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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Noman.

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Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with

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Speaker 3: our super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly,

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Speaker 3: you are you. You are here. That makes this the

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Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. We are putting

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Speaker 3: on our our ridiculous history garb in a way, and

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Speaker 3: you know, roguesous robes are occulted, illumination, Global unlimited, ridiculous history,

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Speaker 3: branded robes, a lot of brand names there. And tonight

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Speaker 3: we are exploring something that maybe apropos to the current

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Speaker 3: situation here in the United States and abroad. Unions and

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Speaker 3: governments they've always had a complicated, at times antagonistic, violent

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Speaker 3: series of interactions. And you know, we live in different

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Speaker 3: parts of the Atlanta metro area. We all know different

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Speaker 3: people and get into different situations. So I'd like to

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Speaker 3: begin tonight by asking you guys, do you see any

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Speaker 3: like what's your vibe check in your neck of the

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Speaker 3: Woods on unions. What's the public opinion feeling like.

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Speaker 2: I can't speak for public opinion, but I would just

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Speaker 2: say that juxtaposition of unions and governments is really interesting

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Speaker 2: because the middleman between those two powers is always private industry, right,

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Speaker 2: So it's how much does yeah capital, how much does

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Speaker 2: the government support, defend or go against an organization that's

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Speaker 2: made quite a lot of money, which reads tax dollars

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Speaker 2: for a government.

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Speaker 4: And it's also an interesting double edged story because historically

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Speaker 4: unions have sometimes gotten a bad rap because of the

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Speaker 4: potential for corruption and you know, things like Jimmy Hoffa

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Speaker 4: an organized crime and the Teamstress Union and all that stuff,

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Speaker 4: And I think it gives a bad rap to an

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Speaker 4: otherwise very very positive institution. So I think some people

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Speaker 4: have maybe a skewed perspective on what unions even are

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Speaker 4: and what they're meant to accomplish because of some of

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Speaker 4: these big, flashy stories and movies and things.

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Speaker 3: Especially because your public history textbooks don't go too far

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Speaker 3: out of their way to talk about the troubled history

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Speaker 3: of labor in the United States.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, and we're faced, and we have humanity

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Speaker 2: has been faced for a long time, especially in capitalist

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Speaker 2: societies with this problem of you need everybody to be

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Speaker 2: consumers to the extent that they possibly can, right, have

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Speaker 2: enough money to buy all this stuff that's being produced.

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Speaker 2: So how much do you actually pay the human beings

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Speaker 2: that produce the stuff to keep those goods cheap. It's

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Speaker 2: a formula that everybody can buy, and it's this weird

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Speaker 2: little game that's played, and unions generally stand there to say, hey,

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Speaker 2: you need to pay the people who make the stuff

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Speaker 2: enough money to afford the stuff.

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Speaker 4: Well, and the fact of the matter is too like oftentimes,

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Speaker 4: if you don't have somebody standing up for you, or

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Speaker 4: you aren't the one that's standing up for yourself or

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Speaker 4: your industry, the people in charge of the industry are

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Speaker 4: going to pay you as little as humanly possible to

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Speaker 4: maximize those profits.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and let's let's be clear on this aspect of

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Speaker 3: it right now. Like the public opinion waxes and wanes,

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Speaker 3: especially over recent decades, but most people can agree that

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Speaker 3: workers should have certain basic rights. You know, it's sad

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Speaker 3: that it's sad that it's distressingly common here in the

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Speaker 3: United States or people to kind of assume that labor

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Speaker 3: Day is about maybe people giving birth instead of workers' rights.

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Speaker 3: And I'm calling myself to account there. For many years,

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Speaker 3: a younger version, I was under that misapprehension. And many

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Speaker 3: of the rights held by workers in the United States

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Speaker 3: today come directly from the actions of unions, and no kidding,

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Speaker 3: from those organizations fighting against very real conspiracies and more

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Speaker 3: than a few times dying in pursuit of those ideas.

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Speaker 3: And before we introduce this, Matt, I think they're you

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Speaker 3: cited here in the doc a statement that I think

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Speaker 3: we all found moving, which is a great introduction to

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Speaker 3: our specific topic this evening.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's almost a poem written by Frank J. Hayes,

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Speaker 2: who from nineteen seventeen until nineteen nineteen was the United

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Speaker 2: Workers of America president. That is a union which.

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Speaker 3: We'll get to, yeah, in depth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're going to talk about him a little later. Well,

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Speaker 2: I don't know how much we'll talk about him, because

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Speaker 2: he comes right after the events that we're going to

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Speaker 2: be discussing today. But he had this to say about

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Speaker 2: the subject that we're going to be discussing. In the embers,

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Speaker 2: gray and red. Here we found them where they bled, here,

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Speaker 2: we found them stark and dead. Here on Ludlow Field.

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Speaker 3: And this is one reason I really like this is

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Speaker 3: because this also is a clear homage or an arguable

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Speaker 3: homage to the famous war poem in flanders Field, Yes

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Speaker 3: by John McCrae, written in nineteen fifteen, and believe Hayes

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Speaker 3: said this just a few years after, so it was

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Speaker 3: very much in the zeitgeist exactly. Yeah, and this brings

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Speaker 3: us what an excellent introduction to this entire oft forgetting

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Speaker 3: forgotten Keep it in Dylan, sorry, history of union activism

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Speaker 3: and corruption in crime. Tonight's exploration hinges on one of

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Speaker 3: the most infamous examples, what happens when this fraud relationship

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Speaker 3: goes wrong. This is our episode on the Ludlow Massacre.

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Speaker 3: Here are the facts, Okay, all right, to understand the

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Speaker 3: Ludlow massacre from the beginning, given that a lot of

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Speaker 3: us don't learn this when we're in grade school. Really

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Speaker 3: to the point about textbooks again, I think it's fair

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Speaker 3: to say that we need to understand just how crazy

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Speaker 3: the age of rail.

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Speaker 2: Was, and how much iron and coal and raw materials

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Speaker 2: you need to both create a giant railway and then maintain.

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Speaker 4: It, and just the absolute cutthroat competition of it all,

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Speaker 4: the space race of it all kind of right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and it's crazy to think that a lot

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Speaker 2: of this was private industry. It wasn't the United States

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Speaker 2: of America coming through and saying we're going to build

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Speaker 2: all these specific railways. It was individuals with like corporations,

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Speaker 2: companies that they created themselves, who are attempting to make

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Speaker 2: these smaller systems of rail that then all end up

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Speaker 2: getting connected at some point Niah.

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Speaker 3: And to be clear, the US government was at every

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Speaker 3: step subsidizing oh yes, corporations in ways that because they

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Speaker 3: wanted it to happen too. So they're what they're doing

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Speaker 3: is while they're not creating Uncle Sam's Transcontinental definitely only

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Speaker 3: government workers railway system, what they are doing is giving

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Speaker 3: a lot of largesse from taxpayers. They are modifying immigration

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Speaker 3: policy specifically in their benefit for what we would call

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Speaker 3: slavelylabor or conscripted labor today. And they're on the same

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Speaker 3: team there, just by hook or by crook, going to

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Speaker 3: get this stuff done. And so they liked a lot

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Speaker 3: of the hand is hidden here. But to be clear,

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Speaker 3: the US is completely on board with this stuff, up

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Speaker 3: to and including exercising their military might in support of

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Speaker 3: these privates, because this is the last part I want

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Speaker 3: to make on this. There is separation of church and

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Speaker 3: state in the United States, but this is an excellent

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Speaker 3: example of why the Constitution has always conveniently ignored the

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Speaker 3: danger of not separating business in state.

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Speaker 5: Yes, I guess it's occurred to me before.

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Speaker 4: But you know, America has this history of being this

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Speaker 4: like welcoming immigrants with open arms and all of that

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Speaker 4: stuff in this melting pot kind of country. But there's

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Speaker 4: part of me that's always thought that that was really

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Speaker 4: only to the benefit of industry when it was convenient,

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Speaker 4: you know, to allow all of these folks to come

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Speaker 4: into the country so that they could kind of be exploited.

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Speaker 4: Is that too cynical an outlook?

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Speaker 6: No.

