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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: James Stanford, she embarrasses the university a great deal because

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Speaker 2: the university is trying to be a respectable new research university,

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Speaker 2: and at the same time, the founder of the university

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Speaker 2: and the person for all practical purposes in charge of

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Speaker 2: his finances is consulting with mediums, as she attracted a

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Speaker 2: lot of mediums.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical

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Speaker 1: true crime podcast tenfold More Wicked and the co host

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Speaker 1: of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled

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Speaker 1: around the world interviewing people for the show, and they

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Speaker 1: are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true

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Speaker 1: crime stories, and now we want to tell you those

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Speaker 1: stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More

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Speaker 1: Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make,

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Speaker 1: good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories

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Speaker 1: behind the stories. Stanford University's co founder, Jane Stanford, was

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Speaker 1: a mess. Her husband and beloved son were dead. Stanford's

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Speaker 1: officials despised her Jane abused her servants, and then she

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Speaker 1: was murdered. Author and Stanford professor doctor Richard White tells

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Speaker 1: us about the wealthy eccentric's troubled legacy and her mysterious death.

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Speaker 1: One review that just popped out at me said simply

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Speaker 1: that Jane Stanford was a mess. And that seems like

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Speaker 1: a really apt way to start this conversation. As the

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Speaker 1: person that we're talking about, let's start from her beginning

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Speaker 1: wherever you think it makes senses, At her as a child,

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Speaker 1: how she grew up.

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Speaker 2: She grew up in upstate New York. She was not

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Speaker 2: boy wealthy, She's from middle class circumstances. She marries Leland

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Speaker 2: Stanford Senior, and Leland Stafford Senior is at the time

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Speaker 2: a lawyer. He comes to California. He's in the gold Rush.

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Speaker 2: He's not successful in the gold Rush. He's not successful

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Speaker 2: at much of anything until he falls in with Colline P.

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Speaker 2: Huntington and Collins P. Huntington brings Leland Stanford along with

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Speaker 2: him and for shopkeepers become the associates. What they do

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Speaker 2: is they have no money, so they're operating on borrowed money.

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Speaker 2: I mean many ways, it's a silicon Valley store. These

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Speaker 2: guys don't have the money, but they are very good

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Speaker 2: at getting subsidies, and they are very good at getting

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Speaker 2: investors initially, and so more and more often. This is

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Speaker 2: a paper enterprise that put very little money into it,

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Speaker 2: but on paper it becomes worth more and more. It's

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Speaker 2: the Central Pacific Railroad, so it's always on the edge

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Speaker 2: of breaking up and falling apart, but on paper it's

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Speaker 2: always worth a lot of money. The goal is is

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Speaker 2: somebody else who could collapse will be left holding the bag,

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Speaker 2: not these guys. So they begin to get a paper fortune,

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Speaker 2: but it is a paper Fortune's the kind of fortunes

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Speaker 2: that we've seen all the time. Now they're very rich

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Speaker 2: one day, the next day the whole thing can collapse

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Speaker 2: on them.

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Speaker 1: So Leland and Jane meet. What was their dynamic as

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Speaker 1: a couple when they first got together, maybe even before

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Speaker 1: they had Leland junior.

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Speaker 2: Leland is in California by himself for three years, so

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Speaker 2: there's a three year separation in their marriage. Then Jane

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Speaker 2: comes out. Their dynamic is, you know, they're upstate New York,

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Speaker 2: lower middle class Protestants. They are not exciting people, but

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Speaker 2: they are ambitious. Jane herself will become more and more

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Speaker 2: of a feminist. But these people are full of contradictions.

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Speaker 2: Jane Stanford is a feminist who wants women in the university,

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Speaker 2: and by the end of her life she's trying to

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Speaker 2: purge women from the university. Leland Stanford thinks of himself

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Speaker 2: as a self made man, but all his money comes

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Speaker 2: from being able to get loans from the federal government

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Speaker 2: and be able to achieat stockholders. So everything you look

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Speaker 2: at with them, the way they make their money, their ideals,

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Speaker 2: they're full of contradictions, which makes them really quite interesting

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Speaker 2: people in some ways. So by this time they're living

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Speaker 2: in a mansion in knob Hill, that's where Leland Stanford

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Speaker 2: Junior grows up. They have another house in Palo Alto.

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Speaker 2: These are Gilded Age mansions, the kind of things that

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Speaker 2: you'd see in New York City, the kinds of things

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Speaker 2: you'd see in Rhode Island. They are ostentatious in their

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Speaker 2: displays of wealth. They are clearly among the richest people

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Speaker 2: in San Francisco, and they are also increasingly widely hated.

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Speaker 1: Why just because of the amount of money that they're

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Speaker 1: spreading around. Because this is what late eighteen hundreds.

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Speaker 2: At this point, it's the late eighteen hundreds is they're

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Speaker 2: hated largely because their wealth is seen as coming into

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Speaker 2: the expensive California's growth that they see as being exploit

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Speaker 2: In California, Leland is seen as a monopolist along with

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Speaker 2: his associates, and what's good for Leland Stanford is not

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Speaker 2: necessarily good for California. So he becomes more and more

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Speaker 2: a figure who is scorned, particularly by working class people.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time he corrupts San Francisco politics

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Speaker 2: and he corrupts California politics. He becomes a political boss,

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Speaker 2: he becomes governor of California, so he's somebody who shows

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Speaker 2: the power of money to corrupt.

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Speaker 1: So late eighteen hundreds is his main enterprise, the Central

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Speaker 1: Pacific Railroad. At this point he is the.

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Speaker 2: President of the Southern Pacific. He's a figurehead. And the

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Speaker 2: same row the Southern Pacific gones to Central Pacific. So

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Speaker 2: all of this becomes quite complicated because college be Huntington,

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Speaker 2: who lives in New York, who's the money man, is

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Speaker 2: the real figure behind it, but the figurehead is Leland Stamford,

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Speaker 2: and Leland Stafford lives in California, lives in San Francisco,

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Speaker 2: lives in the knob Hill Mansion.

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Speaker 1: So in the late eighteen hundreds, when Jane and Leland

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Speaker 1: Junior and Leland Senior in knob Hill, what is Jane doing?

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Speaker 1: Is she a household manager or is she doing anything

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Speaker 1: that's altruistic volunteering.

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Speaker 2: Jane Stamford is busy being rich.

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Speaker 1: Was spending money.

