Latest news with #DeclarationofConscience
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Remembering an Act of Conscience and Courage
TODAY MARKS THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY of the death, at 97, of Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine. And in three days comes another important date for Smith: June 1 is the 75th anniversary of her 'Declaration of Conscience' speech denouncing her colleague Senator Joseph McCarthy's hunt for alleged Communists in the U.S. government—an extraordinary act of political bravery, and one that came at considerable cost. Smith entered public office under unhappy circumstances. A lifelong Republican, she was married to Clyde Smith, a representative from Maine twenty-one years her senior, from 1930 until his death on April 8, 1940. According to public accounts at the time, Clyde died from a heart attack. His actual cause of death was advanced syphilis, which had been diagnosed in 1938. As Margaret's biographer Patricia Schmidt writes, it's unclear whether she was ever aware of her husband's diagnosis. But she once told a historian that Clyde 'loved the ladies and they loved him.' Margaret was her husband's secretary and knew his congressional district as well as he did. At the age of 42, she was elected to serve out the remainder of his term; she then won four full terms in her own right. During her near-decade in the House, Margaret Chase Smith built a reputation as an independent thinker. As Schmidt relates, Smith supported President Franklin Roosevelt's Lend-Lease program to help Britain defend itself against dictatorship—the only member of Maine's House delegation to do so, which set her against the stance of the Republican party's isolationist wing. She also took a stand counter to most of her Republican colleagues to support a bill to allow merchant ships to be armed and permitted in combat zones. Share With these votes and others, she became a champion of national defense and a strong foreign policy. Though rooted in principle and independent judgment, these stances ultimately proved politically savvy as well: Maine was the home to several military installations and defense contractor facilities, such as the Bath Iron Works shipyard. While Smith maintained the persona of a 'traditional' mid-twentieth-century American woman, she was a strong advocate for women's equality. She was especially attentive to the needs of mothers who worked during the war as civilians and women who joined the military as nurses and other noncombatants. She fought for increased funding for childcare in war-time factories and for improved status of women serving their country in uniform. On various occasions between 1945 to 1972, she cosponsored and voted for the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. In 1948, she ran for the Senate. Maine was solidly Republican in those days, and after roundly defeating her primary opposition (which included both the sitting governor and a former governor), she won the general election with an impressive 71 percent of the vote. She had ruffled a lot of Republican feathers, and she was not the favorite of the party establishment, but her independence and attention to her constituents helped secure her victory. Senator Smith was the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate, and from 1949 to 1954, she was the only female senator. With the Senate as a more prominent platform, she immediately went to work to raise her stature. Smith was selected to temporarily act as Senate minority leader in March. She was more than once named the Associated Press's 'Political Woman of the Year.' She was mentioned as a potential contender for the vice presidential slot in the 1952 election. Many Republicans believed her moderate voting record and her gender could be useful in balancing the 1952 ticket. Join now EVENTS OF 1950 WOULD ALTER the course of her political career. It was in February of that year that Senator McCarthy began his long cynical campaign of fearmongering and exaggeration—starting with claims that he possessed a list of Communist Party members working at the State Department. McCarthy promised to release details supporting his assertions, but few particulars and no complete list of names was ever revealed. The Senate established the Subcommittee on the Investigation of Loyalty of State Department Employees—the 'Tydings Committee' (for its Democratic chairman, Millard Tydings of Maryland)—to investigate McCarthy's claims. Nine State Department employees were investigated but were cleared. The Tydings Committee determined that McCarthy's list was 'a fraud and a hoax.' Most Republicans joined McCarthy in rejecting the committee's conclusion as partisan. Margaret Chase Smith was a committed anti-Communist and took seriously the threats presented during the Cold War. However, she had serious objections to McCarthy's methods and doubts about the veracity of McCarthy's claims. Troubled by McCarthyism, she was determined to speak against it. Smith hoped that speaking out would position her as a forceful and courageous advocate for the truth, but she knew it could be a political landmine. In 1950, at the start of McCarthy's campaign to root out Communist subversives, many Republicans viewed this new Red Scare as a great opportunity to score points against the Truman administration, in advance of that year's midterms and the 1952 presidential election. Certainly at first, more Republicans were with McCarthy than against him. Although she knew she would face criticism from her own party, Smith chose to act on her principles. On June 1, 1950, she delivered the speech—her first in the Senate—for which she would be most remembered. Smith's ringing 'Declaration of Conscience' criticized both Republicans and Democrats. She accused the Truman administration of