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Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I'm biased towards cynicism as well, but

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Speaker 3: I would say with your point there, Noel. It's kind

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Speaker 3: of as though someone makes it across one of these

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Speaker 3: two vast oceans at the time and they get to

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Speaker 3: the United States and they say, oh, this is a

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Speaker 3: land of opportunity. I'm so glad I could be here.

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Speaker 3: I'm here to pursue my fortune and my dreams. And

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Speaker 3: then someone says that's great, man, as long as your

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Speaker 3: fortune that you're pursuing is backbreaking work in a mine

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Speaker 3: or on a railroad. And don't worry about complaining because

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Speaker 3: we'll just kill you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh dude. And this is the point I want

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Speaker 2: to make. I think the buffer of a private organization

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Speaker 2: like that is so important when it comes to a

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Speaker 2: massive government attempt to build a transcontinental railway kind of thing, right,

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Speaker 2: where you've got a buffer of a private company. Where

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Speaker 2: nowadays it's the same kind of deal if you've got

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Speaker 2: a separate company that is, let's say, hiring the specific

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Speaker 2: people who are doing the work. If those workers get hurt,

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Speaker 2: if something goes wrong there, it's the company that then

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Speaker 2: is beholden to that thing. It is not the government's fault.

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Speaker 2: It is not even perhaps the parent company's fault. It

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Speaker 2: is the contracting organization.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 2: And when you've got a mass influx of say Chinese

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Speaker 2: laborers who are literally giving their lives to both the

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Speaker 2: rail or Greek workers who come in who are giving

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Speaker 2: their lives to the coal mine, it becomes a whole

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Speaker 2: different thing that isn't looked at us, at the government.

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Speaker 2: It is whoever the I was gonna say oligarch, but

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Speaker 2: that's not the right term. Whoever, the heads of these

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Speaker 2: giant capital systems.

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Speaker 3: Are the tycoons. And then it becomes a war for

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Speaker 3: public opinion. Right, Yes, Congress gets touched pretty easily. Then

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Speaker 3: as of now, no offense to members of Congress listening tonight.

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Speaker 3: But you know what, you know what we mean.

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Speaker 4: A little offense perhaps, No, you know what you did, an.

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Speaker 2: Observation, you know what you're about to do.

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Speaker 3: You know what you're doing right now. But we can

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Speaker 3: all So the story, one of the pivotal moments is

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Speaker 3: in our origin story is in the mid to late

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Speaker 3: eighteen hundreds, there are a bunch of survey teams who

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Speaker 3: are trying to figure out the roots for these ostensibly

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Speaker 3: private railways. One of these survey teams is led by

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Speaker 3: a guy named William Jackson Palmer, and in eighteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 3: they're mapping out potential routes for a thing called the

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Speaker 3: Kansas Pacific Railway. You get it, it's in the name

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Speaker 3: Kansas Pacific. That's where they're headed.

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Speaker 2: Like, are we going to go around these mountains or

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Speaker 2: through them?

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Speaker 5: Mountains?

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Speaker 3: The only way out is through, And so Willie and

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Speaker 3: his buddies are you know snoop adoop been around and

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Speaker 3: I like that.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry that made me chuck with some dynamite every

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Speaker 2: once in a while.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, just just as a treat. Everything long, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: cu the Ineo and they realize that the Rocky Mountains

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Speaker 3: in this area in Colorado and specifically, there's this agglomeration

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Speaker 3: of veins of coal that are quite close to the surface,

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Speaker 3: to the point where you don't need at this juncture

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Speaker 3: a ton of infrastructure. You can actually just.

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Speaker 5: Pull out of the ground with your hands.

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Speaker 3: I mean maybe a shovel, but yeah, it's that close.

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Speaker 2: You're right, like dig a short a small amount down

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Speaker 2: to really get access to a ton, Like we're talking

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Speaker 2: game changing amounts of coal.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this could. It's so it proliferates at such a

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Speaker 3: high rate in this area of the mountains that you

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Speaker 3: could be a mom and pop operation. And this is

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Speaker 3: this is a dream find the vague wording aside. This

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Speaker 3: is a gold mine. If you're building a railroad, your

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Speaker 3: fuel source is right there, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 3: You don't have to ship it from the other mines

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Speaker 3: out on the east coast. You can just build a

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Speaker 3: depot here, get the coal you need from, you know,

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Speaker 3: leaving them from the east coast and then stop over

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Speaker 3: here wherever you want to build it, and then just

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Speaker 3: have someone throw coal in the back of the the

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Speaker 3: back of the machine and boom, boom boom.

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Speaker 4: Are you guys ever like mystified by the fact that

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Speaker 4: there is still coal to be mined, you know, it

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Speaker 4: being a finite resource and just like how long we've

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Speaker 4: been pulling that stuff out of the ground and there's

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Speaker 4: still coal to be had. I just I find that

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Speaker 4: incredibly mystifying.

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Speaker 2: I don't think our brains are meant to comprehend some

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Speaker 2: of that stuff. Kind of like how many chickens are

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Speaker 2: born and produced and grown into factory leaf led chicken

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Speaker 2: and then kill old and then eaten that, you know,

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Speaker 2: chicken restaurants.

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Speaker 5: It's like mind boggling.

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Speaker 2: You can't. You can kind of think about it, but

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Speaker 2: the numbers just don't make sense when you even hear them,

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Speaker 2: or you looked at a picture, you'd just be like, no,

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Speaker 2: there's no way that's real.

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Speaker 3: The human mind isn't isn't there for the scale? Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I mean, like one of the easiest ways to maybe

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Speaker 3: not sense the scale itself, but to sense the discrepancy

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Speaker 3: of that to you. Really, point NOL is to imagine

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Speaker 3: how many years is one billion seconds? If you counted

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Speaker 3: to one billion every second, how long would it take

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Speaker 3: you to get to a billion. The answer is almost

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Speaker 3: thirty two years.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, my brain was already hurting just even that thought.

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Speaker 5: I could have done that easy by now counting.

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Speaker 7: Okay, to not stop counting exactly ever, I always go

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Speaker 7: back to video game references, you guys, but I'm thinking

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Speaker 7: about this, this coal discovery there in that specific place

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Speaker 7: where they're trying to build the rail, as in StarCraft,

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Speaker 7: when you find like the resources exactly where.

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Speaker 2: You need them to be to make a second base

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Speaker 2: to attack your enemy. I don't know why I'm thinking

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Speaker 2: about that, but you're just like, oh man, there's so

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Speaker 2: many resources right here. This is the perfect spot.

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Speaker 3: I think is sid Meier's Civilization series.

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Speaker 4: And I think great, and I think of No Man's Sky,

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Speaker 4: which is a mega resource extraction.

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Speaker 5: Is that kind of like the point of the whole game.

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Speaker 5: It's pretty fun. I enjoyed that stuff.

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Speaker 3: In Civilization, one of the one of the settings. And

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Speaker 3: this is for hopefully not just you know, twelve people

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Speaker 3: in the audience, but in Civilization, one of the settings

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Speaker 3: determines your resources in your opening, your opening moves of

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Speaker 3: the game, and a huge part of it is to

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Speaker 3: that point positioning structures near valuable resources. And sid Meyer

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Speaker 3: didn't make up Civilization as a concept a game about

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Speaker 3: civil It's been around. Yeah, yeah, it's sorry said it's

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Speaker 3: been done now, I'm kidding. It's a great game. But

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Speaker 3: the great game, the great game. Yeah. But like we're saying,

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Speaker 3: this is an absolute windfall. This is a watershed moment

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Speaker 3: for the expansion of rail because now we have this

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Speaker 3: new yet untapped to them resource. And so over the

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Speaker 3: next few decades, from what we say, the late eighteen

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Speaker 3: sixties to the early nineteen hundreds, coal mining explodes in Colorado,

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Speaker 3: sometimes literally unfortunately. But by nineteen ten, the coal mining

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Speaker 3: industry alone is employing ten percent of the people in Colorado.

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Speaker 2: That's huge.

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Speaker 3: Hey, it was a smaller population at the time.

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Speaker 2: But it really is, as you said, akin to the

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Speaker 2: gold rush kind of thing where so many people flocked

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Speaker 2: out there because there's opportunity.

