Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from housetof Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark with me as always as Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. And that makes the Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: the podcast the sequel, or it makes it a greasy
Speaker 1: Wednesday night on top of a rooftop brewery. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: want to do a little recap for everybody? Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: do a very brief recap of our trivia night. Pack
Speaker 1: it away. I don't remember it. It was awesome. It
Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. It was jam packed, overflowing
Speaker 1: with people, just like New York was. We had John
Speaker 1: and Joe and Dave and everyone had a blast. We
Speaker 1: lost again. We were in the lead until the last question,
Speaker 1: and I ruined it for everybody if I remember correctly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know what, you did not ruin it because
Speaker 1: no one had the right answer on our team, thankfully.
Speaker 1: That would have been crushing. Do you want to you
Speaker 1: want to do this? The question? What was the last question?
Speaker 1: The last question was what is the second leading album
Speaker 1: of all times sales? Wise second behind three selling album
Speaker 1: of all time. And I believe you said Dark Side
Speaker 1: of the Moon, which I thought was a really great guess. Uh,
Speaker 1: someone else, Joe Randaza said the Eagles greatest hits, another
Speaker 1: great guests and both of us were wrong, or both
Speaker 1: of you were wrong. But we went with Dark Side
Speaker 1: of the Moon, didn't we? Wasn't that our team answer?
Speaker 1: I think so? Um, it was a C D C's
Speaker 1: back and black. Yeah, and you know what, I somewhere
Speaker 1: in my brain, I knew that that was really high
Speaker 1: up the list. It didn't come to me, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we were in second place. We end up losing on
Speaker 1: the last question first and going into the last but
Speaker 1: no one wants to see his win. It's no fun
Speaker 1: if we're like, yeah, that's what I told Hodgman. He went, no, No,
Speaker 1: I want to win and I want to rub it
Speaker 1: there face well, get a better team than Hodsman. What
Speaker 1: are you doing hanging out with us? It was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun though, and thanks to everyone who came
Speaker 1: out and hopefully will be coming too a city near you.
Speaker 1: We're still trying trying to get that together. Okay, so
Speaker 1: while we're doing this, um, I think we need to
Speaker 1: let more people know about our Facebook page. I suspect
Speaker 1: that there is a small but substantial and by that
Speaker 1: I mean really large segment of stuff. You should know.
Speaker 1: Listeners who don't necessarily go all the way to listener mail,
Speaker 1: don't listen to the whole podcast. That's where the gold is.
Speaker 1: We call them s y S listeners. That's right. Um,
Speaker 1: so we always talk about our Facebook page there, So
Speaker 1: there's it's possible if people out there who don't know
Speaker 1: that this thing exists, right, Chuck, that's right. And it's
Speaker 1: good for us if you go there and click like,
Speaker 1: And it's not only good for us, but it's a
Speaker 1: it's a good Facebook page. It is you know, it's
Speaker 1: like fun and people contribute and chat back and forth,
Speaker 1: and we talk back and forth with We come down
Speaker 1: from our ivory tire everyone and walk around gland hand
Speaker 1: people and then like have some people beat up for
Speaker 1: amazement and then go back up to our ivory tower. Know.
Speaker 1: We we put great music videos on there, and by
Speaker 1: music videos I mean music on YouTube. Uh cool, interesting
Speaker 1: links to great articles and studies and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: as do most of the people who are on this page.
Speaker 1: So go check it out. Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. Yeah, and if you if you click like,
Speaker 1: you can hide us still if you don't want it
Speaker 1: in your news feed, well you are buddy in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Rhodes Uh send us an email. You saw this right,
Speaker 1: He's saying you can like us, so we still get
Speaker 1: the like, which again makes us look good. Um, but
Speaker 1: you you you can also select and not receive updates
Speaker 1: from whenever we update if you want to feed, so
Speaker 1: you won't be bothered by us, and you can come
Speaker 1: and check at your leisure, but you could still like
Speaker 1: it too. And then Twitter real quick, Chuck, Um, we
Speaker 1: are on Twitter and we're at s Y s K podcast. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: all right, so Chuck, this wonderful time that we had
Speaker 1: on Wednesday night, Yes, ah, at a brewery. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was one of the darkest periods of American history. There
Speaker 1: was a time not too long ago where that could
Speaker 1: have never happened, or if it had, we would have
Speaker 1: been outlaws. Yeah, it would have been on the We
Speaker 1: couldn't have publicized it on a podcast. That would have
Speaker 1: been on the down low at a private place. We
Speaker 1: would have to just whisper it on the street or
Speaker 1: we could have drawn in chalk like speak easy this way.
Speaker 1: Sure the s Y s K speak easy trivia night
Speaker 1: this way. This dark period in American history is also
Speaker 1: referred to as prohibition, also referred to as the Noble
Speaker 1: Experiment by some. It was a noble experiment. The reason
Speaker 1: why is because the whole reason prohibition was ever enacted,
Speaker 1: or largely one of the reasons why, was because we realized,
Speaker 1: remember the addiction podcast. Did that come out yet? I
Speaker 1: don't think so? Okay, so look real the addiction podcast.
