Anarchy! I Don’t Know What It Means But I Love It!: William Buwalda

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio, Zaren.

Do I know you?

Yes?

Zaren?

Oh, I do know you. Elizabeth Hey, I had to look over my newspaper that I'm reading.

Oh, I see you know it's ridiculous, I do. Oh.

Yes. Lawn Chair Larry. You ever heard of this cat? No lawnchair Larry Walters. That's his government name, the Larry Walter's part, not lawnchair, that part street name. Anyway. In nineteen eighty two, lawnchair Larry decided, you know what, I want to be the first man person to ever go up into the wild blue yonder and fly a lawn chair. And so he did just that. He tied forty weather balloons to a lawn chair. What and he got up to sixteen thousand feet.

It's like proto balloon boy.

In his launchair. Yes. So he had these eight foot helium filled weather balloons, right, and so they're attached to a Sear's aluminum lawnchair, you know, you know, the type early eighties lawnchair.

Good quality.

He had the chair tilted back at a forty five degree angle so he wouldn't like fall out and he's not just sitting prone proper you know the lean back. Now, he had a jug gallons of water that was his ballast that he was going to use to like get down or get up. You know, so he's like pouring out water or adding water. I don't anyway you get Yeah, So he called his aircraft the Inspiration one, and he stocked the the drink service with cold beer.

Yeah.

He had a CBE radio. He had an altimeter, so you know how high you up he got. He had a camera. He had a pelagon. Why a pelagon not for birds, Elizabeth, I didn't want you to worry. That was to be able to see get up a controlled descent. He'd yet out shoot out the balloons and so was controlled. This is like my kind of plan. I'm gonna shoot the balloon down.

You kind of planting. But so he did you have like a cooler strap to the bottom for his beer.

I think it was just like a small little like cozy cozy style, like I don't know. He flew for a long time. I mean he was up there. No, he eventually he eventually did come down, say mind you and pilots at Lax saw him like he was way sixteen thousand feet and he was like in the airspace. He was up there like I think he's up there about forty five minutes, and then he decided, Okay, I think I'm brave enough now to shoot some of the

Wow.

Yeah, so there you go.

That's ridiculous.

And by the way, when he was at Hollywood High he had done a science project called hydrogen in Balloons. He got a D on that project. They proved that teacher wrong.

That is ridiculous, Larry, that's so ridiculous. Do you know what else is ridiculous?

I love what's ridiculous.

Getting arrested and sent to Alcatraz for shaking someone's hand?

What this is ridiculous?

Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers.

Heis.

It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

You damn right.

You know who Emma Goldman is, right? Yeah, she's an anarchist, or was an anarchist. When we say anarchists, this isn't like the popular perception of it.

She didn't wear dress in black and.

She were studded black denim vest.

She's in the black block, yes, with.

An anarchy symbol in THEA and just healed me him.

Anarchy And I don't even know what it means, but I love it. That my favorite.

So anyway, it's not destroying property for no reason.

No, it's it was a political stance in the end of the nineteenth century that really well, yeah.

You're stepping away from imposed structures, hierarchies, and you're just kind of letting humans be free individuals for the most.

Part, and also using a lot of mutual aid and a lot of things where it's down to the individuals creating society at a much more atomic level then at a much fire top down.

And that sounds super peaceful, yeah, but not so fast. Just with any ism, they're good aspects, bad aspects.

It had a radical aspect of violence that yeah, right.

So they were interested in dismantling the seats of power in the West, and they wanted to turn that power over to the common people, the workers, yes, every day.

Folk like you and me.

This get parallel to communism in terms of like giving people to the power to the people. Yeah, in a different way.

But like obviously the seats of power didn't like this. People in charge don't like when people try and take power away, so they hit back hard and they created a lot of misinformation for the public about what anarchism.

We still deal with that too to this day. The whole anti socialist, anti anarchism messaging we.

Still deal with, and that took away people's ability to gauge it for themselves, because it's not not everyone's gonna agree with this or like it. But you know, we have to be able to assess things, like analyze them critically on.

Our own, to be able to say that's a penguin, like that's a bad bird, Well.

We should be the ones to decide whether we think it's good or bad exactly. It's like when I was a kid, I was in the car with my mom and a song came on the radio. My mom went to change the station like super quick, and I told her, no, no, no, sup, I like this song. I'd never heard it before, only those opening bars. Right then she switched the station anyway, and she told me it was garbage and that I didn't you don't like this song.

And you're not going to get on the bus go She said, no.

One liked it.

It was the bee Gees, and I didn't listen to it after that because I was told.

It was garbage. I mean she was right, of course, but we can't act like kids.

And let others with that charming Australian falsetto there is nothing wrong with.

You, apparently, I was told it's garbage.

So but like, you can't let people you know, treat like a kid tell you what's good, even if they wind up being right. You have to be able to figure grown up exactly. And it's important to remember that very few things are all good or all bad, so their life is shades of grapes. I love uncertainty, I really do anyway. Emma Golden she was born in eighteen sixty nine in Russia, had a really rough upbringing.

