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Reflections of Ken Towery
Con
Men I Have Known (and certain thoughts attached
thereto) By Ken
Towery
"It
got to where it was just like pouring wet concrete. It was
running all over the place." This
was Ben Jack Cage talking, trying to explain how a person of
his cunning had got in such a mess. Ben
Jack was not yet in trouble with the law. The many trials
and tribulations of Ben Jack Cage had not become a legal
issue, but he could see his troubles mounting. In time
he would be hauled before a committee of the Texas
Legislature, then before a Grand Jury, then before a court,
then he would skip bail and head for Brazil, where, still
thinking, he would marry a Brazilian woman with a child,
thereby making himself immune to extradition. Before
Ben Jack dropped completely from sight, or at least from my
sight, he had certain problems with Brazilian
authorities for selling off bits of the Brazilian rain
forest to gullible Europeans, even though he didn't own the
land he was selling. Then, when Brazilian authorities moved
against him, he hied himself over to Chili, or Peru, I
forget which, and ran afoul of the law there as well. Truly,
before he was through, if he is through, Ben Jack had become
a well traveled, world class con man. Ben
Jack had to be one of the classic con men. He was
handsome. He had a ready smile. He gave the appearance of
"caring." He was forever ready to help the "little man"
become a big player on the big scene. He thoroughly
understood that psychic tug that makes people want
more than they have, which made it possible for him to be
the vehicle to satisfy that want. He was full of ideas, all
of which cost money, of course, but there seemed to be many
around willing to invest. As
the caller reported, (and which turned out to be right) Ben
Jack had been hired, or retained, to manage several
operations in which the unions had a financial interest. He
didn't do so terribly well. In fact, his stewardship was a
disaster. He caused tremendous losses, in the coin of that
day. Somewhat anxious to keep a lid on the matter, and
perhaps to mask their own culpability, they gathered to lay
down the law, so to speak. So smooth was Ben Jack that by
the time the meeting ended, Ben Jack was "forgiven" and a
"forgiveness contract" was entered into, forgiving the
swindler of some $900,000 in debts he had accumulated.
Things went downhill from there. To
make a long story a little shorter, there were people who
didn't like what was going on, not the least of whom were a
few legislators who sat in the Texas House by virtue of
union backing, and who had a financial stake in the matter.
In the meantime, between reporting on various aspects
of state government and the usual run of stories, I had
continued my own interest in what I thought might end up as
an interesting story. Ben Jack, for reasons I could only
suspect, perhaps because he heard of my inquiries into the
matter, decided he wanted to talk to me. He approached a
reporter on our city desk and asked her to arrange the
meeting, which she did after assuring me that while Ben Jack
was a kinsman, she had no concerns about what might
transpire. So
we met, and talked. It was then that Ben Jack made his
comment about "wet concrete." He had evidently hoped that by
getting his side of the story out first, and fast, the
results would leave a favorable, or at least sympathetic,
impression in the public mind. Unfortunately, and unlike
Bill Clinton, Ben Jack had no team of government-paid spin
doctors, no vast team of government-paid lawyers, no team of
tax-supported bureaucrats to rely upon. He was out there all
by himself, and he said some things he shouldn't have said.
For instance, Ben Jack indicated he didn't understand the
niceties of corporate law, although he was up to his
eyeballs in corporate management. It had become obvious, to
me at least, that one of his problems was the movement
of assets from one corporation to another without regard to
records or stockholder interest. He had a ready
explanation. "The
way I figure," he said, (or words to that effect) "if you
have a home, and the light goes out in the bathroom, you
simply take a bulb out of a bedroom and put in the
bathroom." That, on the surface, seemed to make sense. And
every time he moved the assets of one company or corporation
to another, different company, without going through the
necessary legal maneuvering, he was committing a no-no. In
time the authorities got active, and Ben Jack was indicted
for some kind of fraud. He not only skipped bail, he skipped
the country. For Brazil. There he married a Brazilian woman
who had a child, thereby making himself the legal guardian
of a Brazilian citizen. At the time Brazil had a law
prohibiting the extradition of a Brazilian resident to a
country with which they had no extradition treaty, which
included the United States, provided that individual was the
legal guardian of a Brazilian citizen, which of course the
little kid was. So Ben Jack was safe, for awhile. But
a man's got to eat, and Cage evidently thought the easiest
way to provide for his family was to do what he did best.
