Who Told You That?

Edward R. Morrow, W.W. II Correspondent

Am I the only one who remembers coming home from school with some bit of information I had learned from a classmate, and when I repeated what I had been told, my parent would say, "Who told you that?!"  It was good training...especially for a future lawyer and author.  An appropriate balance of skepticism is good for all of us.

It is what our founding fathers understood when they recognized the need for a free press in order for a democracy to survive.  But let me return to my childhood memories.  Sometimes the source of my information wasn't very accurate.  Sometimes it was a bit of misinformation given intentionally to fool me.  Sometimes it was honestly given by someone mistaken.  Sometimes it came from a trust-worthy source.  I find that life is still like that.  As the old saying goes, "Consider the Source."

Nellie Bly

When I am standing in the grocery store line and I see a tabloid with a story about some movie star and his alleged romances, do I assume the headlines are true?  No!  Might they be?  Maybe.  If we know that certain tabloids exaggerate and distort the truth, why are they allowed to continue publishing lies and misrepresentations?  Because we have decided censorship is a more dangerous risk to society than the likelihood that educated, intelligent people will believe utter nonsense.  The legal remedy is for the person who is slandered to take action against the newspaper, but a more obvious remedy is the public's responsibility to stop buying tabloids that they know are publishing nonsense.  Reputable newspapers employing professional reporters and writers to bring Americans the news are facing declining subscriptions, while tabloids who titillate rather than investigate seem to be surviving.  Shouldn't we remember what our parents taught us and ask, "Who told you that?" and  "Consider the source!"

Professional news reporters work hard to check their sources, seek corroboration of multiple sources, and, as the Code of Ethics of the American Society of Newspaper Editors says:  "Thus journalism demands of its practitioners not only industry and knowledge but also the pursuit of a standard of integrity proportionate to the journalist's singular obligation.  (See prior 2 weeks' blogs below, if you missed them.)

Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.  Walter Cronkite

Detroit Free Press Front Page

Last week I mentioned that even in Isaac Werner's time, the lengths to which news gathers would go to document a story was often impressive.  Nellie Bly (1864-1922) was the pen name of an American journalist named Elizabeth Jane Cochran.  In 1887, in order to investigate reports of brutality and neglect of women confined to a Lunatic Asylum, she faked her own insanity to gain admission.  Once inside, she was given spoiled food and filthy water, was tied with rope to other patients, was exposed to frigid bathwater, rats and abusive nurses along with the other women.  She even discovered women who were locked in the asylum despite being as sane as she was.  Her report, not only published in the newspaper but later as the book Ten Days in a Mad House, exposed those abuses, and that brave investigative reporter and her newspaper brought about changes.  

Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.  Benjamin Franklin

William G. Giggart (1947-2001) was the son of an American officer stationed in Germany at the time of his birth.  He began his own career as a commercial photographer, but his interest in news led him to photojournalism in 1985, and he covered international events in such places as Israel, Northern Ireland, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall.  Therefore, it is not surprising that he was taking street-view photographs at the World Trade Center's North Tower when it collapsed.  When his remains were discovered in the debris, a bag containing his cameras and a flash card with his last photographs were beside him.  His photographs document the final moments of that event.  Pictures by Giggart and other photographers who took the images on many front pages and television broadcasts allowed all Americans to see what devastation had been done in New York City that day.

Our liberty depends on freedom of the press.  Thomas Jefferson

James Foley, Photo: Nicole Tung

James Foley (1973-2014) was the oldest of five children, born in New Hampshire.  He graduated from Marquette University, from the MFA Program for Poets & Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.  He began his career as a teacher but changed to pursue journalism, and that decision took him to Afghanistan and Libya, where he witnessed the killing of fellow photojournalist Anton Hammerl.  He was himself held prisoner with three others for 44 days.  Although he returned home, his belief that "front line journalism is important [without which] we can't tell the world how bad it might be," led him to return to cover the Syrian Civil War.  He was captured and beheaded by ISIL.  His mother posted the following:  "We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people."

Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control.  Where ever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press.  Calvin Coolidge

Watching news reporters jostle and shout questions at politicians and others often seems like an undignified and offensive exercise of freedom, but as Justice Hugo Black said, "The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.  The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.  Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government."

Civilian Casualties from W.W. I

The Statistics Portal represents itself as assembling statistics and studies from more than 22,500 sources, and their site includes a chart showing the number of journalists killed worldwide from 1995-2017.  It should be understood that the chart does not indicate the cause of death, and many journalists are serving in very dangerous parts of the world.  However, it is worth recognizing that however they died, they were there doing the job of collecting news.  A sampling at five year intervals shows 64 deaths in 1995, 32 in 2000, 64 in 2005, 58 in 2010, 81 in 2015, and 50 in the final year of the chart.  The lowest figure was 23 in 1998, and the highest figures were 85 in 2006, 88 in 2007, and 87 in 2012.  Like James Foley, these news gathers put their lives in harms way so that we could know what was going on in the world.  These statistics do not tell us their names, their ages, nor their gender, and even if we cannot know why they chose to do what they did, we can respect them for being our eyes to world events.  

Freedom of conscience, of education, of speech, of assembly are among the very fundamentals of democracy and all of them would be nullified should freedom of the press ever be successfully challenged.  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Remember, you can enlarge the images by clicking on them.

Reading the News

In writing my manuscript about Isaac Werner and his community, I spent many hours at the Stafford County History Museum turning the fragile, yellowed pages of newspapers.  However, this week I am sharing newspaper stories from late 1953 or early 1954 discovered not in a library nor in a museum.  Instead the Pratt Tribunes were found in the wall of the kitchen during our recent remodel.

My suggestion about keeping your eyes open for history certainly applies to the discovery of these old newspapers, beginning with my enjoyment of the Dagwood and Blondie  cartoon strip pictured above.  Part of the strip is missing, but enough is there to get the punch line.

However, this blog is not about old comic strips.  In the same newspaper, in the middle of the page, just to the right of the Produce Markets and Livestock Markets, is an article about Senator Joseph McCarthy.

I thought that was quite a significant headline, but how many of my blog readers would recognize the name Joseph McCarthy, the U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 1947 to 1957.  I did some brief research and found that about a quarter of the American population is under the age of 20.  That group might have heard of McCarthy in school, but I doubted whether his was a name they would remember.  About 13% is over the age of 65, so that group would include those born in 1957 or earlier.  According to the site I consulted, the median age of Americans is about 37.  I began to wonder whether very many Americans living today have much awareness of Sen. McCarthy. In fact, I realized I knew of him in general terms but lacked specifics. I decided readers of my blog might be interested in what I found about this man.

McCarthy served in the Marines, but his debunked claims of heroism--falsified or exaggerated--tarnished his military record.  His initial years in the Senate were not particularly remarkable, although he was recognized as a gifted speaker.  That talent found a use in 1950 when he gained attention claiming there were communists in government offices.  Those years following W.W. II were frightening to  Americans, and McCarthy used that fear effectively.  He disposed of critics and political opponents by accusing them of being communists or communist sympathizers.  He became more powerful when candidates he supported won and those he opposed lost.

Concern for men they knew, draftees and volunteers, fueled worry

Some were courageous enough to speak out against him.  President Truman called him "the best asset the Kremlin has."  McCarthy's response:  "The S..O..B.. should be impeached."  (McCarthy did not use abbreviations.)  Later, President Eisenhower chose to work behind the scenes to reduce McCarthy's influence, but because of the Senator's popularity with voters, he never confronted McCarthy directly nor criticized him by name in a speech.  McCarthy's supporters were not limited to Republicans.  He became a close friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., who not only provided financial assistance but also used his influence to build support for McCarthy among Catholics.

