October 5, 2021 • 42 mins
On June 2nd, 1855, the good people of Portland Maine had reached a breaking point. The Mayor, an infamous hardline teetotaler, had just been caught approving the purchase of alcohol after making it illegal throughout town. In today's episode, the guys explore what led to the riot, what happened after, and how this strange episode in Portland influence the later Prohibition movement.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
(00:27):
welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank
you so much for tuning in. We're talking about riots,
not the zoot suit riot which I was thinking about earlier. Right,
he has are the only good kind of riots, right,
fun kind of riots, you know, speaking of a fun
kind of riot. Uh, you know, we've got our own
(00:49):
one man riot. Our super producer Max Williams with us
as always. I'm Ben, I have never been to Maine, nol.
Have you been to Maine? No, it seems like all
of our friends are going to Maine lately. Um, our
buddy a how Andrew Howard shout out, Um, he grew
up in Maine and he was just out there. And
then our buddy Sean was just in Maine. And uh
(01:11):
and also buddy, our buddy Chuck was just in Maine.
Or was seeing all these Instagram pictures of plenty of
just lobster rolls for days, drawn butter and whoopee pies.
It just seems like a magical land of of of
delicious foods. That's what it seems like to me. Yes,
and we are now technically back on our show for
(01:32):
every state horse. Uh, this I propose will be our
main episode. What do you think are you down? Most?
Definitely our main episode for the day, you know doing
Thank you Max, Thank you man. It's very kind. Yeah, no,
it's true Maine, you know, like with an e. I
grew up in a town in Georgia called Augusta, and
(01:55):
I was always tickled to think there is a sister
city to Augusta in Maine called Augusta may And I'm
sure there's Augusta's all over elsewhere, but that's the one
I also remember from my youth, my friends from Maine,
including the infamous Andrew Howard, who does awesome work on
our peer podcast Saver. Check it out if you like
stories about food, science and culture. Andrew is, like many
(02:19):
main Natives, one of the people as a similar question
to yours nol Their version is Portland, Oregon versus Portland's Maine,
and that's where our story takes place. Today. We're going
to meet a guy who's kind of a pill. His
name is Mayor Neil Dow and in a way, as
(02:41):
we will find today, he often called the Napoleon of Temperance,
was one of the primary driving forces for what would
eventually become for a short while of federal law banning alcohol.
So we're going to figure out how Maine and how
something called the rum Riot of eighteen fifty five lad
(03:04):
to prohibition, or how it was all wrapped up in
this bigger story. Let's so, let's let's go to Let's
go to New England. An excellent article by main History
helps us get a grasp of the context here. So
in like By, there were a lot of changes in
(03:27):
religious ideas and cultural attitudes in New England overall, not
just Maine. And this led to a lot of reform
because you know, there was quite literally a Puritanical society
there for some time, and as the more strict views
of Puritans began to hold less sway, Protestants started to think,
(03:49):
you know what, it's totally possible for any person to
reach perfection in their lives and therefore reach paradise after
they pass away. So we're gonna reform ourselves. We're gonna
reform our communities. We're gonna try to be better people.
We're gonna fight for women's suffrage, we're gonna abolish slavery,
(04:10):
We're going to try to take care of the less
fortunate members of society, and a lot of people took
active roles leading these movements. So by the second decade,
by eighteen twenty and going forward, New England had a
secret Despite these reforms, people were talking about it. New
(04:31):
England especially was seen as sort of a focal point
for what people believed was America's growing problem with alcohol consumption.
And honestly, people drink a lot back then, Like it
might surprise you if you accidentally traveled back in time
to just see how regularly people are getting souced. We
(04:53):
know that, like it's back to the colonial days, right,
doesn't surprise me. And even before the colonial days, when
like meat or whatever in the medieval time was just
a substitute for like filthy water. You know, people were
basically just drinking it to to stay hydrated, but also
a little counterintuitives, as we know that alcohol dehydrates you.
But yeah, I mean apparently they were even like drunk
(05:13):
kids kind of like you know, carousing around on the streets.
I mean, it was absolute bed lump. I totally understand.
But a quick question for you, the idea of temperance, right,
temperance doesn't necessarily mean abstinence, temperance just means like measured use, right, uh,
temperance you can use things in a temperate way and
like a moderate way. But but the Temperance movement had
(05:38):
a couple of different positions, sort of on a spectrum.
So they would be dedicated to promoting moderate use of alcohol,
like hey, have a few drinks at dinner or at
a party, but not constantly every day. More often than not, though,
the Temperance Movement advocated for teetotally, for complete abstinence from liquor.
(06:03):
A bunch of teetotalitarians they were. But again I get it.
I mean it was a problem. You know, people were
losing their jobs, people were just absolutely kind of like
wasting away, and and even like homelessness became. I mean
it really was kind of a new, uh, real, real,
real problem that was sweeping the country. And children were
running around drunk. I know, it's wild. Uh. And and
(06:24):
this was a reaction to that. So while maybe at
the end of the day there was some overreach happening,
I completely understand. And it was associated, like you said, Ben,
with stuff like abolitionism and um, women's suffrage. It was
just the idea to make the world the country first
and foremost a better place. So we started to see
(06:45):
groups like the Temperance Watchmen of Durham, Maine popping up.
That was one of the first that was formed around
eighty eight. And the idea there was just to you know,
kind of lived lead by example, become the sort of
moral imperative that others would look to to model their
lives after, and they would kind of be able to
arrest back, you know, control of of the social conditions
(07:07):
um that had kind of gone off the rails by
encouraging moderation of drinking. So we weren't quite at teetotalitarianism yet,
which is the term that I just made up. So
by the mid century in Portland, Maine, we've got Neil
dow Uh, that is the mayor who we spoke of earlier.
He began to adopt a much more aggressive tactic in
(07:30):
this battle against alcoholism. He decided he was going to
take this to the state House. Uh, and instead of
changing people's attitudes by you know, encouraging temperance and leading
by example, he was gonna do that thing that we
now know never really works super well, um, which was
to change the laws and tell people what they could
(07:51):
not do so, rather than telling people to maybe drink
a little less, he branded all drinkers as rum dealers.
That was a a term of abuse that was hurled
around at the time. Yeah, this is the thing. Dal
went especially hard in the paint here. He quickly left
the moderates behind, including people like the governor at the time,
(08:13):
William King, who loved a good glass of wine. He
founded the first statewide temperance Association. Again this from the
main history dot org website. Let's learn a little bit
more about Neil all right. So Neil is born to
a Quaker family, a pretty well to do Quaker family
(08:33):
in Portland, Maine, in March March eighteen o four, and
after he gets out of high school he enters his
dad's tanning business. It's very common at this time in
history for people to join a family business. At the time,
Portland's is a booming trade center, and it's known in
particular for being involved in the rum trade with the
(08:56):
West Indies, and the economic system was something like this.
The people of Portland, or the economy of Portland would
trade its lumber and the products of its fisheries for
rum and molasses. Molasses got turned into rum in these
distilleries in Maine. Portland, Maine alone by itself had seven
(09:18):
different distilleries. And so you know how you can walk
through parts of New York City and you'll see a
Starbucks literally every block. That's the situation with booze joints
in Portland, Maine in the eighteen hundreds. You couldn't not
find a saloon or a tavern on every street. And
(09:39):
if you didn't somehow run into a saloon or a tavern,
you know, a bar basically, then you could just pop
into a grocery store because they would also sell you liquor.
And this upset now because he saw he saw this
clear correlation between over consumption of alcohol and all sorts
of problems in his community. He hated alcohol since day one.
