The Red Network and Legacy

So own media Welcome back to Behind the Bastards. This is not the first episode of the podcast we've done this year during the official summer, but it's basically the official legal Christian suummer, right guys? Team Isn't it? It feels hot as hell outside today. It's going it's but but only for the next couple days and then it's going to be in the sixties. Oh is it? Yeah. then and then and then and then motherother nature will water my garden and I'm thrilled. I'm glad that my Oregon won't burn down yet. Yes.ase. Caty Stolls here, leegend. Hey everybody. How hot and or on fire is it where you are Oh yeah both of those things. I am in the mountains, but it is an unpleasant well it's eighty five. It's eighty five. N not too bad. It could be worse. We had some ninety degree days last week, but I moved to the mountains thinking it would be cooler and boy was I wrong? Yeah, it gets hot. It gets hot. Lots of burnable brush all around me as well so Yeah Everything catches on fire out there. That's the beauty of living out in the country. Yeah. And they defunded one of my they closed one of our fire stations. Anyway. Oh, that's always so. So good. It's not like California needs a lot of those.. Wild time I'm only breingaking up the summer because I had my first every every year when it gets hot again, I remember, okay, I got toa put out sunscreen before I go run this time. And then fifteen or so minutes into that first run of the year with sunscreen, I remember, oh yeah, when you sweat with sunscreen, it burns your eyes like a son of a bitch. So if my eyes look like red and buuffy It's because I just finished a run in a shower and my entire face was on fire from sunscreen. I actually thought it was becausecause you were crying No No you've been touch. I would tell you if I was crying, but this is simply self inflicted friendly fire. Self inflicted friendly fire Another piece whyy are you wearing a sweater, man? it's cold in my basement. Yeah, I were cold his basement. The way my AC works. we're talking about summer and you're all bundled up. I am wearing my hoodie or my sweater, yes Meanwhile, Katie and I are Lucy Goosey Yeah. Oh yeah. I got my Lakers Luka Dont shirt on. Shout out to my haters. Okayome Anyways, Robert Do the job? Sh we do it? Yeah, Shall we do the job? Katie, Stole, how are you doing today Podcasting wise I'm here with my old pals whom I've missed iss I have missed you too, and I have missed talking to you about shitty people. So I wanted to give you a special shitty person today. You know, we talk a lot about old timey far right influencers on this podcast, you know, the first the guys around the twenties and thirties and forties of the OG American fascists We haven't talked a lot about like The history of women in the early history of women in the American fascist movement and the crucial role different like female influencers have played in the American far right. And so today we're gonna talk about a woman you could call the first Candace Owens or the first Laura Ler. You can make a case. She's got bits of both of those. Both Candace and Laura. ow a little bit to this lady we're gonna talk about this week, Elizabeth Dilling. Have you heard that name Elizabeth Dilling? Do you see why I was like, we need Katie for this episode Okay, I'm excited. I do not know anything about Elizabeth Dyling. She's notper fit. did Yeah She is the B side to a more famous fascist that I think you will recognize from later on, but like again, because I guess of misogyny. She never quite got as famous as her her male fascist counterpart. It's really the patriarchy. A I allowed thought on Netflix? Yeah, you would say whatever the fuck you wantna ask There's no real scare. If you' you've watched it, they don't give a shit Yeah're They barely know what's their own network. Thanks, Netfls Thanks for the money This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human Is Jenny Garth from I Choose Me with Jenny Garth History is full of mysteries like how people ever survive before modern laundry detergent? Luckily, Tidee's here with boosted stain fighting for cleaner, whiter, brighter, and fresher laundry versus tidee simply. No wonder it was America's number one detergent in sales last year. If it's got to be clean, it's got to be tidee. Tidee is a proud sponsor of the Altonjohn Imact s honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy and unwavering commitment to equality. You won't want to miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the iHart Radio app and E everywhere podcasts are heard It's America's two hundred and fiftieth, but you deserve some presents too. Simon Malls, mills, and premium outlets have can't miss sales july third to fifth. Join Simon Plus, our new rewards program for free and get two point five times the points in addition to extra savings, cashback and offers that also work at shopsimon. comot Grab the f, head to a Simon center and make it a day for the books. It's a celebration thing. Sign up today at Simonplus dot comot Rewards program terms apppplies. See Simonpllusot com for details. When it comes to looking your best, beachbum tanning does it better. Beachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations. with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. Rcharge your body, refresh your skin. Ret your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you If you want to find a stress free way to buy your next car, start at Carmax and shop your way. If you want to browse with confidence, get free qualified online with no impact on your credit score and shop cars within your budget Fr luxury cars to family rides Carmax has options for almost every price range, including more than twenty five thousand cars priced under twenty five thousand dollars. So hey, want to get started? Just head to cararmax dot com for details and get pre qualified today. Want to drive Carmax Elizabeth Elois Kirkpatrick was born on april nineteenth, eighteen ninety four in Chicago. Now, if eighteen ninety four and Chicago sound familiar to you, that's because that is the same year and city as the Pullman strike, which is a legendary