It is pretty hard to find a simple descriptive term for Maury Maverick's book. The book is called "A Maverick American" and hence might appear to be an autobiography. But at the very beginning the author declares that he has written no such thing. And an author may as well be taken at his word.

If not an autobiography, then what? Not fiction. Not poetry, despite a few lines from Milton on one page. A collection of essays, perhaps? Hardly that. A lecture, sermon, concordance, history, journal, apologue, running commentary, editorial or tract? No, nothing quite so simple. I can identify it best as a farraginous, generally interesting, occasionally ungrammatical, desultory, dislocated and determined narrative of and by a liberal-minded Texas Congressman.

The family reputation shines from every page. A maverick is, by common definition, an unbranded roving calf or steer, so called because about ninety years ago certain cattle belonging to this Texas Congressman's paternal grandfather were allowed to run around unmarked. And that is more or less what this book does—roving all over the map, from the battlefields of France to the new Supreme Court chamber, from subject to subject, from personalities to abstractions, from platitudes to acute perceptions. It is, if there ever was one, an unbranded and unconventional piece of writing.

Yet from it emerge the plain facts about Maury Maverick. He has, it is obvious, a sense of humor and a sense of society. During the World War he fought until he was wounded, even though he regarded the whole business of our participation as a great fraud. His ancestors included not only notable Texans but also James Madison, Merriwether Lewis, General Bob Anderson, Lynch of lynch-law fame, and that Samuel Maverick who lived in Manhattan 300 years ago. He has a son and a daughter. He admires Rex Tugwell, but thinks that Tugwell used too many big words when he made speeches. He dislikes Liberty Leaguers, the average New Yorker, any one who says pee-can instead of pe-cahn, any one who speaks of the Deep South, the lynching of whites or Negroes, politicians who rant and rave, and, though he himself is a member of the bar, "poius-faced, four-flushing lawyers." He refuses to admire Bishops because they are Bishops, and he is an Episcopalian who feels that only "stupid idiots" argue about religion.

Though he went to V. M. I. for a while and though his son now attends Texas Military Institute, military trappings—"the badge business, the titles, fancy hats and cordons and ribbons"—seem to him "not only the bunk, but badges of mind-slavery." He believes that George W. Norris is the greatest living American, now that Old Bob La Follette is dead. Huey Long was not so bad as painted, but the Upton Sinclairs, Dr. Townsends, Father Coughlins and "windjammers like Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith" simply waste time. The Supreme Court? The following is from Mr. Maverick's description of the recent minimum-wage decision:

Mr. Chief Justice Hughes continued reading his opinion, and what he said after that was not so bad in sentiment, but it was a speech, pure and simple. He would pause now and then, gain the attention of the audience, and then come to a resounding conclusion. The speech was verbose and wordy beyond belief, an arsenal of prejudices slapped together to lend the impression that Pity descends from the Bench-on-High all the way down to the poor and downtrodden women of the land.

He spoke of "the health, saftey, morals and welfare of the people" in fervent tones. Then he pointed out that the Court had found there was a depression and people were out of work. He then got to complimenting the women again, and said they were a great sex; and that they should be protected against the "unscrupulous."

This would have been funny had it not been tragic. Only the heavy pressure of the people had brought this speech forth, these words of wisdom from on high. Why should the courts ever have knocked out the laws protecting women in their miserable wages anyhow? Why should they have interfered in a matter of legislative policy and have broken down the laws?

Mr. Maverick further believes that Americans should be able to buy land at "reasonable prices," that the WPA has done much good as a patron of art and the arts, that the Soil Conservation Service has been performing work of inestimable value, that universities should stop abetting Red-hunters, and that sectional differences in the United States are largely imaginary, because "the hungry Southerner (and this includes the hungry Southern Negro) has precisely the same economic interest as the New Yorker, the New England farmer or the merchant in Seattle or St. Louis." Also that Big Business requires control or regulation, that monopolies should be nationalized (though not necessarily all at once), that government must plan, as in the TVA, for the national future, and that progressive labor legislation is vital and mandatory.

This is the sort of man, now in his early forties, whom the State of Texas has sent to Washington together with such old-time Democrats as John N. Garner. "A Maverick American" is this man's testimony to his ancestry, his personal experiences, his political beliefs—a testimony far more zestful than orderly and far more enthusiastic than polite, but, beyond doubt, honest and unabashed. When one considers the garden variety of American Congressman one must hope that so vigorous a career in the capital has only begun.


New York Times, June 25, 1937