Hey everyone, Dave here. Welcome back to another
installment of Interdimensional Swap. This week,
I'm super excited to bring you a relatively new
podcast. I believe it started just this past
year, like in February or something like that,
called What About Weird? It's a really interesting
show. It's hosted by two friends, Echo and Elena.
And pretty much the entire premise of the show
is that they just tell you a bunch of weird shit.
They cover everything from UFOs. cryptids, paranormal,
a bunch of strange science, and a bunch of really
fucked up history that even I didn't know about,
which is actually what this week's episode is
about. Or not this week's, but the episode they
gave me to share with you this week. This is
what that episode is about. It's an episode about
the American hippo bill. Basically, someone wanted
to turn America... Have you ever seen the movie
Okjong? I think that's what it's called. Kind
of like that, in a weird sense. But anyways...
Here's their episode. Definitely check them out.
Give them a follow. And like I said, they're
pretty new. So, you know, be sure to leave them
a five -star rating and a very nice review where
you can. All right. So with that out of the way,
enjoy. Wait, what about weird? Hello, my name
is Elena. And I'm Echo. And this is our podcast,
What About Weird? A podcast where we discuss
all things weird from cryptids and aliens to
strange science and unhinged history. Today,
I'm going to be talking about a interesting piece
of almost legislation. So the year is 1910 and
there's national meat shortage and a growing
ecological... I can't talk right now. I'm still
shaking from running in the woods. After my dog.
I love him. But he's crazy. Let's start over.
We're not cutting this. I'm just going to start
my bit over. It's 1910. There's a national meat
shortage and a growing ecological crisis from
a form of invasive plant. Representative Robert
F. Baustred. I am going to mess up all of the
names here because some of them are German, but
most of them are French and just weird and I
can't read. So Robert F. Baustard, maybe? Representative
of Louisiana proposed a plan to solve both of
these issues. And the plan was hippopotamus ranching.
Like, raising them like cattle? Exactly. Oh my
god. Hippopotamus ranching. Great. That's a great
idea. Yeah. What could go wrong? Yeah. It's not
like they kill people or anything. It's 1910.
We're still drinking mercury. Anything goes.
Okay, so let's start by talking about what these
problems were that they were trying to solve.
So to begin with, there was a growing amount
of water hyacinth. Water hyacinth is a free -floating
plant known for pretty stalks of... bluish purple
flower. I've seen it in, you've probably seen
it in gardens and stuff before here and there
in containment. But it's actually illegal in
a lot of places because it spreads so easily
if it gets out. But it has clusters of leaves
and spongy stalks and it can lift out of the
water a fair bit. It's very similar to, it's
related to water lilies, except water lilies
are rooted. These just are free floating. They
can float wherever. So do they have a root system
at all? Yes, they do. It has roots going down.
Have you ever started a little clipping in water?
Oh, yeah, like when you propagate something?
Yeah, things like that, except that's just the
way this plant lives. Interesting. Yeah, I went
down a whole rabbit hole of researching this
plant before I realized I had the rest of a different
topic to talk about. So the plant's roots and
their stems will link to form rafts in the water
and in the mud. And these were clogging, these
were also clogging the waterways. And they were
choking out native species as the plant matter
decayed. They would tangle up even more and clog
the riverbed. And they would, they were drawing,
as they decomposed, it reduced the amount of
oxygen in the water. And water hyacinth, even
alive, reduces the amount of oxygen in the water.
This was killing native fish, which people were
needing to, you know, obviously fish and eat.
Right. Which, going back to the meat shortage,
which I'm going to, I'll talk more about later,
but people are using that to supplement their
food. But if they can't fish because the fish
are dying, what are you going to do? In addition
to clogging up the waterways and killing the
fish, These mats of material would build up like
a dam and would cause a lot of flooding. To top
it all off, water hyacinth spreads at an insane
rate. It can double in mass in 6 to 14 days,
which means a small amount could be a big problem
in a hurry. Yeah, it sounds like the poison ivy
in my backyard. Yep. That's just half the plants
around here. I tried doing the math, but my brain
wasn't working. I was trying to figure out how
much. You know, one square, how long did it take
one square foot to get to an acre? And then I
was like, I don't think I'm doing this math right.
And also, who cares? Yeah. I'm going to do all
this math and it's, everybody's eyes are just
going to glaze over. So you said this is 1910.
Where is this at though? Louisiana, Florida,
and Mississippi. Okay. So like basically down
south. Yes. Like the Bayou States. Okay. But.
