University of Central Oklahoma Oral History Project Archives and Special Collections 100 North University Drive Edmond, OK 73034

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1 University of Central Oklahoma Oral History Project Archives and Special Collections 100 North University Drive Edmond, OK Interviewee: Alfred Alexander Jack Drummond Interviewer: Terry Hammons Date: April 17, 1979, Tape 2 Location of Interview: Transcribed by: AD: TH: Kayla Coffey A.A. Drummond Terry Hammons AD: On the Stuart Ranch that was a four way partnership. That was George Smith, me, Lee Russell, and Ed Smith. The four of us; each of us had a one-fourth interest. That was all cows down there. The four of us owned these cows. Then George Smith and I have cows; George Smith and I have the Cross L cows. I just took him in as partners on them. I had to take him in as partners in the move from Kansas City down to Oklahoma City and they wouldn t let me make the loan in my name. I had to make it in George Smith s. I had to set up an entirely new operation. From that operation George Smith conceived the idea that it was his and as his part of the profits with me and pasture operations which we all lost money. He owed me on his half of it; $100,000 to $200,000 when I got a judgment in there of $100,000 for him. He got all the credits that they could possibly figure for him by his lawyer. TH: Let me get back to this AD: Huh? TH: Let me get back to the previous point here. So you began to get into the cattle business because of the Balmorhea cattle? The Balmorhea cows? That s because James couldn t take care of them. AD: That s right TH: So you had to bring them up there? AD: That s right.

2 TH: After you did that, you also bought 400 more cattle AD: We bought, we stocked the Stuart Ranch. We leased a whole ranch TH: Just for cows? AD: Just for cows. TH: And you put the Balmorhea cows and the Yates cows on that? AD: No. We kept the Yates cows and the Balmorhea cows on the Kyger Ranch. We bought other cows, the partnership did. TH: Ok. AD: And put down there. I won t say they were any particular cows. Maybe they were the heifer calves off of oh, they could have been Terry. It s easy to put cows down there and bring the steers up, the steer calves and sell the calves. Everybody wants to go onto the Kyger Ranch, see, because that s the grass feedlot. Cecil Drummond has all of his cows there. We might have put the Yates cows, the Balmorhea cows, and the other cows down at the Stuart Ranch. I think we must have had TH: But, you kept the Kyger clear mostly for pasturing still? AD: And steers, the steers we owned. TH: So, for pasturing steers you owned and you kept the Stuart for cattle. AD: For cattle and timber county. See, Cecil had all Wynona country and the Hominy country. We call that cow and calf country. But this limestone country that s all sandstone brush. The limestone country is where Fred lives. I mean where Chuck lives. That s a grass feedlot. That s a limestone prairie country. That s for steers and he still uses it. He s got all steers there; he moved all of his cows off and got them down south of that country whatever he calls it, Gold, the Gold Country. See, he s doing exactly what we were doing years back; confining that limestone country to steers. But these steers he either buys or raises, but he sells them. TH: In the 1930s when you began buying cows, did you buy fewer steers then? AD: Yeah. TH: You bought fewer steers and more cows? AD: It took more cattle to pasture; you see we had to have income to feed those cows. TH: That was the worst time to do it because the money was so tight.

3 AD: That s it. TH: But you were forced into the cow business? AD: That s right. TH: You wouldn t have normally gone into cows if it wasn t for James Russell. AD: That s right. TH: Ok, that s a very important point, I think. It s something that we happen to have clear [Tape Break] TH: Where does the name Cross L come from? AD: That was the name that James Russell put on those new cattle. He just slapped it on and said that it looked good. It was a simple brand. When I was buying cattle I could turn it upside down and it was a 7 cross. That was Fran Drummond s brand. Top Hartin uses it now because he is using our branding iron. She never did know that or she would have died. We could lay the L down and it would be a lazy L, you see? TH: uh-huh. AD: If you had 500 cattle you would have to have a different brand on them. You couldn t mix a brand, you see It used to be that they had branded inspectors. These loan companies would come and check the brand on your cattle. So, the cross L was James, we bought these cows from Lou Bright as our foundation herd and we leased the Balmorhea Ranch. James Russell was on the ranch looking after them and caring for the cattle. He didn t do it. I went there and I would go around and check them. I knew enough about the cattle business to know when they were looked after right. So, when I saw what he was doing I just shipped these cattle on up to the Kyger Ranch where they could be looked after properly. I ll say one thing about George Smith; he was a good caretaker of cattle. Anyway, I adopted the Cross L and still use it because it is a simple brand, I don t like a lot of great big hieroglyphics, you know? Some people have all kinds of fancy names. I just wanted simple, the simplest that I could get. Each of us Drummond s has our own brand, every one of us. Anyway, then TH: That answers the question. [Tape Break] AD: Monte Corder she contracted about 3,000 calves at a then high price. Well, of course he was responsible for the ranch in Sanderson, TX and his father was one of the Dick Russell owned the Big Canyon Ranch. That was 200,000 acres. Monte was his ranch manager. He just went over there and thought no more of buying 3,000 cattle than you would buy three packages

