A Geek History of Time - Episode 241 - On-Screen Hatfield & McCoy Depictions Part II

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Okay, so there's there there are two possibilities going on here. One, you're you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. The the other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before, but it involves a language that uses pronunciation that's different from Latin it, and so you have no idea how to say it properly. An intensely 80s post-apocalyptic schlock film. Oh, and schlong film. You know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers. Oh, okay, so the resident Catholic thinking about that. We're going for low-earth orbit. There is no rational here. Leave it on me after. And you know I will. They mean it is two o'clock in the fucking morning. I am. I don't think you can get very much more

homosexual panic than that. No, which I don't know if that's better. I mean you guys are Catholics, you tell me. I'm just kind of excited that like you and producer George will have something to talk about that basically just means that I can show up and get fed. 1.0-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1-1.5-1.5-1.5-1. This is a geeky tree of time. Where we connect to the River E2, the real world. My name is Ed Boehlach, I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And next week I am planning on wearing my kil't to school for the first time this school year, which is I think going to set a record for the earliest I've worn it in a school year. Traditionally I have waited until the last day before we go on winter break to do that.

But this weekend is coming weekend. My wife and I are going to be attending an event and it's just going to be easier for me to have the killed on before we get in the car to go there. So I'm going to put it on and and I'm gonna have it on in front of all of my sixth grade students. And I'm going to be very interested in seeing how their responses on this site are different from the responses I got on my old site. Because I have permanent status now. I can safely get away with this.

And I'm in a neighborhood now that there might be more students that are more jared by this perceived bump against gender norms, than would have been at my old site. So we'll see what happens. It's gonna be fun. Nice. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony,

and I'm a US history teacher up here in Northern California. And recently in my partner and I, we have embarked on a just an effort to eat better, lose some weight, that kind of thing. I've set a goal, I've got an app, I'm recording every little thing I eat, and I have found myself, and she has found herself as well, being mildly obsessed with it. And now I'm like, acutely aware of the calorie intake and what have you. And my goal is that I can lose the weight that I need to so that when I do go running, I'm not hurting my knees and ankles with having too much weight on it. Okay. That is reasonable. That is the goal. But like today, somehow through some strange quirk of whatever, I have still 1200 calories

to go before I get to my limit. And I'm just like, oh, Shangri-La potato chips, you just saw me eating. It's 10.45 at night. And I was going to say, so wait, you're trying to eat better. Yeah. But I just saw you with the lays bag in your hand, tipping my head back to get the last bit of it. Yeah, to get the last oily crumbs at the bottom of it. Yeah, because that that was 140 calories that

I have saved up for. Apparently. So yeah, so I found you eat the rest of the day. I'll falpha sprouts and like air. A fair amount of fruit, which low cow for the most part, split a mango with my daughter, had a good quarter cup of blueberries, that kind of thing. I do find that the measurements of ice cream to be kind of funny. It's like, hey, would you like a three quarters cup of ice cream? Huh. Yeah, but you know, it's easier to quantify. So I'm finding success with it. I'm doing a good job. This is my seventh or eighth day doing it. So I'm hopeful. I'm very hopeful. All right, welcome back. Now, last time we talked about the president who pre-1960 did the most fucking. Okay, so here's a question though.

Sure. You're qualified as pre-1960 did the most fucking. Do we know that the president post-60 did more fucking or are you only qualifying it that way just to be safe? No, I think we do know because both JFK and LBJ did all the fucking in the 1960s. Like I don't think I think they're the gongous cons of fucking. I don't think anybody else was, or Attila, the Huns, I forget which one. It's Chingus Con. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was, okay.

But JFK famously would get headaches if he didn't get laid every day. Oh, that, that's, like, no, that's garbage. I, that's, that's, yeah, that's what he claimed. Yeah, of course that's what he claimed. But also whatever. Yeah. Also, he would like, if there was a tour of the White House,

like a high school tour of the White House, he would like pick out gals and be like, make sure that she gets offered a internship when she turns 18. So he would do that. And the only person who, yeah, yeah, it's creepy and ugly. Yeah. What? Yeah. Oh, oh my God almighty.

At some Kadafi level shit, didn't it? Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, I knew, I mean, I understood that he was a horn dog and unfaithful to his wife and like, you know, gross like that. Yeah. I didn't realize it was that gross. Like, yeah, that's, that's like a whole other tier of, and then the one guy who was bothered by that reputation because he felt that it ignored his own was his vice president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who nicknamed his penis jumbo.

He fucked everything from Texas to Washington and back again, apparently. In fact, famously, he complained that, that's, I was going to say FDR, but that would be a different claim. But he claimed that JFK was undeserving of said reputation because he LBJ got more pussy asleep than JFK got awake or something like that. I might be paraphrasing, but it was it was that parallel. That is that is a quote that I can totally hear coming out of linux Johnson's mouth. Yes, that is totally not character. That is on brand. That is 110% on brand. If you want to have fun, um, go to the Lyndon Bain, just type in Lyndon Bain's Johnson Taylor recording. And Tia, I L.O.R.

That's that's uh, Hager. He was talking to the, talking to the Hager, Hager Tragozer's company, right? Yeah. And he just, he's saying, you know, it's in the middle of talking about it and talking about how you need to take the inseam about, well, need about two more inches up front and then up and up, uh, up near my bunghole. Like you have a president, yeah, on, on record saying bunghole, like you have a president. Yeah. On on record saying bunghole, which is just awesome. So it's good

times. Good times. He famously got to the position of political power he did by knowing we're all of the bodies were buried and being willing to put more bodies in the ground. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like I mean, Robert Carro, I hope that he lives long enough to finish. It's we're getting close. Yeah. Yeah, because Robert Carro is final, final volume of Johnson.

Yeah. I had a discussion with actually with friend of the show, Baal Wolf Rockland, who famously came on and did the film noir series with us. But Robert F. Carroll, he is getting up there in age. And there's some question as to if he will live long enough to get it done. So. Well, here's hoping it does for sure. Yes.

So. All right. So. Disney's a thing. It's 1923 right and two years prior to 1923 from August through September You see the Battle of Blair Mountain and that's where I left off last time right yes, okay So the Battle of Blair Mountain happened in Logan County West Virginia Okay of all places. Yeah.

I had forgotten. I had forgotten it was Logan County. All right. Mm-hmm. And it was itself preceded by two years of the, the mine workers coal strike of 1919. And shit's about to get complicated as opposed to before. And then I promise I'll get to Buster Keaton. Yeah.

So, so it's 1919, you've got the Palmer raids and the Red scare, right? Yeah. And it wasn't without merit that they were actually scared because there were a lot of anarchists and communists coming over. In fact, even though Palmer had already planned his raids, they almost seemed retroactively justified

when anarchists began a bombing campaign through the mail against anti-anarchist publishers, journalists, and politicians, and anti-immigrant journalists, publishers, and politicians, and certain clergy and prominent businessmen. From April through June of 1919, there were more than 30 bombs that got mailed to select targets, resulting in the injury of two people and the death of two people. This included Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General, the newly appointed Mitchell Palmer at his home. Of course, at this time, it was also red summer when more than 30 race riots erupted throughout the US. And there were a number of strikes that year as well. But the responsible party was called the Galeianists,

named for Italian anarchist Luigi Galeian. Galeian. Yeah, okay. Okay. They tried bombing a who's who list from people that I'd mentioned in the Idiocracy podcast, as well as the future commissioner of baseball, and no nassol on the bench, Kenna saw a mountain landess.

There are lots of people to bomb. Now, two bombs were aimed at Palmer, and they failed, although the second one was so powerful that the bomber's body parts landed across the street on his neighbor's porch. Wow. So I guess, I guess you would call that the bomb and failing. So much as they, the target didn't get hit. I don't. Yeah.

Yeah. It depends on where you, where you drive the line for failure mechanically. Great success. Yeah. The bombing was a success. The bombing. Technically, yeah.

Technically complete failure. Yeah. Now his neighbor's a goal. In bomb. Yeah. Technically, yeah. Technically, complete failure. Yeah. Now his neighbor's a goal. Yeah. His neighbors across the street were none other than Secretary of the Navy, Franklin, Roosevelt, and his wife, Eleanor. Okay. Yeah. And they had walked by mere moans before. Now, attached to each bomb, as was consistent with Galeon's approach of propaganda, was the following short manifesto, quote, war, class war, and you were the first to wager it under the cover of the powerful institutions

you call order in the darkness of your laws. There will have to be bloodshed, we will not dodge, there will have to be murder, we will kill because it is necessary, there will have to be destruction. We will destroy to rid the world of your tyrannical institutions. Okay. So that's Yeah, it's a manifesto for sure. You've got this bombing campaign going from April to June, right? So Palmer having had his house attempted bomb twice. Yeah, I can get why he's doing the rates. I can be well, yeah, I can, yeah. So here's a question.

So what the phrase that were the, the ism that kept getting mentioned at this point was anarchism. Yes. As opposed to socialism or communism, was there in the media of the time a conflation of them? No. In, okay.

Yeah. And that's the case. And that's the case. And that's the case. And that's the case. Yeah. Okay. Palmer, specifically anti-communist and communism was a brand new kid on the block. Anarchism was kind of already going on.

It had been for a while, killed the president with McKinley. And anarchism was tied directly to immigrants, specifically Italian immigrants and some other South European immigrants, whereas communism was considered more Slavic, it was considered more organized, communist had just taken over Russia. And anarchism and organized or not generally, terms that you find linked very tightly to one another. Right, so. Okay, so. Now, that gets us to the

cool strike strike of 1919. Okay. Most of the country had outsaward on the Palmer rates. Okay. So the Palmer rates happen and everybody's like, what are you doing? Like, even though he was kind of retroactively proven right by the fact that there were anarchist bombings, they're like, no, you didn't actually do that. Most of the country was like, no, that's not really the job. Believe it or not, back then, people didn't think it was really the job of the government to police the people. This leads to John Luelland Lewis, who was a labor organizer,

and he managed to unite the causes and the grievances of almost 400,000 coal workers by 1919. Now, the shortest version that I can think of is that the labor organization agreed not to put up much of a fight for wages during the war because there was a war on. But afterward, there'd be a lot of effort to make everybody whole again. Okay. Now, given post-war economic boom that the United States enjoyed supplying starving Europe meant to meant increased production in more profits in 1919 coal miners figured, okay, now it's our time.

