March 22, 1973
Page 9180
MARGARET CHASE SMITH
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, a group of friends of Margaret Chase Smith has announced plans to convert the Smith homestead in Skowhegan, Maine, into a library in honor of the gracious lady who served so faithfully and well in this body for 24 years. Such a memorial will be a fitting tribute to Senator Smith, whose years of congressional service spanned a turbulent period of social change in America.
Mrs. Smith's perceptions of both the revolutionary changes and recurrent patterns in American life in her years in Washington, gathered at the white, woodframe home in Skowhegan, the town where she was born, will provide a valuable resource for both current and future generations. Let me offer some examples.
Mrs. Smith has a philosophy of life which could serve all of us well. She outlined it in 1953. She said–
My creed is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly. It must be complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but sought, that honor is to be earned but not bought.
I know from personal experience in the years we served as fellow Senators from Maine, that she believes that creed and lives it to the best of her ability. It is shown not only in her record of 2,941 consecutive Senate rollcall votes without an absence, but more importantly, in her willingness to buck the currents of popular opinion to follow the dictates of her conscience.
In 1950, when the scourge of McCarthyism gripped the Senate, the lady from Maine stood up to declare–
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those of us who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism: the right to criticize; the right to hold unpopular beliefs; the right to protest; the right of independent thought.
Twenty years later she rose again in the Senate to warn us once more that extremism must not be allowed to conquer reason. She said in 1970–
As was the case twenty years ago when the Senate was silenced and politically intimidated by one of its members, so today many Americans are intimidated and made mute by the emotional violence of the extreme left ... It is time that the great center of our people, those who reject the violence and unreasonableness of both the extreme right and the extreme left, searched their consciences, mustered their moral and physical courage, shed their intimidated silence and declared their consciences.
Mr. President, Margaret Chase Smith served the people of Maine well in her long career. And she is continuing her service to America in several ways, including her chairmanship of Freedom House, and an active speaking schedule in Maine and elsewhere.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Smith's declaration of conscience in 1950 and 1970, as well as various articles relating to her career, her present activities, and the Skowhegan library, be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, June 1, 1950]
THE GROWING CONFUSION – NEED FOR PATRIOTIC THINKING
Mrs. SMITH of Maine. Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition. It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear. It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership either in the legislative branch or the executive branch of our Government. That leadership is so lacking that serious and responsible proposals are being made that national advisory commissions be appointed to provide such critically needed leadership.
I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.
Mr. President, I speak as a Republican. I speak as a woman. I speak as a United States Senator. I speak as an American.
The United States Senate has long enjoyed world-wide respect as the greatest deliberative body in the world. But recently that deliberative character has too often been debased to the level of a forum of hate and character assassination sheltered by the shield of congressional immunity.
It is ironical that we Senators can in debate in the Senate, directly or indirectly, by any form of words, impute to any American who is not a Senator any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming an American – and without that non-Senator American having any legal redress against us – yet if we say the same thing in the Senate about our colleagues we can be stopped on the grounds of being out of order.
It is strange that we can verbally attack anyone else without restraint and with full protection, and yet we hold ourselves above the same type of criticism here in the Senate floor. Surely the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we "dish out" to outsiders.
I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its Members to do some real soul searching and to weigh our consciences as to the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of America and the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges.
I think it is high time that we remembered that we have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution. I think it is high time that we remembered that the Constitution, as amended, speaks not only of the freedom of speech but also of trial by jury instead of trial by accusation.
Whether it be a criminal prosecution in court or a character prosecution in the Senate, there is little practical distinction when the life of a person has been ruined.
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism
The right to criticize.
The right to hold unpopular beliefs.
The right to protest.
The right of independent thought.
The exercise of these rights should not cost one single American citizen his reputation or his right to a livelihood nor should he be in danger of losing his reputation or livelihood merely because he happens to know someone who holds unpopular beliefs. Who of us does not?
Otherwise none of us could call our souls our own. Otherwise thought control would have set in.
The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as Communists or Fascists by their opponents. Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.
The American people are sick and tired of seeing innocent people smeared and guilty people whitewashed. But there have been enough proved cases, such as the Amerasia case, the Hiss case, the Coplon case, the Gold case, to cause Nation-wide distrust and strong suspicion that there may be something to the unproved, sensational accusations.
As a Republican, I say to my colleagues on this aide of the aisle that the Republican Party faces a challenge today that is not unlike the challenge which it faced back in Lincoln's day. The Republican Party so successfully met that challenge that it emerged from the Civil War as the champion of a united nation – in addition to being a party which unrelentingly fought loose spending and loose programs.
Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of "know nothing, suspect everything" attitudes. Today we have a Democratic administration which has developed a mania for loose spending and loose programs. History is repeating itself – and the Republican Party again has the opportunity to emerge as the champion of unity and prudence.
The record of the present Democratic administration has provided us with sufficient campaign issues without the necessity of resorting to political smears. America is rapidly losing its position as leader of the world simply because the Democratic administration has pitifully failed to provide effective leadership.
The Democratic administration has completely confused the American people by its daily contradictory grave warnings and optimistic assurances, which show the people that our Democratic administration has no idea of where it is going.
The Democratic administration has greatly lost the confidence of the American people by its complacency to the threat of communism here at home and the leak of vital secrets to Russia through key officials of the Democratic administration. There are enough proved cases to make this point without diluting our criticism with unproved charges.
Surely these are sufficient reasons to make it clear to the American people that it is time for a change and that a Republican victory is necessary to the security of the country. Surely it is clear that this Nation will continue to suffer so long as it is governed by the present ineffective Democratic administration.
Yet to displace it with a Republican regime embracing a philosophy that lacks political integrity or intellectual honesty would prove equally disastrous to the Nation. The Nation sorely needs a Republican victory. But I do not want to see the Republican Party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny – fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.
I doubt if the Republican Party could do so, simply because I do not believe the American people will uphold any political party that puts political exploitation above national interest. Surely we Republicans are not so desperate for victory.
I do not want to see the Republican Party win that way. While it might be a fleeting victory for the Republican Party, it would be a more lasting defeat for the American people. Surely it would ultimately be suicide for the Republican Party and the two-party system that has protected our American liberties from the dictatorship of a one-party system.
As member of the minority party, we do not have the primary authority to formulate the policy of our Government. But we do have the responsibility of rendering constructive criticism, of clarifying issues, of allaying fears by acting as responsible citizens.