Family was super poor.

Her father didn't believe that women should be educated, so she had to educate herself in secret.

Was she raised in a Jewish program?

Do we know not?

But not in a program, but she she's a Jewish Russian Jewish g Yeah. She became a secret student, secret student coming this fall to CBS, so she read what she could find. She paid really close attention to the world around her too, and so there she was in the middle of all the turmoil in Russia at the time. The Tsar thought of himself as like progressive, but at least better than the last iteration, but the people did.

It was a low bar to clear right, like I'm not trampling your neighbors with horses. I'm progressive.

That people didn't agree with them, You're not progressive. They didn't want to be led by.

Royalty or like an out of touch bloodline that you know.

Away, you know, yeah, had no awareness of what they deal with in their.

Day to day exactly. So they wanted to decide their own futures. The anarchists were leading the way on this. In fact, they went so far as too, I shouldn't laugh assassinate. This is our Alexander, the second dude.

We were talking about that earlier. There's a lot of the anarchists assassinated by an anarchist between eighteen eighty and nineteen ten.

This happens a lot.

It was gruesome, by the way, so it was horrible, a horrible desk. Goldman, though, saw firsthand what's called propaganda of the deed in this those violence aimed at the ruling class. Intended to start a revelation, and I just loved the propaganda of the deed right. So it didn't happen right away in Russia in eighteen eighty one with the assassination by bombing of Alexander the Second, but it did happen eventually, and before that Russian Revolution could happen, though,

Oh, he was.

Just a nice guy.

They lived with her parents and she left him twice and the parents thought that was loose behavior. Like she kept saying, I can't take it anymore.

I'm out of here.

We I didn't want her to read so I can see how they might be.

So she leaves Rochester goes to New York City and it was there that she started hearing speeches given by other anarchists. And those guys are all fired up.

We're talking like street corners speeches.

Right, you know, in like like a Squashington Square park kind of stuff.

She's all head up about it. I like this.

So she saw the power of the spoken word and she wanted in.

And they were some fiery orators, I mean, like Lucy anarchists exactly.

So she still had to fight for gender equality even in the anarchist move and like, the more she fought, the fire more fiery she got. So she and her special friend Alexander Berkman, they focused particularly on rights and protections for workers. It was their big emphasis. So they supported a strike by steel workers who saw their wages drop even though productivity in the mill was increasing. So they had all these efficiencies. How do they want to

So they attack him. They don't, they don't.

He's not killed, and it doesn't. But this attack doesn't rally the worker to rise up. They're like, come on, like we know that guy, and like, you know that's not going to help our cause.

Yeah.

Yeah, So they thought it was horrible. They're disgusted by it. They just wanted fair compensation. They're like, we don't want blood, we just want some cats.

This is not going to get me Saturday off. I don't see how this is.

So as the US economy hit the skids in eighteen ninety three, Goldman kicked her show into high gear. She gave really stirring speeches, and in one she pushed the crowd to take what was THEIRS quote, if they do not give you work, demand bread. If they deny you both take bread. So the authorities thought that she was inciting the crowd to riot, and she was arrested and that actually got her a lot of good press.

So people who were they were all.

Suffering, you know, the economies, can't you know whatever, and they side with her. You know what, Yeah, if I'm starving, I'll steal bread if you won't give me a job.

And also at that time in America, you have a lot of populations who are immigrant populations coming from countries that were far worse, and so they already have a you know, like a long history of being oppressed. So then I'm not going to take it now in the land of opportunity, like I came here to a very chance, they're really heated in right, right.

And so she gets she gets found guilty for trying to incide a riot, gets a year.

She's just like Axl Rose, Just.

Like, I mean, how many times have we said that, Ama Goldman.

Actual Rose, you know, two sides of the same coin. So but she got a year, not the probation like Axle did, and the judge branded her a quote dangerous woman.

Oh that's the one.

That's how she gets it. So jail time didn't suppress her support. People were still.

Probably helped her.

Yeah, they're even more eager to hear her.

Speak and now you can raise money off of this.

Yeah.

But also it's like if you hear that this woman is like about to get arrested and she's getting people all riled up. Even if you're like I don't care one way or the other what she's saying, it's like it's an attraction. I want to see this woman like get everyone fired out. So she starts touring the US, speaking just like AXL Rose.

This is an amazing the parallel so crazy. Who's her slash? That's what I want to.

So, speaking to crowds of people, she's like, you know what, topple the status quot handover control to the workers, the regular people. She was against capitalism, she was against government, which, like you know, I guess we do need kind of some stroke. She was against organized religion. She was against the patriarchy.

Anything top down. She was against pretty much.

So she supported a woman's access to birth control, which was revolutionary, and she wanted to give women bodily autonomy. And she also was really stressing the idea, if that women can have some sort of birth control, that's how you prevent abortion.

Yes, birth control gives you a bodily autonomy because it allows you to plan and exactly.

