The Paranoid Style Podcast
The Paranoid Style Podcast
The Order of the Skull and Bones
Hey, Listener! Welcome to the Paranoid Style Podcast! This week we crowbar our way (metaphorically speaking) into the tomb of the Brotherhood of Death, AKA Order 322, AKA The Order of the Skull and Bones. We take a campus tour of some of Yale's other secret societies and bash toll roads for being bougie. Also, we discuss the trilogy of movies in The Skulls oeuvre and we read a bleak and fantastical Archibald MacLeish poem at the very end. (Archie, along with Grandpappy, Pappy and W Bush were all Bonesmen.)
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Music used in this episode is from: Purple Planet Royalty Free Music
Opening theme music provided by Tony Molina. You can hear more of his music at https://tonymolina650.bandcamp.com/
CCK: Hey Sister!
ARK: Hey Sister!
CCK: Hello, Listener! My name is Christine and I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of a secret society, though we did at one time have an elaborate secret handshake.
ARK: My name is Amanda and I...If you would like to join our secret society that is completely open to everyone and not in any way a secret, subscribe or follow The Paranoid Style Podcast on your podcast listening app of choice and if you like what you hear please rate and review!
CCK: Amanda, tell me what you know about The Order of the Skull & Bones.
ARK: All I know is if it's secret and it's elite, it can't be good.
CCK: Is that from...You researched this by watching the movie, The Skulls?
ARK: Not just The Skulls, also, the Skulls 2 and The Skulls 3 - The future is female. And I didn't so much watch them as skim through them. Number 2 is appropriately named. And what I learned is that Skull and Bones is basically Hogwarts if the only house was Slytherin.
CCK: Hmmm...well, Hollywood must be onto something, let's divide this episode into three parts, Skulls 1, a brief history of Yale and its secret societies, Skulls 2, Boning up on the Order...eh, eh? and Skulls 3, Who are the members of the Skull and Bro-nes and what have they been up to for the past 190 years?
ARK & CCK: THE SKULLS - PART ONE! <MUSIC>
ARK: Yale is a private, Ivy League University that was established on October 9,1701 as the "Collegiate School" in New Haven, Connecticut. The name was officially changed to Yale, in 1718, in honor of its primary benefactor at the time, Elihu Yale.
CCK: Elihu Yale was born in Boston in 1649, but his family moved back to England when he was three. He worked for the East India Company for 20 years and in 1682, Yale became the President of the Fort St. George outpost of the East India Company in Madras, now Chennai, India.
ARK: A post he was removed from ten years later, thanks to his liberal misuse of company funds for private land purchases and tyrannical treatment of the local populace. After his dismissal, he returned to Britain and lived out his life spending his fortune, including on philanthropical endeavors.
CCK: Yale University is considered one of the Big Three private American Ivy League colleges along with Harvard and Princeton. It currently has around 4800 staff and 12000 students, 5000 undergrad and 7000 post-graduates.
ARK: Yale’s nickname is the Bulldogs and their mascot is Handsome Dan, a series of actual bulldogs that have served the school since the late 1800's. Currently they are on Handsome Dan #19 who took over when Handsome Dan #18 retired earlier this year.
CCK: Yale's motto is "Lux et veritas", Light and Truth, and their school color since the 1850's is Yale Blue, a deep blue close to Pantone 289.
ARK: So far, my conspiracy senses are not tingling. This is like the part of The Skulls where Joshua Jackson as Luke McNamara is working in the school cafeteria and the movie seemed like it was just going to be a poor man's Good Will Hunting.
CCK: Ah, well, we're about to get to the part where Paul Walker as the conspiratorially named, Caleb Mandrake, who is described as being "born a skull" is introduced. And at Yale, we don't just have one secret society to talk about, some lists show 15 secret or private societies and Yale has had up to 41 recognized social groups at one time or another.
ARK: Maybe instead of Lux et Veritas they should change their motto to arcana imperii, the secrets of power.