complacency regarding Communist influence and espionage, but she also reproached Republican politicians who alleged that certain Americans presented domestic threats. Her words from 1950 resonate today: Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism— The right to criticize. The right to hold unpopular beliefs. The right to protest. The right of independent thought. She went on to critique 'the present ineffective Democratic administration' but nevertheless cautioned about giving power to a reckless Republican party. Yet to displace it with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to the nation. The nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear. Smith persuaded six other moderate to liberal Republicans to join her in a statement issued concurrent with her speech. The statement closed with this: It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life. She didn't name McCarthy directly—but she didn't have to: The target of her attack was obvious. She later recalled having run into McCarthy on their way to the Capitol. McCarthy asked if she was heading there to make a speech; she replied: 'Yes, and you will not like it.' He sat two rows behind her during her speech. Share SMITH EVENTUALLY PAID a steep political cost for her political courage. Immediate reaction within the Senate was mixed. Many senators remained fully aligned with McCarthy at that early stage in his effort. Some of her colleagues praised and congratulated her.1 Others, including those who agreed with her, were reticent—they didn't want to appear soft on communism, especially not once the Korean War ignited a few weeks later. Even most of her Declaration of Conscience cosigners eventually abandoned her, the exception being Sen. Wayne Morse of Oregon, who left the Republican party, becoming an independent in 1953 and a Democrat in 1955. The Republican party establishment punished Smith. She was removed from the Permanent Investigating Subcommittee of the Senate Expenditures Committee by McCarthy, who was the ranking Republican on the committee. She was removed from the Republican Policy Committee. She was left off the list of speakers at the annual Lincoln Day rally and was scheduled for only two speaking engagements at Maine Republican rallies in the leadup to the 1950 election—a snub for a sitting senator. Perhaps more notably, talk of her as a potential vice presidential candidate dried up. A small grassroots effort at the 1952 convention to put her name in nomination fell apart. Eisenhower stated his preference for Richard Nixon, and Senator Smith opted out of attending the convention to be with her dying mother back in Maine. While Smith's standing in the party fell, McCarthy's rose, if only for a short time. He spoke at the 1952 convention, and with Republicans capturing the Senate that year, McCarthy became chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI). He used the PSI as his platform to continue pursuit of alleged Communists. (He was assisted by an aggressive young prosecutor named Roy Cohn, who later became a mentor to a certain New York real estate developer.) Share The Bulwark Ultimately, though, Smith was vindicated. McCarthy's clout declined beginning in 1953 as more of the Washington establishment, including Republican officials, came out against his extremism. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted 67–22 to censure McCarthy. Republicans split evenly, 22–22. While he continued his anti-communism campaign, his stature and credibility were irreparably diminished. McCarthy died in 1957. Senator Smith continued to display her independence and courage in the Senate for another eighteen years following McCarthy's downfall. She defied Eisenhower and Nixon on several occasions. Her voting record included support for education, civil rights, voting rights, the War on Poverty, and consumer protection. She declined to fight against the closure of an outdated Air Force Base in her own state ('this would simply be playing politics with our national security'). Smith launched a dark horse candidacy for president in 1964. While she failed to win a primary (Illinois was her best showing with 25 percent of the vote), she stayed in the race to the convention and denied Senator Barry Goldwater a unanimous delegate vote for the nomination. She was the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency at a major party convention. Her luck ended with her 1972 Senate re-election bid. She received 47 percent of the vote in a state where Nixon received 65 percent. At 74, she was returning to private life after 32 years. Share THE POLITICS OF 2025 would likely not be a good fit for Senator Smith. Maine Republicans might consider her too independent. After all, the most recent Republican governor was Paul LePage, who said in 2016, 'I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular.' And she would probably find today's Senate strange. What would she say about the motivations of senators who, at one moment (say, after an insurrection) are harshly critical of Trump, only later to turn shamelessly obsequious toward him? What would she think of Ted Cruz (a modern-day McCarthy figure if ever there were one), Mike Lee, Tommy Tuberville, and Lindsey Graham? Would she make another Declaration of Conscience to compare Trump and his sycophants to McCarthy? Would anyone even listen to her? It's possible that Senator Smith would find common ground with at least one fearless group: the Republican women who oppose Trump, who became especially prominent in 2024. The list is long and includes Liz Cheney, Barbara Comstock, Nancy Kassebaum, Christine Todd Whitman, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Cassidy Hutchinson, Sarah Matthews, Stephanie Grisham, and Olivia Troye. All were former elected officials or served in Republican