American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - Special Episode: Emperor Norton I

Episode Date: March 28, 2020

Did you know that the United States of America was ruled by an emperor for 21 years during the 19th century? Well, it was. This is a one off special episode on the amazing Emperor Norton I while we try to get to grips with recording while on lockdown.

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Emperon Cawton. Hello, and welcome to American Presidents Total So tell us, rank him. I am Jamie. I'm Rob and this is our special Corona episode. Yeah, not a president because we're just going to see if this recording remotely works. So we figured the best way to really test whether this works properly is to do an episode but we're we're we're going to test it on someone who's not a president yeah just in case but that was fascinating emperor norton yeah you've got no idea have you nope no this is someone who um i've had an eye on for a while in terms of doing a special episode uh i i found out about emperor norton

when i started doing research for washington bizarrely like right at the start and i thought oh we've got to do an episode on him at some point i just never really had a reason to do it but why not now yeah whilst everyone's in lockdown fair enough well i'm intrigued so let's uh let's get started okay then right start oh no i'll let you choose as per usual um how how far back are we because that could make a difference in the color depends on how sepia you're going yes we uh you can be anywhere between 1818 and 1880. Okay. So I've got a range of colours to choose from.

Okay. Yeah. Luminous yellow. Oh, the most 19th century of colours. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Not like it can't turn into candlelight.

This is like the bright, flashy yellow, glowy kind of 80s style. Right. Okay. No, that's fine fine i'll fit that on okay right start with day glow yellow yes yeah okay got it yeah and it's sort of rustling and rippling uh you start to see black as well and you realize that it's a cordon tape you know like my police tape oh did they have they definitely did in this version yes they did because that's all i can think of yeah no they definitely had day glow cordon tape in 1880 anyway this cordon tape is keeping back a large crowd. And as you zoom out, you realise there were literally thousands of people lining a street. They're all just sort of watching and lining the street.

Is it more just observing or is it with anger? Is there an emotion? Sombre. Sombre, but also almost a celebration, but a sombre celebration. Like when somebody you don't like dies, that kind of thing. Yeah, pretty much, but not necessarily someone you don't like. When someone you do like dies, but you're not, like, really close to them. I'm with you, yeah. And you're pretty much on the money there, because you also see, once you've zoomed out,

a bit of carriage rolling down the street. And on the carriage is a coffin and as it passes the crowd everyone starts to cheer and throw flowers and as it's cheering it just fades out the sounders and then emperor norton the first comes up on the screen I really hope there's a second. And then, underneath that, it says, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Lovely. Oh, I'm intrigued. Right, okay, so that's how we start.

And have you any idea who this guy is at all? Not at all, no. No, so you're going into this completely blind, right? Like I do every episode, yeah. More so, though, no. No, so just, you're going into this completely blind, right? Like I do every episode, yeah. More so, though, I'm guessing, because usually you've got an idea that they are a president. Yeah, yeah. Whereas all you know about Emperor Norton I is that he was an emperor. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, right, well, we're going to start. I'm just going to warn you, we're more on a Roman than American history footing in terms of reliability of sources here. Brilliant. A lot of what I'm going to say in this episode, especially in regards to his early life, can be and has been disputed. So just be cautious. Have your Roman head on, basically.

So make up as we go along, essentially. Yeah, yeah, just like the historians do. So with that in mind, we're probably going to start in 1818. Maybe 1819, but almost certainly in London. Interesting. Yeah. It's a new setting for us.

George III is still king, just he's about to die. He's on the cusp. How does he know? He doesn't know much at this time. He's going mad. It's the period of time where he was going on his 50-hour non-stop rants. George IV is a regent. Yes.

Oh, the fat king. Fat prince. Yes, exactly. Hugh Laurie. Yes. Yes. For those of you who haven't watched Blackadder, that would just seem weird. But House is there.

But House is definitely there. back before he was cool. Currently, the Parliament are discussing the Cape Colony. This is a... Like the Cape of Good Hope, sort of thing. That's the one. We're in modern-day South Africa, but obviously not in modern day. You've got to go back in time. Yeah, yeah.

That's history for you. So, yeah. And that's what they're discussing because you see there was a problem after acquiring shall we say the colony from the dutch yeah uh britain was finding out that a lot of people who actually lived in the region were well not very happy about this colony a lot of people think that don't they they get really annoyed when you just invade their home yeah i know I know. I know. It's strange. But anyway, that's what was going on. Anyway, for decades, the Dutch and then the British had fought the Xhosa, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. In fact, the time we're in, in around 1818, there's been fighting in this region

for 40 years. Oh, wow wow and as this is sometimes known as the african one homogeo war you can perhaps figure out that the fighting is not stopping anytime soon no no although impressively this uh these series of wars last from 1779 to considering it's called the homogeo war guess when it ends oh 1879 yeah yeah it actually does oh wow it's impressive that's very unusual look at that that is unusual but anyway we're not near the end we're about 40 years into this and uh the british government want to do something about the fighting right so they're mulling this over like they do they're ruling over over a majority Dutch colony that was fighting with the African tribes. So what to do?

How could they de-escalate the tension? Send the army in and kill everyone. That's the British way. Well, that is the British way, but they decide to do something slightly different here. It's ingenious. Yeah, let's send over a whole bunch of British people and encourage them to settle between the

dutch and the zosa like a buffer state yeah that'll work i mean after all we're having a bit of a population boom over here they said to each other but the whole like industrialization that's just started so uh let's get rid of some of um our desirable types, send them over to Africa. Win-win, fewer people over here, less tension over there, because obviously that will work. Yeah, more invaders. Is it a bit like an Australian thing, where we're just going to send all the criminals?

No, no, no, not quite that. What was decided in 1819 was that the Cape Emigration Scheme would be launched. The British government spent a whopping £50,000 back then to push the idea that British people should perhaps

move to the Cape. Just go on and go over there. It's going to be brilliant. The land of milk and honey. Everything you could ever want escape the dreary drizzly yeah that is britain yeah the dirt paths are lined with gold exactly it's amazing anyway the scheme widely popular like far more popular than they could have imagined it was hugely popular for just a deposit of 10

pounds per person or 10 pounds for a family or if you were under 14 and on your own yeah it was just two pounds for a deposit wow for that basically you got a ticket to the to a new world see that which was not full of starving factory workers yeah no that does sound okay but for 10 pounds then was a lot of money it's like a couple of weeks wages right oh yeah yeah you'd have to save up for that but you're not finding it in your back pocket but still brand new world where you're not starving that sounds good hell yeah not only that you were given a whole chunk of land i believe is how they put it uh that's what the post has said get yourself a chunk chunk or two yeah yeah you had to work for three

years but once you've done that the land was given to you and there you go you had your farm well it's a bit like um i did in the states uh the us in america in america when they first traveled over so you'd work on land wouldn't you for a while yes exactly we have seen this before in some of our earlier episodes this idea that you just be shipped over for for a nominal fee um and the idea is that you just make something of yourself and the the population start to be built in the colonies yeah um so yeah like i say hugely hugely popular literally tens of thousands of families applied to go oh i bet the the government rubbing their hands are brilliant well the upper estimate is 90 000 applications came through many of them had covering letters explaining that they needed this because if they didn't get it

their family were going to starve to death oh yeah i think things were rough in England at this time. And here at last, we see the Norton family. Yay! Yes, John and Sarah Norton. They were residents of a town in Kent. Deptford, to be precise. Which London has since swallowed this. In fact, it now seems fairly central London. It's not actually that far from Tower Bridge.

It's sort of isle of dogs area okay near the millennium dome but back then it was outside of london because london just wasn't anyone in his big back then but anyway they were living there and they were down on their luck uh they didn't have much to their name what they did have was two small boys one was called louis he was about four and the other other was Joshua, and he was about two. Joshua is the one we're talking about today. Joshua is Emperor Norton. Emperor Josh Norton. Yes.

