Mccarthy

While reading Fahrenheit 451, which is about a dystopian society, I decided to focus on a period in the U.S. history known as McCarthyism that was led by Senator Joseph McCarthy (1940s- 1950s), and how our government controlled certain areas of life and sacrificed peoples lives. He has people hunt other people like animals; they would hunt people that were suspected of being a communist or communist sympathizer. This period in time was tragic, not letting people have the freedom of speech in any way. For example, in Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, people are not in their own control of things the government controls every body’s lives blindly. In this research paper I will talk about who Joseph McCarthy is, why Joseph McCarthy did this so and what happened to McCarthy after he was stopped. Joseph McCarthy was born 14th November 1908 on a farm in Appleton, Wisconsin. He was the fifth out of nine children. He had dropped out of high school at 14 years old to help out in the farm, but had eventually he had to go back. He had gone to collage at the University of Marquette. After collage McCarthy had worked as a lawyer but was unsuccessful and so he had to supplement his income by playing poker. McCarthy started in office when he started running for a spot in Democratic Party, but had failed and had to settle with a spot in the Republican Party. Years after he had runned for senator against La Follette. McCarthy had spread rumors of La Follette that “McCarthy also claimed that La Follette had made huge profits from his investments while he had been away fighting for his country. The suggestion that La Follette had been guilty of war profiteering (his investments had in fact been in a radio station), was deeply damaging and McCarthy won by 207,935 to 202,557.” After that La Follette couldn’t take any of the rumors and etc. and ended up committing suicide. McCarthy was a harsh man that did anything to win. McCarthyism was the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. McCarthy had put in peoples minds that communist had to vanish from every where. He had put in peoples minds that the way he thought was the right way and any one against him was the enemy. He had this thing called the red hunt. The Red Hunt was when people went out to kill communist or communist sympathizer. He mostly attacked journalist because of the reason that they wrote what horrible things he was doing. This kind of reminds me of War World 2. How Hitler had killed all the Jews because they did what they believed in. Even though McCarthy had done horrible things in his time as a senator. His friends say he was a very gregarious, kind, warm-hearted man. McCarthy always through out his life suffered with illnesses. He had many problems caused by many hospital stays, and a herniated diaphragm led to a difficult operation. McCarthy was a very heavy drinker; McCarthy’s drinking had started to increase to dangerous levels right after the actions that were pressed against him. All that drinking had eventually caused him liver ailments, and ended him in the hospital on April 1957. McCarthy died of acute hepatitis at the Bethesda Naval Hospital outside Washington on May 2, 1957. Joseph Raymond McCarthy was buried on the bluff overlooking the Fox River in Appleton’s St. in Mary’s cemetery. To me Joseph McCarthy was kind of a horrible person, but to others not. He was responsible for many deaths of people that he thought were communist or were accused of being communist. He had led McCarthyism (1940s- 1950s), and how our government controlled certain areas of life and sacrificed people’s lives. He has people hunt other people like animals; they would hunt people that were suspected of being a communist or communist sympathizer. But take the difference from then and now. This society is better than ever right now.