Latest / Ridiculous History / Cow Shoe Camouflage: How Prohibition-era Moonshiners Outsmarted the Feds

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Cow Shoe Camouflage: How Prohibition-era Moonshiners Outsmarted the Feds · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Well well, well,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Historians, thank you for tuning in. It is a
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Friday here as we record, and we are excited. We've
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: got some adventures lined up on the weekend. I'm ben,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I'm no, and I'm gonna have moonshine on the Biou
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and moonshine on the Biou. That's all I got. And
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: we've got our super producer, Casey Pegroom. He's gonna have
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: moonshine on the Bhi on the moon China. Right, Okay,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: so you're in the moonshine on the bioum right, absolutely.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I love both those things. You're into the Shine, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the Shine, the Bayou, the whole nine The whole nine
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  Speaker 1: that's a rhyme, and that's Casey on the case the
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  Speaker 1: rhyming edition. It's interesting because the the whole nine yards
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  Speaker 1: has its own strange etymology. Right. I think it comes
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: from the Army, but I'm not. I'm not too sure.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I'll look into it later. Football thing, No, No, I
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: told you about the yard line and our boss yeah, cool,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: can tell it again. Mentioned. I don't know if we've
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: mentioned on it's really really great. So our our boss
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: who is who is a great, great guy, is name Connell.
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  Speaker 1: And he was in a meeting with us one time
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: where he tried to make a sports reference and I
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: don't think he knows a ton of stuff about football
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  Speaker 1: because he said, you know, we're on the nine yard
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  Speaker 1: line or we're on the first yard line. And we
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  Speaker 1: had to stop him and say, you know, that comparison
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  Speaker 1: doesn't What do you think you're saying? You know what
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  Speaker 1: I mean? Because all it up, not everybody, not everybody
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  Speaker 1: can be an expert at all things. However, one group
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  Speaker 1: of people who continually get underestimated, and even these are
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  Speaker 1: modern days, are bootleggers. And one of the strangest, most
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  Speaker 1: ridiculous eras in American history was prohibition. This is a
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  Speaker 1: perfect thing to talk about on a Friday. Oh man, totally,
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  Speaker 1: I'm drunk already. No, no, I'm not, but I am
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  Speaker 1: looking forward to some on the value. Yeah, it's true. Um,
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  Speaker 1: so here's the thing we know. A prohibition was quick
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  Speaker 1: cooking dirty alcohol is illegal boom to nineteen thirty three
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  Speaker 1: temperance people said, you know, folks will vote for prohibition
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  Speaker 1: as long as they can stagger to the polls. The
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  Speaker 1: Devil's nectar. What did you call, oh, Grandpa's leg medics,
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  Speaker 1: Grandpa's Oh, Grandpa's leg medicine. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was
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  Speaker 1: for boating big time. But as we know, when you
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  Speaker 1: tell people what they can't do, they're gonna find ways
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  Speaker 1: to do it, and they're gonna find ways to get
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  Speaker 1: the thing that they can't have. Uh, and it's just
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  Speaker 1: gonna keep going. And the people that procure this stuff
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  Speaker 1: for them, this Grandpa's leg Medicine, Devil's Nectar, were called bootleggers,
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  Speaker 1: and they had to employ some kind of crafty subterfuges
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  Speaker 1: and tricks in order not to get caught by you know,
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  Speaker 1: the crazy bug eyed cop dude from Boardwalk Empire. Remember him, No, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: the other crazy the bug eyed cop guy, the cop
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  Speaker 1: guy who was a true believer. He was a true believer. Um,
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  Speaker 1: he really really wanted to stamp out anything that was
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  Speaker 1: impure and and and ungodly, and to him, liquor represented
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  Speaker 1: debauchery and chaos, a society coming apart at the seams.
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  Speaker 1: So he's who I'm picturing is in charge of this
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  Speaker 1: whole thing. Interesting, I've never I've never seen Boardwalk Empire
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  Speaker 1: I am aware of it, though, and I'm very glad
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  Speaker 1: that we did not live during the era of alcohol prohibition.
