Words Have Power

I can't over-emphasize the huge change television made in my life. I've already talked about it a little in earlier posts, My Early Humor(s) and Have You No Sense Of Decency, Sir? I'll talk about it now, and I'll talk about it more later.

My Father wasn't going to get a TV, ever. He grew up on radio and radio adventure shows, and loved them and talked about them all the time, but he considered TV to be entertainment for the mindless. It took time away from reading. Besides, by showing everything, "it doesn't exercise the imagination."

Then the Army-McCarthy Hearings started. The Army accused Senator Joseph McCarthy and his counsel Roy Cohn of inappropriate pressures to give preferential treatment to a friend of Cohn. McCarthy in his turn said that the Army's charges were a retaliation for his investigations of suspected Communists in the Army and the security risks they presented. A special Senate committee began meeting April 22, 1954, to sort the matter out, and the meetings were nationally broadcast live on ABC.

My Father, the Army Captain, was decidedly on the Army's side. My Father always needed to belong to something. Loyalty was the highest value. The Army was what he belonged to then.

It took a few weeks. My Father's buddies wore him down by telling him every day about seeing the hearings on their TVs. Finally he gave in.

Once he decided we had to have a TV to watch the hearings with, my Father became a member of a new class, the class of TV owners. It sparked a new loyalty: now, the television was one of the greatest inventions ever. He got us a 13-inch black and white Zenith with an iron stand. He became a loyal Zenith owner. "Zeniths are the best."

There was a struggle getting the antenna up. This involved many uses of words I wasn't allowed to say. An Army friend of my Father had to come and help. The two of them finally got the TV working and able to bring in the Boston channels on a weekend in late May or early June. My first memory of watching TV was witnessing a routine Sunday morning live televised mass from a Boston cathedral. I amused my Father by insisting that even though the picture was black and white, I could see the colors of the stained-glass windows.

There followed at least a week of watching the Senate hearings. I barely understood what was going on. In fact I could barely hear it half the time, because whenever McCarthy or anyone on his side was heard to say anything my Father loudly derided him. Of course, when the Army side was speaking we had to all be very quiet.

The hearings came to a head on Wednesday, June 9. I have heard that Joseph Welch, the counsel for the Army had rehearsed the line "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" already and was just looking for a good time to spring it. The time came when a possibly drunk McCarthy randomly attacked, by name, a member of Welch's law office. The full line was "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?"

It was an Army lawyer speaking, so we had been quiet. I heard the line, the applause, and saw the look on McCarthy's face. I was thrilled. It sent a chill up my spine, as I realized even amid my Father's cheers that the incident had implications for my own life.

Words have power.