"Have you no sense of decency, sir at long last?"

         TODAY marks the anniversary of the dark day in 1954 following U.S. Senator (Republican, WI) Joseph McCarthy's infamous speech to the Senate.  The speech that lasted until 14 minutes before midnight.  The one with the Senator waving a briefcase of purported evidence of an infiltration of "communist" subversion through the ranks of American society (specifically, that night, as represented by 81 State Dept. employees).  The day (Feb. 21) the Senate myopically voted for an immediate investigation into the Senator's charges.  The one, the vote, which lead, of course, to televised hearings beginning April 22.

June 9 the hearings'd reached their watershed dramatic moment.

McCarthy'd attacked the character of a young legal aide of Joseph Nye Welch (Army Chief Counsel), Fred Fisher, who'd once worked for the National Lawyers Guild (an organization with communist ties).  In Fisher's absence, Welch’s reply became famous: “Until this moment, senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness .... Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”

         The point?  Perhaps this is a question well asked of ourselves from time to time.  Asked, at long last, what we are made of? To reflect on, as MLK wrote, that "the ultimate measure [of oneself] is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."  And so another question:  How?   How we measure. 

What we are made of and how we measure?

At long last...

What and how, indeed?