McCarthyism in the Early 50s - Essay Example

McCarthyism in the Early 50s There significant challenges and issues that negatively affected the American history. One of the said issues had been referred to as McCarthyism. The term is now related to shameful events when the nation was tainted specifically with fear and distrust. Senator Joseph McCarthy is the main person responsible for the events that led to the imprisonment and termination of a lot of people (Keach 1). In the book “Senator Joe McCarthy”, Richard Holworth Rovere stated that “America has always suffered its quota of demagogues. James Fenimore Cooper identified the demagogue as the perennial threat to democracy a century and a half ago. But most of our demagogues have been local nuisances. McCarthy, Rovere suggests, was our first national demagogue. The nationalization of politics brought about by the New Deal, The Second World War, and the Cold War, and by the nationalization of communications brought about by radio and television made his success possible by (p. x)…”The late Joseph R. McCarthy…was in many ways the most gifted demagogue ever bred on these shores. No bolder seditionist ever moved among us – nor any politician with a surer, swifter access to dark places of the American mind” (p.3). On August 23, 2006, in the program “American Masters” at PBS, Arthur Miller said “Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism growing in Eastern Europe and China. Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government. Though eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct, his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics” (para 1). Joseph McCarthy was elected to the senate as a Republican from Wisconsin in 1946. He had a meteoric career in the early 1950s. Although he first achieved notoriety for a speech he gave at Wheeling, West Virginia, a few months before the Korean War Broke out, and although he remained a powerful political force for some time after the war ended, McCarthy’s appeal derived largely from his success in exploiting the frustrations involved in waging a limited war. McCarthy declared at Wheeling that the United States, at the end of World War II, had been the most powerful nation in the world, it had “retreated from victory” and found itself in a “position of impotency” by 1950. One thing alone, he said, was responsible: “the traitorous actions” of high government officials in the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations. This explanation, as deceptive as it was simple, set the tone for all that McCarthy did and for much of what went by the name of “McCarthyism” (LaFeber, Polenberg and Woloch p. 92). The book “The American Century: A History of the United States Since 1941” tackled some of the events that happened during McCarthy’s time: McCarthyism meant more than wild attacks on the Truman administration. It also signified a climate of all-embracing conformity. Many people became afraid to voice unpopular views or even to express controversial opinions. The drive to conform was sometimes carried to ludicrous lengths. One state required professional boxers and wrestlers to take noncommunist oath before entering the ring. Efforts were made in Indianapolis, Indiana, to remove such “controversial” woks such as Robin Hood (whose indiscretions were stealing from the rich and giving to the poor) from public school libraries. Names themselves often took on great significance: the Cincinnati Reds were solemnly renamed the “Redlegs,” and a face powder known as “Russian Sable” was marketed as “Dark Dark.” Not everyone surrendered to this mood, but pressures for ideological conformity in America have seldom been stronger than during the early 1950s…McCarthy insisted that the war against communism must be bought with knuckles, not kid glove. The tactics he employed – from the juggling of statistics concerning the number of alleged security risks in the State Department to the browbeating of witnesses – seemed entirely legitimate to his followers (p. 92-93). It was easy for McCarthy to sway the American public. For when he came out and introduce himself and his ideals, he needed not work hard for Americans were ripe for the picking. It was a time just after World War II and the Russians and the US were in Cold war (Rover, p. x), Americans were scared of Communism in the country and abroad and this contributed to McCarthy’s successful exploits against Communism and against those who he believed to have Communist leanings or were security risks in the United States Government (LaFeber et al, p. 93). When the issue of communism began to surface, conservative concerns with the New deal resurfaced, together with perceptions of growing socialism in the country. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, fear of communism both at home and abroad became the rallying cry of conservatism. McCarthyism represented the height of conservatism and its most extreme position during the cold war… Although unsuccessful in gaining political ascendance in government and society, conservatism and the political right were instrumental in pushing society to the right and providing conditions for the establishment of a hard-line anti-communism and liberal-conservative consensus (Rosati and Scott p. 342). It was the right time for McCarthy to set the wheels in motion for his politics of anti-communism strategies. It was time for the government to be rid of “traitors” and “security risks’ and to reclaim the country’s position as the most powerful nation in the world. His speeches and actions, targeting communists and radicals created an atmosphere of distrust and fear in the country. The fear that McCarthy was able to instill in the minds of Americans had created a society of conformity. In her book The Age of McCarthyism, Ellen Schrecker told of an incident that happened in a university in the late 1950s in which a group of graduate students at the University of Chicago wanted to have a coffee vending machine installed outside the Physics Department for the convenience of people who worked there late at night. A petition was circulated but their colleagues refused to sign because they did not want to be associated with allegedly radical students whose names were already on the document (p. 92-94). This was not only because they were afraid of being branded as radicals but also because they were afraid to lose their jobs, hence their careers. Schrecker further stated that: This incident and it