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The Rum Riot of Portland, Maine · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
0:27
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank
0:30
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. We're talking about riots,
0:35
Speaker 1: not the zoot suit riot which I was thinking about earlier. Right,
0:39
Speaker 1: he has are the only good kind of riots, right,
0:43
Speaker 1: fun kind of riots, you know, speaking of a fun
0:46
Speaker 1: kind of riot. Uh, you know, we've got our own
0:49
Speaker 1: one man riot. Our super producer Max Williams with us
0:53
Speaker 1: as always. I'm Ben, I have never been to Maine, nol.
0:58
Speaker 1: Have you been to Maine? No, it seems like all
1:00
Speaker 1: of our friends are going to Maine lately. Um, our
1:03
Speaker 1: buddy a how Andrew Howard shout out, Um, he grew
1:06
Speaker 1: up in Maine and he was just out there. And
1:08
Speaker 1: then our buddy Sean was just in Maine. And uh
1:11
Speaker 1: and also buddy, our buddy Chuck was just in Maine.
1:13
Speaker 1: Or was seeing all these Instagram pictures of plenty of
1:16
Speaker 1: just lobster rolls for days, drawn butter and whoopee pies.
1:20
Speaker 1: It just seems like a magical land of of of
1:23
Speaker 1: delicious foods. That's what it seems like to me. Yes,
1:26
Speaker 1: and we are now technically back on our show for
1:32
Speaker 1: every state horse. Uh, this I propose will be our
1:36
Speaker 1: main episode. What do you think are you down? Most?
1:39
Speaker 1: Definitely our main episode for the day, you know doing
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Speaker 1: Thank you Max, Thank you man. It's very kind. Yeah, no,
1:49
Speaker 1: it's true Maine, you know, like with an e. I
1:51
Speaker 1: grew up in a town in Georgia called Augusta, and
1:55
Speaker 1: I was always tickled to think there is a sister
1:57
Speaker 1: city to Augusta in Maine called Augusta may And I'm
2:00
Speaker 1: sure there's Augusta's all over elsewhere, but that's the one
2:03
Speaker 1: I also remember from my youth, my friends from Maine,
2:06
Speaker 1: including the infamous Andrew Howard, who does awesome work on
2:11
Speaker 1: our peer podcast Saver. Check it out if you like
2:14
Speaker 1: stories about food, science and culture. Andrew is, like many
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Speaker 1: main Natives, one of the people as a similar question
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Speaker 1: to yours nol Their version is Portland, Oregon versus Portland's Maine,
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Speaker 1: and that's where our story takes place. Today. We're going
2:34
Speaker 1: to meet a guy who's kind of a pill. His
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Speaker 1: name is Mayor Neil Dow and in a way, as
2:41
Speaker 1: we will find today, he often called the Napoleon of Temperance,
2:46
Speaker 1: was one of the primary driving forces for what would
2:50
Speaker 1: eventually become for a short while of federal law banning alcohol.
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Speaker 1: So we're going to figure out how Maine and how
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Speaker 1: something called the rum Riot of eighteen fifty five lad
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Speaker 1: to prohibition, or how it was all wrapped up in
3:09
Speaker 1: this bigger story. Let's so, let's let's go to Let's
3:13
Speaker 1: go to New England. An excellent article by main History
3:17
Speaker 1: helps us get a grasp of the context here. So
3:22
Speaker 1: in like By, there were a lot of changes in
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Speaker 1: religious ideas and cultural attitudes in New England overall, not
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Speaker 1: just Maine. And this led to a lot of reform
3:36
Speaker 1: because you know, there was quite literally a Puritanical society
3:40
Speaker 1: there for some time, and as the more strict views
3:44
Speaker 1: of Puritans began to hold less sway, Protestants started to think,
3:49
Speaker 1: you know what, it's totally possible for any person to
3:55
Speaker 1: reach perfection in their lives and therefore reach paradise after
3:59
Speaker 1: they pass away. So we're gonna reform ourselves. We're gonna
4:02
Speaker 1: reform our communities. We're gonna try to be better people.
4:05
Speaker 1: We're gonna fight for women's suffrage, we're gonna abolish slavery,
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Speaker 1: We're going to try to take care of the less
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Speaker 1: fortunate members of society, and a lot of people took
4:18
Speaker 1: active roles leading these movements. So by the second decade,
4:23
Speaker 1: by eighteen twenty and going forward, New England had a
4:27
Speaker 1: secret Despite these reforms, people were talking about it. New
4:31
Speaker 1: England especially was seen as sort of a focal point
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Speaker 1: for what people believed was America's growing problem with alcohol consumption.
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Speaker 1: And honestly, people drink a lot back then, Like it
4:45
Speaker 1: might surprise you if you accidentally traveled back in time
4:49
Speaker 1: to just see how regularly people are getting souced. We
4:53
Speaker 1: know that, like it's back to the colonial days, right,
4:55
Speaker 1: doesn't surprise me. And even before the colonial days, when
4:58
Speaker 1: like meat or whatever in the medieval time was just
5:01
Speaker 1: a substitute for like filthy water. You know, people were
5:04
Speaker 1: basically just drinking it to to stay hydrated, but also
5:08
Speaker 1: a little counterintuitives, as we know that alcohol dehydrates you.
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Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean apparently they were even like drunk
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Speaker 1: kids kind of like you know, carousing around on the streets.
5:16
Speaker 1: I mean, it was absolute bed lump. I totally understand.
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Speaker 1: But a quick question for you, the idea of temperance, right,
5:23
Speaker 1: temperance doesn't necessarily mean abstinence, temperance just means like measured use, right, uh,
5:29
Speaker 1: temperance you can use things in a temperate way and
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Speaker 1: like a moderate way. But but the Temperance movement had
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Speaker 1: a couple of different positions, sort of on a spectrum.
