thank you and good evening and

welcome to tonight's great lives presentation of the interesting life of george remus. i'd like first to thank the sponsor of tonight's lecture um, w dining services by the generous support in making the program our. our speaker this evening abbott kahler will well be familiar to many of you from her previous based on her book liar temptress soldiers spy, her other bestselling publications include sin in the second city, the true story of two sisters around the world's most famous brothel, american rose. the biography of gypsy rose lee. then came devil, which she herself has called the most outrageous story.

she's ever encountered. and the ghost of eden park, the fascinating story of the bootleg king george remus, on which tonight's lecture is based. in addition to these nonfiction books, our debut novel, where are you was published this past january. now, given the titles of these works, it's not surprising that usa once named her, quote a pioneer of cecil. history. albert's books have been variously chosen as the best books of the year by amazon library journal and smithsonian magazine. in addition, has written for new york magazine, the wall street journal, the washington and smithsonian magazine, as well as other publications and has appeared on the history channel, cbs sunday and the discovery channel, among other media

outlets. please join me in welcoming back the university of washington and a great last program. our friend abbott kahler. thank, bill. thank you, ali thank you to the great lives program. thank to university mary washington and you all for coming out tonight. i'm so thrilled to be back here in fredericksburg, which i'm just going to kick off and say fredericksburg. you might be surprised to know had quite its own little dabbling in prohibition. and i found a couple really fun articles about fredericksburg contributions to probit in that i think i'll start the evening off with one is titled peddlers liquor and playing a flying bootlegger finds ready customers around fredericksburg. this from the washington post of

fredericksburg. oh, sorry. this is from the the washington post. january 26, 1920. and it is dateline fredericksburg, virginia. a bootlegger and flying machine landed on fall hill on the courthouse road in spotsylvania county a few days ago, carrying a number of gallons of moonshine, liquor. it is said that the aviator ready customers for contraband and a short while after he made his getaway in the skies moonshine seen by airplane is the latest mode of delivery in the forbidden liquid to the thirsty of the vicinity. so fredericksburg definitely pioneering the airplane liquor business and also a little bit of scandalous activity on colonial beach that i'm going to tell you about. this is from the fredericksburg daily star of april 25th, 1922. good bye. dimpled pink knees of feminine bathers at colonial beach.

an official ban on one piece bathing suits and stock inglis legs of girl bathers at popular river resort was placed by recent action of the mayor and city, who each season. it is said that the bathing costume of the pretty and shapely lasses from fredericksburg have been growing more daring and the older and, more conservative residents of the beach resort become shocked by the scarcity of wearing apparel on some of the nearly nude mermaids who bask in sport in the sunshine, the sandy beach of the potomac. the restriction it said, was placed to curb the growing of convention among modern class of girls, commonly termed flappers. now you might want to know what scandalous attire was back then when it was pretty much moleskin bathing suits from here to your knees. it was quite scandalous. the bathing suit regulations

adopted by the colonial beach city council read as follows. bathing suits for women shall consist of trunks, skirt and stockings and the trunks and stockings meet. men were not immune to this men's suits. if a one piece suit shall have trunks and skirt trunks come within six inches above the knee. so no speedos. the guys. a fine of not less than $5 and not more than $10, which is about $185 today, shall be imposed each offense. so very scandalous times in fredericksburg, virginia. so which brings me to my book, the ghosts of eden park and sort of i'll jump in to how i got into this topic. we're talking about prohibition. we're talking about bootleggers are talking about the most successful bootlegger monetary,

really speaking in american history, pretty much has heard of. and i usually eat well. let me back up for one second. i get my ideas from libraries and mustard archives and sort of digging into these old, old books just seeing where the history leads me. but i got the idea for the ghost eden park from television, particularly a show called boardwalk empiich ran for about five seasons. anas brilliant show. it really perfectly captured the dawn of the 1920s. it was a time when bootleg were just beginning to plot ways to all the volstead act and the prohibition, and nobody had heard al capone. so there was a minor character named george remus. he brilliant and innovative, and he was complete really nuts. he was completely cuckoo. he spoke of himself in third person, as you can see from the caption here, he's on the phone here with steve buscemi's

character, rebus finds you petty and resentful and the buscemi's to that was is not suitable for a family audience like we have here tonight. but he stole scene he was in and i knew lot of the people in boardwalk empire were real in history. and i was like, who is george remus and did he live? did he actually exist. so it turns out the real ramus did exist to dreams, was a real person, and he did speak of himself in the third person and my research i would come across these great quotes that he would say, and i'll share a few my favorites with you. one is, this is going to be hell of a christmas for remus. another is so many people want to kill remus. and my favorite that he said about himself, remus is brain exploded. you'll have to read the book to see if a brain explosion actually occurred. but all my research, years of researching history and i have come across quite a few

fascinating diabolical and really characters. but i think remus takes the cake and i'm very excited to tell you more about him. so before i get into talking about george remus his background, i want to talk for a minute about researching george remus. this is a picture of the scanner in the law library, google university, which holds a 5500 page trial. transcript that was the spine of my research for this. so as soon as i found out this child trace group existed, i, on the train from new york, went up to yale and basically parked myself in this library and didn't move for about ten days. i mean, i, i, i ate like, you know, granola bars under desk and, and just lost all control of time. but for ten days, from opening to closing, sat there and copied every single page, 5500 pages of this thing. and i had never seen anything, like, this overhead scanner. you know, usually when you use a scanner, you're putting the book