And of course, immediately Palmer enacted the lever act, which itself was a wartime act. So what the actual fuck the war is over. And the lever act was supposed to guard against hoarding and price gouging. Okay. And he enacted it against the unions for the first time ever. Wait, what? Yeah. So, Palmer takes an act that's meant to stop hoarding and price gouging by the people who own the means of production. Yeah. And he used it against the people who are like, hey, we put up with a lot, we produced

a lot, and we didn't ask for big raises during that time. Now it's time. And he's like, you know what? We've got a law against that. And it's like, you know what, we've got a law against that. It's like, no, that's not what that law is. Why are you what? So, so, so he's trying to use a price gouging law to prevent negotiation of pay raises because he said because he's equating that with price gouging. Well, he's saying that if you interfere with the production or transportation of wartime necessities like coal, therefore you were in violation of the Leaver Act.

It's not wartime, but it was a wartime necessity. Yeah, fuck all the way off anyway. I know. I know. And going on strike isn't the same as hoarding, but he was written in such a way that he was able to do that. Wow. All right. And since he's an anti-communist, of course, he's going to have a man on against labor unions

anyway. Right. Exactly. Because, yeah. All right. So Palmer figured that he'd have tons of support doing this. And he sought an injunction against the coal miner strike that was planned for October 31st. The strike lasted from then through November and shit gets cold in November. So you know that

coal supplies are starting to run low. Yeah. Which means that public sentiment starts really pushing the government to end the strike despite massive amounts of missteps and disagreements within Wilson's administration. Yeah, involvement. This, this involves both furious negotiations between the government and the miners as well as the deployment of 20,000 troops with guns to protect scab labor during the strike. Yeah, yeah. Now the strike ends in December with a 14% wage increase.

All right. That's not what they deserve, but it's better than a sharp stick. Yeah. I got those too. But now, yeah, this strike was, was very much definitely on the mind of both Union folks and anti-union agitators. And there's so much more that I want to get into on this strike, but I'm trying to confine my analysis to these specifically pertinent subjects. So, I'm going to move on beyond the 1919 strike, but just recognize it ended in December. It was a Union victory, but the government had taken a stand and there had been a strike and there had been soldiers. Right.

Now, there's a fellow named William Sidney Hatfield, Smiley and Sid to his friends. Two guns, Sid, to his friends and others. He was born in 1891, possibly 1893, depending on the records that you're looking at at the time. He was the son of Jacob Hatfield and Rebecca Crabtree. Okay. Jacob Hatfield was the son of Jeremiah Hatfield, who himself was the half brother of Valentine Hatfield, the father of Big F Hatfield, who was Devil Ants Hatfield's father. Okay, so this guy is a cousin. Hasn't once removed of devil hands. Okay.

Silence said, got his name for the gold caps on his teeth. And I assume the two gun nickname wasn't because of his but having big ears. Yeah. Right. Now William Sidney Hatfield said, grew up fighting and drinking hard so like most of his family Yeah, yeah now early on he worked the mines and he was an assistant to a blacksmith the mayor of the town of I I should have looked up the pronunciation on this because it comes up a lot. It's called it made a one Mate one M A T E W A N on this because it comes up a lot. It's called the made a one, mate one, M-A-T-E-W-A-N. Okay. Madeline. Madeline, made a one. So it'll be interchangeably mispronounced and I apologize. But the mayor of that town, which is within Mingo County, he appointed, he appointed big, he appointed smiling said police chief, which was a surprising

move to most because smiling said was a big fighter and big drinker. Um, but from the jump, smiling said Hatfield and the mayor of this town were big supporters of the United Mineworkers of America, the union that was founded in Mingo County in 1890. Most of the towns in Mingo County were mining towns and specifically company towns of mining companies that were decidedly anti-union. The result was that if you were unionizing or suspected of unionizing, you'd be fired and thus turned out. And now you have nowhere to live because they're company towns, right? So naturally, this meant that the place

to really focus union efforts was Mingo County. Okay. In 1920. So John LeWell and Lewis responds to the pressures of everything that's going on by doing exactly this. And after the strike of 1919, it ended Lewis and Mother Jones at that time who was 83 and more of a badass than we could ever hope to become.

And the guy named Frank Keeney, the president of the local coal miners union district, went into Mingo County to unionize the workers. And the result was 3000 miners in Mingo County unionizing in 1920. They were all summarily fired. Wow. Yeah. By the way, I looked up to pronunciation, Maytwan. Maytwan. Okay. So Maytwan. Now in May of 1920, the private detective firm of Baldwin Feltz was hired by mining companies in the area

to evict fired miners from the town of Maituan. Okay. Now private detective firms, historically, are anti-union. This was no different. Leave Feltz. Yeah, I was going to make her work about I'm amazed. It wasn't the the Pinkerton's, but okay. Yeah, yeah. I think they operated a little further west, to be honest. Okay. And it could be that these guys were the lower bid. So true. So Lee Feltz and Albert Feltz, the brothers of the co-founder of Baldwin Feltz, were also in town in Maytwan. Albert Feltz had arrived in advance of the other detectives who came into town and he tried to bribe Mayor Testerman with a $500 to place Baldwin Feltz machine guns on the town's roofs.

Right, hold on. Yeah. Private investigators. Yes. I'm putting investigators in quotes now as you should. What is it? What is it put machine guns? Yes. On the roofs of buildings in town. Yes.

And they came with $500 to bribe the mayor. To bribe the mayor to do that. Okay. Yeah. Now, if the name Baldwin Feltz is tickling your brain, it's because they were the group that was largely responsible for the Ludlow massacre in 1914.

Because, yeah, okay. So machine guns, yeah, of course. All right. Because they, along with the Colorado National Guard, opened fire on striking coal miners and their families. Yeah. Anyway, the Baldwin Felt's detectives came to town trying to bribe both Mayor Testament and police chief Hatfield and of course failed to do so. They then went to start evicting families on behalf of the Stone Mountain coal company

at gunpoint in the rain. Wow. So striking. Yeah. Wow. Wow. So it's right. Yeah. But it's, are these baddies like, does this not like, like, really? No, really?

Comes with a paycheck. Jesus. Yeah. So, and remember, Maytwan is newly pro union. Most places are our anti-union at this moment, right? Which is amazing to me. I mean, again, talk about the ability to convince a man, you know, to do against his own personal interests. Now, Hatfield, Smiley and Sid Hatfield deputized several miners and he met an arriving party of about a dozen Baldwin Felt's detectives at the train station. And Smiley said, approach Albert Felt's

first tell on him, quote, Albert, if what you're doing is according to the law, you can do it and I won't interfere. But if what you're doing is not the law, you've got to stop putting people out of their houses. Okay, all right, that's that's as reasonable as one can be in that circumstance. Now failing at that plea, Hatfield informed Albert Feltz that he was placing them all under arrest and that he had a warrant to do so. Albert Feltz then produced a warrant saying, I'll return the compliment. I've got a warrant for you." And he showed a warrant signed by a Justice of the Peace in the Magnolia District, which was also in Mingo County.

The detectives had a submachine guns in their suitcases, and they had SID surrounded. Isaac Brewer, a local policeman, sat back and did nothing. Feltz said, quote, will take you up to Bluefield on the train that's due in seven minutes. We'll ride on the Pullman, said, said, living up to his name, smiled, and said nothing. He knew at this point that they were edging Sid to the end of the train platform and planned to do away with him and then hopped the train, which would only be stopped for a minute before departing again. Sid and Turn began to back away toward the Chamber's hardware store.

Isaac Ruhr came up behind Sid in the hardware store. Mayor Testament came running down the street and said to Albert, quote, I understand you are arresting my chief of police. I need him for his duties here to protect the town and I'll give Bond for him. I'll give any amount of Bond you name. I'll give the whole bank as security. Feltstend rebuffed him saying that he was going to take Sid DeBluephield. Testerman asked why not to the county seat over in Williamson.

Felt's repeated that he's going to take Sid DeBluephield, at which point Mayor Testerman asked to see the warrant. He examined the warrant and declared loudly that it was a bogus warrant. Now, I've gotten most of this from newspaper accounts at that time. The following account was from the New York liberator, May of 1920, May 20, 1920. So it's not an objective source, just like me, quote, then Albert draws his gun and shoots from the hip into the mayor's stomach and then wheels quick and fires it sit. The bullet misses it and goes through Isaac Brewer's right lung, paralyzing his gunhand, and him being a man that

can't shoot with his left. Sid drawed two guns one in each hand. He put a bullet right away through Albert Felt's forehead that came out the back of his neck and then one through cunning Ham's head, shooting for the head because of us being under the impression, them fellows always wear a coat of nails. The 10 detectives and Lee opened up heavy on Sid with Colt 45 automatics in each hand, but the close-range shooting had made a smoke cloud around Sid so they couldn't aim on him good. One of their bullets knocks Sid's Smith and Wesome 38 out of his hand, but he walked toward them using his 44. By now, all the guns in

action or all the guns was in action, the prettiest lot of artillery you ever seen. Lee Felt's had stood emptying a cult's 40, a cult's automatic 45. It said, except one shot he turns and kills Taught Tinsley, which was a boy of 18 that ran past him into the vacant lot. Then Lee put the empty gun back in the holster and drawed another, which he aimed steady with both hands it said. Somebody seen Lee and pulled down with a high power. The bullet goes through the heart of Lee, and it seemed like he jumped 10 feet up and he fell back on his back with his mouth open and his arm spread out, and his colts 45 still in his hand. A cold digger seen it and jumped over Lee and kicked the gun out of his hand and caught it up and put it into action. None of

the guns was idle. With Albert and Lee felt and cunning him dead, the detectives broke and run around the post office corner. One of them got into the little lemonade stand that was standing on the post office corner. One of them got into the little lemonade stand that was standing on the sidewalk, him thinking kind of funny, that the thin boards was stopped the bullets. And one tall skinny office detective run for Dr. Smith's office

in the one story brick building back of the post office, aiming to fight from there. But a young cold digger had run in before, him being unarmed, and when he seen the detective at the door with a gun in each hand He thought he thought the guy was coming for him and he picked up a gallon bottle of medicine and busted the detective Plum on the head with it the guy fell back with his eyes popping out and somebody put two or three bullets in to make sure while he was falling When Sid got plum around the corner