(10:01):
This was first day stuff to him. He also hated
slavery because he believed that rum and slavery fed off
of one another. He had a good point, because rum,
the slavery system, and the sugar economy fueled the triangle
trade between the Caribbean, the US, and the African continent
(10:23):
back then. In general, Americans drink get this three times
as much as they do today, which just boggles the mind,
how do people get anything done? I can't imagine again,
like we said that even back to medieval times when
people were just drinking all day every day like as
their beverage, I think that they must just develop higher
tolerances and also just blast your liver. People died a
(10:46):
lot younger in these days too, um so Ben, just
just to clarify real quick. So this triangle trade, you know,
because that was that was what facilitated the slave trade
as well, and because of the roots, correct, that's where
the slaves would be taken you know, to the US
on those roots, Is that right? Yeah? You can also
see this referred to as the colonial molasses trade. This
(11:08):
part of it would happen is slave traders based in
New England would bring rum to the African continent and
they would use that to purchase enslaved people. And then
those people who have been enslaved were brought to the
West Indies and they were sold to sugarcane plantations where
(11:32):
they were forced to work harvesting sugar that made molasses
that went to New England into those distilleries, got turned
into rum and then sold back on the African continent
rents and repeat in god diabolical way. That makes sense.
So again, like his heart's in the right place, he's
seeing a real problem. Um. That that figures into you know,
(11:54):
those kind of like top tier problems that we were addressing,
that even the women's temperance movements were addressing. Um. So
this is a social justice issue at heart, or at
least where his heart is. Maybe he goes a little
too hard in the paint, like you said, ben Um,
but he becomes known as the Napoleon of temperance. Um
at the age of twenty three, by the way, he
(12:15):
founded the main Temperance Society, and he was absolutely instrumental
in getting the twenty eight gallon law passed in eighty six,
according to an author named Kate McCarty, who writes that
this law prohibited the sales of alcohol in less than
twenty eight gallont quantities to everyone except doctors. H And
that meant that the super wealthy could afford to buy alcohol,
(12:39):
but the average folks couldn't. So it was, you know,
obviously a bit of a classist kind of law, but
I would imagine that it definitely, you know, was effective
to some degree in the same way as you know,
we maybe had folks have folks in bigger cities selling
like loose cigarettes, which is totally illegal. Um, you had
shops called tippling shops that sold single drinks. That's where
(13:00):
the average people would would be getting their booze. But
they were always you know, targeted and shut down. And
these were essentially like the earlier forms of speakeasies. Well,
booze wasn't completely illegal, you couldn't sell it in such
small amounts. And he kind of cut his political teeth
on policies like this, uh, and became associated, you know,
(13:21):
with the temperance movement and what would ultimately become prohibition. Yeah. Yeah, he.
I want to share this anecdote because I think it's
I think it gives us a glimpse into the workings
of the man's mind. Writing for the Irish Times, uh,
we found this pretty fascinating and a little bit disturbing
(13:46):
instance of just how unmoderate Dal was. Nathan Mannion, in
the article The Irish who instigated the Portland's Rum Riots,
notes that Dal kneeled Down hated alcohol so much that
when he was promoted to fire chief once upon a time,
(14:06):
he let the local liquor store burn to the ground.
Instead of putting out the fire, he just watched it blaze.
This guy was not playing around, and his stance found support.
(14:26):
He was elected the mayor of Portland, Maine, in eighteen
fifty one, and as soon as he became mayor, he
went to the state legislature of Maine and persuaded them
to pass a prohibition law. This means that Maine becomes
the very first state in the Union to ban alcohol.
(14:48):
Like you said, there was a bit of class and
classicism wrapped up in the way this law was applied.
There were exceptions. You could buy or sell alcohol for medical,
mechanical or manifest acturing purposes, and if you wanted to
do any of that, you had to have a special
license that exempted you from the you know, the hoi
polloi who would just be using alcohol recreationally. So that
(15:12):
was downright draconian about this. He went to the people,
the good alcohol business folk of Portland's and he said, look,
you got two weeks to sell your alcohol out of
this state before we start cracking down. Other states caught on,
Massachusetts says, hey, that's a pretty good idea. Let's model
our own reforms after what they're doing in Maine. So
(15:37):
in a way, as main History notes, the States seemed
to be living up to its motto, which I did
not know. I don't know if you guys knew this motto,
diriggio I lead. What is deriggio? Is that like excelsior,
Like this is one of these weird words that only
gets thrown around by eccentric billionaires. Yeah, it's Latin. It
means I direct or, I guide. Excelsior is Latin two
(16:00):
in them. Yes, excelsior it's Latin for higher. So this
is where the guy earns his nickname, the Napoleon of Temperance,
and he starts promoting his approach, his no excuses, hard
nosed approach to prohibition, both across the country and across
(16:21):
the world. But here's the thing. If you've listened to
our earlier episodes on Prohibition stories, or if you've checked
out some of the stuff on stuff they don't want
you to know about the shenanigans the US government and
organized crime got up to during alcohol Prohibition, you know
that making laws like this don't really work. And that's
(16:45):
not a moral point. It's just that the main law,
like the later National Prohibition Law, didn't stop everyone from drinking.
People in Maine found ways around it. In Smithsonian, Katschner
specifically cites a article in the Portland's Press Herald by
Kelly Bouchard, and Bouchard goes deep into how people got
(17:10):
around this law. Some folks would just brew booze at home.
That wasn't uncommon at all, and they would sell it
to their neighbors out of their kitchens. Farmers, if they
had a surplus of fruit, would make hard cider or wine.
And when people were given fines for violating the law,
(17:30):
they just treated it as a business expense. You know,
what's that old saying. I ran into it again recently
and I thought about how true it is. If the
punishment for a crime is a fine, Is that then
not a law that only applies to the poor exactly?
Is um? And I understand It's It's a tricky thing
(17:52):
to discuss, Isn't it bad? Because the most visible folks
that are experiencing negative comes because of alcohol consumption are
the poor. You know, They're the ones that are in
the street, They're the ones that are getting into fights.
They're the ones that are potentially, you know, causing mayhem.
You know, Um, and in the most visible ways. But
(18:13):
you know, the folks that are drinking behind closed doors
perhaps and abusing their spouses maybe or just maybe even
their children, they're gonna be the ones that are able to,
you know, keep it indoors and then be a little
more shielded from that kind of thing. It makes sense,
on the one hand, from like a very kind of
primitive way of of addressing a problem like this. It's
(18:35):
something that we still see today. Uh, folks that are
more wealthy and more powerful are able to kind of
keep doing whatever they want um for the most part,
behind closed doors, even if there's a law that that's
supposedly supposed to affect everyone the same. Yeah, exactly. It's
always laws for the but not for me, as people say.
And it's weird because some of the first non Yankee
(18:57):
fortunes came from brewing right or from the hundreds and
hundreds of kitchen bars that appeared after about eighteen fifty one,
and the growing middle class still enjoyed an occasional drink.
But because the growing middle class was largely a Yankee demographic,
they started to look at what they viewed as excessive
(19:20):
drinking to be a hallmark of foreigners, or a problem
with the utes, the youths, or a problem with lower
class people. Dow, we've painted him in a somewhat sympathetic,
if driven light. He's against the dangers of widespread alcohol abuse. Check.
(19:41):
People can't agree with that. He's against the horrors and
atrocities of slavery. Check. I think we can all agree
with that. He was also, however, opposed to immigration, especially
immigration from Ireland and Portland. Maine in particular had a
pretty sizeable population of Irish immigrants. They could tell that
(20:05):
he had beef. They were definitely feeling the crunch because
this law disproportionately impact this part of the population. Like
you said, he had that two week grace period right
after the legislation goes through, And during that two week
grace period, all the bars, the public houses, saloons, taverns, distilleries,
(20:30):
you name it. They get shut down and the only
things left, the only outfits left selling booze, are a
small number of illegal things called grog shops. I don't
know how I feel about that work. Well, yeah, grog,
it's funny. Grog, if I'm not mistaken, is specifically refers
to a concoction made with rum. Um. A grog is
(20:53):
like there there are tinky drinks with grog in the name,
which often consists of rum and other um alcohols you know,
mixed with some sort of fruit juice and all of that. UM.
But yeah, it's true. And this was these were the
places where working class and immigrant um communities would hang out.
