ustxtxb_obs_1961_02_11_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Maury Maverick Jr. ‘In terms of the here and now, and of the world we live inI recall that Mr. Lincoln once slid: The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.’ ” Peace Pilgrim Wright, Gonzalez, Maverick In Texas, in 1961, the time has come for us to put an end to our smug, easy provincialism. “Time is running out for America,” Pres. Kennedy has warned in a forbidding and epic pronouncement : either we heed it, or this nation we have made here for ourselves will perish with the rest and be forgotten. Throughout the world today, in the eyes of those millions, we are the great conservative power, the, sluggish giant who somewhere lost his proud ideals. The reformers in the world today, the relentless revolutionaries now in the lead, are those whom we count our bitter foes. We must speak with our old eloquence and courage and compassion ; both at home and abroad ; somehow we must break through. In this context, and in this context alone, we must judge those now making their bids for the United States Senate. Three candidates are being considered by Texas liberals: Jim Wright, Henry Gonzalez, and Maury Maverick Jr: Although Wright is an able young man, a good campaigner, a congressman with six years of Washington experience, most liberals who would rally to his side build their case on the simple logic of expediency. Expediency alone is not powerful enough to persuade us; in contemporary America we are rift with the dicta of expediency; Wright himself is unable to break through its crust. At a time in our nation when the demands of justice and conscience to erase the social blemishes in the midst of our opulent complacency have never been greater, Wright has moved too swiftly away from the vigor and courage which characterized his early years in politics. His voting record has moved steadily to the right. A member of Congress, he tells us, might just as well concern himself with “Seventh-Day Adventists and flagpole sitting” . as with the student sit-in movement which has become a stirring symbol for our young Negro citizens. Are these the words of a man who can understand what now lies in the hearts of young non-Americans in Africa and in Asia? Wright speaks well in defending’ his doctrine of moderation, quoting Henry Clay and LBJ. Perhaps he should be reminded that his brand of moderation, in a society like ours, demands very little courage; that it lacks substance and stands for little; that it exposes itself far too conveniently to the tossings and turnings of temporary expediency ; that it will make slight impression, from an age like ours, in the long and tortured annals of whatever future histories may be written. Henry Gonzalez, on the other hand, is a courageous, fighting liberal. His filibuster in the state Senate against the segregation laws of 1957 has be come a lasting part of our Texas lore; his sturdy fight for the governorship in 1958 won him wide admiration. He is a political firebrand of the old school, a man in whom the Latins of our state should rightfully take pride. In 1958 this newspaper was proud to support his gubernatorial candidacy and to work hard for his election. What we are seeing in the Gonzalez candidacy is a classic re-enactment of the great political dramas of the oppressed immigrant groups in the East one, two, and three generations agothe relentless desire to break through old bonds, the quest for greater prestige and greater hope. These things we understand. We give our endorsement to Maury Maverick Jr. because we honestly believe him to be the most able man of liberal conviction in the race. More than any man in this race, we deeply believe, Maury Maverick understands in heart and in intellect the historic and awesome challenge which faces our country. As a United States senator we believe he will work harder and longer and more diligently to help our country meet that challenge, at home and in the world at large. As a member of the Texas House in the early ‘fifties, when the legislature was unabashedly controlled by rampant interests, when. Texas McCarthys were hunting witches and burning books, Maverick remained firm and outspoken. Often he stood alone. In those days his courage and his steadfastness were amply tested; they won for him the respect and the love of men of all persuasions. We see a touch of greatness in this son of an immortal Texan who loved and fought for and won the undying admiration of the Latin people of San Antonio and all Texas. He is a deeply intellectual man, a worrier and a thinker; he is solid and unyielding; he speaks now for the oppressed and the unfortunate of all races, in Texas and everywhere. In an excellent tape-recorded interview with the Houston Post two weeks ago, Maverick said, in his own simple and direct eloquence: “I want to be a reasonable, honorable liberal who cares about mankind out in River Oaks or . . . the poorest Negro in the poorest section of Houston.” On other recent occasions Maverick has said: “We Americans who were born in revolution and we Texans who were born,a second time