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Speaker 2: Okay, she spends a lot of money, and she dotes

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Speaker 2: on her son, and they treat their son more as

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Speaker 2: a companion than as a child. James Stamford will take

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Speaker 2: him to Europe. Jane Stanford during this time, it's you know,

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Speaker 2: it's hard to see. I don't want to psychoanalyze somebody

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Speaker 2: who I haven't ever known personally, and there's no record

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Speaker 2: of what she was like. But I do know at

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Speaker 2: this period she comes almost immobile. She seems like she

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Speaker 2: would be depressed. She seems to be confined in a

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Speaker 2: narrow or a narrower life. And even if she becomes

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Speaker 2: richer and richer, and much of her life is going

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Speaker 2: to be live vicariously through her son, she has huge

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Speaker 2: ambitions through her son. He's a precocious child, he's a

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Speaker 2: spoiled child, and he quite literally will get anything that

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Speaker 2: he wants. So to understand Jane Stamford, you have to

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Speaker 2: understand her devotion to Leland Stamford Junior, and that's what's

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Speaker 2: going to make her so vulnerable when he dies. An

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Speaker 2: only child, but more than just an only child, this

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Speaker 2: is a child she has invested her whole life in.

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Speaker 1: When does he die and how does he die? At

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Speaker 1: age fourteen, he.

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Speaker 2: Dies of typhoid in the early eighteen eighties in Florence.

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Speaker 2: He dies with his parents. His father is sitting by

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Speaker 2: the bedside and they both have a nervous breakdown. Jane

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Speaker 2: is going to have a nervous breakdown. Then Leland is

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Speaker 2: going to have a nervous breakdown. And this is where

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Speaker 2: it gets a little creepy. They can't bear to bury him.

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Speaker 2: They carry his body with him first to Paris, then

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Speaker 2: to New York City, then all the way across the country.

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Speaker 2: So there's going to be these long trips with the

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Speaker 2: dead Leland Junior accompanying the parents on this long funeral

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Speaker 2: trip which will end up back at Palo Alto on

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Speaker 2: the Palo Alto estate with the memorial service in San Francisco,

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Speaker 2: so it's a long, very very sad and in some

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Speaker 2: ways a little creepy story even for the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 1: So Leland Junior has died in the early eighteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: and now Leland Senior is sick.

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Speaker 2: He's sick, he's a sick and they go back to Europe.

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Speaker 2: They go back even around the places where they've been

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Speaker 2: with Leland Junior. Now they go back on a trip

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Speaker 2: where they visit places they'd known when he was alive.

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Speaker 2: And meanwhile Leland Senior is getting sicker and sicker the

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Speaker 2: whole time. And Leland Senior had a dream about Leland

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Speaker 2: Junior who had told him to found a university so

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Speaker 2: that the children of California to get the same advantages

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Speaker 2: that he'd had. And around this they begin to decide

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Speaker 2: that they're going to found Stanford University. At the same time,

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Speaker 2: when they're back in the United States, Ulysses S. Grant,

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Speaker 2: who's now an ex president, and his wife, they're both spiritualists.

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Speaker 2: They're consulting spiritualists in New York. The line between spiritualism

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Speaker 2: and the Protestant ministry can be a thin one. They're

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Speaker 2: considering ministers, and so while they're doing all of these

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Speaker 2: things before Leland's death. They're preparing to found the university,

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Speaker 2: and Leland Senior will set this in motion. But he's

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Speaker 2: the university has only been open about a year. When

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Speaker 2: he will die.

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Speaker 1: Let me ask a very naive question. He's still rich

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Speaker 1: on paper, right, How are we founding a university when

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Speaker 1: there's this sort of house of cards where he has

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Speaker 1: no actual money to build an institution, higher faculty. How

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Speaker 1: was that even possible?

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Speaker 2: You borrow it?

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Speaker 1: Nope, Welcome to the early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds.

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Speaker 2: Essentially, what Leland Stanford did was he took three estates

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Speaker 2: and donated them to the university. One of them is

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Speaker 2: going to be the estate in which it's founded. The

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Speaker 2: problem with those estates is they have absolutely no income.

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Speaker 2: As one of the early trustees said, all that he

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Speaker 2: gave us was the taxes. So they owe taxes on

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Speaker 2: these things, but they're not producing income to produce the buildings.

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Speaker 2: He goes into what's a slush fund from the Pacific

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Speaker 2: Improvement Company, which is a slush fund of the associates

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Speaker 2: where they drain money out of the Southern Pacific Railroad,

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Speaker 2: and he borrows from that and he uses that borrowed

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Speaker 2: money to begin setting up the buildings and to build

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Speaker 2: the faculty. So when David starred Jordan the first present

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Speaker 2: and comes, he thinks he's getting this huge fortune. And

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Speaker 2: he arrives there and he finds out he has barred

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Speaker 2: money to pay the faculty. He has a lot of

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Speaker 2: land which cannot be sold in which really is draining

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Speaker 2: out taxes. He has a giant horse farm which raised

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Speaker 2: the successful trotting horses, but which doesn't make a lot

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Speaker 2: of money. But he has the promise that at a

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Speaker 2: certain point the entire Stanford fortune will be left to

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Speaker 2: the university. So Stanford University is founded on promises.

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Speaker 1: A money pit. That's what it sounds like. It sounds

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Speaker 1: like a big money pit.

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Speaker 2: That's a good enough analogy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So you are contending that Leland has done all

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Speaker 1: of this essentially on his deathbed, based on a dream.

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Speaker 1: I know that's what started it. But did he anticipate

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Speaker 1: this being a legacy or this was really connected to

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Speaker 1: his son more than anything both.

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Speaker 2: It's connected with his son. But as Charles Elliott, the

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Speaker 2: president of Harvard says, and he's not alone in saying this,

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Speaker 2: that he considered Stanford University the personal monument for an

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Speaker 2: ill gotten fortune. It's a way of using money, essentially,

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Speaker 2: it's been stolen to commemorate the family. It's not that

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Speaker 2: dissimilar to a lot of donations to a lot of

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Speaker 2: institutions which you don't want to look really closely at

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Speaker 2: where this money came from. And what is setting up

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Speaker 2: is a personal monument in Stanford University in his early

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Speaker 2: days is a personal monument to the Stanford family. All

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Speaker 2: the big buildings, many of which came down in the earthquake,

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Speaker 2: were monuments to the Stanfords.

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Speaker 1: So they're spending their time between San Francisco and Palo Alto.

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Speaker 1: Do they move down there permanently before he dies down

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Speaker 1: to where Stanford is.

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Speaker 2: They still alternate between both houses. After Leland dies, Jane

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Speaker 2: will travel more and more because both houses remind her

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Speaker 2: too much of her dead husband and her dead son.

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Speaker 2: But at the same time she wants to get her

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Speaker 2: dead husband and her dead son to communicate with them,

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Speaker 2: so they will spend more time at the Palo altoa

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Speaker 2: state founding the university. But they still have this immense mansion.

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Speaker 2: It looks like a all village up on knob Hill.

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Speaker 1: Does Jane really feel strongly about higher education. This just

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Speaker 1: seems so contradictory to her personality. Was she just going

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Speaker 1: along with Leland or they were in united fronts with

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Speaker 1: all of this. They felt like they were going to

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Speaker 1: leave behind something good.

