February 8, 2025 • 33 mins
Allegations of U.S. voter fraud have made the rounds in recent years -- but, once upon a time, these were much more than allegations. Join the guys as they explore the massive voting fraud operations that riddled U.S. politics throughout the 19th century in this week's Classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, fellow Ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with
a weirdly apropos classic episode. You know, every time there's
an election in these United States, there are also allegations
of fraud. It's true.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is what I like to refer to you as
the cooping episode.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yeah, yeah, we learned this word together. It turns out
that no matter how rigged someone thinks, an election maybe
in the US in these our modern days, oh folks,
who was way crazier in the eighteen hundreds, that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The idea of voter fraud is something that is very
topical in this our modern day. But once upon a time,
these were much more than just allegations. People were being
kidnapped off the streets and forced to drink intoxicating beverages
and set loose at polling places. Costumes, Yeah, under threat
(01:02):
of the very least having their kneecaps banged up. It
was a really, really rough time. Let's get right into it. Kidnapping,
binge drinking, and costumes voter fraud in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Let's begin with
(01:43):
a hypothetical scenario. Friends and neighbors Imagine that you are
in the eighteen hundreds. You're walking down the street, minding
your own weather business or pleasure, I'm doing it, and
you are kidnapped. You are accosted by a gang of ruffians.
You were taken to a room where there are other
(02:04):
hapless people like you. But instead of demanding a ransom
from your loved ones or immediately torturing you or something
like that, the kidnappers their first move is to attempt
to get you drunk, booze you up, to booze you up.
And we'll continue this story, but first let's pause for
the introduction. Hello, I'm Ben.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm Nolan. You know, the second thing they might have done, Ben,
is maybe put on a false mustache upon your face,
or perhaps a straw hat, top hat, any kind of hat,
a funny nose, maybe, because they were trying to disguise you,
right against your will, for the purposes of perpetrating a
(02:45):
voter fraud.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I feel like the badger could have stayed in the
bag for a second. But you are spot on, And
how ridiculous is this? Oh, we have to remember to
say hello, won't you join us friends and neighbors? Fellow
ridiculous historians. In tilting your hat to our super producer
Casey Pegrow, You're right, nol It seems strange to think
(03:07):
of it because nowadays, when we think of kidnapping, we
think of, you know, nefarious crime, right.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, we think of you know, wealthy or dare we say,
even middle class Americans traveling abroad in certain countries. Columbia
got a pretty bad rap for this in years past
and getting nabbed, you know, from tourist destinations and held
ransom for the wealthy or middle class families back in
(03:35):
America to send forth money for the release of said
hapless adult relatives who probably should have had their wits
more about it now I'm victim blaming.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
What a way to start the episode. No, no, no, no, no.
I think I think this is a good place for
us to carve out a distinction, because you're absolutely right. Nowadays,
the first thing you think of when you hear kidnapping
is likely going to be one of two things. You're
going to think that someone is after money, or you're
going to think it may be some creep with cedy
(04:08):
or sleazy intentions. Yes, purvey preoccupations. There we go, And
I like the alliteration. But let's not forget, Ben that
there is also political capital right right, And this is
apropos in this day and age, because regardless of where
you find yourself falling on either side of the false
(04:28):
dichotomy known as political parties here in the US, or
whether you are not in the US and you're a
foreign observer, one thing you've probably noticed is that the
concept of voter fraud has been making the headlines for
the past few years. It really has.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Our current president made quite a to do about it
when it was looking like he wasn't as much of
a shoe in for the presidency as he might have
liked to believe, and he started planting the seeds of
widespread voter fraud, illegal unregistered undocumented immigrants, or corruption at
(05:04):
the local level going to the polls and droves, or
like you say, corruption at the local level. Now we
have largely electronic voter machines. There was even talk of
hackery of voting machine.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Right right through the de Boult connection exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So there were a lot of red flags, at least
as far as DJT Right's concerned. That's Donald J.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Trump. That's how I'm going to refer to him the
commander in chief.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And what's important to note here is that allegations a
possible voter fraud came from all directions recently, but primarily
from President Trump's crew or supporters, and for people who
were critics of these allegations or accusations, this seemed like
an unfounded worldview or conclusion. But regardless of what we
(05:54):
think about the sanctity or the infallibility of the voting
process to date, whether you think it's rigged, whether you
think it works okay, or whatever, the true and strange
fact of the matter is that back in the eighteen hundreds,
in the nineteenth century, voter fraud was a huge thing.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
As I like to say, Actually, my friend Frank likes
to say wide rife. We stole that from a British
television program, so that's you know, three degrees of catchphrase thievery.
But yes, just widespread all over the place, to the
point where it was like a joke right right.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
The kidnapping that we described for you at the beginning
of the show, were you to encounter that, you would
be taken in in a practice called cooping, and this
would be exactly what we described. A group of people
kidnap you and several other folks attempt to get you
drunk and then convince you verbally to go cast your
(06:52):
vote for a certain political candidate.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And the thing was ben that wasn't even like the
full scenario. There was another group involved in this process,
and they were the ones who had already had their
votes like bought and paid for by these different groups,
and the whole like boozing and food situation. They just
kind of got that as a perk.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, like when you get the cheese, it's and a
little bit of juice after you give blood exactly. It's
just a sort of a spoils of political war. So
I'm wondering if these were like combined into a single event.
Sometimes they were, Yeah, sometimes they were. And the weird
thing is when we describe it immediately without context. To
me personally, the idea of being kidnapped, given free booze,
(07:34):
and then being told that I should go out and
vote multiple times in an assortment of disguises, ridiculous disguises,
sounds fantastic. I mean, yeah, dude, I'm a master disguise.
I look like several different people. Well, you left at
a crucial detail. You might have also been beaten. That's true.
We do have to examine that part because this was
(07:59):
all well, this was all drunken, boozy funding games and
political crime. If the people who are being cooped agreed
to play along, if they did not play ball, they were,
as you said, Noel beaten and in some cases they
were killed.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Now, Ben, let's go back to the origins of this
kind of behavior. Something we like to refer to in
history as political machines.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, political machines. So you've probably heard this term before.
You've heard it alluded to, at least in some very
popular works of historical fiction and in film and in novels.
And a political machine is an organization that exists, typically
(08:44):
on a city or state level, to maintain its own
power and pursue its own interest which are often going
to be corrupt. For instance, a member of political machine
a owns stock or has invested in a certain construction company.
