WEBVTT - The Embalmed Beef Scandal 0:00:08.285 --> 0:00:13.485 School of Humans. If you haven't had the pleasure of 0:00:13.525 --> 0:00:18.645 eating old, rotten, contaminated beef before, it's not great. Spoiler. 0:00:19.965 --> 0:00:21.845 I recently went to a waffle house with one of 0:00:21.885 --> 0:00:24.925 my friends, and while she did not realize at the time, 0:00:25.165 --> 0:00:30.325 she indeed was eating some gross, nasty meat and she 0:00:30.485 --> 0:00:35.125 suffered accordingly. Here is her historical account. 0:00:35.525 --> 0:00:40.765 When I took my first bite, it tasted oddly sweet, 0:00:41.285 --> 0:00:45.685 and I thought, gosh, this dinerlike establishment is way fancier 0:00:45.685 --> 0:00:47.685 than I thought, because they must have some sort of 0:00:48.325 --> 0:00:56.965 tomato jam or something that's making this burger taste really sweet, 0:00:56.485 --> 0:01:01.285 kind of sickly sweet, like nothing I had ever tasted before. 0:01:02.725 --> 0:01:06.765 And when did I realize that something was wrong, I 0:01:06.805 --> 0:01:12.925 would say within seventy five seconds, when my stomach started 0:01:13.125 --> 0:01:20.045 digesting in a violent manner, and I realized that no 0:01:20.085 --> 0:01:24.925 one's stomach should make those sounds. I eat the whole burger. 0:01:24.965 --> 0:01:28.565 I'm not gonna lie. I thought, maybe if I keep going, 0:01:28.925 --> 0:01:33.845 this will get better. And then I felt the sensation 0:01:34.085 --> 0:01:37.405 of everything I've ever eaten rising up into my thoat, 0:01:37.525 --> 0:01:40.805 and I said, I'm gonna throw up. So I stood 0:01:40.885 --> 0:01:44.845 up and walked into the bathroom and put my face 0:01:44.925 --> 0:01:47.445 closer into the toilet than I ever thought I would 0:01:47.525 --> 0:01:50.285 as such an establishment, and I threw that bad boy 0:01:50.365 --> 0:01:50.805 right up. 0:01:53.205 --> 0:01:56.725 Don't worry, she is healed today and she, you know, luckily, 0:01:56.805 --> 0:01:59.285 has had the courage to return to waffle House since 0:01:59.365 --> 0:02:02.685 the incident. But it's crazy that I mentioned that, because 0:02:03.085 --> 0:02:05.645 that's what I want to talk about today, because as 0:02:05.685 --> 0:02:09.285 the thing is, tomorrow, we Americans all across the land 0:02:09.325 --> 0:02:12.845 will gather and gorge ourselves on various food items to 0:02:12.925 --> 0:02:17.725 celebrate Thanksgiving, the holiday that commemorates when Pilgrims and Indigenous 0:02:17.725 --> 0:02:21.885 Americans sat down and feasted together in the ongoing crisis 0:02:21.925 --> 0:02:25.805 of a European colonialism that had already wiped out about 0:02:25.885 --> 0:02:28.885 ninety seven percent of the Native Americans in New England 0:02:29.285 --> 0:02:33.285 from you know, white people introducing disease and other various 0:02:33.325 --> 0:02:37.565 acts of genocide. As a little treat, I just wanted 0:02:37.565 --> 0:02:40.005 to give you something to ruminate on that will just 0:02:40.045 --> 0:02:44.725 really enhance your experience of eating turkey, ham and other meats. 0:02:45.565 --> 0:02:49.725 Today's episode is about a rotten beef scandal, yes, and 0:02:49.925 --> 0:02:53.085 what it took to stop having so much poisonous meat 0:02:53.365 --> 0:03:03.085 on grocery store shelves. Theme song This is American filth. 0:03:03.125 --> 0:03:05.445 I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a film 0:03:05.645 --> 0:03:12.045 the story from American history. Today's episode the Embalmed Beef Scandal. 0:03:23.525 --> 0:03:26.445 So let's go back in our fifth time machine to 0:03:26.485 --> 0:03:32.805 the Spanish American War. So Cuba had been trying to 0:03:32.845 --> 0:03:36.045 get independence from Spain for a while. You know. First 0:03:36.085 --> 0:03:38.285 of all, there was the Ten Years War in eighteen 0:03:38.365 --> 0:03:41.725 sixty eight, which ended, can you believe it in eighteen 0:03:41.845 --> 0:03:47.205 seventy eight, exactly ten years later, But they continue fighting, 0:03:47.245 --> 0:03:50.645 and eventually the United States was like, hmmm, we should 0:03:50.645 --> 0:03:54.005 get involved in this conflict because you know, we love 0:03:54.045 --> 0:03:57.045 it when people fight for independence. That's what we did. 0:03:57.165 --> 0:04:05.085 Let's help you Just kidding. That was not our motivation. 