June 21, 2018 • 32 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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Yea. Let's begin with a hypothetical scenario. Friends and neighbors.
Imagine that you are in the eighteen hundreds. You're walking
(00:32):
down the street, minding your own weather business or pleasure it,
and you are kidnapped. You are accosted by a gang
of ruffians. You were taken to a room where there
are other hapless people like you. But instead of demanding
a ransom from your loved ones or immediately torturing you
or something like that, the kidnappers the first move is
(00:56):
to attempt to get you drunk, booze you up, to
booze you up. Uh. And we'll continue this story, but
first let's pause for the introduction. Hello, I'm Ben, I'm
no one. You know. The second thing they might have done, Ben,
is maybe put on a false mustache upon your face,
or perhaps a a straw hat, top hat, any kind
(01:16):
of hat, a funny nose, maybe because they were trying
to uh disguise you right against your will for the
purposes of perpetrating voter fraud. I feel like the badger
could have stayed 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,
(01:37):
friends and neighbors, fellow ridiculous historians in tilting your hat
to our super producer Casey Pegro. You're right, no, it
seems strange to think of it, because nowadays, when we
think of kidnapping, we think of you know, nefarious crime, right, yeah,
we think of you know, uh, wealthy or dare we say,
(01:59):
even middle class Americans traveling abroad in certain countries. Um,
Columbia got a pretty bad rap for this in years past,
um and getting nabbed you know, from tourist destinations and
held ransom for the wealthy or middle class families back
in America to send forth money for the release of
(02:19):
said hapless adult relatives who probably should have had their
wits more about it. Now I'm victim blaming. 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
(02:41):
going to think that someone is after money. Well, you're
going to think it maybe some creep with seedy or
sleazy intentions, pervy 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
(03:05):
yourself falling on either side of the false dichotomy known
as political parties here in the US, or whether you
are not in the US and you're afford 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. Our current president made quite a to
(03:26):
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 um, and he started
planting the seeds of widespread voter fraud illegals, unregistered, undocumented immigrants,
or corruption at the local level going to the polls
and droves, or like you said, corruption at the local level.
(03:49):
Now we have largely electronic voter machine that there was
even talk of hackery of of voting machine right right
through the de bolt connection exactly. So there were a
lot of red flags at least as far as d J.
T Right was concerned. That's Donald J. Trump. That's how
I'm going to refer to him, the commander in chief. Yeah.
And what's important to note here is that allegations a
(04:13):
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
(04:35):
think about the sanctity or the infallibility of the voting
process today, 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.
(04:55):
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. The
kidnapping that we described for you at the beginning of
the show, were you to encounter that, you would be
(05:18):
taken in uh 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
vote for a certain political candidate. And the thing was
ben that wasn't even like the full scenario. There were
(05:39):
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 as a perk. Yeah, like when
you get the cheese, it's and a little bit of
juice after you give blood. It's just a sort of
a spoils a political war. But I'm wondering if these
(06:00):
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, and then being told
that I should go out and vote multiple times in
(06:21):
an assortment of disguises, ridiculous disguises, sounds fantastic. I mean, yeah, dude,
I'm a master disguise, I look like several different people.
You left that ofmercial detail. You might have also been beaten.
That's true. We do have to examine that part because
this was all this was all drunken, boozy funding games
(06:44):
and political crime. If the people who were being cooped
agreed to play along, if they did not play ball,
they were, as you said, no old beaten and in
some cases they were killed. Now, man, let's go back
to the origins of this kind of behavior. Something we
like to refer to in history as political machines. Yeah,
(07:05):
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 film and in novels. And
political machine is an organization that exists, typically on a
(07:25):
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 own stock
or has invested in a certain construction company. Then under
this political machine, that construction company is going to get
every bid, even if they are not as qualified, even
(07:48):
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. Yeah, most famous largely
because it was one of the most effective and had
(08:09):
one of the longest reigns, and that was um 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, um, And they held sway,
this organization over New York City politics for decades. It
(08:31):
was formed in seventeen eighty nine and wasn't even fully
dismantled until nineteen sixty six. That was when John V. Lindsay,
who was the final mayor that had had enough of this.
He beat me, essentially rendered them kind of newtered them
right um. Another famous New York City mayor, Fiarello LaGuardia,
(08:53):
also put a stop to them between thirty four and
forty five. But then they kind of had a bit
of a resurgence until Lindsay came him. And the closest
thing that I can compare these political machines too, and
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
(09:15):
to be a functional, positive thing, mobilizes support for certain
candidates or certain causes that are would benefit the 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. Yeah, And one of
the big differences that we need to demarcate here is
(09:35):
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 of ridiculous voter fraud.