CCK: Clever girl...should we be a Jurassic Park Podcast?
ARK: JPP response.....So what are some of these other, non-skull secret societies?
CCK: To answer that question, is a segment I'm calling, the Yale Secret Society Showdown Roundup or YSSSR!
ARK: Oh boy.
CCK: I knew you'd love it. But what makes something a secret society? Unfortunately, the answer to that is pretty fuzzy, and by their very nature, secret societies are kind of hard to research on account of the secret part, but as far as the secret societies at Yale are concerned, the commonalities seem to be limited membership numbers, often of Senior undergrads only, chosen by current members of the society through a process called Tapping and including varying rituals, symbolism, rules of conduct and degrees of secretness.
ARK: Richard Spence, a history professor at the University of Idaho who has written and given lectures about secret societies calls them "a kind of ritualized form of networking". Like LinkedIn but with blood oaths!
CCK: So let’s talk about a few of the major groups, first up is the Aurelian Honor Society, founded in 1910. It is named after the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Fun fact, my personal mottos are by two famous military figures, from Marcus Aurelius, In the life of a man, time is but a moment and from that great American, General Foods, Celebrate the Moments of your life.
ARK: I'm ashamed to share a secret handshake with you.
CCK: The Aurelians Society's emblem is a seven-pointed star surrounded by a wreath. Their original mission statement was: "The object of this Society is to encourage and promote high character, gentlemanly conduct and the molding of one's career to a life to the community, and to bring the active members into contact with the honorary members who shall have been selected with the view that their careers shall be a source of inspiration."
ARK: Okay…Gentlemanly conduct, so no ladies?
CCK: The Aurelian Society was actually one of the first Yale secret societies to allow women, starting in 1969, the same year that Yale started accepting women to their undergrad programs. Every year the Aurelians select 16 Juniors to join the society in their Senior year. They had previously used a university meeting room for gatherings, but in 2017, they were ejected from it, due to “cyclical problematic conduct”. Though lest you think this points to something truly nefarious, the conduct was most likely underage drinking, not great, but pretty typically college-y behavior. The Aurelians now meet off campus at the Elm City Club in New Haven.
ARK: Next up, Berzelius, named for the Swedish scientist Jöns Jakob Berzelius, one of the founding fathers of modern chemistry and the guy who came up with basically the chemical notation system we still use today, for example the abbreviation of the chemical formula for water as H2O.
CCK: W-O-W!
ARK: The Berzelius society was founded in 1848 and is known by the initials BZ, they are considered a landed society, meaning they own a building on the outskirts of the Yale campus, which is called a hall by BZ members and a tomb by everyone else.
CCK: Tombs were so called because of they were built without windows to keep the societies secrets safe.
ARK: BZ’s tomb was built in 1908 or 1910, I saw references to both dates and is described as “a blank cube with classical ornamentation.”
CCK: Oooh, classy!
ARK: I could not find much regarding any emblems or the number of yearly members, but BZ’s are apparently very into So-Crates' guidance that "The unexamined life is not worth living”. Their stated mission is to “provide opportunities for achieving insights through an open, honest exchange of experiences, passions, and opinions. This process prepares its members — whose diversity is highly valued — for an active, intellectually vigorous, and moral life, giving them a place and time for contemplation and reflection so that they might rise boldly to the challenges of their lives, devoted to good character, tolerant of others, and willing to serve their communities, while forging links of mind to mind in a chain unbroken."
CCK: Whew…this reminds me of when Luke McNamara steals the video tape of his roommate's murder and takes it to the police but it ends up being blank when they play it at the police station. You think it’s going to be exciting and lurid, but it’s a total let down.
ARK: The spiciest thing I could find on Berzelius is that they might be nearly broke and in 2018 the Fashionista Vintage & Variety, a vintage clothing store near their tomb thought they might be responsible for knocking over trashcans and throwing a rock through the store window.
CCK: I guess this is what they mean by the banality of evil.
