Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 116 - The Pinkerton Detective Agency - "We Never Sleep"

Starting point is 00:00:00 The pinker tins turns out they are not just characters in the increasingly popular and very addictive game red dead redemption to. Founded by Scottish immigrant Alan Pinkerton Chicago's first police detective in 1850, the Pinkerton agency quickly became one of the most important crime detection and law enforcement groups in the United States by the early 1870s. The agency had the world's largest collection of mug shots, built its own criminal database during the height of its existence. The pigerton's actually had more agents than the standing army of the United States of America, causing the state

Starting point is 00:00:33 of Ohio to outlaw the agency due to the possibility of it being hired out as a private army or militia. That's some serious shit. On their three story, Chicago building headquarters, their logo of black and white eye claimed we never sleep. This was the origin of the term private eye. The Pinkerton's were often hired by the government to perform many of the same duties that are now regularly assigned to the Secret Service, the FBI and the CIA. The agency also worked for the railroads and overland stage companies, playing an active role and chasing down a number of Wild west outlaws, including Jesse James.

Starting point is 00:01:07 Yeah, yeah, yeah, get them banned as Pinkerton's. Get them good. And today we suck not only into them, but we also have an overview of the evolution of global law enforcement that led to the formation of the Pinkerton's. You learn amongst a lot of other facts and interesting bits of trivia, that it wasn't all that long ago that you had no one to call when something bad went down. Today is indeed better than yesterday in so, so many ways.

Starting point is 00:01:35 The world's first detective agency explored the examin' today on a cops and robbers edition of TimeSuck. You're listening to Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Happy Monday, Time Suckers. Hail Nimrod, Hail Luciferina, Praise Triple M, and Praise Bojangles. He's a good boy. I'm Dan Comets, great lord of the Suck, the master sucker voice of Nimrod, Prazer of the one eyed three-legged good boy, Bojangles. And so many other nicknames you wonderful meat sacks send in each and every week.

Starting point is 00:02:13 You're listening to Time Suck, recording in Cordelaine, Idaho and the Suck Dungeon, Reverend Dr. Joe motherfucking Paisley, make it sound so sweet, prepared to confuse and agitate office neighbors once again with strange and occasionally horrific screams. Let's get smarter today. Sockers, let's know more about our world in a few hours than we do right now. It's passionately explored. This wonderfully complex and fascinating planet of ours. Can I get a hallelujah meat sex? Amen. Amen to knowledge. Amen to the glory of whatever God or moral or scientific code makes you the best that you can be.

Starting point is 00:02:49 He'll name right. Today's time so I was brought to you by Jim Jeffries show podcast. The Jim Jeffries show on Comedy Central covers the most controversial issues of today. Shares them with you all filtered through Jim's distinctive brand of comedy and edgy and intelligent global point of view. And the Jim Jeffery show podcast offers even more of that point of view and it's even more unfiltered.

Starting point is 00:03:11 Listen each week is Jim Jeffries and co-host and fellow comic for a shot sit down with friends, guests, discuss news, politics, all the things Jim couldn't wouldn't and shouldn't say on TV. So subscribe now to the Jim Jeffries show podcast. Listen to new episodes every Wednesday on your favorite podcast app. Time suck also brought to you today by the Warren conquest podcast. I like it. War exciting.

Starting point is 00:03:37 Conquest who doesn't like to conquer. I'm interested. Warren conquest hosted by fellow time sucker, Neil Eckert. It's a weekly series that spends multiple weeks on a specific civilization to give a well-rounded look at the who, what, when, where, and how. Weekly, roughly 30 minute episodes on Alexander DeGrate, the conquest of Canaan, the first crusade, the future series on the Crusader States, and the third crusade. Warren Conquest is currently transitioning from first crusade and crusader state period and he'll just fuck around with these thoroughly researched episodes.

Starting point is 00:04:13 He touches on often overlooked aspects of these major wars that are missed by condensed, broad brush, historical depiction. And there is some historical humor, but it's not a historical comedy show. More of a look at some of the absurd events that happen in these wars like, uh, if you want some examples, how about an entire army circumsizing themselves in the middle of a war? What the fuck? Uh, I don't know if there's ever a great time to be circumsized, but I would think that the middle of battle would be one of the worst times to do that.

Starting point is 00:04:43 Uh, or how about two drunk, uh, Macedonians almost captured an entire city by themselves. Just these two. How far would it be to take over a city with your buddy and even more fun to do when you're both hammered? Although Neil does say almost, so I'm guessing it didn't end well for those guys. How about making a child a high priest of Poseidon because he claims to talk to dolphins? Huh? Past is weird. Neil also uses tons of movie and popon because he claims to talk to dolphins. Huh? Past is weird.

Starting point is 00:05:05 Neil also uses tons of movie and pop culture references to attempt to explain ancient warfare. So time suckers give time sucker Neil his podcast war and conquest, a chance, listen, subscribe, and learn today. All right. Some news for the time suck community after many months of work to dream team of the queen access the peril danger brain man that they have brought to life another set of amazing designs for those sweet bastards over at danger brain man hop on over to the time suck store feature eyes on some

Starting point is 00:05:37 incredible new shit the overall theme of this this winter merch line inspired by the Donner Party's fight for survival humanities humanity's constant quest for knowledge. It is the coolest shit we've done so far. Lindsey truly has been working on this for months and months way more than you would ever suspect for some merch. We are doing some interesting stuff this time. So even if you don't want to buy anything, I know we just, you know, had the sale. If you're like, man, I just bought some shit now right now.

Starting point is 00:06:01 Just check it out. Just to look at it. It's, uh, if you just want to peruse for the, for the entertainment value, uh, go to the Shopify store, give it a peek. I'm, I'm so proud of it. I've been so excited for a while now, uh, greeting cards on the standup side for all you long term fans. Finally, my messed up greeting cards are going to be, uh, available in physical forms, but a long, like a decade, long time coming, uh, sold and packages eight, find your favorite cards for your favorite people, uh, curious are gonna be available in physical forms, but a long, like a decade, long time coming. Sold and packages to eight, find your favorite cards

Starting point is 00:06:27 for your favorite people. Curious which ones made the cut? Well, here's some hints, revenges near. Happy Veterans Day, happy Secretaries Day, and a lot more, designed by long time friend of the podcast and artist, Reese Bank. We also have beer glasses now as well. These are fucking so cool.

Starting point is 00:06:44 Sold is a set of four. These glasses resemble a beer can with a top cut off, as far as kind of shape, clear glass, four different designs, etched on each glass. Cool packaging, get yourself a set to suck down your favorite libation. Field notes and pencils, this is completely, I would have never thought of this,

Starting point is 00:06:59 but I'm so glad for doing this. We have our own notebook, and it's the coolest notebook I have ever seen in my life. Pocket size notebooks for all your note taking needs includes two time suck pencils. We got time suck socks, because why not? Why don't I have some sweet socks?

Starting point is 00:07:14 Get cozy while listening to the suck. One pair for everybody, one pair only for the space lizards. Camo windbreakers, layer up those hoodies with some sweet looking windbreakers. Enamel pins, I know those are very with some sweet looking win breakers and Namo pins. I know that's very, those are very popular collectibles for some people. You guys have been asking for over a year for these. We finally got them. This is going to be the first set of pins and

Starting point is 00:07:33 a series of pins that will, you know, it'll take a long time to get them all out. I'm sure well over a year or two. We'll start with Nimrod and also a nod to the winter collection, sold in a set of two. And this is the weirdest thing. Well, Chiquitilo's summer, summer back back kit might be the weirdest thing we've done still, but this is close because now we have prayer candles. I shit you not. We have these awesome looking prayer candles because nothing says cult like an altar fire and brimstone. You can collect them all, limited edition prayer candles featuring some of our favorite characters like Nimrod, Lucifina, Chiquitillo Moore.

Starting point is 00:08:10 We're going to have a space lizard one for just the space lizards. Yeah, and two of the coolest t-shirts we've done so far too. We opted only this time to do a unisex fit. The women's shirts, even the new longer kind of boyfriend, Lucifer Fitz, just don't only sell that well. That's okay. We're shifting back to the Unisex T-shirts. One shirt's Navy Heather, the other is charcoal Heather, and just check out the designs.

Starting point is 00:08:32 It's hard to describe them properly, but they just look like, like if I didn't listen to the podcast, didn't care about podcasts, I would just see them and be like, oh, those are just cool shirts. Yeah, one little kind of bit of trivia about one is the coordinates on this one shirt, and you'll see when you look are the latitude and longitude coordinates for hell, for hell, Norway. So hell is a fena. So find out what exotic animal parts have gone into these products. Check it all out in the store.

Starting point is 00:08:58 Too many to go into detail now. We've got to get to the pigertons. And thanks for buying our stuff. Thank you very much. It's just cool to see it out in the world. See the stickers out in the world. So much fun. I'm just having a blast with it.

Starting point is 00:09:10 And sometimes on the price, just so you know too, on a few items, you're like, oh man, that's a little bit high. We really are not doing crazy profit margins. It's, we actually make this stuff rather than have it print to order. We have to order it. And when you're not doing giant orders of thousands of things, it just costs a lot more

Starting point is 00:09:27 per unit. And then also we have that 20% spaceless or discounted spacers get when they sign in for five bucks a month to kind of account for because we want them. Those ones, we don't make much, but we have to not lose money after that discount. So that's why the price point, but yeah, we don't, we do that. We make money because of your subscriptions and the ad revenue and honestly the merch is kind of a wash

Starting point is 00:09:52 when it's all said and done, but it's a fantastic wash because we get to see that stuff out in the world and it makes my heart so happy. All right, real quick, just one more tour date for the year to announce. St. Louis, December 6th to the ninth, last standup shows in 2019.

Starting point is 00:10:07 Hope there's much fun as Spokane was just this past weekend. As I'm recording this this past Friday, after the Thursday show, and it was awesome. Hopefully an indication of the rest of the shows for the weekend, which two out of the three are already sold out, hoping the third one is best Spokane shows. I'm hoping I've ever had the first one the best Thursday show I've ever had for sure. Next show in the area is a TED Talk. Doing that TED Talk in Corteil Lane at the Crocs Center Theatre Saturday, January 12th. Link to that in the episode description as well.

Starting point is 00:10:36 And yeah, and then you know what thing I want to say before you in the episode? Because you can see it on YouTube. Yes, I did get a new tattoo. Part of a sleeve I've been waiting for years to have made. I found the guy that I want to do this guy Caleb. I'm hoping he's going to do the whole thing at a call to wild here in Cordelayna. Man, I think he did a good job on this forum. This is a little yin and yang thing, fetus, death, this big skull there, some space imagery because it's going to be a whole space theme kind of all over the arm to match. But yeah,

Starting point is 00:11:03 I'm excited. All right, and I'm excited about today. So let's get to sucking. It's Pinkertime, motherfucker's. I think I said pinker time. I did mean pinker time. Pinkert's pinker time sounds shady. If you're like, oh, it's pinker time, you're like, I don't want to think of my butt. Get it, get away from me. shady. If you're like, oh, it's pinker time, you're like, I don't want to think of my butt. Get it, get away from me. Or maybe like, yeah, get it in there. Why do my mind go there immediately? And pinkerton, what a weird, it's just, you know, it's the dude's last name. But what, what a non-threatening name because they become very feared by a lot of outlaws in the West, especially in the late 19th century. but it doesn't have that like,

Starting point is 00:11:45 like, you know, like if it was the, I don't know, the, the, will be a tough one, like the, my mind's drawing a complete blank down, all tough words, but if it was just, you know, the, the mayhem brothers or the assassinators, the even like regulators, which was a term for a different thing that would actually address her later in the show, but it's like the right, something with

Starting point is 00:12:08 the heart, but like, Pinkerton's, it's a Pinkerton's. Especially when you say it like that. Anyway, Alan Pinkerton established the Pinkerton detective agency as I said in Chicago in 1850, before we jump into the timeline of Alan Pinkerton and the Pinkerton detective agency, I do want to talk to you for a second about vitamins. Did you know that for less than $1,000, you can buy a 31-day supply of neutralite, double X vitamin and mineral and phytonutrient supplements? Ship straight from Amway.

Starting point is 00:12:34 And I want to talk to you about Amway. Is Amway a pyramid scheme? No, but not unless you believe almost every critic of Amway. It doesn't matter because if you think about it, crystals do have power, especially topaz. If you eat enough vitamins, you can lick phytonutrients. If you hold enough, topaz, you can see God. Not with your face eyes, but with your brain ice. It's easy.

Starting point is 00:12:55 You spin around real fast for a long time, and then eventually you will throw up your vitamins. You do not drop your crystals. God always chases a herd of sky horses. So keep in mind that spinach is not a fruit. Sorry, I tried bath salts for the first time about half an hour ago and they're really fucking kicking it. No, I'm back. What I should have said earlier, was before we jump into the timeline of Alan Pinkerton

Starting point is 00:13:20 and the Pinkerton detective agency, we will need to get a feel for the kind of evolution of law enforcement, the history of law enforcement, investigation methods, to understand how this organization, an organization that is still around, advanced investigation methods. Cause we take police officers, I feel like, for granted in the modern world. Can you imagine a world without law enforcement?

Starting point is 00:13:42 I actually can't, something bad happens, you call 911. 911 was the first phone number I ever learned. Someone's trying to break in your house, you call 911. Someone's following you in your car, or threatening you, you call 911. You accidentally sit down in the model rocket again and see if it's stuck in your bottom.

Starting point is 00:13:57 You accidentally, you call no one. You tell a friend you have problems with your ulcers, you ask them to discreetly drive you to the ER. But no, but seriously, something goes wrong. You call the police. I knew about the police long before I was even in school. You know, before I was in kindergarten. Like a lot of kids, I played cops and robbers when I was little.

Starting point is 00:14:12 It's not even really understanding what a police officer was. I knew there was, you know, quote unquote, good guys. And, you know, there was the quote unquote, bad guys and bad guys broke the laws. And they took what they didn't belong to. And they hurt people to kill people. And the good guys caught the bad guys and bad guys broke the laws and they took what didn't belong to them. They hurt people to kill people and the good guys caught the bad guys and took them away, took them to jail, locked them up so they couldn't steal or hurt or kill anybody else. But you know, for most of human history, no police force as we know of it today, not

Starting point is 00:14:39 even close to it as we know it today, existed at all. Like someone's trying to break into your house. Well, better grab a stick or a sword or a gun, fend them off. Or they're going to take more of your shit. I better hope there's a neighbor within hearing distance willing to help you or you're on your own. That was reality for most of human history, almost all of it really. There were precursors to modern law enforcement and some precursors long ago, like way back

Starting point is 00:15:03 in ancient Egypt every time I referenced Egypt on the stuff, we've never done a proper suck on it. Not really. I'm always amazed by how advanced that civilization was so long ago. The earliest reference to organized, like an organized, a constabulary or a force or police force come from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics dating from the old kingdom that lasted from 26 13 to 21 83 BCE. Long time ago. Yeah, got to do more sucks on ancient Egypt, man. Open air markets in ancient Egypt had, they had private armed guards over 4,000 years

Starting point is 00:15:39 ago as did temples and the homes of rich landowners. It appears based on ancient images that these early guards even used and I'm not made as a trained monkeys to help them chase down thieves. Seriously, trained monkeys. Baboons possibly, maybe some chimps, but yeah, can you imagine seeing like a chimp today wearing a police uniform, riding shotgun in the squad car? Like it's just unfathomable to me. They actually were like, yeah, they would like have the, have the, you know, the chimps

Starting point is 00:16:10 of the baboons and like chase down people. Just drop the weapon, hand rock and see him. I'm good man, I dropped it going. I hold still. Just tell the monkey step point is gun at me. I can tell him, but he won't listen. Sergeant Bubbles does what Sergeant Bubbles wants when he wants. He ate his suspects and tire face off yesterday. That's a sight I will never forget.

