Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio, Zaren.
Speaker 2: Do I know you?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Zaren?
Speaker 2: Oh, I do know you. Elizabeth Hey, I had to
Speaker 2: look over my newspaper that I'm reading.
Speaker 3: Oh, I see you know it's ridiculous, I do. Oh.
Speaker 2: Yes. Lawn Chair Larry. You ever heard of this cat?
Speaker 2: No lawnchair Larry Walters. That's his government name, the Larry
Speaker 2: Walter's part, not lawnchair, that part street name. Anyway. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two, lawnchair Larry decided, you know what, I
Speaker 2: want to be the first man person to ever go
Speaker 2: up into the wild blue yonder and fly a lawn chair.
Speaker 2: And so he did just that. He tied forty weather
Speaker 2: balloons to a lawn chair. What and he got up
Speaker 2: to sixteen thousand feet.
Speaker 3: It's like proto balloon boy.
Speaker 2: In his launchair. Yes. So he had these eight foot
Speaker 2: helium filled weather balloons, right, and so they're attached to
Speaker 2: a Sear's aluminum lawnchair, you know, you know, the type
Speaker 2: early eighties lawnchair.
Speaker 3: Good quality.
Speaker 2: He had the chair tilted back at a forty five
Speaker 2: degree angle so he wouldn't like fall out and he's
Speaker 2: not just sitting prone proper you know the lean back. Now,
Speaker 2: he had a jug gallons of water that was his
Speaker 2: ballast that he was going to use to like get
Speaker 2: down or get up. You know, so he's like pouring
Speaker 2: out water or adding water. I don't anyway you get Yeah,
Speaker 2: So he called his aircraft the Inspiration one, and he
Speaker 2: stocked the the drink service with cold beer.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He had a CBE radio. He had an altimeter, so
Speaker 2: you know how high you up he got. He had
Speaker 2: a camera. He had a pelagon. Why a pelagon not
Speaker 2: for birds, Elizabeth, I didn't want you to worry. That
Speaker 2: was to be able to see get up a controlled descent.
Speaker 2: He'd yet out shoot out the balloons and so was controlled.
Speaker 2: This is like my kind of plan. I'm gonna shoot
Speaker 2: the balloon down.
Speaker 3: You kind of planting. But so he did you have
Speaker 3: like a cooler strap to the bottom for his beer.
Speaker 2: I think it was just like a small little like
Speaker 2: cozy cozy style, like I don't know. He flew for
Speaker 2: a long time. I mean he was up there. No,
Speaker 2: he eventually he eventually did come down, say mind you
Speaker 2: and pilots at Lax saw him like he was way
Speaker 2: sixteen thousand feet and he was like in the airspace.
Speaker 2: He was up there like I think he's up there
Speaker 2: about forty five minutes, and then he decided, Okay, I
Speaker 2: think I'm brave enough now to shoot some of the
Speaker 2: balloons out. See if I can do this landing plan
Speaker 2: I came up with and he landed and it totally worked.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you go.
Speaker 3: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And by the way, when he was at Hollywood High
Speaker 2: he had done a science project called hydrogen in Balloons.
Speaker 2: He got a D on that project. They proved that
Speaker 2: teacher wrong.
Speaker 3: That is ridiculous, Larry, that's so ridiculous. Do you know
Speaker 3: what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 2: I love what's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: Getting arrested and sent to Alcatraz for shaking someone's hand?
Speaker 3: What this is ridiculous?
Speaker 4: Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.
Speaker 3: Heis.
Speaker 4: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
Speaker 4: percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You damn right.
Speaker 4: You know who Emma Goldman is, right? Yeah, she's an anarchist,
Speaker 4: or was an anarchist. When we say anarchists, this isn't
Speaker 4: like the popular perception of it.
Speaker 2: She didn't wear dress in black and.
Speaker 4: She were studded black denim vest.
Speaker 2: She's in the black block, yes, with.
Speaker 4: An anarchy symbol in THEA and just healed me him.
Speaker 3: Anarchy And I don't even know what it means, but
Speaker 3: I love it. That my favorite.
Speaker 4: So anyway, it's not destroying property for no reason.
Speaker 2: No, it's it was a political stance in the end
Speaker 2: of the nineteenth century that really well, yeah.
Speaker 4: You're stepping away from imposed structures, hierarchies, and you're just
Speaker 4: kind of letting humans be free individuals for the most.
Speaker 2: Part, and also using a lot of mutual aid and
Speaker 2: a lot of things where it's down to the individuals
Speaker 2: creating society at a much more atomic level then at
Speaker 2: a much fire top down.
Speaker 4: And that sounds super peaceful, yeah, but not so fast.
Speaker 4: Just with any ism, they're good aspects, bad aspects.
Speaker 2: It had a radical aspect of violence that yeah, right.
Speaker 4: So they were interested in dismantling the seats of power
Speaker 4: in the West, and they wanted to turn that power
Speaker 4: over to the common people, the workers, yes, every day.
Speaker 3: Folk like you and me.
Speaker 2: This get parallel to communism in terms of like giving
Speaker 2: people to the power to the people. Yeah, in a
Speaker 2: different way.
Speaker 4: But like obviously the seats of power didn't like this.
Speaker 4: People in charge don't like when people try and take
Speaker 4: power away, so they hit back hard and they created
Speaker 4: a lot of misinformation for the public about what anarchism.
Speaker 2: We still deal with that too to this day. The
Speaker 2: whole anti socialist, anti anarchism messaging we.
Speaker 4: Still deal with, and that took away people's ability to
Speaker 4: gauge it for themselves, because it's not not everyone's gonna
Speaker 4: agree with this or like it. But you know, we
Speaker 4: have to be able to assess things, like analyze them
Speaker 4: critically on.
Speaker 2: Our own, to be able to say that's a penguin,
Speaker 2: like that's a bad bird, Well.
Speaker 4: We should be the ones to decide whether we think
Speaker 4: it's good or bad exactly. It's like when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, I was in the car with my mom
Speaker 4: and a song came on the radio. My mom went
Speaker 4: to change the station like super quick, and I told her, no, no, no, sup,
Speaker 4: I like this song. I'd never heard it before, only
Speaker 4: those opening bars. Right then she switched the station anyway,
Speaker 4: and she told me it was garbage and that I
Speaker 4: didn't you don't like this song.
Speaker 2: And you're not going to get on the bus go
Speaker 2: She said, no.
Speaker 3: One liked it.
Speaker 4: It was the bee Gees, and I didn't listen to
Speaker 4: it after that because I was told.
Speaker 3: It was garbage. I mean she was right, of course,
Speaker 3: but we can't act like kids.
Speaker 2: And let others with that charming Australian falsetto there is
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with.
Speaker 3: You, apparently, I was told it's garbage.
Speaker 4: So but like, you can't let people you know, treat
Speaker 4: like a kid tell you what's good, even if they
Speaker 4: wind up being right. You have to be able to
Speaker 4: figure grown up exactly. And it's important to remember that
Speaker 4: very few things are all good or all bad, so
Speaker 4: their life is shades of grapes. I love uncertainty, I
Speaker 4: really do anyway. Emma Golden she was born in eighteen
Speaker 4: sixty nine in Russia, had a really rough upbringing.
Speaker 3: Family was super poor.
Speaker 4: Her father didn't believe that women should be educated, so
Speaker 4: she had to educate herself in secret.
Speaker 2: Was she raised in a Jewish program?
Speaker 3: Do we know not?
Speaker 4: But not in a program, but she she's a Jewish
Speaker 4: Russian Jewish g Yeah. She became a secret student, secret
Speaker 4: student coming this fall to CBS, so she read what
Speaker 4: she could find. She paid really close attention to the
Speaker 4: world around her too, and so there she was in
Speaker 4: the middle of all the turmoil in Russia at the time.
Speaker 4: The Tsar thought of himself as like progressive, but at least
Speaker 4: better than the last iteration, but the people did.
