Foreword
Although Maury Maverick has been in his grave for sixteen years as of this writing, he refuses to stay dead and buried. Mention of him occurs frequently in the journals of the nation, and increasing numbers of busy graduate students comb the Maverick papers at the University of Texas Archives to learn more of this unusual man.
For Maury Maverick was unique. I know the clichés ("there'll never be another like him"; "he's one of a kind") said by nearly everyone about anybody the minute after he dies. But a case can be made for Maury Maverick that will lift such statements above the bromidic level.
With their almost three and a half centuries on these North American shores, plus their remarkable skill for breeding tough-fibered men of great courage and personal carelessness, the Mavericks are one of the few families whose name has become a common noun. In the vernacular of the cow camp, a maverick is a calf "who has lost his mother and who don't know who his father was," which is the hyperbolic Western way of saying that a maverick is a stray. Throughout the English-speaking world, a maverick is an independent who goes his own way, swims upstream, runs against the crowd, or refuses to stand hitched. Maury Maverick was all of these things, not an independent for the sake of independence, but simply a man who arrived at his own decisions without considering party, popularity, conformity, or consistency. He went the way his heart and head dictated, in a rare but always honest combination of those two abstractions.
Maury Maverick would have loved the 1960's. He would have applauded every decision of Earl Warren's Supreme Court, whih broadened and further guaranteed individual liberties and group civil rights. From a legal standpoint this past decade has been a confirmation of all that Maury Maverick stood for, of what he fought for, and of those principles that defeated him as congressman and as mayor. He would have been proud that his hometown, San Antonio, sent Texas' first Mexican-American, Henry B. Gonzalez, to congress. Once San Antonians and Texans got used to the idea of being represented by one of their natives, the people have gone on reelecting Gonzalez, apparently for life. In the Rio Grande Valley, where the old families were of Mexican ancenstry and the first families were from that catch-all group called Anglos, Gonzalez' victory gave the citizens enough courage to send to Washington a second Mexican-American. Eligio de la Garza, as their congressman. Crystal City, whose huge statue of Popeye confirms its claim as the spinach capital of the world, provided an example for other communities when its Mexican-American majority elected a predominantly Mexican-American city countil. Now a chicano revolution is sweeping from Texas to California, which should cause Maverick to burst his coffin with a loud olé.
Despite a heritage that goes back to the Texas Revolution, Maury Maverick would have hailed the efforts of the Mexican-American to get another tradition off his back—that proud group known as Texas Rangers, whose anti-Mexican sentiments are notorious, albeit for sometimes sound historical reasons. Undoubtedly he would have hailed John F. Kennedy, and he would have lauded Lyndon Johnson for that cloudburst of social legislation his fellow Texan put through Congress in 1964-1965. Maverick would have stood for all the voting, educational, housing, and other rights that brought all Americans under the same set of laws. On the other hand, he probably would have scored Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs and perhaps even for the missile confrontation, and he would have been on Johnson's back for Viet Nam. His sentiments toward President Nixon would have been unprintable, even in these scatological times.
But the developments of the 1960's that would have given Maverick the most pleasure were those guaranteeing the accused the same rights as other citizens and giving all people of this country the right to speak up and out. When, as mayor, he permitted the Communists to use San Antonio's municipal auditorium, he was denounced as a Communist himself. In fact, his accusers charged that he was worse than a Communist, that he was, to use the ultimate epithet, a traitor to his class. It was a night for lynching as the "good people" rioted in downtown San Antonio, and the only difference between SDS rioting on today's campuses and American Legion rioting in San Antonio in 1939 is the age of the people involved. The intemperance and the disregard for reason and justice are identical.
The attempted denial of free speech to American Communists in San Antonio led Maury into one of his few retaliations by pedigree. He took to the air waves to read practically the whole Maverick genealogy from the time they hit Boston Harbor in early colonial days right down to himself, from the heroic Matthew Fontaine Maury on the one side through three and a half centuries of American Mavericks on the other. He called off every patriotic organization to which he belonged by right of heritage or his own participation, and he was by right a Son of practically every one of them. At the conclusion he challenged anyone in San Antonio to equal his credentials as an American. Then he reasserted that, since he believed in America, the Communists could speak. San Antonians of lesser American heritage wanted to burn him at the stake.
Too bad he couldn't have hung around for the censure of Joe McCarthy! Too bad he couldn't have debated Vice-President Spiro Agnew, matching rhetoric for rhetoric. Although sweet reasonableness in their interchange might have been missing, the quotability would have been endless. Agnew would have had in Maverick an adversary who could fight him phrase for phrase, someone the vice-president lacks at this moment. Maverick believed in all the first Ten Amendments, and he would have said so in words that were pungent, earthy, and memorable.
Sometimes Maverick walked a thin line between crude honesty and complete courage. Some of us have long felt that one of his greatest achievements was choosing a wife who could smooth over the cross patches he had scuffed up. Sometimes he seemed to irritate just for the sake of keeping people stirred up. He did not function in an atmosphere of serenity.
For instance, to get street sanitation under control and to insure clean food, the city fathers of San Antonio once banned all outdoor eating places except under the most stringent conditions, an action that resulted in the banishment from the streets of the city's famed and colorful "chili queens." So Maury Maverick was elected mayor, and as mayor had to be accepted as the town's first citizen by people who, though they had known him and his family in perpetuity, nevertheless abhorred Maury's free-wheeling politics. Eventually the mayor attended one of the fancier garden parties, breathed graciousness itself through the receiving line, and then turned to his host and bellowed (there is no other word nearly so precise). "You-all know that it's against the law to have outdoor eating places. You bastards passed the law yourself. I'm giving this party fifteen minutes to get these tents down and all this food indoors, or the police will be called!" For the remainder of the party he was hardly the most popular guest present.
I first saw Maury Maverick at a meeting of the Texas State Historical Association in Austin while I was still a student. I knew him by fearful reputation, which came from reading such disapproving newspapers as the Dallas News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. At the annual luncheon of the association, listed in the program for noon, the two or three hundred people attending the luncheon insisted on visiting in the corridor while the association director did his best to move them into the hotel dining room. Being in that cooperative student phase, which dates me. I went into the dining room where the tables were set, with the salad and shrimp cocktail already by each plate. There, near the center of this sizable banquet room, sat Maury Maverick, alone, hunched over his plate, eating away at the shrimp coctail. Someone behind me said, "Why Maury Maverick, what are you doing in here alone!"
"The program said this lunch was at noon, and by God I follow the program!"
Stories like this are legend. Walter Prescott Webb, the historian, went to a stuffy black-tie dinner at which the speechmaking was interminable. James P. Hart, then chancellor of the University of Texas, did what any decent American would—he dozed. Here came a note from Maverick to Webb: "Your damned chancellor is asleep!" Webb, no mean man with a quip himself, scribbled in reply, "Maury, you're jealous!
Maury Maverick, Jr. who naturally inherited some of his father's characteristics, tells how his father sent for the family after suffering the heart attack that finally killed him. Maury, Jr., arrived at the hospital, was told to go right into the room, and tentatively knocked on the door. In that high-pitched voice that Maury alternated with his foghorn, the father said:
"That you, son?"
"Yes, papa."
"Come over by the bed, son. You know, this is it."
The Mavericks are honest to the end, and Maury, Jr., did not give false words of comfort.
"Yes, papa, I know."
"Son, you and I have never been very close."
"I know, papa."
"I think it may have been my fault." His son didn't argue.
"But I want you to know that I'm proud of you, son."
"Well, thank you, papa," said Junior, somewhat flustered by this show of unusual parental sentimentality.
"Yes, son, I'm real proud of you—I'm proud that you didn't turn out to be a horse's ass like Elliott Roosevelt!"
The younger Maverick says, "Those were my father's last words to his son, and I cherish them. I know of no other son who received such a benediction from his father."
They tell the story, possibly apocryphal, that in those last moments Maverick sent for an Episcopal priest. Whoever was with him was shocked and remonstrated that Maverick was showing a sign of weakness, that he had never needed a priest before. According to the story, Maverick then said, in language that for a university press must be expurgated somewhat: "I don't need no damned priest; but who knows, there may be something after all to that crap, and at this stage I'm too weak to take any chances!"
Maury Maverick's widow later married Walter Prescott Webb after an intervening eight years. When she first began to go out again, her first more or less date was with an old bachelor friend named Sam Zisman, an urbanologist of considerable renown. Undoubtedly there is something portentous about a widow's first appearance on the arm of a new man, particularly when he is a bachelor not known for squiring unattached women. Although Zisman had been a close friend of the Mavericks for years, and under ordinary circumstances neither he nor Mrs. Maverick would have felt anything unusual about being together, on this occasion they felt, in the words of Steve Allen, "this could be the start of something big." They were dining when who should walk in but Maury, Jr. He spotted them, and in a style reminiscent of his father, walked over to Zisman, stuck out his hand, and said impishly, "Hello, Daddy." According to Mrs. Maverick, this took the bloom aff any promise of flowering romance. She and Sam Zisman continued to see each other only as lifelong friends until he died in the spring of 1970.
Being a congressman, writing articles for national magazines, leading a national liberal group, and receiving widespread approbation and condemnation are all stimulating activities, as Maury Maverick found out. But probably the greatest thing that happened to Congressman Maverick was to discover that he was basically not a Texan, not a Southerner, but an American and a citizen of the world. When he was in Congress, that great body worried about such bills as the one branding lynching a federal offense and another seeking to eliminate the poll tax. When these two bills came up in the 1930's, Maverick found himself isolated from his Southern compadres as he assailed the theses that a man must pay to exercise his right to vote, and that a man with dark skin has no right to his day in court. Despite all the blood of the Mavericks, the Maurys, and the Fontaines of Virginia in his background, and with all the Southwestern tradition stemming from old Sam Maverick forward, this scion of first families from Massachusetts to Texas was not only cut off politically from his neighbors but almost ostracized for voting what he believed was right and just.
However, the pain of ostracism hurt even worse when the good people of San Antonio, many of them friends from boyhood, turned their backs on him. Surprisingly, Maverick never became bitter. He formed no permanent alliances with anyone, but entangled himself only with principle. I once heard him say in a conversation that "any man who holds public office and expects gratitude is a damn fool. No one remembers you for what you did yesterday. A politician does what he thinks is right, and if he is satisfied that he has done just that, then he has enjoyed a sufficient political career. But gratitude—hell, there ain't no gratitude!"
His schooling, as Richard Henderson points out, never reached tidy conclusions, but his education never stopped. Outfitting himself with a board made to his specifications, he read and wrote in bed through the night. He could not tolerate a library of clean, well-ordered books. He wrote all over the pages and blackened the margins arguing, cross-referencing, and amplifying. His is one library that must be investigated if the researcher is to know Maury Maverick. The books themselves are not remarkable, but the marginalia overwhelms. Thus another man, racked with pain and never able to sleep well, enriched himself more than a man with a healthier body likely could have or would have. Sweet are the uses. . . .
In the daylight hours Maverick was likely to be seen anywhere—in the workroom of an expensive Philadelphia jeweler designing a handsome silver bowl, in Mexico choosing cloth and conferring on techniques of weaving, or in Tokyo talking lacquers with a Japanese artisan. His curiosity was boundless, equaled only by his energy, his imagination, his creativity, and his courage. A squirrel by nature, he collected almost everything and saved accordingly. He had the autograph of every president (as well as those of the flag-raisers at Iwo Jima), coins, and medallions by the bucketful. I doubt that he ever saw a commemorative china plate he did not purchase. Sixteen years after his death his widow is still searching for places to put the stuff, even after having placed a considerable portion in the University of Texas Archives and distributing still more to relatives and friends. I remember one party at Walter Webb's Friday Mountain Ranch, with about thirty men present, when Maury showed up late. He brought commemorative plates of San Antonio for everyone.
Of course, when San Antonio staged its delightful world's fair in miniature, a jewel known as HemisFair, San Antonio's current crop of city fathers rightly bowed low for the worldwide applause they received for their taste in underplaying the world's fair theme. A part of the delight in HemisFair came from the city of San Antonio itself, a collection of blithe spirits with the same lilt of life that distinguishes Rio anytime or Munich at the height of its May wine festival. Visitors loved the people of San Antonio, and they loved the San Antonio River, which could have been any other major city's sewer, but was instead a picturesque, even romantic walk. Although Maury Maverick, long gone, was never acknowledged as the father of San Antonio's downtown river beauty, it all started with his utilization of federal grants that changed an eyesore into a pathway of civic pride. The same can be said about La Villita, that bit of native quarter and craft that Maverick exhumed from the past, which San Antonio continues and reveres.
While Maverick was alive, Texas' conservative newspapers thought that he was directly descended from the devil, and they fought him with their best editorial weapons. When he died, however, they discovered that a fresh quality had been withdrawn from the sometimes sterile Texas scene. And if newspapermen miss anyone, it is a man who provides good, colorful copy. In noticing his death, they lauded his historic antecedents and his influence. They applauded his having coined the word gobbledygook for officialese; they repeated his often quoted remark (Mr. Vice-President, please not) that "newspapermen are the most underpaid and overprivileged guys in the world"; and they also smiled at his definition of a Latin American as "a Mexican who has paid his poll tax." Time called him a "dumpy, dynamic, Texas Democrat," while the Dallas News, never in his corner, proclaimed that he was "an honest demagogue" who "had faith in what he did." The News, which, like most Texas newspapers and a majority of Texas Democrats, had supported Eisenhower in the 1952 election, repeated Maverick's charge that Governor Allan Shivers' repudiation of the Democratic national ticket that year was tantamount to "having a big wedding and taking the wedding vows to honor and obey, then dishonoring your wife and killing her."
Two days after his death on June 7, 1954, the News opined that Maverick was not just another politician, but was truly "as maverick as his name."
That he was.
Preface
One day in April 1952 I walked into the lobby of San Antonio's old Plaza Hotel to register as a participant in a five-day seminar on international relations, sponsored by the Brookings Institution. A bit of good fortune had put me, a greenhorn instructor of government, in the company of distinguished professors, college and university presidents, admirals, generals, colonels, and assorted dignitaries from San Antonio's political and business community.
I registered early, and as I turned to cross the almost empty lobby, a short, fat, graying man with powerful shoulders and an impressive mien thrust out his hand and rumbled, "Ah'm Maury Maverick." I had never seen him before, but my mind raced back to a graduate course in public administration and a lesson on "gobbledygook," and some vague recollection that this was a man of importance. We got acquainted, and he seemed not to mind that I knew very little about him, but I have gathered he would have minded had I been nearer his age.
The next day fortune again threw me in with him as we were assigned to the same panel for the entire session of mock planning on foreign policy—much as it might be done in the State Department. In those four days I saw a number of facets of the character of this remarkable man. I was impressed—and fascinated.
Perhaps he was even less inhibited than usual in view of the fact that the director had said that all remarks would be off the record, but I saw Maverick display the fearless candor that endeared him to some and made bitter enemies of others. He grumbled and muttered through the meals, eating rapidly and impatiently and bullyragging several members of the State Department Policy Planning Staff for their timidity in the face of threats from Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was riding high at the time. Maverick tossed them such rhetorical questions as how did they define the "free world"—did it include "that great democrat, Fulgencia Batista" and that "little sonofabitch playboy, Bao Dai?" His glare swept the table as he dared anyone to deny that Bao Dai was a little sonofabitch playboy.
When Maverick accepted the directors invitation to address the entire assembly, I saw the sledgehammer wit that provoked gales of laughter as he told the conferees that he had researches to comb through all the archives back to ancient Babylon, and they were unable to turn up a speech worse than the one delivered that week by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. During this speech the audience applauded often and vigorously, but when the time came to vote on a policy proposal, Maverick lost. His reaction was a wry grin and an undismayed, "Once more I am happy to be a part of the intelligent minority."
I saw some of Maverick's high jinks when he dashed from the building to get a key to the city of San Antonio to present as a "decoration" to a young colonel who had the temerity to suggest that he did not see anything wrong in trade with Communist nations. I saw Maverick, too, as a generous, thoughtful man as he hosted a dinner for delegates at his beloved La Villita and when he offered to take my wife and me on a tour of the historic sites in the Alamo City in "the old Buick." There were, on the other hand, many things I did not see, but this was true of many men who thought they knew him well, and that is what makes the story.
Two years later Maverick was gone, and the opportunity to tell his story fell to me. In the course of my research, I interviewed his old friend President Harry S. Truman. I naively stated to Mr. Truman that it was my firm intention to be objective in my study of Maury Maverick. I was met with a burst of laughter and a confident, "Nobody can be objective about Maury Maverick." He is probably right.
We are obliged to pay, even if it is only "in ink," as Maverick once put it, those who have made our work possible or who have helped to smooth out the rough road. My greatest debt is to Mrs. Walter Prescott Webb (formerly Mrs. Maury Maverick) and her children, Mrs. Terrelita Maverick Clinton and Maury Maverick, Jr. They not only extended to me the privilege of complete and, for a time, exclusive access to Maury Maverick's papers and library, but they also answered an untold number of questions with admirable candor and yet feed me from the possible bane of a family-approved biography. On the contrary, they urged objectivity.
The late Walter P. Webb earned a large payment "in ink" for the kind extension of his good offices in introducing me to the Maverick family and for his advise and encouragement.
There are few genuinely self-made men. Credit must be given to those people who have helped us to develop whatever talents we have. My greatest debts in this area are to Senator Walter Richter; the late James Taylor, professor of history and chairman of the Social Sciences Division at Southwest Texas State University; Joe Bill Vogel, formerly a professor of journalism at the same institution; and Professors Thornton Anderson and Franklin L. Burdette of the University of Maryland.
An important part of the research and writing of this book would have been impossible without the time provided by a research grant from the Danforth Foundation and a research grant and faculty development leave from Southwest Texas State University. Too numerous to mention are those omnipresent and too often unsung collaborators of all researchers.: the personnel of the Southwest Texas State University Library, the University of Texas Library, the University of Texas Archives, and the San Antonio Public Library. I owe special notes of thanks to Charles T. Morrissey for examining the Franklin D. Roosevelt papers for me, and to Dr. Chester V. Kielman, archivist of the University of Texas at Austin, for his assistance in the use of the Maury Maverick papers.
A Maverick American
When newspaper reporters turned to their typewriters on June 7, 1954, to report the death of Maury Maverick, they summoned a wide variety of expressions to illuminate the many facets of his character and career: "New Deal evangelist," "political warhorse," "honest demagogue," "fiery little Texan," "political patriarch," "brilliant student," "able-organizer and administrator," "champion of small business," and "clean-up mayor of San Antonio."
The New York Times praised his "bulldog courage and disarming sincerity," and later members of Congress described him in such terms as "brilliant," "highly intelligent and intensely patriotic," "courageous and forthright," "shockingly frank, but refreshingly candid," and "a man of great vision and understanding."
Maury Maverick was all of these things and many more; he was one of the most colorful and vital figures of recent American political history. The story of his career and its impact upon our political life has been told only in fragments from time to time. The former New Deal congressman, mayor of San Antonio, and chairman of the World War II Smaller War Plants Corporation preempted the best of all possible titles for a study of his career when he chose A Maverick American as the title for his semi-autobiographical book published in 1937. He was a maverick American, not just a maverick Texan. He was truly "unbranded," the dictionary meaning of the term that his grandfather contributed to the American lexicon. He was, as well, a maverick legislator, mayor, and thinker.
The Mavericks were dissenters and independents before the political connotation was given to their name. Samuel Maverick of Pendleton, South Carolina (Maury's great-grandfather), and his son, Samuel Augustus Maverick, were sharply critical of the exaggerations of their fellow South Carolinians with respect to the allegedly oppresive Tariffs of 1824 and 1828. Samuel A. Maverick, a young lawyer and recent graduate of Yale, presented a closely reasoned argument against nullification, secession, and extreme states' rights postures in general. When his father delivered a speech to counter the arguments of his neighbor, John C. Calhoun, the younger Maverick challenged a heckler in the audience to a duel and slightly wounded the fellow in the contest.
The younger Samuel's unpopular position forced him to give up his aspirations for a political career in South Carolina, and, at his father's suggestion, he went to manage a plantation in Alabama. When stories of the great adventure in Texas began to reach him, he determined to go there. He arrived in the small village of San Antonio de Bexar in the fall of 1835, within weeks of the inception of the Texas Revolution.
After he had played one of the leading roles in the Texas Revolution, Samuel A. Maverick was a delegate to the convention that prepared the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836, but he had no hand in it. High waters delayed his arrival until March 3, the day after the document was completed. He was permitted to sign it, however, and he later participated in the drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas.
The first Texas Maverick was a land speculator—with perhaps the largest single set of holdings in the state. His biographers depict him as a man of almost unbelievable integrity and modesty. Though twice elected mayor of San Antonio, many times to the Texas Congress and State Legislature, and finally Chief Justice of Bexar County, he is said never to have sought or campaigned for an office. He also showed the extraordinary tenacity and unbending will when doing what he thought right that was later exhibited by his grandson.
An example of the Maverick character is to be found in the Perote Prison story. In September 1842 the Mexican government sent a major expedition, headed by General Adrian Woll, to regain Texas. The forces invaded San Antonio, and, in the course of their victorious battle, Sam Maverick was taken prisoner. He and his fellow prisoners were force-marched eighteen hundred miles to Perote Prison in Mexico. During almost unspeakable hardships—chained and in ill health—Maverick had an opportunity to win freedom from President Antonio Santa Anna if the Texan would promise to support a token reannexation of Texas by Mexico.
The United States minister, General Waddy Thompson, reported that Maverick replied, "I cannot persuade myself that such an annexation on any terms, would be advantageous to Texas, and I therefore cannot say so, for I regard a lie as a crime, and one which I cannot commit even to secure my release; I must, therefore, continue to wear my chains, galling as they are." Thompson offered the comment, "Such an act recorded by Plutarch would have added another page as bright as that which perpetuates the noble constance and heroic virtue of Regulus." Thompson reported further that he was soon able, as a "personal favor" to him, to secure the release of Maverick and two other prisoners.
Six children survived from the ten born to Samuel A. and Mary Maverick. The youngest son, Albert, was the father of Maury Maverick. There is no colorful career to report for Albert Maverick, but there was nothing tame about his youth. As a boy he hunted, fished, and learned the ways of the Texas wilderness with a famed Indian fighter and scout, Polycarpio Rodriguez. The account of his school years is filled with recitals of youthful pranks and assorted mischief. A fellow student at the University of Virginia described Albert as having too much "animal spirit" for serious scholarship. It was alleged that he once stole the great iron gates at the entrance to the university, and Maury Maverick took great delight in chiding his father about an escapade in which the elder Maverick drank too much wine and performed the never-to-be-duplicated feat of climbing one of the university's stately columns.
After one year at the University of Virginia, Albert was advised that his professors had given him passing marks on the condition that he not return. The final phase of his education took the unusual form of a walking trip across England from Liverpool to Dover with some days spent in the British Museum, followed by a seven-month stay in Paris. The trip, and particularly the stay in Paris, seemed to be a sobering one. He found Paris to be a shocking "den of immorality" with some women showing their legs "as high as the knee," but he managed to find lodging with "a good honest family." He spent seven months studying independently and learning to speak French. On his return to the United States in March 1877, he went straight to Piedmont, Virginia, to claim his promised bride, Jane Lewis Maury, a direct descendent of the Reverend James Maury, Thomas Jeffereson's first teacher.
Maury Maverick frequently referred proudly to his namesake, Matthew Fontaine Maury, the famous nineteenth-century pioneer in the field of oceanography. His biographer's description of his characteristic attitudes toward matters academic bears an uncanny resemblance to the characteristics of Maury Maverick. Matthew Maury did poorly on examinations at the United States Naval Academy. His apparent mediocrity was attributed to the fact that his fellows made high grades by answering "mainly in terms of the books" without understanding what it was all about. "Maury's mind had original habits. He was by nature a trail-blazer. He could not so well follow other men in speech and thought—he thought and spoke for himself." Elsewhere he is described as "stout," "largely self-educated," and an opponent of "humbuggery"—a no less accurate portrait of Maury Maverick.
Almost immediately after his marriage to Jane Maury, Albert took her to the Maverick homestead in San Antonio. After a short stint in a low-paying clerical job, he tried ranching near Bandera, Texas, for a few years, but a severe drought drove the growing family back to San Antonio. There Albert Maverick managed the Maverick Land Office and made general investments in San Antonio real estate and business operations, activities for which he had little ability or interest. Though the tall, handsome Albert faithfully went "down to the office" on every working day until he was eighty-seven years of age, he didn't belong there. He became, by all accounts, a quiet, retiring, scholarly type, with a strong attachment to family and home. Unlike his father and son, he did not hold public office. This "beautiful man," as Mrs. Walter P. Webb describes him, was almost Thoreauvian in his love for nature and his joy in working with his hands, qualities that, despite vast differences in their personalities, were as evident in the life of Maury Maverick as in that of his father. Some of Albert Maverick's most absorbing activities were such things as keeping records of the chilling Texas northers as they swept in over the hills into San Antonio and carefully noting the arrival and departure of the purple martins that came to the large house he had erected for them near his veranda. He made saddles for all of his children and melted down Mexican pesos to fashion heavy buckles for the belts that he made for all of his sons. The family referred to them as Maverick belts, and Maury Maverick kept his until the day he died.
A biographer who had no difficulty finding noteworthy achievements and honors of other members of the Maverick family, said only that Albert was a "progressive citizen of San Antonio" and "a pioneer for the conservation of the natural beauty of our city, having publicly objected to the destruction of the cypress tress as early as 1882." Albert Maverick was generous "to the point of eccentricity," and he let the major part of an inherited fortune simply slip through his hands. He sustained serious losses in periods of financial panic and depression, but one reason for this was that he would not collect rent from distressed tenants.
Jane Maverick was a short, bustling woman with a strong, commanding personality. Albert was head of the house, but she was the manager. As Maury Maverick explained, "My mother has executive ability, running the place and doing the ordering and the talking for both. My father is a quiet man." Jane was no mere housewife. A houseful of children and a lack of formal education did not prevent her from becoming a literate woman, knowledgable about public affairs. She traveled occasionally, and in later years when the children were grown she made carefully prepared speeches to local clubs concerning her experiences.
Albert and Jane had eleven children; the eleventh was Fontaine Maury Maverick. Though he steadfastly maintained that he was brought by a wise and loquacious old stork, he was born on October 23, 1895, at the grand old Maverick home at 218 Avenue E, just off San Antonio's Alamo Plaza. His father put him down as a "cheerful" small boy, and Maury himself described his boyhood as "free and easy"—listening to the band on the square, buying tamales and Mexican sweets at the chili stands. He demonstrated quite early that he had inherited some of Papa's youthful mischief-making. Palmer Giles, a rancher who lives near Comfort, Texas, was a boyhood playmate and school chum of Maury Maverick. Giles tells a tale of one of the more extravagant stunts engineered by Maury at the age of seven or eight. The Giles and Maverick parents were chatting in the parlor while the boys went off to play. Maury and his brother George asked Giles if he would like to take a bath. Giles responded that he had had one that week, but Maverick repeated the question with a wink. He and George then led the preplexed Giles down a long porch to a large, completely tiled bathroom. The boys then took off their clothes, placed thick towels under and around the edges of the door, closed the door tightly on the towels, and proceeded to fill the entire bathroom with water about three feet deep. After frolicking about for a time, the boys drained and cleaned up the "swimming pool," and the parents were apparently none the wiser.
In 1905, when Maury Maverick was nine years old, the family moved to what they came to call Sunshine Ranch, in what is now suburban San Antonio but which was then in the countryside overlooking the city. There Albert built a large, plain two-story house with a long porch and an upstairs gallery designed to catch the prevailing breeze. The view from this spot is still impresive, but the visitor in those days could see "a wide-spreading valley, the wastes of green mesquite and yellow stubble, and the distant town half drowned in purple mist, the few high buildings very white and stately, suggesting Venice."
The Albert Mavericks were "getting along," but they were far from wealthy. Nonetheless, the big, plainly furnished house was a Sunday afternoon Mecca for many members of the Maverick clan and their friends. Everyone knew that the children were invited, and the atmosphere was one of warm family ties, great fun, and a vigorous exchange of ideas. Albert carved the roast with great aplomb and presided over the dinner with great dignity, but later the children gathered on the veranda to eat watermelon, cavort, and perform tricks, while the adults gathered inside for stimulating discussions. The Mavericks were a lively and opinionated bunch, and the discussions would often become arguments, but Jane Maverick would not permit the participants to engage in personalities.
Maury Maverick once wrote that his mother gave him "many spankings to no avail," but that he deserved one thousand from his father who gave him only two, but he enjoyed the sort of relationship with both of his parents that most boys would order if they could. The occasional firmness and parental advice was tempered by understanding, deep affection, and often a dash of wit. Maury was no more than ten or eleven years of age when he announced (inspired perhaps by his father's youthful adventures) that he was going to California. He saddled up his pony and gathered a few provisions as his mother and father tried to dissuade him. When they saw that he was determined, they exacted the promise from him that he would stop for a week at the Giles' Ranch near Comfort. After Maury had left, Mrs. Maverick called Mrs. Giles and said, "My little boy is leaving for California on his pony. Please delay him as long as possible when he gets to the ranch." Maury and his weary pony survived the hot seventy-mile trip through rugged country, and the strategy worked. He and his playmate, Palmer Giles, spent half the summer doing all the things that boys of ten and eleven do in that wild hill country, and then Maury saddled up and headed for home.
Much of the correspondence between Maverick and his parents reveals affectionate joshing and the indulgence of doting Mama and Papa. When Maury was attending the University of Texas he wrote to Papa to request some money to attend a football game in Houston. He explained that the trip would involve night travel, requiring enough money for a "birth" both ways. Albert responded, "I'm glad I can send you the money; I had no idea you were in such a delicate condition." (This was often the style in which Albert chided various of his children into better spelling and writing habits.) When his son was a lieutenant in France, Albert wrote (after occasionally sending him a hundred dollars), "Call on Gen. Persh., & see your pay is doubled. Say it is imperative because your father insists on your employing a guardian & I want him to be a responsible person."
In one of his books Maury Maverick jocularly characterized his mother as having "slightly Faschist tendencies" and at another point referred to her as a "Mussolini." Thus the first pass to the gallery of the United States House of Representatives that freshman Representative Maury Maverick sent to his mother was filled out in the name of "Signora Mussolini." Another card, however, asking that courtesies be extended at the White House, was made out to a "Little Jane Maury." The cards were attached to a pseudo-formal letter that read:
Dear Mrs. Maverick:
I hope you will visit Washington sometime and hear me speak. . . . Try to remember this: it is harder to be a congressman than a mother. You only have eleven children and 65 grandchildren. I have a quarter of a million.
Mama responded archly with a note addressed to the "Most hon. Congressman," giving him a "special invitation to Sunshine Ranch," but she concluded, "Please don't bring your quarter of a million children." The note was signed, "Signora Mussolini."
There was nothing typical about the education of Maury Maverick. He volunteered the information, not proudly, but candidly, that he "never graduated from anything." He began a program of desultory (at first) self-education at the age of twelve or thirteen that was to continue to his death. There were many serious books in the Maverick home, and the family read and discussed them. Maverick said that he was reading Greek philosophy at the age of twelve. . . .
In addition to reading "every issue" of Appeal to Reason in his early teens, Maverick read Robert Hunter's Poverty at the age of thirteen. Hunter's book examined the extent, evils, and necessary remedies of poverty in the United States and mentioned suggestions and criticisms from such leading economists as Richard T. Ely and John R. Commons. In this book Maverick read of the downtrodden "struggling up the face of a barren precipice," because of the "brutal power of the economic forces which dominate their lives." The impact of books of this type and readings of this sort was obvious in Maverick's lifetime of evangelistic efforts in behalf of all sorts of programs to alleviate the condition of the poor.
The Southwestern intellectual equivalent of derring-do pulp magazines and other schoolboy contraband when Maverick was a boy was the Iconoclast, a paper written in Waco, Texas, by William Cowper Brann, a character as fabulous as Maverick. Brann was a self-taught philosopher-journalist who left home for a newspaper career at the age of thirteen. Another maverick, he spent his spare time reading "science, philosophy, history, biography and general literature." He wrote some of the most colorful prose that was ever applied to paper in the United States. Defense of intellectual freedom was his forte, but he was likely to direct a withering blast at anything that happened to strike his fancy. "He was a hater of shams and defied every form of fraud, hyposcrisy and deceit. . . ." Roy Bedichek refers to Brann as a "provincial Voltaire" who opposed injustice, cruelty, senseless repression and "hocus pocus," but "in the heat of controversy he was, like the great Voltaire himself, guilty of each of these abominations, as who is not?" The paper is said to have reached a circulation of ninety thousand at the time of Brann's death—extraordinary even today for a publication of its type. Editorial comment on his death came from every part of the United States.
Maverick was too young to have subscribed to this paper, but he said that he read the two-volume collection at the age of eleven. He never stated that Brann influenced him, but there is a considerable parallel between some of the best of Brann and the character and attitudes of Maverick. This is particularly true of the readiness of both men to leap to the defense when any attempt at suppression of freedom and expression was made. Another strong parallel was to be found in the opposition to sham and hypocrisy evidenced by both men. While reading one of Brann's speeches, Maverick marked with approval: "One may. . . have Plato at his fingers' ends and ever remain a fool."
But drawing too much of a parallel would be an injustice to Maverick. Brann's bottle of vitriol poured forth racist outbursts—even to advocating the killing of the "buck Negro"—and his motives were often questionable. Also, Maverick expressed disagreement with Brann's essentially negative approach. For example, Brann said of his role as an iconoclast, pessimist, and skeptic, "I am no perfectionist. I do not build the spasmodic sob nor spill the scalding tear because all men are not Sir Galahads in quest of the Holy Grail, and all women with two pair of reversible wings and the aurora borealis for a hat-band." This statement must have piqued Maverick the reformer at some later reading, for he wrote opposite in the margin, "I am not envisioning a perfect society—but at least a moving one."
Maverick's claims concerning his early reading were apparently not idle boasts. At least as early as the age of seventeen, he was keeping an annotated notebook with the title, "Books I Have Read." Most of the works listed were political and social histories, with some novels of the same genre. Maverick did not merely read such books, he studied them. An appreciation of how effectively he used books can be gathered from the following entry, written when he was nineteen:
Civil History of the Confederate States—J. L. M. Curry, 1901—B. F. Johnson-Richmond, Read June 1915.
The author should take into consideration the fact that the Civil War was over in '65, and that Confederate money is now no good. He is too extreme—rather narrow-minded. He is almost as bad as some old narrow-minded northerners who write about how they saved the North or rather the "union" against the rebels, etc. and talk about the "noble blacks" and the war as one of "civilization vs. barabarism."
In another entry, Maverick described The Citadel by Samuel Merwin as the story of a young member of Congress sent there "by the interests." Maverick then suggested that the political novel form "could be used by professors who write on Political and Social Economy. It would be sure to create public interest and educate the public, who otherwise would read trash." Thus young Maverick anticipated the current use of novels as vehicles to learning in political science courses in the colleges and universities.
Despite Maverick's references to the dominant role of his mother, his father was the primary influence on Maury's early ideas. Albert Maverick and his son read and discussed together the works of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, and the elder Maverick taught his son the lessons of free inquiry and freedom of expression. The atmosphere in the home was conducive to the development of liberal views on most subjects. As to religion, for example, Maverick's parents were devout in their own way, but they were not regular churchgoers. As Maverick explained, his father did not try to dictate his children's thoughts; rather, he hoped that they would develop their own. "He merely offers information, so that they will not go into the world as a set of nitwits. As for our economic or religious opinions, he cares nothing." Something of the father's views are reflected in this representative excerpt form his fragmentary diary, written during the depression years:
May 7, 1932—The money interests who own our Government got our baby President Hoover, several weeks ago, to make a special appeal to the people not to hoard money. What a mockery, & how transparent! The golden stream of interest (usury) flows east and north. . . to the overfilled coffers of the usurers, who own & act through the banks concerned only in increasing their capital—not in the increasing misery of the people. The government should own all the banks, & interest by degrees, abated, and made illegal. Employment should be furnished to the people, in road building & public works—to make them self-respecting & not paupers, & more, a limit must be set to a man's possessions & service become the badge of honor, service for all, for the common good.
The range of Albert Maverick's knowledge and interests is revealed in this passage from a letter to Lieutenant Maury Maverick in 1917: "Let us hope help can get to Italy in time to ward off a surrender, & mingle our tears over Kerensky, discredited. Every man is doomed to failure in the case of Russia—hordes of semi-civilized wild people suddenly given power, & German intrigue & strategy will profit by it. Peace is a long way off."
Maverick's early self-education was not confined to books and father-son discussions. Family gatherings were often the occasion for discussions and, more likely, heated debates on public affairs. His home and relatives' homes were fairly frequent stopping-off points for important public figures—it was in this way that he met William Jennings Bryan, for example. Maury's watchful eye also caught the political ferment that was going on about him during his grammar school and high school years. He told of his earliest recollection of being induced to do some serious thinking for himself by the sight of a man being mobbed and driven from San Antonio's Alamo Plaza as he tried to make a speech. As a grammar school student in 1909, he watched and heard Francisco I. Madero and his supporters plan the revolution by which Madero was soon to become president of Mexico. Two years later, at San Antonio's Main Avenue High School, Maverick and his friends organized a discussion club called the Atheneum Association. Shortly after its organization, General Bernardo Reyes came to San Antonio to attempt to establish a revolutionary force to overthrow Madero. Reyes was living with his family and some assistants on San Pedro Avenue, near the high school. Students generally favored Madero, and they subjected Reyes' home to rock throwing and other harassment. The Atheneum group sought to make ammends by inviting Reyes to speak to the student body, and Maury Maverick was the spokesman for the group. His friend Hobart Huson said, "Maury made a brave, but excruciating, effort as interpreter," but nonetheless he was able to convey the message to Reyes.
The school authorities had not been consulted, and they strongly opposed the invitation. Other school clubs adopted resolutions against having Reyes speak. Association members were attempting to find another location for the speech, but before they could do so, Reyes returned to Mexico. Huson concluded that "Maury Maverick got his first lesson and experience in creating publicity, which served him well in future years."
In 1912, without having completed high school, Maverick boarded a steamer at Galveston for Virginia Military Institue by way of New York and Washington. He rode most of the trip in the steerage, though he had first-class passage. He discussed socialism, Henry George and the single tax, Karl Marx, and the "Wall Street exploitation" of Cuba with the steerage passengers. He ate the steerage fare and typically began to discuss ways and means of getting something done about it. The first mate labeled him an agitator and ordered him to eat in the first-class accommodations.
In Washington, sixteen-year-old Maverick stayed for a time with his uncle, Congressman James L. Slayden, an outstanding pacifist, and insisted on being introduced to Congressman Victor Berger and Senator Robert M. LaFollette. Maury's recollections of his year at Virginia Military Institute consists of two parades celebrating the election of President Woodrow Wilson and an "average" scholastic record. He kept a "Maury Maverick Memory Book" in which he recorded the expected pranks, "gripes" at cadet officers, demerits, and such entries as "Penalty drill today in overcoats. Cold." A letter of July 10, 1917, in the "Memory Book" certified that Maverick had "a good record [at VMI]" and "successfully completed the topics of instruction in the fourth class." The book also revealed the youthful Maverick to be harboring the typical homesickness and sentimental attachment to Sunshine Ranch and his native Texas. Snapshots depict a stocky, tanned youth with a shock of unruly hair and an air of mischief—indeed, beneath one photograph Maverick wrote, "a creation of the devils: devilishly short, and devilishly ugly."
On his return to Texas in 1913, Maverick enrolled at the University of Texas "in journalism," according to his account. It appears, however, that he enrolled in a basic prelaw curriculum and elected a course in journalism during his sophomore year. He did work on the Daily Texan (the student newspaper) as a reporter and later as an issue editor from time to time during the 1914-1915 academic year. The scanty records available show that he took two years of English, German, and public speaking and one year each of mathematics, English history, geology, American history, journalism, and government. His grades were poor.
By his own admission and the testimony of professors, Maury Maverick had little patience for the formal aspects of his schooling. He not only found his courses to be dull and turned to his own reading list, but he also spent considerable time in frivolity and roistering about the campus. Professor Brooks thought that Maverick had merely fallen victim to the middle-aged man's common obsession of imagining himself as a "regular heller" in his undergraduate days, but it is just as likely that Maverick did not exaggerate his student high jinks. After one drinking spree at a football game, he scrawled some outrageous obscenities on a postcard and mailed it to a friend, and it was only by the intervention of some influential friends of the family that he was saved from indictment by a federal grand jury. In his first book Maverick gave a lengthy recital of expulsions and near expulsions for hazing students, "rotten-egging professors," painting the water tank and "being a very poor student." The late Walter Prescott Webb, a distinguished American historian and close friend of the Mavericks, delighted in telling the story of Maverick's lament to the dean, "Why do you always call me in when something goes wrong around here?" Dr. Lewis H. Haney, one of Maverick's instructors and now professor emeritus of economics and lecturer at New York University, testifies, "My recollections of Maury as a student are that he took little interest in scholarly attainments, and did not apply himself diligently to his studies. He had more interest in outside activities on the fun-making and social side of college life."
Maury admitted to participation in the publication of an underground newspaper, the Blunderbuss, which appeared on the University of Texas campus each April Fool's Day. It had the primary objective of lampooning and even slandering members of the faculty. The issue printed April 1, 1915, bears the unmistakable stamp of Maury Maverick, though the identity of editors and writers was carefully concealed. A front-page story concerning "egg-throwing" has the flavor of Maverick-via-Rabelais—whose works he reread dozens of times. Also, the paper has several fictitious items about Maury Maverick, such as "Mr. Maury Maverick has established a select matrimonial bureau at his apartment on Nineteenth Street. The Blunderbuss desires to wish him success in his undertaking as we know no one knows 'em better than he does."
But there were items on the plus side of the ledger. Dr. Haney said that Maverick had an "alert and active mind. He was an independent thinker to the extent of being a non-conformist." He banded with some fellow recalcitrants in the organization of a group known as the Campus Buzzards. "We proclaimed ourselves," he said, "as carrion philosophers and permitted no reading except that which was prohibited." He learned about the things that interested him by attending bull sessions with some of the younger professors, going to labor meetings, and listening eagerly to such speakers as Scott Nearing, "who had the impudence to suggest that lynching of Negroes should stop." One of the young professors who joined these bull sessions, poet and author Stark Young, wrote of Maverick, "I remember him as one of the vivid figures in my Texas acquaintance. He had a vigorous, independent and original way of thinking and speaking."
Maury's unsuccessful second year at the University of Texas exhausted Papa's patience; it was time for the young man to get to work. Maury received an offer of a job as a reporter on the Amarillo Daily News on August 18, 1915, and he accepted immediately. The job paid sixty dollars per month for, as Maury put it, "Title: city editor. Real position: local reporter." Maverick seemingly did well at the News. One of his journalism instructors (addressing him as "Execrable Copy Reader, Pathetic Reporter and Sad City Editor") told Maverick that he would soon "be able to write as good a story as any of them." His aunt and mentor, Ellen Maury Slayden, who wrote Washington Wife, said, "This is good newspaper work. I had no idea Maury could do so well." She later wrote to him:
My dear old Boy,
You made a terrible hole in the family circle when you went away. . . .
I feel kind of proud of you myself, because, you see, I had quite a hand in raising you.
I am really surprised at your good lines, but I am afraid you are elaborating your news with a little too much imagination, and overworking your superlatives.
Ellen Slayden suggested to him that a year out of college would help him: he could go back "as a man and not just a boy who has to work off his foolishness." But encouragement and admonitions were not enough to keep Maverick on the job in Amarillo. Letters from his mother indicated that he was suffering from a combination of discouragement over his low pay and position and homesickness. Mrs. Maverick told him to stick to the job—that his father had started to work in his youth at thirty-five dollars a month and that the family was essentially broke at the moment. Aunt Ellen gave similar advice and held out the promise of better things. She implied that she would help him to go to Columbia University the next year to study under Talcott Williams, the outstanding journalist and critic, and she enclosed a piece entitled "The Creed of a Great Newspaper."
Despite the influence that Mrs. Slayden exerted upon Maury in other matters, it was to no avail on this occasion. In a few days he had presumably persuaded his parents to permit him to return to the University of Texas—this time to the Law School. Maverick later boasted that he had "jammed all my three years of law into one." Though this statement may sound extravagant, it is not far from the absolute facts. His record card in the University of Texas Law School shows that he took thirteen courses with an average grade of 79. The record indicates that he received a grade of 80 in "International Law A" by taking the examination without having attended classes. Dr. A. Leon Green, distinguished professor of law and one of Maverick's instructors, says that these scores are only respectable and would not represent the high level of achievement as the same scores would today. Nonetheless, Maverick's feat was rather remarkable. He took and passed the Texas bar examination in Austin in May 1916. It is impossible to determine the level of his performance on the examination because the Clerk's Office of the Texas Supreme Court has no records of such matters prior to 1919.
Dr. Green says that Maverick continued some of the pranks and frivolty in law school, but he adds: "I never doubted Maury's ability, and his salty way of putting things even then was extremely refreshing. He gave no quarter to any one and asked none. Were he in law school today he would be tops in any company. Law teaching has finally caught up with his spirit. This is confirmed by the fact that in his later years he was a favorite with law students and faculties all over the country. It is a pity he died when he was needed most. . . . His is a rare spirit and should be an inspiration to all youngsters who aspire to public life or who have an interest in public men and affairs."
Professor Brooks, who was president of the American Political Science Association in 1940, said of Maury's outlandish study habits: "Evidently his intellectual curiosity was insatiable. Given a really understanding tutor he would have forged ahead at a tremendous pace." Maverick did not have a tutor, but he was able to profit in his youth and early manhood from the sage advice of another self-educated Maury of rather remarkable attainments—his Aunt Ellen. She never attended a "real school," but she read widely and traveled to international peace meetings with her husband, James L. Slayden, a congressman from San Antonio. Her abilities were such that she contributed articles to Century magazine and various newspapers on such topics as political problems in Mexico. The caliber of her advice to young Maverick as he began practicing law in San Antonio at the age of twenty can be seen in the following letter:
To Maury Maverick, In Re plumb nonsense.
Your first fee has given much pleasure, amusement & interest not only to your present correspondent, but to the Representative from your Congressional district and a number of our friends. I am torn by conflicting emotions over it, and if your legal advice isn't too expensive, an opinion from you would be welcome. I wish to keep the draft (for 15 cts. only) as a thing of interest to you, say, 20 years from now, and yet with the world's finances in their present state am I justified in letting all this money be idle? Tell me, how am I to eat my cake and have it, if you can. Before discussing the bargain we made about the books you were to have for your first fee, I want to say a few words "in re" the importance of a lawyer's cultivation of the judicial rather than the prejudicial order of mind and speech. "The falsehood of extremes," the fact that there are "two sides to every question," and that "the truth lies between two extremes" are axioms that every lawyer should keep in mind, or else—he is never likely to make a Judge of the Supreme Court. Now you know that I am not a thick & thin admirer of Woodrow Wilson, but I consider your strictures upon him much too severe. Many wise & good men agree with his views, even on the Mexican question in which he seems to you & me so woefully mistaken, so it behooves us to withhold severe judgment lest we should be proved in the wrong. Besides, he was elected to the Presidency by the votes of the party of which you claim to be a member, and until the majority of the party decides that he no longer represents them satisfactorily, it is more loyal and much more dignified to speak of him with respect and restraint or not at all. This does not mean approval of him, or that you will not vote for another Democrat when you get the chance, but merely that you think violent opinions violently expressed are a poor form of party loyalty, bad taste & bad politics. It is a grave reflection upon the collective wisdom of your party in electing him which the enemy is sure to seize upon as proof that the Democratic party is unfit to be trusted with the government. As to your saying that because of your dislike of Wilson your 'first vote may be lost or else cast for Hughes,' your Uncle Slayden tells me to remind you that unless you have thought over the party principles for which the two men stand very thoroughly and decided you agree with the Republicans rather than the Democrats, you are making a grave political mistake to declare yourself as considering the possibility of voting against your party. The action, of course, would ruin you, but the mere declaration would be sure to embarrass you in the future if you wished to be active or influential in politics. 'No one wants a wobbler.' So much for him, and I want to add that a vote is a very solemn privilege, and remind you of the French proverb, 'Tis the first step that counts.' So I hope your vote will be cast 'soberly, discreetly and in the fear of God.'
Now, about the books or book. I am really sorry that you refuse the History of the U.S. tho I must admit that its standing as history is not very high. Still, it is worth reading . . . but if you won't have it, I have in mind another book, "America and Her Problems" by d'Estournelles de Constant, which I am finding most interesting, and which is of sufficient importance for two copies of it to have been sent to us from different sources. I presume that you do not propose to confine your study and interest to the courts of S.A. or even the problems of the state of Texas, so it may be good for you to look at our national problems for a while thro' the eyes of the wisest of living French writers and historians. I have met the Baron several times in this country & in Europe, and found him as simple-mannered and quizzically wise & observant as only the wise Frenchman can be. . . .
As early as the spring of 1916, while still a law student, Maury Maverick was attempting to get into some military service. He sought the help of his uncle, Congressman James L. Slayden, and that of Senator Morris Sheppard in an effort to secure a commission in the U.S. cavalry. Maverick hoped to get into the fighting in Mexico. Sheppard wrote that he remembered him "quite well" from a meeting in Amarillo and that it would be a pleasure to recommend him for a commission if war with Mexico should break out.
With characteristic audacity Maverick seized what he thought was the ultimate opportunity to realize his ambition for a commission. General John J. Pershing was stopping over in San Antonio at a time when Maverick was attending a dance at a local hotel. Pershing and a fellow officer were looking in on the dance when Maverick spotted the general and dashed over to introduce himself. Then he asked his dancing partner to dance with the startled Pershing and asked another girl to dance with Pershing's friend. The officers stayed for awhile and seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. The next day Maverick called General Pershing and asked if he would like to see the historic sites of San Antonio "in my car." After some hesitation, Pershing agreed, and Maverick begged enough money from his father to rent a car for the excursion. He then picked up the same girls and proudly drove his captive general and his aide around the city. At the end of the sightseeing tour, Maverick thought the time was ripe to put the bite on the grateful general. But when he asked Pershing to help him get a commission, the crestfallen Maverick heard the general say, "Son, I'll tell you what to do. You go out to Fort Sam Houston and enlist, and you can tell them you have my recommendation."
When the United States did become involved in World War I, Maverick was one of the first men in San Antonio to enlist in the Army. In the spring of 1917 he was sent to the Federal Reserve Student Training Camp at Camp Funston, Leon Springs, Texas, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve on June 11, 1917. He kept up a constant barrage of letters, mainly to Representative Slayden, in an attempt to get an overseas assignment. He tried to get transferred to the air corps and even threatened to resign his commission and join the Canadian forces in order to get overseas." Slayden told him to "keep his shirt on," that policies could not be changed for an individual: "Even [Theodore] Roosevelt who has influence with hundreds of thousands of people almost as crazy as he is could not alter the predetermined course of events."
Maury was sent to join the First Colorado Infantry at Trinidad, Colorado, in September, 1917, and it was soon ordered to the Fortieth Division training base at Camp Kearney, Linda Vista, California. He was put in charge of a machine-gun company and was promoted to first lieutenant in the National Guard on December 21, 1917.
Maverick's first baptism of fire was in a different sort of war, which he was to fight in for the rest of his life—the struggle for human rights and human dignity. Many of the men under his command were of Mexican descent. Despite Maverick's repeated speeches emphasizing our great heritage of liberty and the necessity for "making the world safe for democracy," when questioned as to why they were fighting, these men could only answer, "De draft board, he send me here." Maverick persuaded the division commander that these men were being misunderstood and abused simply because they did not understand English. He organized language classes for the men and was doing reasonably well with them when a graver problem arose—two of the men deserted and were picked up in Mexico. Maverick was appointed to defend them. He reported, "I studied all about a soldier's constitutional rights—and also got some books on the subject of natural rights. At the trial, I quoted the statements of James Otis and Sam Adams on Natural Rights, made preceding the American Revolution." He went on to argue that these men did not understand what the war was about, that they knew nothing of American customs or the English language, and that it was therefore improper for them to have been drafted. He said he could not tell them why we were fighting, because he really didn't know either. Maverick was threatened with court-martial himself, but the commander relented and issued a memorandum (which Maverick did not mention in his own account of this affair) commending the Texas lieutenant for "his interest in conducting classes for soldiers of Mexican extraction." On the basis of Maverick's contention that the two men had acted out of ignorance rather than cowardice and that they needed help, the commander said that he desired that "this officer [Maverick] take personal charge of the instruction of the two men."
In the summer of 1918 Maverick was shipped overseas. After several days of "drunken brawling" in England, he landed in Cherbourg on September 4, 1918, as the band on the dock played the Marseillaise. In two days he was in the serious and gory business of fighting a war. He joined the First Division at Sarcy, France, as it was moving up to Saint-Mihiel and the front. During the battle of Saint-Mihiel, Maury was working with the regimental headquarters, directing the bringing up of ammunition. While reconnoitering a route for his ammunition wagons, he happened upon twenty-six German soldiers who, as Maury explains with unmatched candor, demanded to be captured and conducted to the rear. Before and after this battle, Maverick had written to his parents that the German soldiers were cowardly, "immoral to obscenity," and that they would not die "like men." He was soon to make a radical change in his views.
After the battle of Saint-Mihiel, Maverick sought and obtained a transfer back to his company and was made executive officer under Lieutenant Frank Felbel, a more experienced officer. There is none of the usual Maverick humor in his grim account of his part in the Argonne offensive, for which he received the Silver Star for gallantry in action. In powerful writing that compares favorably with that of Erich Maria Remarque, he tells a story of stumbling, almost blind, into the Argonne forest at two o'clock on the morning of October 1, 1918, of a loss of communications, of the sudden loss of his company commander, of companions blasted to pieces before his eyes, of heroics by inadvertency or instinct, and then of shell fragments biting into his shoulders and back as he stumbled through shell holes. In the unpublished account he dictated shortly after his experiences, he said: "How did you get back? The way it was with me, I could walk a little bit you see; I was staggering around. I tried to walk and then I got wounded again. I got lost and went back to the German lines. I went in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go and then I had to crawl back. . . . I crawled back all the way."
After this experience Maverick said that the "Germans were good fighters—I did not find any 'Kamerad' stuff that is talked about." He later said he did not deserve his medals and offered two pithy asides on the subject of heroism and medals. "The line between coward and hero is sometimes very indistinct. Men are suddenly brave or suddenly cowardly. In one moment of emotion they are likely to be branded for life, one way or the other—and wrongly. . . . Medals are not to reward brave men, but to keep men brave, and make them fight. The ruling classes have always attempted to build up the hero idea. It stops men from thinking."
In a moment when he was "half-drunk and bored," shortly after arriving in France, Maverick sat on the side of the road to Saint-Mihiel and wrote a half-serious, half-facetious will in which he specified that all young male heirs must never shirk military service. On June 8, 1931, perusing his notes and records as he often did, he wrote that he was ashamed of the document and attached the following commentary:
This document is kept in order that possibly some young man may run across this—and possibly I will save him from being a damned fool. If you go to war—but DON'T DO IT—don't get dramatic—NOBODY GIVES A DAMN ABOUT YOU, except your parents, and they can't help. This will is a fine example of VALOR (bunk), Unselfishness (childish egotism), and the rest of the traits the BIG BOYS work on us to go and murder somebody as their collectors. This letter is a true example of human vanity and false family values.
Remember—it takes MORE GUTS to refuse to fight, than it does to prance around in a uniform, and get shot at.
The almost fatally wounded Maverick finally made his way back through French-American lines to a field hospital, where he collapsed from loss of blood. When the field hospital was brought under enemy shell fire, he was moved to Base Hospital 115 at Vichy. After extensive surgery, it took him more than a month to get back on his feet, and he never fully recovered from the effects of his wounds. He apparently recovered enough, however, for a bit of revelry in Paris before the return voyage to New York in December of 1918. After a two-week sojourn in New York, he was sent to the Base Hospital at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, where he was discharged on February 16, 1919. On January 1, 1920, Maverick received a copy of general orders citing him for "gallantry in action and especially meritorious service," for which he was later awarded the Silver Star.
Almost immediately after Maverick had returned to his law practice in San Antonio, he was on his way abroad again, mainly to do some legal research in Dublin, Ireland, concerning a legacy left to the Right Reverend J. W. Shaw, archbishop of New Orleans. This trip lasted from early March to August of 1919. It is not treated in Maverick's semiautobiographical A Maverick American, and it is worth noting here only for whatever insight it offers into the development of the future politician. On the first leg of his trip he stopped off to see his devoted mentor, Aunt Ellen, who reported that "seeing Maury was just one more delight that I hadn't counted on. He. . . fussed with & abused his Uncle Sully & me as if he had been 3 yrs. old. His Uncle Sully was so overcome when he saw his wounds that he had to turn away & couldn't speak."
Scraps of records that Maverick kept indicate that much of his time was spent in traveling about the British Isles with major stops in Dublin, Edinburgh, and London. Though he apparently made a nice vacation out of this trip, he maintained the serious interests that were a part of his continuing self-education. He developed the habit at this time of jotting notes concerning people he had met and places he had visited and the habit of reading and studying as he traveled. In Dublin he bought a book of instructions on how to learn the Irish language and a series of public-affairs pamphlets such as The Nature and Rights of Property and Origin and Nature of Civil Authority by Reverend M. M. O'Kane, both published in Belfast in 1917, as well as Ulster's Opportunity: A United Ireland (Dublin, 1917) by "an Irish K.C."
It seemed that during this trip Maury's indulgent and devoted mother and aunt were engaged in a contest to determine which of them could present the most extravagant evidence of his prowess as a lady killer. Mama wrote that she had told a girl who complained that Maury's love letters were of no more than four lines that she "thought he was doing beautifully when one considered how many love letters you had to write." Less than two weeks later she made the following report: "The entire town is consumed with curiosity about your trip to Europe. Some girls insisted on knowing where you were & Ellen S. told them 'the Crown Prince of G. was suing for a divorce & that you were correspondent.' To Mac Houston she told 'that you had been hastily called to the Peace Convention to take Clemenceau's place.'"
But Maverick's days as a peripatetic bachelor were numbered. Shortly after he returned to San Antonio in the summer of 1919, he was attending a party at what is now the Texas Military Institute. A pretty, vivacious young woman was there named Terrell Louise Dobbs, who was living with her aunt and uncle, Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Terrell Jackson, in San Antonio. A friend, George Clifton, said to Miss Dobbs, "I want to introduce you to Maury Maverick; he's going to give a party at Sunshine Ranch, and he'll invite you." The two met, and Maverick invited her to the party. Maury Maverick was anything but handsome, indeed his nickname was "Ug," but women were attracted to him, and he was cocksure and persistent. Miss Dobbs sensed his design at first meeting and wrote to her sister, "This man thinks he's going to marry me, but he's not." She later received the formal invitation and a dance program that had been hand painted by Mrs. Albert Maverick, but she did not go to the party. Instead she went on a trip to Port Aransas with her aunt and uncle. The day after his party, Maverick called Miss Dobbs and announced that he was coming to Port Aransas. She met him at the ferry, and he asked her to marry him on the spot. She refused, and explains today with a coquettish air, "I was only ninetten, and besides, I had a few other things going on at the time."
Thereafter, Maverick moved steadily. He came to the house ostensibly to see her uncle and went to political meetings with him. But all the while Maverick was bombarding her with flowers, and he gradually ran off his less persistent rivals until Miss Dobbs agreed in December that she would marry him. They were married May 22, 1920, in San Antonio.
Terrell Maverick had wanted to be a June bride, but had she been there would have been no time for a honeymoon trip, because Maury Maverick had committed himself to be on hand in San Antonio to campaign for his uncle, Representative James L. Slayden, who faced a tough contest that he was to lose. This was Mrs. Maverick's initiation into politics, and, as she explained in 1962, "From that summer political activities in general and the Democratic primary elections in particular have dominated and enriched my life." It was an exciting life that she led as the wife of Maury Maverick—I was never bored," she said. It is doubtful that she ever bored her husband or anybody else for that matter. She is to this day a pretty, petite woman of great charm, enthusiasm, and verve. She had little formal education, but, like Ellen Slayden, she learned rapidly and outstripped many people with formal educations.
Maury Maverick was the dominant figure in his family, but Mrs. Maverick said, "Though I learned a lot from him, he didn't smother me." Her role was not limited to that of the attractive wife and mother who stands in the background of the spotlighted public figure. She had her own views, and Maverick respected and sought them. She not only accompanied him at political conventions and the like, but she was an active participant in her own right on many occasions. She gave him good-humored but unflattering criticisms of his speeches and decisions, and she helped to assuage his wounds, both real and political. Her talents can be readily perceived in the preface she wrote for Ellen Slayden's Washington Wife.
Two children were born to Maury and Terrell Maverick—a son, Maury, Jr., on January 3, 1921, and a daughter, Terrelita, on January 10, 1926. Maverick was, like his father, a devoted man. He had a good relationship with his children, not unlike that with his own father. He spent as much time with his children as he could, taking them on trips and swimming excursions. He also passed on to his children his father's love of nature and animals. Maverick once returned from a trip to Mexico with a pair of javelinas (peccaries), which he named Anthony and Cleopatra. Kept in the yard as pets, one eventually died and the other had to be shipped off to the zoo when it playfully sank its teeth into a visitor's hand. On another occasion he brought back a black bear and a mountain lion, which he gave to the San Antonio Zoo.
Maury, Jr.'s first recollection of his father was the sight of a "tremendous series of scars" that covered his body, and the agony that he suffered. Young Maury recalled that when he was about the age of seven his father would get up in the middle of the night and sit in a bathtub of hot water to ease the recurring pains from his wounds. Maury, Jr., would wander into the bathroom and stand there while his father talked to him about such subjects as world peace. "Papa always talked to me like an equal of sorts—always took me with him," said Maury, Jr., as he explained how his father showed him around Washington and introduced him to "great old-time newspaper people" and political leaders. He particularly remembers meeting Senator George Norris, regarded by his father as "the greatest living American."
The correspondence between Maury Maverick and his son and daughter in their youth reveals the same sort of affectionate jibes and good-humored criticism that was used by Albert Maverick—though Albert would not have been as earthy as this father and son. After one of several complaints from teen-aged Maury, Jr., concerning his assignment to latrine duty at Texas Military Institute, the parental advice was:
As for being corporal of the crapping can, there was once a great General in Athens who came back, and purposely to insult him, they put him in charge of the garbage and trash of the city and the emptying of the crappers. In order to humiliate his enemies, he made Athens the cleanest and most beautiful city in the world.
Therefore, if you wish to be famous, keep the toilets clean and you will go down in history as the greatest corporal who ever lived.
On another occasion, Maverick's teen-aged scion wrote to complain bitterly that he had not received a football letter to which he was sure he was entitled. He said that since his father had taught him that "you can't cuss" in letters, he would have to say that he had been "sexual intercoursed."
Although Maury Maverick has been in his grave for sixteen years as of this writing, he refuses to stay dead and buried. Mention of him occurs frequently in the journals of the nation, and increasing numbers of busy graduate students comb the Maverick papers at the University of Texas Archives to learn more of this unusual man.
For Maury Maverick was unique. I know the clichés ("there'll never be another like him"; "he's one of a kind") said by nearly everyone about anybody the minute after he dies. But a case can be made for Maury Maverick that will lift such statements above the bromidic level.
With their almost three and a half centuries on these North American shores, plus their remarkable skill for breeding tough-fibered men of great courage and personal carelessness, the Mavericks are one of the few families whose name has become a common noun. In the vernacular of the cow camp, a maverick is a calf "who has lost his mother and who don't know who his father was," which is the hyperbolic Western way of saying that a maverick is a stray. Throughout the English-speaking world, a maverick is an independent who goes his own way, swims upstream, runs against the crowd, or refuses to stand hitched. Maury Maverick was all of these things, not an independent for the sake of independence, but simply a man who arrived at his own decisions without considering party, popularity, conformity, or consistency. He went the way his heart and head dictated, in a rare but always honest combination of those two abstractions.
Maury Maverick would have loved the 1960's. He would have applauded every decision of Earl Warren's Supreme Court, whih broadened and further guaranteed individual liberties and group civil rights. From a legal standpoint this past decade has been a confirmation of all that Maury Maverick stood for, of what he fought for, and of those principles that defeated him as congressman and as mayor. He would have been proud that his hometown, San Antonio, sent Texas' first Mexican-American, Henry B. Gonzalez, to congress. Once San Antonians and Texans got used to the idea of being represented by one of their natives, the people have gone on reelecting Gonzalez, apparently for life. In the Rio Grande Valley, where the old families were of Mexican ancenstry and the first families were from that catch-all group called Anglos, Gonzalez' victory gave the citizens enough courage to send to Washington a second Mexican-American. Eligio de la Garza, as their congressman. Crystal City, whose huge statue of Popeye confirms its claim as the spinach capital of the world, provided an example for other communities when its Mexican-American majority elected a predominantly Mexican-American city countil. Now a chicano revolution is sweeping from Texas to California, which should cause Maverick to burst his coffin with a loud olé.
Despite a heritage that goes back to the Texas Revolution, Maury Maverick would have hailed the efforts of the Mexican-American to get another tradition off his back—that proud group known as Texas Rangers, whose anti-Mexican sentiments are notorious, albeit for sometimes sound historical reasons. Undoubtedly he would have hailed John F. Kennedy, and he would have lauded Lyndon Johnson for that cloudburst of social legislation his fellow Texan put through Congress in 1964-1965. Maverick would have stood for all the voting, educational, housing, and other rights that brought all Americans under the same set of laws. On the other hand, he probably would have scored Kennedy for the Bay of Pigs and perhaps even for the missile confrontation, and he would have been on Johnson's back for Viet Nam. His sentiments toward President Nixon would have been unprintable, even in these scatological times.
But the developments of the 1960's that would have given Maverick the most pleasure were those guaranteeing the accused the same rights as other citizens and giving all people of this country the right to speak up and out. When, as mayor, he permitted the Communists to use San Antonio's municipal auditorium, he was denounced as a Communist himself. In fact, his accusers charged that he was worse than a Communist, that he was, to use the ultimate epithet, a traitor to his class. It was a night for lynching as the "good people" rioted in downtown San Antonio, and the only difference between SDS rioting on today's campuses and American Legion rioting in San Antonio in 1939 is the age of the people involved. The intemperance and the disregard for reason and justice are identical.
The attempted denial of free speech to American Communists in San Antonio led Maury into one of his few retaliations by pedigree. He took to the air waves to read practically the whole Maverick genealogy from the time they hit Boston Harbor in early colonial days right down to himself, from the heroic Matthew Fontaine Maury on the one side through three and a half centuries of American Mavericks on the other. He called off every patriotic organization to which he belonged by right of heritage or his own participation, and he was by right a Son of practically every one of them. At the conclusion he challenged anyone in San Antonio to equal his credentials as an American. Then he reasserted that, since he believed in America, the Communists could speak. San Antonians of lesser American heritage wanted to burn him at the stake.
Too bad he couldn't have hung around for the censure of Joe McCarthy! Too bad he couldn't have debated Vice-President Spiro Agnew, matching rhetoric for rhetoric. Although sweet reasonableness in their interchange might have been missing, the quotability would have been endless. Agnew would have had in Maverick an adversary who could fight him phrase for phrase, someone the vice-president lacks at this moment. Maverick believed in all the first Ten Amendments, and he would have said so in words that were pungent, earthy, and memorable.
Sometimes Maverick walked a thin line between crude honesty and complete courage. Some of us have long felt that one of his greatest achievements was choosing a wife who could smooth over the cross patches he had scuffed up. Sometimes he seemed to irritate just for the sake of keeping people stirred up. He did not function in an atmosphere of serenity.
For instance, to get street sanitation under control and to insure clean food, the city fathers of San Antonio once banned all outdoor eating places except under the most stringent conditions, an action that resulted in the banishment from the streets of the city's famed and colorful "chili queens." So Maury Maverick was elected mayor, and as mayor had to be accepted as the town's first citizen by people who, though they had known him and his family in perpetuity, nevertheless abhorred Maury's free-wheeling politics. Eventually the mayor attended one of the fancier garden parties, breathed graciousness itself through the receiving line, and then turned to his host and bellowed (there is no other word nearly so precise). "You-all know that it's against the law to have outdoor eating places. You bastards passed the law yourself. I'm giving this party fifteen minutes to get these tents down and all this food indoors, or the police will be called!" For the remainder of the party he was hardly the most popular guest present.
I first saw Maury Maverick at a meeting of the Texas State Historical Association in Austin while I was still a student. I knew him by fearful reputation, which came from reading such disapproving newspapers as the Dallas News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram. At the annual luncheon of the association, listed in the program for noon, the two or three hundred people attending the luncheon insisted on visiting in the corridor while the association director did his best to move them into the hotel dining room. Being in that cooperative student phase, which dates me. I went into the dining room where the tables were set, with the salad and shrimp cocktail already by each plate. There, near the center of this sizable banquet room, sat Maury Maverick, alone, hunched over his plate, eating away at the shrimp coctail. Someone behind me said, "Why Maury Maverick, what are you doing in here alone!"
"The program said this lunch was at noon, and by God I follow the program!"
Stories like this are legend. Walter Prescott Webb, the historian, went to a stuffy black-tie dinner at which the speechmaking was interminable. James P. Hart, then chancellor of the University of Texas, did what any decent American would—he dozed. Here came a note from Maverick to Webb: "Your damned chancellor is asleep!" Webb, no mean man with a quip himself, scribbled in reply, "Maury, you're jealous!
Maury Maverick, Jr. who naturally inherited some of his father's characteristics, tells how his father sent for the family after suffering the heart attack that finally killed him. Maury, Jr., arrived at the hospital, was told to go right into the room, and tentatively knocked on the door. In that high-pitched voice that Maury alternated with his foghorn, the father said:
"That you, son?"
"Yes, papa."
"Come over by the bed, son. You know, this is it."
The Mavericks are honest to the end, and Maury, Jr., did not give false words of comfort.
"Yes, papa, I know."
"Son, you and I have never been very close."
"I know, papa."
"I think it may have been my fault." His son didn't argue.
"But I want you to know that I'm proud of you, son."
"Well, thank you, papa," said Junior, somewhat flustered by this show of unusual parental sentimentality.
"Yes, son, I'm real proud of you—I'm proud that you didn't turn out to be a horse's ass like Elliott Roosevelt!"
The younger Maverick says, "Those were my father's last words to his son, and I cherish them. I know of no other son who received such a benediction from his father."
They tell the story, possibly apocryphal, that in those last moments Maverick sent for an Episcopal priest. Whoever was with him was shocked and remonstrated that Maverick was showing a sign of weakness, that he had never needed a priest before. According to the story, Maverick then said, in language that for a university press must be expurgated somewhat: "I don't need no damned priest; but who knows, there may be something after all to that crap, and at this stage I'm too weak to take any chances!"
Maury Maverick's widow later married Walter Prescott Webb after an intervening eight years. When she first began to go out again, her first more or less date was with an old bachelor friend named Sam Zisman, an urbanologist of considerable renown. Undoubtedly there is something portentous about a widow's first appearance on the arm of a new man, particularly when he is a bachelor not known for squiring unattached women. Although Zisman had been a close friend of the Mavericks for years, and under ordinary circumstances neither he nor Mrs. Maverick would have felt anything unusual about being together, on this occasion they felt, in the words of Steve Allen, "this could be the start of something big." They were dining when who should walk in but Maury, Jr. He spotted them, and in a style reminiscent of his father, walked over to Zisman, stuck out his hand, and said impishly, "Hello, Daddy." According to Mrs. Maverick, this took the bloom aff any promise of flowering romance. She and Sam Zisman continued to see each other only as lifelong friends until he died in the spring of 1970.
Being a congressman, writing articles for national magazines, leading a national liberal group, and receiving widespread approbation and condemnation are all stimulating activities, as Maury Maverick found out. But probably the greatest thing that happened to Congressman Maverick was to discover that he was basically not a Texan, not a Southerner, but an American and a citizen of the world. When he was in Congress, that great body worried about such bills as the one branding lynching a federal offense and another seeking to eliminate the poll tax. When these two bills came up in the 1930's, Maverick found himself isolated from his Southern compadres as he assailed the theses that a man must pay to exercise his right to vote, and that a man with dark skin has no right to his day in court. Despite all the blood of the Mavericks, the Maurys, and the Fontaines of Virginia in his background, and with all the Southwestern tradition stemming from old Sam Maverick forward, this scion of first families from Massachusetts to Texas was not only cut off politically from his neighbors but almost ostracized for voting what he believed was right and just.
However, the pain of ostracism hurt even worse when the good people of San Antonio, many of them friends from boyhood, turned their backs on him. Surprisingly, Maverick never became bitter. He formed no permanent alliances with anyone, but entangled himself only with principle. I once heard him say in a conversation that "any man who holds public office and expects gratitude is a damn fool. No one remembers you for what you did yesterday. A politician does what he thinks is right, and if he is satisfied that he has done just that, then he has enjoyed a sufficient political career. But gratitude—hell, there ain't no gratitude!"
His schooling, as Richard Henderson points out, never reached tidy conclusions, but his education never stopped. Outfitting himself with a board made to his specifications, he read and wrote in bed through the night. He could not tolerate a library of clean, well-ordered books. He wrote all over the pages and blackened the margins arguing, cross-referencing, and amplifying. His is one library that must be investigated if the researcher is to know Maury Maverick. The books themselves are not remarkable, but the marginalia overwhelms. Thus another man, racked with pain and never able to sleep well, enriched himself more than a man with a healthier body likely could have or would have. Sweet are the uses. . . .
In the daylight hours Maverick was likely to be seen anywhere—in the workroom of an expensive Philadelphia jeweler designing a handsome silver bowl, in Mexico choosing cloth and conferring on techniques of weaving, or in Tokyo talking lacquers with a Japanese artisan. His curiosity was boundless, equaled only by his energy, his imagination, his creativity, and his courage. A squirrel by nature, he collected almost everything and saved accordingly. He had the autograph of every president (as well as those of the flag-raisers at Iwo Jima), coins, and medallions by the bucketful. I doubt that he ever saw a commemorative china plate he did not purchase. Sixteen years after his death his widow is still searching for places to put the stuff, even after having placed a considerable portion in the University of Texas Archives and distributing still more to relatives and friends. I remember one party at Walter Webb's Friday Mountain Ranch, with about thirty men present, when Maury showed up late. He brought commemorative plates of San Antonio for everyone.
Of course, when San Antonio staged its delightful world's fair in miniature, a jewel known as HemisFair, San Antonio's current crop of city fathers rightly bowed low for the worldwide applause they received for their taste in underplaying the world's fair theme. A part of the delight in HemisFair came from the city of San Antonio itself, a collection of blithe spirits with the same lilt of life that distinguishes Rio anytime or Munich at the height of its May wine festival. Visitors loved the people of San Antonio, and they loved the San Antonio River, which could have been any other major city's sewer, but was instead a picturesque, even romantic walk. Although Maury Maverick, long gone, was never acknowledged as the father of San Antonio's downtown river beauty, it all started with his utilization of federal grants that changed an eyesore into a pathway of civic pride. The same can be said about La Villita, that bit of native quarter and craft that Maverick exhumed from the past, which San Antonio continues and reveres.
While Maverick was alive, Texas' conservative newspapers thought that he was directly descended from the devil, and they fought him with their best editorial weapons. When he died, however, they discovered that a fresh quality had been withdrawn from the sometimes sterile Texas scene. And if newspapermen miss anyone, it is a man who provides good, colorful copy. In noticing his death, they lauded his historic antecedents and his influence. They applauded his having coined the word gobbledygook for officialese; they repeated his often quoted remark (Mr. Vice-President, please not) that "newspapermen are the most underpaid and overprivileged guys in the world"; and they also smiled at his definition of a Latin American as "a Mexican who has paid his poll tax." Time called him a "dumpy, dynamic, Texas Democrat," while the Dallas News, never in his corner, proclaimed that he was "an honest demagogue" who "had faith in what he did." The News, which, like most Texas newspapers and a majority of Texas Democrats, had supported Eisenhower in the 1952 election, repeated Maverick's charge that Governor Allan Shivers' repudiation of the Democratic national ticket that year was tantamount to "having a big wedding and taking the wedding vows to honor and obey, then dishonoring your wife and killing her."
Two days after his death on June 7, 1954, the News opined that Maverick was not just another politician, but was truly "as maverick as his name."
That he was.
JOE B. FRANTZ
Preface
One day in April 1952 I walked into the lobby of San Antonio's old Plaza Hotel to register as a participant in a five-day seminar on international relations, sponsored by the Brookings Institution. A bit of good fortune had put me, a greenhorn instructor of government, in the company of distinguished professors, college and university presidents, admirals, generals, colonels, and assorted dignitaries from San Antonio's political and business community.
I registered early, and as I turned to cross the almost empty lobby, a short, fat, graying man with powerful shoulders and an impressive mien thrust out his hand and rumbled, "Ah'm Maury Maverick." I had never seen him before, but my mind raced back to a graduate course in public administration and a lesson on "gobbledygook," and some vague recollection that this was a man of importance. We got acquainted, and he seemed not to mind that I knew very little about him, but I have gathered he would have minded had I been nearer his age.
The next day fortune again threw me in with him as we were assigned to the same panel for the entire session of mock planning on foreign policy—much as it might be done in the State Department. In those four days I saw a number of facets of the character of this remarkable man. I was impressed—and fascinated.
Perhaps he was even less inhibited than usual in view of the fact that the director had said that all remarks would be off the record, but I saw Maverick display the fearless candor that endeared him to some and made bitter enemies of others. He grumbled and muttered through the meals, eating rapidly and impatiently and bullyragging several members of the State Department Policy Planning Staff for their timidity in the face of threats from Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was riding high at the time. Maverick tossed them such rhetorical questions as how did they define the "free world"—did it include "that great democrat, Fulgencia Batista" and that "little sonofabitch playboy, Bao Dai?" His glare swept the table as he dared anyone to deny that Bao Dai was a little sonofabitch playboy.
When Maverick accepted the directors invitation to address the entire assembly, I saw the sledgehammer wit that provoked gales of laughter as he told the conferees that he had researches to comb through all the archives back to ancient Babylon, and they were unable to turn up a speech worse than the one delivered that week by Secretary of State Dean Acheson. During this speech the audience applauded often and vigorously, but when the time came to vote on a policy proposal, Maverick lost. His reaction was a wry grin and an undismayed, "Once more I am happy to be a part of the intelligent minority."
I saw some of Maverick's high jinks when he dashed from the building to get a key to the city of San Antonio to present as a "decoration" to a young colonel who had the temerity to suggest that he did not see anything wrong in trade with Communist nations. I saw Maverick, too, as a generous, thoughtful man as he hosted a dinner for delegates at his beloved La Villita and when he offered to take my wife and me on a tour of the historic sites in the Alamo City in "the old Buick." There were, on the other hand, many things I did not see, but this was true of many men who thought they knew him well, and that is what makes the story.
Two years later Maverick was gone, and the opportunity to tell his story fell to me. In the course of my research, I interviewed his old friend President Harry S. Truman. I naively stated to Mr. Truman that it was my firm intention to be objective in my study of Maury Maverick. I was met with a burst of laughter and a confident, "Nobody can be objective about Maury Maverick." He is probably right.
We are obliged to pay, even if it is only "in ink," as Maverick once put it, those who have made our work possible or who have helped to smooth out the rough road. My greatest debt is to Mrs. Walter Prescott Webb (formerly Mrs. Maury Maverick) and her children, Mrs. Terrelita Maverick Clinton and Maury Maverick, Jr. They not only extended to me the privilege of complete and, for a time, exclusive access to Maury Maverick's papers and library, but they also answered an untold number of questions with admirable candor and yet feed me from the possible bane of a family-approved biography. On the contrary, they urged objectivity.
The late Walter P. Webb earned a large payment "in ink" for the kind extension of his good offices in introducing me to the Maverick family and for his advise and encouragement.
There are few genuinely self-made men. Credit must be given to those people who have helped us to develop whatever talents we have. My greatest debts in this area are to Senator Walter Richter; the late James Taylor, professor of history and chairman of the Social Sciences Division at Southwest Texas State University; Joe Bill Vogel, formerly a professor of journalism at the same institution; and Professors Thornton Anderson and Franklin L. Burdette of the University of Maryland.
An important part of the research and writing of this book would have been impossible without the time provided by a research grant from the Danforth Foundation and a research grant and faculty development leave from Southwest Texas State University. Too numerous to mention are those omnipresent and too often unsung collaborators of all researchers.: the personnel of the Southwest Texas State University Library, the University of Texas Library, the University of Texas Archives, and the San Antonio Public Library. I owe special notes of thanks to Charles T. Morrissey for examining the Franklin D. Roosevelt papers for me, and to Dr. Chester V. Kielman, archivist of the University of Texas at Austin, for his assistance in the use of the Maury Maverick papers.
R. B. H.
A Maverick American
When newspaper reporters turned to their typewriters on June 7, 1954, to report the death of Maury Maverick, they summoned a wide variety of expressions to illuminate the many facets of his character and career: "New Deal evangelist," "political warhorse," "honest demagogue," "fiery little Texan," "political patriarch," "brilliant student," "able-organizer and administrator," "champion of small business," and "clean-up mayor of San Antonio."
The New York Times praised his "bulldog courage and disarming sincerity," and later members of Congress described him in such terms as "brilliant," "highly intelligent and intensely patriotic," "courageous and forthright," "shockingly frank, but refreshingly candid," and "a man of great vision and understanding."
Maury Maverick was all of these things and many more; he was one of the most colorful and vital figures of recent American political history. The story of his career and its impact upon our political life has been told only in fragments from time to time. The former New Deal congressman, mayor of San Antonio, and chairman of the World War II Smaller War Plants Corporation preempted the best of all possible titles for a study of his career when he chose A Maverick American as the title for his semi-autobiographical book published in 1937. He was a maverick American, not just a maverick Texan. He was truly "unbranded," the dictionary meaning of the term that his grandfather contributed to the American lexicon. He was, as well, a maverick legislator, mayor, and thinker.
The Mavericks were dissenters and independents before the political connotation was given to their name. Samuel Maverick of Pendleton, South Carolina (Maury's great-grandfather), and his son, Samuel Augustus Maverick, were sharply critical of the exaggerations of their fellow South Carolinians with respect to the allegedly oppresive Tariffs of 1824 and 1828. Samuel A. Maverick, a young lawyer and recent graduate of Yale, presented a closely reasoned argument against nullification, secession, and extreme states' rights postures in general. When his father delivered a speech to counter the arguments of his neighbor, John C. Calhoun, the younger Maverick challenged a heckler in the audience to a duel and slightly wounded the fellow in the contest.
The younger Samuel's unpopular position forced him to give up his aspirations for a political career in South Carolina, and, at his father's suggestion, he went to manage a plantation in Alabama. When stories of the great adventure in Texas began to reach him, he determined to go there. He arrived in the small village of San Antonio de Bexar in the fall of 1835, within weeks of the inception of the Texas Revolution.
After he had played one of the leading roles in the Texas Revolution, Samuel A. Maverick was a delegate to the convention that prepared the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836, but he had no hand in it. High waters delayed his arrival until March 3, the day after the document was completed. He was permitted to sign it, however, and he later participated in the drafting of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas.
The first Texas Maverick was a land speculator—with perhaps the largest single set of holdings in the state. His biographers depict him as a man of almost unbelievable integrity and modesty. Though twice elected mayor of San Antonio, many times to the Texas Congress and State Legislature, and finally Chief Justice of Bexar County, he is said never to have sought or campaigned for an office. He also showed the extraordinary tenacity and unbending will when doing what he thought right that was later exhibited by his grandson.
An example of the Maverick character is to be found in the Perote Prison story. In September 1842 the Mexican government sent a major expedition, headed by General Adrian Woll, to regain Texas. The forces invaded San Antonio, and, in the course of their victorious battle, Sam Maverick was taken prisoner. He and his fellow prisoners were force-marched eighteen hundred miles to Perote Prison in Mexico. During almost unspeakable hardships—chained and in ill health—Maverick had an opportunity to win freedom from President Antonio Santa Anna if the Texan would promise to support a token reannexation of Texas by Mexico.
The United States minister, General Waddy Thompson, reported that Maverick replied, "I cannot persuade myself that such an annexation on any terms, would be advantageous to Texas, and I therefore cannot say so, for I regard a lie as a crime, and one which I cannot commit even to secure my release; I must, therefore, continue to wear my chains, galling as they are." Thompson offered the comment, "Such an act recorded by Plutarch would have added another page as bright as that which perpetuates the noble constance and heroic virtue of Regulus." Thompson reported further that he was soon able, as a "personal favor" to him, to secure the release of Maverick and two other prisoners.
Six children survived from the ten born to Samuel A. and Mary Maverick. The youngest son, Albert, was the father of Maury Maverick. There is no colorful career to report for Albert Maverick, but there was nothing tame about his youth. As a boy he hunted, fished, and learned the ways of the Texas wilderness with a famed Indian fighter and scout, Polycarpio Rodriguez. The account of his school years is filled with recitals of youthful pranks and assorted mischief. A fellow student at the University of Virginia described Albert as having too much "animal spirit" for serious scholarship. It was alleged that he once stole the great iron gates at the entrance to the university, and Maury Maverick took great delight in chiding his father about an escapade in which the elder Maverick drank too much wine and performed the never-to-be-duplicated feat of climbing one of the university's stately columns.
After one year at the University of Virginia, Albert was advised that his professors had given him passing marks on the condition that he not return. The final phase of his education took the unusual form of a walking trip across England from Liverpool to Dover with some days spent in the British Museum, followed by a seven-month stay in Paris. The trip, and particularly the stay in Paris, seemed to be a sobering one. He found Paris to be a shocking "den of immorality" with some women showing their legs "as high as the knee," but he managed to find lodging with "a good honest family." He spent seven months studying independently and learning to speak French. On his return to the United States in March 1877, he went straight to Piedmont, Virginia, to claim his promised bride, Jane Lewis Maury, a direct descendent of the Reverend James Maury, Thomas Jeffereson's first teacher.
Maury Maverick frequently referred proudly to his namesake, Matthew Fontaine Maury, the famous nineteenth-century pioneer in the field of oceanography. His biographer's description of his characteristic attitudes toward matters academic bears an uncanny resemblance to the characteristics of Maury Maverick. Matthew Maury did poorly on examinations at the United States Naval Academy. His apparent mediocrity was attributed to the fact that his fellows made high grades by answering "mainly in terms of the books" without understanding what it was all about. "Maury's mind had original habits. He was by nature a trail-blazer. He could not so well follow other men in speech and thought—he thought and spoke for himself." Elsewhere he is described as "stout," "largely self-educated," and an opponent of "humbuggery"—a no less accurate portrait of Maury Maverick.
Almost immediately after his marriage to Jane Maury, Albert took her to the Maverick homestead in San Antonio. After a short stint in a low-paying clerical job, he tried ranching near Bandera, Texas, for a few years, but a severe drought drove the growing family back to San Antonio. There Albert Maverick managed the Maverick Land Office and made general investments in San Antonio real estate and business operations, activities for which he had little ability or interest. Though the tall, handsome Albert faithfully went "down to the office" on every working day until he was eighty-seven years of age, he didn't belong there. He became, by all accounts, a quiet, retiring, scholarly type, with a strong attachment to family and home. Unlike his father and son, he did not hold public office. This "beautiful man," as Mrs. Walter P. Webb describes him, was almost Thoreauvian in his love for nature and his joy in working with his hands, qualities that, despite vast differences in their personalities, were as evident in the life of Maury Maverick as in that of his father. Some of Albert Maverick's most absorbing activities were such things as keeping records of the chilling Texas northers as they swept in over the hills into San Antonio and carefully noting the arrival and departure of the purple martins that came to the large house he had erected for them near his veranda. He made saddles for all of his children and melted down Mexican pesos to fashion heavy buckles for the belts that he made for all of his sons. The family referred to them as Maverick belts, and Maury Maverick kept his until the day he died.
A biographer who had no difficulty finding noteworthy achievements and honors of other members of the Maverick family, said only that Albert was a "progressive citizen of San Antonio" and "a pioneer for the conservation of the natural beauty of our city, having publicly objected to the destruction of the cypress tress as early as 1882." Albert Maverick was generous "to the point of eccentricity," and he let the major part of an inherited fortune simply slip through his hands. He sustained serious losses in periods of financial panic and depression, but one reason for this was that he would not collect rent from distressed tenants.
Jane Maverick was a short, bustling woman with a strong, commanding personality. Albert was head of the house, but she was the manager. As Maury Maverick explained, "My mother has executive ability, running the place and doing the ordering and the talking for both. My father is a quiet man." Jane was no mere housewife. A houseful of children and a lack of formal education did not prevent her from becoming a literate woman, knowledgable about public affairs. She traveled occasionally, and in later years when the children were grown she made carefully prepared speeches to local clubs concerning her experiences.
Albert and Jane had eleven children; the eleventh was Fontaine Maury Maverick. Though he steadfastly maintained that he was brought by a wise and loquacious old stork, he was born on October 23, 1895, at the grand old Maverick home at 218 Avenue E, just off San Antonio's Alamo Plaza. His father put him down as a "cheerful" small boy, and Maury himself described his boyhood as "free and easy"—listening to the band on the square, buying tamales and Mexican sweets at the chili stands. He demonstrated quite early that he had inherited some of Papa's youthful mischief-making. Palmer Giles, a rancher who lives near Comfort, Texas, was a boyhood playmate and school chum of Maury Maverick. Giles tells a tale of one of the more extravagant stunts engineered by Maury at the age of seven or eight. The Giles and Maverick parents were chatting in the parlor while the boys went off to play. Maury and his brother George asked Giles if he would like to take a bath. Giles responded that he had had one that week, but Maverick repeated the question with a wink. He and George then led the preplexed Giles down a long porch to a large, completely tiled bathroom. The boys then took off their clothes, placed thick towels under and around the edges of the door, closed the door tightly on the towels, and proceeded to fill the entire bathroom with water about three feet deep. After frolicking about for a time, the boys drained and cleaned up the "swimming pool," and the parents were apparently none the wiser.
In 1905, when Maury Maverick was nine years old, the family moved to what they came to call Sunshine Ranch, in what is now suburban San Antonio but which was then in the countryside overlooking the city. There Albert built a large, plain two-story house with a long porch and an upstairs gallery designed to catch the prevailing breeze. The view from this spot is still impresive, but the visitor in those days could see "a wide-spreading valley, the wastes of green mesquite and yellow stubble, and the distant town half drowned in purple mist, the few high buildings very white and stately, suggesting Venice."
The Albert Mavericks were "getting along," but they were far from wealthy. Nonetheless, the big, plainly furnished house was a Sunday afternoon Mecca for many members of the Maverick clan and their friends. Everyone knew that the children were invited, and the atmosphere was one of warm family ties, great fun, and a vigorous exchange of ideas. Albert carved the roast with great aplomb and presided over the dinner with great dignity, but later the children gathered on the veranda to eat watermelon, cavort, and perform tricks, while the adults gathered inside for stimulating discussions. The Mavericks were a lively and opinionated bunch, and the discussions would often become arguments, but Jane Maverick would not permit the participants to engage in personalities.
Maury Maverick once wrote that his mother gave him "many spankings to no avail," but that he deserved one thousand from his father who gave him only two, but he enjoyed the sort of relationship with both of his parents that most boys would order if they could. The occasional firmness and parental advice was tempered by understanding, deep affection, and often a dash of wit. Maury was no more than ten or eleven years of age when he announced (inspired perhaps by his father's youthful adventures) that he was going to California. He saddled up his pony and gathered a few provisions as his mother and father tried to dissuade him. When they saw that he was determined, they exacted the promise from him that he would stop for a week at the Giles' Ranch near Comfort. After Maury had left, Mrs. Maverick called Mrs. Giles and said, "My little boy is leaving for California on his pony. Please delay him as long as possible when he gets to the ranch." Maury and his weary pony survived the hot seventy-mile trip through rugged country, and the strategy worked. He and his playmate, Palmer Giles, spent half the summer doing all the things that boys of ten and eleven do in that wild hill country, and then Maury saddled up and headed for home.
