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What was the Skeleton Army? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, we want to let you know that we
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: are doing our traditional Pacific Northwest Swing for our live
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: show next year, in fact, the end of January next year,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: very early next year.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: And we're starting out in Seattle, Washington on January twenty
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: fourth at the Paramount Theater. It's huge, that's right, and
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: then on to Portland on January twenty fifth at Revolution Hall,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the place we always are. It's kind of our home
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: away from home in Portland. And then we're gonna wrap
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: it all up at the thing that started the Pacific
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Northwest Tour in the first place all those years back.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: SF Sketch Fest will be at the Sydney Goldstein Theater
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: on Friday, January twenty sixth, right, Chuck, that's right.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And remember you can go to stuff youshould Know dot
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  Speaker 1: com click on tours in order to get to the
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  Speaker 1: correct ticket link or go to the venue page only.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Do not go to scalper sites.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: That's right, and we'll see you guys in January.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: there's Chuck and well I was gonna say Jerry's here,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: but that would be a dirty, filthy lie. True, it's here,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: it's you and me, chuck.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's about to say just like the old days.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: But Jerry was around from the beginning. I wasn't around
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: for the beginning, man.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: So I guess this is a periodical situation we find
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: ourselves in, just like the periodical situation.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Can I say a couple of quick things here?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: First of all, I want to congratulate listener Corey Wegner
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: because this topic is from Corey.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Nice way to go, Corey.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, listener suggestion, which is great. And also want to
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: officially welcome mister Gibson Bryant into the family, the new puppy.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's cute.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: He's Gibson is a was being fostered through the Lifeline
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: organization that we work with a lot here in Atlanta,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and foster mom Rachel was just wonderful. And Gibson's a
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: little coonhound shepherd mix and he's awesome mm hm. And
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it's great. So far, so good. He's just that he
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and the cats they gotta they gotta work it out.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: So far it's not great. Oh no, so it just
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: takes a little time. I figure, you know, a week
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: or two. Usually is as based on like when we've
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: dog sat other dogs, because the cats love dogs, are dogs.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: But like a new dog comes in and they're like.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they gotta he has to prove himself to them.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they just gotta. You know, they gotta work it out.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It'll take a little time. But he's a very sweet boy.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: He's fitting right in.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: He looks like it. I guess you've posted pictures on
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: your Instagram page.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Uh, yeah, Gibson's on there. Uh, Chuck the podcaster if
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you want to check out this handsome little leggy boy.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Nice. Well, welcome Gibson. Congratulations.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: To the stuff you should know family, the stuff you
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: should know army. I see where this is going. It is.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I normally would have just left it at yes, the
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: stuff you should know family. But the reason the stuff
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: you should know army ties into this because we're talking
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: about armies, but fake armies. When believe it or not,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: the stuff you should know army is a fake army.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Oh really, there's not a lot.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Of like international conflict or killing or shooting of machine
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: guns with the stuff you should know armies. So yes,
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: I would say it's a fake army.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Well, what's the very definition of army? I don't even know.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: A group that engages in international conflicts and kills and
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: shoots machine guns.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Actually, well, no, it can be a large number of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: people organized for a purpose, like an army of photographers.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: I guess, so I think those are called gaggles.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Though, Okay, he's in the photograph first.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, no offensemen. Of course, who are great people at
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: the stuff you should know? Army because of course the greatest. Yeah,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: so there are other armies that are who's patterns of
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: killing are questionable at best, And that includes both the
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Salvation Army, but less so the Skeleton Army, because if
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: any of the groups I've just mentioned just now bore
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: the closest resemblance to an army, it would be the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Skeleton Army probably.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And this is when I had not even heard of
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: until Cory Wegner sent this in same and so yeah,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I just thought we should dive in a little bit
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: on the Salvation Army first, probably right.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure people are like, well, guys, what are
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: you talking about with the Salvation Army? Just wait, hold
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: your horses please.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've probably heard of the Salvation Army. They are,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're an international organization at this point, right.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Yes, they have been doing it since the eighteen seventies,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: believe late eighteen seventies, and their mission is to basically
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: combat poverty where it's at, like they go to where
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: poverty is at, and apparently in the United States alone
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: they serve twenty three million people a year, so they're
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: doing some significant work. And I don't want to walk
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: past the fact that they're also a pretty controversial organization,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: especially today. They're a Christian organization, a Protestant Christian organization
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: at its core from their founding, so they have sometimes
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: unfriendly views or have held unfriendly views towards LGBTQ plus community.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: And now they've kind of revised it to say like, yeah,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: we don't mind, just don't tell us that you're gay.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: You can come work with us anytime you want. And
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: that's not quite enough. But at the same time, there's
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: people who are on the conservative Christian right who are like,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: that's too far. So the Salvation Army finds itself in
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: a very ticklish pause right now, and I just that
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't have anything to do with this particular episode, but
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: I think it'd be kind of disingenuous to just not
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: mention that at all.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were founded by a gentleman named George Booth.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: He was born in England and Nottingham in eighteen twenty
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: nine and was a Methodist preacher at first and was