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  Speaker 1: Long time listeners, if you've checked out Boardwalk Empire, or
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  Speaker 1: you've listened to older episode of our show, then you
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  Speaker 1: are doubtlessly well aware of the strange hypocrisies that proliferated
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  Speaker 1: in this country during the US Prohibition era. You're also
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  Speaker 1: aware of the rampant corruption. You know, some gangsters like
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  Speaker 1: al Capone made vast fortunes. This was a huge watershed
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  Speaker 1: moment for organized crime. Here's something a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: don't know that could be a good episode all its own.
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  Speaker 1: Remember earlier when I said these moonshiners get underestimated. This
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  Speaker 1: is a fact that a lot of people don't know.
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  Speaker 1: Prohibition led to NASCAR. NASCAR would not have existed without
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  Speaker 1: prohibition because, like you said, no, they had to be crafty,
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  Speaker 1: these bootleggers, and they had to be sneaky. So a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the improvements they made to their vehicles led
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  Speaker 1: to the growth of NASCAR. I did not know that, man,
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  Speaker 1: and that is a fantastic subject for another episode. But
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  Speaker 1: today we're talking about a different kind of and a
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  Speaker 1: that they spearheaded these these crafty bootleggers as you call them, um.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a two words, very simple idea, but pretty
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  Speaker 1: damn genius. Cow shoes, cow shoes, cow shoes, two separate words. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So these moonshine stills would be out in remote or
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  Speaker 1: hidden areas in a holler, maybe by a creek, but
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  Speaker 1: they would they would be in the woods, you know
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  Speaker 1: what I mean. There wouldn't necessarily even be like a
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  Speaker 1: deer path. The only way that the authorities, the g
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  Speaker 1: men and so on could track down these moonshiners once
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  Speaker 1: they were physically following them in the woods was to
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  Speaker 1: find their footprints or do some you know, do some
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  Speaker 1: boy scout path searching right, look for broken branches, look
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  Speaker 1: for trampled grass, cracked leaves, things like that, and depending
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  Speaker 1: on the train, you might get a footprint. So the
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  Speaker 1: bootleggers said, look, we're gonna have to leave some kind
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  Speaker 1: of prints as we walk in and out of here,
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  Speaker 1: But why does it have to be a human footprint?
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  Speaker 1: Right right? Indeed, and real quick, I just want to
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  Speaker 1: point out that you can buy yourself your very own
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  Speaker 1: five gallon moonshine still from Moonshine Still dot com. Um
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  Speaker 1: and the five gallon unit is three seventy nine dollars.
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  Speaker 1: And I love the look of these things. They look
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  Speaker 1: like a cool like wizard chemistry set with like a
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  Speaker 1: big boiler and then like a little dome that comes
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  Speaker 1: off the top and then like kind of a swan,
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  Speaker 1: like a little tube that then drip drip drips down
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  Speaker 1: into the collection um receptacle. And that's how they make
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  Speaker 1: the moonshine um pretty cool. Um. So, yeah, they would
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  Speaker 1: have these out in sheds in the woods are like
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  Speaker 1: just out you know, like in hidden in a glen
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  Speaker 1: or something like that. But yeah, they needed to get
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  Speaker 1: to and from there without leaving a trail, and that's
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  Speaker 1: exactly what they did. Ben they would attach these uh
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  Speaker 1: these cow um what do you call them? Well, you know, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I was about to say horseshoes for cows. The cow shoes. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's literally what you know what you call them a
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  Speaker 1: you uh, And they would attach them to their human
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  Speaker 1: shoes and these would look like hoofprints or that was
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  Speaker 1: the thought that someone would be searching through the woods,
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  Speaker 1: maybe they catch part of a trail and then they
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  Speaker 1: would look down and they would say, hang on, this
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  Speaker 1: was just some cow walking in the woods or some
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  Speaker 1: sort of hoofed creature. The idea most likely came from literature.