upside and you're trying to maneuver it. you hurt your and it's it's really tax ing physical experience. but the zipper scanner, just like this one from god, they just miraculously just everything. and i'm not going to lie if anybody's in their research know what i'm talking about. it was just sexy as hell. the scanner. i kind of fell in love with it, but this trial screams was was full of really fascinating tidbits. one of my favorite tidbits was that remus did not underwear. and in the 1920s, if somebody decided to go commando, you know, this was supposed to be the sign, an unsound mind. there was something wrong with you. if you didn't want to wear underwear. and so it was cause for alarm. and remus didn't care. he was just not going to wear his underwear. so it took me about four months to go through. this entire trial transcript and then i wrote an outline and the resulting from this was about 90,000 words, which was just

about the length of the book itself. so it's almost like i write an outline and then i carve the book from the outline. and my outlines are notoriously long and i wanted to do a true, true crime thriller with this book, which is very, very hard do with nonfiction, because you have to stay within confines of fact. but it so happened that the story was so vivid, colorful, and the people were so crazy and the story was so outrageous that i was able to do a whodunit in nonfiction. so here is george remus. you know, how do you solve a problem like george ramus? his real true story with so more dramatic and interesting than anything that was portrayed on boardwalk empire. he came to america from when he was a small child and settled in chicago. his father, in ramos's own words, a mean and abusive alcoholic. and he quit school at age 13 to go work in his uncle's pharmacy. he had to quit school to start

supporting his family because his father could no longer work. and ramos really into this role. he called himself a druggist, devil boy, always dramatic. and it wasn't enough for him. he wanted to do more than that. he bought his uncle pharmacy. he bought pharmacy of his own. he got fights with his customers. i think he through mercury people. he was a little nuts, as i as i've been saying. but it wasn't you know, it wasn't enough for him. he wanted to become a lawyer. so at night, you know, sometimes wouldn't even go home because. his father was volatile and things were a mess at home when he would sleep on the floor of the and he would start studying for the bar. he wanted to become a lawyer and he passed bar eventually barely. i think i think he got in a fight with his professor and then almost got failed. but he became an immediate sensation in chicago's scene. he became a defense who was very dramatic. he would stage these antics in

the courtroom. he would tear his hair out. he would scream he would cry. he would attack opposing counsel. he some some fans who called him the napoleon of the chicago bar, but his many detractors called, him the weeping and crying. remus and in 1920, he began to realize that he had a new kind of client client coming into his and these were men charged with violating the volstead act. so we must watch these men come in and they would just pay their fines, you know, lay down $500 on his desk and pay their fines and just go on their merry way and continue their business. and this was like these people are really cleaning up. and i know i'm much smarter, any of them. so i'm going to of try my own hand at this. and he you know, using his pharmaceutical background and his legal background, he scoured the volstead act and found a loophole. and the loophole this with a physician's prescription, it was legal to buy manufacture and use

alcohol for, quote, medicinal purposes. so it a provision he deemed in his customary flourish of language. he called it the greatest comedy the greatest perversion of justice that i have ever known of any civilized country in the world. and he wasn't wrong about that, really. and a plan began to take shape and, remove his mind. so a big part of raimi's plan was this woman here. her name was imogene holmes, and she had worked as a cleaning person in his office. they called them dust girls at the time in the twenties. she was a single mom. she had young daughter named ruth and. she was supporting her. and they became close, you know, which she would stay after hours and imogene and george began commercial commiserating about their mutually miserable marriages. imogene husband was out floundering the time and spending all their money and courting other women. and ray was his wife accused him of violent behavior and she also

accused him of, quote having a habit of coming home early in the morning. this was actually on their divorce papers. she said, you come home to early in the morning. it was on the divorce paper. you got to love those 1920 archives. but so they hit it off and began talking about getting divorces. and soon they were living together and planning their own wedding. george imogene an allowance. and he shared her his dream of becoming the country's preeminent bootlegger. remus imogene and her daughter ruth who who was adopted and really treated as his own. they moved to cincinnati from. chicago and soon at cincinnati was, a very important location during prohibition. 80% of the country's pre prohibition bonded whiskey was stored within 300 miles radius of the city. so it was a very strategic location because the whiskey so close, the legal bonded whiskey was so close. and it also was easy access to chicago, to new york. and there were other other cities where he could meet with

other bootleggers and conduct business. so in cincinnati they bought this beautiful mansion. this was in the neighborhood of price hill, which was at the time grandest, richest neighborhood in cincinnati. and this was set a record at the time, i think for the most expensive purchased and they planned extensive renovations. they were really going to make this house their own. and a surprise for his new bride, george remus put the deed to this home and imagines name. it was of many decisions that he would come to regret. george had several nicknames, imogene, but his favorite nickname for was the prime minister. he really valued her business acumen. he thought she was a natural business leader, had a smart sense about her, and really had insight into people's motivations and, sort of how he might be able to manipulate. and he really trusted her judgment on these matters. meanwhile, imogene, only one

nickname for george and that nickname was daddy. and i think that tells you a little bit about the nature of their relationship, or at least the nature of her view of him. and the meantime, she confided to a friend that she was going to quote, role remiss for his role so not the best intentions there. this is george connors. he was a very, very important person in the story of berenice. once remington, imogene settled cincinnati. he made the immediate acquaintance of george connors, who was a local cincinnati man. he was in politic. his family had been there for a long time. whose in real estate? he was very well-connected. so roberts made acquaintance with him, and they really hit it off. they were the exact opposite in temperament. george connors was. calm, cool and collected while reems was volatile and would go lunge across the room at people and george connors would come down. remis called the man friday.

