In February 1950, at the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club, a first-time senator from Wisconsin took the stage. Claiming to have a list of 250 state employees with ties to the Communist Party, the senator, whose name was Joseph McCarthy, would at that moment launch a decade of intimidation and intense scrutiny of the American public. The investigations of McCarthy, and the movement which came to be known as McCarthyism, led to a nationwide fear and silence which deeply affected political as well as cultural life in the 1950s.
In the years to come, many Americans would be threatened or even punished by their employers. According to Ellen Schrecker, “one authority claimed that by the late 1950s…anti-Communist tests for employment reached one-fifth of the nation’s work force (Schrecker, “More Than Just a Man”). Workers could lose their jobs if they had “joined a defunct hiking group that was on the Attorney General’s [subversive organization] list, or signed a petition calling for nuclear disarmament, or socialized with people of other races” (Schrecker, “More Than Just a Man”), along with other even mildly suspicious actions. One-fifth was a large and frightening number of citizens who would be punished directly because of any slightly-leftist ties they may have had, and although there is no way to know the exact number, it is fair to assume that many more workers may have lost their jobs or been shunned in the workplace for merely seeming suspicious or non-patriotic to their employers. Government workers, especially, knew they had to prove themselves extremely loyal to the nation, since “despite a lack of any proof of subversion, more than 2,000 government employees lost their jobs as a result of McCarthy’s investigations” (“Joseph McCarthy”). This ongoing threat of losing one’s job surely scared many citizens into agreeing or at least pretending to agree with the US government, and keeping any controversial opinions they may have had to themselves.
US politicians, desperate to distance themselves from leftist ideas, allowed anti-Communist ideals to sway policy decisions. In 1945, for example, President Harry S. Truman proposed a plan of national healthcare to Congress. This plan, which would be covered by American taxes, would have radically changed the social security landscape of America had it been implemented. The proposal turned into a bill, but was quickly shot down, partly because “some people…feared the program would be a “Communist” act, giving too much control to the federal government” (“The Challenge of National Healthcare”). The death of Truman’s idea was a concrete example of the way politics revolved around this fear of leftism. Had the fear not been quite so strong, America’s political landscape might look quite different now. James T. Patterson asks “could the arms race, both nuclear and otherwise, have been less dangerous than it became…Could the United States have cautiously built bridges to the People’s Republic?” (Patterson 205). These questions, whose answers would have been an obvious “no way” at the time of the Red Scare, are interesting when looking back at the time period now, in this era where the “Red Menace” is not nearly as powerful. How different would have the 50s been, if politicians and the greater public were not quite so focused on combatting Communism and Communists? Would the US have ties to areas of the world it never thought of getting close with?
It was not just politicians that operated out of fear–all Americans, especially public figures, became so afraid of saying anything left-supporting that confidence in one’s own free speech dwindled. What Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas referred to as the “‘black silence of fear,’ narrowing the spectrum of acceptable ideas” (Schrecker, “More Than Just a Man”), persisted throughout the Cold War as liberals, moderates, and really all citizens were frightened of losing their jobs or being tormented. A story of a group of students at the University of Chicago in the late 50s demonstrates this absurd “timidity” of the era: the students were circulating a petition to install a coffee vending machine outside the Physics Department, but many colleagues refused to sign, not wanting to be “associated with the allegedly radical students whose names were already on the document” (Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 92-94). The petition was about something seemingly trivial–a vending machine–and yet McCarthyism became a factor. Nationwide insecurity had set into daily life, limiting the public’s capacity to make unrelated decisions. Says Patterson, “Before the Red Scare peaked, many public figures had been both liberal and anti-Communist…During the Red Scare, however, liberal politicians and intellectuals became vulnerable to the [“soft” on Communism] charge…Some muted their liberalism” (Patterson 204). One again wonders how the 50s would have been different if more radical public figures, not just politicians, had been willing or allowed to speak their opinions. Would more Americans, if not supporting the Communist party, extend acceptance towards leftist ideas? Another question is of racial relations in the time of McCarthyism. The Communist Party had “placed issues of racial segregation at the forefront of liberating people from inequality” (Amistad), and a common trait for party members was to be keen on establishing kind and equal relations between White and Black Americans. Conservatives who fought against the Civil Rights Movement may have been much more open towards equal rights for Black Americans had it not been for the movement’s ties to the Communist party. Would the US be living in a more equal society today, were it not for the anti-Communist hysteria that was part of the reason for the obstacles that the Civil Rights Movement faced?
The film and TV industry suffered from “the black silence of fear” as well. In 1950, a pamphlet entitled “Red Channels” was released, naming 151 “Red Fascists and their sympathizers” working in the entertainment industry. Says Eliza Berman of those accused, “some…endured a period of unemployment before resuming their careers. For others…the list spelled the end of their careers” (Berman). The pamphlet only led to more suspicion, and entertainment professionals’ jobs were suddenly precarious, especially those with moderate or liberal views. The fear of losing employment, power, and/or reputation led the surviving professionals to shrink away from including any issues or themes that could possibly arouse suspicion into their films or shows. As says Schrecker, “While there were other reasons that TV offered a bland menu of quiz shows and westerns during the late 1950s, McCarthy-era anxieties clearly played a role” (Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 92-94). Popular 50s television–Leave it to Beaver, The Twilight Zone–was often designed to be either cute and comforting or far away from reality, both strategies leaving current controversial and worrisome events from the screen. Filmmakers were far too terrified of McCarthy and the suspicious public to experiment with ideas or “grapple with controversial social or political issues” (Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism, 92-94). If it had not been for the country’s hyper-awareness of anything remotely leftist, more in the entertainment industry would likely have felt comfortable to discuss the current political issues in their works, perhaps provoking acceptance or at least curious rather than biased thoughts. The entire industry was understandably terrified, however, of losing employment, and so the “bland” entertainment continued throughout the decade, reinforcing the public’s refusal to think critically about the political situation.
Considering these effects and more, it is clear that life in the 50s would have been deeply different if it were not for Joseph McCarthy and his philosophy, from the trivial–TV programs–to the important–national healthcare. While it is impossible to know just how much McCarthyism changed the era, and therefore future eras, it is obvious that it instilled a deep fear in the public, one that led to a decline in liberal discussion of the idea of Communism, and that biased important intellectual, cultural, and political decisions. Perhaps the country would have national healthcare, eliminating one of the most controversial issues in the nation today.
At the very least, physics students at the University of Chicago might have been able to enjoy better coffee.
Works Cited
Schrecker, Ellen. “More Than Just a Man.” PBS, 24 May 2024, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/mccarthy-more-than-just-a-man/. Accessed 16 Aug. 2024.
Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism, Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1994, https://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schrecker-legacy.html. Accessed 16 Aug. 2024.
Berman, Eliza. “15 Entertainers Who Were Labeled Communist in the Red Channels List.” Time, 22 Jun. 2015, https://time.com/3918267/red-channels-list-1950/. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
“The Challenge of National Healthcare.” Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/education/presidential-inquiries/challenge-national-healthcare. Accessed 16 Aug. 2024.
“Joseph McCarthy.” History.com, https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/joseph-mccarthy. Accessed 16 Aug. 2024.
“McCarthyism.” Amistad Digital Resource for Teaching African American History, https://www.amistadresource.org/plantation_to_ghetto/mccarthyism.html. Accessed 19 Aug. 2024.
Patterson, James. Grand Expectations. Oxford University Press, 1998.