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DDH - The Emperor of The United States · Plausibly Live - The Dave Bowman Show Podcast

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  History is strange, it's alien, and it won't give us what we
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  would like to have. You have a tower three on a
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  Tuesday. This one happens to be the 4th
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  of February 2025. It's Dave does history on Bill
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  Mclay. Dave Bowman is with us.
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  Headline at the show page at billmick.com is an FBI deep
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  dive. We live there in our second
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  hour. You can always pick it up or
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  anything else we've done in our podcast section at billmick.com
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  and on the Bill Mick Live iHeartRadio channel there for
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  you. First 3 links you will see on
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  the show page today once you open it, The Dave Bowman Show,
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  What the Frock, Dave's podcast with Rod Cook every Sunday and
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  Dave does history. So there's links there for you
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  to make it easy for you to connect with Dave Bowman.
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  Dave, where are we going when Dave does history this morning?
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  So at one point in my varied career, I was invited to speak
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  at the local cemetery there in Modesto, CA.
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  Now one of the sections of the cemetery is reserved for
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  veterans of the Union Army during the Civil War.
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  Now, obviously there aren't any of those left anymore, but
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  through the years, many Army veterans, Union Union Army
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  veterans had been buried there. And the local Civil War
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  association, because there was one in in Stanislaw County, had
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  managed to obtain bill a Civil War era cannon.
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  And they wanted to place this cannon.
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  They did place the cannon in the cemetery and they wanted to
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  dedicate it. And I was invited as something
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  of a Civil War buff to to make some brief appropriate remarks
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  at the dedication. And it was, it was a very
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  interesting experience. Of course, the the cemetery is
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  filled with Union Army veterans who had come to California after
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  the war, to Central Valley, where they had made their lives.
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  And you know, when you wander through a cemetery like that,
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  you kind of wonder, what's the story of this guy?
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  Why did he, why did he come here?
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  What did he do? And all those kind of things
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  are, are going through your mind.
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  But for me, this dedication, this Canon, preserving their
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  memories, it it's a way of bringing them back to life and
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  enjoying their stories. In the in the crowd.
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  There was of course, the the Stanislaw Civil War History
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  Association. There was many of my listeners
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  were there. But in the back of the group was
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  AI would call them a clump of men who were dressed.
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  They all had red shirts on and let's just call them various
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  styles of western hats, everything from Beaver pelts to
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  standard cowboy hats. See anything you can.
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  If you've seen it in a western movie, it was there.
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  I love Little Joe's hat from Bonanza.
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  I want that hat. So, but they're all wearing
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  these red shirts and they were bouncing up and down.
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  They were a little hyper, I guess.
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  And as I finished my remarks, there was a shout from one of
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  these men. Now it sounded to me that he
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  said how? Says the King.
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  But I was told later that wasn't what he said.
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  So I don't know what he actually said.
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  But the reply from the group was a unison loud shout of a single
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  word, satisfactory. That was the answer to whatever
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  question he had asked them. And that was my introduction to
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  a group that calls themselves a quote, historical drinking
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  society, or possibly a drinking Historical Society.
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  There are a group of people who are dedicated to preserving
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  Western history, albeit primarily California.
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  They're known for their rowdiness, their drinking, and
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  their dedication to building monuments to pretty much
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  anything and everything event wise that ever took place in the
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  West. Oh, and and drinking while
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  they're doing it. OK.
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  They are a group whose motto is, and I quote credoquia absurdum.
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  I believe it because it is absurd and their spirit animal.
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  Their spirit leader is a guy by the name of Joshua Norton, who
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  was born on February 4th, 1818 in Deptford, England and who
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  made his way to California, who would go on to become one of the
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  most absurd figures in all of American history and our
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  self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States.
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  And we explore it when we continue in 60 seconds on Bill
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  Mick Live. You know, Dave, from my time in
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  Modesto and Oakdale, but it's things like this that make that
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  region interesting. And the Testicle Festival, which
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  would be totally different if it were held in San Francisco and
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  not Oakdale. But it was a great event.
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  The parade, the the town, just the revelry around it.
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  And now you're taking this to Joshua Norton, whose legacy
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  lives on because of these kind of events in the Central Valley,
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  CA. What's interesting about that,
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  Bill, is that when I discovered this story of Edward Norton, I
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  mentioned it on the air one day. And my producer at the time, who
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  was also, by the way, one of the leading members of the group
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  that puts on the Testicle Festival, you know, looked at me
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  and said, did you not see me over there?
