Vito Anthony Marcantonio

Vito Anthony Marcantonio (December 10, 1902 – August 9, 1954) was an American lawyer and politician who represented East Harlem in New York City for seven terms in the United States House of Representatives.

For most of his political career, he was a member of the American Labor Party, believing that neither major American political party supported the interests of the working class. For two years prior to his party switching to Labor, he had been a New Deal coalition member of the progressive branch of the Republican Party, like his mentor and ally Fiorello La Guardia. Marcantonio was ideologically a socialist, and a supporter of political causes and positions which he deemed in the interests of the working class, poor, immigrants, labor unions, and civil rights.

Marcantonio's constituency in Congress included the smaller neighborhoods of Italian Harlem and Spanish Harlem and was home to many ethnic Italians, Jews, African Americans, and Puerto 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.

Early life and education Marcantonio was the son of an American-born father and Italian-born mother, both with origins in Picerno, in the Basilicata region of Southern Italy. He was born on December 10, 1902, in the impoverished Italian Harlem ghetto of East Harlem, New York City. Marcantonio managed La Guardia's successful congressional re-election campaigns in 1926 to 1932.

Marcantonio was arguably one of the most left-wing members of Congress, and 1948). He was so popular in that district that he cross-filed in the cross-filing primaries between Democratic and Republican primaries, and won the nominations of both parties. He also gained the endorsement of the ALP, in an example of electoral fusion.

In the early years of World War II, Marcantonio viewed the war as being fueled by competing imperialist desires by the Allies of World War II and Axis powers, and opposed a United States entry into the conflict.

American Labor Party campaign poster featuring Marcantonio as a candidate for reelection to Congress, 1948. Above him the faces of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fiorello La Guardia, and Henry A. Wallace look on.

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. New York City mobster Mike Coppola is believed to have been responsible.

In 1947, when the U.S. Congress passed legislation to provide financial aid to fight communism in Turkey and Greece, such as during the Greek Civil War, Marcantonio was the only congressman to not applaud the action, symbolizing his disagreement with the Truman Doctrine. In 1950, Marcantonio opposed American involvement in the Korean War. He argued that North Korea had been the victim of an unprovoked attack by South Korea. He cited articles by I. F. Stone, a radical journalist.

Marcantonio opposed the 1947 creation of the Central 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.

In 1948, Marcantonio was an avid supporter of former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who ran for President on the Progressive Party ticket. A campaign film by Carl Marzani shows Marcantonio's district and his efforts on its behalf. Marcantonio became state chairman of the ALP in January, and was re-elected in November. His re-election that year came despite an intense opposition (motivated by opposition to his anti-McCarthyism).

In his last term in Congress, Marcantonio opposed U.S. involvement in the Korean War. 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. Bass (an African-American woman) was the first woman of color to be nominated for vice president. Marcantonio attended the party's 1952 nominating convention in Chicago. 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. In supporting the party's 1952 nominees, he characterized a vote for the third-party ticket as highly valuable, remarking,

Marcantonio resigned as state chairman of the ALP soon after the 1953 mayoral election, citing an "inherent division" that prevented it from acting as an independent political force. He left the party altogether, and launched a campaign for his former congressional seat, initially as an independent, suffering a fatal heart attack on August 9, 1954 while traveling up subway stairs on Broadway by City Hall Park in Lower Manhattan. As a devout Catholic, he was given conditional absolution and extreme unction, the last sacrament of the Catholic Church. He was nevertheless refused a Catholic funeral, with the Archdiocese of New York claiming he was not practicing and had not been reconciled to the Church at the time of his death. His service at a funeral home was attended by more than 20,000 people.

Views on communism and criticism of the Red Scare Marcantonio (left) with Paul Robeson and Leo Isacson at an event in Washington, D.C. protesting the Mundt Bill, June 1, 1948 Marcantonio, who was arguably one of the most left-wing members of Congress,

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 to freedom of speech, the next thing that will happen is that our own right of freedom of speech will be taken away from us. He sponsored bills to prohibit the poll tax, used by the Southern United States to disenfranchise poor voters, and to make lynching a federal crime. He also opposed U.S. involvement in the Korean War.

Puerto Rico

Marcantonio served as a strong voice in Congress for concerns relating to the territory of Puerto Rico, which lacked congressional representation. 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. Labor's Martyrs': Haymarket 1887, Sacco and Vanzetti 1927 (1941) Should America Go to War? (1941) Marcantonio Answers F.D.R.! (1941) Security with FDR (1944)