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Speaker 1: So they would be dedicated to promoting moderate use of alcohol,
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Speaker 1: like hey, have a few drinks at dinner or at
5:51
Speaker 1: a party, but not constantly every day. More often than not, though,
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Speaker 1: the Temperance Movement advocated for teetotally, for complete abstinence from liquor.
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Speaker 1: A bunch of teetotalitarians they were. But again I get it.
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Speaker 1: I mean it was a problem. You know, people were
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Speaker 1: losing their jobs, people were just absolutely kind of like
6:13
Speaker 1: wasting away, and and even like homelessness became. I mean
6:16
Speaker 1: it really was kind of a new, uh, real, real,
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Speaker 1: real problem that was sweeping the country. And children were
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Speaker 1: running around drunk. I know, it's wild. Uh. And and
6:24
Speaker 1: this was a reaction to that. So while maybe at
6:27
Speaker 1: the end of the day there was some overreach happening,
6:30
Speaker 1: I completely understand. And it was associated, like you said, Ben,
6:34
Speaker 1: with stuff like abolitionism and um, women's suffrage. It was
6:38
Speaker 1: just the idea to make the world the country first
6:42
Speaker 1: and foremost a better place. So we started to see
6:45
Speaker 1: groups like the Temperance Watchmen of Durham, Maine popping up.
6:49
Speaker 1: That was one of the first that was formed around
6:51
Speaker 1: eighty eight. And the idea there was just to you know,
6:54
Speaker 1: kind of lived lead by example, become the sort of
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Speaker 1: moral imperative that others would look to to model their
7:00
Speaker 1: lives after, and they would kind of be able to
7:02
Speaker 1: arrest back, you know, control of of the social conditions
7:07
Speaker 1: um that had kind of gone off the rails by
7:09
Speaker 1: encouraging moderation of drinking. So we weren't quite at teetotalitarianism yet,
7:15
Speaker 1: which is the term that I just made up. So
7:17
Speaker 1: by the mid century in Portland, Maine, we've got Neil
7:21
Speaker 1: dow Uh, that is the mayor who we spoke of earlier.
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Speaker 1: He began to adopt a much more aggressive tactic in
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Speaker 1: this battle against alcoholism. He decided he was going to
7:34
Speaker 1: take this to the state House. Uh, and instead of
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Speaker 1: changing people's attitudes by you know, encouraging temperance and leading
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Speaker 1: by example, he was gonna do that thing that we
7:45
Speaker 1: now know never really works super well, um, which was
7:48
Speaker 1: to change the laws and tell people what they could
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Speaker 1: not do so, rather than telling people to maybe drink
7:53
Speaker 1: a little less, he branded all drinkers as rum dealers.
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Speaker 1: That was a a term of abuse that was hurled
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Speaker 1: around at the time. Yeah, this is the thing. Dal
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Speaker 1: went especially hard in the paint here. He quickly left
8:10
Speaker 1: the moderates behind, including people like the governor at the time,
8:13
Speaker 1: William King, who loved a good glass of wine. He
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Speaker 1: founded the first statewide temperance Association. Again this from the
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Speaker 1: main history dot org website. Let's learn a little bit
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Speaker 1: more about Neil all right. So Neil is born to
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Speaker 1: a Quaker family, a pretty well to do Quaker family
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Speaker 1: in Portland, Maine, in March March eighteen o four, and
8:38
Speaker 1: after he gets out of high school he enters his
8:41
Speaker 1: dad's tanning business. It's very common at this time in
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Speaker 1: history for people to join a family business. At the time,
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Speaker 1: Portland's is a booming trade center, and it's known in
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Speaker 1: particular for being involved in the rum trade with the
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Speaker 1: West Indies, and the economic system was something like this.
9:02
Speaker 1: The people of Portland, or the economy of Portland would
9:06
Speaker 1: trade its lumber and the products of its fisheries for
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Speaker 1: rum and molasses. Molasses got turned into rum in these
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Speaker 1: distilleries in Maine. Portland, Maine alone by itself had seven
9:18
Speaker 1: different distilleries. And so you know how you can walk
9:22
Speaker 1: through parts of New York City and you'll see a
9:25
Speaker 1: Starbucks literally every block. That's the situation with booze joints
9:30
Speaker 1: in Portland, Maine in the eighteen hundreds. You couldn't not
9:34
Speaker 1: find a saloon or a tavern on every street. And
9:39
Speaker 1: if you didn't somehow run into a saloon or a tavern,
9:42
Speaker 1: you know, a bar basically, then you could just pop
9:45
Speaker 1: into a grocery store because they would also sell you liquor.
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Speaker 1: And this upset now because he saw he saw this
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Speaker 1: clear correlation between over consumption of alcohol and all sorts
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Speaker 1: of problems in his community. He hated alcohol since day one.
10:01
Speaker 1: This was first day stuff to him. He also hated
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Speaker 1: slavery because he believed that rum and slavery fed off
10:09
Speaker 1: of one another. He had a good point, because rum,
10:13
Speaker 1: the slavery system, and the sugar economy fueled the triangle
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Speaker 1: trade between the Caribbean, the US, and the African continent
10:23
Speaker 1: back then. In general, Americans drink get this three times
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Speaker 1: as much as they do today, which just boggles the mind,
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Speaker 1: how do people get anything done? I can't imagine again,
10:35
Speaker 1: like we said that even back to medieval times when
10:37
Speaker 1: people were just drinking all day every day like as
10:40
Speaker 1: their beverage, I think that they must just develop higher
10:43
Speaker 1: tolerances and also just blast your liver. People died a
10:46
Speaker 1: lot younger in these days too, um so Ben, just
10:49
Speaker 1: just to clarify real quick. So this triangle trade, you know,
10:51
Speaker 1: because that was that was what facilitated the slave trade
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Speaker 1: as well, and because of the roots, correct, that's where
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Speaker 1: the slaves would be taken you know, to the US
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Speaker 1: on those roots, Is that right? Yeah? You can also
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Speaker 1: see this referred to as the colonial molasses trade. This
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Speaker 1: part of it would happen is slave traders based in
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Speaker 1: New England would bring rum to the African continent and
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Speaker 1: they would use that to purchase enslaved people. And then
11:23
Speaker 1: those people who have been enslaved were brought to the
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Speaker 1: West Indies and they were sold to sugarcane plantations where
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Speaker 1: they were forced to work harvesting sugar that made molasses
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Speaker 1: that went to New England into those distilleries, got turned
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Speaker 1: into rum and then sold back on the African continent
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Speaker 1: rents and repeat in god diabolical way. That makes sense.
