Latest / Ridiculous History / CLASSIC: Kidnapping, Binge Drinking and Costumes: Voter Fraud in the 1800s

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CLASSIC: Kidnapping, Binge Drinking and Costumes: Voter Fraud in the 1800s · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Oh, fellow Ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with
0:06
Speaker 1: a weirdly apropos classic episode. You know, every time there's
0:12
Speaker 1: an election in these United States, there are also allegations
0:18
Speaker 1: of fraud. It's true.
0:20
Speaker 2: This is what I like to refer to you as
0:21
Speaker 2: the cooping episode.
0:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we learned this word together. It turns out
0:27
Speaker 1: that no matter how rigged someone thinks, an election maybe
0:32
Speaker 1: in the US in these our modern days, oh folks,
0:37
Speaker 1: who was way crazier in the eighteen hundreds, that's right.
0:40
Speaker 2: The idea of voter fraud is something that is very
0:43
Speaker 2: topical in this our modern day. But once upon a time,
0:47
Speaker 2: these were much more than just allegations. People were being
0:51
Speaker 2: kidnapped off the streets and forced to drink intoxicating beverages
0:57
Speaker 2: and set loose at polling places. Costumes, Yeah, under threat
1:02
Speaker 2: of the very least having their kneecaps banged up. It
1:06
Speaker 2: was a really, really rough time. Let's get right into it. Kidnapping,
1:09
Speaker 2: binge drinking, and costumes voter fraud in the eighteen hundreds.
1:16
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Let's begin with
1:43
Speaker 1: a hypothetical scenario. Friends and neighbors Imagine that you are
1:49
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds. You're walking down the street, minding
1:53
Speaker 1: your own weather business or pleasure, I'm doing it, and
1:56
Speaker 1: you are kidnapped. You are accosted by a gang of ruffians.
2:01
Speaker 1: You were taken to a room where there are other
2:04
Speaker 1: hapless people like you. But instead of demanding a ransom
2:08
Speaker 1: from your loved ones or immediately torturing you or something
2:12
Speaker 1: like that, the kidnappers their first move is to attempt
2:16
Speaker 1: to get you drunk, booze you up, to booze you up.
2:19
Speaker 1: And we'll continue this story, but first let's pause for
2:22
Speaker 1: the introduction. Hello, I'm Ben.
2:24
Speaker 2: I'm Nolan. You know, the second thing they might have done, Ben,
2:27
Speaker 2: is maybe put on a false mustache upon your face,
2:31
Speaker 2: or perhaps a straw hat, top hat, any kind of hat,
2:36
Speaker 2: a funny nose, maybe, because they were trying to disguise you,
2:41
Speaker 2: right against your will, for the purposes of perpetrating a
2:45
Speaker 2: voter fraud.
2:47
Speaker 1: I feel like the badger could have stayed in the
2:48
Speaker 1: bag for a second. But you are spot on, And
2:51
Speaker 1: how ridiculous is this? Oh, we have to remember to
2:55
Speaker 1: say hello, won't you join us friends and neighbors? Fellow
2:57
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. In tilting your hat to our super producer
3:02
Speaker 1: Casey Pegrow, You're right, nol It seems strange to think
3:07
Speaker 1: of it because nowadays, when we think of kidnapping, we
3:11
Speaker 1: think of, you know, nefarious crime, right.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we think of you know, wealthy or dare we say,
3:18
Speaker 2: even middle class Americans traveling abroad in certain countries. Columbia
3:23
Speaker 2: got a pretty bad rap for this in years past
3:26
Speaker 2: and getting nabbed, you know, from tourist destinations and held
3:31
Speaker 2: ransom for the wealthy or middle class families back in
3:35
Speaker 2: America to send forth money for the release of said
3:39
Speaker 2: hapless adult relatives who probably should have had their wits
3:43
Speaker 2: more about it now I'm victim blaming.
3:45
Speaker 1: What a way to start the episode. No, no, no, no, no.
3:47
Speaker 1: I think I think this is a good place for
3:50
Speaker 1: us to carve out a distinction, because you're absolutely right. Nowadays,
3:55
Speaker 1: the first thing you think of when you hear kidnapping
3:58
Speaker 1: is likely going to be one of two things. You're
4:00
Speaker 1: going to think that someone is after money, or you're
4:03
Speaker 1: going to think it may be some creep with cedy
4:08
Speaker 1: or sleazy intentions. Yes, purvey preoccupations. There we go, And
4:11
Speaker 1: I like the alliteration. But let's not forget, Ben that
4:14
Speaker 1: there is also political capital right right, And this is
4:19
Speaker 1: apropos in this day and age, because regardless of where
4:24
Speaker 1: you find yourself falling on either side of the false
4:28
Speaker 1: dichotomy known as political parties here in the US, or
4:31
Speaker 1: whether you are not in the US and you're a
4:33
Speaker 1: foreign observer, one thing you've probably noticed is that the
4:37
Speaker 1: concept of voter fraud has been making the headlines for
4:40
Speaker 1: the past few years. It really has.
