Speaker 1: All right, It's a sunny Saturday afternoon in April, and
Speaker 1: I've driven up to New Rochelle, New York, a suburb
Speaker 1: just north of New York City. Get the park three
Speaker 1: blocks away. I mean, they're people are showing up for
Speaker 1: this there. I'm here for a celebration. A lot of
Speaker 1: activity here, a lot of excitement. Really more of a commemoration.
Speaker 1: You know. The mayor is going to be here, dignitary.
Speaker 1: You see, everyone has gathered here today to honor the
Speaker 1: person that put New Rochelle on the map. You travel
Speaker 1: out of state and you tell something. While I live
Speaker 1: in Rochelle, the first thing they'll tell you his ome
Speaker 1: The Dick Van Dyke Show, Dick Van Dyke Show, Starry
Speaker 1: Dick Van Dyke. Beloved actor Dick Van Dyke played comedy
Speaker 1: writer Rob Petrie. On The Dick Van Dyke Show. A
Speaker 1: young Mary Tyler Moore played his wife, Laura. Would you
Speaker 1: stage your name in the please where it's Mrs Laura
Speaker 1: Petrie One for a Bonnie Meta Road, Michelle, New York.
Speaker 1: That's right. The fictional couple lived in New Rochelle, and
Speaker 1: today the townspeople are dedicating the real Bonnie Meta Road
Speaker 1: to the hit nineteen sixty series You can take a
Speaker 1: picture in the TV love to do that with Nancy
Speaker 1: Ann with you, Dick Van Dyke, show creator nineties seven
Speaker 1: year old comedy legend Carl Reiner even skyped in for
Speaker 1: the occasion. Mccar he's wearing Argyle's sweater. He looks great. Actually,
Speaker 1: the reason the show was set in New Rochelle when
Speaker 1: Reiner was just starting out, he and his family lived here.
Speaker 1: Every episode has a little me and my wife. Now,
Speaker 1: as much as I loved Rob and Laura Petrie, there's
Speaker 1: another person, a real person, who lived in New Rochelle
Speaker 1: and who was pretty important other than Carl Renner, you
Speaker 1: know who else is from here for a while. Andrew
Speaker 1: Mitchell Andrewell of Fine. Oh, let's say I'm trying to
Speaker 1: thank jowing a blank. Well, let's um, he wrote pamphlets, pamphlets.
Speaker 1: Carl Reiner knows who I'm talking about. No more important
Speaker 1: name in our history than Tom Paine. Yes, Thomas Payne.
Speaker 1: He didn't just write pamphlets with his pen. He helped
Speaker 1: birth this very country. Oh my god, could right. You're
Speaker 1: a great writer, and you acknowledge that he was a
Speaker 1: great writer as well, Oh well, let's say high squibble,
Speaker 1: he wrote. Yes, Payne's pamphlet Common Sense is not only
Speaker 1: one of the best selling publications in American history, it
Speaker 1: was the intellectual spark that lit the fuse for the
Speaker 1: American Revolution. Without him, there might not be a United States. Yet,
Speaker 1: when Payne died, only six people showed up at his funeral.
Speaker 1: The paltry opit that was published at the time summed
Speaker 1: up his life in this line, he had lived long,
Speaker 1: did some good and much harm. Even after Pain died,
Speaker 1: he couldn't rest in peace. The guy's bones were stolen.
Speaker 1: And was Thomas Paine a founding father? I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer that was in this episode? Will tell you
Speaker 1: why Pain matters, and we'll give him the send off
Speaker 1: he deserves, complete with an original Mobits production number without
Speaker 1: the brain. Make no mistake, no Pain, No Gain of
Speaker 1: Independence from CBS Sunday Morning and Simon and Schuster. I'm
Speaker 1: Morocca and this is mobituaries. This mobit Thomas Paine June eight,
Speaker 1: eight o nine, death of a forgotten founding father to
Speaker 1: pactically started this whole country. He's dead. What are you
Speaker 1: learning her about? Dead people? For all I want you
Speaker 1: to do is teach your i'd act with life people.
Speaker 1: Education is a very difficult thing to control, Harry. One
Speaker 1: thing that was the incomparable comedian Judy Holiday teaching her
Speaker 1: bullying boyfriend a thing or two in the film Born Yesterday.
Speaker 1: The scenes funny because it's true many of us have
Speaker 1: heard of Thomas Paine but don't really know what he did.
Speaker 1: This is an important guy, right yes before scientific polls.
Speaker 1: One way to measure public opinion, A proxy for it anyway,
Speaker 1: might be pamphlet sales. Anthony Salvonto heads up the CBS
Speaker 1: News polling unit. I asked him to help us gauge
Speaker 1: how well recognized or unrecognized Thomas Payne is as a
Speaker 1: founding father. The polling unit called a random sampling of
Speaker 1: a thousand people. The way this one is asked is
Speaker 1: you know which of these people as a founding father?
Speaker 1: And Thomas Payne's name was was put out there. The
Speaker 1: choices were Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Payne, Frederick Douglas Fitzgerald, Thomas Grant.
Speaker 1: The third who you know as Oh you got me?
