37: The Government Poisoning Alcohol?!: Prohibition
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This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

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What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

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Hi friends, I hope you're having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you to the Library of Dark History.

Joan, you're looking fabulous, darling. Hi. This is a safe space for all the curious cats out there who think, hey, is history really as boring as it seemed in school? Oh, nay, nay. This is where we can learn together about all the dark, mysterious, dramatic stories our teachers never told us about. I almost said talked about, but never told us about.

Hi. So today, Joan is dressed up. Look at her. Fabulous. Lovely. Gorge. Beautiful. She's a flapper. Now, okay, look, we're going to be talking about prohibition. Now, I'm pretty sure we've all heard about prohibition to a certain extent. Prohibition was when alcohol was illegal, right? People got mad and then like suddenly it was legal again.

So two questions. One, what was so bad about prohibition that the government straight up repealed a constitutional amendment for the first time ever? And honestly, that's very suspish because we all know that the government will do anything to avoid admitting that they maybe perhaps made a mistake. And two, does that automatically mean that prohibition was a complete waste of time? Like did anything good come from prohibition?

Well, guess what, babes? We're gonna find out. That's why we're here. So let me open up my dark history book to the prohibition chapter. Oh, here it is. Oh, mm-hmm. This is it.

Since the dawn of time, people in history loved to get their drink on. Alcohol has been a pretty big part of the history of literally everything. Alcohol literally pops up in every phase of American history. I mean, even Jesus.

You certain water and wine, babe. So when the Constitution was being written back in the 1700s, all the founding fathers were drinking and making their own alcohol. In fact, by 1830, the average American over the age of 15 consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year. Yes, a year. That's almost three times what the average American drinks today. They were...

showing us up. The point I'm getting at is drinking is just as much a part of American history as the stars and stripes, baby. I'm holding a flag. So our story begins in the 1800s. Okay, so everyone close their eyes. Imagine you're living in the 1800s. Beautiful, great. No phones, no TV. You probably don't smell great.

Probably menstruating on your rags. And that's okay. Sounds like a blast, doesn't it? But America has an expanding frontier. We're newly independent. And by the middle of the 1820s, many different religious leaders got together for one purpose. They wanted to get people in the United States to stop drinking, point blank, period.

They're just like, yeah, life isn't that fun as is, so let's make it worse. The main motivation for this was that they believed alcohol was immoral. If you're drinking the sauce, the hooch, you're a sinner and a bad person. Which doesn't make sense because again, it's in the Bible.

It also doesn't help that it wasn't totally uncommon for people to just show up to work drunk because there weren't any rules against alcohol in the workplace. They were convinced that alcohol was the root of evil in America. And if they could ban it, all of America's problems would definitely 100% without a doubt be completely and totally solved. This belief led to the creation of the temperance movement and they had one focus.

getting the government to ban alcohol. But by 1873, the temperance movement, well, let's just say they weren't really making any progress. It had mostly been run by men who were treating banning alcohol like more of a suggestion rather than a demand.

But when women all over the country discovered the temperance movement, things really started to change. Now you see, with rampant alcohol abuse came rampant domestic abuse. Some historians say that nearly half of all women in the 1800s were physically abused by their husbands. Think about that. Holy shit. Nearly half of women. Plus this was before American women had the right to vote or really had any basic civil rights.

So when these women saw a chance to finally put a stop to the abuse, they created the Women's Christian Temperance Union, or WCTU. WCTU.

The biggest difference between the OG temperance movement and the WCTU was that the WCTU was actually effective and way more direct at getting their point across. I mean, move over boys, if you want something done, you know, you just got to get one of us women involved. These women would show up to saloons regularly.

block men from getting inside, and sometimes they would go inside and just raise freaking hell. One of the best examples of WCTU raising hell happened in 1901 with a woman named Carrie A. Nation. Yes, 100% that's her real name. Carrie A. Nation.

Yeah, so Carrie, she was six feet tall. She's 50 years old and dressed head to toe in black and white. She was goth. We love her. And on this particular day, she sat outside of this little saloon in Kansas and she's praying. Now, this wasn't unusual for Carrie. She had grown up religious and was known to pray before like every big event in her life. But today, her prayer was a little different.

because she was praying to Sky Daddy for protection. Once she was done, she went inside the saloon, pulled out her hatchet,

that she like conveniently had in her little side holster. And she smashed the whole damn bar to pieces. Oh, she was raging. Okay. She grabbed all the bottles and barrels of alcohol and broke those. She flooded the saloon and she drenched herself all up in beer. I'm so curious how that prayer went.

Dear God, thank you for this beautiful day. Please watch over me as I smash everything in this saloon to itty bitty pieces. Amen. Thank you. And also, thank you for a great day today.