And it was you know, these were like more localized
(21:14):
in their neighborhoods UM. And so it essentially was by
targeting these after hours grog shops. Uh, they were targeting
those communities as well. And not to mention that around
eleven percent of the entire city's population were Irish immigrants,
and that's around twenty one thousand people. Uh. And they
were you know, fleeing their homeland because of the uh
(21:35):
the famine, um, the Great Famine. So they were essentially
you know, coming for a better life um. And they
lived in an area called Munjoy Hill, which was a
little bit worse for wear and felt like a slum
kind of you know, especially to the police and lawmakers.
And this was like ground zero for searching for all
of this contraband liquor. But again, it was like a
(21:57):
de facto kind of targeting of immigrants. Yeah, yeah, very
much so. And you know, life is tough for a
lot of these folks who have immigrated around twenty one
thousand people at the time. A lot of these folks
had survived the Great Famine and made it out and
made it to the US. I'm just saying, like I
(22:19):
wouldn't I wouldn't fall into the into the error of
stereotyping these folks as like a bunch of raging drunkards,
you know, which Dal definitely did. They weren't. They were.
They were people making a living like anyone else. I
want to I want to double back, really because I
you you're definitely right, and just want to clarify what
I said earlier. I wasn't implying that like all poor
(22:40):
people were carousing drunken in the streets. I was just
saying that, like they were maybe the most visible, the
ones that were problematic would likely be from poorer populations,
yet would therefore maybe be the most visible and therefore
be seen as the root of the problem, And the
richies that could get drunk behind closed wars would not
be as visible and would not maybe be lumped in
(23:03):
with that for other reasons too. But that was what
I was getting. What I'm pointing out is that dow
was racist. That's what I'm pointing out. So he completely agreed.
He in fact this the sidebars getting to. He in
fact later went to Ireland himself and he said, this
(23:24):
a glorious country, Ireland is, but the people are reduced
to a condition of the most extreme poverty, largely by whiskey.
So at the very least he is oversimplifying a very
complicated situation. This was consistent though he wasn't switching sides.
This was almost identical to public statements he had made
(23:46):
in Portland while he was campaigning, and he he had this,
he popularized this trope, this idea of a liquor swilling foreigner. Again,
as reported by Irish Times, it was his stereotype. Um,
I don't know, you know, it reminded me of that
eighties stereotype of the so called welfare queen that didn't
(24:10):
really hold up to scrutiny and his his stereotype completely
ignored the fact that more than three million Irish people
twenty years ago had subscribed to a different abstinence society,
one called Friar Matthews, and many of those folks later
(24:30):
moved to the US and we're fighting for the temperance
movement in the United States. But they didn't agree with
dal necessarily because they said, look, if you want people
to abstain from drinking or abstain from hard liquor, you
should help them do it of their own free will
instead of coercing them. And so these folks and many
(24:52):
other folks honestly were turned off by what they saw
as Dao's lack of what would you call it compassion,
empathy or is hardline approach. They thought he was alienating
more people when he could be helping them. Absolutely, and
I mean it's very clear from what you just said, Ben,
that these were that this was an unfair stereotype and
(25:12):
that there you know that, just like any other group
of people, it contains multitudes, and three million of those
multitudes were folks that wanted to support abstinence or at
the very least, temperance, right. But it's so important to
to make that distinction. But we we've seen time and
time again and things like the War on drugs and
what ultimately became the huge national embarrassment that was abstinence.
(25:34):
It just doesn't work when you tell people what they
can't do. It's much better to give people the tools
they need to do for themselves and to fix themselves
and to lead better lives rather than to completely banned
something because a people that want to do what they
want to do are going to figure out a way
to do it. And if you make it more difficult
to do, that's when you start seeing the criminal element
(25:55):
sneak in. That's like when you start seeing things like
with prohibition, what the government like reasoned a bunch of
alcohol with like methanol m I think, and then you
start seeing people getting killed and getting out of hand.
It's like what we see today with you know, tainted
drugs on the street. It just doesn't work. And it
also leads to simmering resentment for those that uh seek
(26:17):
to kind of impose these type of draconian measures on folks.
And that's when we get to Dow's reelection campaign in
eighteen fifty two. He lost because you know, Irish people
can vote too, and he blamed it on them, uh,
supposedly illegal voting by Irish does it sure does sound
(26:42):
real familiar, not even from that distant history, right like
maybe like less than a year ago. And this is
all documented very meticulously in a nineteen sixty one book
by Frank Byrne called Profit of Prohibition. Kneeled down his crusade.
Yeah yeah, okay, so we promised you are riot folks,
(27:03):
and and here we go. Dow does get re elected.
He loses that first reelection campaign in fifty two, but
in fifty five he is elected again. He's only in
office for about two months before the Portland's rum Riot occurs.
(27:28):
The rum Riot goes down on June two, eighteen fifty five.
It involves a lot of Irish and German residents of Portland's.
They felt unfairly targeted by the prohibition law, and they
learned that Dow had stored sixteen hundred dollars worth of
(27:48):
alcohol in a vault under city Hall. And I gotta
say this, I listened to a lot of MPR. I
love it. And ever since I was a kid, there's
always this report, you know, when they do the numbers
and uh they talked about how the Dow is up
or down. And I was when I was really young,
I for some reason was convinced that it was like
(28:12):
the spiritual idea, like the Doo, the Tao of of Pooh,
or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I really thought it was I
thought it was that for a long time. And again
I was very young, and I thought, well, that's so
nice that they have a spiritual focus. I was wrong.
They're talking about the DJOS stock market. But I I
(28:33):
just bring that up because it's it's knocking around in
my head. And this is also where this Dow, this
version of the Taos starts to go down. So they're
not happy about this, these folks who feel like they've
been targeted. There's a small fortune worth of booze just
under lock and key in city hall. Do you understand why?
(28:53):
Because in my mind, you know, like the most uh
inflammatory version of the story is the Dow was act
like a total hypocrite, was a secret lush that would
have been amazing. I do not think that is what
was the case. But why store all this booze? Because
I mean, I know there was a law that allowed
for the storage of booze for medicinal purposes, but even
(29:14):
that seems really vague and mechanical. Alcohol. Yes, so he
had earlier in spring of the same year, he had
authorized the City of Portland to purchase this sixteen hundred
dollars worth of alcohol purely or officially we would say,
for distribution to doctors and pharmacies. And he did this unilaterally,
(29:39):
not through a committee, which means that technically speaking, he
broke the laws that he himself supported. And this was
the real hypocrisy to the Irish population at the time
in Maine. This is this is pretty interesting. I don't
know what you guys think about this, but at the
time in Maine, any three random citizens could vultron up
(30:03):
or you know, just team up, make a supergroup, go
to a judge and ask for a search warrant if
they believed any crime in being committed. So if you
were listening and you dear ridiculous historian or hanging out
with Max Noel and yours truly in Maine in this time,
then we wouldn't even need all four of us. We
(30:23):
could just get together and say, hey, hey, uh do
our Scooby Doo kids impression, like, hey, I think there's
a crime going on, Let's go find a judge. That's
nuts that you could do that. I I can't believe
people didn't abuse that power. It's almost like that thing
with the pottery, you know, with the with the Greeks
or rather ostracism, like it didn't take Uh, it didn't
(30:46):
take a huge majority to to make that happen. Uh.
And it was, as we know, as we found out
that episode abused from time to time. So uh, this
escalated and on June the second, they Irish representatives asked
for and received a search warrant from that local judge,
and then that very same day a small crowd started
(31:06):
to gather outside of city hall. Um. The men showed
the warrant at the door and were had to be
allowed in to search the premises, and the police initially
refused them, which was you know, that's not how the
law works. It's a weird law though, and it been
itself seems very very unorthodox. Yeah, it is very unorthodox.
(31:27):
It's a good way to put it. And DALs violation.
You know, it was not not the end of the world.
