The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 571 - The Plague in SF

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine when the plague came to San Francisco in 1900. Sources Tour Dates Redbubble Merch   Squarespace Helix Sleep Mindbloom  

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American History podcast where each week I, Dave Anthony, read a story from American History to my worker. Man, ridiculous. Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. I'm not your worker, asshole. Can you get me, just head to the store and get me a Danish coffee please and then when we get back we're gonna do a little bit of notation and then I guess we'll just get right into the day. You know what I mean? We got a lot of work to do, a lot of filing. I want to reorganize all the files. What are you talking about? I don't work for you. I work with you. I bet

there aren't even files. There's no way there's files. There's no way you have actual paper files. No, this entire podcast is analog. We're not. It makes, it would make sense, it would make sense with a couple of the things that have happened for it too. That would actually track. All right, that's the intro. Go to the theme. Is that how we do it now? We just, because most people just throw to the, they just go to the theme but now we're just saying. I like, again I'm kind of trying to shift into that SNL vibe. We're what? We're 700 episodes in? I'm now trying to kind of do the SNL thing where it's kind of just like

self-aware, more breaking people's walls. Yeah, in the camera. All right, well let's, why don't we start this project? Or I could do something like this or I go like this. I'll tell you something Dave that makes me ready to learn. And called it quote, is jam-packed. Jam-packed? I'm the fucking hippo guy. Dave, okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not going to become the Tiggly podcast. Okay. This is like an up five part coefficient. My room is playing. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. No sleep, no hippo. That's like no hippo. Actually, part of it. No. I see

you've done my friend. No. No. Ronda. Ronda in the corner. Gareth, we are brought to you in part by Squarespace. Of course, everybody, everybody in the world knows or should know what Squarespace is. It is all-in-all-in-all-in-one, all-inclusive, domains, websites, online stores, marketing tools, analytics, the whole ball of wax and when I said ball of wax they're they they also have a ball of wax. Dave, shut up. Dave, do we use it? Gareth, do we use it? I have my website with Squarespace. You have yours in Squarespace. You can find all Gareth's tour dates. We have our our website the dollar podcast.com also Squarespace. You

can also find all the tour dates which we don't have any right now but there will be some soon and also the sources page they're all they're all Squarespace. We're all in. In other words, Dave, I guess you're saying that we really like it and we recommend using it. Look, here's what I'll say about Squarespace. If we get cut, they bleed. That's how involved we are. Hey, just talk to Squarespace. They're not loving the new thing. If we get stabbed, they feel the pain. Hey, that's how involved we are. Just got off the phone with Ken Square. What's wrong? He's not loving the new thing. Okay, well, that's not good. Look,

the reason we first started using Squarespace, very easy to use for dummies like me and especially a dummy like Gareth, it's really hard to deal with this tech stuff and you get confused. There's no updates. I'm on a group text that's just me. They have 24 seven award-winning support. It's all easy and they look great. The templates are awesome. They really do. If you go to my website, you'd be like, you would not think I was involved in making it. I'm looking at it now. It's really good. It is really good. We can't recommend Squarespace enough, so here's what you're going to do. You're going to

go to squarespace.com slash dollop for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code dollop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Can't be dead. Now, Gareth, what else can you not beat? Well, obviously, Helix. Helix Sleep is it's a mattress situation. If you don't know what a mattress is, it's something you lay on and you sleep and Helix makes the best one. My whole house is full of Helix mattresses. And if you sleep face down, right? I sleep face down but also on my back. Well, we've been sleeping on Helix mattresses for a while. I've had one for years now. Super comfortable, great sleep. My son has

also Helix mattress. He asked when he wanted a big mattress, he said, I want the same one you have. So we got him a Helix and when the Helix comes, it comes to deliver to your house in a box. Sounds like he's developing a bit of that attitude that you were working on. He's weird. He's weird. But when it comes to your house, it's delivered in a box and you take it out of the box and it comes to life. Easy, comfy. Yeah, can't beat it. And you get to pick it. You get to pick it. You get to be like, this is the kind I like. Here's how you do that. You go to the website, the Helix sleep website, you take a quiz. It goes through all the stuff that you look for in sleeping, right? The firm size night I think is part of it. I don't remember. And then it matches you up with the right mattress. I got the Dusk Luxe. That's what I use. That's what I got. It's delightful. I think I've been in my like seven years now. It's been a long time. My sleep is great. My sleep is great.

Relax. Also, you can have the sexies on it. It's funny. I don't. Are they? And it's also number one mattress picked by GQ in Wired Magazine. So check it out. Helix is offering up to 20% off all mattress orders and two free pillows. For our listeners, go to helixsleep.com. This is their best offer yet and it won't last long with Helix. Better sleep starts now. We're also brought to you in part by Mind Bloom. The best as well. Mind Bloom. Yeah, it's all very good. Look, a lot of people struggle with, especially these days with anxiety, depression, and it's hard. It's a very hard situation. A lot

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and that's me, Gareth Reynolds. You know, I love working with Dave, but I also love to leave him at home. And I go on the road to do standup. And I'll be going to do some of that standup coming up February 23, 24, 25, 26. I will be on the road opening up for Burt Kreischer. That'll be Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Grand Forex, North Dakota. And there might even be one more date added to that. Then on my own, I will be headlining in March, March 13th, I'll be in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Tuesday, March 14th, I'll be in Indianapolis, March 15th, I'll be in Louisville, Kentucky, March 16th, Columbus, Ohio, March 17th, Dayton, Ohio, March 18th, Perrysburg, Ohio, two shows that night, March 19th, Cleveland,

March 21st, Lexi, Dick, Kentucky, March 22nd, Richmond Heights, Missouri, March 23rd, Kansas City, Missouri, March 24th, Des Moines, Iowa, March 25th, Des Moines, Iowa, too. You get two nights, March 26th, Omaha. And then April 12th, I'll be at the Tacoma Comedy Club. And then Thursday, April 13th, I'll be at the Spokane Comedy Club. And then April 14th and April 15th, I will be in Bozeman, Montana at Last Best Comedy. You can go to garethrenalds.com for ticket information. And tickets are moving. So don't be one of these idiots who's like, hey, I'll get it at the door. That's how you get royally screwed. Back to you in the studio, Dave. Uh, hi, I'm Dave. Oh, boy. God, I hate doing live stuff. Oh, March 6th night. Listen to the past

times. Go ahead. Action. March 6th, 1900. Oh, year of our lordy. He's a fool. Almost 123 years ago. Oh, in San Francisco's Chinatown, Wong Chut King was very sick. He was screaming in agony with fevers and hallucinations. Hmm. So his roommates took him down. Did he get the vaccine? Don't people think that his roommates took him down to the coffin shop and made him decide an empty casket? They took him to go pick and put him beside a casket. No, they laid him beside it. Okay. They weren't like walking him through models. That's what I kind of pictured at first. No, they were getting ready to put him inside of one, but they just put him down beside it. Right. I'm just saying it wasn't like a coffin helix situation. They weren't like,

do you, do you want it pillowed? No. Okay. Okay. That's a helix. Okay. Wow. So this is a very common practice with the very ill in Chinatown. And of course he died shortly after he was laid beside the casket. Now that night, a city health inspector came to check out Wong. He had, um, the health inspector had recently been reprimanded for being lazy because he was just writing up death causes without looking at the person. I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry. I'm one of these people who doesn't think you need to see the body to know. Sorry. Right? Yeah. Absolutely not. It's a vibe thing. If there was anything you could wing it on. Absolutely. It is a vibe thing. And by the way, I, I don't, I, and I know this story

and most of this guy's was explosion. And I do think that that's fine. Yeah. Sounds like an explosion. We had another guy blow up this guy. This sounds like, I don't need to see. It's happening a lot. It is. There's a lot of it going around. So I would recommend that. Are the, are the people, cause this is like the 20th explosion you've had. Are they damaging the stuff around them? Cause I would think if someone blew up. No, the stuff around them is what's getting them, I think. Well, to be honest, that is a question for the insurer, insurance adjuster. I'm, I'm, like I said, I'm kind of the coroner kind of guy, right? Yep. And so I'm the health inspector guy. Yeah. Exactly. And so I, I basically go around and I just say what happened to them. And

you know, I'm actually writing a novel about it at home, tons. I'm writing it a lot of the time, but they, they're exploding. Most of them are exploding, but I hate to see it. What's the book called? Uh, how does work from home and make people think you're working? It's a, it's a guy, it's a guidebook on how to be able to work from home. So, uh, wait a minute. So yeah, these guys are just, they're, they're popping like pimples out there. I'll tell you that much. You hate to see it. I'm going to have to actually fire you. Huh? No, absolutely. No, you can't. Yeah. You're supposed to, you're supposed to go and check out the bodies and see what they died at. I am. I am. No, but you just said you're writing a book

