In The Pay of Foundations: How U.S. power elite foundations fund a `parallel left' media network--Part 9

Public Welfare Foundation Founder and Texas Media Baron Charles Marsh

In The Pay of Foundations—Part 9

How U.S. power elite and liberal establishment foundations fund a “parallel left” media network of left media journalists and gatekeepers.

Besides receiving the $10,000 grant from the J.M. Kaplan Fund in 1998 to support its Democracy Now! show, Pacifica was also given a $25,000 [equivalent to nearly $40,000 in 2018] grant in that same year by the Public Welfare Foundation to help fund the news reporting of the Democracy Now! show. So, not surprisingly, during the last two decades the Democracy Now! producers have not aired many radio or cable tv news segments that examine how the Public Welfare Foundation (whose current assets exceed $480 million) obtained its grant money historically or how this “non-profit” foundation currently obtains its grant money.

Yet, as the Public Welfare Foundation website indicates, the foundation was established in 1947 after an Austin, Texas corporate media baron named Charles E. Marsh “made a formal commitment to philanthropy by incorporating the Public Welfare Foundation and designating it to receive his newspapers’ assets upon his death;” and “Marsh oversaw the Foundation’s work until his health began to decline in 1953.” In addition, after Charles Marsh died in 1964, his third wife. Claudia Haines Marsh, “was the Foundation’s president from 1952 to 1974, and she remained a guiding influence until her own death, at the age of 100, in the year 2000.”

Until late 2011, “a granddaughter of Claudia Marsh” and “the daughter of Donald Warner who chaired the foundation’s Board for 10 years,” named Beth Warner, “was a valued member of the Board’s Finance committee,” according to a Nov. 8, 2011 Public Welfare Foundation press release; and Beth Warner’s 21^st-century presence on the Public Welfare Foundation’s board of trustees continued “a tradition of family members and close associates of Charles Marsh serving on the board,” according to the same 2011 press release.

In his 2009 book, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, Bryan Burrough indicated how the Public Welfare Foundation founder who owned both the Austin-American and Austin Statesman newspapers (which later merged into the Austin American-Statesman newspaper in 1973), Charles Marsh, was a business associate of ultra-rich Texas oilman Sid Richardson during the 1930s:

“Charles E. Marsh, co-owner of several Texas newspapers, including the politically influential Austin-American…was using his spare cash to bankroll several Texas wildcatters… It is a measure of how totally Sid Richardson cloaked his business in secrecy that the name of Charles Marsh, the man whose backing made Richardson’s fortune possible, remained unknown to Richardson’s family…

“Marsh…had begun negotiating a complicated deal involving First National Bank of Dallas… It appears that Marsh agreed to guarantee Richardson’s debt to the bank. In return, the bank agreed to loan Richardson an additional $210,000 [equal to over $3.8 million in 2018], followed by another $150,000 [equal to over $2.7 million in 2018]… By the summer of 1935 Richardson had used most of Charles Marsh’s investment to buy land all around Gulf’s drill sites…

Marsh also loaned Richardson $30,000 [equivalent to over $560,000 in 2018] in 1934 and when Richardson’s oil firm discovered oil in 1935 on its drill sites, the profits were split between Marsh and Richardson. But then, according to the same book:

“In 1938, Marsh encountered a sudden…financial reversal… From a single mention in a letter to Richardson — contained in Marsh’s papers at the Johnson Presidential Library — it appears that the Internal Revenue Service served Marsh with a request for $1.2 million [equal to over $20.5 million in 2018] in overdue taxes… Marsh was forced to repay much of the money. To raise it, he ended up selling all his Texas newspapers.”