It was a technical violation. But if you were someone
who wanted to buy liquor in this place and you couldn't,
you can understand how this seems like a smoking gun
of hypocrisy. There's even uh an excerpt from a local
(31:49):
newspaper at the time. It's got great snark. We found
this through the work of a j Herman who wrote
a paper called demon Rum Devious Politics. The paper called
upon the citizens of Portland, by virtue of Neil Dow's law,
to steal Neil Dow's liquors and pour them into the street.
(32:10):
And people were like, hey, he's breaking his own law.
Forget this guy, and uh. As they were as they
were gathered, like you said, the crowd started to grow
and grow and grow, mostly Irish people, but not all
Irish people. And then they started throwing rocks at the
building at city Hall. And the report from the Eastern
(32:34):
Arcus said that occasionally during the evening, stones and brick
bats were thrown against the door of the liquor store
parentheses the storage arean City Hall, breaking the glass and
sashes and otherwise injuring the door. And DW calls out
the militia, and he doesn't play around at all. He
doesn't try to talk to people. He just orders them
to shoot into the crowd. This is quickly going sideways.
(32:59):
There is a twenty two year old sailor named John
Robbins from dear Isle who breaks a hole in the
door of the liquor vault, unlocks it and is instantly
killed in a volley of gunfire. The crowd is dispersing
because you know, people generally speaking don't want to die,
but the militia continues to fire and so seven more
(33:22):
people are injured. On a tragic historic footnote, poor young
John Robbins was set to get married the very next
day and never made it sad and this is ultimately
what led to the dow going down, yep, way down.
He became kind of a pariah. I mean, he was
definitely seen as the villain in this because he ordered
(33:45):
the militia to shoot into the crowd, and he clearly
had no remorse for what he had done. Uh and
for the part that he played in escalating this riot,
rather than you know, maybe you know, using some rhetoric
to kind of chill things out a little bit. But
this guy's see like he was a creature of extremes.
Uh So, this very much feels within his character. And
(34:05):
he looked at all, like you said, throughout his political career,
he seemed to look at these folks immigrants largely. Maybe
it was through the lens of of considering them degenerate drunks,
but at the end of the day, it was just
a reason for him to kind of other people, you know,
and he at the end of the day was, like
you said, just a racist and a xenophobe. He was
(34:27):
ultimately acquitted of the charges that he'd obtained this alcohol illegally,
but surprise, surprise, he lost reelection by quite a wide margin. Yeah,
don't true, your constituents exactly, don't do that. It's bad,
bad look. Um and uh, surprise surprise again. About a
year later, Maine repealed these draconian prohibition laws. Then, in
(34:52):
eighteen sixty one, at the age of fifty seven, dw
enlisted as a colonel in the thirteenth Main Infantry to
fight in the Civil War. Um, he they're kind of
maybe got his dream came true. He was wounded, captured,
and then became a general, So he repaired his reputation
a bit. It did repair his reputation to some degree.
(35:15):
It was sort of a you know, even though the
rum riot obviously a big deal locally, wasn't nearly as
big a story as you know, be becoming a war
hero injured in the line of duty. He did return
to to Maine and he never held public office again,
though he did try to run for governor and for
the presidency of the US on the prohibition ticket, and
(35:38):
he continued to push for prohibition for the rest of
his life until he died at the ripe old age
of ninety three, uh in eighteen seven. I've got a
little bit of political advice for all our aspiring officials,
fellow ridiculous historians. Generally speaking, if you want to be
(35:59):
successful in winning over hearts and minds, it's good to
stand for something. It's good to run for something instead
of against something. And running on one issue doesn't always
cut the mustard or dilute the rum. That's what grog was,
by the way, Originally it was rum diluted with water
(36:21):
naval drink. Weird exactly the episode on it, but exactly
I'm used to hearing it in a tiki drink names.
You're right, absolutely was like Pirates of the Caribbean type
total references. So so this is this is the thing.
Because he is only running on an oppositional platform, and
(36:41):
because you know, he authorized militia to fire on civilians.
He never attains office again, as he said, but he
did leave a legacy because means prohibition experiment was a harbinger,
was foreshadowing and what would later layout across the United States.
(37:02):
I almost said the United Nations keep it in max.
It will play out after the eight Amendment is added
to the U. S Constitution, and tons and tons and
tons of people will go on to try to find
ways to get around the restrictions, ways to dodge the law.
(37:23):
We see a renaissance, a golden age for organized crime.
People make fortunes off bootlegging. One of my favorite examples
I think was the the grape juice concentrate that was
sold to people. You guys, it was sold to people,
and it had instructions on it that essentially said, do
(37:44):
not do the following things because if you do, it
will create wine. Okay, streight, which is basically instructions for
how to me. Now, of course everyone's going to do
the thing. Don't unfold it and do the following things
because you might accidentally sleep in it. Right. So it's
(38:07):
like if you get pills that say taking these while
drinking alcohol may cause drowsiness. Uh, please don't operate a
motor vehicle. That's how you know, those are the fun ones.
That's what people tell me. That's what people tell me.
But this, this story is often forgotten. I think when
people look at the larger problems of caused by prohibition,
(38:29):
whether or not you yourself enjoy a tipple now and then,
The fact is that there were a lot of serious,
serious issues with the way the concept of prohibition was
rolled out, but in the mind of its supporters, they
were combating likewise incredibly serious problems in society. If you
(38:52):
want to learn more about the temperance policy, the concept,
then you can head up to Norway, May where temperance
is alive and well at a little two room place
called the Weary Club. W e a r y like
igree We yes, I grew weary of this episode. Uh no,
(39:13):
it's a good one. It's a very good episode. And
I think we definitely have a trip to Maine. Do
I don't think either one of us have been to Maine.
Matt Max, have you been to Maine? I have not?
Is on my list, I hear it's like the most
beautiful state ever, So yeah, on my list. Like I said,
our buddy Sean was posting pictures from like a botanical
garden main that had all these beautifulures, like statues of
like elves and stuff and like really cool looking place.
(39:37):
And again the lot you had me at the lobster rolls,
so definitely have that on my agenda. I'm probably gonna
head up to me. You know, I don't know if
I can ship lobster rolls, but i'll I'll definitely send
you guys some pictures. Actually, I have a friend I've
connected with in Rhode Island over the pandemic who is
a lobster fisherman, So lobsterman, a lobsterman, yes, and crab
(40:01):
and and a couple of other things. So, dude, if
you're listening, hook us up. It's tough to get good
seafood here in Atlanta. Any advice greatly appreciated and uh
greatly welcomed. While we're thanking people, thank you as always
so much for tuning in, folks. Thanks to the one
and only Mr Max Williams, who very soon is bound
(40:22):
for some adventures of his own. Hope you have a
kick ass time, Max, uh. And also thanks to your
brother Alex, who composed this slapping track that's probably playing now.
Is it playing now, people in the curtain, We can't
hear when it starts. It's definitely playing in our hearts,
definitely playing also on this track right now, Okay, good
(40:43):
to know. Good to Christopher Haciotes here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland,
the quis Star. Definitely due back for a for a
popping soon. Uh foreshadowing there, and you Ben, my friend.
I hope we can one day adventure to main together. Yes.
In fact, we'll be in a bit of an adventure
this weekend, Noel, because I am officiating a wedding and
(41:06):
you were probably gonna be at that wedding. I am
definitely gonna be there, and I've heard a little bit
about this officiation in question, and I'm very excited to
tell hopefully in my very good things. No I'm very
excited to hang with you and some of our best
friends in my hometown of Augusta that I mentioned at
the top of the show. Not Augusta, Maine, Augusta, Georgia.
And we want to hear from you. As always, hit
(41:29):
us up on Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. You can also
follow us as not just the show, but as individuals.