Much of the correspondence between Maverick and his parents reveals affectionate joshing and the indulgence of doting Mama and Papa. When Maury was attending the University of Texas he wrote to Papa to request some money to attend a football game in Houston. He explained that the trip would involve night travel, requiring enough money for a "birth" both ways. Albert responded, "I'm glad I can send you the money; I had no idea you were in such a delicate condition." (This was often the style in which Albert chided various of his children into better spelling and writing habits.) When his son was a lieutenant in France, Albert wrote (after occasionally sending him a hundred dollars), "Call on Gen. Persh., & see your pay is doubled. Say it is imperative because your father insists on your employing a guardian & I want him to be a responsible person."
In one of his books Maury Maverick jocularly characterized his mother as having "slightly Faschist tendencies" and at another point referred to her as a "Mussolini." Thus the first pass to the gallery of the United States House of Representatives that freshman Representative Maury Maverick sent to his mother was filled out in the name of "Signora Mussolini." Another card, however, asking that courtesies be extended at the White House, was made out to a "Little Jane Maury." The cards were attached to a pseudo-formal letter that read:
Dear Mrs. Maverick:
I hope you will visit Washington sometime and hear me speak. . . . Try to remember this: it is harder to be a congressman than a mother. You only have eleven children and 65 grandchildren. I have a quarter of a million.
Respectfully,
Maury Maverick
(Your Congressman)
Maury Maverick
(Your Congressman)
Mama responded archly with a note addressed to the "Most hon. Congressman," giving him a "special invitation to Sunshine Ranch," but she concluded, "Please don't bring your quarter of a million children." The note was signed, "Signora Mussolini."
There was nothing typical about the education of Maury Maverick. He volunteered the information, not proudly, but candidly, that he "never graduated from anything." He began a program of desultory (at first) self-education at the age of twelve or thirteen that was to continue to his death. There were many serious books in the Maverick home, and the family read and discussed them. Maverick said that he was reading Greek philosophy at the age of twelve. . . .
In addition to reading "every issue" of Appeal to Reason in his early teens, Maverick read Robert Hunter's Poverty at the age of thirteen. Hunter's book examined the extent, evils, and necessary remedies of poverty in the United States and mentioned suggestions and criticisms from such leading economists as Richard T. Ely and John R. Commons. In this book Maverick read of the downtrodden "struggling up the face of a barren precipice," because of the "brutal power of the economic forces which dominate their lives." The impact of books of this type and readings of this sort was obvious in Maverick's lifetime of evangelistic efforts in behalf of all sorts of programs to alleviate the condition of the poor.
The Southwestern intellectual equivalent of derring-do pulp magazines and other schoolboy contraband when Maverick was a boy was the Iconoclast, a paper written in Waco, Texas, by William Cowper Brann, a character as fabulous as Maverick. Brann was a self-taught philosopher-journalist who left home for a newspaper career at the age of thirteen. Another maverick, he spent his spare time reading "science, philosophy, history, biography and general literature." He wrote some of the most colorful prose that was ever applied to paper in the United States. Defense of intellectual freedom was his forte, but he was likely to direct a withering blast at anything that happened to strike his fancy. "He was a hater of shams and defied every form of fraud, hyposcrisy and deceit. . . ." Roy Bedichek refers to Brann as a "provincial Voltaire" who opposed injustice, cruelty, senseless repression and "hocus pocus," but "in the heat of controversy he was, like the great Voltaire himself, guilty of each of these abominations, as who is not?" The paper is said to have reached a circulation of ninety thousand at the time of Brann's death—extraordinary even today for a publication of its type. Editorial comment on his death came from every part of the United States.
Maverick was too young to have subscribed to this paper, but he said that he read the two-volume collection at the age of eleven. He never stated that Brann influenced him, but there is a considerable parallel between some of the best of Brann and the character and attitudes of Maverick. This is particularly true of the readiness of both men to leap to the defense when any attempt at suppression of freedom and expression was made. Another strong parallel was to be found in the opposition to sham and hypocrisy evidenced by both men. While reading one of Brann's speeches, Maverick marked with approval: "One may. . . have Plato at his fingers' ends and ever remain a fool."
But drawing too much of a parallel would be an injustice to Maverick. Brann's bottle of vitriol poured forth racist outbursts—even to advocating the killing of the "buck Negro"—and his motives were often questionable. Also, Maverick expressed disagreement with Brann's essentially negative approach. For example, Brann said of his role as an iconoclast, pessimist, and skeptic, "I am no perfectionist. I do not build the spasmodic sob nor spill the scalding tear because all men are not Sir Galahads in quest of the Holy Grail, and all women with two pair of reversible wings and the aurora borealis for a hat-band." This statement must have piqued Maverick the reformer at some later reading, for he wrote opposite in the margin, "I am not envisioning a perfect society—but at least a moving one."
Maverick's claims concerning his early reading were apparently not idle boasts. At least as early as the age of seventeen, he was keeping an annotated notebook with the title, "Books I Have Read." Most of the works listed were political and social histories, with some novels of the same genre. Maverick did not merely read such books, he studied them. An appreciation of how effectively he used books can be gathered from the following entry, written when he was nineteen:
Civil History of the Confederate States—J. L. M. Curry, 1901—B. F. Johnson-Richmond, Read June 1915.
The author should take into consideration the fact that the Civil War was over in '65, and that Confederate money is now no good. He is too extreme—rather narrow-minded. He is almost as bad as some old narrow-minded northerners who write about how they saved the North or rather the "union" against the rebels, etc. and talk about the "noble blacks" and the war as one of "civilization vs. barabarism."
In another entry, Maverick described The Citadel by Samuel Merwin as the story of a young member of Congress sent there "by the interests." Maverick then suggested that the political novel form "could be used by professors who write on Political and Social Economy. It would be sure to create public interest and educate the public, who otherwise would read trash." Thus young Maverick anticipated the current use of novels as vehicles to learning in political science courses in the colleges and universities.
Despite Maverick's references to the dominant role of his mother, his father was the primary influence on Maury's early ideas. Albert Maverick and his son read and discussed together the works of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, and the elder Maverick taught his son the lessons of free inquiry and freedom of expression. The atmosphere in the home was conducive to the development of liberal views on most subjects. As to religion, for example, Maverick's parents were devout in their own way, but they were not regular churchgoers. As Maverick explained, his father did not try to dictate his children's thoughts; rather, he hoped that they would develop their own. "He merely offers information, so that they will not go into the world as a set of nitwits. As for our economic or religious opinions, he cares nothing." Something of the father's views are reflected in this representative excerpt form his fragmentary diary, written during the depression years:
May 7, 1932—The money interests who own our Government got our baby President Hoover, several weeks ago, to make a special appeal to the people not to hoard money. What a mockery, & how transparent! The golden stream of interest (usury) flows east and north. . . to the overfilled coffers of the usurers, who own & act through the banks concerned only in increasing their capital—not in the increasing misery of the people. The government should own all the banks, & interest by degrees, abated, and made illegal. Employment should be furnished to the people, in road building & public works—to make them self-respecting & not paupers, & more, a limit must be set to a man's possessions & service become the badge of honor, service for all, for the common good.
The range of Albert Maverick's knowledge and interests is revealed in this passage from a letter to Lieutenant Maury Maverick in 1917: "Let us hope help can get to Italy in time to ward off a surrender, & mingle our tears over Kerensky, discredited. Every man is doomed to failure in the case of Russia—hordes of semi-civilized wild people suddenly given power, & German intrigue & strategy will profit by it. Peace is a long way off."
Maverick's early self-education was not confined to books and father-son discussions. Family gatherings were often the occasion for discussions and, more likely, heated debates on public affairs. His home and relatives' homes were fairly frequent stopping-off points for important public figures—it was in this way that he met William Jennings Bryan, for example. Maury's watchful eye also caught the political ferment that was going on about him during his grammar school and high school years. He told of his earliest recollection of being induced to do some serious thinking for himself by the sight of a man being mobbed and driven from San Antonio's Alamo Plaza as he tried to make a speech. As a grammar school student in 1909, he watched and heard Francisco I. Madero and his supporters plan the revolution by which Madero was soon to become president of Mexico. Two years later, at San Antonio's Main Avenue High School, Maverick and his friends organized a discussion club called the Atheneum Association. Shortly after its organization, General Bernardo Reyes came to San Antonio to attempt to establish a revolutionary force to overthrow Madero. Reyes was living with his family and some assistants on San Pedro Avenue, near the high school. Students generally favored Madero, and they subjected Reyes' home to rock throwing and other harassment. The Atheneum group sought to make ammends by inviting Reyes to speak to the student body, and Maury Maverick was the spokesman for the group. His friend Hobart Huson said, "Maury made a brave, but excruciating, effort as interpreter," but nonetheless he was able to convey the message to Reyes.
The school authorities had not been consulted, and they strongly opposed the invitation. Other school clubs adopted resolutions against having Reyes speak. Association members were attempting to find another location for the speech, but before they could do so, Reyes returned to Mexico. Huson concluded that "Maury Maverick got his first lesson and experience in creating publicity, which served him well in future years."
In 1912, without having completed high school, Maverick boarded a steamer at Galveston for Virginia Military Institue by way of New York and Washington. He rode most of the trip in the steerage, though he had first-class passage. He discussed socialism, Henry George and the single tax, Karl Marx, and the "Wall Street exploitation" of Cuba with the steerage passengers. He ate the steerage fare and typically began to discuss ways and means of getting something done about it. The first mate labeled him an agitator and ordered him to eat in the first-class accommodations.
In Washington, sixteen-year-old Maverick stayed for a time with his uncle, Congressman James L. Slayden, an outstanding pacifist, and insisted on being introduced to Congressman Victor Berger and Senator Robert M. LaFollette. Maury's recollections of his year at Virginia Military Institute consists of two parades celebrating the election of President Woodrow Wilson and an "average" scholastic record. He kept a "Maury Maverick Memory Book" in which he recorded the expected pranks, "gripes" at cadet officers, demerits, and such entries as "Penalty drill today in overcoats. Cold." A letter of July 10, 1917, in the "Memory Book" certified that Maverick had "a good record [at VMI]" and "successfully completed the topics of instruction in the fourth class." The book also revealed the youthful Maverick to be harboring the typical homesickness and sentimental attachment to Sunshine Ranch and his native Texas. Snapshots depict a stocky, tanned youth with a shock of unruly hair and an air of mischief—indeed, beneath one photograph Maverick wrote, "a creation of the devils: devilishly short, and devilishly ugly."
On his return to Texas in 1913, Maverick enrolled at the University of Texas "in journalism," according to his account. It appears, however, that he enrolled in a basic prelaw curriculum and elected a course in journalism during his sophomore year. He did work on the Daily Texan (the student newspaper) as a reporter and later as an issue editor from time to time during the 1914-1915 academic year. The scanty records available show that he took two years of English, German, and public speaking and one year each of mathematics, English history, geology, American history, journalism, and government. His grades were poor.
By his own admission and the testimony of professors, Maury Maverick had little patience for the formal aspects of his schooling. He not only found his courses to be dull and turned to his own reading list, but he also spent considerable time in frivolity and roistering about the campus. Professor Brooks thought that Maverick had merely fallen victim to the middle-aged man's common obsession of imagining himself as a "regular heller" in his undergraduate days, but it is just as likely that Maverick did not exaggerate his student high jinks. After one drinking spree at a football game, he scrawled some outrageous obscenities on a postcard and mailed it to a friend, and it was only by the intervention of some influential friends of the family that he was saved from indictment by a federal grand jury. In his first book Maverick gave a lengthy recital of expulsions and near expulsions for hazing students, "rotten-egging professors," painting the water tank and "being a very poor student." The late Walter Prescott Webb, a distinguished American historian and close friend of the Mavericks, delighted in telling the story of Maverick's lament to the dean, "Why do you always call me in when something goes wrong around here?" Dr. Lewis H. Haney, one of Maverick's instructors and now professor emeritus of economics and lecturer at New York University, testifies, "My recollections of Maury as a student are that he took little interest in scholarly attainments, and did not apply himself diligently to his studies. He had more interest in outside activities on the fun-making and social side of college life."
Maury admitted to participation in the publication of an underground newspaper, the Blunderbuss, which appeared on the University of Texas campus each April Fool's Day. It had the primary objective of lampooning and even slandering members of the faculty. The issue printed April 1, 1915, bears the unmistakable stamp of Maury Maverick, though the identity of editors and writers was carefully concealed. A front-page story concerning "egg-throwing" has the flavor of Maverick-via-Rabelais—whose works he reread dozens of times. Also, the paper has several fictitious items about Maury Maverick, such as "Mr. Maury Maverick has established a select matrimonial bureau at his apartment on Nineteenth Street. The Blunderbuss desires to wish him success in his undertaking as we know no one knows 'em better than he does."
But there were items on the plus side of the ledger. Dr. Haney said that Maverick had an "alert and active mind. He was an independent thinker to the extent of being a non-conformist." He banded with some fellow recalcitrants in the organization of a group known as the Campus Buzzards. "We proclaimed ourselves," he said, "as carrion philosophers and permitted no reading except that which was prohibited." He learned about the things that interested him by attending bull sessions with some of the younger professors, going to labor meetings, and listening eagerly to such speakers as Scott Nearing, "who had the impudence to suggest that lynching of Negroes should stop." One of the young professors who joined these bull sessions, poet and author Stark Young, wrote of Maverick, "I remember him as one of the vivid figures in my Texas acquaintance. He had a vigorous, independent and original way of thinking and speaking."
Maury's unsuccessful second year at the University of Texas exhausted Papa's patience; it was time for the young man to get to work. Maury received an offer of a job as a reporter on the Amarillo Daily News on August 18, 1915, and he accepted immediately. The job paid sixty dollars per month for, as Maury put it, "Title: city editor. Real position: local reporter." Maverick seemingly did well at the News. One of his journalism instructors (addressing him as "Execrable Copy Reader, Pathetic Reporter and Sad City Editor") told Maverick that he would soon "be able to write as good a story as any of them." His aunt and mentor, Ellen Maury Slayden, who wrote Washington Wife, said, "This is good newspaper work. I had no idea Maury could do so well." She later wrote to him:
My dear old Boy,
You made a terrible hole in the family circle when you went away. . . .
I feel kind of proud of you myself, because, you see, I had quite a hand in raising you.
I am really surprised at your good lines, but I am afraid you are elaborating your news with a little too much imagination, and overworking your superlatives.
Ellen Slayden suggested to him that a year out of college would help him: he could go back "as a man and not just a boy who has to work off his foolishness." But encouragement and admonitions were not enough to keep Maverick on the job in Amarillo. Letters from his mother indicated that he was suffering from a combination of discouragement over his low pay and position and homesickness. Mrs. Maverick told him to stick to the job—that his father had started to work in his youth at thirty-five dollars a month and that the family was essentially broke at the moment. Aunt Ellen gave similar advice and held out the promise of better things. She implied that she would help him to go to Columbia University the next year to study under Talcott Williams, the outstanding journalist and critic, and she enclosed a piece entitled "The Creed of a Great Newspaper."
Despite the influence that Mrs. Slayden exerted upon Maury in other matters, it was to no avail on this occasion. In a few days he had presumably persuaded his parents to permit him to return to the University of Texas—this time to the Law School. Maverick later boasted that he had "jammed all my three years of law into one." Though this statement may sound extravagant, it is not far from the absolute facts. His record card in the University of Texas Law School shows that he took thirteen courses with an average grade of 79. The record indicates that he received a grade of 80 in "International Law A" by taking the examination without having attended classes. Dr. A. Leon Green, distinguished professor of law and one of Maverick's instructors, says that these scores are only respectable and would not represent the high level of achievement as the same scores would today. Nonetheless, Maverick's feat was rather remarkable. He took and passed the Texas bar examination in Austin in May 1916. It is impossible to determine the level of his performance on the examination because the Clerk's Office of the Texas Supreme Court has no records of such matters prior to 1919.
Dr. Green says that Maverick continued some of the pranks and frivolty in law school, but he adds: "I never doubted Maury's ability, and his salty way of putting things even then was extremely refreshing. He gave no quarter to any one and asked none. Were he in law school today he would be tops in any company. Law teaching has finally caught up with his spirit. This is confirmed by the fact that in his later years he was a favorite with law students and faculties all over the country. It is a pity he died when he was needed most. . . . His is a rare spirit and should be an inspiration to all youngsters who aspire to public life or who have an interest in public men and affairs."
Professor Brooks, who was president of the American Political Science Association in 1940, said of Maury's outlandish study habits: "Evidently his intellectual curiosity was insatiable. Given a really understanding tutor he would have forged ahead at a tremendous pace." Maverick did not have a tutor, but he was able to profit in his youth and early manhood from the sage advice of another self-educated Maury of rather remarkable attainments—his Aunt Ellen. She never attended a "real school," but she read widely and traveled to international peace meetings with her husband, James L. Slayden, a congressman from San Antonio. Her abilities were such that she contributed articles to Century magazine and various newspapers on such topics as political problems in Mexico. The caliber of her advice to young Maverick as he began practicing law in San Antonio at the age of twenty can be seen in the following letter:
To Maury Maverick, In Re plumb nonsense.
Your first fee has given much pleasure, amusement & interest not only to your present correspondent, but to the Representative from your Congressional district and a number of our friends. I am torn by conflicting emotions over it, and if your legal advice isn't too expensive, an opinion from you would be welcome. I wish to keep the draft (for 15 cts. only) as a thing of interest to you, say, 20 years from now, and yet with the world's finances in their present state am I justified in letting all this money be idle? Tell me, how am I to eat my cake and have it, if you can. Before discussing the bargain we made about the books you were to have for your first fee, I want to say a few words "in re" the importance of a lawyer's cultivation of the judicial rather than the prejudicial order of mind and speech. "The falsehood of extremes," the fact that there are "two sides to every question," and that "the truth lies between two extremes" are axioms that every lawyer should keep in mind, or else—he is never likely to make a Judge of the Supreme Court. Now you know that I am not a thick & thin admirer of Woodrow Wilson, but I consider your strictures upon him much too severe. Many wise & good men agree with his views, even on the Mexican question in which he seems to you & me so woefully mistaken, so it behooves us to withhold severe judgment lest we should be proved in the wrong. Besides, he was elected to the Presidency by the votes of the party of which you claim to be a member, and until the majority of the party decides that he no longer represents them satisfactorily, it is more loyal and much more dignified to speak of him with respect and restraint or not at all. This does not mean approval of him, or that you will not vote for another Democrat when you get the chance, but merely that you think violent opinions violently expressed are a poor form of party loyalty, bad taste & bad politics. It is a grave reflection upon the collective wisdom of your party in electing him which the enemy is sure to seize upon as proof that the Democratic party is unfit to be trusted with the government. As to your saying that because of your dislike of Wilson your 'first vote may be lost or else cast for Hughes,' your Uncle Slayden tells me to remind you that unless you have thought over the party principles for which the two men stand very thoroughly and decided you agree with the Republicans rather than the Democrats, you are making a grave political mistake to declare yourself as considering the possibility of voting against your party. The action, of course, would ruin you, but the mere declaration would be sure to embarrass you in the future if you wished to be active or influential in politics. 'No one wants a wobbler.' So much for him, and I want to add that a vote is a very solemn privilege, and remind you of the French proverb, 'Tis the first step that counts.' So I hope your vote will be cast 'soberly, discreetly and in the fear of God.'
Now, about the books or book. I am really sorry that you refuse the History of the U.S. tho I must admit that its standing as history is not very high. Still, it is worth reading . . . but if you won't have it, I have in mind another book, "America and Her Problems" by d'Estournelles de Constant, which I am finding most interesting, and which is of sufficient importance for two copies of it to have been sent to us from different sources. I presume that you do not propose to confine your study and interest to the courts of S.A. or even the problems of the state of Texas, so it may be good for you to look at our national problems for a while thro' the eyes of the wisest of living French writers and historians. I have met the Baron several times in this country & in Europe, and found him as simple-mannered and quizzically wise & observant as only the wise Frenchman can be. . . .
With Best Love,
Aunt Ellen
Aunt Ellen
As early as the spring of 1916, while still a law student, Maury Maverick was attempting to get into some military service. He sought the help of his uncle, Congressman James L. Slayden, and that of Senator Morris Sheppard in an effort to secure a commission in the U.S. cavalry. Maverick hoped to get into the fighting in Mexico. Sheppard wrote that he remembered him "quite well" from a meeting in Amarillo and that it would be a pleasure to recommend him for a commission if war with Mexico should break out.
With characteristic audacity Maverick seized what he thought was the ultimate opportunity to realize his ambition for a commission. General John J. Pershing was stopping over in San Antonio at a time when Maverick was attending a dance at a local hotel. Pershing and a fellow officer were looking in on the dance when Maverick spotted the general and dashed over to introduce himself. Then he asked his dancing partner to dance with the startled Pershing and asked another girl to dance with Pershing's friend. The officers stayed for awhile and seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. The next day Maverick called General Pershing and asked if he would like to see the historic sites of San Antonio "in my car." After some hesitation, Pershing agreed, and Maverick begged enough money from his father to rent a car for the excursion. He then picked up the same girls and proudly drove his captive general and his aide around the city. At the end of the sightseeing tour, Maverick thought the time was ripe to put the bite on the grateful general. But when he asked Pershing to help him get a commission, the crestfallen Maverick heard the general say, "Son, I'll tell you what to do. You go out to Fort Sam Houston and enlist, and you can tell them you have my recommendation."
When the United States did become involved in World War I, Maverick was one of the first men in San Antonio to enlist in the Army. In the spring of 1917 he was sent to the Federal Reserve Student Training Camp at Camp Funston, Leon Springs, Texas, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve on June 11, 1917. He kept up a constant barrage of letters, mainly to Representative Slayden, in an attempt to get an overseas assignment. He tried to get transferred to the air corps and even threatened to resign his commission and join the Canadian forces in order to get overseas." Slayden told him to "keep his shirt on," that policies could not be changed for an individual: "Even [Theodore] Roosevelt who has influence with hundreds of thousands of people almost as crazy as he is could not alter the predetermined course of events."
Maury was sent to join the First Colorado Infantry at Trinidad, Colorado, in September, 1917, and it was soon ordered to the Fortieth Division training base at Camp Kearney, Linda Vista, California. He was put in charge of a machine-gun company and was promoted to first lieutenant in the National Guard on December 21, 1917.
Maverick's first baptism of fire was in a different sort of war, which he was to fight in for the rest of his life—the struggle for human rights and human dignity. Many of the men under his command were of Mexican descent. Despite Maverick's repeated speeches emphasizing our great heritage of liberty and the necessity for "making the world safe for democracy," when questioned as to why they were fighting, these men could only answer, "De draft board, he send me here." Maverick persuaded the division commander that these men were being misunderstood and abused simply because they did not understand English. He organized language classes for the men and was doing reasonably well with them when a graver problem arose—two of the men deserted and were picked up in Mexico. Maverick was appointed to defend them. He reported, "I studied all about a soldier's constitutional rights—and also got some books on the subject of natural rights. At the trial, I quoted the statements of James Otis and Sam Adams on Natural Rights, made preceding the American Revolution." He went on to argue that these men did not understand what the war was about, that they knew nothing of American customs or the English language, and that it was therefore improper for them to have been drafted. He said he could not tell them why we were fighting, because he really didn't know either. Maverick was threatened with court-martial himself, but the commander relented and issued a memorandum (which Maverick did not mention in his own account of this affair) commending the Texas lieutenant for "his interest in conducting classes for soldiers of Mexican extraction." On the basis of Maverick's contention that the two men had acted out of ignorance rather than cowardice and that they needed help, the commander said that he desired that "this officer [Maverick] take personal charge of the instruction of the two men."
In the summer of 1918 Maverick was shipped overseas. After several days of "drunken brawling" in England, he landed in Cherbourg on September 4, 1918, as the band on the dock played the Marseillaise. In two days he was in the serious and gory business of fighting a war. He joined the First Division at Sarcy, France, as it was moving up to Saint-Mihiel and the front. During the battle of Saint-Mihiel, Maury was working with the regimental headquarters, directing the bringing up of ammunition. While reconnoitering a route for his ammunition wagons, he happened upon twenty-six German soldiers who, as Maury explains with unmatched candor, demanded to be captured and conducted to the rear. Before and after this battle, Maverick had written to his parents that the German soldiers were cowardly, "immoral to obscenity," and that they would not die "like men." He was soon to make a radical change in his views.
After the battle of Saint-Mihiel, Maverick sought and obtained a transfer back to his company and was made executive officer under Lieutenant Frank Felbel, a more experienced officer. There is none of the usual Maverick humor in his grim account of his part in the Argonne offensive, for which he received the Silver Star for gallantry in action. In powerful writing that compares favorably with that of Erich Maria Remarque, he tells a story of stumbling, almost blind, into the Argonne forest at two o'clock on the morning of October 1, 1918, of a loss of communications, of the sudden loss of his company commander, of companions blasted to pieces before his eyes, of heroics by inadvertency or instinct, and then of shell fragments biting into his shoulders and back as he stumbled through shell holes. In the unpublished account he dictated shortly after his experiences, he said: "How did you get back? The way it was with me, I could walk a little bit you see; I was staggering around. I tried to walk and then I got wounded again. I got lost and went back to the German lines. I went in the opposite direction to where I wanted to go and then I had to crawl back. . . . I crawled back all the way."
After this experience Maverick said that the "Germans were good fighters—I did not find any 'Kamerad' stuff that is talked about." He later said he did not deserve his medals and offered two pithy asides on the subject of heroism and medals. "The line between coward and hero is sometimes very indistinct. Men are suddenly brave or suddenly cowardly. In one moment of emotion they are likely to be branded for life, one way or the other—and wrongly. . . . Medals are not to reward brave men, but to keep men brave, and make them fight. The ruling classes have always attempted to build up the hero idea. It stops men from thinking."
In a moment when he was "half-drunk and bored," shortly after arriving in France, Maverick sat on the side of the road to Saint-Mihiel and wrote a half-serious, half-facetious will in which he specified that all young male heirs must never shirk military service. On June 8, 1931, perusing his notes and records as he often did, he wrote that he was ashamed of the document and attached the following commentary:
This document is kept in order that possibly some young man may run across this—and possibly I will save him from being a damned fool. If you go to war—but DON'T DO IT—don't get dramatic—NOBODY GIVES A DAMN ABOUT YOU, except your parents, and they can't help. This will is a fine example of VALOR (bunk), Unselfishness (childish egotism), and the rest of the traits the BIG BOYS work on us to go and murder somebody as their collectors. This letter is a true example of human vanity and false family values.
Remember—it takes MORE GUTS to refuse to fight, than it does to prance around in a uniform, and get shot at.
The almost fatally wounded Maverick finally made his way back through French-American lines to a field hospital, where he collapsed from loss of blood. When the field hospital was brought under enemy shell fire, he was moved to Base Hospital 115 at Vichy. After extensive surgery, it took him more than a month to get back on his feet, and he never fully recovered from the effects of his wounds. He apparently recovered enough, however, for a bit of revelry in Paris before the return voyage to New York in December of 1918. After a two-week sojourn in New York, he was sent to the Base Hospital at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, where he was discharged on February 16, 1919. On January 1, 1920, Maverick received a copy of general orders citing him for "gallantry in action and especially meritorious service," for which he was later awarded the Silver Star.
Almost immediately after Maverick had returned to his law practice in San Antonio, he was on his way abroad again, mainly to do some legal research in Dublin, Ireland, concerning a legacy left to the Right Reverend J. W. Shaw, archbishop of New Orleans. This trip lasted from early March to August of 1919. It is not treated in Maverick's semiautobiographical A Maverick American, and it is worth noting here only for whatever insight it offers into the development of the future politician. On the first leg of his trip he stopped off to see his devoted mentor, Aunt Ellen, who reported that "seeing Maury was just one more delight that I hadn't counted on. He. . . fussed with & abused his Uncle Sully & me as if he had been 3 yrs. old. His Uncle Sully was so overcome when he saw his wounds that he had to turn away & couldn't speak."
Scraps of records that Maverick kept indicate that much of his time was spent in traveling about the British Isles with major stops in Dublin, Edinburgh, and London. Though he apparently made a nice vacation out of this trip, he maintained the serious interests that were a part of his continuing self-education. He developed the habit at this time of jotting notes concerning people he had met and places he had visited and the habit of reading and studying as he traveled. In Dublin he bought a book of instructions on how to learn the Irish language and a series of public-affairs pamphlets such as The Nature and Rights of Property and Origin and Nature of Civil Authority by Reverend M. M. O'Kane, both published in Belfast in 1917, as well as Ulster's Opportunity: A United Ireland (Dublin, 1917) by "an Irish K.C."
It seemed that during this trip Maury's indulgent and devoted mother and aunt were engaged in a contest to determine which of them could present the most extravagant evidence of his prowess as a lady killer. Mama wrote that she had told a girl who complained that Maury's love letters were of no more than four lines that she "thought he was doing beautifully when one considered how many love letters you had to write." Less than two weeks later she made the following report: "The entire town is consumed with curiosity about your trip to Europe. Some girls insisted on knowing where you were & Ellen S. told them 'the Crown Prince of G. was suing for a divorce & that you were correspondent.' To Mac Houston she told 'that you had been hastily called to the Peace Convention to take Clemenceau's place.'"
But Maverick's days as a peripatetic bachelor were numbered. Shortly after he returned to San Antonio in the summer of 1919, he was attending a party at what is now the Texas Military Institute. A pretty, vivacious young woman was there named Terrell Louise Dobbs, who was living with her aunt and uncle, Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Terrell Jackson, in San Antonio. A friend, George Clifton, said to Miss Dobbs, "I want to introduce you to Maury Maverick; he's going to give a party at Sunshine Ranch, and he'll invite you." The two met, and Maverick invited her to the party. Maury Maverick was anything but handsome, indeed his nickname was "Ug," but women were attracted to him, and he was cocksure and persistent. Miss Dobbs sensed his design at first meeting and wrote to her sister, "This man thinks he's going to marry me, but he's not." She later received the formal invitation and a dance program that had been hand painted by Mrs. Albert Maverick, but she did not go to the party. Instead she went on a trip to Port Aransas with her aunt and uncle. The day after his party, Maverick called Miss Dobbs and announced that he was coming to Port Aransas. She met him at the ferry, and he asked her to marry him on the spot. She refused, and explains today with a coquettish air, "I was only ninetten, and besides, I had a few other things going on at the time."
Thereafter, Maverick moved steadily. He came to the house ostensibly to see her uncle and went to political meetings with him. But all the while Maverick was bombarding her with flowers, and he gradually ran off his less persistent rivals until Miss Dobbs agreed in December that she would marry him. They were married May 22, 1920, in San Antonio.
Terrell Maverick had wanted to be a June bride, but had she been there would have been no time for a honeymoon trip, because Maury Maverick had committed himself to be on hand in San Antonio to campaign for his uncle, Representative James L. Slayden, who faced a tough contest that he was to lose. This was Mrs. Maverick's initiation into politics, and, as she explained in 1962, "From that summer political activities in general and the Democratic primary elections in particular have dominated and enriched my life." It was an exciting life that she led as the wife of Maury Maverick—I was never bored," she said. It is doubtful that she ever bored her husband or anybody else for that matter. She is to this day a pretty, petite woman of great charm, enthusiasm, and verve. She had little formal education, but, like Ellen Slayden, she learned rapidly and outstripped many people with formal educations.
Maury Maverick was the dominant figure in his family, but Mrs. Maverick said, "Though I learned a lot from him, he didn't smother me." Her role was not limited to that of the attractive wife and mother who stands in the background of the spotlighted public figure. She had her own views, and Maverick respected and sought them. She not only accompanied him at political conventions and the like, but she was an active participant in her own right on many occasions. She gave him good-humored but unflattering criticisms of his speeches and decisions, and she helped to assuage his wounds, both real and political. Her talents can be readily perceived in the preface she wrote for Ellen Slayden's Washington Wife.
Two children were born to Maury and Terrell Maverick—a son, Maury, Jr., on January 3, 1921, and a daughter, Terrelita, on January 10, 1926. Maverick was, like his father, a devoted man. He had a good relationship with his children, not unlike that with his own father. He spent as much time with his children as he could, taking them on trips and swimming excursions. He also passed on to his children his father's love of nature and animals. Maverick once returned from a trip to Mexico with a pair of javelinas (peccaries), which he named Anthony and Cleopatra. Kept in the yard as pets, one eventually died and the other had to be shipped off to the zoo when it playfully sank its teeth into a visitor's hand. On another occasion he brought back a black bear and a mountain lion, which he gave to the San Antonio Zoo.
Maury, Jr.'s first recollection of his father was the sight of a "tremendous series of scars" that covered his body, and the agony that he suffered. Young Maury recalled that when he was about the age of seven his father would get up in the middle of the night and sit in a bathtub of hot water to ease the recurring pains from his wounds. Maury, Jr., would wander into the bathroom and stand there while his father talked to him about such subjects as world peace. "Papa always talked to me like an equal of sorts—always took me with him," said Maury, Jr., as he explained how his father showed him around Washington and introduced him to "great old-time newspaper people" and political leaders. He particularly remembers meeting Senator George Norris, regarded by his father as "the greatest living American."
The correspondence between Maury Maverick and his son and daughter in their youth reveals the same sort of affectionate jibes and good-humored criticism that was used by Albert Maverick—though Albert would not have been as earthy as this father and son. After one of several complaints from teen-aged Maury, Jr., concerning his assignment to latrine duty at Texas Military Institute, the parental advice was:
As for being corporal of the crapping can, there was once a great General in Athens who came back, and purposely to insult him, they put him in charge of the garbage and trash of the city and the emptying of the crappers. In order to humiliate his enemies, he made Athens the cleanest and most beautiful city in the world.
Therefore, if you wish to be famous, keep the toilets clean and you will go down in history as the greatest corporal who ever lived.
On another occasion, Maverick's teen-aged scion wrote to complain bitterly that he had not received a football letter to which he was sure he was entitled. He said that since his father had taught him that "you can't cuss" in letters, he would have to say that he had been "sexual intercoursed."
The Bootleg Decade
Maury Maverick's return to civilian life had taken place at the beginning of what he called the Bootleg Decade. He was elected president of the Bar Association at the age of twenty-four in 1919, married in 1920, and by the middle 1920's was raising a family and seemed to be on the road to stodgy and stultifying respectability. He joined the Kiwanis Club and the Lions Club and "made speeches about Progress (of the wrong kind) and Thrift (which also turns out to have been the wrong kind) and attended church once in a while." But the maverick inclinations were never clearly suppressed. He fought the Ku Klux Klan, headed off a movement to prevent violinist Fritz Kreisler from playing in San Antonio, and tried to liberalize his Bar Association. As its president he created and edited a little paper, The Whereas, for which he wrote a piece entitled "Koo Klucks Kondemned." Maverick, as the self-appointed "Imperious Gizzard," had held a "called meeting" attended only by himself at which the "Koo Klucks" had been judged as wearers of nightgowns who were "fully as mentally developed as an ape."
It was not long before the practice of law began to pall for Maverick's restless mind. He also explained that his effectiveness as a lawyer was often damaged by his tendency to sympathize with the opposite party in his law cases. In 1922 he became manager of the Hillyer-Deutsh-Jarett Lumber Company, and about two years later, with some assistance from his father, Maverick joined a friend in the organization of the Kelley-Maverick Lumber Company. He moved into the construction business and started to get "middlin' rich" ($50,000 to $60,000), but he later said that "Hoover got it all." In one of his displays of remarkable candor and self-criticism, he wrote, "The houses that I and others built were a disgrace to this country. This is no confession, but a fact. That is the reason that the government should subsidize housing. Human beings should not have to live in the rotten habitations handed to them by speculators.
Maverick was also moved to criticism of himself and his society by his experiences on a grand jury in February and March of 1924. He kept a notebook of "strictly private papers" on the entire course of events and included various musings on the nature of justice. He began his notes with the observation that laws on statutory rape and seduction were "barbaric." He wrote, "I must read more, and think more, on this subject." He later followed through on this implicit promise by studying some works in sociology. In one of them he wrote that his experience with the grand jury had presented him "with all of the malformations of society," and had caused him to begin a study of sociology and, more specifically, criminology.
In his "grand jury notebook" he told of the near-indictment of a Mexican-American for robbery before Maverick's insistence upon a more careful examination of witnesses revealed that no robbery had been committed! He commented:
Human beings seem to take human life very lightly, but they must remember that the lowest person on earth, whether he be Mexican or Negro, or anyone else, is entitled to full justice before the law; in fact, such people are entitled to it more than any other because they have less knowledge and money to work themselves out after they have been charged with a crime.
It seems that if some dumb, ignorant person commits some bungling crime, he is jerked in before the Grand Jury, charged with it and indicted because they have the dope on him, but that the real criminals are never caught. Take a man who has committed his first crime, which is really not criminal in its nature. He is guilty, there is no doubt about it. According to the law, he should go to the penitentiary and does, serves two years and returns to society. He finds it hard to get a job and has no character or courage left. . . he does not think he has committed such a great sin so he resentfully sets about to make himself an efficient criminal. This he does, and when he perfects himself, he commits robberies just heretofore mentioned, makes no mistakes, gets what he wants and stays out of jail. This is a sociological problem of course, of which the Grand Jury has no cognizance.
After a recital of various other cases that appeared before the grand jury, Maverick expressed the opinion that punishment was always "personal" and "vindictive." He felt that men must determine the real nature of crime—that they should study the heredity, physical make-up, emotional stability, environment as a youth and the present home conditions of an alleged criminal before determining his fate. It was Maverick's judgment that criminals should be examined by a board of "say six men—2 doctors, 2 lawyers, and 2 laymen" before disposition of their cases. But he came to the bitter conclusion that such a proposal was impossible because lawyers and doctors were afraid of public opinion where rape and the like were involved. He wrote, "Our theories of government and of religion are all against it"; all we apparently want is the type of government that "prohibits absolute anarchy."
This grand jury experience was not the only impetus to reading, study, and research for Maverick. He seemed to have an almost insatiable curiosity about all sorts of subjects, and he had the drive to pursue each of them until he felt that he was reasonably knowledgeable in that area. The 1920's marked the real flowering of Maverick's intellectual and scholarly interests. He was largely responsible for the establishment of a Carnegie Library in San Antonio, and he joined with friends in the establishment of the San Antonio Open Forum discussion group, which met at the old Main Avenue High School. In his brassy fashion he fought for a more salubrious scholarly climate at the University of Texas, and he embarked upon a renewed, major regimen of reading and study that made him a scholar of considerable attainment.
Perhaps the least-known qualities of this extraordinary Texas politician were his serious scholarship and his capacity for original thought. Why should his erudition have been relatively obscured? The reasons are several, but all are interrelated. For one thing, Maverick never tried to hide his poor academic record in college; in fact he called attention to it. Also, as a part of his studied irreverence, he developed a fondness for joshing, needling, or even bating the professors. The classic example was his treatment of his friend Dr. Rexford Guy Tugwell, who tried out one of his speeches on Maverick while the two were visiting Laredo, Texas. When the New Deal braintruster reached a point at which he spoke of workers and farmers "combining their genius" and forming a "nodule," Maverick exploded, "Rex, I am sore and insulted, and do not want to hear any more."
"Why?" asked Tugwell.
"What in God's name is a nodule?" said Maverick.
"A nodule is—" began the professor.
"Stop! Stop!" Maverick shouted. "Don't tell me. Whenever you use a word that I don't understand, it makes me mad. I am an American! The word nodule is not understood by the American people, nor is it understood by me, which makes it worse—and I do not want to know what it means. Nobody wants to listen to your academic phrases. Nodule my eye! Put your speech in simple language. I never heard of a 'nodule' before, so I don't like it. Besides," Maverick continued, "it sounds like sex perversion."
Maverick was given to the use of such deliberate exaggerations in order to make a point; his vocabulary was as extensive as that of most educated people, but he was very impatient with attempts to communicate with ordinary people in such language. Also, subsequent passages dealing with the above episode indicate both a genuine desire on the part of Maverick to bring about more effective communication and a desire to lash back at Tugwellian remarks about "demagoguery," from which Maverick seemed to be smarting:
Out there in these open spaces we enacted a scene which dramatized one of the fundamental failures of the Administration. Professors with wonderful ideas—but who can afford to have Olympian contempt for the politician, since they do not have to be elected.
No man could be elected, or if elected by accident, no man could stay in office if he used this Tugwellian jargon of abstruse and imcomprehensible polysyllables. . . .
The professorial jargon is an answer to an inferiority complex. The professor is at a loss in crowds, and to vindicate himself he uses big words which no one can understand. Since he cannot be elected himself, he builds up a distrust for the politician who can. For myself, I find it hard enough to be a progressive, thinking official, and at the same time get elected; but that is the only way we can accomplish anything: by being elected.
Maverick also avoided what he considered the curse of identification with the scholar by eschewing some of the stereotyped symbols. In 1932 he made a Washington Day address on San Antonio radio station WOAI. Requests for copies of the speech poured in from ten states as well as from many points in Texas, many of these people asking for copies of the "lecture" by Mr. Maverick! Two years later, while campaigning for Congress, "Professor" Maverick indicated that there would be no more of this political luxury. He said, "My friends came to me and told me that I was delivering good lectures to a college classroom, but that they were poor political speeches."
Various drafts of a number of his later speeches show clearly how he excised words he thought might be troublesome to his audiences or brand him with the mark of the intellectual. For example, a first draft of a radio address in 1936 started out with a reference to "anomalous situations," and wound up with a reference to "peculiar situations" in the final draft. When Maverick wrote a review of Wertenbaker's Torchbearer of the Revolution, he devoted an entire paragraph in his first draft to the consideration of the possibility of this book leading to more study of the "Virginia mind" and the influence of delusions of aristocracy. He omitted this passage completely in his second draft, and it did not appear in the published version.
His interest in promoting the cause of clear writing and speaking gave rise to the contribution for which Maverick is probably best known, the coinage of the word gobbledygook and the elaboration of his argument for terse, lucid prose. After taking such a positive stand, he could scarcely run the risk of being caught in the use of anything vaguely resembling professorial jargon.
Finally, the scholarly side of Maury Maverick was obviously obscured by his personal characteristics and appearance—a greater contrast to the stereotype of the scholar would be difficult to find. He was a bullish, lusty, brash type, given to the earthiest sort of language, and he could slug it out with the best of them in the political arena. He just did not fit the part of the intellectual; it would be like expecting a giant football tackle to play Mozart on a spinet. Also, most newspaper reporters were much more interested in telling their readers about the Maverick who was "knocking them dead" or "rolling them in the aisles" of the House of Representatives. Scholarship generally makes poor copy.
But there were more than a few indications that Maverick had not only a great respect for scholarship and the scholars, but even that he aspired to the groves of Academe himself. He was drawn to academic men, and they in turn were drawn to him. In the same book in which he lambasted Tugwell and other professors, Maverick could write, "The march of the professor is the greatest advance in the history of our government. We are just beginning to slough off the philosophy of 'Old Rough and Ready.' It's high time."
Even in his student days, when much of his time was spent in sniping at professors, Maverick could leap to their defense if a serious charge were made. When he was a sophomore student at the University of Texas, he saw a letter in the Daily Texan by Harrison F. Lane (an admitted pseudonym) attacking a professor for baiting students and "pouncing on some luckless freshman." Replying the next day, young Maverick said that the professor's action was "fully warranted" on the basis of the students' "utter lack of preparing their lessons and being boneheads." He said he had been one of the victims, and that he had deserved it. His conclusion was that the professors were entitled to more respect, and he characterized the student's failure to sign his name as a cowardly act.
In the 1920's, despite his poor academic record and his own reputation as a campus playboy and ne'er-do-well, Maverick was greatly disturbed by what he conceived to be happening to his University of Texas. Big-time football was then coming into its own in the Southwest and other parts of the country, and, moreover, university administrators and faculties were not only plagued with the problems of financing the growing institutions but were also beset with the poking and probing of legislatures and boards of regents bent upon preserving religious and political orthodoxies.
In a statement prepared sometime in the summer of 1923, Maverick charged that the University of Texas was becoming demoralized through the reprehensible actions of the Board of Regents and its chairman, H. J. Lutcher Stark. One of Maverick's specific indictments was:
Recently they wasted their time passing unnecessary resolutions on the religious views of the professors. Then they did something smaller and meaner than any Spanish Court of Inquisition ever did—they called in Dean H. Y. Benedict and tried to give him the third degree of his religious views, asking him, among other things, none of which were any of their business, of what church he was a member, and if he had baptized his baby. Church affiliations, and baptism of professors' babies hardly constitutes the regents' business. Yet the ex-students stood by and I heard not one word of condemnation from any ex-student over the State. I have talked to numbers of ex-students who seem to think it amounts to nothing, but it is as vital a question as can be imagined.
Old-timers at the University of Texas remember this incident, but it apparently took place behind closed doors and the newspapers avoided it. On July 11, 1923, the Daily Texan and the Austin American simply reported that the Board of Regents had, without explanation, passed a resolution prohibiting any "infidel, agnostic or atheist" from holding any position with the university. Such a person could not be hired, nor could anyone "continue in office" unless he believed "in God as the supreme being and the ruler of the universe." The American made no comment on the resolution, and the Texan simply stated that the resolution was probably designed to do no more than "reassure the people of the state as to the university's position on religion" and to "quiet" criticism of religious views at the university. An editorial the next day, however, complained of lengthy closed meetings of the Board of Regents and suggested that "some progressive college" might try holding board meetings that would be open to the public.
As Robert H. Montgomery, professor emeritus of economics at the university, remembers this incident, which most of his colleagues knew about at that time, Dean Benedict held his own in the encounter. When a member of the Board of Regents asked him if his beliefs would comport with their newly adopted resolution, Benedict is said to have asked if his belief in an "anthropomorphic God" would be satisfactory. The puzzled regent looked around at his equally bewildered colleagues and asked them if they thought that would be all right, and they, with some uncertainty, voiced approval.
Further charges by Maverick in the 1923 statement involved the machinations by which Stark attempted to make the governor of Texas, Pat M. Neff, the next president of the university. Maverick said that Stark was a "willing tool" who was "trying to work something out for himself." The presidency was vacant at this time, and it was reported in February of 1923 that Neff and Start had conferred at length and that the governor would soon be offered the presidency, to be assumed at the end of his term as governor. What proved to be an abortive "Stark for Governor" movement was also reportedly underway in Austin. In May, Raymond Brooks of the Austin American said that the regents would probably offer the presidency to Neff, and if that were to happen he would accept. A few days later the executive council of the ex-students association went on record as opposing the selection of Neff. Later in the month the regents named W. S. Sutton as acting president, and though the presidency was eventually offered to Neff, he declined, and the post went to Dr. W. M. W. Splawn, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission and former chairman of the economics department at the university.
The development of athletics, particularly football, as a consuming mania of university students, ex-students, and regents began in the early 1920's. At the University of Texas the turning point seemed to be about 1921. At that time the week's athletic events were taking up the lead story space in the Daily Texan, and, though there were some editorial murmurs against overemphasis on athletics in the early part of 1922, by May of that year the editor wrote apologetically that he could do no more than provide the students with what they clearly wanted. By the mid-twenties the entire front page of the Texan was frequently devoted to athletic contests.
Maverick deplored this trend. In his statement he charged that the regents and many of the ex-students were guilty of fostering athletics at the cost of other aspects of education. He admonished, "A stadium is not of itself a healthy sign. At the peak of the wealth of Rome, there was a fine coliseum, a fine place for the rabble to go to watch the gladiatorial sports, but it was the beginning of degeneracy, which finally ruined the empire. A stadium might be a healthy sign, if education flourished commensurately, but it does not."
Football, said Maverick, was a particular mania of Lutcher Stark, chairman of the Board of Regents. Stark had announced in November of 1922 plans for a concrete stadium designed to seat "between fifty and sixty thousand people," and he became chairman of the drive to raise funds for it. When such matters were brought before an ex-students meeting in San Antonio in 1924, Maverick rose and told President Splawn and his fellow ex-students that "athletics, booze and society" were ruining the university. He wanted to know who could justify the construction of a unit of a million dollar stadium—"a temple of athletics"—while students were freezing and experiencing various other discomforts in "flimsy shacks [on] the campus." He was ready to raise funds, he said, but not for athletics.
Maverick's reward was condemnation in the Daily Texan for a "vicious attack" that was not worthy of comment. But two years earlier another editor of the Texan had called attention to the conditions Maverick described. In February of 1922, regents were urged to have a look at the dilapidated shacks in which many students lived. These quarters were described as having large cracks in the floors, walls through which dust and dirt sifted, and inadequate heat. A year later another Texan editor complained that half of the work of the university was still being done in more than twenty wooden shacks that "clutter the campus." He pointed not only to heating problems, but also to the problem of maintaining an atmosphere favorable to learning in shacks nearly wide-open to the outdoors. Maverick could have used other ammunition to demonstrate that threats to the development and maintenance of a first-rate scholarly community at the University of Texas existed in this period. A considerable number of faculty members left the university in August of 1921 when a faction of the Texas House of Representatives known as the "salary slashers" pushed through a cut in faculty salaries by a two-to-one vote as part of a general retrenchment program. The measure was defeated in the Texas Senate by one vote, but only after severe criticism was leveled at the Legislature by an aroused press.
It seems likely that Maverick's concern for the scholarly community could be attributed in part to his own incipient aspirations to the professorial. In later years such a suggestion was made by a distinguished professor, the late Robert C. Brooks, Joesph Wharton Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College and president of the American Political science Association. Brooks wrote in 1938, "No doubt it will grieve the Congressman sadly, but it must be said that, much as he affects to deride professors, he possesses many traits of that species." The Swarthmore professor backed up his contention with a recital of Maverick's reading habits, his writing of book reviews, and, finally, a "typical academic lecture" that Maverick gave at Swarthmore with the "characteristic fault of such discourses, the effort to cover too much ground." The clinching evidence of Maverick's yen for the halls of ivy is to be found in a letter in which he applied for a position in political science at the University of Chicago after his defeat in the race for a third term in Congress. His application was rejected pending the appearance of his second book, In Blood and Ink, a study of constitutional development in the United States with particular emphasis on economic justice and civil liberties, and he did not subsequently pursue the matter.
But Maverick pursued diligently his renewed program of self-education in the 1920's as he began to build an impressive personal library of serious works in the areas of ethics, philosophy, sociology, and political science. A great many of these books were conveniently marked with the dates on which he read them. Others, even more conveniently, contained liberal annotations by Maverick, reaching on occasion such researcher's riches as a half dozen tipped in sheets of Maverick's commentaries. At one point he even indulged himself in the minor conceit of writing a note to his biographer to explain, "I didn't mark the above passage, Aunt Ellen did."
An anonymous newspaper reporter wrote in 1937: "Anyone who assumes that Maverick is just a clown will be surprised to learn that he became a member of the bar at the age of 20 and that he was president of the San Antonio Bar Association at 24. He knows his Shakespeare, his Milton and his Greek mythology. His brother, Dr. George Maverick, tells me that Maury is one of the leading authorities on Erasmus in this country, but George is an industrial research chemist and you know what unreliable fellows scientists are.
It is often anybody's guess what an authority is, but it is not open to question that Maverick was a careful student of Erasmus. His library contained eight different works on Erasmus, most of them with liberal annotations by their owner. His wife said that there were a number of others that have since disappeared (perhaps given away—if Maverick liked a person, he would sometimes impulsively give him a book.) Maverick's copy of Preserved Smith's Erasmus contained a letter, pasted inside the front cover, from the Cornell University Erasmus scholar in which he thanked Maury for his criticisms of the book and concluded, "I shall learn something from your dissent." Still another volume is inscribed, "For Maury Maverick, whose ideas helped create this edition of Erasmus, Sincerely, Pascal Covici" (publisher).
As he read Erasmus, Maverick marked with approval such passages as those in which Erasmus was cited in favor of freedom of expression and in opposition to the likes of unwarranted search and seizure. He particularly emphasized this passage: "[Sir Thomas] More would die for his faith, and would have you punished for yours; Erasmus would be companionable and chatty and courteous and tolerant even to an infidel. . . he let his mind play freely on the sacred arcana of the traditional faith; that he recognized reason as the final arbiter in these matters as well as in social and political affairs—all this is the noble genius of Erasmus."
There is a strong indication that Maverick got some of his penchant for pricking bubbles of conceit and letting "very dry sawdust out of stuffed shirts" from sources other than William C. Brann. He was an inveterate reader of Voltaire's Candide and the works of François Rabelais. He was so delighted with Candide and the great Dr. Pangloss, who taught "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology," that he often mentioned it in letters to friends and acquaintances throughout his life. A copy of this book was his most characteristic gift to persons who took his fancy. A former assistant and friend tells the story of Maverick, then chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, stopping on a New York street and turning to him to say, "Have you read Candide?" When the response was no, the bustling Maverick pulled his friend into a bookstall and bought him the book.
Maury had several unexpurgated editions of Rabelais that he read and reread throughout his life. He chuckled and chortled over the doings of Panurge, Pantagruel, and Gargantua and even kept a copy handy in the "library with plumbing."
Most of Maverick's reading was nonfiction, but there were other works of fiction that particularly interested him. He read James Joyce's Ulysses, probably because he found out that he wasn't supposed to, and then became so interested in Joyce's style and technique that he attempted a Maverick novel in that mold, though he said that he did not "consciously plagiarize" Joyce. He made this statement when he sent a partial rough draft to his friend H. L. Mencken, who commented: "I confess that this stuff seems rather obvious to me. But it certainly falls in with the fashion and so I believe that if you complete the book there may be some chance to publish it. Probably no American publisher would tackle it, but in Paris there are several firms that specialize in such extremes. One of them during the past three or four years has printed five or six books of genuine importance, including Ludwig Lewisohn's last novel and the first book of Ernest Hemingway." Maverick was disgruntled by Mencken's lack of enthusiasm, and the book was never finished.
Another of Maverick's favorites was Anatole France. He apparently read everything the French satirist wrote. In his copy of France's The Latin Genius, he noted that he had read the book in September 1924, and his interest in France is demonstrated by the fact that Maverick inserted in the book no less than eight articles on the French novelist, beginning with a newspaper clipping reporting his death in 1924. Maverick's views indicated that he was probably attracted to and influenced by what Robert Dell referred to as France's "benevolent cynicism" and his exposure of the "follies of patriotism," that is, in its excesses.
Other fiction that interested and impressed Maverick was Hugo's Les Misérables; The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Vincente Blasco Ibáñez; the works of Henry Fielding (particularly The History of Tom Jones); Cervantes' Don Quixote, and Proust's Swann's Way. Maverick kept several editions of Alice in Wonderland and used quotations from it frequently in his speeches and writing. Though he read very widely, he seems not to have paid much attention to lighter fiction.
Maverick's study of nonfiction works was remarkable for a lawyer-businessman who had made a poor academic record in college. It is, of course, impossible to know all of the books he read, but a more-than-representative sample can be found in those that he either noted as having read or marked with varying amounts of annotation. Most of this reading was in the areas of religion and moral philosophy, political theory, history, and, more specifically, civil liberties and pacifism. The list provides and outline of the causes that Maverick was to champion in his public career.
It appears that he read nearly everything that was available by or about Thomas Jefferson, but he did most of his marking and annotations in Albert J. Nock's Jefferson and in The Writing of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb, the twenty-volume memorial edition. In the Nock book Maverick marked several passages dealing with the right of revolution and gave particular emphasis to, "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." Maverick's extensive markings in the memorial edition of Jefferson were almost entirely confined to moral philosophy and religion, particularly liberal Christianity. For example, he gave heavy marking to this passage: "And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason, and freedom of thought in these United States, will do away all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated Reformer of human errors."
At the age of 29, Maverick indicated that he was impressed by religious passages in other works, one of which was particularly related to politics and public morality. He marked these passages heavily with red pencil, whereas he usually marked or noted with ordinary pencil or pen. He noted the argument of Dr. L. P. Jacks, professor of philosophy at Oxford and a leading Unitarian, to the effect that there was little hope of educating and freeing the minds of the people through politics because the politician seeks nothing but power, and then he underlined heavily, "The quest of the human spirit is Goethe's dying cry, Light—more Light. And it is from these men [those outside of politics] that I look to get a nobler system of education. They will compel the politicians to act, perhaps get rid of the present race of politicians altogether."
In George Bernard Shaw's preface to Androcles and the Lion, Maverick marked passages indicating the trend in his thinking that linked liberal Christianity to social justice. He underlined one passage in which Shaw wrote that Christ "advocates communism, the widening of the private family," and "the organic conception of society in which you are not an independent individual but a member of society." Maverick then placed a large X beside a passage beginning, "He was to take away the sins of the world by good government, by justice and mercy, by setting the welfare of little children above the pride of princes."
In addition to reading Ruskin, Proudhon, and others, Maverick seems to have hung on every word of Sinclair's The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. In addition to marking dozens of passages, he prepared an index inside the front cover to those items he considered most important. For example, he cites "The Wrongfulness of Riches," by Grant Allen, and the passage, "If you are on the side of the spoilers, then you are a bad man. If you are on the side of social justice you are a good one. There is no effective test of high morality at the present day save this." Maverick also marked and carefully indexed related remarks by William Lloyd Garrison, James Oppenheim, Martin Luther, Vergil, Henry David Thoreau, Ruskin, Abraham Lincoln, and O-Shi-O (an eighteenth-century Japanese scholar).
Maverick's ego and determination to do his own thinking could be seen in his markings in Emerson's writings. He was particularly interested in the essay "History" and in Emerson's contention that history is "in the soul" of men who make it—" all must be explained from individual history." In "Self-Reliance," Maverick underlined, "Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought."
When Maverick read plays in these early years, he turned to Moliere, Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Shaw, and particularly the social-problem plays of Henrik Ibsen. His favorite poet was Rabindranath Tagore, and he indicated that he read Tagore's philosophical works as well, though none appeared in his library.
While still in his regimen of reading, roughly about 1928, Maverick began to make some tentative expressions of his ideas. First it was in the attempted war novel, next it was in some lines of verse and finally in speeches and memoranda as he decided to make the move into politicas in 1930.
A year before the 1929 crash, he began to express his concern with what he felt to be the inequities and injustices of our economic and social system; he had already been active in defense of the rights of individuals and in support of the American Civil Liberties Union. He dashed off some verses that, though they may not bring him posthumous fame as a poet, revealed his attempts to pin down some of the ideas that were chasing around in his head. One untitled fragment reads in part:
The effect of these reflections on his conscience may be seen in:
In another untitled fragment he questioned his own motives and sincerity: "Who is this Maury Maverick?/ Bum, villain, leader or hick?/ Are these true, honest and loyal aspirations/ These big, noisy and egocentric gyrations?
Maverick was vaguely seeking some sort of New Deal before the depression created the urgency. After having analyzed the factors contributing to a great disparity between the lot of the wealthy and that of the poor, he considered the solutions offered by doctrinaire philosophies. In his unfinished war novel (1928), he has Lieutenant Harrick (obviously Lieutenant Maverick) express the opinion that the Bolsheviks "bore us all," for they are "tiresome, they often smell bad, and they know nothing of American psychology," But Maverick did know something of American psychology. HIs Harrick rejected the socialists as providing an intellectual diet of "milk and water" and as having "no leadership." Said Harrick, "Radicalism in this country must be American. We have no proletariat, no working class—only people who expect to get rich." This assertion anticipated the thesis so ably presented by Arthur N. Holcombe twelve years later. A key point is Holcombe's thesis concerning the middle class as the foundation of our political system is that regardless of statistics of income levels, most Americans think of themselves as middle class—there is no proletariat.
With his office as tax collector as a springboard, Maverick began to make speeches and to engage in actions that reflected the results of his extensive reading and thinking. HIs first speeches were appraisals of what had created the depression; these were followed by another set suggesting what was to be done. In what appears to have been his first radio address, he charged the American people with having been blind or delinquent in their failure to meet the problems arising from the end of the frontier and the mounting complexities and interdependence that came with industrialization. H blasted the political leadership (and himself, by implication) of the 1920's in this tirade: "During this time that we were so carefree, men who roared about religion and who had small souls, men who prated about their knowledge but who had no brains, men who spoke of vision but who had no vision, all the puppets of the special interests, political buffoons, rode into office and wealth and bureaucratic jobs in our government. They are out of touch with the heart and soul of America—indeed, they have never been in touch with the people, their needs, their aspirations, their subjectives.
Maverick, then, anticipated not only the New Deal, but the type of leadership that would make it. With remarkable prescience, he said that Lincoln had been a great man because "he sensed the sweep of a powerful feeling among the people and became its spokesman," and he gave this description of the "next great man": "He isn't going to be an expert who sits down and draws up a plan that he believes ought to work according to the old rules. He's going to be a man who can sense the trend of the times. He'll be more of a spokesman for the muddled ideas in the public mind than he will be a prophet. So many of our political prophets have led us astray that we wouldn't believe them now even if they told the truth." Maverick could have been referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had met FDR, and had said in 1929 that he was the only man who could be elected on the Democratic ticket. But he may have been expressing Maverick aspirations as well.
What the men of the New Deal arrived at, essentially, was a loose plan for popping timbers in here and there to try to shore up a tottering economic and social system. Though some absolutists served to prod, few of these men were doctrinaire or felt that they had the plan, for this is the "genius of American politics," as Professor Boorstin has so aptly and provocatively explained. When asked for his impressions of Maverick's philosophy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., wrote in part, "One felt about him that he revived and expressed the sound, native American instinct for freedom as the way in which democracy makes its progress—the same instinct one found in different ways in men like Lincoln, Mark Twain, the La Follettes, Frederick Jackson Turner." Boorstin had used the names and ideas of two of these men, Lincoln and Turner, to illustrate his thesis. The pattern of eclecticism, however, is not cut to an exact fit for Maury Maverick. It fitted at times, but he was more radical and more inclined to some philosophical absolutes then many of his contemporaries.
As a part of his regimen of serious reading in the 1920's Maverick had read some of the works of Mohandas K. Gandhi, and he wrote the following commentary to an Indian author with whom he had discussed Gandhi: "You say to hell with politics. Well, I just can't help it, but politicians irk me so that I must hurl bricks and must get very angry. Deep down in my heart I think Gandhi is one of the world's greatest men and possibly the greatest man of all time, and that his principles are right, but I can't stand for them personally. Action I must have."
Maverick found his opportunity for action in a political upheaval beginning to take shape in San Antonio at the end of the decade. In 1929 growing resentment against the machine-ridden politics of Bexar County and San Antonio began to boil up in the Alamo city. On November 23, 1929, a weekly tabloid newspaper, The Bexar Facts, appeared on the streets of San Antonio with the avowed purpose of printing the "truth" that other newspapers would not touch and of exposing the city-county "ring," which has been referred to as one of the most "durable, solidly entrenched political machines in the United States." Earle B. Mayfield, a former U.S. senator and member of the Texas Railroad Commission, charged in a gubernatorial campaign speech in San Antonio in 1930: "The Bexar County machine can give Tammany Hall of New York lessons when it comes to holding crooked elections and counting candidates out who have been honestly elected. This machine not only pays the poll taxes for several thousand fictitious persons and distributes these poll taxes to its henchmen who vote five to fifteen times in each election, but goes so far as to have the tally sheets made up the night before the election.
On another occasion, William Aubrey, styled as the dean of the San Antonio Bar, said in a radio address in San Antonio: "Bexar County has become a byword for the impurity of its elections. This notoriety is not based on idle rumor but is the inevitable result of exhaustive and published investigations by an unprejudiced congressional committee, the reports and indictments by your grand jury, by the action of your own District Attorney's office and by official prosecutions instituted by your Attorney General based upon independent examination of the facts involved and supported by the affidavits of some of your best fellow citizens."
The Bexar Facts kept up a barrage of criticism of the "ring" and all its works throughout late 1929 and early 1930. There were attacks upon the city-county machine for condoning the existence of a state-wide liquor-combine headquarters in San Antonio, and exposures of poll-tax frauds, favors to pet contractors and either blandishments or threats to still the voices of opponents. In February 1930 Donovan Weldon, editor of The Bexar Facts, openly charged what he had been hinting at for some months—that Frank Huntress (publisher of the San Antonio Evening News and the morning Express,) had "played false to those who had confidence in him and his newspapers." Weldon said that while he was city editor of the News he was "under strict orders to allow nothing to be printed which might injure Mayor C. M. Chambers, the City-County political ring, or any of its members." Aubrey later charged that the Express was the "organ of the Ring," and Frank C. Davis, a leader of the Citizens League, told a meeting that the "Morning Excuse" and the "Evening Nuisance" had "deliberately lied" and had engaged in "unwarranted partisanship" and "unwarranted attacks . . . upon a majority of the people" of San Antonio. Weldon on occasion urged his readers to get their daily news from the San Antonio Light, a Hearst paper.
Maury Maverick had no official connection with this new publishing venture, but his close association with the tabloid paper and its causes was obvious from the outset. In one of the early issues, the story of Maury's successful fight against a traffie ticket became a vehicle for praising him as a "free-thinker, businessman and traditional foe of machine government." It also proved to be the occasion to anticipate that machine forces would try to bring up past misdeeds of Maverick such as the time when he "whipped a city policeman on Houston Street" in 1925 for calling him "vile names what would force any red-blooded Texan to use his fists." In the next issue of the paper, following a recital of machine activities, there was a report that "people" were urging Maverick to run for sheriff. Again Maverick was characterized as a "fighting free-thinker" not aligned with any faction—the kind of "honest and fearless" man needed.
The first report of organizational efforts against the "ring" came in January 3, 1930, issue of The Bexar Facts. Opposition to machine government had been growing steadily for years, and now seemed to be "crystallizing. . . into a concrete foundation for an organization to oppose ring candidates at the polls." Two weeks later an unsigned letter to the editor expressed the opinion that there were not ten men who would have "guts enough to oppose the ring openly," but in the same issue there was an account of a meeting of "fifty leading business and professional men" for planning purposes and for discussion of the issue that was to prove to be the opening gun of the campaign against the machine. In connection with this report, Maverick was quoted in opposition to a major city bond issue proposal. He said that the bond issue was unnecessary and designed only to satisfy the machine's "own political purposes." A week later, amidst reports of defections and dissension in the machine, there was a story of a meeting of businessmen at the home of Walter W. McAllister (now mayor of San Antonio). J. Roy Murray, an automobile dealer, was quoted as saying that the group planned to support a complete ticket against the "present administration." These meeting laid the groundwork for the emergence of the San Antonio Citizens League a few months later.
Before the Citizens League emerged, there was another organization with a similar name, the San Antonio Civic League. This group of businessmen had secured a nonprofit corporation charter from the state of Texas. Maury Maverick was chairman of the board of directors and presided at the first meeting in the Menger Hotel on February 21, 1939. This group apparently faded out as the later San Antonio Citizens League was organized.
In late February Maverick began to write a series of articles in The Bexar Facts in which he charged that the bond issue was unnecessary and demanded that there be an independent audit of city expenditures. As the series went on he added an attack upon recent city attempts to annex farm and ranch land adjoining San Antonio. Maverick had a personal interest in this matter; his father, Albert Maverick, had filed suit to prevent the annexations. The bond issue provided the basis for the reform movement's first test against the machine, and Maverick's carefully drawn arguments played a major role in that fight. In private notes, however, he credited the San Antonio Light with "getting the ball rolling" in the bond issue fight.
In March the machine struck back at the relentless hammering of The Bexar Facts. Editor Weldon and fourteen news vendors were arrested and charged with violation of an archaic city "advertising" ordinance. After an impassioned defense argument by attorney Walter Groce (assisted by Maury Maverick and others), the defendants were acquitted.
During April The Bexar Facts began the exposure of poll-tax frauds by printing affidavits of aliens and minors who had had poll taxes bought for them and delivered to them by representatives of the machine.
At a mass meeting on April 7, 1930, more than two thousand citizens gathered to oppose the bond issue. A resolution was adopted to establish a permanent organization to fight the city-county machine. This was the nonpartisan (for a short time) Citizens League of San Antonio. A. B. Weakley was elected chairman of the meeting and the organization. Maury Maverick made one of the major speeches to the gathering. In his address he chided the city administration for providing a dance hall for Negroes instead of the library for which funds had been originally allocated and then, adding insult to injury, requiring them to pay rent for the facility. Mayor Chambers made the mistake of labeling the participants in this meeting "a few clowns and soreheads." The meeting was not even mentioned by the Huntress papers.
The Bexar Facts continued to expose poll-tax frauds and was able to report the arrest of deputy poll-tax collectors for racketeering as the election drew near. On May 5 the bond issue was defeated by a narrow margin of 17,575 to 17,483. The paper charged that more than one thousand illegal votes had been cast in the bond election. This contention proved to be correct; almost two months later city attorneys reported that 1,166 illegal votes were cast in the election.
With the bond election victory behind them, the Citizens League moved on to the next phase of their struggle with the now foundering machine. On May 16 Maury Maverick presided at a meeting of the league at which The Bexar Facts reported that there were "riotous cheers" for the leaders and a determination to do battle. The same issue of the paper carried an advertisement in which the league announced: ". . . the Citizens League was organized for the purpose of striking off the shackles of the political ring which has dominated the City and County for many years, and restoring free government in San Antonio and Bexar County."
The organization met at Beethoven Hall on May 19 to select a nominating committee to name a complete slate of candidates for all local offices in the approaching Democratic primary. On June 4 "thousands" met and accepted the slate provided by the committee, which had named candidates from legislative seats down to local precinct chairmen. The nominee for county tax collector was Maury Maverick. In a major spread in The Bexar Facts), he was characterized as "an active defender, frequently against organized odds, of the civil liberties and public rights," and praised as the man primarily responsible for the establishment of a Carnegie Library in San Antonio. Maverick said privately that his reason for accepting the nomination was that he felt that he could perform the public service of eliminating bogus poll taxes, of which there were seven thousand according to his estimate. In political advertisements, which he wrote himself, he urged his supporters to elect the entire ticket—the important thing was a Citizens League victory, not his personal victory.
The league slate for the Democratic primary was endorsed by the respected Republican (!) Congressman Harry M. Wurzbach in a speech at Alamo Plaza July 3. He said, in part, that "honest service cannot be reconciled with the acts proved against the ring candidates. Honest public service and stealing elections won't mix." He said that he held most county officials responsible for participation in election irregularities, and said of the Citizens League, "There is not a man on the ticket who is a spoilsman."
On July 31 the Citizen League and Maury Maverick won a sweeping victory over the now discredited and disintegrating machine. In typical Maverick fashion, no sooner had he won the office of tax collector than he began to urge that it be abolished. In December of 1930 the "militant leader of the Citizens League" was quoted as advocating that the offices of tax collector, tax assessor, and county treasurer be combined into one office. He said that in this connection he had been conferring with legislative leaders of a movement to provide meaningful home rule for Texas counties in order that they might effect savings of thousands of dollars. The movement, of course, has not yet succeeded.
The position of tax collector is more important than it may sound, for Bexar County was and is one of the largest (290,000 population then) metropolitan areas in Texas, and the office had the all-important responsibility for issuance of poll-tax receipts. Maverick was credited with carrying out his campaign promises and with doing a good job of reorganizing the office, sharply reducing costs of operation, facilitating the payment of poll taxes and generally conducting an efficient operation. When he was attacked by the almost always hostile San Antonio News for ignorance and inefficiency, he addressed this memorandum to his employees:
Here's what we'll do: BE STILL MORE EFFICIENT. Treat everybody fairly. If you know of some man who calls himself my enemny, FORGET IT. Treat him with the utmost courtesy, and let him realize this is a PUBLIC OFFICE where everybody gets a SQUARE DEAL. In the Courthouse, DON'T TALK POLITICS, but what is much better, HIT THE BALL. Let us always DO OUR DUTY and treat people of this County just as they are treated by any intelligent business concern.
Let there be no waste of time, money or equipment. Let us conduct an office which will be a credit to the who STATE OF TEXAS. And if by any chance you wish to play politics for me—then play it by giving QUICK, HONEST, AND COURTEOUS SERVICE.
In the first term as tax collector Maverick saw the depression "hit like a cyclone," and by the middle of 1932 he viewed its effects on San Antonio as terrifying. Before that date he had already been engaged in a number of relief activities. For example, he organized and directed a "Babies Ball" to raise milk money for indigent children, and, as commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he spent his own money to aid fellow veterans. But by 1932 circumstances had worsened and many citizens of San Antonio and Bexar County were in a desperate plight—it was reported that as many as eleven thousand applicants for relief had been made.
Maverick rolled up his sleeves and began to practice what he had read and preached. He urged Governor Ross Sterling to provide relief assistance, and he joined in the establishment of a Central Veterans Committee for aid to veterans and their families. When the Central Relief Committee for San Antonio was established, Maverick asked the governor to appoint him to the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, which was to disburse the funds received by the state from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In addition to managing the funds, Maverick wrote many letters soliciting contributions to supplement the limited amount provided through state assistance, and he had considerable success. The substantial nature of his contribution may be judged from the following letter from W. M. Cadmus, secretary of the C. Spangler Lodge of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen in San Antonio:
Your activities are well known to the membership of this organization in which you have shown the unselfish spirit so necessary at this time. It is known that you have personally furnished supplies, and personally supervised distribution, as well as giving time and energy to the point of personal hardship in having shelter made available to the destitute.
The thanks of this lodge is hereby extended to you, Mr. Maverick. Your activities in relief work will go down in history as an outstanding example of sacrifice for starving humanity.
Maverick's major venture as a member of the Central Veterans Committee was the establishment of what began as camp for transient veterans and then became an experiment in communal living. The War Veterans Relief Camp was organized on October 18, 1932, at Exposition Park in San Antonio, where remnants of the Bonus Army were camping. Maverick was designated director and R. R. Rogers was the camp commander. At first the camp was only a place where transients might get a meal and a place to sleep in nondescript shelters. Food was provided partly through relief funds and partly through contributions of local merchants and farmers. The first camp census (October 19, 1932) listed forty-three adults and thirty-two children. Maverick kept up constant correspondence and leg work securing salvage cooking equipment, surplus army clothing, and other necessities for the increasing number of camp dwellers.
On November 21, 1932, a terse "Colony Order No. 2" appeared, informing residents that, "Effective this date this camp will be known as the Diga Colony, Frio City Road and Mr. Maverick will be known as the Colony Director. It is desired that the word 'camp' be dropped from the record and conversation entirely. The order signaled the move of the camp to a thirty-fir-acre site that Maverick had secured from the Humble Company and announced the launching on an original self-help community, the Diga Colony.
Maverick conceived of a utopian scheme by which the unemployed transients might completely rehabilitate themselves. He said that the basic aims were to provide "Housing, regular and proper diet, education, character building and a normal life." It was his view that widespread unemployment and indigence made it necessary to "start the recolonization and repatriation of the people and somehow have a change in the economic order and in this way people will be finally adjusted."
The tireless and idealistic tax collector secured a number of boxcars from the Missouri Pacific Railroad and had the cars moved to the site. Somehow, somewhere he was able to "chisel," as he put it, enough materials to permit colonists to convert the cars into decent habitations. Maverick was also the inspiration for programs of training in various crafts. Some food was grown in the colony area, and labor was bartered for farm products in the surrounding area. A clinic and an employment agency were also established. Maverick, with the zeal of a make-the-world-over-today reformer, even had Dr. Robert H. Montgomery, an economics professor at the University of Texas, give lectures in economics to the youths in order that they might understand the problems they faced and the significance of such experiments as Diga.
A fairly rigorous discipline would result in expulsion from the colony residents. Breaches in discipline would result in expulsion from the colony, and the records reveal several such actions. Children were required to attend school and parents had to give a strict accounting of any tardiness. Parents who were not working were expected to perform kitchen duty or supervisory work in the common dining hall. Maverick was responsible for the rule that men who earned money outside the colony were required to donate one-third to one-half of their earnings, depending upon whether they were single or married, to the Diga Colony Fund. Curt notices appeared from time to time with such messages as: "Effective this date and until further orders all men in the Colony, not on special duty, will answer roll call in front of the office at 7:45 A.M.. . . for work instructions," and "Effective this date there will be no men leaving the colony, at any time, without permission from Mr. Rogers, Colony Commander." Though Maverick reported a population of "250 to 300" for Diga Colony, the official records showed a peak census of 171 on January 14, 1933.
The colony was apparently well managed, and it reached a near self-sustaining basis midway in its life span of about one year. Robert Kelso, field director for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, called it "one of the most effective demonstrations of self-help for the unemployed" he had seen in his travels across the country. The Houston Chronicle published a major feature article on the colony and expressed the opinion that it was "unquestioned that Camp Diga is performing a valuable public service. Besides sustaining individuals and families who might be on charity. . . it is strengthening or restoring the morale of persons who, although they might have been 'down' were not yet 'out.' By February 1933 the experiment had attracted the attention of the Christian Science Monitor, and it was said to be the subject of study by people from all over the United States.
The idea for Diga was entirely Maury Maverick's. He was termed the "guiding spirit" of a "vision of an idealist come true." The colony was not, of course, a completely original idea, but it was an original venture in its time and place so far as Maverick was concerned. A few experiments were going on in other parts of the country at this time, and reports of some of them were getting into the radical publications. The Monthly Labor Review (to which Maverick subscribed) did not report such experiments until March 1933.
The people in the colony had no ideological objections to the venture, because, as Maverick explained: "None had ever heard of socialism—except as some vague thing that was 'bad.' As for Communism, all they knew was that it was Russian, unpatriotic, and sinful. As for the word 'collectivism,' it was just a word that had gotten misplaced. In many contacts, I found that their idea of 'capitalism' was a state of society in which you can be hungry for a while, but you will finally get a good job, and possibly have others that can go hungry or work for you."
Maverick's communistic experiment went the way of most such experiments, because people did not "understand cooperation for the common good." He later declared, "Two economies cannot exist side by side within a given area, especially a money and non-money one. Such things as 'Epics' and the like are bound to be failures because they represent a patchwork economy." As was often the case, Maverick's pungent humor masked his disappointment with the results when he commented, "Our men began to get work on Army projects. One worked thirty hours in a week and got a dollar an hour. He had been the meekest, most respectable and hard-working man in the colony. He drew his thirty dollars. He arrived on the scene tight as a drum, swaggering down the street. He beat his wife, turned capitalist, and left."
Maverick concluded that the experiment had been valuable as a phase in the "story of the development of the American mind," and that it had helped his own thinking to develop. He reasoned that such experiments were likely to succeed only if they were isolated from the rest of society and if they had the "binding power" of some religion. He said that Diga was a laboratory in which he learned the "utter futility of makeshift economics," and that "the condition of a laborer in Northhampton, Massachusetts, has a direct effect on a worker in Tucumcari, New Mexico." The economy of the nation cannot be, he said, "a hodgepodge of conflicting systems and plans."
It was after Diga was underway that Maverick undertook another venture that he said would probably bring charges of publicity seeking. Before he had engaged in his efforts in behalf of the transient unemployed, Maverick had done some field research to discover the true proportions and gravity of their problems. He did this by dressing as a hobo and mingling with the people as they alighted from the freights in San Antonio. Now he conceived of doing this on a broader scale. In December 1932 the governor appointed Maverick, at his own behest, to make a "survey of destitute people in the state, particularly in reference to destitute transient population."
Accompanied by two friends, Pat Jefferson and Harry Futrell, Maverick dressed as a hobo and made a swing through part of Texas to study at first hand the plight of the transient unemployed. He admitted that at first he was not too effective as an "amateur bum"—some of the authentic tramps wanted to know where he had gotten a shave and how he managed to get fat. He also failed the test when he attempted to eat some of the hobo fare; he had to rush to a secluded spot with his two companions and vomit. As he described the scene, "Pat jumped up and down and nearly laughed himself to death. Harry, however, a sympathetic soul, looked on and suddenly he joined in. It was a fine duet. I feel sure that Harry must have done this as a gesture of true brotherhood."
Though they actually "rode the rods" to some extent, the three "hobos" cheated by keeping a car planted in the towns they visited, and they would slip off to get a decent meal from time to time. But despite Maverick's lighthearted treatment of some events on the trip, the three did sleep in the hobo jungles in Houston and Waco and saw the incredible degradation of people who were not ordinary tramps. Many were youths, male and female, and sometimes entire families were aimlessly drifting about the country on the freight trains. In his message to Governor Sterling after the trip, Maverick made an impassioned plea for some action to alleviate a situation in which such youths were "spending their formative years in flophouses, jails, jungles, or any available shelter, begging, panhandling, and, incidentally, starving part of the time, living miserably on a wholly improper diet, with no sanitation, no medical attention." Maverick told the governor that there were some fifty to seventy-five thousand "destitute, shelterless, homeless people" who were willing to work but could find no jobs. He urged that these conditions be recognized as a national problem and that the information be given to the federal government with a view to the development of national policies to meet such problems. To the extent that he was able to do so, Maverick took direct action in San Antonio. He organized transient relief stations where these people could get a simple but decent meal, and he even provided them with information as to the best travel routes and "the best places to board trains without getting into trouble."
Maverick moved to action on still another front in the late 1920's. He had joined the American Civil Liberties Union shortly after his return from World War I, and he gave as his reason for joining: "In the World War, I was so impressed with human injustice, . . . that I have a hatred of all kinds of things." As one writer put it, foremost among the things for which Maury Maverick would "fight, bleed and die" was the protection of civil liberties. The development of his thought should be of particular interest to students of civil liberties, because Maverick's intellectual convictions were constantly meeting the acid tests of having to stand beside some "enemy of the people," or suffer the abuse and ingratitude of those he defended or even listen to the cries of an angry mob that wanted to "Hang Maury Maverick to a sour apple tree."
That Maverick should have been concerned with civil rights and civil liberties requires little analysis or explanation; that he should have been one of the most resolute champions in modern American history does. He probably would have agreed that his penchant for defending the rights of the individual, and the underdog in particular, stemmed in part from the fact that he was the youngest child in his family—battling for status and recognition. Secondly, the principle of the free, inquiring mind—making its own findings, and its own choices—was preached and practiced in his home. Finally, a man who made intellectual insurgency a fetish would naturally stand for as complete freedom of expression as he could get.
Maverick also indicated that he was inspired to the defense of civil liberties by the example of his grandfather, Sam Maverick. Maury wrote a cousin in 1930 that the elder Maverick came to Texas with a "solemn understanding of the Bill of Rights," and with the principles of the Declaration of Independence "in his heart and soul." He continued, "You will remember, he was not a member of any church, and yet, when the Know Nothing movement hit Texas, just as the Ku Klux movement hit a few years ago, he helped to wipe them out and Texas' name was not blotted by the disgraceful tactics of that organization in other parts of America."
Maverick told an audience in Boston in 1937 about another Sam Maverick whom he claimed as an ancestor ("sixth great-grandfather"). This Sam was "in continuous hot water with your authorities because he believed in civil and religious liberties." In his first book, Maverick spoke proudly of this ancient Maverick being fined 150 pounds for raising a row over violations of civil liberties.
As Maury defended Communists during the period from 1928 to 1930, he began to have some misgivings about extending protection to them. He defended some friends of Communist leader Benjamin Gitlow in 1930 and then listened to them boast that they would "defy the police" and not abide by the law. (When one of them came to his tax collector's office and insisted upon taking Maverick as his "comrade," the furious Texan said, "Get out, you son-of-a-bitch!") After several earlier notes of complaint, Maury addressed a lengthy letter to Forrest Bailey of the American Civil Liberties Union, complaining that the Communists whom he had defended had charged that he was no better than the persons who would not defend them, because he would not welcome them with open arms. He asked Bailey:
Why should I go out of my way to help a bunch of people, who do not recognize the ordinary process of law, who do not themselves recognize the Bill of Rights under which they claim freedom of speech and who by their freedom of speech would take away my liberties. There is a point for you, and I want your committee to pass upon it and I do not want any set of theorists to pass on it, but I want you, Baldwin, Hays and other old trusties to pass on it. . . . Like Rabelais, a definite thing to establish for a definite person.
Lastly, listen to this: Don't you "members of the Board" sit up there on your golden thrones. . . and in your theoretical somnolence chide me for my narrow-mindedness.
There is little doubt that Maverick's questions were no more than rhetorical—a bit of grumbling. He resented both the ingratitude and abuse of the Communists and what he felt to be the sometimes gratuitous advice and proddings of the ACLU and some of the defendants in the cases. In fact, he had provided the answer to his own question in the following passage from the same letter, "If principles of liberty are involved, which may become law by virtue of appellate decisions, then of course, irrespective of all questions, we should enter and make a fight." Bailey's answer to Maverick was a generally routine response to such questions and differed little from his own statement just quoted.
There was no slackening of Maverick's civil liberties efforts. In the same month, he wrote to the district attorney in Dallas, urging prosecution of persons who had kidnapped and beaten two Communist party organizers. Maverick said that the country should know that "Texas protects the Bill of Rights and freely and gladly allows freedom of any form of speech." In April 1931 he was fighting attempts to pass criminal syndicalist laws in the Texas Legislature and applauding the Governor's decision to permit Communists to come to the Capital and "talk themselves out."
Maverick was often wrestling with himself—fighting the indigenous prejudices that surrounded him as well as expressing his resentment toward those people who advised him but who were not in the sweaty arena. His strong and nearly always consistent defense of civil liberties and civil rights was made all the more remarkable by the fact that he did not win this struggle within himself until his later years. He often raised such questions in private until the last five years of his life. His support for the ultimate in freedom of expression and procedural guarantees for the Communists (as well as his support for equal rights for racial minorities) derived from intellectual convictions. He heartily disliked the Communists and their tactics, perhaps even "despised" was often the more correct word, and he was quite sensitive to Northern liberals' complaints about conditions in the South; he opposed social equality for the Negro until about 1950, and even then he had some misgivings about it. In his usual pungent style, Maverick once wrote to his son: "Lord God, I have spent my life fighting for minorities. But what have they done for me? They have shit on me; but I hasten to say, having washed, I am ready to go on defending them. But every now and then I get tired of that stuff. . . . Prejudice is inherent in every religion, race, creed or nationality. We Protestants have it, as others do. The thing to do is to try to level it down as much as we can."
Maury, Jr., told me that his father had said at a later date, after a particularly trying bout over civil liberties, "Don't do anything for minorities with the expectation of getting something in return, even if it's just gratitude; if you do, they will break your heart. Do for them because its the right thing to do and for no other reason."
Maverick was not defending civil liberties with an eye to the ballot box. His worst enemies would not make that charge against him. A San Antonio newspaper that rather consistently treated him with indifference or condemnation said, "There have been those who questioned the sincerity of Maverick's liberalism, thinking that he was trimming his sails to the contemporary national political wind—but the questioning was infrequent and the questioners mostly obscure. This newspaper was not one of them."
Against the advice of friends, Maverick decided to make the race for a congressional seat in 1934. An opening that he had anticipated presented itself in the form of the creation of the new Twentieth District of Texas, taken from the Fourteenth District represented by Richard M. Kleberg. The Twentieth District is confined to Bexar County. Maverick had supported Kleberg in his race for the Fourteenth District seat in a special election in 1931 with the understanding that Kleberg would support Maverick in his bid when the new district was established, and he had that support.
In this first congressional campaign, Maverick's back injuries caused him to stagger and provided his delighted opponents with the whispered charge of drunkenness. He reported that he ignored the charge because he much preferred it to the truth. The truth was that a tumor had developed on his upper spine as a result of his war wounds, and the pressure on his spinal cord had not only produced his unsteady gait but had caused his eyes to bulge and gave him excruciating pain. Albert Maverick wrote in his "Private Notes," April 11, 1933, that his son was "intensely nervous and restless—too heavy & lacks exercise—systematic exercise—slips down in a big chair, brings his right hand back around his head & presses the left side—talking the while by fits and starts. He is suffering all the time & gets next to no sleep. . . . All comes, no doubt, from the wound on his spinal column, rec'd. in the Argonne some 15 years ago. It makes me cry—quietly & to myself." Albert wrote again on August 29, 1934, "Physical infirmities result from his wounds. He suffers constantly. Activity—mental and physical—is necessary." As his father indicated, the pains goaded Maverick into almost frenzied activity—a set of habits he was never to relinquish even after the reasonably successful operation he had after the election.
The ailing Maverick let a field of five candidates in the first Democratic primary, but he lacked the necessary majority for the nomination, which was tantamount to winning the seat in Congress. He had ahead of him a bitter campaign against the runner-up, Mayor C. K. Quin, who was to remain his arch foe in later political battles. The doughty Maverick was charged by his opponent with "morals unworthy of a congressman," "affiliations with Communists," and the desire to "supplant the American flag with the red flag of Russia." Frank C. Davis, speaking for Quin, pointed out that Maverick was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, "that organization which stands for communism and anarchy." A campaign broadside headed, "American Citizens Beware," warned of the dangers of electing the radical Maverick. This sheet, issued by the "Klu [sic] Klux Klan Committee," featured a picture of Quin in KKK garb with the caption, "Our Congressman," and the injunction: "All 100% Americans will vote for a Real Patriot!"
At this early date, however, such charges were not as likely to be effective as they were to be in Maverick's later contests. The real struggle was between Maverick's Citizens League supporters and a revived city-county machine backing Quin. Maverick won an impressive runoff primary victory of 20,411 to 17,210, and one of America's most spectacular congressional careers had been launched.
Before he could go to Congress, however, Maverick had to go to the Mayo Clinic for the critical surgery that he had needed for years. His condition was precarious, and his wife was warned that the worst might be expected. The operation involved removal of the tumor and sawing off the back part or lamina of each of the vertebra from his skull to his shoulders. Maverick said that the operation had saved his life and that all of the "bad features" were gone, but thereafter he was not able to turn his head in the normal fashion. People often though he was being impolite when he turned his back to respond to someone standing or seated at his side, but it was the only way he could turn his head.
Maverick almost had to be carried about during his first weeks in Congress, but with the help of two canes he recovered in about five or six months. He retained something of his rolling gait, but it was not so pronounced as before the operation. Whatever his physical condition, Maverick did not permit it to interfere with his activist role in the House of Representatives, which he assumed from the outset.
Maury Maverick's return to civilian life had taken place at the beginning of what he called the Bootleg Decade. He was elected president of the Bar Association at the age of twenty-four in 1919, married in 1920, and by the middle 1920's was raising a family and seemed to be on the road to stodgy and stultifying respectability. He joined the Kiwanis Club and the Lions Club and "made speeches about Progress (of the wrong kind) and Thrift (which also turns out to have been the wrong kind) and attended church once in a while." But the maverick inclinations were never clearly suppressed. He fought the Ku Klux Klan, headed off a movement to prevent violinist Fritz Kreisler from playing in San Antonio, and tried to liberalize his Bar Association. As its president he created and edited a little paper, The Whereas, for which he wrote a piece entitled "Koo Klucks Kondemned." Maverick, as the self-appointed "Imperious Gizzard," had held a "called meeting" attended only by himself at which the "Koo Klucks" had been judged as wearers of nightgowns who were "fully as mentally developed as an ape."
It was not long before the practice of law began to pall for Maverick's restless mind. He also explained that his effectiveness as a lawyer was often damaged by his tendency to sympathize with the opposite party in his law cases. In 1922 he became manager of the Hillyer-Deutsh-Jarett Lumber Company, and about two years later, with some assistance from his father, Maverick joined a friend in the organization of the Kelley-Maverick Lumber Company. He moved into the construction business and started to get "middlin' rich" ($50,000 to $60,000), but he later said that "Hoover got it all." In one of his displays of remarkable candor and self-criticism, he wrote, "The houses that I and others built were a disgrace to this country. This is no confession, but a fact. That is the reason that the government should subsidize housing. Human beings should not have to live in the rotten habitations handed to them by speculators.
Maverick was also moved to criticism of himself and his society by his experiences on a grand jury in February and March of 1924. He kept a notebook of "strictly private papers" on the entire course of events and included various musings on the nature of justice. He began his notes with the observation that laws on statutory rape and seduction were "barbaric." He wrote, "I must read more, and think more, on this subject." He later followed through on this implicit promise by studying some works in sociology. In one of them he wrote that his experience with the grand jury had presented him "with all of the malformations of society," and had caused him to begin a study of sociology and, more specifically, criminology.