(09:57):
Cooping was inherent he 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 New York,
absolutely and one thing Tammany Hall did, and the reason
they were able to kind of persevere for so long
(10:20):
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 Tammany Hall machine
that elevated them to positions of prominence through their control
of the electoral process right, and that also just gave
(10:44):
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, Tammany Hall
reaches out a helping hand, says, hey, we got you.
If you got us, all of a sudden, you own
the vote, 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
(11:05):
we'd like to recommend from Atlas Obscura called election fraud
in the eighteen hundreds involved kidnapping and forced the drinking,
by author Natalie Zarelli. And in this article she includes
a quote from a New York City gang leader named
mon Eastman m o n. He said, I make half
(11:25):
a big politicians, meaning that he was publicly acknowledging that
he was. He and his gang were working for Tammany Hall,
taking people by hook or by crook, make them like
I'm a bookmaker, like that that that I did that right,
taking them by hook or by crook, and cajoling them
(11:45):
to vote multiple times. I keep going back to the costumes.
I wonder if the costumes were any good, because at
this level of coruption, the people manning the polls, and
you can see some of these pictures, I think the
people manning the polls were also in on the game
to get get a kick out of this. Then Ben
in a in an article for Mental Flaws, Democracy's Dirty History,
um one of the coop bosses. I guess this is
(12:09):
the term that was used here of Tammany hall Um.
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.
Um he vote, had him vote one time with a
full beard, then again with some take off the beard
mutton chops, you know, maybe keep the beard on, I'm
not sure, unclear, and then a third time only a mustache,
(12:31):
and then finally the kudagra the clean shaven vote. And
I was actually talking with super producer Casey Pegram off air,
and I wanted to ask this to you, Ben, was
there no means, or if only rudimentary means of confirming
someone's identity when they were voting in these days? What
was that like? It's an interesting question. It's one that
has echoes and consequences here in the modern day with
(12:55):
the argument over voter I D Cards, which is a
big problem with the Trump stuff we woul talking about earlier.
That was a big beef where a lot of places
in the United States got rid of those voter I
D laws because they are considered by many to be
inherently racist, right, and as horrific and sad as it is,
we have to we would be remiss if we did
(13:15):
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, which is a huge travesty. But
in addition to that, we have to wonder if there
were some sort of proof of residency, like an address, perhaps,
(13:39):
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, And obviously you could
vote while you were rip roar and drunk, clearly. And
the thing too, is like if the fix here, the
the scam was just to buy a bunch of fake
(14:01):
mustaches and beard they obviously didn't have a whole you know,
counterfeiting department, you know, uh, stamping out fake passports or
birth certificate documentation or anything like that, So it seems
to me like it was a much more on a
eyeball recognition and a handshake and a promise kind of
in these days. Right. Yeah, and here's something else weird.
(14:23):
Until the introduction of what was called the Australian ballot
in the eighties, when you voted, your voting choice was
public viva vote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly what is
it with the human voice? I believe that's the actual term. Yeah,
this is kind of where we see the start. Maybe
(14:46):
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 who
you voted for, if they and agree with you, they
might try to kick your ass. Yeah try being the
hopeful addition to that sentence there. Yeah, there's an article
(15:09):
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 do the vote,
or trying to bribe them to do the vote, or
(15:30):
trying to talk them into or out of the vote.
That's why. Why do you think it's so important that
we don't allow campaigning at polling places today? Clearly an
offshoot of this kind of behavior, right, Yeah, and it's
still it's still in a strange way. Look, the states
are doing their collective best with the voting process, but
there's still gang rules. I'm sure there are still people
(15:51):
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 seen
in anybody in a once. But there's weird rules about
that stuff too, Like you certainly couldn't, definitely couldn't wear
like a vote for Hillary t shirt. Heck 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.
(16:13):
Trump actually encouraged he sees He said, Okay, there's gonna
be this widespread voter fraud, and he encouraged his supporters
to quote keep an eye on the polls. Yeah, and
maybe make people a little uncomfortable. I had heard about
that too, and whether that results in physical activity on
the ground. What remains in arguable is that this did
(16:35):
not come straight out of the blue, straight out of
left field. This has vast historical precedent here in the US.