ARK: Elihu was founded in 1903 and according to a statement that appeared in The New York Times in that same year, Elihu is a private but not secret senior society.
CCK: That sounds like something a super-secret society would say. But they are one of the only senior organizations with a building that has windows!
ARK: Every year 16 seniors are chosen for membership. Famous members of Elihu include, Joe Lieberman, former Connecticut senator and the 2000 vice presidential candidate to Al Gore. Lieberman turned down an invitation to join Skull and Bones as did fellow Elihu member, Jacques Leslie, a journalist.
CCK: In an article for Salon Magazine in March 2000 called “Smirk from the past”, Jacques Leslie recounted his experience on tap night in April 1968. Leslie had been given a heads up from the Yale Director of Athletics and a bonesman Patriarch that he had been selected for The Order and would receive his official invite on tap night.
ARK: From Leslie’s article: “On the night before Tap Night, a fellow student who was a photographer freelancing for the New York Times told me the paper was planning a story about Tap Night, and asked if I knew of good photo prospects. I told him to come by my room a little before 8 p.m. He was therefore present when, precisely on the hour, I heard scuffling outside the door and then a loud knock.”
CCK: “When I turned the knob, the door instantly swung open and hit the wall with a smack. A hulking middle-aged man in a suit and thick glasses -- he looked like a thuggish banker -- burst across the threshold, followed half a step later by a guy I knew from Elihu, whom he had shoved out of the way. (I never did understand the point of that. Did he think I'd choose Bones because he got to me first?) As flashbulbs popped, he swung his arm across my shoulder as if bearing a cudgel, and yelled, "Skull and Bones, accept or reject?"
ARK: "Reject!" I answered. Nothing happened. The Banker stared at me as if I'd misread the script. "Reject!" I yelled, louder this time. The Banker turned around and ran, apparently now focused on assaulting the next candidate on his list.
CCK: My Elihu friend straightened himself out, took a deep breath, and, smiling, asked me to join Elihu. I never did find out the Banker's identity, but the next day his face was on the New York Times' second front page, in an action shot capturing him as he struck my shoulder while blocking his rival with his hip. "Skull was first," the caption read, "but he chose Elihu."
ARK: Moving on to Book and Snake…
CCK: Now that sounds cool! And evil!
ARK: The Society of Book and Snake was formed in 1863 as a three-year society, so not just for seniors. Their tomb, built in 1901 is in the Greek Ionic style and the bronze front door of the white marble building is meant to resemble the entrance to the Erechtheion Temple on the Acropolis in Athens. The entrance faces away from the Yale campus and towards the Grove Street Cemetery across the street. The wrought iron fence surrounding the Book and Snake tomb is decorated with caduceus, a staff entwined by two serpents.
CCK: Not to be confused with the Rod of Asclepius which is the traditional symbol of healthcare and features only a single snake. In the US, the rod of Asclepius and the caduceus are frequently used interchangeably which is considered a no-no, since the caduceus is the symbol for commerce.
ARK: The Book and Snake’s emblem is a book surrounded by the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail.
CCK: My emblem would be a veggie burrito, a paranormal romance novel and a housecat.
ARK: Truth in advertising. There are some who think that the Book and Snake and the Skull and Bones have a secret connection based on their reversed initials and early photos of Book and Snake members posing in front of a skull and bones on a table, which seem to match the Skull and Bones emblem and early photos of the Skulls.
CCK: Famous Member Shout out for Book and Snake goes to journalist Bob Woodward who received his BA from Yale in 1965.
ARK: In 1998, the Yale Herald reported that Book and Snake taps, taps being new members, were led across campus blind folded to perform the Humpty Dance.
CCK: I guess it was their chance to do the hump.
ARK: Our next group, Mace and Chain was founded in 1956 to provide a more modern secret society experience to 15 seniors a year. The Mace and Chain’s tomb is a 190-year-old, six bedroom Colonial-style house in downtown New Haven that used to be the home of Benedict Arnold!