0:04:06.285 --> 0:04:10.125 The US got involved for its own political and economic interest. 0:04:11.285 --> 0:04:14.965 The US wanted to get Spain aka European mega powers 0:04:15.005 --> 0:04:20.245 out of the America region. Also, some historians have hypothesized 0:04:20.245 --> 0:04:23.365 another reason that the US might have gotten involved was 0:04:23.405 --> 0:04:26.045 that the US wanted to make sure that the black people, 0:04:26.085 --> 0:04:28.525 who made up two fits of the population of Cuba 0:04:28.565 --> 0:04:32.325 would not make their own nation state on the island. So, 0:04:32.605 --> 0:04:36.365 to summarize, the US got involved for the usual reasons 0:04:36.805 --> 0:04:46.565 White supremacy and capitalism. At least we are consistent. What 0:04:46.725 --> 0:04:50.165 really escalated the war zeal in the public was in 0:04:50.205 --> 0:04:54.005 February of eighteen ninety eight, one of the US's battleships 0:04:54.085 --> 0:04:58.365 was destroyed in Havana by a mysterious explosion that killed 0:04:58.405 --> 0:05:04.045 two hundred and sixty eight men. And what's really fun 0:05:04.085 --> 0:05:06.405 about that was that it was it's never proven what 0:05:06.605 --> 0:05:10.245 caused the explosion, but the US was like, whoops, I 0:05:10.325 --> 0:05:13.285 guess this proves we for sure need to get involved. 0:05:15.765 --> 0:05:19.245 So the US entered the war in April eighteen ninety eight, 0:05:20.605 --> 0:05:23.605 and it only lasted a few months. The United States 0:05:23.605 --> 0:05:28.765 emerged victorious. By August eighteen ninety eight, Cuba was independent, 0:05:29.045 --> 0:05:32.165 but somehow the US had acquired Puerto Rico Guam in 0:05:32.205 --> 0:05:35.085 the Philippines. And the cool thing about all of this 0:05:35.485 --> 0:05:39.405 is that no Cuban representatives were invited to the peace talks. 0:05:41.885 --> 0:05:45.365 During the Spanish American War, the United States deployed about 0:05:45.405 --> 0:05:49.525 two hundred and seventy four thousand soldiers and about three 0:05:49.565 --> 0:05:53.645 thousand men died. But the thing is only two hundred 0:05:53.645 --> 0:05:56.485 and eighty got killed in battle. The rest two thousand, 0:05:56.605 --> 0:05:59.965 six hundred and thirty died from other stuff, and some 0:06:00.005 --> 0:06:03.765 people suspected that some of the soldiers were dying from 0:06:03.845 --> 0:06:06.965 the food that the army had provided to them, specifically 0:06:07.605 --> 0:06:12.725 the beef. Apparently, this beef was so good that everyone 0:06:12.805 --> 0:06:19.885 was calling it red horse mm horse. Once older described 0:06:19.885 --> 0:06:22.925 the canned beef that they had gotten. Here's what he said. 0:06:24.525 --> 0:06:26.805 A tin of red horse would be handed to one 0:06:26.845 --> 0:06:29.445 man who opened it. He put it to his nose, 0:06:29.645 --> 0:06:32.565 smelled of it, wrinkled up his face, and took a spit. 0:06:33.205 --> 0:06:35.805 The next man did the same, and the next till 0:06:35.845 --> 0:06:39.125 the eight men of the mess had smelled, grimaced, and spit. 0:06:39.965 --> 0:06:43.325 Then that tin of red horse was thrown overboard for 0:06:43.485 --> 0:06:46.245 any of the fishes of the Atlantic Ocean who might 0:06:46.445 --> 0:06:49.725 like it. What we called red horse soon had all 0:06:49.725 --> 0:06:58.165 our country scandalized with its new name of embalmed beef. Yuma, 0:06:58.885 --> 0:07:05.085 embalmed beef. Doesn't that sound appetizing? What do you guys 0:07:05.125 --> 0:07:07.805 think that the taste palette of this embalmed beef was? 0:07:07.965 --> 0:07:14.525 I'm thinking a rancid acid with undertones of dead grandma yummy. 