Senator McCarthy
Senator McCarthy became the senator of Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. He was a dirty politician. He falsely accused people of things that would make people not vote for them. He hurt people so much that he made the candidate that ran against him, Robert La Follette, commit suicide. In 1950, he was worried that he might lose the election and met with his advisers. Edmund Walsh, a Roman Catholic priest, told him that he should try to campaign against communist subversives in the democratic party. Some people he accused as Communists were: Mary Jane Keeney, Lauchlin Currie, Virginius Coe, William Ullman, Nathan Silvermaster, Harold Glasser, Allan Rosenberg, Cedric Belfrage, David Bohm, Charlie Chaplin, Aaron Copland, Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Tsien Hsue-shen, Arthur Miller, Paul Robeson, Waldo Salt, Paul Sweezy, John Garfield, John Hubley, Edward Murrow, and many more. With the war going badly in Korea, and communism increasing in China and Eastern Europe, people were scared of internal subversion. As the chairman of the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate, he was in an ideal position to exploit the situation. The communist hunting became known as McCarthyism. McCarthyism was used against the Democrat party, and helped Dwight Eisenhower win the presidential election on 1952. McCarthy ruined many people's lives with his influence. Senator McCarthy gained all that power from accusing people of communism, one of the people's main fears at the time. With a politician that could keep communists from infiltrating the government, citizens could live more comfortable lives, rather than worry that their government was being taken over.