In his "grand jury notebook" he told of the near-indictment of a Mexican-American for robbery before Maverick's insistence upon a more careful examination of witnesses revealed that no robbery had been committed! He commented:
Human beings seem to take human life very lightly, but they must remember that the lowest person on earth, whether he be Mexican or Negro, or anyone else, is entitled to full justice before the law; in fact, such people are entitled to it more than any other because they have less knowledge and money to work themselves out after they have been charged with a crime.
It seems that if some dumb, ignorant person commits some bungling crime, he is jerked in before the Grand Jury, charged with it and indicted because they have the dope on him, but that the real criminals are never caught. Take a man who has committed his first crime, which is really not criminal in its nature. He is guilty, there is no doubt about it. According to the law, he should go to the penitentiary and does, serves two years and returns to society. He finds it hard to get a job and has no character or courage left. . . he does not think he has committed such a great sin so he resentfully sets about to make himself an efficient criminal. This he does, and when he perfects himself, he commits robberies just heretofore mentioned, makes no mistakes, gets what he wants and stays out of jail. This is a sociological problem of course, of which the Grand Jury has no cognizance.
After a recital of various other cases that appeared before the grand jury, Maverick expressed the opinion that punishment was always "personal" and "vindictive." He felt that men must determine the real nature of crime—that they should study the heredity, physical make-up, emotional stability, environment as a youth and the present home conditions of an alleged criminal before determining his fate. It was Maverick's judgment that criminals should be examined by a board of "say six men—2 doctors, 2 lawyers, and 2 laymen" before disposition of their cases. But he came to the bitter conclusion that such a proposal was impossible because lawyers and doctors were afraid of public opinion where rape and the like were involved. He wrote, "Our theories of government and of religion are all against it"; all we apparently want is the type of government that "prohibits absolute anarchy."
This grand jury experience was not the only impetus to reading, study, and research for Maverick. He seemed to have an almost insatiable curiosity about all sorts of subjects, and he had the drive to pursue each of them until he felt that he was reasonably knowledgeable in that area. The 1920's marked the real flowering of Maverick's intellectual and scholarly interests. He was largely responsible for the establishment of a Carnegie Library in San Antonio, and he joined with friends in the establishment of the San Antonio Open Forum discussion group, which met at the old Main Avenue High School. In his brassy fashion he fought for a more salubrious scholarly climate at the University of Texas, and he embarked upon a renewed, major regimen of reading and study that made him a scholar of considerable attainment.
Perhaps the least-known qualities of this extraordinary Texas politician were his serious scholarship and his capacity for original thought. Why should his erudition have been relatively obscured? The reasons are several, but all are interrelated. For one thing, Maverick never tried to hide his poor academic record in college; in fact he called attention to it. Also, as a part of his studied irreverence, he developed a fondness for joshing, needling, or even bating the professors. The classic example was his treatment of his friend Dr. Rexford Guy Tugwell, who tried out one of his speeches on Maverick while the two were visiting Laredo, Texas. When the New Deal braintruster reached a point at which he spoke of workers and farmers "combining their genius" and forming a "nodule," Maverick exploded, "Rex, I am sore and insulted, and do not want to hear any more."
"Why?" asked Tugwell.
"What in God's name is a nodule?" said Maverick.
"A nodule is—" began the professor.
"Stop! Stop!" Maverick shouted. "Don't tell me. Whenever you use a word that I don't understand, it makes me mad. I am an American! The word nodule is not understood by the American people, nor is it understood by me, which makes it worse—and I do not want to know what it means. Nobody wants to listen to your academic phrases. Nodule my eye! Put your speech in simple language. I never heard of a 'nodule' before, so I don't like it. Besides," Maverick continued, "it sounds like sex perversion."
Maverick was given to the use of such deliberate exaggerations in order to make a point; his vocabulary was as extensive as that of most educated people, but he was very impatient with attempts to communicate with ordinary people in such language. Also, subsequent passages dealing with the above episode indicate both a genuine desire on the part of Maverick to bring about more effective communication and a desire to lash back at Tugwellian remarks about "demagoguery," from which Maverick seemed to be smarting:
Out there in these open spaces we enacted a scene which dramatized one of the fundamental failures of the Administration. Professors with wonderful ideas—but who can afford to have Olympian contempt for the politician, since they do not have to be elected.
No man could be elected, or if elected by accident, no man could stay in office if he used this Tugwellian jargon of abstruse and imcomprehensible polysyllables. . . .
The professorial jargon is an answer to an inferiority complex. The professor is at a loss in crowds, and to vindicate himself he uses big words which no one can understand. Since he cannot be elected himself, he builds up a distrust for the politician who can. For myself, I find it hard enough to be a progressive, thinking official, and at the same time get elected; but that is the only way we can accomplish anything: by being elected.
Maverick also avoided what he considered the curse of identification with the scholar by eschewing some of the stereotyped symbols. In 1932 he made a Washington Day address on San Antonio radio station WOAI. Requests for copies of the speech poured in from ten states as well as from many points in Texas, many of these people asking for copies of the "lecture" by Mr. Maverick! Two years later, while campaigning for Congress, "Professor" Maverick indicated that there would be no more of this political luxury. He said, "My friends came to me and told me that I was delivering good lectures to a college classroom, but that they were poor political speeches."
Various drafts of a number of his later speeches show clearly how he excised words he thought might be troublesome to his audiences or brand him with the mark of the intellectual. For example, a first draft of a radio address in 1936 started out with a reference to "anomalous situations," and wound up with a reference to "peculiar situations" in the final draft. When Maverick wrote a review of Wertenbaker's Torchbearer of the Revolution, he devoted an entire paragraph in his first draft to the consideration of the possibility of this book leading to more study of the "Virginia mind" and the influence of delusions of aristocracy. He omitted this passage completely in his second draft, and it did not appear in the published version.
His interest in promoting the cause of clear writing and speaking gave rise to the contribution for which Maverick is probably best known, the coinage of the word gobbledygook and the elaboration of his argument for terse, lucid prose. After taking such a positive stand, he could scarcely run the risk of being caught in the use of anything vaguely resembling professorial jargon.
Finally, the scholarly side of Maury Maverick was obviously obscured by his personal characteristics and appearance—a greater contrast to the stereotype of the scholar would be difficult to find. He was a bullish, lusty, brash type, given to the earthiest sort of language, and he could slug it out with the best of them in the political arena. He just did not fit the part of the intellectual; it would be like expecting a giant football tackle to play Mozart on a spinet. Also, most newspaper reporters were much more interested in telling their readers about the Maverick who was "knocking them dead" or "rolling them in the aisles" of the House of Representatives. Scholarship generally makes poor copy.
But there were more than a few indications that Maverick had not only a great respect for scholarship and the scholars, but even that he aspired to the groves of Academe himself. He was drawn to academic men, and they in turn were drawn to him. In the same book in which he lambasted Tugwell and other professors, Maverick could write, "The march of the professor is the greatest advance in the history of our government. We are just beginning to slough off the philosophy of 'Old Rough and Ready.' It's high time."
Even in his student days, when much of his time was spent in sniping at professors, Maverick could leap to their defense if a serious charge were made. When he was a sophomore student at the University of Texas, he saw a letter in the Daily Texan by Harrison F. Lane (an admitted pseudonym) attacking a professor for baiting students and "pouncing on some luckless freshman." Replying the next day, young Maverick said that the professor's action was "fully warranted" on the basis of the students' "utter lack of preparing their lessons and being boneheads." He said he had been one of the victims, and that he had deserved it. His conclusion was that the professors were entitled to more respect, and he characterized the student's failure to sign his name as a cowardly act.
In the 1920's, despite his poor academic record and his own reputation as a campus playboy and ne'er-do-well, Maverick was greatly disturbed by what he conceived to be happening to his University of Texas. Big-time football was then coming into its own in the Southwest and other parts of the country, and, moreover, university administrators and faculties were not only plagued with the problems of financing the growing institutions but were also beset with the poking and probing of legislatures and boards of regents bent upon preserving religious and political orthodoxies.
In a statement prepared sometime in the summer of 1923, Maverick charged that the University of Texas was becoming demoralized through the reprehensible actions of the Board of Regents and its chairman, H. J. Lutcher Stark. One of Maverick's specific indictments was:
Recently they wasted their time passing unnecessary resolutions on the religious views of the professors. Then they did something smaller and meaner than any Spanish Court of Inquisition ever did—they called in Dean H. Y. Benedict and tried to give him the third degree of his religious views, asking him, among other things, none of which were any of their business, of what church he was a member, and if he had baptized his baby. Church affiliations, and baptism of professors' babies hardly constitutes the regents' business. Yet the ex-students stood by and I heard not one word of condemnation from any ex-student over the State. I have talked to numbers of ex-students who seem to think it amounts to nothing, but it is as vital a question as can be imagined.
Old-timers at the University of Texas remember this incident, but it apparently took place behind closed doors and the newspapers avoided it. On July 11, 1923, the Daily Texan and the Austin American simply reported that the Board of Regents had, without explanation, passed a resolution prohibiting any "infidel, agnostic or atheist" from holding any position with the university. Such a person could not be hired, nor could anyone "continue in office" unless he believed "in God as the supreme being and the ruler of the universe." The American made no comment on the resolution, and the Texan simply stated that the resolution was probably designed to do no more than "reassure the people of the state as to the university's position on religion" and to "quiet" criticism of religious views at the university. An editorial the next day, however, complained of lengthy closed meetings of the Board of Regents and suggested that "some progressive college" might try holding board meetings that would be open to the public.
As Robert H. Montgomery, professor emeritus of economics at the university, remembers this incident, which most of his colleagues knew about at that time, Dean Benedict held his own in the encounter. When a member of the Board of Regents asked him if his beliefs would comport with their newly adopted resolution, Benedict is said to have asked if his belief in an "anthropomorphic God" would be satisfactory. The puzzled regent looked around at his equally bewildered colleagues and asked them if they thought that would be all right, and they, with some uncertainty, voiced approval.
Further charges by Maverick in the 1923 statement involved the machinations by which Stark attempted to make the governor of Texas, Pat M. Neff, the next president of the university. Maverick said that Stark was a "willing tool" who was "trying to work something out for himself." The presidency was vacant at this time, and it was reported in February of 1923 that Neff and Start had conferred at length and that the governor would soon be offered the presidency, to be assumed at the end of his term as governor. What proved to be an abortive "Stark for Governor" movement was also reportedly underway in Austin. In May, Raymond Brooks of the Austin American said that the regents would probably offer the presidency to Neff, and if that were to happen he would accept. A few days later the executive council of the ex-students association went on record as opposing the selection of Neff. Later in the month the regents named W. S. Sutton as acting president, and though the presidency was eventually offered to Neff, he declined, and the post went to Dr. W. M. W. Splawn, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission and former chairman of the economics department at the university.
The development of athletics, particularly football, as a consuming mania of university students, ex-students, and regents began in the early 1920's. At the University of Texas the turning point seemed to be about 1921. At that time the week's athletic events were taking up the lead story space in the Daily Texan, and, though there were some editorial murmurs against overemphasis on athletics in the early part of 1922, by May of that year the editor wrote apologetically that he could do no more than provide the students with what they clearly wanted. By the mid-twenties the entire front page of the Texan was frequently devoted to athletic contests.
Maverick deplored this trend. In his statement he charged that the regents and many of the ex-students were guilty of fostering athletics at the cost of other aspects of education. He admonished, "A stadium is not of itself a healthy sign. At the peak of the wealth of Rome, there was a fine coliseum, a fine place for the rabble to go to watch the gladiatorial sports, but it was the beginning of degeneracy, which finally ruined the empire. A stadium might be a healthy sign, if education flourished commensurately, but it does not."
Football, said Maverick, was a particular mania of Lutcher Stark, chairman of the Board of Regents. Stark had announced in November of 1922 plans for a concrete stadium designed to seat "between fifty and sixty thousand people," and he became chairman of the drive to raise funds for it. When such matters were brought before an ex-students meeting in San Antonio in 1924, Maverick rose and told President Splawn and his fellow ex-students that "athletics, booze and society" were ruining the university. He wanted to know who could justify the construction of a unit of a million dollar stadium—"a temple of athletics"—while students were freezing and experiencing various other discomforts in "flimsy shacks [on] the campus." He was ready to raise funds, he said, but not for athletics.
Maverick's reward was condemnation in the Daily Texan for a "vicious attack" that was not worthy of comment. But two years earlier another editor of the Texan had called attention to the conditions Maverick described. In February of 1922, regents were urged to have a look at the dilapidated shacks in which many students lived. These quarters were described as having large cracks in the floors, walls through which dust and dirt sifted, and inadequate heat. A year later another Texan editor complained that half of the work of the university was still being done in more than twenty wooden shacks that "clutter the campus." He pointed not only to heating problems, but also to the problem of maintaining an atmosphere favorable to learning in shacks nearly wide-open to the outdoors. Maverick could have used other ammunition to demonstrate that threats to the development and maintenance of a first-rate scholarly community at the University of Texas existed in this period. A considerable number of faculty members left the university in August of 1921 when a faction of the Texas House of Representatives known as the "salary slashers" pushed through a cut in faculty salaries by a two-to-one vote as part of a general retrenchment program. The measure was defeated in the Texas Senate by one vote, but only after severe criticism was leveled at the Legislature by an aroused press.
It seems likely that Maverick's concern for the scholarly community could be attributed in part to his own incipient aspirations to the professorial. In later years such a suggestion was made by a distinguished professor, the late Robert C. Brooks, Joesph Wharton Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College and president of the American Political science Association. Brooks wrote in 1938, "No doubt it will grieve the Congressman sadly, but it must be said that, much as he affects to deride professors, he possesses many traits of that species." The Swarthmore professor backed up his contention with a recital of Maverick's reading habits, his writing of book reviews, and, finally, a "typical academic lecture" that Maverick gave at Swarthmore with the "characteristic fault of such discourses, the effort to cover too much ground." The clinching evidence of Maverick's yen for the halls of ivy is to be found in a letter in which he applied for a position in political science at the University of Chicago after his defeat in the race for a third term in Congress. His application was rejected pending the appearance of his second book, In Blood and Ink, a study of constitutional development in the United States with particular emphasis on economic justice and civil liberties, and he did not subsequently pursue the matter.
But Maverick pursued diligently his renewed program of self-education in the 1920's as he began to build an impressive personal library of serious works in the areas of ethics, philosophy, sociology, and political science. A great many of these books were conveniently marked with the dates on which he read them. Others, even more conveniently, contained liberal annotations by Maverick, reaching on occasion such researcher's riches as a half dozen tipped in sheets of Maverick's commentaries. At one point he even indulged himself in the minor conceit of writing a note to his biographer to explain, "I didn't mark the above passage, Aunt Ellen did."
An anonymous newspaper reporter wrote in 1937: "Anyone who assumes that Maverick is just a clown will be surprised to learn that he became a member of the bar at the age of 20 and that he was president of the San Antonio Bar Association at 24. He knows his Shakespeare, his Milton and his Greek mythology. His brother, Dr. George Maverick, tells me that Maury is one of the leading authorities on Erasmus in this country, but George is an industrial research chemist and you know what unreliable fellows scientists are.
It is often anybody's guess what an authority is, but it is not open to question that Maverick was a careful student of Erasmus. His library contained eight different works on Erasmus, most of them with liberal annotations by their owner. His wife said that there were a number of others that have since disappeared (perhaps given away—if Maverick liked a person, he would sometimes impulsively give him a book.) Maverick's copy of Preserved Smith's Erasmus contained a letter, pasted inside the front cover, from the Cornell University Erasmus scholar in which he thanked Maury for his criticisms of the book and concluded, "I shall learn something from your dissent." Still another volume is inscribed, "For Maury Maverick, whose ideas helped create this edition of Erasmus, Sincerely, Pascal Covici" (publisher).
As he read Erasmus, Maverick marked with approval such passages as those in which Erasmus was cited in favor of freedom of expression and in opposition to the likes of unwarranted search and seizure. He particularly emphasized this passage: "[Sir Thomas] More would die for his faith, and would have you punished for yours; Erasmus would be companionable and chatty and courteous and tolerant even to an infidel. . . he let his mind play freely on the sacred arcana of the traditional faith; that he recognized reason as the final arbiter in these matters as well as in social and political affairs—all this is the noble genius of Erasmus."
There is a strong indication that Maverick got some of his penchant for pricking bubbles of conceit and letting "very dry sawdust out of stuffed shirts" from sources other than William C. Brann. He was an inveterate reader of Voltaire's Candide and the works of François Rabelais. He was so delighted with Candide and the great Dr. Pangloss, who taught "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology," that he often mentioned it in letters to friends and acquaintances throughout his life. A copy of this book was his most characteristic gift to persons who took his fancy. A former assistant and friend tells the story of Maverick, then chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, stopping on a New York street and turning to him to say, "Have you read Candide?" When the response was no, the bustling Maverick pulled his friend into a bookstall and bought him the book.
Maury had several unexpurgated editions of Rabelais that he read and reread throughout his life. He chuckled and chortled over the doings of Panurge, Pantagruel, and Gargantua and even kept a copy handy in the "library with plumbing."
Most of Maverick's reading was nonfiction, but there were other works of fiction that particularly interested him. He read James Joyce's Ulysses, probably because he found out that he wasn't supposed to, and then became so interested in Joyce's style and technique that he attempted a Maverick novel in that mold, though he said that he did not "consciously plagiarize" Joyce. He made this statement when he sent a partial rough draft to his friend H. L. Mencken, who commented: "I confess that this stuff seems rather obvious to me. But it certainly falls in with the fashion and so I believe that if you complete the book there may be some chance to publish it. Probably no American publisher would tackle it, but in Paris there are several firms that specialize in such extremes. One of them during the past three or four years has printed five or six books of genuine importance, including Ludwig Lewisohn's last novel and the first book of Ernest Hemingway." Maverick was disgruntled by Mencken's lack of enthusiasm, and the book was never finished.
Another of Maverick's favorites was Anatole France. He apparently read everything the French satirist wrote. In his copy of France's The Latin Genius, he noted that he had read the book in September 1924, and his interest in France is demonstrated by the fact that Maverick inserted in the book no less than eight articles on the French novelist, beginning with a newspaper clipping reporting his death in 1924. Maverick's views indicated that he was probably attracted to and influenced by what Robert Dell referred to as France's "benevolent cynicism" and his exposure of the "follies of patriotism," that is, in its excesses.
Other fiction that interested and impressed Maverick was Hugo's Les Misérables; The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by Vincente Blasco Ibáñez; the works of Henry Fielding (particularly The History of Tom Jones); Cervantes' Don Quixote, and Proust's Swann's Way. Maverick kept several editions of Alice in Wonderland and used quotations from it frequently in his speeches and writing. Though he read very widely, he seems not to have paid much attention to lighter fiction.
Maverick's study of nonfiction works was remarkable for a lawyer-businessman who had made a poor academic record in college. It is, of course, impossible to know all of the books he read, but a more-than-representative sample can be found in those that he either noted as having read or marked with varying amounts of annotation. Most of this reading was in the areas of religion and moral philosophy, political theory, history, and, more specifically, civil liberties and pacifism. The list provides and outline of the causes that Maverick was to champion in his public career.
It appears that he read nearly everything that was available by or about Thomas Jefferson, but he did most of his marking and annotations in Albert J. Nock's Jefferson and in The Writing of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb, the twenty-volume memorial edition. In the Nock book Maverick marked several passages dealing with the right of revolution and gave particular emphasis to, "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all." Maverick's extensive markings in the memorial edition of Jefferson were almost entirely confined to moral philosophy and religion, particularly liberal Christianity. For example, he gave heavy marking to this passage: "And the day will come, when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His Father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason, and freedom of thought in these United States, will do away all this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this the most venerated Reformer of human errors."
At the age of 29, Maverick indicated that he was impressed by religious passages in other works, one of which was particularly related to politics and public morality. He marked these passages heavily with red pencil, whereas he usually marked or noted with ordinary pencil or pen. He noted the argument of Dr. L. P. Jacks, professor of philosophy at Oxford and a leading Unitarian, to the effect that there was little hope of educating and freeing the minds of the people through politics because the politician seeks nothing but power, and then he underlined heavily, "The quest of the human spirit is Goethe's dying cry, Light—more Light. And it is from these men [those outside of politics] that I look to get a nobler system of education. They will compel the politicians to act, perhaps get rid of the present race of politicians altogether."
In George Bernard Shaw's preface to Androcles and the Lion, Maverick marked passages indicating the trend in his thinking that linked liberal Christianity to social justice. He underlined one passage in which Shaw wrote that Christ "advocates communism, the widening of the private family," and "the organic conception of society in which you are not an independent individual but a member of society." Maverick then placed a large X beside a passage beginning, "He was to take away the sins of the world by good government, by justice and mercy, by setting the welfare of little children above the pride of princes."
In addition to reading Ruskin, Proudhon, and others, Maverick seems to have hung on every word of Sinclair's The Cry for Justice: An Anthology of the Literature of Social Protest. In addition to marking dozens of passages, he prepared an index inside the front cover to those items he considered most important. For example, he cites "The Wrongfulness of Riches," by Grant Allen, and the passage, "If you are on the side of the spoilers, then you are a bad man. If you are on the side of social justice you are a good one. There is no effective test of high morality at the present day save this." Maverick also marked and carefully indexed related remarks by William Lloyd Garrison, James Oppenheim, Martin Luther, Vergil, Henry David Thoreau, Ruskin, Abraham Lincoln, and O-Shi-O (an eighteenth-century Japanese scholar).
Maverick's ego and determination to do his own thinking could be seen in his markings in Emerson's writings. He was particularly interested in the essay "History" and in Emerson's contention that history is "in the soul" of men who make it—" all must be explained from individual history." In "Self-Reliance," Maverick underlined, "Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought."
When Maverick read plays in these early years, he turned to Moliere, Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, Shaw, and particularly the social-problem plays of Henrik Ibsen. His favorite poet was Rabindranath Tagore, and he indicated that he read Tagore's philosophical works as well, though none appeared in his library.
While still in his regimen of reading, roughly about 1928, Maverick began to make some tentative expressions of his ideas. First it was in the attempted war novel, next it was in some lines of verse and finally in speeches and memoranda as he decided to make the move into politicas in 1930.
A year before the 1929 crash, he began to express his concern with what he felt to be the inequities and injustices of our economic and social system; he had already been active in defense of the rights of individuals and in support of the American Civil Liberties Union. He dashed off some verses that, though they may not bring him posthumous fame as a poet, revealed his attempts to pin down some of the ideas that were chasing around in his head. One untitled fragment reads in part:
I hate but one thing: intolerance
And I am intolerant myself.
Give us, let us have, force upon us, tolerance. . . .
Damn these pious grafters, these hoarders, these smiling, sniveling, grapplers of what really belongs to the people.
Damn the machines, the roaring, flaming furnaces,
The thunder of industry and noon-day luncheon clubs;
Can't you hear babies crying and dying—
Old men, old women moaning and lonesome and sick—
Oh, God damn your rotten soul in hell,—your system.
The effect of these reflections on his conscience may be seen in:
DEFEAT
There are two human stinks
The stink of over-eating, over-smoking; the stink of success, of supercilious smiles, and
The stink of hunger, malnutrition, the stink of failure, of smiles forced through the smoldering fires of disease.
All this EATS on me
Well, who cares? Not even me—
In another untitled fragment he questioned his own motives and sincerity: "Who is this Maury Maverick?/ Bum, villain, leader or hick?/ Are these true, honest and loyal aspirations/ These big, noisy and egocentric gyrations?
Maverick was vaguely seeking some sort of New Deal before the depression created the urgency. After having analyzed the factors contributing to a great disparity between the lot of the wealthy and that of the poor, he considered the solutions offered by doctrinaire philosophies. In his unfinished war novel (1928), he has Lieutenant Harrick (obviously Lieutenant Maverick) express the opinion that the Bolsheviks "bore us all," for they are "tiresome, they often smell bad, and they know nothing of American psychology," But Maverick did know something of American psychology. HIs Harrick rejected the socialists as providing an intellectual diet of "milk and water" and as having "no leadership." Said Harrick, "Radicalism in this country must be American. We have no proletariat, no working class—only people who expect to get rich." This assertion anticipated the thesis so ably presented by Arthur N. Holcombe twelve years later. A key point is Holcombe's thesis concerning the middle class as the foundation of our political system is that regardless of statistics of income levels, most Americans think of themselves as middle class—there is no proletariat.
With his office as tax collector as a springboard, Maverick began to make speeches and to engage in actions that reflected the results of his extensive reading and thinking. HIs first speeches were appraisals of what had created the depression; these were followed by another set suggesting what was to be done. In what appears to have been his first radio address, he charged the American people with having been blind or delinquent in their failure to meet the problems arising from the end of the frontier and the mounting complexities and interdependence that came with industrialization. H blasted the political leadership (and himself, by implication) of the 1920's in this tirade: "During this time that we were so carefree, men who roared about religion and who had small souls, men who prated about their knowledge but who had no brains, men who spoke of vision but who had no vision, all the puppets of the special interests, political buffoons, rode into office and wealth and bureaucratic jobs in our government. They are out of touch with the heart and soul of America—indeed, they have never been in touch with the people, their needs, their aspirations, their subjectives.
Maverick, then, anticipated not only the New Deal, but the type of leadership that would make it. With remarkable prescience, he said that Lincoln had been a great man because "he sensed the sweep of a powerful feeling among the people and became its spokesman," and he gave this description of the "next great man": "He isn't going to be an expert who sits down and draws up a plan that he believes ought to work according to the old rules. He's going to be a man who can sense the trend of the times. He'll be more of a spokesman for the muddled ideas in the public mind than he will be a prophet. So many of our political prophets have led us astray that we wouldn't believe them now even if they told the truth." Maverick could have been referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt. He had met FDR, and had said in 1929 that he was the only man who could be elected on the Democratic ticket. But he may have been expressing Maverick aspirations as well.
What the men of the New Deal arrived at, essentially, was a loose plan for popping timbers in here and there to try to shore up a tottering economic and social system. Though some absolutists served to prod, few of these men were doctrinaire or felt that they had the plan, for this is the "genius of American politics," as Professor Boorstin has so aptly and provocatively explained. When asked for his impressions of Maverick's philosophy, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., wrote in part, "One felt about him that he revived and expressed the sound, native American instinct for freedom as the way in which democracy makes its progress—the same instinct one found in different ways in men like Lincoln, Mark Twain, the La Follettes, Frederick Jackson Turner." Boorstin had used the names and ideas of two of these men, Lincoln and Turner, to illustrate his thesis. The pattern of eclecticism, however, is not cut to an exact fit for Maury Maverick. It fitted at times, but he was more radical and more inclined to some philosophical absolutes then many of his contemporaries.
As a part of his regimen of serious reading in the 1920's Maverick had read some of the works of Mohandas K. Gandhi, and he wrote the following commentary to an Indian author with whom he had discussed Gandhi: "You say to hell with politics. Well, I just can't help it, but politicians irk me so that I must hurl bricks and must get very angry. Deep down in my heart I think Gandhi is one of the world's greatest men and possibly the greatest man of all time, and that his principles are right, but I can't stand for them personally. Action I must have."
Maverick found his opportunity for action in a political upheaval beginning to take shape in San Antonio at the end of the decade. In 1929 growing resentment against the machine-ridden politics of Bexar County and San Antonio began to boil up in the Alamo city. On November 23, 1929, a weekly tabloid newspaper, The Bexar Facts, appeared on the streets of San Antonio with the avowed purpose of printing the "truth" that other newspapers would not touch and of exposing the city-county "ring," which has been referred to as one of the most "durable, solidly entrenched political machines in the United States." Earle B. Mayfield, a former U.S. senator and member of the Texas Railroad Commission, charged in a gubernatorial campaign speech in San Antonio in 1930: "The Bexar County machine can give Tammany Hall of New York lessons when it comes to holding crooked elections and counting candidates out who have been honestly elected. This machine not only pays the poll taxes for several thousand fictitious persons and distributes these poll taxes to its henchmen who vote five to fifteen times in each election, but goes so far as to have the tally sheets made up the night before the election.
On another occasion, William Aubrey, styled as the dean of the San Antonio Bar, said in a radio address in San Antonio: "Bexar County has become a byword for the impurity of its elections. This notoriety is not based on idle rumor but is the inevitable result of exhaustive and published investigations by an unprejudiced congressional committee, the reports and indictments by your grand jury, by the action of your own District Attorney's office and by official prosecutions instituted by your Attorney General based upon independent examination of the facts involved and supported by the affidavits of some of your best fellow citizens."
The Bexar Facts kept up a barrage of criticism of the "ring" and all its works throughout late 1929 and early 1930. There were attacks upon the city-county machine for condoning the existence of a state-wide liquor-combine headquarters in San Antonio, and exposures of poll-tax frauds, favors to pet contractors and either blandishments or threats to still the voices of opponents. In February 1930 Donovan Weldon, editor of The Bexar Facts, openly charged what he had been hinting at for some months—that Frank Huntress (publisher of the San Antonio Evening News and the morning Express,) had "played false to those who had confidence in him and his newspapers." Weldon said that while he was city editor of the News he was "under strict orders to allow nothing to be printed which might injure Mayor C. M. Chambers, the City-County political ring, or any of its members." Aubrey later charged that the Express was the "organ of the Ring," and Frank C. Davis, a leader of the Citizens League, told a meeting that the "Morning Excuse" and the "Evening Nuisance" had "deliberately lied" and had engaged in "unwarranted partisanship" and "unwarranted attacks . . . upon a majority of the people" of San Antonio. Weldon on occasion urged his readers to get their daily news from the San Antonio Light, a Hearst paper.
Maury Maverick had no official connection with this new publishing venture, but his close association with the tabloid paper and its causes was obvious from the outset. In one of the early issues, the story of Maury's successful fight against a traffie ticket became a vehicle for praising him as a "free-thinker, businessman and traditional foe of machine government." It also proved to be the occasion to anticipate that machine forces would try to bring up past misdeeds of Maverick such as the time when he "whipped a city policeman on Houston Street" in 1925 for calling him "vile names what would force any red-blooded Texan to use his fists." In the next issue of the paper, following a recital of machine activities, there was a report that "people" were urging Maverick to run for sheriff. Again Maverick was characterized as a "fighting free-thinker" not aligned with any faction—the kind of "honest and fearless" man needed.
The first report of organizational efforts against the "ring" came in January 3, 1930, issue of The Bexar Facts. Opposition to machine government had been growing steadily for years, and now seemed to be "crystallizing. . . into a concrete foundation for an organization to oppose ring candidates at the polls." Two weeks later an unsigned letter to the editor expressed the opinion that there were not ten men who would have "guts enough to oppose the ring openly," but in the same issue there was an account of a meeting of "fifty leading business and professional men" for planning purposes and for discussion of the issue that was to prove to be the opening gun of the campaign against the machine. In connection with this report, Maverick was quoted in opposition to a major city bond issue proposal. He said that the bond issue was unnecessary and designed only to satisfy the machine's "own political purposes." A week later, amidst reports of defections and dissension in the machine, there was a story of a meeting of businessmen at the home of Walter W. McAllister (now mayor of San Antonio). J. Roy Murray, an automobile dealer, was quoted as saying that the group planned to support a complete ticket against the "present administration." These meeting laid the groundwork for the emergence of the San Antonio Citizens League a few months later.
Before the Citizens League emerged, there was another organization with a similar name, the San Antonio Civic League. This group of businessmen had secured a nonprofit corporation charter from the state of Texas. Maury Maverick was chairman of the board of directors and presided at the first meeting in the Menger Hotel on February 21, 1939. This group apparently faded out as the later San Antonio Citizens League was organized.
In late February Maverick began to write a series of articles in The Bexar Facts in which he charged that the bond issue was unnecessary and demanded that there be an independent audit of city expenditures. As the series went on he added an attack upon recent city attempts to annex farm and ranch land adjoining San Antonio. Maverick had a personal interest in this matter; his father, Albert Maverick, had filed suit to prevent the annexations. The bond issue provided the basis for the reform movement's first test against the machine, and Maverick's carefully drawn arguments played a major role in that fight. In private notes, however, he credited the San Antonio Light with "getting the ball rolling" in the bond issue fight.
In March the machine struck back at the relentless hammering of The Bexar Facts. Editor Weldon and fourteen news vendors were arrested and charged with violation of an archaic city "advertising" ordinance. After an impassioned defense argument by attorney Walter Groce (assisted by Maury Maverick and others), the defendants were acquitted.
During April The Bexar Facts began the exposure of poll-tax frauds by printing affidavits of aliens and minors who had had poll taxes bought for them and delivered to them by representatives of the machine.
At a mass meeting on April 7, 1930, more than two thousand citizens gathered to oppose the bond issue. A resolution was adopted to establish a permanent organization to fight the city-county machine. This was the nonpartisan (for a short time) Citizens League of San Antonio. A. B. Weakley was elected chairman of the meeting and the organization. Maury Maverick made one of the major speeches to the gathering. In his address he chided the city administration for providing a dance hall for Negroes instead of the library for which funds had been originally allocated and then, adding insult to injury, requiring them to pay rent for the facility. Mayor Chambers made the mistake of labeling the participants in this meeting "a few clowns and soreheads." The meeting was not even mentioned by the Huntress papers.
The Bexar Facts continued to expose poll-tax frauds and was able to report the arrest of deputy poll-tax collectors for racketeering as the election drew near. On May 5 the bond issue was defeated by a narrow margin of 17,575 to 17,483. The paper charged that more than one thousand illegal votes had been cast in the bond election. This contention proved to be correct; almost two months later city attorneys reported that 1,166 illegal votes were cast in the election.
With the bond election victory behind them, the Citizens League moved on to the next phase of their struggle with the now foundering machine. On May 16 Maury Maverick presided at a meeting of the league at which The Bexar Facts reported that there were "riotous cheers" for the leaders and a determination to do battle. The same issue of the paper carried an advertisement in which the league announced: ". . . the Citizens League was organized for the purpose of striking off the shackles of the political ring which has dominated the City and County for many years, and restoring free government in San Antonio and Bexar County."
The organization met at Beethoven Hall on May 19 to select a nominating committee to name a complete slate of candidates for all local offices in the approaching Democratic primary. On June 4 "thousands" met and accepted the slate provided by the committee, which had named candidates from legislative seats down to local precinct chairmen. The nominee for county tax collector was Maury Maverick. In a major spread in The Bexar Facts), he was characterized as "an active defender, frequently against organized odds, of the civil liberties and public rights," and praised as the man primarily responsible for the establishment of a Carnegie Library in San Antonio. Maverick said privately that his reason for accepting the nomination was that he felt that he could perform the public service of eliminating bogus poll taxes, of which there were seven thousand according to his estimate. In political advertisements, which he wrote himself, he urged his supporters to elect the entire ticket—the important thing was a Citizens League victory, not his personal victory.
The league slate for the Democratic primary was endorsed by the respected Republican (!) Congressman Harry M. Wurzbach in a speech at Alamo Plaza July 3. He said, in part, that "honest service cannot be reconciled with the acts proved against the ring candidates. Honest public service and stealing elections won't mix." He said that he held most county officials responsible for participation in election irregularities, and said of the Citizens League, "There is not a man on the ticket who is a spoilsman."
On July 31 the Citizen League and Maury Maverick won a sweeping victory over the now discredited and disintegrating machine. In typical Maverick fashion, no sooner had he won the office of tax collector than he began to urge that it be abolished. In December of 1930 the "militant leader of the Citizens League" was quoted as advocating that the offices of tax collector, tax assessor, and county treasurer be combined into one office. He said that in this connection he had been conferring with legislative leaders of a movement to provide meaningful home rule for Texas counties in order that they might effect savings of thousands of dollars. The movement, of course, has not yet succeeded.
The position of tax collector is more important than it may sound, for Bexar County was and is one of the largest (290,000 population then) metropolitan areas in Texas, and the office had the all-important responsibility for issuance of poll-tax receipts. Maverick was credited with carrying out his campaign promises and with doing a good job of reorganizing the office, sharply reducing costs of operation, facilitating the payment of poll taxes and generally conducting an efficient operation. When he was attacked by the almost always hostile San Antonio News for ignorance and inefficiency, he addressed this memorandum to his employees:
Here's what we'll do: BE STILL MORE EFFICIENT. Treat everybody fairly. If you know of some man who calls himself my enemny, FORGET IT. Treat him with the utmost courtesy, and let him realize this is a PUBLIC OFFICE where everybody gets a SQUARE DEAL. In the Courthouse, DON'T TALK POLITICS, but what is much better, HIT THE BALL. Let us always DO OUR DUTY and treat people of this County just as they are treated by any intelligent business concern.
Let there be no waste of time, money or equipment. Let us conduct an office which will be a credit to the who STATE OF TEXAS. And if by any chance you wish to play politics for me—then play it by giving QUICK, HONEST, AND COURTEOUS SERVICE.
In the first term as tax collector Maverick saw the depression "hit like a cyclone," and by the middle of 1932 he viewed its effects on San Antonio as terrifying. Before that date he had already been engaged in a number of relief activities. For example, he organized and directed a "Babies Ball" to raise milk money for indigent children, and, as commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he spent his own money to aid fellow veterans. But by 1932 circumstances had worsened and many citizens of San Antonio and Bexar County were in a desperate plight—it was reported that as many as eleven thousand applicants for relief had been made.
Maverick rolled up his sleeves and began to practice what he had read and preached. He urged Governor Ross Sterling to provide relief assistance, and he joined in the establishment of a Central Veterans Committee for aid to veterans and their families. When the Central Relief Committee for San Antonio was established, Maverick asked the governor to appoint him to the chairmanship of the Finance Committee, which was to disburse the funds received by the state from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In addition to managing the funds, Maverick wrote many letters soliciting contributions to supplement the limited amount provided through state assistance, and he had considerable success. The substantial nature of his contribution may be judged from the following letter from W. M. Cadmus, secretary of the C. Spangler Lodge of the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen in San Antonio:
Your activities are well known to the membership of this organization in which you have shown the unselfish spirit so necessary at this time. It is known that you have personally furnished supplies, and personally supervised distribution, as well as giving time and energy to the point of personal hardship in having shelter made available to the destitute.
The thanks of this lodge is hereby extended to you, Mr. Maverick. Your activities in relief work will go down in history as an outstanding example of sacrifice for starving humanity.
Maverick's major venture as a member of the Central Veterans Committee was the establishment of what began as camp for transient veterans and then became an experiment in communal living. The War Veterans Relief Camp was organized on October 18, 1932, at Exposition Park in San Antonio, where remnants of the Bonus Army were camping. Maverick was designated director and R. R. Rogers was the camp commander. At first the camp was only a place where transients might get a meal and a place to sleep in nondescript shelters. Food was provided partly through relief funds and partly through contributions of local merchants and farmers. The first camp census (October 19, 1932) listed forty-three adults and thirty-two children. Maverick kept up constant correspondence and leg work securing salvage cooking equipment, surplus army clothing, and other necessities for the increasing number of camp dwellers.
On November 21, 1932, a terse "Colony Order No. 2" appeared, informing residents that, "Effective this date this camp will be known as the Diga Colony, Frio City Road and Mr. Maverick will be known as the Colony Director. It is desired that the word 'camp' be dropped from the record and conversation entirely. The order signaled the move of the camp to a thirty-fir-acre site that Maverick had secured from the Humble Company and announced the launching on an original self-help community, the Diga Colony.
Maverick conceived of a utopian scheme by which the unemployed transients might completely rehabilitate themselves. He said that the basic aims were to provide "Housing, regular and proper diet, education, character building and a normal life." It was his view that widespread unemployment and indigence made it necessary to "start the recolonization and repatriation of the people and somehow have a change in the economic order and in this way people will be finally adjusted."
The tireless and idealistic tax collector secured a number of boxcars from the Missouri Pacific Railroad and had the cars moved to the site. Somehow, somewhere he was able to "chisel," as he put it, enough materials to permit colonists to convert the cars into decent habitations. Maverick was also the inspiration for programs of training in various crafts. Some food was grown in the colony area, and labor was bartered for farm products in the surrounding area. A clinic and an employment agency were also established. Maverick, with the zeal of a make-the-world-over-today reformer, even had Dr. Robert H. Montgomery, an economics professor at the University of Texas, give lectures in economics to the youths in order that they might understand the problems they faced and the significance of such experiments as Diga.
A fairly rigorous discipline would result in expulsion from the colony residents. Breaches in discipline would result in expulsion from the colony, and the records reveal several such actions. Children were required to attend school and parents had to give a strict accounting of any tardiness. Parents who were not working were expected to perform kitchen duty or supervisory work in the common dining hall. Maverick was responsible for the rule that men who earned money outside the colony were required to donate one-third to one-half of their earnings, depending upon whether they were single or married, to the Diga Colony Fund. Curt notices appeared from time to time with such messages as: "Effective this date and until further orders all men in the Colony, not on special duty, will answer roll call in front of the office at 7:45 A.M.. . . for work instructions," and "Effective this date there will be no men leaving the colony, at any time, without permission from Mr. Rogers, Colony Commander." Though Maverick reported a population of "250 to 300" for Diga Colony, the official records showed a peak census of 171 on January 14, 1933.
The colony was apparently well managed, and it reached a near self-sustaining basis midway in its life span of about one year. Robert Kelso, field director for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, called it "one of the most effective demonstrations of self-help for the unemployed" he had seen in his travels across the country. The Houston Chronicle published a major feature article on the colony and expressed the opinion that it was "unquestioned that Camp Diga is performing a valuable public service. Besides sustaining individuals and families who might be on charity. . . it is strengthening or restoring the morale of persons who, although they might have been 'down' were not yet 'out.' By February 1933 the experiment had attracted the attention of the Christian Science Monitor, and it was said to be the subject of study by people from all over the United States.
The idea for Diga was entirely Maury Maverick's. He was termed the "guiding spirit" of a "vision of an idealist come true." The colony was not, of course, a completely original idea, but it was an original venture in its time and place so far as Maverick was concerned. A few experiments were going on in other parts of the country at this time, and reports of some of them were getting into the radical publications. The Monthly Labor Review (to which Maverick subscribed) did not report such experiments until March 1933.
The people in the colony had no ideological objections to the venture, because, as Maverick explained: "None had ever heard of socialism—except as some vague thing that was 'bad.' As for Communism, all they knew was that it was Russian, unpatriotic, and sinful. As for the word 'collectivism,' it was just a word that had gotten misplaced. In many contacts, I found that their idea of 'capitalism' was a state of society in which you can be hungry for a while, but you will finally get a good job, and possibly have others that can go hungry or work for you."
Maverick's communistic experiment went the way of most such experiments, because people did not "understand cooperation for the common good." He later declared, "Two economies cannot exist side by side within a given area, especially a money and non-money one. Such things as 'Epics' and the like are bound to be failures because they represent a patchwork economy." As was often the case, Maverick's pungent humor masked his disappointment with the results when he commented, "Our men began to get work on Army projects. One worked thirty hours in a week and got a dollar an hour. He had been the meekest, most respectable and hard-working man in the colony. He drew his thirty dollars. He arrived on the scene tight as a drum, swaggering down the street. He beat his wife, turned capitalist, and left."
Maverick concluded that the experiment had been valuable as a phase in the "story of the development of the American mind," and that it had helped his own thinking to develop. He reasoned that such experiments were likely to succeed only if they were isolated from the rest of society and if they had the "binding power" of some religion. He said that Diga was a laboratory in which he learned the "utter futility of makeshift economics," and that "the condition of a laborer in Northhampton, Massachusetts, has a direct effect on a worker in Tucumcari, New Mexico." The economy of the nation cannot be, he said, "a hodgepodge of conflicting systems and plans."
It was after Diga was underway that Maverick undertook another venture that he said would probably bring charges of publicity seeking. Before he had engaged in his efforts in behalf of the transient unemployed, Maverick had done some field research to discover the true proportions and gravity of their problems. He did this by dressing as a hobo and mingling with the people as they alighted from the freights in San Antonio. Now he conceived of doing this on a broader scale. In December 1932 the governor appointed Maverick, at his own behest, to make a "survey of destitute people in the state, particularly in reference to destitute transient population."
Accompanied by two friends, Pat Jefferson and Harry Futrell, Maverick dressed as a hobo and made a swing through part of Texas to study at first hand the plight of the transient unemployed. He admitted that at first he was not too effective as an "amateur bum"—some of the authentic tramps wanted to know where he had gotten a shave and how he managed to get fat. He also failed the test when he attempted to eat some of the hobo fare; he had to rush to a secluded spot with his two companions and vomit. As he described the scene, "Pat jumped up and down and nearly laughed himself to death. Harry, however, a sympathetic soul, looked on and suddenly he joined in. It was a fine duet. I feel sure that Harry must have done this as a gesture of true brotherhood."
Though they actually "rode the rods" to some extent, the three "hobos" cheated by keeping a car planted in the towns they visited, and they would slip off to get a decent meal from time to time. But despite Maverick's lighthearted treatment of some events on the trip, the three did sleep in the hobo jungles in Houston and Waco and saw the incredible degradation of people who were not ordinary tramps. Many were youths, male and female, and sometimes entire families were aimlessly drifting about the country on the freight trains. In his message to Governor Sterling after the trip, Maverick made an impassioned plea for some action to alleviate a situation in which such youths were "spending their formative years in flophouses, jails, jungles, or any available shelter, begging, panhandling, and, incidentally, starving part of the time, living miserably on a wholly improper diet, with no sanitation, no medical attention." Maverick told the governor that there were some fifty to seventy-five thousand "destitute, shelterless, homeless people" who were willing to work but could find no jobs. He urged that these conditions be recognized as a national problem and that the information be given to the federal government with a view to the development of national policies to meet such problems. To the extent that he was able to do so, Maverick took direct action in San Antonio. He organized transient relief stations where these people could get a simple but decent meal, and he even provided them with information as to the best travel routes and "the best places to board trains without getting into trouble."
Maverick moved to action on still another front in the late 1920's. He had joined the American Civil Liberties Union shortly after his return from World War I, and he gave as his reason for joining: "In the World War, I was so impressed with human injustice, . . . that I have a hatred of all kinds of things." As one writer put it, foremost among the things for which Maury Maverick would "fight, bleed and die" was the protection of civil liberties. The development of his thought should be of particular interest to students of civil liberties, because Maverick's intellectual convictions were constantly meeting the acid tests of having to stand beside some "enemy of the people," or suffer the abuse and ingratitude of those he defended or even listen to the cries of an angry mob that wanted to "Hang Maury Maverick to a sour apple tree."
That Maverick should have been concerned with civil rights and civil liberties requires little analysis or explanation; that he should have been one of the most resolute champions in modern American history does. He probably would have agreed that his penchant for defending the rights of the individual, and the underdog in particular, stemmed in part from the fact that he was the youngest child in his family—battling for status and recognition. Secondly, the principle of the free, inquiring mind—making its own findings, and its own choices—was preached and practiced in his home. Finally, a man who made intellectual insurgency a fetish would naturally stand for as complete freedom of expression as he could get.
Maverick also indicated that he was inspired to the defense of civil liberties by the example of his grandfather, Sam Maverick. Maury wrote a cousin in 1930 that the elder Maverick came to Texas with a "solemn understanding of the Bill of Rights," and with the principles of the Declaration of Independence "in his heart and soul." He continued, "You will remember, he was not a member of any church, and yet, when the Know Nothing movement hit Texas, just as the Ku Klux movement hit a few years ago, he helped to wipe them out and Texas' name was not blotted by the disgraceful tactics of that organization in other parts of America."
Maverick told an audience in Boston in 1937 about another Sam Maverick whom he claimed as an ancestor ("sixth great-grandfather"). This Sam was "in continuous hot water with your authorities because he believed in civil and religious liberties." In his first book, Maverick spoke proudly of this ancient Maverick being fined 150 pounds for raising a row over violations of civil liberties.
As Maury defended Communists during the period from 1928 to 1930, he began to have some misgivings about extending protection to them. He defended some friends of Communist leader Benjamin Gitlow in 1930 and then listened to them boast that they would "defy the police" and not abide by the law. (When one of them came to his tax collector's office and insisted upon taking Maverick as his "comrade," the furious Texan said, "Get out, you son-of-a-bitch!") After several earlier notes of complaint, Maury addressed a lengthy letter to Forrest Bailey of the American Civil Liberties Union, complaining that the Communists whom he had defended had charged that he was no better than the persons who would not defend them, because he would not welcome them with open arms. He asked Bailey:
Why should I go out of my way to help a bunch of people, who do not recognize the ordinary process of law, who do not themselves recognize the Bill of Rights under which they claim freedom of speech and who by their freedom of speech would take away my liberties. There is a point for you, and I want your committee to pass upon it and I do not want any set of theorists to pass on it, but I want you, Baldwin, Hays and other old trusties to pass on it. . . . Like Rabelais, a definite thing to establish for a definite person.
Lastly, listen to this: Don't you "members of the Board" sit up there on your golden thrones. . . and in your theoretical somnolence chide me for my narrow-mindedness.
There is little doubt that Maverick's questions were no more than rhetorical—a bit of grumbling. He resented both the ingratitude and abuse of the Communists and what he felt to be the sometimes gratuitous advice and proddings of the ACLU and some of the defendants in the cases. In fact, he had provided the answer to his own question in the following passage from the same letter, "If principles of liberty are involved, which may become law by virtue of appellate decisions, then of course, irrespective of all questions, we should enter and make a fight." Bailey's answer to Maverick was a generally routine response to such questions and differed little from his own statement just quoted.
There was no slackening of Maverick's civil liberties efforts. In the same month, he wrote to the district attorney in Dallas, urging prosecution of persons who had kidnapped and beaten two Communist party organizers. Maverick said that the country should know that "Texas protects the Bill of Rights and freely and gladly allows freedom of any form of speech." In April 1931 he was fighting attempts to pass criminal syndicalist laws in the Texas Legislature and applauding the Governor's decision to permit Communists to come to the Capital and "talk themselves out."
Maverick was often wrestling with himself—fighting the indigenous prejudices that surrounded him as well as expressing his resentment toward those people who advised him but who were not in the sweaty arena. His strong and nearly always consistent defense of civil liberties and civil rights was made all the more remarkable by the fact that he did not win this struggle within himself until his later years. He often raised such questions in private until the last five years of his life. His support for the ultimate in freedom of expression and procedural guarantees for the Communists (as well as his support for equal rights for racial minorities) derived from intellectual convictions. He heartily disliked the Communists and their tactics, perhaps even "despised" was often the more correct word, and he was quite sensitive to Northern liberals' complaints about conditions in the South; he opposed social equality for the Negro until about 1950, and even then he had some misgivings about it. In his usual pungent style, Maverick once wrote to his son: "Lord God, I have spent my life fighting for minorities. But what have they done for me? They have shit on me; but I hasten to say, having washed, I am ready to go on defending them. But every now and then I get tired of that stuff. . . . Prejudice is inherent in every religion, race, creed or nationality. We Protestants have it, as others do. The thing to do is to try to level it down as much as we can."
Maury, Jr., told me that his father had said at a later date, after a particularly trying bout over civil liberties, "Don't do anything for minorities with the expectation of getting something in return, even if it's just gratitude; if you do, they will break your heart. Do for them because its the right thing to do and for no other reason."
Maverick was not defending civil liberties with an eye to the ballot box. His worst enemies would not make that charge against him. A San Antonio newspaper that rather consistently treated him with indifference or condemnation said, "There have been those who questioned the sincerity of Maverick's liberalism, thinking that he was trimming his sails to the contemporary national political wind—but the questioning was infrequent and the questioners mostly obscure. This newspaper was not one of them."
Against the advice of friends, Maverick decided to make the race for a congressional seat in 1934. An opening that he had anticipated presented itself in the form of the creation of the new Twentieth District of Texas, taken from the Fourteenth District represented by Richard M. Kleberg. The Twentieth District is confined to Bexar County. Maverick had supported Kleberg in his race for the Fourteenth District seat in a special election in 1931 with the understanding that Kleberg would support Maverick in his bid when the new district was established, and he had that support.
In this first congressional campaign, Maverick's back injuries caused him to stagger and provided his delighted opponents with the whispered charge of drunkenness. He reported that he ignored the charge because he much preferred it to the truth. The truth was that a tumor had developed on his upper spine as a result of his war wounds, and the pressure on his spinal cord had not only produced his unsteady gait but had caused his eyes to bulge and gave him excruciating pain. Albert Maverick wrote in his "Private Notes," April 11, 1933, that his son was "intensely nervous and restless—too heavy & lacks exercise—systematic exercise—slips down in a big chair, brings his right hand back around his head & presses the left side—talking the while by fits and starts. He is suffering all the time & gets next to no sleep. . . . All comes, no doubt, from the wound on his spinal column, rec'd. in the Argonne some 15 years ago. It makes me cry—quietly & to myself." Albert wrote again on August 29, 1934, "Physical infirmities result from his wounds. He suffers constantly. Activity—mental and physical—is necessary." As his father indicated, the pains goaded Maverick into almost frenzied activity—a set of habits he was never to relinquish even after the reasonably successful operation he had after the election.
The ailing Maverick let a field of five candidates in the first Democratic primary, but he lacked the necessary majority for the nomination, which was tantamount to winning the seat in Congress. He had ahead of him a bitter campaign against the runner-up, Mayor C. K. Quin, who was to remain his arch foe in later political battles. The doughty Maverick was charged by his opponent with "morals unworthy of a congressman," "affiliations with Communists," and the desire to "supplant the American flag with the red flag of Russia." Frank C. Davis, speaking for Quin, pointed out that Maverick was a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, "that organization which stands for communism and anarchy." A campaign broadside headed, "American Citizens Beware," warned of the dangers of electing the radical Maverick. This sheet, issued by the "Klu [sic] Klux Klan Committee," featured a picture of Quin in KKK garb with the caption, "Our Congressman," and the injunction: "All 100% Americans will vote for a Real Patriot!"
At this early date, however, such charges were not as likely to be effective as they were to be in Maverick's later contests. The real struggle was between Maverick's Citizens League supporters and a revived city-county machine backing Quin. Maverick won an impressive runoff primary victory of 20,411 to 17,210, and one of America's most spectacular congressional careers had been launched.
Before he could go to Congress, however, Maverick had to go to the Mayo Clinic for the critical surgery that he had needed for years. His condition was precarious, and his wife was warned that the worst might be expected. The operation involved removal of the tumor and sawing off the back part or lamina of each of the vertebra from his skull to his shoulders. Maverick said that the operation had saved his life and that all of the "bad features" were gone, but thereafter he was not able to turn his head in the normal fashion. People often though he was being impolite when he turned his back to respond to someone standing or seated at his side, but it was the only way he could turn his head.
Maverick almost had to be carried about during his first weeks in Congress, but with the help of two canes he recovered in about five or six months. He retained something of his rolling gait, but it was not so pronounced as before the operation. Whatever his physical condition, Maverick did not permit it to interfere with his activist role in the House of Representatives, which he assumed from the outset.
Maury and His Mavericks
It was only a matter of days after his arrival in Washington in January 1935 that delighted newsmen were filing lively stories about one of the most colorful men who had ever entered the United States House of Representatives.
What manner of man was this Maverick?
The spectator who looked down from the House gallery saw a squat, broad-framed, bench-legged man about forty years old with the general appearance of a bulldog or a big bullfrog. His widow still chuckles about an incident that occurred when the late Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia was showing a group of constituents through the nation's Capitol. As Byrd brought his brood into the House gallery, he noticed Maverick coming down the aisle below and remarked, "There comes Maury Maverick, looking like a big toad." Mrs. Maverick, who was sitting nearby in the gallery, turned and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Byrd, but that's my husband." The courtly Byrd turned several hues and without a word moved quickly on with his party.
Maverick's weight ranged from 175 to 230 pounds, and he was closer to the higher side of that range most of the time. He usually lost the sporadic battles he waged against the extra pounds. He often made weight charts from the cardboard inserts found inside folded shirts and posted these charts on the wall over the bathroom scale. His wife and daughter "helped" by attaching to the sides and bottom of the charts such gentle reminders as a picture of a prize hog from a recent fat-stock show.
Maverick could not even find victory in his most successful bout with his weight problem. A couple of years out of Congress, as mayor of San Antonio, he had trimmed his bulging paunch down to near the vanishing point. Accompanied by his wife, he went into a San Antonio clothing store to buy a suit to fit his new figure. As he boasted of his achievement to a salesman he knew quite well, Maverick stepped back, said, "See," and sucked in his belly. Though his trunk was large, his hips were relatively small, and to the horror of the salesman and in full view of the first-floor customers, Maverick's pants fell to the floor. A matronly woman looked over and said, "There's our disgusting mayor; now I know I'll never vote for him." Maverick struggled manfully but unsuccessfully to get his belted trousers up as the salesman helped him to hobble off to a dressing room.
Maverick was fat, but his deep chest, heavily-muscled shoulders and thickset legs gave an impression of power rather than pudginess. His hands were blunt, square, and capable looking, and his large head was topped by a thatch of dark brown hair that curled up in rebellious fashion above his broad brow. In later years, however, his hair was a more closely cropped gray. From his early thirties he wore somewhat old-fashioned metal-rimmed spectacles through which his gray-green eyes stared piercingly. The nose was large and blunt; the mout generous with full lips, the lower sometimes a bit pouted. His jowls were heavy, but his chin and jaw were strong and determined in their cant. Altogether he was a man people did not soon forget.
In private conversation Maverick spoke in a modulated rumble that could rise to a crackling higher pitch in moments of excitement. In public speaking he exhibited most of the arts of volume, tone, pitch, and timing with seeming effortlessness. The speech drafts from which he spoke, however, show a very careful preparation by heavily penciled notations of "slow here," "rising inflection," "up tempo," or "softly."
A contemporary observer, who said that Maverick had "taken a running broad jump onto the nation's front pages," described him in action on the floor of the House: "His five feet and a little over are not impressive. But his resounding voice rolls out from his barrel chest and his words ring up into the House galleries. His round face grows red with conviction as he unloosens a stinging accusation and then his blue eyes pop with mischief as he swings to raillery."
His private speech was extremely earthy and nearly always generously interlarded with profanity. The world of his philosophical and political enemies was pretty generally populated with "bastards" and "son-of-a-bitches." But Maverick often used this language to give an appearance of a roughness he did not feel; that is, it was a mask for his sentimentality. Indeed, he was a user of what might be called affectionate profanity. I deemed it the final touch of approbation to be introduced by him to Ms. Maverick as a "God damned professor." Maverick admitted to as much in the preface to his first book, where he related his cussing at a reference librarian in the Library of Congress and said, "For indeed, it is a happy friendship that I have with this fellow; he knows that my bellowing, like his pretense of ignorance, are kindly shams and frauds that bind us together."
He could be seen at times and by some people as the exhibitionist, the clown or buffoon. His very appearance and name caused some persons to see "bull" or "belligerence." Some conservative opponents (and even some nervous supporters) saw him as a grown-up adolescent, ready to wreck things in order to strike a fanciful pose. Though Maverick was not conceited in the sense of boasting of his achievements, he did want to be noticed—he demanded attention for his ideas and opinions. But his challenges were not for ego appeasement alone, and he knew what he was doing. As he said to a reporter in 1937: "I found by being pleasant the party leaders did not remember me. Then I began to question their actions, make suggestions that irritated them. They remembered me. Having placed me in the category of a crackpot, they began to show me some consideration. They consulted me about legislation they thought I might be for or against.
Maverick was often tough and blunt. He said that facts themselves were "tough, hard, mean" things, and he had a passionate hatred of "all pretenses, hypocrisies, and superficialities," which made many people uncomfortable targets of his barbs, or, more often, thunderbolts.
One of Maverick's worst failings, and at the same time one of his great assets, was his studied irreverence. He had a tendency to make provocative "digs" at various groups or institutions or personalities. He did not do this out of pure cussedness, but rather as a gambit designed to draw peoples' attention, stir them up, and bring on some lively conversation. Former President Harry S. Truman interpreted this trait another way. When queried about Maverick's irreverence, Truman said, "He wasn't irreverent; he was like me, he said what he thought." Truman said that the guery reminded him of an incident in which he had been treated to some of Maury's irreverence. On one of his visits to San Antonio, the president decided to pull Maverick's leg a bit by asking him, "Maury, what's this Alamo thing you have here?" Truman reported that Maury bristled and growled, "If you want to see it, say so, but I don't want to hear anybody calling it the 'Alamo thing.'" "And," Truman concluded with obvious delight, "I was the President of the United States!"
When Maverick offered himself as a candidate for Congress in 1934, he presented his philosophy of representation to Bexar County voters in terms not unlike Edmund Burke's famed speech to his constituents. He declared: "I intend to be independent and courageous and I will not indulge in indecent personalities. I expect to be faithful and loyal to my district, but not to be a cheap pork-barrel congressman; I expect to be true to my principles, and not to be deflected by unfair criticism by some irresponsible source, or by pressure from those who are powerful and selfish." In a 1935 address to the House of Representatives, Maverick omitted a passage that had appeared in his original draft: "Now we came to Congress, not to follow the mob, nor to follow ill-advised opinions, but to lead the people, possibly, in the right path." But in a later speech he was not afraid to say with sheer audacity, "As for me I am throwing in with the Yankees and the liberals, the agriculture boys of the West—and the big-city Democrats too. That is the only way the Democratic Party can do a good job and serve America." He rubbed in a bit of salt with a final remark to the effect that the South was not entitled to any special favors and that labor was entitled to protection as much as "cotton plantation owners and ranchmen and rice growers."
This attitude was widely recognized as contributing to his eventual defeat. As the Philadelphia Record said, "He preferred to follow his principles and did not make the least effort to conceal them even in the cases where they offended the prejudices of his constituency." Fortune magazine summed up Maverick's concept of the role of a representative in this way, "He had a rather cavalier attitude about voters, preferring, oddly in a politician, to allow ideas he actually had to become known and to think that voters should make up their minds on the basis of the record."
Maury Maverick would not use demagoguery, at least not with respect to any important matters, as he once put it. It is remarkable that he even discussed his demagoguery publicly and vowed that he would do it no more. Maverick did, for the most part, refrain from such tactics. If he had been looking for a vote-getter, he could very well have endorsed or at least side-stepped the Townsend Plan, which had considerable support in Texas. Far from doing this, he branded the proposal as "fantastic" and "brazen, unconscionable, and hopeless." When asked why he was so positive when he could have at least straddled the issue, Maverick said, "Having died twice in France, it isn't worthwhile to avoid one political death by being a demagogue."
Ten years away from the legislative scene, Maverick clearly indicated what he thought a representative should and should not be in this advice to young congressmen:
For a quarter-century, I have seen young handsome men, full of ideals, spring into Washington. I have seen many slink away, heavy of soul, fat of head, lazy, stupid, traitors to the people who sent them there. I have seen others stay to lobby for the special interests whom they originally fought against in Congress and which they now serve like dull, political eunuchs in the harem of a pasha.
The pressure on you to follow in their footsteps will be great.
Everything you do that is new or that inconveniences anybody will bring self-righteous criticism, pious warnings. Often when you act as a true statesman you will be ridiculed and thought a fool. Many times they will try to work through your wife and kids, holding out the bribe of better clothes, a better home, better schools, protection against the unending insecurity for your family that will haunt you. But don't give in. Do what you think is right.
You face what Joseph Conrad tried to write about, that is, being alone. But if you can feel and see beyond the fake forest built around you by newspapers, selfish people and special interests, the world is with you.
Friends, enemies, and neutrals testified that Maury Maverick was one of the most radical members ever sent to the United States House of Representatives. He was not just radical "for a Southern member," he was as radical as United States representatives get. He consorted with the left wing of the American labor movement, tried to pass general civil-rights legislation, and fought loud and long against the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His office became a sort of informal headquarters and sometime clearing house for various liberal causes.
Maverick's physical disability at the time of his arrival in Congress had won him an office, number 101 in the old House Office Building, on the street level close to the subway to the Capitol. The office was cluttered and jammed with too many filing cabinets. The walls were covered with his personal picture gallery, and various bits of Texana were scattered about in other places. A row of Texas cactuses in a long window box was silhouetted in the window of the reception room. Behind Maverick's desk was a special, high-backed chair designed to support his weakened neck, and to the side there was a large blackboard on which he posted his various commitments. The office was also frequently cluttered with promoters of liberal causes and other Maverick well-wishers, and it was for this reason that he and a few of his fellows cornered some small rooms on the fifth floor for use as hideouts. There Maverick might be found by a favored few, hunched over his well-thumbed copies of Montesquieu, Montaigne, Hume, Bryce, and others—one hand supporting his head. Stanley High, one of the favored few, said that Maverick was "obviously one of the heavy-thinking contingent," but that he was too politic to "parade his knowledge on the floor of the House where an erudite man may be suspect." High also testified to Maverick's radicalism, saying that he was one of the foremost spokesmen for the "radico-liberals" throughout the country. The orthodox leaders were wary of Maverick, said High, and "his enemies called him a wild man."
High was clearly an admirer of Maverick, but an amiable Maverick critic in South Carolina, after voicing "avowed Tory sympathies," gave a similar appraisal. He said that Maverick was clearly a "radical" or "leftist," but not a "blackguard." He praised Maverick's erudition and talent as a writer for radical publications and defended him against the "average nice fellow in Congress from the South" who would set Maverick, or any man of cultivation and talent, down as a "crank." The South Carolina editor concluded, "Maverick seems to be an original sinner, and we have come to the stage that we wink at political sin if only a little of it be original.
Though High said that Maverick was too politic to do so, he did show some of his erudition on the floor of the House, but consistent with High's claim, Maverick often did it in such a manner as to lampoon the erudition. For example, he prepared his own report on a resolution designed to permit United States officers to accept foreign edals, with the primary aim of chiding his colleagues for devoting their attention to minor matters instead of considering the welfare of the nation—"a mere local matter." With tongue far into cheek, he said:
Since this matter of medals touches all the heights and depths of civilization. . . it is not to be treated lightly. It must be treated philosophically. Now the heaviest philosophy for the occasion is that of Hegel who handled everything dialectically. This method calls for the division of every . . . argument into these parts: thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It may not be generally known, but thesis, antithesis and synthesis form the basis of all argumentation. . . . This was proved beyond any doubt by by Dr. Hegel, a distinguished philosopher.
HEGELIAN TRUTH
Applying the reasoning of Hegel to the problem before us, the burning issue of medals, we are compelled to take the case philosophically in the following manner:
Thesis
1. If a citizen is not worthy, he should not have a medal; and if he is worthy, he does not need it.
Antithesis
2. To insist on his having it is . . . the antithesis.
Synthesis
3. Don't let him have the medal.
The uncongressman-like activities of Maverick in the world of books and ideas included writing book reviews for the Congressional Record. When he encountered what he thought to be an important book, he considered it his duty to apprise his less-enlightened colleagues of its value and to encourage them to read it. In February 1937 he had included in the Record a column by Gail Borden of the Chicago Times, February 23, 1937, which twitted Maverick for his presumptuousness, but then styled part of the review as a "masterpiece of review like one of the old masters in that craft." Maverick promptly announced that he was entering another book review for the benefit of his colleagues.
Maverick was also asked to review books for various other publications. One of the better ones was done for the Baltimore Sun on Walter Lippmann's An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society. After reading the book, Maverick had the Library of Congress send him Lippmann's columns for the past year and he read personality corroborated in an exchange of letters with Charles A. Beard, General Hugh S. Johnson, and Stuart Chase. Armed with such impressive backing, Maverick sailed into Lippmann with the usual gusto. He said, "The non-reading elite who live in big houses will buy it, read a few chapters, gain solace and recommend it as sound," but he marked out of his original draft the more pungent observation, "I am sure his former comrades will say, 'Lippmann is the opium of the Rich.'" Maverick apparently thought this line was hitting a bit below the belt. His analysis (which was done before nearly all others) anticipated the criticisms to be found in the liberal journals. His main quarrel with the work was that the "good society" would somehow be based upon collectivist principles and techniques without being collectivist.
Maverick had the faculty, often missing in politicians, of being able to laugh at himself. Indeed, this was a part of the clown myth; but he was more than a clown, he was a genuine humorist. He could be extremely serious when he felt it necessary, but he had a puckish humor which at least one book reviewer compared with that of Mark Twain. His private correspondence and conversation were enlivened by hilarious anecdotes and remarks—some of them unprintable. Walter Well said that Maverick originated the expression when he told some ostentatiously liberal friends, "I'm so liberal I say 'chigro' instead of 'chigger.'" When a witness reported that he had heard the "clink of silver dollars" as Maverick allegedly distributed money for illegal poll-tax payments, the irrepressible defendent is said to have turned to his lawyer and whispered, "It's a damn lie! It was paper money."
In the course of one of his campaigns Maverick was talking to a group of the Mexican-Americans, who made up such a large part of his constituency. When he referred to them several times as "Mexicans," a nervous aide whispered to him that these sensitive people preferred to be called "Latin Americans." Maverick quickly turned to the assembled group and said, "If you paid your poll tax, stand up." When a goodly number complied, Maverick declared with a grin, "You are Latin Americans; the rest of you are Mexicans." All but a few "Mexicans" laughed then at this imaginative distinction and many of them like to tell the story today.
No writer (or reader) of scholarly works could fail to appreciate Maverick's response to the paraphernalia of scholarly writing:
For his documentation smacks of vindictiveness rather than professoriality. We feel he is thinking: "Yes, they doubt me—curse them, here is Ibid., I, 344; Adams, Diary; King's Corr., V., 31: all this my dear sir, at the bottom of each page—that proves it. And moreover (Bowers still speaking) here upon page 513, you see this (Aside—damn your Federalist and Tory hides and such as may disbelieve me), my bibliography, which is headed; "BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, PUBLIC DOCUMENTS, CONTEMPORARY PAMPHLETS AND NEWSPAPERS CITED AND CONSULTED," and it is thorough—and cursed be he who says it is not accurate, nor enough.
Maverick seems to have originated the perfect squelch type of letter to answer insulting notes from correspondents. The much quoted classic was his response to a two-thousand-word letter lambasting Maverick and the New Deal. He replied:
Honorable Robert E. Price
2045 East Wood Street
Decatur, Illinois
Dear Sir:
Ph-t-t!!
An equally good and only slightly more wordy example, previously unpublished, was the result of a letter from a radio listener who had heard one of Maverick's network speeches in defense of the New Deal. The writer called Maverick a "rabble rouser" who was out for some political reward. Maverick responded:
Honorable A. B. Smith
The Oaks
4238 Broadside Ave.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Dear Friend Smith:
Go jump in the lake, you old bull frog. I mean any one of the beautiful ten thousand lakes in Minnesota.
P.S. Don't do it—you will ruin the lake.
Maverick also had a propensity for pulling off elaborate gags done up in some sort of pseudo-official trappings. Three months after his arrival in Congress he concocted a ceremony in the Republican cloakroom in which he knighted left-wing Republican Representative Vito Marcantonio with the Order of the Pink Elephant and designated him as the Pink Pachyderm of Congress. In the presence of Marcantonio's more conservative colleagues, Maverick pinned a tiny pink elephant with a blue ribbon on the New York representative and presented him with an elaborately decorated scroll that congratulated him for being an "off-color Republican."
As a member of the Texas Philosophical Society, which was apparently a bit shy of philosophers, Maverick once had the task of sounding out members for suggestions for future meetings. After gathering the responses, he addressed this combination of whimsey and irony to his fellows:
MEMBER SAYS WE SHOULD CONSIDER PHILOSOPHY
(An Eccentric Suggestion)
Now it becomes my painful duty to relate a multilateral insult. It is that our organization should devote itself, at least to some extent, to our purposes—this person must be an eccentric. Anyhow, this wicked character suggested that we give some attention to philosophy. I move he be thrown out, without trial or due process of law, of course.
He went even further and made the gross suggestion that teachers of philosophy in our various institutions of learning might be taken in as auxiliary members.
OUR PURPOSELESSNESS MUST BE PRESERVED
The foregoing we could hardly bear, permitting Ph.D.'s to be almost our intellectual or social equals—and to mingle with us as secondary members of the Texas Philosophical Society. If this passes, I shall demand that these Ph.D.'s be segregated and make affidavits that they will not overthrow our Society and its purposelessness.
Maverick's high order of intellectual integrity was testified to by friends and enemies. Webb said his integrity was "unflinching," and Herbert Corey wrote in the Nation's Business, "One of the most acid critics said of him: 'He is fundamentally honest. He could not be induced or bullied into surrendering his principles. He makes up his own mind.'" A businessman wrote of any man in America is better qualified to advise new congressmen. Stentorian of voice, subtle as a brass band, courageous, sincere and frank, he has haunted phonies and fence-straddlers throughout his public career. Those who don't like him respect his patriotism, guts and brilliance."
Despite his attention-getting antics and truculence, the rough-tough Maverick had great compassion for his fellow man. It was this quality that Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt singled out when asked to give her estimate of Maverick. She said, "I would say that Maury Maverick was fearless and warm as a man. He had compassion for all men, even those in prison." President Truman said, "He was always on the right side—the side of the little fellow." Maverick once said that he considered "human compassion" to be the fundamental difference between a "progressive" and a "conservative." Maverick was a man of great sentimentality and sensitivity. He wept openly as he watched newsreel pictures of young men marching off to war, and he once wrote that the reason he had always thought Anatole France's The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard to be a "beautiful book" was because "the main idea is that there is only one thing worth while, and that is sentiment." The late Arnold Ben Wacker, assistant professor of business administration and economics at Our Lady of the Lake College in San Antonio and a speech-writing assistant and admirer of Maverick, gave the candid appraisal that Maverick loved the poor and the downtrodden in the abstract, but that at times had the human failing of many liberals of not being able to "enthuse" about it in person-to-person relations with such people.
It is difficult to find superlatives adequate to describe the phenomenal impact of this Texas whirlwind on Congress and the national consciousness when he took his place in the House of Representatives in January 1935. Few freshmen members of Congress have equaled his performance. Rather than awaiting a nod from the thrones of the wise and mighty, Maverick was engaging in vigorous debate before his chair was warm. At the beginning of his second year, he paid his respects to the tradition of quiescent first-timers, and then said bluntly, "I represent my people, so I will speak."
His unmatched candor and audacity, even when dealing with the president, became the talk of Washington. One reporter gave an account of Maverick's unsuccessful attempts to secure an appointment with Stephen Early, secretary to President Roosevelt, which culminated in this tart letter to FDR: "I am having difficulty in reaching Mr. Early. Will you be so kind as to help me in making an appointment with him?" The next day Early called Maverick.
One of Maverick's best friends, the later newsman and novelist Walter Karig, gave him some of his own medicine after failing several times to find the congressman in his office. Karig penciled on a sheet of typing paper an excellent caricature of Maverick, picturing him as a horned, snorting bull rushing somewhere headl-long, and above the drawing he jotted the note, "Dear Voroshilov: You're getting as hard to reach as Steve Early. Karig." Maverick preserved the caricature and wrote on it the comment, "This is really great, aggressive art. He told me off.—M" Karig also did a pretty neat job of capturing the image of Maury Maverick in words. Karig said that when he went to heaven, he fully expected to find "at the Golden Gate St. Peter, baffled by my unscheduled arrival, will say he'll have to see the Boss' brain truster about me; and up will ride you, in a chariot towed by all the beasts in Revelations. You will say: 'What goddam gate crashing son of a bitch is this?' And at that time, Maury, please remember that the applicant is your awed and devoted admirer."
In a matter of months the name and appearance of Maury Maverick was known throughout the United States. A careful student of Texans in the New Deal has said, "Unquestionably, the most meteoric rise in Congress during the New Deal was that of Maury Maverick of San Antonio . . . one of the best known congressmen in the nation." In his first year, Maverick was the primary subject of sixteen items in the New York Times as compared with nine items concerning the majority leader, William B. Bankhead. Articles and editorials about the ebullient Texan appeared in dozens of newspapers from the Seattle Times to the Miami Daily News when he fought the military disaffection bill in July of 1935.
The Maverick fame was more than a matter of being a showman or good copy. He was being taken seriously by a great many people, including a considerable segment of the House of Representatives. He had not been in Congress two months when he organized his liberal friends into a Maverick bloc with which both legislative and executive leadership was compelled to reckon—indeed, it might well be said that it was at times the leadership. The regular leadership of the House, Speaker Byrns and Majority Leader Bankhead, was essentially conservative and had no great enthusiasm for more New Deal programs.
Texas and the nation were strongly supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal when Maverick entered Congress. Economic conditions were improving, and the off-year Democratic gains in House and Senate seats were almost unprecedented. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. viewed the 1934 election as having also strengthened presidential influence on the Hill by bringing in a new breed of Democrats—among them "the more responsible members of the Maury Maverick group in the House"—who were both dedicated liberals and party regulars. This analysis was frequently valid (perhaps then depending upon one's interpretation of "responsible"), but it did not apply to some of the key issues that came to the fore in the House in 1935, and there were indications that men like Maverick looked upon the election results as a mandate to move the New Deal further and faster than Roosevelt had planned.
Maverick and his cohorts were also determined to oppose FDR's position on what was characterized as the number one issue as this session of Congress opened, the proposal for funding the World War I veterans bonus. Moreover, the Maverick group was to lock horns with Roosevelt on neutrality policy. The threat of an agressive totalitarianism in Europe was just beginning to emerge at this time. On the day Congress met, beleaguered Abyssinia was asking the League of Nations to take measures to ensure peace between that small African nation and Mussolini's Italy, while reports from Berlin told of an unusual meeting of Nazi leaders to demonstrate the German nation's unity under Adolf Hitler. The mood of the United States was becoming increasingly isolationist, and Maury and his Mavericks reflected that mood.
Maverick wrote next to nothing about his group of fellow liberals, and the size, nature, and degree of influence of the group have been treated variously. When queried about the paucity of information concerning the Maverick bloc, his widow said that much of its maneuvering was hush-hush, and that her husband had followed some advice from Jess Jones to the effect that the best investment a politician can make is in a telephone bill: "You get quick connections and there is no record." There is no evidence that Maverick ever claimed to be the leader of the group, but he was given the honor by virtually all of the sources that treated the movement. The Washington Herald reported that the name of the group was taken from Maury Maverick, "a leading spirit in there movement."
Indeed, one person who attended the meetings of the Mavericks said: "During the early period of Maury's tenure in Congress (I think he was almost single-handedly responsible) he called together a group of young liberal Congressmen at a fish restaurant named Hall's Restaurant. We used to go there once a week. Some 15 or 20 young Congressmen would meet with 10 or 12 executives from various agencies downtown, such as Ickes' Public Works Administration, Isador Lubin from the Department of Labor, Isadore Strauss, from the Public Housing Administration. . . . Henry Wallace often came to the meetings, Harry Hopkins came.
The first public mention of the Mavericks appeared on March 10, 1935, when the Washington Herald reported that the Texas freshman had joined with thirty-four House colleagues to form the group and that the members had adopted a twelve-point liberal program of action. Paul J. Kvale, Minnesota Farmer-Laborite, called the meeting and presided. Six days later the Herald reported that the group was made up of seven Wisconsin Progressives, three Farmer-Laborites, sixteen Democrats, and eight Republicans.
Speaker Byrns was reported to have indicated that possible disciplinary action against the Democrats in the group would be taken by the Democratic leadership. Representative Claude A Fuller (D.-Ark.) made a full-dress attack upon the insurgents on the floor of the House on March 14. He ridiculed "these Moseses who are going to lead us to the promised land" and charged that they had "formed a bloc for the purpose of controlling legislation hereafter." Kvale was singled out as the "dictator" of the group, and Fuller said that the group was intent upon breaking down the two major parties. He also insisted upon reading all the names of those members attending the meeting, told the Democrats that they got in on Franklin D. Roosevelt's coat-tails and warned that they might not be back next time.
Maverick hurried to the floor when he heard of Fuller's attack, but he arrived just as the Arkansas congressman was leaving the chamber. Maverick stopped him and growled, "I don't care if you've been around here twenty years, you can't shove that sort of stuff down my throat." He told a reporter, "They are trying to bluff Democratic members and keep them from joining. They can't bluff me. I didn't ride into office on the coat-tails of the President; I rode in on my own." Maverick then obtained five minutes for a reply to Fuller's remarks. The irate Texan termed Fuller's attack upon "certain new members of the House" a cowardly one. In a defiant tone he told his colleagues and the Democratic leaders: "I have never made a personal attack on any Democrat or on the Democratic Party since I have been a member of the House. Of course, I have not been here very long. I will never attack a Democratic unless he attacks me or some group of persons with who I associate, and I think that I have the right to associate with whom I please, I have a right to study, to attend open forums, discussion groups, lectures—and to improve my mind if I want to. . . . I did not come here to be loud-mouthed, I did not come here to talk all the time, but I think it is necessary on this occasion to say something." Maverick went on to say that he had never heard Fuller say anything progressive since he had been in the House. As far as insurgency was concerned, Maverick protested that he was not trying to start a third-party movement, but that he was being just as independent as President Roosevelt had been when he was in the New York Legislature.
Representative Gerald J. Boileau (Prog.-Wis.) launched another counterattack against Fuller the next day, charging that the "chairman of the Democratic patronage committee" was trying to intimidate Democrats. He intimated that the leadership had chosen Fuller to act as hatchet man. Though there is no definite evidence to support this charge, the New York Times reported that Speaker Byrnes had "made no secret of his opposition" to the group.
It was the Times which gave the first definite report on the Mavericks. Thirty-four members were reported to have answered a "roll call" in a meeting of the group on March 16, 1935. Maverick said that there were thirty more who would identify themselves with the program, but other members differed with him. The March 16 meeting adopted a sixteen-point program containing these policies: federal regulation of credit and currency; abolishment of the issuance of tax-exempt securities; increased inheritance, income, and gift taxes on a graduated basis; refinancing of farm debts on long-term, 1.5 percent interest; lower interest rates on home loans; guarantee to farmers their average cost of production plus a reasonable profit; limitation of hours of labor in industry; insurance to labor of "Its inherent right to bargain collectively"; public works appropriations to provide employment; federal aid to education; "government ownership of all natural resources and monopolies vested with public interest"; "deprofitizing" of war; avoidance of "foreign entanglements"; adequate provisions for the payment of sickness, old-age, and unemployment benefits; protection of freedom of speech and the press; and liberalization of House rules. The policy committee of the group consisted of Maverick, Kvale, George J .Schneider (Prog.-Wis.) Kent E. Keller (D.-Ill.), William Lemke (R.-N.D.), Melvin J. Maas (R.-Minn.), and Fred C. Gilchrist (R.-Iowa).
Less than one month from the day its program was offered, the organization, formally known as the Progressive Open Forum Discussion Group, was referred to as "a decisive factor in House strategy," and its solid vote was credited with swinging the House from the Vinson Bonus Bill to the Patman Bonus Bill. The Vinson bill provided that certificates held by World War I veterans would be funded by whatever method might be devised by the Treasury Department; the Patman bill called for outright payment by currency expansion. FDR wanted no bonus bill, and the House leadership had tried to block consideration of such a measure. In an unexpected move by Representative Wright Patman of Texas and his Maverick supporters, the Vinson measure, "with all the prestige of the American Legion endorsement behind it," was rejected. The key vote in this heated and much-publicized struggle was on a motion to recommit the Patman bill. The attempt failed by a narrow margin of 207 to 204. The House and Senate then passed the Patman bill, but it was vetoed by President Roosevelt. The following year, however, a measure akin to Patman's proposal was passed over Roosevelt's veto.
Another major area to which Maury and his Mavericks turned their attention in the spring of 1935 was neutrality and related legislation, and their first big vicotry was said to have been the rewriting of the administration's war-profits bill. Maerick had returned from World War I with a passionate hatred for warfare and was determined to do all that he could to prevent the involvement of the United States in any future war. He made what was apparently his first antiwar speech in San Antonio in November of 1933. It was a slashing attack on those men who "enjoy the fabulous profits from this death and destruction of their fellow men." He said that war results in an "international loss of respect for human values, and of ordinary rational conclusions," and argued that war might be prevented if "by federal enactment we should eliminate in advance any chance of profits."
In a campaign speech the next year, with more accurate foresight than he perhaps realized, he said, "The next war will be fought by air bombardment of great cities, and against such bombardments there is no means of defence. Enough planes will be able to tear up dozens of great cities, kill and spread murderous gases and hideous death-dealing diseases. Millions of innocent persons, who didn't want to be in the war, who hate no one, and who wear no uniforms and carry no guns, will lose their lives." He concluded that we must remove the economic causes of war—that refusals to trade, artificial restrictions, and "economic nationalism in general" would bring on war.
Maverick was not clearly an isolationist. He once said, "I have been called an isolationist and praised because I am an isolationist, but I am not." The distinction may be a matter of hair-splitting but he was a pacifist of sorts who favored an adequate national defense, U.S. participation in the World Court, and the general principle of international cooperation. Maverick had been in Congress no more than a few days when he delivered one of his most widely quoted pithy remarks—his capsule commentary on the absurdity of war. Former representative Jeannette Rankin (R.-Mon.) was asked in hearing before the House Military Affairs Committee if she would not do everything she could to help her country win a war if it should become involved in one. Representative Rankin answered with the question, "Will someone please tell me who won the last war?"—at which point Maverick interjected, "Who won the San Francisco earthquake?"
In a few months Maverick had an opportunity to bring his views to bear on some specific legislation. Representative John J. McSwain (D.-S.C.), chairman of the Military Affairs Committee, had been attempting for years to develop an acceptable measure that would prevent profiteering in time of war. On February 12, 1935, he reported from his committee a measure that was said to have been authored primarily by General Hugh S. Johnson and Bernard Baruch. The bill was designed to "prevent profiteering in time of war and to equalize the burden of war and thus provide for the national defense and promote peace." When the bill came up for a special order from the Rules Committee on April 3, Maverick attempted to have it returned to the Military Affairs Committee. He argued that the measure had no chance in the Senate unless it contained an effective tax provision, which had to originate in the House. He was unsuccessful in this attempt, but in the ensuing proceedings he and his Mavericks brought the measure around to what they wanted. Maverick charged that the bill not only would fail to take the profit out of war, but that its loosely drawn provision on conscription could involve the drafting of labor or almost anyone. He was supported in these arguments by Representative Everett M. Dirksen (R.-Ill.), who called for a "real bill" to prevent profiteering and one that would not regiment our entire nation in time of peace."
Chairman McSwain and his supporters said that the 100 percent war-profits tax that had been recommended by the committee report could not be included in the measure because such a provision would have to come from the Ways and Means Committee. When one member said that a "sister bill" would be forthcoming from Ways and Means, Maverick said, "I'm afraid 'sister' is never coming. That is the trouble." The Mavericks were determined to include the 100 percent war-profits tax, but that he "walked over to Maverick's desk and gave in." The magazine credited the Mavericks, and Maury in particular, with forcing the change and also bringing about the deletion of the objectionable conscription provision. Though the Mavericks were successful in putting this war-profits measure of their own design through the House, it was to bog down in the Senate during the rest of Maverick's tenure in Congress.
There was greater success on the next project, however, and it was to make Maury Maverick one of the leading spokesmen for neutrality legislation in the Congress. In his second month in the House of Representatives he made a full-dress speech for neutrality legislation. He said that he started with the premise that a nation that will not fight will not survive, but that a nation must not fall under the influence of profit makers or it will "fight itself to death." He asserted, "Candor compels me to say that every war that has been fought has been fought for trade, money, avarice, and gain." Ten years later (September 9, 1945) he penned a marginal note in his own copy of the Congressional Record: "I think this is crap. 10 years later, M." On November 7, 1951, he added: "Still think it is crap; but it is far deeper than I ever thought—but now, for sure, I don't know what to think—M." But he believed it then, and he went on to present a program for avoiding involvement in war: public ownership of munitions manufacturing, an embargo on shipments of munitions to other countries, reasonable military preparation to meet technological changes in warfare for purposes of defense, a more friendly attitude toward foreign nations, greater world trade and an end to "economic nationalism," and a government-owned "central bank of issue" that would permit "the government of the United States—which belongs to the people—to finance itself."
The revelations of the Nye Committee (chaired by Senator Gerald P. Nye) concerning the activities of the munitions industry in World War I and the attendant publicity stimulated a popular demand for neutrality legislation in the spring of 1935. In response to this demand, President Roosevelt sought proposals for neutrality measures from the State Department, but none was forthcoming because the department was beset with controversies as to the type of legislation needed. Roosevelt literally turned the matter over to Congress, specifically to the Nye Committee.
Even before Nye and his associate, Senator Bennett C. Clark, could introduce neutrality resolutions in the Senate, Maverick introduced his own resolution with the key provisions calling for an embargo on arms and contraband materials to all belligerents and a ban on travel on belligerent ships. The key point on which Maverick, Nye, and Clark locked horns with the president was this "impartial embargo"—the president could exercise no discretion as to the nations to which the embargo could be applied.
Some indication of the importance attached to Maverick in this struggle may be seen in the fact that when he asked Secretary of State Cordell Hull to support his proposal, Hull called Maverick into a conference to explain to him the complexity of the neutrality problem and to urge upon him the need for continued study of the problem. Various peace groups rallied to the support of Maverick's position and began to pressure congressmen on the Maverick resolution. Professor Robert A. Divine called him the "most vocal advocate of rigid neutrality" in the Congress and said that pressure by the first termer forced hearings on neutrality resolutions in June of 1935. The legislation was not reported at this time, but the hearings served to spark further national demands for action on a neutrality policy.
After some complex legislative maneuvers in the Senate and fruitless negotiations with the administration, the Pittman resolution, which embodied essentially the Nye-Clark-Maverick position, was passed by the Senate on August 21, 1935. Maverick led nine congressmen to the White House the next morning to urge President Roosevelt to support the Pittman resolution. Roosevelt refused at the time and said that he wanted more discretionary power. One source reported that Maverick told him, in effect, "You ain't a-going to get it." Another source recorded that Maverick told the president he was going to get mandatory neutrality legislation whether he wanted it or not.
No doubt for a complex of reasons, including the fear that neutrality forces would block other major legislation, Roosevelt changed his mind that afternoon and the measure was passed the next day. The only concession he was able to exact was that the embargo would be limited to a six-month period. The Mavericks grumbled over this concession but accepted it with the announcement that they would return to the fight in the next session.
On the domestic front Maury Maverick was a devoted champion of the Tennessee Valley Authority. He characterized it as "the greatest social program of this administration or any other administration in the history of the United States." He argued that TVA was an attempt to substitute care and forethought in the development of a region for the wasteful, hit-or-miss methods of rugged individualism—"make more profits and let the country wash away." In May 1935 Maverick saw his chance to strike a blow for TVA. A bill designed to clarify and extend its powers was before the House Military Affairs Committee, of which he was a member. The measure was primarily directed at circumventing a recent Federal district court ruling that he left in doubt the legality of the TVA's distribution of electric power in the territory surrounding its plants on the Tennessee River. Maverick was first credited with "exposure of the utility company intrigues" against TVA as a result of an incident that took place at the hearings.
Representative Andrew J. May (D.-Ky.), also a member of the Military Affairs Committee and an arch foe of TVA, had made the mistake of distributing to his colleagues a mimeographed abstract of the comptroller general's audit of TVA operations that had been prepared by a Colonel James E. Cassidy. Maverick demanded to know who Cassidy was. Cassidy said that he had done "a great deal of gratuitous work for this committee. . . . I am not employed by anyone." He gave his occupation as engineer, but refused to give the names of clients. He said he had written the abstract as a personal favor to Representative May, and had had it mimeographed "for nothing" by a utility company attorney. May himself volunteered that he was going to have the mimeographing done by "a friend in the National Coal Association," but C. A. Beasley, counsel of the Alabama Power Company (a major opponent of TVA) was in his office at the time and offered to do the mimeographing. The following exchange took place:
"I don't have utility and coal officials sitting around my office," growled Maverick.
May peered over his glasses. "Is that intended as a personal remark?"
"You can figure it out anyway you please," bristled Maverick.
"I'll figure it out outside if you want!" the sixty-year-old Kentuckian said, taking off his glasses.
"I'm afraid," mocked the stocky Texan, a World War veteran and twenty years May's junior.