She believed in free love like before the hippies, Oh, the one you're with.

Free love as in the bedroom, not free love is in like I'm cool with my neighbor.

Free love is in like there's a rose in the in the fisted glove and the eagle flies with the dove. If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. So she believed in gay rights.

On give you time to that. She believed in gay rights, which was completely unheard of at the time.

Yeah, completely completely did you even call gay rights? Was there different? Imagine they had.

Some sort of coding of like love and dirt. But anyway, she had affairs with both men and women and there wasn't a label that she met that she didn't hate.

I'm sorry, I'm over here with like confirmed bachelor rights, you know, like.

Anyway, yes, and of course like she also believed that targeted violence could be justified. She said, sometimes you need to kind of crack skulls or blow something up in order to get some change, which may or may not be true, but you know, history.

In a lot of ways would be on her side.

That's true, that's true. So she talked a lot about this, but she never performed any act of violence herself. Of those, I feels kind of a cop out.

I don't just kind of I think that's a cop you're telling someone else to do.

I wouldn't be about it, be about yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm suspicious of someone who rallies others to do stuff that they can get them arrested or murdered, that that person won't do them.

Especially as all that they won't pay. Like, I respect the Don because he's like, do the violence, here's the money, I'll take care of your family, go to jail. But if it's like just Bob my neighbor.

The violence, talk about the mafia, the Don has done stuff to get to that position totally.

It was like it's an understanding language of violence.

Right, and so this is the like you just get okay, you there.

You're just spout in your mouth saying it's not.

Really different than like suicide bombers, like go out there and you're not the one doing it, you're telling me to do it.

I was going to a couple of steps and like kind of like the you know, the online clowns to want to go and like be like talk loud when they're on their keyboard, like the keyboard Warriors. But they would never say, that's what I.

Say something in person to someone's face.

But yours is well met too.

It always is.

So, so even the people who didn't agree with her had to acknowledge that she had a way of like capturing audience imagination and stirring emotion. The US Justice Department didn't like this one bit.

No, they weren't. They weren't about it.

So they sent spies to watch her every move, their spies, and to watch it's spy versus spy, and to watch every move of those in attendance at her rallies. So in eighteen sixty nine, like I said, Goldman was born in Russia. And also in eighteen sixty nine, a man named William Bowalda was born in the Netherlands. Okay, okay, non sequitar.

Yeah, just dropping that in there, why not?

And then also whoburg everyone around the globe who was born in eighteen.

Sent was a man born in New Deviles.

Well, this William Balde.

He moved to the US two years before Emma Goldman did.

He was fourteen by Billy b His.

Family emigrated to Michigan. His parents only spoke Dutch, never learned English, not assimilators. When he was twenty three, in the beginning of the banking panics of the Gilded Age, he joined the military, and just like a long line of his fourthfathers, so it was all military family. He served five tours of duty. He was in the Philippines during the Spanish American War. That was some crazy fighting, okay, crazy times.

So he joined to like post eighteen ninety seven panic and then he goes So he's there for eighteen ninety nine for the exactly okay, I got you.

And he was a great soldier.

He had an excellent record of service, lauded by his superiors the army. They were so loving his superior blacksmith skills, like to do it again, will and the spark go on and just like a good girl from the Tom Petty song. He loved horses in America too, eight.

On all the boomer lyrics.

That was good.

In nineteen o eight, he was stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco. This had been a key point of assembly for army troops. They headed out to the Pacific Room and it was so everyone's going out to the Pacific Room from there, and that was especially true for those headed to the Philippines during Spanish America War, So this wasn't his first time in the city. Nineteen oh eight was actually a calm year for the US military,

A little bit of a lull between the doors.

For now, the Presidio is just a storied out post.

Located clean our guns.

It's at the mouth of.

The San Francisco Bay, just cleaning guns. Just a bunch of guys doing guy stuff. They're right at the foot of where the Golden gate Bridge would be built decades later. And William Bewilda, as I said, was stationed there.

Let's take a.

Break, beautiful place, I'm just telling random biographies.

Nice, let's take a break.

When we come back, i'll tell you how and why am a goldman and William Bewelda cross path.

Oh, I'm guessing there's a crime too.

Yes, feeling groovies erin o easy breezy. You know.

When we left off William Bewalda he was stationed at the precity on San Francisco. Yeah, b bad billy b Emma Goldman.

EG.

She was on tour, lighting up audiences with her screaming lyrics.

She's like, you know what equality class warfare?

Oh, she howled all the time on stage.

Goldman.

She got to San Francisco on April seventeenth, nineteen oh eight. She had just spoken two nights prior in Sacramento, Sacramento, as we say Tomato exactly, it's about ninety miles from San Francisco. The Sacramento mayor's wife was very displeased that she had spoken in Sacramento.

She didn't think that.