0:07:15.365 --> 0:07:19.285 The soldier continued, It was so embalmed with all flavor 0:07:19.325 --> 0:07:22.565 of life and every suck of nourishment gone from it 0:07:22.805 --> 0:07:27.565 through having nevertheless a putridity of odor, more pungent than 0:07:27.645 --> 0:07:34.005 ever reaches the nostrils from a properly embalmed cadaver. They 0:07:34.085 --> 0:07:41.485 used to talk different. Anyway, this soldier had the wisdom 0:07:41.605 --> 0:07:45.845 to not actually eat this beef, but a lot of 0:07:45.885 --> 0:07:49.365 soldiers were getting sick. So the news of this nasty 0:07:49.405 --> 0:07:52.245 meat reached the public and they were upset. They were like, oh, 0:07:52.285 --> 0:07:54.045 you send their boys to war and then you give 0:07:54.085 --> 0:07:58.365 them nasty beef. That's horrible. One concerned mom complained to 0:07:58.405 --> 0:08:02.085 the president, President William McKinley, and was like, we are 0:08:02.125 --> 0:08:05.125 living under a generous government with a good kind man 0:08:05.165 --> 0:08:08.325 at an head, willing to give the army the best possible, 0:08:08.725 --> 0:08:12.205 and yet thieving corporations will give the boys the worst. 0:08:14.285 --> 0:08:18.725 So where did all this nasty embalmed beef come from? 0:08:18.845 --> 0:08:21.685 Most of the meat contracts that the army had were 0:08:21.685 --> 0:08:24.765 with these meat packers based out of Chicago, the land 0:08:24.805 --> 0:08:33.525 of wind and poorly constructed pizza. Chicago became the place 0:08:33.565 --> 0:08:37.445 for meatpacking in the eighteen sixties. There are five main 0:08:37.565 --> 0:08:41.165 meat packing companies, and the men who ran these companies 0:08:41.245 --> 0:08:45.245 developed a lot of innovations that solidified their meat packing prowess. 0:08:45.485 --> 0:08:48.605 They came up with assembly lines, ice cold rooms so 0:08:48.645 --> 0:08:52.765 you could process year round refrigerated freight cars. At first, 0:08:52.805 --> 0:08:56.605 people were very suspicious of refrigerated beef. It was like, 0:08:56.925 --> 0:08:59.005 what you want me to eat meat that has been 0:08:59.045 --> 0:09:01.245 out for more than a week after it has been killed. 0:09:01.365 --> 0:09:06.885 That's crazy. But the thing is money. The refrigerated beef 0:09:07.005 --> 0:09:10.205 was a lot cheaper than fresh meat, so people were like, 0:09:10.605 --> 0:09:15.525 never mind, give me that Old Meat. Side note, I 0:09:15.565 --> 0:09:17.925 did briefly have a country band called Old Meat, but 0:09:17.965 --> 0:09:20.565 it never took off. Here are some of the song 0:09:20.685 --> 0:09:24.925 titles Highway sixty nine, fat Boys in big trucks, road Headache, 0:09:25.085 --> 0:09:27.765 drinking whiskey on the Lord's Day, and of course big 0:09:27.765 --> 0:09:30.405 old Pussy. So yeah, I have no idea why nobody 0:09:30.445 --> 0:09:35.605 liked us anyway. Not only was their refrigerated meat, canned 0:09:35.645 --> 0:09:38.605 meat was also on the up and up, and canned 0:09:38.645 --> 0:09:41.605 meat was generally the worst meat out there, just very 0:09:41.645 --> 0:09:45.245 low grade. It was boiled, packed into cans and broth 0:09:46.005 --> 0:09:53.085 and then sterilized technically. And if you can believe it, 0:09:53.125 --> 0:09:56.925 the meatpacker bosses didn't really give a fuck about their workers. 0:09:57.525 --> 0:10:01.925 They were all about doing it fast. All the meatpacking 0:10:02.005 --> 0:10:05.165 plants weren't a part of Chicago that everyone called packing town. 0:10:05.965 --> 0:10:09.285 The plants were these huge, sprawling yards, and most of 0:10:09.325 --> 0:10:12.925 the laborers were immigrants working in these very dangerous and 0:10:13.005 --> 0:10:17.445 crowded conditions. The rooms were dark and unventilated, and they 0:10:17.445 --> 0:10:22.165 were paid atrociously mere pennies an hour. The only people 0:10:22.165 --> 0:10:24.325 who got a better wage were the people who did 0:10:24.365 --> 0:10:28.165 the pace setting, basically the managers on the floor who 0:10:28.165 --> 0:10:30.525 had just speed up the assembly lines so they had 0:10:30.565 --> 0:10:35.845 to work at a faster and faster rate. And because 0:10:35.885 --> 0:10:38.965 these meat packer dudes controlled so much of the production, 0:10:39.445 --> 0:10:42.885 they were able to set their own prices. A lot 0:10:42.925 --> 0:10:45.845 of muckraking journalists at the time were doing stories on 0:10:45.885 --> 0:10:49.445 them and called them the Beef Trust. I would have 0:10:49.525 --> 0:10:52.005 called them the Beefy and the piggy Boys, but that's 0:10:52.125 --> 0:10:56.685 just me. But yeah, as you can imagine, in these 0:10:56.765 --> 0:11:00.285 working conditions, nothing bad could ever happen with the meats. 