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the picture I get of George Booth from
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: kind of reading up on him is that he kind
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: of from the start was a bit of a rabble
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: rouser within the church as far as, like, you know,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: he was into street preaching. He was frustrated with the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: sort of formalities of the church, the hierarchies of the church.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Probably felt like, you know, the church isn't helping the
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: people that are most in need. Was maybe a little
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: too disconnected from poverty and like the real people out
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: on the streets, and so that was sort of his
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: It seems like he was charged from the like within
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: himself to do something bigger than just be a standard
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Methodist preacher.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I get the impression you kind of
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: touched on it that he probably viewed the church as
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: an institution as really detached from the people who needed
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: it's helped most. So he started an organization. He decided
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: to kind of go help people where they're at. So
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: he started street preaching, apparently based on American revivalists of
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: the early nineteenth century, and like he would just stand
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: on the street corner and preach, and so too would
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: his wife. This is a time where if you were
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: super religious like this and you said women can preach too,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and let's go help the poor directly. That was deeply
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: progressive at the time in England. England was so ridiculously
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: stodgy conservative that I read about a magazine that in
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: its inaugural edition promised that it would do nothing to
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: to help along this morbid desire for change, that they
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: were just going to keep things exactly the way that
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: they were and that's what the establishment wanted. People like
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: George Boother like, that's not working for a whole, huge
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: segment of society.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, his wife, Catherine Mumford when they married, played a
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: big part, played a big part in this whole story. Actually,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: so you can kind of put a no, don't put
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a pin in her. She's there.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I can the skeleton army putting a pin on her.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: No pens or maybe flinging a dead rat her way.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: So in eighteen as a story goes. At least in
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight, he was dictating a letter and he said,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the Christian Mission is a volunteer army, capital C, capital M.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: And then he said no, no, no, strike that and
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: perhaps struck it himself and crossed out volunteer and wrote
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: down Salvation a Salvation Army, And that was sort of
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: you know, Salvation Army is so ubiquitous, especially on Christmas
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: time in the United States when they you will people
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: I think generally sort of associate Salvation Army with either
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: dropping off clothes and toys that you don't want at
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a Salvation Army store, or buying things from a Salvation
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Army store, or around Christmas when they have Santa claus
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: is ringing that bell with that kettle outside and they
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: are asking people to donate their spare change or what
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  Speaker 1: have you.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, And if you know, by Christmas time you get
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: annoyed at that ringing of the bell that you hear
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: all the time, count your lucky stars that you weren't
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: born in England in the eighteen seventies, because you would
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: have been super annoyed by the Salvation Army at that time.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And that was sort of my deal with
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the Salvation Army. That's how I knew them, and I
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: knew they did, you know, obviously a lot of charitable works.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: But I didn't really ever stop to think about the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: whole army thing, the military aspect, because when I earlier said,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: like an army can be just a collection of people,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: that wasn't how they meant it. Like they meant it
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: as in, you know, not we're going to take up arms.
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  Speaker 1: But they gave themselves, they wore uniforms, they gave themselves
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  Speaker 1: military ranks. Booth named himself the General, and it became like,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I think their newspaper was called the War Cry. Their
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: initiation creed were called the Articles of War. So they
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: really sort of, I don't want to say, leaned into.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I'm really trying to stop.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: Saying that they were army forward.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were very army forward in a sort of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: militaristic sense, but again not like hey, we're gonna, you know,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: start a real war. But they were just like we're
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: warriors for Christ. Basically.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to be initiated, you had to kill a man
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: with your bare hands. They were pretty serious about the
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: army thing. Yeah, But the reason that they were so
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: into the army. That was part of the zeitgeist at
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: the time. This is the Victorian Age, the English at
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: its peak at the time, and the English Empire got
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: that way because of the military. So the military is
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: highly regarded, so it kind of made sense to kind
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: of go with that. It'd be like today, Oh boy,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: it'd be like fashioning yourself after the swifties. If you
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: were founding like a new rescue mission organization, I would
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: messle them. No, you would, you would not. So he
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: had he established this in pretty short order. He started
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: to use the Salvation Army to just it was set
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: up to achieve his aims. And his aims we've kind
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: of touched on a little bit, but they're pretty straightforward.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: The biggest one really is if you want to help
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: poor people, go to the poor people and help them directly.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: That's how you help poor people. That's just what you
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: have to do. You have to get your hands dirty.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: As it was, that was pretty much the foundation of
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: the Salvation Army and it can tell. It's a big
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: part of it still today.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, which is great. Their mantra was soup soap salvation.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: In other words, you know, help feed the poor, help
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I mean soap. I don't think they literally meant to
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: help clean them, but they may have just sort of to.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I think that sort of stood for lift people out
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: of poverty and and also bring them to Christ. I
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: mean that was a big part of it. We can't
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: ignore that. And as who say, what.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Bring them to? Who?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Christ? Jesus Christ?