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Speaker 2: They're a united front. They believe in education of a

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Speaker 2: certain kind. I mean, Jane Stanford despises elite education. She

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Speaker 2: despises Harvard, Yale, Princeton, in part because they tried to

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Speaker 2: hire presidents of these places, Cornell to be head of

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Speaker 2: Stamford and they'd failed to do it. They say, this

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Speaker 2: is going to be a different kind of university. There's

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Speaker 2: gonna be a hands on university. This is going to

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Speaker 2: be a university for the betterment of humankind. It's going

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Speaker 2: to be a university whi's going to teach practical skills

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Speaker 2: and that's where their fortune is going to go. And

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Speaker 2: she sort of believes in this, but if she gets

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Speaker 2: more and more interested in spiritualism, she begins and this

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Speaker 2: is after her husband's death, shifts the focus of the university,

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Speaker 2: thinking that they really should be the education of the soul.

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Speaker 2: What they believe is the soul is eternal and it's

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Speaker 2: educated even after your death. So when you're getting soul education,

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Speaker 2: it begins when you're a human, but after you die,

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Speaker 2: your soul will continue to grow, and so the education

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Speaker 2: should just be a small part of what's going to

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Speaker 2: be a long standing education. And she just says that

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Speaker 2: the faculty doesn't seem to recognize the importance of educating

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Speaker 2: the soul. And she is right. The faculty does not

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Speaker 2: recognize the importance of educating the soul. They think they're

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Speaker 2: just giving a normal education for humanity sciences and social sciences.

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Speaker 1: So Leland dies in what year? When does he die?

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Speaker 1: And it's just of poor health in general, pneumonia or

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Speaker 1: something like that.

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Speaker 2: Eighteen ninety three, and it's going to be this heart

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Speaker 2: will give out, that a lot of things are giving out.

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Speaker 2: He has gout. I mean, he's a very sick man.

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Speaker 1: Okay. So if I were Jane and my husband, who

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Speaker 1: was incredibly wealthy and the only source of income in

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Speaker 1: the family, had done I'm not sure I would be

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Speaker 1: that enthusiastic about then turning over more money that could

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Speaker 1: be limited to a university. What is her thinking here?

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Speaker 1: Is she not panicked or is there just so much

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Speaker 1: money left behind that it's okay?

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Speaker 2: She does not know at this stage what the fortune

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Speaker 2: consists of. What she knows is that she owns a

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Speaker 2: one quarter share in one of the most powerful corporations

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Speaker 2: in America, the Southern Pacific Railroad, and that he is

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Speaker 2: also siphoned off and has a lot of other money.

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Speaker 2: But she has no knowledge of the details of this.

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Speaker 2: She is somebody who on paper, she can look at

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Speaker 2: it and say, oh, Southern Pacific stock, My share of

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Speaker 2: that is going to be forty million dollars, which is

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Speaker 2: a huge amount of money at the time, But it's

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Speaker 2: only forty million dollars if you can sell it for

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Speaker 2: forty million dollars. And in fact that it's not sure

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Speaker 2: at all what that stock is going to be worth.

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Speaker 2: And after his death there's going to be the Panic

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Speaker 2: of eighteen ninety six, the depression of eighteen ninety six,

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Speaker 2: and the Southern Pacific Railroad nearly goes bankrupt. It appears

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Speaker 2: that not only is Stanford University going to have to

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Speaker 2: close down, but the Jane Stanford is going to lose

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Speaker 2: her entire fortune. And on top of that, the federal

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Speaker 2: government says, wait a minute, a lot of this money

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Speaker 2: in the Southern Pacific Railroad came from our subsidies to

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Speaker 2: the Central Pacific Railroad, which was alone. You're supposed to

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Speaker 2: pay back. You have not paid it back. We want

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Speaker 2: our money back, so they sue for that money. So

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Speaker 2: she suddenly realized that she thought she was an immensely

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Speaker 2: rich woman, but in eighteen ninety six she realizes she

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Speaker 2: might be on the verge of bankruptcy.

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Speaker 1: Now Huntington, who was his business partner before he died, right, right,

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Speaker 1: does he come into play at all? Is he coming

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Speaker 1: back into her life now that her husband's gone.

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Speaker 2: Yes, because Huntington is panicked that, in fact, the Southern

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Speaker 2: Pacific is going to go under. Yeah, you will pay

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Speaker 2: Jane a backhanded compliment. He says that she is smarter

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Speaker 2: and manages money better than her husband, but he's not

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Speaker 2: so little of her husband. It's hard to say what

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Speaker 2: that actually means. Gosh, And what he's trying to do

300
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Speaker 2: is bully or into seating control of the Southern Pacific

301
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Speaker 2: to him, and he wants to afford university shut down.

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Speaker 2: He says, it's simply going to be a drain on

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Speaker 2: the company's assets. We need every dollar we can get

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Speaker 2: to keep this from going under. You have no idea,

305
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Speaker 2: how how bad the situation we're in. So he really

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Speaker 2: tries to bully Jane Stamford take control of the board

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Speaker 2: of the Southern Pacific hansel out her vote, stop her

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Speaker 2: from draining any more money out of it. So it

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Speaker 2: turns into a battle between her and Collins P. Huntington,

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Speaker 2: and she turns out to be fairly shrewd, pretty tough,

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Speaker 2: and does not give in to him. But it still

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Speaker 2: looks in eighteen ninety six eighteen ninety seven as if

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Speaker 2: they're both going to go down together. They are just

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Speaker 2: passengers on a sinking ship.

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Speaker 1: Tell me about the panic of eighteen ninety six, just

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Speaker 1: so that we can have some context. Is this a

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Speaker 1: Wall Street panic or what ends up happening?

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Speaker 2: It's the kind of panic which afflicts the United States

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Speaker 2: repeatedly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Essentially,

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Speaker 2: what happens is there's boom periods where people borrow a

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Speaker 2: lot of money, invest a lot of money. Values, paper

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Speaker 2: values shoot up, and then there's going to be a

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Speaker 2: point where it reaches the top, and suddenly people start

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Speaker 2: reneging on loans. And once this goes, you begin to

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Speaker 2: get bank runs. Banks start collapsing, they start calling in

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Speaker 2: their loans. As everybody begins calling in their loans, this

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Speaker 2: whole paper pyramid begins to collapse, and that people find

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Speaker 2: that their assets are very often not going to be

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Speaker 2: anything they can make liquid, and so they begin to

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Speaker 2: go bankrupt too. That's the kind of panic you get.

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Speaker 2: And in eighteen ninety six, until the Great Depression was

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Speaker 2: the worst one the United States has ever seen. It

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Speaker 2: throws the United States into a deep recession, a deep depression,

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Speaker 2: and railroads are at the head of it. The major things.

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Speaker 2: Railroads tend to overinvest, over expand, and then when the

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Speaker 2: traffic begins to go down, they can't pay back their

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Speaker 2: loans because they're all operating on borrowed money, and they

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Speaker 2: begin to go under. And that's what's happening in eighteen

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Speaker 2: ninety six.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So in eighteen ninety six, does Jane's Stanford get

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Speaker 1: over this hump? How does she fare ultimately from the panic?