CCK: Traitorific!
ARK: The Wolf’s Head Society was started in 1884 and is considered one of the most desirable societies to belong to by current Yalies.
CCK: Party tomb!
ARK: Last up before the Skulls is the Scroll and Key, which along with Skull and Bones and the Wolf’s Head is considered to be one of the “big three” societies at Yale. Scroll and Key was founded in 1842 and is reputed to be the wealthiest. It’s a senior society with 15 up and coming juniors tapped for membership each year.
CCK: The Scroll and Key’s building is from 1870 and was done in the Moorish Revival style. Scroll and Key is the society of choice for students whose relatives disembarked the Mayflower, but other members included, Cole Porter
ARK: Delicious, Delightful, Delovely!
CCK: Benjamin Spock, baby scientist, er, that’s a scientist who knows about babies, not a tiny little scientist in a diaper.
ARK: Garry Trudeau the creator of the Doonesbury comic and A. Bartlett Giamatti, one time president of Yale University, commissioner of major league baseball, and the father of America’s Sweetheart, Paul Giamatti.
CCK: It will be so big, that even though it's happening here in California, you will feel it on the East Coast. Now I cannot emphasize this enough to the people of San Francisco: You need to get out. And I mean now. And if you can't, you need to find any means possible to drop, cover, and hold on. Because your life is gonna depend on it. God be with you.”
ARK: What the…
CCK: Paul Giamatti as Dr. Lawrence Hayes from the classic 2015 film, San Andreas.
ARK: Spoiler alert…Paul Giamatti didn’t follow his father into Scroll and Key when he attended Yale in the late 1980’s he was tapped for a different organization.
CCK: No!
ARK: He does deny this, but allegedly he is a Bonesman, which leads us into the tomb that in 1998 reportedly had the highest water bill in all of New Haven, enough to fill several swimming pools every month, the tomb belonging to the Skull and Bones Society. Also known as the Brotherhood of Death, Order 332 and known to members as the Order.
ARK & CCK: THE SKULLS – PART TWO! <MUSIC>
CCK: Let me begin by saying that I hope the actual Skulls are more interesting than the movie, The Skulls 2. I’ve seen worse movies, but IMDB user Steeffan summed it up best when they wrote that Skulls 2 was like coffee brewed from the used grounds of the original Skulls movie.
ARK: OUCH!
CCK: The Order of the Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft. The first incarnation of the Order included Russell and Taft as well as 12 other Yale seniors.
ARK: If that name Alphonso Taft sounds familiar…
CCK: Was he in fresh prince of Bel Air?
ARK: Different Alphonso. Alphonso Taft was the father of William Howard Taft, who was the 27th President of the United States. William was also the 10th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a fellow member of the Order and the guy who was rumored to have been so heavy he got stuck in the White House Bathtub. The bathtub story is not true, but Taft was a robust size 14.
CCK: William Taft was born on September 15, 1857, making him one of only two Virgo US Presidents. The other was Lyndon Baines Johnson and as a Virgo I am feeling very attacked. The number one astrological sign for presidents is a tie between Aquarians, Harrison, Lincoln, McKinley, FDR and Regan and Scorpios, John Adams, Polk, Garfield, Teddy Roosevelt and Harding.
ARK: As an Aquarius, I am feeling…<Response>.In addition to William Taft, presidents George HW Bush, George W Bush and presidential candidate John Kerry were also members of Skull and Bones. Though George W was allegedly an unenthusiastic member of the order and failed to come up with a nickname for himself resulting in him being called “Temporary” as his bones name. Aside from the cinematic treasures that are the Skulls movies, how do we know what we know about the actual Skull and Bones?
CCK: A few different sources, the main one being an Esquire Magazine article from 1977 by Ron Rosenbaum called, “The last secrets of the skull and bones”. The article covers his investigations into the Order and includes secondary sources, like information from files compiled by the Scroll and Key society, a pamphlet from 1877 by an anonymous group called The File and Claw who broke into the Skulls tomb and even a few tidbits from Skull and Bones members who were friends with Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum attended Yale in the 1960s.
