American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 19.2 Rutherford B Hayes

Episode Date: September 21, 2019

Hayes has lived a life of happiness, kittens and rainbows so far - but now the Rock of Hayes’ optimism is about the hit the Hard Place of post war America. Something will have to give: either Hayes��� sunny perspective on life, or an increasingly corrupt, racist and divided govenment. Take your bets…

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Rutherford B. Hayes Part 2. Hello and welcome to American President Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all the presidents from Washington to Trump. And this is episode 19.2, Rutherford B. Hayes. Oh yeah. And here we are, Jamie. Oh, here we are. Oh yes.

Guess where we are, fellow listeners? Guess where we are? Well, we're in the same place as normal yeah but we've we've got to change i have no idea if it will pick up on the sound um but instead of a tiny little sofa that we've been recording on for the last three and a half years we've got a couple of armchairs and a little table and a decanter of whiskey this is going to make our podcast amazing it's going to make everything so much better yeah the quality everything will be at least 10 better than i think so i think so so no pressure no pressure no all right so b hayes last week very um very lovey-dovey a bit sort of cutie wookie kins a lollipop is how you describe yes which i thought was an amazing way to describe yeah he's he's a lollipop he is a loipop. And I hope he remains a lollipop. Did you find more diary stuff?

There's not as much, I'm afraid to say, but there is some. Don't worry. There's some. Good, good. There's some. We'll add it anyway. That's what historians do. It's fine.

Okay, you ready? Yes. For today's intro, I'll let you choose a colour. I actually didn't think of one. Yeah, no, I didn't. All right. Gold. Good luck with that.

Fine. Gold. yeah no i didn't all right um gold good luck with that fine gold you start on gold and you see sort of these lights flashing across the gold surface and you realize you really zoomed in on the nib of a fountain pen oh for goodness sake change my mind no purple it's gold It's a purple fountain pen with a gold nib. And then zoom out and there is, sure enough, a fountain pen just flowing across a piece of paper really nice and easily. And there is Hayes, nice and bearded. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sat in his office writing. And he looks up a bit, strokes his chin, chuckles to's remembered something and he pops it down maybe maybe the death of his second child

what a day scratch scratch scratch but then suddenly the door bursts open like clangs off the door kind of sir sir mr hayes mr hayes the results they're in hayes looks up there's a pause oh yes says hayes am i to be the next president of these united states another pause and the younger man looks a bit confused and says well it depends oh cut to black to black. Ooh. Rutherford B. Hayes, part two. Oh, that's interesting. It is interesting, isn't it? So, I don't know if controversial is the right word, but a unique circumstance leads to presidency. Or presidentship, as I'm calling it.

Is what it's known as. Yes. Yeah, right, so there we go. Ooh, interesting. Well, let's dive into it. We left Hayes. We did. We did. We did.

The perpetually optimistic Hayes, just as he became the governor of Ohio. Of Ohio, yes, well done. However, as we have seen before, governorships in certain states are largely ceremonial, roles with no power. A bit like our monarchy. Maybe a bit more than that, to be fair. But Hayes certainly had no veto power. Okay. And with no veto power, it meant he didn't really have much power at all. You just have to sort of persuade people. Be more political rather than cheating.

Unfortunately, though, the state government was largely packed with Democrats. So, yeah, he didn't have much to do. This, however, you will be not surprised to learn does not get hazed down of course not i will quote yay i am enjoying the new office it strikes me at a guess as the pleasantest i've ever had not much hard work plenty of time to read good society etc etc that's wonderful it's just so nice he doesn't even need to continue yeah just just hard work, plenty of time to read, good society, etc, etc.

That's wonderful. Just so nice he doesn't even need to continue. Yeah, just typically wonderful. Splendid. So he spent his time influencing decisions, as you suggested, such as the building of schools for the deaf and dumb. You did that. That's good.

Yeah, and also a little hobby of his collecting portraits of the previous governors. Is that his hobby? Yeah, yeah. To be placed in the state house. It's not personal. But he wants a record of all the past governors so he can finally put his at the end.

Yeah, yeah. I always keep saying as a funny joke, save the best till last. Oh, Hayes. It's infectious though. It is,es. It's infectious, though. It is, yeah. Everyone's just grating by the end. Candyland.

You just know that Hayes would give a lollipop to everyone who came to visit him when he was governor. He's got a little lollipop thing on his table. I bet he does. He definitely has one of them. Angry unionist comes in. Lollipop? I'm not here for your damn... Oh, is that cherry?

Don't mind if I do. Anyway, news then comes through that Johnson, the president at the time, has escaped impeachment. Remember, he just beat it by one vote. But as we have seen, Johnson was politically ruined and he started to campaign on behalf of Grant, who he had now met several times due to his stay in Washington when he was a member of the House. Now, there's not much to say of the time that he was governor. A bit like when he was a member of the House of Representatives. He just gets on with it. Things happen.

Yeah. Not really important. There's no big stories for me to tell you. In fact, I think this sums up how exciting his tenure as governor was because one of the most exciting things that happens is that he gets on the wrong side of a certain faction of the population and what faction do you never want to anger if you're in politics at the extreme it's not the extreme oh like a rich people it's not the rich people i'll just tell you it's the geologists oh my goodness yeah and rule 101 in politics you don't annoy the geologists

they are the foundation stones of politics of society yeah that i our quote here. A leading geologist was passed over for a job and threatened to take me down. Colonel Whittlesey is very angry and very vindictive because he is not state geologist. He threatens terribly to defeat my nomination and the like. I will give you earthquakes. I will cause a landslide. He annoyed a geologist. Oh. That's about as exciting as it gets.

Wow. Yeah. And Tuesday helps a cute puppy up from the road. Yeah, pretty much. Injured paw. Well, you'll be pleased to know that the geologist did not manage to take Hayes down. Good. And Hayes was re-elected.

He continued to work on building collections for libraries, for example, and generally doing his duties. Now, due to a rise in the Republicans in the state, the 15th Amendment was then passed in Ohio, which is good. So this is voting rights for the black population. Well, sorry, the black men. Women, obviously, are not allowed to vote. That would just be... that way madness lies anyway then in 1872 hayes decides to step down and retire from

politics he wanted to spend more time with his family he just had a couple more children born oh yeah time to spend time with his family and as you can imagine he's quite happy with this idea yeah i feel foolishly happy about this my first day of freedom he's happy about everything though yes if the next day right you got a new office now sorry you can't retire you've got a new office you got this really hard job to do splendid wonderful can't wait ecstatically happy well if he imagined life of retirement and ease however he was going to be disappointed. Or at least he'd have to change what he was being happy about.

Yeah. Yes. Because Hayes had many supporters by this point who were convinced that his political career was not ending, but in fact just starting. I think we might be onto something. Yeah. A man named John Sherman was about to be elected to the Senate, like the National Senate, but there were some in the Republican Party in Ohio who felt that Hayes would in fact be the better choice here. Let's not put Sherman in. We've got Hayes here. He'll do a better job.

His beard is longer. That's how you measure success. Oh yes. That's what got me into year six this year. Yes. But one night on a cold January evening, Hayes was just putting out all the lights in his house, and he was about to go to bed, when all of a sudden, the doorbell rang. Ding dong. He's definitely got one of those novelty happy doorbells. Dilly dong, dilly dong.

Dilly dong, dilly dong. Dilly dong, dilly dong. Dilly dong, dilly dong. It stops. Hayes hums it to himself as he goes to the door. Well, it was two fellow Republicans that he knew. One a senator and one a member of the House of Representatives. Unusual visitors this late at night. But there they are.

They obviously were invited in and the senator spoke in our quote here. Well, I come to business at once. We want to make you senator. John Sherman is a corrupt man and ought to be defeated. I have nothing personal against him, but his defeat is certain if you consent. Besides, the man now elected senator over the caucus will be next president of the United States. Yeah, obviously that's not necessarily true, but what the senator's saying there is, look, if you run for the senate,

your name's already quite big. You'll be big enough to throw your name in the ring. You've got a chance. Yeah, so become senator and who knows what will happen. I guess even if you lose out in the voting round, like, was it Gray? He was the one that was lost. Oh, Clay.

Clay, that was it. But I'm guessing his career didn't suffer much from that because he still made loads of money and... Oh, yeah. ...he was rich all his life. Yeah. And he owned slaves, so... Yeah. Anyway.

What a git. Anyway, Hayes thinks about this for a very brief amount of time. It doesn't take him long to respond. One, two, three. Yes, I'll do it. No. Oh, one. Yes, I'll do it.

No, you got the wrong answer. Oh, oh. Oh, yes. Oh, no. Yes. Hayes replied that he was out of politics. In fact, I'll quote his diary here. The senator said that it was strange to see the senatorship refused with the presidency in prospect.

The conversation lasted perhaps 15 minutes, and at last he asked, Well, if we vote for you and elect you, will you not accept? Hayes again repeated that he would not. He's got no interest. The men left, and he went to bed. He told Lucy what had happened and what had been said and Lucy apparently simply laughed. Lucy, possibly just as cheerful as Hayes.

Oh, I hope so. Yeah. Or really miserable. That's the only time she's laughed all year. I twitch as every time she hears Hayes' laughter. Let's hope not. What a splendid idea honey but then the doorbell goes again jumps out of bed because he's the kind of man who jumps out of bed

visitors splendid lands in his slippers yes Yes. On the banner sitting on the stairs. Yeah, just slides down. Opens the door. This time it was a friend of his uncle's, or a friend of him, a well-known associate, and also a high-up Republican who had just come from a meeting. Apparently, a bunch of the high-up Republicans had got together, and they'd been talking, and support for Hayes really was building. And his friend said to Hayes, I believe we can elect you, but you must consent.

Hayes replied, I can't honorably do it. There's no use talking. It's settled and has been for weeks, as in the election of Sherman. The friend said, well, if you say that, I must give up. I admire your principle, but John Sherman wouldn't do it. And with that, he left. Do you think they all think that Hayes is doing the whole Roman thing? Oh, I can't possibly do it. Probably, yeah. But he's not actually.

No, he's just going, no thanks. I'm fine. They think, oh, he's so honourable. And his support grows and grows. Yeah, he genuinely doesn't want to do it at this point, and that just seems to make people want him more. It's plain hard to get is Hayes, but he's not playing. No, he's just, I don't want to do it.

