Texas Titan
Maury Maverick is the LaGuardia of the Southwest. He even looks like New York’s stocky little mayor. The resemblance isn’t all coincidence, for LaGuardia is a Maverick idol.
Like LaGuardia, Maverick is an ardent liberal, was a member of Congress before he became Mayor of San Antonio. Some of Maverick’s fire comes from his diet. He’s fond of hot sauces and at table, between courses, he sprinkles pepper on his hand and tongues it like a cow at a salt lick.
“These people elected me Mayor, and I’m going to give ‘em two years of democracy whether they like it or not,” Maury says. We think his story of what he’s doing in San Antonio is one of the best pieces of journalism we’ve published.
* * *
Back when Texas was still a Republic, Grandpa Sam Maverick was Mayor of San Antonio. Now, a century later, I’m Mayor. I don’t know what headaches Grandpa had, but I have plenty.
The newspapers and magazines of the country have given our town a reputation that st— I mean smells to high heaven. The press has noted with great delicacy that legions of prostitutes parade in Battalions up and down our historic streets, marked out long ago by Spanish conquistadores. Some publications have printed stories of certain ladies who carried cards showing A-1 health but who, at the same time, were 4-plus syphilitics.
One magazine ranked San Antonio as the nation’s No. 1 plague spot for tuberculosis. Another referred to it as the “Citadel of Shakedown.” There were accusations that for years the city had been corrupted and looted by a political machine, which didn’t worry about the vice district, the gambling joints or the protected life of the racketeers. It was well known that the city machine was bossed by a carnival man, a racketeer, a Negro gambler . . .
Finally the stench got so strong that even the least civic-minded citizens turned dark green around the gills. There was a taxpayers’ strike. Crooks were caught in tax office scandals. Several citizens became unwilling guests of the great state of Texas. The old Mayor was indicted for misapplication of funds. All this led to the organization of the Fusion Party. And that’s how I became Mayor of my home town only a few months after the political machine had defeated me for Congress last year.
The worst stories that had been told about San Antonio are mild in comparison to what I really found when I took office. I know, of course, that a mayor is supposed to be a stuffed shirt and praise the city in sweet Chamber-of-Commerce words. But I’m not going to do it. I’m going to tell you the truth about San Antonio.
I’m No Reformer. I Love Sinners. But I promised a city free of graft and open vice and that’s what the people are going to get. Elected along with me on this cleanup platform were three hard-hitting Texans: “Louis Lipscomb, a former football player, is Commissioner of Fire and Police; Ray Davis, a realtor who works, is Commissioner of Taxation; and Henry Hein, a crusading druggist, is now San Antonio’s Commissioner of Sanitation.
Cleaning Up the Corporation Court was the first step in our eratication program. Here shyster lawyers made a shady living furnishing bonds—at a dollar and up—to prostitutes picked up by the police. We exposed the red light which this gang hid under their bushel. No longer can these gents get rich springing the girlies of the dubious ways and their buddies of the crooked dice.
Prostitution Is a Problem. I am frank to admit. For more than half a century we have had a red light district. It’s one of our old Spanish customs, and I can’t stop it overnight. But one thing is sure: We don’t let vice help run the town as it did before. And we have put a stop to the mass picketing of our thoroughfares by the streetwalkers. But we still have too much vice.
Ten Thousand Soldiers Come to Town every payday. We can’t blame everything on them, of course, but they do make our vice control problems even tougher. The best we can do at the moment is to exert severe police and health control. I’d like to see prostitution wiped out. But I don’t know how to do it.
Our New Police chief is Ray Ashworth—a damyankee from Illinois. Some of our racketeer patriots thought it was an outrage to get a man from out of town, but we wanted someone who knew his business and who didn’t have any “friends.” We’ve put our cops in spiffy new uniforms, we’ve inaugurated a police cadet system which trains young men for the force, and we’ve tossed out politics.