There was a Baldwin felt man across the side street and he fired it Sid but Sid got plumb around the corner, there was a Baldwin-feltzman across the side street, and he fired at Sid, but Sid got him. Another detective run around the bank corner and run plum into Bob Mullins and he shot Bob dead, and then he turned around and made a stand. He was shooting from behind the back corner, and he was hard to get because of Sid's bullets clipping the corner bricks, but soon he was got through the shoulder and he turned and run. There was a red moustache fellow lying on the sidewalk with his legs broke by bullets, and he kept shooting at Sidd and Sidd got him. Sidd quit smiling and told me, quote, that one with the red moustache, I disremember his

name, he sure had guts. The rest of them ran past Chambers Hoglot toward the river. One detective that had got shot through the bad, or who had got shot through bad, he went up the river to wait across, but he's seen he couldn't make it and he come back up to where a widow lady lives. He come in the door and he says, lady, I'm shot through. Lady, let me come in. If you will shelter me, I will give you $2,000. But the lady said, oh, God, you can't come in here. If you come in, I'll have have to get out and the fellow went down on the road and somebody fired a shotgun and he

fell dead. Everybody left off shooting and came back up and there were seven dead detectives laying in the street and four cold diggers wounded and the mayor the mayor the same as dead and Bob Nolan's dead and Todd Tinsley in the vacant lot And the train for Bluefield hadn't come in yet. Somebody told me something that they said was very important about an investigation, but I just remember what it was. When the gunplay begins again on battle scale in Mingo and Logan, I hope you will understand how it came or how came it. And when Sid Hatfield is tried for the killing of Albert Feltz,

I hope a plenty of people will back him up for his defense, for I think he's the kind of man the world needs more of. All right. So kind of okay, corralish in terms of like all of a sudden there's a shit ton of violence. Yeah. People running and like a lot of action. So this was this was in the paper in in May 20th of 1920 shortly after this happened Yeah Now when all was done three people from the town they dead including one involved one uninvolved bystander and seven from the agency including both Albert and Lee felts In fact

Albert fell from the first shot after he'd shot Mayor Testerman and then escaped into the nearby building. Spylon Sid found him and shot him to death inside the Maytwan Post Office. And at this time, the Baldwin Feltz agency was seemingly untouchable. So suddenly, he killed two brothers of the founder. Yeah. And then five other guys, right? And at this time, yeah, gone. So they're going to have a real man on to make sure they make an example of him. Right. Yeah. So Hatfield touched the hell out of them when they were untouchable. And touch, touch, touch, sorry, yeah, wait way you phrased it. It's like, um, what you're doing. And this, this will absolutely emboldened the miners in the area to push the ball to

when Felt's detectives out of town completely. Like, I don't give a fuck what you're here for. We, we kill your people. Yeah. Mayor Testament died later that day. He was gut shot. Um, yeah. Hatfield gained a full-carreotype of status amongst the town and he inspired quite a bit of union minor activity after that

Well, yeah, now the story gets weird from here though because within 11 days of John Testerman's death John Testerman, I believe it's John Testerman of maybe Testerman's death. Yeah, Hatfield was found in a hotel room with Testerman's wife Jesse with Testerman's wife, Jesse. Yeah, okay. So take a series, not direct ancestor. Right. Yeah. They married that same day, having been arrested for, quote, improper relations.

Now, it's 1920. So my special reality laws were so goddamn weird. My best guess is that it was oral sex, which was still illegal Now it's 1920, so my special reality laws were so goddamn weird back then. My best guess is that it was oral sex, which was still illegal in a lot of places and it was something that was thought of as something that only gay men did in many parts of the country. So I got a feel, yeah, I know. Okay.

Yeah. Whatever. So I tried to get as much research as I could on on the prevalence of oral sex in the United States in the 1920s. Most of what I found were a couple of articles discussing how when GIs would come back from World War One, they were asking for the French way. Um, hey, oh, good lord. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, uh, Albert and Lee's brother, uh, Thomas, uh, began to spread the rumor through his labor spy, Charles Everett, lively, that half field had killed Testament to get to Jesse. Lively had been so successful as a union spy starting in 1912 that he actually

had been selected as a union delegate for the United Mineworkers of America. And he even got close enough to be photographed with Mother Jones herself. Buck, that guy. Yeah, I know. Like super scout. Wow. Yeah. Like recognize the talent, but man, fuck yeah, you know, evil. Yeah. Okay. Fine. As as a friend of mine, who's a comic, uh, Saul Trujillo said, um, it's like being Mexican and liking Taco Bell. Like it's not authentic, So Charles Everett, lively is spreading this rumor. He has been photographed with mother Jones herself being undercover. He remains undercover and he used his restaurant to do as a meeting place for many union organizers.

And of course, that enabled him to gather information for Thomas Feltz, as well as to disseminate rumors and unrest, right? So not only is he serving up dinner and listening to what they're all saying and reporting back to Thomas Feltz, but also, yeah, but I heard so and so did such and such. Like just so, so what we're saying is

we shouldn't use the term quizzling. We ought to use this guy's name instead. Yes. Yeah. Talk to that guy, right? All right. So so yeah, he's doing that. Thomas Feltz publicly said that he wanted to see Hatfield hang for his brother's

deaths. A fair thing to say if your brothers get killed, I guess, although I would look at the circumstance, but then again, I've rejected as much of my family's lineage as I could. Lively was actually instructed to specifically target and cultivate relationships with the miners who were involved in the battle itself and to gather information that would be used as evidence in the trial against Hatfield. I'll get back to that in a minute. Interestingly, Jesse Testerman later disclosed that her husband, the mayor, had asked Hatfield specifically to take care of her and her son when he died. And since Testerman and Hatfield were good friends, it's entirely possible that this was the case. and Hatfield were good friends, it's entirely possible that this was the case. Okay, yeah.

Or this could be her retconning. Yeah, it could be her retconning. And who knows? Like, I mean, yeah. We don't have any way of knowing what the interpersonal, anything between all the players there was. And we don't really know what they were caught doing because newspapers at the time are not objective

sources in any way. And the way we sell it is to put sex on there. So yeah, was was one of them going down on the other possibly. Could it have been just he was holding her and she was sobbing also possible. But he does marry her 11 days later. Yeah. So now that summer, a union miners got involved repeatedly in skirmishes with non-union miners, specifically up and down the tug river. There were a number of miners families living in tents up and down this river and along its tributaries and eddies. And meanwhile, the governor of West Virginia ordered, uh, he ordered state-based martial law in Maytwan, uh, which Hatfield complied with, turning over all of their weapons.

Okay. Yeah. Now, I watched a short documentary on this, on this one from the time. So it's very much a newsreel documentary It's only about three or four minutes long. It's all silent and I saw the very staged moment when they turned over their weapons to the state police Okay The union went on strike in July which precipitated massive violence on the part of the strike breakers and then the strikers defending themselves violence on the part of the strike breakers and then the strikers defending themselves. Barc box cars got blown up, strikers got beaten up and they were left to die from their attacks. Woodrow Wilson himself weighed in on this, offering the National Guard and bringing in federal base martial law. Now, the first trial about the Battle of Maytwan took place from January through March of 1921. Charges were brought, but all defendants were acquitted of all charges owing to self-defense.

This trial included Hatfield and brought the name into the national headlines again. So Hatfield was happy to have it, by the way. And he posed regularly for pictures with reporters. He even appeared in a short film called Smiley and Sid, which appears to have been an internal United Mineworkers film, which, yeah. Now leading up to the trial, the coal company offered a thousand dollars to any coal miner defendant willing to turn on Hatfield and on the defendants and to testify in favor of the prosecution

Wow pretty bald faced Yeah, any of the 22 who did so would also have all charges dropped against them by the coal company Because they were like charging everybody who is anywhere near it because they were like charging everybody who was anywhere near it. Nobody turned. Well, Charles Lively got one defendant to turn Isaac Brewer. Really? Yeah.

Now this is mostly because Lively, Lively gave him free liquor and free meals. So again, it just kind of goes to show that like waterboarding isn't necessary, making friends with people is necessary. So the joke was on lively though, ultimately because Brewers' testimony was wholly worthless. During the trial, lively himself became the prosecution's star witness, despite not having witnessed the shootings about which the trial was. So most of his testimony was based on what he'd heard as a spy for the coal companies specifically for Baldwin Feltz. He testified that Hatfield had started the gunfight and shot Testament because he wanted the mayor out of the way in order to court Jesse and because Testament was getting too close to the coal companies, the defense pointed out how fucking stupid this was and it went nowhere.

But now lively was outed. That was the next thing I was going to ask was like, yeah, this was finally the moment where everybody went, wait a minute. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. He left town after the trial. He never came back to mate one.

No shit. And the union, the union expelled him for 99 years. I love that. And me too. I love that not not just life. No, no. 99 years. Yeah, like that. Now at the same time, almost 80% of striking miners signed yellow dog contracts. Now, for the audience at home, yellow dog contracts are agreements to not join unions. And because things were getting depressingly violent, remember a lot of them are living in tents along the Tug River, they needed work. Now, Sid Hatfield was still a problem for the coal companies

and for certain of the state authorities, because he had turned the jewelry shop of the late mayor Testament into a gun store. And that gun store sold primarily to union supporters. So well, damn right. Yeah. Now, brown gun club. Exactly. Now, in May, union miners took their guns along the tug river to more than just violent skirmishes and it was called the three days battle I think because it lasted for three days And the whole tug valley was immersed in internecine violence a truce was called after that martial law was instituted by the state Now you can imagine how it was enforced and against whom

Uh The result was hundreds of miners were arrested over the slightest provocation while their non-union counterparts faced no such repercussions. And this led to the union miners taking to the hills, guerrilla warfare style. Yeah. Now West Virginia state police was was a new institution at the time and it was led by Captain James R. Brockis known in print as the meanest old son of a bitch. That's okay. Yeah. Now, Brockis had served in China during the Boxer rebellion and in the Philippines during

the American occupation there and in Texas during the Mexican Civil War and in World War One. Okay. So he has he has plenty of experience in crimes against humanity. Yes. He's also cool under fire, capable of great violence and has no problem dispensing. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Hardened, hardened son of a bitch. Okay. I didn't look up whether or not he and Spedley Butler ever crossed paths. They're in the same spots. Yeah. They got they have to us. Like they were in the same spots. Yeah. So based on boxer rebellion and Philippines and World War one was it and well, yeah. But the first two make me wonder was he more was he marine Um, we're or army. Do you know I think he was army. Okay. Yeah So okay, but either way he must be out and he quickly rises up the ranks of the newly created West Virginia State Police, becoming Captain of their organization. On June 14th, so after the trial, right?