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Speaker 3: M h. And yeah, and imagine you know, you're let's see,

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Speaker 3: imagine you've emigrated from Greece or Italy, right, or maybe

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Speaker 3: somewhere over in the Pacific, and you're going to find

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Speaker 3: yourself in a coastal city that's often very crowded, it's

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Speaker 3: often very competitive, and your opportunities may be limited depending

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Speaker 3: on your connections.

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Speaker 2: Because it came by ship, right, that's just important, Like

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Speaker 2: you're stuck there, kind of Yeah.

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Speaker 3: No one flew there at this time that we know of, right, yeah,

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Speaker 3: And there were people crossing land borders, right, Canada and

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Speaker 3: Mexico in particular, obviously, But for a lot of folks

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Speaker 3: who land in the United States, given that promise of opportunity,

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Speaker 3: they find that it's incredibly difficult to make it in

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Speaker 3: New York, for instance. Right, So there's this clarion call.

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Speaker 3: Things like the romanticism of the wild West is still

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Speaker 3: very much in place. So a lot of times people

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Speaker 3: are going to see maybe a flyer or they'll hear

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Speaker 3: from a friend of a friend about an amazing opportunity

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Speaker 3: several states, hundreds of miles away. And so it's no

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Speaker 3: surprise that people came from all around the US and

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Speaker 3: the world to Colorado to work in these mines, you know,

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Speaker 3: to maybe to the point about the gold rush, maybe

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Speaker 3: even stake acclaim if possible. Unfortunately, a lot of folks

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Speaker 3: were late to the game, and by the time they

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Speaker 3: got there to Colorado and specific there weren't mom and

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Speaker 3: pop outfits. There were families living in company towns, scared

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Speaker 3: to death of angering huge corporate leviathans.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just to get that, just to get the

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Speaker 2: scale of that trip that we're talking about, let's say

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Speaker 2: New York, right, if they came in through New York,

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Speaker 2: you're going seventeen hundred, eighteen hundred miles to get to

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Speaker 2: your opportunity. The stuff we've learned over the past I

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Speaker 2: don't even know how many episodes where we've been talking

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Speaker 2: about these schemes where we'll pay for your travel to

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Speaker 2: get to that opportunity kind of thing, and then not

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Speaker 2: necessarily put you in indentured servitude, but you will owe us.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's also this notion that like the companies are

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Speaker 4: out to provide opportunity, Like that's the sort of you know,

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Speaker 4: pr line that is sold to these folks making this

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Speaker 4: trek on their own steam, only to arrive and realize

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Speaker 4: that the ground floor has been occupied for a long

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Speaker 4: time and they are now beholden to something much bigger

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Speaker 4: than they could have ever imagined.

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Speaker 3: Shout out to Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.

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Speaker 4: Actually that's the book that really hipped me to this

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Speaker 4: whole struggle and this whole structure, you know. And we

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Speaker 4: were talking a little bit about Woody Guthrie off air,

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Speaker 4: which we'll get to a little later.

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Speaker 5: Matt, you found a great quote.

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Speaker 4: But there's a film called Bound for Glory that is

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Speaker 4: about Woody Guthrie story the folk singer, and his involvement

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Speaker 4: in labor, and it shows this exact kind of Grapes

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Speaker 4: of Wrath type situation where there are these just they're

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Speaker 4: these almost like camps of folks that are waiting for

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Speaker 4: for work.

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Speaker 5: And it's just not coming.

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Speaker 4: And now they're all there and they've abandoned their homes

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Speaker 4: and they've got furniture straps to their jaloppies, and now

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Speaker 4: there are no work for them, or if there is,

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Speaker 4: it is absolutely indentured servitude.

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Speaker 3: I would say, though, to be completely objective, Uh, those

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Speaker 3: big companies are looking for opportunity.

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Speaker 2: That's right, it's in the dirt, it's in the rocks.

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Speaker 2: We got to build, shareholder, Yeah, but but just to

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Speaker 2: really just keep ourselves in the minds of let's say

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Speaker 2: ahead of household who's brought their entire family out there

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Speaker 2: for this opportunity. Once you're there, what are you going

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Speaker 2: to and what that opportunity? Well, what if it dries up?

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Speaker 2: Are you going to take your entire family back that

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Speaker 2: eighteen hundred miles to try and go somewhere else? Are

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Speaker 2: you going to just move two hundred miles somewhere homeless?

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Speaker 5: At this point, you're basically nomads.

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Speaker 3: It's not possible. Also, a lot of people who had

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Speaker 3: their own means of transport at this time ended up

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Speaker 3: selling that means of transport upon arrival because they needed

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Speaker 3: the capital just to exist. This is where we introduce

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Speaker 3: an outfit called Colorado Fuel and Iron, biggest company in

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Speaker 3: the area, also one of the most sith Lordie known

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Speaker 3: for being the harshest by far, and.

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Speaker 5: They were not as friendly as the name implies.

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Speaker 3: Ben No, no no. Unfortunately, they've got nothing on Denver

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Speaker 3: hugs and kisses. But add to this, they're sold Rockefeller

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Speaker 3: Senior John Dee buys a controlling steak in Colorado Fuel

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Speaker 3: and Iron and then he runs the company with an

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Speaker 3: iron fist haha. And he eventually gives control of the

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Speaker 3: company to his son, Rockefeller Junior in a burst of creativity.

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Speaker 3: And these are New York patricians. They don't go to Colorado.

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Speaker 3: They just expect the checks to come in on time,

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Speaker 3: the same way kings of European empires would expect the

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Speaker 3: peasants to give their tribute, even if you know they

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Speaker 3: don't speak the same language.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, man, we should name some buildings after this guy,

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Speaker 2: maybe like a plaza.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 4: Or maybe there should be ice skating. There should be

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Speaker 4: ice skating, yeah.

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Speaker 3: In a big ass tree. Not all the time, but sometimes.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And then maybe we could shoot a show that goes

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Speaker 2: out live on Saturday evenings. We could shoot it in

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Speaker 2: the building.

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Speaker 3: Sorry, there's a guy I like for this. There's a

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Speaker 3: guy I like. We'll have to text him.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I bet he knows a lot of people,

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Speaker 2: though they probably live in his building.

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Speaker 3: We'll pause here for a word from our sponsors, and

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Speaker 3: we'll be back with more on the Ludlow massacre.

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Speaker 2: It's the Rockefeller like fortune has a This is a

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Speaker 2: big part in that fortune, right, Yes, companies like this,

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Speaker 2: not just this company, but then also in Jay Gould.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know much about Jay Gould until I started

396
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Speaker 2: just going down this rabbit hole. The Gould family fortune

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Speaker 2: also arises from this company because he was his family

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Speaker 2: was one of the other major shareholders in this company.

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Speaker 3: If you want to trace oligarchical history, I think one

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Speaker 3: of the best places to look is mining interest because

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Speaker 3: extracting precious resources from the ground, be they liquid or

402
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Speaker 3: gaseous or you know, concrete I guess, or solids, I

403
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Speaker 3: should say, you will find that mining is a huge,

404
00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 3: huge part of this. And there's a reason that mining

405
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,920
Speaker 3: fortunes don't often get talked about in the modern day.

406
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 3: There's just so much power and indeed pr behind them. Yep,

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Speaker 3: shout out to Australia.

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Speaker 2: And farming families like big industrial farming families.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, anyway, we're fun at parties. The thing is mining

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00:24:16,359 --> 00:24:19,440
Speaker 3: and we have people in the audience tonight who have

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Speaker 3: mining backgrounds or are associated with the industry. Folks, you

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00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:27,680
Speaker 3: know well more than most that mining then and now,

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Speaker 3: in the eighteen hundreds, in the turn of the twentieth

414
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Speaker 3: century and in the modern day, it was very dangerous work.

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Speaker 3: We learned. Our word of the evening is call yours.

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00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 3: That's the technical term for coal miners.

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Speaker 4: It's a new one to me, and I'm glad to

418
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Speaker 4: have learned it. But like you said, ben Off, Mike,

419
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:49,359
Speaker 4: pretty common last name. You know, it's like one of

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Speaker 4: those nominative determinism kind of situations.

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Speaker 5: Maybe I just didn't realize that was a profession.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe that's how they get the surname.