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Speaker 1: So again, like his heart's in the right place, he's
11:51
Speaker 1: seeing a real problem. Um. That that figures into you know,
11:54
Speaker 1: those kind of like top tier problems that we were addressing,
11:57
Speaker 1: that even the women's temperance movements were addressing. Um. So
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Speaker 1: this is a social justice issue at heart, or at
12:03
Speaker 1: least where his heart is. Maybe he goes a little
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Speaker 1: too hard in the paint, like you said, ben Um,
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Speaker 1: but he becomes known as the Napoleon of temperance. Um
12:14
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty three, by the way, he
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Speaker 1: founded the main Temperance Society, and he was absolutely instrumental
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Speaker 1: in getting the twenty eight gallon law passed in eighty six,
12:24
Speaker 1: according to an author named Kate McCarty, who writes that
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Speaker 1: this law prohibited the sales of alcohol in less than
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Speaker 1: twenty eight gallont quantities to everyone except doctors. H And
12:35
Speaker 1: that meant that the super wealthy could afford to buy alcohol,
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Speaker 1: but the average folks couldn't. So it was, you know,
12:41
Speaker 1: obviously a bit of a classist kind of law, but
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Speaker 1: I would imagine that it definitely, you know, was effective
12:47
Speaker 1: to some degree in the same way as you know,
12:49
Speaker 1: we maybe had folks have folks in bigger cities selling
12:53
Speaker 1: like loose cigarettes, which is totally illegal. Um, you had
12:56
Speaker 1: shops called tippling shops that sold single drinks. That's where
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Speaker 1: the average people would would be getting their booze. But
13:02
Speaker 1: they were always you know, targeted and shut down. And
13:05
Speaker 1: these were essentially like the earlier forms of speakeasies. Well,
13:09
Speaker 1: booze wasn't completely illegal, you couldn't sell it in such
13:12
Speaker 1: small amounts. And he kind of cut his political teeth
13:17
Speaker 1: on policies like this, uh, and became associated, you know,
13:21
Speaker 1: with the temperance movement and what would ultimately become prohibition. Yeah. Yeah, he.
13:28
Speaker 1: I want to share this anecdote because I think it's
13:31
Speaker 1: I think it gives us a glimpse into the workings
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Speaker 1: of the man's mind. Writing for the Irish Times, uh,
13:40
Speaker 1: we found this pretty fascinating and a little bit disturbing
13:46
Speaker 1: instance of just how unmoderate Dal was. Nathan Mannion, in
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Speaker 1: the article The Irish who instigated the Portland's Rum Riots,
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Speaker 1: notes that Dal kneeled Down hated alcohol so much that
14:02
Speaker 1: when he was promoted to fire chief once upon a time,
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Speaker 1: he let the local liquor store burn to the ground.
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Speaker 1: Instead of putting out the fire, he just watched it blaze.
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Speaker 1: This guy was not playing around, and his stance found support.
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Speaker 1: He was elected the mayor of Portland, Maine, in eighteen
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Speaker 1: fifty one, and as soon as he became mayor, he
14:34
Speaker 1: went to the state legislature of Maine and persuaded them
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Speaker 1: to pass a prohibition law. This means that Maine becomes
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Speaker 1: the very first state in the Union to ban alcohol.
14:48
Speaker 1: Like you said, there was a bit of class and
14:50
Speaker 1: classicism wrapped up in the way this law was applied.
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Speaker 1: There were exceptions. You could buy or sell alcohol for medical,
14:58
Speaker 1: mechanical or manifest acturing purposes, and if you wanted to
15:02
Speaker 1: do any of that, you had to have a special
15:04
Speaker 1: license that exempted you from the you know, the hoi
15:07
Speaker 1: polloi who would just be using alcohol recreationally. So that
15:12
Speaker 1: was downright draconian about this. He went to the people,
15:16
Speaker 1: the good alcohol business folk of Portland's and he said, look,
15:20
Speaker 1: you got two weeks to sell your alcohol out of
15:24
Speaker 1: this state before we start cracking down. Other states caught on,
15:29
Speaker 1: Massachusetts says, hey, that's a pretty good idea. Let's model
15:32
Speaker 1: our own reforms after what they're doing in Maine. So
15:37
Speaker 1: in a way, as main History notes, the States seemed
15:41
Speaker 1: to be living up to its motto, which I did
15:43
Speaker 1: not know. I don't know if you guys knew this motto,
15:46
Speaker 1: diriggio I lead. What is deriggio? Is that like excelsior,
15:51
Speaker 1: Like this is one of these weird words that only
15:53
Speaker 1: gets thrown around by eccentric billionaires. Yeah, it's Latin. It
15:56
Speaker 1: means I direct or, I guide. Excelsior is Latin two
16:00
Speaker 1: in them. Yes, excelsior it's Latin for higher. So this
16:06
Speaker 1: is where the guy earns his nickname, the Napoleon of Temperance,
16:11
Speaker 1: and he starts promoting his approach, his no excuses, hard
16:17
Speaker 1: nosed approach to prohibition, both across the country and across
16:21
Speaker 1: the world. But here's the thing. If you've listened to
16:25
Speaker 1: our earlier episodes on Prohibition stories, or if you've checked
16:29
Speaker 1: out some of the stuff on stuff they don't want
16:32
Speaker 1: you to know about the shenanigans the US government and
16:36
Speaker 1: organized crime got up to during alcohol Prohibition, you know
16:40
Speaker 1: that making laws like this don't really work. And that's
16:45
Speaker 1: not a moral point. It's just that the main law,
16:49
Speaker 1: like the later National Prohibition Law, didn't stop everyone from drinking.