Speaker 1: Anthony was the president on the TV show Scandal with
Speaker 1: Kerry Washington. Come on, thank you. Other choices included James
Speaker 1: Tiberius Kirk, the Captain of the Enterprise, Colonel Sanders, Will Smith,
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra, and I don't know. And what were the results. Well,
Speaker 1: if Frank Sinatra comes in at one percent, old blue
Speaker 1: eyes might not be happy with that. But here's the
Speaker 1: most striking result. Forty three percent selected Abraham Lincoln as
Speaker 1: the one founding father on the list. And now, obviously
Speaker 1: he comes some years after the people we think of
Speaker 1: as founding father. In fact, four score and seven years
Speaker 1: later exactly, Sir, just of respondents correctly named Thomas Paine.
Speaker 1: So the recognition of Pain as a founding father is
Speaker 1: mixed at best, even if most of us recognize the
Speaker 1: man's words, I know, and it's amazing. People may have
Speaker 1: known that he said these are the times at time
Speaker 1: and souls. They may know that he said, we have
Speaker 1: it in our power to begin the world over again.
Speaker 1: They may know that he wrote common sense, but they
Speaker 1: don't really know who he is. That's Pain. Biographer Craig D. Nelson,
Speaker 1: not to be confused with actor Craig T. Nelson. A
Speaker 1: little bit of housekeeping, how often are you asked if
Speaker 1: you start in the sitcom coach all the time, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all the time. In fact, I think I'd help me
Speaker 1: launch my career that people thought I was coached, so
Speaker 1: they would buy the book and then I chop at
Speaker 1: autographics and they'd be horribly disappointed. But to they already paid.
Speaker 1: But good point. You got him in the tent. Why not?
Speaker 1: Why did you want to write about Tom Paine? Well,
Speaker 1: I had this fun He's a little article that talked
Speaker 1: about how, ten years after he died, his biggest fan
Speaker 1: went to New Rochelle and dug his bones up. So today,
Speaker 1: if you do a Thomas Pain book and you will
Speaker 1: find this out when this podcast comes out, people will
Speaker 1: contact you to see if you would like to buy
Speaker 1: a bone. And have you ever touched one of Thomas
Speaker 1: Pain's bones? Which one? Which bones? I think it was
Speaker 1: like a finger. But someone showed up and tried to
Speaker 1: sell me something. And I want to assure listeners that
Speaker 1: we will talk about what happened to his bones later
Speaker 1: in the episode. But suffice it to say, Craig, this
Speaker 1: kind of devotion is remarkable. When Thomas Pain was alive,
Speaker 1: he was the most famous person in the world. He
Speaker 1: knew everyone, he knew Jefferson, he knew Washington, he knew Robespierre,
Speaker 1: he knew I mean, it's it's astonishing who is associated.
Speaker 1: And he'd come a very long way as opposed to
Speaker 1: most of the other founding fathers who came from money.
Speaker 1: Paine was born in sevente into humble circumstances in England.
Speaker 1: He's like the work class founder. What inspires him to
Speaker 1: even come to America. He had the most horrible life
Speaker 1: you could possibly have in England. His mother was an
Speaker 1: Anglican named Francis Cock, who married a Quaker named Joseph Payne,
Speaker 1: thus making her anyway. Joseph was a staymaker another way
Speaker 1: of saying. He made corsets that were a combination like
Speaker 1: a boostier and a girdle, this giant, one piece thing
Speaker 1: that women wore, right but anyway, so that's what he did.
Speaker 1: Young Thomas drops out of school at twelve. A few
Speaker 1: years later, when Britain goes to war with France, Payne
Speaker 1: seeks adventure on the high seas as a privateer, capturing
Speaker 1: enemy ships for the British government. It looks like he
Speaker 1: made quite a bit of money doing that, and he
Speaker 1: ended up taking you know, junior year abroad. He ended
Speaker 1: up as a twenty year old man wandering around London
Speaker 1: taking classes, basically giving himself the education that the middle
Speaker 1: class founders are getting in schools. He got himself. He
Speaker 1: learned how to write, he learned all about the classics.
Speaker 1: So Thomas Payne is like a sponge. He's absorbing us. Yes,
Speaker 1: he has bills to pay, though, so he takes up
Speaker 1: his father's trade of staymaking. But things are too tight.
Speaker 1: Pain can't make ends meet and soon falls into debt.
Speaker 1: And this is where things really start going south. And
Speaker 1: so you see Tommy's pain moving from town to town,
Speaker 1: one step ahead of his creditors. And his personal life
Speaker 1: is a disaster. He has one wife who dies in
Speaker 1: Childsworth and loses the child too. He has another wife
Speaker 1: he's separated from. He tries to be a staymaker, he
Speaker 1: tries to be a grocer, he tries to be a
Speaker 1: tax collector, and fails at all of these things. It's
Speaker 1: during his time as a tax collector that Paine first
Speaker 1: catches the activist bog the country's excise officers another way
Speaker 1: of saying, tax collectors hadn't received a raise in over
Speaker 1: a century, and Pain felt they were overdue. So he
Speaker 1: writes one of his very first pamphle, it's demanding better pay.
Speaker 1: It doesn't go over so well. He's fired from his
Speaker 1: job and forced to sell off most of his possessions.
Speaker 1: So personally and professionally he's kind of a wreck. There's
Speaker 1: no place to go but to get on a boat.
Speaker 1: Luckily for Paine, he had made a valuable connection in London.
Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, who was representing colonial interests in England, met
Speaker 1: Paine and was impressed by the young firebrand. Benjamin Franklin
Speaker 1: called him his adopted political son, and so, carrying a
Speaker 1: letter of recommendation from Franklin, Thomas Paine sets sail for
Speaker 1: the New World. But the voyage across the Atlantic isn't easy.