Hence, the Brazilian caper. The news stories out of Brazil
did not detail exactly what his new troubles entailed, but I
was told by former Texas Attorney General Will Wilson that
they involved selling large tracts of the Brazilian rain
forest to rich and gullible Europeans. That would have been
alright, except he didn't own the property he was selling,
which again raised legal questions. Next,
and finally, we read a small item indicating he was in
trouble with authorities on the West Coast of South America,
this time for fraud involving lumber sales. I
do not know whatever finally happened to Ben Jack, but I
have thought of him often when news stories appear about
other, more modern, con men. I've wondered just where Ben
Jack would fit in a society where men of his stripe so often
emerge as top dogs. There was an almost Clintonesque quality
about the man. He could somehow make one believe him even
when he was telling a lie, and everyone knew he was telling
a lie. Surely, a potential victim was wont to reason, he had
learned his lessons from the last time he got in trouble.
Surely, this time, he was telling the truth. There
were others, many others, who followed in Ben Jack's foot
steps, just as, no doubt, he followed in the foot steps of
others who, over the years have tried one scheme or another
to bilk their fellow men. Some made barely a ripple in the
larger lake, but made quite a splash in their smaller,
hometown pond. There
was, for instance, a man named Solomon, if memory serves,
down in the Corpus Christi area. He supposedly "converted"
from the Jewish faith to Christianity, and joined a
Methodist Church in Corpus. That, naturally, made him
something of a hero among his new parishioners, whom he
promptly allowed to invest in a business venture that
promised lucrative dividends. From the outside, it was the
classic pyramid game, with early investors reaping very high
returns, leading to a rush of others to get in on the act.
His cover story was somewhat unique. He, supposedly,
had an "inside" to highway builders. In theory these were
people who were normally well established highway
contractors who had bid on certain state contracts, but who
somehow found themselves temporarily short of cash, which
made them anxious to borrow short term financing, which made
them willing to pay much more than the going rate for short
term cash, which provided a situation in which certain
lenders could bail them out of their temporary problem with
ready cash, for which they were willing to pay much more
than a "going rate" for that cash, all of which provided a
market for people who might have cash on hand, and who were
also anxious to make a little extra income. During
the course of this scam I received a call from a
Chiropractor in Magnolia Arkansas, a man named Harry
Havlick, who knew of my involvement in the Bascom Giles
story, and asked that I check it out. He said, in essence,
"it this is as good as they say it is, I want to get in on
the deal." So
I checked it out. I went to a man named DeWitt Greer, who
was the state highway engineer for the state of Texas, and
laid out the story. Not possible, he said. The contracts
were gone over thoroughly by the state, he said, and there
was just no room for add on expenses. Something
must be wrong, he said, but he didn't know what it was.
Nevertheless, he and his department were not in the
business of finding out. In
the meantime, I had been asked by then Senator John Tower to
come to Washington as his Press Secretary, and had accepted.
So I went over to the newly elected State Attorney General,
Waggoner Carr, and laid out the story, wishing him well.
Ultimately the guy got hauled up and sent away. To whose
credit I don't know. Rightly or wrongly, I figured Mr.
Solomon had the whole thing planned when he changed
religions. There
was, of course, Billy Sol Estes, a favorite, until he
publicly ran afoul of the law, of various Democratic
politicians, including former Senators Ralph Yarborough and
Lyndon Johnson. After he got some adverse publicity, neither
would admit to knowing him. And
there was Don Yarbrough, a cheap, two-bit crook who parlayed
his name (many confused him with Don Yarborough, who had run
for Governor) and labor union backing onto a seat on the
Supreme Court of the great State of Texas, only to be
exposed and charged with various felonies. Whereupon
he skipped bail, went down into the Caribbean, took up the
study of medicine, of all things, ultimately found himself
kidnapped, sort of, and returned, or "extradited" to Texas
where he served his sentence. Nor
did I regard Bascom Giles and others involved in the
Veterans Land Scandals as genuine con men. Perhaps the
leader of the ring, a fellow named C.O. "Booster" Hagen of
Yoakum, Texas, would fit in that category, but most would
not. The seeds were there, but the psychic was not. They, or
most of them, simply saw an opportunity and took it. None of
them, I thought (and still think) looked upon
unlawfulness as a way of life. In most other things they
were normal citizens, going about their business. Somehow
they became convinced, probably by Hagen, that this one
operation would pave the way to riches. It looked easy. It
was worth a try. Billy
Sol was not one I covered extensively during the time he was
in most trouble. You remember Billy Sol? He was the Pecos
boy who made millions by bilking insurance companies
for nonexistent fertilizer tanks across West Texas.