16:54
Speaker 1: People in Maine found ways around it. In Smithsonian, Katschner
17:00
Speaker 1: specifically cites a article in the Portland's Press Herald by
17:04
Speaker 1: Kelly Bouchard, and Bouchard goes deep into how people got
17:10
Speaker 1: around this law. Some folks would just brew booze at home.
17:14
Speaker 1: That wasn't uncommon at all, and they would sell it
17:17
Speaker 1: to their neighbors out of their kitchens. Farmers, if they
17:21
Speaker 1: had a surplus of fruit, would make hard cider or wine.
17:25
Speaker 1: And when people were given fines for violating the law,
17:30
Speaker 1: they just treated it as a business expense. You know,
17:34
Speaker 1: what's that old saying. I ran into it again recently
17:37
Speaker 1: and I thought about how true it is. If the
17:40
Speaker 1: punishment for a crime is a fine, Is that then
17:45
Speaker 1: not a law that only applies to the poor exactly?
17:49
Speaker 1: Is um? And I understand It's It's a tricky thing
17:52
Speaker 1: to discuss, Isn't it bad? Because the most visible folks
17:57
Speaker 1: that are experiencing negative comes because of alcohol consumption are
18:02
Speaker 1: the poor. You know, They're the ones that are in
18:04
Speaker 1: the street, They're the ones that are getting into fights.
18:06
Speaker 1: They're the ones that are potentially, you know, causing mayhem.
18:10
Speaker 1: You know, Um, and in the most visible ways. But
18:13
Speaker 1: you know, the folks that are drinking behind closed doors
18:16
Speaker 1: perhaps and abusing their spouses maybe or just maybe even
18:21
Speaker 1: their children, they're gonna be the ones that are able to,
18:24
Speaker 1: you know, keep it indoors and then be a little
18:26
Speaker 1: more shielded from that kind of thing. It makes sense,
18:29
Speaker 1: on the one hand, from like a very kind of
18:31
Speaker 1: primitive way of of addressing a problem like this. It's
18:35
Speaker 1: something that we still see today. Uh, folks that are
18:37
Speaker 1: more wealthy and more powerful are able to kind of
18:40
Speaker 1: keep doing whatever they want um for the most part,
18:43
Speaker 1: behind closed doors, even if there's a law that that's
18:45
Speaker 1: supposedly supposed to affect everyone the same. Yeah, exactly. It's
18:49
Speaker 1: always laws for the but not for me, as people say.
18:53
Speaker 1: And it's weird because some of the first non Yankee
18:57
Speaker 1: fortunes came from brewing right or from the hundreds and
19:02
Speaker 1: hundreds of kitchen bars that appeared after about eighteen fifty one,
19:07
Speaker 1: and the growing middle class still enjoyed an occasional drink.
19:12
Speaker 1: But because the growing middle class was largely a Yankee demographic,
19:16
Speaker 1: they started to look at what they viewed as excessive
19:20
Speaker 1: drinking to be a hallmark of foreigners, or a problem
19:25
Speaker 1: with the utes, the youths, or a problem with lower
19:29
Speaker 1: class people. Dow, we've painted him in a somewhat sympathetic,
19:35
Speaker 1: if driven light. He's against the dangers of widespread alcohol abuse. Check.
19:41
Speaker 1: People can't agree with that. He's against the horrors and
19:44
Speaker 1: atrocities of slavery. Check. I think we can all agree
19:48
Speaker 1: with that. He was also, however, opposed to immigration, especially
19:53
Speaker 1: immigration from Ireland and Portland. Maine in particular had a
20:00
Speaker 1: pretty sizeable population of Irish immigrants. They could tell that
20:05
Speaker 1: he had beef. They were definitely feeling the crunch because
20:12
Speaker 1: this law disproportionately impact this part of the population. Like
20:18
Speaker 1: you said, he had that two week grace period right
20:20
Speaker 1: after the legislation goes through, And during that two week
20:25
Speaker 1: grace period, all the bars, the public houses, saloons, taverns, distilleries,
20:30
Speaker 1: you name it. They get shut down and the only
20:33
Speaker 1: things left, the only outfits left selling booze, are a
20:38
Speaker 1: small number of illegal things called grog shops. I don't
20:42
Speaker 1: know how I feel about that work. Well, yeah, grog,
20:46
Speaker 1: it's funny. Grog, if I'm not mistaken, is specifically refers
20:49
Speaker 1: to a concoction made with rum. Um. A grog is
20:53
Speaker 1: like there there are tinky drinks with grog in the name,
20:57
Speaker 1: which often consists of rum and other um alcohols you know,
21:01
Speaker 1: mixed with some sort of fruit juice and all of that. UM.
21:04
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's true. And this was these were the
21:06
Speaker 1: places where working class and immigrant um communities would hang out.
21:11
Speaker 1: And it was you know, these were like more localized
21:14
Speaker 1: in their neighborhoods UM. And so it essentially was by
21:17
Speaker 1: targeting these after hours grog shops. Uh, they were targeting
21:21
Speaker 1: those communities as well. And not to mention that around
21:24
Speaker 1: eleven percent of the entire city's population were Irish immigrants,
21:28
Speaker 1: and that's around twenty one thousand people. Uh. And they
21:31
Speaker 1: were you know, fleeing their homeland because of the uh
21:35
Speaker 1: the famine, um, the Great Famine. So they were essentially
21:39
Speaker 1: you know, coming for a better life um. And they
21:42
Speaker 1: lived in an area called Munjoy Hill, which was a
21:45
Speaker 1: little bit worse for wear and felt like a slum
21:47
Speaker 1: kind of you know, especially to the police and lawmakers.