Speaker 1: But consider this. It wasn't until about the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: that people started talking about um being addicted to alcohol.
Speaker 1: An awareness of that there was such thing as alcoholism
Speaker 1: came about. When there was there were some really nice
Speaker 1: people in the world who said, you know what, since
Speaker 1: you can't give it up, we're gonna all of us
Speaker 1: are going to give it up together, so you won't
Speaker 1: be tempted any longer. Because I mean, consider nowadays, being
Speaker 1: an alcoholic and trying to give up alcohol and seeing
Speaker 1: it everywhere, it's gotta make it that much harder. So
Speaker 1: that the goal of prohibition of this um. The temperance
Speaker 1: movement that eventually lead to prohibition was to not tempt
Speaker 1: alcoholics any longer. Yeah. You know what's funny too. When
Speaker 1: I was reading this, a lot of the reasons, which
Speaker 1: we'll get into, they mentioned, are you know that the
Speaker 1: alcohol can lead to, um, domestic violence and child abuse,
Speaker 1: and Henry Ford said it leads to a lack of
Speaker 1: productivity at work. And I was reading all this thinking, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, that a lot of great points, but that
Speaker 1: still didn't mean that you should try and prohibit people
Speaker 1: from drinking. It was just a bad idea, even though
Speaker 1: a lot of the points they had were solid. Of course,
Speaker 1: it leads and they remain. If you look at the
Speaker 1: Old House Stuff Works employee handbook, one of the things
Speaker 1: that says specifically is don't drink at work. I know,
Speaker 1: I almost didn't take the job for that reason, but
Speaker 1: I did. But no, there were a lot of very
Speaker 1: solid points that everybody's kind of realized about alcohol. That, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's directly connected to physical violence in the home
Speaker 1: and outside arrests. Um. Also you know moonings then all
Speaker 1: goes up when alcohol is around, right. Um. But as
Speaker 1: you were saying, it was a failed noble experiment, It
Speaker 1: was a bad idea, but it was one that we
Speaker 1: had to learn the hard way, and we've learned much
Speaker 1: from it. Right. Sure, Even people that I thought it
Speaker 1: was a great idea at the end of the Noble
Speaker 1: Experiment said that wasn't such a good idea. I guess
Speaker 1: still hate alcohol, but that you just can't do this. Um,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this. From nineteen thirty three, the
Speaker 1: United States had on the books an amendment, an amendment
Speaker 1: to the Constitution that's huge, and plus it makes this
Speaker 1: Congress look ridiculous that they did this. Um. The Eighteenth
Speaker 1: Amendment went on the books, was enacted in ninety and
Speaker 1: it forbade the sale, manufacturer, and transport of alcohol and importation. Okay,
Speaker 1: which transport, Well, no, you can still transport within Like
Speaker 1: you couldn't carry it from Kentucky to Georgia, right, nor
Speaker 1: imported from Canada to the US. You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: But you could keep it in your home and you
Speaker 1: could drink your face off. Well. The cool thing is too,
Speaker 1: is they I believe it was passed and then a
Speaker 1: year later is when it went into effect. So they
Speaker 1: basically were like, you got a year, right, you can
Speaker 1: fill your basement full of booze. Yeah, And we don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not be breaking the law. That's I didn't actually
Speaker 1: realize this that it wasn't that you were allowed to
Speaker 1: drink at yourself. And did you you didn't get the pictures?
Speaker 1: Did you know? There is a haunting photograph on page
Speaker 1: zero of this article, the first page. It was taken
Speaker 1: in ne and to speakeasy and like the people are
Speaker 1: all wearing it looks like the photo and the shining
Speaker 1: and there's this one gentleman who's not even necessarily the
Speaker 1: focus of the photo and he is just staring out
Speaker 1: from nineteen thirty one into your soul. That's a very
Speaker 1: creepy pick. That alone is reason enough to go check
Speaker 1: out this this photo because he's on the stunt gravy,
Speaker 1: the jazz juice, the giggle juice, giggle water. So Josh started.
Speaker 1: But we have to go back in time just a
Speaker 1: little bit um when it really started century pretty much,
Speaker 1: yeah and eight in the eighteen thirties. The idea of
Speaker 1: getting rid of alcohol is is when it first started
Speaker 1: to pick up from Steam and the temperance movement got going.
Speaker 1: Society started springing up, and by the time they actually
Speaker 1: had the Federal the Amendment to the Constitution. I believed
Speaker 1: there were, um, how many states had already h sixteen
Speaker 1: sixteen states had already banned alcohol in some way, so
Speaker 1: it was already going on, Chuck this nineteen states of
Speaker 1: the towns in America had some sort of ban already
Speaker 1: going on. It was a very popular movement, UM And
Speaker 1: there are a lot of reasons, but one one reason
Speaker 1: is that these people have been doing this for a
Speaker 1: century before it finally took place. UM And as early
Speaker 1: as eighteen thirty eight, Massachusetts UM created i think the
Speaker 1: country's first law against alcohol, where basically they said, you
Speaker 1: can buy all the alcohol you want, but it has
Speaker 1: to be in no less than this quantity, and that
Speaker 1: quantity just so happens to be more than any of
Speaker 1: you drunks can afford. So we're de fact though banning
Speaker 1: alcohol because we're putting it out of your price range.
