WEBVTT - Who was Dr. Bronner? 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:11.320 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:13.680 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.520 and Jerry's here too, so this is stuff you should know. 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:23.000 Oft requested edition. I knew someone had asked for this, 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.079 so I did a little Google or not Google, but 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:29.600 an email search, and seven people requested this over the 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:30.760 last four years. 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:32.360 What are their names? 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:39.640 Shannon Mendonka, Megan Delfino, Josh Cronin, come on down, Michelle Roberts, 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:47.880 Alec Cole, Jonathan, Mark Wan or Mark Vin can't remoone writing? 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.000 And then Micah p Micah. I don't know how to 0:00:52.040 --> 0:00:54.600 pronounce your name, p e g u e s p 0:00:54.800 --> 0:01:00.160 at you. I'm sure there's a pronounce pegoose. I'm in 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:02.200 a m couldee my old buddy. I think Michael was 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:05.480 the first one, dating back to twenty twenty, or at 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.320 least as far as my email went back to search 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:08.200 for doctor Bronner. 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.080 Yeah, that's who we're talking about, doctor Broner. And if 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.959 you're like that name sounds familiar, you might be familiar 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:18.880 with Doctor Broner's eighteen and one Magic Soap, which Doctor 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.959 Broner the company has been selling since at least the 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.800 nineteen forties. And if you just said what I've only 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.440 known that since the sixties, or the seventies, or the eighties, 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.039 or the nineties or two years ago, It's true. This 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.600 stuff has been around for a very long time. And 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:39.160 doctor Broner himself is enough of a character to warrant 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.759 an episode. We're not really talking about the soap today, no. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.800 But one thing you probably have, there's no way you 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.000 cannot notice it is the iconic labels on the soap, 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:53.880 which have twenty seven hundred and twenty nine words printed 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.960 in five point font making up what we'll talk about later, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.600 the moral ABC and we'll get to why all that happened. 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.360 But it's a unique company in a couple of ways, 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:08.280 and many many ways. But one is they have never 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:12.399 spent money on advertising. That's amazing, not a penny. And 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:16.520 it started out as a well, we'll get to the origins, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:20.160 but now it's it's one of the top selling organic 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:25.519 soaps on the market, with revenues approaching two hundred million dollars. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.360 Yeah, and it went through quite a circuitous route to 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:32.040 get there, because not very long ago you bought that 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.960 at like your local health food store that smelled like, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:37.680 you know, Valerian root everywhere. 0:02:38.040 --> 0:02:39.000 Yeah, incense. 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:41.680 Yeah, and they've just kind of blown up. And what's 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:46.760 neat is they they've continued to grow under successive generations. 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.480 So I say we talk about doctor Brauner and where 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:51.959 he came from in the first place. 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.560 All right, if you like you said, if you look 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.040 at the label, it will say family soap makers since 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:05.480 eighteen fifty eight, and that is when the Heilbranna family 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:10.000 in Germany started making soap. They were a Jewish family 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:15.560 in Laupiem, Germany, and the doctor Barner himself would later 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:19.080 drop the hile part of his name because of obvious 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.120 reasons in World War Two. But in the eighteen nineties 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.080 the heil Branos were making tons of soap in three 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.720 factories in Germany. He came from a very well healed, 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:32.760 kind of legendary soap Casteel soap making company. 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.040 Yeah, I was gonna say he was trained by his 0:03:36.360 --> 0:03:40.560 family to make casteel soap, which is kind of soap 0:03:40.640 --> 0:03:44.120 made originated I guess around maybe the Mediterranean that uses 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:49.800 vegetable oils instead of animal fats, and it's softer and 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.160 it does less drying on the skin, and it's a 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.360 true soap. It undergoes to ponification. It's not a detergent 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.320 like a lot of other soaps. It's a genuine, true soap. 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.640 And he learned to make that back in the early 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.760 nineteen hundreds. He was born in nineteen oh eight, so 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.240 sometime after that he learned how to make Kessial soap. 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:13.240 Yeah, he was born Emil E. M I l Heilbroner. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.000 Like we said, that's the less obnoxious way to say it. 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:18.320 I like how you've been saying. I was going to 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:20.240 compliment you, honestly, Alblanna. 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.880 Yeah, he you know, in Germany and a lot of 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.360 well a lot of people that are a lot of 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:29.760 places that have the sort of apprentice model. That's what 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.320 he did. He was an apprentice and then a journeyman, 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:36.080 and then eventually he was a master soap maker. Only 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.360 formal education he received was that the doctor was self 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:41.920 bestowed and completely made up. 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.400 And that totally fits him, as we'll see absolutely. 