Vito Marcantonio | |
|---|---|
 Marcantonio in 1946 | |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York | |
| In office January 3, 1939 – January 3, 1951 | |
| Preceded by | James J. Lanzetta |
| Succeeded by | James G. Donovan |
| Constituency | 20th district (1939–1945) 18th district (1945–1951) |
| In office January 3, 1935 – January 3, 1937 | |
| Preceded by | James J. Lanzetta |
| Succeeded by | James J. Lanzetta |
| Constituency | 20th district |
| New York State Chairman of the American Labor Party | |
| In office January 8, 1948 – November 6, 1953 | |
| Preceded by | Hyman Blumberg |
| Succeeded by | Peter K. Hawley |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Vito Anthony Marcantonio December 10, 1902 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | August 9, 1954(1954-08-09) (aged 51) New York City, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican (before 1937) American Labor (after 1937) |
| Other political affiliations | Farmer–Labor (1920) Progressive (1924) Progressive (1948–1954) |
| Spouse | |
| Alma mater | New York University School of Law |
Vito Anthony Marcantonio (December 10, 1902 – August 9, 1954) was an American lawyer and politician who representedEast Harlem inNew York City for seven terms in theUnited States House of Representatives.[1]
For most of his political career, he was a member of theAmerican Labor Party, believing that neither major American political party supported the interests of theworking class. For two years prior to hisparty switching to Labor, he had been aNew Deal coalition member of theprogressive branch of theRepublican Party, like his mentor and allyFiorello La Guardia. Marcantonio was ideologically asocialist, and a supporter of political causes and positions which he deemed in the interests of the working class, poor, immigrants, labor unions, andcivil rights.[2]
Marcantonio's constituency in Congress included the smaller neighborhoods ofItalian Harlem andSpanish Harlem and was home to many ethnicItalians, Jews, African Americans, andPuerto Ricans. He spoke Spanish, Italian, and English. Marcantonio advocated fiercely for the rights of African Americans, Italian American immigrants, and Puerto Rican immigrants in Harlem, as well as for unions and workers in general.
Marcantonio was the son of an American-born father and Italian-born mother, both with origins inPicerno, in theBasilicata region ofSouthern Italy.[3] He was born on December 10, 1902, in the impoverishedItalian Harlem ghetto ofEast Harlem, New York City.[1] He attended New York City public schools, becoming the only member of his class from East Harlem to graduate fromDe Witt Clinton High School inHell's Kitchen,[citation needed] and eventually received hisLL.B. from theNew York University School of Law in 1925.
In the1920 United States presidential election, Marcantonio campaigned forParley P. Christensen, the candidate of theFarmer-Labor Party.[1]In 1924, he became campaign manager for the congressional campaign ofFiorello La Guardia, then a Progressive–Socialist.[1] Together, LaGuardia and Marcantonio also campaigned for U.S. SenatorRobert M. La Follette for president inthat year's presidential election.[1][4] Marcantonio also became secretary of the Tenants League, which fought high rents and evictions.[1]
After passing the New Yorkbar examination in 1925, Marcantonio began practicing law, first for Foster, La Guardia, and Cutler.[1] He clerked at the law firm ofSwinburne Hale,Walter Nelles, andIsaac Shorr, known for its representation ofpolitically radical individuals and organizations. There, he worked with labor lawyerJoseph R. Brodsky, who "significantly contributed to his left orientation" towardMarxism.[4] Marcantonio managed La Guardia's successful congressional re-election campaigns in1926 to1932.[1] He worked as anassistant United States attorney from 1930 to 1931.[1] He was an important figure in the La Guardia's successful campaign formayor of New York City in1933, and was regarded to be La Guardia's political heir apparent.[5]
Marcantonio was first elected to theUnited States House of Representatives from New Yorkin 1934 as aRepublican.[1] He received a warm write-up in theNew Masses in the November 1936 issue.[1] He served in the House from 1935 until 1937 but was defeated in 1936 for re-election. Marcantonio's district was centered in his nativeEast Harlem, New York City, which had many residents and immigrants ofItalian andPuerto Rican origin. Fluent in Spanish as well as Italian, he was considered an ally of the Puerto Rican and Italian-American communities, and an advocate for the rights of the workers, immigrants, and the poor.[6]
Marcantonio was arguably one of the mostleft-wing members of Congress,[7][5] He was investigated by theFBI in the 1940s and 1950s because of his extensive affiliation with members of theCommunist Party USA and knownCommunist front groups.[7][8] He strongly supported theNew Deal of PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, aDemocrat.[5]
In 1936, Marcantonio lost re-election. However, he won his seat back in the1938 election while running under theAmerican Labor Party nomination.[5] He was subsequently re-elected to six further terms, with his second stint in the House lasting from 1939 to 1951 (being reelected in the elections of1940,1942,1944,1946,[9] and1948). He was so popular in that district that hecross-filed in thecross-filing primaries betweenDemocratic and Republican primaries, and won the nominations of both parties. He also gained theendorsement of the ALP, in an example ofelectoral fusion.[10] Aside from Marcantonio, the only other ALP congressman wasLeo Isacson, who served in Congress from 1948 to 1949, after winning a special election, but was defeated in the next general election.
