Politics of Conscience A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith

This biography of Margaret Chase Smith is the first historical treatment of Smith to use her voluminous private papers as well as extensive interviews with Smith and her colleagues in Congress. As Maine's daughter, Smith was frugal, hard-working, reticent, and caustic. At age thirty-two she married, in scandal, state-politician Clyde Smith with whom she had been involved since she was sixteen and who was twenty-one years her senior. Smith came to Washington when Clyde was elected to Congress and, against his wishes, she became his secretary. When Clyde died in office in 1940, Smith played the widow's game and successfully ran for his seat. In the House during World War II, Smith sat on the powerful Naval Affairs Committee and, tutored by committee counsel Bill Lewis, developed a national constituency, the military, which in turn allowed her to better serve Maine's interests. Lewis directed Smith's first Senate campaign in 1948 when she won an upset victory by an astonishing margin. Overnight she became the darling of the Republican party, the heroine of women everywhere, and the only woman in the United States Senate. Immediately, she became embroiled with Joseph McCarthy and courageously confronted him with her Declaration of Conscience speech four years before a Senate majority censored him. Associating herself with politics of conscience, Smith was elected to three more terms and sat on the powerful Armed services, Appropriations, Space, Government Operations, and Intelligence committees. America's heroine was a political icon by the time she was defeated in 1972 at the age of seventy-four.Wallace, Patricia W. is the author of 'Politics of Conscience A Biography of Margaret Chase Smith' with ISBN 9780275951306 and ISBN 0275951308.