You're going to hear a lot about Louisiana and
a little bit about Florida, but it's mostly Louisiana
because the guy proposing this is from Louisiana.
Okay. And that's where it took over the most.
And that explains all the French names. Yes.
Okay. Yeah. Yep. So water hyacinth is native
to South America. It was introduced to North
America. At the 1884 New Orleans Cotton States
Exposition, which is similar to a World's Fair,
it was given out to attendees as a little, like,
freebie ornamental water plant to spruce up their
home ponds and stuff. And attendees thought it
was so beautiful, they brought it home, put it
in their ponds. If they didn't have ponds, they'd
put it in creeks and rivers and lakes behind.
That's very terrible. And from there, it just
spread. It spread like wildfire taking over.
And remember, I said it. It will multiply to
twice the mass in 6 to 14 days. So in less than
a month, you know, your pond could, depending
on how much they gave you, a little, like, koi
pond could be totally filled in, like, a month.
Okay, so now we've talked about the water hyacinth.
Let's talk about that meat shortage I mentioned.
So why was there a meat shortage? There was a
population boom at the time. I was reading the
population. had boomed by about 21 % from the
1900 census to the 1910 census. And this was
due to a number of factors. One, a lot of medicine
was improving. So people were living longer.
Children were living longer. People weren't dying
as early. People weren't dying from all kinds
of disease. And then there was better farming.
So people were able to get nutrients better.
So they had a better... Like, why is my brain
not working? Why is my brain not working? Immune
system. Why did it take me so long to come up
with the word immune system? I'm like, it has
to do with sickness. Yeah. It's the sick system.
When you're malnourished, you're way more likely.
Exactly. Exactly. And there was also a lot more.
transportation better transportation transportation
was faster and safer than it had ever been so
people were immigrating en masse to america and
it was putting a lot of stress on the food supply
yes the farming techniques were getting big better
but there were more people coming more people
living and it was putting stress on agriculture
in addition to the increased population there
was a lot of diseases going around the livestock
that was killing off cows and stuff i had a hard
time finding what um what diseases were going
around i'm assuming probably mad cow or something
i don't know i i am not a cow expert cows can
get tuberculosis bovine tuberculosis maybe yeah
you you would know more about cows than i would
all of this was the with the meat industry going
through a lot of um stress from the diseases
and then stretching that pressure even thinner
with the um increase in population a lot of people
were forced to turn to vegetarianism out of necessity
and out of cost we fucking hate that america
yeah we can't say especially in 1910 no we we
eat steak bacon man um I think I have it later
on, but some people were so upset about not having
meat. There's certain nutrients you can get from
meat that people hadn't figured out how to create
supplements for. Right. Like vitamin B12 and
stuff. Did we even understand protein and stuff
back then? I don't know when we started. I don't
know. With like nutritionalists or whatever.
So a lot of people weren't getting the proper
nutrients they need for meat. And a lot of people
were considering eating. horses and eating even
eating their pets oh my god um or wild animals
and stuff and it wasn't directly related to all
of this but only four years earlier the book
the jungle by upton sinclair i think that's how
you pronounce his name yeah that sounds right
upton sinclair who's a muckraker raker journalist
um his book came out and I don't know if you
learned about it in school. I know I did, but
it was basically exposing the horrors of the
meat industry. And a lot of people were so appalled
and realizing how absolutely nasty and gross
it was. And it led to a lot of like federal food
safety laws and stuff that weren't around. And
there was a huge reform movement. So people,
even if people could afford meat, they were skeptical
of it because they'd seen all, they read about
all the horrors of the meat industry. And it,
didn't directly lead to this book didn't directly
lead to the hippo bill being put forth but it
opened people's eyes to the possibilities and
made people more open to it to the possibility
of eating hippo meat because they were under
the assumption it would be cleaner and safer
and nicer because it's going to be out in the
wild and um so the the hippos would eat They
were known to eat water hyacinth. I have it somewhere.
I'm not sure where, but okay, I have it coming
up. But the hippos were known to eat water hyacinth
in Africa where it had been introduced. So they
were like, well, we'll bring the hippos, we'll
ranch the hippos, and they'll get rid of the
water hyacinth. So we couldn't just get more
cattle from somewhere else? Why? Because the
diseases. Because they would catch the diseases
that was going around. Okay, so that makes sense
to me. But then why hippos? There's deer, there's
lamb and sheep. Why was there that jump? I'm
going to get to it later, but they proposed a
whole bunch of other exotic animals that they
were under the impression that, well, this isn't
a cow or this isn't a sheep, so it must be immune
to cow and sheep diseases. I know there's certain
diseases that can get into deer from cattle and
stuff. Yeah. But they're like, we'll have Tibetan
yaks in the Rockies and stuff. We'll talk about
that later. But there's probably almost no scientific
basis at this point to actually know whether
or not these are transferable diseases between
these different species. So they're just fucking...
