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The Political Context of McCarthyism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Robert Griffith
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Extract

From 1950 to 1954 American politics were dominated as never before by one man, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, and by the phenomenon of “McCarthyism.” Yet many of the questions raised by those years of turmoil and controversy remain unanswered. What was the source and nature of the power that McCarthy wielded over the United States Senate? Why did the members of that body acquiesce, for nearly five years, in his continued abuse of the democratic process? Beyond this, were the McCarthy years aberrational? Did they represent some malfunction in our political machinery? Or were they the natural and inevitable by-product of that system itself?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , January 1971 , pp. 24 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1971

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References

1 Rovere, Richard H., “The Most Gifted and Successful Demagogue This Country Has Ever Known,” The New York Times Magazine, 04 30, 1967, VI, 23Google Scholar; Rovere, , Senator Joe McCarthy (New York, 1959Google Scholar); Anderson, Jack and May, Ronald W., McCarthy: The Man, the Senator, the “Ism” (Boston, 1952Google Scholar); Luthin, Reinhard H., American Demagogues (Boston, 1954), pp. 237–297Google Scholar.

2 Agar, Herbert, The Price of Power: America Since 1945 (Chicago, 1957), pp. 86–105Google Scholar; Goldman, Eric, The Crucial Decade — And After: America, 1945–1960 (New York, 1960), pp. 91–145Google Scholar.

3 The best introduction to this argument may be found in Bell, Daniel (ed.), The New American Right (New York, 1955Google Scholar), and its revised edition, The Radical Right (New York, 1963Google Scholar). Included are essays by Bell, Richard Hofstadter, David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, Peter Viereck, Talcott Parsons, Alan F. Westin, H. H. Hyman and Seymour Martin Lipset. The interested student should also consult the individual works of the various contributors as well as the growing body of supportive literature cited in the footnotes of the revised edition.

4 Polsby, Nelson, “Toward An Explanation of McCarthyism,” Political Studies, VIII (10, 1969), 250–271Google Scholar.

5 Latham, Earl, The Communist Controversy in America: From the New Deal to McCarthy (Cambridge, Mass., 1966Google Scholar).

6 Rogin, Michael Paul, The Intellectuals and McCarthy: The Radical Specter (Cambridge, Mass., 1967Google Scholar).

7 Stephen J. Spingarn to Clark Clifford, May 2, 1949; Spingarn to Charles S. Murphy et al., July 20, 1950, National Defense -S2311; Spingarn to Murphy August 1, 1950, National Defense — Internal Security and Individual Rights, vol. II, all in the Spingarn Papers, Harry S. Truman Library.

8 Stephen J. Spingarn, Memorandum for the Files, July, 22, 1950, National Defense — Internal Security and Individual Rights, vol. I, Spingarn Papers.

9 Arnold, Thurman, Fair Fights and Foul: A Dissenting Lawyer's Life (New York, 1965), p. 217Google Scholar; Anderson, and May, , McCarthy, p. 341Google Scholar. McCarran's power was increased by the institutional habits of the Senate. Most senators tend to specialize, concentrating their efforts in one legislative area and relying upon the counsel of their friends and the party leadership in other matters. When an especially powerful man like McCarran dominates an area, there is often no countervailing force to push and plead legislative alternatives. “Senators, like myself, who are not members of the Judiciary Committee, rely to a great extent, of course, upon the recommendation which it makes after a thorough analysis of the particular matter under consideration,” explained Texas Senator Tom Connally to an angry constituent. Tom T. Connally to Mrs. W. A. Nauwald, March 26, 1951, box 118, Tom T. Connally Papers, Library of Congress.

10 The Washington Post, August 31, 1950; The New York Herald-Tribune, August 31, 1950; The New York Times, August 31, 1950; Louisville Courier-Journal, September 1, 1950; The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 31, 1950; Christian Science Monitor, September 15, 1950.

11 Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2nd Sess., September 12, 1950, p. 14628. Voting against the bill were Senators Graham, Green, Kefauver, Leahy, Lehman, Murray and Taylor. Republican William Langer would have voted against the bill, but voted “yea” so that he might be able to move for reconsideration. Langer to Harry S. Truman, September 18, 1950, P.P.F. 5491, Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library.

12 John D. Erwin to Estes Kefauver, September 24, 1950, in Legislative Files, 81st Congress, Estes Kefauver Papers, University of Tennessee; and John Steele to Arthur Vandenberg, September 27, 1950, Vandenberg Papers, W. L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.

Vice President Barkley, Scott Lucas, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, and House Majority Leader John W. McCormick had all urged Truman to sign the bill. Stephen J. Spingarn, Memorandum for the Files, September 19, 1950, National Defense, Internal Security and Individual Rights, Spingarn Papers.