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Speaker 4: No, that's the thing though, right, Like I'm I mean,

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Speaker 4: like some surtnames did arise because of a legacy involvement

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Speaker 4: in certain industries by those families Goldman Sacks.

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Speaker 2: It made uh, it made me think about that magazine.

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Speaker 2: I always hear about Colliers magazine, but this Collier's magazine

428
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 2: has an apostrophe before the This is just without the apostrophe.

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Speaker 3: You're just a collier. If you're a coal miner and

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Speaker 3: these look, let's be honest, this work sucked.

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Speaker 7: Uh.

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Speaker 3: It was you were under constant immediate threat from explosions,

433
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 3: mind collapses, suffocation, right, and suffocation can be very difficult

434
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 3: to clock, would it when you still have time to

435
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 3: save yourself because you suffocate due to invisible gases. That's

436
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 3: where we get the canary and the coal mine concept.

437
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 3: Because of the lower lung capacity of the bird, it

438
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 3: would die first, That's where that comes from.

439
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 2: And then get the hell out of there.

440
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 3: Right, and then if the bird's not twitter painting or whatever,

441
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 3: then it's time for us to go. Additionally, and a

442
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 3: lot of people weren't super aware of this or the

443
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:16,560
Speaker 3: authorities were being wilfully ignorant. These colliers were at long

444
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 3: term risk of invisible insidious things because of the constant

445
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 3: exposure to dust and chemicals, the so called black lung. Right,

446
00:26:26,320 --> 00:26:29,680
Speaker 3: and this is the time before X rays, so there's

447
00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 3: not a doctor who can look at your lungs and say, hey,

448
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 3: maybe you can work on the surface for a while.

449
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 5: Yeah, it is a canary in. It's fine, the canary

450
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:39,520
Speaker 5: is back. He's okay.

451
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:41,439
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you kind of mentioned it. But just

452
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 2: the work that would go into some of these giant

453
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 2: mining facilities, because we're not talking about one entrance that

454
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,879
Speaker 2: goes in and everybody gets the call from that one entrance.

455
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:57,760
Speaker 2: You're talking about teams entering a mountain essentially from various points,

456
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:02,160
Speaker 2: and often there are gloss used to make those initial

457
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:06,479
Speaker 2: I don't know, cave hole kind of the the shafts

458
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:10,159
Speaker 2: ye cable like the cable, you know them cables, But

459
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 2: there are explosions happening that are a part of this

460
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 2: interconnected system of you know, punched holes into this mountain,

461
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:22,199
Speaker 2: and just the collapse thing is so scary and all

462
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 2: that other stuff. And it's not like you got walkie

463
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:27,480
Speaker 2: talkies in the early nineteen hundreds talking to each other

464
00:27:27,520 --> 00:27:28,360
Speaker 2: about what's happening.

465
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as things become increasingly honeycombed in the subterranean sphere,

466
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 3: then then one change in a thing that could be

467
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 3: fine for the system you know about can be disastrous

468
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 3: for the other interconnected things, because you know, you're under

469
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 3: the rock and there's a lot of there's a lot

470
00:27:48,480 --> 00:27:51,960
Speaker 3: of heavy, heavy stuff above you. In addition to working

471
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 3: in these cartoonishly unsafe conditions, the miners were working twelve

472
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 3: hour days, six to seven days a week, like you

473
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 3: get a Sunday off maybe, and they're not paid by

474
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 3: the hour, so they're not paid, you know, X amount

475
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 3: of dollars per those twelve hours. They're paid like piece work.

476
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 3: You know, they're paid upon the amount of coal delivered.

477
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 3: And in the case of the Colorado the big companies,

478
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,159
Speaker 3: we give you eighty cents per ton of coal that

479
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 3: you made. However, they didn't count a ton as two

480
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 3: thousand pounds. They counted it as two thousand, two hundred pounds.

481
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, just you know, just becuz.

482
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:34,680
Speaker 3: Just a little vigorous.

483
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 2: And they're also not giving you eighty cents us. They're

484
00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 2: giving you eighty cents worth of the store that you

485
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:44,800
Speaker 2: can buy from the coal company.

486
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 3: Load sixteen tons. What do you get, dude? And another part,

487
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 3: and this is the part, oh man, this is going

488
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 3: to be familiar to anybody who's worked in the service industry.

489
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 3: They had other work they had to do, like their

490
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 3: equivalent of side work. You know, you don't get paid

491
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 3: to roll that silverware right to refill those ketchup bottles

492
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 3: or those condiment bottles, but you have to do it

493
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 3: because it's part of your job. The miners had to

494
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 3: do a bunch of stuff that they were not paid for.

495
00:29:17,120 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 3: Laying track, clearing those escape routes in case somebody else's

496
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 3: tunnel explodes, maintaining the tunnels, keeping the dust down. All

497
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 3: of this stuff day in and day out, they had

498
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 3: to do, and none of it was paid because it

499
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 3: only helped them survive. To get their you know, two

500
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 3: hundred pounds of coal and their eighty cents of Script,

501
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 3: and so they called all this other stuff they had

502
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 3: to do dead work. I can't verify this, but I

503
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:47,760
Speaker 3: think they called it partially dead work because they weren't

504
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 3: getting paid, and then partially they called it dead work

505
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 3: because if they didn't do it, people would.

506
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,600
Speaker 2: Die, right, including themselves. So you're just like, well, I

507
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 2: might as well do it so I can continue.

508
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 4: Just a quick backcheck on something Benja said to Script,

509
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 4: being like proprietary currency that can only be used like

510
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 4: it's like ben Bucks.

511
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 5: Right, well, okay, sorry not to malign ben Bucks.

512
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 4: That's it's got. It's an economy of scale into itself.

513
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 4: But you would be issued instead of pay that is

514
00:30:16,600 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 4: universally you know, accepted. It would be something that you

515
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 4: literally have to spend only back with the company. That's

516
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 4: that's what I owe my soul to the company.

517
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 3: Store is referred to and not and not accepted in

518
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 3: other company towns. Right, And this is the maybe a

519
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:36,720
Speaker 3: good modern example just for a weird dystopian comp We're

520
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 3: big fans of Dave and Busters. But what if you

521
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 3: worked for a D and B and you had to

522
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 3: live in, you know, an apartment complex run by D

523
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 3: and B and they only paid you in D and

524
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:46,520
Speaker 3: B power points.

525
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 4: It's like with DMB two and like you know certain arcades,

526
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 4: it's almost like sky miles, where there's no real metric

527
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 4: that is visible to you as to how much it's

528
00:30:55,720 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 4: even worth. It's completely up to the discretion of the company.

529
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 4: So they're paying you in a thing that they control.

530
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 5: The value of that you can only use to buy

531
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 5: that they sell you.

532
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 2: Well, you just touch on something really important because in

533
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 2: the company's mind, you're not getting just paid in how

534
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,400
Speaker 2: much coal you produce. You're getting paid in not having

535
00:31:17,480 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 2: to pay rent in the same way, because you do

536
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 2: live on the company's dime, on the company's property, in

537
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 2: one of their housing units that they've built thousands and

538
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:31,520
Speaker 2: thousands of for their workers. Right, So they're the company

539
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 2: is building that into what you are getting compensated.

540
00:31:36,040 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 3: Labor camp package. Yeah, no, it is a labor camp.

541
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 2: You're You're not wrong. But at the same time you

542
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,040
Speaker 2: have to imagine in the minds of those tycoons like

543
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 2: John D. Rockefeller at the top, who's thinking, oh, well,

544
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 2: I'm treating them fairly. I look at I'm giving them

545
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 2: places to live and raise their families.

546
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 3: What a guy, We built a church and they have

547
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 3: every other Sunday off, so it's basically gone. And then me,

548
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 3: do you.

549
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 4: Guys think people at that level have to get to

550
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 4: a place where they really truly believe in their benevolence

551
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 4: like that they have this almost god complex. They're like,

552
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 4: I am helping the little guy the right thing.

553
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 2: You can imagine it as in well the thought I

554
00:32:19,120 --> 00:32:21,320
Speaker 2: think that happens, and you can see it reflected in

555
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 2: some of the reporting and interviews that some of the

556
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 2: rock Fellers did after what we're going to talk about here.