Yeah. So with this close brush with politics averted, Hayes settles down into his retirement. Another boy was born around this time, and he spends time with his family. See, that's something I can't imagine with Hayesze doing the thing you need to do to get a child i think he'd be scared i bet he says yippee at the end he spends a while doing that however bringing, bringing it down now, his uncle grew ill shortly afterwards. Unrelated, I hasten to add. So Hayes went to go and spend

some time with his uncle. Remember, Hayes' father died before he was born. And his uncle was essentially the father figure in his life. Oh, gosh, yeah. Big thing. It was during this time that President Grant offered Hayes a job. Assistant treasurer. However, Hayes was not impressed.

I don't want to sharpen pencils. I mean, I love doing it. It's amazing, but... Not now. Well, I'll quote him. The office I would not take, except as a means of keeping hunger from the door. And after what I have been, and after what I have done, it would be small potatoes to grasp this crumb. Thanks be given, then, that I am independent of office for my daily bread. I wouldn't do it unless I had to. I don't have to, so great. Lonnie pops for everyone. Yeah.

It's not long after this that the country's economy collapses, as we saw in Grant's episode. Yeah. See, if only Hayes had been there. Yeah. Well, as we have also seen, Grant's episode. See, if only Hayes had been there. Yeah. Well, as we have also seen, Grant's government was hit politically. Not only is the economy falling and people starving and going hungry, which is the same thing, but I said it twice because it really was bad, but also all the scandals started up under Grant's presidency.

And the Republicans take a hit politically. Hayes, however, is too busy with his ailing uncle. His uncle had been suffering for several months now. And then on a foggy night in January 1874, Hayes' uncle dies. Do you think Grant was like just talking to a shady guy who's in the Oval Office just saying, make it look like an accident. We need Hayes. No, I don't think we can pin this on Grant.

You sure? No, I don't think so. I'd have to go back and redo his score if we could. I'll quote Hayes writing to a friend after his uncle's death. Uncle's death was a happy one. Of course it was. He suffered very little, none at all in the last half an hour of his life. He talked in a cheerful, pleasant way, with a distinct and natural voice up to the moment of death. I was near being absent, but happily was with him throughout.

He was gifted with many unusual and beautiful traits, and had almost nothing but good in his character. We yet feel lonely and sad without him. At the same time, it is a happiness to think of his release being so pleasant. Do come and see us when you have the chance. See, that's the thing, we sort of mock Hayes for his

kind of buoyant attitude, but that's actually really lovely. It's amazing, isn't it? That's fantastic. If everyone was like Hayes, the world would be a brilliant place. We wouldn't fear death. It's amazing. It really is. I mean, you do see,

if you read through his diaries, which I suggest everyone listening does, his diaries are just amazing. Yeah. You get a sense that this definitely is affecting him more than he lets on in his words. Every fourth entry is just written in red pen capital letters just just him writing the word scream over and over again yeah but apart from that yeah um i mean his uncle like i say had been his father figure his

whole life i mean this clearly affects him But he's just got that optimism and that happy-go-lucky attitude to life. And that's nice. You know, it's a nice ending to his uncle's life, I feel. But life moves on. Not for his uncle. Sorry, too soon. Too soon. And the Republicans were struggling.

As mentioned just a moment ago, the hit to the economy, the scandals and all sorts, means that the Democrat support started to surge across the country, but in particular in Ohio. And the party needed some strong candidates. Soon enough, Hayes was approached with the suggestion that he run for an unprecedented third term as governor. No one's ever done that in Ohio before. Oh yes. I'll quote, a third term would be a distinction, a feather I would like to wear. Oh and he's the kind of person that would wear a feather. Oh yes definitely. Hayes, still popular in the state, was able to win this election even though he was a republican. Oh wow. Yeah and as was predicted a few years previously by his visitors, it would not be too hard now for Hayes

to get onto the top rung of the Republican Party. He's now a Republican governor in a Democrat-heavy state. I mean, that flags your name up. You must be doing something right. Yeah. Why do we change all our policies to match what he's doing? Don't be stupid. No. So sure enough, his name started to be mentioned whenever the upcoming Republican convention was being talked about. People started saying things like, what about Hayes? He could be president. Hayes? You know. The lollipop? The lollipop, yes. The bearded lollipop? Yes. Oh, the lollipop I dropped on my floor. Well, Hayes, a natural optimist, as I'm sure you've noticed, was far more realistic in his views about his name being bandied about, linked to the presidency. He realised he didn't really have a chance here.

No. He thought that his name being put forward was a compliment and one that he enjoyed, but it would probably go no further than that. However, he did concede that perhaps the vice presidency was a possibility. Okay. So that's kind of what he's aiming for. In fact, I'll quote him, The vice presidency seems to be conceded to me on all sides, or nearly so.

I have seen evidences of a desire to give me the second place on the ticket from Conkling and Blaineman. Oh. Well, that will and Blain Men. Oh. Well, that will mean nothing to you. Nope. But I'm about to explain. Because it is time to introduce you to the new factions dominating the Republican Party. We are going to need to know these because they make a huge difference over the next few years.

Okay. So after eight years of scandal under Grant and 12 years after the war's end, the Republican Party is starting to take a very different shape, and two main factions had appeared. Now, as ever, political shifts and factions are very complex, and are a result of many factors. So this is a simplification, but roughly this is where the factions come from.

So first of all, we have the Halfbreeds, led by James Blaine from Maine. The Halfbreeds. That's right. We have James Blaine from Maine and the Halfbreeds. That's a band and a half. It's a jazz band. It really is. Definitely a jazz band. Yeah.

So they're one faction. The second faction is the Stowatts, led by Roscoe Conkling, also known as Lord Conkling. Conkling. As a nickname. Conk-ling. C-O-N-K-L-I-N-G. That's what spells it.

Good. Yes, he was from New York, was Conkling. So there are two factions. The Halfbreeds with Blaine and the Stalwarts with Conkling. Let's start with the Halfbreeds, shall we? Yeah. As is common with political names, this name actually came from their opponents. It was an insult to begin with, which was claimed.

Bear it where it's a badge of honour. Yes, exactly. The idea was that they were only half-Republican. Ah. Yes, so Halfbreed. The main area that the two factions disagreed with was that of political patronage. Now, the half-breeds believed that civil service needed to be reformed, and that government posts should be filled with those that showed merit.

The best man for the job should get the job. What a ridiculous idea. Craziness. On the other side, the Stalwarts,, who came from the radical Republicans a decade before. So that's where they come from. They believed that party members who had been loyal and had worked hard to get the party elected should be given positions in government. See, the trouble with that, though, you might be great at the propaganda. You might be great at egging people on to get that position of your party, but you might be terrible administration.

True. So that's a terrible idea. Well, we'll go into it in a bit more detail. Blaine from Maine and the Halfbreeds saw the stalwarts as corrupt, quite simply. They were getting their mates into positions and the reason for all the scandals under Grant was because of all this patronage going on. So according to the half-breeds,

the stalwarts' way of doing things was why this was becoming known as the Gilded Age, as rich company men just entangled themselves into politics as a way to get rich quick. Yeah. In fact, I will quote Blaine from Maine here, All the desperate men of the party bent on loot and booty. That was his way of describing the Stalwarts.

And booty back then meant something very different to what it does now. Yeah. Maybe. It's baby boots. Yes. That's what they wanted. Yep. So on the other side, the Stowalts, under Lord Conkling, saw themselves as the defenders of the Union.

They were the winners of the Civil War, after all. Yeah. They were the emancipators of the slaves. They were the ones, coming from the radical Republicans, that really pushed for emancipation. So they felt that they had the moral high ground. And they were not about to give up their hard work. The half-breeds were, in their eyes, practically Democrats. And when they said best man for the job, what they actually meant was someone that they approved with, even Democrats,

who will come in and strip away all the advances we have made since the Civil War. But again, that's not, not like if you're playing party politics yes that would be awful you want your party to succeed because you agree with those policies because you're part of that party yeah yes however a fair point to it is to concede as well because actually this person's maybe not best for the job somebody else should do it we'll they're best the country let's put our money behind them are you falling on the uh the half-breed side then i a little bit so far i i i can see both sides but yeah no i know what you mean it's like come on stop giving your mates the jobs yeah that's just especially when everything's right yeah yeah everything's rife with corruption yeah but still all we need to

know for now that those are the two main factions in the Republican Party. Now, Grant had been backed by the Stowarts. And as the next election was coming up, both factions start vying for power. And as I mentioned before, or rather Hayes mentioned, he's hearing from people from both factions saying he'd do all right as vice president. So that looks good.

Yeah. Got support from both factions. So the convention arrives. Both Blaine and Conkling were on the ballot. Both wanted to become president. They didn't want to be the power behind the throne. So you've got Blaine and Conkling, also a handful of other men that we don't need to bother with.

Most of them served under Grant. And then you had Hayes. Sure enough, when the vote started, Blaine does very, very well. In fact, he gets more than double the second placeman, Oliver Morton. Oh. That's one of the founders of the Republican Party.

Wow. He worked under Grant. Getting more than double than second place is good, but it's not quite two thirds of the total vote, which is what he needs. But that also means Conkling really didn't do very well. Well, Hayes was a distant fifth, and Conkling was not much better than Hayes. Wow. Yeah. Conkling, remember, is kind of wrapped up in the Hayes administration. Yeah, yeah. So

they're taking a bit of a battering at the moment. Anyway, voting continues throughout the day, not much changes, and Hayes let it be known that he was very happy regardless of the results. Splendid day. Yes in fact he didn't really want to be vice president and when he found out that it looked like he wasn't going to get anywhere he wrote this relieves me greatly. Wonderful news. But the convention breaks up for the, and as we have seen before, whispers were had, cigars were smoked and brandy was drank. Things begin to change. The stalwarts, realising that they could not get Conkling enough votes, there's no way they're going to get there, so they decide to back a candidate that was not an obvious half-breed to stop Blaine from winning.