13 S. 4130 was cosponsored by Senators Douglas, Kilgore, Humphrey, Lehman, Graham, Kefauver and Benton. Not all liberals, of course, were shocked by the Douglas-Kilgore proposal. Some like James Loeb, Jr. of Americans for Democratic Action, felt the bill was “justified both by realistic justice and by political expedience.” James Loeb, Jr. to Miss Evelyn Dubrow, November 1, 1950, Legislative File, box 34, American for Democratic Action Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

14 Memorandum, Julius C. C. Edelstein to Herbert H. Lehman, September 4, 1950, Senate Files, Research — drawer one, Herbert H. Lehman Papers, Columbia University.

15 Stephen J. Spingarn, Memorandum for the Files, September 6, 1950, National Defense — Internal Security and Individual Rights, vol. Ill, Spingarn Papers.

16 Congressional Record, 81st Gong., 2nd Sess., September 12, 1950, p. 14628.

17 William Benton to Ralph Flanders, February 17, 1954, box 113, Ralph Flanders Papers, Syracuse University; Benton to Francis Biddle, November 7, 1950, Legislative File, box 34, ADA Papers; Hubert H. Humphrey to Estes Kefauver, September 19, 1950, Legislative Files, 81st Congress, Kefauver Papers.

18 Harley Kilgore to Truman, September 14, 1950; Senators Herbert Lehman, James Murray and Estes Kefauver to Truman, September 20, 1950, both letters in O.F. 2750-C, Truman Papers; Stephen J. Spingarn, Memorandum for the Files, September 25, 1950, National Defense — Internal Security and Individual Rights, vol. Ill, Spingarn Papers.

19 Voting “nay” were Senators Chavez, Graham, Douglas, Green, Humphrey, Kilgore, Leahy, Lehman, Murray and Kefauver. Langer, who had been taken to the hospital, was announced as opposing the bill, and Glenn Taylor of Idaho was paired against it. Congressional Record, 81st Cong., 2nd Sess., September 23, 1950, p. 15726.

20 Herbert H. Lehman to Lloyd R. Shaw, May 6, 1955; Lehman to R. M. Stein, September 3, 1954, both in Senate Legislative File, drawer 21, Lehman Papers.

21 Congressional Quarterly Service, Congress and the Nation (Washington, 1965), pp. 1656–1658Google Scholar.

22 Congressional Record, 83rd Cong., 2nd Sess., July 6, 1954, p. 9708.

23 The Humphrey amendment was attached to the Butler bill on August 12 and then to the House version of the measure when it came before the Senate on August 17. Congressional Record, 83rd Cong., 2nd Sess., August 12, 1954, pp. 14210, 14234; and August 17, 1954, p. 14727.

24 Chicago Daily News, August 16, 1954.

25 Congressional Record, 83rd Cong., 2nd Sess., August 17, 1954, p. 14727. The vote on the Humphrey amendment would have been tied (and consequently defeated by the chair), had not Kefauver and Alton Lennon (D., N. C.) withdrawn their votes against the amendment and allowed themselves to be paired with absent Democrats. Thus Kefauver, who received a great deal of praise for opposing the amended bill, was also responsible for the form of its final passage. Washington Post and Times-Herald, August 21, 1954. Immediately following the roll call, Lyndon Johnson moved to fore-stall opposition by calling for reconsideration. His motion was then quickly tabled by a vote of 43–49.

Humphrey's statement on liberal reaction is taken from Hubert Humphrey to Marvin Rosenberg, August 27, 1954, in Legislative File, box 16, ADA Papers. In this long and highly revealing document Humphrey declared that it was time American liberals quit relying on the thinking of John Stuart Mill and do some “20th century thinking in order to face 20th century problems.” He dismissed the argument that the amendment might become a precedent for the repression of other political parties, declaring that the amendment would stand on its own merits and that “it is not necessary for me to defend any possible abuse of that amendment at a later date.” Although Humphrey denied any political motivation in offering the amendment — “the people of Minnesota can never be fooled into thinking Hubert Humphrey is a Communist” — he did boast in later years that the vote of one liberal Democrat on the bill saved that senator's political life. Griffith, Winthrop, Humphrey: A Can did Biography (New York, 1965), p. 223Google Scholar.

26 Congressional Record, 83rd Cong., 2nd Sess., August 19, 1954, pp. 15101–15121; Schlesinger, Arthur, New York Post, 08 29, 1954Google Scholar; Estes Kefauver to William R. Ross, October 22, 1954, Subject File, National Security I, Kefauver Papers.

27 Congressional Record, 83rd Cong., 2nd Sess., August 16, 1954, p. 14565.