As a woman, I wonder how the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters feel about the way in which members of their families have been politically mangled in Senate debate – and I use the word "debate" advisedly.
As a United States Senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism. I am not proud of the reckless abandon in which unproved charges have been hurled from this side of the aisle. I am not proud of the obviously staged, undignified countercharges which have been attempted in retaliation from the other side of the aisle.
I do not like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity. I am not proud of the way we smear outsiders from the floor of the Senate and hide behind the cloak of congressional immunity and still place ourselves beyond criticism on the floor of the Senate.
As an American, I am shocked at the way Republicans and Democrats alike are playing directly into the Communist design of "confuse, divide, and conquer." As an American, I do not want a Democratic administration white wash or cover up any more than I want a Republican smear or witch hunt.
As an American, I condemn a Republican Fascist just as much as I condemn a Democrat Communist. I condemn a Democrat Fascist just as much as I condemn a Republican Communist.
They are equally dangerous to you and me and to our country. As an American, I want to see our Nation recapture the strength and unity it once had when we fought the enemy instead of ourselves.
It is with these thoughts that I have drafted what I call a Declaration of Conscience. I am gratified that the Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. TOBEY], the Senator from Vermont [Mr. AIKEN], the Senator from Oregon [Mr. MORSE], the Senator from New York [Mr. IVES], the Senator from Minnesota [Mr. THYE], and the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. HENDRICKSON] have concurred in that declaration and have authorized me to announce their concurrence.
The declaration reads as follows:
STATEMENT OF SEVEN REPUBLICAN SENATORS
1. We are Republicans. But we are Americans first. It is as Americans that we express our concern with the growing confusion that threatens the security and stability of our country. Democrats and Republicans alike have contributed to that confusion.
2. The Democratic administration has initially created the confusion by its lack of effective leadership, by its contradictory grave warnings and optimistic assurances, by its complacency to the threat of communism here at home, by its oversensitiveness to rightful criticism, by its petty bitterness against its critics.
3. Certain elements of the Republican Party have materially added to this confusion in the hopes of riding the Republican Party to victory through the selfish political exploitation of fear, bigotry, ignorance, and intolerance. There are enough mistakes of the Democrats for Republicans to criticize constructively without resorting to political smears.
4. To this extent, Democrats and Republicans alike have unwittingly, but undeniably, played directly into the Communist design of "confuse, divide, and conquer."
5. It is high time that we stopped thinking politically as Republicans and Democrats about elections and started thinking patriotically as Americans about national security based on individual freedom. It is high time that we all stopped being tools and victims of totalitarian techniques – techniques that, if continued here unchecked, will surely end what we have come to cherish as the American way of life.
MARGARET CHASE SMITH,
Maine.
CHARLES W. TOBEY,
New Hampshire.
GEORGE D. AIKEN,
Vermont.
WAYNE L. MORSE,
Oregon.
IRVING M. IVES,
New York.
EDWARD J. THYE,
Minnesota.
ROBERT D. HENDRICKSON,
New Jersey.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. President, prior to the address just delivered by our distinguished colleague, the Senator from Maine, she suggested to me that she thought the address she was about to make to the Senate might contain some matters with which I might disagree.
I wish to say to my distinguished colleague that I have listened with the greatest intentness to her speech; I left my desk and took a seat close to her desk in order that I might hear every word of her speech. I wish to state that I am in wholehearted agreement with everything she has said, and
I congratulate her and commend her for the magnificent address she has just made to the Senate.
Mrs. SMITH of Maine. I thank the senator from New Jersey.
Mr. HENDRICKSON. Mr. President, I wish to state for the record that the address which has just been delivered by the distinguished Senator from Maine is one of the best addresses I have heard since it has been my privilege to be a Member of this distinguished body.
The address was inspiring and thought-provoking, and it sounded a clarion warning to which every one of us should pay heed. In the future, as we undertake our deliberations on the floor of this body and as we proceed to meet our daily obligations, we should keep in our minds this
fine, ringing message.
I compliment and congratulate my distinguished colleague, the Senator from Maine; and as she goes forth on her new mission abroad, I hope she will remember that she has given us today this inspiring message – and to good advantage.
Mr. TYDINGS. Mr. President, it is not necessary for any of us to be in complete agreement with all the statements made by the distinguished Senator from Maine, who has just entertained us and instructed us on the highest level of statesmanship. I think there is much food for thought in the central theme of her magnificent address. This country is faced with terrific perils. The whole world is looking to us for leadership. Regardless of whether we like it or do not like it, there is no other place than America to which the free democratic world can turn.
I take the address just delivered to the Senate by the distinguished Senator from Maine to be a real contribution to the world situation and particularly to the situation existing in the Senate and the situation existing in the House of Representatives. She has been temperate, constructive, imaginative, and, I believe, fair in her comments generally upon the passing scene. I wish to compliment her both personally and as a fellow Senator upon her breadth of view and the reasonable detachment from political affairs which she has stated in such a delightful manner in the thoughts to which she has given expression. Those of us of the male sex must coin a new word in order to aptly fit her magnificent address, and I suggest the word "stateswomanship."
Mr. LEHMAN. Mr. President, I deem it a great privilege to congratulate the distinguished Senator from Maine upon her masterly and very timely address. I think she has said things this afternoon in condemnation of the current smear campaign which had to be said and should have been said long ago, things which many of us on the floor of the Senate have felt and were in agreement with.
I think she has brought home to the American people both the evil and the danger of trial by accusation, not trial based on evidence or on proof, but merely on accusation, innuendo, and smear. She has well expressed her antipathy for what she aptly called the Four Horsemen of Calumny – fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear.
She has said the things which are in our minds and hearts, and she has done so in a manner which I think none of us who had the privilege of listening to her will lightly or quickly forget.
I think she has pointed out, too, the great danger under which we here have been working for the past few months, namely, the danger that the people of America, through the endless repetition of unproved charges against the State Department and Government employees generally, will lose confidence in their Government. She pointed out the even greater danger that the freedom-loving people of other nations will lose confidence in the leadership of the United States. If that should happen, I would see very little hope for the free world.
Again I wish to take this opportunity both to congratulate and to thank the able junior Senator from Maine [Mrs. SMITH] for her very thoughtful address.