Her husband should have allowed Goldman to speak in the city at all, and she went so far as to sit for an interview with the newspaper and with her husband in attendance, for the sole purpose of dressing him down about it publicly. Her She's like, quote, I have my opinion of the mayor of any city who would allow Emma Goldman to speak in public. I do not think she ought to be permitted to speak. If she was not good enough to speak in Chicago, I don't

I can probably attest to that.

And then he's all mayor out and.

Oh it's like, oh my god, it's Emma Goldman in disguise. Okay, So you can see that her very presence was enough to get people steamed. And on April seventeenth, she went to San Francisco to steam up some more folks.

So she's like the early twentieth century AOC at this point where just her presence gets people heated.

Yeah, or like an early twentieth century Andrew Dice Clay.

Okay, I got that one outrage.

Yeah, she rolls into town.

They're like, she's got her leather direct. So she gets to San Francisco. She gets there in the evening heads to the Saint Francis Hotel. Nice Hotel, The paper announced the arrival of quote Queen of the Anarchists.

Wow, yeah, really doesn't understand anarchy.

No, exactly like the whole royalty.

So she'd been tailed to San Francisco by SFPD under orders of their police chief, Chief Biggie.

To get out.

No, I'm not more on him in a second, and the US State Department. So the US State Department contacts Biggie and says, send your detectives to intercept her in Sacramento and follow her to the city.

So that's what they did before Hoover. They had the State Department and this kind of stuff.

Okay, and then let me tell you about Chief Biggie.

Yeah, please, I want to know.

He was my great great grandpa's boss. What at the San Francisco Police Department.

Your great great grandpa was a cop, and.

My great great grandpa and about seven or eight other officers were busted whoa for tuning up and shaking down a couple of flophouse owners on the Barbary Coast, and Chief Biggie he put them on paid leave for a while and then brought most of them back.

A couple of weeks later.

So I was going to do a show in your family.

Pretty much soon.

And then here's the best part. He was still chief when my great great grandpa died by supposedly shooting himself in the head three times.

Oh you know that happens, you get that quick finger.

A detective arrived before the ambulance got there. No, he had tested that. My great great grandpa told him that he didn't shoot himself in the head. And then he said, quote, you know the captain, and I belong to a secret organization and I can't tell anything what That's what my great great grandpa said, your.

Great great grandma's dying words, which there's a secret like a cabal in the NPD, and I've got three bullets in my head and I can't say anything about it.

I didn't do this to myself.

Amazing wheeled away by.

An ambulance crew and he dies six hours later, and the police are like, oh, no, he's just confused.

It's in the paper. No, he was just confused.

I have a copy of his death certificate and like the cause of death is scratched out in suicides. So Chief, Biggie, this guy, Wow, he's in my orbit and Chief Big his team. Yeah, now we know who we're dealing with. So the police had learned earlier that a bunch of anarchist literature had been shipped out ahead of Emma Goldman's.

Survival, so they're getting ready to crack called.

Yeah.

So the address was even provided in the paper when they're writing about this that like.

Oh all this shore.

Botwell Street to that address is now the tow eighty one oh one interchange and it takes up like which takes up like sixteen square box. But anyway, that's where the house was. The cops told the press that they knew about the boxes of flyers and books. They knew all about it, but they weren't going to seize them. But they told Goldman, you can't hand them out.

Yeah, So it's you know.

It's like how there's no penalty for possession just for distribution in terms of magic mushrooms in Oakland.

Oh very apt. I was like gonna say the same thing, but you beat me too, just like magic mushrooms.

And no penalty for possession just for distribution.

So Goldman got to the Saint Francis Hotel and there were people from the movement waiting to greet her, like, hey, we're the movement. She's like, what movement? The anarchy movement? Oh okay, I questioned your commitment about down to your queen, Like wait a second, this is anarchy. So they noticed that the detectives fought were following her. This the crowd and then they started getting a little rowdy, like there's like you know, when I say crowd, it's like six people.

So hey, what what them getting rowdy?

Like?

So then Chief Biggie shows up and he's like, you know what, I'm gonna arrest everybody here if you start something. And her dudes leave, we don't want to and she just like checks into the hotel with a flourish and heads up to her room. And so she was scheduled to give a series of speeches in the city and then head to laout ten days later. One of her speaking gigs was a debate with some socialists on solutions to social.

Process I'm telling you, and they were like this is going to be heated.

Yeah. They were big competing like leading edge of thought about how do we create a better society? These are the two competing mode, right, and.

So let's go back to the Saint Francis for a second.

Huh.

The management there didn't like the attention that Goldman brought, so they kicked her out after a night.

You're out of here.

Money spends and he's like, nope, not that, not your money.

So she and her friends they decamped for that address that's now a freeway interchange. Meanwhile, where all the materials are. Meanwhile, which like.

Why if they're like of the people, why.

Were you staying at the Saint Francis and not at like the anarchist safe house.

I think we know the answer to that, Elizabeth. So I'm questioning commitment to your.

Sparkle motion, Yes, exactly.