4 of cigarettes. I was the guy who had to look after them and pay for them. So, when he told me. When Monte told me that he bought us some calves, I asked what he bought. He bought the I liked to fell over like the 35,000 at one time Well, alright I have 3,000 calves to pay for and can t. So, I go to Cardin and I send him 3,000 about 1,500 heifers. I think I sent the steers to the Kyger ranch and I believe I put those 1,500 heifers on M.O. Cardin s in Madill. That was I sold those to Cardin and didn t have any credit or money either one. That s the way I got those marks on the heifers taken care of. The heifers went to Cardin and the steers to the Osage. TH: Those heifers stayed with Cardin for quite some time, right? AD: Those heifers went to Cardin, we wintered them there and sold them the next year, you see? I had to take them that fall. So, we didn t establish a cowherd with those. They were just a onetime operation. I sold those 1,500 heifers and put them there on the Madill Ranch right where we are today and wintered them and the next summer sold them TH: That was 1927 I believe, wasn t it? AD: I don t know. TH: I m pretty sure it was. AD: That was Monte Corder; that s just you see Terry, damn if I got into some of the my partners got me into jackpots. They were always bigger deals than I wanted to swing. I was conservative and they were they thought I was a miracle man and could handle these deals and somehow I worked out of them. It keeps me in agony working out of them. TH: Tell me about the Eads cattle. In 1931 that spring your partnership with George W. Smith got the Eads cattle. That s all I know about them. I don t know what they are, how many there were, whether you bought them, whether it was a pasture deal. The papers say that they were put on the Stuart Ranch. Were they cows? I think its spelled E-A-D-S. Eads. AD: Henry Eads. TH: Does that sounds familiar, were those cows or steers. What? If they were put on the Stuart Ranch I guess they would be cows. AD: Yeah, they d be cows. We didn t put any they might have been young steers. He came, Henry Eads was it Henry or George? TH: I don t know. AD: Alright, he lived at Herberville, TX. He was a good friend of Mr. Russell s. TH: Do you recall if it was a pasture deal or not? AD: Huh?

5 TH: Do you recall if it was--- AD: It was a pasture deal. We didn t have any. We just pastured cattle for so many people. TH: Ok, so that was one of many pasture deals? AD: Yeah. TH: Ok, good. [Tape Break] TH: Keene Cattle? AD: What? TH: Keene Cattle. K-E-E-N-E, in 1929 you and your brother Cecil were trying to sell them to the Mullendores. I believe they were in Texas. I found a letter that said that you were taking Gene and E.C. Mullendore into Texas to look at the Keene cattle. AD: King Cattle? TH: Keene AD: K-I-N-G? TH: No, no. Keene, I believe. K-E-E-N-E, Keene as in sharp or smart. Keene, do you remember that? Could it have been King Cattle? AD: It must have been King, K-I-N-G; we wouldn t have taken the Mullendores down there anyways. TH: You would not have? AD: No, Cecil Drummond and E.C. were partners. I leased Gene Mullendore s ranch up there when he. He married that girl, you know, and her father owned that ranch and he had to take it over where he was killed. I put the cattle up there and I paid him, I think, $7 a head. I got $8. I made $1 a head on the 2,000 cattle. He never did get over that; the fact that I made $2000. I furnished 2000 cattle and he couldn t get 200 anyway to come eat his grass, so he got $14,000 and for my commission and work I made $2,000 and he made $14,000 for his grass. But, I don t recall TH: Any dealing with the Keenes?

