The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-02-27

versies of the New Deal.
 Center of that controversy is a young man, virtually unknown outside of Washington, who among his friends is called "The Cham pion of Lost Causes" He is Gardner Jackson. who probably more than any other one indivi- dual was the indefatigable and belligerent instigator of the Presi- dents message.
 Jackson has been a storm cen- ter of the New Deal ever since he joined 1t as member ot the AAA during the first lush days of the Roosevelt honeymoon. For him it was no honeymoon. He was supposed to protect the consumer, and he did 1t with such vigor that he got distressingly on the nerves of AAA officials, much more in- terested in higher prices for the farmer.
 The more he got on their nerves, the harder Jackson hit. Finally he was fired.
 The issue on which he was fired was the protection of share-crop. pers-or tenant farmers-on the cotton plantations of the south. Jackson, and little band of CO., agitators within the AAA, claimed that plantation owners, in de creasing their acreage, were turn- ing their share-croppers off the land, that the New Deal was mak- ing itinerant gypsies out of the poor farmers of the South.
 Bearded BOrah
 Jackson is peculiar person. He is a combination of charm, ideal ism, persistence, brass, and down. right cuSsedneSs. He will rush into an impossible predicament without batting an eye. He will tell any so-called statesman ex- actly what he thinks of him.
 Once at the home of the late Senator Cutting, Jackson bearded William Edgar Borah, the lion of Idaho.
 "Borah," he said, "T don't like you" .....,-.
 "What's the matter?" asked the astonished statesman.
 You're not sincere, BOrah. You're not a go-through guy" G0d-Father
 A lot of the things Jackson has championed have led into blind alleys. But as far as they go, he goes with them. In the case of the share-croppers, he caused the AAA officials who busted him far more trouble outside, than when he was under their roof.
 He became the godfather, the chief financial angel of the South ern Tenant Farmers Union. This is not 8 large organization, but it made up for its size by its vociferousness. Jackson supplied the megaphone.
 Many strikes have been staged where more men were beaten, jailed, or persecuted. But few have had the stage-manag- ing that Gardner Jackson gave the share-croppers. When Strik- ing Negroes were jailed in Ar kansas, when a preacher and . woman journalist were horse whipped, when union organizers were run out of the strike area, he made the most of 1t every time.
 Jackson made life miserable for Miss Perkins and Secretary Wall lace. He raised unmitigated hell with Attorney General Cummings. He had the ear of Mrs. Roosevelt. He got '"The March of Time" to film the strikers. He raised thou ands of dollars to finance them. He got Harry Hopkins to feed them.
 Convert Wallace
 Probably his best proSelyting was with the man who once fired him, Secretary of Agriculture Wallace. After their first row, Jackson and Wallace became friends, Wallace became con- vinced of Jackson's sincerity. also realized that the plight of the share-croppers badly needed rem- edying.
 Jackson clinched his argument with Wallace by having him talk en through the California fruit growing regions by Jonathan Garst. then through the south by Rex Tugwell.
 Since then Wallace has been making speeches in which he frankly admits that the Depart ment of Agriculture has spent all its time and money enriching only one-third of the farmers of the United States.
 "As . result" Wallace says. "the top one third of the farm CTS, most of whom were raised in good homes and who were given . head start in the world, are able to produce about five times as much per man as the