Latest / Ridiculous History / Colorado's Ridiculous, Disturbingly Corrupt 1904 Election, Part Two: Everyone Resigns

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Colorado's Ridiculous, Disturbingly Corrupt 1904 Election, Part Two: Everyone Resigns · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give it up for the man
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  Speaker 1: the myth Legend. Super producer Max Tammany Williams, ooh scandalous
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and you're Noel Brown. I'm Ben Bullen and we are
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  Speaker 1: in media arrest. This is part two of a two
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  Speaker 1: part episode.
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  Speaker 2: Right we sure are, so, let's in media restart the
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  Speaker 2: podcast right now.
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  Speaker 1: Adams has just been excoriated. He has been run through
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  Speaker 1: the mud of public opinion. It's a political homicide. He
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  Speaker 1: doesn't really have any options. He resigns on March sixteenth,
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  Speaker 1: nineteen oh five. He's been he's been the governor for
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  Speaker 1: two months.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and that's just can you imagine what
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  Speaker 2: it would take for that to be your only move?
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  Speaker 2: And like you were elected, but they can't actually officially
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  Speaker 2: overturn the election. But somehow the political and public pressure
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  Speaker 2: is so great that you, of your own volition stepped down.
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  Speaker 3: He wasn't forced to.
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  Speaker 2: Legally, he was in an untenable spot right where he
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  Speaker 2: was basically hamstrung. He couldn't have governed and certainly did
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: not have the support he needed to do those back
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  Speaker 2: room dirty deeds done dirt cheap right.
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  Speaker 1: I used to think that song was Dirty Deeds and
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  Speaker 1: the Dunder Chief, Like there was a guy in charge
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  Speaker 1: of a place called dunder and I thought Australia was
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  Speaker 1: so weird.
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  Speaker 3: That's very funny.
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  Speaker 2: There was a band in my hometown growing up where
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: they all dressed up like wrestlers and they were called
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Figure four and one of them they all had nicknames,
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  Speaker 2: and one of them's name was the Dunder.
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  Speaker 3: Chief, and I guess it was just a.
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  Speaker 2: Reference to that misunderstood I think you're not the only one, Ben,
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  Speaker 2: is what I'm what I'm getting at there, because I
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  Speaker 2: can't think of any other place that the Dunder Chief
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  Speaker 2: exists other than that misunderstanding. But yeah, man, he's he's out. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: Alva is out, his career shredded essentially, Like, yeah, he's
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  Speaker 2: it's over for him. He has his political future, political
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  Speaker 2: aspirations are in the gutter.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And so his opponent steps in, and this is even
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  Speaker 1: more ridiculous. Peabody, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, is sworn in
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  Speaker 1: post taste as the new governor of Colorado and he
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  Speaker 1: had also already agreed to concede the election. So the
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  Speaker 1: very next day after he's sworn in, he also resigns,
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  Speaker 1: and the lieutenant governor who's been lieutenant governor for like
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  Speaker 1: what twenty four hours, now this guy named Jesse McDonald
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  Speaker 1: he becomes the governor, and the question is finally resolved,
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  Speaker 1: like who is the real governor is finally answered five
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  Speaker 1: months after the election, which gives Max, as you put
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  Speaker 1: it in your notes, it gives Colorado a somewhat dubious distinction.
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  Speaker 1: It's the only state in all of US history to
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  Speaker 1: have three different governors in twenty four hours.
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  Speaker 2: Hurrah, good good, good job Colorado, USA, Calolrado.
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  Speaker 1: Now it doesn't work.
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  Speaker 3: It doesn't work. Some sort of sport chant that we're
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  Speaker 3: not aware of. Is there? What's the sport team in
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  Speaker 3: color of the sport team the Rocky.
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  Speaker 4: Rocky Hey, Denver Broncos, Avalance. You have the Nuggets who
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  Speaker 4: are in the NBA.
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  Speaker 2: Can I guess Avalanche? That is that hockey hockey? I think, okay, cool?
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  Speaker 4: But the rest of them, Denver Nuggets, they're up to
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  Speaker 4: one in the Nuggets basketball. And you can see when
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  Speaker 4: we're recording this.
