It was known as \u201cRed Baiting:” labeling as “Communists”\u00a0 Americans of good conscience who empathized with the less fortunate.\u00a0 In the early 1950s, in the midst of the Cold War<\/a> and thirty-five years after the Bolshevik Revolution in the Soviet Union, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin went on what was somewhat politely called a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d\u00a0 Whether he had serious concerns about a real international threat to the United States or whether he had a paranoid obsession with imaginary conspiracies is debatable.\u00a0 Whatever his motivations, he used his power to degrade the good standing of a unique and remarkable Republican,<\/p>\n

Senator Margaret Chase Smith.<\/p>\n

Senator Smith, a Republican from Maine, was the first woman elected to both the House and the Senate.\u00a0 As with the case with most of the first women who went to Congress, she was elected following the death of her husband.\u00a0 She served in the House for nearly ten years. Then, in November 1948, she was elected to her first of four terms in the U.S. Senate (24 years).<\/p>\n

Whereas many women who serve in Congress now have resumes similar to their male counterparts (attorneys, business owners, career politicians), Senator Smith had taught school in a one-room schoolhouse, actually worked as a telephone operator, and served as an office worker in a local textile mill.\u00a0 Her husband, Clyde, was a respected political leader in Maine who was elected to the House in 1936 and served on the influential Labor Committee during the New Deal.<\/p>\n

<\/a>When Joseph McCarthy relentlessly pursued a few Communists and many imaginary ones, most in Washington chose not to challenge him.\u00a0 It is sometimes forgotten that Robert Kennedy was a staff member of the committee for six months and brother Jack maintained a friendship with McCarthy; the two of them being among the few Catholics in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Senator Smith was not bothered by the fact that Joseph McCarthy was a fellow Republican (perhaps a lesson that Maine\u2019s current senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe could learn about their fellow members of the GOP).\u00a0 On June 1, 1950 Smith gave her Declaration of Conscience speech<\/a> on the floor of the Senate, earning McCarthy\u2019s permanent ire and the nickname \u201cMoscow Maggie\u201d from his staff.\u00a0 And what was it that Senator Smith said that caused him to tag her with the \u201cMoscow Maggie\u201d moniker?<\/p>\n

To be specific, she stated that the basic principles of \u201cAmericanism\u201d were:<\/p>\n

\n
• The right to criticize<\/li>\n
• The right to hold unpopular beliefs<\/li>\n
• The right to protest<\/li>\n
• The right to independent thought<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

  In other words, she was reaffirming the words of Thomas Paine in \u201cCommon Sense<\/a>,\u201d Madison, Hamilton and John Jay in the Federalist Papers, Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration<\/a> of Independence, and the \u201cfounding fathers\u201d in the very Constitution McCarthy purported to be protecting.\u00a0 Maybe McCarthy was shaken by the similarity of Smith\u2019s principles to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/a>, a 1948 United Nations document largely authored by Eleanor Roosevelt, which stands as the document that best describes the values that Americans wish to protect from threats of aggression, terrorism, illiteracy, poverty, environmental degradation, and religious fundamentalism.<\/p>\n

  To show how progressive Senator Chase was (and we remind you that she was a Republican), there were only six other senators who joined her in signing the Declaration.\u00a0 One of them was Wayne Morse of Oregon, one of two senators to vote against the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution<\/a>, President Lyndon Johnson\u2019s fabricated reason for escalating the American presence in Vietnam.<\/p>\n

  Senator Smith demonstrated her independence from progressives by supporting the Vietnam War.\u00a0 But she bolted from Republican Party ranks by opposing President Richard Nixon\u2019s two failed Supreme Court nominees, Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell.<\/p>\n

  In 1964, when conservative Senator Barry Goldwater was steamrolling to the Republican nomination for President, the progressive wing of the party was represented by Margaret Chase Smith, who became the first woman to have her name placed in nomination at a major party\u2019s convention.\u00a0 \u00a0She represented the \u201cRockefeller Republicans<\/a>\u201d after the governor of New York dropped out of the campaign earlier in the year.\u00a0 To grasp the significance of Senator Chase\u2019s willingness to be a candidate in 1964, contrast it to the eight white males who contended for the Republican nomination forty-four years later in 2008, each trying to \u201cout-conservative\u201d the others.<\/p>\n

  Could a Margaret Chase Smith serve in the House or Senate now as a Republican?\u00a0 There is no evidence that she could.\u00a0 Again, it\u2019s not \u201cyour father or grandfather\u2019s GOP.\u201d Her record is all the more reason to appreciate Senator Margaret Chase Smith and all of her accomplishments.<\/p>\n

  Photo: Corbis<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  It was known as \u201cRed Baiting:” labeling as “Communists”\u00a0 Americans of good conscience who empathized with the less fortunate.\u00a0 In the early 1950s, in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,172,16],"tags":[401,400,399],"yoast_head":"\n