Speaker 1: School of Humans. It's nineteen sixteen in Chicago at the
Speaker 1: Hotel Blackstone's restaurant dining there is Edward R. West and
Speaker 1: Edward is the president of the CD greg T and
Speaker 1: Coffee Company, the largest importer of tea and coffee in
Speaker 1: the United States at the time. Yes, the tea and
Speaker 1: coffee game makes you the big bucks che ching. Edward's
Speaker 1: wife had died several years before, so you know, this
Speaker 1: evening he might have been out on the prowl looking
Speaker 1: for some a hot thing to soothe his pain, and
Speaker 1: he found someone. At the restaurant. He sees a beautiful
Speaker 1: young lady. One of the spiciest things about her is,
Speaker 1: according to one newspaper, she had let down her hair
Speaker 1: in a girlish fashion. Hot The Chicago Tribune said she
Speaker 1: was a small brunette, a distinct beauty with the look. Anyway,
Speaker 1: she sees Edward looking at her, and she's like, Hi,
Speaker 1: my name is Buddha, Godman, what's yours? And it seems
Speaker 1: that Edward was quickly seduced. He and Buddha started getting
Speaker 1: friendlier and friendlier and maybe engage in some hanky panky
Speaker 1: at some point over the course of their rendezvous. Buddha
Speaker 1: tells Edward about herself. She says she has independent means,
Speaker 1: a desire to see something of the world, and she
Speaker 1: was not averse to enjoying it in Edward's company. A
Speaker 1: little while later, Edward needs to go to New York
Speaker 1: on business. That's right, tea and coffee business, and Buddha's like,
Speaker 1: I want to go to New York. Please, you have
Speaker 1: that fancy packard car bad boy take me there. And
Speaker 1: Edward is hesitant at first. He says to a newspaper
Speaker 1: later that it was she and not I who proposed
Speaker 1: this trip. I hadn't thought of the significance of that
Speaker 1: until recently. I tried to persuade her out of it,
Speaker 1: but to no avail, so he finally succumbs to her
Speaker 1: plating and is like, Okay, Buddha, doll, I'll take it
Speaker 1: to the Big Apple. The pair travel in his car
Speaker 1: from Chicago and reached New York on May ninth, nineteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: Edward gets them a room at the Ansonia Hotel. A
Speaker 1: few hours later, they suddenly hear a heavy knock at
Speaker 1: the door. On the other side of the door, there
Speaker 1: are some men gruffly saying this is the law the
Speaker 1: United States Department of Justice. Let us in. Edward opens
Speaker 1: the door and three men strut in, flashing their badges
Speaker 1: and warrants. They're like, we all know about you, mister West.
Speaker 1: Bringing this young girl from Chicago to New York. That's
Speaker 1: crossing a state line, a lot of state lines. That's
Speaker 1: a federal offense. Buddy, You're violating the Man Act. And
Speaker 1: Edward is like, sweet Fanny Adams, Oh, tom Tit No,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be violating the Man Act. By
Speaker 1: the way, sweet Fanny Adams was a slang word that
Speaker 1: meant fuck all, and tom Tit meant shit. But anyway,
Speaker 1: Edward doesn't know it at the time, but he is
Speaker 1: being scammed. Cue the theme song. This is American Filth.
Speaker 1: I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy
Speaker 1: story from American history. Today's episode exploiting the Man Act.
Speaker 1: So our poor little man, Edward West, seems to have
Speaker 1: gotten himself in a bit of a pickle. So these scammers,
Speaker 1: disguised as law enforcement officers, tell Edward that he is
Speaker 1: violating the Man Act. And before we see what happens
Speaker 1: to him, let's do all the boring stuff and look
Speaker 1: at this law. What is it, you might ask, or
Speaker 1: perhaps you've heard of it, because that was what r.
Speaker 1: Kelly was charged with. But when the Man Act was
Speaker 1: passed in nineteen nineteen, it was passed to prevent white slavery. Yes,
Speaker 1: white slavery. Doesn't everyone love it when you bring that up.
Speaker 1: So in the early twentieth century there was a public panic.
Speaker 1: The progressive reformers at the time are like, our white
Speaker 1: girls and white women are getting kidnapped and being forced
Speaker 1: into prostitution. And yes, it's only a white woman problem.
Speaker 1: Black and brown women, it's not a problem at all.
