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Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Um, is there something I should look at her?

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Speaker 1: Are you just gonna You're gonna tell me things? Right? Geez?

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Speaker 1: We already watched this introduction coal between you and me, Sharine?

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Speaker 1: We really, we really that was unfortunately Robert's, host of

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastard's podcasting a weird voice. I'm someone else,

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Speaker 1: don't I don't know. I'm talking to Sharine? Is who

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Speaker 1: I am? And I'm Sharine? I am Sharene. I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: well to be honest, but I feel guilty saying that, um,

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Speaker 1: because relatively I'm usually bad. But I think it's I'm

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Speaker 1: a better bad than usual. You know that makes sense?

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's always good

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Speaker 1: to be a better bad than usual. And it's really

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Speaker 1: gloomy in l A, and that makes me thrive. I

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Speaker 1: love Yeah, I love it when LA feels like the

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Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. Briefly, Yes, exactly. It doesn't happen it often,

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Speaker 1: you get me. Yeah, So, Sharine, how do you feel

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Speaker 1: about trains? Uh? So they're fun. That's a way to introduce.

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Speaker 1: I love to travel. Okay, how do you feel about so?

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Speaker 1: You like? You like comfortable trains? Right? Like? You know

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Speaker 1: trains with cabin sleeper cars, all that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 1: The trains you can sit on and enjoy. I like

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Speaker 1: all trains. I think they're very impressive. And uh yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you do you really think about it, there a

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Speaker 1: feat that man made, you know what I mean? They

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. Now, how do you feel about workers being

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Speaker 1: gunned down because they are trying to get paid fairly

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Speaker 1: for helping to make trains bad? I feel bad about

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Speaker 1: you feel bad about that? Oh okay, so this might

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Speaker 1: not be a super happy episode. Well that's the episode.

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Speaker 1: Like that. It's it's great, it's great. I'm very good

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Speaker 1: at my job. The working title I have for this

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Speaker 1: this episode sharene is. Let's talk about the Pullman strike

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Speaker 1: Comma Cocksuckers And I don't know why I was so

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Speaker 1: aggressive when I was writing the title to this um

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Speaker 1: but but I never edited it and now it's it's

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Speaker 1: in there, So if you can we make this the

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Speaker 1: title of the episode. We put Cocksuckers in Spotify. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. There's certain apps that reject these really yeah,

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Speaker 1: or and it makes and it makes it like like

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Speaker 1: it blocks it for searching things. But in my heart,

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Speaker 1: that's the title. Yeah, I feel like, if Cometown is fine, oh,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about the Pullman Strike. Cocksuckers is also okay.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm willing to give it a shot if

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Speaker 1: it would make you happy. Yeah, I think I would

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Speaker 1: like to give it a shot. On the episode that

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Speaker 1: I guessed on it might it might be gone forever, Well,

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Speaker 1: it might be Yeah, Well we'll change the title up

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Speaker 1: on a couple of an artifact, we can change the

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Speaker 1: title to let's talk about the Pullman Strike knob gobblers. Okay,

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Speaker 1: they're not gonna catch that's great, that's great. So today,

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Speaker 1: Serene Lonnie unis, today we're gonna learn about George Pullman,

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Speaker 1: a guy who sucked so bad that workers who didn't

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Speaker 1: even work for him quit working to protest how shitty

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Speaker 1: a boss he was. Like, that's the level of bad.

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Speaker 1: Like other people who had nothing to do with this

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Speaker 1: guy quit working to protest how much he sucked. Now,

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Speaker 1: like most great labor stories, the story of the Pullman

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Speaker 1: Strike has a sad ending and a lot more racism

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Speaker 1: than you'd hope. But that's no excuse not to talk

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Speaker 1: about this huge piece of ship, George Mortimer Pullman. He

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Speaker 1: was born in eighteen thirty one and Brockton, New York.

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Speaker 1: His dad, James Lewis known as Louis, was a farmer

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Speaker 1: who became a carpenter because the money was much better.

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Speaker 1: The family seems to have been upwardly mobile for the time,

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Speaker 1: but firmly working class. George was expected to labor from

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Speaker 1: a young age. Now Brockton had a general store owned

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Speaker 1: by his mom's uncle, and after he finished fourth grade,

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Speaker 1: it was to did that he would drop out and

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Speaker 1: work there for about forty dollars a month, which is

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Speaker 1: a pretty good salary for the time. Again, his family

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Speaker 1: is comfortable. That same year, his parents left him and

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Speaker 1: his two brothers behind to move to Albion, New Jersey,

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Speaker 1: so his dad could work on widening the eerie canal.

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Speaker 1: Uh And yeah, yeah, this was this was like a

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Speaker 1: whole big deal here in George's fourteen when the effort starts.

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Speaker 1: We have fewer of his early recollections that night, I

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Speaker 1: prefer so it's hard to say how this affected him,

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Speaker 1: but the move was great for his father's career. Louis

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Speaker 1: Pullman developed a method of moving the building off of

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Speaker 1: its old foundations and onto a new one because they

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Speaker 1: had to to widen This canal. There was like stuff

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Speaker 1: built up against the canal that they had to lift

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Speaker 1: up and move so that they could widen the canal.

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Speaker 1: It was like this whole they're doing this and like

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Speaker 1: the eighteen late eighteen forties, I think is kind of

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Speaker 1: when the effort gets really underway. Um. See, he can

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Speaker 1: be impressive sometimes it's really cool because like again people

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Speaker 1: are they don't have techno apology, then like everything sucks.

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Speaker 1: Uh to innovative, they have to be innovative. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: the system that Louis Pullman develops to move buildings uses

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Speaker 1: like Screwjack's and this special machine that he's invented in

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Speaker 1: it's this whole wild deal. Um. And so since a

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Speaker 1: lot of buildings needed to be moved to expand the

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Speaker 1: Erie Canal, this was a major boon for family finances.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen forty eight, three years after three years of

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Speaker 1: working at his family store, George was seventeen and he

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Speaker 1: was missing his parents who were still off building the

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Speaker 1: Erie Canal. So he joins moves to Albion, New York,

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Speaker 1: joins his family, and he gets a job at what

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Speaker 1: is now the family business, moving buildings so that a

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Speaker 1: canal can be wider. The next five years were peacefully

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Speaker 1: lucrative for both him and his family, before his father

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Speaker 1: died in eighteen fifty three, leaving George Pullman the heir

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Speaker 1: to the business at age twenty two. He had brothers,

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Speaker 1: but they started another business, and George had been working

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Speaker 1: with his dad, so he was the obvious choice. His

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Speaker 1: first big contract is from the state of New York.

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Speaker 1: They wanted twenty buildings, most most of which were warehouses,

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Speaker 1: moved out of the way of the widening canal. UH.

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Speaker 1: This made a decent amount of money, but it was

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Speaker 1: not the kind of thing that could last forever. In

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Speaker 1: New York only had so many additional buildings that were

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Speaker 1: in the way of where the canal was getting expanded to,

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Speaker 1: and eventually there was going to be no more money

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Speaker 1: in that UH. The economy hit a major recession in

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Speaker 1: the mid eighteen fifties and George was forced to look

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Speaker 1: outside of New York for revenue. He founded in Chicago,

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Speaker 1: a city that by eighteen fifty seven was starting to

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Speaker 1: reap the consequences of trying to make too much Chicago,

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Speaker 1: way too fast. There was a period of time in

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Speaker 1: which we had a Chicago and everybody was so excited

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Speaker 1: about it. They were like, we gotta keep making more Chicago.

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Speaker 1: And then they built way too much Chicago and like

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Speaker 1: they couldn't. They couldn't, Like so Chicago is built on

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Speaker 1: a swamp like a lot of places, um and it was,

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Speaker 1: uh like they didn't they didn't build like they did.

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Speaker 1: They had no real infrastructure, um like, because this thing

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Speaker 1: just like blew up so quickly. Um back at the

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Speaker 1: time and like the mid eighteen hundreds, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: a cluster of buildings about four ft above Lake Michigan.

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Speaker 1: Um that nobody really planned out all that well. So

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Speaker 1: as it gets bigger, it's flooding constantly, suage just like

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Speaker 1: washing into houses and streets all the time. Um Like.

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Speaker 1: It was just there never should have been large numbers

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Speaker 1: of people there. It was kind of like a fucking swamp.

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Speaker 1: And they just they made too much Chicago too fast.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's a classic story. Were they making Chicago

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Speaker 1: because they were like really excited about it, or because

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Speaker 1: they had to and the people it was like the

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Speaker 1: population thing, I think, yeah, right, I think there's a

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Speaker 1: couple of different things, but yeah, it was just it

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Speaker 1: was the place to be for a while. You know.

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Speaker 1: The westward expansion is like really in full swing at

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Speaker 1: this period of time. Chicago's uh, you know, kind of

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Speaker 1: in the mid middle of the country. Um, and it

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Speaker 1: yeah that they just coming to a city. I guess

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Speaker 1: it's becoming a central city. Yeah, and it's a problem.

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Speaker 1: And to kind of illustrate what a problem it was,

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Speaker 1: I want to quote from a passage from the hilarious

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Speaker 1: named website Enjoy Illinois. Quote. The streets turned to mud,

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Speaker 1: stranding horses, carriages, and humans alike. Pools of standing water

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Speaker 1: formed all over the city. The environment caused hygiene and

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Speaker 1: health problems, including an eighteen fifty four collar outbreak which

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Speaker 1: killed one in twenty residents. The marsh on which the

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Speaker 1: city was built was trying to claim back its territory.

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Speaker 1: After a number of failed attempts to fix the problem,

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Speaker 1: including planking the streets with wood, the city decided that

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Speaker 1: only that the only long term solution was to install

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Speaker 1: a sewer and stormwater system. But in Chicago that was

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Speaker 1: no easy feat. Sewers need to go underground and they

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Speaker 1: drained down. Chicago was barely above the water table, and

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Speaker 1: underground sewers couldn't work at that level. So they got

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Speaker 1: this issue. They they've suddenly built a lot of Chicago ships,

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Speaker 1: literal ships flooding everywhere, and they need to build sewers,

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Speaker 1: but Chicago is barely above the water. You know, it

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Speaker 1: just sounds like nature spicing back. We were never meant

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Speaker 1: to be there. We were never meant to have a Chicago.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think that's fair, you know, like it's

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Speaker 1: just doesn't want us there. Nature's fighting back, and it was. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's there's a category of cities in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and not just in the United States, but specifically in

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Speaker 1: the United States. There's a category of cities that like

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Speaker 1: our direct affronts to God. Phoenix is another direct affront

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Speaker 1: to God, Like if we we built Phoenix, Arizona to

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Speaker 1: spit in the eye of the Almighty, it never people

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Speaker 1: were never supposed to live there in any kind of

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Speaker 1: quantity um. And it's the same thing with Chicago. I see,

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Speaker 1: That's how I feel back Chicago Phoenix. Yeah, I don't

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Speaker 1: know how they're all of Florida. I don't know what

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Speaker 1: the fun is thinking with that ship, Like, uh, Dan,

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Speaker 1: so Chicago's you know, they're trying to figure out how

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Speaker 1: to get a sewer built in a city that is

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Speaker 1: like almost uniquely unsuited to having traditional sewers, and rather

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Speaker 1: than admit that the present location of Chicago wasn't affront

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Speaker 1: to God, they opted to raise every single go building

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Speaker 1: in street in town by an average height of six ft.

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Speaker 1: They decided, we can't ships flooding everywhere, we can't build

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Speaker 1: a normal underground sewer here, so instead of moving, let's

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Speaker 1: lift the entire city up by six ft. That is

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Speaker 1: so bonkers. It's amazing. What I uh, the last thing

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Speaker 1: I ever thought you would say. I thought they were

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Speaker 1: going to just build them above ground and then make

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Speaker 1: Chicago worse. But that'sn't. That'sn't. That's intense to just lived

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Speaker 1: a city. We really do think we're God. It's it's amazing.

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Speaker 1: I weirdly enough like that. One of the things that

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Speaker 1: reminds me of as a story from the Roman Empire

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Speaker 1: of one of Caesar's conquests. He was laying siege to

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Speaker 1: this Galic city called Alesia, and the way the Romans

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Speaker 1: would siege the city is they would build a wall

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Speaker 1: around the entire city so they could basically like shoot

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Speaker 1: down into the town and like starve it out essentially.

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Speaker 1: And while they're doing this, this huge gallic army that

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Speaker 1: outnumbers them like five ten to one up and attacks

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Speaker 1: the Roman army, and rather than like break off and retreat,

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Speaker 1: they just build a second wall around themselves, and so

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Speaker 1: they have one big wall around them and one big

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Speaker 1: wall around the city. It's just this like, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: we we can. We can just solve all of our

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Speaker 1: problems by by engineering, by building huge things like never never,

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Speaker 1: It's amazing. I it's it's it's but that's how they

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Speaker 1: got to the problem. It is how they got to

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Speaker 1: the problem. But in this case is not working, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean? Why didn't I just well, the

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Speaker 1: thing is, though it did work for the Romans. Caesar

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Speaker 1: won that battle, and it worked in Chicago because they

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Speaker 1: did lift every goddamn building in the city up by

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Speaker 1: six Some were raised by as much as fourteen feet. Okay,

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Speaker 1: how does how is that literally physically possible? They've got

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Speaker 1: this like Screwjack Winch kind of thing system that just

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Speaker 1: sort of like lifts shut up and yeah, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's a whole thing. You can find

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Speaker 1: there's like it's very well documented. You know, this was

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Speaker 1: in the mid eight hundreds, so they had people did

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Speaker 1: like talk about how they were doing it. It's not

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Speaker 1: a mystery. Um. And it also provided the fact that

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Speaker 1: they're lifting the entire city up six ft by the

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Speaker 1: height of a dude basically. Um. That that gives the

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Speaker 1: city an opportunity to rebrand because it again had kind

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Speaker 1: of been like this frontier ramshackle town, and the people

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Speaker 1: who were in charge of things at the time were

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Speaker 1: able to use this to move buildings that didn't look

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Speaker 1: nice to the edges of the city and kind of

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Speaker 1: reorganized Chicagos that when everything was lifted, it looked the

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Speaker 1: way they wanted to, like a nice red light. But yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean kind of was yeah, it was yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: And of course the instead of moving the lines are

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Speaker 1: moving the actual buildings. Yeah, you could just like move

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Speaker 1: all the buildings around. Um. Now, George's firm was not

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Speaker 1: the only one involved in raising the city. He was

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Speaker 1: actually one of a handful of firms all technically competing

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Speaker 1: with each other, but they all kind of agreed to

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Speaker 1: work together to determine who got which bids and to

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Speaker 1: maximize their profitability. It was like price fixing. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if that was illegal at the time, I think

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Speaker 1: it kind of is now. But they they all these

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Speaker 1: different firms, including George, is operating a cartel in order

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Speaker 1: to get as much money to lift the ship city

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Speaker 1: of Chicago up as they possibly can. And George is

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Speaker 1: not a small player in this, but he's not a

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Speaker 1: particularly large one either. Um. He had dreams of more. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is a successful business. He's making a

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Speaker 1: comfortable living, but that was not enough for George pullman um.