There's now damage limitation. Yeah, it's now, what can we do to stop blaine from winning but they're doing a half free technique it's like the best person for the job because that you know should have gone for conkling he's also not good enough let's ditch that and vote for somebody that's good for the job and would get there well i think they more see it as putting one of their mates in duh that's how they that's how they advertise it but that's a load of rubbish. Fair enough. They've sold out. Well, the next day, voting starts,

and three men who were all getting sort of middling votes the previous day suddenly get no votes at all. Oh, wow. All of their votes all of a sudden go to Hayes. All of their votes all of a sudden go to Hayes. In fact, he suddenly had 384 votes to Blaine's 351. And that's enough. Oh, wow. Hayes does not become the vice president.

He suddenly wins the nomination for president. So there you go. He's the nominee. Not long after this, the Democrats have their convention and they nominate Samuel Tilden from New York. Ah, President Tilden, yeah. You know him well. Well, Tilden had gained a reputation during Grant's presidency when he broke up not one but two corrupt

rings. This was the Canal Ring and the Tweed Ring. Oh, yes. Just a load of farmers and middle-class oiks. I would love to tell you that the tweed ring was about corruption in the tweed business yes i hoped it was so much i did look into it oh turns out no it's named after a man called william tweed but because this is an audio podcast our listeners are now free to imagine william tweed wearing all

tweed tweed shirt tweed socks oh tweed pants yeah as in underwear yes yeah tweed codpiece oh itchy not sure how popular cod pieces were back in there oh he had one 19th century new york but he had one it was tweed so william tw, apart from having a bold dress sense, was a democratic politician that created a corrupt ring around him, which essentially ended up with him controlling New York City through embezzlement, bribery and kickbacks. Now, this kind of thing is happening up and down the country. But just to highlight to you what's going on, he controlled companies that would work on the infrastructure of the city.

They would go out and they'd build a portion of a railroad or they'd build a section of road. Gloss the road. Exactly. But they would purposely do a rubbish job, so when it needed to be repaired shortly afterwards, the repair company would go out. Who is also owned. That was also owned, of course, by Tweed. And they do a terrible job.

Yeah, exactly. And so on and so on. Not only this. I mean, they're just the typical stuff of political bribes and just organised crime, essentially. Is that why Brooklyn Bridge is made out of tissue paper? Yes, yeah. If you look underneath, you can still see the chewing gum that holds it together. Yeah, that's quite cool.

Yeah, exactly. The canal ring that I mentioned was similar, but just with canals, as you can probably imagine. Yeah. So, OK, I know you're going to go into this. I'm really intrigued. The Republican Party have been demolished, been destroyed, as in the reputation, certainly, and the view,

because of the crash of the economy and all the bad reputations going on. Then you've got a hero who's locking people up, who the Republican people stand for. Yeah, the next president is a Republican. Yeah. But I know something weird goes on. Something weird goes on, but also don't forget, Tweed was a Democrat politician.

Oh. Yeah. Do not think that the republicans have all become corrupt no yeah yeah the democrats have that point corruption was rife throughout both parties at this time yes so but i get your point but we will see we will see yeah so tilden publicly fights against Tweed and the canal ring and obviously he becomes a bit of a hero in New York So the election starts up As per usual, both sides look for dirt on the other side

Oh That's going to be tricky Yeah, you will not be surprised to learn there wasn't much to go on It's like I found his personal diaries. Quick, let's read it. My honey bummy boo kings, I wuv you so wery wery much. I mean, the hell?

It's hideously cringy, but is it enough to cause scandal? Possibly. Who is wifey? Yeah, so, well, the Democrats do manage to get a couple of things that they try and pin on Hayes. First of all, they accuse him of being anti-Catholic. Now, this stemmed from the fact that as governor, he had pushed for Catholic schools to not receive funding from the state. They receive it from the Catholic Church. Well, yeah, obviously, as you can imagine, there's a lot of anti-Catholic

feeling around this time. The know-nothings haven't completely disappeared and all that racist feeling is still going on. And they loved Hayes for saying the Catholic schools couldn't be funded by the state. So that's how the Democrats managed to

attack Hayes. You're being supported by a bunch of anti-Catholic racists. However, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest Hayes has any anti-Catholic feelings at all. It would appear that this stems from his ideas that the state should not get involved in religion. Right. And so therefore religious schools should be linked to the religion, not the state. Isn't there something in the Constitution about that as well? State and religion is separated.

Yes, yeah, exactly. So he's following the Constitution. He would argue, yes. I mean, it's not quite as cut and dry as that. But yeah, but this is where Hayes is coming from here. So yeah, the charges of anti-Catholic feelings doesn't stick. I mean, it just doesn't hold water. Several other charges go against him, but all are too weak to do anything. But there is

one that irked Hayes quite a bit. At one point, it was suggested that he was corrupt during the war, namely that he had kept the belongings of a soldier, including a healthy $400 that had been taken from a soldier that had been discharged during the war. I think that would annoy anyone. If you've been a soldier, you've risked your life. I almost died for this country, and I did a damn good job, and you're accusing me of this rubbish. Yeah, this is why this is the one that irks him. In fact, we have here him writing a letter to a friend,

but he is writing a transcript from memory of a conversation he had with a reporter about this. So, if that makes sense. Yes. Reporter, I have called to ask if you object to an interview on the subject of the story of the deserter's money, said to have been appropriated by you for your own use. Hayes's reply, I do not intend to discuss political questions during my candidacy, which is an interesting statement to make. Yeah. But that's the way they viewed things back then.

I'm not here to talk about politics. I want to be elected to president. But sir, I don't think... No. No. No. Lollipop. Ooh.

At least that is my present purpose about it. And I would decline to be interviewed on public affairs, but this charge aimed at my character for integrity and as a soldier is of such a nature that I am glad to have an opportunity to reply to it publicly. The reporter replies, well, please give me the facts in regards to the charge. The charge is, I appropriated to my own use $400 in money taken from a man who was shot as a deserter and a spy, for he was both, in August 1864. And then, like, the screen goes all wobbly. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Hayes starts going...

Porter's looking a bit confused. Yeah, because he goes on to tell an interesting tale of a man during the war. There was a soldier. We need to give him a name because I don't know his name. Chad. Chad. So picture Chad. He's in a rebel uniform. Yeah. Rebel. But one night

he comes across the line and he defects to Hayes' regiment. Comes along with his hands up. I defect. I'm actually a Union man but I've been forced to fight for the other side. So, he's welcomed in. He's given a new, correct looking uniform. Far more

Union looking one. And Chad just starts saying So, what are your secret plans for invading this battle, eh? Eh? Eh, anyone? No, nothing. Is that a map? Oh, you're rolling it up. Yeah. No, not quite.

Well, he then became ill. It was more of a case of, oh, uh-huh, uh-huh. I need to go to the hospital. Uh-huh. Like that. So he was sent to the hospital. I mean, that was a bad case of uh-huhs. However, you'll be shocked to learn that from there, I quote,

he deserted with arms and watches of several men which well i i can only assume means the weapons and the watches of several men but he's in a hospital so i really really hope i think so but it's easier isn't it so i just while i'm trying to unstrap the arm just cut the arm off yes exactly that's bone saws lying around yeah you might as well use them see and that's why i watch my left hand nice if i was cut off i can still use my right hand for writing yes good so imagine chad yeah moving swiftly on imagine chad yeah in the moonlight running across the fields cackling to himself bag full of arms a couple under his arm waving gently as he's running he's holding one in the air waving to the hospital bye

yes and off he goes now get it get a calendar it flicks it flicks it flicks yeah several months pass haze's regiment enter battle. Fierce fighting occurs and some Confederate men are captured. When the Confederates were being rounded up, sure enough, one of Hayes' men recognizes the soldier who had taken the arms and the watches. Hang on, it's you!

I recognize you. What gave it away? Because he's actually sewed in some of the extra arms into his uniform. So it looks like he's got four arms. Like an octopus. Yes. And his real left arm is covered in watches. Yeah.

Rolex. Spent the entire battle just sidling up to people, opening his coat. Loads of watches. And then the other side, just two arms. Yeah. So, yeah. One of Hayes' soldiers go, hang on, I recognise that arm. That's Brian's arm. So the Union soldier scurries off to go and tell his betters what's going on.

We've got this thief, got the watch and arm thief from earlier. Yeah. From a few months ago. However, the next morning when they go to drag him out and see if it's really him, he's nowhere to be seen. He just poof. Like that just disappeared. That's amazing. He was limping around the cage and then as he escaped, you focus on his feet and his limp just disappears.

Oh my goodness. Oh my God. goodness oh my god what a twist what a twist anyway the man's gone okay calendar flick through again hayes's regiment is receiving some reinforcements and some drafted men come through new union soldiers and as the men come into camp some of hayes' men were amazed to see, sure enough, there is Chad, the arm thief. It's him again. Just wandering through. He's just covered in arms now. Yeah. He's like a decapus.

A decapod. Yeah. He's just waving to everyone as he goes past. He's got them all tied with strings. He lifts his arms up and they all lift up as well. Exactly. And in he comes. Just a big grin on his face. No one recognises him, he thinks. Sure enough,

he is recognised. But this time they seize him immediately. Yeah, they're not letting him escape this time. They inform the officers and Chad was put on trial, found guilty and shot. I imagine that was all within a sentence. It was a case of, hang on, isn't that Chad?

Yeah. Yeah, it was that quick. Then the awkward realisation, oh no, it wasn't. Oh no. Oh dear. It's just a man with four arms. Well, Hayes maintains that the $400 that belonged to Chad, if he remembered correctly, had been taken from the deserter who had been executed and was used to find a different recruit.

So just put into the pot, basically, to go and round up some more men. And there you go. That's about it. He points out that this was in the middle of an incredibly busy war. And he tried to find out as much as he could about it. This as far as i've got basically was what he says publicly and there you go that's as far as it goes the only reason why i've included it is because it was a nice little story yeah so there you go those charges don't stick at all hayes is in no way damaged more serious to hayes than the democrats however was the republicans yeah because there was a lot of indifference coming from the stalwarts.

As in they put their votes in, but now they're just like, meh. Well, yeah, I mean, they had helped nominate Hayes over Blaine because they didn't want Blaine to get the presidency. Yeah. But now they've achieved that, they've got what they wanted, they don't really care about Hayes being the president. So Conkling's lukewarm attitude meant that New York was in serious doubt, especially since Tilden's from New York, and he's a bit of a hero over there.

You don't want to lose New York. It's only one vote, though, isn't it? One state. I mean, New York's not that important, is it? In presidential elections. It's a little bit important. So that's not good. And also, it wasn't the only problem.