i mean, he once he connors in place. remus began to implement his scheme for becoming the country's preeminent bootlegger in the scheme had four parts which i'm going to explain to you will explain a of his genius and his success. number one he was going to buy distilleries to gain possession of pre-prohibition bonded whiskey. number two, he was going to acquire wholesale drug companies. number three, he obtained withdraw permits that would allow him to remove whiskey from those distilleries and in theory, sell it on the medicinal market. number four, and this is the true genius of his plan, where he was organize his own transportation company to provide for distribution. and then he arranged for his own employees to hijack his own trucks. and then those employees would sell this legal medicinal to the illegal market at price that were misnamed. so basically, george was robbing

to pay ruinous. he called this massive, unwieldy the circle for obvious reasons he was robbing from himself and paying himself back within a year of launching the circle george remus owned. this is. 35% of all of the liquor in the united states. he had so much money that he actually opening his own bank just for himself. i mean, it's like chase bank. customer one you know, like just him. and he was so proud of himself and course he had to speak of this in the third person. remiss was in the whiskey business. he'd say, and remis was the biggest man in the business. cincinnati was the american mecca for good liquor, and america had come to reims to get it. so remits his fortune was estimated to be between 20 without excuse me 20 and $40 million. and this is in 1920. that's not a figure adjusted for inflation. $40 million.

the irony of all of this is that george remus was a teetotaler who never had a drop to drink. this is valley. this is a bit outside cincinnati proper. and it was ramos's storage facility, his sort of center of operation. and george connors is, the one who helped the rumors, find this place after ramos was attacked by whiskey. now, whiskey, pirates weren't pirates of the hoy. maybe variety. they were really roving of thieves who would descend upon a warehouse. they would bound and gagged the watchman, cut the telephone wires and steal all of the liquor inside. and ramos once encountered whiskey. pirates. and he put up such a good fight. you know, ramos was brawler. he put up such a good fight that at the end, that whiskey pirate said, you you deserve to keep your own liquor. that was incredible. but death valley was solution to these robberies, and it would this impenetrable fortress, that rim created. it had shotguns. pistols and automatic stationed

at the windows and various points throughout visiting rummer rum runners to buzz a buzzer to gain entry. and once they were inside, you know, from listening to they were he treated them like royalty. you know they had an immediate hot meal they could stay for the night but they got liquor you know that to bring back home. that was not of their own supply just extra alcohol. and there were games -- with credit lines extended. all of this and rim was called this place, death valley, in honor of whiskey pirates who tried to break in but were never heard from again. and he did keep that whiskey pirates, but eventually he would not be able to keep out prohibition agents. as you know, he would soon learn. so this is one of my favorite finds during the archives. this is a speakeasy menu for a chicago speakeasy. it's about 1926. and the rum runners would go from death valley back to their cities. all of ramos's alcohol. and by way, i should just

interject that ramos really did care about the quality of his alcohol. there were a lot bootleggers who would cut their stuff with with grain, alcohol and other substances that really diminished the purity of alcohol. but ramos was very adamant his alcohol be be good quality stuff. so they would take ramos's alcohol, go back to their cities and start selling it. and including the local speakeasies. and here's a menu from one speakeasy and just i just think it's kind of a fascinating artifact. some of the drinks, if you can't read the text, there was a corpse reviver, which is the name might suggest it was actually a hangover cure. and it's actually a popular drink again, the corpse reviver. there's a dirty -- special. the dirty -- flips maiden's prayer and sort of a whole interesting array. and i think there's a champagne cocktail on there for $0.75, which of course, you know, just marvel a minute at. the 75 cent champagne champagne drink, which we'll never see again in our lifetime.

so this is george remus, his mother, marie remus. and as you might be able to tell from the he was a little bit of a mama's boy aside from imogene his mother, was the most important person in his life. and mary remus had a very, very hard life. she came over from germany and when she was questioned by immigration authorities, she was so beleaguered that she couldn't remember the names of four other children who had died. she just couldn't remember their names. and she and remus were very close. and there's a really interesting story from his childhood that was, i think, one of his formative memories. and i mentioned that his his father a volatile drunk. so he and his mother would quite fight fight often. and it got physical and as the story goes, one night they were out of the chicago local saloon and they got into a fight. and mary remus took a bottle and bashed her husband over the head with his bottle. and he died from this wound. so george remus worried about his mother in the aftermath of.

