Photo of Congressional Cemetary originally uploaded to flickr by IntangibleArts.
Fear has been an American tradition since 1692, so it is hardly surprising that Stephen Colbert picked ‘Fear’ as a guiding principle for his rally on October 30. Colbert understands what Americans want, and he is giving it to them. Whatever your fear may be, whether it’s fear of higher taxes, fear of losing your government handout, fear of immigrants, fear of those already in the country, fear of gays being treated the same as others, fear of somebody, somewhere, getting something to which they are not entitled, you will have a chance to express that fear amongst thousands of like-minded hysterics on the Mall on Saturday.
But what if that isn’t enough for you? What if you want to wallow more intensely in this all-American pastime? Where can you go to learn more about the history of fear in our nation’s Capital? Fear not, we’ve got you covered. There’s even a monument to fear on the Hill, right nearby for your viewing pleasure.
The big daddy of all fears and the defining hysteria of the 20th century was anti-Communist panic. From the Palmer raids of 1919 until President Reagan’s 1983 ‘Evil Empire’ speech, nothing riled up US citizens more quickly or thoroughly than the invocation of ‘Communists.’ Often, ‘communists’ was simply a euphemism for ‘foreigners,’ and in fact the Palmer ‘anti-communist’ raids of 1919/20 were mainly an attempt to remove undesirable aliens from the US. For years thereafter, every now and then, another flare-up of hysteria would shake the nation.
The most famous of these are the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s, when the junior senator from Wisconsin decided to make a name for himself by rooting out communists in the State department. For months he ran around announcing that he had ‘lists’ of agents who were working on the government’s dime, while refusing to name a single name. Instead, he demanded this of others, and his hearings soon made a mockery of the whole concept of democratic rule.
The most long-lasting fighter against communism, and the most famous purveyor of the canard that the US was about to be taken over by Karl Marx’s disciples, was none other than J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover wrote (or, more likely, had ghostwritten) several books with the message that the commies were coming. His insistence on searching out and prosecuting anyone whose politics he felt were suspect often antagonized his superiors at the Justice Department, and blazed the trail for wholesale anti-communist hysteria in the US. Without him and his paranoia, the United States might never have wasted so many years in the 50s, and destroyed so many innocent lives, ferreting out communists in all areas of society.
J. Edgar was born on Capitol Hill, and returned here in death. His grave at Congressional Cemetery is a wonderful place to ruminate on the importance of fear in American history, not the least because FBI agents have erected a bench just in front of his grave to allow visitors to pay their respects and stoke their fears. Sit down, relax, and think about how the Red Chinese (and their evil minions, the North Koreans) are plotting to take over the world.
Read more about fear at DC Like a Local.
LOL! J. Edgar Hoover, a Native Washingtonian, died in May 1972 and is buried along with his mother and other siblings at family plot in Congressional Cemetary.
A Gay Man in his own closet? There are suspicions. His close friend of 40+ years, Clyde Tolson, died in 1975, is buried aprox 35′ away to the South of Hoover. Hoover did indeed maintain secret files on prominent Americans of that era, perhaps to maintain his own secrets.