Classes in the law school met from eight A.M. until noon. After lunch, the students were expected to study in the library or observe proceedings at the federal courthouse downtown. Instead, Joe headed for one of the two gas stations, where he worked most nights until eleven P.M. Afterward, he often met friends at a saloon that offered a free lunch to customers all day long.
Amazingly, Joe's life at Marquette was by no means all work and no play. He went out for the boxing squad at the university. Training started in the fall and climaxed with two boxing shows in the spring. The activity counted for the gym credits Joe needed. One of his sparring partners, Charles Hanratty, recalled later that Joe was strong and fearless, more of a slugger than a boxer. He would charge his opponent with blow after blow, ignoring the need to defend himself. He won praise from a sports reporter for the Marquette Tribune, who wrote: "McCarthy is a husky, hard-hitting middleweight who promises an evening's work for any foe."
Soon after switching to the law school, Joe joined a law students' fraternity and moved into an old house that he and the thirty or so other members pooled funds to rent. Most of the fun at the house started around midnight. Although Prohibition was in effect, the members somehow managed to obtain beer. They cracked open bottles and rounded up players for card games.
At one of the tables, Joe learned to play poker. He wasn't a particularly good player; however, he was a daring one. He lost frequently, but when a risky move paid off, he won big. And he was generous with his winnings, often using them to buy beers for everyone in the room. These fraternity house games introduced Joe to gambling, which would become a major preoccupation in his later life—at the table, at the racetrack, and in the stock market.
When he had a winning streak at poker, Joe splurged. He became the first member of the fraternity to own a car—a convertible roadster that he got at a good price. Because of the car, Joe's friends lined up to go on double dates with him. He went out with some of the most attractive young women on campus but never seemed to become emotionally involved with any of them. Once, when he and his fraternity brothers were discussing marriage, Joe remarked that he didn't intend to get married until late in life. Marriage, he said, would bring responsibilities that could interfere with building a career.
To perfect his speaking skills, Joe joined the law school's Debating Society. Members met weekly to debate one another, and they had to be ready to argue both sides of the given topic. Joe proved to be an effective debater, but he would have been even better, the debating coach said, if he'd taken more time to prepare his arguments. Instead, he talked off the top of his head and bluffed his way through. He got away with it because of his quick-witted skill on the platform.
Joe was usually good-natured, but sometimes his mood would change abruptly. If he got into an argument over something that concerned him deeply, he could become extremely angry and lash out at his opponent with harsh and abusive language. Then, just as abruptly, he would usually drop the argument, slap his opponent on the back in a friendly fashion, and exchange a joke with him. Years later, erratic behavior like this would become a common occurrence in McCarthy's political life.
The United States was a country in turmoil during Joe's college years, the early 1930s. The worldwide economic slump known as the Great Depression was raging everywhere. Unemployment rose to more than 20 percent in the United States, and there was no unemployment insurance to help jobless workers get through the hard times. Unable to make their mortgage payments, many families lost their homes, and hungry people lined up to get free food from soup kitchens that charities had set up throughout the country.
Hundreds of unemployed men and women wait in line on a Times Square traffic island in New York City for a free sandwich and cup of coffee. Photo taken on February 13, 1932, during the Great Depression. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
Faced with the harsh realities of the Depression, many college students questioned whether free-market capitalism, as practiced in the United States, was the most desirable economic philosophy. As an alternative, some looked to Russia, which had formed a Communist government following the 1917 revolution and was now the core of a group of affiliated nations known as the Soviet Union. In the 1930s, the people of the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, were "building socialism." All across the land, factories were under construction and individual farms were being combined into giant collectives, all for the good of the people, the Communists said.
Much later, observant reporters found out that slave labor built many of the factories, and large numbers of peasants resisted the collectivization of their farms. But at the time, the Soviet media presented a glowing picture of what was going on, and many foreign visitors, impressed by what their guides had shown them, wrote enthusiastic accounts of Soviet accomplishments.
On college campuses, including Marquette, many idealistic students responded to such reports by joining organizations that supported the Soviet Union, including the American Communist Party (officially, the Communist Party U.S.A.). Joe McCarthy, who wasn't particularly idealistic, did not. Like most of the Catholic Irish Americans in Wisconsin, he supported the Democratic Party and had voted for Franklin D. Roosevelt for president in 1932. At Marquette, he was too busy working and studying and partying to pay much attention to politics.
Joe graduated from law school on schedule in the spring of 1935, despite all the time he'd spent on extracurricular activities. His friends helped him prepare for the final exams by coaching him on likely questions, and his almost photographic memory for facts and figures ultimately saw him through. Joe's grades were good enough to win him his law degree, and with it membership in the Wisconsin Bar Association.
