Word: texmass
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Said RFC Boss W. Stuart Symington: "It comes about as close to bribery as you can get." He was talking about the latest mess he has uncovered in RFC in connection with the $15,100,000 loan to Texmass Petroleum Co. (TIME, April 24, 1950), now Texas Consolidated Oils. Symington charged that Allen E. Freeze, former RFC official, had taken a $22,500-a-year job with the oil company while on RFC's payroll and while the agency was considering the loan, damned by the Senate Banking Subcommittee as a "bailout" for big banks and Massachusetts insurance companies...
Freeze denied Symington's charges, said that he joined Texmass on June 15, 1950, and that the only money he took from RFC after that date was for accrued annual leave. But Symington said that Freeze's leave didn't begin until Sept. 28; moreover, Texmass had submitted documents to RFC, dated as early as the previous April, and signed by Freeze as Texmass vice president. Symington asked the Department of Justice to prosecute Freeze. Last week, Texas Consolidated decided that Freeze was an expensive liability; he was permitted to resign...
...Friend. Witness Ross Bohannon took the stand. A Texas lawyer, he testified that in trying to get an RFC loan for the Texmass Petroleum Co. in 1949, he talked with Merl Young. Young, he swore, offered to help in return for a fee of $10,000 cash-plus $7,500 a year for the next ten years. Young denied the story, said it was Bohannon who had talked about a big fee, and declared that he hadn't even been tempted. New Hampshire's Charles W. Tobey intervened...
Director Willett also defended Young, said he believed Young's version of the Texmass story. "Senator," he went on, "we hear about things like that almost every day. What do you want me to do about it?" Subcommittee Chairman J. William Fulbright glared at the witness. "Then the situation is much worse than I thought," he snapped. "It is' shocking...
Congressional tempers had really burned over such loans as the $6 million to wobbly Waltham Watch Co.; $37.5 million to the now bankrupt Lustron Corp.; $10.1 million to Texmass Petroleum Co., which used 81% of the money to bail out creditors; and $975,000 to Reno's Mapes Hotel, which gets a big part of its income from a thriving gambling concession. Congressional probers had found that 50% of all RFC business loans had gone down the drain of shaky companies instead of being used to finance new ventures...