VIEWSrnNobody but the Peoplernby Samuel FrancisrnIn the “Prologue” to his massive biography of Sen. Joe Mc-rnCarth’, historian Thomas Reeves describes a scene that tookrnplace in Milwaukee, in the senator’s home state, in November,rn1954, onlv a month before his colleagues voted to condemnrnhim and thereby effectively to terminate his career. The scenernwas a mass eelebrahon of McCarthy’s 46th birthdav by 1,500 ofrnhis constituents and fans; as an added touch, the bandleader, arnbohood pal of the guest of honor, had his vocalist croon a new-rn1′ composed song about the senator. One stanza went like this:rn”That terrible man McCarthy,” cries Mrs. Van Soame.rn”That book-burning demagogue.” shrieks Linus Double-rnDome.rn”MeCarthyism sweeps the land,” the Daily Workerrnscreams.rnAnd through the press, radio, the Parh”s poison streams:rn”Joe must go. Joe must go.”rnThe last stanza, to the tune of “The Volga Boatmen,” drovernthe point home:rnNobods s for McCarthv but the people, and we all lovernour Joe.rnNobod’s for McCarthy but the people, and our lettersrntell him so.rnNow little Betsy Williams and old Billy Brown, and all usrnreal Americans want Joe to go to town.rnNobodv’s for McCarthy but the people, and we just loernour Joe.rnNobodx’s for McCarthy but the peojjle, and our ‘otesrnwill tell him so.rnSamuel Francis is Chronicles’ Vashini>ton editor.rnThe point, for all the nauseahng banalit)’ of the ditt)’, is clearrnenough. What was known as “MeCarthvism” was not onhrnabout communists in the State Department and the appeasementrnof the Soviets by the U.S. government but also the sort ofrnpeople —the class —who were believed to be running the countryrnas a whole: the de facto alliance between remnants of thernOld Stock establishment sinbolized bv “Mrs. Van Soame” andrnthe new managerial intelligentsia of “L,inus Double-Dome.”rnThat class and its best-known political representatives of thernday—Adlai Stevenson, Dean Acheson, George C. Marshall,rnand others—were a constant theme of McCarthy’s own slashand-rnburn rhetoric, and until the neoeonservatives of the 1980’srnbegan telling us they were really heroes and started portrayingrnJoe McCarthv crawling out of a garbage can, thev remained thernstock villains of American right-w ing demonolog)’.rnMcCarth)’ was by no means the only figure of that era on thernAmerican right to embellish his anticommunism and his versionrnof conservatism witli direct appeals to “the people” as his naturalrnallies. Two years before the birthda’ party in Milwaukee,rnWliittaker Chambers himself had written at the end of Witness,rnNo feature of the Hiss Case is more obvious, or morerntroubling, as history, than the jagged fissure, which it didrnnot so much open as reveal, behveen the plain men andrnwomen of the nation, and those who affected to act.rnthink, and speak for them. It was, not invariably, but inrngeneral, the “best people” who were for Alger Hiss andrnwho were ]3rcpared to go to almost any length to protectrnand defend him. . . . It was the great body of the nation,rnwhich, not invariably, but in general, kept open its mindrnin die Hi.ss Case, waiting for the returns to come in.rnThe Old Right embrace of populism was not confined to polificalrnpraefice but extended to theorv’. Of all the conservativernOCTOBER 2001/1’rnrnrn