Episode 628: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 Part II - The Boston Molassacre

Summary

Last Podcast on the Left
Episode 628: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 Part II - The Boston Molassacre
Release Date: August 1, 2025

Summary

In Episode 628 of "Last Podcast on the Left," hosts Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, and Ed Larson delve deeper into the harrowing events of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston. This detailed exploration not only recounts the catastrophic flood but also examines the socio-political climate of the time, the ensuing chaos, and the long-term repercussions on both the community and industrial regulations.

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Background: Prohibition and Industrial Molasses Use

The episode begins by setting the stage for the Great Molasses Flood, highlighting the intersection of Prohibition and industrial alcohol production. As Prohibition loomed with the impending ratification of the 18th Amendment in early 1919, the United States Industrial Alcohol Company (USIA) was under pressure to maximize grain alcohol production to supply the upcoming illegal alcohol market.

Key Points:

• Prohibition's Impact: The one-year grace period before Prohibition allowed companies like USIA to ramp up alcohol production.
• Molasses Tank Construction: USIA erected a massive 50-foot-tall molasses tank in Boston's North End to store 2.3 million gallons of molasses, a critical ingredient for industrial alcohol.

Notable Quote:

Marcus Parks [05:56]: "You know what I like about the 18th amendment and the 21st amendment? It's a very great way to remember it. 18, you're not allowed to drink anymore. 21, you could drink again."

Anarchist Threats and Tank Negligence

Amidst the industrial push, tensions simmered due to stricter immigration laws targeting Italian anarchists—many of whom were intertwined with the labor force surrounding the molasses tank. Arthur P. Gel, the USIA overseer, faced public threats from anarchists who resented the company's dominance and poor working conditions.

Key Points:

• Weak Security Measures: Despite receiving threatening placards, Gel decided against reinstating adequate security, prioritizing profits over safety.
• Structural Failures Ignored: Reports indicated constant leaks, vibrations, and groans from the tank, signs of impending disaster that were systematically ignored.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zebrowski [07:56]: "USIA could make as much grain alcohol as possible before the prohibition deadline, so concerns about the safety of the molasses tank were ignored."

The Catastrophic Flood: January 15, 1919

On a mild January day, the molasses tank reached critical capacity. The mixture of warm molasses from recent shipments and cold molasses already in the tank triggered a fermentation process, producing carbon dioxide and increasing internal pressure beyond the structural limits.

Key Points:

• Pressure Build-Up: The chemical reaction caused by mixing warm and cold molasses led to excessive pressure within the tank.
• Tank Failure: At 12:41 PM, the tank ruptured, unleashing a 25-foot-high, 160-foot-wide wall of molasses moving at 35 mph, devastating the North End neighborhood.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zebrowski [29:04]: "Quite suddenly, a sound not unlike a machine gun, something like was heard by all present, followed by a noise that was described as sounding as if it had come from a wounded beast."

Personal Stories and Immediate Aftermath

The flood wreaked unprecedented havoc, claiming 21 lives and injuring around 150. Personal testimonies paint a vivid and terrifying picture of the chaos, with individuals like Martin Clarty and Giuseppe Iontasca sharing their harrowing experiences of being engulfed by the molasses wave.

Key Points:

• Martin Clarty's Ordeal: As a boxing referee, Martin was napping when the tank burst, experiencing the sensation of drowning in molasses and witnessing his family perish.
• Giuseppe Iontasca's Tragedy: A father of six, Giuseppe watched helplessly as his children were swept away, with only his son Antonio surviving amidst the destruction.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zebrowski [37:53]: "Martin felt himself slide downwards as though the churn of the most violent river rapids in existence were taking him under."

Rescue Efforts and Hospital Chaos

Emergency responders, including police, firefighters, doctors, and nurses, arrived swiftly but were overwhelmed by the sticky and viscous environment. Rescuers struggled to extract survivors from the molasses, often resorting to extreme measures like shooting trapped animals to prevent further suffering.

Key Points:

• Rescue Challenges: The molasses made movements difficult, with No. of living beings trapped in the goo and severe difficulties in identification due to molasses-covered bodies.
• Use of Force: Law enforcement had to euthanize horses trapped in the molasses, adding a layer of grim reality to the disaster.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zebrowski [50:16]: "The only thing that mattered to Arthur P. Gel is what's going to cost the least amount of money and what's going to make him look best to his corporate masters."

Legal Proceedings and Corporate Negligence

In the wake of the disaster, a grand jury failed to indict anyone for criminal negligence, citing insufficient evidence. This led survivors to file 119 civil claims against USIA. The courtroom became a battleground where USIA's defense attempted to shift blame onto anarchists, while plaintiffs presented damning evidence of corporate negligence.

Key Points:

• Defense's Stance: USIA's attorney Charles Choate vehemently denied structural weaknesses, attributing the tank's failure to anarchist sabotage.
• Prosecutors' Evidence: Testimonies from engineers and explosives experts from MIT revealed that the tank was indeed poorly constructed, with steel plates insufficient to handle the pressure.
• Jury Verdict: After extensive testimony spanning nearly a year, USIA was held liable and had to compensate the victims, though the settlement was criticized as insufficient.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zebrowski [81:58]: "Amongst the most damning testimony came from the people who actually made the steel plates, who admitted that the thickness of the plates they delivered was less than what was called for in the plans."

Long-Term Impacts and Regulatory Changes

The Great Molasses Flood had lasting effects on both the community and industrial regulations. Beyond the immediate fatalities and injuries, the disaster prompted significant changes in construction standards, mandating rigorous inspection and verification of engineering calculations to prevent future catastrophes.

Key Points:

• Regulatory Reforms: Boston began requiring detailed engineering calculations to be filed with construction plans, a practice soon adopted nationwide.
• Decline of the Molasses Trade: The flood marked the end of Boston's 300-year molasses trade tradition, with sugar becoming the preferred sweetener.
• Corporate Accountability: The disaster underscored the perils of unchecked corporate greed and negligence, serving as a historical lesson on the importance of regulatory oversight.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zebrowski [87:38]: "Boston began requiring that all calculations from engineers and architects be filed with their plans. That practice soon became standard across the country."

Conclusion: Lessons from the Melted Era

The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 serves as a stark reminder of the devastating consequences that can arise from corporate negligence and inadequate regulatory frameworks. The episode emphasizes the importance of stringent safety measures and accountability in industrial operations to safeguard communities.

Final Insights:

• Corporate Responsibility: Prioritizing profits over safety can lead to tragedies that impact countless lives.
• Regulatory Vigilance: Continuous oversight and enforcement of safety standards are crucial in preventing industrial disasters.
• Community Resilience: The North End community's response and subsequent legal battles highlight the resilience and tenacity of affected populations in seeking justice.

Notable Quote:

Henry Zebrowski [89:56]: "Without safeguards and regulations, corporations will risk the lives of human beings or even sacrifice entire populations if it means that the company's stock price will go up even a little."

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Closing Remarks

Episode 628 masterfully intertwines historical facts with engaging storytelling, shedding light on an often-overlooked tragedy. Through personal accounts, legal battles, and the broader socio-economic context, the hosts provide a comprehensive understanding of the Great Molasses Flood and its enduring legacy.

For those seeking a compelling true crime narrative intertwined with dark humor and incisive social commentary, this episode is an essential listen.

Transcript

[Marcus Parks]

This episode is sponsored by Nordstrom.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The Nordstrom anniversary sale is on now. It's a big deal with new arrivals on sale for a limited time. Save up to 33% on brands like Ugg, All Saints, Charlotte Tilbury, Steve Madden, Bobby Brown and more. Plus stock up on once a year beauty exclusives from winning brands. The best deals go fast in stores [e-mail] prices go up. August 4th, a lifetime original movie.

[Marcus Parks]

Cops think I murdered someone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I want this killer found today.

[Marcus Parks]

I won't let you down. From the best selling author Terry Blackstock. Something isn't right with this investigation. She's on the run to uncover the truth. Why would they lie? You can still clear your name. I can't walk away from this. Starring Cat Graham. But I'm scared. Help me make the right decision. Don't run.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Don't chase me.

[Marcus Parks]

Terry Blackstock's if I Run premieres tomorrow at 8 only on Lifetime.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's no place to escape to. This is the last on the left.

[Marcus Parks]

That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? I don't know how to do this episode without Hulk Hogan being here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, you know when Hulk Hogan died.

[Marcus Parks]

My find out about that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I've been working.

[Ed Larson]

Wow, you really work.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, man. That's nice.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I work without distraction. I, I, I blare it all out, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Now Hulk Hogan, he died. Yeah, man. He's with molasses. Yeah. Oh yeah. But he looked like Anne Burrell from Food Network. The female equivalent of Hulk Hogan. Turns out she committed suicide.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Super sad.

[Ed Larson]

It's very sad. It's almost like you shouldn't start an episode with.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, that's a really terrible thing to start the episode.

[Ed Larson]

You could have just joked about Hulk Hogan. He's a monster.

[Marcus Parks]

Burrell stuff is way more important. Way sadder.

[Ed Larson]

You mean the nice food lady was sad?

[Marcus Parks]

I guess.

[Ed Larson]

What you want to talk about?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, she was super sad. She did in a weird way.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Well, Hulk Hogan's heart exploded because it was the size of a pumpkin.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

And that was because it was filled with love.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with death reporter Henry Death reporter Henry Zabrowski.

[Marcus Parks]

That is both between because this is the problem. I don't know if anybody else. I'm certain the audience has like one old friend texture chain that does eventually devolve into just the how we all find out somebody dies. Right?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

That's all it is now. The old murder fist Text chain is just like, who's. It's like they.

[Marcus Parks]

It's their first always. They beat tmz. Sometimes I woke up to Hulk Hogan being dead, like, two hours before it broke. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It was interesting how much, like, I was unaffected by it, I guess. Like, if it's like a day and a half, two days after Ozzy, like, I don't. I could care less.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Who gives a. He's a bad guy. The only thing I do remember that nothing will take back that big bloated carcass making love to Bubba the Love sponge wife while he was absolutely filled to the max. Brisket.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Barbecue.