Reports start coming in through to Hayes that suggest that the honeymoon period for the Republicans post-war is really starting to come to an end. There was too much corruption, the economy too weak for the party to just sail into victory. If they were lucky,

it was going to be a close election. But to be honest, it looks like Tilden's going to win. This news obviously cheered Hayes. Splendid! I'll quote here, now that the flush of gratification upon the nomination is about at an end, I begin to prefer the independence of a private citizen. If the result leaves me so, I will be the most contented defeated presidential candidate that was ever voted for. Every cloud. It's relentless. It is.

I almost feel bruised from this episode. Anyway, the election comes along. Slowly but surely, the results start coming in, and it soon becomes clear. Tilden has won. Oh. Sort of. Maybe Hayes.

What? Well, the New York Herald headline was, The result, colon. What is it? Yeah. Yeah. So what was the problem? Well, it was fairly clear that Tilden had won the popular vote. Easily, hands down.

Yeah. However, the Electoral College was throwing up some problems. As things stood three days after the election, either candidate needs 185 electoral college votes to win. Tilden has 184, so one short. Hayes has 166. The problem being that Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, so a total of 19 votes, were all under dispute. Ah, yeah. All these states were currently being held by Republicans.

Of course. Of course they were. And they were accusing the Democrats in these states of voter suppression and fraud. So we need to check these again. This doesn't seem right. Now, you can imagine how the Democrats reacted to that. It's like if any one of these states go over to Tilden, Tilden's won. He only needs one more vote and you're holding them all back. In all, what a surprise, all Republican outstates.

It doesn't look good. No. The optics aren't great, I'll admit. Still, I mean, this isn't great for Hayes. To win, Hayes needs every single disputed vote to go his way. Everyone. Anyway, news starts... Quick single disputed vote to go his way. Everyone. Anyway, news starts... Quick, sir, send lollipops.

Well, news slowly starts filtering through to Hayes. Apparently, it looks quite good in South Carolina. It looks like it is going to go his way. But things looked a bit dodgy in Florida and Louisiana. Anyway, representatives from both parties were sent to these states to review whether the votes that had been discounted due to suspicion of fraud and intimidation were discounted fairly. So basically what's going on down there? James A. Garfield was one of the men sent to New Orleans. You might want to make a note of him.

Yeah, my further line. Yeah, Garfield found that there was plenty of evidence of violence and intimidation in numerous parishes. I mean, this wasn't suspicion. This was really obvious voter suppression. They're doing it right now. Yeah, I mean, it just is so obvious. So the votes from those areas were just thrown out. It's like, we can't trust them.

We'll throw them out. We won't count them. This resulted in a Democratic majority being turned into a Republican one. So there you go, Louisiana for Hayes. Now, Hayes was starting to get nervous about all this, though, and how it looks. And he said to one of the men going down to investigate, let Tilden have the place, being the presidency, by violence, intimidation, and fraud, rather than to prevent it by means that will not bear the purest of scrutiny. So if we can't overthrow this without looking whiter than white, we shouldn't do it at all. Yeah.

Now, by December the 6th, South Carolina and Florida had also got their results in. All three states were called for haze by the governments of those states. However, the Democrats were crying that this is clearly electoral manipulation, so also sent their counts to Congress, claiming that they were the real governing parties in the states. In fact, Louisiana and South Carolina now had two separate state governments. Ah, yeah, we're starting to see a Kansas kind of situation here from pre-Civil War. and South Carolina now had two separate state governments. Ah. Yeah, we're starting to see a Kansas kind of situation here.

Oh dear. From pre-Civil War. Yeah. It's looking really dodgy. Yeah. So, things grow a bit tense in a country that is, I mean, still, we're just a decade after the Civil War here. It's a war. It's a raw wound.

Yeah. Back to our quote-haze, here is the danger. A contest ruinous to the country, dangerous perhaps fatal to free government, may grow out of it. I would gladly give up all claims to the place if it would avert the evil without bringing us greater calamity.

So I'd give up if I thought it would make things better, but I fear it would make things worse, which I'm not convinced, to be honest. I think if he just went, I give up. But he wasn't going to do that because he felt like he was in the right. He's got the moral element, hasn't he? We're being good here. Yeah, exactly.

Anyway, it's not clear how this mess could be sorted out because, oh, it was a mess. And they searched through everything that Jefferson and Madison and those lot had written down, and none of them have got anything on this. What on earth do we do? Right, okay. How about, someone comes up with, we set up a commission, and they can decide all the disputed votes. Ooh.

Well, how do you make a commission fair? The trouble is, you can't. You can do a cross-section of people. Yeah. But they've got their biases, they've got their views, and you're going to get people do a cross-section of people. Yeah. But they've got their biases, they've got their views, and you're going to get people that will not change their view no matter what. Well, this is what they do.

A commission was set up in this way. Three members of the leading party in the Senate and two members of the minority party in the Senate would be put forward. On top of this, three members of the leading party of the House and two members of the minority party in the House would be put forward. Now, because the Republicans have the Senate and the Democrats have the House at this time, what that effectively means is five Republicans,

five Democrats are on the committee. Right. Then, on top of this, there would be five justices from the Supreme Court. Right. Then, on top of this, there would be five justices from the Supreme Court. Right. Okay. Top head honchos, judges, in the land. Five of them. Is that what Brett Kavanaugh is? Yeah.

Okay. Two Republicans and two Democrats. So it's an even split. Yeah. However, those four would then choose the fifth. And it has to be unanimous. Oh dear. It's fine, because it was decided that Justice David Davies would fill the final position.

David Davies. That's not a good name, is it? It's also not the politician in this country. I checked. The ages are all wrong. He's way older. Well, David Davies was seen as a neutral by all sides. He was seen as a good choice. Yeah. But then the Democrats shoot themselves in the foot.

Literally or? To be fair, figuratively. But I imagine some of them would have preferred literally. Oh, dear. Because they really mess this up. In order to make sure that David Davies kind of looked at things the right way, shall we say, they get talking to him. And it turns out that David Davies, interestingly, although he's on the Supreme Court,

would really actually like to be a senator, which is interesting. You don't get that very often. The Supreme Court's usually seen as more prestigious than the senator. You make the law. Well, no, no, you don't prestigious than the senator. You make the law. Well, no, no, you don't. Senators do. You judge the law. But it's a lifetime position.

Yeah, you die in that role unless you give it up. But he wants to be a senator. That's his dream. It's what he's always wanted. And sure enough, there was a Senate seat going, quite a safe one. And, oh, look, who can stand there? There you go, David Davies. You can now be a Democratic senator.

As soon as you've done this, sort of parachute you in. I'm hoping David Davies goes, that's illegal. Screw you. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, he goes for it full. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like, he's all on. He's wearing blue now.

In fact, he goes for it so hard that he is elected as a Democratic senator. But then to the utter horror of the Democrats, he quits immediately to take up the role. The Democrats think, well, obviously he'll do the committee stuff. We put that in the letter, sir. It says right there. It's underlined three times, sir. It's in red. But no, all of a sudden, he's no longer on the Supreme Court.

And that means the final position needs to be made out of one of the remaining Supreme Court justices. And they all happen to be Republican. Damn. I think just more highlight, because for the Democrats, that's not a bad plan yeah i mean technically it's a bad plan it's not morally great but you know yeah fair play well not at all but he was an idiot david davis is an idiot or he just didn't like the idea of being put in the situation and went fine sabotage i'll take the senatorship and i'll just walk away from this mess that's a fair point yeah quite possibly anyway so you've now got one more republican on the committee

than democrat i will give you 50 pence if you can guess who wins democrats tilden. He wins. Landslide. Let's see, shall we? Now, despite this advantage, Hayes actually wasn't convinced by the idea of this committee. He felt like it wasn't really democratic. This is men sitting in a room with cigars deciding on who should be the president, essentially. It also didn't help that Conkling was a member of the committee. Conkling was a Republican, but he certainly wasn't Hayes' friend. No.

So that's not great. There was also real talk of the Democrats just refusing to agree to anything the committee came up with. And many start to seriously worry about a second civil war. Really? Yeah. A bit touchy though, aren't they? Yeah. In fact, possibly a shot was fired at Hayes' house at this time. Wow.

Now I say possibly because I have read this, but I then look to go and find more information because I literally read that as I lined somewhere. Yeah. I was like, well, I obviously want to know more about that. I can find nothing more about that. There was nothing in his diaries I could find. Yeah, so I don't know whether that's true. But I did read it.

So maybe it happened. We can probably infer from that he probably didn't. Yeah, no, I was a bit confused. But let's say it did. Let's say it did. It's interesting. Rocket launcher. Blew a half a wing of his house.

Knocked the pen out of his hand he's right in his diary looks up wonderful i was meaning to get an extension on the house i was meaning to open the window anyway the committee goes on and it was decided that the state's votes would be counted as reported by the official state governments i.e the the Republican ones. Okay. In other words, Hayes would gain all disputed votes. Now, how this decision came to pass, we don't know the ins and outs because it wasn't recorded. But the fact that the Republicans had that one vote advantage really helped. I think that helped quite a bit. Definitely.

So it's all a little bit dodgy, to say the least. Yeah, a little bit dodgy, yeah. Yeah. Hayes gets 185 votes. Tilden gets 184. You don't get closer than that. Unless you had a half. Unless you had a half.

So the country is split. The Democrats, as you imagine, cried foul, calling, get this, I mean, this is worth points in my book, just for the Democrats in general, because they called Hayes rather fraud be Hayes. Oh yeah. That's witty. Witty. The Republicans cried that justice had been done. As you can imagine, without a doubt, the election of 1876 was corrupt. It simply was. And it was full of fraud. But which side was more in the right is up to debate.

In the end, Hayes was elected not by the voice of the people, but by a committee of 15 men. And this was a committee of 15 men that had been stacked in favour of the winning party. But still, elected he was, Hayes becomes the 19th president. Now, his presidency is hardly the most action-packed of presidencies, which is why we've taken so long to get up to it, but there are a few things to talk about. To begin with, he has to deal with the fact that the country was almost ripped in two once more. Yeah. Yeah, that's not great. Now, Hayes fully believed that it was his duty to heal the whole country. Oh, the amount of times I've heard that in the past five years is ridiculous. Rather than to promote a single party.

