McCarthy, Senator Joseph Raymond "Tail-Gunner Joe"

Other Events:

• Military Service: Bef 1919; WWII
• Political Office: Between 1947 and 1957; U. S. Senator - Wisconsin
• Biography: Bef 2 May 1957
• Obituary Index: 3 May 1957; Appleton Post Crescent
• News Mention: 13 Mar 2017; APC

Notes:

Biography:
Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908-1957) - also known as Joseph R. McCarthy; Joe McCarthy; "Tail-Gunner Joe" - of Appleton, Outagamie County, Wis. Born in Grand Chute, Outagamie County, Wis., November 14, 1908. Married 1953 to Jean Fraser Kerr. Republican. Circuit judge in Wisconsin, 1940-46; served in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II; U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, 1947-57; died in office 1957; delegate to Republican National Convention from Wisconsin, 1948. Claimed in a 1950 speech that he had a list of 205 Communists employed in the U.S. State Department; went on to conduct hearings and investigations into alleged subersive activities and Communist influence on society; with his sensationalist tactics and disregard for fairness and due process, he dominated the American political scene for a period of time, now called the McCarthy Era; public opinion turned against him when he tried to investigate the Army; in December 1953, the Senate voted 67-22 to censure him for "contemptuous conduct" and abuse of select committee privilege. Died of a liver ailment at Bethesda Naval Hospital, Bethesda, Montgomery County, Md., May 2, 1957.

Book:
Books about Joseph R. McCarthy: Richard H. Rovere, Senator Joe McCarthy; Arthur Herman, Joseph McCarthy : Reexamining the Life and Legacy of America's Most Hated Senator; Ellen Schrecker, The Age of McCarthyism; Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy : A Biography

Biography:
Senate Years of Service: 1947-1957 Party: Republican
McCARTHY, Joseph Raymond, a Senator from Wisconsin; born in Grand Chute, Outagamie County, Wis., November 14, 1908; attended a one-room country school; worked on a farm; at the age of nineteen moved to Manawa, Wis., and enrolled in a high school; while working in a grocery store and ushering at a theater in the evenings, completed a four-year course in one year; graduated from Marquette University at Milwaukee, Wis., with a law degree in 1935; admitted to the bar the same year; commenced practice in Waupaca, and in 1936 moved to Shawano, Wis., and continued to practice law; elected circuit judge of the tenth judicial circuit of Wisconsin in 1939; while serving in this capacity enlisted in 1942 in the United States Marine Corps; resigned as a lieutenant in 1945; unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for United States Senator in 1944 while in military service; reelected circuit judge of Wisconsin in 1945 while still in the Marine Corps; elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1946; reelected in 1952 and served from January 3, 1947, until his death; co-chairman, Joint Committee on the Library (Eighty-third Congress), chairman, Committee on Government Operations (Eighty-third Congress); used his position as chairman of the Committee on Government Operations and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to launch investigations designed to document charges of Communists in government; censured by the Senate on December 2, 1954, for behavior that was "contrary to senatorial traditions"; died in the naval hospital at Bethesda, Md., May 2, 1957; funeral services were held in the Chamber of the United States Senate; interment in St. Mary's Cemetery, Appleton, Wis.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Griffith, Robert. The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1970; Oshinsky, David. A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joseph McCarthy. New York: Free Press, 1983.

Obituary Index:
Page 1
Joseph P. McCarthy
Born: February 12, 1876
Died: June 18, 1957
Place of Birth: Grand Chute, WI
Obituary
Newspaper: Post-Crescent
Notice Date: June 18, 1957
Section: Page: 28 Type: OB
Cemetery Name: St. Mary
Location: Appleton, WI
Notes Senator