21:51
Speaker 1: And this was like ground zero for searching for all
21:55
Speaker 1: of this contraband liquor. But again, it was like a
21:57
Speaker 1: de facto kind of targeting of immigrants. Yeah, yeah, very
22:02
Speaker 1: much so. And you know, life is tough for a
22:05
Speaker 1: lot of these folks who have immigrated around twenty one
22:08
Speaker 1: thousand people at the time. A lot of these folks
22:10
Speaker 1: had survived the Great Famine and made it out and
22:15
Speaker 1: made it to the US. I'm just saying, like I
22:19
Speaker 1: wouldn't I wouldn't fall into the into the error of
22:24
Speaker 1: stereotyping these folks as like a bunch of raging drunkards,
22:27
Speaker 1: you know, which Dal definitely did. They weren't. They were.
22:30
Speaker 1: They were people making a living like anyone else. I
22:34
Speaker 1: want to I want to double back, really because I
22:36
Speaker 1: you you're definitely right, and just want to clarify what
22:38
Speaker 1: I said earlier. I wasn't implying that like all poor
22:40
Speaker 1: people were carousing drunken in the streets. I was just
22:43
Speaker 1: saying that, like they were maybe the most visible, the
22:46
Speaker 1: ones that were problematic would likely be from poorer populations,
22:52
Speaker 1: yet would therefore maybe be the most visible and therefore
22:55
Speaker 1: be seen as the root of the problem, And the
22:57
Speaker 1: richies that could get drunk behind closed wars would not
23:00
Speaker 1: be as visible and would not maybe be lumped in
23:03
Speaker 1: with that for other reasons too. But that was what
23:04
Speaker 1: I was getting. What I'm pointing out is that dow
23:07
Speaker 1: was racist. That's what I'm pointing out. So he completely agreed.
23:14
Speaker 1: He in fact this the sidebars getting to. He in
23:18
Speaker 1: fact later went to Ireland himself and he said, this
23:24
Speaker 1: a glorious country, Ireland is, but the people are reduced
23:27
Speaker 1: to a condition of the most extreme poverty, largely by whiskey.
23:32
Speaker 1: So at the very least he is oversimplifying a very
23:36
Speaker 1: complicated situation. This was consistent though he wasn't switching sides.
23:43
Speaker 1: This was almost identical to public statements he had made
23:46
Speaker 1: in Portland while he was campaigning, and he he had this,
23:50
Speaker 1: he popularized this trope, this idea of a liquor swilling foreigner. Again,
23:56
Speaker 1: as reported by Irish Times, it was his stereotype. Um,
24:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, it reminded me of that
24:06
Speaker 1: eighties stereotype of the so called welfare queen that didn't
24:10
Speaker 1: really hold up to scrutiny and his his stereotype completely
24:16
Speaker 1: ignored the fact that more than three million Irish people
24:21
Speaker 1: twenty years ago had subscribed to a different abstinence society,
24:26
Speaker 1: one called Friar Matthews, and many of those folks later
24:30
Speaker 1: moved to the US and we're fighting for the temperance
24:33
Speaker 1: movement in the United States. But they didn't agree with
24:37
Speaker 1: dal necessarily because they said, look, if you want people
24:40
Speaker 1: to abstain from drinking or abstain from hard liquor, you
24:45
Speaker 1: should help them do it of their own free will
24:48
Speaker 1: instead of coercing them. And so these folks and many
24:52
Speaker 1: other folks honestly were turned off by what they saw
24:55
Speaker 1: as Dao's lack of what would you call it compassion,
24:58
Speaker 1: empathy or is hardline approach. They thought he was alienating
25:03
Speaker 1: more people when he could be helping them. Absolutely, and
25:07
Speaker 1: I mean it's very clear from what you just said, Ben,
25:09
Speaker 1: that these were that this was an unfair stereotype and
25:12
Speaker 1: that there you know that, just like any other group
25:15
Speaker 1: of people, it contains multitudes, and three million of those
25:18
Speaker 1: multitudes were folks that wanted to support abstinence or at
25:22
Speaker 1: the very least, temperance, right. But it's so important to
25:25
Speaker 1: to make that distinction. But we we've seen time and
25:27
Speaker 1: time again and things like the War on drugs and
25:29
Speaker 1: what ultimately became the huge national embarrassment that was abstinence.
25:34
Speaker 1: It just doesn't work when you tell people what they
25:37
Speaker 1: can't do. It's much better to give people the tools
25:39
Speaker 1: they need to do for themselves and to fix themselves
25:43
Speaker 1: and to lead better lives rather than to completely banned
25:47
Speaker 1: something because a people that want to do what they
25:49
Speaker 1: want to do are going to figure out a way
25:51
Speaker 1: to do it. And if you make it more difficult
25:53
Speaker 1: to do, that's when you start seeing the criminal element
25:55
Speaker 1: sneak in. That's like when you start seeing things like
25:57
Speaker 1: with prohibition, what the government like reasoned a bunch of
26:01
Speaker 1: alcohol with like methanol m I think, and then you
26:04
Speaker 1: start seeing people getting killed and getting out of hand.
26:07
Speaker 1: It's like what we see today with you know, tainted
26:09
Speaker 1: drugs on the street. It just doesn't work. And it
26:12
Speaker 1: also leads to simmering resentment for those that uh seek
26:17
Speaker 1: to kind of impose these type of draconian measures on folks.
26:21
Speaker 1: And that's when we get to Dow's reelection campaign in
26:25
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two. He lost because you know, Irish people
26:30
Speaker 1: can vote too, and he blamed it on them, uh,
26:34
Speaker 1: supposedly illegal voting by Irish does it sure does sound
26:42
Speaker 1: real familiar, not even from that distant history, right like
26:46
Speaker 1: maybe like less than a year ago. And this is
26:49
Speaker 1: all documented very meticulously in a nineteen sixty one book
26:54
Speaker 1: by Frank Byrne called Profit of Prohibition. Kneeled down his crusade.