Country over party was his belief. Everyone says that. Oh, well, you might be pleasantly surprised then. He made it clear in his inaugural address. He, in fact, said, He serves his party best who serves his country best. Now he made it clear he was going to work on getting the country back to a peace footing and that he was going to reform the corrupt civil service. The speech went down very well and many Democrats reluctantly agreed

that if he actually delivered on what he's just said, you know, maybe he won't be too bad. Might be all right. That doesn't awful, what he's talking about. Conkling, however, and the stalwarts were wincing the entire speech. What's all this about civil service reform? This sounds horribly like you want to get rid of the patronage system that we like so much. Yeah. I like money. I want money.

So, Hayes then appoints his cabinet. He was determined to get rid of the old cabinet entirely. We've got to cut all ties from Grant's government because they were just embroiled in scandal all the bloody time. So fresh start here. He very much went for a merit-based approach. Again, annoying the stalwarts. He appointed men who he saw best for the job,

and this included, in one case, an ex-Confederate for the position of Postmaster General. But more, far more enraging to many Republicans, in fact, to most Republicans, was the Secretary of the Interior job, which he gave to a man named Karl Schurz. Schurz, if I'm saying his name correctly, was the leader of a third Republican faction. Splendid. In fact, so much of a faction, it could be argued that it was a separate party. These became known as the Mogwomps.

Mogwomps. Yes. This is not a creature from Harry Potter. Okay. No. They called themselves the Liberal Republicans, however. Yeah, right. They felt that the half-breeds did not go far enough in their opposition to the stalwarts.

They're practically socialists then. Well, not quite. They felt that Blaine was just as corrupt as Conkling. Of course he was. In fact, Blaine's name had been dragged into various scandals involving certain railway bonds resting in certain accounts not too long ago. Right. Yeah. They were also known as the Goo-Goos occasionally, standing for good government.

They basically had the moral high ground when it came to how government should be ran. Everything should be above board. Everything should be transparent. Corruption needs to stop. But even more so than the half-breeds. Wow. Yeah. The worst names, though, for things. The Goo-Goos. should be above board everything should be transparent corruption needs to stop but even more so than the halfbreeds wow yeah the worst names though for things the goo-goos yeah yeah the names the names during this period suddenly take an interesting turn don't they so i can imagine that's what the 20s yeah maybe so so against corruption was the uh the Mogwamp faction, that they openly campaigned against Grant

when he was running for his second term. Against the nominee of their own party, they campaigned for someone else to beat him. They are pretty much their own party, aren't they? Pretty much, yeah. They complained about Grant's attempts to annex Santo Domingo, but they also complained about his use of military force against the Ku Klux Klan,

which was just not really something a federal government should be getting up to. That way leads potential corruption. I think any force against the Ku Klux Klan is good. Well, yeah. You see, this is the thing with factions of this period. You can see things you like about them, and then you come across things like that and go, Yeah. So that see things you like about them and then you come across things like that and go, nah.

So that's where they stand. The leader, as I say, of this faction was Carl Schurz. And Hayes gives him a cabinet position. Most Republicans saw this faction as deserters. And therefore, the half-breeds and the stalwarts both despised this decision neither of the main factions of republicans are now happy with hayes oh dear yeah yeah however the most sensational to the general public appointment that was made is that of frederick douglas still the country's foremost african-american um but yeah he's given the position of marshal for the district of columbia

wow yeah which i'd love to go into more but we're just gonna have to wait till we do a special episode on frederick douglas one day which we definitely will um but yeah this move was met with cheers or outrage depending on how racist the crowd was to put it bluntly yeah i'd like to say it's more nuanced than that but no it's not right's not. Right, the first things on Hayes' to-do list, then. Once his appointments were all put together, he needs to deal with the South. Now, during the election, he had made several promises that continued Grant's promises that troops would be pulled out of the South. If not entirely, then at least pulling them away from, like, guarding certain state buildings.

Yeah. than at least pulling them away from like guarding certain state buildings yeah that's yeah make things a bit less marshall lorry down south essentially make it like one unified country yeah it's been 10 years guys yeah now nowhere in the country was a split as louisiana at this time the state as mentioned before has two governments the republicans had a man named Packard as governor and a man named Nicholls claimed to be the governor for the Democrats. Now Nicholls had control of the courts and the administrations whereas Packard had the state house itself. I would love to know how all that happened. Oh it's just crazy isn't it? Just literally just I now have the state house well I don't care I've got the courts. But how did that happen? It's like, I'm the governor. So am I.

How? Do you get voted in or is it a dodgy vote? Yeah, yeah. Is that what it is? Disputed votes. In the same way as we just saw for the national election, it's like that. So we're going to put a bit of tape through the state and then essentially. Yeah.

Well, as we mentioned briefly in Grant's episode, there's a lot of voter suppression going on in the South. Yeah. So the Republican governments that are down there, but only down there because they've got federal troops surrounding them, are counting votes and then throwing out votes that are clearly corrupt. Or areas that have suffered voter intimidation throw those out so with those votes thrown out the republicans are winning yeah but the democrats are counting those votes and saying no but we won yeah yeah so okay fair enough that's how it's happening uh it's uh it's not good weird yeah things things are not going too well, should we say, in Louisiana. So, Packard, the Republican governor in New Orleans at the time,

can only keep control because he's got federal troops surrounding the statehouse. Okay. Yeah. Otherwise, the Democrats will just come in and literally boot him out. Yeah. And these are the troops that Hayes has just said, we're going to start pulling out. Now, realising that just pulling out the troops would be a bad idea, that will only lead to trouble, Hayes sets up a commission.

So we'll just look at Louisiana here, but just know this is happening in various places in the South. So through various means, not all of them above board. It's a good sign. Yeah. Enough Republicans were persuaded to join the Democratic government to give it legitimacy. You don't need to go and be like Democrats, but at least go and join them and oppose them, but formally be with them. I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. Eventually enough Republicans did that that Nichols was announced as governor and Packard was removed from his post.

The federal troops remained in the state but stood down. No longer protecting places like the state house. They went back to their garrison. Yes, exactly. So there you go. The Democrats now start taking back the south or

the governments. Arguably through elections that have been completely rigged. Yeah. Yeah. So why is Hayes doing this? Well, he promised national unity, didn't he? Yeah. I mean, it's a really hard position to be put into, isn't it?

I mean, we're a decade away from the Civil War. Hayes is convinced that the only way for the country to move on was for all elections in the country to be free and fair naturally. We've got to stop having soldiers around our voting booths. It doesn't look right. Yeah, a bit dodgy. Yeah.

It also doesn't look good to have federal troops guarding government buildings all the time against other political parties. To get real progress and equality in the South, in Hayes' mind, what the states needed to do without interference was accept the new role that black people played in society, but they had to get there on their own.

Right. In fact, I'll quote here, We got through with the South Carolina and Louisiana problems. At any rate, the troops were ordered away. I now hope for peace, and what is equally important, security and prosperity for the coloured people. The result of my plans is to get from those states, by their governors, legislatures, press and people, pledges that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments

shall be fully observed. That the coloured people shall have equal rights to labour, education and the privileges of citizenship. I am confident that this is good work. Time will tell. Ah, yeah, that's, um, yeah. Yeah, time does tell. It does.

We won't go into it now because we'll be going over that. Yeah, this was as naive as it sounds. Without federal presence the governments in the south were able to enact more and more laws that just reduce the rights of black of the black population you can not quite bring about slavery but just bring back dehumanizing yeah oh that's awful but mostly hayes was praised for this by a majority of the white population of course he was in the south obviously uh this celebrated this was seen as the oppressive northern forces finally going away and letting us live our lives yeah in the north the attitude of many of the white population was

the slaves are free now it's time we get back to normal. Normal, of course, being in a state where they don't need to think about the oppression of the black population anymore. Oh dear. Yeah. Black citizens of America obviously did not take this well. No. But unfortunately, they're still not in a position where anyone really cares, or at least no one with enough power to do anything cares. Splendid. Yeah.

no one with enough power to do anything cares. Splendid. Yeah. However, despite Hayes' popularity doing better with the public, his party was just about done with him by this point. Really? His appointments to the cabinet had been bad enough, but many saw this latest move as just a betrayal of what the Republican Party stood for.

It was at this point that Hayes started to focus on civil service reform. In other words, he was going to go after the patronage system favoured by the stalwarts. Splendid. Yeah. A commission was set up. He likes his commissions. He does. And Hayes fully agreed with its findings a few months later that he had nudged the committee

into finding. So a collection of revenue should be free of partisan control. Party leaders should not have any influence over who the leaders of the collection should be, and government employees should not be involved in elections. At all? No. As in sharing your view or voting? You're allowed to vote.

Yeah. You're allowed to hold opinions, but you couldn't manage campaigns. Okay. Yeah. In other words, we need to stop this merging of civil posts and political roles. Yeah.

Because it's just leading to corruption. Yeah. Carl Schurz was overseeing all this, and it did not go down well with many at all. Conkling in New York was particularly angry, and in New York, these rules were simply ignored.

Splendid. Yeah. One man close to Conkling refused to give up his positions of being a naval officer and the state Republican chairman at the same time. Well, no. It's my job. Yeah, they're both my jobs. Now, obviously, if you've got both those positions, you can make certain decisions that affect the other role and just make things a bit easier for yourself, couldn't you? And this was the kind of thing Hayes wanted to clamp down on. Unfortunately, New York under Conkling just went, no.

Oh dear. That's a loss of power, isn't it? We're really starting to see the Gilded Age here, where these powerful corrupt factions are more powerful than the president. And I get the feeling this goes on for a while yeah it goes this is what i imagine goes on into like the 20s well we'll see as we get there uh things get a bit worse for hayes in new york when tilden starts making some more noise about being cheated out of the presidency he's not happy by the way oh isn't he no um but before hayes could respond to that, the first crisis of his presidency started because everything grinds to a stop. Time just slows. Everything.

Time continues, but everything else stops. Industry. Oh, yes. Strikes. Oh, yes. Due to the financial crash of 1873, the conditions of workers across the country had deteriorated to a level even lower than they had been before. Railroad companies in particular were hard hit because they had recklessly been expanding over the last couple of decades, like insanely so.