After the hearing resumed, Maverick remarked heatedly that Cassidy should be thrown out of the hearing, and Cassidy apparently invited him to try. Arthur E. Morgan, TVA chairman, who was then testifying, said that Cassidy had asked to be named supervisor of the construction of Norris Dam, telling TVA that he "had influence in Washington." Morgan also said that Cassidy had later sought an appointment as an "expert chemist," but TVA did not make an appointment after investigation of his qualifications. "I think we should throw this colonel out," Maverick roared. But no action was taken, and May told reporters he would have the incident expunged from the record of the hearings. After adjournment of the hearings, Maverick promptly issued a statement that "an immense, crooked lobby is trying to defeat the TVA. It is rotten and disgraceful."
A few days later it was reported that the TVA bill had been tabled by the committee by a vote of thirteen to twelve. Maverick was said to be "determined" to get the bill out of the committee and on its way to passage, and he was described as conducting a "one-man drive" to do so. Though Maverick denied it, the irrepressible Texan had had an interview with FDR concerning the key amendments to the TVA Act and had been "commissioned to father the measure," in view of the fact that McSwain (chairman of the Military Affairs Committee) was "off" the bill. Whatever the case, on July 8, 1935, Maverick had another victory over his committee chairman. On that date McSwain announced that the committee had reported the bill by a vote of thirteen to twelve. He explained that the bill was a modification of his own measure and indicated he was not too happy about it, but he would not discuss any of the speculations as to the authorship of the charges.
The next day Maverick gave a lengthy opening address on the measure, consuming much of the attention of the House for three days. On July 10, after a plea by Maverick, the House removed all of the restrictive provisions that President Roosevelt had found objectionable and in addition eliminated a provision that would have placed the financial affairs of TVA under the control of the comptroller general. The Washington News hailed the action as a "smashing comeback" that would extend "the scope of the administration's 'electric rate yardstick' project." The bill was passed by the House and Senate July 11, but a conference committee was necessary. Maverick continued to maintain a watchful eye over the legislation. When it went to the conference committee, he closely questioned Representative McSwain on the choice of what Maverick thought were unfriendly conferees. He withdrew a formal protest on the matter, but indicated that he wanted his misgivings to be a matter of record and for them to serve as a warning to his opponents. The conference committee's report was accepted by the House on August 21, but not without a considerable debate in which Maverick took a leading part. The Senate added its approval the same day without further debate.
Further evidence of Maverick's influence in maneuvering for passage of the TVA amendments was given in an account by Rodney Dutcher, who reported that because coal region congressmen opposed TVA, Maverick went to Senator Joe Guffey of Pennsylvania and said, in effect, "No TVA bill, no Guffey coal bill." Guffey then got busy in support of the TVA measure. Later, with the aid of the Mavericks, the Guffey coal bill passed the House by a narrow margin.
Another example of the extraordinary influence that this freshman Texas congressman had won was his leadership in the fight for legislation to control the public utilities holding companies. The Washington Daily News reported in July 1935 that the Democratic leadership had admitted it was "peeved" because Maverick and John E. Rankin (D.-Miss.) had been consulted by Roosevelt on the "death sentence" provisions of the public utilities holding company bill and Ruth Finney reported in the same paper in August that Maverick was "largely responsible for getting the president's TVA bill through the House in the form he wanted it. He took the lead in organizing members of the holding company fight, and has been active on half a dozen other matters." Albert Warner also reported in the New York Herald Tribune that President Roosevelt had personally encouraged Maverick and Rankin to lead the fight for the "more drastic" versions of the TVA and holding company legislation.
The Wheeler-Rayburn public utilities holding company bill contained a drastic provision that would have empowered the Securites Exchange Commission to compel dissolution of holding companies that could not appropriately justify their existence—this was the "death sentence" clause. Utility companies exerted desperate efforts to head off this drastic provision. Representative Rankin reported that his telephone was tapped. A Western Union official testified to a special Senate investigating committee that utility interests sent hundreds of telegrams to congressmen opposing the legislation and signed the names of persons who had no idea that their names were being used. Less than three weeks later the originals of such wires were burned in the basement of the Western Union Office, though originals were normally kept for at least one year.
Maverick made several carefully researched and documented speeches on the holding company legislation on the floor of the House and over national radio networks. TVA director David E. Lilienthal wrote to him, "I was lucky enough to be near a radio the other night when you were speaking on holding companies. Your speech was a crackerjack, and you have an unusually smooth radio voice. I wish you would send me a copy of the text of your remarks." Later FDR adviser Felix Frankfurter favored Maverick with this note: "It was a very great pleasure to meet you. You really invigorated my belief in the possibilities of wise and democratic government. I have no doubt that persistent efforts like yours to mobilize the progressive forces in Congress to secure agreement on essentials and fight together for them, will greatly promote the achievement of legislation in the country's interest and ward off attempts to divert such wholesome legislation as the Senate Holding Company bill.
Finally, Maverick was responsible for bringing about a major strategy meeting to aid the passage of the death sentence clause, and he came very near to success. A meeting was held at the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which included Thomas Corcoran ("Tommy the Cork," an FDR aide), Representative Rankin, Benjamin Cohen, Representative R. Owen Brewster (R.-Me.), Maverick, and several other administration advisers. Maverick reported that at the meeting Brewster had said that he favored the death sentence clause, that he would make a speech for it in the House and that he could probably swing twenty-five Republican votes for it. Brewster not only failed to follow through, but he voted against the bill. He subsequently claimed that Corcoran had threatened to cut off the Passamaquoddy Dam project in Maine unless Brewster voted the right way. Corcoran said that actually what had happened was that he had told Brewster in an encounter immediately before the vote was taken that he could not be trusted to help the administration on the Maine project in view of his "sudden change of attitude on the death sentence." Brewster's remarks in a final brief encounter had indicated to Corcoran that the Main congressman was not going to be able to resist pressures of the power interests. A Rules Committee hearing subsequently revealed that Corcoran's account was correct. Though the death sentence clause was defeated, a modified version that was scarcely more pleasing to the power industry was passed and signed into law on August 26, 1935.
Maverick's preoccupation with other important legislative matters in his first year in Congress did not divert him from his lifelong interest in the cause of civil liberties. Roger N. Baldwin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union for thirty-three years, had this to say about Maverick's defense of civil liberties:
Maury's unique role as a battler for civil liberties in Congress was due to the unusual combination of conviction, wit, a sense of strategy and a canny estimate of the weak spots in the opposition. He knew how to disarm opponents by appearing more patriotic than they. He joined the unimpeachable organizations like the Sons of the American Revolution, and he never tied up with any other revolution. He was as homespun as the Bill of Rights. I, who also had no other platform, flirted with movements I thought headed for strengthening it, to my later disillusion; but not Maury. It was a position not based on good politics, but good sense.
During his terms in Congress his office was the center of all efforts for civil liberties legislation; he headed the liberal block; he ignored the false saviors of civil liberties like Marcantonio. He fought Dies. If he and I ever differed, I would think how in the light of hind-sight that he was right and I wrong. Among the handful of civil rights champions in Congress over the years, Maury stands out as the most devoted and the most skillful in achieving what he went after.
Maverick was always a devoted, if at first a somewhat uncritical, supporter of the natural rights doctrine. His earliest ideas were derived from the writings of Paine and Jefferson, but he also read Hugo Grotius, and in later years, Samuel von Pufendorf. Maverick told the story in his first book of making a study of natural rights when he was appointed to defend two deserters in World War I. He said that he particularly used natural rights arguments of James Otis and Sam Adams in the summation to the court.
According to Maverick's statement (and there is nothing comparable to it in all the vast collection of his papers), the greatest influence on the further shaping and reinforcement of his ideas in the Congressional years came from the late Charles W. Ervin, American socialist, journalist, and labor leader. This "influential, if little-known, figure in American politics," a Norman Thomas type of socialist, used to come to Congressman Maverick's office in the 1930's and talk for hours with the Texan on political philosophy and public affairs. Maverick called Ervin "the greatest scholar of humanity" he had ever met, and told him in 1951, "You were the first great and solid inspiration in my life. . . . You taught me the excellent purposes of a free country in an affirmative manner. In other words, you gave me my start in having what understanding I have. I am glad to report also that I have not gotten worse, and a little better, and I understand race problems much better than when I used to know you." Ervin's philosophical position is best divined from his comments (in one of the later notes to Maverick) on the Soviet Union: "The idiotic Secret Service from Russia once reported me to their employers as a 'Jeffersonian Socialist and a fanatic on free press and free speech!'" On the Declaration of Independence he said, "Red-headed Thomas took Burlamaqui, a Swiss on Liberty, read Grotius, a Dutchman, Pufendorf, a German, Beccaria, an Italian, and Locke, an Englishman, and fused their ideas in the 112 words."
But Maverick was an outspoken champion of freedom of expression before he met Ervin. The Texas congressman's arrival in Washington marked the approximate beginning of the modern era of legislative investigations into the political orthodoxy of various segments of American life and of proofs of one's loyalty and patriotism. In a 1934 campaign speech Maverick told Bexar County voters: "It has always been the practice of those fearful of democracy to suppress the free expression of new ideas, to thwart new purposes and practices, to undermine all new experiments and to cling to the past with a death grip. . . . All reactionary power comes through force of some kind, not through intelligent leadership. Against their opponents, these political bigots and reactionaries have no weapons except treachery. . . . The truth will not sustain them, so they must fly to untruths." There was a time, he said, when we burned witches, but "in a hundred years American civilization had progressed so the people didn't keep a stake and fagots in the public square, but they wrote the stake and fagots into the law.
Maverick was one of the early advocates of a literal interpretation of the guarantees of freedom of expression in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. In his first important address in Congress on civil liberties he said of the First Amendment, "It did not designate the character of speech, and does not say Republican papers or Communist papers or any other kind of papers. It says, 'freedom of speech and press,' and that is what it means, and for a good reason. If you suppress one philosophy or idea, you can supress others; therefore, the only guaranty we have of free government is free speech." The notion of a near-absolute freedom of expression is more recent than is often realized. As Professor John P. Roche has explained, the position in defense of the ultimate in free expression is "a modern development" resulting, at least in large part, from the "great legal migration" to Washington in the 1930's. Maury Maverick was an outstanding member of this migration that laid the groundwork for the view now prevailing on the United States Supreme Court.
Maverick first applied and polished his ideas in 1935 and 1936 against the military disaffection bills. The so-called "Tydings-McCormack Bill," as it was to be termed after it reached the House, was designed "to make better provision for the government of the military and naval forces of the United States by the suppression of attempts to incite the members thereof to disobedience." The proposed statute would make it a crime if a person "with intent to inite disaffection advises, counsels, urges or solicits any member," or "publishes or distributes any book, paper, print, article, letter or other writing" counseling the same.
The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent June 24, 1935, after a brief explanation by Senator Millard E. Tydings (D.-Md.), its author, who said that the measure was requested by the War and Navy Departments. Representative John W. McCormack (D.-Mass.), chairman of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, had introduced the same text in the House. Maverick launched an intensive campaign against these measures months before either of them received any favorable action. The first week in March 1935 he began a softening-up process by delivering a major speech on freedom of expression. He pointed to the extraordinary provisions of the bill, which would permit search warrants to be issued to take "from any house or other place where it may be found, or from any person . . . any book, pamphlet, paper, print, article, letter, or other writing" of the character described in the law, and that this section would "put a dangerous power in the hands of the military, which they might use indirectly to persecute whom they pleased among the civilians."
Maverick then began a letter-writing campaign to round up members of the House and Senate to oppose the measure. He wrote to dozens of key members and received favorable responses from most of them. His correspondence folder indicates that he was virtually in charge of the successful efforts to organize opposition to the measure on the part of prominent civil liberties spokesmen, such as Dr. Charles A. Beard, Professor Karl N. Llewellyn, Frederick A. Ballard (ACLU lawyer), and Professor Zechariah Chaffee, Jr.
The unrelenting Texas congressman then delivered a lengthy statement to Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson, lecturing him on the lack of need for such a measure. He particularly singled out Swanson's complaint that literature handed out to sailors was "carefully worded to avoid the insurrection and sedition statues," and said that if such was the case, it should not cause a sailor "to commit insurrection and sedition." He then gave Swanson a lengthy lecture on the history of loyalty and sedition statutes, which were likely to have "the opposite effect desired." If sailors were prohibited from reading certain literature, their natural response would be, "Well, there must be something to that." Suppression, said Maverick, would strengthen Communist appeals. He also upbraided Swanson at some length for permitting admirals to speak and write in behalf of such legislation. Swanson's stiff reply simply reiterated his previous "views and recommendations."
When hearings were held by the House Committee on Military Affairs, Maverick, Beard, Llewellyn, Representative Vito Marcantonio (R.-N.Y.), Ballard, and Allan S. Olmstead, another ACLU attorney, appeared against the bill. When the two-day hearings were concluded, the bill was reported with an amendment requiring the publication or advice to promote disaffection must be accompanied by "the intent to incite." Maverick and Congressman Paul J. Kvale (Prog.-Wisc.) prepared a fourteen-page, documented indictment of the measure. They cited statues and cases giving adequate protection against any conspiracies against the armed forces. They cited various cases of abuse of sedition statutes in the World War I period, presented a résumé of the history of civil liberties, and concluded: "This measure, put forward apparently casually and in as inconspicuous a manner as possible, is a direct, unnecessary, and wanton assault on freedom of the press and of speech, and on our traditional rights of immunity against unreasonable search and seizure. At the very least, it is a sop designed to cater to the prejudices of these so-called patriotic groups who think that the most becoming garb for the Statue of Liberty is a strait jacket and that American freedom consists of allowing the liberties of the people to be anesthetized into a complete coma."
Before the report had been made to the House, Maverick charged that the decision to report the bill had been made without a quorum present in the committee and that most of the members had not read the bill. He said, "Strangely enough, the newspapers did not at first pay any attention to it, although it primarily violates the right of freedom of the press." He then introduced into the Congressional Record a column by Walter Karig attacking the bill and commending Maverick as the only congressman who had voiced public objection to it. The column was dated July 15, 1935, and the official report was not made to the House until July 22. Apparently Maverick had given the report to Karig and other newsmen in advance.
Maverick attacked the bill again August 1 in a radio address over WOL, Washington, D.C., and WMCA, New York, in which he referred to the measure as a "Stalin-Hitler bill" that some people sought to be "grafted on a free people." Press releases on the talk were sent to 350 daily newspapers throughout the Unite States. In two weeks Maverick was able to introduce into the Record editorial protests against the measure from all of the New York newspapers, most of the news magazines, the Scripps-Howard newspapers, and fourteen other representative newspapers—he said there were "hundreds" of others.
Maverick and Representative Kvale were commended by Maverick's friend H. L. Mencken for carrying on the fight against the McCormack bill. The Baltimore journalist concluded, "It is a sad commentary upon the present estate and the Bill of Rights that, in a Congress of 531 members, these hobgoblins are left to wage their uphill combat alone. . . . As for Dr. Tydings, he abandons fair play and common sense to aid and abet a passel of silly Red-baiters."
While he was carrying on the fight against the military disaffection bill, Maverick was also challenging with equal vigor and articulateness the Kramer Bill, offered by Representative Charles Karmer, a fellow Democrat from California. The gist of this measure was that it would be a federal crime for anyone knowingly to make any statement advocating or urging the overthrow of any government in the United States, or to print, publish, issue, edit, circulate, sell, distribute, or display any written matter containing any such statement. The bill provided for a fine of up to $5,000 and imprisonment of not more than five years, or both, for persons convicted of these offenses.
A few days before the bill was reported by the Judiciary Committee, the chairman, Representative Emanuel Celler (D.-N.Y.), introduced into the Record a set of lengthy minority views that followed very closely the argument Maverick had presented to the committee. Celler, as a matter of fact, cited the views "forcefully and ably" presented by Maverick. Three days later Maverick indicated that he was astonished that the bill had been reported by the committee and referred to it as a "killer of American liberty." In a brief speech, he told his colleagues:
Force begets force. Hatred begets hatred. And if we start jailing people for talking and writing, however irresponsible or wild these utterances may be, we are leading ourselves into trouble, and we already have dozens of laws to protect this Government against criminal and overt acts; this Kramer bill is absolutely unnecessary. The worst thing about these anti-sedition bills is that they will be misused against innocent people for the suppression of opinions, the prevention of freedom of press; will be an instrument of widest oppression, will cause fanatical actions throughout the country.
In the hearings on the Kramer bill, Maverick pointed out that Jeffersonian Republicans had been convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798 for statements no worse than, "Mr. Adams has only completed the scene of ignominy which Mr. Washington began," and wondered how many Democrats would be convicted of saying, "Mr. Hoover has only completed the scene of ignominy which Mr. Coolidge began."
Neither the Kramer bill nor the Tydings-McCormack military disaffection bill came up before the House in this session (largely because of the blasts of Maverick and others), but they were not dead and Maverick was to move in for the kill in the next session.
Unlikely as it may seem, Maury Maverick busied himself with many other projects during his first year in Congress. He, with audacity uncommon to freshman members, urged various reforms of Congress and Congressional procedure. After a little more than a month in the House of Representatives he was calling for more clerical assistance. He argued that Congress was at a great disadvantage—all the people "at the other end of the Avenue" had to do was "press a button" to get statistical data and the like. On another occasion he chided his party leaders for their failure to follow regular procedures. He wanted to know whether Calendar Wednesday "was going to be passed forever."
One of his projects that reflected a lifetime interest concerned the promotion of national parks and the preservation of historic sites in the United States. He introduced a number of bills and resolutions directed toward this end and was rewarded by the passage of a measure to establish a National Parks Trust Fund Board authorized to accept and administer funds and properties donated for national parks. Later in the year he secured passage of a measure to provide for restoration of historic sites. The measure established an Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments whose members were to be selected from among "the professions of history, archaeology, architecture and human geography." In his own bound copy of the parts of the Congressional Record in which he had figured, Maverick expressed pride in this achievement and attached a clipping concerning the award of $45,000 from the National Parks Service for reconstruction of an outdoor theater at San Jose Mission State Park, the site used for San Antonio's famed Drama of the Alamo production.
In 1935 Maverick began his attack on the Supreme Court that was to culminate eventually in his introduction in the House of Representatives of FDR's court-packing plan. In June he gave a lecture to his colleagues on the need for a flexible constitution and criticized the Court for incorrect reasoning in striking down New Deal legislation. In a national radio address the same month he attacked the Court again and called for a national constitutional convention to consider the "unique" situation in which elected representatives could not legislate for the "betterment of the people."
Finally, when the House of Representatives was considering the appropriation of funds for a Texas Centennial commemorating the Battle of the Alamo, Maverick made a speech in which he anticipated the concept of the War on Poverty of the 1960's Maverick said:
The example of the Alamo should not be lost to us. If a man will willingly lose his life for the liberty of his people and for posterity, certainly now a man should be willing to lose his political life in standing up for the things that are right and just. The thing that faced the Texans was political tyranny; what we face now is a tyranny of the special interests against the Government of the United States. . . .
"Patriotism," according to Dr. Samuel Johnson, is sometimes "the last resort of the scoundrel"—and it is likewise the most precious thing to a decent human being. But I think it fair to say that there is a changing concept of patriotism . . . the war to make the world a decent place to live in, the pioneering of science, government, progress, has just begun. Those who are willing to be the new soldiers and pioneers will have a harder enemy to meet—the special interests, the exploiters, the gods of Greed and Hate—and they will use persecution, ridicule, hate.
After the adjournment of the first session of the Seventy-Fourth Congress, Maverick busied himself with the continuing promotion of legislation that interested him, but he also found time to poke into a few affairs in his home district and around the country.
On the return trip from Washington, he made a swing down through the TVA country, inspecting dams and telling the people of the South that their future was tied to FDR and the Democratic party. Maverick was riding the crest. At home he issued statements on everything, attended groundbreaking ceremonies for a new post office in San Antonio, listened to statements of praise from his old political enemies, and was invited to address the Texas Senate. In his speech he rapped Democrats who were apologetic about their party and told the Senators that President Roosevelt was "the best President the South has had since the administration of Andrew Jackson." "Our duty is to take a militant stand for the party," he said.
In October he tore into the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce in a Kiwanis Club speech for its failure to make public a four-month-old report of a healthy survey of San Antonio made by the surgeon general of the United States Health Service. The Chamber of Commerce had asked the study to be made, but had, in what Maverick called a "silly, foolish and cowardly" attitude, suppressed the report for fear that it would "hurt San Antonio," Maverick felt that this was shortsighted and that it was time for the people of San Antonio to face the facts of the health situation in their city.
From San Antonio Maverick made another swing up into several adjoining states. Attending a reunion of the 157th Infantry of Colorado, with which he had served in World War I, Maverick was depicted as "breathing fire and brimstone" as he held forth on conservation, freedom of speech, and neutrality. His opinion of the United States Chamber of Commerce was reported to have been "blistering and edifying, but scarcely printable." A few days later Maverick was in New Mexico and Arizona looking over conservation projects and "furthering two of his favorite measures, providing for preservation of historical sites and Spanish colonial missions.
Reporters in El Paso were able to find some quotable Chamber of Commerce remarks by Maverick when he returned to Texas. The congressman sat in the Hotel Paso del Norte and sipped coffee while he flayed the national secretary of the Chamber of Commerce for remarks to the effect that FDR's advisers sounded like "on to Moscow." He said that local chambers should not be flattered by the visits of the likes of the secretary and that the national Chamber of Commerce was the "most dangerous enemy of America." He said that rather than representing the ordinary businessman, the Chamber of Commerce represented the "big industrialists and war munitions manufacturers."
A week later Maverick was off to Saint Louis for a speech to the Saint Louis Civil Liberties Committee at Sheldon Memorial. He made "characteristic attacks on the military disaffection bill, the American Liberty League and Jouett Shouse, the Chicago Tribune and Hearst newspapers, and on Comptroller General McCarl, whom he described as a 'noisy little nuisance with a lowing tie and a Napoleonic complex.'" He was "of course" for the First Amendment freedoms with no exceptions and the right of free expression, especially for those persons who were "weak, unpopular, or in the minority, and those who we, or others, may classify as simple-minded, subversive or crazy."
Back in Texas again in December, Maverick treated Galveston and Houston audiences to blistering attacks on the big business-oriented American LIberty League as "tin-horn fakers of liberty," "degenerate fascists," and "concession Communists" who seek a concession for monopoly from the government and then "enjoy their license from a subservient government which they own." Maverick said that he could match them in name-calling, and there seems to be little doubt that Liberty Leaguers would agree. At Houston Maverick said that he was supporting the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Act and he did not care whether "Mr. Clayton [W. L. "Will" Clayton, a wealthy Houston cotton exporter] liked it or not."
It was just before his return to Washington for the opening of the second session of the Seventy-Fourth Congress that Maverick chose to issue a statement to the press strongly condemning the Townsend Plan. He said it was a "brazen, unconscionable and hopeless demand on the poor people" that would "financially wreck the country." The New York Herald Tribune editorialized, "All honor to Maverick," for opposing the Townsend Plan and for not trying to make political hay of it.
After one year in Congress, the fame of Maury Maverick had spread far and wide. He was where he wanted to be, and he was making the most of it.
It was only a matter of days after his arrival in Washington in January 1935 that delighted newsmen were filing lively stories about one of the most colorful men who had ever entered the United States House of Representatives.
What manner of man was this Maverick?
The spectator who looked down from the House gallery saw a squat, broad-framed, bench-legged man about forty years old with the general appearance of a bulldog or a big bullfrog. His widow still chuckles about an incident that occurred when the late Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia was showing a group of constituents through the nation's Capitol. As Byrd brought his brood into the House gallery, he noticed Maverick coming down the aisle below and remarked, "There comes Maury Maverick, looking like a big toad." Mrs. Maverick, who was sitting nearby in the gallery, turned and said, "Excuse me, Mr. Byrd, but that's my husband." The courtly Byrd turned several hues and without a word moved quickly on with his party.
Maverick's weight ranged from 175 to 230 pounds, and he was closer to the higher side of that range most of the time. He usually lost the sporadic battles he waged against the extra pounds. He often made weight charts from the cardboard inserts found inside folded shirts and posted these charts on the wall over the bathroom scale. His wife and daughter "helped" by attaching to the sides and bottom of the charts such gentle reminders as a picture of a prize hog from a recent fat-stock show.
Maverick could not even find victory in his most successful bout with his weight problem. A couple of years out of Congress, as mayor of San Antonio, he had trimmed his bulging paunch down to near the vanishing point. Accompanied by his wife, he went into a San Antonio clothing store to buy a suit to fit his new figure. As he boasted of his achievement to a salesman he knew quite well, Maverick stepped back, said, "See," and sucked in his belly. Though his trunk was large, his hips were relatively small, and to the horror of the salesman and in full view of the first-floor customers, Maverick's pants fell to the floor. A matronly woman looked over and said, "There's our disgusting mayor; now I know I'll never vote for him." Maverick struggled manfully but unsuccessfully to get his belted trousers up as the salesman helped him to hobble off to a dressing room.
Maverick was fat, but his deep chest, heavily-muscled shoulders and thickset legs gave an impression of power rather than pudginess. His hands were blunt, square, and capable looking, and his large head was topped by a thatch of dark brown hair that curled up in rebellious fashion above his broad brow. In later years, however, his hair was a more closely cropped gray. From his early thirties he wore somewhat old-fashioned metal-rimmed spectacles through which his gray-green eyes stared piercingly. The nose was large and blunt; the mout generous with full lips, the lower sometimes a bit pouted. His jowls were heavy, but his chin and jaw were strong and determined in their cant. Altogether he was a man people did not soon forget.
In private conversation Maverick spoke in a modulated rumble that could rise to a crackling higher pitch in moments of excitement. In public speaking he exhibited most of the arts of volume, tone, pitch, and timing with seeming effortlessness. The speech drafts from which he spoke, however, show a very careful preparation by heavily penciled notations of "slow here," "rising inflection," "up tempo," or "softly."
A contemporary observer, who said that Maverick had "taken a running broad jump onto the nation's front pages," described him in action on the floor of the House: "His five feet and a little over are not impressive. But his resounding voice rolls out from his barrel chest and his words ring up into the House galleries. His round face grows red with conviction as he unloosens a stinging accusation and then his blue eyes pop with mischief as he swings to raillery."
His private speech was extremely earthy and nearly always generously interlarded with profanity. The world of his philosophical and political enemies was pretty generally populated with "bastards" and "son-of-a-bitches." But Maverick often used this language to give an appearance of a roughness he did not feel; that is, it was a mask for his sentimentality. Indeed, he was a user of what might be called affectionate profanity. I deemed it the final touch of approbation to be introduced by him to Ms. Maverick as a "God damned professor." Maverick admitted to as much in the preface to his first book, where he related his cussing at a reference librarian in the Library of Congress and said, "For indeed, it is a happy friendship that I have with this fellow; he knows that my bellowing, like his pretense of ignorance, are kindly shams and frauds that bind us together."
He could be seen at times and by some people as the exhibitionist, the clown or buffoon. His very appearance and name caused some persons to see "bull" or "belligerence." Some conservative opponents (and even some nervous supporters) saw him as a grown-up adolescent, ready to wreck things in order to strike a fanciful pose. Though Maverick was not conceited in the sense of boasting of his achievements, he did want to be noticed—he demanded attention for his ideas and opinions. But his challenges were not for ego appeasement alone, and he knew what he was doing. As he said to a reporter in 1937: "I found by being pleasant the party leaders did not remember me. Then I began to question their actions, make suggestions that irritated them. They remembered me. Having placed me in the category of a crackpot, they began to show me some consideration. They consulted me about legislation they thought I might be for or against.
Maverick was often tough and blunt. He said that facts themselves were "tough, hard, mean" things, and he had a passionate hatred of "all pretenses, hypocrisies, and superficialities," which made many people uncomfortable targets of his barbs, or, more often, thunderbolts.
One of Maverick's worst failings, and at the same time one of his great assets, was his studied irreverence. He had a tendency to make provocative "digs" at various groups or institutions or personalities. He did not do this out of pure cussedness, but rather as a gambit designed to draw peoples' attention, stir them up, and bring on some lively conversation. Former President Harry S. Truman interpreted this trait another way. When queried about Maverick's irreverence, Truman said, "He wasn't irreverent; he was like me, he said what he thought." Truman said that the guery reminded him of an incident in which he had been treated to some of Maury's irreverence. On one of his visits to San Antonio, the president decided to pull Maverick's leg a bit by asking him, "Maury, what's this Alamo thing you have here?" Truman reported that Maury bristled and growled, "If you want to see it, say so, but I don't want to hear anybody calling it the 'Alamo thing.'" "And," Truman concluded with obvious delight, "I was the President of the United States!"
When Maverick offered himself as a candidate for Congress in 1934, he presented his philosophy of representation to Bexar County voters in terms not unlike Edmund Burke's famed speech to his constituents. He declared: "I intend to be independent and courageous and I will not indulge in indecent personalities. I expect to be faithful and loyal to my district, but not to be a cheap pork-barrel congressman; I expect to be true to my principles, and not to be deflected by unfair criticism by some irresponsible source, or by pressure from those who are powerful and selfish." In a 1935 address to the House of Representatives, Maverick omitted a passage that had appeared in his original draft: "Now we came to Congress, not to follow the mob, nor to follow ill-advised opinions, but to lead the people, possibly, in the right path." But in a later speech he was not afraid to say with sheer audacity, "As for me I am throwing in with the Yankees and the liberals, the agriculture boys of the West—and the big-city Democrats too. That is the only way the Democratic Party can do a good job and serve America." He rubbed in a bit of salt with a final remark to the effect that the South was not entitled to any special favors and that labor was entitled to protection as much as "cotton plantation owners and ranchmen and rice growers."
This attitude was widely recognized as contributing to his eventual defeat. As the Philadelphia Record said, "He preferred to follow his principles and did not make the least effort to conceal them even in the cases where they offended the prejudices of his constituency." Fortune magazine summed up Maverick's concept of the role of a representative in this way, "He had a rather cavalier attitude about voters, preferring, oddly in a politician, to allow ideas he actually had to become known and to think that voters should make up their minds on the basis of the record."
Maury Maverick would not use demagoguery, at least not with respect to any important matters, as he once put it. It is remarkable that he even discussed his demagoguery publicly and vowed that he would do it no more. Maverick did, for the most part, refrain from such tactics. If he had been looking for a vote-getter, he could very well have endorsed or at least side-stepped the Townsend Plan, which had considerable support in Texas. Far from doing this, he branded the proposal as "fantastic" and "brazen, unconscionable, and hopeless." When asked why he was so positive when he could have at least straddled the issue, Maverick said, "Having died twice in France, it isn't worthwhile to avoid one political death by being a demagogue."
Ten years away from the legislative scene, Maverick clearly indicated what he thought a representative should and should not be in this advice to young congressmen:
For a quarter-century, I have seen young handsome men, full of ideals, spring into Washington. I have seen many slink away, heavy of soul, fat of head, lazy, stupid, traitors to the people who sent them there. I have seen others stay to lobby for the special interests whom they originally fought against in Congress and which they now serve like dull, political eunuchs in the harem of a pasha.
The pressure on you to follow in their footsteps will be great.
Everything you do that is new or that inconveniences anybody will bring self-righteous criticism, pious warnings. Often when you act as a true statesman you will be ridiculed and thought a fool. Many times they will try to work through your wife and kids, holding out the bribe of better clothes, a better home, better schools, protection against the unending insecurity for your family that will haunt you. But don't give in. Do what you think is right.
You face what Joseph Conrad tried to write about, that is, being alone. But if you can feel and see beyond the fake forest built around you by newspapers, selfish people and special interests, the world is with you.
Friends, enemies, and neutrals testified that Maury Maverick was one of the most radical members ever sent to the United States House of Representatives. He was not just radical "for a Southern member," he was as radical as United States representatives get. He consorted with the left wing of the American labor movement, tried to pass general civil-rights legislation, and fought loud and long against the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His office became a sort of informal headquarters and sometime clearing house for various liberal causes.
Maverick's physical disability at the time of his arrival in Congress had won him an office, number 101 in the old House Office Building, on the street level close to the subway to the Capitol. The office was cluttered and jammed with too many filing cabinets. The walls were covered with his personal picture gallery, and various bits of Texana were scattered about in other places. A row of Texas cactuses in a long window box was silhouetted in the window of the reception room. Behind Maverick's desk was a special, high-backed chair designed to support his weakened neck, and to the side there was a large blackboard on which he posted his various commitments. The office was also frequently cluttered with promoters of liberal causes and other Maverick well-wishers, and it was for this reason that he and a few of his fellows cornered some small rooms on the fifth floor for use as hideouts. There Maverick might be found by a favored few, hunched over his well-thumbed copies of Montesquieu, Montaigne, Hume, Bryce, and others—one hand supporting his head. Stanley High, one of the favored few, said that Maverick was "obviously one of the heavy-thinking contingent," but that he was too politic to "parade his knowledge on the floor of the House where an erudite man may be suspect." High also testified to Maverick's radicalism, saying that he was one of the foremost spokesmen for the "radico-liberals" throughout the country. The orthodox leaders were wary of Maverick, said High, and "his enemies called him a wild man."
High was clearly an admirer of Maverick, but an amiable Maverick critic in South Carolina, after voicing "avowed Tory sympathies," gave a similar appraisal. He said that Maverick was clearly a "radical" or "leftist," but not a "blackguard." He praised Maverick's erudition and talent as a writer for radical publications and defended him against the "average nice fellow in Congress from the South" who would set Maverick, or any man of cultivation and talent, down as a "crank." The South Carolina editor concluded, "Maverick seems to be an original sinner, and we have come to the stage that we wink at political sin if only a little of it be original.
Though High said that Maverick was too politic to do so, he did show some of his erudition on the floor of the House, but consistent with High's claim, Maverick often did it in such a manner as to lampoon the erudition. For example, he prepared his own report on a resolution designed to permit United States officers to accept foreign edals, with the primary aim of chiding his colleagues for devoting their attention to minor matters instead of considering the welfare of the nation—"a mere local matter." With tongue far into cheek, he said:
Since this matter of medals touches all the heights and depths of civilization. . . it is not to be treated lightly. It must be treated philosophically. Now the heaviest philosophy for the occasion is that of Hegel who handled everything dialectically. This method calls for the division of every . . . argument into these parts: thesis, antithesis and synthesis. It may not be generally known, but thesis, antithesis and synthesis form the basis of all argumentation. . . . This was proved beyond any doubt by by Dr. Hegel, a distinguished philosopher.
Applying the reasoning of Hegel to the problem before us, the burning issue of medals, we are compelled to take the case philosophically in the following manner:
1. If a citizen is not worthy, he should not have a medal; and if he is worthy, he does not need it.
2. To insist on his having it is . . . the antithesis.
3. Don't let him have the medal.
The uncongressman-like activities of Maverick in the world of books and ideas included writing book reviews for the Congressional Record. When he encountered what he thought to be an important book, he considered it his duty to apprise his less-enlightened colleagues of its value and to encourage them to read it. In February 1937 he had included in the Record a column by Gail Borden of the Chicago Times, February 23, 1937, which twitted Maverick for his presumptuousness, but then styled part of the review as a "masterpiece of review like one of the old masters in that craft." Maverick promptly announced that he was entering another book review for the benefit of his colleagues.
Maverick was also asked to review books for various other publications. One of the better ones was done for the Baltimore Sun on Walter Lippmann's An Inquiry into the Principles of the Good Society. After reading the book, Maverick had the Library of Congress send him Lippmann's columns for the past year and he read personality corroborated in an exchange of letters with Charles A. Beard, General Hugh S. Johnson, and Stuart Chase. Armed with such impressive backing, Maverick sailed into Lippmann with the usual gusto. He said, "The non-reading elite who live in big houses will buy it, read a few chapters, gain solace and recommend it as sound," but he marked out of his original draft the more pungent observation, "I am sure his former comrades will say, 'Lippmann is the opium of the Rich.'" Maverick apparently thought this line was hitting a bit below the belt. His analysis (which was done before nearly all others) anticipated the criticisms to be found in the liberal journals. His main quarrel with the work was that the "good society" would somehow be based upon collectivist principles and techniques without being collectivist.
Maverick had the faculty, often missing in politicians, of being able to laugh at himself. Indeed, this was a part of the clown myth; but he was more than a clown, he was a genuine humorist. He could be extremely serious when he felt it necessary, but he had a puckish humor which at least one book reviewer compared with that of Mark Twain. His private correspondence and conversation were enlivened by hilarious anecdotes and remarks—some of them unprintable. Walter Well said that Maverick originated the expression when he told some ostentatiously liberal friends, "I'm so liberal I say 'chigro' instead of 'chigger.'" When a witness reported that he had heard the "clink of silver dollars" as Maverick allegedly distributed money for illegal poll-tax payments, the irrepressible defendent is said to have turned to his lawyer and whispered, "It's a damn lie! It was paper money."
In the course of one of his campaigns Maverick was talking to a group of the Mexican-Americans, who made up such a large part of his constituency. When he referred to them several times as "Mexicans," a nervous aide whispered to him that these sensitive people preferred to be called "Latin Americans." Maverick quickly turned to the assembled group and said, "If you paid your poll tax, stand up." When a goodly number complied, Maverick declared with a grin, "You are Latin Americans; the rest of you are Mexicans." All but a few "Mexicans" laughed then at this imaginative distinction and many of them like to tell the story today.
No writer (or reader) of scholarly works could fail to appreciate Maverick's response to the paraphernalia of scholarly writing:
For his documentation smacks of vindictiveness rather than professoriality. We feel he is thinking: "Yes, they doubt me—curse them, here is Ibid., I, 344; Adams, Diary; King's Corr., V., 31: all this my dear sir, at the bottom of each page—that proves it. And moreover (Bowers still speaking) here upon page 513, you see this (Aside—damn your Federalist and Tory hides and such as may disbelieve me), my bibliography, which is headed; "BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS, PUBLIC DOCUMENTS, CONTEMPORARY PAMPHLETS AND NEWSPAPERS CITED AND CONSULTED," and it is thorough—and cursed be he who says it is not accurate, nor enough.
Maverick seems to have originated the perfect squelch type of letter to answer insulting notes from correspondents. The much quoted classic was his response to a two-thousand-word letter lambasting Maverick and the New Deal. He replied:
Honorable Robert E. Price
2045 East Wood Street
Decatur, Illinois
Dear Sir:
Very truly yours,
Maury Maverick
Maury Maverick
An equally good and only slightly more wordy example, previously unpublished, was the result of a letter from a radio listener who had heard one of Maverick's network speeches in defense of the New Deal. The writer called Maverick a "rabble rouser" who was out for some political reward. Maverick responded:
Honorable A. B. Smith
The Oaks
4238 Broadside Ave.
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Dear Friend Smith:
Very truly yours,
Maury Maverick
Maury Maverick
P.S. Don't do it—you will ruin the lake.
Maverick also had a propensity for pulling off elaborate gags done up in some sort of pseudo-official trappings. Three months after his arrival in Congress he concocted a ceremony in the Republican cloakroom in which he knighted left-wing Republican Representative Vito Marcantonio with the Order of the Pink Elephant and designated him as the Pink Pachyderm of Congress. In the presence of Marcantonio's more conservative colleagues, Maverick pinned a tiny pink elephant with a blue ribbon on the New York representative and presented him with an elaborately decorated scroll that congratulated him for being an "off-color Republican."
As a member of the Texas Philosophical Society, which was apparently a bit shy of philosophers, Maverick once had the task of sounding out members for suggestions for future meetings. After gathering the responses, he addressed this combination of whimsey and irony to his fellows:
(An Eccentric Suggestion)
Now it becomes my painful duty to relate a multilateral insult. It is that our organization should devote itself, at least to some extent, to our purposes—this person must be an eccentric. Anyhow, this wicked character suggested that we give some attention to philosophy. I move he be thrown out, without trial or due process of law, of course.
He went even further and made the gross suggestion that teachers of philosophy in our various institutions of learning might be taken in as auxiliary members.
The foregoing we could hardly bear, permitting Ph.D.'s to be almost our intellectual or social equals—and to mingle with us as secondary members of the Texas Philosophical Society. If this passes, I shall demand that these Ph.D.'s be segregated and make affidavits that they will not overthrow our Society and its purposelessness.
Maverick's high order of intellectual integrity was testified to by friends and enemies. Webb said his integrity was "unflinching," and Herbert Corey wrote in the Nation's Business, "One of the most acid critics said of him: 'He is fundamentally honest. He could not be induced or bullied into surrendering his principles. He makes up his own mind.'" A businessman wrote of any man in America is better qualified to advise new congressmen. Stentorian of voice, subtle as a brass band, courageous, sincere and frank, he has haunted phonies and fence-straddlers throughout his public career. Those who don't like him respect his patriotism, guts and brilliance."
Despite his attention-getting antics and truculence, the rough-tough Maverick had great compassion for his fellow man. It was this quality that Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt singled out when asked to give her estimate of Maverick. She said, "I would say that Maury Maverick was fearless and warm as a man. He had compassion for all men, even those in prison." President Truman said, "He was always on the right side—the side of the little fellow." Maverick once said that he considered "human compassion" to be the fundamental difference between a "progressive" and a "conservative." Maverick was a man of great sentimentality and sensitivity. He wept openly as he watched newsreel pictures of young men marching off to war, and he once wrote that the reason he had always thought Anatole France's The Crime of Sylvester Bonnard to be a "beautiful book" was because "the main idea is that there is only one thing worth while, and that is sentiment." The late Arnold Ben Wacker, assistant professor of business administration and economics at Our Lady of the Lake College in San Antonio and a speech-writing assistant and admirer of Maverick, gave the candid appraisal that Maverick loved the poor and the downtrodden in the abstract, but that at times had the human failing of many liberals of not being able to "enthuse" about it in person-to-person relations with such people.
It is difficult to find superlatives adequate to describe the phenomenal impact of this Texas whirlwind on Congress and the national consciousness when he took his place in the House of Representatives in January 1935. Few freshmen members of Congress have equaled his performance. Rather than awaiting a nod from the thrones of the wise and mighty, Maverick was engaging in vigorous debate before his chair was warm. At the beginning of his second year, he paid his respects to the tradition of quiescent first-timers, and then said bluntly, "I represent my people, so I will speak."
His unmatched candor and audacity, even when dealing with the president, became the talk of Washington. One reporter gave an account of Maverick's unsuccessful attempts to secure an appointment with Stephen Early, secretary to President Roosevelt, which culminated in this tart letter to FDR: "I am having difficulty in reaching Mr. Early. Will you be so kind as to help me in making an appointment with him?" The next day Early called Maverick.
One of Maverick's best friends, the later newsman and novelist Walter Karig, gave him some of his own medicine after failing several times to find the congressman in his office. Karig penciled on a sheet of typing paper an excellent caricature of Maverick, picturing him as a horned, snorting bull rushing somewhere headl-long, and above the drawing he jotted the note, "Dear Voroshilov: You're getting as hard to reach as Steve Early. Karig." Maverick preserved the caricature and wrote on it the comment, "This is really great, aggressive art. He told me off.—M" Karig also did a pretty neat job of capturing the image of Maury Maverick in words. Karig said that when he went to heaven, he fully expected to find "at the Golden Gate St. Peter, baffled by my unscheduled arrival, will say he'll have to see the Boss' brain truster about me; and up will ride you, in a chariot towed by all the beasts in Revelations. You will say: 'What goddam gate crashing son of a bitch is this?' And at that time, Maury, please remember that the applicant is your awed and devoted admirer."
In a matter of months the name and appearance of Maury Maverick was known throughout the United States. A careful student of Texans in the New Deal has said, "Unquestionably, the most meteoric rise in Congress during the New Deal was that of Maury Maverick of San Antonio . . . one of the best known congressmen in the nation." In his first year, Maverick was the primary subject of sixteen items in the New York Times as compared with nine items concerning the majority leader, William B. Bankhead. Articles and editorials about the ebullient Texan appeared in dozens of newspapers from the Seattle Times to the Miami Daily News when he fought the military disaffection bill in July of 1935.
The Maverick fame was more than a matter of being a showman or good copy. He was being taken seriously by a great many people, including a considerable segment of the House of Representatives. He had not been in Congress two months when he organized his liberal friends into a Maverick bloc with which both legislative and executive leadership was compelled to reckon—indeed, it might well be said that it was at times the leadership. The regular leadership of the House, Speaker Byrns and Majority Leader Bankhead, was essentially conservative and had no great enthusiasm for more New Deal programs.
Texas and the nation were strongly supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal when Maverick entered Congress. Economic conditions were improving, and the off-year Democratic gains in House and Senate seats were almost unprecedented. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. viewed the 1934 election as having also strengthened presidential influence on the Hill by bringing in a new breed of Democrats—among them "the more responsible members of the Maury Maverick group in the House"—who were both dedicated liberals and party regulars. This analysis was frequently valid (perhaps then depending upon one's interpretation of "responsible"), but it did not apply to some of the key issues that came to the fore in the House in 1935, and there were indications that men like Maverick looked upon the election results as a mandate to move the New Deal further and faster than Roosevelt had planned.
Maverick and his cohorts were also determined to oppose FDR's position on what was characterized as the number one issue as this session of Congress opened, the proposal for funding the World War I veterans bonus. Moreover, the Maverick group was to lock horns with Roosevelt on neutrality policy. The threat of an agressive totalitarianism in Europe was just beginning to emerge at this time. On the day Congress met, beleaguered Abyssinia was asking the League of Nations to take measures to ensure peace between that small African nation and Mussolini's Italy, while reports from Berlin told of an unusual meeting of Nazi leaders to demonstrate the German nation's unity under Adolf Hitler. The mood of the United States was becoming increasingly isolationist, and Maury and his Mavericks reflected that mood.
Maverick wrote next to nothing about his group of fellow liberals, and the size, nature, and degree of influence of the group have been treated variously. When queried about the paucity of information concerning the Maverick bloc, his widow said that much of its maneuvering was hush-hush, and that her husband had followed some advice from Jess Jones to the effect that the best investment a politician can make is in a telephone bill: "You get quick connections and there is no record." There is no evidence that Maverick ever claimed to be the leader of the group, but he was given the honor by virtually all of the sources that treated the movement. The Washington Herald reported that the name of the group was taken from Maury Maverick, "a leading spirit in there movement."
Indeed, one person who attended the meetings of the Mavericks said: "During the early period of Maury's tenure in Congress (I think he was almost single-handedly responsible) he called together a group of young liberal Congressmen at a fish restaurant named Hall's Restaurant. We used to go there once a week. Some 15 or 20 young Congressmen would meet with 10 or 12 executives from various agencies downtown, such as Ickes' Public Works Administration, Isador Lubin from the Department of Labor, Isadore Strauss, from the Public Housing Administration. . . . Henry Wallace often came to the meetings, Harry Hopkins came.
The first public mention of the Mavericks appeared on March 10, 1935, when the Washington Herald reported that the Texas freshman had joined with thirty-four House colleagues to form the group and that the members had adopted a twelve-point liberal program of action. Paul J. Kvale, Minnesota Farmer-Laborite, called the meeting and presided. Six days later the Herald reported that the group was made up of seven Wisconsin Progressives, three Farmer-Laborites, sixteen Democrats, and eight Republicans.
Speaker Byrns was reported to have indicated that possible disciplinary action against the Democrats in the group would be taken by the Democratic leadership. Representative Claude A Fuller (D.-Ark.) made a full-dress attack upon the insurgents on the floor of the House on March 14. He ridiculed "these Moseses who are going to lead us to the promised land" and charged that they had "formed a bloc for the purpose of controlling legislation hereafter." Kvale was singled out as the "dictator" of the group, and Fuller said that the group was intent upon breaking down the two major parties. He also insisted upon reading all the names of those members attending the meeting, told the Democrats that they got in on Franklin D. Roosevelt's coat-tails and warned that they might not be back next time.
Maverick hurried to the floor when he heard of Fuller's attack, but he arrived just as the Arkansas congressman was leaving the chamber. Maverick stopped him and growled, "I don't care if you've been around here twenty years, you can't shove that sort of stuff down my throat." He told a reporter, "They are trying to bluff Democratic members and keep them from joining. They can't bluff me. I didn't ride into office on the coat-tails of the President; I rode in on my own." Maverick then obtained five minutes for a reply to Fuller's remarks. The irate Texan termed Fuller's attack upon "certain new members of the House" a cowardly one. In a defiant tone he told his colleagues and the Democratic leaders: "I have never made a personal attack on any Democrat or on the Democratic Party since I have been a member of the House. Of course, I have not been here very long. I will never attack a Democratic unless he attacks me or some group of persons with who I associate, and I think that I have the right to associate with whom I please, I have a right to study, to attend open forums, discussion groups, lectures—and to improve my mind if I want to. . . . I did not come here to be loud-mouthed, I did not come here to talk all the time, but I think it is necessary on this occasion to say something." Maverick went on to say that he had never heard Fuller say anything progressive since he had been in the House. As far as insurgency was concerned, Maverick protested that he was not trying to start a third-party movement, but that he was being just as independent as President Roosevelt had been when he was in the New York Legislature.
Representative Gerald J. Boileau (Prog.-Wis.) launched another counterattack against Fuller the next day, charging that the "chairman of the Democratic patronage committee" was trying to intimidate Democrats. He intimated that the leadership had chosen Fuller to act as hatchet man. Though there is no definite evidence to support this charge, the New York Times reported that Speaker Byrnes had "made no secret of his opposition" to the group.
It was the Times which gave the first definite report on the Mavericks. Thirty-four members were reported to have answered a "roll call" in a meeting of the group on March 16, 1935. Maverick said that there were thirty more who would identify themselves with the program, but other members differed with him. The March 16 meeting adopted a sixteen-point program containing these policies: federal regulation of credit and currency; abolishment of the issuance of tax-exempt securities; increased inheritance, income, and gift taxes on a graduated basis; refinancing of farm debts on long-term, 1.5 percent interest; lower interest rates on home loans; guarantee to farmers their average cost of production plus a reasonable profit; limitation of hours of labor in industry; insurance to labor of "Its inherent right to bargain collectively"; public works appropriations to provide employment; federal aid to education; "government ownership of all natural resources and monopolies vested with public interest"; "deprofitizing" of war; avoidance of "foreign entanglements"; adequate provisions for the payment of sickness, old-age, and unemployment benefits; protection of freedom of speech and the press; and liberalization of House rules. The policy committee of the group consisted of Maverick, Kvale, George J .Schneider (Prog.-Wis.) Kent E. Keller (D.-Ill.), William Lemke (R.-N.D.), Melvin J. Maas (R.-Minn.), and Fred C. Gilchrist (R.-Iowa).
Less than one month from the day its program was offered, the organization, formally known as the Progressive Open Forum Discussion Group, was referred to as "a decisive factor in House strategy," and its solid vote was credited with swinging the House from the Vinson Bonus Bill to the Patman Bonus Bill. The Vinson bill provided that certificates held by World War I veterans would be funded by whatever method might be devised by the Treasury Department; the Patman bill called for outright payment by currency expansion. FDR wanted no bonus bill, and the House leadership had tried to block consideration of such a measure. In an unexpected move by Representative Wright Patman of Texas and his Maverick supporters, the Vinson measure, "with all the prestige of the American Legion endorsement behind it," was rejected. The key vote in this heated and much-publicized struggle was on a motion to recommit the Patman bill. The attempt failed by a narrow margin of 207 to 204. The House and Senate then passed the Patman bill, but it was vetoed by President Roosevelt. The following year, however, a measure akin to Patman's proposal was passed over Roosevelt's veto.
Another major area to which Maury and his Mavericks turned their attention in the spring of 1935 was neutrality and related legislation, and their first big vicotry was said to have been the rewriting of the administration's war-profits bill. Maerick had returned from World War I with a passionate hatred for warfare and was determined to do all that he could to prevent the involvement of the United States in any future war. He made what was apparently his first antiwar speech in San Antonio in November of 1933. It was a slashing attack on those men who "enjoy the fabulous profits from this death and destruction of their fellow men." He said that war results in an "international loss of respect for human values, and of ordinary rational conclusions," and argued that war might be prevented if "by federal enactment we should eliminate in advance any chance of profits."
In a campaign speech the next year, with more accurate foresight than he perhaps realized, he said, "The next war will be fought by air bombardment of great cities, and against such bombardments there is no means of defence. Enough planes will be able to tear up dozens of great cities, kill and spread murderous gases and hideous death-dealing diseases. Millions of innocent persons, who didn't want to be in the war, who hate no one, and who wear no uniforms and carry no guns, will lose their lives." He concluded that we must remove the economic causes of war—that refusals to trade, artificial restrictions, and "economic nationalism in general" would bring on war.
Maverick was not clearly an isolationist. He once said, "I have been called an isolationist and praised because I am an isolationist, but I am not." The distinction may be a matter of hair-splitting but he was a pacifist of sorts who favored an adequate national defense, U.S. participation in the World Court, and the general principle of international cooperation. Maverick had been in Congress no more than a few days when he delivered one of his most widely quoted pithy remarks—his capsule commentary on the absurdity of war. Former representative Jeannette Rankin (R.-Mon.) was asked in hearing before the House Military Affairs Committee if she would not do everything she could to help her country win a war if it should become involved in one. Representative Rankin answered with the question, "Will someone please tell me who won the last war?"—at which point Maverick interjected, "Who won the San Francisco earthquake?"
In a few months Maverick had an opportunity to bring his views to bear on some specific legislation. Representative John J. McSwain (D.-S.C.), chairman of the Military Affairs Committee, had been attempting for years to develop an acceptable measure that would prevent profiteering in time of war. On February 12, 1935, he reported from his committee a measure that was said to have been authored primarily by General Hugh S. Johnson and Bernard Baruch. The bill was designed to "prevent profiteering in time of war and to equalize the burden of war and thus provide for the national defense and promote peace." When the bill came up for a special order from the Rules Committee on April 3, Maverick attempted to have it returned to the Military Affairs Committee. He argued that the measure had no chance in the Senate unless it contained an effective tax provision, which had to originate in the House. He was unsuccessful in this attempt, but in the ensuing proceedings he and his Mavericks brought the measure around to what they wanted. Maverick charged that the bill not only would fail to take the profit out of war, but that its loosely drawn provision on conscription could involve the drafting of labor or almost anyone. He was supported in these arguments by Representative Everett M. Dirksen (R.-Ill.), who called for a "real bill" to prevent profiteering and one that would not regiment our entire nation in time of peace."
Chairman McSwain and his supporters said that the 100 percent war-profits tax that had been recommended by the committee report could not be included in the measure because such a provision would have to come from the Ways and Means Committee. When one member said that a "sister bill" would be forthcoming from Ways and Means, Maverick said, "I'm afraid 'sister' is never coming. That is the trouble." The Mavericks were determined to include the 100 percent war-profits tax, but that he "walked over to Maverick's desk and gave in." The magazine credited the Mavericks, and Maury in particular, with forcing the change and also bringing about the deletion of the objectionable conscription provision. Though the Mavericks were successful in putting this war-profits measure of their own design through the House, it was to bog down in the Senate during the rest of Maverick's tenure in Congress.
There was greater success on the next project, however, and it was to make Maury Maverick one of the leading spokesmen for neutrality legislation in the Congress. In his second month in the House of Representatives he made a full-dress speech for neutrality legislation. He said that he started with the premise that a nation that will not fight will not survive, but that a nation must not fall under the influence of profit makers or it will "fight itself to death." He asserted, "Candor compels me to say that every war that has been fought has been fought for trade, money, avarice, and gain." Ten years later (September 9, 1945) he penned a marginal note in his own copy of the Congressional Record: "I think this is crap. 10 years later, M." On November 7, 1951, he added: "Still think it is crap; but it is far deeper than I ever thought—but now, for sure, I don't know what to think—M." But he believed it then, and he went on to present a program for avoiding involvement in war: public ownership of munitions manufacturing, an embargo on shipments of munitions to other countries, reasonable military preparation to meet technological changes in warfare for purposes of defense, a more friendly attitude toward foreign nations, greater world trade and an end to "economic nationalism," and a government-owned "central bank of issue" that would permit "the government of the United States—which belongs to the people—to finance itself."
The revelations of the Nye Committee (chaired by Senator Gerald P. Nye) concerning the activities of the munitions industry in World War I and the attendant publicity stimulated a popular demand for neutrality legislation in the spring of 1935. In response to this demand, President Roosevelt sought proposals for neutrality measures from the State Department, but none was forthcoming because the department was beset with controversies as to the type of legislation needed. Roosevelt literally turned the matter over to Congress, specifically to the Nye Committee.
Even before Nye and his associate, Senator Bennett C. Clark, could introduce neutrality resolutions in the Senate, Maverick introduced his own resolution with the key provisions calling for an embargo on arms and contraband materials to all belligerents and a ban on travel on belligerent ships. The key point on which Maverick, Nye, and Clark locked horns with the president was this "impartial embargo"—the president could exercise no discretion as to the nations to which the embargo could be applied.
Some indication of the importance attached to Maverick in this struggle may be seen in the fact that when he asked Secretary of State Cordell Hull to support his proposal, Hull called Maverick into a conference to explain to him the complexity of the neutrality problem and to urge upon him the need for continued study of the problem. Various peace groups rallied to the support of Maverick's position and began to pressure congressmen on the Maverick resolution. Professor Robert A. Divine called him the "most vocal advocate of rigid neutrality" in the Congress and said that pressure by the first termer forced hearings on neutrality resolutions in June of 1935. The legislation was not reported at this time, but the hearings served to spark further national demands for action on a neutrality policy.
After some complex legislative maneuvers in the Senate and fruitless negotiations with the administration, the Pittman resolution, which embodied essentially the Nye-Clark-Maverick position, was passed by the Senate on August 21, 1935. Maverick led nine congressmen to the White House the next morning to urge President Roosevelt to support the Pittman resolution. Roosevelt refused at the time and said that he wanted more discretionary power. One source reported that Maverick told him, in effect, "You ain't a-going to get it." Another source recorded that Maverick told the president he was going to get mandatory neutrality legislation whether he wanted it or not.
No doubt for a complex of reasons, including the fear that neutrality forces would block other major legislation, Roosevelt changed his mind that afternoon and the measure was passed the next day. The only concession he was able to exact was that the embargo would be limited to a six-month period. The Mavericks grumbled over this concession but accepted it with the announcement that they would return to the fight in the next session.
On the domestic front Maury Maverick was a devoted champion of the Tennessee Valley Authority. He characterized it as "the greatest social program of this administration or any other administration in the history of the United States." He argued that TVA was an attempt to substitute care and forethought in the development of a region for the wasteful, hit-or-miss methods of rugged individualism—"make more profits and let the country wash away." In May 1935 Maverick saw his chance to strike a blow for TVA. A bill designed to clarify and extend its powers was before the House Military Affairs Committee, of which he was a member. The measure was primarily directed at circumventing a recent Federal district court ruling that he left in doubt the legality of the TVA's distribution of electric power in the territory surrounding its plants on the Tennessee River. Maverick was first credited with "exposure of the utility company intrigues" against TVA as a result of an incident that took place at the hearings.
Representative Andrew J. May (D.-Ky.), also a member of the Military Affairs Committee and an arch foe of TVA, had made the mistake of distributing to his colleagues a mimeographed abstract of the comptroller general's audit of TVA operations that had been prepared by a Colonel James E. Cassidy. Maverick demanded to know who Cassidy was. Cassidy said that he had done "a great deal of gratuitous work for this committee. . . . I am not employed by anyone." He gave his occupation as engineer, but refused to give the names of clients. He said he had written the abstract as a personal favor to Representative May, and had had it mimeographed "for nothing" by a utility company attorney. May himself volunteered that he was going to have the mimeographing done by "a friend in the National Coal Association," but C. A. Beasley, counsel of the Alabama Power Company (a major opponent of TVA) was in his office at the time and offered to do the mimeographing. The following exchange took place:
"I don't have utility and coal officials sitting around my office," growled Maverick.
May peered over his glasses. "Is that intended as a personal remark?"
"You can figure it out anyway you please," bristled Maverick.
"I'll figure it out outside if you want!" the sixty-year-old Kentuckian said, taking off his glasses.
"I'm afraid," mocked the stocky Texan, a World War veteran and twenty years May's junior.
After the hearing resumed, Maverick remarked heatedly that Cassidy should be thrown out of the hearing, and Cassidy apparently invited him to try. Arthur E. Morgan, TVA chairman, who was then testifying, said that Cassidy had asked to be named supervisor of the construction of Norris Dam, telling TVA that he "had influence in Washington." Morgan also said that Cassidy had later sought an appointment as an "expert chemist," but TVA did not make an appointment after investigation of his qualifications. "I think we should throw this colonel out," Maverick roared. But no action was taken, and May told reporters he would have the incident expunged from the record of the hearings. After adjournment of the hearings, Maverick promptly issued a statement that "an immense, crooked lobby is trying to defeat the TVA. It is rotten and disgraceful."
A few days later it was reported that the TVA bill had been tabled by the committee by a vote of thirteen to twelve. Maverick was said to be "determined" to get the bill out of the committee and on its way to passage, and he was described as conducting a "one-man drive" to do so. Though Maverick denied it, the irrepressible Texan had had an interview with FDR concerning the key amendments to the TVA Act and had been "commissioned to father the measure," in view of the fact that McSwain (chairman of the Military Affairs Committee) was "off" the bill. Whatever the case, on July 8, 1935, Maverick had another victory over his committee chairman. On that date McSwain announced that the committee had reported the bill by a vote of thirteen to twelve. He explained that the bill was a modification of his own measure and indicated he was not too happy about it, but he would not discuss any of the speculations as to the authorship of the charges.
The next day Maverick gave a lengthy opening address on the measure, consuming much of the attention of the House for three days. On July 10, after a plea by Maverick, the House removed all of the restrictive provisions that President Roosevelt had found objectionable and in addition eliminated a provision that would have placed the financial affairs of TVA under the control of the comptroller general. The Washington News hailed the action as a "smashing comeback" that would extend "the scope of the administration's 'electric rate yardstick' project." The bill was passed by the House and Senate July 11, but a conference committee was necessary. Maverick continued to maintain a watchful eye over the legislation. When it went to the conference committee, he closely questioned Representative McSwain on the choice of what Maverick thought were unfriendly conferees. He withdrew a formal protest on the matter, but indicated that he wanted his misgivings to be a matter of record and for them to serve as a warning to his opponents. The conference committee's report was accepted by the House on August 21, but not without a considerable debate in which Maverick took a leading part. The Senate added its approval the same day without further debate.
Further evidence of Maverick's influence in maneuvering for passage of the TVA amendments was given in an account by Rodney Dutcher, who reported that because coal region congressmen opposed TVA, Maverick went to Senator Joe Guffey of Pennsylvania and said, in effect, "No TVA bill, no Guffey coal bill." Guffey then got busy in support of the TVA measure. Later, with the aid of the Mavericks, the Guffey coal bill passed the House by a narrow margin.
Another example of the extraordinary influence that this freshman Texas congressman had won was his leadership in the fight for legislation to control the public utilities holding companies. The Washington Daily News reported in July 1935 that the Democratic leadership had admitted it was "peeved" because Maverick and John E. Rankin (D.-Miss.) had been consulted by Roosevelt on the "death sentence" provisions of the public utilities holding company bill and Ruth Finney reported in the same paper in August that Maverick was "largely responsible for getting the president's TVA bill through the House in the form he wanted it. He took the lead in organizing members of the holding company fight, and has been active on half a dozen other matters." Albert Warner also reported in the New York Herald Tribune that President Roosevelt had personally encouraged Maverick and Rankin to lead the fight for the "more drastic" versions of the TVA and holding company legislation.
The Wheeler-Rayburn public utilities holding company bill contained a drastic provision that would have empowered the Securites Exchange Commission to compel dissolution of holding companies that could not appropriately justify their existence—this was the "death sentence" clause. Utility companies exerted desperate efforts to head off this drastic provision. Representative Rankin reported that his telephone was tapped. A Western Union official testified to a special Senate investigating committee that utility interests sent hundreds of telegrams to congressmen opposing the legislation and signed the names of persons who had no idea that their names were being used. Less than three weeks later the originals of such wires were burned in the basement of the Western Union Office, though originals were normally kept for at least one year.
Maverick made several carefully researched and documented speeches on the holding company legislation on the floor of the House and over national radio networks. TVA director David E. Lilienthal wrote to him, "I was lucky enough to be near a radio the other night when you were speaking on holding companies. Your speech was a crackerjack, and you have an unusually smooth radio voice. I wish you would send me a copy of the text of your remarks." Later FDR adviser Felix Frankfurter favored Maverick with this note: "It was a very great pleasure to meet you. You really invigorated my belief in the possibilities of wise and democratic government. I have no doubt that persistent efforts like yours to mobilize the progressive forces in Congress to secure agreement on essentials and fight together for them, will greatly promote the achievement of legislation in the country's interest and ward off attempts to divert such wholesome legislation as the Senate Holding Company bill.
Finally, Maverick was responsible for bringing about a major strategy meeting to aid the passage of the death sentence clause, and he came very near to success. A meeting was held at the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which included Thomas Corcoran ("Tommy the Cork," an FDR aide), Representative Rankin, Benjamin Cohen, Representative R. Owen Brewster (R.-Me.), Maverick, and several other administration advisers. Maverick reported that at the meeting Brewster had said that he favored the death sentence clause, that he would make a speech for it in the House and that he could probably swing twenty-five Republican votes for it. Brewster not only failed to follow through, but he voted against the bill. He subsequently claimed that Corcoran had threatened to cut off the Passamaquoddy Dam project in Maine unless Brewster voted the right way. Corcoran said that actually what had happened was that he had told Brewster in an encounter immediately before the vote was taken that he could not be trusted to help the administration on the Maine project in view of his "sudden change of attitude on the death sentence." Brewster's remarks in a final brief encounter had indicated to Corcoran that the Main congressman was not going to be able to resist pressures of the power interests. A Rules Committee hearing subsequently revealed that Corcoran's account was correct. Though the death sentence clause was defeated, a modified version that was scarcely more pleasing to the power industry was passed and signed into law on August 26, 1935.
Maverick's preoccupation with other important legislative matters in his first year in Congress did not divert him from his lifelong interest in the cause of civil liberties. Roger N. Baldwin, director of the American Civil Liberties Union for thirty-three years, had this to say about Maverick's defense of civil liberties:
Maury's unique role as a battler for civil liberties in Congress was due to the unusual combination of conviction, wit, a sense of strategy and a canny estimate of the weak spots in the opposition. He knew how to disarm opponents by appearing more patriotic than they. He joined the unimpeachable organizations like the Sons of the American Revolution, and he never tied up with any other revolution. He was as homespun as the Bill of Rights. I, who also had no other platform, flirted with movements I thought headed for strengthening it, to my later disillusion; but not Maury. It was a position not based on good politics, but good sense.
During his terms in Congress his office was the center of all efforts for civil liberties legislation; he headed the liberal block; he ignored the false saviors of civil liberties like Marcantonio. He fought Dies. If he and I ever differed, I would think how in the light of hind-sight that he was right and I wrong. Among the handful of civil rights champions in Congress over the years, Maury stands out as the most devoted and the most skillful in achieving what he went after.
Maverick was always a devoted, if at first a somewhat uncritical, supporter of the natural rights doctrine. His earliest ideas were derived from the writings of Paine and Jefferson, but he also read Hugo Grotius, and in later years, Samuel von Pufendorf. Maverick told the story in his first book of making a study of natural rights when he was appointed to defend two deserters in World War I. He said that he particularly used natural rights arguments of James Otis and Sam Adams in the summation to the court.
According to Maverick's statement (and there is nothing comparable to it in all the vast collection of his papers), the greatest influence on the further shaping and reinforcement of his ideas in the Congressional years came from the late Charles W. Ervin, American socialist, journalist, and labor leader. This "influential, if little-known, figure in American politics," a Norman Thomas type of socialist, used to come to Congressman Maverick's office in the 1930's and talk for hours with the Texan on political philosophy and public affairs. Maverick called Ervin "the greatest scholar of humanity" he had ever met, and told him in 1951, "You were the first great and solid inspiration in my life. . . . You taught me the excellent purposes of a free country in an affirmative manner. In other words, you gave me my start in having what understanding I have. I am glad to report also that I have not gotten worse, and a little better, and I understand race problems much better than when I used to know you." Ervin's philosophical position is best divined from his comments (in one of the later notes to Maverick) on the Soviet Union: "The idiotic Secret Service from Russia once reported me to their employers as a 'Jeffersonian Socialist and a fanatic on free press and free speech!'" On the Declaration of Independence he said, "Red-headed Thomas took Burlamaqui, a Swiss on Liberty, read Grotius, a Dutchman, Pufendorf, a German, Beccaria, an Italian, and Locke, an Englishman, and fused their ideas in the 112 words."
But Maverick was an outspoken champion of freedom of expression before he met Ervin. The Texas congressman's arrival in Washington marked the approximate beginning of the modern era of legislative investigations into the political orthodoxy of various segments of American life and of proofs of one's loyalty and patriotism. In a 1934 campaign speech Maverick told Bexar County voters: "It has always been the practice of those fearful of democracy to suppress the free expression of new ideas, to thwart new purposes and practices, to undermine all new experiments and to cling to the past with a death grip. . . . All reactionary power comes through force of some kind, not through intelligent leadership. Against their opponents, these political bigots and reactionaries have no weapons except treachery. . . . The truth will not sustain them, so they must fly to untruths." There was a time, he said, when we burned witches, but "in a hundred years American civilization had progressed so the people didn't keep a stake and fagots in the public square, but they wrote the stake and fagots into the law.
Maverick was one of the early advocates of a literal interpretation of the guarantees of freedom of expression in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. In his first important address in Congress on civil liberties he said of the First Amendment, "It did not designate the character of speech, and does not say Republican papers or Communist papers or any other kind of papers. It says, 'freedom of speech and press,' and that is what it means, and for a good reason. If you suppress one philosophy or idea, you can supress others; therefore, the only guaranty we have of free government is free speech." The notion of a near-absolute freedom of expression is more recent than is often realized. As Professor John P. Roche has explained, the position in defense of the ultimate in free expression is "a modern development" resulting, at least in large part, from the "great legal migration" to Washington in the 1930's. Maury Maverick was an outstanding member of this migration that laid the groundwork for the view now prevailing on the United States Supreme Court.
Maverick first applied and polished his ideas in 1935 and 1936 against the military disaffection bills. The so-called "Tydings-McCormack Bill," as it was to be termed after it reached the House, was designed "to make better provision for the government of the military and naval forces of the United States by the suppression of attempts to incite the members thereof to disobedience." The proposed statute would make it a crime if a person "with intent to inite disaffection advises, counsels, urges or solicits any member," or "publishes or distributes any book, paper, print, article, letter or other writing" counseling the same.
The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent June 24, 1935, after a brief explanation by Senator Millard E. Tydings (D.-Md.), its author, who said that the measure was requested by the War and Navy Departments. Representative John W. McCormack (D.-Mass.), chairman of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, had introduced the same text in the House. Maverick launched an intensive campaign against these measures months before either of them received any favorable action. The first week in March 1935 he began a softening-up process by delivering a major speech on freedom of expression. He pointed to the extraordinary provisions of the bill, which would permit search warrants to be issued to take "from any house or other place where it may be found, or from any person . . . any book, pamphlet, paper, print, article, letter, or other writing" of the character described in the law, and that this section would "put a dangerous power in the hands of the military, which they might use indirectly to persecute whom they pleased among the civilians."
Maverick then began a letter-writing campaign to round up members of the House and Senate to oppose the measure. He wrote to dozens of key members and received favorable responses from most of them. His correspondence folder indicates that he was virtually in charge of the successful efforts to organize opposition to the measure on the part of prominent civil liberties spokesmen, such as Dr. Charles A. Beard, Professor Karl N. Llewellyn, Frederick A. Ballard (ACLU lawyer), and Professor Zechariah Chaffee, Jr.
The unrelenting Texas congressman then delivered a lengthy statement to Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson, lecturing him on the lack of need for such a measure. He particularly singled out Swanson's complaint that literature handed out to sailors was "carefully worded to avoid the insurrection and sedition statues," and said that if such was the case, it should not cause a sailor "to commit insurrection and sedition." He then gave Swanson a lengthy lecture on the history of loyalty and sedition statutes, which were likely to have "the opposite effect desired." If sailors were prohibited from reading certain literature, their natural response would be, "Well, there must be something to that." Suppression, said Maverick, would strengthen Communist appeals. He also upbraided Swanson at some length for permitting admirals to speak and write in behalf of such legislation. Swanson's stiff reply simply reiterated his previous "views and recommendations."
When hearings were held by the House Committee on Military Affairs, Maverick, Beard, Llewellyn, Representative Vito Marcantonio (R.-N.Y.), Ballard, and Allan S. Olmstead, another ACLU attorney, appeared against the bill. When the two-day hearings were concluded, the bill was reported with an amendment requiring the publication or advice to promote disaffection must be accompanied by "the intent to incite." Maverick and Congressman Paul J. Kvale (Prog.-Wisc.) prepared a fourteen-page, documented indictment of the measure. They cited statues and cases giving adequate protection against any conspiracies against the armed forces. They cited various cases of abuse of sedition statutes in the World War I period, presented a résumé of the history of civil liberties, and concluded: "This measure, put forward apparently casually and in as inconspicuous a manner as possible, is a direct, unnecessary, and wanton assault on freedom of the press and of speech, and on our traditional rights of immunity against unreasonable search and seizure. At the very least, it is a sop designed to cater to the prejudices of these so-called patriotic groups who think that the most becoming garb for the Statue of Liberty is a strait jacket and that American freedom consists of allowing the liberties of the people to be anesthetized into a complete coma."
Before the report had been made to the House, Maverick charged that the decision to report the bill had been made without a quorum present in the committee and that most of the members had not read the bill. He said, "Strangely enough, the newspapers did not at first pay any attention to it, although it primarily violates the right of freedom of the press." He then introduced into the Congressional Record a column by Walter Karig attacking the bill and commending Maverick as the only congressman who had voiced public objection to it. The column was dated July 15, 1935, and the official report was not made to the House until July 22. Apparently Maverick had given the report to Karig and other newsmen in advance.
Maverick attacked the bill again August 1 in a radio address over WOL, Washington, D.C., and WMCA, New York, in which he referred to the measure as a "Stalin-Hitler bill" that some people sought to be "grafted on a free people." Press releases on the talk were sent to 350 daily newspapers throughout the Unite States. In two weeks Maverick was able to introduce into the Record editorial protests against the measure from all of the New York newspapers, most of the news magazines, the Scripps-Howard newspapers, and fourteen other representative newspapers—he said there were "hundreds" of others.
Maverick and Representative Kvale were commended by Maverick's friend H. L. Mencken for carrying on the fight against the McCormack bill. The Baltimore journalist concluded, "It is a sad commentary upon the present estate and the Bill of Rights that, in a Congress of 531 members, these hobgoblins are left to wage their uphill combat alone. . . . As for Dr. Tydings, he abandons fair play and common sense to aid and abet a passel of silly Red-baiters."
While he was carrying on the fight against the military disaffection bill, Maverick was also challenging with equal vigor and articulateness the Kramer Bill, offered by Representative Charles Karmer, a fellow Democrat from California. The gist of this measure was that it would be a federal crime for anyone knowingly to make any statement advocating or urging the overthrow of any government in the United States, or to print, publish, issue, edit, circulate, sell, distribute, or display any written matter containing any such statement. The bill provided for a fine of up to $5,000 and imprisonment of not more than five years, or both, for persons convicted of these offenses.
A few days before the bill was reported by the Judiciary Committee, the chairman, Representative Emanuel Celler (D.-N.Y.), introduced into the Record a set of lengthy minority views that followed very closely the argument Maverick had presented to the committee. Celler, as a matter of fact, cited the views "forcefully and ably" presented by Maverick. Three days later Maverick indicated that he was astonished that the bill had been reported by the committee and referred to it as a "killer of American liberty." In a brief speech, he told his colleagues:
Force begets force. Hatred begets hatred. And if we start jailing people for talking and writing, however irresponsible or wild these utterances may be, we are leading ourselves into trouble, and we already have dozens of laws to protect this Government against criminal and overt acts; this Kramer bill is absolutely unnecessary. The worst thing about these anti-sedition bills is that they will be misused against innocent people for the suppression of opinions, the prevention of freedom of press; will be an instrument of widest oppression, will cause fanatical actions throughout the country.
In the hearings on the Kramer bill, Maverick pointed out that Jeffersonian Republicans had been convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798 for statements no worse than, "Mr. Adams has only completed the scene of ignominy which Mr. Washington began," and wondered how many Democrats would be convicted of saying, "Mr. Hoover has only completed the scene of ignominy which Mr. Coolidge began."
Neither the Kramer bill nor the Tydings-McCormack military disaffection bill came up before the House in this session (largely because of the blasts of Maverick and others), but they were not dead and Maverick was to move in for the kill in the next session.
Unlikely as it may seem, Maury Maverick busied himself with many other projects during his first year in Congress. He, with audacity uncommon to freshman members, urged various reforms of Congress and Congressional procedure. After a little more than a month in the House of Representatives he was calling for more clerical assistance. He argued that Congress was at a great disadvantage—all the people "at the other end of the Avenue" had to do was "press a button" to get statistical data and the like. On another occasion he chided his party leaders for their failure to follow regular procedures. He wanted to know whether Calendar Wednesday "was going to be passed forever."
One of his projects that reflected a lifetime interest concerned the promotion of national parks and the preservation of historic sites in the United States. He introduced a number of bills and resolutions directed toward this end and was rewarded by the passage of a measure to establish a National Parks Trust Fund Board authorized to accept and administer funds and properties donated for national parks. Later in the year he secured passage of a measure to provide for restoration of historic sites. The measure established an Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings and Monuments whose members were to be selected from among "the professions of history, archaeology, architecture and human geography." In his own bound copy of the parts of the Congressional Record in which he had figured, Maverick expressed pride in this achievement and attached a clipping concerning the award of $45,000 from the National Parks Service for reconstruction of an outdoor theater at San Jose Mission State Park, the site used for San Antonio's famed Drama of the Alamo production.
In 1935 Maverick began his attack on the Supreme Court that was to culminate eventually in his introduction in the House of Representatives of FDR's court-packing plan. In June he gave a lecture to his colleagues on the need for a flexible constitution and criticized the Court for incorrect reasoning in striking down New Deal legislation. In a national radio address the same month he attacked the Court again and called for a national constitutional convention to consider the "unique" situation in which elected representatives could not legislate for the "betterment of the people."
Finally, when the House of Representatives was considering the appropriation of funds for a Texas Centennial commemorating the Battle of the Alamo, Maverick made a speech in which he anticipated the concept of the War on Poverty of the 1960's Maverick said:
The example of the Alamo should not be lost to us. If a man will willingly lose his life for the liberty of his people and for posterity, certainly now a man should be willing to lose his political life in standing up for the things that are right and just. The thing that faced the Texans was political tyranny; what we face now is a tyranny of the special interests against the Government of the United States. . . .
"Patriotism," according to Dr. Samuel Johnson, is sometimes "the last resort of the scoundrel"—and it is likewise the most precious thing to a decent human being. But I think it fair to say that there is a changing concept of patriotism . . . the war to make the world a decent place to live in, the pioneering of science, government, progress, has just begun. Those who are willing to be the new soldiers and pioneers will have a harder enemy to meet—the special interests, the exploiters, the gods of Greed and Hate—and they will use persecution, ridicule, hate.
After the adjournment of the first session of the Seventy-Fourth Congress, Maverick busied himself with the continuing promotion of legislation that interested him, but he also found time to poke into a few affairs in his home district and around the country.
On the return trip from Washington, he made a swing down through the TVA country, inspecting dams and telling the people of the South that their future was tied to FDR and the Democratic party. Maverick was riding the crest. At home he issued statements on everything, attended groundbreaking ceremonies for a new post office in San Antonio, listened to statements of praise from his old political enemies, and was invited to address the Texas Senate. In his speech he rapped Democrats who were apologetic about their party and told the Senators that President Roosevelt was "the best President the South has had since the administration of Andrew Jackson." "Our duty is to take a militant stand for the party," he said.
In October he tore into the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce in a Kiwanis Club speech for its failure to make public a four-month-old report of a healthy survey of San Antonio made by the surgeon general of the United States Health Service. The Chamber of Commerce had asked the study to be made, but had, in what Maverick called a "silly, foolish and cowardly" attitude, suppressed the report for fear that it would "hurt San Antonio," Maverick felt that this was shortsighted and that it was time for the people of San Antonio to face the facts of the health situation in their city.
From San Antonio Maverick made another swing up into several adjoining states. Attending a reunion of the 157th Infantry of Colorado, with which he had served in World War I, Maverick was depicted as "breathing fire and brimstone" as he held forth on conservation, freedom of speech, and neutrality. His opinion of the United States Chamber of Commerce was reported to have been "blistering and edifying, but scarcely printable." A few days later Maverick was in New Mexico and Arizona looking over conservation projects and "furthering two of his favorite measures, providing for preservation of historical sites and Spanish colonial missions.
Reporters in El Paso were able to find some quotable Chamber of Commerce remarks by Maverick when he returned to Texas. The congressman sat in the Hotel Paso del Norte and sipped coffee while he flayed the national secretary of the Chamber of Commerce for remarks to the effect that FDR's advisers sounded like "on to Moscow." He said that local chambers should not be flattered by the visits of the likes of the secretary and that the national Chamber of Commerce was the "most dangerous enemy of America." He said that rather than representing the ordinary businessman, the Chamber of Commerce represented the "big industrialists and war munitions manufacturers."
A week later Maverick was off to Saint Louis for a speech to the Saint Louis Civil Liberties Committee at Sheldon Memorial. He made "characteristic attacks on the military disaffection bill, the American Liberty League and Jouett Shouse, the Chicago Tribune and Hearst newspapers, and on Comptroller General McCarl, whom he described as a 'noisy little nuisance with a lowing tie and a Napoleonic complex.'" He was "of course" for the First Amendment freedoms with no exceptions and the right of free expression, especially for those persons who were "weak, unpopular, or in the minority, and those who we, or others, may classify as simple-minded, subversive or crazy."
Back in Texas again in December, Maverick treated Galveston and Houston audiences to blistering attacks on the big business-oriented American LIberty League as "tin-horn fakers of liberty," "degenerate fascists," and "concession Communists" who seek a concession for monopoly from the government and then "enjoy their license from a subservient government which they own." Maverick said that he could match them in name-calling, and there seems to be little doubt that Liberty Leaguers would agree. At Houston Maverick said that he was supporting the New Deal Agricultural Adjustment Act and he did not care whether "Mr. Clayton [W. L. "Will" Clayton, a wealthy Houston cotton exporter] liked it or not."
It was just before his return to Washington for the opening of the second session of the Seventy-Fourth Congress that Maverick chose to issue a statement to the press strongly condemning the Townsend Plan. He said it was a "brazen, unconscionable and hopeless demand on the poor people" that would "financially wreck the country." The New York Herald Tribune editorialized, "All honor to Maverick," for opposing the Townsend Plan and for not trying to make political hay of it.
After one year in Congress, the fame of Maury Maverick had spread far and wide. He was where he wanted to be, and he was making the most of it.
Two Cowboys Are Better Than One
Maury Maverick opened his second year in Congress with some more of his attention-getting antics and further demonstrations that he was a man to be reckoned with.
Franklin Roosevelt gave his State of the Union address on January 3, 1936, to an unprecedented night joint session of Congress. His inflammatory message contained a reference to his having "earned the hatred of entrenched greed." Though this may have been more of a "radicalism of rhetoric" rather than deeds, Republican leaders were incenses. They accused FDR of using the performance of his constitutional duty for unfair political advantage. When the Republicans asked for radio time to answer the president, in jumped Maverick. He had had some time scheduled for the following Saturday on the NBC network, and the a "generous and sarcastic" mood he wired NBC: "I see by the papers that the Republicans want radio time. Inasmuch as I believe that they will do more good for the Democratic party than if I speak, I will be pleased to give up my time Saturday, which ought to partially cover their demands. I do this for your convenience and for the benefit of the Democratic party."
Roosevelt was no doubt amused and pleased by Maverick's impulsive impudence, and the president also implicitly recognized the Texas congressman's leadership role in a friendly note three days later. Maverick had sent him a silver spur—one of the Texas mementos he typically sent to friends. Roosevelt responded, "That is a grand spur. I shall dig it in. Wear its mate yourself. Two cowboys can ride herd a whole lot better than one!" This flattering metaphor did not prevent Maverick, of course, from sometimes spurring his mount in to cut off part of the herd and head it off in a divergent direction. Also, some people probably thought Maverick's credentials as a cowboy were somewhat suspect when, a few weeks later, he ran the risk of alienating quite a few of his constituents by grumbling to a reporter that he was getting a little sick of cowboy tunes. "Everytime I turn on the radio or go to a show I hear some guy hollering something about the lone prairie," he said. "Cowpunchers don't sing much either, let alone hang around a fire and yell in one another's faces over a guitar."
Early in 1936 Maverick was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, and by that time he had become quite well acquainted with several of the justices, among them Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo. His relationship with Cardozo was the basis for one of the most painful yet hilarious encounters ever recorded.
Maverick went to one of Carl Sandburg's lectures at a Washington high school. He had not seen Sandburg since a meeting with him and folklorist J. Frank Dobie in the 1920's, but Sandburg spotted him in the audience, called out to him and "passed a few compliments." After the meeting Sandburg asked Maverick if he would introduce him to Justice Cardozo. Maverick made the arrangements, and the two went to visit the justice in his apartment. Sandburg and Cardozo complimented one another extravagantly, and then, suddenly, Sandburg asked if he might recite a poem for Cardozo. When Cardozo expressed his enthusiastic agreement, Sandburg, "oblivious to his audience," began to recite in blank verse. "Roaring at the top of his voice," he delivered a blistering and very long diatribe against all judges "who sell their souls" and the like. Maverick said that Cardozo's hair was no whiter than his face. When Sandburg finished, he said, "Judge, what do you think of that?"
The shattered Cardozo could barely choke out, "Mr. Sandburg, I would not condemn the whole judiciary," and Maverick was amazed to hear Sandburg respond, "Why not? They are destoying the country," and more in a similar vein. He assured Cardozo that none of the judges was "worth a damn." At a break in this fantastic harangue, Maverick was finally able to steer Sandburg out of the apartment after a quick exchange of perfunctory words of leave-taking.
Maverick was also giving plenty of attention to serious business. Immediately upon his return to Washington in December 1935 he was conferring with Senator Nye on the establishment of a special steering committee to guide the Nye-Clark-Maverick neutrality measure, which was designed to replace the temporary neutrality law passed in the last session. Maverick was convinced that the Congress wanted a rigid, unqualified bill that would compel the president to place an embargo on shipments of all munitions and materials of war to any belligerent nation. At this time he received a clipping from historian Charles A. Beard that contained a report of the 1935 convention of the American Political Science Association. In the news story, Beard had been quoted as saying, "representatives in Congress, such as Maverick of Texas, know their history, and they intend to keep the power of making war in the legislature where it belongs under the Constitution."
There were new problems to reckon with in this session, however. Since the passage of the temporary neutrality act of 1935 (destined to expire on February 29, 1936), Italy had launched its attack upon Ethiopia on October 3, 1935. The president and others interested in neutrality legislation quickly learned that the restriction of raw materials and other goods could be as important as embargoes on armaments. Though the 1935 law limited embargoes to actual arms, attempts were made to apply a "moral embargo" on shipments of goods that could aid in war. The lack of success of this attempt by the Roosevelt administration helped to stimulate a drive for such restrictions in a new neutrality act.
The measure offered by the administration on January 3 was remarkably close to what the neutrality bloc wanted. It provided for continuation of the impartial arms embargo, a mandatory ban on loans to belligerents, and a quota system under which the president could limit the export of raw materials that he judged to be critical to average amounts exported before a war. The president was given some discretion in this measure. The ban on loans did not prevent him from exempting short-term commercial credits, and a provision left it up to his discretion to declare that trade with belligerents would be at the trader's own risk.
Nye, Clark, and Maverick indicated that they were surprised at the strict provisions of the administration measure, but they still pressed for the more rigid approach embodied in their bill, which they introduced the same day. It called for automatic declaration of trade quotas by the president upon the outbreak of war, automatic imposition of an arms embargo, a requirement that the president prohibit absolutely travel by American passengers on belligerent vessels, no presidential discretion with respect to short-term commercial credits, and restrictions on the method by which the president would determine trade quotas.
There seemed to be considerable ground for a compromise between the administration position and that of the neutrality bloc, but, as Beard indicated, Maverick and his associates wanted the Congress to control the power of making war, and President Roosevelt, having already made many concessions to them, was not in a mood to yield much more. The waters were soon to be muddied even more, however, by the opposition of business groups and Italian-Americans to any trade restrictions on materials other than arms. Maverick was one of the most adamant advocates of the trade restrictions. He did not care if it hurt business, and he even went so far as to say that he would just as soon close the ports of Houston and Galveston if it would save lives. He was also concerned about the wording that permitted the president to invoke an arms embargo "upon the outbreak of or during the progress of any war," which might permit the president to wait indefinitely before invoking the embargo. Maverick sought and obtained wording that required the president to act as soon as he found a state of war to exist.
Neither the administration bill nor the Nye-Clark-Maverick bill was destined to pass. The strong pressure from the business groups and Italian-Americans and the adamant position of Maverick's element ultimately forced the administration and its supporters to accept a compromise bill that dropped the trade quotas and essentially extended the 1935 act to May 1, 1937, with the additional feature of a ban on loans to belligerents. Though the compromise measure incorporated the more definite language that Maverick had sought concerning the time when the president was to invoke an embargo, and a requirement that the president extend an arms embargo to other states that entered a war in progress, it did give the president authority to exempt short-term commercial credits from the loan ban, and the trade restrictions were dropped.
Administration forces in the House, relieved to find a way out, and the traditional neutrality forces, concerned about the approaching expiration date for the existing neutrality law, were ready to accept this bill. The disgruntled Maverick, however, protested bitterly against the passage under a gag rule that allowed only forty minutes of debate to a measure affecting the "lives of millions of our sons," while hours were wasted on matters of personalities and "home consumption speeches." He characterized the legislation as an inadequate "hodgepodge," grumbled that the Congress would apparently "pass up neutrality until after the war," and urged his colleagues to vote against the measure. It was passed by a vote of 353 to 27 on February 17.
Professor Divine's conclusion was that the Maverick group prevented a potential majority for trade restrictions by its insistence on the rigid program of mandatory neutrality. The administration was bent upon getting the flexibility necessary to some passive cooperation with League of Nations sanctions against aggressors, and Nye, Maverick, Clark, and their supporters were determined to prevent all involvement in wars. As Divine put it, "These objectives were incompatible, and the result was an impasse which simply postponed the issue for another year."
The debate on neutrality legislation was over, but shortly before it was concluded, Maverick indulged himself in one of his quixotic gestures by introducing a bill he no doubt knew had no chance of passage. It provided that all military training institutions have a required reading list to impress upon trainees the horrors of war. He recommended for the list All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, The Road to War and The Martial Spirit by Walter Millis, Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos, The First World War by Lawrence Stallings, and The Case of Sergeant Grischa by Arnold Zweig.
Maverick was more than ready to make war on the enemies of free expression in this second session, and he did not wait for the military disaffection bill or the Kramer antisubversive measure to come before the House. He published an article in January in which he combined his interests in neutrality legislation with his concern for the protection of civil liberties. He renewed his attack on both of the proposals and condemned the "false patriotism" of the American Liberty League and other "shirt front organizations." The way to secure liberty, he argued, is not through war, but by remaining "neutral abroad, but at home to wage a relentless campaign against all of those who stifle liberty—in the name of liberty—for the sake of profit."
Shortly after the convening of the second session of the Seventy-fourth Congress, Maverick leaped to the attack in a speech to the Virginia Press Association and in other speeches to various audiences. He condemned the military disaffection bill and all types of gag laws. He told the newsmen that freedom of the press must be extended to all segments of opinion, and explained, "All this is based on the democratic concept of the preservation of society. We know that society cannot be held in concrete forms for all time. Society must and does change, and it is better that we do not let it crack up because of the violence against the rigidity of our forms, but that we let changes come gradually and easily by the freedom of expression with a certain flexibility of our institutions." Here Maverick was arguing in favor of discussion for purposes of peaceful constitutional change, but he also extended his argument to a claim for the value of the making of the speech: permitting people to vent their spleen in violent speech may help stave off the violent act. As he explained the point to fellow members of the American Civil Liberties Union: "The purpose of freedom of speech; the purpose of freedom of press, is to eliminate violence, destruction and revolution. By the use of freedom, by violent expression, we prevent the violent act. We must not, in our effort to destroy Fascism or Communism adopt their policy of the elimination of full, free, unhampered expression in every phase of life. Let us have our view of economics, but let us preserve democracy and freedom."
