Winners Or Losers In Louisiana Oil History

If you want to find a past filled with living and breathing villains and their victims, you only have to look not too far back in the history of oil and the state of Louisiana. Knowing about them, might help understand about the future winners or losers in the BP oil spill soon-to-be history.

The state has been filled with slippery oil coated snakes of the human form since oil was first discovered there. Understanding this, is important to understand why this BP oil disaster promises to shake this nation's to it's very core, when the truth comes out.

Like many others, growing up in the United States, I was raised on certain force-fed mythical truths, like:

• Good always triumphs over the evil
• Justice for all, not only the rich and powerful

Both of those mainstream American concepts would be false, if you are to look at the history of oil in terms of the state of Louisiana. From the moment anyone realized that oil could mean big profits, the poorer Cajuns, Native Americans, and Creoles of Louisiana there were on the losing side of win or lose.

When I wrote History of Oil Industry In Louisiana, one astute reader and fellow writer, FCEtier quickly commented with a couple wonderful quotes from infamous past Louisiana Governor Huey Long. He was a man who even made the corruption history books outside of Louisiana. Here's a reminder voice from the past, my favorite of the mindset of one of the most powerful men in Louisiana's not-so-good political history:

"If there's something belonging to others,

There's enough for all people to share." ~ Huey Long

However, colorful and controversial ol' Huey was he had nothing on his hand picked successor (and their cronies), Governor O.K. Allen, in his "Win Or Lose" scheme, when it came to sucking the life out of the pocket books of ordinary people in Louisiana, in terms of oil industry scams.

Blatant theft was the name of this oil industry game, back in the early 1930s. It's also important to know, that as much as many of us love the state of Louisiana, it has a history rich steamy and seamy political scandals, particularly when it comes to that black liquid gold in the form of oil. Nothing could have been truer than during the reign of Governor Oscar Kelly Allen.

As Governor, Allen in his exclusive capacity, sold windfall exploration leases on oil rich land and waters own by both individuals, along with state owned water bottoms to his buddies. One of those cronies was a multimillionaire industrialist W. T. Burton, who in turn pyramided his shares into the largest bank to operate between Houston and New Orleans, along with other dubious businesses. Then, by pre-arrangement, W. T. Burton would quietly give his leases to a few cooperative oil companies. The oil companies would then give him a lump sum payment in cash for his role in their spoils.

He also gave them life-time leases and took a 1/24 royalty share on every drop of oil and gas produced. Then he turned around and sold 3/4 of this to a company named "Win or Lose." Governor Allen, W.T. Burton, and friends all made sure that this company ended up with the best land and riches oil areas to be had in Louisiana came to that sole company. Much of that land, was condemned and taken by the state of Louisiana under Allen's direction from poor farming families who were given pennies for their property and ordered to vacate immediately.

To give you an idea of how much thievery was involved, just one lease (#340) located in St. Mary Parish -- gave the oil tycoons 250,000 acres. To picture that in your mind, that is the same size as present day Los Angeles). W.T. Burton received that land from the government for a mere $75,000, and two days later sold it for a profit. Remember, that property today, is still the single most profitable oil and gas production area in the United States, and still producing today.

Another thing to remember, is that these men got away with this for almost twenty years. By the time it came out, thanks to the investigative reports of Lafayette Daily Advertiser editor, Paul F. Matthews -- it was quite a scandal, when the list of stockholders in "Win or Lose" corporation were revealed.

Who were the so-called winners? Governor O.K. Allen's children and grandchildren, Governor Huey Long's personal secretary, another former Louisiana Governor,(both Long and Allen's successor), and U.S. Senator Russell Long.

Guess what? On paper, "Win or Lose" had been created with a working capital of $200. It was nothing but a paper corporation that never ever had an office. The sheer amount of this corporations theft from the people of Louisiana has never been fully determined. Eventually the shareholders and their heirs were sued in the 1950s and ordered to make restitution. However, mired in the Louisiana court system for years, with millions owed to victims ($250 million owed to one individual alone), almost thirty years later it was still not paid (nor is there any record to indicate that it was ever paid).

Even though several still well known oil companies were involved in the scandal, the most skillful of those oil industry villains that got away with it back then, was American oil icon, Texaco. BP Oil. However, what happened way back then, may prove to eclipse their role in that past "Win or Lose" scam in the end, not just because of the BP oil spill.

Before we get to that, I'd like to mention that history, especially when it comes to the oil industry and it's disasters, scams, and scandals -- has a tendency to rewrite history in favor of the villains or so-called winners. Aside from never having to pay back what they stole -- here's a little bit of revisionist evidence, just with Governor O. K. Allen:

• The naming of the O.K. Allen Bridge (spans the Red River between Alexandria and Pinesville, Louisiana.
• The naming of Allen Hall at the Louisiana State University Campus in his honor.
• The naming of Allen Hall at the University of Louisiana Lafayette campus.