Speaker 1: The m surprise Massachusetts was one of the early states
Speaker 1: because really come around lately. Yeah, because most of the
Speaker 1: temperance movement had a lot of support obviously in the
Speaker 1: Bible Belt in places like New York and Boston. In
Speaker 1: these larger cities, they were kind of like, I'm not
Speaker 1: so behind this, right, well, don't forget Massachusetts not too
Speaker 1: far before this was burning, which is at the state
Speaker 1: as guess it's a good point, right. So that was
Speaker 1: eighteen forty six, Maine became the first state to pass
Speaker 1: a statewide prohibition law. That makes more sense sure being
Speaker 1: Maine teetotal Maine. Yeah. Um. And so this temperance movement's
Speaker 1: going on. And remember this is the women were at
Speaker 1: the forefront of this movement. In large part. They weren't
Speaker 1: they certainly weren't the only ones, but they were, um
Speaker 1: at the forefront, not just because that they were, you know,
Speaker 1: nagging people. Um, they they actually this is before they
Speaker 1: had the right to vote, and prior to having the
Speaker 1: right to vote, women figured out, you're not gonna give
Speaker 1: us the right to vote. Well, we're gonna learn. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be one of the first groups to learn to
Speaker 1: organize effectively. Um. And it wasn't just with the temperance movement. Um.
Speaker 1: The women women uh basically created this movement alongside the
Speaker 1: labor movement in the early twentieth century or nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: that was the consumer movement, and they were extremely effective
Speaker 1: in promoting consumer rights and they were also really big
Speaker 1: into rabble Rousing like Them Committee against the High Cost
Speaker 1: of Living in Detroit. That was the name of the committee.
Speaker 1: It was a woman's organization UM and they would they
Speaker 1: would do basically, they would do everything from consumer education
Speaker 1: on the street like you deserve government protection of milk standards,
Speaker 1: to um boycotts of local grocers, to actually storming meat
Speaker 1: packing plants and pouring kerosene on thousands of pounds of
Speaker 1: meat so nobody could buy it. And they had these
Speaker 1: really effective campaigns. And the Temperance Movement came about at
Speaker 1: the same time at this where women like had to
Speaker 1: organize they have their voice her because they didn't have
Speaker 1: the right to vote yet they didn't have suffrage. That's right, Josh.
Speaker 1: And specifically, the Women's Christian Temperance Union was formed in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy three in Ohio. Uh years before that, eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, the Official Prohibition Party was formed because there
Speaker 1: are people are like Democrats and Republicans are kind of
Speaker 1: dragging their feet on this, so let's actually form a party.
Speaker 1: Right in Holland, the the Women's Christian Temperance Movement right union,
Speaker 1: Yes union that that woman who led that Carrie Nation
Speaker 1: is an excellent example like the kind of boisterous nature
Speaker 1: of this, this kind of organization and protest. She was
Speaker 1: known um for hanging out around saloons, praying on the
Speaker 1: front steps save these people's souls, and the people who
Speaker 1: tried to come in, she would ward them off with
Speaker 1: the hatchet and she was arrested, um a couple of hundred.
Speaker 1: She was a rested thirty times between basically said busting
Speaker 1: up bars. Yeah, she basically said, I can't vote, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to become a huge thorn in your side
Speaker 1: and you can't stop me. And she had direct experience
Speaker 1: from it. They credit her um feracity ferociousness. I think
Speaker 1: I just made up a word. Her ferociousness against alcohol
Speaker 1: for um, due to a short lived marriage to an alcoholic,
Speaker 1: left an imprint on her that, you know, being a
Speaker 1: motivated individual. Yeah. What what's that bumper sticker about guns
Speaker 1: don't kill people? I do know something about well behaved
Speaker 1: women rarely make history something like that. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: like that. It's good. Um, civil war comes along, Josh
Speaker 1: Jerry laughed at that for some reason because she has that. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Civil War came along and that kind of slowed
Speaker 1: things down a little bit. But it was just temporarily
Speaker 1: because the war ended in people like the liquor industry
Speaker 1: started booming again, which you would think would slow it more.
Speaker 1: But what really happened was it started booming such that
Speaker 1: the temperance movement got even more active to try and
Speaker 1: take care of business basically right. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that really as as usual, I'm I'm loath to say,
Speaker 1: but one of the things that really drew popular support
Speaker 1: together um was finding the proper scapegoats Germans and Irish immigrants.
Speaker 1: This country has a long standing tradition of forgetting that
Speaker 1: we're all immigrants and targeting the most recent immigrants to
Speaker 1: the country as the source of all of our worries,
Speaker 1: and then our political parties go, yeah, it's their fault,
Speaker 1: and that it just kind of goes down to hell
Speaker 1: from there because Irish like to drink, the Irish like
Speaker 1: to drink, and the Germans love to brew beer, and
Speaker 1: that they became the the sources we should we should
Speaker 1: go ahead and correct that. There was a popular perception
Speaker 1: that the Irish likely drink exactly and the Germans really did.