Amen. Carrie ended up being arrested 32 times at 32 different bars for this. She was going like on a little tour to different saloons. She was like smashing them up. I kind of love it, honestly. And the press, get this, the press gave her the nickname Hatchet Granny. I would die happy if I had that name. Hatchet Granny. That's a good band name. Hatchet Granny.

You down, Joan? Hatchagranny. So she considered herself, and I quote, a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what he doesn't like. I mean, Hatchagranny was intense. She once claimed that she was upset that nobody shot her for doing any of this to her.

Because she believed that if you're not willing to die for a cause, then why have it? She was hardcore. She was dedicated. But before you go thinking Carrie was completely off her rocker, some historians point out that the

That the evidence exists that she, like many women of the time, was a victim of domestic violence. So when you think about it, she had a very good and understandable reason to hate alcohol and want to smash and destroy it all. Rage on, girl. Rage on. Now, despite the best efforts of people like Carrie, the WCTU hit a bit of a wall.

Over time, alcohol started to become more widely available in stores across the country. And it was like a period of rapid industrialization in the United States. And the rise of factories made alcohol production much easier. And naturally, because there was more alcohol available, people started drinking more. And not like just normal, like they were drinking a lot more, okay? And so the alcohol industry soared. I was thinking right now, right now I was thinking,

When I drink, I get like the worst hangover. How did they do it back then? Did they get hangovers? What did they do for hangovers? How did they function? Because everyone was still working. Everyone's getting fucking sloshed all the time and then still working and stuff. But didn't they get hangovers?

Let me know down below if you know, because I didn't look into that. Thanks. Everyone sloshed. Great. In the early 1900s, saloons expanded to the point that there was one saloon for every 200 Americans.

At that time, there were around 78 million people in America. Now that's almost 400,000 saloons. Now the WTCU and other organizations like the Anti-Saloon League fought the good fight, but it was losing battle in the war on alcohol. That is until a little thing called World War I happened. Sam the Banana Man. No, I'm just kidding. But wasn't that fun?

So the most important thing to know about World War I for today's story is that in 1917, the United States and Germany were not getting along. And a lot of beer brewers were German. So organizations like WCTU took advantage of this by spreading propaganda in newspapers and film reels. According to the ads, if you drink German beer, you were a traitor to America, you bitch.

And this messaging ended up being the final nail in alcohol's coffin. In 1917, the WCTU and other organizations successfully lobbied the United States Congress to write a bill that made alcohol illegal. Mm-hmm. People would die today without their alcohol. A couple of years later in 1919, the Congress passed the 18th Amendment officially prohibiting the manufacture sale of transportation or intoxicating liquor.

So by January of 1920, distribution of alcohol officially became illegal in the United States.

And this is when our good friend Prohibition had officially arrived to the party. It's probably an unrelated side note, but minutes after the amendment passed, the news reported that six masked bandits with pistols emptied two freight cars full of whiskey from a rail yard in Chicago. Oh shit. Another gang stole four casks, which are like those big barrels, of grain alcohol from a government bonded warehouse and another hijacked a truck carrying whiskey.

Honestly, good for them, right? Great timing. Oh, let's pause for an ad break. Why don't you go get yourself a drink? This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

This is an ad by BetterHelp.

What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better, even when it's impossible to make time for them. Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow.

Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Alright, so it's prohibition, baby. Alcohol is illegal. No more drinky-drinky. And at first, prohibitions seemed to work. Police were given heavy bounties to crack down on clubs or bars that were operating illegally. And in the beginning, there were like a lot of arrests happening, right? But eventually, alcohol-related incarceration rates started going down.

One jail in Chicago actually closed because the inmate population was at an all-time low. To the government, this was a sign that abolishing alcohol was actually working. Oh my god, yay! Win for the government. But some sources say alcohol consumption in general was down 30% across the nation in the first year alone. Like, wow, we did it. We solved America's problems. But shocker.

It wouldn't last. It wouldn't last because guess what? People love their alcohol. They love their alcohol. Great. We're humans. And if you tell us we can't have something, guess what, baby girl? We're going to fucking get it anyways. Right? So that's just what the people were doing. So just because like the bars were gone, Americans weren't going to stop

drinking. And you see the government made a little mistake, a little hiccup in the road. The law called out specifically that the manufacturing of alcohol was illegal. Now manufacturing is when you make something in large quantities with the intent to sell. So they made that illegal. But what the law didn't prohibit was people making alcohol for themselves. There's always a loophole.