6 AF: No, no. See, Cecil bought the cattle for he and Mullendore and they didn t make any money. Mullendore was using him to buy land, see? Just like I was using Burt Quimby to buy the land in the Quimby country; I told Cecil not to do it. Mullendore offered me the job. He wanted to go in with me. I said to him, Mr. Mullendore, I can t match your money. I don t have it. I had the poor boy mind. I was struggling to get cattle to pasture to pay the expenses. TH: Ok, right around that same time, 1930, 1931 uh you had contact with a fellow named Reynolds, Bill Reynolds. AD: Yeah. TH: Who is talking about buying 4,000 sheep that you owned a share in. You were quarters, I guess, in Sanderson AD: Hal Ramsey? TH: No, Bill Reynolds. AD: Bill Reynolds he was Reynolds Cattle Company. I never he just had Reynolds Cattle Company. They had a tremendous ranch. Bill Reynolds was a senior and they had big stockholders in the Fort Worth National Bank. We pastured I don t know how many cows for them. It was several thousand cows. They had cow herd and they would send their cows up to me in the Osage. TH: There was one time that he was talking about buying 4,000 sheep AD: Sheep? TH: Yeah, 4,000 sheep and some steers that you had at Pyote is that how it s said? P-Y-O-T- E; a small town down in Terrell County, I believe. AD: Where? TH: Pyote. You had steers at this town, which is spelled P-Y-O-T-E. AD: In Texas? P-E-C-O-F? TH: No, this P-Y-O-T-E. I found it on the map. It s a little bitty town in Terrell County. AD: Terrell County TH: So, I AD: Terrell County, Texas? That s Monte Corder s country!

7 TH: Right. I m assuming that you and Corder had some steers there that you wanted to sell AD: Yeah. TH: And you also had 4,000 sheep and Bill Reynolds was talking about buying them. He came down and looked at them, but I could never find out if he actually bought them. AD: No, no Bill Reynolds never did That was Hal Ramsey, I think. He -- TH: Ramsey comes up a little later. In February of 1931 you had a bunch of cattle all over Texas that you wanted to sell and a fellow named Turner, Joe Turner came down to see about buying them. Did he ever buy any of them? AD: I don t think so. TH: I haven t found papers to confirm. It sounds like you were trying to sell cattle in 1931 and you couldn t find buyers. Could that be right? AD: Could be. I don t know. When I was down there we were probably getting some of the cattle coming to the Osage. I wasn t trying to sell cattle. I would never commission. I would get them to pasture. I was a pasture man. I was known as a pasture man. In other words I would take other peoples cattle and I always dealt with the responsible people that owned the ranches, just like Mr. Yates, Mr. and all these old-timers. That s one thing that he put me in contact with them. I was always reliable and dependable Terry. I had a good reputation. Until that $92,000 dollar deal; that s the thing that I ll always regret. That ruined my good name and my good reputation and everything right with that newspaper article. TH: In the 1930s AD: Huh? TH: In the early 1930s: [19]30, [19]31, [19]32 you and were partners who had an interest in an awful lot of Texas steers. You had interest in steers with Corder; you were interested in steers with Rocky Reagan AD: That s right. TH: You had an interest with AD: Rocky Reagan the most. R-O-C-K-Y, Rocky Reagan. TH: So, you had all these steers that you owned part of in Texas. I guess you were trying to sell them, did anybody buy them because times were hard. AD: Liquidate them

8 TH: Yeah, because you had all those notes on them and you couldn t pay back the notes until you had sold them. AD: I had to keep them and look after them and furnish expense money, you see? When I was down there with Rocky Reagan I had a hell of a time. He had to have expense money and we had a ranch leased. I had to dig up the lease money or sell the cattle and give up the lease. Well, we were hoping the cattle were going to go up and the same way with Monte Corder. Of course, then we had the agony of the rain; just like we feared the drought. See, we faced droughts in Texas. Texas has droughts that Oklahoma doesn t have as a rule. All the times none of it was easy. None of it that I was involved in was easy. I never had any easy... It s just I was always working out deals. You know what I mean when I say working out a deal? TH: Yeah. AD: It had an angle and somehow I worked them out. Like Monte Corder, I finally liquidated Monte Corder. We liquidated our sheep and cattle and I had he had a mortgage on his ranch and he needed me to save it. I paid the taxes on it and he gave me a fourth mineral interest and that s the thing that deal has made me half a million dollars. TH: That happened around 1933 or [19]34, right? AD: yeah. TH: Yeah, I just found papers on that just about a week ago. Ok, let me see how many [Tape Break] TH: Did you buy very much land down where you are now in the early thirties? AD: No. TH: When did you begin to really buy a lot of land down there? AD: I bought my first land down there it was 100 acres in TH: Then you bought periodically in little pieces? AD: Little pieces, I bought the first I came back from World War II in That s when I began to buy land. I bought land up until 19 I bought land I must have 2,000 acres or something like that. That s just a rough estimate. From 1924 I went away to war and in 1942 So from 1924 to 1942, how many years is that? TH: 18. AD: 18.

