John J. Carson was a 20th-century American politician who served in the Truman Administration as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 1949 to 1953.

[2] Carson was born in Smith Valley, Indiana, an unincorporated community south of Indianapolis, where he grew up.

[1] Carson's first job was as a messenger boy for the president of the American National Bank of Indianapolis.

[1] In 1918, Carson was assigned to work in Washington, D.C. as an assistant correspondent for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat newspaper.

[2] Carson maintained that his support for cooperatives was not rooted in socialism, but rather in the ideals expressed in the quadragesimo anno, an encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI that condemned unregulated capitalism.