The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 379 - The Landlord's Game

Episode Date: May 28, 2019

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine, Elizabeth Magie, the woman who invented The Landlord's Game and what became of it. antimonopoly.comSOURCESTOUR DATESREDBUBBLE MERCH

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. You're listening to the dollop on the All Things Comedy Network. Good work so far. Oh thanks. This is an American

History podcast. Each week I Dave Anthony read a story from American History to this guy. Yeah this guy. My name is Gary Reynolds and I got no idea what the topic is gonna be about. What happened to this was a good start? This was a good start huh? You're not doing well right now. Alright let's do let's do one for real. We did that's real we're using this and it's it's full of animosity. We'll be right back after the dive. That's not a thing that's not a thing that you just said we don't do that it's a podcast. Present the podcast Gary Reynolds throwing it to the intro music. That's none of us. Five four three two. And called it quote is jam

pass. Jam pass? I'm the fucking hippo guy. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait is it for fun? And this is not gonna come to Tiggly Podcast. Okay. This is like an a five part coefficient. My room's a place. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present that sick arguments. No sleep down hippo. That's like a hippo. Action partner. Hi Gary. No, I see done my friend. No, no, no. Roder, Roder in the car. 1866. Okay. The year of our Lord Jesus Christ. Elizabeth McGee. Okay. Was born in Canton, Illinois. Okay. The Civil War just ended. Sure. Your favorite. Yeah. No, you know, I'm passionate about that one. Her father James McGee fought in the war. Okay. He was a newspaper publisher and abolitionist. Okay. So it was north. North.

Northern. Her mother Mary took care of the kids in 1850. James traveled around Illinois with Abraham Lincoln. Never heard of him. Yeah. That's that guy from those credit union commercials. Yes. Right, right, right. He went with them on Abe's famous tour, a debate tour with Stephen Douglas. James was a very popular speaker also. He clerked in the Illinois legislature. He ran for office on an anti-monopoly platform but lost. Interesting. So Elizabeth comes from a connected family. Sure. James is very against monopolies and the ownership of land. Okay. Interesting. Didn't believe in the ownership of land. Okay. Which I'm totally down with. Yeah, I get that. When Elizabeth was 13, the family had hard times and she left school to get a job

to help support the family. Okay. She went to a stenographer's convention with her father. Oh, those are just great. Oh, fuck. Those are fun. Rager. That is a party. Rager. That is a party. Yeah. The kind of keys you got. That kind of stuff. Yeah. Boom. That's it. Ching. They just show it to you. What's that? Oh, you wrote a fan. My answer. Yeah, that's great. Hi. And how are you? Yes, how are... Oh, my name's Dave. How are you? You're good. What's nice to meet you? Okay. Is how long is this going for? Or... Okay. I'm just gonna take off. Why don't you slip that under my door? Please stop. Please stop. Seriously. So the typewriter was a huge business at this point. It was a new thing taken off. And I was like, oh, my God, we can make letters with machines. But it had to

be amazing. I mean, I really had to be awesome. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So stenography was a job also opening up for women because so many guys had died in the Civil War. Okay. Which is awesome. Sure. Around this... No, I guess it's awesome both. It's great when guys die and also when we get jobs. Yeah. No, that's great. Around this time. You can support both sides of it. Yeah. James was also introduced... James introduced Elizabeth to a book called Poverty and Progress by Henry George. Okay. Now, George's belief came... Believes came to be known as Georgism. Sure. It's creative. He was like, is that all we got? That's it. All right. Just using your name. Should we try one other option? No. Okay. We took a meeting. We took a meeting. Everyone got together and voted. I

was invited to the meeting. Yeah, yeah. There were other Georges there. Oh, okay. You were very represented. Okay. Yeah. All right. Anyway, Georgism is about you. Right. It's great. We like you. Great. Go ahead and take off your pants. They're coming off slowly. Not wearing underwear. Yep. George believed people should be able to own anything they created except for land which belonged to everyone and no one person should be able to profit from owning land or anything in nature. Sure. Which I told you. Yes. 100% on board, 100% no owning anything. Some already did own land. Right. So his idea then was to tax those people. Okay. That's supposed to take the land away. He wanted to eliminate all taxes except for a single tax which will be imposed upon,

quote, idle landowners. So all of your money, all your taxation is just on land. From land. Okay. Yeah. George argued this would encourage landowners to use land in a responsible and collective way which we know is not something that would ever happen. Right. We have not done that in any capacity. Poverty huge at the time and Georgism resonated with people. Progress and poverty was incredibly popular. It outsold all books except for the Bible in the 1890s. Gosh, we always love that stupid Bible. Yeah, it still sells. It's a hot item. It is a hot item. Jesus is doing a book signing in parts and nobs. I don't know if you saw that. I didn't. Yeah, I don't really follow him anymore. Oh. Ever since he got on Twitter.

Around the 1880s, McGee's moved to Washington DC. James got a job working for the government. Elizabeth traveled in high political circles because, you know, her dad's connected. Sure. She got a job as a stenographer for the chief clerk of the dead letter office. The dead letter office? That's right. That's where dead letters go. What does that even mean? Letters to dead people? No. Samantha, are you close? Oh. No. So it's where letters would go that were undeliverable. So by penmanship? Sure. Or someone just put like Gareth Reynolds on it with no address. Right. I was like, that'll get there. Right. Which I'm sure fucking happened all the time back then. Yeah. Just Marty. You know Marty, the guy with the face and the hair.

He's got the big hair. Andy with hair. Here you go, man, man. There's no one. No, I can't. Okay. Take it. Please just get it. You'll know it's him. Why do you see the hair? He lives in the place near the hill. All right. It's close to the hill, stupid. So all these letters would come in and they would go through the mail and they'd open it up. They'd destroy, if it was a letter, they'd just destroy it. But if there was something else, money or some item. Right. They would. The money would go toward the government. The items would be auctioned off. Okay. Dead letter clerks, most were women. The office had started hiring women during the war and now believe that they were more honest and faithful than

male workers. And also women just happened to make like a fraction of what men did. Right. So that's the win, win, win, win, win. Yeah. They're honest and. Well, I don't, I don't think they believe the honest thing. I think that was just. Oh, they just were like, well, look how much money we can say. It's honest. So honest, you won't try to negotiate. People argued that that's the way it should be. In 1869, the New York Times article argued women should not make quote, the mistake of demanding equal payment with men because so long as their labor is cheaper than that of men, there will be a powerful reason for employing it. Yeah. Okay. Yes. It's another one of those hollow talking points. That's fantastic.