so what does he do? he locks her in a closet for three days so that she can't speak indiscriminately to the coroner until the inquest is over. so can't incriminate herself. he just locks away, which i just thought was incredible. it goes to the lengths to which he would go to sort of protect the people that he cared about and the crazy things he was willing do. so, imogene and marie remus did not get along remus would give his mother the money she wanted and support her and find and of course, imogene, all of the money for herself. well, so the renovations in the prince hill price hill mansion are complete. i think they cost about $750,000 in today's money. the renovations. and here it is, you know, a picturofisarr. now, clearly, remus was not a minimalist. i don'thi he ever met a cherub statue. he didn't want to take home. but my favorite part of this

piuris the gold piano. it is a lovely tt piece right there. and i only bring it up because my very first nonfiction books in in the second city, which was about two sisters who ran a brothel in chicago, they also had gold piano. and when they were shut down. nobody knows where that gold ano went. so, like, to think in md that the gold piano from the everleigh club somehow ended up in george remus mansion 20 years later. and i'm just that's my story, and i'm sticking to it. but anyway, this mansion was 31, rooms all curated and decorated by rooms in imogene. his favorite prized possession was this authentic signature of george washington that was worth $50,000. and it was just sort there on train to society. you know, just having this mansion that full of artifacts and sort of expensive trinkets for people to admire.

here's another room in the mansion, i would say a little bit more tastefully decorated. the solarium. and i think there's a lamp on there. tha's one of my favorite things i've ever seen in. an old photograph. it's like a globe thing. i can't see it very well from, but oh, the is. yeah. anyway, the decor in there is really kind of serene an loly, but. but the whole place did really represent their aspirations, you kn, they didn't want to just be admired by new people or by local cincinnati. and they wanted to be known across the country forhe elegance, their taste, the refinement. because both of these people came from nothing, both or and imogene, grew up very. and so this was their sort attempt to break into high society. so to that end, imogene ramis planned a lavish new year's eve party for 1921. this an incredible thing. i found that. the archive was outside of cincinnati at the delhaize's starkel society. this is an original invitation to that party.

the original ribbon is still tied onto it. it's amazing. but imogene designed imitations herself. six of her, she, you know, they had all a whole staff maids, her maids address and mailed these envelopes and invitations to journalists, politicians ins, judges, captains of industry in cincinnati, socially, including the taft family. you know, ramus had a very big obsession with becoming friends with the taft family, including the former president, who was at the time the cream court justice of the united. and if it all went well, this was going to be his big social debut. and he was going to sort of, you know, have his kingdom and conquer it, really launch himself. so the inscription on this envelope, if you can't see the excuse me, is dive to help swim the wealth float on happiness, 1921 1922. and consider the level of debauchery that was planned for the party. i think the baby is a little. it was. it was.

and don't know what imogene was thinking there. i guess new year's baby. but you know, really not fitting for the tenor of this party. here's imogene in her boudoir, which was one of my favorite photographs. i came. i just have to that that poor photographer had to take shot hundreds of times for imogene to be satisfied by. but this was an equally important night for imogene. you know, she was finally somebody. she was mrs. george remus, and she wanted to capitalize on that. and she really made the most of what she had. i think she had a charisma that was it's hard to see and photograph, but in person, one of her friends, one of raimi's friends gave imogene this very appraisal quote. she was the kind of woman that made you think of turkish arabs oriental dances and cleopatra. her long frizzle brown hair always to be falling about her dusky olive tinted face, long earrings, hung free from the beneath the folds of her hair. heavy eyelashes dropped low over large brown eyes. her every glance seemed a

caress, although she was voluptuous to, the point of stout ness. there was something feline in every moment. so was out to get noticed and meet influential people. and her daddy was certainly the way do that. so this is a cartoon of what went on at this party. and apparently the was actually taken of this party. and when i tell you that i would have cut off a limb to have seen the video of this part i don't think i'm exaggerating, but this party was quite something. all newspapers reported on it and the highlight of this party was rima indoor swimming pool. it a greco-roman swimming pool. complete with statues and, you know, piary and very carefully curated shrubs and all of this ilt for $175,000. the $100,000 quote on there was a lowball quote. it was 175. and he christened pool the imogene baths in honor of wife

at one end of the best sort of a variety variety of needle baths. what they called at the time, the sort of, you know, to to sort of pelt on your body and almost like a massage technique. and there was a style and pressure for every taste. and they even had something called electric, which i had never heard of. and an electric bass were sort of an early version, a version, a tanning bed heated by lights and said to me make the user frisky. so i think they were a very popular addition at this party. synchronized swimmers were doing routines up and down the pool, as you could see there, i guess. where you using the diving board as this big stage to give toasts athe stroke of midnight? ruth remus, the daughter, came out into a slick, skimpy nightgowand announc that she was the spirit of the new year. imogene remus wore a very daring one piece, certainly notbiding by the fredericksburg the council's regulations on swimar. and remus nded out party favors. now, these are incredible.

he gave every man a diamond stick pin and a watch, and every single woman there got a brand new car. so this thing, you know, before over oprah winfrey, you a car and you get a car every single woman got a car and. the topper of this was about a dollar bill tucked under everybody's dinner plate. now, this would be like if you all looked under your seat right now and found $14,000. i'd fortunately, if not provided a any party favors that i but if if i could it would be $14,000 certainly in a gesture emblematic of the times, one that would be remembered for decades later, rima slit his guest's with $100 bill. now, this was in an era when the average annual salary was 1200 dollars. so really just a disgusting display of wealth to just light $100 bill on fire. this is an actual picture of the watch that remus gave out engraved with his name and remus lavish parties are the one of

