McCarthy+hearings+-+p2

__McCarthy Hearings__ By: Kristen
Senator Joseph McCarthy was at a point of no return. In his eyes, the feared communists were taking over America. He thought America was in danger and wanted everyone to be aware of it. McCarthy thought that there were communists everywhere.

The hearings all began with one speech. On February 12, 1950, Senator McCarthy had been asked to speak for Lincoln's birthday in Wheeling, West Virginia; Salt Lake City, Utah; Reno and Las Vegas, Nevada; and Huron, South Dakota. He figured that there would be little media attention, therefore he did not work on his speech very hard. During his speeches, he spoke of Communism and how America believed in more than just individual rights. During his speech in Wheeling, he spoke in front of 300 people, telling them how there were Communist spies in the state department. He quoted during his speech, “I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five [people] 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 in he state department.” America was intrigued. Reporters were desperate to see his "list", but it was never fully released. This was the start of the McCarthy Hearings.

McCarthy kept accusing everyone, especially people with power, including the government, large American institutions,and the most well-known, the United States Army. Some people feared McCarthy's power was too strong, but they did not speak out against him because they thought that they too might be accused of being communists. It was time for senator re-elections in 1952. Americans were scared of the communists taking over, resulting in McCarthy's win. The elections held a big role in the hearings. America was going through hard times, such as frustrations from the Korean War, tensions with the Soviet Union and China as a result of the Cold War, and detecting Americans who were really Soviet spies. They trusted McCarthy to decrease the communists' power. The hearings began on April 22, 1953. These hearings were televised around America as 17 million people tuned in to watch his trials. If people didn't have TV's, that was no problem. They would go to the nearest appliance stores and watch the TV's that the stores had. This was only the beginning.

The most famous hearings that Joseph McCarthy held were the Army-McCarthy Hearings. These were the trials of McCarthy vs. The United States Army. Once again, Joseph McCarthy had accused the United States Army of having communist soldiers. During the hearings, the committee would call the witnesses up to the stand and ask them questions. McCarthy, his lawyer, and the army's lawyer were all allowed to cross-examine the called witnesses. The hearings ran for 36 days for a total of 187 hours. There was so much controversy between him and the army, that his popularity quickly declined. The army had evidence to prove McCarthy wrong, which startled McCarthy. The Wisconsin senator had cropped photos to make his story believable, however the public quickly found out. The original picture was shown showing that the people in the picture had the same exact clothes on. Americans were furious. Eventually, the hearings ended on June 17, 1953.

After the hearings ended Joseph McCarthy was extremely disliked. Suggestions had been made to remove McCarthy from the Senate which was called the "Joe Must Go" campaign. The Republican members of the Senate tried to figure out the best way to deal with McCarthy. The people of Wisconsin had no respect for the senator anymore and didn't want him continuing to be their senator until his term ended in 1959. This term was called "censure." To censure a senator was to condemn him for his actions. To be censured would humiliate him publicly and result in him not being respected in the Senate. A trial was held to determine his future. At this trial, it was decided that only McCarthy or his lawyer could question the witnesses. The committee figured that this would prevent McCarthy from speaking, and it did exactly that. McCarthy decided to leave the questioning to his lawyer.

On December 2, 1954, the final punishment was decided for McCarthy. All of the Democrat senators had voted to censure him, and out of the 89 Republican senators, 67 had chosen to censure him, and 22 had chosen to let him be. Only 3 had not voted. When McCarthy was censured, nobody seemed to pay attention to him anymore, and when he tried to talk, the other senators in the room would leave. McCarthy could not be a threat anymore, for which Americans were glad. Senator Joseph McCarthy had fallen.

The McCarthy Hearings were very significant events in history. Americans feared the communists and wanted to vote for McCarthy, since he could prove most of the Communists in America guilty. Little did they know the effects. The McCarthy Hearings and McCarthyism changed Americans' point of view. Elections and Americans' freedom of speech were affected by these acts. Today, we live in a world full of fear because of the terrorists' attack from 9/11, much like Americans did back then. We just want to keep ourselves safe and sometimes we will do things that may not be right, like automatically stereotyping Iraqi-Americans as dangerous terrorists. It's not very different from McCarthy vs. the communists, and we need to learn from that. Even though we don't see ourselves as forceful as McCarthy, we still aren't any better, so we need to learn from history to make things right.

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