Edward Ball
Encyclopedia
Edward Gresham Ball was an American businessman. He was powerful figure in business and politics in Florida
for decades, despite the fact that he never held public office and did not own the assets he controlled. He worked for and with his brother-in-law, Alfred I. du Pont
for nine years before running the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust
's businesses by himself for another 46 years. He led the St. Joe Company
to become a major player in several industries in Florida.
and educated in the one-room Shiloh Schoolhouse. After completing primary school, he convinced his father to let him quit school and get a job. He had always been obsessed with making money; at one time, he prospected for gold in Alaska. However, when Ball's older sister, Jessie Ball became the third wife of Alfred I. du Pont in 1921, Edward was given the chance of a lifetime. He began working for his brother-in-law in 1923 at the lofty salary of $5,000 a year, and moved to Delaware where he was publicly named manager of the Clean Food Products Company. Privately, he was Mr. du Pont’s confidential business partner and became a shrewd financier and caretaker of the du Pont de Nemours estate fortune. After Jessie & Alfred moved to Florida in 1926, Edward joined them.
s, which included large Florida landholdings and industrial interests, including the Florida East Coast Railway
. Jessie preferred to handle the philanthropic activities of the trust while Edward concentrated on making money.
. Their public spokesman was Florida Senate President Charley Eugene Johns
from Starke
. The coalition supported racial segregation
(which was practiced at the St. Joe Paper Mill) and was known for toasting, "Confusion to the Enemy!" with Jack Daniel
's whiskey.
Ball rarely, if ever, took a public role in politics. With control over the vast du Pont business empire, he exerted political influence through his Florida banking empire, his ownership of numerous Florida newspapers, and by funneling unregulated and unreported cash to political operatives. Ball did not need to get his hands dirty or risk personal resources. Ball was a main (but not the only) financer of the defeat of Claude Pepper
's effort to be reelected to the United States Senate in 1950. Pepper's liberalism and Ball's conservatism feuded through much of the 1940s and 1950s, prompting a book to be written in 2000: Claude Pepper and Ed Ball: Politics, Purpose, and Power.
According to a 1979 article in the New York Times, Edward Ball at various times was called a Robber Baron and a political power broker; a clever man with a dollar and a dangerous man to cross; a courtly Virginian with the ladies and a ruthless foe. He is known for "orneriness" but insists his reputation is undeserved; he claims he was just a trusted functionary who did his best for the institution he served. Critics say he hijacked the trust as a tool of his personal power, treating the assets like a miser hoarding every coin. He had the reputation of a "tart-tongued, hard-nosed conservative financier".
had 19 provisions which described their wedded lifestyle and included a definition of "nagging". Edward Ball fought and delayed the divorce settlement for six years before agreeing to pay his ex-wife $250,000.
(founded 1905) of Jacksonville shortly after arriving in Florida in the mid-1920s. Other banks were gradually added into what became the Florida National Group, which was one of the strongest banks in the state. In size, the branches eventually numbered 185, second only to Barnett Bank
.
Ball built the Florida National Bank building at 214 North Hogan Street in Jacksonville in 1961. The structure was eleven stories tall and contained the corporate offices for the bank. Ed Ball also kept his principal office there for managing the du Pont Trust. After Ball's death, the structure was renamed the Ed Ball Building.
On March 7, 1989, First Union Corporation, based in Charlotte, North Carolina
announced that it would acquire Florida National Banks in a deal worth $849 million. The transaction was consummated the following year.
, the Apalachicola Northern Railroad
extended its network from Chattahoochee
to Port St. Joe in 1910 with plans to load large ships with goods to be taken through the canal, advertised as the “Panama Route”. When the depression
hit, business dropped off and the railroad was in bad shape financially. Alfred I. DuPont purchased the struggling railroad in 1933 and created the St. Joe Paper Company. Dupont drew up elaborate plans for the development of his mill town as “The Model City of the South”, and then died. Ed Ball took control of the company in 1935 but never acted on the master city plan.
Construction began in 1936 and from 1938 to 1996, the company operated a paper mill at Port St. Joe, Florida
.
