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McCarthy's fans saw him on one of his better days. Senator Case, looking and speaking like Mr. Peepers about to propose marriage to Nancy Remington, offered Joe a way out. A raft of apologies for past actions, suggested Case, might result in McCarthy's not being censured. Joe ignored the offer, but he did speak politely to Case (who, thus encouraged, later said he would support a "constructive" substitute to the censure motion).
That night the McCarthy faithful—some 3,500 of them—gathered for a rally in what one of them referred to as the "so-called Constitutional Hall." Tickets were labeled "Admit One Anti-Communist." On hand were South Dakota's Republican Senator Karl Mundt, the hapless chairman of the Army-McCarthy hearings; John Maragon, convicted five-percenter, sporting an "I'm for Joe" button; Columnist Westbrook Pegler; and New York's ex-Congressman Ham Fish and Montana's ex-Senator Burton K. Wheeler, relics of another age. Throughout the rally, the vice commander of the Wall Street American Legion auxiliary proudly clutched an autographed picture of Roy Cohn.
Finally, Joe himself, accompanied by wife Jean, made a "surprise"' appearance. The place went wild. On the speaker's platform, McCarthy waxed emotional, flourishing a white handkerchief in front of his nose. There was some doubt as to whether he was weeping or merely flushing his bad sinuses, but the gesture was the signal for many of the women to burst into tears.
Slush & Slime. All week long pro-McCarthy Senators, e.g., Illinois' Everett Dirksen and New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, worked in the back rooms, trying to write a compromise resolution which would slap Joe's wrist but stop short of censure. Helping them was California's Senator William Knowland, who seems to think that his majority-leadership post makes him a Fanny Fixit, obliged to rush to the aid of all Republicans, regardless of what those Republicans may stand for.
But McCarthy himself was not cooperating with the compromise effort; martyrdom was too inviting.
While they maneuvered, the debate roared on. Kansas' conservative Republican Senator Frank Carlson, no conspirator, rose to object to any McCarthy "defense which makes its point by attacking either the intelligence or the sincere intentions of the committee." Although the Democratic strategy was to keep quiet and enjoy a Republican v. Republican fight, one of the week's strongest speeches came from Mississippi's Democratic Senator John Stennis, a former judge and a highly respected member of the Watkins Committee.
The Wisconsin Senator's conduct "must be condemned," said Stennis. He called McCarthy's handmaiden speech "a continuation of the slush and slime." It was, he said, "another spot on the escutcheon of the Senate, another splash and splatter." Many more words would be uttered before the debate ended, but quiet John Stennis focused the issue clearly when he said that unless the Senate cen sures McCarthy "something big and fine will have gone from this chamber . . . something wrong will have entered and been accepted."