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Speaker 1: And kind of after this, he winds up on a

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Speaker 1: train ride from Buffalo to Westfield, or during this, he

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Speaker 1: winds up on a train ride from Buffalo to Westfield,

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Speaker 1: York to negotiate. Yeah, well yeah that this is where

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Speaker 1: the trains come in. So he's on a train ride

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Speaker 1: for a business meeting and it's train rides sucked back then.

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Speaker 1: Like that's kind of something that I didn't wasn't really

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Speaker 1: aware of before this. They were they didn't have trains

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Speaker 1: that were meant to be like in any way comfortable,

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Speaker 1: like you could get on one, but there was no

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Speaker 1: like that kind of romantic vision of like the fans

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Speaker 1: and the beautiful pointed train car with the bar and

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Speaker 1: none of that existed yet. It was awful, and to

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Speaker 1: illustrate how awful it was, I want to quote from

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Speaker 1: a write up by Richard Schneiro from Indiana State University

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Speaker 1: for the Northern Illinois University Digital Library. Quote. As railroad

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Speaker 1: mileages tripled between eighteen fifty and eighteen sixty, the uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: conditions passengers and dirt on trips longer than a few

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Speaker 1: hours became intolerable. Passenger cars were not built to cushion jolts,

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Speaker 1: windows constantly rattled. In the winter, wood burning stoves could

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Speaker 1: fill the cars with smoke and caused accidents, and in

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Speaker 1: the summer writers sweltered. It took three and a half

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Speaker 1: days to travel from Chicago to New York, and a

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Speaker 1: typical traveler resorted to hotels at night. The need for

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Speaker 1: a sleeping car was widely understood, but at the time

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Speaker 1: none were satisfactory. In eighteen fifty eight, Pollman began renovating

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Speaker 1: existing sleeping cars for the Chicago and Alton Railroad. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: he established a small crew and began building cars from scratch.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty four, his crew built the classic sleeping

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Speaker 1: car he called the Pioneer, with brocaded fabrics, handcrafted window

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Speaker 1: and door frames, plush red carpets, and richly ornamented paneling.

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Speaker 1: The Pioneer was a study in luxury. It was also

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Speaker 1: the turning point and Pullman's rise to success. Pullman's luxurious

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Speaker 1: sleeping car appealed to America's fast growing wealthy class hungry

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Speaker 1: for status, and a new middle class that aspired to

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Speaker 1: the same outward markers of social standing. Pullman shrewdly took

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Speaker 1: advantage of this in his marketing strategy, which relied on

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Speaker 1: quality of service and prestige rather than low prices. So

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Speaker 1: he offers for the first time, really not even just

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Speaker 1: like first class, but just a train ride that wouldn't

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Speaker 1: make you want to die. Um, and it's hugely successful.

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Speaker 1: Trains are blowing up at this point, and he's the

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Speaker 1: first guy to figure out how to make you want

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Speaker 1: to be on a train, you know. Yeah, very innovative

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Speaker 1: again like his father, I guess, also innovative. It's in yeah,

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Speaker 1: smart mat Yeah, he gets he understands, you know that

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Speaker 1: this is an unfilled need, and he fills it ably.

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Speaker 1: I think also, like, if you don't maybe this is

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Speaker 1: a hot take. I don't know, I don't care. I

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Speaker 1: think if he don't come from money money, Uh, you

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Speaker 1: understand more what the people need and want. It's the

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Speaker 1: same reason you guys like Bezos and and Bill Gates.

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Speaker 1: I know there are people who would like consider them rich,

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Speaker 1: but they're their upper middle class and so it's it's

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Speaker 1: not enough money that they never had to do anything,

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Speaker 1: like they were going to need to find out something

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Speaker 1: to do, but it's enough money that they are able

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Speaker 1: to like pursue their dreams from an early age. Like

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Speaker 1: George's right, like he's he's where he's he's paid well

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Speaker 1: to work at this family shop at seventeen, he's able

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Speaker 1: to very easily go follow his dad and you know,

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Speaker 1: get involved in this new business. It's, uh, yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: working class enough money that yeah. Yeah, he's in his

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Speaker 1: early twenties right now, mid de late twenties I think

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Speaker 1: by now, um, and this is a big hit. So

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Speaker 1: he has his his his trained business is successful, but

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Speaker 1: it's not as big as as George wants to be.

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Speaker 1: Like he's he's doing very well. He's probably what you'd

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Speaker 1: call wealthy, but he's not like a massive industrial magnate.

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Speaker 1: Um and he's he's he feels uncertain, like he he

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Speaker 1: doesn't really believe that his business can expand all that much.

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Speaker 1: He kind of feels like, well, I found a profitable niche,

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Speaker 1: but that's all it's going to be, So he starts

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Speaker 1: looking for other ways to make money. By the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifties, the Pike's Peak gold rush was well underway

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Speaker 1: in Chicago or Colorado or Chicago. George decided to travel

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Speaker 1: there and see if he might be able to short

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Speaker 1: cut the route to wealth and power by striking it rich.

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Speaker 1: The Pullman Museum writes that in short order, quote Pullman

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Speaker 1: realized that the real money in a gold rush is

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Speaker 1: made by supplying other fortune hunters. So he decides very quickly,

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Speaker 1: it's fucking not worth it to go panning for gold.

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Speaker 1: But I can sell ship to the people panning for gold.

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Speaker 1: And he forms a company to do this, moving freight

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Speaker 1: and crushing ore. And when that did well, he bought

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Speaker 1: sixteen hundred acres near Central City, Colorado, and they turned it.

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Speaker 1: He turns this into a truck stop, basically like the

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Speaker 1: Gilded Age equivalent of a truck stop. He knows a

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Speaker 1: ton of people are passing in and out of this

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Speaker 1: specific area, um they're going to a place that's that's

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Speaker 1: real primitive, no amenities whatsoever. Um, So they're gonna want

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Speaker 1: something that they can head to on their way in

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Speaker 1: and out in order to like get drunk and eat

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Speaker 1: good food and sleep in a comfortable bed. So he

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Speaker 1: builds he builds this big truck stop, and for a

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Speaker 1: while he's kind of on this path of, you know,

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Speaker 1: getting forming little businesses here and there as he sees needs.

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Speaker 1: UM and I don't. It doesn't look initially like his

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Speaker 1: train business is going to be huge. But the good

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Speaker 1: news is that from you know, if your job is

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Speaker 1: making trains more comfortable, then the eighteen fifties is a

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Speaker 1: little bit early for that to be a big business.

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Speaker 1: But the eighteen sixties that's the fucking like, you know,

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Speaker 1: that's where you're gonna make money. Um. You said to

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Speaker 1: stick around long enough for yeah. Yeah. And the Civil

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Speaker 1: War does a lot for this, right. Trains are a

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Speaker 1: huge part of why the Union wins, um. And the

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Speaker 1: Civil War is furthermore helpful to his business because on

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Speaker 1: April fift eighteen sixty five, a dude shot Abraham Lincoln

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Speaker 1: right in his head. Now, this was widely seen as

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Speaker 1: terrible for honest Abe, and in the wake of a

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Speaker 1: devastating war. Like people needed a proper sendoff for a

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Speaker 1: wartime president, right, Like this beloved president gets killed. Everybody's

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Speaker 1: real fucking sad. There's just been a big war. Trains

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Speaker 1: are more famous and like prominent than ever. And George

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Speaker 1: looks at the president's death and sees opportunity. Um, so

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Speaker 1: let's capitalize on this tragedy. Absolutely. Yeah. So he's got

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Speaker 1: some friends in high places and he starts talking to

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Speaker 1: them and being like, hey, you gotta move that president's

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Speaker 1: dead ass body. I got these real fancy sleeping cars.

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Speaker 1: You can't just stick his corpse and like a shitty car.

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Speaker 1: You gotta put him in something nice. Right, has a point,

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Speaker 1: He has a point, right exactly. People don't when you

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Speaker 1: see like like you open it and it's like what

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Speaker 1: you'd stick like a bunch of logs into or something.

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00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:52,400
Speaker 1: There's just a sliding around, exactly. And even if they

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Speaker 1: didn't want to, if someone presented that and then they said, no,

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00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:58,119
Speaker 1: that's pretty shipped, I guess that's an asshole move. You know,

381
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Speaker 1: if you're presucted with a nicer option to the just

382
00:20:00,359 --> 00:20:04,720
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln in a oven, Yeah, it's very Yeah, it's

383
00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:06,960
Speaker 1: very smart of him to just be like, yeah, when

384
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Speaker 1: I'll give him one of my one of my one

385
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Speaker 1: of my nice cars to drive the president's dead ass

386
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Speaker 1: body around in um. And this actually posed a significant

387
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Speaker 1: logistical hurdle because a lot of train stations and platforms

388
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Speaker 1: and bridges weren't white enough to to take the car

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Speaker 1: that he had. It can only travel on some tracks,

390
00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:27,400
Speaker 1: and so they get like the government widens a bunch

391
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Speaker 1: of like station platforms and bridges, which actually makes his

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Speaker 1: business even more profitable because now his cars can go

393
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Speaker 1: more places parallel. The canal widening from this, well, George

394
00:20:37,960 --> 00:20:42,600
Speaker 1: pull him a man made great by widening. It's always cyclical.

395
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Speaker 1: Life is cyclical. It's light, flat circle whatever, you know

396
00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:48,560
Speaker 1: what I mean. It all comes back to a flat circle,

397
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:51,800
Speaker 1: pretty wide, and it's pretty wide, pretty wide. You know

398
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Speaker 1: what else is pretty wide? Sharine, Uh, I know you're

399
00:20:56,320 --> 00:21:00,440
Speaker 1: gonna say, Raytheon or some ship. The variety of products

400
00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:04,240
Speaker 1: Raytheon makes very wide. If you need a missile guidance

401
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:08,280
Speaker 1: chip for a hellfire missile, Raytheon's got you. If you

402
00:21:08,320 --> 00:21:13,359
Speaker 1: need a software to help target for an Assassin drone,

403
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 1: Raytheon's got you. If you need to not have any

404
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:20,199
Speaker 1: kind of targeting whatsoever, because you're just going to carpet

405
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:23,840
Speaker 1: bombing area. Raytheon can make the detonators for that carpet bombing.

406
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:26,719
Speaker 1: Whatever you need from Raytheon, as long as it involves

407
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:31,359
Speaker 1: killing people from the sky, Raytheon can do. I'm so

408
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:35,560
Speaker 1: happy I was such a long plug. Yeah. Well, all right,

409
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:44,720
Speaker 1: let's go to the ads that paid us. Okay, we're back,

410
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 1: and the Lincoln's Corpse Engine train would go down in

411
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Speaker 1: history is one of the most popular trains of all time.

412
00:21:52,080 --> 00:21:56,720
Speaker 1: Slightly underneath the Festival Express, Ulyssi Simpson Grant praised George

413
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Speaker 1: Pullman for giving a dead man an ice corpse box.

414
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 1: After the whole dead person business was concluded, the train

415
00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:03,960
Speaker 1: car was put on display so that people could gawk

416
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:07,440
Speaker 1: at it, like it's a corpse box. Hits a corpse box.

417
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:10,440
Speaker 1: It's a nice corpse box. Yeah, I guess that's the

418
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:13,159
Speaker 1: before coffins. I mean, they've probably already had coffins, but

419
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 1: I'm sure corpse corpse box is a phrase I wasn't

420
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:20,959
Speaker 1: familiar with until right now. And that's me. I'm going

421
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:22,960
Speaker 1: to start up another like it's going to be like

422
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 1: one of those mattress businesses. That ship's mattresses to you,

423
00:22:26,640 --> 00:22:29,439
Speaker 1: but it'll ship cheap coffins and we'll call it corpse box.

424
00:22:30,320 --> 00:22:33,560
Speaker 1: You've got something going there. You've got a boxing corpses. Yeah,

425
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:35,159
Speaker 1: you rich never know when you're gonna wind up with

426
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:39,480
Speaker 1: a corpse Yeah, exactly. Just follow your dreams, robber, follow you. Yep,

427
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 1: that's gonna take me out of this filthy podcasting business. Well, honestly,

428
00:22:44,840 --> 00:22:48,200
Speaker 1: you're right though, Like if you're able to have the

429
00:22:48,280 --> 00:22:51,120
Speaker 1: luxury to do anything you want to do, you will

430
00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:53,200
Speaker 1: do it and find a way to make it good.

431
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:55,879
Speaker 1: If you're like smart, like decently intelligent, you know what

432
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:57,440
Speaker 1: I mean. I think it's all it needs like luck

433
00:22:57,840 --> 00:23:01,879
Speaker 1: and basically understand a humanity or like human instinct or

434
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:04,000
Speaker 1: something that makes sense. Yeah, I mean it's one of

435
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:07,720
Speaker 1: those things where, uh you you like, the people who

436
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:11,119
Speaker 1: are most successful under our system are there's a certain

437
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 1: level of money that they have. But also if you

438
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:16,520
Speaker 1: go above that level, I think your odds of doing

439
00:23:16,560 --> 00:23:19,919
Speaker 1: anything on your own that that change the world actually

440
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:22,840
Speaker 1: start to drop. Like you don't tend to hear about

441
00:23:22,880 --> 00:23:26,640
Speaker 1: like Walton's or whatever, like they perpetuate systems, but it's

442
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: a guy like Jeff Bezos who who grows up very

443
00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:33,240
Speaker 1: comfortable but not with billions of dollars, who's gonna actually

444
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 1: anyway whatever. He has no like concept of what people

445
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 1: are going through or what they need or whatever. I mean,

446
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:43,919
Speaker 1: I was just I mean, this is everyone talks about this,

447
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: but having enough money to like really improve the lives

448
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: of billions of people or like help with world hunger

449
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 1: and homelessness and everything, and still having left over and

450
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 1: not doing anything about it. It blows my mind. You know,

451
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 1: all rich people are like that pretty or the says

452
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: actually where the story is building a bit um, So

453
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,399
Speaker 1: Lincoln's death incredible for George Pullman, and he takes all

454
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:10,600
Speaker 1: of the great pr that comes in the wake of this,

455
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:13,879
Speaker 1: and he approaches several wealthy businessmen with the same pitch.