26:58
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, okay, so we promised you are riot folks,
27:03
Speaker 1: and and here we go. Dow does get re elected.
27:13
Speaker 1: He loses that first reelection campaign in fifty two, but
27:18
Speaker 1: in fifty five he is elected again. He's only in
27:22
Speaker 1: office for about two months before the Portland's rum Riot occurs.
27:28
Speaker 1: The rum Riot goes down on June two, eighteen fifty five.
27:32
Speaker 1: It involves a lot of Irish and German residents of Portland's.
27:38
Speaker 1: They felt unfairly targeted by the prohibition law, and they
27:42
Speaker 1: learned that Dow had stored sixteen hundred dollars worth of
27:48
Speaker 1: alcohol in a vault under city Hall. And I gotta
27:52
Speaker 1: say this, I listened to a lot of MPR. I
27:56
Speaker 1: love it. And ever since I was a kid, there's
27:58
Speaker 1: always this report, you know, when they do the numbers
28:02
Speaker 1: and uh they talked about how the Dow is up
28:05
Speaker 1: or down. And I was when I was really young,
28:08
Speaker 1: I for some reason was convinced that it was like
28:12
Speaker 1: the spiritual idea, like the Doo, the Tao of of Pooh,
28:18
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I really thought it was I
28:21
Speaker 1: thought it was that for a long time. And again
28:23
Speaker 1: I was very young, and I thought, well, that's so
28:26
Speaker 1: nice that they have a spiritual focus. I was wrong.
28:29
Speaker 1: They're talking about the DJOS stock market. But I I
28:33
Speaker 1: just bring that up because it's it's knocking around in
28:35
Speaker 1: my head. And this is also where this Dow, this
28:38
Speaker 1: version of the Taos starts to go down. So they're
28:43
Speaker 1: not happy about this, these folks who feel like they've
28:45
Speaker 1: been targeted. There's a small fortune worth of booze just
28:50
Speaker 1: under lock and key in city hall. Do you understand why?
28:53
Speaker 1: Because in my mind, you know, like the most uh
28:57
Speaker 1: inflammatory version of the story is the Dow was act
29:00
Speaker 1: like a total hypocrite, was a secret lush that would
29:02
Speaker 1: have been amazing. I do not think that is what
29:04
Speaker 1: was the case. But why store all this booze? Because
29:08
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there was a law that allowed
29:10
Speaker 1: for the storage of booze for medicinal purposes, but even
29:14
Speaker 1: that seems really vague and mechanical. Alcohol. Yes, so he
29:18
Speaker 1: had earlier in spring of the same year, he had
29:23
Speaker 1: authorized the City of Portland to purchase this sixteen hundred
29:27
Speaker 1: dollars worth of alcohol purely or officially we would say,
29:32
Speaker 1: for distribution to doctors and pharmacies. And he did this unilaterally,
29:39
Speaker 1: not through a committee, which means that technically speaking, he
29:43
Speaker 1: broke the laws that he himself supported. And this was
29:47
Speaker 1: the real hypocrisy to the Irish population at the time
29:52
Speaker 1: in Maine. This is this is pretty interesting. I don't
29:55
Speaker 1: know what you guys think about this, but at the
29:57
Speaker 1: time in Maine, any three random citizens could vultron up
30:03
Speaker 1: or you know, just team up, make a supergroup, go
30:06
Speaker 1: to a judge and ask for a search warrant if
30:09
Speaker 1: they believed any crime in being committed. So if you
30:13
Speaker 1: were listening and you dear ridiculous historian or hanging out
30:17
Speaker 1: with Max Noel and yours truly in Maine in this time,
30:21
Speaker 1: then we wouldn't even need all four of us. We
30:23
Speaker 1: could just get together and say, hey, hey, uh do
30:28
Speaker 1: our Scooby Doo kids impression, like, hey, I think there's
30:31
Speaker 1: a crime going on, Let's go find a judge. That's
30:34
Speaker 1: nuts that you could do that. I I can't believe
30:37
Speaker 1: people didn't abuse that power. It's almost like that thing
30:40
Speaker 1: with the pottery, you know, with the with the Greeks
30:43
Speaker 1: or rather ostracism, like it didn't take Uh, it didn't
30:46
Speaker 1: take a huge majority to to make that happen. Uh.
30:50
Speaker 1: And it was, as we know, as we found out
30:52
Speaker 1: that episode abused from time to time. So uh, this
30:56
Speaker 1: escalated and on June the second, they Irish representatives asked
31:00
Speaker 1: for and received a search warrant from that local judge,
31:04
Speaker 1: and then that very same day a small crowd started
31:06
Speaker 1: to gather outside of city hall. Um. The men showed
31:10
Speaker 1: the warrant at the door and were had to be
31:14
Speaker 1: allowed in to search the premises, and the police initially
31:18
Speaker 1: refused them, which was you know, that's not how the
31:21
Speaker 1: law works. It's a weird law though, and it been
31:23
Speaker 1: itself seems very very unorthodox. Yeah, it is very unorthodox.
31:27
Speaker 1: It's a good way to put it. And DALs violation.
31:32
Speaker 1: You know, it was not not the end of the world.
31:34
Speaker 1: It was a technical violation. But if you were someone
31:39
Speaker 1: who wanted to buy liquor in this place and you couldn't,
31:41
Speaker 1: you can understand how this seems like a smoking gun
31:44
Speaker 1: of hypocrisy. There's even uh an excerpt from a local
31:49
Speaker 1: newspaper at the time. It's got great snark. We found
31:52
Speaker 1: this through the work of a j Herman who wrote
31:56
Speaker 1: a paper called demon Rum Devious Politics. The paper called
32:01
Speaker 1: upon the citizens of Portland, by virtue of Neil Dow's law,
32:06
Speaker 1: to steal Neil Dow's liquors and pour them into the street.
