The Great Depression Fire Part 3. - Episode 67

Welcome back for Kara's part 3 of her exploration into one of America's most influential dumpster fires in history, the Great Depression. 

In Part 1. Kara dove into the causes of the Great Depression and dispelled some myths such as the "Crash of 29" was solely responsible for the entire economic collapse of the country. 

In Part 2. Kara looked into what Herbert Hoover tried to do to correct things in American and how it ultimately was too little, too late. This led to Franklin Delano Roosevelt winning the 1932 election by a landslide. 

In Part 3. Kara discusses Roosevelt's strategy in which the federal government would invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the economy to get people working again and banks up and running. In this episode, you'll be introduced to the "alphabet soup" in which a multitude of three-lettered government agencies sprung up across the country intending to right the ship and get America back on track economically. While the government funneling money into the economy may have been met with a sigh of relief to some. Many other workers were growing frustrated by low wages, long hours, and dangerous work, fueled by corporate greed and apathy. As a result, strikes formed coast to coast, and even though unemployment was rampant, so were the number of angry workers who were fed up being taken advantage of. 

Some other episodes of The Day's Dumpster Fire you might find interesting:

The Dust Bowl - Episode 48

Prohibition - Episodes 59-62

So sit back and take a listen into a time period on American history when a generation of men and women who would grow up to change the world were trying to figure out how to make ends meet!

Hey before you go! 

If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at thedaysdumpsterfire@gmail.com. They would love to hear from you!

You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. 

Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:00

Because you know me, I always had to put in a really awesome lady somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Does she have a hatchet?

SPEAKER_06 0:06

No, this one does not have a hatchet, but she might have a bat with nails in it.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

A Lucille.

SPEAKER_06 0:12

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

She's got a Lucille.

SPEAKER_06 0:15

That is probably not historically accurate. Don't take that button. All right, here's the one.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

She was ready for the zombie apocalypse. Okay, guys.

SPEAKER_06 0:23

Yes, you're right. Guys, I went down the rabbit hole, and I'm sorry. This is why this thing's gonna be like five parts. Dumpster fire. As always, this is Kara back again to talk to you about the 30s again. And with me as always is my co-host, Ed. How you doing, Ed?

SPEAKER_04 0:57

Pretty good. Pretty good. It's been uh it's been an exciting uh past couple of weeks. Um I've successfully managed to land myself in between jobs. So I get to really uh I get to really embrace the Great Depression a little bit. I get to live it firsthand.

SPEAKER_06 1:17

It's true. I hope you went back and listened to the past two episodes to really let it sink in.

SPEAKER_04 1:23

Uh yes. And I've also been listening to some fireside chats.

SPEAKER_06 1:27

Oh, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Because you mentioned that in the last episode. Like, hey, if you're feeling down and you're on tough times, like really listen to some fireside chats from Roosevelt because that dude can just pick you up from your own bootstraps. For real. It's like yeah, yeah, you get done listening to them and you're like, okay, all right, I got this. Right? It did it help? Yeah. Yes. So yeah, it's one of those things like uh, guys, if you haven't listened to part one and part two, uh, we're kind of like in the middle of probably one of the greatest dumpster fires of of the 20th century. Um, Kara has done, and I I I hate using this word deep dive because it's such an AI response. Like you always see that. Like, we're doing a deep dive into the Great Depression.

SPEAKER_06 2:22

It's my rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. You have you have the rabbit hole. Um I think I'm calling it like a um anthology.

SPEAKER_06 2:32

I like that.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

Given the amount of work that you've put into it, like dozens and dozens of pages of notes and and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_06 2:40

So I think so far we're at 44 pages.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

Yeah, 44 pages, and we're like halfway through. Um, we're not done yet.

SPEAKER_06 2:46

You're well done.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

No, we're we're just getting started.

SPEAKER_06 2:49

Yeah. You thought Prohibition was long.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

Oh boy, yeah. And then if you factor in, like uh the Dust Bowl episode that that you did.

SPEAKER_06 2:57

Episode 48, Dust Bowl. Make sure you listen to that to get the full experience of the 1930s as it were.

SPEAKER_04 3:05

But yeah, I know if you if you're just joining us now, like obviously you can you can kind of pick up and you should be able to get most of it, but like, yeah, part one dove into like the causes of the Great Depression, some of the misconceptions out there. Like the crash of 29 wasn't necessarily the cause of the Great Depression. There was a lot of other factors going on, and then and then like part two, and correct me if I'm wrong, part two was really big into like, okay, what did what did Hoover try to do? Uh, what was his approach or lack of approach?

SPEAKER_06 3:44

Yeah, what did Hoover try? What did he not try? And how did what was the response to that?

SPEAKER_04 3:51

Yeah. And let me tell you, uh, for our future leaders, hopefully, I mean, hopefully the future president of the United States of America is listening to our podcast. Um whenever you have a bunch of veterans that are getting really, really, really upset about not getting paid, the best route is not to launch a military strike on them.

SPEAKER_06 4:09

And yeah, don't send the tanks into the streets on your own. That's that that's not a good look for it. You're you're definitely gonna lose the election. And that's not even counting all of the mayhem going on with the Mexican repatriation happening on the West Coast throughout the whole thing, which is which I did more reading into that, and I have to say, people were not very um excited about that in the 30s, which I thought was interesting. There were there were people who supported it, but then there were a lot of people who were like, Why are why yeah, like what's the purpose of this?

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Like, what's the point?

SPEAKER_06 4:49

Yeah, what's the point? And then uh, yeah, the spoiler alert, it it it did not help. It didn't work.

SPEAKER_04 4:56

Yeah, launching it like an almost a military strike on a bunch of minorities as well as veterans months before a re-election. I mean, I'm I'm surprised nobody in in Hoover's cabinet was like, hey, um optically, this may not look good.

SPEAKER_06 5:14

I feel like there's probably at least one or two people or more, and he just didn't listen. I feel like that that might have something to do with it as well. But anyway, that's the quick record. Part three. Last last episode we ended with uh Roosevelt's inauguration speech, the famous um fear.

SPEAKER_04 5:35

Yeah, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

SPEAKER_06 5:37

That's it, guys. It's 9 30.

SPEAKER_04 5:40

Yeah, I gotta I gotta apologize to Kara here, everybody, because I'm I'm making her like record kind of late at night on a work night. It's okay. Where she's gotta be at work in like two hours.

SPEAKER_06 5:54

So I have to wake up at nine, ten, eleven, seven hours.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

Seven hours. So it's all right. It's gonna be one of those things like um if I want this podcast to have any further episodes, it's more like I gotta shut up and just let her talk.

SPEAKER_06 6:10

All right, we did our recap, so I'm gonna skip this one.

SPEAKER_04 6:13

Yeah, there we go. Look at it getting stuff done.

SPEAKER_06 6:16

Here we go. Chapter one, alphabet soup. All right, I'm gonna start this one with a quote from Franklin Roosevelt himself on October 2nd, 1932. He says, In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice, the path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love towards our fellow man. Um, I personally really love that quote.

SPEAKER_03 6:43

It's a lot of paths.

SPEAKER_06 6:44

It's a lot of paths, but it's a lot of um paths of faith, paths of hope, and paths of love. And I think um I think a lot of us even today can can look at that quote and maybe think about it. But it it encompasses a lot.

SPEAKER_04 7:01

And it'll and I noticed too, like it's uh and the path of love toward our fellow man. Yeah, basically he was telling America, like, let's calm down. We gotta work together, let's yeah, let's look at this together. How can we approach this together? Let's not divide ourselves, let's not let's not polarize things.

SPEAKER_06 7:24

Yep. And if you listen to his fireside chats, it's a running theme as well. Um, and he's not talking about just you know, the public doing it, he's talking about myself, the president of the United States, needs to work with you, the American people, and Congress and uh the judicial branch and companies and all of us together as a country need to work to get out of this depression.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Yeah, it's almost as though like a national or nationwide problem needs a nationwide degree of unity to fix that problem.

SPEAKER_06 8:01

Yep. So yeah, I uh that's why I picked that quote. I think it encompasses a lot. And as we go through this episode, I think you'll understand a little bit more as why I chose that quote, as well as if you've listened to the past couple episodes. It makes a lot of sense. It's just kind of an all-encompassing umbrella.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah, that's a good quote.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

Yeah, it's a good one. All right, so Franklin Roosevelt. We haven't talked much about him yet because we were talking a lot about Hoover and his background, so I figured we'd take some time to talk about Roosevelt and give him his due. So FDR was born on January 30th, 1882, in Hyde Park, New York, to James and Sarah Roosevelt. He was educated by his parents and private tutors before attending Groton Prep School in Massachusetts for his high school years, before attending Harvard, where he earned his bachelor's degree in history in three years in 1903.

SPEAKER_04 8:50

Okay, so not much of a pedigree, not much of a he's um not much of a background, he's kind of a nobody, just an average guy. Yeah, just graduating Harvard in three years.

SPEAKER_06 9:02

Let's keep talking about how average this man is. After Harvard, Roosevelt attended law school at Columbia University in New York and passed the bar exam in 1907, just four years after he got his BA, without receiving his law degree. So he didn't even get his law degree, but he passed the bar anyway. It's fine. Between 1907 and 1910, he practiced law before deciding to enter the political scene in New York, where he was elected to the New York State Senate to represent his home district. While he was busy in law school, Roosevelt found time to marry his distant cousin, like very distant. It's not like his first cousin.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Yeah, this is this isn't like some bad things.

SPEAKER_06 9:37

This is like a family branch away from a family branch, away from a family branch.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:42

But there's still Roosevelt's, which is can get confusing. But he married his distant cousin, Anne Eleanor Roosevelt, who would make a name for herself alongside her husband in the coming years. And I feel like I want to do a little biography on Eleanor Roosevelt along with all of the other women historians in the world because she's great.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

Yeah, if anybody's got like 20 minutes, like just read up on her. She is a fascinating figure.

SPEAKER_06 10:05

Really, really interesting.