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  Speaker 1: It came from a Sherlock Holmes story where a bad
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  Speaker 1: guy and one of the stories, attaches fake cow hoofs
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  Speaker 1: to the feet of his horse to avoid detections. Spoiler alert, Ben,
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  Speaker 1: you just spoiled Sherlock Holmes. Yeah, I spoiled the whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: It's over. It's okay. I think Sherlock Holmes stories are
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  Speaker 1: past the statute of limitations with spoilers. Also, that had
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  Speaker 1: Girland post story totally a monkey with a razor the
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  Speaker 1: murders in the room or yeah, that's the one monkey
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  Speaker 1: with a razor. So the Sherlock Holmes story specifically was
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  Speaker 1: called The Adventure of the Priory School, which I have
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  Speaker 1: not read, but spoilers three two and here be spoilers.
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  Speaker 1: The plot involves a mystery surrounding a young student who
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  Speaker 1: disappears along with his teacher, and Sherlock Holmes discovers that
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  Speaker 1: the murder culprit made his horses where fake cow hooves.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the first time it exists in literature. But
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  Speaker 1: what was it in real life? Pretty simple, They weren't
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  Speaker 1: actual cow hooves. They were wooden blocks that have been
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  Speaker 1: carved to look like the hooves, right, and then attached
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  Speaker 1: to a metal strip and then strapped to a human foot.
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  Speaker 1: There was an example of the shoe found near Port
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  Speaker 1: Tampa and sent to the Prohibition Department in Washington. And
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  Speaker 1: that's how the FEDS learned about this. So it was
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  Speaker 1: a real thing. It actually happened. It also was described
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  Speaker 1: in a couple of other things right in some newspapers. Absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: it was ben in a nineteen two article from the St. Petersburg,
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  Speaker 1: Florida paper known as The Evening Independence is no longer
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  Speaker 1: a thing. They discribed this technique as such. A new
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  Speaker 1: method of evading prohibition agents was revealed here today by A. L.
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  Speaker 1: Allen's the account of them drifting into the mid Atlantic accent.
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  Speaker 1: It's Florida, though, but it's fine. It's still fun for
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  Speaker 1: reading this kind of old copy. Uh. A. L. Allen,
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  Speaker 1: stay Prohibition enforcement director, who displayed what he called a
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  Speaker 1: cow shoe as the latest thing from the haunts of
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  Speaker 1: moonshin has. That's from the Evening Independent. So the discovery
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  Speaker 1: of this astonishing cow shoe technology did not necessarily mean
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  Speaker 1: the end of moonshining and bootlegging because people liked to drink. Nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: it's weird as so many hipster restaurants and so many
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  Speaker 1: of my hips her friends, to be honest, get have
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  Speaker 1: gotten into creating or distilling moonshine. And it's been in
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  Speaker 1: my family for a long long time. Right. We actually
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  Speaker 1: do have some old moonshine stills that I wouldn't touch, oh,
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  Speaker 1: EI think they'd be like they have a taint. They'd
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  Speaker 1: be tainted with just age and rust and crust. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know if it's up to health code standards. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and and and we we we mentioned it briefly, but
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  Speaker 1: that was the thing about prohibition period and these skills
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  Speaker 1: is there was no health standard and a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people died because they would use too much of a
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  Speaker 1: certain ingredient or like there was too much ethanol in
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  Speaker 1: the product and it would literally kill them. Not to
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  Speaker 1: mention we do we do it on this show or
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  Speaker 1: was that that? Don't want you to know? But the
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  Speaker 1: government actually uh and intervened to try to um to
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  Speaker 1: try to basically poison people who were illegally imbibing these products.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Right then, Yeah, we did an episode on this, so
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  Speaker 1: long story short, Uncle Sam during prohibition decided to deliberately
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  Speaker 1: poison industrial alcohol which was being stolen and used to
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  Speaker 1: make bootlegs stuff, and this led to the death of
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  Speaker 1: more than ten thousand people in the US. And when
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  Speaker 1: prohibition was finally repealed in nineteen thirty three, a lot
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  Speaker 1: of he says said, you know what, We're gonna stay dry.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: What's the what's the whiskey? Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels is
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: made in a dry county. Still, that's so funny. I
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: was just talking. I was in Tennessee over the last
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  Speaker 1: few days in Nashville. Um, And first of all, the
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  Speaker 1: tenant the Nashville Airport is basically like a liquor store,
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  Speaker 1: like all of the gift shops just sell all of
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the different types of tennants. Of course, yeah, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: talking to you, Ben, I'm talking to the people. But
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  Speaker 1: somebody told me they took the tour of the Jack
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  Speaker 1: Daniels distillery and they weren't able to You're not able
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: to buy any any liquor there at the Jack Daniels tour.
