HALE: There is a prodigious fear of this court in the country.
DANFORTH: Reproach me not with the fear in the country; there is fear in the country because there is a moving plot to topple Christ in the country!
HALE: But it does not follow that everyone accused is part of it.
DANFORTH: No uncorrupted man may fear this court, Mr. Hale! None! (To Giles): You are under arrest in contempt of this court.
– Arthur Miller
The Crucible, Act 3. There are echoes of McCarthyism in this exchange between the top judge in the Salem witch trials court Danforth and Reverend John Hale. Hale speaks of the climate of fear create by a court that has imprisoned and hanged so many innocent people for the crime of witchcraft. But Danforth, with great irony, insists that no innocent person may fear the court. The truth is that many innocents have been condemned by his court of so-called justice. Just as Danforth fears a "plot to topple Christ in the country," Senator Joe McCarthy believed that communists wanted to topple democracy in the United States.