0:01

Hey there, it's your host ed helms.

0:03

Here.

0:03

Real quick, before we dive into this episode,

0:05

I wanted to remind you that my brand

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0:10

twenty ninth. It's called Snaffo,

0:12

The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest

0:15

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It's got all the wild disasters

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spectacular face plants we just couldn't

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1:01

just click the link in the show notes. That'll work too.

1:03

Okay, that's it, on with the chaos.

1:06

This is Snafu Season three

1:08

formula six. November

1:14

thirtieth, nineteen twenty eight, Cleveland,

1:17

Ohio. The

1:19

city has just opened a new music hall downtown.

1:22

It's nineteen twenties opulence from

1:24

top to bottom, arched ceilings

1:27

in an Italian style, columns

1:29

and balconies glowing with gold leaf,

1:31

a giant plaster eagle looking down

1:33

over the stage. Maybe not how

1:35

I would do the decor, more into tasteful

1:38

minimalism myself, but the folks

1:40

in Cleveland are eating it up. A

1:43

massive sparkling chandelier spills

1:45

light over a crowd of thousands who are

1:47

all losing their minds hearing

1:50

for the Paul Whiteman Orchestra playing

1:53

their hits. They're the most popular

1:55

band in America, and they have a talented young

1:57

coronetist blowing sweet notes

1:59

from his that's

2:03

Bis bider Beck on the coronet. How

2:05

many folks named Bix nowadays? I'd

2:08

say, you know you're in the twenties, baby. He's

2:11

standing in the back row of the band doing

2:13

his thing. Bix

2:16

is a small, dapper fella, dressed in a tux

2:19

with slicked brown hair parted down the

2:21

middle like an open Faulkner novel. A

2:24

few songs into the performance, something

2:27

strange happens. Bix's

2:29

eyes rolled back, He slumps

2:32

over on the stage and falls to the

2:34

ground completely unconscious.

2:39

A band mate jolts him awake, helps

2:41

him backstage, and eventually he takes

2:43

him back to his hotel room.

2:48

That night, Bix has a freak out

2:51

in his hotel room. He yells hysterically,

2:53

he destroys furniture. This

2:56

surprised everyone who knew him. He

2:58

was a jazz musician, I a member

3:00

of led Zeppelin. His bandmates

3:02

would later describe it as a fit of

3:04

delirium. They said he cracked.

3:07

Up Yon

3:10

Jo or

3:13

Yon.

3:16

True.

3:18

Just a little song Keep

3:21

Georgia on my

3:23

Mind.

3:25

Georgia on My Mind, That

3:28

Little Diddy is the American songbook

3:31

classic Georgia on My Mind.

3:34

Maybe you know the iconic Ray Charles version,

3:36

but this is an original recording with

3:38

the composer Hogy Carmichael from

3:40

the last recording session of Bix's

3:43

career. In his solo,

3:45

you can still hear Bix's genius,

3:48

and though you might not be able to tell, Bis

3:50

reportedly didn't have enough breath to

3:52

finish some of the gorgeous phrases in

3:54

his solo Towards the end of the song, Bix

4:03

is struggling. He never really

4:05

recovers. A

4:08

year later, Bis is home in his queen's

4:10

New York apartment. By now, he's

4:12

bedridden, down to just one hundred

4:14

and fifty pounds, complaining of constant

4:17

headaches, dizziness, memory loss,

4:19

and blackouts. This summer

4:21

night, a neighbor visits and finds

4:23

Bix in bed under the sheets,

4:26

hallucinating. Bix

4:29

dies that night. He was

4:31

just twenty eight. What happened

4:34

to him? That

4:36

question haunted Bix's family and

4:38

his fans. Sure they knew Bix

4:40

wasn't well, and they knew that, like a

4:43

lot of touring musicians, Bicks was

4:45

a heavy drinker. That had been true

4:47

since his teens, But

4:49

it would take years for anyone

4:51

to see how this all fit into

4:54

a larger story. In

4:56

the nineteen twenties, taking a drink put

4:58

Bix, along with me millions of Americans,

5:01

right in the middle of the decade's bitter divide

5:04

over alcohol. In the end, the

5:06

war between the wets and the dryes would

5:08

have a massive human cost.

5:12

I'm ed Helms and This is Snaffo,

5:15

a show about history's greatest screw

5:17

ups. Last season, we told

5:19

the story of the burglary that exposed

5:21

Jay Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. This

5:24

season, we go back a little further

5:26

in time, all the way to the nineteen

5:29

twenties. We're bringing you a

5:31

dark tale from the heart of the Prohibition

5:33

era. As we all know, Prohibition

5:36

did not work. It

5:38

was what you might call a snaffoo.

5:41

Within that snaffo is another snaffhoo,

5:44

one you probably haven't heard

5:46

about. How a lot of Americans

5:48

started dying mysteriously and

5:51

the unlikely duo who tried to figure

5:54

out why and save them.

5:56

On this season of Snaffo, the story

5:59

of Formulas. How prohibitions

6:01

wore on alcohol went so off

6:03

the rails the government wound

6:05

up poisoning its own people.

6:23

I thought I had a pretty good handle on prohibition.

