Mccarthyism

Vivian Gonzalez Mr. Martinez-Ramos A.P. United States History May 3, 2000 McCarthyism was one of the saddest events of American history. It destroyed people’s lives and shattered many families. It threw innocent people into a whirlwind of mass confusion and fictional portrayals of their lives. McCarthyism spawned for the country’s new found terror of Communism known as the red scare. McCarthyism was an extreme version of the red scare, a scare whose ends did not justify the means. The Red Scare happened twice in the history of this great country. When the communist took over Russia in 1919, the American people were unnerved. They were afraid of a communist take over in the states. When the First World War ended in 1918, there was still an ideological war going on in a very divided United States. "The red scare was another sort of war—one against dissent and nonconformity. It changed the psyche and face of the United States as surely as did World War Two (Fariello, 24). This was a time in American History where panic and terror controlled the lives and the laws of this country (Fariello, 28). When in 1919 the newly appointed Attorney General, A. Mitchel Palmer, was abruptly awoken from his house by a bomb, everyone was seeing red, so to speak. Instantaneously fingers were being pointed in the immediate direction of the Communist Party. The Communist Party had reason, good reason to go after Palmer. He had used legislation passed in 1917 to deport many "communist" that were a threat to the American way of life. As was clearly seen in the Legislation passed in 1952. The Immigration and Nationality Act tightened previous restriction on aliens and heavily reduced immigration from nonwhites countries. It allowed for the denaturalization and deportation of citizens deemed "subversive," as well as the deportation of residents aliens for political activity. Removed deportation case from the courts by setting up own board unhampered by due process(Fariello, 18). American politicians were under the distorted impression that everyone that was not Anglo-American or came from Western Europe was a threat to national security. In response to this they passed a series of laws declining the immigration of people from Eastern and Southern Europe. They also passed laws deporting many of our own residents because of fear. "In t...

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...ut it really doesn’t matter whom you put on the list, For none of them be missed— They’d none of ‘em be missed!" This was a burden for some of the people carrying out the missions of the committee, but to the high-ranking politicians, the fear and injustice was a victory. To them anything to stop the spread of Communism, for whatever reason or agenda they had, was good. The end of Communism was a wonderful way to gain both business and votes. It was not just the high-ranking politicians that praised the committee’s actions; "friendly" movie stars were tripping over one another to commend the committee. Among these actors were Ronald Regan, George Murphy, Robert Montgomery, and Adolph Menjou. They "donned the mantle of the anti Communist warriors". Some people went to great lengths to make the committee happy. There wasn’t much that the "friendly" actors would not do, not to get "blacklisted". Roy Brewer spoke for three hours about the "reds". Walt Disney revealed a "ploy by the left-wing Screen Cartoonists Guild to subvert Mickey mouse into a Marxist rat". The movie