[From the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, June 1, 1970]
DECLARATION OF CONSCIENCE – 20 YEARS LATER
Mrs. SMITH of Maine Mr. President, 20 years ago on this June 1, I sat at this same desk. I spoke about the then serious national condition with a statement known as the "Declaration of Conscience." We had a national sickness then from which we recovered. We have a national sickness now from which I pray we will recover. I would like to recall portions of that statement today because they have application now 20 years later. I said of the then national condition:"It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear." Surely that is the situation today. I said then:"I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism."
That is not the only situation today, but it is even worse for irresponsible words have exploded into trespass, violence, arson, and killings.
I said then:
"I think that it is high time for the United States Senate and its Members to do some soul searching – for us to weigh our consciences – on the manner in which we are performing our duty to the people of the United States – on the manner in which we are using or abusing our individual powers and privileges."
That applies today. But I would add this to it – expanded application to the people themselves, whether they be students or construction workers, whether they be on or off campus.
I said then:
"Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism in making character assassinations are all too frequently those who, by our own words and acts, ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism
"The right to criticize;
"The right to protest;
"The right to independent thought."
That applies today – and it includes the right to dissent against the dissenters.
I said then:
"The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared ... Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by ethers."
That applies today to both sides. It is typified by the girl student at Colby College who wrote me
"I am striking with my heart against the fighting in Cambodia but I am intimidated by those who scream protests and clench their fists and cannot listen to people who oppose their views."
I said then:
"Today our country is being psychologically divided by the confusion and the suspicions that are bred in the United States Senate to spread like cancerous tentacles of 'Know nothing, suspect everything' attitudes."
That applies today – but it must be expanded to the people themselves. Twenty years ago it was the anti-intellectuals who were most guilty of "know nothing" attitudes. Today too many of the militant intellectuals are equally as guilty of "hear nothing" attitudes of refusing to listen while demanding communication.
I said then:
"I don't like the way the Senate has been made a rendezvous for vilification, for selfish political gain at the sacrifice of individual reputations and national unity."
That applies today. But I would add that equally I do not like the way the campus has been made a rendezvous for obscenity, for trespass, for violence, for arson, and for killing.
I said then:
"I am not proud of the way we smear outsiders from the Floor of the Senate and hide behind the cloak of congressional immunity and still place ourselves beyond criticism on the Floor of the Senate."
Today I would add to that – I am not proud of the way in which too many militants resort to the illegalities of trespass, violence, and arson and, in doing so, claim for themselves a special immunity from the law with the allegation that such acts are justified because they have a political connotation with a professed cause.
I said then:
"As a United States Senator, I am not proud of the way in which the Senate has been made a publicity platform for irresponsible sensationalism."
Today I would add that I am not proud of the way in which our national television networks and campuses have been made publicity platforms for irresponsible sensationalism – nor am I proud of the countercriticism against the networks and the campuses that has gone beyond the bounds of reasonableness and propriety and fanned, instead of drenching, the fires of division.
I have admired much of the candid and justified defense of our Government in reply to the news media and the militant dissenters – but some of the defense has been too extreme and unfair and too repetitive and thus impaired the effectiveness of the previous admirable and unjustified defense.
I said 20 years ago:
"As an American, I am shocked at the way Republicans and Democrats alike are playing directly into the Communist design of 'confuse, divide and conquer."'
Today I am shocked at the way too many Americans are so doing.
I spoke as I did 20 years ago because of what I considered to be the great threat from the radical right – the threat of a government of repression.
I speak today because of what I consider to be the great threat from the radical left that advocates and practices violence and defiance of the law – again, the threat of the ultimate result of a reaction of repression.
The President denies that we are in a revolution. There are many who would disagree with such appraisal. Anarchy may seem nearer to many of us than it really is.
But of one thing I am sure. The excessiveness of overreactions on both sides is a clear and present danger to American democracy.
That danger is ultimately from the political right even though it is initially spawned by the antidemocratic arrogance and nihilism from the political extreme left.
Extremism bent upon polarization of our people is increasingly forcing upon the American people the narrow choice between anarchy and repression.
And make no mistake about it, if that narrow choice has to be made, the American people, even if with reluctance and misgiving, will choose repression.
For an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that:
Trespass is trespass – whether on the campus or off.
Violence is violence – whether on the campus or off.
Arson is arson – whether on the campus or off.
Killing is killing – whether on the campus or off.
The campus cannot degenerate into a privileged sanctuary for obscenity, trespass, violence, arson and killing with special immunity for participants in such acts.
Criminal acts, active or by negligence, cannot be condoned or excused because of panic, whether the offender be a policeman, a National Guardsman, a student, or one of us in this legislative body.
Ironically, the excesses of dissent on the extreme left can result in repression of dissent. For repression is preferable to anarchy and nihilism to most Americans.
Yet, excesses on the extreme right, such as those 20 years ago, can mute our national conscience.
As was the case 20 years ago when the Senate was silenced and politically intimidated by one of its Members, so today many Americans are intimidated and made mute by the emotional violence of the extreme left. Constructive discussion on the subject is becoming increasingly difficult of attainment.
It is time that the great center of our people, those who reject the violence and unreasonableness of both the extreme right and the extreme left, searched their consciences, mustered their moral and physical courage, shed their intimidated silence, and declared their consciences.
It is time that with dignity, firmness and friendliness, they reason with, rather than capitulate to, the extremists on both sides – at all levels – and caution that their patience ends at the border of violence and anarchy that threatens our American democracy.
Mr. STENNIS. Mr. President, will the Senator yield?
Mrs. SMITH of Maine. I yield.
Mr. STENNIS. Mr. President, I commend, the Senator from Maine for the fine expression of her thoughts and her principles that she has given us today. Not only does she mean what she says, but also, she touches on the very sensitive parts of our system and points out some weak spots.
I recall 20 years ago when she made the speech to which she referred today. She was right then, and I can testify that that speech had a great deal to do with bringing into focus the opinion that finally congealed in the American people, and on the floor of the Senate brought about – I could not say a full remedy, but a striking part, a very major part, of the remedy.
Her speech 20 years ago was a landmark, and I think today the Senator from Maine has given us another landmark, or milestone, whichever term we may use. We are all personally indebted to her for that, and the American people are indebted to her not only for what she says but also for what she does as a Senator. I want her to know that she is appreciated, for those reasons and others, by this body and by the American people, and I congratulate her for the speech she has made.