The authorities, once they were apprised of the situation by
a little newspaper in Pecos, seemed to think fraud was
involved, and Billy Sol went off to prison. When that
happened, both Lyndon and Ralph took the position of: "Billy
Sol Who? Never heard of him." The
newspaper I worked for at that time (The Austin
American-Statesman) was just not interested in assigning
reporters to the Billy Sol story, no doubt because
more than one of his trails led to Lyndon, and they
were not interested in anything that might reflect adversely
on Lyndon. So, we sat on the sidelines, more or less, while
the newspaper in Pecos, and the Dallas Morning News of that
day, carried the load. The
last time I saw Billy Sol, (indeed, the only time I remember
ever talking with him at length) was in the old Lamplighter
Inn in Floydada, Texas where he was signing copies of a book
about his life written by his daughter. He had
completed one prison term, and seemed perfectly mellow
about the whole thing, although he still chafed at his
treatment by former friends, like Ralph and Lyndon, still
had some "deals" going, (he was convinced that the Hill
Country area around Austin, Texas, was going to boom, and he
claimed to have some financial interest in the area).
He was still after the better part of any deal (he
smooth-talked me into trading autographed books, his being a
paper back written by his daughter, and mine being a
hard-bound copy of "The Chowdipper", on which I had worked
for more than two years). But,
in the world of con men, the one that looms largest in my
mind, even higher, or bigger, more fascinating, than
Billy Sol or Ben Jack Cage, was John Milton Addison. The
sheer audacity of his operation generated awe, as well
as a certain degree of respect, even if it was
grounded on nothing but fraud. Addison
came upon the idea of a "uranium upgrader" that he said he
had acquired, and which was located at some place in
Colorado. The tremendous value of this "upgrader" was that
it would allow, or rather he said it would allow, low grade
uranium ore to be run through an "upgrading" operation and,
presto, emerge as high grade uranium ore, which would then
be used in the production of nuclear energy for third world
countries, particularly the darkest regions of Africa. It
would, in effect, bring electricity to all the little tribal
villages in Uganda, Burundi, Nigeria, wherever. Many, many,
good, solid citizens of Texas who felt some sort of
religious compulsion to be part of such an operation were
quick, too quick, to hand over their savings, their
substance, to Addison in order that they might be a
part of this altruistic undertaking. One elderly lady in San
Antonio had sold her home, (for $14,000 in the 1950's) given
him the proceeds, and followed him around as a devoted,
unpaid, secretary of sorts. He bought her meals, since
she had no money, and provided her places to stay
hither and yon, but that was it. Others gave thousands
upon thousands of dollars, and were happy to do so. For
awhile, a sort of cult surrounded Addison, made up of
those who had become believers and benefactors. The
"upgrader" was never put in operation. Many of those who
put money in the operation had never seen the rusting
machine, sitting unused and desolate on a track of land
supposedly in the mountains of Colorado. Those who claimed
to have seen it were convinced, by Addison, that some day,
in the not too distant future, it would be up and running,
turning out high grade uranium ore to fuel nuclear reactors
in the jungles of Africa. I
first heard of Addison through a friend, Carl Conley of
Raymondville in the Rio Grande Valley, who later became a
State Representative. Carl had crossed trails with
Addison when he was the District Attorney in Raymondville.
His early examination of Addison's operation had caused him
to believe the man was a shyster, preying on gullible people
in the area. But his efforts at probing the operation had
met with extreme hostility on the part of many prominent
people who had become convinced Addison was an altruistic
genius. So he backed off, slightly, and relayed his story to
me when he got to Austin as a member of the House of
Representatives. After
I wrote the first stories on Addison and his operation, in
the late fifties or early sixties, I was also descended upon
by his zealous followers, accused of trying to snuff out the
life of what was to be, if I would only leave it alone, a
beautiful baby that would grow into a magnificent man-child
serving all of Africa, indeed all of mankind. Addison's
followers were not among the unwashed, by any means. One
lady, the wife of a District Manager for what is now the
Exxon Corporation, had been in a college chemistry class
with me many years before. She had been a bright,
exceptionally talented student. Becoming convinced of
Addison's project, she and her husband had talked her
parents, who lived somewhere around La Grange, into
giving thousands of dollars, on top of the thousands they
had given. During
one of our conversations, I asked her what she and her
husband would do, what they would think, if Addison were
ultimately proved a crook, spent time in the state's prison,
and resumed his project? Her
answer summed up the attitude of Addison's followers. In
such event, she said, "He can have anything we've got." She
pointed to an electric light above our heads in what was
then the Capitol Press Room in Austin and asked, somewhat
rhetorically, if I would not feel good if I had a part in
bringing that light to reality. In
fact, her husband felt so strongly about the matter that he
threatened economic retaliation against the paper if I
persisted in the Addison matter. He would, he said,
see to it that no advertising from his company appeared in
the Austin American-Statesman. A phone call to our
Editor-in-Chief in Waco, Harry Provence, and a phone call by
him to the company's headquarters, put the matter to rest.