6:26

The nineteen twenties, the era before

6:28

the Great Depression, when we felt like, hey, world

6:31

War One is over, what better to

6:33

do than party? The

6:36

Harlem Renaissance, jazz votes

6:39

for women. America was feeling

6:41

a burst of new energy. We were

6:43

trying out cars, trying out radio.

6:46

Heck, we were trying out movies. And

6:48

as a Georgia boy, I can't help loving

6:50

how much love Georgia was

6:52

getting in that decade. In addition

6:54

to Georgia on my mind, another classic

6:57

emerged, Sweet Georgia

6:59

Brown. And

7:03

the background to all of that was,

7:05

of course, Prohibition. It's

7:08

just kind of part of our mental furniture.

7:11

Right. For me, the word Prohibition

7:13

takes me back to all the great portrayals

7:15

in classic American cinema, like

7:17

The Untouchables, two straight hours

7:20

of mafia set pieces. Who could

7:22

forget when elliot Ness faces down Al Capone

7:24

in a hotel lobby? Come on, you can't discern

7:27

up a pitch? Do you talk to me like that in front of my

7:29

son? If you didn't sneak out to hear

7:31

de Niro drop f bombs in an Italian

7:33

accent, were you even thirteen?

7:36

The summer the Untouchables came out. I

7:38

mean, just listen to that, macho chest

7:40

thumping cops and mobsters,

7:42

good guys and bad guys going toe to

7:44

toe. It's classic Hollywood stuff

7:47

that just reels you in. But then,

7:49

well, I heard the story of a Prohibition

7:51

snafo that genuinely surprised

7:53

me because it wasn't part of the Prohibition

7:56

story that I knew. It was the story

7:58

of Formula six and a devastating

8:01

Prohibition era program by the federal

8:03

government. Hey, honey, have you ever

8:05

heard of Formula six?

8:07

Now?

8:08

Yeah, almost no one had. So

8:11

I called up someone who really brought Prohibition

8:14

into focus for me, along

8:16

with millions of TV fans like me. Hey,

8:19

so good to meet you, man, it's so so great

8:21

to meet you. That's Terence Winter,

8:24

creator of the epic TV series

8:26

Boardwalk Empire. I put

8:28

the question to him, I'm curious

8:30

if you're if you hit on in your

8:32

research, are you familiar with Formula

8:35

six? I am not, And

8:38

that was wild to me because

8:41

his show is stacked with the kinds of

8:43

details that made nineteen twenties

8:45

Atlantic City come to life.

8:48

Even though it's one hundred years ago, it's still felt

8:50

modern. People dressed in suits,

8:52

they went out to restaurants, they talked on telephone,

8:55

they drove in cars.

8:56

You know, it's still felt cool. It

8:58

still felt like excessive.

9:00

Well this was modern. You know you could

9:02

wear some of those clothes today.

9:03

I mean, I gotta say, I do look pretty good in a pair

9:05

of spats. But the sense we have

9:08

that we already know prohibition,

9:11

it can actually lead us astray. A little,

9:14

because cliches about life in the nineteen

9:16

twenties are so thick, we

9:18

assume we know what it's all about.

9:20

You know, liquor was made illegal.

9:23

It was a big mistake. There was a bunch of

9:25

mobsters and Tommy guns, and

9:28

then it got repealed. Yeah.

9:30

I mean, every time you ever see anything in the twenties, everybody's

9:33

doing the fucking Charleston. I was like, did they do any

9:35

other songs written between nineteen twenty and

9:38

nineteen thirty?

9:39

Obviously, yes, I mean we're talking about

9:41

the birth of jazz. We're talking about Louis Armstrong,

9:44

Duke Ellington, Eddie Lang Earl

9:46

Hines. I could go on. The

9:48

point is we tend to paint history

9:50

with broad brushes, like Terry

9:52

says, when we think about the Prohibition era,

9:55

our minds probably go immediately

9:57

to the cliches we know best, and

10:00

the real complex human lives

10:02

that ordinary people lived in the past don't

10:05

always come through when we talk about history.

10:08

But this story, the story of Formula

10:10

six, reveals something bizarre

10:12

that was happening all along. Underneath

10:15

all the organized crime and speak easy gin

10:17

and temperance moralizing, a

10:20

shocking government plot rooted

10:22

in the first modern American culture

10:24

war. It starts with

10:27

a pair of scientists, investigators

10:30

who happened to see it coming. In

10:32

fact, they tried to stop it.

10:43

It's nineteen eighteen in New York and

10:45

the city is facing a problem. Okay,

10:47

the city is facing a lot of problems, but

10:50

here's a tricky one. A record

10:52

number of murders are going

10:55

unsolved. A city report

10:57

lays blamed squarely on one government

10:59

office, in particular, the office

11:02

of the coroner. The coroner

11:04

was essentially the city's chief death investigator.

11:08

He issued death certificates and performed

11:10

autopsies for all murders, suicides,

11:13

and accidental debts. A

11:15

pretty grim but important job, and

11:18

yet the city's coroners were either

11:20

horribly unqualified or terribly

11:22

corrupt, or quite often both.

11:26

They made coroners out

11:28

of anyone who needed a job,

11:30

who the party machine owed them a favor.