Violence in voting in the eighteen hundreds was common enough
that up to a point, it was just considered part
of the voting process, was just the thing, It was
what to be expected, right, yeah, Yeah. In the logic
was this there's a little misogyny in here, of course,
(16:57):
but the logic was if a vote was not quote
unquote manly enough to stand up for his chosen convictions
and the candidates of his choice, then uh, if they
if they couldn't, if they couldn't man up as the
case were against, a little bit of rowdiness is some fisticuffs,
even some cajoling from supporters of other candidates, then were
(17:21):
they really even fit to vote? How is the idea?
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
flass article, it references the fact that even George Washington
himself understood that's maybe you might need a little bit
(17:41):
of liquid courage at the polls because of this whole
idea of standing up for what you believed, and 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 seventy eight and gave voters at the polls
(18:02):
eight gallons of rum, fifty gallons of rum punch, thirty
four gallons of wine, forty six gallons of beer, and
two gallons of hard cider. Uh. No mention on whether
he distributed his famous eggnog. No, but he did talk
about he did use the expression swilling the planters with
bumbo um, which is a I'm pretty tasty sounding yet
(18:24):
boozy cocktail consisting of rum, water, sugar, nutmeg, and optional cinnamon.
And I do want to point out for everyone who
might have had the question. All those gallons you heard about,
those were total for the day, because we're not per person.
It was not that wealthy. But uh, he was onto something.
(18:44):
This was This was common in the eighteen hundreds, the
practice of cooping. It had a timeline that we should mention.
They weren't kidnapping people on the day of voting. They
were kidnapping the like up to two or three days
before and keeping them in a windowless base against their will,
(19:06):
against their or maybe not, I don't know. They probably
pulled a lot of homeless people too. We're happy to
have a warm place to stay. What a nightmare. But
here's the thing. This, this is so off topic, but
this reminded me of a story a Russian friend of
mine told me about a really disturbing game and and please, uh,
fellow Russian ridiculous historians, let us know if this is
(19:29):
an actual thing, because I have always been captivated about this. No,
it's a game called submarine, so it doesn't even sound
like a game to me. I don't entirely understand the point.
Does it involve sandwiches? Kind of the story? Is this
that a group of people would get together and then again.
I heard this from a Russian friend who is telling
(19:49):
me about Russian games. Group of people get together. They'll
get an apartment and they'll nail up planks or black
out all the windows, and they'll get locked in with
like cold cuts and brad absolute darkness and just a
ton of booze, like hard liquor, and they'll be in
(20:11):
there for days in total dark, just drinking and eating
cold cuts, and one person who was also on the
game comes by later to unlock the door and let
them out. That sounds incredibly disturbing to me. Wow, is
this sort of like a battle royale with like sandwich
meats and booze kind of situation? I have no idea,
because you know, I am expecting to find when they
(20:33):
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 kind of
(20:55):
consequence for this, because the people who were rigging the
vote were the people who were in charge of giving
the y or need 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. Did you
read the bit about how election poll workers were also
(21:15):
at risk, ben Um 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 um. This is again from that mental
flaws article by A. J. Jacobs. So no one was safe.
None were safe, Ben Yeah. None. And as a matter
(21:36):
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, not just in
(21:57):
New York. And this practice cantinued through the end of
the nineteen 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 ninety voters twenty
(22:20):
six 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 was it a more violent nice
(22:43):
farm be a shame if something happened to happen to
Boss Tweed kind of yeah, and Ben Um, I was surprised, Yeah,
not surprised. It makes perfect sense that we inherited this
from our former rulers in the in the United Kingdom.
Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. This uh, this, this cooping
was was part of their electoral process as well. And
(23:04):
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 UM in eighteen thirty four.
And here goes this story UM from this book by
Richard Moran. Quote. If bribery and improper influence failed to
(23:25):
persuade reluctant voters, they wanted them to vote Tory. Uh,
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 a public house a pub until it
was time to vote developed as a defensive response. Here's
(23:46):
here's the best part. Where you have 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 aremonious abduction
carried with it the full wrath of the landlords. The
bar keeps. He goes on to say, Um, how people
(24:08):
who manage the campaign's actually hired these gangs of what
are deemed bullies to intimidate and physically abuse voters. Um.
And then he goes on to say election day and
many towns and boroughs was characterized by riots and mob violence.
