The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 457 - Charles Morse

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine businessman Charles MorseSourcesTour DatesRedbubble Merch

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American History podcast for each week. I, Dave Anthony, read a story. Read a story from American history to a guy. Well his name is and is your friend named Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. It is considered presumptuous for people to say I'm your friend. The actual... We've established that we're friends so. Well there's been establishment of a few ways our relationship works. What like we're nemesis? We're nemesis? Is that where this is going again? No, we're not nemesis. You're my nemesis. It's a one-way thing. And I'd like you? That's how this is gonna work? Yes. It's a really shitty situation for me. Do you

understand that? Yeah, yeah. No, no, at a hundred percent. This isn't great for whatever you have going on. It's just dog shit, but... Hey! And I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. The thing about Americans is they always seem to think that everything should be great and lovely and like and like the world is supposed to be a happy place. Whereas you know other cultures, Asian cultures, like it's bad a lot of the time and then it's good part of the time and it's just a thing. So what you need to come to grips with is that it's bad. What just got said? In philosophy. Barely. Does it matter? Not if... No, it doesn't. It doesn't

matter. Fine. You can continue to treat me as a hostile co-host, if you must. Yes! And called it quote, his jam patch. Jam patch? I'm the fucking hippo guy. Okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tiggly Podcast. Okay. This is like an ad on a five-part coefficient. Now hit him with a puppy. You both present sick arguments. No sleep, no hippo. That's like no hippo. Actually, part of it. Hi, Gary. No. I see you've done, my friend. No! No! Rona! Rona, in the car! Let's thank everybody who came or stayed for our live virtual show last Thursday. That was a lot of fun, and we'll do it again. So, hope everybody liked it, and we'll be back.

And then, just because it didn't make it into the Scott Walker episode, I do want to say a very special thank you to my buddy who helped me with tons of the research and had the idea to do one on Foxconn. My buddy Frank Martinez, who I've known since fifth grade, maybe even earlier, but he helped me write this Scott Walker thing, so I just wanted to make sure his name is out there. I cut that out, too. Yeah. Yeah, you made a lot of... Yeah. You had a cocaine post session. That was a tough one. Yeah, that was a tough one. October 21st, 1856. Okay. Nice. Charles Morse was born in Bath, Maine. Okay. So, it was a water birth. Yeah, he was born in a bath in Maine. His father, Benjamin, was in the towing business. Yeah, you got a big one, and you got a little one,

and the rest of these little piggies, they're fairly useless. I'm a toer. I've been a toer for a long time. I'm in the tow business, and my father was in the tow business, but my son, if he wants to be in the tow business, he can be in the tow business. He can be a toer as well, but I want him to do his own thing. I would love to have him be a podiatrist, take advantage of the whole foot, because the heel has some beautiful pieces. The heel has some lovely pieces, but let me walk you through it. You got your pinky toe. That's your baby. Then you got this toe here next to it, the ring toe, little bigger. Then you got your swearing toe. That's if you're having an altercation with a gentleman and you want to say, get out of here, you jackoff. You give him that toe. Then you got

your pointer toe. That's when you need to gesture with something. And then you got your big toe, which is used for kicking and hitchhiking. I'm a toer. So just to start out, I think you don't know what towing is. Are you talking to me or you're talking to your coals? No, talking to, well, a little bit of both. All right, I'll stay as this person. Now, what's your beef? Well, towing in the early 1800s. Yeah, is where you look at a certain set of toes. Most Americans move themselves in goods by water instead of the roads. Which can be very painful on a foot. A span. What do you think takes the brunt of all that movement and travel? Your toes, right up here. No, that's okay. Thank you. And a lot of your hitchhiker toes getting

the brunt of that. Hitchhiker toes. Yeah, your thumb toes, big toes, papa toes, as I call them, daddy toe, daddy toe. Yeah, I'm in charge of the others. I got a cool. I can't believe I'm saying this. I have to go. Yeah, no, you shouldn't be in charge of anything. I'm out of here. So Benjamin had what was close to a monopoly towing on the Kennebec River. Charles, as a young, young lad, had a case of infantile paralysis, also polio. Oh, okay. So at least it's connected to an actual thing. I could see them just leaving it as that. Well, he's got it. Unfortunately, a kid's not going to be much of a walker. Yeah, there he goes. The legs don't work no more. That's just how it works up here.

My medical recommendation, start work on another. So he recovered a lot of help from his mom and his family, but he would always for the rest of his life have a slight limp. Okay. Charles was brought into the towing business when he was old enough. He worked as a bookkeeper, sort of. So what he did was hired as a bookkeeper and he was paid a salary of I saw between $800 and $1,500. And then he and then he just brought it another guy and hired him to do the work for $300 while he went to college. That's why that needs I wish I that needs to be done more often. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like just go get hired is like at a restaurant and then be like, awesome. All right, Charles, I'm in charge of you at this restaurant and

you'll make, you know, and just take like a cut. Just make it a cut thing. Well, you get a job as a waiter and then you go and hire another guy to be the waiter and you just take a couple bucks off the top. How much you make tonight? I made pretty good money. Why do I tip you? Because you're not working for them. You're working for me. Give me my cut. I mean, that's basically what we work is. That's, that's basically what like most businesses are. I mean, that's like all of Silicon Valley is entertainment is based on that a lot too. Yeah. You have people you've just kept around. Oh, yeah. Where's mine? I had a guy that

offered to have me write a movie. I knew his quote. His quote was $750,000 a film. And he called me up to offer. He was like, look, I have to write two movies. I don't have a lot of time. And these are big movies. These are, these were huge movies. And he goes, can you write one and I'll buy you a Prius? And I was like, that's a really shitty deal. That's industry standard, Dave. Most deals now are for a car. Yeah, trade. That's not, yeah. So, so Charles sees a lot of opportunity in, in what's happening. So basically ships would bring coal to Maine and they would leave empty. And Charles is like, well, those ships can be

