Out west, Prohibition agents take the gunslingers' path to enforcement. When their methods backfire, it stains Mabel Walker Willebrandt's Dry cause, while Formula 6 lurks in the shadows. Preorder the SNAFU book and join me on book tour at www.snafu-book.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who is Richard Two-Gun Hart and what is his story?
This is Richard's great-grandson, Corey Hart. And no, it's not the 80s rock star Corey Hart who wears sunglasses at night, much to the disappointment of my inner 10-year-old. So families in Homer, Nebraska know all too well how the area is prone to flooding. And this one is really bad. Water rises up and crashes into the little town.
Dozens of houses are destroyed and some are even completely washed away. For Richard and the Winch family in the car, the situation gets dire.
What they didn't realize is that the car that they were in was also beginning to be overtaken by that flood.
The storm pounds on the hood of the car, but through the rain, they see a girl walking on the side of the road. They pull over to let her in and tell her it's not safe outside. But before they can get the car moving again, they're caught in a surge of water. It rises up under them, lifting the car and sweeping the whole thing into the current.
The little girl is terrified and in a moment of panic, she jumps out of the car and she's instantly flushed downstream. So Richard saw what was happening and jumped in to save the girl. He swims hard and stays in control despite the raging flood around him. When he catches up to her, He finds she's caught on a tangle of barbed wire fence invisible under the murky brown surface.
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Chapter 2: How did floods and natural disasters impact Homer, Nebraska and Richard Hart's life?
Working quickly, Richard untangles her and swims on. He drags her to the far bank, then he turns back to the river.
Kathleen Winch was in the vehicle that was floating away, but Richard and another individual in Homer were able to jump in and pull that car to safety.
Richard fights the river yet again to save Kathleen's life and drag the Winch family car back to dry land. Yes, you heard that right. He pulls a car from a raging flood. One of those superhuman adrenaline rushes, I guess.
So it was his bravery that really caught the eye of Kathleen and said that this is the guy that I want to be with.
Maybe a little bit of transference going on here, but I'm kind of falling in love with this guy right now. I mean, who wouldn't? As the flood cleared and the story spread, the town of Homer decided Richard Hart was just the kind of hero they needed. He may have still been an outsider, but they made this rugged 20-something their town marshal.
And just in the nick of time, because there was another flood coming. The flood of illegal liquor that Alexander Gettler warned about. It wasn't just in the big cities like New York. It was coast to coast. When Mabel Walker Willebrandt and the Bureau Boys looked west for agents to fight the alcohol flood in Nebraska, Richard volunteered.
As a lawman, he was known for toting not one, but two guns, which gave him the Wild West nickname of every little cowpoke's dreams, Richard Two-Gun Hart. He became a soldier in the dry army. As the leaders of the dry cause grew more and more desperate to fight the influx of booze, it would put Richard shoulder to shoulder with some of the most vicious forces in America.
I'm Ed Helms, and this is Snafu, a show about history's greatest screw-ups. This is Season 3, the story of Formula 6, how prohibition's war on alcohol went so off the rails, the government wound up poisoning its own people.
Today, we're leaving Norris and Gettler in New York and James Duran and Mabel Walker-Willibrandt in D.C., and we're taking a trip out west to see how things are going with prohibition agents far afield, a place where classic Yahoo gunslinging methods were used, methods that would shock the public and eventually stain the dry cause. So this two-gun nickname.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Prohibition agents face enforcing the law out west?
And the dream season is now complete. The Golden State Warriors are the 2015 NBA champions.
On the new limited podcast series, Dub Dynasty, it's been 10 years since their shocking run to a championship. We examine the controversial move that made it possible.
It's never a great conversation as a player when you hear that you're being benched.
For the entire behind-the-scenes story of Golden State's incredible 10-year run, listen to Dub Dynasty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
If he couldn't use his gun, he would use his fist to apprehend these criminals and bootleggers. That was something he really prided himself with. In this instance, it went wrong.
It was October of 1923. Back in New York, Alexander Gettler is starting to earn a reputation as a forensic Sherlock. He's just published a groundbreaking study on the deadly solvent benzene, which to his horror, he's finding in dead bodies in his laboratory at Bellevue, though he's not yet sure why.
Meanwhile, in D.C., Babel Walker Willebrandt is just starting to unravel the epic corruption all around her at the Department of Justice. And back in the heartland, no pun intended, Richard Hart catches a break, too. He gets a tip about a bootlegger smuggling liquor onto the Winnebago Reservation near Homer.
He meets with some of the Winnebago men who are willing to help him stop the flow of liquor into their community.
selected two of them to go to kind of a bootleg operation and try to score some alcohol.
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Chapter 4: How did Richard Two-Gun Hart's law enforcement methods cause conflict in Spencer, Nebraska?