SPEAKER_04 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:08

So she put up with a lot. She she put up with so much, that girl. So much power to her. Anyway, uh in 1913, Roosevelt was appointed as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, where he served for seven years before finding himself on the Democratic ticket as the vice presidential nominee in 1920. But he didn't win. The Republican Harding won that year. But he was with, you know, he was there. In 1921, at the age of 39, Roosevelt contracted polio. He survived the illness, but he lost the use of his legs and he would be forced to wear leg braces for the rest of his life. After his fight with polio, FDR established a foundation to assist victims of polio of the disease. He also directed the March of Dimes program, which ultimately funded the vaccine for the disease in the 1950s after his death. In 1924, Roosevelt would re-enter politics as the New York governor, where he was there for two terms before being elected president in 1932.

SPEAKER_04 11:02

Yeah, he had a pretty easy campaign.

SPEAKER_06 11:05

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:06

All things considered.

SPEAKER_06 11:07

He won a landslide, guys.

SPEAKER_04 11:09

Oh, geez, yeah. Yeah. Like a legit landslide, not.

SPEAKER_06 11:13

No, yeah, like legit. It was crazy. So even at the start, Roosevelt made a lot of progressive changes to the government that had never been seen before. Just his cabinet alone would be the testament for his view of governing. Now I'm gonna go through this kind of quick. So don't worry about memorizing it or anything. I'm just gonna, real quick, here we go. FDR's Cabinet, 1933, consisted of Corden Hall, a Southern Democrat from Tennessee, for the Secretary of State. For the Treasury, he had William H. Wooden, a Republican industrialist from Pennsylvania. For the Secretary of War, he had George H. Dern. He was a progressive Democrat from Nebraska with a background in mining and industry. So another industry guy. Attorney General was Homer Cummings, a Democratic lawyer from Connecticut. Postmaster General, James A. Farley, Chairman of National Democratic Committee. For the Secretary of the Navy, we have a Democratic governor for Virginia. Secretary of Interior, we have Harold Ice. He's a Republican from Pennsylvania. And Secretary of Agriculture, Henry A. Wallace, a Republican from Iowa. Secretary of Commerce, a Democrat from South Carolina, Secretary of Labor, who we will get to know next episode. Her name is Frances Perkins. She's the first woman to ever hold a cabinet position. And she would be there until 1945. So go Frances Perkins. We will be talking about her next episode.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Yeah, and I and I'm noticing right off the bat is um he's polling people from both sides of the aisle. Yep. And he's pulling people with a wide range of backgrounds. This isn't like him selecting buddies, like friends of his.

SPEAKER_06 13:56

What happened? They call it the Black Cabinet. Okay. So the Roosevelt administration had also hired a number of African-American federal employees, staffers, assistants, and advisors. They would eventually create a group together that became known as the Black Cabinet. In the past, presidents had gone to African-American leaders for advice, and but maybe, you know, with the exception of Grant, they were never hired with them in such numbers or in such high positions of power in the federal government. So during Reconstruction, there was a period where we had a lot of elected officials who were African-American during Grant's um administration, not Andrew Johnson. We can we can throw Andrew Johnson in the trash.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

But Andrew Johnson, he's he's like his own little dumpster fire.

SPEAKER_06 14:42

He deserved to be impeached. But Grant had a lot of African American people in his cabinet, or not in his cabinet, but in his administration who were elected officials. So that's why I say, with the exception of Grant. However, I just want to kind of talk about a few of these people in the Black Cabinet because I I thought it was really interesting. I think they get they need to have their due dash to do justice. So we have Mary McLeod Bethune. Uh she led the cabinet, and she was the first black woman to lead the black organization. She was also the founder of the historically black college in Florida, the Bethune Cookman University. In 1935, she was appointed as the director of the Division of Negro Affairs in the National Youth Administration, one of the Alphabet Suit programs, to assist young black people in finding work during the Great Depression. Bethune became very close friends with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 15:33

The two women worked together to solidify more black representation within the government and outside of the government. That is a very handy friend to have when you're trying to do that. So go.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Could you imagine like having lunch with those two?

SPEAKER_06 15:45

Oh. Imagine the conversations, how funny they would be.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

Oh man, because you know they fed off each other. Like they probably had a really good time.

SPEAKER_06 15:54

I'm sure they did. That would be so great. Robert Weaver was hired as an aide to Roosevelt's Secretary of Interior while he was in his 20s. The Harvard educated economist would later go on to be the first black cabinet secretary in the United States. The assistant to FDR's attorney general was a lawyer named Robert Vann. Van would publish the Pittsburgh Courier, the largest black newspaper in the country. And then there's William Hasty, a Harvard-educated civil rights lawyer, and he served as the assistant solicitor in the Interior Department. So there's just a handful out of a pretty good chunk of people. The Black Cabinet would be a massive influence on the cabinet members and government officials they worked with advocating for New Deal relief for black communities. While they were successful in gaining New Deal relief for their communities, they were unable to gain support for broader civil rights policies as the FDR administration was worried they would lose political backing in the South to pass New Deal policies. If they included sweeping civil rights laws, they they felt that they were on a sword that they had to balance on. So we weren't we're not seeing you know 1960s era civil rights movements yet, but this is a a start. This is like the sea of start. Yeah. Yeah, this is a very important thing. For the 1930s, I think that's pretty impressive for the 1930s. There's still a lot of issues happening in terms of race.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

Well, I think Roosevelt knew that. I think Roosevelt knew like, okay, we either gotta get America back on track economically, or we've got a civil rights issue. We we can't have both.

SPEAKER_06 17:33

Right. Unfortunately. Um, but I I was pleasantly surprised to read about this. I thought it was great. So um uh and the president did have an aversion, a very public aversion, to lynching poll taxes, racial discrimination that had just been absolutely rampant in the Jim Cole crowded. Especially in the South.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Yeah. Like uh awful.

SPEAKER_06 18:02

So yes, that was happening. Please remember there's a lot of racial tensions still happening throughout all of this. Uh, but we do have a little bright spot here in the Black Cabinet movement. All right. In the first 100 days of his presidency, Roosevelt made it a point to work as fast as effectively possible. Two of the primary goals he had to tackle the state of the country was the issue of unemployment and the collapsing banking system. Right when he got in, he was like, these are the things we need to figure out. On the issue of unemployment, FDR called for a special session of Congress right after his inauguration, like literally maybe a day after, asking them to create legislation that will combat the depression on multiple fronts. Working with the newly assembled Brain Trust, which was a group of experts, including scholars, economists, and scientists. We were just talking about that. Congress came up with 15 pieces of legislation that would be voted on over the 100-day period. That is a lot of legislation for 100 days, by the way. As part of that plan, right?

SPEAKER_04 19:03

Yeah, this is this is like like an actual busy 100 days. This is a very busy 100 days, like not like what we've seen recently, where like one law gets passed and then Congress is like, oh, look at us, we've been super busy.

unknown 19:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:20

No, these guys hit the ground running.

SPEAKER_04 19:22

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 19:23

15 pieces of land.

SPEAKER_04 19:26

That's like tens of thousands of pages of stuff that's been written.

SPEAKER_06 19:30

Crazy. As part of that plan, new departments and agencies were created within the government to create work for the 25% of people who are out of a job. Remember, we are at the height of the depression. 25% of the US population are unemployed. That's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 19:46

That's devastating. Yes. And think about it. That's 25%. And these are working people. Like these aren't like super, super old or like children. This is 25% of the population that would be buying stuff, that would be paying taxes, that would be contributing to industry and stuff like that. So, like, in a way, the 25% of the government's revenue is being slashed due to this unemployment. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 20:18

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 20:18

So that that's that, yeah. 25%, like, oh yeah, you know, one in four, but that is just that's one in four.

SPEAKER_06 20:25

So think about like all the group of the groups of people that you were close with, your family members and your friends and stuff, one in four people would be out of a job.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:33

Right? That that's pretty devastating.

SPEAKER_04 20:35

And at and at this time too, there really wasn't much to fall back on. So unless you had a savings.

SPEAKER_06 20:40

No.

SPEAKER_04 20:41

Like there there was no social security, there was no unemployment. Uh, it is like you lost your job and you're going straight to the soup lines kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_06 20:52

Yeah. And and you know, we we touched on on our 25% unemployed people last episode and the episode before. So please go listen to those to kind of see. There were some creative ways they earned some money. There were lots of people in soup lines and trying to figure it out and make ends meet. So people are getting creative.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

Well, you got the people that are like traveling on the trains, like the hobo, almost like a culture formed out of it.

SPEAKER_06 21:17

Yeah, it's it's pretty interesting. Today, these agencies are known as alphabet agencies. So I'm talking about the agencies that were put together during the first hundred days and the 15 pieces of legislation. Um, some of these agencies are still here today and they're with us, and then some of them were dismantled throughout the 1930s. So we are going to talk about some of the big ones. I made a big long list and I went through all of these agencies, and I realized it's really long, but I didn't have time to edit it all out. So you get to hear all of these pieces of legislation unedited. You are so welcome.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

There will be a test at the end.

SPEAKER_06 21:53

Yes. So my friends who are possibly in high school, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

All right. Especially if you're in AP US history. Because I remember when I was in Apush, we actually had a test on this where we had to memorize all the agencies.

SPEAKER_06 22:06

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

Oh, it was brutal.

SPEAKER_06 22:08

I did a DBQ. I didn't have to deal with that. All right, here we go. Between 30 and 40 agencies were created before the U.S. entered World War II. So between the first New Deal and the second New Deal, we had 30 and 40 agencies created. Some stayed and some didn't. We're trying things out. We're throwing spaghetti at the wall, right? This is we gotta get something going. Twelve of these would be established between March 1933 and October 1933. Less than a year, we had 12 agencies established and funded and put on the ground. Crazy.

SPEAKER_04 22:39

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_06 22:40

It's a lot.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

And these are like national agencies.

SPEAKER_06 22:44

Yes. The whole country.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:46

All right. Are we ready to get into it down and dirty? Let's do it. While Congress was working on their legislation, FDR took action to tackle the banking problems. Remember, we had the unemployment problem, we have the banking problem. Between 1929 and 1933, the general public had little to no trust in the banks. I can't blame them. People were withdrawing money that the banks were more money than the banks were depositing. That didn't make sense either. I'm sorry. Here we're going to try it again. People were withdrawing more money than they were depositing in the banks.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Yeah. In other words, the banks were bleeding money faster than they could replenish it.