456
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:16,560
Speaker 1: I need more investment money because I want to build

457
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: enough cars to sell luxury rides everywhere, right, I want

458
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 1: everyone to be able to use like one of my

459
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 1: sleeper cars. Um, but I need like my business isn't

460
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:26,840
Speaker 1: going to grow a fast enough organically in order to

461
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: get to that point, so I need investment capital. Yeah,

462
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 1: I mean, well that's where we're building too. But yeah,

463
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:34,920
Speaker 1: so he's like, Okay, I I need I need a

464
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,520
Speaker 1: bunch of money, and he's done. You know, well enough,

465
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 1: this whole Lincoln thing was big enough deal that he

466
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:42,199
Speaker 1: gets about a million dollars of investments and and he

467
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:45,400
Speaker 1: uses it to form a new company, the Pullman Palace

468
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,760
Speaker 1: Car Company. Throughout the eighteen eighties, he choked out or

469
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:51,439
Speaker 1: made deals with anyone who might be competition for his

470
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: luxury train car business, and by the eighteen nineties, George

471
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: Pullman had a monopoly. And trains are the biggest thing

472
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,360
Speaker 1: in the fucking world. By the everyone's traveling places by train,

473
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:05,120
Speaker 1: and he's the only guy that makes like the sleeper

474
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: cars and whatnot. If you, yeah, if you wanted to

475
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,920
Speaker 1: take an actual, like comfortable train trip anywhere in the

476
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,399
Speaker 1: United States, George was getting a piece of that action.

477
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,680
Speaker 1: And he continued to innovate through every part of this period,

478
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: and his innovations included the field of racism. Quote from

479
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 1: Richard Sneiroff. In eighteen sixty seven, he rolled out the

480
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: del Monaco, the first dining car called a hotel car

481
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 1: with a kitchen at its center. It could serve two

482
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: fifty meals a day in eighteen seventy five, he built

483
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: a luxurious parlor car, which offered an upscale traveling experience. Meanwhile,

484
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 1: his designers continuously improved heating, ventilation, and lighting Throughout it all,

485
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: the Pullman's appeal to the public rested on meticulous service.

486
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: Pullman used the existing racial division of labor and hiring

487
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 1: white conductors, collected tickets and sold births en route to

488
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:54,800
Speaker 1: perform menial work like carrying luggage, preparing the berths for use,

489
00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,119
Speaker 1: cleaning the cars, and providing personal services to passengers. He

490
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: hired African American porters, many of them recently freed slaves.

491
00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 1: The conductors who supervised the sleeping car. Reporters received white

492
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 1: men's wages. The porters received less than one six the

493
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: wages of conductors. Low wages kept them dependent on the

494
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 1: tips and thus the good will of white passengers. Despite

495
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: the servant like position of porters, Pullman had a good

496
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:20,040
Speaker 1: reputation among blacks due to the secure jobs and relatively

497
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: high income they provided. So it was in this like

498
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: mixed space if he's one of the first people to

499
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: really figure out, Okay, we've got all these newly freed people, Um,

500
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: how can I exploit them. Yeah, I'm going to capitalize

501
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: on I mean, obviously I'm not surprised at this point,

502
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: but I mean it's just like sounds like the real

503
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: life version in the eight hundreds of like The Help,

504
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like that's what it is.

505
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: It is, And he's popular among at least according to

506
00:26:46,359 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: this he's popular among those. But it's also like, well,

507
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 1: if you were a recently freed slave, it's not hard

508
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: to be the best boss they've ever had. Just to

509
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 1: pay the money and don't own them and split their

510
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 1: families up for profit. Yeah, you'll be like, well, this

511
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:03,440
Speaker 1: is this guy is pretty good boss. He's really capitalizing

512
00:27:03,480 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 1: on like desperation and need and like so it's like

513
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: a border it's like uh, white saviory at the same

514
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: time as being like evil master, you know what I mean. Yeah,

515
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: I mean it's one of those things where he is

516
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: not to give him credit as you always kind of

517
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,000
Speaker 1: have to do in this period, he's never he never

518
00:27:21,359 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: uses slave labor in the period you know, before the

519
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: Civil War. Um, I don't think he was was supportive

520
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: of it. Like, so he doesn't have that going against him,

521
00:27:30,119 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 1: you know, and a lot of a lot of real

522
00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: rich white dudes who get their start in the eighteen fifties.

523
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:39,399
Speaker 1: There's some uncomfortable slavery. Only pay them one sixth, Right,

524
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: that's that's a choice you make, sure, and it's it's

525
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: a choice he makes because it's you can get away

526
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: with it. And he's not the reason that is, like

527
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's but he is kind of he

528
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,959
Speaker 1: is one of the very first businessman who's hiring like

529
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,239
Speaker 1: in white businessman who's hiring in mass black labors. Right,

530
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 1: that is pretty new in this period because slavery, you know,

531
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:04,560
Speaker 1: was around in l at and sixty five in the

532
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: United States, and he is helping to kind of set

533
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: this idea that like, yeah, you can you can hire

534
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 1: black people for jobs that you will and you know,

535
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: and pay them less than you would pay white people

536
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: for the same jobs. And that's that makes that makes

537
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 1: good business. He is one of the men establishing that, right, Yeah,

538
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,160
Speaker 1: you're right, we do have to give him credit for that. Unfortunately,

539
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 1: I mean like he's a good person for the times,

540
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I don't know that he's

541
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: a good person for the Times. He's just not a Confederate,

542
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:34,440
Speaker 1: Like I don't know that I want to make that'd

543
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 1: be the bar of good person. I mean, it only

544
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: takes so yeah little. He doesn't enslave people when he

545
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: has the opportunity. So good for that money over uh

546
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: like actual humanity, you know, yeah, but he does choose

547
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: money over yeah whatever, he's yeah, yeah, I'm not. I'm

548
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: not trying to praise him. Um relatively high in terms

549
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,960
Speaker 1: of like the wages for black labors in Pullman's company

550
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 1: is a term that has a lot of wiggle room.

551
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 1: And I not everyone I've i've seen agrees with the

552
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: idea that his wages were considered high. I think this

553
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:10,200
Speaker 1: passage from a Jacobin article gets across how humiliating this

554
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: work could be for the black porters who worked on

555
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,520
Speaker 1: his railroad. And as you listen to this again, remember

556
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: that these we were considered by a lot of people

557
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: to be relatively good jobs, quote, working for tips. They

558
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 1: served passengers and plush surroundings, with heads bowed, pride suppressed,

559
00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: swallowing any words of protest at being called George, the

560
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,240
Speaker 1: catch all name that denoted servility to their employer, George Pullman.

561
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 1: So these employees, by the white people using the train

562
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 1: cars just call any black person George, because of their boss.

563
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: Because we're getting we're real close to slavery is still here,

564
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 1: you know. Um, it's very interesting to me. I don't yeah,

565
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's bad. I mean, it's fucked up.

566
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: It's just not a not specifically a racist thing that

567
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: I've heard about until this. So as soon this happened elsewhere. Yeah,

568
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: I did not know that was a thing. It is

569
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: very offensive. It's pretty fucked up. Yep, yep. Now, as

570
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: we discussed in our Bernar mac fadden episodes, the late

571
00:30:09,280 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds were a period in which the United States

572
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: was industrializing rapidly, and the consequences of all that industrialization

573
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: we're becoming obvious. Organizations like the y m c A

574
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: were created initially in the UK to ameliorate the health

575
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: and moral consequences of modern life. George Pullman, now riches

576
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: ship and influential, volunteered his time to help run the

577
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: y m c A and other organizations that he thought

578
00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:34,479
Speaker 1: might help provide an answer to the labor question. This

579
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 1: is a term that was used at the time. I

580
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: found in eighteen eighties six Atlantic article with this title.

581
00:30:38,920 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: Throughout the Gilded Age, um the primary issue was this

582
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: organized labor had existed at some point for quite a while,

583
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: but the concept was still being worked out. I remember

584
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties. The idea that like laborers would organize

585
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 1: and form unions is not an old not a very

586
00:30:56,040 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: old idea, you know. UM. So by the end of

587
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: the eighteen eighties, labor had gotten in the United States,

588
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: had gotten smart and effective enough to actually start putting

589
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: some major pressure on capital. The eighteen eighties eighteen nineties

590
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: is kind of really when the labor movement starts coming

591
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: together in a way that's actually that's able to do

592
00:31:13,520 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: stuff effectively. Um. And the what's called the labor question um,

593
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: which is the title of this article I found, but

594
00:31:20,600 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: it is also this article from the eighteen eighties that

595
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 1: I found. You hear this phrase the labor question a

596
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 1: lot in this period. And the labor question is this,

597
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: should working men have a right to dictate the terms

598
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: of their employment or should capital hold all of society

599
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: and unquestioned um like domination. And it's actually really interesting

600
00:31:39,080 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: to read some of the critical arguments people criticizing labor

601
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: um because often these people who are like, no, I

602
00:31:45,360 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: don't think workers have a right to like organize, Um,

603
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: are you You get the same tone with them that

604
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 1: you get with a lot of like quote unquote unbiased,

605
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 1: fair minded intellectual like journalism people today, like folks writing

606
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: about climate change. You're like, well, let's talk about the

607
00:32:00,160 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 1: Americans who don't wear masks and all this nonsense because

608
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: it's yeah, because because if I'm criticizing everyone equally, even

609
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: if the facts aren't equal, then nobody can say that

610
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: I'm unfair. Like Bill Maher. Yeah. So this Atlantic columnists

611
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: that I found writing about the labor question spends a

612
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 1: huge chunk of his column ranting about alcohol, um and

613
00:32:22,880 --> 00:32:26,200
Speaker 1: basically saying that, like, well, workers spend all of this

614
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: money on alcohol and do all of these bad things

615
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: under the influence of alcohol. Um, And why are they

616
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,960
Speaker 1: organizing to get more money when they could just stop

617
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: buying alcohol? Oh? Of course, it's very funny. Today's like

618
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:45,640
Speaker 1: today's avoca avocado toast. Yeah. It's like no, no, no,

619
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: there's like that stupid saying where it's like you, uh,

620
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: instead of buying coffee every day, Like that's that's why

621
00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: we're spending all our money, like millennials or whatever, you

622
00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: know what I mean. There's like this it's a coffee thing.

623
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: It's always a drink. I suppose I believe that workers

624
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: should have the right to buy alcohol and also still

625
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: have enough money left over for things that aren't alcohol. Yeah,

626
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:12,360
Speaker 1: of course there's yeah, yeah, fun stuff, HB two see

627
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 1: I all the goodies. I will have to ask you

628
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 1: about those off Mike, but yeah, yeah, they're all they

629
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: can all be fun. So what because the best that

630
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 1: was so funny? If you were on the show, I

631
00:33:29,240 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: would not be able to survive. I mean, Robert's great,

632
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:34,520
Speaker 1: but I do need the validation sometimes, you know what

633
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: I mean. It's okay, nobody ever appreciates my jokes. Sorry, Robert.

634
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: We were having ament I know you were. That's fine.

635
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 1: We're very like that. We have a bond. We bonded.

636
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: She's the best, I'm the best. Get each other. And

637
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: you know who else is the best? This Atlantic columnists

638
00:33:56,200 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: telling people complaining about workers, yeah, like being like, why

639
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: why are they asking for more money from their bosses

640
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 1: when they could just stop drinking? It's amazing? Yeah, go ahead. Sorry,

641
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,760
Speaker 1: When we see on the one side a yearly waste

642
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: of between four and five hundred millions of dollars and

643
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: on the other side a body of men, the squanderers

644
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 1: of this vast fund, complaining that they have not sufficient opportunities.

645
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: We cannot long be at a loss to comprehend the

646
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 1: true nature of the existing satisfaction dissatisfaction. It is clear

647
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: that labor has been incited to seek from without the

648
00:34:31,040 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: relief which ought to be sought from within. The socialist

649
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 1: theory of a paternal state system which provides everybody with

650
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 1: work and wages is a mischievous fallacy. It simply encourages

651
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 1: indolence and dependence. The first duty of labor is to

652
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,439
Speaker 1: demonstrate its capacity for self government. At this moment, it's

653
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: drink bill is an impeachment of that capacity. No man

654
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: who spends half his earnings that a saloon can get

655
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:56,360
Speaker 1: on in the world, or has the least right to

656
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: expect to get on, Nor can anybody of men follow

657
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:03,600
Speaker 1: the same course with better results. Well, yeah, man like rich,

658
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: but none of that half a billion dollars a year

659
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: I spent on alcohol as rich people, not not any

660
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 1: of it, just poor guys. Yeah, just stop drinking and

661
00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: get more. If you stop drinking, you'll have more time

662
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: to work and help us. In a capitalist society, you

663
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 1: know what I was actually pondering earlier today when it

664
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: comes to medication that helps your brain, whether it's adderall

665
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: or whatever, or like things to make you more active,

666
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: it kind of feels like society is making us like

667
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: it all ends up, like you have to for work,

668
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 1: like it makes you work better, it makes you like

669
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 1: provide obviously brains needed. It really helps me. But I

670
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 1: was thinking about it in a more like sinister capitalistic

671
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: way where it's like they just want us to be

672
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,280
Speaker 1: better workers, you know what I mean, more efficient actually

673
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: just like I don't know, does that make sense? Yeah,

674
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: no it does. And you know what else makes sense?

675
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,320
Speaker 1: I don't know why I keep doing this. You're so early.

676
00:35:56,480 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: I I my brain has been broken by capitalism, and

677
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: now all I can do is pivot to adds. I mean,

678
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,359
Speaker 1: the last I thought it was not bad, very good

679
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 1: at it. So America an artist, you can capitalism off

680
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 1: the brain. You keep needing to go to an ad.

