the two letters to several newspapers, including The New York Times. The letters criticized Roosevelt's decision to name Wallace as Secretary of Commerce. Senator Josiah Bailey of North Carolina called both Jones and Wallace to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee, each on consecutive days. Jones testified on the first day that he did not believe that Wallace was a suitable candidate. He characterized Wallace as a visionary who lacked business experience. Sometime during the five hours of testimony the next day, Wallace touted his own business experience, but sought to restrict the scope of power from the Commerce Department and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which he claimed were exploited by business interests. Steven Fenberg, the author of the most recent biography of Jones, characterized him as the second most powerful person in America next to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who sometimes called him "Jesus Jones." Zoning proponent Jones returned to Houston early in 1948. In January, he had already found a new political project, and used his Houston Chronicle as a platform. He expressed concern about "undesirable [commercial] encroachments" and advocated for land use zoning as a method for protecting residential areas. Hugh Roy Cullen led the effort to prevent new zoning regulation for land development in the city of Houston. This was in response to Jones and other zoning advocates in Houston. Cullen believed zoning regulations to be socialist and un-American. Though Jones attracted attention to the zoning issue, his involvement started very late in the struggle, as he published his first opinion in the Houston Chronicle less than two weeks before the vote. Jones published Cullen's opinion opposing zoning in Houston. He accused Jones of being an outsider because Jones had lived away from Houston for twenty-five or thirty years. In addition, he charged Jones with trying to run the city with the "assistance of New York Jews," and vowed to resign his chair at the Board of Regents at the University of Houston. Jones published Cullen's commentary and his own response to it in the Houston Chronicle two days before the zoning vote. Jones wrote that many other American cities had zoning in rebuttal to Cullen's claim that zoning was "un-American and German." Houston voted against zoning and Cullen never followed through on his threat to quit his leadership positions at non-profits. Suite 8F Group Jones was associated with a group of Houston political and social leaders