Starting point is 00:16:33 Oh, what the fuck? How did he not locked up? All right, first off, watch your language. I don't care for the F word. Second, loophole. Turns out that not only can a chimpanzee officer enforce the law, but they're also above the law You can't take a champ the court for murder or police brutality There's just nothing on the books right now regarding law enforcement officers, you know who can carry gun

Starting point is 00:16:54 But also who are not you know human Sergeant Bibles wants to show you well you get shot It's fucking I mean I mean freaking that's freaking crazy man. He touches me. I stood the city I see the county you, I mean, that's freaking crazy. Man, he touches me. I sue the city. I sue the county. You, everybody. Good luck with that. Take a number and get in line. Pow, Sergeant Bubbles.

Starting point is 00:17:10 How many lawsuits are pending against you right now? Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, of police force can't be held responsible for libel, you know, anything libel of his actions. So you can sue Sergeant Bubbles for all the money and assets in the world, but we pay him mostly in fresh fruit. And he technically doesn't own anything other than that Smith and West and nine millimeter, he's about to shoot you in the leg with.

Starting point is 00:17:38 Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, He got monkey's charming you keep calling monkey. He'll shoot you again. It's chimp. He's like a style of talk. I have names. I have big names. I'll give up everything. You just keep that cycle chip with me. I'll be damned you did it again, Sergeant Bubbles. You did it again. Yeah, sorry. I know that went on a bit, but listen, you do not get a gift in a narrative like like monkey or chimp law enforcement officers narrative like like monkey or champ law enforcement officers ever ever until now. That was I was like, what? I get to talk about monkey police. I know champs aren't technically monkeys, but monkeys

Starting point is 00:18:13 are fun words to say. And another about chips by the 15th century BCE Egypt had a elite paramilitary force called the Maggi, which protected the kingdom's borders and palaces. Some of you gamers may know of the magi from Assassin's Creed. The magi elite security force evolved out of the Nubian magi tribe from present days to Dan, a land known 5,000 years ago to Egyptians as magi, originally the term referred to an area of land, then to the people from that land, then to the security force originally composed only of people from that land. Outside of Chimpsons and Dogs, the security force was only armed with wooden staffs, which I'm sure they knew how to use very well.

Starting point is 00:18:57 And while a lot isn't known about these early law enforcement officers, what we do know is that they were private officers, they were mercenaries, kind of professional soldiers hired as a private security detail. So if you hired them to protect your goods, they're going to do that. They're going to stick dogs or monkeys or chimps or baboons, whatever on somebody who took your gold. They're going to take their stick, they're going to whack somebody trying to steal your fish or your scrolls or whatever. But if you're just some random common folk and someone steals your shit back then, you

Starting point is 00:19:24 couldn't just run up to the Maggi and tell him like, hey, go get them, they stole my stuff. I mean, I guess you could, but they're not going to give a shit. I probably going to have one of their police chimps rough you up a bit. You know, if you're like, please help me, sir, someone, someone's destroyed my shack and smashed all my wife's pottery. Well, it looks like they've smashed your head as well. What? My head, no, my head is fine. They, ah, why'd you buy me with a stick? Why do you bother me, peasants? He did not employ Well, it looks like they've smashed your head as well. What? My head? No, my head is fine. They, ah, why'd you buy me with a stick? Why do you bother me, peasants?

Starting point is 00:19:48 You did not employ me. I'm not beholden to you. It is not my problem that your shack was smashed, or that your wife's pottery destroyed, or that your head is bleeding, or that my baboon is about to tear you limb from limb. Uh, yeah. So, you know, it wasn't, they weren't like place officers. They weren't for everybody. These initial private law enforcement officers were

Starting point is 00:20:07 Especially valuable though to merchants and royals because ancient Egypt's while it didn't have police It also had no standing army at this time then the middle kingdom of Egypt 2040 B.C.E to 1782 B.C.E saw the creation of the first standing army under the reign of a men a men a Minim a mean a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a sounds terrible. It sounds like some some Salem witch trial stuff, you know, the consultant, God's the trial. I would suck if you're like, all right. Well, you sound innocent to me.

Starting point is 00:20:52 Before I let you go, just let me check in with my God, Horace. Just just real quick. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Really? Dang it. Oh, okay. Hey, bad news. Horus thinks that

Starting point is 00:21:08 you are guilty. I know there's no evidence, but he thinks that you're guilty of shoplifting. He also thinks you're guilty of a bunch of stuff that you weren't even charged with, you know, like mass murder, a lot of bad stuff. So we're gonna have to cut your head off. Yeah, prior to the middle Kingdom's new set of laws, also if you were wealthy enough, you could just bribe the panel. You could just throw them enough coin to have their God just happen to ruin your favor and then walk free.

Starting point is 00:21:34 Then in the Middle Kingdom, the position of an actual professional judge was created again. Egyptian culture, I'm always amazed, so advanced for so long ago. These Egyptian judges, possibly the first judges in history, although other civilizations may have had a judge or judge like position, it just wasn't recorded in written form or maybe we lost it to history.

Starting point is 00:21:53 Judges were men versed in the law paid by the state who are so amply compensated and cared for that they were considered above bribery. I doubt it, but that's what they're, the creation of judges also led to the development of courts, which required bailiffs, court scribes, court police, not like, you know, regular police patrol in the streets, but, you know, people can be in order in the court. And then kind of an early undefined form of detective slash interrogator, kind of investigator. The police were paid by the Treasury, but apparently they had at times a supplementary income happening to local resources.

Starting point is 00:22:28 Community policing may have often have equaled like the provisioning and appeasing of a village tyrant. More popular was well to do scribes to whom they were probably likely to be deferential. Then with the poor who had to bow to their every order. Here is some ancient Egyptian writing referencing these kind of early law enforcement types. Befriend the herald of your quarter, who's just the herald was like the law enforcement guy. Do not make him angry with you. Give him food from your house. Do not slide his request. Say to him, welcome, welcome here. No blame accrues to him who does it.

Starting point is 00:23:03 I've got to say this writing makes some seem like psychotic assholes. You know, just do just do this. Hey, forgot to say to do this. Hey, give him food. Don't look him in the eye. Be extra polite or they will kill everyone you love. During the new kingdom of Egypt, 1570 to 1069 BCE, the police force became a little more organized. The judicial system is a whole reform to develop further. There was never any occupation which corresponded totally to lawyer in ancient Egypt, but the practice of allowing witnesses to testify on behalf of the accused, while an officer of the court prosecuted was introduced into the Egyptian judicial system.

Starting point is 00:23:39 So the police officer type serving as prosecutors and interrogators, bailiffs. They also administered punishments. These law enforcement officers in general were responsible for enforcing both state and local laws, but there were special units trained as priests who also informed like temple protocol. Yeah. Punishment was pretty severe for crimes back then, raised from flogging to amputation of the nose or hand or even the death penalty, amputation of the nose. We've mentioned that before, when talking about medieval punishments, it always makes me cringe.

Starting point is 00:24:10 Just what a motherfucker of a punishment. I mean, your nose getting chopped, that ruins, that ruins your week, that ruins your year. You don't get to smell anything, you don't get to taste anything. You're gonna mess up your sleep out, imagine. You know, you're probably gonna make some weird noises when you breathe in now. That's got to be very painful.

Starting point is 00:24:26 It's got to be top three and worse pains you've ever felt. No upside. I don't feel like. I doubt there's a single story out there of someone. Life wasn't going how they wanted it to and then they got their nose lopped off and they're like, yeah, yeah, man, everything's kind of a cruising along upwards now. Not one day, you're poor and miserable and you got a nose and then the next day, you're more poor and more miserable and you got a nose and then the next day you're more poor and more miserable and you got no nose

Starting point is 00:24:46 In an Egyptian state courts guilt was assumed innocent had to be proven beyond doubt Excuse me the accused were often beaten with the rod If they maintain their innocence after severe beating they were usually set free So justice was less about whether or not you actually did something and more about pain tolerance I guess that's fun. I guess if you're way into a BDSM back then, you probably were committing crimes left and right. Just, I'm, I'm sorry. Did I just steal that man's pottery and smash it in front of you, officer?

Starting point is 00:25:14 I guess you'll just have to beat me with the rod again. Hit me like you love me, daddy. Later, it's time went on, ancient Egypt's law enforcement and judicial system. Never got the chance to evolve further into a proper modern like police force due to their civilization crumbling. But they did have something. I was surprised how much they had. And they did have fairly thorough investigations, again, for the time. It's really impressive. They would round up suspects, question witnesses, investigate the crime scene, even arrange reenactments to test theories about the crime.

Starting point is 00:25:50 Detailed records of past accusations they could check to monitor people's criminal histories. Like when a tomb was robbed during the reign of Ramsey's the the night, he sent out a team of investigators to check out every other tomb in the area. Just in case the thieves had broken anywhere else, his investigative team found the tunnel that the thieves had used to break it, to break in with, measured with and length,

Starting point is 00:26:12 even made educated guesses as to what tools they'd used to get in. And then they went up rounding suspects, checking the city records for people with knowledge of mining and a criminal history of robbery. Then it would bring those people in and investigate them. Pretty impressive. Then later they would try and beat confessions out of people, which is probably not great,

Starting point is 00:26:31 but they would try to make sure that the confessions they were beaten out of a match, what they knew about the crime scene and other evidence. So very impressive. This is going on thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, after that, and pretty much, the entirety of the world's history, police investigated, like methods did not continue to evolve. They just went, they backslid for thousands of years until very recently. So it will move on to Rome for a second to

Starting point is 00:26:59 talk about that. In Rome, they did not continue to evolve. Rome did have impressive investigative, you know, or law enforcement kind of methods compared to a lot of other cultures, but they warned us good at these Egyptians. The first loose equivalence to a modern police force in ancient Rome were the Vigilis, Vigilis, formed during the reign of Augustus and 6CE, and then the Cajotes, or Bane, formed around 10CE. So let's talk about the Vigilés first, or Vigilés, Vigilés. That's fucking words, Vigilés. The Vigilés were formed mostly to fight fires,

Starting point is 00:27:34 but they did end up getting some police duties assigned to them as well, which is why I'm including them here. Rome previously had private firefighting groups, but they were just insanely corrupt. Like this is just a funny story I thought to throw in. And that's some of the stuff is like a tangential kind of stories, but I just found it very interesting

Starting point is 00:27:50 as I was researching. Marcus like Sinus Crassus, one of Rome's all-time richest men, put together a firefighting force, almost a hundred years before the Vigilis, Vigilis, but only to make money. He'd offer owners low prices for burning buildings and then have his team of slaves extinguish the fire so that it can be saved for redevelopment. And then if the

Starting point is 00:28:09 property owner refuses to offer you, he would just let the buildings burn to the ground. So I'm guessing strong that when you're doing that, you're also probably setting the fires to get this stuff started. You're not just happening to show up all the time at a fire that just broke out. Yeah, just, hey, hello, who are you guys, hi, hi, sir, we're here to put out the fire. What fire? That went over there, that little one near that guy running away. Oh, the guy, what? The guy running away the dress exactly like you guys? Yeah, yeah, that man, Jim, I mean, dude, we've never seen before. We're here to put out the fire. He started, I mean, fire, he is running from, you know, just please let's put it out.

Starting point is 00:28:51 Another idea to protect the city, particularly at night was the creation of the transvierre nocturne. Three magistrates set on night watch, magistrate and ancient Rome being a term that could mean of writing things over the years, like a judge lofts, or military leader priest, et cetera. The trio's work force was composed of slaves and it was there duty to prevent any disturbances in the city. And it didn't work. It did not work after this.

Starting point is 00:29:15 Some wealthy private individuals even formed their own personal fire brigades, but the fire is still raised. So then years later, Augustus created the created the Vidge, Vidge, Vidge, all S Vidge, Vidge, Vidge, Vidge, I fucking hate this word so much. He created these old firefighters. I've looked at the phonetic spelling so many times the last two days. Fuck it. The V people were composed of freed men with officers. Sometimes there is information I honestly don't even want to give you guys because of one word, but I'm like, that's messed up. It's on read, but some of these words, they just, they will not.

Starting point is 00:29:48 There's some part of my brain that's missing. I never took Latin because I went to Riggins, Idaho, went to school there where they don't teach you anything. And during that developmental period when my brain should have been soaking up certain information like the building blocks of certain things, they're like, no, you don't get to be good at that stuff ever now. It's like vigil, I get the word vigil, but then when you add an ES to them like,

Starting point is 00:30:11 vigils is what I wanna say, but then the pronunciation guide says, Vigilis, vigilis, vigilis, vigilis. I don't call them vigils, right? Cause vigils feels right for you Roman history buffs. Just put up with it. The vigils composed of freed men. Officers coming directly from Rome standing army.

Starting point is 00:30:32 They were organized into 7,000 man cohorts. Although perhaps initially only half of this number each led by an equestrian. I know that word, Tribune, know that word. High ranking officer, each cohort was divided into seven units led by a Centurion, ha ha ha, nailing the rest of these. Uh, uh, they're roughly the equivalent of a sergeant or maybe like a lieutenant in today's military.

Starting point is 00:30:55 The position of Centurion, uh, Centurion, now I blew that one. God. The position of Centurion, I got cocky, evolved over the years. The entire force was commanded by an equestrian prefect the perfectis Vigilum a high ranking military position appointed by the emperor himself It quit. I hope this is inspiration on the way where it's like if you have trouble doing something in life Don't just give up because you're bad at it Just keep making a fool of yourself week after week after week and I think that's how you're supposed to live your life. I think you're supposed to just try even though you know you fail. Is that inspiring or depressing? Not sure anymore. Equipment was primitive and the only way to, uh, to

Starting point is 00:31:36 contain a fire was to demolish a building. Sometimes it's neighbors to prevent the blaze spreading. So the best actions the visuals could provide was to spot a fire before it really to hold. And then a serious fire did break out They had fire buckets sponges force pumps axes picks ladders grappling hooks blankets quite a bit of stuff mats veneger Etc they could douse the fire smother it pull down parts or or all of the buildings, you know You know prevent it from spreading and then there were the police functions of the vigils in addition to extinguishing fire They were the night watch of Rome their duties included apprehending thieves and robbers capturing runaway slaves. They guarded the baths. That was an added duty during the reign of Alexander

Starting point is 00:32:13 Severus when the baths would remain kind of open 24 hours. They dealt primarily with petty crimes, you know, look for disturbances of the peace while they patrol the streets. And then there was the cohortes of Arbana Latin for urban cohorts. Cohort meaning a military unit equal to one tenth of a legion. And and they were more of Rome's kind of true police force. They were commanded by an urban prefect. The primary role was to counteract roaming mobs and gangs that often haunted Rome streets during the Republic.

Starting point is 00:32:42 Angry mobs. No, thank you. Never been around in angry mob, hoping I never experienced that. When I was 20, that sounded exciting. Like an angry riotous mob. It's like, yeah, man, it's fucking riots. Killing in the name of, burn some cars.

Starting point is 00:32:56 Let's just fucking turn everything upside down. Let's bring this whole world to its heels. Hell, no, we won't go. Your government will overthrow. Hell, no, we won't go. Your government will overthrow. Hell no, we won't quit. You can eat your bullshit. That sounds great for some people when you're like 19. But now I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, everybody, come on, come on. I've, I've paid a lot of money for that truck. Please do, please, I love so much. Please do not, please don't smash it. Please don't overturn it. Please don't throw rocks. These windows are very expensive. Come on you guys. We just replaced a carpet.

Starting point is 00:33:29 Please don't burn my shit down. Trying to get my kids college fun together. The urban cohorts, the act as a heavy duty police force capable of riot control duties while they're contemporaries, the individuals police streets as a train paramilitary organization, the urban cohorts, could on rare occasions go to battle even if necessary. That role only called upon a dire situations. And prior to these groups, no actual police force in Rome. Towards the end of the Republic, before the era of Rome, empressors, emperors we were just talking about, criminals truly just ran wild in the streets. You know, you want that home invasion investigated?

