Despite all the accumulating evidence of the element of cold
calculation in the character, aims and methods of Senator Joseph McCarthy there still seems to be a widespread belief that public indignation about his activities will somehow of itself reduce him to silence and impotence. Has it not been sufficiently demonstrated that Senator McCarthy seeks, fosters and thrives on public indignation Has he not shown this week that, in the very teeth of an outcry against his bullying of one distinguished and popular General he can force the administration to make available any other Army officers he may wish to put to\ the question ? How long must this go on before it is realised that indignation is not enough—that what is now needed is a deliberate plan to end his public life ? There will always be reasons and excuses for outcry. This week's examples are his brutal browbeating of Brigadier General Zwicker at a session of the Senate Permanent Investigations Committee, and the complaint of the UK Chamber of Shipping about the shadowing of British ships in the Far East, for which imposition McCarthy is held mainly responsible. Next week there will be further such performances, always provided that the McCarthy publicity organisation continues to function smoothly. It should surely be clear by now that the Senator's reputation for witch-hunting, hysteria and brutality is part of his stock-in-trade, deliberately built up by him as a means to further political power. If he is to be stopped it will only be by people as clever and cold- blooded as himself, but with order and decency as their aim, instead of mere power based on chaos and fear. Aimless attacks by non-Americans are worse than useless. They only serve to make him more popular with isolationists and with those socially resentful, imperfectly assimilated Americans who provide his main support. We in this country, unlike the true democrats among his own countrymen, have no chance to turn indignation into effective action. McCarthy will only be stopped by men who are more powerful, more clever and more grimly purposeful than he is himself. And those men must be, Americans.
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