[Marcus Parks]

Feel like a pig.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And we have a man who sometimes feels like a pig, sometimes not. It's Ed Larson.

[Ed Larson]

That's right. I'm a squeal American.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. How about that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

And today we are here with the great molasses flood of 1919, part two. And yes, we are well aware that it's Black Strap molasses. Yeah. Not Back Strap Molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This podcast is a weekly grind. Sometimes a typo becomes another typo becomes another typo, and then that becomes an entire bit. And we made.

[Marcus Parks]

Because that's the problem.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. We made an entire character out of Backstrap Molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

And that's where you can't. Then back strap out of the bit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

When you've already committed to it. No.

[Ed Larson]

But I loved her.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

I miss her. I wish she would come back.

[Marcus Parks]

She can't now.

[Ed Larson]

Where is she?

[Marcus Parks]

She's different.

[Ed Larson]

I invented her. I saw her in my mind's eye.

[Marcus Parks]

And now she's gone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She's been replaced by Black Strap Molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

See, I feel like pretty much it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sounds like a pimp from a Rudy Raymore movie.

[Marcus Parks]

Black Strap, alas, is a much harder edged name. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

No. Definitely beats the out of anyone.

[Marcus Parks]

Especially.

[Ed Larson]

Especially if you look like me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He may be fat and he.

[Marcus Parks]

But Black Strap Molasses motherfucking owns the street. Yeah. Yeah, man. You may hide, you may run for cover, but Black Strap Molasses is gonna drown you. Muck. Come on. That's funny. Ain't no one sweeter, ain't no one.

[Ed Larson]

Meaner than the man with back Titus and a pulverizing demeanor. His name is Backstrap Molasses and he's.

[Marcus Parks]

Gonna slap all the asses. That's amazing.

[Ed Larson]

Thank you. I took time with it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Although you did say backstrap again.

[Marcus Parks]

It cut it. Now we have to cut it. I miss her.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So when we last left the tale of the Great molasses flood of 1919, the wheels of history were continuing to turn. And with each major event of the early 20th century, the molasses flood came that much closer to becoming a North End nightmare made real. After World War I and the Spanish Flu, the prohibition of alcohol in America was up next in the list of histor events that would push the molasses tank towards its breaking point. And in early 1919, the new law of prohibition was right on the verge of being ratified as the 18th amendment.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

You know what I like about the 18th amendment and the 21st amendment? It's very great way to remember it. 18, you're not allowed to drink anymore. 21, you could drink again.

[Marcus Parks]

Boom, done. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Never forget it. It's the only amendments I know.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Did we lower it to 18? 2 to die in the army? Did we lower. It used to be higher than 18?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think it was always 18 to die in the army.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was like 12 at one point.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. We went up and down on the drinking age and then it became state by state and then once they started attaching, you know, highway revenues to drinking age, that's when it all raised to 21.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

I say 27 across the board, everything. I'm strict as I get older.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, as a result of Prohibition, the industrial alcohol manufacturers who owned the 50 foot tall molasses tank sitting atop Boston's North End, they were racing to manufacture as much grain alcohol as possible as fast as possible. This was being done so they could sell the grain alcohol to other companies who would make as much rum as possible. Because there was going to be a one year grace period between the ratification of the 18th Amendment and the actual beginning of the Prohibition era. Alcohol would still be legal in that one year grace period that was specifically.

[Marcus Parks]

Put in just so all these guys could like catch up and get their stuff together for when the alcohol became.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It was specifically put in to kind of get America ready for it. Like that. You, like, you couldn't just one day say, like, all right, like, you know, Monday alcohol's legal, Tuesday it's illegal. They gave everyone a year to kind of get used to the idea. They thought it would be better, but instead all it did was it gave a organized crime a year to prepare.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's almost like it was done on purpose. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, this industrial alcohol manufacturer, usia, they were throwing their weight into rum specifically because even though their profits were still astronomically high, earnings had dropped following the end of World War I. And the beginning of the Spanish flu epidemic, USIA were still set to make just as much money as they had made before World War I. But the ever gaping maw of capital meant that profits had to be on an upward trajectory at all times, no matter what. So any concerns people may have had about the safety of the North End molasses tank, which included constant leaking, constant vibrating, and constant groaning, those concerns were ignored so the tank could be filled to its maximum capacity of 2.3 million gallons. So USIA could make as much grain alcohol as possible before the prohibition deadline.

[Marcus Parks]

Is this a commentary on Joe Biden's campaign in 2024? Is that what this is? Is this a subtle dig at that man?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, it wasn't. But I'm glad that you. I'm glad that you saw it that way.

[Marcus Parks]

It's a constant leaking, vibrating, and groaning.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They're like, you need to do something. No, that's fine. We don't do anything.

[Ed Larson]

Hunter, you got to get. You got to get backstrap molasses out of your.

[Marcus Parks]

Out of your room.

[Ed Larson]

You got to get.

[Marcus Parks]

He's been like, but, Daddy, that's how I learned to make crack cocaine. Dad, did you know you could make.

[Ed Larson]

Crack out of molasses?

[Marcus Parks]

He was so cool talking about crack on that documentary. He was talking, hunter Biden knows crack. It's nice to see.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, Arthur P. Gel, the man who'd rushed the construction of the tank in the first place and had overseen its operation in the years afterward, he. He'd given the tank only the most cursory of repairs before the arrival of the biggest shipment of molasses that the tank had ever taken. Aside from the time that Gel had the tank painted brown to hide the molasses leaks, he'd also hired a team in December of 1918 to put a fresh layer of caulk on all the streams. As if caulk alone could hold back 26 million pounds of molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Caulk alone can do nothing. Takes an entire team. Two balls. Yeah, I thought I say four balls.

[Ed Larson]

One time, one hard ass taint.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But just a few days before the tremendous molasses shipment from Cuba was supposed to arrive, it seems as if the anarchists that we mentioned in the last episode seemed like they were finally gonna make a play to take down the tank. Or at least that was what their public pronouncements proclaimed.

[Marcus Parks]

They're allowed to do PR releases as anarchists.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Everyone is.

[Marcus Parks]

I didn't know that they could get it together so quickly or so organized. Organized?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, of course. No that's the thing. They're very organized in destruction. It's just after the destruction, they don't want to be organized or.

[Marcus Parks]

Anarchism was more explained to me over the last week or so. And it's interesting, just everybody seems to have a different definition of it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, of course. No, no, There are a million different definite. There's, you know, there's anarchists, there's anarcho pacifists, there's a. There's all. It's a communist.

[Marcus Parks]

Anarcho dash is the favorite subtext. So I love that.

[Ed Larson]

I love anarcho dash being multiple types of. Anarchy is anarchy. That's wild. I love this.

[Marcus Parks]

It's fun.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, on January 10, 1919, Arthur P. Gel was contacted by the Boston police, who told Gel that a number of placards threatening violence had been tacked onto buildings near the tank. The placards had been posted in response to congressional action made two months before that had toughened the already stringent immigration act by making it easier to deport anarchists specifically. But really the point of this was not to make it easier to deport anarchists, but easier to dep. Italians because Italians were the most hated immigrant group of the day. And it just so happened that many anarchists in America were also Italian. It's not a perfect one to one comparison, but the anarchist Italian argument was sort of like the 1919 version of the more recent fear mongering about MS.13, where xenophobic dipshits used a small sliver of an ethnic immigrant group to demonize an entire segment of our population. Unfortunately, the American people usually buy into these arguments because Americans have a bad habit of gross overcorrection when they get scared and angry. See our reactions to 911 and Pearl harbor as well as our current immigration policy for more examples.

[Marcus Parks]

Pearl harbor was appropriate, but.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, no, I'm saying you said Hiroshima, Nagasaki were appropriate.

[Marcus Parks]

The first four years, maybe Iwo goddamn Jima.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That could. Yeah, but I'm talking more about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, the firebomb of the rest of the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The firebombing of Tokyo even worse. Kills far more people than atomic bomb.

[Marcus Parks]

But hey, we got microwaves and we got Killian Murphy's fantastic performance, so it's all worth it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's still. Oppenheimer was good. I still say it didn't go hard enough.

[Marcus Parks]

This is my thing. 911 will finally be worth it once we get one decent 911 movie. We've had some great World War II movies.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, you don't like any of Them, huh?

[Marcus Parks]

Which one's good?

[Ed Larson]

I like the. I like the airplane one.

[Henry Zebrowski]

United 93.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, that one's all right.

[Marcus Parks]

Nah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Propaganda.

[Marcus Parks]

Of course. Yeah, they're all propaganda. Yeah, we need Saving Private Ryan's also great.

[Ed Larson]

And I almost joined the military because of it.

[Marcus Parks]

I'll watch it anytime. It did make my grandfather. Ruined my life. Made my grandfather cry. I want to hear one from the Building 7's perspective.

[Ed Larson]

Talk about someone who saw everything offed himself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, as a result of the Immigration act of 1918, the leader of the Italian anarchists in Boston, Luigi Galliani, he'd received an order for deportation. Luigi and his associates were considered the most dangerous foreign anarchists yet found within this country. But legal bureaucracy had delayed Galani's deportation, and he thus remained free. So when notices threatening violence began showing up around the tank in the North End, cops figured that those notices were probably posted by Luigi's men, addressed to quote, men. Anyhow, history just keeps repeating itself. Addressed to quote the senile fossils ruling the United States. The main notice said, do not think.

[Marcus Parks]

That only foreigners are anarchists. We are a great number right here at home. Deportation will not stop a storm from reaching its shores, eh? The storm is within and very soon will leap and crush and annihilate you in a blood and a fire. You have a shown no pity to us. None. We will do. And likewise, my Joan, we will dynamite you. Sign. American anarchist.

