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TOPICS
McCarthyism and the House Committee on Un-American Activities; Famous
Songs: Dixie; to overrate versus to overestimate; that versus so; the stakes are
too high
_____________
GLOSSARY
McCarthyism – the practice of saying that other people are not loyal to their
government and want to overthrow it, even though the person making those
accusations doesn’t have any real evidence
* Many actors and other performers couldn’t work under McCarthyism.
Red Scare – the period from the late 1940s to the late 1950s when many people
were scared of communism, particularly the idea that communists were trying to
spy on Americans and influence the United States
* This book is about the Red Scare and the steps the government took to counter
the influence of communism in the U.S.
to play on – to use something for one’s own advantage; to gain something by
using the weakness of others, especially strong feelings or emotions
* The insurance salesperson played on the family’s fear of fire to sell them an
expensive insurance policy.
demagogue – a politician who uses other people’s fears and desires, rather than
logical thought, to get support
* This candidate for governor is a demagogue, who likes to give emotional
speeches to get people very angry.
hearing – a special meeting where experts speak and a committee tries to learn
the truth about something
* There will be a hearing next week about price-fixing among the major oil
companies.
to blacklist – to put someone’s name on a list of people who should not be given
jobs by anyone in a particular industry
* After one of our band members got drunk and started a fight in a bar, we were
blacklisted and couldn’t get any other jobs playing in bars or clubs.
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to change (one’s) story – to present something as true after one has already
claimed that something else was true
* You said the dog ate your homework. Now you’re changing your story and
saying that you left it at home.
to gauge – to measure; to estimate; to determine
* To gauge the popularity of the new product, our company announced a contest
to see how many people would be interested in winning one.
sense of decency – the ability to know what is right, moral, ethical, or good
* Put your clothes back on! Don’t you have any sense of decency?
Dixie – the entire southern region of the United States, which generally includes
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia
* We traveled through Dixie last fall and visited most of the southern U.S. states.
blackface – the offensive practice of white performers painting their skin so that
it is dark, like an African American
* Wearing blackface to play this role is insulting!
frost – the very thin layer of ice that is often seen early on a cold morning when
the ground is frozen
* Be careful when you go outside to play. There’s frost on the ground.
to overrate – to believe something is worth more than it is, often used to
describe the quality of something that is believed to be better than it is
* This movie is overrated! My friends told me that it was the best action movie
they’d seen in years, but I thought it was boring.
to overestimate – to believe something is worth more than it is, often used to
talk about the worth of something that has a value in money or numbers
* The event organizers overestimated the number of people who would attend
and only half of the seats were filled.
that – a word used to refer back to an amount or degree that the speaker and
listener both understand
* - You look tired. Maybe you should go to bed at 9:00 p.m.
* - I’m tired but not that tired.
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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 299
so – very; extremely
* Your dress is so cute! I want one exactly like it.
the stakes are too high – the risks are too great; what is at risk is too important
for one to gamble or wager to win
* Jake wants to report the illegal activities at work, but he thinks the stakes are
too high, since he may lose his job and not have money to feed his five children.
_____________
WHAT INSIDERS KNOW
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Arthur Miller (1915-2005) is considered one of the greatest “contemporary”
(belonging to the present; living in the present period of time) American
“playwrights” (person whose job is to write plays). One of his most well-known
and well-respected plays is called The Crucible.
Arthur Miller was one of the people called to “testify” (give official statements in
court or before a committee) by the House of Representatives’ Committee on UnAmerican Activities. The Committee “convicted” him (found him guilty of a crime)
for refusing to “identify” (give the names of) other people who attended meetings
he attended, meetings at which the Committee believed such activities took
place.
Arthur Miller’s response was to write The Crucible, a play about the witch trials
that took place in a town called Salem, in the state of Massachusetts in 1692 and
1693. “Witches” are women who use evil magical power to control or to harm
others, and the witch trials were supposed to identify witches so that they could
be “executed” (killed). However, the “so-called” (claimed but not proven) witches
were often normal people identified because of the unnatural “zeal” (energy and
enthusiasm to do or to find something) to find witches. Many “innocent” (person
not guilty of a crime) women died during those witch trials.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as an “allegory” for the actions of the Committee
on Un-American Activities. An “allegory” is a story or poem that shows the
hidden meaning in something else, usually something related to a “moral” (what
is considered right or wrong) or a political issue. In 1953, the play won the award
for “Best Play” at the Tony Awards, the “annual” (each year) awards given to the
best theater productions.