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  Speaker 2: I just want to play the game where people name
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  Speaker 2: sports franchises and all I have to do is guess
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  Speaker 2: what sport it is, because even if I have some
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  Speaker 2: minor level of accuracy, that is good for me because
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  Speaker 2: I just don't know any.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you.
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  Speaker 1: I remember looking at the weird the most bizarre team
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  Speaker 1: names in sports. We could do an episode on that.
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  Speaker 1: The some of them are like the Hookaido nip On
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  Speaker 1: ham Fighters totally.
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  Speaker 3: I mean the Tar Heels is even kind of weird.
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  Speaker 1: Yea.
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  Speaker 2: So we also can maybe do an episode on like
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  Speaker 2: problematic sports franchises that refuse to do anything about it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, most of them have changed it recently, most
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  Speaker 4: of them have.
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  Speaker 1: Oh for really at.
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  Speaker 4: Atlanta and mind you, if you go to an Atlanta
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  Speaker 4: Braves game, they still do this tomahawk chop and very
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  Speaker 4: problematic kind of Native American.
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  Speaker 2: Chant that's super not cool and that I guess you
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  Speaker 2: can't really tell a crowd what to do or not
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  Speaker 2: to do.
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  Speaker 4: I have a friend, her name's out Nicole Garcia. She
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  Speaker 4: is part of the Navajo tribe, and I asked her,
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, Atlanta Braids, is that raised? And she goes, yes, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: it's not as bad as Kansas City Chiefs.
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  Speaker 3: But it is I'm like, what about the Tomahaw chop?
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  Speaker 3: She goes, oh, that thing is terrible.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm with you, and that I met Nicole,
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  Speaker 1: we could vouch for a super awesome person. And I
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  Speaker 1: think you're onto something. I think that's a great idea
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  Speaker 1: for an episode, and I bet we will find no
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  Speaker 1: shortage of examples. Also, I like the idea too that
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  Speaker 1: someone in Japan woke up one day and said, you
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  Speaker 1: know what, fuck Ham. We're naming our entire team after
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  Speaker 1: this hatred of Ham, and we will fight any Ham
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  Speaker 1: we see. Also, I skipped lunch.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, oh don't. You can't skip lunch. She can't do that.
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  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Sorry, we keep getting derailed because it's this is
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  Speaker 2: a fun topic and I think we're both a little punchy,
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  Speaker 2: and there's just so many fun places to take this
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  Speaker 2: level of just flagrant corruption. It just it makes one
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  Speaker 2: a little bit mad, just like talking about it. You
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  Speaker 2: gotta take a quick, you know, bath between some of
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  Speaker 2: these things before you can come back in and wallow
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  Speaker 2: in the MUDs.
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  Speaker 1: It's a it's sketch comedy, man, that's this election is terrifying.
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  Speaker 1: Sketch comedy, Yeah, sketch comedy of errors.
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  Speaker 3: There we go, nailed it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So this has left a huge mark on everybody
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  Speaker 1: who got touched, everybody involved in the corruption scandal. So
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  Speaker 1: many careers are ruined. Police chiefs, election clerks are trying
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  Speaker 1: to do heist out of trains or getaways. The governors
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  Speaker 1: or would be governors, they're both ruined. They retire from
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  Speaker 1: politics forever. But obviously, if you go to Colorado today,
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  Speaker 1: it's a very nice place. It's still democracy. So what happened.
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  Speaker 1: It looks like voters came together, especially a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people who were not represented in the halls of power,
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  Speaker 1: and they fought for their right to party as well
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  Speaker 1: as to vote. I imagine they fought for their right
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  Speaker 1: to party politically.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, those rights are very closely tied. One could argue.
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  Speaker 3: And hey, just full disclosure.
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  Speaker 2: If anyone's hearing some heavy machinery or you think I'm
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  Speaker 2: being bulldozed, there is in fact something of a bulldozer
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  Speaker 2: in my backyard right now getting some plant work done.
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  Speaker 3: And so please, I know max Is can do everything
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  Speaker 3: in his power.