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Speaker 2: Stanford University and Jane Stanford will have a hard few years.

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Speaker 2: And what they will do is this is the legend

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Speaker 2: of Stanford University. Jane Stanford os her jewels, uses the

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Speaker 2: personal allowance she's allowed by the bankruptcy courts to pay

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Speaker 2: the faculty. The faculty takes deep cuts. A lot of

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Speaker 2: people are urging her to shut the university down. She

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Speaker 2: reviewses to do so, and when she comes out of it,

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Speaker 2: the way she comes out of it is the depression

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Speaker 2: will begin to end, and then other people will buy

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Speaker 2: the Southern Pacific Railroad to make even larger railroads out

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Speaker 2: of it. And the suddenly the stock market money she

353
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Speaker 2: had becomes real money. She can cash it in she

354
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Speaker 2: gets out. And so by the early nineteen hundreds, Jane

355
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Speaker 2: Stanford finds this paper wealth she's made it through it's

356
00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:52,880
Speaker 2: now turned into real liquid wealth which she either invests elsewhere,

357
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Speaker 2: keeps the Southern Pacific bonds, or has in cash, and

358
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Speaker 2: so now it is liquid. Stanford University has real money

359
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Speaker 2: to get from Jane Stanford.

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Speaker 1: So by nineteen oh five, Stanford is established as a university,

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Speaker 1: a well thought of university on the same echelon as

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Speaker 1: a Harvard or a Yale or no.

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Speaker 2: No, it's a university which is involved in the Edward

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Speaker 2: Ross affair, which is one of the great free speech

365
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Speaker 2: academic freedom scandals of the twentieth century, where Jane Stanford

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Speaker 2: tries to fire a professor for his political views, and

367
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Speaker 2: does fire a professor for his political views. And he

368
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Speaker 2: is a formidable professor who makes this a national scandal

369
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Speaker 2: that James Stamford is being seen as more and more erratic,

370
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Speaker 2: somebody who wants to turn the university into a college

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Speaker 2: devoted to teaching the spiritualist truths. Jane Stanford, who is

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Speaker 2: going to convert to Catholicism and give the whole university

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Speaker 2: over to the Jesuits. Jane Stamford, who has been a

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Speaker 2: pioneer and admitting women into Stanford, now wants to get

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Speaker 2: rid of all the women in Stanford because they're corrupting

376
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Speaker 2: what she calls her boys. Stanford University becomes a running

377
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Speaker 2: joke much of academia by the early twentieth century. A

378
00:20:02,280 --> 00:20:03,960
Speaker 2: rich running joke, but at running joke.

379
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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the turn from what you said.

380
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Speaker 1: She had some feminist ideals at first, and then what changed.

381
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Speaker 2: The best explanation I can give is James Stanford begins

382
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Speaker 2: to have a sexual panic in the early twentieth century.

383
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Speaker 2: I mean quite literally sex just she sees sex everywhere.

384
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Speaker 2: She sees young women flirting with male students, young female students,

385
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Speaker 2: flirting with male students. She is alarmed by any hint

386
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Speaker 2: of sex taking place on campus. She thinks that decorum

387
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Speaker 2: is breaking down. She thinks Victorian's standards are breaking down.

388
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Speaker 2: She thinks there's a breakdown of morality, and that's why

389
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Speaker 2: she wants women out. She wants people on horseback, armed

390
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Speaker 2: guards on horseback to be riding around campus monitoring the

391
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Speaker 2: contact between male and female students. She wants to make

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Speaker 2: them age at which women's students will be admitted much

393
00:20:57,680 --> 00:20:59,960
Speaker 2: higher than male students, so that you will have seven

394
00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:02,560
Speaker 2: teen year old boys and twenty one year old women.

395
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Speaker 2: She just wants reform after reform after reform, and that's

396
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:10,119
Speaker 2: the kind of thing which alarms David Starr Jordan. He

397
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:13,119
Speaker 2: begins to see that if these reforms go through, the

398
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:15,520
Speaker 2: university is not going to be able to survive.

399
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Speaker 1: So as we approach nineteen oh five, when something very

400
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Speaker 1: bad happens to Jane Stanford, is there a lead up

401
00:21:23,200 --> 00:21:25,439
Speaker 1: to all of this? Is there some sort of like

402
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:29,720
Speaker 1: a trigger or tensions or something that shifts in her

403
00:21:29,840 --> 00:21:32,320
Speaker 1: world that has her ending up dead.

404
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:36,640
Speaker 2: She begins to see David star Jordan's opposition to her

405
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:41,679
Speaker 2: reforms and David Star Jordan's refusal to take the blame

406
00:21:41,960 --> 00:21:44,359
Speaker 2: or failure to take the blame for the firing of

407
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:47,480
Speaker 2: Ross and the Ross scandal, there's a threat to her,

408
00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 2: so she's desired to fire David star Jordan, and Stanford

409
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:53,600
Speaker 2: is such a small place it's impossible to believe that

410
00:21:53,680 --> 00:21:56,720
Speaker 2: David Star Jordan doesn't need so by December, the gossip

411
00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:59,560
Speaker 2: is on the street that David Star Jordan is going

412
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:02,640
Speaker 2: to be picked out at the Board of Trustees meetings

413
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:06,600
Speaker 2: early in nineteen oh five. So first thing that happens

414
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 2: is that, and the second thing that happens is around

415
00:22:09,119 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 2: her relationship with her servants, who are pretty much her

416
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:18,119
Speaker 2: closest companions by this time, along with her family. And

417
00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 2: let's say her servants have plenty of reason to hate

418
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Speaker 2: her too, So tensions are building in both the mansion

419
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:29,600
Speaker 2: and the downstairs with the servants, and tensions are building

420
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Speaker 2: with the university, where David Starr Jordan thinks he is

421
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 2: going to lose his job, a job he desperately wants

422
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 2: to keep. But he also thinks if he goes, the

423
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,600
Speaker 2: university is going to go with him, at least the university,

424
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Speaker 2: as he knows.

425
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Speaker 1: Well. We have a near miss and then a direct

426
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,720
Speaker 1: hit right with Jane Stanford. Let's talk about the near

427
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 1: miss first. What are the circumstances around that.

428
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,439
Speaker 2: The near miss is that James Stamford is doing what

429
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 2: she often did. She's going to bed early on a

430
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 2: Saturday night. She's planning the next morning to go to

431
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 2: Palo Alto to attend church services at the Memorial Church.

432
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:18,360
Speaker 2: And she goes to bed early, and she always has

433
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 2: a bottle of Poland Spring bottled water. And what she

434
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,120
Speaker 2: does is take the water and she taste funny. She's

435
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 2: going to bed and it tastes funny, and she's a

436
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 2: maid Elizabeth Richmond in the next room, and she spits

437
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 2: it out. She says it tastes bitter, and brings Elizabeth

438
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 2: Richmond in, and Elizabeth Richmond dips her finger in and says, yes,

439
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:40,679
Speaker 2: it does taste funny. And Jane Stamford then begins to vomit.

