The Accuser

Byron Mason II

9/25/13

Rehak, 6^th

The Accuser

     Joseph McCarthy was born on November 14^th, 1908 in Appleton, Wisconsin. McCarthy was born into a Roman Catholic family and the 5^th child out of nine other children. At the age of fourteen, McCarthy dropped out of school and began to work as a chicken farmer. He later became the manager of a grocery store not far from his home. 

     It wasn't until 1928 before McCarthy returned to school. Eventually, McCarthy achieved qualifications good enough to get into Marquette University. The result of McCarthy attending Marquette led him to graduate with his law diploma. He began to practice law, but was not very successful so he had to rely on playing poker just to keep his finances somewhat stable.

     After failing in law, McCarthy dived into politics, supporting Franklin D. Roosevelt. Despite his efforts, McCarthy failed to become the Democratic candidate for district attorney. This led him to switch to the Republican Party, where he became a circuit court judge.

     When World War II started, McCarthy resigned as a judge and joined the marines. After the war, McCarthy ran to become a candidate for the Republican senate. He ran a very dirty campaign against his opponent, Robert La Follete.  Not only did McCarthy exaggerate his service in the war for leverage for his election, he made very inappropriate and inaccurate accusations about La Follete. McCarthy won the campaign, but La Follete eventually committed suicide due to the overwhelming accusations.

     McCarthy’s first few years of being in the Senate were very unimpressive. On top of that, people were beginning to discover how he lied about his war records. McCarthy was also being investigated for tax offences and for receiving bribes from the Pepsi-Cola Company. Due to all of the bad publicity, McCarthy began to fear that he would lose his position in the Senate. This made McCarthy go and seek help from his closest advisers  who suggested that McCarthy begin a campaign accusing the Democratic Party of containing communists. McCarthy took this advice and later made a statement claiming that he had a list of two hundred five people in the State Department that were communists. McCarthy had created more issues for the United States with his accusation that any other individual in modern times.

     It wasn't long until McCarthy lost his position of power in the Senate. People began to lose interest in his communist theories. On top of all the corruption, McCarthy was also a huge alcoholic. It was soon discovered that he had serious cirrhosis on his liver. Unable to drop his drinking habits, McCarthy died on May 2^nd, 1957. When his death was mentioned in the newspaper, it was written that he had drunk himself to death.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthy.htm

http://www.coldwar.org/articles/50s/senatorjosephmccarthy.asp