ARK: The other source for our information is a 2002 reprint of a book from 1983 called, “America’s Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of the Skull and Bones” by Antony Sutton. Sutton does a deep dive into the membership of the Order which was known to him because he was given copies of some of the yearly Catalogues or Address books published by the Bones with contact information for the members. A copy embossed with their name is given to each boner.
CCK: Skull and Bones is known informally as "Bones", and members are called "Bonesmen”, members or initiates of the order. After graduation, members are called Patriarchs and non-members are called vandals.
ARK: Sutton’s book takes a look at connections between Bones members of various family lines over time and their connection to the highest level of political organizations, businesses, media and even charitable boards. It’s a complex analysis slightly hampered by its age and intricacy, but it has a lot of great information.
CCK: The Bones insignia is a jawless skull over crossed bones with the number 322 beneath it. What does that 322 signify?
ARK: Depends on who you ask. The Order was founded in 1832 and according to the File and Claw source, the 32 is for the founding year and the second 2 is because The Skull and Bones at Yale is the second chapter of a group originally founded at a university in Germany. William Russell the Yale group’s cofounder had studied in Germany for a year. The other possibility is 322 BCE is the date of the Greek orator, Demosthenes death. Some people link this date with the Athenian move from democracy to a plutocracy, rule by the wealthy, though the word plutocracy was not coined until the 1600s, so at best it would have been a move to oligarchy, rule by the few.
CCK: One argument for the Demosthenes link and a weird cross-over with our Phantom Time episode is that Rosenbaum claimed to have seen some Bones literature in the archives that used 322 B.C.E. as year one. So a 1977 memo was labeled anno Demostheni 2299. Demosthenes lived in Athens and overcame a speech impediment in his childhood by delivering orations with a mouth full of pebbles, My Fair Lady style. An example of a Skull and Bones joke is: “How did Demosthenes have such numerous progeny when he carried his stones in his mouth?”
ARK: Good thing these a-holes have money. When File and Claw broke into the Bones tomb in 1877, they found a German slogan painted “on the arched walls above the vault” of a room labeled, 322, which appeared to be the tomb’s Sancta Santorum, the location for the Orders most treasured relics and rituals. The slogan was above a painting of skulls surrounded by Masonic symbols, and that painting was allegedly “a gift from the German chapter.”
CCK: The slogan reads: “Wer war der Thor, wer Weiser, Bettler oder Kaiser? Ob Arm, ob Reich, im Tode gleich,” which translates to “Who was the fool, who the wise man, beggar or king? Whether poor or rich, all’s the same in death.” File and Claw also reported the appearance of many actual human skulls as decorations in the tomb and a lovely and extensive set of S&B dishware in the kitchen.
ARK: The Bones certainly used to love their Greek and Latin philosophers and orators, not just Demosthenes. Weekly meeting pamphlets for the group from the 1800s through the mid-1900’s which are available at the Yale library archives feature quotes from Cicero among others in Latin. A few translated examples are: “There can be no friendship except among the good”, “A good day with the boys” and “But of all the bonds of fellowship, there is none more noble, none more powerful than when good men of congenial character are joined in intimate friendship.” The Latin for “good men” is “boni.”
CCK: Punderful. Those weekly meetings would have been held at the Orders tomb which was built in three phases: the first wing was constructed in 1856, the second in 1903, and Neo-Gothic towers were added to the rear garden in 1912. The front and sides of the building are made of Portland brownstone in an Egypto-Doric style. The tomb was design was inspired by the Temple of Thebes at Kornou and the Temple of Karmac.
ARK: So what happened to you after being tapped and accepting your membership into the Brotherhood of Death?
