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Chamber Music. Next morning, Arthur Watkins took the floor to deliver a dry, seven-page explanation of his committee's findings, including the censure recommendation (one of two) for McCarthy's having called New Jersey's Republican Senator Robert Hendrickson a "living miracle without brains or guts." When McCarthy heard the quote, he grinned, went over to slap Hendrickson on the back, and whispered: "Bob, you've got both brains and guts, and I'll put it in writing." But McCarthy would make no public apology.
In beginning his statement, Arthur Watkins referred to his "physical limitations," but said he would answer questions for "as long as I can stand here." Watkins has a spastic stomach condition, left by ulcers, which sometimes causes him to black out after being on his feet for long periods of time. McCarthy knew this—but he promptly made a typical McCarthy charge that Watkins was merely trying to avoid questions. (Over the weekend, McCarthy went to Wisconsin, where he accused Watkins of "cowardly conduct" for demanding that future questions be put in writing.) When McCarthy repeated his old charge that some of the Watkins Committee members were biased against him, Watkins had a quick answer: "The only time it would be possible to get a completely neutral person would be to select one who was deaf, dumb and blind, and was a moron to start with."
The day's session ended with McCarthy deciding he did not have time to deliver his "handmaiden" speech. The Wisconsin Senator's decision pointed up the fact that he was not really trying to impress the Senate, but to grab the headlines and stir dissension. Leaving the Senate floor that afternoon, McCarthy Lawyer Edward Williams was asked by a newsman: "Ed, your boy sure isn't trying to win friends and influence people, is he?" Replied Williams, wearily: "That's one book Joe didn't write."
Corridor Clamor. Joe was not without friends, however, and the next day they began arriving in Washington. From McCarthy's own Wisconsin came a pitiful little caravan (which had been stalled for a night in Kenosha with an ailing engine coil) consisting of two cars and a truck. From New York came a trainload of Mc-Carthyites headed by Rabbi Benjamin Schultz, director of the American Jewish League Against Communism, whose slogan is: "Strike terror into the hearts of Flanders and Malenkov." One man wore a white suit and brandished a butterfly net, aping Joe's suggestion that Vermont's Senator Ralph Flanders, who started the censure movement, should be caught with a net.
The group waved such placards as WHY DID ALGER HISS WANT TRIAL IN VERMONT? DO YOU KNOW SENATOR FLANDERS? This referred to the fact that Flanders' brother's wife's sister's divorced husband was a brother of Alger Hiss's wife. Then McCarthy followers milled around the Capitol and Senate Office Building most of the day. Once when McCarthy strode down a Capitol corridor, a grandmotherly woman darted out, touched him, and dashed away shrieking: "I touched him!"