557
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 2: But just this idea of I'm gonna I'm gonna use

558
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 2: this because I really think this is how they thought,

559
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 2: and I may be wrong, correct me if I am.

560
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,200
Speaker 2: What else would they have if I weren't providing this

561
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:37,760
Speaker 2: for them?

562
00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 3: And imph is on. I Yes, that's the issue too,

563
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 3: with the kind of I don't want to necessarily call

564
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:50,320
Speaker 3: it malignant narcissism, but the the wilful ignorance again as

565
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 3: well as the tremendous cognitive parkour of rationalization. Right, this

566
00:32:56,120 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 3: is a time when social Darwinism is still very very big. Right,

567
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 3: people do believe in the American aristocracy that some people

568
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 3: by the lottery of birth are fundamentally in some way

569
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 3: superior the Also, I do think it's important here to

570
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 3: raise the specter of the controversial Dunbar's number, which argues

571
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 3: that after a certain amount of people, to our idea

572
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 3: of scale, the human brain no longer thinks of folks

573
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 3: as human beings with all the depth and beauty of

574
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:32,240
Speaker 3: a human soul. Instead, they think of them as functions.

575
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 3: So to Rockefeller, these are mining things that take X

576
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 3: amount of resources and produce why amount of coal?

577
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 4: He is owning a horse and paying to feed and

578
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 4: water said horse, or maintaining machinery.

579
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

580
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 2: Well, imagine a Rockefeller going down like traveling at some

581
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 2: point down to the mining operation and seeing all of

582
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,520
Speaker 2: the people standing before him. Those are not individual people.

583
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:05,480
Speaker 2: Those are his army of folks who bring him more capital.

584
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 5: I bought you.

585
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 3: Sorry, Oh wow, God, how did I not get fired

586
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 3: for that one? Anyway, So for Grizzly snapshot there, and

587
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 3: I think we've laid out the context very well. For

588
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 3: Grizzly snapshot of what was happening, you could say this

589
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 3: army was increasingly endangered. There was a very high rate

590
00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 3: of attrition. Indeed, it depended for time, upon a continual

591
00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:34,439
Speaker 3: influx of other folks to replace the people who died.

592
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 3: The national death rate in nineteen twelve. We're getting this

593
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 3: from an amazing book called Killing for Coal by Thomas

594
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 3: g Andrews. The national death rate in the US in

595
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 3: nineteen twelve was about three people per one thousand across

596
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 3: the United States, three point one five in the coal

597
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 3: mines of Colorado alone. At the very same time, the

598
00:34:56,520 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 3: rate of death is seven points zero six per one

599
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 3: thousand people. This means that if you work in Colorado

600
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:08,240
Speaker 3: coal mines in nineteen twelve, you have more than double

601
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 3: the chance of dying than anyone else in the nation,

602
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 3: including really, you know, mean cities like Boston.

603
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:18,760
Speaker 5: It's like being cannon fodder in like an army.

604
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Colorado cannon fodder.

605
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 5: You should have named their sports team the Colorado Cannon Far.

606
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 3: Are you guys in Colorado? No, we're in Atlanta, but

607
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 3: we are saving up for a cannon. Yeah, that'll work.

608
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 3: Take that. Savannah Bananas, they're delightful. Apparently they seem like

609
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 3: such a fun time.

610
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 5: They're like the Harlem globe trotters.

611
00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 4: Like I didn't realize that for a long time they're

612
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 4: like a jokey kind of trick Baseball League.

613
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:47,919
Speaker 2: Y'all are making this up right.

614
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 5: No, you don't know about the Savanna bananas.

615
00:35:50,080 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 3: No, oh, it's a real thing.

616
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 5: They do like goofy pratts. Yeah, I've never seen it,

617
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:56,040
Speaker 5: but I've heard it. It's a lot.

618
00:35:56,080 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 4: It's like what the Harlem Globe Trotters would do, where

619
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 4: they do trick shots and you know, different kind of displays.

620
00:36:01,480 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 4: I mean, they certainly do play, but within the games

621
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 4: they do all kinds of wacky shenanigans.

622
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:08,640
Speaker 2: Well, now I've got a new thing for the old

623
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 2: bucket list.

624
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:11,919
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, i'd let's go with you guyslet's do it together.

625
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's take a trip. I have some ghost to

626
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,520
Speaker 3: have to follow up with in Savannah anyway, and let's.

627
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:17,719
Speaker 5: Get there to go to Savannah.

628
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's get there before that buried nuclear device off

629
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 3: the coast finally has a bad day.

630
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:24,160
Speaker 5: Well, good call.

631
00:36:24,160 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 4: We'll walk up to it and just tap it on

632
00:36:25,920 --> 00:36:28,320
Speaker 4: the nose with a hammer like in the Looney Tunes cartoon.

633
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:32,520
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, great. And look, with all these factors Savannah

634
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,240
Speaker 3: bananas aside, you don't have to look far to see

635
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 3: that there is trouble brewing on the horizon, both in

636
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:42,880
Speaker 3: Colorado and in other mining communities, and really in any

637
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:47,279
Speaker 3: labor community. At this point, between eighteen eighty four and

638
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 3: nineteen twelve, where we got you those recent stats, mining

639
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 3: accidents killed more than seventeen hundred people in Colorado. The

640
00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 3: next year, nineteen thirteen, one hundred and ten guys die

641
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 3: and mind related accidents. This makes it to Congress because

642
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:07,919
Speaker 3: at this time, unions begin to become part of the conversation.

643
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 3: Before we introduce the union here, let's introduce the fact

644
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,879
Speaker 3: that even the patricians in Congress, many of whom are

645
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,240
Speaker 3: working hand in hand with corporate interests at this time,

646
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 3: or who are compromised and may as well be employees

647
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:30,240
Speaker 3: of big corporations, they have an investigation and they conclude

648
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 3: the following, And keep in mind they're speaking against their

649
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:34,719
Speaker 3: own literal bosses when they say this.

650
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:38,800
Speaker 2: Guys, just note here as we're going into this quote,

651
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 2: I just try to click on that link, Ben, and

652
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 2: I'm getting a message from archive dot org that the

653
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 2: Internet archives are temporarily offline.

654
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 5: Oh, someone who's reached out and told me that the

655
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 5: other day.

656
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, that happened a little while back. Unfortunately I was

657
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,240
Speaker 3: writing this before they went offline. But we hope archive

658
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 3: dot org comes back soon. It's a huge deal right now.

659
00:37:59,600 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was working for me. Just wow, okay, uh weird, Okay.

660
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 4: I'm sure they're in the process of dealing with it.

661
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,160
Speaker 4: Maybe it's like up and down like you know.

662
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, they've been in trouble recently because they also had

663
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:18,879
Speaker 3: some protections regarding they had a lot of books full

664
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 3: that were common use. Oh there's something there's about.

665
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 2: Okay, well, let's get to this quote from the State

666
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 2: House Committee on Mines and Mining.

667
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 5: This is the conclusion.

668
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 4: I believe Colorado has good mining laws and such that

669
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:38,200
Speaker 4: ought to afford protection to the miners as to safety

670
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 4: in the mind if they were enforced. Yet in this

671
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 4: state the percentage of fatalities is larger than any other,

672
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,839
Speaker 4: showing there is undoubtedly something wrong in reference to the

673
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 4: management of its coal mines.

674
00:38:51,600 --> 00:38:56,640
Speaker 3: Boom, we took your campaign money and we appreciate it. Also,

675
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,840
Speaker 3: the public tide has turned. And also, while we're at it,

676
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure Internet Archive was taken down by DDoS attacks.

677
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 3: Oh wow, okay, yeah, and that happened about forty eight

678
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 3: hours ago. Okay, well, hopefully it gets back up there.

679
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 3: And this happened after there was a previous breach of

680
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:21,279
Speaker 3: the site that resulted in massive theft of millions of

681
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 3: user records. Anyway, trouble ahead. Like we said the coal miners,

682
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 3: at this point, you would say, okay, guys, we get it.