Yeah. New York Times never been wrong. No. Elizabeth was constantly wrong. Elizabeth also very creative. Okay. She wrote poetry, which is a great thing to have as a stenographer. Yeah. The creative flair. People love that. Yeah. She wrote poetry and short stories. Okay. At night, she performed as an actress and became known for comedic roles. Interesting. Okay. She was a funny lady. Sure. She had a great stage presence and she just made audiences roll with laughter like she would just kill it. Okay. She was small with curly dark hair and had his eyebrows. Yeah. I know what you're going to show me on that. Oh, okay. I tripped a

little bit. Yeah, but those are not bushy. Not sure that is actually a picture of her. Certainly not. Those are bushier. Yeah. Still not like, I would not see that person and be like, oh, her eyebrows are crazy bushy. Yeah. So, which I do, I'm ought to say to a lot of people. You should say that. Yeah. Whenever people who have bushy eyebrows want you to say that. Hey, you got some solid bushes. Holy shit. How are you? You know, you should get as a gardener. I'm Gareth. Do you like pasta? Huh? Yeah. That's how I pick up on bushy eyebrows. That's not good. Yeah. Boy, you got a couple bushes up there, huh? You like movies?

No. What? You got two bushes right up there. Yeah, I got that. I love them. I'd love to get my mouth around those bushes. No. We should go play tennis. I don't agree. Come on. Anything that you're saying? Come on. No. I'll follow you. I know. That's why the police are here. Oh, hey guys. It's me from earlier. Yep, they know. She's got bushes too. I know the drill. Why don't you beat it? All right. So, she's saving up enough money to buy her own home in a DC suburb, including several acres of property. She had a roommate. Wait, she's not supposed to be buying one. I know, but she's been. It's the prison she was born into. So, she has a roommate, a male actor, and a black female servant. So, again, not at all. None of this is normal for a woman of the

time going home and, you know. Right. Have a roomie. Yes. A male roommate. Yeah, not be married. Have a male roommate is not normal. Probably, right. Elizabeth also doubled in engineering in her spare time. So, you know, at night, you do a little engineering. Yeah, I know. Like you do. Yeah, I put on my conductor hat. I go play with the trains. That's right. That's not the same thing. When she was 26, she received a patent for an invention that made the typewriting process easier by allowing paper to go through more easily. Okay. Sure. So, she's fucking smart. Yeah. At this time, less than 1% of patents were given to women. Wow. Pretty cool, right? Yeah. And that's just, that's not, I mean, that's just because. They weren't allowed to do anything. At all. Like

anything at all, period. Right. Like, if you're a husband and you walk in and your wife is tinkering with stuff down in the garage, you'd be like, why did Holy Heaven just, you're a witch? It's not what you think. It's not what you think. Wait, I have to stone you now, you're my wife. Oh, no. So, just two weeks after she went, after he went with her to apply for the patent, her father James got sick and died. Okay. She's devastated. Now, she takes a little time off from life, you know. Sure. Thinks about things. Sure. Around this time, an openly bisexual woman, Mary McClain, published her autobiography, I Await the Devil's Coming. Wow. She came in strong. That is awesome. She came in super strong. She's also like 23. So, she's not great. People were just like, well, we can't,

what do we say to her? She's excited for Satan. Quote, I am not good. I am not virtuous. I am not sympathetic. I am not generous. I am merely and above all a creature of intense, passionate feeling. I feel everything. It is my genius. It burns me like fire. Jesus Christ. She's not like, yeah, she's intense. Not your normal. There's really nothing in there that's like, hey, whatever. Right. Yeah. She said women needed to liberate themselves. Elizabeth read it and was very moved. She told her mother, quote, people may think Mary McClain is crazy. They will be saying that the same thing about me someday. Oh boy. Okay. Because she's probably, well, she's probably going to try to do something with her life, which is just people are going to be like, what? Yeah. Elizabeth got

stories published in magazines. At night, she taught classes about Georgism. Jesus. Okay. Okay. Well, so she's super passionate about, super passionate about Georgism. Like that's now her life. It's like when you meet a Ron Paul person. Right. It's that kind of thing where you just like, can you please shut up? Right. But she wanted to get the word out to more people than just teaching classes. Okay. So she started drawing and redrawing, thinking and rethinking a board game to help push Georgism because board games are kind of big at this point. Okay. It's one of the many ways you get the word out. Okay. I'm wondering what this board game is. She applied for a patent of the game in 1903. It was called the landlords game.

Okay. Elizabeth now is in her 30s. It's just a lot of repairs. Yeah. So he's going over and there's some guy it's like, Hey man, there's something wrong with the toilet. Yeah. There's a bunch of doll heads in it. Weirdo. She wrote about her game and an issue of the single tax review. That's the great single tax on land. So they made a, they made a review magazine sort of situation about and a really great cartoon. I burn through it every month. It's great. Burn through it. It's great. Quote, it is a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences. So it's a board game about land, land grabbing. Right. She was granted a US patent on January 5th, 1904.

