News Behind the News

In Washington

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — Into the hurly-burly, the constant strain, and the partisan bitterness of the capital, there sometimes comes a touch of comic relief which greatly relieves the tension of life here.

Much of the comedy is unconscious. Frequently it is Congressman Maury Maverick of Texas who introduces such wit and humor as is obtained by design. Maverick has an idea that laughter and ridicule are important weapons.

Thus, when Maverick defended the Indian Bureau against an attack led by McGroarty of California which had slashed the bureau's salary budget from $469,000 to $25,000, the Texan mixed in his hard facts and refutations with—

"I looked through records last night and studied about Indians, and dreamed about them. Some of them scalped me in my sleep, but it was only a dream. Let us not consciously and while wide awake scalp the Indians."
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Scott of California then introduced an amendment to forbid teaching or advocating the legislative program of the American Liberty League in Indian schools.

"I rise as the champion of the freedom of speech in defense of the American Liberty League," said Maverick. "Does the gentleman mean to tell me he intends to deny the pure doctrines of James M. Beck and his pal, Newton Baker, who received $50,000 to decide the TVA before it came into court, and the doctrines of other impeccable and self-righteous citizens for the du Ponts and the holding companies, from being taught to our Indian children?

"Does the gentleman mean he would prevent the teaching to the Indian children of the doctrine of Mr. 'Sixty Grand' Shouse, who gets salary and 'allowable expense' of $60,000 a year? Indians know a lot about horses — they probably know about Twenty Grand — but they should know the du Pont horse known as Sixty Grand. . . .

"I got sick over all this name-calling; I am only calling names so I can get in the swim. It sounds as foolish as when Al Smith yelled about the road to Washington and the road to Moscow.
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"In passing, I would remind my Republican friends, and some of my others, that when Benedict Arnold walked out on America to the British, on the British sidelines there was applause and loud cheering. But it did not last long; the British soon had sick faces, and got sick of Arnold too, and he looked like a poor, hungry, deserted prairie dog, neither fish, fowl, nor animal with no friends this side of paradise.

"No Mr. Scott, I would let even the Liberty League talk. Would you deny these gentlemen who claim to be sole guardians of the Constitution the right also to be guardians of our Indian children?"
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Probably destined to become famous as a departure from the routine, dull committee reports is Maverick's one-man minority report against the bill permitting certain American officials to accept medals bestowed on them by some Latin American governments.

"Had I earned a foreign medal in the late war against the German Imperial Government," said he in the printed report, "when we entered the war to end wars—there now being no wars and with democracy thriving everywhere throughout the world—I suppose I should have worn it. But this bill ought to be defeated.

"Congress can legislate and debate on medals and titles of nobility. This should give us pride. It appears we cannot legislate on the welfare of those who live from the skill (and all humanity does) for that is a mere local matter—hence, the welfare of 125,000,000 people is not within our scope.

"Nor can we provide naturally even for minimum decent labor standards to protect states as against each other, or for millions of workers on whose lives and purchasing power the welfare of the nation, and business, depends. . . .

"But we can dress our officers in foreign medals from foreign governments; and that proud power we must jealously guard, and if we permit all our powers to be usurped, as appears likely, we can devote much of our time to decorations. Thus we can pass our time. . . .

"Unless we assert ourselves, we shall become a decoration ourselves. . . . We shall cease to be meddlers — interfering with the prerogative of the Mystic Nine — and become medallers."
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After that much sarcasm, Maverick proposed a foreign decoration for every farmer, every unemployed person, every starving person, that they may "die in glory." And, "For Every Unfortunate Citizen—a Medal," since "it's probably unconstitutional to give them anything to eat, whereas Congress clearly has the bemedaling power."

Rodney Dutcher, The Owosso Argus-Press, Feb. 6, 1936, p. 4