683
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:34,439
Speaker 3: It stinks. It's very unfair situation. It's very rough. These

684
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: company towns are by the way, designed to deny them

685
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 3: from attaining a certain amount of economic success, Like the

686
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 3: cost of things are calculated against the usual or the

687
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 3: typical wage, such that you won't ever make You might

688
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 3: pay off your debts, but you won't ever make enough

689
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,360
Speaker 3: money for you to move away. They want you to

690
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,280
Speaker 3: stay there and powerless.

691
00:39:57,320 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 4: Well, and given that calculation in the favor of the company,

692
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:02,719
Speaker 4: doesn't that also mean that all the script that they're

693
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 4: paying out and stuff, it basically is a zero sum game,

694
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:09,840
Speaker 4: like they're essentially getting free labor because they're hiding behind

695
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,719
Speaker 4: the guise of this we're subsidizing your life by giving

696
00:40:12,719 --> 00:40:14,719
Speaker 4: you a place to live and feeding you, and you're

697
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 4: paying us for the privilege. But they control all of

698
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:20,879
Speaker 4: those calculations, and they're doing it to make it where

699
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 4: it's almost like they're.

700
00:40:21,680 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 5: Not paying anything.

701
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:26,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in some cases it would be possible, just

702
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 3: like with any other sort of dictatorial regime, it would

703
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:35,239
Speaker 3: be possible in the perimeters and the adjacent areas, in

704
00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:39,800
Speaker 3: the liminal spaces, to trade your script for actual US currency,

705
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:42,480
Speaker 3: but it would be at an egregious rate of you

706
00:40:42,520 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 3: know what I mean, You've got Zimbabwe dollars.

707
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 4: It's like trading your foreign currency at the little terminal

708
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 4: at the airport.

709
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 5: It's a bad idea. Did it once? Not good? Don't

710
00:40:54,600 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 5: ever do that pro travel tip, y'all.

711
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, just you know, unless you're definitely never going back

712
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 3: to a place, I would say, just hold on to

713
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 3: the foreign script and you know, roll the dice. See

714
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 3: how it's going to work the next time you go.

715
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:13,399
Speaker 2: Dude, dude, Should we get so we're talking about them,

716
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 2: most of the workers living on company property. Should we

717
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 2: just get at least a bit of information about what

718
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 2: does the police force look like in one of these

719
00:41:22,120 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 2: company towns, because my understanding is that they would essentially

720
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:32,839
Speaker 2: gather militias, like almost company militias that would function as

721
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 2: the local police to keep order as everybody is just

722
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 2: going around town and everything.

723
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:43,239
Speaker 8: Yeah, goon squads, right, well, goon squads, but also that

724
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:47,080
Speaker 8: would be deputized in times of trouble such that they

725
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 8: were not technically goon squads.

726
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,320
Speaker 3: We're going to get to a very interesting private detective

727
00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 3: agency in a little bit. But the militia like the

728
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:59,200
Speaker 3: idea that we could rule by first by infrastructure, by

729
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 3: rigging the game, and then second by intimidation. The third

730
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:09,800
Speaker 3: is ruling by force by physical force. Harassment, intimidation, assault,

731
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:13,239
Speaker 3: and murder. These are all oh and sabotage, these are

732
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 3: all part of it. As a result of these factors,

733
00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:18,959
Speaker 3: the coal miners in Colorado and abroad had no real

734
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 3: way to air their grievances. They couldn't push for better conditions.

735
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 3: They didn't even have the paper thin theoretical protection that

736
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 3: exists for labor today. Technically, under the US law, it

737
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 3: is in most cases not against the law to attempt

738
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 3: to organize a union. Some groups cannot strike, like we

739
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 3: recently found the Post office is not allowed to strike

740
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 3: at all. But in this case they didn't have any

741
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:53,000
Speaker 3: of that. Your corporate boss is your local government and

742
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 3: your local law enforcement, and so they start in secret

743
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 3: conspiring looking to unions for help. This is a counter

744
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 3: conspiracy to the conspiracy the corporations. These are obviously very

745
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 3: smart people. They say, look, if a mine is associated

746
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 3: with a union at this point in time in the

747
00:43:13,160 --> 00:43:16,120
Speaker 3: United States in the early nineteen hundreds, they have forty

748
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:22,040
Speaker 3: percent fewer fatalities because the rules are enforced. So from

749
00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:26,040
Speaker 3: their perspective, it's a no brainer to have some kind

750
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:29,760
Speaker 3: of organized labor. That's where they get with the United

751
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 3: mind Workers of America UMW, and in secret, again a conspiracy,

752
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 3: they begin to organize, and this leads to nineteen thirteen,

753
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:48,280
Speaker 3: the unionization movement goes public. I'm sure the corporation already

754
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 3: knew there was something in the wind, but they have

755
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 3: a list of just seven demands, and if you read them,

756
00:43:54,480 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 3: they're pretty reasonable. You know. They're like, hey, can you

757
00:43:58,160 --> 00:43:59,759
Speaker 3: just count a ton as a ton?

758
00:44:00,239 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do. Let's go through these, ben because that's

759
00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:04,640
Speaker 2: that's the first one on the list, right.

760
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 3: That's the second one. The first one is recognizing the

761
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:09,360
Speaker 3: union as a bargaining agent.

762
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 2: Oh sure, yes, recognize us first. But the second one

763
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 2: is probably the most important, and we've talked about it

764
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,440
Speaker 2: the early part of the show. Count a ton as

765
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 2: a ton, just what you said, Ben, And the other

766
00:44:21,000 --> 00:44:24,040
Speaker 2: one is just how about eight hour work days because

767
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 2: that that's kind of a law. So let's do that.

768
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:34,480
Speaker 5: Payment for dead work, laying track, timbering, handling, impurities, et cetera.

769
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 2: That's all the stuff they had to do anyway, Right,

770
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 2: they're just saying, maybe compensate us for that stuff too.

771
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 3: And then they're saying, hey, also, we think the people

772
00:44:45,680 --> 00:44:48,319
Speaker 3: in charge of weighing the stuff we get paid for

773
00:44:48,640 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 3: should be elected by us, the folks doing the work.

774
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,840
Speaker 3: Because there was a known problem with in addition to

775
00:44:56,239 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 3: you know that crooked thing about twenty two hundred pounds

776
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 3: instead of two thousand. The company would hire these waightcheckers

777
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:06,839
Speaker 3: and give them a kind of a quote of how

778
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 3: much could be paid at the time, so the company

779
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:15,200
Speaker 3: encouraged corruption or even more frequent to be honest, the

780
00:45:15,239 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 3: weightcheckmen would skim a little vigorous off.

781
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:20,919
Speaker 5: Of course, of course they would. Yep.

782
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 2: They also wanted the right to use their script at

783
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,399
Speaker 2: any store. Yeah, or you know, just to be able

784
00:45:27,400 --> 00:45:29,800
Speaker 2: to buy things from any store and to choose guess

785
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 2: what where they lived and who their doctors were.

786
00:45:34,080 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 3: So okay, this is another thing we'll get to this

787
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 3: at the end. This is one that really it bothers

788
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:43,080
Speaker 3: me personally and should bother everybody listening unless you're already

789
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 3: a billionaire right now. What they're asking for here in

790
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:52,280
Speaker 3: nineteen thirteen is freedom from a situation that you encounter

791
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,640
Speaker 3: today in the world of private healthcare. You have a

792
00:45:55,680 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 3: doctor you like, but they're not in network. So imagine

793
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 3: trying to go to a grocery store and they say

794
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 3: you can't buy these potatoes. You're not in the grocery network.

795
00:46:07,800 --> 00:46:11,720
Speaker 2: Oh oh, that's fine, I'll just take my company bucks

796
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 2: somewhere else.

797
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:18,880
Speaker 6: Oh wait, oh crap, you take public This is crazy, dude,

798
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,279
Speaker 6: And let's get look, let's get I think this one

799
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:23,760
Speaker 6: is unfortunately really important.

800
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,400
Speaker 2: With a bullet or let's say, a whole magazine of bullets.

801
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:31,640
Speaker 2: They wanted strict enforcement of Colorado's laws, which are the

802
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 2: mind safety stuff. They're on the books in Colorado already.

803
00:46:35,080 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 3: They're just not enforced exactly.

804
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 2: And they want to get rid of script they want entirely.

