The Redhunter (6 page)

“Did you vote for me?” Charles Curran asked, a severe expression on his face.

Joe smiled impishly. “We were told to vote for the best man, weren’t we, Charlie? Well, I did.”

The big moment loomed: graduation from law school in exactly one month. Charlie Curran had ruminated with Joe. Most of their
classmates planned to take a week’s vacation, perhaps even two, then they would line up and try to endear themselves to law
firms in Milwaukee and about. “Not me,” said Charlie. “I’m going to open my own office.”

Joe looked surprised. He would play that game with Charlie. He said he thought it rather presumptuous to do any such thing.
Charlie liked that. “Some people are more enterprising than other people, Joe. Never mind; after you hustle for a year or
two, come on over to where I’m practicing, and I’ll see if I can make room for you.”

McCarthy waited until the morning of the graduation on Saturday. Walking down the aisle dressed in academic gown and hat,
keeping rough time with the ceremonial organ music, Joe leaned over: “I bet I’ll have my own office before you do.”

Charlie managed a disdainful smile. “You’ll have to open your office before Monday. That’s when I’ll hang out my shingle.”

Joe feigned distress at such a challenge. Then he spoke, quietly, because they were now nearing the stage where the fifty-seven
law students would sit for the commencement ceremonies before going to Madison to be sworn in at noon. “I bet you twenty bucks
I’m in business before you are.”

Late in the afternoon, McCarthy—Bid at his side with her Brownie camera to record the great moment—opened his office, a single
room shared with Mike Eberlein, an older friend who was himself excited at going out more or less on his own. Bid could not
disguise her elation: two sons dropped out of high school, one son—a lawyer! She went to St. Ambrose church when dark came
and prayed out her gratitude for Joe Raymond McCarthy.

His work was routine. There were a lot of title examinations, local people selling their houses and farms, others picking
them up. Joe encouraged all his friends to make out their wills if they hadn’t already done so, and to revise their wills
if they had—if they preferred to pay him only upon death, he would arrange that. He wrote a lot of wills. He wondered about
the first client who asked for help in obtaining a divorce—Bid wouldn’t like that—but, well, money was scarce, and he couldn’t
turn down business. He lent himself
ardently to the enterprise and even performed as a stakeout two nights, opposite the house where his client, Snowbird, insisted
he’d get evidence of her husband’s impropriety. Joe was disappointed the defendant didn’t perform for the benefit of his plaintiff,
and confessed to Charlie, who had forgiven him after a few months his duplicity in winning twenty dollars on a sure thing,
that he had to think for a minute or two about the moral problem. “There I was, hoping to catch Mr. Snowball, I’ll call him,
going into that little house to screw the lady. I was disappointed it didn’t happen! That’s strange, isn’t it, Charlie?”

“Nah,” Charlie said. “Lawyers always hope the other side screws up-”

“Watch your language, Charlie.”

He laughed, but Joe accepted the point, the lawyer’s perspective. He won the case for Snowbird and two other divorce cases
later. But after a few years of routine activity he felt the tedious exasperations of the country lawyer. He began to notice
the surrounding political scene. In less than one week, he had his target, his objective. He was careful not to talk about
it until the idea settled, but he yearned for an exchange or two that would accelerate his thinking. He was several times
tempted to talk about it to Charles Curran and to brother Bill. On November 16, 1937, he got into his car and drove forty
miles to Little Wolf. He had made a date with Prudence Hawthorne.

“Taking me out to lunch, Joe McCarthy! You certainly have got yourself fancy ways. Are you making a lot of money in the law
business?” Miss Hawthorne had said over the telephone, and never mind picking her up in his car, she would walk to the hotel
from school. Either she had gone home from school before meeting him, or else she had taken to school, to put on for her lunch
date, the velvet beret with the royal coat of arms stitched up front and the matching pocketbook. What would she like from
the menu?

As they ate, Joe said he wanted to confide in her. He found his law work boring. “It’s right, isn’t it, Miss Hawthorne, to
use whatever talents you have?”

“You have a lot of talents, Joe. You’re never going to be a professor; you’re too restless. What do you have in mind?”

“Politics,” Joe said.

“Well, why not?” Prudence Hawthorne applied her knife to the
chicken. “There isn’t anybody better than you at getting on. What post you thinking about taking on, Joe?”

“State judge.”

Miss Hawthorne paused before taking her fork to her mouth. “State judge? That’s for older people, isn’t it, Joe? Maybe you
should wait before you do that, wait maybe … five, ten years?”

Joe impulsively reached out and pressed her arm. “Miss Haw thorne, ma’am, this is what I was
born
to do. I love to mix with people, and people like me and trust me. I haven’t told anybody about this, and I have to raise
some money, of course. … No no no, not from you, I mean, you know, a candidate
has
to have some money, has to get around. But mostly I’ll go and call on people. You know, I’ve done a lot of that, Miss Hawthorne,
a lot back when I was selling eggs, and I got a lot of eggs sold, Miss Hawthorne. I’m going to tell everybody how good a judge
I can be, you know, somebody who really worked his way up from nothing, you’ll agree. … No, no, I don’t mean Dad and Mom were
nothing,
they’ve been
wonderful
parents, but you know, there wasn’t any thought I’d finish high school—thanks to you, I did—or go to college. And law school?
I mean, that was for other people to do, not the McCarthy kids. So I thought, well, that’s worth listening to, that’s something
I can tell them and that the facts bear out. …”

Prudence Hawthorne had stopped eating. She just listened. Joe was unstoppable. He gave the details. He would run for judge,
run in the Tenth Judicial District, run against the veteran incumbent—Edgar Werner.