[Ed Larson]

You don't sound American.

[Marcus Parks]

As anyone, actually.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that's actually one of the rare ones you can do because your mother's. You are Italian.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, again, it's. That's the last accent.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, Italian.

[Marcus Parks]

Is that Jamaican? Because there's white Jamaicans. No, Canadian. Chet Hanks, that other guy who had a stroke that came out with the patois. I'll give.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You can say bumbleclot. How's about that, boom clot? Okay. Oh, man.

[Ed Larson]

What can I say?

[Marcus Parks]

Nothing. He's earned. He hasn't earned it yet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, as we said last episode, anarchists rightly believe that pure capitalism and perpetual warfare were deeply intertwined by design. And the molasses tank was by far the biggest symbol of both capitalism and warfare in the North End. As such, Gel claimed to have taken the threats posted by the anarchists seriously. But Gel had laid off most of his molasses guard after World War I officially ended on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.

[Marcus Parks]

Why? Because he thought because the war ended overseas that he wouldn't have to worry about the molasses anymore.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, because it was. He thought that he Wouldn't have to worry about sabotage because the molasses was of course used to make industrial alcohol, which was used to make munitions which were used in the war. So he figured that if the war was over, then he wouldn't have to have as many guards out to protect the molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

All of these anarchists though, are telling them they're angry with the jelly, they're angry with the molasses, they want to attack the molasses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's what Gel's hearing.

[Marcus Parks]

Unbelievable.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But while Gel did reconsider hiring his molasses guard back after the threatening notices, Gel also took the shrinking value of post war molasses into account. So after crunching the numbers, Gel declined to rehire his molasses guard, which to me means one of two things. Either Jell knew that the anarchists weren't going to actually blow up a tank above an immigrant neighborhood. That of course contradicts his later statements. Or he did believe that the anarchists could blow up the tank, but he decided that saving money on security was worth more than the lives of everyone who lived in the shadow of the molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow.

[Ed Larson]

So Joe was the anarchist himself.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, he killed his own molasses. But also I bet sometime he's just looking at me, he's like, it's molasses. How could that hurt anybody? You know, there's. Hey, who would get that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

How could the poor molasses hurt anyone?

[Marcus Parks]

Listen, did no one. No one blames maple syrup for what happened to the Native American. No one blames people getting into Pine Cone All Heart for the destruction of the force.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, man. See, it's crazy about it is if he, he was doing it. So why does he care about it destroying one way but not the other?

[Henry Zebrowski]

What do you mean? Like he, why does he care?

[Ed Larson]

Why does he care about the anarchist blowing it up, but not like it just like blowing up itself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, that's the question is that. Does he really care about the anarchist blowing it up? Does he, does he really think that it is going to end? At the end of the day, the only thing that matters to Arthur P. Gel is what's going to cost the least amount of money and what's going to make him look best to his corporate masters. And what's going to bring him up the corporate ladder further. So whatever is going to. So whatever is going to be best for profit is going to be best for Arthur P. Gel. And that drives every single decision he makes in his entire life. So on January 12, 1919, a Cuban ship Called the Milliero pulled into Boston's harbor carrying 1.3 million gallons of blackstrap mol molasses. The plan was to pump 600000 gallons into the north end tank in Boston and take the rest to USIA's other molasses facility in Brooklyn.

[Marcus Parks]

Whoa, there's a Brooklyn molasses tank? Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, there's a whole Brooklyn molasses facility.

[Marcus Parks]

Where is that at?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think it was around the naval yards.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh. Why? They put it by the sailors.

[Ed Larson]

They love molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I don't know what sailors like. Like you're always dick and ass.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. There you go. Now we're having fun.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And will molasses be a good lube? I think. I think no.

[Marcus Parks]

Terrible bottoms. Of all the. Of all those traveled men.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're right.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's gonna rip it out. It's gonna be like a Brazilian wax.

[Marcus Parks]

While, you know when Georgie has diarrhea and get all in the hairs. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's almost like you would jam it. You're up your ass to protect yourself from having sex.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. It's called I got the most round. But dude, anybody's seen on the USS Louby and everybody's looking to plummet. And that's why I jam it up with some good old fashioned weapons grade black strap. Black strap.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Despite the freezing January morning, the molasses ran smoothly from the ship to the north end tank. But there was good reason for that.

[Marcus Parks]

Just angry about the idea of just the guys. Just like molasses Gotten smooth. Yeah. How's it going? Is it pumping good? Yep, looking at it right now. Real smooth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, there was actually one guy who was like gave testimonies like, you know, molasses. Molasses has a mind all of its own, sir. You're better at your job.

[Marcus Parks]

It's when one place. Sir.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Man never knows how molasses is going to behave Till you get the molasses to where molasses need to go, you really should know. Well, molasses holds heat extraordinarily well. And since all that molasses had been in Cuba just a few days before, it was still quite warm. The molasses already in the north end tank, however, that was quite cold because it had been congealing in the Boston winter for weeks now. When warm and cold molasses mix in these quantities, it creates a chemical reaction in which microscopic yeast triggers a fermentation process that produces carbon dioxide. If you haven't figured it out already, this chemical reaction is what had caused all that vibrating and rumbling inside the tank over the years. Now, the warm molasses, cold molasses chemical reaction usually wasn't a problem. But after this particular shipment, the 50 foot tall North End tank was filled with 48ft and 9 inches of molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

I feel like you could give. You don't gotta fill it to the very tippity top.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You don't have to. But that. But that's the thing is that they wanted to make as much, much alcohol as possible. So they did fill it to the very tippity top.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And the guy filling it there could have been a chick watch. And he wanted to impress her.

[Marcus Parks]

You know what I can do. Oh, my God, the molasses is so smooth, isn't it? I didn't do anything about that, though. That's just molasses. Molasses is one of the most unpredictable substances in the whole world. Oh, is it? Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Go ahead and put your bottom against the tank there. I'll have a little party.

[Marcus Parks]

I want you to see here, this little hole in the molasses I made with my penis last week. You can see the exact girth to this day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, there's. That meant that There was only 3 inches left in the tank. That meant that the carbon dioxide gas didn't have anywhere to go. So the newly created gas began to put constant pressure on the tank's steel walls. And if you'll remember, the steel walls of the tank were 10% thinner than what was required to safely store and hold so much molasses.

[Ed Larson]

I felt that way myself.

[Marcus Parks]

Y He made a good old Lexington steel, the original blackstrap molasses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And so when the Millero departed Boston, the tank was filled with 26 million pounds of molasses. And as the Milliero pushed off, the captain could hear a noise emanating from the tank that was loud enough to be heard all the way from his ship in Boston harbor.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I'm full.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh.

[Marcus Parks]

I'll never make it on the belly.

[Ed Larson]

There was also just like less noise back then.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, it was a lot less noise. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

So noises were new to them. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now the tank would hold.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. He never heard noises before.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, man. There's a whole thing that actually there. There really is a whole thing about noises. And like, well, you know how human beings just really like aren't built for this much noise. And it's really with us how much noise we have to deal with nowadays, really.

[Marcus Parks]

But you like, like it?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I like it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Well, city people like it. I like it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. I like it but for some people, it actually drives them insane. That's why, you see, so that's why like white noise is like white noise, quote unquote. Podcasts are like so much higher rated than ours are. Like, those get millions upon millions of hit because people, they're trying to actually block out the incredible amounts of noise that we have to deal with every day.

[Ed Larson]

I'll have to check it out.

[Marcus Parks]

See, I hate the soccer. Silence. Silence makes me upset.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, because you grew up in the city.

[Marcus Parks]

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[Ed Larson]

What doesn't belong in my epic summer plans?

[Marcus Parks]

Getting burned by your old wireless bill.

[Ed Larson]

Oh my gosh, it burns me all the time.

[Marcus Parks]

I know. It's like Haloa.

[Ed Larson]

So hot.

[Marcus Parks]

Hot. While you're planning beach trip barbecues and three day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back.

[Ed Larson]

Well, what should be holding me back?

[Marcus Parks]

Probably. I would say you're. You've got problems with, you know, the. You have acid reflux. Yeah. You got some problems consuming dairy.

[Ed Larson]

I can barely swim.

[Marcus Parks]

You are afraid of loud noises.

[Ed Larson]

I hate loud noises.

[Marcus Parks]

You're afraid of being outside, but otherwise. But otherwise you're good to go. And that's why you got to make the switch to Mint Mobile.

[Ed Larson]

So fresh.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep, with Mint, you can get the coverage and speed you're used to, but for way less money. And for limited time, Mint mobile is offering three months of unlimited premium wireless service for 15 bucks a month. So while your friends are sweating over data coverages and surprising charges, you'll be chilling, literally. And, and financially this year. Skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your three month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com lpotl that's mintmobile.com lpotl upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month limited time. New customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes. Unlimited plan, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, the tank would hold for three more days while the fermentation process continually created more car dioxide. But the pressure that was put on the tank's walls finally reached the breaking point on January 15, 1919. Now, by all accounts, January 15 was a beautifully mild 40 degree day. And for the residents of Boston's North End, it almost felt like an early spring.

[Marcus Parks]

Ah, it's time for me to get up real early and go out there and say something hateful.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm not gonna let Providence take that spot. Is the most racist town in the north. But as city workers sat outside eating their lunches and teamsters drove their horses down Commercial street delivering produce, beer and leather goods, a terrifying sound echoed through the neighborhood at 12:41pm oh, no.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm so full. I'm so sick and full. Sorry, everybody. I'm gonna go. Oh, I can't hold it anym.

[Ed Larson]

Oh my God, I'm so full of sound.

[Marcus Parks]

Nice. Like it? That's the most terrifying noise I've ever heard of. This sorry noise. What's noise?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Quite suddenly, a sound not unlike a machine gun, something like was heard by all present, followed by a noise that was described as sounding as if it had come from a wounded beast.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, God, no. I was supposed to get a mate this year. I'm two. I'm a two year old wildebeest. I can't hold it anymore. What's noise?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, like a man.