called how to work from home. Yeah. I convinced people that yeah, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The titles work. They, I don't, I haven't landed on the title, but basically it's a book on how to convince people you're going to do your job when you're actually at home. It's a guidebook. Okay. Like I get that. But again, I'm your boss and you, I'm probably the last person you should have told the title. I'm doing the job that you asked of me. These, these people are exploding. What do you want from me? You're writing a book about how you don't have to do your job by lying to your boss. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. First of all, I'm doing my job. Second of all, the book is basically a guidebook. It's a guidebook on how to convince the people above

you that you're going out and doing your job while you're at home working. So I don't know. That's me. No, I'm, I'm telling you, what are you? Jesus Christ. Will you lick up? That's how you get people to blow up. I'm going to say cancer. So, so the health inspector goes and he actually inspects, uh, long and he sees big enlarged lymph node in, uh, Wong's groin and is swollen and it's black and filled with blood. Jesus Christ. I mean, if you're, if you're, that's horrible. If you're like inspecting and you're like, I don't know everything. Go boy. That's holy shit. Look at the blue balls on this guy. He's got a big black punching bag down there. Well, that is called a boobo and that is the symptom that gives bubonic plague its name.

Oh, shit. I want to know the guy who first named the boobo. Those are cute. I called them boobos. What is your problem? I like that they're cute and I will call them boobos. Look if you poke them boobos. Well, it's also like so close to booboo. So it's just like a kid. He's like, yeah, he's got a booboo. That's right. We've got the boobonic plague. It's a booboo. He's got a booboo down there. Um, so the inspector calls his supervisor, William Kellogg, who is the city's resident bacteriologist. Sure. And he's like, well, that, that looks like the plague, but he doesn't want to proclaim it because if he's wrong, he gets fired because that's a big deal to say we got plaguing down. So he doesn't want to say it. Right. So he takes, uh,

say you got wax in the nuts by a golf ball. So he takes samples and sends them to, uh, a lab on Angel Island. Interesting. Angel Island is where it's where the, uh, immigrants would have to come through when they came to San Francisco. They would have to go through Angel Island. Okay. Um, so Joseph Kenyon was, uh, 39. He was called arrogant and imperious. What's his doing? What is he doing? But he is the guy where the lab samples are going. So he is, um, he's, he's said to be the most brilliant doctor in the United States, but he's got an attitude about it. Well, wouldn't you, if you had to deal with all the dummies? Yeah, I would. Uh, he had studied with Lewis Pasteur in Perry and, uh, he was in the Marine hospital service.

So the Marine hospital service is like a paramilitary organization, like doctors protecting the U S from diseases. And, um, they operated the quarantine stations. They adjusted military uniforms. So Kenyon worked at a state of the art lab in DC and he would hobnob with leaders at night like he was a hot shit in DC loves his career. Uh, his boss is the surgeon general. Okay. We like surgeon generals. Well, the surgeon general is Walter Wyman, uh, who's jealous of everybody under him who does better or gets praise. Okay. Good. I was, you do want someone with an ego in the positions like that. Yeah. Oh, you gotta have that. I'm going to make the bubonic plague about me. He went, anybody who started getting praise who worked under him, he would send them

off to a place they didn't want to work. All right. To Antarctica. Well, uh, the president likes your work. So go fuck yourself. Uh, so when a medical journal calls, uh, Joseph Kenyon, the true surgeon general and send Wyman isn't up to the job, Wyman sends him to San Francisco to work at the quarantine station on Angel Island. Okay. Shit job. Um, he's devastated. So gets on a train with his three kids, his pregnant wife, they head across the country. Uh, Angel Island is Angel Island is terrible. Uh, garbage covered island, uh, decrepit quarantine station, not enough water, not enough medication, not enough electricity. You're going to die if you go there. They're like, you'll be an angel soon. Um, he inspected all people coming by sea and,

and then quarantines are sick. Okay. Um, it's, it's just tedious. It's dangerous. It's nothing like working in DC at the best lab with, and then hobnobbing. Well, I mean, Dave, but he decided to do his job. Well, so sorry, Jackie. Uh, and that, now the plague is also in Hawaii at this time and San Francisco is the main port to Hawaii. Okay. Um, so he gets the samples from Wong. Is Bubonic, is the Bubonic plague airborne? Uh, we'll get to that. Okay. Um, so the board of health holds an emergency nighttime meeting and decides to quarantine Chinatown. Before they do that, they escort all the white people out. You gotta quarantine. You gotta love it, Dave. You really, you, and here's, here's my deal with racism in this country.

I'm now, I'm now going to just lean in. I'm, um, I'm embracing it. I'm proud. Yeah. I'm proud of the overt racism. Imagine how, how fucked up you got to be to get away with it. I mean, hats off, hats off. We've done it for so long, so well. It's amazing. It's just time to celebrate. I mean, it's like a cat burglar that you can't catch at this point. You're like, the guy just gets art out of museums. I don't know what to tell you, gang. So they, they escort all the whites out, then they string a rope around like any city street. So we're calling Chinatown the VIP area now. So don't cross the rope. You guys are getting bottle service. Okay. Now, if there was a white owned shop that was like adjacent or up to it,

they would zigzag the rope around the shop. They're gerrymandering, they're gerrymandering the Chinatown quarantine zone. And then we're just going to do what we call a white angle here. This is a white angle. And here's another white angle. Okay. Excuse me. And then doctors go in and they try to figure out who Wong is contacted. Okay. They fumigate his entire apartment building. The city is just grinds to a halt. Ports hold ships. And then also Chinese workers can't go out into the city and work their job. So it's like the movie day without a Mexican, right? I mean, you're talking about all of the workers are now not available, essentially. Okay. So the city is just completely screwed. But white people are not concerned about the plague

because they don't think it affects them. Right. Just the dirty immigrant people. Sure. Businesses don't want word of the plague in San Francisco getting out to the rest of the country because the rest of the country would just stop buying goods from San Francisco. Like it'd be like a boycott immediately. And that won't happen eventually anyway. I mean, the like meth headed decision making of like, I just need that next hit. Like you're never like, Hey, that's probably going to make it a lot worse on the long run. It's like, I'm just trying to get high today, buddy. Tourism would die. Obviously no one's going to go to plague city. Sure.

Sure. So local papers say the board of health has created the scare to get funding. So they're like the board of the board health is faking it. They're just trying to get cash sure up their budget. Yeah. One called one paper called quarantine Chinatown quote criminal idiocy. Yep. There you go. And they said the mayor was just, the mayor was just making an authoritarian power grab. What else could it be? But what in what way? Like what, I guess, well, I guess you're just, it's the idea that you can just flex power whenever essentially, right? Yeah. Because as far as like an economic decision, it's a horrendous one. Yeah.

He's just showing off how bad he can do it. They printed cartoons of Kenyan looking like an idiot injecting plague into his own head. Some even said to plague. I want to see a cartoon of a man just with a syringe into his own brain with plague on it. Like, some, some papers. Hey honey, I'm going to go put plague in my brain. I think that might be happening somewhere. Some papers even said that the robotic plague was not a big deal. Right. Sure. It's just a booboo. You can imagine. Yeah.

Yeah. It's just a booboo. So Kenyan gets the samples. He injects two samples into two guinea pigs, one or two rat and one or two monkey. You know, I understand we got to do it that way, but I do, I feel, I always feel really bad for the way that we do this. I, I, like, I'm like, okay, I get like rats and guinea pigs. I can't, a monkey's too smart to right. Look, I shouldn't, we, I wish it wouldn't happen to any animal, but a rat. Why can't we just do it to like assholes? Couldn't we just like, if we could, couldn't we start kind of sensing, like doing a census on like really despicable pieces of shit?