There's always a loophole. We love a loophole. People were like, take away the bars. We don't freaking care. We can make our own alcohol. Thank you. So people started getting creative. For example, grape juice sales hit a record high in 1921. And when grape juice companies noticed this, they started selling kits of juice concentrate that had orange.

warnings that said, do not leave these sitting out for too long or your juice will turn into wine. Wink, wink. You know what I'm saying? Like,

You know, yeah, you get it. But for everybody else who wasn't patient enough to watch grape juice turn into wine, a new kind of bar was opened in the 1920s. These were dark, seedy, hidden establishments called speakeasies. Now speakeasies were literally secret bars that people would operate out of their basements or like in a back room or in flower shops. They were just hidden, right? Anywhere they could fit a lot of people, but not in plain sight.

Normally, you'd need a password or some kind of like secret knock to get in, which sounds fun, you know. Like on the outside, it looks like it would be a hot dog stand, but then you got to say banana bread and then they'll let you in and boom, you're inside a bar. Kind of fun. Kind of fun, right? And to this day, you can find speakeasies now. I went to one in San Diego. It was kind of...

cheesy, but I mean, whatever. It was cute. They were just rude. But wait a minute. If all alcohol was illegal, how did people get away with drinking it?

Well, the 18th Amendment didn't actually say that drinking alcohol was illegal. It just banned people from manufacturing, transporting, and selling alcohol. So if a police officer caught somebody drinking, I mean, technically, it was okay. This made it so the 18th Amendment was less of a binding law and more of like this weird gray area. It was just a fucking mess and everybody was finding their loophole in it.

Now here's another question. Where the hell were all these people getting alcohol if they weren't making it themselves? Well, most of the alcohol was provided by two groups of people called bootleggers and rum runners. Ooh, that's fun. The bootleggers were the guys who just made their own alcohol from whatever they could get their hands on. I mean, potatoes, sugar, corn, etc.,

Just about anything, honestly, could be turned into alcohol if it's fermented the right way. It just doesn't taste very good. But guess what? It's alcohol. The other kind of person getting alcohol to everybody were the rum runners. Now, instead of making hooch themselves, they would run alcohol from all over the place. Kind of like DoorDash, but for alcohol. Yeah, that's it. Rum runners. Great.

A lot of them got their alcohol from across the border in either Mexico or Canada. And the ways they did this were pretty actually inventive. Some smugglers would just fake floorboards in their cars. They would install fake gas tanks and even make suitcases with fake bottoms that when you hit a secret switch, bam, there's the alcohol. This period seems really fun because it's all about secrets and like,

We love a reveal, right? America loves a reveal. We like a secret beep, boop, boop, boop, boop, and something, boom. You know? It's pretty fun. Very James Bond kind of. You get it. Fun. Now, there was a lot of money to be made in running, and because it was illegal, they couldn't report it to the government, so...

It's tax-free money, baby. Eventually, rum running became a multi-million dollar underground industry. But six years into prohibition in 1926, the government started to notice all this illegal money, okay? And they were getting pissed because they want their cut. And it was decided that more drastic measures needed to be taken to stop people from freaking drinking, okay? And those drastic measures involved a little bit of aqua tavana.

We always come back to the Aqua Tufana, don't we? We always end up back here. But let's pause for an ad break really quick.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

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Your cash back really adds up. And we're back. So just to clarify, dying from poisoned alcohol actually wasn't something that only happened once Prohibition started. It had been a thing for a while. Aqua Tavana.

You know. But because of how unregulated making alcohol was, people were literally poisoning themselves by accident if they weren't careful distilling the ingredients they were using. But once prohibition started, a man by the name of Charles Norris discovered that alcohol was being poisoned at a much higher rate than just these, you know, these ding-dongs messing up their homebrew.

So he started doing some digging. He's like, something's going on. There's something bigger going on here. And eventually he would discover that the alcohol was being poisoned by the government. Why do they hate us? Why does the government hate us so much? Why are they always trying to kill us? What did we do to you? I'm sorry I was born here. I didn't choose this.

Okay, so let's break it down. Charles Norris, this guy, he's born December 4th, 1867, Sagittarius. Shout out to you. Hey, babe. And he was born to a wealthy family who had dreams of Charles one day taking over his father's bank, right? But Charles was not interested in money and he felt that it was his patriotic duty to save lives. Like, good little heart this guy Charles has. So

So Charles took that desire to save people all the way to Europe where he was enrolled in med school. While there, Charles, he discovered something that would completely change his life. Forensic science.

science. Oh we love Charles. The Europeans had been developing the system that would use scientific evidence to help solve crimes and Charles was completely fascinated by it. I mean same. Hi. Yes. Me too. So when he returned to the United States in 1918, Norris heard that Bellevue Hospital in New York City was looking to hire somebody for a brand new job that put new forensic science to work. So

So this job was perfect for Charles and he was hired as New York City's very first chief medical examiner.

