Oral History Interview with Judge Marvin Jones
Washington, D.C. [Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional Jones Oral History Transcripts] Notice Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview. RESTRICTIONS Opened May, 1971 [Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional Jones Oral History Transcripts]
Oral History Interview with Washington, D.C. HESS: Judge, to begin this morning, let's just discuss a few of the men who served on the Texas delegation to the House of Representatives. What do you recall about Mr. Martin Dies? JONES: I served with Martin Dies, Sr., who was one of the best Speakers in the House, but he didn't want Woodrow Wilson to go to France. And he figured that some war hero would run against him and, since he wasn't in good health anyway, he decided that he wouldn't run for re-election after World War I had ended, but peace had not been declared. He and I were very good friends and he had a tremendous amount of ability and was listened to whenever he spoke. He left the House voluntarily. Several members urged him not to retire, but he insisted and said, "No, I don't want to remain here any more." Martin Dies, Jr. was elected several years later. Martin Dies, Jr. was also an interesting man. He was a good Speaker, had a good sense of humor and loved the banter in the cloakroom. He organized what he called the "Demogogue Club" just in fun, but if someone made a speech in the House a little different from opinions expressed in the cloakroom, Martin Dies would make him a member of the Demogague Club as soon as he returned to the cloakroom. But he studied the question of silver until he became an expert on that subject. He was the head of a special committee appointed to investigate the money question, especially the coining of silver as a joint basis of money. He probably went a little far, but he could make a powerful speech on the question of recoinage of silver. All at once he quit talking about silver. I asked him why. He replied that he observed that nearly everybody who kept studying the money question went "nuts." About that time communism became the rage Martin Dies became head of the Committee on Un-American Activities. It became a very active committee. There was opposition to his listing names, but Martin was very popular in the House and he kept on with the committee. Dies, Jr. ran for the U.S. Senate in Texas but was defeated, and he had served a while on the Rules Committee in the House. Martin was a delightful man personally. Everybody liked him except the ones that wanted him to quit this investigation. HESS: Now, we mentioned Mr. Sam Rayburn last time, but what else do you recall about Mr. Rayburn, what else comes to mind? JONES: I didn't think we said much about Mr. Rayburn. HESS: Oh, a little. I think we mentioned the fact that when you were in law school in Texas and he was in the Texas legislature that he came to the school for a couple of classes. I believe that's about it. JONES: Well, it was more than two classes. He took one or two courses there in one year -- I mean part of two years. HESS: Is that when you first met him? JONES: That's when I first met him. I had known of him, of course, through the newspapers. We lived in adjoining counties, but we lived in different congressional districts. As a matter of fact, when we were younger, we both lived in the same congressional district, but there was a redistricting before we were grown. I was thrown in the western district and he in the district just east. In our youth we both lived in the same district and we both admired Congressman Joseph W. Bailey of Texas when Bailey was in Congress. Later when Bailey became Senator a fight against Joe Bailey was made, claiming that he had represented Waters-Pierce Oil Company and the Standard Oil Company as an attorney while serving in the Senate. I believe Sam Rayburn was in the Legislature when the fight was made on Bailey. Our fathers supported Bailey. Sam and I were ardent supporters of Bailey. We became very well acquainted and Sam and I remained close friends throughout our public careers. Sam was a member of the Texas legislature when he took his law course and was later elected Speaker of that body. He came to Congress four years before I did. We had long been friends, we had offices right down the hallway from each other and... HESS: Did you work together closely during the years that you were in Congress? JONES: Yes, we worked together closely on a lot of things. We shared an apartment at 16th & U Streets for two years. Sam Rayburn bought the furniture and the remaining two years lease of Jeff McLemore who retired from Congress. HESS: Where was that? JONES: What was known as the Flatiron Building, a three cornered building at 16th & U Streets. We lived together there. His three brothers visited us and we had a very pleasant week while they were there. Mr. Rayburn and I each had an Essex car. We would drive his car to the Hill one morning and mine the next and then alternate. HESS: I understand that there was a period of time when Sam Rayburn was married to your sister, is that correct? JONES: Yes, they were married about 1928, the early part of the year. They lived together about six months. They separated. No one knew exactly why. Neither of them ever talked about it. My sister married again and is the mother of two fine children and now has six grandchildren. She was a very attractive young lady in my book. I thought Sam was a great chap, but somehow they didn't get along. They parted as friends and she went by to see him in his last illness. He had asked me, oh, a year before he died, saying, "If Metze comes up here any time, I would like to see her." And I said, "I am sure she will come by to see you." They never did really fall out. I never asked her and she didn't volunteer, said they just couldn't get along, and they couldn't, and she respected him. That's about all she would say and he wouldn't say anything. Sam's sisters liked Metze. They remained friends. It all seemed rather strange, but strange things happen in law and in life. But that was merely an incident in our lives. Sam and I fished together for thirty years, all kinds of places, and I have been in his home both before and after that happened. His sisters admired my sister and they remained friends, and asked her to come to see them. One of them lived in Dallas. I have no further explanation. HESS: How would you rate him as a political technician? JONES: He was extra good. He would study his bills. He was one of the few men who took an interest in the way the programs were planned even before he became Chairman of the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee and I became Chairman of the Agriculture Committee. When the New Deal came in in 1931, the last two years of Hoover's administration, the Democrats gained control of the House by a very narrow margin. We were elected Chairmen and we still worked together. There were several subjects that were on the margin as to jurisdiction of our respective committees. We would simply agree on which committee would handle. One of these was rural electricity. It was in Agriculture, but Sam had such a fight on the securities exchange bill. We were both strongly in favor of rural electrification. But on account of his utility fight, I waived any claim, although technically I think I could have claimed it. I supported it in every possible