Mrs. SMITH of Maine. Mr. President, I thank my distinguished colleague from Mississippi. Whatever he says means much to me because of our long association. The people well know his part in the committee work that has brought about the recovery from the illness I referred to, and I thank him.
Mr. WILLIAMS of Delaware. Mr. President, I join the Senator from Mississippi in paying respects to the Senator from Maine for her remarks here today. I, too, recall her remarks of 20 years ago. Just as those remarks were needed then, so, too, are the statements she has uttered here today very much needed. I hope that both the Senate and the American People will take heed to the recommendations she has made.
[From the Maine Sunday Telegram, Feb. 4, 1973]
"PEOPLE WANTED CHANGE, I'M NOT BITTER" MRS. SMITH
(By Bill Caldwell)
"Of course I'm disappointed that I was beaten," says former Sen. Margaret Chase Smith. "Of course I'm unhappy that I am no longer representing the people of Maine as I have done for 34 years.
"Yes, my defeat was a shock to me. But I am not bitter, as uninformed, speculative news stories have said.
"Why should I be bitter? The people of Maine gave me the biggest majorities in history time after time... I am most grateful for those ... this time the majority of those who went to vote decided they wanted a change...
"Why be bitter? It is over. There is not one thing I can do to change it. Who am I to question that or to be bitter?"
Mrs. Smith says she turned away all requests for interviews following her election defeat for two reasons.
"First, I had nothing to say except that I lost. Everyone knew that. And that I was disappointed to have lost. That surely wasn't news. The other reason I refused interviews was simply that I was too busy getting out of my office. And I will tell you why I had a fixation about getting out on time and in good order.
"You must realize that a defeated senator has an eviction notice. If he or she is not out on time, it causes havoc all down the line. When I was first elected to the Senate, I could not get into my office because the defeated senator would not leave. I had to park my files and furniture in the corridor and sit on a chair in the rotunda for two or three days. I felt furious, awkward and foolish...
"I was determined that I would not cause anyone the embarrassment caused me. So my first priority was to get out on time and in good order.
"That is not quick or easy, after you have been in Congress 34 years. I, Bill Lewis, Jackie Potter and all my staff worked around the clock, trying to get that job done as well as handling the regular work of the office. That work was piled up higher than ever, after the campaign. When I lost, we were deluged with mail from all over America, and indeed from many foreign nations too, which had to be answered.
"One way to save time was to give no press interviews. If I had given one, I would have had to give dozens, in fairness."
Mrs. Smith is anxious to set the record straight about news reports that mistakenly said her defeat had not triggered off any demonstration of tribute or affection from her fellow senators – implying that after being the only woman in the Senate for so long, she was leaving unnoticed and unmourned.
"That implication is wholly untrue and unfair to my colleagues," says Mrs. Smith.
To prove it, assistant Bill Lewis comes out of the study carrying a six-inch thick sheaf of letters and telegrams from people on the Hill and another big sheaf from the people in the executive branch and the White House.
There are tributes, some very moving, from senators on both sides of the political aisle, from old-timers and from greenhorns.
Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee writes, "no outcome of any Senate race was a greater mistake than your loss. The Senate and the nation will miss you grievously ..." Sen. Ed Brooke of Massachusetts writes, "How can I ever express my deep affection and respect I have for you? I will miss you more than you can ever know ..."
Sen. Robert Dole of Kansas writes, "no defeat has affected me more than yours. You are a political legend in your own time ..."
Sen. Barry Goldwater writes, "Your defeat is the most shocking ... to lose you will be a tremendous, irreplaceable loss to the Senate and the nation."
Sen. Hubert Humphrey writes, "As a Democrat, I am supposed to be jubilant when another Democrat wins. But I just can't feel that way about losing you."
The pile of letters from senators includes letters in similar vein from Sens. James Buckley, Jacob Javits, Everett Jordan, Charles Mathias, Charles Percy, Jennings Randolph, William Saxbe, Hugh Scott, Stuart Symington, Strom Thurmond, Milton Young, Carl Curtis, Harry Fong, Harry Byrd, Howard Cannon, John Sherman Cooper, Norris Cotton, Clinton Anderson and dozens more.
"I also got a nice handwritten note from Sen. Muskie. It came in the latter part of December, I think, but only after a story in the newspapers reported that my office had not heard a word from Maine's other senator."
The Congressional Record of Jan. 9 carried a full and growing tribute in the form of a senate resolution to Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, not previously noted in newspapers.
"Put them away, Bill," says Mrs. Smith to Gen. Lewis. "That is enough to show that it is a calumny on my colleagues to say they did not acknowledge my departure. I thank Heaven the Senate was not in session right after the elections. I'm afraid we would have had a lot of oratory from the floor, and that would have shook me up badly."
President Nixon wrote, saying "The most disappointing aspect of the whole election is your defeat ... as one who has known defeats, I know how you feel. At such times you find who are your real friends. And count me among them."
There are moving tributes and affectionate personal letters front Melvin Laird, Henry Cabot Lodge, Elliot Richardson, Adm. Rickover, Nelson Rockefeller, William Rogers, Dean Rusk, Bob Hope, Gov. George Wallace, Claire Booth Luce, Richard Helms of CIA, and scores of others around the world.
"I show you all this to set straight the record," says Sen. Smith. "If I have any bitterness, I am bitter to those who since my defeat are saying that I am sick, lonely, a recluse or an embittered old lady in hiding. None of that is true at all."
Within a month, Mrs. Smith says she will announce what is to become of her congressional papers and files.
"We have 300 boxes of them in apple-pie order now. The span of years they cover runs from 1937, when I was secretary (at $3,000 a year) to my husband Clyde, when he was congressman from Maine, right through to December, 1972.
"That is 35 years of Maine and Washington. It covers presidents from FDR to Nixon. They cover almost every aspect of governmental decision making in war and peace, from the highest secrets on down to the vital requests from constituents in Maine. It is a revealing documentation of American history."
Mrs. Smith says that many universities, including the University of Maine and national libraries have expressed interest in obtaining this collection. "My work on them will be over shortly. And before March 1, I will be able to say where they are going."
When this job is completed, Mrs. Smith says she will be making a number of national speeches.
"My next major engagement is Feb. 24. Then I am to receive the American Education Award in Atlantic City. Some of the previous recipients include Lyndon Johnson, Erwin Canham, Leonard Bernstein, Walt Disney. And it is a bit ironic, after what the Teachers Association had to say about voting against me in Maine, that I should be chosen to receive this educational award.