I don't know. Because I said so. And I'm a science
man. They're like, let me think about the most
insane fucking animal that I could think of.
And we're going to eat that because it couldn't
possibly get these diseases. And because they
don't, they don't look mean. And also they're
like three times the weight of cattle. You know
what? You take the effort to raise one. I get,
I don't know how much this, this man did. I'll
get into his background of Broussard's background,
but I don't think he was the person in charge
of doing a lot of farming. Oh, okay. But I think
his assumption was, well, one cow is only the
third of the weight of one hippo, so what could
possibly go wrong? So the answer to both these
problems that the government specifically Robert
Brewstard and some pals of his came up with was
Lake Cow Bacon. That's what they were calling
it. Lake Cow Bacon? Lake Cow Bacon. This was
a name that was come up with... Words. This name
was come up... I can't talk. New York Times created
this name. There we go. It was the New York Times.
Blame it on them. It's terrible. I would not
eat something named that. Lake Cow Bacon? It
doesn't sound appetizing to you? If I saw it
at the grocery store, I would say, no, thank
you. See, I'm picturing, like, a terrible, terrible
cross between a cow and a pig in a little swimsuit
on a floatie. Lake Cow Bacon. It's, like, fucking
green for some reason. I even put in my notes,
If this seems out of left field, just hear Louisiana
Representative Robert F. Brustard out. And you're
just like, no. I got to this point, I was like,
no. What if I don't want to hear him out? So
like I said, hippos had been known to eat water
hyacinth in Africa, where it had also been introduced
and become invasive. It was introduced all over
the... So they're like, this is going to address
our problem with this overpopulation of this
plant. And we're going to eat them. Yes. Okay.
That makes a lot more sense to me now. Yeah,
that's why they're thinking do both of those.
And people in Africa and some people, a couple
of people backing Brustard here and helping him
push this idea. had spent time in Africa during
the Boer War and had eaten hippo. And we're like,
it's actually pretty good. That's what they were
saying is like, it's actually pretty good because
the high fat content in it, it's juicier and
more flavorful. So they were thinking, it's tasty.
Or so people say. It's tasty. And probably can't
get cow diseases for all we know. And it'll eat
the water hyacinths that are causing us the flooding
and the fish dying and the tangled roadways or
the waterways and everything. You know, what
could possibly go wrong? It's a win -win. So
let's meet some of the people involved in this.
First off, we have... I have no idea how to pronounce
this man's middle name. But Robert F. Brewstard.
I'm trying to... I wrote his middle name here.
It's like foiling me. Falling me? I don't know.
What? F -O -L -I -G -N -Y. I would need to see
it. Hold on. F -O -L -I -G -N -Y. F -O -L -I
-G -N -Y. Folligny? Robert Fligny Brewstard?
That sounds terrible. That can't be it. Who was
the brother of Edwin S. Brewstard, who was a
U .S. Senator. Robert was a representative in
the Louisiana House of Representatives. Born
in Louisiana on the Mary Louise Plantation. near
new iber um louisiana in 1864 he was from a well
-off family attended georgetown university and
later became the night inspector of customs at
new or in new orleans later being appointed to
the to assistant way state weyer and statistician
um he after that he went on to law school at
Tulane University in New Orleans after graduating
in 1889 he had he was admitted into the bar the
same the bar exam the same year and began practice
in New Iber and then I have a whole bunch of
other shit I copied and pasted from the Louisiana
House of Representatives website that really
doesn't matter. It's just a list of... Do we
care about this man this much? Point being, to
wrap this up, he went to university. He went
to law school. He did some stuff between university
and law school. He was from a well -off family.
And he grew up on a place that used to be a plantation.
So well -off. That's why I said... Given his
past, I don't think he was the one branching
anything. And being a person in law school, yeah,
it makes him well -equipped to write a bill of
sorts, but I don't know, this being a sort of
agricultural and ecological bill, I don't think
he has any fucking idea what he's talking about.
No. He is the man to, like you said, write the
law. Not everything else. So, the next character
on the roster we have is Frederick Russell Burnham?