[Marcus Parks]

All I know is talking and I know harpsichord. What else is a noise? What else is what's coming out, what's happening in the air? What's that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, the molasses tank is like a man holding in diarrhea on a bus.

[Marcus Parks]

Also, this is a tip. That's how you sit alone on a Greyhound.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Should make those noises.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The first noise have been the tank's thousands of rivets popping off, finally forced outward by the carbon dioxide gas. While the second noise had been the steel plates tearing away and grinding against each other as the molasses broke free.

[Marcus Parks]

Free.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And so the people of the North End could only stare in utter disbelief as an enormous black wall of thick liquid 25ft high and 160ft wide came to destroy their neighborhood, their families and their lives.

[Marcus Parks]

And that was the morning the big brown wave came for Boston. Be careful. That big brown. It's working its way downtown.

[Ed Larson]

Beans can't fix that.

[Marcus Parks]

Nope, nope. Goodbye, Bruins. Goodbye. Man who called me F word. Here comes the big brown.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, unlike an ocean wave whose momentum is concentrated in one direction, the wall of molasses burst out in every direction at once. In fact, it'd be more appropriate to call it the walls of molasses. Yeah, when the rivets popped, the tank's roof had fallen almost straight down. And as it fell, it spewed the molasses in all directions, creating four walls of viscous liquid that smashed their way through everything in their path.

[Marcus Parks]

That's cool. Truly. I'm rooting for the molasses. Like right now I'm on the molasses team. Molasses should be free. We came.

[Henry Zebrowski]

See, while molasses is famously slow, the 2.3 million gallons of molasses here moved at a speed of 35 miles per hour. And that's not even to mention the damage caused by the wreckage of the tank itself. The steel walls turned into missiles While the rivets that had popped out as a result of the gas, those were essentially steel bullets that shot in every direction. Thousands of them. In short order, the molasses tore the houses in its place path into kindling. While other buildings like the local firehouse were actually lifted off of their foundations and swept into the harbor.

[Marcus Parks]

What is even happening? It's the molasses.

[Ed Larson]

Some guy, he was one dud.

[Marcus Parks]

Like G. Bunga s up. See you guys on the other side. And then he's just like. He's immediately scrunched.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, that's what we're going to see.

[Marcus Parks]

Fire your hoses at it. It's molasses it's doing not.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's what we're gonna see again and again. Is that. That really was. Most people's reaction was. It's the molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Holy shit. It's a building size tidal wave of blast. My favorite. It's my favorite way to die. Obliterated by a super funny catastrophe. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

We could only hope.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, even objects as large, largest freight cars were crushed under the molasses weight. While every living thing from men, women and kids to horses, dogs and rats all became ensnared in the now deadly goo. But since the molasses was sticky, it picked up everything in its path. Do you ever play katamari Damasi? It's like this old PS1 game where like you, you this little tiny Japanese cute thing and you're pushing this ball.

[Marcus Parks]

The ball and the ball and it clicks.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like that.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, but real. I thought it's like the Bob Dylan song.

[Ed Larson]

Which one?

[Marcus Parks]

A rolling stone. But it's supposed to. A rolling stone. Well, that gathers no moss.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Exactly. It'd be the opposite. Well, the wave quickly became a wall of shrapnel and wreckage, carrying debris, furniture and even cars. And these objects crushed, stabbed, or simply obliterated anyone and anything in its path. Except. Except for some of the stronger buildings. But when the molasses wall hit those buildings, it would smash into building after building. The wave just changed directions again and again until it finally subsided and settled into a veritable molasses lake that was in some places, chest deep.

[Marcus Parks]

Fuck. A goonami. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, my God.

[Marcus Parks]

It is a goonami.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But thinking about this for weeks, I hadn't come up with gonami.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, That's a great term.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Way to go.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, yeah, I'm about to do one. Ye. You know, God, just like. You know, he's sitting there. He's like. I tried to think of anything. Something innocent, something that could never hurt us, Something that could never, ever be wrong. The Stay puff marshmallow man. It's like the same thing, except you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Think of old grandma's molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. That's all I thought about, was shoo fly pie and the amish man who sold to me, and I didn't know the last thing that we ever saw.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nope, that's just the destruction part of it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. That's just like the. If there are no people there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. The actual human stories of the great molasses flood, they are, in a word, terrifying. And each story shows a different perspective of how the flood maimed and killed not only the people of the north end, but the north end itself. So let's start with the testimony of a man named Martin Clarty, who, before the flood, was a boxing referee who specialized in Irish and Italian boxing matches.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, with the Irish ones, you got to tell one. The other said something about his mother. With the Italian ones, you do the same thing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Except the Italian ones, actually, they get a little bit more angry if you. Their sister.

[Marcus Parks]

No, very much, very much. I saved that for the championship bout.

[Ed Larson]

They got the gloves on, so they can't use their guns.

[Marcus Parks]

That's what's so hard. They can't comb their hair.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Clarity, he was actually having a great day. He finally saved enough money to purchase a nice home outside of the north end after selling his portion of a night spot called the pen and pencil club in advance of prohibition because he.

[Marcus Parks]

Was given a year to prepare.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Exactly. After a solid day's work, Clarity was taking a nap when he heard his sister screaming that something awful had happened to the tank.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, what do you mean, something awful happened to the tank? What, somebody painted it brown again?

[Henry Zebrowski]

That tells you that the people at the north end, they were living in a constant state of worry about the.

[Marcus Parks]

Molasses because it was this giant shivering, constantly leaking, groaning, just. It's a disaster waiting to happen. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they were watching it, and they all knew it.

[Ed Larson]

Anyone who worked there was just like, you know, it's gonna blow up.

[Marcus Parks]

One day. Yeah. That's why. Taking my paid time off now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Before Martin Clarty could even get up from his nap, he felt his entire bed overturn. The molasses wave had broken through the walls of his home and overtaken Martin in a second.

[Marcus Parks]

What the. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which he said gave him the sensation of falling overboard and going underwater. Liquid rushed into Martin's nose and mouth and he realized at that moment that. Oh fuck, I'm drowning in molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

This can't be the way I go. I'm not a pancake.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Martin said that he felt himself slide downwards as though the churn of the most violent river rapids in existence were taking him under. He began flailing, struggling to lift his head above the flow of molasses. But he eventually used his powerful arms to break the surface enough to actually tread the molasses as he rode the massive wave that had taken taken him out of his house and into the street. Once the ride finally stopped, Martin stood chest deep in molasses, but wood and debris were pressing against his back and neck. Meanwhile, looked over and saw that his entire house had been swept away and smashed against an elevated railroad trestle.

[Marcus Parks]

So is insurance gonna cover this? Who think I'm up on my molasses premium? What's my molass deductible? It's zero. You're fucked.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Finally, Martin spotted a raft like object floating on top of the molasses. And after waiting towards it to get himself out of the goo which clung to his clothes and hair like wet wool, he discovered that this raft was actually his own bed.

[Ed Larson]

Oh.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, as Martin began calling for his family, he saw a thin hand protruding from the molasses, fighting his way through the quicksand like substance. While still on the bed, Martin made it to the hand just in time to see his sister's head emerge from the black liquid. Martin pulled her up onto the bed and wiped her eyes as she violently vomited molasses from her lungs. But after she was safe, Martin left her to look for their mother and brother, who would both unfortunately die as a result of the flood. Now, Martin's story is fucking harrowing. But it pales in comparison to what was witnessed and experienced by North End resident Giuseppe Iontasca. Giuseppe was a father of six and one of his children. Pascuale was crouching behind the giant molasses tank when it failed on January 15th. See Pascuale and his friends, a pair of siblings named Antonio and Maria. They were some of the kids who regularly collected molasses from the leaking tank. In pails. And Giuseppe and Tosca had been keeping an eye on the kids from his second floor kitchen window on that particular afternoon.

[Marcus Parks]

You get enough of molasses again? Yeah, Daddy, we gotta. We get us a bucket. A bucket of molasses. We got a molasses. You got the molasses, you bring it up. You bring up. And we got the free molasses. We got the free molasses.

[Ed Larson]

Daddy, how do you know Giuseppe isn't Irish?

[Marcus Parks]

All right, they'll do that impression. See, we're all the same.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So when the tank failed, Giuseppe could only watch as the dark wall of molasses consumed the children on its way towards destroying his own building. When the wave hit, Giuseppe's house trembled enough to throw him to the floor, where Giuseppe hit his head and blacked out.

[Marcus Parks]

No. I cannot believe they desert. It ate them. A baby. My son, he made a candy.

[Ed Larson]

I really wish it wasn't so funny.

[Marcus Parks]

I can do an Italian accent.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, and you know, it's over 100 years.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Actually, it's not about the Italian accent. It's more about the dead children.

[Marcus Parks]

Nah, them. It's been a long time. Oh, I'm a baby. It turned into rock. A candy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, the little girl, Maria, she had been standing directly in the path of the wave, and she died almost immediately from asphyxiation. A firefighter had later spotted her tangled hair swirling in the sea of standing molasses. And he was there for able to pull her body out of the liquid. Maria's brother Antonio, however, had miraculously survived. The wave threw him against a lamppost and cracked his skull. But another firefighter had managed to catch Antonio before the child was swallowed by the molasses companion completely. But tragically for Giuseppe and Tosca, his son Pasquale had completely disappeared. Pasquale's body would not be found for another five days when rescuers pulled the battered corpse from behind a railroad freight car.

[Marcus Parks]

When you're talking about a molasses incident, battered takes on a different term as well. Everything's food.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Breakfast terms.