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, oh Jesus Christ.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: I got to do you think I met Jimmy Christ, Billy,
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I don't think so. I think Christ would be run
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: out of town on a rail.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: House pronounced people would say Christ these days? Right?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Sure? Sure?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I mean that that's got to be a last name.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: See h R I S T.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Yes. If we have any listeners out there, who that's
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: your last name and you go by Christ, please right in.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: We want to hear all about your life.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if it's Jimmy Christ. I would love to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: know you. And another big part is, especially as it
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: pertains to the Skeleton Army, who will learn about here
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: in a minute, is that alcohol is bad. They were
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: way way into the Temperance movement and alcohol was just
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a big, big evil and that would factor really, really
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: heavily into the goings on between the Salvation Army and
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the Skeleton Army.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, they also well, like we said, women can preach.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: That was very radical, very progressive at the time. And
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: they also were super into music. I don't I know,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't see why. I guess General Booth himself was
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: particularly into music, because again, this whole, this whole organization
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: seems like an extension of him and his wife as well.
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: I don't want to just call her that. Catherine. Yeah, yeah,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Catherine's views as well. I think they kind of jibed
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: really well together.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: But they're into the same bands exactly.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: There was a quote that's often attributed to George Booth
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: that may or may not have been said by him,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: but it fits. It's why should the devil have all
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: the best tunes? And I'm pretty sure he was making
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: a failed reference to Black.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Sabbath right and eventually Striper. No, he would have been
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: way into Striper.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: I was reading about them the other day. I can't
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: believe I didn't tell you this, did you? How far
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: did you follow them? When did you leave off from Striper?
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: When did I leave the Striper Army? Yesh? I you know,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: as I sort of transitioned out of going to church,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So that would have been like middle high school.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: So they were still doing like the Black and Yellow.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: Yellow and Black Attack. Yes, I think that was the
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: name of one of their records. Yeah, I mean they
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: were still around. I think this was right before they
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: had their They had a like a secular ballad hit.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, yes, so that's yes. They they you transition and
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: shortly after that they transitioned, and they left all that
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: god stuff behind and released a couple of albums and
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: if they did not do very well, and I think
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: they were pretty surprised. They thought, well, we'll just go
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: more mainstream, and it didn't work. They were more successful
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: mainstream wise as a Christian Christian forward metal band than
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: they were as like a regular metal band.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The Sweet Brothers is that who they were? Yeah,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Michael and Matthew Sweet.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Like Matthew Sweet, I want you to be my girlfriend,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Matthew Sweet.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: No, in fact, maybe it wasn't Matthew. Maybe I'm conflating,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: but I know Michael Sweet was.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: I think he was the singer, Okay, Michael Sweet and
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: then I think the drummer was Jimmy.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Christ Actually, oh man, I remember some of those names
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I don't remember, or maybe the drummer was the other brother.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I remember he played sideways. Oh that's awesome, which is interesting.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Do you still have the action figures?
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: No, I don't know if I still have that record,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I'll have to look through my vinyl.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was into that for a little while.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, at any rate, I don't Yeah, I just
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: I don't remember how I was reading about Stripper, but
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: I was reading all about their career the other day.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: How easy to fall into a Striper rabbit hole.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so, yeah, they were into music. The thing is
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: is and they wanted to use music, not Striper. We're
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: talking back about the Salvation Army. Although they Striper wanted
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: to do the same thing. They wanted to use music
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: to get God's message across. Absolutely unlike Striper, they had
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: zero musical talent, but were very happy to be as
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: loud as possible. So you know the image you have
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: of like temperance people and like kind of old, like
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: goody two shoes Christians in the nineteenth century banging on
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: a huge drum, singing songs about Jesus and all that. Sure,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: that is based in reality. That was a Salvation Army
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: and everyone who wasn't in the Salvation Army loathed them
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: for that.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty annoying if you were enjoying a
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: pint in a pub and the Salvation Army came around.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because in addition to going to the poor, where
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: the poor were, they figured, if you want to save sinners,
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: go to where the sinners are. So they would storm
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: into pubs and start singing religious hymns at the top
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: of their lungs, banging drums like telling people they were
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: going to hell. And these people are just trying to unwind,
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: you know, after a hard day's work at the docks,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: or who knows.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Well, they had no job and they were just getting loaded.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or they're celebrating a promotion at the docks. I
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: don't know. The thing is they did not want to
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: hear that at the time, and even if you weren't
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: in the pubs, just hearing them go down the street
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: preaching all day Sundays sometimes during the week too. They
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: really purposefully made a nuisance of themselves because they were
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: really assertive and hostile almost and shoving their message about
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: salvation down everyone throat, whether they wanted to hear it
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: or not.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: All right, I think that sets the stage time for
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a break. Yes, for sure, all right, for sure, we'll
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: be right back after this, you bet, all right. So
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the stage is set, the Salvation Army is firmly in place,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and they are going around. Aside from doing great things
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: for the poor, they are going around and go into
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: pubs and banging their pots and pans and their drums,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and they're singing all these religious songs and the people
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: do not like it. So that is the sort of
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the position that they're in at this point. So what
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: forms is what's called the Skeleton Army to literally combat
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: the Salvation Army. Ed helped us out with this one.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And there's I would argue that there aren't two origins.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: There's one origin. But the sort of second part of
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the origin story we'll get to. Is that fair to say?