So. Meanwhile, Chief Biggie assigned a squad fifty cops, some on horseback, like some playing clothes to watch all of Goldman's speaking engagements.

That's a lot.

If any of them felt that anything in lammatory was said, they were authorized to break up. The speech busted up. During her first speech, she denounced police authority, and she shared what the San Francisco Call newspaper called quote startling views on free love.

Which like give me the transcript from they're like men and women are allowed to sit on the same park.

Ben ankles or should be shown in public.

And then at the same thing she spoke about the right for workers to strike WGA.

Let's hear it.

She pushed for a disregard of laws that govern the relations of the sexes. So again like you guys can sit in the cab together. Chief Biggie was right there listening to this supposedly shocking material, and he even had his stenographer taking notes, just taking holding down. The paper noted that an oddity at this event was the large number of Japanese citizens present. Well, and apparently they really clapped for the lines about race equality, like can you imagine.

I'm focusing on the imperial part that thing? Ye, No, No, these this is people.

They're like, look, we want to be treated like the Americans.

We are, we've been here for a while.

Well, and they described The paper described the audience as quote men and a few women, most of whom were foreigners. Like the San Francisco Call was the most out of control paper. I think the Examiner, maybe the Chronicle was very stage.

Yeah, Examiner's most conservative and wild.

Yeah, the examiners like yellow journalism, the all kind of goes nuts on some stuff.

Anyway, the call sounds like the one where it's trying to split the difference, like occasionly we're gonna say something inflammatory, but we also have the news.

Yeah, they're really reliable on this that they have, like a good amount of information.

The chronicle doesn't waited.

I love Americans calling anybody else a foreigner. It's always the most funny, iron irony. To me.

I'm like, oh, really, Well, as Jack White said, kick yourself out, you're.

A foreigner too, exactly, Jack, I'm.

Just about the lyrics that.

So in the following days, the papers gave up reporting about Goldman. This just got boring. She didn't get arrested. The speeches show Yeah, only there was one publication that kept up coverage, and that was the Italian language paper.

Oh yeah, they're like, you know, give.

It in April, April twenty six that's where we get to. That's when things change. On April twenty sixth, nineteen oh eight, Emma Goldman gave a speech in San Francisco called what is Patriotism? That kind of sounds like the like a sixth grade essay contest. Yeah, so she opens up by asking if patriotism is love of one's birthplace and hopes

And largely I agree with her. I mean not to be like, oh, I'm a citizen of the world, but I do believe that this whole globe is my home. I don't believe like the invisible lines or the colored sections on the mad are real. I'm like, I know too much about history for me to think that, oh, you're a Canadian. What does that even mean?

Come on now, Yeah, So she questions very nature of national identity. We're born into a particular country by luck, you know, and if we steal ourselves off and say we're better than any other country and fight to the death over something that was, in essence purely random, Like how is that a noble thing?

And how applicable is it? If like a main lobster fisherman and I are both Americans, you're gonna you're gonna gain something from calling us both Americans. You're gonna understand something about us. I mean, you can understand that culturally, but not like an identifier, like I have brown hair and that's going to mean something about my parents. You know, people act like it's an effect of life and not an aspect of culture.

Well, and she points out that this is a human thing, but it's not necessarily an indictment of America alone.

No, No, every other country does.

Exactly. The whole idea that indye nation is an identity is by thing. I'm saying, your identity is a member of a culture, not that you are an American.

Right, So then she starts rallying against spending money on military weapons and displays when so many people were going hungry, you know, And you can see why she is both hated and revered, and you can see that the police presence and looming crackdown. We're kind of idiotic because it's like, this is not inflammatory speech. This is it's just something they don't agree with.

Yeah, and its demands for decency more so than really violence.

But then in the shadow of the presidio, she says, quote, an army and navy represent the people's toys to make them more attractive and acceptable. Hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of toys. That was the purpose of the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the Pacific coast. That every American citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the United States a wonderful thing to remember? Is

I mean, I understand what she's saying. She's going to lose people on the toys part because you're taking something very complex and minimizing it.

But I agree it's the minimization of the complex that a lot of this is.

Theoretically, it would be amazing if we were all brothers and sisters under the sun.

And you know the Blooper sticker, wouldn't it be great? At the Air Force had to hold a bag saale to buy a bomber, our kids had all the money they needed for books. I'm like, yeah, if okay, so want to be great if humans weren't involved this equation, that's what saying.

It's not all the world works.

So what's nuts is that we think of anarchy as inherently violent when this is like peace loving stuff.

Very hippy stuff.

Yeah, the nuns at my high school talk like this.

But the free love, well, the free love you throw down your arms.

I mean not for them, but for the world. Like would they have agreed with the whole idea of like the pastoral beauty and the music and the free love. I don't know the leaving aside the free love. Maybe I should stop saying free love but fully engage your body right, and that.

You are a fully service to all people, but not in that one. So this is how she wraps it up, quote, when we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for the great structure where we all shall be united into a universal brotherhood, a truly free society.

I would like that would be.