Coincidentally, like Sid Richardson, former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson also apparently was backed by the founder of the Public Welfare Foundation (that helped fund Pacifica’s Democracy Now! show with a $25,000 grant in 1998) during the 1930s, when LBJ (also using $10,000 [equal to over $176,000 in 2018] that was given to him by the father of former First Lady Claudia “Ladybird” Johnson) decided in 1937 that he wanted to get himself elected as Austin’s representative in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1938. As Ronnie Dugger observed in his 1982 book The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson:

“Johnson had a special advantage: the partisanship of the Austin newspapers. Charles Marsh… was owner and publisher of the Austin American-Statesman as well as the dailies in 4 or 5 other Texas cities, and he was for Lyndon from the first. Marsh…had been in oil deals…since as early as 1934… Marsh was also… a director and president of Richardson Oils, Inc., which gave Johnson a direct connection to oilman Sid Richardson…

“Although the Austin dailies did not formally endorse anyone, Marsh turned them into Lyndon’s harmonicas. `These papers went all-out for him’ said Edmonds Travis, one of their earliest editors… From the time the Johnsons arrived in Washington they frequented `Longlea,’ the plantation home of their friend, publisher Charles Marsh, in Culpeper, Virginia…The publisher also flew Johnson about in his private plane….”

From the profits he obtained by co-owning a chain of newspapers in Austin, Waco, Wichita Falls, Breckenridge, Brownsville, Cisco, Cleburne, Corpus Christi, Eastland, Harlingen, Laredo, McAllen, Mineral Wells, Paris, Port Arthur, Ranger and Texarkana after World War I, Public Welfare Foundation founder Marsh had become a millionaire by the time he was in his early 40’s during the late 1920s.  A biographical entry for Charles Marsh on the Spartacus-educational.com website noted that, according to Robert Caro, the author of the 1982 book The Path To Power: The years of Lyndon Johnson, by 1936:

                        

"Marsh owned newspapers in fifteen Texas cities, and in another dozen cities in other states... He was Richardson's partner in some of the most profitable oil wells in West Texas, and the sole owner of other profitable wells of his own. And in Austin, he owned the streetcar franchise and the largest single bloc of stock in the Capital National Bank, as well as vast tracts of real estate.”

The Spartacus-education.com website also recalled another way that the Public Education Welfare foundation founder helped the future Democratic President (who would later be responsible for the post-1964 escalation of U.S. military intervention in Vietnam that caused the deaths of millions of Vietnamese people, as well as the wounding of over 153,000 and deaths of over 57,000 members of the U.S. military, during the 1960s and early 1970s):

“Johnson complained that he found it difficult managing on his Congress salary. Marsh arranged for Johnson's wife to buy nineteen acres on Lake Austin for $8,000, which he knew was an area that was likely to be developed and would increase dramatically in value. Lady Bird Johnson later sold the land for $330,000. He also provided the money for Johnson to buy the Fort Worth radio station that he said would be `some day worth $3 million’. “ (end of part 9)

Hidden History of Texas: 1930-1940--Part 10

(This article was originally posted on The Rag Blog on January 28, 2013)

In his 2009 book, The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes, Vanity Fair magazine correspondent Bryan Burrough indicated how ultra-rich Texas folks like Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt, Sid Richardson, and former Austin American and Austin Statesman (they merged into the American-Statesman) owner Charles Marsh were, despite the Great Depression, apparently still able to make big money from Texas’s oil industry between 1930 and 1940:

"Though he knew nothing about pipelines, Murchison decided to try to build one... Murchison was amazed how simple the business was; once a pipeline was built, all he did was sit back and collect checks... The pipe alone cost 3 million dollars, all of which Murchison got on credit... He coaxed every last dollar he could out of the Dallas banks, then pushed back repayment... By 1932 his debt had grown to more than $4 million dollars, far more than his net worth...

"[H.L.] Hunt used most of his inheritance to buy a 960-acre farm... Negroes worked his land, allowing Hunt to spend much of his time playing cards... By that...summer of 1930 he still hadn’t found a drop of oil in Texas. Then, on Sept. 5 [1930], Hunt took a call... Despite Hunt’s later denials, court documents would show he cut a secret deal with the Deep Rock driller to supply his men with inside information in return for $20,000 in cash...

"Charles E. Marsh, co-owner of several Texas newspapers, including the politically influential Austin-American...was using his spare cash to bankroll several Texas wildcatters... It is a measure of how totally Sid Richardson cloaked his business in secrecy that the name of Charles Marsh, the man whose backing made Richardson’s fortune possible, remained unknown to Richardson’s family...

