Anti-Communism during the Early 1950s

In February 1950, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had charged that the

Department of State knowingly harbored Communists. Hearings on
McCarthy's accusations were held under the chairmanship of Senator Millard
Tydings of Maryland. The committee exonerated the State Department.
Critics called the proceedings a "whitewash."
Following McCarthy's charges, anxiety over domestic communism
intensified. In 1950, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of 11 top
leaders of the Communist Party under the Smith Act. The court also refused
to review the convictions of two Hollywood writers who had refused to
answer questions before a Congressional committee about possible
Communist connections. Meanwhile, a Justice Department official, Judith
Coplon, was convicted of conspiracy with a Soviet representative at the
United Nations (later reversed on procedural grounds), and four people--
Harry Gold, David Greenglass, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg--were arrested
on charges of atomic espionage. Around the same time, a grand jury issued
indictments for the illegal transfer of hundreds of classified documents from
the State Department to the offices of a journal called Amerasia.
In September 1950, Congress passed the McCarran Act over President
Truman's veto. The act required members of Communist-front organizations
to register with a Subversive Activities Control Board. A book by a former
U.S. Naval Intelligence officer, Vincent Hartnet, titled Red Channels, made
sweeping accusations about Communist influence in the entertainment
industry. The book's charges led the House Un-American Activities
Committee to investigate actors, producers, and screenwriters, all of whom
were accused of using film, stage, and radio as vehicles for Communist
propaganda.
In 1951, the head of the FBI assured Congress that his organization
was ready to arrest 14,000 dangerous Communists in the event of war with
the Soviet Union. A foundation offered $100,000 to support research in
creating a device for detecting traitors.

Margaret Chase Smith: The Conscience of the

Senate
Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman elected to both houses of
Congress. She was the first woman to enter the Senate without being
appointed to the position. During World War II, she was the only civilian
woman to go to sea in a Navy ship in wartime. She was also the first woman
to have her name placed in nomination for president at a major party
convention. With only a high school education, she entered politics after her
husband, a Republican member of Congress, died. She served four terms in
the House and four terms in the Senate.
 Smith, known as "the conscience of the Senate," gained a reputation
for courage and independence when she became the first person in Congress
to condemn the anti-communist witch hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy
of Wisconsin. In a 15-minute speech on June 1, 1950, barely a year after
entering the Senate, she denounced McCarthy for destroying reputations
with his reckless charges about Communists and "fellow travelers" in
government. She never mentioned the anti-communist crusader by name;
although, no one doubted who she referred to. She told the Senate it was
time to stop conducting "character assassination" behind "the shield of
congressional immunity."
Smith then read a "Declaration of Conscience," signed by six fellow
Republicans. "The nation sorely needs a Republican victory," she declared,
"but I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the
four horsemen of calumny [misrepresentation]--fear, ignorance, bigotry, and
smear."
McCarthy threatened to destroy her political career. But she was so
highly regarded that voters easily re-elected her to the Senate. Many
speculated that she would run for president in 1952. Asked what she would
do if she woke up in the White House, she replied: "I'd go straight to Mrs.
Truman and apologize. And then I'd go home."

McCarthy Condemned
In 1954, a Senate committee found that Senator McCarthy had
wrongfully defied the authority of the Senate and certainly of its committees,
and that he had been abusive of his colleagues (one he had called them "a
living miracle, without brains or guts"). After the fall elections of 1954, the
Senate voted to condemn McCarthy for conduct unbecoming to his office.
The final vote was bipartisan, with 22 Republicans joining 44 Democrats, and
22 Republicans opposed.

Answer the following questions on a separate

sheet of paper:
(You don't need to re-copy the questions...just write your answers!)
1 What was the Era of Consensus? (CrashCourse)
2 What did Rosa Parks do before she sparked the Montgomery Bus
Boycott? Be sure to get this information from the video, not from what
you have learned in previous classes. (CrashCourse)
3 What was Sen. Margaret Chase Smith's opinion of Sen. Joseph
McCarthy? (Reading)
4 What was the McCarran Act? (Reading)