Marcantonio stood as an ally to causes important to Puerto Rican and Italian communities and common workers, and was also a strong advocate of Harlem's African-American communities[citation needed] and fought vehemently forblack civil rights decades before thecivil rights movement of the 1950s–1960s. He perennially supported civil rights legislation.[5]
Marcantonio strongly opposed CongressmanMartin Dies Jr. and hisHouse Un-American Activities Committee, which was created in 1937 to investigate activities considered un-American and subversive as part of theRed Scare.[5]
In the early years ofWorld War II, Marcantonio viewed the war as being fueled by competingimperialist desires by theAllies of World War II andAxis powers, and opposed a United States entry into the conflict.[5] In 1940, he helped form theAmerican Peace Mobilization (APM), a group whose aim was to keep the U.S. from participating in the war. Before the signing of theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact in Moscow August 23, 1939, the APM's precursor organization, theComintern-directedAmerican League for Peace and Democracy, had beenanti-Nazi. Marcantonio served as the APM's vice-chair. He appeared in anewsreel in 1940 denouncing "the imperialist war", a line taken byJoseph Stalin and his supporters in theSoviet Union (USSR) untilOperation Barbarossa. The Pact lasted until the Germans broke it by invading the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. In 1942, Marcantonio worked to expand the U.S. military commitment to a second front in Europe against theNazi German expansion, which becameOperation Torch. The USSR orderedCommunist parties throughout the world to promote the idea to help it defeatNazism. Marcantonio was also a vice president of theInternational Workers Order, a fraternal benefit society unofficially affiliated with the Communist Party.[11]
There was a strong effort to unseat Marcantonio from Congress in 1946, including a smear campaign by media outlets. However, Marcantonio won re-election by a margin of 5,500.[5] On election day, a Republican election captain named Joseph Scottoriggio, who was supporting Marcantonio's opponent, was severely beaten and died days later.[12] New York City mobsterMike Coppola is believed to have been responsible.[13][14]
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In 1947, when the U.S. Congress passed legislation to provide financial aid to fight communism in Turkey and Greece, such as during theGreek Civil War, Marcantonio was the only congressman to not applaud the action, symbolizing his disagreement with theTruman Doctrine.[15] In 1950, Marcantonio opposed American involvement in theKorean War. He argued thatNorth Korea had been the victim of an unprovoked attack bySouth Korea. He cited articles byI. F. Stone, a radical journalist.[citation needed]
Marcantonio opposed the 1947 creation of theCentral Intelligence Agency in 1947, arguing that the agency would "under the guise of research and study" conduct espionage trade unions and businesses in order to assert the will of the military upon them.[5]
On November 25, 1947, the day after the House voted for indictment of theHollywood Ten forcontempt of Congress, RepresentativeWalter Judd attacked Marcantonio by likening the ALP to theChina Democratic League in China at that time. He said: "The history of the Democratic League is astonishingly like that of the American Labor Party to which the gentleman belongs. It was originally a coalition of labor groups, liberals and Communists. Then the genuine liberals discovered that it and they were being used as fronts or tools of the Communists, and, as the gentleman from New York is well aware, they broke off and established theLiberal Party."[16]
In 1948, Marcantonio was an avid supporter of former Vice PresidentHenry A. Wallace, who ran for President on theProgressive Party ticket.[17] A campaign film byCarl Marzani shows Marcantonio's district and his efforts on its behalf.[18][19] Marcantonio became state chairman of the ALP in January,[20] and was re-elected in November. His re-election that year came despite an intense opposition (motivated by opposition to his anti-McCarthyism).[5]
In 1949, Marcantonio ran forMayor of New York City on the ALP ticket but was defeated.[10]
In his last term in Congress, Marcantonio opposed U.S. involvement in theKorean War.[5]
In 1950, the Democratic, Republican, andLiberal parties (throughelectoral fusion) backed a single candidate against Marcantonio, who was in turn endorsed by all of the city's major newspapers. Since Marcantonio had been able to win reelection in 1948 due to the Democrats and Republicans splitting the vote, Republican leaderThomas J. Curran and Democratic leaderFerdinand Pecora worked together to find a compromise candidate.Jonathan Brewster Bingham, John Ellis,James J. Lanzetta,Thomas Francis Murphy, andWendell Willkie's wife Edith Willkie were considered, butJames G. Donovan was ultimately selected.[21]
During the campaign, Marcantonio attacked Donovan as a "Sutton PlaceDixiecrat". He was defeated by Donovan inthe 1950 election, receiving only 40% of the vote.[5] The Liberals opposed Donovan in later elections.[22] The passage of the Wilson Pakula Act in 1947 also played some part in Marcantonio's defeat.[23] The law prevented candidates from running in the primaries of parties with which they were not affiliated. It was widely perceived as being directed against Marcantonio.[23] As the sole representative of his party for most of his years in Congress, Marcantonio never held a committee chairmanship. After his defeat in 1950 and the withdrawal of the Communist Party support for the ALP, the party soon fell apart.[24]
After his defeat in mayoral and congressional elections, Marcantonio continued to practice law. It was his law practice, maintained while in Congress, that had generated the money by which he substantially self-financed his political campaigns.[citation needed] At first, he practiced in Washington, D.C., but he soon returned to New York City.