"I have also been re-elected chairman of Freedom House, the Memorial Foundation to Wendell Wilkie, which represents the progressive, active center view of American life and politics. And that job keeps me traveling to New York. On Feb. 26, there is a big dedication ceremony there over which I will preside.
"In March I go to the University of Alabama to lecture for three days there at the law school. In April I make a speech to the convention of the Federated Womens Clubs in Ohio. In May, I will speak in Indiana and Michigan.
"And as usual I will make the commencement address at Maine high schools, this June at Winslow and Harrington."
Mrs. Smith says she has so far not acted upon a number of commercial offers. "Lecture bureaus wanted to sign me up for national speaking tours. But I think that would be too confining. And then Doubleday, the publishers, want me to write two books, one an autobiography and the other a critique of Congress. I would like to do both, but I am not quite ready yet to get started.
"And a national television network wants to discuss a contract for me to become a regular TV commentator ... but I will wait a while longer before making decisions. If I move too fast, I fear some would charge me with 'sour grapes' when I speak out on issues. I have not lost my trait for independence."
Looking back at her election defeat, Mrs. Smith says that she "fully expected to win, right up until I heard the returns coming in from Augusta. When I showed badly there, I first began to get really seriously worried. Before that I thought it would be close but that I would win."
Mrs. Smith says she might have announced that she would retire and not run for reelection again until Robert Monks announced he would fight her in the primaries.
"The principal reason I decided to run" she says "is because Monks jumped in with both feet, said he had a million dollars to spend and wanted to kick me out. If he had not gone ahead and announced this way, I might not have run."
Mrs. Smith says that Robert Monks, accompanied by Robert Marden, came to see her in Nov. 1971. "Bob Marden said nothing. Sat there looking embarrassed about the whole thing. And Monks talked on for 11/2 hours about almost nothing. He failed to say one word then about his intention of entering the primaries against me a few months later."
She applauds Monks for being a "very fair and honest opponent in the primary fight and a gracious loser.
"But my big victory in the primary over Monks may have given us false assurance. My age compared to Monks' age did not hurt me then. Nor did rumors of my being in bad health. Yet when it came to election, it was my age and malicious rumors about my bad health that damned me most.
"Being 74 (and not 75 as many papers said) was bad enough. But the thrust was that I would be 81 before my term expired if I were re-elected. Now I could not deny my age. It is a fact; not a debatable campaign issue.
"I did my best to offset it by proving to all who cared to look that age was not a handicap to me. I did full five days of hard work in the Senate, flew to Maine every weekend, put in 18-hour campaign days there, and then flew back to Washington.
"Proof of my ability to do the job was there for all who cared to look. I carried a full load in the most important committees in the Senate, I had voted on more than 5,000 roll calls. My position on the current issues of revenue-sharing, the Vietnam War, the economy, education, social security – everything else was on the record to see. I did not duck any issues in this campaign. I did far more than talk about them. I had voted on them, on the record.
"But people wanted a change. The national feeling was anti-establishment. They wanted someone younger. That is understandable. But it was unfair and wrong to say, as some did, that I had lost touch with Maine people.
"I read and answered 200 letters a day from Maine people. I was in constant touch with the urgent details of their private and business problems. In 1972 alone I spent more than 100 days in Maine. And as to my health – why I had never been hospitalized once until my first hip operation in 1968. And I am fit as a fiddle now."
To prove it, Mrs. Smith stands up and insists upon moving a big dining room table and six chairs without assistance. Then, to locate a file others cannot find, she scrambles up a small ladder and pulls down a cardboard filing cabinet locates the missing papers, and lifts the file back into place.
"Maybe I should have done more television in the election campaign. But that is not my style. I have always been against 'buying elections'. I turned $20,000 over to Charles Moreshead of the GOP Committee in Maine, told him to contribute $5,000 to Porteous, $5,000 to Cohen and use $10,000 to get Republicans elected to the state legislature.
"Maybe I should have used that money myself or taken help from the national GOP or the President. He at one time offered to make an appearance in Maine. But I like to run on my own two feet.
"However I was a strong team player for others. Everytime I spoke I urged people to vote for Nixon, for Cohen, for Porteous and for Republican legislators. I don't believe they did as much for me, and I did not ask them.
"Some people's loyalties were split. I remember I sent primary petitions, for example, to Sen. Minette Cummings and to Mrs. Henrietta Crane. Both were thinking of running then to become Republican national committeewomen. Minette Cummings got her petition filled and sent it back. But Henrietta Crane sent hers back blank and empty, saying she felt it might upset Bob Monks if she circulated a petition for me. But I don't really bear grudges. People do what they think best for them.
"Only one thing really hurts. I still hurt when I think about my own home town Skowhegan, where I was born, worked and grew up, voting against me. That hurts. And it is no use pretending it does not.
"It hurt too when my hometown paper came out editorially against me ... the Somerset News. I had worked eight years on that paper. But what few people knew is that the Bangor Daily News had bought the Skowhegan Paper. And when the Bangor Daily News decided to come out against me that policy was in effect on the Skowhegan paper too.
"When the Skowhegan paper told the AP they were refusing to support their home town Margaret Smith, they did not tell the AP that they were not an independent paper but were controlled by Bangor and acting on orders from Bangor. So the news went out across America that my home town paper was against me. That really was not the whole truth."
Mrs. Smith feels that some influence on her defeat was exerted by the papers owned by the Bangor Daily News and the Guy Gannett Publishing Co. "Of course it is their right and duty to support whomever they choose. But in February at a dinner in Washington the owners of both papers said publicly to me that they would support me not only in the primaries but also in the election. And of course they did not."
Mrs. Smith admits she will miss the Senate, especially the committee work and the work for her constituents. "The mail from Maine still pours in. People still ask me to intervene for them to solve their problems. They refuse to realize I no longer have any position or influence in government.
"But I will not be a hanger-on. I will not, as some do, haunt the Senate offices or lobby. I did not even go to any inaugural celebrations. I have cut those ties – except where they involve personal friendships. Those 34 years are done."
Mrs. Smith says that the President has not made any overture to her regarding a position in the administration. If he did, she might have doubts about taking it "because I am inclined to be pretty independent. The President knows that well – for instance my votes against his nominations for the Supreme Court and my vote against the ABM. Those upset him. I upset Eisenhower too, when Nixon was vice president. I can be a team player. But not when I am in total disagreement with policy."