Burnham? I think it's Burnham. He was one of
the key supporters of the bill, and he was dubbed
by multiple sources, and I quote, the most interesting
man in history. I read so many articles on this
man. I think we should do an episode on. He was
just there. He was like in the frontier of America
for so many historical events just accidentally.
Why haven't we heard of him then? I've literally
never heard this man's name ever. He is the inspiration
for the Boy Scouts of America. He didn't found
them, but he was the inspiration. So he was born
in southern Minnesota. I wrote his early life
was riddled with fascinating stories and historical
events, but I'm going to pass over it for the
sake of brevity. Cause I was reading it and it
was like, when there's nothing much for the first,
like six, it was like right when he was born,
there was some stuff and then nothing until he
was like 13. And then it's 13 to like every single
year, there's something going on in this man's
life. And I'm like, okay, let's not, he's just,
this man had a lot going on. So. Burnham was
an American scout and adventurer and a soldier
who was very well known at the time for his exploits
across American West, Africa, and other parts
of the British Empire. He grew up on the frontier
and he was an expert frontiersman, marksman,
tracker, and he gained a lot of early experience
as a scout during the Apache Wars. When he was
older, he went to Africa, where he served under...
He served as chief of scouts under Lord Roberts,
who is considered the most successful British
commander of his time, during the Second Boer
War in South Africa, where he had seen hippos
eating water hyacinth, and he had eaten hippo
meat, which is why he's part of a supporter for
this. Right. His survival skills and... And everything
in self -reliance put him in a good place to
become a British spy. Hmm. Outside of just military
service, he befriended Robert Baden -Powell during
the Matbo War. I don't know if I'm pronouncing
that right. In Rhodesia. This man's just all
over the place. Just throw a dart at a globe
and this man was there. But like I was saying,
his wilderness expertise inspired Baden Powell
to start the Boy Scouts, who was like, this guy
is such a man. I want all boys to be like him.
Let's start a program to make the boys like this
man. Gotta make the boys like Burnham. So Burnham
was deeply interested in conservation and exploration.
And he was also a big participant in a lot of
oil ventures and mineral prospects throughout
California and Mexico. And he made a lot of big
changes to how scouts worked, like military scouts
and stuff. See, I have a few more people here.
I know it's a lot going on here. I thought it
was fascinating to know all the different characters
that led up to this absolute character of a bill.
Because if I was just like, oh, this guy and
this guy and this guy, you'd be like, well, that's
weird how they come up with this. All these random
people just listing them. Yeah. But it helps
give some context to the bill. Right. Because
the actual bill itself, there's not a lot to
it. It's like, let's ranch hippos. It's fascinating
to me to find all the characters behind it to
help push this and the faces people were seeing
and the context that people were seeing in it.
Right. Because the different people that are
backing it really help give it gravity. Yeah.
And help you understand why they even thought
this was a good idea. Yeah. And why people were
even considering it semi -seriously. Mm -hmm.
Let's see. So the next person we have up is Captain
Fritz. I think is how his name is pronounced.
D -U -Q -E. Or Q -U -E -S -N -E. Do Keese. Do
Quest. Good old Fritz D. We'll call him Fritz
D. If I remember. I wrote his last name. I wrote
a lot of these guys' last names. God, I'm terrible
with names. Me too. It's so bad. Me too. What
episode was it where we called someone, like,
Ramp? Dan Stambert. Oh, yeah. Rambert Stambert
Lambert. That was it. Rambert Stambert Lambert.
Jeff the Talking Mugger. Yeah. That's just why
we're bad at names. It's just Rambert Stambert
Lambert. Peak name right there. So, we'll call
him Fritz D. Try and remember to call him that.
Or do Cass. You could go really hard and, like,
try and do an accent and everything. Don't put
the pressure on me. I can't, I can't do accents
when, I can do accents when no one puts pressure
on me. Oh, okay. Well, sorry I asked. Yeah. Be
sorry. Be very sorry. Feel bad. Duquesne. Duquesne.
Okay. I need to, this is going to bother me.
Bring up like the AI voice and it's going to
be so off. It's going to be. Duquesne. Actually.
Duke. Dukesne. Dukesne? That might be close.
I don't, I don't fucking know. Dukesney? It's
got to be like 10 minutes of Elena being like,
do you have the time to listen to me whine about
nothing and everything all at once? So he was
born in South Africa. He was a soldier and a
spy and a journalist and also an adventurer in
Africa. He did a lot of sabotaging and deception.
It was sort of his whole bag was like intelligence
and sabotage. Imagine like being like your job
title. What are you good at? Intelligence and
sabotage. I'm good at sabotaging intelligence.