0:11:01.285 --> 0:11:04.885 But anyway, back to the embalmed beef in the Spanish 0:11:04.885 --> 0:11:10.565 American Wars. President McKinley was taking these embalmed beef accusations 0:11:10.725 --> 0:11:14.485 very seriously, you know, because he was concerned about the 0:11:14.565 --> 0:11:17.485 quality of beef in his soldier's health. He was definitely 0:11:17.565 --> 0:11:20.085 not concerned about the fact that Congress might lose its 0:11:20.085 --> 0:11:23.085 Republican lead in the upcoming election if he didn't do 0:11:23.165 --> 0:11:27.365 anything about it. Anyway, McKinley set up a commission to investigate. 0:11:29.285 --> 0:11:33.005 They found a witness, Major General Nelson A. Miles, who 0:11:33.085 --> 0:11:36.285 was convinced that the beef had something injected into it 0:11:36.325 --> 0:11:39.405 that was making all the soldiers sick, and that the 0:11:39.405 --> 0:11:45.685 beef was being preserved with secret evil chemicals. Miles talked 0:11:45.685 --> 0:11:48.085 about the accounts of a doctor who was a chief 0:11:48.085 --> 0:11:51.605 surgeon with the army in Tampa. The doctor had seen 0:11:51.645 --> 0:11:54.365 a large hunk of meat hanging on the deck of 0:11:54.405 --> 0:11:57.005 a boat in the sun, and he said that after 0:11:57.165 --> 0:12:02.325 sixty hours, instead of it being brotten and decomposing, the 0:12:02.405 --> 0:12:05.325 meat looked fine, and he was like, that would have 0:12:05.325 --> 0:12:09.685 been impossible without the use of dangerous chemicals. The doctor 0:12:09.765 --> 0:12:12.925 also observed some other beef that had an odor similar 0:12:13.005 --> 0:12:17.525 to an involved human body, and when cooked, it tasted 0:12:17.605 --> 0:12:22.125 like decomposed boric acid, and some of the soldiers said 0:12:22.525 --> 0:12:32.965 it smelt like a bouquet of cesspools. Mmm. Miles report 0:12:33.165 --> 0:12:36.605 about what this doctor had seen made the Commissary General 0:12:36.725 --> 0:12:40.685 Charles Patrick Egan pissed because he was like, Wow, are 0:12:40.725 --> 0:12:44.125 you accusing me of buying poisoned beef for the army? 0:12:44.485 --> 0:12:47.645 Fuck you, Miles, you bitch ass cook. You're a goddang 0:12:47.725 --> 0:12:52.045 stupid ass liar. He didn't say that exactly, but he 0:12:52.165 --> 0:12:56.125 did use such foul language against Smiles that Egan got 0:12:56.205 --> 0:13:00.405 court martialed for conduct unbecoming of an officer and was 0:13:00.445 --> 0:13:05.445 suspended from the Army for six years. Whoopsies. Anyway, most 0:13:05.685 --> 0:13:08.325 of this meat had been provided by one of the 0:13:08.365 --> 0:13:14.005 beefy and piggy boys, Philip Armor, whose company was called 0:13:14.165 --> 0:13:16.885 Armor and Company. Can you believe it? He had sold 0:13:16.925 --> 0:13:19.245 five hundred thousand pounds of beef to the army in 0:13:19.285 --> 0:13:23.685 May eighteen ninety eight, and an Army inspector tested this 0:13:23.805 --> 0:13:26.925 meat specifically, and he found that there were seven hundred 0:13:26.965 --> 0:13:29.725 and fifty one cases of rotten meat. And then in 0:13:29.765 --> 0:13:32.285 the canned meat he found several tins that had been 0:13:32.325 --> 0:13:37.165 busted open and quote the effervescent futrid contents of which 0:13:37.205 --> 0:13:42.605 were distributed all over the cases. So, anyway, there is 0:13:42.605 --> 0:13:46.165 a bunch of various cases from soldiers to generals who 0:13:46.165 --> 0:13:49.405 were like, yeah, this beef was nasty, it smelled bad. 0:13:49.445 --> 0:13:53.725 There was probably something evil injected into it. Also, it's rotten. 