Mrs. Smith hopes to return to Maine "but not right away. I think it would be hard for me to live in Skowhegan right now, and it would be hard for many people in Skowhegan.
"And it would be hard to go back to Cundy's Harbor right now. The vandals who broke in there don't seem to have been petty thieves. They tore up and desecrated all my personal mementos and belongings. That had the earmarks of a vicious personal attack. And it naturally worries a woman alone. But I will surely be back to Maine before too long.
"Tell them back home that I am not bitter, grudge-bearing, a lonely or sick and aged woman. Tell them I am fine, happy, busy and intend to keep right on being busy and happy and doing what I feel worthwhile!"
[From the Maine Sunday Telegram, Feb. 11, 1973]
MRS. SMITH ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON
(By Bill Caldwell)
WASHINGTON. – "Look how the buds are swelling on the dogwood and azaleas already!" says former Sen. Margaret Smith, walking the extensive grounds of her home in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Md.
"This rock is my diving board. I swim here in the pool twice daily in the summer. First in the morning, then on hot nights to cool off ... Bill Lewis built the barbecue. Those black tops are Monson slate we brought from Maine. And this polished slab of Maine granite comes from Stonington.
"Now I'll change," she says. "And get on with washing the car. That's what I like to do on Sunday – wash the car."
You can take Mrs. Smith out of Skowhegan. But you can't take Skowhegan out of Margaret Smith.
At 75 Margaret Smith is younger looking most of the time than most women of 60. She is comfortable financially, on a pension of over $34,000 a year. She held higher political office longer than any woman in American history. Presidents fawned over her – and she sometimes infuriated them.
But on Sunday afternoons the lady from Skowhegan, Maine, gets out hose, bucket and boots and washes down her aging white Pontiac convertible.
On a driveway at a separate entrance to the same house Maj. Gen. Willim C. Lewis, the landlord and for 26 years loyal assistant to Mrs. Smith, works on his antique car.
Bill Lewis, 60, is the envied owner of a classic 1941 Plymouth coupe. "This is an heirloom" he says. "My father gave it to me. He drove it here from his ranch in Red River, New Mexico. Every time I'd drive it to the Senate garage I would get offers of $2,000 and more for it. But I'm not selling."
Bill Lewis built this house in 1952, when this area of suburban Washington was still an apple orchard.
"My father and mother came to live here with me part of every year until they died. My father was a great trial lawyer in Oklahoma and late U.S. attorney there. My father was, like me, a general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. He died in 1965. My mother was a lawyer, too and also a U.S. marshal. She was chief law clerk to the Supreme Court in Oklahoma. My mother died in 1963.
"They were close friends of the Senator's, who had the lower half of this house for most of the 10 years my mother and father lived in the upper half with me. They spent summers at my place in Cundy's Harbor, Maine, close to where the Senator has her summer house."
Lewis took his law degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1935 and his master's in business administration from the Harvard Business School two years later.
"I first came to Washington in 1938 as senior trial lawyer for the Securities and Exchange Commission. My job was to prosecute public utility corporations who made illegal political contributions. Then in World War II I served in the Navy. Only later did I switch to the Air Force Reserve, following in my father's tradition."
I asked Bill Lewis where he had first met Margaret Smith and how her career became his career.
"When she was in Congress. I came back from the war to become chief counsel to the House Naval Affairs Committee. She was a member of that committee. I first worked with her there ...
"And then when Sen. Wallace White announced his retirement, I urged Mrs. Smith to run for Senator from Maine. She asked me to become her campaign manager. That was when she beat a sitting governor, Horace Hildreth, and a past governor, Sumner Sewall, and a man named Beverage. In that primary she won more votes than all her opponents combined. And I have worked for her ever since."
For 25 years bachelor Lewis and widow Margaret Chase Smith have worked in close harness. He has been her strong, loyal right hand in all her Senate work, in her four triumphant elections and her one losing election campaign, in her world-wide travels.
Yet, a distance of rigid formality still seems to separate these two after 25 years. In speaking to Mrs. Smith, Lewis always addresses her as "Senator". In speaking about Mrs. Smith, Lewis always refers to her in the third person as "the Senator". Never does he use the name "Margaret".
Mrs. Smith almost always addresses and refers to her long time assistant as "Bill", on more official occasions she refers to him as "General Lewis". In conversation Mrs. Smith speaks more warmly, more affectionately about his mother and father than about Lewis himself.
Yet when Bill Lewis suffered a severe heart attack more than a year ago, Mrs. Smith immediately broke her rigid rules of constant attendance to Senate business. For the first time in her career, she chose not to go to her office. She spent days and nights close to Lewis' bedside at Walter Reed hospital during the critical stage of his illness.
Waiting almost to the end of a seven hour interview, I asked Mrs. Smith: "If there was now any likelihood you might become Mrs. William C. Lewis?"
She chuckled, "Lordy, no! Bill is just a young man," she answered. "He is 60. And, furthermore, he's never asked me!"
Earlier in the day, Mrs. Smith was in her kitchen making oyster stew for lunch. Lewis came in to check that all burners were turned off. Petulant at his concern, Mrs. Smith shooed him out, snapping, be it with laughter in her voice, "Don't be nosing around my stove as if I didn't know what to do! I was cooking long before you were ever born!"
On another occasion, Mrs. Smith said, "I don't have a maid. There is too little for a maid to do here. I like keeping house. I'm finicky. Every three weeks a team of men come in half a day or so to do all the really heavy cleaning ...
"Some days, however, I feel I should lend a hand to Bill, to straighten up his quarters. But he doesn't want me to help. I never set foot in his part of the house, really, not since his mother and father lived there and we used to visit back and forth."
Speaking of house cleaning, Mrs. Smith recalled her vain efforts to clean-up the Senate dining room. "Only time I screamed in my 34 years in Congress was when a cockroach ran across my steak in the Senate dining room ... When I reached down to grab my purse and run, another ran up my arm! Out I ran, screaming at a gallop!"
Mrs. Smith recalls, "The men had been complaining constantly about quality, prices and service of food. They asked me as a woman to get something done. Those cockroaches triggered me to action. But when I asked the Rules Committee to authorize $15,000 to investigate operations of the Senate Dining Room, those 32 male co-sponsors vanished. And one columnist wrote a snide piece about "Margaret's $15,000 cockroach."
