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Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. In a Lincoln’s Birthday address to the Women’s Republican Club of Wheeling, West Virginia, delivered on this day in 1950, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, (R-Wis.) on Feb. 9, 1950, declared: “Today, we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time. And, ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.” McCarthy had come to the Senate three years earlier after unseating Robert La Follette, Jr., a 22-year incumbent who had devoted more of his energy to passage of a landmark 1946 Legislative Reorganization Act than to that year’s Republican senatorial primary in Wisconsin. McCarthy’s initial years in the Senate were marked by an impatient and flagrant disregard of the body’s rules, customs and procedures. One observer at the time noted the ease with which he rearranged the truth to serve his purposes. “Once he got going, logic and decorum gave way to threats, personal attacks and multiple distortions,” he wrote. In his Wheeling speech, McCarthy asserted — without offering any proof to back up his sensational charges — that homegrown traitors were causing America to lose the Cold War to the Soviet Union and its communist bloc satraps. “While I cannot take the time to name all the men in the State Department who have been named as members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring, I have here in my hand a list of 205 [of them],” he said falsely. McCarthy would remain the Senate’s most controversial member until that body censured him four years later. It did so after McCarthy had crossed a political red line by attacking Dwight Eisenhower, the popular Republican president and a top general in World War II. As Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) put it: “There was never quite anyone like McCarthy in the Senate, before or after; nor has this chamber ever gone through a more painful period.” Following his death in 1957, “McCarthyism” became a permanently charged word in the American political lexicon. SOURCE: WWW.SENATE.GOV; “THE POLITICS OF FEAR: JOSEPH MCCARTHY AND THE SENATE,” BY ROBERT GRIFFITH (1970) How many names were on Joseph McCarthy's list of Communists?McCarthy is usually quoted as saying: "I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that 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." This speech resulted in a flood of press attention to ...
What was the Wheeling speech?In the Wheeling speech, among the most significant in American political history, McCarthy's recklessness finally merged with his search for a propelling issue. He explained that homegrown traitors were causing America to lose the cold war.
What was the purpose of the speech made by Senator McCarthy quizlet?The speech was intended to focus attention on the U.S.'s systematic denial of human rights to its Black citizens.
What was Senator McCarthy's basic claim about the US State Department quizlet?Terms in this set (15) What did Joe McCarthy claim in a major speech in 1950? He claimed to have a list of 200 'card carrying' Communists working in the US State Department. This was based on reports from the FBI Loyalty Board investigations.
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In his wheeling speech, senator joseph mccarthy claimed to have a list of communists in
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