Hasn't got much regality to it, has it? No, I mean, it's interesting that he became Emperor Norton and not Emperor Joshua. Yeah. In fact, I read in one book he's the only emperor in history to take his surname rather than his first name. Wow. There you go. Anyway, at this time, he's just a young little kid, two years old.

There's a chance he was born in Scotland because someone said he was born in Scotland, but there's no way to confirm that. It seems more likely he was born in Scotland, but there's no way to confirm that. It seems more likely he was born in London. But either way, at this time, he's two years old. He's in London. It's a poor family. Now, the Nortons heard about the chance to go to the Cape,

and they applied, along with literally tens of thousands of other people, hoping that their lives would be better in the colonies. It can't be any worse than it is here. Wow. That's essentially their it is here. Wow. That's essentially their thought. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we'll soon find out.

Sarah was pregnant when they found out the good news. They had been selected. Yay. A total of 4,000 people would be going on around 25 ships. Out of 90,000? Yeah, yeah. You didn't have that much chance. Yeah, yeah, they got lucky.

They got it. They got tickets. Now, they became known as the 1820 settlers. The Nortons were actually due to leave in December 1819, but the Thames was iced up, so they were delayed for over a month. But in early 1820, off they go on their way down to the cape of good hope i'm in the second ages yes it's a notoriously difficult trip by boat this one it lasted uh three months to get there yeah by the time they did get there sarah had given birth to their third boy little philip so uh that can't have been pleasant

no no oh no yeah yeah it can't have been the nicest of trips uh but i imagine a routine soon set in essentially you had um all the people like the nortons who had managed to get themselves a ticket and were on the boat. And then you had someone in charge. They were usually from the higher classes of society. They were the ones who were going to lead a group of families over. They were going to keep hold of the deposits, organise the settling of the land, and essentially become the aristocracy over there. That was the idea. And very trustworthy, I assume. Oh, yes, of course.

Some of them were. The Nortons got unlucky. The ship they were on had 102 families on it. Wow. And, yeah, the man who was in charge of their group was named Thomas Wilson, and he wasn't the most honest of men, unfortunately. No, no. He decided to just charge a higher deposit

than he was supposed to and pocket the cash. So, yeah, extra charges were suddenly levied on everyone who wanted to go. He also set himself up as the lord of the manor type, suggesting that the families were going to be working for him. He really went in hard on this idea that he was the aristocracy and everyone else were the plebs. I guess people like him, though, they're living their dream now in this kind of situation. Kind of like, I've always wanted this.

Yeah, but there's a way to do it. I mean, this is essentially how it was going to play out. But you shouldn't be saying it and rubbing it in the family's faces and not all the ship over there yeah yeah so uh yeah thomas uh wilson didn't endear himself to the families and soon arguments broke out uh this led to discontent and as soon as they arrived in the cape region wilson just abandoned his settlers and headed back to cape town to try something else no yeah yeah so the nortons arrive in the new land and they settle down into a town of tents because some of the other ships had already arrived and it just turned into this big tent village like a shanty town yeah essentially we know that the um other rich leader families had

privileged quarters above the rest of the tents and they spent their time talking to the local officials yeah so the the british officials who were already over there who had been organizing this uh we also know from letters that they wrote that they generally relaxed around this time they went out on boats so so they chilled out. They just drank tea. But we don't really know what the likes of the Nortons got up to. Drank tea. I'm guessing they just sort of hung around,

waiting to be taken to their land. Yeah. And eventually, a whole bunch of wagons arrive. Oh, brilliant. All the families get on their wagons, and they set off on a journey that lasted about a week or two, depending on exactly where they were going, because all the families were going to slightly different places. But yeah, I mean, the region, it's big.

It takes a while to get places and obviously the infrastructure is not there. But off they go. The countryside was very beautiful. There are lots of letters about how lush everything looked and how fertile everything looked everything looked healthy everything looked like it was going to grow really well it reminded them of the british countryside it looked like the kind of place where people hadn't been and destroyed everything and just looked pleasant yeah place you could really start a farm and succeed what they didn't realize is that an unusual amount of rain had just

fallen over the last couple of weeks. Everything had just suddenly grown. This was quite unusual. And they also occasionally passed burnt out settlements. Just evidence that people had tried to live

there before and it had not worked. But they tried not to think about that too hard do you think my little joshua's just just crawling along a dirt road picking up this femur bone from a from an old old person just knocking against a rock kind of thing poor little louis using the skull as like a drum well louis might have recognized what was going on slightly joshua being two years old really wouldn't have had a clue what was going on hence the fina yeah now the settlers soon realized that the land they were on just was not suitable for farming uh the tools they got with them weren't good enough to till the stone and clay land that they're on even if it would have done any good it just really was not a great place to start a farm.

Oh dear. Yeah. Now for the first year, strict rules were put in place about where the settlers could go. It's like, no, you're meant to be the buffer. You can't just give up straight away and go and live in Cape Town. But after a while, it just became obvious to everyone this wasn't going to work. So most settlers did end up just

heading to the nearest big settlements mostly cape town um so yeah this the farms didn't pan out that's a shame you may have noticed i've been talking very generally for a while here um and not about the nortons in particular yeah that's because we don't really know much about what happened to the Norton family. We only get little snippets. So we can only get a general view of what happened to the settlers. But most likely they were in this group. I mean, we can definitely infer that life was hard, not going very well.

And his pig farm was not doing brilliantly. No, definitely not. I mean, what we do know is that the Nortons did indeed give up on their settlement. They decided not to farm anymore. And like many others, they set off for Cape Town. Yeah. John Norton set up a ship's chandlery. A what?

Which is a ship's chandlery. Oh, of course. Yeah, one of them. Yeah. Yeah, one of them. I. Yeah, one of them. I'll admit, I looked it up. Yeah. I thought, it's like you make candles for ships.

Fire hazard. It seems niche. Yes. Yeah. But no, apparently this is just a shop that sold stuff to ships. So sails, cloths, tar, pitch, tallow, lard, twine, rope. Slaves? No, not slaves.

Just the bits. Good. I'm guessing like mainframes, landlubber. Hoisting. Lots of hoisting. Yeah, hoists. Yeah, you need your hoist, don't you? So, yeah, that kind of thing.

So they had their business, and the business apparently did very well. The family, it would appear, had a few more children, all of them daughters. But we hear nothing more about them. At least I couldn't find anything else about them, apart from more children were born. So they either died early or they were sisters who don't appear again in the story. Yeah. Yeah.

And Joshua grows up in South Africa and we know nothing about his growing up. We know that when he's around 20, the family are doing quite well. That's good. Yeah. We know that Joshua worked for his father for a while and then set up his own business at the age of 22. But it failed. Oh. Yeah.

That's unfortunate. We're not entirely certain why his business failed, but what we do know is that over the next few years or so, despite the initial success of his father's business, things start to go downhill for John. Oh. Not at all. Don't you think maybe Joshua, like,

made his own, like, a Roman emperor shop? And this is the birth of the idea, his idea. Of becoming an emperor. Yeah. Maybe. But, of course, no one in South Africa wanted to know about Romans. They didn't care. Yeah, maybe that was his business.

I just assumed he was getting into, like, the ship business also. But, no, you're right. I think he got into the emperor business. He sold busts. Yeah. That's what he did. Of himself. Yeah.

Yes. It started early. Yeah. Yeah. The business didn't go well for him. And as, like I say, his dad's business starts to fail soon afterwards. Now, by this time, the eldest son, Louis, had moved to another settlement about 500 miles away.

And John wrote to his eldest son, confessing that the business was falling apart. Oh dear. Yeah, I'll quote the letter here. I am totally ruined and lost. Tomorrow, there's another meeting to take place. Oh dear. I have not one penny in the world.