the reasons that he inspired the great gatsby. fitzgerald definitely modeled at least in part, the gatsby on george remus. now there are all these stories that scott fitzgerald and george remus met when fitzgerald was in the army and stationed in louisville. there are no no hard evidence at all that. the two men met, but by the time fitzgerald was drafting the great gatsby. he certainly knew who remus was by that time. the entire world knew, the remus was at. and i think the parallels between gatsby and remus were conspiracy was, you know, jay gatsby like owned a string of pharmacies. he lived in an opulent mansion. he was obsessed with a mysterious woman. he threw these lavish parties and. as fitzgerald writes, he sprang from a platonic conception of himself. and i think both gatsby remus sort of invented a persona. and they tried to inhabit a world that didn't really welcome them, and they really just never like they quite belonged. and i think that was sort of a melancholy note that both of those men lived their lives with

common. pardon me, just a little bit of suspense here. okay all of my books have to have incredible bad -- woman and she is exception. this is will and bram. she was such a rich and complicated and she was also a boardwalk empire. if anybody remembers the assistant district attorney, she was esther randolph on there. i believe they had her having an affair with her prohibition agent, which the real mabel wilson brand probably never would have done. god forbid. and when president warren harding, william brandt to be the assistant attorney general of the united states, she other women in this country had only the right to vote for nine months and suddenly she's the most powerful woman in the country. just to back up a little bit with her background during her last semester at school at the university of southern california, she worked pro-bono in the courts and she had an exclusively female client.

and she had a particular focus on prostitution. you know it really bothered her that these women would get arrested for prostitution and they would have to be dragged in court. it would be embarrassing and mortifying. and the men the johns had to show up in court. so she utilized a little known provision that required the men to show up in court, and she made sure that they had to be there just as often as the actual women who are being arrested. she also would advise her clients, madams, on how to get out of the business. one of my favorite stories was a madam told her she wanted to go straight and will obtain access to woman's finances, determined she could retire after six more months and loaned her some money to help with her fresh start. so when warren harding called branch, he was only 32 years old, five years out of law school, had never prosecuted a single case in her entire, yet suddenly she was not the most powerful woman in the country. she was in charge of thousands of prohibition cases, all of the cases across the country for prohibition that were on the

federal level were assigned to william brandt. and it was clear that her bosses at the justice department knew this as warren harding and other members of the ohio gang who, you know, by the way, were drinking liquor all the throwing parties at the white house. they did not certainly believe in prohibition at all. it's clear they hired william brandt thinking, oh, you know, let's hire the little lady. she's going to be overwhelmed. she's going to be an experience she's going to be scared and intimidated. and we'll be able to continue our cozy relationship with the bootleggers and just continue as we were. and, of course, did not expect what actually happened which was william brandt getting into the oath of office, taking it in 1921, getting to work, and she just began kicking some --. so she the most powerful woman in the country. and you know, how people felt about women in power. she was very vocal about she felt she was treated in the press. and she lamented that the press just couldn't focus on what she was doing. know they had to focus on what she looked like and what she was wearing. and i'll give you some of the more egregious examples.

one newspaper said that wasn't exactly pretty, her too. her features are too large and too serious for that. rather face was intelligent. she was medium sized. but, you know. she also had a suggestion of pompous. and people were obsessed with her hands for some reason. i've read so many articles where they were just like, look at her hands. newspapers admired her, quote, low thumb. and this is my favorite her middle finger of unusual prominence. the head of the exact i named the chapter her middle of unusual prominence the atlanta journal even that her hands proved her competence see quote if you want to lean back at a comfortable porch chair and sip cooling drinks of nonalcoholic and have that calm, contented feeling that your country is being run satisfactorily. then take a long look at the hand of the assistant attorney general of the united states. never have we seen a hand which expressed more energy common and

intelligence. now don't know how your hand can have energy or common sense, but will and brand would rail against this stuff and say why did they have to print this girly girly stuff when i just want to focus my work. so to add to the pressure of her job well in print was almost deaf. she spent an entire hour each morning doing her hair so that it covered her earring because she didn't want any of her opponents to know that she was working with that kind handicap. and she was a very, very tough woman. she grew up in a sod dugout out in the middle of kansas, didn't start her own formal schooling until she was about 13. she was almost tough and thick skinned. these qualities that were reinforced by the ice cold baths she took every morning, her favorite saying was, quote, life has few petted darlings and she didn't consider herself one of them. so my favorite event, her

childhood once she better pet cat's ear and to teach her a lesson her father bit her ear. so remus called her the sarina prohibition. you know, he had great nicknames for. and the irony of will and brand is that, you know, george remus was a teetotal who didn't like to drink rooms. the sarina or excuse me william brand was sort of prohibition who really like to drink. this is a woman who spent a lot of time in california and she liked her red wine. so as soon as prohibition was the law of, the land, she gave up her red wine, but not forever. it should be said so soon after she was this big new year's eve party, a letter on william brand's desk. and the letter said all of cincinnati she was well aware that reema spends lavishly, riotous living and no fewer than 40 automobiles and dispenses enough liquor from his drug companies to meet prescriptions of physicians of the whole central united states. so the feds in cincinnati clearly needed a gillibrand's help. so this is jeff smith.