11:33

That's Deborah Blum, author of the Poisoner's

11:35

Handbook, Murder and the Birth

11:37

of Forensic Medicine. In jazz Age,

11:40

New York. She describes how at the

11:42

time, the police essentially used coroners

11:44

to rubber stamp false reports

11:47

and sometimes even cover up

11:49

murders. And when she says anyone

11:51

could become a coroner, she means

11:54

it.

11:54

There were sign painters that were milkmen.

11:57

There were funeral home operators,

12:00

there were lawyers, and

12:01

there were notably doctors

12:04

who were such terrible

12:06

doctors that they had lost their practices.

12:09

And if you think that's bad, let me introduce

12:12

you to the head corner of New York in

12:14

nineteen eighteen, a guy who showed

12:16

up to crime scenes completely

12:19

hammered.

12:21

There are death certificates that literally

12:23

say could be diabetes

12:25

or possibly an auto accident. Right,

12:28

I mean, you're just going seriously.

12:31

After stories like that started coming to light,

12:33

the mayor had no choice but to make some changes.

12:36

It was time to find someone who could get

12:38

to the bottom of all these crimes, someone

12:41

who is less Homer Simpson and more

12:43

Sherlock Holmes or

12:46

I don't know, maybe anyone who could stand

12:48

upright. City officials

12:50

decided the coroner's office was a joke,

12:52

an embarrassment, and a waste of taxpayers

12:55

money, so they shut it down.

13:00

But they couldn't just ignore the reasons

13:03

people died in New York. They had

13:05

to replace it with something. Their

13:07

idea, a new system for the

13:09

city and a new position that would be filled

13:11

by a qualified doctor who would

13:13

appoint a trained staff to examine

13:15

cases and rule on causes of death.

13:18

This new lead position was chief

13:21

Medical Examiner of New York City. So

13:23

they announced the job opening and

13:26

in walk de fella named Charles

13:28

Norris. H

13:32

no love Walker Texas ranger Chuck

13:34

Norris, and god knows, I'm

13:36

scared of him. But just to be clear, this is

13:39

doctor Charles Norris of New York,

13:41

New York.

13:42

He was a really big guy and

13:45

he had one of those kind of classic

13:47

spade like beards. He had

13:49

a big booming voice and a

13:52

a Yale football player's presence,

13:54

and he used it when he needed to.

13:56

That's right. This particular Norris was

13:59

a yalely with the appropriate aristocratic

14:01

roots.

14:03

He was a descendant of the Norrises who

14:05

founded Norristown, Pennsylvania. So

14:07

they were a long time, well

14:09

established, important American family.

14:11

Which means that yep, Norris was

14:14

rich rich. He didn't hide it.

14:16

Norris was a public servant who rode

14:19

around like Bruce Wayne.

14:21

He never went anywhere

14:24

without his being driven by his chauffeur. And

14:27

even when he went to crime scenes, you

14:29

know, his chauffeur would take him

14:31

to the crime scene and he would get

14:33

out in his Kashmir coat and his

14:35

expensive hat.

14:37

Not exactly a man of the people, you'd think,

14:39

but money bags aside. It turns

14:42

out public service actually ran

14:44

deep in Norris's blood. Norris's

14:46

ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War.

14:49

Ever heard of it. They

14:52

stripped lead gutters and rain spouts

14:54

from their house to make bullets for the Continental

14:56

Army. Yeah, the house is flooding

14:58

again. Smoking chair

15:01

will be ruined.

15:02

My beloved.

15:03

It is the sacrifice we make to

15:05

bring forth a new nation.

15:10

And then in the Civil War, Norris's

15:12

grandfather negotiated the first one hundred

15:14

million dollar loan financing the

15:17

Union government's war against the Confederates.

15:19

All of the all

15:21

of the.

15:24

Norris took the do gooder spirit of his ancestors

15:26

and studied medicine, became a doctor,

15:29

And now as the Great War raged

15:31

in Europe, he was looking to do his part

15:33

to keep the people of New York safe.

15:36

So he made a real run at the position of

15:38

Chief Medical Examiner when the job opened

15:40

up, an actually qualified

15:43

doctor who wanted to use his position

15:45

for the public good. Well,

15:48

it turns out that even for someone who

15:50

wanted to do good, even after he

15:52

started his job as chief medical Examiner,

15:55

the odds were stacked against him

15:59

because it turns out there

16:01

were plenty of officials who simply

16:04

liked the old way of doing things.

16:06

Norris's budget for his staff and his workspace

16:09

was laughably small that drunk

16:12

corner had left him in office literally

16:14

in shambles.

16:16

At one point, he was actually forced to buy

16:18

the clocks on the walls

16:21

of the Medical Examiner's office

16:24

because the mayor the budget

16:26

is such an agree that they couldn't even

16:28

afford clock.

16:31

Before, police officers used corners

16:34

to play their political games, but

16:37

now with Norris in charge, they were

16:39

in for a surprise. Like when a few

16:41

officers brought Norris a body to examine,

16:44

which happened to be riddled with bullet

16:46

holes. They asked for a simple John

16:48

Hancock on a let's say, pre filled

16:50

out death certificate that said

16:52

the cause of death was suicide.