And couldn't we start now? This is where you, but this is where you get to them, to the experiments on prisoners. So let's not talk about it. No, no, no. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a, this is a, uh, this is a, uh, and I understand it's a slippery slope. So I will back off. I will back off. But I'm suggesting that like, we all, like, if everyone's like, Dan's such an asshole, like the, you know, there's a, again, it's not going to work out. This is, I should stop talking, but I'll continue. And you should, you should basically, you'd just be like, Dan's an asshole. And then he'd be like, I get to go on a vacation to age 11. Hey, fuck this. And then they're like, and he's like, oh, man. And then you get, and then you

give people guinea pigs. All right. Action Dave. Go. Um, so he's also going to try to grow a culture with the bacteria. But with that stuff said, it takes five days for the animals to show that they're sick or the culture. So it's five days of waiting. Not great. And then people with the plague usually die, uh, of organ failure in five days. So five days is too long for San Francisco leaders. They're like, we can't shut the city down for five days. Yeah. What are you going to do? Look, if there is a plague, we'll figure it out when we got it everywhere. So, uh, after two days, Kellogg meets with the board and they ask him how the animals look, and he's like, the animals actually seem fine. Kellogg is the surgeon general. Kellogg is the

health inspector's, uh, boss. Okay. Okay. Got you. Right. Okay. But he's like the city's main bacteriologist. Okay. And he said, he's like, well, they look, he's like, the animals look fine after two days. So it's probably not the plague. Now that's completely wrong. Is that wrong because it's only half of the amount of time that he should wait to find out what the fuck is actually going on? Yeah. It's less than half of the, like, so he's basically saying, well, the study is not done, but it looks great halfway through when nothing should be happening. Everything looks fine. So the board immediately lifts the quarantine. Now, Chinese workers return to their jobs all across the city. And some are complaining about their treatment.

Okay. How they were quarantined. The mayor, the mayor responds that they were, quote, a constant, a constant menace through the public health, dirty and lived in filthy hovels. It's just unbelievable that like, I mean, you know what the, you know what the difference is? They say it out loud. That's the difference. Yeah. It's, it's that it's actually like, he's, he's like, I'll throw down. Now the mayor said this and he at the time owns two tenements in Chinatown. Wow. So Kenyun is now being mocked by most of the city. So he is a brilliant scientist and he is, if you can imagine a brilliant, brilliant science is being mocked by Americans. And papers are now in one paper is joking that he should inject a parrot as it would, quote,

have been able to tell how it felt to have the germs of a dead Chinese injected into his veins. So they, they, number one, they don't know how parrots work. Right. For sure. Yeah. And number two, it's horribly racist. Well, it's also, I mean, you know that parrots aren't fluent in English, right? No, they don't. Yeah. But they're always talking. Yeah. It's parrot. You ever heard parroting? Anyway. Yeah. And also, yes, extremely racist for sure. Kenyun just didn't respond. He's just like, well, how could he put in the vaccine in his head or the disease? If you're, if you're really smart in America, especially if you're really smart, these people are so dumb, you cannot believe what's happening. Like you just, your mind is breaking. And I also think it's

the volume of stupid that makes you be like, yes, I'm just going to like back out of the room. I'm going to Homer Simpson into the bush. That'll be my totally Homer Simpson into the bush. So the day after the quarantine is lifted, Kenyun goes into his lab and finds all the animals dead on the floor. So the plague is in San Francisco. Yeah. So he's like, Hey, here's why we should wait five days before make a decision. So he goes to the board of health and they're like, what were you feeding the guinea pigs? They now don't want to face another wave of public attacks and people yelling at them. So they're not going to bring the quarantine back. It is like, I swear to God, it is meth heads getting meth. It's just we're worried about

the next hour, not the next month. Papers now say that Kenyun killed the animals to get funding. So the people, this is the great thing. The people who want to just make money and don't care about human life are now just projecting that on somebody else who's not doing that. And then, and who doesn't really say anything in retaliation because he's just like, I'm scared. Yeah. So he wrote, Kenyun wrote to a friend about the lack of action quote, the infection of innocent persons in my mind is nothing more or less deliberate or premeditated than manslaughter. Yeah, that means worse really. A paper headline quote, the bubonic scare has collapsed. Wow. Came out and was published on the same day that a 22 year old Chinese worker

was found dead in the street. And then a 35 year old Chinese cook and then a 47 year old Chinese resident. Sanitation officials with doctors and armed police start going all over Chinatown trying to find the source. They started breaking down doors and of course stealing valuables and were rumored to be sexually assaulting women. Oh my God. The Chinese in Chinatown start calling them the wolf doctors because they're like predators. It's just, it's like, it's almost like if the architecture was calling for everything to be done the worst way possible always. Yeah, always. Kenyun himself does not like immigrants. He called one patient a low dirty Chinese. I like that. I like that. Like there's one thing they agree on. It's like, we will be racist.

We'd agree on that. The science you're way off on, but as far as the humans, yes. Yes. In letters to friends, he called San Francisco Jew town. Jesus Christ. This guy's letters. No, no heroes. No, no. No heroes. I'll tell you the hero, the guinea pigs. The only guys and they're dead. They're gone. We lost them. So San Francisco Chinese are afraid, not just because of the racism, but in Honolulu's Chinatown, when the plague broke out there, they were quarantined and then they burnt it to the ground. And as it was burning, armed white people stood around the borders and as residents flee, they beat them and pushed them back. So that's what they're worried about.

So San Francisco's conservative. So the Chinese families, so the Chinese families, when people started getting sick, they would hide them. Right, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Cause now imagine that that's the story. They could burn it to the ground and then kill you. They also are sexually assaulting people. They're stealing your stuff. Of course you would hide them. Of course you would hide them. There's no incentive to be like, hey, we have some ideas that might help. You're like, nope, nothing here. Quiet down there. Die quietly under the floorboards. At one point, doctors entered a home and there were men playing cards and the doctors looked

around and left. And then hours later, a neighbor called and said, there's a body in that house. And it turns out one of the card players had been dead and they propped him up. And then we're like talking to him while the doctors were there, acting as if he was alive. They did a week into Bernie's. Oh my God. They straight up weekend at Bernie's, dude. This guy's got a hell of a poker face. All right, guys, enjoy the game. He's got two parents. He's not even letting on. Do you mind if we sit in for one hand? We actually love hold them. Is that possible? What do you say, friend? Who should deal? We don't have any room at the table. Well, I don't know. This guy has this guy to

scooch over a little bit. There you go. Whoa. He's had one too many, huh? Yeah, but he can barely keep his head up. He has been drinking all night long. Wow. All night, all day, night, all day, night long. He's doing pretty well in the stacks though. Hey, what's your secret guy? Don't tell me. Keep it to yourself. He doesn't, he doesn't speak English. What's the game? Rummy? What are we playing? Well, will someone answer my question? We're all dead. I'll tell you what, this is quite a crew of silent poker players. I gotta respect it. Let's get out of here. Nothing abnormal here.

So people were hiding bodies in basements now and they would put a body out in an alley until it rotted enough that death couldn't be determined. Oh my god. What? So, so now there's no plague deaths reported and Chinatown was declared plague free in early April 1900. Oh my god. But on April 24th, another body is found in the streets. Then a 16 year old girl dies. Seven plague deaths in a week. So, Kingian calls the surgeon general and says we need this experimental vaccine that's out there to stop the spread and it'll cut the spread by 50%. If you can imagine a time in which there was a vaccine that cut the spread by a middling

percentage, there were serious side effects from this vaccine. High fever and vomiting were a couple. I'm sorry. I'm not going to take it. I don't want to get sick. So Wyman sends the vaccines out. Now, the people who had been terrorizing Chinatown were now the people who were supposed to go and talk the Chinese into taking the vaccine. So the wolf doctors are now. Hey, everybody, can we have a serious conversation? Sorry that I sexually assaulted most of the women in the group. But listen, as a man who knows you very well from taking so many of your possessions and reading your diaries, I think you're inclined to take this. Now, you can trust me. I'm the guy who kicked your door down, slapped your son, and then ate

your dinner off of your plate. Okay? Any questions? Does anyone have any reservations about what I'm trying to get across here? Yes, a bunch of hands are up. And I think I can speak for the whole group. Yes, you right there. We want you to die. We want you to be set on fire. Now, I want you to listen. I'm here to help you. I have a long track record of throwing your vases into your windows and pushing your baked goods down on the ground. I actually remember kissing you, sir, and I remember I kissed your wife, too, in front of you. So I just want you guys to know you can trust me. And if some of these clothes look familiar, it's because they're all yours. Everything I'm wearing today was taken from one of your houses. I know. I can see my...

These glasses are not my prescription, which I'm a bit irritated about. But all right, so let's get those sleeves up. And I'm your buddy. No. I'm your pal. Okay? And let's do this because I'm your friend. Okay? Thank you. Pretty much that. Obviously, it's not going well. A lot of the Chinese immediately think it's poison that they're trying... Because why wouldn't they? Why wouldn't they think they're trying to kill them? Of course. So one Chinese editor takes the vaccine and an angry mob surrounds his house. And he is forced to say the vaccine was a, quote, modern kind of torture. Push it out of your vein. Push it out of your vein. Like a pimple. Okay. So now people are like, oh, okay. Well, that guy said it's torture.