"Marsh...had begun negotiating a complicated deal involving First National Bank of Dallas... It appears that Marsh agreed to guarantee Richardson’s debt to the bank. In return, the bank agreed to loan Richardson an additional $210,000, followed by another $150,000... By the summer of 1935 Richardson had used most of Charles Marsh’s investment to buy land all around Gulf’s drill sites...

"In 1938, Marsh encountered a sudden...financial reversal... From a single mention in a letter to Richardson -- contained in Marsh’s papers at the Johnson Presidential Library -- it appears that the Internal Revenue Service served Marsh with a request for $1.2 million in overdue taxes... Marsh was forced to repay much of the money. To raise it, he ended up selling all his Texas newspapers.”

Coincidentally, like Sid Richardson, former U.S. President Lyndon Johnson also apparently was backed by former Austin-American and Austin-Statesman newspaper owner Charles Marsh during the 1930s, when LBJ (also using $10,000 that was given to him by the father of First Lady Claudia “Ladybird” Johnson) decided in 1937 that he wanted to get himself elected as Austin’s representative in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1938. As Ronnie Dugger observed in his 1982 book The Politician: The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson:

"Johnson had a special advantage: the partisanship of the Austin newspapers. Charles Marsh... was owner and publisher of the Austin American-Statesman as well as the dailies in 4 or 5 other Texas cities, and he was for Lyndon from the first. Marsh...had been in oil deals...since as early as 1934... Marsh was also... a director and president of Richardson Oils, Inc., which gave Johnson a direct connection to oilman Sid Richardson...

"Although the Austin dailies did not formally endorse anyone, Marsh turned them into Lyndon’s harmonicas. "These papers went all-out for him" said Edmonds Travis, one of their earliest editors... From the time the Johnsons arrived in Washington they frequented "Longlea," the plantation home of their friend, publisher Charles Marsh, in Culpeper, Virginia...The publisher also flew Johnson about in his private plane."

And, according to The Big Rich, LBJ also “used Texas Oil’s cash to start his march to... power.”

Besides helping to put Lyndon Johnson into Congress between 1930 and 1940 (and into the U.S. Senate and the White House, eventually, after 1940), Texas “oil money helped bankroll the birth of the religious right;” and “in a very real sense, the influence of Texas conservatives in America today -- in fact, the entire `Texanization’ of right-wing politics that brought George W. Bush and Tom DeLay to national prominence -- can be traced to forces set into motion by restive Texas oilmen during the 1930s,” according to The Big Rich. As the same book also noted:

"By 1935...the Kirby Building in downtown Houston was home to...shadowy, interconnected ultra-conservative groups... The Kirby groups were little more than the Ku Klux Klan in pinstripes, a kind of corporate Klan... One of [former National Association of Manufacturers President John Henry] Kirby’s most active allies was Maco Stewart of Galveston, an attorney who...had seen his wealth mushroom when Humble found oil on land he owned south of Houston... The most extreme of Kirby’s circle was George W. Armstrong, a Fort Worth oilman who owned Texas Steel, which made oil field supplies as well as concrete supports for Texas highways...

"In his definitive study of Texas conservatives, The Establishment in Texas Politics, George Norris Green pinpoints 1938 as the year oil-backed ultra-conservatives took control of the state’s political structure... Pappy O’Daniel’s victory [in 1938] initiated two decades of ultra-conservative rule in Texas. As governor, O’Daniel became Texas Oil’s reliable partner, freezing wellhead taxes and backing oil industry lobbyists’ takeover of the Railroad Commission. His administration was dominated by ultra-conservatives, many of them oilmen, including his key financial backer, Maco Stewart...

"Another ultra-conservative initiative was led by...Texas congressman...Martin Dies, who in 1937 co-sponsored formation of the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC]... John Henry Kirby and Maco Stewart were friends and longtime financial supporters of Dies, who was widely viewed as a tool of business and oil interests in the Beaumont area... Dies’s papers indicate he corresponded regularly with Kirby and Stewart."