he was one of the many forces working willenbring and he was a politician. he was good friends of william brandt's immediate boss, general harry daugherty, who was part of william harding's very crooked ohio gang, and one of the guys who organized poker player poker games and bootlegging in the white house and brandt wasn't sure what jeff smith did day she was like is he a glorified valet? she really didn't know. but remus knew exactly who just smith was and what he did. smith was a liaison that was connecting bootleggers. the federal government. smith took many bribes for members mean into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and he supplied rumors with those authentic withdrawal permits that remus needed to get his liquor out of the distilleries. and he also promised protection, you know, famous, robust, get arrested if he did get arrested. would he wouldn't go to trial if he did go to trial, he would be acquitted if he was found guilty, he wouldn't go to jail. if you went to jail, he would get out. i mean, he had there all these levels of promises the rumors,

capping handsomely for remus called smith his ace in the hole. but this did not last for very long. so here's a cartoon about william brandt and basiclyhe futility of her job. you know, she here she is with broobacally sweeping back an ocean of alcohol. so and she really did have a l working against her. you know, the united states has two long craggy borders, 18,000 miles of really porous coastline. airplane were coming from canada into new york with they were coming up from mexico. trucks were coming in. you know, people guiding by searchlights. the airplanesercoming in. there were so many inventive ways of smuggling booze on both a rge scale and small scale. and here are a couple of my favorite. a double amputee war veteran boasted that he could carry six pints in his artificial arm and leg. women had pints inside of false breasts. a raid on a seemingly innocent

soda porter. and helena, montana, uncovered squirt guns with a two drink capacity. there were filled torpedoes on long island specialized liquor, submarines that raised and lowered out of sight and seagoing tugs with compartment is hiding enough liquor for 30. nearly. now overnight know people like to say overnight with prohibition law abiding citizens immediately turned into criminals. it didn't matter who you were if you were dealing in alcohol or having a drink, you were a criminal. and i like to think about my to bring a personal into it. my grandma was born in 1918. and one of her very first memories was of her older sister, who a flapper putting little, you know, bottles in my grandmother's. and she's a little girl around seven or eight and telling her to wrote the street and delivered these little bottles and flags to her friends. so my little eight year old grandmother was a bootlegger. i mean, nobody immune.

so here's another great one. this is a woman who at first glance, she's just having a leather bound book. and the book is called the four swallows by somebody named j.b. corn, a reference to john barleycorn. of course, the book is masquerade. it has a flask. you flip open the top and there are four vials where you can put any liquor your choice. hence the four swallows. and this brilliant invention was the work. a brooklyn based inventor named john nutley. before prohibition, he was known for a little bag banks, little leather banks that were look like books. but after prohibition, he was like, well, there's i have opportunity here. it was patented. and in february of 1921 and became a very, very popular item flash for people to buy. so here's another you know, at first glance, this woman's just enjoying her coffee in a cafe. but what is she doing with her cane? oh, my god. she's alcohol into her coffee, and she looks very pleased with

herself watching her doing it. anyway, this is another invention. it was these kings and. you twist up in the cane. there's a long glass vial inside you can fill with liquor and. of course. just screw it out and pour it into whatever. there are reproductions of this cane on ebay. i happen to own one of them now. i'm not ashamed to say. and i bought it might. this book came out in 2019 and i bought the cane right? i went when covid hit, not prohibition when covid hit. and as soon as the bars reopened, i went there with my cane and dumped some alcohol from my cane. so i like to call one my. what a big flask. you have. but this is actually called the bootleggers life preserver. and as you can see, you know, and women were actually considered to be the best smugglers. and it's very interesting, you know, this was a when it was considered improper and impolite to search women and there were actually some states that had rules that you weren't allowed

to search women at all. so you can imagine took full advantage of this hiding, hiding large glass under their fur coats and in their garter belts and in their stockings and under their skirts and anywhere that they could find it, where they a man wouldn't dare to look. these are cattle shoes. these did not carry liquor. they were, but they were indispensable to bootleggers brewed moonshine, especially down south, the forests or meadows. i mean, you can look at the heels and they're made from wooden blocks to resemble hooves. and they literally covered the tracks of somebody who was high or running from prohibition. so prohibition agent would be following and they would look down and just see the cow tracks and not be quite sure of where were going. i have searched ebay for these. i can't find any. i wish somebody would bring them back in style because i think they're quite fabulous. but these are the boots of somebody who got caught they're being modeled by a prohibition in about 1924 which brings to my

next talk about william brandt and the various problems she to encounter. and one of them was just finding good prohibition agents to help her enforce. this very unpopular law, prohibition agents ever starting was only 1200 dollars a year, which was barely a living wage in some cities and really a pittance in comparison to the large bribes that you could make. just getting from bootleggers. if you just look the other way or facilitated bootleggers business. and a prohibition agent could even have a criminal record and it's unbelievable. one of the craziest stories i found that there was one agent who was actually convicted of murder and armed robbery doing time in an upstate new prison when he got his prohibition badge, which really quite insane. it's like, okay, convicted murderer. would you please enforce prohibition? and william brandt wrote about her frustration with this, and she wrote the dominant reality