440
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,280
Speaker 2: She sticks her finger down her throat and is throwing

441
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 2: up in a portable sink, and she's Elizabeth Richmond bring

442
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 2: down her companion and her secretary of Bertha Berner, who's

443
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:55,359
Speaker 2: sleeping upstairs. And Bertha Burner also takes a taste of it,

444
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 2: and it's very very bitter, and they hold it up

445
00:23:58,080 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 2: to the light and when they hold it up to

446
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,760
Speaker 2: the light they see things floating in it. And the

447
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 2: outcome of this is going to be that Jans Stamford

448
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 2: Purges herself is very, very sick. But they send the

449
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,440
Speaker 2: bottle out to a chemist at the bottom of knob

450
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 2: Hill Pharmacy to have it tested, and the pharmacy will

451
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 2: then send it out to somebody else, to another chemist

452
00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 2: to have it tested. So they think there's been something

453
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:21,879
Speaker 2: put in the water, and something has been put in

454
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 2: the water, but they don't know what it is, and

455
00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:28,359
Speaker 2: so for that period they will go about their normal tests.

456
00:24:28,480 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 2: James Stanford will set up having a dinner. There's going

457
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:33,399
Speaker 2: to be a dinner coming in. It's the height of

458
00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 2: the social season. So for a week she has tasted

459
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 2: bitter water. Something has happened, she doesn't know what it is,

460
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:41,719
Speaker 2: and her life goes forward.

461
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,120
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm a detective, I'm thinking who has

462
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: access to the Poland springs? How many servants are we

463
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: talking about?

464
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:50,359
Speaker 2: First of all, we're talking about six or seven servants.

465
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:52,680
Speaker 2: Some of them have easier access than others. I mean

466
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:55,760
Speaker 2: Bert the Berner is access to her bedroom. Elizabeth Richmond

467
00:24:55,800 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 2: has asked us to her bedroom. Ah Wing, who's the

468
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 2: chief of the Chinese servan, says access to her bedroom.

469
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 2: And there are other servants, other maids and other subordinate

470
00:25:06,480 --> 00:25:08,679
Speaker 2: cooks who might be able to get in, but of

471
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:11,840
Speaker 2: less access than these people. So they're the major people

472
00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 2: who have access to the bedroom. But the problem is

473
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 2: that somebody might have put the poison in the bottles

474
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 2: someplace else, that might have put it in the kitchen

475
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 2: and brought it in right, So at this point they

476
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 2: don't have it. But at this point, nobody even knows

477
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 2: it's poison. They're not going to know it's poison until

478
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 2: it comes back from the chemists. And the chemist report

479
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 2: is very very clear, and the chemist report says there

480
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 2: is Stryc nine in the water, and it's not just

481
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 2: stryc nine, it's rat poison. You know that that indicates

482
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,119
Speaker 2: to me because whatever was doing this, it's not that

483
00:25:38,320 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 2: skilled that poisoning people. You just rat poisoning it.

484
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: Well, we talk about that a lot on my other

485
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,119
Speaker 1: show with Buried Bones with pol Holes. We talk about

486
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: that you have to be skilled as a poisoner because

487
00:25:48,640 --> 00:25:50,639
Speaker 1: If you don't put in enough, you don't kill the person.

488
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,040
Speaker 1: If you put in too much, it's detectable, and it's

489
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 1: a passive way to murder someone. But boy, you really

490
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,439
Speaker 1: have to know what you're doing. So it sounds like

491
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 1: this person wants to try again. Whoever the suspect is

492
00:26:02,119 --> 00:26:05,360
Speaker 1: how much time elapses before we find out more information.

493
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 2: Once they find out the poisons in it, they hire detectives,

494
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:12,359
Speaker 2: but the private detectives are going to be Jules Collindon,

495
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 2: and his job is to make sure that nobody finds

496
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 2: out about the poisoning and also to find out who

497
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:19,920
Speaker 2: put the poison in. So for the first three or

498
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 2: four weeks there is an investigation, but it's not by

499
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 2: the police. Nothing's reported to the police. It's going to

500
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 2: be by a private detective agency. And their job is

501
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 2: both to discover the poisoner and to keep this out

502
00:26:31,359 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 2: of the papers. And they do keep it out of

503
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:35,919
Speaker 2: the papers for three weeks, but then they make a

504
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 2: mistake of antagonizing Elizabeth Richmond, who's friends with an ex butler,

505
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 2: Alfred Beverly, And what they're going to do is go

506
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,800
Speaker 2: to the papers at the end of January. They're afraid

507
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 2: that they are going to be set up. And so

508
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 2: Albert Beverly, who's a butler who had left Jane Stamford's

509
00:26:52,080 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 2: service that summer, he realizes that he can be implicated

510
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 2: because he has been stealing from Jane's. He wants to

511
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 2: keep that out of the papers. He's friends with Elizabeth Richmond.

512
00:27:04,440 --> 00:27:07,760
Speaker 2: He thinks she's being unjustly accused, and he thinks that

513
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 2: if his friendship with her is going to get him implicated.

514
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:13,600
Speaker 2: So they don't want this going on. They think they're

515
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 2: safer spilling it to the papers and telling their side

516
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 2: of the story.

517
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:18,959
Speaker 1: So are the papers on their side? When they do

518
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: reveal all of this? How do they frame it?

519
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:23,120
Speaker 2: They frame it as the service did it? I mean?

520
00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 2: This actually does enter into an Agatha Christie plot the

521
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 2: first Agatha Christie novel. The plot is very much like

522
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 2: the Poisoning of Jane Stamford. Wow. But the problem I

523
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,440
Speaker 2: found is once the servants go to the papers, they're

524
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 2: all lying. Everybody's lying. The detectives are lying. Jane Stamford

525
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 2: when they doesn't say much, what she says is lies.

526
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 2: All the servants are lying. So my first problem in

527
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 2: looking at all this is everybody's lying.

528
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard when you have unreliable sources. It so

529
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 1: what does Jane say? Regardless of if it's a lie

530
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: or not, she has to be scared.

531
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 2: She's terrified, but she doesn't say that she's terrified. She

532
00:27:57,800 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 2: just says that she is the flu, which she catches

533
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 2: the flues. She goes down to San Jose, she stays there,

534
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 2: but by the time she comes back up to San Francisco,

535
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:10,360
Speaker 2: she is ready to leave the country. She is afraid.

536
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 2: That's afraid to go back into the house. She's afraid

537
00:28:12,520 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 2: whoever did it is going to try again. And she's

538
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:18,360
Speaker 2: decided to go to Asia. And she's writing letters since

539
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 2: she writes letters to Charles Brothers, who's a confidant, who's

540
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 2: the youngest of the trustees, have been a Stanford undergraduate.