Then under this political machine, that construction company is going
to get every bid, sure, even if they are not
(09:06):
as qualified, even if they're more expensive, even if they're
more expensive on purpose that you know, and then that
allows the machine to skim some graft off and off air.
You and I have been talking about one of the
most famous political machines in United States history.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, most famous largely because it was one of the
most effective and had one of the longest reigns, and
that was Tammany Hall, which I'm sure many of you
have heard of, the infamous Tammany Hall Boss pit Boss,
I guess William M. Boss Tweed was his name, and
they held sway, this organization over New York City politics
(09:49):
for decades. It was formed in seventeen eighty nine and
wasn't even fully dismantled until nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
That was and John V.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Lindsay, who was the final mayor that had had enough
of this, essentially rendered them, kind of neutered them right.
Another famous New York City mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, also put
a stop to them between thirty four and forty five,
but then they kind of had a bit of a
resurgence until Lindsey came in. And the closest thing that
(10:21):
I can compare these political machines to in this one
in particular, is the way the bad rap we see
unions getting. Whereas obviously a union is a functional thing,
obviously a political activist group has the potential to be
a functional, positive thing, mobilizes support for certain candidates.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Sure, certain causes that are would benefit the.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Community, but as we know with unions the history, there
was a lot of corruption there too that benefited particular
stakeholders that had a lot to gain.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, And one of the big differences that we need
to demarcate here is that in the case of activist groups,
in the case of community organization, those voting blocks typically
are going to be operating consensually with the support of
the voters. And in comparison, though cooping, this particular type
(11:14):
of ridiculous voter fraud. Cooping was inherently associated with obviously
political corruption, but also with these political machines, and they themselves,
if we returned to the Tammany Hall example, were intimately
connected with on the street crime. You've seen gangs of.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
New York absolutely and one thing Tammany Hall did, and
the reason they were able to kind of persevere for
so long as they reached out to the most impoverished
in the community, including immigrants, Irish immigrants in particular, and
that's how the Irish got such a foothold in New
York City politics. Over the years is because of this
(11:55):
Tammany Hall machine that elevated them to positions of prominence
through their control of the electoral process, right, and that
also just gave them a ground swell of political support
because there were a lot of immigrants coming into New
York City all the time. And you get off the boat,
dam Many Hall reaches out of helping hand, says, hey,
we got you. If you got us, all of a sudden,
(12:15):
you own the vote.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right because who gave you the job, who gave you
the place to stay, who set you up once you
got off Ellis Island. There's a fantastic article we'd like
to recommend from Atlas Obscura called election fraud in the
eighteen hundreds involved kidnapping and forced drinking by author Natalie Zarelli.
And in this article she includes a quote from a
(12:38):
New York City gang leader named mon Eastmann. He said,
I make half of the big politicians, meaning that he
was publicly acknowledging that he was. He and his gang
were working for Tammany Hall, taking people by hooker by crook.
I make them like I'm a book maker, like I
(12:59):
did that right, taking them by hook or by crook
and cajoling them to vote multiple times, said I keep
going back to the costumes. I wonder if the costumes
were any good, because at this level of corruption, the
people manning the poles, and you can see some of
these pictures, I think the people manning the poles were
also in on the game. Oh well, get get get
(13:19):
a kick out of this.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Then Ben, in an article form Mental Flaws, Democracy's Dirty History,
one of the coop bosses, I guess this is the
term that was used here of Tammany Hall. He described
the smartest way to get the most bang for your
buck in terms of, you know, kidnapping these folks. He
could get four votes out of one human person he voted,
(13:41):
had him vote one time with a full beard, then
again with some take off the beard mutton chops, No,
maybe keep the beard on. I'm not sure, unclear, and
then a third time only a mustache, and then finally
the coup de gras, the clean shaven vote. And I
was actually talking with super producer Casey Pegrim off air,
and I wanted to ask this to you.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Was there no means, or if only rudimentary means of
confirming someone's identity when they were voting in these days.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
What was that like? It's an interesting question. It's one
that has echoes and consequences here in the modern day
with the argument over voter ID.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Cards, which is a big problem with the Trump stuff
we were talking about earlier. That was a big beef
where a lot of places in the United States got
rid of those voter ID laws because they are considered
by many to be inherently racist.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Right, and as horrific and sad as it is, we
have to we would be remiss if we did not
point out that one of the most immediate ways people
at the polls or polling officials decided whether or not
someone was qualified to vote was by observing the color
of their skin, that's right, which is a huge travesty.
(14:50):
But in addition to that, we have to wonder if
there were some sort of proof of residency, like an
address perhaps, because in these accounts of voter fraud, one
thing that we don't see mentioned at all is any
mention of paperwork involved. We just see disguises. Yeah, and
obviously you could vote while you were rip roar and drunk, clearly.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And the thing too, is like if the fix here
the scam was just to buy a bunch of fake
mustaches and beer. They obviously didn't have a whole you know,
counterfeiting department, you know, stamping out fake passports or birth
certificate documentation or anything like that. So it seems to
me like it was a much more on an eyeball
(15:35):
recognition and a handshake and a promise kind of in
these days.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Right. Yeah, and here's something else weird. Until the introduction
of what was called the Australian ballot in the eighteen eighties,
when you voted, your voting choice was public Viva vote jay.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly what is it with the
human voice?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I believe that's the actual term.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, this is kind of where we see the start.
Maybe not with the coercion and the kidnapping, but in
the early days of democracy, voting was always a pretty
contentious situation because if you had to say in front
of God and your peers and your township and everyone
(16:17):
who you voted for, if they didn't agree with you,
they might try to kick your ass.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, try being the hopeful addition to that sentence there. Yeah.
There's an article on History Extra called A Brief History
of Election Rigging in the US that covers some of this.
And the strange thing is that what we're describing is
absolutely correct. So voters would line up to cast their
ballots with party operatives on the side telling them to
(16:46):
do the vote, or trying to bribe them to do
the vote, or trying to talk them into or out
of the vote. That's why.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Why do you think it's so important that we don't
allow campaigning at polling places today?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Clearly an offshoot of this kind of behavior, right, Yeah,
and it's still in a strange way. Look, the states
are doing their collective best with the voting process, but
there are still gang rules. I'm sure there are still
people who wear a who say, Okay, I can't support
a political candidate, but let me wear an all blue
or all red. I don't know a onesie. I've never
(17:19):
seen anybody in a one see.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
But there's weird rules about that stuff too. Like you
certainly couldn't definitely couldn't wear like a vote for Hillary
t shirtch No, but if you wore some kind of
dog whistle thing that let people know I'm watching you.
