The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 243 - The Gas Mask Man Garrett Morgan

Episode Date: February 16, 2017

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine Cleveland's Garrett Morgan. SOURCESTOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

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week I, Dave Anthony, we just started from American History to my friend. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. Keep up the pace. No, you don't get to tell me anything. I'm the pace car. No, you're not. I started out. You follow. No. No, because you as the pace car you've been dead for a lot of days.

Over and out. It's not a saying for this either. God, do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Dave, okay. Someone or something is tickling people.

Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to tickle you, Claude Kelly. Okay. You are queen-fakey of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do what? Pray. Hi, Cathy.

No. Has he done, my friend? No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

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No. like it and if you don't you'll be if you don't know the podcast actually like what the hell's going on I should think it's a if you it's actually a cool way to sort of introduce someone to the podcast if you're if you because a lot of people like I want to get someone to listen but it's hard yeah the book the fucking art is crazy but the stories are yeah the stories are the same there's different I mean yeah they're you know they're they're funny for sure and the art is the art is amazing right March 1876 March 4th 1876 I mean you blew that

what is it March 4th 1877 77 Garrett I want to thank Elizabeth Bushy for help me I want to yeah okay yep this is a story about research yeah oh I should also say I think we're gonna get a go for me going for Tim Anderson the box are from episode 83 I believe who who is in jail for life but I think we're gonna try to get a go for me try to possibly get that's great over 20 years how about some clemency for the fucking dude yeah just totally unwarranted yeah anyway there'll be more about that there's a YouTube video that I put up on the Facebook page that surfaced after 25 years that is the fight in which he was

drugged that totally fucked up his life and so you can see him being drugged like how fucked up he is through the fight all right March Garrett Augustus Morgan was born in Claesville Kentucky his parents were mixed race and were special targets of racism from whites hating them for being black to blacks hating them because they were the product of white slave owners and slaves they had it all you lucky bastards you guys everybody ain't you know you can't look at your cake or eat it either Garrett's father raised him with a keen awareness of the racial bias they would face when we're pretty easy when you're

like why do they keep saying that stuff everything I have to teach you lessons daddy why does everybody hate me because we're in the worst era ever son when Morgan was 14 in 1891 the KKK was running around in Kentucky terrifying all the blacks in Kentucky burning crosses lynchings you know the usual the standard good time cool clan stuff on top of that the houses where they lived were made of dry second or third hair handwood and there were frequent fires good so they lived in these shitty places that burned easy and yeah so many KKK's job it's super easy for their shenanigans it's yay

clan anigans when clan against when he had a fifth grade education Morgan decided to leave at 14 years old which apparently is the time hot age this week you get out he moved to Cincinnati Ohio completely alone okay with very little money although he quickly found work as a handyman okay Morgan also knew he needed to go to school to get ahead but he couldn't because he worked during the day so yeah he was just in school right that's a valuable lesson for being a handyman school helps so he hired tutors and mastered subjects from his home okay but that's pretty impressive yeah he also learned various where our

education system I think he's had it anyway no yeah he also learned various skills he believed were good for business but the the old problem the clan was back the clan now spread into Cincinnati and with it came the lynching so Morgan got the hell out of town and this time headed to the beautiful city of Cleveland were you were he right that city again arrived on June 17 or as we call it dollopsville 1895 so not a huge black population in the city at the time where the clan that was the clan lighting the rivers on fire that's a natural oh okay yeah right there were 310,000 people living in Cleveland okay

