McCARTHY CENSURED BY UNITED STATES SENATE
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On December 2, 1954, the United States Senate censured* Senator Joseph R. McCarthy** (R-Wisconsin) by a vote of 65 to 22. The vote was on Senate Resolution 301.
The Senate vote followed a period in which the Senator charged President Dwight D. Eisenhower of being "soft on communism" and in February 1950 claimed to have a list of 205 State Department employees who were communists.
Senator McCarthy's rise to power finally ended when he was exposed publicly in the Army-McCarthy congressional hearings which were nationally televised.
In June 1954, seven Republican senators issued a 'Declaration of Conscience' critical of McCarthy's tactics. Margaret Chase Smith*** of Maine, one of those senators, said of McCarthy's tactics (without specifically calling him out by name)...
"I do not like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity."
*censure in the US Senate is a condemnation of behavior but does not remove a senator nor does it affect his/her voting rights or committee assignments.
**Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908-1957) was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin & graduated Marquette University Law School 1935. He was in the USMC during WWII. JRM served as judge on the Wisconsin Circuit Court 1940-1947 & in the US Senate 1947-1957.
***Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995) was born in Skowhegan, Maine & served in the US House of Represenatives 1940-1949 & US Senate 1949-1973. She was the 1st woman to serve in both houses of Congress.
JFK+50 NOTE
This is an update of one of the first posts we published in 2011 as JFK+50 was just getting started 13 years ago.
There remains controversy concerning Senator John F. Kennedy's (D-Massachusetts) failure to vote on McCarthy's censure. JFK was in hospital recuperating from major back surgery of October 1954 and, therefore, could not physically be in the Senate to cast his vote.
To be fair, however, JFK never took a public stand on the censure. His aide, Ted Sorensen, wrote a response but JFK did not authorize its release. Former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt, thought the failure to take a stand on the issue of McCarthyism so important that she would not endorse JFK's candidacy for POTUS in 1958.
A source cited below states that JFK could have "paired his vote with an opposite vote in abstaining" thereby taking a stand against McCarthyism, but did not do so because of support of McCarthy among Catholic voters of Massachusetts.
JFK did write a letter in 1954 in which he gave his reasons for failing to vote on the censure resolution. That letter sold to a private collector in 1972 for $1000.
SOURCES
"JFK 1954 Letter Brings $1000, The New York Times, www.nytimes.com/
"JFK, The Last Speech," JFK, The Leader, www.jfkthelastspeech.org/
"On My Own," by Eleanor Roosevelt, Saturday Evening Post, March 8, 1958, www.gwu.edu/
"Senate Resolution 301: Censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy (1958)," www.archives.gov/
"Senate Votes 65-22 To Censure McCarthy," JFK+50, December 2, 2011, www.jfk50.blogspot.com/