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  Speaker 2: To surgically remove the sound of this this beast but
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  Speaker 2: in case then he gets through, which right now he's
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  Speaker 2: very loud and very close, so apologies in advance. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: so this when we say fight, ben, what do you
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  Speaker 2: mean like physically fight or just like with their words
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  Speaker 2: and waving their fists in the air and holding signs aloft.
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  Speaker 1: We're talking about things, Yeah, we're talking about collective action
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  Speaker 1: protesting unionization. The mine workers are still pushing for labor rights,
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  Speaker 1: and you know those folks are still going to be
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  Speaker 1: subject to violent physical reprisal. We have to keep in
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  Speaker 1: mind women had just one suffrage or the right to vote,
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  Speaker 1: eleven years earlier. This was still very new, and because
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  Speaker 1: the tie had turned, the laws started changing to those
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  Speaker 1: like not quite taminy level political machines get shut down.
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  Speaker 1: The good old days are over for a lot of
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  Speaker 1: crooked fat cats. People who are unionized say hey, mine
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  Speaker 1: owner or you know, railroad owner, you can't push us around.
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  Speaker 1: And voter fraud became a much more serious crime. It
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  Speaker 1: used to be like a ugh, oh you rascal, look
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  Speaker 1: at you naughty nine times?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you naughty scamp.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, here's here's a ticket, a slap on the rest,
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  Speaker 2: or hell, maybe a kiss on the cheek. Yeah, it
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  Speaker 2: was as much more sort of like I don't know,
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  Speaker 2: maybe liking it to.
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  Speaker 3: Be double parked or something, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 2: It really was not that big a deal, hence the
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  Speaker 2: rampantness of it, and some of these reforms did elevate
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  Speaker 2: it to a much more serious prime, which is awesome.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yes it is.
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  Speaker 1: And eventually the public, through this collective action, they hold
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  Speaker 1: the people in power accountable and hopefully, if we're being
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  Speaker 1: nihilistically optimistic about it, it means that these sorts of
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  Speaker 1: egregious miscarriages of justice will be more difficult to commit
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  Speaker 1: in the future. But we also have to we got
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  Speaker 1: to zoom out a little, right, So we're looking at
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  Speaker 1: Colorado nineteen oh four. If we zoom out and see
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  Speaker 1: a slightly larger lay of the land, we realized that
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  Speaker 1: this was not uncle during that time in American history
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  Speaker 1: known as the guilded Age, which was pretty great for
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  Speaker 1: some people.
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  Speaker 2: But here's the thing we've been hinting at this all along.
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  Speaker 2: This is a particularly egregious case of political corruption. And
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  Speaker 2: it only, you know, is that way because it was
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  Speaker 2: found out, it was exposed, you know, and and a
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  Speaker 2: lot of times these things aren't it's just sort of
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  Speaker 2: the order of the day. You really don't find out
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  Speaker 2: about it until somebody screws up, and then you have
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  Speaker 2: that succession of fall guys that kind of create the
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  Speaker 2: illusion of the thing being done put to bad, this
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  Speaker 2: behavior is never gonna happen again. Unfortunately that's not the case.
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  Speaker 2: This election was not the only bad election. Let's call
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  Speaker 2: it as one of many. That's that continue, you know,
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  Speaker 2: throughout history.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and for people who for people who study history cycles,
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  Speaker 1: you may find conversation about the Gilded Age quite apropos
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  Speaker 1: in these our modern days. During the Gilded Age, it
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  Speaker 1: was called the Gilded Age because again it was very
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  Speaker 1: cool for a small amount of people. By eighteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: in the US there were four thousand millionaires, and collectively
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  Speaker 1: they held a full twenty percent of all the country's wealth.
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  Speaker 1: So forget taking political action, forget making a pac or
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  Speaker 1: super pac or anything like that. Just go buy the
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  Speaker 1: politician you want and tell them what you want to do,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and say you'll give them a tiger skin
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  Speaker 1: suit in exchange or a nice I don't know, you
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  Speaker 1: could probably give them a yacht. You'll be like, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you want a boat, you want to Castle, just don't
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  Speaker 1: let unions happen, and this.
