Joseph Welch Confronts McCarthy with Have You No Sense of Decency in Army Hearings

On the 30th day of the Army-McCarthy hearings, Boston lawyer Joseph Welch—hired by the Army to make its case—delivered one of the most famous rebukes in American political history. The hearings, which ran from April to June 1954, investigated conflicting accusations between the U.S. Army and Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Army accused McCarthy and his chief counsel Roy Cohn of pressuring the Army to give preferential treatment to G. David Schine, a former McCarthy aide. McCarthy counter-charged that this accusation was made in bad faith and in retaliation for his investigations of suspected communists in the Army.

At the June 9 session, Welch challenged Roy Cohn to provide the Attorney General with McCarthy’s list of 130 Communists in defense plants “before sundown.” McCarthy interrupted and said that if Welch was so concerned, he should check on Fred Fisher, a young attorney in Welch’s Boston law office who had once belonged to the National Lawyers Guild, which McCarthy characterized as a communist organization. Welch had privately discussed the matter with Fisher beforehand and the two agreed Fisher should not participate in the hearings. When McCarthy tried to renew his attack, Welch interrupted: “Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belonged to the Lawyers Guild… Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?” Those watching the proceedings broke into applause.

Welch’s televised performance turned the tide of public and press opinion against McCarthy overnight. An estimated 80 million people saw at least part of the 36 days of hearings. In Gallup polls from January 1954, McCarthy’s approval rating was at 50%, with only 29% disapproving. By June, both percentages had shifted by 16%, with 34% approving and 45% disapproving. The Army-McCarthy hearings concluded on June 17, 1954, dealing an irreparable blow to McCarthy’s prestige and popularity. The Senate voted to censure McCarthy in December 1954, after which he faded from the headlines until his death in 1957. The hearings demonstrated the power of televised accountability and public resistance to authoritarian tactics.