32:10
Speaker 1: And people were like, hey, he's breaking his own law.
32:13
Speaker 1: Forget this guy, and uh. As they were as they
32:17
Speaker 1: were gathered, like you said, the crowd started to grow
32:21
Speaker 1: and grow and grow, mostly Irish people, but not all
32:25
Speaker 1: Irish people. And then they started throwing rocks at the
32:30
Speaker 1: building at city Hall. And the report from the Eastern
32:34
Speaker 1: Arcus said that occasionally during the evening, stones and brick
32:38
Speaker 1: bats were thrown against the door of the liquor store
32:41
Speaker 1: parentheses the storage arean City Hall, breaking the glass and
32:45
Speaker 1: sashes and otherwise injuring the door. And DW calls out
32:49
Speaker 1: the militia, and he doesn't play around at all. He
32:52
Speaker 1: doesn't try to talk to people. He just orders them
32:54
Speaker 1: to shoot into the crowd. This is quickly going sideways.
32:59
Speaker 1: There is a twenty two year old sailor named John
33:02
Speaker 1: Robbins from dear Isle who breaks a hole in the
33:06
Speaker 1: door of the liquor vault, unlocks it and is instantly
33:10
Speaker 1: killed in a volley of gunfire. The crowd is dispersing
33:15
Speaker 1: because you know, people generally speaking don't want to die,
33:18
Speaker 1: but the militia continues to fire and so seven more
33:22
Speaker 1: people are injured. On a tragic historic footnote, poor young
33:27
Speaker 1: John Robbins was set to get married the very next
33:30
Speaker 1: day and never made it sad and this is ultimately
33:35
Speaker 1: what led to the dow going down, yep, way down.
33:40
Speaker 1: He became kind of a pariah. I mean, he was
33:42
Speaker 1: definitely seen as the villain in this because he ordered
33:45
Speaker 1: the militia to shoot into the crowd, and he clearly
33:48
Speaker 1: had no remorse for what he had done. Uh and
33:51
Speaker 1: for the part that he played in escalating this riot,
33:54
Speaker 1: rather than you know, maybe you know, using some rhetoric
33:57
Speaker 1: to kind of chill things out a little bit. But
33:59
Speaker 1: this guy's see like he was a creature of extremes.
34:02
Speaker 1: Uh So, this very much feels within his character. And
34:05
Speaker 1: he looked at all, like you said, throughout his political career,
34:08
Speaker 1: he seemed to look at these folks immigrants largely. Maybe
34:12
Speaker 1: it was through the lens of of considering them degenerate drunks,
34:16
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, it was just
34:17
Speaker 1: a reason for him to kind of other people, you know,
34:22
Speaker 1: and he at the end of the day was, like
34:24
Speaker 1: you said, just a racist and a xenophobe. He was
34:27
Speaker 1: ultimately acquitted of the charges that he'd obtained this alcohol illegally,
34:32
Speaker 1: but surprise, surprise, he lost reelection by quite a wide margin. Yeah,
34:39
Speaker 1: don't true, your constituents exactly, don't do that. It's bad,
34:43
Speaker 1: bad look. Um and uh, surprise surprise again. About a
34:47
Speaker 1: year later, Maine repealed these draconian prohibition laws. Then, in
34:52
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one, at the age of fifty seven, dw
34:56
Speaker 1: enlisted as a colonel in the thirteenth Main Infantry to
35:00
Speaker 1: fight in the Civil War. Um, he they're kind of
35:04
Speaker 1: maybe got his dream came true. He was wounded, captured,
35:08
Speaker 1: and then became a general, So he repaired his reputation
35:12
Speaker 1: a bit. It did repair his reputation to some degree.
35:15
Speaker 1: It was sort of a you know, even though the
35:17
Speaker 1: rum riot obviously a big deal locally, wasn't nearly as
35:21
Speaker 1: big a story as you know, be becoming a war
35:24
Speaker 1: hero injured in the line of duty. He did return
35:27
Speaker 1: to to Maine and he never held public office again,
35:30
Speaker 1: though he did try to run for governor and for
35:33
Speaker 1: the presidency of the US on the prohibition ticket, and
35:38
Speaker 1: he continued to push for prohibition for the rest of
35:41
Speaker 1: his life until he died at the ripe old age
35:44
Speaker 1: of ninety three, uh in eighteen seven. I've got a
35:49
Speaker 1: little bit of political advice for all our aspiring officials,
35:53
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. Generally speaking, if you want to be
35:59
Speaker 1: successful in winning over hearts and minds, it's good to
36:04
Speaker 1: stand for something. It's good to run for something instead
36:08
Speaker 1: of against something. And running on one issue doesn't always
36:14
Speaker 1: cut the mustard or dilute the rum. That's what grog was,
36:18
Speaker 1: by the way, Originally it was rum diluted with water
36:21
Speaker 1: naval drink. Weird exactly the episode on it, but exactly
36:26
Speaker 1: I'm used to hearing it in a tiki drink names.
36:29
Speaker 1: You're right, absolutely was like Pirates of the Caribbean type
36:32
Speaker 1: total references. So so this is this is the thing.
36:36
Speaker 1: Because he is only running on an oppositional platform, and
36:41
Speaker 1: because you know, he authorized militia to fire on civilians.
36:47
Speaker 1: He never attains office again, as he said, but he
36:50
Speaker 1: did leave a legacy because means prohibition experiment was a harbinger,
36:58
Speaker 1: was foreshadowing and what would later layout across the United States.
37:02
Speaker 1: I almost said the United Nations keep it in max.
37:06
Speaker 1: It will play out after the eight Amendment is added
37:11
Speaker 1: to the U. S Constitution, and tons and tons and
37:14
Speaker 1: tons of people will go on to try to find
37:18
Speaker 1: ways to get around the restrictions, ways to dodge the law.