way. We were very close friends for many years and when he became sick I had just gotten back from Hawaii. I called his office immediately when I arrived in Washington and was informed, "He left this morning and he is not well at all, has back trouble." Well, I immediately called him then in Dallas on the phone and I said, "Well, I was glad to hear that it is simply back trouble and not serious as some had thought." He said, "Well, I don't know. They say I am better, but I've got an awfully sore back." Some of the people in Washington had said that they feared he had cancer. I immediately decided that it probably was cancer, just in my mind, I didn't say it. I said, "Well, I hope you get along all right and get better soon." I flew down to see him after it began to get worse. HESS: Now, he was Speaker of the House on and off. Who would you rate as the best Speaker that you knew, that you served under or that you knew? JONES: Well, I'll tell you. I think that Will [William Brockman] Bankhead and Sam Rayburn were the two best Speakers in my time, and we were all great friends. As a matter of fact, Will Bankhead and I came to Congress the same time and he asked Mr. Rayburn and me to go down with him when Tullulah, his daughter, had her debut here at the old theater on Ninth Street. She was pretty as a picture and only 18 years of age. Will, Sam and I had dinner together and we went to the theater together. I think the two were outstanding as Speakers and members. There were several good Speakers, but these two knew how to handle that position as if born for the place, and I don't like to say that one was better than the other, but both were among my favorites. Then, of course, John [Nance] .Garner was only Speaker a short time when he was elected Vice President. I don't think there has ever been a better Speaker than Sam Rayburn. He served longer than anyone else, and at the time he surpassed the record of anyone else. There was held a luncheon for him in the Speaker's Dining Room, and many members, several Senators and four Cabinet members were present. Several tables were placed in the hall. He was to be presented with a plaque. I was asked to present the plaque to him when he broke the record for his length of service as Speaker. That address is in the Congressional Record. Sam seemed very much pleased with what I said. Naturally I paid him quite a tribute. But I was always partial to him. I enjoyed other Speakers as well, but you asked the specific question. Sam was temporary Chairman of the Democratic Convention in 1944. HESS: Was that the '44 convention? JONES: I am getting mixed. Sam was with the delegation in 1940. Sam was Chairman of the 1944 convention. I attended the 1944 convention, too, part time. After the 1940 convention, when Henry Wallace was nominated, Will Bankhead called me to the Speaker's stand one day in the House and said, "I can't go to Iowa to notify Wallace officially as Vice Presidential nominee." He added, "I want you to go out to Des Moines, Iowa and officially notify Wallace of his nomination." I said, "Mr. Speaker, you're supposed to be the one to do that. You were the keynote speaker at the convention." He replied, "I'm just not able, not physically able, to go. I want you to go as a personal favor to me." I didn't know he was in as bad condition as he was. He added, "You're the man to do it and I want you to do it," and, of course, I went as a courtesy to him and made the speech of notification, on a national hookup. Bankhead went to Baltimore and made one speech and then died before the election. Fritz Lanham was one of the most popular men in the House, and he was very effective and very entertaining and could make a marvelous speech, and then I could give you, through the years, a good many of them I served with. Robert C. Thomason, of E1 Paso, was a marvelous member. There were so many able men from Texas, as well as elsewhere -- please don't ask me to name them. The Congress of the United States has many able men. They are sometimes abused by critics, many of whom have an axe to grind. The members of the House are selected in open competition. Champ Clark chuckled one time and said to me, "There are not a thousand men in the United States who wouldn't come to Congress if they could. They are the selected men in every state and congressional district." HESS: What about Tom Connally? JONES: Tom Connally and I came to Congress at the same time and we were very good friends and the first term had offices right close to each other. Connally and I worked together. He was ambitious and he came to me, before he announced for the Senate, and said, "Now, you have represented what is now three districts in Texas." It had been cut into three districts by that time, fifty odd counties, an area larger than Ohio, and he said, "Somebody is going to beat Mayfield," and he said, "if you run, I won't." I said, "No, I've had my fill in campaigning in tremendous territory and I like the place I have." This was 1928. But all through those years we had worked together. He had a great ability and made a good record in both branches of the Congress. He never became chairman of a committee in the House. He was on the Foreign Affairs Committee, but we nearly always voted the same way. He was a very outstanding man. Then Claude Hudspeth was a man of unusual ability. He was a ranchman, you know, in E1 Paso district, which is also a large district. HESS: What about John Nance Garner, whom we have mentioned a couple of times? JONES: Well, John Nance Gainer was head of the delegation when I entered Congress and I was a very great admirer of John Garner. He was just as effective at getting things done as anybody I ever knew, and he knew the mechanics of the House better than anybody else. He was head of the delegation, and we all respected him, and he would come by to see us. John Garner was a man of tremendous ability as an operator. HESS: I have read that he is supposed to be given some credit for the fact that so many committees were headed by Texans. What would you say about that? JONES: He deserves much credit. He was on the Ways and Means Committee and he picked them out, the ones to go on the committees. I was supposed to go on the Judiciary Committee my first term, which position I wanted, but Hatton Sumners was my senior in service. He wanted to get a large post office building in Dallas and had decided he would probably go on the Public Buildings Committee. He told both me and John Garner that he felt he should go on the committee that handled the Post Offices. Right at the last he decided he would go on the Judiciary; otherwise, I was booked for Judiciary. There were six new members from Texas in 1917, so Mr. Garner, like Mr. Anthony, had a problem. Mr. Garner said, "We don't have enough important committees to go around, we've got so many new men from Texas," but to me he said, "We will get you the first major committee you want here when there is a vacancy." So, temporarily he assigned me to three committees: Civil Service, Roads and Insular Affairs. I was appointed to Agriculture as soon as a vacancy occurred. Seniority governs in the selection as between two men. HESS: As it still does. JONES: Yes, as it still does, and they have never found a better way. It works hardships sometimes, but you know an amazing thing in the House, once in a while you get -- a man will get to be chairman that everybody realized just