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: It's fair but confusing? Sure?
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, the first, you know, basically how they
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: formed is what we've been talking about. They were literally
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: just annoyed at the Salvation Army coming around telling them
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: not to drink, singing songs and loudly preaching and disrupting
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: their pub time. And so the initial sort of response
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: was just jeering at them, won't you sit down and
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: have a be that kind of thing, being very sarcastic,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and then things started just to escalate, sort of little
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: by little, because these were drunks basically, and when you're
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: someone engaging a drunk and telling them not to drink,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that's not going to go over too well, and timpers
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: will genuinely flare at some point.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I think we said the Salvation Army
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: set itself up in eighteen seventy eight. By eighteen seventy nine,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: the first newspaper account of a clash between the Salvation
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Army and people who hated the Salvation Army made it
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: into a newspaper. I think there was an incident in Liverpool,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: and this is not the first incident. This is just
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: the first incident that got written up in the paper.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: And the reason it got written up is because there
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: was a riot. A riot. People hated what the Salvation
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: Army was doing so much that they would often trigger
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: riots whenever they started doing their marches, and they were
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: roundly blamed for this like at the time, as we'll see,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: it kind of came out differently in the end, but
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: everyone blamed them for just existing and doing what they
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: were doing. They felt that the Salvation Army was responsible
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: for the riots that the people who were against the
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Salvation Army would carry out when the Salvation Army came around.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So seventy nine, like you said, was the
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: first noted one in Liverpool, and then you know, if
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: you read contemporaneous accounts, which we did of the time,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: they just started popping up here and there. In March
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of eighty one in the East End of London there
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: were some guys leaving a pub and they beat up
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a bunch of Salvation Army I guess what would they
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: be called soldiers?
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Okay. There were some Salvationist women which they were called
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Hallelujah lasses was a nickname, that were entrapped with some
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: rope by the crowd. They were getting hot coals thrown
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: at them, and this sort of played out how it
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: played out in most places. Things got pretty ugly. When
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: I joked about throwing dead rats at them, I wasn't kidding.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: That was a real thing that they did. Apparently dead
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: rats and live cats in at least one instance.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was another instance where there was a guy
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: who was testifying during a Salvation Army meeting and forty
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: people with chamber pots stormed the meeting and dumped urine
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: all over the man. Yeah, that happened. They were in
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: their own meeting. They weren't even out on the street
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: or in a pub. That's how hated these people were.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: They would be physically assaulted, they would have they would
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: have just all sorts of stuff thrown at them, in
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: addition to dead rats, dead fish, and there were plenty
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: of accounts of not just men, but also women and
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: even children being assaulted by the crowds. Like you said,
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: the Hallelujah lasses were basically roped with hot coals thrown
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: at them. There was a count somewhere that said between
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: twelve months. This would have been in the probably the
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: early eighteen eighties. Across England, six hundred and sixty nine Salvationists,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty one of those were women, were
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: quote knockdown, kicked or brutally assaulted. Fifty six buildings of
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: the army were stormed and partially wrecked. That was another
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: thing that people against the Salvation Army they like to do.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: They like to try to burn down their meeting halls,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: sometimes while they were in it. And then eighty six Salvationists.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Fifteen of them women were thrown in prison. So like
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: it was a it was a really like hardcore thing
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: to go out and do as a Salvation Army soldier.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh absolutely, and so yeah, I hope he didn't
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: paint it as too light of a brush like Oh
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: they would just sort of you know, yell at them
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: and jeer at them and throw dead rats and things.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: They got physically violent. It was not a good scene
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the Salvation Army for their part, when you mentioned the music,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: one thing that they were fond of and they still
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: do that today in England, is they take popular songs
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: and change the words at like soccer games, at their
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: football games, like these old school like pub sing alongs,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: they would change it to their local pub or their
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: local football team or whatever. And so the history of
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: just changing lyrics, I mean, I say, it's a little
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: lazy quite honestly. Maybe write a new song altogether, but
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: that's okay, sure, But they would do that. The Salvation
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Army would do that. So they would take popular pub songs,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: change up the lyrics to suit them and their Christian message.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Ed dug up some of the titles that were pretty great.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Oh every Land is filled with sin is not bad.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: My favorite is the Devil in Me. We can't agree.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I hate him and he hates me.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: It sounds like agreement, so you know that's true now
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: that to think about it.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: But this is what's going on. Like this only angered
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the people in the pubs even more because they're like,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: those are our songs, and there are, hey, let's get drunk,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: so songs that we sing together. Don't change them around
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and sing them in our face because you know I