He and his friend Charles Hanratty had planned to drive together to the state capital, Madison, to be sworn in as attorneys. Joe showed up in a brand-new Ford with six new suits draped over the back seat. After he and Hanratty had finished their business in Madison, Joe suggested they drive to Waupaca, a small town near Manawa. Joe said he had heard there was need for another lawyer in Waupaca. After they got there, Joe stopped by an office building on the town's main street, and Hanratty gasped when Joe pointed to the lettering on a second-story window: JOSEPH MCCARTHY, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
Joe explained that he had made a bet with a fellow student that he would open a law office within six hours of being sworn in. To make sure he won the bet, Joe had borrowed enough money—he wouldn't say from whom—not only to rent an office in Waupaca, but also to buy the new Ford and the six new suits so that he'd look like a successful attorney before he'd even started.
3. Joe's First Campaign
JOE RENTED A ROOM in the house of a Waupaca dentist, bought a set of law books, and acquired scarred wooden office furniture from a secondhand shop. There wasn't enough left of the money he'd borrowed to buy anything better.
He soon discovered that, contrary to what he'd heard, Waupaca, a town of just 3,000, already had five lawyers. Competition for cases was fierce, especially in the ongoing Depression. People put off getting divorces and filing lawsuits because they didn't have the money to pay for them. Joe kept his office open late to attract business, and he joined the Lions Club and other civic organizations to make himself better known.
He often played poker, taking the game seriously and frequently winning pots of twenty dollars or more—a sizable amount at the time. His biggest wins usually came from daring bluffs.
When Joe was playing poker, he concentrated entirely on the game. One evening, a young woman drove all the way from Milwaukee to keep a date with him, but Joe got so involved in a poker game at a bar that he ignored her. Fed up with his behavior, the young woman finally left and drove back to Milwaukee, while Joe played on until four A.M. A colleague of McCarthy's told an interviewer later that he didn't think Joe was very interested in women except as attractive accessories, like his suits and his car.
Joe's poker winnings helped to pay his living expenses. Even so, when he added up his total income after nine
months of practicing law in Waupaca, it came to only $771.81. That wasn't much, even by Depression standards. Consequently, he was more than open to an offer he received early in 1936 from Michael G. Eberlein, a lawyer practicing in the larger town of Shawano, forty-five miles from Waupaca.
Eberlein specialized in accident and insurance cases, which could be extremely lucrative. He maintained a large office and employed several young lawyers to assist him with the workload. One of the lawyers on his staff had left recently, and Eberlein was looking for a replacement. He had observed Joe in action at the local courthouse and was impressed by his confident, aggressive style. At their meeting, Eberlein was blunt: "Why don't you close up this dump of yours and come to work for me?" He clinched the deal when he said Joe's starting salary would be $200.00 a month.
The notion that he'd have a steady income for a change appealed to Joe. He accepted Eberlein's offer without hesitation, and a few weeks later—in mid-February 1936—he was on the road to Shawano. He rented a room in a boarding house and set out for Eberlein's office at the intersection of Main and Division streets.
The older lawyer introduced Joe to his secretary, May Voy. Joe shook her hand firmly and said: "You watch. In a few years, I'll be at the top of the heap here in Shawano."
Eberlein wasn't bothered by Joe's brashness—he could be pretty brash himself. He said: "Mrs. Voy's been here quite a few years, Joe, and I'll wager for the first six months she'll be able to teach you some law."
Joe didn't bring in much business at first, but he quickly became known around town. Most people liked his cheerful, outgoing manner. He'd enter a store or tavern and greet perfect strangers with handshakes, compliments, and funny stories. Others were put off by his tactics. When he played cards, he often cheated and then would laugh uproariously if he was caught. He didn't cheat for the money, he'd say; he just wanted to see how much he could get away with. Not all his fellow card players believed him.
There were few Democrats in Shawano, but Joe joined the local Young Democratic Club and before long was elected president of all the Democratic clubs in a ten-county area. He liked this first taste of the political life and decided to run for district attorney in the upcoming primary election.
At age twenty-seven, and with few qualifications for the job beyond his law degree, his confidence, and his ambition, Joe was definitely the long shot in the race. The frontrunner was the man who currently held the job, Louis Cattau. Cattau was the candidate of the popular Progressive Party, which wielded considerable power in Wisconsin in the 1930s. Next in line came the Republican candidate, Ed Aschenbrenner, who could count on the fact that there were more registered Republicans in the district than there were Democrats.
Even though he faced no Democratic challengers in the primary, Joe campaigned vigorously. He plastered his car with "Elect Joe McCarthy" signs. He greeted potential voters on the streets of Shawano and the other towns in the district with handshakes and hugs. And he addressed several Democratic rallies, employing the public speaking techniques he'd learned at Marquette.
Despite Joe's efforts, the primary election results came in as expected. Louis Cattau received the most votes, 3,014, and Ed Aschenbrenner was second with 692. Joe placed last with 577 votes. Even so, he didn't resign himself to defeat in the general election. Instead, he plunged into campaigning more aggressively than before, making speech after speech, including fourteen in a single two-day period. In his speeches, Joe belittled the Republican Party and its 1936 presidential candidate, Alf Landon, and heaped praise on President Roosevelt, who was running for a second term.
