Fear spawns a panic that justifies the compromising of principle, as it did in the Red Scare of the 1950s. The rise of communism abroad and Soviet espionage in the U.S government engendered a distress that enabled McCarthyism to gain traction. Led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism promoted legislation that threatened civil liberties for the sake of pursuing subversives. To condemn the fear-mongering campaign and the powerful politician was to not only risk one’s political career, but also one’s safety. For Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson II, the choice was simple. 

Weary of corruption in politics, Illinois elected the intellectual Stevenson as Governor in 1949. As the maternal great-grandson of the founder of the Illinois Republican Party, but paternal grandson of the democratic U.S vice-president under the Grover Cleveland administration, Stevenson was a byproduct of bipartisan ancestry. The dichotomy between the Pennsylvania Republican Quaker lineage of his mother and the Southern Democratic Presbyterian heritage of the Stevenson line, generated a man who acted in the interest of what he believed to be right regardless of party or politics. 

Mark Twain once remarked, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” Stevenson was by no means fearless. He was deeply troubled that the country he loved, desperate to eliminate communism, would suppress America’s heritage. He had the courage to pierce through the fog of paranoia and rhetoric of McCarthyism, but furthermore, had the courage to publicly renounce it. Throughout his life, Stevenson held firm in his stance that the nation was gripped by fear, cautioning the public against the danger of sacrificing freedom of speech in the war against communism.

The witch hunt for subversives came to Illinois in the form of the Seditious Activities Investigation Commission, designed to “flush out the communists assertedly hiding behind every barn and silo on the prairie." In 1951, one Republican and one Democratic Illinois Senator jointly introduced Bill 102 to the Illinois General Assembly on behalf of the Commission. The bill mandated every employing agency of the state to ferret subversives and required a loyalty oath of public officials. Characterizing any radical organization as subversive and hence illegal, it sought to “protect the state, not from the crimes of communists, but rather the threat of its ‘doctrine.’” The agitation aroused by McCarthyism garnered overwhelming support for the bill in both chambers, and it passed by a vote of 35 to 15 in the Senate and 87 to 15 in the House.

In a period of grave anxiety over the communist infiltration, Stevenson was faced with a demand for strict anti-subversive legislation. Be that as it may, Stevenson found that by penalizing those who held unorthodox views, the bill jeopardized the freedom of honest citizens. He was left with the decision to veto, or to silently permit an unconstitutional infringement of rights. To ensure his bias was not interfering with public interest, Stevenson met with the FBI in Washington. They could not say so publicly but revealed to Stevenson, “such state antisubversive bills actually got in the way,” sometimes arresting undercover FBI agents working undercover to infiltrate subversive organizations. Although the veto appeared the contrary, it would preserve the integrity of the investigations of subversives as well as civil liberties.

To protect national security, Stevenson would not share what he had learned to defend himself. He recognized that vetoing Bill 102, a law that had passed with considerable approval, let alone bipartisan support, would be perceived as Soviet-sympathetic and torpedo his desire for the U.S presidency. Simply put, he had to choose his career, or his convictions. In defiance of all three of these pressures, Governor Stevenson vetoed the legislation. 

In a speech to his fellow legislators, he proclaimed, “I know full well that this veto will be distorted and misunderstood… unpopular with many… But I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our ancient rights...” Unpopular it was. The American Legion, the Tribune, and Hearst’s Herald American all indoctrinated in McCarthyism, assailed the Governor. Stevenson was the first major political leader to repudiate the feared Senator McCarthy and resist his red-hunting machines, criticizing such policy with an eloquence that exceeded any other American political leader of that time. In doing so, he had made himself vulnerable to relentless criticism that cast doubt on his ability to govern and brought forth accusations of communist ties. Stevenson’s veto became the basis for the claim that he was “soft” on communism which lost him the presidential election of 1952 and 1956, and the democratic presidential nomination in 1960. 

In spite of his loss, Stevenson’s unwavering criticisms of the Wisconsin Senator paved the path for Americans to uncover the peril of his tactics and was “part of the sequence of events that destroyed McCarthy.” His courage stems from his resistance to a pressure unique to this era: the paranoia over the communist infiltration, and the necessity of remaining silent on McCarthyism to avoid being blacklisted as a traitor. Stevenson resisted fear. A year out from an insurrection at the United States Capitol and a global pandemic that has heightened political polarization, it seems the only thing Americans can be sure of anymore is a similar persisting paranoia over the safety of democracy. President John F. Kennedy told us, “Let us never negotiate with fear,” and as we reflect on how we as a nation can move forward, let us look back to a period in which we faced the same fear of insurgency. The political courage of Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson may guide us.