The company invigorated the local economy following the depression
, employing thousands and paying good wages, but wreaked havoc on the environment. The mill released sulfurous exhaust and dioxin, a byproduct of the paper bleaching process that is a carcinogen
. By the 1950s, the company was drawing 35 million USgals (132,489.4 m³) of water a day from the Floridan aquifer
, seriously depleting the water table. St Joe Paper also clear-cut millions of acres of old growth forest
, engaging in silviculture
to replant the areas with slash pine
. The practice decimated the native longleaf pine
stands, reducing the species to "2 percent of its former range." Because of this, the United States Department of the Interior
designated parts of the region a Critically Endangered Ecosystem.
Under Ball, the company also kept workers at the mill racially segregated
.
Ball continued the trust's aggressive land purchases throughout the 1940s and 1950s, sometimes for "mere dollars an acre" and landholdings reached 1200000 acres (4,856.2 km²). Most of the land was situated between Tallahassee
and Pensacola
, but there was substantial acreage in southern Georgia. The paper mill was most profitable in the 1960s, with products being directly marketed to company-owned box plants.
Ball purchased 4000 acres (16.2 km²) surrounding Wakulla Springs
in 1937 and constructed the Wakulla Springs Lodge as a guest house. He imported marble and tile and hired craftsmen and artisans who built everything needed for the lodge on-site. Blacksmiths, millwrights, masons, stone cutters, painters and artists created an elegant retreat using iron and stone; the high ceilings were painted with murals. There are 27 unique guestrooms, each with a voluminous marble bathroom, walk-in closet, and antique or period furniture.
Ball dynamited parts of the Wakulla River
to open the way for boats bringing his guests to the springs, then fenced off the water passage to keep out the riff-raff.
In the mid-1960s, he donated land to Florida State University
for a marine laboratory, which was completed in 1968 and named in his honor. Ball then sold the remaining land surrounding Wakulla Springs to the state of Florida, who created Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park
.
were particularly hard on the Florida East Coast Railway
(FEC). The railroad declared banktuptcy and was in receivership by September 1931, just 18 years after Henry Morrison Flagler
’s death. Bus service began to be substituted for trains on the branches in 1932, and the Key West Extension was abandoned after the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
. However, streamliners terminating in Miami nevertheless plied the rails between 1939 and 1968, including such famous trains as The Champion and The Florida Special jointly operated with the Atlantic Coast Line
. Adding to the woes was the Cuban embargo, thus reducing a significant portion of FEC's revenue.
In 1961, Ball purchased a majority ownership of FEC for the DuPont Trusts, allowing the FEC to emerge from bankruptcy. That same year, a labor contract negotiation turned sour, leading to a prolonged work stoppage by non-operating unions beginning January 23, 1963, and whose picket line
s were honored by the operating unions (the train crews).
Arguably the most noteworthy chapter in Ball's business career was his battle against the railroad unions in the Florida East Coast Railway strike of 1963 to 1977. In order to try to save the railroad from its three decades-long state of bankruptcy, which if allowed to continue would have threatened the railroad with physical deterioration and even partial abandonment, Ball fought for the company's right to engage in its own contract negotiations with the railroad unions rather than accept an industrywide settlement that Ball thought would include featherbedding
and wasteful work rules. His use of replacement workers to keep the railroad running during the strike led to violence by strikers that included shootings and bombings. Eventually, Federal intervention helped quell the violence, and the railroad's right to operate during the strike with replacement workers was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. As the strike continued, the Florida East Coast took numerous steps to improve its physical plant, install various forms of automation, and drastically cut labor costs, all to an extent that most other railroads would not succeed in matching until years later. Ball therefore was a pioneer in the American railroad industry's struggle, beginning in the 1960s, to improve its economic efficiency.
in caring for the crippled children and indigent elderly of Delaware
. Ball ignored the criticism, but he couldn't ignore the wave of lawsuits that were brought by other trustees, the State of Delaware and others.
collaborated with Virginia Harrison to author a book about the life of Edward Ball, Confusion to the enemy : a biography of Edward Ball. This book was the "authorized" biography, whereas the book, Ed Ball, confusion to the enemy by Leon Odell Griffith, published the previous year, was done by an outsider.
blown "across the creek" and probably die.