Starting point is 00:34:04 Well, get to investigating Sherlock. No one's gonna do it for you. Wasn't safe prior to all this to walk the streets without a guard, wealthy Romans would hire guards, even build their own small armies to protect their homes and families. The guards of one wealthy family often ended up fighting the guards of other families over insults,

Starting point is 00:34:21 criminal accusations, business territories. But even once these kind of organizations did exist, they still didn't have any detective equivalent. If someone was murdered, for example, it would be the responsibility of the eldest male and his immediate or extended family to extract whatever vengeance they felt was necessary. Might be in the form of blood money. The murder's family would try to scrape together the demanded amount of money to give it to the victim's relatives.

Starting point is 00:34:49 On cases where money was not desired or available, the closest male of the murdered victim would attempt to hunt down and kill the perpetrator. If your social status was high enough, you could take somebody to court, but that didn't happen very often because if you were granted a trial, good luck getting anyone to testify because accusers, witnesses, and defendants were routinely tortured all of them to ensure that they spoke the truth. You know, unless they were rich or well connected, but like very rich. So so law enforcement definitely shittier in Rome than it was in ancient Egypt.

Starting point is 00:35:24 And again, you know, just talking about to give an overview of what was going on, but when we get to the pinger tens, we'll get into more like investigative methods that they employed and how they were used. None of that existed back then. And I doubt even in ancient Egypt, there just isn't a lot of hieroglyphics to go off of. There's a lot of scrolls to figure this stuff out with. I highly doubt there were very good investigative methods. Yes, they would do reenactment stuff, but they just didn't have any of the tools that would be at people's disposal,

Starting point is 00:35:52 you know, the last few hundred years. Let's move east for a second. Ancient China, I feel like we don't talk about the east enough. Find out what they were up to around this time. A law enforcement in ancient China was carried out by Prefects, the Prefecture system developed in both the Choo and Jin kingdoms of the spring and autumn period, 776, 476 BCE. In Jin dozens of Prefects were spread across the state, each having limited authority and employment period.

Starting point is 00:36:16 Prefects were appointed by local magistrates who in turn were appointed by the head of the state. So they did have this organized system of some type of law enforcement. Usually the emperor of the dynasty would, you know, appoint the magistrates who would then appoint, uh, I'm sorry, the head of the state was, uh, the emperor and then would appoint the magistrates who would then appoint these prefects. And they oversaw civil administration of their prefecture or jurisdiction and they would report to the local magistrate, just as modern police report to judges, under each prefect, within sub-prefects, who helped collectively with law enforcement in the area, some prefects were responsible for handling

Starting point is 00:36:53 some type of investigative duties, somewhat similar to police detectives, eventually the concept of the prefecture system within spread to other Eastern cultures like Korea and Japan. And I guess law enforcement in ancient China was also relatively progressive. There was female prefects, which didn't happen like in Rome, for example. And that's all the depth I'm going to go into about ancient China only because after googling for literally two hours and not wanting to pay 60 bucks for a 24-hour use of a one-time, like one article on an academic database I found that may or

Starting point is 00:37:26 may not have given me the answers I wanted. I gave up trying to find more details. I mean, I'm sure if this was a suck about ancient China, like ancient Chinese law enforcement, you know, whatever, you take the week to figure it out. But since this is about the Pinkerton's, didn't do it. And I do think it's crazy how I can find like, you know, in a few seconds, like five different carefully constructive video tutorials on how to restart

Starting point is 00:37:51 the exact model of the snowblower I have, like in a very specific situation, like if the engine stalls, can't find one article after two hours online about what exactly the duties of these ancient Chinese prefix were, at least not anything written in English, or like I can find they can even be translated. I did find out that a Chinese physician published the Washing Away of Wrongs in 1248 CE, and

Starting point is 00:38:17 that is the earliest known work in the world on pathology and death investigations. The book describes amongst other things how to distinguish drowning from strangulation, becoming the first recorded application of medical knowledge to the solution of a crime. So clearly investigations were going on a long time ago in China, but based on what I know about ancient feudal China with its hierarchy, you know, the aristocrats and kind of peasants divide there, I'm strongly guessing that like the other places we've already talked about like Agent Egypt and Rome, it was, yeah, if you have a lot of money, you can hire some people to do a few things on your behalf,

Starting point is 00:38:54 but if you're just the average common folk, well, you know, that's tough shit. So now let's head to the precursor for America's early law enforcement systems, Europe and the Middle Ages. Criminal justice in the Middle Ages in Europe consisted primarily of violent feuds between accusers and the accused and payouts to families of the victims. Like we were talking about Rome there. There was no real police force at all in the medieval period.

Starting point is 00:39:17 So law enforcement was in the hands of the community. So I hate this system already. I would not want to rely on my random mostly elderly neighbors for any sort of law enforcement. After the Norman Conquest of England, the Anglo-Saxon monarchy introduced the concept of the Parish Constable, a town officer who prevented and punished theft, tended to village, village stocks, you know, where people would be putting the stocks and drove away vagrants. Vagrants, man. Go on now, vagrants, move it along. Go, you be poor and vagrant in some other parish.

Starting point is 00:39:50 If you can't afford ale, I'll throw your ass in jail. That's my motto. Kidding, kidding, we don't have a jail. Get out of my town, or you'll be hanged for being a filthy vagrant. Males reported the service constables in town for one year. When a constable called for aid, all men of the town would immediately respond and they call for aid we carry from town to town until a criminal was caught or the emergency ceased.

Starting point is 00:40:13 And this tradition of parish constables would last in England until 1829. The parish constable system and the Hugh and Cry system I just described it's kind of like just yelling out, hey, somebody stalls out and developed around most of Europe. And check out this craziness. In former English law, the Cry had to be raised by 100 of the inhabitants, at least of a parish in which a robbery had been committed, if they were not to become liable themselves for damages suffered by the victim. So somebody steals some stuff and you don't help scream, help, someone stole some stuff.

Starting point is 00:40:45 Then you're liable for the random stuff being stolen by the statute of Winchester of 1285 enacted by King Edward, the first of England, provided that anyone either a constable or a private citizen who witnessed a crime had to make you and cry. And the human crime must be kept up against the fleeing criminal from town to town or from county to county until the felon is apprehended and delivered to the sheriff. All able-bodied men upon hearing a shout for obliged to assist in the pursuit of the criminal, it was more over provided that quote, the whole hundred shall be answerable for any theft or robbery in effect, a form of collective punishment.

Starting point is 00:41:22 So in the 13th century England the equivalent of a detective was a loud community game of telephone. I have vagrants just stole my biscuit, I did. And then just a giant succession of other people yelling, I, I, I someone just stole red just biscuits. Red just biscuits happen to eat and they have? Some migrants just like the exporage. Someone just raped the exporist. Is that a crime? RIP in the forest? Richard's biscuits!

Starting point is 00:41:53 Someone just raped Richard's biscuits? Stole! They stole! Someone just raped Richard's hole! And ate his biscuits! Someone just raped Richard's and I just dig biscuits that's filthy vibrant. But seriously, people just yelling, he did it.

Starting point is 00:42:12 He's getting away. Closest thing, you had to detect it work. For most crimes in medieval England. Ah, there were trials, but a lot of those trials were run by priests, you know, trying to be able to for batch it crazy stuff, like witchcraft devil worship during the inquisitions You know, we talked about that in the Joan of Arc stuff. It was a crazy time to be alive

Starting point is 00:42:32 And there was also the tradition of the night watch in Europe 1252 a royal writ Established a watch and ward with royal officers appointed as Shire Reeves aka sheriffs I thought this was cool. The word sheriff comes from the British as Shire Reeves, aka Sharif's. I thought this was cool. The word Sharif comes from the British term Shire Reeve. A Reeve was the chief magistrate in a town or district in Medieval England, and a Shire was a county. So the county chief magistrate was known as the Shire Reeve, and then Shire Reeved, morphed

Starting point is 00:43:03 as words do over time into Sheriff. Words man, fun to pull them out sometimes check out the roots etymology, word nerds unite. And 1252, yeah, that royal writ regarding Shire Reaves declared by order of the King of England and the Winchester Act mandating the watch. Potfall and the King commandeth. That from henceforth all watches be made as it has been used in past times that was to wit from the day of ascension unto the day of Saint Michael, in every city by six men at every gate, in every burrow by twelve men in every town by six or four, according to the number of inhabitants of the town.

Starting point is 00:43:42 They shall keep the watch all night, fromting onto sunriseing. And if any stranger do pass them by them, he shall be arrested until morning. And if no suspicion be found, he shall go quit. Yeah, European laws vary considerably from country to country regarding law enforcement, but in general, like most of the world until the past few years, Punishments were severe and incarceration relatively uncommon. I also didn't realize that until this week that kind of our modern day notion of, you know, capturing people and that whole, like, you know, put them in jail for life. I mean, we've heard stories about people being locked in towers, you know, like the Tower of London for the rest of their days. That was exceptionally

Starting point is 00:44:21 rare. Jails in general were not for just detaining people for long periods of time. It was just to be used throughout almost all of human history and almost every culture. People would just be locked away until their trial. And then usually the punishment would be, something physical and something severe. And the punishment for just a lot of crimes was just death.

Starting point is 00:44:43 So you being jailed for a little bit, and if you're guilty, okay, you're dead. Now you're dead now. Yeah, using scientific means to collect and compare evidence to not become widely accepted in either Europe or America until the 18th century. Metropolitan police services were established for the first time in London in 1829.

Starting point is 00:45:02 That's the first true full-time uniformed professional police force existed. Crazy that less than 200 years ago. The first police and the way we think of them today, police paid by public funds, you know, taxes to protect the public, not just the rich, prevent crime, apprehending criminals showed up in the world. Sir Robert Peel's nine principles of policing were issued to every officer joining this brand new force. Kind of cool, man, the history of the police force here. Principle one, the Robert Peel's nine principles of policing were issued to every officer joining this brand new force.

Starting point is 00:45:26 Kind of cool man, the history of the police force here. Principle one, the basic mission for which the police exists is to prevent crime and disorder. Principle two, the ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police actions. Principle three, police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observation or observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public. Principle four, the degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force.

Starting point is 00:45:59 Principle five, police seek and preserve public favor, not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law. Principle six, police are to think of the common citizen as an imminent threat to the sanctity of society. Until proven otherwise, the common citizen shall be treated as a potential thief or violent offender, show them no more kindness than you would a dog that could very well be rabid. Principle seven, a police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are

Starting point is 00:46:33 the police. The police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties, which are incumbent on every citizen in the interest of community welfare and existence. Principle eight, police should always direct their actions strictly towards their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary principal nine the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime in disorder not divisible evidence of police action and dealing with it and uh... in New York City police commissioner from nineteen ninety four to nineteen 1996 and from 2014 to 2016,

Starting point is 00:47:06 William Joseph Bratton, one of America's most famous law enforcement officers, claims to carry these principles around with him to this day. And I made up number six. Police were not supposed to look at the average citizen as a possibly rabid dog. The real number six is police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient. So those came out in the very beginning of the early 19th century and prior to that,

Starting point is 00:47:36 there was no real code of conduct for law enforcement officers, not in the way we think of it today, basically anywhere in the world. England didn't organize an actual detective force for criminal investigations until 1842. And now this is taking us very close to the time of Alan Pinkerton's formation of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Let's look real quick at pre-Pinkerton America. We're almost there to the Pinkerton's very close. The United States inherited England's Anglo-Saxon system of social obligation, sheriffs,

Starting point is 00:48:08 constables, watchmen, overall notions of justice. As American society became less rural and agriculturally rooted, more urban and industrialized, crime riots, other public and public disturbances became more common. And then a new type of law enforcement was clearly needed. However, Americans were very wary of creating standing publicly funded police forces. You know, it's that whole American spirit of like, let me know. I got this. Oh, no, don't tell me what to do. Among the first partially funded police or public police forces established in the in colonial America, where the watchman organized in Boston in 1631 and a new answer

Starting point is 00:48:46 damn later in New York City, but you know later known as New York City in a in 1647. And although these watchmen were paid a nominal fee in both Boston and New York, most officers in colonial America did not receive anything, you know, close to a salary. And they were just kind of paid by private citizens. So you know, reminds me of the ancient Egyptian private security force we talked about earlier than Magi. You know, if you were paying them, you know, for the most part, they would keep some law on order on your behalf.

Starting point is 00:49:11 But if you were say like an American Indian, not paying them and someone killed you, well, the watchman in Boston, not going to do shit. The frontier regions of the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, justice was even looser. A vigilante justice was the norm. Those Western movies aren't lying about what was going on. When gold was struck and some, and I never really thought about this this way until this week, like when gold was struck and some random mind claim in a town of prospect or suddenly

Starting point is 00:49:37 just spring up, it's not like they had to wait for a judge and a sheriff to get there before they could have a town. It's not like that was immediately assigned. And sometimes, you know, when a sheriff was appointed by locals, there wasn't necessarily a judge anywhere near the town. There wasn't necessarily a jail in areas where a formal justice system had yet to be established or the rudimentary kind of policing apparatus proved to be inadequate. And the face of rampant crime, not uncommon at all for citizens who did call themselves regulators in this in this sense

Starting point is 00:50:08 To band together in committees of vigilance to combat crime and introduce order were none existed So you know keep keep out vote for mixing with dog folk Former suck subject Billy the kid. I forgot about this. It's been a while since we do that suck You know he was once a regulator if recall, one of the Lincoln County regulators, cattle rustlers were causing problems in Lincoln County, New Mexico. So the local sheriff, which could just be some dude where it's like, you're good with the gun.

Starting point is 00:50:34 You wanna do this? All right, your sheriff. The local sheriff just went around to some guys that he thought would be efficient in helping him track down and capture some cattle rustlers who were probably gonna be shooting at him. So he wanted some people to have his back rustler to probably be shooting at him. So he wanted some people to have his back and he would just deputize him.

Starting point is 00:50:48 You know, a lot of those old Westerns, you know, like my favorite movie, Tombstone, they have those characters who are like an outlaw, like Doc Holliday, you know, outlaw one second and then the law man, technically the next, you know, someone who's having quickly, quickly sworn in with some, some few words of an oath, give him a badge and then they could help track down somebody They may have been committing crimes with the previous week. That wasn't just Hollywood. That's, that's how it was Basically pre-Pinkerton Superduper easy to get away with a lot of crimes in most of America, especially out west where the, where the Pinkertons would end up doing a lot of business

Starting point is 00:51:20 I think about all this stuff with this this new game. I've been playing that in that red dead redemption, too I haven't been able to play a lot but I played played a little bit over the things giving break. It's open world game if you're not familiar open world games that at the tail end of the 19th century somewhere in the American West and and you're a cowboy who's part of this outlaw gang and you go on various missions robin you know train going after rival gang is or hide out that kind of stuff but you can also just walk around and just ride your horse around this big open world

Starting point is 00:51:45 similar to HBO's Westworld. And when I first started wandering around the woods, I can't forget which button you would push to talk to strangers compared to which button you would push to shoot them. And I kept accidentally drawing my gun on people and shooting at people. And then they kind of like that hue and cry.

Starting point is 00:52:00 People would start yelling, I, best shot, I, there's a, or like, you know, I had to get him or whatever, they just, they just start yelling and all of a sudden, like a mob would truly form and then a bunch of people were just fucking shooting at you. Uh, and then I would get killed initially, but then I realized that if I just like, uh, killed all the witnesses that, and then just like ran away before some other people showed up to see me with all the bodies, no one's coming looking for me. And then I was like, oh yeah, that's how it was.

Starting point is 00:52:27 You know, especially pre-pinkers, and when no one's really doing any investigation, like there's none. If nobody directly witnesses you committing some random crime of opportunity, you're not going to get caught. Like unless you open your mouth and are bragging about it to saloon, and you know, and just totally incriminate yourself and that person decides to tell somebody, then maybe you'll get caught. Otherwise, how the fuck would they catch you? There's no security cameras.