Speaker 1: If you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. Anyway, Various people
Speaker 1: wrote pamphlet that said things like there are cartels and
Speaker 1: gangs preying upon young women, and people perpetrating white slavery
Speaker 1: are usually foreigners. Here's what the United States District Attorney
Speaker 1: in Chicago wrote. One thing should be made very clear
Speaker 1: to the girl who comes up to the city, and
Speaker 1: that is that the ordinary ice cream parlor is very
Speaker 1: likely to be a spider's web for her entanglement. This
Speaker 1: is perhaps especially true of those ice cream saloons and
Speaker 1: fruit stores kept by foreigners. Scores of cases are on
Speaker 1: record where young girls have taken their first steps towards
Speaker 1: white slavery in places of this character, ah, the ice
Speaker 1: cream shop. But was this a real problem that only
Speaker 1: affected white women. Absolutely not. What was happening at the
Speaker 1: turn of the century was industrialization, urbanization, all that jazz,
Speaker 1: and the progressives wanted social control. You know, they're coming
Speaker 1: out of this repressed Victorian era, and they were probably
Speaker 1: upset with the amount of social freedom people had. Now
Speaker 1: there were single people who are just out there doing courtship,
Speaker 1: messing around, maybe even freaking around without supervision and with
Speaker 1: whomever they wanted. I mean, that's all to an extent,
Speaker 1: of course. Also, a lot of cities at this point
Speaker 1: had their own red light districts, and so the progressives
Speaker 1: are like, I wonder if these women are being forced
Speaker 1: into prostitution, because why would anyone do this on purpose?
Speaker 1: So the Man Act, often called the White Slave Traffic Act,
Speaker 1: was passed in nineteen ten, and this federal law made
Speaker 1: it illegal to transport or cause the transport of women
Speaker 1: or girls over state lines for the purpose of prostitution
Speaker 1: or debauchery, or any other immoral purpose. And here's the tea.
Speaker 1: It was quite hard to define what a moral purpose was,
Speaker 1: so the Man Act was often used to prosecute anyone
Speaker 1: who was doing sex that the progressive reformers didn't like,
Speaker 1: like some of the punishment made sense, you know, like
Speaker 1: dudes having sex with underage gals. But the Man Act
Speaker 1: was also used to prosecute people who were having pre
Speaker 1: marital sex, extramarital sex, or interracial relationships. Like in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: the boxer Jack Johnson was arrested for violating the Man Act,
Speaker 1: but he was targeted because he was black and sometimes
Speaker 1: had sexual relationships with white women. One of the cases
Speaker 1: that reached the Supreme Court was in nineteen seventeen, and
Speaker 1: here there were two men who took their mistresses from
Speaker 1: Sacramento to Reno. The two men were convicted, and the
Speaker 1: decision basically was like, even consensual extramarital affairs could be prosecuted,
Speaker 1: So if you're trying to get some extramarital sex, best
Speaker 1: keep it local. And so the Man Act had a
Speaker 1: lot of dudes shaking in their boots. They're like, you
Speaker 1: can't do anything anymore. Some dudes were even scared of,
Speaker 1: like what if I have to take my secretary with
Speaker 1: me on a business trip. Can I take her across
Speaker 1: state lines? But a lot of other people also thought
Speaker 1: that the Man Act kind of sucked. For example, The
Speaker 1: New York Times wrote a sassy article about the Man
Speaker 1: Act with the headline government aid to blackmailer, and the
Speaker 1: article had said, the Man Law is chiefly a bid
Speaker 1: for blackmail and serves no other purpose worth mentioning. That's right,
Speaker 1: They're like, the Man Act isn't helping any white women
Speaker 1: who are being sex trafficked. Instead, the Act is just
Speaker 1: inciting crime. Gangs across the country were using the Man
Speaker 1: Act to their advantage because it was a great way
Speaker 1: to exploit people through blackmail. One of the group's running
Speaker 1: scams was the Collins Gang in Chicago, run by the
Speaker 1: charismatic con man dapper Don Collins. The New York Times
Speaker 1: described him as a handsome, clean cut young man of
Speaker 1: refined appearance. In his short life, he'd already done several
Speaker 1: cons across the world. He'd already been in prison. He
Speaker 1: seduced a lot of women. He even caused a woman
Speaker 1: to try to kill herself by jumping out of a window. Wow.
Speaker 1: Super hot and manipulative, my type. The extortion tactic his
Speaker 1: gang and others used is called badger gaming. Basically, you
Speaker 1: trick someone into a compromising position and then be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, we caught you in this compromising position.
