Red Scare comes to Petaluma in 1954

It was 1954, the Korean War had ended and Petalumans and our country were riveted to the vile ruckus that U.S.|

It was 1954, the Korean War had ended and Petalumans and our country were riveted to the vile ruckus that U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy was making in Washington about spies, Communists and gays within the military, government and film industry.

McCarthy, an ego-driven bully, had demanded loyalty oaths and the banning of certain books and films. The Senator was unyielding in his nasty campaign, and he smeared and damaged a lot of innocent people before he was stopped. He had even accused General George Marshall of being “involved in an immense conspiracy against the United States.”

General Marshall had been an outstanding Secretary of State under President Truman, was the author of the famed “Marshall Plan” for post-war reconstruction and had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. McCarthy had gone too far and even his Republican cohorts realized that he and his platform had to be rejected.

The editorial on Nov. 15 in Petaluma’s Argus-Courier suggested that the Senate should censure McCarthy because: “It is now the U.S. Senate on trial, no longer just Senator McCarthy.” The editorial went on to say: “fears, by accusation and suspicion, must not become divisive forces.”

The Senate voted to censure the Senator by 67 to 22 that fall as McCarthy’s witch hunt had destroyed him. The leader of the House said that McCarthy had: “brought the Senate into dishonor and disrespect.” Joseph McCarthy died just three years later of alcoholism at age 58. Interestingly, McCarthy’s chief aide and advocate, Roy Cohn, would years later become lawyer and mentor for a New York businessman named Donald Trump.

Dwight Eisenhower was President in 1954, Goodwin Knight was California Governor, Vincent Schoeniagh was Mayor of Petaluma and a dynamic young woman named Helen Putnam, was President of our Board of Education. Argus-Courier columnist Bill Soberanes remarked that November: “There is a lot of talk among certain Petalumans, who would like to see a woman appointed to the City Council.” Imagine that, a woman on our City Council.

Also, big news locally, our semi-pro football team, the Petaluma Leghorns, were set to play their last game of the season, the annual Egg Bowl, against a tough Fort Ord military team. Durst Field was the place and Nov. 21 was the date. The town was abuzz because it was said that the Leghorns may not be playing the following year. The Petaluma High School band was to entertain at halftime and the mayor would hand out accolades. Tickets were $1.50.

Unfortunately, the headlines in the Argus the next day, were: “Massacre at Durst Field” as the Leghorns fell to their worst defeat ever, 54-3. Yards gained were just 94 to Ft. Ord’s 361. Soberanes’ column the following day had no mention of the game itself, nor the score, just talk of the gathering afterwards at Hermann Son’s Hall on Western Avenue. It was a sad day in River City.

As Thanksgiving Day approached and Christmas shopping became underway, these bargains caught my attention - Schluckebier Hardware was offering “folding wooden clothes dryers, just $2.98,” and Tomasini Hardware would sell you a “Portable Electric Heater with a wing-nut for adjusting, only $5.95.” The Friedman Brothers ad was headlined: “We buy junk,” not at all like the same Friedman Brothers store we have now welcomed back to Petaluma.

In 1954, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had hit an all-time high since the end of the Great Depression at 382 points. By comparison, last month it surged past 20,000.

In Petaluma, in 1954, you could buy a four-door Nash Sedan, just five years old, for $295 at Murphy Chevrolet on Main Street, and the Petaluma Realty was advertising “40 Acres + 5 room house + barns. $18,000.” The cost of a gallon of gas was 22 cents, and you could purchase your tom turkey at the Purity Store at the corner of Western and Keller for just 43 cents a pound.

The hot movies that year, were “On The Waterfront” starring Marlon Brando and “The Caine Mutiny,” two really great films in any decade. Petaluma’s State Theater was featuring a “tempestuous romance in the heart of the savage jungle, ‘Mogambo’” with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner.

Also, that year, sultry actress Marilyn Monroe married baseball great, Joe Dimaggio, and a young lad named Elvis Presley began his music career. And in business news, the Swanson Frozen Food Company had just started merchandising items called “TV dinners.” Comedian Steve Allen, on The Tonight Show, humorously thanked Swanson for their “help.”

But, in case you were thinking everything seemed to be just dandy after getting rid of Joe McCarthy, you must not forget that Communist leader Ho Chi Minh, with military aid from China’s Mao Zedong, was making more and more noise in Vietnam and he had just invaded Laos to boot. It seemed that still another Asian war was threatening as the Geneva Accords had arbitrarily chosen the 17th parallel as the boundary between North and South Vietnam.

But wait, the big boys in Washington, D.C., wouldn’t sweep us into another war in Asia, would they? Surely, they would be listening to the populace, wouldn’t they?

Will they now? Hardly anything changes.

(Historian Skip Sommer is an Honorary Life Member of Heritage Homes and the Petaluma Historical Museum. Contact him at skipsommer@hotmail.com.)

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