WEBVTT - Part One: H.L. Hunt: The First Elon Musk 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Also media. 0:00:05.600 --> 0:00:12.119 Oh goodness, Jiminy, Gracious Christmas. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.200 a podcast about the very worst people in all of history, 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.880 introduced by one of the very worst introducers in all 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:24.600 of history. Your host me Robert Evans. This week I 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:29.120 have a guest who's better at introducing things, Princess Weeks. Princess, 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:32.040 why don't you introduce yourself because we've seen how I 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:32.360 do it. 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.760 You're fabulous. I disagree with you, that's all just with that. 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:42.839 My name is Princess Weeks. I'm a writer, YouTuber, shit talker, 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.680 and I love history, and especially when I get to 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:47.640 listen to Robert tell me about bad people. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.080 Yeah, and I love bad people, especially when I get 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.440 to inflict their badness on someone else. 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:53.960 Wow. 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:55.920 And this week we've got a guy who kind of 0:00:55.920 --> 0:01:00.400 made inflicting his opinions on other people on everyone else 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.120 his like life mission and use the vast fortune he 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.880 built to do it. We're covering a fella here. He's 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:10.680 the former richest man in the world. This guy was 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.440 an oil in his time. He was a millionaire. But 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.480 if you you know, fix things to modern money, he 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:19.920 was a billionaire from a fairly early point in like 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:23.679 terms of modern money. And he was kind of the 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:26.840 first of the right wing, like these ultra rich right 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.520 wing guys to make pushing his own opinion in politics 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.920 by taking control of like or building media organs deliberately 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.399 to force his own opinion on public He was the 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.720 first of these super rich guys to really do that, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:44.480 or he was part of the first wave of rich 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:46.360 guys that did that. And he was the biggest, like 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.600 of this first wave of generally like post New Deal 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:56.720 super rich you know, multimillionaire billionaire oil guys who are 0:01:56.800 --> 0:01:59.160 are funding right wing politics. He was the guy who 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.520 was kind of best at it. But he was also 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.320 the guy who was only interested in forcing his own 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:06.440 politics on people. Like he didn't want to talk to 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:08.200 any other people on the right, He didn't want to 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:12.840 make friends. He just wanted to create media organizations that 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:15.520 would push his politics on other people. He's a very 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:18.720 weird dude. And his name was H. L. Hunt. Also 0:02:18.800 --> 0:02:28.760 some people think he killed jfk hmm. So have you 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:29.639 heard of this guy? 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:32.840 No, I've never heard of him, but he sounds annoying 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.280 and like the patrons say it of podcast bros. 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.119 So like I'm writing sure about it. 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.280 He's got a lot of that energy. He was kind 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.560 of like the proto Elon Musk, like what Musk has 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.880 done with turning X and Rock into this, like basically 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.480 building these companies just to push his own opinions on 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.240 everyone else. That's what Hunt was trying to do with 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.799 like the radio in the fifties and sixties and television 0:02:56.880 --> 0:03:00.720 and stuff. So he's an interesting care character and like 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.320 a freak in his own personal life, which is always 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:05.919 fun when one of these guys is just the strangest, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:07.560 weirdest little guy. 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:12.240 So does HL stand for great. 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.240 Question, Sophie. That's what we're starting because he has like 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:17.800 one of the most racist old white guy names you 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:24.079 could possibly have, Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Junior. That's this fucker's 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:29.440 full name, Haroldson and a Lafayette in there, Lafayette Junior. 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.560 You know you're in for a good time when you've 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:36.440 got all those names together, Hunts, Yeah, all those that's 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:38.560 funny you mentioned that. 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:42.040 That guy, I'm like, wow, would cover my drink? 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:46.960 Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Haroldson Lafayette Hunt Junior was 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.960 born in Carson Township, Fayette County, Illinois, on February seventeenth, 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.240 eighteen eighty nine. Most of the articles and bios you'll 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.440 find on him kind of breeze right through his childhood 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.720 bio on the oil industry friendly website Oklahoma Minerals, which 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.000 depicts Hunt as a hero, so you know, kind of 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:09.320 ideologically where this bio is coming from, simply says that 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.160 he was quote the youngest of eight children in a 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.600 farming family. His early years were marked by a lack 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.880 of formal education, as he was homeschooled and never attended 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:23.080 public or private schools. So we're off to a good 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.359 start already, right, Like, this is a dude who and 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.039 that's not a weird upbringing for the time, really, but 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.159 it is kind of weird for him because his other 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:38.120 like brothers and sisters aren't all private schooled. So Hunt 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:41.239 was a pretty prolific writer of letters to the editor 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.719 and of ads in the Yellow Pages. So we do 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:46.400 get other bits of his history if you're willing to 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:48.839 dig deeper, that go a little further than that. In 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.560 the nineteen sixties, he wrote this in an ad published 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:53.440 by the Tennessee And so this is him trying to 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.800 connect with other members of his family. My grandfather was 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.960 Waddie Thorpe Hunt, freeing his slaves long before the war began. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.880 Waddy Thorpe Punt migrated to Serchie County, Arkansas, stopping en 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.440 route to make a crop near Lookout Mountain. He formed 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.479 a company of Confederates in eighteen sixty which included his son. 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.839 He was killed in eighteen sixty four by Cantrill's guerrillas. 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.680 So that's him talking about like his grandfather, right, Like, 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:22.200 that's the family patron. And I'll tell let you know 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:24.000 right now, he's the only one who says this guy 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:25.960 freed his slaves long before the war began. 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:27.360 How was gonna ask? 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:29.159 I was like, he made it sound like, yeah, my 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:32.440 grandfother Freda's slaves before it was cool, before everyone had 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:33.040 to do it. 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.560 But that he started a volunteer Confederate militia for love 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:38.040 of the game. 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:39.720 You know it. 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.400 Now, Waddy may not owned slaves, but that wasn't uncommon. 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.440 Most people who fought in the Confederate Army didn't have 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.800 enough money to like own slaves, right, like they but 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:53.400 that's not entirely the point. Some people were racist without 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:57.800 that right, and that seems to have been his grandfather's deal. Now, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:05:59.840 what's very funny to be about this ad, which is 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.200 I'm like trying to connect with other relatives by talking 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.279 about his confederate at grandpa. Is that right after being like, hey, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:07.640 does anyone know you know my grandpa wants anyone else 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:09.800 related to whom I want to connect, he goes on 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:11.680 to like say, I want to exchange you know, family 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.359 history with relatives quote and present them with three of 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:18.280 the HLH alo Vera Cosmetics that's his private cosmetic company, 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.720 and a list of stores in the area carrying HLH Cosmetics. 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:23.520 And the remainder of the ad is a plug for 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.599 his cosmetics business and his right wing radio show, which 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.560 I find I just found very funny that he's like, 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:30.760 I want to connect with my family, but I also 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:32.760 want to use this space in the newspaper to get 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.839 people to buy my cosmetics right wing skincare company. 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:38.920 Yeah right, but also. 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.919 Always agree he said he's the youngest of eight of 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:42.680 eight kids. 0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.560 How much more family connections does he need? I ring, 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:46.839 that's the family. 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.640 You gotta have, bro, right, Like, why do you care? 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:51.560 It seems like you get your hands full there. 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:53.159 Yeah, you don't need any cousins when you have a 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.080 basketball team, like, it's fine. 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.159 So that's a good point. 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:03.320 That was very fun. I fear it was your target audience. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:11.760 Damn near too, actually, So the Confederate connection was enough 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.000 to convince me that, like, I needed to look more 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:16.160 into this guy's family history, because I was like, well, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:18.800 there probably means there's something else interesting there. And I 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.600 can only find one biography that was written about him, 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:25.160 which was the book Kingdom, and it's actually it was 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.240 published after he died, and it's actually a biography of 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.440 his whole family written by this hardcore libertarian author named 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.800 Jerome to Sill, and I think to Sill was a 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.000 fan of Hunt. He certainly wrote a history that I 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.080 would argue portrayed Hunt pretty close to how Hunt saw 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.400 himself a lot of the time. Although he does he 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.920 does include more of the warts than I think would have, 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:48.440 but he clearly like has this degree of like awe 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.640 in this man for being such a great businessman. It's 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.840 hard for me to tell how like real this biography 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.800 is because to Sill, again, he's like a guy with 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.200 an ideological bent that he's trying to get across in 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.360 his books. And his biography of Hunt includes all of 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.920 these verbatim conversations about conversations that would have happened in 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.240 like the eighteen hundreds, and this book was written in 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:13.960 the like one hundred years later. And I'm like, who 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.640 did you talk to to get the transcripts of these conversations? 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.640 You must have just made that up or you listen 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.840 to something that like these people's grandchildren said is how 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.360 the conversation went. So you have to take a lot 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:29.600 of this book with a grain of salt. Right, it's 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:30.080 getting like. 