And that's the thing too. Trump actually encouraged he said, Okay,
there's going to be this widespread voter fraud, and he
encouraged his supporters to quote keep an eye on the polls. Yeah,
(17:44):
and maybe make people a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I had heard about that too, and whether that result
in a physical activity on the ground. What remains inarguable
is that this did not come straight out of the blue,
straight out of left field. This has vast historical pressident
here in the US. Violence in voting in the eighteen
hundreds was common enough that up to a point, it
(18:07):
was just considered part of the voting process. It was
just the thing.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It was what to be expected, right, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
In the logic was this. There's a little misogyny in here,
of course, but the logic was if a voter was
not quote unquote manly enough to stand up for his
chosen convictions and the candidate sure of his choice, then
they if they couldn't, if they couldn't man up as
the case were, against a little bit of rowdiness, there's
(18:35):
some fisticuffs, even some cajoling from supporters of other candidates,
then were they really even fit to vote? That was
the idea.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And it's interesting too how alcohol plays a role in
this from the start as well, even before the kidnapping
and shoving fake mustaches on people's faces. In this mental
loss article, it references the fact that even George Washington
himself understood that maybe you might need a little bit
of liquid courage at the poles because of this whole
(19:04):
idea of standing up for what you believed in. If
you need to have your voice be louder than the opposition,
you might need to be a little tanked before you
do this. And he ran for the Virginia House of
Burgesses in seventeen fifty eight and gave voters at the
poles twenty eight gallons of rum, fifty gallons of rum punch,
(19:25):
thirty four gallons of wine, forty six gallons of beer,
and two gallons of hard cider.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
No mention on whether he distributed his famous aggnog.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
No, but he did talk about he did use the
expression swilling the planters with bumbo, which is a pretty
tasty sounding yet boozy cocktail consisting of rum, water, sugar, nutmeg,
and optional cinnamon.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And I do want to point out for everyone who
might have had the question, all those gallons you heard about,
those were total yes for the day. Those were not
per per It was not that wealthy, but he was
onto something. This was this was common in the eighteen hundred's,
the practice of cooping. It had a timeline that we
(20:12):
should mention. They weren't kidnapping people on the day of voting.
They were kidnapping them like up to two or three
days before and keeping them in a windowless basement against
their or maybe not, I don't know. They probably pulled
a lot of homeless people too. Point we were happy
to have a warm place to stay. What a nightmare.
(20:33):
But here's the thing. This, this is so off topic,
but this reminded me of a story or Russian friend
of mine told me about a really disturbing game. And please,
fellow Russian ridiculous historians, let us know if this is
an actual thing, because I have always been captivated about this. No,
it's a game called submarining go on, So it doesn't
(20:56):
even sound like a game to me. I don't entirely
understand the point does it involve? Which is kind of
the story? Is this that a group of people would
get together, And again I heard this from a Russian
friend who was telling me about Russian games. A group
of people get together, they'll get an apartment and they'll
nail up planks or black out all the windows, and
(21:20):
they'll get locked in with like cold cuts and bread,
absolute darkness and just a ton of booze, like hard liquor,
and they'll be in there for days in total dark,
just drinking and eating cold cuts, and one person who
was also another game comes by later to unlock the
door and let them out. That sounds incredibly disturbing to me.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Wow, is this sort of like a battle royale with
like sandwich meats and booze kind of situation?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I have no idea, because you know, are expecting to
find when they come let them out. I have no idea.
Maybe it's a spiritual revelatory thing, but what was happening
with cooping was uncomfortably close to that, And since there
were so many people in on it, the law or
the legal system was really hard pressed to impose some
(22:14):
kind of consequence for this because the people who were
rigging the vote were the people who were in charge
of giving the yay or nay to a judge. So
for a judge, it's political suicide in many cases, especially
in New York at the time, to stand up against this.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Did you read the bit about how election. Poll workers
were also at risk. Ben of one thing that I
saw was having their coffee spiked with laxatives so that
they quote would be otherwise engaged during the most important
phase of the count This is again from that mental
Floss article by AJ Jacobs. So no one was safe.
(22:52):
None was safe, Ben, Yeah, none.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
And as a matter of fact, the public had a
bit of hypocrisy about this because people were aware of
and disgusted by this practice specifically cooping, but corruption overall
in domestic politics. But it was so common, so baked
in that we found accounts of it happening in multiple states,
(23:16):
not just in New York. And this practice continued through
the end of the nineteenth century. They also had cases
in nineteen ten, there was one in Adams County, Ohio,
where a judge is a little unusual actually brought to
trial and convicted. Get this, one thousand, six hundred and
(23:38):
ninety voters, twenty six percent of the electorate of the
county for selling their votes. And you know, again we
have to wonder was the were the voters in question
falling for a more gentle Washingtonian bribery scam or what
(24:00):
is it, a more violent nice farm.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Be a shame if something happened to happen to it,
Boss Tweed kind of rib yeah, and Ben I was surprised, Yeah,
not surprised. It makes perfect sense that we inherited this
from our former rulers in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, this cooping was part of their electoral process as well.
And I found a delightful passage from a book called
Knowing Right from Wrong The Insanity Defense of Daniel McNaughton
that describes cooping in English elections in eighteen thirty four.
And here goes this story from this book by Richard Moran.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
If bribery and improper influence failed to persuade reluctant voters,
they wanted them to vote Tory. There was always violence
and intimidation. The practice of cooping or abducting an opponent's
supporters until after the election was nearly universal. Consequently, cooping
one's own supporters and keeping them locked up in public
house of a pub until it was time to vote
(25:03):
developed as a defensive response. Here here's the best part.