0:13:53.805 --> 0:13:58.205 You gave us bad meat. But the meatpackers were like, actually, 0:13:58.285 --> 0:14:02.645 the refrigerator beef was fine. Y'all just didn't handle it properly. Yeah, 0:14:02.725 --> 0:14:05.885 y'all didn't have enough ice for the refrigeration. I heard 0:14:05.925 --> 0:14:08.805 that y'all transported the meat in wagons that had also 0:14:08.885 --> 0:14:12.765 transported manure and garbage and was crawling with maggots. So 0:14:12.845 --> 0:14:16.645 that's not our fault. You guys are dumb. Also, no, 0:14:16.845 --> 0:14:19.925 we didn't put dangerous chemicals in the canned meat. Who 0:14:19.925 --> 0:14:23.565 do you think we are? And actually, the meat packers 0:14:23.565 --> 0:14:26.605 did directly address that beef that was hanging up on 0:14:26.645 --> 0:14:28.885 the deck of the boat. They were like, yeah, we 0:14:28.965 --> 0:14:31.405 sent some cows that had some preservatives in them, but 0:14:31.485 --> 0:14:33.805 we were just doing an experiment. We weren't meaning for 0:14:33.805 --> 0:14:36.605 anyone to eat those beefs. We were just seeing what 0:14:36.605 --> 0:14:42.045 would happen. Okay. So, yet, no one can prove that 0:14:42.125 --> 0:14:45.485 harmful chemicals had been used to preserve the beef that 0:14:45.565 --> 0:14:48.885 were making the soldiers sick and die. What the studies 0:14:48.925 --> 0:14:52.685 did conclude was that maybe the beef wasn't poison it 0:14:52.725 --> 0:14:57.485 was just normal gross meat. You're getting nauseated not because 0:14:57.485 --> 0:15:02.285 it's poisoned, but because it tastes bad. Easy mistake. Also, 0:15:02.405 --> 0:15:05.085 through these investigations, it was becoming clear that a lot 0:15:05.125 --> 0:15:07.525 of the death and sickness during the war was due 0:15:07.565 --> 0:15:10.925 to unsanitary conditions at the army camps, which led to 0:15:11.005 --> 0:15:15.325 a lot of people getting typhoid fever. Like, for example, 0:15:15.325 --> 0:15:18.965 a one camp, all the soldiers were drinking well water 0:15:19.365 --> 0:15:22.245 that hadn't been boiled. But this well was within three 0:15:22.285 --> 0:15:25.725 feet of an outhouse. So basically people were getting sick 0:15:25.765 --> 0:15:28.485 not from beef, but from drinking their own shit. Aha, 0:15:28.525 --> 0:15:35.125 we love to hear it. So even despite these findings, 0:15:35.125 --> 0:15:36.765 a lot of people were still like, I don't trust 0:15:36.805 --> 0:15:39.205 the beefy and the piggy boys. I think something suspicious 0:15:39.245 --> 0:15:42.445 is going on. In nineteen oh three, a New York 0:15:42.445 --> 0:15:46.365 Times article quoted an official from the Association of Manufacturers 0:15:46.365 --> 0:15:49.725 and Distributors of Food Products that said quote, since the 0:15:49.765 --> 0:15:53.565 embalmed beef scandal after the Spanish American War, everyone has 0:15:53.645 --> 0:15:56.085 looked with doubt on any food which has been known 0:15:56.125 --> 0:15:59.405 to contain preservatives, and in general, at the turn of 0:15:59.405 --> 0:16:02.205 the twentieth century, people were more and more concerned about 0:16:02.205 --> 0:16:05.885 adultery in food. There was the pure foods movement. It 0:16:05.965 --> 0:16:08.845 was a hot button issue because you know, as cities 0:16:08.925 --> 0:16:12.445 populations were dramatically increasing, that meant that I was taking 0:16:12.485 --> 0:16:15.765 longer to transport enough food from farms to markets, so 0:16:15.845 --> 0:16:19.925 they needed solutions, hence preservatives. One of the main purveyers 0:16:19.925 --> 0:16:23.445 of the clean food movement was Harvey Washington Wiley, who 0:16:23.445 --> 0:16:26.445 became the chemist for the Secretary of Agriculture and eventually 0:16:26.485 --> 0:16:28.965 became the first Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. 0:16:29.445 --> 0:16:33.165 So interesting, but that's all later. But even Wiley had 0:16:33.205 --> 0:16:36.165 participated in the involved beef studies and he hadn't found 0:16:36.205 --> 0:16:39.765 any dangerous preservatives inside of the meat. So in the end, 0:16:39.845 --> 0:16:41.565 the meat packers were not at fault at all, and 0:16:41.605 --> 0:16:44.045 nothing bad has ever happened with American food. Everything is 0:16:44.085 --> 0:16:49.685 great haha. So yeah, the embalmed beef scandal, it does 0:16:49.725 --> 0:16:52.285 have a bit of an anti climactic ending, but that's 0:16:52.325 --> 0:16:55.605 not the end of the episode. People were still going 0:16:55.645 --> 0:17:00.725 after the meat packers, but