In 1950 a Republican Senator from Maine Stood up to Homegrown Fascism. So Much for a Repeat...

Updated following the Senate vote

Jun 01, 2025

“I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” - Senator Margaret Chase Smith, Republican of Maine, June 1, 1950

For those seeking only climate insights from me, please note my conviction that sustaining representative humane government is a prerequisite to sustaining the climate and environment, so here’s another post on our current crisis.

UPDATE, July 1 - When push came to shove, our Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins caved - with her no vote today on the “big beautiful bill” only done when it was safe. To me, as I expressed on social media, this is really no better than Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski’s yes vote - made after she got her Alaska-focused wish list.

There are more steps to go in reconciliation but I’ll be working as hard as I can in 2026 to be sure Collins’ Senate tenure comes to an end.

Original post - I have to say I’m ever more thrilled to call Maine my home since 2022 (even if I’ll always be “from away”). There was Governor Janet Mills’ gutsy face-to-face rebuff of President Trump early this year. And then there’s this bit of deeply resonant political history.

If only our Maine Senator Susan Collins could now replicate the 1950 “Declaration of Conscience” speech by then Senator Margaret Chase Smith and the recent comments of our Independent Senator Angus King, a tide might slowly start shifting away from autocracy and hate-driven politics. (Yes, this is probably still wishful thinking given the utter abdication of oaths to the Constitution by almost every Republican in elected office, but shifts away from autocracy do take time.)

Thank you,

Heather Cox Richardson

, for the vital new post of yours that I’ve excerpted below with a link to your full, richly detailed essay.

As an appetizer, watch this great NBC Learn report on Smith, McCarthy and the speech:

From Richardson:

“I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition,” Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine told her colleagues on June 1, 1950. “It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear…. I speak as a Republican, I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States senator. I speak as an American.”
“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,” she pointed out. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves. But attacks that cost people their reputations and jobs were stifling these basic American principles, and the ones making those attacks were in her own party.
Wisconsin senator Joe McCarthy, who was sitting two rows behind her, led a faction that had cowed almost all of the Republican Party into silence by accusing their opponents of “communism.” Smith recognized the damage McCarthy and his ilk were doing to the nation. She had seen the effects of his behavior up close in Maine, where the faction of the Republican Party that supported McCarthy had supported the state’s Ku Klux Klan.
“Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America,” Senator Smith said. “It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.”
Senator Smith wanted a Republican administration, she explained, but to replace President Harry Truman’s Democratic administration—for which she had plenty of harsh words—with a Republican regime “that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to this nation.”
“I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”
“I doubt if the Republican party could do so,” she added, “simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not that desperate for victory.”
“I do not want to see the Republican party win that way,” she said. “While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party system.”
“As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist,” she said. “They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.”
Smith presented a “Declaration of Conscience,” listing five principles she hoped her party would adopt. It ended with a warning: “It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques—techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.”
In 1950, six other Republican senators signed onto Senator Smith’s declaration, leading McCarthy to sneer at “Snow White and the Six Dwarves.” Other Republicans quietly applauded Smith’s courage but refused to show similar courage themselves with public support....
Seventy-five years ago, Senator Smith’s voice was largely ignored in the public arena. But she was right. Four years later, the Senate condemned McCarthy, and after his death in 1957, Wisconsin voters elected Democrat William Proxmire, who held the seat for the next 32 years. And while Senator Smith was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, McCarthy has gone down in history as a disgrace to his state and to the United States of America.basic principles of Americanism,” she pointed out. Americans have the right to criticize, to hold unpopular beliefs, to protest, and to think for themselves. But attacks that cost people their reputations and jobs were stifling these basic American principles, and the ones making those attacks were in her own party. ~~