filled up with ice to drop back in the Southern places when they return, which would mean a lot of money because that's in the summertime, they would get ice from Maine. Well, sorry. Sorry. May I, may I ask you a question? Yes. Having, I would say, a rough familiarity with the product of ice. Part of the summertime issue with ice is the keeping the ice consistency issue. Oh, you mean in the form of ice and not water? Yes. Yes. How do you, how do you not return with a ship of black coal water and be like, aren't you glad I brought it back? That's, that's very easy to explain. Well, Maine doesn't have a summer and boats on the inside don't have summer. But this ice is going to make that, the trip, no problem. So, Maine was a huge

exporter of ice. They would have ice houses on river banks. And then during winter, men would go out and cut the ice off the top of the river and put it in the ice house and store it in there until the summer. And in summer, they'd ship it out and sell it because demand was high. But basically it stayed cold because, for one thing, insulated a bit. But the ice kept the ice frozen. I mean, okay, I'll, I'll assume you're dealing in facts. And so I'll walk away from this argument. These are strange facts. Yes, it is. It's, it's, it's strange. I get it. I get it. I get the theory, for sure. I get the theory. But I'm glad to hear that it works. It's not getting as hot as it is, isn't like New York, right? No, no, for sure. It's Maine. But still, you're coming back. I mean,

surely in Transpo, Transpo, you're losing a bit. But these are enormous pieces of ice, so. Yeah, they're enormous pieces of ice. And also, you know, you're talking about 18, the 1870s. Yes. So temperatures are not going up yet because the, you know, the kicking carbon into the, so it's a colder time. To be fair, I don't think we need to be sort of inserting our liberal bias into this podcast. I think we can, I think it's safe to say that there's, if Dave, if there is such a thing as global warming, why come there snow last year? Thank you. Okay, that's fair. That's a good point. And I don't have an answer for it. So basically Maine had been shipping ice south for years. So, so Charles, he's in college and he sees this while he's in college, this, you know,

place to make money. So he starts negotiating deals that would, that bring ice that was cut in, in Maine from the rivers to New York City and then, and then south like Philadelphia, Baltimore. The ships, so ships would come up with coal or lumber when they were done. So it created a situation where the ships are full all the time going back and forth. Yes, smart. With product. He's not the first dude to ever think of shipping ice from Maine, obviously, like I said, but he's got a bigger plan. He wants to corner the entire ice market. He wants to take over ice. Dave, Dave, am I about to, to meet the ice man? Pretty much. It's the ice. In spring of 1884, Charlie married Hattie Hussie. Hello,

it's me. The rumors are true. It's really not a great. Yeah, I mean, honestly, like, yeah. I'm imagining, I'm imagining they probably said it's something they called it like Hoosie, just to avoid. You do not talk to my woman like that. No, my last name's Hussie. Oh, then good to meet you also. She was the daughter, a granddaughter, but businesses. So she, so they went on, they would have three sons and a daughter. Hussie. Charles moves to Boston by the time he graduates, he had from all the wheeling and dealing. He had about a hundred thousand saved up. So a pretty good college job, pretty good college job. A hundred thousand our money. Yes. Yes. No, there was no hundred thousand their money. What? So he's rolling his, because he's just,

he's just making bank because of his idea of putting ice on the empty ship. It's a great idea. It's just amazing how people are like, well, he's a genius. You're like, no, he just saw that there were empty ships and was like, we should. I never would have thought, I never would have thought it out myself. But he came up with it because he saw that the ships was empty. Do you see? And then he decided to put ice upon them. Sometimes one man's genius is another man's just everyone else's an idiot. Well, I should never thought of it. The only thing I ever thought that they could do is put a boy on it for the ride back. But it's a ticket that's $20,000. What kind of, so the boy is paying $20,000? The boy's family or somebody is. Yes.

You have him go on a journey. Well, he's just going to New York. Well, he's a boy. So, you know, you could tell him it was anywhere. You could tell him, I mean, it could tell, but, but either way, that was my version of it. Ice makes a lot more sense. But I had, I was the first one who said we should put one boy and say that he's a lucky boy and put him on it. How old's the boy? How old's the boy? Boys between four to nine. And then what, why is he going? What's he doing when he gets there? He's taking a one person joy ride to the big city on a ship. Plus all the coal you could eat. Why not just put him on a horse carriage and drive him down? Because it's just main. So you

could do it and really. Well, that's, that everybody's doing that. This kid gets a one drip ticket all the way to the big city on a ship. And he's just him. It's no parents or anything. And it's $20,000. That's again, they didn't go for it, but an ice is better. But my idea would work pretty good if you didn't have ice. And are you trying to corner the whole boy market? I'm working on the boy water market is where I'm kind of focused. Uh huh. Yeah, no, it's a, I can't believe this didn't take off, but you'd be surprised. A lot of people thought it was ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe that. That's a good boy. Let me give you my card. It's someone else's card, but I wrote my name on it.

