?" You say you don't know, but you can tell that no one believes you. Maybe you're not so innocent after all, you think. Maybe you've been sucked into the conspiracy without realizing it. Have you signed anything, donated any money, said anything to anybody that might sound suspicious?Once you start thinking like this, it's almost impossible to stop. You begin to feel guilty either way: even if you don't have any Communist connections, you've done nothing to stop the spread of this evil; You may have even helped the enemy by being stupid or naive. You did it, it's your fault, their questions seem to say. And they won't let you go until you make up for it in some way. So you tell them about your friend who's never home on Tuesday nights, or your mother's uncle who used to quote Communist slogans all the time, or anyone you know who's been acting a little odd the last few weeks. You name names, and they let you go.And afterward no one wants anything to do with you. You were called in to testify, there had to be a reason. You must be a Communist, or at least have been working for them. You lose your friends, your job, sometimes even your family. You become an outcast. Your life is ruined.This was the fate of many innocent people. Those who were spared either joined in the witch-hunt or kept silent for fear the same thing would happen to them. A lot of the victim never recovered, even long after the rest of the country lost interest and Joe McCarthy had been discredited. By 1957 it was pretty much over, and America could look back with a sad smile, wondering how anyone could have been so foolish.But in 1953 it was no joke. Arthur Miller already knew about the Salem witch trials from his college days at the University of Michigan (1934-38). In The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller he describes how The Crucible took shape in his mind:"... when the McCarthy era came along," he says, "I remembered these stories and I used to tell them to people w...