Put that on the business card. So he fought against
the British during the Second Boer War. Being
from South Africa and fighting in this war, he
had also had eaten hippo, seen hippos eat the
water hyacinth, which is part of the reason why
he was backing this. Uh -huh. So aside of just
the Second Boer War, he was in both world wars,
which wouldn't come till later, but just an interesting
point that he was, he was in, it said he was
a known spy, well -known spy, which I feel like
if you're well -known for being a spy, you're
not a good spy. But everything I read said he
was a great spy. This is the best spy ever. We
all know him, but he's really good. We put his
face, he just wears a fake mustache and nobody
knows who he is. It's like Clark Kent. Yeah,
glasses and a fake, he has like the glasses with
the big fake nose and the fake mustache and nobody
knows who he is. I don't know, is that Groucho
Marx? He like takes them off, they're like, oh
shit, it's Fritz D! But they just have, like,
employee of the month, and it's a picture of
him. But they change it so it's a different disguise
every month. His last disguise that he used.
And everyone's like, oh, I knew there was something
odd about that guy. An interesting thing about
good old Fritz D was that he had actually, he
was actually a wartime, like, personal adversary
of... Frederick Russell Burnham, the most interesting
man that I had mentioned. I had read a couple
sources saying that at one point they had even
been assigned to kill each other, but then just
didn't. So, next person we have is William Newton
Irwin. There's not a whole lot out there about
him. That's a good name. William Newton Irwin?
I love it. Yeah, I tried looking this guy up
to find more information about him, and apparently
a lot of people also thought it was a good name,
because there's so many people named William
Newton Irwin. Really? There's a lot of William
Newton Irwins. I found a lot about this guy.
I found stuff from, like, William Newton Irwin,
attorney at law in 1976. William Newton Irwin
on Instagram. uh businessman what like it's just
a name for getting shit done i think like every
william newton irwin i found was like out there
doing professional shit that's literally the
next animal like it is going to be named william
newton irwin it'll be another chameleon like
edward bartholomew what what is your chameleon's
name sir charles frederick crew the third why
do i think there was an edwin in there or edward
you could say any name and i'd be like yep that's
it William Newton Irwin, your chameleon. So your
chameleon was a researcher with the U .S. Department
of Agriculture and Bureau of Plant Industry in
1910. And he was one of the experts that Broussard,
the original guy, the politician had brought
in to testify. And the other two experts that
he had brought in were the other two guys, Fritz
D. and Burnham. Right. Like I said, there's not
a lot about Irwin, but I found a great quote
from a more recent news article looking back
on his career saying that he appears to have
spent his career campaigning ideas that were
simultaneously perfectly logical and extravagantly
bizarre. Erwin was the one who actually convinced
Brustard of the hippo bill. He was the one to
be like, hear me out. This is a good idea. I
just need you to get this into the government.
You're the guy with the political power. Interesting.
I've got to start finding different words for
interesting. I literally looked up a list on
my phone. Quite intriguing. How riveting. Riveting.
Take a drink every time we say interesting. I
hate it. Every single time I say it now, I'm
like, fuck. There's literally anything else.
I have noticed that a lot with myself with a
lot of listening back to the podcast. I'll hear
myself say the same words and I'll be speaking
and I'll say it and I'm like, ah, this is a good
one. Unputdownable. Unputdownable. William Newton
Irwin is unputdownable. As the U .S. Department
of Agriculture Bureau, Agriculture's Bureau of
Plant Industries, 1910, he's quite unputdownable.
Yes, yes, indeed. It's like, okay, what is he,
a fucking book? All of these dudes are... from
like the south why am i doing a british accent
i don't know it just makes it so much better
if you're being fancy you're gonna use a british
accent them's the rules i i didn't make them
i just follow them um so this quote goes on to
say that um with um in regards to erwin um any
resistance to the ideas that he came up with
came down to plain simple -mindedness So anytime
someone's like, that's a crazy idea. He's like,
oh, you're just being simple minded. He's like,
you're actually just a dumb bitch. Yeah. Honestly,
I like that he's not gaslighting anyone. He's
just like, you're fucking stupid. Stop being
stupid and have some whimsy in your life. He's
not even trying to explain. He's just like, it's
because you're fucking dumb. You don't get it.
You're just a big old dummy. So lastly. When
it comes to people involved in this. He wasn't
directly involved, but we have the man, the myth,
the legend. Can you guess who it is? In the 1910s?