Where you had these factions warring with each other. It
was not uncommon for large groups of drunken voters to
be escorted under guard to the polling place in Ireland
where wholesale cooping took place. Refusal to surrender to what
one historian has called ceremonious abduction carried with it the
full wrath of the landlords the barkeeps. He goes on
(25:25):
to say how people who manage the campaigns actually hired
these gangs of what are deemed bullies to intimidate and
physically abuse voters, and then he goes on to say
election day in many towns and boroughs was characterized by
riots and mob violence. At Hertford, the Tory candidate Lord
Dustra and Lord Mohan employed a band of gypsies to
(25:47):
harass Radical voters. The radical candidate Thomas Duncombe retaliated by
hiring one hundred and fifty where bargemen, so you know,
fight fire with fire or gypsies with bargemen.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
There was also an intensely close and I would think
much more publicly acknowledged link between politics and entertainment, which
to a degree helps us contextualize this practice. So public politics,
you know, had a ton of drinking involved at the time.
(26:25):
There were a lot of torchlit rallies and there were
things called jollification barbecues. That sounds like fun, right, I
want to be jollified. And in an article Riling Up
the Shrewd Wild Boys by John Grinspan, we explore some
of the differences between then and today. So during the
(26:46):
peak of American campaign excitement, he writes, our democracy was louder, meaner,
and merrier than it had ever been before. Populist campaigners
perfected the art of political show business a genre. Then
he gets his licks in here that seems to be
making a comeback. He's writing in twenty twelve, sure prescient, right, yeah,
and if only he knew right? And so from eighteen
(27:08):
forty through nineteen hundred, he says, these types of campaigns
did select people who would lead the government at this
stage unanimously all men. But they also were the best
show in town. These were gaudy, gonzo rituals, and people
would go a political people would go just because it
(27:30):
was great food, tons of cheaper, free booze. And then
there were shows that were singing, there was partying. There
were the pretty much distracts of the time, which were
these fiery invectives against those monsters and traders. Oh sure,
or they would sometimes say, perhaps not entirely American opponents.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh yeah, you know what, it makes me think of
that scene in Oh Brother or Art Thou where it's
you know, is he is or is you ain't my
constituency and he has like dwarves and it's all like
this crazy smoke and mirrors, kind of like pt Barnum
esque atmosphere with banners and parades and all this stuff,
you know, some of which we still see today, but
much more cartoonish.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
To borrow your word of choice there, thank you, it's
a go to. Well. Here's the thing though, because we
were talking about this practice which was wild, which was common,
which was real, But we have ignored up to this
point the fact that several great and acclaimed US politicians
were alive and active during this time, and they were
(28:33):
also doing the same sort of thing. Maybe not cooping,
but politicians themselves encouraged that. We even have a record
of Abraham Lincoln in the eighteen forties planning what he
thought would be a great party. That headline Wild Shrewd
Boys comes from his letter that.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
He wrote that sounds like a really cool party crew,
the Wild Shrewd Boys.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
It does. I would love to see them at a
house park already, so long as it was not my house.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And as you mentioned earlier, Ben, there was a time
where you know, you pole workers would know whether it
was okay for someone to vote or not simply by
looking at the color of their skin, you know, seeing
if they were in fact or not white. But then
we have emancipation in the late eighteen sixties, so we
have that fantastic article from history extra dot com that
(29:24):
talks about the plight of African Americans. After this period
in time, and especially in the South, there was a
sense that even though black men did receive the franchise,
their very presence at these elections was seen as an
affront to the election process and that they were somehow
(29:48):
plants from you know, Northern Yankee carpetbagger scum, trying to
rig the election in their union love and favor and
gross gross stuff. Again, Yeah, that is he is or
is you ain't? My constituency stuff comes to mind. So
a long, hard fought battle to where we are now
with elections, which clearly people still have some issues with.
(30:12):
I don't think we're ever going to be fully comfortable
with something as important as the election processes I've always
wonried why don't they just put it all online?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Right? There's an answer to that from purists, right, well yeah,
but then again, it's it's something that has two answers,
one from the realm of idealism and one from the
realm of well, how low can people go? Morally speaking?
The thing is there is always someone who can go
lower than you in the game of morality. Limbo. I'm
(30:42):
actually happy with that. Oh, I love that. A lot
of these comparisons don't work because you and I are
shooting from the hip. But that wasn't that bad?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
No, man, well done?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Should we put it on a T shirt? Hey? What
do you say? As historians?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
We do have a new T shirt shop coming up
at Tea Public if you haven't heard of it, where
they do this thing where we can we can drum
up a catchphrase design and two shakes of a Lamb's tale.
So if you guys want some unique short run ridiculous
history catchphrase teas or hoodies or you know, throw pillows,
(31:14):
sure let us know parkas. I don't know, we're just
making stuff up. Or let us know what what you
thint Bunny hugs. Yeah, yeah, wallet's.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Jinko jeans.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I don't think they make those anymore, Dude, I think
it's over for Jinko jeans.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Somebody still has a pair. I'm sure we would like
to hear your ideas for that. I think we're already
both pretty much sold on Son of a Fish and
Chip Show shirts, respectively, but we want to hear your
designs and ideas. What would be a cool T shirt?
This is so new and strange to us, I think
we're gonna get very weird with it.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, And the best place to do that, if you
don't want to just email us directly at Ridiculous at
HowStuffWorks dot com, is to hit us up on our
Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians, which you can join via
your mobile or desktop Facebook app. And we've got a
cool little community there and we hop in there and
hang and shadowy now and then.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
So maybe we could do a poll, Ben, I want to.
So this is the idea I proposed. Noel, you can
confirm that you have not heard about this until we're
on air, but I'd like to do maybe one poll
a week on Ridiculous Historians, just about stuff. We could
do a poll, for instance, on vote for a favorite
(32:29):
T shirt concept. We could also do a poll on
questions about where you and your fellow listeners stand on
a particular topic brought up in an episode, because if
we've learned one thing from today's show, it's that no
matter how much we knocked the voting process today, it's
(32:49):
way cooler now.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah, you should do it. It's important, especially you know on
our Facebook page.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, be the change. Start on Ridiculous Historians. Let us
though you can also find us on Twitter. You can
find us on Instagram where we are some variety of
Ridiculous History or Ridiculous History show.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
And if you want to see us live in the flesh,
in person, in human form, we will be at the
Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July the first, four
o'clock PM, alongside our buddies Will and Mango from Part
Time Genius, and we're going to do our first ever
live show.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
We're super stoked about her. Yeah, wish us luck, Come
cheer us on or laugh at us in person, because
one thing we can promise you is that there are
several surprises in store, but what are they? No spoilers,
You will have to tune in non spoilers, but hey,
we'll see you there or next time on another episode
of Ridiculous History Take Care of Everyone.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Oh, fellow Ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with
a weirdly apropos classic episode. You know, every time there's
an election in these United States, there are also allegations
of fraud. It's true.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is what I like to refer to you as
the cooping episode.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yeah, yeah, we learned this word together. It turns out
that no matter how rigged someone thinks, an election maybe
in the US in these our modern days, oh folks,
who was way crazier in the eighteen hundreds, that's right.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
The idea of voter fraud is something that is very
topical in this our modern day. But once upon a time,
these were much more than just allegations. People were being
kidnapped off the streets and forced to drink intoxicating beverages
and set loose at polling places. Costumes, Yeah, under threat
(01:02):
of the very least having their kneecaps banged up. It
was a really, really rough time. Let's get right into it. Kidnapping,
binge drinking, and costumes voter fraud in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Let's begin with
(01:43):
a hypothetical scenario. Friends and neighbors Imagine that you are
in the eighteen hundreds. You're walking down the street, minding
your own weather business or pleasure, I'm doing it, and
you are kidnapped. You are accosted by a gang of ruffians.