What is to become of me in old age, but I would rather lose all than lead this life I have led for the last three years p.s help yeah it really is not going well everything's falling apart he's uh he he writes that he's struggling to pay for the postage on the letter um wow he wrote another letter a couple of weeks later to louis also saying your brother meaning joshua has been the ruin of all the family he has no compassion or remorse i am more like a dead man than anything else see to me that sounds like daddy asked for money and he said no yeah i mean we have very little to go on but it

really does sound like joshua and his father did not get on and uh john did not like the fact that his son didn't seem to be helping out at all yeah yeah so things aren't going well and then they get worse oh because in 1846 louis dies oh and then december of the same year joshua's mother sarah dies oh no yeah fast forward a couple more months oh that's philip gone oh no yeah oh and the cost of funerals as well my goodness yeah i mean with uh his wife and two of his sons dead uh john takes this hard yeah well yeah, what little business he had left falls apart completely, as does his health, because a few months later, John dies. Oh, dear. Yeah, I mean, literally within two years, Joshua has his two brothers and his two parents dead.

Oh. Yeah, and he inherits just a bankrupt business. Yeah, and lots of debt. So he's 30 years old at this point, all alone. He might, like I say, have a couple of sisters at this point. But if he did, they clearly weren't close. Because Joshua decides that he's going to make his own way in the world. There's nothing tying him down to Cape Town anymore.

So what's he going to do? It's 1848. The world is his shellfish. Yeah. Yeah. So what to do? There's a big patch of land across the ocean. There is.

Now, I give you a hundred Rankian points if you remember what's special about 1848. French Revolution. Something was discovered in America. Gold Rush. Oh yes. Because it just so happens that this is the time that gold had been discovered in California. Rob, Rob, Rob.

What? Can I get 50 points for that? No. No, you're not getting that. That was a huge clue. I'll give you ten and you be thankful. Okay. Put them on the chart. Yes. And I'm not actually there to watch you put them on the chart, so I'm going to have

to trust that you're putting them on the chart correctly. I definitely only put ten on. Good. So yeah, Norton hears that gold has been discovered in California. So he, like many of us gold has been discovered in California. So he, like many of us, decides to go make his fortune in the New World. So he gets on a boat.

It seems that he spent some time in South America on the way. It's really unclear. I mean, perhaps his original idea was to go to South America. And then once he was in South America, he heard of the gold rush and decided to head up north. We don't know. But either way, what we do know is that in 1849, he arrives in the docks of San Francisco with nothing but a dream and his plucky go-get-them spirit. And a spade. And apparently $40,000.

What? Yeah. We have no idea where this $40,000 comes from Isn't it? That was like back then Well, we don't know This $40,000 is referenced in a short essay about Norton That was written in the 1920s

So it could well just be made up Yeah I mean, it's one of these stories that has stuck But if you actually look into it There's no actual evidence that it's one of these stories that has stuck but if you actually look into it there's no actual evidence that it's true it just seems to have been passed down I mean if he did have $40,000

who knows where he got it from because do you know what would be really tragic if he found it at the back of his dead dad's sofa like been there a while damn it and they just didn't think to check. Yeah. Well, I mean, this is the conventional story

is that he got it from his father. But I mean, the business was in ruins. Yeah. Yeah. So he barely had called a letter despite the two that he sent. Yeah. There are some other theories that sound fun

that he made some serious money in South America on the way to San Francisco, but no one knows how. Gambling. Yeah, who knows? I mean, maybe he could have done anything. Anything. Anything at all. Maybe he became a bounty hunter.

Maybe he discovered something. Who knows? We just have no idea. To be honest, it's probably more likely that he didn't have $40,000. I'm leaning towards that. But it would appear that he wasn't destitute when he arrived in San Francisco. He wasn't, like, struggling to eat. No.

He arrives in the city, and he's got something to his name. So here we are. We're in Sanisco in 1849 san francisco at this time was exploding literally um possibly all the gold mining yeah yeah there's probably lots of dynamite around i definitely more mean figuratively here. In 1848, the population of San Francisco was roughly about 1,000 people. In 1849, a year later, the population was around 25,000 people. Oh my goodness, wow. Yeah, that's a lot more people.

Yes. People from all over the United States, and indeed the world, just like Norton, had come to find their fortune. As you can imagine, this frontier town was largely lawless at this time. Militias were set up occasionally, but they didn't necessarily help things. Lynchings were common, which is fun. Unlike the East, where lynchings were almost all inflicted upon the black population uh out in the east lynchings happened against black population and the chinese population oh so uh yeah i did racism i like it yeah it's great yeah yeah so uh a bit of nastiness

was going on um also cholera was a huge problem. Sanitation was next to nothing. I mean, the city was essentially a shanty town. In fact, I've got a quote here of someone describing the city. A mushroom of tents and shanties. If you slipped from the wet, slippery planks, you sank to your waist in mud. Nice. Yeah, it's just a big bog of mud, basically, with tents.

That's San Francisco. But, as you can imagine, gold is being discovered, so there's a lot of wealth floating around. And that meant that the city was rapidly being converted into, like, a real city. Yeah, because you get the banks,'d get the pubs and bars and brothels and and then you've got you've got culture then then things build up even more yeah exactly and this is happening extremely quickly those who were not actually miners and

searching for gold discovered very quickly that the best way to make money was making money out of the miners and the gold diggers. Yeah. In fact, many had soon realized that waiting for the miners to find gold and then taking it off them was a far more secure way to make money than actually going up into the hills themselves. So like you say, shops, bars, hotels,

everything like that just flourish. As did businesses involving real estate as people rushed to buy the best last that's a really good point actually yeah and this is where joshua started to make his fortune because once he arrived he set up the joshua norton and company i'm not sure why it was an and company and not just the joshua norton company but yeah maybe they're the people. So Josh Norton and company, company. Yeah, maybe.

Maybe he had some friends, sock puppets or something. They talk to me. Well, he worked in real estate and imports, or in other words, whatever made money on that day, whatever he could get his fingers into. And he was very successful according to the uh essay written about him in 1920 that i referred to earlier yeah his 40 000 pounds that he apparently had turned into 250 000 pounds wow within three years yeah that's an

equivalent of making about eight million pounds. Oh my goodness. Today. Yeah. So he made himself a millionaire basically. Wow. Within three years. Now, modern historians have disputed this, but what is indisputed is that he was successful. I mean, how successful he was, who knows, but he was definitely successful in starting up a business and he soon became one of the richest men in the grown city. Now, all cities, even brand-new frontier cities, have their aristocracy.

The rich knobs. Yeah, exactly. You're going to get them, even in frontier towns, you're going to have those that fill their... a crust above, I believe is the saying. A crust. Yeah, exactly. A crust. And soon enough, Norton

was hobnobbing with some of the rich men coming from the East. Now, obviously, an immigrant from South Africa, born in England, he was hardly going to fit in with them. He wasn't really part of the aristocracy, but he had money, and

he could get things. um so he was invited to certain dinners in certain fancy hotels that have just been built i guess this sort of time period as well was like almost like the birth of the nouveau riche as well people making their money on business rather than through just acquiring it through inheritance yes yes definitely uh we've got stock markets being set up and all sorts here. There are definitely ways to make money and Norton figured out how to do it. And he soon made friends, as rich people often do. But not only that, Norton was quite eccentric. He was outspoken and entertaining to talk to, apparently. He had some very strong views, shall we say, that would shock and amuse the rich aristocracy of the city, who were living in a world with very little in the way of entertainment. So let's invite Norton over for dinner, and he'll amuse us for the evening.

So he's essentially a jester? Not really a jester. It was more that he'd share his opinions, and people would find them amusing. In particular, he would very loudly complain of the United States government about how slow

and unreliable democracy was. He would frequently tell everyone around him time and time again that if he was in charge of the country, he would run it much better. There'd be none of this Senate business, this stupid democracy slamming everything down. It would be an empire.