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COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT
You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 299.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 299. I’m
your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational
Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpod.com. Download this episode’s Learning Guide, an 8to 10-page guide we provide for all of our current episodes that gives you some
additional help in improving your English.
On this Café, we’re going to talk about McCarthyism and something that was
known as the House Committee on Un-American Activities. This was a time
back in the early 1950s when there were a lot of people concerned about the
influence – possible influence of communism in the American government. We’ll
also continue our series on famous songs, talking about a well-known song from
the southern part of the United States, Dixie. And, as always, we’ll answer a few
of your questions. Let’s get started.
This Café begins with a discussion of McCarthyism. “McCarthyism”
(McCarthyism) is now a noun in English; it’s the practice of making “accusations”
or saying bad things about other people, especially people who are not loyal to
their government and want to have a new government, even though the person
making those accusations doesn’t have any real “evidence” – doesn’t have any
proof. The word McCarthyism comes from the name of a U.S. Senator from the
middle part of the 20th century, a man by the name of Joseph McCarthy. We’ll
talk a little bit about Senator McCarthy.
A senator is one of the two representatives that each state in the United States
sends to Washington, D.C. Senator McCarthy was serving in the Senate,
meaning he was “in office” we could say, during a period of time in the United
States known as the Red Scare. “The Red Scare” (scare) was a period during
the late 1940s through the late 1950s where there was a great fear – people
were scared – of communism and the influence of communism in American
policy – in American politics. Of course, both the Soviet Union at the time, and
China, beginning in the late 1940s, were communist governments, and there was
a great sense that the United States was threatened after World War II by the
two great communist powers, especially the Soviet Union.
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Many people thought that there were communists who were influencing
American policy, that there were some American government officials who were
communists. Politicians, of course, saw an opportunity here; they played on the
fears of many Americans. When we say they “played on,” we mean they used it
for their own advantage. In this case, politicians like McCarthy knew that people
were afraid of communism and communists, so they tried to become more
popular and get more votes by accusing other people of being communist. The
general term we have for politicians who play on people’s fears and emotions
instead of their logic and reason is “demagogue” (demagogue). Senator
McCarthy was probably the most famous demagogue of the 20th century.
Well, who was Joseph McCarthy? McCarthy was born in the state of Wisconsin,
which is located in the northern central part of the United States, next to the great
state of Minnesota. McCarthy was born in 1908. He studied engineering and
law and served or was part of the Marines during World War II. He became a
senator from the state of Wisconsin beginning in 1947. So if you do the math – if
you calculate you will see that he was only 39 years old when he became a
senator.
A few years after entering the U.S. Senate, McCarthy made a speech in 1950
which became famous throughout the United States. It was called the Wheeling
Speech, because it was made in the city of Wheeling, West Virginia. West
Virginia is located in the eastern central part of the U.S., just north and west of
the state of Virginia. In the speech – in this Wheeling Speech, McCarthy said
that he had a list of employees – people who worked for the United States State
Department who were also members of the Communist Party. Well, this
captured the attention of people across the country, and very soon McCarthy, as
a senator, was using one of the Senate committees, or groups, to investigate the
possibility of there being communists in the U.S. government. The committee
ended up concluding ultimately that most of the accusations that McCarthy made
were not true – were false, but McCarthy continued to be popular. When people
spoke about McCarthy and criticized him, he sometimes accused them of being
communists. So, McCarthyism is a very negative term in American politics,
referring to someone who accuses the other side in a particular debate of being
un-American or not being loyal to the United States.
Now, around this same time there was another committee, which is sometimes
confused with Senator McCarthy, called the House Un-American Activities
Committee. McCarthy was a senator, so he was never involved in this
committee. The House Un-American Activities Committee did, however,
investigate some of the same issues that McCarthy was interested in. It wasn’t
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just McCarthy who believed that there was communist influence in the American
government in the 1940s and 50s.
