The Day's Dumpster Fire
In this podcast, Kara and Ed regale history's greatest mess ups. They do not celebrate humanity's successes but its most fantastic failures! This show is not dedicated to those who have accomplished incredible things, but to those who have accomplished incredible things and how they royally screwed things up in the process.
You might ask why they are doing this podcast: it's because you've botched up the best laid plans and you know what? THAT'S OKAY!
Let this show help you navigate the mishaps that you have come across where there is no clear answer available.
So sit back, relax, and listen about people who messed up way more than what you could of possibly imagine.
The Day's Dumpster Fire
Prohibition Fire Part 4. - Episode 62
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We have finally come to the end of Kara's anthology of everything prohibition related. Kara has taken us from the origins of the prohibition movement and its relationship to the suffragette movement, to the colorful bootleggers and wild characters who openly broke the law to how the music and literature of the time period was affected by it and now finally organized crime and syndicates that ultimately brought the 18th Amendment to the ground.
In this episode, Kara is going to get into the thick of mob bosses, the complex chain of people killing each with the latest and greatest of the guns of the era and how one woman figured out how to manipulate the law in such a way, she brought down the most famous mob bosses of all time, Al Capone.
For more episodes and detailed show notes hop on over to thedaysdumpsterfire.com https://www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com/ where you can explore dozens of episodes of well meaning people, making really big mistakes and even exploding tanks of molasses.
If you find this series interesting, check out some of these similar episodes that Kara and Ed have put together:
Episode 57. The Hindenburg (the actual blimp this time)
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Like a tornado of easy money, and then they all fought for the easy money. It accelerated it and it forced them to organize.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so it was a bunch of dudes that wanted to kill each other over money. A bunch of crap, bunch of money, bunch of alcohol. It's about money. And yeah, and and it's at the end of the day. Ultimately, it's the same thing that we have going on today.
SPEAKER_01:In a way, yeah. Corruption, it's all about money, you know. But the shoe comes off the other foot. Always does. Perfect.
SPEAKER_03:Uh, we've been recording for the past minute, so do you want to get it started? Sure. Sorry. I I I just saw that what you were saying was like perfect header, like gold.
SPEAKER_01:So nah, that's cool. Where's my beginning? Oh, there it is. I found it. And then we have this issue where I'm like, where's my notes? Where's the page? Because I was not on the right page.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my gosh. Why can't anybody remember how to start this episode?
SPEAKER_01:You're not even on the notes. All right, page 42.
SPEAKER_03:Do you want me to start it?
SPEAKER_01:No, we're good. We you we can start it. I don't care. I don't know if we're ready or not. I'm just here.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, we're we're a minute 40 seconds in, so.
SPEAKER_01:This is gonna be fun to edit.
SPEAKER_03:That's fine.
SPEAKER_01:All right. Where we don't always celebrate humanity's successes. Sometimes we do, but not always. But mostly we celebrate its fantastical failures and dumpster fires and trash can fires and all the things. And with me as ever is my co-host Ed. How are you doing, Ed?
SPEAKER_03:Fantastical. Is that a word?
SPEAKER_01:No, it's not a word, but I like it.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. So uh yeah, yeah. No, we uh this is a weird show where we just look at the times in human history where people thought that they could plan out everything to the last second, and then once it's implemented, it just blows up in everybody's face.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And like in the past three episodes, uh Kara has brought out her inner C-SPAN and just talked about policy and legislation, voting, no, little things like women's rights and jazz and bootlegging and smuggling and carry nation with her hatchet. Yes, excuse me. Yeah, like crazy chicks with frickin' hatchets that are like tearing down bars, using pool balls.
SPEAKER_01:It's so much more exciting than C-SPAN. Come on, give me a break.
SPEAKER_03:You're right, yeah. I would watch C-SPAN more when we talk about like gyne in like Texas Gynen. Great, like yeah, yeah, like she would do like double back flips, as in like she would put both fingers behind her butt back and just flip off everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Honestly, I could totally see her doing that.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Also, side note, I found uh one of the silent films that she was in and I watched it. It's on YouTube. You can find it. It's kind of cool.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow, okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, it's neat.
SPEAKER_03:Uh can you send me that link so I can put it in our uh show notes?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'll find it and I'll send it to you. I think it belongs to a museum or something, so we'll have to credit them.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, dang, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like Prohibition has somewhat fascinated me, not because of all of all the uh the uh public discourse and everything. It's always fascinated me because I'm a dude in terms of how did the federal government actually try to enforce this, and then we get into the um oh, how do I word this? Like the mob bosses, the bootleggers, the gang bosses, the rights of organized crime, yeah. People that actually adhered to a more codified set of laws than the FBI, to the point where the J. Edgar Hoovers were like, we can't operate this way, and suddenly, like the FBI and all these other folks for decades afterwards had to be like, Well, if we're going to fight organized crime like this, we have to be organized crime bosses ourselves, and they did a lot of really shady stuff, yeah. Yeah, yeah, and you're looking at me like, um, okay, but they were the good guys?
SPEAKER_01:No, no, I d uh um it's more like I didn't touch on that too much when I was writing this up.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay. So I didn't know. So that's the episode that I need to follow up with.
SPEAKER_01:If you'd like to, you may.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, no, I'm I'm too busy working on an oil rig in the mid-2000s that got it blew up and uh cost sixty five billion dollars worth of damage.
SPEAKER_01:Sick. That's a good time. But before we get there, we should probably start talking about the thing that everybody has been dying to hear.
SPEAKER_03:Al Capone! Al Capone! Al Capone! Scarface!
SPEAKER_01:We're here.
SPEAKER_03:This is the Valentine's Day Massacre. Yes, the dude that got killed in that bar for like beating up that fat guy that smelled funny.
SPEAKER_01:That's like every other day. All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_03:Let's go. Yes, we we've got this.
SPEAKER_01:All right, part four The Rise and Fall of an Empire. Quick recap. In the last three episodes, we explored the chaos unleashed by the 18th Amendment. We traced its origins all the way back to the 1600s, all the way up to the early 20th century, showing how a well-intentioned push for moral reform led to widespread lawlessness and economic turmoil. We saw how Americans found creative and often illegal ways to drink and get drunk and find the alcohol to do so, while the federal government struggled to enforce the Volstead Act, and we witnessed the cultural impacts of prohibition, the rise of speakeasies, the jazz age, and the Harlem Renaissance. Today we will dive into the depths of organized crime and focus on three major hubs in which the very idea of organized crime becomes a reality, all thanks to prohibition. All right. Chapter 16 Bloody Mary. I'm gonna start this with a definition for you because I found it very helpful. Racketeering, and I got this from Cornell Law. Racketeering is a set of illegal activities aimed at a commercial profit that may be disguised as legitimate business deals. Racketeering is defined by a coordinated effort by multiple people to repeatedly earn and earn a profit, typically by fraud, extortion, bribery, threats, violence, or other illegal means. Okay. I just thought that would be very helpful for those who, you know, didn't know what that meant.
SPEAKER_03:Congress today.
SPEAKER_01:On February 14th.
SPEAKER_03:I don't disagree, but well, you you just kind of stated your you you just stated your your your thoughts on that. But it is true.
SPEAKER_01:That's why we talk about history so we understand.
SPEAKER_03:But but but it is true that like this isn't a problem that has gone away since the end of Prohibition.
SPEAKER_01:It has corruption in government has been an issue for a very long time, and it pops its ugly head up in various ways with different masks and different hats. So it does happen. It's like it happens and then people fix it, and then it happens again, and then people fix it. It's a pendulum. We just happen to be on the very frustrating side of the pendulum right now. So we'll see how it's fixed.
SPEAKER_03:We don't know. So anybody who's listening is that like Kara is really uh politically or she tries to be very correct and proper without saying that everything's a pusho.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. All right. On February 14th, 1929, seven men were murdered by two men dressed as police officers in her garage at 2122 North Clark Street in Chicago, Illinois. One man, Frank, and I forgot to put in his last name, I bet Frank. Sorry, Frankie. He was alive when the real police arrived. When they asked who did it, he said, no one. Nobody shot me. He died without giving any information to police. And to this day, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre is technically an unsolved case. So nobody has been charged or arrested for this particular murder.
SPEAKER_03:Now, if if if you guys listened to the last episode, my grandfather was a little kid when that happened. Right. And he was standing outside that that location, and he talked to a police officer, and that police officer said, Stay on the right side of the law. And then maybe five minutes later, he heard all what he he claimed was like fireworks going off. But instead, that was actually like a lot of these mob bosses being mowed down to the point where they were cut in half with shotguns.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a bad deal. There were seven of them that night.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Who died waiting for a whiskey truck. However, even though nobody has been charged for the murder, historical evidence now suggests, and we can say it with confidence, that Al Capone was the guy who made the call.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, he had a he had a uh He had a hand in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just say he may have made the decision for this to go down.
SPEAKER_01:He didn't pull the trigger, but he didn't have to. Prohibition was a catalyst for a great many things that were entirely unexpected by those who wanted the 18th Amendment passed earlier in the 20s. The law was meant to stop the manufacturing, sale, and transportation of intoxicating beverages in an attempt to stop alcohol abuse and negative impacts of that. It worked for a short while. However, it did give a rise to bootlegging, a breakdown in Victorian traditions and belief systems, and catapulted organized crime. Before Prohibition, crime was still in existence just on a much smaller scale. Centered in large cities for the most part, street gangs and small-time crime bosses would run prostitution rings, drug rackets, and gambling rings in their respective cities. City gangs were generally segregated by ethnicity, but there were many different types of gangs and families that were all involved. Sometimes they crossed each other, sometimes they didn't. Irish gangs, Jewish, Italian, German, Black gangs, just to name a few, there were gangs for gangs for everybody. Everybody gets a gang. And like I said, some did stay segregated and some intermingled with each other, especially when we get closer to the 30s. It just kind of depended on the gang leader and how they wanted to handle their business. Gang bosses used influence to bribe police to ensure that they had protection. This was more frequent during prohibition. It was a lot easier to bribe the police and corrupt them. However, it did happen just on a much smaller scale before prohibition started. They would often charge protection fees to local businesses threatening violence if unpaid. So, you know, if money didn't work, they'd be like, well, pay us this, and if not, we'll kill you, and all of that stuff. It actually I've I haven't seen it personally, but it it does happen still today, I think, in in large cities to an extent, depending on the neighborhood, just not the way it did back then.
SPEAKER_03:So let me ask you this. Um, so anybody's watched like Boardwalk Empire and all that kind of stuff. Um was like, did the these bootleggers and these crane bosses were they like really counting down the days that prohibition would go into effect because then they could implement their schemes?