Speaker 1: Um run most of the breweries still reason necessarily, but
Speaker 1: there was a lot of German owned breweries in the US,
Speaker 1: So the popular perception was the Germans are ruined, the
Speaker 1: Irish are drinking. We need to target these two groups. Sure,
Speaker 1: so everybody hate them. And then that's how prohibition ended
Speaker 1: up being passed in large part, right, Uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there were some a lot of groups against it
Speaker 1: as well as as many as there were for it.
Speaker 1: I don't know about as many, but there were also
Speaker 1: groups like the Association Against Prohibition Amendment and the Women's
Speaker 1: Organization for National Prohibition Reform exactly. So it wasn't everybody,
Speaker 1: but it gathered enough support where eventually Congress, that awful,
Speaker 1: awful Congress of nineteen nineteen, basically said, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of have to do this, and you've got
Speaker 1: a year to get all your booze, and what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do to enforce this is past the Volstead Act
Speaker 1: as well. Well. What was what really put it over
Speaker 1: the top, because this is nineteen nineteen and the in
Speaker 1: World War One had just ended. But what really whipped
Speaker 1: up prohibition pro prohibition sentiment up was World War One.
Speaker 1: We're fighting the Kaiser and these Germans are sitting here
Speaker 1: using all the grain that we could feed our soldiers
Speaker 1: with the brew beer and you're not in American if
Speaker 1: you're drinking beer, right, right? And Mr Anheiser and Mr
Speaker 1: Bush were like no, they were like dis day night. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that led to, like you said, Chuck, the eighteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: and the eighteenth Amendment and of itself didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: It had no teeth. It was a paper tiger. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why the Volstad Act, right, and what did that do? Well?
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't enforce anything unless you have a
Speaker 1: way to do it, and that's what the Volstad A did.
Speaker 1: It um define like the penalties if you were caught
Speaker 1: doing this, exceptions which uh they had exceptions for medicinal
Speaker 1: use and religious ceremony use. Yes, and apparently a lot
Speaker 1: of doctors prescribed alcohol during the prom how many? How many? Uh?
Speaker 1: They estimate that more than one million gallons of liquor
Speaker 1: were consumed a year from prescription whisky. Wait till what
Speaker 1: is it? Prop nineteen passes. Yeah, they got nothing on me. Naffodil, daffanel,
Speaker 1: medefanel menaffodil. You're thinking of monodyl and I bet there
Speaker 1: were a lot of religious ceremonies going on to you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Well, yeah, you got to think
Speaker 1: about the Catholics. I'm sure we're like, whoa, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: blood of Christ and everything over here, right, yeah, we
Speaker 1: need to do this like twice a week now. And
Speaker 1: then they went enchanted. Now they did their communion, and um,
Speaker 1: that also defined what qualified as an intoxicating limit, which
Speaker 1: was anything more than point five percent alcohol. And you
Speaker 1: know what, that's actually still the case. Um. Back when
Speaker 1: I was for near beer. Yes, for back when I
Speaker 1: was a strapping, fat ten year old boy, I used
Speaker 1: to cross the road tracks and go to open pantry
Speaker 1: and I would enjoy six packs of Kingsbury non alcoholic beer.
Speaker 1: Who woa, whoa you drink not alcohol beer? Wet age
Speaker 1: ten eleven? Secretly no secret right from your parents? No. No, Sometimes,
Speaker 1: like I go back and I look at some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that I did, and I'm like, I had
Speaker 1: a lot of freedom as a child. See, alcohol was
Speaker 1: like a big no now in my house hold. On Um,
Speaker 1: the reason why is because I knew I was in
Speaker 1: the right. Another reason point five right is non alcoholic.
Speaker 1: I can buy any non alcoholic beverage. Why this root
Speaker 1: beer is non alcoholic and I can buy that and
Speaker 1: I actually had an argument once with a clerk at
Speaker 1: open pantry, and I think just the fact that this
Speaker 1: ten year old was like stating his case. Finally, the
Speaker 1: guy was like, I finally care, just get out of here.
Speaker 1: And yeah, no, I don't think my family liked it,
Speaker 1: but they just didn't want to get into it with me.
Speaker 1: I would have gotten in big trouble for even that
Speaker 1: because alcohol was stun gravy to my household. It was bad,
Speaker 1: it was the devil's juice, and it was not allowed
Speaker 1: in the house. It was a really big deal. It's
Speaker 1: amazing that I ever touched the stuff, you know, when
Speaker 1: I like, I didn't drink it all in high school.
Speaker 1: I was a straight edge. What's more amazing to me
Speaker 1: is that you didn't. You weren't more likely to touch
Speaker 1: this stuff because it was prohibited. That was well. That
Speaker 1: was one of the major effects of prohibition was that
Speaker 1: alcohol use when it did increase, overall, alcohol decreased as
Speaker 1: an effective prohibition, but when it did increase, brother it
Speaker 1: increased big time. Right, Yeah, let's talk about some of
Speaker 1: the effects, because it had effects on what you could
Speaker 1: call the good side and the bad side, both medically
Speaker 1: and economically. Actually, most of the economic effects were pretty bad.
