This is the story of George H. Mahon, a man who went to Congress in 1935, when the House Committee on Appropriations still allocated a small amount of money to buy military horses. Forty-four years later, when Mahon retired as Chairman of that same committee, the committee was debating funds to purchase a bomber capable of traveling at 2,000 miles an hour. With a career spanning nearly a half century-including almost the entire Cold War-Mahon grew from a West Texas country lawyer to one of the most powerful men in the US House of Representatives, serving twenty-two consecutive terms from 1935-1978. During his time in Congress, Mahon worked easily with the giants of government, enjoying the friendship and confidence of seven of the eight presidents with whom he served. He worked just as comfortably with his constituents in the Nineteenth Congressional District of Texas. Mahon served on several Congressional committees, but it is through his service on the House Appropriations Committee and the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations that he had the greatest national impact. He often bragged that under his leadership the Subcommittee on Defense Appropriations was the most non-partisan committee in Congress. Mahon led the subcommittee with a strong but gentle hand that earned him the respect of all who served with him.

Gathering eggs, planting crops, feeding hogs: firsthand experience of these grows more distant with each new generation. From 1914 to 1964, however, a West Texas farmer named William G. DeLoach quietly recorded this life-style. He described weather, plantings, harvests, births, and deaths in his diary. In doing so, he not only chronicled the life changes that everyone experiences but also kept a record of the developments taking place across the country and around the world.
The diary's editor, Janet Neugebauer, supplies interweaves explanations to round out the picture that DeLoach offers in his personal descriptions. Her history is a book unto itself that gives the context of the farming experience on the Great Plains. She explains the frustration farmers felt from overproduction, the price-cost squeeze, the exodus of young people into the cities, and the increasingly strong role the government played in what was shifting from a family's way of life to a corporate industry. Graceful and accurately detailed sketches by Charles Shaw provide the visual backdrop for DeLoach's story.
This work provides an overview of fifty years of national and international history as well as an intimate account of the life of an ordinary man in a changing world. Few farmers had time or inclination to keep a record of their day-to-day lives, but William DeLoach's perseverance has left us with a rich history of one family's triumphs and failures during half a century. For anyone who ever lived on a farm or visited relatives' farms, as well as for those interested in this aspect of our national history, this book will prove a real treasure.