News Mention:
APPLETON - The late Joseph McCarthy needs no introduction here in the Fox Cities.
Whatever Americans think of the Grand Chute native and former senator, it's not lost on us that "no man in Appleton - or Wisconsin - history has left such a mark on the national and international scene in such a short space of time," as one editorial from The Post-Crescent put it after McCarthy's death in May 1957 at age 48.
Now, 60 years after his passing, McCarthy - of the political and controversial crusade against alleged communists during his time in the U.S. Senate in the 1950s - is back in the news, his name being referenced in today's heated political climate. President Trump referred to McCarthyism in one of his late-night tweetstorms and others have broached McCarthy's name in debates over illegal immigration and travel bans.
"It's like McCarthy is hot again," said Jerald Podair, a history professor at Lawrence University.
McCarthy is the subject of two books that are in the works from noted authors.
Former Boston Globe journalist-turned-author Larry Tye is on the hunt for fresh stories about McCarthy, a former grocer, boxing coach and chicken farmer in an Irish-Catholic family who rose to be one of the most infamous politicians in American history.
Another author planning a book on McCarthy is Wisconsin native David Maraniss, a Washington Post editor and biographer who's written about Barack Obama, Al Gore and Green Bay legend Vince Lombardi. Maraniss did not respond to requests from USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin about his plans but has been discussing the book project on social media.
Tye's previous book on Bobby Kennedy partly sparked his interest in McCarthy. Little do some know, Kennedy and McCarthy "not just worked together but were friends," Tye said in a phone interview with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin. "That intrigued me."
Records from McCarthy's closed-door hearings were made public in recent years - documents that could provide insights on McCarthy that weren't available for earlier biographies, Tye said.
But mostly Tye hopes to connect with people who knew McCarthy personally, whether as a friend, foe, journalist or acquaintance.
"This is the last shot for people who are still alive, and partly a feeling that the world today deserves to have what may end up being the last take on McCarthy," he said.
Tye's first trip to Wisconsin for research on the book - a two-week visit in February - proved helpful. Tye connected with McCarthy relatives and friends, former Post-Crescent journalists, curators at the History Museum at the Castle, former politicians and the current homeowners of the McCarthy homestead in Grand Chute, among others.
"They just have been really responsive whether they liked Joe McCarthy or hated Joe McCarthy," Tye said. "People want to tell the story and get their side out to make sure the book is fair."
Connections from McCarthy to today
Historians are largely attributing the recent interest in McCarthy to his ties - both personal and ideological - to the candidacy and election of Trump.
Trump was mentored in the 1970s and 1980s by Roy Cohn, who's been called the "right-hand man" to McCarthy. The question remains, though, how significant Trump's apprenticeship under Cohn was, said Matt Carpenter, the executive director for the History Museum at the Castle in Appleton.
"Is it a minor story?" Carpenter said. "Would Trump say he learned from the Cohn playbook, or really the McCarthy playbook? I'd like to learn more about that."
Carpenter and others also equate Trump's policies that got him elected as another example of the consistent tension between individual rights and national security that pops up frequently in American history. While McCarthy took the deep-rooted fear of Communism into public policy, the fear of terrorism and newcomers to the country were central to Trump's campaign and now presidency.
"This tension between the perception that there is a trade-off between national security and political freedom is an ongoing scene throughout history," said Landon Starrs, a University of Iowa history professor.
McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade is a "textbook" example of that tension, Carpenter said. Trump's commitment to building a wall on the Mexican border, plans to deport undocumented immigrants, executive orders against those traveling from predominantly Muslim countries, among other ideas, have created similar debates.
Trump himself accused President Barack Obama of "McCarthyism" in a Saturday morning tweet alleging, with no evidence, that Obama had wire-tapped Trump Tower during the election.
Trump also has been heavily criticized by members of his own political party during his campaign and his early presidency, similar to McCarthy, Carpenter said. It wasn't Democrats who led the campaign for McCarthy's censure in the Senate, but Republicans.
"Mark Twain supposedly said that history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes," Podair added. "And thinking about McCarthy and his relationship to what's going on today, it's starting to rhyme."
Those Trump ties aren't lost on Tye and his publisher.
"Trump's critics say he's another McCarthy and that we have to learn the lessons of McCarthy," Tye said. "Trump supporters are often McCarthy supporters and the lesson is that their guy advocates for controversial causes like McCarthy did.
"It definitely has come back to the public lens and I'm trying to tell (the story) in light of this new interest and new historical record that hasn't been plumed yet."
McCarthy's reputation in Appleton
When Podair first came to Lawrence University in 1998, he noticed a sense of ambivalence around McCarthy. While history books have largely vilified McCarthy, in Appleton where people knew him personally and professionally, "in some sectors, he was considered to be a hometown boy made good," Podair said.
When the Outagamie County Justice Center was constructed in the early 1990s, county supervisors debated whether to name the building after McCarthy. But one supervisor backtracked the seriousness of the proposal, calling it a "joke," and saying he was embarrassed for bringing it up, according to a Post-Crescent story from the time. Others disputed that, saying that McCarthy should be praised "for his continuous service to democracy and the fight against Communism."
A bust of McCarthy was dedicated in 1959 at the Outagamie County Justice Center. County officials discussed in the 1980s whether to remove the bust, but those efforts stalled. It wasn't until 2001 that the McCarthy bust would finally be moved out of the courthouse and donated to the History Museum at the Castle for use in a McCarthy exhibit.
Plenty of assumptions were made about how the exhibit would frame McCarthy before it was complete, Carpenter said. Those within the Fox Cities thought the museum would paint McCarthy in a bad light, while those outside the Fox Cities assumed it would attempt to rehabilitate the image of a hometown boy.
"Our position wasn't either of those," Carpenter said. "We just said, 'Let's talk about what's important, what we can learn from this, and open up the conversation.'"
After the exhibit opened, the reaction was largely positive, both from family and friends of McCarthy and detractors of McCarthy.
The bust is now the most asked about item at the museum, Carpenter added, whether it is on display or not.
"Even though people understand him nationally as an embarrassment, he still is the local boy," Podair said. "If you knew him, you actually like him personally because he was perfect for this area - no pretense, no airs, no arrogance, friendly to everybody. But he also was a vicious political insider when it came to politics. But people here separate the personal from the political."
Previous biographers have also made a connection between the conservative John Birch Society, located in McCarthy's hometown of Grand Chute, and McCarthy. The John Birch Society, known for its anti-Communist advocacy, was founded in 1958, one year after McCarthy's death.
"The John Birch Society, the final word in right-wing extremism and anti-Communist paranoia, made its home in Appleton - keeping vigil, as it were, beside the fallen hero's tomb..." wrote Arthur Herman in his introduction for his biography of McCarthy. McCarthy is buried in Appleton at St. Mary's Catholic Church.
But the John Birch Society says the connection is more perceived than real, outside of their shared home, anti-Communist sentiment and a single photo of the society's founder, Robert Welch, with McCarthy.
"They do have a picture together so they knew each other, but there was no working relationship," said Constance McDaniels, the public relations manager for the John Birch Society.
The move in 1989 from Massachusetts to Grand Chute was also not for ties to McCarthy, but because the chief executive officer during that time lived in Appleton, McDaniels said.
With only one month of work in, Tye said he has no prediction of what his book will bring to McCarthy's story and legacy, "but I'll try to tap into all these new records and tell a nuanced story that's fair to him, but also fair to what his own voice tells us that we haven't heard before."
Madeleine Behr: 920-996-7226, or mbehr@postcrescent.com; on Twitter @madeleinebehr

Joseph married Kerr, Jean Fraser Abt 1953. Jean was born Abt 1924, Washington, District Of Columbia, District Of Columbia, USA; died 15 Dec 1979, Bethesda, Montgomery, Maryland, USA. [Group Sheet]