On another occasion he said, "Let the public listen to us attack each other and read the war of words in the newspapers and then decide which is telling the truth, or more probably, decide that both of us are bores." Finally, Maverick developed enough confidence in this notion to write, ". . . those who proposed the Bill of Rights, and who had recently endured a bitter revolution, had sense enough to know that the extremest type of speech, including all manner of violent talk and all manner of blowing off steam would help prevent a revolution, and help to maintain free and orderly government."
In the early days of the 1936 session, Maverick warned that the Kramer bill and others like it in the Senate were not dead, and opposition against them should be kept up. At one point, with tongue in cheek, he joined in an effort to block the teaching of the principles of the American Liberty League in Federal public schools only long enough to point out that the Liberty League's publications criticizing the Roosevelt administration were extreme enough to cause the League to be prosecuted under the proposed Kramer bill. He then insisted that the Liberty League had just as much right to have its views presented as anyone, even though he despised them.
Maverick again attacked the disaffection law in the House on February 7, 1936, though the measure was not up for consideration. He told his colleagues, "I think the most fundamental thing for the country to know is that we do not approve of the Tydings-McCormack military disaffection bill. . . . These are peacetime sedition bills and are wholly unnecessary."
Maverick could not have been more categorical about the permissible extent of freedom of expression than he was when he wrote that such guarantees were protected by the Constitution "with no limitation and no exception." He said that he saw no limitations beyond the existing laws covering libel, slander, criminal conspiracy, treason, or "overt acts." Though he seems to have never used the conventional expression "clear and present danger," he made a careful study and did some careful thinking about how far dissident political minorities could be permitted to go in their exercise of freedom of expression. He said that laws curbing their freedom were attempts to punish "constructive" treason as distinguished from actual treason and the fear of such laws was the reason for the adoption of a carefully drawn definition for treason in the Constitution. The provisions were designed, he said, "to prevent the adoption in this country of the doctrine of lese majesty—the chief characteristic of which has been said to be its 'juridic boundlessness.'
But what if the expression is an advocacy of overthrow of government? Maverick's argument was that only overt acts were subject to restraint. He said that the "general Anglo-American historical concept" was that there be no advance prohibition of any expression. Advocacy of the overthrow of government, "violent talk, words," was within the limitations of freedom; acts or criminal conspiracy, he said, "are all against the law NOW." He presented the clearest delineation of his view and of the precise point at which words would become an offense, in a major address on March 4:
Now the reason advocacy is not made a crime, is because it is such a vague term. It is often confused with prophesy, with the expression of opinion and with hope. As such an utterance is entirely subjective, the law which cannot read what is in a man's mind, requires (in order that it be definite and clear) that it be accompanied by an overt act before it will punish the utterer. But, and this point cannot be emphasized too strongly, it does not punish the words, the speech—the advocacy, it punishes the act. If one "advocates" murder, unless some act is done in furtherance of the advocacy, or the people to whom were addressed the remarks do something about it, the utterer is guilty of no crime. But—get this—when the advocacy is such that anyone acts or makes the slightest move to carry out the suggestion, the one who causes it is clearly guilty with them, and responsible for their acts as an accessory.
For those persons who would ask why a virtually unlimited freedom of expression should be permitted in the area of dissident political expression, as well as all other areas, Maverick had an ample arsenal of answers. First, if one would accept the premise that democracy is "good" and desirable, Maverick would offer the logic that limitations of free expression are destructive of the meaning of democracy. He said, for example, "Communists have as little respect for free speech as they have for private property. Give them the power and they would abolish it forthwith. But democracy lives by the principle, and is under the obligation to assert it. Could there be a better demonstration of our confidence in our own philosophy and institutions.
Maverick also warned of the dangers to all men of the prospective abuses inherent in the imprecise language of laws designed to curb dangerous utterances. For example, he single out the word "advise," and explained that it meant "to view; observe; hence, to bring into view; consider, ponder, devise. To give advice to." In other words, a person could run afoul of this law by merely giving advice to another person that might lead him to disobey a law. After similarly treating words of the proposed disaffection measure such as "counsel," "urges," and "solicit," Maverick proceeded to support his argument with empirical evidence. He traced almost the entire history of sedition convictions and concluded that though such measures had been directed at those persons who advocate change by force and violence, they had been applied primarily to persons who had made relatively innocuous statements. For example, he said: "In the case of the United States against Stokes, Rose Pastor Stokes was sentenced to 10 years in the Federal penitentiary for saying, 'I am for the people and the Government is for the profiteer.' Many of us have said worse than that.
"Here is what you would do, under the law proposed, to a Republican if he said the President is for communistic principles and putting us into bankruptcy. He (Mr. Maverick pointed to a Republican) would get 10 years for saying that. [Laughter]"
Just as Maverick had begun his March 4 address, McCormack said that he did not have much hope that the disaffection bill would come up before the House. He reported that Secretary of War George H. Dern and the War Department were no longer supporting the legislation, and he sharply criticized Dern for having "shifted his position." An earlier report of Dern's change of position stated that his original endorsement of the bill was "at the request of the Navy." He went on to say that there was no real danger from Communist literature and that suppression might only arouse curiosity—statements much like those advanced by Maverick in his attacks.
On the same day, McCormack was still urging passage of the Kramer bill, which would make it a crime to urge or advocate overthrow of the government. In an exchange with him, Maverick restated his concept of the limits of free speech. He said, "Under our guaranty of freedom of speech one has a right to advocate the forceful overthrow of the Government. If anyone does anything about it, . . . however slight and be it ever so removed from the ultimate object . . . an overt act will have taken place and would be punished under laws on our statute books in existence for generations. Every conceivable danger to our Government is well covered how." Despite a number of attempts, the Kramer bill was not cleared by the Rules Committee for floor discussion. The effectiveness of Maverick's opposition to this bill and the disaffection measure was indicated by the dozens of petitions against them received by the House Military Affairs Committee.
Maverick's bête noire in this Congress was Representative Tom Blanton, a fellow Texan who supported most of the things Maverick opposed. Ten years after his first year in Congress, Maverick wrote in his own copy of the Congressional Record opposite Blanton's name, "A mean old bastard. I think this. Sept. 9, 1945—MM." Blanton seemed to be intent upon putting this upstart freshman congressman in his place, but he picked the wrong man. In his major speech against the military disaffection bill and the Kramer bill, Maverick was chiding his colleagues for wasting time on personal attacks and the like. He said, "This kind of warfare is safe, for neither physical nor mental courage is needed, and all you need is lots of wind and good lungs," and he added that the Republicans had better sense than to get into intraparty squabbles. Blanton interrupted Maverick and made a slurring remark concerning Maverick's debt to his Mexican constituents, but the brash freshman cut Blanton off and said "Now you gave me this time and you be quiet. I am going to answer that question. You gave me this time. Let me have it. I realize that the gentleman is going into the very thing I am talking about. He is trying to personally embarrass me. I want to tell you I have 90,000 Mexicans in my district and they are just as good as you are. [Laughter] They are decent American citizens. I do not consider that to be relevant to what I am talking about. I do not consider it fair in any way whatsoever."
The next day Blanton tackled Maverick again. He had asked another member a question, but Blanton interrupted, gave the answer and then demanded the "regular order" when Maverick tried to protest. Maverick stormed back, "Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order. I asked a question according to parliamentary rules in a respectful and parliamentary manner. That was broken into by this gentleman from Texas [Mr. Blanton]. I did not push my question, but he broke into it. I am entitled to courtesy." Blanton interrupted again to say, "Mr. Chairman, that is not a point of order. I make a point of order." Maverick responded, "Just a minute. I am not through yet. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has no right to interrupt me. I am not going to be bullied off this floor." Blanton said no more, and Maverick made his point.
Any threat to free expression that came to his attention was bound to bring Maverick into the controversy. While he was leading the struggle against the legislative threats early in 1936, he seized an opportunity to protest the banning of a "controversial" play in Washington. The Community Centre Department of the District of Columbia had banned the offereing of a one-act play, Private Hicks, an antiwar drama by Albert Maltz. Maverick issued a sharp protest in which he said, "If a play doesn't cause 'controversial and acrimonious discussion,' it isn't worth listening to. . . . One of the complaints against the play was the language used by a soldier. Now does anybody think a soldier would say, 'Strike me pink! You must be illegitimate!'"
In his fight against the military disaffection bill, Maverick advanced the thesis that the suppression or attempted suppression of printed material would bring about the opposite of the result desired. Greater attention would be attracted to the publications and this would bring about wider dissemination. The logical difficulty of such an argument is readily perceived. Let us, one might say, obtain the widest dissemination of ideas by suppressing them. But the idea is not as ridiculous as it may seem. Given a period of social and political unrest such as the 1930's, a system that offers any degree of facility of printing and distribution of literature, and a system that does not impose the severest penalties for violations, then the validity of the idea is apparent. Unless one is prepared to establish a complete and ruthless suppression, the approach is not a practical one.
Maverick could back up his point, at least to some degree, with empirical evidence. In April 1936 the Americanism Commission of the American Legion brought about the suppression, as far as its official endorsement was concerned, of a booklet on Americanism that had been prepared by the Americanism committee of the New York County American Legion organization. Among the objections to the little book were such things as the use of "a cut that is supposed to resemble the American Legion emblem, and that done up in red rather than black or legitimate Legion color," and the use of a raised torch "with its striking similarity to the left wing socialist emblem." When Maverick joined forces with the author and the New York Legion group to attempt to block the national Legion ban, the Texas congressman received requests for his House speech (which included the text of the booklet) from people throughout the United States, and one note came from Paris. The New York County Legion asked for one thousand copies, and O. Mykus Mehus, sociologist at Northwestern Missouri State College, asked for five hundred copies. As a result of the publicity, another publisher republished the booklet and Joseph V. McCabe, commander of the New York County American Legion group, reported that it was receiving wide distribution. Thus it could be said, considering the printing in the Congressional Record, that the "suppressed" book received as much as ten times the attention that it normally would have.
The incident also furnished a prime example of Maverick's use of ridicule to fight suppression of publications. He wondered if the Legion objections to the flaming torch would lead it to sawing off the arm of the Statue of Liberty. Then, in a sardonic broadside, he wondered if the complaint against the "red" printing of the Legion symbol would result in the complete elimination of that color from American life. He then speculated as to the results of such a move:
Since red in itself is a sin, a logical dissertation on the effects in in order. If red should be entirely removed, however, there might be trouble. A study of the color red follows analytically for those who desire to be apprised of its evil character:
1. Congressman Sirovich, of New York, cannot wear his red carnation in the lapel of his coat. He will simply die. Florists will protest. . . .
3. Red wines prohibited. Discrimination as to white wines. No use going to Italian restaurants. Grape growers will protest. People will get drunk, anyway.
4. Seeing "red" will also be abolished. In this many red baiters will suffer serious inhibitions and mental maladjustments.
5. Lure of the red-headed girls; handsomeness of red-headed boys to be eradicated by Federal law. Will cause importation of nonfading German dyes to make color of hair different. This will hurt "Buy American" campaign; besides, in this case, the importation will be a metamorphosis from communism to fascism.
6. Red herrings cannot be drawn across issues. This will also be a blow to red baiters. Old pals of Al Smith on Fulton Fish Market will protest. . . .
11. Red tape must be made blue; however, the change in colors will not affect red-tape psychology or human nature.
12. The high curtains in the Supreme Court, which are red, or near red, must be substituted at once. This would shock the Liberty Leaguers, the National Association of Manufacturers, and also the United States Chamber of Commerce, meeting in solemn conclave in this, our National Capital today.
13. Red ink will be abolished; and this is really good, for then there would be no depression. With only black ink the profit system would be assured ad infinitum.
14. Bulls will not get mad any more. This may cause serious difficulties in certain Latin American relations.
Maverick did not spend all of his time merely meeting attacks on civil liberties; he devoted a major, though unsuccessful, effort to the passage of general civil-rights legislation that anticipated the successes of the 1960's. Maverick refused to accept that standard constitutional interpretation, derived from the Civil Rights Cases, that the national government could not enforce a law providing protection of civil rights and civil liberties. He had begun to consider such a statute in 1934, but he did not pursue it actively until he received several prods from his friend, H. L. Mencken. In April 1935 Mencken told Maverick, "What we really need is a draconian statute making it a felony for any public official to violate the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights. The day the first Federal judge was sent to Atlanta for neglecting the rights of citizens would be another 4th of July." Maverick said that he would make a trade; if Mencken would support Maverick's neutrality resolution then he would support an antilynching bill. Mencken's rejoinder in this exchange of badinage was that he was astonished that such a man as Maverick was talking about a trade already. "I refuse absolutely," he said, but he would support a bill "penalizing violation of the Bill of Rights" for "a keg of beer down and another keg once a week."
Apparently nothing more was said by either of the men until December 1936 when Mencken urged that Maverick seek either amendments to the Mann Act or its repeal, because it was a "fruitful source of blackmail," which "applies to simple fornications that are as free from white slavery as they are from piracy on the high seas." He then repeated his plea for an "act punishing violations of the Bill of Rights." Maverick replied immediately, indicating that he was primarily interested in the Bill of Rights legislation. He said that he had been studying the matter for two years, but that he had been too busy and needed some professional help in drawing up such a statute.
In little more than a week Mencken sent along his own draft of a civil-rights bill. He said that it probably violated "every article of the code for law drafters," but that the text of the measure was not so important. "There is very little chance that such a law will be passed the first time it is introduced. Almost any text will suffice to bring the business under debate, and so get some light on it." His proposal contained essentially these provisions:
1. Any person, including a public official of any government in the United States, who deprived a person of any rights and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution would be guilty of a felony.
2. It would be a felony to attempt or conspire to do the above.
3. "Mistaken understanding" or "excess of zeal" would not be a defense.
4. Those persons convicted under the law would be forever barred from holding office.
5. Negligence in enforcement of this act would be evidence for impeachment of officers "so subject."
Maverick then enlisted the aid of the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union to assist him in drawing up a measure that could avoid constitutional pitfalls. In order to get the matter before the House of Representatives as quickly as possible, he introduced a bill based on Mencken's draft. The essential difference was the violations had to be "willful," and an added provision was incorporated to require the Justice Department to investigate complaints and report to local Federal district attorneys, and to entitle offended virtually no support in Congress and Maverick became discouraged about its prospects. He had hoped to secure support of a measure that avoided the race question, but, if he wanted the support of the ACLU, it would have to be included.
When Mencken asked Maverick to revive the bill in May 1938, he responded with a pessimistic statement about the "wide divergence of opinion" with respect to the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment and said that extremists wanted to "write a law which invites the colored cotton pickers into white people's drawing rooms." He told Mencken that any bill that gets into Jim Crowism was doomed and that the practical thing to do would be to confine the bill to the right of all persons to freedom of expression and procedural guarantees. On this note the effort seemingly came to an end.
Consistent with his propensity for defending any type of underdog, Maverick endeared himself to many members of the Federal bureaucracy by championing them when they were under fire from congressional critics. Republican Representative Rich and others were attempting to make a major slash in appropriations for the Indian Bureau on the basis of contentions that there were bureaucratic abuses in the office. Maverick accused them of using "insinuation and innuendo" in "general and vague attacks" on the bureaucracy. He said that cutting the appropriations "without scientific consideration is just absolutely criminal foolishness." Maverick then proceeded to show how the facts had been distorted and urged that the amendment cutting Indian Bureau appropriations be defeated. It was, and Representative Rich apologized for his attack on the head of the bureau.
On an earlier occasion Maverick demonstrated the consistency of his views with respect to free expression and elemental fairness to the opposition by defending the same Representative Rich, who had frequently tangled with him and who was then making the type of speech that Maverick deplored—railing at "Roosevelt the Socialist" and the like. Other Democrats objected to giving Rich more time when it had expired, but Maury persuaded them to give him more time and said, "That is fair; let him talk."
Maverick ridiculed Republican attacks on brain trusters and charged that they were trying to find some of their own, "a new set of green academicians from north, south, east, west and from over the cuckoo's nest." He particularly defended Rexford G. Tugwell against criticisms of the Resettlement Administration activities. He said, "Tugwell has been mauled around so much that he sometimes snaps back. He would not be human if he did not. . . . He has learned to be a good administrator." Maverick argued further that all Americans should be proud of the work of the Resettlement Administration for "taking farm families off the dole and setting them up where they can make a respectable living."
Maverick was strongly in favor of a law to regulate lobbyists when it came up in the Seventy-fourth Congress, because he said he came from a state where "the big corporations dominate" and "the lobbyists go unrestrained," but he objected strenuously to a proposed amendment to the measure that was designed to protect new congressmen from the influence of bureaucrats. He said, "Some gentlemen seem to think that the administrative branch of the United States Government are our enemies. . . . The answer is that we should cooperate with each other in giving people good government. Moreover, I consider myself intellectually able to withstand the political blandishments of a few men in any branch of the Government." When a colleague pointed out that speeches had been written for young members of Congress by bureaucrats, Maverick responded with a "why not," and added, "I have no contempt for knowledge and learning." He said he had used people in the bureaucracy so that he would know what he was talking about. The proposed amendment was defeated.
In April 1936 Maury Maverick was given twenty minutes under special order of the House for a speech defending the WPA and PWA and Harold Ickes and Harry Hopkins, their administrators, against "unthinking criticism." He said that the criticism of brain trusters implied that it was "a sin to have knowledge, to know something, to have brains, to have been to college, or to have been a professor at one time; so the form of criticism which it takes is to make the same sort of banal, silly and idiotic statements which we have heard." The business community, he said, wanted "brainless, spineless people" in government.
At the same time he was defending Ickes in Congress, Maverick took it upon himself to have a bit of sport with the "old curmudgeon" in an exchange with President Roosevelt:
Maury Maverick opened his second year in Congress with some more of his attention-getting antics and further demonstrations that he was a man to be reckoned with.
Franklin Roosevelt gave his State of the Union address on January 3, 1936, to an unprecedented night joint session of Congress. His inflammatory message contained a reference to his having "earned the hatred of entrenched greed." Though this may have been more of a "radicalism of rhetoric" rather than deeds, Republican leaders were incenses. They accused FDR of using the performance of his constitutional duty for unfair political advantage. When the Republicans asked for radio time to answer the president, in jumped Maverick. He had had some time scheduled for the following Saturday on the NBC network, and the a "generous and sarcastic" mood he wired NBC: "I see by the papers that the Republicans want radio time. Inasmuch as I believe that they will do more good for the Democratic party than if I speak, I will be pleased to give up my time Saturday, which ought to partially cover their demands. I do this for your convenience and for the benefit of the Democratic party."
Roosevelt was no doubt amused and pleased by Maverick's impulsive impudence, and the president also implicitly recognized the Texas congressman's leadership role in a friendly note three days later. Maverick had sent him a silver spur—one of the Texas mementos he typically sent to friends. Roosevelt responded, "That is a grand spur. I shall dig it in. Wear its mate yourself. Two cowboys can ride herd a whole lot better than one!" This flattering metaphor did not prevent Maverick, of course, from sometimes spurring his mount in to cut off part of the herd and head it off in a divergent direction. Also, some people probably thought Maverick's credentials as a cowboy were somewhat suspect when, a few weeks later, he ran the risk of alienating quite a few of his constituents by grumbling to a reporter that he was getting a little sick of cowboy tunes. "Everytime I turn on the radio or go to a show I hear some guy hollering something about the lone prairie," he said. "Cowpunchers don't sing much either, let alone hang around a fire and yell in one another's faces over a guitar."
Early in 1936 Maverick was admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, and by that time he had become quite well acquainted with several of the justices, among them Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo. His relationship with Cardozo was the basis for one of the most painful yet hilarious encounters ever recorded.
Maverick went to one of Carl Sandburg's lectures at a Washington high school. He had not seen Sandburg since a meeting with him and folklorist J. Frank Dobie in the 1920's, but Sandburg spotted him in the audience, called out to him and "passed a few compliments." After the meeting Sandburg asked Maverick if he would introduce him to Justice Cardozo. Maverick made the arrangements, and the two went to visit the justice in his apartment. Sandburg and Cardozo complimented one another extravagantly, and then, suddenly, Sandburg asked if he might recite a poem for Cardozo. When Cardozo expressed his enthusiastic agreement, Sandburg, "oblivious to his audience," began to recite in blank verse. "Roaring at the top of his voice," he delivered a blistering and very long diatribe against all judges "who sell their souls" and the like. Maverick said that Cardozo's hair was no whiter than his face. When Sandburg finished, he said, "Judge, what do you think of that?"
The shattered Cardozo could barely choke out, "Mr. Sandburg, I would not condemn the whole judiciary," and Maverick was amazed to hear Sandburg respond, "Why not? They are destoying the country," and more in a similar vein. He assured Cardozo that none of the judges was "worth a damn." At a break in this fantastic harangue, Maverick was finally able to steer Sandburg out of the apartment after a quick exchange of perfunctory words of leave-taking.
Maverick was also giving plenty of attention to serious business. Immediately upon his return to Washington in December 1935 he was conferring with Senator Nye on the establishment of a special steering committee to guide the Nye-Clark-Maverick neutrality measure, which was designed to replace the temporary neutrality law passed in the last session. Maverick was convinced that the Congress wanted a rigid, unqualified bill that would compel the president to place an embargo on shipments of all munitions and materials of war to any belligerent nation. At this time he received a clipping from historian Charles A. Beard that contained a report of the 1935 convention of the American Political Science Association. In the news story, Beard had been quoted as saying, "representatives in Congress, such as Maverick of Texas, know their history, and they intend to keep the power of making war in the legislature where it belongs under the Constitution."
There were new problems to reckon with in this session, however. Since the passage of the temporary neutrality act of 1935 (destined to expire on February 29, 1936), Italy had launched its attack upon Ethiopia on October 3, 1935. The president and others interested in neutrality legislation quickly learned that the restriction of raw materials and other goods could be as important as embargoes on armaments. Though the 1935 law limited embargoes to actual arms, attempts were made to apply a "moral embargo" on shipments of goods that could aid in war. The lack of success of this attempt by the Roosevelt administration helped to stimulate a drive for such restrictions in a new neutrality act.
The measure offered by the administration on January 3 was remarkably close to what the neutrality bloc wanted. It provided for continuation of the impartial arms embargo, a mandatory ban on loans to belligerents, and a quota system under which the president could limit the export of raw materials that he judged to be critical to average amounts exported before a war. The president was given some discretion in this measure. The ban on loans did not prevent him from exempting short-term commercial credits, and a provision left it up to his discretion to declare that trade with belligerents would be at the trader's own risk.
Nye, Clark, and Maverick indicated that they were surprised at the strict provisions of the administration measure, but they still pressed for the more rigid approach embodied in their bill, which they introduced the same day. It called for automatic declaration of trade quotas by the president upon the outbreak of war, automatic imposition of an arms embargo, a requirement that the president prohibit absolutely travel by American passengers on belligerent vessels, no presidential discretion with respect to short-term commercial credits, and restrictions on the method by which the president would determine trade quotas.
There seemed to be considerable ground for a compromise between the administration position and that of the neutrality bloc, but, as Beard indicated, Maverick and his associates wanted the Congress to control the power of making war, and President Roosevelt, having already made many concessions to them, was not in a mood to yield much more. The waters were soon to be muddied even more, however, by the opposition of business groups and Italian-Americans to any trade restrictions on materials other than arms. Maverick was one of the most adamant advocates of the trade restrictions. He did not care if it hurt business, and he even went so far as to say that he would just as soon close the ports of Houston and Galveston if it would save lives. He was also concerned about the wording that permitted the president to invoke an arms embargo "upon the outbreak of or during the progress of any war," which might permit the president to wait indefinitely before invoking the embargo. Maverick sought and obtained wording that required the president to act as soon as he found a state of war to exist.
Neither the administration bill nor the Nye-Clark-Maverick bill was destined to pass. The strong pressure from the business groups and Italian-Americans and the adamant position of Maverick's element ultimately forced the administration and its supporters to accept a compromise bill that dropped the trade quotas and essentially extended the 1935 act to May 1, 1937, with the additional feature of a ban on loans to belligerents. Though the compromise measure incorporated the more definite language that Maverick had sought concerning the time when the president was to invoke an embargo, and a requirement that the president extend an arms embargo to other states that entered a war in progress, it did give the president authority to exempt short-term commercial credits from the loan ban, and the trade restrictions were dropped.
Administration forces in the House, relieved to find a way out, and the traditional neutrality forces, concerned about the approaching expiration date for the existing neutrality law, were ready to accept this bill. The disgruntled Maverick, however, protested bitterly against the passage under a gag rule that allowed only forty minutes of debate to a measure affecting the "lives of millions of our sons," while hours were wasted on matters of personalities and "home consumption speeches." He characterized the legislation as an inadequate "hodgepodge," grumbled that the Congress would apparently "pass up neutrality until after the war," and urged his colleagues to vote against the measure. It was passed by a vote of 353 to 27 on February 17.
Professor Divine's conclusion was that the Maverick group prevented a potential majority for trade restrictions by its insistence on the rigid program of mandatory neutrality. The administration was bent upon getting the flexibility necessary to some passive cooperation with League of Nations sanctions against aggressors, and Nye, Maverick, Clark, and their supporters were determined to prevent all involvement in wars. As Divine put it, "These objectives were incompatible, and the result was an impasse which simply postponed the issue for another year."
The debate on neutrality legislation was over, but shortly before it was concluded, Maverick indulged himself in one of his quixotic gestures by introducing a bill he no doubt knew had no chance of passage. It provided that all military training institutions have a required reading list to impress upon trainees the horrors of war. He recommended for the list All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Remarque, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, The Road to War and The Martial Spirit by Walter Millis, Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos, The First World War by Lawrence Stallings, and The Case of Sergeant Grischa by Arnold Zweig.
Maverick was more than ready to make war on the enemies of free expression in this second session, and he did not wait for the military disaffection bill or the Kramer antisubversive measure to come before the House. He published an article in January in which he combined his interests in neutrality legislation with his concern for the protection of civil liberties. He renewed his attack on both of the proposals and condemned the "false patriotism" of the American Liberty League and other "shirt front organizations." The way to secure liberty, he argued, is not through war, but by remaining "neutral abroad, but at home to wage a relentless campaign against all of those who stifle liberty—in the name of liberty—for the sake of profit."
Shortly after the convening of the second session of the Seventy-fourth Congress, Maverick leaped to the attack in a speech to the Virginia Press Association and in other speeches to various audiences. He condemned the military disaffection bill and all types of gag laws. He told the newsmen that freedom of the press must be extended to all segments of opinion, and explained, "All this is based on the democratic concept of the preservation of society. We know that society cannot be held in concrete forms for all time. Society must and does change, and it is better that we do not let it crack up because of the violence against the rigidity of our forms, but that we let changes come gradually and easily by the freedom of expression with a certain flexibility of our institutions." Here Maverick was arguing in favor of discussion for purposes of peaceful constitutional change, but he also extended his argument to a claim for the value of the making of the speech: permitting people to vent their spleen in violent speech may help stave off the violent act. As he explained the point to fellow members of the American Civil Liberties Union: "The purpose of freedom of speech; the purpose of freedom of press, is to eliminate violence, destruction and revolution. By the use of freedom, by violent expression, we prevent the violent act. We must not, in our effort to destroy Fascism or Communism adopt their policy of the elimination of full, free, unhampered expression in every phase of life. Let us have our view of economics, but let us preserve democracy and freedom."
On another occasion he said, "Let the public listen to us attack each other and read the war of words in the newspapers and then decide which is telling the truth, or more probably, decide that both of us are bores." Finally, Maverick developed enough confidence in this notion to write, ". . . those who proposed the Bill of Rights, and who had recently endured a bitter revolution, had sense enough to know that the extremest type of speech, including all manner of violent talk and all manner of blowing off steam would help prevent a revolution, and help to maintain free and orderly government."
In the early days of the 1936 session, Maverick warned that the Kramer bill and others like it in the Senate were not dead, and opposition against them should be kept up. At one point, with tongue in cheek, he joined in an effort to block the teaching of the principles of the American Liberty League in Federal public schools only long enough to point out that the Liberty League's publications criticizing the Roosevelt administration were extreme enough to cause the League to be prosecuted under the proposed Kramer bill. He then insisted that the Liberty League had just as much right to have its views presented as anyone, even though he despised them.
Maverick again attacked the disaffection law in the House on February 7, 1936, though the measure was not up for consideration. He told his colleagues, "I think the most fundamental thing for the country to know is that we do not approve of the Tydings-McCormack military disaffection bill. . . . These are peacetime sedition bills and are wholly unnecessary."
Maverick could not have been more categorical about the permissible extent of freedom of expression than he was when he wrote that such guarantees were protected by the Constitution "with no limitation and no exception." He said that he saw no limitations beyond the existing laws covering libel, slander, criminal conspiracy, treason, or "overt acts." Though he seems to have never used the conventional expression "clear and present danger," he made a careful study and did some careful thinking about how far dissident political minorities could be permitted to go in their exercise of freedom of expression. He said that laws curbing their freedom were attempts to punish "constructive" treason as distinguished from actual treason and the fear of such laws was the reason for the adoption of a carefully drawn definition for treason in the Constitution. The provisions were designed, he said, "to prevent the adoption in this country of the doctrine of lese majesty—the chief characteristic of which has been said to be its 'juridic boundlessness.'
But what if the expression is an advocacy of overthrow of government? Maverick's argument was that only overt acts were subject to restraint. He said that the "general Anglo-American historical concept" was that there be no advance prohibition of any expression. Advocacy of the overthrow of government, "violent talk, words," was within the limitations of freedom; acts or criminal conspiracy, he said, "are all against the law NOW." He presented the clearest delineation of his view and of the precise point at which words would become an offense, in a major address on March 4:
Now the reason advocacy is not made a crime, is because it is such a vague term. It is often confused with prophesy, with the expression of opinion and with hope. As such an utterance is entirely subjective, the law which cannot read what is in a man's mind, requires (in order that it be definite and clear) that it be accompanied by an overt act before it will punish the utterer. But, and this point cannot be emphasized too strongly, it does not punish the words, the speech—the advocacy, it punishes the act. If one "advocates" murder, unless some act is done in furtherance of the advocacy, or the people to whom were addressed the remarks do something about it, the utterer is guilty of no crime. But—get this—when the advocacy is such that anyone acts or makes the slightest move to carry out the suggestion, the one who causes it is clearly guilty with them, and responsible for their acts as an accessory.
For those persons who would ask why a virtually unlimited freedom of expression should be permitted in the area of dissident political expression, as well as all other areas, Maverick had an ample arsenal of answers. First, if one would accept the premise that democracy is "good" and desirable, Maverick would offer the logic that limitations of free expression are destructive of the meaning of democracy. He said, for example, "Communists have as little respect for free speech as they have for private property. Give them the power and they would abolish it forthwith. But democracy lives by the principle, and is under the obligation to assert it. Could there be a better demonstration of our confidence in our own philosophy and institutions.
Maverick also warned of the dangers to all men of the prospective abuses inherent in the imprecise language of laws designed to curb dangerous utterances. For example, he single out the word "advise," and explained that it meant "to view; observe; hence, to bring into view; consider, ponder, devise. To give advice to." In other words, a person could run afoul of this law by merely giving advice to another person that might lead him to disobey a law. After similarly treating words of the proposed disaffection measure such as "counsel," "urges," and "solicit," Maverick proceeded to support his argument with empirical evidence. He traced almost the entire history of sedition convictions and concluded that though such measures had been directed at those persons who advocate change by force and violence, they had been applied primarily to persons who had made relatively innocuous statements. For example, he said: "In the case of the United States against Stokes, Rose Pastor Stokes was sentenced to 10 years in the Federal penitentiary for saying, 'I am for the people and the Government is for the profiteer.' Many of us have said worse than that.
"Here is what you would do, under the law proposed, to a Republican if he said the President is for communistic principles and putting us into bankruptcy. He (Mr. Maverick pointed to a Republican) would get 10 years for saying that. [Laughter]"
Just as Maverick had begun his March 4 address, McCormack said that he did not have much hope that the disaffection bill would come up before the House. He reported that Secretary of War George H. Dern and the War Department were no longer supporting the legislation, and he sharply criticized Dern for having "shifted his position." An earlier report of Dern's change of position stated that his original endorsement of the bill was "at the request of the Navy." He went on to say that there was no real danger from Communist literature and that suppression might only arouse curiosity—statements much like those advanced by Maverick in his attacks.
On the same day, McCormack was still urging passage of the Kramer bill, which would make it a crime to urge or advocate overthrow of the government. In an exchange with him, Maverick restated his concept of the limits of free speech. He said, "Under our guaranty of freedom of speech one has a right to advocate the forceful overthrow of the Government. If anyone does anything about it, . . . however slight and be it ever so removed from the ultimate object . . . an overt act will have taken place and would be punished under laws on our statute books in existence for generations. Every conceivable danger to our Government is well covered how." Despite a number of attempts, the Kramer bill was not cleared by the Rules Committee for floor discussion. The effectiveness of Maverick's opposition to this bill and the disaffection measure was indicated by the dozens of petitions against them received by the House Military Affairs Committee.
Maverick's bête noire in this Congress was Representative Tom Blanton, a fellow Texan who supported most of the things Maverick opposed. Ten years after his first year in Congress, Maverick wrote in his own copy of the Congressional Record opposite Blanton's name, "A mean old bastard. I think this. Sept. 9, 1945—MM." Blanton seemed to be intent upon putting this upstart freshman congressman in his place, but he picked the wrong man. In his major speech against the military disaffection bill and the Kramer bill, Maverick was chiding his colleagues for wasting time on personal attacks and the like. He said, "This kind of warfare is safe, for neither physical nor mental courage is needed, and all you need is lots of wind and good lungs," and he added that the Republicans had better sense than to get into intraparty squabbles. Blanton interrupted Maverick and made a slurring remark concerning Maverick's debt to his Mexican constituents, but the brash freshman cut Blanton off and said "Now you gave me this time and you be quiet. I am going to answer that question. You gave me this time. Let me have it. I realize that the gentleman is going into the very thing I am talking about. He is trying to personally embarrass me. I want to tell you I have 90,000 Mexicans in my district and they are just as good as you are. [Laughter] They are decent American citizens. I do not consider that to be relevant to what I am talking about. I do not consider it fair in any way whatsoever."
The next day Blanton tackled Maverick again. He had asked another member a question, but Blanton interrupted, gave the answer and then demanded the "regular order" when Maverick tried to protest. Maverick stormed back, "Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order. I asked a question according to parliamentary rules in a respectful and parliamentary manner. That was broken into by this gentleman from Texas [Mr. Blanton]. I did not push my question, but he broke into it. I am entitled to courtesy." Blanton interrupted again to say, "Mr. Chairman, that is not a point of order. I make a point of order." Maverick responded, "Just a minute. I am not through yet. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman has no right to interrupt me. I am not going to be bullied off this floor." Blanton said no more, and Maverick made his point.
Any threat to free expression that came to his attention was bound to bring Maverick into the controversy. While he was leading the struggle against the legislative threats early in 1936, he seized an opportunity to protest the banning of a "controversial" play in Washington. The Community Centre Department of the District of Columbia had banned the offereing of a one-act play, Private Hicks, an antiwar drama by Albert Maltz. Maverick issued a sharp protest in which he said, "If a play doesn't cause 'controversial and acrimonious discussion,' it isn't worth listening to. . . . One of the complaints against the play was the language used by a soldier. Now does anybody think a soldier would say, 'Strike me pink! You must be illegitimate!'"
In his fight against the military disaffection bill, Maverick advanced the thesis that the suppression or attempted suppression of printed material would bring about the opposite of the result desired. Greater attention would be attracted to the publications and this would bring about wider dissemination. The logical difficulty of such an argument is readily perceived. Let us, one might say, obtain the widest dissemination of ideas by suppressing them. But the idea is not as ridiculous as it may seem. Given a period of social and political unrest such as the 1930's, a system that offers any degree of facility of printing and distribution of literature, and a system that does not impose the severest penalties for violations, then the validity of the idea is apparent. Unless one is prepared to establish a complete and ruthless suppression, the approach is not a practical one.
Maverick could back up his point, at least to some degree, with empirical evidence. In April 1936 the Americanism Commission of the American Legion brought about the suppression, as far as its official endorsement was concerned, of a booklet on Americanism that had been prepared by the Americanism committee of the New York County American Legion organization. Among the objections to the little book were such things as the use of "a cut that is supposed to resemble the American Legion emblem, and that done up in red rather than black or legitimate Legion color," and the use of a raised torch "with its striking similarity to the left wing socialist emblem." When Maverick joined forces with the author and the New York Legion group to attempt to block the national Legion ban, the Texas congressman received requests for his House speech (which included the text of the booklet) from people throughout the United States, and one note came from Paris. The New York County Legion asked for one thousand copies, and O. Mykus Mehus, sociologist at Northwestern Missouri State College, asked for five hundred copies. As a result of the publicity, another publisher republished the booklet and Joseph V. McCabe, commander of the New York County American Legion group, reported that it was receiving wide distribution. Thus it could be said, considering the printing in the Congressional Record, that the "suppressed" book received as much as ten times the attention that it normally would have.
The incident also furnished a prime example of Maverick's use of ridicule to fight suppression of publications. He wondered if the Legion objections to the flaming torch would lead it to sawing off the arm of the Statue of Liberty. Then, in a sardonic broadside, he wondered if the complaint against the "red" printing of the Legion symbol would result in the complete elimination of that color from American life. He then speculated as to the results of such a move:
Since red in itself is a sin, a logical dissertation on the effects in in order. If red should be entirely removed, however, there might be trouble. A study of the color red follows analytically for those who desire to be apprised of its evil character:
1. Congressman Sirovich, of New York, cannot wear his red carnation in the lapel of his coat. He will simply die. Florists will protest. . . .
3. Red wines prohibited. Discrimination as to white wines. No use going to Italian restaurants. Grape growers will protest. People will get drunk, anyway.
4. Seeing "red" will also be abolished. In this many red baiters will suffer serious inhibitions and mental maladjustments.
5. Lure of the red-headed girls; handsomeness of red-headed boys to be eradicated by Federal law. Will cause importation of nonfading German dyes to make color of hair different. This will hurt "Buy American" campaign; besides, in this case, the importation will be a metamorphosis from communism to fascism.
6. Red herrings cannot be drawn across issues. This will also be a blow to red baiters. Old pals of Al Smith on Fulton Fish Market will protest. . . .
11. Red tape must be made blue; however, the change in colors will not affect red-tape psychology or human nature.
12. The high curtains in the Supreme Court, which are red, or near red, must be substituted at once. This would shock the Liberty Leaguers, the National Association of Manufacturers, and also the United States Chamber of Commerce, meeting in solemn conclave in this, our National Capital today.
13. Red ink will be abolished; and this is really good, for then there would be no depression. With only black ink the profit system would be assured ad infinitum.
14. Bulls will not get mad any more. This may cause serious difficulties in certain Latin American relations.
Maverick did not spend all of his time merely meeting attacks on civil liberties; he devoted a major, though unsuccessful, effort to the passage of general civil-rights legislation that anticipated the successes of the 1960's. Maverick refused to accept that standard constitutional interpretation, derived from the Civil Rights Cases, that the national government could not enforce a law providing protection of civil rights and civil liberties. He had begun to consider such a statute in 1934, but he did not pursue it actively until he received several prods from his friend, H. L. Mencken. In April 1935 Mencken told Maverick, "What we really need is a draconian statute making it a felony for any public official to violate the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights. The day the first Federal judge was sent to Atlanta for neglecting the rights of citizens would be another 4th of July." Maverick said that he would make a trade; if Mencken would support Maverick's neutrality resolution then he would support an antilynching bill. Mencken's rejoinder in this exchange of badinage was that he was astonished that such a man as Maverick was talking about a trade already. "I refuse absolutely," he said, but he would support a bill "penalizing violation of the Bill of Rights" for "a keg of beer down and another keg once a week."
Apparently nothing more was said by either of the men until December 1936 when Mencken urged that Maverick seek either amendments to the Mann Act or its repeal, because it was a "fruitful source of blackmail," which "applies to simple fornications that are as free from white slavery as they are from piracy on the high seas." He then repeated his plea for an "act punishing violations of the Bill of Rights." Maverick replied immediately, indicating that he was primarily interested in the Bill of Rights legislation. He said that he had been studying the matter for two years, but that he had been too busy and needed some professional help in drawing up such a statute.
In little more than a week Mencken sent along his own draft of a civil-rights bill. He said that it probably violated "every article of the code for law drafters," but that the text of the measure was not so important. "There is very little chance that such a law will be passed the first time it is introduced. Almost any text will suffice to bring the business under debate, and so get some light on it." His proposal contained essentially these provisions:
1. Any person, including a public official of any government in the United States, who deprived a person of any rights and privileges guaranteed by the Constitution would be guilty of a felony.
2. It would be a felony to attempt or conspire to do the above.
3. "Mistaken understanding" or "excess of zeal" would not be a defense.
4. Those persons convicted under the law would be forever barred from holding office.
5. Negligence in enforcement of this act would be evidence for impeachment of officers "so subject."
Maverick then enlisted the aid of the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union to assist him in drawing up a measure that could avoid constitutional pitfalls. In order to get the matter before the House of Representatives as quickly as possible, he introduced a bill based on Mencken's draft. The essential difference was the violations had to be "willful," and an added provision was incorporated to require the Justice Department to investigate complaints and report to local Federal district attorneys, and to entitle offended virtually no support in Congress and Maverick became discouraged about its prospects. He had hoped to secure support of a measure that avoided the race question, but, if he wanted the support of the ACLU, it would have to be included.
When Mencken asked Maverick to revive the bill in May 1938, he responded with a pessimistic statement about the "wide divergence of opinion" with respect to the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment and said that extremists wanted to "write a law which invites the colored cotton pickers into white people's drawing rooms." He told Mencken that any bill that gets into Jim Crowism was doomed and that the practical thing to do would be to confine the bill to the right of all persons to freedom of expression and procedural guarantees. On this note the effort seemingly came to an end.
Consistent with his propensity for defending any type of underdog, Maverick endeared himself to many members of the Federal bureaucracy by championing them when they were under fire from congressional critics. Republican Representative Rich and others were attempting to make a major slash in appropriations for the Indian Bureau on the basis of contentions that there were bureaucratic abuses in the office. Maverick accused them of using "insinuation and innuendo" in "general and vague attacks" on the bureaucracy. He said that cutting the appropriations "without scientific consideration is just absolutely criminal foolishness." Maverick then proceeded to show how the facts had been distorted and urged that the amendment cutting Indian Bureau appropriations be defeated. It was, and Representative Rich apologized for his attack on the head of the bureau.
On an earlier occasion Maverick demonstrated the consistency of his views with respect to free expression and elemental fairness to the opposition by defending the same Representative Rich, who had frequently tangled with him and who was then making the type of speech that Maverick deplored—railing at "Roosevelt the Socialist" and the like. Other Democrats objected to giving Rich more time when it had expired, but Maury persuaded them to give him more time and said, "That is fair; let him talk."
Maverick ridiculed Republican attacks on brain trusters and charged that they were trying to find some of their own, "a new set of green academicians from north, south, east, west and from over the cuckoo's nest." He particularly defended Rexford G. Tugwell against criticisms of the Resettlement Administration activities. He said, "Tugwell has been mauled around so much that he sometimes snaps back. He would not be human if he did not. . . . He has learned to be a good administrator." Maverick argued further that all Americans should be proud of the work of the Resettlement Administration for "taking farm families off the dole and setting them up where they can make a respectable living."
Maverick was strongly in favor of a law to regulate lobbyists when it came up in the Seventy-fourth Congress, because he said he came from a state where "the big corporations dominate" and "the lobbyists go unrestrained," but he objected strenuously to a proposed amendment to the measure that was designed to protect new congressmen from the influence of bureaucrats. He said, "Some gentlemen seem to think that the administrative branch of the United States Government are our enemies. . . . The answer is that we should cooperate with each other in giving people good government. Moreover, I consider myself intellectually able to withstand the political blandishments of a few men in any branch of the Government." When a colleague pointed out that speeches had been written for young members of Congress by bureaucrats, Maverick responded with a "why not," and added, "I have no contempt for knowledge and learning." He said he had used people in the bureaucracy so that he would know what he was talking about. The proposed amendment was defeated.
In April 1936 Maury Maverick was given twenty minutes under special order of the House for a speech defending the WPA and PWA and Harold Ickes and Harry Hopkins, their administrators, against "unthinking criticism." He said that the criticism of brain trusters implied that it was "a sin to have knowledge, to know something, to have brains, to have been to college, or to have been a professor at one time; so the form of criticism which it takes is to make the same sort of banal, silly and idiotic statements which we have heard." The business community, he said, wanted "brainless, spineless people" in government.
At the same time he was defending Ickes in Congress, Maverick took it upon himself to have a bit of sport with the "old curmudgeon" in an exchange with President Roosevelt:
17 April 1936
Dear Mr. President:
In the days of old, young princes became famous for saving their King. My God. Ickes sent out a copy of your speech., which ended by saying that the celebration was a "good orgy." I caught it just as it was going to the printer, and I would not let my President have such words, but I found, of course, it was all Ickes' fault.
I immediately 'phoned the Department of Interior at six o'clock, and to my astonishment and shame, found Ickes had already left, and they said he would be back at seven. By seven-thirty that night he had not returned.
What would have happened if the word "orgy" had gone out to the public? I tremble with horror. If Ickes had not been out boon-doggling it would not have occurred. In fact, I understand that recently Ickes cut his work down from 18 to 16 hours a day, and boon-doggles every day for two hours.
I trust you will appreciate my correcting this error and will instruct Brother Ickes to quit boon-doggling.
In the days of old, young princes became famous for saving their King. My God. Ickes sent out a copy of your speech., which ended by saying that the celebration was a "good orgy." I caught it just as it was going to the printer, and I would not let my President have such words, but I found, of course, it was all Ickes' fault.
I immediately 'phoned the Department of Interior at six o'clock, and to my astonishment and shame, found Ickes had already left, and they said he would be back at seven. By seven-thirty that night he had not returned.
What would have happened if the word "orgy" had gone out to the public? I tremble with horror. If Ickes had not been out boon-doggling it would not have occurred. In fact, I understand that recently Ickes cut his work down from 18 to 16 hours a day, and boon-doggles every day for two hours.
I trust you will appreciate my correcting this error and will instruct Brother Ickes to quit boon-doggling.
Respectfully yours,
Maury Maverick
Maury Maverick
Roosevelt's return note was penned:
Personal
Dear Maury:
I thoroughly and completely disagree with you. If the public had known that at the corner-stone laying we all had "a good orgy" there would have been millions of votes in it. People love orgies. They don't give a continental about auguries. I suggest that Plank No. 1 of the Philadelphia Platform read as follows:
"We advocate bigger and better orgies."
I am speaking seriously to the Secretary of the Interior about cutting his work way down.
Run in and see me soon.
Ickes had written to Maverick a few days earlier to say that Roosevelt had told him that the Maverick letter was the "funniest he had ever received," and that he was sending it on to Ickes. The secretary of the interior said, "I suspect that when I read it I shall accuse you of being a plagiarist."
"The Drama of Conservation" was the title Maury Maverick chose for a speech to the Virginia State Planning Board in May 1936. He told his audience that the natural resources of America were the "heritage of the whole nation," and, "I deny no man the right to his ambition, or his individuality. But I deny to every man in America any right to destroy his portion of the natural resources, or to so plan his business or industry as to be a danger to the health and lives of his fellow citizens." The speech was a vehicle for a plea for Maverick's bill to establish a permanent National Resources Board to replace the existing National Resources Committee, which was based on an executive order. This agency was charged with the function of doing research concerning both natural and human resources in the United States and advising the president on the optimum use of such resources. Maverick called the agency one of the "finest organizations" of the New Deal. It was first established as the National Planning Board in 1933 by Harold Ickes, head of the Public Works Administration. In 1934 it was made a presidential board, and then from 1935 to 1939 it was known as the National Resources Committee. Maverick's aim was to give the planning agency a more permanent status, and in a CBS network speech he said that he had a personal letter from FDR supporting the proposal. Maverick was not successful, but his colleagues succeeded in establishing the National Resources Planning Board in 1939 after Maverick had left Congress.
In March Maverick was characterized as a leader in conferences between members of Congress from southern states and federal officials to press for "economic rehabilitation of the South" by working for rural electrification and the Bankhead bill for loans to tenant farmers. Maverick said that the South had been exploited, but that the chief responsibility for remedying the conditions lay with the southern congressional representation. When the Soil Conservation Act was under consideration, Maverick called for an amendment designed to require the secretary of agriculture to prescribe rules and regulations for equitable distribution of payments among tenants, sharecroppers, and farm workers as well as the landlords. He introduced information from Professor H. Clarence Nixon of Vanderbilt University and others of the southern Policy Committee indicating that tenants and sharecroppers would be left out and benefits would go largely to the landlords. He later withdrew his amendment in favor of a similar one by Representative Tarver of Georgia.
When legislation designed to make the Rural Electrification Administration an independent agency was before the House, Maverick urged its passage and gave his colleagues a learned lecture on rural electrification in Holland, Germany, Sweden, Canada, and Japan. He suggested that they should all read and study Marquis Child's "illuminating book on Sweden, which he aptly terms The Middle Way." He also took the opportunity to thumb his nose at the private utilities that, according to him, "pretty well run the State of Texas." He added, "So far as utility legislation is concerned, we are probably the most primitive state in the United States of America."
In January, Maverick had sent letters to members of the press asking for their ideas on the crucial issues of 1936 for use in a speech. The almost unanimous response was: "The reelection of Maverick."
Maury's second congressional campaign opened with the announcement that his opponent in the Democratic primary would be Lamar Seeligson, former Bexar County district attorney and a machine candidate. Maverick was to characterize him later as "a nice fellow and schoolmate" who was a first cousin of John Dos Passos. On the date of Seeligson's announcement, an article on Maverick appeared that hardly reflected the usual apprehensions of an incumbent representative facing his first attempt at reelection. Paul Y. Anderson quoted the "brilliant and promising young member of the House" as saying, "Well what did I find? I found that politics in Washington is no different than it is in Bexar County. There is the same trading, the same self-interest, the same pressure from minority groups, the same precinct psychology." Maverick added that great liberals had urged him not to stick his neck out, and thus he could be reelected. He said his response was, "I don't believe it is important to the liberal cause that I be reelected, but I know it is important to me that I say and do what I should."
The indications are, however, that this was a bit of grandstanding on Maverick's part. He knew he was in for a touch campaign, and he set about doing something about it. In June he had several members of Congress prepare "plugs" for use in the coming campaign. Veteran Democratic Congressman A. J. Sabbath supplied: "I fell that if there is one member of Congress who merits renomination and reelection, it is you. I have been a member for nearly thirty years and I do not know of any new member of Congress during that time who has rendered as valuable services to the party and to the country as you have." Sabbath added a note saying, "I hurriedly dictated this. If you think it should be enlarged or changed in any particular, I will be glad to do it because I am sincere in my statement."
Representative Herman P. Koppleman of Connecticut sent Maverick an unsolicited endorsement in which he said, "You have distinguished yourself as one of the outstanding liberals of the day with the added distinction that your liberal thought has sound foundation." Later he sent an editorial from the July 16 Washington News that read, "Maverick represents in a way, about the best type that comes to Washington. While mindful of the interests of his own district. . . he also is a national legislator. Few fought more effectively last session than he did in the causes of peae and neutrality, civil and religious liberty and freedom of speech. We hope to hear him answer the roll-call again in January.
Senator Homer T. Bone used the privilege to extend his remarks in the Congressional Record to heap praise on Maverick's record as a first-term congressman. He pointed out that Maverick had been chosen Congressman of the Year by Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, listed a series of laudatory editorials, and said finally of Maverick, ". . . over 700 newspapers throughout the country commented favorably on his fight for civil, religious and academic liberties."
A spot of trouble seemed to be in the making for Maverick when on March 16, 1936, Walter Tynan, former district attorney, Maverick's running mate on the 1930 Citizen's League slate, and a "power in the Citizens League Council," announced that he was supporting Seeligson. A few days later Tynan said he would support all of the League candidates except Maverick, after a split had developed in the League over the matter. The executive committee of the organization, however, endorsed Maverick and Tynan resigned.
Maverick's fortunes took an upward turn in early June when he stood at President Roosevelt's side at the Alamo as thousands of San Antonians cheered. Roosevelt told newsmen that he felt "revived" by his visit to the city and that his reason for coming was that he had promised Maverick on sesveral occasions that he would. President Roosevelt wrote to Maverick later and expressed the "keenest delight" for his visit. He said, "I cannot restrain the impulse to write this note to tell you once more of the pleasure I derived from my trip into Texas and my visit to San Antonio."
But a few days later Maverick learned that William F. Brogan, his campaign manager in his first congressional campaign, had accepted the position of campaign manager for Seeligson. Brogan had been closely associated with Maverick since 1929, had worked with him in the development of the Citizens League, and had served under Maverick for four years as head of the automobile license bureau of the county tax collectors office. Brogan gave as his reason for the break that he was no longer in accord with Maverick's "political views and some of his political associates." Maverick's succinct comment was, "Poor fellow."
About the same time Maverick turned in desperation to other sources outside Texas for some help. He wrote to Tom Corcoran under the heading "political views and some of his political associates." Maverick's succinct comment was, "Poor fellow."
About the same time Maverick turned in desperation to other sources outside Texas for some help. He wrote to Tom Corcoran under the heading "personal and onfidential" that Richard A. Tullis, director of the San Antonio division of the Federal Housing Administration, had come to Washinton before the campaign and had agitated against him in the Texas delegation, saying that he was going to give Maverick "opposition from the Machine" and telling them that "nobody was for Maverick in Washington except that old bastard, Ickes." New, Maverick said, Tullis was working with a "bunch here which is working up the money among oil men who are the enemies of the Administration, bitter enemies of Ickes and enemies of the President." He asked that Tullis be fired. Three weeks later Corcoran wired, "Tullis resigned this morning. Tom." Drew Pearson wrote to Maverick, "Tom Corcoran tells me that he got Garner's nephew [an error, Tullis was not Garner's nephew] fired yesterday, and that the situation looks better." The San Antonio Evevning News simply reported that Tullis had resigned to campaign for Seeligson. In the scrapbook containing the clipping of this story, Mrs. Maverick heavily underlined the word "resigned" and wrote opposit it "Oh, Yeah!" and "Tut, Tut, Mr. Tullis." Corcoran later wrote that he was sending some money for the campaign. He told Maverick he didn't see how he could lose and that Maverick should call "any time you need me."
Maverick also had sought some help from his friend Ickes, but on June 29 Ickes wired, "Hoped until the last that I could somehow crawl under the tent but I have discovered no way," and pointed out that no member of the administration could take part in a primary contest. Maverick indicated his concern by his somewhat angry response: "It would, of course, be crude for you to come and make a political speech for me in a primary, but any ordinary expression would certainly not be out of order. If I had asked you to do it in January you would have done it, so why not now? . . . As I said to you, nothing you can do will make me sore. You know the feeling that I have for you, and I am sure it's mutual. However, the attitude of "Not taking part in the primary" is illogical and not according to any sensible rule."
The secretary of the interior remained unmoved. His reply a week later read: "I appreciate the spirit in which you wrote your letter to me of June 30. The fact is that I am a member of the Administration, which means that I am a member of a team, so that I can't play solo. If I could I would. I really feel badly that I can't come to Texas to help you out because I want to do just that thing. I hope you will clean the other crowd up so that you will be in a position to thumb your nose at all of us who sat on the sidelines without lifting a hand to help the right kind of man when he was in a tight place."
On July 9 Seeligson opened his campaign with charges that Maverick had opposed a bill that would "prevent any Tom, Dick and Harry from going about the country publicly advocating overthrow of the government by force and violence," which was true; and that Maverick had supported a bill that would permit the teaching of communism in the public schools, which was untrue. He had opposed a law requiring teachers in the District of Columbia to sign an oath that they had not taught communism. Seeligson concluded that Maverick was neither a Democrat nor a Republican and said that he should join William Lemke and Marion Zioncheck on the "Union Ticket."
Two days later Seeligson again said that Maverick was a "Democrat in wolf's clothing," but he then provided Maverick with a piece of grist that he gleefully pounced upon. Seeligson said that Maverick lived in a brick house that was paid for, while he himself lived in a frame house that was not paid for. Maverick said that his nervous supporters were worried, but he smugly assured them that he would make a "spectacular speech, destroying my opponent." In a speech at San Pedro Springs, Maverick made great sport of the brick-house charge in an exercise of self-confessed demagoguery. He asked how many persons in his audience would refuse to live in a good brick house, and when no one responded, he asked if it was all right for him to live in a brick house. They all agreed. Then he delivered the coup de grâce; his house was not brick but plaster. In his own words:
Now, my fellow Americans, let us go into the matter. My statisticians and my great staff of brain-trusters have made a thorough study. My opponent lives three blocks from my house, much nearer the country club of which he is the revered vice-president, and in which great humanitarian institution I hope he will be appointed president, where he can get his promotion, so that I may return to Congress. (Mock interest shown by the audience.) But my statisticians have told me, fellow citizens, that my opponent has passed my house 7,862 times in the ten years he has lived near me. Every day as he passes my house (aside: for indeed it is a house where a sinner lives, since he aspires for office and he lives in a brick house) (laughter) he looks out. He looks at the plaster. He cranes his neck, like this. . . . And when he looks at the plaster, he sees brick, red brick, I presume.
Now, my fellow citizens, I say to you that a man who has no better eyes than that, or that isn't smart enough to tell plaster from brick, hasn't got enough sense to go to Congress.
In one of his major campaign speeches, Maverick made no effort to placate his critics, and he spoke with pride of his part in the defeat of the gag bills that would have limited free expression. In another Burkean thrust he said:
I must follow two starts of duty, one, my country, and the other, my district. We must meet these problems, and silly talk about ladies not being allowed to carry flags—which is a lie anyway—and other puerile nonsense and bilge will get exactly nothing for the American people and not a single dime for Bexar County. . . .
No man who goes to Congress can use anybody else's head, brain or mouth. You must use your own eyes to see, and with those eyes you must have the power to observe, the power to see suffering, misery and hardship and to discern how to rectify it. . . . With your ears you must be able to hear, and with those ears you must transmit to both your heart and brain what is worth thinking about. . . . Congress is not a place for a man with a master. It is a place only for a man who is unfettered, free of the cogs of a machine, the leashes of his owners.
But even Maverick was not candid enough to state publicly what he thought of the typical Texas campaigning that he had to do at this time. He complained to a friend of having to attend every barbecue that came along and having to subject his stomach to the punishment of Polish, German, and Mexican concoctions as he made the rounds in Bexar County. He lamented that much of campaigning in those hot, sweaty days was a test of how much barbeque you could eat and how many gallons of beer you could drink. On the brighter side, however, he was able to report in this communication to a friend that he had asked no one for money for the campaign and that contributions came to him from many parts of the United States.
The campaign got rougher as it went on. The San Antonio Light reported on July 11 that an election investigating committee of the United States Senate was going to probe the padding of poll-tax lists in San Antonio. The Light said that the information came from authoritative sources, and that the move was seemingly designed to hurt Maverick and Senator Morris Sheppard, but apparently nothing came of it. In fact, a few days later Maverick threw in some charges of his own. He said that the election had better be honest or "some G-Birds are going to fly over San Antonio and are going to put a bunch of thieves in the penitentiary if they don't watch out." At the same time he charged that Seeligson was a "big pal" of the Du Pont interests and that he had recently been conferring with the public relations director for Du Pont.
Rodney Dutcher reported from Washington that utilities companies had Maverick marked for "political death" because of his work on the holding company bill. Dutcher said that Ralph W. Morrison, a Texas member of the Federal Reserve Board, was "reported to have expressed willingness to spend as much as $150,000 to defeat Maverick and is said already to have spent tens of thousands to elect Maverick's opponent in the primaries of July 25." Five days before the election, Ruth Finney reported in the same newspaper that big business was out to get "a few outstanding spokesmen for the New Deal." She said that Representative Sam Rayburn and Maverick were among the marked men and repeated the estimate that much as $150,000 had been turned over to Morrison for the fight against Maverick.
On the final canvass of returns for the July 25 first Democratic primary it was proved that Maverick's apprehensions were not groundless. He had 21,703 votes to Seeligson's 14,378, but R. S. Menefee, a third candidate, received 7,606 votes—Maverick lacked 281 votes of having the necessary majority for the Democratic nomination. He was relieved when Seeligson decided to withdraw from the runoff primary. For all practical purposes, Maverick had retained his seat in the House of Representatives, but he could not afford to be too complacent in a district that was once part of a district that had elected a Republican representative for many years. Indeed, Maverick was to have some fairly strong Republican opposition in the general election.
Meanwhile, he was able to bask in the glow afforded by many messages of congratulations from across the nation. He was no doubt most pleased to receive this note:
Dear Maury:
Highly privately and extremely confidentially, I am told that I may send you my congratulations. (The etiquette arbiters who own Presidents would not let me publicly felicitate my own brother if he won a primary fight). You did a grand job and you can be of tremendous help in lots of states.
I am telling McDonald; Tullis no, West yes, and I will let you know what happens.
Maverick's success in the primary was applauded in newspaper editorials in many parts of the nation. The Baltimore Evening Sun gave Texas "two cheers," one for the defeat of Congressman Blanton and one for the victory of Maverick, "a bold fellow with a sharp eye for reality and not much liking for hokum." In Washington, Heywood Broun applauded Maverick's success and said that he was one of the few genuine liberals in that city.
The evidence does not indicate that Maverick was called upon to render the help in the presidential campaign of which Roosevelt spoke in his letter of congratulation. Maverick wrote to James A. Farley, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and gave him a prod on the matter. Farley assured the Texas representative that there were many places in the country where he could e of help and that he would be called upon for "real service." But Farley and others had misgivings about Maverick's party regularity and his generally volatile nature. Whether the fears were justified or not, they were there. Maury had organized and worked with the Mavericks, he had expressed concern as to whether the New Deal was moving ahead as rapidly as it should, and he was at this very time engaged in activities that would make the regulars nervous.
Sometime shortly after his primary victory, he received a penciled note of congratulation from Jerome Frank, who spoke of "a combination (after FDR is elected) of Bob La Follette and John Lewis as head of a farmer-labor group to begin things and get ready for 1938." A month or so later and two months before the presidential election, Maverick attended a meeting of the National Conference of Progressives in Chicago, which held a four-hour secret session. Among the 116 Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, and Farmer-Laborits there were SEnators Norris, La Folette, Edward F. Costigan, Hugo L. Black (the only other Southern Democrat in attendance), and Elmer Benson. Other leading figures were John L. Lewis, Sidney Hillman, Governor Phillip F. La Follette, Governor Hjalmar Petersen, and Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia. Maverick was chairman of the committee of the organization that drafted a telegram to FDR, assuring him of the support of the group. Assurances aside, it was obvious that there was some cause for alarm among professional politicians, who probably remember a report in 1935 of a meeting behind closed doors of "liberal groups" in and out of Congress "for the avowed purpose of formulating left wing policies on which perhaps a third or fusion party might be created for the 1936 election." Maverick did not participate in the latter meeting, but his close association with such people and such movements made him somewhat suspect.
On the home front Maverick continued to seize every opportunity to jump into civil liberties controversies. He gained more national publicity when he joined a fray at the University of Texas concerning the censorship of the student newspaper, the Daily Texan, for which he had written in his student days.
At a meeting in Austin, July 27, 1936, the Board of Regents of the university added to its Rules and Regulations the establishment of an Editorial Advisory Committee for university publications and directed the committee to employ "an agent" to examine each issue of the Texan to guard against not only libelous statements but also "improper personal attacks, reckless accusations, opinion not based on fact, inaccurate statements, articles of national, state and local political questions, indecencies, material detrimental to the good conduct of the student body, and material prejudicial to the best interstes of the University and any material in conflict with good taste or wise editorial management." Texan editor Ed Hodge was called to President H. Y. Benedict's office the next day, without having had any previous warning or reprimand, and told of the regents' decision. When Hodge asked what it was all about, Benedict's reply was, "Surely it was not unexpected." He explained that the Texan was not a regular newspaper, but an annex to the university. "We don't want the University to suffer when the paper forgets this," he said. Benedict also told Hodge that the paper should not be a "political journal of opinion." A few days later President Benedict told the Austin Statesman that the university wanted to give "all freedom possible. But we don't believe this freedom entitles the students to run a political newspaper."
Hodge had assumed the editorship of the Texan on June 4, 1936, and he soon began writing strongly pro-FDR, pro-New Deal editorials. Probably the first editorial that caught the eye of the power structure of Texas appeared on June 21; it was based on an article written for Nation magazine by Maury Maverick. The editorial, "Pea Game Flourishes While Texas Is Chokes," supported Maverick's thesis that the states of the South were struggling upward but that the people were being hoodwinked into the "old pea game, and the operator of the pea game with his smooth talk is the lobbyist of the special interests." Texans were "suckers" who were being used by the utilities interests, and there should be an adequate tax on Texas sulphur production to support the educational system. In a few days this final note inspired Hodge to write another editorial applauding an investigation of the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company's reported assets for the 1936 tax assessment.
Hodge was already stomping on some pretty sensitive toes, but he committed near-sacrilege in an editorial on July 9 in which he supported an investigation of the Austin-area Lower Colorado River Authority concerning allegations of pork-barrel deals and graft, involving the United States representative from that district, James P. Buchanan, who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Hodge said that there should be probes into such allegations regardless of whether the people were on "our side" politically—a view shard by Maury Maverick.
As soon as Maverick learned of the censorship he wired Hodge and urged him to make a "stiff fight," and then wrote to Benedict that, though they were long-time friends, this incident was the "most serious detriment the University has received in many years. It is on par with the persecution you received several years ago." Maverick urged that the "illegal," "unconstitutional," and "unwise" action should be canceled. He directed similar communications to the veteran chairman of the Board of Regents, Lutcher Start, and to Governor James V. Allred. He suggested to Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, that the matter should be taken up by national academic organizations and told Dr. J. W. Studebaker, national commissioner of education, "You have no jurisdiction in this matter, but for moral influence I am informing you of the situation."
On August 3, 1936, Hodge received a call from Maverick advising him that he was coming down to Austin to make his own investigation and to see what could be done about the matter. Newsmen met the "square-jawed champion of civil liberties" when he arrived at the university the next day. Hodge reported that Maverick "snorted and frowned, barking charges and threats about the Board of Regents and all parties concerned." Among other things, he said that the regents were "nazifying the University. Their ukase sound almost exactly like the press decrees of Hitler, Communist Russia and Fascist Italy." He concluded, "For the University to censor the Daily Texan in such a manner is for a father to choke his child. It is knowledge using its powers to destroy itself.
The news of Maverick's blast spread over the state and the nation, and many editorials condemning the action began to appear. On August 8 the Intercity Council of the ex-students association, representing twenty-one Texas communities, including most of the large cities in the state, condemned the censorship. As time dragged on with no action by the regents and a refusal by Governor Allred to intervene, the Texan confined itself to such editorials as a tongue-in-cheek "Keep Off the Grass (A Model Editorial)," and the Columbia (University) Spectator sadly commented that the Texan had become "spineless and lifeless"—"typical of a shackled press."
In the waning months of 1936, student groups worked out a compromise proposal that was adopted unanimously by the student assembly on December 10, but the regents remained unmoved. A few days later Chairman Stark voiced his concern with the hiring of a "big time" coach for the university and expressed his disapproval of President Benedict's view that the coach should not be paid more than the highest paid professor. The Texan carried in almost every issue a small standing editorial feature, "Which Is the American Way?" consisting of a quotation from the regulations of the University of Wisconsin concerning student newspapers. That is, a university ". . . should encourage the continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which the truth can be found." Maverick played no further direct role in this controversy, but there seems to be little question that he could take some credit when the Board of Regents finally decided on March 7, 1937, to repeal the censorship regulation. Effective June 1, 1937, the Texan began to operate under a regulation stating merely that the editors should not "violate editorial propriety."
San Antonio was also the scene of a storm of protest from Maverick in 1936, when Herman G. Nami, district commander of the American Legion, tried to prevent Professor Robert M. Lovett of the University of Chicago and the Reverend James W. Workman of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, from speaking at San Antonio's Thomas Jefferson High School. Maverick said that he did not know the men, but that it was "ridiculous" and "childish" to bar them from speaking to the students. Nami had said that the speakers had "Communist tendencies" and made references to their "records," but produced nothing definite. Superintendent J. C. Cochran had at first closed the auditorium to the two speakers, but Maverick was able to effect a compromise by which the two were permitted to speak at Wheatley High School, but students were not required to attend. Maverick introduced the speakers. The speeches were pleas for neutrality and peace, and Dr. Lovett was quoted as saying, "Big business must pay the price if peace is to be maintained." Nami said, "The emergency peace campaign is just another plane of subversive activity," and, "My organization is against those birds." San Antonio Rabbi Ephraim Frisch called the charges "absurd."
A week later Maverick was in Houston, where the same speakers had been banned. In announcing his forthcoming speech to the Houston Open Forum, the Houston Post told Houstonians that they were in for a "rare intellectual treat" from the "dynamic San Antonio congressman who has become a national figure." Though a "bit spectacular, . . . he is considered by his colleagues at Washington one of the ablest and most substantial members of the Texas Congressional delegation," the Post editorialized. In his remarks, Maverick ridiculed those persons who had blocked the appearance of the speakers and told Houston citizens that when free speech was threatened, they should "stand up on their hind legs and raise hell." He also said that the Texas Legislature's conduct of a Red hunt was "the silliest thing I ever heard of." In an aside, Maverick told his Houston audience that President Roosevelt would easily defeat Governor Alfred Landon in the November election. He said that Landon was one of the weakest candidates that the Republicans had ever offered and predicted that FDR would carry at least thirty-five states.
Maverick was not without his own problems in the November general election. He had a vigorous and articulate Republican opponent, Ernest W. Clemens, a San Antonio attorney, Clemens won the support of a group of "Jeffersonian Democrats," one of whose major speakers was R. J. Boyle, who had been associated with Maverick in the old Citizens League. Boyle said that he was concerned about the trend toward "Socialism" in the New Deal programs. Maverick was not in serious trouble, but regular Democrats were worried about a close race. Mayor C. K. Quin, normally a political enemy of Maverick, joined him to resist the Republican threat in Bexar County. Maverick urged a heavy vote so that "John Nance Garner won't say, 'What the hell is the matter with Bexar County.'
Clemens hammered away at Maverick's association with radical groups, his speeches in Congress and articles in "various radical magazines," and his unwillingness to express similar views at home. R. W. B. Terrell, speaking for a group known as the Constitution League, attacked Maverick for his association with the American Civil Liberties Union, which he characterized as "closely affiliated with the communistic movement in this country."
At a major rally at Woodlawn Lake, featuring a six-ton elephant named Vera, Clemens ripped into the Tennessee Valley Authority and Maverick's association with it. He said that the TVA town of Norris, Tennessee, had no church, that in the regimented life there "a top sergeant tells them when to get up, and a corporal tells them when to go to bed. They can send their children to the government school to learn radical new deal doctrines, or not at all!" Maverick was said to consider this to be the ideal American town.
The same day Secretary of War Harry Woodring made a speech in San Antonio urging the election of Maverick, and Maury told the crowd, "Turn out a large Democratic victory in Bexar County, and let me tell old man John Garner about it, and I will get you something for San Antonio." Maverick defeated Clemens by a vote of almost three to one (34,478 to 12,056), but he was still about one thousand votes shy of Roosevelt's majority, and the issues and forces that arose in this campaign were to prove his undoing in the next.
A letter of congratulation on his victory provided Maverick with an opportunity to have some private sport at the expense of Harvard law professor and FDR adviser Felix Frankfurter. In a hand-written note, Frankfurter said: "You certainly licked them. Of course you had a hard fight—but I feel you wouldn't want to win an easy battle. We need you badly in Washington—'We' means the country." The writing was almost indecipherable, and Maverick typed on the back of the letter that "secretaries and several handwriting experts attempted to decipher the handwriting to no avail." He then wrote beneath the statement, "I certify the above is correct. Maury Maverick, M.S."
Maverick spent the rest of the year making speeches in Texas and the Southwest. He was the major speaker at the New Mexico Government and Business Conference at the University of New Mexico, December 1, 1936. In a lengthy interview after the speech, he blasted away at a number of sacred cows, including states' rights and the recent "Red hunt" at the University of Texas, which he said was instigated by a group of corporation and utility lawyers who wanted to oust several professors advocating fair regulation of utilities. Most of the focus of this investigation was turned on economics professor Robert H. Montgomery, who was the key organizer of a student-faculty group called the Progressive Democrats. Montgomery and Maverick were friends, and Maverick was singled out as one of the people who had corresponded with this group, which was supposed to have principles that were basically communistic—according to the "Red hunters." In retrospect, Dr. Montgomery's chief offenses seem to have been that he knew what he was talking about when he criticized utility rates and the sulphur industry, and that he produced affidavits linking the investigation to a representative of the sulphur interests. The embarrassed Texas House committee, especially after finding that two of its members were using letters in the investigation that were almost certainly stolen from an ex-student of the university, dropped the entire inquiry and gave the university faculty a vote of confidence.
Maverick capped his second year as a congressman by writing the kickoff article of a series entitled "The Next Four Years," for New Republic magazine. Subsequent articles in the series were written by Henry A. Wallace, Rexford Tugwell, Morris L. Cooke, John L. Lewis, Dr. Arthur E. Morgan, Thomas Reed Powell, Bruce Bliven, and George Soule. In his piece, Maverick said that the 1936 election was "the greatest revolution in our political history." He warned that the next session of Congress would see further efforts in behalf of bizarre—and dangerous—legislation and would threaten civil liberties. "Liberals and conservatives alike," he said, "should take the offensive for the Bill of Rights."
April 29, 1936
Personal
Dear Maury:
I thoroughly and completely disagree with you. If the public had known that at the corner-stone laying we all had "a good orgy" there would have been millions of votes in it. People love orgies. They don't give a continental about auguries. I suggest that Plank No. 1 of the Philadelphia Platform read as follows:
"We advocate bigger and better orgies."
I am speaking seriously to the Secretary of the Interior about cutting his work way down.
Run in and see me soon.
Always sincerely,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Ickes had written to Maverick a few days earlier to say that Roosevelt had told him that the Maverick letter was the "funniest he had ever received," and that he was sending it on to Ickes. The secretary of the interior said, "I suspect that when I read it I shall accuse you of being a plagiarist."
"The Drama of Conservation" was the title Maury Maverick chose for a speech to the Virginia State Planning Board in May 1936. He told his audience that the natural resources of America were the "heritage of the whole nation," and, "I deny no man the right to his ambition, or his individuality. But I deny to every man in America any right to destroy his portion of the natural resources, or to so plan his business or industry as to be a danger to the health and lives of his fellow citizens." The speech was a vehicle for a plea for Maverick's bill to establish a permanent National Resources Board to replace the existing National Resources Committee, which was based on an executive order. This agency was charged with the function of doing research concerning both natural and human resources in the United States and advising the president on the optimum use of such resources. Maverick called the agency one of the "finest organizations" of the New Deal. It was first established as the National Planning Board in 1933 by Harold Ickes, head of the Public Works Administration. In 1934 it was made a presidential board, and then from 1935 to 1939 it was known as the National Resources Committee. Maverick's aim was to give the planning agency a more permanent status, and in a CBS network speech he said that he had a personal letter from FDR supporting the proposal. Maverick was not successful, but his colleagues succeeded in establishing the National Resources Planning Board in 1939 after Maverick had left Congress.
In March Maverick was characterized as a leader in conferences between members of Congress from southern states and federal officials to press for "economic rehabilitation of the South" by working for rural electrification and the Bankhead bill for loans to tenant farmers. Maverick said that the South had been exploited, but that the chief responsibility for remedying the conditions lay with the southern congressional representation. When the Soil Conservation Act was under consideration, Maverick called for an amendment designed to require the secretary of agriculture to prescribe rules and regulations for equitable distribution of payments among tenants, sharecroppers, and farm workers as well as the landlords. He introduced information from Professor H. Clarence Nixon of Vanderbilt University and others of the southern Policy Committee indicating that tenants and sharecroppers would be left out and benefits would go largely to the landlords. He later withdrew his amendment in favor of a similar one by Representative Tarver of Georgia.
When legislation designed to make the Rural Electrification Administration an independent agency was before the House, Maverick urged its passage and gave his colleagues a learned lecture on rural electrification in Holland, Germany, Sweden, Canada, and Japan. He suggested that they should all read and study Marquis Child's "illuminating book on Sweden, which he aptly terms The Middle Way." He also took the opportunity to thumb his nose at the private utilities that, according to him, "pretty well run the State of Texas." He added, "So far as utility legislation is concerned, we are probably the most primitive state in the United States of America."
In January, Maverick had sent letters to members of the press asking for their ideas on the crucial issues of 1936 for use in a speech. The almost unanimous response was: "The reelection of Maverick."
Maury's second congressional campaign opened with the announcement that his opponent in the Democratic primary would be Lamar Seeligson, former Bexar County district attorney and a machine candidate. Maverick was to characterize him later as "a nice fellow and schoolmate" who was a first cousin of John Dos Passos. On the date of Seeligson's announcement, an article on Maverick appeared that hardly reflected the usual apprehensions of an incumbent representative facing his first attempt at reelection. Paul Y. Anderson quoted the "brilliant and promising young member of the House" as saying, "Well what did I find? I found that politics in Washington is no different than it is in Bexar County. There is the same trading, the same self-interest, the same pressure from minority groups, the same precinct psychology." Maverick added that great liberals had urged him not to stick his neck out, and thus he could be reelected. He said his response was, "I don't believe it is important to the liberal cause that I be reelected, but I know it is important to me that I say and do what I should."
The indications are, however, that this was a bit of grandstanding on Maverick's part. He knew he was in for a touch campaign, and he set about doing something about it. In June he had several members of Congress prepare "plugs" for use in the coming campaign. Veteran Democratic Congressman A. J. Sabbath supplied: "I fell that if there is one member of Congress who merits renomination and reelection, it is you. I have been a member for nearly thirty years and I do not know of any new member of Congress during that time who has rendered as valuable services to the party and to the country as you have." Sabbath added a note saying, "I hurriedly dictated this. If you think it should be enlarged or changed in any particular, I will be glad to do it because I am sincere in my statement."
Representative Herman P. Koppleman of Connecticut sent Maverick an unsolicited endorsement in which he said, "You have distinguished yourself as one of the outstanding liberals of the day with the added distinction that your liberal thought has sound foundation." Later he sent an editorial from the July 16 Washington News that read, "Maverick represents in a way, about the best type that comes to Washington. While mindful of the interests of his own district. . . he also is a national legislator. Few fought more effectively last session than he did in the causes of peae and neutrality, civil and religious liberty and freedom of speech. We hope to hear him answer the roll-call again in January.
Senator Homer T. Bone used the privilege to extend his remarks in the Congressional Record to heap praise on Maverick's record as a first-term congressman. He pointed out that Maverick had been chosen Congressman of the Year by Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, listed a series of laudatory editorials, and said finally of Maverick, ". . . over 700 newspapers throughout the country commented favorably on his fight for civil, religious and academic liberties."
A spot of trouble seemed to be in the making for Maverick when on March 16, 1936, Walter Tynan, former district attorney, Maverick's running mate on the 1930 Citizen's League slate, and a "power in the Citizens League Council," announced that he was supporting Seeligson. A few days later Tynan said he would support all of the League candidates except Maverick, after a split had developed in the League over the matter. The executive committee of the organization, however, endorsed Maverick and Tynan resigned.
Maverick's fortunes took an upward turn in early June when he stood at President Roosevelt's side at the Alamo as thousands of San Antonians cheered. Roosevelt told newsmen that he felt "revived" by his visit to the city and that his reason for coming was that he had promised Maverick on sesveral occasions that he would. President Roosevelt wrote to Maverick later and expressed the "keenest delight" for his visit. He said, "I cannot restrain the impulse to write this note to tell you once more of the pleasure I derived from my trip into Texas and my visit to San Antonio."
But a few days later Maverick learned that William F. Brogan, his campaign manager in his first congressional campaign, had accepted the position of campaign manager for Seeligson. Brogan had been closely associated with Maverick since 1929, had worked with him in the development of the Citizens League, and had served under Maverick for four years as head of the automobile license bureau of the county tax collectors office. Brogan gave as his reason for the break that he was no longer in accord with Maverick's "political views and some of his political associates." Maverick's succinct comment was, "Poor fellow."
About the same time Maverick turned in desperation to other sources outside Texas for some help. He wrote to Tom Corcoran under the heading "political views and some of his political associates." Maverick's succinct comment was, "Poor fellow."
About the same time Maverick turned in desperation to other sources outside Texas for some help. He wrote to Tom Corcoran under the heading "personal and onfidential" that Richard A. Tullis, director of the San Antonio division of the Federal Housing Administration, had come to Washinton before the campaign and had agitated against him in the Texas delegation, saying that he was going to give Maverick "opposition from the Machine" and telling them that "nobody was for Maverick in Washington except that old bastard, Ickes." New, Maverick said, Tullis was working with a "bunch here which is working up the money among oil men who are the enemies of the Administration, bitter enemies of Ickes and enemies of the President." He asked that Tullis be fired. Three weeks later Corcoran wired, "Tullis resigned this morning. Tom." Drew Pearson wrote to Maverick, "Tom Corcoran tells me that he got Garner's nephew [an error, Tullis was not Garner's nephew] fired yesterday, and that the situation looks better." The San Antonio Evevning News simply reported that Tullis had resigned to campaign for Seeligson. In the scrapbook containing the clipping of this story, Mrs. Maverick heavily underlined the word "resigned" and wrote opposit it "Oh, Yeah!" and "Tut, Tut, Mr. Tullis." Corcoran later wrote that he was sending some money for the campaign. He told Maverick he didn't see how he could lose and that Maverick should call "any time you need me."
Maverick also had sought some help from his friend Ickes, but on June 29 Ickes wired, "Hoped until the last that I could somehow crawl under the tent but I have discovered no way," and pointed out that no member of the administration could take part in a primary contest. Maverick indicated his concern by his somewhat angry response: "It would, of course, be crude for you to come and make a political speech for me in a primary, but any ordinary expression would certainly not be out of order. If I had asked you to do it in January you would have done it, so why not now? . . . As I said to you, nothing you can do will make me sore. You know the feeling that I have for you, and I am sure it's mutual. However, the attitude of "Not taking part in the primary" is illogical and not according to any sensible rule."
The secretary of the interior remained unmoved. His reply a week later read: "I appreciate the spirit in which you wrote your letter to me of June 30. The fact is that I am a member of the Administration, which means that I am a member of a team, so that I can't play solo. If I could I would. I really feel badly that I can't come to Texas to help you out because I want to do just that thing. I hope you will clean the other crowd up so that you will be in a position to thumb your nose at all of us who sat on the sidelines without lifting a hand to help the right kind of man when he was in a tight place."
On July 9 Seeligson opened his campaign with charges that Maverick had opposed a bill that would "prevent any Tom, Dick and Harry from going about the country publicly advocating overthrow of the government by force and violence," which was true; and that Maverick had supported a bill that would permit the teaching of communism in the public schools, which was untrue. He had opposed a law requiring teachers in the District of Columbia to sign an oath that they had not taught communism. Seeligson concluded that Maverick was neither a Democrat nor a Republican and said that he should join William Lemke and Marion Zioncheck on the "Union Ticket."
Two days later Seeligson again said that Maverick was a "Democrat in wolf's clothing," but he then provided Maverick with a piece of grist that he gleefully pounced upon. Seeligson said that Maverick lived in a brick house that was paid for, while he himself lived in a frame house that was not paid for. Maverick said that his nervous supporters were worried, but he smugly assured them that he would make a "spectacular speech, destroying my opponent." In a speech at San Pedro Springs, Maverick made great sport of the brick-house charge in an exercise of self-confessed demagoguery. He asked how many persons in his audience would refuse to live in a good brick house, and when no one responded, he asked if it was all right for him to live in a brick house. They all agreed. Then he delivered the coup de grâce; his house was not brick but plaster. In his own words:
Now, my fellow Americans, let us go into the matter. My statisticians and my great staff of brain-trusters have made a thorough study. My opponent lives three blocks from my house, much nearer the country club of which he is the revered vice-president, and in which great humanitarian institution I hope he will be appointed president, where he can get his promotion, so that I may return to Congress. (Mock interest shown by the audience.) But my statisticians have told me, fellow citizens, that my opponent has passed my house 7,862 times in the ten years he has lived near me. Every day as he passes my house (aside: for indeed it is a house where a sinner lives, since he aspires for office and he lives in a brick house) (laughter) he looks out. He looks at the plaster. He cranes his neck, like this. . . . And when he looks at the plaster, he sees brick, red brick, I presume.
Now, my fellow citizens, I say to you that a man who has no better eyes than that, or that isn't smart enough to tell plaster from brick, hasn't got enough sense to go to Congress.
In one of his major campaign speeches, Maverick made no effort to placate his critics, and he spoke with pride of his part in the defeat of the gag bills that would have limited free expression. In another Burkean thrust he said:
I must follow two starts of duty, one, my country, and the other, my district. We must meet these problems, and silly talk about ladies not being allowed to carry flags—which is a lie anyway—and other puerile nonsense and bilge will get exactly nothing for the American people and not a single dime for Bexar County. . . .
No man who goes to Congress can use anybody else's head, brain or mouth. You must use your own eyes to see, and with those eyes you must have the power to observe, the power to see suffering, misery and hardship and to discern how to rectify it. . . . With your ears you must be able to hear, and with those ears you must transmit to both your heart and brain what is worth thinking about. . . . Congress is not a place for a man with a master. It is a place only for a man who is unfettered, free of the cogs of a machine, the leashes of his owners.
But even Maverick was not candid enough to state publicly what he thought of the typical Texas campaigning that he had to do at this time. He complained to a friend of having to attend every barbecue that came along and having to subject his stomach to the punishment of Polish, German, and Mexican concoctions as he made the rounds in Bexar County. He lamented that much of campaigning in those hot, sweaty days was a test of how much barbeque you could eat and how many gallons of beer you could drink. On the brighter side, however, he was able to report in this communication to a friend that he had asked no one for money for the campaign and that contributions came to him from many parts of the United States.
The campaign got rougher as it went on. The San Antonio Light reported on July 11 that an election investigating committee of the United States Senate was going to probe the padding of poll-tax lists in San Antonio. The Light said that the information came from authoritative sources, and that the move was seemingly designed to hurt Maverick and Senator Morris Sheppard, but apparently nothing came of it. In fact, a few days later Maverick threw in some charges of his own. He said that the election had better be honest or "some G-Birds are going to fly over San Antonio and are going to put a bunch of thieves in the penitentiary if they don't watch out." At the same time he charged that Seeligson was a "big pal" of the Du Pont interests and that he had recently been conferring with the public relations director for Du Pont.
Rodney Dutcher reported from Washington that utilities companies had Maverick marked for "political death" because of his work on the holding company bill. Dutcher said that Ralph W. Morrison, a Texas member of the Federal Reserve Board, was "reported to have expressed willingness to spend as much as $150,000 to defeat Maverick and is said already to have spent tens of thousands to elect Maverick's opponent in the primaries of July 25." Five days before the election, Ruth Finney reported in the same newspaper that big business was out to get "a few outstanding spokesmen for the New Deal." She said that Representative Sam Rayburn and Maverick were among the marked men and repeated the estimate that much as $150,000 had been turned over to Morrison for the fight against Maverick.
On the final canvass of returns for the July 25 first Democratic primary it was proved that Maverick's apprehensions were not groundless. He had 21,703 votes to Seeligson's 14,378, but R. S. Menefee, a third candidate, received 7,606 votes—Maverick lacked 281 votes of having the necessary majority for the Democratic nomination. He was relieved when Seeligson decided to withdraw from the runoff primary. For all practical purposes, Maverick had retained his seat in the House of Representatives, but he could not afford to be too complacent in a district that was once part of a district that had elected a Republican representative for many years. Indeed, Maverick was to have some fairly strong Republican opposition in the general election.
Meanwhile, he was able to bask in the glow afforded by many messages of congratulations from across the nation. He was no doubt most pleased to receive this note:
Dear Maury:
Highly privately and extremely confidentially, I am told that I may send you my congratulations. (The etiquette arbiters who own Presidents would not let me publicly felicitate my own brother if he won a primary fight). You did a grand job and you can be of tremendous help in lots of states.
I am telling McDonald; Tullis no, West yes, and I will let you know what happens.
As ever yours,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Maverick's success in the primary was applauded in newspaper editorials in many parts of the nation. The Baltimore Evening Sun gave Texas "two cheers," one for the defeat of Congressman Blanton and one for the victory of Maverick, "a bold fellow with a sharp eye for reality and not much liking for hokum." In Washington, Heywood Broun applauded Maverick's success and said that he was one of the few genuine liberals in that city.
The evidence does not indicate that Maverick was called upon to render the help in the presidential campaign of which Roosevelt spoke in his letter of congratulation. Maverick wrote to James A. Farley, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and gave him a prod on the matter. Farley assured the Texas representative that there were many places in the country where he could e of help and that he would be called upon for "real service." But Farley and others had misgivings about Maverick's party regularity and his generally volatile nature. Whether the fears were justified or not, they were there. Maury had organized and worked with the Mavericks, he had expressed concern as to whether the New Deal was moving ahead as rapidly as it should, and he was at this very time engaged in activities that would make the regulars nervous.
Sometime shortly after his primary victory, he received a penciled note of congratulation from Jerome Frank, who spoke of "a combination (after FDR is elected) of Bob La Follette and John Lewis as head of a farmer-labor group to begin things and get ready for 1938." A month or so later and two months before the presidential election, Maverick attended a meeting of the National Conference of Progressives in Chicago, which held a four-hour secret session. Among the 116 Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, and Farmer-Laborits there were SEnators Norris, La Folette, Edward F. Costigan, Hugo L. Black (the only other Southern Democrat in attendance), and Elmer Benson. Other leading figures were John L. Lewis, Sidney Hillman, Governor Phillip F. La Follette, Governor Hjalmar Petersen, and Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia. Maverick was chairman of the committee of the organization that drafted a telegram to FDR, assuring him of the support of the group. Assurances aside, it was obvious that there was some cause for alarm among professional politicians, who probably remember a report in 1935 of a meeting behind closed doors of "liberal groups" in and out of Congress "for the avowed purpose of formulating left wing policies on which perhaps a third or fusion party might be created for the 1936 election." Maverick did not participate in the latter meeting, but his close association with such people and such movements made him somewhat suspect.
On the home front Maverick continued to seize every opportunity to jump into civil liberties controversies. He gained more national publicity when he joined a fray at the University of Texas concerning the censorship of the student newspaper, the Daily Texan, for which he had written in his student days.
At a meeting in Austin, July 27, 1936, the Board of Regents of the university added to its Rules and Regulations the establishment of an Editorial Advisory Committee for university publications and directed the committee to employ "an agent" to examine each issue of the Texan to guard against not only libelous statements but also "improper personal attacks, reckless accusations, opinion not based on fact, inaccurate statements, articles of national, state and local political questions, indecencies, material detrimental to the good conduct of the student body, and material prejudicial to the best interstes of the University and any material in conflict with good taste or wise editorial management." Texan editor Ed Hodge was called to President H. Y. Benedict's office the next day, without having had any previous warning or reprimand, and told of the regents' decision. When Hodge asked what it was all about, Benedict's reply was, "Surely it was not unexpected." He explained that the Texan was not a regular newspaper, but an annex to the university. "We don't want the University to suffer when the paper forgets this," he said. Benedict also told Hodge that the paper should not be a "political journal of opinion." A few days later President Benedict told the Austin Statesman that the university wanted to give "all freedom possible. But we don't believe this freedom entitles the students to run a political newspaper."