[Ed Larson]

A Davis flat as a pancake.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you. You're welcome.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, I'm trying to paint a picture here. From what rescuers could surmise, the wave had picked up the freight car which smashed into Pasquale. And the wave carried them both 50ft before the freight car hit a wall. Once the car had crushed Pasquale into the wall, his arms, legs, pelvis and chest had all been been broken. And his face had been disfigured beyond all recognition. In the end, the Only way to identify him was by the red sweater he'd been wearing that day, which, as far as Pasquale had been concerned, was supposed to be just another afternoon collecting free molasses. Until a USIA worker chased him away.

[Marcus Parks]

Damn. It's all about that molasses, man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It is?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. God damn.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Stop these kids, man. Addicted now, Pasquale. Ian Tosca was not the only person who'd been carried away by the molasses when the tank failed. A freight clerk named Walter Merrithew was working under a covered platform on the Commercial street wharf. Walter heard a loud rumbling as he was communicating with a fellow laborer, a deaf man who couldn't speak.

[Marcus Parks]

And he was fine.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What do you mean he was fine?

[Marcus Parks]

He was nervous at all.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He was. Because just as a shadow fell on the de man's face, I would say the deaf man.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, man. Just happily working.

[Ed Larson]

No idea.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, he was not happily working. They were having a conversation. The deaf man was the one who saw the wave coming.

[Marcus Parks]

That's hard because. How do you mean it's so hard to spell out molasses quickly?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, actually, he couldn't. All he did was he was able. He pointed and he just screamed as a gay. I mean, he couldn't really. It was just sort of. They said that this painful screech of fear came from him. And Walter almost instantly found himself in the middle of the black muck and he squeezed his ey as he prepared to die. The molasses, however, had carried Walter and pinned him against the wall of the freight shed he used. Three inches above the floor and around him was a wall of debris. A freight car, a automobile. It had even a horse. A whole horse had been swept into the freight car with him. Was freaking out and struggling in the molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

This is all in the trailer in the movie. This is in the trailer? Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Better than half a horse, by the way.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

That's disgusting.

[Marcus Parks]

Somebody's going to ruin all this mo.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But as the molasses kept flowing, more debris crushed Walter against the wall, and he continuously wiped the quickly hardening molasses from his eyes. The debris began to move. Walter ended up being one of the lucky ones because the co worker who'd seen the wave first, he was able to remove enough debris to save Walter's life. Now the great molasses flood was not just a danger to the people who lived and worked in the North North End. The Boston elevated train actually ran right through the north end. And on January 15, this train was filled with Midday shoppers and workers. Now, the molasses tank had been built right next to the elevated track, and the tank burst as the train was passing by going around 20 miles an hour. So the train's brakeman was able to see the black massive molasses pushing towards the track. As the of the side sound of tearing steel filled his ears, the sound the brakeman heard was the overhead train trestle buckling. And the train began tipping off of the track as a result.

[Marcus Parks]

Whoa. It's like a king Kong ride.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But the train rounded the bend seconds before the weight of the molasses and the missile like tank wreckage fully destroyed the elevated trestles. The train therefore stopped just three car lengths beyond the damaged track. But had the train arrived seconds later, it would have likely plunged directly into the sea of molasses below, possibly killing everyone on board. I mean, the death count would have tripled.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow. Is this be. This is like a scene from a spider man comic book.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, very much so, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Like the idea of like, there's no way. Nobody there to help him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Nope.

[Marcus Parks]

There was a spider man. Man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, actually, this guy's like a little bit of a spider man. He like turn like, check that. This is amazing. Cuz. When it came to the elevated train tracks, the danger didn't pass just because that particular train had escaped. The molasses trains run on a schedule.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And there's another one coming right behind the train's brakeman. He took a second to survey the damage the molasses had caused. In just a few short moments, he saw there's essentially nothing left of the waterfront. The buildings are all flattened or swept away. Every square square inch was covered in molasses. And that's when the brakeman realized, Holy, there's another train coming up right behind me.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely. They can all see a company's like, no, don't come downtown. Downtown's all breakfast. They can't come downtown. It's nothing but sweet and savory.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You know, if the next train came without being warned, it's just gonna plunge right down into the molasses. And everyone on board's either gonna d the impact or they're going to drown in the molasses.

[Ed Larson]

So a section of the elevated track is just gone.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Gone completely gone.

[Ed Larson]

I'm surprised the other one was able to stay up there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It did. I mean, they were three train. They were three car links ahead. So they, I guess they just. Let's get the out of here. But the brakeman knew that the Next turn was coming. So he jumped out of his train and crawled along the twisted trestle about two stories high through the track that the molasses had destroyed. And once he got to the other side, he sprinted down the track to meet the next train. And after the next train was in sight, he stood in the center of the track, flailing his arms, yelling for the train to stop, even though three full cars were bearing down upon him. But thankfully, the train slowed to a stop, and the first thing the brakeman said to the engineer was, and this.

[Marcus Parks]

Is a direct quote, the goddamn molasses tank burst. Fuck. Exactly. The goddamn. I think you can see the goddamn molasses tank burnt. That goddamn gel's a cheap piece of. I knew this was gonna happen. Do you mean to tell me I'm off shift?

[Henry Zebrowski]

But that tells you something else. That tells you something. That these train. These guys, these. The engineers, the brakeman, the guys that went by that tank every day, everybody.

[Marcus Parks]

Talked about it like, there's gonna be a day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

That that thing's gonna exp. Explode.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And it finally did. Now, as the.

[Marcus Parks]

God, it must be nice to be right, though, you know? I mean, of course, all the bad on a certain level that I told you so is so strong and so powerful that that can really carry you for weeks. I think that I told you so fueled the brakeman to go up, climb two stories up, because that's the only thing that really motivates you. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, mumble in the hallways.

[Marcus Parks]

God damn. Must kill. The goddamn Whole neighborhood covered. Everybody's getting the free molasses. Watching these Italian kids covered in soap.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, as the brakeman sat on the tracks, he looked down to see that fire trucks and horse drawn medical vehicles were already approaching the north end. Police, firefighters, doctors and nurses quickly arrived from the nearby Haymarket relief station to render what help they could. But what they found was a nasty scene. As one reported Porter put it, quote here and there, struggle to form. Whether it was animal or human being, it was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass showed where any life was. Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings, men and women, suffered likewise.

[Marcus Parks]

Your Dan Carlin's getting real good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thanks. Yeah. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything that anyone could do for the horses.

[Marcus Parks]

Nay. Yeah. At that point, you just unfortunately got to spray him with bullets. And at that point, you should just take the joy in that because you really never get to shoot a bunch of horses at once with machine guns, man.

[Ed Larson]

Imagine how sticky it would be to make the horses into glue and moles.

[Marcus Parks]

Horses insides are stickier than the outside fights.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah. I think at this point in time, horses did get hurt in urban environments so often that I think policemen had to be prepared and trained that you're gonna have to shoot a horse in the head, like, once a week.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah. And imagine at that point. They're super used to it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, they're used to it.

[Ed Larson]

But cobblestones, they're far apart sometimes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah, yeah. And then one horse runs in the next horse. The one horse breaks a leg, you got to shoot the horse in the head. And in those first moments, survivors still trapped in the molasses reported that they heard scattered gunshots, which they later later learned were the sounds of police putting trapped animals out of their misery.

[Marcus Parks]

God, that's just. Or you just hear a horse freaking.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Out and then boom, boom.

[Marcus Parks]

God.

[Ed Larson]

It's either the worst day of work, but if you're a psychopath, like, finally.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, it's just nice I could finally bring my hobby to the job.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just one guy's like, this is just like a dream I had wandering through molasses, shooting horses in the head.

[Marcus Parks]

Better go get more bullets.

[Ed Larson]

Finally, you know? Would it be okay if I smothered some?

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, yes. Anything new, Brian? Anything you like.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, rescuers got to work as soon as possible trying to save as many people as they could in the hours, days, and even weeks following the great molasses flood of 1919. Now, one of the people who came to the rescue of the survivors was Dr. George McGrath, who arrived almost an hour after the tank burst. Dr. McGrath had been performing an autopsy at a nearby mortuary, but when he got word of the flood, he pulled on his hip high rubber fishing boots and drove to the scene with his assistant.

[Marcus Parks]

Sew up this corpse. It's time for us to go and check out more corpses. Let's get in the corpse mobile.

[Ed Larson]

Let me ask a story.

[Marcus Parks]

Something.

[Ed Larson]

You ever want a sleeping bag that looked just like a horse, I got one for you.

[Marcus Parks]

Let me ask you something else. Have you ever wanted to be with a corpse that smelled and tasted like taffy? Come on down. The pasta. Excellent.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, like everyone else, Dr. McGrath found that the entire waterfront had been completely leveled and swamped by the thick molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

God damn it. I knew. I knew it would be molasses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Incredibly, the molasses was still knee deep when Dr. McGrath arrived an hour after the Disaster because this happened like this was all pretty much on the waterfront. So it's not like the molasses didn't have anywhere to go. There was just so much molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it was it 42 million. Do you said 42 million gallons or 48 million?

[Henry Zebrowski]

2.3 million gallons. I think like 48ft. Yeah, that's right, 48ft. And I think like 20 millions of pounds. But yeah, 2.3 million gallons of molasses.

[Ed Larson]

And what, it just ended up in the river actually.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, well, it settled first. A lot of ended up in the sea actually. A lot of people believe it's still.

[Marcus Parks]

Out there to this day. Don't go in the water. Don't go in the water. The molasses still seeks its vengeance.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, how a lot of people ended up getting hurt and almost dying and some of them actually did end up dying. Dying this way is the molasses swept some people into the sea and they fell into the water. It's January in Boston. Pneumonia. And yeah, a couple people did die from that and a couple of people, it took them like weeks to recover from it.

[Marcus Parks]

How trippy as that must have been for a fish. Yeah. Don't even know what molasses. What the. It's molasses. They just learned it. They were like, what the. Another like, you know, or a guy, a frog has to come and be like, that's called molasses. These put it on their food. Now it's killing all of us. It's like, my God.

[Ed Larson]

Someone get me a cigarette.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I've always wanted to smoke.

