SIDE 1

Sweeney: This is the 2nd session of the interviews with W. Bruce Shafer of Norfolk. The first questions are in regard to his candidacy for Congress in the early 1930s. Mr. Shafer, would you care to recall your candidacy for Congress, the people that you ran against and the outcome of the election?

Shafer: I had been partners with Norman Hamilton, who was in Congress. All of my friends here in Norfolk got behind Hamilton to put him into Congress. Colgate Darden, who was in Congress at the time, voted against the soldier bonus. He flew in from California one time to vote to kill the bonus when it was up. I was only interested in one thing. I never did care much about politics, except for the moral side of it. Those boys, who fought the war quickly and got $1/day while the waterboys got $1/hour, were owed this. I thought it was just a debt that we owed them. The Congressmen who helped me put the bonus over, Wright Patman from Texas, Albert Thomas from Oklahoma, O'Nalley from Wisconsin, and Mrs. Jenke (sp) from Indiana, signed letters to the president to put me on the veterans appeals board. Times had changed. I had more money than I had brains when I started, and now that the Depression was on, I let them carry on this campaign. The Virginia manager of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and also the Disabled Veterans went to them and got them to write these letters to put me on the veterans appeals board. Hamilton said, "Bruce, if you stay out of this fight, I'll run myself (for Congress) and advertise the bonus. I'll see that you get on the veterans appeals board. You're not going to get on it with Dunn because he's against the bonus." I told him that I was tired of politics anyway. Messing with the bonus for a long time cost me money and I got nothing out of it. So, I said all right. He won the election and went to Washington. I had

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2,100 people who belonged to my political freedom movement, which I organized to keep down the bonds against the city. The Associated Press called my house when he won and wanted my photograph. The White House said that I was going to be the next one appointed. I was out of town, so my wife carried my picture to them. I didn't see any thing come of it, so I went to see Mr. Hamilton at his office in Portsmouth. He owned a newspaper over there, and he was affiliated with the Norfolk paper. They were financing him at the time. I had known Mr. Hamilton since I was a kid. I had a relative who used to live in his house as a great friend of his wife. I told him that they said I was going to be appointed, but I hadn't been appointed. At first, he said that there hadn't been any appointments. But I said, "Oh yes--a lame duck from Florida has been appointed." He said, "You haven't met Jim Farley yet." I asked if Jim Farley had to OK it and then decided to go up to Washington and see him (Hamilton). That was Saturday and on Monday morning, I was sitting there with my feet up on the desk, waiting for him. He didn't want me to talk to anyone. I saw Mrs. Jenke and she asked why I hadn't gotten on the appeals board. "You've got enough signatures to become president of the United States. Seventy of us Congressmen signed those papers," she said, Hamilton told me not to talk to her -- "you can't talk to women," he said. He made me go eat with him. Tom O'Malley from Wisconsin was in there. Tom said, "Hey, what are you doing in Washington? Are you going to start another bonus?" I said, "No--I'm up here about that veterans appeals board job." Then he said, "Haven't you gotten that job yet? By-golly, we signed those papers over a year ago!" Hamilton told me, "Don't talk to that fellow; he's an Irishman. Irishmen all stick together, and they will put some Irishman in the job instead of you." I hung around with him for about 2 or 3 days. He wouldn't let me out of his sight because he was afraid that I'd go talk to other people and find out too much. I found out enough to know that he was double-crossing me. I decided to run against him next time. Colgate Darden will beat the devil out of him or me, but one of us will. It won't be Hamilton. I went down to the broadcasting station and paid them $1,000 in advance for some time on the air every night. Before I left Washington, I went around to see Roosevelt's secretary, Steve Early. I was a good friend of his and he had been using me in his veteran stuff. I asked him if Hamilton was running on a platform, 100% for Roosevelt. I was a Roosevelt man. He

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said, "No--he's double-crossed us on every bill that's come up." I said, "Alright--I'm going to run against him, and I want you to talk to Roosevelt about it. If I don't hear from you in 10 days to not file, I'm going to run for Congress against him. Whether I'll get elected or not, I don't know, but either I will win or Darden will win. Hamilton will never win with us split." So I ran, and they started all kinds of lies about me. One story said that Colgate Darden had given me $17,000 and a Chevrolet car. Darden, who married Dupont's daughter, had a barrel of money. Hamilton said that he knew all about it and was there when it (the money) was transferred.