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: might assault you or dump urine on your head.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There was another song that kind of gets across
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: the Salvation Army sentiments about the places they were visiting.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: It's called out of the Gutters, we Pick Them. And
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I read that there was resentment among a lot of
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: the lower working class groups who were getting visited by
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: these people being helped out with their poverty strickenness, who
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: were like, this is my neighborhood that you're talking about
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: and singing about is the gutter. So they offend They
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: managed to offend an annoy essentially everybody. And yet what
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: was really interesting about this is that they started to grow,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Like each Sunday there'd be more and more of them
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: and more and more of them, and they would like
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: their meeting halls would get bigger and bigger because there
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: were more Salvation Army members who had joined, who had
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: been picked out of the gutter, or who had said
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I'm giving up the devil drink or whatever reason, had
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: decided to join the Salvation Army and were now the
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: very people who were annoying their former.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Selves, yeah, or their friends.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Man, I'll bet that was uncomfortable, oh man.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: So they had other tactics. The Salvation Army had white uniforms,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: so they would try and mar those uniforms in a
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: number of ways. One is there was a narrow alley
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: leading to one of their meeting halls, and they would
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: paint a sticky tar on the alley walls. They would
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: throw eggs that had blue paint in them. They would then,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: in turn, sometimes take the original pub songs that they
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: had changed Salvation Army into Christian songs back into more
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: body versions of their Christian songs and sing them back
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: into them and even mess with their old sort of motto,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: which was soup soap. What was the third one? Salvation
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: soup soap, Salvation to beer, beef, beer and bacca, which
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: is tobacco.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Which is pretty hilarious.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so people were getting creative, but it was
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: also truly violent at times.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: It was. And even if it wasn't violent, think about
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: how annoyed you'd be if you weren't on either side.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Because the people who would give the greatest resistance and
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: in hostility toward the Salvation Army were the exact same
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: people that would do this in a pub today, twenty
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: somethings who are like already feeling pretty rowdy, probably the
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: drunkest of the people in the pub. Yeah, imagine just
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: being like us, Chuck, We're just trying to have like
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: a beer in a booth, and not only is the
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Salvation Army going off, but now it's being doubly amplified
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: because the other people, these hooligans, are essentially pushing back
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: just as loud, if not louder, I would just be like,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: shut up.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why we end up in a coffee house.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: And then we've lost all credibility as cool guys.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Could we end up in a coffeehouse and we just
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: bring our own flasks?
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Right? Oh, there you go. We just regained some credibility.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Did we ever have credibility as cool guys, I did.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: How about you?
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I did not. Yeah, I did not.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a cool guy, and I know other cool guys.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: You've always been a cool guy.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Man, I did not.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So we should talk a little bit about Susannah Beattie.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: She was a captain in the Salvation Army who died
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: in either eighteen eighty one or eighteen eighty two. And
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the Salvation Army will say, and there are some contemporaneous
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: accounts too that we saw in newspapers and stuff, where
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: she was essentially killed by the Skeleton Army. She was beaten.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I saw in one of the newspapers that said she
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: was kicked in her wound.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: I was hoping you weren't going to say that. That
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: is so tough to hear even.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: It is well. And I don't know if that implies
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that she was pregnant, because I didn't see that.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I think that what they were saying
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: is she probably internal bleeding from the inter abdomen from
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: those injuries.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I couldn't quite tell. But at the you know, at
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, she was killed by this
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Skeleton Army, which is you know, horrific, and the Salvation
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Army today names her and celebrates her as their first martyr. Also,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: some Skeleton Army member was killed by a cop I
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: think was cracked in the head with a baton.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: That's a Skeleton Army guy, right.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a Skeleton Army guy. But this sort of thing
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: didn't happen much in terms of the Skeleton Army and
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the police, because it seems like the police in almost
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: every case was anti Salvation Army, and it looks like it,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: depending on where you were and what was going on
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: and who the particular cop was, may have even sort
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: of helped things along or you know, let the Skeleton
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Army go and maybe aided them a little bit in
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of these riots.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we kind of touched on it earlier that the
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: establishment wanted things just as they were. They didn't like
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: this progressive, hostile Christian group like organizing the working classes, right,
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: so they were since they were already in charge, they
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: were basically, if not directly, informing the courts and the
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: police like not to intervene against the Skeleton Army. And certainly,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: if anything, if you're going to arrest anybody, arrest those
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: rabbele rousers the Salvation Army. So they had no formal
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: structural protection. Essentially, the cops is if they did anything,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: they usually arrested the Salvation Army members. Most of the
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: time they didn't do anything because the power structure in