Speaker 2: It was a low bar to clear right, like I'm
Speaker 2: not trampling your neighbors with horses. I'm progressive.
Speaker 4: That people didn't agree with them, You're not progressive. They
Speaker 4: didn't want to be led by.
Speaker 3: Royalty or like an out of touch bloodline that you know.
Speaker 2: Away, you know, yeah, had no awareness of what they
Speaker 2: deal with in their.
Speaker 4: Day to day exactly. So they wanted to decide their
Speaker 4: own futures. The anarchists were leading the way on this.
Speaker 4: In fact, they went so far as too, I shouldn't
Speaker 4: laugh assassinate. This is our Alexander, the second dude.
Speaker 2: We were talking about that earlier. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: the anarchists assassinated by an anarchist between eighteen eighty and
Speaker 2: nineteen ten.
Speaker 3: This happens a lot.
Speaker 4: It was gruesome, by the way, so it was horrible,
Speaker 4: a horrible desk. Goldman, though, saw firsthand what's called propaganda
Speaker 4: of the deed in this those violence aimed at the
Speaker 4: ruling class. Intended to start a revelation, and I just
Speaker 4: loved the propaganda of the deed right. So it didn't
Speaker 4: happen right away in Russia in eighteen eighty one with
Speaker 4: the assassination by bombing of Alexander the Second, but it
Speaker 4: did happen eventually, and before that Russian Revolution could happen, though,
Speaker 4: Goldman immigrated to the US. It was eighteen eighty five.
Speaker 4: She was sixteen years old, so she arrived in Rochester,
Speaker 4: New York with her sister and things were getting heated
Speaker 4: back in Saint Petersburg, Anti Semitism was out of control,
Speaker 4: so the rest of the family joined the sisters. In
Speaker 4: eighteen eighty six. She saw that anarchy wasn't just in Russia.
Speaker 4: It was picking up steam here in the US as well.
Speaker 4: Very international, super elegant, international, anarchist. It's all like Saint Petersburg, Rochester.
Speaker 4: I don't know Melbourne, Melbourne anarchy. Uh So she tried
Speaker 4: to marry a nice guy in the middle of all this,
Speaker 4: but they were really incompatible. I don't think they ever
Speaker 4: even consummated the marriage.
Speaker 2: Oh, he was.
Speaker 3: Just a nice guy.
Speaker 4: They lived with her parents and she left him twice
Speaker 4: and the parents thought that was loose behavior. Like she
Speaker 4: kept saying, I can't take it anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm out of here.
Speaker 2: We I didn't want her to read so I can
Speaker 2: see how they might be.
Speaker 4: So she leaves Rochester goes to New York City and
Speaker 4: it was there that she started hearing speeches given by
Speaker 4: other anarchists. And those guys are all fired up.
Speaker 2: We're talking like street corners speeches.
Speaker 4: Right, you know, in like like a Squashington Square park
Speaker 4: kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: She's all head up about it. I like this.
Speaker 4: So she saw the power of the spoken word and
Speaker 4: she wanted in.
Speaker 2: And they were some fiery orators, I mean, like Lucy
Speaker 2: anarchists exactly.
Speaker 4: So she still had to fight for gender equality even
Speaker 4: in the anarchist move and like, the more she fought,
Speaker 4: the fire more fiery she got. So she and her
Speaker 4: special friend Alexander Berkman, they focused particularly on rights and
Speaker 4: protections for workers. It was their big emphasis. So they
Speaker 4: supported a strike by steel workers who saw their wages
Speaker 4: drop even though productivity in the mill was increasing. So
Speaker 4: they had all these efficiencies. How do they want to
Speaker 4: support the workers by murdering the fact that the facility's manager. Ah, yes,
Speaker 4: don't worry they weren't successful. This is not one percent.
Speaker 4: So the higher ups in the anarchist movement, though, they
Speaker 4: were irritated with Goldman and Berkman for coming up with this. Well,
Speaker 4: let's just shoot the manager. So the the attack on
Speaker 4: the we want change now shoots the guy.
Speaker 3: So they attack him. They don't, they don't.
Speaker 4: He's not killed, and it doesn't. But this attack doesn't
Speaker 4: rally the worker to rise up. They're like, come on,
Speaker 4: like we know that guy, and like, you know that's
Speaker 4: not going to help our cause.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So they thought it was horrible. They're disgusted by it.
Speaker 4: They just wanted fair compensation. They're like, we don't want blood,
Speaker 4: we just want some cats.
Speaker 2: This is not going to get me Saturday off. I
Speaker 2: don't see how this is.
Speaker 4: So as the US economy hit the skids in eighteen
Speaker 4: ninety three, Goldman kicked her show into high gear. She
Speaker 4: gave really stirring speeches, and in one she pushed the
Speaker 4: crowd to take what was THEIRS quote, if they do
Speaker 4: not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you
Speaker 4: both take bread. So the authorities thought that she was
Speaker 4: inciting the crowd to riot, and she was arrested and
Speaker 4: that actually got her a lot of good press.
Speaker 3: So people who were they were all.
Speaker 4: Suffering, you know, the economies, can't you know whatever, and
Speaker 4: they side with her. You know what, Yeah, if I'm starving,
Speaker 4: I'll steal bread if you won't give me a job.
Speaker 2: And also at that time in America, you have a
Speaker 2: lot of populations who are immigrant populations coming from countries
Speaker 2: that were far worse, and so they already have a
Speaker 2: you know, like a long history of being oppressed. So
Speaker 2: then I'm not going to take it now in the
Speaker 2: land of opportunity, like I came here to a very chance,
Speaker 2: they're really heated in right, right.
Speaker 4: And so she gets she gets found guilty for trying
Speaker 4: to incide a riot, gets a year.
Speaker 3: She's just like Axl Rose, Just.
Speaker 2: Like, I mean, how many times have we said that,
Speaker 2: Ama Goldman.
Speaker 4: Actual Rose, you know, two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 4: So but she got a year, not the probation like
Speaker 4: Axle did, and the judge branded her a quote dangerous woman.
Speaker 2: Oh that's the one.
Speaker 4: That's how she gets it. So jail time didn't suppress
Speaker 4: her support. People were still.
Speaker 2: Probably helped her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're even more eager to hear her.
Speaker 2: Speak and now you can raise money off of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But also it's like if you hear that this woman
Speaker 4: is like about to get arrested and she's getting people
Speaker 4: all riled up. Even if you're like I don't care
Speaker 4: one way or the other what she's saying, it's like
Speaker 4: it's an attraction. I want to see this woman like
Speaker 4: get everyone fired out. So she starts touring the US,
Speaker 4: speaking just like AXL Rose.
Speaker 2: This is an amazing the parallel so crazy. Who's her slash?
Speaker 2: That's what I want to.
Speaker 4: So, speaking to crowds of people, she's like, you know what,
Speaker 4: topple the status quot handover control to the workers, the
Speaker 4: regular people. She was against capitalism, she was against government, which,
Speaker 4: like you know, I guess we do need kind of
Speaker 4: some stroke. She was against organized religion. She was against
Speaker 4: the patriarchy.
Speaker 2: Anything top down. She was against pretty much.
Speaker 4: So she supported a woman's access to birth control, which
Speaker 4: was revolutionary, and she wanted to give women bodily autonomy.
Speaker 4: And she also was really stressing the idea, if that
Speaker 4: women can have some sort of birth control, that's how
Speaker 4: you prevent abortion.
Speaker 2: Yes, birth control gives you a bodily autonomy because it
Speaker 2: allows you to plan and exactly.
Speaker 4: She believed in free love like before the hippies, Oh,
Speaker 4: the one you're with.
Speaker 2: Free love as in the bedroom, not free love is
Speaker 2: in like I'm cool with my neighbor.
Speaker 4: Free love is in like there's a rose in the
Speaker 4: in the fisted glove and the eagle flies with the dove.
Speaker 4: If you can't be with the one you love, love
Speaker 4: the one you're with. So she believed in gay rights.