In a New York Times interview two years before his passing, he said that his life had been long and the critics be damned; he lived it the best way he could.
Ball said he was very proud of what duPont had established in the Nemours Foundation, and upon his death, save a few minor bequests, he left his entire estate to the Foundation, with one stipulation – his bequest could be used in Florida only."
No one can dispute that he was an astute investor: when Ball died at the Oschner Clinic in New Orleans
in 1981, the value of the du Pont trust had ballooned to $2 billion. His late sister's foundation, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, had assets of $75 million. Ball's own estate, estimated to be worth $75–200 million, was destined to help the citizens of the state where he lived most of his life, Florida.
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
for decades, despite the fact that he never held public office and did not own the assets he controlled. He worked for and with his brother-in-law, Alfred I. du Pont
Alfred I. du Pont
Alfred Irénée du Pont was an American industrialist, financier and philanthropist. A member of the influential Du Pont family, Alfred du Pont first rose to prominence through his work in his family's Delaware-based gunpowder manufacturing plant, E. I...
for nine years before running the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust
Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust
The Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust is a non-profit organization created by philanthropist Alfred I. du Pont in 1935, devoted to supporting the Trust's sole charitable beneficiary, the Nemours Foundation. As of December 31, 2008, the trust’s value was $3.25 billion and employed nearly 3,500...
's businesses by himself for another 46 years. He led the St. Joe Company
St. Joe Company
The St. Joe Company is a land development company formerly headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. It is Florida's second largest private landowner, owning about in the state at the end of 2009.-Beginning:...
to become a major player in several industries in Florida.
Early years
Edward Ball was born at Ball's Neck in Northumberland County, VirginiaNorthumberland County, Virginia
Northumberland County is a county located on the Northern Neck in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a state in the United States. In 2010, its population was 12,330. Its county seat is Heathsville...
and educated in the one-room Shiloh Schoolhouse. After completing primary school, he convinced his father to let him quit school and get a job. He had always been obsessed with making money; at one time, he prospected for gold in Alaska. However, when Ball's older sister, Jessie Ball became the third wife of Alfred I. du Pont in 1921, Edward was given the chance of a lifetime. He began working for his brother-in-law in 1923 at the lofty salary of $5,000 a year, and moved to Delaware where he was publicly named manager of the Clean Food Products Company. Privately, he was Mr. du Pont’s confidential business partner and became a shrewd financier and caretaker of the du Pont de Nemours estate fortune. After Jessie & Alfred moved to Florida in 1926, Edward joined them.
du Pont's death
When Alfred died in 1935, his estate was valued at over $56 million, which, after estate taxes of $30 million, left $26 million. Alfred's will named Jessie as the principal trustee, but in reality, she deferred business decisions to her brother, Edward, who took control of the assets of the testamentary trustTestamentary trust
A testamentary trust is a trust which arises upon the death of the testator, and which is specified in his or her will...
s, which included large Florida landholdings and industrial interests, including the Florida East Coast Railway
Florida East Coast Railway
The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida; in the past, it has been a Class I railroad.Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a project of Standard Oil principal Henry Morrison...
. Jessie preferred to handle the philanthropic activities of the trust while Edward concentrated on making money.
Power
Ball had no interest in running for office and little desire for material things; for most of his life, he didn't even own an automobile. Ball used various means to acquire enormous unofficial political power in Florida. He amassed a wide network of connections, and was the key figure in a group of 20 rural, conservative, north Florida politicians that controlled Florida from the 1930s to the 1960s called the Pork Chop Gang that was Florida's version of McCarthyismMcCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
. Their public spokesman was Florida Senate President Charley Eugene Johns
Charley Eugene Johns
Charley Eugene Johns was an American politician. Johns, a Baptist, served as the 32nd Governor of Florida from 1953 to 1955.Johns was born in Starke, Florida. He worked as a railroad conductor...
from Starke
Starke, Florida
Starke is a city in Bradford County, Florida, United States. The population was 5,593 at the 2000 census. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 5,769 ....
