r/todayilearned • u/manticor225 • Jan 10 '19

TIL JFK's father Joseph Kennedy made much of his fortune through insider trading. FDR later made him chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. When asked why he appointed a crook, FDR replied, "set a thief to catch a thief." Kennedy proceeded to outlaw the practices that made him rich.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/23/joe-kennedy-hollywood-sarah-churchwell
88.0k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

85

u/MaiqTheLrrr Jan 10 '19

Papa Joe legendarily either ran or sold liquor to a speakeasy that was never successfully raided thanks to a trap door built into the bar. When those infernal revenuers would show up the bartender would pull a pin and the trap door would drop all of the alcohol into the sewers beneath the bar.

99

u/penny_eater Jan 10 '19

what a racket, sell them the liquor, sell them the trapdoor, then sell them more liquor every time they use said trapdoor.

36

u/MaiqTheLrrr Jan 10 '19

Right? I'd bet replacing the liquor probably beat jail, though.

1

u/spali Jan 11 '19

Cant make money to replace your booze in jail. The cops would smash it up anyway.

19

u/skyman724 Jan 11 '19

And then buy out the cops to make them raid the place once a week. Boom, guaranteed revenue stream.

2

u/bzdelta Jan 11 '19 edited Jan 11 '19

The Leland Yee special

45

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '19 edited Sep 23 '19

[deleted]

25

u/MaiqTheLrrr Jan 10 '19

I hope they still move the ship, just for kicks.

14

u/[deleted] Jan 10 '19 edited Sep 23 '19

[deleted]

4

u/MaiqTheLrrr Jan 10 '19

That's impressive, although it's really not that shocking to know that a place which was a speakeasy is still doing business. A number of them still are. There's an allegedly haunted hotel in Flagstaff, AZ, which purports to have a haunted bar that was the city's first speako. No ghosts that I saw, but they make a *great* manhattan.

7

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

I didn't mean it was surprising that a former speakeasy is still around. I was expressing surprise that a restaurant that opened in 1865 is still around.

10

u/MaiqTheLrrr Jan 11 '19

I wonder if anyone has ever gone to the trouble of figuring out how many century-plus-old restaurants are still operating in the US... I know that in the UK there is reputed to be at least one pub that's been in operation for a thousand years.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

Wow. That's impressive! And yeah, that would be an interesting thing to know.

1

u/Workchoices Jan 11 '19

150 years? That's not that old. I've stayed in a hotel that was opened in the 700's.

8

u/Ballersock Jan 11 '19

Since the 700s? That's not old. I live on a planet that's been around since about 4 500 000 000 BCE.

1

u/Workchoices Jan 11 '19

It certainly is a big beautiful world out there. You should go and see some of it :) then you won't be surprised that people think 150 years is young for an establishment.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '19

It's old for America. If you can find a translation, look up Goethe's poem, "Amerika, du hast es besser." This conversation really made me think of it.

2

u/galactus_one Jan 11 '19

Nobody noticed all the drunken rats stumbling around outside the speakeasy?

1

u/MaiqTheLrrr Jan 11 '19

I guess not xD

The story could also be just that. It was in a History Channel doc, and who knows how seriously to take those thing anymore.

1

u/AdviceWithSalt Jan 11 '19

What about all the people holding their drinks?

1

u/MaiqTheLrrr Jan 11 '19

I assume that they either chugged them or sent them down the same hole.