Yeah. Soon enough, he developed a nickname amongst his new friends, which was Emperor Norton. Yeah. He would be greeted in the street with a half-amused, how are you doing this morning, Emperor? And Norton would take this in his stride smile and just happily reply uh enjoying the joke yeah i he must have he must have loved

it so a nice nice bit of attention but it's not you know he probably didn't take it in a bad way no no you you get the feeling he was more than happy to be referred to this way and he was uh yeah he was living the good life he was rich he was making friends um he had a nickname life is good in fact it's not long before he starts making friends in the right places and becoming a member of certain clubs and being given seats on certain committees so was this due to respect in his acumen or was it due to him being funny um it's hard to tell because we don't have enough detail i got the sense during the research that people liked being around him and people liked the fact he had money so therefore he was occasionally offered a seat on a committee i mean after all he had very outspoken political beliefs

so he kept up to date with current affairs so yeah why not give him a job on on the committee one of the committees he sat on was the vigilance committee vigilance yes as mentioned crime in san francisco was rife and those with strong business interests and the money to back it decided to set up the Vigilance Committee just to help enforce the law. I mean, they're not the law, but they can help out. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Well, Norton was conflicted, apparently, by this.

According to the sources we've got here, he didn't like the arbitrary justice that the committee handed out for example four men had been hanged without a real trial yeah not not great on the other hand however he did have a business to look after and this committee although a bit heavy handed did kind of help the crime go down so uh well it helps it go go down i think amongst the population but increase it in other areas yeah exactly so i mean he was at two minds about the committee apparently um but he he was on it but apparently was a restraining voice stating that from from this point on perhaps criminals uh should at least get the chance to plead guilty or not guilty in, I don't know, some kind of court before we string them up.

Yeah, let's bring in something like, I don't know, fairness. Yes, I don't know, maybe actually just follow the laws of the United States, maybe. Interesting this, that he seems to be towing the line here of the laws of the land. But as we'll see in the future, he's very much for stability. Right. He wants things to settle down, basically, because San Francisco's

chaotic, and he's trying to run his business. That's not unfair. So, all in all, life is good for Norton. But his luck was about to change. Oh. Yeah, because in 1852, halfway around the world in China, there had been a crop failure,

and the Chinese government banned the export of rice to keep as much food in the country as possible. This is why you put a picture of rice. Yes, yes it is. As you can imagine, news of this spread quickly to San Francisco. The West Coast had a lot of ties to China with trade. So news quickly arrived in San Francisco, rice is about to be cut off. So as you can imagine, rice prices soared. In fact, it became ten times more expensive. It just so happens that Norton had recently decided to expand into the rice business. He did all sorts, but he was going to make it big in

rice, he decided recently. And he saw his opportunity. This isn't a problem. This is, in fact, perfect, because he had connections, he knew some people, and he was able to get ahead of the curve yeah and he managed to set up a deal before the prices soared now his plan was to corner the rice market we've seen this with gold yes but this time it's with rice well they call they call rice

the white gold so uh yes yes they do yes Norton was put into contact with someone willing to sell an entire shipload of rice coming in from Peru. As far as Norton could tell, this was the last shipment of rice coming into San Francisco for the foreseeable future. If he owned all this rice, he would essentially own most of the rice in the city and if he owns most of the rice he can then control the prices on the stock market connected to rice i can see a flaw with that because what if people just don't buy rice anymore but if if you're just dealing in the stocks you can just buy and sell the stocks at the right point that's true yeah this was this is more complex than just buying the rice and selling the rice. He's dealing on the stock market as well,

and he can control the price of the rice because he'll own it. So he can plummet the stocks by just selling it for less. And the price of rice will be thrice. Yes, exactly. This sounds good. He purchased the ship of rice for a huge amount of money, but he is going to make 10 times more on his scheme, if not more. So, yeah, this seems like a sure thing.

However, pretty much the day after he buys the rice, he looks over the bay and to his dismay, two large ships suddenly arrive. Ah, son of a... Rice company on the side. Yeah. Oh, dear. Just really big on the side.

Rice is nice. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, these ships, no one's expecting them. They weren't due in, but it was two large ships of rice. All of a sudden, the city had more than enough rice. The price of rice plummeted back to its normal level almost immediately, and Norton's gamble on the rice market exploded in his face.

Well, to be fair, he didn't make a stupid decision. I think he made a good business decision. It just didn't pay off. Yeah, he got unlucky. It was a gamble. It was always going to be a gamble, but it seemed like a safe gamble. But as with all gambles, even safe ones don't pay out occasionally. So suddenly he owed a lot of money for a ship of rice that was now worth less than he paid for it.

And all the stocks that he'd been buying up were now worthless. Damn it. Yeah. Now, Norton wasn't alone here. The market in San Francisco, propped up by the gold rush, was volatile. Stories like this one were common. Businesses boomed and bust regularly. But that didn't help Norton, knowing that he wasn't alone.

Yeah. He attempted to get out of the problem by stating that the rice once it came in that he did now own was not a good enough quality he claimed that he had been misled on the goods and therefore he didn't need to pay for it claim on insurance not quite insurance but essentially i'm not paying and if you make me yeah you're gonna have to take me to court if you want me to pay. So he was taken to court. As you can imagine, long, protracted legal battles drained even more money, and eventually he lost. So, yeah.

Up until 1856, we know very little about his life, apart from mentions of him losing legal battles against him when people were suing him for non-payments of contracts. Basically, his business just collapses like dominoes. Everything falls apart, and he ends up having to claim for bankruptcy. Oh, wow. Yeah. Hard time for Norton, as you can imagine.

I mean, he was on the top of the San Francisco society, and now he was ruined in just a matter of matter of months now what he did join this time it's not clear it would seem that he attempted to start up his business again from scratch just based back to basics selling of simple goods yeah but it doesn't seem to have worked very well um he seems to have got really lucky when he first arrived and somehow just managed to make a success of himself. But lightning didn't strike twice. And this time it just doesn't work for him.

We've got records of him staying in the best hotels in the city. And now all of a sudden he's in low-rent boarding houses, scraping by. That's never good. Yeah. Now, on top of this, the city was still struggling to become an ordered, respectable place to live. And also, on the East Coast, the rest of the country were mostly dealing with the looming Civil War that was starting to take grip. Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah.

And now, we finally get to the reason why Norton became famous and why we're doing an episode on him. Ooh. Because after several years of obscurity, of really not

seeming to do much, on the 17th of September in 1859, Joshua Norton entered the San Francisco Bulletin office, the newspaper office,

and he had a piece of paper in his hand, and he handed it over to one of the people who worked for the newspaper. And I will read what it said. Oh, brilliant. At the preemptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the last nine years and ten months past of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these United States. of the different states of the Union to assemble in the musical hall of this city on the first day of February next,

there and then to make such alterations to the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring and thereby cause confidence to exist both at home and abroad in our stability and integrity. Signed, Norton I, Emperor of the United States.

Oh, that is fantastic. Yep. He just passed that to someone working in a newspaper and said, publish this. This is my proclamation. Okay. Well, I mean, the man working in the San Francisco Bulletin seeing something that would sell their paper. Well, yes., the man working in the San Francisco Bulletin seeing something that would sell their paper.

Well, yes. What on earth's this? Okay. Yeah, well, they were more than happy to look at this somewhat bizarre proclamation from someone who used to be someone in the city. So they came up with the headline, Have We an Emperor Among Us? And then they started the article, The world is full of queer people.

This forenoon, a well-dressed and serious-looking man entered our office and quietly left the following document, which he respectfully requested we would examine and insert in the bulletin. Promising him to look at it, he politely retired without saying anything further. And then after that, they just published the proclamation in full. Oh, brilliant. And so began the reign of Emperor Norton. Oh, fantastic.

Yes, over the next 21 years. Wow. Yeah. Norton would become a cross between essentially a film star slash actual royalty slash tourist attraction for San Francisco. Now because of this, there were a lot of stories about Norton that's simply not true.

