Condemnation Proceedings

The power and reputation of a demagogue rise and fall in inverse ratio to the courage and determination of other men. Last week Joe McCarthy's reputation, perched precariously on a bale of old newspaper clippings and the timidity of his Senate colleagues, began to bobble slightly.

When the Senate met for its third day of debate on Ralph Flanders' motion to censure* McCarthy, Joe's enemies were well aware that a move was afoot to send the motion to committee. Arkansas' Democratic J. William Fulbright had tried to buttress Flanders' generalized motion with a specific six-count amendment, which included the old charge that Joe had shaken down Lustron Corp. to collect a $10,000 fee for writing a housing booklet. Republican Leader William Knowland moved to refer the censure motion to a select committee of three Republicans and three Democrats.

The Cripple. Oklahoma's Mike Monroney was the first to object, protested that Knowland's plan "would amount to indefinite postponement, putting it on ice and avoiding meeting the issue head on." Answered Knowland: "I do not subscribe to the intimation . . . that we are a body of intimidated men." Knowland reminded Monroney that the Democratic Party had never censured McCarthy, though it controlled the Senate, when McCarthy was "very powerful." Said Knowland: ". . . Now that perhaps he has been a little crippled, it can do what it was not willing to do then." Shot back Monroney: ". . . If he is crippled, he has crippled himself before the country by his own exposure of McCarthyism on the television sets of the nation."

Knowland, insisting on a committee consideration of the motion, said: "I would not censure a criminal, even had I seen a criminal act committed, without at least giving the person his day in court."

Idaho's Republican Herman Welker, one of Joe's most loyal pals, agreed with Liberals Monroney and Fulbright that a censure vote should be taken quickly, but Welker's vote would be for Joe. Said Welker: "... I am going to stand up and hit a lick for America." Welker could see no profit in restraining Joe's methods, "under a nicey-nicey code of ethics." Welker was especially incensed at Flanders' charge that McCarthy had contempt for his fellow men. Roared Welker: "No one can tell me that Irishman would not give the shirt off his back to anyone who needed it--except a dirty, lying, stinking Communist." His conclusion: "I am not going to censure ... a Senator who is carrying the ball alone in a crusade to save Amer ica, if he may have said something in an ill-tempered vein."

At that well-chosen moment, McCarthy rose and gave his fellow Senators a sample of his ill-tempered vein. He entered in the Congressional Record a letter written by Harry Woodring, President Roosevelt's ineffective Secretary of War from 1936 to 1940 (whom F.D.R. sent packing to make room for Henry L. Stim-son). Democrat Woodring's letter, dated June 23, 1954 and addressed to New York Businessman Robert Harris, accused George C. Marshall of selling out Nationalist China under orders from the Truman Administration, and added: "I can tell you that he would sell out his grandmother for personal advantage."

Indiana's Homer Capehart did not want the Senate to vote on McCarthy. "What we ought to do is forget him," said Homer.

Golden Rule. Most of the debate came from the right and left fringes of the parties. The central bulk of the Senate was not committed until Georgia's Walter George and Arkansas' John McClellan decided to support Knowland's amendment for a bipartisan committee. Said McClellan : "I do not want to do unto one of my colleagues what I would not want him to do unto me under the same circumstances ... I do not want it ever to be said of me ... that I am a coward ... I believe in the presumption of innocence until one is proven guilty. I believe the accused, whoever he may be, whether a U.S. Senator or a professional bum, has a right to be heard."

New York's Republican Irving Ives successfully proposed an amendment directing the committee to report back to the Senate before final adjournment. Another amendment gave the committee subpoena power.

The roll was called, and Knowland's motion carried, 75 to 12. Three days later Vice President Nixon appointed a committee of three Republicans and three Democrats (see below). It would be the sixth committee investigation of Investigator McCarthy during his eight years in the Senate. As far as Joe was concerned, the committee and its witnesses had been duly warned. Trumpeted Joe, at one point in the debate: ". . . If I am given the right to cross-examine . . . the Senators who have made the charges will either indict themselves for perjury or will prove what consummate liars they are . . ."

* The last U.S. Senator to be censured was Republican Hiram Bingham of Connecticut. In 1929 he hired Charles L. Eyanson, an officer of the Manufacturers Association of Connecticut, as a Senate clerk and admitted him to executive sessions of the Senate Finance Committee, which was then considering the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill. Eyanson, of course, was representing men with an interest in high tariffs. A Judiciary subcommittee reported the matter to the full Senate, and Nebraska's George Norris made a motion of censure. After an amendment striking out any imputation of corrupt motives, the motion passed, 54-22.

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