Newspaper reports frightened readers, which built McCarthy's popularity

Because of his popularity and the wide spread fear of communists among Americans, Republican leaders were wary of opposing him, and Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft came up with the idea of assigning McCarthy a Senate office "where he can't do any harm." Instead, the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Government Operations gave McCarthy the platform from which to launch his investigations of communists in the government.  McCarthy appointed J.B. Matthews as staff director of the Subcommittee on Investigations, which brought attention to an article written by Matthews in which he claimed "The largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States is composed of Protestant Clergymen."  McCarthy's initial refusal to dismiss Matthews, followed later by accepting Matthews' resignation, was perhaps the first crack in McCarthy's armor,  which until then had seemed impenetrable.

Contradictory news reports about curbing McCarthy

It was in 1954 when McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, began an investigation of the Army that McCarthy's tumble began.  Hearings lasted 36 days and were broadcast on live television.  His poll numbers dropped.  Congressman George H. Bender said, "McCarthyism has become a synonym for witch-hunting."  The New York World-Telegram accused him of "wild twisting of facts and near facts."  The words of Joseph Nye Welch, the Army's chief legal representative, are the ones people most familiar with McCarthy remember, however.  Welch asked, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last:  Have you left no sense of decency?"

Edward R. Murrow

Even before those hearings began, Edward R. Murrow broadcast a show titled "A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy."  The script from that show vibrates with the once familiar voice of Murrow:  "We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.  We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.  We will not walk in fear, one of another.  We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason.  ...  There is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve.  We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result.  There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. ...We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.    ...   The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies.  And whose fault is that?  Not really his.  He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it--and rather successfully.  Cassius was right:  'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'"

Joseph McCarthy

At last his fellow Senators could ignore McCarthy's actions no longer. Senator Ralph Flanders introduced a resolution calling for McCarthy to be censured.  On December 2, 1954, by a vote of 67 to 22, the Senate voted to "condemn" McCarthy, a vote generally agreed as being a censure of one of their own.  He remained in the Senate, but his power was gone.  The press ignored him and speaking engagements disappeared.   He died on May 2, 1957, and in the memoirs of Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, he revealed that his department had become aware of McCarthy's addiction to heroin in the 1950s, and when McCarthy had refused to stop using, threatening Anslinger and claiming "...if it winds up in a public scandal and that should hurt this country, I wouldn't care...the choice is yours," Anslinger allowed McCarthy to continue using and even stopped a journalist from publishing McCarthy's herion use.  While he was known to be a heavy drinker, his drug abuse had been kept a secret.

William Bennett, Reagan's Secretary of Education, summed up McCarthy's behavior well.  "...his approach to the real problem was to cause untold grief to the country he claimed to love...Worst of all, McCarthy besmirched the honorable cause of anti-communism.  He discredited legitimate efforts to counter Soviet subversion of American institutions."

The condition of the newspapers found in the farmhouse walls

I have no idea who put the newspapers inside the walls nor why that person put them there.  I only know that the men working on  our remodel over six decades later found them and asked if I wanted them.  They already knew that I tended to be interested in any unexpected discoveries, like the old kitchen wallpaper I blogged about on "Antique Wallpaper," 11-27-2014, or the stone foundation we unearthed, "A Solid Foundation," 10-23-2014.  They weren't surprised when I gathered up what they had found, even the smallest pieces, thinking I might discover something of interest. You never know what may be found in the walls of old houses nor all of the things you can learn from taking the time to carefully remove what you have found to discover the forgotten secrets and the history that may be uncovered.

Remember, you can enlarge images by clicking on them.

"Have You No Sense of Decency, Sir?"  YouTube 1-6-2017 to watch part of the Army Hearings.

"Murrow on McCarthy, no fear, 1954" YouTube 11-13-2011 and "Edward R. Murrow-See It Now (March 9, 1954)"  YouTube 8-22-2009 to watch broadcast of program mentioned in blog