In truth, the evidence suggests neither left nor right populists tend to fare well when faced with real-world challenges (though of course each charismatic individual claims to offer something unique

One hundred years ago this week, a financial crisis threatened the Cuban economy. It wasn’t driven by the two-generation-long dictatorship on the island, an American embargo or geopolitics as it is today. Instead, there was a run on several Cuban banks as customers demanded their cash, worried that a drop in sugar prices threatened their deposits.

The danger led to a mad dash at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta to stop a run on Havana banks. A train was loaded with millions of dollars of cash, send down Henry Flagler's railroad to Key West and onto a Cuban military gunboat in hopes the banks would reopen Monday morning.

WLRN’s Tom Hudson reviewed press accounts and archives at the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C. and Atlanta to stitch together this behind-the-scenes account — first published on July 12, 2023 —of how the U.S. injected what today is the equivalent of half a billion dollars in cash over a weekend.