At Hertford, the Tory candidate Lord Industr and Lord Mohan
employed a band of gypsies to harass Radical voters. The
(24:30):
radical candidate Thomas Duncombe retaliated by hiring a hundred and
fifty where Bargeman, So you know, fight fire with fire
or gypsies with Bargeman. There was also an intensely close,
and I would think much more publicly acknowledged link between
(24:53):
politics and entertainment, which to a degree helps us contextualize
this practice. So public politics had, uh, you know, had
a ton of drinking involved at the time. There were
a lot of torchlit rallies, and there were things called
jollification barbecues. Right, I want to be jollified. And in
(25:16):
an article rilling Up the Shrewd Wild Boys by John
grinspon uh, we explore some of the differences between then
and today. So during the 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
(25:37):
of political show business, a genre. And he gets his
licks in here that seems to be making a comeback.
He's writing in prescient right and right. Uh. And so
from eighteen forty through nineteen hundred, he says, uh, these
types of campaigns did select people who would lead the
government at this stage unanimously all men. And but they
(26:01):
also were the best show in town. These were gaudy,
gonzo rituals, and people would go a political people would
go just because it 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
(26:25):
and traders or or they would sometimes say, perhaps not
entirely American opponents. Oh yeah, you know what, it makes
me think of that scene in um Oh brother ware
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 P. T. Barnum esque atmosphere with banners and
(26:48):
parades and all this stuff, you know, some of which
we still see today, but much more cartoonish. To to
borrow your your word of choice there, thank you, it's
a it's a go to. Well. Here's the thing, though,
because we're 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
(27:09):
US politicians were alive and active during this time, and
they were 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 he wrote
(27:33):
that sounds like a really cool party crew, the Wild
Shrewd Boys. It does. I would I would love to
see them at a house party, so long as it
was not my house. And as you mentioned earlier, been
there was a time where you know, you poll workers
would know whether it was okay for someone to vote
or not simply by looking at the color of their skin,
(27:55):
you know, seeing if they were in fact or not white.
But then we have them answered patient in the late
eighteen sixties, so we have that fantastic article from history
extra dot com that talks about the plight of African
Americans after this period in time, and especially in the South,
there was a sense that um, even though black men
(28:17):
did receive the franchise, their very presence at these elections
was seen as an affront to the election process and
that they were somehow plants from you know, Northern Yankee
carpet bagger scum, trying to rig the election in their
union love and favor. Gross gross stuff again, Yeah, that
(28:41):
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. I don't think we're ever going
to be fully comfortable with something as important as the
election process, cause I've always wondered, why don't they just
put it all online? There's an answer to that from purists, right, well, yeah,
(29:04):
but then again it's it's something that's 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 actually
happy with that. A lot of these comparisons don't work
(29:26):
because you are shooting from the hip. But that wouldn't
that wasn't that bad? No, man, well done? Should we
put it on a T shirt? Hey? What what do
you say? Historians? We do have a new T shirt
shop coming up at T Public if you haven't heard
of it, where they do this thing where we can
we can drum up a catchphrase design and ah and
two shakes of a Lamb's Tale. So if you guys
(29:47):
want some unique short run, ridiculous history catchphrase, tease or
hoodies or you know, throw pillows. Sure, let us know,
park Is, I don't know, we're just making stuff up.
Or let us know what what you think? Bunny hugs? Yeah, yeah,
while it's um Jenko jeans, I don't think they make
those anymore, Dude, I think it's over for Jenjens. Somebody
(30:09):
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 Ship
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. Yeah. And the best
(30:31):
place to do that, um, if you don't want to
just email us directly at Ridiculous at how stuff works
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
chatowy now and then, so, um, maybe we could do
a pole ben I want to. So this is the
(30:52):
idea I proposed. No, no, you have you can confirm
that you have not heard about this until we're on air,
But I'd to do maybe one pole a week on
Ridiculous Historians, just about stuff. We could do a poll,
for instance, on vote for a favorite T shirt concept.
We could also do a poll on questions about where
(31:15):
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, Uh, no matter how
much we knocked the voting process today, it's way cooler now. Yeah,
he should do it. It's important, especially you know on
our Facebook page. Yeah, I be the change start on
(31:38):
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(32:01):
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(32:23):
but hey, we'll see you there or next time on
another episode of ridiculous History. Take care, everyone,
Yea. Let's begin with a hypothetical scenario. Friends and neighbors.