Sweeney: Was the allegation that he gave you this money to spend in the campaign?

Shafer: I denied it and tried to get Colgate to deny it, but he was too political to deny it. He knew that it was hurting me and he was scared of me. He knew that Hamilton wasn't going to win. He thought all the veterans would stick with me. They were sticking with me up the point that it got going. A new lie was started every night. I denied them, but people don't believe anything a man says in politics. When we were in real estate, Hamilton used to tell me, "Boy, you are funny; you believe people. Don't believe anything a man tells you in politics because it's assumed that politics is crooked. You'll never get anywhere that way." I said that I didn't want anything to do with politics; I'd make my living in another business. On Election Day, I started to go around to the polls. I went to about four polls and at each one I went to, all the workers who had been working for me had Hamilton's stuff. They came to me and said that I did them dirty by accepting $17,000 and not paying them anything to work. They verified this by Hamilton and switched over to him. They said that he had plenty of money. He was supposed to have gotten $25,000 for double-crossing Roosevelt on the electric proposition. They were going to build a power plant in Portsmouth. Hamilton was the secret representative for the VEP in Portsmouth. He introduced me to the president one night at a meeting. I asked the president, "Who can I see if I want to do the Power Company a favor some time?" He said, " Norman Hamilton--he's the man in the 2nd district," Yet, Norman Hamilton was knocking those people in the paper all the time. When the election came off, we had a meeting in Ocean View. It was the biggest political meeting ever held in Norfolk, up to that time. The whole park was filled with thousands of people, and they had a loudspeaker. Hamilton talked first, I talked next, and Darden was last. Darden

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had paid them the most money, When it came time for me to speak, they would short-circuit the wire. I'd say one or two words then they'd slap the wire together. I grabbed that loudspeaker and said, "Hold on now, horse--you can't throw me! I'm going to stay here until you hook that thing up right!" I knew that somebody was messing with that wire. The crowd took my side and raised the devil. They shut it off about three or four times on me. Colgate Darden said, after the election, that he thought I was going to win 2-1. He thought I was going to win because I had a thousand people around me that night. I told him that those people shook my hand and said, "I wish I could stick with you, but you don't have any money. You can't win." Colgate had a barrel of money with the DuPont family behind him, and Hamilton got the $25,000 for double-crossing Roosevelt. That's the reason they crowded around me. That was an election I'll never forget. It showed that money is powerful, and you must get to the public with your information. When it was over, the VFW boys jumped on Hamilton, wanting to know why he double-crossed me. They knew all the time what was going on with the bonus. Hamilton was tired of being under the obligation of owning the paper. He told me that if I could sell it, go ahead. He wanted $3/4 million for it. My lawyer, a man named Zimmerman, was from Louisville, Kentucky. He was crazy about the bonus. He was a preacher's son and a big lawyer out of Kentucky. All I had to do was pay his expenses and he'd go do anything he could for me. He knew all the Louisville newsmen, and the man who owned the Louisville paper was a friend of his. This man said, "Zimmy, I want to get out of this daggone rat-race here in Washington; it's terrible up here." He wanted to buy a weekly newspaper and would put up $3/4 million to $1/2 million. That thing popped in my head right away--to sell this man the paper. I came back to Hamilton and told him that I thought I had it sold. I had been told that Hamilton was tricky and to not trust him, but I was young and had known him so long. Well, I decided to get it in writing before I did it. I asked for the option for $250,000 in legal form. His face turned red, he got hot, and he balled me out! He said, "selling my paper to Harry Byrd!" I said, "I am not," Then he said, "You were up in Washington last week." I said, "That's alright--Harry Byrd isn't the only man in Washington." He and Harry Byrd had been fighting all their lives,

