James E. McDonald (politician)

He contested the post of Agriculture Commissioner when incumbent George B. Terrell decided to run for Congress.

Although elected as a Democrat on the eve of the Great Depression, McDonald opposed the New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and crop supports.

McDonald's administration also saw the establishment of processing plants for Texas fruits and vegetables and the expansion of the sweet potato, tomato, citrus, black-eyed pea, watermelon, truck-farming, poultry, dairy, and nursery and floral industries.

McDonald was investigated by a Texas House committee in 1935 on nine charges, including misappropriation of department funds related to the Jacks and Stallions program.

[2] McDonald was reelected every two years until twenty-five-year-old John C. White, the youngest man ever to hold the office, defeated him in the Democratic primary in 1950.