Speaker 3: On give you time to that. She believed in gay rights,
Speaker 3: which was completely unheard of at the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely completely did you even call gay rights? Was
Speaker 2: there different? Imagine they had.
Speaker 4: Some sort of coding of like love and dirt. But anyway,
Speaker 4: she had affairs with both men and women and there
Speaker 4: wasn't a label that she met that she didn't hate.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I'm over here with like confirmed bachelor rights,
Speaker 2: you know, like.
Speaker 4: Anyway, yes, and of course like she also believed that
Speaker 4: targeted violence could be justified. She said, sometimes you need
Speaker 4: to kind of crack skulls or blow something up in
Speaker 4: order to get some change, which may or may not
Speaker 4: be true, but you know, history.
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways would be on her side.
Speaker 4: That's true, that's true. So she talked a lot about this,
Speaker 4: but she never performed any act of violence herself. Of those,
Speaker 4: I feels kind of a cop out.
Speaker 2: I don't just kind of I think that's a cop
Speaker 2: you're telling someone else to do.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be about it, be about yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: I'm suspicious of someone who rallies others to do stuff
Speaker 4: that they can get them arrested or murdered, that that
Speaker 4: person won't do them.
Speaker 2: Especially as all that they won't pay. Like, I respect
Speaker 2: the Don because he's like, do the violence, here's the money,
Speaker 2: I'll take care of your family, go to jail. But
Speaker 2: if it's like just Bob my neighbor.
Speaker 4: The violence, talk about the mafia, the Don has done
Speaker 4: stuff to get to that position totally.
Speaker 2: It was like it's an understanding language of violence.
Speaker 3: Right, and so this is the like you just get okay,
Speaker 3: you there.
Speaker 2: You're just spout in your mouth saying it's not.
Speaker 4: Really different than like suicide bombers, like go out there
Speaker 4: and you're not the one doing it, you're telling me
Speaker 4: to do it.
Speaker 2: I was going to a couple of steps and like
Speaker 2: kind of like the you know, the online clowns to
Speaker 2: want to go and like be like talk loud when
Speaker 2: they're on their keyboard, like the keyboard Warriors. But they
Speaker 2: would never say, that's what I.
Speaker 3: Say something in person to someone's face.
Speaker 2: But yours is well met too.
Speaker 3: It always is.
Speaker 4: So, so even the people who didn't agree with her
Speaker 4: had to acknowledge that she had a way of like
Speaker 4: capturing audience imagination and stirring emotion. The US Justice Department
Speaker 4: didn't like this one bit.
Speaker 3: No, they weren't. They weren't about it.
Speaker 4: So they sent spies to watch her every move, their spies,
Speaker 4: and to watch it's spy versus spy, and to watch
Speaker 4: every move of those in attendance at her rallies. So
Speaker 4: in eighteen sixty nine, like I said, Goldman was born
Speaker 4: in Russia. And also in eighteen sixty nine, a man
Speaker 4: named William Bowalda was born in the Netherlands. Okay, okay,
Speaker 4: non sequitar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just dropping that in there, why not?
Speaker 3: And then also whoburg everyone around the globe who was
Speaker 3: born in eighteen.
Speaker 2: Sent was a man born in New Deviles.
Speaker 3: Well, this William Balde.
Speaker 4: He moved to the US two years before Emma Goldman did.
Speaker 3: He was fourteen by Billy b His.
Speaker 4: Family emigrated to Michigan. His parents only spoke Dutch, never
Speaker 4: learned English, not assimilators. When he was twenty three, in
Speaker 4: the beginning of the banking panics of the Gilded Age,
Speaker 4: he joined the military, and just like a long line
Speaker 4: of his fourthfathers, so it was all military family. He
Speaker 4: served five tours of duty. He was in the Philippines
Speaker 4: during the Spanish American War. That was some crazy fighting, okay,
Speaker 4: crazy times.
Speaker 2: So he joined to like post eighteen ninety seven panic
Speaker 2: and then he goes So he's there for eighteen ninety
Speaker 2: nine for the exactly okay, I got you.
Speaker 3: And he was a great soldier.
Speaker 4: He had an excellent record of service, lauded by his
Speaker 4: superiors the army. They were so loving his superior blacksmith skills,
Speaker 4: like to do it again, will and the spark go
Speaker 4: on and just like a good girl from the Tom
Speaker 4: Petty song. He loved horses in America too, eight.
Speaker 3: On all the boomer lyrics.
Speaker 2: That was good.
Speaker 4: In nineteen o eight, he was stationed at the Presidio
Speaker 4: in San Francisco. This had been a key point of
Speaker 4: assembly for army troops. They headed out to the Pacific
Speaker 4: Room and it was so everyone's going out to the
Speaker 4: Pacific Room from there, and that was especially true for
Speaker 4: those headed to the Philippines during Spanish America War, So
Speaker 4: this wasn't his first time in the city. Nineteen oh
Speaker 4: eight was actually a calm year for the US military,
Speaker 4: believe it or not. They'd seen some action in South
Speaker 4: America a few years prior, and like more to come
Speaker 4: in a few years time.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a lull between the doors.
Speaker 4: For now, the Presidio is just a storied out post.
Speaker 2: Located clean our guns.
Speaker 3: It's at the mouth of.
Speaker 4: The San Francisco Bay, just cleaning guns. Just a bunch
Speaker 4: of guys doing guy stuff. They're right at the foot
Speaker 4: of where the Golden gate Bridge would be built decades later.
Speaker 4: And William Bewilda, as I said, was stationed there.
Speaker 3: Let's take a.
Speaker 4: Break, beautiful place, I'm just telling random biographies.
Speaker 3: Nice, let's take a break.
Speaker 4: When we come back, i'll tell you how and why
Speaker 4: am a goldman and William Bewelda cross path.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm guessing there's a crime too.
Speaker 3: Yes, feeling groovies erin o easy breezy. You know.
Speaker 4: When we left off William Bewalda he was stationed at
Speaker 4: the precity on San Francisco. Yeah, b bad billy b
Speaker 4: Emma Goldman.
Speaker 3: EG.
Speaker 4: She was on tour, lighting up audiences with her screaming lyrics.
Speaker 3: She's like, you know what equality class warfare?
Speaker 4: Oh, she howled all the time on stage.
Speaker 3: Goldman.
Speaker 4: She got to San Francisco on April seventeenth, nineteen oh eight.
Speaker 4: She had just spoken two nights prior in Sacramento, Sacramento,
Speaker 4: as we say Tomato exactly, it's about ninety miles from
Speaker 4: San Francisco. The Sacramento mayor's wife was very displeased that
Speaker 4: she had spoken in Sacramento.
Speaker 3: She didn't think that.
Speaker 4: Her husband should have allowed Goldman to speak in the
Speaker 4: city at all, and she went so far as to
Speaker 4: sit for an interview with the newspaper and with her
Speaker 4: husband in attendance, for the sole purpose of dressing him
Speaker 4: down about it publicly. Her She's like, quote, I have
Speaker 4: my opinion of the mayor of any city who would
Speaker 4: allow Emma Goldman to speak in public. I do not
Speaker 4: think she ought to be permitted to speak. If she
Speaker 4: was not good enough to speak in Chicago, I don't
Speaker 4: see why she should be allowed to speak here. She's
Speaker 4: like this clown I'm married to over here. I think
Speaker 4: they're all poop. So the mayor, he just smiles and
Speaker 4: then he gets up and leaves the room and the interview.
Speaker 4: But this is what he says on his way out
Speaker 4: the door. I don't think we have many anarchists in Sacramento.
Speaker 4: I have confidence in the good sense of our people,
Speaker 4: and I don't think Emma Goldman, by her speeches here,
Speaker 4: will make many converts to anarchy. I consider that she's
Speaker 4: wasting time in Sacramento.
Speaker 2: I can probably attest to that.
Speaker 3: And then he's all mayor out and.