happened to stay there, and they wonder if he can do the job. They get into a row if they don't use that system and it creates a lot of ill feelings. An amazing thing, a lot of people that you don't think will do a good job become outstanding. I remember one particular instance. Do you want me to tell about it? HESS: Yes. JONES: James W. Good was a sort of a fire-eater from Iowa. He was on the Appropriations Committee and he would get up and make a stormy speech and offer amendments and talk, and everybody sort of felt like he was a little flighty. A vacancy occurred in the Appropriations Committee. The party officials seriously considered (the Republicans were in power), appointing someone else. Then they decided that, "Well, it will create a lot of hard feeling and ruin this man." Then they said, "We'll just go ahead and elect him and at least give him a try." He settled down and made one of the best chairmen that that committee ever had. He was a tireless worker and became so well informed and was so frank and fair in presenting the facts that the House trusted him and usually followed him. Later he was appointed Secretary of War and died while in that position. I attended his funeral with my mother in the White House sometime in the twenties, I don't know the exact date. But one can't tell -- I didn't intend to discuss the merits of the seniority system. I wish there was some way that would satisfy public opinion. The Congress has talked about many changes. They have talked about having each committee elect its own chairman, but that creates a sort of division in the committee and then when it comes to electing a chairman it gets steeped in favoritism. I understand that was tried once. But, at any rate I wish there were a better way, but I don't know of a better way. You remember Speaker Reed once appointed all committees and committee chairmen. He became known as "Czar" Reed. It took a pitched battle to dislodge Uncle Joe Cannon who succeeded to the same powers. That fight left many scars. It was years before the body fully recovered from the ill-feeling thus engendered. HESS: What do you recall about James Byrnes? JONES: I was on the Court of Claims and would go up occasionally to the Texas luncheon. I went up there in '42 when Byrnes was to speak to the delegation. I had known Byrnes in the House. I listened to his speech and then he said, "I want you to ride back with me. I'll take you back to your court." And on the way down he said, "I want you to come to the White House and be my assistant." He was Director of... HESS: Economic Stabilization. JONES: Economic Stabilization at that time, but afterward he was made Director of Mobilization. HESS: Was this -- this was after he had resigned from the Court, is that right, and had been... JONES: Yes, he had resigned from the Court. When he became Director of Mobilization. Fred Vinson later became Director of Stabilization, thus adding another step in the process. This was in May, 1943. HESS: In October of '42. JONES: In October of '42, Byrnes, soon after he resigned from the Supreme Court, was made practically the domestic president in most ways. He practically had his own way in domestic issues. On the way back from the luncheon he said, "I want you to come by and be my adviser on agricultural matters and I'll practically let you determine them because," he said, "you are the only man that I have ever known who could get along with "Cotton Ed" [Ellison DuRant] Smith and still get what you wanted to secure. I think you have the ability to get along with people and would like to have you down there, and," he added, "I’ve got so much to do." At that time he had both Economic Stabilization and Mobilization and all disputes of high-up officials. Of course, there are plenty of divisions in that field. I went down there and was there for -- well, I was in that office for six months except when I headed the international conference on Food and Agriculture at Hot Springs, Virginia, in 1943. HESS: What were a few of your duties? Do you recall any of them in particular? JONES: They had the Office of Price Administration [OPA]. In late 1942 it was decided to appoint a War Food Administrator. The President wanted me to take it at that time. It was to be placed under the Secretary of Agriculture. I said the man ought to be Secretary of Agriculture if he is to use the branches of that service in order to save the vast expense of an entirely new organization. Mr. Byrnes and Marvin MacIntire said, "Well, the President always said he would like to have you for Secretary of Agriculture." I said, "I wouldn't have the place." And I said, "I've got the place I want." I said, "I'll take leave of absence and do any kind of war job the President wants me to do because I think that's a man's duty in wartime, but..." HESS: What was their argument against giving that position to the Secretary of Agriculture, or giving those duties to him? JONES: Well, I think they felt that probably [Claude] Wickard wouldn't be able to get the job done -- that is, the double job. That's what they told me. I didn't know him very well, that is, as to his work. HESS: What did you think? JONES: Well, I'll tell you. I knew there was a lot of maneuvering in the Department of Agriculture for position. I didn't think he was a man of outstanding ability, but I thought that if he is to be over me with the opposition already developed over personalities in the Department, it might make the difficult job almost impossible. Let the Food Administrator hire his own independent setup. But those in authority felt like this war would last longer. They felt that a much broader plan should be arranged so that all disputes between the different agencies should be placed under one man with appeals finally to James F. Byrnes. Later it was to Fred Vinson and then to Byrnes. I had been handling legislation for agriculture for a long time and I knew something about the conditions in the Department of Agriculture. I told Byrnes to undertake to compose differences that already existed between personalities, and especially since Wickard had been given that place when others felt like they should have been selected and would create many problems. But I still thought that he might be able to handle the place if he had complete authority over the entire setup. They would know he could shift them around. I was still a little doubtful and so stated to the President if the Food Administrator was placed under him. The President said, "Well, I'll try it for a while, but I don't think it will work." I don't know what he knew, but I hadn't told him anything about Wickard except as to my talk with Byrnes. I knew that with that setup it was going to be a man-killing job. In the circumstances Claude Wickard had a tough time. In late March Byrnes said, "The President wants to have an international food conference." The President told me that, talked to me and said, "We want to have forty-four nations, six hundred delegates in Hot Springs, Virginia. There will be approximately six hundred delegates. Tell Marvin I want him to head the delegation and he will be elected president of the organization." Byrnes said, "I think you ought to take it. We will get along here until you get back and it's the President's request." I accepted and it was an interesting experience. The President gave as his special reason for calling the convention, "After World War I, the Allies