So people are so freaked out to take the vaccine that there was a little girl who was in line to get the vaccine. And she's so panicked she jumped out of a second floor window. Oh my God. It's like after school special shit. So Kenyan goes to meet with Chinatown leaders, but when he goes there, a mob surrounds the building and starts throwing rocks at the building, and he barely escapes with his guards. Cool. Also, whites are not going to get vaccinated because they... Due to plague germs being the vaccine. And also they don't think they can get the plague because they're white. Jesus Christ. Always gold meddling. The whites. A white reporter, I think his name was Jimmy Doar, took the vaccine and wrote an article

about the awful side effects. He said he temporarily lost the use of one arm and there were shooting pains and his neck and a high fever. Okay. Right. So vaccine rollout is terrible. It's going well. The city is also doing nothing to stop the plague or educate. Kenyan wrote to the Surgeon General, quote, people here absolutely in the dark on account of local papers refusing publishing any matter pertaining to epidemic. So because papers are mostly owned by economic interests or aligned with economic interests, they're just ignoring the scary negative things coming from the plague, the fact that... And they also can because it hasn't gotten out of Chinatown and they don't care about the Chinese.

So we've always just been the dog meme with the house on fire saying this is fine. We just needed to wait for someone to put it on Twitter to be like, oh yeah, that's the history. There's the textbook. Surgeon General orders inspections of ships and trains leaving California and the Marine Hospital service detains all Chinese and Japanese. So Kenyan is now ordering every Chinese and Japanese to be detained. And we know that he's racist. Yes. Well, they're all racist. The president approves it. Roosevelt approves it. Sure. Well, I mean... I think it's Roosevelt. But anyway, a Chinese merchant sues the board of health and Kenyan for restraining his movement during the quarantine. Okay. Now remember, it was fucking two days. Yeah, right.

Just the baby town of it all. So anyway, the judge hits Kenyan and his health inspectors with a restraining order. He can't go near, quote, the Chinese residence of San Francisco. Okay. It's another courts have stepped in to stop the healthy people from helping the people. Why don't they put a restraining order on the bubonic plague? Listen here, bubonic plague. You're not allowed within 50 feet of a person. All right. But the board of health is not given a restraining order. So Kenyan begs them to quarantine Chinatown saying the outbreak is going to spread across the country if we don't stop it. And then San Francisco will be... If it's going to spread across the country,

why hasn't it yet? Well, they do listen to this because this would mean, again, now this is money again, right? He's like, if it spreads across San Francisco, it's not going to be forgiven. Which is... So the board... It's different. So the board's like, okay. And they're going to quarantine Chinatown again. They put up an eight foot fence topped with barbed wire around the entire Chinatown district. Jesus Christ. 10,000 people are trapped inside. Oh my God. And now they're thinking their homes are going to be burned down. Oh, right. Yeah, right. Of course. They're filing injunctions. They're saying they will not cooperate with doctors. They destroyed the coffin maker's shop because they didn't

want coffins being wheeled down the street where people could see it. It's just always fun to watch the ripple of like, hey, how do you want to lose your mind? Okay. And how will we lose our minds? Okay. Great. All right. And from the top... Yeah. It's the classic thing of like, so there's no government helping you. So you tee off on each other. Hysteria is bound to ensue. And then the government's like, well, what did you want us to do? We aspired to do better. How am I going to help with the coffin situation? I'm sorry. What do you think we have? Power. So Kenyan now wanted all Asians rounded up and quarantine for not reporting illness and death. So they're like, they're clearly hiding bodies and hiding sick people. So he wants every,

not just Chinese, every Asian. Men from the Chamber of Commerce offered him several quote, large and handsome presents. Hey, how big a ribbon do you want? They what? They come with gifts. Okay. When you say gifts, what are we talking? I don't know what they were, but they're like, you can get these awesome gifts if you declare San Francisco plague free. Hey, why don't you open the box and see what's inside it? But San Francisco's fine, right? There's just a smaller box in here. Why don't you open that one? Guys, I really don't have, come on. It's a smaller box. Try again. Are you just trying to run the clock out? Hey, why don't you get inside the box? All right, this is no. So the doctors, so the Chamber of Commerce coming to this, it's basically a bribe

they're offering, right? And then he's like, oh, because his suspicions were that this was happening with doctors all over the city that they were getting right. And this confirmed it. Right. Yeah, they're getting bribed by the business guys. And this totally confirms it. He's like, oh my god, they're all getting bribed. This is a, and so, and so he wrote to a friend quote, how it appears not like it was going well for a day. It's like immediately, you can't put two Jenga blocks on top of each other. It's like, whoopsies over. He writes to a friend quote, it appears that the commercial interests of San Francisco are more dear to the inhabitants than the preservation of human life. These people seem perfectly indifferent whether or not bubonic plague exists in San

Francisco so long as they can sell their products and make large percentages on their investments. Right. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, we know it's always business interest. Yeah, I mean, the country, it just becomes more, it just becomes more transparent in a plague, but it's always, they always say like drunk goggles. It's like, we have capitalist goggles on all the time, and it is just simply blinds you to everything. And you're like, oh, a little money be nice. But what about like morals and principles and the greater good? Hey, you know what, it'd be nice. Some of that money. Hey, you know what, I got an idea. What if we saw the plague? Hey, that's pretty good. Why don't we bottle it, sell it? Yeah, whatever we're gonna do. Yeah,

we'll make. Yeah, it's a $1 bill. Yeah, that's perfect. Well, yeah, it's awesome. Hey, you know, it'd be nice making a little bit of money. You know, it'd be good. Oh, yeah. You know what, I'm inclined to love besides a greater connection, besides thinking that we're all part of one intertwined society where the ripple effect of what I do impacts you and love is actually what we should generate and empathy is where the goodness comes from. You know, it'd be better than that. A little bit of money. Oh, I love money. A little bit of money would be pretty nice. Hey, you know, I love my family. I love my wife. But you know what I like would be nice. Maybe a pool with a little bit of money. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I love money. If I get

it, what I would try to do is pad my nest a little bit of money. Yeah. So it's so depressing. So the search in general now sends out a new doctor, Dr. George Schradie. And he's a prominent doctor. I think he got famous. He got famous by he was at the bedside of I think Ulysses Growney when Grant died. Kingen doesn't respect him. You know, when Ulysses passed away and everyone's like, oh, this is good. Well, if you could imagine the type of doctor that always wants to be in public and speaking, this is the type of doctor that we have. So he's famous for lecturing instead of doing hands on work. Right. And Kingen does not think Schradie could even recognize the plague if he saw it in a microscope. Right. Why don't you use your open eye, Schradie?

What? How does this thing work? I put it on my nose. Now I am seeing it a bit better. There is something now. Oh, looks like a fingernail. Yeah. Move your thumb from under it. No. Oh, no. Whoa. Look at how big. Honey, Martha, take a look at how big it looks under that. How do they do it? So Schradie gets to San Francisco and immediately sets up a mini newsroom with typists to take down his thoughts and ideas and then send them out to the papers. He's the PR. He's going to come out and fix everything. Okay. So he's actor doctor. Yes. Right. Kingen tells Schradie, he's like, you're very confused about what's happening here because Schradie has done no investigation and he's like, you can't get anything published

about the plague in the city. No one will write about it. And Schradie's like, my words, my stuff is going to be welcomed by the public. People are going to want to hear what I say because Schradie is all about boosting the image of Schradie. Okay, gotcha. If you can imagine a doctor being like that. Right. And his first article that he puts out is a detailed walkthrough of Chinatown. And then he calls the Chinese stupid, filthy, and said he saw, quote, a smothering firing of vengeance in the expression of almost every Chinaman you would meet. It's just amazing. So he's saying, for some strange reason, the Chinese are angry. If you can imagine, if they had any, I can't believe that they would be mad, but they are.

Right. Somehow. So Schradie then tells Kenyon that he is going to advocate the dynamiting of Chinatown. Oh my God. So the thing, the thing- I'm going to write a little prescription here. A ton of dynamite. Thank you. Get that filled, would you, darling? The thing that the Chinese are worried about is exactly what this guy is now talking about. Hawaii is like, hey, do you want to think about it for a minute? No, we got a pretty good idea. So imagine walking in there like, so you haven't really walked around the city. Are you sure you have a feeling for what you should do? Yeah. Oh yeah. I don't really need to. I've got a whole newsroom set up. I'm pretty sure we're just going to dynamite it. Okay. Thanks for stopping by.

