THE BIG RICH: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes. By Bryan Burrough. Penguin. 480 pages. $29.95.
This is a welcome book on a prototypically Texan period and cast of characters and the great Oil Boom, which arguably created the 20th century. It is amusing to contrast these four families of wildcatters with the dotcom billionaires of our time. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are pale nerdy shadows compared to Roy Cullen, H.L. Hunt, Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson.
Gates and Jobs never completed college, but most of the Big Four never made it through high school, and apparently never noticed the deficit.
It started with the new century, January 1901, in a place called Big Hill, near the town of Beaumont, Texas. It was soon to be known as "Spindletop," gushing more money than any place on earth. Oil blew out of the ground with such vehemence that it threatened to destroy the wooden drilling derrick. That unforeseen bonanza set off a scramble for money that changed the face of politics, sports and industry for the rest of the century. The most amazing part of the saga was the total unpreparedness of the creators of that bonanza to cope with their success.
Although the author does not point out the parallel, George Walker Bush, brevet Texan, was a true heir to the heedless and superficial mindset of the Big Four. They were most skilled at acquiring wealth, through any means, but were so focused on acquisition that they never seemed to be able to transfer their gains to any lasting advantage, and today, their most visible legacies are the National Football League, the Super Bowl and the increasingly tatterdemalion "conservative" movement. In their time they were kingmakers, selecting and electing presidents from Eisenhower to the Bushes, but their monuments, politically and personally, are massive deficits, infighting and anarchy.
These were men whose idea of a millionaire's luncheon was a can of chili poured over a bag of Fritos, whose concept of a billionaire's residence was a hunting lodge on a private island where one could play cards and entertain prostitutes without the scrutiny of wives and the press.
One of these men had three wives and three families and was eventually forced to recognize all the children, much to the detriment of his familial relations.
Another had a barroom paneled in tarpon scales.
Others built private airports to accommodate their friends' fleets of personal aircraft, but never seemed to grasp the money-making potential of aviation.
H.L. Hunt, the bigamist, created modern conservatism, but it always remained a top-down organization, massively financed, but consistently lacking grass-roots support, alienating as many people as it attracted.
Eisenhower had the last word on the Texas oil men: "Their number is negligible, and they are stupid."
Burrough is a co-author of Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco and the author books on the space program, banking and the early days of the FBI. He has a great eye for relevant detail and the important anecdote.
■ Steve Wishnevsky is a writer who lives in Winston-Salem.
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