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Harry Byrd had a paper up in Winchester, Virginia. He had a brother, Admiral Byrd, who went to the South Pole. He used to draw a pension for being lame. Hamilton would write a story, once a year, in his paper that accused Byrd of getting a pension when the only time he ever hurt his foot was on a parade ground in Annapolis. That kept Byrd hot all the time. They were mad about politics anyway. Hamilton would never sign that option. Don't you know he sold it a few years later for $1 million? I always said that it cost me $7,000 to put Hamilton in Congress and $7,000 to put him out. But, of course, $7,000 would have never put him out if it hadn't been for Colgate Darden spending $50,000. The dollar bill sways people, and today, it's the same thing.

Sweeney: Do you think the number of votes you got defeated him?

Shafer: Yes--it was just enough to defeat him. Hamilton never spoke to me after that. I saw I was defeated, so I came home and went to bed, I always do that. When you get worried or get your temper up, the best thing to do is go to bed and sleep for a couple of hours to get it off your chest. I slept until 4:00, about the time for the polls to close. I didn't go to another poll, except for those few. I went downtown to Hamilton's headquarters. I knew all the boys there; they were formerly my friends and my workers! I asked for Norman (Hamilton). They said he'd be back at 7:00. I got my brother-in-law, a healthy buck from off the farm, to go with me. I wanted to face Hamilton with his lie he told, in front of the people he told it to. I told my brother-in-law, "If some of the strong-armed men he's got on the payroll jump on me, I want you to keep them off. Don't let them jump me, but don't touch Hamilton under any condition. If he sicks any of them on me, I'm going to fix him. I'm younger than he is, and I know I can beat two like him." So, I went down there, and several of them apologized for switching over. Hamilton never showed up at his headquarters. Some of Colgate Darden's fellows came over and carried me to Colgate Darden's headquarters. They said, "If you hadn't run, Colgate would've been licked." I said, "I don't have anything to do with that. Colgate has never done anything for me; he voted against the bonus." They asked me to make a speech, but I wouldn't do it. Then they put me up there and told me to make a speech. So, I got up there and said, "I am not in any condition tonight to make a speech. The only thing I can say is that Colgate Darden voted against the bonus. I wasn't for Colgate; that was a lie. But, Colgate is a gentleman, and

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I'm glad a gentleman won, instead of Norman Hamilton," I'll never forget that darn thing!

Sweeney: Did you ever run for a political office again afterwards?

Shafer: Every time I'd get something that was interesting, I'd run for the advertising of it to put the issue before the people. I ran one time before that, for the city council.

Sweeney: Did you run later on for the city council, around 1944?

Shafer: Yes--I ran another time. The city had issued too many bonds. I went up to throw the bond issue on some property. I had 650 acres and three corporations that I had formed.

END OF SIDE 1

SIDE 2

Shafer: (continued from Side 1) The Pennsylvania Railroad had introduced some bankers to me about getting a loan on my property, I was going to give away 100 acres at Fox Hall, and the Pennsylvania Railroad was going to put factories on it. The man who was supposed to give me the loan to develop it said that the vice-president of the railroad wanted me to have the loan. But, he said, "Your town is bankrupt. This would be a second mortgage. Your town owes over $40 million." I told him that it only owed $23 million. He read me the financial chart of the city of Norfolk. He read off the names of the different trustees, and it counted up to $40 million. I had been going by what the politicians had said; I went to see a few of the city councilmen. I said, "You know, the city is in debt so deep now that you even throw the bond issue on property." They said that the city didn't owe $40 million. I told them about it, and they denied it. They were good, personal friends of mine, but not political friends, of course. It's a funny thing--there is a big difference between a personal friend and a political friend. Politics make strange bedfellows. I always took the side of the religious leaders, instead of the riffraff. I went to every state in the Union to help the Congressmen because they were spending money like water to get rid of them. You could give one brother and one sister the cards of two different candidates. Before the election takes place, the brother and sister are not speaking to each other because one is fighting for one man and one is fighting for the other. The leaders who work them up to that frenzy tell them that their candidate is so good that he has everything but wings, and the other candidate has a tail like a devil and a pitchfork in his hand. When the