The House committee held many “hearings” or special meetings where they
asked experts to come in and talk about some topic. All of the committees, or
most of the committees in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives hold
these hearings (notice we use the verb “to hold” a hearing) basically to have a
group of people come together to tell the members of the House or the Senate
what they know about a topic or to be asked questions. Most of these hearings
are public; that is, anyone can go and watch them. Sometimes they’re on
television if they’re about a topic that many people are interested in. There are
sometimes private hearings when it is about a sensitive security issue.
As I said, the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is sometimes
called simply the HUAC Committee, had been holding hearings even before
McCarthy’s Wheeling Speech. In fact, in 1947, three years before the McCarthy
speech, HUAC held a famous nine-day hearing into the Hollywood industry. That
is, into the people and businesses who make movies and television shows. That,
of course, is the main, or one of the main industries here in Los Angeles.
Hollywood is located here in Los Angeles; it’s a neighborhood. But more
generally, when people say Hollywood they’re referring to the businesses, even if
they’re not here in Los Angeles. There were more than 300 Hollywood
professionals who were accused of being communists; these accusations
certainly hurt their careers, or many of their careers. Ten of them, who later
became known as the Hollywood Ten, were blacklisted for being communists or
for their support of communism. “To blacklist” (blacklist – one word) means to
put someone’s name on a list of people who should not be given jobs by anyone
in that particular industry. So if you are actor and you are blacklisted for your
political associations, you won’t be able to get a job in the movie industry or in
the television business. Nowadays on the Internet, blacklist, and the opposite
whitelist, are used to talk about particular websites that are considered
suspicious or that have participated in spamming, and sometimes those websites
are blacklisted. So the term is used more generally, but back then it referred to
people who were unable to find jobs in their particular industry – in their business
– because of their political associations. So, the atmosphere in the late 40s-early
1950s, as I say even before McCarthy, was certainly one of fear of suspicion of
people having communist views and influences. That’s not to say that no one
had communist views or influences; some people did actually believe in the
communist idea and a few were even members of the Communist Party.
However, the fear lead many politicians to begin accusing lots of people, many of
whom had no association with communism.
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Getting back to Senator McCarthy: Throughout the period of time that McCarthy
was making accusations after the famous Wheeling Speech, he often “changed
his story,” that is, he would tell different groups of people different things. He
would change the number of people, for example, who were on his famous list of
communist at the U.S. State Department. I should explain the U.S. State
Department is the part of the government responsible for international relations,
so obviously it would be a very sensitive area for someone who was not loyal to
the United States. McCarthy changed his story several times about the number
of people on his list, and this got a lot of other politicians to become suspicious of
his accusations. Journalists also began to investigate the claims – the
statements that McCarthy made.
In 1954, one of the most famous journalists of the 1950s and 60s, a man by the
name of Edward R. Murrow, used his television program called See It Now to
expose McCarthy. “To expose” means to tell other people about something that
is being done that is wrong, or someone who is doing something wrong. What
Murrow did was show a lot of recordings of McCarthy speaking about trying to
find these communists. He concluded that McCarthy was really confusing the
public. He tried to remind Americans that people who make accusations against
others need to show proof – they need to show evidence of that, and McCarthy
had not done that. Instead, he was playing on these political fears that people
had.
In June of 1954, Senator McCarthy’s popularity decreased, or fell “dramatically,”
that is, a lot. There was a hearing in 1954 were McCarthy was questioning a
lawyer for the U.S. Army, a man by the name of Joseph Nye Welch. This
hearing was a public hearing. In it, McCarthy accused a number of people of
being communists, but this lawyer, Welch, came to their defense; that is, he
defended them, he said, “No, you’re wrong.” In his comments, he said, “Senator,
I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” “To gauge”
(gauge) means to measure. So Welch was saying that until that moment in the
discussion – in the hearing, he had never realized how “cruel,” or mean, and
“reckless,” or careless, McCarthy was.
When McCarthy continued to make the accusations during the hearing, Welch
finally said, “You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long
last? Have you left no sense of decency?” This quote is famous in American
politics, especially the history of American politics from the 1950s, and you will
often see it in discussions of McCarthyism. Welch was saying that McCarthy had
no “sense of decency,” that is, he had no ability to tell what was right from what
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was wrong. By asking those questions, Welch was saying that McCarthy had
gone too far or done too much and he could no longer recognize right from
wrong. When he said those words, the people in the room – in the hearing room
began to clap loudly.