had gotten along fine and fell apart as soon as the war was over and couldn't agree on anything." I then talked to the President personally. He told me, "I want you to go down there because I think you can handle it, and let us see if we can't agree on something while we are still working together." And he added, "It will be called the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization or Conference." I talked with several of the delegations who arrived before the date for the meeting. The State Department handled all the details. I won't go into the details, but at first we were criticized for secrecy. The President directed us not to have the newsmen in the building, let them stay in an adjoining building and have us brief them after each day's work. "We used this plan at Yalta," he said. "The Big Three" (he didn't say the Big Three), Stalin and Churchill and he met together and he said, "We used that method and it worked beautifully. At the end of the day we would call the newsmen in and tell them all that happened." I rather protested. I said, "I think we'll have difficulty because newsmen in this country have been accustomed to being present. They don't want second-hand news," and I said, "I think it would be all right if we have executive committee sessions so they would have freedom for discussion, but after the committee sessions I feel we should let them see anybody they want to see." Then he added that we were responsible for the safety of the nations that meet there. It was advertised and the President called attention to the fact that there was danger of bombing in those days, not only by Japan, but even the possibility by Hitler and Hitler's organization. I said, "I believe they are going to find out where it's located, anyway, there is not any way to conceal that fact. I would prefer to have it open like we always have, but, if you wish, I will give it a try." He said, "I want to experiment and I want to try it because I think that would be better." We went down April 17. We spent the first day getting the committees organized. We had a big meeting the first evening. All delegations were present and scores of reporters attended. The State Department had everything dignified. I delivered the welcome address and Dr. -- from Brazil, responded -- I'll get you his name. HESS: That's all right, we can look it up later. We can get it later. JONES: All right. And then I asked Mr. Kelchner, who was with the State Department, saying, "I want you, when we get through with the speeches, to call the name of each delegation and let them stand up and let's see each other." He said, "That's not usually done in this kind of a meeting." Well, when we got through the speeches, I said, "I wish you would do that, anyway." He said, "I don't think I should do it." I said, "Well, give me the list and I will call them." And they just loved it. That's about the only time the delegates get a chance to be seen and to see the others. I said, "I want you to see each other and get better acquainted. The sooner we get acquainted and get along like one big family, the better it will be." When I called the name of Australia the delegation stood up and they were given a big hand and it happened all the way through. When I called the delegation from France (France was overrun so they had two claimants to the titular head of the absent group. One was a general who later was killed, and he and [General Charles] De Gaulle had agreed on Henry Alphand, who was later the Ambassador to America), the audience simply took the roof off. It impressed the newsmen and they had quite a write-up of the innovation. The New York Times, the Baltimore paper and the Washington papers, in fact papers from all over the country, gave it a big write-up. The fact is, some of the hardboiled newsmen had moistened eyes with the impressive occasion. Even Kelchnex said afterwards, "I'll have to admit it went over." Anyhow, we started off with a bang and then the newsmen wanted to be admitted to the building. I couldn't do it. I had instructions otherwise and I wasn't going to disobey my instructions. I had tried to talk the President out of the restriction before I ever went down there, but he was adamant, so I said, "Well, I'll go ahead and do the best I can." They just wouldn't give us any favorable publicity after that first meeting. We went right to work, working like bees in a hive, but they mentioned only the fact that the State Department furnished some liquors. We would brief them after each day, but they simply panned us for secrecy. After two or three days I decided to have something done about it. I called in Dean Acheson, who was Assistant Secretary, and one or two others to come down. I told them something must be done about this situation. I said to Dean Acheson, "I wish you would call Sumner Welles (because he had had much to do with planning the details of the meeting), and ask him if he won't go over and talk to the President." I said, "We are doing fine work, but we don't get any favorable publicity." I told him we were in the position of the bashful boy who threw his sweetheart a kiss in the dark. He knew what he was doing, but nobody else did. Dean Acheson called Welles and Welles said, "I have talked to him several times and I'm afraid if I went over there again I'd get thrown out of the window." Then I called Byrnes on the telephone and I told Byrnes, "This situation is pretty bad here. We're not getting any favorable publicity although we're doing fine work and we're getting panned on every side. I think we should open the main building at all times to the newsmen, let them attend all meetings except the actual committee sessions." Well, he says, "You're in charge, why don't you go ahead and do what you think should be done?" That's the way he was, with the President he had been given a free hand. I said, "Don't you think I ought to talk to the President?" "Oh, no," he said, "he's gone out so much on a limb it would embarrass him. You go ahead and do what you think's right." I said, "I will make the change." I called the newsmen in and told them I was willing for them to come in to the main building any time and they could talk to any delegate or anybody. I thought since we had a whole group of committees the committees should be executive, but, except for those sessions, we would have no restrictions and they could talk to anybody at any time and have their meals in the main building. That pleased them and then we didn't get any unfavorable publicity after that. But I hadn't ever said anything to the President. I didn't know what he would say. I told Dean Acheson, "All the President can do is bring me home and," I added, "if this situation remains static I don't know what will happen." I told Acheson, "I am taking responsibility for this action so you won't be blamed." We got much favorable publicity and the President invited us, the whole six hundred, to the White House. When we adjourned we had agreed unanimously on all resolutions, agreed on the emergency efforts for the wartime, and then we recommended the drafting of a charter for a permanent organization. We appointed a committee to draw a charter to be effective 29 of the 44, or two-thirds of the nations, had approved it, which was done in 1945, by 1945. They met (more than 29 had approved the charter), in Canada and had the present Food and Agriculture officially chartered. They have over