And they found themselves in quite a lot of trouble. This country is much bigger than I thought it was. Yes, damn it. How far is California? What? Well, in order to stay afloat the railroad companies started to dock the wages of their workers oh dear again and again and again uh in fact the most recent pay cut so this isn't in total but the most recent had been a 10 percent wage cut and that's on top of other ones oh yeah yeah i mean they were getting Was that 10% of what they were currently on or 10% of what they started with?

I didn't think to check. Because that wouldn't be fair. Either way, not good. No. And this was just too much for the workers, and they rebelled. Yeah. They seized the trains and the stations, and since the country was now so dependent on the railways,

this just draws the whole country to a standstill. Peaceful protests spring up all over the country, but also less peaceful. Riots start breaking out in Pittsburgh, Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, and several other cities. Things really start looking a bit grim. Governors start writing to Hayes, asking for federal aid to put down the riots

and get the trains working. Basically bringing the army. Yeah, to which I'd love it if Hayes wrote back for federal aid to put down the riots and get the trains working. Basically bringing the army. Yeah. To which I'd love it if Hayes wrote back especially to the southern states, oh no, no, states' rights. You know I would hate to interfere. I made that very clear earlier on.

But no. Lollipop? Hayes complied and troops were indeed sent out. Although Hayes was very relieved when word reached him that the riots were being dispersed without bloodshed. That's good. Or at least technically without bloodshed. Apparently, neither side had killed anyone on the other side.

Oh. But, I mean, obviously, if riots are happening and buildings are being burnt down, there's no way no one's being killed in this. There are deaths, but it's sort of like no one was shot. Yeah, essentially. Bludgeoned thousands. Yeah.

Deaths occurred, but it doesn't break out into full-scale fighting. Yeah. Yeah. He struggled with what to think about the strikes. I'll quote here. The railroad strikers, as a rule, are good men. Sober, intelligent, industrious. In fact, he privately acknowledged that they had genuine grievances.

However, he could not support striking for the following reasons that he listed. One, strikers prevent men willing to work from doing so. Two, they seize and hold property of their employers. Three, the consequent excitement furnishes an opportunity for the dangerous criminal classes to destroy life and property. Every man has a right to refuse work if the wages don't suit him, but he has no right to prevent others from working if they are suited with the wages. Now, Hayes, like most who had money at the time, just struggled to understand why these people were striking. This idea of, oh, well, you can just quit if you don't like your wages.

No, they couldn't. People were striking because they were starving to death and they didn't have enough money to pay for their food. But the US at the time was at a point where they felt that individual rights of workers were not worth as much as the rights of companies. So I'm glad to see things change. So, um, glad to see things change. Yeah, glad to see River evolve as a human race.

Yeah. Anyway, with the strikes put down, Hayes went back to the civil service reform. Hayes let it be known that he expected the resignation of several men who were high up in the stalwart faction from civil posts. The men just refused. Nope. Yeah. Still, the party splitting from him didn't get

Hayes down, as you can imagine, and he went on a tour of the country. He was given an honorary degree from Harvard. And something I've not really mentioned, he was incredibly well read by this point. Some people get honorary degrees from Harvard and you think, really? But Hayes was known for

his intelligence and his knowledge by this point. So this would have been seen as a fairly decent honorary degree. Waxons University. Ah! That's a book! Exactly. You could spot a book from 20 yards.

That's impressive. It was good. Anyway, he then visited New England and then he head south. In the south, he was able to see past the multiple posters with the word fraud stamped on his forehead that appeared in let's face it most of the windows and according to Hayes he seemed to be quite well liked down there they love me they keep saying boo it's like a ghost trying to scare a child it's wonderful got this image someone throwing half a brick at him and just just catches it wonderful present thank you a brick for me so yeah he was convinced his southern strategy was working

uh the southern governments might take some time but he was sure they would start electing black people soon it'd be fine yeah it'll happen one Any day now. He even went and said this in front of a crowd of black people and said, I'm sure it will be fine. I'm sure you'll get your rights soon. Essentially. I couldn't find a record of how much he was applauded and how much there was just stony silence. Yeah. Meanwhile, Lucy was busy in the White House.

The mansion, as ever, was in a poor state. It always seems to be in a poor state. So Lucy was attempting to do something about it. She organised, get this, new bathrooms with running water. Wow. Yeah. A lot of pipe work. Yeah, so, I mean, they had to let the camel go.

It was storing the water before. But they've got running water now. It's great. And more excitingly, they got, get this, one of those newfangled telephones. Telephony. Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, no one rang it because no one else had one. They've got a telephone now, so it's exciting.

Nice. So, yeah, that's good. In fact, Lucy was proving to be quite a hit with many in Washington, and the White House was starting to regularly host events. However, one gripe that many had was that the White House was now a dry house. Oh. Oh, yes. What?

Leading to Lucy getting the nickname of of lemonade lucy that's not a nickname you need it's not i remember like two years ago you didn't have a drink one afternoon yeah i called you lemonade rob i know never got over that no went on to harden spirits the day afterwards yeah well never a big drinker hayes had decided to turn away from alcohol himself to please the ever-growing prohibitionist movement. Oh. Yeah. So just keep an eye on that because that certainly grows. Yes.

Some Republicans, already not happy with their president, with his cabinet choices and the way he's dealing with the South, just saw this as a step too far, damn it. You can slander everyone you want you can give all the power to the south but to not have a drink yeah my god well hayes own secretary of state remarked after one dinner party it was a brilliant affair the water flowed like champagne very droll. Yes. In fact, in one dinner party, guests were hugely relieved when they stumbled across rum-soaked oranges. They were so pleased. Wow. Yeah, the table was referred to as the life-saving station.

You just got an image of all these rich people in Washington just sucking up these oranges. Give me the oranges. Three at a time. Well, Hayes afterwards claimed that the oranges simply had rum flavouring added to them. No alcohol at all. And the joke was on everyone else. But I don't believe this for a moment. The chefs, yeah.

Yeah. Barrels of rum in the kitchen. It's like, put more in. Hayes comes into the kitchen. The chefs, yeah. Yeah. Barrels of rum in the kitchen. It's like, put more in. Hayes comes into the kitchen. I hate to interrupt. Is it rum that there's rum in the oranges? No, no. No, no. Rum. Flavouring. Flavouring, yes.

Flavoured like rum. But surely they must have had hip flasks by then. Oh yeah, I'm sure. Everyone was out of their face. It's just, you know, it wasn't free. Anyway, Hayes got into a bit of a routine. He would spend his days in this fashion. He was up at seven. He would write until breakfast at 8.30.

Then came a group Bible reading with various people. Hayes had never been particularly religious, and he wasn't at this point, but he did approve of the morality of Christianity. He just didn't believe necessarily in the whole God stuff. But he was more than happy to sit around and read the Bible. He quite enjoyed that. Then he was back to writing or meeting people until 10 o'clock. Then a two-hour cabinet meeting, lunch at two, correspondence afterwards.

Then a spot of horse riding, Then a nap. Dinner at six. And then entertaining various guests until the late evening. That sounds quite nice. Yeah, not too bad. But no, it's fairly active. Spends most of the day working, but a bit of relief. Quite a writer, though. Like an hour and a half before breakfast, writing.

Oh, yeah, he was a big writer. Hence the diaries and all the letters that we've got. Yeah. Anyway, back to the politics, though. Hayes was unable to outmanoeuvre Conkling, and the men he wanted to step down simply did not do so. That's not great. No. No.

But, and I'm quoting him here, the end is not yet. I am right, and I shall not give up this contest. That's mildly threatening. For Hayes, I mean, that's almost a war cry. The midterms came and went, and the Democrats did very well against the Republicans. In fact, they took the House and the Senate.

Oh, dear. Oh, yes. That's no laws for him, then. Hayes, as you can imagine, was optimistic about this. Yes, his party had lost the Congress, but most of the trouble he had had so far was coming from his own party. Ah. So actually... They might back him a bit more.

Yeah, you never know. The next issue to cross his desk was Chinese immigration. Many Chinese immigrants had been coming to the country ever since the West Coast had been taken off Mexico. And now the chinese immigrants over on the west coast made close to nine percent of the population in california so a sizable minority yeah now obviously the rest of the population in the west were more than happy about this and embraced the shared culture and increased productivity due to this immigration yeah that's always the case

oh sorry i misread my notes oh no in fact no the same accusations were levied against the immigrants that always bloody happen they are taking our jobs they're causing crime etc etc generally they're making the place look untidy by being so bloody different to us. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Racism. Yeah. Anyway, the issue soon caused Congress to pass a law severely restricting how many Chinese people could enter the country. Oh, for goodness sake. Oh, that sounds familiar. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? This clearly broke a treaty that the US had with China.

Oh, that was ages ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I remember that. You know the one. Yeah. Yes, and this breaks that treaty. Anyway, Hayes steps in and vetoes the bill. Oh, ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I remember that. You know the one. Yes. And this breaks that treaty. Anyway, Hayes steps in and vetoes the bill. Oh, good.

Yeah. This was not on, was essentially his message. Not only was it an insult to China, whom they had a treaty with, it was also reckless, potentially endangering US citizens and China. Who knows how China would retaliate to this. Yeah, but then, you know, we get into the present, you'll get the Fox. I mean, other pundits basically saying, oh, he doesn't care about the country. He's just letting in criminals.

Your children are going to die. That's the kind of... Actually, no, that doesn't really happen. In more enlightened times, it's weird. Well, in the West, it wasn't too popular. No. But in the East, which is obviously by far most of the country, Hayes' move was fairly popular.

Many in the US still held on to the idea that the United States upheld the principles that all men were equal and therefore the immigrants who were simply looking for a better life should not be stopped from doing so. They're basically us. Yeah. So it's like we're a land of immigrants, then they should be let in. Anyway, the last thing we're going to look at with his presidency

is his policies with the Native Americans. You say that with a smile. Oh, it's always cheerful, isn't it? Yeah. Well, as we saw under Grant, things as ever were not going well for the Native American population. Nope. It had got to the point after the Sioux Wars that we looked at last time,

with the gold being found in the Black Hills and the whole Deadwood stuff. Deadwood? Yeah. It's happening right now. Yes, it's happening in this episode. Right now. Right now. Al Swearingen's calling someone a...