You again, huh? Hey, the woman's back. Ring the bell. What's up? Under one percenter. Here you go. It's a pretty good idea. So it's actually a pretty big risk for women this time to put their opinions on there. If you can imagine a woman being attacked for putting her opinions out. This is a shot. I can't imagine. So at this time that happened. It was frowned upon. Yes. Weird. We don't do that anymore. Nope. It wasn't just something women did at the time. The common belief was that women didn't have much to contribute to the world of ideas. Pretty bold. Newspaper wrote, quote, that women probably, sorry, newspaper wrote that women probably lived longer because, quote, they don't use their brains

as much as men. Right there. But it's a deep thinker. Yeah. Her brain is small. It's soft. She should put it in a corner and leave it. Whereas men are thinking and they're dying from thought. Words coming out of my face. Elizabeth also seemed to have no interest in marriage just for the sake of marriage, which is also not normal for time. Yes, no. Squad goal is not to get married. Well, yeah. But isn't the idea that you're just supposed to jump into something and be tortured by it? Not heard. Not at all. She's very proud of her choice to not get married, very outspoken against norms. She quit her job at the dead letters office and went to work for a private company. And then she moved to Chicago and worked

again as a stenographer, but she's only making $10 a week and she had a hard time getting by. Okay. Now, and that's been going on for a while, right? She's like, what? She started as a stenographer when she was in her early teens. So she's... Right. It's been a long time on the road. Right. She's been standing for a while. Yeah. When she was 40, she was not pleased with how women were treated in society. And Elizabeth wrote a fake ad mocking marriage as the only option for women. Okay. Is this your way to the sarcastic ad? Yeah. Okay. She paid to have it published in a paper and it caused a sensation and was then carried by other papers across the country. Okay. The top of the ad, read, quote, for sale to the highest bitter,

young woman, American slave. Jesus. Intelligent, educated, refined, true, honest, just, poetical, philosophical, board-minded, and big, sold, and womanly above all things, brunette, large, gray, green eyes, full, passionate lips, splendid teeth, not beautiful, but very attractive, well-proportioned, graceful supple. She wanted to say she had a serious illness a year ago and a streak of bed luck and lost everything. And she had expensive taste. She liked nice things. She liked silk. This ad? Yeah. It's all in the ad. Is this ad specifically for her? It's a very long written ad. No, it's for her. She's selling herself. Pitching herself. Right. I should do this. Quote, she longs for silk underwear and is

wearing 10 cent gauze under shirts and washing them out herself. It's pretty hard times for a man that's down, but it's 10 times worse for a woman. Elizabeth wrote that in these hard times, the poor were slaves to masters of privilege. This is all in the ad. It's a long ad. It's a long ad. Yeah. Men were driven to crime and women to shame and brothels. Quote, these poor victims of our social and economic conditions are only seeking to escape from some uncongenial toil or from some legal bondage into which they have been forced by... What kind of gum is this for? Real long. Minty fresh. Oh, minty fresh for the woman who toils in the society's buckets. That's right. Okay. Which I've been forced by stress of circumstances and environment,

this young woman, therefore, in offering herself for sale is doing nothing but what hundreds of women are doing every day. Okay. She is very curious to know what may be the highest market value that is set upon an American slave of her qualifications by the American master of privilege. This must have gone over every man's head. Every man was like, well, I mean, how much are you fixing to make? Based on what I read. Yeah, pretty much almost. How much you want for to buy you, which is, by the way, a pretty cool idea. I like it. Of course, the ads are sensation. Quickly became the subject of news stories and gossip columns across the country. Sure. Elizabeth was a little bit dazed. She didn't realize it was going to become a national thing. Right. And

people be flipping out. Right. Many women wrote to her saying they wished they could do what she had done or to say they thought they were alone in feeling the way she did. Okay. But even though it was clearly a fake ad to point out the injustice of society, offers rolled in. Well, I like you. I like the way you're like, I'm a slave. But did you read all of it? I'm looking for a slave woman also. Yeah, no, I understand. I was kind of trying to point out the way that there's this bizarre hierarchy that is set. Now, when you say supple, yeah, I really, I really, like I fell, I fell into that word. Did you read all the ad? Or did you just sort of, because there's two P's and supple. And when I thought you wrote that, I thought that was like

a breast thing. You know what I mean? Right. You've been completely misled throughout all this, but then the P breast thing is really startling. So I'm just the P's made you think of breasts. Because he's I keep watching your lips. Right. That's where I'm. Well, I should, I wish there was a font for sarcasm, because I was really trying to sort of late on real thick. Huh? Yeah. Let's just go with I've already met someone. He paid a lot for me. I can outbid. No, he's really cool about it. So I'm going to stick with him. But thanks for coming. Can I buy him? Can I buy you from him? No, it's not. Nope. No. Not sure you know how slavery works. Yeah, I don't think you know how to start. Supple slave. Yes. All right. Well, boy, I'm actually upset

that I did settle down because you seem like a real catch. How do? Yeah. All right. Well, I'm going to climb out this window. Okay. And get away from you. All right. Not the first one. Yeah. Alrighty. I'll follow you. Like an empty edit moron. All right. That's where you shouldn't have ideas. So an older man said he had come up with a cure for hog cholera and was going to finally figured out how to get rid of cholera and hogs. So and then he was going to make a million dollars once the patent office okay is it and that she was just the woman who'd been looking. I'm looking for someone to come and live the paradise life and hog cures. She declined that one. Why? Well, maybe you didn't understand. I did. Hogs will be cholera free from now on. No,

I got it. I don't care. I don't care at all. I also figured out a way to make cows not poop. Okay. That's all the whole thing. It's a laser. Yeah. I mean, I shoot it into the cow's anus. Okay. So my point was kiss me my love women. I've met the one are not given a when you know, you know place to provide for themselves equally as men in the world. It wasn't easy. That's my point. Lot of hogs died. Yeah. In the testing. Okay. Okay. Love you, my sweet. Yeah. This was a good you should actually fuck pigs. Well, to be honest, okay. An injection similar to that. Don't do this. Don't do this. I'm not gonna lie. I will leave you heartbroken. Okay. But it took three hogs

for me to realize that having sex with them would not cure them of cholera. If anything, gave me a little bit of it. I love you, my princess. The best quote a young man who was recently blown all to pieces by an explosion and who is now not a good start. He was blown all to pieces. Your man who was recently blown all to pieces by an explosion and who is now comfortably ensconced in a plaster cast very gallantly offers me his love and fortune and what there is left of him. I said before I'm not looking for a husband but if I ever do take one, I want a whole one. Oh my God. Wait. Okay. So wait a man. She's great. A man who was blown to pieces was just basically paper machete back together. I guess this is the way after this award. Yeah.