Imagine that you are in the eighteen hundreds. You're walking
(00:32):
down the street, minding your own weather business or pleasure it,
and you are kidnapped. You are accosted by a gang
of ruffians. You were taken to a room where there
are other hapless people like you. But instead of demanding
a ransom from your loved ones or immediately torturing you
or something like that, the kidnappers the first move is
(00:56):
to attempt to get you drunk, booze you up, to
booze you up. Uh. And we'll continue this story, but
first let's pause for the introduction. Hello, I'm Ben, I'm
no one. You know. The second thing they might have done, Ben,
is maybe put on a false mustache upon your face,
or perhaps a a straw hat, top hat, any kind
(01:16):
of hat, a funny nose, maybe because they were trying
to uh disguise you right against your will for the
purposes of perpetrating voter fraud. I feel like the badger
could have stayed 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,
(01:37):
friends and neighbors, fellow ridiculous historians in tilting your hat
to our super producer Casey Pegro. You're right, no, it
seems strange to think of it, because nowadays, when we
think of kidnapping, we think of you know, nefarious crime, right, yeah,
we think of you know, uh, wealthy or dare we say,
(01:59):
even middle class Americans traveling abroad in certain countries. Um,
Columbia got a pretty bad rap for this in years past,
um and getting nabbed you know, from tourist destinations and
held ransom for the wealthy or middle class families back
in America to send forth money for the release of
(02:19):
said hapless adult relatives who probably should have had their
wits more about it. Now I'm victim blaming. 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
(02:41):
going to think that someone is after money. Well, you're
going to think it maybe some creep with seedy or
sleazy intentions, pervy 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
(03:05):
yourself falling on either side of the false dichotomy known
as political parties here in the US, or whether you
are not in the US and you're afford 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. Our current president made quite a to
(03:26):
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 um, and he started
planting the seeds of widespread voter fraud illegals, unregistered, undocumented immigrants,
or corruption at the local level going to the polls
and droves, or like you said, corruption at the local level.
(03:49):
Now we have largely electronic voter machine that there was
even talk of hackery of of voting machine right right
through the de bolt connection exactly. So there were a
lot of red flags at least as far as d J.
T Right was concerned. That's Donald J. Trump. That's how
I'm going to refer to him, the commander in chief. Yeah.
And what's important to note here is that allegations a
(04:13):
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
(04:35):
think about the sanctity or the infallibility of the voting
process today, 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.
(04:55):
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. The
kidnapping that we described for you at the beginning of
the show, were you to encounter that, you would be
(05:18):
taken in uh 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
vote for a certain political candidate. And the thing was
ben that wasn't even like the full scenario. There were
(05:39):
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 as a perk. Yeah, like when
you get the cheese, it's and a little bit of
juice after you give blood. It's just a sort of
a spoils a political war. But I'm wondering if these
(06:00):
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, and then being told
that I should go out and vote multiple times in
(06:21):
an assortment of disguises, ridiculous disguises, sounds fantastic. I mean, yeah, dude,
I'm a master disguise, I look like several different people.
You left that ofmercial detail. You might have also been beaten.
That's true. We do have to examine that part because
this was all this was all drunken, boozy funding games
(06:44):
and political crime. If the people who were being cooped
agreed to play along, if they did not play ball,
they were, as you said, no old beaten and in
some cases they were killed. Now, man, let's go back
to the origins of this kind of behavior. Something we
like to refer to in history as political machines. Yeah,
(07:05):
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 film and in novels. And
political machine is an organization that exists, typically on a
(07:25):
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 own stock
or has invested in a certain construction company. Then under
this political machine, that construction company is going to get
every bid, even if they are not as qualified, even
(07:48):
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. Yeah, most famous largely
because it was one of the most effective and had
(08:09):
one of the longest reigns, and that was um 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, um, And they held sway,
this organization over New York City politics for decades. It
(08:31):
was formed in seventeen eighty nine and wasn't even fully
dismantled until nineteen sixty six. That was when John V. Lindsay,
who was the final mayor that had had enough of this.
He beat me, essentially rendered them kind of newtered them
right um. Another famous New York City mayor, Fiarello LaGuardia,
(08:53):
also put a stop to them between thirty four and
forty five. But then they kind of had a bit
of a resurgence until Lindsay came him. And the closest
thing that I can compare these political machines too, and
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
(09:15):
to be a functional, positive thing, mobilizes support for certain
candidates or certain causes that are would benefit the 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. Yeah, And one of
the big differences that we need to demarcate here is
(09:35):
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 of ridiculous voter fraud.