Most crazy of all, Oscar Kelly Allen, along with Huey Long, were both posthumously inducted into the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame. It kind of makes you wonder, if evil doesn't indeed triumph in the end, when men like that are honored for generations afterwards, even when they all let us down. I'm not saying that they never did good things, but they did tarnish and damage the state of Louisiana by their greed and corruption scandals.

Of course, anyone over the age of forty, probably remembers the popular television series, Dallas,and the character of J. R. Ewing. There was enough scandalous material in the oil industries back then, to keep the writers of those scripts above the fray, in terms of plot. If they had attended just any of the oil industry's LAGCOE conventions (exhibits on oil products and the machinery behind the industry mostly), they would have seen a whole new concept in "partying" in a decadent style. Certainly, the one thing people of all walks of life in Louisiana know how to do, is party, especially oil tycoons transplanted from Texas.

One oil party bash back in 1977 was talked about for years afterwards. It was hosted by J. P. Owens, Sr. -- one of those takes us men from Texas, otherwise known as "oiligarchs." His bayou side Lafayette, Louisiana home, was a quasi-French chateau complete with a fake second floor and boxed trees lining the formal entryway out front. It also included, a somewhat strange Roman style atrium inside, where uniformed servants dispensed plastic champagne glasses filled to the brim with tequila.

His dining room had one completely glass-walled room overlooking the atrium. At that party, the center pieces on the tables were huge silver bowls of French fried frog legs, so many that some claimed afterwards that they had to restock the entire swamp they came from. Both inside the huge ballroom and outside, there were pirogues filled with iced oysters on the half shell. Entertainment came in the form of a crawfish racing contest, that included a bull's eye table, heavy betting, announcers, and the guest of honor "crawfish mudbugs" to even impress even the few native born Cajun and Creole guests attending.

Speaking of guests, they arrived in helicopters, charter buses, and limousines by the thousands. At first glance, the men were clean-scrubbed crew-cut good 'ole boys with their Texan beehive-coiffed beauty queen wives and mistresses, all promenading in more diamonds and bejeweled gowns than the human eye could fathom.

The real entertainment of the evening, however, was an oil black gowned woman in a Medici collar and cape, her velvet and peau-de-soiecostume heavily encrusted with gushing rigs hand worked in pearls and rhinestones. She even had ladies-in-waiting surrounding her, referred to as "oil drops" that played hostesses for the event. They were attired in bondage black boots, black vinyl hot pants, and gold plastic hardhats.

In case you are wondering how I know all of this, I was there. My Congressman escort of the evening, remarked under his real gold and diamond banded cowboy hat, that,"This is some full drag ball, not just the usual tits and arse Texas bar-b-que you get back home." Indeed, it was certainly an eye-opening event watching the beauty pageant entourage weave their way through endless pinches, grabs, and stares.

One close up look at Queen LAGCOE, her diamond crusted scepter, enormous crown, and it's gushing oil derrick and I was convinced I'd seen it all. That is, until it was pointed out to me, that the gushing oil derrick was made of aurora-borealis stones, and real diamonds.

So, if you are wondering why I am bringing up the lavish life-style parties of those oil rich men, here's why -- what back then and now, LAGCOE and Louisiana, were and still are all about, is offshore drilling.

Since the early 1900s, early submerged off shore drilling has become common place for Louisiana and it's other neighbors around the Gulf of Mexico. There are over 3,818 offshore rigs in Louisiana's coastal waters today. Each of them are self-contained industrial plants, requiring vast amounts of machinery, maintenance, capital, and labor.

These rig cities, from a helicopter or boat, look a whole lot like giant Tinkertoys, that the closer you get, begin to overwhelm the senses by their gargantuan size. Coming upon one, I was reminded of H. G. Well's War of the Worlds, since they looked very much like giants stalking menacingly from the salt marshes and the Gulf of Mexico. These days they are stalking farther and father away from the shore out into the Gulf of Mexico.

Just like real Tinkertoys, the rigs are mostly assembled on land first, in pieces that are barged out into the Gulf, then sunk in designated places to be later stacked on top of each other. Most of them hail from Morgan City, or come from fields outside of the booming Gulf Inter-coastal Waterway, nearby.

Their overwhelming same sense of size, is a peek at the overwhelming size of the current problems caused by this BP oil spill and those who not only allowed it to happen, but directly or indirectly caused it to happen.

Next -- The Future History of Louisiana And It's Troubled Bond With Oil -- A History Pre-destined to Have Far Reaching Consequences Beyond Louisiana