SPEAKER_01:It depended on who it was. So there were people who saw it for what it was as a big money grab. There were people who were super stoked about it, and then there were people who didn't want any part of it. There were guys out there who wanted to stick to their prostitution or stick to their drugs or whatever they're doing and keep doing what they were doing, and then there were guys who were super into it. So it just kind of depended on the person, the mob boss who was running things at the time. And actually, I think it was yeah, it was um in Capone's story where we get a mob boss who doesn't want anything to do with prohibition. So we'll actually run into it.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting. So that this wasn't like everybody okay, so you know, like how the stock market will decline, and every billionaire or whatever is like cool, stock market declines. We're now gonna invest and buy and buy and buy when it came to prohibition. It was maybe a handful of folks that were like, all right, cool, we can totally capitalize on this, but then everybody else was like, This is gonna suck.
SPEAKER_01:I want to say a handful. I would say I don't want to put a number on it because it's probably impossible to know. I would just say it's a mixed bag. It just depends on where it was.
SPEAKER_03:Alright, so it's between a a scoche and a and a handful of uh pillowcases full of kittens.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Honestly, if I were if I were to guess, I would say most of the crime bosses were able to see it as a form of capitalization, then not. Uh, but there were definitely crime bosses who didn't want anything to do with it, too.
SPEAKER_03:And then what happened to those crime bosses that really didn't want anything to deal with?
SPEAKER_01:The one example I have got shot.
SPEAKER_03:So perfect. All right. So, like, in other words, like if you were like, hey, I'm a mob boss, I don't want anything to do with this prohibition thing, you swallowed a bullet through the back of your head.
SPEAKER_01:I wouldn't say for every gang, I think it just depends on who it was, because I don't it just depends on on who it was and how powerful they were. Like I said, that was just the one example I have, but in general, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, all right, all right. Yeah, I'm I'm just curious because I I like the statistics and I like the figures and I like all that kind of stuff, so it's just like it's all good. Like, how much of a pushow was this? Because I feel like we are now entering the true dumpster fire.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like this whole thing's been a true dumpster fire, all of it.
SPEAKER_03:But I feel like this is where this is the most dangerous, yeah. This is where like people would most attribute prohibition with it failing hardcore.
SPEAKER_01:Not all of the drinking when you're not supposed to drink, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Or the mob crime, the all of it.
SPEAKER_01:To me, it's all of it.
SPEAKER_03:All of the yeah, like the police trying to enforce this when they can't, when they try to enforce it, that like the mobs fire back with more firepower, and I guess what I'm trying to say is the mob is one facet of it.
SPEAKER_01:We spent three episodes talking about all of the facets. This is just one of them.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's true, but it's just like, man, everybody loves the mob bosses.
SPEAKER_01:That's because it's fascinating, and you know, people love watching other people get killed, which is really weird. There's an entire Coliseum dedicated to it, Rome.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and and on top of that, though, it's more it has a lot to do with the advent of technology because like when we start seeing the Thompson submachine machine guns coming about, we start seeing like body armor coming about, and we see both sides trying to like level up their firepower versus body armor, and we just see it just go through the roof on both sides, and the ones that always win are well the mob bosses, the the the crime lords. Like they just seem how they just seem how to figure out how to circumvent things a little better for a little bit, and then they get caught, like caught caught.
SPEAKER_01:I don't know. We'll go through it. Or arrested, put in Alcatraz and die of cyclone uh syphilis for tax evasion, yes. Anyway, anyways, continue the Sicilian mafia made money from the black hand racket, sending letters demanding money from immigrants under threat of violence and death. There was also Tammany Hall, the political machine that sanctioned gambling and brothel rackets before turning to bootlegging.
SPEAKER_03:These are made- Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, hang on. Tammany Hall was still around? Yeah. I thought Tammany Hall kind of like died out after the Civil War.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, Tammany Hall was around until probably the 20s or the 30s.
SPEAKER_03:Holy crap. I had no idea. I I thought they died out after the Civil War, but Yeah, no, it was a big deal for a little a little while.
SPEAKER_01:It was it was a a corruption machine.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, as it was during the Civil War.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was just as bad after, too.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. All right. I learned something new every day.
SPEAKER_01:These remain street crimes under boss's control, localized boss control. Not yet large-scale organized crime, because they didn't need it to be. At least not yet. When prohibition passed in January of 1920, meaning when it went into effect, a number of these criminals saw a big opportunity. By the mid to late 20s, crime bosses were forced to organize and organize in a big way out of pure necessity to keep up with their operations of supply and demand of illegal booze. So what they did, they had to hire lawyers, they had to hire accountants, brewmasters, boat captains, warehouse workers, truckers, armedmen, bouncers, doormen, moonshiners. They owned speakeasies, they paid bootleggers, they paid truckers, the entire operation, they usually paid for it. And they they they were the guys who ran everything for most of them. There were other ones where they weren't as uh uh mobby, but these guys were they had their fingers everywhere. They bought closed breweries and then reopened them as their own. They bought boats for rum running, they bought moonshine from moonshiners, and then they turned around and they sold that moonshine. They sold the imported liquor from Rum Running, and they sold the liquor that they made in those warehouses that they bought. So it was a whole thing. And this big prohibition organized machine made them bank. Gangs would often work together in partnerships, crossing ethnic lines. However, gang rivalries and turf wars were extremely violent, and they always fought over power for money and for territory. For example, more than a thousand people in New York were killed in mob-related violence during the entirety of Prohibition. These systems were so profitable, efficient, and lucrative that organized crime stemming from the Prohibition era still exists today, though not nearly as powerful as it was at that time. Organized crime, spurred by prohibition, popped up all over the country. It came up in Cleveland, in Boston, Hot Springs, Arkansas, St. Paul, Minnesota, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit, New York, and Chicago. Today we will talk about three big cities in terms of prohibition era crime. We're going to talk about Detroit, New York, and Chicago. And then we'll kind of take a look at the variables that were put in place at the end to end prohibition. Finally. So most of this episode is going to be gang violence, gang violence, gang violence. Eitty bitty 21st Amendment. You're welcome, because that's what the people want.
SPEAKER_03:So there's like seven more episodes ahead.
SPEAKER_01:No, this is the last one. I made sure to condense it all. And so that's why we're only talking about three cities today. Because I could have gone on and on and on, but I'm not going to do that to everybody. All right. Chapter 17, The Bullshot. Quote: Detroit did not have to be. Detroit is, despite every obstacle that has been thrown into its path. That is Malcolm W. Bingay in his book, Detroit is my own hometown, written in 1940-something. In the 1920s, Detroit was a booming industrial city that was experiencing enormous growth thanks to the automobile industry that was based there. Between 1920 and 1930, Detroit's population went up from 993,678 people to 1,568,662 people. That's like a 58% growth. Major construction projects were underway, including several notable buildings downtown that are still there today. The city was bustling with activity and overall a good place to be for people looking for industrial work. But with any bustling city, there is also crime to follow. Always. Now, we have four brothers from Detroit's Lower East Side who traded paper routes for protection rackets before the age of 18, and they would be the d the founders of Detroit's most notorious gang, the Purple Gang. It's not exactly known why Abe, Ray, Joe, and Izzy Bernstein's gang was called the Purple Gang, but there are lots of stories. Some say it started as a joke about their colorful tempers, and others say it was the color of some people or some poor sap's skin after they were beat by the gang members. Wherever the name came from, they certainly made their mark in the Prohibition era in Detroit. Abraham was the quiet brother. He was charismatic but not obnoxious, and he always wore a nice suit. He never carried a gun because he didn't have have to. He knew who to bribe, he knew who to threaten, and he knew when to smile and wait. Ray, his brother, was an enforcer. He was cold and he was quick to pull the trigger. Joe, not prone to violence, oversaw smuggling, protection, and conflict resolution. And their smallest, youngest brother, Izzy, was the youngest, and his involvement was rather small compared to his older brothers, as far as we can tell in the records. He's most often found working as a runner, like some small time member of the gang under the protection of his family, and then he kind of disappears for a little bit. He's not as important, I guess. He didn't want to, he didn't, he didn't he, yeah, it's fine. During Prohibition, the Purple Gang ran the streets of Detroit. They would smuggle Canadian whiskey over the border or hijack other smuggling operations if it wasn't theirs. They would eventually supply Al Capone with the whiskey while he was running the outfit in Chicago. The gang would be a powerful force in bootlegging, drugs, and prostitution rackets. Local police had no way of arresting or indicting them because all witnesses were too afraid to come forward or they were corrupt on their own right. Between 1925 and 28, the Purple Gang became involved in a battle with the laundry industry, which I thought was funny. The Cleaner and Dyer War began in 1925 when the union called the Wholesale Cleaner and Dyers Association was formed by or strongly connected to people in the Purple Gang with the goal to stabilize the laundry industry and regulate, quote, pricing in the city for consumers. But then also uh the Purple Gang used the union to help create um opportunities for extortion and racketeering. It was basically a cover for racketeering. Uh, union gang members would harass launders who refused to join their union and pay their dunes. They there were instances where stink bombs were thrown into the launder's places or bricks were thrown into windows. Half-burned sticks of dynamite were left as warnings on windowsills or doorways. That's a fun time. And some were just physically assaulted outright. One instance in October of 1925, two launders were bombed and their owners were murdered. In 1928, the president of the WCDA and 12 purple gang members were arrested and charged for extortion. Every single one of them was acquitted.
SPEAKER_03:Really?
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Oh okay. It seems like those cases were pretty kind of like cut and dry.
SPEAKER_01:They paid them off.
SPEAKER_03:But they got off.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah. Yeah. No. The the corruption runs deep.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. I just wanted to clarify that because that's kind of infuriating.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it is. Truly. It's frustrating. Uh a fun fact, if I read this correctly, because I didn't write it down, that was my fault, but they were the first gang in Detroit to use a Tommy gun. So there's that for you.
SPEAKER_03:They what?
SPEAKER_01:They were the first gang to use a Tommy gun in Detroit.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01:In Michigan.
SPEAKER_03:So for those of you who don't know, a Tommy gun is a 45 caliber uh ACP, and what they would do is they would modify the gun to contain like 50, 60, 70, 80 rounds, and a 45 caliber bullet is just shy of a half inch, and it does pack a punch.
SPEAKER_01:There's a reason those things are outlawed now. Well, no, they don't keep them anymore or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:They're not outlawed, they're actually a really common self-defense gun. Um, but at the time, what they would do is they would modify the magazine that would hold not just like 10 or 20 rounds, but like a hundred rounds of 45 ACP. And that's why they're really wearing body armor. Yeah, yeah. Those like the the giant cinnamon bun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And they even had bigger ones. Uh, so like Clyde Barrow and a few other folks preferred the Tommy gun because it wasn't that hard to attach a magazine to it that could hold like 200 rounds.
SPEAKER_00:That's effective, I guess.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Could you imagine the pumpkins you could destroy or something like that?
SPEAKER_01:Or the watermelons?
SPEAKER_03:Or yeah, watermelons.
SPEAKER_01:Any melon, really.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like any melon doesn't stand a chance against that.
SPEAKER_01:No. That's one way to make a jack-o'-lantern for the season.