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  Speaker 3: Just don't let unions happen.
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  Speaker 2: That's just slogan in that's secession, right, so let unions happen.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, DLU eight will work shop it. But yeah, this
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  Speaker 1: even hit former presidents.
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  Speaker 3: Rother for B.
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  Speaker 1: Hayes was writing in his diary. He didn't say this publicly,
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  Speaker 1: but in eighteen eighty six he said, this is a
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  Speaker 1: government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
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  Speaker 3: No longer, no longer.
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  Speaker 1: Indeed, that's very powerful for a president to say.
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  Speaker 4: It, for a Republican president at the time to say it.
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  Speaker 4: This is a guy who a lot of times I
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  Speaker 4: was doing some researching to him not that long ago,
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  Speaker 4: and it's just like he was a very pro business guy,
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  Speaker 4: and he's even like this has gone really bad.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of like Chuck E Cheese one day
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: privately confessing, I think we have too much pizza. But
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  Speaker 1: but yeah, so he says it's government by the corporations,
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  Speaker 1: of the corporations and for the corporation. Politicians are making
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  Speaker 1: a lot of money, not as much as their corporate masters,
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  Speaker 1: but they're getting all these bribes and they're getting kickbacks
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  Speaker 1: and it's a they're working hand in hand, and of
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  Speaker 1: course no offense to the monopoly man. But the reason
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  Speaker 1: the monopoly man is like a railroad tycoon is because
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  Speaker 1: the railroad tycoons were some of the most egregious corporate
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  Speaker 1: masters of the Gilded Age.
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  Speaker 2: Oh gods, yeah, I mean because they they sort of create,
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  Speaker 2: they sort of set the stage, right, I mean, railroad
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  Speaker 2: interests being one of the first kind of truly modern industries.
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  Speaker 2: You know, talk about like legacy infrastructure that we're still
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  Speaker 2: building on top of or improving today. You know, these
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  Speaker 2: are the guys that laid down that stuff and they connected,
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  Speaker 2: you know, our country in such a way that like
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  Speaker 2: really changed everything about shipping, about manufacturing.
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  Speaker 3: And so when you're when you when.
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  Speaker 2: You're that early to the party, you kind of get
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  Speaker 2: to decide which games you play.
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  Speaker 1: That's a good way to put it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And also the railroad industry touches so many other industries, right,
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  Speaker 1: They're dependent upon the railroads for transport. So the Union
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  Speaker 1: Pacific Railroad execs, they go pretty far. They make a
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  Speaker 1: fake construction company, a front company or a shell company
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  Speaker 1: that will submit bills for nearly double the actual cost
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  Speaker 1: of construction. So they're they're charging the government for the
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  Speaker 1: construction of the trans Continental Railroad through this fake construction company,
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  Speaker 1: and they're giving everybody a vigorous along the way, and
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  Speaker 1: they'll say, we're gonna charge you one hundred percent more
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  Speaker 1: than what actually costs, and we're gonna split that one
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  Speaker 1: hundred percent up between the rest of the people in
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  Speaker 1: this conspiracy, and we are going to like they would
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  Speaker 1: get caught, right, there are a lot of people involved.
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  Speaker 1: They do they bribe a dozen congress members.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, someone's gonna squeal some of you know, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it's inevitable. You know, it's a numbers game at that point, right, M.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And UH President Ulysses s Grant he is first
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  Speaker 1: and his second vice president gets swept up in this
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  Speaker 1: corruption scheme. It's touching everybody. Imagine if the news tomorrow
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: read VP Kamala Harris has been implicated in UH in
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  Speaker 1: a FedEx in a corporate billion like in a billion
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  Speaker 1: dollar FedEx scheme. M. That's kind of what happened.
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  Speaker 2: That is the the gravity of what we're talking about here,
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  Speaker 2: the level of like wt f nes of it all.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, and more and more corruption is occurring. Oh,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: We love talking about some of the city level corruption,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: like New York Chicago. Uh, New York was Tammany Hall.