Speaker 1: Paine almost dies from Typhus. He arrives none too soon
Speaker 1: in November of seventeen seventy four, lands in Philadelphia, where
Speaker 1: Franklin's from, and until the place to go. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a big city in America at that moment, and
Speaker 1: almost immediately he becomes the editor of Pennsylvania Magazine. Paine
Speaker 1: builds Pennsylvania Magazine into the widest circulating in the colonies,
Speaker 1: but it's with a different kind of periodical that he
Speaker 1: makes his biggest impact. Pain was a big, big, big
Speaker 1: hottie in the pamphlet world. Yes, pamphlets were hot in
Speaker 1: the seventeen seventies. What's the deal with pamphlets because I
Speaker 1: associate pamphlets with pre nine eleven, when people could roam
Speaker 1: around airports with these things, handing them to you when arrived,
Speaker 1: saying please join my group. So pamphlet is a little
Speaker 1: tiny essay. They were like ten pages maybe tops, and
Speaker 1: they were just printed on a great big broadsheet and
Speaker 1: then folded up and heads it out to people. But
Speaker 1: you would have the biggest um. Local heroes would be
Speaker 1: publishing pamphlets, So you would read Thomas Jefferson pamphlets, and
Speaker 1: you'd read Alexander Hamilton pamphlets. Does he make a name
Speaker 1: for himself quickly? No, that happens because of offering to
Speaker 1: write a pamphlet to condence Americans that they should no
Speaker 1: longer call themselves Britain's, that they should call themselves America.
Speaker 1: And you say that in a very understated way. That's
Speaker 1: kind of a big deal. The pamphlet Craig is talking
Speaker 1: about was written six months before the declaration of independence.
Speaker 1: It was common sense after Uncle Tom's cabin. It's the
Speaker 1: most influential piece of writing in American history. And he
Speaker 1: turns every single thing the British had been saying on
Speaker 1: their heads and comes up with an explanation for why
Speaker 1: Americans should go it alone, and why it'll be great
Speaker 1: to be an American and we'll have this whole continent
Speaker 1: and we'll run our own affairs and will stop being
Speaker 1: insulted by the British. You see, the great majority of
Speaker 1: colonists had come here with real estate contracts that guaranteed
Speaker 1: that the only taxes they'd have to pay were local.
Speaker 1: But like all good deals, that seemed too good to
Speaker 1: be true. It was when the British needed to fund
Speaker 1: the Seven Years War the taxes started piling up, the
Speaker 1: Stamp Act, the Paper Act, all of these different acts
Speaker 1: they pursued. So Tom Payne is tapping into fury, a
Speaker 1: sense of betrayal, disrespect, fueled by his own outrage pain
Speaker 1: articulates in common sense a grand ambition for the would
Speaker 1: be nation. The cause of America is in great measure
Speaker 1: the cause of all mankind. I mean that is a
Speaker 1: topic sentence. It's no surprise that Bartlett's book of quotations
Speaker 1: is full of lines from Thomas Paine, lines said frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't have the voice to deliver. Now, who do
Speaker 1: I know with a voice sonorous, stentorian and authoritative enough
Speaker 1: to read Thomas Paine's words? Wait, wait, don't tell me.
Speaker 1: I know who does from NPR and Easy Chicago. This
Speaker 1: is wait, wait, don't tell me the NPR news quiz.
Speaker 1: You know who could do this? Bill Curtis, the scorekeeper
Speaker 1: on Wait, wait, don't tell me. He does a lot
Speaker 1: of movie trailers, you know, in a world, But you
Speaker 1: want him to read these lines? Guys, we should get
Speaker 1: Bill Curtis to read some of these lines. We're going
Speaker 1: to do that. It will include me actually saying it
Speaker 1: right now, because it will make the audience feel like
Speaker 1: you're part of the whole process. And so I called
Speaker 1: in a favor. Now, my friend Bill Curtis isn't just
Speaker 1: scorekeeper for Weight Weight, where I've been a panelist the
Speaker 1: last twenty years. He's an Emmy winning news anchor and,
Speaker 1: perhaps most legendarily, the narrator of the movie Anchorman, and
Speaker 1: in San Diego, one anchor man was more man than
Speaker 1: the rest. His name was Ron Burgundy. So here we
Speaker 1: are comin, says we have it in our power to
Speaker 1: begin the world over again. Tell it Bill. Society in
Speaker 1: every state is a blessing. But government, even in its
Speaker 1: best state, is but a necessary evil. In its worst
Speaker 1: state that intolerable one can argue with that there is
Speaker 1: something very absurd. And supposing a continent to be perpetually
Speaker 1: governed by an island goose bumps right. It is not
Speaker 1: in numbers, but in unity that our great strength lies.
Speaker 1: It's important to remember that the very notion of the
Speaker 1: colonies banding together, a central argument of common Sense, was new.
