"Nuts!" said Maury Maverick, chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, "to hell with this! Take a letter--issue a bulletin!" The Directive read: "To everybody on my staff. Stay off this gobbledygook language. It only fouls people up. For the Lord's sake be short and say what you're talking about. Anyone using the words 'activation' or 'implementation' will be shot."
Everybody knew what Maury Maverick was talking about. Everybody usually does. That's why he's doing such a good job as the godfather of free enterprise in America. As chairman and general manager of the Smaller War Plants Corporation (SWPC) he fights the cause of the little businessman; leases him machinery; lends him money.
SWPC vigorously represents small business. Its job is to preserve the small business enterprises through the war-expansion program, and to plan for renewed civilian output and re-conversion after the war. Maverick means to see the job is done. He will brook no fuzziness, no Washington delays. Bluff and brusque in manner, the chairman says: "Small business isn't so small." By Department of Commerce reckoning the giant in Maverick's hands represents almost 90 per cent of American manufacturers. These "small business" firms account for 45 per cent of the workers employed and for 34 per cent of American business in dollar volume.
For that reason speed is the keynote of SWPC. There is no hip-hip-hooraying in the organization. Launching a series of weekly staff meetings, Maverick eliminated the early confusion through man-to-man talks. In one week the SWPC helped place approximately 350 contracts and 330 sub-contracts with a total value of 31 million dollars among small business men over the country. This necessitated seven hard work days for the chairman. "I mean to get results or get the hell out," Maverick says tersely, "and furthermore, every civilian alive who can read will know exactly what I am talking about. You can shock the people with the truth if they know what you are talking about."
Almost everything else in Washington was created by the Executive order of the President, but Congress created the SWPC June 11, 1942, handing the new prodigy 150 million dollars and named Maverick chairman on January 12, 1944, to spend it. That made Maverick very happy. Being a strictly "uplift" character, he's having a wonderful time uplifting small business. Zip, bing, goes a million dollars--government money. "Hot diggity," chortles Maverick, reaching for the next "cause" on his list.
The cause is just. Prior to March 9, 1944, according to the Truman Committee, about one hundred firms gobbled up 70 per cent of all war contracts. The 165 thousand small factories got the leftovers. Maury Maverick and his SWPC are out to change all that. Already much has been done. The small manufacturer can, without cost, receive assistance in solving any research problem. He has at his disposal, through the SWPC, 11 Science Advisory Committees, some members of which are also members of the National Academy of Science, the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Physics.
Another plan under way will make available to small industry some 45 thousand alien patents and patent applications seized since the outbreak of the war, which are available to small business through the SWPC and the Alien Property Custodian. "We mean to see that these patents never get back into the hands of the Germans or of any monopolies or cartels," says the hard-headed, San Antonio-born Texan.
Maverick is not against big business. He's sees nothing wrong if it is honest big business, but thinks the central government must do everything necessary for the preservation of small business. He also favors government spending to make the country what he considers it could be. What he considers it could be is not what many think it should be. Maverick's plan is to mark out the land in regional areas according to their potential. One section might be devoted exclusively to mining, another to cattle raising, another to manufacturing. For these sweeping plans he has been criticised severely.
He doesn't mind criticism. "No man who goes into politics can sit on Mount Olympus talking sweet philosophy and get elected," says he flatly. He admits that he has practiced demagoguery and that he might do it again, wind, weather, and the voters being propitious. "Further, I see nothing wrong with a Texan standing for what is right and being called a 'liberal.'"
Some critics have thumbnailed him in prussic acid, "show-off Maverick," "an eccentric," "a baffling phenomenon." Yet, one of his most severe critics admits: "Fundamentally, he is too honest. You cannot bully or cajole him into surrender on a point of principle."
It is his very simplicity which makes him appear complex. A large-bodied man of 48, built like a Texas bull, he is one of the frankest men alive. Mixed with a Don Quijote romanticism and the efficiency and hard-headedness of Henry Ford, these quirks manifest themselves in his stock-in-trade crusading. He has an abiding passion for art; a driving will to "do good." He hates living in Washington, thinks all cities are terrible. He bridles at routine and when hard-pressed or thwarted, his rages are famous; words flow from his mouth with the sting of a whiplash. Yet, he has a kind of tragic austerity. He peers at the world through thick-rimmed glasses--ready to attack or defend. He's good at both.