16:55

Norris looked at the corpse and said that

16:58

I don't think.

16:58

So out of the question,

17:01

in my opinion, to even consider the possibility

17:03

of a suicide on account of the number and

17:05

situation of.

17:07

The bullet wounds.

17:08

There were four bullet wounds spray across

17:10

the corpse.

17:11

In other words, seems impossible that

17:14

this poor guy shot himself in the heart,

17:16

shoulder, leg, and arm.

17:19

Norris was serious about his work.

17:22

He was serious about building the Office of

17:24

the Chief Medical Examiner into an effective

17:26

research team that could get to the

17:28

bottom of all the deaths in New York City.

17:31

But to do that he needed help.

17:34

Norris was a doctor, not a chemist,

17:37

who could detect toxins or poisons

17:39

in a dead body. And during this time,

17:42

there were more and more poisons surrounding

17:44

Americans. Morphine and

17:46

teething, medicines for infants, opium

17:48

and sedatives, arsenic and everything

17:51

from cosmetics to pesticides. And

17:53

don't even ask about how much formaldehyde

17:55

they were mixing with cowbrains and putting in

17:58

milk. And I thought that micro plastics

18:00

and my water bottle were bad. And

18:03

it's not like it was harmless. People

18:05

were dying from this stuff so often,

18:08

in fact, that it was hard to keep up.

18:11

But here's the thing about poisons. They're

18:13

just not quite as obvious as bullet

18:15

holes. And so Norris had

18:17

a crazy idea to create

18:19

a dedicated lab where chemists could

18:22

work on determining causes of death. Call

18:24

it a toxicology lab. At

18:27

the time, no other city in America

18:29

had one, and you know Norris and his

18:31

cashmere, he always had to

18:34

have the best. This

18:36

lab would be installed at Bellevue,

18:38

a New York hospital perched along

18:41

the East River since eighteen eleven.

18:43

As he thinks about organizing his department,

18:46

the first thing he thinks is,

18:48

we need a chemist.

18:50

Norris just needed to pick the right brainiac

18:53

for the job. Fortunately for him,

18:55

there was someone who fit the bill right down

18:57

the hall, an assistant professor at

18:59

the Bellevue Medical College, and

19:02

the award for Forensic Toxicologist

19:04

for the newly established New York Office

19:06

of Chief Medical Examiner, where the clocks don't

19:08

even work, goes to doctor

19:11

Alexander Gettler. Come

19:14

on down, alex you're the lucky winner,

19:19

uh, Doctor Getler, Doctor

19:21

Geedler. Well,

19:25

when Norris approached him, this Alexander Gettler

19:28

fellow wasn't convinced that playing robin

19:30

to Norris's batman was his dream

19:32

job. You see, Alexander

19:34

Getler was already in a position

19:37

that was nothing to sneeze at in those days,

19:39

and well, if you looked at where

19:41

the invitation was coming from, Let's

19:44

just say it was pretty clear. The Medical Examiner's

19:46

office was in the build the plane

19:48

as you fly stage of its existence.

19:51

Not to mention, Getler was from a completely

19:53

different world. He was quite different

19:56

from Flash the cash Norris.

19:58

He was trim, yeah, dark hair,

20:00

he had a long angular face,

20:03

chomping on a cigar all the time.

20:05

From what I understand, that's

20:07

Dorothy Atsel, Alexander Gettler's

20:09

granddaughter.

20:10

Every picture we have of him, he's in a suit.

20:13

And that's Vicky Atsel, Alexander's

20:15

great granddaughter.

20:17

He's got like a pretty serious expression, which

20:19

I think was kind of his m He was a pretty

20:21

serious guy. He just kind of like went

20:23

to work as anyone would go to work with his suit

20:26

jacket on.

20:26

He wasn't from wealth or Ivy

20:29

League education or anything

20:32

like that. He just kind of pulled himself

20:34

up and followed what he wanted

20:36

to do, got the education he needed, worked

20:38

nights so he could go to school during the day.

20:41

Tickets, please all right, have a nice

20:43

day.

20:44

Gettler worked as a ticket taker for the thirty

20:46

ninth Street Brooklyn to Battery Ferry and

20:48

took the overnight shift. During

20:50

the day, he earned himself a PhD in biochemistry

20:53

at Columbia. Those brains

20:56

and you know, fairly intense work ethic

20:58

got Gettler his teaching job. He

21:00

had put in the hard yards and he

21:03

had earned it. But

21:05

outside of work, he lived like a lot

21:07

of other people in his Brooklyn neighborhood, tucked

21:09

snugly in a brownstone with his wife's

21:11

son and more than a half dozen Irish in

21:14

laws.

21:14

He raised his kids in the middle of

21:16

this kind of chaos of

21:19

the Irish American life in Brooklyn.

21:22

I think that hugely influenced also

21:24

his sense of the world because he was so

21:27

connected to her family.

21:29

But going back and forth between a busy

21:31

home and a busy hospital, he saw

21:33

the difference medicine could make in the

21:35

lives of everyday people. So

21:38

even though he had turned down Norris's offer,

21:40

he couldn't put it out of his mind. Maybe

21:43

if he joined the Medical Examiner's office

21:46

he could do some good. So

21:48

when Norris came around again, Getler

21:51

was ready to consider the job. But

21:53

Norris was also completely honest with Getler.