And the real man has been lost to the myth, but I'm going to attempt to go through roughly what happens and what actually happened in his life. But the details are surprisingly sketchy, despite the fact he became quite famous.

The first thing on the emperor's agenda was international affairs. Oh, yes. Because when representatives of the different states did not appear in the musical hall on the 1st of February, much to everyone's disgust, Norton decided to turn his attention to france and their current emperor napoleon iii yeah well napoleon iii was currently attempting to set up a new monarchy in mexico that would be allied to france he was doing this while the us were busy

fighting the civil war right now norton who had made his views very clear on how useless the united states government was also saw the mexican government as failing its people so norton added a title to himself and in 1861 became emperor of the united states and protector of mexico which is nice yes this is so from from now on all his proclamations from now on were signed emperor of the united states and protector of mexico um he did eventually actually give up the protector of mexico title um declaring that essentially there's no point yeah uh yeah so he just gave up on mexico in the end but for quite a long time, yeah, he was protector of Mexico as well as emperor of the United States.

He delivered another proclamation around this time, announcing that representatives from all states needed to gather to him to discuss what they were going to do about Mexico. But again, unfortunately, I mean, the states were just a bit busy fighting the Civil War at this point, so no one turned up.

Yeah, oh. yeah however despite being ignored by the rest of the country norton's popularity in san francisco started to grow railroads had not made it to the city yet uh mail was understandably slow coming across the country yeah uh so therefore news was very slow and therefore entertaining stories about the local characters were hugely popular uh and norton was fast becoming one of the more popular of the characters the city developed in fact he'd become even more popular than oofty goofy who oofty goofy oh of course yeah yeah what well ooft Goofty was a circus performer who would charge people to hit him with a club because he could not feel pain. Wow.

Yeah. So he was quite popular in the city, apparently. I bet he was, yeah. Pay him a quarter or something, hit him with a club, and then there you go. That's brilliant. Also popular in the city at this time was George Washington II. What? This was a man more similar to Norton, as you can imagine.

Yeah. This was a man who looked a little bit like Washington, so started dressing up like him. Like the hat and the wig and the powder and everything. Yeah, so he dressed up like Washington, was known as Washington II, and also ran a phenology shop. That's where you measure heads, isn't it?

Yes. Oh, yeah. He just got a man dressed up like George Washington, just measuring people's heads. Oh. Yeah, so he was around at the time. This led to some tensions. Emperor Norton and George Washington II,

unfortunately, did not get on. LAUGHTER Yeah. I love that. some tensions uh emperor norton and george washington the second unfortunately did not get on yeah george washington the second uh thought himself a bit of a ladies man and um claimed emperor norton was jealous of him it is possible although i couldn't get clarified that uh emperor norton banished George Washington II from the city. I definitely read that somewhere, but there are a lot of things about Emperor Norton that are just not verified. So I can't tell you for certain if that happened. I bet it did. The thing is, it probably did.

It just didn't hold any legal ground. Well, George Washington II did eventually leave San Francisco and headed off to New York. Yeah, still very bitter with Emperor Norton. Oh, he did eventually leave San Francisco and headed off to New York. Yeah, still very bitter with Emperor Norton. Oh, he did actually leave? Yeah, he did leave. Whether it's because he was banished by the emperor or not, I don't know. But yeah, Washington did leave.

Oh, he was leaving anyway. So yeah, essentially, to begin with, everyone just thought, yeah, this is a bit of fun. But it slowly started to dawn on the population of San Francisco that Emperor Norton wasn't just another character with mad ideas. Because he started writing his proclamations about the city and about more local things. And people started to think, actually, what he's saying makes a lot of sense. These are not the ravings of a madman i mean okay he's claiming that he's the emperor and he occasionally says that everyone

needs to come to him but the proclamations he were right he was writing made sense and a lot of people started to say you know actually no that would be good wouldn't it a lot of them were about getting rid of corruption in government, about how corrupt democracy was. Yeah. Which, yeah. And as we have seen in the President's series, in the main series, we're entering the 1870s here, and we're starting to get to the Gilded Age, and yeah, things are really quite corrupt at this time. He also wrote several proclamations about the black population in the region, about how they should be allowed to use public transport and attend public schools. He also decried the treatment of the Chinese population, in particular how they were not being allowed to testify in court.

In fact, I'll quote the proclamation this time. The eyes of the emperor will be upon anyone who should cancel any outrage or wrong on the Chinese. So, yeah. He talked about the corruption in the Indian Affairs Department, about how the agents

were all corrupt and just making money out of making misery for the Native American population. He also announced that women should be allowed to vote. What? Crazy ideas. I know. That's insanity.

I know. He also wanted a bridge to be built over the bay. A bridge? A big, massive, massive bridge. I bet he, what colour did he want it painted? Probably red or something. I don't know. Yeah.

I bet he'd give it a different name, like Golden or something, though. Well, there have been petitions to have the Golden Gate Bridge named the Emperor Norton Bridge. Oh, brilliant. Because he did write a proclamation declaring that it needed to be built. It is pretty much the only proclamation he ever wrote that actually got enacted, and it was nothing to do with him. It's just people eventually realized, actually, yeah, a bridge would be a good idea there. But yeah, many people in San Francisco were reading these proclamations and found themselves nodding their heads as they read them. I mean, yeah, the guy's

a bit strange, and it's all a bit fun, but he's got some decent ideas. And not only that, when they met him in the streets, they found him to be actually quite likable and fun to talk to. In fact, I'll quote someone who met him here. He is a good conversationalist and from having free access

to all libraries and reading rooms, keeps well posted on current topics he will talk readily on any subject and his opinions are usually very correct except when relating to himself he is more familiar with history than the average citizen and his scientific knowledge though sometimes mixed is considerable of evenings he may be found in the theater or the lecture room a cool observer and an attentive listener so yeah there you go that's pretty positive yeah people start listening to what he's saying yeah uh in fact it's not long before he was a recognizable figure in the city and it was not hard to spot him what did he wear well during Civil War, so near the start of his reign, he alternated

between a uniform from the North and then a uniform from the South. We do have photos of him wearing both uniforms, so it appeared that he did actually do this. Why? Well, he claimed he was completely impartial to the war. Well, then don't wear any military garb,

surely? He's an emperor though, he's he was completely impartial to the war. Well, then don't wear any military garb, surely. He's an emperor, though. He's got to wear something. So, yeah, so he'd just alternate between the two uniforms. But after the war, he mainly wore a quite often shabby blue uniform with gold epaulets and a tailcoat. 21 years is a long time to reign. So, as you can imagine, his uniform became shabby over time. We have four recorded incidences of people buying a new uniform for him.

The fire department of the city got him a uniform once. The city itself actually bought him a uniform, which is the only time he officially received anything from the government. uniform, which is the only time he officially received anything from the government. And just private business owners chipped together to buy him uniforms a couple of times. So yeah, his uniforms got replaced, which is nice. So you're probably wondering just what are his days like when he's reigning and he's not writing his proclamations. Well, according to the popular myth that built up,

his days were like this. In the morning, he would wake up, read the newspapers and get a sense of what was going on. He'd then don his uniform, ceremonial sword included. He would then walk outside and be greeted by a florist who would daily give him a flower that he'd wear on his lapel. He would then go on a walk and conduct his inspection of the city. He would take note if anything needed doing in the city, any repairs needed doing to anything, or if he noticed a citizen in distress, he would talk to them. Then in the afternoons, he would go to the library, where he would either write a proclamation for that day, or if there was nothing that needed to be proclaimed, he would play chess or read. Then, in the evenings, particularly in the

latter years, he would go to a fancy restaurant and then go to the theatre, both for free. Apparently, opening nights of plays would often reserve a box for him and restaurants that enjoyed his custom would place up a sign to announce that the emperor ate at their establishment. Oh. Yeah. However, it should be said this is the popular myth of his life. Yeah.