Speaker 4: Oh it's like, oh my god, it's Emma Goldman in disguise. Okay,
Speaker 4: So you can see that her very presence was enough
Speaker 4: to get people steamed. And on April seventeenth, she went
Speaker 4: to San Francisco to steam up some more folks.
Speaker 2: So she's like the early twentieth century AOC at this
Speaker 2: point where just her presence gets people heated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, or like an early twentieth century Andrew Dice Clay.
Speaker 3: Okay, I got that one outrage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she rolls into town.
Speaker 4: They're like, she's got her leather direct. So she gets
Speaker 4: to San Francisco. She gets there in the evening heads
Speaker 4: to the Saint Francis Hotel. Nice Hotel, The paper announced
Speaker 4: the arrival of quote Queen of the Anarchists.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, really doesn't understand anarchy.
Speaker 3: No, exactly like the whole royalty.
Speaker 4: So she'd been tailed to San Francisco by SFPD under
Speaker 4: orders of their police chief, Chief Biggie.
Speaker 2: To get out.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not more on him in a second, and
Speaker 4: the US State Department. So the US State Department contacts
Speaker 4: Biggie and says, send your detectives to intercept her in
Speaker 4: Sacramento and follow her to the city.
Speaker 2: So that's what they did before Hoover. They had the
Speaker 2: State Department and this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Okay, and then let me tell you about Chief Biggie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, please, I want to know.
Speaker 4: He was my great great grandpa's boss. What at the
Speaker 4: San Francisco Police Department.
Speaker 2: Your great great grandpa was a cop, and.
Speaker 4: My great great grandpa and about seven or eight other
Speaker 4: officers were busted whoa for tuning up and shaking down
Speaker 4: a couple of flophouse owners on the Barbary Coast, and
Speaker 4: Chief Biggie he put them on paid leave for a
Speaker 4: while and then brought most of them back.
Speaker 3: A couple of weeks later.
Speaker 2: So I was going to do a show in your family.
Speaker 3: Pretty much soon.
Speaker 4: And then here's the best part. He was still chief
Speaker 4: when my great great grandpa died by supposedly shooting himself
Speaker 4: in the head three times.
Speaker 2: Oh you know that happens, you get that quick finger.
Speaker 4: A detective arrived before the ambulance got there. No, he
Speaker 4: had tested that. My great great grandpa told him that
Speaker 4: he didn't shoot himself in the head. And then he said, quote,
Speaker 4: you know the captain, and I belong to a secret
Speaker 4: organization and I can't tell anything what That's what my
Speaker 4: great great grandpa said, your.
Speaker 2: Great great grandma's dying words, which there's a secret like
Speaker 2: a cabal in the NPD, and I've got three bullets
Speaker 2: in my head and I can't say anything about it.
Speaker 3: I didn't do this to myself.
Speaker 2: Amazing wheeled away by.
Speaker 4: An ambulance crew and he dies six hours later, and
Speaker 4: the police are like, oh, no, he's just confused.
Speaker 3: It's in the paper. No, he was just confused.
Speaker 4: I have a copy of his death certificate and like
Speaker 4: the cause of death is scratched out in suicides. So Chief, Biggie,
Speaker 4: this guy, Wow, he's in my orbit and Chief Big
Speaker 4: his team. Yeah, now we know who we're dealing with.
Speaker 4: So the police had learned earlier that a bunch of
Speaker 4: anarchist literature had been shipped out ahead of Emma Goldman's.
Speaker 2: Survival, so they're getting ready to crack called.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the address was even provided in the paper when
Speaker 4: they're writing about this that like.
Speaker 3: Oh all this shore.
Speaker 4: Botwell Street to that address is now the tow eighty
Speaker 4: one oh one interchange and it takes up like which
Speaker 4: takes up like sixteen square box. But anyway, that's where
Speaker 4: the house was. The cops told the press that they
Speaker 4: knew about the boxes of flyers and books. They knew
Speaker 4: all about it, but they weren't going to seize them.
Speaker 4: But they told Goldman, you can't hand them out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it's you know.
Speaker 4: It's like how there's no penalty for possession just for
Speaker 4: distribution in terms of magic mushrooms in Oakland.
Speaker 2: Oh very apt. I was like gonna say the same thing,
Speaker 2: but you beat me too, just like magic mushrooms.
Speaker 3: And no penalty for possession just for distribution.
Speaker 4: So Goldman got to the Saint Francis Hotel and there
Speaker 4: were people from the movement waiting to greet her, like, hey,
Speaker 4: we're the movement. She's like, what movement? The anarchy movement?
Speaker 4: Oh okay, I questioned your commitment about down to your queen,
Speaker 4: Like wait a second, this is anarchy. So they noticed
Speaker 4: that the detectives fought were following her. This the crowd
Speaker 4: and then they started getting a little rowdy, like there's like
Speaker 4: you know, when I say crowd, it's like six people.
Speaker 3: So hey, what what them getting rowdy?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: So then Chief Biggie shows up and he's like, you
Speaker 4: know what, I'm gonna arrest everybody here if you start something.
Speaker 4: And her dudes leave, we don't want to and she
Speaker 4: just like checks into the hotel with a flourish and
Speaker 4: heads up to her room. And so she was scheduled
Speaker 4: to give a series of speeches in the city and
Speaker 4: then head to laout ten days later. One of her
Speaker 4: speaking gigs was a debate with some socialists on solutions
Speaker 4: to social.
Speaker 3: Process I'm telling you, and they were like this is
Speaker 3: going to be heated.
Speaker 2: Yeah. They were big competing like leading edge of thought
Speaker 2: about how do we create a better society? These are
Speaker 2: the two competing mode, right, and.
Speaker 4: So let's go back to the Saint Francis for a second.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 4: The management there didn't like the attention that Goldman brought,
Speaker 4: so they kicked her out after a night.
Speaker 3: You're out of here.
Speaker 2: Money spends and he's like, nope, not that, not your money.
Speaker 4: So she and her friends they decamped for that address
Speaker 4: that's now a freeway interchange. Meanwhile, where all the materials are. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: which like.
Speaker 3: Why if they're like of the people, why.
Speaker 4: Were you staying at the Saint Francis and not at
Speaker 4: like the anarchist safe house.
Speaker 2: I think we know the answer to that, Elizabeth. So
Speaker 2: I'm questioning commitment to your.
Speaker 3: Sparkle motion, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: So. Meanwhile, Chief Biggie assigned a squad fifty cops, some
Speaker 4: on horseback, like some playing clothes to watch all of
Speaker 4: Goldman's speaking engagements.
Speaker 3: That's a lot.
Speaker 4: If any of them felt that anything in lammatory was said,
Speaker 4: they were authorized to break up. The speech busted up.
Speaker 4: During her first speech, she denounced police authority, and she
Speaker 4: shared what the San Francisco Call newspaper called quote startling
Speaker 4: views on free love.
Speaker 3: Which like give me the transcript from they're like men
Speaker 3: and women are allowed to sit on the same park.
Speaker 2: Ben ankles or should be shown in public.
Speaker 4: And then at the same thing she spoke about the
Speaker 4: right for workers to strike WGA.
Speaker 3: Let's hear it.
Speaker 4: She pushed for a disregard of laws that govern the
Speaker 4: relations of the sexes. So again like you guys can
Speaker 4: sit in the cab together. Chief Biggie was right there
Speaker 4: listening to this supposedly shocking material, and he even had
Speaker 4: his stenographer taking notes, just taking holding down. The paper
Speaker 4: noted that an oddity at this event was the large
Speaker 4: number of Japanese citizens present. Well, and apparently they really
Speaker 4: clapped for the lines about race equality, like can you imagine.
Speaker 2: I'm focusing on the imperial part that thing? Ye, No, No,
Speaker 2: these this is people.
Speaker 3: They're like, look, we want to be treated like the Americans.
Speaker 2: We are, we've been here for a while.
Speaker 4: Well, and they described The paper described the audience as
Speaker 4: quote men and a few women, most of whom were foreigners.