3,000 of them were black boy so it's less than what is known as 1% Morgan got a room and began looking for work in this new less lynching city he went to business after business and they all kept saying the same thing they did not hire black people but then he came across a business who was willing to hire him roots and McBride a sewing machine factory he was hired for five dollars a week and he's now 17 years old okay which is about 135 dollars a week now okay it's not great no Morgan was fascinated by sewing machines who isn't he better be he taught himself to sew and soon learned how the machines worked

he became so knowledgeable that the factory owner promoted him to repair man which was actually job in great demand and Morgan didn't just just repair he also figured out how to improve the sewing machines by inventing he came up with a new belt fastener he made that was so good it sold in 1901 for 150 dollars which would be over $4,000 today okay so he's a fucking smarty pants yeah now at this time Cleveland was the shit not I mean it was shit not shit it was the fucking it was a great city okay from 1901 until 19 the 1915 mayoral election Cleveland expanded city services a public

streetcar service was established an electric light plant and even revamped taxes to benefit working people okay very un-American yeah no well that's what I love about it too that it's a 14-year span it's like for 14 years Cleveland had a boom for 14 years there was a city in America that did not shit on working people over 200 years ago Cleveland had quite a run Americans everywhere were praising Cleveland as one of the country's best governed cities all right and then Harry Davis ran for mayor Harry was the son of Welsh immigrants okay what you don't shoot me daggers what did I do my name is Welsh

my parents are English huge difference between those two countries yeah there's very there's no there's no similarities between those two come on Dave you look and sound crazy oh shut up sorry I should uh his father went from being a steelworker to an elected official in the Ohio State House of Representatives that is a so his dad is doing well you just put a cow on the couch that's a cat yeah that's black and white and it's got for others doesn't have udders hmm he's a majestic beast but if I don't mess with it dude come on he's comfortable leave him alone there's a soft there's a very soft part

underneath it's he's also bottom part of him he's so sweet why you don't pet his eyes he likes so Harry got rich starting his own phone company and got himself elected the treasure of Cleveland with his connections okay he now had sights on mayor this was his second attempt running for mayor Harry was the conservative Republican running against the populist incumbents hand-picked successor okay Harry's opponent was against everything Harry stood for the other guy supported union workers wanted tax laws revamped to help the poor immigrant areas and a 250 hour minimum wage but Harry was a charismatic flashy

car salesman style talker great well I think we know how this story ends his opponent was down to earth from the hip speaker when he was at a German festival he tried to speak German but blew it and accidentally said he was quote with the Kaiser whoa don't try anymore I'm a Nazi liking hmm what happened the newspapers were on the side of Harry's opponent so they did not report the comments at all okay so Harry sat on it okay then two days before the election 60,000 copies of a brand-new four-page newspaper calling itself the loyal citizen featured a Kaiser helmet helmeted cartoon of Harry's opponent with

his comments on the front page two days before he invented a newspaper to break the story of how his opponent is like an asshole correct wow I mean if you if you're like I mean you've just got to be like wait he did what oh well he's my hats off to him I mean that is oh he's gonna get shit done oh that's great yeah it's our guy good for him they were translated into five different European languages for all the people all the immigrants and distributed to the poor guys key immigrant demographics okay people were outraged and he had no time to recover yeah two days before it was the only issue the loyal citizen

ever put out on top of that Cleveland had the dumbest balloting system in a history of the world it was called Buckland voting or single preferential balloting okay here's how it worked first voters would choose first and second choices and also give approval votes to other candidates meaning technically a voter could go in and vote for everybody wait so so they'd be put they put a first and second in but then they're like but I like them all and then they put the rest in but the first and second are waited right wow but only one candidate could receive only one can make you get a first choice vote so you

had to pick a first choice okay right if no candidate received a majority of first choice votes all the second choice votes were added to the total that candidate received I don't even know what's happening so they've added up so if no one got ahead cumulative if no one got a majority of first choice votes then they start adding in the second choice votes how could nobody get a majority I think like like oh maybe over 50% majority okay all right so the candidate with the highest combined total of first and seconds if this amount was greater than 50% or of the first choice votes for all the other candidates

okay the candidate with the highest I mean this is stupid already well it's amazing the candidate with the highest combined total of right at first and second right well one if if that amount was greater than 50% of the first choice vote voters for all the other candidates so he had to have this reminds me of when I was taking the SATs and I would read a question for the fifth time and still have no idea what anyone wanted me to do so if after all that if there was still no majority winner the other choices approval votes would be included in the tally so now they go so now they go to those other votes that are after the