[Ed Larson]

Hello, my baby.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dr. McGrath said that he saw several people pulled from the molasses. He later remembered that their bodies looked as if they were covered in heavy oil skins. Their eyes, ears, mouths and noses were filled with molasses. And people could only be identified after their bodies were washed with sodium bicarbonate and hot water.

[Marcus Parks]

Like seagulls. Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Eventually, Dr. McGrath was dispatched to the house of the aforementioned boxing referee, Martin Cloudy, where Dr. McGrath discovered what had happened to Martin's mother. The 65 year old woman was found dead once the molasses subsided and her autopsy revealed that the weight of the molasses molasses itself had crushed both her rib cage and her chest.

[Ed Larson]

I'm gonna go ahead and say the autopsy probably wasn't necessary.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Let me just kind of push on it.

[Marcus Parks]

Honestly, the reason why, only reason why I wanted to do it, I wanted to see how thin it got her. I was just interested.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Even though it was quite obvious that the tank had simply failed because of poor construction. Both the government and representatives from the USIA were very quick to place the blame elsewhere. Almost as if it had been their plan all along. If something were to go wrong with.

[Marcus Parks]

The molasses, they had an entire year to plan. Yeah, and that's what this all was about.

[Henry Zebrowski]

While Dr. Mc. Not just an entire year, I mean that all this anarchist, all this Italian like they had just, they had this in their back pocket.

[Marcus Parks]

This is a sweetener based. Pearl Harbor. This was allowed to happen for other.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Reasons and I think FDR didn't allow Pearl harbor to happen. You keep perpetuating this myth. It's not true.

[Marcus Parks]

FDR strike, stood up, looked out that window, saw the planes coming in and he sat back down, shut the blinds silently.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're going off. Of Dan Aykroyd's portrayal of FDR in the terrible movie Pearl Harbor.

[Marcus Parks]

He stood up, did a triple on me, saw the planes coming, ordered some sushi because it just got invented.

[Ed Larson]

Couple jumping jacks.

[Marcus Parks]

That's it. SAP ass practice the jitter bug that he was going to do later on with J. Edgar Hoover's father and then allowed it to happen.

[Ed Larson]

All because his wife was gay.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep. This is all about maple syrup. This is all about destroying the molasses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well this press conference, this happened while Dr. McGrath and all the rest were still trying to find survivors. USIA and the Boston city, they got on the business of explaining this shit away quickly. Boston's mayor was holding a press conference alongside usia's attorney. The mayor did use the word accident when talking about the collapse of the tank. But he also made sure to use the word explosion building off that. USIA's attorney blamed so called outside influences for the tank's collapse, explicitly stating that it was most likely North End anarchists who planted the bomb to advance their, their so called, their quote unquote radical agenda. As it happens to this day. The attorney straight up lied and said that USIA knew beyond question that the tank was not weak.

[Marcus Parks]

Exact opposite of what you think. It's the exact opposite of that for certain, Mr. Man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, he said an examination was made of the structure. Not only was it made, but I made it a few minutes before the collapse.

[Marcus Parks]

Which means you're bad at your job if you fucking looked at it minutes before it collapsed.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It would have been fine if the anarchist hadn't put dynamite in there.

[Marcus Parks]

That doesn't make any sense.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It does make sense because if the anarchist you can't protect against dynamite and he's saying we inspected a few minutes before it collapsed and everything was totally fine. So it had to be dynamite that collapsed it.

[Marcus Parks]

It was leaking at a total normal rate, and that's what allowed it to release some of the pressure that made it completely safe.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And speaking of that, he also said there's no fermentation of the molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

That doesn't.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That doesn't happen.

[Marcus Parks]

That's an old Native American lie. They say that to make us scared. Scared of the molasses. There's nothing to be scared of. Molasses, it can't hurt us. Look at it. It's a condiment.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And he finally said that there was absolutely no evidence of structural weakness at all. Every point, of course, was utter horseshit. And Us island knew it because people have been telling them for years, something's wrong with the molasses tank.

[Marcus Parks]

I remember not two weeks earlier from this day, that you all were complaining about how much the horses were leaving in the street. So we did a fantastic job in our 1919 Great Molasses horse culling.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Not only that. Does it smell like horse shit anymore?

[Marcus Parks]

No. What? It does, does it smell like. Sweet, sweet blackstrap molasses. Something delicious. Isn't that nice?

[Henry Zebrowski]

But while USIA was trying to pin their massive greed induced fuck up on a scapegoat with the help of the local government, again, those anarchists do make some good points. The people of the North End were scrambling to save the victims. Survivors pulled from the molasses were taken to a relief station half a mile away, where nurses removed the sticky substance from the patient's breathing passages and cut off their molasses soaked clothes. Clothing. The molasses so thoroughly soaked these people that nurses couldn't even identify gender until they saw a patient's genitals.

[Marcus Parks]

Hell yeah.

[Ed Larson]

That makes you laugh.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I just want to know particularly why that's funny.

[Marcus Parks]

There's just something about, like the idea of. Of like how you figure it out or like. I don't even know what the funny part about it is. It's more just like the idea of like stick it like, you know, you know where the genitals and the general area are gonna be, Right? And then you just stick your finger in it and then push. Do you feel the tip? Yeah, it's like push till it goes inside of someone.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, you like, dig it in there like a little weasel till you find a penis or a. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And then what do you deal with? All the. Who knows what they identify as?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think they sprayed them off and then said, like, It's a man. And they put them out. They sprayed them. It's a woman, you know, and then.

[Marcus Parks]

Ignorant man.

[Ed Larson]

I've always wanted to spray someone down.

[Marcus Parks]

You can.

[Ed Larson]

Thank you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Have you ever been sprayed down?

[Ed Larson]

No, I haven't been sprayed down. I've been searched, though.

[Marcus Parks]

Come to the backyard. I'll do it.

[Ed Larson]

Well, I don't want to be, so. Actually, I have been sprayed down. Yeah, I fell in a pile of ants and my dad made me get naked in the front yard and he sprayed me down in front of the whole neighborhood.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, Yeah. I used to get sprayed down constantly just because I was a mud kid. I love mud. So I was constantly covered in mud and I get sprayed down.

[Ed Larson]

And out of all of us, you're the most. Like a golden retriever.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I used to get sprayed down by the local pedophile because I had the tits of a large woman, the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Tawny catain of Queen. But as a result of all this, the whole hospital soon reeked of molasses. The floor was covered in the stuff, it soaked the walls. And the nurses were soon covered in that rarest of combinations, molasses and blood.

[Marcus Parks]

It's only rare if you haven't met blackstrap molasses. And we're mixing molasses and blood every fortnight.

[Ed Larson]

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[Marcus Parks]

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[Henry Zebrowski]

Within just an hour, the hallways of the hospital were covered with so much congealing molasses that the stretchers became immovable and the nurses had to continuously mop the entrances and the hallways with hot water to keep the molasses from taking over completely. But if it tells you anything about how much molasses there was and how much destruction it caused, officials knew of only nine fatalities by the end of the first day because the other 12 bodies were still buried somewhere in the path of the molasses rampage. Now, in an incredible coincidence, Nebraska became the 36th state to ratify Prohibition the day after the molasses flood, which made Prohibition the law of the land. This, of course, was little comfort to Usia, who, in the race for profit, had killed 21 people and injured 100.

[Marcus Parks]

Excuse me, Mr. Narrator. Unfortunately, no, that is not the case. We did not. We here at USIA killed no one. It's the molasses that killed. I want to say that because. Because people don't kill people. Yeah, molasses kills people.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But surprisingly, even though Prohibition was made law on January 17th and President Woodrow Wilson was negotiating the end of World War I in Versailles the next next day, the headlines in newspapers across America were mostly focused on the great Molasses Flood Nation. Nate Hughes, nationwide news.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they knew a good story.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Now, within 24 hours of the flood, the molasses had hardened enough where rescue workers had to use chisels, saws, and shovels to break it free. But ultimately, they used millions of gallons of seawater to loosen up the remaining substance.

[Marcus Parks]

What do you do? That not only has 911 vaguely happening happened to you, but it's also turned the entire area of 911 into a Werther's original.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah. It really is.

[Ed Larson]

It just. And it's January. In my mind, I'm like, ah, you just deal with it in April.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. We're like, you know what? North End right now, that's when last is country. All right, you go. If you want to go to North End, that's fine, but be a biscuit, okay? Because there ain't nothing else going on there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Once loosened, the fire department had to use hydraulic pumps to. To siphon thousands of gallons of molasses from the cellars of stores and tenements. But while Boston city workers tirelessly endeavored to clear up the debris and the molasses, USIA supplied absolutely no assistance with the cleanup until the public shamed them into helping pricks. I think it was. They saw it as like, well, if we help with the cleanup, that's a tacit admission of guilt.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Like, because in some way, they're like, no, we can't clean up the molasses. That's the end evidence of the anarchist movements. We got to follow the footprints in the molasses to their. To their anarchist syndicate. Hidey holes. They have hidey holes. It's your molasses. Go get it. It's your. Now. This molasses belongs to the people of Boston. I donated it. I cannot believe I spent so many day trying to get the molasses out of the tank. Now molasses everywhere. It's a lack of my work. It ain't no.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But even with just the city workers participating in the cleanup, molasses was spread across all of Boston as these workers tracked the molasses home. The goo covered subway platforms. It was on subway seats. You picked up a payphone, and the payphone was covered in molasses. Because anywhere the people of Boston went, so went the leavings of the great molasses flood.

[Ed Larson]

That's so annoying.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Everything sticky. Yeah, the whole city is sticky.

[Marcus Parks]

That's fun.

[Ed Larson]

Do you remember that one summer when New York just stunk bad and it was just like, weird. Like, even the mayor was trying to figure out what happened. And then he's like, it's Jersey.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Workers said that the small mercy here was that the tragedy did not occur during the summer. In warmer weather, 30 to 40 children would have been playing in the north end park, and all of them would have been drowned in molasses. Additionally, the number of summertime rats that would have been attracted by the sweet molasses would have been almost as horrible as the flood itself. And the amount of insects and flies that would have covered the stuff would have been nearly unimaginable.

