Evening Star Newspaper, September 22, 1935, Page 83

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TEReSSNtAsnrmervrer vt e” - Magazine Section He“Hired Out”as And when the ILLIONAIRE'S palace to Governor's mansion -— this is the reverse- English to the old-fashioned up-from-the-log-cabin political story we loved so dearly a generation ago. From the days of General Jackson down to the turn of the century it was 4ll but impos- sible for a man to be elected President or Governor who could not point with pride to a log-cabin background. But Oklahoma cares little for tradition or precedent. She picks her governors when, as and where she chooses. From picturesque Wild Bill Murray she jumped to the suave, art-loving, generous E. W. Marland, who had made and lost fortunes — and knew how to make them again. It is difficult to find the adjective that exactly fits this extraordinary “E.W." - as half the people in Oklahoma call him with real affection. In a world strangely filled with complex and many-sided individuals I rather believe he is the most unusual and unexplain- able mixture of adventurer, philanthropist, capable executive, dreamer and fighter that I have ever met. In the fantastic Ponca City davs, when the black gold flowed in streams as wide as the Cimaroon River, he wouid bet you 510,000 on the turn of a card, win —and in the next gesture turn the ten grand over to Jo Davidson to do a portrait bust of some friend. He had the art of making money and the art of spending it for art. Now, [ don't know whether to get into this story from the back door of the Marland palace in Ponca City or the front door of the THIS WEEK Legislature balked he carried his social security fight to the people. Neet Oklahoma’s picturesque E. W. Marland by FrRaZIER HUNT Author of “The Bachelor Prince,” ““This Bewildered IWorld,” Ftc. Governor's mansion in Oklahoma City. May- be we better start with the palace and end up with the mansion. The first time I met Marland was in the oil boom days of 1925. Money was something vou counted in millions. If “E.W.’" had bothered to count his then it would have run close to a hundred of those slippery millions. I call them slippery because that is precisely what they were. They slipped into your fingers — and then slipped out. If vou were lucky you held them long enough to have a lot of fun with them. Marland sure enough did that. He was living in a very beautiful home set The fireplace in the main dining room of the Marland mansion E. W. Marland: He made and lost millions in oil before he went into politics Acme Photo Photographs by Morton Harvey ~3 OvVCernor The dream palace he built in Ponca City, Oklahoma in an exquisite garden. Years afterwards, when Jo Davidson used to tell me about the great gardens and statue-lined walks and parks and the magnificent house he was pouring millions into, I somehow always con- nected it all with this original home. But 1 was wrong. He was merely practicing when he built this first house and laid out the lovely gardens. He wanted to give to this frontier com- munity and this new, rich state, something of enduring beauty and inspiration. From its deep pools of black oil he drew incredible wealth — and he wanted to give it back in some even more lasting form of wealth. So he called in architects, painters, sculptors, land- scape designers, master gardeners and told them his dream of transforming a bare hill- side a mile or two from the city into one of the beauty spots of the the whole world. It was no over-night dream. Each year his European business had compelled him to make two or three trips abroad, and when he had finished his negotiations he would wander among the great gardens and palaces of England and the continent. Slowly his dream to do some beautiful thing for this adopted state — he was a Pennsylvanian by birth — took definite form. It would be a perfect mansion set in a magnificent park and adorned with the finest art that man could produce. The park would immediately be for the public use, and some day the house would go to the community as an art school or gallery or center. 5 From stone quarried on his own place he first built twin studios for his artists and sculptors, and a suite of rooms for himself. Then he left his lovely house in Ponca and established himself in the din and bustle of his great dream come alive. Here he was the true builder. Here he could do the things he really loved to do. The imposing house, perfect in every detail, was completed, and the 200 acres of parks and drives and the statue-marked avenues well along, when the crash and Wall Street together crowded in on him, He poured in his reserves to stem the tide, but it was not to be checked. More than 400 men working in his gardens and grounds had to be laid off and operations stopped. He moved back into the pleasant studios. He still had his dreams — but the millions were gone. It had all been a fascinating adventure. In 1908, the year after the state had been ad- mitted into the union, he drifted in from the Eastern oil fields. Within a year he was on the road that led to millions. It was all good clean fun — win, lose or draw. An oil well cost $100,000 and a blue chip $1,000. He built 2500 little subsistence acre-homes for his employees —and let them pay for them in small monthly installments.- He brought in young executives and made them millionaires — for a day. He established a polo team and introduced scarlet hunting coats. And he did everything in a free and easy way that no one resented. He was giving it away. Then it was all over. For a year or two he sat down and thought the thing out. He had been in big poker games before — and lost. He could take it. Conditions were bad everywhere. It might be that the country needed someone else be- sides lawyers to represent it. Maybe a busi- ness man or two in Congress wouldn’t do any harm. Some of his friends suggested that he run for Congress. He did. The wise observers said that he did not have a chance. He swept in with Roosevelt in 1932. Congress was all right, but a newcomer didn’t have much chance. Things in his own (Continued on page 15)

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