second no no look yes it will take longer but it's more ineffective then the candidate with the highest number of overall votes would win whether or not it was a majority I don't I mean it just sounds insane it's completely insane and like a lot for the people who had to count the balance they were like wait no no but he's got two seconds now I'll post this on Facebook and people still won't be able to understand okay great and anyway I understand and Ron better anyway this is how Harry won well because then everybody else and like everybody else was like we don't even care anymore this is just so just stop just let them

have it don't let them count the other guy had more first choice votes but it wasn't greater than 50% of the other candidates so Harry became mayor and Cleveland's golden age of good government was over Harry was also your typical racist of the time wants declaring that an area of town had developed into a viced district because quote Negros are naturally degenerate oh god now now back to our hero the black man Garrett Morgan who continued to do well he accepted a machinist job at the Prince Wolf Company becoming their first black machinist there he met a Bavarian seamstress seamstress Mary

Hasek they fell in love okay and one day a supervisor I always knew he'd end up with a Bavarian seamstress yeah and then one day a supervisor noticed them chatting very hmm the supervisor warned Morgan that it was absolutely not allowed for black men to speak to white women it's amazing it because like part of me was like is this gonna be fraternization is he gonna be like you can't date your co-worker come on but instead he's like come on you're black so Morgan listened politely and then immediately quit with the money he'd been saving he rented an office space a few blocks down from Prince Wolf and opened his own

sewing machine repair shop that's great he obtained a patent and then so he got his own patent for a sewing machine and business is booming then he married Mary and they built the house in 1910 Morgan and Mary opened a tailor shop and added a clothing line now one of the problems with sewing machines was that woolen fabrics would get scorches by the sewing needles because they move so fast okay so to deal with that Harry Morgan started experimenting with different kinds of lubricants and oils and then he accidentally discovered one mix turned the wavy fibers on textiles straight okay Morgan that borrowed his neighbors

curly-haired airdale dog and he applied the pitch on getting the dog you play I have a machine I need to try on it he applied the concoction okay and brought back the dog with completely straight fur it worked no it didn't what did you what it worked your dog looks like shit yeah he looks exactly you're thank you welcome I mean but don't thank yourself and don't you're welcome me thank me and you're welcome your dog looks terrific Jesus he then tried it on his own hair it worked and it seems safe Morgan then sold the mix as hair straightener to African-Americans okay he's an inventor do I mean yeah I'm still it made him

super wealthy well okay GA Morgan's hair refiner made the couple rich and now they had financial security but Morgan never stopped thinking about the fires from his childhood especially as he noticed the tender box like houses in the ghetto areas of Cleveland so he started to develop a safety helmet for firemen oh wow he wrote he wanted to quote provide a portable attachment which will enable a fireman to enter a house filled with thick suffocating gases and smoke and to breathe freely for some time there in and thereby enable him to perform his duties of saving lives and valuables without danger to himself

wow so I found the patent in 1914 his idea was a vast straight-up invented like an oxygen tank yeah he just is like a fucking crazy you know that makes a lot of sense wait was it wasn't his oxygen tank exactly but what still like even like playing in the realm of like an apparatus where someone can breathe in a no smoke filled room it's crazy no one's thinking yeah no one so he filed for a patent in 1914 his idea was a vast improvement on it existing smoke helmets his device protected the face with it an effective covering and used tubes allowing cleaner air from the lower floor to reach the user so he came up

with that's what he came up with because because smoke goes high so he realized that if you drop a thing down to the ground yeah it is really smart but it's also like you know like four years before that doctors were going like the only way to not get sick during a fire is to smoke right through it that's right jesterfields the only cigarette fireman's smoke when they're fighting fires current smoke helmets being used were metal and required cumbersome gear on the back which exhausted all the firemen Morgan's device was light and very simple okay but getting the word out was a problem he knew white southern fire