21:56

This was nothing like a cushy job in academia.

21:59

Gettler would have have to design the lab from

22:01

scratch. You would have to figure out for himself

22:04

how to do the work of detecting poisons.

22:06

There were no training programs in forensic

22:08

toxicology. He would have to blaze

22:11

his own trail. That was all right,

22:13

though, because Gentler loved nothing

22:16

more than a challenge and cramming

22:18

more chemistry work into his days. He

22:20

agreed to take the position, but only

22:22

if he could keep teaching at the medical College.

22:25

That's how much he believed in his grind.

22:29

Norris looked around at the backlog of bodies

22:31

stacking up in Bellevue and said,

22:34

sure, man, whatever you want.

22:36

My grandfather was tapped to be

22:39

the chief toxicologist. It

22:41

just felt almost like they were like superhero

22:44

crusaders as well, you know, like

22:46

starting something and

22:49

actually not just starting it, but turning

22:52

the page on a system

22:54

that didn't work, wasn't fair and

22:57

was corrupt.

22:59

It's funny what you said, I was gonna say, you

23:01

said, mom about them being like superheroes that have just

23:03

like it feels like it was. They're like like a Buddy

23:05

cop movie of like these two scientists

23:08

in the trenches together.

23:10

And while the scientific trenches of

23:12

New York may have been metaphorical, there's

23:14

no question that our dynamic duo had

23:17

a very real fight on their hands,

23:20

because it turned out that even though the city

23:22

was moving on from the flu epidemic and

23:24

the war in France was winding down,

23:27

a different kind of war was just

23:29

getting started, and Norris and

23:31

Gettler had gotten together just

23:33

in time for the shit to

23:35

hit the fan.

23:48

It's been in the big baggie, in

23:50

the box, in a closet,

23:53

and if you look at each of the pages, they were all

23:55

like sort of frayed and

23:58

chipping.

23:58

Dorothy Atsel is at at her kitchen table.

24:01

I'm hesitating separating the

24:03

pages, yeah, because every

24:05

time I open it there's pieces of paper

24:07

that just kind of flake off.

24:09

She's meeting with one of our writers, Albert Chen.

24:12

She's very very carefully handling

24:14

a dusty blue, hard bound book that's

24:17

older than my mom's wedding China. The

24:19

book is a collection of typed reports

24:22

written by Alexander Getler over the course

24:24

of three decades.

24:25

His dissertation was the balance of

24:28

acid forming and base forming

24:30

elements in food and its

24:32

relation to ammonia metabolism.

24:35

I don't know what that means.

24:37

Yeah, it's been a while since tenth grade chemistry

24:39

for me too.

24:40

And then like this one, which

24:42

was from nineteen twenty one, a method

24:44

for the determination of death by drowning.

24:48

So now I understand.

24:49

What this is about.

24:51

It's easy to understand. Back

24:53

in the day when he was doing

24:55

all of his work, they were

24:57

pulling bodies out of the and

25:00

you, how do you know if they drowned or they

25:03

died by another means?

25:04

Yeah, a great question that

25:07

before Getler and Norris came along, no

25:09

one had any clue how to answer.

25:12

But Dorothy's daughter, Vicky says Getler

25:14

figured it out.

25:16

People would come to him with problems that they like didn't

25:18

even really know the cause of. Just like all

25:20

of these people who work in the same place are

25:22

having the same issue. They're all getting weird

25:25

tumors and cancer, transit workers

25:27

or subway workers who were all feeling

25:30

really like sluggish and like

25:32

cognitively fuzzy. And he would first

25:34

figure out like the cause of the problem and then

25:36

solve it.

25:37

That blue book contained all the detective

25:39

work that Gettler and Norris pursued in their

25:42

day, and that work kept them

25:44

busy, very busy.

25:46

They were so like focused on

25:48

their work and they're trying to do things. They didn't

25:51

want to leave the lab to

25:53

use the bathroom, so they

25:55

just urinated in the big sink

25:58

they had in the lab, which

26:01

I'm like, Okay, I guess if you're really focused

26:03

on your work and you really don't want to take the

26:06

time, I get it.

26:07

But despite what you may be thinking,

26:09

the apparent lack of nearby urinals was

26:12

not the biggest public health crisis

26:14

Norris and Gettler were facing. By

26:16

early nineteen nineteen, the deadly wave of

26:18

influenza was finally passing, but

26:21

Norris and Gettler, we're seeing a concerning

26:23

uptick in victims reporting similar

26:26

symptoms, a sudden sense of weakness,

26:28

severe abdominal pain and vomiting,

26:31

blindness, a slip into unconsciousness,

26:34

heart failure, and even death.

26:37

But why. They had a hunch it had

26:39

something to do with a ubiquitous substance

26:41

floating through the streets of New York City in nineteen

26:44

nineteen. And no, I'm not talking about

26:46

all the urine flowing from Gettler and Norris's

26:48

big laboratory sink. We're

26:50

talking about liquor. Alcohol

26:53

is everywhere.

