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"Doing Something." Nobody in Washington paid much attention to the new Senator from Wisconsin, not even after McCarthy invited eight women reporters to dinner and cooked them fried chicken himself. Joe wanted to "do something." He had a horror of Senators who quietly tended their fences and got safely re-elected term after term. He took an interest in ending sugar rationing, in the five-percenters, got himself appointed vice chairman of a joint committee on housing, and became known as a friend of the real-estate lobby.
He showed little practical interest in the fight against Communism. He voted for 7 out of 16 of the amendments to limit the scope or cut the amount of ECA and other foreign aid bills. This year, he voted for a $500 million cut in the Mutual Security Act extending military and economic aid to Europe. Commented a fellow Republican Senator: "McCarthy simply has never been in the picture. He's off on that stuff of his own."
McCarthy never answers criticisms, just savagely attacks the critic. Anyone who voices reservations about his methods is blasted as a "defender of Communists." The Senate resolution of Connecticut's William Benton asking his ejection charges McCarthy with misrepresentation, deception and outright perjury. Last week a subcommittee of Senators decided that the charges warranted a full investigation. McCarthy's response: the committee is trying to throw him out of the Senate "because of my" fight against Communism.
He regularly tries to intimidate reporters by going over their heads to their bosses. When he denounced Drew Pearson (who is not always careful in his own accusations) as a "Kremlin mouthpiece," he demanded that Pearson's radio sponsor, Adam Hat Stores, Inc., drop him immediately, and urged the public to boycott Adam hats. The company dropped Pearson as promptly as the voters of Maryland had dropped Tydings—apparently fearing that their customers would do what McCarthy suggested.
To get action that fast gives a man a sense of power. McCarthy's infatuation with his own crusade has showed signs recently of being stronger than his sense of what his audience will stand. Last summer, when he spent three hours accusing General George Marshall of conspiracy to "make common cause with Stalin," all but three Senators walked out on him.
On the Hustings. West of the Alleghenies, Joe McCarthy is still bamboozling audiences. On the speaker's platform he has a sweat-stained, shirtsleeved earnestness. He stumbles, mixes his grammar, bangs the lectern hard with his fist. He dives into a huge briefcase for "documentation." He flourishes affidavits, reads from congressional hearings, waves photostats. "Listen to this, if you will—unbelievable!", he cries.