SPEAKER_06 23:23

That's it. And it was causing the banks to collapse. Banking panics were common and they made banks unstable. And the complete collapse, it was a common enough occurrence where people just they were afraid to put their money in, especially in the middle of a depression. Everybody's losing their job left and right. Oh my God. I can't blame them. So the day after he took office, one day after he took office, FDR and his administration called for a banking holiday. Essentially, it was a very nice way to say, we need to close all of the banks for four days so we can figure this crap out.

SPEAKER_04 23:54

Yeah, wasn't that so that like they could uh basically ship money, like cash, into the banks?

SPEAKER_06 24:01

Um, not necessarily.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

I I thought I remember reading something about that. Like the whole idea was to shut down all the banks so then they could actually start getting cash into these banks so that when they opened up again, they would actually have something to work with.

SPEAKER_06 24:14

That's only a little piece of it.

SPEAKER_04 24:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 24:16

So each bank was inspected for financial security by the government and they could not be reopened until they passed the inspection. So every single bank was inspected by the federal government to make sure they were stable enough to be able to receive the cash that you're talking about, because they weren't going to give cash to a bank that's ready to fall apart. So banks that were in good shape, in good standing with a solid financial foundation were allowed to reopen. Banks that were not completely stable, but had a good potential to be were given federal assistance, which is what you were talking about. Once they were on their feet, with the help of the government, those banks were also allowed to reopen. Banks that were beyond repair or in complete debt with high potential for collapse, those would just remain closed. And they did this every single bank, every single one. And it only took them four days.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

I'm surprised that didn't go before the Supreme Court. Because that's technically the federal government interfering with interstate commerce.

SPEAKER_06 25:07

I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Or it happened so fast that nobody could even bring it before the Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_06 25:13

Well, that's what a lot of these programs were. It all happened so fast that the Supreme Court actually did catch up with them. Okay. So there's a lot of backtracking with some of these programs, as we'll see, and then there's a lot of adjusting and then re-implementing and then backtracking again. And uh eventually FDR would get so frustrated with Supreme Court, and we're gonna talk about this next next episode that um he he started to try to convince Congress to reorganize the Supreme Court because he's like, I'm trying to get this stuff done, you're not letting me, and he gets so frustrated. We're gonna talk about that next episode, but yes, the Supreme Court does get involved with a new deal, and it becomes um what's the word I'm looking for? It becomes an obstacle course almost for him to get all some of these things done, but or a roadblock. Yeah, but right now we're in our first hundred days, we're hitting the ground running, we're hitting it hard.

unknown 26:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:03

So just get stuff going, we can worry about the courts later on, kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_06 26:08

Yes, a hundred percent. So we have the banks closed for the first four days. Keep that in the back of your head. We're gonna come back to it. The first alphabet agency and piece of legislation to go through was the Emergency Baking Act. It was signed into law on March 9th, 1933, only five days after FDR's inauguration speech took place, which we talked about at the end of the last episode. This act was created to stabilize the banks, restore the public's confidence in the banks, and lay the foundations for a stronger bit of legislation in the future to ensure that banks remain stable as the economy recovered. So they did know that we're doing this so fast, this is not going to catch everything. We are going to come back to this and figure it out. We just need to get something done. It did so by overseeing what banks can open and when they can open based on their financial stability, just as we talked about. So, this is the act put forth by Congress saying we can readjust the banks and this is why they're allowed to do this, Ed, to answer your question. Congress packed and passed an act to allow it. All right. Um, this is where we get the Federal Reserve. I the Federal Reserve was around before this. So this act also allowed the Federal Reserve banks to issue money based on assets to the banks that were previously approved in order to keep up with high demand that they were experiencing. The EBA would also establish the FDIC, which is basically insured bank deposits to build confidence in the bank again. So the FDIC was actually built out of this.

SPEAKER_04 27:25

Yes. And for those of you who don't know, like uh the FDIC is basically an insurance thing where, like, if you were if you had$10,000 in a bank and that bank folded up for whatever reason, then you had that insurance that would actually reimburse you that$10,000. And I think it's up to$10,000.

SPEAKER_06 27:45

I don't know exactly what it is now, um, or even then, to be honest. I was just like, oh, the FDIC comes from this. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

unknown 27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

So like whenever you see like any any sort of like ad on the uh commercial, whatever, and they'll say like FDIC insured or whatnot, that's basically what it is, is basically saying that this bank pays insurance that if they ever go out of business for whatever reason, you can actually get reimbursed for for up to a certain amount of money.

SPEAKER_06 28:12

Yeah. See guys, new deal working for you now.

unknown 28:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:16

FDR and his experts knew that the only way the plan was going to work was if the general public trusted the bank system enough to use it. He needed people to deposit their money into the banks to get the money flowing for, you know, a healthy circulation of again. So on March 12th, 1933, Roosevelt held his first fireside chat. And I keep telling you to listen to them, please do. Fireside chats would become a staple of Roosevelt's presidency all the way through the Second World War. And what he would do is he'd come on the radio and he'd tell his listeners about current events or a policy that you know he was working on, and he always did it in a very calm, confident, easy to understand language. Um, I was, I don't remember if I read it or I was listening to a historian talk about it. But the reason the fireside chats were so effective is because he's using this new technology that is the radio, and he's not like yelling at you.

SPEAKER_05 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 29:10

Because a lot of the recording equipment before, in order to get your voice to be recorded, you had to project your voice really loud. Whereas the radio, it sounded like he was sitting down and talking to you in a calm manner.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

As though like you he was in the living room with you.

SPEAKER_06 29:26

Like he's in the living room with you, and he's not screaming at you like it was before. So in fire.

SPEAKER_04 29:32

Well, that and that goes a long way. Because like in and if you do listen to these things, they are very soothing. It it's almost like I wouldn't hazard to say like these were like the first podcasts.

SPEAKER_06 29:42

I could see that. I feel like they're the first podcast with an agenda.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 29:48

Um, this more to me, I I I my correlation with it is when when JFK was one of the first presidents to use the television for his campaign, right? It's kind of the same idea, it's just a different form of technology. Um, and it kind of goes on and on.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

So yeah, and the radio was huge. Like, oh yeah, that was like the one thing that most Americans had. And like you that's what you did. Like every night you were after, yeah, after after you had dinner, you would turn on the radio and they would have shows, and they would have you know, like Buck Rogers and and all and my grandfather remembered that. Uh growing up like that is just what you did nowadays. Like, well, now you have dinner and everybody just goes on their phones and hit up YouTube, TikTok, or whatever. Yeah. But back then it was the radio, and everybody surrounded the radio, and every like that was an American mainstay, was that radio.

SPEAKER_06 30:40

Yep. So in fireside chat number one, Uno, and you can still go back and listen to it today. Roosevelt laid out the plans for the banking holiday, including what was being done to stabilize the banks while they were shut down using very transparent, clear language. He told the people what was being done honestly, then requested that they all deposited their money to make sure the plan worked. Do we think it worked? The next day, Americans went back to the banks, not to withdraw, but to deposit. In that week, about one billion dollars were deposited in banks across the nation. Oh, I think it worked.

SPEAKER_04 31:12

Yeah, because like well, because like a lot of people would be like, uh, why are all the banks shutting down? You know, because that would be anxiety-inducing, as is. Yeah. On top of like, like the banks didn't have money to even give people. But so, yeah, what did Roosevelt do? He goes out there and he explains to everybody, like, okay, this is the reason why you're seeing them shut down. This is the plan. Like, this is what we're doing. I'm trusting you as the American people to trust the banks. We're gonna get this rebooted, we're gonna get this re-reset, as opposed to just keeping everybody in the dark and everybody's wondering, like, why are all the banks closed? Like, uh, like that could have really blown up into his face.

SPEAKER_06 31:52

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:53

If it but but if it but the the fireside chat.

SPEAKER_06 31:56

It really helped out. Yep, it really helped out. And that doesn't include, you know, just the typical newspaper information that people are getting in the morning as well. So he had that helping him out too. Now, we talked about the bank, we talked about some unemployment, we're gonna talk about more unemployment. So now we're gonna talk about all of these lovely alphabet soup programs. I I call it alphabet soup, that's my term, but we're gonna talk about our alphabet soup.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:20

Um, and we're gonna start with the CCC. So on April 9th, 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps was created to, you know, create jobs on national parks for unemployed young men aged 18 to 25. It was very specific. Like, this is the group of people we are targeting for this program. This program employed about three million young men throughout the depression. It was huge, about 5% of the total male population at the time. They were tasked with planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting forest fires, and maintaining public parks. It proved to be a wildly successful program, especially for younger men who were out of school or trying to find a job, you know, like the recent graduates trying to find jobs now. I get it. Imagine this. That was nice, wouldn't it? Workers would make$30 a month, and then$25 was sent directly to their families while the other$5 were kept by them. So food and shelter was provided for free in various national parks while the men were working there. Workers were also given an education, and many of them completed their high school education while they were working. So that's really cool.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

Yeah, and a lot of this too taught skills.

SPEAKER_06 33:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 33:27

Like uh that that was probably I I think that was like the underlying intent here. And you'll see that with the with the alphabet soup here is just like, yeah, it's one thing to get people working, but it's also another thing to teach people like a trade. Teach them a skill, something that they can use later on. And I and I feel like a lot of the American infrastructure in the 50s and 60s was a result of these programs and it being so robust and big time. Yeah, there's still there's still features out there um that still tie in directly to.

SPEAKER_06 34:04

Oh yeah, they're all over the place. In fact, there's one here. There's um I think it was this, I think it was the CCC. We have a little structure on South Mountain here in Fida that was built by the CCC. It's still there.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_06 34:18

Yeah, I wanted to go to it. It's really cool. We'll have to hike there one of these days. Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 34:22

Yeah, I kind of want to go check that out.

SPEAKER_06 34:24

Throughout the 1930s, the CCC also employed Army veterans and around 88,000 Native Americans who were primarily found doing their work on the reservations. Black Americans did attempt to enroll in the program, however, they faced more barriers and discrimination. They would usually get the jobs no one wanted, you know, inferior facilities, lower pay. In 1935, the CCC segregated their work camps to create space for the African American men. At its peak in 1935, the CCC employed about 500,000 men across 2,900 camps in the country.