4:43
Speaker 2: Our current president made quite a to do about it
4:47
Speaker 2: when it was looking like he wasn't as much of
4:49
Speaker 2: a shoe in for the presidency as he might have
4:53
Speaker 2: liked to believe, and he started planting the seeds of
4:57
Speaker 2: widespread voter fraud, illegal unregistered undocumented immigrants, or corruption at
5:04
Speaker 2: the local level going to the polls and droves, or
5:06
Speaker 2: like you say, corruption at the local level. Now we
5:09
Speaker 2: have largely electronic voter machines. There was even talk of
5:13
Speaker 2: hackery of voting machine.
5:15
Speaker 1: Right right through the de Boult connection exactly.
5:18
Speaker 2: So there were a lot of red flags, at least
5:20
Speaker 2: as far as DJT Right's concerned. That's Donald J.
5:25
Speaker 1: Trump. That's how I'm going to refer to him the
5:27
Speaker 1: commander in chief.
5:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:28
Speaker 1: And what's important to note here is that allegations a
5:32
Speaker 1: possible voter fraud came from all directions recently, but primarily
5:38
Speaker 1: from President Trump's crew or supporters, and for people who
5:43
Speaker 1: were critics of these allegations or accusations, this seemed like
5:48
Speaker 1: an unfounded worldview or conclusion. But regardless of what we
5:54
Speaker 1: think about the sanctity or the infallibility of the voting
6:00
Speaker 1: process to date, whether you think it's rigged, whether you
6:02
Speaker 1: think it works okay, or whatever, the true and strange
6:07
Speaker 1: fact of the matter is that back in the eighteen hundreds,
6:10
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century, voter fraud was a huge thing.
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Speaker 2: As I like to say, Actually, my friend Frank likes
6:17
Speaker 2: to say wide rife. We stole that from a British
6:19
Speaker 2: television program, so that's you know, three degrees of catchphrase thievery.
6:23
Speaker 2: But yes, just widespread all over the place, to the
6:26
Speaker 2: point where it was like a joke right right.
6:30
Speaker 1: The kidnapping that we described for you at the beginning
6:34
Speaker 1: of the show, were you to encounter that, you would
6:37
Speaker 1: be taken in in a practice called cooping, and this
6:42
Speaker 1: would be exactly what we described. A group of people
6:45
Speaker 1: kidnap you and several other folks attempt to get you
6:49
Speaker 1: drunk and then convince you verbally to go cast your
6:52
Speaker 1: vote for a certain political candidate.
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Speaker 2: And the thing was ben that wasn't even like the
6:57
Speaker 2: full scenario. There was another group involved in this process,
7:01
Speaker 2: and they were the ones who had already had their
7:03
Speaker 2: votes like bought and paid for by these different groups,
7:06
Speaker 2: and the whole like boozing and food situation. They just
7:10
Speaker 2: kind of got that as a perk.
7:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, like when you get the cheese, it's and a
7:14
Speaker 1: little bit of juice after you give blood exactly. It's
7:17
Speaker 1: just a sort of a spoils of political war. So
7:19
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if these were like combined into a single event.
7:22
Speaker 1: Sometimes they were, Yeah, sometimes they were. And the weird
7:26
Speaker 1: thing is when we describe it immediately without context. To
7:30
Speaker 1: me personally, the idea of being kidnapped, given free booze,
7:34
Speaker 1: and then being told that I should go out and
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Speaker 1: vote multiple times in an assortment of disguises, ridiculous disguises,
7:44
Speaker 1: sounds fantastic. I mean, yeah, dude, I'm a master disguise.
7:47
Speaker 1: I look like several different people. Well, you left at
7:50
Speaker 1: a crucial detail. You might have also been beaten. That's true.
7:54
Speaker 1: We do have to examine that part because this was
7:59
Speaker 1: all well, this was all drunken, boozy funding games and
8:04
Speaker 1: political crime. If the people who are being cooped agreed
8:09
Speaker 1: to play along, if they did not play ball, they were,
8:12
Speaker 1: as you said, Noel beaten and in some cases they
8:15
Speaker 1: were killed.
8:16
Speaker 2: Now, Ben, let's go back to the origins of this
8:18
Speaker 2: kind of behavior. Something we like to refer to in
8:21
Speaker 2: history as political machines.
8:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, political machines. So you've probably heard this term before.
8:29
Speaker 1: You've heard it alluded to, at least in some very
8:32
Speaker 1: popular works of historical fiction and in film and in novels.
8:36
Speaker 1: And a political machine is an organization that exists, typically
8:44
Speaker 1: on a city or state level, to maintain its own
8:48
Speaker 1: power and pursue its own interest which are often going
8:51
Speaker 1: to be corrupt. For instance, a member of political machine
8:55
Speaker 1: a owns stock or has invested in a certain construction company.
