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... nate to sneak by, because La Follette was a popular man. His Democratic foe was to be Professor Howard McMurray. McCarty used his ability to put issues simply, among other things, to beat his opponent by nearly a 2 to 1 ratio. The Senatorial career of Joseph R. McCarthy was on its way.
In his first three years as senator, McCarthy was an everyday senator. He was guided by money from lobbyists, and the most interesting of these are stints with Pepsi-Cola and the real estate-prefab home industry. At the time, sugar was strictly rationed. According to Richard River in his book Senator Joe McCarthy, the Allied Molasses Company, sugar supplier for Pepsi, somehow got a hold of a million and a half gallons of high-grade sugar-cane syrup, which it refined and sold to Pepsi. For unknown reasons, this sugar slipped past the rations, and the Department of Agriculture demanded that the rations for Allied Molasses be cut back. By means of a handy $ 20, 000 being slipped to him by Russell Arundel, Pepsi's Washington lobbyist, McCarthy was inspired to help end the sugar rationing six months before originally scheduled, thus nullifying the USDA's demands.
Another early issue for McCarty was housing. A friend of his named Harnischferger owned a prefabricated-home manufacturing outfit in Milwaukee. He, along with other prefab and real estate honchos, asked him to go against public housing for veterans, and to support instead the inexpensive prefabricated home as an alternative. A $ 10, 000 perk from Lustron, another prefab operation, provided additional incentive.
He joined the newly created Senate Housing Committee, and he took a nationwide road tour to accentuate his point. He continued in this way until the end of 1949, when he determined that he needed a new subject to put his name in the headlines and to use as a base for his reelection in 1952. He found his next subject at the night of January 7, 1950, at the Colony Restaurant in Washington, D. C. Among his dinner guests was Father Edmund A. Walsh.
McCarthy talked with his guests for a while before bringing up the subject of the need for an issue. The group discarded quite a few before choosing Communism, which was suggested by Walsh, who was an ardent anti-Red. "That's it, " McCarthy said. "The government is full of Communists. We can hammer away at them. " And so it was that in February of 1950 McCarthy was interviewed by the Wheeling Intelligencer a newspaper in West Virginia. The next day Senator McCarthys startling words were published in the paper.
I have I my hand a list of 205 that were known to the secretary of state as being members of the Communist Party and who, nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department The real number of people of whom any investigation was done was eighty-one The speech produce one of many controversies over McCarthy, partially because there was not a single consistent copy of the speech. The argument started because of the indistinct number in McCarthys speech. At his next speech, in Salt Lake City, he claimed that he had said 57. However, there is now considerable evidence that he alleged 205 in Wheeling. On February 20, the number came out to be eighty-one in the Senate. He took six hours, from the late afternoon to just before midnight, explaining in detail a number of cases of supposed Communists in the State Department.
But, his lengthy speech had countless defects: Cases 15, 27, 37 and 59 simply never showed up; he skipped them entirely... Cases 1 and 2 and several others worked for the United Nations. Case 3 was the same as Case 4; Case 9 was the same as 77... Cases 13 and 78 were only applicants for State Department jobs... in 1948.
There was nothing on Case 52 except that he was subordinate to Case 16... Case 62 was "not important insofar as Communistic activities are concerned. " Of Case 40, he said, "I do not have much information on this except the general statement of the agency [unidentified] that there is nothing in the files to disprove his Communist connections. " (Friedman) But it was with this flawed case that Senator Joseph R. McCarthy started his reign of terror. Communist beware, Senator McCarthy was looking to make them a thing of the past. Senator McCarthys plan was not confined to the Capital Hill.
The whole country was amerced in the anti Communism fight. At the time of the Communist inquisition Hollywood was the place to be. Hollywood was making six hundred films a year. Hollywood in its golden age was the focus of the nations fantasies. Hollywood was news, and the purge of its Communists captured the publics attention. The fact that it caught their attention was wonderful, because if the public was interested, it would be easier to find the reds.
Only a very few number of in Hollywood were Communist. Only three hundred of thirty thousand industry workers were either past or present members of the Communist Party. About half of that number were screenwriters. A few were actors, but not many, only about fifty or sixty. Even less were directors, only fifteen were directors. And the rest of the members or ex-members of the Communist Party were scattered through the department, back lots and front offices.
These figures were of no interest to the HUAC, the house committee of Un American activities, who tried to purge the existent of the Communist from Americans favorite place. In 1944, the HUAC helped found the MPAPAI, the Motion Picture Alliance fro the Preservation of American Ideals. The newly formed MPAPAI explicitly invited the HUAC to investigate the possible Communist activity in Hollywood. In March of 1947, representative of the HUAC called for a cleansing of Hollywood.
Soon such wartime films such as Mission to Moscow, Song of Russia, and Action in the North Atlantic came under fire. The committee described them, as flagrant Communist propaganda films. In September of the same year forty-three people were subpoenaed to appear for hearing in our nations capital. Nineteen of these people were consider as being unfriendly. All the others were once members of the Anti-American communist party.
The hearings found that only ten of the nineteen were unfriendly, they were sent to prison by 1950. The film bosses were not very happy with the committee, they resented the presence of the intrusive politicians in a private business. Nevertheless, they met in New York to discuss the communist infiltration of Hollywood. They reached a conclusion that not all members agreed upon, but made just the same. Nothing subversive or Un-American had ever appeared on the screen. However, the studios nonetheless intended to discharged without compensation those five of the ten in their employment.
None of the ten would be allowed to work until he purged himself of the contempt and declared under oath he was not a communist. This statement gave birth to the infamous blacklist. This blacklist would ruin the lives of thousands of people throughout its life. One hundred and ten witnesses were scheduled to appear before the committee. The committee demanded names, and more names of Communist in Hollywood.
The HUAC had already identified nearly every Communist and fellow traveler in Hollywood (either through the FBI, or the MPAPAI) But a ritual of humiliation was required only by informing on former colleagues and begging for forgiveness for their past sins could the penitent cleanse themselves before the inquisition. Some victims would later write about their ordeals, and about the social reality of the time. Others such as Ko-Ko, Lord High Executioner who themselves were in part to blame for the crisis would write sorrowfully about their actions, from the book, The Mikado: As someday it may happen that a victim must be found, Ive got a little list Ive got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground, And who never would be missed who never would be missed! The task of filling up the blanks Id rather leave to you, But it really doesnt matter whom you put on the list, This was a burden for some of the people carrying out the missions of the committee, but to the high-ranking politicians, the fear and injustice was a victory. To them anything to stop the spread of Communism, for whatever reason or agenda they had, was good. The end of Communism was a wonderful way to gain both business and votes.
It was not just the high-ranking politicians that praised the committees actions; friendly movie stars were tripping over one another to commend the committee. Among these actors were Ronald Regan, George Murphy, Robert Montgomery, and Adolph Menu. They donned the mantle of the anti Communist warriors. Some people went to great lengths to make the committee happy.
There wasnt much that the friendly actors would not do, not to get blacklisted. Roy Brewer spoke for three hours about the reds. Walt Disney revealed a ploy by the left-wing Screen Cartoonists Guild to subvert Mickey mouse into a Marxist rat. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Senator Mccarthy Communist Party