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: each town was pretty much diametrically opposed to the Salvation Army.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. And then in that one article that you
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: sent from back then, it seems like a lot of
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: these counter protests, if you want to call them that,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: or these were either brewery owners or brewery owners and
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: their employees. So it kind of became like a literal
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: war against like temperance and alcohol. It was so heavily
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: intertwined because these brewers were like, we don't want these
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: people come in here, and you know the writings on
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the wall of what's going on in America, and we're
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: not going to have a prohibition. So the brewers and
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: their employees are like fighting back against these people preaching
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: against alcohol.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and again I don't want to like underestimate the
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: impact that these the idea that they were organizing the
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: working class had on scaring the upper class as well,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: because at the time, if you were you know, wealthy,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: if you had a title like you were in charge,
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: if you were working class, you were not in charge.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: You could just the best you could hope for is
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: that the wealthy would look out for you when they
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: were making laws, which probably didn't work out very much.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: So that was a big part of it too. And
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: then also even Protestants didn't like them, because remember George
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Booth was like, I don't like this church hierarchy stuff.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to go start preaching on the coroner.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: That was very much carried into the Salvation Army. So
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: the Protestant churches, the Methodists in particular, were like, we
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: don't like you. The Catholic really didn't like them because
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: there was that whole Catholic Protestant division that dated all
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: the way back to the sixteenth century. So basically no
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: one liked the Salvation Army and everyone was essentially working
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: against them.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, depending on I mean, it depends on
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: kind of where you were and who was there as
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to how violent this could get. If there was like
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: a sort of a younger, more rabble rousing preacher. A
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: lot of times, especially if it was a woman that
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: was coming in and leading the charge, things could escalate
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a little more quickly. I know, there was a twenty
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: three year old woman and a captain in the Salvation
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Army named Ada Smith, who was really enthusiastic and really
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: liked to get in the faces of these dudes in
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: the pubs and other times. You know, it was someone
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: who maybe wasn't quite as in your face and things
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: didn't go quite as sideways. Apparently if it was a
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: tourist town or a port town had a lot to
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: do with it too, right, Yeah.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: For sure, because if it was a tourist town, you
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: don't want like the Salvation Army running around telling everybody
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: they're going to hell. That's not good for tourism, so
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: they're actually directly affecting people's livelihoods. That's one. If the
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: support town, there's probably a lot of drinking going on,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: so the people in the town don't want to hear
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: that it was. If it was a like say a
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: country town suburb of London, it was probably a little
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: more genteel. I get the impression that the more rough
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: and tumble the populace, the more incidents of violence the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Salvation Army faced. But also I don't want to make
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: it sound like they weren't triggering people. They definitely were
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that Captain Ata Smith. You mentioned she was in Worthing,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: and Worthing was essentially ground zero for riots that took
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: place in the mid eighteen eighties, like straight up riots
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: where the people were attacking the town hall because they're
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: so upset about the Salvation Army being around. Like they
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: were provoking people. For sure, I'm not blaming them for
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: riots like as we'll see in a minute that they were,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: but they definitely were provoking people intentionally as well.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Should we take another break, Yeah,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: all right, we'll take our second break, and we'll talk
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: about the sort of where these guys might have come
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: from on the Skeleton Army side to begin with.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: So, skeleton Army is kind of this formalized term for
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: the groups of people who essentially organized to try to
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: beat the Salvation Army out of town, do whatever they
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: could to get rid of them, including lots and lots
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: of violence, and again trying to burn down their meeting
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: halls and stuff. And there's a historian named, I think
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: John Hare who wrote an article in nineteen eighty eight
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: and folklore that ed found where he basically as there's
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: a really high likelihood that the Skeleton Armies actually grew
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: out of what are called the bonfire boys or bonfire clubs,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: who would celebrate the fifth of November, not the fifth
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: of May, but the fifth of November in the same
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: way that people used to celebrate Devil's Night in Detroit
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: by just burning down everything in sight and marching and
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: just causing trouble and getting super drunk.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Yes, and as a we'll probably do one on this
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: in full at some point, but remember, remember the fifth
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of May. We're laughing because Josh said May, and we
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: cut it out or did we leave it in?
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: I think we cut it out.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: I guess we'll see. The fifth of November goes back
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: to if anyone has ever seen the movie v for Vendetta,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: so good with Natalie Portman. Good movie peers, Yeah, of course, no, yeah,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: it was Sky Pierce right.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: No, it was the weird clone guy from the Matrix him.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Oh he was, Yeah, he was the dude.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: The mister Unders. Yes, yeah, what's Hugh? What's the guy's name?