departments wouldn't even take them for free from a black man good I mean honestly you think I want to live look you got a great helmet you invented something awesome the truth is it would probably change protocols around here and other departments yeah but you're black so gonna let the men die good to meet you take care now so Morgan hired white actors to sell the devices for him I mean this is like he's out whiting the white at a demo in New Orleans for the International Association of Fire Chiefs he hired a white actor who played the inventor while Morgan played big chief Mason Morgan he not I mean

that he's like I need to be typecast yeah I'm gonna act really stupid and you act like the smart white guy sorry but I don't understand what's happening I put on helmet and go in smoke I'm the inventor of it like the white guy he wrecked it a teepee and filled it with smoke then put on the mask and ward inside the teepee for 15 minutes when he came out unharmed everyone there wanted the masks right the mask wanted a ward at the New York safety exposition but Morgan didn't accept the award instead the white actor did okay still Morgan was happy the mask was making a difference fire departments all over the

US for now using it and you're up to even coal miners were beginning to explore its usefulness the US Army also had a slightly redesigned version of the Morgan mask during World War one so now the city of Cleveland had water issues early pioneers didn't connect cholera and malaria outbreaks to the very dirty Lake Erie and Cayuga River I don't know why I don't know why I was dying the waters no it's nothing to do with the water well the water's like black yeah exactly the water's perfectly pure it's black no the problem is the food wait the Broward's everything all the food you know but the water it's

lettuce it's tomatoes it's it's like it's like a clam chowder consistency I know it's delicious I love thick water but when people drink it then they immediately get the diaries I know yeah yeah like we're saying though no way it's the water so the river was polluted by the industrial sector and all the people probably shitting in it I don't know how it worked but by the 1860s by the way I'm throwing stuff in but yeah when they were throwing their fucking shit pots out the window like now like we you know we now know the problem and we still don't mind like that it's true

you know like yeah I mean well let's just be thankful we're getting rid of the EPA but by the 1860s the filth became too obvious and the Cleveland waterworks was begun so these would be tunnels built from the shoreline out to the lake to bring fresh clean water to the people of Cleveland okay the first crib which is what it's called a crib it's a 300 foot long 4 foot diameter cast iron pipe which was open on one end was installed from the old riverbed to a depth of 12 feet so they would they would put these it was like a thing that they would put down so there was oxygen in there and then they could build the

tunnel right and so they're doing a 300 foot one first to get that like so it's it's further out so the water is supposed to be clean right can we shoot a show called cribs or it's just showing us this big pipes yes thank you water was cleaned and pumped through the pipe to the city's first reservoir 14 years later in 1870 that was not no longer enough water work was begun on a new tunnel which was dug from the new crib 9,000 feet from the shore to a pumping station in the city the guys who worked on the tunnels digging like moles were called sandhogs okay they were almost all Irish and German immigrants man two

sandhogs died when one smelled gas and lit a match just to be sure now I would never say that it was this man's time or that it's not a loss but he lit a match to see if he smelled gas yes smell that I mean that is just melt you smell something funny in here hold on let me light a match okay good let's see what yeah turns out yeah yeah oh shit there was a problem I don't have a head you just didn't have him next turn that was probably gas did you like to match too and now tomorrow I think about it tomorrow I think you can't see what I tried to see yeah well egg on me face in May 1898

they began a new tunnel further out the sandhogs were getting digging 6,300 feet offshore when they hit a natural gas pocket which exploded if eight of the sandhogs were burned the injured crawled bacon that is sand but yeah well I'm when I get to it they're gonna eat them the city of Cleveland has a giant party and they eat these guys good it's called the bacon festival so the injured guys crawled 2,000 feet up the tunnel they had been blown about two thirds of the way there by the blast and then when they got close enough their fellow sandhogs dragged them to safety but they were all far too injured and all

