One Herblock cartoon that caught my interest was the one that showed the Illinois branch of the American Legion spying on a group of Girl Scouts. In the cartoon, the Girl Scouts are roasting marshmallows around a small campfire and the title is “Stand fast men --- they’re armed with marshmallows,” poking fun at how absurd the grown men look. The caption states that in the summer of 1954, the American Legion accused the Girl Scouts of America of being un-American, and thus a subversive group. The ridiculousness of this situation compelled me so I decided to do more research about the accusations of communism against the GSUSA.
In July of 1954, Robert LeFevre, a right-wing radio personality, published an article accusing the GSUSA of promoting socialist values and a one-world government in the latest edition of their handbook. At the time, the GSUSA was editing the handbook to update it for the next edition. LeFevre claimed that they were editing the book as a result of his communist accusations, but in reality, revisions had been in the works for a while.
Marguerite Hall, one of the program advisors and editors of the handbook, discussed the process of editing the Girl Scouts handbook many years later. She stated that the junior Girl Scouts who were reviewing the book did not like the page with the Bill of Rights. Apparently, the Bill of Rights was squeezed onto one half-page so it was very difficult to read and made the spread look poorly designed. However, when they took out the Bill of Rights they were accused of being anti-American.
Later, in August of that year, Edward Clamage, the head of the anti-Subversive Commission in Illinois, decided to propose a resolution that would withdraw the Illinois American Legion’s support for the GSUSA. Clamage’s resolution stated that the Girl Scout’s “subversive and un-American influences are attempting to capture the minds of our youth” and that the “writings of certain pro-Communist authors … have been highly recommended in an official Girl Scout magazine.” The communist writing that Clamage was referring to was a book written by Langston Hughes, an African American man who had been investigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy for having alleged communist sympathies. In the Girl Scouts Leader Magazine, they had reviewed the book in a positive light. Although there was little to no evidence against Hughes in his hearing, the GSUSA was still accused of being associated with a possible communist supporter.
It was after this hearing that Herblock published his political cartoon mocking the whole affair. In fact, Herblock was far from alone because the press devoured the event and many people came to the support of the Girl Scouts. Overall, I think the whole scandal just goes to show how no one was safe from the wild accusations that swept through America during the age of McCarthyism, even cookie-selling little girls.
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This article was super interesting! I like how you wrote about a group subject to the fears of communism that we are familiar with even today. Upon further research, I found that one of the pieces of evidence used against the Girl's Scouts was a positive book review of Langston Hughes's book First Book of Negroes. At the time, Hughes had also been called to testify in front of McCarthy on charges of Communist sympathies. They complimented the book's "clear presentation of the history and accomplishments of the Negroe race, and its contribution to increased understanding of an important aspect of our American heritage and culture." The Girl Scouts were at risk of guilt by association.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://gshistory.com/2014/08/07/the-girl-scout-red-scare-part-three/
This blog was super interesting to read! It's so strange that during this time period, people were so paranoid that something like taking the section of the Bill of Rights out of the handbook due to poor placement was enough to incite an accusation of anti-communism. As you said in your blog, this goes to show the true influence this era of McCarthyism had over people. After doing some research about this topic, I learned that many groups of people were accused of communism. While many people accused were through individual interrogations, there were also groups accused as a whole, much like the girl scouts. One primary example is the Lavender Scare, when homosexuals as a whole were accused of communist association. These people, who had not shown any indication of communist behavior, were purged from all government jobs. These cases show how during the 50s, paranoia in America reached an unprecedented height.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/opinion/affirmative-action-college-admissions.html