Editing Joseph McCarthy (section)

==="Joe Must Go" recall attempt===
On March 18, 1954, ''Sauk-Prairie Star'' editor Leroy Gore of [[Sauk City, Wisconsin|Sauk City]], Wisconsin urged the [[Recall election|recall]] of McCarthy in a front-page editorial that ran alongside a sample petition that readers could fill out and mail to the newspaper. A Republican and former McCarthy supporter, Gore cited the senator with subverting President Eisenhower's authority, disrespecting Wisconsin's own Gen. [[Ralph Wise Zwicker]] and ignoring the plight of Wisconsin dairy farmers faced with price-slashing surpluses.<ref name="thelen">David P. Thelen and Esther S. Thelen. "[http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/wmh/id/45658 Joe Must Go: The Movement to Recall Senator Joseph R. McCarthy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180301164512/http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/wmh/id/45658 |date=March 1, 2018 }}". ''Wisconsin Magazine of History'', vol. 45, no. 3 (Spring 1966):185–209.</ref>

Despite critics' claims that a recall attempt was foolhardy, the "Joe Must Go" movement caught fire and was backed by a diverse coalition including other Republican leaders, Democrats, businessmen, farmers and students. [[Constitution of Wisconsin|Wisconsin's constitution]] stipulates the number of signatures needed to force a recall election must exceed one-quarter the number of voters in the most recent gubernatorial election, requiring the anti-McCarthy movement to gather some 404,000 signatures in sixty days. With little support from [[organized labor]] or the [[Democratic Party (Wisconsin)|state Democratic Party]], the roughly organized recall effort attracted national attention, particularly during the concurrent Army-McCarthy hearings.{{citation needed|date=February 2018}}

Following the deadline of June 5, the final number of signatures was never determined because the petitions were sent out of state to avoid a subpoena from [[Sauk County, Wisconsin|Sauk County]] district attorney Harlan Kelley, an ardent McCarthy supporter who was investigating the leaders of the recall campaign on the grounds that they had violated Wisconsin's Corrupt Practices Act. Chicago newspapermen later tallied 335,000 names while another 50,000 were said to be hidden in Minneapolis, with other lists buried on Sauk County farms.<ref name="thelen"/>