Hodge had assumed the editorship of the Texan on June 4, 1936, and he soon began writing strongly pro-FDR, pro-New Deal editorials. Probably the first editorial that caught the eye of the power structure of Texas appeared on June 21; it was based on an article written for Nation magazine by Maury Maverick. The editorial, "Pea Game Flourishes While Texas Is Chokes," supported Maverick's thesis that the states of the South were struggling upward but that the people were being hoodwinked into the "old pea game, and the operator of the pea game with his smooth talk is the lobbyist of the special interests." Texans were "suckers" who were being used by the utilities interests, and there should be an adequate tax on Texas sulphur production to support the educational system. In a few days this final note inspired Hodge to write another editorial applauding an investigation of the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company's reported assets for the 1936 tax assessment.
Hodge was already stomping on some pretty sensitive toes, but he committed near-sacrilege in an editorial on July 9 in which he supported an investigation of the Austin-area Lower Colorado River Authority concerning allegations of pork-barrel deals and graft, involving the United States representative from that district, James P. Buchanan, who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Hodge said that there should be probes into such allegations regardless of whether the people were on "our side" politically—a view shard by Maury Maverick.
As soon as Maverick learned of the censorship he wired Hodge and urged him to make a "stiff fight," and then wrote to Benedict that, though they were long-time friends, this incident was the "most serious detriment the University has received in many years. It is on par with the persecution you received several years ago." Maverick urged that the "illegal," "unconstitutional," and "unwise" action should be canceled. He directed similar communications to the veteran chairman of the Board of Regents, Lutcher Start, and to Governor James V. Allred. He suggested to Dr. Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, that the matter should be taken up by national academic organizations and told Dr. J. W. Studebaker, national commissioner of education, "You have no jurisdiction in this matter, but for moral influence I am informing you of the situation."
On August 3, 1936, Hodge received a call from Maverick advising him that he was coming down to Austin to make his own investigation and to see what could be done about the matter. Newsmen met the "square-jawed champion of civil liberties" when he arrived at the university the next day. Hodge reported that Maverick "snorted and frowned, barking charges and threats about the Board of Regents and all parties concerned." Among other things, he said that the regents were "nazifying the University. Their ukase sound almost exactly like the press decrees of Hitler, Communist Russia and Fascist Italy." He concluded, "For the University to censor the Daily Texan in such a manner is for a father to choke his child. It is knowledge using its powers to destroy itself.
The news of Maverick's blast spread over the state and the nation, and many editorials condemning the action began to appear. On August 8 the Intercity Council of the ex-students association, representing twenty-one Texas communities, including most of the large cities in the state, condemned the censorship. As time dragged on with no action by the regents and a refusal by Governor Allred to intervene, the Texan confined itself to such editorials as a tongue-in-cheek "Keep Off the Grass (A Model Editorial)," and the Columbia (University) Spectator sadly commented that the Texan had become "spineless and lifeless"—"typical of a shackled press."
In the waning months of 1936, student groups worked out a compromise proposal that was adopted unanimously by the student assembly on December 10, but the regents remained unmoved. A few days later Chairman Stark voiced his concern with the hiring of a "big time" coach for the university and expressed his disapproval of President Benedict's view that the coach should not be paid more than the highest paid professor. The Texan carried in almost every issue a small standing editorial feature, "Which Is the American Way?" consisting of a quotation from the regulations of the University of Wisconsin concerning student newspapers. That is, a university ". . . should encourage the continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which the truth can be found." Maverick played no further direct role in this controversy, but there seems to be little question that he could take some credit when the Board of Regents finally decided on March 7, 1937, to repeal the censorship regulation. Effective June 1, 1937, the Texan began to operate under a regulation stating merely that the editors should not "violate editorial propriety."
San Antonio was also the scene of a storm of protest from Maverick in 1936, when Herman G. Nami, district commander of the American Legion, tried to prevent Professor Robert M. Lovett of the University of Chicago and the Reverend James W. Workman of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas, from speaking at San Antonio's Thomas Jefferson High School. Maverick said that he did not know the men, but that it was "ridiculous" and "childish" to bar them from speaking to the students. Nami had said that the speakers had "Communist tendencies" and made references to their "records," but produced nothing definite. Superintendent J. C. Cochran had at first closed the auditorium to the two speakers, but Maverick was able to effect a compromise by which the two were permitted to speak at Wheatley High School, but students were not required to attend. Maverick introduced the speakers. The speeches were pleas for neutrality and peace, and Dr. Lovett was quoted as saying, "Big business must pay the price if peace is to be maintained." Nami said, "The emergency peace campaign is just another plane of subversive activity," and, "My organization is against those birds." San Antonio Rabbi Ephraim Frisch called the charges "absurd."
A week later Maverick was in Houston, where the same speakers had been banned. In announcing his forthcoming speech to the Houston Open Forum, the Houston Post told Houstonians that they were in for a "rare intellectual treat" from the "dynamic San Antonio congressman who has become a national figure." Though a "bit spectacular, . . . he is considered by his colleagues at Washington one of the ablest and most substantial members of the Texas Congressional delegation," the Post editorialized. In his remarks, Maverick ridiculed those persons who had blocked the appearance of the speakers and told Houston citizens that when free speech was threatened, they should "stand up on their hind legs and raise hell." He also said that the Texas Legislature's conduct of a Red hunt was "the silliest thing I ever heard of." In an aside, Maverick told his Houston audience that President Roosevelt would easily defeat Governor Alfred Landon in the November election. He said that Landon was one of the weakest candidates that the Republicans had ever offered and predicted that FDR would carry at least thirty-five states.
Maverick was not without his own problems in the November general election. He had a vigorous and articulate Republican opponent, Ernest W. Clemens, a San Antonio attorney, Clemens won the support of a group of "Jeffersonian Democrats," one of whose major speakers was R. J. Boyle, who had been associated with Maverick in the old Citizens League. Boyle said that he was concerned about the trend toward "Socialism" in the New Deal programs. Maverick was not in serious trouble, but regular Democrats were worried about a close race. Mayor C. K. Quin, normally a political enemy of Maverick, joined him to resist the Republican threat in Bexar County. Maverick urged a heavy vote so that "John Nance Garner won't say, 'What the hell is the matter with Bexar County.'
Clemens hammered away at Maverick's association with radical groups, his speeches in Congress and articles in "various radical magazines," and his unwillingness to express similar views at home. R. W. B. Terrell, speaking for a group known as the Constitution League, attacked Maverick for his association with the American Civil Liberties Union, which he characterized as "closely affiliated with the communistic movement in this country."
At a major rally at Woodlawn Lake, featuring a six-ton elephant named Vera, Clemens ripped into the Tennessee Valley Authority and Maverick's association with it. He said that the TVA town of Norris, Tennessee, had no church, that in the regimented life there "a top sergeant tells them when to get up, and a corporal tells them when to go to bed. They can send their children to the government school to learn radical new deal doctrines, or not at all!" Maverick was said to consider this to be the ideal American town.
The same day Secretary of War Harry Woodring made a speech in San Antonio urging the election of Maverick, and Maury told the crowd, "Turn out a large Democratic victory in Bexar County, and let me tell old man John Garner about it, and I will get you something for San Antonio." Maverick defeated Clemens by a vote of almost three to one (34,478 to 12,056), but he was still about one thousand votes shy of Roosevelt's majority, and the issues and forces that arose in this campaign were to prove his undoing in the next.
A letter of congratulation on his victory provided Maverick with an opportunity to have some private sport at the expense of Harvard law professor and FDR adviser Felix Frankfurter. In a hand-written note, Frankfurter said: "You certainly licked them. Of course you had a hard fight—but I feel you wouldn't want to win an easy battle. We need you badly in Washington—'We' means the country." The writing was almost indecipherable, and Maverick typed on the back of the letter that "secretaries and several handwriting experts attempted to decipher the handwriting to no avail." He then wrote beneath the statement, "I certify the above is correct. Maury Maverick, M.S."
Maverick spent the rest of the year making speeches in Texas and the Southwest. He was the major speaker at the New Mexico Government and Business Conference at the University of New Mexico, December 1, 1936. In a lengthy interview after the speech, he blasted away at a number of sacred cows, including states' rights and the recent "Red hunt" at the University of Texas, which he said was instigated by a group of corporation and utility lawyers who wanted to oust several professors advocating fair regulation of utilities. Most of the focus of this investigation was turned on economics professor Robert H. Montgomery, who was the key organizer of a student-faculty group called the Progressive Democrats. Montgomery and Maverick were friends, and Maverick was singled out as one of the people who had corresponded with this group, which was supposed to have principles that were basically communistic—according to the "Red hunters." In retrospect, Dr. Montgomery's chief offenses seem to have been that he knew what he was talking about when he criticized utility rates and the sulphur industry, and that he produced affidavits linking the investigation to a representative of the sulphur interests. The embarrassed Texas House committee, especially after finding that two of its members were using letters in the investigation that were almost certainly stolen from an ex-student of the university, dropped the entire inquiry and gave the university faculty a vote of confidence.
Maverick capped his second year as a congressman by writing the kickoff article of a series entitled "The Next Four Years," for New Republic magazine. Subsequent articles in the series were written by Henry A. Wallace, Rexford Tugwell, Morris L. Cooke, John L. Lewis, Dr. Arthur E. Morgan, Thomas Reed Powell, Bruce Bliven, and George Soule. In his piece, Maverick said that the 1936 election was "the greatest revolution in our political history." He warned that the next session of Congress would see further efforts in behalf of bizarre—and dangerous—legislation and would threaten civil liberties. "Liberals and conservatives alike," he said, "should take the offensive for the Bill of Rights."
Ever Insurgent Let Me Be
There was no letup in the furious pace that the man who had been described as "a Texas norther in Congress" set for himself in his second term in the House of Representatives. He was one of the most sought-after speakers in the country, and he was rarely able to decline invitations to appear at all sorts of speaking or discussion engagements. When he wasn't making speeches on the floor of the House, he was preparing articles for magazines or, as was the case in 1937, writing a book. He worked from twelve to fourteen hours a day, read voluminously and caused observers to wonder how he managed to keep going.
Early in this second term Maverick had the following poem by Louis Untermeyer reprinted in the Record without comment:
PRAYER
God, though this life is but a wraith,
Although we know not what we use,
Although we grope with little faith,
Give me the heart to fight—and lose.
Ever insurgent let me be,
Make me more daring than devout;
From Sleek contentment keep me free,
And fill me with a buoyant doubt.
Open my eyes to visions girt
with beauty and wonder lit—
But let me always see the dirt
And all that spawn and die in it.
Open my ears to music; let
Me thrill with spring's first flutes and drums—
But never let me dare forget
The bitter ballads of the slums.
From compromise and things half done,
Keep me with stern and stubborn pride,
And when at last the fight is won,
God, keep me still unsatisfied.
Maverick did not like to lose, but he seemed to relish the unpopular fight, and he rarely felt uncomfortable as a member of the minority. When he read this poem into the Record, he was committed to the "wrong" side of one of the most bitter controversies of the New Deal era.
The most celebrated issue of the 1937 session of Congress was President Roosevelt's attempt to "pack" the United States Supreme Court. In February 1936 Maury Maverick had opened his long series of challenges to the Court's power to find acts of Congress unconstitutional, in response to the Court's decision that the first Agricultural Adjustment Act was unconstitutional, partly because the law violated states' rights. In urging passage of the 1936 Soil Conservation Act, Maverick had said that though he realized that the argument was now academic, he believed that the first AAA had been constitutional. There was no implied power for the Supreme Court to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, he maintained, and Congress could do what was not prohibited to it. That the Supreme Court should not bow to the "will of mobs, or temporary prejudices and passions" he recognized, but he also asserted that the Court should acknowledge "progress in the affairs of men."
With the passage of time and more New Deal legislation being struck down or threatened in the courts, Maverick's criticisms became more pointed and his judgments more harsh. He told a Philadelphia audience a few weeks later: "The judges of the Supreme Court are human beings like you and me. If a member of this audience were appointed to the Supreme Court, his political viewpoint would probably not change at all; he would take his political viewpoints with him to the Supreme Court, just as the corporation lawyers who go there take their views with them. And remember, though courts are a necessary function of any government, times change, views change, and people have a right to adjust their own government to their own will.
When Maverick was queried later in the year as to what he would propose for dealing with the Supreme Court, he said that he did not favor increasing the number of justices. "We are not being honest if we do this," he was quoted as saying. Rather, he preferred the approach of attaching provisions to major legislation, such as the proposed minimum-wage law, which would prohibit the Supreme Court from having appellate jurisdiction over that particular matter—the device advocated by equally unsuccessful critics of the Court in the late 1950's.
When Congress convened in January, there were reports of an anti-Court bloc meeting in Washington in which Maverick participated with Senator Norris, John L. Lewis, Jerome Frank, Morris Ernst, Representative David J. Lewis (D.-Md.), and Frank R. McNinch, chairman of the Federal Power Commission. Soon thereafter Maverick was questioning his solution to the problem. In a national radio speech, prepared with the assistance of Frank, he attempted to explain to the nation how the solution of many problems that were national in scope was being thwarted by rulings of the Supreme Court, and, after quoting Justice Harlan Stone as saying, "The Court gives effect to the economic predilections of the judges," Maverick admitted, "Just how we are going to get the judges out of their prejudices and predilections if far from clear." He received hundreds of letters offering praise, advice, and criticism from lawyers and judges in all parts of the nation. About 90 percent of the letters were favorable to his position.
Other New Dealers, including FDR, had had their difficulties in deciding just what could be done about the Court, but on February 5, 1937, Roosevelt sent his famous message to Congress. As Maverick described the scene, some fifty or sixty House members were on hand at the time, there was no air of tension, and the galleries were nearly empty. Only the occupants of the press gallery, who had advance notice of the president's message, seemed interested. According to Maverick, the telegraph companies in back of the gallery were "getting ready for a killing." He said they had ordered extra messengers to handle the "flood of exultation and execration" that would soon be on the wires. "The clerk, who has read thousands of messages, begins to read. A few representatives begin to listen. What's this?"
"This" was Roosevelt's general proposal for reform of the Federal judiciary, which included the specific suggestion that the president could appoint additional Federal judges for each judge who failed to retire upon reaching the age of seventy, thus providing Roosevelt with the opportunity to swing the narrowly divided Supreme Court over to the New Deal side if the measure should be passed. Though the Washington Star depicted Democratic leaders as "stunned" by the proposal, this seems unlikely in view of the fact that FDR had explained the bill to a meeting of leaders before presenting his message. Whatever the case, Maverick "grabbed a mimeographed copy of the bill, scribbled his name on it, and threw it in the bill hopper." Despite the fact that many Democrats in the Senate were reported to favor the move and legislative leaders generally predicted a hard-won victory, the quixotic Maverick had again taken a stand that was not likely to do him much good back home.
The Texas Senate passed a resolution against the measure, and Maverick told the body to mind its own business. He said, "I want it understood that I don't consider myself bound by the Senate of Texas even if their action is approved in Maine. . . . It may be the Senate of Texas will get down to attending to their own business and will take the responsibility of passing a good utilities law for that state, and take the crushing burden of taxation off the backs of the people of Texas, they will be better off."
The San Antonio Bar Association overwhelmingly opposed the president's court plan. The association refused by a voice vote even to listen to a reading of the bill by H. P. Drought, state administrator for the WPA and "a prominent member of the bar." 'The leadership characterized the measure as "radical and dangerous" and then adjourned to head off any debate on the matter. Maverick gave his Bar Association fellow a blunt reply in which he said that he didn't think that any of them had read the bill and that he would continue to fight for the measure and "look forward and not backward." "In doing so, I will be doing my duty, and consider myself as performing the best service for the people of my district and their children."
A few days after he had introduced the president's proposal, Maverick and Senator Hugo L. Black appeared on the NBC Blue network radio program "Town Meeting of the Air" to debate the proposal with William H. King and Frederick H. Wood, the winning attorney in the NRA, Guffey coal, and Gold Clause cases. Maverick led off the discussion with the argument that the checks on the Supreme Court were inadequate for the occasion and that the framers of the Constitution had left the determination of the number of justices to the Congress and the president in order to provide adequate checks when they were needed. Maverick argued that the older justices would retire if they followed the best opinion of their own profession, and he cited historical examples to demonstrate that changes in the number of members of the Supreme Court had been made several times before. He also pointed out that since interpretation of the Constitution varies with the changes in the personnel of the Court, presidents and Senates have always concerned themselves with the general attitudes of men appointed to the Court. He concluded, "Such considerations are thoroughly moral, and thoroughly constitutional. And our traditions—largely established by Republican presidents—sanction it. Again, Maverick may have been winning an argument, but he was not winning enough votes.
On February 19 he was reported to be a member of a seven-man steering committee of a twenty-seven-man special House Judiciary Reform Group. Though he continued to make speeches in behalf of the measure through the next few months, the Southern Democrats prevented it from coming to the floor in the House. Despite the dim prospects, Maverick doggedly pursued the objective, and in May, when young Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in to fill the seat from the Tenth Texas District, Maverick shouted, "Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just sworn in, Mr. Lyndon Johnson, supported the President's judiciary plan and was overwhelmingly elected.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee reported unfavorably on the bill on June 14 and Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson died the same day, the measure was for all practical purposes abandoned.
Though the Supreme Court soon began to sustain New Deal measures, and older members died or resigned, Maverick's enthusiasm was at best guarded. He continued to urge that the Supreme Court should "withdraw from the economic and legislative fields and confine itself to the protection of liberties of the people." In a similar vein he wrote: "The reason I say this is that I believe this country is passing through a major institutional and constitutional phase, just as England has passed through several such major phases in its history. I do not pretend to give any absolute chart of what the future evolution should be; but I am quite certain that the Supreme Court should withdraw, or be forced to withdraw, from the field of legislative policy. That they should ever have declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional will someday be considered fantastic.
A few days after he had introduced the president's proposal, Maverick and Senator Hugo L. Black appeared on the NBC network radio program "Town Meeting of the Air" to debate the proposal with William H. King and Frederick H. Wood, the winning attorney in the NRA, Guffey coal, and Gold Clause cases, Maverick led off the discussion with the argument that the checks on the Supreme Court were inadequate for the occasion and that the framers of the Constitution had left the determination of the number of justices to the Congress and the president in order to provide adequate checks when they were needed. Maverick argued that the older justices would retire if they followed the best opinion of their own profession, and he cited historical examples to demonstrate that changes in the number of members of the Supreme Court had been made several times before. He also pointed out that since interpretation of the Constitution varies with the changes in the personnel of the Court, presidents and Senates have always concerned themselves with the general attitudes of men appointed to the Court. He concluded, "Such considerations are thoroughly moral, and thoroughly constitutional. And our traditions—largely established by Republican presidents—sanction it. Again, Maverick may have been winning an argument, but he was not winning enough votes.
On February 19 he was reported to be a member of a seven-man steering committee of a twenty-seven-man special House Judiciary Reform Group. Though he continued to make speeches in behalf of the measure through the next few months, the Southern Democrats prevented it from coming to the floor in the House. Despite the dim prospects, Maverick doggedly pursued the objective, and in May, when young Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in to fill the seat from the Tenth Texas District, Maverick shouted, "Mr Speaker, the gentleman just sworn in, Mr. Lyndon Johnson, supported the President's judiciary plan and was overwhelmingly elected.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee reported unfavorably on the bill on June 14 and Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson died the same day, the measure was for all practical purposes abandoned.
Though the Supreme Court soon began to sustain New Deal measures, and older members died or resigned, Maverick's enthusiasm was at best guarded. He continued to urge that the Supreme Court should "withdraw from the economic and legislative fields and confine itself to the protection of liberties of the people." In a similar vein he wrote: "The reason I say this is that I believe this country is passing through a major institutional and constitutional phase, just as England has passed through several such major phases in its history. I do not pretend to give any absolute chart of what the future evolution should be; but I am quite certain that the Supreme Court should withdraw, or be forced to withdraw, from the field of legislative policy. That they should ever have declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional will someday be considered fantastic.
Maverick himself reported that the story in Washington was that several senators had politely advised members of the Supreme Court that they had best change some of their opinions or the Court "would surely get packed." Though he would not vouch for such stories, Maverick noted that changes had taken place, and the president's fight had seemingly been won. On the other hand, he continued to have misgivings in 1939. He argued that the question had not been settled and that it should be. He wrote, "Therefore, the issue will inevitably bob up again. As the public forgets, the judges may change their opinions again, enter the field of legislation, and declare laws unconstitutional merely because they do not like them.
Maverick should not be misunderstood. He opposed, almost exclusively, the power of the Court to find social and economic policies unconstitutional. When critics expressed fears that Congress would override personal liberties, Maverick said that he shared their fears, but then explained that in the first place the court had been of little help: "The answer is . . . if you look at the cases on sedition, espionage and the rest, that the courts declared pretty nearly every silly law constitutional during and following the World War. There was not much protection of civil liberties in the country. . . . You might take the trouble to study the judicial system of England where no such powers are exercised and where the judiciary is held in equal if not superior respect to the judiciary of our country.
Indeed, Maverick's argument was that the Supreme Court should confine itself to enforcing the "specific prohibitions" against violations of civil liberties. There were no such prohibitions, he said, "against making legislation for economic and social ends." The Court should be the final arbiter of questions involving the "arbitrary use either of government or private power, for the protection of individuals." Striking down laws for "health, hours of labor, safety, unemployment insurance and Social Security" often "reverses the purpose of the Constitution." He concluded with the prediction that the Court's invalidating of laws regulating business in the public interest, under the guise of protecting individual rights or states' rights, would one day be looked upon as "an example of the curious perversions of logic of the Middle Ages." Thus Maverick, in 1937, essentially anticipated the argument presented by two constitutional scholars who wrote in 1959: "It is still relevant to ask whether a politically irresponsible body, such as the Supreme Court, can block the will of the majority in the name of minorities and still remain a democratic institution. When the minority rights protected are those of property, the answer is probably 'no.' Between 1890 and 1937, the Supreme Court actually retarded the growth of democracy. When, on the other hand, judicial review serves to give a minority, otherwise barred, access to the political process, it implements rather than limits free government."
In a speech in Boston in April, Maverick gave a detailed examination of all cases in which the Supreme Court had reviewed legislation that threatened or denied civil liberties. After the recital he said, "There is not a single case on record of the High Court knocking out a Federal law, or declaring it unconstitutional, on a basis of its violating civil and religious liberties." In concluding his speech, Maverick indicated that he was not too sanguine about the prospects for passage of the Court reorganization bill by giving three things that he though the "present controversy" would accomplish: first, it would "inform the American mind" and eliminate the tendency to make a taboo of the Supreme Court; second, it would remove from the judge's mind "his own taboo that he can settle social problems with pen and ink"; and third, "the Court will cease to become a super-Congress and a super-President, and will confine itself to judicial duties." As Maverick defined the duties of the Supreme Court, this essentially what has occurred.
In addition to the general civil rights measure that he had been working with for two years, Maverick somehow found the time to fight a number of other battles in his personal war on behalf of civil rights and civil liberties. He had an early baptism in the struggle against loyalty oaths, which were to create such a furor in the 1950's. His encounter with what became known as the "red rider" began in 1935. The appropriation bill for the District of Columbia slipped through the House with such a provision that went unnoticed, though it was read by the clerk. This section of the bill stated that no money could be paid to persons who taught or advocated communism. In pursuance of this section, the comptroller general prescribed an oath to be taken by teachers on each per day to ensure compliance with the terms of the law.
Early in November 1935, before much notice had been given to the "red rider," Maverick sought the help of the Legislative Reference Service in the Library of Congress with some research into the matter. He built up a file of materials against such a requirement and wrote letters to anyone who could help him to fight it. The New York Herald Tribune soon lashed out editorially at this piece of "intellectual lynching" that had, the paper said, put an "appropriate seal of imbecility upon all this sort of heresy-hunting legislation." At his first opportunity, Maverick demonstrated the "sense of strategy" and "canny estimate of the weak spots in the opposition" that Roger Baldwin had attributed to him in a speech to the Press Association of Virginia on January 17, 1936. In this talk, which Maverick had printed in the Congressional Record, he adopted the practical approach of questioning the efficacy of oaths. He pointed out to his audience that our Revolutionary War leaders had taken oats to support the king of England, that his own grandfather (Sam Maverick) had been pardoned for treason against the United States, and that Robert E. Lee had spent "40 years on the payroll of the United States," and had then "revolted!" He used these audacious, shrewdly chosen reminders to illustrate his sweeping contention that "oats make no difference whatever" when it comes to maintaining loyalty.
When the "red rider" was mentioned in debate on May 4, 1936, Maverick gave a scathing denunciation in which he said that he could not find an instance in the history for the world in which a person had to give "oath after oath that one has kept an oath. No parallel to 'red rider,' even in nations where liberty does not exist or in the most benighted nations on earth, can be found." Maverick's chief opponent in his efforts to repeal the "red rider" was his enemy, Texas Representative Tom Blanton, and it was predicted that Blanton would use every parliamentary maneuver to block repeal efforts. But Maverick did not have to worry about Blanton. When the time came to consider the District of Columbia appropriation measure in 1937, Blanton had been defeated in the 1936 primary.
Though Maverick might have been expected to introduce the measure to repeal the "red rider," the explanation as to why he did not was to be found in his letter to the Baltimore Sun saying that, though he would have been glad to do so, Representative Ambrose J. Kennedy of Maryland would introduce such a bill. Maverick said that Kennedy was "unassuming" and did not get much publicity, but that he should and this was his opportunity. Maverick said further: "In my district it was made an issue. I was accused of permitting the teaching of communism, and people paid no attention to it whatever. Inasmuch as the issue has been presented to my people, and they are ordinary, average Americans, it would seem to me that it more or less represents a mandate that the bill be repealed. . . . I suggest you call up Mr. Kennedy, because he is not given much to making statements unless they are pulled out of him." In view of the fact that Maverick repeatedly denounced the "red rider," and no one would have ever accused him of being bashful, it would appear that he was genuinely interested in boosting a like-minded colleague.
The measure (H.R. 148) did not reach the floor of the House until February 8, 1937. Maury used this occasion to attack "fake, racketeering organizations in Washington" that had supported the oath requirement. He said, "You don't have to join a club or society that professes moral uplift or patriotism to be decent or patriotic." He belonged to the Sons of the American Revolution himself, but he did not consider this fact to be of any relevance in questions of loyalty. The oath requirement, he told his colleagues, was "the most barbaric law that was ever instituted in the mind of man," and that if they did not vote to defeat it they would be "adopting the principles of communism and fascism to show that we are a democracy." The oath requirement was repealed, but Maverick was not satisfied until he saw the final passage of the appropriations measure when it came from conference on May 24 without a "red rider" provision.
Maury Maverick amazed and enraged Southern representatives and delighted northern liberals when, at the opening of his second term in Congress, he announced that he was strongly in favor of an antilynching law. The New York Enquirer called his stand a "commendable" one, and the Boston Chronicle hailed him as on the of "enlightened minds of the South." The Amsterdam (New York City) News featured an editorial cartoon depicting Maverick in cowboy garb putting the match to a trash can labeled "age-old lynch law."
When the Gavagan Anti-Lynch bill came before the House in April, Maverick not only announced that he was going to vote for the measure, but he also made a lengthy speech in support of it. He told his colleagues that he did not expect to get any Negro votes as a result of his stand. "In my district the colored people do not vote (in the primary), and if they did they would probably vote against me. . . . I am doing it because I think it is right, and because it will take a stigma from the escutcheon of the United States of America." He argued that the measure was needed for all American, not merely Negroes. Then, after giving his fellow Congressmen a scholarly discourse on the history of slavery and the causes of the Civil War, he concluded, "Whereas we speak of States' rights and the Constitution, we must know that the Constitution was written by the people for all the people of the United States. We want everyone to get decent treatment. We want the Negro to have economic justice just as much as we want the white man to have justice." Many years later he revealed that one of the authors of the bill told him at the time, "Vote against it—don't be a fool. (I represent Harlem)."
Virginius Dabney hailed Maverick as courageous, the only Southern Democrat who voted for the measure as it went down to defeat by a vote of 277 to 119, but Maverick later told an audience that it was not a matter of bravery—that he received only seven letters as a result of his action, one from a friend, "a colored mail clerk." He candidly stated that he did not think that the measure was workable and that he voted for the bill "as a gesture." He then urged that his general civil rights measure would be more effective in dealing with the problem. As he said in his first book: "It is then apparent that an act must be made to cover the whole subject of the constitutional civil liberties. It should guarantee that no man, White or Negro, shall be lynched, or beaten to death by rangers, local police, sheriffs or 'special officers.' And we must have not merely a regional or state interpretation of the Constitution, but a national one. A right is right, whether that citizen is blue, green, lavender, or even yellow."
While he was fighting the "red rider" and supporting an antilynch bill, Maverick was also determined to head off the establishment of a Committee on Un-American Activities. While others questioned the legitimacy of purpose from the standpoint of the amount of legislation that such investigations had produced in the past, Maverick bluntly charged:
This is nothing but a witch-hunt, that is all it is. The last time they were hunting Communists. This time they are going to hunt Fascists. . . .
Mr. Speaker, seriously, this is a dangerous thing. The resolution goes on to say:
"Slanderous or libelous un-American propaganda of religious, racial or subversive political prejudices."
That covers everything on the face of the earth.
Let the proponents of the bill beware. It may be a boomerang of intolerance, and return to curse those who favor it. Kill this resolution. Cut it down.
And kill it they did, by a vote of 184 to 38.
Representative Samuel Dickstein (D.-N.Y.), who had sponsored the Un-American Activities Committee measure, also offered a bill designed to make subject to deportation any alien who used any "propaganda" critical of various races, religions, and the United States government, or who tended to "foment political acrimony and business animosity in the United States." Maverick was appalled. After the Texan was joined by several conservative critics of the bill, Dickstein agreed to eliminate part of it, but Maverick said that was not enough; the whole bill should be defeated. Representative Rankin agreed that the measure was a "legislative monstrosity," and Maverick administered the coup de grâce with, "This is actually the worst bill that was ever introduced in any legislative body in the whole world [laughter and applause]." Dickstein himself asked that the bill be recommitteed!
No issue of individual rights was too small for Maverick's attention. On May 27 he brought about the defeat of two amendments to an appropriations bill by using one of his favorite weapons, ridicule. One of the amendments would have prohibited people on relief or WPA work from "parading" or criticizing Congress. Maury asked, "What are we? Are we a House of Lords, back in 1500, to tell people that they cannot parade, that they cannot strike? Are we the Lord High and Mighty of the Privy Council? We must be going crazy to even listen to things like that [laughter and applause]. " With that amendment safely out of the way, Maverick next tackled one designed to take resident aliens off the relief rolls or WPA employment. "Let us be sensible and humane," he said. "We take a condemned murderer and feed him well." The amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 116 to 112.
No matter what the topic might be of the many public speeches that Maverick made in 1937, his eloquent pleas for the maximum defense of civil liberties would creep in. In November, the Dallas News reported a series of accusations of denials of civil liberties in Dallas that had been made by Maverick in a San Antonio speech. A man had been tarred and feathered for speaking on a "subject which may lawfully be discussed," several men had been beaten on the suspicion that they were CIO organizers, and a man had been "howled down from the platform" while under the "professed protection of the city police." The Dallas News said that Maverick's charges were substantially true and then concluded, "If you get any pride out of conditions in this connection, you are easily puffed up.
In 1937 Maverick was for the first time, in his own apt phrase, "with book." In May the Saturday Review of Literature pictured two young authors lunching with Pascal Covici, their publisher—Maury Maverick and John Steinbeck. Maverick's A Maverick American was soon to be published, and Steinbeck was the New York to "dramatize" his book Of Mice and Men.
Most reviewers of the work that tumbled out of the Texas congressman's churning brain in 1937 quickly gave up trying to find a label—it was no more susceptible of labeling than the man who wrote it. Maverick, in characteristic fashion, had started the book with a first chapter titled "Approximately a Preface," in which he freely admitted that he "got everybody's help, ranging from policemen and gas station operators up to—I almost said the Supreme Court." Among his major helpers were his "main braintruster," Leon Pearson, and Leon Henderson. It is possible to describe the book, after a fashion. It is a semiautobiographical vehicle for the presentation of Maverick's hopes and prescriptions for a land where people work and play in freedom—freedom from want as well as the more conventional civil rights and civil liberties.
Time called the bestseller a "rambling, engaging, man-to-man discourse," written by a "literate legislator" who was the "most reconstructed Southerner in Congress." Heywood Broun called it "one of the most engrossing books ever to come from a public figure." Though he did not feel that Maverick could qualify as a "prose master," Broun did say that his war chapters "remain with me as among the most vivid I know." An unsigned Washington Times in the very deep shade." Herbert Little said, "His description of the World War engagement in which he was wounded is a high point of descriptive writing. . . . The description of is own demagogic attack on a political opponent is a jewel in the Mark Twain tradition.
The late Senator Richard L. Neuberger, then a journalist, called this maverick work "one of the most important books of the year," and an English reviewer referred to the author as a "clear-thinking, courageous man" who had written "an important book; one that I would recommend to anybody desiring to understand the conflicts, complexities, paradoxes, hopes and possibilities of America in the Nineteen-thirties." He said that Maury's passages on war were "well worth pondering for their philosophical overtones."
A rare uncomplimentary review appeared in the Washington Star. Mary Carter Roberts said that the book represented an "exposition of our political psychology," and that it was a "vivid demonstration of how Americans have trained their representatives in government to make profundities out of the obvious and to bring forth the platitude with all the triumph commonly appertaining to the epigram." Perhaps the most complimentary remarks on the book (and something of an answer to Roberts' criticism) were written for the Book-of-the-Month Club's news sheet by Broun, who said, ". . . people may say he has done little more than accept many of the ideas of the old line radicals and put them into new terminology. But 'little' is hardly the appropriate word, for Maverick has gone a great distance in accomplishing the important task of stating age-old philosophies, sometimes called alien, in terms of the American language.
Whatever the literary merits of Maverick's brainchild, the book was bound to be significant and influential. In addition to the reviews cited, it may be noted that the volume narrowly missed being a Book-of-the-Month selection and that it was serialized in the Philadelphia Record and the New York Post beginning September 13, 1937. President Roosevelt thanked Maverick for sending him a copy and vowed that he would read it.
The one legislative achievement of 1937 for which Maverick expressed the greatest pride involved little in the way of dramatic and bold speeches or parliamentary maneuvering, but there was opposition, and he was credited with carrying the day.
In June 1937 he offered a bill (H.R. 6767) to provide "cancer research, the training of technicians and the establishment of a central cancer clinic," and said, "If this bill is adopted we can truly say we have done a service to humanity." Maury Maverick made no claim of originality in presenting the bill; he credited Dr. Dudley Jackson, a San Antonio surgeon, with interesting him in the matter and with providing him with information necessary to drawing up the bill. Newspapers referred to the measure as the Maverick Cancer Bill, but this was not strictly correct. Three measures had been introduced in all, but they seemed to have died in the Interstate Commerce Committee. Maverick's personal contribution was to wage a relentless publicity campaign, including a national network speech, in order to get some action. As a result of his pressures the chairman of the committee granted a hearing on the bills. Maverick then arranged for the appearances of various witnesses in behalf of the measure.
The bill eventually reported out of the committee bore the name of Representative Alfred L. Bulwinkle (D.-N.C.), and it did not include the hospital for which Maverick's measure had provided, but he urged passage anyway. When the victory came on July 23, it was Maverick who was credited with having "won a long and aggressive campaign" for a cancer research institute for the United States, the world-famous National Cancer Research Institute at Bethesda, Maryland.
In this 1937 session, Maverick continued to champion the cause of labor, organized and unorganized. He was one of the most outspoken supporters of a minimum-wage law in the House, and he was particularly harsh in his judgments of Southern opposition to such legislation. He said that businessmen too often followed the philosophy that anyone is justified in doing whatever is not contrary to law—this was the reason minimum-wage laws were necessary. With uncommon daring for a Southern representative, of Nashville, Tennessee, as one of "the worst labor haters in America." According to Maverick, Edgerton had told a House committee that the question as to whether a family could live on sixteen dollars a week was irrelevant to the minimum-wage bill. When the crowd laughed, said Maverick, Edgerton "smugged into a contemptuous smirk and spoke of his church work."
Maverick's statements in behalf of minimum-wage legislation were like those he offered on other issues—carefully drawn and documented. He gave statistical comparisons of the executive salaries and the workers' wages in selected industries and said that he had found wages as low as four cents an hour. "I am not opposed to high salaries," he said. "I believe that people should be allowed to make money. But I also believe that there should be a minimum standard of decency." In the final unsuccessful attempt to pass such a bill at the close of the 1937 special session, he told his Southern colleagues that "if a black man does the same work as a white man, he ought to receive the same pay." He said that the Texas AFL had wired him to support a substitute measure, but he was not going to do it. He called attention to the astonishingly low wages paid to pecan shellers in San Antonio—an average of $1.29 a week!
There were votes to be had in Maverick's support of a minimum-wage law, but relatively few could be expected from his support of organized labor. Circumspect politicians thought it foolhardy for Maverick to go all out for organized labor, particularly the CIO, but he did not care what they thought. He flaunted his labor associations and friendships before the people of his essentially anti-labor region, state, and district. He did not deny having said, "When I ran for Congress, I was opposed to lobbyists, and I still am opposed to them. But whenever a labor lobbyist comes into my office, I greet him with open arms."
Maury Maverick's friendly associations with organized labor dated from his earliest days in politics, but in the 1937 session his stands in matters of labor strife focused greater attention upon his outspoken and daring position. In February he castigated General Motors for interfering with the activities of the National Labor Relations Board. He said that the company had used OGPU methods like the Russians and "spies with criminal records, rascals and racketeers to prevent the workers from even having an election to determine who is to represent them." "Like Bourbons who never learn anything, they add insult to injury and declare a dividend, when production has stopped . . . during the bitterest strike in American history." Maverick bluntly warned that if there was violence it would be the fault of industrial leaders and not labor.
The speech that probably hurt Maverick most with his constituents was given on June 5, 1937, to the United Auto Workers in Detroit. He had a habit of pumping his right arm upward with his fist clenched as he made a major point. A wire-service photographer caught him with the arm at full length in a Mussolini-like stance as he belabored big business and praised labor for creating the circumstances in which "free-born Americans . . . can live without fear of company police, spies, hired thugs, murderers and private armies." He told the cheering mass of auto workers, "I want you to know in the first place that down my way labor is not very well organized; labor is not very well organized anywhere in the South. But let us get organized North, South, East and West. . . for the purpose of preserving American liberty and the American standard of living." When Maverick mentioned the name of William Green, leader of the rival AFL, the crowd booed, but he told them they had no business booing—"We are trying to build America" and are not "fighting any labor organization." The boos changed to loud applause.
Maverick clearly did not want to be cast as an extremist in his support of organized labor. A student asked him in 1937 how long labor unrest would last. Maverick expressed the opinion that it would be four or five years. The student asked, "And who is going to protect capital when labor gets the upper hand?" "Labor," Maverick replied. "This may appear paradoxical, but the working people know that if they destroy the capitalists, they destroy themselves."
The violence of which Maverick had spoken in the House was not long in coming, and when it did come, he leaped to the defense of the workers. Angry and truculent, he declared, "Over there in Chicago, nine men, something like six blocks from a steel plant, were attacked by the police and nine of them were murdered; and we stand here and not a soul has said a word about those nine free-born Americans who were murdered out there in cold blood. All we do is to spend our time criticizing organized labor." A week later he came back to the floor with the most scorching blast he had ever delivered there. He said he had seen the films of the violence in the Chicago strike and that he had learned that the police killed ten men, and he had watched a policeman beat one of the felled union pickets. This was the time of the highly controversial sit-down strikes, precursors of the sit-ins of the 1960's, and Maverick was referring to the notorious incident on Memorial Day of 1937 at the Republic Steel Plant.
Maverick singled out veteran Congressman Eugene Cox (D.-Ga.) for a tongue-lashing because of his "hysterical" and "provocative" statements against labor and for his "unfair" and "wholly unwarranted" attack on Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. Maverick said, "Sometimes I am called a left-winger, sometimes a liberal, sometimes worse; but who is calling for blood and violence? Why, gentlemen, they are those who prate about the preservation of the Constitution, those who carry their patriotism on their sleeves, the ones who call themselves conservatives and wrap themselves in the flag." Seven of the ten men, he said, had been shot in the back. It was "one of the bloodiest and most shameful pages in American history," and no conservative had spoken out. "I am disappointed that a Democrat, a gentleman from the South, a conservative, should act in such a manner."
The acid response of Representative Cox was to the effect that he knew Maverick was patriotic and therefore the only conclusion he could draw was that the Texan was not serious but "interested only in provoking amusement by his extravagance and buffoonery." Maverick leaped to his feet and demanded that Cox's remark be "taken down" and thus stricken from the Congressional Record. The House voted against Maverick's motion, but Cox was not satisfied. He went on to express the hope that Maverick believed in some form of government and had not "become wholly Russian-ized, and that John L. Lewis is not in fact his candidate for the Presidency in 1940." When Maverick demanded that the statement be taken down, Cox laughed and withdrew it.
Cox then proceeded to taunt the angry Maverick with such questions as did he collaborate with John L. Lewis in shaping his official conduct in the House and was he in sympathy with the CIO and its effort to terrorize industry? Cox then implied that Maverick could not give an honest answer. Whe Maverick asked for time to anser, Republican Representative Rich, whom Ma erick had once defended in his right to criticize Democrats, deferred time to the Texan. Maverick then told Cox that the questions were of the have-you-quit-beating-your-wife variety, and, turning Cox's original attack back upon him, Maverick said that the Georgia congressman did not seek answers to his questions, but had asked them for purposes of "insult and display" and his own "peculiar satisfaction." Turning to his colleagues, Maverick said, "We have heard enough of bitter personalities for the time being. The people of this country would rather see us do our duty and carry out the promises of the Democratic Party [applause].
Most newspapers gave the story straight treatment, and the worst one might have gathered from such stories was that House members thought that Maverick, in this instance, should have taken it as well as he dished it out. But he was given shabby treatment in the San Antonio Express, which headlined the affair on the front page, "Maury Buffoon, Congressmen's Votes Decide." Mrs. Maverick jotted above her clipping: "The following is another example of the loyalty the S.A. Express has to the home town boy. If they ever said anything good about us we might die with amazement. We've gotten along this far without 'em. O.K. by us." William Allen White wrote that the "spanking" of Maverick was not justified and that the language of Cox was "intemperate." He said that the House had "rebuked and insulted a patriot. It should have granted to a young man the intemperance of his convictions. It might have tried moral suasion rather than a hot-handed spanking." The New York Times simply called the action an "unnecessary insult."
The most friendly supporter of Maverick, however, could not help but come to the conclusion, after a careful examination of his career, that his readiness to say what he thought on almost any subject would make him a likely candidate to write a book on how to lose friends and alienate people. His scrupulous honesty and fairness, on the other hand, could win many of them back. His activities in 1937 were replete with such examples, some of them already treated. Early in the year he said bluntly, "I see no reason to break precedent, and I am not for the President in 1940. There ought to be somewhere . . . a progressive, honest Democrat to lead the party next time." As Time put it, Maverick was no sycophant either to Franklin Roosevelt or the C.I.O."
Indeed, when either the AFL or CIO thought it had his uncritical support he would confound either of them. He had upbraided the United Auto Workers when they booed AFL's William Green, and when he saw a letter from the president of the Auto Workers, Homer Martin, which told Members of the House who voted against the wage and hour bill that their "unfavorable vote [would] not be forgotten next year," he said that Martin "had better learn a little manners," that his letter was "indiscreet" and that "information fairly presented is more effective."
Maury's subsequent lecture to William Green, president of the AFL, was to plague the Texas congressman later. When he learned that every member of the House had received a wire from Green urging that they defeat the minimum wage law, he read the following response to Green into the Record, "Your attitude is taken upon the basis that the exact wording of the 'American Federation of Labor bill' has not been adopted by Congress. Where I must make a decision, even though I run the risk of the displeasure of the highest figures in America, I do it unhesitatingly." Maverick went on to tell Green that the AFL measure was too riding and probably would be found unconstitutional. Moreover, Maverick said, the rank and file of labor was "deeply dissatisfied" by the split in organized labor and wanted unity. He concluded that members of Congress were expected "to do our duty according to our consciences and judgment. I have made my decision, believing it to be right, and will take the responsibility just as you will for yours." Later events proved that Green never forgave Maverick for the lecture.
More of Maury's "winning ways" could be seen in his statement in support of the Wagner-Steagall housing bill in which he said, "The housing in my city in the slum areas is as bad as any city in the United States of America." On the same subject, he commented that "two-thirds of the buildings" in Baltimore should be torn down.
One of Maverick's favorite whipping boys at this time was the American Bar Association—and conservative lawyers generally. In various speeches he characterized the association as "a reactionary force in American life," and as "stupid, undemocratic and behind the times in its attitude toward social legislation." Interestingly enough, the conservative Dallas News commented that though Maury's attack was "something less than a reasoned and balanced appraisal, . . . if the bar associations, in their attitude on social legislation, represented the views of the average lawyer instead of those who are ultra-conservative, there probably would be little occasion for such attacks as that of Representative Maverick." The Literary Digest also expressed the opinion that "probably there are few more conservative organizations than the A.B.A." in an article on the organization of the rival National Lawyers Guild on December 22, 1936, Maverick was pictured at the meeting as having "denounced the old order" and "doffed his hat to the head of the new group," John Patrick Devaney, former chief justice of Minnesota.
Maverick managed to get himself into a major donnybrook when he took on the lawyers at a meeting of the Harvard Club in Washington. In his address entitled "College Men and Their Lack of Education," he said that all he had heard about liberty in Washington had been said by high-priced lawyers who were promoting liberty for corporations. He wanted to hear some of them speak up for academic liberty or freedom of speech. "Lawyers," he said, "had expanded in influence only as corporations had grown in size."
Then the chairman, a Harvard law school graduate who practiced locally, arose, livid with rage.
Inasmuch as Maverick had criticized university men and suggested they were prejudiced, the chairman said, the usual period for questions to and answers from the speaker would be omitted.
Maverick stood up and said he didn't care what the club did, but if he were going to be treated with discourtesy, he wanted everyone to understand that he knew it.
The meeting then became a turmoil and the cry, "We want Maverick," was overwhelming.
Maverick spoke again, questions were raised and answered, and the secretary of the club apologized to Maverick. Shortly thereafter, Frederick Delano and others got the chairman in a corner and made him apologize to Maverick.
Maverick's sheer audacity and candor were often captivating to audiences. On another occasion he was reported to have "held a large audience of hard-boiled businessmen spellbound" at the Economic Club of New York City. They insisted that the rules of the club be broken so that he could speak longer and then asked him to speak again. Edwin C. Hill reported how he was charmed by Maverick's refreshing approach to a newsman: "I am a propagandist,' he said, 'and I want to make you believe in it. Maybe you don't like it, but if you do, I want you to write it up and help me get it passed. When can I see you and tell you about it?' Maverick worked like that with newspapermen, never with a buried ace, and he got a full and friendly hearing for all his stuff."
Humor as well as candor, or both combined, served to take some of the sting out of Maverick's barbs or to disarm some of his adversaries. He opened a speech in the House once with the remark that "anyone who wishes to sleep or rest during my address may do so. But I shall appreciate it if gentlemen who are talking loudly will go outside, so that the rest can sleep if they wish." When military appropriations were under discussion he displayed some of the candor that endeared him to newsmen who were so accustomed to political pettifoggery. He said, ". . . if there is going to be any building I want to see some of the building in my own district, and you will understand this is the reason I am talking [laughter]." Again, after a disjointed speech, he admitted by implication something that most congressmen would never admit when he said, "Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may revise, extend, illuminate and eliminate certain portions of my remarks [laughter]." The Speaker dropped the formalities long enough to agree that Maverick could indeed "eliminate" as well as "illuminate" certain of his remarks. Many citizens are not aware of the fact that members of Congress are provided with transcripts of their remarks on the floor, and that the members are permitted to, as one writer put it, "sanitize" their remarks. Usually this procedure involves cleaning up the grammar and the like, but some members may indeed "eliminate" and "illuminate" parts of the substance of what they said before it is printed in the Congressional Record.
Maverick saw it as no breach of etiquette when he went over to Virginia one day and ridiculed the conservatism of both of its United States Senators, Glass and Byrd, before a meeting of the Jeffersonian Club of Elizabeth City County. A quotation from a local newspaper indicates that his audience enjoyed it as much as he did: "Pointing to the flag of Virginia, Representative Maverick remarked: 'I see that the man [fallen tyrant] lying there under the foot of the lady has curly hair. He looks like Senator Byrd.' There was an outburst of laughter." Another Virginia paper praised Maverick for his "courageous bluntness" on this occasion and predicted that he would "achieve great heights in the American political scene."
The press had a field day and the upper crust winced when Maury Maverick entered a contest sponsored by the "hors d'oeuvres reform committee," inspired by a midwestern hotel man who had put up a loving cup as a prize for the person who came up with the best name to replace the term hors d'oeuvers.. Maverick seized the opportunity to attack French menus and to offer the suggestion that the appetizers be called "dingle doos." Newspapers as far away as Fargo, North Dakota, chortled editorially at this latest it of Maverick antics. But famed restauranteur George Rector had the last word when he wired to Maverick the suggestion that the new name be mavericks. He said, "A maverick is something that does not belong anywhere in particular and any man can put his brand on it if he can catch it. And that fits the old-time free lunch as well as the fancy appetizers in the fanciest hotel in the country. Well, why not?" If Maverick responded, it has not come to light.
As someone once remarked, Maverick was not an insurgent Democrat, he was an insurgent insurgent. From the occasional digs and prods of 1936, he moved into mounting and increasingly sharp attacks on what he considered to be a flagging New Deal leadership in 1937.
In May 1937 Stanley High, a senior editor of the Reader's Digest, wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post entitled, "The Neo-New Dealers," in which he asserted, "Undoubtedly, the moving spirit, guiding genius and general out-in-front man for this bloc is Maury Maverick." Walter Lippmann, criticizing Maverick's attack on the Supreme Court, wrote, "Mr. Maverick is very representative indeed of the little group of bold and reckless men who have been setting the pace for the President in the past few months."
Newspapers at the time referred to the organization of a Maverick group, but this was essentially the same group that Maverick had led from the 1935 session on—it was simply a matter of renewed interest and attention being directed toward it as it grew more critical of the lagging program of the New Deal. Estimates of the size of the group ranged from forty to a hundred, but this was usually based upon fluctuations in attendance at the meetings held in several Washington restaurants during the latter part of 1937. The best evidence indicates that there were about thirty to forty hard-core Mavericks who could rally additional support varying with the issue that was before the House. Maury Maverick was now the chairman and Thomas R. Amlie, Wisconsin Progressive, served as secretary.
What did these Mavericks want? Maury pushed for all kinds of remedial and reform legislation, but the program he announced as spokesman for his "colleagues" in April of 1937 included:
1. Every "willing worker" had a right to a job.
2. Public works projects of all kinds must be expedited.
3. A Department of Public Welfare should be established.
4. Low-cost housing must be provided.
5. Increased taxes based upon the ability to pay should be used to balance the budget.
Maverick told his House colleagues that the group had been meeting for some time to formulate their program, and, in the belief that the program represented the views of a hundred House members, he was submitting it to the public in their behalf.
Most of the Maverick program was consistent with administration proposals, but Maverick and his crew felt that leaders were beginning to play it safe and drag their feet. In May he asked who would be the next candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency and then speculated that it might be Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, because Wallace was "becoming very respectable of late. Where is the farm-tenancy bill? Where is essential legislation for the farmers?" After considering other presidential prospects, Maverick indicated that he might be doing no more than having a bit of sport, but he urged his fellow Democrats to get together, have a few caucuses, and get on with the needed legislation.
Maverick caused Democratic leaders to shudder and confounded his critics when he called for an investigation of charges of political favoritism and excessive costs in the administration of the relief program and WPA. Though the resolution was defeated by a voice vote, Maverick received favorable editorial comment from papers across the nation. The Peoria (Ill.) Journal Transcript, after expressing astonishment that Maverick should have made such a proposal, said that Congress was "duty bound" to approve it. The forthright Texan said later, in a second attempt to win support for his resolution, that the investigation was necessary to meet criticisms. He said he had been receiving letters concerning graft and the like in the programs.
Maverick was increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of the leaders. On the day that the house voted on his resolution to investigate the relief program and WPA, Democratic leaders sought unanimous consent to expedite a measure sought by FDR, designed to establish a Joint Committee on Tax Evasion and Avoidance. Maverick exploded, "What is the hurry? . . . So far as I am concerned, I am tired of bills being presented with some mysterious reason why I should do something. I want to know the real reason. This is supposed to be a parliamentary body, not a door mat [applause]." The measure was temporarily blocked until it was given more conventional consideration.
The defeat of his investigation resolution a few days earlier by a voice vote may have been the basis for another challenge to the leaders when Maverick proposed that a voting machine be installed in the House. He said that voting behavior would be liberalized if the members had to go on record when every vote was taken in the House. Again, he had no success, but newspapers throughout the United States applauded his attempt.
The press gave the impression that some kind of a showdown was in the making between the Mavericks and FDR himself when the president invited Democratic congressmen to a weekend conference at a retreat called the Jefferson Island Rod and Gun Club, on a tiny island in the Chesapeake Bay about fifteen miles from Washington. Republican Representative Rich was somewhat closer to the truth when he kidded his Democratic colleagues about the invitations. He said that Roosevelt was going to get them down to Jefferson Island to tell them how he wanted them to be rubber stamps.
The next day, June 22, the Washington Herald described a warm-up session: "Representative Maury Maverick is planning to discharge his Texan oratorical gunfire against those Democrats in Congress who have turned against the New Deal. Announcing his subject as "Revolt of the Palace Guards,' with the subtitle of 'It Looks Like Landon Got Elected,' the fiery Texan will speak Thursday night at the Rockdale Restaurant, 1735 F Street, N.W., the only consumer cooperative restaurant in the East outside of New York City."
Various reports during the next two days explained that the Jefferson Island meeting was being held because a number of Democrats in Congress had complained that Roosevelt was becoming aloof—he was not keeping proper liaison with his supporters on the Hill, and they were becoming restive at not being able to see him. Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen gave as another related reason Maury Maverick's complaint about measures being tossed at congressmen without notice. The preconference stories also pictured Maverick as prepared to talk turkey to Roosevelt concerning the need to forge ahead with the New Deal program. He was quoted as saying that he and thirty-nine Democrats in the House were going to urge the president to keep Congress in session "until January, if necessary" in order to get major bills passed. The insurgents were going on the trip not merely "for sociability or to get inspiration, but to tell the President just exactly what we think." Maverick's aim was also "an effort to make the House leadership return to belligerency."
The day before the island festivities the Philadelphia Record reprinted the program of the Mavericks and asserted that Harry Hopkins and Heywood Broun had met with them to "advise on policy and strategy." Maverick, chosen to head the delegation to speak to the president, said that Democrats opposing the New Deal should be "purged," or "kicked out." He not only called for giving Senator Carter Class of Virginia the boot, calling him a "disagreeable old bore," but said that his own Senator Tom Connally of Texas was "no more liberal than Glass."
On the day the conference opened, Friday, June 25, Raymond Clapper wrote that Maury Maverick, "leader of the New Dealers," had gone to the meeting to keep conservatives from persuading FDR to let his program go over to the next winter. Clapper predicted that Maverick would be unpopular at the meeting and that he would receive "dirty looks" from many Democrats. With his bent for the use of symbolic gimmicks, Maverick had even secured Democratic badges from the Democratic National Committee that, he tartly said, he was going to pin on Roosevelt men, if he could find any on the island.
But somewhere the first and fervor died or at least was considerably dampened. The picture of the meeting was one of "good fellowship, feasting and song," of "fishing, swimming and good clean fun." The smiling chief was inducted into the mock Demagogues Club of Congress by Texas Representative Martin Dies. The president asked if this was Maverick's organization of House progressives. Dies quickly demonstrated that he had the proper credentials for the organization by responding that the Maverick group was a CIO outfit while the Demagogues believed in "craft labor."
In his own report of what he was able to accomplish at the meeting, Maverick said that it was not good manners to tell the whole story, but that amidst the jokes, beer, songs, and "jollification," "I slipped up to the President and mumbled our message and here is where I cannot violate good manners. I cannot say what the President said; but it seemed to me he mumbled, in fact said, something very encouraging." But a bit of reflection must have given him some caution, for he had told reporters earlier that he had talked confidentially with the president and that his response was "we are going through." When reporters asked if that meant in the present session of Congress, Maverick replied, "The President is smart enough," and reused to discuss the matter further.
Whatever the case, Maverick's disappointment and disgruntlement with the results of the encounter seemed clear. In his own report he said that everyone at the conference was "a perfect gentleman, so perfect indeed, that no one said what they really thought," and that the meeting should have been called Ostrich Island because most of the congressmen "had our heads in the sand, when we were not talking of the weather, or telling jokes." One gathers that though the meeting was not a complete failure, Maverick got little support from his colleagues in attendance, he was himself not immune to the Roosevelt charm and the conviviality of the circumstances, and the encounter failed to live up to the advance billing of rebelliousness that newspapers had led the public, and perhaps Maverick himself, to expect. That this effort and others by Maverick was not a complete failure, however, is attested to by the fact that the Maverick bloc was able to win some victories and that a special session was called in November 1937 by Roosevelt.
The liberal press praised and encouraged Maverick's efforts to move the New Deal along. The Progressive said that he was one of the real leaders of the "progressive-liberal group," and that he filled the gap in the House "left vacant since former Representative Fiorello La Guardia retired." The Washington Daily News said that the liberal bloc had a "possible balance of power on closely divided issues, and in other situations it has a nuisance value which sometimes forces consideration of its ideas." Of Maverick the paper said, "Now as in the past he roams restlessly through the halls of Congress, conferring, promoting, making radio speeches, urging action on the President's program. He interviews reporters as much as they interview him, and publicly criticizes his colleagues from the South who have blocked the New Deal's new drives for legislation." And Jay Franklin wrote in the Washington Star that Congress had apparently become indifferent to farm legislation, which could cause a "CIO-like" movement among farmers, but "Southern statesmen like Hugo Black of Alabama and Maury Maverick of San Antonio sense the danger and are willing to take measures to combat it." Before the session of Congress was over, Time magazine reported that the passage of the Third Deficiency Appropriation Bill "included a victory for the House Liberal bloc headed by Texas' noisy Maury Maverick, who wanted $20,000,000 for an experimental Government farm tenancy program, $1,800,000 for the National Labor Relations Board, and got both."
As the regular session drew to a close, Maverick delivered a national radio network speech. "Congress Must Not Go Home," in which he urged that the representatives should stay on the job and produce legislation necessary to deal with minimum wages, housing, the Supreme Court's powers, tax loopholes, and other pressing matters. He said that the Gallup Poll indicated that 63 percent of the people wanted Congress to do these things. A few weeks later he launched a blistering attack upon the House Rules Committee for blocking key legislation, an attack that was to be expanded in the special session. He called the group the "dictator of the House," and declared, "It is grotesque and amazing for a civilized country that claims to have a democratic government" for the Rules Committee to exercise such power over the legislative process. The Philadelphia Record charged that Maverick's Texas colleague, Martin Dies, had "organized the cabal of reactionary Southern wage-and-hour legislation," but that Maury Maverick had "fought tooth and nail" against the "reactionism of his Texas colleagues."
No sooner had the special session of 1937 opened than Maverick was yelling again. He wondered at the strange goings on of the House of Representatives. He said that he had received no notification of a special session but had to read about it in the newspapers. He charged that the session was marked by no coordination, dilatory tactics, and unfair efforts to block Republicans from speaking, which he had voted against. He asked if this was to be known as the "great horseplay session of 1937." Again the Rules Committee was his prime target: "The Rules Committee is the Supreme Court in reverse. It is stronger than any dictator, and it tells us we cannot vote on a certain question. I talked to a friend of mine on the Rules Committee. He said, 'If you gentlemen will amend this bill, we will let it be brought to the floor and voted upon.' I ask you, is it the 'censor' committee or the Rules Committee? Has the Rules Committee any right to tell other communities how to write their bills?"
He argued that the Rules Committee, by virtue of a combination of Republicans and Southern Democrats, did not represent the Democratic party. He admitted that he had voted for the resolution providing for the difficult process of a petition of 218 signatures to force Rules Committee action, but he said, "To my shame and sorrow I did. . . . I now know better." He declared that there were too many gag rules in the House of Representatives, thereby diminishing its powers. He concluded, "To repeat, we much have party responsibility, must meet issues head-on—we Democrats. Else we get kicked out by the voters of American, which we would deserve [applause].
Maverick came back to the attack in December with what he called a nonpartisan speech on the lack of "responsibility" in the United States government. He proceeded to treat his colleagues to a long, scholarly discourse on the parliamentary system in Britain and various measures by which certain of its advantages might be achieved in our government. The speech elicited many serious questions from interested colleagues, but he could not win any support for his specific proposals. For example, he contended that since the Rules Committee's opposition to the wages and hours bill had been repudiated by the petition signed by 218 House members, the committee should resign as the British Cabinet would when its position was repudiated. He introduced resolutions to provide that only 145 signatures would be needed to discharge the committee of responsibility for a bill and to provide that the House emulate the House of Commons by having an interpellation or question period for members of the president's cabinet and other key officials to appear on the floor of Congress and answer questions put to them by the members. Again, Maverick won the votes of the press, but not those of the House.
Maverick saw a waning New Deal and appeared to be almost frantically trying to hold back the tide single-handedly. In another network radio address in November he charged the business community with the responsibility for bringing on a downturn in the economy through "Hoover talk." He said that when a little prosperity began to return the "monopolists raised prices, grabbed off unreasonable profits, and left the public to hold the bag. Indeed, what happened is simple: farm income, and city wages, industrial and white collar, were not sufficient to buy all the goods at these exorbitant prices." Hence inventories were up and the stock market was down. These were the results, too, of a failure to enact farm, and wage and hour legislation.
As the special session came to an end, Maverick said that the failure to enact a wage and hour bill would be known as the Bull Run of the Democratic party. The Democrats had made "a mockery" of carrying out their pledges to the electorate. The major cause of defeat, according to Maverick, was the obstruction of his Southern Democratic colleagues. He grimly told them that in their obstructionism and dereliction poor whites and Negroes were taught to hate each other—"a system of 'checks and balances' based on hate, helping to perpetuate a miserable system." He urged them to read Carpenter's The South as a Conscious Minority and said that they were not only a conscious minority, but a self-conscious minority, "an irritable, touchy, and ready-to-take-offense minority. They must come to realize, he said, the need for a farm tenancy bill, economic justice for the Negro, and minimum wage-maximum hours legislation.
Maverick was even able to find a parallel in the actions of the Supreme Court. He gave a lengthy comparative study to demonstrate that the Court was following the Constitution of the Confederate States of America more closely than the Constitution of the United States.
Maverick had been busy on so many fronts in the 1937 session that it strains credulity. Remarkably little attention was given then or in subsequent studies of a farm bill that Maverick introduced in February 1937 when Senator Guy M. Gillette (R.-Iowa) introduced its counterpart in the Senate. This measure, labeled the Gillette-Maverick bill by the press, was designed to provide for soil conservation, commodity loans, and disposal of excess production of agricultural products. In March a Republican newspaper in Iowa reported that a three-state conference of farmers had gone on record with the statement that the Gillette-Maverick bill was "more nearly approximating the legislation needed by American agriculture than any farm measure ever before proposed." A Democratic paper, reporting on the same conference, gave strong support to the proposal and praised "Senator Guy Gillette and Congressman Maury Maverick who STAND FOR THE AMERICAN FARMER FIRST!" In May the same paper said that the basic principle of the proposal was "so right and so sound that ultimately society must adopt it for its own self-preservation." The editorial declared that though it had not gained wide publicity, the Gillette-Maverick "nonpartisan" bill had great support in northwest Iowa. The problem was that Secretary of Agriculture Wallace had viewed the proposal unfavorably and was generally "gloomy" over new farm legislation.
In April, in a brief note buried in a recital of congressional activities, the New York Times reported that a subcommittee of the Senate Agriculture Committee had voted to withhold action on the "pending Gillette-Maverick bill providing a far reaching farm-aid program." Senator Gillette said that in view of the developing economy drive at that time there would be "little or no chance of enacting a bill in the near future." The particular bill was dead, but the second Agricultural Adjustment Act that was enacted in 1938 had many of the features of this measure.
Maverick also continued to push for mandatory neutrality legislation with embargoes on all shipments of munitions to all countries, to say that President Roosevelt was "wrong" on neutrality, and to argue that existing legislation, enacted in 1935 and 1936, was "hasty and ill-advised."
Newspapers throughout the country gave favorable editorial comment to Maverick's proposal for a Congressional Medal of Honor for contributions in the arts and sciences, and the self-trained scholar continued to give his colleagues the benefit of his spritely reviews of the books that they should be reading When Congress adjourned the regular session, he enrolled in courses in labor problems and transportation at San Antonio's Saint Mary's University and made the honor roll! Maverick also won praise for sponsoring legislation called the American Youth Act, which was to provide employment and scholarships for youths from sixteen to twenty-five years of age—not unlike the youth programs of the Great Society of the 1960's.
At the American Political Science Association convention in Philadelphia in 1937, Maverick was photographed in an informal discussion with Thomas Reed Powell, president of the association and Charles A. Beard, famed historian and admirer of Maverick's neutrality policy. Maverick's friend, C. W. Ervin, sent him a clipping of the picture with the sly comment, "three lights of the literary firmament." Indeed, Maverick was there to lead a discussion entitled "The Constitution and Foreign Affairs," in the course of which he made a proposal remarkably akin to some of our hemispheric security arrangements with Latin America after World War II. He suggested that the countries of this hemisphere agree (1) never to take aggressive action against another member of the agreement; (2) never to fortify the boundaries separating member countries; and (3) to unite in defense of any member threatened by exterior aggression.
Maury Maverick was riding the crest at the close of 1937. His first book was a best seller; the liberal press (and much of it that was not) was hailing him as a conquering hero. One writer speculated on his possible appointment to the Supreme Court, and another placed him in a "Texas Dynasty" with John Garner, Sam Rayburn, and Jesse Jones, commenting, "Maury Maverick has carved a definite place for himself by his championship of progressive measures, his fresh viewpoint on national problems and his ouspokenness on the floor.
When Maverick's political foe, San Antonio's Mayor Quin, received a letter from someone in Louisiana requesting the name of the congressman from Bexar County district, Quin replied, "I thought everybody could answer that question."
There was no letup in the furious pace that the man who had been described as "a Texas norther in Congress" set for himself in his second term in the House of Representatives. He was one of the most sought-after speakers in the country, and he was rarely able to decline invitations to appear at all sorts of speaking or discussion engagements. When he wasn't making speeches on the floor of the House, he was preparing articles for magazines or, as was the case in 1937, writing a book. He worked from twelve to fourteen hours a day, read voluminously and caused observers to wonder how he managed to keep going.
Early in this second term Maverick had the following poem by Louis Untermeyer reprinted in the Record without comment:
God, though this life is but a wraith,
Although we know not what we use,
Although we grope with little faith,
Give me the heart to fight—and lose.
Ever insurgent let me be,
Make me more daring than devout;
From Sleek contentment keep me free,
And fill me with a buoyant doubt.
Open my eyes to visions girt
with beauty and wonder lit—
But let me always see the dirt
And all that spawn and die in it.
Open my ears to music; let
Me thrill with spring's first flutes and drums—
But never let me dare forget
The bitter ballads of the slums.
From compromise and things half done,
Keep me with stern and stubborn pride,
And when at last the fight is won,
God, keep me still unsatisfied.
Maverick did not like to lose, but he seemed to relish the unpopular fight, and he rarely felt uncomfortable as a member of the minority. When he read this poem into the Record, he was committed to the "wrong" side of one of the most bitter controversies of the New Deal era.
The most celebrated issue of the 1937 session of Congress was President Roosevelt's attempt to "pack" the United States Supreme Court. In February 1936 Maury Maverick had opened his long series of challenges to the Court's power to find acts of Congress unconstitutional, in response to the Court's decision that the first Agricultural Adjustment Act was unconstitutional, partly because the law violated states' rights. In urging passage of the 1936 Soil Conservation Act, Maverick had said that though he realized that the argument was now academic, he believed that the first AAA had been constitutional. There was no implied power for the Supreme Court to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional, he maintained, and Congress could do what was not prohibited to it. That the Supreme Court should not bow to the "will of mobs, or temporary prejudices and passions" he recognized, but he also asserted that the Court should acknowledge "progress in the affairs of men."
With the passage of time and more New Deal legislation being struck down or threatened in the courts, Maverick's criticisms became more pointed and his judgments more harsh. He told a Philadelphia audience a few weeks later: "The judges of the Supreme Court are human beings like you and me. If a member of this audience were appointed to the Supreme Court, his political viewpoint would probably not change at all; he would take his political viewpoints with him to the Supreme Court, just as the corporation lawyers who go there take their views with them. And remember, though courts are a necessary function of any government, times change, views change, and people have a right to adjust their own government to their own will.
When Maverick was queried later in the year as to what he would propose for dealing with the Supreme Court, he said that he did not favor increasing the number of justices. "We are not being honest if we do this," he was quoted as saying. Rather, he preferred the approach of attaching provisions to major legislation, such as the proposed minimum-wage law, which would prohibit the Supreme Court from having appellate jurisdiction over that particular matter—the device advocated by equally unsuccessful critics of the Court in the late 1950's.
When Congress convened in January, there were reports of an anti-Court bloc meeting in Washington in which Maverick participated with Senator Norris, John L. Lewis, Jerome Frank, Morris Ernst, Representative David J. Lewis (D.-Md.), and Frank R. McNinch, chairman of the Federal Power Commission. Soon thereafter Maverick was questioning his solution to the problem. In a national radio speech, prepared with the assistance of Frank, he attempted to explain to the nation how the solution of many problems that were national in scope was being thwarted by rulings of the Supreme Court, and, after quoting Justice Harlan Stone as saying, "The Court gives effect to the economic predilections of the judges," Maverick admitted, "Just how we are going to get the judges out of their prejudices and predilections if far from clear." He received hundreds of letters offering praise, advice, and criticism from lawyers and judges in all parts of the nation. About 90 percent of the letters were favorable to his position.
Other New Dealers, including FDR, had had their difficulties in deciding just what could be done about the Court, but on February 5, 1937, Roosevelt sent his famous message to Congress. As Maverick described the scene, some fifty or sixty House members were on hand at the time, there was no air of tension, and the galleries were nearly empty. Only the occupants of the press gallery, who had advance notice of the president's message, seemed interested. According to Maverick, the telegraph companies in back of the gallery were "getting ready for a killing." He said they had ordered extra messengers to handle the "flood of exultation and execration" that would soon be on the wires. "The clerk, who has read thousands of messages, begins to read. A few representatives begin to listen. What's this?"
"This" was Roosevelt's general proposal for reform of the Federal judiciary, which included the specific suggestion that the president could appoint additional Federal judges for each judge who failed to retire upon reaching the age of seventy, thus providing Roosevelt with the opportunity to swing the narrowly divided Supreme Court over to the New Deal side if the measure should be passed. Though the Washington Star depicted Democratic leaders as "stunned" by the proposal, this seems unlikely in view of the fact that FDR had explained the bill to a meeting of leaders before presenting his message. Whatever the case, Maverick "grabbed a mimeographed copy of the bill, scribbled his name on it, and threw it in the bill hopper." Despite the fact that many Democrats in the Senate were reported to favor the move and legislative leaders generally predicted a hard-won victory, the quixotic Maverick had again taken a stand that was not likely to do him much good back home.
The Texas Senate passed a resolution against the measure, and Maverick told the body to mind its own business. He said, "I want it understood that I don't consider myself bound by the Senate of Texas even if their action is approved in Maine. . . . It may be the Senate of Texas will get down to attending to their own business and will take the responsibility of passing a good utilities law for that state, and take the crushing burden of taxation off the backs of the people of Texas, they will be better off."
The San Antonio Bar Association overwhelmingly opposed the president's court plan. The association refused by a voice vote even to listen to a reading of the bill by H. P. Drought, state administrator for the WPA and "a prominent member of the bar." 'The leadership characterized the measure as "radical and dangerous" and then adjourned to head off any debate on the matter. Maverick gave his Bar Association fellow a blunt reply in which he said that he didn't think that any of them had read the bill and that he would continue to fight for the measure and "look forward and not backward." "In doing so, I will be doing my duty, and consider myself as performing the best service for the people of my district and their children."
A few days after he had introduced the president's proposal, Maverick and Senator Hugo L. Black appeared on the NBC Blue network radio program "Town Meeting of the Air" to debate the proposal with William H. King and Frederick H. Wood, the winning attorney in the NRA, Guffey coal, and Gold Clause cases. Maverick led off the discussion with the argument that the checks on the Supreme Court were inadequate for the occasion and that the framers of the Constitution had left the determination of the number of justices to the Congress and the president in order to provide adequate checks when they were needed. Maverick argued that the older justices would retire if they followed the best opinion of their own profession, and he cited historical examples to demonstrate that changes in the number of members of the Supreme Court had been made several times before. He also pointed out that since interpretation of the Constitution varies with the changes in the personnel of the Court, presidents and Senates have always concerned themselves with the general attitudes of men appointed to the Court. He concluded, "Such considerations are thoroughly moral, and thoroughly constitutional. And our traditions—largely established by Republican presidents—sanction it. Again, Maverick may have been winning an argument, but he was not winning enough votes.
On February 19 he was reported to be a member of a seven-man steering committee of a twenty-seven-man special House Judiciary Reform Group. Though he continued to make speeches in behalf of the measure through the next few months, the Southern Democrats prevented it from coming to the floor in the House. Despite the dim prospects, Maverick doggedly pursued the objective, and in May, when young Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in to fill the seat from the Tenth Texas District, Maverick shouted, "Mr. Speaker, the gentleman just sworn in, Mr. Lyndon Johnson, supported the President's judiciary plan and was overwhelmingly elected.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee reported unfavorably on the bill on June 14 and Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson died the same day, the measure was for all practical purposes abandoned.
Though the Supreme Court soon began to sustain New Deal measures, and older members died or resigned, Maverick's enthusiasm was at best guarded. He continued to urge that the Supreme Court should "withdraw from the economic and legislative fields and confine itself to the protection of liberties of the people." In a similar vein he wrote: "The reason I say this is that I believe this country is passing through a major institutional and constitutional phase, just as England has passed through several such major phases in its history. I do not pretend to give any absolute chart of what the future evolution should be; but I am quite certain that the Supreme Court should withdraw, or be forced to withdraw, from the field of legislative policy. That they should ever have declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional will someday be considered fantastic.
A few days after he had introduced the president's proposal, Maverick and Senator Hugo L. Black appeared on the NBC network radio program "Town Meeting of the Air" to debate the proposal with William H. King and Frederick H. Wood, the winning attorney in the NRA, Guffey coal, and Gold Clause cases, Maverick led off the discussion with the argument that the checks on the Supreme Court were inadequate for the occasion and that the framers of the Constitution had left the determination of the number of justices to the Congress and the president in order to provide adequate checks when they were needed. Maverick argued that the older justices would retire if they followed the best opinion of their own profession, and he cited historical examples to demonstrate that changes in the number of members of the Supreme Court had been made several times before. He also pointed out that since interpretation of the Constitution varies with the changes in the personnel of the Court, presidents and Senates have always concerned themselves with the general attitudes of men appointed to the Court. He concluded, "Such considerations are thoroughly moral, and thoroughly constitutional. And our traditions—largely established by Republican presidents—sanction it. Again, Maverick may have been winning an argument, but he was not winning enough votes.
On February 19 he was reported to be a member of a seven-man steering committee of a twenty-seven-man special House Judiciary Reform Group. Though he continued to make speeches in behalf of the measure through the next few months, the Southern Democrats prevented it from coming to the floor in the House. Despite the dim prospects, Maverick doggedly pursued the objective, and in May, when young Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in to fill the seat from the Tenth Texas District, Maverick shouted, "Mr Speaker, the gentleman just sworn in, Mr. Lyndon Johnson, supported the President's judiciary plan and was overwhelmingly elected.
When the Senate Judiciary Committee reported unfavorably on the bill on June 14 and Senate Majority Leader Joseph T. Robinson died the same day, the measure was for all practical purposes abandoned.
Though the Supreme Court soon began to sustain New Deal measures, and older members died or resigned, Maverick's enthusiasm was at best guarded. He continued to urge that the Supreme Court should "withdraw from the economic and legislative fields and confine itself to the protection of liberties of the people." In a similar vein he wrote: "The reason I say this is that I believe this country is passing through a major institutional and constitutional phase, just as England has passed through several such major phases in its history. I do not pretend to give any absolute chart of what the future evolution should be; but I am quite certain that the Supreme Court should withdraw, or be forced to withdraw, from the field of legislative policy. That they should ever have declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional will someday be considered fantastic.
Maverick himself reported that the story in Washington was that several senators had politely advised members of the Supreme Court that they had best change some of their opinions or the Court "would surely get packed." Though he would not vouch for such stories, Maverick noted that changes had taken place, and the president's fight had seemingly been won. On the other hand, he continued to have misgivings in 1939. He argued that the question had not been settled and that it should be. He wrote, "Therefore, the issue will inevitably bob up again. As the public forgets, the judges may change their opinions again, enter the field of legislation, and declare laws unconstitutional merely because they do not like them.
Maverick should not be misunderstood. He opposed, almost exclusively, the power of the Court to find social and economic policies unconstitutional. When critics expressed fears that Congress would override personal liberties, Maverick said that he shared their fears, but then explained that in the first place the court had been of little help: "The answer is . . . if you look at the cases on sedition, espionage and the rest, that the courts declared pretty nearly every silly law constitutional during and following the World War. There was not much protection of civil liberties in the country. . . . You might take the trouble to study the judicial system of England where no such powers are exercised and where the judiciary is held in equal if not superior respect to the judiciary of our country.
Indeed, Maverick's argument was that the Supreme Court should confine itself to enforcing the "specific prohibitions" against violations of civil liberties. There were no such prohibitions, he said, "against making legislation for economic and social ends." The Court should be the final arbiter of questions involving the "arbitrary use either of government or private power, for the protection of individuals." Striking down laws for "health, hours of labor, safety, unemployment insurance and Social Security" often "reverses the purpose of the Constitution." He concluded with the prediction that the Court's invalidating of laws regulating business in the public interest, under the guise of protecting individual rights or states' rights, would one day be looked upon as "an example of the curious perversions of logic of the Middle Ages." Thus Maverick, in 1937, essentially anticipated the argument presented by two constitutional scholars who wrote in 1959: "It is still relevant to ask whether a politically irresponsible body, such as the Supreme Court, can block the will of the majority in the name of minorities and still remain a democratic institution. When the minority rights protected are those of property, the answer is probably 'no.' Between 1890 and 1937, the Supreme Court actually retarded the growth of democracy. When, on the other hand, judicial review serves to give a minority, otherwise barred, access to the political process, it implements rather than limits free government."
In a speech in Boston in April, Maverick gave a detailed examination of all cases in which the Supreme Court had reviewed legislation that threatened or denied civil liberties. After the recital he said, "There is not a single case on record of the High Court knocking out a Federal law, or declaring it unconstitutional, on a basis of its violating civil and religious liberties." In concluding his speech, Maverick indicated that he was not too sanguine about the prospects for passage of the Court reorganization bill by giving three things that he though the "present controversy" would accomplish: first, it would "inform the American mind" and eliminate the tendency to make a taboo of the Supreme Court; second, it would remove from the judge's mind "his own taboo that he can settle social problems with pen and ink"; and third, "the Court will cease to become a super-Congress and a super-President, and will confine itself to judicial duties." As Maverick defined the duties of the Supreme Court, this essentially what has occurred.
In addition to the general civil rights measure that he had been working with for two years, Maverick somehow found the time to fight a number of other battles in his personal war on behalf of civil rights and civil liberties. He had an early baptism in the struggle against loyalty oaths, which were to create such a furor in the 1950's. His encounter with what became known as the "red rider" began in 1935. The appropriation bill for the District of Columbia slipped through the House with such a provision that went unnoticed, though it was read by the clerk. This section of the bill stated that no money could be paid to persons who taught or advocated communism. In pursuance of this section, the comptroller general prescribed an oath to be taken by teachers on each per day to ensure compliance with the terms of the law.
Early in November 1935, before much notice had been given to the "red rider," Maverick sought the help of the Legislative Reference Service in the Library of Congress with some research into the matter. He built up a file of materials against such a requirement and wrote letters to anyone who could help him to fight it. The New York Herald Tribune soon lashed out editorially at this piece of "intellectual lynching" that had, the paper said, put an "appropriate seal of imbecility upon all this sort of heresy-hunting legislation." At his first opportunity, Maverick demonstrated the "sense of strategy" and "canny estimate of the weak spots in the opposition" that Roger Baldwin had attributed to him in a speech to the Press Association of Virginia on January 17, 1936. In this talk, which Maverick had printed in the Congressional Record, he adopted the practical approach of questioning the efficacy of oaths. He pointed out to his audience that our Revolutionary War leaders had taken oats to support the king of England, that his own grandfather (Sam Maverick) had been pardoned for treason against the United States, and that Robert E. Lee had spent "40 years on the payroll of the United States," and had then "revolted!" He used these audacious, shrewdly chosen reminders to illustrate his sweeping contention that "oats make no difference whatever" when it comes to maintaining loyalty.
When the "red rider" was mentioned in debate on May 4, 1936, Maverick gave a scathing denunciation in which he said that he could not find an instance in the history for the world in which a person had to give "oath after oath that one has kept an oath. No parallel to 'red rider,' even in nations where liberty does not exist or in the most benighted nations on earth, can be found." Maverick's chief opponent in his efforts to repeal the "red rider" was his enemy, Texas Representative Tom Blanton, and it was predicted that Blanton would use every parliamentary maneuver to block repeal efforts. But Maverick did not have to worry about Blanton. When the time came to consider the District of Columbia appropriation measure in 1937, Blanton had been defeated in the 1936 primary.
Though Maverick might have been expected to introduce the measure to repeal the "red rider," the explanation as to why he did not was to be found in his letter to the Baltimore Sun saying that, though he would have been glad to do so, Representative Ambrose J. Kennedy of Maryland would introduce such a bill. Maverick said that Kennedy was "unassuming" and did not get much publicity, but that he should and this was his opportunity. Maverick said further: "In my district it was made an issue. I was accused of permitting the teaching of communism, and people paid no attention to it whatever. Inasmuch as the issue has been presented to my people, and they are ordinary, average Americans, it would seem to me that it more or less represents a mandate that the bill be repealed. . . . I suggest you call up Mr. Kennedy, because he is not given much to making statements unless they are pulled out of him." In view of the fact that Maverick repeatedly denounced the "red rider," and no one would have ever accused him of being bashful, it would appear that he was genuinely interested in boosting a like-minded colleague.
The measure (H.R. 148) did not reach the floor of the House until February 8, 1937. Maury used this occasion to attack "fake, racketeering organizations in Washington" that had supported the oath requirement. He said, "You don't have to join a club or society that professes moral uplift or patriotism to be decent or patriotic." He belonged to the Sons of the American Revolution himself, but he did not consider this fact to be of any relevance in questions of loyalty. The oath requirement, he told his colleagues, was "the most barbaric law that was ever instituted in the mind of man," and that if they did not vote to defeat it they would be "adopting the principles of communism and fascism to show that we are a democracy." The oath requirement was repealed, but Maverick was not satisfied until he saw the final passage of the appropriations measure when it came from conference on May 24 without a "red rider" provision.
Maury Maverick amazed and enraged Southern representatives and delighted northern liberals when, at the opening of his second term in Congress, he announced that he was strongly in favor of an antilynching law. The New York Enquirer called his stand a "commendable" one, and the Boston Chronicle hailed him as on the of "enlightened minds of the South." The Amsterdam (New York City) News featured an editorial cartoon depicting Maverick in cowboy garb putting the match to a trash can labeled "age-old lynch law."
When the Gavagan Anti-Lynch bill came before the House in April, Maverick not only announced that he was going to vote for the measure, but he also made a lengthy speech in support of it. He told his colleagues that he did not expect to get any Negro votes as a result of his stand. "In my district the colored people do not vote (in the primary), and if they did they would probably vote against me. . . . I am doing it because I think it is right, and because it will take a stigma from the escutcheon of the United States of America." He argued that the measure was needed for all American, not merely Negroes. Then, after giving his fellow Congressmen a scholarly discourse on the history of slavery and the causes of the Civil War, he concluded, "Whereas we speak of States' rights and the Constitution, we must know that the Constitution was written by the people for all the people of the United States. We want everyone to get decent treatment. We want the Negro to have economic justice just as much as we want the white man to have justice." Many years later he revealed that one of the authors of the bill told him at the time, "Vote against it—don't be a fool. (I represent Harlem)."
Virginius Dabney hailed Maverick as courageous, the only Southern Democrat who voted for the measure as it went down to defeat by a vote of 277 to 119, but Maverick later told an audience that it was not a matter of bravery—that he received only seven letters as a result of his action, one from a friend, "a colored mail clerk." He candidly stated that he did not think that the measure was workable and that he voted for the bill "as a gesture." He then urged that his general civil rights measure would be more effective in dealing with the problem. As he said in his first book: "It is then apparent that an act must be made to cover the whole subject of the constitutional civil liberties. It should guarantee that no man, White or Negro, shall be lynched, or beaten to death by rangers, local police, sheriffs or 'special officers.' And we must have not merely a regional or state interpretation of the Constitution, but a national one. A right is right, whether that citizen is blue, green, lavender, or even yellow."
While he was fighting the "red rider" and supporting an antilynch bill, Maverick was also determined to head off the establishment of a Committee on Un-American Activities. While others questioned the legitimacy of purpose from the standpoint of the amount of legislation that such investigations had produced in the past, Maverick bluntly charged:
This is nothing but a witch-hunt, that is all it is. The last time they were hunting Communists. This time they are going to hunt Fascists. . . .
Mr. Speaker, seriously, this is a dangerous thing. The resolution goes on to say:
"Slanderous or libelous un-American propaganda of religious, racial or subversive political prejudices."
That covers everything on the face of the earth.
Let the proponents of the bill beware. It may be a boomerang of intolerance, and return to curse those who favor it. Kill this resolution. Cut it down.
And kill it they did, by a vote of 184 to 38.
Representative Samuel Dickstein (D.-N.Y.), who had sponsored the Un-American Activities Committee measure, also offered a bill designed to make subject to deportation any alien who used any "propaganda" critical of various races, religions, and the United States government, or who tended to "foment political acrimony and business animosity in the United States." Maverick was appalled. After the Texan was joined by several conservative critics of the bill, Dickstein agreed to eliminate part of it, but Maverick said that was not enough; the whole bill should be defeated. Representative Rankin agreed that the measure was a "legislative monstrosity," and Maverick administered the coup de grâce with, "This is actually the worst bill that was ever introduced in any legislative body in the whole world [laughter and applause]." Dickstein himself asked that the bill be recommitteed!
No issue of individual rights was too small for Maverick's attention. On May 27 he brought about the defeat of two amendments to an appropriations bill by using one of his favorite weapons, ridicule. One of the amendments would have prohibited people on relief or WPA work from "parading" or criticizing Congress. Maury asked, "What are we? Are we a House of Lords, back in 1500, to tell people that they cannot parade, that they cannot strike? Are we the Lord High and Mighty of the Privy Council? We must be going crazy to even listen to things like that [laughter and applause]. " With that amendment safely out of the way, Maverick next tackled one designed to take resident aliens off the relief rolls or WPA employment. "Let us be sensible and humane," he said. "We take a condemned murderer and feed him well." The amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 116 to 112.
No matter what the topic might be of the many public speeches that Maverick made in 1937, his eloquent pleas for the maximum defense of civil liberties would creep in. In November, the Dallas News reported a series of accusations of denials of civil liberties in Dallas that had been made by Maverick in a San Antonio speech. A man had been tarred and feathered for speaking on a "subject which may lawfully be discussed," several men had been beaten on the suspicion that they were CIO organizers, and a man had been "howled down from the platform" while under the "professed protection of the city police." The Dallas News said that Maverick's charges were substantially true and then concluded, "If you get any pride out of conditions in this connection, you are easily puffed up.
In 1937 Maverick was for the first time, in his own apt phrase, "with book." In May the Saturday Review of Literature pictured two young authors lunching with Pascal Covici, their publisher—Maury Maverick and John Steinbeck. Maverick's A Maverick American was soon to be published, and Steinbeck was the New York to "dramatize" his book Of Mice and Men.
Most reviewers of the work that tumbled out of the Texas congressman's churning brain in 1937 quickly gave up trying to find a label—it was no more susceptible of labeling than the man who wrote it. Maverick, in characteristic fashion, had started the book with a first chapter titled "Approximately a Preface," in which he freely admitted that he "got everybody's help, ranging from policemen and gas station operators up to—I almost said the Supreme Court." Among his major helpers were his "main braintruster," Leon Pearson, and Leon Henderson. It is possible to describe the book, after a fashion. It is a semiautobiographical vehicle for the presentation of Maverick's hopes and prescriptions for a land where people work and play in freedom—freedom from want as well as the more conventional civil rights and civil liberties.
Time called the bestseller a "rambling, engaging, man-to-man discourse," written by a "literate legislator" who was the "most reconstructed Southerner in Congress." Heywood Broun called it "one of the most engrossing books ever to come from a public figure." Though he did not feel that Maverick could qualify as a "prose master," Broun did say that his war chapters "remain with me as among the most vivid I know." An unsigned Washington Times in the very deep shade." Herbert Little said, "His description of the World War engagement in which he was wounded is a high point of descriptive writing. . . . The description of is own demagogic attack on a political opponent is a jewel in the Mark Twain tradition.
The late Senator Richard L. Neuberger, then a journalist, called this maverick work "one of the most important books of the year," and an English reviewer referred to the author as a "clear-thinking, courageous man" who had written "an important book; one that I would recommend to anybody desiring to understand the conflicts, complexities, paradoxes, hopes and possibilities of America in the Nineteen-thirties." He said that Maury's passages on war were "well worth pondering for their philosophical overtones."
A rare uncomplimentary review appeared in the Washington Star. Mary Carter Roberts said that the book represented an "exposition of our political psychology," and that it was a "vivid demonstration of how Americans have trained their representatives in government to make profundities out of the obvious and to bring forth the platitude with all the triumph commonly appertaining to the epigram." Perhaps the most complimentary remarks on the book (and something of an answer to Roberts' criticism) were written for the Book-of-the-Month Club's news sheet by Broun, who said, ". . . people may say he has done little more than accept many of the ideas of the old line radicals and put them into new terminology. But 'little' is hardly the appropriate word, for Maverick has gone a great distance in accomplishing the important task of stating age-old philosophies, sometimes called alien, in terms of the American language.
Whatever the literary merits of Maverick's brainchild, the book was bound to be significant and influential. In addition to the reviews cited, it may be noted that the volume narrowly missed being a Book-of-the-Month selection and that it was serialized in the Philadelphia Record and the New York Post beginning September 13, 1937. President Roosevelt thanked Maverick for sending him a copy and vowed that he would read it.
The one legislative achievement of 1937 for which Maverick expressed the greatest pride involved little in the way of dramatic and bold speeches or parliamentary maneuvering, but there was opposition, and he was credited with carrying the day.
In June 1937 he offered a bill (H.R. 6767) to provide "cancer research, the training of technicians and the establishment of a central cancer clinic," and said, "If this bill is adopted we can truly say we have done a service to humanity." Maury Maverick made no claim of originality in presenting the bill; he credited Dr. Dudley Jackson, a San Antonio surgeon, with interesting him in the matter and with providing him with information necessary to drawing up the bill. Newspapers referred to the measure as the Maverick Cancer Bill, but this was not strictly correct. Three measures had been introduced in all, but they seemed to have died in the Interstate Commerce Committee. Maverick's personal contribution was to wage a relentless publicity campaign, including a national network speech, in order to get some action. As a result of his pressures the chairman of the committee granted a hearing on the bills. Maverick then arranged for the appearances of various witnesses in behalf of the measure.