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: In sixteen oh five, there were Catholic conspirators who tried
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: to blow up Parliament because that would have killed the
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Protestant King James the First and hope that there would
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: be a Catholic king to fill that role, to fill
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: that power vacuum, and England would be, you know, back
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: to being a Catholic nation after the split from in
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: fifteen thirty four that you talked about earlier, that King
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth brought about.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: So remember remember the fifth of November. Every November fifth
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: there was, and I believe still is, just a lot
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: of sort of celebrations, big parties, big bonds. They would
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: light tar barrels on fire. It got pretty rowdy, and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: like you said, they were called the Bonfire Clubs. And
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: there are historians and namely that one guy you talked about,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: who basically say these guys were still around in the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventies and eighteen eighties, and there's a lot of
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: evidence that kind of shows that they were probably also like, hey,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: we've got pitchforks, we've got torches, we have the same
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: sort of anti establishment attitude, so we'll just sort of
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: start doing skeleton army stuff as well.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Right. There was actually an eighteen eighty five article in
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: the Sussex Coast Mercury newspaper that basically said that they
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: were watching the Skeleton Club, the new Skeleton Club there
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: in Worthing that had been formed March, and they were
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: actually using the old bonfire club banner. Like they didn't
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: even bother to create a new one. They just basically
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: slapped Skeleton over Bonfire Club. Just to get the point
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: across here that like these were the exact same people essentially,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: they just took their Bonfire Club thing and actually directed
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: it toward a purpose. It was purposeless before, it was
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: all celebratory rabble rousing. Now it was we're actually going
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: to use those same tactics to get the Salvation Army
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: out of town.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. They the Skeleton Army would usually black their faces.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they did wear masks, but to let each other
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: other know like who they were, they would wear the
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: color yellow somewhere a lot of times with like a
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: like a ribbon or some kind or a sunflower to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: identify one another. And yeah, it seems like that they
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: were just basically the same people discuss well not you know,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: kind of thinly disguised as the Skeleton Army. And these
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: things would just happen all over the place in England
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: until someone would come in read the Riot Act literally
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: and break it up and say, you know you have
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: to disperse. Now, sometimes that went okay and sometimes it didn't.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Riot Act. I didn't actually know the
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: origin of it, did you. Yeah, Oh, you didn't know
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: English major, So I didn't realize that. So I'm going
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: to explain it to people who didn't realize it either. Okay, no,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: you should. So when you read somebody the Riot Act,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: you're basically like telling them that you don't like how
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: they're acting, and you give them a warning about if
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: they act that way any further, they're going to have
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: their iPhone taken away or something. Right that there is
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: actually a riot Act from seventeen fourteen, the British Riot Act.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: And what you would do is if you were, you know, rioting,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: if you were breaking stuff, if you were a rowdy crowd,
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: the army would come out and read the Riot Act
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: that basically said you got to stop what you're doing
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: and disperse or the army's going to make you disperse. Yeah,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: and if you didn't disperse after reading the Riot Act,
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: then the army would be forced to make you disperse.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: And these the skeleton armies throughout England, I think more
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: than once had the Riot Act read and had the
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Army called out on them because they were rioting so
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: hard against the Salvation Army.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Riot Hard is a great album title for Striper, right, yeah,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: maybe for the new Striper. Are they still together? Did
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: you find that out in your deep dive.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: I don't remember where the last album was, but I'm
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: pretty sure it was in the two thousands, so they
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: might be. I'm not sure, I don't remember. Sorry.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: I could see them still playing shows with like less
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: teased hair, but still sort of long and maybe like
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: a half shaven beard kind of thing.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you remember when we saw D Snyder? Oh?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: I can imagine that they probably look a lot like
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: D Snyder these days compared to how D Snyder used
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: to look.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were on a talk show. This is back
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: when people used to call us for some stuff like that. Weirdly,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: early on we got way more press and like invites
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: to be on TV than we do now. With that,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: I like it now, Oh no, I totally am. I
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: don't want to go.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: I like being put out to pasture.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah I do too, But yeah, D Snyder was also
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: a guest on the show and we and we met
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: him like not in the green room, but like backstage
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: I would say in passing. Yeah, he was going one way.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: We're like, hey, d Snyder just kind of gave us
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: like a heads up. If I remember correctly.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I think, and we were on first and I think
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: our joke at the time was that we opened up
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: for Twisted Sister. Yeah, this last part that we're going
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: to talk about, I don't fully fully understand, to be honest.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: It has to do with the court system and whether
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: or not and peaceful assembly and whether or not you
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: can say, hey, it's a peaceful assembly. If you know
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: you're going there and you're going to egg on people
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: that will react in violence, is that still a peaceful assembly?