Starting point is 00:52:51 You know, and there's no real police wandering around patroling anything craziness to me. Yeah, prior to Pinkerton's, what we mostly know about criminal investigations, it just wasn't many. You know, we think about the Salem witch trial suck, that kangaroo court allowed spectral evidence to be entered. Someone dreamed you were a witch, that actually held evidence in some weird court, and you could be hanged,

Starting point is 00:53:15 because someone dreamed you were a witch. That happened less than 200 years before the Pinkertins. The Joan of Arc stuff, all those crazy inquisitions, that wasn't that far before the Pink. It's not really, you know, just lunatics, you know, convicting people based on horse shit. You know, we know now that police officers, as we know them, today, came into existence in the last 200 years. And how did those police officers investigate crimes? Not very well at first. They had no friends, evidence to help them with, you know, their investigations.

Starting point is 00:53:45 And they weren't just a lot of times that good at their jobs. The pay was really shitty. A lot of times it was still kind of like a quasi-volunteer position. And you know, there's nothing, there was some academy or anything like there is now. They just just random people just getting thrown into, quote unquote, law enforcement. It wasn't a craft that you could hone. So now that we know a little bit about how law enforcement worked in the world prior to the Pinkertons, finally, let's get into the Pinkertons, see how they change things,

Starting point is 00:54:10 see how they introduce some new investigative methods, and just, you know, hear some of their fascinating tales in today's TimeSuck timeline right after a quick word from another one of today's kick ass sponsors. Today's TimeSuck is brought to you by the great courses plus the great courses plus very good to the time stock community. Very good to time stock. I appreciate a lot of you time suckers already given them a chance and loving them and let me know about it. The great courses plus is an amazing service that lets you dive deep into so many fascinating topics that you might not have had the chance to learn about during school or if you like, if you like me, maybe you did it. Possibly had the chance, but you weren't paying attention

Starting point is 00:54:46 because you don't think your teachers are very good. Definitely more as good as the great courses professors. I have really, really enjoyed the course, Your Deceptive Mind by Dr. Steven Ovella. It's truly changed the way I look at the world around me, how I research this podcast, fascinating look at how our brains work to process information and misinformation.

Starting point is 00:55:05 You know, learn how to separate science from pseudoscience, that surrounds us every day, and just become a stronger critical thinker. I've been leaning on lecture 19 from this course. Lecture titled, the, the, the trap of grand conspiracy thinking for a lot of the secret suck, kind of stuff I've been doing, and then for the new world order suck. Dr. Navella in this lecture talks directly about conspiracies. He talks about something called the, this is a tough word, but I'm going to do my best. Paradolia, paradolia, the tendency of our brain to impose patterns on random data.

Starting point is 00:55:38 Our brain wants the world to be ordered, just the way our brains connected. We want events that we witness to make sense. We want to be able to file them in the appropriate compartments of our mind. Because a sense of not being able to figure out exactly why something is happening, can fill you with dread and anxiety. I actually have the words embrace the darkness,

Starting point is 00:55:57 tattooed on my right bicep, which is my way of saying, we never are ever going to understand why certain things happen or don't. So why worry about it? You know, embrace the unknown because some of the unknown will inevitably just remain unknown despite how much thought you put towards it. And this mental process of paranoia can manifest itself in conspiratorial thinking. You start connecting dots that aren't really connected just because you just want them to be connected.

Starting point is 00:56:25 You start seeing patterns where no patterns actually exists. The Illuminati eye on the back of a dollar bill, the Pinkerton's use of an all-knowing eye in their iconography, time suck using the all-knowing eye in their iconography. You know, it's like, it's got to be connected. They're all part of the Freemasons. They're all part of the Illuminati. It's all part of the same plan. Or, is it that?

Starting point is 00:56:47 Or did a lot of people just think, that's a fucking cool looking eye. I like that. So, you know, for a much more detailed explanation of what I just touched on so much, so much more. So many topics. Give the great courses plus a try. I know you're gonna enjoy the great courses plus

Starting point is 00:57:01 as much as I do, so don't miss out on this special limited time off. We're gonna full month of unlimited access to all the lectures for free only at the great courses plus dot com slash time suck. That's a sign up for your free month now only at the great courses plus dot com slash time suck link in the episode description. Pink or ten timeline right now. Alan Pinkerton is born in a founder of the Pinkerton's born in Glasgow, Scotland, to

Starting point is 00:57:38 William Pinkerton and his wife Isabelle McQueen on August 25, 1819. Another Scottish character still having traveled to Scotland and stayed there for a suck, but it keeps coming up. Scottish characters keep going up. Highlanders. Rednecks, right? Some hillbellies. Pengerton grew up in the notorious Gorbals district in urban slum notorious for wretched living conditions in crime in the 19th century. Overcrowded area of crude housing built by factory owners designed mainly for factory workers who couldn't afford to to to rent out places of their own. As a young man, Pinkerton embraced charredism, political movements to see the working class

Starting point is 00:58:17 more fairly represented British government, and it became a vocal leader of the movement in Scotland. In 1842, a 23 yearyear-old Pinkerton-less Scotland amid a violent crackdown against Shardist leadership. That year, a petition calling for political reform in favor of the working class gathered three and a half million signatures and it was rejected by Parliament.

Starting point is 00:58:37 An economic depression also hit Britain that year, leading to wage cuts for factory-fled workers, which led to factory strikes, which led to very angry mobs, which led to mob violence violence which led to the government arresting numerous shardist leaders demanding the reforms that led to the violence which led to pinkerton bouncing the fuck on out of Scotland when he realized the British government just wasn't going to treat Scottish workers fairly anytime soon. And and also you know printed on his you know brain a little little desire for justice he didn't feel the the working class i guess was receiving the scullin but it is interesting that this happened to him as well

Starting point is 00:59:10 because then later in life towards the end of his life uh... he was struggle with this uh... morally but he would end up reaching the height of his kind of organizational strength by kind of becoming what he hated in the sense where you know the pinkertons would gain their the most notoriety for cracking down on the working class for being hired by industrialists uh... representing factory owners to to squash strikes uh... which i didn't know before the suck so it's weird that he left

Starting point is 00:59:38 scotland because he's like a man this is the these guys are just uh... they're not treat these workers very well and you know and we we're not gonna get any fair treatment so I gotta go to America. And then later on, you know, as he reaches middle age, he becomes the person he hated in many ways. We'll talk about that in a bit. Alan and his wife, Joan landed in Canada, quickly made their way west to Chicago,

Starting point is 00:59:58 which was just another frontier outpost in the early 1840s. In the 1840s, the Chicago, the Pinkerton's arrived and was a rapidly changing, very chaotic town. Pretty damn new town. It wasn't until August 4, 1830, the Chicago was even surveyed and platted, aka mapped. In 1833, that's when Chicago incorporated into a city. And in the 1840, the city still didn't even have 5,000 residents. That's so weird how towns develop. There was other towns I'm sure surrounded around America that did not go further to become

Starting point is 01:00:31 big metropolis. They were much bigger at the time than Chicago. But Chicago really went bananas after this. But yeah, in 1840, it had 4,470 residents. That's not a city. That's a small town. I've been in a lot of towns around that size and they are not Chicago, but it was growing rapidly. In 10 years, it would grow over six fold

Starting point is 01:00:51 into a city of 30,000. And then it would nearly quadruple in size the next decade, reaching a population of over 110,000 by 1860, despite a cholera outbreak taking out 5% of the population in 1854. So many buttholes blown clean off that year with the worst diarrhea outbreak in Chicago history. A lot of McGill's pop. There's a lot like, oh, God, sorry, new listers. That was a little donor party. Suck call back there.

Starting point is 01:01:20 Suck 94, he'll never write. So when Pinkerton arrived, Chicago is quickly changing, becoming a booming retrop list. We had a very wild west feel to it. The population surge, driven largely by westward expansion at that time. It was part of the west, not the Midwest as we think of it today. Railroad construction is going through there. Because of its railroad connection, Chicago's commercial reach was considerable and good location now with the waterfront there on the Great Lakes and then all the railroads going through it. A lot of money is being made by a lot of different people and then independent bank notes or wild cap money is serving as official tender and then these notes tended to be easily forged, faked and traded and underground in this underground economy that

Starting point is 01:02:03 was developing which gave rise to this big counterfeiting community, and then created the need for detectives to catch them. And if you're wondering what the hell is Wildcat money? Good question. I'd never heard of it before. Well, the period from 1816 to 1863 is known in the US, at least in economic, or at least economic, I guess, as the free banking era.

Starting point is 01:02:25 Banks were not federally regulated. They were regulated by the state. They were located in and not all new states were good at regulating their banks. Before the Federal Reserve sets on 1913, you know, banks and like these new states or territories extended loans by offering notes backed by mortgages or government bonds, the holder of the note had had a claim on the bank's assets, the value of the note depended on the bank's assets, similar to buying stocks today. And a lot of these new banks would start up and show the state or whatever territory

Starting point is 01:02:58 kind of banking commission that they had enough capital to operate, but the money they would show the commission would be money they just borrowed. And they have to give that money back to whoever loaned them the money to start their bank. And then they didn't have enough money to operate. And a lot of these places would go bankrupt quickly and leave their note holders holding their proverbial dick in their hands. And a lot of different banks, they're spring up this way. And then there's very little regulation regarding, you know, who could open a bank, you know, how many banks could be open, what their notes had to look like and shit got real chaotic real quick

Starting point is 01:03:27 Adding to the confusion Like I mentioned a minute ago or all these counterfeiters springing up printing all these fake notes You know supposed to be from this banker that bank. It was anarchy very wild west and then this chaos allowed Alan Pinkerton to make a name for himself After settling just outside of Chicago proper Pinkerton went to work at Lill's brewery as a barrel maker, and then he soon determined that working for himself would be more profitable. So he moves his family to a small town called Dundee

Starting point is 01:03:54 in 1843, some 50 miles northwest of Chicago, builds a cabin back in the days when a lot of people built their own homes. No, thank you. I'm fairly handy when I want to be, but no, thank you. I built a tree house a while back, and there was definitely a lot of moments of, eh, eh, that's good enough.

Starting point is 01:04:13 It'll probably work. Doesn't that to be perfect? Lindsay would never leave me alone if I actually built her own house. It would just constantly be counted so what's going on in that corner there? Why doesn't the trim reach the wall? Because I'm not a fucking carpenter, all right? Stop complaining. We kind of have a roof over our head and don't get that wet when it rains. Well, in Dundee, named obviously after

Starting point is 01:04:37 Crocodile Dundee, Crocky, that's not a knife. This is a knife. That's not true. Anyway, in Dundee, This is a knife. That's not true. Anyway, and Dundee, Pinkerton got back to making barrels and he quickly cornered the the lucrative Dundee barrel market due to the superior quality and low price of his extra barely barrels. Then anyway, after looking for a way to increase his profit margins, he realized he could save money by not paying someone else for polls, to make the barrel hoops and just gathering that wood himself.

Starting point is 01:05:06 So in 1947, 27 year old Pinkerton looking for said wood, finds a small deserted island in the middle of the Fox River, rose out, cut down some wood of his own. However, when he gets out of the island, he also finds signs of someone who had been out there and making some counterfeit notes. Any wonders if this island might be their hideout. So he goes to find the county sheriff returns with the county sheriff to make the arrests and claim the reward offered for these counterfeiters. And that in and of itself speaks to how loose law enforcement was at this time compared

Starting point is 01:05:38 to now. Right. Like, remember when I talked about posses and the regulators just a little bit ago and vigilante justice. I mean, think about this. He's a random dude, no law enforcement experience. He is not trained, he is not part of the law and force community in any way whatsoever.

Starting point is 01:05:50 He's a dude making barrels. And he finds evidence of crime scene and he goes and tells the sheriff and the sheriff brings him back to actively help him make the arrests. Can you imagine a modern day equivalent of that? Like if you, if you're in your car and you see somebody go in like armed men

Starting point is 01:06:11 to go in a robber bank and you call the police and then the police are like, hey, would you mind going in and arrest them yourself? If you don't feel comfortable, that's fine. You can wait for us to get there, but when we get there, it would be great if you could just bring your gun in and help us get the bank robbers. If you don't have one, we have some extra guns.

Starting point is 01:06:28 We can give you a gun and we can all go in together and just make this shit happen. That is exactly the way it was that then. Pinkerton realizes there was more money and catching counterfeiters after this reward than there was a making whiskey barrels. It gives them a greater sense of satisfaction. So, you know, and apparently he's good at it because soon after this, other businessmen in Dundee start contracting with Pinkerton to investigate similar counterfeiters. Right?

Starting point is 01:06:54 Like I said earlier, it was a real problem. It was rampant. Well, a year later in 1848, Pinkerton gains local fame for his arrest of notorious area counterfeiter John Crick. The country being new and great sensation scares the affair wasn't everybody's mouth. And I suddenly found myself called upon from every quarter to undertake matters requiring the detective skill. He would later write that about it.

Starting point is 01:07:16 Alan Pinkerton, I gotta say, he does sound like a cool dude, especially young Alan Pinkerton. The more I researched the young Alan Pinkerton, the more I would like him. He wasn't just interested in justice. They brought in money. He was interested in social justice. And again, this kind of would change towards the end of his life. But early on, he was a dedicated abolitionist, someone who's strongly opposed slavery, someone who fought to end slavery. He actually served as a state representative to Illinois Liberty Party Convention in 1848, helped raise money to fund John Brown. Now, if you don't know that name, John Brown, famous abolitionist, hero who believed that armed insurrection was the only way to end slavery.

Starting point is 01:07:54 This is the dude who would die a martyr to the cause. He actually commanded numerous posses of armed abolitionists, fought and killed slaveholders and slavery supporters, numerous violent clashes in the 1850s. He let a raid on a federal armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, President of West Virginia and trying to start a liberation movement among slaves there by arming them, but pro slavery, US Marines led by Robert E. Lee and a local militia beat him and his men back. And then he was captured and hanged for treason and other crimes. I'm December 2nd, 185959 man, John Brown, white dude,

Starting point is 01:08:26 died a martyr for the abolitionist cause, and Alan Pinkerton supported him. Finally, a Scottish character who's not racist. Thank you, Alan Pinkerton, for not getting me in the lot of trouble again. The next year, 1849 Pinkerton becomes the first police detective in Chicago. He was good at investigations, an entirely new position is created for him.

Starting point is 01:08:48 He's the first detective unit in the entire nation dedicated to actually investigating crimes had just been established in the much larger city at the time of Boston in 1846. Chicago hadn't even formed an official police department yet with full-time law enforcement officers being paid living wages. That wouldn't happen until 1855, prior to that there were these just constables in Chicago, which began in 1835. When initially only three men were elected to help provide law

Starting point is 01:09:15 for the city's roughly 3000 people at that time. And like kind of alluded to earlier, odds are these men are paid so little, this is more like a quasi-volunteer position. Kind of like, I would think of it in the way like a small town mayor is today. You know, like, think about if you're a mayor of a town of roughly, you know, 3,000 people, you're not making a living, you're maybe getting a little tiny stipend. That's kind of how it was for these consoles back then. You know, like, sometimes now today for a mayor, I'd look to subject to that curiosity. They'll

Starting point is 01:09:46 just be paid like a symbolic fee of like a dollar a month. Actually, I found an article that said that the mayor of Springfield, Utah population of almost 35,250 bucks a month. So yeah. So again, it wasn't until what, 1855 that they would actually be paid full-time living wages. In 1850, Pinkerton partnered with Chicago attorney Edward Rucker, excuse me, informing the Northwestern Police Agency, which would soon be renamed Pinkerton and Co. Then renamed again, Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Still in existence today, known as Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations. Pinkerton's business insignia was still is the wide open eye with the caption we never sleep, new world order.

Starting point is 01:10:30 Beginning in 1853, Pinkerton's detective agency begins getting hired by law enforcement agencies around the country to track down various criminals. Some of those criminals will be popping up later in this timeline like the absolutely outrageous case of so glad I found of Lord Burston, I'm guessing some of you have probably heard of this. Lord Burston, Lord was a Tennessee

Starting point is 01:10:50 Pimp, living a half days right east of Nashville. And he specialized in of all things, horse sex. Hold up, hold up, Joe. Just just a second. Hold up, take a, both with men and women, both male and female horses. there's a rumor that a young Grover Cleveland future president would have visited Lord's strange brothel. And as did uh, supposedly humorous Mark Twain, a few lines and Huckleberry Finn are actually supposedly nods to Twain's visit such as that is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. He may be referring to BC Ali there.