Speaker 1: If you don't give us money, we're gonna tell on
Speaker 1: you for the man act. Specifically, here's the scheme. Find
Speaker 1: a rich dude, send in a hot lady. She'll be like, hey,
Speaker 1: wealthy man, let's go somewhere across state lines. And then
Speaker 1: her cronies will pretend to be law enforcement and be like, wow,
Speaker 1: I see you just took that lady across state lines.
Speaker 1: You are a bad boy. Give us money or we
Speaker 1: will send you to prison. And so you always needed
Speaker 1: a hot woman to get the badger. And in Edward
Speaker 1: West case, the badger trapper was Buddha Godmin, that lady
Speaker 1: he had been hanging out with. We'll be right back
Speaker 1: after these soothing advertisements. Buddha Godmin was born in Queens,
Speaker 1: but she mostly grew up in Chicago. Her dad was
Speaker 1: a racetrack sheet writer and she was his only kid,
Speaker 1: and her dad had high hopes for her future. This
Speaker 1: is what he said about her. Her high spirit and
Speaker 1: gentle way made her even less predictable than horses. But
Speaker 1: because he worked in gambling, he was often around pretty
Speaker 1: shady people, and he was like, I don't want my
Speaker 1: daughter to be thus polluted. So he sent her to
Speaker 1: a convent boarding school when she was fifteen in Adrian, Michigan.
Speaker 1: But Buddha wasn't going to be tied down by a
Speaker 1: bunch of nuns. Remember, she's less predictionle than a horse.
Speaker 1: So she came back to Chicago. And it's been mentioned
Speaker 1: several times, but one of the few things people actually
Speaker 1: said about Buddha was that she was hot, Because did
Speaker 1: you know that a woman is only defined by her appearance? Oh,
Speaker 1: in this book called Chicago Confidential, here's how they described her.
Speaker 1: Before maturity, she stopped traffic on the streets. She was petite,
Speaker 1: a wee trifle, plumpish, with big steel blue eyes, a
Speaker 1: top tilted nose, an oval face with a dimple chin,
Speaker 1: a pee wee mouth, and tiny hands and feet. Yes,
Speaker 1: isn't that what we always say about beauty. It's important
Speaker 1: to have tiny hands and itchy, bitchy feet. Back home
Speaker 1: in Chicago, she met Tell Taylor and Tell Well he
Speaker 1: was a small time a ham. He was a songwriter,
Speaker 1: and his only acclaim was the hit down by the
Speaker 1: old mill Stream, which was allegedly about Buddha telling Buddha
Speaker 1: got married and he was able to get them jobs
Speaker 1: in this theater production called at the time, The Place
Speaker 1: and the Girl from There. Buddha hit the theater scene hard.
Speaker 1: Everyone was like, damn, who is this chick married to lose?
Speaker 1: Or tell? She's hot stuff? But with all this attention,
Speaker 1: Buddha Intel's relationships started falling apart. Let's just say that
Speaker 1: Tell seemed a bit possessive. He got so mad at
Speaker 1: Buddha for all her flirtations and possible cheating. Whoops that
Speaker 1: allegedly he tried to kill her. Yeah, he tried to
Speaker 1: shoot her with a gun, but he missed, so instead
Speaker 1: he was like, I guess we should just get divorced.
Speaker 1: And apparently he was so mad at the divorce proceedings
Speaker 1: that he left before finishing his testimony. During that he said,
Speaker 1: I married Buddha when we were both drunk, and I
Speaker 1: found out she was quite in case, capable of loyalty
Speaker 1: to anyone. And just a little side note, I was
Speaker 1: unable to actually verify this divorce story about him trying
Speaker 1: to kill her with a gun. It's just that book
Speaker 1: Chicago Confidential, even though it was written by journalists. Apparently
Speaker 1: you don't need to tell the truth and substantiate facts sometimes,
Speaker 1: did you know? You can just make history up sometimes.
Speaker 1: So possibly Tell tried to shoot her, or maybe he
Speaker 1: was just tired of being with her because she was
Speaker 1: so flirty with other people. Also, he sounds kind of
Speaker 1: like a downer anyway. At the time, Buddha was also
Speaker 1: hanging out with some of her dad's shady associates and
Speaker 1: other nefarious gents in Chicago, and that's how she met
Speaker 1: Hotti con man dapper Don Collins. It appears that they
Speaker 1: had some sexual entanglements, and then she had some other
Speaker 1: various entanglements with some of his cronies, like this guy
Speaker 1: Jimmy Christian, who some newspaper said was her husband. But
Speaker 1: despite her relationships, we know now that Buddha has entered
Speaker 1: a life of crime and she is the perfect badger trapper.
