“I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear.”
Those are not the words of a contemporary politician, columnist, or “influencer” you might find on YouTube; they are the opening words of a speech made by a Republican senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith. The words began her “Declaration of Conscience” which she made before the US Senate in June 1950. She was responding to the activities of a fellow Republican senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.
Like others from both political camps, Smith believed McCarthy’s usually unfounded claims that Communists had thoroughly infiltrated the State Department and other American institutions were eroding the nation’s confidence. Yet, McCarthy had such influence that even the newly elected Dwight Eisenhower hesitated to criticize him. And any journalist who dared to do so faced a barrage of anger and accusation. Because the “Milwaukee Journal” criticized his antics, the senator told business groups that supporting the newspaper was “contributing to bringing the Communist Party line into the homes of Wisconsin.” Despite flimsy proof or no proof for his accusations, McCarthy won followers.
In many ways, the Cold War thrived on fear. On the radio, there were programs like “I was a Communist for the FBI,” a fictional series following the exploits of an agent who had infiltrated the Party and regularly thwarted Moscow’s numerous plans to undermine America’s freedom. Of course, there was always the implication that somewhere in America there might be plotters who were not thwarted. Comic books distributed in our grade school encouraged us to report any un-American comments made by our teachers. The rumor mill said Saint Louis (a mere fifteen miles from my hometown) was a prime target for Soviet bombers. Though we had air-raid drills in our school, more knowledgeable (i.e., older) students informed us our efforts would be of no use if a bomb struck so close. Never telling my parents, I often lay in my bed wondering if the plane flying over in the night could be carrying a “the bomb.”
Like today, some religious leaders capitalized on fear to increase their following. My mother, who never voted because she didn’t “trust any of them,” listened to Billy James Hargis and his Christian Crusade. Hargis who said, “All I want to do is preach Jesus and save America,” believed saving America meant accusing any Christian who differed from him of being weak on communism or worse. Hargis opposed Billy Graham (who certainly preached Jesus and was no friend of communism) because he cooperated with non-fundamentalist Christians whom Hargis said were sympathetic to the communist cause, and branded Martin Luther King, Jr as an out-and-out communist. Like McCarthy, Hargis (and his ally Rev. Carl McIntire) won followers by sowing fear.
Of course, fear was used to manipulate the thinking of Americans well before the Cold War.
Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has compared today’s national mood with that of the late Ante-bellum period. I can see that. The nation was divided. Section opposed section. Politicians used fear to foment anger and distrust, especially in the South. There, those who did not own slaves and had little prospect of ever owning even a single slave were told the abolitionists would happily free millions of slaves who at worst would become a murderous hoard threatening their safety and at best a source of cheap labor who would take their jobs. In some of their ugliest rhetoric, these fear-mongers warned that Republicans like Lincoln would allow blacks to vote and marry white women. Secession—inspired, in part, by this campaign of fear—was the course taken by the Southern states despite Lincoln’s insistence he would allow slavery to remain were it was already legal and only bar it in any new states.
(In fairness, I should add that Lincoln’s opponents in the North were just as capable of using fear to stir voters to deny the president a second term. During the 1864 election campaign, the New York Times opined there would soon be a black son-in-law in every Republican family in the city.)
So deeply engrained were these fears that the appearance of the Ku Klux Klan during the Reconstruction period following the war was greeted as a godsend. The Klan’s supporters had no qualms about its penchant for violence toward blacks and any whites who supported the freedmen, especially those northern whites who came to teach the former slaves to read and write; all manner of harassment of the newly freed slaves was acceptable, including lynching. The Klan and scheming politicians robbed African American men of their vote.
And, of course, many who endorsed the Klan were active church members, professing Christians who would openly shed pious tears at the still popular revival meetings, while their churches supported a racist hermeneutic that taught blacks were cursed, destined to be subservient.
To me, this is one of the saddest features of today’s situation, that churches are so regularly aiding in creating division and suspicion. They are fostering fear and despair, not faith, hope, and love.
At long last, McCarthy’s influence was fatally undermined when a bi-partisan vote of the US Senate officially censured the senator in December 1954. Decency prevailed.
Some modern historians have attempted to rehabilitate McCarthy’s image, claiming recently opened KGB files proved there were spies in high places in the US government. Of course, I know of no historian who claims there were no Soviet spies at work in the nation; but “McCarthyism” thrived on making accusations without proof, of vague claims to have access to secret information (which the senator refused to make public), and character assassination.
McCarthy’s chief weapon was fear, a weapon freshly honed and newly wielded each generation. Sometimes those brandishing the weapon succeed in dividing the country; sometimes they fail.
At the risk of being simplistic, I think resistance to fear’s power to disorient involves three aspects of our nature. Intellectually, fear can often be combatted with fact. Those who listen only to rumors and outright error are more susceptible to fear than those who ask probing questions and take the time to do more than visit a partisan website. Socially, fear can be resisted with the help of our friends. But only if we have been mature enough to make friends who don’t always agree with us—friends who faithfully listen to our opinions and then gently challenge our assumptions and ask us for our proof. Spiritually, fear can be combatted with faith. When we keep in mind that God loves us, fear cannot get a grip on our hearts and minds.
