal parts archivist for Weber State while also teaching and writing American, Western, Mormon, and Utah history. John is, in my estimation, a historian's historian with a depth of learning and insights and a lifetime of contributions to Utah history. He is someone you would want to hear. Naturally unassuming, hesitant really, he avoids the spotlight almost religiously. John's constantly deflecting and referring to fellow writers and historians when he's the one you should be speaking to. With a wry sense of humor and irony, I know a few historians who offer so much benefit of the doubt towards the subjects he researches and writes about.
Now, by saying that, he's no apologist, no PR or grandstanding historian. Rather, he does deep research, careful writing, and he truly is an empathetic historian. The book we'll be talking about today is B.

**John Sillito** (2:14)
H.

**Brad Westwood** (2:14)
Roberts, A Life in the Public Arena, published by Signature Book in 2021 John, welcome to Speak Your Piece.

**John Sillito** (2:21)
Thanks, Brad. It's always a pleasure to be here with you and always a pleasure to exchange ideas and thoughts.

**Brad Westwood** (2:27)
I couldn't agree more.

**John Sillito** (2:29)
And thanks for reading that introduction exactly the way I wrote it.

**Brad Westwood** (2:34)
You didn't write it, I did.
Well, we're going to be talking a great deal in the next hour or more about B. H. Roberts, someone who is so appreciated and loved. You know, in some respects, John, I see him as almost a kind of a figure. Depending on your political or your personal point of view, he can be seen and appreciated in a lot of different ways, almost kind of reflecting your views.

**John Sillito** (3:00)
I agree with that completely. It's amazing to me, as I'll mention the name of the book. Oh yeah, he was very important to me.
These are people that are all over the spectrum and professional historians and just average folks too.

**Brad Westwood** (3:14)
And it's just, not that I want to compare him to other figures in history that are completely different than him, or in Porter Rockwell's like that. People just can almost reflect themselves in that figure.
John, tell us how long you've been thinking and working on this book. And then second, will you share your ideas that you expressed at the end of the book in relationship to future historians or other generations that will come back to the same subject?

**John Sillito** (3:47)
Well, I like to say I've been working on B. Roberts this entire century.
I really began in early 2000 I first did an edited collection of Roberts' diaries, published as History's Apprentice. After that, I worked out an arrangement where I could work on a biography of B. H a political biography, because I'm a political historian. I'm interested in politics and parties and all of that, but I'm also interested in the interchange of political views and the influence of groups like the Church and others.
And so I worked on it off and on in what proved to be a bit longer period than I really thought, and the book was published last November. So it literally was the whole century so far that I've been working on it. And I have one more Roberts project in mind kind of floating in the back of my mind. After that, I'm on to other subjects.

**Brad Westwood** (4:42)
Well, you know, I love the way you ended the book. Tell our listeners about this point of view about history.

**John Sillito** (4:50)
When I taught US history, particularly what are called the survey courses, American history from beginning day one to today kind of courses, I would always use a book by a guy named Eric Foner, who is probably the dean of American historians now. His textbooks influence thousands of students.