9 TH: Yeah. AD: I just bought little dabs. TH: Then after World War II AD: That s when I TH: That s when you really began buying land. AD: That s when I get things done. You can t get things down through a third party. You ve got to go do it yourself. When I went to go get a piece of land I generally bought it or trade for it; some way or another. Chuck Drummond is the same way; I taught Chuck. Never try to buy land over a letter or over the telephone. Go and sit face to face; you can sit face to face with me and learn more than a dozen letters or fifty altogether. TH: Yeah, you betcha, you betcha. AD: But, Monte Corder was a wonderful person. There never was a better man or a better partner. He told me Jack, I just don t have the money. But, I ll give you a fourth of these minerals. He said that they might be worth something, they had drilled a well on it; a shallow well from when the Ira Yates field came in. His land is just 20 miles from the Ira Yates pool; which is one of the biggest in the world at the time. Ira Yates was getting a million dollars a day from it for some time. Anyway, he felt that land would produce sometime. The $206,000 for it or a fourth interest in four sections. I gave the money to the daycare center. So, it might and they tell me that one well on the Corder Ranch might be worth $7,000,000. Just one well; when they ranch. See we have a fourth interest in thirteen sections. We have 2,300 acres of minerals. So, if they get an oil well they ll get an oilfield. TH: Yeah, yeah. AD: You ll get a lot of wells. It is astronomical amounts. The way that gas and oil is now our minerals could be worth much more than land. When I see Jim Drummond, he doesn t have the minerals under these 7,500 acres in trust form. I keep those minerals to myself. Damn good thing that I did, isn t it? TH: Uh-huh. AD: Right, he was surprised he thought he had the minerals. He just learned that a week or two ago. Isara was sitting there and she found out that he didn t have the minerals and that I had the minerals. Well, Monte Corder, see, he was a loveable person. They sold those 3,000 calves that they had imposed on him; but I worked that one out. Mr. Russell got me in hot water over there at Healy s TH: Yeah, and the Vestring s.

10 AD: Huh? TH: Then you had to bring in the Vestring s to get you out of that one. AD: Did what? TH: Then you had to bring in the Vestring brothers to get out of that one. AD: Yeah, Vestring. TH: Vestring, yeah. AD: V-E-ST-R-I-N-G. Yeah, the Vestring brother s got me out of that. The fact that they outbid us $.10 a pound on that $5.35; you ought to work that in. I don t know how you ll fit that in; you ought to cover it in some way TH: If I could just find a document that gave us a date. If I could just find a date so I know when to put it in. AD: I don t Lee Russell handled that, don t you see? TH: Uh-huh. AD: And he went down there eon that Hurst Ranch and spent a month looking at the cattle, then he went up and talked to Freeland and then he went out in person to Santa Fe New Mexico and gave that bid to that receiver; $5.25 a hundred. With my cashier s check for $50,000; payable to them see, I don t even have a check, but I had a cashier s check. Then of course when they mailed the cashier s check back to me it was in place of my name. He was right there when they opened the business. It was a bunch of market dealers who sold Monte Corder to Mitchell, those 3,000 calves; they bought those 35,000 and made several hundred thousand out of it, I remember later. But, there s just most of my operating is to just sweat the blood out of trying to get enough cattle to pasture and buying enough cattle. Corbin was a good cattle buyer, Bill Corbin; he was a good cattle buyer. When we first started out, every bunch of cattle that we bought made us money. Of course, his family spent lots of money. He was very extravagant with his family. I took my money and bought land. He spent his money on his family. I always had, damn near always had somebody I never bought these cattle Terry. I was generally doing the paperwork, the finances; the banker partner. I had losses, like on that feedlot loss and I had to put those cattle over there and it rained all the time. They were belly deep in mud, I would go to the Sears Hotel and there would be rain pounding on the window. That s agonizing. Well, like last night I looked out and it was raining. They fertilized until eight o clock last night. They came over with an open truck, the truck had broke down. Boy if they hadn t got that fertilizer then it all would have been wet and the truck would have been ruined. They brought let s see, they had 25 tons and 25 tons cost about four or five thousand dollars. That could have been ruined just by the rain, see? They got it out and now it s on the ground doing good. You ll have a lot of close calls like that.