So he got into some sort of gas explosion situation and they put, they maybe should keep enough of him that they could put it in a cast. Right. And so she was like, I would like. I'd rather a whole man. Again, I was being sarcastic but I'd rather a person. Yeah. A whole. Right. A sewn together one. If she's going to take it through the mail, how about one that's all pieces. Yeah. Yeah. Marriage proposals came up, made up the bulk of the letters she received. Others offered a room in their family homes, quote, to save her. Oh, God. Yeah. Right. She got one of her to be a dye museum freak. Well, from what we've learned on this show, that's the avenue to take. That is. That's a good way to make 10 cents and

dye. Another from Upton Sinclair. Okay. Who was also into Georgism. Okay. He understood exactly what she was saying with the ad and he sent her a check for an unknown amount and invited her to meet him in New York and see he might have a writing assignment for her. So he's like, oh, she's a good writer. Right. Okay. So he being a smart man, he read it and he knew what she was fucking saying. Yeah. She was like, oh, that's nice. She should be. She got there and he was like, and that's what attracted me. Anyway, put your hand here. Anyway. So Elizabeth got hired to write for a newspaper in 1906 and her aim was to highlight the subordinate position of women in society. Okay. Quote, we are not machines. Girls have minds, desires, hopes and ambitions.

What happened to the newspaper? There's something wrong with it. It's broken. The words are mixed up. I keep trying to shake the bullshit out, but it's still on the page. Okay. Honey, is this a prank paper? Yes, darling. She called John D. Rockefeller the slave owner of the country. Wow. So she's fucking knocking shit out of the park. Yes. And so far, highly accurate. Yeah. She said he owned 200,000 slaves for $500 a year each. She blamed the voters for giving the rich power. Quote, in a short time, I hope a very short time, many women will discover that they are all poor because Carnegie and Rockefeller maybe have more than they know what to do with. How is she polling against Biden?

In interviews, she described marriage as a quote, germ like a disease. That's, I mean, boy, I think I did find the one. Yeah. She said, she said nobody knew what love was and that marriage was not for her unless she could see her husband once every three days. She enjoyed her solitude too much. Well, the go with the plaster man. Yeah. He was the way to go. Go with pieces who've been machete together. Yeah. You can leave him downstairs. My darling. Yeah. My darling. For sure. Please. Or you can just pop out the cork and whatever oozes out. I'm leaking. I don't know how plaster works. I feel like there's a hole in the bottom. No, there's a corking hole. Yeah. No, it's pretty much, you're like a barrel of whiskey.

Right. Yeah. Elizabeth married four years later. Okay. But she took the unusual route again. She married a 54-year-old man, Albert Phillips, who was 10 years older. Okay. It was pretty out of the ordinary for a woman to marry in her 40s and weird for a guy to marry a woman who had openly said marriage was a disease. Sure. Sure. But they're very similar. In 1889, he had published a magazine called Climax. Whoa. Hello. It was, quote, devoted to the interests of a matrimonial bureau. Wait. I think it's saying it's supposed to be in the marriage bedroom. So it is a... It's supposed to tickle the fancy. Well, well, well. Climax, the magazine. It had photos of curvy women with exposed arms and knees. No, David, please. I have to stand up

before we leave here tonight. So you could see their... Look at the knees on that one. Human arms. Human arms coming out of a shirt. I knew she had arms. Good Lord. Look at those knees. Look at those knockers. Look at those ankles. Oh my God. Oh, those knees. He was arrested. He was arrested. And charges using the mail for fraudulent and misleading at. So they, you know, they had to get him on something because he was showing women's arms and shit. So Elizabeth was now giving lectures about feminism. She had her father's speaking ability. The press said she used, quote, women's graphic language. Okay. I couldn't find out what it was. Yeah. But you can imagine she was like, women should be able to have a job. Oh,

God. Oh, Jesus. What is she doing? Yeah. Around this time, board games were becoming very popular with middle class families. They had more leisure time and electricity allowed games to be played safely during long hours. Sure. Elizabeth still had her game idea. Okay. She published it through the economic game company, a company she was now a part owner of. Okay. The game had a path for players to follow in a circle around a board in one corner was a poor house and a public park. Another had a jail. Another had a symbolism to Henry George with the words, quote, labor upon mother earth produces wages. Okay. The game had streets and landmarks for sale. She made monopoly. If you landed on one spot, you had to, quote, go to jail.

Yeah. But the game had two sets of rules. There were the prosperity rules in which every player gained when someone bought a new property. So every time someone bought a property, everybody got a little bit of money because it's, you know, yeah, collective good. Yeah, collective good. This was the George's version. Or when the capitalist version. Well, when the players started with the least amount of money, doubled it, then everyone's a winner. Right. That's how you won. Right. This seems so foreign. The second set of rules were called the monopolist rules. Right. Players bought properties and collected rent from players who landed on their property. Whoever bankrupted everyone else was the winner. This was Elizabeth's

way of showing how bad capitalism was. Right. She thought the two versions would help people understand monopoly. They didn't. How about people understand monopolies and land ownership were bad. The game trickled out into the world without much of a splash. Right. So she, the monopoly we know today was her version of like, how bad is this? Basically. And we're like, it's perfect. We love it. Oh, that guy we can own. In 1909, Elizabeth wrote a paper titled, quote, a graphic description of hell by one who was actually in it. Wow. Jesus, she's got a real flair. It's maybe the greatest title ever. What is it again? A graphic description of hell by one who was actually in it. And people are like, what are you talking about? She's like, I'm a

stenographer. It's hell. She described the hardship she went through because she was self-sustaining. She wrote, quote, it is hell to have a superior education and you have to work for and obey the command of ignorance. AKA bosses fucking suck. Yeah. Is what that's called. Like she has working for fucking idiots. Being a woman forced so she can never into a position of subordination by idiots by idiots. So just based purely on gender. She can never she can never in a job advance above morons because she's a woman. Elizabeth invested in a new game called mock trial card game. Okay. In 1910, she sent the game to Parker Brothers who published it. In 1913, the landlord's game was published in Scotland. That's the name of her game. I didn't say it

before. Under the name of Brear Fox and Rabbit. Much better. Yeah. Much closer. Very Scottish. Yeah. Fuck. Because we're all Blair Foxes or the rabbit. Okay, sure. Anyway, what? The rules are the same. But if you went bankrupt, you could go to the nearest opportunity space where land was free and there was no rent and one could work to pay off debts. They really kind of refined it to get all the common good out of the game. They're trying to do common good. But then came America's fear of communism. Right. And Georgism with its idea of ideas of no land ownership became seen as un-American. Yeah, that's right. Interesting. The red scare. Although Karl Marx thought Georgism was quote utterly backward. Sure. Okay. Because he's like,

