While the hour of Sarah Palin's resignation from office is upon us, it's worthwhile to consider the thoughts and words of another prominent Republican regarding the travails of public service, the importance of thinking before speaking, and the destructive role that character defamation plays in our national discourse.
It is also perhaps well to acknowledge that we, as a nation, have periodically been fortunate witness to an all-too-small number of heroic figures who have at various times staked their reputations and legacies upon their principles, often in the face of organized demagoguery and popular hysteria.
Margaret Chase Smith was a Republican senator from Maine, she served in the senate from 1948-1972 after succeeding her late husband in the House of Representatives. Smith was a moderate fiscal conservative with a keen interest in national defense policy. She was also a stalwart Yankee politician with a strong independent streak who helped to stand down ominous threats to free speech and dissension in her day, who was considered for the national ticket of her party in 1952, bucked party establishment in 1964 by challenging the standard-bearer of the nascent conservative movement for her party's presidential nomination, and asserted her independence to the end of her senate career.
“One of the basic causes for all the trouble in the world today is that people talk too much and think too little. They act impulsively without thinking. I always try to think before I talk.”
-- Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine)(December 14, 1897–May 29, 1995)
For Margaret Chase Smith, public office was not a means to an end, but an end itself. The oath of office was a sacred compact between the electors and the elected; to be granted the power of elected office by one's fellow citizens was a unique and distinct privilege that carried with it an obligation to serve the public fully, in spite of the slings and arrows from the public and the press that one inevitably suffered.
She viewed it as a primary responsiblity of office that elected officials would be the target of fair and unfair criticism but that it was the duty of those same elected officials to set the factual record straight. The senator was not one to shrink away from the challenge of earning the hard-fought respect and admiration of her supporters, her detractors, and the vindication of history itself.
“My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned, not bought.”
-- Margaret Chase Smith
She served her first term in the senate at the height of the cold war frenzy in Washington. Only two years into her first term, she delivered the speech that she is perhaps best-remembered for - her "Declaration of Conscience".
The speech is a remarkable act of courage and it was made at a time when much of the senate was paralyzed with the fear that resulted from the anti-communist crusade championed by the junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy. That McCarthy had declared the Cold War conflict as “a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity," made it difficult for Smith to find broad support for her speech in her own party. She was only able to persuade six other Republican Senators to join her in the declaration.
Senator Smith bravely took to the floor of the senate on June 1, 1950 to denounce Senator Joseph McCarthy (not by name) and his tactics. She read into the record a statement that she had authored. Smith recognized early on that Senator McCarthy's highly-publicized investigations into un-American activities were at first successful in stirring public fear and support for McCarthy's activities, but represented no more than a "fleeting victory" for the party and would ultimately be remembered as a defeat for the American people.
"I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.
I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American.
The United States Senate has long enjoyed worldwide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity.
...
Whether it be a criminal prosecution in court or a character prosecution in the Senate, there is little practical distinction when the life of a person has been ruined.
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism—
The right to criticize;
The right to hold unpopular beliefs;
The right to protest;
The right of independent thought.
The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us doesn’t? Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.
-- Margaret Chase Smith, "A Declaration of Conscience"
She was outspoken as to her disappointment with Democratic leadership on this and social and fiscal issues, but also deeply concerned regarding her own party's complicity in contributing to the national atmosphere of fear and distrust...
"Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of “know nothing, suspect everything” attitudes.
...
Yet to displace [the Democratic Executive branch] with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this Nation. The Nation sorely needs a Republican victory. I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny - Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear”
- Margaret Chase Smith, "A Declaration of Conscience"
If the Republican Party was ever going to regain a position of honor in the eyes of the American public who would come to reject the character assassinations and fearmongering endemic to the purge being led by McCarthy; it would have to win it based on the merits of its ideas...
"Certain elements of the Republican Party have materially added to this confusion in the hopes of riding the Republican party to victory through the selfish political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance, and intolerance. There are enough mistakes of the Democrats for Republicans to criticize constructively without resorting to political smears.
...
I don’t believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans aren’t that desperate for victory."
- Margaret Chase Smith, "A Declaration of Conscience"
The speech did not pass without notice. She immediately gained national attention and was mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate on the 1952 Republican ticket.
Smith, however, would soon experience the full measure of McCarthy's vindictiveness. McCarthy and his staff regularly referred to Ms. Smith as "Moscow Maggie". He had her dropped from a key committee assignment and worked unsuccessfully to defeat her during her 1954 re-election campaign. The voters of Maine asserted their Yankee independence as well.
Smith did have the final word as she voted for the censure of Senator McCarthy that same year.
Smith was not afraid to vote with the Democrats when her conscience so dictated. She joined with one other Republican senator to oppose Eisenhower nominee Admiral Lewis Strauss for Secretary of Commerce in 1958. The Democrats in the Senate held the opinion that Strauss had unfairly treated scientist Robert J. Oppenheimer as a security risk. An eyewitness still remembers the shocked but audible "God damn!" from Senator Barry Goldwater when Smith cast her vote against.
Margaret Chase Smith was also the first woman of either party to run for the presidential nomination. On January 27, 1964, she announced that she would oppose Barry Goldwater that year despite rather substantial odds against her, namely, the lack of a national organization or the financial resources to compete on anything resembling a level playing field. She did manage to deny Goldwater a unanimous nomination by 27 votes.
She asserted her independence right to the end of her senate career. Notably, in 1970, she voted against one of President Nixon's nominees to the Supreme Court, Harold Carswell*.
*Carswell, you'll recall, was famously defended by Senator Roman Hruska (R-Nebraska) over criticisms that he was mediocre - "Even if he is mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?" Hruska's comment was thought to have helped turn the tide against Carswell.
After the Goldwater nomination, the tide in the Republican party was turning increasingly against moderates from the Northeast. Smith finally lost her seat in 1972. She went back to Maine to teach college and she remained a respected figure in some quarters of the Republican party until her death.
But we remember her here today primarily because it seems that thoughtful and eloquent politicians are in increasingly short supply, as are those with sufficient strength of character to assert their independence when it really matters - and we (Republicans and Democrats) are worse off for it.