Okay. There you go. It'll work. Great. Yeah. You got nice hands, huh? You got really nice hands. Don't touch my stop touching my hands. Who do you get your nails done? Please stop touching my hands. May I suck a finger to establish that we have entered a venture together? That's not it. That's not a thing. All right. Take care. Take care. Mmm. Yum, yum, yum. So Charles used his knowledge that he had from being a young boy growing up in the towing business and now the ice business to create a monopoly. So first, because he could ship larger amounts than anyone else in schooners and barges on the ocean, he started consolidating the marine ice market. So he's taken over the ocean ice market. And he took the ice to New

York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and to reach those markets, now that he's got control of the shipping, right? So now everyone who has an ice house has to go through Charles. Okay. So yeah. He's also issuing stock and using money to expand. So he's just constantly buying more boats and taking over the ocean shipping market. So soon, all the ice houses are dependent on him or indebted to him. So we basically have ice Bezos. It's ice Bezos. Yeah. Okay. Nice. And that's also very fun to visualize. It looks a lot like Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Batman and Robin with George Clooney. That's correct. That's exact. That's that's the picture. Just so people know what to picture. That's right. As far as his competitors in New York City, when the ice crop

was weak in New York, but strong in Maine, he sold them ice. And now they became indebted to him. So people who distribute ice, when they can't get their ice, you know, their usual ice route, they have to go through him because he has most of the ice. Right. And then he uses that to make them get in the hole to him. So he's using all these angles to just fuck people. Ice leverage. Right. Okay. Wow. Ice leverage. Right. Okay. And what he would do is say, give me stock in return because they can't pay because they don't have any money because they're smart. So ownership. So further expanding the ice empire. So he's gaining control of all the distributors and people in New York. So doing this, he starts to take over the ice business

in other cities as well. In 1896, a heat wave hit New York. It's over 90 degree heat, 90 percent humidity, zero wind. By the way, that now is New York summer. I know. That is just like the established climate of a New York regular summer. Yeah. Yeah. So this goes on for 10 straight days. Now, at the time, tenements are just packed with people. Just everyone's just fucking shoved in there. Right. Six people to a room. There's no running water, no circulating air at all. Good. So everyone. Good smells. Lovely. The smells. If you could just take away one beautiful thing from this tenement world, it's the smells. Yep. So they start to seek relief outside, right? They just can't be inside this little hot box. Right. Six other people.

So Ed Cohn, who's an historian, said, quote, it was so densely packed that most people couldn't even live inside the tenement itself. The streets in front of tenements and the rooftops and the firescapes were filled with people because there is no room for everybody to fit inside. Our future. So it's illegal to sleep in city parks at this time. And of course now. So that forced people to sleep where their tenements were. But it's too hot to sleep in the tenement. So people start sleeping on roofs and fire escapes. Sure. Sure. Great. Right. Now, when you're sleeping on a fire escape, and maybe you've had a little bit to drink or maybe you're just a heavy sleeper and then you roll over, well,

sometimes you roll over and off the building. Yes. Or fire escape. Yes. There is a down. I mean, it's not called fire stairs. Like it's there for an emergency. That's right. So people are just, because it's so hot out, the result is that people are rolling off of buildings and dying. Jesus Christ. God. There's tons of kids like breaking bones because they're falling off like it's just a fucking it's a disaster. It's it's a it's the it's the unforeseen result of a heat wave, which is people rolling off of buildings and dying. Right. Okay. Death finds a way. Some people went down to sleep on the piers, but a lot of people didn't know how to sleep. So they

would roll off the pier and drown. There's a lot of rolling. Yeah. And the roll drown is a very I would like I would I would think there would be a lot more roll swimming, but the roll like I'm going to continue to sleep underwater. I don't know back then how many people got swimming lessons. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, by the way, I mean, I'm sure and I'm sure that there I'm sure it's a lot harder than it sounds to do the wake and swim. So 1500 people died during the 10 day heat wave. Jesus Christ. It's a lot, which is a lot of fucking people. Now also a lot of them were just the workers, mostly dudes in their 20s who were working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. They were just dying. Yeah. And just to and like and that sounds crazy. And then you remember

how many people died from COVID a day in this country and you go, yeah. Yeah, but that's not real. Right. Thank you. You always got to know how to snap me back into reality. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of heat's not really there. We'll go into that later. Great. So the city really needed ice. That's obvious. So price prices were already going through the roof in New York City because of his monopoly. Right. And then a police commissioner named Teddy Roosevelt began putting pressure on the mayor to buy ice to hand out to the public. And the city went forward and prices just went through the roof. And Charles made a killing. Okay. And Teddy Roosevelt was like, well, I've learned nothing. No, he actually went into the tenements and places and watched how they were

using the ice. And it was one of the formative things of his life. The next year, 1897, Charles founded the Consolidated Ice Company. So he had basically just merged all of the different parts of the business, you know, supply, demand, everything he's got. Just one major ice man. That same year, his wife, Hattie, died from tuberculosis. Okay. Their four kids were then raised by his sister, Jeannie, and Charles moved to New York City. By kids. Yeah, it's just, it was, I mean, as far as being like, and there's still so many pieces of shit, men in the country slash world, obviously. But it seemed like it was just a little bit easier to just be like, in that way, just the hugest piece of shit. Like, all right, well, one woman's dead. The next one will take

him. I'm off to the big city. Bye, ma'am. I'm your sister. Take care now. Ta ta. Good luck with those. What's their faces? I'm out of here. See ya. Love you. Well, no, not really. Good luck. I can't remember if I have three or four. Either way, whichever ones you find, just make them good. Remember this one salad fork. See y'all later. So the city is in a panic to avoid another nightmare heat wave when it comes. Sure. And ice was seen as the way to do it. So Charles then focused on working the New York political system. When what are the people doing with the ice to cool themselves down? I mean, are they just like physically? There's a lot of eating of ice chips, but also you can just keep an area cool,

like you can just cool down your own temperature with they also use it for food and other things. Okay. All right. Right. Just what I would imagine. Yeah. It's ice. Yes. Thank you so much. I think what they're doing is they're just making cool drinks. Well, that's me done. Someone get my overcoat. I'm now boiling. So Charles gave the Tammany Hall boss and the mayor stock in his company. Okay. Now he actually loaned the mayor the money to buy the stock at half its value. The mayor is like, I'm a good business person. I know business. So now the two most powerful men in New York have stock in Charles ice company. Have an interesting, right? Suddenly, suddenly things start going really well for the company

in New York. Really? If you can imagine that. What was that due to? I don't know. They couldn't figure it out. Just the economy. Okay. The price of ice was fixed. Right now. So that made it hard for competitors to do business. So basically, they did it at a point that it would drive other companies out of business and make him money. There's a term for this. I don't remember what it is. Begins with the hand. Just fucking. I think it's assholes. Unappel. Yeah. Oh. By 1900, ice could not be unloaded at a New York wharf unless it was an American ice company on one of Charles ships or barges. Wow. Wow. Yep. Cornered the ice market. Yeah. At least it's harmless. It's just something that can keep people alive. So it's not a big deal.