11 TH: Let me [Tape Break] TH: Reagan? AD: Who? TH: Flourney Reagan. Flourney? F-L-O-U-R-N-E-Y Reagan. AD: Flourney, that s Rocky Reagan s son. TH: Rocky Reagan s? AD: Flourney. TH: OK, you and he had some small deals or a small deal in 1930 and [19]31. Is that so? AD: Yeah. TH: Ok AD: Well, that was just a minor TH: What were the owl head steers? I find that in 1932 you and Rocky Reagan had a $25,000 loan on the owl head steers with Stockyard Loan Company, I suppose. AD: Oh that s from; they were just some of our partnership cattle TH: The Rocky Reagan Partnership wasn t a very good partnership, was it? AD: No. TH: That was just because of bad times, right? AD: Rocky Reagan was a good man and he worked hard, he was honest. TH: So, it was just bad times? AD: Yeah, I guess. When you are in one of these depressions and there is no way you can make money and it s I lost money on Rocky Reagan, but I can t tell you how much. It wasn t Rocky s fault TH: And it wasn t your fault?

12 AD: It wasn t my fault. It was the condition. It s just like right now. Cattle have gone from calves $.60 a pound last year to $.90 a pound. Well, that s conditions. Nobody if. We had a calf last year that we sold for$250 will sell for $400 now. That s just like this land. TH: It s nothing you did, it s just AD: NO, that s just the circumstance. It s the condition. TH: I see now what you mean about there really isn t competition in the sense of competition. There are so many cattlemen that you create a market and you have to compete against the market. You don t necessarily have to compete against each other. AD: No, no, no. TH: I see what you mean by that now. AD: No, it s condition and it s how you handle your cattle. If you see we feed our cattle good in the wintertime and we give them lots of grass in the summer and we have extra pounds on our cattle and they weigh good. They re half fat all the time, it costs us a lot of money but we are good operators. The Drummond s are good operators. You heard Chuck Drummond tell us that he lost $1,000,000 in the feedlot? TH: Yeah. AD: To lose a million dollars is agonizing, but being able to make it back is unbelievable. He had to pay the interest on that while making it back. TH: Yeah, in so short of time. AD: Yeah, what saved his neck is selling that land out in Poteau. TH: Ok, I found reference also for 1930, [19]31 you and Clyde Lake were sued by the Citizen s First National Bank. How come? What was that story about? AD: Well, Clyde Lake what did they sue us for? TH: I don t know, but you were order to appear in court for a disclosure of assets. That s all I found. Who was Clyde Lake? AD: Clyde Lake was the banker in Pawhuska. He was the cashier of the Citizen s National Bank. Who sued us? TH: The Citizen s National Bank sued you. The Citizen s First National Bank.

13 AD: Yeah, he was a cashier in the Citizen s National Bank and he bought land for Chapman and Bernard. They gave him a dollar an acre for all the land he bought. He d buy thousands of acres for them all the time. He knew all those men TH: That s where I know that name. AD: Huh? TH: That s where I had heard the name and I just couldn t put it with Chapman and Bernard. AD: Yeah, he was Chapman and Bernard s land buyer. TH: And he worked at the bank. AD: Yeah, he was a cashier at the bank and he was a very able man. He had an insurance agency; he was in the back of See, the Citizen National moved over from the corner of Duncan s to now it was Ed Kennedy s bank. Ed Kennedy bought that bank and tried to have his office in the backend of it. Mr. Hurley was the President of the bank in this cattle but he committed suicide. He had a room at the Duncan Hotel and he shot himself. TH: Mr. Hurley did? AD: Huh? No, yeah, Mr. Hurley did. TH: How come? AD: Well, he was President of the bank and he lost a lot of money. He had lost all his money and some of the bank s money. TH: When did this happen? In the thirties? AD: Well, I guess it was. Pete Hurley was a good friend of mine. He was my age, his son. I felt awful bad about Mr. Hurley. Like Bill Corbin, I told Bill Corbin not to kill himself because things turn around. Like when I lost all of my credit and that money and then this lawsuit and all this litigation. I just got out of litigation with Gasperson, you see? Settled for $100,000 mainly to get out of litigation. I was in litigation with him for 11 years and with George Smith I think seven years. He was getting ready to go to court or was in court that whole time. TH: Aren t you struck by the number of people that you have known that have killed themselves? AD: Gah, I never thought about it. TH: Milton Freeland shot himself. AD: Who?

