Although a staunch anticommunist, she was nevertheless the first Republican senator to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy's anticommunist witch-hunts, delivering a memorable "Declaration of Conscience" on the Senate floor in 1950.
Had a man delivered Smith's Declaration of Conscience speech, he was purported to have said, "he would be the next President of the United States".
Maine has a long history of autonomous politicians: Margaret Chase Smith, who delivered her "Declaration of Conscience" on the Senate floor in 1950, criticizing Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee; William Cohen, the lone Republican in Bill Clinton's cabinet; or, for that matter, outgoing Senator Olympia Snowe herself.
She was the first and boldest member of the Senate to oppose McCarthy, in a speech she made from the floor, known as the Declaration of Conscience: "I don't want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear".
Margaret Chase Smith, a senator from Maine, the grand old dame of the Republican party, wore a rose every day, including on the first of June in 1950 when she gave the brave, brilliant "Declaration of Conscience" speech she is best know for, denouncing her fellow Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Her 1950 speech, "Declaration of Conscience," is well-remembered for her strong and outspoken criticism of McCarthy's questionable tactics.
Senator Smith was famous for her Declaration of Conscience during the McCarthy era in which she complained that those "who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who... ignore [its] basic principles".
Yet, if these words are a declaration of faith, they are also a document of bad conscience.
(A declaration of names is involved).
The third was a declaration of war".
