The New Boss

During the war, U.S. commodity exchanges had little to do. Unlike World War I, when skyrocketing wheat and corn prices made millionaires in the pit from morn till midafternoon, the U.S. government controlled the big buying. It set ceilings on all important commodities except rye, made the once hectic exchanges as quiet as country stores. But traders squirmed under this cosy arrangement.

What they feared was that the New Dealing Administration would decide to continue this role in peacetime, virtually do away with the free commodity market. To ward off this threat, seven of the nation's big exchanges formed the National Association of Commodity Exchanges & Allied Trades, Inc.,* in Chicago.

Then they looked around for a czar to run the show. What they wanted was a man whose plea for free exchanges would be listened to in Washington; whose firm hand would keep the traders in line, so that there would be no trouble, such as last summer's scandal in rye, to bring down further regulation.

Last week they found their man, balding, able Samuel Dillon Jackson, 50, ex-Senator (for ten months) from Indiana. An infantry captain in World War I, he has a small city background of church elder and 33rd-degree Mason. A good mixer and orator, he likes to "pull the cork up in their throats at least once."

At last year's Democratic convention, he was picked by National Chairman Robert Hannegan to preside, did his bit for the Hannegan-Hague-Kelly steamroller. After the first ballot for Vice President--on which Henry Wallace had a lead--he promptly called for ballot No. 2, giving Wallace supporters no chance to regroup. One result: Jackson was an early caller at the White House when President Harry Truman moved in.

When he took over his new $50,000-a-year job, new Czar Jackson carefully explained that he was not fronting for a lobby or pressure group. But traders did not think that his friendship with President Truman was a handicap.

*Members: Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Board of Trade of Kansas City, Chamber of Commerce of Minneapolis, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, New York Cocoa Exchange, New York Coffee and Sugar Exchange, Inc., New York Produce Exchange.

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