681
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:18,840
Speaker 1: I want to keep reading from this Atlantic article weird

682
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 1: ad transition that I want to just talk about the

683
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:25,480
Speaker 1: author of this Atlantics article, George Frederick parsons Um, And

684
00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:27,719
Speaker 1: in this next part of the article, he ties his

685
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: irritation about American drunkenness, with a rant about how capitalists

686
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: have a right to expect that profits increase forever, and

687
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 1: it's just the most American paragraph I've ever read. Prosperity

688
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 1: is the reward of persevering, temperate, ungrudging work. In these days,

689
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: there is, however, a great wind of new doctrine. We

690
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: are asked to believe that it is possible to succeed

691
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:51,280
Speaker 1: in a very different ways, that the less a man works,

692
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: for example, the more he ought to receive, that national

693
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: prosperity can be advanced by diminishing production, and many other

694
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: equally hard sayings. But it may be confidently affirmed that

695
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,279
Speaker 1: these new theories are destined to be short lived, and

696
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:06,799
Speaker 1: that the world will have to be managed eventually upon

697
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 1: pretty much the old lines. Yeah, it's it's good, very American. Now. Yeah,

698
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:20,319
Speaker 1: for the record, Um, George Parsons died in eighteen ninety three,

699
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 1: and I found his obituary and it blamed his death

700
00:37:23,280 --> 00:37:26,440
Speaker 1: on the fact that he hadn't lifted enough. It's very funny,

701
00:37:26,480 --> 00:37:29,359
Speaker 1: wait lifted like, yeah, that he had worked out enough? Yeah,

702
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: what the fuck? It's very funny. Damn. That is like

703
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: subtweeting a death direct insults not even a stub is

704
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: just like you can't fight back. George Parsons, the author

705
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: of that Atlantic article, and George Pullman, the subject of

706
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 1: our episode today, both seem to have come at the

707
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 1: problem of labor from the same point of view. It

708
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: was foolish for workers to organize rather than seek to

709
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 1: ascend to the upper class. That's what Parsons is saying, right,

710
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 1: why are you organizing for more money when you should

711
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: just stop spending any money on alcohol and invested all

712
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:05,439
Speaker 1: into a business and like your own circumstances. Yeah. And

713
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: the way to do this, and this is this is

714
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,439
Speaker 1: what George Pullman believes to Workers shouldn't organize, They should

715
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,839
Speaker 1: seek to improve their own individual lots so they can

716
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: raise up to the middle class and the upper class.

717
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: And the way you do this is you scrimp and

718
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: save and you work yourself to the bone. You don't drink,

719
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: you don't have fun, you don't hang out with see

720
00:38:22,120 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 1: your family, you don't spend any time for you. You

721
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: do nothing but work and sock away money so that

722
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: you can join the middle class or get to to

723
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: revelent to our current times. And how people talk about

724
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: like homelessness and unhoused. It's a disease that's existed in

725
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: the United States for a very long time, and we

726
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:48,600
Speaker 1: need to it needs to not happen. It's bad. Um.

727
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:52,919
Speaker 1: I think the that view of how life should be,

728
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: uh is something that should be opposed with force if necessary.

729
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: Of course, it's it's a sin to the miracle of life. Yeah,

730
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: it is, and it's I find it very unsettling. And

731
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: this happens all the time when like you hear like

732
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: a terrible quote like that, you read something and it

733
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: looks exactly like today. It just proves that, like do

734
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: we ever actually change? Are we always the same? Just

735
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: like a different like vessel or like a different like

736
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,720
Speaker 1: trimmings on this world, you know, like humane doesn't actually change.

737
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: We always just like keeps doing these terrible things. I

738
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just it's kind of sad. And yeah,

739
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:32,319
Speaker 1: it's great. No, it's good, it's good. Everything's fine. So

740
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: George was of the opinion that if his workers had

741
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 1: nicer lives and lived in more comfortable surroundings, ones that

742
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 1: at least mimicked middle class life, they wouldn't complain. So

743
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,200
Speaker 1: he was like, well, if I can, just if I

744
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: can build a place for my workers to live that

745
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: looks like an ideal middle class town, then they won't

746
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: need to organize for anything, because that's all anyone could

747
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:56,720
Speaker 1: ever want is a comfortable, clean, middle class American town.

748
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,279
Speaker 1: Um And he figures, if I can build a town

749
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 1: for them, I can make it so that they can't

750
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: drink because I just won't allow them to be bars there.

751
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 1: So like I can control them and make sure they

752
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 1: don't do any of the things because the only reason

753
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: workers are unhappy is that they do things that make

754
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,200
Speaker 1: them unhappy and waste their money. I don't need to

755
00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:16,760
Speaker 1: pay them anymore. I don't need to treat them better.

756
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: All I need to do is make a place that

757
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: I make a place for them to live where they

758
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 1: won't be able to do any of the things that

759
00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: they're going to do otherwise because they're just they're just

760
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 1: not as smart as I am. They can't stop themselves

761
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: from from doing bad things. So if I can build

762
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,160
Speaker 1: a place for them to live, then they won't ruin

763
00:40:37,239 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: their own lives. Dude, sounds like a bad time to me. Yeah,

764
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: it's just like how I don't know every rich man

765
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 1: I feel like has a called complex and this is

766
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: a very firm example of that. Yeah, yeah, I mean

767
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 1: I think you could probably, I think probably if you

768
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:56,919
Speaker 1: were to get Elon Musk to talk honestly about how

769
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 1: he'd want life organized in his Mars colony, you would

770
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: some similar vibes. Of course. Yeah, he already feels that way.

771
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 1: He's like, I've given all these sheeap cars to drive,

772
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 1: I've changed the world. It's like that may be true,

773
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,799
Speaker 1: but you're still I am. Yeah, not a lot of

774
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:18,000
Speaker 1: anyway whatever. Um so to to kind of put George

775
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: Pullman and his attitudes towards his workers, this kind of

776
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 1: paternalist attitude that he has towards building a place for

777
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: them and moderating their behavior, to put that in context,

778
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:30,279
Speaker 1: and want a quote again from Richard Schneirov. By the

779
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties, many reformers had shifted from personal reform through revivalism, education,

780
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: and public exhortation to an environmental emphasis. They believe that

781
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:41,160
Speaker 1: by changing the social environment in which the worker lived

782
00:41:41,200 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 1: and worked, they could induce habits of respectability, uplift workers character,

783
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:49,440
Speaker 1: and change social attitudes. In eighteen seventy nine, Pullman followed

784
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,320
Speaker 1: closely the movement in New York to create model tenements

785
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: that would offer working class families clean and ventilated room,

786
00:41:55,719 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: to reduce sickness and disease, and promote good morals by

787
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: inducing men to stay at home rather than escape to saloons.

788
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: In return, investors would receive a reasonable seven return. So

789
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: this is his his ideas I'm going to build. He's

790
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:12,799
Speaker 1: looking at these kind of like model tenements going up

791
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 1: New York and he's like, well, I'm gonna build a

792
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: town of my own, and not only will it be

793
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: clean and keep workers away from vices like drinking, but

794
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: it'll be profitable. Right, I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna

795
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:25,799
Speaker 1: get a positive return on this as an investment to

796
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: I have to benefit and like all dudes like him,

797
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: when he wrote about this, Pullman phrased that as if

798
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: it was like a rule of the universe. Quote, capital

799
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:39,960
Speaker 1: will not invest in sentiment, nor for sentimental considerations for

800
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 1: the laboring classes. But let it once be proved that

801
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:44,920
Speaker 1: enterprises of this kind are safe and profitable, and we

802
00:42:44,960 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 1: shall see great manufacturing corporations developing similar enterprises, and thus

803
00:42:49,320 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: a new era will be introduced into the history of labor.

804
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:55,439
Speaker 1: It's like, literally, I won't do anything if I don't

805
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: make money off of it. Yeah, I will open the

806
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: door for you if you Capitalists of course won't don't care.

807
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 1: Like capitalists have no interest in workers living comfortably or cleanly. Um,

808
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 1: But if you show them it's a profitable business, then

809
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 1: then everyone's on board. Yeah. So it's like very sinister

810
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:12,840
Speaker 1: because on the surface, if you don't take any deeper,

811
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: it's kind of nice, you know what I mean. Fine,

812
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,880
Speaker 1: he's low key helping them and like it's clean and whatever.

813
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: But it's just so it's just so insiduous I think,

814
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: And that's unsettling if you're if you're starting position, is

815
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:27,839
Speaker 1: that the only reason you would help your workers and

816
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 1: and and give them and build a nice place for

817
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 1: them to live is that it would profit you. Well,

818
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 1: then as soon as it's not profitable, what are you

819
00:43:34,960 --> 00:43:42,480
Speaker 1: going to do? Very good point. So, today, the town

820
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:45,760
Speaker 1: of Pullman, Illinois is a neighborhood on Chicago South Side,

821
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:48,680
Speaker 1: which I am very reliably informed is the baddest part

822
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:51,799
Speaker 1: of town. But in the early eighteen eighties it was

823
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: a one and fifty acre town to the south of

824
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 1: the Pullman car work so it's not part of Chicago yet,

825
00:43:56,800 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 1: like it's a separate town in and of itself. UM

826
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 1: right outside of the big factory where the Pullman cars

827
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: are built. UM. The factory took up nine buildings on

828
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 1: thirty acres and Pullman the town was exhaustively planned around

829
00:44:09,160 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 1: it to be as modern as possible. Sewer and gas

830
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: lines were at it first, so that every home would

831
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: enjoy heating and water. This had the benefit of the

832
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:20,080
Speaker 1: ensuring the city itself would not flood like Chicago had.

833
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: Most descriptions of the Pullman Town will acknowledge that it

834
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,160
Speaker 1: was a much nicer place to live than many of

835
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: the tenements working people had endured at the time. It's

836
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: unclear how accurate this is, and it seems in some

837
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:35,920
Speaker 1: parts to be a measure of opinion. Pullman the town

838
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 1: was organized hierarchically, and the people with higher paying and

839
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 1: more prestigious jobs lived at the center of town, close

840
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: to the hotel, the school, the libraries, and the parks

841
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: and nice spacious modern houses, but low paid grunt laborers.

842
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,359
Speaker 1: The actual rank and file workers still lived in claustrophobic

843
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: tenement blocks. These were they just had a nice outside.

844
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:56,600
Speaker 1: They were done up, so on the outside it looked

845
00:44:56,600 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 1: like a nice block of houses, but it was tenements

846
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 1: on the inside, and they were newer and cleaner tenements

847
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 1: with more amenities than a lot of stuff in the

848
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: city itself, but they were still cramped in not high

849
00:45:08,320 --> 00:45:11,239
Speaker 1: quality dwellings. This passage from a rite up by the

850
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,520
Speaker 1: University of Virginia lays out the conditions inside. Quote the

851
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:18,719
Speaker 1: workers houses humble and appearance both inside and out, were monotonous,

852
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:21,359
Speaker 1: and he gave the impression of soldiers barracks. They were

853
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 1: said to be clean, with an abundance of air. Most

854
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:26,280
Speaker 1: were two stories with five rooms. In addition to sellers,

855
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: pantries and closets. There was indeed water from a faucet

856
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:31,799
Speaker 1: used by five families, often located in one of the

857
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: small closets. There were no yards, and for those families

858
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:37,600
Speaker 1: living upstairs, no front door. Most of the buildings were

859
00:45:37,600 --> 00:45:40,960
Speaker 1: constructed with brick made in the Pullman brickyards. These same

860
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:44,360
Speaker 1: brickyards contained the eyesore of the town, four rows of

861
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,279
Speaker 1: little sixteen by twenty foot wooden shanties that had a

862
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: sitting room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen and a lean.

863
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:52,440
Speaker 1: To compare all of this to the arcade and library.

864
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: Despite Mr Pullman's intentions and his desirability for the commercial

865
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: value of beauty, his model town was not a real

866
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:01,360
Speaker 1: home for workers who lived there. One woman compared it

867
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:04,399
Speaker 1: to living in a great hotel. We call it camping out,

868
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:08,920
Speaker 1: So it's not really all that great. I think that

869
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: the most casual descriptions will say, like, well it was,

870
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:12,319
Speaker 1: you know, there were problems with it, but it was

871
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 1: nicer than other It's like, no, maybe it was cleaner

872
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 1: a bit, but it was not like a lot of

873
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:21,359
Speaker 1: the people who lived there were not living in great conditions.

874
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: It just sounds like slavery two point oh, where it's like, well,

875
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: that's kind of where we're building too. So yeah, it was.

876
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 1: It looked nice on the outside that a movie set,

877
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:37,239
Speaker 1: you know, And that's that's what a lot of people

878
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: say about it, is like it's not a home. It's

879
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: a place you can sleep. There's things about it that

880
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,400
Speaker 1: are nice, but it's not really a home. Um and

881
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: I found it right up from the Pullman Museum. That

882
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 1: makes it very clear why people might not have been

883
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 1: happy to live in Pullman quote. In eighteen eighty, Pullman

884
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,800
Speaker 1: bought four thousand acres near Lake Calumet, some fourteen miles

885
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 1: south of Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad, for eight

886
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,920
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. He hired Soland Spencer Beaman to design

887
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: his new plant there, and in an effort to solve

888
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 1: the issue of labor unrest and poverty, he also built

889
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: a town adjacent to his factory, with the Jone housing

890
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: shopping theaters, shopping areas, churches, theaters, parks, hotel, and library.

891
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: The thirteen hundred original structures were entirely designed by Beaman.

892
00:47:18,440 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 1: The centerpiece of the complex was the administration building and

893
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: its man made lake. The hotel Florence, named for Pullman's

894
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 1: favorite daughter, was built nearby. Pullman believed that the country

895
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 1: air and fine facilities, without agitator saloons and city vice districts,

896
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:34,760
Speaker 1: would result in a happy, loyal workplace. The model planned

897
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: community became a leading attraction during the World's Columbian Exposition

898
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: of eighteen ninety three and caused a national sensation. Pullman

899
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: was praised by the national press for his benevolence and vision.

900
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:46,960
Speaker 1: As pleasant as this community may have been, Pullman expected

901
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:50,240
Speaker 1: the town to make money by eight the community profitable

902
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 1: in its own right was valued at over five million dollars.

903
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 1: Pullman ruled the town like a feudal baron. He prohibited

904
00:47:56,080 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 1: independent newspapers, public speeches, town meetings, or open discussion. His

905
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: inspectors regularly entered at homes to inspect for cleanliness, and

906
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: could terminate leases on ten days notice. The church stood empty,

907
00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 1: since no approved denomination would pay rent and no other

908
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:15,560
Speaker 1: congregation was allowed. Private charitable organizations were prohibited. Pullman employees declared,

909
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 1: we are born in a Pullman house, fed from the

910
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: Pullman shops, taught in the Pullman school, catechized in the

911
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: Pullman church, and when we die, we shall go to

912
00:48:23,719 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: Pullman hell. Wow. Yeah, that's an ending to a sentence.