a hundred member nations now doing a wonderful work in agriculture and getting agreements with various people over handling of surpluses and problems of marketing of surplus commodities like wheat, which is produced in many countries. They have done very fine work. They had the meeting here in Washington on -- "Feeding the Hungry" was the title they gave. The F.A.O. sponsored a meeting in Washington in 1963. There were 1400 delegates from 101 nations, a tremendous meeting. President Kennedy and the President of India spoke in the morning at that opening session and that afternoon Mr. Settle and I spoke. I spoke first in the afternoon and they presented me with a plaque. It is on display at Hot Springs as a momento for the first International Conference at which the great organization was started. But, you know, before we went down to the Hot Springs conference in 1943, the Russian delegation had flown -- they had six members or seven, I think it was six -- and four of them had flown across Siberia and Canada. In fact, most of the delegations came by to see me in the East Wing of the White House before the Hot Springs meeting. I talked to Mr. Krutokov, the head of the delegation, and said, "It has been tentatively planned to have a number of working committees and I would like to have you as chairman of one of the committees." Mr. Krutokov was Vice Commissar of Commerce in Russia. We had to use an interpreter. They had a good interpreter and Mr. Krutokov said, "Well, we are pretty badly overrun by Hitler in Russia and we are not going to take any large part in the conference. We will be very much interested. I believe I should not be chairman of a committee." I said, "Now," of course, we were working with Russia completely then, and I said, "I think you ought to take a chairmanship." I said, "Russia's one of the prime Allies and they are doing a great job. We are all working together and I think it would be better." He said, "Well, I'll have to study over it and let you know tomorrow." He came back the next day and said, "If you will come by occasionally and see that I don't get into trouble, I'll accept the chairmanship of a committee." I said, "I'll be glad to do that, but I don't think you will have any trouble." We became very good friends. They usually sat to themselves, somewhat aloof when in the lobby. The Homestead has a tremendous lobby, and I would go by to see them in their corner. Few people did, especially at first, but I soon became acquainted. I had different delegations up to my apartment evenings for a little reception as often as practicable. I asked Dean Acheson to come and also Mike McDermott to attend the reception to the Russian delegates. Dean Acheson didn't stay down there all the time, but he would come back occasionally. I had Dean Acheson in and we had a good time. I had learned a few words of Russian, so I could say, "Good morning," "Good afternoon," "Hello," "Thank you," and other greetings. Krutokov learned a few words in our English, and so we could greet each other and thank each other. The members of the delegation would smile when I came by and Krutokov would usually respond in English when I greeted him. HESS: Now, his name was... JONES: Krutokov. Krutokov. HESS: Was he the head of their delegation? JONES: He was the head of the delegation. He looked to be only about thirty-five or forty years of age. Before the conference ended he came to me and said, "I want you to fly back with us to Russia." And I said, "They have another hard job picked out for me and, since it is wartime, I suppose I shall not accept." I had gotten well acquainted with him. He had a good sense of humor. I told him, "After the war I might come." And he said, "Fine." Then I said, "Now if I come," I had gotten well enough acquainted with him that I thought I could say this, "If I come over there, are you going to let me see what I want to see, or are..." I said, "I've been told you just show people what you want them to see." He smiled and replied, "Well, that's what we sometimes do because critics come over for the purpose of writing something against us. Naturally we avoid helping them do that, but if you will come over," he said, "when one of our friends comes over, someone we feel like won't abuse us, it will be different. If you come over there you can see anything in Russia you want to see and I'll go with you so you can ask what you want to see and you will see it." And I said, "That's fair enough." And I thought at the time that I'd do it, but you know right after the war was over the officials of our two countries got to fussing at each other, so I decided not to go, although I would still like to visit Russia. After the conference was ended, the President invited us up to the White House. He spoke to us in the Assembly Room of the White House, complimented the conference highly and then invited us to a garden party in the area back of the White House. HESS: The Rose Garden? JONES: Perhaps it is called the Rose Garden. At any rate it's a beautiful garden with flowers and that's a good name for it. The President had us. I was asked to lead the delegates back there after he had delivered an address and said what a great thing he thought the conference had accomplished in setting the pattern for international cooperation. I didn't know whether he would jump on me about violating his instructions, but he shook hands and smiled and said, "I think you did a grand job." The subject was never mentioned again, but I had checked with Byrnes, who's very close to the President. HESS: Did Roosevelt at this time keep pretty close tabs on domestic matters such as this? JONES: Well, this was not a domestic matter. It was handled largely by the State Department. Byrnes first mentioned it to me, but the President then asked me to talk the details over with Cordell Hull and that they would also plan the general program and make all contacts with foreign countries. I went immediately to Mr. Hull's office. He explained the plan and purpose, and he called in Sumner Welles and told him to arrange to meet the delegates and ask them to contact me in the East Wing if they arrived in time. HESS: Did he turn most domestic matters over to Byrnes... JONES: Pretty well. HESS: Pretty well. JONES: Of course, Byrnes knew what was going on all the time, and Byrnes would just walk through the corridor there and see him two or three times a day -- usually every day. Byrnes worked, he would get down to his office at 8 o'clock in the morning and frequently worked until 8 o'clock at night, and he would eat lunch at his desk. I don't know how he stood it. HESS: How would you characterize James Byrnes? Just what kind of man is he? JONES: James Byrnes was, I think, a very fine man. He loved to have his way, and that's natural, and he had great ability in settling disputes. He could work out things usually and, especially if it was left to him, he could make necessary concessions, and he knew how to make decisions and he would make them. I was very fond of him. Sometime before we get through we might mention the fact that I was in his office on the morning before he went to Chicago. He was busy getting ready to go, so I merely talked to Don Russell. HESS: In 1944? JONES: Yes. HESS: Let's discuss that. JONES: Do you want to jump over... HESS: Tell me about that. JONES: Well, sir, do you know I went over there to see Mr. Byrnes about something. When I arrived I said