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Catalogue information
LastDodo number
5916131
Area
Drawings / paintings
Title
I demand a probe of political corruption!
Artist
Art object
Art Movement / style
Genre
Material
Technique used
Colouring
Dimensions
56 x 38 cm
Series / hero
Collection / set
Number
Addition to number
Year
1950
Country
Language
Details
Original editorial cartoon on card in ink and crayon for the New York Daily Mirror, 1950, shows Vito Marcantonio, New York lawyer and politician, flanked by Mike Coppola, and Joey Rao while demanding ‘a probe of political corruption!’ in a room beneath pictures of Stalin (‘Joe’), ‘Spanish Rose’, and a picture of ‘11 convicted reds’. Marcantonio was an Italian-American and in the late 1930s he became a member of the American Labor Party, so on the far left of the American political spectrum, and was nationally known for his support from Communists in the 1940s. For this Party he represented his birthplace East Harlem, where he was extremely popular, and was elected to numerous terms in the House of Representatives from 1939 until he lost his seat in the 1950 election. The cartoon is probably related to this election, and attempts to show that Marcantonio is himself corrupt. He is associated with Communist Russia (so is a communist agitator), the Puerto Rican community in his district (Spanish Rose) and eleven men who had been sentenced to prison terms in 1949 for being members of the Communist Party, convictions against which Marcantonio had spoken out. Coppola and Rao were well known old-time East Harlem racketeers, and represent old accusations (never substantiated and probably untrue) that Marcantonio was in the pay of the Italian Mafia. Card size 56 x 38 cm (22 x 15 inch), image size 42 x 28 cm, signed lower right, in very good condition.