Yeah, theoretically we could.

Figure out a way to I think mature as of people on this planet so that we can look and have two things be true at once. That I can both be an American and a member of a global community, and I have responsibilities to both of those identities. If you want to make them identities, I'd be into that.

Yeah, you know, not gonna happen.

There were, of course non believers in the crowd. They would huff and hawe at what she said. Most though, we're all in, and when her speech ended, the place erupted into applause.

Let's take a break.

Wait, so they carrying her out like on their shoulders, like everybody loved it.

Everyone loved it. Place goes nuts nice.

When we come back, I'll tell you what happened next.

Zaren, Elizabeth Saren, Yes, Elizabeth.

Close you on.

Oh it up idea.

I want you to picture it.

You are one of the cops in my great great grandpa's secret organization, a fellow veteran of the forest.

You were there through the great quake of nineteen oh six.

You and he have been at it since before Big Bertha rolled into town. He's not on duty today, my great great grandpa. He's on paid leave for extorting the owner of a sleazy hotel. You have been assigned to the Emma Goldman speech. You and the other guys think this is foolish. She's not saying anything too crazy. She irritated the sap out of you. But what loud broad doesn't. I'm trying to make you historically accurate. The speech is

That's how you talk.

By the way, you see a bunch of people head towards the stage This has happened every night at these things. They want to shake her hand, They want to tell her how wonderful she is. You want to tell him to get back to work, even though it Sunday night. You see, though, that there's a man in uniform among the group, headed right toward Emma Goldman. You can't believe this is some gi going to shut her up for good. You look around and you notice that all the other cops are watching.

No one is moving. The air grows still.

You watch as thirty nine year old William Bewalda reaches the stage. There's chatter up there, audience members hurriedly telling Goldman how much they admire her, reaching up to shake her hand. From this scrum of people, you see a hand go up the army guy. You can see his uniform. His hand gets to Goldman. She looks down at him, He looks up at her. She takes his hand and shakes it. He nods at her, says something, Then he turns and heads towards the exit. A gasp goes up

They're on it. You watch as the detectives follow the man. He's their problem.

Now you pull a flask out of your jacket and take a sip and shifts over. The detectives tailed the Walda out into the foggy night. They didn't know if he was going to be like maybe some crank who got hold of uniform, if he was just doing it for show. And you know, if that was the case, they were going to arrest him for impersonating military personnel, kind of the opposite of stolen valor, you know, if he was in the army. Though, if he actually was, they were going to turn him over to the police.

He's just a curious Well.

No, here's the thing. He was studying shorthand. He wanted to expand his skill set, so he figured it was like a good extra size and taking shorthand dictation, he would go to this speech. It was his understanding that she used really powerful and figurative language, and he thought that would be a good opportunity to flex his developing skills.

Wow.

And then something like I said he'd been going to church stuff, different denominations.

Different religions.

Yeah. When the detectives saw him cruise into the presidio.

Your hobbies dictation, long walks on the monography.

They headed right over to the base headquarters and alerted the authorities, and so the cops they told the army about what they saw. They described the guy. The MPs went to fetch him, brought him back. Cops confirmed, Yep, that's the guy that I saw. Private William bowalda company A of the Engineer Corps.

He was then court martialed.

What.

Yeah, here's the official charge quote being in uniform and an address delivered by Emma Goldman at San Francisco, California, which address was an attack and criticism on government of the US and the Army and Navy thereof did frequently and repeatedly applaud the set address, and did, on its conclusion declare to the same Emma Goldman that his sympathy was with her and his approval of her remarks.

Now do we know what he said to her when they shook hands.

Up for debate.

So the charge was for violating the sixty second Article of War.

I only know the first forty.

I know one through sixty one.

This calls for the punishment of a serviceman if he used quote contemptuous or disrespectful words against the President, vice President, the Congress of the United States, the Secretary of War, or the governor of Legislature of any states.

Yeah, I'm familiar with this, but I thought they're basically a disparagement clause.

But it's like, well, the whole thing has to do with him being in uniform and saying I approve of your Yeah, it's the Yeah, he wouldn't have caught the charge if he wasn't in if.

He was in his street clothes.

That's a big deal of the uniform.

So the detectives claimed that he vigorously applauded, and they said, you just about lost his mind.

He was so excited.

Happened like an idiot on with.

And he said.

They said he walked up to the stage and loudly announced that, you know, Emma Goldman, I sympathize with you, and I totally approve of your remarks. This is not what happened whatever. But Walda, he pleads not guilty. He gave a very innocent.

Court martial guilty. I don't know you can plead.

He gives a very innocent story about practicing stenography to help uncle Sam. Sure, and then he was swept to the front of the hall by the crowd, and that he only said, how do you do?

He hasn't as they excused. Yeah, he didn't say, I sympathize with your cause.

Sure walked gently.

Said he got pushed to the front by the crowd, and what could he say?

But he's a gentleman, zaren.

I don't anybody about this.