Right. Right. Okay. On June 14th of 1921, there were reports that someone at the tent colony had shot a car carrying the superintendent of the white star mining company while it had passed through the colony. Major Davis, Captain Brockis and Sheriff Pinson headed out to the tent colony to investigate and they themselves were fired upon. They returned shortly after West state policeman and vigilantes prepared to do a

raid. But by the time the raid was over, Alex Bredlove, a striking minor, was killed. Martin Justice, minor and president of the tent colony, was injured, and another 47 minors were, uh, striking minors were arrested. The state police shredded their tents and broke all their belongings. The arrested minors were all marched to Williamson and crammed into a single jail cell. Because of course they were. Yeah. And yet, on the same day as the raid, the state supreme court deemed the conditions of martial law in West Virginia unconstitutional.

It was actually illegal for a martial law mandate to be enforced by civil authorities, rather than military authorities. Okay. That makes sense. So now we're in July of 1921. During a Senate hearing, Charles lively was called to testify. He was scolded by a senator who said that union infiltration was, quote, not right, which I like. Lively's rejoinder was that if he, if the union knew that he was an infiltrator, the union would have killed him. Yeah, that's, that's true and that's not okay, but you shouldn't be doing this thing. Like, saying what they would do to you afterwards isn't justification for doing it.

Yeah. Like, yeah. Now, lively wasn't done with Hatfield either. He supplied information that placed Hatfield and his friend, Edward Chambers, in Mohawk, West Virginia, which is one county over from Mingo County in McDowell County, which is an anti-union county. There, they were accused of enticing union miners to shoot up a non-union mining encampment. And this meant that he was charged with conspiracy. Now, lively gave secret testimony that led to these charges. He claimed that Hatfield had persuaded the miners, oh no, no. No, he claimed that he himself had persuaded the miners in his restaurant to arm themselves and shoot up the non-union camp and dynamite a coal triple or coal triple in Mohawk.

Now this leads to, if they did that, then they're the ones guilty because for some reason that's not in trapment. And this leads to charges and to the need for Hatfield to present himself to the court in Welch, the county seat of McDowell County Courthouse. Okay. So, the Union Miners testified that the mine guards in McDowell County were the ones who did all the shooting when they arrived, and that they had to leave as a result. And further, the Union miners stated that this was all a ruse to get Sid Hatfield into McDowell County in order to kill him at the behest of Thomas Feltz. So now it's August 1st, 1921.

Edward Chambers and Sid Hatfield show up in Welch, which is in McDowell County. They're going up the steps with their wives, entirely unarmed. They were promised safe passage and guaranteed safety by the McDowell County Sheriff Bill Hatfield. Okay. And there were a number of good reasons for the County Sheriff Bill Hatfield to have made such a guarantee. First, of course, there was the Union anti-union stuff going on. But also, there'd been a murder in the streets of Welch earlier that year when the mayor of Welch,

a J.H. Whitt, who I could not find any information on biographically other than this event. He was facing efforts to impeach him from office. He shot and killed William Johnson Tabor, the sheriff's deputy who was trying to arrest him. Okay. Okay. This was in March of 1921. I found this fascinating, so I included it. Quote, several chart, this is from the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.

Several charges had recently been preferred against Mayor Witt, and an effort was being made to impeach him. On Wednesday afternoon, the council was in session and was hearing some of the accusations, which had been made against the mayor. It appears that there were two girls implicated in the charges. While the council was sitting behind closed doors, it is alleged that Mayor Witt broke into the meeting by breaking down the door and demanded to know what was going on. When told of the meeting, he is said to have turned over the table around which the councilmen were sitting and then left.

It appears Deputy Sheriff Taber had taken the girls in a car toward Kimball. And Brute to Kimball, his car was overtaken by Mayor Witt and the chief of police of Welch, who ordered Taber to turn the girls over to him. Johnson did so without any argument and returned to Welch following the machine in which Mayor Witt, the police chief and the two girls returned to Welch. The machine, they keep saying machine, it's a car. The machine stopped in front of the mayor's home and he stepped out. Johnson drove his machine just a little ahead of the car and stopped. He walked back stating it was said that he wanted to talk to Mayor Witt.

As he approached Witt, it was said that he was advised not to come any closer, he being Taber. With this, Witt pulled his gun and shot twice. Both shots took effect, one entering the lower part of the leg and the other near the hip. The second shot ranged upward, penetrating some of the vital organs. Taber was rushed to the hospital. Sheriff Hatfield soon reached the scene and excitement ran high throughout the town.

Now just real quick, a sheriff is in charge of countyland and a sheriff's deputy takes care of enforcing that. Police chief is in charge of the city. Yeah, yeah, city limits. Yeah, police chief was there when the mayor pulled a gun and shot a sheriff's deputy. Let's see. At first, it was thought that the table had received only flesh wounds and mayor waved preliminary hearing and gave bond for his appearance before Judge Herndon at the next session of the court.

After Taper's death, however, Mayor Witt was re-arrested on the charge of murder and placed in jail. It was reported here late last evening that Judge Herndon was preparing to hear some of the evidence and would determine if he would permit Witt to give bond. Bill Hatfield had been a Paul Barrett, Taper's funeral. And Taper actually had a long family history. I think it was like the first family member

of his family to go to college and he was related to the first pioneers in that area. I think there was a whole bunch of shit about to be Taber. So Bill Hatfield had been a Paul Barrett, Taber's funeral. So amidst all this, Sheriff Hatfield had promised police chief Hatfield safety in Welch, the county seat of McDowell County, so that he

police chief Hatfield from Maytwann, which was in Lingo County, could come and answer charges in court as a part of his due process rights. Right. Of course, yeah. Second or third cousins. Something. Yeah. I, okay. They're're both had fields, but yeah, okay. Yeah Yeah, of course, and of course this is what's getting in the news, right? Yeah, okay now Sheriff outfield was out of the county for the time when his distant cousin and I could not track down which

which W. JJ Hatfield was related to and what which Bill Hatfield it was. He had gone to the Craig Healing Springs, which sounds really nice. So, I guarantee you safe passage. I'm out of here. I got to go sit and mud. Okay. Smiley and Sid and his fellow police officer from mate one are unarmed and walking up the stairs to the courthouse with their wives in Welch, which is in McDowell, which is anti union. And they're from Mingle, right? Yeah. A group of three Baldwin felt detectives, including Charles lively, George Pence and William Salters, were

standing at the top of the stairs, lively open fire with two guns hitting Hatfield multiple times and killing him instantly. Chambers' body was filled with bullets, rolled down the steps, and here's a report from the Baltimore Sun on August 5, 1921. Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers, Mingo mountaineers who were killed on the steps of the courthouse at Welch. By the way, notice that mountaineers part, right? Yeah. Okay. Keep these things in mind. Like there's certain codes that get used here who were killed on the steps of the courthouse at Welch McDowell County in a gun fight last Monday who were unarmed. Their widow told the newspaperman here today, both Mrs. Hatfield and Mrs. Chambers accompanied their husbands to the court last Monday

Where Sid former police chief former chief of police at mate one was to have answered a charge of being the instigator of the shooting up of Mohawk McDowell County last year the widow said that they or their husbands did not anticipate trouble in Welch and that Hatfield locked his pistols in a traveling bag and Chambers laid aside his arms before starting for the courthouse. The women declared that CE lively, Baldwin felt's detective, charged with being implicated in the killings, boarded the train on which they were going to Welch early in the morning and followed them about town until it was almost time for them to appear in court. Mrs. Chambers describing how she and her husband and Sid and his wife went to the courthouse and started for their entrance said, I heard a shot fired. I turned and looked at Sid as and he was falling. Then I looked at my husband

and he was falling loose from my arm. The shooting then became general. I saw only two men shooting and they were CE lively and a short heavy set man who wore glasses. Mrs. Hatfield said that she lost consciousness while the shooting was going on. She charged Sheriff Bill Hatfield with negligence in not protecting her husband. Wow, so lively. Wow, here's, but not not not enough that he was, you know, a undercover snitch. Right. He actually committed cold blooded murder. And he testified before Congress like and then went back to commit cold blooded murder.

Yeah. Like wow. Yeah. All right. It also appears as though the agents of Baldwin felt then grabbed guns to plant at the scene and fired them into the courthouse until they were empty. They placed one in Hatfield's hands and one in his pants and another in Chambers' hand after lively went down and shot Chambers in the back of his head at extreme close range just to make sure. Wow. Yeah. Their wives were shit. Their wives were kept at the house of Sheriff Bill Hatfield to keep them safe. The next day, they returned with their husband's body to mate one. All three assassins were acquitted, claiming self-defense. The jury took 55 minutes to deliberate in April 1922.

Special place in hell. Yeah. Now, just so you know, Mayor Witt was acquitted about a month later in his trial due to perjured testimony, which do process, that's how things happen. And he would end up leaving town in September for parts unknown, presumably to father the ultimate warrior. Now, after this killing, then shit goes off. Wow. Lively continued to work as a law officer in McDowell County, but he couldn't keep out of trouble.

He served multiple sentences for police brutality. Think of what you had to do in 1920s to be sentenced for police brutality. Jesus. Yeah. And also alcohol possession charges because the Volstad Act. He ended up in broiled in a case that had him accused of assaulting a 13 year old girl for which he was acquitted. So some things never change.

But the other man got a life sentence for it. Interesting. Later on in life, he got sentenced to 18 months of hard labor for shooting his 16 year old son in the neck. Yeah, just a all around lovely individual. to 18 months of hard labor for shooting his 16 year old son in the neck. Yeah, just a all around lovely individual, just a real prince. Yeah. Now, when he got out, his son shot him with a shotgun and served time for that. Well, you know, are we going to judge the kid like really?

No. Um, you know, I would also want to not be around that guy. So yeah, you know, in 1962, uh, lively actually made a decision that I can endorse and support he committed suicide. Okay, well, yeah, yeah, special place and hell. There you go. I, well, you know, you hope, I believe. So there you go. Now, after this, the Union minor took up arms and came out, down out of the hills. They were ready to fight and seeing the assassination of their hero in an anti-union county and that his assassins weren't going to be brought to justice for it. They took it upon themselves to seek and make justice. Why you remember that?