541
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 2: And again this stuff gets really creepy because he looks

542
00:28:28,080 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 2: exactly like her dead son, which is why she trusts them.

543
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,360
Speaker 2: So she writes them a letter which won't be disclosed

544
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 2: until nineteen thirty five, which says, you know why I'm

545
00:28:39,640 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 2: going I have no idea why people would be trying

546
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 2: to kill me. This is not the way I expected

547
00:28:45,320 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 2: to end my life. I have to get out of here.

548
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,280
Speaker 2: I have to leave because I'm afraid that, in fact,

549
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 2: an attempt is going to be made again, and I

550
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 2: have no way of protecting myself. So she clearly is terrified.

551
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 2: When she's in the hotel, she doesn't register under her

552
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 2: own name, she won't stay in the mansion, and she

553
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 2: brings Bertha Berner, her private secretary, with her to taste

554
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 2: dollar water and to taste dollar food.

555
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: Is she paying birth a lot of money? I'm trying

556
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: to think of suspects for being a medium, and I

557
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: know she's her companion.

558
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 2: Also, they have a tricky relationship because the sexual panic

559
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 2: that goes to the undergraduate women goes to Bertha Burner.

560
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 2: Bertha Berner is constantly quitting her job with Jane Stamford,

561
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 2: very often because Jane Stamford is interfering in Bertha Berner's

562
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 2: personal life. Bertha Berner will leave, go out, but she's

563
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,760
Speaker 2: the only person apparently who can manage Jane Stamford, and

564
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 2: so the Stamford family, the Lathrop family, her brother, pay

565
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 2: Bertha to come back again and be a traveling companion.

566
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 2: But Bertha meanwhile has a mother who is very sick

567
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,400
Speaker 2: and she is also having an affair with Albert.

568
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: Beverly, the former butler, right, former.

569
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:55,320
Speaker 2: Butler, and the former butler is embezzling money and so

570
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 2: is Bertha Berners. Wow, so she is in bezzling money. Also,

571
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 2: Jane Stanford is putting increasing pressure on Bertha Berner to

572
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 2: travel with her on this trip to Hawaii, a trip

573
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 2: to Japan, and another trip she had planned for Europe,

574
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 2: even though her Bertha Berner's own mother is sick, is dying,

575
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 2: and she even needs to stay with her mother. So

576
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 2: Jane Stanford is essentially telling Bertha Berner choose do you

577
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 2: come with me or do you stay with your dying mother.

578
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 2: So she's putting Bertha Berner in an impossible position.

579
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: Now, this also must distract her from what's happening at

580
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: Stanford University. Does this mean that David Starr Jordan is

581
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: kind of off the hook? I mean, has she forgotten

582
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:38,959
Speaker 1: about him and you know what's happening at the school?

583
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 2: No? No, she wants blood, she wants David star Jordan.

584
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 2: But what does help David star Jordan is since she's

585
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:52,479
Speaker 2: gone and the board of Stanford's Trustees is sort of

586
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 2: like the modern US Senate they are really quite old.

587
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 2: It's hard to get them all together in one place,

588
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 2: and so David start Jordan gets some breathing room. Because

589
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 2: Jane Stanford is leaving the country. She won't be there

590
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:06,920
Speaker 2: to convene the Board of Trustees, and many of the

591
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 2: boarder trustees are old and sick. We're traveling themselves. So

592
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,440
Speaker 2: he begins to escape. But eventually there's going to be

593
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 2: a quorum, and Jane Stafford is making it very clear

594
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 2: to the Board of Trustees what she wants done when

595
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 2: she can get that quorum.

596
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: So then there is the incident that ends her life.

597
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: How many years elapse between the first attempt and the

598
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 1: one that works.

599
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 2: Well, not many years elapse, not many weeks elapse at

600
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 2: it's about six it's about six weeks later. Six weeks later,

601
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 2: she and Berta Berner and another maid are on a

602
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 2: ship go to Hawaii, check in at the Milana Hotel.

603
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:47,840
Speaker 2: Jane Stafford tells people repeatedly that somebody tried to poison her.

604
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 2: That's why she has left San Francisco. She begins to

605
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 2: relax a little. She's a tourists. She travels with Bertha Berner.

606
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 2: She comes back after a day with her gone on

607
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 2: a picnic. She's tired to her room. She and Bertha

608
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 2: Berner have a light supper out on a veranda. Jane

609
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 2: Stamford wants to retire early, and Jane Stamford says, because

610
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 2: she said she'd eaten a lot of food at the

611
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,240
Speaker 2: picnic lunch. She said she wants some by carbonate of soda,

612
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 2: which she hadn't been taking but now she takes them

613
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 2: by cardon Minnesota, and she asks Bertha Berner to give

614
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,560
Speaker 2: her a by cardinate of soda and also a digestive pill,

615
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 2: the kind that contains a tiny amount of strychnine. They

616
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 2: actually use strychnine medicinally in the early twentieth century, and

617
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 2: Bertha Berner scoops it out. Jane Stafford says, why don't

618
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 2: you take some by carbonate too, since you were there,

619
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 2: and Berth Burner says, no, I don't need it, and

620
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 2: Jane Stamford says, well, I'll go to bed. I'll take

621
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 2: this before I retire, So she retires, goes to bed.

622
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 2: She wakes up the maid a little later because she

623
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: has trouble locking the door. The maid shows her how

624
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: to lock the door. She goes to bed, she falls asleep.

625
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 2: She apparently forgot to take the by carbon of soda.

626
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,400
Speaker 2: She wakes up in a couple of hours, takes the

627
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 2: by gardener of Minnesota, and at that point she begins

628
00:32:57,080 --> 00:32:59,720
Speaker 2: to feel that she's been poisoned. Because she has been poisoned,

629
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 2: staggers to the door. She alerts the guy next door.

630
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 2: She wakes up Bertha Burner in the maid that bring

631
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 2: down a doctor or resident doctor in the hotel who

632
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 2: eventually will call for a stomach pump. Jane Stanford is

633
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 2: telling people, I have been poisoned. Berth to tell them

634
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:15,880
Speaker 2: what happened in San Francisco, and Bertha Burner says, yes,

635
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 2: She's been poisoned in San Francisco. The doctor meanwhile, first

636
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 2: he's skeptical, but then it begins to look an awful

637
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:25,719
Speaker 2: lot like STRYC nine poisoning. Jane Stafford's having the usual

638
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 2: symptoms of strictine poisoning. She's having trouble opening her jaws,

639
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 2: she's having spasms. One of the things strictin poisoning does

640
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 2: is make you aware that you are really dying. And

641
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 2: Jane Stanford, who is a spiritualist to imagine death, was

642
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 2: not a big deal for spiritualist, it was a passing over.

643
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 2: You just gently pass over into a second life. And

644
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 2: Jane Stanford at that point dumps all of the illusions

645
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:51,160
Speaker 2: of dying of stryctine poisoning is a gentle passing over.