"It is a man's domain, the Senate" sighs Mrs. Smith. "The men get hair cuts free. I paid $5 every time I got my hair done in the Senate. When I used the Senate swimming pool, part of my physical therapy after my hip operation, I had to go down there out-of-hours."
Mrs. Smith spoke briefly of the $34,000 a year pension she is now drawing after 34 years. "I started work in the Congress in 1938 at $3,000 a year, as secretary to my husband, Clyde, when he was congressman. I have been contributing to the pension fund ever since. I figure I have paid in over $70,000. It will take me years to get my money back. Thereafter, I may have to pay about $17,000 a year in income taxes and other taxes out of my pension."
Over coffee, the talk switches to how a state delegation operates.
"I am a bit surprised about news stories now concerning meetings of the Maine congressional delegation – as if the idea was new – it's far from new. I held them in my office on a Tuesday of each month for the eight years I was chairman."
The talk turns to prominent figures in the Nixon Administration.
"Henry Kissinger is a perfect dear, wholly charming to be with," is Mrs. Smith's opinion of President Nixon's special envoy. "I used to get awfully tired of those leaderships meetings at the White House. But at one breakfast meeting, I found Kissinger at my shoulder saying, 'Senator, I hope you'll have breakfast with me'.
"And I answered, ‘After all those lovely young girls you squire around town, aren't you going from the sublime to the ridiculous asking to eat with me?’"
Thereafter at the White House and elsewhere, Kissinger and Mrs. Smith grew to be close friends.
"Richard Helms, head of the CIA until his new appointment as ambassador, is one of the men I admired most in the Nixon administration" says Sen. Smith. "I knew him well. I was one of just three United States senators given the fullest possible security clearance. Dick Helms kept us well posted on all CIA plans and operations and budgets. He was a most able CIA director. He did extremely well in presenting us with the full knowledge of CIA we were entitled to have."
Helms got along so well with the Congress, says Mrs. Smith, that some people feel President Nixon sent him overseas on a different job to get Helms off the hill.
"Some senators felt that the President does not like any person working for him to get along well with the Congress," says Mrs. Smith.
As to old friend William Rogers, "Few people appreciate", says Mrs. Smith "how close Secretary of State Rogers has been to President Nixon or for how long. Despite his outward isolation from the White House and the apparent dominance of Henry Kissinger in foreign policy, Bill Rogers has to be among Nixon's closest longtime confidants.
"Having Rogers in the State Department instead of in the inner White House circle may make Rogers better able to do certain assignments for the President than he could otherwise be doing."
I ask Mrs. Smith her opinion of President Nixon.
"Nixon is extremely hard working, able, pragmatic and above all extremely driven by ambition. He is determined to carve a place in history for his presidency. He will let nothing stand in the way of that ambition to make his presidency renowned," says Mrs. Smith of the man she has known for almost a quarter-century.
The confrontation between President Nixon and the Congress, particularly over spending limits and war powers? Mrs. Smith thinks the President will win both battles. "As to impounding funds, that is nothing new. And the Congress knows it. So does Nixon. Both know that Truman, Kennedy, Eisenhower, LBJ, all impounded money Congress had appropriated and earmarked. Congress did not protest then.
"One reason Congress is making so much noise today is that this is the first new Congress not to have a civil rights bill or a filibuster to occupy its attention right after Inauguration. They'll settle down by March, I think."
Her desk is the thing she'll miss most from the Senate, says Mrs. Smith. "It was in the front row. It was officially called 'Senate Desk Number One.' I had the same desk all the 24 years I was in the Senate, something few senators do.
"But besides being in a good position, that desk had another special meaning for a senator from Maine. It is the desk that belonged to Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. He sat at this desk first in 1848. Later he became Lincoln's vice president, thereby becoming president of the Senate and a powerful voice for emancipation. He came back to the Senate in 1869 and served till 1881. I was proud to sit at it for 24 years..."
Another advantage of that desk was that it was close to the vice president "partly because of where I sat, I have known all the vice-presidents very well" says Mrs. Smith.
Talk switches to the presidents and vice presidents with whom Mrs. Smith has served closely. She is not willing to name favorites. But her sense of closeness to LBJ is clear.
"We came into Congress as freshmen in the House in the same year ... Then we served together constantly, not just in the House and then the Senate but on the same committees together all through. There is where you really get to know the quality of a colleague ...
"I looked up the records. They show that Lyndon Johnson and I broke all records in the history of Congress for the amount of time we spent working together on the same committees ...
"He had a huge understanding and love for both houses of Congress but particularly the Senate. We shared that, as well as our work . Yes, I respected and admired Lyndon Johnson, especially his devotion to his work. And I like to think it was mutual. We were real friends for a long time, long while."
Mrs. Smith recalled her days in newspapering, from the time she worked for the Skowhegan paper through the years she was a syndicated columnist, telling the woman's view on the opposite side of the political fence from fellow-columnist Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt.
"I am looking for the right platform to speak from now," says Mrs. Smith, who wants to be a voice for the center of American life and politics. "I'm afraid of extremists and distrustful of them, from either side of the spectrum."
She is most tempted by an offer to become a network television commentator.
"I did television before, you remember," she says. "There was that nationally televised debate between Mrs. Roosevelt and myself when she supported Adlai Stevenson and I supported Ike.
"But I recall mostly those television interviews I did for CBS and Ed Murrow during my world trips in 1954 and 1955.
"I spent hours with Churchill and Eden. In France I particularly remember the experts told me not to waste my time talking to Charles de Gaulle. They said he was a hasbeen. But I wanted to see him anyhow.
"We were shown into a bare, stark white room. The only furniture was a narrow table. On one side was a huge raised chair, like a throne. On the other side were three tiny, low chairs, with legs sawed off to make them smaller. Then in came De Gaulle, almost seven feet tall himself. And we had to stargaze up at him up on his throne for a whole two hours.
"I spent four hours with Nasser. He was nervous. He insisted on having all my questions in writing. And then reading all his prepared written answers.
"I did the world's first televised interview with Generalissimo Franco of Spain and saw President Menderes of Turkey. I went to Moscow to see Molotov. But no TV was allowed. In Germany we did a camera interview with Chancellor Adenauer. Then we went to East Berlin, Bill Lewis and the cameramen got thrown in jail.
