This report is from the Senate select committee charged with reviewing the resolution to censure Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. James Madison stated that “The use of the Senate is to consist in its proceeding with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom than the popular branch.” When the nation saw the telecast of the Senate Army-McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954, wisdom, system and coolness seemed to have vanished, but by July, they once again returned when Vermont Senator Ralph Flanders introduced a resolution calling for the censure of Senator McCarthy. Flanders declared that McCarthy’s conduct as chairman of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was “contrary to senatorial traditions.” Senators added 46 specific charges of misconduct to the original censure resolution and on August 2, the Senate referred the matter to a bi-partisan select committee composed of three Democrats and three Republicans. This committee reviewed the 46 counts of misconduct, and reduced the charges to: “contempt of the Senate or a senatorial committee”, encouraging federal government employees to violate the law by providing him with classified materials, “receipt or use of confidential or classified document”, abuse of Senate colleagues, and abuse of Brigadier General Ralph W. Zwicker during the army hearings. The Senate convened in a post-election session on November 8 to deal with the McCarthy case. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted by a two-thirds majority to censure him.
Greenfield Recorder-Gazette. “Committee Recommends Senate Censure McCarthy, Charges He Treated Group Contemptuously.” , September 27, 1954. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l06-069/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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