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On June 9, 1954, a Walpole resident asked a question now considered one of the most famous inquiries of the 20th century: "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?  Have you left no sense of decency?"  

The Walpole resident who asked this legendary question was Joseph N. Welch, an attorney in the Boston law firm of Hale and Door who had been hired to serve as the US Army Counsel during the infamous Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954.  Welch had lived in Walpole for over thirty years, and his connections to the Boston area came up frequently during the hearings.  But Welch's behavior, and especially his well-known quote, served as turning points in the unraveling of Joseph McCarthy's influence on America.

Welch was born in Pringmar, Iowa in 1890, the youngest of William and Martha Welch's seven children.  As a boy, Welch liked to observe the trials going on at the courthouse.  He attended Grinnell College with a mere savings of $600.  During the summer, he earned money for more education by selling road maps door-to-door for $1.95 (the maps cost 95 cents, and he made the dollar.)  "It was hateful, hard work," Welch would say later.

He received a $600 Harvard Law School scholarship, and became a distinguished member of the Class of 1917.  He met Judith Lyndon and married her in 1917.  When the country entered World War I, he attended Army Officer Candidate School but didn't receive his commission as a second lieutenant until after the war was over. In 1923, he became a partner at the prestigious Boston law firm of Hale and Dorr.  He was promoted to a senior partner in 1936.  Soon, he was considered one of the shrewdest, soundest attorneys in Boston.

Welch was never active in civic or political issues, although his wife was active in local Women's and Garden clubs.  He played cribbage regularly, and was a great fisherman. When gas rationing during World War I cut off his ability to go to courses and play golf, he started gardening.  Later, Time magazine shared an interesting anecdote:

Although he has an air of studied carelessness, Welch is actually something of a dandy, owns 18 suits, 18 pairs of slacks. He owns more than 150 neckties, all bows. Once, when the Welches were vacationing at Lake Winnipesaukee, the house in Walpole was looted. Joe was horrified when he had to make out a list of his losses. 'I cannot admit that I have 150 neckties,' he groaned, so he told the police that 75 were stolen.

The Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954 were held to investigate charges made by the now-infamous Republican Wisconsin senator Joseph R. McCarthy against the Army.  McCarthy claimed that the army was holding US Army soldier G. David Schine, a consultant of McCarthy, "hostage" to prevent him and his committee from uncovering communists in the military.  The Army asserted that McCarthy's chief counsel, Roy M. Cohn, had intruded into Schine's military career, pressuring officials to give him special privileges.  The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which McCarthy was the chairman of, sought to resolve the issue by voting to investigate and permit live television coverage of the investigation.  McCarthy, presumably reluctantly, gave up the chairmanship to South Dakota senator Karl Mundt.  The hearings made history in that they were the first nationally-televised congressional hearings, aired on the ABC and DuMont networks from April 22 to June 17, 1954.  

The hearings were widely anticipated.  A month before they began, Time featured a cover story of Cohn and Schine subtitled "The Army got its orders."  Welch was also featured in a Time profile.  Welch offered to represent the Army during the hearings voluntarily and without compensation.

The hearings went on for 36 days, with 188 hours of broadcast time.  The hearings were a key event in the decline of the influence McCarthy had during this era.  He was seen as a bullying, reckless, and dishonest boor against the calm and cool-tempered Joseph Welch.  Nearly 80 million people were estimated to have viewed the hearings on television, and McCarthy's popularity plunged during the course of them.  According to a Gallup poll conducted in January 1954, McCarthy had a 50% approval rating.  By June, only 34% approved.  McCarthy's nasal interjection "Point of order!" multiple times during the hearings became a national catch phrase.  In December 1954, the Senate voted to censure McCarthy once and for all, effectively ending the long and treacherous era of McCarthyism.

When Welch uttered his now-famous words on June 9, McCarthy and Welch had been having an unexpected confrontation regarding Fred Fisher, who was a partner at Welch's firm.  McCarthy implied that Fisher was a communist sympathizer.  Welch was adamant in his response: "Until this moment, senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or recklessness...Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?  Have you left no sense of decency?"  McCarthy attempted to respond, but Welch cut him off and requested the chairman call the next witness.  The gallery subsequently erupted into applause.  According to an article by Thomas Doherty, written years later, "The uncomprehending McCarthy, shot dead on live TV, turned to Cohn and stammered, 'What happened?'."

Just two months after Welch had returned to Walpole, it was reported that he had been receiving repeated death threats due to his role in the hearings.  "Attorney Welch scoffs at second threat on life" screamed the front page headline of the August 5, 1954 edition of the Walpole Times.  Both his Walpole home and his Wellfleet vacation home were put under police protection - in Walpole, police chief Timothy Cullinane ordered 24/7 protection of the Welch home on Plimpton Street.  A 48 year old consulting engineer who had formerly worked at Kendall Mills in Walpole was accused of issuing threats to Welch, and a nationwide search, focused mainly on New England was launched "to find the man armed with a Luger pistol," the Walpole Times explained.

Welch apparently thought nothing of the threats and simply continued on with his life.  But it appears that his hectic and now high-profile life was getting to him, and he left Walpole for a much-needed retirement in Cape Cod in 1956, the same year his wife died.

Welch later became an actor, as he became the narrator of a highly-praised television series on the country's constitutional history.  He also wrote a book, The Constitution, as a companion to the series.  Additionally, he received accolades for his portrayal of a judge in the 1959 movie "Anatomy of a Murder."

In 1957, he remarried, and on October 6, 1960, he died in Hyannis, Massachusetts.  His legacy of ending the influence on Joseph McCarthy continues, however, to live on.