In her introduction to the book, editor Annette T. Rubinstein wrote that Marcantonio, "set himself the job of interpreting the unrealized possibilities of democracy for his neighbors, and of helping them to achieve the dignity in security they deserved and needed."
Rubinstein set for herself the task of assembling the congressman's work in a way that would demonstrate his achievements in pursuit of that goal.
Although organized in a reference style, Rubinstein successfully wove series of speeches like strands throughout the text, tracing Marc's advocacy of a broad, yet consistent, set of issues over his 14 years in the House of Representatives.
From the 74th Congress to the 81st session – Marcantonio's last – matters of unemployment, Puerto Rico, Italy and Italian Americans, civil and voting rights, the Fair Employment Practices Committee, anti-racism, anti-Fascism, pro-slum clearance, the Works Progress Administration all made annual appearances in his speeches.
Most prominent was the radical's staunch advocacy of labor, and by labor, we are talking about union labor.
His proclamation against Taft-Hartley, the bill that removed the labor movement's incisors, is typical of his pronouncements on strikes, workplace safety, factory floor rights, and collective bargaining.
"What is your justification for this legislation?" he challenged his House colleagues on April 15, 1947. "Oh, you say you are going to give certain rights, a new bill of rights to the American worker. What are you giving him? You are giving him the right to be free, freeing him from unionization, freeing him from his hard-earned protection, freeing him from his union, his only defense against exploitation. You are making him free to be exploited."
Over the years Marcantonio's primarily Italian constituency was joined in his coalition with a new wave of Puerto Rican immigrants.
Unable to separate the problems of these Spanish-speaking immigrants in New York City from the conditions that drove them off their tropical isle, Marcantonio became Puerto Rico's spokesman in Congress.
And so, I Vote My Conscience contains a special section apart, “Puerto Rico and It's People.”
Having discussed the island's plight with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Marcantonio was dismayed at the president's ignorance of Puerto Rican affairs. He had every reason to suspect the affliction was national in scope.
The Puerto Rican speeches in I Vote My Conscience see Marcantonio in professorial form, delivering didactic addresses, primers on the island's history under the yoke of what the good congressman considered U.S. imperialism.
Early in his first term as congressman, Marcantonio introduced a bill calling for Puerto Rico's independence from the U.S., an oft-repeated act in years to come. During the Depression, he fought for unemployment relief on the island, a minimum wage. He gave a speech, "Five Years of Tyranny," that led to the recall of the island's federally-appointed governor, Blanton Winship.
Editor, Editor
Dr. Rubinstein's choices can't help but give a foundational shape to Marcantonio's work and influence the direction of future scholarship.
She spent a year on I Vote My Conscience, and considered it a “partial political autobiography,” for in her compilation Marcantonio tells his story, not in hindsight, but as an actor in the moment.
I Vote My Conscience is live drama, a political script.
The 500-page volume boasts more than 150
excerpts of the radical congressman's speeches – mostly to the House
– radio addresses and courtroom arguments defending communists
during the Red Scare.
Its disparate store of speeches,
letters, magazine articles, radio addresses and passionate rants from
the House Well ultimately piece together the whole story of a
remarkable political career without engaging in traditional
narrative.
“In the most general terms possible, this book documents what one brilliant and determined leftist could accomplish,” wrote Gerald Meyer, author of Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician.
The speeches are organized into chapters corresponding with Marcantonio's seven terms in Congress from 1935-1950.
Lionel Berman, who worked with Marcantonio on his last political project, the Good Neighbor Party, wrote descriptions for the index of speeches fronting each congressional session: “Protest against a 'charity wage scale' for the unemployed;” “Against a bill to remove rent controls;” “A radio address setting the record straight on hours, wages and profits in wartime.”
With the discourses organized chronologically rather than by topic, these thumbnail sketches guide the reader/researcher through the broad spectrum of issues Marcantonio addressed as representative of a small but irrepressible corner of Manhattan.
Sorting Through a Sea
I Vote My Conscience brings to light Marc's bright moments and begins the unearthing of a buried legend; moments Rubinstein fished from a sea of information the congressman crammed into the public record, depicting his radical rhetoric as action.
Meyer recounts that Dr. Rubinstein got her inspiration for the book title upon identifying like phrases from speeches in Marcantonio's first and last terms.
The first came on May 14, 1936, in support of his vote for a bill
to prevent family-farm foreclosures, he affirmed that although, “I
have no farmers in my district...I shall vote my conscience on this
bill.”
The second came in 1950, before casting the sole vote in opposition to the country's entering the Korean War, Marcantonio told his colleagues:
“It is best to live one's life with one's conscience than to temporize or accept with silence those things which one believes to be against the interests of one's people and one's nation.”
Both speeches are found in I Vote My Conscience.
The book was launched by the now-gone Vito Marcantonio Memorial on July 4, 1956, less than two years after the congressman's untimely death.
Marcantonio' wife, Miriam Sanders, served as the memorial's honorary chair and Arthur Schutzer, long-time executive secretary of the American Labor Party, was secretary.
