George Washington Is Cash Money

by Cory O'Brien; Illustrated by Soren Melville

there’s all these women

  seriously, tons of them

  like, I kid you not

  50 percent of the people in America are females

  and all these ladies have one thing in common:

  They can’t vote

  or control their own lives in any meaningful way

  it’s sort of a big deal for them, they are upset.

  They are not alone in this predicament

  slaves are also getting a pretty raw deal

  (in fact I think slavery is the definition of a raw deal)

  so naturally a bunch of women feel for the slaves

  and since women can at least move around freely

  (sort of

  sometimes)

  a lot of them start giving speeches and stuff

  to try and stop this whole slavery thing.

  Then the Civil War happens

  and Abe Lincoln kicks slavery in the nuts

  but guess what?

  WOMEN STILL CAN’T VOTE

  in fact, sometimes

  they even get assed out of talking

  at ANTI-SLAVERY CONVENTIONS.

  So some understandably pissed-off ladies

  including Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  are like “Wow, screw this.”

  They have a big meeting with a lot of women

  where they make a list

  of everything sucky that women have to deal with

  (it is a long list)

  and then they sign it

  and then they are like “Hey

  government

  man up and fix this shit already.”

  But the government is already totally manned up

  like, 100 percent men in this government right now

  both parties are total sausage fests

  so they ignore the hysterics of these women

  and go about the noble manly business

  of stealing land from Indians

  and calling them Indians.

  Luckily, getting stuff from the U.S. government

  is a lot like getting stuff from your parents as a kid

  except there are three parents, and they are all dads.

  See, there’s the legislative branch, which makes laws

  (and is who the ladies originally went after)

  the executive branch, which enforces the laws

  (not much use if there are no good laws to enforce)

  and the judicial branch, which can break shitty laws.

  So when the legislature says no

  Elizabeth Stanton and her pal Susan B. Anthony

  decide to go to the Supreme Court

  and hope that they’ll say yes.

  But in order to get to the Supreme Court

  they have to do something illegal

  and then challenge the law in court.

  So in the next election

  Susan B. Anthony goes down to her polling place

  and she’s like “Hey, guys, I wanna vote”

  and they’re like “You can’t, ’cause of your vagina.”

  and she’s like “Okay, I’m gonna sue the shit out of you”

  and they’re like “Whoa, fine, vote then”

  so she’s like “Woo, I get to vote!”

  but she’s also like “Dammit, I don’t get to sue.”

  Luckily, the police find out a week later

  and send a dude to arrest her

  but she is so goddamn dignified

  he almost can’t even do it

  and when he finally does do it

  he’s really wimpy and half-assed about it

  and then the trial doesn’t go the way she wants it to

  mostly because the judge is a sly asshole.

  But another woman does get to the Supreme Court.

  (Hurray!)

  But the Supreme Court tells her to go fuck herself

  (Boo!)

  and what’s worse

  the way they do it

  is by saying that voting is not a guaranteed right

  so the whole South

  which at this point has JUST freed all its slaves

  is like “What’s that you say?

  We don’t have to let black people vote?

  AWESOME.”

  So that backfires super hard.

  But these dames are not about to quit.

  Elizabeth Stanton goes back to Congress

  and introduces a constitutional amendment

  that’s just like “women get to vote now”

  and everyone in Congress is like “HA HA HA HA

  BITCHES, AM I RIGHT?”

  But Liz does not give a fuck

  she just reintroduces that amendment to Congress

  every year

  FOR FORTY-FIVE YEARS

  (actually she’s dead for the last sixteen years of that

  but I like to think her ghost had a hand in it).

  Meanwhile, Susan B. Anthony is working HARD

  traveling all across the nation

  telling every single woman she meets

  to support women’s right to vote.

  She rides trains to the north, south, east, and west

  she rides trains till she has the schedules memorized

  And she gets FAMOUS.

  But there’s drama.

  See, in order to build a big women’s coalition

  Susan B. Anthony has to strip down her plan

  from “get women all the rights they’re missing”

  to “get women the vote and fuck everything else.”

  So she starts recruiting sucky women that she hates

  like racists and religious fundamentalists

  and Liz Stanton is like “I’m sick of this bullshit

  you can keep your organization of jerks

  I’m retiring.”

  But when Elizabeth says “retiring”

  what she actually means is

  “writing a feminist revision of the Bible”

  so like, a PRETTY DIFFERENT BIBLE

  and all Susan’s shitty friends are like “Whoa, what?

