-Caveat Lector- from: a friend ----- THE SUITE 8F CROWD Jesse Jones Much is often made of the fact that the development of Houston after World War II was controlled by George and Herman Brown's "Suite 8F Crowd," but little is ever said about the background of the individuals who composed that powerful faction. Jesse Jones, who built the Lamar Hotel at the site of his uncle's lumber company, was born in Tennessee but had moved as a youth to Beaumont where his father worked in the M.T. Jones Lumber Co. They were in partnership with S.J. Carter, who was the father of W.T. Carter of Houston, as well as the founder of the Lumbermen's National Bank. The Carters also controlled large timber reserves in East Texas in the town of Camden. In 1902, on his way to London to attend the coronation of King Edward VII, Jones went by way of New York to talk to Robert S. Lovett, attorney and chief executive officer of the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads, thinking he might obtain financing from E.H. Harriman similar to what John Henry Kirby had from the Santa Fe Railroad. Lovett had moved to New York from Houston after being hired by E.H. Harriman, a former stockbroker who had gained control of the Illinois Central Railroad, and then took over operation of the Union Pacific after the bankruptcy reorganization in 1898. Jones had been a client of Lovett's in Houston. The proposition made to Jones was that Harriman would furnish as much money as he could use at 4% interest, with any profits to be divided 50-50. The Southern Pacific would also buy and route the lumber Jones produced. According to Jones, he then went to Kansas City and drew up a partnership plan, but later decided not to sign.1 In 1905, when banks became legal in Texas, Jones became a stockholder in the first bank in Texas to be chartered-the Union Bank & Trust in Houston [176/517 DR]. According to the charter there were seven stockholders who held 200 shares in the bank. The most well-known of these was A.W. Mellon of Pittsburgh. In 1902 Mellon had transformed the Pittsburgh bank his father, Thomas Mellon had founded in 1869 into the Mellon National Bank, and in 1903 merged Pittsburgh National, Citizens National and the Union Trust.2 This occurred only a short time after Mellon became involved in Texas with the Spindletop discovery. Two investors from Pittsburgh had obtained start-up capital by the Mellon bank's issuance of stock--40% of which was retained by Andrew Mellon and part of which he sold to other Pittsburgh investors. Mellon also gave Governor James Hogg, "a slice of the action."3 In 1907 the Mellons bought out enough bondholders to acquire control of the Guffey Co. and formed Gulf Oil in Beaumont. Other large stockholders in the Union Bank & Trust were J.S. Rice and his brother W.M. Rice, each with 200 (their brother David had 30); W.T. Carter from Camden, Hyman Levy, Frank Andrews and J.M. Rockwell (manager of the M.T. Jones Lumber Co. before Jesse took over). Jones himself had only 90 shares individually and held 10 as trustee. His aunt Louisa had 100. T.W. House held 110, shares, Charles Dillingham4 150, W.B. Chew 100, and Thomas H. Ball 120. Another stockholder from outside Texas was Tom Randolph of St. Louis with 100 shares. Edwin Parker and James A. Baker, Jr. each owned 50, and E.M. House owned 30. Two years after the Union Bank was established the T.W. House private bank went into bankruptcy after T.W. Jr. assigned all assets to Union shareholders J.S. Rice and W.B. Chew. The Mellon connection with the Union Bank is extremely interesting, given the fact that Jesse Jones had encouraged the Mellons to locate the headquarters for Gulf Oil in Houston in 1908, just a year after Mellon had taken over the company. Jones built two different headquarters buildings for Gulf in downtown Houston-one of which has always remained the home of what was considered to be Jones' bank.5 In 1911 the Union Bank built the 12-story building at 220 Main which became the Continental Bank6 in 1953 when Union National merged with South Texas National, the forerunner to today's Texas Commerce Bank. In 1920, at the age of 65, Andrew Mellon became Warren Harding's Secretary of Treasury. To accept the appointment he had to resign from directorship of 51 corporate boards, but he served in this post for 12 years-during the administrations of Coolidge and Hoover as well. His tenure is not unlike the climate of the 1980s, believing as he did that corporations should not be taxed, working people should not expect a living wage, and that stock speculation was good for the economy. In 1932 Congressman Wright Patman of Texas brought impeachment proceedings against the Treasury Secretary, charging that Mellon had "violated more laws, caused more human suffering and illegally acquired more property to satisfy his personal greed than any other person on earth without fear of punishment and with the sanction and approval of three chief executives of a civilized nation."7 The only thing that prevented Mellon's impeachment was intervention by President Hoover, who appointed him to the Court of St. James, which ended when Franklin Roosevelt was elected. Jones also built the Rice Hotel in downtown Houston, the Commerce Building, Milam Building and Kirby Building.8 Jones became a Methodist in his adult life, and was close friends with A. Frank Smith, the Methodist Bishop in Houston, who was also involved in the Scottish Rite. Jones was made a member of the Knights of San Jacinto, a lodge created by Sam Houston, which permits only 12 members at a time.9 Jones was a close friend also of Lord Beaverbrook, who had been the British minister of supply at the time Jones was Secretary of Commerce during World War II. Beaverbrook's nephew, Howard Aitken, was a very close associate of Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, director of