646
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 2: She says that her last words are, this is a

647
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 2: terrible death to die, and she dies. She has been

648
00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 2: poisoned by strych nine, but this time it is not

649
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 2: rat poison. It is pure strict nine, which is not

650
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 2: easy to obtain, and it has been put in her

651
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 2: bicarbonate of soda. The only person present at both poisonings

652
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 2: besides James Stamford is birtha birth.

653
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 1: So is this not an open and shut case.

654
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 2: No, it's.

655
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: I don't believe you. How is that possible?

656
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 2: Because the problem is there's the bicarbonate of soda problem.

657
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 2: She had not taken any bicarbonate of soda during the

658
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: whole Hawaiian voyage. The bicarbinate of soda had been packed

659
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:36,680
Speaker 2: away in her truck and then unpacked in Hawaii, So

660
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 2: one possibility, it's pretty far fetched. Does somebody put the

661
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 2: poison in the bicarbonate of soda before it left San Francisco?

662
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 2: Figuring whenever she uses it, this is going to take

663
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:51,280
Speaker 2: place far away from us. Smart there's still the potential

664
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 2: that she had been poisoned in San Francisco, but it

665
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:56,320
Speaker 2: only died in Hawaii.

666
00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: And of course there's no way to know how long

667
00:34:59,120 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: this had been present in the soda or how old

668
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 1: it was for them to know whether or not this

669
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:06,840
Speaker 1: was something that had been done a week earlier or

670
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks earlier.

671
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 2: Well, there's one thing that turns out. It turns out

672
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 2: the detectives get to work, and the detectives get to

673
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 2: work trying to find out who had purchased by carbonate

674
00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 2: of soda, and Bertha Bernard denies she knew anything about

675
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 2: by carbonate of soda, anything about Strych nine. Bertha Berner says,

676
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 2: we always said by carbonate of soda in San Francisco.

677
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,279
Speaker 2: I presume this is by carbon of soda from San Francisco.

678
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 2: And then it turns out that just before they departed,

679
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:35,920
Speaker 2: Bertha Bernard stopped into a pharmacy in Palo Alto and

680
00:35:35,960 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 2: purchased brand new bicarbonate of soda. So the bicarbonate of

681
00:35:40,040 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 2: soda could very well have been the bicarbonate of Minnesota

682
00:35:42,480 --> 00:35:44,719
Speaker 2: that had been purchased by Bertha Berner and had been

683
00:35:44,719 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 2: been taken into a y. So that begins to undercut

684
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 2: the theory that the bicarbonate of soda was really going

685
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 2: to be coming from San Francisco. It doesn't eliminate it,

686
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 2: but it creates the question of why did Bertha Berner

687
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 2: lie about purchasing the bike carent of soda? So if

688
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 2: a carpenter of soda becomes yet another aspect of the mystery,

689
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:09,359
Speaker 2: it's not necessarily open and shut. It still leaves where

690
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 2: the Stryck nine came from, because the hardest thing to

691
00:36:11,520 --> 00:36:14,279
Speaker 2: find is a Stryc nine five Pierce Stryc nine. You

692
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 2: have to sign for it in San Francisco pharmacies, and

693
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 2: there's ways you can get around that, but in fact

694
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 2: it is still a lot more difficult than getting rat

695
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 2: poison that's going to leave a trail. But they can

696
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 2: find nobody who has purchased Strycht nine at all associated

697
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 2: with the Stanford household, and the police and the detectives

698
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 2: are both on it by now.

699
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: So they bring her back. There's the autopsy, Is there

700
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 1: a large service for her, Is there something at Stanford,

701
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: and does she leave them all the money or not.

702
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:46,319
Speaker 2: This is why things get dicey. This is where, OK, yeah,

703
00:36:46,360 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 2: it's dicey already. It gets diicier. Nothing is simple about

704
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 2: James Stanford's death. She's going to have the autopsy, so

705
00:36:52,840 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 2: they bring her back. They bring back her body, but

706
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 2: her body the way they do these autopsies in the

707
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 2: nine nineteenth centuries, they basically take out your insides, churn

708
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 2: them up and test them for stricma. So Jane Stanfford's

709
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 2: corpse comes back, but it's the corpse is largely been

710
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 2: emptied of internal organs, and she is going to be

711
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,720
Speaker 2: buried at a huge ceremony at Stanford University. The student

712
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 2: body's there, the faculty is there. Five or six thousand

713
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 2: people show up. The march her to the grave to

714
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 2: the mausoleum where she is going to join her dead

715
00:37:18,800 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 2: husband and her dead son. And the people who are

716
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,879
Speaker 2: marching behind her on the way to the grave are

717
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 2: all the people who were suspects in her death. They're

718
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,440
Speaker 2: David Starr, Jordan, their Bertha Berner, and it's her service.

719
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 2: They're all coming behind her. So she goes to the

720
00:37:37,000 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 2: grave with the people who might actually have killed her

721
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 2: marching behind it. But Stanford University does get the money.

722
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 2: George Crothers, who has gone out of his way. He's

723
00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 2: had to start early. He's had to change the California

724
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 2: constitution to do this. He has avoided the kind of

725
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 2: usual legal procedures to make sure the trust and wills

726
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 2: go through. He has rushed all of these things through.

727
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:04,480
Speaker 2: He's taken personal responsibility. He's made sure that Jane Stamper's

728
00:38:04,480 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 2: brother gets enough money that it makes sure this is

729
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 2: going to be worth his while to cooperate in shutting

730
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 2: down any challenge to the wills. The wills will not

731
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 2: be challenged. They will be challenged later, but it's going

732
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 2: to be too late. The trust go through, Stanford University

733
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 2: gets the money. Meanwhile, the police department has decided not

734
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 2: to do further investigation.

735
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 1: How is that possible?

736
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,239
Speaker 2: She didn't die strict nine presenting she died a natural death,

737
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,799
Speaker 2: but David start Jordan had done. He had gone into Hawaii,

738
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 2: hired a doctor who had never seen the body, who

739
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 2: had never knew anything much.

740
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:41,280
Speaker 3: About the autopsy, and he said she had died of

741
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 3: eating too much food at the picnic lunch, which had

742
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 3: given her gas which are put pressure on her heart,

743
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:51,240
Speaker 3: which had given her a heart attack.

744
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 2: There's no evidence of a heart attack in the actual autopsy.

745
00:38:55,040 --> 00:38:58,959
Speaker 2: I mean, essentially, too much gas kills her. David Starr

746
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:01,120
Speaker 2: Jordan says he's going to bring this back, give it

747
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 2: to the San Francisco Police. He gets off the ship.

748
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:05,600
Speaker 2: The San Francisco Police says there's going to be a

749
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 2: full investigation within twenty four hours. The San Francisco Police says,

750
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 2: good enough for us, and they say she died in

751
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 2: natural death. Wow, And the whole thing begins to disappear.