913
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,760
Speaker 1: First of all. Uh, but it's isn't it ironic? Because

914
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: you said he didn't necessarily support slavery when it actually

915
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: was happening, you know what I mean? So I feel

916
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: like he found a loop, Like in my head, he

917
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:42,880
Speaker 1: doesn't think it's a slavery, right, of course, I mean,

918
00:48:42,960 --> 00:48:46,400
Speaker 1: it's not slavery. It is not like there are aspects

919
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 1: of it that do eventually kind of verge on slavery,

920
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:53,280
Speaker 1: parallel to exploiting people and like acting like their master

921
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:56,319
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Yeah, and there's some of the

922
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: some of the white people who protest latter will compare

923
00:48:58,520 --> 00:49:02,239
Speaker 1: themselves to slaves. I want to I don't want to

924
00:49:02,280 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: do that because I don't think that's fair. Um And

925
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 1: in part I think why the white people at the

926
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: time we're doing that, is that, like they're pretty fucking racist.

927
00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 1: Of course it's not that bad. Yeah, no, I mean yeah,

928
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,839
Speaker 1: white white victimization. It's tales all those time. He's more

929
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: of a he's more of a he's more of a

930
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:23,319
Speaker 1: of a dictator than he is a slave owner, right Like,

931
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: that's more of the attitude. Is that, like they live

932
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,880
Speaker 1: here and they could technically leave most of them. Um,

933
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 1: but if they live here, Uh, then he's going to

934
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:37,520
Speaker 1: control every aspect of their life that he can. Right Like.

935
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: There's no discussion on it. I know what's best for you,

936
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:43,600
Speaker 1: and I'm going to ensure you do it. Um. Do

937
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 1: we actually sorry, did we take an ad break or

938
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 1: did we just talk about taking it out? We took

939
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 1: one ad break, We didn't take a second dead way?

940
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:51,759
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, No, No, we talked about it. I just

941
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,839
Speaker 1: want to make sure. I don't know, because we usually

942
00:49:55,920 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 1: it's great h you know what else is producing? I'm sorry, no, no, no,

943
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:07,719
Speaker 1: continue go for it, uh RAI theon is making new

944
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: things to kill people that they are yep, that's every day. Yeah,

945
00:50:12,800 --> 00:50:16,080
Speaker 1: so stay tuned to find out what those are. Very

946
00:50:16,120 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: proud of you, Sharine, Thank you Rob for sorry that.

947
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 1: I just like thought we just talked about. I just

948
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:23,000
Speaker 1: want I wanted to make sure sorry, I was being

949
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:25,160
Speaker 1: I was being a producer at that moment. We crushed it.

950
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:36,960
Speaker 1: All right, here's ads. All right, we're back. So Pullman

951
00:50:37,239 --> 00:50:39,360
Speaker 1: builds this town, moves a bunch of people in, and

952
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:41,360
Speaker 1: I should note the only people allowed to live in

953
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:44,839
Speaker 1: the Pullman town are white people. Um you you you

954
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: cannot live there. He has black workers. They are not

955
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: allowed to live in his town because again it's his

956
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,920
Speaker 1: idealized version of society, which does not have any black people.

957
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:57,320
Speaker 1: The town eventually had a population of about twelve Pullman workers,

958
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: and things chugged along well enough until teen three, when

959
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 1: the entire Gilded Age collectively shat its pants. The basic

960
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,319
Speaker 1: problem was this international capital got addicted to gambling on

961
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 1: the I p o s of countries like Argentina. A

962
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: bunch of these bets went badly in the early eighteen nineties.

963
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: This spooked European investors, and those investors started hoarding gold

964
00:51:17,080 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: from the U. S. Treasury. This coincided with the collapse

965
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:22,759
Speaker 1: of a massive railway company and a general contraction for

966
00:51:22,800 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: the whole railway industry, which had been flooded with far

967
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 1: more money than it could ever hope to absorb and

968
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:32,279
Speaker 1: been grossly overbuilt. Um Grover Cleveland, who started office in

969
00:51:32,320 --> 00:51:35,280
Speaker 1: eighteen nine three, responded to all this by fucking around

970
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: with silver, which didn't do much to allay people's currency fears.

971
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: As more Americans lost their jobs, others panicked and withdrew

972
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:44,239
Speaker 1: their money in moss from banks. The economies of the

973
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 1: Western world, such as they existed back then, fell apart.

974
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: George Pullman had to fire a quarter of his workforce.

975
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 1: Those who remained faced dwindling hours. This might have been

976
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 1: a situation where Pullman's scheme to reduce worker unrest by

977
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 1: building them an ice place to live could have come

978
00:51:58,520 --> 00:52:01,279
Speaker 1: in handy if he had example set. For example, said hey, guys,

979
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to cut everybody's hours, but you know what,

980
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: I'm canceling rent while this economic crisis goes on or

981
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,919
Speaker 1: something um or it could have at least pro rated

982
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:11,680
Speaker 1: or whatever. He would have had options that he probably

983
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:13,560
Speaker 1: would have been more popular than ever, and his workers

984
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:15,800
Speaker 1: would have been like, well, ship, this is the benefit

985
00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:17,840
Speaker 1: of letting a guy like Pullman be your boss and

986
00:52:17,920 --> 00:52:20,320
Speaker 1: run your life is when times are hired, he takes

987
00:52:20,320 --> 00:52:23,279
Speaker 1: care of you, you know. But George Pullman could not

988
00:52:23,600 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 1: stand the thought that one of his endeavors might not

989
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 1: turn a profit, and so he kept rent in utilities

990
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: at the same rates they've been before the depression. While

991
00:52:31,640 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 1: he was cutting everybody's pay. Now he actually parallel that

992
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:38,839
Speaker 1: happen that's happening now. Well, and here's the thing that's

993
00:52:38,880 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: sucked up. I guess you could argue, if you were

994
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 1: looking at this from a pro capitalist standpoint, like, well,

995
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: he couldn't stop their rent because he couldn't afford to.

996
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:48,799
Speaker 1: He had like this, this was a business, and like

997
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 1: he he can't pay for everybody's rent forever. It costs

998
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:55,320
Speaker 1: some money to upkeep the town. But he was actually

999
00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:58,640
Speaker 1: willing to lose money, just not that way. So he

1000
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: wasn't willing to cancel people's rent. But he did take

1001
00:53:01,600 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 1: on contracts that at a loss, so that he took

1002
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 1: on contracts, and he charged so little that the company

1003
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 1: lost money on the contracts in order to get workers

1004
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 1: back into the office working, so he wouldn't lower their

1005
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: renter bills, but he would actually lose money in order

1006
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:19,719
Speaker 1: to make sure that people were still working for him.

1007
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: That's twisted, right, Yeah, it's more about the ego than

1008
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:26,720
Speaker 1: about the money and that in that in that sense,

1009
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 1: you know what I want to Yeah, it's it's not

1010
00:53:28,600 --> 00:53:30,360
Speaker 1: I want to take care of my workers. It's I

1011
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: want my workers to still be working, you know, me

1012
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,840
Speaker 1: for me, you know that's it's yeah, it's very interesting

1013
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 1: and uh sociopathic. Pullman hid this fact, the fact that

1014
00:53:40,840 --> 00:53:43,319
Speaker 1: he was taking on contracts at a loss from his

1015
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:45,880
Speaker 1: labor force. His employees did not know that the company

1016
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: was losing money to employ them um, but by eight

1017
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: ninety four it had become fairly popular knowledge due to

1018
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,160
Speaker 1: some leaks, and this led to a burst of additional

1019
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:58,000
Speaker 1: unrest from Pullman employees. They were also angry that Pullman

1020
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 1: had increasingly made them pay substantial premium for things like

1021
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:05,399
Speaker 1: water and gas and the Pullman Town um which water

1022
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:09,160
Speaker 1: and gas. The local government provided those to Pullman like

1023
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:12,480
Speaker 1: it was a town. They should have just been available

1024
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 1: for a pretty low fee to the people living there.

1025
00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:18,880
Speaker 1: But the Pullman company charged employees for a thing that

1026
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 1: was being provided by the government, that those employees are

1027
00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:30,920
Speaker 1: paying taxes for. And that come again, I have no

1028
00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 1: response to that. I'm not going to pretend to be funny.

1029
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:37,440
Speaker 1: I have no It's dope. So that was not the

1030
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 1: end of the grift, as prospect dot Org rights, His

1031
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 1: one giant church was too expensive for most congregations to

1032
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:46,480
Speaker 1: afford its rent, and his ill conceived attempt to convince

1033
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: all the local denominations to merge into one generic mega

1034
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:52,840
Speaker 1: church failed. His library charged to membership fee. To foster

1035
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:56,480
Speaker 1: his notion of personal responsibility. Workers avoided the hotel bar

1036
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,760
Speaker 1: and the ever watchful eye of off duty supervisors, limiting

1037
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 1: their public rousing to a neighboring village colloquially known as

1038
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,080
Speaker 1: bum Town. The housing, too, was for rent only. His

1039
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:08,480
Speaker 1: aim was to ensure that housing remain in good repair

1040
00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:11,480
Speaker 1: and attractive, and he charged higher rents to maintain them.

1041
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 1: Here Pullman applied his usual belief that the public would

1042
00:55:14,160 --> 00:55:16,759
Speaker 1: pay more for a higher quality, ignoring the fact that

1043
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 1: this particular public his employees had little choice when his

1044
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:24,920
Speaker 1: was the only housing in town. So touch, he's out

1045
00:55:24,920 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: of touch at that point, you know. I mean it's

1046
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:30,000
Speaker 1: a it's a smart it's a smart grift. But he is,

1047
00:55:30,040 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: like he is grifting them, you know, he's robbing them basically. Um,

1048
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:37,960
Speaker 1: they're paying more, vastly more than they need to. And

1049
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:40,200
Speaker 1: because they're living in this Pullman town, they can't go

1050
00:55:40,239 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: out and find other work, right yeah, like they're they're

1051
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:46,839
Speaker 1: out in the Pullman town. Yeah. Yeah, very twisted and

1052
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:51,760
Speaker 1: just yeah, so he cud of strange way he cuts

1053
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 1: wages while maintaining rent and continuing to charge people additionally

1054
00:55:56,760 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 1: for water and gas. He cuts wages by an average

1055
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 1: of twenty eight per cent across the board, which means

1056
00:56:01,760 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 1: employees all start to fall behind on their rent. Now

1057
00:56:04,880 --> 00:56:08,160
Speaker 1: you can go in debt to the company, right, Um,

1058
00:56:08,640 --> 00:56:11,000
Speaker 1: and if you're in debt to the company, h And

1059
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:12,840
Speaker 1: you can also get go in debt to the company

1060
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:15,120
Speaker 1: if like there's a building code violation, which you know

1061
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: how landlords work, right, everything's a building code violation and

1062
00:56:18,920 --> 00:56:22,200
Speaker 1: those things are taken automatically out of the worker's paycheck,

1063
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:23,880
Speaker 1: as are things that they go in debt to the company.

1064
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:26,800
Speaker 1: For food, so workers would go negative to the company,

1065
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: which means they can't quit without need suddenly owing all

1066
00:56:30,080 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: that money. Right, like the bill immediately comes due if

1067
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 1: you stop working for Pullman soever tied to. It's not

1068
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:42,359
Speaker 1: quite slavery, but it is not as far away from slavery. Yeah,

1069
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:44,560
Speaker 1: it's not as far away from slavery as it ought

1070
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: to be. You know. That's that's a grit when you

1071
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:53,120
Speaker 1: start having employees in debt to the company and unable

1072
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:56,359
Speaker 1: to quit because then they would you know, potentially get

1073
00:56:56,360 --> 00:56:58,399
Speaker 1: into legal trouble for that. Then you're in a real

1074
00:56:58,520 --> 00:57:02,560
Speaker 1: uncomfortable territory, you know, like you're making a problem that

1075
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,600
Speaker 1: only you can solve, and you're consciously making that problem,

1076
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:09,320
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like it's they he controls

1077
00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:13,200
Speaker 1: too much and there's no way. I don't know, it's

1078
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:15,640
Speaker 1: just it's kind of like almost backwards the way he's

1079
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:19,560
Speaker 1: doing in my head, but don't you know what I mean,

1080
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 1: Like he's making a problem only he can solve it,

1081
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,880
Speaker 1: and he knows that and probably they know that too,

1082
00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: and just just like a I'm gonna stop God complex. Yeah,

1083
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:34,919
Speaker 1: it's fun, it's all good. Everything's fine. So for a look,

1084
00:57:34,960 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 1: at how bleak this situation could be for the workers.

1085
00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:39,800
Speaker 1: I want to read a quote from a Pullman worker

1086
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:43,080
Speaker 1: named Jenny Curtis, and this is her telling her story

1087
00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:46,160
Speaker 1: of working for Pullman. My father worked for the Pullman

1088
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:48,800
Speaker 1: Company for ten years. Last summer he was sick for

1089
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 1: three months and in September he died. At the time

1090
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:53,880
Speaker 1: of his death, we owed the Pullman Company about sixty

1091
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 1: dollars for rent. I was working at the time, and

1092
00:57:56,120 --> 00:57:57,800
Speaker 1: they told me I would have to pay that rent

1093
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:00,520
Speaker 1: good that I could every payday until it was heid.

1094
00:58:00,680 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: I did not say I would not pay, but thought,

1095
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:04,840
Speaker 1: rather than be thrown out of work, I would pay it.

1096
00:58:05,120 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: Many a time, I have drawn nine and ten dollars

1097
00:58:07,280 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 1: for two weeks work, paid seven dollars for my board,

1098
00:58:09,640 --> 00:58:11,960
Speaker 1: and given the company my remaining two or three dollars

1099
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: on the rents, and I still loathe them fifteen dollars.

1100
00:58:14,840 --> 00:58:17,440
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I could not possibly give them anything because

1101
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:19,720
Speaker 1: her wage was cut from ninety cents to twenty cents

1102
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:22,920
Speaker 1: per section of carpet, I would receive slurs and insults

1103
00:58:22,920 --> 00:58:25,120
Speaker 1: from the clerks in the bank because Mr Pullman would

1104
00:58:25,120 --> 00:58:26,959
Speaker 1: not give me enough and return for my hard labor

1105
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:28,800
Speaker 1: to pay the rent for one of his houses and

1106
00:58:28,920 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 1: live so like employees, it's often a family business. You're

1107
00:58:33,040 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 1: all living in town. If your dad dies with debts,

1108
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:38,520
Speaker 1: you take on those debts in addition to like what

1109
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:41,080
Speaker 1: you have to pay to key. It's yeah, well that's

1110
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 1: fucked up. That is fucked up. It's like forever branding

1111
00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:50,800
Speaker 1: people again two points out with like being like like

1112
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:54,640
Speaker 1: at your mercy in a way. So in May of

1113
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four, the Pullman workers decided to strike for

1114
00:58:57,640 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 1: a better deal. They were not yet unionized, so they

1115
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:02,120
Speaker 1: set their sights on a man who at the time

1116
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 1: embodied the hope for the power of labor. And this

1117
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 1: brings us to a dude I've really like, Eugene Victor

1118
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: Deb's more commonly just called Eugene V. Debs. He was

1119
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:16,280
Speaker 1: born in Tara Houte, Indiana, in eighteen fifty five. He

1120
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 1: was the son of a fairly well off family. Um

1121
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:20,920
Speaker 1: they owned a couple of small businesses, might have even

1122
00:59:20,920 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 1: had a little bit more money than uh than Pullman's family.

