[inaudible conversations] good afternoon. Welcome to the museum of art. My name is ellen and i am a senior manager of adult programs. Its good to see everyone here today. And as many of you know, lunch and learn as a Monthly Program where we invite Community Experts to share their knowledge of interesting cincinnati history, culture and arts. This program was started on the suggestion of one of our members, one of you all. And at this institutions history for nearly 200 years the Historic House served as an Important CommunityGathering Place for prominent cincinnati families such as those of martin boehm, nicholas longworth, david and of course charles and anna taft. Each played a role in shaping the history, art and culture of cincinnati and this series i ses rights that legacy as well as the new way of our city continues to evolve and change. The complete schedule of all of the programs including our upcoming lunch and learns are available on the website, which is www. Taftmuseum. Org. And id like to tell you about the talk today. Today we have the author of the newly released book, the bourbon king the life and crimes of george remus, prohibitions evil genius. Bob batchelor is here with us today to share the stories of george who built a bourbon empire that stretched from his towering cincinnati mansion across america at the dawn of prohibition. Hes a critically acclaimed bestselling cultural historian and biographer and has published widely on American History and literature including books on family, bob dylan, the great gatsby, madman and john updike. He earned his doctorate in English Literature from the university of south florida. He teaches in the media journalism and Film Department at Miami University in oxford ohio and lives in blue ash ohio. Following the talk today, we have the blue manatee literacy product onsite with copies of the preventing available for purchase. Through the unique partnerships intpartnershipsand the industrie manatee literacy, they will donate books to the disadvantaged reader everything about his purchased through the organization. So by purchasing a book for yourself or loved one today, you are also helping a young reader in need. Mr. Batchelor will also be available to answer oneonone questions and sign your copy of the book following the lecture. Sso we are so delighted to present this program for you today. So, please join me in welcoming Bob Batchelor to the taft museum of art. [applause] thank you. I cant think of a better place really in cincinnati than the taft museum to talk about george remus. Lots of you were asking questions before we begin about what is the connection between the tasks in our criminal genius george remus. And if i forget, the did somebo, please ask that question. I am a historian and i love big dates, centennials, hundred celebrations, 50 years. So, as we prepare for the 100th anniversary of the age and the 100th anniversary of the act of prohibition, there isnt a better time than to study somebody who history has really forgotten. You might be surprised because some of us in this area, we have heard of george remus. There are cincinnati and i get approached all the time once people find ou out that ive written this book did they say my greatgrandfather, he was a paperboy and george remus gave him a 10dollar tip and thats when that was a lot of money. George, we saw him working out down at the athletic club, and there is a lot of remus sightings and interest in this area. But once you go outside of the cincinnati region, theres almost no recognition at all. So, one of the goals in writing this book was to bring this really fascinating character to life. Its really an interesting set of circumstances around george remus, and so we will have a little discussion about that. The first thing people ask for whatever they determine im writing a bourbon king is how did you get interested in this person and come across george remus. And about 17 years ago, a very prominent historian named stanley cup or became famous for investigating watergate and writing about watergate he was editing a reference collection. You may have used it in school, its the dictionary of history and that is where teachers send their students to find out about American History. He was putting out a new edition and asked me what you mind writing a little essay on bootleggers. I thought why would we want to talk about that . Well, in that research, 17 years ago, i ran across remus, and like a bad song from the 1980s, it stuck in my head for 17 years. I was going nuts thinking about this guy. And later i wrote this biography i treated the novel as if it were a person an and wrote about thihis experience from this gret american novel and again, remus comes up because some people say that he was the model, some people say he was a model for gatsby. We will get into that. But ran across remus again and so, when i was looking for my next book project, i thought to myself i wanted to discover somebody whos been forgotten and can tell us about todays world and you can learn so much about what we are facing in the 2020s from studying the 1920s. So, remus became it and that is how we get to george remus. And i think im probably not telling you anything you dont know, but theres no heroes in this story. Its a very complex story with a lot of kind of bad characters. Even people who seem good for a really long time all of a sudden i would read a story or something in the paper six months after they were doing something heroic they were doing something terrible and i thought what is wrong with these people they are incredibly complex, just like we are today, incredibly complex people. And it helps us understand the 19201920s into this understand today so we are going to dive right into george remus, the preventing. The story is large and there is no way we can go through this whole story. I think the audio book if youre into audio books i think that its like 15 hours long, so we can tell all the stories here so i thought i would boil it down to six members. Of these six numbers will give you a flavor and hopefully make you want to learn more because it is a fascinating story. The first