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  Speaker 1: It's true, it's crazy. We also see the effects of
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  Speaker 1: this sort of prohibition today. There was research conducted by
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: economists at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, and they
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  Speaker 1: found that meth lab seizures in Kentucky are significantly more
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  Speaker 1: likely to occur in dry counties. Surprised, right, I'm just saying,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, you you you'd tell people what they
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  Speaker 1: can't have. They're gonna have it one way or another. Um,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: whether it be an alcohol form or in meth form,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: or crocodile or like jankum, that's not my jam. No,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it's not. You're not my jake. Definitely it's not. Look
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  Speaker 1: it up, folks, if you want to be totally totally
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: grossed out, we consider it not safe for work. Always,
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  Speaker 1: absolutely not safe for work. Like all works of genius,
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  Speaker 1: the cow shoes were not restricted to a single use
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  Speaker 1: or single application. It turns out that someone else would
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  Speaker 1: come up with the cow shoe idea decades beforehands very true.
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  Speaker 1: It was in the ninet twenties in the town of Elko, Nevada, Nevada.
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  Speaker 1: Which way am I supposed to say? So? People outside
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of Nevada say Nevada, people inside Nevada say Nevada. So
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: what should I say? I'm outside of it. I don't know, man,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: You gotta bring that Vegas with you. No, man, I'm
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: gonna say that. How I say it? Nevada? Yeah, co Nevada. Uh.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: There was some really odd goings on that were documented
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: in the ninet twenties. You see, for a couple of months,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: some cows from a place called the Utah Construction Company ranch. Wait,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: why is the why is there a U Tak Instruction
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: company in Nevada? We'll never know. Um, they were disappearing, Ben,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: they were disappearing. And you know Nevada is lousy with
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: UFO abductions, and then UFO alien types love cow situations.
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  Speaker 1: They love like mangling cows. Was it aliens? Ben? What
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: was it? Well? It may have been aliens in some instances,
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  Speaker 1: but at least one instance, it was a guy who
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  Speaker 1: maybe had read a Sherlock Holmes story or two and
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  Speaker 1: decided to build himself some cow shoes. A few of
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  Speaker 1: the cowboys on the ranch followed a mysterious trail of hoofprints,
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  Speaker 1: and then they came across their missing cattle being led
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: away by a notorious troublemaker named j R. Crazy Chicks Hazelwood.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I think he's got one
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: of those sort of wish living varih who I love
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: that is he kind of shis whistle when he talks black.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: It's crazy chicks. Yeah. So the ranchers apprehended crazy text
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  Speaker 1: and then they saw he was wearing cow shoes. He
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: had two boards mounted on top of two real cow
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  Speaker 1: hooves each and according to Howard Hickson, local historian, there,
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  Speaker 1: Texts had no regrets. He bragged about how he had
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: learned to walk like a cow, like the gate of
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  Speaker 1: the Cow. It wasn't good enough just to have the shoes. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And now those shoes, his cow shoes, are on display
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  Speaker 1: today at the Northeastern Nevada Museum. I have not been
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: to that one. No, no, I have. My My current
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: goal for Nevada travel wise is to spend some time
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: at the Hoover dam You know, I always remember when
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I think about the Hoover Damn that's seen in bibs
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and but had to America where Bevis is like, is
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: it a goddamn sorry, I don't remember. Remember that move
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't hold up. It's not very funny. It didn't age well,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I don't think. So there's a cool part where they
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: end up taking some sort of psychedelic hallucinogen in the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: in the desert, and then it all turns into like
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: rob zombie animations and it's it's pretty psychedelic and cool.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I gotta say, Ben Howard Hickson great name for a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: local historian, wouldn't you agree? Yeah, Yeah, he's the guy
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: that that was part of this whole, this whole situation here. Um.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of things that prohibition era huckster's
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: would do to evade the authorities. This is the weirdest
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: on This is a weird one. Yeah, it's about a
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: bad sandwich. Yeah, I don't understand this. Okay. So, because
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: of the way exercise laws worked in in New York
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: State at the time, in like the end of the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, if you went out for a drink, you
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: would have a very strange experience. Let's say you go
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: out your your casey pegrum out on the town, New York,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: eighteen nineties. You go to your local bar and you say,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you know what I'll have. I'll have a beer or
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I'll have you know, whiskey on the rocks or something.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: The waiter bartender would bring you the drink, but they
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: would bring it out with a sandwich and the sandwich
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was horrible. Yeah, there were a couple variations of it.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: It was it was more than just horrible. It was