Miss Hawthorne resolved to put away her reservations about his age and experience. When they parted she gave him a matronly
kiss on the forehead. “I’ll vote for you, Joe. But remember something. There are some people who won’t vote for you. And some
of those aren’t going to like what you’re doing, competing with a nice gentleman who almost seems to own that job.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am. People are good sports. They’re used to sports. Some people win, means some people have to lose.” He
smiled broadly and blew another kiss at her. He was right, he thought. He would get the most reliable judgment on his enterprise
from Prudence Hawthorne. Because she was an educated woman with a lot of experience and she knew what Joe McCarthy could accomplish.
She
had seen him through those incredible four years of high school in nine months. It was from her that Joe wanted to hear about
climbing steep hills.

For the declaration of his candidacy, his mother and father arrived dressed as they had been dressed at Aunt Bessie’s funeral.
Tim McCarthy was without his overalls, wearing a scarlet tie with the profile of the state of Wisconsin on the front. Bid’s
dress was calico, her wide hat a dark blue. Joe’s two older brothers sat stiffly, their neckties inconclusively knotted. Miss
Hawthorne was there, sitting upright, the same posture in which she was found every day by her students when they trooped
into her classroom. Joe’s old friends Jerry and Billy wore the jeans and open shirts they wore at school—dressed, with this
or that difference, like the half-dozen other high school classmates present, all of them much younger than the candidate.
And, of course, there was Mike Eberlein, his law partner, dressed as if preparing to instruct a jury.

They gathered at eleven
A.M.
in the grand dining hall of the Grand Hotel in Shawano, ordinarily kept closed during the hard winter months to economize
on the heating bills. Diners during that period ate on tables set up in the lounge opposite the reception desk. The dining
hall’s ten heavy wooden tables were cramped together opposite the four large windows, creating a spacious working lounge.
Enough chairs were brought in to seat fifty people.

Representing the media was a single reporter, Jim Kelly of the
Appleton Post-Crescent.
Joe and Mike Eberlein, who was now not only law partner but also campaign manager, had done everything they could to promote
the announcement. With only twenty-four hours to go, only one of the fifty-odd invitations sent to radio broadcasters, country
weeklies, dailies, and scattered celebrities had signaled acceptance. Joe and Mike spent a half day on the two telephones
in their law office. They dialed the numbers on their roster, leaving nobody out. Joe—or Mike—would ask whoever answered the
telephone: “Is it true that young Joe McCarthy from Appleton is going to oppose Judge Werner in the April election and is
going to announce tomorrow?”

Those respondents who were polite would reply, Sorry, they knew
nothing about the political race for judge, and declined—thanks-very-much—to take note of where and when the announcement
would be made. Other news offices, less indulgent of stray information gatherers, professed no knowledge of Joe McCarthy and
registered no curiosity about him.

At a few minutes after eleven, Joe peeked in at the half-filled room. The absence of press confirmed Mike’s gloomy forecasts.
Still, notice had got out: There were a dozen bodies in the lounge who were neither friends nor family.

The candidate walked in, smiling. The early winter sun shone through the windows on a quiet audience. The family members did
not know what was expected of them, so they sat silent. Only Miss Hawthorne applauded, joined listlessly by a few of Joe’s
schoolmates.

Joe nodded to them all, the bow of the head slightly accentuated when acknowledging Jim Kelly of the
Post.

He walked to the improvised lectern and read out a speech about the importance of law and of order and of a genuine, up-to-date
knowledge by the judiciary of exactly how the world of 1938 worked. He was proud, he said, to have come from a rural background,
to have gone into business for himself at the age of seventeen, to have worked his way at a relatively late age through high
school, on through college and law school, and now to be launched on a legal career. The incumbent, Judge Werner, was a very
nice gentleman, but the seasons come and the seasons go, and—Joe looked up—“little acorns take root,” and nature has to make
way for youth and for change. When he finished he got a rousing hand from his family, something more perfunctory from his
boyhood friends, and, of course, pursuant to protocol (the press is not expected to applaud a political speaker)—nothing from
Jim Kelly.

Mike went to the lectern and said that the candidate was ready for questions from the press. Joe scanned the room with concentrated
attention, left to right, as if everyone there were representing an organ of the media keen to flash back to his constituency
news of Joe McCarthy’s candidacy.

Jim Kelly finally broke the silence. His tone of voice was tinged with the tedium of the professional doing his duty. “What
gave you the idea of running for judge? You’ve only been out of law school a few years.”

“Well,” said Joe, straightening his tie, “I was impressed by the great initiative taken by President Roosevelt just two years
ago when he spoke of doing something about U.S. justice. Now, I’m prepared to go along, but the president was
wrong
to try to pack the Supreme Court. Congress was right to turn him down, and the elections last month were pretty conclusive
on that point. But,” Joe looked up, his expression grave, “I did think the president was right when he said that the country
needs new and younger judges. The time comes when elderly judges have to say, ‘Well, let’s have younger people, maybe more
energetic, maybe better informed about what’s going on, let’s let
them
make a contribution to their country.’ I have to agree with FDR on that one, Jim. Hope you agree.”

Kelly was suddenly awake, taking notice of this improbable candidate for judge who had so neatly handled the hot quarrel of
the political season and apparently emerged with a position congenial to both sides, and, of course, to his own candidacy.
President Roosevelt, impatient with a contrarian Supreme Court that had resisted some New Deal legislation, had proposed the
previous summer a retirement program for elder judges.
“He tried to pack the court”
was how it was negatively described. He suffered a devastating rebuke when, in November, the voters had sent back to office
the same senators—friends of the autonomy of the court—FDR had singled out for defeat. Now Joe McCarthy was having the best
of the two positions. Rebuking Roosevelt for his court packing while endorsing Roosevelt’s championship of younger judges.
Jim Kelly resolved to dig in with his questions.