Starting point is 01:11:28 Okay, all right. Sounds like he's not going away. Come on in, come on in, checkin' Joe. Buh-buh, play boy. Buh-buh. Did that horse have fun? The man, the lady, they all getting on and getting along, tell me, play boy, where'd I cry?

Starting point is 01:11:41 Livin' let live, Livin' let die. Livin' love horses and ponies, is that's how you want to pass your time? It's a horse, tie, and it feels right, what's the real difference between skin and fur, handle, hoo, hoo, daddy, you're nay nay, you dig, you feel me, you hear what I have to say? That was Chicken Joe's way of saying that

Starting point is 01:11:56 he doesn't have an ethical problem with bestiality. And now, thank you, Chicken Joe, get out of here. I should say that I made up everything about Lord Burstin. Of course, there was not a weird horse sex brothel out in Tennessee this time, but the Pinkerton's really do solve some interesting cases that we will talk about soon, not lying about that. Maybe not maybe not horse brothel interesting, but close. By early 1855, 35 year old Pinkerton had also become a special agent for the U.S. Postal

Starting point is 01:12:26 Service to investigate counterfeiting and mail fraud. All of this with no formal training and law enforcement whatsoever. Another sign of how different law enforcement, how was it with an infancy back then? You know, definitely, hopefully it doesn't work that way now. You know, thankfully now it's not like, hey, how'd you become a cop? Ah, sad, sad, sad, I said I was pretty good at shooting shit and they gave me a gun, a car, and a badge. Ah, all right, that easy.

Starting point is 01:12:49 In 1855, Pinkerton and his new agency gained a national acclaim with the New York Times, recognized the fine work of special mail agent, Alan Pinkerton, in capturing mail clerk, Theodore Deniston, and what it called the most important arrest in the annals of post office depredations ever brought to light in this country. I mean, that is cool. Kind of funny, though.

Starting point is 01:13:13 It's the most exciting arrest in post office history. So, probably not that exciting. The later tales will be more exciting. Also in 1855, Pinkerton's agency contracted with six local railway lines to provide security and oversight of employees. They began testing station agents and conductors to prevent an embezzlement and theft. With money moving from station to station, the potential for embezzlement and theft increased railroad companies.

Starting point is 01:13:36 We're worrying about the loyalty of their employees. They would hire the Pinkerton's to test their conductors and station masters, fair it out those who were pocketing fairs or not reporting, you know, correct ridership, which is an angle of crime. I didn't even think about, right? Like back then, way before you had computers and credit cards in the wild west especially, it's like, yeah. If you're the guy taking ticket fairs

Starting point is 01:13:58 and you got a hundred people getting on the train and you tell the company, you know, you had 90 get on the train, who's probably going to find out. That's some pretty profitable grifting, but then the Pinkerton's had to come along and ruin it. In late 1858, abolitionist John Brown freed 11 slaves in a raid on two Missouri homesteads

Starting point is 01:14:17 and sets to take them to freedom in Canada and then Pinkerton raised $500 to help them out and also arranged for safe transportation from Chicago to Detroit using his railway connections. Again, I know it's not a note about him being an detective, but I didn't want to throw that in there. He was a Scottish social justice warrior ahead of his time. Abraham Lincoln, this is talking about him, 1868 to 1861. He was supposed to make a railway journey

Starting point is 01:14:46 to the nation's capital after he got elected. And then Samuel Morse Felden, president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad believed that the president elect failed to grasp the seriousness of his position. Rumors had reached Felden, a solid, bespeckled blue blood, whose brother was president of Harvard at the time,

Starting point is 01:15:03 that secessionists and the South might be mounting a deep lay conspiracy to capture Washington, destroy all avenues leading to it from the northeast and west and prevent the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln in the capital of our country. I then determined, Felton recalled later, to investigate the matter in my own way. What was needed, he realized, was an independent operative who had already proven his metal in the service of the railroads. Snatching up his pen, Felton dashed off an urgent plea to a celebrated detective who resided in the west.

Starting point is 01:15:30 And of course, he is talking about Alan Pinkerton. And now Alan Pinkerton takes on one of the most famous cases that he would be involved in. In 1861, when the Civil War began, Pinkerton served as head of the Union Intelligence Service during the first two years, heading off this alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland, while guarding Abraham Lincoln on his way to Washington, DC. Yeah, his work here and the work of his agents in this capacity would actually kind of pave

Starting point is 01:15:57 the way for the creation later of the Secret Service. We know all about the actual assassination of Lincoln. You know, we did a suck on that, but we did not get into this alleged plot to assassinate him in 1861. February 11th, 1861, President-elect Lincoln, boards an Eastbound train in Springfield, Illinois at the start of a whistle stop tour, 70 towns and cities, ending with his inauguration in Washington, DC. And a lot of people rightfully nervous about this trip.

Starting point is 01:16:24 Lincoln was elected via his support in Union States. He did not do well in the South. And she was tense, right? The South would succeed very soon. And the Civil War would begin, you know, this is like an lesson like two months. So none other than America's premier detective investigator, Alan Pinkerton hired by railroad officials. Like we just said, to investigate suspicious activities, acts of destruction of railroad property, along Lincoln's route through Baltimore, especially

Starting point is 01:16:49 there were word about Baltimore, Lincoln had won only 2.5% of the presidential vote in Maryland, not well liked in this pro-slavery state. Pinkerton became convinced that the plot, there was a plot that existed to ambush Lincoln's carriage between the Calvart station of the northern central railway and the camden street station of the baltimore and ohio real wrote uh... pinkerton went undercover in baltimore posing as a stockbroker and a southern loyalist who hated linkin and had some other agents go under cover as well with him

Starting point is 01:17:18 and he was out able to introduce to some people uh... with knowledge of the plot to kill linkin and this was on her to the american this is really cool to me because this is the first example of some law enforcement types doing undercover work in America. This just didn't happen before. Like today we've seen movies, TV shows, red books involving undercover agents. They did not exist prior to Alan Pinkerton in the United States. Like how cool is that?

Starting point is 01:17:45 They pioneered this. There were a little bit before in France, there were French law enforcement agents had just begun to experiment a bit with undercover agents, you know, doing undercover work a few decades earlier. This was spearheaded by a man named Eugene François Véduc, a former criminal turn investigator, considered by many to be the world's very first

Starting point is 01:18:06 modern detective, like the first in the world, the father of modern criminology to many, the founder of modern law enforcement in France for sure, guy who deserves his own suck. And he started doing and supervising undercover work in France between 1811, 1832. I'm sure Pinkerton was familiar with his work. And then, you know, Pinkerton, like I said, in his agents, the first to do this in America. And you know, I'm close to being the first to doing it in the world. Lincoln tried to persuade, excuse me, Pinkerton tried to persuade Lincoln to cancel his stop at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and proceeds straight through Baltimore and kind of skip parts of his schedule tour to throw people off.

Starting point is 01:18:42 But Lincoln was like, no, I want to keep on, I want to stand the schedule. So then Pinkerton tried to take other major measures into his hands to ensure it's Lincoln's safety. On the evening of February 22nd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Pinkerton had telegraph lines to Baltimore cut, had them severed to prevent communications from being able to be passed between potential conspirators in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Just so people couldn't be like, hey, trains leave it now.

Starting point is 01:19:06 Get ready. Meanwhile, Lincoln then left Harrisburg on a special unscheduled train. So he was able to convince Lincoln to at least change his schedule. We're going to go the same route, but not at the same time and secretly arrive in Baltimore in the middle of the night. The most dangerous Lincoln journey again was Baltimore, you know, where a city ordinance prohibited nighttime rail travel through the downtown area. And therefore when they did this, they did sneak him through it night, but they had, they

Starting point is 01:19:31 had the, uh, draw the train through town with horses, uh, between the president's street and Camden street stations, which just cracks me up. Like you would think that the president elect traveling secretly in fear of his life, even if it's even in a state that hated him, could get a, you know, no trains at night in Baltimore city ordinance situationally lifted. I just, I just picture one of Lincoln's advisors, one of the pigerton's talking to some city official who just cannot fathom breaking a law under any circumstances, right? One of those people, that personality type, by the way, I cannot stand.

Starting point is 01:20:11 People who just can't think outside the box or bend a rule ever. I think I've ranted about them before in here, like when you're checking into a hotel and check in like three o'clock and it's 255 and like, um, check in at 3 p.m.? Yeah, I know, but I'm here now in the rooms ready. Checking is at 3pm.

Starting point is 01:20:27 Okay, you're one of those people. I hope you have a fucking stroke soon. But yeah, it doesn't just crack me out. It's picturesome and be like, so yeah, so we're gonna need to take some top secret cargo. I can't exactly get into it. It's presidential, you know, elect approval though. We're gonna need to take it through the city at night.

Starting point is 01:20:44 So I know you got an ordinance, but we're gonna have to, but there's an ordinance that says, no, you cannot do it. Yeah, no, no, no, I know, I know, I know there's an ordinance. I just, that's why I was saying, that's why I'm talking to you now. But the president elect is asking for a little leeway,

Starting point is 01:20:59 but the ordinance said that the train does not go at night, no nighttime chute you, not never with ordinance. Ah, I know, I get it. I get that there's no, everyone understands there's an ordinance. But in this specific case, in every case of night train, there was ordinance. Ordinance stated, chute you have a wait. Okay, for fuck's sake, we'll just get some horses.

Starting point is 01:21:27 Let me check on the ordinance for the horsey Nene's. Oh, God damn it. According to Pinkerton, a captain of the roads reported that there was a plot to stab the president elect in the alleged plan was to have several assassins armed with knives, interspersed throughout the crowd that would gather to greet Lunkin, Lunkin, Lincoln at this Baltimore stop. And when he emerged from the car, they would just, you know, swooping on him. And at least some of the assassins would be able to get in there even if others were stopped and be able to fucking stab him, which was, wow, what a brutal way to a, it's like some

Starting point is 01:21:59 Roman, you know, Caesar kind of shit. Just a two, brutal. Um, once Lincoln's real carriage had safely passed you Baltimore Pinkerton, sent a one line telegram to the president of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore railroad, saying plums delivered nuts safely, even using code words. I bet that was for the first time too, right? Back then, please, uh, please, please have some code, man. On the afternoon of February 23rd Lincoln schedule train arrived at Calvart

Starting point is 01:22:25 Street station and Baltimore, the large crowd at Gallaudet station to see the president elect quickly learned Lincoln had already passed them by. Ha ha! Trick you plotting bastards! You know they stop and no one know how! Yeah yeah! Okay, so moving on to the timeline during the Civil War, Pinkerton and his agents often worked undercover, so they got further into undercover work. Working undercover is Confederate soldiers. Working undercover is Southern sympathizers to gather military intelligence for the Union States.

Starting point is 01:22:53 Pinkerton himself served on several undercover missions. The 40-something posing as a Confederate soldier using the alias Major E.J. Allen. Working, he worked across the deep south in the summer of 1861, focusing on fortifications and Confederate battle plans. He was he was discovered being a spy in Memphis barely escaped his life. And before we go further with his life, time for word from today's it's our final sponsor. Time suck is brought to you today by Sergeant Bubbles elite primate home security systems. Did you know that according to Sergeant Bubbles, home invasion worldwide have gone up by over

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Starting point is 01:25:02 And of course, that's not today's sponsor. No oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh the difference. And the right mattress is the key to getting proper rest instead of just laying down. Alan Pinkerton had Lisa been around in the 19th century probably would have caught twice so many criminals. He would have slept on a Lisa and he would have caught two to maybe even 10 times the criminals he caught. Fact. Lisa mattress is a product with 30 years of experience, hundreds of hours of rigorous product testing designed for body contouring and pressure relief. The Lisa mattress is perfect for all sleepers. Shop conveniently online with free shipping and a hundred nights to try the mattress, risk freeing your own home.

Starting point is 01:25:50 The Lisa mattress is backed by more than 12,000 five star reviews. Love by more than 300,000 happy sleepers now. And Lisa also donates, as many of you know, one mattress for every 10 sold, so you can sleep easy and feel good about your purchase. Lindsay and I love Arleesa mattress. We sleep there the three tiny monkeys with their with their switchplates and little guns. They sleep at the foot of the Lisa mattress. No, but I like the way it feels and I've said before how it doesn't overheat me, you know, I'm a sucker for some good memory foam that doesn't overdo it, you know, because I'm not looking to make like a

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Starting point is 01:27:10 the civil war. Pincerton not only enhanced investigative reputation gathering intelligence during the war, he also made a great deal of money and was able to greatly expand his services and hire a ton of new agents for his work after the war. In order to maintain his standards as he's hire more people, Pinkerton drafted a series of rules and regulations for becoming a Pinkerton. The agency published the first version of general principles and rules of Pinkerton's national police agency in 1867 said the character of the detective must be above reproach and none, but those untainted with crime of strict moral principles and good habits will be permitted to enter the service under no circumstances

Starting point is 01:27:48 Will the detective of the agencies endeavor to induce any parties upon whom they may be operating to the commission of crime? Agents were strictly forbidden to work for rewards don't only give them incentive to you know Break the law to get every word instead. They they earned on a per-deam basis and kept meticulous records filed for expenses. So that's very cool, man. I mean, there were bounty hunters, like true bounty hunters before the Pinkertons, but now you got the first, kind of, not kind of the first investigative group that can cross state lines and go investigate different crimes, different people that are, you know, kind of properly vetted to make sure they're the right kind of people to do this job.

Starting point is 01:28:26 And, you know, people that don't have incentive to break a bunch of laws and just become bounty hunters. Yeah, this level of organization and employee scrutiny novel, you know, in 1867, you know, random assholes out Wild West were just named Sheriff every day. Like I was saying earlier, you know, and if I were a gun, yeah, well, I guess you're sheriff now. Now, it's a pinkerton, They were, they were, they were carefully choosing

Starting point is 01:28:47 people. Pinkerton updated the principles in 1869, again, in 1873, you know, for the re-Christianed Pinkerton's national detective agency. As an additional part of his effort to promote the agency, Pinkerton also began to publish his own tales of detection and criminality. He started to write a bunch of books. Some of these books you can still order today on sites like Barnes and Nobles or Amazon or whatever. Or go to your local bookstore, have a more of them. We've got the Well Red Moose here in Corte-Lane, a great little book company.

Starting point is 01:29:15 They'll order those things as well. He starts writing books, detailing the exploits of his detective work, the detective work of his sons, other detectives, and yes, he did have sons that would carry on the legacy of his agency. Uh, daughter Isabella was born in 1843 son William Allen born in 1846. Another daughter Kate born in 1847. Another daughter Joan 1848 and then a son Robert Allen Pinkerton also born in 1848. Uh, William Allen Robert would both work for their father. Uh, Pinkerton's books included many of the key attributes of the modern detective story, including

Starting point is 01:29:49 I just thought that was funny. There's a moment in one of his books where Pinkerton having become acquainted with some new information about a man he's pursuing actually exclaims the now very cliche, the plot thickens. The books were also great advertising and recruiting, you know, kind of propaganda, I guess, or recruiting, you know, literature for Pinkerton's agency. You know, they featured the company's logo and blazing on the cover that made people want to join up between 1875 and 1884. He published 17 of these books by the mid-late 1870s, Pinkerton's detective works shifts from uncovering an embezzlement to imposing order in the wild west. This is kind of my favorite little era of the Pinkerton's, especially the pursuit of train robbers at the behest of train companies, express companies, to Pinkerton lawlessness in the American West was a disease that could spread to the rest of the country if it

Starting point is 01:30:38 wasn't stopped. He would write, like any disease that continues to corrupt and tell arrested by a gradual purification of the whole body or buy some severe treatment, so too would lawlessness continue to spread. From every portion of the country flowed these streams of morally corrupt people. Until nearly every town west of the Missouri or east of the mountains along these lines became a terror to honest people. Yet, residents of America's rough and rugged areas, however, resented often and resisted incursions by Pinkerton agents as we learned in the Hatfield, McCoy suck this past week, right?

