The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game by Mary Pilon

Author:Mary Pilon
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2015-02-16T14:00:00+00:00

ANSPACH CONNECTS THE DOTS

“All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon.”

—VOLTAIRE

As the Anti-Monopoly trial gained attention in the mid-1970s, Parker Brothers commented publicly, albeit briefly, on the case. Robert Daggett, who continued to represent the company, told reporters that he could prove that Ralph had chosen the name Anti-Monopoly to capitalize on Monopoly’s trademark, because sales of Ralph’s game when it was called Bust-the-Trust had gone nowhere. With his comment, Daggett played into the idea that Ralph was a crackpot opportunist, a loony left-wing professor looking to make money off of an American icon.

Ralph was too busy trying to track down the early monopoly players to take much notice of his opponents’ remarks. The testimonies he had obtained were helpful, but questions remained. For the moment, all he really had was a hodgepodge of elderly people remembering long-ago days spent over handmade game boards. What he needed was a linear narrative of Monopoly’s inception. The hunt continued.

In the meantime, depositions of the early monopoly players had to be taken—and taken carefully. Ralph told potential witnesses that he wanted to learn about Monopoly’s origins, but avoided saying that the makers of Monopoly were trying to put him out of business. Even the mention of Anti-Monopoly could put him at risk—he could be charged with witness tampering, in which case the witness’s testimony would be thrown out.

Taking the depositions of the older Quaker players was not without awkward moments. Both sets of lawyers needed to be in attendance, meaning that the legal rivals had to travel and spend significant amounts of time together against their respective wills. Usually, that meant Ralph, John Droeger, Parker Brothers lawyer Ollie Howes, and a court reporter whom none of them had met before piling into a car together, even as they were conspiring about how to destroy each other in court. The sequence of events for setting up a deposition usually included Ralph making a preliminary phone call, then making a scouting trip to see if someone would make a good witness, then he and the lawyers traveling together to take the sworn deposition.

Ruth Raiford had put Ralph in touch with her old Quaker friend Cyril Harvey, a retired teacher. Cyril’s wife, Ruth, had passed away some time before. Cyril agreed to be deposed, and in 1975, forty years after the boisterous monopoly nights in his home in Atlantic City, he and his daughter, Dottie, sat down with Ralph, Droeger, Howes, and a court reporter in Haddonfield, New Jersey.

In an early question to Cyril Harvey, Droeger described the game in question as a “real estate trading game,” knowing that if he asked about Monopoly by name, it could be considered a leading question. Immediately, Howes jumped in to ask Harvey if he understood what “a real estate trading game” meant.

“Yes, I guess that’s right,” Harvey said. “Oh, that’s right. He had to ask the question that way.”

“Why did he have to ask the question that way?” Howes asked.

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