eight died the next day oh two months later in the exact same tunnel there was another gas explosion 11 sandhogs were killed this time so that's that tunnel they sealed off okay like well 19 you know that's a lot of guys I think that's when we shut it down I mean even though they're Irish right it's still yeah so 11 sandhogs are killed tunnels sealed off so two new cribs were that brought in and the sandhogs began to dig two new tunnels all right well anything it's going good no lessons on August 14th 1901 one of the cribs caught on fire five sandhogs were burned to death another five drowned when they jumped into the

lake to get away from the fire whoa but about learning how to swim if you're gonna do a job in the water yeah I'm going to go on here oh no I don't have arms or something I don't know what's happening oh oh no these are you know the problem is oh shit I'm not I'm not burn proof and I can't swim oh I thought I wouldn't burn right also water one week later an older veteran sandhog Gustav van doosen oh I've got a Gustav van doosen for you oosen you're cruising for a doosen no he's Irish oh well I'm in a pasta this whole time I wasn't even German oh he was Irish so he was doing repairs on the bird crib what he heard a

soft tapping coming from the wrecked crib shaft okay well knowing the track record of what these are like if you hear anything weird go he called over to another sandhog and they listen trying to figure out what it was that's the end of them and then they found two starving survivors of the fire before oh hello how are you I've eaten one of us so we started with far so now we're just one fat hello hi you might have trouble getting me out of this thing I've put on a tremendous amount of weight back here I've eaten my other survivors quickly I should add they'd been there an entire week and were two week from

breathing natural gas to climb out the next day there was another gas explosion did they live yeah those guys live okay the next day there was another gas explosion in a new tunnel at crib number three the shaft was destroyed this time six Sandhawks died and everything was flooded so what is anybody alarmed is anyone like really I'm working out it's gone fine they're just Irish that's probably what they said too yeah seriously well put the canary the Irish back in a few men clung to the sides of the ruins until a boat came to get them 24 hours later oh did you see that dude in Australia who had the crane fall on

him this dude in Australia like he was basically like using a little crane in his yard or something like that some like kind of fairly small deal but he's using a little crane whatever topples over lands on him and he's submerged in water and he has to hold himself in a push-up just so that his like nose and mouth are like up there and he's in there for like three hours like in that position the idea of holding up for 24 hours like I just don't think I have the stamina no I think at like our eight nine minutes yeah oh minutes wow you go quick yeah well I'm tired yeah I mean that would be amazing well guys this is

where we die so long yeah but then there were no big accidents for over a year and then in December 1902 another explosion in crib three for Sandhawks died now this may not be surprising but the life expectancy of a Sandhawk was not an hour I mean how long do you last as a Sandhawk being immigrants and working together and such under such conditions they became very close they were not well paid just just amazing yeah why would you pay more why would you pay well yeah they just all dying yeah you know what the next guy to make it to a year gets a million never happening but these immigrants were proud of what

they were doing knowing that it was very important to the city and they all knew that the entire project would be over once they finished crib at number five construction on crib number five started in August 1914 this crib was to have two existing parallel tunnels one pumping station would connect to crib four then extend with a single tunnel to a point five miles north of the Kayuga River mouth so it's a fucking long one yeah so crib number five is towed out and sunk at the five mile point then the Sandhawks started tunneling toward each other from cribs four and five but this was a different operation from previous

tunnel construction usually the way the process worked was city officials got bids from two private contractors and picked the best one but this time the city withdrew the bids and took over the project itself so Cleveland's running this shit you like that I don't know if I do I don't think I mean it's hard to tell because everybody's dying right but that was the city's point that with all the deaths the city should take over okay and it seemed to be working for two years all went well no accidents no deaths they use the latest and best technology 128 foot shaft in the middle of a hundred foot steel square which