1123
00:59:24,520 --> 00:59:27,080
Speaker 1: Like Pullman, Deb's dropped out of school, although he made

1124
00:59:27,080 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 1: it to fourteen, and he got a job cleaning train

1125
00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:32,880
Speaker 1: cars for fifty cents a day. It's worth noting that

1126
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:35,439
Speaker 1: Pullman quit school even earlier than Deb's, in the fourth

1127
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 1: grade and got a job paying forty dollars a month,

1128
00:59:37,920 --> 00:59:39,880
Speaker 1: which is about twenty five dollars a month more than

1129
00:59:39,920 --> 00:59:42,920
Speaker 1: what young Deb's could expect to earn um. So that's

1130
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:45,080
Speaker 1: interesting to me. Like from the beginning, I don't know,

1131
00:59:45,240 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 1: I guess Pullman's family probably had more money because yeah, Deb's, Yeah,

1132
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:54,360
Speaker 1: Deb's is making like fifteen bucks a month something like that. Uh,

1133
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 1: and Pullman's making forty bucks a month in their in

1134
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:58,680
Speaker 1: their first gigs out the door, which I guess you know,

1135
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: Pullman's hired by his family, so that does help. Yeah,

1136
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:08,120
Speaker 1: Deb's eventually quit doing this job and he returned home

1137
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:10,920
Speaker 1: to work as an accountant for his father's business. Again,

1138
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:13,680
Speaker 1: neither of these are like poor kids. By age nineteen,

1139
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:17,320
Speaker 1: Eugene had joined his first union for locomotive firefighters. He

1140
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:20,040
Speaker 1: was the secretary and he also edited their magazine, which

1141
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 1: he used as a platform to urge sobriety and patriotic citizenship.

1142
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:25,520
Speaker 1: He was not a radical at this stage, and his

1143
01:00:25,560 --> 01:00:28,080
Speaker 1: trade union membership did not cause him to identify as

1144
01:00:28,120 --> 01:00:31,320
Speaker 1: a socialist. He did get increasingly political and was elected

1145
01:00:31,360 --> 01:00:34,280
Speaker 1: a city clerk in eighteen seventy nine and state representative

1146
01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty four. Debs was a Democrat and he

1147
01:00:37,360 --> 01:00:40,960
Speaker 1: urged modest reforms from a broadly pro worker platform. So

1148
01:00:41,040 --> 01:00:43,520
Speaker 1: Debs was a Democrat and he urged modest reforms from

1149
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 1: a broadly pro worker platform. And I'm gonna quote from

1150
01:00:46,280 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 1: Jacobin for this next part here. By the late eighteen eighties,

1151
01:00:49,200 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 1: Debs had started his trek away from conservative unionism. A

1152
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:55,120
Speaker 1: railroad walkout in eighteen eighty eight convinced to Debs, who

1153
01:00:55,160 --> 01:00:58,360
Speaker 1: served as strike leader, that a harmonious relationship with massive

1154
01:00:58,400 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: corporations was impossible with out the counterweight of organized workers.

1155
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 1: He also began to criticize the craft unionism that dominated

1156
01:01:05,440 --> 01:01:09,080
Speaker 1: the labor movement. Rather than self balkanized according to job tasks,

1157
01:01:09,240 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: federationists like Deb's insisted that workers, whether conductor or fireman,

1158
01:01:13,600 --> 01:01:17,440
Speaker 1: engineer or brakeman, organized under one common fold, as Deb's

1159
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 1: explained in May eighteen nine three. That same year, he

1160
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:23,040
Speaker 1: co founded the American Railway Union, putting his vision of

1161
01:01:23,040 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 1: a fighting industrial unionism into practice. So the early unions

1162
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,000
Speaker 1: are like, we're all of the guys who do breaking

1163
01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:31,160
Speaker 1: for the train. We're all of the conductors, and like,

1164
01:01:31,320 --> 01:01:33,280
Speaker 1: you don't have as much power when you're that kind

1165
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:35,840
Speaker 1: of atomized, you know, unless you're able to work together

1166
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:37,760
Speaker 1: to some extent. And Deb's is one of the people

1167
01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: who's really pushing no, everyone who works for the railroad

1168
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 1: should be in the same union and we all fight together,

1169
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 1: you know, well, Um, And the a r U was

1170
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 1: kind of his his attempt to do that. So larger

1171
01:01:48,640 --> 01:01:51,880
Speaker 1: workers organizations had existed before. Deb isn't the first person

1172
01:01:51,920 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: to do this. The American Federation of Labor was founded

1173
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:56,720
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty six, the Nights of Labor back in

1174
01:01:56,760 --> 01:02:01,160
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, UM, but the idea that workers within

1175
01:02:01,160 --> 01:02:03,880
Speaker 1: a specific industry would organize based on that industry rather

1176
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:07,040
Speaker 1: than job type was pretty novel. Um. Debs was convinced

1177
01:02:07,040 --> 01:02:09,960
Speaker 1: that bosses were playing different specialties off of one another,

1178
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:11,960
Speaker 1: trying to get workers to kind of compete with each

1179
01:02:11,960 --> 01:02:15,040
Speaker 1: other rather than working together UM and that this artificial

1180
01:02:15,080 --> 01:02:18,880
Speaker 1: competition was to stop workers from actually organizing together for

1181
01:02:18,880 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: their shared interests. When he resigned from his job working

1182
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:25,800
Speaker 1: for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman, Deb's wrote quote it

1183
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:28,840
Speaker 1: has been my life's desire to unify railroad employees and

1184
01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:32,480
Speaker 1: to eliminate the aristocracy of labor which unfortunately exists, and

1185
01:02:32,600 --> 01:02:36,000
Speaker 1: organize them so all will be on an equality. Now.

1186
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 1: The a r U was founded for him to strike

1187
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,160
Speaker 1: back at what was effectively a union of railroad managers,

1188
01:02:41,160 --> 01:02:45,000
Speaker 1: which had organized to set standard job classifications and wages

1189
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:47,960
Speaker 1: between different railroad companies, as well as to build a

1190
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:50,600
Speaker 1: common pool of strike breakers and even an inter industry

1191
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:53,000
Speaker 1: strike fund of sorts to help railroads outlast an the

1192
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 1: union strikes. So deb sees that like workers are splitting

1193
01:02:56,760 --> 01:02:59,240
Speaker 1: themselves up too much, while the actual railroad companies are

1194
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:03,160
Speaker 1: all organizing together, they effectively have a union um In

1195
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:06,160
Speaker 1: eight nine three, immediately after he founds the a r U,

1196
01:03:06,640 --> 01:03:09,760
Speaker 1: he wins a substantial victory over the Great Northern Pacific

1197
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:13,280
Speaker 1: Railroad during like a real landmark strike. And this is

1198
01:03:13,320 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 1: the first time something like this happens, that like this,

1199
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:19,080
Speaker 1: this broad cross section of railroad workers organized and win

1200
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 1: a fight against a major railroad. This brings new members

1201
01:03:22,600 --> 01:03:25,120
Speaker 1: and dues flooding into the a r U. He's the

1202
01:03:25,240 --> 01:03:27,640
Speaker 1: He's the talk of kind of the union movement. After

1203
01:03:27,640 --> 01:03:31,160
Speaker 1: this By June of eighteen ninety four, just weeks after

1204
01:03:31,240 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: Pullman workers made their decision to strike, the a r

1205
01:03:34,400 --> 01:03:36,920
Speaker 1: U had reached its greatest extent, a hundred and fifty

1206
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:40,640
Speaker 1: thousand members, now roughly a third of George Pullman's employees.

1207
01:03:40,640 --> 01:03:42,920
Speaker 1: Where are you members? And when the union held its

1208
01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:46,560
Speaker 1: first convention, George Pullman's employees, like the subset of the

1209
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 1: air you that worked for Pullman, came to the union

1210
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: gathering with a plan. The Pullman workers asked the entire

1211
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,840
Speaker 1: a RU to join their boycott, stopping all trains from

1212
01:03:55,840 --> 01:03:58,600
Speaker 1: carrying Pullman cars across parts of the nation represented by

1213
01:03:58,600 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 1: the a r U. So these these workers for Pullman

1214
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:04,080
Speaker 1: who are in the air, you are like, hey, we're

1215
01:04:04,120 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 1: going on strike. But that's not going to be enough. Like,

1216
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:09,480
Speaker 1: we want you to go on strike too. We want

1217
01:04:09,480 --> 01:04:13,160
Speaker 1: you to refuse to service Pullman cars anywhere in the country. Um,

1218
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: even if you're not an Impullman employee, because that's going

1219
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 1: to put more yea solidarity, He's gonna put a lot

1220
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,480
Speaker 1: more stress on the bosses. Hell yeah, I like where

1221
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:23,560
Speaker 1: this is going. I want to read from a quote

1222
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:27,400
Speaker 1: from their plea to the a r U. Pullman both

1223
01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:29,640
Speaker 1: the man and the town is an ulcer on the

1224
01:04:29,680 --> 01:04:33,040
Speaker 1: body politic. He owns the houses, the schoolhouses, the churches

1225
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:35,320
Speaker 1: of God, and the town he gave his once humble name.

1226
01:04:35,640 --> 01:04:38,600
Speaker 1: And thus the merry war, the dance of skeletons bathed

1227
01:04:38,600 --> 01:04:41,920
Speaker 1: in human tears goes on, and it will go on, brothers, forever,

1228
01:04:42,080 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 1: unless you the American Railway Union stop it ended, crush

1229
01:04:45,960 --> 01:04:52,600
Speaker 1: it out. People used to write more colorfully back then. Yeah. So,

1230
01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:56,320
Speaker 1: after visiting with workers and hearing their stories of privation,

1231
01:04:56,440 --> 01:04:59,040
Speaker 1: Debs decided that not only did they deserve the air

1232
01:04:59,120 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 1: use solidarity, but that this could be a chance to

1233
01:05:01,560 --> 01:05:04,440
Speaker 1: start to pull together the kind of national labor coalition

1234
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:07,000
Speaker 1: that he thought was necessary to push back against the

1235
01:05:07,040 --> 01:05:12,520
Speaker 1: forces of capital. Still, he attempted to negotiate first. George Pullman, however,

1236
01:05:12,760 --> 01:05:16,000
Speaker 1: was not a negotiator. He believed he was defending his

1237
01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 1: and everyone else's inherent right to private property. Workers had

1238
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:22,320
Speaker 1: no right to demand better conditions from him, as the

1239
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 1: factories and train cards they labored and were his personal property.

1240
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:28,920
Speaker 1: Local civic institutions in Chicago jumped in to try and

1241
01:05:29,040 --> 01:05:33,360
Speaker 1: urge some kind of accord, but compromise proved impossible, Eugene V.

1242
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:35,640
Speaker 1: Debs and the delegates of the A Air You decided

1243
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 1: to strike. Debs declared that all shall march together and

1244
01:05:38,960 --> 01:05:41,880
Speaker 1: fight together until working men shall receive and enjoy the

1245
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:45,720
Speaker 1: fruits of their toil. Strike leader Thomas Heathcote explained to

1246
01:05:45,720 --> 01:05:48,040
Speaker 1: the position of the pullman men, thus, lee, we do

1247
01:05:48,080 --> 01:05:49,840
Speaker 1: not know what the outcome will be, and in fact

1248
01:05:49,880 --> 01:05:51,920
Speaker 1: we do not care much. We do know that we

1249
01:05:51,960 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 1: are working for less wages than will maintain ourselves and

1250
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 1: our families and the necessities of life. And on that

1251
01:05:56,760 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 1: one proposition we absolutely refused to work any long her.

1252
01:06:01,240 --> 01:06:04,640
Speaker 1: The A r U Sympathy strike was the largest declaration

1253
01:06:04,680 --> 01:06:07,360
Speaker 1: of labor solidarity up to that point. It still is

1254
01:06:07,440 --> 01:06:10,160
Speaker 1: one of the largest examples of anything like this ever

1255
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:14,680
Speaker 1: happening UM, and it's completely unprecedented. But there were, however,

1256
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:21,280
Speaker 1: like you, limits to the kind of solidarity these people

1257
01:06:21,280 --> 01:06:24,360
Speaker 1: were willing to express, and those limits mostly landed on

1258
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:28,600
Speaker 1: racial lines. So Deb's, for his part, begged strikers to

1259
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:31,400
Speaker 1: accept black workers as part of their sympathy boycott. He

1260
01:06:31,440 --> 01:06:33,920
Speaker 1: was like, if if we don't take these people into

1261
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:37,120
Speaker 1: and represent them to UM, then they're going They're going

1262
01:06:37,160 --> 01:06:39,360
Speaker 1: to be used as scabs, And why why wouldn't they

1263
01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: be scabs if we won't let them, if we won't

1264
01:06:42,240 --> 01:06:45,880
Speaker 1: like link arms with them, why wouldn't they go work

1265
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:47,760
Speaker 1: for money somewhere else, Like we're not going to help

1266
01:06:47,840 --> 01:06:50,800
Speaker 1: them do anything. Um, that was gonna be my next

1267
01:06:50,880 --> 01:06:53,520
Speaker 1: question about like, yeah, if so the union at this

1268
01:06:53,560 --> 01:06:56,680
Speaker 1: point it's all white, Oh yes, yes, and Deb's is

1269
01:06:56,880 --> 01:06:58,720
Speaker 1: Deb's is kind of pushing and there's a lot of

1270
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:01,880
Speaker 1: argument about whether how already really pushes. But he's kind

1271
01:07:01,880 --> 01:07:04,160
Speaker 1: of pushing for that to maybe be opened up. But

1272
01:07:04,320 --> 01:07:07,880
Speaker 1: they the union does not agree to do that. So

1273
01:07:08,480 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. Like you can criticize Pullman for

1274
01:07:11,160 --> 01:07:13,160
Speaker 1: saying like black employees aren't allowed to live in my

1275
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:16,080
Speaker 1: Pullman town, but you know, it's worth noting also that

1276
01:07:16,120 --> 01:07:19,040
Speaker 1: the white Pullman unionized employees were not willing to let

1277
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:22,800
Speaker 1: black people join their union. Like it's basically, well, it's

1278
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:28,480
Speaker 1: you know, of course they're racist, of course, I mean,

1279
01:07:28,600 --> 01:07:32,480
Speaker 1: but every I mean, what's his face? Debs sounds like

1280
01:07:32,480 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 1: like he's trying to improve society, but it's not possible

1281
01:07:35,400 --> 01:07:38,440
Speaker 1: at that point. He's he's trying, Um, he does, he

1282
01:07:38,480 --> 01:07:40,520
Speaker 1: does a lot over the course of his life. Um,

1283
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:43,840
Speaker 1: So Debs puts forward a motion to include two thousand

1284
01:07:43,880 --> 01:07:47,040
Speaker 1: black Pullman workers in the strike. It was voted on

1285
01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:49,360
Speaker 1: at a union meeting, but the majority of those present

1286
01:07:49,560 --> 01:07:51,919
Speaker 1: voted against it. So again in his credit he does

1287
01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:56,640
Speaker 1: he does try. Um, the motion fails and the strikes.