Speaker 1: They were bad unless you were al capone. But alcohol
Speaker 1: trafficking obviously increased things like speakeasies and this will alcohol rings,
Speaker 1: bootlegger rings are pretty much comparable to today's drug dealers.
Speaker 1: Rum runners. Yeah, there were European rum fleets is what
Speaker 1: they call them, right, because no prohibition in Europe most
Speaker 1: of Europe. UM. So they just sail out into international
Speaker 1: waters and people there at midnight and then they would
Speaker 1: offload their cargo two bootleggers and you know that was that. Um.
Speaker 1: They the one reason they knew that things were really
Speaker 1: getting pretty bad on the bootlegging scene that I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: This is pretty funny to me. Demand for ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollar bills reached a high in the United States and
Speaker 1: nine and basically that was a pretty clear sign that
Speaker 1: people wanted very large bills so they didn't have to
Speaker 1: have trunks full of money to make their switches in
Speaker 1: international waters. Um. Political corruption was huge. In fact, there's
Speaker 1: a very famous quote from Mayor LaGuardia, who was running
Speaker 1: New York at the time, who said this is a
Speaker 1: great one. He said something along the lines of it
Speaker 1: is impossible to tell whether prohibition is a good thing
Speaker 1: or a bad thing. It has never been enforced in
Speaker 1: this country, and they're going to name an airport after
Speaker 1: the guy. Another awesome, awesome fact, Josh, as far as
Speaker 1: when you said it started booming in a big way
Speaker 1: prior to this. Prior to prohibition, there were less than
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand bars legal bars in the US. After prohibition
Speaker 1: in I'm sorry, in the midst of it, there were
Speaker 1: more than thirty thousand, more than double the amount of
Speaker 1: illegal speakeasies, and there were an estimated hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: brewing alcohol of all sorts in their homes illegally. I
Speaker 1: can tell you they were probably like ten prior to prohibition,
Speaker 1: people who like went to the trouble making their own right.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's the same thing, like, don't you
Speaker 1: think that if California legalizes pot, don't you think that
Speaker 1: all those people who have a couple of plants growing
Speaker 1: illegally in their house are gonna stop doing that and
Speaker 1: just go buy it at the store like everybody else.
Speaker 1: I don't know. The artisans would probably still grow their own,
Speaker 1: but maybe so, but in much the same way that
Speaker 1: people homebrew beer now like there's a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: to go to that not everybody wants to do. You know, well,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the non enforcement, and there's another stat here that, uh,
Speaker 1: it's pretty startling. At one point, they said, in New
Speaker 1: York City, New York City, Yes, New York City, seven
Speaker 1: thousand arrests were made for alcohol violations and seventeen of
Speaker 1: those ended up in convictions. Even when they tried to
Speaker 1: enforce it, it wouldn't make it all the way through
Speaker 1: the legal system. That was the guardiest town by the way.
Speaker 1: Well exactly, and they said in nineteen five, by nine
Speaker 1: six states had laws that basically said quit investigating prohibition
Speaker 1: cases or we're bust you down to private or whatever
Speaker 1: the police entry level is. We're gonna bust you down
Speaker 1: to Keystone cop level. That's right, Chuck, Josh, you were
Speaker 1: speaking economically, that was illegally. All that crime came up
Speaker 1: and corruption developed directly as a result of Prohibition al capone.
Speaker 1: It was big for him, as you said, he turned
Speaker 1: a I don't want to say two bit, but a
Speaker 1: fledgling empire from Johnny Torrio into a hundred million dollar
Speaker 1: a year enterprise, which that's a lot of cheese by
Speaker 1: today's standards. Well, yeah, and he he was doing a
Speaker 1: pretty good job of it there in Chicago until the mayor,
Speaker 1: who was in his hip pocket, said I want to
Speaker 1: get out of your hip pocket. I'm you're You're done here.
Speaker 1: I can't believe he lived. But that led to component's downfall, right. Um.
Speaker 1: On a much larger scale economically, prohibition was a very
Speaker 1: terrible idea, especially in the midst of the Great Depression. UM.