This is all the shiny fun bits. In real life, it's far more likely that his days looked more like this uh he woke up in his rundown boarding house he had a small room that he paid for day by day because he he did not have any money at all he would read the papers and then he'd wander around the city until he went to the library where he would write a proclamation or play chess or read then in the evening he'd go out and see if he could get a free meal or perhaps a free trip to the theater and sometimes he would i mean the the stories of him eating in restaurants and then putting up signs appears to be true it did happen and also boxes were reserved for him in theatres occasionally.

But this would have been a rarity. It certainly wasn't happening every night. On the average day, it's far more likely he was turned away. I get the feeling as well when things were booked for him or signs were put out, it was done in a very mocking way. Well, there's very little evidence that people were openly mocking him. He really does seem to have been taken by the city as almost a mascot.

Okay. There seems to be very little malice. A lot of tongue-in-cheek, a lot of nudges and winks, maybe, but certainly nothing nasty. Yeah, or at least nothing that could be seen. Or nothing that I found. We do know, however, that he definitely

got turned away from theatres occasionally. Because one day he wrote a proclamation after he was turned away. He was quite annoyed. I'll quote this one. The Emperor have his royal prerogatives, or close up the theatres. Whereas rebellious subjects take

advantage of the absence of our imperial guard and occasionally have the audacity to refuse us admittance to the theatres, now therefore we, Norton I, do hereby command the closing of any theatre which may persist in insulting the dignity of our office by refusing us admittance. So, yeah, he wasn't best pleased when he got turned away. No. Conflicts with managers of businesses were not unheard of. In one instance it led to trouble with the police.

In 1867 Norton was in the Palace Hotel, one of the more fancy hotels in the city, reading a newspaper and probably looking a bit shabby, letting the place down slightly. The person working in the hotel at the time asked him to leave, apparently not realising who he was.

Norton, obviously, being the emperor, carried on reading. Of course he could read in the Palace Hotel. So the hotelier called a policeman from the street, who also apparently did not know who Norton was, and arrested Norton on a charge of vagrancy. The charge of vagrancy was then changed to a charge of lunacy, as the policeman realised that Norton kept saying he was the Emperor. So after he was arrested, the news spread around the city like wildfire,

and the city flew into an outrage. The bulletins of a newspaper that first declared him emperor wrote the following, in what can only be described as the most dastardly of errors, Joshua A. Norton was arrested today. He is being held on the ludicrous charge of lunacy. Known and loved by all true San Franciscans as Emperor Norton, this kindly monarch of Montgomery Street is less a lunatic than those who have engineered these tromptalk charges. As they will learn, His Majesty's loyal subjects are fully apprised of this outrage. This newspaper urges all right-thinking citizens to be in attendance tomorrow at the public hearing to be held before the Commissioner of Lunacy wingate jones this blot on the record san francisco must be removed

and then another paper wrote norton was in his day a respectable merchant and since he has won the imperial purple he has shed no blood robbed, and has spoiled the country of no one, which is more than can be said of any of his fellows in that line. So as you can see, a slight tongue-in-cheek kind of amused attitude, but you also get the sense that he was liked. Yeah, maybe not respected, but appreciated. Yeah, definitely. After the outrage from the newspapers and people in the city, the police chief stepped in and released the emperor.

Norton himself issued a full pardon for the arresting officer, which is nice. And from that moment on, apparently, all the police officers in the city saluted the emperor whenever he passed really oh wow yeah so actually this all turned out well for him by this point i mean the myth behind the emperor was growing and growing um and soon he was appearing in national newspapers not just in san francisco the stories grew with the coverage and soon people started to speculate that he actually was royalty. There was one rumor going around that he was related to Napoleon III, perhaps even his son,

even though the dates don't really work out. Another rumor went around that he was just pretending to be poor. He was a real royal who was just living amongst his subjects to do good. Norton did actually start to make some money around this time by selling his own currency. It's speculated he did this because he literally had nothing and he needed a way to make money. Yeah, so he just started his own currency. I mean, it wasn't much.

I mean, they were like $10 bills. But it was enough that it helped support him. Apparently, the notes were considered legal tender by many in the city and they were actually exchanged. Brilliant. Yeah. I wonder if you can still get hold of them.

Well, you can because they're now worth a fair amount of money. You're talking thousands of dollars per note because they're quite rare. I mean, to begin with, they weren't actually worth the price of the paper to print on but they're quite rare. I mean, to begin with, they weren't actually worth the price of the paper to print on, but they're quite expensive. I just found some pictures online of the dollars. They're probably printed as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just thought it might have, like, a hand written on a napkin sort of thing.

No, no, I mean, it's good notes, though. They're printed and they're signed. It looks like they've been side by hand as well. Yes, quite probably. So, yeah, so, as I say, the myth around him just grows and grows. Proclamations start appearing in the press that were signed by the emperor, but were clearly other people just joining in, because everyone started to enjoy it.

The famous one being the proclamation that stated that people would from now on be fined for using the name Frisco instead of San Francisco. However, this wasn't actually Norton who did this one, from what we can tell. This was just someone else. So yeah, 21 years passed years passed basically in this way uh san francisco embraced norton and norton lived his life but then on a january evening in 1880 emperor norton suddenly collapsed whilst walking the streets of the city a police officer who happened to be nearby rushed off to find medical assistance but by the time he returned the emperor was dead oh yeah uh his body was placed on a wagon and taken to the city morgue

where it was expected he would be quietly buried because he didn't have any family however once the news of his death spread many businessmen who had known him back in the pre-emperor days started to donate money for a funeral. An autopsy was then conducted. He didn't need one. It was fairly obvious he died of natural causes, so it would appear that it was simply curiosity to see if there was anything unusual about

this man who claimed to be an emperor. They had a look at his brain and everything. Nothing unusual was found. It was discovered it was a heart attack that killed him. Anyway, two days later, his funeral was held, and over 10,000 people attended. Wow. Yeah, or per estimates, 30,000.

So a lot of people. The streets were completely lined. The funeral itself was held up due to the sheer number of people trying to get closer. Despite the huge crowds, however, only 30 people followed the coffin to the resting place. He was lowered into the ground. A gravestone was placed that had his name and the title Emperor of the United States on it. Awesome. One newspaper wrote,

Perhaps he will rise more than the peer of the most of them, meaning other emperors. Yeah. He has a better claim to kindly consideration than that his lot forbade him to wade through slaughter to a throne and shut the gates of mercy on mankind. So there you go. He was deemed to be a very good emperor.

Yeah. There was no blood on his hands. That's true. His death made him more popular than ever, as you can imagine. And more people wanted to find out about this man they called emperor for two decades. It was discovered that he lived in a tiny apartment with very few belongings. The rumours that he was secretly rich were clearly not true. He had pictures of several monarchs on his walls and a large hat collection, but that was about it. Apart from that, he had very little else. He had literally a couple of dollars to his name. That was it.

But despite this, Norton's death only encouraged the stories about him. And soon enough, stories were being spread that he was engaged to Queen Victoria secretly, and that he corresponded with Lincoln during the Civil War and other heads of states. Then in 1934, Norton's grave, along with all the others in the city, were moved to Woodlawn Cemetery. There was a big mass movement of graves as the city was growing. So he had a second funeral. This one was attended by only 200 people, but it did include a full civic and military honours.

Brilliant! He received a 21-gun salute, which is reserved only for the death of presidents. Wow! That is amazing. It's like everyone played along you go. That is amazing. It's like everyone played along. Yeah. That is fantastic.

And there you go. That's the life of Emperor Norton I. That was amazing. Yeah, he's an unusual character. He is. Shall we rate him? Do you know what, though? We need to rate him with our Emperor notes, right?