SPEAKER_03:Actually, I have the bet I have the best idea for a jack-o'-lantern.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_03:You take a pumpkin.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. And you know how it has like one side has that stem on it.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And then the other side kind of has like the opposite of the stem, where it's kind of like a little puckery type thing. On the bottom, right? Uh-huh. So what you do is you flatten out one side of that pumpkin, drill a little hole into the bottom of it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Put a candle inside of it.
SPEAKER_01:Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_03:And then you put like a uh like a stuffed or like an imitation cat head on the top of it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. And then that's your jack-o'-lantern.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So your jack-o' lantern is now facing with this butthole out with a little cat head on the top of it. And it is now every single cat that has ever been on a Teams or a Zoom call.
SPEAKER_01:You see it now. Okay. It took me a minute, but I can picture it now. I like it.
SPEAKER_03:I'm actually uh I I I've already placed an order for like a little stuffed cat head. Excellent. Like a little stuffy cat head. And I've already got my pumpkin.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm gonna drill out that butthole and put a candle in there.
SPEAKER_00:Love that.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Love that. Take pictures.
SPEAKER_03:Let's see how many HR complaints I can get because that's actually happened to me.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm kind of surprised because it's stupid, but I'm not surprised at the same time.
SPEAKER_03:No, I I I I legit had my cat during COVID like put her butthole up to the camera, and I literally had somebody call into HR saying, like, that's super offensive.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. That's excellent.
SPEAKER_03:Speaking of super offensive, Tommy guns and here we go. Mob bosses.
SPEAKER_01:The purple gang would continue to stay in power for another couple years, building up a rap sheet. That would be harder to hide. According to the Detroit Historical Society, the Purple Gang were involved in the following things. There's so much. Assault. Let's count them down, Shall we? Assault, bombing, hijacking, rum running, wire service, theft, gambling, extortion, prostitution, kidnapping, narcotics, and over 500 homicides in Detroit.
SPEAKER_03:Is that all?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so I mean that's 500 homicides. Is that all?
SPEAKER_03:Oh my goodness. This is like it's almost like they were trying to like get tops on with the police department on everything.
SPEAKER_01:I feel like the de the purple gang I found was really interesting because it's not one that you hear very often about.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_01:When you talk about um, you know, the mob and stuff and and prohibition, and they were pretty intense. They had a lot going on. So I was I was interested when I read this. I I highly suggest anybody who wants to read more to check out the um Detroit Historical Society's stuff on them. It's very informational and easy to read.
SPEAKER_03:I love how you emphasize, oh, it's easy to read because it's all like third grade reading level.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, like seventh grade. By the early 1930s, the gang began to crumble due to internal warfare and fractured leadership. In September of 1931, Herman Heime Paul, Isidore Izzy Sutker, and Joe Lebowitz, the names of these guys, were invited to the Collingwood Manor apartment building under the pretense of peace talks, and then they were shot by a gunmen after being found out they were double crossers. Sid Levine was the man who drove the three guys to the building and was later tied taken into police custody. He would be the one he would be one of the few witnesses to testify against the gang. His testimony led to the conviction of the three murderers, and they were sentenced to life for third degree murder.
SPEAKER_03:Wait, third degree murder?
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, I I know it first degree and second degree. What the heck is third degree murder? Because first degree is premeditated. Second degree is like, oh, I was drunk and I accidentally ran over this guy. What the heck is third degree?
SPEAKER_01:Third degree murder is an unlawful killing that is not premeditated but is carried out with malice, meaning there was an intent to cause harm, but not necessarily to kill. Like I wanted to beat the guy, but I didn't mean to kill him.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so you're accidentally trying not to accidentally put to potentially kill somebody.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. I'm sure there's a lot of uh lawyer jargon that we could go into and look up, but it's too late for that stuff, right? Let's just say they went in there with the intention of sending a message and beating them up, but they killed them instead. We'll go with that. The Collingwood Manor Moscow.
SPEAKER_03:So they intentionally but accidentally killed people.
SPEAKER_01:This particular instance, yes.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:But for the other what number is this? 500 homicides, I can't say. I don't know that one for sure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. For everybody else, though, this is how it panned out.
SPEAKER_01:Right. The Collingwood Manor Massacre marked the end of the Purple Gang. By 1935, activities and partnerships had disbanded, most members were dead, and it was no longer feasible to get rich from liquor after prohibitions end in 1933. So, while the Purple Gang wreaked havoc on innocent launderers in Detroit, a major crime boss in New York City was creating a nationwide crime syndicate. Chapter 18. Rob Roy. And uh Rob Roy is rumored to be the favorite drink of this next person we're gonna talk about here in New York City.
SPEAKER_03:In previous episodes, we established that new Isn't wasn't Rob Roy involved with the gunpowder plot?
SPEAKER_01:Um I don't know. I don't remember.
SPEAKER_03:Rob Okay Roy.
SPEAKER_01:I don't remember.
SPEAKER_03:Because I feel like that's a that's an episode for another day.
SPEAKER_01:Rob Roy McGregor. He was a Jacobite. He was European. According to my two-second Google search, which I did not put any effort into.
SPEAKER_03:Got it. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:It does. It sounds very familiar. Buchanan. He was according to Britannica. There's a guy, a Scottish Jacobite in. Anyway, that's another day. Sorry. We're getting we're getting sidetracked. Woo! Back to New York.
SPEAKER_03:That's what I'd do.
SPEAKER_01:Back to NY. In previous episodes, we established that New York was one of the wettest, if not the wettest, cities in the United States during prohibition. It was a major industrial Mecca, thriving cultural center, and a populous city in the 1920s. And again, I'm gonna say this for all three of them. Like all cities, it also had a dark side. Crime followed it. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, New York was home to a variety of different street gangs, all competing for power, territory, and money. Throughout New York City, politicians in Tammany Hall worked with the gangs, taking large bribes in return for protection for the gangs, so they continued to operate their racketeering schemes and so on and so forth. Local and federal law enforcement did the same. This form of corruption would only accelerate after the passage of the 18th Amendment. We're gonna start to see a pattern. It kind of happens over and over again. A major area of the city that produced the most famous gangs of the period was the Five Points District. For those of you who have seen um Gangs of New York, that's where that movie is set here. I will say that that movie is not exactly historically accurate, but it is a grand movie, and I like it.
SPEAKER_03:I would say it's a painting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's an exaggerated painting of a time period.
SPEAKER_03:Well, like any painting, somebody is trying to interpret the most accurate visual of what is going on, but they are limited by their humanity. Therefore, when we look at movies such as like Gings in New York or Saving Private Ryan or whatever, they're paintings. These are people trying to portray the emotions of that time period via how they could see it.
SPEAKER_00:I could see that.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, it's it's like the book that I'm writing about the women who worked in the the P38 Burbank factory in World War II. It's a painting, it's not a 100% accurate assessment of what is going on. Instead, it's me trying to portray the stories of the women that I studied and learned from growing up in a retirement community. Like I'm trying to put their stories into an image that people can remember.
unknown:Yep.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it it's this is this is a very literature thing where we try to like and well, like we try to analyze a painting, we try to analyze what was the creator trying to portray, understanding that they're going to be inaccurate in a lot of respects. So, like gangs of New York, horrifically inaccurate. But if I was to be teleported back in time to the 1860s, New York, I would probably have an idea of what was going on based on what I saw, but the nuances don't transfer. I don't know if that makes any sense. Talking to a historian, I don't know if that makes any sense, but it makes sense. Boy, it makes perfect sense in my head.
SPEAKER_01:It makes sense, and this is a whole conversation. Conversation. So I'm going to cut it a little short. But it makes sense. And I understand what you're saying. And I like that interpretation. Just we have to remember that it is a piece of art and not scholarly truth. So it's important to understand that sometimes movies can be taken literally and ruin the historiography of something. And we have to avoid doing that. That's all I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. But you can also watch a movie and kind of get an idea, like at least the emotional impact of what that movie's trying to portray.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And like I said, I understand that. And I recognize that it's just a fine line. You have to be careful and make sure people understand that it's not exactly right.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you can't you can't cite a movie as a historical fact.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:But you can cite a movie for its portrayal and trying to present any motive response out of people. Like, for example, like Saving Private Ryan, pure fiction. That movie, the events in there, all of that never happened. But when you watch Saving Private Ryan, you're like, dang, World War II sucked. And here is why it sucked.
SPEAKER_00:I could see that.
SPEAKER_03:And it's because Saving Private Ryan is designed to be more of a painting, a picture of uh to the best of humanity's capabilities, of showing, like, dude, World War II sucked. Like, Band of Brothers, World War II sucked. Thin red line, World War II sucked. And then so, like, I think they serve a purpose because it kind of shows people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, they absolutely serve a purpose. I'm not saying they don't.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's just that you can't really cite that scholarly essay.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And you can't believe that that is how it like exactly how it happened. You can't take that for historical fact.
SPEAKER_03:No, you can't. And only way you can is if you were around people that were actually there.
SPEAKER_01:Or if you're using contemporary sources to create it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Like a documentary.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Yeah, because a documentary is even more of a painting. It is like a painting of a painting. Versus, say, say, versus say, like, I knew people that were in Verdun. I knew people that were in the Battle of the Bulge. I knew people that stormed Normandy. Their interpretation of what happened was vastly different than what the textbooks say.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yes and no. It's one person's perspective of a very large event.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that one person's perspective is just as important as the next person's perspective. What's most important is all of those perspectives together and the patterns that you can gather to create a large picture of what actually happened.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. And so like I would make the argument, and I know I'm going completely off topic, but we are off the rails, yeah. Yeah. The rails have diverged and gone in other directions. But but like if I wanted to know like the grand scheme of say something like World War II, I would want to talk to Eisenhower.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:If I wanted to understand like what was the individual person experiencing in the 101st e Company, then yeah, I'd want to talk to Sergeant Lipke. Yeah. So therefore, their interpretation of the war is not going to be the same as Eisenhower's interpretation of the war.
SPEAKER_01:They're going to be very different, but they both have very equal values for different reasons.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. Therefore, read everything, study everything, learn everything, don't forget anything, and you'll be fine.
SPEAKER_01:Think critically. That's all I asked. Please just my baseline is think critically. If you don't know what that means, come to me and I can help you.
SPEAKER_03:And don't be afraid to ask questions and don't be afraid to question things.
SPEAKER_01:That means, yeah, that's what thinking critically means. It's just asking the questions.
SPEAKER_03:And trying to find answers, actively trying to find real answers, because so many people today they read a headline and they draw a conclusion and then they move on.
SPEAKER_01:And if you don't agree with the answer because it's not the answer you wanted, be willing to accept it anyway.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Anyways, five points. Five points refers to the intersection of the five streets in Lower Manhattan. The original street names were Cross, Anthony Orange, Little Water, and Modern Streets.
SPEAKER_03:Wait, wait, wait. Those were actual things?
SPEAKER_01:So the streets? Yeah. The five points is four streets, and that the four streets create five points that touch Yeah. So you have Cross Street. I don't know what direction it is. Cross Street, Anthony Street, Orange Street, and Little Water Street. Today they're still there, but they're renamed. They're named Park Worth Baxter and Mission Place. So you can actually look it up on a map and find it. It's there.
