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new banking system whose deposits could be
guaranteed. Thus in use the RFC became the financial heart of a vast
experiment in State Capitalism. Colossus. As controller of a prodigious
one-man corporation, silvery-haired Jesse Jones has in his potential
portfolio $394.000,000 worth of holdings in 67 railroads —enough to
make Messrs. Gould and Harriman turn enviously in their graves. In
three months he has bought at prices he himself increased from week to
week $100,000,000 of gold. He has more bank stock than any man in the
history of the world—$475,000,000 worth in 2,235 institutions. Last
week he began to use his new power by dictating who should be board
chairman of the biggest bank in the Midwest (see p. 43). But colossi
often have foot-trouble and Jesse Jones's 6 ft. 3 in. is no exception.
On the days when he works ten or twelve hours—a habit his childless
wife, whom he married when he was 46, has not been able to break him
of—his feet bother him. An earthy humorist, he likes to tell stories
on his feet. Once he leaned out of his car in Manhattan and startled
a policeman by enquiring in a soft drawl: "Officer, what kind of
shoes do you wear? I have lots of trouble with my feet and just won
dered how you manage to stand on yours all day long." The scene of
the best Jones foot story is laid in Buckingham Palace. Colonel Edward
Mandell House of Austin had recommended to President Wilson that Jones
be put in charge of the U. S. Red Cross's huge military relief
activities in Europe. Jones had an appointment to meet the President at
Buckingham Palace, whither Wilson had gone to confer with George V. It
was winter and on the way to the palace in a taxi the bitter cold
seemed to centre in Jesse Jones's feet. He was shown into a small
parlor where he was to meet Wilson. There he removed his shoes before a
cozy fire. When the President of the U. S. unexpectedly entered the
room with His Britannic Majesty, there was big Jesse Jones of Texas,
sprawled in a chair, dozing in his stocking feet. Besides his feet, Mr.
Jones's spine troubles him. A dislocated vertebra has for some time
prevented him from exercising. He is anything but sensitive about
such things for in all his dominant doings he employs the homely,
intimate touch. And he would be the last to approve titanic
descriptions of himself. He masks, or maybe unmasks, his will-to-power
with an air of modest deliberation and open-minded reticence. He
listens carefully to the reasoning and suggestions of his colleagues,
especially Colleagues Couch and politically important onetime Senator
Elaine. He humbly accepted and executed the gold-buying program of his
President's Professor Warren. Never does he talk big, like his fellow
titan General Johnson, well knowing that lest some upstart Jack arise
to climb a beanstalk of prejudice and perhaps calumny, the RFC had best
be known as a gentle giant.
*Like everyone else, Mr. Jones has suffered a sharp shrinkage
in his fortune. Of the 70-odd real estate holding companies in which he
is interested, some have defaulted. Last November the Senate Banking
& Currency Committee investigated authorization of two RFC loans,
totalling $1,500,000 to Midland Mortgage Co., subsidiary of Bankers
Mortgage Co. which Mr. Jones founded. Mr. Jones was able to show that
he had severed connection with the company when he joined RFC.
