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In politics, he had thrown himself into the state’s Republican Party. In Texas as across most of the South, Republicans were vastly outnumbered by Democrats and were still widely resented as the party of Lincoln. Much of the white population viewed Republicans with a combination of disdain and suspicion, as the party of Yankees and blacks. It was the only party open to African Americans, who formed a large faction known as the Black and Tans. In opposition to them stood an all-white faction known as the Lily Whites, and power struggles within the Republican Party could be raucous. But the very underdog nature of the Republican Party created a perfect opportunity for an ambitious, affable young man with money to rise quickly within its ranks. He could circumvent the years of dues-paying and back-scratching that might be required to make his mark as a Democrat.

Ned aligned himself with the Black and Tan faction. In 1896, at twenty-eight, having been in Texas just three years, Ned was named state chairman of the Republican Party. Despite the party’s poor reputation in Texas, the position gave him a chance to flex his muscles nationally at political conventions, at which he arrived in style aboard his private railroad car. With a Republican, William McKinley, in the White House, the association with Republicans gave him the opportunity to rub shoulders with national forces in politics. “Texans at the Waldorf-Astoria say there is no more popular man in the Lone Star State than Edward H.R. Green, son of Mrs. Hetty Green, who is accounted the richest woman in America,” the New York Times reported on August 29, 1899, during a national Republican gathering at the New York hotel. “Mr. Green, who is one of the Texas contingent at the Waldorf, is reported to have high political ambitions, and people from that state say he is spending money liberally in the hope of reaching the United States Senate via the gubernatorial chair.”

To help grease the skids of his political ambitions, Ned built a lavish and exclusive fishing club on the Gulf Coast, known as the Tarpon Club, around 1898. The club was situated on a flat, sandy island a few miles from Corpus Christi, one of a string of islands that forms a natural bank with one side facing open sea and the other forming a narrow, shallow inland waterway. A grand clubhouse rose off the flat sand on pilings and, at night, was a beacon that boaters could see for miles around. The house sat high enough that windblown sand would whip under the house rather than into the faces of members enjoying cocktails on the verandah after a day of hunting or fishing.

Guests shot ducks in the winter, and fished for tarpon, channel bass, jackfish, alligator gars, and kingfish year-round. If they didn’t feel energetic enough to venture out for their sport, members might simply sit on the verandah of the spacious clubhouse and pick off crabs with a .22 rifle. The large common rooms were decorated with a 175-pound trophy tarpon and other game fish, ducks, and game birds. The club was an immediate success, counting among its three hundred members President McKinley, ex-president Grover Cleveland, a host of senators and other politicians, and millionaires from as far away as New York, St. Louis, and Ohio.

Ned served on the board of directors of the Texas World’s Fair Commission in 1903, assigned with devising the state’s entries for the St. Louis fair. Ned and another commissioner abruptly resigned in protest when the commission decided on a star-shaped building for the Texas pavilion, which Ned considered tacky and playing to the stereotype that outsiders held of Texans. Ned said he could not be part of “a building that portrays Texas as a freak,” according to an article in the Times April 13. He added, “I want a building that will impress those who see it with the idea that Texas has dignity. This state has outgrown its shooting and cutting and sombreros and high-heeled boots. Caricaturists have hurt us by their exaggerated picturings. Stars belong in