SPEAKER_03:So that that that was an actual thing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's why it's called the Five Points.
SPEAKER_03:Oh.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Cool, right? There we there we go. So we have a painting of New York at that time. There was actually something to that area.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh no, 100%. We're gonna get into it right now. Before it was renovated, the area was primarily a black neighborhood with a lake and a hill and places to live just outside the city. Throughout the 18th century, so in the 1700s, free African Americans would live there after working in the city. It was a hub for abolitionist meetings, a stop on the Underground Railroad, and it was in close proximity to Columbia University. It was also, fun fact, the birthplace of tap dancing.
SPEAKER_03:Of course.
SPEAKER_01:Of course. In the mid-18 Why not? Uh I read that tap dancing came from uh African American gangs or groups uh settling differences with the Irish groups and they danced it out.
SPEAKER_03:Well, yeah, because the Irish had their Irish step dancing.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, and African Americans have step dancing that's similar.
SPEAKER_03:African Americans that were utilizing their dance, but they would have a lot more arm movement and and all that stuff, whereas like the Irish like their arms were straight, like robots and Michael Flatley, river dance, all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So yeah, it's cool. In the mid-1800s after the Civil War and into the American Industrial Revolution, the area had been uh flattened, the pond was turned into a landfill, and it was renovated to meet the housing needs of all of the people coming into the city, and it formed New York City's first slump. It was naked.
SPEAKER_03:Only in America will they will we turn a lake into a landfill?
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, it's the 1800s.
SPEAKER_03:Kind of like the Grand Canyon.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, the Grand Canyon is still pretty.
SPEAKER_03:I know, but but there was legislation in the 20s that would turn the Grand Canyon into the nation's landfill.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and thank you, Teddy Roosevelt, for not letting that happen.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's like, hang on. Wait, wait, wait. Big hole in the ground. We're gonna keep it a big hole in the ground, we're not gonna be putting crap in it.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Teddy Roosevelt was a lot of things, but I appreciate him for that. The Five Points was a neighborhood filled with numerous immigrant residents, Irish, Jewish, German, and African American communities. The people who lived there mostly worked in the factories, they were law-abiding citizens, and primarily they were a product of the Industrial Revolution. The neighborhoods were largely overcrowded, and the people who lived there were often poorly paid, but they did their best.
SPEAKER_03:Was this like the 1860s, or was this still like in the 1920s, 30s?
SPEAKER_01:1880s, 1890s.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Overall, the five points neighborhood was an ecliptic area, and the argument can be made that the media, contemporary and modern, skews the public perception of it. To be fair, let's give it a shot. But with that said, it really was a place with multiple gangs, a lot of act like crime activity, lots of gangs were founded there. Uh there is some truth to the gangness, I guess, of it all, the violence of it. So there are some major gangs that come out of the five points area. We have the 40 Thieves, the Dead Rabbits, the Wai Who's, the Five Points gang, and then there's some other ones. We're gonna focus on the Five Points gang today. Many of these gangs were active from the mid to late 1800s, and they kind of died out closer to the 1910s in area. But the five points gang lasted until the early 1920s. During Prohibition, gangs provided a platform for bootleggers and small-time criminals to become organized crime bosses in New York City. The one we will talk about today is arguably the biggest one to come out of the five points, and that's the five points gang. The five points gang started in the 1890s when Italian gangsters unified local members of smaller gangs. It was considered the first mega gang as members of different gangs began abandoning previous ones or joining in after their gang dissolved over violence or internal problems. They took in members of the Dead Rabbits and the Wai Who's as well. So the Five Points gang would dominate the 1910s and remained to be into existence in the 1920s, but began to dwindle a little bit. In the 1910s, they started recruiting people like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. We'll get to Capone in a few minutes. Like, hang on, hold your horses. But first, we're gonna take a look at Lucky Luciano. Luciano would become one of the most powerful crime bosses in America by 1930, who had spread his influence on a national scale. Charles Lucky Luciano was born on November 11, 1896 in Sicily, Italy. His family immigrated to the U.S. in 1906. And they again they were part of that industrial move. They were fine, law-abiding citizens. I think mom was I don't remember what mom did, but dad was a shoemaker, like real, you know, modest stuff. But their son, he he wasn't too happy about it. That same year when they moved, he was 10 years old and he was already getting arrested. He was arrested for mugging, for shoplifting, and extortion at 10.
SPEAKER_03:When Luciano was 20, so he's off to a great start.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he was uh this this this guy. When Luciano was 20, he spent six months in jail for sangring heroin in 1916. Then four years later, he began to work with Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky, well-known gangsters who would build their own criminal empires during Prohibition. In the same year, in 1920, Luciano joined Joe Masseria. Maseria, yeah. One of New York's biggest crime bosses at the time. Maseria's gang took advantage of the prohibition's illegal bootlegging and the demand for alcohol not long after it went into effect. By 1925, Luciano rose to chief lieutenant in Maseria's outfit, where he would run bootlegging, prostitution, narcotics, and other rackets throughout New York. As he became more and more involved, he earned the nickname Lucky because he would often avoid arrest or consistently win while gambling. In October 1929, Luciano survived a one-way ride, is what they call it. That sounds terrible. It really cements the name that he earned Lucky. He was kidnapped, stabbed with an ice pick several times, his throat was slit, and then he was left for dead on Staten Island. When he was found, he was still alive and he had survived the ordeal. And he never told anybody who abducted him and did that to him.
SPEAKER_03:So is this what like Boardwalk Empire is based on?
SPEAKER_01:Uh Boardwalk Empire is Atlantic City. Okay, because it sounds familiar, but it could they could have taken this story and then used it for the show. I wouldn't be surprised if they did something like that as well. Um that one's just based in in Jersey, where this is New York.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because like there's the show has like Al Capone and Oh, yeah. It's good and all that in there. But I like that it sounds like it's kind of loosely based on loosely.
SPEAKER_01:I would say loosely based on it's it's the same conversation we just had. Like, great show.
SPEAKER_03:It's a painting. It's a painting, it's taking visual depiction.
SPEAKER_01:Right. And it's taking stories that really did happen, and then they're just kind of like integrating it in where they can.
SPEAKER_00:So got it. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's cool. I like that show. Between 1925 and 1930, Luciano became the biggest bootlegger in New York City. He would partner with nearby bootleggers and gangs to ensure efficiency as well as profitability. They made partnerships and imported with these well-known associates, and I'm gonna list them. Here we go. Meyer Lansky, which I just I mentioned him, Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, Louis Lepke Bucalter. We'll go with that. Abe Longy Zwilman, Frank Costello, and Vito Genovese. I love the names. In 1930, a conflict called Cast Cass Help Me Out here. Casellomares.
SPEAKER_03:How's it spelled?
SPEAKER_01:C A S T E L L A M M A R E.
SPEAKER_03:That would be Casillermo.
SPEAKER_01:Casillermo's war. Much better than how I said it. Way better. Way better.
SPEAKER_03:You're you're like you're like Brad Pitt from uh Inglorious Bastards. You're like Garmo. That's it. Guermo. Not galarmo.
SPEAKER_01:I should be better at this because I'm I'm not too bad at Spanish, but you know, it's fine.
SPEAKER_03:It's actually Italian.
SPEAKER_01:I that's what I'm saying. They're related. I'm actually decent at Spanish, so I should be okay at pronouncing these Italian names because they're both romance languages, but I'm not.
SPEAKER_03:So is English and French and German.
SPEAKER_01:English is not a romance language. It's a Germanic language.
SPEAKER_03:German and English are attributed to Middle English, which is a romance language.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's not. It's Anglo-Saxon. Romance language is.
SPEAKER_03:Which is also a romance foundation.
SPEAKER_01:Anyway, we're gonna have this argument later. Between Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maronzano.
SPEAKER_03:To say in English college, it is attributed to a romance language. To say.
SPEAKER_01:Between Joe Maseria and Salvatore Maranzano began to become more and more violent. They fought over the control of New York's organized crime system and the Italian community. The two gangs continues to go back and forth like gangs do. Believe it or not, the violence we see in the movies, it's not too far off. Like the violence part, when it came to that level of gang violence that was experienced, it was act it really was pretty rough. Like bodies being put into trucks and lots and lots of bullets and bombs and all the things and drive-bys and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_03:So when you think of so this is like 1920s?
SPEAKER_01:Now we're in the 20s. We're actually in uh 1930.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, so okay. Because I always thought like this type of crime was more in the 20s. It slows down in the more later in the late 20s, early 30s.
SPEAKER_01:Correct. So when whenever you read about prohibition or you watch a documentary or whatever, the crime stuff is always towards the end because chronologically it ramped up really big in the late 20s and early 30s.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. So it took time.
SPEAKER_01:It took some time to build up. And then when it did build up, it was like a volcano.
SPEAKER_03:So or dumpster fire.
SPEAKER_01:Or dumpster fire. Luciano preferred Moronzano's more flexible leadership, noting the acceptance of Jewish members like Lansky and Siegel. He had known about how their game was operating since he was doing business with them in various rackets. And he also felt that Maseria was wasting resources on a conflict that seemed endless with pointless bloodshed. So it's very ironic. So in 1931, mid-game war, Maseria was murdered after Luciano arranged a meeting to have him killed. Luciano then joined Maronzano's gang. Maronzano promoted Luciano and his organization, but soon he got really scared of him and he plotted to have him killed. Luciano heard about this plan to have him killed, so instead he had Maronzano killed that same year. You're welcome.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so basically, we're talking in a few short years, everybody was having everybody killed for whatever reason.
SPEAKER_01:Correct. So what happened was Luciano was part of Maceria's gang, right? And Maceria was waging war with this Maronzano guy. Luciano knew people on Maronsano's side, and he liked the way Maronsano treated them a lot more than Maceria was treating him. So Luciano decided that he was going to have Maceria killed. And then when that happened, he switched over to Maronzano's side, right? And then when he went to Marinsano's side, Maronzano realized that Luciano was not a guy you mess with. And then Maronsano was like, we gotta kill this guy because he's coming from my job. And then Luciano was like, hey, you're gonna kill me because you think I want your job, so I'm gonna kill you. And that's what happened.
SPEAKER_03:So, in other words, I feel like you and I would be terrible moments.
SPEAKER_01:I'd be a horrendous mobster. I I am happiest behind a book.
SPEAKER_03:Right?
SPEAKER_01:So no, I this is not for me.
SPEAKER_03:I would be happiest like arguing with you about historical stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I I would be terrible behind a Thompson submachine gun.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I couldn't. Not for me. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I I feel like you and I would be the most useless mobsters in EOS history to the point where we wouldn't get killed. We would just get fired from the mob. I wouldn't touch the mob with the tension or Antarctica to like do our thing.
SPEAKER_01:Like I wouldn't want to even be involved. Don't put me in that. I won't be in that part of town. I respect it. I appreciate the culture. I will talk to people from there and be nice to them. But I will be scared.