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  I was in the, I was in this group known as the Clampers.
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  So the the group is called the Clampers E Victus, E Clampus
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  Victus, which doesn't actually mean anything, but like I said,
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  a historical drinking society or a drinking Historical Society
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  before you move. On quick question, do I know
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  that producer? You've probably met him, but I
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  doubt you know him. OK, good.
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  Just checking. No, it was not.
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  At any rate their hero, their their spirit animal, the the guy
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  that they seek to pattern themselves after.
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  Joshua Norton, born February 14th in England.
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  Long story short, he his family moved to South Africa in 19 or
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  1820. Sorry, don't want to get too far
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  in advance. He was a very successful
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  businessman in Cape Town, South Africa.
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  But in 1846 he left South Africa to come to America, went to San
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  Francisco, arriving there in 1849.
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  Now the weird thing is nobody really knows.
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  Nobody can really explain it. When he got to San Francisco in
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  18491849 Bill, he had $40,000 cash with him, which in 1849
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  dollars was. That's a lot of money.
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  Substantial. Yeah, absolutely.
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  And so he sets about setting himself up in business in San
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  Francisco. He becomes a very successful
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  real estate mogul, a very successful commodities investor.
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  He's very much a a part of social status in San Francisco,
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  which in that era, in the 1850s, in the early statehood eras of
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  California was a much different place than it is now.
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  In those days, San Francisco was very respected.
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  It was worldwide known. Of course, it did have Chinatown
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  in even in those days, because that's where the the Chinese
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  would come through San Francisco to go build the railroads.
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  They settled there. There were a lot of, there were
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  a lot of religious minorities there.
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  One of the, one of the earliest synagogues in California is in
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  San Francisco. And in the middle of all this,
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  Edward Norton, who's very rich, very wealthy, very, you know,
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  connected, but he's also a little off Bill.
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  He's, he's just a little strange and he's that, he's that person
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  that when he walks into a room, everybody knows him.
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  They all respect him because he's, he's got some good ideas
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  and obviously good business acumen and those sorts of
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  things. But at the same time, he just
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  seems like that weird guy that nobody really trust.
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  Not not trust. That's a bad word, but nobody
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  really is comfortable around him.
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  You don't want to be too close. Yeah, he's, he's a really, I
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  don't know, He's just a strange guy and he has some weird absurd
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  ideas about things. In 1852, he decides that, well,
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  I need to corner the market on rice.
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  Yes, you heard that correct. Rice.
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  There had been an issue in Peru with with with that.
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  That time was where most of the rice came from.
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  And he decides that he's going to corner the market on rice and
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  he's going to make a killing on this deal because that's what
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  they always think whenever they're they're trying to corner
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  the market on something. And of course, as so often
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  happens with these kinds of deals, it completely falls
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  apart. And he goes from being one of
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  the wealthiest men in San Francisco, one of the what?
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  Potentially one of the wealthiest men in America.
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  He goes from that to being essentially by 1856, he is flat
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  out broke. So you go from all the way up
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  there to all the way down there, you know, in in the space of
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  five or six years. The problem is he's still Joshua
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  Abraham Norton. He's still really odd and in
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  many ways he would still fit into San Francisco today.
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  If you saw him wandering the streets of San Francisco today,
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  you probably wouldn't even give him a second look.
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  That's how different he kind of is.
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  But his decline in fortune and social status, living
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  conditions, he ends up living in a fleabag hotel.
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  And all of this goes on until September 17th, 1859, when he
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  announces to the world and to all of San Francisco in a
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  newspaper there that as of today, he is the Emperor of the
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  United States. Oh, and by the way, the
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  Protector of Mexico. So kind of like Trump today.
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  I guess if you want to go that way, but.
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  OK, Trump's the president of US, Mexico and Canada, but we
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  already talked that this morning more and they does history when
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  we continue our weekly dive into history.
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  Dave Bowman joins us on Bill Mick live, the McPherson
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  Financial Group this hour to sponsor the program as Dave does
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  history, taking us to Joshua Norton in the Central Valley of
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  California. Well, in San Francisco at the
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  moment, but tell us more about him, Dave.