administrations, and all endorsed Kamala Harris. Smith might also have a pleasant conversation with the woman who holds her Senate seat, Susan Collins, who voted to convict Trump in 2021, did not endorse Trump in 2024, voted against the Hegseth and Patel nominations, voted to block Trump's tariffs, and raised objections to some of Trump's budget proposals. Collins, an admirer of Senator Smith, could put to good use Smith's counsel from June 1, 1950, and warn fellow Republicans to not 'ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.' Perhaps Smith would advise Collins to make a new declaration—one that fully rejects Trumpism. Collins's Maine colleague, Senator Angus King—an independent who caucuses with Democrats—recently paid tribute to Smith in a Senate speech. He warned of President Trump exceeding his constitutional powers. King is sending the right message, but we need Republicans to make their own contemporary 'Declaration of Conscience.' The time has come once again to directly challenge a radical movement. Whenever you're ready, Senator Collins. . . Share The Bulwark 1 One notable instance of praise for Smith came a year after the speech when Hubert Humphrey told Smith she was doing 'a whale of a job.' According to biographer Patricia Schmidt, Smith replied, 'Hubert, if you think I'm doing such a good job, why don't you join me?' To which Humphrey said, 'Oh my God, that would be political suicide.'
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
In Senate speech, Angus King invokes Margaret Chase Smith's 'Declaration,' warns of current 'crisis'
Apr. 29—Sen. Angus King urged his colleagues on Tuesday to put country over party and warned of creeping authoritarianism, invoking the iconic 1950 speech by former Maine Sen. Margaret Chase Smith. "Mr. President, almost 75 years ago, the junior senator from Maine rose in this chamber to deliver a speech from her heart about a crisis then facing our country," King began in his speech from the Senate floor. "A crisis not arising from a foreign adversary but from within. A crisis that threatened the values and ideals at the base of the American experiment." In her now-iconic 'Declaration of Conscience' address, Smith denounced Republican colleague Joseph McCarthy for his aggressive pursuit of those he considered communist sympathizers, including academics, entertainers and left-wing politicians. She delivered the speech during her first term as a senator, which followed nearly a decade in the House of Representatives. King's speech was intended to mark the upcoming 75th anniversary of Smith's landmark speech, which comes June 1, as well as the broader significance of the 75th year. Asked about the precise timing, a spokesperson for King's office said "the urgency eclipses the exact timeliness." "I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul-searching," King said, quoting directly from Smith's speech. "It is high time that we stop thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom." King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, repeated the second sentence before returning to his original remarks. "Mr. President, I fear that we're at a similar moment in history," King said, speaking again as himself. "And while today's 'serious national condition' is not involving the actions of one of our colleagues, it is involving those of the president of the United States." King said the issue was not President Donald Trump's agenda, but his apparent attempts to centralize power, including by "ignoring the Constitution" and the rule of law. Though she originally ran to fill a vacancy created by the death of her husband, Rep. Clyde H. Smith, Smith forged a legacy all her own, one that eclipsed his. Years after giving her declaration, Smith would go on to become the first woman nominated for president by a major political party in 1964. The Skowhegan native's legacy remains an enduring story of courage and bipartisanship for many Mainers. It has, at times, fueled modern-day comparisons to Sen. Susan Collins, another Republican woman who has openly opposed her own party's leadership. "Senator Smith's distinguished career has led to a string of more than 50 years of leadership from centrist Republican Senators in Maine who have always put the needs of the state and the country ahead of the concerns of their party," Blake Kernen, a spokesperson for Collins, said in a written statement. The comparisons have not always been supportive of Collins. Progressive-minded voters, including some who have written letters in this paper, have at times used Smith's legacy to criticize Collins. King, though, did not name Collins in his speech. "It is ironic that Democrats who either campaigned against or voted against Senator Smith now fill the papers with letters and opinion pieces trying to claim her legacy as their own," Kernen said. "Senator Collins always works in the best interest of Maine and America, which is why she has been repeatedly recognized as being the most bipartisan member of the Senate." King worked on the campaign of Sen. William Hathaway, who ousted Smith from the Senate in the 1972 election. King noted that history in his remarks, but said he and Smith had reconciled any lingering differences while working on a PBS documentary years later. King went on to quote James Madison, who warned in the Federalist Papers that successful government must be dependent on its citizens for its power, but must also be made to control itself. Madison argued that "auxiliary precautions" against sweeping governance are necessary; here, King pointed to the checks and balances provided by the legislative and judicial branches. King has been outspoken in opposing the Trump administration's policies and warning about what he considers a slide toward tyranny. In a February speech — as the Trump administration was in the early stages of a massive effort to slash federal spending — King urged his Senate colleagues to "wake up." He also noted the Trump administration's targeting of Maine following a public confrontation between Trump and Gov. Janet Mills at the White House two months ago. At the time, Mills said she was upholding state and federal law, but Trump argued that "we are the law." "That is more fitting to a king than a president," King said. "This 'We are the law' comment is a clear statement of intent to govern as a sovereign without regard to the Constitution or the rule of law." Copy the Story Link