1288
01:07:56,640 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 1: So the strikes only going to consist of white workers.

1289
01:07:59,160 --> 01:08:02,960
Speaker 1: This is deeply unfortunate and also kind of ironic because workers,

1290
01:08:03,000 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 1: when talked to by the press, kept saying things like

1291
01:08:05,360 --> 01:08:08,440
Speaker 1: this quote. The only difference between slavery at Pullman and

1292
01:08:08,480 --> 01:08:10,320
Speaker 1: what it was down south before the war is that

1293
01:08:10,400 --> 01:08:12,440
Speaker 1: there the owners took care of their slaves when they

1294
01:08:12,480 --> 01:08:15,720
Speaker 1: were sick, and here they don't, which God, I don't.

1295
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:20,000
Speaker 1: I think it is entirely fair. Um, But yeah, you know,

1296
01:08:20,000 --> 01:08:24,120
Speaker 1: think slavery there, it's like you're not gonna find it.

1297
01:08:24,120 --> 01:08:26,360
Speaker 1: You're not gonna find a large mass of white dudes

1298
01:08:26,400 --> 01:08:31,360
Speaker 1: who are not problematic in eighteen ninety four today. So initially,

1299
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:35,400
Speaker 1: the Pullman strikers enjoyed enormous support from the University of Illinois.

1300
01:08:35,800 --> 01:08:38,959
Speaker 1: After being elected mayor in December eighteen ninety three, Hopkins

1301
01:08:38,960 --> 01:08:41,240
Speaker 1: made the cause of the Pullman workers his own, allowed

1302
01:08:41,320 --> 01:08:44,360
Speaker 1: Chicago police to collect charity for them, and kept police

1303
01:08:44,360 --> 01:08:47,400
Speaker 1: from interfering in the strike while it remained peaceful. Indeed,

1304
01:08:47,439 --> 01:08:50,479
Speaker 1: support for the strikers was widespread in the city. Jane Adams,

1305
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:53,120
Speaker 1: founder of the Whole House, remembered returning to Chicago one

1306
01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:56,160
Speaker 1: July nine to find almost everyone on a Halstead Street

1307
01:08:56,200 --> 01:09:00,120
Speaker 1: wearing a white ribbon, the emblem of the striker's side. Now,

1308
01:09:00,200 --> 01:09:03,719
Speaker 1: the strike also benefited from the neutrality of Illinois Governor

1309
01:09:03,800 --> 01:09:07,080
Speaker 1: John Peter Altgeld, who would have been elected in eighteen

1310
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:09,880
Speaker 1: ninety two with strong labor support. Alt Guild had pardoned

1311
01:09:09,920 --> 01:09:13,479
Speaker 1: three Haymarket anarchists four others had been hanged in eighteen seven,

1312
01:09:13,760 --> 01:09:16,080
Speaker 1: and issued an accompanying message in which he declared the

1313
01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:18,280
Speaker 1: trial in which they had been convicted in an injustice.

1314
01:09:18,520 --> 01:09:20,679
Speaker 1: During the early part of the strike, All Guild refused

1315
01:09:20,680 --> 01:09:23,400
Speaker 1: to send militia into Chicago. So the strikers have a

1316
01:09:23,439 --> 01:09:25,200
Speaker 1: lot of benefits, including the fact that a lot of

1317
01:09:25,200 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 1: local elected leaders are on their side and in some

1318
01:09:28,080 --> 01:09:32,160
Speaker 1: one case at least pretty radical themselves, which helps. I think.

1319
01:09:32,160 --> 01:09:35,640
Speaker 1: Also because it's all white that helps. It's it's all

1320
01:09:35,680 --> 01:09:39,479
Speaker 1: they're all white. Yeah. By the end of June, more

1321
01:09:39,520 --> 01:09:42,160
Speaker 1: than a hundred and fifty thousand railroad workers in twenty

1322
01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:45,479
Speaker 1: seven states had joined the sympathy strike, refusing to service

1323
01:09:45,560 --> 01:09:48,640
Speaker 1: any trains with a Pullman car, which was most strains.

1324
01:09:49,000 --> 01:09:52,639
Speaker 1: So the whole American railroad system grinds to a halt.

1325
01:09:53,120 --> 01:09:56,560
Speaker 1: As the Chicago Times wrote, quote, some roads are absolutely

1326
01:09:56,600 --> 01:09:59,840
Speaker 1: and utterly blockaded. Others only feel the embargo slightly, but

1327
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:03,160
Speaker 1: it grows in strength with every hour. So this raises

1328
01:10:03,200 --> 01:10:06,000
Speaker 1: panic to a fever pitch among national elites, with a

1329
01:10:06,040 --> 01:10:09,120
Speaker 1: writer at the Nation declaring the boycott an attempt to

1330
01:10:09,160 --> 01:10:13,880
Speaker 1: starve out society. So the Pullman strike had grown to

1331
01:10:13,920 --> 01:10:15,560
Speaker 1: be the sort of thing that actually did put the

1332
01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:18,479
Speaker 1: whole system at risk. Bosses, grasping for a way to

1333
01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:21,120
Speaker 1: destroy this threat to their supremacy, landed on a tactic

1334
01:10:21,160 --> 01:10:23,800
Speaker 1: that is familiar to all of us today, hyping up

1335
01:10:23,840 --> 01:10:27,240
Speaker 1: acts of violence from protesting workers. From a write up

1336
01:10:27,240 --> 01:10:31,040
Speaker 1: in Lapham's Quarterly quote, the effects of the strike were

1337
01:10:31,040 --> 01:10:34,720
Speaker 1: felt most intensely in Chicago itself, particularly as public transportation

1338
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:37,360
Speaker 1: came to a halt. After street car workers joined the strike,

1339
01:10:37,680 --> 01:10:41,120
Speaker 1: violence broke out. As Presidents Cleveland later wrote, almost in

1340
01:10:41,120 --> 01:10:43,759
Speaker 1: a night, it grew to full proportions of malevolence and anger.

1341
01:10:44,080 --> 01:10:46,880
Speaker 1: Rioting and violence were his early accompaniments, and it spread

1342
01:10:46,960 --> 01:10:49,080
Speaker 1: so swiftly that within a few days it had reached

1343
01:10:49,160 --> 01:10:52,519
Speaker 1: nearly the entire western and southwestern sections of our country.

1344
01:10:52,880 --> 01:10:56,160
Speaker 1: He wasn't wrong. Freight cars were derailed, engineers were assaulted,

1345
01:10:56,160 --> 01:10:58,679
Speaker 1: tracks were blocked, and train cars and buildings were set

1346
01:10:58,760 --> 01:11:02,479
Speaker 1: on fire. Now, the worst thing that happened during this

1347
01:11:02,560 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 1: riot was that a mail truck was damaged, which gave

1348
01:11:05,479 --> 01:11:08,320
Speaker 1: President Cleveland the excuse he'd been looking forward to intervene.

1349
01:11:09,040 --> 01:11:12,519
Speaker 1: The President claimed interference with the Post was a federal issue,

1350
01:11:12,560 --> 01:11:15,720
Speaker 1: which it is, and used that to justify deploying fourteen

1351
01:11:15,760 --> 01:11:19,280
Speaker 1: thousand soldiers to crack heads, which is more legally questionable.

1352
01:11:19,320 --> 01:11:21,519
Speaker 1: But this is the justification, right, they're fucking with the mail,

1353
01:11:21,560 --> 01:11:25,320
Speaker 1: now I'm gonna send in troops. Yeah. And this is

1354
01:11:25,320 --> 01:11:27,920
Speaker 1: in the fact that, as a general rule, the strikers

1355
01:11:27,920 --> 01:11:30,880
Speaker 1: would actually let mail trucks buy um because they didn't

1356
01:11:30,880 --> 01:11:33,000
Speaker 1: want to stop people from getting their past. Because it

1357
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:35,200
Speaker 1: just like ship gets heated, right, people are fighting in

1358
01:11:35,240 --> 01:11:38,240
Speaker 1: the street like as a mail truck gets damaged. You know,

1359
01:11:39,160 --> 01:11:42,479
Speaker 1: the national media Obviously, as soon as there's violence, goes

1360
01:11:42,640 --> 01:11:45,720
Speaker 1: all culture warry on the strike, calling it deb's is

1361
01:11:45,800 --> 01:11:50,280
Speaker 1: rebellion and framing it as an attack on civilization itself. Now,

1362
01:11:50,320 --> 01:11:52,600
Speaker 1: the strike had gotten off to a strong start, but

1363
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:55,639
Speaker 1: from this point it gets hampered from a number of factors.

1364
01:11:55,720 --> 01:11:58,599
Speaker 1: For one thing, the a f L, the American Federation

1365
01:11:58,600 --> 01:12:02,719
Speaker 1: of Labor, never support the Pullman strike. It's head, Samuel Gompers,

1366
01:12:02,720 --> 01:12:05,800
Speaker 1: was a very conservative man and very hostile to socialism.

1367
01:12:05,840 --> 01:12:08,880
Speaker 1: He believed that only skilled craft workers ought to unionize.

1368
01:12:09,760 --> 01:12:11,240
Speaker 1: And the fact that he and the a f L

1369
01:12:11,320 --> 01:12:14,000
Speaker 1: delegates didn't vote to support the air you strike really

1370
01:12:14,120 --> 01:12:17,600
Speaker 1: not like narrowed the scope of the scope of a

1371
01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:20,439
Speaker 1: sympathy strike. It's why there's a potential at the beginning,

1372
01:12:20,479 --> 01:12:24,160
Speaker 1: maybe other unions could get involved, other industries could get involved,

1373
01:12:24,520 --> 01:12:27,360
Speaker 1: like laborers all around the country could organize for railroad

1374
01:12:27,360 --> 01:12:30,880
Speaker 1: workers and this be a precedent um. But that's not

1375
01:12:30,920 --> 01:12:33,000
Speaker 1: what Gompers wants, that's not what the a f L wants,

1376
01:12:33,000 --> 01:12:36,080
Speaker 1: and so it doesn't happen. Um. Now that said, well,

1377
01:12:36,120 --> 01:12:38,760
Speaker 1: Gompers get some blame for the strikes failure. The fact

1378
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:42,120
Speaker 1: that these strikers themselves are pretty racist. Also gets a

1379
01:12:42,120 --> 01:12:44,880
Speaker 1: lot of blame because Pullman is able to bring in

1380
01:12:45,000 --> 01:12:47,880
Speaker 1: black workers as strike breakers, and the union had already

1381
01:12:47,920 --> 01:12:50,160
Speaker 1: told these guys, fuck you, you're not welcome in. Why

1382
01:12:50,160 --> 01:12:53,679
Speaker 1: shouldn't they scap right, normally that's a clear moral choice

1383
01:12:53,760 --> 01:12:56,960
Speaker 1: in this case, like what what what do you expect

1384
01:12:57,000 --> 01:12:59,479
Speaker 1: me to do? You're not organizing, former, you're not doing

1385
01:12:59,520 --> 01:13:01,320
Speaker 1: you're not willing to do ship for me. You don't

1386
01:13:01,320 --> 01:13:04,240
Speaker 1: even think I'm a person. So this guy's offering me money.

1387
01:13:04,240 --> 01:13:07,080
Speaker 1: Fuck you, Like I I can't blame in this instance.

1388
01:13:07,120 --> 01:13:11,200
Speaker 1: I can't blame me for scabbing, right, like two enemies, which, yeah,

1389
01:13:11,200 --> 01:13:14,479
Speaker 1: like yeah, what were they supposed to do? You know? Yeah,

1390
01:13:14,880 --> 01:13:19,639
Speaker 1: it's fair, very fair. Yeah, labor historian Tom Gilpin told

1391
01:13:19,680 --> 01:13:23,639
Speaker 1: Lapham's quarterly quote, it's not clear that even had Samuel

1392
01:13:23,680 --> 01:13:25,559
Speaker 1: Gompers weighed in on the side of the air you,

1393
01:13:25,640 --> 01:13:28,000
Speaker 1: that the strike could have been one. Clearly, a fractured

1394
01:13:28,080 --> 01:13:30,920
Speaker 1: labor movement will be overcome by a united business class,

1395
01:13:31,000 --> 01:13:33,400
Speaker 1: especially one that has the military mte of the federal

1396
01:13:33,439 --> 01:13:38,920
Speaker 1: government behind it, which is an important lesson there. The

1397
01:13:39,000 --> 01:13:41,479
Speaker 1: power of the bayonet was braced, as it always is,

1398
01:13:41,680 --> 01:13:45,479
Speaker 1: by the perception of profound legality. Cleveland's attorney general got

1399
01:13:45,479 --> 01:13:48,880
Speaker 1: an injunction from a circuit court ruled on by two

1400
01:13:48,920 --> 01:13:52,840
Speaker 1: anti union judges, which prohibited air you leaders for compelling

1401
01:13:52,920 --> 01:13:56,479
Speaker 1: or inducing employees from railroads to refuse to perform their duties.