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  So on September 17th, 1859, he declares himself, Norton
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  declares himself as Emperor of the United States and just for
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  good measure, protector of California or I'm sorry,
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  protector of Mexico. It's, it's printed in the
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  newspapers, Bill that he makes this proclamation.
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  And he's like I said, he's, he's that strange guy that's on the
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  street that, you know, you, you kind of say to your kids and,
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  you know, don't get too close to him.
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  But at the same time, San Francisco has always had this
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  cultural weirdness to it that in many ways people like it's not
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  the the liberal, you know, unwashed hippie stuff now that
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  you but but there's always been this cultural edge to San
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  Francisco that that Norton fit right into as he had no official
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  power, of course, as emperor. But that didn't seem to stop him
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  from making proclamations. He immediately on October 12th,
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  1859, shortly after declaring himself emperor, he issued a
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  decree that abolished the United States Congress.
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  He accused the Congress of corruption and incompetence,
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  declared that its members were, quote, unfit to govern UN quote.
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  Can we do this today? Well, you might think, yeah.
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  Not surprisingly, Congress ignored his order.
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  So he followed up with another decree.
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  He commanded the United States Army to March on Washington and
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  forcibly removed him. Get rid of them.
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  Naturally, no troops mobilized. But the newspapers, particularly
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  the San Francisco papers, love this.
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  And they gleefully printed his edicts.
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  San Franciscans treated it as, I don't know, civic entertainment,
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  I suppose, But but they found him to be absolutely
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  fascinating. And really, is there been any
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  era in the United States history where, I mean, hell, I've said
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  we need to get rid of Congress, at least the people in it.
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  I mean, they are corrupt and unfit to govern.
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  Why are we surprised by this? He then followed that up because
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  that didn't seem to go anywhere for him.
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  So he said, well, in in 1869, he said let's abolish the Democrat
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  and Republican parties because they are fueling division within
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  the country. Said party politics are a major
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  source of corruption and social discord, and he urged Americans
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  to unite under a common purpose rather than partisan interests.
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  Which is an idea that, although it seemed radical for its time,
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  still kind of resonates today, doesn't it?
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  Yeah, it does, absolutely. Oh, by the way, is exactly what
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  George Washington had said. But that's not where he left it.
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  As it turns out, Emperor Norton was still ahead of his time.
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  Wow, so he has declared himself emperor, encouraged the military
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  to March on Congress which they weren't going to do, and said
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  Congress is just a bunch of doodles criminal types.
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  Again, nothing in this guy that I don't like already.
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  So far we're good. He's so he's a.
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  Little eccentric we can tolerate.
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  That he's He lives in a tiny boarding house down on Commerce
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  St. in San Francisco. He always wore a military
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  uniform with careful, now a red shirt.
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  Sound familiar? He carried a cane.
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  He would patrol the streets of San Francisco.
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  By the way, he he printed his own money, which seems like
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  you'd go, well, that should be illegal.
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  But in San Francisco, it was kind of winked at local
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  businesses, honored his currency and said, no, it's fine with us.
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  We'll take that. They like they give us change to
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  other patrons. That would be interesting.
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  I don't know. Wow.
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  San Francisco embraced this guy. They allowed him free meals,
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  free train, free fairs. They let him go to the theater
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  all the time. In 1867, he was arrested for
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  vagrancy, but that didn't go well for the police officer that
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  arrested him. The public out cried, the police
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  chief issued an official apology, and from then on, San
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  Francisco police officers would salute him when they passed him
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  in the streets. OK, but this isn't all he was.
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  He was, as I said, he demanded those things from the from the
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  Congress. But he was also known for his
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  his deeply ID, his deep ideals on and his views on race and
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  equality. Remember, this is the 1860s and
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  early 70s. He demanded demanded that
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  African Americans be allowed to ride on streetcars and attend
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  public schools in San Francisco. Was it San Francisco?
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  Listen. Yes, he issued proclamations
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  calling for Chinese residents, remember San Francisco, very
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  large Chinese community to be treated with dignity and
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  protected from violence and discrimination.
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  And keep in mind what we talked about last week.
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  At this point, they're not allowed to be citizens yet.
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  They're not allowed to become naturalized.
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  And, and Wong Kim Ark hasn't had his case yet.
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  So they're treated as basically laborers for for the railroads
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  and the likes of that. He's very strongly advocating
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  that they be treated very well. And he warned them, he warned
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  the people that he would be watching those who sought to
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  harm or exploit Chinese immigrants.