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: it was inadible, um. And you know, speaking in broad terms, um,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: it was quote an old desiccated ruin of this is
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: great writing of dust laden bread and mummified ham or cheese.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: And that is from the mouth, the mind, the pen
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: of the brilliant playwright Eugene O'Neill. That was one variation
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: of it. Another variation was it was just made of rubber. Yeah,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: that's gross, right, You're the thing is, you're not supposed
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: to eat the sandwich. They would take that, They would
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: bring the sandwich out to you, and then seconds later
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: they would take it back. It was the same sandwich.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: It was just the sandwich was making the round in
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the restaurant. Or it was an excuse for what serving booze.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, very very creative. A lot of
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: this again, this involves a lot of innovation and creativity
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and that is no excuse, um. And you know, the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: owners of these establishments argued that this wasn't breaking the law. Right.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: The strange ritual was a result of the Rains law,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: which was described in Atlas Obscure as a combination of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: good intentions, unstated prejudices, and unforeseen consequences. So the Rains
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: law was meant to get rid of dive bars. It
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: raised the cost of a liquor licensed the eight hundred
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: bucks three times would have been before. It said, you know,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you can't be open within two hundred feet of a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: school or a church. You can't have a free lunch,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: which was a thing that bars used to do this.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I had never heard of it either. I don't think
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it was a great lunch, but you could go somewhere
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: than a rain sandwich though, right, Yes, it goes to
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: what they called it. Yeah, you would get cheese, soda, bread,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: and raw onions for free. Yikes. Yeah, well, I guess
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: they do kind of do, like free peanuts and gummy
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: bears in certain bars in some places. I love the snacks.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Any situation, I'm down to snack. Uh. And the law
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: also attacked drinking on Sundays, are being open on Sundays.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: But here's what happened. You see, the law had a loophole,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and then there was a loophole within that loophole. The
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: first one is this the law, the way these laws
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: were written allowed lodging houses with ten rooms or more
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: to serve guests drinks with meals seven days a week.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: And then incidentally, wealthy New Yorkers would just dine out
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: at a ritzy hotel because that's a lodging house so
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: they can serve drinks seven days a week. And honestly,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: I mean that the little loopholes like that still kind
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: of exist today. Uh. And you know the bars that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: we go to here in Atlanta, like more often than not,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they want to serve food, even if it's not a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: big part of their income. Right, it's important to them
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: to be able to serve food because it allows them
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: to be open earlier. I want to say, or that
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: maybe you know the law better than me, but there's
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: definitely a reason that it's beneficial to a business that
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: serves alcohol to also serve food. I think it means
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: that the events don't have to be twenty one and up,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Like if you're having concerts or whatever that might be
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: part of it, you can I think you can do
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: eighteen and up events if they serve food. I can't
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: remember what city I was in, it was somewhere in
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: kind of a dodgy bar and I was trying to
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: figure out if they have food, and they had hot dogs,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: but the person who is selling them was like, donate those.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: We just keep those so we could say we have food.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And I ran in and maybe it was a real
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: life rain sandwich. Here's how the loophole worked. Here's how
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: we got this terrible sandwich. You can't sell booze on Sunday.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: The rains law doesn't want you to, but that is
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: one of the most profitable days for a lot of people.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Here's what the downtown bar owners did. They founded private
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: clubs and then they started handing out membership cards to
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: their regulars. It's sort of like if our local bar
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the local and a birth of creativity is right, that's
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: still so it's hilarious what we say it on air
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: like that. But if they had to, if they had
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: to confront this kind of law, then they might very
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: well turn into a club, hand out membership cards and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: so on. These people also converted basements and addic spaces
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: into rooms like hotel rooms, and then they said, okay,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: we count as a lodging house. Will throw table cloths
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: over the pool tables. That makes us kind of a restaurant.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: And because the law says, if you're a lodging house
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: with ten or more rooms, you can serve guests drinks
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: with food seven days a week, they had to pick