9:00
Speaker 1: Then under this political machine, that construction company is going
9:04
Speaker 1: to get every bid, sure, even if they are not
9:06
Speaker 1: as qualified, even if they're more expensive, even if they're
9:10
Speaker 1: more expensive on purpose that you know, and then that
9:13
Speaker 1: allows the machine to skim some graft off and off air.
9:17
Speaker 1: You and I have been talking about one of the
9:20
Speaker 1: most famous political machines in United States history.
9:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, most famous largely because it was one of the
9:28
Speaker 2: most effective and had one of the longest reigns, and
9:32
Speaker 2: that was Tammany Hall, which I'm sure many of you
9:36
Speaker 2: have heard of, the infamous Tammany Hall Boss pit Boss,
9:40
Speaker 2: I guess William M. Boss Tweed was his name, and
9:44
Speaker 2: they held sway, this organization over New York City politics
9:49
Speaker 2: for decades. It was formed in seventeen eighty nine and
9:53
Speaker 2: wasn't even fully dismantled until nineteen sixty six.
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Speaker 1: That was and John V.
10:00
Speaker 2: Lindsay, who was the final mayor that had had enough
10:03
Speaker 2: of this, essentially rendered them, kind of neutered them right.
10:09
Speaker 2: Another famous New York City mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, also put
10:13
Speaker 2: a stop to them between thirty four and forty five,
10:16
Speaker 2: but then they kind of had a bit of a
10:17
Speaker 2: resurgence until Lindsey came in. And the closest thing that
10:21
Speaker 2: I can compare these political machines to in this one
10:24
Speaker 2: in particular, is the way the bad rap we see
10:27
Speaker 2: unions getting. Whereas obviously a union is a functional thing,
10:31
Speaker 2: obviously a political activist group has the potential to be
10:34
Speaker 2: a functional, positive thing, mobilizes support for certain candidates.
10:39
Speaker 1: Sure, certain causes that are would benefit the.
10:41
Speaker 2: Community, but as we know with unions the history, there
10:44
Speaker 2: was a lot of corruption there too that benefited particular
10:47
Speaker 2: stakeholders that had a lot to gain.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And one of the big differences that we need
10:53
Speaker 1: to demarcate here is that in the case of activist groups,
10:57
Speaker 1: in the case of community organization, those voting blocks typically
11:03
Speaker 1: are going to be operating consensually with the support of
11:07
Speaker 1: the voters. And in comparison, though cooping, this particular type
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Speaker 1: of ridiculous voter fraud. Cooping was inherently associated with obviously
11:21
Speaker 1: political corruption, but also with these political machines, and they themselves,
11:27
Speaker 1: if we returned to the Tammany Hall example, were intimately
11:31
Speaker 1: connected with on the street crime. You've seen gangs of.
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Speaker 2: New York absolutely and one thing Tammany Hall did, and
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Speaker 2: the reason they were able to kind of persevere for
11:39
Speaker 2: so long as they reached out to the most impoverished
11:43
Speaker 2: in the community, including immigrants, Irish immigrants in particular, and
11:48
Speaker 2: that's how the Irish got such a foothold in New
11:52
Speaker 2: York City politics. Over the years is because of this
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Speaker 2: Tammany Hall machine that elevated them to positions of prominence
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Speaker 2: through their control of the electoral process, right, and that
12:02
Speaker 2: also just gave them a ground swell of political support
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Speaker 2: because there were a lot of immigrants coming into New
12:07
Speaker 2: York City all the time. And you get off the boat,
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Speaker 2: dam Many Hall reaches out of helping hand, says, hey,
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Speaker 2: we got you. If you got us, all of a sudden,
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Speaker 2: you own the vote.
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Speaker 1: Right because who gave you the job, who gave you
12:18
Speaker 1: the place to stay, who set you up once you
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Speaker 1: got off Ellis Island. There's a fantastic article we'd like
12:24
Speaker 1: to recommend from Atlas Obscura called election fraud in the
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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds involved kidnapping and forced drinking by author Natalie Zarelli.
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Speaker 1: And in this article she includes a quote from a
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Speaker 1: New York City gang leader named mon Eastmann. He said,
12:44
Speaker 1: I make half of the big politicians, meaning that he
12:48
Speaker 1: was publicly acknowledging that he was. He and his gang
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Speaker 1: were working for Tammany Hall, taking people by hooker by crook.
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Speaker 1: I make them like I'm a book maker, like I
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Speaker 1: did that right, taking them by hook or by crook
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Speaker 1: and cajoling them to vote multiple times, said I keep
13:08
Speaker 1: going back to the costumes. I wonder if the costumes
13:10
Speaker 1: were any good, because at this level of corruption, the
13:12
Speaker 1: people manning the poles, and you can see some of
13:15
Speaker 1: these pictures, I think the people manning the poles were
13:17
Speaker 1: also in on the game. Oh well, get get get
13:19
Speaker 1: a kick out of this.
