The Time Albert Einstein Was Offered a Partnership in a Plumbing Company.

[NNadir]

In 1954, at the height of the McCarthy Army hearings, Albert Einstein was troubled by what his adopted country was becoming.

In November 1954, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to a magazine in which he declared that, were he a young man again, he would not try to become a scientist: “I would rather choose to be a plumber or a peddler in the hope to find that modest degree of independence still available under present circumstances.”

Around the United States, plumbers responded. The famous physicist was offered membership in the Chicago plumbers union, and Stanley Murray, a New York plumber, wrote to him: “Since my ambition has always been to be a scholar and yours seems to be a plumber, I suggest that as a team we would be tremendously successful. We can then be possessed by both knowledge and independence. I am ready to change the name of my firm to read: Einstein and Stanley Plumbing Co.”

A little more:

Einstein was only half-joking, however, when he issued his statement. The physicist sincerely considered that the political climate in the country was becoming increasingly hostile to scientists and teachers. Our own troubled times have many aspects in common with the dreadful period of the McCarthy investigations: the attacks on the freedom of academics, teachers, and the press, the silencing and censorship of government workers, the idea that the United States is threatened by certain creeds. It is worth describing the dire sequence of past events, and learning from Einstein’s clairvoyant and courageous response to them, in order to best address the present situation.

A campaign of untruth
On February 9, 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy from Wisconsin announced that he had a list of 205 workers of the State Department who were members of the Communist Party. The next day, a journalist asked to see the list. But McCarthy could not find it; his explanation was that he had left it in another suit. The Senate committee that was created to investigate these claims concluded a few months later that McCarthy’s accusations represented “perhaps the most nefarious campaign of half-truths and untruth in the history of this republic.” Historians are now sure there never was such a list.

Nevertheless, at the time, mainstream Republicans ignored the findings of the Senate committee. They saw McCarthy’s tactics as something that would help them take control of the White House, after a sixteen-year absence. They invited him to meetings where he ranted about the “plot” at the highest levels of government. McCarthy’s staff also circulated a doctored photograph, purportedly showing the leader of the Senate committee in close conversation with leaders of the Communist Party...

I added the bold that reflects on these times.

A letter to Einstein:

?itok=7VnPWaRz

Einstein, Plumbers, and McCarthyism

Subtitle:

Einstein’s response to a political climate increasingly hostile to scientists and teachers.

This link dates to 2017 when he who shall not be named was vandalizing the White House.

[Permanut]

1. My favorite Einstein quote:

"If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't call it research".

[MadameButterfly]

2. The scumbags have always been with us.

But I was raised in the idealistic 1960s and knew nothing of them. Nixon and Vietnam were bad enough. But we were going to change the world and never go back. We didn't know that human nature doesn’t change; power, privilege, and money will fight to keep it rather than find real meaning in life. It remains an ongoing fight to keep what we’ve taken for granted, and inch forward now and then.

[3Hotdogs]

3. The "list" was first mentioned at a political rally at Wheeling, W.V. "I have in my pocket ...."

He was invited to give a speech at the rally. "Tail Gunner Joe" would certainly be a colorful speaker to gin up the crowd to vote Republican. But it seems he had not prepared anything to say and needed to say something.

Communism. That's it. Communism. This is the period of time when Churchill talked about an "Iron Curtain" that has encircled Europe. And communism was expanding --- North Korea, China.

Joe, after losing his senate seat, died of alcohol related illness.