1402
01:13:56,920 --> 01:13:59,360
Speaker 1: Debs and other air you heads were also forbidden from

1403
01:13:59,400 --> 01:14:02,679
Speaker 1: communicating with subordinates, which meant deb's could no longer send

1404
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:05,919
Speaker 1: telegrams to try and calm strikers down and avoid violence,

1405
01:14:06,080 --> 01:14:08,720
Speaker 1: because again, that's kind of what they want in this situation,

1406
01:14:08,800 --> 01:14:11,040
Speaker 1: is for things to go so like these these injunctions

1407
01:14:11,040 --> 01:14:13,960
Speaker 1: reduced the ability of Debs and other folks at the

1408
01:14:13,960 --> 01:14:16,759
Speaker 1: a are you to actually like organize things, which means

1409
01:14:16,840 --> 01:14:19,760
Speaker 1: it gets more chaotic and more bad ship happens. And

1410
01:14:19,800 --> 01:14:23,479
Speaker 1: then in early July, the troops entered the field from

1411
01:14:23,520 --> 01:14:27,160
Speaker 1: the Encyclopedia Britannica Quote worried that given the terms of

1412
01:14:27,160 --> 01:14:29,840
Speaker 1: the injunction, he could no longer exercise any control over

1413
01:14:29,840 --> 01:14:32,600
Speaker 1: the strikers. Debs at first welcomed the troops, thinking that

1414
01:14:32,640 --> 01:14:35,160
Speaker 1: they might maintain order and allow the striking boycott to

1415
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:37,880
Speaker 1: proceed peacefully, but it soon became clear that the troops

1416
01:14:37,880 --> 01:14:40,920
Speaker 1: were not neutral peacekeepers. They were there to make sure

1417
01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:44,080
Speaker 1: that the trains moved, which would inevitably undermine the boycott.

1418
01:14:44,439 --> 01:14:47,080
Speaker 1: The strikers reacted with fury to the appearance of the troops.

1419
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:50,320
Speaker 1: On July four, they and their sympathizers overturned rail cars

1420
01:14:50,320 --> 01:14:53,040
Speaker 1: and erected barricades to prevent troops from reaching the yards.

1421
01:14:53,400 --> 01:14:55,800
Speaker 1: A are you leaders could do nothing, prevented by the

1422
01:14:55,880 --> 01:14:59,280
Speaker 1: injunction from any communication with the workers. On July six,

1423
01:14:59,479 --> 01:15:02,240
Speaker 1: some six thousand rioters destroyed hundreds of rail cars in

1424
01:15:02,240 --> 01:15:06,280
Speaker 1: the South Chicago Panhandle yards. On July seven, National guardsmen,

1425
01:15:06,320 --> 01:15:09,719
Speaker 1: after having been assaulted, fired into a mob, killing between

1426
01:15:09,800 --> 01:15:13,080
Speaker 1: four and thirty people and wounding many others. Debs then

1427
01:15:13,120 --> 01:15:15,519
Speaker 1: tried to call off the strike, urging that all workers

1428
01:15:15,520 --> 01:15:18,880
Speaker 1: except those convicted of crimes, be rehired without prejudice, but

1429
01:15:18,920 --> 01:15:22,040
Speaker 1: the General Managers Association the Federation of Railroads, that had

1430
01:15:22,080 --> 01:15:25,240
Speaker 1: overseen the response to the strike, refused and instead began

1431
01:15:25,360 --> 01:15:28,880
Speaker 1: hiring non union workers. The strike dwindled, and trains began

1432
01:15:28,920 --> 01:15:32,520
Speaker 1: to move with increasing frequency until normal schedules had been restored.

1433
01:15:32,920 --> 01:15:36,200
Speaker 1: Federal troops were recalled on July twenty. The Pullman Company,

1434
01:15:36,240 --> 01:15:39,360
Speaker 1: which reopened on August two, agreed to rehire the striking

1435
01:15:39,400 --> 01:15:42,040
Speaker 1: workers on the condition that they signed up pledged never

1436
01:15:42,120 --> 01:15:44,600
Speaker 1: to join a union. By the time it ended, the

1437
01:15:44,720 --> 01:15:47,400
Speaker 1: ordeal had cost the railroads millions of dollars in lost

1438
01:15:47,439 --> 01:15:50,519
Speaker 1: revenue and eluded and damaged property, and the strikers had

1439
01:15:50,560 --> 01:15:56,519
Speaker 1: lost more than one million dollars in wages. So yeah,

1440
01:15:58,040 --> 01:16:00,800
Speaker 1: it's one of those things. Deb's definitely like panics, but

1441
01:16:00,880 --> 01:16:04,280
Speaker 1: also a dozen, possibly dozens people just got shot at.

1442
01:16:04,360 --> 01:16:07,840
Speaker 1: Like I can't blame him, Like, you know, nobody that

1443
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:10,280
Speaker 1: number one. This was all new. Uh, he was not

1444
01:16:10,520 --> 01:16:13,440
Speaker 1: on well trod ground here. And I think any responsible

1445
01:16:13,439 --> 01:16:16,479
Speaker 1: person when a bunch of people get killed and you're

1446
01:16:16,560 --> 01:16:19,400
Speaker 1: the one in charge might rethink things, you know, whatever

1447
01:16:19,400 --> 01:16:21,519
Speaker 1: else we think about what he decided to do, Like,

1448
01:16:21,680 --> 01:16:24,600
Speaker 1: I don't know what else are you gonna do. Eugene V.

1449
01:16:24,720 --> 01:16:28,599
Speaker 1: Debs was jailed on July. He was sentenced to six

1450
01:16:28,640 --> 01:16:31,640
Speaker 1: months behind bars for his role in supposedly inciting a

1451
01:16:31,720 --> 01:16:34,800
Speaker 1: legal behavior. The time locked up was good for him.

1452
01:16:34,920 --> 01:16:37,760
Speaker 1: He read marks and while he studied inside Outside his

1453
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:40,920
Speaker 1: role in the strike was mythologized by the budding US left.

1454
01:16:41,360 --> 01:16:44,840
Speaker 1: When he was released in November, more than a hundred

1455
01:16:44,880 --> 01:16:47,839
Speaker 1: thousand people swarmed Battery Park to hear him give a speech,

1456
01:16:48,000 --> 01:16:50,759
Speaker 1: wherein he told them, I greet you tonighte as lovers

1457
01:16:50,760 --> 01:16:54,760
Speaker 1: of liberty and as despisers of despotism. Debs was not

1458
01:16:54,800 --> 01:16:57,719
Speaker 1: a committed socialist quite yet, but as the months passed

1459
01:16:57,760 --> 01:17:00,160
Speaker 1: he became convinced that the labor movement could win thing

1460
01:17:00,200 --> 01:17:03,720
Speaker 1: but temporary victories until socialism unseated the barons at the

1461
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:06,479
Speaker 1: very top. Two years after his release, he wrote in

1462
01:17:06,520 --> 01:17:10,280
Speaker 1: an essay the issue with Socialism versus Capitalism. I am

1463
01:17:10,320 --> 01:17:13,120
Speaker 1: for socialism because I am for humanity. We have been

1464
01:17:13,160 --> 01:17:16,080
Speaker 1: cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes

1465
01:17:16,080 --> 01:17:18,920
Speaker 1: no proper basis of civilization. The time has come to

1466
01:17:18,920 --> 01:17:24,479
Speaker 1: regenerate society. We are on the eve of a universal change. Yeah.

1467
01:17:24,479 --> 01:17:27,160
Speaker 1: I wish that had been the case, but you know.

1468
01:17:28,120 --> 01:17:30,760
Speaker 1: A national commission was established in eighteen ninety four to

1469
01:17:30,800 --> 01:17:34,200
Speaker 1: determine the causes of the strike. It blamed Pullman's paternalism

1470
01:17:34,240 --> 01:17:36,559
Speaker 1: his need to totally control the lives of his many

1471
01:17:36,600 --> 01:17:40,519
Speaker 1: employees as being un American. In eighteen ninety eight, the

1472
01:17:40,560 --> 01:17:43,799
Speaker 1: Illinois Supreme Court took Pullman the town away from Pullman

1473
01:17:43,920 --> 01:17:47,799
Speaker 1: the Man, and it was incorporated into Chicago. George Pullman

1474
01:17:47,880 --> 01:17:51,160
Speaker 1: died of a heart attack in eighteen nine seven. Funeral

1475
01:17:51,200 --> 01:17:53,679
Speaker 1: services were held at his mansion, and with Pullman's death

1476
01:17:53,680 --> 01:17:55,599
Speaker 1: coming so near to the end of the strike, it's

1477
01:17:55,640 --> 01:17:59,040
Speaker 1: perhaps not surprising that tempers were high. George seems to

1478
01:17:59,040 --> 01:18:01,320
Speaker 1: have been aware of how much people hated him prior

1479
01:18:01,360 --> 01:18:04,040
Speaker 1: to his death, and as a result, extreme measures were

1480
01:18:04,080 --> 01:18:06,519
Speaker 1: taken to protect his corpse. And I'm gonna quote one

1481
01:18:06,600 --> 01:18:10,720
Speaker 1: last time from the Pullman Center, A corpse box. That's

1482
01:18:10,720 --> 01:18:12,960
Speaker 1: what we're getting to. A pit the size of an

1483
01:18:12,960 --> 01:18:15,160
Speaker 1: average room had been dug in the family plot. It's

1484
01:18:15,200 --> 01:18:19,160
Speaker 1: basin walls reinforced concrete eighteen inches thick. Into this, the

1485
01:18:19,240 --> 01:18:22,280
Speaker 1: lead lined mahogany casket was lowered and covered with tar,

1486
01:18:22,360 --> 01:18:25,240
Speaker 1: paper and asphalt. The pit was filled with concrete, on

1487
01:18:25,280 --> 01:18:27,479
Speaker 1: top of which a series of steel rails were laid

1488
01:18:27,479 --> 01:18:30,639
Speaker 1: at right angles to each other and bolted together. These

1489
01:18:30,760 --> 01:18:33,479
Speaker 1: rails were embedded in another layer of concrete. It took

1490
01:18:33,479 --> 01:18:36,040
Speaker 1: two days to complete, and then sod was put down.

1491
01:18:36,360 --> 01:18:39,880
Speaker 1: These precautions were taken to prevent any desecration of the body.

1492
01:18:40,080 --> 01:18:42,800
Speaker 1: An unfortunate price Pullman paid for his victory in the

1493
01:18:42,840 --> 01:18:46,479
Speaker 1: Pullman Strike. Ambrose Beer said it is clear the family,

1494
01:18:46,520 --> 01:18:48,600
Speaker 1: in their bereavement was making sure the son of a

1495
01:18:48,640 --> 01:18:51,639
Speaker 1: bitch wasn't going to get up and come back. Well,

1496
01:18:52,479 --> 01:18:55,040
Speaker 1: that's just so funny to just know people hate you,

1497
01:18:55,040 --> 01:18:57,439
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and just be like, Okay, look,

1498
01:18:57,880 --> 01:19:00,960
Speaker 1: yeah it's not the best, but it's at least some

1499
01:19:01,080 --> 01:19:04,040
Speaker 1: victory that despite winning, at the end of it all,

1500
01:19:04,439 --> 01:19:07,439
Speaker 1: George Pullman knew he had to bury his corpse in

1501
01:19:07,479 --> 01:19:13,880
Speaker 1: a fucking uh like iron and and concrete box because

1502
01:19:13,920 --> 01:19:17,439
Speaker 1: otherwise people would funk with it. At least there's that well,

1503
01:19:17,640 --> 01:19:21,040
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's a it's comical at that point

1504
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:24,040
Speaker 1: to just think about the way his life ended, is all.

1505
01:19:24,040 --> 01:19:29,920
Speaker 1: It all comes back to corpse box. Um. But yeah,

1506
01:19:29,960 --> 01:19:33,400
Speaker 1: I mean, if anything, if I've learned anything from this episode, Robert,

1507
01:19:33,720 --> 01:19:38,120
Speaker 1: is that humans don't change everything basically has happened in

1508
01:19:38,160 --> 01:19:42,519
Speaker 1: the last several years. Uh, And that makes me sad

1509
01:19:42,760 --> 01:19:46,040
Speaker 1: because people forget what they go through, and history gets

1510
01:19:46,080 --> 01:19:49,680
Speaker 1: forgotten and rewritten until we do it again because we're

1511
01:19:49,760 --> 01:19:54,960
Speaker 1: dumb little sheep um. And it always happens every episode

1512
01:19:55,000 --> 01:19:57,840
Speaker 1: of Bastards and I'm on I just become my existential dread.

1513
01:19:58,479 --> 01:20:03,960
Speaker 1: Has it becomes an end void next to you? So excellent? Yeah,

1514
01:20:04,000 --> 01:20:08,320
Speaker 1: we did it? Did it? Wait? Is the end? Or

1515
01:20:08,479 --> 01:20:10,760
Speaker 1: should I? This is the end? We're done? Where did

1516
01:20:10,800 --> 01:20:14,680
Speaker 1: you plug your Oh? This is the end? Okay, I

1517
01:20:14,720 --> 01:20:17,479
Speaker 1: got it. Sorry, So we're still going. We're rolling, rolling,

1518
01:20:19,040 --> 01:20:23,439
Speaker 1: associating more. This is how my brain works. Now. I'm

1519
01:20:23,439 --> 01:20:26,920
Speaker 1: Sharene and I'm on Twitter at shiro hero six six

1520
01:20:26,960 --> 01:20:29,600
Speaker 1: six s h E r O h E r o

1521
01:20:30,400 --> 01:20:34,240
Speaker 1: and on Instagram is just Shira hero And thanks for

1522
01:20:34,520 --> 01:20:39,040
Speaker 1: listening all along if you want to. I don't care,

1523
01:20:39,960 --> 01:20:42,360
Speaker 1: well I do, I mean, I mean, I don't know.

1524
01:20:42,439 --> 01:20:45,040
Speaker 1: Have fun Reddit. I know someone will have fun with this. Yeah,

1525
01:20:45,080 --> 01:20:48,160
Speaker 1: I have fun Reddit, have fun Reddit. I don't know.

1526
01:20:48,360 --> 01:20:52,519
Speaker 1: I have a good day, everybody. Um uh, funk up

1527
01:20:52,520 --> 01:20:55,799
Speaker 1: a railroad. You have some time. Just find a railroad

1528
01:20:55,840 --> 01:20:58,360
Speaker 1: and just just get your anger out. That's all over

1529
01:20:58,400 --> 01:21:01,120
Speaker 1: the tracks, you know. Yeah, don't get caught. Yeah, yeah,

1530
01:21:01,160 --> 01:21:04,000
Speaker 1: don't get caught. If you get caught, we don't know you.

1531
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:06,280
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah. You did not hear from this.

1532
01:21:06,360 --> 01:21:08,040
Speaker 1: And this is not going to be just on the

1533
01:21:08,080 --> 01:21:09,360
Speaker 1: internet forever and ever. Know