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  Now I'll be watching you. And of course, as he's watching
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  them, well, defend these rights of minorities, he he used his
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  status, he used his bully pulpit, as it were, to advocate
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  for people who didn't necessarily have a voice.
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  And San Francisco and the wider world to a degree, actually
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  embrace this guy. Mark Twain, Samuel Clemens, who
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  spent a lot of time in San Francisco, absolutely love this
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  guy. And if you've ever read the book
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  Mark Twain or Huckleberry Fenn, you have met Emperor Norton.
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  He's in that book disguised as another character, but he's in
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  that book and it's Mark Twain's love for this guy was
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  incredible. But perhaps his most forward
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  thinking idea Bill was he called for a bridge span across the San
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  Francisco Bay to Oakland. In this area, there was no
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  bridge. You had to go by ferry from
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  Oakland to San Francisco, which is a nice ride, but it takes a
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  while. But he had the vision to look
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  forward and say, you know what we need here?
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  We need a bridge, a bridge that rivals all the bridges in
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  history, a bridge that's beautiful, a bridge that is well
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  long enough to reach to Oakland and back, a bridge that will
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  improve economics because everything will be there.
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  And of course, in 1936, long after he passed away, the San
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  Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge was completed.
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  And today, it's still one of the most beautiful bridges in all
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  the world. It's a great ride across that
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  bridge. That's beautiful, It really is.
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  Expensive, but it is, and it's slow because it's.
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  Traffic. Is it the Norton Bridge now?
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  No, no, they didn't name it after them.
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  They should have, but they didn't.
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  Back with more Dave does history when we continue on Bill Mick
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  live Dave Bowman wrapping up, Dave does history as we look at
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  America's self-proclaimed Emperor Joshua Norton.
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  Dave, where we at? Sir, so after a long and bizarre
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  life, on January 8th, 1880, Emperor Norton just collapsed in
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  the streets of San Francisco. And of course this is.
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  Not all that unusual. People die all the time.
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  What doesn't happen all the time though is when someone indigent
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  crazy person dies is the city doesn't turn out for his
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  funeral. 10,000 people showed up for Emperor Norton's funeral in
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  San Francisco in 1880. Wow that's a lot.
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  Until recent times, that is the most attended.
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  The, IT was the largest funeral in San Francisco in their
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  history. He was buried at the city's
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  Masonic Cemetery, which in those days was still limited to, you
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  know, certain things. And eventually he would be moved
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  to Colma, California, which is just a little bit South of San
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  Francisco. And it's the big, it's now the
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  big cemetery for San Francisco's elite.
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  He's he's buried there. And of course, they have annual
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  tributes at his at his graveside there, and they continue to
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  celebrate him even down to this day.
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  Emperor Norton is, is very well remembered in the city of San
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  Francisco. He inspired literary characters,
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  the king in in Huckleberry Fenn, as well as others in Robert
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  Louis Stevenson's writings. And he is, I guess, well known,
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  Bill, and you lived in the area for a while, and this may be
• 21:22
  something your listeners don't know.
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  There is a way to refer to the city of San Francisco.
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  People will occasionally say, hey, I'm going to Frisco.
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  And the reaction to that is always very negative.
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  That word is verboten. You do not refer to San
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  Francisco, to a Californian as Frisco.
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  They hate that. And it was Emperor Norton who
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  declared that to be verboten. He declared that you, you do not
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  refer to my city as Frisco. And if you do, you probably got
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  beaten with his stick. He's the one that started that.
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  And I can assure you to this day, if you say Frisco to
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  somebody in Northern Cal particularly, they will correct
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  you on the spot. They will tell you you do not
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  refer to it as Frisco. It is San Francisco or it's the
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  city, one of those two things. His influence continues even
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  down to this day. As I opened the story, there was
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  that group of men in red shirts and weird hats, weird Western
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  hats. The group is known as the
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  Clampers. The official title is E Clampus
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  Vitus, which doesn't actually mean anything.
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  It's just the Latin phrase that they put together.
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  And they celebrate all things Western history, particularly
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  California history. But they build monuments to
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  things and they act as if they are Emperor Norton if you meet
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  them in public in a group, and you won't in Florida because
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  they don't have chapters down there.
