All Powers Necessary and ConvenientIn the Seattle of 1948 legislative hearings were called to investigate Communism in Washington State. The inquisition became an early, effective example of American politics at midcentury when Cold War anxiety escalated into hysteria, feeding what was to become known on a national level as the McCarthy era. The Canwell Committee, as it was popularly called, made a frontal assault on unsanctioned political thought and activism. Suspected Communists