So Schradie, Kenyon's just like, this guy doesn't understand what's happening here. So he brings himself samples from dead people, a microscope and case histories of the dead, and then explains to Schradie how the plague attacks and destroys the body and then invites him to come to an autopsy. You mean with like a body body? Nothing. And so Schradie sees all this and understands it now, and the next day he publishes an article saying the plague is in San Francisco. So finally, a paper has printed the truth, and Kenyon then orders border quarantines. The border order. The border. That night, Schradie is invited as the guest of honor at a fancy banquet for all the city elites,

and he ends up having a private chat with the California governor, Henry Gage. Now, Gage had been a sheep dealer, and then he became a lawyer, and now he's a politician. Hey, you looking to get some sheep? What are you looking for? Pure. This is pure sheep. Yeah, okay. I just need to know that they're the real deal. Like last time I tried to buy some sheep, I got some goats. So I just want to know, am I getting shows here? What am I getting? These are pure sheep. Here. I won't. How am I going to know they're pure? Why don't you have a shorn? Would you like to shear it a little bit? Get a feel for it?

Yeah, I would like to get it. I would like to get a little bit. The first shears free. Look at that. Oh, shit. Yeah. This is the real deal, right? The real deal. You might want to sit down. I can't wait to get inside of this thing. I don't need to know the plan. No, I'm talking about the guts. I'm not going to. What are you talking about? The guts. I'm talking about opening it up and eating it and taking parts out. Yeah, that's what you're talking about. The guts, for sure. All right, so let's get them on the scale. Who are you selling these sheep to if you're Welsh?

Welsh. An entire country shuts off our podcast. But it's not a country anyway. They were conquered. That help? You shrug. You shrug. I don't know. Look, listen. Listen. If we have Welsh listeners, we're sorry. I'll say this. We should a-raff what we're doing. That's how you say stop at Welsh. So he's at this banquet. He meets with the sheep dealer governor. Governors like Cowboy Bootenware and Giant Mustache carries a bowie knife guy. He's deep in the pocket of railroads, which are, at this point, the most evil corporation.

He is also Kenyon's fiercest critic, and he had made the plague a political issue because people didn't think he was a good governor and that he wasn't up to the job, so now he's showing his metal right by taking on the government. I'm going to put a boot up the bubonic plague, Zeiss. How about that? Also, the plague would mean a total economic disaster for the state. For sure. But again, it's like, not how do I get enough meth for the week. It's, I need one more hit. Yeah. So Gage convinced Shreddy that Kenyon had showed him plague victims from India or Japan. I don't believe in the plague. How about that? Shreddy, he's like, did you take the samples yourself from the bodies? And he's like,

you're going to ruin the economy over something that's probably a lie. Don't you realize this man's punking you? It's a fake plague. It's a flake. He's got, I'll tell you, he's been plague pranking everybody. Why would he do that though? I don't really understand that. Because he hates a good economy. He hates me. A lot of people are coming at me. Well, it's about you. It's personal, absolutely. You see, they don't like a successful governor like me. On account of I'm more focused on my mustache than my policy. Yeah, I think we all are though. It's really gross. Gosh Christ. Oh geez. I haven't felt good in a while. I'm starting to sweat a little bit.

Anyway, it's all a bunch of BS. If you excuse me, I'm going to lay down. My genitals are swelling. Oh Christ. So the next day, Shreddy walks back, everything he'd written the day before. He got, he got take, look, it's a guy who's all into fame. It's all about him. He got taken in by, then, you know, if that person, if that doctor, if that expert, who just wants to be popular and famous as opposed to actually advocating for public health, if that person is then taken in by the leaders of, you know, the elites, they will immediately switch to that position because that's what they want. Okay. Always, always easier to go. Like once the people in power, like we lack what you're saying, you go, you go all the way in whatever they want,

that you'll say what they want. That's that, that's that personality. So he writes, quote, the rumor that plague threatened San Francisco is ridiculous and unfounded. This is the day after he wrote that the plague is in San Francisco. He says, can you lie to him and, and he lied to the city and he's against quarantining China town. And he said, even if it's there, it's not going to spread because it's, he's saying, he's basically saying it's just going to affect China town. So you don't have to worry about it. And he said, Kenyon should be reassigned to somewhere else in the country. They put me on a trash island. Well, we were trying to find somewhere shittier for you.

We're thinking you could work on the base of the ocean. So the day it's published, another plague victim dies in China town. So gauge calls an emergency meeting of the state board of health and screams at them for believing Kenyon. And he said the state is not going to spend another cent on quarantine. And the board cannot share any plague information with other states. Now we're in the information denial phase of plague stuff, pandemic stuff. So he then sends a letter to the US Secretary of State complaining of the quote plague fake. Wow. The deep plague. Interesting. The deep plague.

Wow. Then courts. The false plague. Rule. Okay. So now courts rule that the China town quarantine is unconstitutional because the way American courts function, it is always to help the businesses. So they're always going to rule in that way. I just do like, I love America. I know you don't, Dave. I love America. I love America. I love Americans. I love our, I love that our, our ego knows no bounds. We're like, we will take reality and shove it up reality's ass. It's like, you think you can come here and kill us with your disease? Well, how about this disease? We don't believe in Santa Claus. Like, it's, it's just like a court being like,

we're going to put the plague in jail. How's that everybody? Fuck you, play. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the fence comes down. The fence around China town comes down. Kenyon is just totally beside himself. He can't believe what's happening. He orders every steamship and railroad to only sell tickets to people who had a good health certificate signed by the Marine Hospital service officer. How long until he is actually injecting the plague into his own head? To be like, okay, I'm good. Yeah, I give up.

It's like, get fine. Everyone has to get a certificate to get on a steamship or a railroad, right? He's inspecting passengers and denying unvaccinated Chinese, but never white passengers. Man, that's just everyone. Everyone, either people who are blind or they got the blind spot. This is supposedly the smartest doctor in the country, but racism trumps all. It just does. It's just the beauty of this country.

We are just able to, it's a given. It's just a given. So politicians are angry and that he's doing this, and they complained to the president. They're like $40 million of state produce might rot because this guy is stopping everything. When told McKinley, he lose the state in the next election if he lets this Kenyan guy keep doing this stuff. A U.S. attorney, Coombs threatened Kenyan with jail if he doesn't lift the travel orders. So a Chinese resident denied travel, now files a complaint against Kenyan.

And Wyman, surgeon general says the lawyer who would defend him is Coombs. So the guy who just threatened to put him in jail is now the guy the surgeon general is going to hire to defend him. Yeah, sounds perfect. So what are you going to argue? I'm not going to argue. And it's like, what, no, can I get another one? And he's like, no, just go talk to him.

How are you? I find you guilty. You're my lawyer. Yeah. You guilty. But yeah, I'm actually, I'm part of the suit, but you're representing me. I, yeah, yep. He goes to see his attorney, Coombs, who just screams at him and tells him to plead guilty

and then he'd be lucky to get a six month sentence. I just, I don't know. I think I might represent myself. So McKinley has now met with a very wealthy California Republican and then he orders the Marine hospital service to revoke Kenyan's orders. So this is now, now we're in the part of the pandemic, whatever it is, where the politicians are overruling the scientists. And Kenyan asks, he asked the search general, he's like, can I get a different lawyer?

And the search general is like, I don't get what the problem is. This guy's fine. He's a great lawyer. He just, he wants to put me in jail. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, but he's your lawyer. So look, I would recommend you work with him, not against him because you're already

on real thin ice with him. I mean, he's, he's pissed off. He's really pissed off. I'm trying to save people's lives and not have the plague spread across the country. We're all a little sick and tired of the changing people's lives thing. I would recommend you work with your attorney who's a fantastic attorney. He wants to put me in jail. Well, you should be in jail.

He said it. Yeah. We don't want him. We're, look, maybe you don't understand what's going on here. We want to put you in jail. Is it? Can I ask a question? Is it illegal to be smart in America?

Is it illegal to be smart? Over. Is it illegal to be smart under ruled? Let me ask you this. How many cheeseburgers you can think I can fit in my mouth at once? What in the fuck is going on? I bet I can do seven. You got to pay me 150 bucks if I could do more.

I might go to jail. Why are we talking about hamburgers? We know how we'll make it to seven. All right. Now what are we talking about? So he also the social general also said the samples that Kenyon has sent to DC are infected with the plague. Right.

But they're like, and then, then, then, then, then, we're not doing that again, okay? But they've stripped all his power, so he can't do anything. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, I really am hoping this guy puts plague into his head. If this happens, I'll jump out a window. So before his trial happens, he's on a ferry and he sees the judge who's overseeing the trial and he corners him and talks to him, making his case.

And he is found guilty, but he gets no jail time. Okay. So now this is going on over the summer, and while this is all going on, people are still dying of the plague in Chinatown. Right. Kingion is not allowed to publish victims' descriptions or issue plague updates. In August, a white young teamster dies of the plague. Papers do not report the first white victim of the plague.

Are the whites really believing that they can't get it fully? Mm-hmm. Wow. Mm-hmm. Just, it's amazing. There's no history of white people having the plague, like it's so fucking tough. It really is. It's amazing to think.

