John Stephens Wood (February 8, 1885 - September 12, 1968) was a significant U.S. political figure. Wood was born in Cherokee County, Georgia and studied law at Mercer University. He practised law and served as Solicitor General of the judicial circuit of Georgia (1921-25) and judge of the superior courts (1925-31).
A member of the Democratic Party, Wood was elected to Congress in 1931. He lost his seat in 1934 but was reelected after World War II. He served as the chairman of House Un-American Activities Committee in 1945/46 and again from 1949 to 1952 and was a key figure in the investigation of the American Communist Party and the entertainment industry that resulted in the Hollywood blacklist. He was criticized for failing to properly investigate the Ku Klux Klan. An open Klan sympathizer, Wood defended them by arguing that: "The threats and intimidations of the Klan are an old American custom, like illegal whisky-making."
Wood retired from politics in 1952 and returned to practice law in Canton, Georgia.