CCK: Well, on this point, the Skulls movies seem to be consistent with reports from other sources, initiation into the order requires you to die, symbolically and to be reborn a bonesman with a brand spanking new nickname. Exactly what that symbolic death entails is not clear, possibly beatings or mud wrestling, that is seriously one of the rumors, and then a good night's rest in a coffin.
ARK: During the year of your membership after your initial night of torture, you are allegedly presented with a tax free check for $15000 from the Russell Trust Association, which is the Bones business name, incorporated in 1856. You may also be taken to Deer Island, the Bones private resort a few miles downriver from Alexandria Bay, NY and one of the Thousand Islands located in the St. Lawrence River. Though not sure if this is the case any longer, as the buildings on the island appear to have fallen into disrepair and only a building called The Outlook with a porch that overhangs the river appears to be intact.
CCK: I mean, so far this doesn’t sound too horrific. Mudwrestling rich boys and spending my $15k at the Deer Island snack bar. Is Deer Island where Pinocchio got sent after smoking cigars and gambling?
ARK: What? Focus, Christine! The island and the money seem okay. Even if the island is no longer viable, you would certainly be introduced to the wider social circle of the order with the accompanying career and educational opportunities and potential dating pool. But there are the rumored blackmail download sessions that I think would be less fun. Allegedly, during your year of membership, you are required to spill to your fellow members all of your secrets, dreams and sexual experiences no matter how lurid, criminal or embarrassing. This kind of information would be a great incentive for prioritizing the happiness of your fellows and keeping quiet lest your information also become public.
ARK & CCK: THE SKULLS – PART THREE! <MUSIC>
CCK: So the third Skulls movie is in my opinion better than Skulls 2 and only slightly more made for TV looking than Skulls 1, and it features, Clare Kramer, Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s, Glory, as the main protagonist, so I’m on board even though it is still in the Skulls oeuvre, which is to say below 6.0 out of 10 on the IMDB rating scale. All of the Skulls movies were made in the early 2000’s, so by that time, women were already members of the actual Order of the Skull and Bones.
ARK: Women were first allowed to join the order in 1991. One of the Yale societies we didn’t talk about, the Manuscript Society, hosted the 1991-1992 Skull and Bones classes since they were temporarily locked out of the Bones tomb by irate Order alumni who were not happy about the decision to offer membership to women.
CCK: Not to be a cynic but it does kind of make you wonder if at that point, some faction of the Bones order split off into the Classic Bones and left the sweeter, more effervescent New Bones to their own devices.
ARK: That is the weird thing about secret societies, you’re always suspicious that no matter how powerful the group is and how much they perceive themselves as the true Masters of the Universe, some small subgroup within the group is probably actually running the show unbeknownst to the rest of the rabble.
CCK: Speaking of rabble, aside from the three presidents, Taft, Bush & Baby Bush and presidential and vice presidential candidates, Kerry and Lieberman, that we’ve already mentioned, who else were members of the Order?
ARK: The list is long, probably about 2500 over all time with 500 to 600 alive and active at any time in their history. Membership includes multiple members of the Tafts, Russells, Lords, Harrimans, Whitneys, one Vanderbilt and multiple candidates with Vanderbilts in the family line, Coffins, at least one Rockefeller, Michael Cerveris of Broadway fame, athletes, politicians, bankers, executives, academics and even a few clergy people. Also, several other Bush’s beyond the ones already mentioned.
CCK: The first of those Bush family members inducted into the Bones was Prescott Bush from the class of 1916, father of George HW Bush. Prescott, a banker and senator for Connecticut ran into troubling accusations of having supported the Nazi’s during WWII, but in his defense, those accusations were true at least in terms of financial support. Prescott worked for Brown Brothers, Harriman and along with Averell Harriman, another Bonedude, he helped set up the Union Banking Corporation, an investment bank that operated as a clearing house for many assets and enterprises held by German steel magnate Fritz Thyssen, an early supporter and financier of the Nazi Party.
