Mavericks: The Lives and Battles of Montana's Political Legends

Rating:
Summary: Mavericks captures Montana Spirit
Review: In the current miasmic atmosphere in public affairs created by the corrupting trinity of big money, indiscriminate television and instant opinion polls, it is salutary to recall those who have lent honor and distinction to public service by honest and relentless pursuit of the common good as they saw it. John and Catherine Morrison have provided such retrospect with their literary pantheon of remarkable Montanans titled "Mavericks," now published by the University of Idaho Press.

The lives, times, vicissitudes, triumphs and tragedies of nine leading actors in the drama of this state's first century are skillfully and accurately delineated in a single volume that is a handbook on our public affairs. Which is not to say that it even pretends to be objective. The authors are unabashed admirers of the Josephs Dixon and Toole, Ella Knowles and Jeannette Rankin, Tom Walsh and B.K. Wheeler, and Jim Murray, Mike Mansfield and Lee Metcalf, as far seeing, fearless progressives. This carefully researched and well organized book is at its best an insightful examination of Montana's populist-progressive tradition as illuminated by these players.

The list does not include Pat Williams, who sustained the tradition in the House of Representatives for 18 years without flinching. In his concise forward though, Williams adumbrates the Morrison's central theme, "...the golden thread of courage." These men and women were as diverse in their backgrounds, personalities, predilictions, and modus operendi as they could possibly be, yet they had one thing in common: when the chips were down and the issue really mattered, their convictions came first and they did the best they could with the rest of it.

The concluding paragraphs are the most intriguing in the book. The authors are relatively young and have not been prominent in public affairs. Yet their six page conclusion is as piercing and enlightened a statement on the state of the state and its future as we've seen. It is informed with an extraordinary sense of the importance, on the one hand, of leadership on the part of elected officials, but, on the other hand, the equal and ever more urgent importance of participation on the part of all of us. Well and deeply considered and elegently written, these few paragraphs are a much needed orientation as to where we are now and a beacon to the future.