it would take the work 0:17:00.765 --> 0:17:11.205 of an unsuccessful socialist writer to really make things change. Okay, 0:17:11.245 --> 0:17:12.685 I feel like probably most of you had to read 0:17:12.725 --> 0:17:15.405 The Jungle in high school, right right. It was written 0:17:15.405 --> 0:17:19.085 by Upton Sinclair, who later went on to write almost 0:17:19.125 --> 0:17:21.925 one hundred books, won the Pulitzer Prize YadA, YadA, YadA, 0:17:22.285 --> 0:17:25.685 but before that he was an unsuccessful loser like the 0:17:25.685 --> 0:17:29.165 rest of us. Sinclair was also getting into socialism at 0:17:29.165 --> 0:17:31.645 the time. He had joined the Socialist Party in nineteen 0:17:31.685 --> 0:17:35.205 oh three. He was like, yep, big corporations are evil. 0:17:35.445 --> 0:17:38.205 The government should take over the ownership of big business. 0:17:38.285 --> 0:17:41.725 I'm sick of this shit. He was inspired to go 0:17:41.725 --> 0:17:44.685 to Chicago when meat packing workers were on strike in 0:17:44.765 --> 0:17:48.885 nineteen oh four. But the big corporations, the Beefy and 0:17:48.925 --> 0:17:52.805 the piggy Boys, they just hired replacement workers who kept 0:17:52.805 --> 0:17:56.525 the businesses going, and so the strikers fell into poverty 0:17:56.565 --> 0:18:02.565 and lost everything. Sinclair went to Chicago incognito at the 0:18:02.605 --> 0:18:05.645 meat packing factories to see what was going on, and 0:18:05.685 --> 0:18:07.685 what he found was that it was nasty and gross, 0:18:08.165 --> 0:18:10.805 and the workers were treated terribly. What can you believe 0:18:10.845 --> 0:18:14.485 it a corporation treating its employees badly? Uh huh. Luckily 0:18:14.525 --> 0:18:17.765 it's nothing like that today. And here are some of 0:18:17.805 --> 0:18:20.565 the terrible things he observed at the meat packing plants 0:18:20.605 --> 0:18:23.205 that he included in the book. He found that the 0:18:23.205 --> 0:18:25.845 meat packing workers worked on assembly lines and moved at 0:18:25.845 --> 0:18:29.645 a dangerous pace, leading to bodily injuries like lost fingers 0:18:29.645 --> 0:18:33.085 and limbs. Men had to haul one hundred pound hunks 0:18:33.085 --> 0:18:36.365 of meat on their backs, which would lead to debilitating injuries. 0:18:37.245 --> 0:18:40.245 They are often sick. Sometimes they even had tuberculosis and 0:18:40.285 --> 0:18:43.485 would cough constantly and spit blood on the floor. And 0:18:43.565 --> 0:18:45.685 the thing is, if you got injured or sick on 0:18:45.765 --> 0:18:48.605 the job, the beeping the piggy boys didn't give a toot. 0:18:49.285 --> 0:18:53.845 No workers comped for you. And besides these grueling and 0:18:53.885 --> 0:18:57.245 hazardous work conditions, the sanitation and the meat packing plants 0:18:57.405 --> 0:19:01.685 was abysmal. There weren't enough toilets, so sometimes workers would 0:19:01.725 --> 0:19:04.365 just pee on the ground, and there was no soap 0:19:04.405 --> 0:19:08.565 or water to clean your hand ants anyway. Sinclair also 0:19:08.565 --> 0:19:12.685 wrote about how disease rotten and contaminated meat was still 0:19:12.765 --> 0:19:17.565 processed and then filled with harmful chemicals for preservation and 0:19:17.605 --> 0:19:23.165 then mislabeled when sold to the public. Mmmm. And after 0:19:23.165 --> 0:19:26.565 the meat was slaughtered, they just put it on the ground. 0:19:26.645 --> 0:19:29.405 And on the ground, remember there was urine and blood 0:19:29.565 --> 0:19:31.845 spit all over the floor, and then it would be 0:19:31.885 --> 0:19:35.965 transported around the plants and these carts that also had sawdust, rat, 0:19:36.045 --> 0:19:38.925 dung rat poison, and sometimes even dead rats in them, 0:19:39.845 --> 0:19:41.685 and then all of that was just tipped into the 0:19:41.685 --> 0:19:47.405 hoppers to make a canned meat and sausage yummy. And finally, 0:19:47.405 --> 0:19:51.325 the most disserving thing was sometimes workers would fall into 0:19:51.325 --> 0:19:55.285 the vats and when this happened, quote when they were 0:19:55.325 --> 0:19:57.845 fished out, there was never enough of them to be 0:19:58.045 --> 0:20:02.765 worth exhibiting. Sometimes they would be overlooked for days till 0:20:02.845 --> 0:20:05.325 all but the bones of them had gone out to 0:20:05.605 --> 0:20:13.725 the world as Durham's pure leaf lard. Anyway, Sinclair faced 0:20:13.765 --> 0:20:15.885 a lot of challenges when trying to publish The Jungle. 