Others members included: Educator Leo Covello; David Freedman, a legal associate of Marc's; a New York Daily News photographer by the name of Bill Price; Louise Berman, a campaign supporter; and her husband, the aforementioned Lionel.
The team was rounded out by Virginia Rosen, a researcher of the congressman's; Robert Rusch, a friend and political associate; and the aforementioned Rubinstein who was, perhaps, the best candidate from Marc's inner circle to edit I Vote My Conscience.
A Friend In Deed
Rubinstein worked with Marcantonio for years. A member of the Communist Party, the better portion of her political work came, nonetheless, as officeholder, activist and candidate for the American Labor Party (ALP) during his Marc's reign as state chairman.
She was ALP chairwoman for the fifth assembly district south and ran on the party ticket for both the State House and U.S. Congress.
Rubinstein was eventually blacklisted, her career as a high school principal destroyed. She began anew, eventually writing a storehouse-worth of literary criticism from a Marxist perspective for "Jewish Currents," "Science & Society," "Monthly Review," "New Masses," and "Mainstream."
She wrote, too, books of criticism, the crowning achievement of which is, The Great Tradition in English Literature from Shakespeare to Shaw.
This background informed the shape she gave to I Vote My Conscience.
It was Rubinstein's choice to include Marcantonio's April 27, 1944, exchange with the Texan Hatton Sumners (D) over the southern practice of poll taxing.
“In the most general terms possible, this book documents what one brilliant and determined leftist could accomplish,” wrote Gerald Meyer, author of Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician.
The speeches are organized into chapters corresponding with Marcantonio's seven terms in Congress from 1935-1950.
Lionel Berman, who worked with Marcantonio on his last political project, the Good Neighbor Party, wrote descriptions for the index of speeches fronting each congressional session: “Protest against a 'charity wage scale' for the unemployed;” “Against a bill to remove rent controls;” “A radio address setting the record straight on hours, wages and profits in wartime.”
With the discourses organized chronologically rather than by topic, these thumbnail sketches guide the reader/researcher through the broad spectrum of issues Marcantonio addressed as representative of a small but irrepressible corner of Manhattan.
Sorting Through a Sea
I Vote My Conscience brings to light Marc's bright moments and begins the unearthing of a buried legend; moments Rubinstein fished from a sea of information the congressman crammed into the public record, depicting his radical rhetoric as action.
Meyer recounts that Dr. Rubinstein got her inspiration for the book title upon identifying like phrases from speeches in Marcantonio's first and last terms.
The second came in 1950, before casting the sole vote in opposition to the country's entering the Korean War, Marcantonio told his colleagues:
“It is best to live one's life with one's conscience than to temporize or accept with silence those things which one believes to be against the interests of one's people and one's nation.”
Both speeches are found in I Vote My Conscience.
The book was launched by the now-gone Vito Marcantonio Memorial on July 4, 1956, less than two years after the congressman's untimely death.
Marcantonio' wife, Miriam Sanders, served as the memorial's honorary chair and Arthur Schutzer, long-time executive secretary of the American Labor Party, was secretary.
Others members included: Educator Leo Covello; David Freedman, a legal associate of Marc's; a New York Daily News photographer by the name of Bill Price; Louise Berman, a campaign supporter; and her husband, the aforementioned Lionel.
The team was rounded out by Virginia Rosen, a researcher of the congressman's; Robert Rusch, a friend and political associate; and the aforementioned Rubinstein who was, perhaps, the best candidate from Marc's inner circle to edit I Vote My Conscience.
A Friend In Deed
Rubinstein worked with Marcantonio for years. A member of the Communist Party, the better portion of her political work came, nonetheless, as officeholder, activist and candidate for the American Labor Party (ALP) during his Marc's reign as state chairman.
She was ALP chairwoman for the fifth assembly district south and ran on the party ticket for both the State House and U.S. Congress.
Rubinstein was eventually blacklisted, her career as a high school principal destroyed. She began anew, eventually writing a storehouse-worth of literary criticism from a Marxist perspective for "Jewish Currents," "Science & Society," "Monthly Review," "New Masses," and "Mainstream."
She wrote, too, books of criticism, the crowning achievement of which is, The Great Tradition in English Literature from Shakespeare to Shaw.
This background informed the shape she gave to I Vote My Conscience.
It was Rubinstein's choice to include Marcantonio's April 27, 1944, exchange with the Texan Hatton Sumners (D) over the southern practice of poll taxing.
Marc wanted onto Sumner's Judiciary Committee. Sumner told him no poll tax bill to the House floor. Marc took it to the floor. Sumner accused him of inflaming insurrection in the South:
Said Marc:
Said Marc:
“I think we all have a very good idea
of the poll tax,” he told the House. “[A]nd we all have knowledge
of the white primary law, which deprives people of their democratic
rights. That condition certainly does not make for better racial
relations.”
