A Declaration of Conscience
Blog post
In an earlier post, “Have You No Decency?” I focused on Joseph Welch’s question to Senator Joseph McCarthy and how it helped to bring him down. After writing the post, I listened to the audio tape of this exchange and realized that Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency?”
Somehow, this version seems even more damning, though I’m not sure if I can articulate why. To me, Welch’s actual question is less a denunciation of McCarthy as a human being (though that seems warranted) but more a condemnation of the calculated remarks and actions he maliciously leveled against others. Making the point that McCarthy was well aware of the damage and destruction he wreaked on individuals and our democracy, for his own political power, leaves him no cover for his behavior.
Welch’s question was a remarkable act of courage. Though it did not stand alone in bringing down McCarthy (its impact was multiplied by the growing distress and opposition to McCarthy’s actions), the moral tenor of his question and its unflinching tone made it a pivotal moment. It was one of the few times in public – on nation-wide television and in a Senate hearing – when what many felt was finally said out loud.
This brave act of standing up to a powerful bully has special resonance today.
It is also relevant because Welch’s question came four years AFTER Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) denounced McCarthy and challenged her fellow Republicans to stand up against him.
But her words fell on deaf or unwilling-to-hear ears.
McCarthy’s Rise and Fall
Three years before McCarthy rose to power, he was an inconsequential first-term Senator who had built his reputation on a dubious record of achievements and was often the object of scorn. Before becoming a Senator, he had exaggerated his war service to qualify for a medal, falsely brandished a letter of commendation from his commanding officer (McCarthy had written it himself), and made much of a supposed “war wound” which had occurred during a celebratory rite for sailors who crossed the equator for the first time.1 Even his nickname “Tail-Gunner Joe” was given in mockery after he was allowed to shoot as much ammunition as he wanted at coconut trees.2
McCarthy meant to change all that. On February 9, 1950, he gave a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia that launched him into the national spotlight. The setting and reputation of the speaker was such that the speech was not expected to be of note, so there wasn’t an audio recording of it. But in advanced copies of the speech given to the press, he wrote:
I have here in my hand a list of 205 . . . a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department. . .3
His words were geared to latch on to and raise people’s fears of and hatred against an “other” – in this case Communists. His speech was long on vitriol and slander, but short on facts. As evidence for his accusations, he held up a sheet that supposedly had the names of 205 Communists who were employed in the US Government. But he never made the list public, and in various speeches reported the number of the supposed Communists on the list to be 57, 81, and 205.4
The facts didn’t matter. What mattered was the speech’s impact on the nation’s imagination and fears. There were few who challenged McCarthy and his speech. The press eagerly publicized such tantalizing “information” and gave his fabricated list front-page coverage. Many elected officials, some of whom had earlier dismissed him, jumped on the McCarthy bandwagon.
Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s Declaration of Conscience
Maine’s Republican Senator Margaret Smith initially shared McCarthy’s concerns about the influence of Communists, but she was troubled by McCarthy’s speech and his subsequent actions.
“It looked as if Joe was onto something disturbing and frightening," she decided, refusing to join with those senators taking issue with McCarthy. But then she asked to see the documents he was citing as evidence. Reading through McCarthy's materials, she failed to see their relevance to his charges. The more she read, and the more she listened to McCarthy, the less comfortable she felt. Smith began to question the "validity, accuracy, credibility, and fairness" of his charges and came to believe that McCarthy was creating an atmosphere of political fear in Washington, particularly among federal employees.5
On June 1, 1950, she took to the Senate floor to deliver a speech against McCarthy.
Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear…
I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges...
It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques -- techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.6
Smith concluded with a five-point “Declaration of Conscience” in which she was joined by six Republican colleagues.7
A few senators spoke in praise of her remarks, but for the most part the Senate remained silent, fearing to engage McCarthy in further recriminations. The mail, however, showed an eight-to-one approval for Smith's stand. Newspaper editorials endorsed her position, and numerous organizations awarded her recognition for her courageous stand in favor of civil liberties against the politics of fear…
McCarthy saw things differently. He ridiculed Smith and her cosigners as "Snow White and the Six Dwarfs." He violated Senate custom to remove her as a member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and gave her place to the new senator from California, Richard M. Nixon. McCarthy's allies took every occasion to smear Senator Smith.8
Few stood with her.
The nation would go through four years of hate speech and fear mongering and many Senatorial and House investigations of people identified by McCarthy and his hatchet man, Roy Cohn, based on questionable facts and invisible evidence. They clamped down on people’s rights of free speech and association and ruined the lives of many immigrants and citizens.
Smith’s Declaration of Conscience did not end McCarthy’s reign of power, but she was one of the first senators to take such a stand. She continued to oppose him, at great personal cost, for the next four years. Finally, in “December of 1954, the Senate belatedly concurred with the “lady from Maine” and censured McCarthy for conduct “contrary to senatorial traditions.” McCarthy’s career was over. Margaret Chase Smith’s career was just beginning.9
What’s Your Story?
The rise and fall of Senator Joseph McCarthy took just four years. While it was a short span of time in our nation’s history, it shows how much can happen in four years and how those events can cast a large and painful shadow. Just think what suffering could have been saved if the leaders in Congress, the press, and the public had taken Senator Smith more seriously and acted accordingly.
How will history judge us? What questions should we be asking now? Who should we take more seriously? What actions should we be taking?
The Contrarian’s Substack post, “Four Undaunted Individuals: Heroes Propel the Virtuous Cycle of Resistance” identifies four people, who like Welch, have chosen to take a stand. Their “acts of defiance, both individual and collective, remind us of three essential lessons in the fight to defend democracy.” In short, 1) We can’t expect politicians to save us from autocrats, the “decision to capitulate or to resists rest with each of us.”10 2) A “virtuous circle can develop in defense of democracy: Ordinary people organize and protest; politicians and officials realize resistance is popular, they step up their defense of democracy; and their increased resilience in turn inspires more popular defiance. And so it goes, with increased momentum as one courageous action begets the next.”11 3) While individual actions will not immediately take down autocrats, every crack in their seeming invincibility diminishes their power.
These lessons point out the need for us to step up, be resilient, and take heart that while we may feel overwhelmed and powerless, individuals can make a difference.
Who are the heroes - those who are well known or those who work quietly behind the scenes – that inspire you? How have their words, their actions, given you courage to stand up, speak out, or take heart to live another day with some level of hope?
Let us know in the comments below. Or send in a short reflection and we’ll post it here on Substack and on the Building Bridges Word by Word website. By sharing your story, many more can be inspired by these individuals, by their words.
Click on the button below for the guidelines and steps for submitting your reflection. Questions? Email me at mscribner.buildingbridgeswbw@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you and working with you to share your story.
There are many fascinating resources and articles on McCarthy, Welch, Smith, and these events. I found the Senate.gov history webpages and the following websites particularly interesting: Council on Foreign Relationships, The Water’s Edge Remembers Joseph McCarthy’s Wheeling Speech; History Matters; The Department of State, Office of the Historian; UVA, Miller Center, McCarthyism and The Red Scare; and the Zinn Education Project: Teaching People’s History.
Jennifer Rubin, Four Undaunted Individuals: Heroes propel the virtuous cycle of resistance, The Contrarian, contrarian.substack.com/p/four-undaunted-individuals.
ibid.
Absolutely pertinent in our time, sadly not just a member of Congress but the President himself, and his entire administration.
"The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes".
Mark Twain
Is that why 47 fancies himself as such a hilarious Joker during his rallies?