I am at Ben Bulan on Instagram. Bow l I
n and uh what about you know? Oh, you can
find me exclusively on Instagram where I am at how now,
Noel Brown Max, are you still on Instagram as Braves hater. No,
I am actually not on Instagram, but if anyone does
(41:51):
want to follow me, retwreet a lot us about the
Braves podcast and Star Trek, you can follow me at
at a p L underscore Max Williams. It's just on
Twitter and that is on Twitter. Got it all right,
duly noted. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
(42:16):
podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
(00:27):
welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank
you so much for tuning in. We're talking about riots,
not the zoot suit riot which I was thinking about earlier. Right,
he has are the only good kind of riots, right,
fun kind of riots, you know, speaking of a fun
kind of riot. Uh, you know, we've got our own
(00:49):
one man riot. Our super producer Max Williams with us
as always. I'm Ben, I have never been to Maine, nol.
Have you been to Maine? No, it seems like all
of our friends are going to Maine lately. Um, our
buddy a how Andrew Howard shout out, Um, he grew
up in Maine and he was just out there. And
then our buddy Sean was just in Maine. And uh
(01:11):
and also buddy, our buddy Chuck was just in Maine.
Or was seeing all these Instagram pictures of plenty of
just lobster rolls for days, drawn butter and whoopee pies.
It just seems like a magical land of of of
delicious foods. That's what it seems like to me. Yes,
and we are now technically back on our show for
(01:32):
every state horse. Uh, this I propose will be our
main episode. What do you think are you down? Most?
Definitely our main episode for the day, you know doing
Thank you Max, Thank you man. It's very kind. Yeah, no,
it's true Maine, you know, like with an e. I
grew up in a town in Georgia called Augusta, and
(01:55):
I was always tickled to think there is a sister
city to Augusta in Maine called Augusta may And I'm
sure there's Augusta's all over elsewhere, but that's the one
I also remember from my youth, my friends from Maine,
including the infamous Andrew Howard, who does awesome work on
our peer podcast Saver. Check it out if you like
stories about food, science and culture. Andrew is, like many
(02:19):
main Natives, one of the people as a similar question
to yours nol Their version is Portland, Oregon versus Portland's Maine,
and that's where our story takes place. Today. We're going
to meet a guy who's kind of a pill. His
name is Mayor Neil Dow and in a way, as
(02:41):
we will find today, he often called the Napoleon of Temperance,
was one of the primary driving forces for what would
eventually become for a short while of federal law banning alcohol.
So we're going to figure out how Maine and how
something called the rum Riot of eighteen fifty five lad
(03:04):
to prohibition, or how it was all wrapped up in
this bigger story. Let's so, let's let's go to Let's
go to New England. An excellent article by main History
helps us get a grasp of the context here. So
in like By, there were a lot of changes in
(03:27):
religious ideas and cultural attitudes in New England overall, not
just Maine. And this led to a lot of reform
because you know, there was quite literally a Puritanical society
there for some time, and as the more strict views
of Puritans began to hold less sway, Protestants started to think,
(03:49):
you know what, it's totally possible for any person to
reach perfection in their lives and therefore reach paradise after
they pass away. So we're gonna reform ourselves. We're gonna
reform our communities. We're gonna try to be better people.
We're gonna fight for women's suffrage, we're gonna abolish slavery,
(04:10):
We're going to try to take care of the less
fortunate members of society, and a lot of people took
active roles leading these movements. So by the second decade,
by eighteen twenty and going forward, New England had a
secret Despite these reforms, people were talking about it. New
(04:31):
England especially was seen as sort of a focal point
for what people believed was America's growing problem with alcohol consumption.
And honestly, people drink a lot back then, Like it
might surprise you if you accidentally traveled back in time
to just see how regularly people are getting souced. We
(04:53):
know that, like it's back to the colonial days, right,
doesn't surprise me. And even before the colonial days, when
like meat or whatever in the medieval time was just
a substitute for like filthy water. You know, people were
basically just drinking it to to stay hydrated, but also
a little counterintuitives, as we know that alcohol dehydrates you.
But yeah, I mean apparently they were even like drunk
(05:13):
kids kind of like you know, carousing around on the streets.
I mean, it was absolute bed lump. I totally understand.
But a quick question for you, the idea of temperance, right,
temperance doesn't necessarily mean abstinence, temperance just means like measured use, right, uh,
temperance you can use things in a temperate way and
like a moderate way. But but the Temperance movement had
(05:38):
a couple of different positions, sort of on a spectrum.
So they would be dedicated to promoting moderate use of alcohol,
like hey, have a few drinks at dinner or at
a party, but not constantly every day. More often than not, though,
the Temperance Movement advocated for teetotally, for complete abstinence from liquor.
(06:03):
A bunch of teetotalitarians they were. But again I get it.
I mean it was a problem. You know, people were
losing their jobs, people were just absolutely kind of like
wasting away, and and even like homelessness became. I mean
it really was kind of a new, uh, real, real,
real problem that was sweeping the country. And children were
running around drunk. I know, it's wild. Uh. And and
(06:24):
this was a reaction to that. So while maybe at
the end of the day there was some overreach happening,
I completely understand. And it was associated, like you said, Ben,
with stuff like abolitionism and um, women's suffrage. It was
just the idea to make the world the country first
and foremost a better place. So we started to see
(06:45):
groups like the Temperance Watchmen of Durham, Maine popping up.
That was one of the first that was formed around
eighty eight. And the idea there was just to you know,
kind of lived lead by example, become the sort of
moral imperative that others would look to to model their
lives after, and they would kind of be able to
arrest back, you know, control of of the social conditions
(07:07):
um that had kind of gone off the rails by
encouraging moderation of drinking. So we weren't quite at teetotalitarianism yet,
which is the term that I just made up. So
by the mid century in Portland, Maine, we've got Neil
dow Uh, that is the mayor who we spoke of earlier.
He began to adopt a much more aggressive tactic in
(07:30):
this battle against alcoholism. He decided he was going to
take this to the state House. Uh, and instead of
changing people's attitudes by you know, encouraging temperance and leading
by example, he was gonna do that thing that we
now know never really works super well, um, which was
to change the laws and tell people what they could
(07:51):
not do so, rather than telling people to maybe drink
a little less, he branded all drinkers as rum dealers.
That was a a term of abuse that was hurled
around at the time. Yeah, this is the thing. Dal
went especially hard in the paint here. He quickly left
the moderates behind, including people like the governor at the time,
(08:13):
William King, who loved a good glass of wine. He
founded the first statewide temperance Association. Again this from the
main history dot org website. Let's learn a little bit
more about Neil all right. So Neil is born to
a Quaker family, a pretty well to do Quaker family
(08:33):
in Portland, Maine, in March March eighteen o four, and
after he gets out of high school he enters his
dad's tanning business. It's very common at this time in
history for people to join a family business. At the time,
Portland's is a booming trade center, and it's known in
particular for being involved in the rum trade with the
(08:56):
West Indies, and the economic system was something like this.
The people of Portland, or the economy of Portland would
trade its lumber and the products of its fisheries for
rum and molasses. Molasses got turned into rum in these
distilleries in Maine. Portland, Maine alone by itself had seven
(09:18):
different distilleries. And so you know how you can walk
through parts of New York City and you'll see a
Starbucks literally every block. That's the situation with booze joints
in Portland, Maine in the eighteen hundreds. You couldn't not
find a saloon or a tavern on every street. And
(09:39):
if you didn't somehow run into a saloon or a tavern,
you know, a bar basically, then you could just pop
into a grocery store because they would also sell you liquor.
And this upset now because he saw he saw this
clear correlation between over consumption of alcohol and all sorts
of problems in his community. He hated alcohol since day one.