we can't just have some land free and then tax just take it away from people that fucking own it. Right. He was always the least funny to the Marx. He was not great, but they were a good for some. He saw it as an attempt to save capitalism. That's how he viewed Georgia. The red scare hit America in 1919 and radicals started being arrested to the public. There weren't wasn't much difference between Georgism and socialism and communism. Right. So Georgism starts to fade away. Still in 1923, Elizabeth filed to update her patent on the landlord's game. She revised some rules. She added Chicago based spaces to the board. She and Albert moved to DC. She no longer has much of a voice though, because right, Georgism is gone and that was her whole

champ. Right. Okay. There's the board. Oh, wow. But the landlord's game was sort of living on its own, right? It had come out years ago. And the game had become a hit with left wing intellectuals on college campuses, including Harvard and Columbia. A staff member of Congressman Fiorello LaGuardia, LaGuardia, sorry, played it often with an attorney who would go on to become the chairman of the ACLU. A professor was teaching the game to his students at Columbia. That professor was then invited to be one of Franklin Roosevelt's close advisors. Others like George Mitchell of New York City played it with friends and started making copies of the board for family members. And the game was spreading around with individual tweaks. A viral board game.

It's a viral board game. So all these people are taking her game and then making little tweaks to it and passing around. Someone else makes tweaks. But a lot of them are holding true to the idea that it is. It's still the same square. Yes. It's still the same basic idea of land and that stuff, monopoly. But like when you sit down and play a game and someone says, no, it's this rule. It's that rule. It's just getting tweaked. Right. Okay. George Mitchell was then invited to to help work on the New Deal in Washington, D.C. when he went with him. I love how she didn't. They're like, this guy knows how to play the game that I came up with. It was quiet down over there. Well, so he took the game with him and he played it over a dozen times with people who

created the New Deal. Wow. Now, these are all homemade boards. Right. So at this time, the board that she put out is gone and it's just people making boards. So no one actually knows she created it who's doing this. Okay. But it's all all copied from her original landlords game. These homemade boards did not come with instructions and it was very doubtful. Elizabeth was getting any credit at all. She probably had no idea was happening. Okay. The game is also very popular in frat houses at Williams College. Sure. Right. Of course. Different time. Safe to say a different time. I'm betting they like the monopoly part. They proud. That's probably what they did. Yeah. One frat member had stumbled across a homemade version of the game in 1927

and brought it to school. They called it the monopoly game. Right. As did many at this point. Okay. They taught others to play it. More homemade boards are created. It's all about screwing over your friends. It's about fucking everybody you know. You get everything. And then you own everything and everyone else fucking dies. And then you get your dicks. Whoa. Whoa. Sorry. Jimmy. Sorry. Jimmy. Get over here. Okay. Get over here. Oh, then the Great Depression came. One of the frat guys were like clearly monopolies the right way to go. Oh, yeah. Clearly frat guys had to drop one of the frat guys had to drop out of school goes back home to Indianapolis. And then he's there. He has no job and he starts to make monopoly games. His version of it and

hoping to sell it on a mass scale. His game used money, printed money. So he made fake money, which is what they did in the frat house and miniature houses. One day one of the frat guys came back from where he was and he had found like little steeples. And he was like we should use his houses in the monopoly game. And they came up with that. So I love how it's like Apple back in the day. Really. It's fucking crazy. Yeah. So he called up his he called this game finance because an attorney friend told him not to call it monopoly since there was an informal game already being played with that name. Oh, the her monopolies out there, which all these people are modifying. But that's her landlord's game is now monopoly. That's the basic. Yeah. So he's

like, don't do that version because everyone's calling it. Right. Just steal the concept and call it something different. Right. That's right. With the help of a friend who started printing them up. He soon started selling it. Sales are pretty good. In 1932, he hired a friend to sell it for him in and around reading Pennsylvania. Word of mouth was big. Okay, teacher in Indian apolis made a version and then took it to her new job in Atlantic City, which is a lot of Quakers live in Atlantic City. Sure. And she got a job at a Quaker funded school called the Atlantic City friend school. She had been told the name of the game was monopoly and her game had Midwestern names on the board. Okay. So she introduced it to other Quakers who made copies. Changing the

street names, colors are added, chance and community are added. The properties are grouped into threes. Prices of property values in Atlantic City were mimicked in the game. Right. That's right. Right. Poor black neighborhoods, Baltic and Mediterranean avenues, the kosher restaurants in Orange and Pacific New York Avenue where there were male sex workers and gay bars. The teacher had the teacher had long game nights packed with Quakers. So it's like all these Quakers are coming to play monopoly. No one wrote down the rules. They all knew how to play or they just told each other. Right. Okay. So then a Quaker couple comes from Philadelphia for a visit and they play the game and they think it's awesome. So someone makes them a copy of the

board. Okay. They take it home and then the wife invited another couple over to quote play monopoly. They said like grateful dead album. So these were the Todd's who made their own copy. Okay. And from there was introduced to the Daros, but the Daros are not Quakers. Okay. This is the first time outside the Quaker sort of group. Mr. Daros name was Charles. The Todd's made the Daros a copy of the board. Okay. And then the three couples would play together like every Friday and Saturday night. Just get together and play monopoly. Sure. This is what people were like people were bored game in the fuck out of it. I look, I get it. Charleston. I mean, it has to be so entertaining. Like considering what's going on. Yeah, there's nothing else to do.

