On June 1, 1950, Margaret Chase Smith stood up on the floor of the U.S. Senate to denounce her Republican colleague Joseph McCarthy for his fearmongering claims that communism had infiltrated the federal government.

“Mr. President, I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition,” Smith said. “It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear.”

Smith, who had been sworn in as a U.S. senator from Maine just the year before, criticized McCarthy’s tactics and called on her colleagues to commit to honoring the rights of Americans to freedom of thought, the right to protest and the right to criticize.

The “Declaration of Conscience” speech drew widespread public support and also harsh criticism. While she did not refer to McCarthy by name, Smith took a big risk by speaking out against him, especially as a woman and a freshman senator.

Today, 75 years after Smith delivered her now-famous speech, it is remembered as an embodiment of the political independence and commitment to principle that Maine has traditionally valued in its elected leaders.

It also was a defining moment for Smith, who went on to serve four terms in the U.S. Senate, was the first woman to have her name placed in nomination for the presidency by a major party, and whose legacy is still honored in Maine.

“This was before the 1960s feminist movement,” said Dan Shea, a professor of government at Colby College. “To have a very strong woman speaking out and having a national audience on a very important issue, it was a big deal.

“There’s the profile in courage part of breaking with your party and what’s popular and then there’s the fact that this was being done by a woman in the early 1950s.”

SPEECH REFLECTED MAINE VALUES

Although she was new to the Senate, Smith was well-respected and a good candidate to deliver the speech, Shea said.

It came just a few months after McCarthy spoke in Wheeling, West Virginia, where he produced a list he claimed contained the names of U.S. State Department employees who were known communists. Communism was a widely held concern in the United States at the time, but Smith said in her speech that the response to fears about its rise were starting to infringe on Americans’ rights.

“The American people are sick and tired of being afraid to speak their minds lest they be politically smeared as ‘Communists’ or ‘Fascists’ by their opponents,” she said. “Freedom of speech is not what it used to be in America. It has been so abused by some that it is not exercised by others.”

It’s clear from her own words that Smith knew she was taking a big risk.

“(Speaking out) was a very unpopular thing to do, but she was more concerned about basic decency and core American values than being popular,” Shea said.

Today, that’s something Mainers still value, even as the United States and Maine itself have become more partisan, he said.

“I do think we respect honesty and being forthright and setting aside what’s popular to do the right thing,” Shea said. “I still think those are Maine values.”

Amy Fried, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Maine, said Smith’s speech is an “important cultural touchstone” in Maine and reflects a collection of political leaders who have been civil, direct, fairly independent and well-respected.

But Fried said the speech may be stressed too much in modern days, and points out that it wasn’t until four years later in 1954 that McCarthy was censured by the Senate.

“It didn’t slow Joe McCarthy and perhaps it’s even led Mainers to stress words over actions,” she said.

Still, Fried said Smith’s speech was legendary for several reasons. It was given by a woman at a time when there were few women in Congress, it’s part of Smith’s broader legacy, and it speaks to Maine’s political values.

“It does fit with a strong tendency in Maine political culture to herald individuals who fit this particular model of being independent and straight-spoken,” Fried said. “I think she definitely fit that.”

COMPARISON WITH COLLINS

Smith’s speech and career have had a lasting impact on Maine’s current political leaders, including U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican who now holds Smith’s seat.

In 2010, Collins and then Sen. Olympia Snowe cosponsored a resolution declaring June 1 as “Declaration of Conscience Day” in honor of the 60th anniversary of Smith’s speech.

Collins said at the time that Smith has always served as a role model to her and recalled how excited she was to first meet Smith while a senior in high school on a trip to Washington, D.C.

“What I remember most was her telling me always to stand tall for what I believed, citing her Declaration of Conscience as an example,” Collins said in 2010. “Her eloquent words still ring true today. Her ‘Declaration of Conscience’ is a template for standing tall.”

Collins said in a written statement Friday that Smith’s legacy continues to inspire political leaders committed to public service. “Senator Smith’s distinguished service has led to more than 50 years of leadership from centrist Republican Senators in Maine who have always put the needs of our state and our country first,” she said.

Collins has at times been compared to Smith for her own opposition to party leadership, though the comparison hasn’t always been in Collins’ favor. Critics of President Donald Trump have recently cited the speech in calling for Collins to stand up to the president the way Smith stood up to McCarthy.

In an op-ed published in the Press Herald last week, two Portland residents, author Lily King and Derek Pierce, the founding principal of Casco Bay High School in Portland, encouraged fellow Mainers to flood Collins’ office with postcards honoring the anniversary of Smith’s speech and calling on Collins “to declare her conscience.”

“Despite over 100 days of cruelty and corruption, while the leader of her party has been dismantling the pillars of our rights and freedoms, demonizing the powerless, flouting due process, imperiling our national security and defying the Constitution, Sen. Collins has remained, far too often, silent,” King and Pierce wrote.

Asked about calls for Collins to “declare her conscience,” a spokesperson for the senator pointed to a 2016 op-ed Collins published in the Washington Post in which she said she would not vote for Trump and criticized him as unsuitable for office because of “his disregard for the precept of treating others with respect.”

“Senator Collins is the only senator in history to vote to acquit a member of the opposite party and convict a member of her own party; furthermore, she has voted against the leader of her own party three times,” said spokesperson Blake Kernen, referring to Collins’ votes to acquit former President Bill Clinton during his 1999 impeachment trial and her vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021.

‘A GOOD EXAMPLE’

Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, invoked Smith’s iconic speech in his own “Declaration of Conscience” floor speech earlier this year, in which he said the way Trump has pursued his agenda has threatened American ideas and our system of government.

“Senator Margaret Chase Smith’s ‘Declaration of Conscience’ turned out to be one of the most important speeches of the Twentieth Century and defined her for the ages as a person of extraordinary courage and principle,” King said in his April 29 speech.

U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-1st District, said in an interview last week that Smith’s speech was “unique for it’s time” and speaks to her legacy as a symbol of Maine values, such as being forward-thinking and having a conscience.

The principles Smith mentioned in her speech, such as freedom of speech and the ability to hold unpopular beliefs or to protest, are “sort of smacking us in the face right now” with some of the actions of the Trump administration, Pingree said, citing for example the targeting of college students who have disagreed with the administration about the war in Gaza.

“I feel like this is an administration that is trying to roll over people’s right of free speech or their ability to protest,” Pingree said. “And it’s such a fundamentally important thing to do (to protect those rights). We should all be recalling those lines from her speech.”

“She’s a good example of, not only will you be appreciated for speaking out, but you will become a legend,” she said.