Upon repeal in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt named Choate the first head of the Federal Alcohol Control Administration (FACA).

Joseph Hodges Choate Jr. was born on February 2, 1876, in New York City, where he grew up, as well as at Naumkeag, his family's country estate in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

[2] Upon his father's appointment as ambassador, the younger Choate left law school in Cambridge and joined him in London as third secretary of the Embassy.

Upon repeal in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt named Choate the first head of the Federal Alcohol Control Administration (FACA),[4] where he fought for lower priced liquor as a way to end bootlegging.

[6] Choate was active in support of the Fusion candidacy of Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia and in 1936, he was chairman of the 50th anniversary celebration of the Statue of Liberty.

Cora's older brother was noted psychiatrist and medical historian John Rathbone Oliver.