Linked in previous, worth a reprint.
Following part 1 and part 2 and part 3. Saved the best for last.
Colonel Ned Green was the most influential of these three men. Money talks, and intelligently-directed ENJOYABLE money talks best.
His mother Hetty Green was the equivalent of Buffett. She was generally called the Wall Street Witch. She started out rich and manipulated her rich inheritance up to super-rich. (In modern terms, from $100M to $4B.) Her main multiplication resulted from Madman Lincoln’s issuance of high-yield bonds and cheapened currency to run his genocide. Hetty maintained a nominal residence for the family in Bellows Falls, but she actually lived in her NYC office. She didn’t enjoy the money, and didn’t spend any of it to help her two kids enjoy life. She died when Ned was 48, so he made up for lost time. He enjoyed luxury, and equally enjoyed generosity.
His brief try in politics seems to have happened before the inheritance; presumably he had some control of family money at that point.
He tried out every possible way to have fun and exert influence with his inherited fortune. His first try was in Texas where he bought a short-line railroad and a flower farm and got into politics. He quickly moved to the top in politics because other politicians enjoyed the smell of his money. But he clearly didn’t enjoy the political game and wasn’t suited for it. Here’s a 1901 account from Tammany Times, the house organ of NYC Democrats. Tammany sounds just like CNN. Nothing new about partisan teams using dense insider jargon and heavy “irony”. (Note that gas meant illuminating gas in 1901, not gasoline.)
= = = = = START TAMMANY:
At all events, shortly afterwards, when Hon. E. H. R. Green, the Republican boss of Texas, tried to shine at the White House, he discovered that somebody had shut off his gas, so he couldn’t find his way to the pie counter. He was as much surprised as was the hayseed in the city hotel who used a match to start the electric light in his room.
In plain English, Hanna had queered Green with the President. Being no longer able to control the federal patronage for Texas, Green resigned the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, and thus the former Republican boss, like Tom Reed, Alger and other Republican cadavers, adorns a slab in our political morgue. Green got along all right as a wire-puller until he struck some of the barbed kind, which Hanna had placed where Green was so badly crippled up by it that he will not be entered at any future race for Congressional or other sweepstakes.
Now, when a Texan Republican seeks a federal appointment through the influence of Green, he discovers that he is whistling up the wrong tube. It seems to me that Green, who is Hetty’s son, should have inherited enough shrewdness to know that Hanna has a way of dealing himself four aces whenever he deals his friend four kings. And the friend, generally, as in the case of poor Ned Green, doesn’t find it out until Hanna has lifted the jackpot.
= = = = = END TAMMANY.
Politics is blackmail and extortion.
Fortunately for real science, and especially for science as entertainment, Green wandered into other areas where his talents and money were able to serve serious purposes and leave useful lifesaving legacies.
He got interested in wireless and became an active experimenter. He understood radio deeply, both the technical and marketing sides. He didn’t invent any new technology, but he had solid judgment and knew which developments were worth financing. (In general, editors and selectors do more good than inventors and designers.)
Here’s his ‘summer home’ and the WMAF studio as seen in the WMAF booklet:
I haven’t tried to model the mansion. I’ve done the studio, the water tower with speakers, and his unique electric runabout with radio equipment.
Here’s the overview of my version:
The speakers were designed as drive-in radio, so neighbors who didn’t yet have wireless could drive up and listen.
The water tower, not the studio, was the sourdough starter for MIT’s massive research installation at Round Hill. Parallel to Trinity House’s seeding of acoustic experimentation to break through fog, the water tower was the ‘beacon’ for foghorns. MIT then built a high-voltage lab for Van de Graaff, which morphed into linear accelerators for atomic power; and the fog research blossomed into weather radar research.
His custom-made electric runabout was equipped with a direction-finding receiver so he could locate the boundaries of his station’s output.
Colonel Green’s generosity with his property and equipment, plus a whole lot of wisely-planned money, helped to give us nuclear power and modern weather forecasting. That’s a pretty damn big footprint.
More importantly for the future, Colonel Green showed how to use money and science for enjoyment and entertainment. He was not entertained by politics, probably because it was too much like his mother’s Wall Street megalomania. He found that he was entertained by luxury and technology, and wanted to spread the joy.
= = = = =
Sidenote on the political parts:
The Hanna genes didn’t last either. When I was arrested for marijuana in 1969, my parents hired an attorney who was a direct descendant of Mark Hanna, believing he would be competent and influential. He was not. The Hanna legacy had regressed beyond the mean.
One thing has changed from 1901 to now. In 1901 the real powers in politics were publicly known and constantly mentioned in media. Mark Hanna was in charge of R, and Tammany Hall was in charge of D. Everyone knew who they were. Now Sheldon Adelson (recently and wonderfully defunct, but seamlessly replaced by his “wife”) runs R, and Jeffrey Epstein (falsely believed to be defunct) runs D. Regular media never mentions these kingmakers, so “each” “side” is able to accuse the “other” “side” of conspiracy theories when the real powers are named.
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