featured an elevator which could bring Sandhawks down to remove the dirt so it's a it's a fancy operation okay there was an airlock and powerful air compressor sure but this was after the project managers learned what the bends were they figured that out after many Sandhawks died so they were so they put the elevator because they kept just killing killing guys bringing them up oh my god why is it that they they're fine down there and then you get them up at the top and they're dead hmm we shouldn't be bringing them back up that's the right leave them down there yeah to prevent prevent cave ins they had a

hydraulic shield which moved along as they dug and kept the ceiling up they were not digging by hand but had a tunneling machine also the Sandhawks now lived at crib number five for months at a time they're like mole man yeah they're living down in the fucking bottom of the yeah this is some chud you ever see chud no cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers aware of what it is I've noticed this is what this is the origin story of them oh cool they would work for eight hours and sleep for eight hours and then I guess party for the other eight hours in the crib look I'd move underground if you guaranteed me

eight hours of parting and sleep a day this would be a good place for the next alien movie yeah I'll make a phone call so this is all happening at the bottom of Lake Erie the supply boat would come once in a while there's no radio no telephone no telegraph by the summer of 1916 the two tunnels were just a couple of months away from being finished and everyone was pretty fired up then on July 22nd 1916 shield driver William Moore was working on crib number five when he saw the floor beneath him suddenly rupture into a foot wide rift he then heard a roar of natural gas burst out of the rift so he ran as fast as

possible to the towel his supervisors this is making me nervous yeah it's not good veteran sandhog Indiana Jones moment yeah foot wide that's I wouldn't and then goes veteran sandhog Patrick Delaney heard Moore's story of the whole he immediately quit I'm done okay then yeah I'm done good bye hey great to meet everyone he was taking a shore on a boat and when he was in the boat he said quote there's enough gas in that tunnel to light up Cleveland God he must have been so excited when he was on the boat oh the next day the midnight crew had to stop

working at 4 a.m. when gas leaks forced them out of the tunnels the air compressor was broken city officials told the crew foreman to build a barrier at the end of the tunnel so to stop the gas from okay right the next day the crew refused to enter the tunnel Gus van dozen the crib 5 tunnel chief met with the water commissioner and the utilities director that I have something to tell both of you guys yeah I'm not even a German I was Irish the whole time it's van dozen no what was that it's a van doozy and he was so he is unequivocally told keep workers out of the tunnel until it's tested safe for

gas and the broken air compressor is repaired okay so he followed that order so van dozen next part right so he's up top yeah he gives the orders down to not do anything to the crew chief Harry Vokes and I do heard said them into the time what why would I mean I knew he was going to but he questioned it first but then he asked the supervisor if he could take a crew down and the supervisor said quote yeah conditions permitting well that's so that's a no that isn't that should be a no that's a no that yeah seems fine I don't know yeah it's like there's no gas sand dog J Flynn was then told to go

down into the tunnel and he immediately quit alright so go down there or go live okay I'll be a painter I'm gonna paint yeah you know what's gonna get a new job a paint yeah but seven guys still wanted the job or they didn't care or whatever so they went down an hour and 22 minutes later an engineer at the turbines and an elevator operator so they're in two separate places notice the same problem at the same time their air gauges flailed frantically up to beyond 30 psi and then down to five psi in the tunnel where the crew was this meant there was an explosion the elevator operator could smell gas they

tried to contact the crew but there was no response this is like aliens the elevator operator operator went down and came back up to report the tunnel was flooded with gas and the men were trapped so they decided to try a rescue seven men went down they made it about a hundred feet when they began to just drop the guys that didn't collapse tried to carry the others out of the seven who went down only to survive oh my god now all the sand all the sandhogs who were not trapped in the tunnel were on the crib platform scared and unsure what to do so everyone's like gotten out of the bottom I'd quit but there's also no

way to get off yeah I'd still quit it's not like there's a boat there's no boat there's a boat comes once in a while yeah the other guy took the boat off the fucking thing oh yeah that was a bold move yeah the steam whistle distress call was sounded and rockets were fired into the night sky but with all the factory spoke and fog on the shore of Lake Erie they didn't think their distress was seen or heard by the US life saving station down 10 the men were now near panic they needed two things pole motors which were the only things they knew of for CPR without pole motors they didn't know how to resuscitate fallen crew what what is