[Marcus Parks]

But how fun for the Boston rats. Oh, my God.

[Ed Larson]

The rat orgies that would have happened.

[Marcus Parks]

They're just like, yes, fun. Rats get one so excited.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And the rat kings that would have been created by the stickiness.

[Marcus Parks]

All the fly. The flies would have died very easily, though. They would have went in there and they would have died and they would have come out. It just would have been like. But I just don't know if, like, piles and piles of dead flies are also, like, super healthy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think every. I think every single inch of the molasses would have been covered in a fly or an insect of some kind. Yeah. And then dead. Because that's the thing is that they would die and then more flies would go on top of that.

[Marcus Parks]

And then the birds are coming to get the bugs and birds that get stuck. And then the cats are coming for the birds and the cats are getting stuck and then the dogs.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You do have an interesting slippery slope that I agree with.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, total pandemonium. I thought it would be an innocent day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now, interestingly, when a judge released an inquest report for the Superior Criminal Court assigning blame for the disaster, he did not assign sole responsibility to the usia, but he didn't say it was anarchist either. Rather, the judge said that the flood could ultimately be blamed on the people of Boston themselves.

[Ed Larson]

Fucking asshole.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The judge lambasted the public for its failure to adequately fund city inspection departments and for its failure to staff said departments with qualified people.

[Marcus Parks]

This is on you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

I want every member of the city of Boston in my chamber now. Literally, just like, yeah, big. Yeah, I'm looking at you, you lazy broke.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's exactly what he said. He said, you can't provide yourself with just 50% of what you need, then complain when goes wrong.

[Marcus Parks]

Wow, that is just like, you know, you can just be like, you know, I don't need this right now. You know, I mean, I get it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Like, what do you expect? Capitalists are going to capitalize, and if you don't watch them like a hawk, they will cut corners and people will die. And even if you're worried about higher taxes, the inevitable accidents and tragedies that come from not keeping an eye on. On things always ends up costing far more than the tax that would have prevented it, is what the judge said.

[Marcus Parks]

You see, that's. That's technically, like, again, in theory, so, sure, I guess it's just like, right now. No, this is the time, dude. I fucking. Right now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, I fucking get it. It's like when the. Like, we just had these floods in Texas that could have been more. If they hadn't cut so much from the fucking weather. If they wouldn't have cut so much from, like, weather reporting, and then the warning systems would have been in sp in place. But when you bring that up, they're like, don't politicize the tragedy. I'm with this guy 100%. The judge is right. He's 100% right. And you gotta say it when the levy's broken.

[Ed Larson]

New Orleans, man, it's the same.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

All I know is that I think they're consistent with these. They're happy, though. They wanted it this way. The Texas people, they were really excited.

[Henry Zebrowski]

For this, for the death of all the children.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, they weren't.

[Marcus Parks]

No. But I'm saying they voted for it, though, so they were super excited for.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Is what they voted for, you know, they always. Texans, always. Just 100. They really do have this great. It's not like they have cognitive dissonance at all when it comes to the bad things that happen to them. And the way they vote, they just. Man, they put it together every time.

[Marcus Parks]

They really do.

[Ed Larson]

I'd say 40% of them are cool.

[Marcus Parks]

We'll see. We'll see.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But in the end, the judge did ultimately place the blame mostly on usia, saying that the only assignable crime was manslaughter through negligence because the tank was wholly insufficient in structural strength to handle. Handle its load, and it met neither its legal nor engineering requirements.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, if you just look at my little molasses tank, I have my own backyard, you see? Hey, I got three feet on either side. Because even though this is a smaller tank, I don't want it to explode, ruin my roses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, the Boston D A took this report and presented it to a grand jury. But in an infuriating move, the jury disagreed on criminal negligence and ruled that there was insufficient evidence for a manslaughter indictment. Therefore, no criminal charges were brought against anyone for the molasses flood. Now, the USIA became emboldened by the grand jury's failure to issue indictments. So in a brief statement, they put the onus back on the anarchists by saying that, quote, evilly disposed persons had used dynamite to blow up the tank. Ironically, though, USIA's refusal to take any responsibility for the tank disaster may have led to three. Three incidents that very well could have actually been committed by vengeful anarchists who were out to prove a point.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like you say that you, like, create your villain, and then the villain shows up.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Exactly eight months after the molasses disaster, two of USIA's molasses steamers vanished without a trace while traveling from the Caribbean to the Northeast. Not only did they vanish without a trace, there was no radio contact that said, mayday. Mayday. They were just gone. These disappearances were both bizarre and unprecedented. And it is possible that a sudden explosion could have obliterated any evidence of both ships. Well, a month after that, USIA's other molasses processing facility, the one in Brooklyn, it was destroyed by a fire. Although, again, ironically, the only thing that was undamaged. The tanks that were holding the molasses.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, because they were built properly. Like Brooklyn union men.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yep. But even so, the Brooklyn plant was closed. Closed down. And in a classic case of failing upward, USIA found it in their hearts, even amidst all this turmoil, to promote Arthur P. Gel to Assistant treasurer and vice president of the company. Just a little under a year after the molasses flood.

[Ed Larson]

They deserve every fucking thing that happens.

[Marcus Parks]

I've got an idea here, guys. I got a new idea for my next big tank. Instead of worrying about using molasses to make weapons, I have an idea about making a giant maraca filled with weapons. We just get the guns and keep them in a big giant shakable Moroccan. And that way it's fun. It makes a fun noise. It's very Spanish. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

As far as the molasses concerned, we learned the hard way. Last time with the big bucket on top of a hill. This time top of a mountain.

[Marcus Parks]

That's it. You gotta make the hill bigger so that the mountain molasses has more fun on its way to the city.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The only question I have is can we build it around a community of brown people that it may kill one day?

[Marcus Parks]

How about white people that we make brown with radiation? We'll give them spots.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But that is not quite the end of the story. So the people of Boston are nothing if not tenacious. And when the grand jury refused to hold anyone responsible for so much death and destruction, the survivors consolidated 119 separate legal claims against USIA for a full civil trial before a jury. USIA, of course, stuck with the anarchist line in their defense. Which was led by a lawyer with the appropriately terrible name of Charles Choate.

[Marcus Parks]

Colby. Charlie. Some people thought I was making legal business my voice. But I have a short man. What do you work hard, Charlie?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Choate does sound like a man who used to be a fish. I was.

[Marcus Parks]

Now I'm a lawyer. Tank's perfect. Yeah. Beautiful. Even sexual to behold. Ad merrier if I could gage clothes a lot of guilfair.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Choate did argue in his opening statements. He said the tank was perfect. Perfect. Tank's beautiful. And it only failed because an anarchist dropped a bomb inside.

[Marcus Parks]

Little breakfast. All right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Cho's getting close to Phil gets you.

[Marcus Parks]

You got to think. Worry about the fact that Theo is dead. And it makes me sad.

[Ed Larson]

Every impression Henry does.

[Marcus Parks]

If he does it long enough becomes Bill Cosby every time in his bones. Can't get it out. Tank is very special. You gotta say. You got a problem with the tank. I brought you in this world to take out Choate.

[Ed Larson]

Where'd you get that horrible sweater?

[Marcus Parks]

I had the venue make it now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Science was very much on the side of the plaintiffs, but I. My God. The opening statement made on behalf of the plaintiffs by attorney Damon Everett hall is one of the best I have ever heard. This is a small excerpt from the picture that Damon Everett hall painted in court.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, I had no doubt that John. I had occasional see many of the devastated areas of France. If you take a little section or one of those devastated areas in your put in it dead men and dead horses and then you cover it in molasses, you get some idea of what this scene look like a few minutes after this occurrence on January 15, 1919. Direct quote, direct quote.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You'd put some dead men in it. You take some dead horses, you cover it. Molasses, that's what it was.

[Marcus Parks]

If you take a little section, just take a man. Devastated France, you cover them all. That's it. Boom. Done.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The USIA spent the modern equivalent of $750,000 on expert testimony. They even went so far as to have a scientist from MIT build a 30 foot tall model tank, fill it with molasses and drop dynamite inside.

[Marcus Parks]

I have to say thank you so much for this money. This is the best afternoon I've ever had.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, honestly imagine getting that call and telling that that's what you have to do today.

[Marcus Parks]

On it. Doing it right now. Fuck, yes, absolutely. Dropping everything.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Going by how the plates were similarly damaged in both the test and the actual tank. USIA was confident in their argument. In the end, though, the facts won out. Amongst the most damning testimony came from the people who actually made the steel plates, who admitted that the thickness of the plates they delivered was less than what was called for in the plans. They just sort of did like a. My bad.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, man, super thin. So they took them. They didn't say nothing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

So that was exactly what they said, like they didn't say nothing.

[Marcus Parks]

So we thought they must like it. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But in the end, it was the plaintiff's own explosives experts who sunk. USIA attorney Damon Everett hall brought in five sailors who'd been stationed on ships in Boston harbor that day. And all five of them of them had been ordinance machinists and detonation workers during World War I.

[Marcus Parks]

The most haunted men in the world that had to watch dessert destroy half a city.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They testified that they'd heard rumbling sounds like thunder when the tank collapsed. But all of them were adamant that what they heard was nothing like the thunder they heard a thousand times over during the the war. Therefore, that thunder was not dynamite. Pretty good witness, Very good witness. Five, no less. Now, Arthur P. Gel was indeed brought to the stand and he predictably did not do very well.

[Ed Larson]

He fell over.

[Marcus Parks]

I should have had my. I should have had my Training wheels.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He admitted that he did not have anyone examine the steel upon its delivery, nor did he ask for any tests on the steel before the tank's construction.

[Marcus Parks]

I trust my workers. I trust steel.