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election was over, neither one of those candidates would recognize those two people. They hadn't seen them; they didn't know them. I used to tell the boys that politics was 98% insanity and 2% mentality. For instance, a big weekly newspaper, Collier's Weekly, crucified some senators from out west. They came in and put Collier's Weekly out of business. It was owned by the Bank of Morgan. Old man Morgan was a very reserved Englishman, who wore a derby and rode like he couldn't say "cheese." They brought him in to witness and sat a midget in his lap. Imagine a man, with spats on and a walking cane, with a 40-year old midget sitting in his lap. The room broke up in a laugh. The attorney for the Morgan crowd said that they'd hired W. B. Shanrey (SP?), the wildest, most liberal editor in America, to run Collier's Weekly. Shanrey taught me at Norfolk Academy. He was a wonderful English scholar, but he never had much practical sense. He had to call the principal in to quiet down the boys in his room. He didn't have but 30 boys in his class, and he couldn't handle them. The principal of the school, John F. Blackwell, would have to come in. Well, he went out west and got with some labor paper. He wrote radical editorials. It didn't make any difference what he wanted to say--he had the English language perfect, and he could tell you anything! He was getting $60,000 a year (@ Collier's), When Taft ran, the "Wall Street Crowd" and the western Republicans made a deal to pull Taft down in the running for president. I think they wanted Dewey; I'm not sure. Taft didn't like politics; he was too reserved. He was raised in the White House--his father was a president. His wife, who was English, would go pay the pressmen around Washington $5,000 -$10,000 to get him on the front-page again every time he was off. Taft was an honest fellow, and he said, "If I'm elected president, I'll either cut the lease-land out or cut it in half. This country can't keep financing the world, fighting wars for the world, and feeding it. We have got to put a stop to it. That will be my main thing to do when I get elected." Collier's Weekly, owned by the Bank of Morgan, is a fiscal agent for these foreign countries to get this lease-land money. If you take a few million dollars from these money people, they get crazy. So, they published an article in Collier's Weekly. There was a picture of Taft, with two heads fixed some where on the picture. It was saying that we are leaving Taft. We've been backing him for 7 years; and he has gone berserk. He's like a two-headed calf going in both directions at the same time, We cannot stay behind a man who is in that terrible condition. Then, the veterans were trying to run Eisenhower. They brought Ike

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back from Europe, ran him against Taft, and Ike beat him. I told Taft that the picture is what beat him. I told him to sue them for $2 or $3 million and get out of politics. But, Taft would not sue anybody, he that type of man. He went all to pieces and finally died. I suggested that his wife sue them. Collier's Weekly was the only newspaper or magazine in the world that has gone out of business when it was making a big profit. Most papers go in debt for a few years, borrowing money until they can't borrow anymore, and then they quit. It's been a mystery, but you can't get that in the paper in the United States. Thieves stand together. People realize how powerful the press is. Money is powerful, and the press is powerful. I once read a book called Freedom of the Press, about a high-paid editor with two or three of the biggest papers in the country. He got religion in his old age and said that he was going to expose the crimes. He couldn't hardly sleep at night, as there were many an honest man whom he killed. Whenever you couldn't control a man, you smeared him. If the man who owns your paper wants to get rid of a fellow and you can't get rid of him, you put a hatchet-man after him. Then he'll finally get out of politics. I gave Roosevelt a copy of that book. He told General Washington to tell Steve Early to get a copy for every member of the Cabinet. He knew the newspapers were crooked and against the men who were for the people. Since then, I've been trying to find a copy of that book and I can't find one anywhere in the United States. I've written all over the country. They put out a book by the same name, but it was a different book entirely. This country is too controlled. I had a book printed called Go South Young Man, Go South. I was born a Methodist, and it was printed by a Methodist church in Nashville, Tennessee, They said that they were going to put it in their catalog that they send to the bookstores every year. I think they said it goes to 2,000 people. It never showed up there. Bishop W. C. Gum of the Methodist Church had a revival when I was young. My wife sang for the revival. He said, "You may forget my name if I don't explain it to you. You remember Wrigley's chewing gum? My name is W. C. Gum. Whenever you see one of those signs, you can remember W. C. Gum." I never forgot that man's name. He's a good preacher. I told him, "I'm going to have you be a trustee in some of my money when I die. I like your ability, and I like your sincerity." Gum gave me some of the stuff that I put in my book. I got him to write and tell them that they neglected to put my book in (the catalog). It didn't come out in the

