We get a retreaded President today, a lame duck from the time the oath of office is concluded. Many look with trepidation at the coming four years. Some anticipate they will make America greater in those four years. As we write this, we have no idea what the inaugural address will be but we anticipate no eloquence, little logic, and great appeal tor true believers.
If things go off the tracks, even more than the losers in the recent elecitons, fear or hope they will, who is to blame.
Edward R. Murrow borrowed frm a famous drama to give that answer during one of his television programs 71 years ago.
We need a preface for this discussion.
Reed Harris, who died in 1982 just short of 83 years old, was a writer and publisher and once deputy director of the United States Information Agency. In 1950 he became deputy director of the International Information Administration, the agency under which the Voice of America operates.
In 1932, he wrote a book called King Football: The Vulgarization of the American College, in which he tore into the commercialism of college football. He wrote, “To put forth winning football teams, alumni, faculty and trustees will lie, cheat and steal, unofficially.”
More than 20 years later, he found himself ensnared in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s stage show in which he charged the federal government, including the IIA, was full of Communists . Harris and McCarthy tangled for three days, during which Harris charged McCarthy’s hearings actually were hurting anti-communist propaganda efforts.
When he resigned in 1954, he sent McCarthy fifteen testimonial letters documenting his loyalty. McCarthy, ignoring Harris’s support, called his departure “the best thing that has happened there in a long time. I only hope that a lot of Mr. Harris’s close friends will follow him out.”
Seventy years ago, one of my journalistic heroes also crossed swords with McCarthy, who used the new medium of television to spread his demagogic allegations that he easily made but could not prove.
Edward R. Murrow, with the courageous backing of producer Fred Friendly tackled McCarthy on his “See It Now” program on CBS. McCarthy was given time to respond, and did so with more of his accusations without proof.
Murrow’s final observation on “See It Now” resonates today because a new form of McCarthyism has been abroad in our land for several years and is going to be with us for several more, apparently.
Murrow quoted Cassius from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in placing the blame for McCarthyism on the American people as he closed his broadcast of March 9, 1954.
Senator McCarthy succeeded in proving that Reed Harris had once written a bad book, which the American people had proved twenty-two years ago by not buying it, which is what they eventually do with all bad ideas. As for Reed Harris, his resignation was accepted a month later with a letter of commendation. McCarthy claimed it as a victory.
The Reed Harris hearing demonstrates one of the Senator’s techniques. Twice he said the American Civil Liberties Union was listed as a subversive front. The Attorney General’s list does not and has never listed the ACLU as subversive, nor does the FBI or any other federal government agency. And the American Civil Liberties Union holds in its files letters of commendation from President Truman, President Eisenhower, and General MacArthur.
Now let us try to bring the McCarthy story a little more up to date. Two years ago Senator Benton of Connecticut accused McCarthy of apparent perjury, unethical practice, and perpetrating a hoax on the Senate. McCarthy sued for two million dollars. Last week he dropped the case, saying no one could be found who believed Benton’s story. Several volunteers have come forward saying they believe it in its entirety…
Earlier, the Senator asked, “Upon what meat does this, our Caesar, feed?” Had he looked three lines earlier in Shakespeare’s Caesar, he would have found this line, which is not altogether inappropriate: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
No one familiar with the history of this country can deny that congressional committees are useful. It is necessary to investigate before legislating, but the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind, as between internal and the external threats of Communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.
This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
Good night, and good luck.
There’s something else Murrow said although it was not original. It had its roots in a letter our Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, wrote in 1787:
“Under pretence of governing they have divided their nations into two classes, wolves & sheep. I do not exaggerate. This is a true picture of Europe. Cherish therefore the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you & I, & Congress, & Assemblies, judges & governors shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”
Murrow put it more directly once: “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
Whose fault is that—Shakespeare and Cassius and Murrow told us.
The solution? Jefferson had it in 1787.