Speaker 1: So let's get back to the badger game featuring coffee
Speaker 1: and tea man Edward West. We're back in a hotel
Speaker 1: in New York City and three law enforcement officers are
Speaker 1: accusing Edward of violating the man act and one of
Speaker 1: the goons dressed up as law enforcement is in fact,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Christian and Edward West is quite incredulous about what
Speaker 1: was happening. He later described what happened in a newspaper interview.
Speaker 1: He said, I denounced this as an outrage and demanded
Speaker 1: the privilege of consulting an attorney. They said I would
Speaker 1: go to jail at once, as would Buddha, Godman. She
Speaker 1: became hysterical. She said she was a convent breed girl,
Speaker 1: that her parents would commit suicide over the disgrace, and
Speaker 1: that the whole world would brand her with an everlasting
Speaker 1: shame that would make her a society outcast forever. She said,
Speaker 1: it was all right for me, a man, to talk
Speaker 1: of fighting them, for society would forgive a man where
Speaker 1: it would not forgive a woman. She asked the men
Speaker 1: what she could do to save herself from disgrace, and
Speaker 1: the question of money was quickly broached. So Edward agrees
Speaker 1: to pay them, but he doesn't have large sums of
Speaker 1: cash on him at the time. So Jimmy Christian and
Speaker 1: the other two guys force Edward and Buddha into a
Speaker 1: car and bring them back to Chicago. They pull into
Speaker 1: the Alexandria Hotel and the disguise law enforcement agents say,
Speaker 1: this is where the US Commissioner, Attorney and DA are staying,
Speaker 1: and this is where they keep their high class prisoners.
Speaker 1: So they keep Edward and Buddha in a hotel room
Speaker 1: for three or four days as prisoners, and they keep saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're having some new negotiations going on. We'll tell you
Speaker 1: what's up soon. And yes, listener, you might be like,
Speaker 1: why didn't Edward realize this was a scam. Well, there
Speaker 1: are people out there like me who are very gullible.
Speaker 1: Like one time I thought I was going to go
Speaker 1: to prison because someone called me and said I had
Speaker 1: missed jury duty and I need to give them one
Speaker 1: thousand dollars immediately. And the thing is, I don't check
Speaker 1: my mail, so I was like, yeah, I could have
Speaker 1: missed it. I don't know. I don't look at letters. Anyway.
Speaker 1: To his credit, in the hotel, Edward might have been
Speaker 1: having a creepying suspicion that something isn't right, but he
Speaker 1: thinks he's being chivalrous. He had to get pretty Buddha
Speaker 1: out of the situation. No matter what, Edward said later,
Speaker 1: I believed her to be of the unimpeachable reputation she
Speaker 1: had represented herself to be. So he pays the scammers
Speaker 1: the money twelve five hundred dollars when Buddha is finally released,
Speaker 1: and then another twenty five hundred after he's released. But
Speaker 1: after he gives up the money, Edward West fully realizes
Speaker 1: he just got scammed, and Edward he is not alone.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixteen, a paper ran an article with the
Speaker 1: headline government extends at search for love pirates. This was
Speaker 1: happening to a lot of people, and the Collins Gang, well,
Speaker 1: they are already on the government's radar and the real
Speaker 1: law enforcement officers. They're trying to find a case that
Speaker 1: can get the gang members indicted. Edward goes to the
Speaker 1: office of a detective named William C. Dannenberg, and Dannenberg
Speaker 1: is one of the founders of the Bureau of Identification,
Speaker 1: which eventually became the FBI. Edward is really embarrassed that
Speaker 1: he fell for this ruse, and he's heartbroken. He's like,
Speaker 1: I've been betrayed by the girl I love. I've been
Speaker 1: duped by a ring of extortionist of which she's a member.