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next issue either. That's the controlled press. Patman, Jenke, O'Malley, and Thomas wrote to "Who's Who" to tell them to put my name in as being the originator of the soldier bonus and an advisor to 300 Congressmen and 2 presidents. But, they never got it in. One of them went to the headquarters in Chicago and found out that "Who's Who" operates on a secret outfit. They get all the free advertisements that they want from the papers, with the understanding that nobody gets in the "Who's Who" unless the paper in that city OKs it. The owner of the paper here never did like me because he couldn't control me, and I would expose corruption. When I exposed the bond issue, the New York banks checked up on it and found out that I was right. Then, they wouldn't buy a Norfolk bond.

Sweeney: Who was the mayor of Norfolk at that time?

Shafer: They shifted them every four years, but I think Albert Roper was teaching the biggest Bible class in Norfolk.

Sweeney: Was that in the 1930's?

Shafer: I guess it was the 1930's. His father was one of the richest men in Norfolk. He had the biggest sawmill after the war between the states in Gilmerton, where the big power plant is now. The biggest factory in the state of Virginia was at Gilmerton, a little stop between Portsmouth and Norfolk. The biggest plant after the second world war was the VEP power plant.

Sweeney: Could you tell me about your involvement with the property that became the Military Circle shopping mall?

Shafer: When I first started the bonus, I had over $1 million worth of property. This was about a one-mile square in Foxhall, from Sewell's Point Road to what was Azalea Road. I was selling lots through the mail to people. I had bought the Pennsylvania Railroad 1,000 acres on the other side of me, where the amphibious base is now. They had my loans called and broke me. When I finished the bonus, I owed $160,000 and didn't have anything. I'd keep helping the Congressmen and keep in touch with the veterans. I got options on 600 acres on Military Highway, everything from Virginia Beach Boulevard to the bridge. I couldn't borrow any more money on it. The city was not only mad with me, but it was trying to keep everything downtown. The powers-that-be inherit cream stuff downtown. That's why I say that this mess of reviving downtown is crazy. It will bust the United States government to keep it up. It doesn't do any good. You just pay a

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lot of people a bunch of money for no good real estate. Everytime I'd get somebody to buy something, the banks downtown and some of the bigshot real estate men who want to control the banks would say, "Don't buy anything out there. It isn't worth a cent! He's crazy, and he's throwing his money away." They had me up against the wall, where it looked like I was going to take bankruptcy. Every cent I got I'd spend on advertising up north in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Baltimore Sun. During the first world war, my father, myself, and another fellow organized the Old Dominion Steamship Company. We took over and leased some of the steamers from the New York company which owned them before. The government used some of them in the war. We had two that we leased. We got the money from some New York commission men. We were breaking even with it. We didn't expect to make any money with it, but we wanted to keep it afloat. We had borrowed $100,000 from the banks. We weren't making any money, so we couldn't pay it. We had some piers that we sell. We'd tried to sell them to get us Out of the hole. We had to pay $250,000 for them, but they weren't worth $50,000.

