What Courage Looks Like in a Season of Fear

How Margaret Chase Smith stood up to a demagogue

Smith in 1964 (Public domain)

The first televised presidential debate in 1956 didn’t actually feature presidential candidates. Instead, it pitted two surrogates against one another for half an hour on CBS’s Face the Nation. Representing the Democrats was former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, a skilled debater who was quite comfortable on national television. Her Republican counterpart, teetering on two phone books so that she could appear as tall as Roosevelt, was the much less-well-known Margaret Chase Smith, senator from Maine.

Roosevelt, a confident speaker, filled most of the time with lengthy and eloquent answers, while Smith was more succinct. While it may have looked like Roosevelt was dominating the debate, Smith’s brevity was strategic; she wanted her clarity to contrast with Roosevelt’s long-windedness. In fact, Smith had carefully planned every part of her performance, down to the dark dress and pearls that she knew would pop on black-and-white television, unlike Roosevelt’s beige outfit.