It's such a natural. I mean, it's just like, you know, like I possess rain. I'm the rain man, not from the movie. But also, but then when you think about that too, it's like, you know, we have the same thing going on with water right now in so many, many ways. Like, it's not as distinct, but it's the same. It's the same. It's similar. Try ownership over natural resources. Yeah. Nestle just taking tons of water because that net that I'm sure at some point you'll get into him. But that motherfucker, that guy is like, oh, yes, I'm out of a villain sketchbook. Let's do this. Yeah. It's really crazy. Reformers were furious that he was using politicians to fix the price of ice and shippers and other ice producers said Charles was making

them sell at horribly low prices to stay competitive. So in 1900, another hot summer came. It had been a decent winner for ice harvesting in Maine. But New York prices, of course, shot up. Now the poor people were the ones who were affected. Obviously the rich could handle it. But the poor couldn't. So they couldn't afford ice. And the result was they were dying from spoiled food all summer long. Jesus Christ. Because they, because they were, you know, they would get ice and keep food on it. But now they can't even afford what they've always been doing. Right. And they can't afford to buy new food. It's a good country. It's a good system. So people were furious after this. And they were mad at what was now called the ice trust.

Charles planned to have an ice monopoly backfired. Two newspapers wrote that he had received special privileges from Tammany Hall and that the mayor and the Tammany boss had large ownership stakes in the ice trust. And then hearings were held and the Fed started looking at the ice business. And the price dropped. But it didn't matter. Charles was already worth $12 million. Good. Good. Good. Good. So the only way that you can stop other people from doing what he did would be to take all of the $12 million. Right. Yes. But that's not what ever happens in our. No. No. And never what never has happened. It's like, yeah, if you if you're a banker and you retire, you know, with $220 million, we're like, oh, that bastard. Well, on to the next caper.

In the spring of 1901, Charles married Clements Dodge. She was from Atlanta. She had one time been his landlady. And now that I couldn't figure out more on. But one time she was his landlady and now she had gotten a divorce. So they hooked up. I can see it. Clements at one time had been described as quote, as still and transparent as a glass of water. What? So wait, he's now going to bang ice? I think. This is my monopoly of ice. And this is my wife, Ice Cube. Hello. Yeah, I think she's just really boring and simple. I think that's what that means. What's a terrible. It's not a great. You know, she's as interesting as a glass of water.

Is there ice in the water? No, no, good. Listen to me. She's as interesting as a glass as a clear glass of water. Okay. So that's interesting shouldn't be in the sense. Hey, you're telling me, Jack. The New York mayor was the best man at the wedding. They lived on Fifth Avenue on an area known as Millionaires Row, a block from Vanderbilt. Is it amazing how easy it is to corrupt humans? It's it's I think that really is like the major problem is it's not that it's not that like our politicians are the worst. It's that like we're the worst. And some of us just get into politics. And that would be and that it is and it's it's flawless. I mean, politicians never go down. They just don't. Even when you're reading about like what will happen to Trump when he leaves,

if he leaves, there's nothing when he leaves nothing. And the way that they're the way that they're sort of greasing those wheels for the rationales, why to like, it's amazing that if you've been on Twitter for the last four years, every lunatic liberal has him in like handcuffs, orange jumpsuit, the whole family behind bars. And it's always just been like, who who's going to do this? Someone else in the club is going to do this. That's not how they treat fellow club members. No, they don't at all. So any business that Charles was involved in was now being written up and investigated by the papers. Good. So while Charles was buying up ice companies, he'd been issuing stock valued at much more than it was worth. This is known as capitalization

or watering the stock. At the same time, he was buying steamships at a crazy rate. So he's, he's jacking up the price of stocks or making the stock seem like they're worth more than they are, giving himself a profit and then taking that money and buying steamship lines. So he's now he's buying. So he is, he's very quickly, I mean, I soon enough, he'll be taking over exporting. Basically, right. That would be the five year plan. So during one period, he was buying a steamship, a steamship line every two weeks. He's trying to now monopolize the freight business. Yes. Ice Bezos. So he would buy the controlling interest in a bank and then he would borrow money from the bank. Okay. And using that money, he would buy stock in a steamship company.

So he doesn't actually, right. So he doesn't actually have the money. He's just taking over banks that have money using that money to, so it's just a fucking game. He's just shifting money around, right? It's an enormous racket. Oh, it's amazing. So this meant he would be in control of the company, but the bank would hold the stock as collateral for the loan. He would also, right. Okay. He would also issue stock for much more than the value of the company and banks run a different regulatory authority. So national banks would be overseen by someone else than state banks or local banks, right? So there's not one big authority overseen banks, so they're not seeing this pattern. Right. Okay. So what you're saying is this is a time when

corruption in the banking industry was easy. If you can imagine a time in which banks were allowed to do whatever they want, completely destroy lives, completely destroy the economy. And have no repercussions. Essentially take away, steal millions of homes, and then no one does anything. If you can imagine that sort of thing, that's kind of what this is like. Okay. Can I just have one second to sort of try to visualize this era you speak of just because it's so... Oh, long, long time ago. Please let me just lock in because it's so foreign. It's goo. I'm closing my eyes and it is a goofy looking time. Okay, keep going. Yeah. Yeah. So over a short period of time, Charles owned, controlled, or was the director of over a