(09:57):
Cooping was inherent he 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 New York,
absolutely and one thing Tammany Hall did, and the reason
they were able to kind of persevere for so long
(10:20):
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 Tammany Hall machine
that elevated them to positions of prominence through their control
of the electoral process right, and that also just gave
(10:44):
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, Tammany Hall
reaches out a helping hand, says, hey, we got you.
If you got us, all of a sudden, you own
the vote, 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
(11:05):
we'd like to recommend from Atlas Obscura called election fraud
in the eighteen hundreds involved kidnapping and forced the drinking,
by author Natalie Zarelli. And in this article she includes
a quote from a New York City gang leader named
mon Eastman m o n. He said, I make half
(11:25):
a big politicians, meaning that he was publicly acknowledging that
he was. He and his gang were working for Tammany Hall,
taking people by hook or by crook, make them like
I'm a bookmaker, like that that that I did that right,
taking them by hook or by crook, and cajoling them
(11:45):
to vote multiple times. I keep going back to the costumes.
I wonder if the costumes were any good, because at
this level of coruption, the people manning the polls, and
you can see some of these pictures, I think the
people manning the polls were also in on the game
to get get a kick out of this. Then Ben
in a in an article for Mental Flaws, Democracy's Dirty History,
um one of the coop bosses. I guess this is
(12:09):
the term that was used here of Tammany hall Um.
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.
Um he vote, had him vote one time with a
full beard, then again with some take off the beard
mutton chops, you know, maybe keep the beard on, I'm
not sure, unclear, and then a third time only a mustache,
(12:31):
and then finally the kudagra the clean shaven vote. And
I was actually talking with super producer Casey Pegram off air,
and I wanted to ask this to you, Ben, was
there no means, or if only rudimentary means of confirming
someone's identity when they were voting in these days? What
was that like? It's an interesting question. It's one that
has echoes and consequences here in the modern day with
(12:55):
the argument over voter I D Cards, which is a
big problem with the Trump stuff we woul talking about earlier.
That was a big beef where a lot of places
in the United States got rid of those voter I
D laws because they are considered by many to be
inherently racist, right, and as horrific and sad as it is,
we have to we would be remiss if we did
(13:15):
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, which is a huge travesty. But
in addition to that, we have to wonder if there
were some sort of proof of residency, like an address, perhaps,
(13:39):
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, And obviously you could
vote while you were rip roar and drunk, clearly. And
the thing too, is like if the fix here, the
the scam was just to buy a bunch of fake
(14:01):
mustaches and beard they obviously didn't have a whole you know,
counterfeiting department, you know, uh, stamping out fake passports or
birth certificate documentation or anything like that, So it seems
to me like it was a much more on a
eyeball recognition and a handshake and a promise kind of
in these days. Right. Yeah, and here's something else weird.
(14:23):
Until the introduction of what was called the Australian ballot
in the eighties, when you voted, your voting choice was
public viva vote. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly what is
it with the human voice? I believe that's the actual term. Yeah,
this is kind of where we see the start. Maybe
(14:46):
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 who
you voted for, if they and agree with you, they
might try to kick your ass. Yeah try being the
hopeful addition to that sentence there. Yeah, there's an article
(15:09):
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 do the vote,
or trying to bribe them to do the vote, or
(15:30):
trying to talk them into or out of the vote.
That's why. Why do you think it's so important that
we don't allow campaigning at polling places today? Clearly an
offshoot of this kind of behavior, right, Yeah, and it's
still it's still in a strange way. Look, the states
are doing their collective best with the voting process, but
there's still gang rules. I'm sure there are still people
(15:51):
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 seen
in anybody in a once. But there's weird rules about
that stuff too, Like you certainly couldn't, definitely couldn't wear
like a vote for Hillary t shirt. Heck 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.
(16:13):
Trump actually encouraged he sees He said, Okay, there's gonna
be this widespread voter fraud, and he encouraged his supporters
to quote keep an eye on the polls. Yeah, and
maybe make people a little uncomfortable. I had heard about
that too, and whether that results in physical activity on
the ground. What remains in arguable is that this did
(16:35):
not come straight out of the blue, straight out of
left field. This has vast historical precedent here in the US.