Almost overnight, or right away, McCarthy lost a lot of his popularity in the United
States. At the end of 1954, the U.S. Senate punished McCarthy, saying that he
had committed many mistakes in his accusations. McCarthy died three years
later, in 1957; he was only 48 years old. Some people say that he was an
alcoholic, and his alcoholism – drinking too much alcohol – contributed, or was
part of the reason for his death. Although there were some Americans who most
historians believe were, in fact, communists, including most famously Alger Hiss
and the Rosenbergs – we’ll talk about those cases in some other Café. Most of
the Americans accused of being communists were innocent, were not, in fact,
guilty of what McCarthy had accused them of being.
Our next topic is a continuation of our series on famous American songs. Today
we’ll talk about a song named Dixie (Dixie). “Dixie” refers to the southern part of
the United States, the southeastern part, what we sometimes called the “Deep
South.” These were the states that had slavery and tried to separate from the
U.S. during the Civil War of the mid-19th century.
The song Dixie was actually written by a “northerner,” someone from one of the
Northern states, a man by the name of Daniel Emmett. Now what’s interesting is
that the song was originally performed in blackface. “Blackface” (one word)
refers to the practice where white singers and dancers – performers – would
paint their face black so that they looked African American, and they would talk in
an accent common among African Americans at the time. They were, of course,
making fun of African Americans, often, in their performances.
The song became so popular during the American Civil War, in both the North
and the South, that each side actually wrote different words for it. But it was
most popular, and most associated with the Confederate States. Those are the
Southern states, as I mentioned, that tried to separate from the U.S. Many
people find the song racist, discriminatory against African Americans. Others
see it as part of Southern culture and history. We’ll start by singing the first verse
of the song, and then we’ll go back and explain what it means.
I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times they are not forgotten,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land where I was born, early on one frosty mornin’,
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Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.
The song is about how the man misses being in the American South; he was
there and he is no longer. When the song was sung in blackface it was
supposed to represent former slaves, slaves who left the South and who now
miss the South even though they were free and living in the North. This was a
common theme in blackface, what was called “minstrel” performance, that the
slaves had a happy time in the south, that things were really better when they
were slaves. Most of the slaves would probably not agree!
The singer begins by saying, “I wish I was in the land of cotton.” Cotton was
grown in the American South. That was the main economic – or one of the main
economic activities of the American South. So, the land of cotton would be the
Confederate states. “Old times they are not forgotten,” which means this singer
remembers how his life was and what he did while he was in the South. Then he
sings, “Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.” He’s far away; he’s
asking you to look over all the way down into Dixie from the northern states.
Somewhat of a poetic way of putting it, I guess. Then he says, “In Dixie Land
(that is, in the South), where I was born, early on one frosty mornin.” “Frosty”
comes from the word “frost” (frost), which refers to a very thin layer of ice that is
sometimes seen early on a cold morning when the temperature has gone below
32 degrees Fahrenheit.
There are many other verses of the song. The next part of the song is the
chorus, the part that repeats, and I want to sing that for you briefly also. Here we
go.
Then I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! hooray!
In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie.
The singer says, “I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! hooray!” “Hooray” (hooray) is a
cheer; it’s something you say when you are happy when your team wins. It’s an
old expression; you won’t necessarily hear it at a Los Angeles Lakers game for
example, but most people understand what it means. The second line of the
chorus is, “In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand.” “To take your stand” means to
defend yourself not to change anymore or to defend in a battle where you are,
you’re not going to go back any farther. “I’ll take my stand to live and die in
Dixie.” And then the last two lines are “Away, away, away down South in Dixie,”
meaning very far down South, and then it repeats that line.
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Before we get to your questions, I want you to listen to a 1916 – almost a
hundred year old recording of this song, just part of the recording that I found on
the Internet. We’re going to hear just the first verse and chorus sung by two of
the most popular singers of the early 20th century, Ada Jones and Billy Murray.
After that, we’ll answer a few of your questions.