We love a Sagittarius. So when Charles started his new job, he noticed that a lot of bodies started coming into this lab, just reeking of pure alcohol. Now this was before prohibition. So the spike in alcohol-related deaths was super suspish. I mean, Charles looked into it further and he discovered that every single dead body had in fact died from alcohol. But

But the weird thing was that the reason the alcohol killed these people was because it was poisoned. And so Charles began to suspect that there was a huge problem with the alcohol in New York City, right? So Charles was going to need some help. Oh my God. Charles in charge of our day's lives. Sorry. It is. My brain works in music sometimes.

Oh my god, I'm like a brilliant mind. So Charles was gonna need some help like to get to the bottom of this because he knows something's up. So he hired another forensic scientist named Alexander Gettler. From the time they started working together in 1918, Charles and Alex discovered that almost every alcohol-related death in New York City was because the alcohol, again, had been poisoned.

Oh, yes. They found that the alcohol had been mixed with chemicals like cyanide, arsenic, and lead. But when Charles and Alex reached out to the mayor, the manufacturers, or even the federal government, nobody wanted to listen to them. Nobody cared. Nobody believed them. They're like, shut your fucking mouth. Dirt is not poison. Meh.

So for a while, Charles and Alex, they just hit a dead end. So then in 1919, they finally made a breakthrough. They discovered that the federal government required companies to do something called...

Denaturing. Now, denaturing is the process where factories add chemicals to industrial alcohol to lower the alcohol content. If the alcohol content is too high, the federal government would require the companies to pay a liquor tax. Again, this is industrial alcohol. That's the stuff that like goes into paint and solvents, not the stuff that you drink. But somehow a lot of distilleries

for consumable alcohol ended up getting denatured alcohol too which directly led to all the deaths Charles and Alex saw. We don't know why or how people were getting contaminated alcohol but it was happening and nobody wanted to own up to it and nobody wanted to acknowledge it.

So they had discovered the reason why people were dying, but whenever Charles and Alex told anybody what was happening, crickets. And that's how it honestly went for a while. They just had to like sit back and watch it. And then when prohibition passed in 1920, the number of poisoned bodies dropped drastically.

No alcohol means no poison and no poison means no dead bodies. So Charles and Alex just went on with their lives, but it was just really, you know, it's a little fucking weird, right?

Weird. But let's fast forward a few years to the summer of 1926. Now we're six years into the prohibition. The government's war on alcohol was being lost in a freaking huge way. Rum running became a huge underground industry. And most of the alcohol being sold to people on the streets was denatured alcohol that the rum runners had gotten. And you might be thinking, wait, isn't denatured alcohol alcohol?

Poisonous, you know? Well, hi, it is. But the rum runners were paying chemists to filter the poisons out of the alcohol. They were doing the freaking most. But Congress was growing suspicious and they needed a way to stop these little rum runners from selling alcohol.

So there was a rumor that Congress wanted to make it impossible to filter poison out of alcohol. So industrial alcohol started being cut with chemicals like kerosene, benzene, and pyridine. Why? Because those are all impossible to filter out. So if somebody were to drink this poisoned alcohol, they could suffer from severe hallucinations, severe stomach pains, and then worst of all,

death. Which leads us directly to Christmas Eve 1926. Now there was a light snow covering the ground that night, right? And off in the distance the sound of jazz music was filling the air. ... ...

Nearby was Bellevue Hospital, and it was a normal night for the nurses and doctors. There was a few drunk and disorderly people were injured from like falling out of their cars, but nothing too major.

Even though that's like very major. And then all of a sudden, a scared looking man with a bright red face came stumbling into the emergency room screaming, help me, help me, please. Santa Claus is chasing me and he has a baseball bat. Okay. First of all, Santa Claus is chasing him with a baseball bat.

That's a lot. There's a lot going on right now. We got guys falling out of cars. Santa's chasing this guy with a baseball bat. I don't know what's going on back then, but something fishy is going on. Okay. So the nurses, they look behind this man and they didn't see anybody there. Before they could tell him that there wasn't actually some crazy Santa Claus with a bat chasing him, the man collapsed and fell into a coma and died.

Frickin' mystery Santa murderer over here. Within the hour, the emergency room started admitting more and more people saying similar things about how they were seeing weird shit before they also collapsed and died. Every single one of them was drunk and was described as smelling like a distillery. By the end of the night, more than 60 hallucinating people were admitted and many of whom later went blind from symptoms consistent with poisoned alcohol.

Eight of them died. And by New Year's Day, another 23 people died of similar circumstances. This sudden epidemic of people dropping dead from poisoned alcohol brought back some painful memories to

Charles and Alex, who were working at Bellevue Hospital where all this was happening. Many of the side effects were similar to what they witnessed before Prohibition, but now the body count was even worse than it was prior to the government criminalizing alcohol.