. The coalition supported racial segregation
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
(which was practiced at the St. Joe Paper Mill) and was known for toasting, "Confusion to the Enemy!" with Jack Daniel
Jack Daniel
Jasper Newton "Jack" Daniel was an American distiller and the founder of Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey distillery.-Biography:...
's whiskey.
Ball rarely, if ever, took a public role in politics. With control over the vast du Pont business empire, he exerted political influence through his Florida banking empire, his ownership of numerous Florida newspapers, and by funneling unregulated and unreported cash to political operatives. Ball did not need to get his hands dirty or risk personal resources. Ball was a main (but not the only) financer of the defeat of Claude Pepper
Claude Pepper
Claude Denson Pepper was an American politician of the Democratic Party, and a spokesman for left-liberalism and the elderly. In foreign policy he shifted from pro-Soviet in the 1940s to anti-Communist in the 1950s...
's effort to be reelected to the United States Senate in 1950. Pepper's liberalism and Ball's conservatism feuded through much of the 1940s and 1950s, prompting a book to be written in 2000: Claude Pepper and Ed Ball: Politics, Purpose, and Power.
According to a 1979 article in the New York Times, Edward Ball at various times was called a Robber Baron and a political power broker; a clever man with a dollar and a dangerous man to cross; a courtly Virginian with the ladies and a ruthless foe. He is known for "orneriness" but insists his reputation is undeserved; he claims he was just a trusted functionary who did his best for the institution he served. Critics say he hijacked the trust as a tool of his personal power, treating the assets like a miser hoarding every coin. He had the reputation of a "tart-tongued, hard-nosed conservative financier".
Personal life
By all accounts, Edward Ball took little time for a personal life. Early on, he travelled constantly, scouting for possible acquisitions and checking up on existing assets.Marriage
He was married one time, and it survived more than ten years, but Ball approached marriage like a business deal and wanted everything in writing. His Prenuptial agreementPrenuptial agreement
A prenuptial agreement, antenuptial agreement, or premarital agreement, commonly abbreviated to prenup or prenupt, is a contract entered into prior to marriage, civil union or any other agreement prior to the main agreement by the people intending to marry or contract with each other...
had 19 provisions which described their wedded lifestyle and included a definition of "nagging". Edward Ball fought and delayed the divorce settlement for six years before agreeing to pay his ex-wife $250,000.
Thrifty
In an interview, Ball said, "I suppose some people might call me tight with a dollar." The stories of Ball's frugal nature border on the legendary. Ed Ball owned a country estate outside of Tallahassee, but for years lived in a hotel room across the street from his office in the Florida National Bank Building, often spending the weekends in Jacksonville. When the hotel was sold, he tried renting a room in a senior citizen hotel, but that didn't suit him. He ended up buying a condominium that became the site of a 5:30 weekday ritual for Mr. Ball, his business associates and buddies. Cocktails began when everyone was present, and lasted until the network news began at 6:00pm, at which time all conversation and movement ceased. Ed Ball took his news seriously. After the news concluded, the group moved to the River Club for dinner.Banking
Alfred du Pont acquired a major interest in Florida National BankFlorida National Bank
Florida National Bank , founded in 1905, grew to became the second largest commercial bank in Florida. Florida National Group was acquired in 1990 by First Union Corporation, which was renamed Wachovia in 2001.-Early years:...
(founded 1905) of Jacksonville shortly after arriving in Florida in the mid-1920s. Other banks were gradually added into what became the Florida National Group, which was one of the strongest banks in the state. In size, the branches eventually numbered 185, second only to Barnett Bank
Barnett Bank
Barnett Bank, founded in 1877, eventually became the largest commercial bank in Florida with over 600 offices and $41.2 billion in deposits. The purchase by NationsBank was announced August 29, 1997, but even before signs on Barnett's branches were changed, NationsBank merged with BankAmerica in...
