“No one claims that the Roosevelt administration has proceeded without error. The president himself does not claim that, but the mistakes have been far outweighed by the successful steps. Of greater importance is the fact that everything that has been done has been actuated by one motive—the welfare of the people as a whole.”
Jesse H. Jones, June 18, 1934
“It is certainly not to the best interest of our country that control of the wealth, industry, and credit be concentrated in a few hands. This is so fundamental as not to be open to argument…. If we ever have serious social disturbance, it will be due to this. The distance between the palace and the hovel is too great—the mountain too high to climb.”
Jesse H. Jones, November 23, 1936
“If the past 10 years have taught us anything, it is that business cannot merely express dislike for what government does. It must be prepared to offer practical solutions based not on privilege, but service and the common welfare.”
Jesse H. Jones, April 14, 1943
Steven Fenberg in his Amsterdam neighborhood.
Steven Fenberg is the award-winning author of Unprecedented Power, the definitive biography about Jesse Jones, who was reputedly throughout the Great Depression and World War II the most powerful person in the nation next to President Franklin Roosevelt. Fenberg was also the executive producer and wrote Brother, Can You Spare a Billion?, the Emmy-award winning documentary film about Jesse Jones narrated by Walter Cronkite and broadcast nationally on PBS.
In addition to producing books and films, Fenberg writes articles, editorials and lectures, primarily about embracing and using the power of good government to address today’s existential threats. He frequently uses Jesse Jones and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation—the New Deal agency Jones chaired that saved the US economy during the Great Depression and militarized industry expeditiously to fight and win WWII—as models for today.
Recently, Fenberg wrote and directed Remarkable Experiences, a short film showing how the 1966 opening of the Jesse H. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts transformed Houston’s performing arts. Ever Open, another short film he wrote and directed, commemorates Congregation Emanu El, a Reform Jewish synagogue that was founded in 1944 emphasizing freedom of speech and social justice in Houston, Texas.
Fenberg was born and raised in Houston and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. He was involved with his family’s statewide jewelry and camera business and began writing for magazines and newspapers in the late 1980s about political, environmental and social issues. He also wrote and produced AIDS: Just Say Know, a concise and compelling educational play performed throughout greater Houston in theaters, community centers, workplaces, churches and synagogues, and as in-service training for teachers and law enforcement officials, back when the disease was in its infancy and misinformation scared many. From 1993 to 2013, Fenberg managed community affairs for Houston Endowment, one of the largest private philanthropic foundations in the nation.
Coming from a family of civic-minded volunteers, Fenberg served on Mayor Bill White’s task force on Houston’s history and on the advisory boards of the American Red Cross Museum in Washington, D.C.; No More Victims, an advocacy agency for children whose parents are incarcerated; AIDS Foundation Houston and Houston History magazine. He was a member of Congregation Emanu El’s board of directors for many years and served as a trustee of the Aubrey and Sylvia Farb Community Service Fund, of which he is now an honorary trustee.
While still in high school, Fenberg formed a social group for special needs teenagers and young adults at the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston that continues to meet today.
Fenberg and his partner Harry De Jonge divide their time between their home by the Brazos River in Texas and their apartment in Amsterdam, where Fenberg enjoys experiencing Dutch policies, practices and culture.
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