How much have Texan oilmen shaped America?
Reporter Brian Burrough follows his last corporate epic, Barbarians at the Gate, with a new book, The Big Rich, replacing skyscrapers and three piece suits with oil wells and Stetson hats. It is a sprawling story set across several continents, chronicling gumption, love, betrayal, politics, family squabbles, and Muammar al-Gaddafi. But if the business acumen of the Texas oilmen Burrough scrutinizes is striking, so is their lack of political finesse. Burrough makes much of their outsized business success, but it remains remarkable how little the Western tycoons were able to alter the Washington landscape. It may be that moderate Texas Republicans and the entrenched Washington establishment exploited the Big Rich’s vast fortunes; their legacy remains one of business rather than political domination.
“Tomorrow’s Another Day”
Burrough describes many Texas oilmen, but ultimately focuses his lens on Hugh Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison, Sid Richardson, and H.L. Hunt, whom he calls the “Big Four.” Though more or less unrelated, “A good ol’ boy, a scold, a genius, and a bigamist” made billions from similar titanic visions and oft-forgotten Northern investors.
These four, nevertheless, personified the limitless ambition that is still at the heart of America’s venerable capitalist spirit. Despite repeated failure, they fought for their dream, certain that hundreds of millions of barrels of black gold lay hidden in the earth. In their minds, success was always around the corner — which it eventually was. As a soiled, tired, and poor Cullen tells his wife after another day of futile drilling, “Tomorrow’s another day.”
What can money buy?
And their money, like practically all money, finally found itself on Capitol Hill, where it sought to midwife what Burrough terms “ultraconservatism.” Indeed, some of the Big Four were Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s strongest supporters. And though moderates like Dwight D. Eisenhower and even progressives such as LBJ and FDR came hat in hand to Texas donors, the two sides existed in angry tension. Even as Eisenhower used this Southern base for fundraising, he privately considered its members to be “stupid,” reactionary hicks. Still, these purported hicks produced big names and keen minds that came to dominate the modern Republican Party. James Baker’s grandfather shows up, as does Bush the Elder. But they were not really emblematic of Texas oil tycoons, content to promote center-right agendas, while paying lip service to their funders.
And just as the Big Rich’s money couldn’t help them totally buy the Senate or the House, it couldn’t help them buy worldliness either, no matter how frequently they jetted about to conduct international energy deals. Recent history, such as the continuing problem of the U.S. trade deficit with China coupled with persistent, unwelcome, and extensive corporate and political espionage by Beijing, still confirms that a healthy skepticism of foreign economic partners should be encouraged, and the Four faced nearly as much trickery abroad. But, professional prudence and chauvinism are two different things, and the Big Rich rarely hit the mark, to no credit to their legacy, and sometimes their economic success.
Family Legacy
In the end, how did they fare? The moguls’ children kept the family business alive, but not with its old success. With the exception of Richardson’s wily nephew, Sid Richardson, the Big Four’s offspring proved inept at managing the empires or at negotiating with hostile players, such as Gaddafi of Libya. Other scions sank money in misguided side business such as Hunt’s food company. But they did survive, with recent conquests such as Hunt Oil’s 2003 acquisition of major contracts from the Bush administration to drill in Northern Iraq.
In retrospect, the Big Four were as dogged as they were brilliant, though this sometimes allowed for foolish ventures. That the Big Four didn’t know when to quit was both a liability and an asset. In the grand scheme of things it was probably the latter, but their dogged simplicity proved completely out of place in politics and robbed them of their impact. There can be no doubt that the Big Rich deserve their place in American history, but the limit of their success is evident, especially beside icons such as Andrew Carnegie and Nelson Rockefeller; in the end, money might just not buy what it used to.