.
Ball built the Florida National Bank building at 214 North Hogan Street in Jacksonville in 1961. The structure was eleven stories tall and contained the corporate offices for the bank. Ed Ball also kept his principal office there for managing the du Pont Trust. After Ball's death, the structure was renamed the Ed Ball Building.
On March 7, 1989, First Union Corporation, based in Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte is the largest city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the seat of Mecklenburg County. In 2010, Charlotte's population according to the US Census Bureau was 731,424, making it the 17th largest city in the United States based on population. The Charlotte metropolitan area had a 2009...
announced that it would acquire Florida National Banks in a deal worth $849 million. The transaction was consummated the following year.
Paper Mill
In anticipation of increased trade through the Panama CanalPanama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, the Apalachicola Northern Railroad
AN Railway
The AN Railway is one of several shortline railroad companies owned by the Genesee & Wyoming parent company. It operates between Port Saint Joe, Florida and a connection with CSX's Pensacola & Atlantic and Tallahassee Subdivisions at Chattahoochee, Florida, with a short spur to Apalachicola, Florida...
extended its network from Chattahoochee
Chattahoochee, Florida
Chattahoochee is a city in Gadsden County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,287 at the 2000 census. According to the U.S Census estimates of 2005, the city had a population of 3,720. It is part of the Tallahassee, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Chattahoochee is...
to Port St. Joe in 1910 with plans to load large ships with goods to be taken through the canal, advertised as the “Panama Route”. When the depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
hit, business dropped off and the railroad was in bad shape financially. Alfred I. DuPont purchased the struggling railroad in 1933 and created the St. Joe Paper Company. Dupont drew up elaborate plans for the development of his mill town as “The Model City of the South”, and then died. Ed Ball took control of the company in 1935 but never acted on the master city plan.
Construction began in 1936 and from 1938 to 1996, the company operated a paper mill at Port St. Joe, Florida
Port St. Joe, Florida
Port St. Joe is a city located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 98 and State Road 71 in Gulf County, Florida, United States. As of 2007, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau is 3,579. The population was 3,644 as of the 2000 census. Port St. Joe became the county seat of Gulf County...
.
The company invigorated the local economy following the depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, employing thousands and paying good wages, but wreaked havoc on the environment. The mill released sulfurous exhaust and dioxin, a byproduct of the paper bleaching process that is a carcinogen
Carcinogen
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that is an agent directly involved in causing cancer. This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes...
. By the 1950s, the company was drawing 35 million USgals (132,489.4 m³) of water a day from the Floridan aquifer
Floridan Aquifer
The Floridan Aquifer is a portion of the principal artesian aquifer that extends into Florida and is composed of carbonate rock and located beneath the coastal regions of the Southeastern United States and is one of the world's most productive aquifers. It is under all of Florida as well as ...
, seriously depleting the water table. St Joe Paper also clear-cut millions of acres of old growth forest
Old growth forest
An old-growth forest is a forest that has attained great age , and thereby exhibits unique ecological features. An old growth forest has also usually reached a climax community...
, engaging in silviculture
Silviculture
Silviculture is the practice of controlling the establishment, growth, composition, health, and quality of forests to meet diverse needs and values. The name comes from the Latin silvi- + culture...
to replant the areas with slash pine
Slash Pine
Pinus elliottii, commonly known as the Slash Pine, is a pine native to the southeastern United States, from southern South Carolina west to southeastern Louisiana, and south to the Florida Keys....
. The practice decimated the native longleaf pine
Longleaf Pine
Pinus palustris, commonly known as the Longleaf Pine, is a pine native to the southeastern United States, found along the coastal plain from eastern Texas to southeast Virginia extending into northern and central Florida....
stands, reducing the species to "2 percent of its former range." Because of this, the United States Department of the Interior
United States Department of the Interior
The United States Department of the Interior is the United States federal executive department of the U.S. government responsible for the management and conservation of most federal land and natural resources, and the administration of programs relating to Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native...
designated parts of the region a Critically Endangered Ecosystem.