Starting point is 01:31:15 Like, yeah, here I go now. Hawk folk, dog folk don't need no pickerton's interfering. Clan matters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of communities actually viewed bandits. I found this interesting. When the Pinkerton started pursuing these, these bank robbers, these stagecoach and train A lot of communities actually viewed bandits. I found this interesting. When the pinkers started pursuing these bank robbers, these stagecoach and train robbers,

Starting point is 01:31:30 a lot of the communities out in the wild west, they preferred the robbers. They defended their, they thought these robbers were kind of defending, defend the, excuse me, the honor of their communities, somehow by stealing back from the railroads, because I guess the railroads were sometimes bringing in foreigners and unwanted business competition in their little communities that didn't care for and thought the railroads were you know not paying fair wages and just you know kind you know exploiting them so they liked it when people would rob these places you know they were they were a little leery of the banks they thought the banks were ripping them off so they liked when people robbed the banks and uh and a lot of these people saw these Pinkerton agents as just these bank

Starting point is 01:32:06 and railroad companies paid assassins. Now let's hop back a bit in the timeline to talk about how the Pinkerton's first entered the world of pursuing Western bandits because it all started with the Reno brothers gang which I had not heard of before this. Random trivia, Elvis Presley's first role in a movie was playing one of the Reno brothers, 99% sure.

Starting point is 01:32:28 I don't have that written down on my notes, but I remember coming across it. Residents of the little railroad city of Seymour, Indiana, less than 20,000 people today, less than 2,000 back in the 1860s, when the Reno brothers started robin banks. They're the Reno brothers' residents of Seymour, products of Seymour. The Reno Brothers have been bounty jumpers throughout the Civil War and the bounty jumpers, these were these people who would list under some bullshit fake name. We've talked about this in some previous sucks, I believe, but they would list under some bullshit name, collect a small

Starting point is 01:32:58 bounty for signing up. Let me talk about this in the KKK suck and then bounce on out and do it again. Right? Just con men, scan artists or scam artists guiding it. Piddle buzzers, you know, I made it, I made it, Piddle buzzers. When the war and their ability to acquire more enlistment bounty ended, the Reno brothers moved then into robbery, robbing county treasurers, robbing express companies, banks. They rob a lot of people over several years time and then become nationally known as bandits. In October of 1866, the four Reno brothers, John Frank, Simion and William, along with several

Starting point is 01:33:32 other, I guess to be Simon, but it's one of those fucked up spellings. They decided to put an extra letter in there. But I'll say Simon. There was no pronunciation guide for his name. I doubt it was John Frank, Simoniam sounds better to me than john frank will simian i doubt it's in uh... these guys along with several other gang members committed the world's

Starting point is 01:33:54 first armed robbery of a moving train just outside of seymour uh... they stopped and rob the train right on the Ohio Mississippi railroad leave the atoms express company career of all his loot. And then the Adams Express company called the Pinkerton's and the Pinkerton agents traced the gang to council, bluff, Iowa and arrested several gang members, which was awesome, until all of them escaped from the county jail within just a few weeks. Damn it. Old timey jails.

Starting point is 01:34:19 Really not good to keep people incarcerated as we keep learning. Two months later, the Reno gang back at it, they robbed the express train in Marshfield, Indiana, killing the expressmen. Soon after the Marshfield robbery, Pinkerton agents arrested three members of the Reno gang. However, as agents brought the prisoners in to see more a vigilante committee, a bunch of masked men,

Starting point is 01:34:39 seizes the three gang members and hangs them from here by three. Within a couple of weeks of these lynchings, lynchings, uh, pingerton agents then capture additional gang members, uh, the members, uh, Simon and William Reno and Windsor Canada. And then after, uh, an adventurous journey across Lake Erie during which a passing ship slices their tugboat and half, that's not fun. Pingerton and his agents, uh, bring the additional gang members to New Albany, Indiana, and then a special train arrives carrying more vigilantes, 50 masked vigilantes on this train.

Starting point is 01:35:09 And vigilantes justice is rampant. And the people that formed these mobs really would get arrested. That's just crazy me too. You know, a bunch of concerned citizens would get riled up, bust into a jail or someplace, bust out a bunch of prisoners, hang them, and then go just go back to their lives. Take off their masks, go back to your lives just like nothing ever happened. I am glad that doesn't happen anymore. Sometimes I do wish you did. Sometimes you know there's some dirt bags in prison like the green river killer gear originally

Starting point is 01:35:34 I wouldn't mind a mob breaking into prison and you know hang in them. But in general glad that angry mob do not exist currently. Well when the mob chasing the Reno gang reached the Floyd country jail someone in the group chasing the reno gang reached the fluid country jail someone in the group shot the jailer forced away into the cells proceeded to hang all three reno brothers held there as well as an additional gang member named charlie anderson the mass vigilantes and just proceeded back to the train station hop back on the same train they'd come in on

Starting point is 01:35:59 and just uh... left-town went back to the lives uh... in his mind pinkerton did consider this case to success uh... the power of the reno gang had been forcibly broken and it was a success uh... the reno gang was the first real wild west train robbing gang to get any national attention and who stopped america's first real train robbing gang the pinkerton's why

Starting point is 01:36:21 is he were trained they had organized criminal investigators uh... able able to track these bandits down and put them in jail. You know, not staying in jail, I don't feel like it's the Pinkerton's problem. The lynchings did trigger international uproar. Furious British and Canadian authorities opened their own investigations into the extradition proceedings and process that took them back down to the States. US Secretary of State William Stewart offered his apologies on behalf of the State Department. Sorry, canucks. Works different down here. Sometimes people go to

Starting point is 01:36:49 trial. Sometimes an angry mob gets them. Frank Reno, Charlie Anderson, were technically in federal custody when they were lynched. And this is believed to be the only time in US history that federal prisoners were lynched by a mob before going to trial. The remaining Reno brother john would live until in 1895. The Reno gang is again, believed to be the first wild west kind of train robbing gang and the first you know kind of like brotherhood gang that would kind of pave the way for later gangs like the James younger gang, you know, with the James brothers and stuff. The James younger gang, the pincotins would also pursue.

Starting point is 01:37:26 They gained a notoriety in Missouri for a series of bank and fair robberies. Man, robbing people at the fair began in 1866, including the 1869 robbery of a bank in Galton, Missouri, where infamous outlaw and probable future suck, Jesse James shot and killed bank clerk John Sheets. Then in 1871, the band of former Confederate guerrillas robbed Banking, uh, Gordon, Iowa, Bank officials contacted Pinkerton, who sent his son, Robert, who investigate. The James Younger gang were the most notorious gang of their era. Uh, man, these guys hardcore Jesse James and his brother Frank had been members of Quantrill's Raiders during the Civil War, a group of Confederate

Starting point is 01:38:05 guerrilla fighters who at one point attacked the anti-slavery town of Lawrence, Kansas, killed almost 200 people. And retaliation for jailing some of their family members. These are hard men, you know. You know, they'd rob way too many bank stage coaches and trains during a roughly decade long crime spree beginning in 1866 and they hated the Pinkertons. Uh, during train robberies, the gang convinced that Alan Pinkerton was always after him, would search the rail cars for that Chicago detective, trying to find him and kill him.

Starting point is 01:38:33 In 1874, Pinkerton quickly dispatched additional agents in the Missouri to find these Pinkertons, including Joseph Witcher, who upon arriving in Liberty, Missouri, checked in with local sheriff and then approached the James farm disguised as an interim farmhand. Suspicious of Witcher's motives and outsider status, James gang captured and executed him. How fucking crazy is that? I mean, a, the local sheriff knew where they were and wasn't doing anything. And b, they killed the Pinkerton agent sent to find him and then c, sheriff still doesn't arrest him after this which again speaks to law enforcement this time and Now this guy's arrest or you crazy as a James brothers. I'm wrestling. Oh man. You form your own posse you get yourself killed good luck to your fellow

Starting point is 01:39:17 Also in 1874 James the James younger gang their members confront additional undercover Pinkerton agents confront them on a country road and open fire. Shootout would leave Pinkerton agent Lewis Lowell dead, local official Ed Wendaniel's dead, and a gang member John Younger, one of the younger brothers dead. Outrage and embarrass Alan Pinkerton now consider the pursuit of Jesse James to be a personal vendetta. When the Adams Express freight and cargo company, the company that originally hired the Pinkerton's to come find these guys, then fires them after this shootout because they still had been caught. Pinkerton vows to crush the gang on his own, saying, I know the James and the youngers are desperate men.

Starting point is 01:39:56 And that when we meet, it must be the death of one or both of us. My blood was spilled and they must pay. There is no use talking. They must die. Oh shit, you don't do it now, James. You don't get, you don't get, you don't get ripped into the biggest can't whoop ass you ever did say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pinkerton's plan was to catch the James brothers at home and trap them in their farmhouse. Pinkerton reminds his agents to be sure that the James's were home. He instructed them above all else destroy the house wipe it from the face of the earth I mean he is pissed they've killed some of his men he does not take around

Starting point is 01:40:30 And then on January 25th 1875 Pinkerton agents launched their range launch their raid on the james hideout They quickly surround the house and the dead the night and they throw into the home especially made in sendy area device The consists of a cast iron shell filled with flammable liquid and a cottonwik and it was supposed to just illuminate the interior of the home. Instead it blew up more than they expected and shrapneled from the explosion, killed the James' young stepbrother and took off the right arm of this kid's mother, Zarell, disambulials, neither Frank nor Jesse were even home.

Starting point is 01:41:07 So whoops, little bit of a fuck up there. You know, you're supposed to be opportune these James gang members and you don't do your investigation properly and you end up killing their stepbrother who had nothing to do with the crimes and severely, severely wounding this kid's stepmom. So public outrage is loud and vehement after this attack. The Pinkerton raid turns the James brothers into folk heroes, embraced across the Missouri political spectrum for a short while. Pinkerton worries that Missouri officials are actually going to indict him and his agents.

Starting point is 01:41:38 And then he sadly calls his pursuit of the James gang off after this. But the James gang did still think about him during a later train robbery. Jesse James commanded one railroad engineer to quote, tell Alan Pinkerton and his detectives to look for us and hell. Tough words. Uh, and then James would write letters to the press condemning the Pinkerton's for what they did. Uh, and why was the public so in love with the public James gang, you know, like them,

Starting point is 01:42:04 especially, uh, it goes back to the public so in love with the James gang, you know, like them, especially? It goes back to the Civil War in this case. Missouri was full of Confederate sympathizers, and the James's were never shy about declaring their allegiance to the Confederate cause. And they were also not reluctant about declaring the political purpose of their violence. The James brothers, the youngers, they saw themselves as unrepentant rebels, southern rebels, part of the southern effort at resisting reconstruction and taking back power or redeeming the South. You know, the people that are robbing from, they consider, you know, like union targets.

Starting point is 01:42:36 And as Southern Democrats came back into power a decade after the war is end, the political romanticization of the James King and the demonization of outside and northern interests like the Pinkerton's to hundred them grew and then most railroad and bank companies which is they eventually just dropped their pursuit of the game, which is again just insane to me because of these sympathies they were just getting too much bad PR and I guess they just like well fuck it we'll just accept that everyone's smile they're just gonna rob us and the James gang would keep robbing they keep robbing until 1882 when after Eden breakfast in his home on April 3rd 1882 Jesse James turned his train a picture on a wall of his home and then a fellow bandit

Starting point is 01:43:10 He'd been working with named Bob Ford Robert Ford shot Jesse in the back of the head to collect some reward money Jesse died instantly at age 34 people in Missouri were outraged considered a cowardly assassination Within three months Jesse's brother Frank surrendered, turned himself in. So people stopped chasing him and then the jury didn't convict him of anything. Wouldn't convict him of any crime. So he was just set free after a decade plus of just doing what he wanted and robbing whoever he wanted, get to get the lead to quiet life after that. Unreal.

Starting point is 01:43:43 Just let him go. Back to the finger tinzo, get in the sidetrack for a second. I just, I just, man, I get to hear about Jesse James. I want to learn more quiet life after that. Unreal. Just let him go. Back to the Pingerton's, oh, getting sidetracked for a second. I just, man, I get to hear about Jesse James. I want to learn more and more and more. We got to do a suck on the James gang. Following their James gang, Blunder the Pingerton's had a rough year or so. And then things started picking up in late 1876 by 1876,

Starting point is 01:43:58 conspiracy theories regarding secret societies for turnal groups becoming very popular in the States. Many Americans at this time become convinced that a number of the criminal conspiracies You know we're working in the shadows You know these these these groups you know range from secret labor societies to radical political ideologies to vast networks of intimidation Extortion or murder sounds very familiar the world is definitely going through another conspiracy phase right now very familiar. The world is definitely going through another conspiracy phase right now. Secret societies were considered by many to be anti-American at this time. Secret see itself was seen as corrupt and self-serving. Yet as we've learned in previous conspiracy sucks by the end of the 19th century, the United States had entered what people would call

Starting point is 01:44:38 the golden age of eternity because groups like the Freemasons were come very popular this time. And then the societies that thinking went had to be infiltrated. We gotta get some spies in there. Find out what they're doing, expose them, crush them. And then the Pinkerton's were hired to do this. Secret labor unions were also thrown into the group of secret societies, supposedly plotting down

Starting point is 01:45:00 to take down America or plotting to take down America. And the Pinkerton's would make a lot of money off of the fear of the factory workers worried about these groups. And again, going back to the very beginning of the episode, I do find it interesting now that Pinkerton now is going to get truly rich working on behalf of industrialists to crack down on striking labor unions to keep the wheels of industry turning when he left Scotland because of people doing essentially that same shit to him and his buddies. He was part of the labor unions over there, flees the country because the government cracks

Starting point is 01:45:32 down so hard on it and people start dying. And then years later he ends up becoming one of the people he would have hated as a young man. And this period would lead to the biggest, tart blemishes on the legacy of the Pinkerton. They would become viewed as the enemy of the working man. And to me, that view seems to be pretty correct based on a lot of the stuff they did here, kind of lost their way for a bit. In 1876, the agency was in dire financial straits and desperate for another chance to redeem

Starting point is 01:45:56 its reputation and public standing after the James gang blunder. And then the opportunity to help crush a large labor organization presented itself. The pinkerton's had worked sporadically in infiltrating, uh, labor organizations or suppressing labor strikes for about a decade prior to this, but this next job to put them in the national spotlight. Uh, you know, uh, and by working for American industrialist Alan Pinkerton rationalized, he didn't think he was helping, you know, uh, capitalist, you know, crush workers. He thought he was, he was helping to liberate and protect free labor. I don't know. I don't, I don't think that's what's, what was happening. I think people trying to get a fair wage were just fucking

Starting point is 01:46:33 beat by the Pinkertons. In 1874, Alan had one of his agents go undercover to infiltrate the Mollie McGuire's, which was a secret organization of predominantly Irish coal miners, supposedly responsible for acts of terrorism that may be propaganda a lot of it and the coal fields of pencil vania and west virginia from eighteen sixty two eighteen seventy six and eighteen seventy six assignment really paid off for him a lot of a good exposure led to a lot of uh... good paying gigs from this uh... the group by the way named itself after a widow

Starting point is 01:47:04 this molly mag, who led a group of Irish anti-landlord agitators in the 1840s. When poor working conditions and employment discrimination led to assassinations and acts of sabotage by Irish American workers in Pennsylvania, 20 years later, the Mollies, as they were called, were blinped. Also, the ancient order of hybrians, which was a local Irish fraternal association, were then thought to be a front for the Molle McWires and mine owners hired the Pinkertens who sent James McFarlane to infiltrate this group, this order. And after a few months, McFarlane did report back that some members of the ancient order of hybrids were indeed

Starting point is 01:47:43 active regarding criminal activities in this Molly McGuire's secret organization. They were conspiring against the factory owners. McFarlane estimated that the group had about 3,000 members and that each county was governed by a quote, body master who recruited members and gave out orders to commit crimes. These body masters were usually ex-minors who now worked as saloon keepers. Over a two year period, McFarland collected evidence about the criminal activities of the Mollummi guayers. This included the murder of supposedly around 50 men in a school kill or school kill. If you're from Philly County, Pennsylvania, many of these men were the

Starting point is 01:48:18 managers of coal mines in the region. So supposedly, you know, they're killing some of their bosses and stuff. John Keeho, one of the leaders of the Mollummi, you know, they're killing some of their bosses. John Keeho, one of the leaders of the Mollumigwires, becomes suspicious of McFarlane, begins to investigate his past. And then McFarlane is tipped off that Keeho is planning to murder him. So he flees the area. And then in 1876 and 1877, McFarlane is the star witness for the prosecution of John Keeho and the Mollumigwires. 20 members end up being found guilty of murder and are executed. 20 people executed. When was the last time we had a criminal

Starting point is 01:48:49 kind of a trial comparable to that? Not in my lifetime. And how have I not heard of that? Before this suck, craziness man. 20 people get sentenced to death. This included Keeho who's convicted of a murder that had taken place 14 years previously. But the trial was super controversial.