END OF SIDE 2

SIDE 3

Shafer: (continued from Side 2) So, we gave this man an option. We couldn't imagine who in the world he could sell it to when it wasn't worth $50,000 and we had to pay $250,000 to get it. He was a political flunkie (?) for the banks, the newspapers, and the politicians. He made a lot of money by manipulating. The council met the next Tuesday and bought that property for the list price! The company was still operating. The Eastern Steamship Company wanted to branch out. Old man DeMain (SP) was a smart, old man who had a big factory in Manchester, New Hampshire, on the NY, H, & H (railroad). He got his freight that way. The NY, H, & H cost more money per mile than any other railroad built in America, and it was electric. When the depression of 1905 came, Mr. DeMain began to lose money. The New York banks had enormous amounts of mortgages against it. They went to the manufacturers and said that they were going to stop running the railroad, but they'd give it to them if they'd run it. They let the manufacturers have the stock for about $1/share. The manufacturers took it over, and I don't know if they even had to pay the dollar or not! Old man DeMain went to each city that the railroad went through. He got them to raise money to build more factories and warehouses. This would make more freight for the railroad, so it would pay. When times got normal, it was paying good. After it got to paying, the banks gave them $72 million profit to get the railroad back. DeMain took his money and bought control in the Hayden & Stone banking firm, a New York outfit. He put his son as manager of it. While I was loaded with this property, they kept my father on the Board of Directors of the Eastern Steamship Company. Old man DeMain would get us to buy him a riding horse every now and then. His son didn't want him to keep buying them. He asked us to stop because he was afraid that his father would get killed. He was somewhere around 80 years old!

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DeMain said, "When I tell you to buy a horse, you buy a horse! I'm the one paying for it--not my son and not you!" We charge him anything because we were hoping he would put Norfolk on the map. He said that he was going to buy a lot of land around here and build warehouses and factories here. We got options for him for 1,000 acres out there. He got an option on a piece (of land) at Gilmerton. He sent his real estate man down, and the Chamber of Commerce tried to charge him twice what it was worth. He said that the crowd running Norfolk was too crooked for him. He said, "I'm going to get some young fellow who is smart enough to handle them, and when I do, I'm going to buy a bunch of stuff around Norfolk. I'm going to put that town on the map. It's a shame that the wonderful waterfront is going to pieces, and it's nothing but corrupt, rotten politics doing it!"

Sweeney: Did he buy the Military Circle property?

Shafer: Yes--finally! He bought the Norfolk-Southern Railroad and sent Pat McGinnis (SP) down there. He got a young mathematics professor from Columbia (University), who married Whitney's daughter. Whitney had a stock seat, and, with the Depression, he couldn't sell the seat. Pat McGinnis, this professor, opened it up and paid it himself. DeMain's son told the bankers, "Don't buy Papa that railroad. It will kill him at 80; it's too much for him." So, they would tell him that they couldn't get control. He (DeMain) went to see this new man, Pat McGinnis. He asked, "Young man, could you buy a railroad?" He said, "Yes--I can buy anything." DeMain said, "How would you go about it?" McGinnis said, "I would get options on the big blocks of stock, and then I'd go in the open market and pick up the control." DeMain said, "Alright, buy me the New York-New Haven- Hartford Railroad. Draft on me in Providence, Rhode Island, but don't draft on me at my bank." The bank that he practically owned was that Hayden & Stone bank, and he didn't want his son to know what he was doing until he got control of that railroad, Then, he put his son in as president of the railroad to run it. Pat McGinnis came down here and took charge of the Norfolk Southern Railroad. Pat got in with the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce and this crowd of politicians. They told him that I was crazy and to not buy the waterfront stuff he had under option. I had everything from Military Circle clear to Kempsville, about one thousand acres, under option. It was $300/acre, and it couldn't be bought today for $10,000/acre! Anyways, they dropped all of it. While I was in the hospital, Pat, who was a good trader, sent a real estate broker from Baldwin Brothers, one of