14 TH: Milton Freeland, right? AD: Who? TH: Milton Freeland? AD: Oh yeah, the banker. TH: Milton Freeland committed suicide, Hurley committed suicide, and Corbin committed suicide. AD: That s right. TH: Didn t you tell me once that there was some chance that Lowman committed suicide? AD: No, Lowman s son committed suicide. TH: Lowman s son. AD: Not Lowman. He was rich; he left 24, 000 acres of land in the clear to those three boys. TH: So the boys went broke and one of them killed themselves? AD: Yeah, they went broke. One of them committed suicide. TH: Doesn t that seem interesting that there are seemingly a disproportionate number of people involved in cattle that wind up killing themselves. Why is that? AD: Well, because they d been big shots and TH: Pride AD: When you pull the plug they d just rather be dead than be humiliated, see? For example, it would be hard for me to stand on a corner with a tin cup. I just couldn t do, I wouldn t do it. I ve always had access to big money. Of course, there have been periods that, I built a new credit with the Fort Worth National Bank. At one time I could go to the bank and get $500,000 in my name. With the Stockyard Loan Company in operation I get any amount in cattle that I wanted, see? Until Milton Freeland they liquidated all the Packer banks, and of course they liquidated the Stockyard Loan Company. I never had anything to do with the City National Bank. That s where Chuck does his business up there in Kansas City, now. He has a credit of $2,000,000 and they charge him 10.25% interest. That s over $200,000 in interest. I don t see how he can do it. He manages, he s got it at his fingertips and he knows what he is doing. No, it s just you don t know, you know these people because they were associated with me. There are plenty of brokers that have jumped out the windows up there.

15 TH: In New York City, too. AD: Yeah, in New York City too when that stock market broke. TH: I would like to be able to point that out in the book. That s why I was anxious to use Corbin, but if you say not to use Corbin then I won t. AD: No, no, no don t use Corbin. TH: But, cattlemen went through the same type of thing that every other business man did at that time. The same type of agony, the same type of loss, the same type of hurt, the humiliation; it seems like an equal number of them also jumped out of windows so to speak. AD: That s a good point you have, in your letter I read very carefully that you said that this depression and loss of that money. I had the urge in the depression to take long chances. TH: You had to. AD: I had to Oil deals were all big in their past, you see? You have to have the money; an oil deal is like buying this land. I always took the money with me. I would buy a piece of land and you would have an abstract for it, you see? I was making down payments, and then I would say well, you might know that check s good you just endorse it and check what the deal is. Then I would say I can cash it for you. I would count the money out, say it was $5000, put the check in my pocket and when I got to the bank I would run the check through my account and take out the $5,000 and have it for another deal, you see? That s the way I operated. That s the way I bought that land, because I would have some instances where after I would give them the check or a man and his wife would be talking it over and they would say, That Drummond is smart, he knows something that we don t know. That land s worth more than that or he wouldn t : Unless they really wanted the money they would tear the check up. My deal was gone. Your check is your contract, you understand? TH: Sure. AD: You understand what I am saying? TH: Yes. AD: So, I was in the celestial pole, there were always big deals, see? I was an urgent need to pull a big deal to get some fact money. I had a lease deal, an oil lease deal that I expected to close and I knew that I had to have the money to close it. I had that money. In order to obtain that money I had to take on my ranch money from my ranch accounts. Including this nest egg over here at the bank of Tulsa; the Exchange National, I guess it was, whatever that bank was in Tulsa. One of those things will tell you what it was. I think I got $38,000 out of that bank. TH: Something like that.