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: something they could use that would count as food. Yeah,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: and I guess you could argue it's debatable whether this, uh,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: this disgusting sandwich could be I don't know. You would
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: you would think that the law could come down on
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: them and say, guys, this is in fact inedible. Uh,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: this does not qualify as food. Um. Yeah, it's it's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: like your hot dog story, right right, here's the here's
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the quote. Because I love where you're going with this.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Law enforcement itself bought this. An assistant d A in
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn said the following to a group of police captains
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: as the first of these rains hotels started hitting the scene.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: He said, well, I would not say that cracker as
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: a complete meal in itself, but our sand which is
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: how much did they pay him? They paid him something? Yeah,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: it's that sandwich, sweet sweet sandwich money. Um No, I
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, man. This is very interesting stuff. It's all
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: about the little clever tricks, whether it's to disguise something
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: like a footprint, or that's to skirt the law in
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: some way, and we still again, we still see the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: kind of legacy of this playing out into in today's
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: today's did this on modern world? Now? Of course it's
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: tempting to say, Wow, what a crazy story, what a
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: strange period in US history. But as William Folker said,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the past is not over. The past is not even past.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: The Prohibition Party, your ridiculous historians, is still in play today.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: It's still a thing. It's true. It is the oldest
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: third party in America. Uh, the next gold that would
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: be the Green Party. No, that's not true. I don't
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: know what the next old this would be. I did
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: not even know this was considered a party. But yeah,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it's on the ballot and at least three states. You
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: think we would have a more precise number of that.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Is it three? Is it at least three? Is it
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: more than three? H you tell me, I don't know, Ben,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Oh well, whatever, somebody says it's a ballot in at
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: least three states, it means that it might be an
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: additional ones in the future. There you go. That makes sense. Um,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: So here is how this works. It's never gotten more
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: than two point two percent of the popular vote. But there.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: It is just the same. Um. It's shown up on
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: presidential ballot since eighteen seventy two every time, and it
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: has had some kind of spotlight e type moments, right
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: like during the nineteen twenty alcohol band Prohibition right, the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: titular alcohol band of the party, the Prohibition Party, um,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and that was really it's time to shine. Yeah. And
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it's strange when you think that the party is still
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: extant and it is still so focused on a single issue, right,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: one thing that's really awesome. Although prohibitionists and not I
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: clearly do not see eyed eye on a great many things.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I found it inspiring and really cool that in nineteen
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: twenty four the Prohibition Party became the first political party
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in this country to put a woman on the presidential
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: ballot when they named Marie C. Brem as their vice
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: presidential candidate. Very interesting, like oddly forward thinking, but like
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: at the same time she was probably a monster. I
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, come on for them to have
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: like pushed her forth, it's just me completely editorializing. But like,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: you know, like again I'm gonna go back to my
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Prohibition uh detective in um, you know, played by Michael
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Shannon in Boardwalk Empire. The the whole thing with the
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Prohibition Party, and that movement is temperance, and that is
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: all tied to religious zelotry. Right, So a lot of times,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna be like you know, you have to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: be the craziest religious zella to be pushed forth as
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the president of this That's that's what I'm getting at.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: You know, not to say that all religious people are
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: monsters or anything. I just think this type of puritanical
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: zealotry tends to yield troubling results. You know, we understand
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that alcoholism can be a serious and very threatening problem.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: That being said, I love prohibition propaganda, like the cartoons.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: They're amazing. I wish they were more like this. You
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: know what, if I ever own a bar, I'm just
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: gonna decorate it with prohibition pictures. Give me some examples, sure, sure.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Uh There's there's this famous one where there were a
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: bunch of very angry people, uh, staying around a sign
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that says lips that touch liquors shall not touch ours.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: There are things saying which gets your vote, mother or
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the saloon vote. Dry asked the first ten mothers you
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: meet if they would vote for the saloon and govern
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: yourself accordingly, and then you have just some like outright
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: you know, fearmongering things aren't even clever. Like beer doubled