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Speaker 2: Then Ben, in an article form Mental Flaws, Democracy's Dirty History,
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Speaker 2: one of the coop bosses, I guess this is the
13:28
Speaker 2: term that was used here of Tammany Hall. He described
13:32
Speaker 2: the smartest way to get the most bang for your
13:34
Speaker 2: buck in terms of, you know, kidnapping these folks. He
13:37
Speaker 2: could get four votes out of one human person he voted,
13:41
Speaker 2: had him vote one time with a full beard, then
13:44
Speaker 2: again with some take off the beard mutton chops, No,
13:47
Speaker 2: maybe keep the beard on. I'm not sure, unclear, and
13:49
Speaker 2: then a third time only a mustache, and then finally
13:52
Speaker 2: the coup de gras, the clean shaven vote. And I
13:55
Speaker 2: was actually talking with super producer Casey Pegrim off air,
13:58
Speaker 2: and I wanted to ask this to you.
14:00
Speaker 1: Ben.
14:01
Speaker 2: Was there no means, or if only rudimentary means of
14:05
Speaker 2: confirming someone's identity when they were voting in these days.
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Speaker 1: What was that like? It's an interesting question. It's one
14:10
Speaker 1: that has echoes and consequences here in the modern day
14:14
Speaker 1: with the argument over voter ID.
14:16
Speaker 2: Cards, which is a big problem with the Trump stuff
14:19
Speaker 2: we were talking about earlier. That was a big beef
14:21
Speaker 2: where a lot of places in the United States got
14:24
Speaker 2: rid of those voter ID laws because they are considered
14:26
Speaker 2: by many to be inherently racist.
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Speaker 1: Right, and as horrific and sad as it is, we
14:33
Speaker 1: have to we would be remiss if we did not
14:35
Speaker 1: point out that one of the most immediate ways people
14:39
Speaker 1: at the polls or polling officials decided whether or not
14:42
Speaker 1: someone was qualified to vote was by observing the color
14:45
Speaker 1: of their skin, that's right, which is a huge travesty.
14:50
Speaker 1: But in addition to that, we have to wonder if
14:53
Speaker 1: there were some sort of proof of residency, like an
14:57
Speaker 1: address perhaps, because in these accounts of voter fraud, one
15:02
Speaker 1: thing that we don't see mentioned at all is any
15:05
Speaker 1: mention of paperwork involved. We just see disguises. Yeah, and
15:10
Speaker 1: obviously you could vote while you were rip roar and drunk, clearly.
15:14
Speaker 2: And the thing too, is like if the fix here
15:17
Speaker 2: the scam was just to buy a bunch of fake
15:21
Speaker 2: mustaches and beer. They obviously didn't have a whole you know,
15:23
Speaker 2: counterfeiting department, you know, stamping out fake passports or birth
15:29
Speaker 2: certificate documentation or anything like that. So it seems to
15:33
Speaker 2: me like it was a much more on an eyeball
15:35
Speaker 2: recognition and a handshake and a promise kind of in
15:38
Speaker 2: these days.
15:39
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, and here's something else weird. Until the introduction
15:44
Speaker 1: of what was called the Australian ballot in the eighteen eighties,
15:48
Speaker 1: when you voted, your voting choice was public Viva vote jay.
15:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly what is it with the
15:55
Speaker 2: human voice?
15:55
Speaker 1: I believe that's the actual term.
15:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is kind of where we see the start.
16:05
Speaker 2: Maybe not with the coercion and the kidnapping, but in
16:08
Speaker 2: the early days of democracy, voting was always a pretty
16:11
Speaker 2: contentious situation because if you had to say in front
16:14
Speaker 2: of God and your peers and your township and everyone
16:17
Speaker 2: who you voted for, if they didn't agree with you,
16:20
Speaker 2: they might try to kick your ass.
16:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, try being the hopeful addition to that sentence there. Yeah.
16:27
Speaker 1: There's an article on History Extra called A Brief History
16:30
Speaker 1: of Election Rigging in the US that covers some of this.
16:35
Speaker 1: And the strange thing is that what we're describing is
16:39
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. So voters would line up to cast their
16:42
Speaker 1: ballots with party operatives on the side telling them to
16:46
Speaker 1: do the vote, or trying to bribe them to do
16:48
Speaker 1: the vote, or trying to talk them into or out
16:51
Speaker 1: of the vote. That's why.
16:52
Speaker 2: Why do you think it's so important that we don't
16:53
Speaker 2: allow campaigning at polling places today?
16:57
Speaker 1: Clearly an offshoot of this kind of behavior, right, Yeah,
17:00
Speaker 1: and it's still in a strange way. Look, the states
17:04
Speaker 1: are doing their collective best with the voting process, but
17:08
Speaker 1: there are still gang rules. I'm sure there are still
17:10
Speaker 1: people who wear a who say, Okay, I can't support
17:13
Speaker 1: a political candidate, but let me wear an all blue
17:15
Speaker 1: or all red. I don't know a onesie. I've never
17:19
Speaker 1: seen anybody in a one see.