dozen New York city banks. His banks bought more stock in companies he owned. He would write demand notes to get money for his own business from banks. Bank clerks were signing off to have weekly $1,000 loans given to him, which then deposited in his accounts. Then he'd buy more stock in his companies. He consolidated all of the marine, the main steamship lines first. In five years, his steamship companies were in control of almost all traffic on the East Coast and Gulf Coast from Galveston, Texas to Maine. Wow. So not all bank robbers wear pantyhose. I mean, you know, he just worked the system. Yes. Some of them come in the front door, have an office. Okay. That's, by the way, quite a geographical distance to own the shipping

industry. So he hit it off with the widow of someone he did business with. And he decided he wanted out of his marriage to Clements. He wanted to pour the water out. So he hired a lawyer to find Clements' ex-husband who was in Texas. Oh, no. This is, okay. This is, isn't it amazing that no matter what level you get to, no matter how much money you have, how much access you still are like, my wife will be mad. So the lawyer, he sends a lawyer down there, right? So the lawyer talked to the ex-husband and talked him into claiming he was never served with divorce papers from Clements. This man has too much money. So that means that he's never been married to her. Well, it means that she's married twice. So she has to now get

her current marriage annulled. Right. This is just so much more complicated than just, I don't think this is right. Then I think he would lose, I don't know, I don't know why he didn't do it that way. But obviously, for the time period, it's hard to get divorced, but also financially and everything else. So the ex-husband does this. The case goes to court. It's all very public. The whole thing goes on for a year. The New York prosecutor didn't believe the story and thought the ex-husband was lying. So Charles' lawyer then tries to keep the ex-husband away from the prosecutor. Okay. Well, okay. Because at this point, the lawyer's involved and now he's worried that if the ex-husband talks, he's going to go down for perjury. Right. Who doesn't

want to be a business with Charles? And Charles would go down for conspiracy. Yeah, it's a fucking disaster. Yeah. So Charles reaches out to his uncle, who is the ship captain in Bathman. And he gets his uncle to come down and swear under oath that he had been the one to pay $60,000 to the lawyer to end Charles' marriage. So Charles fucks over the lawyer and gets himself out of it and makes it, the uncle take all the blame. I'm sure he gave the uncle tons more money. Right. And the reason the uncle said he did it because all his nieces and nephews, Charles' kids hated Clemens. Okay. It's quite, I mean, that's quite, it's quite a tangled web. So the ex-husband is convicted of perjury. The lawyer is disbarred and he flees to Europe.

And Charles is like, yay. And after all that, the widow wanted nothing to do with Charles. Oh, God. So he did all that. And she's like, I'm not into it. Yeah. So he, but he's Scott free. Like he doesn't, he gets no, sure. So after that, after all this stuff, Charles and Clemens sailed to Paris together for a second honeymoon. Wait, what? What? What? I realize after going through all this and ruining all these lives that you do complete me. Now come on, you vanilla, nothing. Come on, you plain wafer. Come with me. In 1907, Charles. So the lawyer was like, thanks, Charles. Glad. Glad nothing changed. Glad to be in Paris. I live in Paris. It's hard to get a job here for me. In 1907, Charles bought

a steamship line that had been controlled by J.P. Morgan. He paid 10 million for it. Morgan apparently didn't want to sell, but he didn't have a choice because of Charles Monopoly. I mean, finally some good news. I know, right? Just to hear that J.P. Morgan Chase was like, God damn it, I can't afford it. Charles, Charles then formed the consultant. He already did that. Pretty much anyone wanted to who wanted to ship anything between Maine and New Orleans at this point is paying Morse. His plan is just completely coming together, but this isn't the ice business. There weren't heat waves to jack up the price. It's pretty much just standard shipping. And it's all about demand. The ice houses he had squeezed and he'd

bought for cheap, but he paid a lot of money for the shipping business. But as long as stock prices go up, it all works great. In 1907, Charles and businessman Augustus Heinz teamed up. Heinz had made his fortune in copper mining and was known as a risk taker. Now he had a monopoly on copper mines under his company, Anaconda Copper. I mean, just say it out loud. Well, Anaconda squeezed people to death. It's just so crazy how just... And it's a snake. I mean, it works on a lot of levels. I was going to call it just fucking dickhead copper, but I went with Anaconda Copper. Strangulation copper seemed to rub people the wrong way. How about blood dry copper?

Copper. Nothing but a husk left copper? Seeing the light fade from your eyes copper. It's all over for you. I've won. It's the last thing you'll hear copper. So he had a smaller mining company called United Copper and he also, he really understood the mining laws in Montana. He knew how to work them. Basically, any miner who's claim had a vein of copper that he could follow and continued under a neighbor's property, well, he could keep mining that. So once you found a vein on your property, if you followed it... Oh God. It's like Monsanto. Yeah. So Heinz became a nightmare for people who had mines close to all of this, close to his, I mean.