(10:01):
This was first day stuff to him. He also hated
slavery because he believed that rum and slavery fed off
of one another. He had a good point, because rum,
the slavery system, and the sugar economy fueled the triangle
trade between the Caribbean, the US, and the African continent
(10:23):
back then. In general, Americans drink get this three times
as much as they do today, which just boggles the mind,
how do people get anything done? I can't imagine again,
like we said that even back to medieval times when
people were just drinking all day every day like as
their beverage, I think that they must just develop higher
tolerances and also just blast your liver. People died a
(10:46):
lot younger in these days too, um so Ben, just
just to clarify real quick. So this triangle trade, you know,
because that was that was what facilitated the slave trade
as well, and because of the roots, correct, that's where
the slaves would be taken you know, to the US
on those roots, Is that right? Yeah? You can also
see this referred to as the colonial molasses trade. This
(11:08):
part of it would happen is slave traders based in
New England would bring rum to the African continent and
they would use that to purchase enslaved people. And then
those people who have been enslaved were brought to the
West Indies and they were sold to sugarcane plantations where
(11:32):
they were forced to work harvesting sugar that made molasses
that went to New England into those distilleries, got turned
into rum and then sold back on the African continent
rents and repeat in god diabolical way. That makes sense.
So again, like his heart's in the right place, he's
seeing a real problem. Um. That that figures into you know,
(11:54):
those kind of like top tier problems that we were addressing,
that even the women's temperance movements were addressing. Um. So
this is a social justice issue at heart, or at
least where his heart is. Maybe he goes a little
too hard in the paint, like you said, ben Um,
but he becomes known as the Napoleon of temperance. Um
at the age of twenty three, by the way, he
(12:15):
founded the main Temperance Society, and he was absolutely instrumental
in getting the twenty eight gallon law passed in eighty six,
according to an author named Kate McCarty, who writes that
this law prohibited the sales of alcohol in less than
twenty eight gallont quantities to everyone except doctors. H And
that meant that the super wealthy could afford to buy alcohol,
(12:39):
but the average folks couldn't. So it was, you know,
obviously a bit of a classist kind of law, but
I would imagine that it definitely, you know, was effective
to some degree in the same way as you know,
we maybe had folks have folks in bigger cities selling
like loose cigarettes, which is totally illegal. Um, you had
shops called tippling shops that sold single drinks. That's where
(13:00):
the average people would would be getting their booze. But
they were always you know, targeted and shut down. And
these were essentially like the earlier forms of speakeasies. Well,
booze wasn't completely illegal, you couldn't sell it in such
small amounts. And he kind of cut his political teeth
on policies like this, uh, and became associated, you know,
(13:21):
with the temperance movement and what would ultimately become prohibition. Yeah. Yeah, he.
I want to share this anecdote because I think it's
I think it gives us a glimpse into the workings
of the man's mind. Writing for the Irish Times, uh,
we found this pretty fascinating and a little bit disturbing
(13:46):
instance of just how unmoderate Dal was. Nathan Mannion, in
the article The Irish who instigated the Portland's Rum Riots,
notes that Dal kneeled Down hated alcohol so much that
when he was promoted to fire chief once upon a time,
(14:06):
he let the local liquor store burn to the ground.
Instead of putting out the fire, he just watched it blaze.
This guy was not playing around, and his stance found support.
(14:26):
He was elected the mayor of Portland, Maine, in eighteen
fifty one, and as soon as he became mayor, he
went to the state legislature of Maine and persuaded them
to pass a prohibition law. This means that Maine becomes
the very first state in the Union to ban alcohol.
(14:48):
Like you said, there was a bit of class and
classicism wrapped up in the way this law was applied.
There were exceptions. You could buy or sell alcohol for medical,
mechanical or manifest acturing purposes, and if you wanted to
do any of that, you had to have a special
license that exempted you from the you know, the hoi
polloi who would just be using alcohol recreationally. So that
(15:12):
was downright draconian about this. He went to the people,
the good alcohol business folk of Portland's and he said, look,
you got two weeks to sell your alcohol out of
this state before we start cracking down. Other states caught on,
Massachusetts says, hey, that's a pretty good idea. Let's model
our own reforms after what they're doing in Maine. So
(15:37):
in a way, as main History notes, the States seemed
to be living up to its motto, which I did
not know. I don't know if you guys knew this motto,
diriggio I lead. What is deriggio? Is that like excelsior,
Like this is one of these weird words that only
gets thrown around by eccentric billionaires. Yeah, it's Latin. It
means I direct or, I guide. Excelsior is Latin two
(16:00):
in them. Yes, excelsior it's Latin for higher. So this
is where the guy earns his nickname, the Napoleon of Temperance,
and he starts promoting his approach, his no excuses, hard
nosed approach to prohibition, both across the country and across
(16:21):
the world. But here's the thing. If you've listened to
our earlier episodes on Prohibition stories, or if you've checked
out some of the stuff on stuff they don't want
you to know about the shenanigans the US government and
organized crime got up to during alcohol Prohibition, you know
that making laws like this don't really work. And that's
(16:45):
not a moral point. It's just that the main law,
like the later National Prohibition Law, didn't stop everyone from drinking.
People in Maine found ways around it. In Smithsonian, Katschner
specifically cites a article in the Portland's Press Herald by
Kelly Bouchard, and Bouchard goes deep into how people got
(17:10):
around this law. Some folks would just brew booze at home.
That wasn't uncommon at all, and they would sell it
to their neighbors out of their kitchens. Farmers, if they
had a surplus of fruit, would make hard cider or wine.
And when people were given fines for violating the law,
(17:30):
they just treated it as a business expense. You know,
what's that old saying. I ran into it again recently
and I thought about how true it is. If the
punishment for a crime is a fine, Is that then
not a law that only applies to the poor exactly?
Is um? And I understand It's It's a tricky thing
(17:52):
to discuss, Isn't it bad? Because the most visible folks
that are experiencing negative comes because of alcohol consumption are
the poor. You know, They're the ones that are in
the street, They're the ones that are getting into fights.
They're the ones that are potentially, you know, causing mayhem.
You know, Um, and in the most visible ways. But
(18:13):
you know, the folks that are drinking behind closed doors
perhaps and abusing their spouses maybe or just maybe even
their children, they're gonna be the ones that are able to,
you know, keep it indoors and then be a little
more shielded from that kind of thing. It makes sense,
on the one hand, from like a very kind of
primitive way of of addressing a problem like this. It's
(18:35):
something that we still see today. Uh, folks that are
more wealthy and more powerful are able to kind of
keep doing whatever they want um for the most part,
behind closed doors, even if there's a law that that's
supposedly supposed to affect everyone the same. Yeah, exactly. It's
always laws for the but not for me, as people say.
And it's weird because some of the first non Yankee
(18:57):
fortunes came from brewing right or from the hundreds and
hundreds of kitchen bars that appeared after about eighteen fifty one,
and the growing middle class still enjoyed an occasional drink.
But because the growing middle class was largely a Yankee demographic,
they started to look at what they viewed as excessive
(19:20):
drinking to be a hallmark of foreigners, or a problem
with the utes, the youths, or a problem with lower
class people. Dow, we've painted him in a somewhat sympathetic,
if driven light. He's against the dangers of widespread alcohol abuse. Check.
(19:41):
People can't agree with that. He's against the horrors and
atrocities of slavery. Check. I think we can all agree
with that. He was also, however, opposed to immigration, especially
immigration from Ireland and Portland. Maine in particular had a
pretty sizeable population of Irish immigrants. They could tell that
(20:05):
he had beef. They were definitely feeling the crunch because
this law disproportionately impact this part of the population. Like
you said, he had that two week grace period right
after the legislation goes through, And during that two week
grace period, all the bars, the public houses, saloons, taverns, distilleries,
(20:30):
you name it. They get shut down and the only
things left, the only outfits left selling booze, are a
small number of illegal things called grog shops. I don't
know how I feel about that work. Well, yeah, grog,
it's funny. Grog, if I'm not mistaken, is specifically refers
to a concoction made with rum. Um. A grog is
(20:53):
like there there are tinky drinks with grog in the name,
which often consists of rum and other um alcohols you know,
mixed with some sort of fruit juice and all of that. UM.
But yeah, it's true. And this was these were the
places where working class and immigrant um communities would hang out.
