S3E5: Double Barrel

Hey there, it's your host ed helms.

Here.

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted to remind you that my brand new book is coming out on April twenty ninth. It's called Snaffo, The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups, and you can pre order it right now at snafudashbook dot com. Trust me, if you like this show, you're gonna love this book. It's got all the wild disasters spectacular face plants we just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker. I am also going on tour to celebrate. That's right.

She didn't have much in the way of financial support. And one of the things that was indicative of the attitude of the dries is that they passed these laws but gave no money for enforcement.

Playing by the rules just couldn't hold back the tide of liquor washing over America.

The fact that there were only twenty six hundred prohibitionations covering the entire Canadian border, of the Mexican border, and both coasts.

It's ridiculous.

There's a storm rolling in over the little town of Homer, Nebraska, in the creek bottoms and river beds that criss crossed the eastern border of the state. The water starts to rise and it all runs downhill towards Homer. It's nineteen nineteen and one of Homer's newest residents a man named Richard Hart is riding home with some neighbors. He didn't grow up in Nebraska. He was the kind of kid who fell in love with the wild West. When he was a teenager, he ran off to be a cowboy,

Homer is very close to the Missouri River. When Richard arrived, there was flood.

This is Richard's great grandson, Corey Hart. And no, it's not the eighties rockstar Corey Hart, who wears sunglasses at night, much to the disappointment of my inner ten year old. So families in Homer, Nebraska know all too well how the area is prone to flooding, and this one is really bad. Water rises up and crashes into the little town. Dozens of houses are destroyed and some are even completely washed away. For Richard and the Winch family in the car, the situation gets dire.

What didn't realize is that a car that the n was also beginning to be overtaken by that flood.

The storm pounds on the hood of the car, but through the rain they see a girl walking on the side of the road. They pull over to let her in and tell her it's not safe outside, But before they can get the car moving again, they're caught in a surge of water. It rises up under them, lifting the car and sweeping the whole thing into the current. The little girl is terrified, and in a moment of panic, she jumps out of the car and she's instantly flushed downstream.

And so Richard saw what was happening and jumped in to say the girl.

He swims hard and stays in control despite the raging flood around him. When he catches up to her, he finds she's caught on a tangle of barbed wire fence invisible under the murky brown surface. Working quickly, Richard untangles her and swims on. He drags her to the far bank. Then he turns back to the river.

Kathleen Lynch was in the vehicle that was floating away, but Richard and another individual and Homer, we're able to jump in and pull that car to safety.

Richard bites the river yet again to save Kathleen's life and drag the Winch family car back to dry land. Yes, you heard that right. He pulls a car from a raging flood one of those super human adrenaline rushes, I guess.

So it was his bravery that really caught the eye of Kathleen and said that this is a guy that I want to be with.

Maybe a little bit of transference going on here, but I'm kind of falling in love with this guy right now. I mean, who wouldn't. As the flood cleared and the story spread, the town of Homer decided Richard Hart was just the kind of hero they needed. He may have still been an outsider, but they made this rugged twenty something their town marshal, and just in the nick of time, because there was another flood coming. The floodud of illegal

You love to show off, and so if you could have the opportunity to show off his sharp shooting skills, he would. There are rumors that he would shoot apples at the top of people's heads. If you think, if Richard Hart, it's a thing, it's always two guns. It's two guns, you know, and so Why are you not going to call someone like that, two gun heart?

It just fits Richard. Two gun Heart. It's pretty good. You gotta admit, I've been workshopping Eddie near Sighted Helms for a while, but the focus group around my kitchen table is not a fan. For some reason. Richard, though, was living out his childhood dream, the hero of the story he'd always imagined. When World War One took Richard, George Cassidy, and a couple of million others over to France, the Great War made Richard an honest to goodness soldier.

But afterwards, as he's heading out west, he just gets off on this stop in Nebraska and sees this town Homer, and knew this was a point far enough west where that lifestyle still existed, so he could.

Continue this mission in his life to be a cowboy.

Now, by this point, there weren't a ton of old West cowboys still bopping around out there. Wild Bill, Buffalo Bill, all the old bills. That's an older generation. It's the stories that kept them alive, you know. The wave of legacy sequels to classic nineties flicks Twister, Terminator, Jurassic Park, Jumanji. It was kind of like that Richard loved the Wild West shows when he was a kid, and he was determined and to live out the sequel Western law man

Governor recognized the fact that if we're going to have prohbition agents, we need people that are fearless, and Richard Hart was somebody who fit that to a tee.