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  Speaker 2: Right, correct, Yeah, Boss Boss Tweed, boss Hog Tweed. Maybe
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: that's the Dukes of Bazard, but Boss Tweed was definitely
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  Speaker 2: the guy. And I just picture him when you say
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: the phrase fat cat. That's the kind of guy you
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: think of, is a big old fellow in a tailored suit,
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  Speaker 2: chomping on a cigar and doing crimes from the background,
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  Speaker 2: from behind a desk though, right, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And they had all these bribes going around.
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  Speaker 1: There was a lot of dirty contractor money that was
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  Speaker 1: that was making people very wealthy. And if you were
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  Speaker 1: a politician in these circles, you were making more money
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  Speaker 1: from the bribes than you were from your official your
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: official salary as a public figure. We saw the estimate
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  Speaker 1: that Boss Tweed over in Tammany Hall stole between forty
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  Speaker 1: five and two hundred million dollars in city funds, and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: it's so much money that it's actually difficult to estimate
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  Speaker 1: how much that would be worth in twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 3: We know it would be billions of dollars.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, we can't even it's not even possible
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: to inflation calculator.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: It's just like beyond the scope of what our meager
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: inflation robot can handle.
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  Speaker 2: The sheer number of boops would kill all of us
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: where we stay.
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  Speaker 3: And no, it's not going to do it. It's not
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: gonna cut it. That's not going to cut it. Yeah, nothing,
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: we got no figure. It's just like it's just saying
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: you're not does not computed, does not computed. That's a
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: new sound.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: We are mosculating, humble podcasters. You know, if we if
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: we had tammany Hall level ruthlessness and finances, maybe we
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: get a different inflation bot.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: But for today, yes, but we love our inflation pot.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: We love it. Yeah, we love you. Man.
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  Speaker 1: So Tweed made so much money that he was the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: third largest landowner in all of New York City before
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  Speaker 1: he got convicted on not one, not one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: sixty nine, but two hundred and four counts of fraud.
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  Speaker 3: That's a lot of fraud.
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  Speaker 1: It's a cost co level of fraud. Like if you
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: were buying fraud, it would be this would be a
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: cost code case of fraud.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: You get a case of it. Yeah, It's like I said,
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  Speaker 2: just send mine a desk doing crimes. Yeah, they rack
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: up after a while. What does it take when you
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: don't actually have to work that hard to do them?
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: You know, you just do it with the swipe of
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: a pen or by like telling your lackeys to go,
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: you know, beat up some you know striker.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: It's it's really disgusting.
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  Speaker 1: Send the Irish out to break those peasants of their strike.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: They also call the honest graft, which I loved.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: The idea was that you.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Were you were making like, look, I'm an I'm an
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  Speaker 1: honest heart of gold con man.
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  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: I do honest grifts, I do watches, I sell bridges.
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  Speaker 2: It's like the way Tony Soprano justifies what he does
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: on this on the you know, a seminal prestige television program,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: The Sopranos, he refers to himself as like a soldier
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: and he's got a code. But when you actually watch
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: what he actually does, he's totally full of shit. He's
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: got no code. He's not a soldier. He's a con
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: man and a murderer, you know. And that's what I'm
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: sure some of these people did use that greater good
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: argument that we were talking about at the top of
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: the show. But at the end of the day, that's
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: just a smoke screen they're putting up for themselves.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: It's the blinders they choose to wear to maybe keep
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: them from like taking a head or off an overpass bridge.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: But some of these people are so unseelf aware that
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: they probably would never see themselves enough to even register,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: you know, any kind of any kind of remorse, you know,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: or an inch of humanity.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because there are always these labyriantine rationalizations people will
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: make because they don't think of themselves as bad guys.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: You know, one one crime boss might say, well, I
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: don't do drugs, you know, in the drug business or
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the sex trafficking business. I just do you know, I
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: just do shady union heist and fake construction and sanitation.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't make you not a criminal. And there
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: was this politician, George W. Plunkett who said, who was
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: a defender of this honest graft? And they said, what
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: we're doing is we're not robbing the public funds, we're
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: not blackmailing business owners. We're doing insider trading.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Cool, cool, whatever it takes to help you sleep at night.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: But whatever it takes and you know, now we're I mean,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: obviously there aren't you know, thugs with with with billy
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: clubs out, you know, breaking writer's legs who are on strike,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: you know, or whatever.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, like we do just to exist in a