In the1952 presidential election, Marcantonio supported theProgressive Party ticket ofVincent Hallinan for president andCharlotta Bass for vice president.[5] Bass (anAfrican-American woman) was the first womanof color to be nominated for vice president.[25] Marcantonio attended the party's1952 nominating convention in Chicago.[26] Soon afterward, in personal correspondence, he hailed W.E.B. Du Bois's keynote address to the convention, writing that he fully concurred with assertions made in the speech about black political representation.[27] In supporting the party's 1952 nominees, he characterized a vote for the third-party ticket as highly valuable, remarking,
A vote for the Progressive Party in 1952... is a vote as valuable as that cast for theLiberty Party in1840 againstslavery, and for theFree Soil Party in1848 and1852 against extension of slavery. It is a vote similar to the one that made up the one million votes forEugene V. Debs in1920, which in turn led to the four million votes for LaFollette in 1924 and for victory for[Franklin] Roosevelt in1932. Great causes were never won by sacrificing a real fight and substituting for it the seeminglesser evil.[5]
In his address to the party's 1952 presidential nominating convention, Marcantonio remarked
With belief in our fathers, and faith in our people, we here at this Convention constitute the people's opposition to the juggernaut of war, oppression and reaction, and we today, the political lineal descendants of theFree Soilers of over 100 years ago, raise our banner on which are inscribed the words: "free speech and free and equal men living in a world of peace." I say we are not wasting time; we are not fighting in vain. For as we battle in 1952, to that extent will we earn the right to be the hard core of the great political party that will follow in the realignment which will inexorably ensue from the disintegration of the Democratic Party.[28]
Marcantonio resigned as state chairman of the ALP soon after the1953 mayoral election, citing an "inherent division" that prevented it from acting as an independent political force.[29] He left the party altogether, and launched a campaign for his former congressional seat, initially as an independent,[5] pledging as a candidate,
I shall continue to strive as an independent for the things for which I have striven so hard. I shall continue to do so as an independent endeavoring for the political realignment which is inevitable. It is as inevitable as the failure of the Republican and Democrat foreign policy and the economy that is based upon it.[5]
He ultimately became the candidate of a newly formed third party, the Good Neighbor Party. However, he died before the general election was held,[24] suffering a fatalheart attack on August 9, 1954 while traveling up subway stairs on Broadway by City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. As a devoutCatholic, he was given conditionalabsolution andextreme unction, the last sacrament of the Catholic Church.[30][31] He was nevertheless refused aCatholic funeral, with theArchdiocese of New York claiming he was not practicing and had not been reconciled to the Church at the time of his death.[32] His service at a funeral home was attended by more than 20,000 people.[5]
Marcantonio was inspired politically by hisCatholic faith.[33]
Marcantonio, who was arguably one of the most left-wing members of Congress,[7][5] said that party loyalty was less important than voting with his conscience. He was sympathetic to theSocialist andCommunist parties, and tolabor unions. He was investigated by the FBI in the 1940s and 1950s because of his extensive affiliation with members of the Communist Party and known Communist front groups.[7][8]
When accused in his early congressional tenure of secretly supporting the United States Communist Party he remarked,
I disagree with the Communists. I emphatically do not agree with them, but they have a perfect right to speak out and to advocate communism. I maintain that the moment we deprive those with whom we extremely disagree of their right tofreedom of speech, the next thing that will happen is that our own right of freedom of speech will be taken away from us.[5]
An opponent of the House Un-American Activities Committee, in 1940 Marcantonio accused its participants of using anti-communism to distract public attention away from an anti-worker agenda, remarking,
If communism is destroyed, I do not know what some of you will do. It has become the most convenient method by which you wrap yourselves in the American flag in order to cover up some of the greasy stains on the legislative toga. You can vote against the unemployed, you can vote against theW.P.A. workers, and you can emasculate the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States; you can try to destroy the National Labor Relations Law, the Magna Carta of American labor; you can vote against the farmer; and you can do all that with a great deal of impunity, because after you have done so you do not have to explain your vote.[5]
