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Short Stuff: Milk Wars · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and Jerry's here, and Dave is hovering over. It's
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: like a hologram of Obi Wan Kenobi, which makes this
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: short stuff.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: It makes us his only hope.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: That's right, boy, that's tough for Dave. Where his only hope? Sorry, Dave?
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, we haven't talked too much. We talked
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit about the Mafia and stuff like that,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: but I feel like we have a gap in our
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: sort of al Capone Chicago Mob sort of time frame,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: like who are the what was the movie The Untouchables
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: that sort.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Of era, such a good movie.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: We don't have a lot of that stuff. So this
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: is maybe the beginning of a little bit more of that.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. As
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: al Capone said.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Once that's right, then you got a knife in your back.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: So our story actually takes place in nineteen thirty three.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: That's when it although it lasted almost the entire decade
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of the thirties, but by this time, and this is
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: so funny because this whole thing is associated with al Capone.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: But if we were going to jump to the end
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and put it at the beginning. Yeah, he probably had
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: almost nothing to do with this.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: The reason this Chicago milk War as it's called, is
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: associated with al Capone is because his direct descendants, his
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: proteges that took over when he was put into federal prison,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: they were the ones who were involved in this. So
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: he had some sort of kind of like phantom supernumerary
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: hand involved, but no direct involvement.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Like if he wouldn't have been in prison, it
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: would have been al Capone running this milk war.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: And it would have been ten times bloodier.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Probably, Yeah, you're probably right, But like we all know,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: he was in prison for tax evasion, initially right here
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: in Atlanta and then eventually in Alcatraz, very famously. But
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: we're talking about the milk war, like you were saying,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: and this gets a convoluted because there's just a lot
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: of milk unions and delivery driver unions for milk, and
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: they all have similar names, and they most of them
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: are pretty good band names, so it gets a little
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: bit confusing. But we're going to do the best we
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: can to tell you how the mob in Chicago got
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: involved in the milk business. And one of the main
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: reasons is that FDR came along and the writing was
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: on the wall that prohibition was going to be repealed,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: and that was really bad for the Mob because they
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: were making a ton of money with bootlegging and with
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the speakeasies. So they're like, we need to divert we
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: need to diversify. So they said, how about milk. It's
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: pretty unregulated and under the radar, and we are already
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: in the food business a little bit. We've run the
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: we run the artichoke racket, which.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Was true crazy. That's the fact of the short stuff
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: right there.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Well, that and the whisky on some cheese rackets. So
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: they already had the foot and the pro dairy and produce.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Business, right. So yeah, I guess milk is a logical
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: extension of those. I mean the cheese that makes sense too,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: but it is surprising to go from booze to milk. Yeah,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: but it almost didn't matter what the product was. Sure
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the Mob could figure out a way to completely upend
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: the industry. They were early disruptors, I guess you'd call
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: them in twenty ten speak. Yeah, but the way that
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: they did that was through like violence and intimidation, and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: that's the first, the first tactic they tried when they
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: showed up at a guy named Steve Sumner's door, And
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Steve Summner's door was the front door of the office
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: of the Milk wagon Driver's Union Local seven point fifty three.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: And the reason why is because Steve Sumner ran that
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: he was the union leader, right, and you had said
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: this whole thing's kind of convoluted, it is. And the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: reason why is because from what I can tell, there
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: was an uneasy working relationship between the different unions and
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the different associations that all came together to heart to produce, buy, bottle, sell,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and distribute milk. And each one had their own competing