I mean, you're reading or you're hanging out talking. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Better time. Unless you're not white. You're right. So he asked for written rules of the game from Mr. Todd. He said he wanted to introduce other people to the game. Sure. And so Todd wrote down the rules and gave it to Charles. And then Charles stopped talking to the Todd's. Oh boy. He's going. Charles is unemployed. Oh, here we go. I love how the game of greed is making people greedy. I should do screw people over. So he calls a monopoly. Well, he's unemployed. He has zero prospects for a job because it's the depression. Sure. Their youngest son got scarlet fever and then came out of a brain damage. So he needs and then they can't take care of him. So there's

a really super progressive good hospital that they can't afford or it's like put him in a fucking shackle place, right? Look at the health care system has been the same. This actually, this may have never happened if we had universal health care. Right. Well, we can't but we can't get it. We don't have enough money. But also breaking bad one to happen. So what's where's our trade? True. Right. True. Worth it? Worth it for sure. Worth it. Yeah. It's a great show. Yes. Yeah. It's really good. So he has his professional cartoonist friend and he asks him for a favor. We all have one of those. Yeah, we all got a buddy. He asks him for a favor, says he has a game. He wants to jazz it up and try to market it. So his friend comes over and they

start playing it. And as they play, the friend starts drawing things and fencing it up. Charles is a little aristocrat. That's right. So he adds all these illustrations and then Charles takes it out and starts trying to sell the game. It's so weird. The box reads monopoly. There's no trademark. Right. A local Philadelphia based department store, water makers soon began selling the game. The Georgism symbols and references to the landlord game are now completely gone. Unfucking believable. The changes made the game seem completely pro-capitalist. Yeah. Demand grows. Charles submits it to Milton Bradley and the Parker brothers who both turn it down. Then Charles gets it into FAO Schwartz catalog. The wife of a new guy at Parker Brothers

played the game and comes back to her husband and says, this game is fucking awesome. You got to buy this. Right. So Parker Brothers is in bad financial shape and they need something. So this guy goes to Philadelphia and he goes to Charles Darrow and he buys the game for $7,000 plus residuals. Game residuals. Game residuals. A fucking limit high off. It is Hollywood. Yeah. I mean, it's like. Yeah. It's a hit. Yeah. Okay. Takes off. Monopoly sweeps the country. Millions and profits. They're just fucking. They have a monopoly. So, oh, there's the landlord's game. There's one version of it. Oh, wow. I will come back to that. Yeah. So this is Darrow. He's a good guy. Yeah. Doesn't look like he's a little old. Yeah.

So they're just rolling in the money. The game saves Parker Brothers, the business. People had no money to go out because it's the depression. So they're staying home and playing with fake amounts of money and fake capital. Like they're playing capitalism because they can't go outside and play it. Yeah. No. No. It's escapism. Totally. Yeah. 100%. This is video games of the time. Still, a few people around the country had previous versions. So the official versions out there, but then there's still those ones that people are still making up. The bootleg version of Monopoly is still out there. Right. So a guy from Brooklyn wrote a letter to Parker Brothers, quote, do you idiots know how to play this game or are you trying to disrupt homes and

destroy families with your damn rules? He signed it the Iron Duke. Sweet mother of God. I didn't play this game forever. What the fuck is this, Parker Brothers? But he's called himself the Iron Duke? Yeah. He went strong. It's great. Is he a wrestler? I don't know. I hope so. Yeah. So Charles Darrow becomes rich and he says he's on his way to becoming a millionaire. They buy a farm. There's a lot of irony in this. Put their son into the progressive care facility. Sure. A reporter asked Charles how he'd come up with the game, quote. I stole it. It's just a freak. Yeah. Entirely unexpected, totally illogical. Parker Brothers had previously been sued over Tiddily Winks and Ping Pong. Well, Dave, say no more about the era. Tiddily Winks? The people

versus Winks. Yeah. Tiddily Winks was a crazy popular game in the 1880s. Oh God. Tiddily Winks. Yeah. So the company went around and tried to buy up all the U.S. rights from people that said they made it. What, the little rogue pockets of Winkers? The little Tiddily Winkers all over the Tiddily. Sure. And when they thought they had bought up all the rights, they started selling Tiddily Winks saying this is a Parker Brothers game. But then other people were like, this isn't a fucking Parker. I got one. My grandpa got one. My grandpa, yeah. Everybody's got Tiddily Winks. He came up with Tiddily Winks. How do you fucking own Tiddily Winks? Went to court. Other game companies went, took him to court, and they're like, yeah, it's public domain. Tiddily Winks is public domain.

What are you fucking doing? Okay. The exact same thing happened with Ping Pong. They were trying to call it Ping Pong. They're like, everyone's like, this is table tennis, dude. Everyone knows what the fuck this is. No, we invented it. It's Ping Pong. It's ours. You're like, no, everyone's got. Come on. Same thing. We got to pay off our Tiddily Wink lawyer. They tried to create a Ping Pong tournament to be like, see, it's ours. This is our thing. Right. It's totally different because it's a tournament. Yeah. So Parker Brothers wants to make sure that that doesn't happen in Monopoly. But they have a monopoly on Monopoly. That's right. And that they know the origin of the game and that they have it in writing from Clarence so they can track down everybody again

and lock it down. You mean they now need to go to find everybody who had a version basically and like get the... I think they're starting to get an idea. They're like, we just got to make sure that this guy actually came up with it. They want him to put in writing, but he came up with it. Okay. And he writes this big detailed history, which is just all bullshit. Right. And he called it quote, my brain idea and my child. But it's still been around for 30 years in a bunch of different circles. So then at the same time, another game publisher, like maybe they're at a game conference or something, whatever, he's talking to a VP of Parker Brothers. Okay. And he says quote, frankly, and I think without prejudice that the original trading game came out in 1902. So this

guy knows... Right. That it's bullshit. There was a game that came out. Right. Very similar to this in 1902. So the VP investigates and learns that Charles had commandeered the name Monopoly and that it had been called finance. Okay. So now we're back to the frat guy, right? Right. And finance had been on the market for a while. So naturally, Charles Darrow and Parker Brothers then filed for a patent on August 31st, 1935. Okay. So they're just... So they're ignoring that and they're just plowing ahead with a patent for their game that they have stolen. Yeah, that's correct. Okay. And they got it on December 31st, a shockingly and unheard of quick turnaround for the patent office. Completely unheard of. Is there anything nefarious? It's usually

like 18 months, like two years. Right. No one knows. Just awesome, awesome thing happened for them. Sure. Who knows how? Just an awesome thing. Right. Also, the patents for the landlord game were completely ignored by the patent office. Remember, she's got two patents for the landlord's game. Okay. Parker Brothers then purchased finance from the current makers, Nap Electric. Finance at this point was selling better than Monopoly, but the owner didn't want to know what he'd find out if he investigated the history. So basically, they came to him and told him what was up and they said they wanted to buy it. And then they put the little word is there like, you know, do you want to know where this came from? No. Right. Okay. Yeah. And then they found

a guy in Texas who was selling a similar game called inflation, but he had changed it. So it was anti-tax. Of course, there's fucking Texas. There ain't no taxes. That's about oil now. So they sell him to stop. He counters sews. And he says Monopoly's existed for years. So when he says that, they pay him to shut up and go away. Oh boy. Oh boy. These are the Parker Brothers? Because he's right. Yeah. They're a couple of little mobsters. When you get into the gaming world, you cannot believe how... The shadiness. At one point, I didn't put it in here because there's a book I'll tell you about at the end, but there's a fucking shooting because someone stole someone's game idea in Chicago in the 70s.