In selecting Marc's
October 24, 1945, “Objection to Congressman Rankin's reference to
Congressman [Emanuel] Cellar as a 'Jewish Gentleman,'” Rubinstein honors
him not just as a principled man, but as stalwart friend:
 |
| With Paul Robeson at the Lucky Corner (from "I Vote My Conscience.") |
“When you single out a person by his
race, color, or creed, particularly when you are engaged on the
opposite side of a debate from him, you are not doing that for the
purpose of merely pointing out that the gentleman's race happens to
be Jewish or that the gentleman happens to be a Negro. You are
baiting that gentleman. You are baiting him because of his race or
because of his color or because of his creed. You are seeking to
subject him either to discrimination or hate.”
A Soaring Saxaphone
Through I Vote My Conscience, we know that Marcantonio, in the twilight of his congressional career [May 10, 1950] still found his desk on the House floor a sufficient bullhorn to give the voiceless their say:
“I know a lot of people are annoyed and disgusted that Marcantonio should be repeatedly offering these civil-rights amendments, but I am going to keep on offering them as long as I am here and until we win this fight; because I conscientiously believe, and it has been my guiding political philosophy, that no white man is free in America as long as the Negro is subjected to discrimination and Jim Crow and segregation.”
And so on.
Five thousand copies of I Vote My Conscience were printed: 2,000 cloth, 250 “deluxe editions (slip-cased); and 2,750 of a “union edition,” that is, paperbacks.
The book was, at first, ignored and later, like its subject, forgotten. Its publication was the Vito Marcantonio Memorial's most significant and lasting accomplishment.
A Soaring Saxaphone
Through I Vote My Conscience, we know that Marcantonio, in the twilight of his congressional career [May 10, 1950] still found his desk on the House floor a sufficient bullhorn to give the voiceless their say:
“I know a lot of people are annoyed and disgusted that Marcantonio should be repeatedly offering these civil-rights amendments, but I am going to keep on offering them as long as I am here and until we win this fight; because I conscientiously believe, and it has been my guiding political philosophy, that no white man is free in America as long as the Negro is subjected to discrimination and Jim Crow and segregation.”
And so on.
Five thousand copies of I Vote My Conscience were printed: 2,000 cloth, 250 “deluxe editions (slip-cased); and 2,750 of a “union edition,” that is, paperbacks.
The book was, at first, ignored and later, like its subject, forgotten. Its publication was the Vito Marcantonio Memorial's most significant and lasting accomplishment.
Before finally folding its tent,
the promotion and distribution of I Vote My Conscience
became the sole remaining
purpose of the Marcantonio Memorial, and its major source of income.
In 1973, An effort by Francesco Cordasco, a professor at Montclair
State College led to a republishing of I Vote My Conscience under
a different title, Vito Marcantonio: Debates, Speeches, and
Writings 1935-1950, published by
August M. Kelley Publishers, Clifton N.J. 1973.
The Pirate Edition
Although Cordasco and his publisher credit the original title and claim the new edition was produced “By Arrangement with The Vito Marcantonio Memorial,” Professor Meyer asserts that it was actually “pirated” and printed without the permission of Ms. Rubenstein, “something she would have gladly given.”
In any case, it's an attractive cloth-covered, hardbound book with a separately copyrighted foreword by Mr. Cordasco, which Meyer conceded “has a few interesting and insightful sentences about Marc...”
In 2002, the second printing of I Vote My Conscience was done under the auspices of the Calandra Institute at Queens College. The printing job went awry, limiting circulation prospects.
The photo reproductions are poor, but the text maintains the same value no matter the paper's rag content. Copies of the misbegotten, but sole surviving, edition are available from the Vito Marcantonio Forum book shop for a trifle at $10.
This last edition of I Vote My Conscience contains an updated introduction and biography of Ms. Rubinstein by Gerald Meyer, a letter from Marc to Senator Bilbo, sharp exchanges between the Italian and the southern gents who ran the House, and still other extras that make this sample selection a “complete works” of a unique and nontraditional kind.
Amazon.com: The Goodfather: The Rising Fall of the Marvelous Marcantonio
The Pirate Edition
Although Cordasco and his publisher credit the original title and claim the new edition was produced “By Arrangement with The Vito Marcantonio Memorial,” Professor Meyer asserts that it was actually “pirated” and printed without the permission of Ms. Rubenstein, “something she would have gladly given.”
In any case, it's an attractive cloth-covered, hardbound book with a separately copyrighted foreword by Mr. Cordasco, which Meyer conceded “has a few interesting and insightful sentences about Marc...”
In 2002, the second printing of I Vote My Conscience was done under the auspices of the Calandra Institute at Queens College. The printing job went awry, limiting circulation prospects.
The photo reproductions are poor, but the text maintains the same value no matter the paper's rag content. Copies of the misbegotten, but sole surviving, edition are available from the Vito Marcantonio Forum book shop for a trifle at $10.
This last edition of I Vote My Conscience contains an updated introduction and biography of Ms. Rubinstein by Gerald Meyer, a letter from Marc to Senator Bilbo, sharp exchanges between the Italian and the southern gents who ran the House, and still other extras that make this sample selection a “complete works” of a unique and nontraditional kind.
Amazon.com: The Goodfather: The Rising Fall of the Marvelous Marcantonio
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