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  But if you're ever out West, California, Idaho, Nevada, and
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  you meet a group of these men, don't ask them any questions
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  because the answers you will get fit their model, much as Emperor
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  Norton's responses would have. What you will get is credoquia
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  absurdum. We believe it because it's
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  absurd and their answers will be strange.
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  Bizarre. And as they put it on an often
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  basis, if you have to ask, you'll never know.
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  The only way you can find out the secrets to being a clamper
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  who celebrate the life of Emperor Norton is to become one.
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  And how do you become a clamper? Well, if you have to ask, you'll
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  never know. But you can still celebrate
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  today. Emperor Norton's birthday,
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  February 4th, is the day that Emperor Norton was born.
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  And so we raise a toast, as a good clamper would do, and we
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  say wet and dry, satisfactory. 321-768-1240 if you want in with
• 24:14
  Dave Bowman on Dave Does History Here on Bill Mick Live.
• 24:17
  We pick it up in a minute. Dave Does History on Bill Mick
• 24:20
  Live. Dave, you mentioned that your
• 24:22
  former producer was a clamper himself.
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  Did you have the experience of asking him questions either on
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  or off the air about said organization?
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  And did you get these nonsensical responses you're
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  talking about? Bill, all I can tell you is if
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  you have to ask, you'll never know.
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  So you joined, huh? The Emperor Norton, it's one of
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  those. Fascinating.
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  You were asking earlier about the Bay Bridge and whether they
• 24:53
  had named it after him. Just to clarify that there have
• 24:56
  been multiple attempts to name the bridge after him starting in
• 24:59
  the 1930s. In 2013 there was a a an attempt
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  to to name the bridge after him, but the politicians wanted to
• 25:10
  name it after Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco
• 25:14
  and the former paramour of one Kamala Harris, right?
• 25:18
  So guess which one won? No way.
• 25:21
  Yeah, so it's named after Brown instead.
• 25:23
  So how's the Kamala Harris Bridge?
• 25:26
  Yeah, there have been an attempt in 2022, they attempted to add
• 25:30
  his name as a secondary name, but the California legislature
• 25:34
  was busy, you know, taking away other rights.
• 25:37
  So they left that in there, in there as well.
• 25:39
  And there you go. But if you go to San Francisco
• 25:43
  today, you'll find you'll see places that are named after
• 25:45
  Emperor Norton. You will see plaques that have
• 25:48
  been put up by the clampers everywhere.
• 25:50
  And you will see things that are there.
• 25:52
  And it's, it's just a, it's just a great part of our history.
• 25:55
  And the fact that he was so forward thinking and so willing
• 25:59
  to stand up and put what reputation he had on the line.
• 26:03
  It's almost like losing his fortune didn't really affect
• 26:07
  him. It made him more active.
• 26:09
  And of course, he lives on today in, in literature and in TV and
• 26:15
  those kinds of things. And in the, the group E Clampus
• 26:17
  Vetus, which is I really love those guys.
• 26:21
  They, they, they build monuments to everything on on this site.
• 26:25
  A cowboy did something, you know, in 1877 and they'll build
• 26:29
  a monument to it. It's.
• 26:30
  So do they raise money, get civic donations and the like to
• 26:33
  do these things? They put their own money into
• 26:35
  it. It's a combination of all of
• 26:37
  that, Bill, and it's just a lot of, they're a lot of fun.
• 26:41
  To answer your question, no, I did not join.
• 26:43
  There's some specific reasons why I didn't join and there's
• 26:46
  no, there's no chapter up here, so Oh well, yeah, I, I can't
• 26:54
  drink that much. I'm sorry.
• 26:56
  I just can't. Yeah.
• 26:58
  It wouldn't do me since I don't. So there you go.
• 27:01
  There is something, though, about that Central Valley of
• 27:05
  California region gave me a new appreciation when you see the
• 27:10
  reruns of the big Valley. I mean, they were always taking
• 27:13
  off and taking the what day trip to go to all day trip to go to
• 27:16
  Stockton at the time. So they were somewhere around us
• 27:19
  in Modesto, right? It was.
• 27:24
  Yeah. Culturally aware, I guess is is
• 27:27
  the words I'm looking for. Culturally aware and connected
• 27:30
  to the history in so many ways. You go up in the foothills of
• 27:33
  the Sierras and you got a ton of history up there.
• 27:35
  Especially if you're interested in Western and mining history,
• 27:39
  there's, there's all kinds of stuff there.