The bill eventually reported out of the committee bore the name of Representative Alfred L. Bulwinkle (D.-N.C.), and it did not include the hospital for which Maverick's measure had provided, but he urged passage anyway. When the victory came on July 23, it was Maverick who was credited with having "won a long and aggressive campaign" for a cancer research institute for the United States, the world-famous National Cancer Research Institute at Bethesda, Maryland.
In this 1937 session, Maverick continued to champion the cause of labor, organized and unorganized. He was one of the most outspoken supporters of a minimum-wage law in the House, and he was particularly harsh in his judgments of Southern opposition to such legislation. He said that businessmen too often followed the philosophy that anyone is justified in doing whatever is not contrary to law—this was the reason minimum-wage laws were necessary. With uncommon daring for a Southern representative, of Nashville, Tennessee, as one of "the worst labor haters in America." According to Maverick, Edgerton had told a House committee that the question as to whether a family could live on sixteen dollars a week was irrelevant to the minimum-wage bill. When the crowd laughed, said Maverick, Edgerton "smugged into a contemptuous smirk and spoke of his church work."
Maverick's statements in behalf of minimum-wage legislation were like those he offered on other issues—carefully drawn and documented. He gave statistical comparisons of the executive salaries and the workers' wages in selected industries and said that he had found wages as low as four cents an hour. "I am not opposed to high salaries," he said. "I believe that people should be allowed to make money. But I also believe that there should be a minimum standard of decency." In the final unsuccessful attempt to pass such a bill at the close of the 1937 special session, he told his Southern colleagues that "if a black man does the same work as a white man, he ought to receive the same pay." He said that the Texas AFL had wired him to support a substitute measure, but he was not going to do it. He called attention to the astonishingly low wages paid to pecan shellers in San Antonio—an average of $1.29 a week!
There were votes to be had in Maverick's support of a minimum-wage law, but relatively few could be expected from his support of organized labor. Circumspect politicians thought it foolhardy for Maverick to go all out for organized labor, particularly the CIO, but he did not care what they thought. He flaunted his labor associations and friendships before the people of his essentially anti-labor region, state, and district. He did not deny having said, "When I ran for Congress, I was opposed to lobbyists, and I still am opposed to them. But whenever a labor lobbyist comes into my office, I greet him with open arms."
Maury Maverick's friendly associations with organized labor dated from his earliest days in politics, but in the 1937 session his stands in matters of labor strife focused greater attention upon his outspoken and daring position. In February he castigated General Motors for interfering with the activities of the National Labor Relations Board. He said that the company had used OGPU methods like the Russians and "spies with criminal records, rascals and racketeers to prevent the workers from even having an election to determine who is to represent them." "Like Bourbons who never learn anything, they add insult to injury and declare a dividend, when production has stopped . . . during the bitterest strike in American history." Maverick bluntly warned that if there was violence it would be the fault of industrial leaders and not labor.
The speech that probably hurt Maverick most with his constituents was given on June 5, 1937, to the United Auto Workers in Detroit. He had a habit of pumping his right arm upward with his fist clenched as he made a major point. A wire-service photographer caught him with the arm at full length in a Mussolini-like stance as he belabored big business and praised labor for creating the circumstances in which "free-born Americans . . . can live without fear of company police, spies, hired thugs, murderers and private armies." He told the cheering mass of auto workers, "I want you to know in the first place that down my way labor is not very well organized; labor is not very well organized anywhere in the South. But let us get organized North, South, East and West. . . for the purpose of preserving American liberty and the American standard of living." When Maverick mentioned the name of William Green, leader of the rival AFL, the crowd booed, but he told them they had no business booing—"We are trying to build America" and are not "fighting any labor organization." The boos changed to loud applause.
Maverick clearly did not want to be cast as an extremist in his support of organized labor. A student asked him in 1937 how long labor unrest would last. Maverick expressed the opinion that it would be four or five years. The student asked, "And who is going to protect capital when labor gets the upper hand?" "Labor," Maverick replied. "This may appear paradoxical, but the working people know that if they destroy the capitalists, they destroy themselves."
The violence of which Maverick had spoken in the House was not long in coming, and when it did come, he leaped to the defense of the workers. Angry and truculent, he declared, "Over there in Chicago, nine men, something like six blocks from a steel plant, were attacked by the police and nine of them were murdered; and we stand here and not a soul has said a word about those nine free-born Americans who were murdered out there in cold blood. All we do is to spend our time criticizing organized labor." A week later he came back to the floor with the most scorching blast he had ever delivered there. He said he had seen the films of the violence in the Chicago strike and that he had learned that the police killed ten men, and he had watched a policeman beat one of the felled union pickets. This was the time of the highly controversial sit-down strikes, precursors of the sit-ins of the 1960's, and Maverick was referring to the notorious incident on Memorial Day of 1937 at the Republic Steel Plant.
Maverick singled out veteran Congressman Eugene Cox (D.-Ga.) for a tongue-lashing because of his "hysterical" and "provocative" statements against labor and for his "unfair" and "wholly unwarranted" attack on Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. Maverick said, "Sometimes I am called a left-winger, sometimes a liberal, sometimes worse; but who is calling for blood and violence? Why, gentlemen, they are those who prate about the preservation of the Constitution, those who carry their patriotism on their sleeves, the ones who call themselves conservatives and wrap themselves in the flag." Seven of the ten men, he said, had been shot in the back. It was "one of the bloodiest and most shameful pages in American history," and no conservative had spoken out. "I am disappointed that a Democrat, a gentleman from the South, a conservative, should act in such a manner."
The acid response of Representative Cox was to the effect that he knew Maverick was patriotic and therefore the only conclusion he could draw was that the Texan was not serious but "interested only in provoking amusement by his extravagance and buffoonery." Maverick leaped to his feet and demanded that Cox's remark be "taken down" and thus stricken from the Congressional Record. The House voted against Maverick's motion, but Cox was not satisfied. He went on to express the hope that Maverick believed in some form of government and had not "become wholly Russian-ized, and that John L. Lewis is not in fact his candidate for the Presidency in 1940." When Maverick demanded that the statement be taken down, Cox laughed and withdrew it.
Cox then proceeded to taunt the angry Maverick with such questions as did he collaborate with John L. Lewis in shaping his official conduct in the House and was he in sympathy with the CIO and its effort to terrorize industry? Cox then implied that Maverick could not give an honest answer. Whe Maverick asked for time to anser, Republican Representative Rich, whom Ma erick had once defended in his right to criticize Democrats, deferred time to the Texan. Maverick then told Cox that the questions were of the have-you-quit-beating-your-wife variety, and, turning Cox's original attack back upon him, Maverick said that the Georgia congressman did not seek answers to his questions, but had asked them for purposes of "insult and display" and his own "peculiar satisfaction." Turning to his colleagues, Maverick said, "We have heard enough of bitter personalities for the time being. The people of this country would rather see us do our duty and carry out the promises of the Democratic Party [applause].
Most newspapers gave the story straight treatment, and the worst one might have gathered from such stories was that House members thought that Maverick, in this instance, should have taken it as well as he dished it out. But he was given shabby treatment in the San Antonio Express, which headlined the affair on the front page, "Maury Buffoon, Congressmen's Votes Decide." Mrs. Maverick jotted above her clipping: "The following is another example of the loyalty the S.A. Express has to the home town boy. If they ever said anything good about us we might die with amazement. We've gotten along this far without 'em. O.K. by us." William Allen White wrote that the "spanking" of Maverick was not justified and that the language of Cox was "intemperate." He said that the House had "rebuked and insulted a patriot. It should have granted to a young man the intemperance of his convictions. It might have tried moral suasion rather than a hot-handed spanking." The New York Times simply called the action an "unnecessary insult."
The most friendly supporter of Maverick, however, could not help but come to the conclusion, after a careful examination of his career, that his readiness to say what he thought on almost any subject would make him a likely candidate to write a book on how to lose friends and alienate people. His scrupulous honesty and fairness, on the other hand, could win many of them back. His activities in 1937 were replete with such examples, some of them already treated. Early in the year he said bluntly, "I see no reason to break precedent, and I am not for the President in 1940. There ought to be somewhere . . . a progressive, honest Democrat to lead the party next time." As Time put it, Maverick was no sycophant either to Franklin Roosevelt or the C.I.O."
Indeed, when either the AFL or CIO thought it had his uncritical support he would confound either of them. He had upbraided the United Auto Workers when they booed AFL's William Green, and when he saw a letter from the president of the Auto Workers, Homer Martin, which told Members of the House who voted against the wage and hour bill that their "unfavorable vote [would] not be forgotten next year," he said that Martin "had better learn a little manners," that his letter was "indiscreet" and that "information fairly presented is more effective."
Maury's subsequent lecture to William Green, president of the AFL, was to plague the Texas congressman later. When he learned that every member of the House had received a wire from Green urging that they defeat the minimum wage law, he read the following response to Green into the Record, "Your attitude is taken upon the basis that the exact wording of the 'American Federation of Labor bill' has not been adopted by Congress. Where I must make a decision, even though I run the risk of the displeasure of the highest figures in America, I do it unhesitatingly." Maverick went on to tell Green that the AFL measure was too riding and probably would be found unconstitutional. Moreover, Maverick said, the rank and file of labor was "deeply dissatisfied" by the split in organized labor and wanted unity. He concluded that members of Congress were expected "to do our duty according to our consciences and judgment. I have made my decision, believing it to be right, and will take the responsibility just as you will for yours." Later events proved that Green never forgave Maverick for the lecture.
More of Maury's "winning ways" could be seen in his statement in support of the Wagner-Steagall housing bill in which he said, "The housing in my city in the slum areas is as bad as any city in the United States of America." On the same subject, he commented that "two-thirds of the buildings" in Baltimore should be torn down.
One of Maverick's favorite whipping boys at this time was the American Bar Association—and conservative lawyers generally. In various speeches he characterized the association as "a reactionary force in American life," and as "stupid, undemocratic and behind the times in its attitude toward social legislation." Interestingly enough, the conservative Dallas News commented that though Maury's attack was "something less than a reasoned and balanced appraisal, . . . if the bar associations, in their attitude on social legislation, represented the views of the average lawyer instead of those who are ultra-conservative, there probably would be little occasion for such attacks as that of Representative Maverick." The Literary Digest also expressed the opinion that "probably there are few more conservative organizations than the A.B.A." in an article on the organization of the rival National Lawyers Guild on December 22, 1936, Maverick was pictured at the meeting as having "denounced the old order" and "doffed his hat to the head of the new group," John Patrick Devaney, former chief justice of Minnesota.
Maverick managed to get himself into a major donnybrook when he took on the lawyers at a meeting of the Harvard Club in Washington. In his address entitled "College Men and Their Lack of Education," he said that all he had heard about liberty in Washington had been said by high-priced lawyers who were promoting liberty for corporations. He wanted to hear some of them speak up for academic liberty or freedom of speech. "Lawyers," he said, "had expanded in influence only as corporations had grown in size."
Then the chairman, a Harvard law school graduate who practiced locally, arose, livid with rage.
Inasmuch as Maverick had criticized university men and suggested they were prejudiced, the chairman said, the usual period for questions to and answers from the speaker would be omitted.
Maverick stood up and said he didn't care what the club did, but if he were going to be treated with discourtesy, he wanted everyone to understand that he knew it.
The meeting then became a turmoil and the cry, "We want Maverick," was overwhelming.
Maverick spoke again, questions were raised and answered, and the secretary of the club apologized to Maverick. Shortly thereafter, Frederick Delano and others got the chairman in a corner and made him apologize to Maverick.
Maverick's sheer audacity and candor were often captivating to audiences. On another occasion he was reported to have "held a large audience of hard-boiled businessmen spellbound" at the Economic Club of New York City. They insisted that the rules of the club be broken so that he could speak longer and then asked him to speak again. Edwin C. Hill reported how he was charmed by Maverick's refreshing approach to a newsman: "I am a propagandist,' he said, 'and I want to make you believe in it. Maybe you don't like it, but if you do, I want you to write it up and help me get it passed. When can I see you and tell you about it?' Maverick worked like that with newspapermen, never with a buried ace, and he got a full and friendly hearing for all his stuff."
Humor as well as candor, or both combined, served to take some of the sting out of Maverick's barbs or to disarm some of his adversaries. He opened a speech in the House once with the remark that "anyone who wishes to sleep or rest during my address may do so. But I shall appreciate it if gentlemen who are talking loudly will go outside, so that the rest can sleep if they wish." When military appropriations were under discussion he displayed some of the candor that endeared him to newsmen who were so accustomed to political pettifoggery. He said, ". . . if there is going to be any building I want to see some of the building in my own district, and you will understand this is the reason I am talking [laughter]." Again, after a disjointed speech, he admitted by implication something that most congressmen would never admit when he said, "Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may revise, extend, illuminate and eliminate certain portions of my remarks [laughter]." The Speaker dropped the formalities long enough to agree that Maverick could indeed "eliminate" as well as "illuminate" certain of his remarks. Many citizens are not aware of the fact that members of Congress are provided with transcripts of their remarks on the floor, and that the members are permitted to, as one writer put it, "sanitize" their remarks. Usually this procedure involves cleaning up the grammar and the like, but some members may indeed "eliminate" and "illuminate" parts of the substance of what they said before it is printed in the Congressional Record.
Maverick saw it as no breach of etiquette when he went over to Virginia one day and ridiculed the conservatism of both of its United States Senators, Glass and Byrd, before a meeting of the Jeffersonian Club of Elizabeth City County. A quotation from a local newspaper indicates that his audience enjoyed it as much as he did: "Pointing to the flag of Virginia, Representative Maverick remarked: 'I see that the man [fallen tyrant] lying there under the foot of the lady has curly hair. He looks like Senator Byrd.' There was an outburst of laughter." Another Virginia paper praised Maverick for his "courageous bluntness" on this occasion and predicted that he would "achieve great heights in the American political scene."
The press had a field day and the upper crust winced when Maury Maverick entered a contest sponsored by the "hors d'oeuvres reform committee," inspired by a midwestern hotel man who had put up a loving cup as a prize for the person who came up with the best name to replace the term hors d'oeuvers.. Maverick seized the opportunity to attack French menus and to offer the suggestion that the appetizers be called "dingle doos." Newspapers as far away as Fargo, North Dakota, chortled editorially at this latest it of Maverick antics. But famed restauranteur George Rector had the last word when he wired to Maverick the suggestion that the new name be mavericks. He said, "A maverick is something that does not belong anywhere in particular and any man can put his brand on it if he can catch it. And that fits the old-time free lunch as well as the fancy appetizers in the fanciest hotel in the country. Well, why not?" If Maverick responded, it has not come to light.
As someone once remarked, Maverick was not an insurgent Democrat, he was an insurgent insurgent. From the occasional digs and prods of 1936, he moved into mounting and increasingly sharp attacks on what he considered to be a flagging New Deal leadership in 1937.
In May 1937 Stanley High, a senior editor of the Reader's Digest, wrote an article for the Saturday Evening Post entitled, "The Neo-New Dealers," in which he asserted, "Undoubtedly, the moving spirit, guiding genius and general out-in-front man for this bloc is Maury Maverick." Walter Lippmann, criticizing Maverick's attack on the Supreme Court, wrote, "Mr. Maverick is very representative indeed of the little group of bold and reckless men who have been setting the pace for the President in the past few months."
Newspapers at the time referred to the organization of a Maverick group, but this was essentially the same group that Maverick had led from the 1935 session on—it was simply a matter of renewed interest and attention being directed toward it as it grew more critical of the lagging program of the New Deal. Estimates of the size of the group ranged from forty to a hundred, but this was usually based upon fluctuations in attendance at the meetings held in several Washington restaurants during the latter part of 1937. The best evidence indicates that there were about thirty to forty hard-core Mavericks who could rally additional support varying with the issue that was before the House. Maury Maverick was now the chairman and Thomas R. Amlie, Wisconsin Progressive, served as secretary.
What did these Mavericks want? Maury pushed for all kinds of remedial and reform legislation, but the program he announced as spokesman for his "colleagues" in April of 1937 included:
1. Every "willing worker" had a right to a job.
2. Public works projects of all kinds must be expedited.
3. A Department of Public Welfare should be established.
4. Low-cost housing must be provided.
5. Increased taxes based upon the ability to pay should be used to balance the budget.
Maverick told his House colleagues that the group had been meeting for some time to formulate their program, and, in the belief that the program represented the views of a hundred House members, he was submitting it to the public in their behalf.
Most of the Maverick program was consistent with administration proposals, but Maverick and his crew felt that leaders were beginning to play it safe and drag their feet. In May he asked who would be the next candidate for the Democratic nomination for the presidency and then speculated that it might be Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace, because Wallace was "becoming very respectable of late. Where is the farm-tenancy bill? Where is essential legislation for the farmers?" After considering other presidential prospects, Maverick indicated that he might be doing no more than having a bit of sport, but he urged his fellow Democrats to get together, have a few caucuses, and get on with the needed legislation.
Maverick caused Democratic leaders to shudder and confounded his critics when he called for an investigation of charges of political favoritism and excessive costs in the administration of the relief program and WPA. Though the resolution was defeated by a voice vote, Maverick received favorable editorial comment from papers across the nation. The Peoria (Ill.) Journal Transcript, after expressing astonishment that Maverick should have made such a proposal, said that Congress was "duty bound" to approve it. The forthright Texan said later, in a second attempt to win support for his resolution, that the investigation was necessary to meet criticisms. He said he had been receiving letters concerning graft and the like in the programs.
Maverick was increasingly becoming a thorn in the side of the leaders. On the day that the house voted on his resolution to investigate the relief program and WPA, Democratic leaders sought unanimous consent to expedite a measure sought by FDR, designed to establish a Joint Committee on Tax Evasion and Avoidance. Maverick exploded, "What is the hurry? . . . So far as I am concerned, I am tired of bills being presented with some mysterious reason why I should do something. I want to know the real reason. This is supposed to be a parliamentary body, not a door mat [applause]." The measure was temporarily blocked until it was given more conventional consideration.
The defeat of his investigation resolution a few days earlier by a voice vote may have been the basis for another challenge to the leaders when Maverick proposed that a voting machine be installed in the House. He said that voting behavior would be liberalized if the members had to go on record when every vote was taken in the House. Again, he had no success, but newspapers throughout the United States applauded his attempt.
The press gave the impression that some kind of a showdown was in the making between the Mavericks and FDR himself when the president invited Democratic congressmen to a weekend conference at a retreat called the Jefferson Island Rod and Gun Club, on a tiny island in the Chesapeake Bay about fifteen miles from Washington. Republican Representative Rich was somewhat closer to the truth when he kidded his Democratic colleagues about the invitations. He said that Roosevelt was going to get them down to Jefferson Island to tell them how he wanted them to be rubber stamps.
The next day, June 22, the Washington Herald described a warm-up session: "Representative Maury Maverick is planning to discharge his Texan oratorical gunfire against those Democrats in Congress who have turned against the New Deal. Announcing his subject as "Revolt of the Palace Guards,' with the subtitle of 'It Looks Like Landon Got Elected,' the fiery Texan will speak Thursday night at the Rockdale Restaurant, 1735 F Street, N.W., the only consumer cooperative restaurant in the East outside of New York City."
Various reports during the next two days explained that the Jefferson Island meeting was being held because a number of Democrats in Congress had complained that Roosevelt was becoming aloof—he was not keeping proper liaison with his supporters on the Hill, and they were becoming restive at not being able to see him. Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen gave as another related reason Maury Maverick's complaint about measures being tossed at congressmen without notice. The preconference stories also pictured Maverick as prepared to talk turkey to Roosevelt concerning the need to forge ahead with the New Deal program. He was quoted as saying that he and thirty-nine Democrats in the House were going to urge the president to keep Congress in session "until January, if necessary" in order to get major bills passed. The insurgents were going on the trip not merely "for sociability or to get inspiration, but to tell the President just exactly what we think." Maverick's aim was also "an effort to make the House leadership return to belligerency."
The day before the island festivities the Philadelphia Record reprinted the program of the Mavericks and asserted that Harry Hopkins and Heywood Broun had met with them to "advise on policy and strategy." Maverick, chosen to head the delegation to speak to the president, said that Democrats opposing the New Deal should be "purged," or "kicked out." He not only called for giving Senator Carter Class of Virginia the boot, calling him a "disagreeable old bore," but said that his own Senator Tom Connally of Texas was "no more liberal than Glass."
On the day the conference opened, Friday, June 25, Raymond Clapper wrote that Maury Maverick, "leader of the New Dealers," had gone to the meeting to keep conservatives from persuading FDR to let his program go over to the next winter. Clapper predicted that Maverick would be unpopular at the meeting and that he would receive "dirty looks" from many Democrats. With his bent for the use of symbolic gimmicks, Maverick had even secured Democratic badges from the Democratic National Committee that, he tartly said, he was going to pin on Roosevelt men, if he could find any on the island.
But somewhere the first and fervor died or at least was considerably dampened. The picture of the meeting was one of "good fellowship, feasting and song," of "fishing, swimming and good clean fun." The smiling chief was inducted into the mock Demagogues Club of Congress by Texas Representative Martin Dies. The president asked if this was Maverick's organization of House progressives. Dies quickly demonstrated that he had the proper credentials for the organization by responding that the Maverick group was a CIO outfit while the Demagogues believed in "craft labor."
In his own report of what he was able to accomplish at the meeting, Maverick said that it was not good manners to tell the whole story, but that amidst the jokes, beer, songs, and "jollification," "I slipped up to the President and mumbled our message and here is where I cannot violate good manners. I cannot say what the President said; but it seemed to me he mumbled, in fact said, something very encouraging." But a bit of reflection must have given him some caution, for he had told reporters earlier that he had talked confidentially with the president and that his response was "we are going through." When reporters asked if that meant in the present session of Congress, Maverick replied, "The President is smart enough," and reused to discuss the matter further.
Whatever the case, Maverick's disappointment and disgruntlement with the results of the encounter seemed clear. In his own report he said that everyone at the conference was "a perfect gentleman, so perfect indeed, that no one said what they really thought," and that the meeting should have been called Ostrich Island because most of the congressmen "had our heads in the sand, when we were not talking of the weather, or telling jokes." One gathers that though the meeting was not a complete failure, Maverick got little support from his colleagues in attendance, he was himself not immune to the Roosevelt charm and the conviviality of the circumstances, and the encounter failed to live up to the advance billing of rebelliousness that newspapers had led the public, and perhaps Maverick himself, to expect. That this effort and others by Maverick was not a complete failure, however, is attested to by the fact that the Maverick bloc was able to win some victories and that a special session was called in November 1937 by Roosevelt.
The liberal press praised and encouraged Maverick's efforts to move the New Deal along. The Progressive said that he was one of the real leaders of the "progressive-liberal group," and that he filled the gap in the House "left vacant since former Representative Fiorello La Guardia retired." The Washington Daily News said that the liberal bloc had a "possible balance of power on closely divided issues, and in other situations it has a nuisance value which sometimes forces consideration of its ideas." Of Maverick the paper said, "Now as in the past he roams restlessly through the halls of Congress, conferring, promoting, making radio speeches, urging action on the President's program. He interviews reporters as much as they interview him, and publicly criticizes his colleagues from the South who have blocked the New Deal's new drives for legislation." And Jay Franklin wrote in the Washington Star that Congress had apparently become indifferent to farm legislation, which could cause a "CIO-like" movement among farmers, but "Southern statesmen like Hugo Black of Alabama and Maury Maverick of San Antonio sense the danger and are willing to take measures to combat it." Before the session of Congress was over, Time magazine reported that the passage of the Third Deficiency Appropriation Bill "included a victory for the House Liberal bloc headed by Texas' noisy Maury Maverick, who wanted $20,000,000 for an experimental Government farm tenancy program, $1,800,000 for the National Labor Relations Board, and got both."
As the regular session drew to a close, Maverick delivered a national radio network speech. "Congress Must Not Go Home," in which he urged that the representatives should stay on the job and produce legislation necessary to deal with minimum wages, housing, the Supreme Court's powers, tax loopholes, and other pressing matters. He said that the Gallup Poll indicated that 63 percent of the people wanted Congress to do these things. A few weeks later he launched a blistering attack upon the House Rules Committee for blocking key legislation, an attack that was to be expanded in the special session. He called the group the "dictator of the House," and declared, "It is grotesque and amazing for a civilized country that claims to have a democratic government" for the Rules Committee to exercise such power over the legislative process. The Philadelphia Record charged that Maverick's Texas colleague, Martin Dies, had "organized the cabal of reactionary Southern wage-and-hour legislation," but that Maury Maverick had "fought tooth and nail" against the "reactionism of his Texas colleagues."
No sooner had the special session of 1937 opened than Maverick was yelling again. He wondered at the strange goings on of the House of Representatives. He said that he had received no notification of a special session but had to read about it in the newspapers. He charged that the session was marked by no coordination, dilatory tactics, and unfair efforts to block Republicans from speaking, which he had voted against. He asked if this was to be known as the "great horseplay session of 1937." Again the Rules Committee was his prime target: "The Rules Committee is the Supreme Court in reverse. It is stronger than any dictator, and it tells us we cannot vote on a certain question. I talked to a friend of mine on the Rules Committee. He said, 'If you gentlemen will amend this bill, we will let it be brought to the floor and voted upon.' I ask you, is it the 'censor' committee or the Rules Committee? Has the Rules Committee any right to tell other communities how to write their bills?"
He argued that the Rules Committee, by virtue of a combination of Republicans and Southern Democrats, did not represent the Democratic party. He admitted that he had voted for the resolution providing for the difficult process of a petition of 218 signatures to force Rules Committee action, but he said, "To my shame and sorrow I did. . . . I now know better." He declared that there were too many gag rules in the House of Representatives, thereby diminishing its powers. He concluded, "To repeat, we much have party responsibility, must meet issues head-on—we Democrats. Else we get kicked out by the voters of American, which we would deserve [applause].
Maverick came back to the attack in December with what he called a nonpartisan speech on the lack of "responsibility" in the United States government. He proceeded to treat his colleagues to a long, scholarly discourse on the parliamentary system in Britain and various measures by which certain of its advantages might be achieved in our government. The speech elicited many serious questions from interested colleagues, but he could not win any support for his specific proposals. For example, he contended that since the Rules Committee's opposition to the wages and hours bill had been repudiated by the petition signed by 218 House members, the committee should resign as the British Cabinet would when its position was repudiated. He introduced resolutions to provide that only 145 signatures would be needed to discharge the committee of responsibility for a bill and to provide that the House emulate the House of Commons by having an interpellation or question period for members of the president's cabinet and other key officials to appear on the floor of Congress and answer questions put to them by the members. Again, Maverick won the votes of the press, but not those of the House.
Maverick saw a waning New Deal and appeared to be almost frantically trying to hold back the tide single-handedly. In another network radio address in November he charged the business community with the responsibility for bringing on a downturn in the economy through "Hoover talk." He said that when a little prosperity began to return the "monopolists raised prices, grabbed off unreasonable profits, and left the public to hold the bag. Indeed, what happened is simple: farm income, and city wages, industrial and white collar, were not sufficient to buy all the goods at these exorbitant prices." Hence inventories were up and the stock market was down. These were the results, too, of a failure to enact farm, and wage and hour legislation.
As the special session came to an end, Maverick said that the failure to enact a wage and hour bill would be known as the Bull Run of the Democratic party. The Democrats had made "a mockery" of carrying out their pledges to the electorate. The major cause of defeat, according to Maverick, was the obstruction of his Southern Democratic colleagues. He grimly told them that in their obstructionism and dereliction poor whites and Negroes were taught to hate each other—"a system of 'checks and balances' based on hate, helping to perpetuate a miserable system." He urged them to read Carpenter's The South as a Conscious Minority and said that they were not only a conscious minority, but a self-conscious minority, "an irritable, touchy, and ready-to-take-offense minority. They must come to realize, he said, the need for a farm tenancy bill, economic justice for the Negro, and minimum wage-maximum hours legislation.
Maverick was even able to find a parallel in the actions of the Supreme Court. He gave a lengthy comparative study to demonstrate that the Court was following the Constitution of the Confederate States of America more closely than the Constitution of the United States.
Maverick had been busy on so many fronts in the 1937 session that it strains credulity. Remarkably little attention was given then or in subsequent studies of a farm bill that Maverick introduced in February 1937 when Senator Guy M. Gillette (R.-Iowa) introduced its counterpart in the Senate. This measure, labeled the Gillette-Maverick bill by the press, was designed to provide for soil conservation, commodity loans, and disposal of excess production of agricultural products. In March a Republican newspaper in Iowa reported that a three-state conference of farmers had gone on record with the statement that the Gillette-Maverick bill was "more nearly approximating the legislation needed by American agriculture than any farm measure ever before proposed." A Democratic paper, reporting on the same conference, gave strong support to the proposal and praised "Senator Guy Gillette and Congressman Maury Maverick who STAND FOR THE AMERICAN FARMER FIRST!" In May the same paper said that the basic principle of the proposal was "so right and so sound that ultimately society must adopt it for its own self-preservation." The editorial declared that though it had not gained wide publicity, the Gillette-Maverick "nonpartisan" bill had great support in northwest Iowa. The problem was that Secretary of Agriculture Wallace had viewed the proposal unfavorably and was generally "gloomy" over new farm legislation.
In April, in a brief note buried in a recital of congressional activities, the New York Times reported that a subcommittee of the Senate Agriculture Committee had voted to withhold action on the "pending Gillette-Maverick bill providing a far reaching farm-aid program." Senator Gillette said that in view of the developing economy drive at that time there would be "little or no chance of enacting a bill in the near future." The particular bill was dead, but the second Agricultural Adjustment Act that was enacted in 1938 had many of the features of this measure.
Maverick also continued to push for mandatory neutrality legislation with embargoes on all shipments of munitions to all countries, to say that President Roosevelt was "wrong" on neutrality, and to argue that existing legislation, enacted in 1935 and 1936, was "hasty and ill-advised."
Newspapers throughout the country gave favorable editorial comment to Maverick's proposal for a Congressional Medal of Honor for contributions in the arts and sciences, and the self-trained scholar continued to give his colleagues the benefit of his spritely reviews of the books that they should be reading When Congress adjourned the regular session, he enrolled in courses in labor problems and transportation at San Antonio's Saint Mary's University and made the honor roll! Maverick also won praise for sponsoring legislation called the American Youth Act, which was to provide employment and scholarships for youths from sixteen to twenty-five years of age—not unlike the youth programs of the Great Society of the 1960's.
At the American Political Science Association convention in Philadelphia in 1937, Maverick was photographed in an informal discussion with Thomas Reed Powell, president of the association and Charles A. Beard, famed historian and admirer of Maverick's neutrality policy. Maverick's friend, C. W. Ervin, sent him a clipping of the picture with the sly comment, "three lights of the literary firmament." Indeed, Maverick was there to lead a discussion entitled "The Constitution and Foreign Affairs," in the course of which he made a proposal remarkably akin to some of our hemispheric security arrangements with Latin America after World War II. He suggested that the countries of this hemisphere agree (1) never to take aggressive action against another member of the agreement; (2) never to fortify the boundaries separating member countries; and (3) to unite in defense of any member threatened by exterior aggression.
Maury Maverick was riding the crest at the close of 1937. His first book was a best seller; the liberal press (and much of it that was not) was hailing him as a conquering hero. One writer speculated on his possible appointment to the Supreme Court, and another placed him in a "Texas Dynasty" with John Garner, Sam Rayburn, and Jesse Jones, commenting, "Maury Maverick has carved a definite place for himself by his championship of progressive measures, his fresh viewpoint on national problems and his ouspokenness on the floor.
When Maverick's political foe, San Antonio's Mayor Quin, received a letter from someone in Louisiana requesting the name of the congressman from Bexar County district, Quin replied, "I thought everybody could answer that question."
Sultan of the Young Turks
There were few indications that Maury Maverick was entering his last session of Congress in January of 1938. A Washington newspaper expressed the opinion that any well-informed citizen who might be asked to name "a few really important members of Congress, probably would list such men as Senators Norris, Borah, Glass, Wheeler, and Wagner or Representatives Maury Maverick and David J. Lewis." These men, the paper said, had in common the disposition to "legislate with the welfare of the whole country in mind." The New York Times featured Maverick among eighteen leading members of Congress as it convened, and in February he was among those persons mentioned by respondents to the Gallup Pool as possible presidential candidates if Roosevelt, Jr., saw his famous father in a March of Time news film and was nearly thrown out of the theater when he yelled at the top of his lungs, "That's my Pop!"
A few days after Congress convened, Maverick was the principal speaker at the Jackson Day dinner in Minneapolis. He told his audience that another Andrew Jackson was in the White House. "Roosevelt is fighting like that mean-talking, hard-bitten old soldier . . . Andrew Jackson; although our FDR uses a little bit more graceful language." It appears that Maverick was trying to convince himself or to smooth over some of his differences with FDR, but, whatever the case, he continued to oppose a number of Roosevelt's proposals and to make statements that were of little comfort to the man in the white House.
Roosevelt had his hands full. In the summer of 1937, conservative Democrats in Congress had begun to break away from his leadership and to slip into a coalition with Republicans to frustrate further New Deal measures. Fear of chaos no longer restrained the business community from attacks on the New Deal and conservative congressmen had little fear of reprisals from constituents. Conservative Democrats were already looking forward to gaining control of the 1940 Democratic Convention. The last thing Roosevelt needed was opposition from Maury Maverick and his group, with their pushing for more New Deal programs. On the other hand, as Maverick saw it, he was trying to fight the good fight for FDR's New Deal and the president would not cooperate.
FDR particularly resented Maverick's opposition to his proposed naval construction program. In mid-1937 Maverick had secured appointment to the aviation subcommittee of the House Military Affairs Committee. He was "an almost fanatical believer in aviation as the best instrument of national defense and as an efficient means of ordinary transportation." To him, "development of the air corps is the most economical defense this country can build." As soon as Maverick had had time to study the president's message on rearmament, the salty Texan delivered a blistering attack on it. He declared that building battleships was about like the government "opening a rope factory and going out here and manufacturing rope in order to hang itself." He complained that "it sometimes looks as if the New Deal has abandoned all its economic and political ideals and that we are riding wild horses in all separate directions and not getting anywhere." He said that he did not know what the battleships were for. Japan was not bent upon conquering the world, and "I do not think it is any business of the American people whether the Germans have fascism or the Russians have communism [applause]."
Republican Representative Charles L. Gifford (R.-Mass.), in an exchange with Maverick concerning the latter's differences with the president, said, "I can visualize the gentleman himself may be President of the UNited States some day [applause]." Maverick replied that he would like to applaud the remark, thanked Gifford for a "vision that will never come true," and explained that he did not feel bound to do as Roosevelt wanted in all cases—that the president was usually right, "but no always, not always." The thought seemed to call up further criticisms; Maverick said that FDR was saying it was now time for legislation aimed at prevention of profiteering in war. Why now, asked Maverick. A 1935 measure was supposed to have done this, but "the bill stunk to the high clouds of heaven." Maverick concluded with the blunt observation that bills designed to give special powers to the president in time of war were a step toward "totalitarian or dictatorial government."
Early in February Maverick joined with Senator William H. King (D.-Utah) to offer a resolution urging FDR to call a Washinton arms-limitation conference. He cited an editorial of February 13 in the Springfield Republican expressing the opinion that Japan was acting in good faith in her stated desire for a meeting on disarmament. Some members of the Japanese Diet were reported to be seeking at this time to form an "Allied Comrades on American Policy" to thank the United States for its position of neutrality and to promote the continuance of U.S. friendship. On this subject, the Japanese news agency, Domei, carried long reports of speeches by Maverick and others.
Maverick also made another appearance on "America's Town Meeting of the Air" in February; this time he was taking the negative of the proposition "Should Congress Adopt the President's Armament Proposals?" He argued that studies had demonstrated the vulnerability of large ships and that they were thus outdated. What was needed was to modernize and expand the air service and to construct speedy tanks. Later in the month Maverick delivered a speech in the House entitled "The War Scare and National Defense." It was a bitter indictment of Administration policies. He said:
Now we Democrats have got to admit that we are floundering.
The reason for all this battleship and war frenzy is coming out: We have pulled all the rabbits out of the hat, and there are no more rabbits.
The Republicans need not rejoice, because they never had any rabbits—or even ideas.
The truth of the matter is that at the present time we are a confused, bewildered group of people, and we are not delivering the goods. The Democratic administration is getting down to the condition in which Mr. Hoover found himself; it looks as though we are beginning to feel that the way to prosperity is to stop spending altogether, and that in some way, magic or otherwise, prosperity is going to pop up around the corner sooner or later.
He repeated his contention that it was not battleships that were needed, but planes.
Representative Gifford again praised Maverick for his stand against the president and called him the great hope of the Republican party. Maverick asked that the statement be expunged from the Congressional REcord lest it break his heart. Gifford replied, "Haing done the damage, I am perfectly willing to withdraw it." He went on to praise Maverick for "not being afraid to speak out," and then read a report from an unidentified source, "It is understood that the 30 liberals who marched on the PResident so recently were so abrupt in their demands that no opportunity was given to the President to indulge in so-called silken language and the delightful amiability of which he is the greatest past master."
Gifford referred to the recent visit of the regrouped Mavericks to the White House to renew their demands on the president. In January, Harlan Miller had written that all of the insiders knew about the group of thirty-four Young Turks from seventeen states who were not meeting every Wednesday evening at Renkel's Cafeteria, a block or so from the Capitol, where one could get "a square meal for 50 cents." Their views, he said, would have been labeled Bryanesque twenty-five years ago, but their ideas were "modernized and streamlined," and the group was "far from wild eyed." Maverick presided at the meetings, but did not want it said that he was the "sultan of the Young Turks," because they were all individualists.
The first week of February, with Maverick as their spokesman, the group that was reputed to represent a liberal bloc of more than a hundred members called upon President Roosevelt and urged "immediate revival of a fighting New Deal." Among the specific measures they called for were a "push to enact the wage and hour bill"; passage of a "cost-of-production agriculture measure"; "renewal of government spending on a large scale and a drastic increase in relief appropriations"; "a tax program based on the principle of ability to pay, plus retention of both the capital gains and undistributed profits taxes with modifications"; a nation-wide soil conservation bill; expansion of the social security system; simplification of government credit agencies to provide credit for secured loans for low-cost housing, agriculture, small business, and public works; a program for increasing and regulating industrial production; and the revival of a public-works program "on a permanent basis." Maverick said that FDR expressed "keep interest and sympathy" on all points.
When the group discussed the strategy for getting the wage and hour bill out for passage, however, Roosevelt counseled them to get a bill that could get the Rules Committee's approval rather than concentrating on how to get by the Rules Committee. In the course of the conversations, Roosevelt indicated that he was smarting from Maverick's attacks on the naval construction proposals. When Maverick referred to the durability of pubic-works projects, FDR shot at him, "And airplanes deteriorate more rapidly than battleships." His anger was understandable—Maverick had even charged that the president was keeping secret information that would demonstrate the vulnerability of surface warships to airplane attack.
But Maverick was angry too. In March he returned to the attack with the statement that the New Deal was being abandoned. The warships were not needed, he said, and, "May I say to the Democrats that for the first time since I have been a member of Congress the Republicans have put in a real, honest-to-God, sensible minority report." They were right, in short, in their argument that it was not necessary to appropriate "billions for lopsided, unreasonable national defense." One of the most bizarre turns that this debate took occurred when Earl Browder and the Communist party denounced Maverick for opposing the naval construction measure and said that he had been "poisoned" by isolationist doctrines! Maverick told the House that the reason for the Communist party's support of the bill was that "they think we are going to take our Navy over there and fight Japan and get Japan out of China, because that is a menace to Russia. But I am not getting up a new 'red' scare." The reckless Maverick also said that he was not going to be worried about being "put on the political scrap heap" for opposing the president.
It was at this time that Joseph Alsop and Rober Kinter expressed the opinion that an anti-Roosevelt revot by liberals was looming. Alsop and Kintner wrote, "There's no question that the Roosevelt depression has impaled Bob LaFollette, John L. Lewis, Representative Maury Maverick and all other liberal leaders who have flourished under the New Deal on the horns of an excessively painful dilemma." The contention was, in brief, that Roosevelt had deserted them, and that "the President, so far, has handled the depression as though he were Herbert Hoover on an off day."
There was no evidence to suggest that Maverick was joining any revolt, but he would not let up in his broadsides at the president. On March 25 he complained that too much attention was being give to international affairs; too much attention was being given to the navy rather than the army. He said he saw too much of a parallel with Woodrow Wilson's administration, which had "started out with great reforms, bogged down, and muddled . . . into the World War."
We do nothing and "wait on the executive," Maverick said. Recently, the president had "made no effort whatever to guide or dominate Congress," of which he had earlier been charged. Congress was in a "sort of stupor," and responsible through its inaction for the increase in executive power. "I hear various fellow Democrats wondering what the President thinks of this and that, and we are told mysteriously that the White House wants this or that when there is absolutely no indication of it whatsoever. We had better learn to do something for ourselves," Maverick said.
In April he complained that too many planes were going to the navy and not enough to the army and that seacoast and antiaircraft defenses were being neglected. He had told a national network radio audience that the United States needed at least twenty thousand antiaircraft weapons, that the existing supply was scarcely adequate for the defense of New York City, and that Britain planned to use nine hundred such weapons to defend London.
Maverick also told the House that the United States was "miserably behind every modern country in the world" in aviation and urged members to vote for his bill (H.R. 10350) designed to set up a program for the training of aviation cadets at all of the land-grant colleges and universities, and the establishment of a United States Aeronautical Academy. The San Antonio Light said that this would mean the training of "at least 100,000 pilots" at a "West Point of the Air" with branches at Kelly, Randolph, Duncan, and Brooks Fields in the San Antonio environs. The proposal received editorial support throughout the nation. A Connecticut paper later said that Maury Maverick "may some day be hailed as the 'father' of the 'West Point of the Air,' just as the nation pays its homage to those forefathers who gave us the Military and Naval Academies at West Point and Annapolis.
Two weeks later Maverick was calling for the establishment of a single civil aeronautics authority and expansion of the National Guard and reserve air arms, as well as the air academy. Later in May, as he spoke proudly of securing passage of appropriations of $1,747,000 for improvements at San Antonio's Kelly Field, an advanced pilot training base, Maverick again urged passage of his air academy proposal, and a few days later he treated the nation and the Congress to some more of his engaging candor. In a discussion of possible sites for such an academy, he said:
Mr. Speaker, I join in the praise of the gentlemen from California [Mr. Dockweiler], who has the laudable ambition of being Governor of his State; he would make a good one, and we all wish him well. But I have an equally laudable ambition to be reelected to Congress—so listen to what I shall say about this appropriation for Kelly Field, which is in exactly the right place, my district [laughter], San Antonio, Texas. That is the place I want to get an aeronautical academy established, and I hope everybody will interest themselves in it, because it is the one and only advanced flying school of the Army.
On another occasion, after asserting that his record would show that he had cast his votes for the "national welfare," he admitted that he had not "sprouted wings." "For, indeed, I am no bashful John Alden when it comes to getting appropriations for my district. And I think that is perfectly proper—a Congressman should be the business delegate of the people, whose conditions he knows and whose lives he understands, and at the same time he should be the Representative of his country."
In his budget message of January 3, 1938, FDR had sought a power that had long been advocated by reformers and still is—the power to veto items in appropriation measures comparable to that exercised by most state governors. Maverick agreed that the item veto could be used to stop pork-barrel projects, but he felt it would give too much power to the executive who could use it to "dominate Congress completely and more or less make us a sort of company union of messenger boys." Maury maintained that it could be used against individual members to the extent that "no Congressman would dare oppose the executive on anything." It was his contention, moreover, that the proposed device, an amendment to an appropriations bill, would be found unconstitutional—a constitutional amendment would be the only valid way to give the president item-veto power.
Two days later Maverick attacked the irregular way in which the Appropriations Committee and Representative Clifton A. Woodrum (D.-Va.) had proceeded with the item-veto amendment. It specifically authorized the president to reduce by executive order the amounts authorized to be spent Maury said that this approach was "worse than a veto," that it could be used to alter basic policies established by Congress. Maverick made no bones about the fact that he was concerned about the prospect that the president might eliminate appropriations for post offices, which were "perfectly proper" for congressmen to seek for their districts. There was no doubt that this dollars and cents argument would strike a responsive chord, if not terror, in the hearts of fellow members of the House. Roosevelt, of course, was not extended this item veto, nor has it been extended to any other president.
As he had done with his proposal for an investigation of alleged irregularities in the administration of relief and WPA programs, ardent TVA supporter Maverick confounded the administration and his critics in 1938 by calling for an investigation to meet criticisms of the Tennessee Valley Authority. In support of his resolution for an investigation, he said that no friend TVA should fear the results. He declared that there was some basis to the charges made by enemies of TVA, but gave them small comfort when he said that he was concerned about some of the power sales to great corporations, such as ALCOA. He said that there was a lack of frankness concerning TVA affairs on the part of Harcourt A. Morgan and David E. Lilienthal, members of the Board of Directors of TVA, who had been accused of malfeasance by the chairman, Arthur E. Morgan. Maverick had once said that TVA officials seemed to think that they had "wings and work in Green Pastures," and now he said, "This lofty attitude is possessed by some of the high bojums and key cockalorums of the T.V.A. My idea is that all of them should be requested to dismount from their high-horses and talk with us poor, benighted fellows in order that we may be enlightened."
Maverick repeated his call for an investigation on March 3, saying that Congress was becoming a "door mat." He urged fellow Democrats not to "evade responsibility" but to "get up and assert" themselves. When he urged support of the investigation at the end of the month, Maverick got some more Republican support. Representative Harold Knutson of Minnesota quoted in praise of Maverick a line from the March 28 New York Herald Tribune, which stated that he had "led an open revolt against any white-washing inquiry." Knutson said that Arthur Morgan had been put before a kangaroo court at the White House and praised Maverick as the "fearless Democrat who is never afraid to take the floor and express his honest convictions." The kangaroo court was Knutson's description of the removal of Arthur Morgan by FDR for insubordination when the chairman refused to produce evidence of his charges against Harcourt Morgan and Lilienthal and called for an investigation instead. After he was fired, an investigation was made and it resulted in a majority finding that Lilienthal and Harcourt Morgan were guilty of nothing more than policy differences with Arthur Morgan, rather than the alleged malfeasance.
Maverick was not always jousting with Roosevelt's positions and proposals in 1938. As an astute politician, FDR was well aware of this, and he valued Maverick's aid. For example, Maverick indicated privately sometime in the 1950's that FDR had asked him to help defeat the famous Ludlow amendment, which was designed to amend the Constitution to provide that popular approval in a national referendum would have to be obtained before the United States could go to war. In spite of the fact that Maverick was originally in favor of the amendment and that he was one of the bitter enders on neutrality legislation, FDR somehow persuaded him to make this switch. Maverick said no more than that he got enough liberals to change sides to bring about defeat of the proposed amendment. The measure was rejected by a vote of 209 to 188.
Maverick also gave staunch support to FDR's request for a bill giving him power to reorganize the Federal administrative structure based upon the study by the 1937 President's Committee on Administrative Management (Brownlow Committee), which preceded the Hoover Commission studies of the 1940's and 1950's. Maury said that big business yelled for more efficient government and then defeated the means to accomplish it. Its opposition he characterized as "a lot of platitudes, a lot of empty generalities, noise and wind and intellectual junk." Again, with reckless audacity, he said that the people who were sending him wires against the bill did not understand it, and, "I am not afraid to go back home to my district . . . and say that I voted for the reorganization bill." Though the bill failed for that session of Congress, his speech evoked a letter of congratulation from Adolph A. Berle, Jr., then assistant secretary of state, who said that Maury had "stated the cold facts about the opposition" to the reorganization bill "amazingly well." Maverick seized the opportunity to plead his usual case. He wrote to Berle:
Now that we got whipped on the Reorganization Bill, I find your kind letter. It must be borne in mind [that it was] not on account of what was in the bill, but on account of our own bungling.
Not for weeks has any New Dealer been permitted to get out in the front. Of course, one can get on the radio, if he has sufficient standing, and ask for time. But fighting these separate battles is getting tiresome. Concerning the Reorganization Bill, the tax bill and various others: not a single person has gotten on the air to give evidence of their worth. I made a speech on taxes with the help of Leon Henderson—I know of no others who did it. The tax bill is a monstrosity and should be repeate. Such a bill is "letting the people down." I could give example after example.
It must be remembered that many of the Members of Congress have no convictions particularly, one way or the other. When Roosevelt slows down and doesn't take command of the battle, and when friends of Roosevelt are not even permitted to help, it is only natural that those without convictions turn against Roosevelt. Basically, Roosevelt is still as strong as ever—but he must get out in front.
In his conclusion Maverick urged that the reorganization bill be passed because its defeat would be a blow to FDR's prestige. He said that though Roosevelt might be a little unpopular at the moment, "deep down in the hearts of the American people they are for Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . the symbol of America."
Maverick also endorsed the recommendation of the president's committee for the establishment of a welfare department. Indeed, Maverick had made such a recommendation before the committee had done so.
Though Maverick could be outspoken in defense of seeking appropriations for his district, he thought that patronage was a pain in the neck. He supported Roosevelt's expansion of the civil service and said that members of Congress should bring all Federal jobs under civil service. He argued that congressmen would be better off "because then we would not have people worrying us about jobs and we would have decent, independent people on the payroll, neither enemies or friends."
Maverick was always out in front in the fight for passage of the federal minimum-wage law, and he shared the credits for its passage in 1938 (the Fair Labor Standards Act). Only twenty-two southerners signed the petition to bring the measure to the floor of the House. The three Texas members were Lyndon Johnson, Maverick, and Sam Rayburn. Maverick also took the lead in beating ack attempts to make the minimum wage lower in Southern states, and criticized chambers of commerce in the South for advertising "cheap and docile labor."
Maverick's references to a tax speech in his letter to Berle alluded to his effort to head off demands by businessmen for reductions in the profits taxes on corporations. In a defense of capital-gains taxes and undistributed-profits taxes Maverick, with the assistance of economist Leon Henderson, presented the following arguments to the nation. First, he said, in defense of capital-gains tax, those who are cut from seven million to five million dollars of "paper profits" complain of the government stealing their money—a notion based upon "some of the weirdest ideas ever though up since people believed in spooks and goblins." What these people really meant, said Maverick, is that if they sold some major stock at a profit, they would buy another stock and sell it when it had "ballooned up" on the market. "That would not put one thin dime in the hands of the American people; it would start no new enterprise—in fact, it is this kind of practice that binds up stockes to artificially high prices." Tax relief, Maverick contended, did not cause business to expand; previous attempts in 1930, 1931, and 1932 proved that it did not. His studies showed, he said, that machinery was purchased only after consumer goods were being bought at a high rate. The focus of government action, in brief, should be in the area of increasing consumption. Maverick admonished:
I want to say that as a Democrat, I am not proud of Mayor Hague of Jersey City. I think it is a proper activity of the minority party to call attention to the faults of the majority party, whatever the motive, and I am glad the gentleman is doing it.
I denounce Mayor Hague as a cheap, ignorant, tawdry, villainous little dictator who is a disgrace to his city, a disgrace to his state, and a disgrace to the United States of America. There is no excuse for his violent and brutal actions in a free country.
If that wasn't enough, Maverick said that Hague "should be viewed with contempt by all self-respecting Americans."
While Maverick was making hay for national causes and speaking out on national politics in 1938, no one was minding the store back home. His old enemies and some new ones were determined to "get Maury" this time. In February 1938 the San Antonio Express made the straight-faced announcement that Mayor C. K. Quin had announced his intention to support San Antonio's "fiery chief of police," Owen Kilday, in the coming Democratic primary against Maverick. The Express said that this announcement constituted endorsement by the "city machine, the members of which hold a big majority of the offices in the city and county government."
The first phase of the campaign against Maverick then took on a comic-opera note. The San Antonio Light's "Don Politico" column said that thte announcement was the "laugh of the week," and no one was "more dumfounded by this strange departure from political orthodoxy than the chief himself." "Don Politico" doubted that the mayor could be serious and wondered about the reason for the action. It was just possible that Quin had his Kildays mixed up, for on March 13 "Don Politico" correctly predicted that Paul J. Kilday, Owen's brother and first assistant district attorney, was about to receive the nod from Mayor Quin.
Further bizarre activities makred what appeared to be an un-official kickoff of the campaign when, by an engineered coincidence, Elizabeth Dilling, author of The Red Network and The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background, appeared in San Antonio on March 16. Maverick had been mentioned in the latter book as "Red Maury Maverick," the pet of hte "Communist-aiding American Civil Liberties Union." Inside the front cover of his own copy of the book, Maverick wrote a three-word review: "This obscene book." The San Antonio Evening News objectively reported that Mres. Dilling "spoke vibrantly and with much gesticulation at the interview . . . and the vigor of her manner was enhanced by a bright blue coatsuit that she wore." She told San Antonians, "I know he's a Red. He's Moscow's pet. Is he red? Baby he's their darling." Maury was for "the peace movement of revolution," and she did not know of a peace movement that was not designed for civil war. No one lifted a pen to point out that Dilling's work was a mishmash of inaccuracies and innuendoesthat there was no credible basis for the charges against Maverick.
The following day, March 17, James E. Kilday, another brother of the San Antonio police chief, was quoted as having said, "Paul is going to oppose Maverick, and he is going to pitch the fight on the issue of Maverick's communistic affiliations." On March 30 Paul Kilday announced his candidacy for Maverick's seat, saying that his object was "the elimination from Congress of one overwhelmingly shown to be the friend and ally of Communism." He pointed out on another occasion that he had not said that Maverick was a Communist, but that he was a "friend and ally of Communism."
The "evidence" was that Maverick had expressed admiration for Eugene V. Debs, had supported the CIO< had spoken favorably of John L. Lewis, had had a conference with the Russian ambassador, and had been praised by a Communist paper. The "conference" was a social gathering at the Soviet Embassy during which Maverick, with his usual flair for diplomacy, had "twitted the Russians for wholesale purges." He is reported to have said to Ambassador Alexander Troyanovsky, "What can we think of a country which shoots half a dozen of its best generals and 20 of its top bureau officials at a volley?" Maverick then added a jolting, "They may get you next." This was the "conference" that supposedly indicated Maverick's Communist sympathies!
The praise referred to was probably a review of A Maverick American in a leading article in a Communist periodical. It mearly called him a "twentieth century Populist," and said, "Maverick has many shortcomings in his ideas when they are taken as a whole, but he is a progressive and stands out as such." While Maverick was getting the red-paoint treatment in San Antonio, the Daily Worker criticized him severely for being an isolationist and said that the only way to peace was through "collective security, a united front of the democracies"! Moreover, Earl Browder, head of the Communist party, had attacked Maverick and others who were fighting the naval expansion bill in Congress.
Though there was no substance to the charges of communism, Maury Maverick was in trouble. The Citizens League had begun to disintegrate in 1937, and he had failed to do the needed fence mending in Bexar County.
Early in the 1938 campaign, Mayor Quin had charged that Maverick had written an article signed by Owen P. White for Collier's magazine. The article was a hard-hitting indictment of the shortcomings of machine government in the Alamo city. Maverick said that Quin's charge was "plain, unsupported falsehood," and countercharged on one of the issues discussed in the article that Quin had refused a personal offer of Dr. Thomas Parran, surgeon general of the United States, for a survy of public health conditions in San Antonio. When queried on this matter by a reporter, Quin said that he did not care to say anything about it.
Maverick might have been said to have won that round, but neither he nor Quin made any public statements at this time concerning other sensational revelations of the article. White had included an extensive expose of the recently deceased Charles Bellinger and his relationship with prominent citizens of San Antonio. Bellinger, a handsome, intelligent Negro boss, was said to be able to deliver from five to eight thousand votes to the city-county machine. Gambling and vice wer rampant in San Antonio in the twenties and thirties, and White charged that politicians would take 25 percent of the gross earnings of the gamblers, and that the City Health Department was used to shake down prostitutes yb charging them two dollars a week for health cards. Bellinger's controlled vote was usually enough to swing city and county elections, and, White said, "It meant he could either open or close the channels of graft that we have just been talking about."
Bellinger was said to have started out as a small-time gambler and then had become to "boss gambler of Austin Street." He later moved into money lending and real estate and bought whole blocks of shacks. He would ask minister of Negro churches to get the votes for him and he would see to it that streets to churches would be paved and that better parks and schools would be provided—and it all worked, because he delivered the goods.
When Bellinger was sent to prison for income-tax evasion, "prominent citizens" signed a petiton for his pardon. In May 1937, the San Antonio Light reported that Mayor Quin and Phil Shook, Sr., the district attorney, had gone to Washington to "obtain a full pardon for Charles Bellinger, negro racketeer, gambler and political power." The account stated that Maverick had made appointments for the two and accompanied them to several conferences, but he "emphatically declared he took no part in the plea for Bellinger's pardon." Bellinger had been out on parole since President Roosevelt had commuted his sentence after the Negro leader suffered a heart attack. Shortly after the attempt to win him a full pardon, Bellinger died, but his Harvard-educated son succeeded to the empire, and he and Maverick were to lock horns in a later contest.
Throughout June 1938 Kilday kept hammering on charges of Maverick's alleged "communistic" associations. On June 28 Kilday said that Maverick had endorsed John L. Lewis for presidetn in 1940, but that he (Kilday) would be a supporter of Roosevelt. Maverick said Kilday's statement was a lie: "Now don't any of you newspaper boys say 'Maverick shouted that it was a lie.' Say in a quiet, unassuming way, 'Maverick said it was a dirty lie.'
Maverick was assisted by a "dozen timely bouquets" from Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring, and Kilday's attacks seemed to become somewhat more temperate. As the election drew near he said, "There is one issue which no matter of shouting, no matter of irrelevant things can remove from this campaign—Maverick's radicalism."He went on to say that Maverick had been out gadding about and speaking to the CIO when he should have been looking out for the interests of San Antonio. Maverick's reply to Kilday's earlier charges had been, "Anyone who criticizes those in power is a radical or communist in this town. Well, I say what I think and I'm going to continue to do so until some of these conditions are cleared up."
Maverick was banking heavily on the support of FDR, in spite of their differences. He went to Forth Worth on July 10 to join the presidential train, and when he boarded in Roosevelt reportedly greeted him with, "Hello, Maury, glad to see you. How's the boy?" Later in a speech at Amarillo, FDR had kind words for Representatives Marvin Jones, Lyndon Johnson, W.D. McFarlane, and Maury Maverick, referring to the latter as "my friend." But Maverick wanted something stronger and had been led to expect he would get it. On June 25, in a confidential note to Tom Corcoran, Maverick said that, without any prompting on his part, FDR had invited him to come by for a visit. "He also promised to write me a letter extolling my virtues, my pious character—and also how much dough I got for San Antonio," Maverick said. He urged Corcoran to "do your stuff," and directed another letter to FDD aid Marvin McIntyre in which he made some suggestions as to the text of the letter. But there was no letter.
A few days later, in one of his stump speeches, Kilday claimed the endorsement of Texas Representative Hatton W. Sumners and Senator Tom Connally. Both of these men had locked horns with Maverick, particularly over the court-packing plan, and the endorsements seemed plausible enough. When queried by Maverick, however, Sumners wired that he had not endorsed Kilday, and Connally wrote from Marlin that he had not "either directly or indirectly" endorsed anyone.
In April the astute (and usually correct) political reporter, Raymond Brooks, had written, "Congressman Maury Maverick took them to a major defeat two year ago, and he will win again easily against them this year," but on July 27 the official canvass of returns by the Democratic committee of Bexar County gave 24,8322 votes for Kilday and 24,329 for Maverick—a difference of only 493 votes.
Why did Maverick lose? Considering the small margin by which Kilday defeated him, almost any single reason iven by the Mondy morning quarterbacks could have been the reason. Maverick's first public reaction was to state that his defeat could be attributed to the "bankers and the wealthy" from the north side of San Antonio. He also said that enemies of FDR had raised "huge sums of money" to defeat him and nine other House liberals. "It was amazing," he said. "I almost lost interest in my own race watching the slick way the beat me." He addded that "scandal squads" were used against him in the campaign to brand him as a Communist and an atheist, and that votes were actually bought. He added other factors in a prepared statement: (1) he was up against a machine like that of Jersey City: (2) more money was used against him than in any other Southern campaign: 93) he got off to a late start on campaign organization after the adjournment of Congress; and 94) he was hurt by the antilabor vot resulting from his CIO connections.
The usually perceptive "Don Politico" column emphasized the antilabor factor, pointing out that Maverick's speech to the Auto Workers in Detroit and his attack on Henry Ford had hurt him in the rural precincts, which Kilday carried by a vot of 2,271 to 2,082. Had Maverick held them as he had in 1934 and 1936, he would have been reelected. AFL leader William Green actually took credit for Maverick's defeat, lambasting him as an "ill-tempered, ill-informed, unstable and half-baked legislator." Maverick responded that Green had lied when he said that he had attacked the AFL. It will be recalled that Maverick had defended Green when he was booed by the United Auto Workers, but that the Texas congressman had later lectured the labor leader for his stand with respect to the wage and hour legislation. Now, Maverick said, "The truth is, Mr. Green is himself entrenched inhis job, and out of private spite and envy he is willing to betray labor. He is weak, stupid, vacillating and cowardly." The New York Post quoted Green's boast of the defeat of Maverick and commented, "We feel sorry for Mr. Green." Paul Y. Anderson called Green's statement incredible, and said that his rejoicing over the defeat of Maverick "was almost as if a man were to demand credit for shooting his best friend in the back."
Green's contribution to the defeat of Maverick was not in taking AFL votes away fro him, because the local AFL endorsed the congressman. Rather it was a matter of Green's endorsement of Kilday, lending support to the charges that Maverick was a CIO man and the consequent loss of the essentially anti-CIO rural vote in Bexar County.
Thirteen years later, as Maverick looked over his scrapbooks, he came to the newspaper photograph of Paul Kilday winking at the camera as he caset his vot in the 1938 primary. Maverick jotted next to the pictures, "He knew how to win that election, one box was held out several days (it had over 500 votes in it) there Maverick lost by about 480 votes. No wonder he winked."
Then there was the story of the campaign train, reported by Pearson and Allen, Maverick's friends. They said that in defeat Maverick had the one consolation that his loss had "caused more bitter recrimination in the inner White House circle than anything since the loss of the Supreme Court reorganization bill." Pearson and Allen said that the "anguished partisans" of Maverick had made "scorching cracks" as they blamed his defeat on the White House. FDR was said to have promised Maury, in response to his request for help, "Maury, you write the prescription, and I'll fill it."
When Maverick boarded the train at Forth Worth in July, White House secretaries Marvin McIntyre and Stephen Early gave him the run-around. McIntyre let Maverick see the president only briefly, and Early refused to issue a statement to the effect that FDR hoped Maury would be reelected, which the president had directed Maverick to tell Early to give to the press. Roosevelt was considered to be sincere in his wish to help Maverick, but his aides felt that the Texas whirlwind was too militant and outspoken. Insult was added to injury when Maverick found that his opponent's campaign manager was "comfortably ensconced in the lounge car of the Presidential special." At that time, Pearson and Allen said, "how he got on the train is still a mystery."
Months later Pearson and Allen were able to clear up the mystery. Maverick visited FDR in late November, and the two journalists said that he as good as told the president that his son Elliott was a "meddling carpetbagger." The "budding Texas radio magnate" from Houston was flatly accused of helping Maverick's opponent by employing Kilday's campaign manager on one of the radio stations and also of getting him on the president's special train. Maury asked Roosevelt to give his son a "good bawling out," and FDR excused his son as bing "young and inexperienced." Maverick is said to have responded that he had a seventeen-year-old son who had "better sense than that."
These specific factors might serve to explain Maverick's narrow defeat, but the explanation as to how he dropped from a majority of more than three thousand votes in his first primary victory for a seat in Congress and a plurality of about seven thousand votes in his second success lies in the general causes underlying the specifics. "Don Politico" captured it neatly in a quotation from "one wire story," which read, "He took too many liberties with a normally conservative constituency." A Negro paper said that Maury was "trounced at the polls because he talked too much and too unguardedly." The paper used as an example the remark attributed to Maverick as he opposed voting in the District of Columbia, "Hell! We got to have slaves somewhere. It might as well be in Washington." In August, more than a week after the damage was done, Maverick wrote to Eleanor Patterson of the Washington Herald, the source of the story, to protest that he did not make the remark attributed to him. He said, "Either the man who gave the story was lying, or I am lying. . . . I said nothing like the statement that was attributed to me." The response was, "We have been unable to find any evidence to contradict the story which we ran."
The Baltimore Sun saw Maverick's troubles in the fact that he was more "Roosevelt than Roosevelt": "Mr. Maverick was not only a New Dealer. He was not only the leader of the bloc in the House on which the more strident manipulators in Washington depended to scare the regular leadership whenever it showed signs of stopping, looking or listening. Mr. Maverick also specialized, in his hearty and engaging manner, in private roars because Mr. Roosevelt was not taking the Government into things right and left at an even faster pace."
Finally, Maverick was caught in the general swing toward conservatism and opposition to the New Deal in Texas and, though less pronounced, in the nation. Many of the Mavericks lost their seats in November, and one analyst concluded that Maury's defeat was the key one. He had "rallied the lads of radical ideas," and "his little band of zealots, through the strength of organization, became a power in the House. . . . They were pledged to work for reforms inthe next Congress. Now Maverick is gone. Others of the little 'sworn to die' band, in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, who hand to their seats by small majorities, are slated for the November ax. Maury was the vital force. And a likeable fellow he is, too." Maverick apparently saw all of this himself when he wrote to following for the Philadelphia Record: "Stop your telegras telling me how sad it was that I got beat! It was a miracle that I got elected in the first place!"
Maury Maverick looked well in defeat, both because of his reaction to it and that of newspapers throughout the nation. He told the New York Times: "I voted nationally always and for progress, I never cast a sectional vote. I never demagogued on our serious questions and stood for civil liberties. I have no regrets. . . . Whatever happens, nothing will dim my spirit and I will stand by the people, for civil liberty and economic justice." He told another newspaper, "The personal problem of any man ywho was beaten unfairly is to refuse to succumb to bitterness, and refuse to become a baiter of racial and religious minorities in order to get back. That has happened to some of our best Southerners. It will not happen to me."
Editorial comment deploring the defeat of Maverick was nationwide. The Portland Oregonian wondered, "Just what the democrats of his district hope to gain by displacing him is not easy to perceive," and the San Francisco News declared, "Perhaps the one result of greatest concern to non-Texans was the defeat of Maury Maverick in the Texas primary election." In an editorial headed, "A Loss to the Nation," the Saint Louis Star-Times said that it was "a genuine minor tragedy" that Maverick had been denied renomination, and the Philadelphia Record expressed dismay at the loss of "one of the ablest and most courageous of national liberal leaders."
Seldom has a simple representative's race received such national publicity and attention. The most significant editorial for Maverick came from the pen of William Allen White, who said, "If the present progressive wave in the Democratic party has produced one honest, intelligent, courageous man, that man is Maury Maverick, congressman from Texas, who Saturday went down to defeat under the maledictions of the local Democratic organization—the local Tammany—of San Antonio. . . . The first thing they do when he [FDR] is looking the other way is to crack down on a brave, wise, honest man like Maury Maverick." White went on to discuss the prospects for a third-party movement and then concluded, "In the meantime, here is a silent tear for Maury Maverick—and not so terribly silent either!"
The conservative and influential Dallas News, a paper that practically never agreed with Maverick but usually treated him fairly, said, "Congress will miss Maury Maverick, bull ways and all. Maverick's independence commands respect even when his theories may be disapproved or disbelieved. He is sold on new deal legislation, but no one could mistake him possibly for a subservient yes-man. He would certainly support no Roosevelt program with which he does disagree." There were, of course, a number of conservative newspapers that rejoiced in the defeat of the nettlesome Maerick. As one writer put it, "nervous tories" thought he was "the Robespierre from the Rio Grande."
Representative Thomas R. Amlie, Progressive representative from the First District of Wisconsin and a coleader of the Mavericks in the House, wrote to tell Maverick that he regarded his defeat as the "most serious setback that the liberal cause has received," and said that he had tried to get some money into Maverick's district to help him. In November, Amlie wrote an article for the Progressive, "Two More Years," in which he said that Maverick's defeat was "nothing less than a national calamity," and that he was "the most significant member of either House of Congress." Amlie himself was defeated shortly after the article was published.
Maverick's supporters persuaded him to try to run in November as an independent candidate with the expectation of picking up part of the votes of Bexar County Negroes (who could vote in the general election) on the basis of his support for antilynching legislation. Governor James Allred and Texas Secretary of State Edward Clark had both encourage Maverick to make such an attempt, but after studying the matter the secretary of state ruled that a candidate for the Democratic nomination could not run as an independent in the general electionn. Had this approach been legal, the prospects for its success were dubious. Though many Negroes signed the petition to get Maverick on the ticket as an independent, most of the rank and file were bound to be confused as to where they stood with Maverick.
Voters of whatever could could not be expected to appreciate the subtleties of Maverick's relationship to the Negro voter. In the 1932 primary he had unsuccessfully attempted to secure an injunction to prevent Negroes from voting and had stigmatized Charles Bellinger as a "certain negro gambler, a vicious overlord of vice and crime," and even warned Negroes not to "do anything to cause hate, revenge or destruction to your people." In 1934 he had been able to prevent Negroes from voting in the primary. National Negro leaders later told Maverick, in effect, that they recognized that most of the San Antonio Negro vote was machine controlled and that they knew what a dilemma it posed for him. Thus one might conclude that Maverick was not opposed to Negroes voting but that his complaint was that Negro votes were being delivered to the opposition. On the other hand, Negroes were not sure what his motivation was. Also, though maverick had voted for the antilynching bill and had sought general civil-rights legislation, he made no secret of the fact that he did not believe in social equality for the Negro.
Maverick later secured an investigation of the primary, with a particular eye to campaign contributions to Kilday and possible "violation of election laws," but nothing came of it at that time. It was later reported however that city employees and officials were "visibly worried" at the prospect of a grand-jury investigation of the padding of city payrolls in the last election.
What would Maverick do now? Most observers agreed that he would not be down very long. Some thought he would wait to return to Washington in 1941; otheres saw him in line for an appointment to some administrative post int he New Deal administration. One paper reported speculation that he was to become successor to General Blanton Winship, governor of Puerto Rico. But the "Don Politico" column had the inside information, predicting on October 12 that Maury Maverick would build a city organization and seek the office of mayor of San Antonio the following May. The "Don" said that Maverick had declined offers of "federal preferment" and wanted no federal appointive job. Maerick tipped his hand when in October 1938 he announced with his usual subtlety, "San Antonio has the sorriest city goernment in the United States, so far as I have been able to ascertain."
Late in the year, Maverick was making a swing through the country, speaking at colleges, universities, Rotary Clubs, and open forums. He delivered his final admonitions in a parting shot to FDR and the New Dealers when he stopped off in Washington. He said that Roosevelt should get rid of Jim Farley because he did not represent what the president stood for an that FDR should take a strong stand against Mayor Hague and other corrupt Democratic bosses. "The people aren't fooled. You can't talk idealism on one hand and not do anything about the Hagues on the other. . . .Liberals must realize that they cannot compromise with corrupt machines.
If Maverick needed any encouragement for his next plunge into politics, he had it in full measure, but he particularly prized the following letter from Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black:
Dear Maury:
Your published statement indicates that you accept the recent results in your district as a skirmish only, and that you oare now preparing for the battle—Your friends and admirers throughout the country will welcome the Maverick spirit of your promise to carry on. The Public needs you. I have no doubt that you will come back stronger than ever—you are right, and that will triumph.
When you come to Washington be certain to come to see me. My wife and I both want you to come out and visit us. We have to leave for Washington tomorrow—
With my good wishes and genuine admiration, I am
There were few indications that Maury Maverick was entering his last session of Congress in January of 1938. A Washington newspaper expressed the opinion that any well-informed citizen who might be asked to name "a few really important members of Congress, probably would list such men as Senators Norris, Borah, Glass, Wheeler, and Wagner or Representatives Maury Maverick and David J. Lewis." These men, the paper said, had in common the disposition to "legislate with the welfare of the whole country in mind." The New York Times featured Maverick among eighteen leading members of Congress as it convened, and in February he was among those persons mentioned by respondents to the Gallup Pool as possible presidential candidates if Roosevelt, Jr., saw his famous father in a March of Time news film and was nearly thrown out of the theater when he yelled at the top of his lungs, "That's my Pop!"
A few days after Congress convened, Maverick was the principal speaker at the Jackson Day dinner in Minneapolis. He told his audience that another Andrew Jackson was in the White House. "Roosevelt is fighting like that mean-talking, hard-bitten old soldier . . . Andrew Jackson; although our FDR uses a little bit more graceful language." It appears that Maverick was trying to convince himself or to smooth over some of his differences with FDR, but, whatever the case, he continued to oppose a number of Roosevelt's proposals and to make statements that were of little comfort to the man in the white House.
Roosevelt had his hands full. In the summer of 1937, conservative Democrats in Congress had begun to break away from his leadership and to slip into a coalition with Republicans to frustrate further New Deal measures. Fear of chaos no longer restrained the business community from attacks on the New Deal and conservative congressmen had little fear of reprisals from constituents. Conservative Democrats were already looking forward to gaining control of the 1940 Democratic Convention. The last thing Roosevelt needed was opposition from Maury Maverick and his group, with their pushing for more New Deal programs. On the other hand, as Maverick saw it, he was trying to fight the good fight for FDR's New Deal and the president would not cooperate.
FDR particularly resented Maverick's opposition to his proposed naval construction program. In mid-1937 Maverick had secured appointment to the aviation subcommittee of the House Military Affairs Committee. He was "an almost fanatical believer in aviation as the best instrument of national defense and as an efficient means of ordinary transportation." To him, "development of the air corps is the most economical defense this country can build." As soon as Maverick had had time to study the president's message on rearmament, the salty Texan delivered a blistering attack on it. He declared that building battleships was about like the government "opening a rope factory and going out here and manufacturing rope in order to hang itself." He complained that "it sometimes looks as if the New Deal has abandoned all its economic and political ideals and that we are riding wild horses in all separate directions and not getting anywhere." He said that he did not know what the battleships were for. Japan was not bent upon conquering the world, and "I do not think it is any business of the American people whether the Germans have fascism or the Russians have communism [applause]."
Republican Representative Charles L. Gifford (R.-Mass.), in an exchange with Maverick concerning the latter's differences with the president, said, "I can visualize the gentleman himself may be President of the UNited States some day [applause]." Maverick replied that he would like to applaud the remark, thanked Gifford for a "vision that will never come true," and explained that he did not feel bound to do as Roosevelt wanted in all cases—that the president was usually right, "but no always, not always." The thought seemed to call up further criticisms; Maverick said that FDR was saying it was now time for legislation aimed at prevention of profiteering in war. Why now, asked Maverick. A 1935 measure was supposed to have done this, but "the bill stunk to the high clouds of heaven." Maverick concluded with the blunt observation that bills designed to give special powers to the president in time of war were a step toward "totalitarian or dictatorial government."
Early in February Maverick joined with Senator William H. King (D.-Utah) to offer a resolution urging FDR to call a Washinton arms-limitation conference. He cited an editorial of February 13 in the Springfield Republican expressing the opinion that Japan was acting in good faith in her stated desire for a meeting on disarmament. Some members of the Japanese Diet were reported to be seeking at this time to form an "Allied Comrades on American Policy" to thank the United States for its position of neutrality and to promote the continuance of U.S. friendship. On this subject, the Japanese news agency, Domei, carried long reports of speeches by Maverick and others.
Maverick also made another appearance on "America's Town Meeting of the Air" in February; this time he was taking the negative of the proposition "Should Congress Adopt the President's Armament Proposals?" He argued that studies had demonstrated the vulnerability of large ships and that they were thus outdated. What was needed was to modernize and expand the air service and to construct speedy tanks. Later in the month Maverick delivered a speech in the House entitled "The War Scare and National Defense." It was a bitter indictment of Administration policies. He said:
Now we Democrats have got to admit that we are floundering.
The reason for all this battleship and war frenzy is coming out: We have pulled all the rabbits out of the hat, and there are no more rabbits.
The Republicans need not rejoice, because they never had any rabbits—or even ideas.
The truth of the matter is that at the present time we are a confused, bewildered group of people, and we are not delivering the goods. The Democratic administration is getting down to the condition in which Mr. Hoover found himself; it looks as though we are beginning to feel that the way to prosperity is to stop spending altogether, and that in some way, magic or otherwise, prosperity is going to pop up around the corner sooner or later.
He repeated his contention that it was not battleships that were needed, but planes.
Representative Gifford again praised Maverick for his stand against the president and called him the great hope of the Republican party. Maverick asked that the statement be expunged from the Congressional REcord lest it break his heart. Gifford replied, "Haing done the damage, I am perfectly willing to withdraw it." He went on to praise Maverick for "not being afraid to speak out," and then read a report from an unidentified source, "It is understood that the 30 liberals who marched on the PResident so recently were so abrupt in their demands that no opportunity was given to the President to indulge in so-called silken language and the delightful amiability of which he is the greatest past master."
Gifford referred to the recent visit of the regrouped Mavericks to the White House to renew their demands on the president. In January, Harlan Miller had written that all of the insiders knew about the group of thirty-four Young Turks from seventeen states who were not meeting every Wednesday evening at Renkel's Cafeteria, a block or so from the Capitol, where one could get "a square meal for 50 cents." Their views, he said, would have been labeled Bryanesque twenty-five years ago, but their ideas were "modernized and streamlined," and the group was "far from wild eyed." Maverick presided at the meetings, but did not want it said that he was the "sultan of the Young Turks," because they were all individualists.
The first week of February, with Maverick as their spokesman, the group that was reputed to represent a liberal bloc of more than a hundred members called upon President Roosevelt and urged "immediate revival of a fighting New Deal." Among the specific measures they called for were a "push to enact the wage and hour bill"; passage of a "cost-of-production agriculture measure"; "renewal of government spending on a large scale and a drastic increase in relief appropriations"; "a tax program based on the principle of ability to pay, plus retention of both the capital gains and undistributed profits taxes with modifications"; a nation-wide soil conservation bill; expansion of the social security system; simplification of government credit agencies to provide credit for secured loans for low-cost housing, agriculture, small business, and public works; a program for increasing and regulating industrial production; and the revival of a public-works program "on a permanent basis." Maverick said that FDR expressed "keep interest and sympathy" on all points.
When the group discussed the strategy for getting the wage and hour bill out for passage, however, Roosevelt counseled them to get a bill that could get the Rules Committee's approval rather than concentrating on how to get by the Rules Committee. In the course of the conversations, Roosevelt indicated that he was smarting from Maverick's attacks on the naval construction proposals. When Maverick referred to the durability of pubic-works projects, FDR shot at him, "And airplanes deteriorate more rapidly than battleships." His anger was understandable—Maverick had even charged that the president was keeping secret information that would demonstrate the vulnerability of surface warships to airplane attack.
But Maverick was angry too. In March he returned to the attack with the statement that the New Deal was being abandoned. The warships were not needed, he said, and, "May I say to the Democrats that for the first time since I have been a member of Congress the Republicans have put in a real, honest-to-God, sensible minority report." They were right, in short, in their argument that it was not necessary to appropriate "billions for lopsided, unreasonable national defense." One of the most bizarre turns that this debate took occurred when Earl Browder and the Communist party denounced Maverick for opposing the naval construction measure and said that he had been "poisoned" by isolationist doctrines! Maverick told the House that the reason for the Communist party's support of the bill was that "they think we are going to take our Navy over there and fight Japan and get Japan out of China, because that is a menace to Russia. But I am not getting up a new 'red' scare." The reckless Maverick also said that he was not going to be worried about being "put on the political scrap heap" for opposing the president.
It was at this time that Joseph Alsop and Rober Kinter expressed the opinion that an anti-Roosevelt revot by liberals was looming. Alsop and Kintner wrote, "There's no question that the Roosevelt depression has impaled Bob LaFollette, John L. Lewis, Representative Maury Maverick and all other liberal leaders who have flourished under the New Deal on the horns of an excessively painful dilemma." The contention was, in brief, that Roosevelt had deserted them, and that "the President, so far, has handled the depression as though he were Herbert Hoover on an off day."
There was no evidence to suggest that Maverick was joining any revolt, but he would not let up in his broadsides at the president. On March 25 he complained that too much attention was being give to international affairs; too much attention was being given to the navy rather than the army. He said he saw too much of a parallel with Woodrow Wilson's administration, which had "started out with great reforms, bogged down, and muddled . . . into the World War."
We do nothing and "wait on the executive," Maverick said. Recently, the president had "made no effort whatever to guide or dominate Congress," of which he had earlier been charged. Congress was in a "sort of stupor," and responsible through its inaction for the increase in executive power. "I hear various fellow Democrats wondering what the President thinks of this and that, and we are told mysteriously that the White House wants this or that when there is absolutely no indication of it whatsoever. We had better learn to do something for ourselves," Maverick said.
In April he complained that too many planes were going to the navy and not enough to the army and that seacoast and antiaircraft defenses were being neglected. He had told a national network radio audience that the United States needed at least twenty thousand antiaircraft weapons, that the existing supply was scarcely adequate for the defense of New York City, and that Britain planned to use nine hundred such weapons to defend London.
Maverick also told the House that the United States was "miserably behind every modern country in the world" in aviation and urged members to vote for his bill (H.R. 10350) designed to set up a program for the training of aviation cadets at all of the land-grant colleges and universities, and the establishment of a United States Aeronautical Academy. The San Antonio Light said that this would mean the training of "at least 100,000 pilots" at a "West Point of the Air" with branches at Kelly, Randolph, Duncan, and Brooks Fields in the San Antonio environs. The proposal received editorial support throughout the nation. A Connecticut paper later said that Maury Maverick "may some day be hailed as the 'father' of the 'West Point of the Air,' just as the nation pays its homage to those forefathers who gave us the Military and Naval Academies at West Point and Annapolis.
Two weeks later Maverick was calling for the establishment of a single civil aeronautics authority and expansion of the National Guard and reserve air arms, as well as the air academy. Later in May, as he spoke proudly of securing passage of appropriations of $1,747,000 for improvements at San Antonio's Kelly Field, an advanced pilot training base, Maverick again urged passage of his air academy proposal, and a few days later he treated the nation and the Congress to some more of his engaging candor. In a discussion of possible sites for such an academy, he said:
Mr. Speaker, I join in the praise of the gentlemen from California [Mr. Dockweiler], who has the laudable ambition of being Governor of his State; he would make a good one, and we all wish him well. But I have an equally laudable ambition to be reelected to Congress—so listen to what I shall say about this appropriation for Kelly Field, which is in exactly the right place, my district [laughter], San Antonio, Texas. That is the place I want to get an aeronautical academy established, and I hope everybody will interest themselves in it, because it is the one and only advanced flying school of the Army.
On another occasion, after asserting that his record would show that he had cast his votes for the "national welfare," he admitted that he had not "sprouted wings." "For, indeed, I am no bashful John Alden when it comes to getting appropriations for my district. And I think that is perfectly proper—a Congressman should be the business delegate of the people, whose conditions he knows and whose lives he understands, and at the same time he should be the Representative of his country."
In his budget message of January 3, 1938, FDR had sought a power that had long been advocated by reformers and still is—the power to veto items in appropriation measures comparable to that exercised by most state governors. Maverick agreed that the item veto could be used to stop pork-barrel projects, but he felt it would give too much power to the executive who could use it to "dominate Congress completely and more or less make us a sort of company union of messenger boys." Maury maintained that it could be used against individual members to the extent that "no Congressman would dare oppose the executive on anything." It was his contention, moreover, that the proposed device, an amendment to an appropriations bill, would be found unconstitutional—a constitutional amendment would be the only valid way to give the president item-veto power.
Two days later Maverick attacked the irregular way in which the Appropriations Committee and Representative Clifton A. Woodrum (D.-Va.) had proceeded with the item-veto amendment. It specifically authorized the president to reduce by executive order the amounts authorized to be spent Maury said that this approach was "worse than a veto," that it could be used to alter basic policies established by Congress. Maverick made no bones about the fact that he was concerned about the prospect that the president might eliminate appropriations for post offices, which were "perfectly proper" for congressmen to seek for their districts. There was no doubt that this dollars and cents argument would strike a responsive chord, if not terror, in the hearts of fellow members of the House. Roosevelt, of course, was not extended this item veto, nor has it been extended to any other president.
As he had done with his proposal for an investigation of alleged irregularities in the administration of relief and WPA programs, ardent TVA supporter Maverick confounded the administration and his critics in 1938 by calling for an investigation to meet criticisms of the Tennessee Valley Authority. In support of his resolution for an investigation, he said that no friend TVA should fear the results. He declared that there was some basis to the charges made by enemies of TVA, but gave them small comfort when he said that he was concerned about some of the power sales to great corporations, such as ALCOA. He said that there was a lack of frankness concerning TVA affairs on the part of Harcourt A. Morgan and David E. Lilienthal, members of the Board of Directors of TVA, who had been accused of malfeasance by the chairman, Arthur E. Morgan. Maverick had once said that TVA officials seemed to think that they had "wings and work in Green Pastures," and now he said, "This lofty attitude is possessed by some of the high bojums and key cockalorums of the T.V.A. My idea is that all of them should be requested to dismount from their high-horses and talk with us poor, benighted fellows in order that we may be enlightened."
Maverick repeated his call for an investigation on March 3, saying that Congress was becoming a "door mat." He urged fellow Democrats not to "evade responsibility" but to "get up and assert" themselves. When he urged support of the investigation at the end of the month, Maverick got some more Republican support. Representative Harold Knutson of Minnesota quoted in praise of Maverick a line from the March 28 New York Herald Tribune, which stated that he had "led an open revolt against any white-washing inquiry." Knutson said that Arthur Morgan had been put before a kangaroo court at the White House and praised Maverick as the "fearless Democrat who is never afraid to take the floor and express his honest convictions." The kangaroo court was Knutson's description of the removal of Arthur Morgan by FDR for insubordination when the chairman refused to produce evidence of his charges against Harcourt Morgan and Lilienthal and called for an investigation instead. After he was fired, an investigation was made and it resulted in a majority finding that Lilienthal and Harcourt Morgan were guilty of nothing more than policy differences with Arthur Morgan, rather than the alleged malfeasance.
Maverick was not always jousting with Roosevelt's positions and proposals in 1938. As an astute politician, FDR was well aware of this, and he valued Maverick's aid. For example, Maverick indicated privately sometime in the 1950's that FDR had asked him to help defeat the famous Ludlow amendment, which was designed to amend the Constitution to provide that popular approval in a national referendum would have to be obtained before the United States could go to war. In spite of the fact that Maverick was originally in favor of the amendment and that he was one of the bitter enders on neutrality legislation, FDR somehow persuaded him to make this switch. Maverick said no more than that he got enough liberals to change sides to bring about defeat of the proposed amendment. The measure was rejected by a vote of 209 to 188.
Maverick also gave staunch support to FDR's request for a bill giving him power to reorganize the Federal administrative structure based upon the study by the 1937 President's Committee on Administrative Management (Brownlow Committee), which preceded the Hoover Commission studies of the 1940's and 1950's. Maury said that big business yelled for more efficient government and then defeated the means to accomplish it. Its opposition he characterized as "a lot of platitudes, a lot of empty generalities, noise and wind and intellectual junk." Again, with reckless audacity, he said that the people who were sending him wires against the bill did not understand it, and, "I am not afraid to go back home to my district . . . and say that I voted for the reorganization bill." Though the bill failed for that session of Congress, his speech evoked a letter of congratulation from Adolph A. Berle, Jr., then assistant secretary of state, who said that Maury had "stated the cold facts about the opposition" to the reorganization bill "amazingly well." Maverick seized the opportunity to plead his usual case. He wrote to Berle:
Now that we got whipped on the Reorganization Bill, I find your kind letter. It must be borne in mind [that it was] not on account of what was in the bill, but on account of our own bungling.
Not for weeks has any New Dealer been permitted to get out in the front. Of course, one can get on the radio, if he has sufficient standing, and ask for time. But fighting these separate battles is getting tiresome. Concerning the Reorganization Bill, the tax bill and various others: not a single person has gotten on the air to give evidence of their worth. I made a speech on taxes with the help of Leon Henderson—I know of no others who did it. The tax bill is a monstrosity and should be repeate. Such a bill is "letting the people down." I could give example after example.
It must be remembered that many of the Members of Congress have no convictions particularly, one way or the other. When Roosevelt slows down and doesn't take command of the battle, and when friends of Roosevelt are not even permitted to help, it is only natural that those without convictions turn against Roosevelt. Basically, Roosevelt is still as strong as ever—but he must get out in front.
In his conclusion Maverick urged that the reorganization bill be passed because its defeat would be a blow to FDR's prestige. He said that though Roosevelt might be a little unpopular at the moment, "deep down in the hearts of the American people they are for Franklin D. Roosevelt . . . the symbol of America."
Maverick also endorsed the recommendation of the president's committee for the establishment of a welfare department. Indeed, Maverick had made such a recommendation before the committee had done so.
Though Maverick could be outspoken in defense of seeking appropriations for his district, he thought that patronage was a pain in the neck. He supported Roosevelt's expansion of the civil service and said that members of Congress should bring all Federal jobs under civil service. He argued that congressmen would be better off "because then we would not have people worrying us about jobs and we would have decent, independent people on the payroll, neither enemies or friends."
Maverick was always out in front in the fight for passage of the federal minimum-wage law, and he shared the credits for its passage in 1938 (the Fair Labor Standards Act). Only twenty-two southerners signed the petition to bring the measure to the floor of the House. The three Texas members were Lyndon Johnson, Maverick, and Sam Rayburn. Maverick also took the lead in beating ack attempts to make the minimum wage lower in Southern states, and criticized chambers of commerce in the South for advertising "cheap and docile labor."
Maverick's references to a tax speech in his letter to Berle alluded to his effort to head off demands by businessmen for reductions in the profits taxes on corporations. In a defense of capital-gains taxes and undistributed-profits taxes Maverick, with the assistance of economist Leon Henderson, presented the following arguments to the nation. First, he said, in defense of capital-gains tax, those who are cut from seven million to five million dollars of "paper profits" complain of the government stealing their money—a notion based upon "some of the weirdest ideas ever though up since people believed in spooks and goblins." What these people really meant, said Maverick, is that if they sold some major stock at a profit, they would buy another stock and sell it when it had "ballooned up" on the market. "That would not put one thin dime in the hands of the American people; it would start no new enterprise—in fact, it is this kind of practice that binds up stockes to artificially high prices." Tax relief, Maverick contended, did not cause business to expand; previous attempts in 1930, 1931, and 1932 proved that it did not. His studies showed, he said, that machinery was purchased only after consumer goods were being bought at a high rate. The focus of government action, in brief, should be in the area of increasing consumption. Maverick admonished:
I want to say that as a Democrat, I am not proud of Mayor Hague of Jersey City. I think it is a proper activity of the minority party to call attention to the faults of the majority party, whatever the motive, and I am glad the gentleman is doing it.
I denounce Mayor Hague as a cheap, ignorant, tawdry, villainous little dictator who is a disgrace to his city, a disgrace to his state, and a disgrace to the United States of America. There is no excuse for his violent and brutal actions in a free country.
If that wasn't enough, Maverick said that Hague "should be viewed with contempt by all self-respecting Americans."
While Maverick was making hay for national causes and speaking out on national politics in 1938, no one was minding the store back home. His old enemies and some new ones were determined to "get Maury" this time. In February 1938 the San Antonio Express made the straight-faced announcement that Mayor C. K. Quin had announced his intention to support San Antonio's "fiery chief of police," Owen Kilday, in the coming Democratic primary against Maverick. The Express said that this announcement constituted endorsement by the "city machine, the members of which hold a big majority of the offices in the city and county government."
