Why McCarthyism was so dangerous

McCarthyism was a term coined to describe activities associated with Republican senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin. He served in the Senate from 1947 to 1957.

McCarthyism described the practice of publicly accusing government employees of disloyalty

In the American political lexicon, the term has its origin in a March 1950, Washington Post editorial cartoon by Herbert Block, who depicted the four leading Republicans trying to push an elephant to stand on a teetering stack of 10 tar buckets. The topmost Republican in the cartoon was labeled “McCarthyism.”

The term McCarthyism soon evolved to describe the practice of publicly accusing government employees of political disloyalty or subversive activities and using unsavory investigatory methods to prosecute them. The practice held sway between 1950 and 1954, a period of intense suspicion during which the U.S. government was actively engaged in countering Communism — in particular, the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA).

As evidenced by congressional passage of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, which made up Title 1 of the Internal Security Act of 1950 (also called the McCarran Act), a majority of Congress also shared the belief that CPUSA constituted an active conspiracy that was secretive and loyal to a foreign power and dedicated to the clandestine infiltration of U.S. cultural and political institutions.

The Supreme Court’s 6-2 decision in Dennis v. United States (1951) upholding the constitutionality of the convictions of CPUSA leaders Eugene Dennis, William Z. Foster, and ten others for advocating the violent overthrow of the U.S. government in many ways also lent constitutional support to this belief.

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