a poem and I didn't look it up but it's some sort of some sort of it's a do hickey it goes over the side or part and to get down there they needed smoke helmets then two small boats from the freighter the star of Jupiter pulled up and they took the two injured men off for medical aid at midnight a captain of the US life-saving station finally arrived in a motor launch but he said he had no helmets or pole motors good I just wanted to see how everyone's doing I heard your signal and I bought her I brought well me hello I wanted to drop off some banana bread how is everyone oh my mother makes the best oh it's so good

how many of you are dead now so he comes in a motor launch one sandhog looks at that he has no helmets or pole motors and said is there anyone who knows about air oh god my god is there anyone on this boat who knows anything does anyone know about air you're very desperate when you're like I have questions about air just after midnight Gus van dozen arrived from his home with volunteer rescuers and they immediately descended okay and they immediately became victims of the gas someone then called van dozen's wife and told her that he had died the gas is basically the ring I yeah but it's like guys walking into a

fire at this point like I'm gonna go into the fire to save the people that died from the fire well nobody's checked on anyone in 15 minutes and like they said if they weren't back in 15 so much a check on them we should go all right let's take half of us okay so van dozen's wife then called her son Thomas Clancy who was a tax driver and told him what was going on that their father was dead Clancy grabbed a buddy took over a boat and headed out to crib five right after he got there with his friend a fire tugboat arrived the fire tug did not have masks or pull motors yeah well why would they why who are you gonna

wait it down desperate Clancy and his friend wrapped wet towels around their faces and descended into the tunnel they came back up with the bodies of Patrick Sullivan John McCormick and Harry Hatcher it was now 4 a.m. the explosion had happened at 9 22 p.m. water commissioner Jaeger ordered the air pressure shot commissioner Jaeger Meister yeah cuz I mean literally like if you have Jaeger have some water he orders the air pressure shut off in the tunnel which ease conditions for the rescuers to head into the tunnel but at the same time increase the danger of a tunnel collapse it's all going fine it's

fine your tough choices the tugboat meanwhile came back this time with oxygen tanks smoke helmets and one pull motor okay a firefighter and Clancy's buddy used the helmets Clancy goes down with just the wet towel wrapped around the head trick like you did before yep they went down in the elevator and when they came back up they hadn't rescued anyone and Clancy had passed out okay who'd you save Clancy he died we saved the guy that went with us yeah mayor Harry Davis then came out to the crib platform at 5 a.m. and Garrett Morgan also arrived okay he was woken and told about the unfolding disaster I wonder

who's gonna come in more handy in this situation a cop had seen one of Morgan's demonstrations and begged his supervisors to let him to ask Morgan for help so Morgan was now on the platform in its pajamas that's pretty great yeah honestly all right what's the problem Morgan also brought his brother Frank to help and extra masks Morgan asked for volunteers to help him and his brother only two of the men stepped forward one of whom was Clancy okay easy it's right yeah he'd already gone on twice and passed out once so the four men put on Morgan's masks so out of all these guys only one yeah one regular all right

yeah okay I'll help my brothers the four men put on the mask and prepared to go down just then mayor Harry Davis stepped forward looked Morgan in the eyes and said goodbye but he's staying up here yeah that's pretty cool just like you're gonna die later yeah later aid the men then descended in the elevator they ended up making four trips and brought up all the men whether they were dead or alive mayor Harry Davis told Morgan quote the city will take care of you for this what sure a month later an inquest was held because of all the angry newspaper editorials about the disaster the editorials questioned why

the city had taken over the project at the inquest in Cleveland City Hall fingers were initially pointed at everyone that they could be pointed at van do's invokes a city chemistry would failed to test a tunnel air sample and then witnesses started to blame officials for the safety issues including a lack of resuscitation equipment a telephone and an attending physician yeah all musts so as soon as they turn it on the city and they're like wait you guys were doing this job why didn't you have all the stuff out there yeah well that's when the inquest was completely stopped by mayor Harry Davis good so he