to Don Russell, "This isn't important, but I just thought I would come over and check with Byrnes." Russell said, "You know Byrnes is packing now to go to Chicago. He's been told he will be selected to..." HESS: To be Vice President. JONES: To be Vice President, to be nominated for Vice President. And I said, "Well, that's fine," and I said, "I won't bother him now because he..." Russell said, "It's all been arranged." Byrnes went to Chicago. I was informed that Mr. Truman had promised to introduce him. They were good friends. I was later told that those in charge had trouble in convincing Truman that the President had decided that he wanted him; and that Mr. Truman kept on working for Byrnes even when they came and told him they wanted Truman instead. HESS: Byrnes kept on working, is that right? JONES: Truman kept on working for Byrnes. HESS: Oh. JONES: They had a hard time convincing him that, and I think [Robert E.] Hannegan finally gave him a penciled note. And that finally Truman went to see Byrnes. All this is what was told me. This is not a matter of any personal knowledge. Well, Byrnes phoned me after he came back from Chicago. HESS: What did he say? JONES: Byrnes was as angry as he could be at Roosevelt. He didn't say a word against Truman. He still thought Truman was open and aboveboard on everything, and he decided that he had been -- he took several minutes, saying, in substance, "Roosevelt has misled me. I thought I had the assurance, it embarrasses me." And he added, "I think I'm going to resign right at once this position." He was out of humor about it, but I knew what he had in mind, and I said, "Now listen," when he got through after he talked to me and told me the whole story, I said, "Jimmy, don't you do that. If you do that they'll accuse you of being a sorehead." I said, "You continue on here for a while, anyway, and don't let them misjudge you. You keep right on. I know the President still likes you. You have a fine record. Wait until you think this over before you do anything." I had never seen him that way before because he usually was smooth and worked out everything. Mr. Byrnes then said, "Well, I'll study about that." He stayed in his then position a good long while, in which he was very wise, I think. Roosevelt had a tremendous personality, you know. He had a way, the President did, and I learned it rather early in the game. I became very close to President Roosevelt. He had me down for lunch at his desk a number of times. I was one of the four men invited to the -- four people rather -- that were invited to the fortieth wedding anniversary of President and Mrs. Roosevelt. There were only four there outside of the family. HESS: Who were the others? JONES: Justice [Robert H.] Jackson and Mrs. Jackson (I sat right by Mrs. Jackson) and the Ambassador to Canada, I believe it was, I don't know his name, and myself. And you know that's the first time I had decided he was near the end. I didn't say anything about it, and he asked -- he called me over and asked how I was getting along War Food and I said, "Fine." I said, "Working the heck out of me." He laughed, and said, "Well, I knew they'd do that." Anyhow, he sat on one side of that elongated table and Mrs. Roosevelt sat on the opposite side and Mrs. Jackson sat on her left and I sat next, and the Ambassador sat over by Mr. Roosevelt. The President would sparkle up for a minute and then he'd drop his head. HESS: What was the date on this? Do you recall? JONES: February 20th, about the middle of February. I believe it was the 20th of February, 1945, less than a month before his death. Several years later, the first time I ever mentioned... HESS: Just after he got back from Yalta, then? JONES: What? HESS: Just after he got back from Yalta. JONES: Yes. He had sat down and delivered an address to the Congress in a wheelchair. He had apologized for that, but I didn't pay much attention to that fact. When he talked to me he would seem in good spirits. That night at the wedding anniversary he didn't say much and he would sit and listen and Mrs. Roosevelt would carry on the conversation. Then he would want to dip in and he would brighten up and seem himself for a moment, and then I would notice his head would drop down. I walked home that night. They asked one if I wanted a conveyance, and I said, "No, it's only four blocks up here and it's a beautiful night." I was bothered for the first time and I never mentioned that to anybody until, oh, just a few years ago. I happened to be at a dinner and Mrs. Jackson was present at the dinner. Someone drove us home and on the way I said, "Mrs. Jackson, I'd like to know if you remember how Mr. Roosevelt looked on his 40th wedding anniversary?" She said, "I certainly do." And she said, "You know on the way home from the White House Justice Jackson was driving and I said to him, 'We're not going to have Mr. Roosevelt with us very long,"' and she added, "He stopped that car and said, 'Why do you say that?"' I said, "Why, didn't you see how he looked and how he dropped his head down after he would say a few words?" She remembered how he looked. And she had reached the same conclusion I had that he couldn't last long. It was too bad but, of course, I didn't mention it at the time to anybody, and she didn't either, I suppose. HESS: When did you first notice that he was in failing health, or when he first looked bad? JONES: When he was -- I think it was a short time before he was nominated for the fourth term, perhaps a few weeks before. I saw him and heard his address of acceptance. He did it over in the White House. I wasn't there, but I listened on the TV. Then I saw him for a moment as he was on the television as he was driving in the rain in New York City. HESS: During the campaign? JONES: During the campaign. HESS: In New York. JONES: And it was -- I just decided at that time that he wasn't well and shouldn't be campaigning in the rain, but he loved campaigning. HESS: Speaking about Mr. Byrnes, of course, now he was later Secretary of State for Mr. Truman and they had a little difficulty on that. Have you ever spoken with Mr. Byrnes about that episode? JONES: No, I never did because I just figured he had been given such a free reign by President Roosevelt that I don't know, I think he must have thought, "Well, Truman will leave it to me." But he shouldn't have made his report without first reporting to the President. I think Truman was right about that if that was done. But I never did say anything to Byrnes. I never did mention it to him because it would have been embarrassing to think that I, as close as I was to him, would bring the subject up; and I didn't know what the facts were, but I just gathered that that's what happened from statements in the press. I don't know whether the reports were true or not. I'm still especially fond of both Mr. Byrnes and Mr. Truman. I admired both of them. I didn't want to comment unless I was first spoken to about the matter. I had known Byrnes since 1917. Then I came to know Mr. Truman because of his investigation of the war activities of the various Federal agencies. As chairman of the committee he, or his assistants and employees, investigated practically every department, including War Food. One of the investigators at that time said that they told one of my assistants, "I wish every place was run as well as this one is." At the time Truman became President, I was terribly tired. I