 Sen. Joseph McCarthy |
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism growing in Eastern Europe and China. Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government. Though eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct, his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics.
While the House Un-American Activities Committee had been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ, McCarthy’s accusations heightened the political tensions of the times. Known as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working. Some had their passports taken away, while others were jailed for refusing to give the names of other communists. The trials, which were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated accusation. Among those well-known artists accused of communist sympathies or called before the committee were Dashiell Hammett, Waldo Salt, Lillian Hellman, Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Chaplin and Group Theatre members Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan, and Stella Adler. In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers.
During this time there were few in the press willing to stand up against McCarthy and the anti-Communist machine. Among those few were comedian Mort Sahl, and journalist Edward R. Murrow, whose strong criticisms of McCarthy are often cited as playing an important role in his eventual removal from power. By 1954, the fervor had died down and many actors and writers were able to return to work. Though relatively short, these proceedings remain one of the most shameful moments in modern U.S. history.
i like history, too.
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That’s quite interesting, thanks for sharing.
Wow! what a devious way to conceal your disdain for those willing to speak their minds…. and exercise racism without it being seen as just that.
You people are being brainwashed. If you want the truth about “McCarthyism”
you might read “The Venona Secrets” by Romerstein and Breindel, “McCarthy and His Enemie’ by Buckley and Bozell. The truth is there were hundreds of Communists in the American government in the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s. Of course, if you put the truth in a term paper, your teacher will probably flunk you.
McCarthyism isn’t as big of a deal as people think. The play by Authur Miller just made it seem that way. Truth is it was one idiot who decided to randomly accuse political officials of communism to advance his own career as a politican. It back fired on him eventually. Just like the first Red Scare this just helped prompt the second one. In fact everyone during the Cold War was an idiot. Just go to google and look up “Duck and Cover” you’ll see what I’m talking about.
I loved “The Crucible” I liked how Arthor Miller tied the Witch Trials and McCarthyism together that makes it so much more interesting.
Even though he used wrong tactics and no proof, he was right! Just look at the current administration littered with Communists and tell me there aren’t any communists in our government! A self avowed Communist just resigned from his “Czar” position. One wonders how many others are there?
i think this stuff is very c00l, and i like to read about this dude cause i think he is smart and affected the world, and i wanna know what the “red scare” is, thanks guys.
i think its funny how McCarthy and Communists BOTH seem to hate expression and were all for censorship, i mean chairman mao of communist china did the same thing, suppressing the writings of intellects of his time, calling them capitolist, he certainly censored more violently than McCarthy, (tiannamen square massacre and the Red Guard- a country spread gang of young boys who were famous for their violence and vandalism the most famous incident being “The Rape of Nanjing” who were in fact “unofficially” approved by Chairman Mao as an attempt to squash out anything that might show someone that might think different him, that people were able to think differently than him. But, McCarthy censored things as well, he is supposedly against communism and for american capitolism, but then “to wipe out communism” he calls all the people against him communists, because he knew it would scare people and make them act hastily without looking for all the facts, he was smart in that aspect. Arthur Miller was obviously not communist because if he were he would believe that everyone should think the same about everything, which he didnt, as shown in the crucible. socialism, marxism, and communism all sound very good in theory, but in the end they dont work very well bc it gives to much power to a select group of people or person. It gives all the power to the govt. McCarthy took advantage of the people’s fear and blatanly slandered authors, that disagreed with him with no proof that they were communist just for his own political gain. He was just a dishonest person. Personally, I think making everyone equal in every aspect is a mistake, because some people work harder than others and some people cant do some things like other people can and it makes it hard for the good changes in life to come about. The great thing about america is that we can say what we want and do what we want, and if u think that things should be otherwise, well u are free to move somewhere where they think and do things how u want. People should be able to have an opinion and others should respect it…even if its ignorant or foolish bc we are supposed to be free. In America its not against the law to be communist anyway or christian, muslim, jewish, captolist, socialist or whatever u believe in and once u start making peoples beliefs illegal and start slandering peoples voice u set a precedent to take away other things, everyone is not supposed to think the same, thats why we have different brains- they are not all connected together u know, and each of us indvidually, help each other recognize our flaws, and also by others peoples flaws figure out what we think ourselves. Maybe that person who doesnt agree with u isnt wrong, maybe their way of thinking is just wrong for you.