Later he's more truthful about the account, but it still wasn't anywhere near the description of events that cops provided. So only two soldiers had ever up until that point been accused of annay. One was a guy who, when told that President McKinley had been assassinated, said quote.

I'm glad he's dead. Oh and he got twenty years in jail for that.

Wow.

Yeah, Yeah, they don't play, They do not play. The officers selected for the court martial were unusually high in rank, and that's because the case was so high profile, and they knew that it would set everybody's going crazy on the wire and everywhere, it's everywhere, and that this would set a precedent going forward when it came to this sort of staff. I always wry about the presidents at trial, but Walda admitted that he'd been to four of her speeches,

Practicing I'm a humidicctaphone.

What Yeah, he said that Emma Goldman's language, as he put it, was quote so peculiar that he had to give transcribing a shot.

Now I read you passages.

Yeah, it's not peculiar. It's not that striking.

No, And quite frankly, it's like in today, in today's society, it's not shocking.

It's you know, and there are.

Other orators of the day who I know had better speeches, and I imagine there were a lot.

Of them right, but you know he's saying it's so peculiar. He did admit that he probably shouldn't have been there, and he told the court that he thought the content of her speech was nonsense.

Why would he be there in uniform, It's like it's not He was working and he just had to get over.

He was he was at the Annville and he's like looked at his watch like, oh snap, I'm gonna be late.

He ran over.

He had character witnesses vouch for him as being a good soldier who loved his country, horses, America. Didn't matter. He was found guilty. General Frederick Funston fighting Fred Funston. He was in charge of the presidio at the time and thus lee the court martial. Fun fact about Funston, he was a boss at the presidio two years earlier during the Great Quake, and he declared martial law even though he didn't have the authority to do so.

Wow, and then it never took effect.

And you know, his name basically would mean FunTown or Fundstown town.

So Freddie FunTown. He he did successfully order the demolition of buildings in order to create a firebreak to stop the fire from spreading in the city after the quake, but his demolitions by explosion caused more fires.

Oh that doesn't happened with bombs job dingis.

Yeah, so he was no fan of Emma Goldman. He had just returned from Esmeralda County, Nevada, where he and some troops had put down a labor strike by the industrial workers of the World.

Oh the I w W the wobblies. Wait the this is like the Ludlow strike era. There's like a lot of the Colorado strikes. Okay, Nevada strike.

So he comes back and then two months later he's dealing with this, so we know his mindset. So he sentenced Bewalda to five years hard labor on Alcatraz the rock.

Wow.

Yeah, all for handshake Land of the.

Free in a uniform es Actually, so after a month his sentence was reduced to three years. So they knocked a little.

It's tough for a bad fashion sense. Well, sir, are all you had to do was wear the ride out.

Remember he had taken off his name.

I know, that's what I mean.

He gets reduced to three Why do you.

Want to wear it so badly? If you do all the other work just changed the shirt.

Bob right, Uh, I think he wants to be in the uniform.

That's That's what I'm saying. Is bad bad fashion.

Send so he gets he gets it down to three years. Two reasons for this his years of dutiful and loyal service and the fact that they believed he was under the sway of Emma Goldman and that he suffered a lapse in judgment. Oh, Goldman used her while wiley feminine ways to cast an anarchist spell on him.

The old legal strategy, blame the woman.

They were terrified of her. Yeah, like yeah, so but then they all and then they gave him a dishonorable.

Discharge of course, up on the rock. And what did the woman herself think of all this?

That's what I want to know.

When she found out about his arrest and conviction, she got to work. This was the exact type of thing she was talking about in her speech, the blinding and negative power of patriotism over the human instinct for logic and good. She raised money, She rallied her supporters. She told the press that this incident had only quote aided her cause she really did.

He gave a good example what she's fighting against.

And at the same time, General Funston.

Got to work a fun town camic for you, only.

This time Freddy FunTown. He was working to free Bewalda. Oh and he was successful.

Get out fred I knew I liked this, Freddy.

On New Year's Eve nineteen oh eight, crazy enough to make it work. Go on, William.

Bowalda was pardoned by none other than the anarchist hating President of the United States, Teddy Roosevelt.

Oh wow.

General Funston convinced Roosevelt that Bewalda wasn't an anarchist and shouldn't be punished as such.

Huh and just do we happen to know what year the he got the he kept not pardoned, but basically he got the pardon.

He was released pardon on New Year's Eve nineteen oh eight. So January first, nineteen oh nine. He struts out there, out off the rock. I don't know what changed Funstan's mind on this, but it was enough to sway the president.

Whatever this is probably yeah, this's got to be post after Teddy Roosevelt got shot by the anarchist and his speech saved him. He gets shot in the speech.

Yeah, so I'm not sure, like if there I don't know. I don't know what the deeper her periods this was. But what Boalda was freed only now he actually was an anarchist.

He came out hard and he's like, all right.

