Green History - Page 1

    The history of the Green family is a long and distinguished one, of which the family themselves are considerably proud. So say the official biographies of their scions, at least, which claim the family funded almost every major invention and notable cause of the 19th and 20th centuries up to and including the Wright Brothers and penicillin. Needless to say, serious historians (and Boardies) disagree, instead pointing to the patchy strings of evidence and records that draw a picture of a ruthless dynasty of money-grubbing powerbrokers who channel their wealth into their twin major interests — acquiring as much power and yet more wealth as possible, by fair means or foul. Mostly foul, with a network of elite lawyers and PR firms providing a polite veneer over brutal underworld connections reaching from the cocaine fields of Cambodia to the Triads of Hong Kong.

The family's origins, as the name suggests, lie in the earliest English settlements of the Caribbean and southern plains of North America (A surname trace reportedly found documents naming the family dating back to the Roman patricians. It also found a claim to the English throne, unclaimed controlling interests in five global companies, and title deeds purporting to state the family owned all Ohio. The ink was still wet.) - portraits in the Green collection include dashing privateers and corsairs, but a more likely source of their wealth were the corrupt officials and factors in American coastal ports. Savvy land investments turned such ill-gotten gains into the foundations of their future financial might, and the decidedly insalubrious truth about their opulent upstate mansion in New Jersey is that it was paid for by plantation slaves far to the south.

Such southern connections made the family firmly Grey in the American Civil War, the better to keep their cheap labour source, but with classical caution the family quietly placed sons on both sides to hedge their bets, such proven "loyalty" enabling them to hold onto their lands with a minimum of skulduggery (and some hefty bribes). The losing half fled to Europe, there to lay the foundations for Green holdings in the "Old World".

The end of the 19th century saw the Greens disdain their old agricultural holdings in favour of the growing steel industry. Already well-established railroad barons, it was a relatively simple matter to add the last obvious pillar to their portfolio — armaments. The changeover was just in time to pay for itself during the Spanish-American war, and historians note Archibald "Archie" Green was alongside Hearst in the shameless yellow journalism that triggered the war in the first place. Needless to say, in two decades WW1 swelled their coffers enormously, adding a little martial pride to their family history with the "heroic" actions of various Greens who, naturally, never went anywhere near the front lines.

After the Great War came the roaring twenties, a period the family thrived upon — somewhat to their detriment. Media investments were bringing in ever-growing dividends, the European rebuilding demanded steel, and the runaway stock market was raking in cash. Needless to say, when the market crashed in 1929, their losses were horrendous.

Only mortgaging their illustrious mansions kept the Greens afloat as the Great Depression hit, and recriminations abounded for years over poor stock management - costing more than one Green accountant (and at least one of Archibald's sons) his head, a telling fact which betrays the ruthless manner by which Archie Green set about restoring the family finances. Disdaining Prohibition bootlegging as too common (although their mansion constantly hosted well-lubricated receptions where the family flaunted their "old money" status), the then-current Green patriarch concentrated on less legal methods, channeling the family talents for PR into becoming a powerful mob lawyer and hiring out estate hands as muscle. His more flamboyant heir preferred blatant war profiteering during WW2 - once again, bribery got them off the hook, although even that couldn't prevent them from being badly burned in the Cuban revolution shortly afterwards. The loss of the lucrative tobacco farms hit the family hard, driving them even further into the arms of organised crime. The very same managers were smuggled out of Cuban jails and packed off to South America to start drug labs organised on the same lines.

... on to page two.