17:20
Speaker 2: But there's weird rules about that stuff too. Like you
17:22
Speaker 2: certainly couldn't definitely couldn't wear like a vote for Hillary
17:25
Speaker 2: t shirtch No, but if you wore some kind of
17:28
Speaker 2: dog whistle thing that let people know I'm watching you.
17:31
Speaker 2: And that's the thing too. Trump actually encouraged he said, Okay,
17:35
Speaker 2: there's going to be this widespread voter fraud, and he
17:38
Speaker 2: encouraged his supporters to quote keep an eye on the polls. Yeah,
17:44
Speaker 2: and maybe make people a little uncomfortable.
17:47
Speaker 1: I had heard about that too, and whether that result
17:50
Speaker 1: in a physical activity on the ground. What remains inarguable
17:53
Speaker 1: is that this did not come straight out of the blue,
17:56
Speaker 1: straight out of left field. This has vast historical pressident
18:00
Speaker 1: here in the US. Violence in voting in the eighteen
18:04
Speaker 1: hundreds was common enough that up to a point, it
18:07
Speaker 1: was just considered part of the voting process. It was
18:10
Speaker 1: just the thing.
18:11
Speaker 2: It was what to be expected, right, Yeah, Yeah.
18:13
Speaker 1: In the logic was this. There's a little misogyny in here,
18:16
Speaker 1: of course, but the logic was if a voter was
18:19
Speaker 1: not quote unquote manly enough to stand up for his
18:24
Speaker 1: chosen convictions and the candidate sure of his choice, then
18:28
Speaker 1: they if they couldn't, if they couldn't man up as
18:31
Speaker 1: the case were, against a little bit of rowdiness, there's
18:35
Speaker 1: some fisticuffs, even some cajoling from supporters of other candidates,
18:39
Speaker 1: then were they really even fit to vote? That was
18:43
Speaker 1: the idea.
18:44
Speaker 2: And it's interesting too how alcohol plays a role in
18:47
Speaker 2: this from the start as well, even before the kidnapping
18:50
Speaker 2: and shoving fake mustaches on people's faces. In this mental
18:53
Speaker 2: loss article, it references the fact that even George Washington
18:56
Speaker 2: himself understood that maybe you might need a little bit
19:00
Speaker 2: of liquid courage at the poles because of this whole
19:04
Speaker 2: idea of standing up for what you believed in. If
19:07
Speaker 2: you need to have your voice be louder than the opposition,
19:09
Speaker 2: you might need to be a little tanked before you
19:13
Speaker 2: do this. And he ran for the Virginia House of
19:16
Speaker 2: Burgesses in seventeen fifty eight and gave voters at the
19:20
Speaker 2: poles twenty eight gallons of rum, fifty gallons of rum punch,
19:25
Speaker 2: thirty four gallons of wine, forty six gallons of beer,
19:28
Speaker 2: and two gallons of hard cider.
19:31
Speaker 1: No mention on whether he distributed his famous aggnog.
19:35
Speaker 2: No, but he did talk about he did use the
19:36
Speaker 2: expression swilling the planters with bumbo, which is a pretty
19:42
Speaker 2: tasty sounding yet boozy cocktail consisting of rum, water, sugar, nutmeg,
19:47
Speaker 2: and optional cinnamon.
19:50
Speaker 1: And I do want to point out for everyone who
19:53
Speaker 1: might have had the question, all those gallons you heard about,
19:56
Speaker 1: those were total yes for the day. Those were not
19:59
Speaker 1: per per It was not that wealthy, but he was
20:03
Speaker 1: onto something. This was this was common in the eighteen hundred's,
20:07
Speaker 1: the practice of cooping. It had a timeline that we
20:12
Speaker 1: should mention. They weren't kidnapping people on the day of voting.
20:18
Speaker 1: They were kidnapping them like up to two or three
20:21
Speaker 1: days before and keeping them in a windowless basement against
20:25
Speaker 1: their or maybe not, I don't know. They probably pulled
20:28
Speaker 1: a lot of homeless people too. Point we were happy
20:30
Speaker 1: to have a warm place to stay. What a nightmare.
20:33
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. This, this is so off topic,
20:35
Speaker 1: but this reminded me of a story or Russian friend
20:39
Speaker 1: of mine told me about a really disturbing game. And please,
20:44
Speaker 1: fellow Russian ridiculous historians, let us know if this is
20:48
Speaker 1: an actual thing, because I have always been captivated about this. No,
20:52
Speaker 1: it's a game called submarining go on, So it doesn't
20:56
Speaker 1: even sound like a game to me. I don't entirely
20:58
Speaker 1: understand the point does it involve? Which is kind of
21:02
Speaker 1: the story? Is this that a group of people would
21:05
Speaker 1: get together, And again I heard this from a Russian
21:08
Speaker 1: friend who was telling me about Russian games. A group
21:12
Speaker 1: of people get together, they'll get an apartment and they'll
21:15
Speaker 1: nail up planks or black out all the windows, and
21:20
Speaker 1: they'll get locked in with like cold cuts and bread,
21:24
Speaker 1: absolute darkness and just a ton of booze, like hard liquor,
21:30
Speaker 1: and they'll be in there for days in total dark,
21:33
Speaker 1: just drinking and eating cold cuts, and one person who
21:37
Speaker 1: was also another game comes by later to unlock the
21:39
Speaker 1: door and let them out. That sounds incredibly disturbing to me.