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:49.120 But he and his parents were at odds. His wealthy 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:56.000 family were more just sort of old school, politically orthodox 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:00.719 Jewish family. They didn't want radical politics in their house, 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:06.880 and so Emial's belief in national homeland for the Jewish 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.640 people in Zionism did not jibe with what his family 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.000 wanted to do, so they basically said, hey, enough of that, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:17.360 or get the heck out of here. So in nineteen 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.279 twenty nine, in December of that year, Emil went to 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:21.640 the United States. 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:25.480 Yeah, at age twenty one, and he went essentially like 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.280 without a plan, without much money. He just showed up 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.280 in New York City. And he chose a particularly terrible 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.520 time where I should say his father chose a particularly 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.080 terrible time. Showed up just after the stock market crash 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.479 of nineteen twenty nine that kicked off the Great Depression. 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:46.160 So he immediately found trouble or found getting work troublesome. 0:05:46.800 --> 0:05:49.880 He did manage to kind of keep himself afloat by 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.920 making soap or teaching others how to make soap, and 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.400 he's routinely considered a genius. There's a I think either 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.680 a police report or a mental institution poured on him 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.000 that says he very clearly seems to have a wealth 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.400 of scientific knowledge in his head. So he knew what 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:09.880 he was doing with chemistry, even though, like you said, 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.240 his only formal education was in soap. Making. He understood 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:16.360 the chemistry of the whole thing and what adding this 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:20.080 to it or that to it, what changes that would have, 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.119 So he was able to kind of keep himself going 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.560 through soap making for essentially his whole life starting about now. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.160 Yeah, he got married nineteen thirty to another German immigrant 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:39.279 named Paula Voldefought. She has an interesting backstory and tragic 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:43.919 in that she was born from an affair between a 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:48.400 Catholic priest and a nun, and that nun very sadly 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:53.479 took her life and put I don't know if it 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:55.440 was she put her up for adoption before or if 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.159 that de facto put her up for adoption, but either way, 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:05.320 the nun took her life. Paula was adopted. Obviously wasn't Jewish, 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:08.960 which would not endear herself to Emil's family as you know, 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:14.080 as well as Emil himself. And in nineteen thirty five, 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.160 Emil made his first batch of peppermint oil soap, which 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.520 today is their biggest seller. Sill as a diaper cleaner. 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.640 When they had cloth diapers, it was a diaper sanitizer, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.280 and hey, my god, can you make this smell any better? 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:29.000 Kind of product? 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.240 So in nineteen thirty six, he became a naturalized citizen 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.160 and this is when he changed his name from Emil 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:41.080 Heil Brauner to Emmanuel Theodore Brauner. And most people call 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.280 him doctor E. H. Brauner. Again, he's not a doctor. 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.600 He just decided to call himself a doctor. Although people 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:52.840 cite his master chemist status as a soap maker to 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.080 at least, you know, kind of justify it all. But 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.200 there's no getting around the fact that he bestowed the 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.200 doctor on himself. And they think that the H and 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.440 eh is kind of a nod to the hile from 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.920 heil Bronner that he dropped. Okay, but that's not me. 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:10.080 I'm not making that up. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.000 Previous to World War Two, he was doing okay, he 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:20.320 was making soap, doing pretty well. He had his wife, 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.840 he had his family. What do you have? Three kids? 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:27.240 Is that right? Two boys and a girl. After the war, 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.720 everything had fallen apart for him in his life. Basically, 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.239 Hitler of course, came into power. He and his siblings 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:40.080 were begging his parents to leave Germany, which they would 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.800 not do. And you know, the worst thing happened that 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.319 they were afraid of. They were forced to hand over 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:50.160 their business. They were sent to concentration camps and they 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:50.920 were both killed. 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.319 Yeah, And I was reading a blog post from Lisa Broner, 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:59.240 who's doctor Broner's granddaughter, and she was explaining that they 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.240 there was a forced sale of their soap making business 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:06.080 to the Third Reich, to the German state because they 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.439 were Jewish, they were not allowed to own businesses like that, 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.959 and that would be obviously like a clear signal everybody 0:09:12.000 --> 0:09:15.000 like probably should leave the country now. But the Germans 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:18.280 also at this time had a law that well healed, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.280 Jewish people could not leave Germany with capital. You could leave, 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:24.559 but you could not take a penny of German money 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.200 outside of the country with you. And so if you 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.400 were wealthy and Jewish, it would be kind of tough 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:32.320 to just be like, you know what, forget it, my 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:34.840 entire family fortune. I'm just gonna forget about it just 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.320 to get out of Germany, because I still don't think 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.480 like the German people are so crazy that they're going 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.160 to let this guy just keep going. And it got 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.560 to the point where it became too late. And there's 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.280 a part of family lore is that doctor Brauner got 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.400 a last postcard from his father after his detention in 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.439 the concentration camp, and it says, like everything else is redacted, 0:09:57.800 --> 0:09:59.840 but at the very end it says you were right, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.079 your loving father, which is that's about as heartbreaking as 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:07.760 it gets. But that was a big, big deal to 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.560 doctor Brauner, as his sister would later attest. 