752
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,799
Speaker 2: So some of the newspapers press on it. But the

753
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 2: next year there's going to be the San Francisco earthquake.

754
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 2: San Francisco's other things to worry about, and the case disappears.

755
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,719
Speaker 1: Now are we thinking that David Starr Jordan did that

756
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: as a way to simplify things. Let's say he's not

757
00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: the suspect here? Is it so that things could move

758
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: forward quickly with Stanford or what would be the motive

759
00:39:35,600 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 1: if he weren't the suspect.

760
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 2: David Star Jordan doesn't want a murder, Yeah, because a

761
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 2: murder is going to bring out all of the things

762
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 2: that have gone into the funding that she's a spiritualist.

763
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 2: It's going to open up challenges to her wills and

764
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 2: her trust. He doesn't want that testimony. He certainly doesn't

765
00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 2: want Bertha Burner, who knows everything, testifying. He also doesn't

766
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 2: want a suicide, which is the other theory at the time,

767
00:39:56,920 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 2: because the suicide means, in the legal theories at the

768
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 2: time that she wasn't mentally competent to have made the

769
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,560
Speaker 2: trust in the will. So that's not yea and he

770
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 2: wants to save his job. So for David Starr Jordan,

771
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 2: the best of all possible worlds is a natural death,

772
00:40:10,320 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 2: and David Star Jordan gets a natural death.

773
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:13,759
Speaker 1: Is Bertha Berner paid off?

774
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:18,359
Speaker 2: You know, Bertha Berner is there and I don't know

775
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:21,240
Speaker 2: what conversations are. I can imagine Bertha Burner has already

776
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 2: testified that she was poisoned by strychnin. She reverses all

777
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 2: of her testimony when she talks to this other doctor.

778
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 2: If I were David star Jordan, you know what you

779
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 2: tell Bertha Berner is, you know things don't look that

780
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 2: good for you. You're both murders. You have a reason

781
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 2: for wanting to kill her and if there is no murder,

782
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,239
Speaker 2: there can be no murderer. And that's pretty convinced thing.

783
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 2: So Bertha Berner reverses everything, she recants all her testimony,

784
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 2: but she's not under oath the second time, and the

785
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:53,880
Speaker 2: police accept that.

786
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: How much money are we talking about in the end

787
00:40:56,680 --> 00:40:59,319
Speaker 1: when Jane Stanford died? How much did the university get?

788
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 2: The university? Again? It's always hard to say, because a

789
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 2: lot of it is going to be and what the

790
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:04,719
Speaker 2: bonds are worth, how are you going to sell it?

791
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:07,799
Speaker 2: But I would say the university probably gets, you know,

792
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 2: between the old trusts and the new things, fifteen to

793
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 2: twenty million dollars, maybe a little more than that.

794
00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money, and it's enough to sustain them.

795
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 2: Obviously, it makes it the best in dowed university in

796
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 2: the country. I think briefly at the.

797
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: Time, what is Jane Stanford's whitewashed history at Stanford University?

798
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:28,080
Speaker 1: If you take out the spiritualism, just as a founder

799
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 1: who was out of the goodness of her heart and

800
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: wanted higher education inspired by her son? Is that sort

801
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 1: of the narrative, that's.

802
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:38,960
Speaker 2: The narrative Leland is engaged in too much sketchy financial stuff.

803
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 2: Leland is roundly denounced as robber baron. Jane seems to

804
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 2: be cleaner, and so they erase the spiritualism. That stuff

805
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:49,239
Speaker 2: just goes away. They erase the murder. She is a

806
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:52,840
Speaker 2: mother whose grief over her son leads her to donate

807
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 2: her entire fortune to literally the children of California. She's

808
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 2: this beloved figure who found Stanford Universe. She's a pioneering

809
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 2: feminist who brings in women into the university and assists

810
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 2: on their being there. They pretty much erased the complicated

811
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 2: Jane Stamford, and more than that, they erased the university's

812
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 2: long role in denying that there had ever been any

813
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 2: murder and that Jane Stamford herself would have probably closed

814
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 2: the university down. And they will continue to do this

815
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 2: into the nineteen nineties, early twentieth century. And now they

816
00:42:27,560 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 2: don't say that she's murdered. They just don't say anything

817
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:30,560
Speaker 2: at all.

818
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: So this is not on the new Freshman orientation tour.

819
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:35,560
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no.

820
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 1: What do you think now, as I'm talking to Professor White,

821
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: the historian, Why does it matter what the narrative is

822
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:48,279
Speaker 1: if you've got this incredible school, Because of this woman. Absolutely,

823
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: Why does it matter that this is not the true

824
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:54,880
Speaker 1: narrative that has been put forward by the school for

825
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:55,840
Speaker 1: all of these years.

826
00:42:56,280 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 2: That's a very good question. It's what I thought about

827
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:02,840
Speaker 2: a lot. And because to make sure that Stanford's money

828
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:05,479
Speaker 2: went to something that would later turn into a major

829
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 2: research university, which doesn't happen for years later, first you

830
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 2: had to kill Jane Stanford. The real theme of this

831
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:16,440
Speaker 2: book is the problem with philanthropy is philanthropists. If Jane

832
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,799
Speaker 2: Stanford got what she wanted, Stanford University would not be

833
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 2: a major research university. Stanford University would be a peculiar

834
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 2: small college with some esoteric spiritualist beliefs that might have

835
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,879
Speaker 2: faded in time. What seems to me, this bizarre case

836
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 2: in the early twentieth century, like bizarre cases everywhere, they

837
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 2: really open up something quite deeper, and they really open

838
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:43,440
Speaker 2: up the problem with private fortunes, great wealth philanthropy getting

839
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 2: to dictate the directions of institutions, which sometimes go way

840
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 2: off track and end up as they do here with

841
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:53,760
Speaker 2: the murder of Jane Stanford. And you know, we haven't

842
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,160
Speaker 2: told the old story anyway, because there still is the

843
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 2: question of where the pure strychnine came from.

844
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: And what do you think with out giving away too much?

845
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 2: I have a suspicion and I think the police knew

846
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:08,080
Speaker 2: who killed Janmes Stafford, and the police decided that that

847
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 2: person would disappear and that aspect of the case would

848
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 2: be dropped. At first, I thought the San Francisco police

849
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 2: were incredibly corrupt and incredibly incompetent. Now I just think

850
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 2: they were incredibly corrupt.

851
00:44:31,280 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

852
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

853
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly

854
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:45,080
Speaker 1: right production. Our senior producer is Alexis mme Rosi. Our

855
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: associate producer is Alex Chi. This episode was mixed by

856
00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga.

857
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 1: Executive produced by Georgia Hartstark, Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer.

858
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:02,239
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859
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860
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: know of a historical crime that could use some attention

861
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Speaker 1: from the crew at tenfold more Wicked, email us at

862
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Speaker 1: suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words