SPEAKER_03:So you can't tell me, like, here's the people you have to kill. I I have no desire to kill anybody. What do you mean? Yeah, no one kill people. Like, I I I know how to use a Thompson submachine gun to blow up pumpkins, but I how how am I supposed to kill all these people? It's just not within me.
SPEAKER_01:I could never, I could never. I also have a moral compass, so there's that too. That's the issue.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. It's the moral compass. My moral compass is losses magnetism a long time ago. But I would still be a terrible mob boss.
SPEAKER_01:My compass is still strong. All right. So, anyway, after killing both Maseria and Maronzano, Luciano had earned the title boss of all bosses. He had also earned a following of younger gangsters who felt the same way he did, in that the generations of bosses before them had been very wasteful in losing sight of what was most important. Money. Now, now that he was boss, Luciano wasn't a big fan of how the system was organized. As we have mentioned, he made some changes and utilized the relationships that he had built with other gangs in major cities. In 1934, he created the National Crime Syndicate. One comparison that I read and I liked it, it was this. Think about it like a board of executive directors at a major corporation. Luciano had it set up to where any major disputes would be talked to or talked over, I'm sorry, diplomatically and settled peacefully without violence. So he'd get the leader from this gang over there, and the leader from that gang over there. I can see we're freaking out about the alcohol supplies coming in from Canada and we're fighting over it. Come and talk, we'll talk about it and discuss it and meet and over. Nobody has to die. And then they'll chat about it and then we'll figure something out. Like violence, let's keep it last resort type of thing, right? That was the goal, surprisingly. And then uh the new system of organized crime would be so successful that it would last well into the 1950s, which I thought was fascinating. And it makes sense. In 1935, Luciano was arrested for running a prostitution ring and extortion. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison. Despite his prison sentence, he continued to run crime empires from prison, delegating work to his trusted leaders within the syndicate. And then in 1942, Luciano was asked by the U.S. Navy to assist in preventing sabotage on the New York waterfront and aided insecurity of the docks during wartime. The luxury liner, Normandy, was blown up in New York Harbor, leading to the Navy to come to him for help, and Luciano did in fact reach out to the organized criminals on the waterfront, and all criminal activity in the area did indeed stop. It can be assumed that it was because he told them to stop. And his involvement in assisting the U.S. Navy, Luciano's sentence, was commuted in 1946, then he was deported to Italy, where he was expected to spend the rest of his life. Not the one to sit on his laurels, Luciano tried running narcotics in and out of Cuba before he was pressured to return to Naples by the Cuban government. He spent the rest of his life in Naples, with the Italian government keeping a close eye on him. He died of a heart attack at the airport in Naples, Italy, in 1962. He is buried in Queens, New York. So that's Luciano. Okay. Are we ready? Are we ready for the guy that we've been waiting for? Bill for the windy city. Yeah, Bill. Ah, here we go. Here we go. Chapter 19. Templeton rye whiskey. Supposedly that was his favorite drink. And I start this one with a quote.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like you're educating a lot of people on how to get absolutely trashed.
SPEAKER_01:No, they're just names of drinks. That's it.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, I guess you're not sharing how they're made.
SPEAKER_01:No, not at all. They're just names.
SPEAKER_03:Just the fact that they were made.
SPEAKER_01:Correct. And the fact that you can find them easily online. Quote: Nobody wanted prohibition. This town voted six to one against it. Somebody had to throw some liquor on that thirst. So why not me? Al Capone. Like New York, Chicago had a major influx of people moving into the city from all over the world. It was an industrial powerhouse during the Industrial Revolution, and by the early 1900s, it was one of the biggest cities in the United States. And with all of that migration, its success also came, you guessed it, organized crime. Chicago had multiple gangs throughout the city, just like New York and Detroit and all these other places. Many of these were also, just like New York and Detroit and all the other places, ethnically segregated. While some were integrated as Prohibition demanded more from them, others stayed segregated. Just kind of depends. Anyway, we have the Circus Gang. That was a fun name. The Sheldon gang, the O'Donnell Brothers gang, the Northside gang, and the Chicago Outfit. Now, the Chicago Outfit is the most famous gang to come out of 1920. Chicago, known for its violence and its colorful leader, Al Capone. The outfit was created in 1920 by Johnny Torrio and his right-hand man Al Capone, who at the time had moved from Chic moved to Chicago from New York after brutally assaulting a member of an opposing gang member there. They were threatening to kill him, so he moved with his wife and his kid to Windy City. I can't really blame him, it's fine. Torrio had become a mentor to Capone, showing him the ways of being a crime boss, running prostitution rings and gambling rackets in the city. At the time of Capone's arrival in 1920, Torrio had been working under the outfit's crime boss, Big Jim Colosimo. Before he had him killed for refusing to enter the bootlegging scene, then became the crime boss for the outfit operating in Southside Chicago. So that's the guy I was telling about. The gang orchestrated bootlegging rings, brothels, and gambling rackets. They made a ton of money doing it. Most of the money came from illegal alcohol. The outfit partnered with other street gangs to share profits and products in the bootlegging business for efficiency and in an attempt to avoid violence in the streets of Chicago, but we are gonna find out how that went. From 1922 to 1926, the outfit was involved in the Chicago Beer Wars, which would claim the lives of 465 gang members. 315 of those deaths were gang-on-gang violence, and 150 of those were from police. Rival gangs were in a violent power struggle over the control of the manufacturing, transportation, and selling of illegal liquor throughout the whole city. And it was just as violent as we have seen in the movies, just like in New York drive-by shootings, bombings, machine guns, the works, all the things. So, whatever your brain pictures from all those movie scenes that you have seen, that's probably not far off. In the midst of the beer wars, the outfit found itself pitted against the Northside gang led by Charles Dean O'Banion, George Bugsy Moran, and Jaime Weiss. I love these names in 1924. This, I'm sorry, I felt bad for laughing at this, but the image. In 1924, Capone and Torreo had ordered the murder of O'Banion, which was successfully carried out in O'Banion's flower shop. Can you imagine like buying some flowers for mom or like you're in trouble with the wife and you're getting some flowers or like for grandma or whatever? You're in there getting ready to buy something, and the owner is in there standing there, and like just some dude walks in with a Tommy gun, shoots him up in the middle of the flower store and then leaves. What?
SPEAKER_03:Yes. But O'Banion Wild. Yeah, like he legitimately had a flower shop.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like legit. But but it was also covering for racketeering and god knows what else.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I'm just saying. So like there was a lot going on.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, 100%. There's a lot going on. I'm just saying, if you're just like some rando buying flowers for mom, yeah, you're you're you're you're gonna get your butt shut off. Yeah, that that's wild. Crazy. Anyway, Rand and Weiss were there to witness the murder. And in retaliation, Bugsy Bugs, I think it's Bugs, attempted to murder Capone, but failed not long after O'Banion was murdered. After O'Banion, Jaime Weiss would take the leadership position at the Northside Gang. For two years, he organized multiple attempts to assassinate Al Capone and engaged in numerous shootouts with the outfit. He'd be killed in October 11, 1926, in a drive-by shooting. R.A.P. After Weiss was murdered, shot down in a drive-by. Moran took the reins of the gang until the early 1930s. While the Northside gang was trying to figure out who was going to lead them, the outfit had to change of leadership as well. In March of 1925, Torrio was shot and injured by a rival gang member. I think that one was the Gemma gang. He was sentenced to nine months in jail, right after that. So he was shot, he survived it, then he went to jail after that. It was a string of bad luck, and he eventually just decided, you know what? I'm going to retire from this life of crime. It's not for me anymore. And he moved to Italy for a short time, I think three years, and then he settled back down in the US. He gave his position to Al Capone in late 1925. So now, in 25, Capone is the leader of the outfit. Under Al Capone's leadership, the outfit was extremely profitable. Between 1926 and 1929, he was earning about$100 million per year in 1925 money. So the conversion of that is$1.4 billion a year. That's a lot of money.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a crap ton of money.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. A year. That's crazy. Anyway, he controlled almost the entire bootlegging supply, 20,000 speakeasies, and a thousand men were working for him. Not only that, he was an extremely bombastic, charismatic, and colorful character. He wore um suits that were all kinds of different colors, like red suits and blue suits, and pink suits and green suits. That's what he was known for. He was also known for taking frequent interviews all the time. He modeled himself as a champion for the people of Chicago. He claimed to be like Robin Hood, providing the people with what they truly wanted: alcohol.
SPEAKER_00:Gosh.