Under Ball, the company also kept workers at the mill racially segregated
Racial segregation
Racial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
.
Ball continued the trust's aggressive land purchases throughout the 1940s and 1950s, sometimes for "mere dollars an acre" and landholdings reached 1200000 acres (4,856.2 km²). Most of the land was situated between Tallahassee
Tallahassee, Florida
Tallahassee is the capital of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County, and is the 128th largest city in the United States. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2010, the population recorded by...
and Pensacola
Pensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
, but there was substantial acreage in southern Georgia. The paper mill was most profitable in the 1960s, with products being directly marketed to company-owned box plants.
Wakulla Springs
Wakulla Springs is the deepest and largest freshwater spring in the world.Ball purchased 4000 acres (16.2 km²) surrounding Wakulla Springs
Wakulla Springs
Wakulla Springs is located south of Tallahassee, Florida and east of Crawfordville in Wakulla County, Florida at the crossroads of State Road 61 and State Road 267...
in 1937 and constructed the Wakulla Springs Lodge as a guest house. He imported marble and tile and hired craftsmen and artisans who built everything needed for the lodge on-site. Blacksmiths, millwrights, masons, stone cutters, painters and artists created an elegant retreat using iron and stone; the high ceilings were painted with murals. There are 27 unique guestrooms, each with a voluminous marble bathroom, walk-in closet, and antique or period furniture.
Ball dynamited parts of the Wakulla River
Wakulla River
The Wakulla River is an river in Wakulla County, Florida. It carries the outflow from Wakulla Springs, site of the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park, to the St. Marks River north of the Gulf of Mexico...
to open the way for boats bringing his guests to the springs, then fenced off the water passage to keep out the riff-raff.
In the mid-1960s, he donated land to Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
for a marine laboratory, which was completed in 1968 and named in his honor. Ball then sold the remaining land surrounding Wakulla Springs to the state of Florida, who created Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park
Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park
Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park is a Florida State Park in Wakulla County, Florida, USA. This 6,000 acre wildlife sanctuary, located south of Tallahassee, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and designated a National Natural Landmark...
.
Railroads
The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and subsequent Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
were particularly hard on the Florida East Coast Railway
Florida East Coast Railway
The Florida East Coast Railway is a Class II railroad operating in the U.S. state of Florida; in the past, it has been a Class I railroad.Built primarily in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, the FEC was a project of Standard Oil principal Henry Morrison...
(FEC). The railroad declared banktuptcy and was in receivership by September 1931, just 18 years after Henry Morrison Flagler
Henry Morrison Flagler
Henry Morrison Flagler was an American tycoon, real estate promoter, railroad developer and partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil. He was a key figure in the development of the eastern coast of Florida along the Atlantic Ocean and was founder of what became the Florida East Coast Railway...
’s death. Bus service began to be substituted for trains on the branches in 1932, and the Key West Extension was abandoned after the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
Labor Day Hurricane of 1935
The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was the strongest tropical cyclone of the 1935 Atlantic hurricane season, and one of the most intense hurricanes to make landfall in the United States in recorded history...
. However, streamliners terminating in Miami nevertheless plied the rails between 1939 and 1968, including such famous trains as The Champion and The Florida Special jointly operated with the Atlantic Coast Line
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was an American railroad that existed between 1900 and 1967, when it merged with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, its long-time rival, to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad...
. Adding to the woes was the Cuban embargo, thus reducing a significant portion of FEC's revenue.
In 1961, Ball purchased a majority ownership of FEC for the DuPont Trusts, allowing the FEC to emerge from bankruptcy. That same year, a labor contract negotiation turned sour, leading to a prolonged work stoppage by non-operating unions beginning January 23, 1963, and whose picket line
Picket line
A picket line is a horizontal rope, along which horses are tied at intervals. The rope can be on the ground, at chest height , or overhead. The overhead form usually is called a high line....
s were honored by the operating unions (the train crews).