Speaker 1: Did the colonies even think they had anything to do
Speaker 1: with each other? Though they thought of themselves as Virginians
Speaker 1: or New Yorkers, they did not really identify with each other. Yet,
Speaker 1: up until common sense, being American wasn't really a concept
Speaker 1: or a compliment. The word American at this point met
Speaker 1: at cracker Hill Billy that it met someone who is
Speaker 1: a piece of trash. Because the English considered all of
Speaker 1: their colonies to be outlying, low rent, trashy, vulgar people
Speaker 1: who are stupid and ignorant. Paine rebranded the word American
Speaker 1: beyond separation from England. Common Sense called for an end
Speaker 1: to hereditary monarchy. Back to you Bill in short, monarchy
Speaker 1: and succession have LAIDs not this or that kingdom only,
Speaker 1: but the world in blood and ashes. At first, Pain
Speaker 1: kept his name off the pamphlet. First of all, it
Speaker 1: was a very dangerous thing to way it was. It
Speaker 1: was treasonous. Does he sign it later? Yes, And he
Speaker 1: does take credit for it eventually, And people know who
Speaker 1: it is anyway, because it's a very like big small
Speaker 1: town at the time. What do the other founding fathers
Speaker 1: think when this thing catches fire? Oh, Thomas Jefferson thinks
Speaker 1: he's fantastic and they become close friends. A lot of
Speaker 1: people attributed it first to John Adams, and at first
Speaker 1: he says, I if only I did, And then he
Speaker 1: in Pain have a falling out in time in spite
Speaker 1: of the bad blood between the two men. Adams reportedly said,
Speaker 1: without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the
Speaker 1: Sword of Washington would have been raised in vain. But
Speaker 1: it's not just what Pain writes, it's how he writes.
Speaker 1: Paine understood that since most people at the time were illiterate,
Speaker 1: Common Sense had to be written in plain English that
Speaker 1: could be read out loud. It's very modern, and he's
Speaker 1: writing for broadcast, not for one of these outlier cable
Speaker 1: channels where you're preaching to the choir. And you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's trying to reach as many people as possible,
Speaker 1: and he does right. If there had been no Thomas Paine,
Speaker 1: there would have been no what there would have been.
Speaker 1: Eventually the United States might have been formed, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been unified into a country the way it was,
Speaker 1: in the manner that it was. You give him and
Speaker 1: common Sense that much credit. Absolutely pain puts his money
Speaker 1: where his mouth is, donating the proceeds from Common Sense
Speaker 1: to the Continental Army. And shortly after the colonies declare independence,
Speaker 1: Payne joins the army, serving as an aide de camp
Speaker 1: to General Nathaniel Green. But he doesn't stop writing pains.
Speaker 1: Sequel to Common Sense is the American Crisis, a whole
Speaker 1: series of pamphlets that serves as a rallying cry during
Speaker 1: the conflict's darkest days. Well, this is during the very
Speaker 1: long period in which the Americans are losing the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1: He's trying to buck up everybody's spirits. He's writing, all
Speaker 1: these other people don't give up on Washington in the war.
Speaker 1: There's a spectacular moment where he writes one of his
Speaker 1: biggest pieces, and it's the night before they're going to
Speaker 1: go from Philadelphia to Trenton, Washington, Washington crossing the Telaware
Speaker 1: famous picture, and it's the first real victory of the
Speaker 1: American Revolution. And the night before he has them all
Speaker 1: listened to pains where it's by candle light. So it's
Speaker 1: a very beautiful thing. These are the times that Triman souls.
Speaker 1: The submert soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this
Speaker 1: crisis shrink from the us of their country. But he
Speaker 1: that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of
Speaker 1: men and women. Tyranny like hell, is not easily conquered.
Speaker 1: Yet we have this consolation with us. That's the harder
Speaker 1: the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. So the war
Speaker 1: ends and Thomas Payne is riding high. His writing unified
Speaker 1: the colonists, roused the armies of our land to victory,
Speaker 1: delivered us to freedom. It's a ghoulish hypothetical. But had
Speaker 1: he died, you know, say, in three would he would
Speaker 1: his reputation be different? Oh? Absolutely, It's a shame in fact,
Speaker 1: in fact that die young. They have a pretty corse.
Speaker 1: There's the number one prisoner should have done it. But
Speaker 1: that's not how history works. So how did Thomas Payne
Speaker 1: go from legend to pariah? The answer lies in what
Speaker 1: happened after the war. Right closes, then I'm back in
Speaker 1: New Rochelle at the Thomas Pain Cottage. So look, it's
Speaker 1: not It doesn't look like Monicello or a mountain Vernon
Speaker 1: or Hyde Park, but you know it has it has status.
Speaker 1: It's got the plaque, so that's a big deal. The
Speaker 1: plaque I'm referring to designates this modest domicile a National
Speaker 1: Historic Landmark. New York State gave this property to Pain
Speaker 1: after the American Revolution in gratitude for his service to
Speaker 1: the country. Today it's playing host to a colonial fair,
Speaker 1: ready company to the front watch, and some folks are
Speaker 1: taking the theme very seriously. You marked slow in cadence,
Speaker 1: and you keep the line dressed. You can look to
Speaker 1: your left of your eye, but don't move your heads.
Speaker 1: That's not allowed. You knows a little about the American Revolution.
Speaker 1: What do you know about the American Revolution? I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with it. Obsessed. Well, then surely these two young historians
Speaker 1: know something about our episodes undersung Founding Father? So, um,
Speaker 1: what do you know about Thomas Paine? He wrote common Sense?
Speaker 1: What else did he do? He lived in that house
Speaker 1: over there? Is he a founding father? No? Why not?