Yeah, exactly. Well, it's got to the point where the War Department want to take over the Bureau of Indian Affairs and just control that as part of the War Department. Right. Yeah. I mean, just stopping all pretense that the United States wanted to do anything but just to conquer. Yeah. So, yeah, the Bureau that deals with the affairs of the Native Americans, the War Department's the best place to put that, obviously. Well, Hayes and Schurz successfully fight against this, and the War Department do not get the Bureau.

It wasn't Hayes and Schurz. That's good. Instead, what occurred was a continuation of the policies under the start of Grant's administration, so educating the Indian tribes to make them more like us was essentially the way to go, apparently. Yes, educate the savages. Yeah, well, as covered in Grant's episode, this was seen as really quite progressive for the time.

I guess so, in their mind, yeah. Yeah. Rather than kill them, we'll make them one of us. Yeah, exactly. But what it was actually doing was eroding the culture of the Native Americans. Of course it is. Also continuing was the idea that tribes should live in towns. And if they lived in towns, then they don't really need all this surplus land, do they?

So all this land we've been granting them, we can start trimming off the edges a bit. They don't need all that. Needing it all. Yeah, exactly. Now, despite the never-ending and, in retrospect, destruction of an entire people, under Hayes, the Bureau of Indian Affairs did actually become less

corrupt. It was well-known for being the most corrupt of the departments. Freeland? Yeah, agents in the Bureau would go to Native American tribes, force them to go off and move places, and take a lot of bribes in the process.

It was rife with corruption. And to be fair to Hayes, he does clean up the department a bit. But it's not great. Because everything about this is not great. Nope. Just as under Grant, several confrontations occur under Hayes' presidency as well, with three large-scale battles taking place and a couple of uprisings. Hayes having to issue a proclamation at one point

forbidding whites from simply invading Native American land because they feel like it. The fact you have to meet that law. Yeah, exactly. This proclamation was not always adhered to, as you can imagine. Of course. One of the most tragic cases was that of the ponca tribe during the grant administration a tribe of the sioux had

been given some land when i say given some land of course i mean forced to relocate to a new area yeah hi from new england let's move you to uh texas hawaii texas hawaii where however um this new area that the sioux were moved to it just so happened no one noticed at the time when they were drawing up the maps uh this was actually the territory of the ponker oh yeah so how best to solve this move this no move this to no no they've been moved into the area oh move the ponca. Yeah, obviously. That makes sense. So they were led to a new land that simply just was not suitable for them.

So then they were moved again. Texas. And this still wasn't great for them. To Alaska. No, we're talking sort of Oklahoma kind of region. By this point, however, many of the Ponca, whose lives had just been torn apart and many had died due to the relocations, simply decided to head back home. This is ridiculous. We're going home. The chief of the tribe, whose grandson had died in the removal, led his people, but they were

soon stopped by the army. Now, when Hayes heard about this, he intervened. He put together a commission, because he loves his commissions, and it found, with some quite heavy nudging from Hayes, that a great injustice had been inflicted upon the Ponca. Those that wished to stay in their land, he informed them, could do so, and compensation would be paid to the tribe. In fact, I'll quote him here, as the chief executive at the time when the wrong was consummated, I am deeply sensible that enough of the responsibility for the wrong justly attaches to me to make it my particular duty and earnest desire to do all I can to give those injured people that measure of redress which is required alike by justice and humanity.

So Hayes puts his hand up there and just says, yeah, that's on me. I'm the president. This shouldn't have happened. It says something about the treatment of the Native Americans in this time that this is often held up as one of the more feel-good stories of the era. A single tribe got some recognition of the crimes against them. The punker were the lucky ones ones and it was awful for them.

Yes. Yeah. Anyway, by this time Hayes' term was coming to an end and Hayes obviously was pleased. He said he was looking forward to ending his term as a schoolboy looks forward to the summer holidays. The Republicans, accepting the fact that Hayes would not stand again, began fighting between the half-breeds and the stalwarts, as you can imagine. But we're going to get into that next time, because the half-breeds win when Garfield wins the nomination. But that's all for another episode. Oh yes, the fighting between those two does not go away. Yay! Anyway, Hayes is done. After his presidency, he works on promoting education for all children. He also became more and more concerned over the rampant capitalism taking over the country and all the corruption that went with it.

In fact I'll quote him here, it occurred to me that it is time for the public to hear that the great evil and danger in this country, the danger which transcends all of us, is the vast wealth that is controlled by a few persons. Money is power. Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many. It is not yet the time to debate about the remedy. We may reach and remove the difficulty by changes in the laws regulating corporations, descents of property, So he just says, it's got ridiculous. There was a handful of robber barons running the country, huge corporations, whilst everyone else is starving and miserable. It's basically ridiculous. There was a handful of robber barons running the country, huge corporations, whilst everyone else is starving and miserable.

It's basically a sewer. It's a swamp and it needs draining. But he admits that the country cannot reform because they're so stuck in the mire. Out of all of Hayes' diary entries, that's got to be the most depressing. It is, yeah. Yeah.

It's like there's no future, almost. After running the country for four years, he just goes, corruption is so rife, I can't see a way out of it. Splendid. In 1889, Lucy dies. Yeah, sorry to strop that bombshell on you. And then four years later, Hayes suffers a heart attack. He was led to his bed.

He announced, and I quote him here, I know I am going where Lucy is. And he dies. His diary simply read, slept well. I'm joking. Bloody hell. But I really wish that last bit was true. Splendid nap.

So there you go. That's Hayes. Do you know, that's the first time you've mentioned the death of a president I've gone, aw. Yeah, that's sad, isn't it? I really grew to like him. Yeah, I know. I genuinely was not expecting this.

No. And he tried to do a lot of good things. Like, throughout his life, he did a lot of good things. Presidency is limited, but there were some problems, but I'm going to stick it out there now. Americam. Well, you're jumping the gun here. I'm jumping the gun massively, but... We've not even got the statesmanship

voice coming in, which starts now. Statesmanship! He had an alright presidency. Just writing the word. Alright. It was hardly remarkable though, was it? Nothing really stands out and there were no exclamation points. No, I mean he's best remembered in history

for the dodgy election. Yeah. Which he's not really responsible for. Well, I don't know. Is he? I thought it was the two people just battling over it. Yeah, but I mean if he's the head of the Republican Party not that you really see it like that in American politics.

I'm thinking of our politics. But still, he's high up in the Republican Party. And the Republicans were accused, justifiably, of rigging the election. Equally, however, Democrats were counting votes that quite clearly were influenced by voter suppression. Yes. And through activities from organizations like the Ku Klux Klan. So let's face it, no one's coming off well in this. No. No. It's a dodgy election.

It's a dodgy election. Yeah. But like you say, perhaps it's unfair to blame him at all for any of this because it would have been just as dodgy if Tilden won. It is what it is. Dodgy. Yeah. He's criticised for some for his withdrawal from the South. Or rather his withdrawal of the troops from the South, I should say. I mean, it's not great because it is leaving the black citizens out to dry in the South. I think, do we have the benefit of hindsight though? Well, we do have the benefit of hindsight though well we do have the benefit

of the hindsight because hayes genuinely believed that the south would sort themselves out why he thought that i don't know maybe it's because he wasn't racist so he didn't believe other people were really racist like yeah you know you'll build yourself like us we're example you'll be fine i trust you look we're here trusting you, so do good things. It does seem quite naive, doesn't it? It does a little bit. Yeah. So perhaps we can criticise him for that.

However, if he'd have been more extreme with the protectionist view of the black population, that could have caused more problems. Well, yeah, exactly. How long after a civil war is it viable to keep armed troops outside government buildings across cities

in your own country? Unless you have every city. Yeah, but then you just start turning into a military dictatorship. It's a tricky one. I don't know what you do in that situation. But this is what Hayes did. It wasn't great.

He attempted to sort out the corruption in the country and the government. He utterly failed, but he attempted to fight against the corruption, which is nice. And then, obviously, his policy towards the Native Americans was not good. But like Grant, it was better than what most in government wanted to do, which was essentially wipe them out, all of them. So he was the best example of the time. Yeah. By keeping the Bureau of Indian Affairs out of the reach of the War Department, he clearly helped the Native Americans. That is just obvious. But nothing stops the whole thing from being dreadful.

No. Nothing would have at the time though no you see again it's a tricky one it's like i don't know what i'd have done in that situation i don't know the direct file the situation is everyone leaves the us unfortunately i don't see why he deserves many points no he's just good word he's a bit flaccid okay it's a little bit droopy yeah i mean i'm gonna give him maybe a couple of points for trying to sort out the corruption um i'm gonna give him four yeah oh something i didn't mention just for time reasons um he does do some good work trying to get the economy back up and running with uh some dealing with the species oh and he did veto the uh

the breaking of the treaty with China, which certainly in retrospect seems to have been the right decision. Yeah, four. Four? Yeah, I'll be honest, partly that's just because I quite like him, so maybe I'm being a bit generous. But yeah, I'm going to go for four as well. A total of eight.

Yeah. There's nothing. I mean, seriously, nothing. We have never come across a president that is so squeaky clean. I mean, seriously, he spent his spare time setting up schools for the deaf and dumb. Zero. He's just... I think we need to add on a few points. We need to give him some rather than take some away.

There's just nothing there. He was just a nice guy. Yeah. He dumped his first girlfriend because he couldn't be bothered to move to her state. Now I'm clutching at straws. Zero. Zero. Possibly our first ever zero in this round.

That's probably very likely. Washington got minus eight. Almost everyone else gets base points for slavery. Yeah. Or at least enabling slavery. Yeah, Washington got minus six. Yeah. So well done.

Well done, Hayes, at zero. We saw that coming. Yeah. Silver screen. Romantic comedy. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing really remarkable to begin with. But it is his attitude to life that makes him stand out.

Yeah. with uh but it is his attitude to life that makes him stand out yeah nothing huge happens but i could imagine you could make a a light-hearted romp through american history it'd be slightly tongue in cheek yeah very bright colors yeah when it goes dark a musical oh a musical. You could definitely have a musical. Lollipop, lollipop, lollipop. 50s style musical. Oh, yes. There we go. Well, I mean, let's briefly go over it, but there's not much to go over, to be honest. You've got the family tragedy at the start,

death of his father before he was born, his brother falling through the cracks in the ice. Oh, yeah, I remember. You've got that. But then it's fairly typical with few stories. He went to school and he worked hard he became a lawyer and he worked hard he defended some murderers and he got himself a wifey um the war started you can definitely get a lot out of the war yes it was that was good but

i think if you made a war film or some episodes on the war based on his view of the war, you'd get crucified for it nowadays. Yes. For just putting rose-tinted glasses on and having such a positive view of the Civil War. You know those sort of like really patriotic paintings from the First World War? Yes, exactly. It'd be like that. And that is how Hayes saw everything, I think. Yeah, yeah.