21:43
Speaker 2: Wow, is this sort of like a battle royale with
21:46
Speaker 2: like sandwich meats and booze kind of situation?
21:49
Speaker 1: I have no idea, because you know, are expecting to
21:51
Speaker 1: find when they come let them out. I have no idea.
21:55
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a spiritual revelatory thing, but what was happening
22:00
Speaker 1: with cooping was uncomfortably close to that, And since there
22:05
Speaker 1: were so many people in on it, the law or
22:08
Speaker 1: the legal system was really hard pressed to impose some
22:14
Speaker 1: kind of consequence for this because the people who were
22:18
Speaker 1: rigging the vote were the people who were in charge
22:21
Speaker 1: of giving the yay or nay to a judge. So
22:24
Speaker 1: for a judge, it's political suicide in many cases, especially
22:28
Speaker 1: in New York at the time, to stand up against this.
22:30
Speaker 2: Did you read the bit about how election. Poll workers
22:34
Speaker 2: were also at risk. Ben of one thing that I
22:37
Speaker 2: saw was having their coffee spiked with laxatives so that
22:41
Speaker 2: they quote would be otherwise engaged during the most important
22:45
Speaker 2: phase of the count This is again from that mental
22:48
Speaker 2: Floss article by AJ Jacobs. So no one was safe.
22:52
Speaker 2: None was safe, Ben, Yeah, none.
22:54
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, the public had a
22:57
Speaker 1: bit of hypocrisy about this because people were aware of
23:02
Speaker 1: and disgusted by this practice specifically cooping, but corruption overall
23:08
Speaker 1: in domestic politics. But it was so common, so baked
23:13
Speaker 1: in that we found accounts of it happening in multiple states,
23:16
Speaker 1: not just in New York. And this practice continued through
23:20
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteenth century. They also had cases
23:26
Speaker 1: in nineteen ten, there was one in Adams County, Ohio,
23:30
Speaker 1: where a judge is a little unusual actually brought to
23:34
Speaker 1: trial and convicted. Get this, one thousand, six hundred and
23:38
Speaker 1: ninety voters, twenty six percent of the electorate of the
23:42
Speaker 1: county for selling their votes. And you know, again we
23:47
Speaker 1: have to wonder was the were the voters in question
23:53
Speaker 1: falling for a more gentle Washingtonian bribery scam or what
24:00
Speaker 1: is it, a more violent nice farm.
24:03
Speaker 2: Be a shame if something happened to happen to it,
24:05
Speaker 2: Boss Tweed kind of rib yeah, and Ben I was surprised, Yeah,
24:11
Speaker 2: not surprised. It makes perfect sense that we inherited this
24:13
Speaker 2: from our former rulers in the United Kingdom.
24:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right.
24:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, this cooping was part of their electoral process as well.
24:23
Speaker 2: And I found a delightful passage from a book called
24:27
Speaker 2: Knowing Right from Wrong The Insanity Defense of Daniel McNaughton
24:31
Speaker 2: that describes cooping in English elections in eighteen thirty four.
24:37
Speaker 2: And here goes this story from this book by Richard Moran.
24:41
Speaker 1: Quote.
24:42
Speaker 2: If bribery and improper influence failed to persuade reluctant voters,
24:46
Speaker 2: they wanted them to vote Tory. There was always violence
24:49
Speaker 2: and intimidation. The practice of cooping or abducting an opponent's
24:53
Speaker 2: supporters until after the election was nearly universal. Consequently, cooping
24:57
Speaker 2: one's own supporters and keeping them locked up in public
25:00
Speaker 2: house of a pub until it was time to vote
25:03
Speaker 2: developed as a defensive response. Here here's the best part.
25:06
Speaker 2: Where you had these factions warring with each other. It
25:08
Speaker 2: was not uncommon for large groups of drunken voters to
25:10
Speaker 2: be escorted under guard to the polling place in Ireland
25:14
Speaker 2: where wholesale cooping took place. Refusal to surrender to what
25:17
Speaker 2: one historian has called ceremonious abduction carried with it the
25:21
Speaker 2: full wrath of the landlords the barkeeps. He goes on
25:25
Speaker 2: to say how people who manage the campaigns actually hired
25:29
Speaker 2: these gangs of what are deemed bullies to intimidate and
25:33
Speaker 2: physically abuse voters, and then he goes on to say
25:37
Speaker 2: election day in many towns and boroughs was characterized by
25:40
Speaker 2: riots and mob violence. At Hertford, the Tory candidate Lord
25:44
Speaker 2: Dustra and Lord Mohan employed a band of gypsies to
25:47
Speaker 2: harass Radical voters. The radical candidate Thomas Duncombe retaliated by
25:52
Speaker 2: hiring one hundred and fifty where bargemen, so you know,
25:56
Speaker 2: fight fire with fire or gypsies with bargemen.