is that the whole problem is one of getting the right men in places of, power and enforcement men, creative thought of courage and, those not slaves, political ambition. and by men i also mean women lots of them. so this is franklin dodge. this man was william brandt's bet. she called him her ace detective, and his name was franklin dodge. he was pedigreed. he was from an important michigan family. his father had was politics, and he was sort of an entitled, arrogant guy, you know, never thought consequences to him. but willy brandt really saw potential in him. he had been a prohibition agent down in savannah where he broke up a very important big bootlegging ring. he went undercover and he wasn't afraid to take and do some some kind of shady activity to get the bad guys caught. and william brandt appreciated this about him and she decided that he was the guy to go after george remus. so she put him on premises case in a franklin dodge after lots of maneuverings and smith was paying jess smith lots of money

in bribes. he manages to put remus in jail. but that's not the last time remus and franklin dodge meet when remus is in jail in the atlanta penitentiary. franklin dodge is sent down there, william brandt, to investigate corruption in the prison. and by this time, remus had begun hearing some things about franklin dodge. maybe he wasn't as honest as william brad thor. he heard he was amenable to bribes. he was open to quid pro quo and really thought, you know what, this guy is going to be my ticket to getting out of prison and he decides to tell remus to cultivate franklin dodge. now imogene remus begins to cultivate franklin dodge, but not quite in the way remus hoped. so this was a recurring theme during my research, the flapper menace. i mean, we all we already heard how they were at the beach. they're sort of menacing society everywhere. but, you know, truly the middle aged flapper, i mean, if there

was somebody was really corrupting, it was the 40 year old ladies at this time. imogene was 39 years old and know the newspaper had coined a term for age flappers. you know, the flapper menace. and they became an entire phenomenon where women in 48, 40 year old flappers were particularly reviled in the press. and it was kind of an theme of the book. you know, this was a time when women for the first time were subverting expectations and mores and what were the consequences of that? you know, the 1920s were such a sincerely rich time american history. we had just from world war one, the war swept away lot of gender norms. women had, you know, went out to work and sort of broke down all of the norms about that. and in america, it felt itself in this in-between period, people were more hedonistic, realizing that life could be so short after the war but it was before the depression came. it put a big damper on everything. and in terms of women's advance,

you know, many people were not happy that their wives, their sisters, their mothers their girlfriends suddenly had the right to vote. so there was a little bit of backlash about this and it fell on women who really dared to defy convention. and there was a withering report on middle age flappers in the new york times that said everyone knows there was a certain type of american woman of a certain age who spent her life trying to be like the girls the woman who finds herself earnestly, the voice, mannerisms and dress of the poor little flapper girls of any age are a greater menace than, the 16 year old kind. so so as for the 16 year old kind, they develop own culture, which wareally quite fascinating to research. they had their own their own language. and here was a man page from the flapper, and they had their own magazine. the tagline for their magazine was not for fogies. and they had a great definition for a flapper which i don't

quite understand, but i think it sounds great a flapper is somebody who has a jitney body in a limousine. so here's some of their slang a biscuit is a portable flapper, a -- tickler is a girl who entertains her father's out of town. customers and sweetie, of course, the best passive aggressive sense means anybody a flapper hates colleges or in these organized anti flapper clubs. the male students of syracuse organized a club to protest, quote, smoking among women. women wear flopping, galoshes and intrusion of women into realms heretofore restricted. and i was like flopping galoshes. who cares if somebody is wearing? but i looked a little bit into that and it seems that some the etymology of the word flapper was considered by some to be based on these gallops but it was fashionable to wear them zipped so the girls would just walk around with these galoshes, zips on flop, flip flop around everywhere, which i suppose

samsonite very ladylike at the time. but the real etymology of flapper much earlier in in the 19th center, it was used britain to mean prostitute and by the end of the century of course it meant any spirited teenage girl. so there were even cartoons, the horrors and the menace of flappers. this was a man in my favor once, and i'll just read the captions here to you. the first one is guileless youth by cuties with bob hair and stockings, flasks and necks is very terrifying. unsuspecting boys forced to endure such unseemly activities as cheek. mothers, gravely concerned with saving their sons from her predatory. so wieland brand herself admire these flappers, and she envied their freedom and she wrote when i was a girl it was considered a sin to kiss a man before was engaged. now, the so-called actresses who she likes and she is none the

worse for it. so here you might recognize this guy. this is j. edgar hoover, little young and j. a, b, edgar hoover. here he was, brand new. the bureau of investigation, which was the precursor of the fbi. this time he was the head of the general division when he was only 24 years old. and he got promoted, despite his shady history at the you know, he's only 22 but already had 24. he already had shady history at the bureau. he was involved in the palmer raids course when thousands of suspected anarchists communists were illegally detained and arrested and he was promoted to the head of the bureau at will in france, urging she went to the attorney general and said that he was honest and informed and one who operated like an electric wire almost trigger response. so she is responsible for getting j. edgar hoover hired. and she also him around. he had to answer to her. and i love the idea of j. edgar hoover to answer to a woman. so he handled translation and co

to correspond bootleggers and various other. but the one thing about j. edgar at this time was he was really and sincere about having honest force of prohibition agents. he didn't want anybody taking bribes. he didn't want anybody in underground activity with bootleggers or anything. he really wanted a force of honest agents. so when he finds out that franklin died and is engaging in some illicit activity not only with other bootleggers, but george remus his wife, he sends another agent to spy on sort of a case of spy versus and it's a part of the book that. i had a lot of fun writing. it was kind of a little mini espionage escapade in the middle of. the book, let me just sum it up by saying that in this book j. edgar hoover is actually one of the good guys. so here is george remus prison in the atlanta federal. do not let his morose fool you, rebus. in a part of the prison known as millionaire's row he was able to