Every single person in his regiment was just rippling with muscles yeah they either just had a light bit of patriotic stubble or they were just completely clean shaven yeah they were square chins all around i'm doing this my wife in my country yeah kind of thing there's a spot of warm fighting every now and again but then everyone sat around and ate apple pie, damn it. They'd cheer to each other across the battlefield. Holding up their Budweiser's. Yeah.

Yeah. So, yeah. So you got the war. Then you got his government career. Governor three times. That's not much. Nothing happened. Yeah.

That'd be like a scene. Dark horse candidate to be nominated for the presidency. Then you've obviously got the election. That is the thing he's remembered for. You could do a lot about the dodgy election. Maybe do something about the half-breeds and the stalwarts. Yeah. And then there's nothing huge in his presidency either.

I mean, there's the Great Strike and there's the removal of the troops in the South, but I don't think you could get too much drama out of that. It's not great, but his attitude adds so much to it. It does. I think rose-scented goals is... And don't forget, we could take this another way. We could play Hayes as a complete sociopath,

because don't forget, he was writing in his diary the day after his son died. Pleasant trip. So maybe he's just full on, has no understanding of how emotions work. That makes a lot of sense. He's just a really bad sociopath. Maybe.

Maybe he went through life utterly terrifying everyone around him, but his diary is really nice. Great, good point. We don't know. And every now and again, you do a little hint. You could just imagine like you know opens a closet just a skeleton literal literal skeleton in his closet closes it one little scene in like four episodes so you get every now and again a little thing like that yes opens his

severed hand yeah holding a pen keeps referring to his brother even though his brother died years ago and then one scene he just opens a cupboard and there's the frozen remains. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you could go down that route. You could. It'd be interesting. That'd be very interesting.

I don't know. This would be, honestly, in the twos, I think, if it wasn't for his ridiculous attitude. I think I'm going to add a couple more points on. But I can't go too high. I'll go for three. I can't go more than three. I'll go for three. I can't go more than three. I'll go for four.

Two for the story. Two for his just wonderful attitude to life. Seven. It's not great. No, it's not doing well. So far it's got a total of 15. How do you think he looks? Splendid.

Oh, we're in our new seating position, so I need to pass this over to you. That's why we need a screen on the wall. Yeah. yeah now i already showed you the young k's last week and he was surprisingly good looking but obviously he's older now i'm liking the beard and the hair it's a big beard isn't it he's got my hairline your hairline that's what that'll be me in five years yeah that is amazing and it's another next to a red table putting putting his hand on the constitution. I was going to say, harking back to old images, old portraits, dark suit, moody background. And it's just, maybe it's something to do with our age and images that we were shown as children,

but an old man with a big beard has a certain gravitas. It does, yeah. It really does, that I quite enjoy. Yeah. It's big, but it's a nice, neat beard i quite enjoy yeah it's it's big but it's a nice neat beard i mean it's not like fully down to his chest which he did have at some points in his life it's it's retreated slightly it's just now a big bushy beard but it's a pleasant beard oh yeah yeah i think we're focused on the beard a bit too much he's got kind eyes well of course he has kind eyes yeah his own eyes and those that he keeps in his drawer.

Yeah. I like that. I always like the ones where there's that red table. Yeah. That's a nice little motif that runs through some of them. And, I mean, he's just getting points for the beard. I'm liking this a lot. I'm going for eight.

I'm going to go for seven. I wish there was a globe there or something a bit more kind of... Okay. I'm going to go for a seven. Okay. 3.75. Not bad. But he's still not doing too well. Maybe he can get some bonus points.

Bonus! Terms. One. Oh dear. He served one term. Assassination. Actually, we do have a question here. No.

He wasn't president, but he had been elected to be president and someone shot through his window. But I could not find any more details about it. I'm going to probably go with no with that. So are we saying hard rule?

He must be inaugurated, not voted. Yeah. So it's post inauguration. Yeah. What if you're assassinated during your inauguration speech? Does that ever happen?

Spoilers, Jamie. No, it doesn't happen. So that's an irrelevant question. Fair enough. Zero. Okay. Zero for assassination and election, zero. Yes.

He won, but he lost the popular vote. So no points for elections. Only one point for the bonuses, which gives him a grand total. Despite his zero for Disgracegate, it's still not going to be good, is it? No, he's got 19.75. 19.75. It's not awful. It's middling, and Hayes

is usually a middling president. So there we go. But I think what we can do for Hayes is discuss... Well, you've already kind of jumped the gun with this one. I have, and I'm sticking by that gun. You're sticking with an American.

Why? He's only got 19 point, what was it, 19.5? Why does he deserve American? I will think most of it is because he's a middling president, and he's better than we expected. Because we're about interest. We're all about interest. Who's a hidden gem?

You found a hidden gem. Oh, yeah. No, he certainly is. I mean, I loved reading his diary entries just because they were just so weird. And think about it. In the rounds later on, he'll get wiped out. He probably will. But he'll be so happy.

Yeah, he will. He will be so happy. He'll get a shot and go, oh, lovely time for a nap. He may not have been the best president in American history, but so far I think he is the nicest. I think for that alone. Yeah. He's an American.

Which is crazy because when I've looked at the images before, I just always assumed the big beardy ones were really severe. But no, there he is. Just a nice guy with a beard. A lovely guy. Yeah. This is when someone writes in to say, you missed out this part when he slaughtered the orphans.

Oh, yeah. Did it every Christmas day. Fed them turkey and took them out of the background and shot them in the back of the head. So there we go. Well done then, Hayes. You are an American. Yes, you are. And thank you very much for listening to the New and Improved podcast.

Yes. I'm sure you'll agree listening that everything is so much better now that we've got our new armchairs sounds better i have thoroughly enjoyed sitting in this armchair for the whole episode it's been great every week let's just hope that by adjusting the microphones and the sound levels that we've not fully tested yet the sound levels aren't all over the place well we'll soon find out if that's the case i'm sorry we'll sort that out for next time or i'll see you up on friday another recording yes okay then thank you very much for listening do all the downloading and stuff leave reviews if you can that

will be fantastic and please you know send us messages we don't always get to read them straight away or answer straight away but we will eventually and yeah we appreciate it yes definitely great thank you very much for listening all that needs to be said is spiffing goodbye goodbye Ravathod behaves. Oh, oh, oh. Where am I? Follow me, please. That's a magnificent black robe you've got there. Are you a farm worker?

What? No. Well, you're carrying a scythe, so I assume you must be some sort of farm worker. Farm workers are magnificent for our country. Do such a lot of work. Hayes? Yes? Put two and two together. Four. Do such a lot of work. Hayes? Yes? Put two and two together. Four.

You are dead, Hayes. Oh, splendid. I beg your pardon? It's nice to finally achieve one's goals. I'm sorry, goals. Well, yes, I mean, all roads lead to one place, don't they? It was always one on the to-do list, and it's the last thing I can tick off.

So, what do you do? I harvest the souls of the dead. Splendid, splendid. Yes, now if you could just come this way, please. It's very pleasant around here. Oh, why, thank you. I've not really met someone like you

before. Oh, thank you. It's lovely to see you. I mean, it's quite dark. Could we do something about that? Maybe some fairy lights or candles? Fairy lights? Fairy lights, yes. Just to cheer the place up a bit. A bit of pizzazz.

You need cheering up? No, I'm splendid. I mean, well, there's a bit of screaming I can hear in the background. Is that from... Oh, that's the damned. Oh, they sound very sad. Maybe I can hear in the background. Is that from... Oh, that's the damned. Oh, they sound very sad. Maybe I should go in and say hello. No, no, not your door.

Oh, okay. Do you get away in the summer? I'm sorry? Do you get a holiday in the summer? I mean, if you ever get the chance, Niagara Falls is the gloriousest time of year. I never liked it to begin with, but oh, you've fallen in love with the place. I've been there. Oh, what did you think?

A lot of bowels. Oh, splendid. It's good to embrace your hobby, I guess. So which door's mine, is it? It's just down there. Oh, the red one with the devil face on. No, no, that's not Oh, no, no, oh, oh, he's gone in one door.

I hate it when that happens. Why is the screaming stopped? Oh, he's going to the long door. I hate it when that happens. Why is the screaming stopped? Oh, splendid! All of their votes are suddenly put into haze. Put into haze? That's weird. He'd have loved it. That's pleasant. It doesn't feel too awkward, actually.

No, no. I went through a phase of, am I staring too much at Rob while he's looking at his iPad? But now I'm just kind of looking at other places. Not only does it not feel awkward, it feels easier, more natural.

Yeah, it's a conversation. Not twisting. It is just a read, look up. It's a conversation in a pub. Yeah, it works. Because the worst thing would have been, this isn't working, let's get rid of the chairs. It's a conversation in a pub. Yeah, it works. Because the worst thing would have been, this isn't working, let's get rid of the chairs. Let's burn them. Right now, in the room.

Whilst we're sat in them. Just going up. Talk about a hidden gem. It's like, I've got some nobodies for a while until we hit... Because you were really annoyed. You seemed really frustrated. Like, hey, there's nothing to them. Oh yeah, when I first started the research, it's like, while until we hit because you know you were really annoyed well you kind of you seem really frustrated like hey there's nothing to him oh yeah when i when i first started the research

it's like what on earth do i say but that was only when i was at the uh reading like secondary sources modern biographies of him yeah uh and then when i started going into the brian resources it was just like oh wow, wow. This is brilliant. It's like, why in the biographies I've read was it not made more of a big deal of just how crazy he is? Yeah. In a lovely way, though.

Yeah. Psycho way. Or is it? I mean, maybe he's... We can talk about that later. Maybe he's just a sociopath. Check out my moth collection. The pin moths.

Check out my person collection. I had a pleasant evening putting them up. We'll talk about that later.