In 2010, historianThaddeus Russell described Marcantonio as "one of the greatest champions ofblack civil rights during the 1930s and 1940s."[34] He sponsored bills to prohibit thepoll tax, used by the Southern United States todisenfranchise poor voters, and to makelynching a federal crime.[34]
HistorianG. J. Meyer noted,
In the House, Marcantonio distinguished himself as the major leader for civil rights legislation by sponsoring anti-lynching and anti-poll tax bills as well as the annual fight for theFair Employment Practices Commission's appropriation.[5]
Marcantonio partnered with CongressmanLeo Isacson to champion the cause of equality in theUnited States Armed Forces.[5]
Marcantonio supported the New Deal. While speaking on the subject ofunemployment, Marcantonio remarked in Congress, "the unemployed are victims of an unjust economic and social system which has failed."[5]
In the early stages of World War II, Marcantonio opposed American entry, arguing that the war was actually an imperialist effort fueled by a desire by the conflicting powers to expand their economic exploitation of other peoples, remarking:
a war between two axes, theWall Street-Downing Street Axis versus the Rome-Tokyo-Berlin Axis, contending for empire and for exploitation of more and more people.[5]
In 1940, he was involved in forming theAmerican Peace Mobilization to oppose American entry into the war.[35] He also opposed U.S. involvement in the Korean War.[5]
In 1941, as an attorney Marcantonio represented Dale Zysman, a high school coach and board member of the New York CityTeachers Union also known asJack Hardy, acommunist writer forInternational Publishers, in a New YorkBoard of Education hearing. Marcantonio asked for a ten-day stay because the Board had failed to present "an itemized bill of particulars", which stay the Board denied. Zysman walked out.[36]
Marcantonio served as a strong voice in Congress for concerns relating to the territory ofPuerto Rico, which lacked congressional representation.[5] Historian G. J. Meyer noted,
He served asde facto congressperson for Puerto Rico, insuring that it was not excluded from appropriations bills. He also submitted five bills calling for theindependence of Puerto Rico (which he called "the greatest victim of United States imperialism") with an indemnity for the damage done to the island by the United States business interests which had replaced tens of thousands of small farms with sugar plantations.[5]
In 1939, Marcantonio criticized the prosecution and conviction ofPuerto Rican Nationalist Party presidentPedro Albizu Campos on charges ofsedition and other crimes against the United States.[citation needed]
In 1946, Marcantonio introduced legislation to restore Spanish as the language of instruction in Puerto Rico's schools, asking PresidentHarry S. Truman to sign the bill "in the name of the children of Puerto Rico who are being tortured by the prevailing system…to fight cultural chauvinism and to correct past errors." President Truman signed the bill.[6] In 1948, schools were able to return to teaching in the Spanish language, but English was required in schools as a second language.[citation needed]
Marcantonio was a lifelong Catholic, who, in 1939 at the National Conference of the ILD, described himself as "a Roman Catholic who has not deserted the faith of his fathers."[33] He married Miriam A. Sanders in 1925.
Marcantonio's collection of speeches,I Vote My Conscience (1956), edited byAnnette Rubinstein, influenced the next generation of young radicals.[37] His defense of workers rights, his mastery of parliamentary procedure, his ability to relate to the workers in his district while also engaging in worldwide issues, made him a hero to a certain section of the left. Rubinstein's book was reprinted in a new edition in 2002.[37]
Tony Kushner's playThe Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures has a main character who is a fictional "cousin" of Vito Marcantonio.[citation needed]
Pamphlets written by Marcantonio include:
further to the left with a domestic political agenda roughly parallel to that the Communist Party (CP).
Congressman Marcantonio was the subject of an FBI security matter investigation during the 1940s and 1950s in view of his extensive affiliation with members of the Communist Party and known communist front groups.-->
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)a priest who administered the last rites of the Catholic Church.-->
Marcantonio had been a devout Catholic.-->
he had always identified himself as a Catholic. For example, in 1939, while speaking before the National Conference of the ILD, ... with a description of himself 'As a Roman Catholic who has not deserted the faith of his fathers.'-->
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 20th congressional district 1935–1937 | Succeeded by James J. Lanzetta |
| Preceded by James J. Lanzetta | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 20th congressional district 1939–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's 18th congressional district 1945–1951 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by None | American Labor Nominee for Mayor of New York City 1949 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
