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Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy (November 14, 1908May 2, 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion.〔 For a history of this period, see, for example: ; 〕 He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term ''McCarthyism,'' coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy's practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.〔 ''The American Heritage Dictionary'' (2000) defines "McCarthyism" as "the practice of publicizing accusations of political disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence" and "the use of unfair investigatory or accusatory methods in order to suppress opposition". ''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged'' (1961) defines it as "characterized chiefly by opposition to elements held to be subversive and by the use of tactics involving personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized indiscriminate allegations especially on the basis of unsubstantiated charges".〕 McCarthy was born in 1908 in the Town of Grand Chute in Outagamie County, Wisconsin and attended Marquette University, eventually earning an LL.B. degree from Marquette University Law School. At age 33, McCarthy volunteered for the United States Marine Corps and served during World War II. He successfully ran for the United States Senate in 1946, defeating Robert M. La Follette Jr. After three largely undistinguished years in the Senate, McCarthy rose suddenly to national fame in February 1950 when he asserted in a speech that he had a list of "members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring" who were employed in the State Department.〔 (【引用サイトリンク】publisher = United States Senate History Website )〕 In succeeding years after his 1950 speech, McCarthy made additional accusations of Communist infiltration into the State Department, the administration of President Harry S. Truman, the Voice of America, and the United States Army. He also used various charges of communism, communist sympathies, disloyalty, or homosexuality to attack a number of politicians and other individuals inside and outside of government.〔 〕 Not as widely known as McCarthy's anti-Communist crusade were his various attempts to intimidate, and expel from government positions, persons whom he accused, or threatened to publicly accuse, of homosexuality. Former U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson has written: "The so-called 'Red Scare' has been the main focus of most historians of that period of time. A lesser-known element...and one that harmed far more people was the witch-hunt McCarthy and others conducted against homosexuals." This anti-homosexual witch-hunt that McCarthy and others waged alongside their "Red Scare" tactics has been referred to by some as the "Lavender Scare". With the highly publicized Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, and following the death of Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming by suicide that same year,〔McDaniel, Rodger. ''Dying for Joe McCarthy's Sins''〕 McCarthy's support and popularity faded. On December 2, 1954, the Senate voted to censure Senator McCarthy by a vote of 67 to 22, making him one of the few senators ever to be disciplined in this fashion. McCarthy died in Bethesda Naval Hospital on May 2, 1957, at the age of 48. The official cause of death was acute hepatitis; it is widely accepted that this was caused, or at least exacerbated, by alcoholism.〔 See, for example:; ; 〕 ==Early life and career== McCarthy was born on a farm in the Town of Grand Chute, Wisconsin, near Appleton, the fifth of seven children. His mother, Bridget Tierney, was from County Tipperary, Ireland. His father, Timothy McCarthy, was born in the United States, the son of an Irish father and a German mother. McCarthy dropped out of junior high school at age 14 to help his parents manage their farm. He entered Little Wolf High School, in Manawa, Wisconsin, when he was 20 and graduated in one year. McCarthy worked his way through college from 1930 to 1935, studying first engineering, then law, and receiving an LL.B. degree in 1935 from Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee.〔In ''A Conspiracy So Immense,'' Oshinsky states that McCarthy chose Marquette University rather than the University of Wisconsin–Madison partially because Marquette was under Catholic control and partially because he enrolled during the Great Depression, when few working-class or farm-bred students had the money to go out of state for college. See 〕 He was admitted to the bar in 1935. While working in a law firm in Shawano, Wisconsin, he launched an unsuccessful campaign to become district attorney as a Democrat in 1936. In 1939, McCarthy had better success when he successfully ran for the nonpartisan elected post of 10th District circuit judge.〔(Judge on Trial, McCarthy – A Documented Record, The Progressive, April 1954 )〕 (During his years as an attorney, McCarthy made money on the side by gambling.)〔Oshinsky explains this (p. 17) as resulting partially from the financial pressures of the Great Depression. He also notes (p. 28) that even during his judgeship, McCarthy was known to have gambled heavily after hours. 〕 McCarthy became a 10th District Wisconsin Circuit Judge, the youngest such in the state's history, by defeating incumbent Edgar V. Werner, then 66, who had been a judge for 24 years. In the campaign, McCarthy exaggerated Werner's age, claiming that he was 73, and so allegedly too old and infirm to handle the duties of his office. Writing of Werner in ''Reds: McCarthyism In Twentieth-Century America,'' Ted Morgan wrote: "Pompous and condescending, he was disliked by lawyers. He had been reversed often by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and he was so inefficient that he had piled up a huge backlog of cases."〔 In turn citing Michael O'Brien, ''McCarthy And McCarthyism In Wisconsin.'' Columbia, Mo. 1980.〕 McCarthy's judicial career attracted some controversy because of the speed with which he dispatched many of his cases as he worked to clear the heavily backlogged docket he had inherited. Wisconsin had strict divorce laws, but when McCarthy heard divorce cases, he would expedite them whenever possible, and he made the needs of children involved in contested divorces a priority. When it came to other cases argued before him, McCarthy compensated for his lack of experience as a jurist by demanding, and relying heavily upon, precise briefs from the contesting attorneys. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a low percentage of the cases he heard,〔 〕 but he was also censured in 1941 for having lost evidence in a price fixing case. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Joseph McCarthy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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