Speaker 1: M that? I don't really know, Okay, but you just
Speaker 1: know that he's not abounding father? Now, who is a
Speaker 1: founding father? Alexander Hamilton's heart. If there was a big
Speaker 1: if there was a musical about Thomas Paine, then maybe
Speaker 1: maybe you'd think of him as a founding father. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that insight, Rachel and Aaron. Now back
Speaker 1: to post Revolutionary War America, where Thomas Paine is having
Speaker 1: a tough time fitting in. That's partly because of his temperament,
Speaker 1: but his rains fall in love with their subjects. You
Speaker 1: can't fall in love with this guy. He's too difficult.
Speaker 1: He's just too cranky and difficult and nutty. And did
Speaker 1: he just have a terrible personality? I think it alternated
Speaker 1: because you see him spending time with Jefferson, in time
Speaker 1: with Washington, and time with Franklin. You have all these
Speaker 1: wonderful stories about him having wonderful times with all of
Speaker 1: these people, and so there was something very charming about him,
Speaker 1: and but then there was this other side to him
Speaker 1: that people found repulsive. So it seems to fled back
Speaker 1: and forth. Repulsive is a very strong word, but not
Speaker 1: as strong as the words John Adams used to describe him.
Speaker 1: He called Pain quote a mongrel between pig and puppy
Speaker 1: begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf. Actually,
Speaker 1: it sounds much better when Bill Curtis says it, Bill amongrel,
Speaker 1: the twin pig and puppy begotten by a wild boar
Speaker 1: on a bitch wolf. At his core, Thomas Paine is
Speaker 1: an agitator and activist, a revolutionary. That's the only setting
Speaker 1: he knows. He doesn't know how to turn it off
Speaker 1: and talk about soccer or the real Housewives. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Franklin would have loved dishing about the housewives.
Speaker 1: So while the other founding Fathers shift into statesman mode,
Speaker 1: setting themselves up with cushy government jobs, Pain is still
Speaker 1: on the war path, and that war path leads him
Speaker 1: straight back to his home country of England, where he
Speaker 1: publishes his next book, In the Rights of Man, he
Speaker 1: defends the French Revolution and citizen rights just like common
Speaker 1: sense The Rights of Man, which Pain dedicates to George Washington,
Speaker 1: becomes an instant best seller. Whatever is my right as
Speaker 1: a man is also the right of another, and it
Speaker 1: becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.
Speaker 1: While The Rights of Man does Boffo Box Office, becoming
Speaker 1: one of the most widely read books of its day,
Speaker 1: it doesn't go over so well with the London critics.
Speaker 1: It's an attack on the monarchy, and the British accused
Speaker 1: him of treason and he has to leave town, and
Speaker 1: he gets out just in time. He's tried in absentia.
Speaker 1: Pain heads to France for he tries to keep his head.
Speaker 1: He goes to France to take part in the French Revolution.
Speaker 1: He's actually elected to the National Assembly of Francis French legislator,
Speaker 1: even though he can't speak French. Pain is on the
Speaker 1: side of the revolutionaries who have deposed King Louis Sixte.
Speaker 1: But Pain is also anti capital punishment and the more
Speaker 1: extreme revolutionaries, also known as the Jacobins and led by Robespierre,
Speaker 1: are crazy about their guillotine. The nonviolent Pain finds himself
Speaker 1: denounced as a counter revolutionary and thrown into prison during
Speaker 1: what's known as the Reign of Terror. Surely his whole
Speaker 1: friends back across the pond can help him out, but
Speaker 1: the American government does nothing to help him get out.
Speaker 1: And Jefferson could have Washington cult half. No one lifts
Speaker 1: a finger because they've sort of had enough of him.
Speaker 1: The American ambassador to France, the even less well known
Speaker 1: founding father, Governor Morris, who I should point out was
Speaker 1: never governor of anything, doesn't do Jacques to help Pain.
Speaker 1: Pain gets so fed up he does the unthinkable. He
Speaker 1: writes a widely published letter trashing George Washington and as
Speaker 1: to you, sir, treacher is in private friendship for so
Speaker 1: you have been to me, and that in the day
Speaker 1: of danger, and a hypocrite in public life, the world
Speaker 1: will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate
Speaker 1: or an impostor whether you have abandoned good principles or
Speaker 1: whether you ever had any. I mean, where does this spleen,
Speaker 1: this anger come from. This comes out of them not
Speaker 1: helping him when he's in Now the reason folks back
Speaker 1: in America weren't helping Pain while he was in that
Speaker 1: French prison is partly because of what Pain wrote while
Speaker 1: he was in that prison. His most controversial book, The
Speaker 1: Age of Reason, its subject religion, My own mind is
Speaker 1: my own Church A pretty great line, yes, and pretty inflammatory.
Speaker 1: In the Age of Reason, Pain doesn't hold back. He
Speaker 1: refutes the divinity of Christ and says this about organized religion.
Speaker 1: All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish,
Speaker 1: appeared to me no other than human inventions set up
Speaker 1: to terrify and enslave mankind and monopolize power and profit.
Speaker 1: Publishing The Age of Reason earns Pain a reputation as
Speaker 1: an infidel, an atheist, and even an Antichrist. In truth,
Speaker 1: Pain's views weren't much different from the other Founding Fathers.