had been very busy, put in long hours and had a tremendous task over there to look after. HESS: When you were War Food Administrator? JONES: When I was War Food Administrator, and we had contacts with fifteen hundred warehouses and I never did give out any statements at all. I said, "I don't want any publicity about this because I want to go back to my place on the Court as soon as the war in Europe is over." I was loading as many as -- now when Hoover was War Food Administrator during World War I, he received great publicity when he was loading one shipload of food going to Belgium, and it was highly advertised. You know he was a great advertising man. Anyway, I was loading twelve ships in New York at one time. They made me transport the food, buy for lend-lease, allot all the food to the Army and Navy and to the civilians, and it would have to be rationed by OPA. We had many problems. As soon as Mr. Truman was sworn in I felt every man should submit his resignation to the new President. Soon after he became President I went to see Mr. Truman with my written letter of resignation and I said, "I think you ought to be able to select your own people in official capacity, so I am handing in my resignation, and if you accept it it will be fine." He said, "No, I want you to stay on. I have perfect confidence in you." And I said, "I really want to go back to the Court as soon as the major work is finished. However, I will abide your wishes in the matter and would like to stay until the heavy part of the task is finished." I told him I would be glad to stay until the war in Europe was ended. After the war in Europe was over, I saw Byrnes and I told him -- talked to Byrnes -- and he said, "Well, they have a group over there now and I know they're going to make it a little difficult for you. They are going to make some changes." He said, "If I were you I would go ahead and resign, but it's up to you." And I said, "Well, I don't mind, but I don't want to resign under pressure." And then he went to see -- he said, I'll see Mr. Truman." And Mr. Truman said, at that time, so Byrnes told me, "Well, why don't we just wait until the war is over." I would have left then if I had known the others were going to resign at that particular time. But Byrnes had told the President, "No, he's tired. Let him go." And then Byrnes came back and he said, "You write a letter." I said, "I've already written him a letter." That surprised Byrnes. But I added, "Well, if you have told him that much I will write another letter." I then wrote another letter of resignation late in May, right after the conversation Byrnes had with the President. I don't know what happened to the first letter, but that isn't important. After the developments I rather wished I had gone to see the President personally. They were going to appoint Secretary [Clinton P.] Anderson as Secretary of Agriculture, and take -- the then Secretary, I guess, at that time was still Claude Wickard. But anyhow, at any rate, Truman went ahead then and accepted the resignation that I had tendered. Roosevelt had told me at the time I reluctantly accepted the position of War Food Administrator that if I would take that place he would give me the same place or a better one. I don't know whether Mr. Truman knew about it or not, but anyhow he appointed me as Chief Justice. All the circuit courts had chief justices at that time, and all state courts still have chief justices, instead of chief judges, but they have changed that name in the Federal system and there is just one Chief Justice. And I have this commission -- this certificate that President Truman signed. I have always been very partial to him. I think he had the worst, the toughest, problems that any man ever had to decide in the same length of time during his first three years. I have read this Year of Decisions, but you know problems just piled in on him. There were numerous readjustments. Then he faced the Hiroshima decision, one of the gravest problems that ever met human intelligence. Then the meetings with Stalin, then the trial of the war criminals, involving many legal questions. He didn't seem to have any easy questions. The cold steel of final determination of these great issues was his and his alone. You know he had that sign on his desk, "The Buck Stops Here," and he never flickered. He would make a decision. He had plenty of American entrails. He could decide without wavering. The critics could kick him all over the lot and it didn't seem to bother Truman. They were not easy, but he faced them without flinching. I've admired him greatly for that because I dealt with some people that you couldn't get decisions out of until it was too late to make a correct decision. A long time ago, I believe Tacitus, in quoting some old philosopher, said, "The gods look with favor upon superior courage." HESS: What are your earliest recollections of Mr. Truman? When did you first meet him or see him? JONES: Well, I don't know whether he would remember it or not, but I met him soon after he came to Washington, and I met him in the Press Club when they had what was called Congressional Night, when they invited the members of the House and Senate to the club. I met him then. I doubt whether he would remember, and then I saw him at different times and then while I was War Food Administrator, after he became Vice President, I came back on the train and he came in and chatted with me. I had met him and gotten pretty well acquainted from time to time, and I met him in Mr. Rayburn's office a time or two. I think I went to see him once to ask him about something after he became President, but I had gotten pretty well acquainted with him after he was Vice -President. He was always very gracious to me, and I was a very great admirer of his and appreciated his unusual qualities. I would add this to what I just said about War Food. We had shortage of packaging and everything else. I was always afraid there would be some food spoilage, perishable food. It begins to deteriorate as soon as it is produced unless it is refrigerated. Ships would be torpedoed while carrying food for the Allies and some limping back to New York with broken, leaky packages. In order to reduce the expense, I hired Lynch, Donohue and Dee to repair the broken packages on the dock in New York. I paid them eighteen thousand dollars a week just to stay and mend the packages on the docks. If I sent the broken, leaky packages back to the warehouse there would be additional transportation and storage charges. HESS: Were they a packing company? JONES: It's just a company that did packing. They simply repaired broken packages. They also did packing. If we had shipped these packages back to a warehouse and paid loading, transportation and re-loading, the cost would have increased many times over. Then, too, packages would sometimes come in from the interior with broken packages. When I was up there one time we were loading several ships. Five hundred barrels of salt pork were on the dock and fifty barrels were leaking. When you are buying five million dollars worth of food per day for lend-lease it is a gigantic undertaking, especially when they were also loading food to feed millions of men in our own armed services. This was no ordinary undertaking. The only practical way was to have repairs done in the dock by a responsible company. HESS: A New York company? JONES: Yes, it was a New York company and