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the old firms who directed the banks, to me to buy the piece that he had an option on of my one hundred acres. I didn't know it was him. I thought he was with the government or the state. I had had a terrible spell, with a fever of 107 4/5. They said I couldn't last long. They had operated on me, so they wouldn't let me have company. They said that I was going to crack up any minute; nobody over 50 could stand that fever. A salesman for Baldwin came up to see me. He was a fellow I went to school with, named Taylor. He saw the "No Visitors" sign, and I heard him arguing with the nurse outside about coming in. I asked, "Is that you, Taylor?" He said, "I'm not going to talk to you for a few days. I'll talk to you when you get better." Then I said, "No you won't! You're going to talk to me now!" I thought he was buying for the government. He said, "It's all cash." I told him that if it was all cash and enough money to take up the notes that I owed, go down to my lawyer. I didn't want me or my wife to take bankruptcy. My wife ain't no billygoat; she can't eat paper! I said, "If it will clear me up so that I'll get out of debt, you go down and tell him to order the papers. If I do live to get out of the hospital, I don't want [any] debt cracking over me." The next day, my lawyer came to see me. We were just like brothers, Ed Kellam and myself. Ed said, "What kind of message did you send to me by Taylor? Did you tell him that?" I said, "Certainly, I told him. They say I can't live long with a fever like this. The city won't give me water, and they bumped me off the FHA's. You get the papers drawn before I croak or get any worse, and let's get rid of this stuff!" He said, "It's less than half!" I told him, "I don't care what it is. I'm going to get out of debt or die right in this hospital!" Ed drew up the papers, and I got my cash. That saved me from bankruptcy. I'd have been gone if it hadn't been for selling that piece [of land].

Sweeney: Did you still keep a small part of it?

Shafer: All I kept was sixty acres, where Military Circle is. I already had the plans for the air-conditioned city. Senator Blakely was a very wealthy man in the insurance business. He was born in Oklahoma, but he lived in Texas. He built that air-conditioned city right outside of Dallas. It was called Exchange Park, and it cost him $125 million. He had skyscrapers, which were probably twenty stories high. He had his office on the top floor of one of those buildings. I made an ass out of myself

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the day I went out to look at it. I asked him where he borrowed the money. He said, "I didn't borrow any money. I got these plans drawn up and had these engineers make up the air conditioning business under one roof. I'm getting 6% net on my money." I begged him to build there, but the Texans got something where they kin to the ground. You couldn't pay that old man to leave there; he was sticking around for what went on in Dallas. He got caught in a hotel fire a year or two ago, and he was killed. I met one of the greatest businessmen the country has ever known--Jesse Jones. Jesse Jones was the financier for the Democratic party. He owned a national bank and a newspaper in Houston. He used to talk about the ship channel. I wanted one cut from Norfolk to Elizabeth City. I got a few senators to talk to him about Norfolk. They'd tell him how Norfolk could be made a city if there were some wide-awake people and some money here. Norfolk always was a pauper town. The few who had money didn't want anything new. They didn't want any unknown people getting property. Jesse Jones finally agreed to comedown and look it over. I told him that I'd sell him all of my stuff. I also told him that if he got in here, with his ideas, and had that canal cut, he could buy 100,000 acres between here and Elizabeth City and make millions. The reason I went after him was because he used to brag that he was the only man in Texas who never fooled with oil. He fooled with real estate. When the oil companies first got going, he owned a bank. The companies wanted him to build buildings and give them the options. He did build some of them, He later claimed that he had $100 million worth of buildings. The oil companies paid for them; he didn't have anything to worry about. In the magazines, they'd write about him being the only man to make $100 million out of real estate. He used to brag about the fact that he didn't fool with oil, but, of course, oil money paid that rent! I wanted him to come up, but he kept postponing it. We had a fellow here who was a champion golf player, named Chandler Hoffer (SP). Chandler had won prizes everywhere. The paper had said that he was going to play in some golf tournament in Houston. I never had any time to play golf--I was busy trying to make money to pay the interest on what I owed! I had helped Chandler get a long-term lease in Portsmouth, his hometown. I called him and told him to phone Jesse Jones when he got to Houston. I told him to bring Jones back to look at my property. It would make both of them plenty of money. Chandler said that Jones would never let him into the house because he was the richest man in Houston. I told Chandler that when a rich man gets around seventy years old, he likes to associate

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with theatrical people, baseball players, and golf players. He wants to get something else in his head other than dollar bills. Chandler promised to call him in Houston.