Vito Marcantonio

Vito Anthony Marcantonio (December 10, 1902 – August 9, 1954) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the socialist leader of East Harlem 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 was a New Deal coalition member of the progressive branch of the Republican Party as a supporter of Fiorello LaGuardia (the progressive, pro-New Deal Republican mayor of New York at the time).

Marcantonio was a socialist and avid supporter of political causes and positions which he deemed in the interests of the working class, poor, immigrants, labor unions, and African-American civil rights.

Marcantonio represented the neighborhood of East Harlem in New York City (containing the smaller neighborhoods of Italian Harlem and Spanish Harlem), which 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.

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.

In the 1920 United States presidential election, Marcantonio campaigned for Parley P. Christensen, the candidate of the Farmer-Labor Party.

In 1924, he became campaign manager for the congressional campaign of Fiorello La Guardia, then a Progressive–Socialist.

Together, LaGuardia and Marcantonio also campaigned for U.S. Senator Robert M. La Follette for President.

Marcantonio also became secretary of the Tenants League, which fought high rents and evictions.

He attended New York City public schools, becoming the only member of his class from East Harlem to graduate from De Witt Clinton High School in Hell's Kitchen, and eventually received his LL.B. from the New York University School of Law in 1925.

After passing the New York bar examination in 1925, Marcatonio began practicing law, first for Foster, La Guardia, and Cutler.

He clerked at the law firm of Swinburne Hale, Walter Nelles, and Isaac Shorr, known for its representation of politically radical individuals and organizations.

There, he worked with labor lawyer Joseph R. Brodsky, who "significantly contributed to his left orientation" toward Marxism.

From 1926 to 1932, Marcantonio ran La Guardia's campaigns every two years.

From 1930 to 1931, he worked as an assistant United States attorney.

Marcantonio was first elected to the United States House of Representatives from New York in 1934 as a Republican.

He served in the House from 1935 until 1937 but was defeated in 1936 for re-election.

Marcantonio's district was centered in his native East Harlem, New York City, which had many residents and immigrants of Italian and Puerto 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.

He received a warm write-up in the New Masses in the November 1936 issue.

In either 1937 or 1938, Marcantonio became a member of the American Labor Party (ALP).

He was elected to the House again from New York in 1938, and served this time for six terms, from 1939 to 1951, being reelected in the elections of 1940, 1942, 1944, 1946, 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, and he also gained the endorsement of the ALP, an example of electoral fusion.

In 1939, Marcantonio criticized the 1936 prosecution and conviction of Puerto Rican Nationalist Party president Pedro Albizu Campos on charges of sedition and other crimes against the United States.

On election day in 1946, a Republican election captain named Joseph Scottoriggio, who was supporting Marcantonio's opponent, was severely beaten and died days later.

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

On November 25, 1947, the day after the House voted for indictment of the Hollywood Ten for contempt of Congress, Representative Walter Judd attacked Marcantonio by likening the ALP to the China 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 the Liberal Party."

Aside from Marcantonio, the only other ALP congressman was Leo Isacson, who served in Congress from 1948 to 1949, after winning a special election; he was defeated in the next general election.

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 was reelected.

Marcantonio was able to win reelection in 1948 due to the Democrats and Republicans splitting the vote.

Republican Thomas J. Curran and Democratic Ferdinand Pecora worked together to find a compromise candidate.

In 1949, Marcantonio ran for Mayor of New York City on the ALP ticket but was defeated.

In addition to defending the Puerto Rican and Italian communities and common workers, Marcantonio was a strong advocate of Harlem's African-American communities and fought vehemently for black civil rights decades before the civil rights movement of the 1950s–1960s.