they did a wonderful job. It would cost a lot more to do it any other way. I wasn't responsible for the food after it got on the sea, but when they would bring it back to shore after attack by a U-boat, I had to do the repairing of the packaging. We were instructed by the Congress to maintain a support price on numerous commodities, including eggs. Some of the concerns didn't like the egg price. One Friday, just before noon, a committee came to Washington and told our egg people that the support price of eggs was too high. They said, "The egg dealers are not going to buy any more eggs as of this time. We are out of the market all over the United States." All the big wholesalers come in a group down to War Food and the egg people in War Food were scared to death. They came in to see me (our people that had been handling the eggs). They knew we had instructions from the Congress to support the price, but it had to be done by purchasing if there wasn't any other way to dispose of them. But all the egg dealers, especially the wholesalers, were out on strike. There were no purchasers. Our egg people asked, "What are we to do?" And I replied, "We are going to buy those eggs." Our committee reported my statement to the wholesalers, and they said, "He wouldn't dare to do that." My committee told the wholesalers, "You don't know that fellow. He'll smile, but he'll stick with what he says." And our people handling the problems said, "What are we going to do with them?" I said, "Well, we'll sell what we can at the ceiling price and we'll store what we have storage space for, and then the rest we can make chicken feed, dry the eggs, and obey the law, and we may prosecute the wholesalers conspiracy if necessary." I didn't flicker at all, and only had to buy a hundred carloads of eggs. They came back into the market. But that was tough. They picked Friday afternoon, when it was hard and awkward to do that. But we had a lot of problems, tough problems. The full scale war was on and this thing lasted -- First World War lasted only about a year, 18 months from the time Congress declared the state of war and our fighting only lasted a few months, April to November. This time the war lasted from December, 1941, until May, 1945, before the war was over in Europe. I am proud of the fact that we had less -- even these retail grocery stores allowed 3 percent for spoilage, because it is impossible to not have some. And we had slightly less than 1 percent. Now, that isn't a fair comparison because we bought in great quantities, but, on the other hand, we had much more to handle. I think it's a wonderful record and I've always been very proud of it. HESS: What is the toughest problem that you had to deal with? JONES: That's one of the toughest. And another one was that while I was down at the Food Conference the officials put a mandatory ceiling on a lot of commodities. HESS: Congress did? JONES: No, Jimmy Byrnes, under authority granted by Congress. HESS: Jimmy Byrnes did. JONES: And, of course, he had authority to do it. The authority of Congress to act. It was under an Executive order. But it was an Executive order pursuant to an act of Congress, or so interpreted, and when I got back from the Food Conference I was told, "Well, now listen, some of these prices were low and there is temporarily a big surplus of some of them, which has run prices down," (this was before I was over there with Jimmy Byrnes). We had problems with the corn and hog related prices early in the war. I said -- the prices of corn and hogs are closely related. It is called a ratio price. I said, "You should lift the price of corn so that corn will move into the market." OPA opposed the change. The corn growers simply wouldn't sell their corn. They would buy a few hogs or make a trade with their hog growing neighbors. Eighty-three percent of the corn never crosses a county line in Iowa, in those big corn states, that's an amazing statement, but it is correct. But the balance is still several hundred millions of bushels. HESS: Is it fed to hogs in those counties? JONES: It is fed to hogs in those counties. And a lot of them are hog growers and a lot of them are corn growers, and some of them are both. But they can always sell their corn, and to make it move there has to be a related price or corn would not move. If these prices were out of line they would sometimes make an agreement with a hog, growing neighbor to work together on side agreements or would simply store their corn and wait for a change in the ration price. And we had that problem all the way through. And another problem was when they simply would not sell, but just hold for a better deal. We had twelve million people in the armed services toward the end of the war and they came first in food allocation. Then the lend-lease. We had to help the Allies. The OPA rationed the domestic allotment of food. We had to feed those turkeys and chickens and all kinds of livestock in the East and unless corn moved they couldn't get the feed. Finally the authorities agreed to a change, lifted the price of corn ten cents a bushel and that, of course, caused some of the corn to move. But one of the worst things I had was when I was called over to the White House, I think it was in December, 1943, or January of 1944. I think it was December. [William M.] Jeffers had just announced -- I want to tell this because it's important -- that he had solved the synthetic rubber problem, that it would be made from petroleum, and that since he had the problem solved he was resigning and going back to his position as president of the Union Pacific Railroad. I was called over to the White House and told, "We've got to have two hundred million bushels of wheat, and a hundred and sixty thousand tons of sugar to make synthetic rubber." I said I thought Jeffers had solved that problem. They laughed. I said, "Well, I've just allotted -- made an allocation of sugar to housewives and am importing wheat. We're short on all those things." And they said, "Well, we've got to have rubber for tires for six hundred thousand wheeled vehicles to land our army on D-Day." These figures staggered me and I said, "Can I announce that and tell these people why I must reduce the sugar allotment?" They said, "No, you can't say one word. That must be kept a complete secret." I said, "Well, let me make it this way then because we're going to have a lot of trouble with this adjustment. Let me just dish it out as it is needed and used." And they agreed to that. HESS: As what? JONES: They let me make the actual allocation as needed and not to allot it all at once. HESS: I see, yes. JONES: And we can do some... HESS: Slip it in a little at a time. JONES: Yes, of course, they said those, all of those, vehicles had to have rubber. Well, when they first sprang it on me I said, "I thought Jeffers said he had already solved the question." They had a whole bunch of the high brass over there in Byrnes' office, and they said, "We know it's tough, but it must be done." I was the bluest then that I ever was during my War Food days. I said, "I don't know whether I can ride the storm or not, but this is a war and I'll do the best I can." Well, we worked it out finally. It upset our plans, but we furnished the sugar and wheat as they requested. [Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | Additional Jones Oral History Transcripts]
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