SPEAKER_04 34:55

Well, and what's crazy is that like we look at tech companies today and like they're laying off 500,000 men or men and women. They're laying off this many people, whereas the administration in 1935 was looking to employ 500,000.

SPEAKER_06 35:12

And that's just one program out of an entire alphabet soup. Guys, this is just the C noodle.

SPEAKER_04 35:18

Yeah. I like that. In May of 1933. We've got to the D noodle yet.

SPEAKER_06 35:26

Well, let's get to the A noodle, shall we?

SPEAKER_04 35:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 35:31

The A noodle is pretty good. We talk a lot about the A noodle and uh the dust bowl. Yeah. Uh, but we'll we're gonna chat about it real quick here, and then we're also gonna talk about our TVA noodle. Here we go. In May 1933, the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the AAA, triple A, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, the TVA, were both established. The Triple A provided farmers with a much needed subsidy to reduce production and raise production to try and get out of the vicious overproduction cycle they found themselves in. Please see episode 48. I will not go any further on that for time.

SPEAKER_04 36:05

Uh yeah. I'm sorry. You don't need to beat that dead horse.

SPEAKER_06 36:07

Episode 48. Yeah, no, that's yours. Go watch go go listen. Come back. The Tennessee Valley Authority Act was a more controversial program, but it did have good intentions. The act created the Tennessee Valley Authority, which was implemented to complete the following tasks. One, improve river systems to make it easier for navigation on along the um oh, I'm gonna tell you anyway. Okay, improve river systems. Two, provide flood control along river banks. Three, develop agriculture, commerce, and industry in the river valley area, and four, bring electricity to the rural parts of the south using hydroelectric the hydroelastic Wilson Dam. There, that's a tongue twister, for the first time. It also gave the government access to land and resources to build other dams and bridges for electrical infrastructure. All right, so the TVA covered Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia along the rivers. Some communities and homes it is a very large valley, a lot of area, a lot of space. Some communities and homes were displaced due to the major project areas the TVA required, which drawed drew, sorry, a lot of scrutiny. Then at the same time, private companies began to sue the federal government, claiming that the project was taking work and profit away from them as the TVA was offering utilities for people that was much cheaper than the private companies were offering. Ooh. Mm-hmm. The uh arguments would go all the way to the Supreme Court in 1939, so six years after, they ruled that the act was indeed constitutional and the TVA would continue to operate, which I think it's still around.

SPEAKER_04 37:37

Yeah, and I think the I can't remember the uh uh eminent domain. So like the federal government can come in and like, let's say like they, you know, the government wants to build an interstate highway and my house is in the way, the government can come in and take my house. However, though, they have to give me fair market value for it. So I and I think that's how they got away with it. It's just like, okay, well, we're gonna displace this entire community, but we do have to give them fair market value to relocate. And that's probably how they that that that's probably what they had to do to make sure that it was constitutional in the eyes of the uh Supreme Court. That makes sense. Federal eminent domain.

SPEAKER_06 38:16

The federal emergency relief administration was established in May, designed to provide economic aid to states along with short-term jobs and construction projects on the state level. By 1935, the program had distributed$3.1 billion and employed about 20 million people. Similarly, the Civil Works Administration, the CWA, and the Public Works Administration, the PWA, were also established in 1933 in an effort to create more work for people. The CWA employed about 4 million people, but it only lasted about five months. The PWA was much larger and it lasted until 1939, but it employed less people at around 1 million. On June 16th, 1933, the National Recovery Association was established by the National Recovery Industrial Act, passed by Congress. I promise there's not going to be a test. Bear with me. The act itself was created to essentially get industries to a fair playing level or on the same page, depending on how you looked at it. Essentially, they're like, industries, we need to figure out a way to not lowball each other and create fake supply and demand. The act sanctioned so sanctioned, supported, and even enforced industries to work together on more friendly and fair terms. Companies were required to write up codes of fair competition, so like fair trade practices, production quota, minimum prices, minimum wages, maximum hours, and rules for collective bargaining. It was all designed to mitigate wages, prices, and quotas for workers. So this is almost like worker protection as a form of protection for employees and consumers alike. So we're trying to drive prices down and get workers at a point where they're being able to have a sustaining wage. Let's keep going. Soon after.

SPEAKER_04 39:58

Oh, FYI, uh that$3.1 billion in the Fira.

SPEAKER_06 40:03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 40:04

Uh, I just did the conversion on it. That is worth$73.34 billion today. Oh, crazy. So yeah. And and I also know too, like the National Recovery Association, um, a lot of that was actually um, because it it it it it forced companies to work together, like competing companies to work together. And it actually worked out very well during World War II because now you had competing companies working together to like build planes or build tanks, you know, like okay, yeah, Ford will make these engines, but then like GM will use those engines in these tanks, and vice versa. So it it really it really laid the foundation for a uh for a capitalist society to really put together a profitable war machine, so to speak. But that's obviously that's that's down the road, but it's it's one of those things, it's just like, you know, the National Recovery Association, you just don't think about the impact that it had, you know, five, six years down the road.

SPEAKER_06 41:15

Yeah, the NRA was interesting. So soon after the NIRA was signed into law, the NRA, which is the program that came out of the NIRA law. I I know, just again, bear with me.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

All those noodles.

SPEAKER_06 41:28

All the noodles. The NRA was established to assist companies in drafting these codes uh and make sure they were carried out. By the middle of the summer, over 500 industries have signed up for the NRA, and it covered about 22 million workers. Companies part of the NRA supported a blue eagle to show that they were proudly supporting the program and their employees, which I just thought was funny. It's like a little stamp of approval, you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Right.

SPEAKER_06 41:52

Throughout the fall of 1933, parades in support of the NRA were held in cities across America, one of the biggest being in New York. You can still find videos of these parades today, and they really are quite impressive. Despite the NIRA's initial success, it received a lot of criticism from private companies and corporations, you know, lots of rich guys, and you can't forget the rich guys who want to hoard their fortune. As time went by, rich guys, as time went by, it became increasingly apparent that businesses were not following the codes that had been written and continued to operate business as usual, because of the amount of businessmen in charge of the codes that were written along with the businesses and run by businessmen, the NIRA was never implemented the way they should have been in many places, which, you know, we live and we learn.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:36

There could have been some possibility that these issues were smoothed out, but by 1935, the NIRA's constitutional legitimacy was put into question by private businesses. The case, uh Schechter. She Schechter Pulship Corporation versus the United States went to the Supreme Court in May 1935. The court had ruled that the act was unconstitutional and in the program before it could really take off. So are you still with me? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 43:04

So yeah, but by the time World War II started, it it obviously uh the the heart of the NRA and the N Ira uh was still there. It it just had to be it had to be redescribed as something else.

SPEAKER_06 43:18

Yeah, it they they took the ideas and they they re-adjusted it and paid it.

SPEAKER_04 43:23

Yeah, yeah. Because it was that was such a big thing that um like when Yamamoto was in America um shortly before World War II broke out, he even commented it's just like America has this industry where yeah, they compete with each other, but if they need to work together, uh there's nothing we can do. But it is like once once you rally all these industries and they start working together, holy crap, watch out.

SPEAKER_05 43:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 43:52

All right. So I'm glad you guys were able to get through the alpha alphabet soup with me. I did go through all 15 pieces of legislation. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_04 44:00

Yeah, because I feel like there's a lot more that went down too.

SPEAKER_06 44:04

Um I went through that very, very fast. In a nutshell, they made all of these programs and they employed millions and millions of people.

SPEAKER_04 44:12

And and and it just wasn't industry either. Like, like they created programs for like art and music. Yes, that's the second new deal. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:20

So that's the thing.

SPEAKER_04 44:21

I thought some of that had to do with the first one, or am I getting my times all mixed up?

SPEAKER_06 44:26

I think you might get your times all mixed up. The first New Deal was solely around jumpstarting the economy and getting the banks on track.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 44:34

That was it. The second new deal was how do we prevent this in the future and how do we support a broader scope of people?

SPEAKER_04 44:42

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 44:43

Yeah. But yes, you're right. Just you know.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

I'm I'm just my times are a little off.

SPEAKER_06 44:48

Yeah. That's okay.

SPEAKER_04 44:50

It's late.

SPEAKER_06 44:50

All right. So, guys, guys, guys, guys. We talked a lot about industry. We're talking a lot about um workers' rights at the moment with the NRA. Uh, we haven't talked a lot about the people who are able to find work or who are holding on to their job for dear life. Can you imagine having a really crappy job, but you don't want to let it go because you're afraid you're gonna lose it in the midst of a depression?

SPEAKER_04 45:16

Yeah. That's a hard way to live.

SPEAKER_06 45:18

That is a very difficult way to live. Um, and I'm going to talk about these people for the next hour probably. So hold on to your horses. I know we're we're I know I told you we were gonna talk about New Deal, and we did that a little bit, but I thought this was really important, and I think there's some really good stories in here, and a really awesome lady that we're gonna be talking about at the end. Sick. Because you know me, I always had to put in a really awesome lady somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

Does she have a hatchet?

SPEAKER_06 45:49

No, this one does not have a hatchet, but she might have a bat with nails in it.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

A Lucille.

SPEAKER_06 45:56

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

She's got a Lucille?

SPEAKER_06 45:58

That is probably not historically accurate. Don't take that, but all right, here's the one.

SPEAKER_03 46:03

She was ready for the zombie apocalypse.