We continued to follow the story, and Exxon continued to
advertise. But
he had a brain, and a voice. The voice was not pleasant to
the ear, or at least not to my own ear. It had a staccato
quality about it that I personally found irritating.
However, his voice had about it a hypnotic quality that
caused listeners, including many who knew better, to suspend
critical judgment and sit in rapture while he spun tales of
that coming great day in the morning. In short, I found
great similarity between the speaking styles of Adolph
Hitler and John Milton Addison, both in style and effect.
Addison was capable of quiet, normal, conversation. But in
front of a crowd his personality, and his voice,
seemed to change altogether. Starting slowly, and
occasionally with an attempt at humor, his speech increased
in both speed and fervor until his listeners were nodding
their heads and applauding, not unlike an old-time revival
meeting. There was an intensity, a single-mindedness, about
his delivery that left little room for argument, indeed no
room for either argument or question. Addison's
presentation was usually laced with comments meant to disarm
his critics and reinforce the faith of his believers. It was
not unusual for him to refer obliquely to the
"upgrader" in ways that couldn't be argued with. Heads
would bob. Who could argue with that? Then
there was the "They say....people should beware of me
because I had a brother in prison. What sort of people would
do that? What sort of people would punish me for my
brother's crimes or my brother's sins? I imagine many
families know what it is to have a family member who is less
than perfect." Again,
the bobbing heads. To
turn down an opportunity to be involved in such an
undertaking would be to turn one's back on his Christian
duty, his heritage. One should, after all, help one's
neighbor. One should, as Addison explained it, help the
poor, and what better way to help the poor than to give him
money so he could bring abundant, cheap, energy to the poor
masses of Africa? He
was treated as a hero by others who had given lesser
amounts, but who wished they could give more. My own report
on that particular meeting, held in the Crystal Ballroom of
the Driskill Hotel in Austin, hinted that Mr. Addison was a
con man, and that people would be better off holding onto
their money. Editors at the Austin American-Statesman, where
I worked at the time, deleted that portion of my story,
fearing, no doubt, certain legal ramifications. Later,
after an investigation by a House committee, and after the
feds entered the case, Addison was apprehended with a brief
case full of cash in an airport, on his way, one presumes,
to less hostile environs. By then, I had gone off to
Washington to work for U.S. Senator John Tower, and read
about Addison's fate, rather than writing about it.
After much searching, the feds had finally found a
chink in the armor of Addison's scam. Somewhere along the
line, in the early days of his money-gathering, he had made
a slip and supposedly "sold" stock in his proposal. That was
unlawful, they said (and they were probably right). So he
suffered the consequences. It was okay when people were
giving him money in the thought they were ultimately
benefiting mankind. It was not okay for him to enter into
business arrangements wherein he sold unregistered stock in
the same venture. One
of the worst, or best, features of semi retirement is its
invitation to reminiscing. Time is afforded for reflection,
for trying to arrive at answers to at least some of
those intriguing questions that plague us during our active,
working years, when we have little time to do other
than fight the daily battles. In trying to figure it all
out, we end up as far from the answer as when we
started. I
remember quite well the feeling I had when the Veterans Land
Scandals were wrapped up. I must have had (wrongly)
something of a self-satisfied feeling, for I remember
thinking "Well, that is that. That will be a lesson for
anyone who might be thinking of trying something like this
again." And within a few months I was writing about Ben Jack
Cage. Is
one more trustworthy than the other? Does it all come down
to who is the more skilled in skirting the laws, the rules
civilized society sets for itself? Does it all come
down to time, to place and position, where a Ben Jack Cage
would be ultimately condemned, and chastised, by the same
people, or many of the same people, who applaud similar
behavior on the part of their favorite politician? Is
there any difference, any real difference, between a John
Milton Addison, who preyed upon gullible believers to enrich
himself, and any number of politicians like Lyndon Johnson
or television preachers like Jimmy Bakker who choose a
different venue to do the same? Still,
the longer we live the more we realize the world is full of
good people, people of honesty, goodness, and faith. It is
sad that so often those are the very people who end up as
the fall guys for con men of whatever stripe. Oh,
well.
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