“Have you no sense of decency sir?” --Attorney Joseph Welch, 1954
You have to be of a certain age (old, like me) or a history geek (yup, that’s also me) to understand the momentousness of the question and accusation that Joseph Welch put to Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, on June 9th, 1954.
“Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
The Oxford Languages Dictionary defines decency as, “behavior that conforms to standards of morality or respectability.” To treat others with decency means we show respect for people, strangers, and neighbors alike, and that we strive to be honest in all of our dealings. At our best, we try to treat others as we wish to be treated.
With decency.
But in June 1954, decency was in short supply, when it came to the tirades, bluster, lies and cruelty of McCarthy. For four long years, beginning in 1950, McCarthy was a crusading, self-aggrandizing and oftentimes bullying leader in the drive to identify and remove communists from the United States government. A climate of fear ruled our country then as the Cold War with the Soviet Union heated up. McCarthy claimed to have lists of hundreds of names of so-called subversives that he would soon unveil. The problem was that much of the time he had no names and instead used innuendo and half-truths to intimidate and attack his opponents.
By 1954 the country was beginning to tire of McCarthy’s narcissistic showmanship. That June, McCarthy led nationally televised hearings about his charge that there were communists in the United States Army. Boston lawyer Joseph Welch represented the Army. McCarthy decided to name on TV a colleague of Welch’s and accuse that young lawyer of subversion. Such a charge would doom the young man’s career and ruin his reputation. It was a despicable thing to do. But McCarthy pushed ahead. That’s when Welch asked his famous question.
From the United States Senate website, “As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy's career: ‘Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.’ When McCarthy tried to continue his attack, Welch angrily interrupted, ‘Let us not assassinate this lad further, senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?’"
Welch’s confrontation with the bully McCarthy brings to mind the indecent, mean, and callous ways that one national political candidate speaks about anyone who opposes him or his policies in any way. Yes, it our former President who wants to reoccupy the Oval Office.
A note: this isn’t about partisanship. I’m not a big fan of 45’s ideology. But neither was I a fan of, say, either George Bush senior or Ronald Reagan, and their policies. But I do have respect and even admiration for the decent, honorable, and often kind ways, in how they performed as commanders in chief. They carried themselves well as presidents and human beings. They spoke about their opponents not as the enemy or as subversives to be jailed or a threat to be despised, no. They worked across the aisle to find common ground. They made no veiled or direct threats of violence against anyone who dared to confront them. They actually laughed at themselves and their humanity.
But the one who names towers and hotels after himself? In the past eight years how we as Americans talk about one another and treat each other: its devolved and been cheapened. On the campaign trail but also in many public settings. School Committee meetings. Legislative bodies. Main Street even. That’s his legacy. This is not a red state or blue state issue, or Dems versus the GOP. It is about simple human decency and asking a legitimate question: does the ex-reality TV star ever show any decency in his politics? Or compassion? Mercy? Humility? Restraint of pen and tongue?
He has sullied and changed how we as citizens talk about and to each other, and how our candidates and office holders carry themselves. He has dragged our political and civic discourse down into the mud. We are all now splattered with the stain of his hyperbolic and mean-spirited rhetoric.
So…our ex-President retweets a tweet on X that used pornographic descriptions of sexual acts to defame Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton. Did he really just share that with his followers? He mocked a disabled reporter in a speech as the crowd laughed and cheered. How can someone be that heartless, that cruel? He claims Kamala Harris wasn’t Black until she decided she was Black. I’m speechless. He’s decided that God saved him from assassination so he could save America. Must be great to know the mind of God.
I write as a Christian pastor who has worked my whole career to build community in my small corner of Creation, and I am heartbroken at how divided the community called America has become since 2016. I write because I love our country. I want to see it lifted up again, not torn apart more, nor torn down with negativity and the politics of grievance and menace.
It is past time for all of us as citizens to call out the indecent and yes, despicable ways he’s tarnished and tarred, our public discourse. It’s time to just say, “No more. Please.” And to remember again Welch’s indictment from seventy years ago. It still rings true.
“Have you no decency sir?”
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.
