Red Scare: How did the American public’s emotions and reasoning overshadow suspected communist’s constitutional rights in the McCarthy trials during the Red Scare of the 1950’s? By Stacy Omosa History Springbrook High School April 2015 Candidate # Advisor: Word Count: 3802 words 1. Abstract How did the American public’s emotions and reasoning overshadow suspected communist’s constitutional rights in the McCarthy trials during the Red Scare of the 1950’s? The answer to that question remains that emotion and reasoning were the only two justifications Senator Joseph McCarthy manipulated any support to start the widespread investigation of suspected communists in the United States. The Red Scare literally scared everybody into thinking …show more content…
Senator McCarthy’s unlawfulness started when he began to disregard due process by not giving suspects proper court procedures and rights such as forced confessions, aggressive interrogations and biased juries. In addition, McCarthy’s true unlawfulness had happen when Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were arrested in 1954 and the Hollywood Ten in 1947. That moment made 1950’s America question McCarthy’s authority and abuse of power. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage and given the electric chair when Ethel and Julius brother in law David Greenglass testified that they both made him steal secrets from his employers at the Los Alamos Atomic Bomb Project. The Rosenberg’s were suspected of selling nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union, and because of those suspicions they became the first American civilians to be executed on charges of espionage during peacetime. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg maintained their innocence until the day they died. After many years, Greenglass confessed that he lied to the grand jury because the prosecution pressured him to do so. Greenglass was later charged with perjury and served 15 years in prison. Moreover, a Columbia Law Review published in 1954 concluded that the accusations themselves would “induce the jury more readily to return a verdict …show more content…
McCarthy decided to gain more popularity by going after the United States Military, particular their own chief counsel Josh Welch. Evidently, Josh Welch did not give into McCarthy’s planned hysteria and confronted McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy hearings in front of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Josh Welsh looked McCarthy straight in the face and declared, “Senator; you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency.” Welch’s comment was met with an uproar of applause and the end Senator McCarthy’s reign of terror. After being censured by the United States Senate in 1954, Joseph Raymond McCarthy died in 1957. Admittedly Senator McCarthy led a very successful political career as Senator and chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Sadly he left a trail of damaged individual reputations and a red stain in the history books known as McCarthyism. McCarthyism today is the term used to refer to the time when the nation faced persecution and is a reference to any mistreatment of any group. But even though a small percentage of American citizen lost jobs and two people lost their lives, the damaged reputations of thousands even millions of people who were labeled communist was the actual terrible legacy left behind. But one would think that during those four years of persecution, one person would say something. Not everyone
Ellen Schrecker’s The Age of Mccarthyism begins with an extensive essay consisting of a following of the path of domestic subversion within the USA starting in the 1930’s to the 1950’s. She explains the starting points and the peak of the rising anti-communist campaign in the states. Due to the struggle against the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, the anti-communist movement became the ideological center of American politics. Joseph McCarthy, U.S. senator, became the notorious face of a period during American history characterizing the widespread fear of Communist subversion. He explained the American people that communist and soviet spies had infiltrated almost everything people felt were their safety nets (the government, school,
Senator Joseph McCarthy was a far right politcian that thought any american, rich, poor, democrat, rebublican, conservative, liberal and hollywood elites that didn’t agree with his views were communists. Joseph McCarthy let everyone know that there was communism in a local newspaper that the state department was infested with communists. McCarthy rhethoric it repeats to a massive audience in the coming months as he grew the power in fame as a Senator, people believed him just as the very same of The Crucibles they all beleved the one girl and accuse half the town for being witches. Joseph McCarthy was a witch hunter because he believed they are a communist if a person was on a payphone he would accuse for being a communist and they you are
From 1946-1952 the United States chose Joseph McCarthy as Senate. When McCarthy became chairman of the Senate’s Committee he began his anti-communist investigation. But the word McCarthyism began well before Joseph McCarthy became Senator. Joseph McCarthy became U.S. Senate in 1946 He was then reelected in 1952 because he had publicly said that 205 communists had infiltrated the U.S. State Department. McCarthy then became chair of the Senate’s subcommittee on investigation and had claimed he had the names of 57 State Department communists.
McCarthy, who used doctored photographs and false documents, was eventually censored for his actions” (Nixon, McCarthyism Address). In this speech, president Nixon described how McCarthyism actually destroyed the careers and lives of many. They were accused and legally attacked by a corrupt senator who was found to create false evidence. Many of the victims were innocent men, abandoned by the US government and left helpless. The government did not act to protect them.