It just shows you, like, it is like, marrow deep racism when you are like, it can't hurt us. We're whites. Like, you're not from Krypton. And the group think, there's a group think that, well, I'm fine. There's definitely that. That is. Yeah.

Yes. That is. So the politicians do nothing, the board of health does nothing, and plague victims just keep dying in Chinatown. How many are we talking? How many people are dying? It's not a ton, but it's like, you know, we're talking, you know, we're way up into the double digits now.

Okay. Okay. Like, I think we're pretty high up there. Okay. A young white children's hospital nurse dies of the plague because a dying boy had vomited into her face. Oh, God almighty. Oh, my God, Jesus, there's literally the worst way to go.

The guy would rather just cut my head off. How'd she get it? A guy puked in her eyes. Some guy plague heaved into her eyes. Come here, I want to whisper something to you. Wow. Can you, I mean, the, oh my God, how'd she get it, a kid puked in her mouth. She got the bubonic puke.

So that, like it doesn't come up, but that kid clearly had the plague, whatever. So the autopsy shows. So the autopsy shows she died of pneumatic plague, which is not, it's a rare type that spreads like the cold. So the hospital staff is now freaked out. Sure. She puked into me. They covered the morgue in oil because they're going to burn the morgue down.

Oh, so now white people are like, no, no, what comes to white people's solution? Wherefore it's like, let's do this and this and one white person dies and they're like, burn the fucker down. It's just, I mean, like, yeah, look, you just, the idea that, that you're letting the, I mean, the whites are at the helm is like, well, the captain's shit-faced and has Alzheimer's. So right next door is a giant vat of inflammable chemicals. If they set it on fire, that's going to blow up. For some reason, they decide not to burn down the morgue.

If they had tried the entire hospital went blow up. Can we just take a minute to say what a surprising move it is to be like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, I'm having, I'm having a, I'm having a thought. We shouldn't do like, it's like the sirens are going off. I think maybe we don't do it in a moment of white decision making. Let's not do the most catastrophic thing. Imagine you hear the mortician, you come into work, the next thing you're like, what in the fuck?

So we covered it in oil. Why? Well, I don't want to get into it, but things are really bad and you're lucky that we're a white people. So now I just work in oil. So now the plague has changed, right, because now white people are dying and Gage really, the governor really wants to get rid of Kenyon before people start listening to what he's saying.

A ship arrives that had a recent plague case on it and passengers are separated by sex and then they're inspected while they're nude because they want to look at their groins to see if they have a passenger's complain about this. Some vow they're never going to go to San Francisco again as long as Kenyon is still there. But he's getting all the blame for this. He was in Canada when this happened. So when he comes back, he finds out a city enraged at him.

Right. He's like, I was in Canada. You looked at my penis. You asshole. And the head of the Chamber of Commerce calls Kenyon a menace. The state Senate now introduces a bill to recall him to DC and ban him from life from the West Coast. Wow.

Wow. I mean, and if you're him, you're like, I'm not going to go there. Now remember, they're more upset that people are inspected nude and not by opposite sex. If they were inspected nude, then they are death of Chinese people. I want it to die. The guy who wrote the bill banning to ban him from the West Coast said his heart was quote black and malignant and that he deserved to be hung. It passed.

Damn. Dave, I guess I'm entering the kind of like giggle fest phase with my relationship with American history, where now I am just like, I can't stay mad at you. You're just, you're just, you're just slapstick the country. You fucking lunatics. Well, how about this? He can't go to the West Coast. I'll vote for that.

I'll vote for that. Hey, a bunch of people's genitals are black and bulbous and quiet. This guy's not going to be able to go past Michigan anymore. So Gage gives his State of the Union, State of the State and a third, one third of the entire address is about Kingian and called for anyone taking plague samples to be jailed for life. Wow. Wow.

God, man, it's, and he wanted anyone publishing in San Francisco that the plague, uh, anybody publishing with a plague to be arrested for a felony. The governor called scientists out of touch, the guy, oh my Lord, oh my Lord. And he doubted their microscopes could see bacteria that people couldn't see with their naked eye. Oh yes, Dave, I might, I think I'm going to start jerking off. I'm having so much fun. Dave, this is Dave.

And he said, I mean, the idea that he's now like, he's like, I got microscopes in my crosshairs. It's like, I didn't, I mean, again, it's like, you cannot, you just can't predict. There's no bottom. And when you think there's a bottom, it's just, there's like, there's like a well under it. You're like, oh my God. I can't, like the bottom, this is the bottom.

The bottom is one of those holes that if you took your keys and threw it down, you'd never hear a noise. Yeah. I mean, he's now said, I believe my eyeballs are microscopes. How about that plague? How about that? Like taking like a little, like taking like a little like cell and being like, I don't see plague on that.

Well, to be honest, Governor Gage, your eyes aren't microscopes, bullshit. So how's Kenyon doing? You ask, well, Kenyon has now developed an ulcer. From what? What do you, what do you, why? I don't know. Being a baby. Was he drinking?

He wrote a friend quote, I had four breakdowns last year, but he still refuses to leave because he still wants to save people. He asked the surgeon general to come and prove the plague was there and because he's been quote, disgraced and discredited by all sides. And the surgeon general wrote back saying he had faith in Kenyon, but he's not going to say anything publicly. Right. Well, I mean, you know, why would he?

Like it's not, you're not going, you can't beat the blob of stupid. It sucks all in its path. And tell reality overwhelms. Yes. But in the, in the meantime, he's like, look, once, maybe, maybe everyone will freak out and then I'll like, and then I'll write a tell all and I'll sell it. That's my plan. Yeah.

So a plague deaths this, you know, they keep going three in early 1901. One was a white guy found very far away from Chinatown, which led the surgeon general to finally send doctors with plague experience. So now the first white person has died that's like far away and not in a hospital or something and people like, so they actually send people out to help. Okay. So he said he wouldn't trust these doctors and refused to let them use the University of California labs.

Nice. But within two weeks, they found a plague case in Chinatown. A Chinese interpreter was there for the autopsy and he noticed that they were very respectful and followed Chinese traditions unlike the other doctors, the wolf doctors. Right. So he seeing this forms a little bit of trust and he takes them to see the people who were being hidden with the plague in Chinatown. And the doctors then go meet with Governor Gage and they tell him the plague is entrenched

in San Francisco. And he, the governor, then accused the doctors of infecting those people and working with Kenyan. Dave, you said there's no hero in this story. I beg to differ. We got him. We got him. We got our guy.

I mean, every reality, I think you're, I think the bubonic plague paid you. I think you, I think you made it. I think you made it in your little train when you came across the country. I think you're three bubonic plagues in a trench coat pretending to be a doctor. Prove you're not. He got into his head, come on, bubonic plague, jump out of him. So I just, this is just, so Gage goes to the San Francisco papers, uh, editors, right? And, and the shipping companies and, um, together they work together and put a black

out on any plague story. That's good. So, so that's, yeah, again, so they doesn't exist. So they, they started being like, uh-oh, white people are dying and he makes sure that that's not happening. So together they write an associated press dispatch quote, there is not now, nor has there ever been bubonic plague in California. It's, I mean, it's just, it's great.

I'm proud of us. I'm impressed. I mean, I mean, imagine like writing that down, being like, that's a crazy pitch. So the governor forms a delegation. If anything, the bubonic plague has California in it, bam, bam. The plague is infected by California gentlemen. I can't see it. My eyes are microscopes.

So he puts together a delegation to go to DC to suppress the publication of those doctor's findings. So not only are they putting the kibosh on it in San Francisco, but also around the country. They're trying to really squash it. And it's almost like, at this point, it's like the person going to all this work to have the affair when it's like, just get divorced, just, it's just the stressful nightmare to keep working around the edges of this. Like at some point, just like throw some effort in the direction of the problem instead of

just like, we will do everything we can to not acknowledge the problem, but then it's not going to be solved. But no one will know there's something to solve for now. So they get out there to DC and the surgeon general shows them a report not only saying is the plague that the plague is in San Francisco, but also that it has been there for years and that it could easily spread to other major cities in the country in San Francisco would be blamed. I'm starting to think someone here might be in cahoots with the plague.