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: world where technically you're not allowed to persecute someone for
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: seeking to unionize or for exercising their right to to
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: you know, be treated fairly, you know, But that doesn't
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: mean that there aren't still creepy backroom deals being made.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, we heard about all this stuff with Amazon,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: about how they were kind of low key publishing anti
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: union sentiments, you know, around the workplace.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: You're still spreading this kind of fear.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: You're just doing it with a little bit more of
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: a delicate touch, you know, not outright violence in the streets,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: just more spreading a culture of fear.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like that old Oh gosh, it got a lot
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: of heat on Twitter. Walmart was fighting a unionization thing
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: by putting up a sign or I don't know if
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: this was co signed by all the Walmart but there
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: were there were people at some Walmarts putting off signs
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that said, why pay those union dues? You could buy
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a PS five.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, God from us here at Walmarts, we have them
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: in stock.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: Finally, check it out and we'll give you a five
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: percent discount.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you, Walton's. So thanks to folks like Professor
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Richard White, Professor Emeritith of History over at Stanford, we
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: know that the Gilded Age is America's most corrupt period
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: so far. We also know that wealth inequality is accelerating
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: to the levels that were present during the Gilded Age,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: which naturally played a huge role in the origin story
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: of what we call the Great Depression now and what
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: we may one day called the first Great Depression. And
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: we teased a little bit right. We know we've spent
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the whole week on this, but as you said, Noel,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: this is important and it's a lot of fun for us.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: We said there that the nineteen oh four Colorado gubernatorial
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: election was cartoonishly corrupt, but we said it wasn't the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: only corrupt election in US.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: History, No, a long shot, was it.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: We've got a feudal rattle off here for you for
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: you at the end. There was a presidential election in
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: eighteen seventy six that.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Was quite the doozy in and of itself.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Eighteen hundred and eighteen twenty four and eighteen ninety six
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: are some of the highlights, let's say, of crooked presidential elections.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: But eighteen seventy six really takes the cake and pushes
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: from just kind of let's just say irregularities to just
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: outright fraud and let's just call it, you know, let's
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: call it what it is.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: Trying to steal an election. Yeah, they're trying to steal
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: an election.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: In the summer of eighteen seventy six, Ulysses s Grant says,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna retire from public life. I'm gonna get really
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: into that. I don't know Bonzai or collecting porcelain figurines.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've heard he got really into the bottom
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: of a bottle. He did have some demons, and when
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: he retired this meant that the eighteen seventy six presidential
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: election was all of a sudden, wide open chaos. Is
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: a ladder, as little Finger would say later. And there's
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: this Democrat his name is Samuel Tilden, Governor of New York,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: and he's the nominee, the Democratic nominee here. And then
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: there's an Ohio Republican rather for b. Hayes, who wants
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: to run. The votes are really really close, our guy
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Sam Tilden wins the popular vote, and again, just like
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: in Colorado, both sides are saying I'm the president.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, more Spider Man finger pointing kind of situations. There
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: no question about it. Irregularity is once again, I mean,
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: that's what I'm saying.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: But it was so brazen.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: You know, you just had these ballot boxes being stuffed
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: to the gills, literal counterfeits, ballots being printed.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: And again there's a different time. You know, it was
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: a little easier to do that.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: You know, they didn't have like watermark I guess, and
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: there's some kind of code or RFID or whatever. It
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: could definitely be done with a lot more of a
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: quickness than what you might be able to get away
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: with today.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Again, we got places like South Carolina where one hundred
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and four percent of the actual voters vote that is
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: statistically impossible. There are fake ballots made to trick people
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: into voting for parties that don't represent their interests. Of course,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: white supremacist groups like the Clan are trying to prevent
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: black people from exercising their right to vote, and there's
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: a commission that's trying to figure all this stuff out,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and they can't do anything because the commission is made
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of people who are both Democrat and Republican Party members
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and they all hate each other, so they're not gonna
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: work together on anything.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: What do you say, Ben, they were un able to
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: cross the aisle that there were no olive branches being extended.
