Although Houdini hated the many imitators who cropped up all over the world to imitate the Challenge Escape Act that he invented he allowed his brother to do basically the same show. A fantastic sign of family loyality. Although he loved magic and his fellow magicians he was furious at those who copied him. He would challenge them, sue them and embarass them to protect his turf. Yet he loved his fellow magicians, left a large sum of money in his will for the Society of American Magicians and even had the crest of the Society on his huge place of burial. He was the president of the Society Americans for ten years until he died. He encouraged magicians all over the world to join the Society and was in many ways responsible for its world wide growth. In addition, everywhere he traveled he would seek out the graves of past well known magicians and pay for the upkeep and repair of the grave sites. He amassed the largest collection of memoribilia, books and posters about the history of theater in addition to magic ever amassed by an individual, and gave the priceless collection to the Library of Congress, so the history of magic would be preserved. His name lives on partly because of his tremendous gifts back to the society that embraced him. Collectors and magicians generally horde and hide their artifacts and sell them for profit, not so the great Houdini.