0:20:17.045 --> 0:20:20.365 At first, it was distributed as a serialized version that 0:20:20.485 --> 0:20:24.165 circulated in a socialist newspaper, and he had found a 0:20:24.165 --> 0:20:26.165 publisher who was going to print the whole thing as 0:20:26.165 --> 0:20:29.165 a novel, but then the company backed out because some 0:20:29.245 --> 0:20:31.645 of the claims in the novel were so salacious that 0:20:31.685 --> 0:20:33.445 they were like, uh, I don't want to put the 0:20:33.445 --> 0:20:36.045 bill for a lawsuit against the Beefy and the piggy boys. 0:20:38.165 --> 0:20:40.725 So Saint Clair started looking around for other publishers. He 0:20:40.805 --> 0:20:43.605 mostly got rejections, but then had a meeting with a 0:20:43.605 --> 0:20:47.965 publishing house called Doubleday, Page and Company. One of their 0:20:48.085 --> 0:20:51.245 editors had the book was fabuloso but also cuckoo crazy, 0:20:51.605 --> 0:20:53.805 so they wanted to get fact checked. They sent the 0:20:53.805 --> 0:20:57.045 manuscript to the Chicago Tribune and they were like, does 0:20:57.085 --> 0:21:00.405 this sound like it's for real. A representative from the 0:21:00.405 --> 0:21:03.285 Tribune wrote back and was like, this book is definitely 0:21:03.365 --> 0:21:07.445 cuckoo crazy and definitely not for real. But Saint Clair 0:21:07.525 --> 0:21:10.725 was like, h that's dumb. This is for real, And 0:21:10.765 --> 0:21:13.365 even the editors at the publishing house were like, yeah, 0:21:13.405 --> 0:21:16.325 it is kind of sus how much they are denying 0:21:16.365 --> 0:21:21.365 these claims. They sent like a multi page document. So 0:21:21.445 --> 0:21:23.885 then the publishing house had their own investigation into the 0:21:23.925 --> 0:21:26.885 Tribune and found that a publicist at the paper had 0:21:26.925 --> 0:21:30.245 written the critique and that that publicist worked for the 0:21:30.285 --> 0:21:36.125 meat packers. Uh, whoopsies. They decided to publish the book, 0:21:36.165 --> 0:21:39.165 but they also wanted Sinclair to make it less preachy 0:21:39.205 --> 0:21:42.925 about socialism, and Saint Clair, being so desperate at this point, 0:21:43.005 --> 0:21:44.845 was like, fine, I'll do it. So he cut about 0:21:44.885 --> 0:21:48.085 thirty thousand words like can you imagine how many social speeches? 0:21:48.125 --> 0:21:51.325 That was? And the book finally came out as a 0:21:51.365 --> 0:21:55.965 novel on February twenty six, nineteen oh six. In its 0:21:55.965 --> 0:21:58.605 first year alone, it sold more than one hundred and 0:21:58.645 --> 0:22:02.805 fifty thousand copies and was translated into seventeen languages and 0:22:02.925 --> 0:22:09.805 has since been forced upon every American high schooler. Saint 0:22:09.845 --> 0:22:12.005 Clair was stoked. He was like, hell, yeah, people are 0:22:12.045 --> 0:22:15.525 reading it. But he was also kind of upset because 0:22:15.525 --> 0:22:18.605 in the book, the main character loses everything because of 0:22:18.605 --> 0:22:21.125 the meat processing plant, but he finds hope at the 0:22:21.245 --> 0:22:24.645 end because of socialism, and that was Sinclair's main reason 0:22:24.645 --> 0:22:28.685 for writing it. But what the public latched onto wasn't socialism, 0:22:29.125 --> 0:22:32.445 but how all the meat was icky. Saint Clair was like, 0:22:32.525 --> 0:22:35.205 I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident, I 0:22:35.365 --> 0:22:40.445 hid it in the stomach. Sinclair's publishers and several other 0:22:40.485 --> 0:22:43.085 people send the novel to the President, who was now 0:22:43.165 --> 0:22:47.965 Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had actually been in the Spanish American 0:22:48.005 --> 0:22:51.525 War and really did think that beef was embalmed. He'd 0:22:51.565 --> 0:22:54.525 been a colonel in Cuba and he had testified about 0:22:54.525 --> 0:22:57.645 how gross the meat was. He said that he would 0:22:57.645 --> 0:22:59.765 have eaten his old hat as soon as he would 0:22:59.765 --> 0:23:03.445 have eaten embalmed the beef. So Roosevelt, like so much 0:23:03.525 --> 0:23:05.965 with the public, was like, yeah, that meat was trash. 