37:23
Speaker 1: We see a renaissance, a golden age for organized crime.
37:28
Speaker 1: People make fortunes off bootlegging. One of my favorite examples
37:33
Speaker 1: I think was the the grape juice concentrate that was
37:37
Speaker 1: sold to people. You guys, it was sold to people,
37:40
Speaker 1: and it had instructions on it that essentially said, do
37:44
Speaker 1: not do the following things because if you do, it
37:48
Speaker 1: will create wine. Okay, streight, which is basically instructions for
37:53
Speaker 1: how to me. Now, of course everyone's going to do
37:56
Speaker 1: the thing. Don't unfold it and do the following things
38:01
Speaker 1: because you might accidentally sleep in it. Right. So it's
38:07
Speaker 1: like if you get pills that say taking these while
38:09
Speaker 1: drinking alcohol may cause drowsiness. Uh, please don't operate a
38:13
Speaker 1: motor vehicle. That's how you know, those are the fun ones.
38:16
Speaker 1: That's what people tell me. That's what people tell me.
38:19
Speaker 1: But this, this story is often forgotten. I think when
38:24
Speaker 1: people look at the larger problems of caused by prohibition,
38:29
Speaker 1: whether or not you yourself enjoy a tipple now and then,
38:33
Speaker 1: The fact is that there were a lot of serious,
38:38
Speaker 1: serious issues with the way the concept of prohibition was
38:42
Speaker 1: rolled out, but in the mind of its supporters, they
38:46
Speaker 1: were combating likewise incredibly serious problems in society. If you
38:52
Speaker 1: want to learn more about the temperance policy, the concept,
38:56
Speaker 1: then you can head up to Norway, May where temperance
39:01
Speaker 1: is alive and well at a little two room place
39:05
Speaker 1: called the Weary Club. W e a r y like
39:09
Speaker 1: igree We yes, I grew weary of this episode. Uh no,
39:13
Speaker 1: it's a good one. It's a very good episode. And
39:15
Speaker 1: I think we definitely have a trip to Maine. Do
39:17
Speaker 1: I don't think either one of us have been to Maine.
39:19
Speaker 1: Matt Max, have you been to Maine? I have not?
39:21
Speaker 1: Is on my list, I hear it's like the most
39:23
Speaker 1: beautiful state ever, So yeah, on my list. Like I said,
39:26
Speaker 1: our buddy Sean was posting pictures from like a botanical
39:29
Speaker 1: garden main that had all these beautifulures, like statues of
39:33
Speaker 1: like elves and stuff and like really cool looking place.
39:37
Speaker 1: And again the lot you had me at the lobster rolls,
39:40
Speaker 1: so definitely have that on my agenda. I'm probably gonna
39:42
Speaker 1: head up to me. You know, I don't know if
39:44
Speaker 1: I can ship lobster rolls, but i'll I'll definitely send
39:48
Speaker 1: you guys some pictures. Actually, I have a friend I've
39:51
Speaker 1: connected with in Rhode Island over the pandemic who is
39:55
Speaker 1: a lobster fisherman, So lobsterman, a lobsterman, yes, and crab
40:01
Speaker 1: and and a couple of other things. So, dude, if
40:03
Speaker 1: you're listening, hook us up. It's tough to get good
40:06
Speaker 1: seafood here in Atlanta. Any advice greatly appreciated and uh
40:11
Speaker 1: greatly welcomed. While we're thanking people, thank you as always
40:15
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in, folks. Thanks to the one
40:18
Speaker 1: and only Mr Max Williams, who very soon is bound
40:22
Speaker 1: for some adventures of his own. Hope you have a
40:26
Speaker 1: kick ass time, Max, uh. And also thanks to your
40:30
Speaker 1: brother Alex, who composed this slapping track that's probably playing now.
40:34
Speaker 1: Is it playing now, people in the curtain, We can't
40:36
Speaker 1: hear when it starts. It's definitely playing in our hearts,
40:40
Speaker 1: definitely playing also on this track right now, Okay, good
40:43
Speaker 1: to know. Good to Christopher Haciotes here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland,
40:47
Speaker 1: the quis Star. Definitely due back for a for a
40:50
Speaker 1: popping soon. Uh foreshadowing there, and you Ben, my friend.
40:55
Speaker 1: I hope we can one day adventure to main together. Yes.
40:58
Speaker 1: In fact, we'll be in a bit of an adventure
41:02
Speaker 1: this weekend, Noel, because I am officiating a wedding and
41:06
Speaker 1: you were probably gonna be at that wedding. I am
41:08
Speaker 1: definitely gonna be there, and I've heard a little bit
41:10
Speaker 1: about this officiation in question, and I'm very excited to
41:14
Speaker 1: tell hopefully in my very good things. No I'm very
41:17
Speaker 1: excited to hang with you and some of our best
41:19
Speaker 1: friends in my hometown of Augusta that I mentioned at
41:23
Speaker 1: the top of the show. Not Augusta, Maine, Augusta, Georgia.
41:26
Speaker 1: And we want to hear from you. As always, hit
41:29
Speaker 1: us up on Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. You can also
41:32
Speaker 1: follow us as not just the show, but as individuals.
41:36
Speaker 1: I am at Ben Bulan on Instagram. Bow l I
41:39
Speaker 1: n and uh what about you know? Oh, you can
41:42
Speaker 1: find me exclusively on Instagram where I am at how now,
41:45
Speaker 1: Noel Brown Max, are you still on Instagram as Braves hater. No,
41:49
Speaker 1: I am actually not on Instagram, but if anyone does
41:51
Speaker 1: want to follow me, retwreet a lot us about the
41:54
Speaker 1: Braves podcast and Star Trek, you can follow me at
41:57
Speaker 1: at a p L underscore Max Williams. It's just on
42:00
Speaker 1: Twitter and that is on Twitter. Got it all right,
42:04
Speaker 1: duly noted. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
42:16
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
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Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,