Traffic Violation Arrests under the old regime were a joke—turned into deaths. In a three-months period they fined 7 per cent of traffic violators; we, in a similar period, fined 73 per cent. They collected $1,857.40 in fines; we collected $16,215.45. They disposed of 1,383 cases; we disposed of 9,917. We’re buying new radio cars, lie detectors and other gadgets. Before we’re through San Antonio will have the best police force in the country.
The Health Department, federal investigators reported, existed only for political purposes under the old order. The tuberculosis rate was rising dangerously. My first move was to have school children examined.
Our Inadequate City Clinics had been staffed by employees with political “pull.” We turned this department upside down, firing the drones and hiring trained workers. We established new clinics. We are giving nearly 8,000 venereal treatments each month. We maintain a special clinic for prostitutes. And our prenatal clinics are doing a good job of preventing hereditary syphilis.
We Have 11 Baby Clinics now, 5 prenatal clinics, 3 tuberculosis clinics, 2 venereal clinics. We are at last recognized by the U.S. Health Service. But what we’ve done is not enough. We need more hospitals.
Bad Housing, has helped disease to spread, and new housing is needed for thousands. Death is, of course, no respecter of persons, but it works most swiftly among those who have to live in cold, dirty, crowded dwellings.
Sam Antonio’s Slums are said to be the worst in America. How true this statement is, I don’t know. But I do know that we have a section almost nine miles square littered with the most miserable kind of shacks. The people who live in this squalor are almost all of Mexican extraction. In some places 150 of them will have only one toilet. The only thing that thrives there is tuberculosis.
The Hovels These Children Inhabit are now slated for extinction. When I was in Congress I got an allocation of $11,00,000 from the federal housing authority for slum clearance in San Antonio. This project was hamstrung by the machine administration, but now we have got it going again. At this very minute these shacks are being torn down. Replacing them will be decent, sanitary houses.
People Who Hate my administration got a chance to pour it on me when I permitted a 98-pound Communist girl to speak in the auditorium. Clem Smith, an American Legion commander; a former Republican candidate for governor; other partrioteers and politicians rose up and cried that the country was being destroyed. Came the meeting, and 5,000 people went through a disgusting mob scene.
The Mob Got Out of Control and rather than hurt the women and children and misled youths among them, we didn’t use force to quell it. The police tried to scatter the crowd with a fire hose, but the rioters broke through and smashed into the auditorium. Inside they held a mass meeting given over mostly to abusing me. And when they finally left they had injured more than a dozen people and had damaged the building. Now the leaders of the mob are staging a movement to “recall” me from office. No respectable citizens have joined this move and it looks as if I’ll remain Mayor of San Antonio. I still believe that any citizen—even a Communist—has a right to talk. This may sound demagogic, but it’s true and it is also important.
Charles Kennon Quin, who preceded me as mayor, was indicted for mis-application of funds. When I took over the office I inherited a good supply of headaches. The auditing system was slipshod and had to be streamlined. Purchasing had to be taken out of politics and put on the basis of true competition. In short, I am trying to run the city in a businesslike way. Even the bankers now bow and smile when they see me.
The First Man Who Was Fired when the new administration went in was Owen Kilday, chief of police and brother of the man who beat me for Congress. I discovered that we owed about $800,000 in police back pay warrants and that we must spend an extra $400,000 on police pay raises. We settled the warrants for $430,000 in bonds. On the salary increases we plan to spend $70,000 the first year and the rest when we can.
San Antonio Is Probably No Better and no worse than any other American city. But I think it’s more beautiful. We have tall new buildings, plenty of parks, and a modern municipal auditorium. We have Fort Sam Houston, Randolph and Kelly fields, and the biggest concentration of military units in the new world. We have the ancient Spanish missions, the Governor’s Palace, and the historic Alamo. It is true that God has done more for our city than we deserve, but we’re trying to do more for ourselves now. We are cleaning up and straightening out. My idea of a city is a place which is modern and streamlined to the hilt; where business can make money and people can get decent wages and working conditions; where all that is beautiful and historical is preserved. That is the kind of city we are trying to make of San Antonio.