in the crucible of revolt ought to be the first to understand that people all over the world want their rights and freedom irrespective of the color of their skin, be it on the East Side of San Antonio or on the African continent.” “Let no man talk smugly about minority groups, for all of us belong to a minority group of , one kind or another. Ia white manbelong to the smallest minority group in the world from a numerical standpoint. Therefore, let all of us remember that all men are entitled to their basic constitutional rights, be th y poor migratory workers, black or white, rich people in Dallas’ Highland Park, fat people, skinny people, Barry Goldwater, Jimmy Hoffa, or Lynn Landrum.” “In terms of the here and now, and of this world we live inI recall that Mr. Lincoln once said :’ The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.’ ” “Let me tell you what I consider myself to be. I am a John Kennedy Democrat, a Democrat who remembers Franklin Delano Roosevelt with great affection, a Democrat who wants to reach out for the new frontier with those younger men who will operate our government in Washington, men who will be bold and brave and have fresh ideas in a world which is torn asunder.” Maury Maverick Jr. is deeply rooted in the Texas liberal tradition, a scholar of it and an inheritor of its magnificent days of rebellion and revolution and, more lately, of its modern era of political and social and racial change. He has the fiber and the substance, the imagination and the foresight, the independent spirit and the militant conscience to become one of the truly great senators of our generation. AUSTIN The Observer’s offices were visited by Peace Pilgrim one evening last week. She would not give her real because, she said, she does not think she, as an individual, is important compared to her cause and, as she added a little further along, she wants to be publicized by her chosen appellation. She is walking 25,000 miles for peace, she explained. Judging from the fact that she was wearing her twenty-second pair of children’s tennis shoes since she set out in 1953 and averages “just about 800 miles a pair,” she guessed she had walked 17,200 miles already. The associate editor had fled on a dead run ahead of her arrival, and the office manager and the contributing editor had sighed and prepared themselves to be amused. Now, however, they were sobered by the thought that someone would walk 17,200 miles to see them ; and besides, she did not amuse them. She wears blue walking clothes, slacks and shirt and a short tunic with pockets around the bottom, her only suit case. “Peace Pilgrim” is lettered in white across her chest and “I An Walking 25,000 Miles for Peace” across her back. She has a tan, wind-smoothed face and grey hair pulled up into a wind-resisting bun and well-shaped, lake blue eyes. The contributing editor insisted the individual is important, and he wanted her name, but she would not tell, she said, looking him squarely in his eyes, “because I want people to know that some woman, any woman, cares Published by Texas Observer Co., Ltd. Entered as second-class matter, April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. FEBRUARY 11, 1961 Ronnie Dugger Editor and General Manager Willie Morris, Associate Editor Sarah Payne, Office Manager enough about peace to walk twentyfive thousand miles for it.” That was the moment she became real to them. With a start, the contributing editor realized she reminded him of a person he greatly admired. She obviously was entirely sane and was furthermore in a position to ask them, although she did not, whether they and the rest of the do-nothing race enjoy a similar assurance. She had an engagement for dinner, but had time for coffee \(fruit juice them she takes no collections, walks along “without a dime in my pocketS” and has completed two “5,000 mile patterns.” One took her from California zig-zag by Canada to New York, another from New York zig-zag by Mexico to California. She is on her 15,000 mile pattern now. She does not quite approve of the sit-ins in the South, although she does not disapprove. She has come to dislike “psychological violence” as just another kind of violence. “I’m doing different work now. I’m inspiring people to be for something” \(she lifted her hands toward the coffeeshop within them. I want to inspire them to do something themselves.” The contributing editor wished that Roy Bedichek, a native naturalist and lover of the outdoors who died in 1959, could have met hera vigorous, pretty woman . along in her fifties, walking fifty miles a day, “on the road” in a sense more modern than Jack Kerouac’s, and feeding herself, if not with food, with faith. R.D. Published once a week from Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $5 per annum. Advertising rates available on request. Extra copies 15c each. Quantity prices available on order. EDITORIAL and BUSINESS OFFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: Mrs. R. D. Randolph, 419 1/2 Lovett Blvd., Hduston 16, Texas. _An encloroement THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7c 4WDr i d A.