To Charles, this all could have been avoided if the government had dealt with the denaturing process sooner. So Charles decided to take his concerns directly to the press. That's the only way to get shit done sometimes. And on December 28th, 1926, he issued a statement to every newspaper in New York City that said, quote, the United States must be charged with the moral responsibility for the deaths that poisoned liquor caused, although it cannot be held legally responsible.

And then Alex went to the press with a list of every person he and Charles had seen be poisoned by this alcohol. Every single person was a member of the working class because the poisoned alcohol was cheaper to get. In 1926 alone, Alex had counted 1,200 people sickened or blind by this funky booze. 400 of them died. 400 of them died.

That's a lot. That's a lot. News of Charles and Alex's report spread across New York City and then the country. The Herald Tribune used their report as evidence of prohibition's complete failure and said that the true victims of prohibition were the working class.

The New York Times called for an immediate repeal of the 18th Amendment because of what Charles and Alex exposed. I mean, for a while, you couldn't open a newspaper without a story about Charles and Alex blowing the whistle on this whole thing. And in 1927, the government came right out and admitted they were poisoning the alcohol.

Drama, drama. They admitted it, okay? Like you can imagine people were a little pissed and the law was quickly pitched to Congress to outlaw the addition of extra poisons to industrial alcohol. Yay, progress. But surprise, surprise, it failed. Because according to politicians who voted the law down, nobody would die if they didn't break the law by drinking the alcohol in the first place.

What the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what they're doing. They're just always trying to kill us, okay? Charles and Alex continued to try to get the government to make a change with the poisoned alcohol, but they had no luck.

The alcohol supply continued to be poisoned, rum runners continued to sell it on the black market, and tens of thousands of people are said to have died from contaminated liquor by the end of Prohibition. But don't be sad for Charles and Alex. They would end up making national news a few years later when they discovered that the women of a New Jersey watch studio were dying after accidentally ingesting radium. That's right. These are the guys who went on to figure out why those...

thousands of radium girls were dying. Isn't this a small little world? It really is. Incestuous little podcast I got going on here, huh? Eventually, I mean, good for them.

But they didn't do good in this story. Like, nothing came from it. They figured out that people were getting poisoned. And then the government was like, yeah, we're doing it. And then that was it. Like, these poor guys were just carrying this weight on their shoulders. Like, we know that this is happening and nobody's doing anything to stop it. Like,

That must have been really hard for them and I feel bad. But at least they helped the radium girls who also were in a very shitty situation. Eventually, the news moved on to other crazy shit happening in America. And the biggest story in America had to do with all the illegal money being made.

America does not like it when you are making money illegally because whenever there is big illegal money being made, it's going to get the attention of the kings of illegal money in the 1920s, aka the mafia. Yes, the mafia. Because of prohibition, the mafia ended up grabbing more power and money than anybody

than ever they ever had before okay this led to cops being paid off buildings getting molotov'd and a rise in murders and gun violence across the entire country

Just chaos, everyone. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now. Getting an auto quote from Progressive Insurance.

It's easy and you can save money by doing it from your phone. Drivers who save by switching to Progressive save nearly $750 on average. And auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Discounts for having multiple vehicles on your policy, being a homeowner and more.

So just like your favorite podcast, Progressive will be with you 24-7, 365 days a year, so you're protected no matter what. Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. This is an ad by BetterHelp. What are your self-care non-negotiables? The things you know make you feel better even when it's impossible to make time for them.

Like that workout you try to squeeze in between kids' activities, work, and everything else you have going on, and before you know it, it gets pushed to tomorrow. Sound familiar? But it's the moments when you feel like you have no time for yourself when those non-negotiables are more important than ever. Those are the things that keep you strong, healthy, motivated, and prepared to take on everything life demands of you. So why not make therapy one of them?

BetterHelp Online Therapy makes it easy to get started with affordable phone, video, or live chat sessions you can do from anywhere, and the option to message your therapist between sessions if anything comes up. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash darkhistory today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash darkhistory.

Meanwhile in Chicago, you probably already know what the mafia is. And, you know, in your mind you have, when you say mafia, a lot of people think of like gangsters holding machine guns, you know, cocaine, chaos, suits, accents, whatever.

And later on in the 1920s, that would be maybe an accurate description, depiction of the mafia. But originally the mafia in the United States formed as protection, which is exactly how it was in Italy. But because Italian immigrants had been mistreated by American society, they had to look out for one another. Plus Italian and Irish groups were so heavily discriminated against in the early 1900s that it was hard for them to even find work.