Like it's just fucking like a guy goes into a game, a game company and shoots people up because they're fucking stealing ideas left and right and doing this bullshit. You thought games were fun? Yeah, I thought it was all fun and games. How many people died for sorry? That's the way they got the name. That's right. But that's the game of life, Dave. Sometimes you're gonna be sorry. Sometimes you're gonna connect for... Boy, you are trouble. Shut up. And then Tiddly Winks. What's this? Who's that? That's Parker, George Parker. Oh, that's one of the Parker Brothers. Yeah, there were three. Three? Yeah, I think just three. So they go back and they give the guy money in Texas and he goes away. The Parker Brothers then approach two guys from

the frat house, two brothers who were in the main frat. Sure. Who had their own version of the game that they were making. We don't know what this one was called. They said they wouldn't make any trouble, but they're also not going to sell it. Okay. So then Parker Brothers found out people had stock in it and they bought the stock, so then they owned that company. Parker Brothers did. Yeah, the Frat Brothers. Right, okay. After all this, George Parker, so they think they got it all fucking wrapped up. Right. And then he goes to visit Elizabeth. Oh, here we go. What, McGee? It's great. She's gonna be like, uh, no. So much worse than that in November 1935. George says his company had come across an old copy of the landlords game and they wanted to buy

it, even though he didn't agree with it politically. Of course not. It's a good game. I don't agree with it at all, but it's a good game. I really would like to own this. She desperately wants to get Georgism out there. Like that's her whole fucking thing and she thinks this can do it. So she thinks they're going to buy her version and release. That's what he's telling him. Right, okay. And he offers to buy two other games she's made. So she's excited. She's three games to buy. Yeah. She's got a three game deal. Yeah, three game deal. Finally, finally, Georgism would reach a mass audience. She signs the deal and gets $500 and no residuals. Okay. It's probably not a good deal. She wrote George Parker a letter. She's very creative.

So she writes it as though she's writing it to the game, which she thought he would find amusing. Quote, I charge you do not swear from your high purpose and ultimate mission. Though orders have fought for your possession, I would not yield you to them utterly. It was not until the great game king, George S Parker did us the honor of seeking you out and offered you a broader opportunity than I could ever do that I would part with you. Okay. And Parker Brothers made it. They made the landlords game. They did. They sent her a prototype, which she was very excited about. That's this one. That's the one you saw. Oh, right. Okay. Right.

So it looks very different. So they've made it, but they've made it look very different than mentally. Right. Now it's all curvy and just very different. So she's very excited about it. Goes on sale. Okay. Zero publicity. Okay. And then fates and obscurity because they're not trying to sell it. Right. Well, and they also have monopoly. Yeah. So they're just trying to get her to shut up if they tried. Right. And no one wanted the game. Right. The other two games Parker Brothers purchased, same thing. Kingsman and Bargain Day both just vanished. She was then shocked to see monopoly on the market. And Charles Darrow claiming he had invented it. Right. She was upset not just for herself,

but for the idea, ideas of Henry George and that people playing monopoly had no idea that it was an anti-capitalist game. No, of course not. So Elizabeth reached out to reporters at the Washington Evening Star and the Washington Post. The Evening Star article had a picture of Elizabeth in front of a Parker Brothers monopoly board. She did not look happy. Right. The story said she invented a monopoly version, but her game quote did not get the popular hold it has today. It took Charles B. Darrow, a Philadelphia engineer who retrieved the game from the oblivion of the patent office and jested up a bit to get it going. What a great article. The post was pretty much the same. There's the article. That's like such a misleading headline.

Well, I'm betting that she came, she comes in with a story and then they reach out to Parker Brothers and Parker, but oh, she's right. She's sweet. But yeah, that's not, she's a woman. Right. So the post article is pretty much the same. So it kind of deflates her. Parker Brothers, though, realized they have a problem on their hands because she can't go to press. But after that attempt to alert the world, Elizabeth kind of fades from the picture. Albert dies in 1937. She still pushes her beliefs and became the headmaster of the Henry George School of Social Science, which is actually just her home that she runs a class at. Oh, shit. Boy. Okay. That's not great. Yeah, that wasn't great. So then one day,

the frat guy who brought the game back to Indianapolis and sold it to this Ellsman buddy, he's flipping through Time Magazine. And then he finds a story about Charles Darrow, inventor of monopoly. Right. So he writes a letter to the editor, which Time published, but then nothing else came up. Okay. And he's not the only one. All the Quakers in Atlantic City were saying the idea was stolen. And the teacher who originally brought it and her husband were being told to sue by people who knew them. But they said Quakers aren't supposed to go to the law, like it's not part of their religion. And so the Quaker community is upset by what happened, but they felt no one actually owned it. So no one

should sue. Well, someone does own it now. I mean, yeah, okay. It's clearly a public, it's a public domain. At that point, it's almost a public domain thing. It's just gone out into the world. Yes. But someone makes money off that. Sure. Right. Someone's making money off other people's ideas. Right. Many of the Quaker. I love how this game is all about greed. And it's just bringing out all the greed in people. It's many of the Quaker boys got lost over time. Charles Darrow stays in the press. So he's this big fucking star. Right. He's in magazines that you're like a board game guru. Yeah. He's in magazines. He's going on TV shows. Right. He's the man who invented Monopoly until the day he died on August 28th, 1967.