Speaker 1: They are making a mockery of the Man Act. Oh no,
Speaker 1: not a mockery of the Man Act. But Dandenberg is
Speaker 1: excited about this case because he's like, finally I have
Speaker 1: enough evidence to indict these guys and gal. So he
Speaker 1: rounds up several of the con men, including Buddha and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Christian. And Buddha she's not even really concerned about
Speaker 1: being arrested. She says very condescendingly to the district attorney, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's going to happen to poor little me? Her bail
Speaker 1: is said it ten thousand dollars. But she doesn't stay
Speaker 1: in jail for long. She has two friends who bail
Speaker 1: her out and then she runs away from Chicago. But
Speaker 1: Jimmy Christian, he doesn't get the chance to escape. He
Speaker 1: pleads guilty in his sentence to eighteen months in prison.
Speaker 1: During the trial, he insists that Buddha was innocent. He
Speaker 1: was like, she was a tool we were using, and
Speaker 1: allegedly when Buddha heard about this, she was like, why
Speaker 1: that handsome sucker? Dapperdon Collins is eventually rounded up as well,
Speaker 1: and he's held on a fifty thousand dollars bail, But
Speaker 1: the case they got Collins rounded up. Was submitted by
Speaker 1: a woman named missus J Bolton Winpenny. She was like,
Speaker 1: this guy blackmailed me for eight thousand dollars at nineteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: Get his ass anyway, Collins was found guilty of extortion
Speaker 1: and was sent to Sing Sing prison for two years.
Speaker 1: And after he arrested all these people, Dannenberg is quite
Speaker 1: pleased with himself. He even thanks Buddha Godman for her
Speaker 1: participation in the scheme. He said she did more to
Speaker 1: eliminate the Man Act as a tool of the blackmailers
Speaker 1: and to preserve its intended value you to society than
Speaker 1: did any of the professional reformers. I will always be
Speaker 1: grateful to her and her showing the Man Acts weaknesses
Speaker 1: by her distortion of its provisions to meet her own ends.
Speaker 1: He's like, oh my god, yeah, because you blackmailed. You
Speaker 1: showed us like how the Act is weak and how
Speaker 1: we can make it better. Meanwhile, Edward West turns to
Speaker 1: the press to warn well meaning gents who are seduced
Speaker 1: by little ladies on how to avoid these sort of plots.
Speaker 1: He says, I have decided to sacrifice my personal humiliation
Speaker 1: in this case for the sake of others men or
Speaker 1: women who may innocently be drawn into the same unfortunate
Speaker 1: situation as I was personally, I am not afraid. Buddha
Speaker 1: keeps doing some nefarious stuff. She moves to Havana and
Speaker 1: that's where she meets Charles Stoneham, who is the owner
Speaker 1: of the New York Giants. He is very rich. They
Speaker 1: had some hanky panky too, and he is so besauded
Speaker 1: by her that he's like, hey, come with in New York.
Speaker 1: I'll give you an apartment on Park Avenue. There she
Speaker 1: has a lot of parties with cool people, like some
Speaker 1: actors and some criminals, and they all hang out and
Speaker 1: have a good time. And even with these luxuries, Buddha
Speaker 1: keeps doing some crime. In nineteen thirty two, when she's
Speaker 1: about forty five years old, she organizes a three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars jewelry heist, but the New York police stop
Speaker 1: Buddha inside of a cab and they find all of
Speaker 1: the stolen gems. She plays guilty at that trial and
Speaker 1: ends up serving four to eight years in Auburn prison.
Speaker 1: But the biggest sin that she committed in her life,
Speaker 1: according to the book Chicago confidential was that when she
Speaker 1: was arrested, she had turned white haired and fat, and
Speaker 1: no matter what Buddha Godman had done, she should have
Speaker 1: never grown old and never more than chubby, which became
Speaker 1: her when she was most ravishing. So isn't that the
Speaker 1: lesson we learn on today's episode of American Filth that ladies,
Speaker 1: no matter what you've done, either committing fraud, extorting people, whatever,
Speaker 1: you don't deserve to be fat. I love men hue
Speaker 1: the credits. American Filth is a production of School of
Speaker 1: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It is hosted, written, and sound
Speaker 1: designed by Me Gabby Wants. Our theme song is by
Speaker 1: me and Jesse Niswanger. Our executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 1: Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr. Please follow along with the
Speaker 1: pod on Instagram at American Filth Pod, and you can
Speaker 1: also leaves a review, subscribe, share it with your friends,
Speaker 1: Make your friends listen. If they don't, I'm gonna send
Speaker 1: Buddha Godman on them. I mean she's dead, but that's
Speaker 1: gonna be even creepier if there's a corpse. Okay, talk
Speaker 1: at you next week. Bye. School of Humans.