So they ended up just making work for themselves. And this work was usually outside of the law. Once alcohol was made illegal and speakeasies needed a steady flow of liquor, all the mob families saw a golden opportunity to make some cash in bootlegging and rum running. The problem is the Chicago mafia had never dealt with this much business up to this point.

I'm talking the difference between thousands and millions. Like that's how much money was up for grabs at this time. The mafia couldn't just avoid police and taxes forever, so they had to treat this like a legitimate, legitimate business. So sometime in the early 1920s, many of the mafia families came together and created something called the Alky Ring.

Sounds fake, but it's real. It was the biggest bootlegging and rum running operation in the whole country. These guys hired lawyers, accountants, truckers, and warehouse workers. And for the most part, it was a legit business, except for the fact that the product was illegal, but everything else was legit.

They would also go into business with cops, judges, juries, witnesses, politicians, and federal agents. All of it was under the table. And now that they were getting organized, it made it possible for a massive illegal alcohol industry to explode. And at the head of the alky ring were two guys named Johnny Torrio and Dean O'Banion. But let me tell you, these two dudes, they were...

They were messy, okay? We gotta start somewhere. Dean noticed that the rival mob family, the Jenna brothers, were selling alcohol on what was called or considered his turf. To Dean, this was a betrayal of the entire Alkyring business model, okay? The families had all agreed to zone each area to each family mafia.

So when Dean noticed that the Gina brothers were scooping like in on his turf, I mean, for good reason, he was pissed.

He retaliated by sending his men out to steal alcohol from the Gina brothers' trucks so he could prove the point that they shouldn't be in his area. But the Gina brothers didn't receive the message clearly enough because they kept selling on his streets. Why? We don't know. So Dean reached out to his buddy Johnny and told him he needed some extra muscle to deal with this problem. And Johnny's like, okay, you know, let me look into this.

Johnny said he would help take care of Dean's problem. Rumor has it, Johnny had the Gina brothers drivers killed and then just took the alcohol for himself. And Dean heard about this and was like, dude, what the fuck, bro? The Alky ring was supposed to be a family and this was how like Johnny treated his family?

So Dean decided to get back at Johnny. Again, messy. Dean owned a number of speakeasies in Chicago, and he had one in particular that had recently been told was about to be busted. So Dean asked Johnny if he wanted to buy a bar that he didn't want anymore. And when Johnny hears about this exciting new bar, he's super psyched. Like, yes.

More bars equals more money, right? So the day after Johnny signs the papers to his fancy new bar, the police bust in as planned and seize over 128,000 gallons of beer. Now Johnny's new bar immediately gets shut down. Now Johnny, for good reason, is pissed. He sends a bunch of men over to a flower shop Dean owned to have a quote unquote party.

Talk with him. Well, there really wasn't much talking because the men did enter the flower shop and just shot Dean twice in the chest and once in the throat. Obviously, sadly, Dean died instantly. After he had Dean murdered, Johnny was feeling the heat and he had to get out of the game. No more assassinations, no more rum running, nothing. So Johnny passed off all of his alky ring operations to his right-hand man.

Somebody that's probably more well known than prohibition itself. A man so feared that his name is still associated with crime and murder. The original Scarface, that's right everyone, please welcome to the stage, Mr. Al Capone. But let's pause for an ad break really quick. Someone's laughing. I think it's a ghost.

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Mr. Alphonse Capone was born January 17th, 1899, and he had originally come from Brooklyn, New York. And at some point in the 1910s, Al met Johnny, who thought of Al as one of the most loyal friends he had ever had. The girls loved each other. Now, this led to Al

quickly becoming Johnny's assistant and right-hand man. So when Prohibition hit and things started to escalate with their business, Al took over the entire rum running part operation under Johnny's guidance. Then after Johnny retired, it only seemed natural that his replacement should be his bestie. But Al Capone is really famous for something he has, which is a short temper.

Which probably isn't the characteristic you should look for in a leader, right? Well, I mean, they get shit done. Plus, Al was like super spiteful. Even though Dean was dead, he knew that Dean's gang had booked him and Johnny over and he wanted revenge, okay? And Al had his sights set on one guy in particular and his name was Bugs Moran. What a great name.

Bugs Moran was originally part of Dean's gang. Now after Dean died, another dude took over and Al Capone had that guy killed, right? Bye. Just a lot of violence was happening during Prohibition, let me tell you. In 1925, Bugs became the leader of Dean's family. And you'd think that killing the first guy would be enough,

But Al's bloodlust was just getting started, okay? He proceeded to have dozens of Bugs men killed and Bugs quickly started to realize that if anybody's gonna die next, well, it's probably gonna be him. So,

So Bugs started making a plan to protect himself from Al. So he realized he had to secure his territory so Al couldn't touch him. Now to do this, Bugs started working closely with other smaller gangs in the area and building up an army of like mafia alliances. And it worked because over the next three years, Bugs Moran would end up controlling over half of Chicago's bootlegging operations.