Right. All of the other miners finally hit their limit with him because he just kept digging into their areas and they got together and they bought Heinz out. Okay. Wow. So he moves to New York with $12 million. Lesson learned, surely, for him. And then he began taking control of banks, just like Charles. Good. Between them, they had control of six national banks, ten state banks, five trust companies, and four insurance companies. Jesus Christ. Then they bought a huge amount of the company Heinz helped build United Copper. So they used the banks to get intelligence and learn what was going on and found out that investors were shorting the United Copper stock. Okay. Do you know what shorting

is? Yeah. That's where... I mean, I know it's basically you inflate the stock and then buy it. So, well, one or two. So basically, you borrow shares. The thing I don't never understood is borrowing. So you borrow shares from someone in a company and you sell it at a price. So you sell it at $40. So you buy it. So you're going to pay the person back. So you buy it at a certain amount. You sell it, say it like $40, and you're expecting it to go down. And then when it drops down, like to $10, well, then you buy it back and you give those shares back to the person you borrowed it from. But now you have a pile of money. Right. You have your own stake. Right. Okay. Okay. So Charles and Heinz thought they had so much copyrighted stock that the short sellers

would not be able to buy the stock when it hit the low price and replace what they had borrowed. So they thought that they had the short guys... Full proof. Right. So Morrison, sorry, Charles and Heinz would be able to pick any price they wanted, they figured, and then just make tons of money from these guys. Right. Okay. So it's all going according to plan through the 1907 summer. United Copper shares keep increasing. Other people start to realize what's happening around New York and they start buying shares too because they realize someone's playing a game on the guys trying to short it. So the price just keeps going up. Other people are jumping in. That makes the price go higher.

It hits $60. Some short sellers are like, fuck this, they sell it, they take the loss, and that's, and they're out. Right. Many did not, though. And then in October, the stock prices start to go down. And then suddenly a huge block of United Copper stocks come on the market. So this is Rockefeller and some other guys, because it turns out when Heinz was making his monopoly in Montana, he had fucked over Rockefeller and Rockefeller's associates. Wow. So now you're just like, I want this billionaire to help this. It's just billionaires fighting. So these are the standard oil guys and they start using friendly reporters to push the story out there that Charles and Heinz attempt to corner the market

in United Copper shares that failed. So now they're trying to send it public. Right. Stock's going down, trying to make it public to really fucking ruin them. Right. Now, before this, the stock market was already having trouble because of the 1906 SF earthquake, like it still hadn't really recovered. So as the shares plummeted, Charles Banks and Heinz Banks start to look a little problematic. So people who kept their money in the banks, they have a run on the banks. So all Charles Banks and Heinz Bank are having a run on them. So Charles is able to use his own money to keep the banks under his control afloat for a little bit, but oh boy, not long enough, they start failing. So as they're failing, everyone realizes what's happening. The banks are trying to make it seem

like they're solvent. So they have to get rid of Charles. So that he's forced out as director at banks and trusts. And then the bankers reach out to J.P. Morgan for help. Oh no. Oh fuck. So Charles had obviously pissed off J.P. Morgan when he forced him to sell his shipping business. Yeah. And so J.P. Morgan is like, yeah, no. I'm good. Really? He wants to see Charles go down hard. Yeah, of course. Okay. Yeah. Right. Obviously, this is a rich guy's game, not caring about all the people who have their money in the banks. Yeah. That's what I'm like. It makes you feel like society is seven people. So trusts are even worse than banks. Banks have to have a certain amount of actual money in the bank. Trust. Trust have to have a, it's like 25% versus like 5%. So trust.

Christ. Yeah. So the name trust is very misleading. Put your money in the fucked. Yeah. Do you trust us? Well, that's why it's a trust. Give us the cash. So the Nicaragua trust had a president who was an associate of Charles. Okay. So word got out that this guy was close to Charles and that caused a run on the trust. Oh God. No, I don't know him very well. Please. So the New York clearinghouse then starts loaning money to some of the banks being hit hard. Okay. But not all the banks were members of the clearinghouse and no trusts were, so they weren't getting money. So some banks are being helped out by this large organization and then other ones just aren't. Okay. Nicaragua trust is one of those that isn't.

They have to suspend all operations. They have to shut down the bank to stop the run. Okay. Okay. Now, once the bank stops operation, all fucking hell breaks loose. A full on panic hits New York. Runs on banks are now happening all over. So it's not, it's just spread from Charles banks to all the banks. Right. And this is when JP Morgan is like, Oh, I'm going to help. Because now, you know, now his, his mono a mono issue is spreading to his own wallet and everybody else's like, right. So now he's a good guy. Now he's a good guy. But if he had done it from the beginning, yeah. But it's too late. There's no stopping the run. It went on for two weeks. The stock exchange fell 50%. Panic spread across the country causing state and local banks

all across the country to declare bankruptcy. It's a full blown economic crisis. Production across the country fell 11%. Unemployment up 8%. Immigration dropped. Charles steamship lines went into receivership. So essentially, one, two guys were trying to play a game on a stock and crash the entire economy. With ease, it seems. With ease, with ease. After an investigation, Charles was indicted. Now, the day he was indicted, he was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a ship headed to Europe. A newspaper wrote that he quote, I'm going to try. Absquitalated, which means he fucking took off. I guess that was a word that was commonly used back then.

He absquitalated. Absquitalated. He absquitalated. What? You know, he didn't want to pay his bill for the room. So looks like he absquitalated. No, what? He absquitalated. Are you talking about he just left? That's what I said. Yes. By the way, I'm I'm going to take off a little later myself. I've got you. I'll see you absquitalated. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Thank you. Now, Charles came back and after a three week, very public trial, he was convicted and he got a

15 year sentence. He was 53 years old. Man. Can you imagine someone getting, I mean, and that was the last time we prosecuted someone for a financial crime, right? Yeah, I think so. So on November 6, 1908, he's convicted and he's handcuffed and walked from the courthouse to the tombs through a massive crowd of people who were just screaming and jeering out of the hole. Why don't we get this anymore? Why are we not given this anymore? Why do we not? I mean, it's our we've you've seen it portrayed in so many different films where, you know, they're they're the the evil doers brought through the crowd. You get to throw, you know, tomatoes and water and whatever on them. Why don't we get why don't we have that?

