Have You No Decency, Sir? The Senate Votes to Condemn Senator Joseph McCarthy

On December 2, 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin was condemned by the Senate for "conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute." Senator McCarthy had made a name for himself by arguing that there were communists within the State department and various branches of the federal government. On February 9, 1950, he gave a speech to the Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling, West Virginia in which he held up a piece of paper and claimed it contained a list of known Communists working for the State Department. No audio recording survived of this meeting, so there is some dispute as to whether he said the list had 205 or 57 names. Either way, the press picked up the story and his “Wheeling speech” helped to propel him to greater fame.

While a member of the senate, McCarthy led committee investigations trying to rout out communism within the government. For the most part, he ended up isolating himself from the other senators (including those in his own party) and not providing much evidence for his claims. While the public may have entertained some of his claims out of fear, public opinion began to turn against him in 1954. The Journalist Edward R. Murrow ran two programs that were very critical of McCarthy and his message. In the conclusion of the first program, Murrow offered a strong rebuke to McCarthy and McCarthyism:

His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between the internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.

The Senate also began investigating McCarthy and called some of his actions into question. In the Army-McCarthy hearings, the Senate investigated to see whether McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, had pressured the army to favor a friend of Cohn’s serving as a private. In the course of the hearings, McCarthy had a famous exchange with Joseph Nye Welch, the army’s chief legal representative. Welch challenged Cohn to provide a list of names of communist sympathizers in defense plants “before the sun goes down.” Before Cohn could answer, McCarthy stepped in and told Welch if he was so concerned about the identities of those aiding the communist party, then he should check his own firm. He then accused Fred Fisher, a man in Welch’s firm of being a member of the National Lawyers Guild, which McCarthy said was sympathetic to communists. This led Welch to make an impassioned defense of Fisher and a strong rebuke of McCarthy asking, “have you no decency sir?”. The video of the exchange is posted below (cut into two parts).

Public opinion continued to turn against McCarthy and the Senate voted to condemn him on December 2, 1954, which effectively ended his political career. President Eisenhower was pleased to see the demise of McCarthy, as he had been a longtime opponent of his methods. He is said to have remarked to his aides, “McCarthyism is now McCarthywasm.”

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“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” – Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky

September 26 – October 6, 2009 is Banned Books Week in the United States. To celebrate, the American Library Association is holding reading events at libraries across the country where select banned books will be read aloud. They have also created an interactive map showing every attempt to ban a book in the United States during the period 2007-2009. Click here to check it out. I live in Connecticut, so imagine my surprise when I learned by clicking on the interactive map that the public schools in Manchester, CT briefly banned Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from its classrooms due to racially charged language. Books often speak to the age in which they were written, and if we were to eliminate books from libraries that were in some way tainted by the social views of their age, few books would remain.

After checking for lists of banned books, I found the list of banned or challenged books from this year, also published by the American Library Association. This astonishing list shows that books spanning many genres have been susceptible to public challenges. Besides perennially banned classics such as The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bluest Eye, and the Harry Potter series, I also found some history books on the list. In particular, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States was challenged this year as part of the curriculum of North Stafford Virginia High School’s AP United States History class. Although the book was not the primary textbook of the course, the book was challenged as being “un-American, leftist, propaganda.” To balance out the “un-American” and “leftist” aspects of the book, the students were also required to read an article titled, “Howard Zinn’s Disappointing History of the United States.”

The idea of book banning has existed as long as books have been published. Book banning is not only a challenge to the text being banned, but to the very right of all people to read and write about ideas which may not garner the approval of all of society. If we examine American history, reading has been considered a hallmark of our citizenship since the American Revolution. During the early years of the republic, reading allowed citizens to learn about their government and its laws and to help these ideas to spread. Furthermore, reading allowed people to understand different political ideas and to conceive of different definitions of citizenship. This kind of understanding imparted by books, pamphlets and even newspapers allowed people to form educated opinions, even if they opposed those in power. So banning books is not just about robbing a child or adult of a reading experience that might be informative and fun, it’s also a challenge to a basic tenet of our citizenship. By not supporting book banning, we acknowledge the right of everyone to read books such as Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and to still be able to draw their own conclusions. Interestingly, several United States Presidents have spoken out against book banning and its attempts to quiet the voice of opposition and to deny free speech. In a speech delivered at Dartmouth College on June 14, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.” President Lyndon Johnson also spoke out against book banning by advocating for the positive influence of books on society, “books and ideas are the most effective weapon against intolerance and ignorance.”

Happy Banned Books Week!

[Image via thebookladysblog]