On November 5, 1929, the stock market shut down, in fear of another Black Tuesday—like the one that hit the market the previous Tuesday (October 29). 

When the New York Exchange opened again, the next day, the Dow dropped 25.55 points (-10%), from 257.68 to 232.13.

National Elections Held Today

1781: John Hanson was elected the first "President of the United States in Congress assembled."  This makes for a great trivia question: "Who was the first U.S. President?"  John Hanson!

1872: Ulysses S. Grant was re-elected President, despite his many scandals and inefficiencies.  More noteworthy perhaps, Susan B Anthony was fined $100 for trying to vote for General Grant.

1912: Woodrow Wilson, a Princeton professor and Democrat, beat Progressive Teddy Roosevelt and incumbent William Taft (Republican), the only time two former presidents lost an election.

1940: Franklin Roosevelt (D) won an unprecedented third term, beating Wendell Willkie (R).

1946: Future President John F. Kennedy (D-Mass) was first elected to Congress, at age 29.

1968: Richard Nixon (R) beat Democratic VP Hubert Humphrey and Alabama's reactionary firebrand governor, George C. Wallace, in a very narrow victory, 43.6% to 42.9% to 13.6% for Wallace.  The electoral college vote was a stronger Nixon victory, 302 to 191 (to 45 for Wallace).

1974: The Democrats gained a 2:1 majority in the House, gaining 43 seats, to reach a 291 to 144 majority.  The ratio was nearly as high in the Senate, 61-37, with two independents.  On the state level, the Democrats won four more governorships, for a total of 36.  (By comparison, after the 1998 election, there were 31 Republican governors, 17 Democrats and two independents.) The Dow Jones index reached its nadir of 577.6 within a month of this Democratic landslide in 1974.

1996: Democrat Bill Clinton was re-elected President, beating Ross Perot and Bob Dole.

Business Birthday: Cars Patented

On November 5, 1895, George Seldon received a patent for the automobile.  After 16 years of delay, United States Patent No. 549,160 was finally issued to Selden for a machine he originally termed a "road-locomotive."  Later, it was called a "road engine," which he promoted as "light in weight, easy to control and possessed of sufficient power to overcome any ordinary incline."

By 1900, Selden's designs were far behind others in the field, but he still held a monopoly on the concept of combining an internal combustion engine with a carriage.  Although he never made autos, every other automaker had to pay Selden's company a large percentage of their profits for the right to construct a car.  Imagine what that patent would be worth today, or how it would have inhibited the mass production of cars lat century.  Henry Ford to the rescue!

In 1903, the Ford Motor Company, which had refused to pay royalties to Selden, was sued for infringement on the patent.  This began a celebrated case, ending in 1909, when a New York court upheld Selden's patent.  Ford appealed the decision, and in 1911 the New York Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Selden, with a saving exception: the patent was held to be restricted to his particular (outdated) design.  So, in 1911, every important automaker was unshackled, to make models different from Selden's patent. 

Since 1911, car makers never paid Selden another dime, and cars proliferated.

Monopoly is Born

Speaking of monopolies, Parker Brothers released the board game Monopoly, in the midst of the Great Depression, on November 5, 1935.  Monopoly was a descendant of a board game patented in 1904 by Lizzie J. Magie, a Quaker from Virginia. Her invention, which she called the Landlord Game, was designed to promote her belief in Henry George['s single tax theory, on land alone.

A close examination of the game reflects its anti-capitalist bias, rife in 1904 under Ted Roosevelt and the trust-busters.  The game has taught millions of children that landlords can corner a block of properties, in order to build more homes and hotels, and gouge renters.  The lesson is the same for the railroads—own all four lines and you can charge more. Travelers are victims, with no choice.  The game is zero-sum: There is one winner, and all the rest go broke.

This anti-capitalist game was invented and sold in our two most anti-capitalist eras, under Teddy Roosevelt (in office 1901-1909) and his young cousin Franklin (1933-1945). They ruled America for 20 of the first 45 years of the 20th Century, railing against the "malefactors of great wealth."

Muckraker's Birthday

Speaking of anti-capitalistic rhetoric, two of its leading muckrakers were born on this date:

1855: Eugene Debs, Labor Party activist and politician.

1857: Ida Tarbell, muck-raking author who loved to tar & feather John D. Rockefeller in print.

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