By 1928, Bugs was extremely powerful in Chicago. But as long as Al was around, he didn't feel safe. And I'm gonna spare you all the gangland details, but you should definitely look it up because drama. What you need to know is that Bugs not once, not twice, but three times tried to have Al Capone killed. And not a single one of these attempts was successful.

That sucks for him. However, it did shake Al up a bit, and at this point Al was getting sick of having to look over his shoulder every time he went out for dinner, right? That would get exhausting. Even though Bugs Hittman were really bad at their jobs, he knew it was like only a matter of time before one of them was lucky enough to kill him. So Al called for a truce with Bugs, and Bugs agreed. I don't even remember what we're fighting over anymore.

So in 1928, after three long years of feuding between Bugs Moran and Al Capone, a truce was reached once and for all. Yay, peace at last in the windy city. But like I said before, Al, Mr. Al, he had a very bad temper. And he was a little, you know, off his rocker. Untreated syphilis will do that to you too.

It turned out that, like, this truce was a trick, of course. Al Capone agreed to the truce so Bugs would let his guard down. Now it's February 14th, 1929. It's a super romantic Valentine's Day. It was a cold winter morning in Chicago. Gray skies, piercing cold.

If you've ever been to Chicago, you know that the winters are super rough, and it was no different this day. The early risers like bakers and florists were up and working, but most of the town was still cozy in their beds, except for seven gangsters on the north side, all gathered at a mechanic's garage. These men were part of Bugs Moran's gang, and they were all together because they were expecting a large shipment of whiskey to arrive that very morning.

Now the garage itself was filled with cars that were half taken apart with no intention of being put back together. You see, this building was a front. So to the public, this garage looked like a mechanic shop, but to the mobsters, this was like a shipping location for booze.

Now around 10.30 a.m., a black Cadillac rolled up to the shop and the driver stayed put as four men stepped out of the car. Two of those men were in police uniforms carrying big shotguns and the other two men were dressed in suits carrying machine guns. Wait, something ain't right here, you know.

Cops getting out of Cadillacs with shotguns? But Bugs' men, they weren't scared at all. They figured the police were there because they wanted a cut of the action. The mafia was used to like paying off the police, so they didn't even bother pulling their guns out. The men just expected the cops to give a fat wad of cash, a bottle of whiskey, and then

They would carry on and leave. But instead, the police told them, get away from the doors, get away from the doors and windows, up against the wall. Now, Bugs' men were startled. But, I mean, they did what they were told. Then, once everyone was lined up, the policemen and the men in suits raised their guns and fired at Bugs' gang. Bang after bang after bang. After emptying their guns, all seven men lay on the ground naked.

I was going to say dead for drama, but they didn't all die. Several of them died immediately, but some like slowly bled to death. So it was a little dramatic. The gunman walked back to the car and sped off. Now when police arrived and started asking around like any witnesses, witnesses only said that they saw two other cops with suspects. Well friends, those two policemen who shot Bugs' men were actually not cops. I'm sure you guessed, but gasp.

They were actually Al Capone's men in disguise. The goal was to kill Bugs, but plot twist, he wasn't even there. Okay? Apparently Bugs overslept and did end up showing up right before the shooting started. Now when he saw the fake police, he was like, I'm going home. He turned around and he left. He ran away. I

I guess it was clear that the hit was for him. So he figured he couldn't save his men, but still not a great look for handbags. Meanwhile, Al Capone was in Florida just soaking up those sweet Florida bath salts. And when the police and the newspaper started saying Al Capone was responsible for all of this, he pointed out that he couldn't have-

killed all those men because he was in Florida. Now, to this day, nobody's been convicted of this massacre. And after the attempt on his life, Bucks left Chicago altogether and went to New York to retire. Now, within a year, Ad had complete control over the city of Chicago. But this is when the United States really started

to decide like they had enough, okay? There was nonstop news coverage of the massacre and other mafia related violence. And it was coming off the heels of a major story involving the government poisoning alcohol supplies. So this got everybody wondering, was prohibition good? This was my biggest question when I decided to do this story. Like what came from it? Was it good? Was there a positive from it? I mean, yeah, was there?

So let's recap. During Prohibition, drinking increased. The government poisoned alcohol, which was then sold to the working class who died in huge numbers. Organized crime became a violent cornerstone of American history. And also, Prohibition even fucked the economy over. Yeah. So it didn't even help the economy.

Over 250,000 jobs at breweries, saloons, and alcohol distribution centers disappeared during Prohibition. Now to top it off, if you haven't realized by now, Americans, I don't think it's an American thing. It's just people like to drink. It's like a, it's a social human thing. I don't know.