ARK: In October 1942 the United States seized the Union Banking Corporation for violating the Trading with the Enemy Act and held the company's assets for the duration of World War II. But also in Prescott’s defense, there was no evidence that he was an actual Nazi sympathizer, just that he was a making money by any means sympathizer.
CCK: Prescott Bush, I’m about to say something nice, was involved with the American Birth Control League in 1942, served as the treasurer of the first nationwide campaign for Planned Parenthood in 1947 and was also a supporter of the United Negro College Fund, serving as chairman for the Connecticut branch in 1951.
ARK: Before you get too enthralled, let’s talk about one of the Skull and Bones biggest scandals, which had Prescott Bush right in the middle of it. In the 1980’s an Apache leader, Ned Anderson, was trying to locate the remains of Geronimo, which were supposedly buried at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
CCK: Geronimo was a leader and medicine man of the Bedonkohe band of the Apache tribe. Geronimo was born in 1829 near Turkey Creek, a tributary of the Gila River in what is now the state of New Mexico, but was at the time of his birth, part of Mexico. As part of the ongoing wars between various Apache tribes, Mexico and the United States, Geronimo led raiding parties, one of which led to his capture and imprisonment by the US Army and eventual death and burial at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
ARK: In 1986, an unknown Bones source sent an excerpt from a privately printed Skull and Bones document to the Ned Anderson. The document was titled “A Continuation of the History of Our Order for the Century Celebration” The author of this document from June 1933 was by Skull and Bones member F.O. Matthiessen, a Harvard professor famous for his studies of 19th-century American literature. The excerpt contained the following information:
“From the war days [W.W. I] also sprang the mad expedition from the School of Fire at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, that brought to the T[omb] its most spectacular “crook,” the skull of Geronimo the terrible, the Indian Chief who had taken forty-nine white scalps. An expedition in late May, 1918…Xit, Barebones, Caliban, Dingbat, S’Mike and Hellbender…planned with great caution since in the words of one of them: “Six army captains robbing a grave wouldn’t look good in the papers.” The stirring climax was recorded by Hellbender in the Black Book of D.117: “… The ring of pick on stone and thud of earth on earth alone disturbs the peace of the prairie. An axe pried open the iron door of the tomb, and Pat[riarch] Bush entered and started to dig. We dug in turn, each on relief taking a turn on the road as guards…. Finally Pat[riarch] Ellery James turned up a bridle, soon a saddle horn and rotten leathers followed, then wood and then, at the exact bottom of the small round hole, Pat[riarch] James dug deep and pried out the trophy itself…. We quickly closed the grave, shut the door and sped home to Pat[riarch] Mallon’s room, where we cleaned the Bones. Pat[riarch] Mallon sat on the floor liberally applying carbolic acid. The Skull was fairly clean, having only some flesh inside and a little hair. I showered and hit the hay … a happy man….”
CCK: Based on this information, on Feb. 17, the 100-year anniversary of Geronimo’s death, 20 of his descendants filed a suit Geronimo v. Obama, in the U.S. District Court, District of Columbia against the defendants: “President Obama, the secretaries of defense and the Army, Yale University and the Order of Skull and Bones” to “ensure that all existing remains of Geronimo and funerary objects are recovered by Geronimo’s lineal descendants, the Order of Skull & Bones at Yale University must account for any such articles that are or have been in their possession.” The case was dismissed in 2010, stating that plaintiffs had cited a law that applied only to Native American cultural items excavated or discovered after 1990.
ARK: Again, I say, Oh Boy.
CCK: To cheer you up, did I mention that some people believe that the CIA was a fever dream born inside the mind of bonesmen? Also, “Spook,” which is a Yale slang word for secret-society members, is also Agency slang for spy.
ARK: Save it for the CIA episode. Let’s end this episode with a 1926 poem by member of the Order, Archibald MacLeish, who was a poet, playwright, essayist, lawyer and the 9th librarian of Congress. The poem is called “The End of the World”: POEM IS READ
CCK: Cheery!