Speaker 4: Like the San Francisco Call was the most out of
Speaker 4: control paper. I think the Examiner, maybe the Chronicle was
Speaker 4: very stage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Examiner's most conservative and wild.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the examiners like yellow journalism, the all kind of
Speaker 4: goes nuts on some stuff.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the call sounds like the one where it's trying
Speaker 2: to split the difference, like occasionly we're gonna say something inflammatory,
Speaker 2: but we also have the news.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're really reliable on this that they have, like
Speaker 4: a good amount of information.
Speaker 3: The chronicle doesn't waited.
Speaker 2: I love Americans calling anybody else a foreigner. It's always
Speaker 2: the most funny, iron irony. To me.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, really, Well, as Jack White said, kick
Speaker 4: yourself out, you're.
Speaker 2: A foreigner too, exactly, Jack, I'm.
Speaker 3: Just about the lyrics that.
Speaker 4: So in the following days, the papers gave up reporting
Speaker 4: about Goldman. This just got boring. She didn't get arrested.
Speaker 4: The speeches show Yeah, only there was one publication that
Speaker 4: kept up coverage, and that was the Italian language paper.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're like, you know, give.
Speaker 4: It in April, April twenty six that's where we get to.
Speaker 4: That's when things change. On April twenty sixth, nineteen oh eight,
Speaker 4: Emma Goldman gave a speech in San Francisco called what
Speaker 4: is Patriotism? That kind of sounds like the like a
Speaker 4: sixth grade essay contest. Yeah, so she opens up by
Speaker 4: asking if patriotism is love of one's birthplace and hopes
Speaker 4: and dreams. If it's loving somewhere for all its natural beauty,
Speaker 4: If it's loving the place where you feel happiest, where
Speaker 4: you have the best memories of your childhood, and everyone's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: sure that sounds right, then, she said quote if that
Speaker 4: were patriotism, few American men of today would be called
Speaker 4: upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has
Speaker 4: been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deepening sounds
Speaker 4: of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. No
Speaker 4: longer can we hear the tales of great deeds, for
Speaker 4: the stories our mothers tell us today are but those
Speaker 4: of sorrow, tears, and grief. Yeah, she continues. Indeed, conceit, arrogance,
Speaker 4: and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate.
Speaker 4: Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots,
Speaker 4: each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have
Speaker 4: had the fortune of being born on some particular spot
Speaker 4: consider this themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those
Speaker 4: living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is therefore the
Speaker 4: duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill,
Speaker 4: and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon
Speaker 4: all others.
Speaker 2: And largely I agree with her. I mean not to
Speaker 2: be like, oh, I'm a citizen of the world, but
Speaker 2: I do believe that this whole globe is my home.
Speaker 2: I don't believe like the invisible lines or the colored
Speaker 2: sections on the mad are real. I'm like, I know
Speaker 2: too much about history for me to think that, oh,
Speaker 2: you're a Canadian. What does that even mean?
Speaker 4: Come on now, Yeah, So she questions very nature of
Speaker 4: national identity. We're born into a particular country by luck,
Speaker 4: you know, and if we steal ourselves off and say
Speaker 4: we're better than any other country and fight to the
Speaker 4: death over something that was, in essence purely random, Like
Speaker 4: how is that a noble thing?
Speaker 2: And how applicable is it? If like a main lobster
Speaker 2: fisherman and I are both Americans, you're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 2: gain something from calling us both Americans. You're gonna understand
Speaker 2: something about us. I mean, you can understand that culturally,
Speaker 2: but not like an identifier, like I have brown hair
Speaker 2: and that's going to mean something about my parents. You know,
Speaker 2: people act like it's an effect of life and not
Speaker 2: an aspect of culture.
Speaker 4: Well, and she points out that this is a human thing,
Speaker 4: but it's not necessarily an indictment of America alone.
Speaker 3: No, No, every other country does.
Speaker 2: Exactly. The whole idea that indye nation is an identity
Speaker 2: is by thing. I'm saying, your identity is a member
Speaker 2: of a culture, not that you are an American.
Speaker 4: Right, So then she starts rallying against spending money on
Speaker 4: military weapons and displays when so many people were going hungry,
Speaker 4: you know, And you can see why she is both
Speaker 4: hated and revered, and you can see that the police
Speaker 4: presence and looming crackdown. We're kind of idiotic because it's like,
Speaker 4: this is not inflammatory speech. This is it's just something
Speaker 4: they don't agree with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and its demands for decency more so than really violence.
Speaker 4: But then in the shadow of the presidio, she says, quote,
Speaker 4: an army and navy represent the people's toys to make
Speaker 4: them more attractive and acceptable. Hundreds and thousands of dollars
Speaker 4: are being spent for the display of toys. That was
Speaker 4: the purpose of the American government in equipping a fleet
Speaker 4: and sending it along the Pacific coast. That every American
Speaker 4: citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory
Speaker 4: of the United States a wonderful thing to remember? Is
Speaker 4: it not the implements of civilized slaughter? If the mind
Speaker 4: of the child is poisoned with such memories, what hope
Speaker 4: is there for a true realization of human brotherhood.
Speaker 2: I mean, I understand what she's saying. She's going to
Speaker 2: lose people on the toys part because you're taking something
Speaker 2: very complex and minimizing it.
Speaker 4: But I agree it's the minimization of the complex that
Speaker 4: a lot of this is.
Speaker 3: Theoretically, it would be amazing if we were all brothers
Speaker 3: and sisters under the sun.
Speaker 2: And you know the Blooper sticker, wouldn't it be great?
Speaker 2: At the Air Force had to hold a bag saale
Speaker 2: to buy a bomber, our kids had all the money
Speaker 2: they needed for books. I'm like, yeah, if okay, so
Speaker 2: want to be great if humans weren't involved this equation,
Speaker 2: that's what saying.
Speaker 3: It's not all the world works.
Speaker 4: So what's nuts is that we think of anarchy as
Speaker 4: inherently violent when this is like peace loving stuff.
Speaker 2: Very hippy stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the nuns at my high school talk like this.
Speaker 4: But the free love, well, the free love you throw
Speaker 4: down your arms.
Speaker 2: I mean not for them, but for the world. Like
Speaker 2: would they have agreed with the whole idea of like
Speaker 2: the pastoral beauty and the music and the free love.
Speaker 2: I don't know the leaving aside the free love. Maybe
Speaker 2: I should stop saying free love but fully engage your
Speaker 2: body right, and that.
Speaker 4: You are a fully service to all people, but not
Speaker 4: in that one. So this is how she wraps it up, quote,
Speaker 4: when we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have
Speaker 4: cleared the path for the great structure where we all
Speaker 4: shall be united into a universal brotherhood, a truly free society.
Speaker 2: I would like that would be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, theoretically we could.
Speaker 2: Figure out a way to I think mature as of
Speaker 2: people on this planet so that we can look and
Speaker 2: have two things be true at once. That I can
Speaker 2: both be an American and a member of a global community,
Speaker 2: and I have responsibilities to both of those identities. If
Speaker 2: you want to make them identities, I'd be into that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, not gonna happen.
Speaker 4: There were, of course non believers in the crowd. They
Speaker 4: would huff and hawe at what she said. Most though,
Speaker 4: we're all in, and when her speech ended, the place
Speaker 4: erupted into applause.
Speaker 3: Let's take a break.
Speaker 2: Wait, so they carrying her out like on their shoulders,
Speaker 2: like everybody loved it.
Speaker 3: Everyone loved it. Place goes nuts nice.
Speaker 4: When we come back, I'll tell you what happened next.
Speaker 2: Zaren, Elizabeth Saren, Yes, Elizabeth.
Speaker 3: Close you on.
Speaker 2: Oh it up idea.
Speaker 3: I want you to picture it.
Speaker 4: You are one of the cops in my great great
Speaker 4: grandpa's secret organization, a fellow veteran of the forest.
Speaker 3: You were there through the great quake of nineteen oh six.