You were taken to a room where there are other
(02:04):
hapless people like you. But instead of demanding a ransom
from your loved ones or immediately torturing you or something
like that, the kidnappers their first move is to attempt
to get you drunk, booze you up, to booze you up.
And we'll continue this story, but first let's pause for
the introduction. Hello, I'm Ben.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I'm Nolan. You know, the second thing they might have done, Ben,
is maybe put on a false mustache upon your face,
or perhaps a straw hat, top hat, any kind of hat,
a funny nose, maybe, because they were trying to disguise you,
right against your will, for the purposes of perpetrating a
(02:45):
voter fraud.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I feel like the badger could have stayed in the
bag for a second. But you are spot on, And
how ridiculous is this? Oh, we have to remember to
say hello, won't you join us friends and neighbors? Fellow
ridiculous historians. In tilting your hat to our super producer
Casey Pegrow, You're right, nol It seems strange to think
(03:07):
of it because nowadays, when we think of kidnapping, we
think of, you know, nefarious crime, right.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Yeah, we think of you know, wealthy or dare we say,
even middle class Americans traveling abroad in certain countries. Columbia
got a pretty bad rap for this in years past
and getting nabbed, you know, from tourist destinations and held
ransom for the wealthy or middle class families back in
(03:35):
America to send forth money for the release of said
hapless adult relatives who probably should have had their wits
more about it now I'm victim blaming.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
What a way to start the episode. No, no, no, no, no.
I think I think this is a good place for
us to carve out a distinction, because you're absolutely right. Nowadays,
the first thing you think of when you hear kidnapping
is likely going to be one of two things. You're
going to think that someone is after money, or you're
going to think it may be some creep with cedy
(04:08):
or sleazy intentions. Yes, purvey preoccupations. There we go, And
I like the alliteration. But let's not forget, Ben that
there is also political capital right right, And this is
apropos in this day and age, because regardless of where
you find yourself falling on either side of the false
(04:28):
dichotomy known as political parties here in the US, or
whether you are not in the US and you're a
foreign observer, one thing you've probably noticed is that the
concept of voter fraud has been making the headlines for
the past few years. It really has.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Our current president made quite a to do about it
when it was looking like he wasn't as much of
a shoe in for the presidency as he might have
liked to believe, and he started planting the seeds of
widespread voter fraud, illegal unregistered undocumented immigrants, or corruption at
(05:04):
the local level going to the polls and droves, or
like you say, corruption at the local level. Now we
have largely electronic voter machines. There was even talk of
hackery of voting machine.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Right right through the de Boult connection exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So there were a lot of red flags, at least
as far as DJT Right's concerned. That's Donald J.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Trump. That's how I'm going to refer to him the
commander in chief.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
And what's important to note here is that allegations a
possible voter fraud came from all directions recently, but primarily
from President Trump's crew or supporters, and for people who
were critics of these allegations or accusations, this seemed like
an unfounded worldview or conclusion. But regardless of what we
(05:54):
think about the sanctity or the infallibility of the voting
process to date, whether you think it's rigged, whether you
think it works okay, or whatever, the true and strange
fact of the matter is that back in the eighteen hundreds,
in the nineteenth century, voter fraud was a huge thing.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
As I like to say, Actually, my friend Frank likes
to say wide rife. We stole that from a British
television program, so that's you know, three degrees of catchphrase thievery.
But yes, just widespread all over the place, to the
point where it was like a joke right right.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
The kidnapping that we described for you at the beginning
of the show, were you to encounter that, you would
be taken in in a practice called cooping, and this
would be exactly what we described. A group of people
kidnap you and several other folks attempt to get you
drunk and then convince you verbally to go cast your
(06:52):
vote for a certain political candidate.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And the thing was ben that wasn't even like the
full scenario. There was another group involved in this process,
and they were the ones who had already had their
votes like bought and paid for by these different groups,
and the whole like boozing and food situation. They just
kind of got that as a perk.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Yeah, like when you get the cheese, it's and a
little bit of juice after you give blood exactly. It's
just a sort of a spoils of political war. So
I'm wondering if these were like combined into a single event.
Sometimes they were, Yeah, sometimes they were. And the weird
thing is when we describe it immediately without context. To
me personally, the idea of being kidnapped, given free booze,
(07:34):
and then being told that I should go out and
vote multiple times in an assortment of disguises, ridiculous disguises,
sounds fantastic. I mean, yeah, dude, I'm a master disguise.
I look like several different people. Well, you left at
a crucial detail. You might have also been beaten. That's true.
We do have to examine that part because this was
(07:59):
all well, this was all drunken, boozy funding games and
political crime. If the people who are being cooped agreed
to play along, if they did not play ball, they were,
as you said, Noel beaten and in some cases they
were killed.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Now, Ben, let's go back to the origins of this
kind of behavior. Something we like to refer to in
history as political machines.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, political machines. So you've probably heard this term before.
You've heard it alluded to, at least in some very
popular works of historical fiction and in film and in novels.
And a political machine is an organization that exists, typically
(08:44):
on a city or state level, to maintain its own
power and pursue its own interest which are often going
to be corrupt. For instance, a member of political machine
a owns stock or has invested in a certain construction company.