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.800 Oh, of course, another tragedy and big deal in his 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:19.640 life is when his wife suffered a fall after they 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.840 had their third kid, and that was kind of it 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:28.319 for her. She became depressed, she stopped eating, she had 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:33.360 suicidal ideation. Eventually died in a state mental hospital outside 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.440 of Chicago. And I tried to find out more and 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.440 more about maybe what happened with her, and there's just 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.079 not a lot out there. I suspect that maybe there 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:45.720 was some sort of head injury. It just sort of 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:50.240 tracks along those lines maybe in that fall. But either way, 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:54.480 he was left a widower with three young children, and 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.360 as we'll see, was not much of a dad. He 0:10:57.440 --> 0:10:59.360 was not around much and did not dad much. 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.840 No, No, there's one thing that everybody agrees is that 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.200 he was a terrible father in almost every way, not always, 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.880 but almost every way, especially on paper, like when you 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.280 just read about how what kind of father he was 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:17.000 it's crazy that his kids ever, you know, embraced him 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:18.360 or stuck around with him. 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:20.800 You know, yeah, well, I mean we might as well 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:22.719 go ahead and talk about it. I believe that they 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:29.920 were at various times in orphanages and placed with other families, 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.400 and he kind of straight up said, and you know, 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.640 as we'll see, he becomes a bit of a zelot 0:11:35.679 --> 0:11:39.520 for his ideas and kind of a kind of a 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.640 manic street preacher type. And he would literally say, like, 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:45.960 who has time to parent kids when I have to 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:49.320 like spread spread my word around. And he made no 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:51.720 bones about it, you know, that just he wasn't going 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:52.800 to parent these kids. 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:54.959 Yeah no, And he would come back once or twice 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.679 a year and visit them, but yeah, he was like, 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:00.840 I have to go out and do this. I have 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:05.559 a much bigger mission than raising you kids. And yeah, 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:08.360 that's a really tough thing to swallow, I'm sure as 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:10.520 you're a kid, and then even as an adult when 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:15.080 you're looking back. But again, astoundingly, his kids stuck with 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:17.960 him and learned to just kind of deal with the 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.800 fact that their father had abandoned them in about the 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.360 most overt way a father can abandon a child and 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:27.840 spent the rest of their lives with him once they 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:30.640 grew up and were able to basically get out of 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.160 the foster and orphanage systems. 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:38.679 Yeah. Absolutely, so mentioned him being, you know, having these 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.560 big ideas. I mentioned the moral ABC and kind of 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:44.200 like the manic street preacher shout out to the band. 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:49.840 This all came from this idea of post World War two. 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.000 He had sort of a either a breakthrough or a 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.960 breakdown in his mind about that this could be it. 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:01.439 We're on the brink of destruction as a people. Mankind 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.600 needs a big shift in our perspectives, how we think 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.880 about politics, how we think about our time on earth 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:12.160 in the afterlife. He basically was like, the only way 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.360 forward for us, if we're going to survive as a species, 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.080 is to become the United States of the world and 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:24.040 to be all together as one people. And you know, 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.079 it wasn't the most radical idea. There have been plenty 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.720 of people that talked about stuff like this, but he's like, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.480 we are all children of the same God, and the 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.280 only thing that can save us from that is if 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:36.560 we all get together and come together as one. 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:38.760 Yeah, I'm glad you said that he either had a 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.960 breakthrough or breakdown because his sister Louise, who will play 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.960 a big role in a minute. She traces the origin 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:51.280 of his zealousness and his need to like spread this 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:54.559 message to the time when both of his parents were 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.640 killed murdered and his wife died like all within basically 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:03.520 a year, and that he changed after that. And depending 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:06.120 on who you talk to and how you look at it, 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:08.600 he changed either for the better and like became the 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.240 person who was supposed to be or his ideas were 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:16.280 just super kookie and he managed to support himself just 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:18.240 by the grace of making soap. