National Affairs: Words from a Quiet Man

In the U.S. Senate, Vermont's soundly liberal Ralph Flanders, 73, is known as a quiet man. He makes few speeches, seldom reaches for a headline. But last week Republican Flanders, in his quiet way, applied the lash to Joe McCarthy.

No one knew what was coming when the Vermont Senator rose on the Senate floor early in the week and asked for recognition. "Mr. President," said Flanders, "the junior Senator from Wisconsin interests us all—there can be no doubt about that—but also he puzzles some of us. To what party does he belong? Is he a hidden satellite of the Democratic Party, to which he is furnishing so much material for quiet mirth? It does not seem that his Republican label can be stuck on very tightly when, by intention or through ignorance, he is doing his best to shatter the party whose label he wears. He no longer claims or wants any support from the Communist fringe. What is his party affiliation? One must conclude that his is a one-man party and that its name is McCarthyism, a title which he has proudly accepted."

As a result of McCarthy's headline-grabbing extremes, said Flanders, the U.S. is being diverted from far more serious, more dangerous problems. One by one, Flanders twanged off the names of world trouble spots: Korea, Indo-China, sick France and dissension-torn Italy, Asia, Africa and Latin America, with its spreading infection of Communism. "In very truth," said Flanders, "the world seems to be mobilizing for the great battle of Armageddon. Now is a crisis in the agelong warfare between God and the Devil for the souls of men. In this battle of the agelong war, what is the part played by the junior Senator from Wisconsin? He dons his war paint. He goes into his war dance. He emits his war whoops. He goes forth to battle and proudly returns with the scalp of a pink Army dentist."

Ralph Flanders found "much to praise and much to deplore" in McCarthyism. When McCarthy does an effective job of cleaning out the "cobwebs and spiders" left in the cellarway by the previous Administration, Flanders said, that is praiseworthy. "But let him not so work as to conceal mortal danger in which our country finds itself from the external enemies of mankind."