805
00:46:40,239 --> 00:46:43,920
Speaker 2: They want us dollars. Why not? And here is the

806
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 2: big one, I think, guys, an end to the company

807
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:53,240
Speaker 2: guard system, which is the internally enforced internally hired system

808
00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 2: of law enforcement by company employees.

809
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 5: I mean, oh, sorry, so, but not like miners.

810
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 4: They were just like literally a militia hired by the

811
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,279
Speaker 4: company to maintain order, right, so over the companies.

812
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 5: But it's over.

813
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that's exactly what it was. And as had

814
00:47:12,160 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 3: already there was other stuff in the wind here. People

815
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 3: already knew that if if things got past a certain threshold,

816
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 3: it was well within the ability of the powers in

817
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:28,839
Speaker 3: Congress to call in actual US military, which they would

818
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:32,439
Speaker 3: do with very little hesitation. So we'd love to tell

819
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 3: you that this is the end of the show, and

820
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:40,640
Speaker 3: that these Colorado mine companies accepted these seven pretty reasonable demands.

821
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,400
Speaker 3: No sorry, they rejected all of them. And in September

822
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:49,120
Speaker 3: of that year of nineteen thirteen, the UMW United Mine

823
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 3: Workers said, all right, our next step is a strike.

824
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 3: And this leads to one of the bloodiest labor conflicts

825
00:47:56,239 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 3: in US history. The corporations provably conspired to, by hook

826
00:48:01,200 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 3: or by crook, break the backs of these strikers in

827
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:07,879
Speaker 3: a literal way, in.

828
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:11,280
Speaker 2: A literal way, and very much in breaking the spirit

829
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 2: right of anybody else who would even think about wanting

830
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 2: to join.

831
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 3: Up and when they participated in this conspiracy. When they

832
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 3: orchestrated this conspiracy, you could argue it also they experienced

833
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:30,040
Speaker 3: Mission creep. It got further out of hand than they

834
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 3: would ever imagine and led to a really weird era

835
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 3: of pr What are we talking about. We'll tell you

836
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 3: after this adbreak. Here's where it gets crazy, all right,

837
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:51,799
Speaker 3: This strike is huge, at least sounds huge here we're

838
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 3: talking about these other militias that are anti union or

839
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:59,719
Speaker 3: strike breakers, right, defenders of the so called scabs, the UMW.

840
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 3: Their strike is comprised of ten thousand miners. That's a

841
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 3: small army, and that's also not counting their families. So

842
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 3: the number of people are pro union is much bigger.

843
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 3: And they immediately focus on our earlier antagonists, Colorado Fuel

844
00:49:17,080 --> 00:49:21,840
Speaker 3: and Iron Company. The practices are the worst from this company,

845
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 3: and also the optics are the best as an enemy.

846
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 3: If you're Davidian Force looking for a goliath, then you

847
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:34,960
Speaker 3: want Colorado Fuel and Iron because their bosses also don't

848
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 3: seem to care about the workers. They're out there literally

849
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 3: living on Broadway.

850
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:42,719
Speaker 2: Yes, eighteen hundred miles away, and so just think about

851
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 2: the communication that has to happen there I guess telegram

852
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:49,800
Speaker 2: is exist in existence at this time, right.

853
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, not the app but the yeah.

854
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they but they can be sent information back

855
00:49:55,040 --> 00:49:58,440
Speaker 2: and forth from whatever company offices exist out there, so

856
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 2: there can be communication to that extent. But it is

857
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 2: literally a couple of typed pages then end up in

858
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 2: the hands of the controllers of the company eighteen hundred

859
00:50:08,400 --> 00:50:12,160
Speaker 2: miles away, and then another typed page of how to

860
00:50:12,239 --> 00:50:14,760
Speaker 2: handle said whatever situation.

861
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so there to them again, are these actual

862
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 3: people or these simply functions that, when working correctly in

863
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,360
Speaker 3: an equation, produce profit. What is the human element? The

864
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 3: strikers meet repercussions immediately. They are evicted from these company

865
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:38,600
Speaker 3: talents once they are identified as union members or god

866
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:42,680
Speaker 3: forbid leaders. The leaders are actually detained pretty often, and

867
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 3: so the striking miners again they don't have anywhere to go.

868
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 3: They start building a series of tent colonies. Ludlow Quality

869
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 3: is by far the largest of this encampment. It's quite diverse.

870
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,240
Speaker 3: There are people from all kinds of parts of the world,

871
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 3: you know, and they have different ethnic background on different

872
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 3: spiritual beliefs, but they are united in the idea of

873
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 3: not letting this corporate power continue to oppress them. Also,

874
00:51:09,560 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 3: Colorado winter nineteen thirteen to nineteen fourteen terrible, terrible, and

875
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 3: that you're in a tent. You're in a canvas tent, Dude,

876
00:51:19,239 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 3: you will get in trouble if you steal cold from

877
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:25,080
Speaker 3: the mine to stay warm, because that's how they operate.

878
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 2: That's so crazy to me. And I don't think any

879
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 2: of us in the modern era unless you're an extreme

880
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,719
Speaker 2: campophile or you know, I don't know the right word

881
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 2: that is, but you know, you go out there and

882
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:43,400
Speaker 2: you spend winter nights camping, or you know, an extremely

883
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:44,720
Speaker 2: cold climate on purpose.

884
00:51:45,040 --> 00:51:47,320
Speaker 3: Shout out Alex Linny's oh yeah.

885
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:49,680
Speaker 2: Well, and there are many of us who enjoy that

886
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 2: kind of thing. It's just we have technology now that

887
00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 2: keeps us super warm and we don't even need a

888
00:51:56,600 --> 00:52:00,399
Speaker 2: fire anymore. We've got materials that can keep us good

889
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,040
Speaker 2: to go through those winters. But if you imagine nineteen

890
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 2: thirteen to fourteen in Colorado in that cold, I am

891
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:13,480
Speaker 2: so flabbergasted that that many people in an encampment like

892
00:52:13,520 --> 00:52:16,760
Speaker 2: that survived long enough for this to even occur.

893
00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:19,840
Speaker 4: What we're both start, yeah and Matt, can I just

894
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 4: applaud you on your use of flabbergas that I don't

895
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 4: think it's used nearly enough these days.

896
00:52:25,960 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 3: Yeay, And with this in mind, I do think it's

897
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:35,320
Speaker 3: also incredibly important to note even now there are people

898
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:39,359
Speaker 3: who are living in similar circumstances. Yes, so you have

899
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 3: to realize it is not then as now is not

900
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 3: a conscious choice, and people know it's unsustainable, but they're

901
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:50,200
Speaker 3: able to get by because they're supporting each other.

902
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,880
Speaker 4: And shout out to the podcast Big Sugar by Celeste Headley.

903
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:56,719
Speaker 4: We had Celeste on the show a while back, and

904
00:52:57,000 --> 00:52:59,600
Speaker 4: it's a total company town situation with a lot of

905
00:52:59,680 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 4: those massive sugar companies with these you know, workers that

906
00:53:03,560 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 4: live at the behest of the company on company property

907
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 4: in these bunks.

908
00:53:07,960 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 5: It's the more things change, the more they stay the same.

909
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:12,560
Speaker 5: To be glow.

910
00:53:12,320 --> 00:53:16,480
Speaker 3: Cliche, and again we have to remember that for decades,

911
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 3: in the case of Ludlow, Colorado, in this colony, people

912
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 3: have been flocking to this area in search for that

913
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:26,360
Speaker 3: that opportunity, right, that American dream that has sold so

914
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 3: hard to you. And despite their demographic differences, you know,

915
00:53:31,680 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 3: the inevitable bouts of infighting, they were unanimous in their

916
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 3: mission and they said, if we stick together, we can

917
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 3: make a difference. There are more of us than there

918
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:44,440
Speaker 3: are of them, them being the patricians, but they weren't

919
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 3: really counting the militias that would arrive shout out a

920
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 3: bug's life.

921
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:53,319
Speaker 2: Well, isn't it quite tragic, you guys, that ultimately all

922
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:56,480
Speaker 2: these human beings are out here fighting just to keep

923
00:53:56,520 --> 00:54:00,160
Speaker 2: a job so that they can support the families that

924
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:02,720
Speaker 2: they're growing. Like that is one of the primary things

925
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 2: that's happening here.