16 AD: When you take this out of that, when I m draining my account It was all my money, you see? That s one thing, it was all my money. It was my bread and butter money. You have to feed cattle and you have to pay those cowboys, you ve got to have cash to operate the business. I just was so sure that I was going to make an oil deal. That I was going to buy an oil lease that would have producing properties and was going to drill a well and the well was going to come in and that if the well came in I was going to get a resale and make a lot of money. TH: Uh-huh and then you wouldn t have to worry about settling with partners AD: I wouldn t have to worry about the cattle business. I would have hit the jackpot. I was taking a gamble on hitting the jackpot on an oil lease. TH: That has to be the theme AD: Huh? TH: That has to be the theme of the next chapter. Desperation AD: Yeah. TH: Your own personal desperation and the desperation of everybody else in the country. AD: Yeah, that s right. TH: Ethics seemed to go ethics were no longer important. You couldn t afford ethics. It seems that all of a sudden AD: Well, it s not a matter of ethics with me. It was a matter of a gamble. Taking a big chance for a lot of money. TH: Because you had to do it? AD: Yeah. TH: There s no safe way to make money. AD: Well, I got out of the cattle business, see? I was a greenhorn in the oil business but later the fact that I had oil later makes and gives color to the fact that this oil lease that I lost out on it. TH: Uh-huh. AD: See, it taught me a lesson, but I have always carried a lot of money to making James Pruitt, he came in on Sunday morning to tell me that he had bought this Ward land. He could buy it for $50,000. I said, Well, James I ll count you out a thousand dollars and write you a check. You take this $1000 in $100 bills and that was eight o clock on Sunday morning. You go out there and lay this $1000 down before he sells it and you ll give her the $50,000. Here s a

17 check for $1,000. I d written on the check that was a payment on a $50,000 purchase, see? I made the check a contract. I said that and had him sign it. Then tell her that if you want to sell this land for $50,000 you ll give her $1,000 now. I ll give you any amount that you want when you say. She said that she wanted $4,000 by next Tuesday. I said alright. Her husband said Now, Lucille, if you take that money you ve sold your land. She said, I don t care I m going to take it. She endorsed the check. See, it was made to her and I had a line for her endorsement under this line on the back. She endorsed this check and picked up the $1,000. That was Sunday morning by 8 o clock. By 11 o clock that Sunday morning the old boy that owned the 20 acres that joined their land across the street over by Doc Watkins, he s made a million dollars with his cattle trailer. He offered her $75,000 for it. $25,000 more; she tried every way on earth to back out. Finally, a lawyer told her, he said that there s no way that you can back out. Then I gave James the $4,000 the next Tuesday and she carried that check for a very long time. Finally she cashed it: when she found out that that check sold it. I had done that before, if she d had the check she would have just torn it up. You understand that? TH: Yeah, but she had the $1,000. AD: He cashed the check, see? TH: Yeah. AD: He gave her the $1,000 and she endorsed the check. Then he ran it through his bank the next day. But she had the money and she got it on that check. So, that tied the deal. See, he learned. He had never thought about that. That s my business experience that got him that. He s been offered $80,000 for that land now. Just to put a fence around it s going to cost $30,000. He s going to put his racehorses but there s been high spots come along in between my life and very mediocre. I ve had good habits, Terry. I don t drink. Down there I was an elder in the Presbyterian Church and up here my father and mother and the Drummond family really are the Presbyterian Church of Hominy. They are the they set it up. Of course, it s the Presbyterian churches. It s kind of a dignified church and it s not the Baptist of the big church organization. I attend the Methodist church now because we closed the Presbyterian Church and gave it the Methodists. But I have always had good personal habits. I ve always worked hard and had a hell of a good reputation and a credit reputation. I had a credit reputation that wouldn t quit until that if that hadn t been in the newspapers it would have never TH: Nobody would have ever known. AD: Nobody would have ever known. TH: You would have been set back temporarily because you would have lost all that money. But you could have made that up. AD: I went off to war; when I came back I went to Madill. I had established a new credit and a new reputation. You know that I was elected citizen of the Washington Citizen of the year. I have to have a good reputation. The same way on the Women s Professional Goodness Club; they have about 80 or 90 women. See, they take every one of those women submit their