Speaker 1: He was a deist, meaning he believed in a supreme
Speaker 1: being which created the universe, but which didn't intervene in
Speaker 1: human affairs. But the other Founding Fathers were shrewd enough
Speaker 1: not to articulate their views and defend the masses. So
Speaker 1: he did actually believe in a God, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: really an atheist. But he thought that religion had turned people,
Speaker 1: so that's why he decided to attack it. But he
Speaker 1: did it in a very sort of crazy way where
Speaker 1: no one who was a religious person was going to
Speaker 1: read this and say, oh, you're right, I should give
Speaker 1: up religion. So it was just sort of pointless. So
Speaker 1: the great persuader sort of becomes the opposite. Well, it
Speaker 1: was a horrible idea because you didn't try to affect
Speaker 1: the mass of people, uh and and take away their
Speaker 1: belief system. Pain eventually gets out of prison in when,
Speaker 1: in one of history's ironies, Robespierre is himself guillotined. By
Speaker 1: the time Pain returns to the United States, he's isolated
Speaker 1: and miserable, a shell of the man who had helped
Speaker 1: inspire the creation of this very country. He's even denied
Speaker 1: the right to vote, the rationale being he's no longer
Speaker 1: American after his stint in France. In his final days,
Speaker 1: he takes increasing comfort in Brandy the drink, not a
Speaker 1: woman named Brandy. We know he was a mean drunk,
Speaker 1: for one thing, and we know that he couldn't handle
Speaker 1: his alcohol well, and we know that's sort of these
Speaker 1: basic only from what other people have said that they
Speaker 1: found him drunk on the street, and they found him
Speaker 1: in these situations. He has a big nose and he
Speaker 1: had rosatia, so frequently it's red or is it like,
Speaker 1: is it like a gin blossom from drinking? Well it
Speaker 1: looks like that, but but it's like, yes, exactly. He's
Speaker 1: like so not taking care of himself. His toe nails
Speaker 1: are like claws. They're like grown up into claus talents.
Speaker 1: Yet those whole cartoons of magpies on the power lines
Speaker 1: tonails curled around forget what their names, yea, Heckel and Jacky.
Speaker 1: So he's got tonnails like Heckel and Jackal's claws, and
Speaker 1: and it's and are they dirty? Oh sure, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: he's not taking care of himself and yeah no. It's
Speaker 1: just it's very sad. But at the same time it's charted,
Speaker 1: you know, you actually see where he alien needs every
Speaker 1: single person who might help him. He turns against everyone,
Speaker 1: and it's horribly sad. It's not clear how much of
Speaker 1: Paine's reputation for drinking was the slanderous work of his enemies,
Speaker 1: but one thing is certain. Thomas Paine was uncelebrated when
Speaker 1: he died on June eight, eight o nine, in the
Speaker 1: New York City neighborhood of Greenwich Village. He was seventy
Speaker 1: two years old, so he's taken up to New Rochelle
Speaker 1: to be buried, and six people come for the burial,
Speaker 1: and his servant woman and her two sons, and someone
Speaker 1: who's hired to move the body around and bring the
Speaker 1: casket around, and then two neighbors from the area. So
Speaker 1: six people show up and and it, I mean, it's pathetic.
Speaker 1: Well I would like to give him a proper send off,
Speaker 1: and I know just where to do it. Thomas Paine
Speaker 1: dropped dead in what's now a legendary piano bar in
Speaker 1: the heart of Greenwich Village. The bar was purchased by
Speaker 1: a frenchwoman named Marie Dumont back. She wanted to honor
Speaker 1: Pain's legacy and the pamphlet series American Crisis, you know,
Speaker 1: the one that Washington and his men read for inspiration
Speaker 1: during the Revolutionary War, hence the bar's name Marie's Crisis.
Speaker 1: You know, Marie's Crisis. Yes, exactly what do you think
Speaker 1: of that idea? If we did a memorial for Tom Paine,
Speaker 1: a memorial do over at Marie's Crisis, you'd like that? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you would come in, say a few words, deliver a
Speaker 1: sort of eulogy. Absolutely terrific. We'll have food, we'll have drink,
Speaker 1: what kind of music should we play? You could do
Speaker 1: drinking songs from the era, which are very popular. Better yet,
Speaker 1: we could sing an original song in our Thomas Payne
Speaker 1: memorial do over. And I know just the people who
Speaker 1: could write a memorial service show stopper. Hey, it's more okay.
Speaker 1: I'm visiting with the brilliant Larry O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin.
Speaker 1: They are the ultimate team. They wrote the music and
Speaker 1: lyrics for the Broadway musical Legally Blonde. Separately, Nell wrote
Speaker 1: the lyrics for Mean Girls and Larry co wrote the
Speaker 1: music lyrics in book for Heather's the musical. And they're married.
Speaker 1: We've been friends since college. Exciting it's a podcast. They've
Speaker 1: agreed to write a big closing number for our Thomas
Speaker 1: Paine memorial do over. Let's get down to brass tacks.
Speaker 1: Does anything rhyme with pamphlet? Oh damn? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it depends on how pop and hip hop were going
Speaker 1: to go and say, you know, John Adams might say
Speaker 1: that Tom Pain's laid his pamphlet is the biggest scam yet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I intend to slam it. But that's nice.
Speaker 1: You know, this does not have to be a somber affair.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're looking for something with a little
Speaker 1: bit of a popular field. It's hummable, repeatable. We've already
Speaker 1: kind of determined we want to sing along that would
Speaker 1: be appropriate for a piano bar. Great, so that means
Speaker 1: a certain level of ra ra, a certain level of fun. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're going to meet some time to write this song.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I'm going to tell you what happened
Speaker 1: to Thomas Paine after he died. You may remember biographer
Speaker 1: Craig Nelson mentioning Pain's bones. Well, there's a whole story there.