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: We just need to get back to the era of
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: bipartisan like the eighteen seventies when everyone works so well together.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right, exactly, Yeah, the halcyon days of us that
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: never existed. So the Democrats, Tilden, Tilden's crew, they suggest
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: a compromise. Hayes, you lose the eighteen seventy six election,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: but you win this compromise because you got electoral votes
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: instead of the popular vote. So Hayes had one hundred
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and eighty five electoral votes, Tilden had one hundred and
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: eighty four. Noel for a fellow ridiculous historians who are
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: not in the US, the idea of two different votes
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: is kind of confusing.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: How would we explain that?
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: It's confusing to me too. I still don't fully get it.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: It seems like a weird, antiquated relic that makes no
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: sense of the most people don't understand. And I think
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: it's so funny that that's a dispute that we continue
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: to see in this our modern era. We're talking about
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: an election that took place in the eighteen hundreds, and
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: yet one that took place in the two thousands, you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: the twenty tens, you know, had the exact same issue
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: with the.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Idea of someone winning an electoral vote and not the
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: popular vote.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I still don't fully get with these electors. They're not
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: legally required to vote in the direction of the popular vote,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: so we just what put our faith in them, like
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: they're untouchable, they're these paragons of like morality. I don't
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: even know who these people are. How do you become
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: an elector? I'm sure somebody's friend. Yeah, yeah, someone's friend
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: who does friends for their friend.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: And so I've always heard.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: It explained that if you think about it in the
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: context with seventeen eighty, it makes sense, and then if
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: you go anything further into the future, it makes less
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: and less and less sense, because it's like communication was
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: a lot harder. So you just all get together and
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: you tell this one guy, and this one guy goes
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: and tells other people. You get all the votes from
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: his state and he sent it to d C. It's like, okay,
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: I get that.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Because we only have so many horses in town at
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: that point. But then also, you know that that infrastructure
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: starts to fall apart when we have more and more people,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: three hundred and thirty million plus people from a species
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: where twelve folks often can't agree on a pizza order,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: let alone a crime. He gets very complicated. And so
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: as a result, this guy Hayes, as a result of
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: this very weird, corrupt election, he is not popular at all.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: In fact, people start calling him his fraudulency, which was
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: quite a bird in the eighteen hundreds.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: You suffer, Yes.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, Fraudulncy's yeah, that's pretty it sounds quaint right by
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: today's standards, but yeah, that was a big deal. Unfortunately,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the laws that came from
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: the Compromise or Hell are racists and essentially created the
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Jim Crow.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: Laws that we know and despise that.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Essentially, you know, cut black people off at the knees,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: you know, in terms of their ability to truly exist
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: and thrive in American life. You know, just absolute targeted,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: racist laws.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And it continued and continues. A shout out to the
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: current controversy we mentioned regarding cop city here in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: In Missouri nineteen forty six, there's another time democracy absolutely
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: pooped the bed. So nepotism networking, I personally hate it.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people consider it a necessary evil.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: Harry Truman got Harry Truman basically became involved in politics
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: because of nepotism. He was friends with a political or.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: He became an associate of one of those Tammany Hall
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: boss Tweed types. You fought with the nephew of a
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: guy named Tom Pendergast. You probably haven't heard of Tom Pendergast.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: We certainly had, and I don't think he's an unelected
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: city official in Kansas City. And he has so much
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: sway in Missouri that the governor's mansion was nicknamed get this, folks,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Uncle Tom's cabin tut.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: What no not.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Ray Pendergrast was an actual like he was a He
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: was a tough guy, you know, a real tough, real
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: punchy character. He knew how to run a business. He
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: was smart, he was shrewd, he was thrifty, and he
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: could fight, you know, physically, he was actually related to
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Kansas City's previous political boss. And I gotta say, when
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: we talk about these political machines and the political bosses.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: It's a mafia style or arrangement.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: And that's why it's no surprise that these folks often
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: worked with the mafia.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: And essentially it's just like a shadow the mafia becomes
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: this kind of shadow government, right right, you know they're
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: calling the shots that they're just the political boss is
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: sort of the legitimate face of the But it's like
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: laughable to even say that, right, that it was that
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: was the legitimate face.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's true though. He this guy, Pendergass, this
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: king maker. People do what he says. He pushes for
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: popular initiatives. He's a fixer, he's a deal maker. He's
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: also a heck of a bully. Apparently his goons used
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: machine guns, blackjacks, and pistols to force voters to vote
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: they way they wanted. Four people died, eleven people ended
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: up in the hospital, and two hundred just got the
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: snot knocked out of them.
