SECRET ARMIES
128
Steele
s
high pressure gang
set
out to collect in the
name
of
patriotism.
The procedure was simple. Salesmen presented their letters of
introduction to the mayor of a city. The mayor was impressed
with the high "patriotic" motives and especially with the impos
ing list of names sponsoring the efforts. The mayor introduced
the high-pressure fellows to other people and the milking began.
Let me illustrate a little more specifically:
On March
4, 1936, Steele
sent two of his ablest dollar-pullers,
and Hamilton, into the Oklahoma oil fields where
the industrialists would like to see a minimum of 200 per cent
Americanism instilled in the public mind. Messrs. Fahr and
Hamilton had letters of introduction to Mayor T. A. Penny of
Messrs. Fahr
Tulsa, Okla. When the salesmen approached the Mayor, they
had not only the long and imposing list of names on the letter
head but additional letters of introduction from ex-Governor
Curley of Mass., ex-Senator Robinson of Indiana and Congress
man Martin Dies of Texas. The drummers wanted the Mayor
them to the Chairman of the Tulsa Board of Edu
could help them get funds in Tulsa and elsewhere.
The funds were to be used to place the "patriotic" magazine
in the public school system in order
preserve this country
to introduce
cation
who
"to
against subversive activities, particularly Communism."
It was a neat circulation-getting stunt, performed without
Fahr and Hamilton
telling what percentage of the take they got.
the letters of introduction. With these letters
gave
and the excellent contacts thus established, they started down
the sucker list from W. G. Skelly, head of the Skelly Oil Co.,
The Mayor
Tulsa to Waite Phillips of the Phillips Petroleum Co.
Like his former colleague Harry A. Jung, Steele works on
the big industrialists by whispering confidentially that he has
sources of information about which he can t talk much but
which make it possible for him to keep the industrialists in
formed about "subversive radicals." For a reasonable price and