[Ed Larson]

I said, Jill, no, absolutely not.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is what he said. He said he relied on the steel company's reputation as all the proof he needed that the tank would hold. Going off of Jill's testimony, the plaintiffs brought in their own MIT scientist. That scientist found that the tension in those particular plates should not have exceeded more than 18,000 pounds per square square inch. The scientists then testified that on the day of the flood, the molasses was exerting pressure of £31,000 per square inch, nearly double what it could actually take.

[Marcus Parks]

I will maybe explain it in a way that the jury can understand. You know how you enter into a restaurant and you are one size. When you go and consume 1, 2, 3 cheap burgers, 12 plates of french fries, 1 appetizer of mozzarella sticks, you will find the pressure side of what I call the fupa. This is this area scientific term called the FUPA exerts extreme pressure upon the pants. And the only way to alleviate such pressure, as you can see. Oh. Is to unbuckle the pants and remove the front of the pads. And that's what the tank did.

[Ed Larson]

Good audio on the belt buckle, though.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you. I've been doing a lot of Foley.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, that's all to say that USIA had built a 50t tall, 2.3 million gallon tank over one of America's most congested neighborhoods with no knowledge whatsoever of the tank's strength, nor any knowledge of the tank's capability to withstand the pressure that would be exerted by the molasses process within. In other words, USIA looked at the tank, looked at the neighborhood, and said them. Now, attorney Damon Everett hall took his sweet time with his side of the case. He spent two years calling a parade of witnesses. Wives who lost their husbands, mothers who watched their sons die, breadwinners who'd lost their ability to work.

[Marcus Parks]

I didn't tell y'.

[Henry Zebrowski]

All.

[Marcus Parks]

This trial would be hilarious.

[Ed Larson]

What Sad ass parade?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's the saddest.

[Marcus Parks]

In response, you could still smell the molasses on a shirt. You could still see the brown stains on her trembling cleavage. You can still see the markings of the tang. Good when that. When the spike shot out of it on her sweet, delectable housewife rump.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, in response to all this, all Charles Choate could save for the defense was that at least those who lost Loved ones. At least they died quickly.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's the best part. The best part. Quickly smashed. Medially crushed. That's my favorite.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Seemingly unable to suppress his inner villain, Choate also argued that the two children who died. He argued that they were trespassing at the time of their deaths. So their families should not be entitled to damages, regardless.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, there's a little. Italians were stealing molasses. Yeah. Yeah. They should have stole more. Yep.

[Henry Zebrowski]

On company property.

[Marcus Parks]

Property. See.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But finally, after 341 days of testimony.

[Marcus Parks]

Jesus Christ.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that's on defense. And like that's both sides. Yeah. 341 days.

[Marcus Parks]

What does the jury do?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sit there.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. That must have been so annoying.

[Marcus Parks]

How did they. Nervous. What do they do during that time period?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't know. I guess they get a stipend.

[Ed Larson]

I feel bad enough. This is two episodes, much less 341 days.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that's 341 working days. The hearings finally ended four and a half years after the flood. Usia was found fully liable and eventually paid the modern equivalent of $10 million to the victims, the city and the businesses that were destroyed.

[Marcus Parks]

That is not enough.

[Ed Larson]

That is not that much.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, that's the thing, is that it was actually the court. Their first ruling was the modern equivalent of $4 million. And then that's when Damon Ever hall went to Charles Choate and said like, that's nothing. He's like, if you don't. If we don't go and get this figured out right now, we're taking damages to a jury trial and we're starting this fucking thing all over again.

[Marcus Parks]

Because you mean to tell me you're gonna watch your father and his horse drown to death in molasses and then you're gonna go, what, like a stick of gum? Yeah, that's what that is.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And that's. That was actually the second. That was Charles Choate and Everett and Damon. Everett hall, like hashing it out. It took him about two hours. And then finally like, okay, yeah, 10 minutes. Million. But that's the modern equivalent of $10 million.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. And that was between so many different people.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, we got 150 people hurt, 21 dead. All the horses, all the houses, all the businesses.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That ain't no, it ain't. Now, concerning the long history of the molasses trade in Boston. The flood ended that 300 year tradition in a matter of minutes.

[Marcus Parks]

That's probably good.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Soon after, molasses prices dropped even further as sugar replaced it as a sweetener. And Companies found cheaper and easier ways to produce industrial alcohol without molasses. But interestingly, the flood also had long term impacts on construction standards in America. Boston began requiring that all calculations from engineers and architects be filed with their plans. That practice soon became standard across the country. Although I suppose we'll all find out soon enough if there's still people in government actually checking these calculations after the recent so called government efficiency measures. See, if the molasses flood blood tells us anything, it's that without safeguards and regulations, corporations will risk the lives of human beings or even sacrifice entire populations if it means that the company's stock price will go up even a little. For a current example, one of Elon Musk's AI data centers is at this very moment choking the life out of an entire neighborhood in Memphis. Musk's Grok facility is producing so much air pollution that residents can't breathe in their own homes. And this is all so his AI, his stupid GROK AI is powerful enough to get government contracts, which it will undoubtedly up just as badly as it's up everything else. It's done. Again, the anarchists have points.

[Marcus Parks]

Hey, Grok might be really, really good at, at writing half bad like essays for your freshman year college.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, I mean, Grock. I mean, that's the thing, is that Grok is technically very good at threatening to rape people on Twitter.

[Marcus Parks]

And I mean, to be honest, I, I think people got that unlock. I don't think we need it.

[Ed Larson]

We're really good at that.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I feel like that's like we got that covered. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Maybe it should blow up another spaceship.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, wow. Yeah, that's what GRO should do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But as I said before, capitalists are going to capitalize. No matter how stupid or useless their product is. It's all about profit. And just as they've been doing throughout history, corporations will kill, exploit, or even enslave people without conscience in the pursuit of a prophet, unless they are forced to do otherwise. But concerning the great molasses flood of 1919, perhaps the strangest epilogue in this story is the ghost of the molasses itself.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, I'm so full. So big.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Reportedly, Boston's entire North End smelled like molasses for decades afterwards. It was said that well into the 1960s. Remember, this happened in 1919. Well into the 1960s 60s, the basements of the buildings along Commercial street still smelled like the sweet substance that had killed 21 people and injured 150 almost a half century before. And all of it had occurred because one corporate lackey's desire for a promotion collided with the tide of history. Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

It's time to go get some molasses. Yeah, let me try it now.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm surprised I have not bought any since we started this.

[Marcus Parks]

If there was a substance that you would die in, but you'd be sort of vaguely happy to die in, what would that substance be? Wow. Two distinctly different answers. Wow, that's amazing. Nectar's bourbon. That's mine. But I'm going to do that the only old fashioned way. Couple of glasses a day at a time. Go down to patreon.com lastpodcast on the left and watch us do this. This is a great episode, Marcus.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, thank you very much.

[Marcus Parks]

Really great, great.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And yeah. And thank you of course to the researchers, as always, did a fantastic job on this one.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And next week, I believe we're coming back to true crime.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We are big, true, massive true crime story. True crime. Let's just, it's, let's say it's a post 911 true crime.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Some new stuff which I'm actually very super hot.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And if you want to follow us on all the socials, you can find us on Tik tok and Instagram @lp on the left. You can also check out all of our new YouTube channels. Someplace underneath LPN Romantasy, who's the be the foreign report. No dogs in space and LPN TV. And don't forget to come see us on Tour. Go to LastPodcast on the left.com to see where we're coming in the rest of this year. We're going all over this country.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, we are. Doggy do.

[Ed Larson]

That's right.

[Marcus Parks]

And all.

[Ed Larson]

August 8th, we're going to be in Charlotte, North Carolina. Come out to these shows. August 9th, Durham, North Carolina. September 20th, St. Paul, Minnesota. October 11th, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. October 25th, Oakland, California. November 29th, Cleveland, Ohio. And December 12th and 13th we're going to be in big old stinky dinky Portland.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I can't wait, man. I cannot wait. You know what's funny about Columbus? The most that we've been asked by people, people to open for us. I think that's a city that I've never had a city. So many people being like, can I open?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, well, we're doing Columbus for side stores.

[Marcus Parks]

That's what I mean.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Well, that's Travis Irvine's territory.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, that's just, that's because it's Travis's. Yeah, that's Travis's town.

[Marcus Parks]

He's got his gang there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I Remember, he's got Come Boy. There's another guy there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Tomato Joe.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yes. Dookie Don. That's right. Well, you're joking. But Tomato Todd, Tomato and Gumboy are real. Yeah. Those are Travis's henchmen. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Come Boy and Tomato Joe are people the real. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

God, I probably know him. That's the worst part.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you might. Yeah, you might.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, well, I take it back. Tomato Joe.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Anything the Tomato Joe or Convoy may have done or said over the years has nothing in common with lpn.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We merely know their existence.

[Marcus Parks]

Just understand that right now. I mean, it's fine they don't have electricity.

[Ed Larson]

I just can't wait to Come Boy finally becomes Come Man.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Hey, I tell you, just takes one bullet.

[Ed Larson]

Speaking of Come boys. Happy birthday, Rob.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, happy birthday. Our main Come Boy. Our main Comeboy, Rob. We wouldn't be half the show we are without you, Rob. Thank you for all your work.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I wouldn't call you. I wouldn't say you're a Tomato Joe. You're more of a Rudabaga, Rob.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you. Thank you. I say you're. I'll take it as a win. Yep. Well, wish our Come Boy Happy birthday on social media. Media. Housing again?

[Ed Larson]

Hell, Ozzy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What's poppin listeners? I'm Laci Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess. The show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time. Wanna know about the fake errors? We got em.

[Marcus Parks]

What about a career con man?

[Henry Zebrowski]

We've got them too. Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal coins. Oh, you know, they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Byer, Ira Madison iii, Conan o' Brien and more.

[Marcus Parks]

Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wherever you get your podcasts.