Maury Maverick is the LaGuardia of the Southwest. He even looks like New York’s stocky little mayor. The resemblance isn’t all coincidence, for LaGuardia is a Maverick idol.
Like LaGuardia, Maverick is an ardent liberal, was a member of Congress before he became Mayor of San Antonio. Some of Maverick’s fire comes from his diet. He’s fond of hot sauces and at table, between courses, he sprinkles pepper on his hand and tongues it like a cow at a salt lick.
“These people elected me Mayor, and I’m going to give ‘em two years of democracy whether they like it or not,” Maury says. We think his story of what he’s doing in San Antonio is one of the best pieces of journalism we’ve published.
Back when Texas was still a Republic, Grandpa Sam Maverick was Mayor of San Antonio. Now, a century later, I’m Mayor. I don’t know what headaches Grandpa had, but I have plenty.
The newspapers and magazines of the country have given our town a reputation that st— I mean smells to high heaven. The press has noted with great delicacy that legions of prostitutes parade in Battalions up and down our historic streets, marked out long ago by Spanish conquistadores. Some publications have printed stories of certain ladies who carried cards showing A-1 health but who, at the same time, were 4-plus syphilitics.
One magazine ranked San Antonio as the nation’s No. 1 plague spot for tuberculosis. Another referred to it as the “Citadel of Shakedown.” There were accusations that for years the city had been corrupted and looted by a political machine, which didn’t worry about the vice district, the gambling joints or the protected life of the racketeers. It was well known that the city machine was bossed by a carnival man, a racketeer, a Negro gambler . . .
Finally the stench got so strong that even the least civic-minded citizens turned dark green around the gills. There was a taxpayers’ strike. Crooks were caught in tax office scandals. Several citizens became unwilling guests of the great state of Texas. The old Mayor was indicted for misapplication of funds. All this led to the organization of the Fusion Party. And that’s how I became Mayor of my home town only a few months after the political machine had defeated me for Congress last year.
The worst stories that had been told about San Antonio are mild in comparison to what I really found when I took office. I know, of course, that a mayor is supposed to be a stuffed shirt and praise the city in sweet Chamber-of-Commerce words. But I’m not going to do it. I’m going to tell you the truth about San Antonio.
I’m No Reformer. I Love Sinners. But I promised a city free of graft and open vice and that’s what the people are going to get. Elected along with me on this cleanup platform were three hard-hitting Texans: “Louis Lipscomb, a former football player, is Commissioner of Fire and Police; Ray Davis, a realtor who works, is Commissioner of Taxation; and Henry Hein, a crusading druggist, is now San Antonio’s Commissioner of Sanitation.
Cleaning Up the Corporation Court was the first step in our eratication program. Here shyster lawyers made a shady living furnishing bonds—at a dollar and up—to prostitutes picked up by the police. We exposed the red light which this gang hid under their bushel. No longer can these gents get rich springing the girlies of the dubious ways and their buddies of the crooked dice.
Prostitution Is a Problem. I am frank to admit. For more than half a century we have had a red light district. It’s one of our old Spanish customs, and I can’t stop it overnight. But one thing is sure: We don’t let vice help run the town as it did before. And we have put a stop to the mass picketing of our thoroughfares by the streetwalkers. But we still have too much vice.
Ten Thousand Soldiers Come to Town every payday. We can’t blame everything on them, of course, but they do make our vice control problems even tougher. The best we can do at the moment is to exert severe police and health control. I’d like to see prostitution wiped out. But I don’t know how to do it.
Our New Police chief is Ray Ashworth—a damyankee from Illinois. Some of our racketeer patriots thought it was an outrage to get a man from out of town, but we wanted someone who knew his business and who didn’t have any “friends.” We’ve put our cops in spiffy new uniforms, we’ve inaugurated a police cadet system which trains young men for the force, and we’ve tossed out politics.