Then under this political machine, that construction company is going
to get every bid, sure, even if they are not
(09:06):
as qualified, even if they're more expensive, even if they're
more expensive on purpose that you know, and then that
allows the machine to skim some graft off and off air.
You and I have been talking about one of the
most famous political machines in United States history.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Yeah, most famous largely because it was one of the
most effective and had one of the longest reigns, and
that was Tammany Hall, which I'm sure many of you
have heard of, the infamous Tammany Hall Boss pit Boss,
I guess William M. Boss Tweed was his name, and
they held sway, this organization over New York City politics
(09:49):
for decades. It was formed in seventeen eighty nine and
wasn't even fully dismantled until nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
That was and John V.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Lindsay, who was the final mayor that had had enough
of this, essentially rendered them, kind of neutered them right.
Another famous New York City mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, also put
a stop to them between thirty four and forty five,
but then they kind of had a bit of a
resurgence until Lindsey came in. And the closest thing that
(10:21):
I can compare these political machines to in this one
in particular, is the way the bad rap we see
unions getting. Whereas obviously a union is a functional thing,
obviously a political activist group has the potential to be
a functional, positive thing, mobilizes support for certain candidates.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Sure, certain causes that are would benefit the.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Community, but as we know with unions the history, there
was a lot of corruption there too that benefited particular
stakeholders that had a lot to gain.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Yeah, And one of the big differences that we need
to demarcate here is that in the case of activist groups,
in the case of community organization, those voting blocks typically
are going to be operating consensually with the support of
the voters. And in comparison, though cooping, this particular type
(11:14):
of ridiculous voter fraud. Cooping was inherently associated with obviously
political corruption, but also with these political machines, and they themselves,
if we returned to the Tammany Hall example, were intimately
connected with on the street crime. You've seen gangs of.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
New York absolutely and one thing Tammany Hall did, and
the reason they were able to kind of persevere for
so long as they reached out to the most impoverished
in the community, including immigrants, Irish immigrants in particular, and
that's how the Irish got such a foothold in New
York City politics. Over the years is because of this
(11:55):
Tammany Hall machine that elevated them to positions of prominence
through their control of the electoral process, right, and that
also just gave them a ground swell of political support
because there were a lot of immigrants coming into New
York City all the time. And you get off the boat,
dam Many Hall reaches out of helping hand, says, hey,
we got you. If you got us, all of a sudden,
(12:15):
you own the vote.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right because who gave you the job, who gave you
the place to stay, who set you up once you
got off Ellis Island. There's a fantastic article we'd like
to recommend from Atlas Obscura called election fraud in the
eighteen hundreds involved kidnapping and forced drinking by author Natalie Zarelli.
And in this article she includes a quote from a
(12:38):
New York City gang leader named mon Eastmann. He said,
I make half of the big politicians, meaning that he
was publicly acknowledging that he was. He and his gang
were working for Tammany Hall, taking people by hooker by crook.
I make them like I'm a book maker, like I
(12:59):
did that right, taking them by hook or by crook
and cajoling them to vote multiple times, said I keep
going back to the costumes. I wonder if the costumes
were any good, because at this level of corruption, the
people manning the poles, and you can see some of
these pictures, I think the people manning the poles were
also in on the game. Oh well, get get get
(13:19):
a kick out of this.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Then Ben, in an article form Mental Flaws, Democracy's Dirty History,
one of the coop bosses, I guess this is the
term that was used here of Tammany Hall. He described
the smartest way to get the most bang for your
buck in terms of, you know, kidnapping these folks. He
could get four votes out of one human person he voted,
(13:41):
had him vote one time with a full beard, then
again with some take off the beard mutton chops, No,
maybe keep the beard on. I'm not sure, unclear, and
then a third time only a mustache, and then finally
the coup de gras, the clean shaven vote. And I
was actually talking with super producer Casey Pegrim off air,
and I wanted to ask this to you.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Ben.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Was there no means, or if only rudimentary means of
confirming someone's identity when they were voting in these days.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
What was that like? It's an interesting question. It's one
that has echoes and consequences here in the modern day
with the argument over voter ID.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Cards, which is a big problem with the Trump stuff
we were talking about earlier. That was a big beef
where a lot of places in the United States got
rid of those voter ID laws because they are considered
by many to be inherently racist.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Right, and as horrific and sad as it is, we
have to we would be remiss if we did not
point out that one of the most immediate ways people
at the polls or polling officials decided whether or not
someone was qualified to vote was by observing the color
of their skin, that's right, which is a huge travesty.
(14:50):
But in addition to that, we have to wonder if
there were some sort of proof of residency, like an
address perhaps, because in these accounts of voter fraud, one
thing that we don't see mentioned at all is any
mention of paperwork involved. We just see disguises. Yeah, and
obviously you could vote while you were rip roar and drunk, clearly.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
And the thing too, is like if the fix here
the scam was just to buy a bunch of fake
mustaches and beer. They obviously didn't have a whole you know,
counterfeiting department, you know, stamping out fake passports or birth
certificate documentation or anything like that. So it seems to
me like it was a much more on an eyeball
(15:35):
recognition and a handshake and a promise kind of in
these days.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Right. Yeah, and here's something else weird. Until the introduction
of what was called the Australian ballot in the eighteen eighties,
when you voted, your voting choice was public Viva vote jay.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly what is it with the
human voice?
Speaker 1 (15:55):
I believe that's the actual term.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, this is kind of where we see the start.
Maybe not with the coercion and the kidnapping, but in
the early days of democracy, voting was always a pretty
contentious situation because if you had to say in front
of God and your peers and your township and everyone
(16:17):
who you voted for, if they didn't agree with you,
they might try to kick your ass.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Yeah, try being the hopeful addition to that sentence there. Yeah.
There's an article on History Extra called A Brief History
of Election Rigging in the US that covers some of this.
And the strange thing is that what we're describing is
absolutely correct. So voters would line up to cast their
ballots with party operatives on the side telling them to
(16:46):
do the vote, or trying to bribe them to do
the vote, or trying to talk them into or out
of the vote. That's why.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Why do you think it's so important that we don't
allow campaigning at polling places today?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Clearly an offshoot of this kind of behavior, right, Yeah,
and it's still in a strange way. Look, the states
are doing their collective best with the voting process, but
there are still gang rules. I'm sure there are still
people who wear a who say, Okay, I can't support
a political candidate, but let me wear an all blue
or all red. I don't know a onesie. I've never
(17:19):
seen anybody in a one see.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
But there's weird rules about that stuff too. Like you
certainly couldn't definitely couldn't wear like a vote for Hillary
t shirtch No, but if you wore some kind of
dog whistle thing that let people know I'm watching you.