SPEAKER_06 46:04

Okay, good. Yes, you're right. Guys, I went down the rabbit hole, and I'm sorry. This is why this thing's gonna be like five parts. But I promise it's worth it. Here we go. Chapter two Doc Strike. The 16 pieces of leg, sorry, 15 pieces of legislation in the alphabet suit movement, as I like to call it, between 1933 and 35, are considered the first New Deal, which is what Ed and I were just talking about. The first New Deal was focused on jumpstarting the economy. The second New Deal from 1935 to 1940 did have focus on economic success, employment, and all of that fun stuff. But FDR turned his eyes to the future, hoping to create programs and legislation through Congress that would prevent economic collapse like the Depression. One of the major pieces of Congress to pass during the second New Deal plan was called the Wagner Act, passed in 1935. In a nutshell, the Wagner Act gave more resources for industrial relationship building and support for labor unions in the U.S. Underline that, circle it, highlight it, labor unions. We can do that now. This act was a direct response to labor strikes that had become more and more frequent at the height of the depression between 1933 and 1934. So, yes, all of these people are getting jobs, they're being employed through government assistance. They do need help. But also, we have a whole bunch of people who are being employed by private corporations and companies. Maybe they've been there for 20 or 30 years. Maybe they're still desperate for a job. Everybody's going for these government jobs. I'm sure they're still hard to come by, right? So we're gonna talk about these friends. Throughout 1934 and into 1935, most worker strikes occurred over the working people wanting to unionize while companies fought to keep control of wages, hours, and general operations. In the year 1934 alone, 1.5 million workers went on about 200 different strikes across the country. Some of the major strikes that occurred in 1934 are the textile strikes of September 1934 that had occurred throughout New England, the South, and the Mid-Atlantic region. This resulted in the United Textile Workers Union. I think that still survives today. The Minneapolis strikes from May 1934 to August 1934. This was a bloody affair, and it resulted in unite unionization and better working conditions after it was over for the people involved in Minneapolis. This one was the big one that I went down the rabbit hole on because I thought it was great. Here we go. I'm ready. The West Coast waterfront strike. Okay, maybe I've never heard of that before.

SPEAKER_04 48:40

It's interesting. I always thought like the strikes and the union stuff was more like in the Midwest and the East.

SPEAKER_06 48:46

Yeah, I did too. And then I stumbled across this one and I went down this whole thing and I was like, holy crap, it's huge.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Yeah, 36 pages later.

SPEAKER_06 48:54

My God. All right. I I condensed it. It's fine. We're gonna talk about two major strikes today. This is one of them, and then the next one's gonna be in Michigan. So this one began with dock workers along the west coast, spanning from Seattle, Washington, all the way down to Long Beach, California. And I think it went down a little further south, too. Dock workers were generally chosen using what was called the shape up system. This is uh what we see in movies sometimes, you know, where the foreman would go up to a big crowd of dudes and be like, I want you, you, you, you, and you, pick a handful of workers and then send everybody else away for the day, right? Hundreds of men would show up for work every single day for maybe like 20 or 30 jobs. That's rough. It's rough. Um, I kind of picture it like today where you're throwing your resume into an AI black hole amongst hundreds or thousands of other people for maybe 20 to 30 jobs. So we're feeling it, right, guys? Like it's uh we feel it. It's kind of similar. Unfortunately, back in the 30s, this system is easily allowed for discrimination or favoritism for the foreman while choosing workers. Most of the time they would pick like the same 10 guys and they'd leave everybody else in search for something else. And also, I do need to point out there was, you know, the foreman, more often than not, was probably a racist guy. So he'd pick like the 10 white guys in the front, and everybody else would have to leave.

SPEAKER_04 50:15

I was good, I was just gonna comment like if you're a minority, yeah, good luck.

SPEAKER_06 50:20

So the men who did get chosen to work were working for very low wages and terrible hours. Some docks required 12-hour shifts, some had 24 to 36 hour shifts with unpaid bakes for workers to sleep between days and then go back to work for 12 hours. While on the job, many foremen would employ what they called a speed up system, which is basically just working really, really fast with no regard to safety or quality. Just take this thing and chuck it over there, please. Usually the speed up shifts would include a lot of work injuries and sometimes deaths, as men worked as fast as they could. Many feared they would lose their jobs if they didn't speed up. So they the four would be like, all right, speed up, and then they work as fast as they can with no regard to safety and injury, and everybody would and then if you did get injured, well, you're out. Well, you're out. We'll just choose the next guy. Yeah. There's a hundred people outside waiting for your spot, you know? Awful. So that's the condition they're working in on the docks right now. Apart from the privatized company-owned union. So it was a union, but the company owned it, so that didn't do you any good.

SPEAKER_04 51:26

The company store kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_06 51:28

Yeah, exactly. There was nothing in place to protect workers from these conditions, like nothing. You didn't have OSHA or HR, you know, nothing like that existed. On May 9th, 1934, dock workers began an organized work strike that would last 83 days. They refused to load. Can you imagine? That's 83 days of time and money on that company. They refused to load and unload cargo ships or transport goods from docks to factories. They refused to work unless companies and or the government met their demands. And these were the demands. Here we go. They demanded union recognition, union controlled hiring, reduced hours, and increased wages. That's it. That's all they wanted.

SPEAKER_04 52:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:11

Over the 83 days, 12,000 longshoremen participated in the strike taking place along the western seaboard. Over time, other maritime workers, such as sailors, engineers, firemen, you know, guys like that, they joined the longshoremen. Over 35,000 men were estimated to have taken part over the 83-day period. The employers did everything in their power to get work done despite the striking workers. They hired what they called strike breakers, who were men who were still willing to work despite the ongoing strike. They were so desperate they paid for their housing, their food, and police escorts to protect them while they were going to and from work. And the strikers from the strikers who were increasingly hostile towards the strike breakers because they were essentially defeating the entire purpose of what they were fighting for.

SPEAKER_04 52:58

Yeah, like they're they were kind of like working for the enemy, kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_06 53:02

Yeah, exactly. So all of this is going on. We have the strike breakers going in and out, still trying to get stuff done. And we have um and then the strikers aren't just like sitting there and not working, they're also picketing, they're protesting peacefully for the most part. They're, you know, yelling and saying this is what we want and stuff like they're chanting, things like that. So they're not just sitting there, they're actually trying to get their message across.

SPEAKER_04 53:25

Well, and and it wasn't uncommon for these companies to like hire uh basically like Pinkertons and like they would hire people with weapons and clubs to go out and break these strikes up. Like they were using physical violence to stop it.

SPEAKER_06 53:44

Like, yeah, a lot of uh the private companies would hire guys like that to try and stop the strikes, but usually the strikes would continue. They were very, you know, what's the word? It starts with a P. Persistent. Persistent, that's it. On May 15th, on the docks in San Pedro, California, a group of strikers had planned to raid a strike breaker house not far from the dock, where there were 500 strikers picketing that day. When the strikers broke open the bullpen, which is like the entry, to get into the housing unit, police patrolling the area used tear gas on them in an attempt to get them to stop. The strikers defied the police orders despite the tear gas, and in response, the police opened fire into a crowd of 500 men. Dick Parker and John Nudson were killed by gunfire and several more were injured. The shooting in San Pedro was the first major incident of the West Coast Longsherman strike. After the incident, legislation was passed in June of 1934 that allowed the president to establish boards of investigation to conduct or mediate labor disputes between workers and employers. So not directly get involved, but help try to mitigate some of these arguments before things got out of hand.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 54:52

A month or so later, on July 5th, 1934, in San Francisco, strikers forced the embarcadero to limit or stop operation. The embarcadero is that big port in San Francisco along the ocean, like Pier 38, Pier 35, Pier 32. Oh, that area.

SPEAKER_04 55:08

Is that where they have like those giant like cranes that okay?

SPEAKER_06 55:12

Yeah, today there's the I think there's like the fish market is there, and there's like a big pier with a like a theme park or something on it. Yep. Or like a stores and stuff.

SPEAKER_04 55:23

It's a lot of good little eateries along there. Oh, I loved going there. Uh there was there was a there's actually a restaurant there called uh Salty Bits of Pig.

SPEAKER_06 55:34

I think I've seen that one.

SPEAKER_04 55:36

Yeah. Yeah. And it is. It's just all ham products. It's really good stuff.

SPEAKER_06 55:40

Yeah. Yeah. Back in the 30s, it was a fully functioning operating port. Bringing in goods. So after the National Labor Board had failed to come up with a solution, and the National Labor Board is that um federal board to try to help mitigate things.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:57

So they uh they failed to come up with a solution to solve the strikes there in San Francisco. Ship owners. Ship owners attempted to open the embarcadero despite the ongoing strikes. On July 3rd, the government tried to force, yeah, the government tried to force port operation, I think it was the state government, port operation by sending in trucks with police escorts. The trucks were met with thousands of strikers who had created a human barricade around Pier 38. And um, just a note, barricades like human barricades along the piers were actually really common at uh various port cities during this strike. So men would gather around peacefully with signs trying to stop production and block trucks and stuff like that. When the cars on their trucks went through the crowds of striking men, they would force their way in slowly, and that they wouldn't like speed through, but they'd slowly drive through. Men would move out of the way for fear of getting hit. But they did start throwing rocks and bricks and things like that at the cars. In turn, the police responded with tear gas again and uh nights beatings, and you know This is going well. The usual police violence. It's going great.

SPEAKER_04 57:02

This is this is like just another day in paradise kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_06 57:08

Well, this back and forth, this rocks and brick throwing slash tear gas and nightstake beatings, it lasted four hours while the trucks were going back and forth.

SPEAKER_03 57:18

Okay, that's a full-on battle. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_06 57:22

Like that's chaos. When it was all said and done, two strikers were shot. Eleven hospitalized through many riff 11 were hospitalized, though there were a lot of people who refused treatment because they didn't want to be arrested. So that 11, that number is probably a lot more. Nine police officers were hospitalized. Overall, it was considered a very much a failed attempt to reopen the embarcadero.

SPEAKER_04 57:48

Yeah, I'd say so.

SPEAKER_06 57:50

Uh-huh. Only 18 trips back and forth were made, a very insignificant amount compared to what is needed to keep business flowing. And it gets worse, guys.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

Oh, oh good.

SPEAKER_06 58:00

It gets worse.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

Yeah, it's like the Torrey Canyon incident. Like, oh, but it but it gets worse.

SPEAKER_03 58:06

There's more. There's more.

SPEAKER_04 58:08

It slices it, dice in it, Julienne's. Let's go.

SPEAKER_06 58:11

Yeah, it truly. So after they took off the 4th of July, as you do, uh, on the morning of July 5th, the next day, 4,000 strikers showed up at Pier 38, forming a picket line around freight train cars that had arrived with cargo waiting for strike breakers to pick up. Uh, and they called the scab cargo. So this is still cargo that was put together by strike breakers, and they called it scab cargo, which I just thought was funny.