  That bitch is way out of line

  we need to officially declare that she sucks”

  and Susan is like “Hey, guys, she’s my friend”

  and the jerks are like “Which would you rather have:

  friendship or women’s suffrage?”

  and if this was an eighties movie

  she would’ve probably gone with friendship

  but this is not the eighties, it is the nineties

  the 1890s

  so she’s like “Ugh, suffrage I guess”

  and Elizabeth totally thinks she’s a sellout for that

  but what are you gonna do?

  This goes on for many more years

  with Susan making more and more compromises

  and Elizabeth becoming more and more radical

  (in every sense of the word)

  until finally they both die

  and then sixteen years later

  women finally get to vote!

  It comes down to one deciding vote

  by a dude from Tennessee

  who only votes for the bill

  because his mom told him to do it

  which begs the question

  where were all the other guys’ moms the whole time?

  So the moral of the story

  is that we should keep in closer touch with our moms

  because apparently they have good ideas

  sometimes

  I guess.

  TEDDY ROOSEVELT. THAT IS ALL.

 
It’s okay, friend

  I don’t blame you

  for skipping directly to this chapter

  because who wants to read regular American history

  when you can read about TEDDY ROOSEVELT

  the only U.S. president

  WITH A TYPE OF BEAR NAMED AFTER HIM.

  See, when it comes to war gods

  there’s a couple types.

  There’s your cunning planners

  like Athena and Odin and whatnot

  and there’s CRAZYBALLS BATTLECRUSHERS

  like Thor and Ares and Thor’s left nut.

  Teddy Roosevelt is all of these things

  plus a side order of King Solomon

  throat-punching poverty

  and altering geography

  from the center of a bacon double-cheeseburger.

  I don’t know how that cheeseburger got in there.

  Don’t write myths when you’re hungry.

  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

  T-Rose has to grow up before he can stomp ass

  and as a child, he is sickly like the Tiniest of Tims

  all coughing and having asthma like a chump

  so what does he do?

  Does he curl up with an inhaler and make do?

  NO.

  He’s like “FUCK LUNGS, I’M A ROOSEVELT”

  and climbs mountains until asthma gives up on him.

  Then he starts doing POLITICS.

  But politics isn’t violent enough for him

  so after spending some time in charge of the navy

  he peaces out to the frontier and becomes a cowboy

  and then when the U.S. decides to liberate Cuba

  because Spain is there being a dick

  he gathers up all his pals

  buys them a bunch of guns and horses

  and is like “Okay, guys

  I know nobody asked us to go to Cuba and kill fools

  but guys:

  Let’s go to Cuba and kill fools.”

  And that is exactly what they do.

  They call themselves the Rough Riders

  because nothing says combat mastery

  like ALLITERATION.

  After he gets back from war

  New York is just overcome with how manly he is

  so they’re like “We better elect this guy governor

  because if we don’t he’ll probably eat us.”

  He does such a good job messing with millionaires

  that a bunch of guys are like “We must stop him

  by putting him in a position where he can’t harm us.

  Oh, how about vice president?

  Vice presidents don’t do diddly.”

  Joke’s on them though

  because after the election, President McKinley dies

  (actually the joke is on President McKinley

  if you consider a lone anarchist’s bullet to be a joke

  which I totally do because I have no soul)

  and now Roosevelt is president.

  So Teddy’s like “BOOYAH, I’M ON THIS.

  Okay, guys, there are a few things I wanna change.

  Let’s start with . . .

  EVERYTHING.”

  So he designates a bunch of national parks

  prosecutes a bunch of big corporate monopolies

  digs a canal through Panama

  (after supporting a revolution in Panama just for that)

  regulates railroad prices

  negotiates a treaty between Russia and Japan

  speaks softly

  carries a BIG stick (if you know what I mean)

  and changes the rules of football.

  Then he has lunch.

  He gets reelected until he refuses to run anymore

  then he gets sick of everyone else’s political crap

  and decides to run again

  and when the Republicans won’t nominate him

  he nominates HIMSELF

  by starting his OWN DAMN PARTY

  called the Progressive Party

  oh wait I mean the BULL MOOSE party

  as in what Teddy Roosevelt is as healthy as.

  He does not become president

  but he does accomplish something way better:

  during his campaign, he’s on his way to do a speech

  when some jerk shoots him in the chest

  like, with a gun.

  The bullet goes through his steel glasses case

  through a copy of his fifty-page speech

  and only then does it reluctantly enter his chest.