I have no idea. Teddy Roosevelt. I knew it! Whenever
there's something whack going on around this
time, you can bet your bottom that... I should
have just fucking guessed it. Teddy Roosevelt's
gonna be involved. That's literally... I was
this close. I knew it was him. So... While Roosevelt
was not directly involved in promoting the bill,
he did put his support behind it. Even though
his presidency ended the year before, his influence
was, he still had a lot of influence. And having,
being notorious for traveling and being for conservation
and stuff. Remember, this is the guy that really
started the national parks and stuff. a lot of
conservation and stuff so his his word meant
a lot um to people and um like politically and
intellectually especially in a environmental
sense at the time so him saying that he was he
was the man to listen to to these for these sorts
of things so now that we've talked about everyone
who's sort of loosely involved we're not going
to bring up roosevelt too much i just wanted
to bring up that it was important that he backed
it at the time because it helps add context so
here we are back in 1910 and um march 24th 1910
rostard was standing in front of the house committee
on agriculture and he was putting out this plan
that he had for the american house the american
hippo bill also known as house resolution 23261
He believes that the importance of hippos constantly
having this insatiable hunger, as they believed,
or, if you will, hungry, hungry hippos. I couldn't
get through this podcast without making that
joke. Brought from Africa would help rid Louisiana,
Florida, and some of Mississippi of the water
hyacinth that had been plugging their waterways
and causing all these problems. And then when
the hippos had been fattened up, they would take
them to be slaughtered. And it would be a revitalizing,
low -cost meat supply. And like I mentioned earlier,
they were under the belief that one hippo would
be worth three cattle. Because on average, hippos
are between... 3 ,000 to 9 ,000 pounds, as opposed
to the average beef cattle being around 1 ,200
pounds. Wow, that's crazy. I mean, so that could
be, like, way more than three times the cow.
But how would you control that? Because I'm not
a cattle rancher, but I feel like if you can
try to control an angry cow, it's hard enough.
That's the thing is you can drive cattle on a
horse or like get on a fucking gator and like
gator nuts and like alligator, you know, like
one of those. They look like a golf cart except
they're not. A four -wheeler? Yes, but they're
like closed in like a golf cart is. They're called
a gator. Okay, I was picturing like shoe gators,
you know what I mean? The ones that go over your
shoes to keep like ticks and stuff out. Oh. I
think it's like a brand name. That's what I like.
But anyway, you like get on those. Which they
didn't have at the time. Or you like get on a
horse. Like the official way that you like drive
cattle and deal with cattle, you get on your
fucking horse. There's no fucking way you could
drive hippos with your horse. Unless you're like
riding a bison. I mean, maybe. So I know we've
already run a little long on this. That's okay.
I have like seven pages on this. Wow. I went
deep. If I hadn't done all the research on the
people behind it. So the news was really pushing
it. Like I said, the New York Times had dubbed
it like cow bacon. William Newton Irwin was saying
that this could easily add. over a million tons
of meat a year to the supply, which would be
huge, huge, huge, huge for this struggling meat
industry. And he was also saying that there's
no reason they couldn't find a place in the United
States for more than 100 species of animals that
are all over the world that have yet to be domesticated.
There's so many animals we haven't domesticated.
Why don't we domesticate them? Because that's
the goal, right? It's not to protect the ecology
or the animal species. The goal is for us to
demonstrate to the animals. Power! I need power
over nature to be a man! So that was the back
point behind this. The main point they were pushing
was... Hippos will eat water hyacinth. We can
farm them. But the point behind it they were
pushing was there's all these exotic species
that we can farm that we haven't started farming.
They could put small antelopes on family farms.
They could put herds of Cape buffalo alongside
cattle to be driven across the West. They could
farm rhinoceroses. They could farm rhinos in
the southwestern desert. They could put Tibetan
yaks in the Rockies. And there was so many more.
They had a plan for all these different exotic
animals for every nook and cranny and corner
of the country. And they are like, this will
fix the meat industry. If this bill was passed,
all Americans, no matter what their socioeconomic
class, none of them would ever have to go without
meat again. And for just about $200 ,000 or about
$8 million today, America's, quote, unoccupied
and unused government lands could be filled with
domestic animals from all over. In the past,
the U .S. had already imported foreign animals.
