Stuff You Should Know - Short Stuff: Lying in State

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

After RBG passed away she had the honor of lying in state. Who decides this? Listen and you'll know. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, there's Chuck, and this is short stuff, and it's a very solemn edition of short stuff, in fact.

That's right, recently in real time, and semi-recently in podcast time, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18th. I think she deserves a full show on her, which we'll get around to soon enough. But she died at 87 from complications from pancreatic cancer. And after serving for 27, more than 27 years

on the Supreme Court, she became the first woman in American history to lie in state in the US Capitol building. Yeah, on Friday, September 25th, like you said, our time is a little off, but as we're recording now, that's tomorrow, she will be the first woman to ever lie in state. And people will be able to visit,

and they will hold a whole ceremony that we'll talk about. And ceremony is the right word, because it's meant to be a very solemn, a very ceremonial occasion, where the nation is basically called to mourn a very important person who gave to the country with all of her might, with all of her will, with all of her strength.

Somebody like that is important enough to say, hey, as a country, no matter how divided we are, we're going to mourn this person. And that is the entire point of lying in state. That's right. And now I'm confused whether we should talk in past tense or future tense. We'll just flip flop back and forth.

It'll be like that movie, Looper. But she also will lie in repose at the Supreme Court, which is a different thing. But lying in state at the Capitol is quite an honor. The last time it happened was Representative John Lewis, right here from Georgia's Fifth District. Before that, it was Representative Elijah Cummings. I believe John McCain was only the 13th Senator

to ever lie in state. And he was the last person from Congress to lie in state before Cummings and Lewis, I believe. Yeah, and the point here is it's not like any politician that served the country is worthy of this honor, considering McCain was only the 13th Senator. Yeah. I think only a handful of private citizens,

including Rosa Parks, have ever been honored as such. And that was in 2005. Yeah, and being a private citizen, Rosa Parks lied in honor, which is different, as we'll see. But lying in state is a very distinct honor. And it's actually, I don't wanna say fairly new. The first time it was done in the United States in the Capitol was July 1st, 1852, with Henry Clay,

who was a Congressman from Kentucky and known as the Great Compromiser. And he was honored because he had worked basically his entire political life to stave off civil war. He failed posthumously, but during his lifetime, he managed to keep it from happening. And so he was the first person to lie in state in the United States Capitol.

Right, so maybe we should take a break as a little cliffhanger and tell everyone who actually makes the decision on when this happens right after this. We'll see you in the next video. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called David Lashor and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, friends and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips?

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of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

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It's Congress. Nice. I hope there was a hi-hat too when you said Congress. I can't do a hi-hat. Although, ironically, I do have a drum set behind me in the basement. You go just turn around, Chuck. This is a whole other dimension. We're just begging to incorporate here.

So Congress has to propose this and approve of this. It could come by resolution. Usually you don't have to have a resolution. Usually they can just say, come on, can we just agree on this one thing and not have to have an official vote on this? Right. Congressional leadership just goes, hey, this is what we're going to do and nobody objects.

Man, there's so many political jokes I'm just avoiding right now. But yes, that's exactly what happens for sure. But you said something before that not everybody gets this honor. Lying in state and lying in honor are basically the same thing. It just depends on whether you're an elected official

and whether you're a private citizen. It's much rarer for a private citizen to get it. But the only people who automatically are offered the opportunity to have their remains lie in state at the US Capitol are presidents and ex presidents. Isn't that right? Is that true? Yeah, yeah.

So Congress can decide, hey, you're significant enough to lie in state. But it's not automatic. Right, unless you're a president. Right. So like you said, Congress has to propose it. And when they do, they alert this agency called the Architect of the Capitol,

which I had not heard of before until researching this, had you? Well, it's a different AOC, that's for sure. Right, yeah, that's what they're known as is AOC, which I'm sure can be confusing, especially when AOC eventually dies in office 50 years from now and is lying in state when the AOC takes care of AOC's state funeral.

That's right. The Architect of the Capitol in this case is notified. And basically, it's sort of just like any event that you're going to plan. A lot of cleaning has to happen. They like power wash the front of the building. They wax and buff the floors. They want everything to look top notch.

They fabricate wooden stand to hold the casket and polish everything up. And they just, you know, you got to get all the cobwebs out of there for something like this. That's right. You know you've arrived when they're power washing the Capitol for your funeral,

your viewing, you know? Yeah, and I also wonder what that government contract looks like. Right. So the stand that they put your coffin on, sometimes they construct them for sure. But they also have one, those things are called catafolks. And a catafolk is just that. It's a decorative ornamental stand

that a coffin is resting on. And so when you see images of somebody lying in state, look at what their coffin's on. And if they're a president, there's a really good chance that that's a pine catafolk that was first built to hold Lincoln's remains in 1865. Which my goodness, I can't imagine too many higher honors than being placed,

having your coffin placed on the catafolk that was originally constructed for Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, what I'm curious about is if the wishes of the person or the president is to be cremated, post-haste what they do. I don't know. I would guess that they would probably revise the, you know, build a different catafolk or you know, whatever.

I would hope that they would, they would acknowledge that dying persons who is lying in state's final wish, no matter what it is. But I think you have to. You would think so. But the, I would guess that they would do that for sure. They would just adjust their MO basically.

But the thing is, is you can also say, I don't want to lie in state in any form, whether cremated or anything like that, or your family can say that. And in fact, Truman's family and Nixon's family both declined the honor of lying, of having the remains of those former presidents lying in state in the Capitol. And instead, I know Nixon for sure

was just lying in repose in his library in Yorba Linda. And the only difference between lying in repose and lying in state is whether you're basically on public display as part of a state funeral or not. If it's part of a state funeral, you're lying in state. If it's not, you're lying in repose. And so Justice Rehnquist's family also declined the offer. And instead, he lay in repose in the Supreme Court building.

That's right. And I don't think we mentioned, this all takes place at the rotunda. Right. That's the floor they're buffing and shining up. There's obviously got to be a spot for media. They set up these risers because there's an actual ceremony hosted by congressional leadership.

And you've got to have all the, just the nuts and bolts in place, the lighting and the microphones. And like I said, it's like any other event, they just want it to go down very smoothly and very respectfully and by all accounts, very cleanly. Yeah, power wash and everything, right? So there was this anthropologist that this House of Works article interviewed.

And her name is Shannon Lee Doherty. And she is an anthropologist at University of Chicago. And she puts this really beautifully. She said that ceremonies like laying in state, lying in state are meant to embalm an idea that basically this person, especially upon their death, becomes like this electrified, concentrated reminder of national spirit of America itself,

of all of the things that are good about America, that like their work and life and everything they did, especially in death when people forget about everything else and really focus on the good things that the person did, that those good things are really about pushing the country forward or keeping the country in a good state. And that that's one of the reasons, the main reason for lying in state

is to really just kind of say, hey, everybody just let's remember all this, let's focus on that to embalm an idea. I thought that was a really good way to put it. Yeah, to unite the country for four to 12 hours. Tops, tops. I know that's a cynical view, but that's kind of the truth. Yeah, cynicism and rationalism

are basically interchangeable these days, it feels like. Yeah, that's a good quote too. Thanks, Chuck, I appreciate that. You got anything else about lying in state? I got nothing else. I look forward to doing so myself. Yeah, me too. I'll be sitting there weeping over your casket,

wailing for days on end, Chuck. I appreciate that. Well, that's it for us. That's it for lying in state. That's it for short stuff. Short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works.

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