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: interests and they were all trying to work together. There
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was some price fixing involved, there were some alliances that
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: were all uneasy. But then when the mob came in,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: they came in kicking on the door and shooting down,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: shooting tommy guns into this whole alliance, and it just
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: created this total chaos that had just been waiting to happen,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that the mob coming and really triggered.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: And then some yeah, absolutely, because at the time the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: milk prices were I guess you would say fixed, right,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: is that the term. Yeah yeah, milk prices were set
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: or capped rather, and they had to use union representatives
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: to you know, to drive and deliver this milk, can
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: distribute this milk. The Mob of Chicago basically said, all right,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: we're gonna get in on the ground floor. We're going
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: to buy an actual dairy, and they bought meadow More Dairies,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And that's how we're going to get into the milk industry.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: And what we can do is then not have to
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: use union employees. We can bypass that fixed pricing and
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: we can undercut by a penny or two what everyone
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: else is selling it for and get all the milk
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: money ourselves.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and don't forget this is during the depression, right,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: So a couple of pennies off of a bottle of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: milk that was selling for eleven cents, Oh yeah, that
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: meant a lot. Like you, yeah, you could make a
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: pretty big deal. So there was price fixing, which is illegal,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and the Mob came in and undermined it by introducing
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: good old American competition to it, which is really weird.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: That's why this whole thing is so hard to kind
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: of wrap your head around, because it all is totally nonsensical.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean I feel better because
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't really make the
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: most sense of this because it's not the most complicated story.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: But yeah, they came to Steve Sumner eventually this guy
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: named Murray the Camel Humphries, who was one of Capone's fixers.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: If you have a fixer, you're not a good person.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Let's just say that. Yeah, that means you're breaking things
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: if you need someone to fix things.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: That's a great, great slogan.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I should get that on a T shirt. Huh.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: So they went to Sumner and said, hey, if you
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: and your union can just lay low for a little while,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: let us hire these non union workers. We can sell
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: our stuff cheaper, and then you can make a big
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: deal about that, and you can protest that. Then we
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: can raise these prices again. And in exchange for this,
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: we're not gonna we're gonna offer you protection, which everyone
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: knows for the mob means we're not going to destroy
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: your milk trucks and firebomb your livery wagons.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Right, And what's funny is like I can't remember the
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: spoof movie that this is in I want to say
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: top secret, but I might be wrong. Where somebody comes
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: in some like traditional like maybe gangster criminal comes in
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and starts shooting up the place, and then all of
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: these like normal people like pull guns out of nowhere
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and start shooting back unexpectedly. That's exactly what happened with this,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: because the mob came in and said that they were
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: going to start breaking heads if everybody didn't fall in line,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: and so all these people in the dairy industry, who
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: were allegedly legitimate went and bombed the mob's dairy the
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: moment they the moment they said that they were going
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to do this, they went and bombed their dairy.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: All right, I say we should take a break, because
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: that's a pretty remarkable thing. I'm going to I'm going
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: to go with Johnny Dangerously. I'm not sure if that's
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: true or not.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Is that it okay?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: But it seems like a likely candidate, And we'll come
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: back right after this.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Johnny Dangerously top Secret. It's virtually the same movie.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's just a guess.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Boy.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I saw Johnny Dangerously in the theater when I was
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: a kid. I thought it was, oh yeah, funniest thing
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: I've ever seen it hit? Some parts of it are
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: still pretty funny. I haven't seen in a long time,
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: but I think it was. Yeah, Joe Biscopo, Michael Keaton,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: you kidding me?