Why don't we get that anymore? It would just be so gratifying. And yeah, exactly. Just the general public catharsis of a moment like that. Yeah, like if that happened after 2008, we would be in. I mean, not even if even if it was just they were brought to trial, like then at least you would feel like there was a system that was watching instead of just being like, no, you're all fine. No, you guys made profits. You're good. No, it's what it really is, is a lot of people bought homes that they couldn't afford. Those are the dummies. That's right. So after a while, he was sent to a federal penitentiary in Atlanta. Charles Manny's statement to the press said he was a victim of quote, a government gone mad as it looked for scapegoat

for the financial panic. I mean, yeah. Uh huh. Quote says the man who tried to control ice, you know, the government's out of control. I don't know what sort of delusion they're buying into, but yeah, it's crazy. You can't get that powerful. They just think they know too much. Yes. Yes. I wanted to own all ice in retrospect, a little goofy. Sure. Quote, I'm going to Atlanta to begin penal servitude under the most brutal sentence ever pronounced against a citizen in a civilized country. Oh, good Lord. This guy is just, I mean, truly like a tweet. I mean, yeah, rich people who get any sort of slap on the wrist turn into the most gigantic fucking babies on earth. Oh, yeah. While in Atlanta, he talked the

warden into letting him send a message to a business associate in New York. It was coded. He told his associates to short a gas company. They did. And he ended up making $2,000 in profit. He offered to split it with the warden, but the warden was like, yeah, no. Hey, you realize you're in jail right now for this, right? The story somehow made its way to a newspaper editor who just happened to be friends with Charles. The newspaper printed a story about the warden now punishing Charles by not giving him bed or enough food. So he's trying to he's trying to publicly do it so the warden has to treat him better. Wow. In prison, Charles became friends with some famous mobsters because they played on

the same softball team. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. One of them, Sicilian blackhand leader Ignacio Lupo, happened to have a cellmate named Charles Ponzi. Oh, God. Hey, I got an idea. He wasn't Ponzi yet. He was just a guy in prison. My name is Ponzi. It means nothing right now. And then he meets and then he meets Charles Morse, who is just cornered the market on ice and shipping and then tried to and tried to deal with copper. And he learns from him. Ponzi learns from Charles Morse. Can you imagine that you are so corrupted that in a moment of your life, you meet someone and there it's like a scheme is going to be forever named after you because of one meeting. You're going to be famous for being a prick. So Charles the whole time is working to

get his sentence reversed. Friends are getting thousands of people to sign petitions to pardon him. And they would basically say, well, he was convicted of doing what all businessmen do, which you can't. It's kind of hard to argue with. Right. It truly, I mean, it is and that is what that's I mean, that's what our system does too, right? It rarely prosecutes. But when it does, it's because there's no other option and it's to save and secure the rest of the system. And if you if you fuck over other rich people, then that's right. That's a crime. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. So Clements tried to get politicians to pressure President Taft and the attorney general. City officials in Bath, Maine passed resolutions calling for a pardon. So

by the way, Taft Taft would never go to Bath. He gets caught. It's too big. Even the prosecutor came out and said Charles sentence was too harsh, as did Taft, Secretary of War. But Taft doesn't care. He's not doing it. Good. In 1911, Charles hired lawyers, Thomas Felder and Harry Daugherty to get him released. Now, Daugherty is connected to Taft and Charles said he would pay the attorneys $50,000 if they could get him out. Okay. So Daugherty works the health angle and Charles' health is rapidly declining. Prison doctors confirmed Charles had Breit's disease, which is failing kidneys. And then Charles upped the offer to Daugherty and Felder and said he'd give them $100,000 if he got a pardon. It's amazing how cheap he is even with his own life.

Like, it poisons every particle. So Taft starts having doctors monitor Charles in prison and the doctors report back to Taft that Charles would die in a few weeks in prison or he would live six months if released. So Taft signs the papers to commute him on January 18, 1912 for his quote, incurable and progressive illness. Okay. So once being capitalism, right? That's right. So once out, Charles jumps right back into building up his fortune. He buys the Hudson Navigation Company. And then World War I breaks out any new shipbuilding would be a money maker. So he, you know, just changes things around a little bit with the company and begins building ships for the US Shipping Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation. He's leasing steam ships to

the Navy for troop transports. He gets over $40 million in US government contracts. Someone's feeling better. And I like how the government's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, the thing with the, yeah, you're fine. Yeah. Okay. Well, it looks like you're doing great. Can we buy some ships? So then the war ends and contracts are canceled. And on top of that, the government is real slow and paying people like Charles. So Charles sues the government and then created new stock issuing corporations that consolidated or split his existing company. So he's doing all these games with his companies again, right? And then one day he hid it from reporters and he got on a ship that was going to Germany where he would quote, take waters out of spa. So this is he's

going to heal, right? Okay, he's going to try to fix the Breitz disease. Right. And he turns a few months later, he's just completely healthy. Turns out he didn't have Breitz disease. He had been eating soap in prison to make it appear like he had kidney failure. Oh my God, that I mean, imagine the level of I mean, you have to be psychotic. Like to get out like to want to leave prison is totally understanding. But to need to leave to go make more money enough to eat soap. I mean, and by the way, it says a lot for the prison doctors. Well, he's still got the freshest breath in the joint, but his kidneys aren't looking great at all. Who are you talking about? Bubbles? Oh, that's just what we call him on account every time he burps or talks, bubbles come out

of it. So he in Bath, they still love him and he gets a hero's welcome. Now Taft is pissed, but he's not president. He calls Charles quote the liveliest corpse I ever saw. Now President Harding's administration decides to prosecute Charles for war profiteering, because he was selling to other he was selling to other people besides the U.S. Can you imagine what a time I would be so weird? I mean, just like to see. Oh, but that's very, that's very rare for them to war profiteers do not get prosecuted. This is just an exceptional case. Right. But even to see, I guess to see a functioning government sounds so foreign, but it's not. It's not. It's a personal prosecution because

war profiteers get away with it back then. And that's how a lot of Brooks Brothers, all these companies of war profiteers from the past, they still exist today. They're just going after him because of what he's done in the past. But even, even that is, do you want to hear? No, do you want to hear why? Why? The attorney general is Harry Doherty. Oh my God. So it is all vendetta based. The guy who had worked to get Charles out of prison is now the attorney general eight years later. And it turns out, Charles never paid Doherty the 50,000. He said he would pay him for getting him out of prison.