926
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:07,080
Speaker 3: Yes, like with the okey example from Grapes of Wrath

927
00:54:07,120 --> 00:54:11,320
Speaker 3: and the Great Depression, which is just on the horizon here. Historically,

928
00:54:11,920 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 3: Colorado Fuel and Iron sadly was also internally united in opposition,

929
00:54:17,840 --> 00:54:20,439
Speaker 3: and they were able to buy every politician and every

930
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:23,040
Speaker 3: member of law enforcement in the area. There's not a

931
00:54:23,080 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 3: single story of a sheriff who didn't take the money

932
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:30,279
Speaker 3: and stood up for the people, or more importantly, you

933
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:33,080
Speaker 3: would argue for the American project, stood up for the

934
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 3: rule of law. That didn't happen. In fact, Colorado Fuel

935
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:41,080
Speaker 3: and Iron hired a detective agency. Baldwin feltz, you've heard

936
00:54:41,080 --> 00:54:43,600
Speaker 3: of pinkertons. This is sort of the Pepsi to the

937
00:54:43,600 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 3: coca Cola, the Pinkertons. At first, they were just supposed

938
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 3: to run security for the new workers who were coming

939
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 3: in who made a vow to not joined the union,

940
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 3: just keep the coal mine running for the shareholder, to.

941
00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 2: Basically just get them in out of the complex right

942
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:02,280
Speaker 2: the mind.

943
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:06,360
Speaker 3: Right without being attacked by union protesters, which would have occurred.

944
00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:10,920
Speaker 3: They were to also break the strike by any means necessary.

945
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:14,239
Speaker 3: And you know, I feel like Baldwin Felts would be

946
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 3: a fascinating episode of ridiculous history. Maybe stuff then once,

947
00:55:18,680 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 3: you know, because they originally were doing good guy work

948
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 3: in the age of great expansion of rail in the

949
00:55:26,680 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 3: early days, they were focusing on railroad crime, finding fugitives.

950
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:33,680
Speaker 3: They were bounty hunters, you know. And this was the

951
00:55:33,719 --> 00:55:37,840
Speaker 3: era of like red dead, redemption two railroad bandits, you know,

952
00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 3: with the bandana and they like the horses going I

953
00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:44,239
Speaker 3: hope dling. You seemed to do it like a little

954
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:49,280
Speaker 3: jump riding a horse thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, doing that.

955
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:53,040
Speaker 3: That didn't last very long. Railroad banditry became less and

956
00:55:53,120 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 3: less of a thing as the Americans became more settled,

957
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 3: as they further encroached into this two territory, and so

958
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:06,760
Speaker 3: Baldwin Felts had to pivot and become private security, often

959
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:10,799
Speaker 3: for mining interests, and they got a reputation for being

960
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 3: the fixers if anybody had the temerity to begin a union.

961
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:19,719
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and let's not forget Iman's a patient proclamations

962
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 2: only eighteen sixties. So if you just think about some

963
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:27,000
Speaker 2: of the work that was done on fugitive.

964
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,239
Speaker 3: Hunting, let's save catchers. Yeah yeah, So.

965
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 2: Who knows where those lines are? We don't, at least

966
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 2: when I'm speaking right now. I don't know the full

967
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:37,279
Speaker 2: history of the Baldwin Felts, you know, detective agency, but

968
00:56:37,680 --> 00:56:39,760
Speaker 2: you can just imagine that some of that stuff's in play.

969
00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 3: Yet. We know that they were best known for again

970
00:56:45,760 --> 00:56:49,879
Speaker 3: railroad banditry. But still that's why I think they were

971
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:54,280
Speaker 3: best known for stopping railroad banditry. But there were also

972
00:56:55,480 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 3: there were clearly cases in the previous eras are prior

973
00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 3: to the Emancipation Proclamation, was a huge industry to hunt

974
00:57:05,680 --> 00:57:08,799
Speaker 3: enslaved people or trying to escape. But this agency is

975
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:10,240
Speaker 3: founded in the eighteen nineties.

976
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, sorry, I'm getting my timeline wrong there. I

977
00:57:13,960 --> 00:57:15,680
Speaker 2: guess what I'm just trying to what I'm trying to say,

978
00:57:15,719 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 2: is any company that is a private agency like that

979
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 2: that does essentially law enforcement work. You are taking money

980
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:26,560
Speaker 2: from somebody who probably has quite a bit of money

981
00:57:27,040 --> 00:57:29,320
Speaker 2: for whatever purpose you're doing. And you can see why

982
00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 2: you would if you were expanding, let's say the company

983
00:57:32,360 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 2: like this, you would move to something like mining interests

984
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:37,960
Speaker 2: because there's going to be a more frequent cash flow

985
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 2: and you can actually grow.

986
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 3: Like private prisons moved to immigrant entertainment, right, and they

987
00:57:45,120 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 3: were grease in the right pockets the entire time. Look,

988
00:57:47,680 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 3: the bullwood Feltz folks got up to some pretty nasty stuff,

989
00:57:51,160 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 3: especially in the tent colonies, including Ludlow, but including other

990
00:57:55,960 --> 00:58:00,160
Speaker 3: ten colonies. Is because there were multiple and we are

991
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:04,000
Speaker 3: going to pause here in media arrest, fellow conspiracy realist.

992
00:58:04,080 --> 00:58:07,800
Speaker 3: This is a rare two parter for us, But we

993
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:11,200
Speaker 3: all very much invest in this story and we hope

994
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 3: you are finding it as fascinating and disturbing as we are.

995
00:58:17,240 --> 00:58:19,760
Speaker 3: So tune in in just a few days when we'll

996
00:58:19,760 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 3: be back with part two of what was the Ludlow Massacre.

997
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:25,360
Speaker 3: In the meantime, we try to be easy to find online.

998
00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:27,320
Speaker 4: That's right, you can find us at the handle Conspiracy

999
00:58:27,360 --> 00:58:29,640
Speaker 4: Stuff where we exist on Facebook where we have our

1000
00:58:29,640 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 4: Facebook group Here is where it gets crazy. On YouTube,

1001
00:58:32,880 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 4: where we have video content galore for your enjoyment, as

1002
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:39,080
Speaker 4: well as on xfka, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok.

1003
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:40,760
Speaker 5: We're Conspiracy Stuff Show.

1004
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 2: If you want to call us, our number is one

1005
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 2: eight three three std WYTK. Call in and tell us anything.

1006
00:58:49,360 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 2: Give us a book recommendation, give us a movie we

1007
00:58:52,520 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 2: need to see, and think about anything at all. Do

1008
00:58:55,480 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 2: please give yourself a cool nickname and let us know

1009
00:58:58,120 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 2: if we can use your message on the air. You

1010
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:01,520
Speaker 2: we got more to say than could fit in a

1011
00:59:01,560 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 2: three minute voicemail. Why not instead send us a good

1012
00:59:03,760 --> 00:59:04,800
Speaker 2: old fashion email.

1013
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 3: We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence

1014
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:11,800
Speaker 3: we receive. Contacting us by email is one of the

1015
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:15,400
Speaker 3: best ways for us to be able to dive into links,

1016
00:59:15,400 --> 00:59:18,000
Speaker 3: to dive into pictures, or we all see it when

1017
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 3: it arrives. When we respond, we all hear it. We

1018
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 3: can't wait to hear from you. We get so many

1019
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:28,320
Speaker 3: fantastic recommendations for episodes for future pieces of conversation. Shout

1020
00:59:28,320 --> 00:59:30,600
Speaker 3: out to Brock who just let us know get this

1021
00:59:31,120 --> 00:59:34,040
Speaker 3: evidence of negative time has been found in a quantum

1022
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:37,479
Speaker 3: physics experiment. No idea what that's about, but we're going

1023
00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 3: to find out because he, like hopefully you, fellow conspiracy realists,

1024
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:43,439
Speaker 3: has taken us to the edge of the rabbit hole.

1025
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:46,600
Speaker 3: Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back,

1026
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:50,720
Speaker 3: so join us here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio

1027
00:59:50,920 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 3: dot com.

1028
01:00:10,240 --> 01:00:12,280
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production

1029
01:00:12,400 --> 01:00:16,919
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1030
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