Chapter VIII The Hand of the Banker Tracing a Sordid Scroll

In 1942, a young father of 32, volunteered for naval duty in World War II, and served until V-J Day in 1945, serving the last 18 months of the War in the thick of Japan's, Kamikaze type of warfare, having his ship hit by a suicide plane, then watching the crew turn the hose on, washing the blood and bits of the Jap from the shattered deck. He rose from raw recruit to rank of Lieutenant Commander. He had spent the previous seven years in government service in Washington. He reached home in October 1945. He spent a few days in Marshall with his wife and daughter. He had no property, no established business, no credit, and little money. He did not want to go back to Washington, although he had been offered $6,000 a year job, if he would return. He had promised himself while hourly facing mutilation on the Pacific, that if he returned from this carnage, he would build the dream of his boyhood and youth, a print shop, patterned on the Roycrofters of East Aurora N.Y., and that he would build near the University of Texas. So he came to Austin to look the possibilities over. In 1932, a man in his 40's who had made a start in the oil game in Ranger oil boom, went to East Texas field. He was worth about $100,000. He installed a small refinery. He was one of the lucky few. He survived the efforts of the major oil companies, aided and abetted by the Governor of Texas, the Texas Rangers, the Attorney General of Texas, the Comptroller of Texas, the Oil and Gas Commission of Texas, the city banks of Texas, the banks of Cleveland, San Francisco St. Louis, Chicago and New York, every little bribed constable of Texas, the National Guard (officered by employees of the majors) of Texas, District Courts of Texas, legions of smart lawyers in Texas, in Washington and in New York — to kill the small oil operators