is not unique exemplifies the kind of timidity that came to be seen, even at the time, as the most damaging consequence of the anti-Communist furor. Since political activities could get you in trouble, prudent folk avoided them. Instead, to the despair of intellectuals, middle- class Americans became social conformists. A silent generation of students populated the nations campuses, while their professors shrank from teaching anything that might be construed as controversial. "The Black Silence of Fear" that Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas deplores in Document 22 seemingly blanketed the nation, and meaningful political dissent had all but withered away (p. 92-94). During these periods, powerful government officials, such as J. Edgar Hoover can formulate a concept of academic freedom and free expression that makes scientists vulnerable to outside influences, particularly to government interference and to the pressures of public opinion. Many scientists were targeted as being subversive. A number of government scientists were employed by universities while working on military projects and were subject to loyalty-security checks by Hoover and the FBI…Hoover’s involvement in the investigations of leading scientists produced government intrusion upon their intellectual freedom. Hoover’s fear of internal subversion, his fear of communist takeover of America’s atomic secrets, and his fear that intellectual talent f this country would subvert our academic institutions produced much turmoil within the intellectual community. The McCarthy era gave Hoover an opportunity to act on his concern over subversives and communists within the American society, and to have a major impact on scientific research and free thought (History of Science in the United States, p. 338). The nations cultural and intellectual life suffered as well. While there were other reasons that TV offered a bland menu of quiz shows and westerns during the late 1950s, McCarthy-era anxieties clearly played a role. Similarly, the blacklist contributed to the reluctance of the film industry to grapple with controversial social or political issues. In the intellectual world, cold war liberals also avoided controversy. They celebrated the "end of ideology," claiming that the United States uniquely pragmatic approach to politics made the problems that had once concerned left- wing ideologists irrelevant (Schrecker p. 92-94). Mass media and entertainment were not spared during those times. According to Arthur Miller, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working. Some had their passports taken away, while others were jailed for refusing to give the names of other communists. The trials, which were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated accusation…In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers…During this time there were few in the press willing to stand up against McCarthy and the anti-Communist machine. Among those few were comedian Mort Sahl, and journalist Edward R. Murrow, whose strong criticisms of McCarthy are often cited as playing an important role in his eventual removal from power. By 1954, the fervor had died down and many actors and writers were able to return to work (para 2-3). The cultural politics of McCarthyism were reproduced in many different segments of society, not simply those within the traditional political sphere. Paranoia and suspicious attitudes toward foreigners, toward traditional elite forms of art, toward deviant sexualities, and toward difference writ large and small, can be found everywhere in American society during the late 1940s and early 1950s (Gentry p. 169). It was the most widespread and longest lasting wave of political repression in American history. In order to eliminate the alleged threat of domestic Communism, a broad coalition of politicians, bureaucrats, and other anticommunist activists hounded an entire generation of radicals and their associates, destroying lives, careers, and all the institutions that offered a left-wing alternative to mainstream politics and culture. That anticommunist crusade...used all the power of the state to turn dissent into disloyalty and, in the process, drastically narrowed the spectrum of acceptable political debate (Keach para. 2). Keach, in his article entitled “Rehabilitating McCarthyism” said: “McCarthyism had a far greater impact on ordinary Americans than it did on prominent and famous people. It is often remembered as an attack on the creativity and free speech rights of academics, writers and intellectuals like the Hollywood Ten. While it was certainly that, it was much more. Thousands lost their jobs and saw their families lives ruined. Organized labor was ‘the most important institutional victim of the Cold War red scare,’ in part because some labor leaders, with their ties to ruling-class politicians, ‘collaborated with the witch-hunt’ (Schrecker). McCarthyism weakened the entire labor movement, damaging Communists and anti-Communists alike. But by the end of the 1950s, Communists and other leftists had been driven out of or marginalized in most unions. As a result, McCarthyism boosted the control of conservative business unionists in the labor movement. It constricted labors organizing agenda and weakened its confidence to take on the bosses. Labors long decline in American life began with the triumph of McCarthyism. We are still paying the price today (para 26).” Works Cited Gentry, Philip Max. The Age of Anxiety: Music, Politics, and McCarthyism, 1948-1954. Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest LLC. 2008. Print. Keach, William. “Rehabilitating McCarthyism”. International Socialist Review Issue 12. July 2000. Web. 12 December 2012. LaFeber, Walter, Richard Polenberg and Nancy Woloch. The American Century: A History of the United States Since 1941. NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc. 2008. Print. Miller, Arthur. “McCarthyism”. American Masters. PBS. 23 August 2006. Web. 12 December 2012. Rosati, Jerel A. and James M. Scott. The Politics of United States Policy. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. 2011. Web. 12 December 2012. Rovere, Richard Holworth. Senator Joe McCarthy. California: University of California Press. 1996. Print. Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Marvins Press, 1994. (pp. 92-94) ___. History of Science in the United States. Ed. Marc Rotenberg. NY: Garland Publishing, Inc. 2001. Web. 12 December 2012.. Read More