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It ties into what I was saying earlier that
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: people used to blame the Salvation Army, including the courts,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: for inciting riots just from doing their thing. So while
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: they were loud and they were singing off key and
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: they were in your face about how you were going
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: to hell, they were still under English law assembling peaceably.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: They weren't breaking stuff, they weren't breaking they weren't breaking
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: any laws. They weren't hurting anybody like physically or anything
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: like that. So technically it was a peaceable assembly, but
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: because almost invariably in some of these towns, when they
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: showed up and did their thing, a riot would break out.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: The Salvation Army was held responsible in the courts for
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: triggering riots, and they're like, you can't assemble anymore because
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: you incite riots your very presence. And finally, some appellate
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: court in the United Kingdom was like, that don't quite
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: track right. They said something like, what has happened here
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: is that an unlawful organization has assumed to itself the
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: right to prevent the appellants and others from lawfully assembling together.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Basically saying that a man may be convicted for doing
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: a lawful act if he knows that his doing it
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: may cause another to do an unlawful act. And the
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: extent of that is that you're not responsible for the
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: act of another person. It's like, if you trigger somebody
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: they punch you in the face, they're in trouble for
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: punching you in the face. You're not in trouble for
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: triggering them. As much as you despise what the person
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: might be saying, and they might be saying it right
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: in your face, you can't hit them. That's breaking the law.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Telling somebody that they're going to hell right in their face,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: it's not breaking the law. And so that actually established
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: precedent in the English speaking world, and I think eighteen
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: sixty eighteen eighty two Beatty versus Gilbanks established that the
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Salvation Army had the right to peaceably assemble even if
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: it triggered riots. And that really kind of led to
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: the idea that you can peaceably assemble even if the
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: people don't want to hear what you have to say
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: and will riot. It's on the rioters, not on you,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: the person provoking them.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think the question since then has been
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: the sort of gray area of what constitutes a peaceful assembly?
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is I mean, yeah, if you're like a
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: young anarchist, are you going to sue the government for
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: breaking up your peaceable assembly? Probably not, So you're really
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: kind of at the mercy of whatever mayor police chief
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: who runs the town that you're assembling in. But there's
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: a law in or there's a case that's set precedent.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy seven, National Socialist Party of America versus
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Village of Skokie, there was a bunch of Chicago Nazis
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: that wanted to march in Skokie where that which had
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: a huge population of Jewish Holocaust survivors, and Skokey said, no,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: you can't do that here in The Nazis sued them
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: and won. They didn't actually ever march, but they won
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: that case. And it is established that no matter how
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: reprehensible your views, you have a right to say them America.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: It's part of your First Amendment rights. And that that
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: is what the Blues Brothers are referencing when they said
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: they hate Illinois Nazis and they drive through that bandstand
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: and make Henry Gibson and his Nazi friends jump into
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: the river. That's what they're talking about, is that? Yeah,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: that case, that's pretty cool. I thought it was pretty
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: cool too. Are you got anything else?
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: I got nothing else? This is good.
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: I thought it was good too. Who was it, Corey?
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: That was from Corey? A great suggestion, Corey.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Great suggestion, Corey. And yes, this was a good one, Chuck.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: Since Chuck said this was a good one, and I agreed,
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's time for listener mail.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this a nice little additional nugget of
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: info from John. Hey, guys, I was listening to the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: episode on the Franklin Expedition. Longtime listener, first time writer.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: By the way, in the episode, you collaborated to make
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: up the pun name for a bad sailor, leadfoot mccan't swim.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't remember that until he wrote it. That was
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: pretty funny, and it brought up a nugget of effect
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I learned a few months ago. I'm not sure if
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: you were making this joke because of this that you
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: knew a lot of sailors back in that time couldn't swim,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: But you were right. Many sailors back in the day
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: couldn't swim for a number of reasons. They ranged from
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: a lack of resources such as warm water and time
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: in which to learn, to the desire of not to
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: prolonged suffering, which might happen if you were to find
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: yourself overboard, like, huh, just go go down. I guess
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: it's pretty hardcore, pretty hardcore. Sadly, stopping a ship or
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: going back to save a sailor did not or could
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: not have happened very often, so drowning might be the
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: fastest and easiest way to go. Picked up this nugget
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: from Peter Stark's book a Storia that covered the origins
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: of Astoria, Oregon being set up as a private trading
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: colony by John jacob Astor in an attempt to monopolize
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: the Pacific fur trade. If you're every running low on topics,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: this would be a great episode. But I don't expect
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: your low, so I plan on hearing about it in
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: about twenty years.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you never know, You never know. Who is great.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: That's from John, He says, thanks for the knowledge.
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you never know, John, thank you for the knowledge.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: We appreciate you a big time.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: That's a good one. Non swimming sailors.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did not see Oregon fur trading coming into
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: that story, but here we are.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Well, if you want to be like John and get
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: in touch with us and make a suggestion for an episode,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: we'd love that kind of thing. You wrap it up,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: spank it on the bottom, and send it off to
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Dot Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.