This is 19, 22, yeah, I'm just going to say these are the descendants of Scott's Irish. Mm-hmm. And the Irish not legitimate, the law is not legitimate and the Irish revolution, like, you know, the Easter rising is only a few years prior.

That's true. Like, I'm listening to you describing these things that are going on and like, I keep coming back to Irish revolutionary ballads. Yeah. You know, uh, man, apples and trees. Like, yeah. You know, all right. So I do not disagree. Uh, so, yeah. Okay. I mean, you know, there is of course, that song by Pete Seger, which side are you on? Yeah. Where he straight up asks, like, are you a union man or a thug for Jage Blair?

Yeah. So you have a choice. Yeah. I just, I mentioned that because we're about to get to Blair Mountain. Yeah. So they're about to get to Blair mountain. Yeah, so They're ready to fight They're gonna make justice for themselves now little Cole River. That's a company

These miners began setting up their own union minor armed patrols in advance of this They already caught the sentence to wind and in Logan County Yes of this. They already caught the sentence to wind. And in Logan County, yes, that Logan County. Yes. Same one. All right. A sheriff by the name of Don Chaffin set deputies and troopers to this area in response, who were then captured, disarmed and sent fleeing as a result. All right. See, you know, captured,armed and sent fleeing, measured response, not shot full of bullets. Right. Right. Okay.

Now, I'm going to get into this in a minute, but I need to talk to you about Don Chaffin. Okay. You may or may not remember him, but or or you may or may not have things twinging, but he was the sheriff of Logan County, West Virginia, which was the home of the original Hatfield clan from the feud. Right. Don Chaffin was married to Mary Mounce and had 10 children. And Mary Mounce was descended from well, yeah, But also his father, Francis Marion Chaffin, who had been sheriff of the self-same county.

Francis Marion Chaffin was the son of William Chaffin, who was the brother of Nathaniel Chaffin, who was the father of Levisa Chaffin, the wife of Devillands Hatfield. I'm a bitch. Which means that devilance Hatfield and Louisa Chaffin were great aunt and great uncle to share of Don Chaffin of Logan County. Okay.

And best as I could figure devilance Hatfield was also second cousin to William Sidney Hatfield, the police chief of mate one. It might have been second cousin once removed. I'm not. I could not. But tracing, but yeah, but they're there cousins to one another. Yes. This sheriff and and smiling said, okay, if you go up for enough, hero to unionists everywhere. Yeah. Now you got Don Chaffin the sheriff Logan County whose wife was the granddaughter of Alexander mounts the guy who signed the will of Rich Jake Klein. Right. He was known as the boss or the czar of Logan County. Great. He absolutely exerted control over every judge in the county and almost every other public office to the point where a former attorney general of West Virginia said of him, quote,

no school teacher was employed without his approval, his main gun chaffins. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Now, mine companies loved him and they paid him to keep unions entirely out of his county. In many ways, he reads like the air. Because of the person it had. Yeah. And he reads like the heir apparent to devilance. Eventually, Governor John Jacob Cornwall,

who took office in 1917 and only served one term. There was a lot of turnover at the top. He had chaff and investigated. And he was able to do so partly because he was popular, owing to his dual support, his being Cornwalls, dual support of women's suffrage and the war effort. In fact, I did some digging. West Virginia had the highest proportion of volunteers for the war effort in World War One Huh interesting now John Jacob Cornwall took office in 1917 do you know who he succeeded? I don't know and read the Hatfield Because of course the nephew of devil ants Hatfield the son of good liest Hatfield. Because of course. The nephew of Devil Ant Hatfield, the son of Goodlias Hatfield.

Well, at least the son of Goodlias, not badlias. But, you know, I mean, yeah. Now, Governor Hatfield had actually stepped down to go fight in the war, but when he served as governor, he pardoned Mother Jones and several other jailed minors. Okay. All right. when he served as governor, he pardoned Mother Jones and several other jailed minors. Okay. All right. But then he also deployed soldiers to destroy socialist newspapers and force minors to agree to the compromises that he devised for labor troubles in 1914. So, spotty record. All right. Yeah.

So when John Jacob Cornwall took over, I'm sorry, Cornwell took over, he created a special commission to look into Chaffin's payoffs from coal companies. And he found that Chaffin had accepted at least $32,000 per year to keep unions out of Logan County. In modern dollars, that's $700,000. Sun I love. Wow. Okay. That's pretty major bribery. And that's just one source of money. One historian pointed out that Chaffin's salary was about $3,500 a year, but his net worth was around $350,000 a year, which means that annual bribes by coal companies of about $50,000

or nearly $1.1 million in today's money. My God, almighty. Wow. or nearly $1.1 million in today's money. My God almighty. Mm hmm. Wow. Further, the coal companies were paying more than three dozen of his men's salaries. So he would get people on his payroll through these coal companies.

And it was money that was very well spent as Chaffin stationed one of his deputies at every railway station in Logan County, specifically charged with identifying and guarding against union organizers. Wow. Yeah. Now, the way that they do this is they would go up to a suspected union organizer and they would tell them either you leave on the next train or quote have your head blown off.

Wow. Yeah. Or they would just arrest them. They wouldn't even bother threatening. They're just arrest them or they would just follow through on the threats. There are a lot of people who disappear in that time. So evidently, Chaffin himself wasn't averse to getting his own hands bloody either. When he suspected J L hyiser, the chief clerk of the West Virginia Department of Minds of being a union organizer, he pistol whipped the guy, clubbed him in the head with a blackjack and ran him out of the county. When he realized that this was actually a government official, he gave him a thousand dollar payment. Sorry. He gave him a thousand dollar payment. Sorry Hmm

Yeah Yeah, what what strikes me about this is the extent to which it highlights How incredibly feudal The whole the whole society was. Like, yeah, okay, I mean, you hold an election to, you know, determine who's going to be your sheriff, but he's the son of the sheriff came before him. Right. And while he's in office, he has this power to do this and he's receiving. And he is holding this power in fealty, yes, to, you know, the big corporate, you know, in incorporated in this case, but to bigger landholders and, you know, he's the sheriff of the hands. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Now, Chaffin himself was a badass, a legit badass. He'd gotten shot twice in the chest and lived. All right. Well, yeah. Yeah. Now, the first time he went into another county and was drunken disorderly, a union vice president told him to leave and then Chaffin brandished his own gun. The vice president of the local union pulled his own 22 pistol and shot Chaffin in the chest. It's 22, so you have a better odds of living through that. The union vice president was cleared of all charges because it was considered self defense.

Well, yeah, because Chaffin had done the one to, you know, pull it down first. So yeah, the second time, Chaffin was in his own office in Logan County and a minor came in and shot him in the chest. Okay, balls, he moved, probably, and then well for the minor, any question? By all accounts. I couldn't find out what happened to the minor. That's what's wild. Chaffin got up and just walked over to the hospital. Like if he wasn't such a turd, I would really like this guy. You know, it's like in, in, in Deadwood, uh, J, J, J, where is it? Like he's evil. Like thoroughly bad, bad, but he's very compelling. Yeah.

Let's just kind of say. Yeah. My God. Yeah. Cheap. Wow. So a third time, by the way, he is only shot twice. A third time somebody came into his office again, threatening to shoot him dead.

He draws his gun and says, we'll hop into hell together then. And the guy lost his nerve. So well, wow. I mean, I suppose after a certain point, you just get to a point where the shock of the adrenaline hitting your system isn't what it used to be. It feels like enforced gumperies like, and then I got another medal and I met another press. Yeah, I got shot in the chest again.

Again, ruined another shirt. Yeah. So, so back to August of 1921, right? Chaffin had been making plans all summer long for something like this to happen. Now, if you remember, in Mingo County, martial law had only just been struck down. And there was plenty of feet of clay law officials

who weren't moving with any real speed to free the miners that had been arrested at that time. As a result, there's actually a rally in Charleston, West Virginia, where Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney presented their demands, including fraying in prison miners. They presented these demands to the newly seated governor, Frem Morgan. Morgan, as any good governor, would do, so merely rejected their demands. And so the miners began to agitate and march over and above the objections of Mother Jones, because she was like, y'all, this is going to end violently, and that will not benefit you. You were not trained in violence, they are. Like, that was her

objection. Wow. So when Mother other Jones playing you to stand down. Like, like, tell you what, literally the ghost of Molly McGuire standing in front of you, telling you, this is a bad plan, right? Now we're going to lose your hat. Yeah. Do not do this. Yeah. And knowing that it would be such a bloodb bath, she knew that it would break the backs of

the miners and therefore their union. Well they didn't listen to her and they marched anyway and they organized from Charleston to Mingo. Well, the problem with going from Charleston to Mingo is it's going to go right through Logan County. Yeah. And Chaffin is not having it. He swore, quote, no armed mob across Logan County. Yeah. And Chaffin is not having it. He swore, quote, no armed mob will cross Logan County.

And he put plans into place to make sure that it wouldn't. And this all hinged on stopping them as they crossed Blair Mountain. Now, given his language, Chaffin's language, and their outrage and the overall conditions of everything, the miners grew more and more determined to march straight through Logan County. Yeah, that about tracks. Yeah, because they're going to free their fellow miners in Mingo County, Goddamn it. Yeah. Chapin's plan was more than simply, we'll stop them.

It included a trained citizen militia, coal workers, mine guards, and his own deputies. And he had been building fortifications on Blair Mountain since June of 21. 21? Yeah. Now, under the funding auspices of Logan County Coal Operators Association,

Chaffin had been using that money to train people to hide and supply weapons caches the whole summer in that area. And he called them all together on August 25th on the slopes of Blair Mountain. And he actually had rented three biplanes to fly over into a reconnaissance. Right.

And drop fucking bombs. Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna bring that up. Yeah, but I didn't need to. There were minor skirmishes, which I get a kick out of saying, but between Chaffin's forces and the miners for much of August 25th and into the wee hours of August 26th, there were no airplane bombings as yet, although the president of the United States was threatening to send in bombers. Yeah. Yeah.

Now this is Sir Fuxillot. This is Warren G. Harding. Now the United Mineworkers leaders convinced them to go home peaceably. Like, yo, let's not. This is not a good idea. Which totally would have been the end of it. Probably Chaffin got his victory. The miners showed force negotiations could take place, but then the West Virginia state police escalated things by trying to arrest the very leaders who defused the situation.