Violence in voting in the eighteen hundreds was common enough
that up to a point, it was just considered part
of the voting process, was just the thing, It was
what to be expected, right, yeah, Yeah. In the logic
was this there's a little misogyny in here, of course,
(16:57):
but the logic was if a vote was not quote
unquote manly enough to stand up for his chosen convictions
and the candidates of his choice, then uh, if they
if they couldn't, if they couldn't man up as the
case were against, a little bit of rowdiness is some fisticuffs,
even some cajoling from supporters of other candidates, then were
(17:21):
they really even fit to vote? How is the idea?
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
flass article, it references the fact that even George Washington
himself understood that's maybe you might need a little bit
(17:41):
of liquid courage at the polls because of this whole
idea of standing up for what you believed, and 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 seventy eight and gave voters at the polls
(18:02):
eight gallons of rum, fifty gallons of rum punch, thirty
four gallons of wine, forty six gallons of beer, and
two gallons of hard cider. Uh. No mention on whether
he distributed his famous eggnog. No, but he did talk
about he did use the expression swilling the planters with
bumbo um, which is a I'm pretty tasty sounding yet
(18:24):
boozy cocktail consisting of rum, water, sugar, nutmeg, and optional cinnamon.
And I do want to point out for everyone who
might have had the question. All those gallons you heard about,
those were total for the day, because we're not per person.
It was not that wealthy. But uh, he was onto something.
(18:44):
This was This was common in the eighteen hundreds, the
practice of cooping. It had a timeline that we should mention.
They weren't kidnapping people on the day of voting. They
were kidnapping the like up to two or three days
before and keeping them in a windowless base against their will,
(19:06):
against their or maybe not, I don't know. They probably
pulled a lot of homeless people too. We're happy to
have a warm place to stay. What a nightmare. But
here's the thing. This, this is so off topic, but
this reminded me of a story a Russian friend of
mine told me about a really disturbing game and and please, uh,
fellow Russian ridiculous historians, let us know if this is
(19:29):
an actual thing, because I have always been captivated about this. No,
it's a game called submarine, so it doesn't even sound
like a game to me. I don't entirely understand the point.
Does it involve sandwiches? Kind of the story? Is this
that a group of people would get together and then again.
I heard this from a Russian friend who is telling
(19:49):
me about Russian games. Group of people get together. They'll
get an apartment and they'll nail up planks or black
out all the windows, and they'll get locked in with
like cold cuts and brad absolute darkness and just a
ton of booze, like hard liquor, and they'll be in
(20:11):
there for days in total dark, just drinking and eating
cold cuts, and one person who was also on the
game comes by later to unlock the door and let
them out. That sounds incredibly disturbing to me. Wow, is
this sort of like a battle royale with like sandwich
meats and booze kind of situation? I have no idea,
because you know, I am expecting to find when they
(20:33):
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 kind of
(20:55):
consequence for this, because the people who were rigging the
vote were the people who were in charge of giving
the y or need 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. Did you
read the bit about how election poll workers were also
(21:15):
at risk, ben Um 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 um. This is again from that mental
flaws article by A. J. Jacobs. So no one was safe.
None were safe, Ben Yeah. None. And as a matter
(21:36):
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, not just in
(21:57):
New York. And this practice cantinued through the end of
the nineteen 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 ninety voters twenty
(22:20):
six 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 was it a more violent nice
(22:43):
farm be a shame if something happened to happen to
Boss Tweed kind of yeah, and Ben Um, I was surprised, Yeah,
not surprised. It makes perfect sense that we inherited this
from our former rulers in the in the United Kingdom.
Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. This uh, this, this cooping
was was part of their electoral process as well. And
(23:04):
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 UM in eighteen thirty four.
And here goes this story UM from this book by
Richard Moran. Quote. If bribery and improper influence failed to
(23:25):
persuade reluctant voters, they wanted them to vote Tory. Uh,
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 a public house a pub until it
was time to vote developed as a defensive response. Here's
(23:46):
here's the best part. Where you have 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 aremonious abduction
carried with it the full wrath of the landlords. The
bar keeps. He goes on to say, Um, how people
(24:08):
who manage the campaign's actually hired these gangs of what
are deemed bullies to intimidate and physically abuse voters. Um.
And then he goes on to say election day and
many towns and boroughs was characterized by riots and mob violence.
