WISCONSIN'S OTHER MCCARTHY
Kent, Sylvia
Wisconsin's Other McCarthy By Sylvia Kent FOR many years the name La-Follette was synonymous with Wisconsin. Recent events have made people associate the state with another name—Joseph McCarthy....
...Charles McCarthy was his name and a good deal of what we know as "The Wisconsin Idea" came from his energetic brain...
...The son of poor Irish immigrants, he was born at Brockton, Mass., in 1873...
...His doctoral dissertation, The Anti Masonic Party, won the Justin Winsor prize of the American Historical Association in 1902...
...When the Spanish-American War began, he was determined to be an active participant...
...While the establishment of a vigorous extension division for a great state university was clearly not his idea, McCarthy plugged so hard to convince President Charles Van Hise of the advantages of bringing education to the rural areas and small towns that its creation is usually credited to him...
...In Wisconsin, he was an early exponent of farmers' cooperatives for purchasing and marketing...
...For this purpose McCarthy began a collection of clippings on every conceivable subject...
...He did serve as the first director of the U.S...
...Other states copied his handiwork, and so, eventually, did the federal government...
...Many there were who thought him too eager to take the credit of ideas which were not entirely his own...
...While the state owes him the debt, he was filled with gratitude toward it: "I, a wandering student, seeking knowledge, came knocking at the gates of the great University of Wisconsin, and it took me in, filled me with inspiration, and when I left its doors, the kindly people of the state stretched out welcoming hands and gave me a man's work to do...
...McCarthy was appointed...
...Turner, celebrated as the author of the frontier theory of American history, took particular interest in the young scholar but felt that certain "rough edges" like unpolished speech and inattention to dress made a University appointment out of the question...
...In addition, he instituted the practice of assisting legislators to draft bills in a skillful and scientific manner...
...When he was granted an honorary doctorate of letters by his alma mater in 1913, Brown University's President Faunce said his career proved "that the athlete may be scholar, and the scholar may shape life and law...
...McCarthy's hacking cough and emaciated countenance suggested the possibility of tuberculosis, but the examination proved satisfactory...
...He had his faults...
...Other appointments he refused...
...He worked around docks and ships, in factories, and as a common laborer...
...Critics of the Progressive Era in Wisconsin history turned their fire for a time on McCarthy...
...When the capitol burned in 1904, he began the collection all over again...
...McCarthy investigated, found 35,000 Wisconsin residents enrolled in out-of-state correspondence schools and $800,000 leaving the state annually in payment for the courses...
...He influenced the system of state regulation of railroads and public utilities...
...In this way he was able to promote and to influence much of the progressive legislation which Wisconsin fostered in the first dozen years of the 20th Century...
...Charles McCarthy's life was constructed of elements which we are prone to hail as typically American...
...Although the national government constantly sought his services, McCarthy preferred to remain in his adopted state and work for the welfare of Wisconsin...
...The junior Senator from Wisconsin might profit from this spirit of the state's other McCarthy...
...Calls by business corporations he likewise rejected, although throughout his career he was a fast friend of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a Brown classmate...
...Even a bill to abolish the Library and end the pernicious evil of this "bill factory" was drafted by McCarthy...
...Charles McCarthy died in 1921...
...This is not the first time Wisconsin has produced a McCarthy who caught the attention of the nation...
...Van Hise looked at these cold figures and followed McCarthy's suggestion...
...It happened, however, that Frank A. Hutchins was looking for a young man to head a newly created division in the Free Library Commission of which he was executive secretary...
...The Library aimed at accumulating materials which would help the legislators to study issues...
...He was, most assuredly, a capable student, but McCarthy's major claim to distinction at Brown was on the athletic field...
...He managed to withstand the criticism, and the Legislative Reference Bureau recently celebrated its 50th year as a major aid to scientific legislation...
...His mother operated a boarding house, where young Charlie met Irish and English shoe workers of various political beliefs and early developed a cosmopolitan outlook...
...He studied with Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles H. Haskins, Richard T. Ely, and Paul S. Reinsch— probably the leading social scientists of the period...
...Madison, Wisconsin, was the next stop...
...He left a clear print on the annals of Wisconsin's progress...
...Some were offended by his brashness, his lack of polish, his disinterest in convention...
...Just how much of the Legislative Reference Library (for this was the institution that gave McCarthy his chief claim to fame) was Hutchins' idea and how much McCarthy's will probably never be settled...
...Although he attended the local public schools, McCarthy had not prepared himself adequately for college and it was only after some difficulty that he secured admission to Brown University...
...After graduating from Brown in 1897, McCarthy coached the University of Georgia football team and studied law on the side...
...Commission on Industrial Relations in 1914 and 1915 and again, in 1917-18, acted as personal aide to Herbert Hoover in the Food Administration...
...He was one of the football greats of his day—an All-American and the first Brown player to cross the goal line of Harvard and Yale...
...The reform measures had all been drafted in the Legislative Reference Library, and the charge was hurled that McCarthy had unduly influenced the course of legislation...
...McCarthy's work still lives on in Wisconsin...
...In order to continue at the University he took all sorts of odd jobs, including work as a scene shifter in the Providence Opera House...
...Time alone will tell which connotation survives...
...McCarthy developed the division along unique lines and made it world-renowned and universally imitated...
...His great interest, however, was fostering the cause of "democratic education," and the University of Wisconsin's Extension Division bears testament to McCarthy's foresight...
...His athletic prowess was achieved in spite of a none-too-robust constitution and a frame of less than 135 pounds...
...One of his associates thought of him as a "big person," but one never quite big enough to forget the fact that he "came from the other side of the tracks...
...Only a generation ago another McCarthy was working his will and bringing the state into national prominence...
...McCarthy had many a more violent critic, but history can have no doubts about the vigorous Irish-American...
...McCarthy arrived in 1898, enrolled at the University of Wisconsin and began a course of instruction which culminated in 1901 with a Ph.D...
...Although the Army rejected him for physical reasons, he served with the third Georgia regiment until an attack of malaria cut short the adventure before he could reach Cuba...
...in political science...
...Turner suggested McCarthy, and Hutchins decided to hire him provided he agreed to a physical examination...
...He urged municipal budget reform and the commission type of city government...
Vol. 17 • September 1953 • No. 9