Starting point is 01:49:06 Irish Catholics were excluded from being on the juror. Well, Protestant immigrants from Germany who couldn't even speak English were put on the juror on the jury. Welsh immigrants who had for a long time been in mining conflicts with the Irish in this area were also put on the jury. Most of the witnesses who provided evidence in the case uh... were men like mcfarlin who were on the payroll of the railroad mining companies who were attempting to destroy the trade union movement so it feels like it

Starting point is 01:49:33 may have been a kangaroo court slight conflict of interest here and various defendants were persuaded turnstates evidence to help convict their alleged collaborators so that this this uh... you know group this trade group may not have been that corrupt. They may have been just painted to be so and given, yeah, this kangaroo court of a trial just to push industrialist's interests.

Starting point is 01:49:56 And also, which makes me suspicious about this trial, was they did bring in a Polish judge to preside. And, you know, to be fair, this Polish judge had just been declared the smartest man in the history of Poland, but he still couldn't read a right in any language. He spoke mostly in a series of grunts and burps and farts. And the Pinkerton supposedly told him just sit there, kind of look for, move your mouth up and down. You know, it's certain points in the trial. And he was barely smart enough to do that. And then a pink or an agent would hide behind him and just speak for him like he was less

Starting point is 01:50:29 weird puppet. You notice, guilty, wrong guilty. I'm a judge. I say guilty. Hang on. Hang them all. And then, and then, you know, after you'd say like this big dumb Polish savage of a judge would just fucking bang his gavill.

Starting point is 01:50:42 Oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, uh... so okay anyway though everything else was real big financial victory for the pinker to see her though they make uh... they make a national name for himself a lot of good press uh... you know is being is being people capable of truly breaking the spirit of a huge labor organization and who is that can get the attention of every other major uh... you know factory owner or you know like uh... railway owner whatever like that in the country anybody who's having a problem with

Starting point is 01:51:24 the workers uh... anybody you know anybody who has a large business, who is able to pay lots of money to have a strike end is going to hire the Pinkertons now. Between 1872 and 1892, the Pinkertons took an active part, were hired to take an active part and at least 70 different major strikes. And more controversy came with a lot of their participation in these. Like on July 1st, 1884, oh, sorry, not in this one. This now we're skipping to his death. Well, I will talk about at least one more of these later in this episode. On July 1st, 1884, Alan Pinkerton died at the age of 64. And there's a little speculation about how he died. This is and I'm not making this up. It's usually said that Pinkerton slipped on some pavement and bit his tongue and that

Starting point is 01:52:09 that resulted in gang green. Good God. Gang green of the tongue. I've never heard of that before. Now I have a new fear. Please, Nimra, do not, do not let me die. Do not let me die of gang green of the tongue. I think I would rather have gang green of the dick than have gang green of the tongue. I think I would rather have gang green of the dick

Starting point is 01:52:25 than have gang green of the tongue. What is worse than that? What's worse than gang green of the tongue? Maybe gang green of the ice. Like if you had gang green in each of your eyeballs, I think if you had gang green in each of your eyeballs and your tongue and your dick, that might be the worst.

Starting point is 01:52:42 That might be the worst way to go. And I'm gonna say this now, listen up, meat sex. If I ever contract gangrene of both eyeballs and tongue and dick, you have my permission to push me off the top of a very tall building and or cliff into a burning pit of swords perhaps, just make sure I die. I just wanna die very quickly at that point.

Starting point is 01:53:06 Anyway, contemporary reports, though, they give other possible causes such as he's come to a stroke. He did have a stroke a year earlier, or maybe to malaria, which he had contracted during a trip to the south previously. So hopefully his malaria or stroke both sound way less horrific than gangrene of the tongue,

Starting point is 01:53:23 just a rotting tongue in your mouth. You'd smell it all the time. You'd taste your rotting flesh. Ugh! There'd probably be a couple of spiders walking around on it, you know? A couple of ronoke recluse spiders just walking around your tongue, just eating your rot and tongue. I want you to think about that when you're trying to go to bed at night.

Starting point is 01:53:39 At the time of his death, Alan Pinkerton was working on a system to centralize all criminal identification records, which we spoke about earlier, you know, they were building the very first criminal database, a database now maintained by the FBI. His agency did live on continued to grow after his death by the 1890s Pinkerton's national detective agency had 2000 active agents, 30,000 reserves. That's when they had that huge army that made everybody nervous, you know, it caused a state of Ohio to actually outlaw the agency due to the possibility of them being hired as a private army. In 1892, the Pinkerton's found themselves in a very dramatic battle with the labor union in Homestead, Pennsylvania. This is crazy.

Starting point is 01:54:16 Henry C. Frick, general manager of the Homestead plant, the Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie largely owned, was determined to cut wages and break the amalgamated association of iron and steel workers spirit, right? You want to, this was a nation's largest steel maker, its largest craft union. Despite Carnegie's public pro labor stance, Carnegie did support Frick's plans behind the scenes. And in the spring of 1992, Carnegie had Frick produce as much armor plate as possible before the union's current contract was set

Starting point is 01:54:45 to expire at the end of June. And then if the union failed to accept Frick's new terms, Carnegie instructed him to shut down the plant and just wait until the workers fold it. Well, to protect the non-union workers he planned to hire, you know, get some scabs, take these jows Frick turn to some enforcers. He had him previously employed the Pinkerton's. He wanted to bring them to their big private police force to protect non-union workers going in for less pay than the union workers would want.

Starting point is 01:55:14 Well, 300 armed Pinkerton detectives wrote a shore at Andrew Carnegie's homestead, Mill, and July 6, 1892. They come up to water there and they had no idea of the extreme violence with which the locked out still walkers were going to greet them. Tug boats pulled barges carrying the Pinkerton detectives arm with Winchester rivals up the Menongahila. This is a fucking crazy ass word. Menongahila. There we go. Up the Manongahila River, a worker station along the river spotted the private army. A Pittsburgh journalist wrote that about 3 a.m. A quote, horseman riding at breakneck speed dashed to the streets of homes dead, given

Starting point is 01:55:55 the alarm as he sped along. Well, when the private armies arrived, the Pinkerton's arrived, the crowd warned the, the Pinkerton's not to step off the barge, but they did. And then a hail of stones and then bullets ripped to the air. Some of the workers were armed, you know, mayhem breaks out. Still worker William Floyd and the captain of the Pinkerton's both fall wounded. No one knows who shot first, but under a barrage of fire, the Pinkerton's retreat back to their barges.

Starting point is 01:56:21 And then for 12 hours, a fierce battle rages between the two sides. Outgun by the Pinkerton's Winchester rifles, homestead citizens scoured the town for weapons. They pressed into service everything from ancient muzzleloaders to a random 20 pound cannon that some of them hauled over to the river's edge. They start shooting this cannon at the Pinkerton's and check this out. Some of the strikers rolled a flaming freight train car down the bank, trying to hit one of the barges and catch it on fire. Can you imagine if

Starting point is 01:56:49 that show is happening, Pennsylvania today getting 24 seven news coverage? That'll be the highest rated news event of my lifetime. People rolling a burning fucking train car down a bank towards a group of 300 well armed private security guards shooting at people trying to work at a mill. You know, people firing cannons. The steel workers tossed dynamite into the river, tried to sink the boats. They pumped oil in the river and tried to set the river on fire. Local hardware merchant donated his entire stock of ammunition, which workers started carrying to the mill in wheelbarrows.

Starting point is 01:57:23 Wheelbarrows, as workers built barricades on shore, the Pinkerton's cut rifle ports and the signs of their barges, news of the battle reached nearby Pittsburgh and by 6 a.m. 5,000 curious spectators lying in the river banks to watch this stuff go down just to a bunch of people on a river bank eating snacks, drinking some drinks, watching a show, a battle rage in between still workers and security guards, like a real military battle. Four times the Pinkerton's raised a literal white flag and four times some sharpshooter on the factory workers side shot the flag down. Nope, not ready yet, not ready to stop fighting.

Starting point is 01:57:58 Five PM, the workers finally accept the Pinkerton surrender. By that time, nearly a dozen people were dead. The workers declared victory in the bloody battle, but it was a short-lived celebration. Public sympathy for the union eroded by the brutal treatment of the Pinkerton's declined further when anarchist Alexander Berkman, unconnected to the union, attempted to kill Frick. I had the guy who kind of pushed the guy who hired the Pinkerton's. Frick gets seriously wounded, but recovers, and then becomes more determined to win. He says, I will fight this thing to the bitter end.

Starting point is 01:58:28 I will never recognize the union, never, never. So these guys don't get their jobs back. Homestead mayor, honest John McLucky, like all labor years, uh, like all labor leaders, excuse me, despise the Pinkertens saying, are people as a general thing. Think they are a horde of cutthroat thieves and murderers and are the, in the employ of unscrupulous capitalists for the oppression of honest labor, hated by laborers nationwide, the Pinkerton's, you know, get even more hated. And ultimately, homestead turned popular sentiment against Pinkertonism, as it was called.

Starting point is 01:59:02 And the seven years after the homestead battle 26 different states past laws against the hiring of outside guards and labor disputes. And after a homestead, the era of the pinkerton's really kind of comes to an end even though they still operate as a private security firm today. And sadly, like in that battle, you know, both sides lost, you know, the union workers, they didn't get after fucking Ways in that crazy battle. The steel mills not bringing them back and then the pincertins because of all the bad press of them attacking these still workers they uh... they lose kind of all public sympathy for their organization so both sides lose in that battle uh... so it the dawn of the 20th century let's hop out of this timeline and let's highlight some uh... some of how the Pinkerton's advanced law enforcement investigative techniques

Starting point is 01:59:46 Good job soldier made it back barely Okay, so the so the Pinkerton started off as a group tracking down counterfeiters They evolved to catch people committing mail fraud They pioneered undercover work to keep Abraham Lincoln safe prior to the Civil War and they worked for the Union in the Civil War further in their undercover skills. They grew in size and organization. They were hired to kind of try and tame a little bit of the Wild West catch train robbing

Starting point is 02:00:19 gangs and other Western outlaws. They did apprehend many. It wasn't like they just had the one victory with the Reno gang and the one failure with the Jesse James game. There was a lot of other lesser known gangs and bandits that they did apprehend. And that if it wasn't for them, no one would apprehend. They amassed the largest collection of mug shots ever gathered in the nation, you know, as they began to compile that national criminal database, which didn't exist before them. Alan Pinkerton was working on the nations, you know, first database when he died, like I said, when he started his detective agency, America didn't have any of that, you know, as I just saying, and they did all this prior to the secret service CIA or FBI existing.

Starting point is 02:00:55 And what else did they do? Well, they hired the world's first female detective, Kate Warren, excuse me, in 1856. Seeing a woman in the Pinkerton detective agency office as an 1856, Alan Pinkerton assumed that Kate was looking for a secretary job. Nope. The young widow corrected him, said she was actually responding to an ad that he had placed in a local Chicago newspaper looking for a new detective, and he hired her, which is very atypical for the times.

Starting point is 02:01:21 So again, man, young Alan Pinkerton, I know it gets a little, you know, when he was going against, you know, a lot of the kind of union workers and stuff later in life. And Tarnish shows his legacy a little bit. But early life, he was a big social justice warrior, he was an abolitionist, and he fought for women's rights. He was, you know, he had, he ended up hiring numerous female detectives. And, uh, and this Kate, especially kicked ass, Hail Lucifena, in 1858, for example, Kate gained the confidence of Ms. Moroni, whose husband is sold in $50,000 from the Adams Express Company, Equity Fund.

Starting point is 02:01:55 And then from chats with the wife, Warren gathered a good deal of the evidence needed to convict Mr. Moroni, who returned more than 30,000, the stolen cash, and was then sentenced to 10 years in prison. She also went undercover with Alan in Baltimore to help sniff out that Lincoln assassination info. She adopted a thick southern accent, transformed herself. She was from New York originally, transformed herself into Mrs. Cherry or Mrs. M. Ballet, a rich and flirtatious Southern lady in

Starting point is 02:02:21 Tanda, socializes, classy, secessionist gatherings. The plan, the party goers told Mrs. Cherry was to kill Lincoln on his way to Washington, DC for his inauguration. So then, you know, she passed that information along to Pinkerton, which is getting his own information. And then she also helped sneak Lincoln off the train in Washington, DC. The Pinkerton's disguised Lincoln as her invalid brother made him stoop over with the cane through a big coat over him. And then two detectives on the train within

Starting point is 02:02:50 walk him, you know, out when they get to DC to sneak him into the White House. And those are Alan Pinkerton and Kate Warren. She'd pose as Pinkerton's wife while collecting crucial military intelligence for major George McClillin throughout the Civil War, risk for life doing that, you know, became Mrs. Pada. Coast a confession out of her murderous wife and Mrs. Sippy. She became Lucille, a fortune teller who unveiled a plot to poison a man named Captain Sumner. She became Kay, Kitty, and Angie, and a lot of other names that historians are probably don't even know about, right?

Starting point is 02:03:22 They don't know exactly how much she did because a lot of the records weren't kept because they were so secretive. So yeah, very cool. He gave her starts, in addition to pioneering undercover work for American law enforcement, he also created the concept of criminal surveillance in America. Pinkerton would call it shadowing. Obviously, this is something that police investigators use a lot today, did not exist prior to Alan Pinkerton.

Starting point is 02:03:48 Shadowing was his process of conducting surveillance on a known target or location, recording everything so that a theme would emerge from the analysis. Also prior to Pinkerton, you couldn't hire a private investigator in America. They did not exist. There was no FBI tracking the movements of some criminal from state to state prior to the Pinkerton's. You had to do that shit yourself. You had to grab a gun and go get them. And if you need them, you can still hire them today.

Starting point is 02:04:10 So thanks for voting in that topic space, lizards. I learned the most. I've ever learned about law enforcement. We have a lot of police officers who listen to suck. Hopefully I didn't fuck it up too bad. Thank you guys for existing. Thanks for being there for the rest of us, you know, to call when we need help. Never really thought about what life would be like with no law enforcement and didn't think about how that was reality for most people, for most of human history.

Starting point is 02:04:32 And I know that the media sensationalizes the most negative cases. I've talked about this with a lot of law enforcement officers where something bad happens and an officer shoots somebody that not supposed to treat somebody badly when they're not supposed to. And then that just turns to media up for you know and as it should insert cases but what gets lost in that is the many many many many many many many officers who just kick ass of their jobs and keep the rest of his safe

Starting point is 02:04:57 and i'm thankful that we can call them thankful that we don't have just the assistant of like i still my biscuit he did i still don't know that biscuits, someone gets the biscuit thief. I prefer the the police method much better. So time for four more looks back at what we've already learned and some really cool, I think some cool local additional info in today's top five takeaways. Time suck, top five takeaways. Number one, ancient Egyptian security forces actually used trained champs or baboons.