Chapter 5: What was the significance of Mabel Walker Willebrandt's role in Prohibition enforcement?
Chapter 6: What was the connection between Mary Pinchot Meyer and powerful figures in the 1960s?
She had been shot twice in the head and in the back.
It turns out Mary was connected to a very powerful man.
I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy.
Listen to Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Chapter 7: What historical true crime stories do Holly Fry and Maria Tremarcki explore on Criminalia?
Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarcki, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrars, known as the Wicked Lady, who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death.
Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to Criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey there, it's your host, Ed Helms here. Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted to remind you that my brand new book is coming out on April 29th. It's called Snafu, The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw-Ups. And you can pre-order it right now at snafu-book.com. Trust me, if you like this show, you're gonna love this book.
It's got all the wild disasters, spectacular face plants we just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker. I am also going on tour to celebrate. That's right. I'm coming to New York, D.C., Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and my hometown, Los Angeles.
So if you've ever wanted to see me stumble through a live Q&A or dramatically read about a kitty cat getting turned into a CIA operative, now's your chance. Again, head to snafu-book.com to preorder the book and check out all the tour details and dates. Or just click the link in the show notes. That'll work too. Okay, that's it. On with the chaos. This is Snafu Season 3, Formula 6.
Last time on Snafu, Mabel Walker-Willibrandt's wet opponents were scary powerful, especially in court.
George Ramis, one of the craziest stories you hear about, like an incredibly successful defense attorney becomes like the biggest bootlegger ever.
But even when Mabel won her cases, it felt like she was always just one step behind the sprawling bootleg business.
She didn't have much in the way of financial support. And one of the things that was indicative of the attitude of the Drys is that they passed these laws but gave no money for enforcement. Playing by the rules just couldn't hold back the tide of liquor washing over America.
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Chapter 8: How did Richard Two-Gun Hart’s pursuit of bootleggers escalate into a dangerous chase?
Who did the Klan target? Pretty much anyone who wasn't white and Protestant. Anyone who wasn't already cut in the mold of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. We're talking immigrants, black Americans, Jews, Catholics. Everyone the dry movement was trying to squeeze. The Klan was like, hey, you're giving us an excuse to just beat up all the people we don't like? Right on.
So when Mabel sees a lawyer ready to dive into the culture war by stretching the meaning of self-defense to an unbelievable breaking point, all to defend murderous Klansmen, she sees the kind of conviction she's been looking for. One reporter asked her how she justified working with the Klan, and Mabel said, I have no objection to people dressing up in sheets if they enjoy that sort of thing.
So this is crazy, right? I mean, yeah, Mabel's been the ice queen and all that, but there's a difference between cold and cutthroat. There's a difference between coordinating with the Coast Guard to stop rum runners and teaming up with the nation's most powerful cabal of racist murderers. Mabel was at the end of her rope. She decided she was ready and willing to cross that line.
Since Mabel recruited actual official prosecutors from the KKK, well, it sent a signal to the Klan across the nation. So Klan members from Illinois made a trip to the Treasury offices in Washington, and they found the doors wide open to them. They told the Treasury officials that they had plenty of foot soldiers ready and willing to rain hell on bootleggers back at home.
The Prohibition Commissioner liked the offer. He sent a few of his division chiefs and gave them the order. Deputize the Klansmen and unleash them on southern Illinois. And that brings us to Two-Gun. No, not Richard Hart. There was actually a different guy with that nickname too. Two-Gun Glenn Young. Another Two-Gun in the 1920s? What can I say? This is America.
There's at least two guns for every guy that wants them. Here's where both two guns line up. By 1923, two-gun Glenn Young had already been on trial for murdering bootleggers across southern Illinois. In fact, he added Mankiller to his nickname. So in 1923, the Klan in Southern Illinois asked guys like Two-Gun Mankiller to come on down to the city of Heron and crush a pesky problem for them.
Immigrant Italian mine workers had been fighting with the mine company that ran the place. Those fights had gotten bloody. Workers had already been killed. So the Klan figured that putting a couple more guns to work was exactly what they needed. So in December of 1923, over 500 Klan raiders deputized as prohibition agents swept down through the Italian immigrant homes.
But what they did was the opposite of law enforcement. It was straight up terrorism. One Italian recalled the scene when a gang of armed Klansmen broke into his home. They smashed up his kitchen. They even drank his wine, mocking him before they dragged him to jail.
After two major raids by the Klan, now turned into federal agents, Two Gun Man Killer took up residence as the de facto military dictator of the county. The violence continued. Home invasions, beatings, shootings. Kidnapped locals were paraded downtown by Klan gunmen. But if they thought this was going to win support for their cause, they miscalculated. Badly.
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