• 27:41
  And of course you can't swing a dead cat on a three foot string
• 27:43
  without hitting a clamper monument up there either.
• 27:45
  So it all of that stuff is there.
• 27:49
  All of this stuff was very familiar to Joshua Norton and
• 27:52
  all of it was a huge part of American history.
• 27:55
  California has a very unique history in America, right down
• 28:00
  to its state borders. Normally when a state becomes a
• 28:04
  state, Congress dictates the borders.
• 28:06
  They say, OK, this is where it's going to be, blah, blah, blah.
• 28:09
  California, that didn't happen in 1850.
• 28:12
  California said no, our border will be further E than it is now
• 28:18
  because we want the Sierra Nevadas and Nevada doesn't need
• 28:23
  them, we want those. The original border was supposed
• 28:26
  to be the crestline of the Sierra Nevadas and California
• 28:29
  pushed it east so that the entire Sierra Nevada range is in
• 28:32
  California and Congress let them get away with it.
• 28:36
  Congress said, OK, how much of that is influence of people like
• 28:40
  Emperor Norton? You don't know?
• 28:43
  I mean, here's a guy in California calling for your
• 28:45
  disillusion and for you to be thrown out of office.
• 28:48
  And then his state says, no, our borders over there.
• 28:52
  Who's the real crazy people here?
• 28:53
  Is it Emperor Norton or is it the entire state of California?
• 28:57
  We don't know. It's interesting that he had the
• 29:00
  reception that he had even falling from being wealthy to
• 29:03
  being on the completely other end of the scale and being as
• 29:06
  eccentric as he was, that there was acceptance there.
• 29:10
  And, and maybe that's a precursor to what San Francisco
• 29:14
  in that region is known to the rest of us as now.
• 29:17
  It very well could be, but like I said, there's always been an
• 29:20
  eccentricity to California, to San Francisco in particular that
• 29:25
  I mean, you can go back to Sam Spade and the Maltese Falcon.
• 29:28
  There's, there's a strangeness to San Francisco, but it's a,
• 29:31
  it's a very eccentric strangeness that everybody
• 29:33
  really wants to embrace. I think a lot of people want to
• 29:37
  embrace it, but you're just afraid to.
• 29:40
  But San Francisco before more recent times, before Gavin
• 29:44
  Newsom times was a great place and, and I certainly enjoyed it
• 29:48
  when I was there. I wouldn't go back today, but
• 29:51
  let me tell you, there's nothing like driving.
• 29:54
  I wouldn't either, but I I loved going to San Francisco.
• 29:57
  There's nothing like driving a standard transmission car in San
• 30:00
  Francisco. If you think you're a good
• 30:02
  driver and you haven't driven a standard transmission in San
• 30:05
  Francisco, you haven't proved anything.
• 30:08
  You do that, then I'll pat you on the back and say
• 30:11
  congratulations. But until you do that.
• 30:13
  Yeah. You, you haven't done anything.
• 30:15
  Drive it. Drive it down, Lombard.
• 30:18
  I do miss the region. I miss a lot of the people that
• 30:20
  you and I both knew there. And I want to get back out one
• 30:23
  of these days and, you know, stop by Heather's ice Cream
• 30:27
  place on the way up to Tuolami, which is a beautiful, beautiful
• 30:31
  area of the state up. There and some good ice cream
• 30:33
  too. Oh, let's see, I don't know.
• 30:35
  I've never been yet. So.
• 30:36
  It's satisfactory, Bill, Satisfactory.
• 30:40
  Which is a good way to leave it, I suppose.
• 30:42
  Have you looked ahead to next week and know where we're going
• 30:44
  yet? You know I did, but I completely
• 30:46
  forgot. I didn't write it down, so I
• 30:48
  don't know. Oh well, I'll figure it out.
• 30:50
  That too is satisfactory, my dear Dave.
• 30:53
  If you have to ask you Dave, you'll you'll never know.
• 30:57
  Which could be true, too. So Dave Bowman, thank you, my
• 31:00
  friend. It was a job well done and some
• 31:02
  fond memories of the Central Valley.
• 31:04
  Thank you much. We'll see you next week.
• 31:06
  We'll look forward to it. We'll see you in the morning.
• 31:11
  Check out more stories. From History at Dave Does
• 31:13
  history dot? Org.