AUSTIN, Texas -- Walter Hall, that wonderful citizen, died Sunday at 92.
Hall was, of all things, a liberal banker active in the public life of Texas
for many decades. He has so many credentials on his resume that it could
give you an inferiority complex just to read it.
To be called a "do-gooder" anymore is a sneering insult, but Walter Hall
did good. In addition to all his work as lifelong liberal Democrat (and
proud of it), he helped everybody from the Boy Scouts to the cause of clean
water to tackling organized crime back when it ran rampant in Galveston
County to schools to libraries to the Texas Bill of Rights Foundation to his
alma mater, Rice University. One of his last, loveliest gifts was Helen's
Garden in League City, Texas -- a park full of old oaks and flowers in
memory of his late wife, Helen Lewis Hall, who so loved flowers.
He was one of the organizers of the Texas Independent Bankers Association
and once owned banks in Dickinson, Alvin, League City, Webster and Bay City.
At his death, he was chairman of the board and owner of Citizens State in
Dickinson and the League City Bank & Trust.
"Some people laugh at me for making small loans," he said back in 1962.
"Yet I know when people need money in a country town they have no other
place to go. Loan sharks have tried to move into the towns where my banks
are, but they don't stay long."
Like his friends J.R. Parten, Bernard Rapoport and Billy Goldberg, Hall was
not only a man of considerable self-made wealth, but a man of great
principle, as well. In the biography of him by A. Pat Daniels, Citizen
First, Banker Second, he is quoted: "I have been regarded by the
'establishment' as something of a liberal when they were kind, a radical
when they were irritated and a communist when they were mad as hell, none of
which bothered me in the least.
"I have been called a liberal, and I suppose by some measure I am. This is
because I know that change is inevitable, and orderly change is the most
desirable kind."
Hall once said he knew more about losing than most people -- the first vote
he ever cast for president was for Al Smith in 1928. Hall was one of seven
Smith voters in his hometown.
Over the years, Hall supported Ralph Yarborough, Sissy Farenthold and
innumerable other crusaders against the establishment. But he was also close
to Lyndon B. Johnson and often acted as one of Johnson's better angels.
Hall liked to try to get his more liberal friends to be more pragmatic and
his less liberal friends to be more principled. He particularly loathed
crooks and racists in public office.
Hall never took himself all that seriously. He liked to quote his old
friend Ed Clarke's introduction of him: "Hall is a country banker and as
honest as the present conditions permit."
Hall once said of Allan Shivers: "He and another man who became governor of
Texas had in common what I consider one great defect. They both, in my
judgment, had far too great respect for money and people who had it. Many
people think he made a tremendous governor of Texas because of his
intelligence, his powers of leadership and his gift of speaking. He could
have led Texas down a highly progressive road, and the same could be said of
John Connally. But that's not the case, as we all know. Texas, under their
leadership and those who came before and after them, has continued to
worship at the shrine of the dollar mark. The 'establishment' has been in
control."
Hall loved fishing, hunting, woodworking and gardening. He had a ranch in
the Hill Country, where old friends often gathered. He was a lovely man.
Especially for a banker.
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out
more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers
and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