Speaker 1: Some companies, some brewers specifically, like Anheuser Busch, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: UM said, you know, we Germans also like to supply
Speaker 1: you with things like root beer and ice cream and
Speaker 1: and corn syrup. So don't don't round us up, okay. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: that allowed him to keep their doors open. Basically that
Speaker 1: that did not everybody could do that. Not everybody could
Speaker 1: make that switch. An Huser Busch was already I think,
Speaker 1: pretty big at the time. UM So in St. Louis
Speaker 1: alone before prohibition, there were twenty two breweries operating. After
Speaker 1: prohibition was repealed, I just gave away the spoiler. UM
Speaker 1: nine reopened so that it had a huge hit just
Speaker 1: on the brewing industry. Um. It also took away all
Speaker 1: the tax revenue that America was making before prohibition taxing
Speaker 1: legal sales of liquor. All of this was on tax
Speaker 1: bootlagers weren't paying any taxes. They're getting rich. And then
Speaker 1: so in the when the depression came along, Um, that
Speaker 1: really kind of turned the tide as far as America
Speaker 1: was concerned, Like, Okay, we're sick of this. A lot
Speaker 1: of crime has come about, a lot of corruption. The
Speaker 1: US is in the depression and we're losing out on
Speaker 1: viable taxable income and this is just stupid. Everybody's drunk anyway,
Speaker 1: and the ones who were just kind of moderate drinkers
Speaker 1: before are big time drinkers. Right. So for example, um,
Speaker 1: apparently the they by the end of the twenties, there
Speaker 1: were more alcoholics than there were before prohibition, right, like
Speaker 1: clinical alcoholics. Um, adult rated or contaminated liquor brought on
Speaker 1: more than fifty thousand deaths, not to mention cases of
Speaker 1: blindness and paralysis. Remembering it was either the Hangover podcast
Speaker 1: or the Moonshine podcast, we talked about coningers, the impurities
Speaker 1: and alcohol that can kill you. Yeah yeah, yeah, uh
Speaker 1: those did kill a lot of pre prohibition. On the
Speaker 1: flip side, though cirosis declined from ten point seven men
Speaker 1: per one hundred thousand to twenty nine. All right, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: it dropped to ten point seven from twenty nine point
Speaker 1: five per one thousand over from nineteen eleven to twenty nine,
Speaker 1: So you just mr silver lining. Well no, that's my
Speaker 1: point though, is they'll point to some stats that will say, well,
Speaker 1: si rosas strap, but then fifty thousand people died because
Speaker 1: of can you know, making liquor in your tub, right
Speaker 1: and again and again. Overall alcohol consumption across the board
Speaker 1: dropped from between thirty and fifty, which is substantial, but
Speaker 1: the ones who it didn't drop in it kicked their
Speaker 1: drinking into hyper drive. Yeah. I think some people just
Speaker 1: like to be bad, Like this is forbidden, right, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it all the time. You know that. Actually,
Speaker 1: the parallel there with the marijuana movement in this country
Speaker 1: now is pretty striking, pretty similar because the recent economic
Speaker 1: downturns that we've had. I don't know if you noticed,
Speaker 1: but a lot of states started saying, like California, you
Speaker 1: know what we could make revenue wise if we legalized spot.
Speaker 1: It's a very interesting. Uh. I think it's Cato Institute.
Speaker 1: You know, they're a libertarian think tank, and they issued
Speaker 1: basically like you want to know exactly how much you
Speaker 1: can make and save by decriminalizing marijuana. Here it is,
Speaker 1: and it was all the money spend in the legal system,
Speaker 1: plus all the revenue that can be grace taxes comes
Speaker 1: up to like fourteen billion a year or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's a fourteen or forty four or something. There was
Speaker 1: a four in there. Same thing with the stunt Grady.
Speaker 1: We should give credit to that. That's John Hodgman's words
Speaker 1: from his book The Area of My Expertise. But you
Speaker 1: can get on Amazon. I don't want people to think
Speaker 1: Chuck is so funny. He thought it's stun gravy because
Speaker 1: I did not. Um, Chuck comes around. Everybody's sick and
Speaker 1: tired of prohibition. Uh. And Congress, a new Congress says,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're going to repeal this a much
Speaker 1: hip or drunker Congress. So they created the twenty first
Speaker 1: Amendment because it takes an amendment to repeal another amendment right.
Speaker 1: And in the history of the United States, this is
Speaker 1: the first time an amendment was passed to restore the
Speaker 1: rights taken away by a previous amendment. She on that one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is just about two weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I was having a conversation with my friend Kirk about prohibition,
Speaker 1: and I said, why don't they just remove the eighteenth
Speaker 1: and twenty first Amendment now? And just I mean, why
Speaker 1: you even have that in there anymore? And he got
Speaker 1: he got kind of upset, and he's like, this is
Speaker 1: the U. S. Constitution you're talking about, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I know, but it's just it seems silly now to
Speaker 1: still have that on the books, unless I guess it's
Speaker 1: just you know, the constant reminder of this is what
Speaker 1: our country went through, and see we repealed it. But
Speaker 1: to me, I'm just like, just take them out. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like, don't be stupid in there. It's a
Speaker 1: clear message to the people of today. But I wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to like desecrate the Constitution by doing that. I
Speaker 1: just thought it made it a more efficient document. You
Speaker 1: just remove this too useless, So Chuck. They that Congress
Speaker 1: passed the twenty first Amendment, they had to wait for
Speaker 1: two thirds of the states to ratify it, which happened
Speaker 1: on December five, ninety three. Uh. John d Rockefeller comes
Speaker 1: out with the famous quote, drinking is generally increased. The
Speaker 1: speakeasy has replaced the saloon. A vast army of lawbreakers
Speaker 1: has been recruited and financed on a colossal scale. A
Speaker 1: clerk stamped the document and everybody went back to drinking
Speaker 1: legally again. In it that that night probably resembled our
Speaker 1: trivia night recently would be my best cast. Uh So
Speaker 1: after that, Josh went to the states to decide how
Speaker 1: to govern this and a lot of states. Twenty ones
Speaker 1: probably a pretty good day to start drinking a lot
Speaker 1: of states, or some said, like, I think Louisiana and
Speaker 1: held out for a long time. Georgia even was eighteen
Speaker 1: for a long time. I remember Georgia's I remember when
Speaker 1: Ohio did there. That was like in the mid eighties.