0:23:06.245 --> 0:23:08.205 I don't care if you think it wasn't poisoned. There 0:23:08.245 --> 0:23:11.445 was something wrong with it. Roosevelt was far from being 0:23:11.485 --> 0:23:14.845 a socialist, but he was also anti trust. And at 0:23:14.885 --> 0:23:17.525 this point, the beef and piggy boys had created their 0:23:17.525 --> 0:23:21.525 own meat oligarchy, just reigning supreme, and Roosevelt thought it 0:23:21.605 --> 0:23:24.085 was sus because as the cost of labor and production 0:23:24.245 --> 0:23:28.405 was going down, the consumer price was going up. Roosevelt 0:23:28.405 --> 0:23:30.445 was like, no, no, no, I don't like that. I want 0:23:30.445 --> 0:23:35.365 to bust up this trust. So Roosevelt read The Jungle, 0:23:36.805 --> 0:23:39.685 or had someone at least summarize it for him, and 0:23:39.725 --> 0:23:42.085 at first he was like, yeah, okay, things might be 0:23:42.125 --> 0:23:44.605 bad at the meat packing plants, but this is a novel, 0:23:44.645 --> 0:23:47.045 not an article. We need to verify some of this info. 0:23:47.845 --> 0:23:51.165 So he also sent some investigators to the plants and 0:23:51.205 --> 0:23:54.285 they're like, hey, President, it's actually kind of worse than 0:23:54.285 --> 0:23:57.525 what the book says. One of the investigators saw a 0:23:57.565 --> 0:24:01.565 slaughtered hog fall into a toilet and then the workers 0:24:01.605 --> 0:24:04.285 just pulled the carcass out and without cleaning it, hung 0:24:04.325 --> 0:24:07.605 it back on the rack. Yum yam a diarrhea bacon. 0:24:12.965 --> 0:24:16.925 This book was exactly what Roosevelt wanted. It proved that 0:24:17.045 --> 0:24:20.725 legislation was necessary. Also, at this point in time, Europe 0:24:20.765 --> 0:24:23.765 was already like, we don't want this American meat. It's gross. 0:24:24.165 --> 0:24:26.125 And then once the Judgle came out, meat sales in 0:24:26.165 --> 0:24:30.085 the US were dropping. All around the country. People were 0:24:30.085 --> 0:24:32.805 writing to the White House and their legislators being like, 0:24:32.845 --> 0:24:35.165 there needs to be reformed, We need things to change. 0:24:36.125 --> 0:24:37.925 The meat needs to be inspected at every step of 0:24:37.965 --> 0:24:41.845 the process. So Roosevelt was like, brus, look how bad 0:24:41.845 --> 0:24:44.685 it is. We got to pass this legislation. And so 0:24:44.765 --> 0:24:48.485 in June nineteen oh six, Congress passed the Meat Inspection Act. 0:24:51.005 --> 0:24:54.685 This law authorized inspectors from the US Department of Agriculture 0:24:54.725 --> 0:24:57.765 to make sure that the meats weren't contaminated or mislabeled 0:24:57.765 --> 0:25:01.205 in any way. And the law also expanded federal government 0:25:01.285 --> 0:25:05.005 regulation of corporations and other private businesses. And then the 0:25:05.045 --> 0:25:07.445 same day that the Meat bill was passed, Congress also 0:25:07.485 --> 0:25:10.845 passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, which regulates food 0:25:10.845 --> 0:25:14.805 additives and prohibits misleading labels of food and drugs. And 0:25:14.845 --> 0:25:16.965 then this Act eventually led to the creation of the 0:25:16.965 --> 0:25:20.325 Food and Drug Administration and all this this was a 0:25:20.405 --> 0:25:23.045 huge deal because this was the first time that food 0:25:23.165 --> 0:25:27.285 was being regulated in the US. And so, yeah, today 0:25:27.765 --> 0:25:29.805 all of our food is safe to eat now and 0:25:29.845 --> 0:25:34.605 nothing ever goes wrong. Sure, according to the CDC, every 0:25:34.645 --> 0:25:36.885 year about forty eight million people in the US get 0:25:36.925 --> 0:25:40.245 sick from food born illnesses. But that's just like a 0:25:40.325 --> 0:25:45.285 six of Americans. We're fine anyway. What about the beefy 0:25:45.285 --> 0:25:49.845 and the pay boys, Well, obviously they weren't pleased with 0:25:49.845 --> 0:25:52.605