Toting a gun into the hills to face down enemies of the law. It was a dream come true for Richard. But once he had his prohibition badge pinned to his chest, he found he was facing a lot worse than circus clowns.

I believe was around nineteen twenty, and it was a really really bad rain storm.

Damn mother, and Nature's got it out for this guy, huh. In any case, Richard hits the highway with a prisoner in tow, a man he had scooped up in a recent raid on a moonshine. Still, he's trying to take the man to link in, Nebraska, but he.

Got north and south missed up, so instead of going back to take this criminal in, he ended up going I believe that towards the South Dkota border.

Now, when he pulled into the little town of Spencer, Richard could have you know, realized he went the wrong way and turned around. But not our two gun. He was like double or nothing, So he started asking around for some white mule. The locals, proud of the kick in their neighborhood, moonshine knew exactly what he meant and helpfully pointed him to the best distillery in town. When the owner offered him a drink, Richard arrested him. Then he went back and also arrested the guy who gave

Found out that there wouldn't book either of them.

And that's because the guy he had just arrested for trying to sell him alcohol.

Yeah, one of them a town marshall.

He's the town marshal of Spencer, the tiny town they're in. So instead of accepting his arrest, this Spencer Marshall and another officer played a little Uno reverse card and put Richard under arrest for disturbing the peace. They squared off and tried to shout each other down.

You're under arrest.

Now you're under arrest.

Oh you, no you no you now you And the guy who had the best seat in the house, the original prisoner Richard had dragged along for the ride. Apparently that guy found the entire thing hilarious.

There's really discouraging for him. It was the pinnacle of him understanding how much corruption there was. This is not my law, and that was the excuse that a lot of people used.

But like Mabel, Richard had decided that prohibition was his law. It was in the constitution now, which meant two gun was free to have a root and dute in times, smacking down all manner of miscreants, scoff laws, and ne'er do wells. Just because a flood of Americans had decided to break the law was no reason to hold back on enforcing it. Richard had beaten floods before. But if there was one burr under two guns saddle, it was

There were good times, but then there were times when the alcohol just kind of took over.

That's Corey's dad, Jeff, Richard's grandson.

When one of Kathleen's brother had too much alcohol, it was my uncle Harold. He would drink more than he should have all the time.

When the Winches got to drinking, I can just see Richard pulling his hat down over his eyes, like, seriously, right in front of me. Come on, you're putting me on the spot here. I mean, if you're pouring a beer under the prohibition agent's nose, that's going to make Christmas a little tense. But Richard was doing his best to keep some tensil on the Tan and Baum because there was one line he didn't cross. He never actually

If he couldn't use his gun, he would use his fist to apprehend these criminals and bootleggers. That was something he really d himself with and this instance it went wrong.

It was October of nineteen twenty three. Back in New York, Alexander Gettler is starting to earn a reputation as a forensic sherlock. He's just published a groundbreaking study on the deadly solvent Benzene, which, to his horror, he's finding in dead bodies in his laboratory at Bellevue, though he's not yet sure why. Meanwhile, in d C. Babel, Walker Willebrant is just starting to unravel the epic corruption all around

He selected two of them to go to kind of a bootleg operation and try to scorse some alcohol.

The operation kicks off when Richard and his guys get the details of a midnight rendezvous between a rum runner and his local customers. They're going to intervene. Richard parks out of site nearby while his comrades roll into the meetup posing his customers.

The idea was that as soon as able to come out, he and another officer that was with him with him make the arrest.

But the liquor crew gets suspicious something's a little off. They refuse to sell anything to Richard's accomplices, who come back to him empty handed. There's nothing Richard can use to make an arrest for someone else. That might be the end of it a failed operation, but Richard isn't done. He wants to nab his bootlegger. He continues to lie and wait nearby, and sure enough, a couple of hours later, more cars pull up. This time, Richard doesn't try any tricks.

They're chasing after what they think is the bootlegger.

Vehicle Richard's partner is driving. He pulls them alongside the car they think is hauling liquor, a big, beautiful Buick. Richard leans out and tells the bootlegger to pull over, but he doesn't, so Richard ups the ante so.

