Marvin Jones
The Public Life of an Agrarian Advocate
978-0-89096-093-6 Cloth
0 x 0 x 0
Pub Date: 08/01/1980
Available
BUY NOW
- Paperback $22.95 s
- Cloth $39.95 s
Jones’s Panhandle district lay in the 1930s Dust Bowl. As Roosevelt’s chairman of the Agriculture Committee, he fought for New Deal farm legislation—low-interest loans and mortgages for farmers, soil conservation, farm subsidies, agricultural research, and new markets for farm products. Many of today’s federal agricultural policies were born in his committee room.
As war food administrator in World War II, Jones put his knowledge and experience to use in balancing U.S. agricultural production with military and civilian food requirements. At war’s end he accepted a judgeship on the U.S. Court of Claims and later became chief judge, noted for just, compassionate decisions couched in everyman’s language.
Jones was a gentle, hard-working man, a realist who extolled the rural life but accepted the urbanization of America. More reserved than his mentor, Garner, less shrewd than his good friend Sam Rayburn, Jones probably surpassed them both in terms of real achievement.
Using archival sources and Jones’s memoirs as well as his own numerous interviews with Judge Jones, Irvin May provides a solid account of this transplanted Texan who remained the farmer’s advocate throughout his life.
Published by Texas A&M University Press