number is the number 13. The number 13 is significant because he was a german immigrant and his family after bouncing around a little bit settled in chicago. At age 13, he had to become the man of the family because his father had some Health Problems and some drinking problems. We are not supposed to talk about those. But his father had some problems. He couldnt support a family, and so he takes over at age 13. He had to drop out of school. Luckily for him, this uncle owned a pharmacy in suburban chicago and because of that connection, george started working and he worked really hard. He was a smart kid before he dropped out of school. He was athletic even though he wouldnt look like an athlete, he was about 5 feet 6 inches, 200 pounds, built like a fire hydrant, not an athlete, but he actually did athletic things im sure none of us could have done on our best days so its an interesting side story. Remus begins this career in the pharmacy and when he comes of age, he passes the licensor to become a pharmacist. The interesting thing is this places him at the heart of the community because at the time pharmacists were more like smalltown doctors and so these communities and poor clients that he had in the patrons came to him with their problems when he passed the licensor which he lied he tried to say he was 21 and this is an interesting side point. If he thought a regulation or a rule were unjust, he disobeyed it. And so to him it made no sense if you can pass the test you should. So he bought his uncles pharmacy and another pharmacy. He was already gaining wealth. But george remus does are bound 1902 is decided id had enough of the pharmacy even though he is more successful than anybody else he knows and he decides to become a warrior of old all things. George remus is a person that saw himself as bigger than life. He saw himself in peace terms. I want to be bigger than life and to him, becoming a lawyer was a step in that direction. So the next number that i will give you is 300. 300 is important because after remus became one of the most famous criminal Defense Attorneys in america, he moved from chicago to cincinnati because within that 300mile radius from cincinnati just like today, it is the gateway to the suburban country. And remus realized as a criminal defense attorney that if these petty thugs that i am defending would violate prohibition could pay their fines by ripping out hundred dollar bills and pair them off the top and paid the judge on the spot, if they can make hundreds or thousands if i apply my genius to this principle, i can make millions or tens of millions and thats the best criminal Defense Attorneys in america already famous across the United States as a criminal defense attorney goes to the dark side. Cincinnati is his gateway and he sets up the headquarters half a mile from here at the old hotel. So there is the first connection to the tafts. That is his headquarters for his entire run throughout the 1920s. He always has a suite of rooms at the hotel. Even after hes rich enough to buy the building that is just down the street. Its now a football parking lot, but thats okay. It was there. There is a picture of the old building. So, you will get to see that when you check out the book. 300mile radius, it is the best bourbon in the world. And remus realized because he had been a pharmacist and because he was such a stellar lawyer, there are actually legal ways to get alcohol into the marketplace. They called it medicinal alcohol. And bourbon isnt that great medicinal alcohol. Wouldnt it be grea great in tht timeframe, there wasnt a scientific advancements we have now and there are some therapeutic benefits especially in the era in which it wouldve advancements are yet to be made. He knew from his own days as a pharmacist that doctors and pharmacists could write prescriptions and they would allow people even during prohibition to take out out a e bit of whiskey or bourbon or other substance once a week. And so, if he got access to those certificates, thats what they were called, whiskey certificates, if i get access to these, i can take this out of the government warehouse and put it into the marketplace. But, at the same time, remember criminal mastermind prohibitions evil genius at the same time he realized if i hire my own men to rob other men at gunpoint, i can take this legal bourbon and take it into the black market. So, he set up a series of distribution points. His major distribution point comes to be known as death valley because he had a fortified like an army fort. He had hired an army that he started to make money and this is about is a 13 miles northwest of the city. He set off on an old farm and then he set up a smaller depot all over cincinnati. All these places many of you have traveled he had a depot in hamilton, she had one in glendale. He had a different locations throughout this area where he then began out nationwide and he built his empire really from this 300mile gateway out into the national marketplace. One journalist at the time quoted george remus is to bourbon with jd rockefeller was toyo and remus, why i think that hes an evil genius as he understood business even though he had no Business Training outside of running his own pharmacy. So, he set up a system that he called the circle with jd rockefeller. If you control production you control pricing and every piece of the circle then you make all the money and he found ways to make all the money and its interesting. Many of you have probably visited the trail. I visited my wonderful wife and i love to go down to the country and see the two are. When they start to mumble and fumble in his 1920 and they are not sure how to explain it, these were very proud families have still to be very proud people that run the distilleries. Its one of americas great industries. But in 1920 the one thing happened that they do not want to talk about. When you go to the country it is probably george remus had come in and found a way to buy up the bourbon and get it into the black market. So, my thinking as the story becomes more public is not the distilleries should embrace the story. Its part of their story. Theres nothing you can do about it now. You might as well find out what the truth was. They were proud people and the natural government declared them public enemy number one. They could have wished for a fire or Electricity Company lightning strike. It is the only thing that was going to save them. The entire inventories were basically worth nothing. So, remus, which is kind of strange things there are some people, myself included, that believed in some ways even though he was doing it all behind the scenes in the black market, he saved the bourbon industry by giving at least some Foundation Throughout prohibition. This is a long 13 years for america. And he gave the bourbon industry a little bit of saliva through that era. So, that is my number to number. This next number might blow you out of your socks a little bit but just bear with me. 9. 