26:54

The term that New York never sleeps

26:57

is true of the nineteen twenties, like there are nightclubs

26:59

on every single corner.

27:02

That's Leshawn Harris, historian

27:04

of New York City's underground economy.

27:07

Even in black and Tan clubs.

27:10

Inter racial clubs in New York City in the

27:12

early twentieth century, African Americans

27:14

are going to these clubs, both middle class

27:17

and working class people and are

27:19

drinking. Alcohol

27:22

is something that black churches

27:25

use for various different ceremonies. We

27:27

also know that alcohol is

27:30

something that different social

27:32

groups are engaging and whether they

27:34

be light beer or

27:37

cocktails or a little bit

27:39

of rum, it's something

27:42

that one can engage in while at church.

27:44

It's a part of your social

27:46

life.

27:50

Light beer, cocktails, a

27:52

little bit of rum. Not

27:54

if you were part of the Anti Saloon League.

27:57

Let me tell you about these folks. Their mission

27:59

state wasn't exactly hard to get at. It's

28:01

kind of right there in the name anti Saloon.

28:04

They wanted to hammer the bung back into

28:06

America's whiskey barrel. To them,

28:09

drinking was a moral outrage, a

28:11

sin, and the root of

28:13

all society's ills. From

28:16

small beginnings, they grew into the most

28:18

powerful lobbying group in America.

28:21

In Ohio, where they started, they ran a

28:23

pressure campaign that beat a popular

28:25

governor. Ohio was dry,

28:27

but why stop there? They

28:29

got ambitious. They wanted to ring

28:32

every last drop of liquor out of the whole wet

28:34

nation. So as their next target, they

28:36

set their sights on Gettler and Norris's

28:39

stomping grounds, New York

28:41

City. You see, by their

28:43

account, New Yorkers drank a dozen

28:45

pints of alcoholic beverages a week

28:48

for every man, woman, and child, a

28:50

per capita consumption that was more

28:52

than three times the national average.

28:55

One saloon for every six people

28:57

in New York, the League said, as

29:00

doctor Harris says, New York City at the end

29:03

of World War One was bursting with

29:05

working class saloons, chandeliered hotel

29:07

bars, and wine soaked bohemian

29:10

cafes. The Anti Saloon

29:12

League called it the liquor Center

29:14

of America. To them, the Big

29:16

Apple had fermented into a sidery

29:18

slush of drunkards and degenerates.

29:21

They had the nation, and especially

29:23

the nation's politicians, running

29:26

scared, and

29:28

then came World War One. It

29:30

was exactly what they'd been waiting for. The

29:32

Anti Saloon League saw the chance to justify

29:35

a national ban on liquor as

29:37

a wartime measure. That was

29:39

easy. No politician wanted

29:42

to be unpatriotic. But the wartime

29:44

measure was just the first step. What

29:46

they really wanted a permanent

29:49

ban on liquor enshrined in

29:51

the US Constitution. The

29:54

US House of Representatives has voted in favor

29:56

of the proposed eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution,

29:58

which prohibits the petra sale

30:01

or transportation of intoxicating liquors.

30:02

The amendment will now make.

30:04

Its way for the fifty states.

30:06

January seventh, nineteen eighteen, Mississippi.

30:08

Becomes the first state to ratify the eighteenth Amendment.

30:11

Georgia becomes the thirteenth state to

30:13

ratify the eighteenth Amendment.

30:15

One by one, lawmakers and state houses

30:17

across the country fell in line

30:20

California as the twenty second state to

30:22

ratify the eighteenth Amendment, But

30:25

New York City was, as one paper

30:27

called it, Satan's last

30:29

stronghold.

30:32

An apple did the trick in the garden of Eden.

30:34

Imagine what I can do with the big apple

30:37

in America.

30:41

The Anti Saloon League, they were a lot of

30:43

lawyers and Methodist ministers from

30:45

like Ohio. New York

30:47

City, meanwhile, was a lot of working

30:50

class, immigrant, Black, and Catholic

30:52

neighborhoods constantly evolving.

30:55

These New Yorkers weren't exactly interested

30:57

in test driving someone else's moral

31:00

spearmint and turning the city dry

31:02

as a kale chip, But

31:04

when a band hit the whole country, they

31:06

had no choice. The entire commercial

31:08

beer supply in New York City, from

31:10

the warehouses to the grocery stores to

31:13

the cabinets of every legitimate business,

31:15

got poured down the drain. But

31:22

you might be surprised to hear despite all

31:24

that beer, saying goodbye New

31:26

York nightlife wasn't

31:29

changing. The alcohol

31:31

fueling it, however, was

31:34

with the beer taps, dry saloons were

31:36

now serving stiffer and more mysterious

31:39

concoctions, this time

31:41

with distilled liquor.

31:43

As the amendment is circulating

31:45

and moving forward to when it actually

31:48

goes into place around New

31:50

York City, people are starting to prepare

31:53

for it by making sure they have their

31:55

own little home stills or backyard

31:57

stills or you know what people used to call beathtub

32:00

jent. Even if they can't get it legally.