moment in labor history, began as a local Chicago strike that became a national boycott and changed US labor law forever in the process And that strike itself was heavily inspired by the trials of the eighteen ninety three economic panic that fractured the US economy and helped fuel Eugene V. Debbs's creation of the American Railway Union, right Chicago at the time Elizabeth is born is a real hotbed for labor for this burgeoning and really exploding American left,, which is growing into what some might argue and probably still to this day would count as its most influential period in American history. It's kind of coming up as a result of the things that are sort of happening right around the time Elizabeth is born It's kind of going to be important a little that she's She's never going to adopt any of these kind of politics, but they are happening around her and very much in the environment that she's growing up in. L her family is against a lot of these changes. but she's going to grow up hearing about them because they're right outside her door, you know Sure. yeah. Yeah. So Little Elizabeth comes into the world in a time in a place that was hugely significant in the history of American labor and the struggles of the working man against his bosses. And so it's appropriate for the person she would become that even as an infant, she was entirely separate and protected from the normal world of working class people. This is happening outside her mansion gates, basically Yeah Her father, Dr. Leayette Kirkpatrick, was a famous surgeon, and her mother, Elizabeth Harding was a homemaker but both came from very prominent families, right? So both of their families have some degree of like financial comfort and her dad, at least initially is this like famous doctor The Kirk Patricks, her dad's family had been wealthy landowners in Ireland, but had fled near the end of the eighteen hundreds and settled in Virginia. Liz would later describe her father as coming from Scott's Irish stock and some googling around has given me cause to think that her family basically, if you've ever heard of like The Irish land wars, this period of time in which like there's a lot of conflict in Ireland over like who gets to own what land. There's a lot of conflict as a result of these like absentee landlords that piss off a lot of people. Well her ancestors are some of the absentee landlords. I was say they' the absentee ones. Yeah yeah yeah. Okay because they're like a Scottish family who winds up owning a lot of land in Ireland You know? Yeah I know that the Kirkpatricks had to flee their family estate because they were brutal landlords, but my research does make that seem likely It's always a good Yeah, yeah. We don't talk enough about Ireland's land wars. It sounds like we're setting up for a family that does not learn from those lessons, perhaps. Perhaps they're here also resenting, uh, the different classes around them, I don't know N't J West. and has like a longtime grudge against anyone trying to like fix things because they just see that as like, you're fucking with my big, you know? Like that's the people that she comes from So let's talk a little about the Irish land wars because people don't often enough. and it's a fun bit of history. Only about five percent of the land in Ireland from the late seventeen hundreds to the end of the eighteen hundreds was owned by Irish Catholics despite the fact that Irish Catholics were most of Ireland. People got very angry about this and it led to successive waves of protests and even violent insurgent direct action. It is very possible then that the Kirpatricks had to flee because they wound up on either side of this dispute. But the fact that they had a family estate and came to the US with money makes me suspect that they weren't fighting for the freedom of poor men, right? These are probably on one specific side of the land.. Pretty sad. Meanwhile, the Harding family, Elizabeth's mother's people, came from a long line of Anglican bishops, which also makes it like clear that her dad's people were foreign landlords at some point. Anyway, she grows up Fairly well off. In a two thousand two article for the Journal of American Studies, writer Christine Erksson describes her family as financially comfortable upper middle class, right? That's where they're coming from. Her parents have enough money that even though these are pretty rough times, they're able to travel fairly regularly, but they're not able to send the kids abroad with them So Liz grows up not traveling much herself, but her mom and her aunts are always visiting Europe spending their inheritance. And so she grows up hearing about that. Sure. Okaykay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean For the parents anyway Sounds fun. sounds wants to bring your kids. Sorry kids. you hadt to stay, M and Mum and dad are offer a it, but also in this period of time, Mum and dad are offer a bit for like eight months because yeah Yeah t so It's not a day You're gonna be raised by some lady we hired. bye, seeee you when you're nine. Yeah exactly. Be back in a year, baby. Yeah, be back in a year, baby. Her father died when she was relatively young and this he dies a sudden and surprising death. and Lif leaves her mother in charge of the family. But it says a lot about their overall financial state that even though her father dies pretty early on, this never affects them financially as far as we can see, right? They remain comfortable, which means they're very well off. So she's going to grow up with extremely conservative values and politics, but she's also going to grow up because her mom is the only one running things after a while. She's going to run up very grow up very used to seeing a woman call the shots, right? And this is going to have a conflicting effect on her, right? Be she both omes to believe that like traditional values are best and also she's used to women being in charge in her own Yeah Yeah That's kind of tough to square at that point in time, I guess I was going say. Yeah. I was going to say, as are you, Robert Yeah, yeah. my mom is very reminiscent of this where like she was a very