  So Teddy looks at his chest

  sees that he is not coughing up blood

  and is like “Eh, it’s probably fine.”

  Then he goes ahead and speaks

  for NINETY MINUTES

  at which point the ghost of John Henry stands up

  and starts a slow clap

  which is eventually joined by EVERY VIKING.

  So Teddy doesn’t get to be president

  but he doesn’t care

  because all of that politicking was distracting him

  from his true passion:

  risking his life to map the Brazilian jungle.

  So he goes down there

  contracts tropical supermalaria

  finishes the expedition anyway

  and then goes back home and refuses to die.

  Then World War One starts happening

  and he goes to the president (Woodrow Wilson)

  like “Put me in, coach, put me in!”

  But Wilson is like “Dude

  you have tropical supermalaria

  a bullet in your chest

  and didn’t you have asthma at one point?

  Stay home, dog.”

  And Teddy is like “Aww . . .”

  then he dies

  but, like, in his sleep

  because

  as his friends confirm

  Death could not have handled him if he was awake.

  Oh, but I was gonna tell you about teddy bears.

  See, back on one of his massive hunting sprees

  Theodore Roosevelt came upon a black bear.

  This bear was defenseless

  shooting it would not have been even a little fun

  so he didn’t shoot it

  even though all his pals were telling him to.

  Some toy manufacturer found out about this

  and BAM, teddy bears.

  Roosevelt hated the nickname Teddy

  but it totally stuck

  which just goes to show

  that sometimes

  what matters is the things you DON’T shoot.

  AL CAPONE GETS EVERYONE HAMMERED

  Okay. so there’s this dude Alphonse

  but that name is neither manly enough

  NOR American enough

  So let’s call him Al

  Al Capone.

  Picture this:

  CHICAGO IN THE 1920s

  aka the single most corrupt location in space-time.

  You see

  there are not a lot of employment opportunities

  for Italian immigrants at this time

  the options are basically limited to:

  1. Manual labor

  2. Petty crime

  3. EXTREMELY NON-PETTY CRIME

  And obviously Al is not gonna half-ass his crime

  so he makes friends with this gang lord

  named Johnny Torrio

  and Torrio calls him up one day like “Hey, bud

  wanna move from New York to Chicago

/>   to help me completely take over every illegal thing?”

  And Capone is like “I’ll give you a hint:

  not no.”

  Chicago is awesome for doing crimes in

  it is like a lush rain forest of crime

  with each horrible person

  linked inseparably to every other horrible person

  by a complex and beautiful web of death:

  like, politicians and cops let mobsters do whatever

  then elections happen

  and mobsters beat up voters

  until those politicians and cops win.

  It’s the CIIIIIRCLE OF CRIIIIIIIME.

  Chicago is CORRUPT

  (how corrupt is it?)

  it is SO CORRUPT

  that Al Capone

  is a DEPUTY SHERIFF

  like, he’s driving drunk with a bunch of hookers

  he rams into a parked taxi

  and then he jumps out

  waving a gun and his SHERIFF’S BADGE.

  GUYS:

  THIS IS THE CITY WHERE I NOW LIVE.

  This continues for a long time

  and it could have continued even longer

  with all kinds of bad dudes

  making all kinds of mad money

  but as we all know

  the only thing better than money

  is MORE money

  so pretty soon dudes start dying.

  See, around this time

  Congress straight-up amends the constitution

  to be like “No more booze for anyone.

  Love, Congress.”

  CONGRESS:

  STOP BEING SUCH A LITERAL BUZZKILL.

  So a lot of gangsters

  especially Johnny Torrio

  are like “DUDES

  BOOZE IS ILLEGAL NOW

  WE CAN MAKE SO MUCH CASH SELLING IT.”

  But Torrio’s boss

  this guy Colosimo

  is like “I dunno guys

  selling liquor seems mighty risky

  I think I’ll just stick to my gambling and whores”

  so Torrio is like “Dude, I know you’re my uncle

  but your ass needs to die”

  and Colosimo is like “Oh nooooo.”

  So now Torrio is the head of a big crime syndicate

  along with his pal Capone

  and they’re selling booze like hotcakes

  (hotcakes that are secretly filled with booze)

  so now can everybody stop dying

  and start making mad cash?

  NOPE

  Why, you ask?

  Dion O’Banion is why.

  Dion O’Banion is the best gangster

  he carries three guns at all times

  even though he only has two hands

  he makes a large portion of his money

  by selling flowers to gangster funerals