redecorate own cell to his liking. he was allowed to have imogene in scrub the floor and her hands and knees, which she often did. he had his own maid. he had his own cook. he had catered meals that he would line up with a long linen tablecloth with other bootleggers every evening, with fresh flowers. he even had this, of course, is during prohibition and he's in jail for violating prohibition laws. he a full stack bar in cell where he could offer liquor to visiting reporters. i mean, this is just the stuff would only have in the 1920s in this country and this country but still george remus was miserable. i mean, he's a control freak and here he is in prison. he really can't anything and he especially cannot his wife, imogene, who for all he knows now is has run off with franklin dodge. he doesn't know what's going on with imogene and franklin dodge. he's hearing terrible rumors and more obsessed. he goes with gets with what's happening with imogene and franklin dodge the crazier he gets and he starts writing these

very unhinged letters damaging. and it was sort of, you know, when you when you research nonfiction and you go into the and you just start seeing glimpse of these people's thought process and it's it's so fascinating when they come to life for you like that. and i just want to read a couple of george remus letters to imogene as he's going increasingly unhinged, which will not show the unraveling of his mind, but a really wonderful way he had with words. smith was a wordsmith, even though he spoke of himself in the third person. he he had a way with words. here's one to the only true, sweetest little girl in the whole dear world. to the apple of. my eye, not one, but both. how glorious it feels to know that my sweetheart, his cherry again. little one. you do not know what it means. have you away from me for long? the turn in the days, the days and the months and the months and years i crave you. i will devour you. i care only for you a human

madness. all other matters are infinitesimal you and only you therefore you see how i burst into a human cloud burst with a vitriolic tongue interspersed my only how is it that you were a monkey? you were a centipede you are a gem, are a jewel you are a combination of the aforesaid in one. if i but had you this very moment i would demonstrate of the foregoing with a real vigor. vim unexcelled. how about. i don't know when centipede became a term of endearment, but we must called her centipede and apparently i don't know. meanwhile, while all this was going on and remus was writing these impassioned letters, imogene was reassuring him that mr. dodge was their friend and he was going to get remus out of prison. so this is harry truesdale. this is the man that imogene and franklin dodge hired to kill.

and i like to bring him up because one point, harry truesdale, this hardened criminal, this professional killer was so afraid of both and george remus that he didn't know which one he was more scared of and he thought he was going to one that was going to get killed. so he was just like, these two are crazy hired killers just get me out of here. so he's a good part of the book, too. here's my final slide. this george remus tombstone, he was buried in riverside cemetery in falmouth, kentucky. and according to law, somebody a letter saying that george remus having the life that he lived did not deserve to have angels on his. so the very next day took a hammer. and sure enough, whacked the wings off the angels the and the wings are now gone from the angels. and this is how his grave still appears today. i just thought that was quite, quite a statement to make

somebody's tombstone. and i'd to finish by saying, you know, people who do what i do, who narrative nonfiction, we often lament that we're beholden to the historical record you know we're not allowed to make up dialog we're not allowed to make up events or characters and it's really frustrating. but the ghost of eden park represents, the very first time that the dead people did what i wanted them to do, what? so thank you very much. thank you. you. okay? now, when i get off off. high, you say you like your car? yes. we welcome. oh, it's a good question. i don't know what kind. i think there were about 100 people at that party, so maybe

50 cars. yeah. so woman got a car and. yeah, really, really. not afraid of one as well. yeah. she's never had that kind of romance, you try to economize by incorporating more based drinks. i do like some really. oh well. oh that would have been incredibly progressive of him. no, i think, i think that he he did not. not. i've never read anything to that extent, to that effect. as i said before, just was very concerned that his alcohol was pure. you know, a lot of people were getting sick. jake leggett called at the time that they were drinking impure alcohol. they would be paralyzed, could lead to blindness, death, even. and he just was, i think, focused on not getting a reputation for having subpar liquor. he really wanted people to think his was the best in the country. but i i'm not aware of any of any sort of plant based elixirs

or anything like that. but it's interesting question. i, you know. yeah, sorry i, i read that before he died in the prohibition as a defensive player that rivers was a was one of the people who sort of put forth a temporary insanity defense for his clients. yes. and they're all going to try to use it. yeah. i'm trying not to spoil. i try not to spoil too much about later part of the book. but yeah, he did he did have some very dramatic defense techniques for and i know you know you can look up on wikipedia or what happens with this but i try not to spoil for people want to read the book so. i've got one here oh you consider that and there was a atlanta federal penitentiary and

the picture of his mother. yeah it appears that the it was in front of a prison cell. yeah. do you think that was a case? well, he was in jail a couple times. one was in atlanta, and he was in jail in cincinnati. later on. so it could have been when he was going to or from courtroom. i think that was probably what it was. he was he was with his mom, probably you know, those were bars with well, some. yeah. and getting out of there. yeah. yeah. his mother was very devoted and, showed up at all of his courtroom proceedings. yeah. wow. yeah. i got one because when you mentioned the mansion you said. it was the name of james main and he was regret that that she run off with the money or something. well i don't want to spoil

anything about that, but all right. but let's just say know there was the franklin innocent incident and things not go well. yeah. okay. okay the questions i don't don't.