conservative person and also did not understand why men should be doing anything. Like those were those were two ideas that coe existed within her Yeah As Amy Dye wrote of Elizabeth in her graduate thesis for Tennese for East Tennessee State University, quote, If her father had not died, she would not have been exposed to such a strong independent woman as her mother. Before doctor Lafayette Kirpatrick's death, he strongly believed the woman belonged in the home and away from both politics and business. In contrast, her brother Lafayette was encouraged to pursue a business career and at the age of twenty three had acquired financial security through land development Hawaii. He subsequently traveled around the world for three years with Baron von Zeppelin and continued to lead a privileged life until his death in nineteen forty eight. Again for an idea of the of the money she comes from. Her brother is best friends and traveling buddies with Baron von Zeppelin It doesn't get much older money than that. The Baron von Zein is ha a road trip with the Zeppelin guy So yeah, they're doing fine even with Dad out of the picture. Little Elizabeth would be described during her childhood as, quote, highly emotional, and an eager girl with a dramatically sculptured face, enormous brown eyes, and a quick giddy laugh, somewhat lonely and casting about in search of a career which is also interesting. She's a very she will always espouse very traditional values She's always looking for a job for herself. She never is interested in just being a homemake, You know, no problem with that, but she's never interested in just sitting at home and raising kids. She wants to do something out in the world that people are aware of It actually a very fascinating dynamic for somebody. I mean, we're seeing it still to this day. Yes, your mother I guess was this way, but this is this big push in the Conservative partarty for traditional values and yet they're going to be advocating for their own careers. It seems counterintuitive, but interesting for this woman Yeah, I mean, it's the fillish loafly thing, right? of like I don't think women should be doing any of this stuff. Also as a woman, I really like to have a big career. And also like modern times that's very Erica K Kirk. Yeah. It's very Erica Kirk. That is exactly what I was thinking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if either of you have seen any of like the interview clips from TPUSA's like first big like women's event that Erica Kirk led, it's all when people are interviewed, it's all like this where they they're like all over the map on if they're like, Well women can have it all But they have to do this. But women could have it all but not those women. It's really interesting coverage just to like Yeah get an insight into that ideological thinking. It's fascinating. Anytime you have to be you have that much cognitive dissonance in your belief system, it always winds up being fascinating on some level. And like in a way, like I just there's no way there would be and Erica Kirk without A Liz Dillling without a Phly without a you know, it's all She had to crawl so that Eric and Kurk could That's right. I don't know. I don't know who's doing the whatever. So Erica Kurt could come out with a fire booomingither So Elizabeth attends grammar school in a secondary school. She's going to nice schools. Her parents pay money to get her quality education She studies the concert harp at a Catholic accademy and she graduates from a girl school and is noted as having an almost photographic memory. Her early interests were and this is not a normal like her education is weird because I can't graph it directly onto a normal one because she is both doing like normal primary school, secondary school and also Catholic Academy, womomen's preparatory finishing school. Like she spends years in schools there just to like teach you how to behave as a woman. Like that's part part of her schooling. Because she's like an upper class lady, right? It takes a lot. You got to know where all the forks go and stuff I imagine there's more to it than forks, but forks seem like they're pretty key. standand up straight. how to smile straight. That's right. How to ride side saddle? There's there's a There's a way you're supped to ride as a lady that's the polite way. there's rude way. Maybe side saddle is the re way. I don't know much about hores. I really feel like side saddle should be reserved for men an atomically speaking, but I don't that's I digress. Look, the horse girls can correct us because I don't know much about riding horses. I know there's a way you're supposed to ride and there's a way that you're not supposed to ride as an old timey woman Um But I don't, I don't know which is which. U Anyway, she goes to all these different weird schools. She learns how to be a lady and a good Catholic. She's interested primarily in both classical music and the French language I don't actually know if she ever gets what you'd call a normal college degree, but during her time in Catholic school she was made to study the Bible. and so this is kind of like Knowledge and faith are always weirdly wrapped up with her, but also knowledge and like formance of societal roles are always directly locked together. She never just gets an education that's an education on its own. It's always an education partly in how to exist in a certain social hierarchy. If that makes sense. It does make sense. As Amy die writes in nineteen seventeen, as the first US forces are getting their boots dirty in World War one, Elizabeth meets a man described as a young army officer from Arizona who quote introduced her to a completely new way of thinking. This is her first fascist boyfriend. So she meets this mystery army officer who starts saying, o, you got to read these books, right? And so he starts giving her cock and Nietzsche and Hegel. And next, quote, after introducing Elizabeth theses forward thinkers, he contradicted himself by saying, womomen did not count as human beings. Oh, so he's like you need to read this Netzse, but you're a woman, so you can't read it You're not a person But here, you should have some