Your plague buddy, are you a little plague buddy? Huh, what you look what the pledge little guys you working on? Huh, you'll fear monger, huh? So So They here's the thing they can't figure out though Why I'm in and in and King in it They can't figure out why the plague hasn't really blown up and so I just go like it's just simmering right So that the this delegate that the governor sent out to try to kibosh the story they come back

Promising they're gonna disinfect Chinatown and find every plague victim. So the opposite happened to what he wanted, okay? if They will do that if The report is never published Wow So they say they're gonna tackle the plague now. Just nobody can nobody say anything about it, right? Okay. I mean Kind of good, right? I mean, okay. It's a small victory. Yeah. I mean, we'll take it. Sure. We'll take it We'll take it

So the searcher general agrees to that but he knows Kenyon is not gonna agree to that so he transfers Kenyon to Detroit Okay, nice Kenyon is devastated as he left on May 7th, 1991 He said quote California was free to enjoy bubonic plague. Wait, what year 1919 what year? It's May 7th, 1991 91 no, not 90. Sorry. Sorry 1901. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, anyone right now. It's like wow. May 7th, 1901. Okay So the delegation comes back and the delegation does not clean up Chinatown. Hmm. What now Dave is that partially because it's a plague They also said they would not they also are not trying to find every victim and

Yeah, so that they to go back on the word now a Guy named Joseph White is sent by the Surgeon General to replace Kenyon and Right after he gets there he writes to the searcher general and he said he's overwhelmed and he doesn't know what he's doing He's like, I don't I have no idea how to do this job. So so the search general sends another guy That's exactly what we want His name is Rupert Baloo. He's 33. He has traveled the world helping the sick and and

as a guy who's traveled the world he has a Maybe a different idea about cultures than the the guy who's just from DC or whatever. Yeah So he tries to start making connections with people in Chinatown and getting their trust and when people over he's very good He's a very good people person. Okay Not what Kenyon was at all. No, right. Kenyon was the opposite of a good people person. Yeah Now the guy that he had sent before White is still there And he's still in charge

But he now gives up and says nothing can be doing about the plague and he he leaves so blue gets his job Wow, I love that. I love my brother and I one time We were driving into Amsterdam and I had the directions and I just couldn't figure it out and I threw the directions and I go I just don't know anymore. He was like, well, no, that's not how this work. He's like, I'm driving I was like, I guess we live in the car. He was like, no, what? So blue notice that the death rate in Chinatown has plummeted which means Boughtings are being hidden. Right. That's all that means, right so he

he starts a hearse service Hmm, and then when the bodies are in the hearse He can examine them So he creates a business right to figure out a way Everyone's like to nobody's dead here and he's like free hearse and they're like there's 15 So he's picking up the bodies and examining them Don't you think Dave on a side note that hurts rental cars should start a hearse side business and call it?

Absolutely. Thank you. Keep going At a he at a brothel blue finds that three women have the plague one of them lived the person This is the first person to survive the plague in Chinatown that is known of Now the two dead women had sex with over 50 guys before their symptoms appeared and But It doesn't spread that much hmm what the fuck so blue hires Chinese staff

It's the first time I've done this okay, including an interpreter named Wong and he paid him Today what would be the equivalent of a thousand dollars a week? Okay? No other white doctor had done anything like this in Chinatown right so blue and Wong become close friends and Wong Starts to show blue the patients who have the plague trusting that they're not going to be quarantined a Patient named Chan becomes the second to survive and

blue's respectful treatment of him led to Powerful men and leaders in Chinatown to come around to blue okay He also had blue made sure that everyone working under him cheated it treated the Chinese people with respect okay Which is obviously different yeah racism under kick King and had just a racist right regime So there's the first guy. It's like why don't we treat him like people? What about you guys want to do that? It's crazy enough to work What the fuck I quit yeah? At one point a China a Chinatown paper praised blue and his officers as quote very kind and gentle

Now a white sailor and a Bavarian woman who had no connection at all to Chinatown come down with the plague and Blue is trying to figure this out and he notices there's a lot of rats in the areas where they Were around a lot hmm Now the plague at this point was thought to come from dirt and grime and filth and bad air No one knew how it passed the how it passed from person to person though

One not well-known scientists had said it was the fleas on rats, but not many had read his report very obscure report out there More people dying in Chinatown and blue has no idea what to do about it and Then papers started attacking him personally of course his wife had left him because he was spending too much time dealing with this they start writing about his divorce and He's like I can't take it. I need a break Wow, so The search in general sends him to Milwaukee boom and

After he leaves the body start piling up faster more people are dying other states now are Like there's a lot of people dying for the plague so they start quarantining goods from San Francisco Okay It which is the hilarious thing because the the whole thing was that's right They that's where they got rid of Kenyon right because they were worried about the goods right, but of course eventually yeah, yeah It's it's what's gonna happen. Yeah, I mean again. You're making it. You're making it happen. Yes, so But it is it's again. It's like

How do you get through the day? It's never like long yes long-term behoovement No long ever the thinking ever how do I get to tomorrow unscathed? Yeah so Other states are quarantining stuff in California communication sanitation just fall apart after blue leaves and now The surgeon general is now begging for blue to go back there like he's like you got to go back This is totally spiraling out of control. So he

He was out he was out of San Francisco for 14 months and while he was gone How much brought in beer wait did he throw on while he was it was probably They're probably hey blue we need you to come back. He's like come back. What are you thinking about? There's no way Come on guy relax. What are you sit down? Have a blast take a load off? Okay I'm writing up. I'm writing a paper about sausages. Okay, man. Here's the problem. Okay. Here's the real plague. We're at a cheese curts No, we're gonna get more I Don't think that's a plague though. It's just out of something

Well, look, I guess it's all perception but right now as far as we're concerned for like hunger wise We're all suffering from a plague. Okay, so Yeah, you ever played birdies sit on So 14 months he's gone while he was gone the plague case is doubled So he comes back and he pushes sanitation He spread thousands of pounds of lime powder around You know, he orders cellars to be washed down with carboleic acid lye

And mercury by chloride by the way, there's definitely gonna be a paper that's like blues back and he's spreading lye He thinks at this point he thinks rats are the key to the plague, but he has no proof So he starts going after the rats getting rid of places they could live like Rotting buildings tearing down the all these wood balconies that are rotting dirt floors cesspools An Italian immigrant named Pietro Spadafora dies After picking up wood From a torn down rotted balcony in Chinatown. So people are

They're tearing down these rotting, you know structures, right and then people are bringing that home to use as firewood Oh my god, oh my god, yes So so people maybe so the job maybe wasn't fully explained to these people Well, they they wanted people to do that. They wanted people to get rid of the wood They wanted to bring it. Oh, it's all part of the plan. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah, it's part of the plan like get take the wood and burn it Oh dear Now when this guy dies he lived in the I think it's called the Latin Quarter Not anywhere near Chinatown

So blues like it could have been the firewood. He there could have been fleas on the firewood So he has all that wood covered in lime now One author quote it was through his continued focus on fleas that blue left the racist philosophies of Kenyon and Other Marine Hospital service officials fully behind Kenyon for all his laboratory brilliance never let go of his racial bigotry and Remain convinced until the end that the Chinese were the enemy that should be feared and distrusted Blue never the best student or natural leader proved more willing to trust what he saw before him and follow it Wherever he led. It's just amazing that at the end of it. You're like the key was he wasn't

racist Wow So blue now offers a bounty for dead rats, so he's asking people to bring him dead rats and pain They he would nail them they would be nailed to a shingle outside his lab Autopsied and then burned Wow So he sent his findings to the Surgeon General but not the press who he thought would just attack him So he now knows like of course based on what's happened. He's like don't tell the press They'll turn him into a rat in no time like they'll be cartoons of him as like a big rat man like like banging rats

Hey everybody want to eat off my rat fire It's like so he noticed that the deaths come in waves weeks without and then there's death, right and Then an entire if an entire Italian family died and it was like it's not I'd say entire I think it's like three or four people and the whites fucking lose their mind right like they're like no No a family of whites now doctors For white people are calling blue about the vaccines Okay, so now

Right, so white families died. So now all of a sudden whites want the back. We've got to figure this out And They admit the doctors admit that they had seen patients who had the plague But hadn't reported it because of the blowback that would happen, right? Now nobody knows how many people have died of the plague No clue, right because now they're like, oh it has been much Wider spread than we thought right. It's it just no one's been talking about it because they don't want to get a shit Yeah, of course

Now the death rate in San Francisco is lower after the rat rat eradication. So they can't eradication They called it go ahead The the whole the death rate is down. Okay, um, they removed they had gotten rid of hundreds of I actually call that the death rat, but sorry keep going. I don't mean to keep jumping in you're doing great They've killed hundreds of thousands of rats Six months goes by with no deaths. So it looks like like his thing of killing the rats has worked and There's something going on in Virginia and the surgeon general reassigns blew it of Virginia

