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This being Labor Day, I’ve bumped our Back-to-School entry to tomorrow, to today present, in its entirety, the 1927 published pamphlet, The case of Sacco and Vanzetti in Cartoons from The Daily Worker. Above, are the publication’s front cover and introduction.

The case of Sacco and Vanzetti collects cartoons by artist Fred Ellis, which had appeared that year in the American Communist Party publication, The Daily Worker.

Back in the early days of the Labor Movement, when companies openly — and with the support of the police & elected officials — hired thugs to beat, shoot, and murder striking workers and strike leaders, the communist party was a part of the labor union movement, and the unions welcomed them. (Ironically for the Communist Party, by providing an alternate means for workers to negotiate with company owners, organized unions helped deflect the U.S. masses from heading down far more radical paths (such as communism and fascism), which several other nations slid into during Great Depression I.)

In the below August 2nd, 1927 Daily Worker cartoon, titled “Gentlemen of the Committee, This is the Evidence”, Ellis illustrates the widespread contention that evidence supporting Nicola Sacco’s and Bartolomeo Vanzetti’s innocence was deliberately being ignored (they were accused of a double-murder and robbery) — and, that the two were instead, in truth, on trial because of their politics.

Italian immigrants Sacco & Vanzetti’s case, additionally touched on the issue of immigrant labor (a hot topic still today!). Involved in attempting to stay their executions, and prove their innocence, was the ILD (International Labor Defense).

Not to diminish the subject, but I do have to comment here — I have to wonder if the below two 1927 cartoons (in which Ellis compares Sacco & Vanzetti’s Massachusetts ordeal, to the Salem Witch Trials), might not have been seen by some of E.C. Comics’ artists, and served as an inspiration (conscious or not) for Tales from the Crypt‘s Crypt Keeper.

Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed on August 23rd, 1927. Click on Nicola Sacco’s final letter to his son, to read it, hear the letter set to song by Pete Seeger, and read some more concerning the case. Fifty years later, on August 23rd, 1977, the governor of Massachusetts declared August 23 as Sacco/Vanzetti Memorial Day, stating that they had been unfairly tried and convicted and that “any disgrace should be forever removed from their names.” (Find this in the above link.)

Ten years after Sacco & Vanzetti’s executions, the controversy concerning their treatment erupted again, over the representation of their trial in the Works Progress Administration’s Guide to Massachusetts (which would have preferred the issue buried & forgotten). Read Christine Bold’s article in the Massachusetts Historical Review (Volume 5, 2003) to learn more.

Click here to find prior Super I.T.C.H. posts involving historical cartoon depictions of Corporate/Capitalist Malfeasance and/or Labor issues.

Doug Wheeler

financial reform