26:04
Speaker 1: There was also an intensely close and I would think
26:10
Speaker 1: much more publicly acknowledged link between politics and entertainment, which
26:16
Speaker 1: to a degree helps us contextualize this practice. So public politics,
26:22
Speaker 1: you know, had a ton of drinking involved at the time.
26:25
Speaker 1: There were a lot of torchlit rallies and there were
26:28
Speaker 1: things called jollification barbecues. That sounds like fun, right, I
26:32
Speaker 1: want to be jollified. And in an article Riling Up
26:37
Speaker 1: the Shrewd Wild Boys by John Grinspan, we explore some
26:41
Speaker 1: of the differences between then and today. So during the
26:46
Speaker 1: peak of American campaign excitement, he writes, our democracy was louder, meaner,
26:51
Speaker 1: and merrier than it had ever been before. Populist campaigners
26:55
Speaker 1: perfected the art of political show business a genre. Then
26:59
Speaker 1: he gets his licks in here that seems to be
27:01
Speaker 1: making a comeback. He's writing in twenty twelve, sure prescient, right, yeah,
27:05
Speaker 1: and if only he knew right? And so from eighteen
27:08
Speaker 1: forty through nineteen hundred, he says, these types of campaigns
27:14
Speaker 1: did select people who would lead the government at this
27:16
Speaker 1: stage unanimously all men. But they also were the best
27:22
Speaker 1: show in town. These were gaudy, gonzo rituals, and people
27:27
Speaker 1: would go a political people would go just because it
27:30
Speaker 1: was great food, tons of cheaper, free booze. And then
27:33
Speaker 1: there were shows that were singing, there was partying. There
27:36
Speaker 1: were the pretty much distracts of the time, which were
27:41
Speaker 1: these fiery invectives against those monsters and traders. Oh sure,
27:47
Speaker 1: or they would sometimes say, perhaps not entirely American opponents.
27:52
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know what, it makes me think of
27:53
Speaker 2: that scene in Oh Brother or Art Thou where it's
27:56
Speaker 2: you know, is he is or is you ain't my
27:58
Speaker 2: constituency and he has like dwarves and it's all like
28:01
Speaker 2: this crazy smoke and mirrors, kind of like pt Barnum
28:05
Speaker 2: esque atmosphere with banners and parades and all this stuff,
28:09
Speaker 2: you know, some of which we still see today, but
28:11
Speaker 2: much more cartoonish.
28:12
Speaker 1: To borrow your word of choice there, thank you, it's
28:16
Speaker 1: a go to. Well. Here's the thing though, because we
28:19
Speaker 1: were talking about this practice which was wild, which was common,
28:22
Speaker 1: which was real, But we have ignored up to this
28:26
Speaker 1: point the fact that several great and acclaimed US politicians
28:30
Speaker 1: were alive and active during this time, and they were
28:33
Speaker 1: also doing the same sort of thing. Maybe not cooping,
28:37
Speaker 1: but politicians themselves encouraged that. We even have a record
28:40
Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln in the eighteen forties planning what he
28:45
Speaker 1: thought would be a great party. That headline Wild Shrewd
28:49
Speaker 1: Boys comes from his letter that.
28:52
Speaker 2: He wrote that sounds like a really cool party crew,
28:54
Speaker 2: the Wild Shrewd Boys.
28:57
Speaker 1: It does. I would love to see them at a
28:59
Speaker 1: house park already, so long as it was not my house.
29:03
Speaker 2: And as you mentioned earlier, Ben, there was a time
29:05
Speaker 2: where you know, you pole workers would know whether it
29:09
Speaker 2: was okay for someone to vote or not simply by
29:12
Speaker 2: looking at the color of their skin, you know, seeing
29:15
Speaker 2: if they were in fact or not white. But then
29:18
Speaker 2: we have emancipation in the late eighteen sixties, so we
29:21
Speaker 2: have that fantastic article from history extra dot com that
29:24
Speaker 2: talks about the plight of African Americans. After this period
29:28
Speaker 2: in time, and especially in the South, there was a
29:32
Speaker 2: sense that even though black men did receive the franchise,
29:39
Speaker 2: their very presence at these elections was seen as an
29:43
Speaker 2: affront to the election process and that they were somehow
29:48
Speaker 2: plants from you know, Northern Yankee carpetbagger scum, trying to
29:53
Speaker 2: rig the election in their union love and favor and
29:57
Speaker 2: gross gross stuff. Again, Yeah, that is he is or
30:01
Speaker 2: is you ain't? My constituency stuff comes to mind. So
30:05
Speaker 2: a long, hard fought battle to where we are now
30:08
Speaker 2: with elections, which clearly people still have some issues with.