Blue's very happy. He's like I left the city in great shape much better than when I found it and Then on April 18th 1906 a massive earthquake hits our Francisco Buildings fall over the place. There's massive holes in the streets fires then burn everything that's left. It's a fucking disaster A quarter million refugees are now living in the city's parks. Wow Tourists would come to stare at the unfortunate people until the mayor begged them to not come if they didn't bring food or milk or Baby clothes. Wow, that's he's like stop gawking and fucking do something their lives are horrendous get one with me Now sanitation is obviously a problem after This you know the city's been raised. It's fucking disaster

And they call blueback And he gets there and he sees just waves of rats They're just eating rotting garbage The ground is just covered in little holes Where people are taking chits So he immediately is We gotta fix this situation He immediately goes we got a fixed situation and

You know correct everything and because of him mass disease and does not spread in San Francisco after the earthquake Wow And then he moves on again But a year later the plague comes back to San Francisco and This time it's all over the city Except for one place Chinatown Hmm At a hospital a 46 year old Irishman dies and then a nurse dies and then an intern and

health inspectors go into look and They find that the walls are literally heaving with rats And This time the city did not try and pretend everything was fine because white people are dying and it's an actual threat right So it has to be taken seriously and President Roosevelt sends 39 year old Rupert blue Back on September 12th 1907 and the plague is like I said everywhere except this one place and that one place being

Chinatown Because there were far fewer rats in Chinatown because of what blue had done previously So this just increases his belief that the plague is not a disease that only afflicts You know dirty poor immigrants non whites, right, right? anyone near rat can get it and He starts again a new rat catching campaign. He sends out teams of rat catchers He tells Residents all of the city how to secure trash from rats and plug up rat holes. So he's got the whole city working on right getting rid of these rats

The rat catchers are bringing thousands of dead rats and blue and his men are inspecting the rats They're always dizzy the the inspection men From the chemicals they're using and also they're getting regularly injected with a vaccine So they're just like wow constantly suffering Like to get through this, right? People keep dying entire families are dying Blues like we need more rat catching people so he may have he makes a pamphlet called how to catch rats But the plague is going on They're they're inspecting the rats and they're finding the

The percentage of rats with the plague is 1.5 percent hmm and in history a 2% infection rate is when the plague would really take off and explode in people. Okay. Well, it's just a tiny half a percentage and Spring is coming and warm weather means rats rat out more. They're out of their burrows. Also rat banging. Yeah Rat banging rat. I just a quick sidebar a great band and not a rats love to bang in the spring No, oh my god, bang bang time. Yeah, right bang time. Yeah, yeah Um, that also means there's more fleas

So blue calls a meeting with prominent citizens and residents. He's having these meetings. He's explaining the situation to you know people President Roosevelt's great white fleet It's because all the ships are painted white not I was waiting at this time. I was waiting It's 16 white battleships and they're sailing around the world to come to San Francisco to help, you know post earthquake They're bringing money Blue said look if this if these ships show up And the fleet can't stop because we're a plague city

It's going to be the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to this city. It's going to be catastrophic So now suddenly big so now suddenly big business is like well, we can't have that right And now big business jumps in with the sanitation efforts and they they spend A half a million to buy rat traps Thousands of pounds of cheese for bait That's adorable And they and the businesses buy just tons of rat catchers, right

The rat dead bounty is increased Newspapers now are gushing over how great blue is they just yeah Again, I mean like you're saying it's like once it's economy then they're like hey, this guy's a hero right time right place Blue keeps making speeches everywhere people are listening He's saying keep keep food out of reach seal your garbage pails kill every rat you can He ends the speech with quote. I intend to kill a rat or two myself tonight And I want all of you to do the same it is the noblest work you can do and then people would just fucking cheer and

Lighters our heads are basically empty The hordes of rats become fewer and fewer and the streets are becoming cleaner and cleaner What do you think the rat papers are saying they're probably They're like what the fuck is going on right now? Get the fuck out of town. Yeah Uh, no new no new plague cases for weeks Uh, he had the slaughterhouses in in the city condemned Refugee refugee camps have all lifted their wooden huts off the ground so people could chase the rats underneath them. Wow

Women campaign for increasing rat traps in schools and penny arcades and candy shops Like they're like save the children Stop the rats like it's all kids can't get it They educate kids children on the importance of not playing with rats Man, what a Damn it. What a damn it. What a time, huh? God what a time But that's what my son loves to do Man, that's great

Now some papers do turn on blue His chief bacteriologist kills himself after his son and wife dies so papers Start saying that all the blues men are unhinged and can't be trusted nice They say the rat catching campaign is meaningless and They say that blue blames rats because he has no one else to blame Because they obviously want to blame the chinese right right. They're like pleat any immigrant. Can we go back to being racist, please? Yeah, this is not working for me. It's been months

But also there's no plague so they can now do their fucking bullshit thing Right, you know going after people that help so blue points out. There's not been a Not one case of plague for three months And now the papers start saying that the city is too clean And they start mocking his obsession with sanitation. Oh my god. It's amazing Oh my god, like oh, it's like I just This is why chat gbt will never be able to fully say it's like you're not going to be able to throw that level of stupid in This guy hates dirt

It's just too clean Come on man. We don't lack at this clean But the great white fleet now arrives and 15,000 sailors come ashore And after a few days they leave and not one of them gets the plague, which is what everyone wanted, right? So blue is looking at the fleas on the rats And it had been assumed that the oriental rat flea was the most prominent But it turns out the northern european rat flea was actually the most prominent on the rats in san francisco

Now i'm not going to go into it because it's really gross, but it's because of how they feed They vomit up their stomach contents and the oriental flea Because of that passes on the disease more So the reason that san francisco essentially got lucky and didn't spread it to other cities and it didn't blow up Is just because there was a different kind of flea I think he still made it kind of gross, but that's cool. Yeah, but um So it was luck essentially. I mean they did it. That's why it had been the opposite had it been the other version It would have gone nuts. It would have exploded right

In october 1908 the last plague rat in san francisco was found and several weeks later Blue and the surgeon general he was probably like my friends my life. I didn't know. I don't know what a plague is. I'm widdle So several weeks later blue and the surgeon general declared the city free from the plague and blue left They had a formal banquet thrown in his honor The theme was san francisco is so clean a meal can be eaten off its streets, but come on. Don't do that really I guess eight ice cream Uh mousetraps served with fake rat heads. I seriously thought you were gonna say they were gonna eat ice cream off the street

I was like, don't And we'll be eating spaghetti off the ground Okay They sip cocktails out of garbage can glasses. Oh my god. It's you for assholes. Okay He was praised as the savior of the city and it was it had been nine years Since the plague's first victim died and at least 190 died, but probably a lot more When the surgeon general died a few years later and uh, and president taft chose rupert blue to be surgeon general Um about 12 people get the plague every year in the us

Uh, it's it's it's definitely you hear about it in california like rural squirrels and stuff But we have antibiotics to treat it, but some researchers Fear the plague will become resistant believing us once again. No way to stop another bubonic plague Well, that's a great end Thanks really great research. Thanks for the end. Um Um, uh, really great research on this by britney cohen brown. Uh, the sources were plague death at the golden gate the race to save america From the bubonic plague by david k randall

The barberry plague the black death in victoria san francisco by maryland chase and rats observations on the history and habitat of the city's most unwanted Habitants by robert sullivan. All right. Well, let's uh, let's not talk about anything else. Let's end the show There's no All right, buddy. Um We have uh, yeah, I'm trying to think what else. Uh, is there anything else to say? Um No, it's uh, so we are we are right now in our Current history. What yeah, where are we timeline? We are right when

governor gage is giving his speech that is a state of the state a third about how Uh, Canyon is bad. So we're at my eyes or microscopes Essentially, yeah, I think we are. Yeah, that's uh, it's very wild It's very wild to read Because I you know go you go and look at it and the two sides Um, and then the people in the so there's two sides There's people that are like the covet doesn't do anything and then there's the other people like no

It's really fucking bad and the the only thing I can say for sure is that the people who say it's bad just keep showing the deaths And the deaths are really bad the excess deaths it's Watching people not care about other people Especially in america. We just take it to We take it to fucking five thousand like we go full bore We don't care about other people and it's You can keep pretending but eventually

If you look at the statistics, you're going to be like, um, why are we not doing anything? The worst thing of all that just came out was a poll came out in washington state 50 percent of nurses Want to leave the business are planning to leave the business Because it's unsustainable. So we can all pretend like it's not happening, but we're going to lose teachers Yeah, and we're gonna lose nurses We're losing so many that eventually your society is like Like you how do you like that's what I ask people. So how do you think if you if you're gonna say it's over

What's gonna happen to the teachers what's gonna happen to the people who keep getting sick? They're not gonna want to keep keep getting sick. So how do you want to deal with it? You want to ignore it? Okay Okay, ignore it. But at the end of the day, it doesn't work. So you just tell me how it works Well gobble gobble y'all Gobble gobble