Boston Globe
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
The Republican senator who dared to call out a dangerous colleague
With her was her top aide, Bill Lewis. During the journey they chewed through a subject that had been worrying the senator for months: what to do about her vociferous, and in her mind increasingly dangerous, colleague from Wisconsin, Senator Joseph McCarthy. Smith knew that many of her fellow Republicans privately detested McCarthy, but none were willing to speak out. And so, by the time they got to Maine, Smith had decided to take a stand where no one else would, even if, as she told Lewis, it meant the end of her political career. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up Today that courage once more stands in sharp relief to the fear among other Republicans of calling out gross political malpractice. Advertisement Smith had initially welcomed McCarthy's campaign to root out Soviet spies and sympathizers within the federal government, which he had begun with great fanfare in February 1950. But she quickly realized that McCarthy's incendiary charges were often baseless smears — a fact that didn't stop him from lacing into a new target every day, leaving wrecked lives and political norms behind him. As Smith watched McCarthy dominate the news, she waited for a more senior colleague to speak up. But no one did. In an interview years later, she said it became clear that when it came to McCarthy, there were three camps: those who believed him, those who feared him, and those who cynically saw him as a useful tool against the Democrats. Advertisement On that daylong road trip to Maine, she and Lewis hatched a plan. In between speeches, they sat at her dining table in Skowhegan, a small city in central Maine, and drafted what she called a 'Declaration of Conscience.' She planned to deliver it on June 1. Smith and Lewis kept the content of her address a secret, for fear that someone would try to stop her. By coincidence, the only person who got a hint of what was coming was McCarthy himself, whom she ran into on the way to the chamber that day. She told him he wouldn't like what she was going to say. He just smiled and said he was sure it would be fine. Standing at her desk, two rows ahead of McCarthy's, she outlined what she called 'a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear.' There was enough blame to go around, and she laid much of it at the feet of the Truman administration for failing to make the country feel secure at the dawn of the Cold War. But, she went on, people had taken advantage of that fear and made it much worse with baseless accusations and dangerous smears, including, she said pointedly, in the Senate itself. Smith never mentioned McCarthy by name; she didn't have to. 'As a United States senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism,' she said. 'I don't like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity.' Advertisement She ended her speech with a call to action, challenging her colleagues to join her Declaration of Conscience, a five-point platform that concluded, 'It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques — techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.' Lewis stood at the back of the chamber holding 200 copies of the speech to give to senators and reporters. The initial reaction was positive: Mail to her office ran 8-to-1 in favor, and the editorial boards of The Washington Post and The New York Times supported her. But geopolitics was not on her side. The Korean War broke out a few weeks later, and with it came a circle-the-wagons mentality in Congress and the press that shut down incipient support for her declaration. Five of her six initial cosigners backed out; the holdout, Wayne Morse of Oregon, left the Republican Party and later became a Democrat. McCarthy's retribution came soon after. He attacked Smith and her cosigners as 'Snow White and the Six Dwarves.' He got her removed from the Subcommittee on Investigations, replacing her with Senator Richard Nixon of California. Meanwhile, McCarthy continued his campaign unbowed. For some of her colleagues, Smith was a cautionary tale. To others, she was a source of envy and shame, having taken a stand they were unwilling to take themselves. It would be almost four years before any more Republicans had the courage to oppose McCarthy, and then only because the public itself was turning against him. Advertisement The damage to Smith's Senate career was not permanent. In 1952 and again in 1968, she was seriously considered for vice president. In 1964 she ran for president in the Republican primary, and though she lost badly, her name was put forward at the national convention that summer, making her the first woman nominated for president by a major party. She died in 1995, long enough to see herself canonized as a secular hero. She was inducted into the Women's Hall of Fame, and her portrait hangs in the Old Senate Chamber in the Capitol. But in time the urgency of her courageous stand was forgotten, filed away as a relic of a tumultuous era in American history, long past. But now, in 2025, her story needs to be appreciated once more. The country could use another Margaret Chase Smith today.