Arguably the most noteworthy chapter in Ball's business career was his battle against the railroad unions in the Florida East Coast Railway strike of 1963 to 1977. In order to try to save the railroad from its three decades-long state of bankruptcy, which if allowed to continue would have threatened the railroad with physical deterioration and even partial abandonment, Ball fought for the company's right to engage in its own contract negotiations with the railroad unions rather than accept an industrywide settlement that Ball thought would include featherbedding
Featherbedding
Featherbedding is the practice of hiring more workers than are needed to perform a given job, or to adopt work procedures which appear pointless, complex and time-consuming merely to employ additional workers. The term "make-work" is sometimes used as a synonym for featherbedding.The term...
and wasteful work rules. His use of replacement workers to keep the railroad running during the strike led to violence by strikers that included shootings and bombings. Eventually, Federal intervention helped quell the violence, and the railroad's right to operate during the strike with replacement workers was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. As the strike continued, the Florida East Coast took numerous steps to improve its physical plant, install various forms of automation, and drastically cut labor costs, all to an extent that most other railroads would not succeed in matching until years later. Ball therefore was a pioneer in the American railroad industry's struggle, beginning in the 1960s, to improve its economic efficiency.
Jessie's death
After his sister died in 1970, Ball came under strong criticism for reinvesting the trust's income to build up their value instead of fully respecting the requirements of du Pont's will, which stipulated that after Jessie Ball du Pont's death, trust income was to be used to aid the Nemours FoundationNemours Foundation
The Nemours Foundation is a non-profit organization in Jacksonville, Florida, created by philanthropist Alfred I. du Pont in 1936, and dedicated to improving the health of children. The Foundation operates the Alfred I...
in caring for the crippled children and indigent elderly of Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
. Ball ignored the criticism, but he couldn't ignore the wave of lawsuits that were brought by other trustees, the State of Delaware and others.
Biographies
In 1976, Raymond MasonRaymond Mason
Raymond Grieg Mason OBE was a sculptor.He trained at the Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts under William Bloye, the Royal College of Art , and Slade School of Art. He lived and worked in Paris beginning in 1946...
collaborated with Virginia Harrison to author a book about the life of Edward Ball, Confusion to the enemy : a biography of Edward Ball. This book was the "authorized" biography, whereas the book, Ed Ball, confusion to the enemy by Leon Odell Griffith, published the previous year, was done by an outsider.
Across the Creek
Ed Ball's favorite euphemism for death was "going across the creek", a reference he learned from Alfred du Pont. Three sides of the DuPont gunpowder mills were made of stone; the side closest to the creek with the water wheel was built of wood. If the powder accidentally exploded, the wooden wall acted as a safety valve so whole building would not collapse on the men inside. Unfortunately, if you were between the explosion and the wooden wall, you would beblown "across the creek" and probably die.
In a New York Times interview two years before his passing, he said that his life had been long and the critics be damned; he lived it the best way he could.
"When I go across the creek, it will be because I can't help myself or can't work any longer." Shortly before his death, he said, "I waited until I was too old to decide what to do with my own personal assets and have decided that I worked most of my business life managing the duPont estate."
Ball said he was very proud of what duPont had established in the Nemours Foundation, and upon his death, save a few minor bequests, he left his entire estate to the Foundation, with one stipulation – his bequest could be used in Florida only."
No one can dispute that he was an astute investor: when Ball died at the Oschner Clinic in New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
in 1981, the value of the du Pont trust had ballooned to $2 billion. His late sister's foundation, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, had assets of $75 million. Ball's own estate, estimated to be worth $75–200 million, was destined to help the citizens of the state where he lived most of his life, Florida.
Further reading
- Raymond K. Mason and Virginia Harrison, Confusion to the enemy: a biography of Edward Ball, ISBN 0396072747, University Press of Florida, 1976.
- Leon Odell Griffith, Ed Ball, confusion to the enemy, ISBN 0882510665, Trend House, 1975.
- Tracy E. Danese, Claude Pepper and Ed Ball: Politics, Purpose, and Power, ISBN 0813017440, University Press of Florida, 2000.
- David Nolan, Fifty Feet in Paradise: The Booming of Florida. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984.