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: And I think that event you're describing Ben is actually
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: coined a bloody whose day you can probably fill in
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: the gaps. You know, the New York Times reported about
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: you know, pinder gasgoons using all of these just absolutely
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: horrifically violent methods to quote unquote win over voters. You know,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: they weren't really winning anybody. They were just you know,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: holding them at literal gunpoint and making them do what
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: they wanted.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty six, they didn't even have to beat
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: that many people up. They just did a bunch of
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: fake voting. They went through the records, they found eighty
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: thousand people who were dead, sick, or just didn't exist,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, Max Powers astronaut with a
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: secret Nell's born, and Sir williams Esquire are voting like
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: fifty times, Pendergrast candidates win by a ratio of one thousand,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty nine to one. This is massive fraud.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: It's only one other example. There are many, many more.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: But we talked little and we made our own shady
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: back room deal. We're going to return to some of
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: these in future episodes, but for now, Dole, what a ride?
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I mean?
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I think we all kind of assume there's a lot
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of corruption in politics, often in local politics, but this
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: stuff kind of takes the cake. I'm glad we didn't
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: live in Colorado in the early nineteen hundreds.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, Colorado's kind of, you know, I mean, it's
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: sort of developed reputation as being a kind of a
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: liberal bastion, or at least in like the you know,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: the more I guess.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Metropolitan parts of it. I mean, in terms of it
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: being first.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: To the game for legalization and taxation of cannabis and
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: all of that stuff, and it just seems it seems
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: like a pretty chill place.
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I've got the cave divers all of that.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: I actually saw a clip I think it was this
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Instagram video that came up showing though those cave divers.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: Man the way they do it, it's very odd move.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: It's like sort of like Olympic diving, where you're about,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: you know, dip down and touch your toes and then
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: stand on your hands and then sort of PLoP off
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: the the edge of this thing. I heard a piece
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: on NPR about how like they emerge from like an
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: underwater trapdoor that leads into the dressing room I guess
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: which At the time of the NPR piece, which was
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: referring to the South Park guys having bought that place,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: so like this is them reopening it and apparently it
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: was really in disrepair, and the Cliff Iver was just like, yeah,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: it's kind of gnarly back here.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Feel like I got a rash from this water, but
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: now it's apparently awesome.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Definitely want to go.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're at We absolutely have to go. As we said,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: we're excited to do more live shows.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: We'd love to get on the road.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: We always like the energy when we're recording together in person.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: We'll be doing more of that soon and in the meantime,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: big big thanks to our super producer, mister Max Williams.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to our own Tammany Hall official Jonathan Strickland.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: I almost said Jonathan ka Strickland, but I don't think
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: that's his real middle.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: It is, doesn't matter, That's just how fan.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of inserting a fake you know,
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: initial into into the Max You you had a fake
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: initial at some point recently it came up you claims
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: to be a member of some family we were talking about.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: I don't know what I'm saying.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Pay me no mine, but do pay attention to this
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: podcast because you know we've got more episodes coming out
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: every week. I don't know, this is the first one
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: were said anything like this. How about we pay attention
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: to the people that we want to thank continuously, like
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: Chris fhrasciotis here in spirit, Eve's Cheffcote, Alex Williams who
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: composed our theme, Max Williams, or should I call you sir.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: M James Williams esquire he shall first, second, the third
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: of his name, all the above.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, with big thanks to the Governor and big
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: thanks to you, nol, I guess we don't even I
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: don't think we should tease our next stuff coming up,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: but we've got some rollicking stories to explore.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Rollicking.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Indeed, we'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.