The first phase of the campaign against Maverick then took on a comic-opera note. The San Antonio Light's "Don Politico" column said that thte announcement was the "laugh of the week," and no one was "more dumfounded by this strange departure from political orthodoxy than the chief himself." "Don Politico" doubted that the mayor could be serious and wondered about the reason for the action. It was just possible that Quin had his Kildays mixed up, for on March 13 "Don Politico" correctly predicted that Paul J. Kilday, Owen's brother and first assistant district attorney, was about to receive the nod from Mayor Quin.
Further bizarre activities makred what appeared to be an un-official kickoff of the campaign when, by an engineered coincidence, Elizabeth Dilling, author of The Red Network and The Roosevelt Red Record and Its Background, appeared in San Antonio on March 16. Maverick had been mentioned in the latter book as "Red Maury Maverick," the pet of hte "Communist-aiding American Civil Liberties Union." Inside the front cover of his own copy of the book, Maverick wrote a three-word review: "This obscene book." The San Antonio Evening News objectively reported that Mres. Dilling "spoke vibrantly and with much gesticulation at the interview . . . and the vigor of her manner was enhanced by a bright blue coatsuit that she wore." She told San Antonians, "I know he's a Red. He's Moscow's pet. Is he red? Baby he's their darling." Maury was for "the peace movement of revolution," and she did not know of a peace movement that was not designed for civil war. No one lifted a pen to point out that Dilling's work was a mishmash of inaccuracies and innuendoesthat there was no credible basis for the charges against Maverick.
The following day, March 17, James E. Kilday, another brother of the San Antonio police chief, was quoted as having said, "Paul is going to oppose Maverick, and he is going to pitch the fight on the issue of Maverick's communistic affiliations." On March 30 Paul Kilday announced his candidacy for Maverick's seat, saying that his object was "the elimination from Congress of one overwhelmingly shown to be the friend and ally of Communism." He pointed out on another occasion that he had not said that Maverick was a Communist, but that he was a "friend and ally of Communism."
The "evidence" was that Maverick had expressed admiration for Eugene V. Debs, had supported the CIO< had spoken favorably of John L. Lewis, had had a conference with the Russian ambassador, and had been praised by a Communist paper. The "conference" was a social gathering at the Soviet Embassy during which Maverick, with his usual flair for diplomacy, had "twitted the Russians for wholesale purges." He is reported to have said to Ambassador Alexander Troyanovsky, "What can we think of a country which shoots half a dozen of its best generals and 20 of its top bureau officials at a volley?" Maverick then added a jolting, "They may get you next." This was the "conference" that supposedly indicated Maverick's Communist sympathies!
The praise referred to was probably a review of A Maverick American in a leading article in a Communist periodical. It mearly called him a "twentieth century Populist," and said, "Maverick has many shortcomings in his ideas when they are taken as a whole, but he is a progressive and stands out as such." While Maverick was getting the red-paoint treatment in San Antonio, the Daily Worker criticized him severely for being an isolationist and said that the only way to peace was through "collective security, a united front of the democracies"! Moreover, Earl Browder, head of the Communist party, had attacked Maverick and others who were fighting the naval expansion bill in Congress.
Though there was no substance to the charges of communism, Maury Maverick was in trouble. The Citizens League had begun to disintegrate in 1937, and he had failed to do the needed fence mending in Bexar County.
Early in the 1938 campaign, Mayor Quin had charged that Maverick had written an article signed by Owen P. White for Collier's magazine. The article was a hard-hitting indictment of the shortcomings of machine government in the Alamo city. Maverick said that Quin's charge was "plain, unsupported falsehood," and countercharged on one of the issues discussed in the article that Quin had refused a personal offer of Dr. Thomas Parran, surgeon general of the United States, for a survy of public health conditions in San Antonio. When queried on this matter by a reporter, Quin said that he did not care to say anything about it.
Maverick might have been said to have won that round, but neither he nor Quin made any public statements at this time concerning other sensational revelations of the article. White had included an extensive expose of the recently deceased Charles Bellinger and his relationship with prominent citizens of San Antonio. Bellinger, a handsome, intelligent Negro boss, was said to be able to deliver from five to eight thousand votes to the city-county machine. Gambling and vice wer rampant in San Antonio in the twenties and thirties, and White charged that politicians would take 25 percent of the gross earnings of the gamblers, and that the City Health Department was used to shake down prostitutes yb charging them two dollars a week for health cards. Bellinger's controlled vote was usually enough to swing city and county elections, and, White said, "It meant he could either open or close the channels of graft that we have just been talking about."
Bellinger was said to have started out as a small-time gambler and then had become to "boss gambler of Austin Street." He later moved into money lending and real estate and bought whole blocks of shacks. He would ask minister of Negro churches to get the votes for him and he would see to it that streets to churches would be paved and that better parks and schools would be provided—and it all worked, because he delivered the goods.
When Bellinger was sent to prison for income-tax evasion, "prominent citizens" signed a petiton for his pardon. In May 1937, the San Antonio Light reported that Mayor Quin and Phil Shook, Sr., the district attorney, had gone to Washington to "obtain a full pardon for Charles Bellinger, negro racketeer, gambler and political power." The account stated that Maverick had made appointments for the two and accompanied them to several conferences, but he "emphatically declared he took no part in the plea for Bellinger's pardon." Bellinger had been out on parole since President Roosevelt had commuted his sentence after the Negro leader suffered a heart attack. Shortly after the attempt to win him a full pardon, Bellinger died, but his Harvard-educated son succeeded to the empire, and he and Maverick were to lock horns in a later contest.
Throughout June 1938 Kilday kept hammering on charges of Maverick's alleged "communistic" associations. On June 28 Kilday said that Maverick had endorsed John L. Lewis for presidetn in 1940, but that he (Kilday) would be a supporter of Roosevelt. Maverick said Kilday's statement was a lie: "Now don't any of you newspaper boys say 'Maverick shouted that it was a lie.' Say in a quiet, unassuming way, 'Maverick said it was a dirty lie.'
Maverick was assisted by a "dozen timely bouquets" from Secretary of War Harry H. Woodring, and Kilday's attacks seemed to become somewhat more temperate. As the election drew near he said, "There is one issue which no matter of shouting, no matter of irrelevant things can remove from this campaign—Maverick's radicalism."He went on to say that Maverick had been out gadding about and speaking to the CIO when he should have been looking out for the interests of San Antonio. Maverick's reply to Kilday's earlier charges had been, "Anyone who criticizes those in power is a radical or communist in this town. Well, I say what I think and I'm going to continue to do so until some of these conditions are cleared up."
Maverick was banking heavily on the support of FDR, in spite of their differences. He went to Forth Worth on July 10 to join the presidential train, and when he boarded in Roosevelt reportedly greeted him with, "Hello, Maury, glad to see you. How's the boy?" Later in a speech at Amarillo, FDR had kind words for Representatives Marvin Jones, Lyndon Johnson, W.D. McFarlane, and Maury Maverick, referring to the latter as "my friend." But Maverick wanted something stronger and had been led to expect he would get it. On June 25, in a confidential note to Tom Corcoran, Maverick said that, without any prompting on his part, FDR had invited him to come by for a visit. "He also promised to write me a letter extolling my virtues, my pious character—and also how much dough I got for San Antonio," Maverick said. He urged Corcoran to "do your stuff," and directed another letter to FDD aid Marvin McIntyre in which he made some suggestions as to the text of the letter. But there was no letter.
A few days later, in one of his stump speeches, Kilday claimed the endorsement of Texas Representative Hatton W. Sumners and Senator Tom Connally. Both of these men had locked horns with Maverick, particularly over the court-packing plan, and the endorsements seemed plausible enough. When queried by Maverick, however, Sumners wired that he had not endorsed Kilday, and Connally wrote from Marlin that he had not "either directly or indirectly" endorsed anyone.
In April the astute (and usually correct) political reporter, Raymond Brooks, had written, "Congressman Maury Maverick took them to a major defeat two year ago, and he will win again easily against them this year," but on July 27 the official canvass of returns by the Democratic committee of Bexar County gave 24,8322 votes for Kilday and 24,329 for Maverick—a difference of only 493 votes.
Why did Maverick lose? Considering the small margin by which Kilday defeated him, almost any single reason iven by the Mondy morning quarterbacks could have been the reason. Maverick's first public reaction was to state that his defeat could be attributed to the "bankers and the wealthy" from the north side of San Antonio. He also said that enemies of FDR had raised "huge sums of money" to defeat him and nine other House liberals. "It was amazing," he said. "I almost lost interest in my own race watching the slick way the beat me." He addded that "scandal squads" were used against him in the campaign to brand him as a Communist and an atheist, and that votes were actually bought. He added other factors in a prepared statement: (1) he was up against a machine like that of Jersey City: (2) more money was used against him than in any other Southern campaign: 93) he got off to a late start on campaign organization after the adjournment of Congress; and 94) he was hurt by the antilabor vot resulting from his CIO connections.
The usually perceptive "Don Politico" column emphasized the antilabor factor, pointing out that Maverick's speech to the Auto Workers in Detroit and his attack on Henry Ford had hurt him in the rural precincts, which Kilday carried by a vot of 2,271 to 2,082. Had Maverick held them as he had in 1934 and 1936, he would have been reelected. AFL leader William Green actually took credit for Maverick's defeat, lambasting him as an "ill-tempered, ill-informed, unstable and half-baked legislator." Maverick responded that Green had lied when he said that he had attacked the AFL. It will be recalled that Maverick had defended Green when he was booed by the United Auto Workers, but that the Texas congressman had later lectured the labor leader for his stand with respect to the wage and hour legislation. Now, Maverick said, "The truth is, Mr. Green is himself entrenched inhis job, and out of private spite and envy he is willing to betray labor. He is weak, stupid, vacillating and cowardly." The New York Post quoted Green's boast of the defeat of Maverick and commented, "We feel sorry for Mr. Green." Paul Y. Anderson called Green's statement incredible, and said that his rejoicing over the defeat of Maverick "was almost as if a man were to demand credit for shooting his best friend in the back."
Green's contribution to the defeat of Maverick was not in taking AFL votes away fro him, because the local AFL endorsed the congressman. Rather it was a matter of Green's endorsement of Kilday, lending support to the charges that Maverick was a CIO man and the consequent loss of the essentially anti-CIO rural vote in Bexar County.
Thirteen years later, as Maverick looked over his scrapbooks, he came to the newspaper photograph of Paul Kilday winking at the camera as he caset his vot in the 1938 primary. Maverick jotted next to the pictures, "He knew how to win that election, one box was held out several days (it had over 500 votes in it) there Maverick lost by about 480 votes. No wonder he winked."
Then there was the story of the campaign train, reported by Pearson and Allen, Maverick's friends. They said that in defeat Maverick had the one consolation that his loss had "caused more bitter recrimination in the inner White House circle than anything since the loss of the Supreme Court reorganization bill." Pearson and Allen said that the "anguished partisans" of Maverick had made "scorching cracks" as they blamed his defeat on the White House. FDR was said to have promised Maury, in response to his request for help, "Maury, you write the prescription, and I'll fill it."
When Maverick boarded the train at Forth Worth in July, White House secretaries Marvin McIntyre and Stephen Early gave him the run-around. McIntyre let Maverick see the president only briefly, and Early refused to issue a statement to the effect that FDR hoped Maury would be reelected, which the president had directed Maverick to tell Early to give to the press. Roosevelt was considered to be sincere in his wish to help Maverick, but his aides felt that the Texas whirlwind was too militant and outspoken. Insult was added to injury when Maverick found that his opponent's campaign manager was "comfortably ensconced in the lounge car of the Presidential special." At that time, Pearson and Allen said, "how he got on the train is still a mystery."
Months later Pearson and Allen were able to clear up the mystery. Maverick visited FDR in late November, and the two journalists said that he as good as told the president that his son Elliott was a "meddling carpetbagger." The "budding Texas radio magnate" from Houston was flatly accused of helping Maverick's opponent by employing Kilday's campaign manager on one of the radio stations and also of getting him on the president's special train. Maury asked Roosevelt to give his son a "good bawling out," and FDR excused his son as bing "young and inexperienced." Maverick is said to have responded that he had a seventeen-year-old son who had "better sense than that."
These specific factors might serve to explain Maverick's narrow defeat, but the explanation as to how he dropped from a majority of more than three thousand votes in his first primary victory for a seat in Congress and a plurality of about seven thousand votes in his second success lies in the general causes underlying the specifics. "Don Politico" captured it neatly in a quotation from "one wire story," which read, "He took too many liberties with a normally conservative constituency." A Negro paper said that Maury was "trounced at the polls because he talked too much and too unguardedly." The paper used as an example the remark attributed to Maverick as he opposed voting in the District of Columbia, "Hell! We got to have slaves somewhere. It might as well be in Washington." In August, more than a week after the damage was done, Maverick wrote to Eleanor Patterson of the Washington Herald, the source of the story, to protest that he did not make the remark attributed to him. He said, "Either the man who gave the story was lying, or I am lying. . . . I said nothing like the statement that was attributed to me." The response was, "We have been unable to find any evidence to contradict the story which we ran."
The Baltimore Sun saw Maverick's troubles in the fact that he was more "Roosevelt than Roosevelt": "Mr. Maverick was not only a New Dealer. He was not only the leader of the bloc in the House on which the more strident manipulators in Washington depended to scare the regular leadership whenever it showed signs of stopping, looking or listening. Mr. Maverick also specialized, in his hearty and engaging manner, in private roars because Mr. Roosevelt was not taking the Government into things right and left at an even faster pace."
Finally, Maverick was caught in the general swing toward conservatism and opposition to the New Deal in Texas and, though less pronounced, in the nation. Many of the Mavericks lost their seats in November, and one analyst concluded that Maury's defeat was the key one. He had "rallied the lads of radical ideas," and "his little band of zealots, through the strength of organization, became a power in the House. . . . They were pledged to work for reforms inthe next Congress. Now Maverick is gone. Others of the little 'sworn to die' band, in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania, who hand to their seats by small majorities, are slated for the November ax. Maury was the vital force. And a likeable fellow he is, too." Maverick apparently saw all of this himself when he wrote to following for the Philadelphia Record: "Stop your telegras telling me how sad it was that I got beat! It was a miracle that I got elected in the first place!"
Maury Maverick looked well in defeat, both because of his reaction to it and that of newspapers throughout the nation. He told the New York Times: "I voted nationally always and for progress, I never cast a sectional vote. I never demagogued on our serious questions and stood for civil liberties. I have no regrets. . . . Whatever happens, nothing will dim my spirit and I will stand by the people, for civil liberty and economic justice." He told another newspaper, "The personal problem of any man ywho was beaten unfairly is to refuse to succumb to bitterness, and refuse to become a baiter of racial and religious minorities in order to get back. That has happened to some of our best Southerners. It will not happen to me."
Editorial comment deploring the defeat of Maverick was nationwide. The Portland Oregonian wondered, "Just what the democrats of his district hope to gain by displacing him is not easy to perceive," and the San Francisco News declared, "Perhaps the one result of greatest concern to non-Texans was the defeat of Maury Maverick in the Texas primary election." In an editorial headed, "A Loss to the Nation," the Saint Louis Star-Times said that it was "a genuine minor tragedy" that Maverick had been denied renomination, and the Philadelphia Record expressed dismay at the loss of "one of the ablest and most courageous of national liberal leaders."
Seldom has a simple representative's race received such national publicity and attention. The most significant editorial for Maverick came from the pen of William Allen White, who said, "If the present progressive wave in the Democratic party has produced one honest, intelligent, courageous man, that man is Maury Maverick, congressman from Texas, who Saturday went down to defeat under the maledictions of the local Democratic organization—the local Tammany—of San Antonio. . . . The first thing they do when he [FDR] is looking the other way is to crack down on a brave, wise, honest man like Maury Maverick." White went on to discuss the prospects for a third-party movement and then concluded, "In the meantime, here is a silent tear for Maury Maverick—and not so terribly silent either!"
The conservative and influential Dallas News, a paper that practically never agreed with Maverick but usually treated him fairly, said, "Congress will miss Maury Maverick, bull ways and all. Maverick's independence commands respect even when his theories may be disapproved or disbelieved. He is sold on new deal legislation, but no one could mistake him possibly for a subservient yes-man. He would certainly support no Roosevelt program with which he does disagree." There were, of course, a number of conservative newspapers that rejoiced in the defeat of the nettlesome Maerick. As one writer put it, "nervous tories" thought he was "the Robespierre from the Rio Grande."
Representative Thomas R. Amlie, Progressive representative from the First District of Wisconsin and a coleader of the Mavericks in the House, wrote to tell Maverick that he regarded his defeat as the "most serious setback that the liberal cause has received," and said that he had tried to get some money into Maverick's district to help him. In November, Amlie wrote an article for the Progressive, "Two More Years," in which he said that Maverick's defeat was "nothing less than a national calamity," and that he was "the most significant member of either House of Congress." Amlie himself was defeated shortly after the article was published.
Maverick's supporters persuaded him to try to run in November as an independent candidate with the expectation of picking up part of the votes of Bexar County Negroes (who could vote in the general election) on the basis of his support for antilynching legislation. Governor James Allred and Texas Secretary of State Edward Clark had both encourage Maverick to make such an attempt, but after studying the matter the secretary of state ruled that a candidate for the Democratic nomination could not run as an independent in the general electionn. Had this approach been legal, the prospects for its success were dubious. Though many Negroes signed the petition to get Maverick on the ticket as an independent, most of the rank and file were bound to be confused as to where they stood with Maverick.
Voters of whatever could could not be expected to appreciate the subtleties of Maverick's relationship to the Negro voter. In the 1932 primary he had unsuccessfully attempted to secure an injunction to prevent Negroes from voting and had stigmatized Charles Bellinger as a "certain negro gambler, a vicious overlord of vice and crime," and even warned Negroes not to "do anything to cause hate, revenge or destruction to your people." In 1934 he had been able to prevent Negroes from voting in the primary. National Negro leaders later told Maverick, in effect, that they recognized that most of the San Antonio Negro vote was machine controlled and that they knew what a dilemma it posed for him. Thus one might conclude that Maverick was not opposed to Negroes voting but that his complaint was that Negro votes were being delivered to the opposition. On the other hand, Negroes were not sure what his motivation was. Also, though maverick had voted for the antilynching bill and had sought general civil-rights legislation, he made no secret of the fact that he did not believe in social equality for the Negro.
Maverick later secured an investigation of the primary, with a particular eye to campaign contributions to Kilday and possible "violation of election laws," but nothing came of it at that time. It was later reported however that city employees and officials were "visibly worried" at the prospect of a grand-jury investigation of the padding of city payrolls in the last election.
What would Maverick do now? Most observers agreed that he would not be down very long. Some thought he would wait to return to Washington in 1941; otheres saw him in line for an appointment to some administrative post int he New Deal administration. One paper reported speculation that he was to become successor to General Blanton Winship, governor of Puerto Rico. But the "Don Politico" column had the inside information, predicting on October 12 that Maury Maverick would build a city organization and seek the office of mayor of San Antonio the following May. The "Don" said that Maverick had declined offers of "federal preferment" and wanted no federal appointive job. Maerick tipped his hand when in October 1938 he announced with his usual subtlety, "San Antonio has the sorriest city goernment in the United States, so far as I have been able to ascertain."
Late in the year, Maverick was making a swing through the country, speaking at colleges, universities, Rotary Clubs, and open forums. He delivered his final admonitions in a parting shot to FDR and the New Dealers when he stopped off in Washington. He said that Roosevelt should get rid of Jim Farley because he did not represent what the president stood for an that FDR should take a strong stand against Mayor Hague and other corrupt Democratic bosses. "The people aren't fooled. You can't talk idealism on one hand and not do anything about the Hagues on the other. . . .Liberals must realize that they cannot compromise with corrupt machines.
If Maverick needed any encouragement for his next plunge into politics, he had it in full measure, but he particularly prized the following letter from Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black:
Dear Maury:
Your published statement indicates that you accept the recent results in your district as a skirmish only, and that you oare now preparing for the battle—Your friends and admirers throughout the country will welcome the Maverick spirit of your promise to carry on. The Public needs you. I have no doubt that you will come back stronger than ever—you are right, and that will triumph.
When you come to Washington be certain to come to see me. My wife and I both want you to come out and visit us. We have to leave for Washington tomorrow—
With my good wishes and genuine admiration, I am
Sincerely your friend,
Hugo L. Black
Hugo L. Black
A Texas La Guardia
Early in December 1938 a series of sordid revelations began to emerge, indicating that the San Antonio mayor's office was going to be ripe, or perhaps rotten, for the plucking.
The story broke with a controversy between Bexar County district attorney John R. Shook and the Criminal District Court grand jurors. Members of the grand jury had excluded the district attorney, for what turned out to be obvious reasons, from their sessions. After a heated clash, the irate Shook attempted to get Judge W. W. McCrory to "inform the probing body of the statutory rights of the district attorney's office." What the grand jury was looking into, among other things, was the hiring of hundreds of city workers at the time of the Democratic primary in which Maverick lost his seat in Congress. Shook was himself a member of the machine that profited from the "political work" of those persons hired. Joe Diaz, one of the witnesses who appeared before the grand jury, told newsmen, "I've always been a friend of Johnny Shook. I promised Kilday I would help him and I wanted to help out Judge McCrory. About a week after the election I got $4 from the city." There was small comfort, but some humor, in the possibility that some payoffs did not work too well. Juan Flores told the San Antonio Express that he had received four dollars from the city to work for Sheriff Will W. Wood at the same time he was "doing a little precinct work for Albert West," Wood's opponent.
But the grand jury was not amused. It returned indictments against Mayor Quin and two of his aides. Some five hundred citizens were listed in the San Antonio Light, the amounts paid to each of them ranging from four to forty dollars for "working around the polls." The indictments were drawn under Article 95 of the penal code of Texas, making misapplication of public funds a criminal offense, rather than Article 188, which covered bribery in elections. When the indictments were returned, Judge W. W. McCrory disqualified himself and called in Judge R. D. Wright of Laredo to hear the cases. Judge McCrory said, "During the time the grand jury was investigating the cases, it was generally understood that the witnesses were working for me, Paul Kilday and other members of the ticket."
The San Antonio Light accurately predicted that the indictments would be quashed because the money had not been "appropriated to their own use and benefit," as had been charged. Rather, said "Don Politico," the money "was spent to aid the political ambitions of District Attorney John R. Shook, Congressman Paul J. Kilday, defeated County Judge Egbert Schweppe, defeated candidate for sheriff Albert W. West. Jr., Bob Uhr, and the others who ran for office on the machine ticket." The "Don" now said that Maverick's defeat in the primary had been due to the "smart political maneuvers" of the chief of police, Owen Kilday. The Light stated in a front-page story two days before that the money spent by the city officials could account for at least one thousand votes.
The grand jury investigations, however, continued. In an editorial January 2, the San Antonio Light charged that a "personal property assessment racket" existed in Bexar County and urged the grand jury to continue its probe into general corruption in local government. The grand jury declared, "We deplore and condemn a political set-up which deprives all the people of adequate, effective and safe protection, as well as efficient and well-managed administration." When the indictment against Quin was actually dropped in February and Shook proceeded to dismiss the indictments against "other politicians," the Light indignantly editorialized:
Let's review THE FACTS.
Some 500 persons were put on the city payroll on or about the date of the Democratic primary last July.
This is NOT hearsay or idle speculation.
Scores of these "workers" were called before the Criminal District Court grand jury, which in turn indicted Mayor Quin and two of his aides. . . .
"I have committed no offense," [Mayor Quin] said, "I have violated no law. Neither have my two employees who were indicted with me."
"IS IT AN INDICTABLE OFFENCE TO FEED A FEW SCORE HUNGRY PEOPLE IF AT THE TIME OF EMPLOYMENT THERE IS PERCHANCE A DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN BEING WAGES?"
Note, carefully, the mayor DID NOT DENY the city's payrolls had been padded at election time.
Rather, he asked, in effect: "What are you going to do about it?"
No one was fooled by the brazen action, and there were persons who were prepared to "do something about it." Maverick had again hinted at running for mayor on December 21, saying he had been approached by a number of people. Later it was reported that he had, without success, asked each of seven prominent San Antonians to run for Mayor. In a later discussion of Maury's efforts to get someone to run, "Don Politico" said that he was certain that Maverick had a federal appointment "in the bag." "The nature of this position would be such that it would pay him handsomely, yet allow him sufficient time to participate in politics," declared the "Don." But on February 2, the recently defeated congressman made the formal announcement that he would be a candidate for mayor of San Antonio. He confirmed that he had been offered a federal appointment, but said, "I am not going to desert San Antonio and leave it to the wolves. . . . I want to make this a fit place in which to live!"
A week later a crowd of fifteen hundred aroused citizens met on Saturday night at the Municipal Auditorium at the call of Charles M. Dickson. Dickson declared that the meeting was called to oppose the mayor and his machine, and that it offered "the first real opportunity . . . in many years to elect real representatives of the people to public office." Grover C. Morris, a Maverick worker, demanded the election of a permanent chairman for the meeting. Dickson tried to rule him and those who seconded the motion out of order. Morris then nominated J. J. ("Jack") Patterson for chairman. The latter was elected, and Morris "clambered over the orchestra pit" and took the microphone. Maverick and his Fusion Ticket were endorsed. Dickson then said that he had attended a meeting at which the majority view was that Maverick could not be a successful candidate for mayor. Amid outcries from the audience, Dickson retired behind the stage curtains,a nd Maverick was called to the auditorium.
Dickson was reported to have "mourned" the action and said, "The Maverick forces would have helped themselves more if they had been more orderly. We have failed tonight to bring the opposition forces together." The San Antonio Express reported substantially the same set of events, but characterized the Maverick movement as a steamroller and said that Dickson had been routed by the shouting crowd as he attempted to get a committee to choose a slate.
That same day Quin improved the chances of his opponents by flaying each of the city commissioners serving with him, blaming them for the problems of the city. All four of the commissioners suggested that the mayor resign. Later in the month the commissioners took action to remove Quin's "political employees" from the payroll, reducing city expenditures by about $90,000 for that year. "The commissioners' move, it was considered at city hall, would practically demolish the mayor's personal political orgainzation and obliterate that group of employees usually described as his braintrust."
As Dickson had predicted, the mayor's race was wide open—four different tickets were framed to contest in the May election. Maverick headed the Fusion Ticket, which he patterned and named after Mayor La Guardia's comparable movement in New York. Indeed, Maverick wrote to La Guardia as the campaign got under way and asked for all the information the New York Mayor could send him that would be helpful. La Guardia complied and asked, "Why in hell do you want to be Mayor?" Maverick's response was, "God knows. . . . Maybe I am crazy." Quin was running on the People's Ticket, Leroy Jeffers headed a Young Men's Teicket and Theo M. Plummer, Quin's tax commissioner, ran on the Economy Ticket.
The campaign followed predictable lines. The Fusion Ticket, it was said, would "wipe out the Machine and give San Antonio good government," while Quin branded Maverick as a "Communist, CIO-lover, rabble rouser." Jeffers also smeared him with the red brush. The San Antonio Express opposed Maverick in a front-page editorial on May 7 for his radio speeches "defaming" San Antonio, the "cleanest" city in Texas, and on election day the paper called attention to his "dangerous radicalism." Maverick pitched his campaign on the clean, efficient government theme, and when the returns were in on May 9, he had the needed plurality of 18,445 votes to 15,441 for Quin and 11,172 for Jeffers. All but one of the Fusion party candidates were elected. Quin's comment was that he had been "run over by a herd of stampeding Mavericks."
A journalist friend may have saved Maverick from disaster in this campaign. Radical Representative Vito Marcantonio had vowed several times during the course of the campaign that he was going down to San Antonion to "help Maury." Maverick's friend said that he "assiduously pointed out" to Marcantonio that his services were too badly needed in Washington to help out that "punk" in San Antonio. The corresponded added, "I've been aiming to write you for some time to tell you that all efforts to rejuvenate the remnants of your liberal bloc failed miserably. It seemed that they couldn't decide on who was going to be leader—everybody thought he ought to be it."
The reaction of the San Antonio Express to Maverick's victory was an editorial informing him that he had better not forget his campaign promises, because the Express was not going to forget them. But Maury was back on the front pages and the editorial pages of the nation. Favorable comment came in from far and wide—even from some conservative journals that had criticized the Maverick philosophy. Henry Ehrlich reported in the Boston Herald that President Roosevelt had been "glued to the radio until 1 A.M. listening to the returns the night Maury Maverick was elected Mayor of San Antonio," and that FDR had wired his congratulation to Maverick immediately. The wire read simply, "GOOD BOY, FDR." Thurman Arnold penned a note to say, "You make me hopeful that they can't keep a real scrapper down. I'm always a thousand per cent for you. You have not only my admiration but also my affection." Josephus Daniels wrote from Mexico City, "I watched the contest in your city with deep interest and am gratified at your victory and wish you the largest measure of success and satisfaction." Hugo Black said that he wanted to congratulate San Antonio for having elected Maverick, and Dr. Harvey Cushing of the Yale University Medical School sent his congratulations on this "highly deserved election," and penned a postscript, "Power to your elbow!"
From his close vantage point in Austin, Texas, newsman Raymond Brooks saw Maverick's victory as the elimination of the "boss of bosses." He said that the real "maker" of bosses in San Antonio was Jacob Rubiola, commissioner of parks and city property, who kept mayors and other officials waiting "hat in hand" until Rubiola got ready to see them. Now, Brooks said, there was an opportunity to bring back efficient, democratic government to San Antonio and to clean up the mess. "San Antonio," said Brooks, "is a supreme example that democracy can right conditions, no matter how vicious they get."
Henry Ehrlich, Washington correspondent for the Boston Herald, saw a broader significance to Maverick's comeback. He said it was "like the hoisting of a huge red sign which said 'STOP' to those plotting control of the Democratic party in 1940." Subsequent events tended to demonstrate that there was some validity to this evaluation.
On May 13, one hundred years from the date of his grandfather, Sam Maverick, had become mayor of San Antonio, Maury Maverick was sworn in by his father, Albert Maverick.
When Maury assumed the office he was quoted as having croaked, "I'm going to be a stuffed shirt. I got beat for Congress for not being one." It is doubtful that anyone, including Maverick, believed this statement. The Sacramento Bee said of the remark, "It is about as much in character as if Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed he was an economic royalist from now on or Herbert Hoover announced his conversion to Communism." Another paper gave some proof of the Bee's contention when it praised Maverick for his "refreshing frankness" when he dismissed hundreds of city employees and announced, "I am a professional politician and am going to give my friends jobs, but the jobs will go on a merit basis."
Mayor Maverick was warmly congratulated on his victory by Mayor La Guardia, who later repeated his congratulations in a lengthier message of counsel and commiseration. He told Maverick that his troubles were just beginning, but, on a more encouraging note, said that Maverick's victory showed "that although politicians try to kick up around, the people will stand by us if we play it straight and fight with both fists. . . . Give the city of San Antonio a good, clean, honest administration, and you'll be all right." La Guardia added that he was looking forward to welcoming Maverick's daughter, Terrelita, when she came to the New York World's Fair with the Texas Lasso Girls, but she was not able to make the trip.
Mayor Maverick continued to seek the aid and counsel of Mayor La Guardia. He visited the New Yorker several times in the months immediately after the 1939 election and was shown the various components of effective city government, including some of La Guardia's prized new garbage trucks. On one occasion Maverick was stumped on the radio show "Information Please" by a set of questions on city government posed by La Guardia. Maverick did not know that the "Holman rule" was a rule of parliamentary procedure relating to limitations on appropriations bills or that the "activated sludge process" was a method of treating sewage. Then Maverick struck back when he caught La Guardia with reporters at the World's Fair and asked him who named the city of New York. La Guardia said he didn't know, and Maverick crowned that it was none other than one of his ancestors, a Sam Maverick who in 1664 was a member of the three-man royal commission with the duke of York when the city was taken from the Dutch. Two years later Maverick caught La Guardia again. The Little Flower missed a question on "Information Please" on how many mayors New York City had had. His answer was 99, but he learned that he was mayor number 103 and that twenty-five dollars and a set of encyclopedias were being sent to the person who had provided the question, Maury Maverick of San Antonio.
Many observers had from time to time pointed to the parallels between Maverick and La Guardia. Both were short and squat; both were of the "stormy petrel" type; both had been heroes in World War I, La Guardia in the air and Maverick on the ground; both had led liberal blocs in the U.S. House of Representatives; and both had been defeated for Congress only to emerge as cleanup mayors of their home cities. The New York Daily News said in 1939 that "Maverick talks like La Guardia and thinks like him," and wondered "whether this is a Texas La Guardia or La Guardia is a New York Maverick." As might have been anticipated, Maverick had the answer. Felix R. McKnight reported that when someone referred to Maverick as a "La Guardia of the South," Maverick snapped back, "Don't you mean La Guardia is a Maverick of the North?"
La Guardia and Maverick saw one another from time to time during World War II, but the relationship had cooled somewhat, probably because of an incident related by Maury Maverick, Jr. At the beginning of the war, La Guardia sent Maverick an example of the hate propaganda used by the Nazis. The leaflet carried La Guardia's picture juxtaposed with that of a baboon, and the caption read, "Which is the baboon?" When Maverick received the leaflet, he couldn't resist wiring back to La Guardia, "Which is the baboon?" According to Maury, Jr., La Guardia called Maverick and cussed him out in three languages.
Maverick had some interesting insights into the problems of municipal reform. Six months after his "new broom" administration was under way, he told a reporter: "Yes, I know the job is a big one. I think that nearly 90 per cent of American cities today are poorly governed, that what Lincoln Steffens showed up in his Shame of the Cities 30 years ago is generally true today, although today there has been a democratization of corruption. What do I mean by that? Why, that in the past generation a few bosses got all the money, now it is spread around more. The coppers on the beat get some."
To the surprise of no one, Maverick programs and policies began to flow from the office of the mayor just as they had from that of the congressman. He applied a vigorous broom to corruption, gambling and prostitution, but waved aside the label of moralist. "I love sinners," he said as a preface to his argument that the whirlwind cleanup was needed to prevent vice from corrupting the city government. The police department got the broom next; many members were fired, merit examinations were instituted, and Ray Ashworth, a northern police specialist who had graduated from the police training scool in Wichita, Kansas, was brought in as chief of police! A new health department was established, the "fix" was taken out of the city traffic courts, the increased revenues being used to build parks and swimming pools. A vocational guidance program was instituted, and the budgetary process and other administrative routines were improved.
The machine could not wait for the next election to get rid of Maverick; they were after him before he could get comfortable in the mayor's chair. According to his account, it all started when he ggave $250 to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union for a poll-tax campaign. Maverick had a falling out with the uninon's lawyer over a patronage matter, and, said Maverick, the lawyer sold him "down the river." Information concerning the contribution had provided his political foe, District Attorney Shook, with some sort of pretext for criminal charges. Shook was able to secure twenty-six indictments against Maverick for allegedly having bought the poll-tax receipts (a criminal offense) of a like number of voters. There was little doubt that the charges were politically inspired.
Twenty of the twenty-six counts in the original indictment were quashed at the opening of the trial. After the packed courtroom had heard the witnesses, "defense counsel Carl Wright Johnson, one of Texas' most eloquent bull-roarers, snorted that conspiracy testimony was stronger against Shook. . . ." The jury quickly agreed, and the courtroom crowd broke into a burst of cheers despite a warning by the judge. Shook dropped the remaining indictments. FDR broke a foreign policy conference with Secretary of State Hull to telephone his congratulations to Maverick, and other notables joined in with their notes. Harold Ickes called the acquittal a victory for democracy, Thurman Arnold said he had "no doubt of the outcome," Norman Thomas wrote, "Texas has some sense," and Josephus Daniels, ambassador to Mexico, offered the following lines, referring to Shook:
When his friend Sherwood Anderson asked Maverick if he had been scared, Maverick replied, "Hell, yes. I didn't think I'd look good in a cell."
Anderson was one of Mayor Maverick's most sympathetic visitors to San Antonio. A rather close relationship had ripened between politician and novelist during Maverick's first term in Congress. The two most likely became acquainted when Maverick was making speeches in support of civil liberties in Virginia, where Anderson had edited the Marion Democrat and Smyth County News in Marion, Virginia. He had turned the papers over to his son, Robert Lane Anderson, in about 1929, but the elder Anderson was in and out of the operation from time to time. Sherwood and his son were both Maverick admirers, and Sherwood not only wrote Maverick chatty letters but also did a certain amount of confiding in him concerning his literary projects. The novelist and playwright even did a bit of soul baring in one letter to Maverick. Anderson was ruminating over the social obligations of the storyteller to do "something decent." He said, "There can be as much crookedness and dodging the real issue in the imaginative world as in the so-called Real World. And our writers constantly sell it out, just as the real world is sold out in politics. What else Maury can you say of the man who takes on the Hollywood thing nowdays, knowing the set-up, I just point this out to indicate to you a realization that we writers have our own mess to clean up."
Anderson visited Maverick in San Antonio on more than one occasion. His last visit, in 1939, moved him to write an article titled "Maury Maverick in San Antonio." He found that Maverick had lost none of his "magnificent swagger." "He takes you around, proudly, swaggeringly. . . . He is working, half playing, full of energy, a real Texan, not wanting to be a stuffed shirt, not, it seems, revengeful for what they tried to do to him, trying to keep his head."
Maverick also added some swagger to the office of mayor. "He liked to put on the dog," said one friend, as he described encountering Mayor Maverick in the first chauffeur-driven limousine provided for that office. Maverick's rationale was that the mayor's office needed to be given some dignity and "class." He also took boyish delight, as Anderson implied, in carrying off some piece of contrived gimmickry. When Maverick learned that H. G. Wells and Orson Welles were scheduled for engagements in San Antonio on the same evening, he arranged to have the two men, who were arriving separately, to be met by police cars and conveyed to their respective engagements. Maverick was acquainted with both of these men, but they did not know one another, and he deemed it a must that they meet. When he learned that their schedules would not permit them to get together, he proudly demonstrated the effectiveness of the two-way radio system in San Antonio police cars by having Wells and Welles "meet" over the radio waves between the two cars in which they were riding.
Perhaps it was nostalgia for his boyhood days in San Antonio that gave Maverick his motivation for restoring the chili and tamale "queens" to the plazas of the city, but he had a thoroughly modern concern for the progressive sanitary measures he required of the Mexican-American women who vended the Mexican foods. He also wanted to color of the original Spanish atmosphere to be "jazzed up" a bit.
Walter Prescott Webb told the delightful tale of Mayor Maverick's encounter with one of the members of a Mexican strolling band that was part of the color he introduced. Maverick had insisted that the musicians wear the picturesque Mexican regalia for such occasions, and he checked up on them from time to time to see that it was being done. On one such tour Maverick viewed with satisfaction the "glowing braziers" and sniffed the "tangy odor of tamales and chili" on the night air, but he spotted a handsome guitar player who was "out of uniform." The irate mayor asked, "What the hell are you doin' out here without a uniform?" "I," said the Mexican in broken English, "am exercising my constitutional rights." Maverick was floored—the redoubtable defender of constitutional rights hoist by his own petard—but he recovered quickly and demanded in emphatic terms, as only he could do, that the musician change his garb. Thirty minutes later the guitarist returned in full regalia and remarked to his companions, "The Mayor he like me; he joke with me."
The Mexican-Americans liked Maverick, and with good reason. Sherwood Anderson said that the San Antonio mayor had bought their votes in a "new and legal way." In addition to the many pieces of evidence of his great interest in their heritage, Maverick had fought the "pecan kings" to secure better wages for Mexican-American pecan shellers, who were getting as little as $1.75 a week—a plight Anderson called one of the "ugliest messes in the U.S.A." after he had attended a National Labor Relations Board hearing on the pecan-shelling industry during one of his visits to San Antonio. Perhaps of equal impact on this ethnic group was the fact that Mayor Maverick had brought about the classification of Mexican-Americans as "white" on census and other records in San Antonio.
Early in his administration, Mayor Maverick began one of the project of which he was most proud—one of the few achievements of which he would boast—the restoration of the historic Spanish village, or La Villita ("The Little Town"), in the heart of San Antonio. On August 3, 1939, twenty-five youths, supported by a grant from the National Youth Administration, began to clean up the area that was to become the now-famous tourist attraction and center of San Antonio's festive and cultural activities.
Maverick said that he conceived of the project when he visited the area one moonlit night in 1939 and decided that it could be a "symbol and monument to those simple people who had made possible the great city which had grown up around it." La Villita was the civil settlement, founded in 1718, that was attached to Mission San Antonio de Valero, known today simply as the Alamo. San Antonio had grown up and around a largely forgotten clump of eight adobe huts, one of which (dating from 1722) had been the site in 1835 of the signing of the capitulation of General Martin Perfecto Cos after the battle of San Antonio in the series of events leading to the independence of Texas. In addition to restoration of the Cos House, there were plans for the establishment of the Bolivar Building (library-museum) through a gift from the Carnegie Foundation, and a central square to be named Juarez Plaza, in honor of the great Mexican leader.
Maverick traded other city property to the local public service company for the La Villita site, and on October 12 secured adoption of the Villita Ordinance, which declared among its high purposes "the promotion of peace, friendship and justice between the United States of America and all other nations in the Western United States of America and all other nations in the Western Hemisphere." With the ordinance as a basis, the National Youth Administration put up $100,000, the city its share of $10,000, and 110 youths were employed in the restoration work. Maverick said that they cleaned out "tons of filth" from what had become a slum. A WPA project prepared Old Villita, a complete history of the original settlement, and, as Maverick put it, the area was "restored to what it always was—a village of plain simple people, with architecture indigenous to the soil of San Antonio and Texas." Programs for training youths in arts and crafts were incorporated in the project, and George Biddle, Philadelphia art authority and Maverick's friend, was retained to direct art activities.
Maverick said that his project was known throughout Latin America. It also attracted considerable attention in the United States as it neared completion. The Chicago News carried a major spread in February 1941 with pictures of La Villita and a feature article by Lucia Gewis. She said it was an idea "of which even his bitter opponents approve," and marveled at the work of youths who had been taught to make pottery, tiles, and textiles and to craft other articles from salvaged materials and just plain junk. The Dallas News also treated the La Villita project to a major rotogravure feature headed, "Out of a Texas Rubbish Heap Comes the Symbol of Peace." Maverick was well known and admired in Mexico for this and other efforts toward improvement of United States-Latin American relations. In November 1940 the Mexican government expressly requested that Mayor Maverick be included in the group to accompany Vice President Elect Henry Wallace to the inauguration of President Avila Camacho.
Today La Villita is the hub of most of San Antonio's festive activities. There in Casa Villita is housed the San Antonio Conservation Society, a moving force behind such festivals and the organization responsible for many improvements in and programs for La Villita. "The Little Town" is the scene of "A Night in Old San Antonio," a part of the famed Fiesta San Jacinto, which runs for a week every April. Visitors can stroll by the picturesque restored buildings of the village and booths featuring traditional Mexican wares and foods, while watching San Antonians dance on Juarez Plaza to the Mexican and German music that is a part of the city's unusual and colorful background.
Another related project that came to fruition in Mayor Maverick's administration was the conversion of the untidy and neglected San Antonio River, which winds through the downtown area near La Villita, into what one write called "a winding waterway the counterpart of which can be found only in the canals of Venice." Enhancement of the natural beauty of the spring-fed river had long been the dream of Robert H Hugman, a San Antonio architect who had spent years drafting plans for such a project. Conditions favorable to carrying out these plans arose in 1939. Jack White, a hotel executive, and Tom McNamara, an advertising man, formed an improvement district along the river that voted $75,000 in bonds, Maverick was instrumental in getting a $450,000 allocation from the WPA and in getting the project under way.
Visitors to San Antonio today can walk down from the bridges crossing the deepened stream and stroll along shaded walks at the river's edge past well-tended flowers and shrubs set off by well-planned rock walls and bank reinforcements. At a bend in the river near La Villita is Arneson River Theatre, with its rock seats set into the river bank. This beautiful spot adjoining the site of San Antonio's 1968 HemisFair is the scene on Easter Sundays of the annual Starving Artists Show. Thousands of people crowd the banks to get an early view of the colorful displays of oil paintings, water colors, and various other works of art that sell for ten dollars or less. Visitors can also view the scene from boats and gondolas that ply the narrow river. It was in an artificial canal with water diverted from this river that HemisFair visitors took the boat tour of the fair. San Antonio's Summer Festival, which began in 1958, features the Fiesta Noche del Rio, involving gondola rides down the river to the theater area where visitors can listen to Mexican music and watch Mexican dances staged on the other side of the river.
Sherwood Anderson's visit to San Antonio also gave rise to an unusual story that related to Maverick's efforts in behalf of the restoration of parts of the historic grandeur of old San Antonio. After some reflection on the historic sites and background of San Antonio, which Maverick had shown and explained to him during the 1939 visit, Anderson wrote Mayor Maverick an enthusiastic letter in which he proposed "a sort of Obermmargau idea" for the dramatic presentation of the city's rich heritage. He said that he knew of no other city in America with such "grand dramatic material," and he specifically suggested a play to be presented for about two weeks each year that would bring back the early life and the creation of the state of Texas—featuring the Alamo, Santa Anna, and other people and places of early Texas. "It could, it seems to me, so easily be built up into an institution, an annual affair, a real part of the city's life," Anderson told Maverick. The playwright first said that he was not suggesting himself as the writer of the play, but, on second thought, he added in a postscript, "At that I'd like to try it. Maybe because I like San Antonio and get excited every time I think of the dramatic material right at hand there." In spite of the enthusiasm of both Maverick and Anderson for projects of this type, there is no indication that either of them followed through on the idea.
Thirteen or fourteen years later, a then little-known Texas playwright—steeped in the literature and lore of the Texas that he loves—began to work on A Cloud of Witnesses: The Drama of the Alamo. When Ramsey Yelvington, now playwright in residence at Southwest Texas State University, completed this play, his friend Paul Baker, then director of the Baylor University Theatre, and the San Antonio Conservation Society and other interested groups, joined in setting in motion almost the exact project Sherwood Anderson had outlined in his 1940 letter! Nearly every year since 1958 the drama has been presented at what is now the Texas State Historical Theatre at Mission San José (San José de San Miguel de Aguayo). Below the old San José mill an amphitheater was built in the 1930's, in part because Maury Maverick was instrumental in securing federal funds for assistance in the project. The amphitheater was completely reconstructed in 1958 to make adequate provisions for the Drama of the Alamo production. The production has been directed in recent years by James Barton, professor of speech and drama direction at Southwest Texas State University.
City beautification and cultural projects were not the only projects on Maverick's mind. As had been forecast, he soon became committed to a major political project.
There were frequent references to the animosity between Maverick and Cactus Jack. Reporting on Maverick's 1938 defeat, Jay Franklin wrote that "large sums of money were shipped down to San Antonio to defeat Rep. Maury Maverick for the greater glory of Jack Garner and the remains of the Insull empire." Heywood Broun also said that the fundamental reason why Maverick lost in 1938 was that "every businessman in San Antonio knew what Garner wanted." Now, said Broun, "The New Deal
marches and Maury Maverick rides again and offers leadership to those who will never heed the cactus call of retreat."
During his first term in Congress, Maverick's relationship with John Nance Garner had been good enough to place him among the privileged few who drank bourbon out of the "big glass" in the vice-president's office. The symbolic measure of a man's standing with Garner was whether he was offered the "big glass" or the "little glass" when the bourbon was poured. When the court-packing plan and sit-down strikes came along, however, Garner's native, old-school conservatism turned him away from the New Deal and the Mavericks, making him the rallying point of worried Southern Bourbons and their fellows in other parts of the country. Though Garner did not formally announce his candidacy for the presidency until December of 1939, friends had gathered with him in Uvalde a year earlier to get the Garner-for-president boom under way.
On May 20, 1939, a Dallas News editorial discussed an Austin speech to the Young Democrats Club in which Maverick had "damned with faint praise" the Texas Garner-for-president movement and had expressed the opinion that the speech corroborated "the view taken at Washington that Maverick intends to use the San Antonio election as a springboard for an anti-Garner and pro-Roosevelt third term election." Maverick's position was attributed to the bitter memory of the campaign train incident of 1938, reflected in the speech by his raising the question as to whether certain members of the Roosevelt family were "more loyal to Mr. Garner." The next day famed cartoonist Jim Berryman depicted Garner saying to Sam Rayburn, "Something tells me we should adjourn as quickly as possible and get back home." An inset in the front-page cartoon showed Maverick saying in Texas, "Garner's too old to run! Roosevelt's too reticent to run!"
Maverick really opened fire on Garner when interviewed by reporters as he attended the New York World's Fair in July 1939. He said the boom for Garner was being promoted by lobbyists for big business "whose primary interest was in the election of a reactionary as the next President." He particularly singled out Roy Miller, lobbyist for Texas Gulf Sulphur, as the man behind the Garner-for-president move in Texas. Maverick said these forces did not think Garner could win but that his candidacy would bring about the nomination of an even more conservative Republican. Garner had "lived in a vacuum for the past thirty years," said Maverick, who indicated that he was prepared to support the squire of Uvalde for president of the pecan growers association. "Garner is a myth," Maverick said, as he explained to reporters that in his view all Garner had ever done was to keep quiet and get elected. "He's been a deaf and dumb politician all his life."
A week or so later Maverick said in Milwaukee that the Democrats had better nominate FDR again if they wanted to win. He said that he had been by to see the president and that he had talked to him like a candidate. Maverick's original opposition to a third term had been completely reversed. On September 20, 1939, he declared after another meeting with FDR that "Garner's future is behind him" and that the party would win "1,000 per cent" with FDR. Maverick's remarks to reporters at this time were slightly more temperate than those of earlier interviews. When they reminded him of John L. Lewis' classic description of Garner as a "labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, evil old man," the San Antonio mayor said with surprising mildness, that Garner was a "fine, water-drinking, Christian gentleman, with a fine past," but that he was too old to be president.
In the spring of 1940, FDR told Young Democrats that a "pair of liberals" should be nominated by the Democrats in 1940. He mentioned himself and, among others, Henry Wallace and Maury Maverick. Though Maverick was recognized as a leader of Texans working to block Garner's attempt to stop the FDR third-term movement, he must have been still troubled about the president's "reticence," because he wrote to A. A. Berle two weeks before the Texas Democratic Convention to see if he knew anything about Roosevelt's intentions. Berle responded, "I really think the question of whether Mr. Roosevelt will run or not is being settled somewhere on the banks of the Meuse River. You know my private theory. It is that he did not want to run, does not want to run, and will not want to run, unless circumstances are so grave that he considers it essential for the country's safety. . . . " This meant, of course, that Roosevelt would run.
A major struggle was shaping up in Texas between the Garner-for-president element and the Roosevelt third-termers, and Garner was going great guns. National polls showed that he was the choice of Democrats if FDR did not choose to run, and his campaign was assuming major national proportions. On March 9 he learned that he had been endorsed by the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee. A week later, however, the Roosevelt third-term organization was set up in Austin. The leaders at this time were Mayor Tom Miller of Austin, who had discussed the move with Maverick; former Governor James E. Ferguson; and Edward Clark, Texas secretary of state under Governor James V. Allred. Garner people said that Lyndon B. Johnson was also active in the movement. By early April the third-termers had a campaign under way in precincts and counties throughout the state. Maury Maverick was the San Antonio leader.
By mid-April both Maverick and LBJ were viewed as leaders in the state third-term draft activities in a report of efforts by Miller and Clark to find out where Sam Rayburn and Jesse H. Jones, federal loan administrator, stood on the fight. Rayburn counseled compromise. He was loyal to FDR and wanted resolutions endorsing the administration and its accomplishments, but he saw no reason why a loyal Democrat like Garner should not be given the favorite-son nod. Later in April a showdown between the two forces appeared to be inevitable. E. B. Germany, Texas steel executive and a Garner manager, had angered Roosevelt men when he said that the third-term movement was dead, and Maverick's friend, Harold Ickes, seemed to be determined to force the issue from the other side. He wrote to Amon G. Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a "warm Garner supporter," challenging the Garner men to submit their cause to the people. Ickes told Carter that when Roosevelt was reelected in November, "You and other 'leaders' will be the first to hie you to the pie counter." Ickes was said to be smarting from a reference in Carter's newspaper to certain "carpetbaggers" coming into Texas.
Other leaders, however, were bent on compromise. Three days after the Ickes statement, Rayburn wired the Garner forces and Lyndon Johnson sent the same message to the FDR group, urging them to agree that Garner would get the Texas delegation to the national convention in exchange for his agreement to abandon the stop Roosevelt movement. The deal was acccepted by Myron G. Blacklock, campaign manager for Garner and for the Roosevelt men by Undersecretary of the Interior Alvin J. Wirtz, who had recently conferred with FDR and had come back to Texas to drum up support for the third-term movement.
Garner won most of the county conventions handily on May 7 after this deal had been made, and he seemed to have everything in the bag for the Texas Democratic Convention, scheduled for May 27 in Waco. But Maury Maverick had not been consulted, and he and a few others were in no mood for compromise. Sunday afternoon, the day before the convention, he presided over a caucus of about fifty other delegates who wore ribbons proclaiming "Roosevelt Again" and "Draft Roosevelt" in the Roosevelt Hotel (named for FDR). They joined Maverick in a telegram to Roosevelt endorsing Jesse Jones for vice-president and Maverick for national committeeman. Maverick said that he was instructed to support Garner by his Bexar County convention, but on the basis of discussions with some early arrivals, he thought there might be a stampede to FDR. He added that he thought Garner should withdraw. Blalock said that this was "ridiculous and wishful thinking on the part of some."
Before the business of the convention got under way, Maverick got into rhubarb with one of the members of the credentials committee, who was also one of his fellow delegates from San Antonio. Fred Rucker, a state committeeman who had announced as a candidate against Senator Tom Connally, charged that Maverick was the "no. 1 Communist of Texas" and said he had a "bagful" of proof for the credentials committee. When the committee met he withdrew his protest, giving as his reason his realization that since there was no contesting delegation from Bexar County, the matter was moot! Maverick was not there, but when he learned of the charge, he stormed, "I want to denounce as an infamous liar and coward anyone who made the statement that I am a Communist. . . . I am an ex-soldier. The matter was wholly irrelevant and had no place at the session of the state executive committee. It was done with the hope that it would hurt and discredit me." There was no reply from Rucker, but serveral delegates hotly defended Maverick.
Before the main meeting of the convention on Wednesday, May 29, Maverick also got into a fracas at the entrance to the hall. Mayor Miller, a big, heavy man, threw a punch at Mayor Maverick and hit Floyd McGown, Maverick's executive assistant. Maverick claimed that MIller had started the row, and Miller said that Maverick had made an insulting remark to him. What happened was that Maverick—holding out to the bitter end for an FDR endorsement and viewing Miller as one who had "sold out"—was arguing with Miller as they approached the hall. In the tense atmosphere Maverick made what he thought was a commonplace remark that MIller interpreted as a deliberate insult.
In the convention it was clear that the compromise forces would easily have their way. Lynn Landrum of the Dallas News said that the convention was a managed "steamroller." These forces overwhelmed the "vociferous minority" led by Maverick and Oscar F Holcombe, mayor of Houston. Garnercrats were after Maverick's scalp and they nearly got it. They charged Maverick with "blitzkrieg tactics," and they were almost successful in an attempt to eliminate his name from the list of delegates to the Democratic National Convention and the list of delegates to the Democratic National Convention and the list of presidential electors. In fact, he might have been saved only by the action of a loyal little woman on the floor who rose as the standing vote was taken, turned to the delegates near her with her arms outstretched and said, "Come on, get up—support this man." Many responded to the plea, and most of them did not know that she was Mrs. Maury Maverick, who laughs heartily today at having carried off this minor coup.
Garner won only sixty-one votes at the national convention and Maverick figured that he had the last word. In later years, going over his clippings, he came to one stating that in December 1939 it was doubtful whether he would be able to keep the Texas delegation from voting for Garner in the next Democratic Convention. Maverick jotted on the clipping, "Garner didn't get it."
Unlikely as it may seem for a man who was so much involved in running a major city and engaged in the turmoil of state and national politics, Maverick was again "with book" in 1939, two years after his first book was published. In Blood and Ink attracted much less attention than his first effort. The book
Early in December 1938 a series of sordid revelations began to emerge, indicating that the San Antonio mayor's office was going to be ripe, or perhaps rotten, for the plucking.
The story broke with a controversy between Bexar County district attorney John R. Shook and the Criminal District Court grand jurors. Members of the grand jury had excluded the district attorney, for what turned out to be obvious reasons, from their sessions. After a heated clash, the irate Shook attempted to get Judge W. W. McCrory to "inform the probing body of the statutory rights of the district attorney's office." What the grand jury was looking into, among other things, was the hiring of hundreds of city workers at the time of the Democratic primary in which Maverick lost his seat in Congress. Shook was himself a member of the machine that profited from the "political work" of those persons hired. Joe Diaz, one of the witnesses who appeared before the grand jury, told newsmen, "I've always been a friend of Johnny Shook. I promised Kilday I would help him and I wanted to help out Judge McCrory. About a week after the election I got $4 from the city." There was small comfort, but some humor, in the possibility that some payoffs did not work too well. Juan Flores told the San Antonio Express that he had received four dollars from the city to work for Sheriff Will W. Wood at the same time he was "doing a little precinct work for Albert West," Wood's opponent.
But the grand jury was not amused. It returned indictments against Mayor Quin and two of his aides. Some five hundred citizens were listed in the San Antonio Light, the amounts paid to each of them ranging from four to forty dollars for "working around the polls." The indictments were drawn under Article 95 of the penal code of Texas, making misapplication of public funds a criminal offense, rather than Article 188, which covered bribery in elections. When the indictments were returned, Judge W. W. McCrory disqualified himself and called in Judge R. D. Wright of Laredo to hear the cases. Judge McCrory said, "During the time the grand jury was investigating the cases, it was generally understood that the witnesses were working for me, Paul Kilday and other members of the ticket."
The San Antonio Light accurately predicted that the indictments would be quashed because the money had not been "appropriated to their own use and benefit," as had been charged. Rather, said "Don Politico," the money "was spent to aid the political ambitions of District Attorney John R. Shook, Congressman Paul J. Kilday, defeated County Judge Egbert Schweppe, defeated candidate for sheriff Albert W. West. Jr., Bob Uhr, and the others who ran for office on the machine ticket." The "Don" now said that Maverick's defeat in the primary had been due to the "smart political maneuvers" of the chief of police, Owen Kilday. The Light stated in a front-page story two days before that the money spent by the city officials could account for at least one thousand votes.
The grand jury investigations, however, continued. In an editorial January 2, the San Antonio Light charged that a "personal property assessment racket" existed in Bexar County and urged the grand jury to continue its probe into general corruption in local government. The grand jury declared, "We deplore and condemn a political set-up which deprives all the people of adequate, effective and safe protection, as well as efficient and well-managed administration." When the indictment against Quin was actually dropped in February and Shook proceeded to dismiss the indictments against "other politicians," the Light indignantly editorialized:
Let's review THE FACTS.
Some 500 persons were put on the city payroll on or about the date of the Democratic primary last July.
This is NOT hearsay or idle speculation.
Scores of these "workers" were called before the Criminal District Court grand jury, which in turn indicted Mayor Quin and two of his aides. . . .
"I have committed no offense," [Mayor Quin] said, "I have violated no law. Neither have my two employees who were indicted with me."
"IS IT AN INDICTABLE OFFENCE TO FEED A FEW SCORE HUNGRY PEOPLE IF AT THE TIME OF EMPLOYMENT THERE IS PERCHANCE A DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN BEING WAGES?"
Note, carefully, the mayor DID NOT DENY the city's payrolls had been padded at election time.
Rather, he asked, in effect: "What are you going to do about it?"
No one was fooled by the brazen action, and there were persons who were prepared to "do something about it." Maverick had again hinted at running for mayor on December 21, saying he had been approached by a number of people. Later it was reported that he had, without success, asked each of seven prominent San Antonians to run for Mayor. In a later discussion of Maury's efforts to get someone to run, "Don Politico" said that he was certain that Maverick had a federal appointment "in the bag." "The nature of this position would be such that it would pay him handsomely, yet allow him sufficient time to participate in politics," declared the "Don." But on February 2, the recently defeated congressman made the formal announcement that he would be a candidate for mayor of San Antonio. He confirmed that he had been offered a federal appointment, but said, "I am not going to desert San Antonio and leave it to the wolves. . . . I want to make this a fit place in which to live!"
A week later a crowd of fifteen hundred aroused citizens met on Saturday night at the Municipal Auditorium at the call of Charles M. Dickson. Dickson declared that the meeting was called to oppose the mayor and his machine, and that it offered "the first real opportunity . . . in many years to elect real representatives of the people to public office." Grover C. Morris, a Maverick worker, demanded the election of a permanent chairman for the meeting. Dickson tried to rule him and those who seconded the motion out of order. Morris then nominated J. J. ("Jack") Patterson for chairman. The latter was elected, and Morris "clambered over the orchestra pit" and took the microphone. Maverick and his Fusion Ticket were endorsed. Dickson then said that he had attended a meeting at which the majority view was that Maverick could not be a successful candidate for mayor. Amid outcries from the audience, Dickson retired behind the stage curtains,a nd Maverick was called to the auditorium.
Dickson was reported to have "mourned" the action and said, "The Maverick forces would have helped themselves more if they had been more orderly. We have failed tonight to bring the opposition forces together." The San Antonio Express reported substantially the same set of events, but characterized the Maverick movement as a steamroller and said that Dickson had been routed by the shouting crowd as he attempted to get a committee to choose a slate.
That same day Quin improved the chances of his opponents by flaying each of the city commissioners serving with him, blaming them for the problems of the city. All four of the commissioners suggested that the mayor resign. Later in the month the commissioners took action to remove Quin's "political employees" from the payroll, reducing city expenditures by about $90,000 for that year. "The commissioners' move, it was considered at city hall, would practically demolish the mayor's personal political orgainzation and obliterate that group of employees usually described as his braintrust."
As Dickson had predicted, the mayor's race was wide open—four different tickets were framed to contest in the May election. Maverick headed the Fusion Ticket, which he patterned and named after Mayor La Guardia's comparable movement in New York. Indeed, Maverick wrote to La Guardia as the campaign got under way and asked for all the information the New York Mayor could send him that would be helpful. La Guardia complied and asked, "Why in hell do you want to be Mayor?" Maverick's response was, "God knows. . . . Maybe I am crazy." Quin was running on the People's Ticket, Leroy Jeffers headed a Young Men's Teicket and Theo M. Plummer, Quin's tax commissioner, ran on the Economy Ticket.
The campaign followed predictable lines. The Fusion Ticket, it was said, would "wipe out the Machine and give San Antonio good government," while Quin branded Maverick as a "Communist, CIO-lover, rabble rouser." Jeffers also smeared him with the red brush. The San Antonio Express opposed Maverick in a front-page editorial on May 7 for his radio speeches "defaming" San Antonio, the "cleanest" city in Texas, and on election day the paper called attention to his "dangerous radicalism." Maverick pitched his campaign on the clean, efficient government theme, and when the returns were in on May 9, he had the needed plurality of 18,445 votes to 15,441 for Quin and 11,172 for Jeffers. All but one of the Fusion party candidates were elected. Quin's comment was that he had been "run over by a herd of stampeding Mavericks."
A journalist friend may have saved Maverick from disaster in this campaign. Radical Representative Vito Marcantonio had vowed several times during the course of the campaign that he was going down to San Antonion to "help Maury." Maverick's friend said that he "assiduously pointed out" to Marcantonio that his services were too badly needed in Washington to help out that "punk" in San Antonio. The corresponded added, "I've been aiming to write you for some time to tell you that all efforts to rejuvenate the remnants of your liberal bloc failed miserably. It seemed that they couldn't decide on who was going to be leader—everybody thought he ought to be it."
The reaction of the San Antonio Express to Maverick's victory was an editorial informing him that he had better not forget his campaign promises, because the Express was not going to forget them. But Maury was back on the front pages and the editorial pages of the nation. Favorable comment came in from far and wide—even from some conservative journals that had criticized the Maverick philosophy. Henry Ehrlich reported in the Boston Herald that President Roosevelt had been "glued to the radio until 1 A.M. listening to the returns the night Maury Maverick was elected Mayor of San Antonio," and that FDR had wired his congratulation to Maverick immediately. The wire read simply, "GOOD BOY, FDR." Thurman Arnold penned a note to say, "You make me hopeful that they can't keep a real scrapper down. I'm always a thousand per cent for you. You have not only my admiration but also my affection." Josephus Daniels wrote from Mexico City, "I watched the contest in your city with deep interest and am gratified at your victory and wish you the largest measure of success and satisfaction." Hugo Black said that he wanted to congratulate San Antonio for having elected Maverick, and Dr. Harvey Cushing of the Yale University Medical School sent his congratulations on this "highly deserved election," and penned a postscript, "Power to your elbow!"
From his close vantage point in Austin, Texas, newsman Raymond Brooks saw Maverick's victory as the elimination of the "boss of bosses." He said that the real "maker" of bosses in San Antonio was Jacob Rubiola, commissioner of parks and city property, who kept mayors and other officials waiting "hat in hand" until Rubiola got ready to see them. Now, Brooks said, there was an opportunity to bring back efficient, democratic government to San Antonio and to clean up the mess. "San Antonio," said Brooks, "is a supreme example that democracy can right conditions, no matter how vicious they get."
Henry Ehrlich, Washington correspondent for the Boston Herald, saw a broader significance to Maverick's comeback. He said it was "like the hoisting of a huge red sign which said 'STOP' to those plotting control of the Democratic party in 1940." Subsequent events tended to demonstrate that there was some validity to this evaluation.
On May 13, one hundred years from the date of his grandfather, Sam Maverick, had become mayor of San Antonio, Maury Maverick was sworn in by his father, Albert Maverick.
When Maury assumed the office he was quoted as having croaked, "I'm going to be a stuffed shirt. I got beat for Congress for not being one." It is doubtful that anyone, including Maverick, believed this statement. The Sacramento Bee said of the remark, "It is about as much in character as if Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed he was an economic royalist from now on or Herbert Hoover announced his conversion to Communism." Another paper gave some proof of the Bee's contention when it praised Maverick for his "refreshing frankness" when he dismissed hundreds of city employees and announced, "I am a professional politician and am going to give my friends jobs, but the jobs will go on a merit basis."
Mayor Maverick was warmly congratulated on his victory by Mayor La Guardia, who later repeated his congratulations in a lengthier message of counsel and commiseration. He told Maverick that his troubles were just beginning, but, on a more encouraging note, said that Maverick's victory showed "that although politicians try to kick up around, the people will stand by us if we play it straight and fight with both fists. . . . Give the city of San Antonio a good, clean, honest administration, and you'll be all right." La Guardia added that he was looking forward to welcoming Maverick's daughter, Terrelita, when she came to the New York World's Fair with the Texas Lasso Girls, but she was not able to make the trip.
Mayor Maverick continued to seek the aid and counsel of Mayor La Guardia. He visited the New Yorker several times in the months immediately after the 1939 election and was shown the various components of effective city government, including some of La Guardia's prized new garbage trucks. On one occasion Maverick was stumped on the radio show "Information Please" by a set of questions on city government posed by La Guardia. Maverick did not know that the "Holman rule" was a rule of parliamentary procedure relating to limitations on appropriations bills or that the "activated sludge process" was a method of treating sewage. Then Maverick struck back when he caught La Guardia with reporters at the World's Fair and asked him who named the city of New York. La Guardia said he didn't know, and Maverick crowned that it was none other than one of his ancestors, a Sam Maverick who in 1664 was a member of the three-man royal commission with the duke of York when the city was taken from the Dutch. Two years later Maverick caught La Guardia again. The Little Flower missed a question on "Information Please" on how many mayors New York City had had. His answer was 99, but he learned that he was mayor number 103 and that twenty-five dollars and a set of encyclopedias were being sent to the person who had provided the question, Maury Maverick of San Antonio.
Many observers had from time to time pointed to the parallels between Maverick and La Guardia. Both were short and squat; both were of the "stormy petrel" type; both had been heroes in World War I, La Guardia in the air and Maverick on the ground; both had led liberal blocs in the U.S. House of Representatives; and both had been defeated for Congress only to emerge as cleanup mayors of their home cities. The New York Daily News said in 1939 that "Maverick talks like La Guardia and thinks like him," and wondered "whether this is a Texas La Guardia or La Guardia is a New York Maverick." As might have been anticipated, Maverick had the answer. Felix R. McKnight reported that when someone referred to Maverick as a "La Guardia of the South," Maverick snapped back, "Don't you mean La Guardia is a Maverick of the North?"
La Guardia and Maverick saw one another from time to time during World War II, but the relationship had cooled somewhat, probably because of an incident related by Maury Maverick, Jr. At the beginning of the war, La Guardia sent Maverick an example of the hate propaganda used by the Nazis. The leaflet carried La Guardia's picture juxtaposed with that of a baboon, and the caption read, "Which is the baboon?" When Maverick received the leaflet, he couldn't resist wiring back to La Guardia, "Which is the baboon?" According to Maury, Jr., La Guardia called Maverick and cussed him out in three languages.
Maverick had some interesting insights into the problems of municipal reform. Six months after his "new broom" administration was under way, he told a reporter: "Yes, I know the job is a big one. I think that nearly 90 per cent of American cities today are poorly governed, that what Lincoln Steffens showed up in his Shame of the Cities 30 years ago is generally true today, although today there has been a democratization of corruption. What do I mean by that? Why, that in the past generation a few bosses got all the money, now it is spread around more. The coppers on the beat get some."
To the surprise of no one, Maverick programs and policies began to flow from the office of the mayor just as they had from that of the congressman. He applied a vigorous broom to corruption, gambling and prostitution, but waved aside the label of moralist. "I love sinners," he said as a preface to his argument that the whirlwind cleanup was needed to prevent vice from corrupting the city government. The police department got the broom next; many members were fired, merit examinations were instituted, and Ray Ashworth, a northern police specialist who had graduated from the police training scool in Wichita, Kansas, was brought in as chief of police! A new health department was established, the "fix" was taken out of the city traffic courts, the increased revenues being used to build parks and swimming pools. A vocational guidance program was instituted, and the budgetary process and other administrative routines were improved.
The machine could not wait for the next election to get rid of Maverick; they were after him before he could get comfortable in the mayor's chair. According to his account, it all started when he ggave $250 to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union for a poll-tax campaign. Maverick had a falling out with the uninon's lawyer over a patronage matter, and, said Maverick, the lawyer sold him "down the river." Information concerning the contribution had provided his political foe, District Attorney Shook, with some sort of pretext for criminal charges. Shook was able to secure twenty-six indictments against Maverick for allegedly having bought the poll-tax receipts (a criminal offense) of a like number of voters. There was little doubt that the charges were politically inspired.
Twenty of the twenty-six counts in the original indictment were quashed at the opening of the trial. After the packed courtroom had heard the witnesses, "defense counsel Carl Wright Johnson, one of Texas' most eloquent bull-roarers, snorted that conspiracy testimony was stronger against Shook. . . ." The jury quickly agreed, and the courtroom crowd broke into a burst of cheers despite a warning by the judge. Shook dropped the remaining indictments. FDR broke a foreign policy conference with Secretary of State Hull to telephone his congratulations to Maverick, and other notables joined in with their notes. Harold Ickes called the acquittal a victory for democracy, Thurman Arnold said he had "no doubt of the outcome," Norman Thomas wrote, "Texas has some sense," and Josephus Daniels, ambassador to Mexico, offered the following lines, referring to Shook:
He digged a ditch
He digged it for his brother
To punish his sin he did fall in
The pit he digged for t'other.
When his friend Sherwood Anderson asked Maverick if he had been scared, Maverick replied, "Hell, yes. I didn't think I'd look good in a cell."
Anderson was one of Mayor Maverick's most sympathetic visitors to San Antonio. A rather close relationship had ripened between politician and novelist during Maverick's first term in Congress. The two most likely became acquainted when Maverick was making speeches in support of civil liberties in Virginia, where Anderson had edited the Marion Democrat and Smyth County News in Marion, Virginia. He had turned the papers over to his son, Robert Lane Anderson, in about 1929, but the elder Anderson was in and out of the operation from time to time. Sherwood and his son were both Maverick admirers, and Sherwood not only wrote Maverick chatty letters but also did a certain amount of confiding in him concerning his literary projects. The novelist and playwright even did a bit of soul baring in one letter to Maverick. Anderson was ruminating over the social obligations of the storyteller to do "something decent." He said, "There can be as much crookedness and dodging the real issue in the imaginative world as in the so-called Real World. And our writers constantly sell it out, just as the real world is sold out in politics. What else Maury can you say of the man who takes on the Hollywood thing nowdays, knowing the set-up, I just point this out to indicate to you a realization that we writers have our own mess to clean up."
Anderson visited Maverick in San Antonio on more than one occasion. His last visit, in 1939, moved him to write an article titled "Maury Maverick in San Antonio." He found that Maverick had lost none of his "magnificent swagger." "He takes you around, proudly, swaggeringly. . . . He is working, half playing, full of energy, a real Texan, not wanting to be a stuffed shirt, not, it seems, revengeful for what they tried to do to him, trying to keep his head."
Maverick also added some swagger to the office of mayor. "He liked to put on the dog," said one friend, as he described encountering Mayor Maverick in the first chauffeur-driven limousine provided for that office. Maverick's rationale was that the mayor's office needed to be given some dignity and "class." He also took boyish delight, as Anderson implied, in carrying off some piece of contrived gimmickry. When Maverick learned that H. G. Wells and Orson Welles were scheduled for engagements in San Antonio on the same evening, he arranged to have the two men, who were arriving separately, to be met by police cars and conveyed to their respective engagements. Maverick was acquainted with both of these men, but they did not know one another, and he deemed it a must that they meet. When he learned that their schedules would not permit them to get together, he proudly demonstrated the effectiveness of the two-way radio system in San Antonio police cars by having Wells and Welles "meet" over the radio waves between the two cars in which they were riding.
Perhaps it was nostalgia for his boyhood days in San Antonio that gave Maverick his motivation for restoring the chili and tamale "queens" to the plazas of the city, but he had a thoroughly modern concern for the progressive sanitary measures he required of the Mexican-American women who vended the Mexican foods. He also wanted to color of the original Spanish atmosphere to be "jazzed up" a bit.
Walter Prescott Webb told the delightful tale of Mayor Maverick's encounter with one of the members of a Mexican strolling band that was part of the color he introduced. Maverick had insisted that the musicians wear the picturesque Mexican regalia for such occasions, and he checked up on them from time to time to see that it was being done. On one such tour Maverick viewed with satisfaction the "glowing braziers" and sniffed the "tangy odor of tamales and chili" on the night air, but he spotted a handsome guitar player who was "out of uniform." The irate mayor asked, "What the hell are you doin' out here without a uniform?" "I," said the Mexican in broken English, "am exercising my constitutional rights." Maverick was floored—the redoubtable defender of constitutional rights hoist by his own petard—but he recovered quickly and demanded in emphatic terms, as only he could do, that the musician change his garb. Thirty minutes later the guitarist returned in full regalia and remarked to his companions, "The Mayor he like me; he joke with me."
The Mexican-Americans liked Maverick, and with good reason. Sherwood Anderson said that the San Antonio mayor had bought their votes in a "new and legal way." In addition to the many pieces of evidence of his great interest in their heritage, Maverick had fought the "pecan kings" to secure better wages for Mexican-American pecan shellers, who were getting as little as $1.75 a week—a plight Anderson called one of the "ugliest messes in the U.S.A." after he had attended a National Labor Relations Board hearing on the pecan-shelling industry during one of his visits to San Antonio. Perhaps of equal impact on this ethnic group was the fact that Mayor Maverick had brought about the classification of Mexican-Americans as "white" on census and other records in San Antonio.
Early in his administration, Mayor Maverick began one of the project of which he was most proud—one of the few achievements of which he would boast—the restoration of the historic Spanish village, or La Villita ("The Little Town"), in the heart of San Antonio. On August 3, 1939, twenty-five youths, supported by a grant from the National Youth Administration, began to clean up the area that was to become the now-famous tourist attraction and center of San Antonio's festive and cultural activities.
Maverick said that he conceived of the project when he visited the area one moonlit night in 1939 and decided that it could be a "symbol and monument to those simple people who had made possible the great city which had grown up around it." La Villita was the civil settlement, founded in 1718, that was attached to Mission San Antonio de Valero, known today simply as the Alamo. San Antonio had grown up and around a largely forgotten clump of eight adobe huts, one of which (dating from 1722) had been the site in 1835 of the signing of the capitulation of General Martin Perfecto Cos after the battle of San Antonio in the series of events leading to the independence of Texas. In addition to restoration of the Cos House, there were plans for the establishment of the Bolivar Building (library-museum) through a gift from the Carnegie Foundation, and a central square to be named Juarez Plaza, in honor of the great Mexican leader.
Maverick traded other city property to the local public service company for the La Villita site, and on October 12 secured adoption of the Villita Ordinance, which declared among its high purposes "the promotion of peace, friendship and justice between the United States of America and all other nations in the Western United States of America and all other nations in the Western Hemisphere." With the ordinance as a basis, the National Youth Administration put up $100,000, the city its share of $10,000, and 110 youths were employed in the restoration work. Maverick said that they cleaned out "tons of filth" from what had become a slum. A WPA project prepared Old Villita, a complete history of the original settlement, and, as Maverick put it, the area was "restored to what it always was—a village of plain simple people, with architecture indigenous to the soil of San Antonio and Texas." Programs for training youths in arts and crafts were incorporated in the project, and George Biddle, Philadelphia art authority and Maverick's friend, was retained to direct art activities.
Maverick said that his project was known throughout Latin America. It also attracted considerable attention in the United States as it neared completion. The Chicago News carried a major spread in February 1941 with pictures of La Villita and a feature article by Lucia Gewis. She said it was an idea "of which even his bitter opponents approve," and marveled at the work of youths who had been taught to make pottery, tiles, and textiles and to craft other articles from salvaged materials and just plain junk. The Dallas News also treated the La Villita project to a major rotogravure feature headed, "Out of a Texas Rubbish Heap Comes the Symbol of Peace." Maverick was well known and admired in Mexico for this and other efforts toward improvement of United States-Latin American relations. In November 1940 the Mexican government expressly requested that Mayor Maverick be included in the group to accompany Vice President Elect Henry Wallace to the inauguration of President Avila Camacho.
Today La Villita is the hub of most of San Antonio's festive activities. There in Casa Villita is housed the San Antonio Conservation Society, a moving force behind such festivals and the organization responsible for many improvements in and programs for La Villita. "The Little Town" is the scene of "A Night in Old San Antonio," a part of the famed Fiesta San Jacinto, which runs for a week every April. Visitors can stroll by the picturesque restored buildings of the village and booths featuring traditional Mexican wares and foods, while watching San Antonians dance on Juarez Plaza to the Mexican and German music that is a part of the city's unusual and colorful background.
Another related project that came to fruition in Mayor Maverick's administration was the conversion of the untidy and neglected San Antonio River, which winds through the downtown area near La Villita, into what one write called "a winding waterway the counterpart of which can be found only in the canals of Venice." Enhancement of the natural beauty of the spring-fed river had long been the dream of Robert H Hugman, a San Antonio architect who had spent years drafting plans for such a project. Conditions favorable to carrying out these plans arose in 1939. Jack White, a hotel executive, and Tom McNamara, an advertising man, formed an improvement district along the river that voted $75,000 in bonds, Maverick was instrumental in getting a $450,000 allocation from the WPA and in getting the project under way.
Visitors to San Antonio today can walk down from the bridges crossing the deepened stream and stroll along shaded walks at the river's edge past well-tended flowers and shrubs set off by well-planned rock walls and bank reinforcements. At a bend in the river near La Villita is Arneson River Theatre, with its rock seats set into the river bank. This beautiful spot adjoining the site of San Antonio's 1968 HemisFair is the scene on Easter Sundays of the annual Starving Artists Show. Thousands of people crowd the banks to get an early view of the colorful displays of oil paintings, water colors, and various other works of art that sell for ten dollars or less. Visitors can also view the scene from boats and gondolas that ply the narrow river. It was in an artificial canal with water diverted from this river that HemisFair visitors took the boat tour of the fair. San Antonio's Summer Festival, which began in 1958, features the Fiesta Noche del Rio, involving gondola rides down the river to the theater area where visitors can listen to Mexican music and watch Mexican dances staged on the other side of the river.
Sherwood Anderson's visit to San Antonio also gave rise to an unusual story that related to Maverick's efforts in behalf of the restoration of parts of the historic grandeur of old San Antonio. After some reflection on the historic sites and background of San Antonio, which Maverick had shown and explained to him during the 1939 visit, Anderson wrote Mayor Maverick an enthusiastic letter in which he proposed "a sort of Obermmargau idea" for the dramatic presentation of the city's rich heritage. He said that he knew of no other city in America with such "grand dramatic material," and he specifically suggested a play to be presented for about two weeks each year that would bring back the early life and the creation of the state of Texas—featuring the Alamo, Santa Anna, and other people and places of early Texas. "It could, it seems to me, so easily be built up into an institution, an annual affair, a real part of the city's life," Anderson told Maverick. The playwright first said that he was not suggesting himself as the writer of the play, but, on second thought, he added in a postscript, "At that I'd like to try it. Maybe because I like San Antonio and get excited every time I think of the dramatic material right at hand there." In spite of the enthusiasm of both Maverick and Anderson for projects of this type, there is no indication that either of them followed through on the idea.
Thirteen or fourteen years later, a then little-known Texas playwright—steeped in the literature and lore of the Texas that he loves—began to work on A Cloud of Witnesses: The Drama of the Alamo. When Ramsey Yelvington, now playwright in residence at Southwest Texas State University, completed this play, his friend Paul Baker, then director of the Baylor University Theatre, and the San Antonio Conservation Society and other interested groups, joined in setting in motion almost the exact project Sherwood Anderson had outlined in his 1940 letter! Nearly every year since 1958 the drama has been presented at what is now the Texas State Historical Theatre at Mission San José (San José de San Miguel de Aguayo). Below the old San José mill an amphitheater was built in the 1930's, in part because Maury Maverick was instrumental in securing federal funds for assistance in the project. The amphitheater was completely reconstructed in 1958 to make adequate provisions for the Drama of the Alamo production. The production has been directed in recent years by James Barton, professor of speech and drama direction at Southwest Texas State University.
City beautification and cultural projects were not the only projects on Maverick's mind. As had been forecast, he soon became committed to a major political project.
There were frequent references to the animosity between Maverick and Cactus Jack. Reporting on Maverick's 1938 defeat, Jay Franklin wrote that "large sums of money were shipped down to San Antonio to defeat Rep. Maury Maverick for the greater glory of Jack Garner and the remains of the Insull empire." Heywood Broun also said that the fundamental reason why Maverick lost in 1938 was that "every businessman in San Antonio knew what Garner wanted." Now, said Broun, "The New Deal
marches and Maury Maverick rides again and offers leadership to those who will never heed the cactus call of retreat."
During his first term in Congress, Maverick's relationship with John Nance Garner had been good enough to place him among the privileged few who drank bourbon out of the "big glass" in the vice-president's office. The symbolic measure of a man's standing with Garner was whether he was offered the "big glass" or the "little glass" when the bourbon was poured. When the court-packing plan and sit-down strikes came along, however, Garner's native, old-school conservatism turned him away from the New Deal and the Mavericks, making him the rallying point of worried Southern Bourbons and their fellows in other parts of the country. Though Garner did not formally announce his candidacy for the presidency until December of 1939, friends had gathered with him in Uvalde a year earlier to get the Garner-for-president boom under way.
On May 20, 1939, a Dallas News editorial discussed an Austin speech to the Young Democrats Club in which Maverick had "damned with faint praise" the Texas Garner-for-president movement and had expressed the opinion that the speech corroborated "the view taken at Washington that Maverick intends to use the San Antonio election as a springboard for an anti-Garner and pro-Roosevelt third term election." Maverick's position was attributed to the bitter memory of the campaign train incident of 1938, reflected in the speech by his raising the question as to whether certain members of the Roosevelt family were "more loyal to Mr. Garner." The next day famed cartoonist Jim Berryman depicted Garner saying to Sam Rayburn, "Something tells me we should adjourn as quickly as possible and get back home." An inset in the front-page cartoon showed Maverick saying in Texas, "Garner's too old to run! Roosevelt's too reticent to run!"
Maverick really opened fire on Garner when interviewed by reporters as he attended the New York World's Fair in July 1939. He said the boom for Garner was being promoted by lobbyists for big business "whose primary interest was in the election of a reactionary as the next President." He particularly singled out Roy Miller, lobbyist for Texas Gulf Sulphur, as the man behind the Garner-for-president move in Texas. Maverick said these forces did not think Garner could win but that his candidacy would bring about the nomination of an even more conservative Republican. Garner had "lived in a vacuum for the past thirty years," said Maverick, who indicated that he was prepared to support the squire of Uvalde for president of the pecan growers association. "Garner is a myth," Maverick said, as he explained to reporters that in his view all Garner had ever done was to keep quiet and get elected. "He's been a deaf and dumb politician all his life."
A week or so later Maverick said in Milwaukee that the Democrats had better nominate FDR again if they wanted to win. He said that he had been by to see the president and that he had talked to him like a candidate. Maverick's original opposition to a third term had been completely reversed. On September 20, 1939, he declared after another meeting with FDR that "Garner's future is behind him" and that the party would win "1,000 per cent" with FDR. Maverick's remarks to reporters at this time were slightly more temperate than those of earlier interviews. When they reminded him of John L. Lewis' classic description of Garner as a "labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, evil old man," the San Antonio mayor said with surprising mildness, that Garner was a "fine, water-drinking, Christian gentleman, with a fine past," but that he was too old to be president.
In the spring of 1940, FDR told Young Democrats that a "pair of liberals" should be nominated by the Democrats in 1940. He mentioned himself and, among others, Henry Wallace and Maury Maverick. Though Maverick was recognized as a leader of Texans working to block Garner's attempt to stop the FDR third-term movement, he must have been still troubled about the president's "reticence," because he wrote to A. A. Berle two weeks before the Texas Democratic Convention to see if he knew anything about Roosevelt's intentions. Berle responded, "I really think the question of whether Mr. Roosevelt will run or not is being settled somewhere on the banks of the Meuse River. You know my private theory. It is that he did not want to run, does not want to run, and will not want to run, unless circumstances are so grave that he considers it essential for the country's safety. . . . " This meant, of course, that Roosevelt would run.
A major struggle was shaping up in Texas between the Garner-for-president element and the Roosevelt third-termers, and Garner was going great guns. National polls showed that he was the choice of Democrats if FDR did not choose to run, and his campaign was assuming major national proportions. On March 9 he learned that he had been endorsed by the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee. A week later, however, the Roosevelt third-term organization was set up in Austin. The leaders at this time were Mayor Tom Miller of Austin, who had discussed the move with Maverick; former Governor James E. Ferguson; and Edward Clark, Texas secretary of state under Governor James V. Allred. Garner people said that Lyndon B. Johnson was also active in the movement. By early April the third-termers had a campaign under way in precincts and counties throughout the state. Maury Maverick was the San Antonio leader.
By mid-April both Maverick and LBJ were viewed as leaders in the state third-term draft activities in a report of efforts by Miller and Clark to find out where Sam Rayburn and Jesse H. Jones, federal loan administrator, stood on the fight. Rayburn counseled compromise. He was loyal to FDR and wanted resolutions endorsing the administration and its accomplishments, but he saw no reason why a loyal Democrat like Garner should not be given the favorite-son nod. Later in April a showdown between the two forces appeared to be inevitable. E. B. Germany, Texas steel executive and a Garner manager, had angered Roosevelt men when he said that the third-term movement was dead, and Maverick's friend, Harold Ickes, seemed to be determined to force the issue from the other side. He wrote to Amon G. Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and a "warm Garner supporter," challenging the Garner men to submit their cause to the people. Ickes told Carter that when Roosevelt was reelected in November, "You and other 'leaders' will be the first to hie you to the pie counter." Ickes was said to be smarting from a reference in Carter's newspaper to certain "carpetbaggers" coming into Texas.
Other leaders, however, were bent on compromise. Three days after the Ickes statement, Rayburn wired the Garner forces and Lyndon Johnson sent the same message to the FDR group, urging them to agree that Garner would get the Texas delegation to the national convention in exchange for his agreement to abandon the stop Roosevelt movement. The deal was acccepted by Myron G. Blacklock, campaign manager for Garner and for the Roosevelt men by Undersecretary of the Interior Alvin J. Wirtz, who had recently conferred with FDR and had come back to Texas to drum up support for the third-term movement.
Garner won most of the county conventions handily on May 7 after this deal had been made, and he seemed to have everything in the bag for the Texas Democratic Convention, scheduled for May 27 in Waco. But Maury Maverick had not been consulted, and he and a few others were in no mood for compromise. Sunday afternoon, the day before the convention, he presided over a caucus of about fifty other delegates who wore ribbons proclaiming "Roosevelt Again" and "Draft Roosevelt" in the Roosevelt Hotel (named for FDR). They joined Maverick in a telegram to Roosevelt endorsing Jesse Jones for vice-president and Maverick for national committeeman. Maverick said that he was instructed to support Garner by his Bexar County convention, but on the basis of discussions with some early arrivals, he thought there might be a stampede to FDR. He added that he thought Garner should withdraw. Blalock said that this was "ridiculous and wishful thinking on the part of some."
Before the business of the convention got under way, Maverick got into rhubarb with one of the members of the credentials committee, who was also one of his fellow delegates from San Antonio. Fred Rucker, a state committeeman who had announced as a candidate against Senator Tom Connally, charged that Maverick was the "no. 1 Communist of Texas" and said he had a "bagful" of proof for the credentials committee. When the committee met he withdrew his protest, giving as his reason his realization that since there was no contesting delegation from Bexar County, the matter was moot! Maverick was not there, but when he learned of the charge, he stormed, "I want to denounce as an infamous liar and coward anyone who made the statement that I am a Communist. . . . I am an ex-soldier. The matter was wholly irrelevant and had no place at the session of the state executive committee. It was done with the hope that it would hurt and discredit me." There was no reply from Rucker, but serveral delegates hotly defended Maverick.
Before the main meeting of the convention on Wednesday, May 29, Maverick also got into a fracas at the entrance to the hall. Mayor Miller, a big, heavy man, threw a punch at Mayor Maverick and hit Floyd McGown, Maverick's executive assistant. Maverick claimed that MIller had started the row, and Miller said that Maverick had made an insulting remark to him. What happened was that Maverick—holding out to the bitter end for an FDR endorsement and viewing Miller as one who had "sold out"—was arguing with Miller as they approached the hall. In the tense atmosphere Maverick made what he thought was a commonplace remark that MIller interpreted as a deliberate insult.
In the convention it was clear that the compromise forces would easily have their way. Lynn Landrum of the Dallas News said that the convention was a managed "steamroller." These forces overwhelmed the "vociferous minority" led by Maverick and Oscar F Holcombe, mayor of Houston. Garnercrats were after Maverick's scalp and they nearly got it. They charged Maverick with "blitzkrieg tactics," and they were almost successful in an attempt to eliminate his name from the list of delegates to the Democratic National Convention and the list of delegates to the Democratic National Convention and the list of presidential electors. In fact, he might have been saved only by the action of a loyal little woman on the floor who rose as the standing vote was taken, turned to the delegates near her with her arms outstretched and said, "Come on, get up—support this man." Many responded to the plea, and most of them did not know that she was Mrs. Maury Maverick, who laughs heartily today at having carried off this minor coup.
Garner won only sixty-one votes at the national convention and Maverick figured that he had the last word. In later years, going over his clippings, he came to one stating that in December 1939 it was doubtful whether he would be able to keep the Texas delegation from voting for Garner in the next Democratic Convention. Maverick jotted on the clipping, "Garner didn't get it."
Unlikely as it may seem for a man who was so much involved in running a major city and engaged in the turmoil of state and national politics, Maverick was again "with book" in 1939, two years after his first book was published. In Blood and Ink attracted much less attention than his first effort. The book