May 2, 1957. There is one generally accepted explanation for the creation of
the term "McCarthyism." Washington Post satirist/cartoonist Herbert
Block (Herblock) is given credit by most people for using the term first.
Herblock's cartoon of March 29, 1950 in the Post showed the GOP elephant
being prodded by right wingers of the party toward a barrel on the top of a
stack of tar-dripping buckets. The barrel has the word "McCarthyism"
written on it and the elephant asks, "You mean I'm supposed to stand on
that?" ⁷ Dean Waite G. Muelder of the Boston University School of Theology
used the term early in more general terms. According to the Associated
Press, Muelder described "McCarthyism" as a "spiritual disease" in the
country that allowed McCarthy to thrive. ⁸

McCarthy was first elected to the Senate in 1946, reelected in 1952, but
died before serving out his second term. As mentioned earlier, this book
about the Monitor's McCarthy era coverage focuses on the period between
McCarthy's famous Lincoln Day speech in February 1950 and his censure
by the Senate in December 1954.

Understanding the history and purpose behind the creation of the Moni-
tor is important when evaluating its editorial policies and practices.

Mary Baker Eddy, head of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Bos-
ton, Massachusetts, founded the Christian Science Monitor in 1908. The pub-
lication of the Monitor was put under the direction of the Christian Science
Publishing Society, which had been created on January 28, 1889.

Archibald McClellan was named the first editor of the Monitor. He was a
Kent State University law school graduate with newspaper experience
who also was one of the Directors of the Mother Church. McClellan indi-
cated from the beginning that the new publication would not be a church
newsletter or a propaganda sheet for the church. Rather, the Monitor would
have its readers as "its only beneficiaries" and would publish "all the news
it is worth while reading." ⁹

The first issue of the Christian Science Monitor was published on Novem-
ber 25, 1908. Mrs. Eddy communicated to the readers of the new newspaper
through an editorial:

I have given the name to all the Christian Science periodicals. The first was the
Christian Science Journal, designed to put on record the divine Science of Truth.
The second I entitled Sentinel, intended to hold guard over Truth, Life and Love;
the third Der Herald der Christian Science to proclaim the universal activity and
availability of truth; and next I named the Monitor to spread undivided the science
that operates unspent. The object of the Monitor is to injure no man, but to bless all
mankind. ¹⁰

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