heggle. But here, read it. But you're not really a person. It's a woman.'re notre you're too dumb. You're not gonna to get it, but here God is dead. I get she doesn't say this, but I get the feeling he's like intermittently flirting with her and yelling at her. likeike it's one of those kind of weird guys totally accurate. If you had ever been flirted with by a fascist soldier from Arizona, you would know that that would the games. That's part of the day That's how it works. Yeah. Well, she gets that beautiful experience and you can tell It completely awakens her, right? This is where she becomes an ideological thinker for the first time. And the fact that her ideological awakening comes courtesy of a man who does not consider her human is very telling and very bleak. But what else are you gonna say? N'mot saying I have empathy because I have a feeling she's not gonna be someone I like. How It's just a holy sh shit It's pretty fucked up Yeah, you guys could check out, just imagine like trying to tell your like your other lady friends like, yeah, this wonderful guy. He intducs me to all these great books. I'm really thinking in new ways about like what makes a person a person? I don't think I'm one, according to him. Anyway, he it nice U Do it not be really extreamy At any rate, this does not last. I really wish I knew what happened with this guy. Maybe he was just too much fineninzo, or maybe he goes out and dies out in World War I I can only hope. and dies in World War one. I'm hoping the old WW Uo does us solid on that one. At any rate, not long after whatever happens with this guy ends, she continues reading philosophy and she starts thinking really hard about the underlying order of society. And as she's thinking about this, Elizabeth meets her future husband Albert Walwick Dilly Now, I don't think Albert Walwick Dillling is the kind of guy who's going to tell her she's not a person He's they I get the feeling he's very ideologically malleable. I think he's naturally more conservative, so he's comfortable with her ideology. But I also think he goes along with her a lot. You know. Okay. And I think he gets one of the things he gets from her is that he gets to pretend and feel like and she will reinforce that he is in charge while also being in charge of a lot And so he doesn't have to be in charge of as much. Oh I get. Exactly what you mean. You've seen these kinds of relationships, right? one one hundred percent She' like, I defer to my man. But she's the one that's telling him I defer to my man, God help him if he has an idea of his own.. I defer to my man as long as it's He goes with what I said Exactly So at the time was a lawyer. He had trained as an engineer originally. He had been born in Salt Lake City back in eighteen ninety two By the time he was ready for college, and I don't think he was Mormon. I think it probably would have mentioned that. She certainly is not. and I don't think she would have been cool with the practicing Mormon given her beliefs. but I'm not really sure Um by the time he's ready for college, he'd migrated to the Chicago area and he took the Illinois bar in nineteen seventeen Now Elizabeth had already refused one marriage proposal by the time she met Albert, but for some reason, this guy sweeps her off her feet and after nine months, the two are married in the romantic city of Laaporte, Indiana This would have been May of nineteen eighteen. Yes. Yes, the city of love itself the city of Unbridled fucking. That's what we call Laporte Indiana. That's the city motto actually. Laaport Indiana. It's illegal to buy condoms here, you know? Just so you know, Laporte everybody. Catch the fever and something else because again condoms are illegal Oh After this point, Elizabeth Kirpatrick, though is now Elizabeth Dilling. And this is the name that she's going to be famous under. rightight? Everyone knows her as Elizabeth Dilling. That's how she becomes Elizabeth Dilling. She marries this Albert Dillling She's twenty four years old in nineteen eighteen, and after a brief honeymoon, she and Albert move to a suburb of Chicago, Wilbot, where they borrow money and buy a home. Albert claims that when they got married, he had, quote, nothing to offer but a good education, bright prospects, good help, and some sizable debts. But Liz had family money of her own In just two years, Albert was made chief engineer of the Chicago Sanitary District, and his career would continue to rise over the coming years. While he was making a career for himself as a high level engineer for one of the largest cities on Earth, he would eventually become the city engineer for Union Station Development and the engineer Assistant the Commission for Public Works, Liz was inheriting the money that would ensure she never needed to utilize public work yourself Her husband helps make sure that like the city's public like transit works and Elizabeth inherits enough money that she doesn't have to use it. Yeah G I only imagine they're like twenty twenty six dating profiles. Oh my God. Ps two in twenty twenty six are definitely the weird natalist freaks who wind up on the news every six months talking about like their eleven kids that they're having to change the world with Elon Musk Yeah L Liz Dillling definitely like puts her credits hereere on her dating profile. Yeah. I can see her having an interview with Vanity Fair where she slaps her child at a fucking diner Yeah. So she receives enormous inheritances from two aunts and then in the mid nineteen thirties from her mother. So she's very comfortably off, even though her husband is not making a lot of money immediately. But her husband is making comfortable middle class incomees. So you have inherits a lot of money and a good income. They're doing quite well. and they're doing well enough that in short order, before either of them is know particularly old, they're going to have enough money to do what wealthy people do in this period of time in particular, which is go on really long and elaborate vacations all the time. So from nineteen twenty three to nineteen thirty nine, the Dilllings travel oversea ten times. And these are all multi weeek or multi month excursions. We're talking like Orient Express type shit where you're on trains fancy boats, you've got sleeper cars, like these are not like casual vacations. You can't just jaunt somewhere quickly, right? Yeah no, this is this is yeah, like her mother, months long. Famously a bad time for the world financially to to haveans to travel like this Okay. I mean, they're mostly traveling although they're are through all the thirties too, you know? So yeah, like a lot of aduring a really rough time. Yeah. 