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the child death rate in the first five years of life.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Children of sober parents died children of beer drinkers percent died. Alcohol,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: whether in beer or in whiskey, is an enemy of
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: child life. That was the thing. Yeah, you'll see pictures
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: where it's the bar room or the boy your vote
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: may settle it. And there's a guy drunk outside of
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: like a western looking saloon, and there's a little kid
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: standing on the porch with him, going, is that you daddy?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: It's it's pretty sad. You got another one here where
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: it's a cartoon. This is a pretty clever one. Um.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: It's a cartoon of like a dude and kind of
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: like a hounds tooth suit. But he's not a regular
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: old dude. His head is a globe. It is the world,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and it's being enveloped by something called the liquor octopus,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: which is as you would imagine a cartoonish octopus that
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: has words printed on it. Uh in the you know,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: in the style of political cartoons, and every tentacle is
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: a different vice. Right, We've got without vice, but it's
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: a different outcome. We've got poverty on one tentacle, crime, disease, debauchery,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and waste. And then at the bottom there's like a
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: log or something that he's supposed to sit on. It
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: says American anti saloon methods. That's where this came from.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I think the last example a'll site is the propaganda
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: poster that just it's kind of simple. It looks like
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: it might be from a different time. They claims there
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: are six bad things that alcohol can cause, adultery, drunks, violence,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: illness centers, and atheist gasp. I like the idea that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: somebody is going to have a beer and then instantly
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: go there's no God, There's no God. How bad was
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that beer? Was it like a was it like a Michelobe?
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Must have been ultra? What's the worst beer? Ben? I
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. I haven't drank every beer.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I know. I'm kind of a philistine in this regard.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not a beer guy either. You know, what I
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: can say is a great beer? No, No, what's the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: worst beer? I don't know what the worst beer is?
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: A good beer is Miller Lite it's so good, in fact,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: that you can drink it with your mouth. Brought to
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you by Miller Lion. That's true. That campaign was from
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: years ago. Ben still getting residuals Now, that is a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: good line. And I swear to god they if they
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: haven't just like lifted that from you and used that
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: in their advertising materials, that's I guess I'm like an
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: old man advertising material. Um, then they are missing the boat. Dude.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'm more of a whiskey guy. But you know,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I am divorced. It's certainly possible
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that alcohol lead to directly or indirectly to my divorce.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I can neither confirm nor deny that. Um, I do
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: have a job. I pay my way. I am I
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a sinner. I don't know. I'm not a saint. Are
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: you debauched from time to time? I don't know if
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I'm wholly debauched. So I think we have our debauched moments.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Check out my Instagram stories. You can follow me how
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: now Noel Brown on the Graham and you can follow
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: me at Ben Bowling. As you get kicked into and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: out of various uh events, bars, restaurants, countries, there's always something, saloons, saloons, speakeasies, yeah,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. If you want to join our community group,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: this is a very organic transition to the outure this time. Man,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I'm a big fan. If you want to join our
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: community on the Facebook, you can do so. We are
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. Just search for that group and name one
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: or both or all three of us or just us
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: say a joke that let's just know that you're you're,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you're cool, and we'll let you write. If it's a
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: good pun, I'm gonna just green light it all day.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: We would also like to thank, as always, our super producer,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, our research associates Ryan Barish and Gabe Lousia.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams, who composed our theme, also gets a hefty thanks. Um.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank Christopher Aciota is here in spirit.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: There's a Christopher shape whole and all of our hearts
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: that we hope to fill very soon thanks to the quister.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: I miss him. We need to bring it back in
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the game. Yeah he's okay. I'm warming up to the idea.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: When he's gone for a while, sort of absence makes
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: the heart grow fonder and all that that's kind of
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: how I feel. But yeah, we should definitely have him
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: in so I can go back to hating him with
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a fire deep inside me. Tell us and your fellow
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: listeners your favorite weird prohibition stories. Do you have uh
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: personal family connection to prohibition? To bootleg into moonshining A
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: lot of people in Appalachia do. Yeah. You can write
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to us a ridiculous at I heart radio dot com.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.