And this led to a shootout, which killed multiple miners and shit was on. Chaffin enlarged and bolstered his forces. He dropped leaflets on the miners that ordered them to disperse or else, and he bolstered the town of Logan's defenses in case the miners broke through. And at this point, Chaffin loaded up the planes with pipe bombs and tear gas, which was used on the miners when the battle broke out

in the early, early, early, early morning hours of August 29th. And after four days of fighting with lots of minor deaths, numbers probably in the hundreds. And several law enforcement and coal company deaths, maybe numbering in the dozens, federal troops arrived on August 2nd or on I sorry, on September 2nd. Now since a lot of miners were vets, they weren't willing to fire in federal troops. The commander of the miners army was a United Mineworkers of America, local chapter president named Bill Blizzard. And because they'd been charged with murder halfway through the battle, Keeney and Mooney fled to Ohio. Blizzard then took over command during the battle

and it was during this battle that miners began to wear red bandanas around their necks so that they could identify their allies in the dinner battle. Yep, red necks were the allies. Now, once federal troops arrived, the miners feared arrest and weapons confiscation, and as such, they hid their weapons before departing.

Nearly 1,000 miners were charged with varying degrees of crimes from treason against West Virginia, to murder, to conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, most were acquitted, including Bill Blizzard. Blizzard was actually expelled from the union by John Luell and Lewis after his 1922 trial. This was a reprisal in reaction to the opportunities that the coal companies took to crush unions in West Virginia in the wake of the battle. So it's kind of like, dude, you fucked us by leading this battle. And it's like, I didn't lead the battle until I had to, but okay. And there's a full. Well, and there's always, like, you and I are both union thugs.

And one of the weaknesses of unions as organizations is there's always internal politics. And yeah. So yeah, no, yeah, damn it. All right. Well, once Roosevelt is president, Blizzard then gets brought back into the fold of the United Mine workers in 1933. But he himself ended up carrying quite the grudge against Lewis. And they ended up in a fist fight. Well, they didn't. He ended up in a fist fight with Lewis's little brother in 1955.

Then he gets expelled again. So. Okay. So 30 years later. Yes. So, I mean, by that time, he have to be in the 60s. Easily. And he said he's going to roll on a bone sleeve throwing them bones. Yeah. Oh yeah. Man. Now with the passage of the Wagner act in 1934, the door was opened once again for the

United Mineworkers of America to reorganize. And they did so in 35. And actually, it's their organizational efforts that set the template and allowed other organizations, other industries, workers to organize as well. And they ended up going and taking that and then porting it over. And the United Mine workers helped to organize a lot of other workers in other industries, steel, auto, et cetera. Okay, yeah, I was gonna ask about the UAW. Mm-hmm, yeah, all right. Now, Chaffin was the arresting officer

for many of those who had been put on trial. Okay. After the battle, he used his celebrity status as the guy who helped with the battle of Blair Mountain against those pesky union workers to continue to gain power. He was even a delegate at the DNC in 1924. Because this is, you know, back and forth, the Great swivel.

Yeah. Now, Chaffin and a deputy of his named tennis Hatfield. Tennis is short for Tennyson Tennyson Hatfield is the youngest son of devil ants Hatfield and Levisa Chaffin Hatfield Seriously dead fucking serious. All right, wow They got back into moonshine So no shit he went from Sheriff of the county to bootlegging. Well, he stayed Sheriff while he was moving. And got into bootlegging.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was clearly seeing the Wolfsett Act. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we have been not to, you know, realize that. Yeah. Now, Tennyson,

what God implicated one guy be like a mighty. Now, Tennyson implicated sheriff Don Chaffin in his trial. And that led to Don Chaffin being convicted of a federal crime and therefore sentenced to two years in a federal prison in Georgia. The maximum sentence at the time and a $10,000 fine. For boot lagging. For boot lagging. All of the other shit he did. He finally got taken out on a boot lagging church. Don't we see this all the time though? Well, yeah, no, I know. But like, so, so here's a question. What

happened to what happened to tennis? Did tennis, you know, fall down a holler? Well, the witnesses against him were given special protections, given Chaffin's violent outburst and tremendous power. And he, you know, one of the things that Chaffin relied upon was personal interactions and personal intimidation. He was gone for a couple of years. And after serving just a portion of his term, he gained parole and he came back to Logan County to find that he'd lost a lot of the influence that he'd previously enjoyed.

Okay. So, Tennyson was safe. All right. Now, as this is about the depiction of the families, why would a movie about the Hatfields and McCoy's be popular in November of 23? Well, what happened? Listen to the names of everybody that was involved in this, you know, modern day,

modern day tombstone story. Yeah. I mean, the Hatfields are all over the news all the way through early 1920. So that alone could do it. But also there's a severe fracturing occurring in the Democratic party. Do they go national racism and KKK, or do they go city based and become a coalition party? The answer was the latter, but it was a very hotly debated topic in the run up to the 1924 DNC. I found this in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle quote, the chief difficulty in the platform for the DNC in 1924 is the Ku Klux

clan and Catholicism. The solution is to give the platform to the one faction, one faction and the ticket to the other. This, by the way, I'm gonna break out for a second, this is why Al Smith got the nod, because he was Catholic. Okay. So I'll give the platform to the KKK, but we'll give the, you know, leadership to the Catholic.

All right, back to this. It also became clear that the dividing line is not so much between Protestants and Catholics as between two contending views and policies and interests, which are not Catholic versus Protestants so much as locality versus locality and candidate versus candidate. So in other words, they're getting into cult personality. Okay.

So in other words, there's these growing sharp divisions amongst otherwise similarly minded folks along an insurmountable differences. Okay. A funny movie poking fun at the old differences, using what was readily available at the time, makes a lot of sense given the 1920s and the desire to escape the God-awful news cycle, and the influenza PTSD and postwar PTSD that people were suffering. All right, yeah, the bolt that all tracks. This is the roaring 20s God damn it and it's time to laugh at these things. Yeah, so I can see that.

Keaton's movie definitely advertised as being about a northerner going into Kentucky and falling for into their foibles. So also, you know, look at these funny hill people. One of the one of the reviews said quote, a mild-mannered New York youth of 1830 who lands in the midst of the bitter Kentucky feud. This is according to the, according to the carbon-county chronicle in Red Lodge, Montana. Another, according to the reviewer and another, quote, our hospitality is something new in the comedy field. I just love, just real quick, I love that we're discussing something new in the comedy

field because it's 1923. There's not much. Yeah, like so shit could be new. Yeah, it's wild. It's just it's wild to me because this is the first movie that depicts the Hatfield new in the comedy field. It depicts a thrilling Kentucky feud and a gripping love story in the days when American railroads were first going built. According, that's according to the fallen standard and fallen Nevada. In fact, in most ads that I found that were throughout the country, our hospitality made use of the Kentucky references as often as they could. Interestingly, Call of the Wild also released around this time. I just, I found that kind of interesting because they would always be on the same page. But it just, so Kentucky is becoming mimetic as look at this backward place of a foregone time.

Which, which on the one hand is, you know, awfully reductionist and, you know, prejudice against folks from there. But at the same time, there's a really interesting level on which that's whitewashing in the vein of lost cause. Yes. You know, the simplification kind of cuts both ways. Yes. And it's like, you know, we're painting these folks as, you know, backward kind of dummies, but at the same time, we're doing it in a way that is humorous and takes their teeth out. Yep. Which identifies them. Yeah. And we know. Yes, separates them from the violence that is definitely fucking there. Oh, yeah, well, I mean, just look at just look at what actually happened. You know, in 19,

that's something else that gets me about this is this isn't the whole west. This isn't the 1880s. This isn't, you know, this isn't this isn't out west. Right. And the level of bloody violence of bloody violence that's involved in this and the level of just outright, like the murder of Sid Hatfield, right? Broad daylight on the workhouse steps. I mean, it flies in the face of law and order. And so to an extent for anybody in the Northeast,

reading about these stories, for anybody in really any other part of the country. Yeah, it's salacious. It's it's incredibly salacious and and it would paint a picture of oh my god, these people are all howling barbarians. Yeah, yeah, you know, which why is there and why is there a national interest in depicting these people this way? And which is kind of what I'm kind of circling around to. I would also point out that in the same, like within a year of this, right? You had the Tulsa massacre

where you also had airplanes being used. And you also had automatic weapons being used in the streets. As as soon as we get back having figured out that you could use airplanes as weapons, the, the, the, not, not private citizens doing this, but public officials are doing this. Yeah, local public officials. What I really, what I really feel is I'm popular.

Interesting. Yeah, is this isn't separated by like, well, you know, it's the state government coming in. It's county officials. It's the sheriff. It's police chiefs and, you know, this is this is stuff that's being done to neighbors. Yes, by neighbors.

You know, I mean, which I have a hard time wrapping my head around. Well, and yes, the isaharman McCoy gets murdered by a neighbor. Yeah, but it's, I don't know if it's a time period thing or a, I mean, it feels like a set up at this point in this series of hours to say, you know, is it a regional thing? You know, because like that's kind of what we're talking about here is perceptions of the region. But, you know, and it also, now, as I say that, the other thing that comes up is, you know, when second amendment supporters argue with each other,

when second amendment supporters argue with each other, there are there are folks that you know get really hard over about when you know we got to we got to have we got to have weapons to protect ourselves against against the government you know we got to prevent here any by the government. And this and what we're hearing here what you're pointing out, just reinforces the position I wind up taking in these debates, which is you don't understand. I don't care about carrying a weapon against federal military. The government, I'm worried about being tyrannical, is local law enforcement. Well, and in our own time, we have something similar. Sheriff Joe or pile. Yeah. You know, yeah. And and the black pantherners had the right of it like, yeah. You know, I know that one of the things that I think sees as people's imagination about this

particular situation, this particular spate of violence, both in the Hatfields, McCoy's, and then in their descendants, you know, look at how they keep showing up. Is that this violence is not racial? No. And I think that's what makes it special for the time. Because you have the red summer. Yeah. You have 30 race riots

where white people attacked black people in 30 different places. Yeah. And you just specifically named check Tulsa. Yeah. You know, you know, you had, um, I mean, in California, you had all kinds of anti Chinese violence and anti Japanese violence. Yeah. But down the coast, you had anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese violence. You know, you had anti-Hispanic violence. All along the border everywhere. You know, in the Southwest, yeah. You've got lynchings everywhere and almost all of them are racially biased. I mean, you had a slaughter of Italian immigrants in Louisiana. Yeah. This violence is decidedly non-racial. Yeah This violence is decidedly non-racial. Yeah, and I think that might be what makes it special and

Why it's so eye-catching Okay, so yeah now let's fast forward to 1938 Okay, in 1938 we see a second film depiction of the Hatfields and McCoy's so So, yeah, 23 at 38. So 15 years in between. Between half a generation. Okay. Yep. Mary Melodies has a cartoon called A Few There Was. And this is actually the first appearance of Omar Fud.