's not the main takeaway here, but I' Yeah, they're doing' totly fine. It says a lot about what they're doing while the rest of the world was burning. Yeah. while the rest of world was falling to fasc, and they're going on like long elaborate vacations, right? They're doing very they're very comfortable Their first trip overseas, they get to tour England, the low countries, France and then Italy, at which point they enter the Vatican city and have a private audience with the pope. So they have like pope money. Like that's how comfortable she is Amy Dye writes that the Dilllings had booked this trip in part to get a firsthand account of the aftermath of the First World War, right? Like that's a big that's at least what Elizabeth wants her friends to believe that like we're not just doing this as a vacation. We're doing this to like get an eye on how Europe's handled, you know, after the war, right? Like that's the way that frames this Making my eyes roll back in We're gonna go study the. We're gonna go check it out. I can tell you from experience, if you're in like an active war zone, there are often a lot of people who are eager to talk about what's happening to them right now in part because they hope that maybe international attention will like help their situation. and like it's happening right now and they want people to know about the horrible stuff. When you go to a place that has just been at war like a couple of years ago, they don't usually want to talk about it kindind of trying to forget it. So again this like kinding vacation. People like nineteen nineteen. people wandering around like, don't w want to walk talk too muchch of Americaans because. Yeah, what was the war like here in Verdin? You know? Was it fun? Did you enjoy it? People did not have a good time and don't want her shit. compleompletely devastated trying to recover from yeah, no, bad timing, bad tim. Yeah. How did How do you think it was, Liz? Bad And this seems to be what the Dillings encountered. People are not super eager to talk to them. As De's account says, quote, Dillling became frustrated by the anti American attitudes that she had encountered amongst the British and the French. The former Allies often gave the United States no credit for helping win the First World War and often complained that the United States had not entered the war sooner So yeah, I think people didn't really want to talk about the war and like folks who'd lost all their money and like their kids didn't want to talk about how great America was for eventually getting involved. Like some fucking British family who lost everything. This going to be like, yeah, thanks guys Really glad you got here in nineteen seventeen. Right on the dot, huh Yeah Yeah,'s not surprising. notot surprising. She takes this personally. She takes this as an insult to herself On the steamship home an English traveler se'es a member of her party who's wearing like a sailor outfit with US Navy printed on it. And he just like starts shit talking like that and it's like,, your Navy's a joke, you Americans. And Liz responds, I don't know if it's such a joke. It's been able to lick Great Britain twice and I think it could do it again first off, Liz, the last time it beat Grey Bryn was nineteen twelve Or eighteen twelve. likeike ye, I don't know. I don't know if we should be bragging about that in nineteen eighteen. justust seems a little ahead of the eight ball It's not been it's been a while since we fought the British N. right. I don't, Liz And also it's just like, what a ridiculous reaction to someone saying that who's clearly like frustrated that you're walking around talking about what hot shit your military is when you just kind of sauered in the last minute of like a devastating war U I get why the Europeans are pissed at her Absolutely This woman has no self awareness. No And this situation, this whole encounter with this rude purse on the boat, causes her to make a vow, then and there, that if another war ever came to Europe, she will work herself to the bone to keep the United States out of it. Because of these ungrateful Europeans, I'll make sure we never enter another war to support Europe again. You know, That's Liz's encounter here S'll takeness. It's really sad. I'm not surprising. I mean, no. I'm always whenever I'm here It's impossible to not draw parallels to modern day. I've already done it several times, but it's like it So pathetic How easily some people get offended and vow to make that idea of an entire place for the rest of their life anyway Yeah like they didn't even have anything to do with, honestly. but Anyway, You know what else is Sad N'mot listening to ads Oh. Heartbreak You know what? You're right, it is such a heartbreak. I love ads This is Jenny Garth from I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. You know, history is full of surprising little details. And laundry? Turns out, it's got its own fascinating story too Because not all detergents are created equal Tide liquid laundry detergent isn't just clean, it's boosted clean for cleaner, whiter, brighter, and fresher results compared to Tide simply. And those stubborn stains that always seem to show up at the worst times Tide tackles one hundred percent of common stains for every load, every time. 