Where Is Margaret Chase Smith When We Need Her?
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In some ways, in the decade from 1947 to 1957 the political situation in America was similar to that of the current Trump and post-Trump era. The Republicans then were conned by a persuasive, but not necessarily charismatic leader, Senator Joseph McCarthy, into supporting the country’s Second Red Scare. Republicans now are being conned by another persuasive but not necessarily charismatic leader, Trump, into supporting the Big Lie of the stolen 2020 election (and a lot of other lies as well).
Both periods bore the hallmarks of fearmongering, finger-pointing, and promoting shadowy fictional plots and imaginary enemies. In the earlier time, these were communists, accusations of communists, and long lists of traitors that turned out to be blank sheets of cheap foolscap. In the current time, the fears are more numerous and varied, ranging from “cancel culture” to socialism to the COVID pandemic being either a liberal hoax or a liberal plot, with conspiracy fantasies¹ put forth by the possibly imaginary Qanon.
Most people think of the McCarthy era as a product of the mid=1950s, but its origins were a product of the end of World War II and intensified by the onset of the Korean Conflict and a power struggle between the leaderships of the FBI and CIA. Most people also think it ended in 1954 when a lawyer for the U.S. Army, Joseph Welch, gave his famous rebuke which included the words “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” Following that incident, “McCarthyism” became “McCarthywasm” and McCarthy himself lost credibility, was censured by the Senate, and died in office, officially of hepatitis but popularly assumed to be from the effects of alcohol and morphine.
What most people don’t know about the McCarthy era was that there were some Republicans who stood up to him early in the Second Red Scare. In 1950, seven Republican senators backed a resolution to denounce McCarthy. They were Wayne Morse (OR), George Aiken (VT), Edward Thye MN, Irving Ives (NY), Charles Tobey (NH), and Robert Hendrickson (NJ). They were led by the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate, Margaret Chase Smith of Maine.
In 1950, Senator Smith gave a remarkable speech to which her six colleagues were a signatory. It was called the Declaration of Conscience, and it contained some remarkable words of rebuke to McCarthy in particular and the Republican Party in general, with plenty of criticism leveled at the Democratic Party. Of that speech, financier and statesman Bernard Baruch said that if a man had spoken her words,…he would be the next President.”
Much of Senator Smith’s Declaration addressed the concerns of the time, but two passages stand out and timeless words that Republicans and Democrats alike would do well to review, seventy-one years after they were written and spoken. The first described four principles that are lacking in the politics of now:
“Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism:
The right to criticize;
The right to hold unpopular beliefs;
The right to protest;
The right of independent thought.
The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise, none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.”
Those rights, though not explicitly enumerated in any body of United States law or tradition, (although protest is considered under the First Amendment as “…petition for redress of grievances…”) are vital to a healthy free society.
She went on to further warn that:
“The nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny — Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”
The sad truth is that the Republican Party of 2021 is riding those horsemen, full-tilt and pell-mell, headed right for a cliff’s edge into an abyss of fascism, chaos, and destruction. The Republican Party of 2021 desperately needs a conscience because it has none. It desperately needs another Margaret Chase Smith and her squad of six allies. Unfortunately, all it has is the sorry likes of Trump, McConnell, Cruz, Graham, Gohmert, Boebert, and Greene. In the time since that speech, we’ve descended from Margaret Smith to Susan Collins.
“As an American, I condemn a Republican ‘Fascist’ just as much I condemn a Democratic ‘Communist’. I condemn a Democrat ‘Fascist’ just as much as I condemn a Republican ‘Communist’. They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”
— Margaret Chase Smith
Now that’s the kind of both-siderism we need.
¹ I refuse to use the term “conspiracy theory” because it isn’t a theory – it’s a fantasy.
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Sub to comments.
Yes. Very informative indeed.
Well written and well said. Amen to the content.