Between 1891 and 1902, over a thousand reindeer
had been brought from Russia to fill the vacancies
left by diminished caribou herds in alaska and
at the time of the hearing when this bill was
being proposed in 1910 around 20 000 reindeer
were now residing in the frozen tundras of alaska
of the alaska territory all we have to do is
save to be saved from vegetarianism wrote the
daily arizona silver belt is to cultivate a tapes
for hippopotamus rhinoceros camel elk springbok,
dike -dike, giraffe, and other African animals.
Perhaps these animals, some of them at least,
are not as bad as they sound. That's how people
from Arizona sound. BTW. If you don't know. The
only person I know in Arizona is from California.
So... Yes, this is how people from Arizona...
Everyone just sounds like this. It's 1910. We
all sound like this. So like I said, there was
this serious meat shortage at the time. I keep
bringing that up. Beef prices were really soaring
because in addition to all of those, I don't
know why I didn't put this earlier, but in addition
to all of the diseases and stuff, the rangelands
and stuff were overgrazed. And so that was also
crippling the meat industry. Like, six places
I just wrote the same thing over and over again.
This is what I get for writing my notes while
I'm tired. That's how my next love is going to
be. My notes are self -bucked up looking. It's
so bad. Well, also, this bill is literally just
all over the place. And this makes more sense
than just the bill itself. So... So, what did
the actual bill say? Like... I have some quotes
from the bill at the very end of this. We'll
get to. But the problem with, among the, in addition
to the problem of like starvation and malnutrition
that the meat, what was dubbed the meat question.
In addition to that, it was a major hit to the
self -reliance, reliance, reliance and. this
sort of strong self -reliance independence mentality
that was being cultivated in america at the time
and it was a there was a big push for um the
uh like it was since there's people were pushing
and pushing and pushing for so long on all of
their resources all of their land that started
to hit the boundaries First, they start to hit
the boundaries of the land, of their resources,
and there's this creeping feeling of, oh, shit.
So I'm going to try and wrap this up. So I'm
halfway through my notes. Let's summarize this
up. I'm sorry this has gone on too long already.
Again, rabbit holes. But people were hitting
these limits around this time. The American West
was the like frontier mentality was dying. And
this free roaming spirit was sort of going away.
And it was bringing a lot of people down with
feeling like, well, now I'm sort of trapped.
Now there's, we have to figure out how to live
in this new world. A lot of things were being
flipped upside down. A lot of technology had
come around, you know, just in the last. Like
20 years, the telephone had been invented. Carrier
pigeons were going away. Trains were speeding
across the landscape. Everything was changing
and the world was feeling, started to feel a
lot smaller. And with the hippo bill, it sort
of had the, it still had this wild west mentality
to it of anything is possible. There's a great
big world out there and we can make it ours.
And so it opened up that like feeling cramped.
A lot of people were more open to the idea of
the hippo bill because it was so wild and out
there and help it let them feel this anything
is possible feeling. So a lot of people actually
thought this was a really great idea. Because
it helped, like I said, helped them regain that
sense of wonder. It would take care of the water
hyacinth problem. It would take care of the meat
problem. Honestly, if I lived back in 1910, I
don't know, maybe I'd be like, this sounds interesting,
let's try it. When all of this had been, everything
had been said, everyone says their piece and
stuff. Congress, the reaction of Congress to
this bill was actually serious. They were seriously
considering it. Um, and it drew a lot of attention,
um, from public figures, from newspapers and
just the public in general, especially with the
backing of Burnham and good old Fritz D, the
Department of Agriculture and Roosevelt. So a
lot of people were taking it seriously because
they had all these very important influential
voices behind it at the time. And the average
American's reaction was a mix of curiosity and
skepticism, but they weren't laughing it out.
They're like, actually, this might be a good
plan. It's a little ridiculous, but it might
actually work. Unfortunately, with both Congress
and the public, it did slowly lose motivation
because, mostly just because of the logistics.
They're like, how are we going to make this work?
How are we going to? There were some people,
there were some members of the public that were
openly volunteering to go on expeditions to bring
hippos back because they thought it was such
a good idea. But just the logistics, like you
were saying, how do you, how do you ranch hippos?
Yeah. How do you, how do you do it? How do you
kill these things? How do you make this sustainable?