And it was you know, these were like more localized
(21:14):
in their neighborhoods UM. And so it essentially was by
targeting these after hours grog shops. Uh, they were targeting
those communities as well. And not to mention that around
eleven percent of the entire city's population were Irish immigrants,
and that's around twenty one thousand people. Uh. And they
were you know, fleeing their homeland because of the uh
(21:35):
the famine, um, the Great Famine. So they were essentially
you know, coming for a better life um. And they
lived in an area called Munjoy Hill, which was a
little bit worse for wear and felt like a slum
kind of you know, especially to the police and lawmakers.
And this was like ground zero for searching for all
of this contraband liquor. But again, it was like a
(21:57):
de facto kind of targeting of immigrants. Yeah, yeah, very
much so. And you know, life is tough for a
lot of these folks who have immigrated around twenty one
thousand people at the time. A lot of these folks
had survived the Great Famine and made it out and
made it to the US. I'm just saying, like I
(22:19):
wouldn't I wouldn't fall into the into the error of
stereotyping these folks as like a bunch of raging drunkards,
you know, which Dal definitely did. They weren't. They were.
They were people making a living like anyone else. I
want to I want to double back, really because I
you you're definitely right, and just want to clarify what
I said earlier. I wasn't implying that like all poor
(22:40):
people were carousing drunken in the streets. I was just
saying that, like they were maybe the most visible, the
ones that were problematic would likely be from poorer populations,
yet would therefore maybe be the most visible and therefore
be seen as the root of the problem, And the
richies that could get drunk behind closed wars would not
be as visible and would not maybe be lumped in
(23:03):
with that for other reasons too. But that was what
I was getting. What I'm pointing out is that dow
was racist. That's what I'm pointing out. So he completely agreed.
He in fact this the sidebars getting to. He in
fact later went to Ireland himself and he said, this
(23:24):
a glorious country, Ireland is, but the people are reduced
to a condition of the most extreme poverty, largely by whiskey.
So at the very least he is oversimplifying a very
complicated situation. This was consistent though he wasn't switching sides.
This was almost identical to public statements he had made
(23:46):
in Portland while he was campaigning, and he he had this,
he popularized this trope, this idea of a liquor swilling foreigner. Again,
as reported by Irish Times, it was his stereotype. Um,
I don't know, you know, it reminded me of that
eighties stereotype of the so called welfare queen that didn't
(24:10):
really hold up to scrutiny and his his stereotype completely
ignored the fact that more than three million Irish people
twenty years ago had subscribed to a different abstinence society,
one called Friar Matthews, and many of those folks later
(24:30):
moved to the US and we're fighting for the temperance
movement in the United States. But they didn't agree with
dal necessarily because they said, look, if you want people
to abstain from drinking or abstain from hard liquor, you
should help them do it of their own free will
instead of coercing them. And so these folks and many
(24:52):
other folks honestly were turned off by what they saw
as Dao's lack of what would you call it compassion,
empathy or is hardline approach. They thought he was alienating
more people when he could be helping them. Absolutely, and
I mean it's very clear from what you just said, Ben,
that these were that this was an unfair stereotype and
(25:12):
that there you know that, just like any other group
of people, it contains multitudes, and three million of those
multitudes were folks that wanted to support abstinence or at
the very least, temperance, right. But it's so important to
to make that distinction. But we we've seen time and
time again and things like the War on drugs and
what ultimately became the huge national embarrassment that was abstinence.
(25:34):
It just doesn't work when you tell people what they
can't do. It's much better to give people the tools
they need to do for themselves and to fix themselves
and to lead better lives rather than to completely banned
something because a people that want to do what they
want to do are going to figure out a way
to do it. And if you make it more difficult
to do, that's when you start seeing the criminal element
(25:55):
sneak in. That's like when you start seeing things like
with prohibition, what the government like reasoned a bunch of
alcohol with like methanol m I think, and then you
start seeing people getting killed and getting out of hand.
It's like what we see today with you know, tainted
drugs on the street. It just doesn't work. And it
also leads to simmering resentment for those that uh seek
(26:17):
to kind of impose these type of draconian measures on folks.
And that's when we get to Dow's reelection campaign in
eighteen fifty two. He lost because you know, Irish people
can vote too, and he blamed it on them, uh,
supposedly illegal voting by Irish does it sure does sound
(26:42):
real familiar, not even from that distant history, right like
maybe like less than a year ago. And this is
all documented very meticulously in a nineteen sixty one book
by Frank Byrne called Profit of Prohibition. Kneeled down his crusade.
Yeah yeah, okay, so we promised you are riot folks,
(27:03):
and and here we go. Dow does get re elected.
He loses that first reelection campaign in fifty two, but
in fifty five he is elected again. He's only in
office for about two months before the Portland's rum Riot occurs.
(27:28):
The rum Riot goes down on June two, eighteen fifty five.
It involves a lot of Irish and German residents of Portland's.
They felt unfairly targeted by the prohibition law, and they
learned that Dow had stored sixteen hundred dollars worth of
(27:48):
alcohol in a vault under city Hall. And I gotta
say this, I listened to a lot of MPR. I
love it. And ever since I was a kid, there's
always this report, you know, when they do the numbers
and uh they talked about how the Dow is up
or down. And I was when I was really young,
I for some reason was convinced that it was like
(28:12):
the spiritual idea, like the Doo, the Tao of of Pooh,
or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I really thought it was I
thought it was that for a long time. And again
I was very young, and I thought, well, that's so
nice that they have a spiritual focus. I was wrong.
They're talking about the DJOS stock market. But I I
(28:33):
just bring that up because it's it's knocking around in
my head. And this is also where this Dow, this
version of the Taos starts to go down. So they're
not happy about this, these folks who feel like they've
been targeted. There's a small fortune worth of booze just
under lock and key in city hall. Do you understand why?
(28:53):
Because in my mind, you know, like the most uh
inflammatory version of the story is the Dow was act
like a total hypocrite, was a secret lush that would
have been amazing. I do not think that is what
was the case. But why store all this booze? Because
I mean, I know there was a law that allowed
for the storage of booze for medicinal purposes, but even
(29:14):
that seems really vague and mechanical. Alcohol. Yes, so he
had earlier in spring of the same year, he had
authorized the City of Portland to purchase this sixteen hundred
dollars worth of alcohol purely or officially we would say,
for distribution to doctors and pharmacies. And he did this unilaterally,
(29:39):
not through a committee, which means that technically speaking, he
broke the laws that he himself supported. And this was
the real hypocrisy to the Irish population at the time
in Maine. This is this is pretty interesting. I don't
know what you guys think about this, but at the
time in Maine, any three random citizens could vultron up
(30:03):
or you know, just team up, make a supergroup, go
to a judge and ask for a search warrant if
they believed any crime in being committed. So if you
were listening and you dear ridiculous historian or hanging out
with Max Noel and yours truly in Maine in this time,
then we wouldn't even need all four of us. We
(30:23):
could just get together and say, hey, hey, uh do
our Scooby Doo kids impression, like, hey, I think there's
a crime going on, Let's go find a judge. That's
nuts that you could do that. I I can't believe
people didn't abuse that power. It's almost like that thing
with the pottery, you know, with the with the Greeks
or rather ostracism, like it didn't take Uh, it didn't
(30:46):
take a huge majority to to make that happen. Uh.
And it was, as we know, as we found out
that episode abused from time to time. So uh, this
escalated and on June the second, they Irish representatives asked
for and received a search warrant from that local judge,
and then that very same day a small crowd started
(31:06):
to gather outside of city hall. Um. The men showed
the warrant at the door and were had to be
allowed in to search the premises, and the police initially
refused them, which was you know, that's not how the
law works. It's a weird law though, and it been
itself seems very very unorthodox. Yeah, it is very unorthodox.
(31:27):
It's a good way to put it. And DALs violation.
You know, it was not not the end of the world.
It was a technical violation. But if you were someone
who wanted to buy liquor in this place and you couldn't,
you can understand how this seems like a smoking gun
of hypocrisy. There's even uh an excerpt from a local
(31:49):
newspaper at the time. It's got great snark. We found
this through the work of a j Herman who wrote
a paper called demon Rum Devious Politics. The paper called
upon the citizens of Portland, by virtue of Neil Dow's law,
to steal Neil Dow's liquors and pour them into the street.