"Most fascinating perhaps were the hours I spent with Nehru in India. It started very badly. He came in carrying one rose and wearing another. He always wore a rose on his tunic, as I did on my dress. The second rose was for me. But I already had one on – to my embarrassment and his.
"That was a bad start. Then the first question I asked Nehru was a very tough one: 'Mr. Prime Minister,' I said, 'Why are you so tolerant of communism outside your borders but so tough and anti-Communist inside India. How do you reconcile these opposite positions?'
"The first hour was icy. But then the ice melted finally and we had two more hours of the best talk with one of the best minds I have ever encountered.
"And on the trip we interviewed U Nu of Burma, President Diem of Saigon, President Magsaysay in Manila and Chiang Kai-shek on Taiwan ... It was all unforgettable and CBS shot miles of film.
"Yes, maybe I would like to do television again as a commentator for the center."
Watching her feed birds, cook oyster stew, clear a table, even wash her car on a Sunday afternoon, it is hard to realize one is talking to a woman who is a legend in her own time across the nation.
For there is not one iota of pomp, not one air of self-importance and vanity in her as she talks in her home
You can take Mrs. Smith out of Skowhegan. But you can't take Skowhegan, Maine out of Margaret Chase Smith.
[From the Washington Post, Feb. 13, 1973]
EX-SENATOR SMITH'S HOME To BECOME A MEMORIAL
(By Maxwell Wisenthal)
SKOWHEGAN, MAINE, February 12.– Friends of former Sen. Margaret Chase Smith plan to convert the three-story, white, wooden Smith homestead here into a memorial library in her honor.
They plan to move ahead on the conversion despite Mrs. Smith's recent observation that "it would be hard for me to live in Skowhegan right now," because the voters of this central Maine community favored her opponent, William D. Hathaway, in the November election.
The committee planning the library has formed a corporation known as the Margaret Chase Smith Memorial Library. All of her books, papers and other material will be stored there and be available to researchers and for public viewing.
Among those planning for the library are Leo Cherne, executive director of the Research Institute of America; Claire Giannini Hoffman, a director of the Bank of America and daughter of the founder, A. P. Giannini; Katie Louchheim, former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State; Claire Booth Luce, former ambassador and author; William B. Mills, executive of the DuPont corporation; Robert T. Stevens, former Secretary of the Army and chief executive officer of the J. P. Stevens Textile Co.; James E. Webb, former administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and former director of the budget; Richard H. Wels, New York attorney; H. L. Gosselin, former executive of the Bates Manufacturing Co. and one of Mrs. Smith's campaign directors; William C. Lewis Jr., former administrative assistant to Mrs. Smith, and Merton G. Herny, Portland, attorney and campaign aide to the former senator.
Herny said Mrs. Smith was delighted with the idea of the residence being converted to a memorial library.
He said the committee would meet shortly to discuss the cost and renovations involved. Mrs. Smith also has a home at Cundy's Harbor on Maine's Casco Bay.
[From the Lewiston Daily Sun, Feb. 13, 1973]
SENATOR SMITH MEMORIAL
The conversion of the Skowhegan home of former U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith into a public memorial library is a fitting tribute to the outstanding work and distinguished career of the woman who was Maine's senior senator until last month.
Senator Smith's 34 years of service at the nation's capital began when she was secretary to her late husband, Congressman Clyde H. Smith. It continued as she served in the House and reached its zenith in the Senate. Courageous and independent, she became a power in the Senate and in the federal government, and an active member of top ranking committees.
The years that Sen. Smith served in Congress were among the most turbulent and important in American history. The flies of documents and papers which she accumulated are of inestimable historical value.
The Margaret Chase Smith Memorial Library will house those papers and mementoes of her congressional career. Future generations of Mainers and Americans will be enabled to more fully appreciate her tremendous contribution to our government and our times.
[From Newsweek, Nov. 20, 1972]
MAGGIE SMITH: ROSES, THORNS
They made a fuss in Washington over the fresh rose she always wore pinned near her left shoulder, but that was so much sentimentality. The thorn was what counted in Margaret Chase Smith's 24-year career in the U.S. Senate. She voted and spoke alone if need be, and took no money from anyone for anything (including any private donations for her own reelection campaigns), and made up her mind with such detachment from the usual quid pro quos of Senate politics that no one dared even ask her how she intended to vote. When the 74-year-old Republican senior senator from Maine was finally defeated last week, overtaken as much by advancing age as by her Democratic challenger, 48-year-old Rep. William D. Hathaway, the Senate lost its fourth-ranking Republican, its lone woman – and one of its only true independents.
A handsome, soft-spoken Skowhegan schoolteacher, Maggie Smith went to Washington in the 1930s with her congressman husband and succeeded him in the House after his death in 1940. In 1948 she was elected to the Senate – the third woman elected in its history – and within two years made her lasting mark upon it. While much-paragraphed liberals like Hubert Humphrey stood silently by, the Republican lady delivered her "declaration of conscience" against "hate and character assassination" that has "debased" the Senate. She did not once mention Sen. Joseph McCarthy by name, but he got the point well enough to stalk off the Senate floor – and to pour money and his best campaign efforts into a vain attempt to defeat her in the Maine primary in 1954.
Through the years, her habitual silence and unpredictable independence seemed to give her vote a special weight in crucial Senate roll calls. She cast one of two GOP votes against confirming Lewis L. Strauss as Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of Commerce – and these two votes made the difference. A domestic liberal and international hard-liner, she earned the name of "devil" from Nikita Khrushchev for voting against John Kennedy's nuclear-test-ban treaty.
She opposed Richard Nixon's nominations of both Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. Her aloof sense of integrity could be exasperating. Though she opposed the President's ABM program because it was "obsolete," she also opposed a compromise that might have stalled the program. She fiercely resented any pressure or blandishment: when Mr. Nixon disclosed on the day of a hairline vote on the supersonic transport that he had decided to keep open a job-rich naval shipyard on the Maine border, Mrs. Smith kept her counsel – and voted against the SST and the President.
But perhaps her proudest voting record was that she cast more of them in a row than any senator in history – 2,941 roll calls until a hip operation finally sidelined her briefly in 1968. Never a hero or a real power in the Senate – where the doers no less than the slackers were frustrated by her refusal to compromise – she nevertheless exerted a certain force simply by her silent example. Amid all the pious rodomontade that followed on the assassination of John Kennedy, it was Margaret Chase Smith who went quietly to his old Senate desk and laid on it one red rose.