Literally have 12 foot tall fences with like
fucking guard towers and train guards. Yeah,
you have to make like brick. Like how, what's
the logistics? It just kind of fizzled out. It
wasn't like it was immediately shot down. Because
unless you have a ton of money to literally travel
to Africa, grab a bunch of hippos, which like
that's going to be a feat in itself, get them
on a boat, bring them over here on what, like
a boat? And then like set up a farm for them?
yeah so difficult yeah you're gonna have to spend
all this money to bring all these animals over
that we have no idea how to rant nobody's ranched
them and maybe nobody's domesticated them for
a reason you know like people have domesticated
birds and chickens all over you know people have
domesticated versions of goats and cows and all
over maybe there's a reason we haven't domesticated
hippos we knew how dangerous they were right
like i'm pretty sure yeah i mean i think it just
takes a few people going to poke a hippo with
a stick to find out yeah it you know you know
they say the more you fuck around the more you
find out and 1910 was the era of fuck around
and find out so true in addition to it just kind
of fizzling out because of logistics a lot of
people were like i don't know how appetizing
it it doesn't sound very appetizing we're not
used to it it's just too foreign animals in general
don't sound appetizing like anytime that i remember
i'm eating an animal i'm like let me read let's
read the proposal of the bill the import importation
and domestication of hippopotamus a large of
the hippopotamus a large well -known species
of african quadrupeds would provide a new and
useful source of meat to the citizens of the
United States and aiding the removal of aquatic
plants impeding navigation in our southern waterways.
I have a number of other quotes here that I'm
not going to read because fuck that shit. So
that is the story of how America tried to solve
two pressing issues with one whack -ass, actually
slightly practical, but not really attempt at
feeding the nation. And holding on to frontier
mentality in a changing world. I am curious of
your thoughts. Given that there is actually a
bit of a meat shortage growing right now, do
you think people might be open to something like
this? Or no? Or do you think it would even be
proposed today? Just out of curiosity. With the
government we have now, yes, I think it would
be proposed. Some fucking idiot would say something
like that. But where I think... where we're moving
in the future is I think we're starting to realize
that the farming of livestock isn't great for
the environment. Yeah. It's just not great in
general. And I mean, some people might say we
don't really have a water hyacinth problem. Right.
Um, anymore, as far as I know, but yeah. And
I think because of so many people aware of how
aware of the meat industry, I don't think it
would go very far. I think a lot of there's,
There's some people that are red -blooded Americans
who wouldn't want to stop eating meat and beef.
But I think a lot of people would be like, I
mean, a lot of people are doing it anyway because
of cost. They'd be like, well, I can eat meat
once a week. you know my thing though is i think
where we're going in terms of the meat industry
is i think we are moving more towards lab -grown
meats yeah here's the thing about a lot of these
lab -grown meats is people are like oh it's just
like chemicals no it's not like that is actual
fucking meat yeah that they figured out how to
grow in a laboratory environment and it's like
tissue for grafting for people we've grown are
we working on growing organs yeah absolutely
yeah it's that is wonderful and i think it's
it will save us a lot yeah and on a molecular
level there it's literally the same i must admit
though the idea of lab grown meat does not sound
appetizing right But that's the only problem
with it is the fact that it doesn't sound appetizing.
Well, that was part of the problem with this
bill is that people said, you know, lake cow
bacon doesn't sound appetizing. Right, which
is true. But also, I don't know if I like the
idea of eating a bunch of weird exotic animals.
Like, honestly, I will take lab -grown meat every
single day of the week over, like, someone saying,
I'm going to kill this random animal in Africa.
Do you want to eat some? I'm going to be like,
no, bro. And I mean, I think the problem is that
another problem now would be that we're expanding
so much and so much rural area is being taken
up. Right. That we wouldn't have room to ranch
these things. No. Even if we wanted to. Like
we're probably running out of room to, which
is why we have giant sheds for big ass barns
with no sunlight for farm animals now. You know,
like it's only going to get as our population
grows, we're only going to become more crowded
to the point where there's not going to be a
whole lot of agricultural land left. And so we're
either going to be forced to like shove all of
our livestock into even smaller spaces or we're
going to be forced to find either meat alternatives
or lab grown alternatives because like. I don't
know. Or a meatless alternative. We're going
to have to find alternatives. Yeah. Probably
not anytime soon, but like not, maybe not in
our lifetimes, but this is definitely something
that. Yeah. It's going to become a pressing issue.
Like scientists are already thinking about and
considering. So. Yeah. Given the time, we should
probably start wrapping up. Sorry. It lasts so
long. I do want to read this one thing I found
on. I'm going to, I'll post this picture on the
Instagram. I have a bunch of these in my file.
So I remember, but. I found this great picture
on Wikipedia, on the Wikipedia page for this
bill. It's a picture of two hippopotamuses. And
it just says, two hippopotamuses in their natural
habitat, which is not Louisiana. That's where
I'm going to end it for now. Thank you for listening.
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