is a good guy making sure who declared quote I believe every man did what he thought was best it's easy to criticize but how does anyone know he wouldn't have done the same under similar circumstances and all right and done okay any questions any nope okay great he concluded that no one was a vault the formal inquest verdict officially held no one responsible good those are always very sober yeah Morgan was completely ignored for his heroics they did not even ask him to testify of course not and to top it off when Harry Davis gave rescuers the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission metals

for their efforts he did not give one to Morgan it's such a piece of shit at this point you're almost if you're Morgan you're like I'm happier to not get any of your stuff because I don't want you to feel like you did anything meanwhile they kept digging for the work crew and by August have recovered nine bodies during the recovery effort an Italian immigrant fell into the lake and what about swimming I don't know what happened swimming Jesus Christ I'm just gonna grab at this break a ride oh but all the way the ball that made 20 dead from the tragedy at crib 5 I think

we're gonna have to put an asterisk next to the Italian yeah I don't know if we count that as 20 we're continued on the five mile crib and was finished in 1918 during the entire construction of all of the cribs 70 men died oh my god it's crazy yeah Morgan was permanently affected by his four trips into the tunnel he suffered health problems for the rest of his life and he kept asking the city to pay for his medical expenses and then what's the next part and the mayor's office always refused but a group of independent citizens knew what had happened and in 1918 they had a gold and diamond metal made and awarded it to

Garrett Morgan for what he had done good so that's nice yeah some randos the hey we made this out of foil and a bowling trophy there you go Morgan bought 400 acres of land and turned it into an exclusive all-black country club wow this really pissed off mayor Harry Davis dynamite but there wasn't much he could do about it oh ought to be a white guy to get that oh yeah I'm just going to the all-black country club I'm the only white guy anyway have fun losers Harry was known as a corrupt mayor who ignored the warnings of the U.S. Army Surgeon General during the 1918 influenza pandemic who warned that the disease was

headed right for Cleveland Harry skipped meetings and delayed action when he was cancelled to close down public meeting places he half did and insisted saloons and gambling parlors should remain open because of this more people died from the flu in Cleveland than any other major American city geez Harry's a good mayor I'm not gonna take the bait on June 2nd 1919 ten homes of politicians and law enforcement officials in the United States were bombed by communists Harry had pushed the prosecution of two communists and cracked down on a May Day demonstration so while Harry and friends were on the

front lawn communists through a pipe bomb through the back window of his house the house suffered severe damage but no one was hurt that just made him popular so he ran and won the governorship after allowing tons of people to die because he was a fucking idiot it wouldn't close the day he survived the he didn't he was on the front lawn well the point is really fought hard after his term he went back to Cleveland and was mayor for another term he died in 1950 Morgan was the first black man in Cleveland to own a car and of course he worked on the car until he understood how it worked and

developed a friction drive clutch wow he's just fucking ridiculous wow 1923 Morgan patented the first three-way traffic signal after he saw an accident between a streetcar and a horse he's the fucking best person ever I mean honestly out of all the inventions I've heard from one inventor he's really got no it's crazy fucking genius like he's like a time-traveling shark tank the patent for the three-way traffic signal was such a massive improvement General Electric bought it from him for $40,000 over a half million dollars in today's money oh Morgan July died kind of a not a great deal now Morgan doll

died on July 27th 1963 just before his death he was honored by the United States government for his traffic signal invention after his death he was given a place in history officially declared a hero of the Lake Erie rescue today Cleveland's waterfront area is named for Garrett Morgan and he is celebrated as a genius and humanitarian wow and there's a Cleveland story Harry Davis is a piece of shit well I you know yeah I just it's you know sometimes it's just fun to hear these stories that you are one-offs we sign cribs