Man, because it's a long quote here from the Spokane Press, but it's a real quirker. This is what Bowalda had to say upon his release. Oh nice, I would never have dreamed of taking anarchy seriously if they hadn't arrested me and thrown me into prison. It was during the long hours over there on the island that I began to think for myself, think for myself.

That was the marvel of it.

Someone had done my thinking for me for fifteen years. Those statements of miss Goldman in that lecture, which ought to be called the Farce of Patriotism, burned into my soul. They made me angry when I first heard them. Then I thought they were all bosh. This woman had come into my and thrown down all my gods. I took refuge in the stronghold of ignorance, where a sluggish brain finds comfort, and said to myself, this woman is crazy. Now I thank the government for opening my eyes and

He should give speeches, right, there's some language.

When someone thinks they're going to control a teenager and like it, they just rebel. So this whole arresting him didn't go well for the Feds. But Walda met Goldman once again after his release. They shook hands once more, and this was actually the start of a lifelong friendship. She raised funds for him to live on now that he was out and dishonorably discharge. She'd come to town from speaking in San Diego.

He worked on growing a beard exactly.

She invited him on stage in San Francisco, so two weeks after his release from Alcatraz, he spoke about being there, the court martial, the imprisonment, and then after the speech, Goldman was arrested for inciting a riot once again, and Bowalda. He came out of the theater to the scene of Goldman getting arrested, and he shouted out that it was an injustice, and then he too was arrested. Now his case was dismissed, Goldman was found not guilty, off she went back on the road.

Bewalda.

He moved to Michigan to take care of his recently widowed mother, and even though he was in an isolated rural area of Michigan, he maintained his anarchist activity. He sent the medal that he'd received for bravery while fighting in the Philippines back to the Secretary of War along with a strongly worded letter. He organized Goldman's appearances in Grand Rapids, Michigan, somewhere she hadn't really visited before meeting him. He wrote letters to the local papers expressing his views

Imadging, like a Pete Sigger kind of guy.

Yeah, totally exactly what I was thinking. He lived out the rest of his day's farming and like just as being a good member of the community.

Yeah, he turned a sword into plowshare exactly.

One arrest for the ridiculous crime of shaking a woman's hand turned his whole world upside down. And then sent him on a course in life that he never would have imagined.

Wow.

Absolutely, I like that.

So I have to say, there's no benefit for punishing curiosity. It is my ridiculous takeaway. Thanks for asking. It can backfire in spectacular ways, curiosity.

What's your ridiculous takeaway, Sarah, I'll look at you. You know I want it.

Wow, I'm so give me a moment. I'm fuck clumpedy. No, But in all honesty, I would say I agree with you about you. You shouldn't punish curiosity. You should always educate curiosity. And sometimes that takes a moment you don't as the other person want to give. So that's the other part is basically, you know, thinking of the other over yourself occasionally is really important for educating both yourself

That well, And I kind of feel like if you think that the way that you're doing things is right and the best way to do something, then you shouldn't be concerned if people criticize it because it's right.

So you know, like you.

Don't have to convince someone. Okay, if I give you a chair that's made of wood, and I give you a chair that's made of paper, and I say, you know you can sit down in these right either one you go to sit down no matter what I tell you to try to convince you that the chair made paper is a good chair. It looks like a charis a real chairs? Important sit in the chair. As soon as you try to sit in it, all that stuff goes out, So it all only matters is is it

Yeah, well, I mean it's also it's like they learn their lesson that if you know, they believed the government believed in what they were doing. And then when he stepped outside of that for a second, not fully, but just listen to it, when he instead of stepping out into the water, he looked at the water, Yeah, to punish him for that. Had he not done that, he would still he would have had a long military career.

And you know the.

Tradition of rum Springer. Okay, yes, yes, I think that is one of the most brilliant examples of how to.

So when the Amish kids are coming up, they go there.

They're allowed a moment a year off from all that they've been known. So they're basically, I don't know if it's seventeen eighteen, whatever, it is, basically around your teenage years, you're you know, inculcated in the Amish tradition, and then you're given a year to go out and test literally do you want to be a member of our community?

Maybe it's exactly exactly.

And this also goes for everything I and it goes for power, love anything. If you have to convince another person, then it's not really happening. They should want to do. You should captivate them, compel them, but not have to convince them.

Yeah, agreed, Like you're right. That applies to pretty much everything. So that's it. That's all I have. Thank you. I liked it too.

Please please don't send any any angry emails and everybody or them that's true. I am not going to read them. Angry reviews about the Lady Host. You can find us online at Ridiculous.

Oh yes there is, there is.

There's an angry about the lady.

The lady host. Yeah, no one ever gets mad at the man host.

You know, the lady host. She stepped out of Laine the man.

He really got a pair on him?

Man?

How dare he tell me about I talk about a lot of nonsense too? Where is my derision? Where are my critics?

I just want someone to say, look at the ovaries on her Yeah, instead of like this lady host needs kram it. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com or at Ridiculous Crime on Twitter, Instagram, threads is the newest thing.

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Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave Anarchy and the g A.

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