SPEAKER_01:This guy. This is one of the primary reasons why Capone is so famous. Um, he was incredibly smart. He was good at what he did. He was very violent and um a scary person, but also he was really good at marketing himself. His incredibly unique personality and the way he ran the outfit is, I think, what made him famous. And I'm gonna give you a lovely quote just to really hammer in my point here. He says, When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on Lakeshore Drive, it's called hospitality. Just to really nail it in there. Capone created relationships or partnerships with local politicians, police, and lawyers to keep his illegal rackets running without interpretations or arrests. While he did so, violence continued to escalate in Chicago, oh, in Chicago over territory, alcohol supply, and power in the city amongst all of the gangs. Capone's most notorious rival at this point was Bugs Moran, who was in charge of the Northside gang. On September 20th, 1926, Capone was having lunch with several of his men at the Hawthorne Hotel in Cicero, Illinois. Moran and his men drove by in multiple cars, shooting the hotel with Tommy guns and shotguns. After the drive-by was over, it was noted that a thousand rounds were fired into the building, and remarkably nobody died in the attack. So that's just really poor stormtrooper aim. But also, like, that's crazy. That really happened, that's a thing. By February of 1929, Capone found out that Moran had put out a$50,000 bounty on his head amongst the gangs of Chicago. Tired of Moran, he ordered his men to destroy the North Side gang. And on February 14th, 1929, a whiskey delivery was expected overnight to the Northside Gang's warehouse. Bugs Moran was running late to meet the truck but knew his men would be there to handle the exchange until he arrived. Coming upon the building, he saw that two police officers were entering the warehouse. Moran waited outside, not wanting to get in the middle of a police raid just to get arrested for the Volstead Act violations. That'd be annoying. After a short time, shots would be heard outside of the building. What Moran did not know is that the two officers he saw enter the building were two unidentified men who shot and killed seven of his men after lining them up single file against a brick wall inside of the building. Moran fled, and when officers arrived, only one man was still alive inside. Before he died, ah, that's his name, Frank Gusenberg was asked who shot him. He responded with nobody, nobody shot me. And Gusenberg died without giving away anybody who shot him. Excellent museum, by the way. It's great. And they have that wall. They have the wall of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. They had it shipped there. And you can see the bullet holes in the wall. I've seen it. It's so cool. Go to the museum. Like it's cool, but it's really like, oh my god, you know, it's kind of ghoulish. Yeah. It's great. Go there, visit it. It's really cool. Where is it at again? Las Vegas. It's uh in an old courthouse that they used for um the trials that they put the crime bosses on back in the 50s. Yeah, it's there. It's a museum now. It's really cool. Interesting. Yeah, highly recommend it. Uh my husband and I went a few years ago. I have pictures, I'll send it to you. All right. So the St. Valentine's Day Massacre would be one of the most infamous murders in American history. It immediately made headlines in newspapers across the country. It was a media sensation and technically still an unsolved crime, even though we're pretty sure who did it. The seven victims of the massacre were were reported in the paper shortly after. And I'm going to list them. They are as follows. Here we go. Frank Gusenberg and Pete Gusenberg were both Moran's enforcers and brothers. Albert Kochalek, or James Clark, he was second in command after Moran, so that's unfortunate. Adam Heyer, business manager, Albert Wainshank, associate, Rain Hart Schwimmer, associate, and John May, the mechanic. So we've got two main enforcers, the second in command, a few associates, a couple other guys. Like that's a big deal for the Northside gang. They're done. Like this is this is the nail in the coffin. At the time of the massacre, Al Capone was in Miami in his family vacation home. And that's why he was never convicted of the crime. But historians are fairly certain that he was the one who ordered the hit. Back in DC, we're gonna shift gears here a little bit. Okay. Back in Washington, DC, at the same time, Maybelle Walker Willenbrandt, my girl, started the practice of going after bootleggrox evasion charges and tax-related crimes to get around the corruption of the government that had hindered her throughout her entire tenure as Assistant Attorney General. She would use this method between 1926 and 29 before she resigned to Herbert Hoover after he passed her up for the job of assistant attorney general when he was elected. Her method in using taxes against organized mobsters would be used even after her departure with great success. The increasing violence in New York, Detroit, Chicago, and other cities had gained the attention of President Hoover, who had been elected president a year earlier in 1928. In response to the illegal activities surrounding prohibition laws, he began reorganizing how it was enforced. In 1930, Hoover moved the prohibition unit from the IRS to the Department of Justice because it made more sense and made it mandatory to report income attained legally and illegally on yearly tax reports. This created a catch-22 for bootleggers and mobsters trying to get around, being arrested. I mean, it's pretty smart. The Attorney General of Chicago, George E. Q. Johnson, partnered with Elmore I. Elliot Ness was 26 years old when he got the job as special agent in charge of prohibition. And he was ordered to take down Al Capone over Volstead Act violations, collect evidence, while the other unit went through his finances. Ness handpicked nine men who felt would not be easily bribed or corrupted by the crime bosses in Chicago. All ten men were under the age of 30, and they would be reimagined throughout history after in movies and television as the untouchables. Early on, Ness and his men went after Capone's breweries. He had shared a plan with some of the Chicago's police officers of what they were going to do and where they were going to raid the brewery. Unfortunately for him, one of them was on Capone's payroll, and Ness made the mistake of inviting press to go to the raid to ensure that Capone's capture was in the papers and all of that stuff. But uh when they got there, the brewery was completely empty. After this incident, Ness never shared his plans with the police. Remember, when you fail, you learn. Ness would continue to gather evidence against Capone in Chicago to make a case against the Volcit Act charges until 1931. In the meantime, Ira and Wilson had gone through 1.7 million financial transactions by mid 1930 related to Al Capone's many different rackets, from gambling to prostitution. Into bootlegging. Can you imagine how boring that would be? But also not boring. Like, oh, 1.7 million financial documents? That's crazy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that that's a lot.
SPEAKER_01:That's a lot of financial paperwork. As they were doing so, they brought in a man who had written up some of these documents. His name was Leslie Sherman, and they convinced him to testify against Al Capone based on his tax evasion. Capone was arrested in 1931. His trial was highly publicized, and he was ultimately convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. So he was arrested for tax evasion and nothing else. It was evidence that Capone was given a very strict sentence for something as little as tax evasion compared to everything else. However, it was probably had something to do with the fact that Ness was able to find enough evidence for other crimes to extend the conviction, even if nobody said that part out loud. All right. We're almost done, friends. We're gonna end it in whirlwind speed here because we just got through all the fun stuff, and I know you're just so thrilled to hear about the 21st Amendment. Here we go. We're gonna power through it. We got this. Rewind back to St. Valentine's Day Massacre after the massacre happened in 1929. There was a shift that began to occur in the general opinion of Prohibition and the realization among those who were dry that it may not be working out so much.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you think?
SPEAKER_01:You think the increasing amount of violence, the fact that people were drinking anyways, and the changes in culture and traditions amongst young people who came of age during prohibition began to shift the political minds towards the repealing of the 18th Amendment. In April of 1929, Pauline Sabin, the first female board member of the Republican National Committee and once staunch dry supporter, renounced her position with the Republican National Board to start a new group, the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform. She had met any she had met many other women who had once been for Prohibition Change, which been prohibition, and they wanted to change their stance on that matter. By 1932, the organization had over a million members. So demand was up. On October 28, 1929, the stock market crashed. An economic domino effect created a storm of variables that, I will say, for another day, caused the greatest economic depression in American history. Suddenly, the boom of the 1920s was a thing of the past, and by the time Capone was evicted in 1931, there was a desperate need to for a tax boost in the American economy, along with a ton of work to rebuild it. Prohibition then turned into a nuance for people down on their luck and for the government who longed for a time in which alcohol was one of the biggest tax earners in the nation. Ultimately, it would be the Second World War that would pull this, that pool the US out of the depression, but ending prohibition would have its place in recovery as well. Hoover, when he was elected, began looking into the pros and cons of the effects of prohibition and its repeal. That's not right. In 1931, I believe, Hoover began looking into the pros and cons of the effects of prohibition and its repeal. He put together a commission of lawyers, scholars, and politicians to go over the big picture. They found more reasons to repeal the 18th Amendment than they did to keep it. This commission, or panel, if whatever you want to call it, was called the Wickersham Panel. Instead of recommending all-out repeal, they first recommended an amending the Volstead Act to try to make it better. Things like increasing the amount of prohibition agents and giving Congress more power to enforce the law, things like that. Arguments and discussions went back and forth and back and forth. And while these discussions were happening in 1930, unemployment went up to 3.2 million Americans without a job. The farming industry was hit with the double whammy of depression and the Dust Bowl. We have an episode on that, go check it out. Food riots were occurring throughout the cities, and people were living in slums that they had dubbed Hoovervilles after the president that they had blamed. At the same time, the Anti-Saloon League had lost its power, and the WTCU went on to support people throughout the Depression as best they could. In 1932, a presidential election was on the line with Herbert Hoover running for re-election against the up-and-coming Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoover had been a dry politician. However, that was doing him a disservice in 1932, a very different election than the one he had won in 1928. FDR had earned endorsement from the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform. Growing desperate, Hoover had changed his position and claimed that he would be in support of reform, to the dismay of those who still clung to dry laws. It wasn't enough, and Hoover would lose the presidency to Franklin Roosevelt, who won in a landslide. The House and the Senate also both went democratic in the election as well. In early 1933, a draft of the 21st Amendment was introduced. Congress had pushed through a joint resolution to write a new amendment and repeal the 18th Amendment. It was passed in the Senate in February, then sent to the states for approval. On the state level, if repeal won the popular vote in the states, each state would send a delegate to a convention where they would vote on repeal. This was done to deter the waning anti-Saloon League from slowing down this process. Meanwhile, two weeks after he was elected, Roosevelt had one of his aides take a recommendation to Congress. That recommendation would later be introduced into Congress as the Beer Wine Revenue Act. The act would allow the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol that was 3.2% or less, making beer and wine legal again. And all over the country, people were celebrating, they were buying beer again. It was a really happy thing. And Roosevelt knew it would raise the moral, the morale of the American people, and it would pump some tax revenue into the economy that truly needed it. The act was passed in nine days and went into effect on April 7, 1933. After 13 years of prohibition, people were allowed to buy beer and white again. The same year, 33, in November, Utah would be the 36th state to repeal the 18th Amendment. Only nine months after the 21st Amendment was sent to the states, it was approved on December 5th, 1933, officially ending prohibition in the U.S. It was the first time in American history that an amendment was successfully appealed. After the repeal of it, the 18th Amendment, alcohol laws were left to the states. Section two of the 21st Amendment states, quote, transportation or importation into any state territory or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors and violation of the laws thereof is hereby prohibited. So, in other words, states could just choose what they wanted to do in terms of alcohol. Some states took complete control of alcohol sales and manufacturing, while others left it to municipalities instead. So, in other words, they let cities decide what they wanted to do with it and they wanted had no say in the matter. Other states still hold on to dry laws regulating where alcohol is sold. Mississippi held on to their prohibition laws until 1966. In 2002, 16 states allowed alcohol to be purchased on Sundays for the first time since prohibition was repealed. Even crazier, there are still places today where prohibition laws are in effect, almost all in the Midwest or in the South. And while making beer and wine at home is legal, it's illegal to make alcohol in a still or in a bathtub. Any major distiller, brewer, or winemaker needs a permit from the IRS to legally manufacture alcohol and taxes from alcohol purchases that are still an important piece of government income. The final legacy I will leave you with, and there are a lot of them, is that Americans don't drink as much as they had in the 1830s and 40s. When they do drink, it's often social at a bar or a brewery at home with dinner. Responsible drinking has been popular since Prohibition, and statistics coming out today are showing that fewer and fewer people are consuming alcohol during this time period. So while Prohibition itself was truly a dumpster fire, the ladies of the WTCU can at least say that they achieved their goal of getting rid of the saloon and finding some form of temperance. And that, my friends, is Prohibition. Uh the final episode, episode four. I hope you liked it. We finally got to talk about some Al Capone, some lucky Luciano, some murder, all of the good stuff, and the end of Prohibition. I'm muted. Hello, we're done.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah, there we go.
SPEAKER_01:There you go. Sorry. I went ahead and finished it up. And I clapped a couple times and like hit the mic so you could see where the the spikes are and the waves, so you can end it.
SPEAKER_03:A lot of people got a lot of people shot and killed.
SPEAKER_01:Essentially, yes. And then prohibition ended because laws and stuff. And um we still have some effects of prohibition today, and I ended it with them, the WTCU ladies kind of getting what they wanted.
SPEAKER_03:So, like to to what extent is is like prohibition uh I know and and I know we've kind of hit upon this in the past few episodes. Um, but like to what extent is I just I I just saw Nebula wake up behind you.
unknown:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Now she's looking her butt.
SPEAKER_03:She's just like, yeah, proven what's up? What hey, I'm here.
SPEAKER_01:I can read it real quick if you want.
SPEAKER_03:Well, well, no, I'm I'm just kind of curious to see like to what extent do we still see it today?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so like it just depends on the state because what happened was the 21st Amendment gave the states the power to control what they wanted to do with alcohol. So depending on what state you're in, the more effects you'll see. So like a state like Utah, you can only buy alcohol that's like 4% at the most, or something stupid. And in other states, there are still prohibition laws in effect, or like in other cities, there are still prohibition laws in effect. You can't buy alcohol in certain cities in the south.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, so you're so so like curfews located curfews or like ABC stores.