Speaker 4: You and he have been at it since before Big
Speaker 4: Bertha rolled into town. He's not on duty today, my
Speaker 4: great great grandpa. He's on paid leave for extorting the
Speaker 4: owner of a sleazy hotel. You have been assigned to
Speaker 4: the Emma Goldman speech. You and the other guys think
Speaker 4: this is foolish. She's not saying anything too crazy. She
Speaker 4: irritated the sap out of you. But what loud broad doesn't.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to make you historically accurate. The speech is
Speaker 4: finally over, and everyone's cheering a standing ovation. Whatever you think.
Speaker 3: That's how you talk.
Speaker 4: By the way, you see a bunch of people head
Speaker 4: towards the stage This has happened every night at these things.
Speaker 4: They want to shake her hand, They want to tell
Speaker 4: her how wonderful she is. You want to tell him
Speaker 4: to get back to work, even though it Sunday night.
Speaker 4: You see, though, that there's a man in uniform among
Speaker 4: the group, headed right toward Emma Goldman. You can't believe
Speaker 4: this is some gi going to shut her up for good.
Speaker 4: You look around and you notice that all the other
Speaker 4: cops are watching.
Speaker 3: No one is moving. The air grows still.
Speaker 4: You watch as thirty nine year old William Bewalda reaches
Speaker 4: the stage. There's chatter up there, audience members hurriedly telling
Speaker 4: Goldman how much they admire her, reaching up to shake
Speaker 4: her hand. From this scrum of people, you see a
Speaker 4: hand go up the army guy. You can see his uniform.
Speaker 4: His hand gets to Goldman. She looks down at him,
Speaker 4: He looks up at her. She takes his hand and
Speaker 4: shakes it. He nods at her, says something, Then he
Speaker 4: turns and heads towards the exit. A gasp goes up
Speaker 4: from the remaining audience members. You and the other uniform
Speaker 4: officers are shocked. Did that military man just shake the
Speaker 4: hand of the woman who spent the better part of
Speaker 4: an hour ragging on the military. A buzz goes up
Speaker 4: among the cops. Three detectives come to you. They tell
Speaker 4: you they noticed that guy earlier. He had removed all
Speaker 4: insignia that might clue them as to his identity. The
Speaker 4: detectives tell the patrolman to sit tight.
Speaker 3: They're on it. You watch as the detectives follow the man.
Speaker 3: He's their problem.
Speaker 4: Now you pull a flask out of your jacket and
Speaker 4: take a sip and shifts over. The detectives tailed the
Speaker 4: Walda out into the foggy night. They didn't know if
Speaker 4: he was going to be like maybe some crank who
Speaker 4: got hold of uniform, if he was just doing it
Speaker 4: for show. And you know, if that was the case,
Speaker 4: they were going to arrest him for impersonating military personnel,
Speaker 4: kind of the opposite of stolen valor, you know, if
Speaker 4: he was in the army. Though, if he actually was,
Speaker 4: they were going to turn him over to the police.
Speaker 4: So Bowalda he had been to others of Goldman's speeches.
Speaker 4: In fact, he'd been to a lot of different speeches
Speaker 4: from all over the political spectrum, and he'd also gone
Speaker 4: to various religious services as well.
Speaker 3: He's just a curious Well.
Speaker 4: No, here's the thing. He was studying shorthand. He wanted
Speaker 4: to expand his skill set, so he figured it was
Speaker 4: like a good extra size and taking shorthand dictation, he
Speaker 4: would go to this speech. It was his understanding that
Speaker 4: she used really powerful and figurative language, and he thought
Speaker 4: that would be a good opportunity to flex his developing skills.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: And then something like I said he'd been going to
Speaker 4: church stuff, different denominations.
Speaker 3: Different religions.
Speaker 4: Yeah. When the detectives saw him cruise into the presidio.
Speaker 2: Your hobbies dictation, long walks on the monography.
Speaker 4: They headed right over to the base headquarters and alerted
Speaker 4: the authorities, and so the cops they told the army
Speaker 4: about what they saw. They described the guy. The MPs
Speaker 4: went to fetch him, brought him back. Cops confirmed, Yep,
Speaker 4: that's the guy that I saw. Private William bowalda company
Speaker 4: A of the Engineer Corps.
Speaker 3: He was then court martialed.
Speaker 2: What.
Speaker 4: Yeah, here's the official charge quote being in uniform and
Speaker 4: an address delivered by Emma Goldman at San Francisco, California,
Speaker 4: which address was an attack and criticism on government of
Speaker 4: the US and the Army and Navy thereof did frequently
Speaker 4: and repeatedly applaud the set address, and did, on its
Speaker 4: conclusion declare to the same Emma Goldman that his sympathy
Speaker 4: was with her and his approval of her remarks.
Speaker 2: Now do we know what he said to her when
Speaker 2: they shook hands.
Speaker 3: Up for debate.
Speaker 4: So the charge was for violating the sixty second Article
Speaker 4: of War.
Speaker 2: I only know the first forty.
Speaker 3: I know one through sixty one.
Speaker 4: This calls for the punishment of a serviceman if he
Speaker 4: used quote contemptuous or disrespectful words against the President, vice President,
Speaker 4: the Congress of the United States, the Secretary of War,
Speaker 4: or the governor of Legislature of any states.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm familiar with this, but I thought they're basically
Speaker 2: a disparagement clause.
Speaker 4: But it's like, well, the whole thing has to do
Speaker 4: with him being in uniform and saying I approve of
Speaker 4: your Yeah, it's the Yeah, he wouldn't have caught the
Speaker 4: charge if he wasn't in if.
Speaker 3: He was in his street clothes.
Speaker 2: That's a big deal of the uniform.
Speaker 4: So the detectives claimed that he vigorously applauded, and they said,
Speaker 4: you just about lost his mind.
Speaker 3: He was so excited.
Speaker 2: Happened like an idiot on with.
Speaker 3: And he said.
Speaker 4: They said he walked up to the stage and loudly
Speaker 4: announced that, you know, Emma Goldman, I sympathize with you,
Speaker 4: and I totally approve of your remarks. This is not
Speaker 4: what happened whatever. But Walda, he pleads not guilty. He
Speaker 4: gave a very innocent.
Speaker 2: Court martial guilty. I don't know you can plead.
Speaker 4: He gives a very innocent story about practicing stenography to
Speaker 4: help uncle Sam. Sure, and then he was swept to
Speaker 4: the front of the hall by the crowd, and that
Speaker 4: he only said, how do you do?
Speaker 3: He hasn't as they excused. Yeah, he didn't say, I
Speaker 3: sympathize with your cause.
Speaker 2: Sure walked gently.
Speaker 4: Said he got pushed to the front by the crowd,
Speaker 4: and what could he say?
Speaker 3: But he's a gentleman, zaren.
Speaker 2: I don't anybody about this.
Speaker 4: Later he's more truthful about the account, but it still
Speaker 4: wasn't anywhere near the description of events that cops provided.
Speaker 4: So only two soldiers had ever up until that point
Speaker 4: been accused of annay. One was a guy who, when
Speaker 4: told that President McKinley had been assassinated, said quote.
Speaker 3: I'm glad he's dead. Oh and he got twenty years
Speaker 3: in jail for that.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, they don't play, They do not play. The
Speaker 4: officers selected for the court martial were unusually high in rank,
Speaker 4: and that's because the case was so high profile, and
Speaker 4: they knew that it would set everybody's going crazy on
Speaker 4: the wire and everywhere, it's everywhere, and that this would
Speaker 4: set a precedent going forward when it came to this
Speaker 4: sort of staff. I always wry about the presidents at trial,
Speaker 4: but Walda admitted that he'd been to four of her speeches,
Speaker 4: and not just the one. But then he repeated the
Speaker 4: whole thing about.
Speaker 2: Practicing I'm a humidicctaphone.