It's so Trumpy. It's, it's like, it is. It's just, it's, yeah. I mean, you just, yeah. I mean, I guess that would be the lesson, right? You can fuck over as many people as you want, but not too many wealthy ones. That's right. So Doherty wanted to pursue it, but he was too closely aligned. He wanted to pursue putting him back in prison for the health stuff, but he is too closely aligned with the, the Breitz disease stuff to do anything. And now he knows he can put Charles in jail for something else. Okay. So he wants, he just wants to get back at him. Right. So Charles is indicted in May of 1920 for selling a shipping board for selling a shipping board vessel to a foreign country in wartime, but that case is dismissed. So more charges come.

A lot for financial war stuff. So Charles decides this is a good time to take a vacation to Europe and he goes to France. And then the US tells France to return him immediately. And Charles explains that he was traveling under a different name because quote, I was not traveling under an assumed name. The clerk just misspelled it. And I just needed to consult with my doctor in Italy. And I had no idea that my presence would be required for a civil proceeding. So he's just, he's really throwing as much as he can against the wall. Well, my name was spelled wrong. And my doctor's here. And you don't need me for that. And my wife. And I like wine. And I got you guys this cool paperweight. In January 1920, Charles Ponzi formed the security exchange company.

Just sounds so funny. Ponzi. This is a security company. Sure it is Ponzi. He promised a huge profit 50% in 45 days or 100% in 90 days, but he's just paying old investors with the new investors money. Yes. Part of the scam. Part of the scam. But it's the first time people like, well, there's no nothing wrong here. What could he possibly be doing? I wouldn't put a thing like that on old Ponzi's plate. He's a trustworthy individual. Part of the scam was to buy a controlling interest in a bank, which we know who did that. The scheme led to banks failing. It ended up being about 196 million in losses in today's money, but the name Ponzi scheme was born. Dardi's enemies in DC found out he was the one who got Charles pardoned eight years ago.

Obviously not a good look for the attorney general. His enemies attack him for it, so the case really loses steam. He backs off for a lot. And then President Harding got caught up in all these other scandals and Charles and his sons had also been prosecuted and they were all found not guilty of all the charges. But Charles did have to forfeit $11 million to the government in a civil suit, so he did lose his fucking money. He was then charged with mail fraud, but that just kind of petered out. In August of 1926, Clements had a stroke and died. And soon after Charles had a stroke, his sons found him confused and unable to speak clearly. He was declared mentally incompetent and Charles lived in his home in Bath, Maine

from 1926 until January 12th, 1933, when he died of pneumonia at 77. When he died as a state was worth $9,000. In his later years before he got sick, he had worn a top hat and had a white mustache. Two years after his death, the chance and community chess cards appeared in Monopoly, the character had a top hat and a white. He's the monopoly guy. I think he is. Some people think he is. There's no confirmation, but he looked like him. The Federal Reserve Act was passed in 1913 due to Charles Morse's actions. It established the system of Federal Reserve banks that are designed to prevent the banking system from collapsing as it did in the panic of 1907. But, of course, obviously, recently we had a little issue.

What was that? Do you want to get into that? No, I don't remember. That's crazy. God damn. The sources on this are the panic of 1907 and the main man who caused it on the New England Historical Society website and Whispering Pines, Charles Morse's second act, and Denowment and Opening Act, Charles Morse, Ice King, Prince of Financiers, and Steveship. Magnet on the Daily Sun of Bowdoin site. It's just crazy because our system is so fucked and flawed and so transparently so at this point that it is just a joke. It's just interesting to hear about a government that, or people even, that when this was new and fresh, not just a bug, not a feature. Because now it is just completely

part of it and you have people in Congress who make $250,000 a year who are worth over $100 million and that's just fine. Boy, that's crazy though. And a real who's who. You've got a real lineup there. Isn't it crazy? It's like your Dick Tracy villains. Yeah. Good times, man. Yeah. No, for sure. And it's cool. It's nice to be able to like, like to still recognize JP Borrigan's name. Like to be like, yeah. That guy. I know him from today's ruin. Yeah. I mean, he could have saved all those banks and stopped it and said, the entire economy crashed and poverty leads to people dying. Like you're killing people with poverty. So when you crash the economy because you were being a petty little child, well,

people die. I mean, that's the thing that people never put together. Also, I think that's the thing with sanctions. Like when people hear sanctions, I think those are just like such a, it's like a nebulous term in a way, but sanctions are really, I mean, it's killing poor people, is what sanctions. It's killing poor people and especially older people and children. Yeah. You're killing. Yeah. You're killing people who don't have much sanctions. That's what, that's what it means when the United States hits someone with sanctions. That's essentially what's going on. But I also think like it would just be, it's just, I mean, I don't think people know enough about how, like the banks are terrible on so many levels, but like a bank like Chase is so

terrible or Wells Fargo, like they are so bad and what they, and the, what they represent in our system is actually a way for you to take the modicum of power that you have back from those fucking places when, you know, when you use a credit union or something like that, you know, to get. Yeah. That's right. Everyone should take their money out of banks and put them in credit unions. Absolutely. Yes. Now you may go. Wow. Yeah. You don't ever order me around. Go, boy. All right. All right. Well, I care about you.