He's actually out on the railing board telling this bootlegger to stop. He went stop so that he started firing shots into the air, and then the car that they're chasing sped off.

Now the chase is really on, and the Buick, unlike Buick's up today, is fast, like really fast. It starts to pull away. Frustrated, Richard stops firing warning shots in the air and levels his gun directly at the car. He shoots his partner with one hand on the wheel, leans out the driver's side window, and starts shooting too.

In an attempt to try to stop that car by trying to take out the tires.

Richard shoots and hits the Buick. The shot doesn't at the tire, it goes through the back window and hits the driver.

He actually shot the driver through the mouth, and so when it came to the vehicle and realized, oh, this is not the person that they were actually trying to.

Chase, Richard had made a terrible mistake.

Tried to take that individual to the hospital, but is a lethal shot.

As Richard and his partner learned about the man they had killed, they were mortified. Not only was he not the bootlegger they were hunting, he didn't have any liquor on him at all. Sure, he was there probably to buy a drink, but there was no actual evidence that he was taking part in a crime.

And then then found out that this was also World War One veteran, was married, had a child that was very young, it's less than a year old, and was a hero to the community for being that World War One veteran was very well liked.

And that led to something new for Richard because in the man's hometown, Sioux City, Iowa, there was a righteous uproar against Richard.

He had to have a court appearance because they were charging him with manslaughter.

Led by the murdered man's grieving widow, a crowd of thousands gathered in downtown Sioux City in protest. Some in the crowd were even muttering that they should kill Richard in return.

And so he was under a lot of heat, so he had to lay.

Low, and that cleared the scene for another batch of foot soldiers, even more willing to enforce prohibition, not with handcuffs, but with hand guns. Remember it was no secret at this point that the prohibition enforcement effort was a complete debacle. In Washington, Mabel was burning with white hot rage. The gall of George remas the king of bootleggers, doing time for tax evasion by playing poker with his pals and

Local tas.

Local judges didn't want to prosecute prohibition cases.

That's historian Tom Pegram.

Their local communities weren't in favor of them. Juries would turn people loose or there would be like very small fines.

And in nineteen twenty three, when Mabel wanted to sweep the liquor out of Alabama, this was exactly what she faced. So she set up what she called a flying squad. She put together a handpicked crew of officers and lawyers in Washington who could travel south and leave the corrupt local officials out of the legal proceedings. All on their own. They would plan a raid, scoop up the purpse, collect the evidence, and slam the wets into jail cells.

This is where the clan comes in.

Actually the clan, those fucking guys seriously well yeah, See In the fall of nineteen twenty, while Richard Hard was shooting at fleeing cars, Mabel was picking the new head coach for her liquor busting team in Alabama. She needed someone beyond the reach of the mobile good old boys network, and she landed on a lawyer named Hugo Black. Hugo made his bones as a defense lawyer for the Ku Klux Klan. One klansman, a Methodist minister had gunned down

The Klan started to say, hey, you know, we'll help with investigations. And even though a lot of clan drank, the argument was, once it's in the Constitution, it has to be enforced, and if it's not enforced, that destabilizes American democracy. And then guess what, who are the most likely violators of prohibition? All the groups we already don't like?

Who did the clan target pretty much anyone who wasn't white and Protestant, anyone who wasn't already cut in the mold of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. We're talking immigrants, Black Americans, Jews, Catholics, everyone the Dry movement was trying to squeeze. The Klan was like, hey, you're giving us an excuse to just beat up all the people we don't like.

Right on.

So when Mabel sees a lawyer ready to dive into the culture war by stretching the meaning of self defense to an unbelievable breaking point, all to defend murderous clansmen, she sees the kind of conviction she's been looking for. One reporter asked her how she justified working with the Klan, and Mabel.

Said, I have no objection to people dressing up in sheets if they enjoyed that sort of thing.

So this is crazy, right. I mean, yeah, Mabel's been the Ice Queen and all that, but there's a difference between cold and cutthroat. There's a difference between coordinating with the Coastguard to stop rum runners and teaming up with the nation's most powerful cabal of racist murderers. Mabel was at the end of her rope. She decided she was ready and willing to cross that line. Since Mabel recruited actual official prosecutors from the KKK, well, it sent a

Drys and Wets Clan and anti clan contending forces ironhel Glen Young continues as acting chief of police.