Speaker 1: And and um, because my sister was in between there,
Speaker 1: she was like nineteen at the time, she was like
Speaker 1: no um. And I remember Louisiana also finally caved because um,
Speaker 1: the Feds were holding out on their highway funds. They
Speaker 1: may have been the last one there, and they finally
Speaker 1: were just like, we can't take these potholes any longer,
Speaker 1: so they caved. So Josh, since prohibition so long ago
Speaker 1: was repealed and done away with, you would think that
Speaker 1: now in the United States you can go anywhere you want,
Speaker 1: any day you want by your boost, you would You
Speaker 1: would be wrong. And I know that you know what
Speaker 1: that's wrong because you live in Georgia. Pal Georgia has
Speaker 1: a blue law. No Sunday sales. Nope, you can buy
Speaker 1: it in a restaurant after twelve thirty. So if you
Speaker 1: like to go to brunch early und very funny how
Speaker 1: the brunch crowd really turns up around twelve fifteen. Before then,
Speaker 1: you can get a seat anywhere on a Sunday um
Speaker 1: but because of the fear of enticing people away from
Speaker 1: church with booze or partying too hard on a Saturday
Speaker 1: night leading to a desire to keep drinking Sunday morning
Speaker 1: in the mischurch, there's that blue law. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: said that. I didn't know this. They said that, And
Speaker 1: this is not just in Georgia, but period in the
Speaker 1: United States. That was that came about during the colonial times.
Speaker 1: They said, you know what, they let's keep the Sabbath dry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And what you've just made reference to is the last
Speaker 1: sentence of this article Um, it is, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the strangest sentence ever used to end a half stuff
Speaker 1: works article. Would you do me the favor of reading
Speaker 1: that sentence verbatim? This law was the up in colonial
Speaker 1: times to honor to honor the Christian Sabbath day in
Speaker 1: colonial times. The end it's a little redundant, isn't it,
Speaker 1: don't you think? Let's talk about some of these other
Speaker 1: states though, Um, about half of Mississippi's counties are dry.
Speaker 1: And you can't even drive through a dry county with booze,
Speaker 1: even if you're just taking it home unless you feel
Speaker 1: like paying a bribe to the sheriff. Yeah, or if
Speaker 1: you sneak it. But you can't go to a wet
Speaker 1: county and say, oh, I'm gonna get my Sunday or
Speaker 1: my beer for the week. You can't drive. You have
Speaker 1: to take a circuitous route certuitous kircuitis if you want
Speaker 1: to even take your beer to your house. Right, it's
Speaker 1: pretty pretty serious. Kentucky dry dry law, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Virginia,
Speaker 1: a lot of these states, Alaska, Alaska. Actually you've found
Speaker 1: like this pretty cool supplemental article, um about Alaska having
Speaker 1: a hundred and twenty nine of the dry towns that's
Speaker 1: mentioned in this article you found an all. It explains
Speaker 1: why because apparently there's a strong tradition of binge drinking
Speaker 1: brought over by Russians and Finns, and Finland actually had
Speaker 1: its own a bout with prohibition as well, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: yeah they did. And I should also point out that
Speaker 1: this is introduced me to my favorite new expression that
Speaker 1: I've never heard before, frontier drinking style. Yeah, they had
Speaker 1: frontier drinking style. It usually ends with bear wrestling. Bear wrestling.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's interesting though that they they've done a
Speaker 1: lot of studies and they've shown that the volume and
Speaker 1: pattern of how you drink correlate with your your culture. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's the European the Southern European wet culture, which
Speaker 1: is frequent but moderate drinking, like basically like French kids
Speaker 1: of age seven drinking wine at dinner exactly, right. And
Speaker 1: then you've got the Northern European culture, the dry culture,
Speaker 1: which is like you don't drink very often, but when
Speaker 1: you do, you drink like NonStop for three days frontier style,
Speaker 1: and then wrestle a bear exactly, and then you commit
Speaker 1: some sort of crime or something over and over again.
Speaker 1: In the midst of this well and in the end, um,
Speaker 1: places like Canada followed America and had prohibition for a
Speaker 1: little while. Um, really punch we we inhibition in nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 1: Canada's prohibition lasted from nineteen eighteen to nineteen nineteen. Exactly.