32:02

They want those systems in place. And

32:04

they were using wood or

32:06

other materials that they could easily

32:08

access in an urban area, and

32:11

they were making wood alcohol.

32:13

Wood alcohol known to those

32:15

of us who passed tenth grade chemistry

32:19

as methyl alcohol. It

32:21

was used as a solvent to make varnish

32:23

and as a fuel, and unfortunately,

32:26

sometimes to mix cocktails.

32:29

From the taste, you couldn't tell exactly what

32:31

was in those drinks, but you might find

32:33

out the next day when you woke up in the hospital.

32:36

Your body loaded with methyl alcohol,

32:38

a very toxic substance,

32:41

and that's if you were lucky enough to wake

32:43

up. More and more people

32:45

from all parts of the city were ending up on a

32:47

gurney outside Gettler's

32:50

lab.

33:02

Bellevue was this sort of gothic

33:05

brick building on the sort

33:07

of mid to lower East side of Manhattan.

33:10

There was something about that brick ivy

33:13

gothic look of the place. There

33:15

was something about, you know, the fact

33:17

that so many deaths occurred

33:20

there. It had a kind of mythology

33:22

about it. For a number of reasons. Right,

33:25

they saved a lot of lives, but a lot of people died

33:27

there. That it just had this kind of reputation

33:31

of being a slightly haunted place.

33:34

In nineteen nineteen, Bellevue just

33:36

opened a new pathology building six

33:38

stories high made of solid granite with

33:41

long arched windows. Inside

33:43

is the city Morgue and the medical

33:46

examiner's offices. There are

33:48

autopsy rooms and a forensic chemistry

33:50

laboratory for Charles Norris

33:52

and Alexander Getler to study

33:55

the dead. Gettler's

33:58

laboratory is a layer of blue flames

34:00

leaking out of bunsen burners, hissing heating

34:03

systems, boiling dishes. The

34:05

wood floorboards are discolored by chemicals

34:07

and burns. When Noris

34:09

and Gettler see a rise in cases

34:12

of people who've been crippled by blindness

34:14

just before death, they have a hunch

34:16

that the reason is poisoning due

34:19

to toxic liquor wood

34:21

alcohol. But no test

34:23

exists to detect wood alcohol

34:26

in cadavers, So Getler does

34:28

what he always does in cases like this, He

34:31

creates one. Gettler's

34:33

test is grinding up a chunk of tissue into

34:35

a flask and then boiling it into a

34:37

dark sludge. He

34:40

measures the formaldehyde bubbling out.

34:43

Most alcohol would release just a

34:45

trace of it. Wood alcohol

34:47

releases an overpowering amount.

34:50

They're really trying to get to the

34:52

bones of this, right, literally,

34:55

how much poisoned alcohol is out there?

34:57

A fair amount actually. For generations,

35:00

people had been making their own liquor and

35:02

getting sick doing it. Moonshine,

35:04

white lightning, liquid, courage,

35:06

call it what you want, but this cheap

35:08

homemade stuff mostly stayed at the margins

35:11

of American society. Now,

35:13

however, it was becoming the

35:15

mainstream. So in nineteen

35:17

eighteen, Gettler wrote an article for the country's

35:20

leading medical journal to get word out

35:22

to doctors and public health officials. He

35:24

saw prohibition coming, and he knew

35:26

exactly what it would mean.

35:28

He titles this article, would alcohol

35:31

Poison It? He's not messing

35:33

around. He puts the word poison

35:35

right in the actual article title.

35:38

So he says, the prohibition

35:40

by our government of the manufacture

35:42

of distilled liquors will unquestionably

35:45

lead to much moonshining, adulteration,

35:49

and dilution of the liquors offered

35:51

to the public.

35:52

It is quite evidence given the

35:54

recent poisonings in the city of over thirty

35:56

persons, six of whom died with

35:58

a whiskey sold in the poor sections of the city

36:01

that's on analysis, was believed to contain

36:03

a considerable amount of wood methyl

36:06

alcohol. What alcohol pastes

36:08

like ethyl alcohol and morova. It is considerably

36:11

cheap. Hence the adulterate buys the latter

36:13

ignorant. That's a via poisoning, blindness

36:16

and often death lurks with it.

36:19

He's saying to doctors around the country,

36:22

you know, let people know this

36:24

is dangerous, this is coming, and

36:27

arm yourself. He said, I want

36:29

to send up a signal flayer. Please

36:32

take this as a warning. Where at the very start

36:34

of this, essentially what

36:36

that piece says, in a beautifully

36:39

scientific way, is I'm not talking

36:41

about alcohol. I'm talking about poison.

36:47

Gettler connects the dots. What he

36:49

sees in nineteen eighteen makes him think that people

36:51

aren't going to be drinking less because prohibition

36:54

is the law of the land. Instead, they're

36:56

going to be drinking a much more suspect,

36:59

much more dangerous supply this

37:01

message. It didn't land, but

37:04

he was right. By the

37:06

winter of nineteen nineteen, more than sixty

37:08

New Yorkers died from drinking wood alcohol.

37:11

Another one hundred were blinded then

37:15

almost that same number of alcohol

37:17

related deaths, only this time

37:20

just in the month of December alone.