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Join Simon Plus, our new rewards program for free and get two point five times the points in addition to extra savings, cashback and offers that also work at shopsimon dot com d Grab the fan, head to a Simon center and make it a day for the books. It's a celebration thing. Sign up today at Simonplus dot comot Rewards program terms apppplies. See Simonpllus dot com for details. When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum tanning does it better. Beachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beach Bum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations. with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. Rcharge your body, refresh your skin. Ret your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. 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Sometimes I just fall asleep directly in front of a billboard, you know, so I can worship it. Do you have an ad playlist too for bedtime Yes. It's only an ad playlist for bedtime, to be fair All right Let's get back to Liz Dillay So yeah, Liz has just had this experience heading home from Europe where these ungrateful Europeans were not Derent enough to the US. Navy. So she decides to stop the US from ever helping Europe in a war again. I don't know if I believe that actually happened In part because Liz is going to be like anti war during World War two because she's a fascist. And I think maybe she inventsced this story because it's like a more palatable truth As opposed to like, I don't want the US to get involved in World War two because I like the Nazis. She could be like, No, they're so ungrateful After all the rudeness they showed us last time, why would we risk our lives again for them? You know, I kind of think maybe she just makes this up after the fact. But it's possible that this actually happens. Like I don't know one way or the other Despite their frustrations with Europeans, the Dillings continue to book regular trips abroad throughout the twenties and the thirties. And at first this seems to have been mainly for the sake of hedonism But I think Elizabeth's strong Catholic upbringing makes her feel guilty for just traveling to have fun. I think this is why for most of these trips, there's always a second purpose like, oh, we wanted to explore how World War one affected them or we to she's going to explore communist countries at a certain point in the future. And I think part of it is that she feels bad about just spending her money on vacations because she's fundamentally a Catholic in her soul. I mean, she's an episcopelian as an adult But she was raised Catholic, and you never get over that shit. I think there's an element of that of like, this trip has to be more than just a trip. Otherwise I'm not being a good person Right m h Whatever the reason Not being a good person anyway, B. She's not being a good person anyway, but this is important to So she starts convincing her husband to let her book trips like their yearly vacations to the communist countries, which have just started to be a thing, right? The communist revolution, you know, has just swept over what had been imperial Russia and it's starting to take other places to. So this is like the first time in which you could have gone to a communist country, right? K of in the nineteen thirties nineteen twenties and thirties. And so she starts convincing her cusband to start booking trips for these different for like Soviet Russia, right? Because she wants to study the impact of communism and eventually write books about it. So in the summer of nineteen thirty one, her husband helps or books trips to Moscow and Leningrad. Now Elizabeth is later going to write a book about what she saw in the Soviet Union, and she will express her horror at the nightmare she saw there, at the quote atheism, sex degeneracy, broken homes and class hatred that she witnessed in the post revolutionary USSR And indeed, the Soviet Union at the start of the thirties was a nation that had recently endured great horrors, a horrific civil war, and was currently enduring horrors, the horrors of the Stalinus era, right? It would very soon endure even worse horrors, the horrors of the Nazi invasion. So you know, It's a tough time, Russia in the thirties. There are plenty of things that Dillling could have seen in Russia in nineteen thirty one that are horrific, right? Plenty of things that would have actually reflected badly on the Soviet government. However, it's important I let you know that her hatred of the Soviet Union is not based on any of those things. When you think about the actual bad things that were occurring in the USR in nineteen thirty one, Elizabeth isn't allowed to see any of them She's on a vacation that she's booked through the Soviet government They have reminders. She's not traveling freely. She's only visiting the areas they're allowed to visit. And so she's not being horrified because she's like snuck through and seen some evidence of a fuck up that the government was covering up of Starveay. She's angry because she's seeing like churches that have been turned into like art museums. And she's like, She's angry at' the beauty L losing her mind. She's losing her mind at it R And she's she's pissed about like, oh, the people here aren't as well fed as Americans and like were they under the czar? Is that the Soviet Union's fault? Or is that just the fact that like it's Russia? In nineteen thirty one. Like again, I'm not wanting to minimize the faults of the stalinists there of the Soviet Union particularly, but you can't just be like, wow, people aren't as big in Russia in nineteen thirty one. That's just communism. Niz. that goes back further. I'm sorry, h L that Yeah It's the laziest possible takeaway you from Pumably saw, but okay Yeahes. And again, the Soviet Union is very well aware that Western countries are spying on them constantly. They are looking for people like Liz Dilling in these trips. So again, I don't think there's any chance Liz would have seen any actual like bad things, right?? She's just making this up based on like shit she sees that's like uncomfortable to her And the primary things that she sees over there that are uncomfortable to her is that she doesn't know there aren't rich people in the Soviet Union that she sees, right? She notices none of the people of my class are here, right? There's no fancy places to go. There's no high end hotels, right? And the society is openly atheistic and that's what she is reacting to Christine