After completing law school at the University of Texas and starting work as a lawyer, he married Mary Smith Jarmon in 1925.
[1] When appointed as governor of Puerto Rico for periods in 1929 and 1932-1933, he was the only one of fifteen non-Puerto Ricans to serve in that position between 1900 and 1952 who already spoke Spanish.
[3] Soon after taking office, he had to deal with agitation resulting from charges made by Pedro Albizu Campos, president of the Nationalist Party, that Cornelius Rhoads, an American medical researcher with the Rockefeller Foundation, had been working on a United States plot to exterminate Puerto Ricans, based on Rhoads' own letter that became public.
[4] He ordered an investigation by the Attorney General José Ramón Quiñones, who found no evidence of wrongdoing by Rhoads of the American health project.
He practiced law and served on numerous commissions and was active in the US Coast Guard reserve, helping lead efforts to protect Puerto Rican waters during World War II.