(32:10):
And people were like, hey, he's breaking his own law.
Forget this guy, and uh. As they were as they
were gathered, like you said, the crowd started to grow
and grow and grow, mostly Irish people, but not all
Irish people. And then they started throwing rocks at the
building at city Hall. And the report from the Eastern
(32:34):
Arcus said that occasionally during the evening, stones and brick
bats were thrown against the door of the liquor store
parentheses the storage arean City Hall, breaking the glass and
sashes and otherwise injuring the door. And DW calls out
the militia, and he doesn't play around at all. He
doesn't try to talk to people. He just orders them
to shoot into the crowd. This is quickly going sideways.
(32:59):
There is a twenty two year old sailor named John
Robbins from dear Isle who breaks a hole in the
door of the liquor vault, unlocks it and is instantly
killed in a volley of gunfire. The crowd is dispersing
because you know, people generally speaking don't want to die,
but the militia continues to fire and so seven more
(33:22):
people are injured. On a tragic historic footnote, poor young
John Robbins was set to get married the very next
day and never made it sad and this is ultimately
what led to the dow going down, yep, way down.
He became kind of a pariah. I mean, he was
definitely seen as the villain in this because he ordered
(33:45):
the militia to shoot into the crowd, and he clearly
had no remorse for what he had done. Uh and
for the part that he played in escalating this riot,
rather than you know, maybe you know, using some rhetoric
to kind of chill things out a little bit. But
this guy's see like he was a creature of extremes.
Uh So, this very much feels within his character. And
(34:05):
he looked at all, like you said, throughout his political career,
he seemed to look at these folks immigrants largely. Maybe
it was through the lens of of considering them degenerate drunks,
but at the end of the day, it was just
a reason for him to kind of other people, you know,
and he at the end of the day was, like
you said, just a racist and a xenophobe. He was
(34:27):
ultimately acquitted of the charges that he'd obtained this alcohol illegally,
but surprise, surprise, he lost reelection by quite a wide margin. Yeah,
don't true, your constituents exactly, don't do that. It's bad,
bad look. Um and uh, surprise surprise again. About a
year later, Maine repealed these draconian prohibition laws. Then, in
(34:52):
eighteen sixty one, at the age of fifty seven, dw
enlisted as a colonel in the thirteenth Main Infantry to
fight in the Civil War. Um, he they're kind of
maybe got his dream came true. He was wounded, captured,
and then became a general, So he repaired his reputation
a bit. It did repair his reputation to some degree.
(35:15):
It was sort of a you know, even though the
rum riot obviously a big deal locally, wasn't nearly as
big a story as you know, be becoming a war
hero injured in the line of duty. He did return
to to Maine and he never held public office again,
though he did try to run for governor and for
the presidency of the US on the prohibition ticket, and
(35:38):
he continued to push for prohibition for the rest of
his life until he died at the ripe old age
of ninety three, uh in eighteen seven. I've got a
little bit of political advice for all our aspiring officials,
fellow ridiculous historians. Generally speaking, if you want to be
(35:59):
successful in winning over hearts and minds, it's good to
stand for something. It's good to run for something instead
of against something. And running on one issue doesn't always
cut the mustard or dilute the rum. That's what grog was,
by the way, Originally it was rum diluted with water
(36:21):
naval drink. Weird exactly the episode on it, but exactly
I'm used to hearing it in a tiki drink names.
You're right, absolutely was like Pirates of the Caribbean type
total references. So so this is this is the thing.
Because he is only running on an oppositional platform, and
(36:41):
because you know, he authorized militia to fire on civilians.
He never attains office again, as he said, but he
did leave a legacy because means prohibition experiment was a harbinger,
was foreshadowing and what would later layout across the United States.
(37:02):
I almost said the United Nations keep it in max.
It will play out after the eight Amendment is added
to the U. S Constitution, and tons and tons and
tons of people will go on to try to find
ways to get around the restrictions, ways to dodge the law.
(37:23):
We see a renaissance, a golden age for organized crime.
People make fortunes off bootlegging. One of my favorite examples
I think was the the grape juice concentrate that was
sold to people. You guys, it was sold to people,
and it had instructions on it that essentially said, do
(37:44):
not do the following things because if you do, it
will create wine. Okay, streight, which is basically instructions for
how to me. Now, of course everyone's going to do
the thing. Don't unfold it and do the following things
because you might accidentally sleep in it. Right. So it's
(38:07):
like if you get pills that say taking these while
drinking alcohol may cause drowsiness. Uh, please don't operate a
motor vehicle. That's how you know, those are the fun ones.
That's what people tell me. That's what people tell me.
But this, this story is often forgotten. I think when
people look at the larger problems of caused by prohibition,
(38:29):
whether or not you yourself enjoy a tipple now and then,
The fact is that there were a lot of serious,
serious issues with the way the concept of prohibition was
rolled out, but in the mind of its supporters, they
were combating likewise incredibly serious problems in society. If you
(38:52):
want to learn more about the temperance policy, the concept,
then you can head up to Norway, May where temperance
is alive and well at a little two room place
called the Weary Club. W e a r y like
igree We yes, I grew weary of this episode. Uh no,
(39:13):
it's a good one. It's a very good episode. And
I think we definitely have a trip to Maine. Do
I don't think either one of us have been to Maine.
Matt Max, have you been to Maine? I have not?
Is on my list, I hear it's like the most
beautiful state ever, So yeah, on my list. Like I said,
our buddy Sean was posting pictures from like a botanical
garden main that had all these beautifulures, like statues of
like elves and stuff and like really cool looking place.
(39:37):
And again the lot you had me at the lobster rolls,
so definitely have that on my agenda. I'm probably gonna
head up to me. You know, I don't know if
I can ship lobster rolls, but i'll I'll definitely send
you guys some pictures. Actually, I have a friend I've
connected with in Rhode Island over the pandemic who is
a lobster fisherman, So lobsterman, a lobsterman, yes, and crab
(40:01):
and and a couple of other things. So, dude, if
you're listening, hook us up. It's tough to get good
seafood here in Atlanta. Any advice greatly appreciated and uh
greatly welcomed. While we're thanking people, thank you as always
so much for tuning in, folks. Thanks to the one
and only Mr Max Williams, who very soon is bound
(40:22):
for some adventures of his own. Hope you have a
kick ass time, Max, uh. And also thanks to your
brother Alex, who composed this slapping track that's probably playing now.
Is it playing now, people in the curtain, We can't
hear when it starts. It's definitely playing in our hearts,
definitely playing also on this track right now, Okay, good
(40:43):
to know. Good to Christopher Haciotes here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland,
the quis Star. Definitely due back for a for a
popping soon. Uh foreshadowing there, and you Ben, my friend.
I hope we can one day adventure to main together. Yes.
In fact, we'll be in a bit of an adventure
this weekend, Noel, because I am officiating a wedding and
(41:06):
you were probably gonna be at that wedding. I am
definitely gonna be there, and I've heard a little bit
about this officiation in question, and I'm very excited to
tell hopefully in my very good things. No I'm very
excited to hang with you and some of our best
friends in my hometown of Augusta that I mentioned at
the top of the show. Not Augusta, Maine, Augusta, Georgia.
And we want to hear from you. As always, hit
(41:29):
us up on Ridiculous Historians on Facebook. You can also
follow us as not just the show, but as individuals.
I am at Ben Bulan on Instagram. Bow l I
n and uh what about you know? Oh, you can
find me exclusively on Instagram where I am at how now,
Noel Brown Max, are you still on Instagram as Braves hater. No,
I am actually not on Instagram, but if anyone does
(41:51):
want to follow me, retwreet a lot us about the
Braves podcast and Star Trek, you can follow me at
at a p L underscore Max Williams. It's just on
Twitter and that is on Twitter. Got it all right,
duly noted. We'll see you next time, folks. For more
(42:16):
podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
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Noel Brown
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