This is a few, this is not the one you're thinking. This is not the bug's funny one. This is not, okay. This is a feud between the McCoy's and the Weavers who are two feuding hillbilly backwards clans. In the Weaver cabin, it's all pretty slow going and lazy. The snores have a power. The sloth of the family is physically represented. Their snoring actually helps them saw logs by virtue of the fact that the represented. Their snoring actually helps them saw logs by virtue of the fact that the they they've tied hanky sales to the to the saw and as they snore back and forth, it sends the saw back and forth. Okay. The cat is lazy. The dog is lazy. The apple that wants to fall from the tree is lazy. And all the

males have long skinny hillbilly beards. Okay. The only thing that really wakes the weaver family up is their chance to feud with their rivals, the McCoy's and vice versa, by the way. And after wake up number where they all sing once a microphone drops in front of them, which is kind of interesting, the weavers are all holding rifles single strapped overalls and pants tied with strings. One of the other. One of them has a foot poking through his shoe and then they fall right back asleep on the porch

when a commercial on the radio comes on. Roy Rogers got voice credit for this cartoon. No kidding. Yeah. Oh, wow. All right. So what I notice here is that the houses run down. The family is largely male and all gathered about being slothful. Yeah. Indolent. Yes. Yeah.

Anyway, while they're lounging about, a baby weaver climbs up to the chimney to call out the McCoy's S. Skunks in an impossibly deep voice that makes it funny. All of whom have the McCoy's, all of whom have red beards to contrast the black beards of the weavers. They immediately start shooting at the weavers with the bullet holes spelling out, do you mean it? Question mark. And the weavers then return fire with the message, yes, we mean it, but it's Y-A-S because they can't spell. All right.

Wow. They all go back to their homes, a bell rings, and we see a boundary line clearly marked as such between the two homes. The gunfire goes back and forth, increasing in absurdity. At one point, or at this point, we see Elmer Fudge show up. He is and it's labeled Elmer Fudge peacemaker and he's on a scooter, a little motorized scooter coming into the frame, yodeling. And most of the cartoon is the McCoy's and the Weaver shooting at each other as the premise for various gags. Elmer first goes to the Weaver house and implores them to put an end to this

meaningless massacre and let there be peace. And he gets shot in the ass by the Weaver House and implores them to put an end to this meaningless massacre and let there be peace. And he gets shot in the ass by the Weavers who laugh at him, where then shown the ultimate in combining laziness and violence as one of the Weavers has set up a treadmill of sorts that delivers a gun to him to pull the trigger while barely paying attention. And at this point, a McCoy asks the audience if any of them are weavers, and one member stands up and shoots at him answering in the affirmative. Okay.

Yeah. Now, then so the meta is there. Yes. Yes. Now, the, uh, Fud then makes the same piece to the McCoy's who also shoot him in the ass for the same piece to the McCoy's who also shoot him in the ass for the same troubles. And then we see him McCoy and a weaver literally shooting each other in the face back and forth over the boundary line, neither one wearing shoes.

And they're repeatedly shooting each other on the face. Okay. A sheriff comes by. He blows a whistle and points out to the McCoy family or points out to one of the McCoy's that he's off sides. His foot is over the boundary line. That's five yard penalty for Juns, but so Juns, right? Yeah. Elmer drives his scooter to the middle of the fight in the arena where the boundary or in the area where the boundary line is and again implores both both sides to seek peace. This infuriates both

sides again to the point where they both come out to the boundary line where he stands to make him say that again, you know, say that again. And they actually all say it as a group. They all say say that again, and he repeats himself. I said we must have peace. And then they all jump him in a giant cartoon cloud brawl. Right. And when the cloud clears, he's actually knocked them all out and we see all of their bare feet as they're all laid out. And he leaves yodeling and he gets shot in the ass by the audience member who yells, good night. Yeah, Kirchins back then were a special kind of storytelling. All right. Now to recap, there's nothing in the movies since 1923, which followed all sorts of news about the Hatfield specifically and the region in general during the Cold Wars. And then it's 1938. And suddenly there's a cartoon about two very stereotyped families who get up and fight over a border. I'm not saying that the victory over the Franco government or the

encouraged annexation of the Sudetenland or the Anschishlaus in Austria or the Nuremberg laws in Germany or anything like that actually inspired a cartoon that was shown in movie theaters. But at the same time, that's a lot of conflict over borders among similar people that's in the air. Yeah, and I'm two in American standpoint, it's all about to funny foreigners. Right. Yeah. And I'm not saying that Elmer Fudd peacemakers exactly Neville Chamberlain, but I am saying that they dressed alike and had similar approach until Elmer whooped up on everyone's ass, Stone Cold style. All right.

Yeah. Now a year later, drawing on the same stereotype, Flicer Studios released the seven-minute short musical mountaineers. You may remember this one. Betty Boops' car runs out of gas on one of her first post-haze cartoons. And okay. She's driving all over the place when she passes a sign that says,

quote, feud county, beware of stray bullets. All right. Now at this point, it's becoming increasingly popular to depict hillbilly's on screen. And who's more famous than those two families, right? Yeah. And she says, this would happen a thousand miles from nowhere. She's talking about an exasperation about the gas. Now that's something too, right? Yeah. This is a low place. Yeah. Yeah. Then the camera pants. You could say something. Well, I'm coughing. Good. Yeah, I'm sorry. I started doing that. I thought, well, you know, you fixed it post.

But yeah. So the camera pans. Oh, good heavens. I'm pausing it. I apologize for the technical difficulty. The trouble is not with your throat, but with mine. Okay. So, she's a thousand miles from nowhere, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And then the camera pans to a sign written complete with backwards letters and abbreviations, property line. Hatfield crowds stay off in this land or get blowed off in Zonk Peters. Now, oneonk Peters. Now, one, yeah. Now, one family is named and the other's name has been changed. We see this again. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, it's actually an odd through line for all the cartoons. Then we're treated to a Shula's hillbilly with a corn cob pipe dragging his own plow through the earth. Laisily, I might have had. And as soon as he hears a lazy bird sound a trumpet, he says, quote, must be the call to arms and quote, and he pulls a lever on the plow, which then turns it into a tank. And then we see another hillbilly also with a pipe and no shoes sleeping in the tree. So so far, we're seeing a lot of depictions of sloth amongst these particular people. They're then a weakened to begin their violence

based on false pre-tenses. There's the English, you know, back in the, you know, 1700s, that like, the only, the only reason they roused themselves is to, you know, enter into rebellion. It's, it's weird. Yeah. Like, like, the ways that, that these things choose to rhyme is kind of bizarre. Mm-hmm. And again, I would point out most of the violence that we've seen has been racialized. And most depictions of people who are lazy and slothful are not of white people who are lazy and slothful. This is new. This is a weird thing. Yeah. Almost as to say that these people are not worthy of whiteness.

And therefore, if you're going to take their property and claim imminent domain for something, that's okay. All right. Okay. So, now this violence, like I said, is on false pretenses. He thinks that the Hatfields are shooting at him and he falls out of the tree in his eagerness to shoot back. He then runs back to his house where there are several more of his clan sleeping and he rouses them to be ready for the Hatfields. The mom of the family is preparing the rifles and everyone's panicking and then Betty Boop shows up at the door seeking help. After all, her car ran out of gas. The youngest is looking through a not holding the door

and says that someone is coming, quote, is it the Hatfields? Is it the Sheriff? Ain't no insurance, man. End quote. Each by different members of the family is saying this. Okay. Now he relates back to them that it's a quote,

forner. They all hide and Betty knocks a few more times and then opens the door. She says, quote, anybody home? Oh, it looks like the people who moved in don't live here anymore. End quote. Okay, weird construction there. Well, the house is in a state of severe disrepair. There's holes in the floor.

There's broken mirrors. There's broken furniture. And suddenly everybody pops out of everywhere and holds a shotgun on her. And they ask, quote, who be ya? Now she explains that she's a dancer. We're running out of gas. And one of them says, quote, give her a two bar pickup, ma. And then the mom slaps her barefoot twice on the floor.

And they all start shooting at her feet to make Betty dance. They all compliment her dancing in a very backwoods way. Quote, will Holy Cucumber she sure can dance? Okay. And what a very New York imagination of what a... It is. Backwoods kind of thing would sound like. Right?

Yeah. So, and then one of them pulls a broken slap together guitar out of his beard and plays along for her. And then you go. And then the mom takes out one of her hairs and strings it along her shotgun and starts fiddling with it. And then other relatives use other improvised instruments because they're too poor to have instruments you see.

The mom starts dancing along with her giant bare feet. So also you've got the women in these backwards ones. They're ugly. Yeah. Wow. Everyone continues using improvised instruments, including squeezing a pig, blowing on a liquor jug, and tying a bone to their toes to tap a turtle. Okay. And then the last one is out there. But yeah, right. And then the women of the family start to sing along, quote, there ain't no gold in them. They're hills. It's might cold in them. They're hills.

And then there's other lyrics about chewing tobacco and smoking while they continue to sing. They tell ma, quote, ma, get the stuff. And quote, who then comes back with a jug of corn drippings. Right. Now, it's 38. So alcohol is corn drippings. Right. Now, it's 38, so alcohol is now legal again. Yeah. But the idea of moonshineers is still very, very big. Yeah. And she says, come on, Betty, we'll have you.