SPEAKER_01:There are certain states where you can't buy alcohol on Sundays. Um, like in 2002, 16 states were allowed to purchase alcohol on Sundays for the first time. And that's 2002. Okay. Yeah, stuff like that. Like the weird alcohol liquor laws that we have today, or like the alcohol permits that you need to get to manufacture alcohol, you have to get from the IRS.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And apparently there's a law where you can't make gin in a bathtub.
SPEAKER_03:Actually, the craziest law that I have just been exposed to. Your truck cannot be any more than 50% on fire while the bed has ice cream in it.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. That's specific.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, it's it's super specific. I'm like, I'm in jury duty. Am I seriously going to hear a case about this? Because bring it on. Like wild. This is content for the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's great. That's great. And the biggest one that I uh I kind of left with was that people just don't drink as much anymore. We don't see the same type of alcohol consumption we did in the 30s and the 1830s and 1840s. So kind of in the end.
SPEAKER_03:Do you think prohibition helped with that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think so. All the sources that I've read, um, that was one of the the impacts was like, yeah, it was a disaster, but people just don't drink as much after that. Maybe they realized that it wasn't worth all of the craziness that comes along with it. Maybe it was the cultural changes that happened. You know, like now you can go out, just go out to a bar and get it out of your system and then go home. Because now men and women are drinking together. Men aren't confined to drinking in saloons and gonna go home and doing god knows what to their wives.
SPEAKER_03:So now it's a matter of men and women are getting drunk and doing god knows what to each other.
SPEAKER_01:I think it's just a lot of different things working together to make that happen.
SPEAKER_03:Because how how long did prohibition last for? It was like 10 years, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It was 13 years, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, yeah. So 13 years, uh technically speaking, that's enough time to bring up a generation. Yeah, there's a generation of people who came of age during prohibition, yeah, where like for them it wasn't that big of a deal, or if it was uh they weren't impregnated with the addiction as much, but then their kids, then I think we see a spike.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, there's a spike that happens in the 70s, if I read it correctly, and then it goes back down.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, same thing with like cigarette smoking and whatnot, yeah, yeah, and tobacco. Because I I because I remember being a teenager and all my friends smoked, oh but then it did it it quickly died off after.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I d I don't the only people I ever knew who smoked cigarettes were old people, yeah. Or like maybe a couple here and there, handfuls of people, but that's it.
SPEAKER_03:So, what what do you think would have happened if Prohibition had lasted for like another 20, 30 years?
SPEAKER_01:I don't know if it could have. Because what did it in was the Great Depression.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's true. Because it was super hard to enforce.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it was already super hard to enforce, it was gonna fail anyway, I think. And then what really did it was the um the depression, just people couldn't afford it anymore, and then people were down on their luck, so if they were gonna buy anything, man, I just really need a beer right now.
SPEAKER_03:I just need a belt of anything. Yeah, who cares if it makes you go blind?
SPEAKER_00:Right?
SPEAKER_03:Like, but but but no, to to the point though, like what do you think would have happened if let's say probation never got repealed? Do you think there would have been an even more decrease in alcohol consumption today, or do you think it would just been like marijuana where the cartels would have just controlled all of it and no, I think during that period, if it had continued, it depends on the variables that come into play, right?
SPEAKER_01:So a lot of the variables that were already in play before the depression hit were the changing of public opinion because of all of the mob violence, because of and because of the federal crackdown and because of change in tradition and stuff like that. And so I think there's a very slim chance that it would have continued for that long if it did. I feel like it would have been one of those things where it was like driving 10 miles over the speed limit, right? Like, eh well, look, he's drinking whatever. I have more important things I have to take care of.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, okay. I I think I see you're going with this. So like I can drive from my work place to home at 90 miles an hour, and I'm not gonna get pulled over. Yeah. Because it is it, it's just not worth it. It's not now. If I was weaving in and out of traffic and doing stupid crap, then yeah, the cop is gonna pull me over. But for the most part, it's gonna be like I don't care how much alcohol you have in your system. Are you getting home safely? Fine, whatever. Because it's just not worth it to enforce it to a certain degree.
SPEAKER_01:To an extent, yeah. That's that's kind of where I think it would have gone if certain variables weren't so difficult, like like the crime, like the murderer and the gang wars and all of that stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Well, and we were already kind of seeing that, like now more and more border states have kind of like legalized marijuana marijuana. We are seeing a stark decrease in like I don't know, um organized crime over the borders and whatnot, because this is like, well, crap. You can go anywhere now and get this stuff, whereas before it was super illegal, and so it's almost like the more you legalize stuff, the more or the the the more you see the crime kind of decrease because you're de-incentivizing all of that, right?
SPEAKER_01:And there are limits to it, right? There's nuances and stuff to it, depending on you know the substance or whatever you want to call it. But um something interesting. I I think I read it or heard it in a documentary or something was the 18th amendment is I think the only amendment or one of the few amendments that says you cannot do something.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, everything are things that you do have the right to do. You can do this, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You have the right to freedom of speech, right? You have the right to freedom of religion, yeah, you have the right to an attorney, you have all these rights, whereas the 18th Amendment was like don't do this, yeah. You don't have this right, right?
SPEAKER_01:So I thought that was an interesting thought nugget.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that that's actually a fascinating way of looking at it. Yeah. Because it's not a bill of rights when it's a bill of refusal of rights, right? Okay, and Americans don't handle that well, Americans don't handle the you cannot do this approach well. Yeah, Americans are fine with a a a bill of rights where like, hey, this is what you can do. But then once you start saying that, no, sorry, Americans, you can't do this and you can't do that, you can't consume this. It gets a little dicey. Yeah, they kind of they kind of revolt.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And there are there are other like laws and stuff, obviously, that we follow, right? It's not like we're a lawless land out here. But um, a lot of those laws come based off of precedents, right? Based off of you know things that have happened that had to be settled, and then we follow it. Whereas our constitution and the thing that we're supposed to follow is a list of things that we do have the right to. So it's interesting.
SPEAKER_03:Government. So like civics to kind of bring in a little bit of literature. The Great Gatsby. As Scott Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby, because there he mentions a part where like this super rich guy comes in and he builds a freaking castle, and then he wants all the smaller servant houses around it to have like thatched roofs and whatnot. And then if Scott Fitzgerald said in there that like Americans are okay. Americans are okay being poor, but not subservient. So you can't sit there, like you can sit there and and tell an American that you're not gonna make any money, but you uh a billionaire can't come in and say, Hey, I need you guys to come across as peasants. Yeah, I think and and and that this doesn't sit well with Americans. We're okay being poor and broke, but Americans are not okay being serfs.
SPEAKER_01:I think that the sticking point is at least give everybody the opportunity. Opportunity is a key word. Whether you take the opportunity or not, that's the choice you can freely make. Yeah, it's when you take the opportunity away, that's when you get a problem.
SPEAKER_03:Or or when you deny somebody their identity, or that because like okay, like I I'm I'm not a very wealthy person, hence the podcast and whatnot, but but I I I'm I I will lose it, I will get very frustrated when a government agency comes in and says that I am now classified as a certain type of human being, right? And I feel like that's kind of where prohibition really fell apart because I it wasn't classifying anybody as anything, no, but it was literally just taking away a person's point of choice, right? And in America that doesn't sit well, not don't take away rights, yeah, protect the rights, yep. And now I'm gonna put a tinfoil hat on my head and be like, though the the the feds aren't gonna get me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying know your history, learn from it. You can learn a lot from it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. And and Americans historically have been a very unique breed of people.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, they are. And yeah, we are.
SPEAKER_01:Here we are. Anyway, that's all I got.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so it's late. Okay, so you have now covered over four episodes of Prohibition.
SPEAKER_01:I know, I'm hoping for like a break a little bit.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I'm I'm I'm working on an episode that is completely different than all of this. Wonderful. But what do you think is the biggest takeaway? Because I think you now hold on our show the longest record of the amount of episodes involving the longest time period of American history going all the way back to when Earth formed to the present where you know alcohol was banned and then not banned and everything. I I guess like what is your takeaway? What is it that you really want the listener to pull from something like this? I think we just talked a lot about it, but well, I'm I'm just trying to get you to summarize like what what what would be so like when somebody is searching up a uh chat GPT of prohibition and our podcast comes up.
SPEAKER_01:I mean all in all, I think, because when we think about our show, the point of it, you plan all these things, you have good intentions, you want it to go well, and then it doesn't, and then you learn from it, right? So that's what that's prohibition is the definition of what this show is about. Prohibition was planned. We want it to go this way. We don't want our men to be getting drunk in saloons, and it's alcohol's fault that that is happening. So get rid of the alcohol. Logically, I understand that it makes sense. Doesn't work because you can't tell people that they can't do something in this in in this particular place and time, it doesn't work. But what does happen is it creates a lot of bad side effects, but then it creates a lot of good side effects that we see down the road, right? So, yes, we have organized crime, lots of murder. That's bad. But also out of that, we get women who are able to vote. Now that was not that was not something that came out of prohibition, but it came in alongside prohibition, yeah, right? They're partners. We get women who are able to freely drink with men, and we get cocktail culture, we get finger foods, we get jazz, we get black culture being exposed to white people, we get all of these things that plant little seeds and little roots, and we start to see those things spring up in the 1960s. We get a lot of things that we still see today from Prohibition, and it's something that yes, it was a massive dumpster fire, it failed, but we see a lot of good that came out of it along with a lot of bad that came out of it, and it just depends on how you want to look at it and what you want to take from it, and I think that can go with any type of failure. What lesson do you want to pull from your failure?
SPEAKER_03:So, what what you just brought up is something that I have been kind of like learning a lot from doing this podcast is that like for every like humanity tries to plan out like we are human beings are natural engineers, we try to solve problems, we really do. We are trying to come up with plans where they can't fail, but they invariably do fail, but there's also a lot of good that comes from it, whether it's a a seven million gallon tank of molasses that blows up in Boston, which then turns into like hey, we need to have some regulations in terms of how do we build these things, to Winston Churchill sinking half the British fleet in a day, but then that kind of uh that kind of pushed him to become the leader that he would become later on. So, like, even though like prohibition was one of those things that was really, really, really mapped out to solve X amount of problems, it created a Y amount of problems, but then again, though, there's also a lot of good that came from it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's really interesting how that happens, especially when you have so many variables. Like prohibition is so complex with so many different variables that it's almost like you can when you really look at it, like like you just mentioned, like women got the right to vote.
SPEAKER_03:Women got a platform to speak up towards their own rights.
SPEAKER_01:Temperance was the thing that put women on the pedestal to talk about the right to vote, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So and that goes all the way back to the 1800s, sure does.
SPEAKER_00:They fought 80 years for that, right?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so so yeah, I I I I I can now actually like fully after four episodes, eight weeks, it's worth it of all this. I I I I actually have I I always viewed prohibition in terms of like oh yeah, 1920 to what is it, 1932, 1933?