As the violence escalated, the clan mounted machine guns on downtown buildings. Attacks and hospitals left the walls riddled with bullet holes. Desperate cries went out for the army and the National Guard to step in and stop the violence. Military forces swept in to take control. Papers across the nation, from Fresno to Baltimore carried stories of the fighting.

Guardsman patrol streets, Glen Young Clan Dry Raider held after fight last night.

Dry Agent under arrest.

Raids and Illinois result in charges of assault against Young.

The blood spilled by two gun Man killer Glen Young and others like him stained the Dry cause. Many prohibition supporters didn't think it had to come at such a violent price. Supporters of the law started to waver, if this is what it took to enforce prohibition, was it really worth it? But the most hardcore Dries, well, they thought the fight hadn't gone far enough, and they made that clear in their defense of Richard two gun Heart.

Surprisingly with the entire community against him and him fearing for his life. It was the Women's Christian Temperance Union came to his defense and so they were able to pay for two Dunhart's attorney to give him an attorney.

This lawyer hired by the WCTU wasn't just going to defend Richard in the court of law. He was also going to defend him in the court of public opinion.

This is not a question of the guilt or innocence of heart. It is an issue of the enforcement of the law. Enforcement officers are too timid. Now if an enforcement officer is convicted of such a charge, it will make bootleggers secure.

All right.

I want to spend a minute here, because this is key. This guy, the defense lawyer for Richard Hart, is saying that whether or not Richard shot this guy doesn't really matter because in his view, that's what it takes to enforce the law. He's saying prohibition officers should not get in trouble for gunning down suspects. But that's not all. He's also saying that it's a damn shame. Most officers are too scared to do what Richard had done. Think

Saying that by putting him, by putting a prohibition agent Touguenhart on trout or manslaughter, it's making him a martyr of probition.

But there was one person in this moment who was wavering. You might be surprised to hear it was Mabel Walker Willebrandt. She wanted prohibition enforced, and in principle she was okay with the violent tactics. I mean, heck, she was running cover in the papers as the Klan did the dirty work, but as the f of prohibition, she could tell the

For these fearless, high integrity men that were willing to do this very dangerous job that the majority of the US were not in favor of.

So when Mabel realized how badly it was backfiring to have cowboys and clan cops shooting their way through liquor busts, she and the Women's Christian Temperance Union parted ways. The WCTU had been powerful in previous years, but they won their battles by getting into the papers. To Mabel's eyes, it was bad press, I imagine that made her, you know,

I condemn as atrocious, wholly unwarranted, and entirely unnecessary some of the killing by prohibition agents.

Did you catch that? She said? She condemns some of the killings. Some that is so telling to me. How about all the killing, Mabel? Does killing someone for bootlegging really feel like a punishment that fits the crime? And what about that old right to trial by jury? What about innocent until proven guilty? What about you know, the rest of the law. Well, none of that was what Mabel was worried about. Nope, She's only worried about some of the killings, apparently, just the ones that lead to

Guilty of carelessness and indifference to consequences.

I think that that really did strike him.

Here was something that he was proud of, being two gun, always getting a man, using tough guy ways to get.

A Before Richard stood trial, the Coroner's jury of Nebraska decided not to pursue the manslaughter case against him. But the damage to the dry Cause was done by Richard and by other reckless, violent or downright vicious enforcers. If the judge was lenient in Richard's case, Mabel was more harsh.

He was forcing payback essentially his salary for that crime, and saying that he was careless and reckless in his behavior.

Car chases, gunfights, massacres. It was time for the circus to end. If prohibition was going to win, killing bootleggers in the open where the blood was practically splattering on bystanders, kind of worked against the cause. Mabel needed to shut that down. Enforcing prohibition with arrests and court cases that wasn't enough. Enforcing prohibition with guns in the stre oh

He writes this letter where he talks about how the poison is settled in his legs and he can't get up without falling over. His signature is just so scratsheet. I mean you can tell that he's shaking.

Snafu is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation Entertainment, and Pacific Electric Picture Company in association with Gilded Audio. It's executive produced by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka, Mike Falbo, Whitney Donaldson, and Dylan Fagan. Our lead producers are Carl Nellis and Alyssa Martino. This episode was written by Albert Chen, Carl Nellis and Nevin Callapoly, with additional writing and story editing from Alyssa Martino and Ed Helms. Additional production from