SPEAKER_04 58:37

Interesting.

SPEAKER_06 58:38

Yeah. The police responded uh and threw tear gas into the crowd of men. Here we go again with the tear gas. Many of them retreated to uh Rincon Hill and they were pursued by law enforcement, so they they ran off. Law enforcement chased them down. And at first they ran up this hill, right? So it's on a hill, if you can picture it. If you look on a map, you can it's still there, you can find the area.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:03

At first, the strikers kept the police at bay by throwing rocks or donning pipes to protect themselves and you know, just doing anything they could to keep the cops away from them. After another round of tear gas, the strikers were forced to retreat back to the waterfront near the Union Hall building when the hill caught fire from all the tear gas bombs.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 59:23

Yeah, that's a real thing. I'm not kidding.

SPEAKER_04 59:27

This is like this is like a legit dumpster fire.

SPEAKER_06 59:30

It's a yeah, isn't it? It's a dumpster fire and a dumpster fire.

SPEAKER_04 59:33

Yeah, like this is crazy, right? Well, I mean, like if Gandhi could have seen what was going on. I mean because he was all about his peaceful protests, like he would be like, what in the actual F is going on here? Time out. Everybody just wait, wait.

SPEAKER_06 59:50

Not like that.

SPEAKER_04 59:51

Talk this through. This is out of control.

SPEAKER_06 59:54

So the hall, the union hall building closer to the waterfront, that's where the the small union center is. Usually that's a safe space where police didn't interfere with working groups of people, right? Like that. Kind of like, you know, when you're playing tag and you have that time out safe space where you have to catch your breath, you know, like wait, timeout, timeout. It's kind of like that. Well, for whatever reason, the police decided to cheat in this tag game. And they did not respect the safe space. So everybody yell cheater, cheater. Uh, they had barricaded the streets leading to the works and yes, exactly. They uh barricaded the streets leading to the hall before the strikers could get back there. And they had their gun drawn by the time all of the picketing men got back to the hall. Hundreds, maybe thousands of men were gathered there. Eyewitness statements and primary sources, of which I read, you can read them, all claimed that by this point, except for one or two rock throwing idiots, there's always a couple, uh, a majority of the strikers showed no sign of aggression. They just stood there and they just wanted to get in the hall, right? Minus the one or two idiots. Without warning, the police opened fired on all those people. And uh two picketers were killed that day along with some injuries. Similar scenes were happening along the waterfront in San Francisco on that day. It got so bad the California governor sent out the National Guard to take control of the state-owned areas of the waterfront. They had placed armed guards and barbed wire around the authorized ports, which had ended the aggression on both sides of conflict. Other pockets of violence between police and strikers sprung up in Oregon, in Washington, but what became known as Bloody Thursday was certainly the worst, and that's the day that we just talked about. A funeral procession was held for the two strikers that were killed by police on July 9th, in which 40,000 people attended. It was followed by a call for a general strike by 21 different labor unions in San Francisco. And for those of you who don't know what a general strike is, it's like where all of the industries strike all at once. So not just, you know, the guys on the ports, but it's like uh, you know, the textile workers and the laundry people and the restaurant workers and everybody strikes, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:09

Basically they shut the city down.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:11

Man, that see, that's interesting because like that's 21 different groups of people that all agreed at one time to like strike in yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:23

So what happened was after that incident, the labor unions called a meeting together. So like the leader of the union all had a meeting and said, This is what we're gonna do, and then they did it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:33

So it's more organized than yeah, that that's uh that that's actually kind of impressive when you think about like how many people were involved in that. Like can it's like uh when you have a group project in college and you've got to work with like three other people, yeah. Just trying to get those three other people on the same page is a nightmare.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:52

Well, it's like trying to schedule, schedule us to record the podcast with more than just you and I.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:57

Like it's impossible. Yeah, how hard it is for us to have like three people on the show, let alone 21 in charge of thousands and thousands of workers. Like it's crazy. Man, they must have been really pissed.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:11

I mean, wouldn't you be? I would be.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:14

I guess, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:16

Yeah, that's rough. At 8 a.m. on July 16th, the general strike of San Francisco began, and you can still read newspaper headlines today on this event. In the last three days, 150,000 workers from all kinds of industries went on strike. Newspapers, private companies, and certain statesmen responded to the strike with fierce opposition. Not everybody supported it. Numerous newspapers called the strike an insurrection and began printing anti-strike propaganda. Some people had begun raiding homes, bringing people who they thought were communists, but they were just people protesting. Oh, here's a there's the C word. There's the C word, it drops.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:58

Communists, that's not gonna go away for a while.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:00

Striking, you must be a commie. Officials had joined in arresting strikers, calling them extremists or communists as well. Uh those were those people were often arrested, and when they were arrested, they were faced with immigration inquiries or deportation cases.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:16

Interesting. It's almost like history is kind of repeating itself.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:19

The labor committee who organized general strikes, the the labor committee who organized the general strike did not have strong enough foundations and guidelines put into place to keep up with that kind of response. On July 20th, they voted to end the strike, and many people went back to work, but it was not all for not. We got something out of it. The strikers eventually gained union representation, higher wages, and new contracts all along the West Coast after many negotiations and discussions. Their protests were heard at the end of it all. And I will say those unions are still around, and that's where I got a lot of this information.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:56

Yeah. Well, and and it's and it's a double-edged sword because like in a case like this, the unions really did like fix a lot of things, but then like the it the unions can also go the other direction where it's just like you can't hire somebody unless you converse with the unions, you can't fire somebody unless you go through the unions, you can't uh like a lot of business decisions can't be had unless you go through the unions. And so it's like there's a full, full spectrum of like on one hand, they they they fixed a lot, but then on the other hand, they can also cause a lot of problems, and it's still a gray area to this day.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:36

It is I guess it depends on your perspective, and if you're looking at it from the business owner standpoint, or if you're looking at it from the employee standpoint.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:44

Yeah. So well, like the the the most recent one that I was familiar with, like these we these workers, yeah, sure, they were making like fifty, sixty thousand dollars a year more than somebody who wasn't a part of the union, but then they also had to pay like. Like fifty, sixty thousand dollars in union fees every year. So it's more like a it's it's almost like a pyramid scheme in a way. So yeah, like the whole union thing, I don't think is ever really gonna truly go away. I think it's always there's always gonna be uh a spot for for unions and at the bare minimum at least have somebody advocating for the worker.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:24

And I think that's what these workers wanted. Like they weren't afraid to work, they they they weren't lazy, they didn't want everything handed to them, but they also needed somebody to advocate for them because they're making pennies to the dollar in unsafe environments, and may God have mercy on your soul if you get injured, and you are worse off if you were a minority. So something had to give.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:47

Yeah, it was pretty rough. Yeah, we're gonna talk about even worse conditions now.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:51

Good, good, good.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:52

All right, chapter three, auto strikes. This is a big one, and I really enjoyed reading about it because it's a little bit different than the dock strikes. Um the dock strikes I think were more violent and um upsetting. These strikes I just found more interesting personally.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:12

And I I don't mean that like taking anything away for the dock strikes, that that was a very important event uh and people died, and they deserve all of the respect.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:21

Well, I think the auto strikes had a little they're a little bit more nuanced. Um, because like when you're dealing with the dock strikes, that that is very localized.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:29

Whereas when you look at the automotive industry, that is nationwide.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:33

It's nationwide. We are going to focus on one particular auto strike today. I'm not going to talk about all of the auto strikes. We'd be here all day.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:41

Yeah. Because there's there's a lot.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:43

There's a lot. We're gonna start with uh one of the first and definitely the most influential.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:48

While the labor strikes were occurring, the president Roosevelt, uh, he did his best not to involve himself directly, believing that the issues between the workers, the unions, and the companies was was between them. And it he felt it probably would have made the situation worse if the federal government got involved, which honestly, fair.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:08

Yeah, that uh especially when you look at what Hoover did.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:10

Yeah. Like let's let's learn from our mistakes here.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:14

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:15

Good for FDR. The only time he did get involved was when he sent them in mediators or negotiators to assist in drawing up contracts or settling disagreements, all the paperwork.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:25

Yeah, that's different than opening fire on yes. He's not sending tanks down the street, so yeah, that that's actually like a progressive way of handling it.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:34

Right. Now, before we get back to the New Deal, and I know I promise we will just next episode, uh, there is one more strike I want to talk about. And we're gonna have to fast forward to 1936, and then we'll we we rewind again. I hope that's okay. I'm sorry. But 1936, I really liked this one. All right. So when the crash of 1929 happened, the demand for cars obviously dropped dramatically. Like you're not gonna go buy a car after we enter a depression, causing a decline in a decline in production. Between 1930 and 1936, automakers had fired thousands of workers with no regard to their status, quality of work, or seniority.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:11

It's all because of AI, isn't it? I mean AI was taken over and then they just eliminated all those jobs back in 1930s.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:20

I don't think it I think it was more supply and demand, but for those who were lucky enough, okay, got it. Uh yeah. Those who were lucky enough to stay employed tolerated terrible working conditions out of fear for being laid off in the midst of the economic depression. There was zero job security. One man stated that he witnessed a hundred men fired in a single day. So I'm sure you can imagine the fear of losing your job.

unknown 1:09:50

Dell.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:51

Seeing something like that. Like the dock workers, auto workers endured mandatory work speed up, which caused more frequent work accidents and exhaustion. Foreman would enforce the speed ups by timing the men on a stopwatch to keep them moving. That was really nice of them.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:06

No, no, I gotta I got a question about that.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:08

So like the speed up stuff, is it like, okay, guys, between like noon and three o'clock, it's a speed up time. And then so was it like really a designated time like that? Or was it like, okay, for the next three weeks, you guys need to work like 80 hours a week?