And then she fills up Betty's car with the corn drippings and of course, that's Ethel. So the car takes off. There you go. Super stereotypical and just basically there to be featured in that way that Betty Boop kind of did things, right? Yeah. Now I can't help but wonder if this is some sort of reaction to the pushback by the people who were displaced by the TVA. placed by the TVA. Okay. So it's a super rural area in a terrible state of affairs and over 125,000 people were displaced and forced by law to move. And while stories speckled the newspapers from about 1933 onward, there doesn't actually appear to have been a coherent organized resistance that I could find. So it doesn't seem to have been it. It's more likely that by 38, what's really happening is that enough migration to the cities from rural areas had actually already occurred,

due to the dust bowl and the Great Depression, that such populations were still easily visible and easy targets for broad humor amongst the growing urban populations. Okay. That makes sense. Honestly, it seems like the best explanation since by 1940, more than 2.5 million people had moved from rural areas in the Great Plains to urban centers. And given California's hostility to the 200,000 who were moving here from Oklahoma,

Arkansas, Kansas, North Texas at all. Yeah. It would make sense that this would be the popular zeitgeist amongst animators. Yeah. In California alone, 125 LAPD officers joined the newly created CHP to operate outside of the LAPD's jurisdiction at our border with Arizona. They were called the Bumbergate. And they were essentially bouncers for California, which the ACLU got recalled, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. They were formed specifically in order to deal with the influx of people coming into California from the dust bowl. Right. Like, I mean, that's that's not the exploded. That's not the official explanation, but it's pretty fucking blatant that that's exactly

what they were there to do. Yeah. Yeah. If they weren't sending home citizens of America to Mexico, because they were brown enough to claim that they were Mexican. So despite the geographic differences between the great plain states and the tug river, the cultural, the cultural shorthand is largely the same. Yeah. The animators of these two cartoons grew up with the news of what was going on in the Cold Wars. That's when they were kids. Yeah. cartoons grew up with the news of what was going on in the cold wars That's when they were kids. Yeah, they grew up with the names of the Hatfields and McCoy's traipsing through the newspaper and newsreels as They sat at the table eating breakfast with their parents or waiting for a movie So when you see new folks covered in a day's worth of travel dust wearing threadbare coveralls

Speaking with a different accent than you, and walking or driving a gelopy, it's kind of easy to conflate the two cultures. And when the present day newspapers cover the migration of such people in weighted terms like Horde or invasion, it's easy to adopt these prejudices and have the homeless camps along the rivers back up those prejudices, too. Yeah. No wonder that a woman driving on her own in a really nice roadster becomes our psychopomp for meeting these people and encountering their strange, clannish backwards and backwards ways.

Yeah, all right. Okay. Boop, boop, boop. Yeah. Makes sense. So, and I think I'm going to stop it there because then we can get into Spike Jones' first music video. Okay. Yeah. It gets weirder. Hard to imagine, but okay. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, what have you gleaned? So much. Yeah. So anyway, what have you gleaned? It's so much the the content and the newity of names is kind of kind of a mind-fuck.

And it though. I mean, you know, when you think about it, the feud ended in the 1880s. Yep. And 1890s even. And, you know, the Cold Wars are, you know, 40 years after that. So it kind of makes sense that, okay, well, it's been one generation. So, yeah. Yeah. And especially when families are as large and convoluted.

And multi-generational. And multi- you know, and everything is multi-generational. It, you know, thinking about it for a minute, it kind of makes sense that, well, yeah, I mean, a prominent family that has that many members is going to remain a prominent family. You know, members of that family are still going to remain in prominence in that kind of environment, like that makes sense. But as you're listing the names of all these people, it's kind of like, shimmy fucking crispness, seriously. Yeah. Another god damn hat field. How many of these motherfuckers were there? Yeah. And the answer is a horde of them.

And again, I would push back and challenge you just on, on our terms and our expectations. And the weight behind how many of these people are there. There's something going on there in our own minds. Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely prejudices against all of these people. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I also find it interesting that the Hadfield name keeps coming up into the 1920s, 1930s. We don't, we don't hear anything about McCoy's. Yep. And we can definitely, uh, like one of the things we can assume from that is we can kind of tell who won, huh? You know, like,

before it suffered so much worse from what happened. Oh, yeah. Like, it's really clear which family came out on top, just by virtue of these people continuing the historical record. These kind of disappear, you know, and that's a legacy right there. And then the other thing is what you pointed out about in these depictions, you know, in the first cartoon, one of the families is the McCoy's and then the other one's the Weavers. Mm-hmm. Which is like, why, why, okay, why are you gonna use one name and get rid of the other one? And then, and then in the next iteration, it's the Hatfields and the whoever was. And, and so why, why stick with one of the names, the politically,

by the way, Hatfield and Peters. Thank you. Yeah. Why only edit one name? That, and that was a straight and through line, and it happens throughout. Like it really does. You know, every cartoon, they will take one name and not the other. Yeah.

And that, that's, I think that could be its own, its own psychosocial discussion about like, well, you know, we want to have one name, so everybody understands what a referencing, like that's not going to be fucking obvious. Right. You know, but, you know, we don't want to have both names because, you know, for the same reason that, like, the name, the term hooligan is a thing. Right. You know, we can't actually say hooligan, so we're going to say hooligan instead.

Everybody's going to know because they're going to say it with a wink. Right. But, like, and then that turn, and and it turned into a general term, you know. Yeah, it became mimetic. Yeah, um, so yeah, I mean, there's, there are so many layers to this onion, um, and so many of them are, are for one reason or not, they're deeply troubling. Yeah. Thank you. Wow. I just love that you had like within a two year period, you have a sheriff Chaffin who is directly,

who is related to, you know, the violence in his wife. Yeah. You have a police chief Hatfield who is related to devilance. Yeah. And you have a sheriff Hatfield field who is related to devilance. Yeah. And you have a sheriff hat field who I couldn't find the relation, but I'm sorry, no. That is clearly in this region.

It's the same. And it's not like that anywhere else in the country, this is a common name. Yeah, and there only a couple counties over from each other. Yeah, like come on. And they're all like, I mean, you have all three of these and they're on such different sides. And like it's, it's, it's, they're, they're

reconcilable. Yeah. Well, they're, they're direct descendants of the participants in a, in a kin feud. Mm-hmm. They are kin. And yet yet now 40 years later, it is, it is, they're still engaging in the same kind of violence. Right. Now it's occupational feud. It's occupational, which then makes you wonder again, like you mentioned in the first episode is like how how legitimate is the kin part of this right in the original feud? Is it is it just no, no, this is about property and money? Oh, I'm going to get deeper into that feud. You know, so as we go, because my god, it gets deep and weird as to who does what? And like, like, why are you? Why is this guy? This guy is a McCoy and he is fighting on the Hatfield side and he gets life in prison. Yeah, he's crimes against

the McCoy's like, yeah, it gets, it gets I know from from what I do know historically, I know it gets from what I do know historically, I know it gets truly bizarre. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, it kind of points to the complexity of, of a few such as that, right? You can't just cut the butter square and be like, okay, everybody on this side is a McCoy and therefore their unionists, and everybody on this side is a Hatfield, and therefore their Confederates. Yeah. None of that. Like the, the,. Like the color of the coat barely mattered. Yeah. Because such other things mattered a lot more. And then you're like, wait, you literally

killed this guy's cousin, but then you bought land from him. Like, yeah, it's well, and and part of that, that issue kind of makes me wonder outside of the context of the feud within the wider culture of the region at the time, what was the threshold of violence? How normalized was... Very. Violence, you know, so I mean, like, well, yeah, I mean,'m going to buy the property from

because people kill people. It's a thing. Right. You know, one of the interesting things that you get studying, if you get into the legal and social history of HEMA is the extent to which the threshold of violence was remarkably low in early modern Europe.

In England, there are stories about chroniclers who decry the frequency of violence in ale houses. There's a specific term to refer to. Essentially, it's really a short sort, but it's referred to as an ale house dagger. That was a common thing carried by ordinary people, not nobles, but you know, peasant class folks that was, you know, a dagger with an 18 inch blade on it. You know, because you'd get into a fight in the ale house and, you know, and everybody just carried a side arm like what? Yeah, the And, you know, everybody just carry a sidearm. Like, what? Yeah, the fuck, you know, speaking of long as daggers, like it was not uncommon for a fight to turn

into a stabbing. Yeah. We're going to get into that when we talk about Nancy McCoy's brother. Right. It's just it's it's it's it's wild how again, you know, I struggle with any culture that treats the truth as a mobile tool. Yeah. Yeah. And and very often you'll hear you'll read testimony of like, you know, no, I didn't stab him. And it's like, there were 14 witnesses who all said, you stabbed him and three people who bought you drinks for stabbing him later. Yeah. Um,

I like the addition, that's actually tale. Yeah. It's not just, not just there's a bunch of people who said you did it for a bunch of people that like how did you on the back? It's a good job. That a boy. Yeah.

So also, um, you know, the knife sticking out of his ribs, kind of dense. Right. I think we have, we have testimony about what exactly killed him and it was steel poisoning. Yeah. So just, you know, but all we were doing just a little sticking.

What? Yeah. It's like, um, little, with, we're not gelatinous cubes, sir. A little sticking with an Arkansas toothpick. Right, you know, like, and again, I mean, just even the use of that word, right? Well, what you just said, Arkansas toothpick.

Like, yeah, even if it's self-imposed as a nickname, there is a cultural weight that carries. Oh, yeah, oh, there you know, big just, yeah. So, yeah. All right, well, um, can't wait to hit you with Spike Jones next next time. Uh, there will be lyrics red. So you know, okay. So you got any books you want to recommend? Not at present. No, I do not. How about you? Yeah, actually, I'm going to tell folks, go read Thunder in the mountains, the West Virginia, mind war of 1920 to 21. Definitely think that's worth reading. You can find it pretty, pretty decently priced if you go for the paperback, but a very good movie or movie, very good book. And actually, there is a movie called Mate One. I've not seen it. So watch it your own risk, but let

me know how it was. But yeah, Thunder of the Mountains fantastic book dealing with the Cold Wars. So I really think that combined with what I gave last week, good companion pieces for understanding this period of time. It's nice. Do well neither of us want to be found, but people can in fact find our podcast. How can they do that? Well, yeah, I mean, you're listening to us. So obviously, you found us somehow. We are, we can be found on the internet at wugelwugelwobet.geekhistorytime.com or on Stitcher and the Apple Podcast app. Wherever it is that you found us, please give us the five-star rating that Damien has clearly earned with his research.

And subscribe, of course, please go through the archive and pick a topic that catches your interest because we have a wide variety of them, quite a selection. And yeah, that's it. I believe that's it, since neither one of us want to be found. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. Until next time, keep rolling 20s. you