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Joseph McCarthyEnemies from Within Speech
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1950A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Allusion
An allusion is a reference either to another literary work or to a well-known event, figure, ideology, etc. The title given to McCarthy’s Wheeling speech, “Enemies from Within,” alludes to a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be from enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within” (830). The quote encapsulates McCarthy’s primary argument: that America is weakened not by external enemies but by internal ones. There is no record of Lincoln having said or written those words. It is more likely that McCarthy refers to Lincoln’s Lyceum Address of 1838, which states the following:
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. (Lincoln, Abraham. The Wit and Wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. Edited by Alex Ayres. New York: Meridian Group, 1839.)
Besides dovetailing with McCarthy’s claims about The Threat of Betrayal from within, the allusion to Lincoln rhetorically links McCarthy to a well-respected president popularly understood to have regretted the necessity of war. This positions McCarthy’s argument as similarly deploring an unfortunate reality: Peace would be preferable, McCarthy claims, but the threat of Communism is too dangerous to ignore.
McCarthy draws a distinction between the traditional, foreign spy who receives payment for espionage and the traitors working within the government. Instead of just delivering classified information in exchange for “30 pieces of silver” (830), these spies are on the inside shaping policy. The “30 pieces of silver” is an allusion to the money Judas received for betraying Christ. Betrayal is a prominent theme in the “Enemies from Within” speech. It is important to note that McCarthy borrowed the reference to “30 pieces of silver” from a speech Richard Nixon had given to the US House of Representatives on the subject of Alger Hiss just two weeks before the Wheeling speech.
Anaphora
McCarthy uses anaphora—the repetition of a word or phrase to begin successive clauses—to dramatize the lines by adding a stylistic cadence.
The first example occurs in the first sentences of the speech, where he exhorts the audience to acknowledge that, even though the war is over, we have entered the crucial phase of a new Cold War:
But this is not such a period—for this is not a period of peace. This is a time of “the cold war.” This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile, armed camps—a time of a great armament race (829).
The repetition of the phrase “this is a time” amplifies the tension, evoking a sense of historical destiny.
Anaphora is used to facilitate suspense regarding how recently Stalin predicted an inevitable military confrontation with the West: “Here is what he said—not back in 1928, not before the war, not during the war—but 2 years after the last war was ended” (829).
McCarthy uses anaphora in a passage in which he maligns the people he considers to be traitors of the country. He depicts the traitors as elites who have benefitted from the wealth of the nation and who have obtained “the finest homes, the finest college education and the finest jobs in government we can give” (830). The repetition of the adjective “finest” suggests irony or sarcasm.
Anaphora is employed over three different paragraphs, with the repetition occurring as the first clause of the paragraph. The repetition is subtle because it occurs only at the beginning of these paragraphs. In this passage McCarthy is going through an inventory of Communists he has allegedly identified in the state department. He says “That’s one case. Let’s go to another” (829). The next paragraph begins: “Then there was a Mrs. Mary Jane Kenney,” and the following: “Then there was Julian H. Wadleigh” (829). The repetition tends to multiply the characters in the conspiracy.
Hyperbole
McCarthy uses hyperbole—deliberate exaggeration—to advance rhetorical claims about extreme polarization of the Cold War. The statement “all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile, armed camps” (829) is emblematic of McCarthy’s extreme, bipolar view of the Cold War.
The threat of nuclear war is typically couched in hyperbolic terms. The claim that people can “physically hear the mutterings and rumblings of an invigorated god of war” is hyperbolic. The sentence that follows continues the quasi-fictional thread: “You can see it, feel it, and hear it all the way from the Indochina hills….right over into the very heart of Europe itself” (829). These are clearly not factual claims, but McCarthy uses them to evoke a sense of dread and foreboding in his audience.
The threat of Communism is also portrayed in exaggerated terms for dramatic effect. For example, McCarthy’s claim that “this religion of immoralism will more deeply wound and damage mankind than any conceivable economic or political system” (829) is clearly a figurative statement. The following statement is also obviously not factual and fits the style of demagogic rhetoric: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity” (829).
When McCarthy depicts the extreme danger of the State Department officials working as Communist spies, he uses terms that could be considered hyperbolic. “We are dealing with a far more sinister type of activity,” he warns, “because it permits the enemy to guide and shape our policy” (830). It is possible, in this case, that the audience interpreted this line as factual rather than a product of McCarthy’s exaggeration to emphasize his point. One might question whether McCarthy himself was sincere in this statement.