Erksson summarizes Dillling how Dillling would later describe her trip She noted with concern the idle crowds and abandoned children roaming the streets bordered by rundown buildings in desperate need of repair. She described in vivid detail the poor miserable workers' stores where the proletariat was forced to shop. What little food stocked the shelves was overpriced and fly infested, the sight of Christian churches being converted into anti religious museums and the shock of seeing nude bathers Swimm in a river under the shadow of one Moscow church, an event Dyling captured on film clearly signaled to her that communism bred atheism and encouraed immorality So whatever bad things are actually happening in the Soviet Union, remember, when Dyling talks about the horrors of communism, she's talking about nude bathers Right Near a church. That's what scares her. That's what scares her. Not anything else. Not anything else. N Stalin, you know, Nots theK Bey offended By poverty and atheism Wow. you Abandoned children? They're naked? She was at London I'm sure there are abandoned children in Moscow in nineteen thirty one because they've just had a civil war that killed billions people. Millions and millions of people. That was vastly exacerbated by Western involvement, by the way. You know? L you can't again You can't look at any of the stuff she's saying and just be like, well, this is all the fault of communism. That's just silliness, right Um And so ironically, while Liz is going to spend the rest of her life talking about the nightmare world that she saw, the things she's scared about are like any effort to reduce inequality and any effort to reduce the power of the church. That's what actually upsets her She would also complain later in her writing that Soviet men seemed to have no interest in her at all. They didn't find her hot The bedbanks in the Grand Hotel in Moscow were wild about me. The listless waiters, not at all Wh Erkson suggests is Elizabeth trying to display, quote, an unsettling image of communism's power to emasculate. How could any man ignore Dilling These men aren't even straight if they don't like me. Like, her big issues with Stalinist Russia are nude bathers, I'm not hot. Just honestly, it just does not sound like the place for you to vacation, you know? I don't think I think you picked the wrong place to vacation. I don't think pick the wr thirty one was for you. Yeah, again Your timing is all off. Your timing's really bad. If you'd gotten to Moscow in nineteen seventeen, things might have been a lot more interesting, Liz. That' at least from my perspective. So her call to action came during a tour of the Moscow Museum of the Revolution, where a party guide told her tour group that the world Revolution, which had started in Russia, had now expanded to China and would end in the United States. He then showed them an exhibit that featured a fictional map of the future world, where a communist US had renamed all of its cities You know, this is obvious propaganda, right? Like This isn't an evidence of the actual capabilities as we all know of the Soviet Union's ability to infiltrate the United States, but this works perfectly on Liz. She this is everything she needed too in terms of like a useful thing she could carry home for her propaganda. So when she gets home, she is eager to preach the bad word. Elizabeth claims that when she tried to tell her friends, her suburbanite intellectual friends and my own episcal minister about what she'd seen over there, they expressed bitter opposition to her telling the truth about Russia Now, I don't know how much I believe that I can imagine people who are better informed than I are saying, Hey, Liz, Like there's obvious issues going on over there and with that government, but it doesn't seem like you actually know anything about those issues. It seems like you're just angry that there aren't any like luxury stores and they don't believe in God. And maybe that's dumb ike I wonder if maybe that's what her friends were saying. is like, Liz, it doesn't seem like you actually know anything about the problems over there. It seems like you're angry the hotels weren't nice. Yeah c is are you a elitis snob? Mbe? I mean, that might happening here? Do suck? No Okay This is impossible. You just suck L Is it possible that you're Kind of an asshole Wow. I am imagining her friends always being relieved when she goes on one of the big journeys and then they're like, Oh than God, she's out for a couple of months. Ga bring out the photo album. Yout want to tell us about it. I don't know, justust pretend you're horrified or whatever. I do wonder how much of this is them having an issue just becausecause they know she's flull of shit. And I suspect even more, it's just like, oh shit, I don't want to see Liz's vacation pictures. Do you want to see a video of people swimming in Moscow? I don't really care. Like who wants to watch this shit? Like I went swimming, but then they didn't have caviar for me afterwards. It was a hard It was Hell hell But Liz sees the fact that her friends do not find these stories entertaining, evidence of their own suicidal blinkkered blindness, the kind that would lead her very class to march to its own extermination if it wasn't careful. So she became a woman on a mission to ensure her fellow citizens understood the extent of the communist menace, and particularly the infiltration of leftist agents at every level of American society and government In one of her early pieces, Elizabeth expressed her belief that good Christian women did not have the right to sit at home and avoid conflict as a fire burns in the nation's basement, and radical political subversives fill the platforms with their dirt and anti American ideas So she's very pissed at her fellow rich friends for not, you know, doing more to stop this, to stop the spread of communism. She sounds like a joy, a joy to have it in dner part. She sounds like so much fun Just a hoot. Yeah. againgain, you if she'd had Twitter, she would be non she would haveck left all of her friends and family behind to tweet nonstop. Like you know this person today. We've seen her. One a