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In Washington, Joe lives with his office manager Ray Kiermas and his wife. He gets back to Wisconsin about every two weeks, usually to give speeches. There he lives with the Urban P. Van Susterens in Appleton. Van, a lawyer and proprietor of a fleet of taxis, managed Joe's last campaign. Last time he got back to Appleton, Joe arrived, as usual, in the middle of the night. He went into the kitchen, dumped some baking soda into his hand, threw it into his mouth, and washed it down with cold water. Margery Van Susteren winced. Next, he took off his coat and tie and shoes, dropping them where he happened to be. Joe has no interest in clothes. After every road trip, hotels send on clothing he has forgotten.
Joe seldom misses Sunday Mass, although he sometimes cannot pass up a steak on Friday. A dogged churchgoer, Joe calls himself "a good Catholic, but not the kiss-the-book, light-the-candle Catholic."
Smart Boy. Joseph Raymond McCarthy, who always signs himself plain Joe McCarthy these days, was born on a farm in Grand Chute, a few miles north of Appleton. One of seven children, he quit school early, parlayed 50 chickens into a flock of 10,000, but lost nearly all of them one winter when he came down with pneumonia and turned over his flock to some friends. At 18 he wangled a job as manager of a grocery store in nearby Manawa (pop. 990).
Joe's merchandising methods showed the instincts of a born political campaigner. He walked up & down the country roads, calling on farmers. Soon his store became a town meeting place. On Saturday nights, other Manawa grocers were so lonely that they would come over to help Joe wait on the crowds.
Joe's landlady, Mrs. Osterloth, nagged at him to go back to school. "You're smart, McCarthy, you're smart," she insisted. Joe went back. With typically furious energy he signed up for 16 subjects, and finished the four-year high-school course in one year.
At Marquette, Joe started in engineering, switched to law. A slugging, savage attacker, he became the college boxing champion. He worked as short-order cook, sold gravestones and calking compound, worked in a filling station until 1 a.m. On the campus he was president of his class one year, a perennial chairman of events, and he knew everybody's name.
The Judge. After only four years as a lawyer, Joe decided to run for circuit judge, at the age of 29. He made few speeches, but he met every farmer in the district. His specialty was sick cows. He would get the cow's symptoms, drive on to the next farm and ask the farmer what he would do for a cow with those symptoms. He kept a Dictaphone in his car, and as he drove away he would dictate a letter to the first farmer, giving the second farmer's advice as Joe's own. Both farmers would be flattered by his attention. He would get a little careless and refer to "my 89-year-old opponent"—though the rival candidate, who had served for 24 years, was only 73. Joe won handily.