https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-31-2026
"On June 1, 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, stood
up against Republican Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin and his supporters, who
were undermining American democracy in a crusade against “communism.”
Margaret Chase was born in Skowhegan in 1897, the oldest child of a barber and
a waitress, and became a teacher and a reporter before she got into politics
through her husband, Clyde Smith, who was a state legislator and newspaperman.
Soon after they married in 1930, she was elected to the Maine Republican State
Committee and served until 1936, when Maine voters elected Clyde to Congress.
Once in Washington, Margaret worked as her husband’s researcher, speechwriter,
and press secretary. When Clyde died of a heart attack in April 1940, voters
elected Margaret to finish his term, then reelected her to Congress in her own
right. They did so three more times, always with more than sixty percent of the
vote. In 1948 they elected her to the Senate with a 71% majority.
When she was elected to Congress, the U.S. was still getting used to the New
Deal government that Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt had ushered
in first to combat the Great Depression and then to fight for victory in World
War II. Smith’s party was divided between those who thought the new system was
a proper adjustment to the modern world and those determined to destroy that
new government."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