Traffic Violation Arrests under the old regime were a joke—turned into deaths. In a three-months period they fined 7 per cent of traffic violators; we, in a similar period, fined 73 per cent. They collected $1,857.40 in fines; we collected $16,215.45. They disposed of 1,383 cases; we disposed of 9,917. We’re buying new radio cars, lie detectors and other gadgets. Before we’re through San Antonio will have the best police force in the country.
The Health Department, federal investigators reported, existed only for political purposes under the old order. The tuberculosis rate was rising dangerously. My first move was to have school children examined.
Our Inadequate City Clinics had been staffed by employees with political “pull.” We turned this department upside down, firing the drones and hiring trained workers. We established new clinics. We are giving nearly 8,000 venereal treatments each month. We maintain a special clinic for prostitutes. And our prenatal clinics are doing a good job of preventing hereditary syphilis.
We Have 11 Baby Clinics now, 5 prenatal clinics, 3 tuberculosis clinics, 2 venereal clinics. We are at last recognized by the U.S. Health Service. But what we’ve done is not enough. We need more hospitals.
Bad Housing, has helped disease to spread, and new housing is needed for thousands. Death is, of course, no respecter of persons, but it works most swiftly among those who have to live in cold, dirty, crowded dwellings.
Sam Antonio’s Slums are said to be the worst in America. How true this statement is, I don’t know. But I do know that we have a section almost nine miles square littered with the most miserable kind of shacks. The people who live in this squalor are almost all of Mexican extraction. In some places 150 of them will have only one toilet. The only thing that thrives there is tuberculosis.
The Hovels These Children Inhabit are now slated for extinction. When I was in Congress I got an allocation of $11,00,000 from the federal housing authority for slum clearance in San Antonio. This project was hamstrung by the machine administration, but now we have got it going again. At this very minute these shacks are being torn down. Replacing them will be decent, sanitary houses.
People Who Hate my administration got a chance to pour it on me when I permitted a 98-pound Communist girl to speak in the auditorium. Clem Smith, an American Legion commander; a former Republican candidate for governor; other partrioteers and politicians rose up and cried that the country was being destroyed. Came the meeting, and 5,000 people went through a disgusting mob scene.
The Mob Got Out of Control and rather than hurt the women and children and misled youths among them, we didn’t use force to quell it. The police tried to scatter the crowd with a fire hose, but the rioters broke through and smashed into the auditorium. Inside they held a mass meeting given over mostly to abusing me. And when they finally left they had injured more than a dozen people and had damaged the building. Now the leaders of the mob are staging a movement to “recall” me from office. No respectable citizens have joined this move and it looks as if I’ll remain Mayor of San Antonio. I still believe that any citizen—even a Communist—has a right to talk. This may sound demagogic, but it’s true and it is also important.
Charles Kennon Quin, who preceded me as mayor, was indicted for mis-application of funds. When I took over the office I inherited a good supply of headaches. The auditing system was slipshod and had to be streamlined. Purchasing had to be taken out of politics and put on the basis of true competition. In short, I am trying to run the city in a businesslike way. Even the bankers now bow and smile when they see me.
The First Man Who Was Fired when the new administration went in was Owen Kilday, chief of police and brother of the man who beat me for Congress. I discovered that we owed about $800,000 in police back pay warrants and that we must spend an extra $400,000 on police pay raises. We settled the warrants for $430,000 in bonds. On the salary increases we plan to spend $70,000 the first year and the rest when we can.
San Antonio Is Probably No Better and no worse than any other American city. But I think it’s more beautiful. We have tall new buildings, plenty of parks, and a modern municipal auditorium. We have Fort Sam Houston, Randolph and Kelly fields, and the biggest concentration of military units in the new world. We have the ancient Spanish missions, the Governor’s Palace, and the historic Alamo. It is true that God has done more for our city than we deserve, but we’re trying to do more for ourselves now. We are cleaning up and straightening out. My idea of a city is a place which is modern and streamlined to the hilt; where business can make money and people can get decent wages and working conditions; where all that is beautiful and historical is preserved. That is the kind of city we are trying to make of San Antonio.
Maury Maverick, Look, November 7, 1939
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