Speaker 4: What Yeah, he said that Emma Goldman's language, as he
Speaker 4: put it, was quote so peculiar that he had to
Speaker 4: give transcribing a shot.
Speaker 3: Now I read you passages.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not peculiar. It's not that striking.
Speaker 4: No, And quite frankly, it's like in today, in today's society,
Speaker 4: it's not shocking.
Speaker 3: It's you know, and there are.
Speaker 2: Other orators of the day who I know had better speeches,
Speaker 2: and I imagine there were a lot.
Speaker 4: Of them right, but you know he's saying it's so peculiar.
Speaker 4: He did admit that he probably shouldn't have been there,
Speaker 4: and he told the court that he thought the content
Speaker 4: of her speech was nonsense.
Speaker 2: Why would he be there in uniform, It's like it's
Speaker 2: not He was working and he just had to get over.
Speaker 4: He was he was at the Annville and he's like
Speaker 4: looked at his watch like, oh snap, I'm gonna be late.
Speaker 3: He ran over.
Speaker 4: He had character witnesses vouch for him as being a
Speaker 4: good soldier who loved his country, horses, America. Didn't matter.
Speaker 4: He was found guilty. General Frederick Funston fighting Fred Funston.
Speaker 4: He was in charge of the presidio at the time
Speaker 4: and thus lee the court martial. Fun fact about Funston,
Speaker 4: he was a boss at the presidio two years earlier
Speaker 4: during the Great Quake, and he declared martial law even
Speaker 4: though he didn't have the authority to do so.
Speaker 3: Wow, and then it never took effect.
Speaker 2: And you know, his name basically would mean FunTown or
Speaker 2: Fundstown town.
Speaker 4: So Freddie FunTown. He he did successfully order the demolition
Speaker 4: of buildings in order to create a firebreak to stop
Speaker 4: the fire from spreading in the city after the quake,
Speaker 4: but his demolitions by explosion caused more fires.
Speaker 2: Oh that doesn't happened with bombs job dingis.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so he was no fan of Emma Goldman. He
Speaker 4: had just returned from Esmeralda County, Nevada, where he and
Speaker 4: some troops had put down a labor strike by the
Speaker 4: industrial workers of the World.
Speaker 2: Oh the I w W the wobblies. Wait the this
Speaker 2: is like the Ludlow strike era. There's like a lot
Speaker 2: of the Colorado strikes. Okay, Nevada strike.
Speaker 4: So he comes back and then two months later he's
Speaker 4: dealing with this, so we know his mindset. So he
Speaker 4: sentenced Bewalda to five years hard labor on Alcatraz the rock.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all for handshake Land of the.
Speaker 4: Free in a uniform es Actually, so after a month
Speaker 4: his sentence was reduced to three years. So they knocked
Speaker 4: a little.
Speaker 2: It's tough for a bad fashion sense. Well, sir, are
Speaker 2: all you had to do was wear the ride out.
Speaker 3: Remember he had taken off his name.
Speaker 2: I know, that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: He gets reduced to three Why do you.
Speaker 2: Want to wear it so badly? If you do all
Speaker 2: the other work just changed the shirt.
Speaker 3: Bob right, Uh, I think he wants to be in
Speaker 3: the uniform.
Speaker 2: That's That's what I'm saying. Is bad bad fashion.
Speaker 4: Send so he gets he gets it down to three years.
Speaker 4: Two reasons for this his years of dutiful and loyal
Speaker 4: service and the fact that they believed he was under
Speaker 4: the sway of Emma Goldman and that he suffered a
Speaker 4: lapse in judgment. Oh, Goldman used her while wiley feminine
Speaker 4: ways to cast an anarchist spell on him.
Speaker 2: The old legal strategy, blame the woman.
Speaker 4: They were terrified of her. Yeah, like yeah, so but
Speaker 4: then they all and then they gave him a dishonorable.
Speaker 3: Discharge of course, up on the rock. And what did
Speaker 3: the woman herself think of all this?
Speaker 2: That's what I want to know.
Speaker 4: When she found out about his arrest and conviction, she
Speaker 4: got to work. This was the exact type of thing
Speaker 4: she was talking about in her speech, the blinding and
Speaker 4: negative power of patriotism over the human instinct for logic
Speaker 4: and good. She raised money, She rallied her supporters. She
Speaker 4: told the press that this incident had only quote aided
Speaker 4: her cause she really did.
Speaker 2: He gave a good example what she's fighting against.
Speaker 4: And at the same time, General Funston.
Speaker 2: Got to work a fun town camic for you, only.
Speaker 4: This time Freddy FunTown. He was working to free Bewalda.
Speaker 4: Oh and he was successful.
Speaker 2: Get out fred I knew I liked this, Freddy.
Speaker 3: On New Year's Eve nineteen oh eight, crazy enough to
Speaker 3: make it work. Go on, William.
Speaker 4: Bowalda was pardoned by none other than the anarchist hating
Speaker 4: President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: General Funston convinced Roosevelt that Bewalda wasn't an anarchist and
Speaker 4: shouldn't be punished as such.
Speaker 2: Huh and just do we happen to know what year
Speaker 2: the he got the he kept not pardoned, but basically
Speaker 2: he got the pardon.
Speaker 4: He was released pardon on New Year's Eve nineteen oh eight.
Speaker 4: So January first, nineteen oh nine. He struts out there,
Speaker 4: out off the rock. I don't know what changed Funstan's
Speaker 4: mind on this, but it was enough to sway the president.
Speaker 2: Whatever this is probably yeah, this's got to be post
Speaker 2: after Teddy Roosevelt got shot by the anarchist and his
Speaker 2: speech saved him. He gets shot in the speech.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm not sure, like if there I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know what the deeper her periods this was.
Speaker 4: But what Boalda was freed only now he actually was
Speaker 4: an anarchist.
Speaker 2: He came out hard and he's like, all right.
Speaker 4: Man, because it's a long quote here from the Spokane Press,
Speaker 4: but it's a real quirker. This is what Bowalda had
Speaker 4: to say upon his release. Oh nice, I would never
Speaker 4: have dreamed of taking anarchy seriously if they hadn't arrested
Speaker 4: me and thrown me into prison. It was during the
Speaker 4: long hours over there on the island that I began
Speaker 4: to think for myself, think for myself.
Speaker 3: That was the marvel of it.
Speaker 4: Someone had done my thinking for me for fifteen years.
Speaker 4: Those statements of miss Goldman in that lecture, which ought
Speaker 4: to be called the Farce of Patriotism, burned into my soul.
Speaker 4: They made me angry when I first heard them. Then
Speaker 4: I thought they were all bosh. This woman had come
Speaker 4: into my and thrown down all my gods. I took
Speaker 4: refuge in the stronghold of ignorance, where a sluggish brain
Speaker 4: finds comfort, and said to myself, this woman is crazy.
Speaker 4: Now I thank the government for opening my eyes and
Speaker 4: awakening my brain. I bless the day I was arrested.
Speaker 4: I am deeply grateful to Uncle Sam for making an
Speaker 4: anarchist of me after I served him blindly for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: He should give speeches, right, there's some language.
Speaker 4: When someone thinks they're going to control a teenager and
Speaker 4: like it, they just rebel. So this whole arresting him
Speaker 4: didn't go well for the Feds. But Walda met Goldman
Speaker 4: once again after his release. They shook hands once more,
Speaker 4: and this was actually the start of a lifelong friendship.
Speaker 4: She raised funds for him to live on now that
Speaker 4: he was out and dishonorably discharge. She'd come to town
Speaker 4: from speaking in San Diego.
Speaker 2: He worked on growing a beard exactly.
Speaker 4: She invited him on stage in San Francisco, so two
Speaker 4: weeks after his release from Alcatraz, he spoke about being there,
Speaker 4: the court martial, the imprisonment, and then after the speech,
Speaker 4: Goldman was arrested for inciting a riot once again, and Bowalda.