In the 1940 's and 1950 's, an anti-Communist movement swept the United States of America. Fueled by the anti-Communist actions of Congress, particularly a Senator from Wisconsin by the name of Joseph McCarthy, the movement escalated and many people lost their jobs as a result of various blacklists. Congressional hearings, both in front of HUAC and McCarthy Senate committee were a study in organized persecution. The actions taken during the "Red Scare" were eventually given the general name McCarthyism. McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.
In the late 1940’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy began a tyrannical attack against the people of America. McCarthy went through the nation and accused powerful people of being a part of the communist party. McCarthy had no grounds for his accusations; he would just keep accusing people until they broke down and just said they were a communist to end his attacks. His form of “trial” worked until he tried to accuse Arthur Miller, a brilliant play write, of being a communist. Arthur Miller was livid and fought against Senator McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities the only way he knew.
Owen was questioned by McCarthy and his committee for 12 days for being accused of being a soviet spy, and was eventually charged with 7 counts of perjury. The charges were later dismissed 3 years later. Owens story is just one heartbreaking example of how one
In foreign affairs, the President and his advisers established many of the basic foundations of America foreign policy, especially in American-Soviet relations, that would guide the nation in the decades ahead. The all-male group of screenwriters, producers and directors (Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Larson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott and Dalton Trumbo) refused to cooperate with the investigation and used their HUAC appearances to denounce the committee’s tactics. Legislators defeated, for instance, a measure for national compulsory health insurance. The most infamous case began in August 1948, when a self-confessed former member of the American Communist Party named
It was during his early career as a Judge that “McCarthy made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority.” this extract from Thomas Reeve’s biography that suggests McCarthy experienced a troubled childhood that could have lead to desire for power. During his fist election campaign, he accused his opposition, Robert La Follette, of War profiteering despite having personally profited from WWII. His early monotonous Senate career erupted in 1950 when he produced a list of 205 suspected communists exclaiming “The state department is infested with communists…this list of names were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.” The majority of accusations had little or no verification and is seen as propaganda aimed to exploit the fear of communism that had arose from the cold war.
Many people had been willing to overlook their discomfort with McCarthyism during the senator’s campaign against government employees and others they saw as upper class, but over time their support for the cause began to wane. The fatal blow was the decision to broadcast the Army-McCarthy hearings on national television. The American people watched as McCarthy intimidated witnesses and offered elusive responses when questioned himself. The breaking point for Americans was when in McCarthy attacked a young Army lawyer, the Army’s chief counsel rebuked McCarthy and asked “Have you no sense of decency, sir? Have you no sense of decency”(American Passages, 615)?
American citizens were brought into court under suspicion for colluding with the communist party. If people gave the names of “co conspirators” then they could walk free; if not they were convicted. These trials ignored all constitutional rights of the accused and with only circumstantial evidence, sent people to jail (“McCarthyism”). Like The Crucible, a play that this era bore, the justice system that the people trusted failed at every level. “In 1947, President Truman had ordered background checks of every civilian in service to the government.
Imagine one day you were called by the government and accused of committing a crime you did not commit and the only way you could prove your innocent was to accuse your friends and family of committing the crime too or else you would go to jail or lose their jobs. Any normal person would be enraged by it and it may seem like that could never happen however this occurred in 1950s in united states known as McCarthyism or the red scare. McCarthyism is one of the most well-known event in the American history if not the the most well-known as it ruined many hard working peoples lives. This event started in 1950 however there were many tensions and the reasons that led up to this like the previous world war and countries trying to best each other.
The central argument in Miller’s article, titled “Are You Now Or Were You Ever”, asserts that the McCarthy era (along with the plot of The Crucible) was started by paranoia and unjust convictions of rather innocent people and was aided by the tension between the communist east and democratic west. He develops this argument through an appeal to logos. Miller identifies the arguments used by the accusing group and logically discredits their statements by deconstructing their details and adding factual evidence to help the audience understand the irrationalities of their allegations. One argument in particular was on how the defendants were promoted to reveal their political beliefs but were left to remain mute, further displaying the injustice
Sarah Paroya D period I hate MUSH The end of World War II should have marked a period of relief in America but instead, it lead America into a completely different type of war called the Cold War. The Cold War was an ongoing state of political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. This constant state of tension and fear had been embedded deep in the American public.
When people are placed under an intense feeling of fear, they begin to commit actions they never thought they were capable over. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a young group of girls commit witchcraft which eventually leads to the arrest of over 100 women. This is similar to a time in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy accuses government officials of communism and that ultimately leads to hundreds of citizens losing their jobs. The Crucible reveals the similarities between The Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and McCarthyism of the 1950s because it demonstrates how a society can be tremendously impacted by the feeling the fear.