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:23.040 Yeah, so I mentioned the moral ABC. This is basically 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.640 the end result of his sort of an end result, 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.040 meaning it was still a work in progress to the 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.040 day died. He was always tinkering with his moral ABC, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.240 which is the thing printed on that soap label. All 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.520 one is the big rallying cry, which is what I 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.400 was kind of alluding to earlier with his thoughts. But 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.640 that is what he I mean to secondary to selling soap. 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:50.240 He was worried about this label and the words on it. 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.720 It's seemingly his entire life until he died. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.080 Yeah, he figured out that he could use the soap 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.200 as a way to get the word out there, which 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.840 is pretty genius actually, and that's where the label came from. 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.440 Did we take a break, all right? 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.560 Okay, Chuck. So after some period of time, he ended 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.920 up in Chicago, and like you said, he became a 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.040 manic street preacher in Chicago and he attracted an adherent 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.400 This is this is kind of like a little side story, 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.320 but it's worth telling because I think it really kind 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:48.560 of gets the point across about Brauner and who he 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:50.400 was and the people he hung out with at the time, 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.440 because he came out as like the reasonable one out 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.240 of this one. But one of his devotees was named 0:15:57.280 --> 0:16:00.280 fred Walker, who he had attracted, and Fred Walker Poker 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:02.880 he would turn out to be a Nazi sympathizer, but 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.120 before that was clear, he was an Austrian immigrant who 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:11.680 had created his own universal brotherhood movement called American Industrial Democracy, 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.280 and he really was vibing on what Brauner was saying. 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.400 And at some point, I guess either he or they, 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:24.120 it's not clear, got the idea of creating a publicity 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:27.200 stunt to get their ideas out there to more people, 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.960 and apparently Fred Walker submitted or suggested that he be 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:37.280 crucified to get this message out as a publicity stunt, 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:39.040 and he was crucified. 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.280 Yeah. This is in outside of El Station, a train 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:47.760 station in Chicago, March ninth, nineteen forty five. Cops were 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.480 called down there and like dude on a cross with 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:53.880 nails the whole nine yards. It wasn't like a show, 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:55.760 and he was tied up there. It was a real 0:16:55.800 --> 0:17:02.760 crucifixion that he survived. At some point mentioned Bronner's name 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.480 and the cops went and talked to Bronner and said, hey, 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:11.400 do you have I think he mentioned the peace Plan 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.000 or something like that. Walker did to the cops and 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:16.040 they said, are you a Bronner And they said yeah, 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:17.600 and he said do you have this a peace plan? 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.400 He went, sure, I do, and even have a pamphlet. 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:22.040 They're like, well, why don't you come talk to us 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.160 then about what happened to your friend? Nothing ever happened. 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.199 I guess everyone just clammed up about how he was 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:34.520 actually literally crucified. But in the hospital room with like 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.119 reporters and everything in there with this guy, Bronner was 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.320 in there with his peace pamphlets like passing them out 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:40.760 to people. 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:45.040 Yeah, but apparently people were like, this is not the 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.679 kind of thing I want to associate with crucifixion, you know, 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.760 like I now think that your ideas are related to 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.600 this man being crucified in Chicago. So it wasn't the 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:58.600 best publicity stunt of all time, but it does kind 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:00.640 of get across the kind of stuff and the kind 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:02.879 of people that doctor Broner was hanging out with in 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.800 Chicago in the mid forties, And he developed a reputation 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:11.240 pretty quickly because within a year he was arrested by 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.479 the Chicago police and his life completely changed. At this point, 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.440 he was known for not taking no as an answer. 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.800 He was known for not knowing the meaning of the 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:26.639 word can't again. Lisa Broner described him. And there was 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:31.000 the International Center, a college at the University of Chicago. 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:36.040 They would have like seminars or presentations or lectures, and 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:38.320 doctor Broner is like, I've got a perfect lecture for 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.159 you guys. Let me get up there and talk and 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:44.560 tell everybody my all one sermon and that moral ABC 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.640 And they said, no, we don't want you to do that. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.840 Thanks for offering, And the University of Chicago thought that 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:51.200 was that. 