SPEAKER_01:33.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so like I've always viewed it as like okay, yeah, there was a period where America couldn't drink alcohol, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And that's what most people but it goes way further back, it does, and I I think that's the other thing, too. A lot of people, it's a very common thing, oh prohibition, you know, people couldn't drink, gang shot each other up, speakeasies, cool, that's it.
SPEAKER_03:But we still see it, and I and I and I think for me the biggest takeaway is that the women who were trying to get like their rights, you know, the suffragette movement, you know, we're talking about the women that go all the way back to the 1820s. They didn't blame men. Nope. They sure didn't they blamed the things that would mess men up. Yep. Which I think is a huge testament to women's view into the actual problem. This like so many times you hear about a feminist movement, and it's just like, oh yeah, women just want to be superior than men, and men suck, and all men are rapists, like the whole lifetime channel nonsense. But that's not actually the case. That men are decent human beings, but when they are under the influence of a chemical, it's hard to see past that, and it falls on the woman to see past that and to work past that and to actually see what the real cause of a problem is.
SPEAKER_01:What's the issue here?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so yeah, it's one of those things, it's like a and and yes, I I have definitely come across women that are like all men are horrible, all men are evil, all men are rapists.
SPEAKER_01:They exist, whatever just like the men who say all women are evil and all women hate me, and blah blah. Yeah, all women are gold diggers, and yeah, there's an extreme on both sides, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03:But but I I I I think 99.99% of humanity thinks that the opposite gender are decent human beings, and when we throw a chemical in there, it can mess up everything. And most human beings will be like, it's not it's not the human being, it's the chemical that is messing things up, and I think that that's it from my take, after eight weeks of studying television, you're welcome. Uh I I I think that's kinda like that's the light that you've kind of shed on things because like my dad was a really, really, really bad alcoholic, but based off of like your past four episodes, my dad was actually a good, kind, respectable man, but it was a chemical that messed him up that really got in the way, and and and I now see that. So, like, I can't necessarily blame my dad as a human being, but I can blame vodka.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely you can blame vodka.
SPEAKER_03:So, yeah, this is actually one of the series that has really kind of like shed light on me a lot of this is like a dumpster fire that that kind of like started, caught on fire, got put out, caught back on fire, yeah, got put out, and it's and and it's one of those things where it's just like okay, if this dumpster fire got started and put out, and then started again, what's the denominator?
SPEAKER_01:Right. How are we figuring it out?
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, and I think in some ways we still are, but this is uh this this this this was like a eye-opening good serious, I I had no idea it was this involved. I had no idea that it was it it dated back so far, yeah. And and then like like when I uh because I've always been fascinated with like the Al Capones and and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, who isn't? That's just the tip of the iceberg, yes, that's part of it, it's not all of it.
SPEAKER_03:Because like you you got like the gyneans, and you've got that hatchet lady, and you've got so many other characters, so many characters I didn't even know. They could walk up to El Capone and kick their asses at any given time.
SPEAKER_01:I didn't even talk about Izzy and Mo. Yeah, you know, there's so many people that you can talk about that I wasn't even. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I remember on your last episode where you had to kind of like cut it back because there are so many characters.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, I had I had to really cut back like this there's so much, there's so much, so much.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah, no, I'm um so what I'm working on is one, I'm trying to figure out how is our sun gonna explode. Perfect, because that's the ultimate dumpster fire, right? Once our sun blows up, we're done for.
SPEAKER_00:That's fair.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm trying to figure out a way to keep that interesting because I'm like, okay, how would Kara stay awake through this?
SPEAKER_01:How can I keep the historian awake during a science talk?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because it's gonna be all nuclear physics. Yeah um so I'm working on that. The other one I'm working on is the uh, because you know me, I like to take on the engineering disasters. Um, I'm working on the deep water horizon.
SPEAKER_00:Nice.
SPEAKER_03:Where British Petroleum tried to cut a lot of corners, and this it was called the Well from Hell, and basically this oil or drilling rig was trying to like it, it was 45 days or 46 days past due, and they had drilled down and they tried doing a series of tests to make sure that they could keep drilling, not realizing that they hit a pocket of oil and gas uh that was thinking of like forty thousand psi of pressure that went straight up through the well. Oh no, and then it exploded the well, and then all those flammable gases went straight into the air intakes of the diesel engines and caused them to rev up and then explode, which then caused the whole oil rig to explode.
SPEAKER_01:That's a roller coaster.
SPEAKER_03:Uh yes. So, like, FYI audience, if you listen to Like the Torrey Canyon episode of the first great oil spill where nothing anybody did worked out right. Uh the uh Deep Water Horizon is considered one of the top, if not the most worst, human-caused disasters in history.
SPEAKER_01:Fan freakantastic.
SPEAKER_03:And it happened in like 16 minutes.
SPEAKER_01:Even better. All of all of your engineering failure ones, it always happens in like 0.2 seconds.
SPEAKER_03:It's like a little design. Yeah, yeah, it's like where humanity is like, oh yeah, we've got all this science, we got all this technology, we got all this engineering, we've got all this stuff. What could possibly go wrong? Oh crap. So whether it's a Hindenburg or the Torrey Canyon or the Terra Nova or whatever, it's just like whenever humanity tries to over-engineer something and cut corners, the more that it does that, the more that it cuts corners, and the more that it tries to like make things more efficient, the faster and the worser it gets. The worser er. Yeah, the most worser er.
SPEAKER_01:Beautiful. Worstest.
SPEAKER_03:It's like Worcestershire sauce.
SPEAKER_01:Worst sh, sh, sh, sh, sh, sh, sh. Yes, I agree. I agree.
SPEAKER_03:So that's what I'm working on. Excellent. And then I may actually work on an episode involving like the technology around how like the federal government tried to really crack down on bootleggers and organized crime. And then how organized crime fought back with more technology, and then the federal government was trying to fight back with more technology, and then organized crime would then fight back with more technology.
SPEAKER_01:The arms race of it all.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Do it.
SPEAKER_03:So yeah. Do it. That was that was an adventure. Um, welcome. So if uh you have anybody, our lovely audience, that is interested in really anything involving anything going wrong in human history that could benefit from kind of like learning the lessons from it, be sure to hit up our website, thedaysemsifier.com. Uh, you can find this show I think everywhere, right? Yep. Yeah, we're on Amazon, iTunes, we are on Spotify. I think our biggest audience is on Spotify. And I think our biggest audience is in India.
SPEAKER_00:That's fine. But yeah, wherever you get your podcasts, get us up.
SPEAKER_03:Actually, Argentina is getting up there too. Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_00:What's up, guys?
SPEAKER_03:Well, and then Rhode Island.
SPEAKER_00:Excellent.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03:Apparently, there's a yes, following the show in Rhode Island.
SPEAKER_01:Everybody's welcome. I don't care.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Welcome one, welcome all.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like take a listen. Um, we try to present things in a way so that like if you are having a really, really, really crappy day, just bear in mind there's people that have had much worse. And it's okay to have that bad day. And better yet, we encourage you to have that bad day because then when you get through it, you're all that much better for it. There you go. So, so yeah, be sure to like tell friends, family. Uh, be sure to email us your ideas. We love any and all ideas. Uh, that's at the uh daysdumpster fire at gmail.com. Hit us up if you have ideas or your own personal dumpster fires. We call them trash can fires. Like, let us know.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, hit us up. We'll put them on the website. Maybe we can do little mini episodes and just talk about your trash can fires for 30 minutes, whatever. We'll figure it out. Yeah, send them in, we'll make sure people hear it. We'd like to read them because sometimes we need a laugh.
SPEAKER_03:But well, yeah, we need to feel better about our own dumpster fires.
SPEAKER_01:Fine, we're doing great.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like we spend so much time studying how things go wrong that like Kara and I may have forgotten what it's like to actually have our own hot messes. Sometimes maybe because I I would say me personally, this show has helped me understand that it's okay when things blow up on our faces.
SPEAKER_01:We'll figure it out, it's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, and it's not so much the the process of uh it's not so much the answer to or the solution to the problem, it's the process of going through the problem and the things that you learned to get to the solution.
SPEAKER_01:It's the journey, not the destination.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, trust me. Don't don't let this uh felt figure fool you of this pure athleticism. I am a marathon runner of like hot messes, right? So yeah, Kara, uh congrats on the longest running series in the days of Sapphire history.
SPEAKER_01:I'm very proud of it, actually. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:Uh, I think you've probably put in what 120 hours of research into this thing.
SPEAKER_01:I started this in July when we were in California.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this is what I was working on.
SPEAKER_03:Meanwhile, I'm watching YouTube videos on exploding oil wells, and that's okay, that has its place.
SPEAKER_01:It's fine.
SPEAKER_03:So, yeah, no, uh it's uh it it that was quite a ride. I think you have earned a well-deserved break. Now I get to come in and put you to sleep with a bunch of engineering and math.
SPEAKER_01:See, this is the way of the world. I bore you, I bore you with laws and politics, C-span, and you bore me with math and nuclear fission stuff that I don't quite understand. And this is the perfect balance that we need. Truly, I do mean that. Actually, we do need a balance. We need humanities, we need STEM, we need all the things to be well-rounded people. I do mean that.
SPEAKER_03:And you weren't with me on my first day of jury duty.
SPEAKER_01:Nope, but we can talk about that after we stop recording.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no, no. This will take on the clock. Give me one minute here.
SPEAKER_01:All right.
SPEAKER_03:My first day of jury duty, we had to go through the entire Arizona section 13 of criminal law. Cool. It's like 890 laws over 1200 pages. Sick. And we had to go over all of this, and it was literally like this robotic voice, section 13-18015.25 article C, paragraph two, section three. Probable cause is in relationship to an officer, including up to 18015, section thirty-two, paragraph D, section four, of this, including eighteen oh five oh nine, three. I'm just like, I'm not one to really think about taking my own life, but I was really tempted in that moment that that entire day.
SPEAKER_01:In that moment, you had that in that moment.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, it's like, oh my god.
unknown:Oh no.
SPEAKER_03:Anyways, I'm not gonna bore everybody with all that, but just so you know, uh, when you're selected for a grand jury, be prepared for a lot of laws.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I hope they give you lots of laws so you understand what you're doing.
SPEAKER_03:But the problem is that they didn't actually read any laws. Yeah, that's fair. It was just like this section pertains to this article, which pertains to this section, which pertains to this statement, which is in relationship to this other article in this section.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's really in the weeds.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then I find out that my company's not gonna pay me. So I'm losing like half my paycheck for the next four months.
SPEAKER_01:That's really rough.
SPEAKER_03:I'm sorry. So, audience, if any of you win the lottery and you really want to make a donation, uh just email us at thedaestumpsifier at gmail.com. I will be totally grateful. Um, because I may be recording out of a shopping cart behind a grocery store if I don't get this figured out. So in the meantime, I encourage everybody to keep a hot mess, and I guess we'll catch you in the next episode.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for listening.
unknown:Bye.