He was the first millionaire game designer in history. And it's off of Monopoly. And he didn't do it. Yes. And he didn't do it. Right. In 1973, San Francisco State University professor Ralph Ansbach created a game called Anti-Monopoly. He thought the game, he thought the game Monopoly created the impression that Monopoly Monopolies were good. I never gathered that by stomping out your competition. Wow. That is amazing. Yeah. Oh my God. It is Monopoly. He wanted to demonstrate how harmful Monopolies could be and how anti-trust laws work to curtail them. Sure. So he like thinks Monopoly is dangerous because people think Monopoly is. Yeah, because it is. Parker Brothers sued to shut down the game

in 1974. And Ralph realized if he could prove the game existed before the patent, the patent would be invalidated. Right. So after a lot of research, he found Elizabeth's name and her 1904 and 1924 patents for the landlords game. And then he found the frat guy who still had a finance game board. Okay. And he said they had all played an early version of the game and every person called them Monopoly. He agreed to testify in court. Ralph found more and more people who had played the game before Parker Brothers got the patent. So he's finding all these old people, the Quakers, he's fucking finding them all. He's finding those people that I named the Todd's and he's fucking finding them all. Some of them have the old boards.

And of course, Elizabeth patents are very similar to Monopoly. And he noticed her game seemed more like his game anti Monopoly than it did the Parker's brother version. Yeah. Which is the opposite. Yeah. There he is. Oh, boy, it looks like he's. So after two years, Parker Brothers offered to settle with anti Monopoly. Okay. Which means he's got something. Yes. There's no way a company is gonna give him fucking money. No, no. They offered him a position as an executive at Parker Brothers and $500,000. Oh, God. This is the problem. This is the problem with everything. The problem with everything is that you you have morals, you have conviction until there's enough money and you're completely

corrupted by it. Because I know this guy's going to take this job. Isn't that the problem with capitalism? Yeah. You can just buy people and they go, okay. Yes. Ralph past. Interesting. Because the Parker Brothers had someone on their hands who wanted to spread their political message just like the first fucking person who created an anti Monopoly game. Right. It's the same idea. Right. This is the idea is more important. But I hate the Parker Brothers. His lawyer called him insane and quit. Sure. The case went on for years. Parker Brothers admitted in court that Charles had not invented the game, but instead claimed they had bought up all the competition. Okay. That was business. That's what they said. That's how business works. Sure.

And Parker Brothers won. The judge was very Nixon judge. He was very I'm sure he had a little monocle and a top hat. Yes. Anti Monopoly was ordered to be destroyed. So he has to destroy all copies. All copies of the games he can get his hands on. Ralph has to destroy. Jesus. So Parker Brothers then decided to make their victory a show. And on July 5th, 1977, with reporters watching, they buried around 40,000 anti Monopoly games in a landfill in Minnesota. Oh, I mean, could this get worse? Ralph watched. He stood there and watched. He's now massively in debt because he's literally double mortgages, triple mortgages. All of his credit cards are maxed out because he's taking on a massive company. Yeah. And he's right.

Yes. And he's lost. Right. Well, because he went up against the Monopoly Monopoly. That's right. But he's not done. He appeals. Okay. All right. Three years later, he goes back to the landfill to find some of the games. What? He's going to go dig it up? He brings a friend, but asks reporters to come down. Okay. And then he starts searching with his buddy in a landfill for hours. It goes on. Okay. Six hours pass. The reporters like so. Yeah, they finally give up. We carved out like an hour for your retrieval. I can't find the game. I'm sorry. Okay. So they all leave and then he finds out later that night that they were at the wrong part of the landfill. The place where the

games were buried has been sold and the apartment buildings were now built on top. Great. Then Ralph loses the appeal. Okay. He's done a one more appeal and then that's it. Right. The court battle been going on for six years. Oh my God. Like I said, he's taken a third mortgage, credit cards are maxed, his marriage is barely holding together. My Gilbert board came. Finally, in the summer of 1982. He's just been so distracted. The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled against Parker Brothers. Nice. The trademark Monopoly is invalid. Okay. The original judge's findings were reversed. The big line from the ruling was quote, the court's reference to Charles Dara as the inventor or creator of the game is clearly erroneous. All Ralph's legal bills

now have to be paid by Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers appeals to the Supreme Court. Oh my God. The Supreme Court? Yeah. So game companies are flipping out all proctor and gamblers for all companies that have a trademark. Because this will set a precedent that you can undo everything. Right. Your game is not your game. Yeah. Your game is not your game. Even if you think it is. You can literally undo everything. Right. Because it's all fucking bullshit. Right. Right. If you can go buy up everything, what does it fucking mean? Yeah. So the Supreme Court passes. Okay. He won. Great. He could make anti-monopoly game the game again. And the story of the origin of Monopoly has now been told in court. You should make a game about the theft of Monopoly.

Oh, 100%. Had Ralph not taken on Parker Brothers to fight for his anti-monopoly case, had he not fought for six years, the truth of Elizabeth would have died. Right. Elizabeth McGee would have never been heard of. Right. Should have just gone into obscurity like Parker Brothers wanted. Yeah. No one would have ever known her name. Elizabeth died in relative obscurity in 1948. I couldn't even find an obituary. Her name was Elizabeth Phillips at that point, but you couldn't find anything. One of Elizabeth's last jobs had been at the U.S. Office of Education. She was a typist who talked to her coworkers a lot about how she had invented games. She also said she had, she taught a Georgism class out of her home. But the Georgian,

the George movement's gone at that point. Yeah. She watched the love of Monopoly, the game she invented. She showed how crazy evil capitalism was, go completely gullible and be the best-selling game. And there's no mention of what she created on her grave to this day. Oh, my God. Oh, God, what a great story about how the system will fuck you. Yeah. So it's a book that's really great that's called The Monopolis by Mary Pilon. Can we, who are the Parker Brothers are left? Can we go curb them? I mean, it's still, I believe it's still family owned and stuff. I don't think that's ever stopped. I don't think it's ever gone public. But yeah, it's fucking bullshit. All right. Anyway, well, everybody wins. Everybody wins, especially to shithead brothers.

A pleasure. Yeah.