18 resume on the walls and they have a committee of six, I think it is, and then they go over there and select one person. They never announce who it s going to be. No one knows who it is until they have their annual banquet. That s the last thing when they announce who s been selected. TH: You certainly deserve it after AD: Huh? TH: The daycare center and everything else. You deserve that. AD: Well, I didn t It came as a surprise to me. I have never done anything for self glory, when I got that Sand Springs Pipe Company it was for Osage County. When I set up the National, those organizations, nobody else could do it. I had the knowledge and the financing and the will to work, see? I had just got out and I had O.B. Pope drive me for three weeks. I didn t have my clothes off and I had to have we had limited time we had 500 names at $1 a piece, that s all. We could get $1,000,000 for these cowherds and get started out. I brought it in and I had to set up the money or the National Livestock Credit Corporation had $10,000 that we could get I don t know how many bids, maybe three, maybe five on $10,000. I still got, I got $3,500. I believe it was $3,500. Cecil got $6,000. My stock that I forgot when I had a settlement to get my stock back. So, he s given it to someone. Fred, I guess. Anyway, it s preferred stock in the National. I ve got mine in a trust at Liberty National for Jim s Insurance. He s got a $150,000 insurance policy. I have $30,000 in there that the interest on that pays the premium on that $150,000. But those things, I ve never done for personal aggrandizement or whatever you say. TH: Uh-huh. AD: Or personal glory, because I have been a good citizen. I m sure that when I lie down and die I haven t wronged anybody. I ve wronged no one. You can t say that I m a philanthropist; I know in one of your summaries you referred to me as a philanthropist, but I don t a philanthropist is an old guy with lots of money. I m just a little peanut pincher TH: There are different types of charity. The bible says that the best act of all is to use your money to help somebody else get on their feet. Just giving somebody money is ok, but the bible says that the highest type of charity is where you use your money to help somebody else make their own money. AD: Well TH: That s what you are doing. AD: The other day there were two women from the Kingston school, they came to get a donation of $25 and they said Mr. Drummond there s a boy in our school who is 14 years old, or 12 something like that, he has a hearing impediment and we want to get a hearing aid, but it s going to cost $300 or $400. We are trying to raise the money and we came to you first. We d like to know if you d give $25. I said, Well, how much is the earring aid? They didn t know. So I said, It ll cost you about $400 or $450 or something like that, because I had got them. I ll tell

19 you, that s alright you just take this boy and get him fitted out and I ll pay for his hearing aid. They like to fell over. They come to me for $25, but I know the value of a hearing aid, Terry. TH: Uh-huh. AD: And, so I told them well, I ll just give him a hearing aid. So, maybe a week or two ago they came for the check. I said, I thought you forgotten about this hearing aid. They said, Nope, we brought him up here to the Oklahoma University Medical School and they ran an audition thing and they sent him to a company where he would get the hearing aid like they wanted him to have. Then the company said to take the hearing aid and let him try it on and prove it before he had to pay for it. SO, that s why the time had passed. They said that he had an examination in spelling and he come in 100%. That s the first time. The faculty was happy, the kids were happy, the parents were happy. But he hadn t been able to hear on these spelling lessons, see? TH: Uh-huh. AD: I know that conversation goes on and I have to say what are you talking about, see? I don t just butt in the conversation because I don t understand everything that is said. Well, I thought nothing of helping. That just come to me as natural, to buy that hearing aid for that child. Then when they told me that he made his first hundred and he could hear, then that really warmed my heart, Terry, the fact that I was able to provide that hearing aid for him. I never thought about the cost. I d just as soon give them $400 as soon as $40 or $25. When it s useful, see? Anything that is wasteful I just wouldn t have anything to do with it. But, anyone who comes at anytime fro those charities or organizations that come to me, these kids come sometime, these little children come, the bluebirds are what they call them. They come selling candy and I said, How many boxes have you got? They say 10 or 12 or 14. I say I ll just buy them all. Then I just buy them all. I never turned a child down. On Halloween when they come around, I ll get $50 or $60 worth of candy and give away every bit of it. Instead of giving a piece, I give them a handful. They sure like to come to our house. TH: I bet they do. AD: Yeah. Sometimes 10 or 15 come in a bunch. But, I don t call that philanthropy. I just call that kindness to your fellow man. TH: Well, the rest of the world would call it philanthropy, believe me. AD: Well, alright. I don t feel that I m a philanthropist. I just feel that I m a good citizen. I feel exactly like a philanthropist. They made me Marshall County Citizen of the Year. I feel that, I don t feel that I m a good citizen in Marshall County because there isn t anyone in need. I ll tell you there is a family, I believe they have six kids and they were going to school when that snow was on, they didn t have- their shoes were in tatters. I told them to go down and take the children, go down to the store and get good warm shoes and anything else they need and I ll pay for it. They brought a bill to me for $190. Just think of those kids going to school partly barefooted in that snow and ice. I just hate to know about those things, because I try to help everyone that I can. There are so many that you can t.

20 TH: Yeah, you can t help everybody. There s no way. AD: That s right, just like Jesus said, The poor you have with you always. But I m just here for the day. TH: Well, I think that s all we need to do for the day. [Tape End]