Speaker 1: Thomas Paine doesn't have a grape site because his body
Speaker 1: was taken from his grave. That's author Best love Joy.
Speaker 1: My book is called Rest in Pieces, The Curious Fates
Speaker 1: of Famous Corpses. Best writes how an Englishman by the
Speaker 1: name of William Cobbett traveled to New Rochelle dawn one
Speaker 1: September morning in eighteen nineteen. He dug up Pain's body
Speaker 1: out of the ground and packed it into a trunk
Speaker 1: and got on a ship to Liverpool with it. He
Speaker 1: planned to build a magnificent monument to Pain, for which
Speaker 1: he need money. Cobbett planned a big fundraiser for the
Speaker 1: monument he wanted to build um and it ended up
Speaker 1: being scheduled for the same day that King George the
Speaker 1: Third died, which is just really bad timing scheduling conflicts. Aside,
Speaker 1: it's not like many Brits back then had any interest
Speaker 1: in memorializing Pain. He was still persona on Gratta there.
Speaker 1: So Cobbett basically gave up his plans for the monument
Speaker 1: and it basically let Thomas Pain's bones um just kind
Speaker 1: of molder in a trunk in a corner of his
Speaker 1: house for years. When Cobbett himself dies, the trunk of
Speaker 1: moldering bones goes on a seemingly endless journey, first to
Speaker 1: a neighbor, then to a tailor. They next fall into
Speaker 1: the hands of a radical publisher, but at that point
Speaker 1: the trail grows not exactly cold, but pretty murky and complicated.
Speaker 1: Other people claimed to have some of the bones. One
Speaker 1: fan apparently found a piece of his brain and returned
Speaker 1: it to New Rochelle, And there's a rumor that Pain's
Speaker 1: brain is actually inside a monument on the grounds and
Speaker 1: like a hollow portion of the bus, but no one's
Speaker 1: really sure where on the farm. It is um and
Speaker 1: then throughout the twenty century, bits of Thomas pain were
Speaker 1: reported all over Europe and other parts of the world.
Speaker 1: There's a rumor that parts of the bones were made
Speaker 1: into buttons, but we don't have a lot of detail
Speaker 1: about that. Pain's bones were crisped for the mill when
Speaker 1: I was meeting with Larry. And now there are rumors
Speaker 1: of a leg bone in the ball in the wall
Speaker 1: of a tavern in England, and it's probable that the
Speaker 1: skull has been located in Wales, but it's now in Australia. Ring.
Speaker 1: I'm hearing the phrase where my bones at? I'm hearing
Speaker 1: that where my bones from the front to back? Now
Speaker 1: as you feeling that, Oh my god, where my bones at?
Speaker 1: Pains remains Pain's remain And he does remain, doesn't he?
Speaker 1: He does? Finally, the Happy Day arrives our Thomas Paine
Speaker 1: Memorial do over at Marie's Crisis. Hey, everybody, welcome. So
Speaker 1: sad that you're all here. Uh, just sit tight out
Speaker 1: here for a few more minutes. We'll start letting you
Speaker 1: in just a few minutes or so. Sound good mourners
Speaker 1: line up outside. I have a lot of friends that
Speaker 1: have performed here before, but I just I don't really
Speaker 1: know the significance. I guess at the front entrance there's
Speaker 1: a memorial plaque, says Thomas Paine. So there's a picture
Speaker 1: of Thomas Paine, and oh, he died on this site.
Speaker 1: This young man is about to learn a lot more.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon. I'm Mo Rocca, and welcome to Marie's Crisis
Speaker 1: two and ten years ago, where we convene Thomas Paine died.
Speaker 1: His obituary read in part he had lived long, done
Speaker 1: some good and much harm. That's just not the way
Speaker 1: to treat a founding father. And so we gather here
Speaker 1: today for a Thomas Paine memorial do over. Please welcome
Speaker 1: pain biographer Craig Nelson there. You know, I really I'm
Speaker 1: happy to be invited because there were six people at
Speaker 1: his funeral, and I guess there's like fifteen here today.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's marking. It's working as promised. Craig Nelson
Speaker 1: delivers the eulogy. Thomas Paine's comment sense just beginning by
Speaker 1: asking a couple of questions, why should a continent be
Speaker 1: ruled by an island? And why should the leader of
Speaker 1: our government be the child of the person who had
Speaker 1: the job for him. And it ended with we have
Speaker 1: it in our power to begin the world over again.
Speaker 1: The crowd is riveted, especially when Craig starts talking about
Speaker 1: Thomas Paine's bones. So right now, at this moment, there's
Speaker 1: a man on his deathbed and he's saying, and to you,
Speaker 1: my darling daughter, I bequeathed that tibia of the immortal
Speaker 1: top is very got. Craig, your energy like it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Don't ever do cocaine. Now. If we were doing this
Speaker 1: back in eighteen o nine, we might have thought to
Speaker 1: bring a mutton roast, but instead we brought a comedian,
Speaker 1: one of the very best, to roast pain, my buddy
Speaker 1: from the Daily Show. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my
Speaker 1: friend Louis Black. I never really thought that my career
Speaker 1: would lead me to this moment. I really expected much
Speaker 1: more of myself than than to be roasting and dead man.