Joe also tried another, more damaging tactic. He published a pamphlet accusing District Attorney Cattau of violating a local law by continuing to practice law while at the same time serving as district attorney. This, Joe claimed, was a clear conflict of interest. Although Cattau actually spent little time on his private practice, and made almost no money from it, the charge was accurate. Cattau responded angrily to the pamphlet via a full-page newspaper ad. In it, he called Joe an "unscrupulous" politician and claimed he had "grossly misstated" the facts.
Joe's pamphlet didn't influence the outcome of the general election in a significant way. He lost again when the ballots were counted: Cattau came in first with 6,175 votes. But Joe did advance to second place with 3,422 votes, while the Republican candidate, Aschenbrenner, dropped back to last with 2,842. Joe credited his improved showing to the pamphlet, which people were still talking about after the election was over. This experience taught him an important lesson about campaigning: Voters are much more likely to remember an accusation of wrongdoing than a subsequent denial by the accused.
In 1937, Mike Eberlein made Joe a partner in the law firm. Now the sign on the office window read EBERLEIN & MCCARTHY, ATTORNEYS AT LAW. Joe beamed when he looked up at the sign, even though the promotion did not come with a raise. He was still making the same $200 a month.
At this time, the effects of the Depression in the United States were easing somewhat. President Roosevelt had been reelected by a landslide, and the mood of the country was a little more optimistic. In Europe and Asia, however, major wars were being fought. Right-wing forces in Spain, under the leadership of General Francisco Franco, had revolted against the elected republican government in 1936 and were now besieging the capital, Madrid. Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, and Fascist Italy, under Benito Mussolini, supported Franco and had sent soldiers, tanks, and planes to reinforce his rebel army. The Soviet Union backed the republican side and had dispatched soldiers and equipment to aid the republican troops.
Student volunteers from New York University serve on the front line with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War. AP/WIDE WORLD PHOTOS
England and France tried to remain neutral in the conflict, but left-wing volunteers from those countries rallied to the republican cause and traveled to Spain to join in the fight. So did volunteer groups from the United States, most of them grouping into a unit known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Many of the American volunteers were idealistic young people. Some of them were among those who had earlier joined protest groups to demand that the government take stronger measures to alleviate the Great Depression in the United States.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, in China, another bloody struggle was in progress. Japan had seized China's northeastern province, Manchuria, in 1931. Now, in 1937, the Japanese invaded northern China proper and occupied the key cities of Tientsin and Beijing, then called Peking. The Chinese Nationalist army under President Chiang Kai-shek was no match for the superior Japanese forces.
As they retreated south, the Nationalists had to contend not only with the Japanese, but also with the growing strength of the Chinese Communists led by Mao Tse-tung (today spelled Zedong). The Communists controlled large stretches of western China. They had won over the local peasants by dealing fairly with them, unlike the Nationalist government, which was known for its corruption.
In 1936 and 1937, the American journalist Edgar Snow was one of the first westerners to visit the Chinese Communist strongholds. He sent back reports of a strong and dedicated group, prepared to fight both the invading Japanese and the unpopular Nationalists for the sake of their country's future. Snow's writings swayed many American college students. They studied Chinese history, past and present, and informed themselves about the current situation in the vast country. After graduation, some of them obtained positions as college professors; others joined the State Department, where they hoped to influence U.S. policy toward China.
Joe McCarthy probably didn't pay much attention to what was going on in faraway Spain and China. He had never been much of a reader. He read what he had to in order to pass his high school and college courses, but not much else. From his days as a chicken farmer on, he had always been on the go, racing from one class or job to the next. In time, what had happened in China and Spain in the 1930s, and the Americans who had played a part in those events, would be very much on his mind. Bu
t now, in late 1937, Joe was most concerned with his next move in Shawano. He had become a partner in Mike Eberlein's law firm, but that was old news. Joe needed a fresh challenge.
He'd enjoyed running for district attorney—maybe he could run for some other office. He noted that the 10th Circuit judge in the Shawano district, Edgar V. Werner, would be up for reelection in 1939. Judge Werner had been in the job a long time, and Joe had heard he wasn't all that efficient. Why not oppose Werner for the judgeship?
4. Judge McCarthy
WHEN JOE MENTIONED his plan to several other lawyers in Shawano, they thought he was crazy. Judge Werner had enjoyed a distinguished career in the law. He had served as a judge for more than twenty years, and before that had been district attorney for six years and Shawano's city attorney for another six years. How could Joe possibly compete against a man with so much experience?
"Watch me," Joe replied.
Mike Eberlein supported Joe's entry into the race. Campaigning might take time away from Joe's law office duties, but it brought welcome publicity to the firm.
The campaign began in earnest late in 1938. To help establish himself as a mature, thoughtful man, Joe gave a speech to the Shawano Junior Women's Club on the rise and fall of great civilizations, ending with a section on why America was great. Urban Van Susteren, a young lawyer in Appleton, called it an example of McCarthy's "pure Irish bullshit."
To finance his campaign, Joe borrowed money from everyone he knew—$50 here, $500 there. If he was defeated, he'd have a hard time repaying these loans, but Joe was confident he would win. He opened a small campaign office to avoid any possible conflict of interest with the Eberlein firm, hired a secretary, and bought a new Oldsmobile on credit.
The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy Page 2