SPEAKER_06 1:10:26

I think it depends on the foreman.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:27

And what they want is just like, all right, speed up. Let's go. Timer's on, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:32

Yeah. I'd imagine.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:34

I I guess I'm just trying to figure out like how they how they organize that.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:37

Like, did they just blow a whistle and then everybody would have to go like 150% for that's how I imagine it is like they blow a whistle and oh, we gotta go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and start throwing stuff and squeezing fingers and machines and you know Yeah, and whoever survives or has all their digits afterwards gets to come in the next day. Yeah, exactly. And a further reminder, too. Uh at this point, there are no protections like workers comp or human resources.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:03

Just a you know, reminder. Uh, yeah. There is a reason those things exist. We all make fun of them today. We make fun of OSHA because it is kind of fun to make fun of, but there is a reason it is there. Oh, all the red tape. All the red tape. People complain, but there's a reason. Here we are.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:23

So the auto plants themselves were not exactly pleasant places to work either. Uh and I'm not saying that the docks were paradise, but I'd say that these places are worse. Uh, they were surrounded by heavy machinery, hazardous material. It was always hot, it was always smelly, and it was always very, very noisy. Four men at the plants were notorious for abusing their power and capitalizing on men's fear of being fired. They would normally describe it as cold, harsh. They played favorites, and they had a reputation for firing people for arbitrary reasons. So you're always walking on ice in these awful conditions, you're always hot, you're always tired, you're always sweaty and surrounded by all kinds of things.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:03

Yeah, that's the stress, the stress involved in that it had to be monumental. Like awful. Like mental health had to be absolute hot garbage trash back then.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:15

Hot garbage, awful. Wages, again, were extremely low, and hours were extremely long. So you're working 12 hours a day for pennies to the dollar in those conditions. Most companies, such as GM and Ford, uh had recovered financially by the early to mid-1930s. However, they kept their wages down and their workforce small.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:38

Yeah, because they're maximizing profits.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:40

Yep. And employees knew that. They knew that the companies were not struggling, yet their working conditions never improved, which created a lot of resentment to the ones who were calling the shots, as naturally. Uh, not only that, the automakers were notorious for disliking the thought of unionization. Anyone said union, you're out. GM went to such lengths that they spent an estimated one million dollars on spies on the lookout for employees disgusting unionization. That's how bad it was.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:08

I've actually seen that happen today. I believe not like today, today, but I've seen more modern this type of response by a company even take place in the modern era, which is crazy. Really? Really, guys?

SPEAKER_06 1:13:23

Like very paranoid. Yeah. So management or worker representation was either non-existent or hot garbage. They often refused to negotiate with workers on the poor conditions or wages or days off, or you're fired because you asked me that question. After the Wagner Act was passed in 1935, a small trade union called the United Auto Workers Union was established. That union today is massive.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:52

It's huge and it's influential. Man, that's crazy. It's huge. And fun fact, I I thought this was an interesting fun fact that I learned. It was one of the first unions to allow African American membership back in the 30s.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:04

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:06

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:06

They say that proudly on their website. Good for them. I like it. Yeah. Union members and workers quietly planned strikes against GM, Ford, and Chrysler since the union's founding in 1935. Their first target was GM. Union members focused their sights on the Fisher Body Plant number one. Very creative.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:25

Oh, Flint, Michigan.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:27

In Flint, Michigan, the GM-owned plant employed 7,000 employees who built the car bodies for the company. One major organizer at the UAW was a woman named Janora Johnson Dollinger. Born in Flint, Michigan in 1913, local lady Janora's husband was an employee for GM when the strike occurred. Both she and her husband were highly involved in politics and activism at the time. Dollinger was part of the UAW strike organization since its beginning in 1935. She printed and published newspapers written by strikers, assisted family members, or neighbors of those who were on strike, which we will talk about later, and was a vocal strike supporter. She was usually, I love this by the way, this is fantastic. She was usually seen driving around the streets in a car with a speaker and batteries attached to the roof, vocalizing her support to labor strikes. She called it the sound car.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:21

Oh, sick.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:23

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:25

I love, I love female protesters in the uh in in history because they've really had to take a unique approach. Like you just couldn't, like you, you couldn't just walk around with a sign saying, hell no, we won't go. No, man, you you're gonna put a speaker system on your car. In the 30s. Can you imagine how that looks?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:46

There's pictures of a car too. You could you could go look it up, look up a like Dollinger sound car or something. You can find it. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:54

Yeah, it's like the the first like stereo system in a car was used to protest.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:59

Yeah. Uh UAW organizers, including Dollager, met with workers at their homes to convince them to begin a sit-in strike as opposed to a walkout. Traditionally, as we saw at the docks, walkout strikes were popular and effective, but they were also dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:18

A sit-in was a way to strike without exposing the strikers to the dangers we saw at the docks. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:24

Yeah, because that because the the factory owners or the companies don't want to damage their facility.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:30

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:30

So like if everybody just sits down and in inside the facility, there's not a whole lot they can really do. Yeah. Like they're not going to tear gas a place, they're not going to shoot equipment, they're not going to damage their precious machinery.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:43

Like so, yeah, that's actually a very smart way of doing it.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:46

Brilliant. Originally, the plan was to begin the sit-in strike in January of 1937 after the workers received their Christmas bonuses, but of course that didn't pan out, because why would it? On December 30th, 1936, workers at the plant saw important equipment being moved onto train cars to be sent to other factories. They learned that their factory would no longer be producing certain products concerning the workers who believed that they were going to be laid off. Again, I'm just going to remind you the conditions these poor guys are trying to work under. They're probably afraid they're going to get laid off every single day. So I can imagine anxiety. An emergency meeting was called among the plant employees and the unity members. They decided to begin their sit-in strike that same day. Makes sense. After the meeting, the men rushed back to the plant and simply refused to leave as a gesture of not wanting to be refired or replaced. This strategy also prevented GM from hiring strike breakers, forcing them to pay attention to the men on strike. They were wasting time and lots and lots of money. So, how did this work? We have a bunch of dudes sitting in a building and they can't leave. Right? So, like, like really, before we move on, think about it. They gotta sleep somewhere. Yeah. They're eventually gonna run out of food, right? They probably smelled a high heaven.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:03

Oh yeah, I can only imagine what that because you know there wasn't any AC or anything like that.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:09

There were there was it was 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:11

Everybody was just in there marinating in their own juices for this entire time.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:15

Right. 1936, I think we had some heat happening, but it wasn't anything fancy like we have now. But you know, the men stayed at the plant for 24-7. They made makeshift beds out of material they found around the shop, like car mats and you know, seats and sheepskins or whatever they could find. They ate food donated to them by local grocers who supported the cause.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:38

Outside of the building, the men's families were often seen picketing for them. Wives, children, and friends took the streets with signs and chants while the men sat inside. It was quite a statement. The children, in particular, were a great tool to build empathy and send a message to the ones they were trying to convince. You'll often see pictures saying, Why won't you hire my dad?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:59

Uh, you can you look it up, it's there. The women acted as the driving force to keep the strike going. They raised money, they took care of their neighbors, elderly relatives, children. They brought food and supplies to the men inside while they were all picketing. So they were like gophers for the men.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:18

See, this is this is very American in a way. Because, like, yeah, everybody's like they're like this is everybody coming together to protest in a way that, like, okay, we've got people bringing in food, we've got people bringing in sleeping arrangements, we've got people protesting, we've got people in inside doing their thing. It's just like like this is this is like Americans working together for a single cause.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:47

Yep, that's how it's done.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:48

And it's amazing what happens when that, like, what comes of that when when Americans actually like come together like this.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:56

Well, let's find out, shall we?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:58

General Molders had been expecting a strike. However, they weren't expecting a sit-in strike. They were expecting a picket strike, like a walkout. The company knew it had to be very tactful on how it responded to the sit-in strike because um, you know, frankly, they didn't want to get sued. Uh, if they forced the workers out, their reputation had potential to take a complete dump. They saw what happened on the West Coast, they don't want that to happen to them, not to mention the legal issues they would face if anybody was seriously injured. Instead, GM tried to go through the legal process first, sifting through laws that could somehow send the strikers home, like trespassing laws or whatever, a loophole were trying to go through paperwork and documents and lawyers, but they couldn't get anything to stick, at least in a very timely manner, because remember, time is money.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:46

On the federal level, again, Roosevelt would not allow government interference in any of these labor strikes. On the local level, however, police were instructed to find a way to end the strike after failing to make a difference with tear gas bombs being thrown at the building. Effective, really? Over the women and children we go.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:06

Yeah, right? Try not to hit too many kids.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:09

Yeah. Thirteen days after the strike began, GM turned the heat off in the building at the plant. It was 16 degrees Fahrenheit that day. Very cold. One of the employees opened the door to complain to somebody about the heater being turned off. And when he did, GM security and local police rushed into the building throwing tear gas bombs. Through the fog of the gas, the workers threw anything they could find around the plant at the time, at you know, the cops who were coming in. Things like, you know, car parts, wrenches, bolts, anything that'll hurt.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:39

If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge this protester.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:43

In doing so, the men were able to fend off the authorities and push them out of the building. So they were successful, got some tear gas, tears happening, coughing, couldn't breathe, maybe, but some tears happening. Some tears. I mean, I would cry.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:58

Like everybody's cutting up onions.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:00

Yeah. Also choking and probably having a hard time breathing, but it's fine.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:06

Um, at the time, our friend Dollinger was in her car rallying the women outside to create a barrier between the building and the law enforcement who had been forced back outside.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:18

After Dollinger orchestrated the build, the barrier, the human barrier in her sound car, she began arming the women with pipes and baseball bats in order to defend themselves as necessary. Luckily, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:29

Hence the Lucille.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:31

Luckily, it was not necessary. Uh, the affair did not escalate any further, and the strike was allowed to continue. I have a feeling that the men had some kind of way, had some kind of feeling about um women armed with baseball bats and pipes. I mean, I would terrifying, and their manly sensibilities were probably like, I can't hit a woman.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:50

Yeah, yeah. I imagine a lot of those cops were like stuck in a in a tough spot. Like, um, how do how do we proceed? We've got armed women, but we can't really hit women. So we're just gonna stop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's genius.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:07

It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:08

Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, yeah, she's she's smart.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:12

She's great. Uh so this day, this event, I guess, uh, it would become known amongst the protesters as the battle of the running bulls amongst the men on strike. I'd imagine they called it that because of all the cops running in and then running out of the building. I don't know that for sure. That's just my assumption, but it's a funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:30