Speaker 1: It's just like the beer bearing episode of The Simpsons exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in Finland, Josh, they appeal In Finland, it really
Speaker 1: really backfired. They enacted prohibition in nineteen nineteen. It was
Speaker 1: all going on at the same time. It's pretty interesting
Speaker 1: all over the world. And um, basically people publicly and
Speaker 1: privately thumb their nose at it. And they said that
Speaker 1: they estimate the alcohol consumption tripled perhaps in Finland after prohibition,
Speaker 1: and not only that, people were originally drinking vodka, and
Speaker 1: during prohibition people started drinking basically moonshine like spirits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they said, you know what you're gonna do, prohibition, We're
Speaker 1: gonna get drunk er more more often than we ever
Speaker 1: have before, and we're gonna get in our saunas and
Speaker 1: we're gonna get wasted, and you can't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: That that seems like a bad idea. I've been sauning
Speaker 1: like crazy lately, and I found out that heat cuts
Speaker 1: off the circulation in my calves. And Josh Finland uh
Speaker 1: clearly had a failed experiment and they repealed it in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two, so it did last a while. But Alaska,
Speaker 1: they say, to this day, Native peoples of Alaska and
Speaker 1: Native Americans, they still a lot of alcohol problems, just
Speaker 1: proportionately so um. And the sad thing is that it
Speaker 1: was brought by Europeans. The bench drinking, the frontier style
Speaker 1: band drinking was introduced to the Inuits and the Natives
Speaker 1: of a last goodbye Finns, Russians and yeah, um, I
Speaker 1: guess old timey uh clean jumpers who came up from
Speaker 1: the Western United States. Gabby Johnson. Russia actually experimented for
Speaker 1: a little while too in nineteen fourteen. Through that's I
Speaker 1: figured Russia would have been the one that was like
Speaker 1: six months later. And though they must have vodka, do
Speaker 1: you know, like the average lifespan of a Russian male
Speaker 1: these days is down to like fifty nine because of vodka. Really,
Speaker 1: because it's drinking, like they just drink like fishes. Apparently
Speaker 1: even even um, yeah, the knows yeah, I mean it
Speaker 1: would look like a that wasn't a gin blossom, that
Speaker 1: was a bluemn onion. That's the end of that podcast.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about prohibition, type that
Speaker 1: word into the search bart house to works dot com again.
Speaker 1: It's going to bring up that really super cool picture
Speaker 1: on page zero. I'm glad you showed me that. That's
Speaker 1: one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. And click
Speaker 1: all the way through to the last page two to
Speaker 1: find these strangest sentence ever used to end in the
Speaker 1: house Stuff Works article. Uh and since I said search
Speaker 1: bar at some point in the not too distant past,
Speaker 1: that means it's time for listener mail. Josh. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this email from a guy whose life has eerily
Speaker 1: resembled our podcast Slate. I discovered your podcast with my
Speaker 1: two friends and I went on a road trip from
Speaker 1: our school and Providence, Rhode Island to Minnesota. Go Golden
Speaker 1: Gophers in that Minnesota. Yeah, it was according to the Fargo,
Speaker 1: I was looking for something to listen to in a
Speaker 1: car on the way and randomly downloaded a bunch of
Speaker 1: your podcasts. So, by sheer luck, Josh, how often does
Speaker 1: that happen, you think, and people continue to listen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: never this one time. Uh. Then we began our epic
Speaker 1: quest across the country. Whatever we listened to came true. Guys,
Speaker 1: we were in Toledo when Josh said he was from Toledo.
Speaker 1: We were with a katie from Wisconsin. When you read
Speaker 1: a listener mail from a katie from Wisconsin, we're not
Speaker 1: the same person, and we want a trivia contest because
Speaker 1: of your Habeas Corpus podcast. The winning answer was the body.
Speaker 1: Our brakes failed in Pennsylvania and we hung out with
Speaker 1: some Amish while we waited for them to be fixed,
Speaker 1: and we even felt the membranes connecting our brain and
Speaker 1: skull being stretched in Chicago, what is a hangover? A stretch? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I thought. We also met some friends along
Speaker 1: the way and combined our knowledge from the Redheads and
Speaker 1: Flirting podcast. On the way back from our week long honyssey,
Speaker 1: we reminisced about our favorite parts of the trip, and
Speaker 1: all three of us mentioned your podcast on our list Alight,
Speaker 1: So thanks for helping us out such a great time.
Speaker 1: Then he goes on to suggests we do a podcast
Speaker 1: on the School of America's which we have one right
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. No, the School of the America's supposedly
Speaker 1: and now defunct assassins school that we have at Fort
Speaker 1: Benning that was used to train Latin Americans in the
Speaker 1: basically an insurgency. Is he completely wrong about this in
Speaker 1: the School of the Americas is just one place, but
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting and scary. Well, then, Paul, I've have
Speaker 1: some words for you, my friend. You've just misled us,
Speaker 1: intentionally mislead you, and I would like to recant every
Speaker 1: bit of the enthusiasm I showed for your previous email.
Speaker 1: Are you sure he wasn't just misinformed? I don't care. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's something called fact checking, even for emails. If you do,
Speaker 1: you want to try to mislead chuck Er I, we'd
Speaker 1: like to hear that. No me, chuck Er, me, mislead me,
Speaker 1: mislead chuck or me we want to hear it in
Speaker 1: an email. And if you don't feel like doing something
Speaker 1: that mean, you could also actually don't even try to
Speaker 1: mislead us. It takes us off. Lou bega um. If
Speaker 1: you have a favorite strange sentence that you've ever come
Speaker 1: across in your life that can beat this law, was
Speaker 1: developed in colonial times to honor the Christian Sabbath Day
Speaker 1: and colonial times. We want to hear it. Wrap it
Speaker 1: up in an email, spanking on the bottom. Send it
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. H brought to you by the
Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you