37:22

So Getler sat down at his desk,

37:25

picked up his pen, and tried again.

37:28

The Critical Study of Methods for

37:30

the Detection of methyl alcohol

37:33

by Alexander O.

37:34

Getler.

37:36

Don't get confused here, wood alcohol,

37:38

methyl alcohol, and methanol.

37:40

Those are just three different names

37:42

for the same nasty beast,

37:45

and you should never ever drink

37:47

it. As Getler's granddaughter Dorothy

37:49

says, says.

37:50

Here, during the years nineteen eighteen

37:52

and nineteen nineteen, I have had occasion

37:55

to examine over seven hundred human

37:57

organs for alcohol. In

37:59

addition to this, about two hundred and fifty

38:01

liquors of various descriptions were

38:04

analyzed.

38:06

In this report, Getler begins to identify

38:08

the presence of wood alcohol in an

38:10

alarming number of cases. On

38:14

the day after Christmas in nineteen nineteen,

38:16

Gettler and Norris switch tactics.

38:21

Just writing for America's doctors wasn't

38:23

going to save the country's direction. Sorry,

38:26

doctors, I mean, you've been telling us it's all diet

38:28

and exercise for like ever, and

38:31

we just don't listen. So

38:33

with two major reports reaching too

38:35

small of an audience. Norris and Gettler

38:38

take this story straight to

38:40

the general public. They

38:42

called a press conference. They

38:46

invite a throng of reporters from the New

38:48

York papers into their offices in Bellevue.

38:50

The news hounds file in passed broken chairs

38:53

and over the blood spattered carpet left

38:55

behind by the drunk coroner as

38:57

a parting gift. Then

39:00

Gettler and Norris deliver their message.

39:03

Anything that passes for whiskey and the saloons

39:05

is dangerous. The first symptom

39:07

is a mere pain in the stomach, but one teaspoon

39:10

of wood alcohol is enough to cause blackness.

39:12

Drinking a tumble of it will kill you within hours.

39:15

Sure, what does it smell like?

39:17

Complete blindness?

39:19

What's in this booze?

39:20

Have you thought it yourself, doctor Doris?

39:24

Prohibition is not going to make alcohol disappear.

39:27

It's instead going to create numerous

39:29

substitutes for whiskey that I have dead.

39:34

Before prohibition really takes off.

39:36

He's looking the federal government

39:39

right in the eye and saying, I want

39:41

to let you know that we're looking at

39:43

this now, We're seeing people starting

39:45

to die. This is a terrible

39:48

idea. Whatever you

39:51

know, politics and morality you think

39:53

is behind what you're doing. The bottom line of

39:55

what you're going to do is kill people.

39:58

They issued that warning in December nineteen

40:00

nineteen. Charles Norris and Alexander

40:02

Getler were now on the case,

40:05

a case that would consume them across

40:07

the next decade and expose the

40:09

killer of Bis bider Beck, remember

40:12

him, the jazz musician who collapsed

40:14

in Cleveland at age twenty eight. It

40:18

would take our dynamic duo to the heart

40:21

of a cruel and misguided scheme,

40:23

a snaffoo that led to

40:25

the mass poisoning of thousands

40:28

and the people behind it. The

40:30

US government this

40:38

season on snaffo, the

40:40

fact.

40:40

That there were only twenty six hundred prohibitionations

40:43

covering the entire Canadian border, of the Mexican

40:45

border, and both coasts.

40:47

It's ridiculous.

40:48

When we're five years into prohibition,

40:50

the government is starting to go, Okay,

40:53

this isn't working. What is wrong

40:55

with the American people.

40:57

The bartender took some brass metals and

40:59

the other two patrons held him down and

41:02

well to beat the crap out of him.

41:03

He said, if I ever get out and the two people, I'm going

41:05

to go get the DA and that son of a bitch

41:08

Gettler.

41:08

If I made that up, You've got come on and

41:10

this absolutely all happened.

41:12

Did people die?

41:13

They died.

41:15

Daily Snapfu

41:22

is a production of iHeartRadio, Film, Nation

41:24

Entertainment, and Pacific Electric Picture

41:26

Company in association with Gilded

41:28

Audio. It's executive produced

41:30

by me Ed Helms, Milan Papelka,

41:33

Mike Falbo, Whitney Donaldson, and

41:35

Dylan Fagan. Our lead producers

41:38

are Carl Nellis and Alyssa Martino.

41:40

This episode was written by Albert Chen,

41:42

Carl Nellis and Nevin Callapoly, with

41:45

additional writing and story editing from Alissa Martino

41:47

and Ed Helms. Additional production

41:49

from Stephen wood. Tory Smith is our associate

41:52

producer. Our story editor is nicki

41:54

Stein. Our production assistants are Nevin

41:56

Kalapoly and a kimminy Ekpo. Fact

41:58

checking by Charles Richter. Our creative

42:01

executive is Brett Harris. Editing music

42:03

and sound design by Ben Chug Engineering

42:06

and technical direction by Nick Dooley Andrew

42:08

Chug is Gilded Audio's creative director.

42:11

Theme music by Dan Rosatto. Special

42:13

thanks to Alison Cohen, Daniel Welsh

42:16

and ben Ryizak,