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:31.480 Real person fan fiction. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:33.679 Like he is like, yeah, I just put myself into 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.720 the character, like what would what would my goats say? 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:38.600 Like what would my heroes say? And he's just like, 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:40.439 all right, I've got it, nailed it. 0:08:40.960 --> 0:08:44.000 I would say, think of it that way. This is 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.720 real person fan fiction. That said, it's the only book 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:50.320 we have about this guy's childhood, and it's clearly based 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.800 on conversations he had with members of this dude's family, 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.720 So you can't discard it because it's like our only source. Right, 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.800 that said, I want to We're going to talk a 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.480 little more about Tussil in this book too, because he's 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.200 kind of a very funny guy. You should know in 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.239 terms of evaluating how much can we trust this biography 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.680 that he was an early hardcore libertarian activist, although not 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:17.440 entirely the bad kind. He got like politically activated for 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:19.800 the first time in his life because he was disgusted 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:22.520 by the draft in the Vietnam War, and he staged 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:25.040 a walkout protesting the war at the Young Americans for 0:09:25.080 --> 0:09:30.200 Freedom Convention in nineteen sixty nine, which is like good, yeah, yeah. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.080 In nineteen seventy one, he published his first book. It 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:36.559 usually begins with iron Rand, A Libertarian Odyssey, which is 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:38.520 a book about how he went from an angry, lapsed 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:42.200 Catholic looking for a new religion to an objectivist libertarian. 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:44.920 Although he also kind of makes fun of iron Rand 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:46.680 in the book too, because she believed a lot of 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.080 crazy shit about sex that he does not on board with. Right, 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:53.640 so he's like some about her, but like makes fun 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.520 of her too. He wrote of his feelings in the 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.800 time for the moment, I considered myself uniq alone and 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.880 courageous individual who had found the holy grail after years 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.120 of floundering. That's how he reacts to reading iron Rand 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:10.559 for the first time. A lot of guys like that, Unfortunately, like. 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:12.079 That's like the first time, Like you taught to a 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:13.920 guy who read Dune for the first time, He's like, I. 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:15.280 Just had no idea. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.240 All my politics are now Dune, Dune exactly. 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:19.760 Now. 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.280 That same year, nineteen seventy one, to Sell wrote an 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:24.960 op ed for The New York Times and begged for 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.520 conservatives who still care about such things as peace and 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:30.200 justice and racial harmony to vote for candidates who really 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:32.600 be in peace when they say peace, who understand and 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.959 intend to promote the politics of decentralization of pollution, control 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.640 of economic and judicial reform, and so on all the 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.400 way down the line. So he's not like entirely bad. 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:44.040 This is back when the libertarian movement was a little 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.720 more complicated than it's going to become in the Trump years, 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.760 So that's positive. In nineteen seventy four, to Sell ran 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.640 for governor of New York on the Free Libertarian Party ticket. 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.000 He only got like thirty thousand votes, and he needed 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.720 fifty thousand to get the party a permanent place on 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.400 the ballot. The Times notes of his election campaign. On 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.640 the campaign trail, he's distributed to sell bills, fake dollar 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:07.840 bills that he assured voters would be soon worth more 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:11.239 than the real thing, given the country's ruinous economic policies. 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:13.720 He arranged for a woman in a beige body stalking 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:16.240 to ride through Central Park like Lady Godiva, on a 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:20.640 horse named Taxpayer. So he would have loved creating. You 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:24.480 would have loved like Jerome to Sill. You would have 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:25.760 loved bitcoin to. 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.720 Sell coin like and he's given you naked ladies too. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.320 He's like, listen, I'm giving you the taxpayers everything they 0:11:32.320 --> 0:11:32.720 could want. 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:38.400 A horse named tax horse name this man would have 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.440 had so many NFTs. 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.640 Album can you imagine? Like there? 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.120 And sorry this is in our episode about hl Hunt. 