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah? The Dear, the dream Team is what they call that.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Griffin Dunn, yes, Master Chargia.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Did you know? Uh, he's Joan Didion's nephew.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: Of course, he's got a new book out.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Called I'm Joan Didion's Nephew by Joan Didion's nephew.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: You dummy. Emily just got its supposed to be a
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: good read, so she's all into that.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen After Hours?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, of course, good movie. It's course azy baby, Yeah.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: It was, but it's also like a kind of a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: screwball comedy.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the only one he did really. Yeah, all right,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: that's been movie crush. Oh I missed that show. Not
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: enough to do it again, though. So we're back. And
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: like you said when we left, I believe right before
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I said, Johnny, dangerously, you said, these regular schmos started
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: bombing the mobs dairy, And that's what happened, and it's
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: just crazy and all of a sudden, you know, this
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: milk war has kicked off.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, so I said that there was like a bunch
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: of different competing groups. There were the people who made
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the milk. Those are the farm producers. Those are the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: farmers who are like milking the cows, putting into huge
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: like canisters, and then selling it to the milk dealers.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: The milk dealers have formed an association and they're the
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: ones who were fixing the price. They were saying, hey, farmers,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: this is how much you're gonna get from milk. Don't
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: ask for anything more because everyone who's going to buy
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: it from you is in cahoots against you. Right, So
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the farmers said, well, this is all crazy. We're just
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: going to go on strike. You're not going to get
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: any milk unless you guys start giving us a better price. So,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in addition to this group these people were arguing, there's
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: also another group that were involved, and they were the
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: stores that sold milk. Okay, they had milk for one
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: set price, and they could typically sell it lower lower
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: than other companies who used delivery drivers milk men to
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: deliver their milk directly to people's homes. Because there's that
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: added cost, and then on top of the added costs,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the milk drivers were unionized. That's what Steve Sumner represented,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: and so they had like a contract with those companies
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: saying like, you're going to pay our drivers like a
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: good wage. And so there was competition between the companies
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: that used union drivers and the companies that just sold
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it directly from stores, and all of them hated each
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: other because they were all beating one another up to
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: get as much of a margin of profit out of
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: the others as they possibly could, because the American public
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: were the ones who are like, we're not going to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: pay that much for milk. You guys are gonna have
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: to figure this out yourself.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Do you think the mob ever went up to
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: people and went you're going to be eating your granula
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: with water? Or did they have cereal by then or
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: were they still calling.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: The Paul You remember at Kellogg's episode that was the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. That was like the early nineteen ten,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: So they were calling it granula, but they called it
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: cereal pretty soon after, right.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see what you mean. Sure, sure, probably, Yeah.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I wonder what the first one was, because I think
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: they called their corn flakes corn flakes pretty early on,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: so they at least take corn flakes.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: All right, let me do another take. Okay, you're going
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: to beat your corn flakes with cereal?
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: God, you want to take a third take?
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to take three?
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Uh, I'm going to add a line too. I'm gonna
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: improv the line. You're going to be eating cereal with
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: water like in the movie Fridays.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: That's all.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you had to drink it or you had to
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: eat it with water.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Oh boy? Uh, where were we.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: We're talking about corn flakes?
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Well, in the story, I know there was a band
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: name wanted to mention, the Pure Milk Association. Yeah, they
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: were one of the union's great band name Post Dealers.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: What about that one?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: That's not too bad?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: Milk Wagon Drivers Union. You know, we haven't taken a break.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: You have? Oh we did? We did? Okay? Good?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Good, I mean we're we're supposed to be done
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: by now. So here's what happened. In nineteen thirty nine.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: There was an anti trust case that was going on,
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: basically with with this you know, monopoly that was happening,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: and the court threw it out. As a district court
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: judge that threw it out, I believe it was reinstated
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: by the Supreme Court later, but they avoided trial. The
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: DOJ said, you know what, if everyone signs and agrees
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: to this, then we can get this milk ore over.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: The farmers and the unions. You gotta say that you
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: won't stop independent producers from marketing milk. There can be
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: independent producers, distributors. You can't fix your prices anymore. And
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: drivers you're a union. There's a lot of moving parts here. Yeah,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: you can't hamper the store sales of milk. Like, I know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: you like delivering to people's houses, but distribution is the
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: thing now, and you got to let that.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Happen, right, And so essentially what the Justice Department said
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: was you basically need to go the way that the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: mob was trying to take this and go your separate
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: ways and compete with one another, like be capitalists rather
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: than price fixers.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: What's funny is there's a quote from Steve Sumner, who's
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: just befuddled by this antitrust case that was slapped against
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: him and some of the others. He's like, we're trying
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to get the milk flowing again, Like we're just making
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: deals here, and they're like, you're price fixing that was
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the problem in the first place, so stop doing that,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: and I got the milk flowing again. I think in
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: nineteen forty the whole thing ended. That's right, pretty great stuff,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the Chicago Milk Oars featuring al Capone in name only.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Check said that's right twice everybody, and of course that
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: means short stuff is out.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 14:34
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• 14:37
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