Fox News
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
SEN. ANGUS KING: A 'Declaration of Conscience' on Donald Trump's 100th day
Almost 75 years ago, the junior Republican Senator from Maine, Margaret Chase Smith, delivered a speech from her heart about a crisis then facing our country: a crisis not arising from a foreign adversary, but from within. A crisis that threatened the values and ideals at the base of the American democratic experiment. Her 'Declaration of Conscience' turned out to be one of the most important speeches of the 20th Century and defined Smith as a person of extraordinary courage and principle. Reflecting back on the speech, she later told me that she was so nervous about the speech—this was the height of the Red Scare of the early fifties—that she told her chief aide, Bill Lewis, not to hand out the copies of the text to the press until she actually started talking on the floor, because she was afraid she might lose her nerve. But she went through with it, and the rest is, literally, history. Here is how she began that speech: "Mr. President, 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. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership either in the legislative branch or the executive branch of our government." She continued, "I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges." Later in the speech, Smith concluded, "It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques – techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life." I fear that we are at a similar moment. Echoing Senator Smith, the 'serious national condition' we are facing today should not be viewed as a partisan issue; it's about the idea of America and the system of government that has sustained us for more than two centuries. It's not about the president's agenda (and yes, I disagree with most of it), but it's about the manner in which he is pursuing it. This roughshod non-process endangers all of us, his detractors and supporters alike. Although many of my colleagues seem determined to ignore it, this president is engaged in the most direct assault on the Constitution in our history, and we in this body, at least thus far, are inert. And therefore complicit. It's worth pausing for a moment to look at the terms of Article II, which outline the powers and responsibilities of the president: the power to issue pardons and the role of commander-in-chief of the armed forces in wartime. But even this latter power is constrained by the reservation to the Congress of the power to declare war in the first place. The principal responsibility of the president, however, is spelled out explicitly: the chief executive "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." The job of the president is simply to execute the laws passed by Congress, without exception—a responsibility this president is spectacularly failing to meet. The administration has also taken a series of apparently unconnected actions which, taken together, spell out our rapid path toward one-man rule. While this is the most serious breach, the administration has also taken a series of apparently unconnected actions which, taken together, spell out our rapid path toward one-man rule. Here's a partial list: This is not a complete list, but it does present a disturbing pattern—that this president is attempting to govern unbound by law or Constitutional restraint. To those who like the policies of the president and are therefore willing to ignore the unconstitutional means of effectuating them, I (and history) can only say: watch out. Today, the target may be federal workers, but tomorrow (perhaps under a different president), it could be you. So what can we do? The first guardrail is the Congress itself. But unfortunately, the majority in Congress has wholly abdicated these fundamental responsibilities. The second guardrail is the courts, which are generally holding up their end of the constitutional bargain. As easy as it may be to rely entirely on the courts, that's a cop-out; reclaiming power must be a joint project. The final guardrail is the people, who more and more are speaking up—in rallies, in correspondence, in town halls, and in conversations at the grocery store. We can't escape the responsibility of our oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;" [and that we would] "bear true faith and allegiance to the same." So, with thanks to Margaret Chase Smith for her example and inspiration, this is my 'Declaration of Conscience.' I don't relish this moment, but feel I have no choice but to call out the clear implications and dangers of President Donald Trump's first 100 days. Many years ago, President Abraham Lincoln came to the Congress at a time when our forebears—like us—were reluctant to face the responsibilities that had been thrust upon them. At that critical moment, this is what he said, "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation." I deeply hope that amid our fiery trial, we will choose honor—and the Constitution.
