“Every time I have felt annoyed since then at France, this picture comes to mind and my anger softens.”

This is the story of the Great War’s turning point.

After a fourth and failed Spring Offensive operation, German General Erich Luddendorf is ready to make a fifth push. He’s making a pincer movement around the city of Reims, and to its west, on the banks of the Marne River, the US 3rd Division finds itself caught in a fight that the French present call worse than Verdun. It’s a slaughter, but their tenacity and unwillingness to surrender an inch of soil will earn these Yankees a new nickname: “the Rock of the Marne.”

Seizing upon this German failure, Allied Supreme Commander Ferdinand Foch is ready to launch a counteroffensive. Doughboys are once again in the worst of it, fighting to take open fields from entrenched Germans near Soissons. Their sacrifices will help turn the tide of the war, but “sacrifice” is indeed the right word as tens of thousands of these young Americans will meet their end between the Aisne and Marne Rivers.
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136: The German Spring Offensive’s End, or The Second Battle of the Marne

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“If you knew of a great scandal in our administration, would you for the good of the country and the party expose it publicly or would you bury it?” 

This is the story of a brilliant man’s presidency and the greatest presidential scandal to precede Watergate. This is the story of Warren G. Harding and the Teapot Dome Scandal.

Growing up in Ohio, Warren–or little “Winnie,” as his mom calls him–shows his brilliance from day one. The smart, charismatic, and handsome boy grows up to become a newspaperman and falls in love with politics while reporting. He soon becomes a rising star, holding Ohio then national offices. Taking the reins of government after World War I, the Republican hopes to return the post-war, economically downtrodden, and fearful nation to “normalcy.”

But can he return the nation to “normalcy” while his friends in the “Ohio Gang” are making shady deals? And what does Warren know of these deals? Is he naive? Or is the several-times adulterous president, who copes with the stress of office through drink and gambling, in on it? That’s the question we’ll ask ourselves as we follow his less-than-a-full-term presidency.
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155: The Life & Times of Warren G. Harding & The Teapot Dome Scandal

The Prof. sits down with fellow Prof. Ben Sawyer of the Road to Now Podcast and Middle Tennessee State University to chat through the last volume episodes. Russia, the Red Scare, the second Klan, and more, while Ben gets Greg to share behind-the-scenes details on the writing process. Enjoy!

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154: An Epilogue Discussion with Ben Sawyer

“I want to say make no settlement until they sign up that every bloody murderer of a guard has got to go.”

This is the story of the largest uprising in the United States since the Civil War.

As unions spread across the Progressive-Era United States, West Virginia mine owners manage to keep them out. They have some good reasons (tough margins) and some less savory ones … like their preference for an oppressive “mine guard system” in “company towns” that effectively removes civil government and private ownership, and reduces the American citizens working in their mines to serfdom. Mother Jones inspires the miners to push back. 

Over the course of a decade, that pushback turns bloody – especially in Mingo County. But the worst of it comes just after the Great War, as the miner’s hero, Police Chief Sid “Two Gun” Hatfield, is murdered in cold blood at McDowell County Courthouse. Now, all bets are off. 10,000 miners grab their guns, ready to get revenge and free incarcerated miners. But they’ll have to go through Sheriff Don Chafin’s forces first. The two sides clash at Blair Mountain as the US Army arrives with regiments and aviation squadrons.
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153: West Virginia’s Mine Wars: From Trouble in Matewan to the Battle of Blair Mountain

“Every official except one elected yesterday at the first municipal election of this borough had been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan.”

This is the story of the Second Ku Klux Klan.

It’s been nearly half a century since the Third Enforcement Act killed off the Klan in 1871. But amid Jim Crow segregation in 1915, the lynching of a Jewish Georgian Leo Frank, coupled with a new film, The Birth of a Nation, inspires William Simmons to resurrect the Klan. 

This new Klan has a longer list of enemies. While still opposed to Black Americans fully integrating into American society, this KKK also targets Jews and Catholics. It’s also more politically connected than the first Klan. While Klansmen will participate in violence–including the near annihilation of the Black quarter of Tulsa, Oklahoma–most Kluxers are more focused on politics. As membership swells into the millions, the Klan’s endorsed candidates will win seats in Congress, state houses, and city councils across the nation. Yet, the Klan will come crashing down almost as quickly as it rose in the 1920s. We’ll find out why.

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152: The Second Ku Klux Klan: Racism, Anti-Semitism, & Anti-Catholicism in the 1920s

“Palmer, do not let this country see red.”

This is the story of America’s First Red Scare. On June 2, 1919, Attorney General Mitchell Palmer is just going to bed when the first floor of his home is blown apart. It was a bomb, and part of a larger plot to attack several national leaders. It’s the work of anarchists.

Shaken to the core, Mitch is determined to use his position as AG to rid the nation of such extremist, violent leftists–anarchists, Bolsheviks, and the like. Mitch turns to the Bureau of Investigation (the predecessor of the FBI) to help round up foreign Reds. He’ll find a bright young lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover particularly useful in his “Palmer Raids.”

But as famed socialist Eugen Debs goes to prison for speaking against the war and union workers get treated like they’re a part of the far left, some start to wonder: is the AG still protecting the nation from violent radicals, or is he conducting a witch hunt? With bombings scaring the nation and Wall Street, the nation must debate where to draw the line between security and liberty.
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136: The German Spring Offensive’s End, or The Second Battle of the Marne

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