"HAVE YOU NO SENSE OF DECENCY, SIR?"

 WELCH CONFRONTS MCCARTHY ON ACCUSATION OF LAW PARTNER BEING A COMMUNIST

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On June 9, 1954, Senator Joseph McCarthy* (R-Wisconsin) was confronted by Joseph N. Welch**, Special Counsel for the United States Army, after the Senator's attack on Frederick G. Fisher, a member of Welch's law firm.

Mr. Fisher was accused of being a communist because he had been a member of the National Lawyers Guild, the first racially integrated bar association in the United States.

Incensed by the accusation, Mr. Welch said...

"Until this moment...I...never gauged your cruelty or recklessness.  Have you no sense of decency, Sir?  At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

According to the U.S. Senate, the nationally televised confrontation, part of the Army-McCarthy Hearings***, caused the Senator's "immense national popularity" to vanish overnight.

*Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908-1957) was born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin.  JRM served in the US Senate 1947-1957.  After the Army-McCarthy hearings, he was censored by the Senate & died a broken man.

**Joseph Nye Welch (1890-1960) was born in Iowa & educated at Harvard Law School.  JNW served in the U.S. Army in WWI. 

***Army-McCarthy Hearings (April-June 1954) series of televised hearings conducted by the USS Subcommittee on Investigations which looked into conflicting accusations by the army & Senator McCarthy. 

SOURCES

"Have you no sense of decency," U.S. Senate, www.senate.gov/

"June 9, 1954:  Joseph Welch Confronts Senator Joseph McCarthy," Zinn Education Project, www.zinnedproject.org/ 

 

 

Joseph Welch Questioned by Senator McCarthy

June 9 1954

U.S. Senate Photo

JFK BETWEEN ROCK & A HARD PLACE ON MCCARTHY CENSURE

JFK DOES NOT CAST VOTE ON CENSURE OF JOSEPH MCCARTHY

Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) The Senate of the United States voted 65-22 to censure Joseph McCarthy* (R-Wisconsin) 63 years ago, December 2, 1954.

The censure resolution was for 'conduct that tends to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.'  

The road to censure began in February 1950 when McCarthy said he had a list of 205 employees in the State Department who were communists.

By 1954, McCarthy's lack of evidence and use of bullying tactics were observed by millions of Americans on live television in the Army-McCarthy Hearings.

Public opinion quickly turned against the Senator.  

John F. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), recuperating from a back operation, did not cast a vote and was the only senator not to go on record against McCarthy.

Chris Matthews says that Ken O'Donnell, who ran JFK's Boston office, "insisted that Jack's voting against McCarthy would be 'political suicide'."

Ted Sorensen, JFK's speech writer, saw the Senator's position as being between a rock and a hard place.  If he voted for censure, "he would be defying...his home state and family," but if he voted against censure, he would be denounced by party leaders, liberals and intellectuals.

*Joseph McCarthy was born in Grande Chute, Wisconsin.  He earned his law degree at Marquette in 1935 and became the youngest circuit judge in Wisconsin history.  Having served in the Marine Corps in WWII, JM was elected to the US Senate in 1946 and re-elected in 1952.

SOURCE

"Jack Kennedy, Elusive Hero", by Chris Matthews, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2011.

Joseph McCarthy 

Library of Congress Photo