Permindex, who was attorney for the Bronfmans in Montreal. Beaverbrook's daughter also married the 11th Duke of Argyll.10 In Texas at the same time Jesse Jones was getting started in business was William T. Campbell, who, according to Debrett's Texas Peerage, was a "Scottish aristocrat, a member of the Campbell Clan of Argyle. Descended from a family of stockbrokers, he had genes of financial genius. (His great friend and fellow Briton-turned-oil-prospector, Burke Roche, was the younger twin brother of the 3rd Baron of Fermoy, a direct ancestor of Britain's present Princess Di."11 Burke's brother, James Roche, was a member of the Hogg-Swayne Syndicate and was able to sell a million-barrel option to the company that became the Texas Company, run by fellow Irishman J.S. Cullinan. It was James Roche who also acquired the option to buy the land on which the first Texaco refinery was built near Port Arthur, Texas. The other investors in the enterprise were Arnold Schlaet, a German-American who controlled the leather trust owned by the Lapham brothers of New York, and stockbroker John W. Gates. Shortly after Jones made his trip to London for the coronation of King Edward VII, Governor James Hogg and his younger friend, "Willie" Campbell sailed to England on the Cunard, seeking capital. At the time, Campbell was 42 years old, and Hogg was 50. Campbell had "boyhood friends and relatives in England, and Governor Hogg had friends whom he had entertained in the U.S....In London they were honored at a sixteen-course dinner by Lord and Lady Deerhurst attended by U.S. Ambassador and Mrs. Joseph Choate, German Ambassador Metternich, Lord Cecil, and other peers. When invited to speak, Governor Hogg expressed his admiration for British contributions to international law, justice, and democratic government." It is not known exactly how close William Campbell was to the 9th Duke of Argyll, but it is clear that he would have been able to get them an introduction to the King, since he was married to Princess Louisa, Queen Victoria's fourth daughter. They were, in fact, invited to be presented to King Edward at the Court of St. James, but declined, later meeting him more informally at a garden party. The 9th Duke, the only commoner married to any of the Queen's children, had become governor of Canada in 1878, and had presented King Edward with the royal sceptre at the coronation in 1902-the same coronation to which Jesse Jones had been invited. In 1912 as soon as the Rice estate was settled, Jones began building hotels and office buildings on land owned by the Rice trust, controlled by R.S. Lovett's old law firm, Baker & Botts. The banks Jones was connected with were staffed by members of the Rice family, and his legal work done by attorneys connected with Baker & Botts. Jones was called to public service during World War I to work in Woodrow Wilson's administration, supposedly at the behest of Colonel House. He served first in the American Red Cross organization, later as the head of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and finally as Secretary of Commerce, staying in Washington until a conflict arose when Lyndon Johnson emerged as a favorite of Franklin Roosevelt. The irony is that Johnson's financial support was planned in Suite 8F of Jones' Lamar Hotel. 1 Bascom Timmons, p. 63. 2 William S. Hoffman, Paul Mellon: Portrait of an Oil Baron (Chicago: Follett Publishing Co., 1974), p. 43. If this is the same Union Trust that was in New York, the merger gave Mellon the mortgage on the AT&SF Railroad in Houston, built by J.H. Kirby. The Union Trust had very close connections to Dillon, Read. 3 Hoffman, p. 42. 4 Dillingham had been receiver for the H&TC in 1888 and sold a number of tracts of land which had been granted to it by the State of Texas to Mark Wiess of Beaumont. Wiess resold several tracts to J.F. Lanier, an attorney from Beaumont who eventually practiced law in Houston with John F. Kirby. 5 A third building was built several decades later in conjunction with a project of Texas Eastern called the Houston Center. 6 eventually owned by Walter Mischer. 7 Hoffman, p. 52. 8 The Kirby Building on Block 137 was sold by Kirby in 1912 to Frank Andrews, Trustee, with financing from Jones' Bankers Trust. Andrews was an attorney with Andrews, Kurth. 9 Ibid., p. 387. 10 The 11th Duke, Sir Ian Douglas Campbell (according to Burke's Peerage) is also the Marquess of Kintyre and Lorne, Earl of Campbell and Cowall, Viscount of Lochow and Glenyla, Lord of Inveraray, Mull, Morvern, and Tirie, in Scotland; Duke of Argyll in the U.K., Earl of Argyll, Lord Campbell, Lord Lorne, Lord of Kintyre, in Scotland, and Lord Sundridge of Coomb Bank, Kent, and Lord Hamilton, of Hameldon, co. Leicester, both in Great Britain, and a Baronet of Scotland, Chief of the Clan Campbell, Hereditary Master of the King's Household in Scotland, Adm. Of the Western Coasts and Isles; Keeper of Dunstaffnage, Carrick, Tarbert, and Dunoon Castles, and Hereditary Sheriff of Argyll, plus a few military titles. He was born in 1903, educated at Milton, Mass. (U.S.) and at Christ Church in Oxford. He married first in 1927 (divorced 1934) the Hon. Janet Gladys Aitken, only daughter of 1st Baron Beaverbrook. Their daughter, Jeanne Louise, born in 1928, was married to American author Norman Mailer. Sir Ian remarried in 1935 (divorced 1951) Louise Hollingsworth Morris (daughter of Henry Clews of Alpes Maritimes, France. They had a son named Ian, born 1937, and a son named Colin Ivar, born in 1946. In 1951 Sir Ian again remarried (divorced in 1963) Margaret, daughter of George Hay Whigham. 11 According to Marguerite Johnston, W.T. Campbell was born in London in 1859, attended Rugby before sailing for America in 1875. He became a successful newspaper publisher and banker in Lampasas, Texas in 1878. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