30:12
Speaker 2: I don't think we're ever going to be fully comfortable
30:14
Speaker 2: with something as important as the election processes I've always
30:18
Speaker 2: wonried why don't they just put it all online?
30:20
Speaker 1: Right? There's an answer to that from purists, right, well yeah,
30:23
Speaker 1: but then again, it's it's something that has two answers,
30:27
Speaker 1: one from the realm of idealism and one from the
30:30
Speaker 1: realm of well, how low can people go? Morally speaking?
30:34
Speaker 1: The thing is there is always someone who can go
30:36
Speaker 1: lower than you in the game of morality. Limbo. I'm
30:42
Speaker 1: actually happy with that. Oh, I love that. A lot
30:44
Speaker 1: of these comparisons don't work because you and I are
30:46
Speaker 1: shooting from the hip. But that wasn't that bad?
30:48
Speaker 2: No, man, well done?
30:49
Speaker 1: Should we put it on a T shirt? Hey? What
30:52
Speaker 1: do you say? As historians?
30:53
Speaker 2: We do have a new T shirt shop coming up
30:57
Speaker 2: at Tea Public if you haven't heard of it, where
31:00
Speaker 2: they do this thing where we can we can drum
31:02
Speaker 2: up a catchphrase design and two shakes of a Lamb's tale.
31:06
Speaker 2: So if you guys want some unique short run ridiculous
31:09
Speaker 2: history catchphrase teas or hoodies or you know, throw pillows,
31:14
Speaker 2: sure let us know parkas. I don't know, we're just
31:17
Speaker 2: making stuff up. Or let us know what what you
31:19
Speaker 2: thint Bunny hugs. Yeah, yeah, wallet's.
31:24
Speaker 1: Jinko jeans.
31:25
Speaker 2: I don't think they make those anymore, Dude, I think
31:27
Speaker 2: it's over for Jinko jeans.
31:28
Speaker 1: Somebody still has a pair. I'm sure we would like
31:31
Speaker 1: to hear your ideas for that. I think we're already
31:34
Speaker 1: both pretty much sold on Son of a Fish and
31:36
Speaker 1: Chip Show shirts, respectively, but we want to hear your
31:40
Speaker 1: designs and ideas. What would be a cool T shirt?
31:44
Speaker 1: This is so new and strange to us, I think
31:47
Speaker 1: we're gonna get very weird with it.
31:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the best place to do that, if you
31:52
Speaker 2: don't want to just email us directly at Ridiculous at
31:54
Speaker 2: HowStuffWorks dot com, is to hit us up on our
31:56
Speaker 2: Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians, which you can join via
32:00
Speaker 2: your mobile or desktop Facebook app. And we've got a
32:03
Speaker 2: cool little community there and we hop in there and
32:05
Speaker 2: hang and shadowy now and then.
32:07
Speaker 1: So maybe we could do a poll, Ben, I want to.
32:10
Speaker 1: So this is the idea I proposed. Noel, you can
32:15
Speaker 1: confirm that you have not heard about this until we're
32:17
Speaker 1: on air, but I'd like to do maybe one poll
32:21
Speaker 1: a week on Ridiculous Historians, just about stuff. We could
32:25
Speaker 1: do a poll, for instance, on vote for a favorite
32:29
Speaker 1: T shirt concept. We could also do a poll on
32:33
Speaker 1: questions about where you and your fellow listeners stand on
32:38
Speaker 1: a particular topic brought up in an episode, because if
32:41
Speaker 1: we've learned one thing from today's show, it's that no
32:46
Speaker 1: matter how much we knocked the voting process today, it's
32:49
Speaker 1: way cooler now.
32:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, you should do it. It's important, especially you know on
32:53
Speaker 2: our Facebook page.
32:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, be the change. Start on Ridiculous Historians. Let us
33:00
Speaker 1: though you can also find us on Twitter. You can
33:04
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram where we are some variety of
33:08
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History or Ridiculous History show.
33:11
Speaker 2: And if you want to see us live in the flesh,
33:13
Speaker 2: in person, in human form, we will be at the
33:15
Speaker 2: Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July the first, four
33:20
Speaker 2: o'clock PM, alongside our buddies Will and Mango from Part
33:24
Speaker 2: Time Genius, and we're going to do our first ever
33:26
Speaker 2: live show.
33:26
Speaker 1: We're super stoked about her. Yeah, wish us luck, Come
33:30
Speaker 1: cheer us on or laugh at us in person, because
33:34
Speaker 1: one thing we can promise you is that there are
33:37
Speaker 1: several surprises in store, but what are they? No spoilers,
33:41
Speaker 1: You will have to tune in non spoilers, but hey,
33:43
Speaker 1: we'll see you there or next time on another episode
33:45
Speaker 1: of Ridiculous History Take Care of Everyone.
33:52
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