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:51.880 But when I started reading about the guy who wrote 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:56.960 his biography, I was like, this man's fascinating. So anyway, 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.000 take quotes that I'm going to read you from the 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:03.400 book Kingdom with a g of Salt. So Tousill's books 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:08.760 has very doesn't mention Watty Hunt Hunt's grandfather freeing his slaves, 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.000 so I suspect his grandson made all that up. But 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:14.559 he does talk about the fact that Watty created a 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.600 volunteer cavalry militia to support the Confederate cause, which should 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.920 tell you all you need to know about the man's politics. However, 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.079 there is an interesting discrepancy between what hl Hunt came 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.599 to believe and what to Sill Rights. In his biography, 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.320 to Still claims that Captain Hunt was quote shot to 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.080 death near his farm by Northern Raiders, but in his letter, 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:37.880 Hunt says he was killed by Cantrell's guerrilla fighters, and 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:42.200 Cantrell's Raiders were a pro Confederate partisan group of bushwhackers 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.319 that actually this is where Frank and Jesse James get 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.040 their start, and Cantrell's Raiders, now it would they definitely 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.439 killed a lot of Confederate farmers too, because kind of 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.600 by the end of the war they were just raiding, 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.360 you know, like they're. 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:56.880 Like, we just like doing this now, like this is 0:12:56.880 --> 0:12:59.360 our new passion, Like we gotta get a skille out 0:12:59.360 --> 0:12:59.560 of this. 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:02.079 When I got into this, it was for the racism, 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:03.520 but now it's just the love of raiding. 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:03.880 You know. 0:13:03.960 --> 0:13:06.080 I just can't get over how much I like to raid. 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:08.559 They're tapping into their Viking roots. They're like, this is 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.040 what I was meant to do ancestry. 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.800 It's it's like how the Oakland Raiders are ostensibly at 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.320 like their fans are extensively there to support a football team, 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.800 but it's really about the raiding for the Oakland Raiders 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:22.120 fans too, you know, that's what makes that a great. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:23.480 Team, Las Vegas Raiders. 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.640 No, no, no, Sophie, I don't accept that at all. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:29.160 That's like me with the net that like, oh, it's 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.600 it's the Brooklyn Nets. I'm like that they're from New Jersey. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:34.560 It's okay. We don't have to make things up because 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:36.520 says it doesn't mean it's not right. 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:43.080 Yeah. No, I refuse to accept that. So when Captain 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.559 Hunt gets murdered by whether it's by Northern Partisans or 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:49.920 Cantrell's Raiders, his son H. L. Hunt, which is the 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.000 same name as our HL Hunt, right, and it's his 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.760 dad takes control of the family. Now HL goes by 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.640 the nickname Hash for reasons lost to history, but are 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.599 more like rooted in potatoes than marijuana. He's a fascinating 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.480 figure because his life and his son's life kind of 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:10.480 perfectly embody the evolution of American conservatism from the Civil 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.600 War up to like the modern era, through like the 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.040 political realignment of the mid twentieth century. Because you have 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.200 like the Republican Party, which is this like radical progressive 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.680 force in the country that then becomes like the Conservative 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:27.200 Party over a period of time. Right and his family 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:31.320 really embodies that very well. In eighteen sixty four, before 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.600 the war was over, Hash took like, after his dad 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:36.600 gets killed, he moves up north and he takes an 0:14:36.600 --> 0:14:39.720 oath of allegiance to the Union. Per the book Kingdom, 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.320 up North was where the money was. Hash told his 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:44.360 family the South as they had known at all their 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:46.880 lives was finished. It would not rise again for fifty 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.320 years at least. So you see, this is a family 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.200 the number one never gives up on like the racist 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.840 things that led them to support the Confederacy. But Hash 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.520 is a very pragmatic guy. He's like, the Confederacy's not 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.200 winning the and I want to be where the money is. Like, 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.440 I'm not going down with the ship. Fuck that my 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:05.040 dad did. 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.840 That seems stupid, exactly, Like the slaves are gone. Let's 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.160 go up to the industry and abuse the Irish. 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:14.520 Right, abuse whoever we can. Because I'm still racist, don't 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.880 get me wrong. We can divers So the family winds 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:21.920 up in Illinois, which is where our Ahll Hunt is 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.080 going to be born. In eighteen eighty nine, they start farming, 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:26.760 and things are going pretty well for the Hunts for 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:29.800 a while. Hash is a good businessman and a skilled farmer. 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:32.160 In short order, he meets a girl, the daughter of 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.760 an Army Union chaplain, and she's named Ella Henderson. This 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.880 is going to be ahell hunt. Our Hunt's mom. Tusill's 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.720 book claims that she quote was descended from an old 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:45.440 Huguenot line, and she deported herself with a certain aristocratic air, 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:49.520 not unworthy of her birth line. Now that's an interesting, 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.440 weird use of the word deported by too soil there 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.560 I've never heard. I think he meant to write comported, 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:57.720 because I don't think deported actually works that way. But 0:15:57.800 --> 0:15:59.680 it made its way into the final copy of the book. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.640 So they're like, we're just. 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.320 Not Hugoot enough to understand how sophisticated that is. 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:09.960 You gotta be way more Huguenots to get that word right. Yeah. So, 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.920 I don't know if she was had Huguenot blood in 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.200 her veins or whatever, but this is very consistent with 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.800 what hl Hunt's going to believe about his background and himself, 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.200 because he thinks he's special, and part of why he 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.920 thinks is special, he's special is because of his blood. 