[recording of song]
I wish I was in the land of cotton, old times there are not forgotten,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land where I was born in, early on one frosty mornin’,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.
Then I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! hooray!
In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand to live and die in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie,
Away, away, away down South in Dixie.
[end of recording]
Our first question comes from Brian (Brian) in China. Brian wants to know the
difference between “overrate” and “overestimate.” To “overrate” or
“overestimate” can both mean to believe something is worth more than it really is.
“He overrated the value of his car. He overestimated it.” He thought it was worth
more money than it really was.
However, “overestimate” is usually used to talk about the worth of something in
money or using numbers. “I overestimated the price of my car by 22 percent,” or,
“My friend overestimated how much money he would need for gasoline on his
trip.” The opposite of “overestimate” is “underestimate,” when you think it’s lower
than or less than what it actually is.
“Overrate,” more generally, is used to describe the quality of something that you
think is better than it is. It’s not talking exactly about numbers or about money
typically. So we might say, “The movie was overrated,” or, “The value of a
master’s degree is overrated.” What we’re saying is that people think it is more
valuable than it really is.
You can’t use “overestimate” when you’re talking about general quality of things,
at least not in the sentences that I just gave. You could not say, “That movie is
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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 299
overestimated,” that doesn’t make any sense. You could say, “The movie is
overrated,” that makes sense.
Whereas you can sometimes use “overrate” in the same circumstances that you
use “overestimate” as I gave earlier (he overrated the value of his car; he
overestimated the value of his car), they could actually refer to two slightly
different things, even when the sentence is otherwise the same. “To overrate”
might be talking about the comfort or the kind of woman who would be attracted
to a man who owned a car like that. That’s one difference between the two when
they’re used in similar circumstances.
Fabienne (Fabienne) in France wants to know the difference between the words
“that” and “so” in a sentence such as “It’s that big” and “It’s so big.”
“That” in a sentence refers back to something previous in the conversation or
something that both of the people who are talking understand. For example you
might say, “You know the house that we saw last week over in Santa Monica?
Well, my brother’s house is that big.” It’s the same size. I’m referring first to
something that we both understand or both know.
When we use “so” in this sentence, we really mean “very.” “That house is so
big.” That means that house is very big. You’re not referring to any other house
or it’s not related to some understanding you have of the other houses that you
both know about; it just means “very.” You can, however, add more information.
For example you might say, “Your house is so big you can have a party with 100
people.” That’s how big it is; it’s so big you could have a big party.
“That” refers back to something that you have already talked about or
understand. It might not always be something specific, as in the example I gave
of a specific house. Someone may say, “Well, I’m going to go to Harvard
University,” and you say, “Well, it isn’t that good of a school.” The “that” refers to
perhaps schools that are better even though you don’t have a specific school in
mind.
So to review, when you say “it’s that big,” you’re referring to some other specific
or unspecified object or quality. When you say “so,” “it’s so big,” you mean it’s
very big, or it’s big enough so that…and then you can add information. “He’s so
stupid he can’t add two plus two.” Which everyone knows is five!
Ekkapop (Ekkapop), from an unknown country, and a name I’ve never seen
before and am probably mispronouncing, has a question about an expression:
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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 299
“the stakes are too high.” “The stakes” (stakes) refers to something that is in
danger of being won or lost such as money or property. When you go to Las
Vegas to gamble you can have high-stakes or low-stakes gambling. That means
you can gamble with a lot of money or with a small amount of money. “Highstakes” means that it is a very valuable or important thing that is at risk that may
be lost unless you do something. “Students prepare to take the SAT exam every
year; it’s a high-stakes exam,” meaning if you do well you could go to a very
good university. If you do poorly, you will go to a less good university. So, when
someone says “the stakes are too high,” they mean that things are too important,
and usually they’re going to add some more information: “The stakes are too high
for us not to get involved,” or, “The stakes are too high for us to simply ignore the
problem,” it’s too dangerous; there’s too much at risk.
If you have a question or comment, you can email us. Our email address is
[email protected].
From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come
back and listen to us again here on the English Café.
ESL Podcast’s English Café is written and produced by Dr. Jeff McQuillan and
Dr. Lucy Tse, copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
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