Last week's New York Times op-ed piece by UW-Madison professor William Cronon was one of several recent articles framing current politics against the McCarthy era. One thing the two periods have in common is that 60 years ago our most famous senator inspired a recall drive like the ones underway now.
The recall campaign against Sen. Joseph McCarthy in 1954, however, was not launched by demonstrations in the streets, big labor unions, the Democratic Party, or university students. Instead, a small-town newspaper editor named Leroy Gore got the ball rolling.
Gore was a staunch Republican who had supported McCarthy in 1952. But by 1954 he had decided the senator had gone too far. Gore followed his conscience and published an editorial in his Sauk-Prairie Star recommending recall. His piece included a sample petition and instructions on how to fill it out. Under Wisconsin law, he had 60 days to collect 404,000 signatures.
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Gore's editorial drew nationwide attention, and response to it followed an interesting pattern. Out-of-state readers backed McCarthy 2-to-1, while those inside Wisconsin supported recall 75-to-1.
The next few weeks saw an outpouring of energy for Gore's "Joe Must Go" campaign and nearly 400,000 signatures were collected. But recall advocates couldn't gather them within the 60-day window and the campaign failed.
By then, however, McCarthy had been exposed on national television and his reputation was rapidly collapsing. Gore and his allies briefly considered a second recall attempt but decided it was unnecessary when the senator's base of support evaporated.
- Wisconsin Historical Society, www.wisconsinhistory.org
