Margaret Chase Smith's Declaration of Conscience

Margaret Chase Smith's Declaration of Conscience challenged the use of fear and political smears at a moment when Joseph McCarthy's accusations had unsettled the Senate and the country. Smith, a Republican and the Senate's only woman, warned against her party gaining victory through calumny; Harry S. Truman called her intervention a fine thing, though he thought it should have been tougher and more specific.

Political setting

McCarthy's campaign of accusation had left officials and senators under pressure. Truman had initially refused to turn over security files to the Tydings Committee as a matter of principle, then allowed the committee to examine files concerning the eighty-one people McCarthy had accused. The concession did not quiet the controversy: it instead made the President appear to some to be yielding to McCarthy.

As the committee's chairman, Tydings repeatedly called the White House, sometimes three or four times a day, and Truman's staff grew anxious. Truman urged them to remain calm, predicting that McCarthy would discredit himself and wondering whether any senator had the backbone to confront him. Smith's statement answered that question in the first week of June.

The declaration

Smith spoke as a Republican and as the Senate's only woman, a position that made her challenge especially notable within her own party. She said she did not want the Republican Party to “ride to victory on the four horsemen of calumny—fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.” The declaration named the tactics she opposed and warned against treating them as an acceptable route to political success.

Truman's response and significance

Truman told his staff that Smith had done “a fine thing.” His approval was qualified: he believed she should have been tougher still and more specific. The contrast captures both his recognition of the importance of a senator speaking out and his judgment that the rebuke did not go far enough.

The declaration placed opposition to McCarthy's methods inside the Republican Party rather than leaving the challenge solely to the President and his Democratic allies. In the account of the episode, its immediate significance is clear in Truman's earlier question about whether anyone in the Senate had the courage to act—and in his praise when Smith did.