At Hertford, the Tory candidate Lord Industr and Lord Mohan
employed a band of gypsies to harass Radical voters. The
(24:30):
radical candidate Thomas Duncombe retaliated by hiring a hundred and
fifty where Bargeman, So you know, fight fire with fire
or gypsies with Bargeman. There was also an intensely close,
and I would think much more publicly acknowledged link between
(24:53):
politics and entertainment, which to a degree helps us contextualize
this practice. So public politics had, uh, you know, had
a ton of drinking involved at the time. There were
a lot of torchlit rallies, and there were things called
jollification barbecues. Right, I want to be jollified. And in
(25:16):
an article rilling Up the Shrewd Wild Boys by John
grinspon uh, we explore some of the differences between then
and today. So during the 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
(25:37):
of political show business, a genre. And he gets his
licks in here that seems to be making a comeback.
He's writing in prescient right and right. Uh. And so
from eighteen forty through nineteen hundred, he says, uh, these
types of campaigns did select people who would lead the
government at this stage unanimously all men. And but they
(26:01):
also were the best show in town. These were gaudy,
gonzo rituals, and people would go a political people would
go just because it 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
(26:25):
and traders or or they would sometimes say, perhaps not
entirely American opponents. Oh yeah, you know what, it makes
me think of that scene in um Oh brother ware
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 P. T. Barnum esque atmosphere with banners and
(26:48):
parades and all this stuff, you know, some of which
we still see today, but much more cartoonish. To to
borrow your your word of choice there, thank you, it's
a it's a go to. Well. Here's the thing, though,
because we're 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
(27:09):
US politicians were alive and active during this time, and
they were 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 he wrote
(27:33):
that sounds like a really cool party crew, the Wild
Shrewd Boys. It does. I would I would love to
see them at a house party, so long as it
was not my house. And as you mentioned earlier, been
there was a time where you know, you poll workers
would know whether it was okay for someone to vote
or not simply by looking at the color of their skin,
(27:55):
you know, seeing if they were in fact or not white.
But then we have them answered patient in the late
eighteen sixties, so we have that fantastic article from history
extra dot com that talks about the plight of African
Americans after this period in time, and especially in the South,
there was a sense that um, even though black men
(28:17):
did receive the franchise, their very presence at these elections
was seen as an affront to the election process and
that they were somehow plants from you know, Northern Yankee
carpet bagger scum, trying to rig the election in their
union love and favor. Gross gross stuff again, Yeah, that
(28:41):
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. I don't think we're ever going
to be fully comfortable with something as important as the
election process, cause I've always wondered, why don't they just
put it all online? There's an answer to that from purists, right, well, yeah,
(29:04):
but then again it's it's something that's 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 actually
happy with that. A lot of these comparisons don't work
(29:26):
because you are shooting from the hip. But that wouldn't
that wasn't that bad? No, man, well done? Should we
put it on a T shirt? Hey? What what do
you say? Historians? We do have a new T shirt
shop coming up at T Public if you haven't heard
of it, where they do this thing where we can
we can drum up a catchphrase design and ah and
two shakes of a Lamb's Tale. So if you guys
(29:47):
want some unique short run, ridiculous history catchphrase, tease or
hoodies or you know, throw pillows. Sure, let us know,
park Is, I don't know, we're just making stuff up.
Or let us know what what you think? Bunny hugs? Yeah, yeah,
while it's um Jenko jeans, I don't think they make
those anymore, Dude, I think it's over for Jenjens. Somebody
(30:09):
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 Ship
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. Yeah. And the best
(30:31):
place to do that, um, if you don't want to
just email us directly at Ridiculous at how stuff works
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
chatowy now and then, so, um, maybe we could do
a pole ben I want to. So this is the
(30:52):
idea I proposed. No, no, you have you can confirm
that you have not heard about this until we're on air,
But I'd to do maybe one pole a week on
Ridiculous Historians, just about stuff. We could do a poll,
for instance, on vote for a favorite T shirt concept.
We could also do a poll on questions about where
(31:15):
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, Uh, no matter how
much we knocked the voting process today, it's way cooler now. Yeah,
he should do it. It's important, especially you know on
our Facebook page. Yeah, I be the change start on
(31:38):
Ridiculous Historians. Let us know. 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.
And if you want to see us live in the
flesh and person in human form, we will be at
the Trocadero Theater in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July the first,
(32:01):
four o'clock PM alongside our buddies Will and Mango from
Part Time Genius and we're gonna do our first ever
LIVET show and we're super stoked about it. Yeah, wish
us luck, Come, 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'll have to tune in. None spoilers,
(32:23):
but hey, we'll see you there or next time on
another episode of ridiculous History. Take care, everyone,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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