62 billion. That is a large number. 9. 62 billion is the number if you calculate it, the highend todays money what he was able to acquire in two and a half years. 9. 62 billion. This is as if he founded facebook or google or a hightech Company Ended two and a half years built it into one of the Biggest Companies in the world in two and a halfyearsold from his mansion in price hill. It is an amazing facet of the story. I think if people realize because in todays world we are all kind of numb by members, maybe we start to get our attention. But remus at the high end was in excess of 200 million by 1920s which if you use the latest economic calculations, 9. 62 is kind of the mainframe. It could have even been more than that. There are stories that george remus and his men made so much money so quickly, their shoes were stuffed with hundreds of thousands of dollars because the banks wouldnt accept any more of their deposits each day. To live a big life he had power, built in army, a nationwide distribution network. And basically gutted it to put countless amount of money into remodeling the mansion. Making into cincinnatis one of most Beautiful Homes and invited the cream of the crop. They never accepted the invitation to the price hill mansion but he always invited them. The centerpiece of the price hill mansion was 175,000, the highend number when people say how much did he pay for the inground pool . 175,000 and that is 1920 money. It was luxurious, perfumed wate water, special heating units, and this allowed him to really the one live the lifestyle. People love to come to the mansion and swim in the pool it was a thing at the time. In 1920 when you wanted to be really fabulous what did you line the pool with . Title because that was the mark of really having made it this was his signature look with the tile lining the pool 175,000. The parties that he threw became legendary. The papers didnt cover him that much. People will tell you you may have heard the newspapers covered it, but they really didnt. It was folklore and so much of the story is built on folklore and people telling other people and recollections later. So that i could do as a historian was dig through all these materials that five years ago nobody could have done or ten years ago but today because of digital resources, you can pull together a different newspaper articles or archival information and look at the story like a giant literary historical jigsaw puzzle. I spent a long time piecing together the stories the mansion is the center point. The night that they debut the pool to the public that george called the imogene bath after his second wife, a femme fatale and also not a sweetheart. She is very much interesting and she targeted remus and sicard won the chicago. And she said i will roll him for his role. And i always joke with my wife. Because he was around us by these thugs that did talk like that. If you see a transcript they put it in there. So its fun to read. Imaging was a person who wanted to be famous you are famous by being in the newspapers so one of the things that i uncovered people had not seen before i covered trackback a decade, she kept using different personas and identities to change her personality and who she was to get into the newspaper so one time she may try as jesse holmes which was her first marriage name and other times she might be mrs. Jean holmes or other times imogene. Other times she used a period imogene with all these different personas to get into the newspapers. When she met george remus the attorney turned boot leg or the person i wanted to be famou famous, they intersected it in a way to lead to one of the biggest marriages of the 19 twenties and also one of the most despicable ends of a marriage. It was a shooting star. But it took a decade and thats one thing people dont realize. If you look at the newspapers and the number of words written about george remus he probably wasnt as famous as babe ruth but at least as famous as warren g harding. The number of words spent covering george remus were astronomical and that lasted the entire decade. Because he was famous in chicago on the front page of the Chicago Tribune and he only got more famous. But his fame was his undoing because like so many people who gain a lot of money, he couldnt stay out of the newspapers he courted the media a masterful manipulator and could charm the socks off the hardened straightlaced newspaper reporters because remember i said he was so complex . He was charming. They said he had a moonbeam smile of page from Chicago Tribune, one of the most charismatic men people have ever met but at the same time he had a gold tipped cane with no limp that was so he could beat people with a cane and there are many instances in which he would bludgeon people. One man almost to death for potential he supposedly, may be fooling around with imogene. But any living character i could describe. Somebody asked me that a couple weeks ago, maybe a little bit like lbj, a little bit of joseph stalin. And maybe as a fictional character like hannibal lector from silence of the lamb. Because he could be so charming. [laughter] and he made people love him. People to this day will tell you that george remus was a good guy but he was not. He was scary. The next number is five. That is important for the remus story because wh