And that's the thing too. Trump actually encouraged he said, Okay,
there's going to be this widespread voter fraud, and he
encouraged his supporters to quote keep an eye on the polls. Yeah,
(17:44):
and maybe make people a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I had heard about that too, and whether that result
in a physical activity on the ground. What remains inarguable
is that this did not come straight out of the blue,
straight out of left field. This has vast historical pressident
here in the US. Violence in voting in the eighteen
hundreds was common enough that up to a point, it
(18:07):
was just considered part of the voting process. It was
just the thing.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
It was what to be expected, right, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
In the logic was this. There's a little misogyny in here,
of course, but the logic was if a voter was
not quote unquote manly enough to stand up for his
chosen convictions and the candidate sure of his choice, then
they if they couldn't, if they couldn't man up as
the case were, against a little bit of rowdiness, there's
(18:35):
some fisticuffs, even some cajoling from supporters of other candidates,
then were they really even fit to vote? That was
the idea.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
And it's interesting too how alcohol plays a role in
this from the start as well, even before the kidnapping
and shoving fake mustaches on people's faces. In this mental
loss article, it references the fact that even George Washington
himself understood that maybe you might need a little bit
of liquid courage at the poles because of this whole
(19:04):
idea of standing up for what you believed in. If
you need to have your voice be louder than the opposition,
you might need to be a little tanked before you
do this. And he ran for the Virginia House of
Burgesses in seventeen fifty eight and gave voters at the
poles twenty eight gallons of rum, fifty gallons of rum punch,
(19:25):
thirty four gallons of wine, forty six gallons of beer,
and two gallons of hard cider.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
No mention on whether he distributed his famous aggnog.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
No, but he did talk about he did use the
expression swilling the planters with bumbo, which is a pretty
tasty sounding yet boozy cocktail consisting of rum, water, sugar, nutmeg,
and optional cinnamon.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And I do want to point out for everyone who
might have had the question, all those gallons you heard about,
those were total yes for the day. Those were not
per per It was not that wealthy, but he was
onto something. This was this was common in the eighteen hundred's,
the practice of cooping. It had a timeline that we
(20:12):
should mention. They weren't kidnapping people on the day of voting.
They were kidnapping them like up to two or three
days before and keeping them in a windowless basement against
their or maybe not, I don't know. They probably pulled
a lot of homeless people too. Point we were happy
to have a warm place to stay. What a nightmare.
(20:33):
But here's the thing. This, this is so off topic,
but this reminded me of a story or Russian friend
of mine told me about a really disturbing game. And please,
fellow Russian ridiculous historians, let us know if this is
an actual thing, because I have always been captivated about this. No,
it's a game called submarining go on, So it doesn't
(20:56):
even sound like a game to me. I don't entirely
understand the point does it involve? Which is kind of
the story? Is this that a group of people would
get together, And again I heard this from a Russian
friend who was telling me about Russian games. A group
of people get together, they'll get an apartment and they'll
nail up planks or black out all the windows, and
(21:20):
they'll get locked in with like cold cuts and bread,
absolute darkness and just a ton of booze, like hard liquor,
and they'll be in there for days in total dark,
just drinking and eating cold cuts, and one person who
was also another game comes by later to unlock the
door and let them out. That sounds incredibly disturbing to me.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Wow, is this sort of like a battle royale with
like sandwich meats and booze kind of situation?
Speaker 1 (21:49):
I have no idea, because you know, are expecting to
find when they come let them out. I have no idea.
Maybe it's a spiritual revelatory thing, but what was happening
with cooping was uncomfortably close to that, And since there
were so many people in on it, the law or
the legal system was really hard pressed to impose some
(22:14):
kind of consequence for this because the people who were
rigging the vote were the people who were in charge
of giving the yay or nay to a judge. So
for a judge, it's political suicide in many cases, especially
in New York at the time, to stand up against this.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Did you read the bit about how election. Poll workers
were also at risk. Ben of one thing that I
saw was having their coffee spiked with laxatives so that
they quote would be otherwise engaged during the most important
phase of the count This is again from that mental
Floss article by AJ Jacobs. So no one was safe.
(22:52):
None was safe, Ben, Yeah, none.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
And as a matter of fact, the public had a
bit of hypocrisy about this because people were aware of
and disgusted by this practice specifically cooping, but corruption overall
in domestic politics. But it was so common, so baked
in that we found accounts of it happening in multiple states,
(23:16):
not just in New York. And this practice continued through
the end of the nineteenth century. They also had cases
in nineteen ten, there was one in Adams County, Ohio,
where a judge is a little unusual actually brought to
trial and convicted. Get this, one thousand, six hundred and
(23:38):
ninety voters, twenty six percent of the electorate of the
county for selling their votes. And you know, again we
have to wonder was the were the voters in question
falling for a more gentle Washingtonian bribery scam or what
(24:00):
is it, a more violent nice farm.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Be a shame if something happened to happen to it,
Boss Tweed kind of rib yeah, and Ben I was surprised, Yeah,
not surprised. It makes perfect sense that we inherited this
from our former rulers in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, this cooping was part of their electoral process as well.
And I found a delightful passage from a book called
Knowing Right from Wrong The Insanity Defense of Daniel McNaughton
that describes cooping in English elections in eighteen thirty four.
And here goes this story from this book by Richard Moran.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
If bribery and improper influence failed to persuade reluctant voters,
they wanted them to vote Tory. There was always violence
and intimidation. The practice of cooping or abducting an opponent's
supporters until after the election was nearly universal. Consequently, cooping
one's own supporters and keeping them locked up in public
house of a pub until it was time to vote
(25:03):
developed as a defensive response. Here here's the best part.
