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Jones: "To anybody we feel is entitled to the loan."
In the huge caucus room, shivers ran down the backs of the diehard anti-Wallaceites. Congress, usually jealous of the purse strings, had granted this freewheeling power to Jesse Jones because its majority trusted him—and because it felt that he had no ideology beyond the belief that an honest dollar should earn an honest return. But now, the diehards thought: give Henry Wallace a $14 billion revolving fund? Give him the sky? Jesse Jones's testimony on RFC powers was a stopper.
Jesse continued:
"We [the RFC] now own outright about 950 [war] plants and they cost $6 billion. We own about 960 or 970 parts of plants.
. . . In each case, the plant is ours, we can lock it up and keep it or we can sell it. . . ."
Senator Bailey: "Could you continue to operate them?"
Jones: "You could if you wanted to. Congress can do it, yes."
Bailey: "I mean, under existing law."
Jones: "I hadn't thought much about that. . . . But it would be very easy for the Government if they wanted to do it."
In other words, it might be very easy for Henry Wallace, were he head of RFC, to operate Willow Run, or the million-ton-a-year synthetic rubber industry, or aircraft factories from Bendix to Consolidated with a total RFC investment of $3 billion. The diehards' shudders increased.
What Is Your Purpose? This line of questioning had gone on long enough for Florida's New Dealing Senator Claude Pepper. He now moved in to apply the needle. He asked Jesse Jones for the names, backgrounds and capabilities of the men who really run RFC. Jesse turned out to be a little vague on details, but he finally came through with five top men:
Charles B. Henderson, onetime Nevada banker; Sam H. Husbands, onetime South Carolina banker; Henry A. Mulligan, onetime banker who served with the War Finance Corp. in World War I; Howard J. Klossner, onetime bank examiner; and Charles T. Fisher Jr., the "nonworking" president of the National Bank of Detroit.
Senator Pepper asked: "Now, did those men have any background . . . that you would describe as more important than the job of being Secretary of Agriculture?"
Replied Jesse Jones: "Just what is your purpose there, Senator?"
The Senator's purpose, it turned out, was to bring to light the fact that the Commodity Credit Corp. had lost money when it was under RFC supervision, but had made money in 1940 under Henry Wallace's Department of Agriculture. This Jesse Jones did not deny.
Finally Senator Pepper came to his key question: can one man capably fill the two posts of Commerce Secretary and Federal Loan Administrator?
Previously, Jesse Jones had referred to himself as a man who merely kept the "moochers" away. Now he threw all modesty to the winds: "I think it is possible if you will work . . . enough hours. I do not believe there is another fellow in the world that will do it except me."
As Senator Pepper kept barking away at the same question, Jesse Jones finally barked back: "If you are trying to ask me if Henry Wallace is qualified for both jobs, I will say no."