thousand percent. We know several of them So initially, Elizabeth wrote letters to newspapers and spoke up in local meetings, but she found little purchase for her ideas until she befriended Iris McCord Iris is a teacher at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago Now MBI, as it is also known, is a private evangelical college that had been founded by a wealthy businessman turned evangelist named Dwight Moody in eighteen eighty six Moody seems to actually mostly been an okay guy. He was sided with the Union during the Civil War, which, you know, so he gets some ups there hisis whole big thing was that in the wake of the Civil War, he decided that like Evangelical Christianity needed to train what he called gap men, right? These were men who would stand between the laity and the ministers. So people who aren't like just normal civilians, but they aren't like professional men of faith either who are trained to do like city mission work who can like go and reach people in the cities and stuff. So that's Moody's idea and that's where the Bible college comes from. rightight?. And it's important, you know MBI starts as a college before Christianity is political in the United States. That's not entirely accurate. There are left and right wing politicians who use Christianity, but no one would say Christianity is definitely more a left wing or a right wing thing Okay this area. You couldn't clearly say that yet. The religious right is not a thing at this point in time. Right. That's a more modern thing But there are religious conservatives and religious hardliners, right who are conservative. And Iris is one of them, and so islizabeth Dilling. And the fact that Iris taught there and loved Dillling's reactionary rants says something about where many of Moody's staff sat politically, even in those days So Iris used her connections to get Elizabeth invited to speak at numerous local churches about the communist threat to the American way of life. and this helps Elizabeth's ideas in front of a bunch of different women. someome of whom are pretty influential who have like spots in the DAR, you know, and these other groups, you know, the daughters of the American Revolution and the like And so she she for the next couple of years she she starts making an okay side living scaring her rich friends, right? And she becomes She she's actually really good at public speaking. She's got the gift of like entertaining and capturing an audience. She is an electrifying speaker in person. She's able to get a lot of these people to be just as scared and crazy about communism as she is And her success earns her enough attention that she begins getting invitations all across the United States, not just from churches, but from civic organizations now. and the DAR starts inviting her to speak at a bunch of its local chapters. The American Lgion starts inviting her to speak at different local you know events. And she's soon making enough money doing this to support her efforts and ensure she doesn't have to mooch off of her husband or her inheritance to have a career. I think she didn't believe good women ought to have anyway must be really hard for her to square those got to be. It's got to be Yeah filled with guilt. Okay T just to go from Dilotant to a professional like media rabble rouser in a year or so. Yeah. shameful. M must be hard for her. So yeah, the rapidity with which Elizabeth had gone from pinning her little essays to addressing crowds around the country clearly went to her head. So she decided to write a book The Red Revolution Do we want it here In this book, she railed against parlor pinks who were broad minded, but didn't judge people based on their political tendency. These weak people, she argued, let communist agents infiltrate society and corrupt children with their ideals, right? It's these broad minded parlor pinks who aren't like hostile enough to socialism. That's how they sneak in. That's how they get your society Okay ye And you know who's gonna destroy our society? I Donald Trump Wow, by Maybe, but perhaps it'll be the products and services that support this podcast. We hope We can all hope. We can all hope, you know? That's my dream Fingers crossed This is Jenny Garth from I Choose Me with Jenny Garth You know, history is full of surprising little details. And laundry? 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Pets Best makes it easy to pick a plan that works for you and your bank account Find the perfect match for your perfect match at petsbest dot com d Pet insur products offered in administered by Pets Best Insuranceervices LLC or are underwritten by American Pet inssurance Company or Indpendence American insurance comppany. For term and conditions, visit wWW.ot petsbest dot com backslash policy Product are underwitten by Americanet insurance company, independ American insurance company or MS Trverse insurance compomany, and administered by PetsSest Insuranceervices LLC. onene dollar a day premium based on twenty four average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans pets age zero to ten We're back The daughters of the American Revolution in particular loved her work. And if you're not an American or you just don't, the Dier is like one of the oldest groups of like rich ladies in America, rich white ladies. Okay. If you you're not an American, you just have to watch Gilmore Girls. That's Gilmore girls every time huge pl girls. Emily Gilmore is it a daughter of the American Revolution. It means your relatives date back as far as they can in the history of the United States, while not being like indigenous, obviously Rember there's that fantastic episode of Gilar Girls Katie where it's Rory's twenty first birthday and she's become friends with all of her grandmother's friends from the DAR. and Luke goes up to them and they keep saying, Oh, we know Rory from the DR. And he goes, What's the DAR? And they all laugh in his face I remember. It's great. It's great It's great. And for the listeners that also get that, you're really enjoying this story. If you're Robert and have no idea what you'reking what I'm talking about, you seem very baffled and confused