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.520 Yeah. So in March of forty six, he comes back 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.960 pretty hot headed. He's yelling out his fellowsipes, he's kind 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.560 of yelling out his moral ABC and a couple of 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:08.000 cops come out and say, hey, your car's parked illegally 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:09.240 out there. Why don't you come out with us and 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.240 we'll get it moved. And I guess this was just 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.760 the old cop thing to not cause a big scene inside, 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.359 because they get him outside, immediately arrest him, hit. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:19.240 Him with a blackjack. 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:23.760 Yeah, he's in jail for about a week, and his 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:28.600 sister Louise eventually came from Rhode Island to sign committal 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.639 papers to have him sent to Elgin State Insane Asylum, 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.359 where he says, and you know, we don't We've talked 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.119 before about how hard it is to get any hard 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:40.840 facts about what happens and what happened in those places 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.000 back then. But Bronner himself said that he was he 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.320 had to sleep on a concrete slab that he was 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:50.440 chained to every night. He was forced us into solitary 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:56.159 confinement and electroshock therapy. We don't know which parts of that, 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:58.040 if all of it or none of it is true, 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.960 but that's what he said happened, and in fact, if 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.560 you see pictures of the older doctor Browner, he's always 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:07.120 got on these these dark glasses. That's because he lost 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.920 his eyesight very slowly over the years, and he credits 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.320 that or blames it rather on the shock treatments that 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:15.159 he got in at Elgin. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:20.520 Yeah, he would later on say he would call Elgin 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.359 a concentration camp and say that he was put to 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.119 hard labor mixing concrete. And he probably was put to 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:30.400 work because they did use inmates for labor back then, 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.119 but they, like he would say, like in the concentration 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:36.800 camps I did. Is what he was talking about was 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.159 the mental institution that he was committed to by his sister, 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:43.760 and he wasn't very happy there, as you can guess, 0:20:44.040 --> 0:20:48.320 So he escaped. He escaped three times, and the third 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:51.200 time was the charm. He finally got away. It's always 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:55.240 the last escape attempt, you know, Well. 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.200 Didn't he just kind of get up and leave. When 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.400 his sister visited, she. 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:01.760 Was allowed to make him out to lunch. She went 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:03.600 to the bathroom, he stole five bucks out of her 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.199 purse and took off and made it. He made it 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.520 all the way to Vegas. He hitchhiked to Los Angeles 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:11.480 and apparently he had a ride all the way there 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:15.040 and he made the mistake of mentioning to the driver 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.479 that he had just escaped from a mental hospital, and 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:20.480 the drivers like, I'm gonna let you off in Las Vegas, 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.280 how about that? And he took that five dollars or 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:26.160 whatever was left of it, and I want to say 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.360 it was a roulette spin and managed to make enough 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:30.840 money to get him the rest of the way out 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.520 to Los Angeles and rent a room while when he got. 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.119 There quite a story. So what we're saying is his 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:40.200 big successful attempt was he was taken out to lunch 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:41.120 and he got up and left. 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:44.240 Yeah, yeah, I guess so for sure. 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:45.000 Amazing. 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:47.359 Yeah, I mean there was no like barbed wire or 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.280 climbing over stuff or searchlights to anything. There was probably 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:52.240 a hot beef. 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:59.560 Right, So he ends up in Los Angeles. The company, 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.640 the real company that we know is doctor Browner's Soap 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:08.600 Company was founded then in nineteen forty eight. That's when 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:12.760 the company started. In Earnest he would go to Pershing 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.520 Square in downtown LA where people would manic street preach 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.600 and he would literally stand on a soapbox and preaches 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.080 moral ABC to people. I keep wanting to say ABC's 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:28.399 but it's ABC. Yeah, just like Scorpions, Yeah exactly. And 0:22:28.440 --> 0:22:32.320 he would preach and then sell bottles of this liquid soap, 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:35.119 and people loved the soap so much they would go 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.520 back and just buy the soap. So that's where he 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:41.119 was like, no one's even listening to preach anymore. And 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.159 that's where the idea hatched, was to actually put the 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.359 message on the soap, bing bang boom. Didn't even have 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:49.000 to stand around in that soapbox anymore. 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:54.560 Right, So again, like this, I'm trying to figure out 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.760 how to get him across. If it's not coming through, 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.600 maybe this will do it. Throughout the nineteen fifties, he 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.960 became obsessed with the idea that communists were secretly running 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.639 the United States and ruining it, and he used to 0:23:08.720 --> 0:23:11.840 call the Los Angeles Field office of the FBI every 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:15.239 day to tell them how to root out communists or 0:23:15.880 --> 0:23:20.200 suggest ways of finding communists and getting rid of them, 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.679