Where you had these factions warring with each other. It
was not uncommon for large groups of drunken voters to
be escorted under guard to the polling place in Ireland
where wholesale cooping took place. Refusal to surrender to what
one historian has called ceremonious abduction carried with it the
full wrath of the landlords the barkeeps. He goes on
(25:25):
to say how people who manage the campaigns actually hired
these gangs of what are deemed bullies to intimidate and
physically abuse voters, and then he goes on to say
election day in many towns and boroughs was characterized by
riots and mob violence. At Hertford, the Tory candidate Lord
Dustra and Lord Mohan employed a band of gypsies to
(25:47):
harass Radical voters. The radical candidate Thomas Duncombe retaliated by
hiring one hundred and fifty where bargemen, so you know,
fight fire with fire or gypsies with bargemen.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
There was also an intensely close and I would think
much more publicly acknowledged link between politics and entertainment, which
to a degree helps us contextualize this practice. So public politics,
you know, had a ton of drinking involved at the time.
(26:25):
There were a lot of torchlit rallies and there were
things called jollification barbecues. That sounds like fun, right, I
want to be jollified. And in an article Riling Up
the Shrewd Wild Boys by John Grinspan, we explore some
of the differences between then and today. So during the
(26:46):
peak of American campaign excitement, he writes, our democracy was louder, meaner,
and merrier than it had ever been before. Populist campaigners
perfected the art of political show business a genre. Then
he gets his licks in here that seems to be
making a comeback. He's writing in twenty twelve, sure prescient, right, yeah,
and if only he knew right? And so from eighteen
(27:08):
forty through nineteen hundred, he says, these types of campaigns
did select people who would lead the government at this
stage unanimously all men. But they also were the best
show in town. These were gaudy, gonzo rituals, and people
would go a political people would go just because it
(27:30):
was great food, tons of cheaper, free booze. And then
there were shows that were singing, there was partying. There
were the pretty much distracts of the time, which were
these fiery invectives against those monsters and traders. Oh sure,
or they would sometimes say, perhaps not entirely American opponents.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Oh yeah, you know what, it makes me think of
that scene in Oh Brother or Art Thou where it's
you know, is he is or is you ain't my
constituency and he has like dwarves and it's all like
this crazy smoke and mirrors, kind of like pt Barnum
esque atmosphere with banners and parades and all this stuff,
you know, some of which we still see today, but
much more cartoonish.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
To borrow your word of choice there, thank you, it's
a go to. Well. Here's the thing though, because we
were talking about this practice which was wild, which was common,
which was real, But we have ignored up to this
point the fact that several great and acclaimed US politicians
were alive and active during this time, and they were
(28:33):
also doing the same sort of thing. Maybe not cooping,
but politicians themselves encouraged that. We even have a record
of Abraham Lincoln in the eighteen forties planning what he
thought would be a great party. That headline Wild Shrewd
Boys comes from his letter that.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
He wrote that sounds like a really cool party crew,
the Wild Shrewd Boys.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
It does. I would love to see them at a
house park already, so long as it was not my house.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
And as you mentioned earlier, Ben, there was a time
where you know, you pole workers would know whether it
was okay for someone to vote or not simply by
looking at the color of their skin, you know, seeing
if they were in fact or not white. But then
we have emancipation in the late eighteen sixties, so we
have that fantastic article from history extra dot com that
(29:24):
talks about the plight of African Americans. After this period
in time, and especially in the South, there was a
sense that even though black men did receive the franchise,
their very presence at these elections was seen as an
affront to the election process and that they were somehow
(29:48):
plants from you know, Northern Yankee carpetbagger scum, trying to
rig the election in their union love and favor and
gross gross stuff. Again, Yeah, that is he is or
is you ain't? My constituency stuff comes to mind. So
a long, hard fought battle to where we are now
with elections, which clearly people still have some issues with.
(30:12):
I don't think we're ever going to be fully comfortable
with something as important as the election processes I've always
wonried why don't they just put it all online?
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Right? There's an answer to that from purists, right, well yeah,
but then again, it's it's something that has two answers,
one from the realm of idealism and one from the
realm of well, how low can people go? Morally speaking?
The thing is there is always someone who can go
lower than you in the game of morality. Limbo. I'm
(30:42):
actually happy with that. Oh, I love that. A lot
of these comparisons don't work because you and I are
shooting from the hip. But that wasn't that bad?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
No, man, well done?
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Should we put it on a T shirt? Hey? What
do you say? As historians?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
We do have a new T shirt shop coming up
at Tea Public if you haven't heard of it, where
they do this thing where we can we can drum
up a catchphrase design and two shakes of a Lamb's tale.
So if you guys want some unique short run ridiculous
history catchphrase teas or hoodies or you know, throw pillows,
(31:14):
sure let us know parkas. I don't know, we're just
making stuff up. Or let us know what what you
thint Bunny hugs. Yeah, yeah, wallet's.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Jinko jeans.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
I don't think they make those anymore, Dude, I think
it's over for Jinko jeans.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Somebody still has a pair. I'm sure we would like
to hear your ideas for that. I think we're already
both pretty much sold on Son of a Fish and
Chip Show shirts, respectively, but we want to hear your
designs and ideas. What would be a cool T shirt?
This is so new and strange to us, I think
we're gonna get very weird with it.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, And the best place to do that, if you
don't want to just email us directly at Ridiculous at
HowStuffWorks dot com, is to hit us up on our
Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historians, which you can join via
your mobile or desktop Facebook app. And we've got a
cool little community there and we hop in there and
hang and shadowy now and then.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
So maybe we could do a poll, Ben, I want to.
So this is the idea I proposed. Noel, you can
confirm that you have not heard about this until we're
on air, but I'd like to do maybe one poll
a week on Ridiculous Historians, just about stuff. We could
do a poll, for instance, on vote for a favorite
(32:29):
T shirt concept. We could also do a poll on
questions about where you and your fellow listeners stand on
a particular topic brought up in an episode, because if
we've learned one thing from today's show, it's that no
matter how much we knocked the voting process today, it's
(32:49):
way cooler now.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah, you should do it. It's important, especially you know on
our Facebook page.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, be the change. Start on Ridiculous Historians. Let us
though you can also find us on Twitter. You can
find us on Instagram where we are some variety of
Ridiculous History or Ridiculous History show.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
And if you want to see us live in the flesh,
in person, in human form, we will be at the
Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July the first, four
o'clock PM, alongside our buddies Will and Mango from Part
Time Genius, and we're going to do our first ever
live show.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
We're super stoked about her. Yeah, wish us luck, Come
cheer us on or laugh at us in person, because
one thing we can promise you is that there are
several surprises in store, but what are they? No spoilers,
You will have to tune in non spoilers, but hey,
we'll see you there or next time on another episode
of Ridiculous History Take Care of Everyone.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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