Speaker 1: But that's the way it is. What is it with pamphlets?
Speaker 1: You know what else? They called pamphlet writers? They call
Speaker 1: them lazy. Couldn't write more than twenty pages. I guess
Speaker 1: Thomas Paine couldn't write all the time he needed to
Speaker 1: save time for sleeping and drinking and annoying the shoot
Speaker 1: out of people at parties. So now Pain isn't exactly
Speaker 1: remembered his a legend. I mean Ronald Reagan beat the
Speaker 1: Soviets and got an airport in d C named after him.
Speaker 1: What do you get a gay bar in the west
Speaker 1: village named Amter? Did you feel that that was Thomas
Speaker 1: Paine rolling around his grave? Oh wait, that's right. They
Speaker 1: stole this bone. People eight people drank and then it
Speaker 1: was time for the finale. And now we end our
Speaker 1: Thomas Paine Memorial redo with what else? A production number
Speaker 1: written by Nell Benjamin and Laurence o'keith, both tarmist head
Speaker 1: Thomas b Fase your glass animals try to stay by
Speaker 1: every Americantic and Jane should drink to Thomas Young Tom
Speaker 1: wrote that all kings are tyrants and King George is
Speaker 1: a stupid brutish man, laid the world in ashes and
Speaker 1: screw to all kings and fascists. Time to kick them out,
Speaker 1: morn as we can to stay Thomas. His consense was
Speaker 1: on the chain. He declared, we to build the world
Speaker 1: game with to Thomas chain, so our founding fathers King
Speaker 1: to power but poor Tom could never rise at high.
Speaker 1: He was brute and melancholic and a world class out
Speaker 1: a whole weren't an extra time, said by old Thomas
Speaker 1: Stain Thomas Pain. Why Andy Stay his name always Hunt
Speaker 1: keeping dragas to his name, the drink everyone. And then
Speaker 1: the French began that revolution. They said Tommy's cunning head
Speaker 1: was keeping killed. But Tom said, don't kill your kings.
Speaker 1: French replied, are you kidding the britt for right? You
Speaker 1: are a rocomis you? Old Thomas Stay Thomas Day? But
Speaker 1: the course his kids wasn't man, but the sleamishness and
Speaker 1: our friendsness thing stay drink saggling. Thomas died and his
Speaker 1: bones were sold and scattered, but he lives in us
Speaker 1: to this very day. Both his love of liberty and
Speaker 1: his weird misanthropy are part tired in our nation. Spy,
Speaker 1: Oh Thomas Day, Thomas Thomas Pay, Such shame. After Painting
Speaker 1: went down the drains tonight. We shall sing your name,
Speaker 1: little dame to drink too, Thomas Thomas Thomas Day, such
Speaker 1: a shame. After Pay went down the drains to night,
Speaker 1: we shall sing your name day we drink to Thomas
Speaker 1: Space brilliance once it's timeer changing noble to come point.
Speaker 1: I'm ratings on Thomer one, frustrating and hard though Day,
Speaker 1: Thomas Day, Thomas Painting, Thomas Thomas Bay Next time on Mobituaries,
Speaker 1: the pioneering Black Congressman of Reconstruction. Reconstruction is a moment
Speaker 1: of incredible hopefulness. When Frederick Douglas saw the portrait of
Speaker 1: Hiram Revels, he said, at last the black man has
Speaker 1: represented something other than a monkey. I certainly hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this mobituary. If you would please rate and review
Speaker 1: our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram,
Speaker 1: and you can follow me on Twitter at mo Rocca.
Speaker 1: For more great content about Thomas Payne, please visit mobituaries
Speaker 1: dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Gideon
Speaker 1: Evans and Megan Marcus. Our team of producers also includes
Speaker 1: Harry Wood and me Morocca. It was edited by Meg
Speaker 1: Dalton and engineered by Dan de Zula and r. Kentry.
Speaker 1: Additional editing by Sam Egan and David Fox. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to the great Bill Curtis Donna La Pietra, Meghan Dietree,
Speaker 1: Michael Crowder, Noura Slanimski, Randy Taylor, and the owners of
Speaker 1: Marie's Crisis, Howard Bragman, John May, Paul Miles, Don Ralph,
Speaker 1: Lawrence o'flahaven, Emma Cortland, Mindy Eisenberg's Dark, the Thomas Paine
Speaker 1: Cottage and all Wise Meterary indispensable support from Genie Staneski,
Speaker 1: Richard Rohrer and everyone at CBS news Radio. The show
Speaker 1: stopper Drink to Thomas Payne was composed by Lawrence o'keith
Speaker 1: and Nell Benjamin. Our knock Um Dead. Cast of singers
Speaker 1: and musicians included Jane Bernard, Matthew Silva, Rachel Flynn, Brook Kintana,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Reinstra. Our theme music is written by Daniel
Speaker 1: Hart and, as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and
Speaker 1: John carp without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. We view now
Speaker 1: with more of Bill Curtis as John Adams insulting Thomas Payne.
Speaker 1: All Right, Okay, a mongrel between pig and puppy begotten
Speaker 1: by a wild boar on a bitch wolf amongrel between
Speaker 1: pig and puppy begotten by a wild boar on a
Speaker 1: bitch wolf. A mongrel between pig and puppy begotten by
Speaker 1: a wild boar on a bitch wolf. Hi, it's mo
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying Mobituaries the podcast, may I invite you
Speaker 1: to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of
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