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.160 From eighteen seventy three to eighteen eighty nine, the Hunts 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.400 have eight children, the last of whom is our boy, 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.360 Haroldson la Fayette. Given that he has the same name 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.320 as his father, Hash, he was nicknamed Junior and the 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.880 family soon took to calling him June or Juni. So 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.080 as a boy, he goes by June or Juni because 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.080 he's got the same name as his dad, who goes 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.480 by Hash. Now, the Hunt's five hundred acre farm was 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:51.160 productive and supports the family well, but how well it 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.080 supports them is kind of hard for me to say 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.960 to sell rights that they quote just managed to scrub 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.440 out a meager living. But we also know that by 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:00.880 the time Hash dies, he gives his all eight of 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.920 his kids pretty significant inheritances. That suggests they're actually doing 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:07.520 very well. Now, maybe I don't know how long it 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:09.919 takes them to be doing very well, but certainly by 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.360 later in his life they're like upper middle class, right, 0:17:13.480 --> 0:17:16.080 if not rich. It's a little hard for me to 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:16.480 tell that. 0:17:16.920 --> 0:17:19.439 Do we know the breakdown of like the genders of 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.120 the sibling was it like more girls than boys because 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:24.119 you can outsource the girls they get they can go 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:25.080 somewhere else. 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:27.919 I think it's a pretty a pretty good split. But 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.520 he's got at least a couple of sisters. Okay. That said, 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.880 I think it's also Hunt kind of talks up his 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.360 family having a harder time when he was a kid 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.480 than they really did, because all conservatives who wind up 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.400 crazy rich like to pretend they were poorer than they were. Yeah, 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:46.879 at any rate. In eighteen ninety four, when JUNI was 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.040 like five or so, his dad Hash gets elected sheriff 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.760 of Fayette County. He ran as a Republican, which is 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.400 a major shift for the son of a Confederate volunteer 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.560 who'd fought against the Union himself. Hash becomes the first 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:02.159 Republican sheriff of Fayette, although not the last. He settled 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.000 into a pattern of spending a week or so in Vandalia, 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:07.480 the county seat, and then heading home for a few 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.240 days to tend his farm, which was now primarily maintained 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.520 by his wife and older sons. If Tusill's book gives 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.680 an accurate account, hl Hunt or Hash was not a 0:18:16.680 --> 0:18:19.920 pleasant man to have as your dad. Quote Hash Hunt 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:21.840 would storm through the house sipping a bit of his 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.720 own homemade corn whiskey from a jar and thundering to 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:26.800 anyone with an earshot. His views on the world, on 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:28.600 the hard times that had spread through the nation like 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.720 a Pestilen's, on the politicians who had brought these conditions about, 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:33.679 and on the bare living he was able to scratch 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.240 out from his farm and his share of salary. So 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.879 they've got kind of right wing talk radio in the 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.520 form of their dad. He's just like a drunk rush 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:44.520 Limbaugh complaining about how hard things are while he makes 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:45.240 a lot of money. 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:48.240 I'm so glad he has the authority to arrest people. 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.480 Just drug like you. You there, do you know what 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:54.879 you're doing to the actage? 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:57.480 No law about how drunk you can be as a 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.560 sheriff in Illinois in the eighteen hundreds, I feel confidence 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.280 saying that, Thank God for that, Thank God for that. 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.800 We used to be a proper country, Princess, we used 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:10.840 to be a proper country. Exactly So, as I noted earlier, 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:12.879 most casual bias of Hunt will point out that he 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.399 was homeschooled. Now, depending on the source I've seen, arguments 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.919 that his education was pretty minimal and lacking, and that 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.440 his mom did a really good job. Whatever the case, 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:23.680 he was brilliant from a young age. Hunt purportedly learned 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.040 to read before he was three years old, and as 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.840 one writer phrased, it, was clever with numbers from a 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:31.879 very early age. Now I suspect these claims are a 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.000 mix of the truth and some myth making. Hunt is, 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.000 as an adult going to be an almost supernaturally gifted 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:41.159 card counter. He is, legitimately, and there's enough evidence that 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:43.480 we know this isn't myth making. When he sits down 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.200 to play poker, he wins. Right, He's got like a superpower, 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:50.240 like he's he's incredible at it. And he's also just 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.000 His business career shows he's really good with money. He's 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.360 good at like counting up sort of risk analyzing risk 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.600 versus like the odds of profit and loss in his head, 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:02.879