Speaker 4: He came out of the theater to the scene of
Speaker 4: Goldman getting arrested, and he shouted out that it was
Speaker 4: an injustice, and then he too was arrested. Now his
Speaker 4: case was dismissed, Goldman was found not guilty, off she
Speaker 4: went back on the road.
Speaker 3: Bewalda.
Speaker 4: He moved to Michigan to take care of his recently
Speaker 4: widowed mother, and even though he was in an isolated
Speaker 4: rural area of Michigan, he maintained his anarchist activity. He
Speaker 4: sent the medal that he'd received for bravery while fighting
Speaker 4: in the Philippines back to the Secretary of War along
Speaker 4: with a strongly worded letter. He organized Goldman's appearances in
Speaker 4: Grand Rapids, Michigan, somewhere she hadn't really visited before meeting him.
Speaker 4: He wrote letters to the local papers expressing his views
Speaker 4: on capitalism, taxes, the government. And he was like, he
Speaker 4: was a quiet man, really well liked in his community
Speaker 4: and seen as kind hearted, unobtrusive.
Speaker 2: Imadging, like a Pete Sigger kind of guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally exactly what I was thinking. He lived out
Speaker 4: the rest of his day's farming and like just as
Speaker 4: being a good member of the community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he turned a sword into plowshare exactly.
Speaker 4: One arrest for the ridiculous crime of shaking a woman's
Speaker 4: hand turned his whole world upside down. And then sent
Speaker 4: him on a course in life that he never would
Speaker 4: have imagined.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I like that.
Speaker 4: So I have to say, there's no benefit for punishing curiosity.
Speaker 4: It is my ridiculous takeaway. Thanks for asking. It can
Speaker 4: backfire in spectacular ways, curiosity.
Speaker 3: What's your ridiculous takeaway, Sarah, I'll look at you. You
Speaker 3: know I want it.
Speaker 2: Wow, I'm so give me a moment. I'm fuck clumpedy. No,
Speaker 2: But in all honesty, I would say I agree with
Speaker 2: you about you. You shouldn't punish curiosity. You should always
Speaker 2: educate curiosity. And sometimes that takes a moment you don't
Speaker 2: as the other person want to give. So that's the
Speaker 2: other part is basically, you know, thinking of the other
Speaker 2: over yourself occasionally is really important for educating both yourself
Speaker 2: and other people. So education often is an act of
Speaker 2: donating one's time, one's talents, one's abilities in a way
Speaker 2: that will then give and be given back to you.
Speaker 2: And I know that you're like, no, there, and that
Speaker 2: ain't true. I'm wasting my time. All good deeds must
Speaker 2: be you know, no good deed goes the left unpunished
Speaker 2: or whatever. Right I feel you on that. Most of
Speaker 2: the times but I'm also gonna say that occasionally you
Speaker 2: have to be like, you know, I'm a Goldman or
Speaker 2: Bewalda in this instance, and be thinking about what you
Speaker 2: mean in the greater context, like you are but one
Speaker 2: person and what could you do right? But also, you
Speaker 2: know you can fight oppression with a handshake and with education,
Speaker 2: and you know I'm for.
Speaker 4: That well, And I kind of feel like if you
Speaker 4: think that the way that you're doing things is right
Speaker 4: and the best way to do something, then you shouldn't
Speaker 4: be concerned if people criticize it because it's right.
Speaker 3: So you know, like you.
Speaker 2: Don't have to convince someone. Okay, if I give you
Speaker 2: a chair that's made of wood, and I give you
Speaker 2: a chair that's made of paper, and I say, you
Speaker 2: know you can sit down in these right either one
Speaker 2: you go to sit down no matter what I tell
Speaker 2: you to try to convince you that the chair made
Speaker 2: paper is a good chair. It looks like a charis
Speaker 2: a real chairs? Important sit in the chair. As soon
Speaker 2: as you try to sit in it, all that stuff
Speaker 2: goes out, So it all only matters is is it
Speaker 2: a chair? Does it function? So if you want to
Speaker 2: raise your children to be like you, then give them
Speaker 2: a lesson that then they want to take on, not
Speaker 2: one that they have to be tricked, con forced or whatever.
Speaker 2: You grow a plant from the roots up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I mean it's also it's like they learn
Speaker 4: their lesson that if you know, they believed the government
Speaker 4: believed in what they were doing. And then when he
Speaker 4: stepped outside of that for a second, not fully, but
Speaker 4: just listen to it, when he instead of stepping out
Speaker 4: into the water, he looked at the water, Yeah, to
Speaker 4: punish him for that. Had he not done that, he
Speaker 4: would still he would have had a long military career.
Speaker 3: And you know the.
Speaker 2: Tradition of rum Springer. Okay, yes, yes, I think that
Speaker 2: is one of the most brilliant examples of how to.
Speaker 4: So when the Amish kids are coming up, they go there.
Speaker 2: They're allowed a moment a year off from all that
Speaker 2: they've been known. So they're basically, I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's seventeen eighteen, whatever, it is, basically around your teenage years,
Speaker 2: you're you know, inculcated in the Amish tradition, and then
Speaker 2: you're given a year to go out and test literally
Speaker 2: do you want to be a member of our community?
Speaker 2: You get go out and see the modern world. You
Speaker 2: can do whatever, drive fast, do drugs, dance, win, whatever
Speaker 2: it is you want to go do you knowever you
Speaker 2: gotta do, and you always fetishized and fantasized about, then
Speaker 2: people predominantly come back and want exactly. My point is is,
Speaker 2: if you have something that works, people will want to
Speaker 2: do it naturally you have to convince them. Then your
Speaker 2: stuff is a lot.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: And this also goes for everything I and it goes
Speaker 2: for power, love anything. If you have to convince another person,
Speaker 2: then it's not really happening. They should want to do.
Speaker 2: You should captivate them, compel them, but not have to
Speaker 2: convince them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed, Like you're right. That applies to pretty much everything.
Speaker 3: So that's it. That's all I have. Thank you. I
Speaker 3: liked it too.
Speaker 4: Please please don't send any any angry emails and everybody
Speaker 4: or them that's true. I am not going to read them.
Speaker 4: Angry reviews about the Lady Host. You can find us
Speaker 4: online at Ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Oh yes there is, there is.
Speaker 3: There's an angry about the lady.
Speaker 2: The lady host. Yeah, no one ever gets mad at
Speaker 2: the man host.
Speaker 3: You know, the lady host. She stepped out of Laine
Speaker 3: the man.
Speaker 2: He really got a pair on him?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 2: How dare he tell me about I talk about a
Speaker 2: lot of nonsense too? Where is my derision? Where are
Speaker 2: my critics?
Speaker 4: I just want someone to say, look at the ovaries
Speaker 4: on her Yeah, instead of like this lady host needs
Speaker 4: kram it. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime
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Speaker 3: Yes, you can also.
Speaker 4: Find us at Ridiculous Crime on bo Keep on, Flangel,
Speaker 4: I'm just listing off all the you guys aren't on those.
Speaker 3: Potato and John Jack Jack Fluff buff bug out. Yeah, pourteine.
Speaker 2: You know you're just naming Canadian delicacies.
Speaker 3: Now, there's so many bagatts. Yeah, Flangel?
Speaker 4: Did I I love it so much? Well, I mean
Speaker 4: it's like I'm trying to run through the list and
Speaker 4: I had him going on the apps on my phone.
Speaker 3: Did you mention guards the.
Speaker 5: Stars guards for cockle games on your phone? No, Ja,
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Speaker 2: Postcards be like postcards.
Speaker 4: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 4: produced and edited by Dave Anarchy and the g A.
Speaker 3: Coustin.
Speaker 4: Research is by Rabble Rousers, Marissa Brown and Andrea Song
Speaker 4: Sharpened Tear. The theme song is by undercover detectives Thomas
Speaker 4: Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany
Speaker 4: five Hundred. Executive producers are Ben All Power, Bowlin and
Speaker 4: Noel To All People Brown.
Speaker 2: Cryme Say It One More Time, Udiquious Crime.
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