I thought about it. I did. rate him but do you know what though we need to rate him with our emperor notes right i i thought about it i did uh but then i decided uh stick to the uh american ones because i mean not only is this a test can we get remote recording to work um it's also a test to see if series two of american presidents will work because well yeah i know we're a couple of years away of series one before series one ends, but I'm very much thinking series two is just more about the people of America. And this would be how the, uh,

the episodes would go. So, uh, I think they should have the same rounds as the president so we can compare them. Okay. Yeah. So anyway,

we'll see. We'll see if it works. Let's go into it okay statesmanship this is hard to judge it is uh because because you can judge his ideas but you can't judge his impact well yeah that's it no one acted upon any of his proclamations he was seen as harmless uh but uh he didn't actually change anything. No one's lives were changed because of him. That said, let's go over a couple of things. So his proclamations were mostly based around

keeping the government stable and free of corruption. So that's good. He believed that democracy was inherently corrupt and that monarchy was the only sensible way to rule, which goes against pretty much everyone's way of thinking in america today but it was not uncommon the founding of america if you remember back to our washington and adams and jefferson episodes yeah these thoughts were common in fact john adams had these thoughts uh so yeah um we're a bit further down the road now so it was seen as unusual but um i don't know if

we could uh take marks off him for that because he does have a point democracy in america at this time was incredibly corrupt so uh you can see why he was saying it well yeah anyway uh his uh proclamations about big picture government stuff were largely forward thinking. And if they had been acted upon, generally would have been good. So that's nice. That said, there seems to be a tendency to cherry pick the proclamations that put him into good light when people talk about him. People tend to just go, oh, he said that women should have the right to vote, or he was arguing on behalf of the Chinese.

But like almost everyone of the time, he had views that don't sit well today. For example, he thought that for societal unity, that all Chinese people should stop worshipping false idols and become Christian. In fact, I'll quote this proclamation here. I, Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, do hereby command you to appoint some appropriate day to gather your wooden gods and idols and send them to your churches in China and let America have all the benefits of pure worship. So, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, he wasn't saying that certain religions were inferior to others. He just figured that for social stability, everyone should have the same religion. America for Americans. Yeah, everyone should be American. Everyone should be the same. And his view is not, I can imagine that would be a very similar view to

a lot of people well yeah like i said for the time these these were would have been seen as uh fairly tame views in fact like i said he was actually uh very forward thinking in many respects he visited churches and um synagogues and um other places of worship and seemed to treat most religions equally but again like i said earlier what goes through almost all his proclamations is this idea of social stability yeah he just wanted everyone to just to calm down so he could make some money basically so it's not all um proclamations of everyone should get along and be nice to each other. But that said, I'd say it mostly is.

He comes across as a nice guy generally. But how do we judge him here? Because none of his proclamations were acted upon. Everyone ignored them. I mean, my view would be the only way, because he pretty much scores zero on everything.

So I think because he's not president, he never was, we should perhaps judge him on what his views were. I think if we are moving forward and we're thinking about season two and how we're going to be judging other people, I think statesmanship should not necessarily be what did you do in an official capacity? It should be more what did you do to improve the United States? Which a lot of non-presidents will be able to get points for. I'd argue he's not getting much in this round. No, yeah, I'd go with that. But it's a shame because he sort of did, he had ideas that would have been brilliant.

Yeah, I'm not going to give him nothing, because I would argue that in his small way, he did improve the United States, because he was spreading some decent ideas that people shouldn't be horrible to each other. But yeah, I can't give him a huge amount of points. I'm going to go for three for effort. I think that's a nice score.

I think three is good. I shall match that. Okay. And it's six for statesmanship. Next round. Okay. There's really not much to go on here. I mean, think back to emperor rankings.

We do it on a program crazy. I don't think it was Crazy. I think it started off as a publicity thing. Oh, we're going to that slightly in the next round. Yeah. Because there is something to be said for that. So hold that thought. But as for Disgrace Gate, all I've really got, his father didn't like him.

And he seems, if we read between the lines, to be partly responsible for his family's financial ruin. But we don't really know. And he seems, if we read between the lines, to be partly responsible for his family's financial ruin. But we don't really know. We've got next to no details, so who knows? But there definitely seems to be that problem with his family. And that is literally all I could think of. Yeah. I mean, some of his proclamations don't sit too well nowadays, like the one I read in the last round.

But, I mean, that is a huge minority. Most of them are actually better than what you'd expect for the times. So I don't think I can give anything for that. No, that's fair. Are you thinking anything here? Not really. I'm going to have to go with zero.

Yeah, I'm going to go zero as well. Okay. He's definitely doing better than some presidents so far. Well done, Emperors. Yes, yes. Silver's Green. Well, I'll sum up very briefly here, because obviously we've had the whole episode today,

so we've literally just come through it. But how would a miniseries or a film, I'm thinking more film for this than miniseries. Yeah, but it'd be really good. Yeah. Oh, yeah, well, we've got um born in england and then off to south africa financial ruin uh then off to california makes a fortune loses a fortune declares himself emperor and then becomes beloved by the entirety of san francisco

however the myth is not the reality and he probably had quite a hard life most of the time which just makes it even more interesting yeah see i i think a mini series would be perfect for this because you yeah first episode would be the travel and the journey and again south having an oh my goodness is all terrible next episode him going to america finding his way then it building up but it'd be nice to show sort of like a one episode being his perceived view not maybe not his perceived view but the the view of the newspaper the everything we've got now yeah reality like almost like a comparison that'd be quite interesting well you now again you hit upon what we've not really talked about at all in this episode uh which might surprise some listeners and that obviously is the mental state of Joshua Norton.

What was going on? Now, there's far more to be found by historians and journalists speculating on the mental health of Norton than there is biographical information. I had to sift through the speculation on his mental health to find the stuff for the biography section. People from the 1880s to present day have all speculated on whether he was just simply mad, or they've created a

specific diagnosis for him, or they've claimed he was just going along with the tide. Almost all of the speculation, in particular the more recent speculation, just ends with a, we don't know, we can't be certain. Which is accurate. Yeah. In fact, here's one quote from a psychiatrist, Eric Liss. Norton most closely meets criteria for delusional disorder. He appears to have experienced one firmly held, encapsulated delusion that lasted for decades, while his functioning was otherwise

arguably unimpaired however from the available information we cannot rule out the possibility that norton did not have a psychotic disorder at all but rather was a charismatic trickster that pretty much sums up pretty much everyone's take which is yeah maybe he was delusional but maybe he wasn't we can't tell because we can't. I didn't speculate on drawing the biography because I don't think it really makes that much of a difference to the biography. But what I will say is that it does make a difference to this round because it really will affect how you portray him on screen.

I think he went along with it to start with, then, you know, just got used to it and then sort of expected certain things because he had a certain view of people around him. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I think it is very much contrived. Yeah. I mean, obviously, we're fully in the land of speculation here. But if any of you listen to our Roman series in particular we we've set up camp in the land of

speculation we're glamping in it yeah a little fold-out stove yes i'm happy to be in the land of speculation for a bit um and i'm going to agree with you i'm going to from everything i read i got the feeling that he just went along with this and it grew and it grew but as with most things it's very hard to stop being something if you constantly say you are that person oh exactly yeah so i did um read one interesting article speculating uh it's like it's impossible to say that he had mental health problems because it did not impact him negatively in any way so how could you say it was a mental health problem uh which is a very good point i found yeah so anyway um as for the silver screen though i don't know i'm not sure what would be more interesting i see i'd like the

idea of a like a revolution of him oh i could say this. Like him realising, I could just do this. Look at where he was as well. California, no laws, no rules, really. He could literally do what he wants. And then he became a circus act. Well, I think I'd start with the nickname of Emperor that his friends gave him when he was rich and how he liked it. And then he just kind of rolled with that.

But then I think what I what i do as the last couple of episodes are there make it very unclear to the audience whether he believes it himself or not yes and that way the audience will have to decide because you don't want to shove things down the audience's throat i would also hide how poor he is until the last half of the last i'd hide yes and make it look like he's making a fortune. Yeah. But then after his death, it's a reveal. Oh, yeah.

