Those closest to him knew that his country-boy image was a pose; he was actually a business-college graduate and a businessman who dealt not just in Hillbilly Flour but in Fort Worth real estate; by 1937, while he was telling his listeners that he was a “common citizen,” poor like them, his net worth had passed half a million dollars. Intimates also had some doubts about the depth of his religious feeling; although he was constantly urging his listeners to go to church, he seldom went himself.