Yeah, I'm gonna look that up. I wonder why they called it the battle of the running bulls, because it's like, you know, running of the bulls in Spain, that's where like you unleash these bulls and then you try to like not get gored by one of these things.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:44

I mean, I could kind of see the comparison.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:46

Yeah, I guess I guess like these women were coming after the cops.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:51

I mean Well, I I I think if it's from the men's point of view.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:54

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:55

The you know, the cops rushing, running into the building, and then they fought them off with car parts and stuff. So the Flint sit and strike would go on for another month. During that time, Dollinger organized the women who did not have any interest in delivering food or domestic duties into a group that she called the Emergency Brigade. The emergency brigade carried around bats, chains, whips, patrolling the building where the men continued to sit in. They wore red berets and armbands to stand out to others who were aiding in the strike in case they were needed. Dollinger made it a point to exclude any name that started with women's. She she made it a point to avoid that because she wanted to make sure they were taken seriously. The emergency brigade was so popular and successful at the time they expanded into other parts of the Midwest to support other labor strikes that were happening. I love her. Well, Jenora.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:47

Yeah, she's she's something else.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:49

She's crazy. She's great in the crazy to good way, crazy to good way.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:53

Not crazy like uh Carrie Nation crazy. She's she's great. So while Jenora was organizing the emergency brigade, the strike spread beyond Flint into 17 additional GM plants, putting even more public pressure to find a solution that benefits the demands of the laborers on strike. The governor of Michigan, yeah, here we go. Sorry. The governor of Michigan called in the National Guard to help mediate the situation. The governor gave very specific orders, and this is different than what we've seen in the past, like with the bonus army and even San Francisco, it's a little bit different. The governor gave specific orders that they were there to mediate discussions between GM and the UAW, take care of the problem diplomatically, not by force. Okay. The labor secretary, Francis Perkins, was also sent to assist in negotiations alongside the governor. And I will note I read several times that that decision to ensure that the National Guard was there to diplomatically figure it out was probably the reason this strike did not fall into violence like the other strikes did. Finally, on February 11th, 1937, the UAW and GM struck a deal and ended the Siddhin strike. Cheers, yay, hurrah. The UAW was granted national union recognition. Wages were raised an additional five cents per hour, and GM was barred from discriminating against anybody who participated in the strikes guaranteeing they still had a job the next day. And today, the UAW, and even after this event, so this event in particular is what made the UAW a national union, but also it made it one of the most influential unions of the 1930s and 40s.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:33

Yeah, put them on the map, so to speak, or literally.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:36

Yep. So this is why this strike is so influential and important, is because of how influential and widespread it was for the labor movement of the time. As for Jenora, our girl, um, after the sit-in strikes ended, she continued to be a frequent protesting figure in Michigan throughout the rest of the Great Depression. In 1945, after World War II, she ran for the House and the Senate. She didn't win, but she ran, so good for her. Uh, she could even be found speaking her mind in support of the civil rights movements and live and women's liberation movements in the 1960s and 70s. Wow. Dillinger passed away at the age of 82 in 1995. She wrote a book, which you can read, and you can see pictures of her protesting and protesting and protesting.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:24

And her sick sound system in her car.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:27

Oh, dude, it's so amazing. So I'm gonna end it there. That's it for today. The next time on the Day's Dumpster Fire, we will jump into the second part of the New Deal, the Supreme Court, and what the heck is going on in Europe?

SPEAKER_04 1:27:41

Yeah, because like we forget about that. We forget that like Europe had its own ordeals that it was going through.

SPEAKER_06 1:27:48

And again, to repeat the thing that I repeated over and over again in the first episode, it was a global event, the depression. We are focusing on the US right now because I think. Most of our listeners in the US, but it was a global event and every country dealt with it in a different way, and they all responded in a different way. And it has immense consequences on how things went down in Europe. Um, including a very interesting argument that I heard from a historian that I will reveal next episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:23

Oh, so you're just gonna leave it with like an argument that I can't I can tell you after we stop recording. Oh yeah. All right. Well, good stuff. There is there's a lot to unpack there. Uh don't forget about the test.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:39

Thank you for going down my labor union rabbit hole. I know it was not expected, but it was it was really interesting. And we would not have learned about our friend uh Janorah Dillinger, so go look her up.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:50

Yeah, so like today, or after you get done listening to this, what you can do is like okay, sit down, you're having dinner with your family, and then you're like, okay, what connection can we draw between a nail-studded baseball bat and noodles? And go.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:12

Yeah, I like it. Perfect. Figure it out and come back to it.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:17

Because I always love doing that, taking two really random ideas, um, and then finding the connection between the two of them.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:24

Figuring it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:26

Yeah, yep. So, yeah, no, that that's awesome. I I uh I was not expecting it to go uh down this direction, but I actually I learned a lot. Like I had no idea that the strikes and all that stuff were all the way on the west coast.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:42

Um, it makes sense if you really do think about it, like, but it's just not something that you hear very often in your history classes and and whatnot. It's like kind of glossed over.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:54

So I mean, there's so much you can fit, I guess, in a high school curriculum when you're talking about everything. Yeah. Um, to be fair, but also I just really enjoy going down these stupid rabbit holes and giving you history that people don't really know about. Um, so I know these parts are long and there's so many of them, but it's so cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:18

Well, I was um I was actually having a discussion um with another podcaster, and um, he asked me, like, okay, the day of Sumpster Fire, what is your audience? And you know, it obviously I could sit there and say, like, oh yeah, our audience can is comprised of history buffs or whatever. But I'm I'm actually gonna take a spin on it. I honestly think our audience is the type of person that derives a great deal of satisfaction on learning something that is not commonly known. Like our audience is these are the people that are like, okay, I don't know anything about quantum mechanics, but I did find this kind of interesting, and I'm just gonna tuck that away in the back of my head. Like, our audience is the type of people that just derives pleasure and satisfaction and contentment from learning something that you just don't typically hear very often. And this is a perfect case in point. Like, I I had no idea. Uh, I I did not, I've never really researched the labor strikes of the 30s. Um, and and now like I learned something that I'm typically I I was never really that exposed to. And it's just fascinating because we can make so many connections to what was going on back then, to how history has has been repeating itself.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:46

I like to say that sometimes you can find the key to your problem in the past.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:52

So don't take history for granted.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:54

Yeah. I I mean, yeah, that one like I said in the beginning here, like I'm in between jobs now, so I'm kind of experiencing what some of these folks were kind of going through. Now, granted, my circumstances are infinitely better than the circumstances of the folks back in the 1930s, but it makes me appreciate a bit more of what I'm going through as well as what they went through, and how like how like Americans, we we will figure this out. Like we do eventually get things figured out. It takes a while, but I think if there's anything to really describe the American spirit, is uh they're problem solvers, and there was a lot of problems going on back then, and Americans took it upon themselves to solve those problems um in their own unique way. And then like you go and like in the next episode, like you're gonna go into Europe and how how did they solve their problems, and how how does that contrast to like the American way of solving problems? So this isn't like a uh this isn't a multi-part series on just like alphabet soup. This is this is really diving into a the psyche of like human determination, um, human problem solving culture. So like this is exciting for me. Uh I am I'm absolutely loving this because yeah, I knew a lot of people that grew up during the Great Depression, but I'm I'm seeing things that like the people that I grew up with in the retirement community probably had no idea was going down.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:36

Or they just saw a headline on a newspaper and went about their day.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:40

So yeah, no, that's uh this is this is a lot of fun. And and hopefully you guys are finding it a lot of fun too. Um, you know, if if you do find this interesting, if we made you laugh or made you hopefully not cry too much, but if you find some sort of value in this, uh go out and spread the word. You know, go find people. Like one of the things I'm I'm discovering with like a history podcast is that a lot of the people that would typically listen to a history podcast may not be technically savvy, um, or they may not even be familiar with podcasting. So like go out there, tell your friends and family about podcasting, let them know about the Days Dumpster Fire, direct them to our website, thedaysdumpsterfire.com. Uh, you can I I think you have a uh thing on there now where on our website where they can post um or like they can send us ideas for future episodes.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:39

Yeah, so I have a little box on our I think it's our home page right now where you can you scroll down, you find, find the little box. And if you have an idea for an episode, type it in there and send it to us, and you can add as many details or as little details we'll figure it out as you want. Uh because I'm always open for new ideas. I know my family is always giving me ideas that they want me to do. So yeah, I figured it'd be kind of fun for you guys to have some some say in the topics that we talk about. So maybe you're tired of me talking about the 1920s and the 1930s, and you want to hear Ed talk about something for a change. But yeah, it's there now. So go go check it out.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:17

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, head over to Daysumfire.com. Um, we do have our little Instagram page um that it does get updated.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:26

I try. Eventually.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:28

Yeah. So yeah, I know I know one of the things I'm working on is I kind of want to do like a 1930s palette cleanser. I am going to be looking into the great Bangladeshi bank heist of like 2015 or something like that. So a very recent event. Uh it's probably considered one of the biggest hacks or cyber attacks in in modern history. And it's it's really gonna look into like how one printer can be the gateway into like stealing tens of millions of dollars in a night. Grand. So that that that's that's the thing that I'm gonna be looking at. It's gonna be a vastly different type of episode than what we've been doing lately, but I think it's gonna be I think it's gonna be intriguing. I think people are gonna get a a kick out of it because we still technically don't know who actually did this attack. But there was like casinos involved, uh, there was a printer involved, uh, there was a there was a holiday involved, there was like the clever use of weekend hours and the understanding of how like all these different cultures that transfer all this money around all over the world, how like you can orchestrate that so that it all lines up in a way that you can just steal tens of millions of dollars without any sort of like restraint or anybody pushing back. So that that's what I'm I'm working on. Hopefully, we can get to that this year. Sorry.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:05

Sorry, keep going down rabbit holes.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:07

Uh no, that like I said, that's I I think our audiences they're just inherently wanting to go down rabbit holes because they take a great deal of satisfaction from learning stuff that you typically aren't just exposed to in a normal history class.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:26

True. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:27

So, yeah, good stuff. I will get this out here shortly. And um, yeah, in the meantime, keep listening, send us your ideas, and uh keep it a hot mess. Bye.