Is it good? Is it bad? That's up for debate, but you know, people just like to drink. And then the United States entered the Great Depression. Remember? Shout out to Great Depression. Every problem that prohibition caused was made even worse. And since the Great Depression affected the government's bottom line too, historians say that money began to trump morals. So...

That's actually America's tagline, sorry. Like, yeah, that's it, great. So discussions started to shift toward figuring out a way to repeal prohibition. They were like, okay, maybe this wasn't a good idea, you guys. Whose idea was this? Whose idea? Who do we blame? And in 1932, that conversation heated up when a man named Franklin Roosevelt ran for president.

Like most United States politicians of the day, Franklin supported prohibition initially. But a huge part of his 1932 campaign focused on legalizing alcohol once again. He campaigned on the promise that the legalization of beer alone would increase the federal revenue by several hundred million dollars a year. Now, whether it was because of his stance on repealing alcohol or not,

Franklin Roosevelt became president in March of 1933. And shortly after, the 21st Amendment was passed and ratified, which ended prohibition after 13, 13 long years. Could you imagine? That's wild. That same year, Congress quietly passed a law preventing literal poisons like arsenic from being added to industrial alcohol vats. Wow, thanks.

it's just like too little too late since all that alcohol got poisoned throughout prohibition but sure okay great so in conclusion let me close my little dark history book here because was prohibition a waste of our time

That's the question here. I mean, mostly. But there was some good that came out of the era. For starters, women weren't allowed in most bars before prohibition. And then once alcohol was legal again, the new bars that popped up were modeled after the speakeasies in that era.

The men and women alike were now welcome to partake in a little hooch, a little alcohol. So yay for us. Alcohol consumption may not have like, it didn't really drop dramatically during prohibition like everybody expected it, but you know what did? Liver disease. Yeah. Between the start and end of prohibition, death from cirrhosis of the liver, which is linked to alcohol consumption, dropped by almost 20%.

Something positive. Wow. As far as any other good it did, I guess it depends on who you ask. Some historians say alcohol consumption dropped 30% overall during this era, while others point out that it's literally impossible to measure that.

Some historians say that domestic abuse numbers dropped dramatically during the era, which was the main goal of the WCTU in the first place. But other historians say that those numbers likely dropped for reasons other than alcohol being illegalized, such as the rise of industrialization. I don't know about that because, I mean, the guys are getting fucking shit-faced and beating the shit out of their wives. I think if they're sober, that would kind of...

Yeah, okay. Women were getting hired into more and more factory jobs. They were working longer hours than ever. So couples saw each other less often. Still, if you want to say domestic abuse dropped in the U.S. in the 1920s, you wouldn't be wrong. Many just say it's not right to say it's because of prohibition. I don't know. I'd like to think that...

It kind of makes sense. I really hoped I'd find out that prohibition led to something meaningful. And, I mean, it was just long, tiring years where people had to get creative. And women weren't getting beat up. So...

That's nice. I think that's nice. Some say prohibition was an act of government overreach that led to much more bad than good, which we can say that because many were poisoned and it was like never acknowledged. That was kind of weird. Others say that the country had an immoral problem and something needed to be done.

But you know, whatever happened to the separation of church and state? Still asking that today, huh? I don't know. Just wanted to take a journey down prohibition lane and ask some questions. And boy, did I get some answers. Joan, thoughts? Wow, she had a lot to say today. She had a lot to say. Thank you for hanging out with me and learning with me today. Did you learn anything new about prohibition? Let me know down below. I would love to hear what you learned. What's your takeaway here that, um...

Many people died by the government, never acknowledged. Women weren't getting beat up. Women started working a lot. The nice thing about prohibition was that now like women could go to bars and speakeasies and the mafia, they're just pretty badass.

That's why I'm taking away here. Remember, don't be afraid to ask questions and to get the whole story because you deserve that. Now, I'd love to hear your reactions to this story, so make sure to use the hashtag darkhistory so I can follow along to see what you're saying. Because I'm always looking. Boop, boop, boop. Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs and also catch Murder, Mystery, and Makeup, which drops every Monday.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices and I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye. Say bye, Joan.

Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive produced by Bailey Sarian, Kim Jacobs, Dunja McNeely from 3Arts, Fanny Baudry, and Claire Turner from Wheelhouse DNA. Produced by Lexi Kiven. Research provided by Tisha Dunstan and Thomas Messersmith. Writers Jed Bookout, Joyce Gluzo, and Kim Yeagid. Edited by Jim Lushi. Hey, Jim.

Special thank you to historical consultant Emily Owens, professor at University of California, Irvine. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful day. Goodbye.