At the age of 17, while on his way by boat to the Virginia Military Institute, he wandered down into the steerage to see how "poor people" traveled. Invited to eat, he was assured the food was terrible. It was, but before he got much knowledge of the subject the steward discovered him, and calling him an "agitator" ordered him to eat First Class. "I felt like weeping the rest of the trip," he confesses, "but I had been told Mavericks never cry."
Later, he discovered that wasn't quite the truth. He cried plenty. It was during the first World War. Wounded and unable to guide his horse to the Allied lines, he ran into a squad of Germans--26 of them. "I was scared to death," he says, "my knees banged up against the horse. The tears wouldn't stay put. I think even the horse was scared. I knew I was going to be shot at any moment." Liverish with terror and worn out with bawling, he would have surrendered on the spot. "But they beat me to it," he says in amazement. "In the worst English I have ever heard, they begged me to save their lives." Very brave and patronizing now, he pointed to the Allied lines and said truculently, "Beat it."
To this day he is glad there wasn't a reporter around; thinks he might have got stuck on his medals. He was a good soldier. He received the Purple Heart and the Silver Star. "Both are very pretty," he says fondly, "but I didn't deserve them."
The Maverick itch to crusade for the underdog is stronger than the Maverick urge for personal glory. He got himself involved with the Depression. Donning old clothes and letting his whiskers grow, he headed for the jungle of down-and-outers. He wasn't a good bum, but he meant well. Organizing a "colony" in San Antonio, he proposed that the men-of-the-road share and share alike with their booty, no matter how they had obtained it.
As long as the inhabitants had little money, the colony flourished; as soon as they got on their feet they moved on. When the government began to grant relief, Maverick was out of business. He still has respect for his lowly parishioners. "They were good people," he affirms, "no better and no worse than any other people. How can you talk to a man about having self-reliance and the initiative of our forefathers when he has to grow corn on a pavement? He isn't living in the country of his forefathers."
Maverick believes firmly that the government should remove worry from the minds of certain classes of people by a system of social security, old age pensions and conservation of natural resources through nationalization. "Rural American life is planless, headless and hopeless," says he.
When not in violent motion on SWPC business, Chairman Maverick spends his time writing historical pamphlets on such topics as the Great Seal, the Declaration of Independence, and various historical figures. He is seriously interested in American history, but not mawkish. He collects old books, historical documents, pill boxes and old coins. Likes to ride a horse, but not in a cowboy hat.
In Congress he was a militant uplifter, invariably in the front ranks of the progressives. He went all out for TVA, federal housing, slum clearance and the conservation of forests. While the press gave him front-page notices on stunts like riding a horse into the House of Representatives, he was busy with legislation. Through his efforts the Venereal Disease Bill and the Cancer Research Bill became law. "No human being should suffer for lack of medical care," he says. "There should be a law against it."
Many people fought the Maverick liberalism. He lost his next election. Certain critics, proclaiming it a political funeral, sent flowers to the deceased. The corpse expressed itself with a vigorous kick and popped up head of SWPC. It's a very cheerful and optimistic ghost. Through Maverick, the services of SWPC have spread throughout the country. Research laboratories, technical advise and highly trained men are available in each of its fourteen regional offices at strategic headquarters throughout the nation.
Plans are under way for post-war SWPC. Maverick thinks a great service can be performed in that period of instability, but would like SWPC made a permanent part of government. He wants small business to have an equivalent of the research laboratories of the big companies. SWPC already has the rudiments. Asserting his belief in free competition, he maintains vigorously that he abhors State Socialism, but sees nothing wrong with Government sharing in what used to be private business. Unless SWPC is extended by Congress, it expires July, 1945.
Warning against this, Maverick stoutly protests, "We cannot stop spending when peace breaks out. If we do not combine government spending with private enterprise, there'll be hell to pay. I have asked for 350 million dollars--and I mean to get it." Chances are he will.
Carol Hughes, Coronet, August 1944
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