Starting point is 02:05:31 Depending on how you look at the drawing, to help capture criminals, right baboons. Someone please invent a time machine, go back and record these baboons, catch someone, and then come back, post it on YouTube, and crash the entire internet. Number two, for a good portion of European history, there were no police and the equivalent of calling the police was yelling out something illegal that had occurred and hoping enough neighbors continued to yell until someone was caught. The world's not getting worse, it's getting better. Number three, Alan Pingerton created America's very first and one of the world's first detective

Starting point is 02:06:01 agencies in 1850 introduced undercover investigations, criminal surveillance, armed security detail for high ranking political figures, the concept of a national criminal database, and more into the American criminal justice system. You couldn't call 911 in the mid late 19th century, but if you had a criminal problem, you need to be dealt with, and a little bit of dough, you could hire the pinkertens. Number four, the pinkertens made the most money, but also gained the most unfavorable press and tarnished their legacy the most and actually did the deeds that led to their downfall as America's preeminent law enforcement agency by infiltrating labor unions and labor gangs

Starting point is 02:06:41 and breaking up strikes by any means necessary, including essentially declaring war on some steel workers in homestead, Pennsylvania. Number five new info. I love finding this. The Pinkerton's were involved in a major historical incident right here in little old Cordelein Idaho. Home is suck dungeon. We talked about how the Pinkerton's both heralded and hated and how about most of their hate.

Starting point is 02:07:04 Canterdew is a support and big business owners opposition labor unions. Well, the writings of Pinkerton detective Charlie Seringo provide a unique view to the mentality of Pinkerton detectives who fought the union. Seringo was dispatched to a conflict between mine owners and labor unions in northern Idaho in 1892. Charlie Seringo was a pile of Wyatt Earp,

Starting point is 02:07:26 bat master sin, Pat Garrett, a lot of those people from the doc holiday suck, a man who had infiltrated butch Cassidy and the Sundance kids wild bunch. He was a famous Pinkerton agent and he didn't generally work on their labor union cases. He was known for his support of the working man, but the agency needed a star agent to help deal with some some shit going down in Northern Idaho, some strikes needed to be dealt with. And he went out to Northern Idaho and went to court of lane with

Starting point is 02:07:52 a stipulation that he didn't have to do anything he disagreed with. Well, the court of lane mine owners association put 1600 miners out of work by shutting down the mines in the silver valley, silver valley stretches, you know, northeast of Cordalaine, almost to Montana, while they battled the railroads who were demanding higher fees for shipping or I've driven to the silver valley many, many times. Love it. Little mining town of Wallace, one of my favorite little towns in all of America. When the mines opened up three months, again, months later, excuse me, the owners refused to recognize the mining union and the miners refused to go back to work. And then non-union workers, you know, scabs were brought in and the fight was on. A syringo met with mine owners who had called him in, eventually joined the labor union.

Starting point is 02:08:33 What he found was that the head of the union was in his words a true blue anarchist, man named George Petabone. Once he saw what labor unions were doing, he decided that it wasn't immoral to bust them up. While the popular opinion was that the labor unions represented the hardworking downtrodden every man who was being taken advantage of, Seringo wrote about how they did some pretty horrific things. You know, those that broke the strike, for instance, were dragged from their homes and

Starting point is 02:09:02 shown their way out of the state of Idaho and encouraged to head that way You can keep happening out of the state by gunfire It became clear to anyone who opposed the union was destined for the same sort of treatment those who joined the union swore to remain loyal to it or face Death for betrayal and Serringo when he finally was recognized as a Pinkerton found out they weren't kidnapped and he was captured by union members The Lynch mob decided to deal out some vigilante justice and killing the supposed to be burned at the stake they're going to burn him alive but he managed to escape union custody and then to bring the labor war to an end Idaho governor

Starting point is 02:09:33 Norman B. Willie declared martial law sent in the national guard and then president u.s president Benjamin Harrison dispatched federal troops to northern Idaho to quail the fighting to quail the upriding. That's crazy to me, somebody who lives here. Uh, yeah. And then it, so it was, it was squashed. Charlie Sringer was appointed as a United States deputy marshal, given the man he needed to put an end to the Idaho bloodshed in the name of fairness and they ended up arresting

Starting point is 02:09:58 about 300 union men. And the whole thing ended up in 18 convictions, little Northern Idaho chapter to the tale of the Pinkertons. Time, suck, tough, five take away. So that's it, the Pinkertons sucked. I know a little bit all over the place on that one, had a hard time figuring out what portions of the story to leave out, what portions to leave in. You know, I thought about just telling more of like a straight tale of just story to leave out, what portions to leave in. I thought about just telling more of a straight tale

Starting point is 02:10:27 of just the Pinkerton's, but honestly, it became a little repetitive, I felt, where it's like, you know, you get some highlights about some stage coach robberies or whatever. That's pretty cool. But then after a while, especially when you get into that kind of strike busting phase, I don't wanna talk 40 stories of like, and then they went into this strike,

Starting point is 02:10:46 and then they busted it up again. And then they did this thing again, and then this thing again, and then this thing again. So I thought it'd be more fun to bounce around and learn about some law enforcement history, and then kind of hit some pinkerton highlights. Hope you liked it. Hope the spaces are to voted it in liked it.

Starting point is 02:11:03 Thanks again to the time suck team, high priest is the suck harmony belly camp, Jesse guardian of grammar dobner, Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley, time suck high priest, Alex Dugan, the guys at BiddleLix are danger brain, space lizards, emerged wizards, axis apparel, queen of the suck Lindsey comments, and huge thanks to OG Bojangles research department

Starting point is 02:11:22 assistant Heather Knowledge Ninja Rylinder and congrats big congrats to Harmony and Alex for welcoming little space newt Charlie into the world at 10 30 a.m. on Tuesday, November 27th. She was born seven pounds four ounces 20 inches long, adorable and healthy. So happy to you to hail them. Not hail to Savannah. But they both watch over your little space. Newt.

Starting point is 02:11:45 Next week, we stick with American history. Don't worry, we will get to more true crime again. I promise, but next week is time to suck Harriet Motherfucking Tubman. Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad in a decade. She got it over 300 slaves to freedom. Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison

Starting point is 02:12:03 thought she deserved the nickname Moses. She worked hard to save money to return and save more slaves. She was born a slave in Maryland in 1820, escaped when she was almost 30 in 1849. And during the Civil War, Tubman served as a nurse, cook, laundered, spy, and scout. She lived to be over 90 years old, lived the hell of a life. In those nine decades, she killed a, she killed a family of pandas with her bare hands once in China. She, she crotted kick to Sasquatch into a parallel dimension when she was 45 and she invented the easy bake of it. No, she didn't do that stuff, but she did, she did it's cool stuff, really. She like cool shit and you should know more about her and you

Starting point is 02:12:39 will next week, time now for Time Sucker Updates. Updates, get your time, sucker updates. A lot of cool updates being sent in. If yours didn't make it in, it's not gonna be don't care. There's a lot of stuff coming in, which is fantastic. Very appreciative. First update today is about how the suck changed someone's life, and this is from Crystal Tronor.

Starting point is 02:13:02 Crystal writes, dear Dan, the magnificent leader of the space lizards. I've been, I've been listening to the podcast since about June of this year, and I've finally caught up. I know there's a lot of hours out there. I fucking blabber a lot. I made a deal with myself that when I was done, I would become a space leader.

Starting point is 02:13:18 So coming soon, sweet. I also decided not to email you until I got to this point. I saw you last January at the Zanies and Rosemont, aka, it's not fucking Chicago. I know. You know why I say that? Because I feel like people from surrounding areas sometimes who might come to Chicago

Starting point is 02:13:33 if they just hear like a sub-renading, I'd be like, well, where's that? So I'll just say the main city. But you're right, I know, it's not technically Chicago. Okay, and was not yet listening to any podcast, so I really dragged my feet about starting to listen to yours. So glad I did it. At the beginning, I would be nervous about listening

Starting point is 02:13:47 to certain episodes because the subject matter made me uncomfortable or I just had no interest, but I listened anyway and wound up being so glad. Hey, not only did I learn more about something, I didn't have any curiosity about originally, but I found out that it was actually super interesting. I, me as well, some topics to get picked. I'm like, I don't know about this, but I was like him. I just wanted you to know that listing to the bonus episode

Starting point is 02:14:07 number 10 was uniquely challenging experience for me. It was like a call to action. I've been debating about quitting my job, moving away from a large city for a small town and just shaking shit up. You inspired me to start looking, oh, yeah, and for those of you who are having a bonus episode 10 was when I talk about my story, that's the suck, sucks itself. Uh, yeah, you inspired me to start looking in September, I did, I quit my job. I took the month of October off, moved to a truly tiny fucking town in Tennessee, and I am starting my new life here. I really am grateful that listening to the suck and all the updates from the different time

Starting point is 02:14:39 suckers gave me the courage to just fucking do it. You have truly created something special here where I feel like there's a chance that I'll meet random suckers out there. Yeah, odds are increasing all the time. I will say on that, I do get recognized more and more all the time and I'm not saying that. I was like, ooh, look at me way. It's all from time suck, always, always, always, always.

Starting point is 02:14:57 And it makes me feel so good. And I'll meet random suckers out there and have something come with them immediately. I know you're proud of the community you've created, but I just wanted you to know that you have really positively impacted this sucker's life. And if kept me company on several long fucking drives from Chicago to East and Tennessee, thank Christ, I had your mosh mouth. God, if my mosh mouth was on fire today for company, especially when I discovered the localest chain of boat jangles, yeah, man, some biscuits, which specializes in chicken

Starting point is 02:15:23 and biscuits, the meeting place of chicken gel, Ambojangles, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hey, Lucifer, you know, give Bojangles a good pet for me and keep on sucking, Crystal Tronor. Oh, Crystal makes me so happy, makes me so happy, I'm so glad, you know, obviously, you know, as this thing expands, yes, it can help me like financially,

Starting point is 02:15:41 but I swear, it's such a passion project. This stuff fires me up more than anything else. Just building a community where people, you know, they have something in common, immediately when they meet somebody else, they tend to be of a similar ilk, they're able to start friendships. That stuff is starting to happen more.

Starting point is 02:15:59 I love people meeting at shows and things and cool man. Okay, kick ass, Hatfield McCoy message from Logan County sucker, Anthony, Hawk folk, Stalin's. Anthony writes, just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Hatfield McCoy suck. I'm from Logan County, West Virginia, so I've heard about the feud my entire life. But of course, hearing it from you, the time suck away was the best portrayal anyone could ask for. Wow, I'm sure some people disagree, but I thank you.

Starting point is 02:16:24 From a little town in the West Virginia, Colfield's called Man. Yes, the town is called Man. I think I've heard of that, Man West Virginia. Our high school mascot is the Hillbilly, a goat. No, I'm not making this up. You talked about the Logan Wildcats, Confederate and militia group. Well, Logan High Wildcats are also the county rival of my man high hillbillies. Ha! Ah, hilarious, man, little nods to the history there. Yeah, man high hillbillies. Ha! Ah, hilarious man, little nods to the history there. Yeah, those scattered hillbillies. Just wanted to say, being from such a town, and here when you talk about this area

Starting point is 02:16:52 was so awesome, I thoroughly enjoyed it as I do all the sucks. You're awesome, keep it up. PS, go hawk folk! Yeah, yeah, go hawk folk! Thank you, man. I'm glad you enjoyed that. I appreciate that, Anthony.

Starting point is 02:17:04 Pronunciation update, yes? Thank you, man. I'm glad you enjoyed that. I appreciate that Anthony Pronunciation update. Yes from from somewhat furious time sucker Anthony Thornton who writes in all caps Jesus tap dancing Christ. It's pronounced Lucid Tania, Dan. I'm probably still saying it wrong loose I Tay Yeah, Lucid TAY, NIA, Loose, Ittania, Loose, Ittania.

Starting point is 02:17:27 The sinking of the Loose Ittania is one of the most significant maritime incidents of the early 20th century. And I want to punch my own ears every time you mangled the pronunciation. Sorry, sorry, I got a little carried away there. I still love you, you stand up in your podcast. Maybe someday you can make your way to the wilds of Tulsa, Oklahoma and do some on-site research about a dark time in American history, the Tulsa race rise, okay? Okay, and do a show.

Starting point is 02:17:50 Also, I like how now, if someone says you suck, it's compliment. Keep up the suck. Thank you, man. I know my pronunciation updates are infuriating. I really do. I don't do it to be endearing. I'm like, oh, it's a fun thing now.

Starting point is 02:18:05 It should just keep it. I swear I try my hardest to pronounce words in life correctly. I get made fun of it, homelot for this too. Yeah, part of my brain's pretty messy, but I'm working on it. Finally, a beautiful update from Green Beret. I think it's actually pronounced Green Beret. Joe Paisley told me today it's green. It's green barrett update for screen for a green beret humanitarian beautiful meat sack green beret association dot org the association we gave some money to this month.

Starting point is 02:18:35 Thanks to the spaces senior executive officer and wonderful time sucker Nick Merrick love Nick. Nick writes Dan and Lindsey. Uh, for me, my wife, uh, queen of sex. She's also on this message first off we have to say thank you for highlighting our nonprofit on the podcast and what a great one to host it on uh... that will work one yet uh... the donations could not have come at a

Starting point is 02:18:54 better time sadly as you and many of your listeners know we recently lost three u.s uh... s o f personnel to two green berets and air force combat controller. The donations made by you and the Colt and Curious are going directly to help CPT Ross, SFC at Emmend and SSGT, Elytse's families. We are also seeking to help the other four members of the team that were wounded that day, and it would be far more difficult to accomplish the support of everyone that helped.. Thank you and all of the humble servants of Nimrod for your support.

Starting point is 02:19:30 Yeah, man. I know it's, you know, I wish we could do so much more, but I'm glad we can give a little bit to help a truly very, very, very worthy cause. So sad. Yeah, man, sorry for the loss of fellow servicemen. Secondly, a new world order update. I'm attaching a link to give a little acumber to you. The link is to an Ogden News report about black military helicopters swarming a downtown building in the middle of the night. It's downright funny having been on one of those helicopters to read what people thought or even recount what happened.

Starting point is 02:19:59 In this age of information, it still amazes me how quickly people point to conspiracies, evil or worst case scenarios. I've been on numerous training missions around the US and we always coordinate with local law enforcement. This prevents the overzealous Johnny do goods from grabbing their rifles and rushing and and rushing armed and armed military unit who is actively preparing to deploy and defend their aforementioned Johnny do good sometimes at the cost of their own lives. Who knows though, maybe I'm a member of the lizard illuminati and only telling this to you so you'll let your guard down. Eyes to the sky, space lizards. Maybe that black helicopter is coming to an abandoned building near you. Sincerely, Bojangles personal pooper scooper, Nick. Thank you, Nick.

Starting point is 02:20:42 I will check out those links soon. And so the rest of you, you know, you can easily Google, uh, Ogden, Black military helicopters, swarming downtown building. Thanks to all of you who wrote in, uh, hope you enjoyed today. Hope you look forward to, uh, to Harriet Tubman and just continuing to learn, uh, with the fun group of a reverent meat sex. And that's it for today's Time Sucker Up days. Thanks, Time Suckers. I need a net. We all did.

Starting point is 02:21:12 Have a great week, Time Suckers. May Nimrod watch over you. Don't let a Pinkerton infiltrate your secret organization and watch out for police monkeys. Or police champs, whatever, and keep on sucking. Can I go to sleep now? Or do I have to keep drinking this weird keto liquid cocaine? My cup.

Starting point is 02:21:42 Or do I have to keep drinking this weird keto liquid cocaine? My cup. liquid cocaine, my cup.

Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 116 - The Pinkerton Detective Agency - "We Never Sleep"

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