oh and Mr. Russelmen, id just like to say to u that u have a poor outlook on humanity and in fact u are mistaken in the part where u said that Joe McCarthy couldnt be in the (HUAC) because anyone who took civics as a freshman or knows anything about the Senate, knows that not only does House of Reps have comittees but the “SENATE” does also, u cant expect 200 people to push an agenda at the same time, so all the people who have similar political agendas form committees to make ideas ,to make their ideas pass, House is another name for commitee. And if you had done any research on any infamous communist leaders, Chairman Mao or Joesph Stallin for instance,(two of the most famous communist leaders in history) you would know that they did not come from “ELITES”, they came from working class people, the poorest of the working class people in fact. You think u are very clever with your german words and your “knowledge”. The government does control public school, how else do u expect for everyone to get educated? I hope you would not like to educate them, because u need to get your facts straight. In a communist country, there is no other option for a child but public education, but in the US u may enroll your child in private school if u find the public education system lax, in fact there are tax breaks for people who enroll children in private school if they cannot afford it, the govt gives us plenty of options (for now) on education. Sure Karl Marx may have believed that public education was a good idea and included it in his writings, but that doesnt neccessarily mean he came up with it. If you had read “80%” of the comments u would realize that most of us are on this site doing a high school project for english about the Crucible vs McCarthyism. I think maybe 50% of the comments on here say “i like history” and repeating what the article said trying to sound smart, but self-riteous people like urself only see ur own intelligence and that means everyone else is negligent. Relax, there are some people who have parents who are still happily married, who arent completely ignorant, and they know all about not only their own govt but other govts as well and can find the good/bad in both. Also, note the “corporation” at the copyright at the body and .org for this website, i can bet money that this website is run by right wing republicans NOT left wing democrats/liberals. I almost forgot, senators were not directly voted on by the people until the late 60’s early 70’s, so there is no way that McCarthy came from working class family because up until the point that we voted in senators directly, senators basically bought there way in or were nominated by govt officials who also came from money, this is called patronage. McCarthy was against liberals-democrats-working people who usually come from working class- if he had been running directly for the people he would not have made it to his chair in senate, the writers he put in prison (which btw is unconstitutional no matter if they were communist or otherwise) were not going to vote for him, would not campaign for him, there was no blogs, no internet, no tv commercials, the only way to campaign was through writing, which was why he squashed all opposition in that area bc they were making him look bad. He had to buy his way into office. Communist is not started as a way to make a bunch of people rich, it doesnt start out that way ussually, but it does end that way, an example is again, china, if u research it did not start off as a get rich scheme, it was to make everyone =. It would appeal to the poor people more than it would the rich people because it would mean less work for them and less money for us. It would not appeal to the big corporate business owner because communism puts the govts hand in your pockets and over your deals. Nothing u have said has been correct/or has had factual evidence, so before you start “brainfarting” all over websites with your supposed “knowledge” get the facts
People generally think that McCarthy was wrong, well I got news for you all. One of the senators he was accusing turned out to be a communist spy. I wonder how many others were really working for the Russians.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm this has more
James, one person being a communist dose not justify the other people whos lives he ruined to satisfy himself
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whats worse is our country now is turning to socialism
what was the relationship between Joesph mccarthy and arther miller?
This guy is unbelievable!
I fwwl aorry for the writers who were being censored
McCarthy’s ears and eyebrows were seriously freak-ish.
arthur miller is a great author, but this is horrible what joseph m. did. the things he did were solely based off suspicion and i bet 90% of the people prosecuted were just americans with objections to his dictations
What a role model for US society
there is a strong comparison between mccartyism and the written play the crucbile because both circle around two smiliar aspects, false accusations and fear
Hey :) I’m in class. This is a GREAT subject for our lit class! Thanks ALOT!!! Yay!
i think that reactions to communism where overdoing it a bit, Che Guevara was killed by cia and bolivian officials because he was communists.
i think that counts as overreacting
in my opinion btw, alot of what i read and know is probably bias as it might be with many of the opinions on here