Oh, no, that's quite nice. I mean, hideous in real life, but dramatically good. So, scores for Silver Screen. I think it's fascinating. I'd give him a good eight. Yeah, I don't think I'm like ten. No. I must admit, I went into this research more blind than I've gone into pretty much anyone,

apart from some really obscure Roman emperors. I knew there was a man who declared himself emperor, and that was all I knew when I started typing up my notes. So when I got to the point where I got to his 21 year reign i must admit i was disappointed there were fewer stories uh i was hoping for a bit more uh but that said it's still a fascinating life i'm i'm gonna join your eight i think i think eight's a good score for this total 16 16 right see this is where it gets tricky. This is where I use the power of technology.

Oh. Because coming through your phone right now is a picture of Emperor Norton. Oh, I've got a beat. There you go. Oh, oh, look at him. He's brandishing that. Well, he's not brandishing it, but look at him gripping his sword. Now, obviously, there's no official photo.

No. Or official painting. So what I did is I just went for the photo that is full length. Look at him gripping his sword. Now, obviously, there's no official photo or official painting. So what I did is I just went for the photo that is full length so you can see all of him. But, yeah, quite short and stocky. Yeah. Military uniform. Big puffing, like, goatee.

Is that the right word? Yeah, it's a big goatee, though. It's, like, one of the old-fashioned. It's just on the front of his face, but it's big. Looks like a schnauzer. Like a big right okay uh he's got a big sort of top hat with massive feathers on ceremonial sword uh his trousers are a bit too big and baggy for him and look a bit shabby and he's clearly standing next to a prop and a painting in the background yes like outside i can see the skirting board yeah the the fact that

we've been looking at all these uh president uh paintings where they're painted in these very roman settings and here is a photo of just a sort of paint like backdrop of a sort of roman villa yeah similar though yes i was going to say he reminds me of tyler in the fact he's got that military uniform he looks really shabby yes oh sorry taylor not tyler oh yeah um oh which i should probably say and i apologize in our uh corona update mini 10 minute episode that we released the other day we both said grant for the guy who got shot instead of Garfield. Yeah. In my defense, I was still quite ill when we recorded that.

But I replied to everyone and said, yeah, we realized that afterwards. But when we didn't, it's fine. Yeah. So, score. I kind of like the sort of rough edge. It's quite nice. It seems very early Hollywood, doesn't it it yes yeah exactly yes um and i sort of appreciate because i quite like early hollywood stuff um uh i'm gonna give me seven i think yeah um the fact that you can see the skirting board makes

it brilliant i'm gonna bump bump that up to an eight i'm going eight yeah no i like it it's a good look that's total 15 divided by four 3.75 for canvas ability okay here we do have a slight problem with the way we do the rounds because obviously he doesn't have any terms um and if we're doing other people it's like we could say we should give him points for 21 years uh but other people don't have any kind of rule that we might be doing we divide 21 we divide it by four well the problem is if we do other people who don't have anything like a rule uh how would we do that for terms so for the bonus we're just going to keep the assassination round we've just had a discussion i'm going to cut most of that out because uh we we can't think off the top of our heads um two other bonus rounds are just out of two and

not subjective so we're just going to keep assassination and no one tried to kill him so he gets no points for bonus yeah unfortunately so we can get his total score then. He has got... 25.75. Not bad. I mean, not great, but not bad. I'm just going to have a look at which presidents he beat. Brilliant. Oh, I hope it's like Washington or something.

That'd be amazing. He beat John Adams. Did he? Oh. He beat Thomas Jefferson. He beat Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, obviously. He beat Polk. He beat Taylor.

He beat Fillmore and Pierce. Buchanan, again, obviously. Didn't beat Lincoln. He beat Johnson. He beat Hayes. Oh, he'd be happy. Oh, oh yeah hayes would be more than happy with that uh he beat garfield uh and he uh beat arthur and cleveland and benjamin howardson he beat most people is what i'm saying wow that's a pretty high score there uh so he should be

pleased with that. Oh, can we do something else before we go on to the American? Oh, yeah, go on. Can we compare him against Roman emperors? These scores don't really line up. They don't. It doesn't matter. He's emperor.

I think we need to compare him against other emperors. Okay, that's a good point. I mean, the scores don't line up, but let's just do it anyway. Did he beat Augustus is what I really want to know. He did not beat Augustus. So close. Caligula scored 25.73. Oh!

So he just beat Caligula. Oh, my goodness. There we go. Right, okay, but we do have one important question we need to ask. Oh, true. American or American? Oh, I genuinely think so. Well, you don't get more American than an English South African

who's declaring himself emperor. It's the American dream. Yes, yeah, that is amazing. I mean, he lived the American dream. He turned up, he made himself from nothing he won it all he lost it all he became emperor i mean that that's the dream plus more it is that's like the dream waking up deciding to have another nap and then your dream gets a bit freaky yeah that's what that is so yeah i mean i'm definitely saying yes i'm saying yes yeah

that's a definite yes for me um okay can we just end the episode as well on um i've i've just popped onto uh wikipedia as well um because they tried to like like you said they tried to name the bridge after him yeah um the emperor nelson bridge is on a rename for the bay bridge um currently the organization hopes to sponsor a legislative resolution that would take effect in 2022 at the 150th anniversary of emperor norton's proclamations of 1876 it's still going so there might be still trying to make it happen so there is a chance he might get a bridge or part of a bridge named after him in san francisco part of a bridge they try to name a section of it after him because they do that apparently oh yeah no no i remember reading that but yeah well yeah okay so if you're listening uh i don't know um write to uh your

congressman your senator i mean they probably have some things going on at the moment that they're quite busy with but nothing is important yeah they do we need we need the emperor norton bridge that's what we need okay right well there we go that's our special emperor norton episode i hope you enjoyed learning about emperor norton i did good good I'm glad. Right. And hopefully the sound quality for this works and we've got a decent episode on our hands. Fingers crossed. Oh, keep your fingers crossed. But thank you for your patience to our listeners for our delay in recording for lots of reasons. But if we're successful, we know we can continue with this, can't we?

Yes. If it's successful, we know we can continue with this, can't we? Yes. Hopefully we will be back on normal, regular schedule with actual presidents and emperors soon, as long as this works. And we'll also look into improving the sound quality even further. That's the plan anyway. So thank you very much for listening. I hope you are all washing your hands and you are safe.

Yes. Don't forget you can download some Podbean and iTunes. And like Rob said, keep safe, wash your hands, et cetera. Stay inside. Just stay inside.

Don't be, don't try and be a hero. Yeah. You don't need to go out and buy a kebab. They'll do deliveries now. It's fine. Yeah, it's fine.

It's all good. Right. Okay then. Until next time. It's fine. Yeah, it's fine. It's all good. Right. Okay, then. Until next time. Goodbye. Goodbye. Ah, hello, Mr. Emperor. I've come to see the play. Ah, you, Mr... Emperor.

I've come to see the play. Ah, you have indeed. Well, that'll be, uh... Twelve dollars, please. I beg your pardon? Twelve dollars? Well, sir, you did ask for the box. I... I'm very sorry. I'm not accustomed to paying. You do know who I am. Joe?

Now, see here, I'm accustomed to coming in for free. Right. So? No. Why would I give you a free box? No. Who are you? I'm not...

Fine. How about I give you the twelve dollars? That would be splendid, yes. Right. Hang on a second. Let me just write this down. There you go. This just says the number 12 on an oak leaf. Oh, yes, yes. $12 Norton dollars. This is absolutely worthless. dollars this is absolutely worthless it might be worthless now but i think you'll find in 150 years time it will be worth approximately three and a half thousand dollars when that case come

on in excellent but yeah no it seemed to go fairly well um that's right yeah you happy with that yeah no it's quite well and you can't see what i'm doing as well which is wonderful um you do realize you've had the webcam on the whole time don't you oh yeah it's okay i ignored it um i i took it as uh your way of uh trying to just like keep the energy up