Derf Backderf’s new graphic novel illustrates the repression of socialists during the McCarthy era through the stories of political cartoonists. It resonates powerfully with current times.
The images created by socialist and antiwar political cartoonists during the period around World War I were powerful tools for countering the elite’s propaganda of the time.
The Russian Revolution had just occurred, and in response to extreme wealth inequality, a militant working class was on the rise in the United States. The ruling class was afraid and responded to the growing dissent with severe measures — a massive propaganda campaign, laws that limited free expression, deportations, violence and imprisonment. It was an era that echoes the repression — ICE raids, the designation of Leftists as “terrorists” and restrictions of academic freedom — that is occurring today.
In his new graphic novel, Dissidents, Autocrats, Vigilantes, Communists, and Cartoonists, political cartoonist and writer Derf Backderf analyzes this period through the untold stories of contemporary cartoonists who were targeted by the Wilson administration. Backderf joins Chris Hedges to discuss his new novel and its lessons for today on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report.
Hedges and Backderf explore some of the most prominent political cartoonists and writers of the early 20th century, leftist publications, such as The Masses, and the initially subtle methods of censoring them. Hedges explains, “This is the way totalitarianism always works…it was incremental.” Then came the Red Scare and more overt oppression through the American Protective League and the Palmer raids.
The parallels between the period of the anti-socialist and anti-communist efforts one hundred years ago and the current demonization of socialism and communism today under the Trump administration are stark. Hedges and Backderf describe the impacts of the Red Scare on Leftists of that period and what we have learned, or failed to learn, from that. “That’s why the book is so important because when these ruling capitalist elites feel threatened, they’re vicious,” adds Hedges. At the same time, there are reasons for optimism because the United States avoided a fascist turn in the past. Backderf concludes, “I hope that’s what people take away from this book, that it doesn’t have to be inevitable.
Transcript
Chris Hedges: The graphic novelist Derf Backderf, in his new book, Dissidents, Autocrats, Vigilantes, Communists, and Cartoonists, captures a moment in American history not dissimilar to our own. It is 1916. President Woodrow Wilson, a white supremacist who will resegregate the federal workforce and has open contempt for constitutional rights, is in the White House. There is crippling social inequality.
Militant unions, including the anarcho-syndicalist union of the IWW, or Wobblies, led by radicals such as Big Bill Haywood, lead hundreds of thousands of industrial workers on walkouts. Socialist politicians led by the firebrand Eugene Debs, who in 1912 pulled a million votes in the presidential race, terrify Wilson and the ruling business elites. Wilson, who ran for reelection promising to keep the country out of World War I, reverses himself in 1917. The nation’s entry into the war becomes the catalyst to crush the Radical Left.
Congress passes the Espionage Act in 1917, which not only criminalizes espionage, but speech deemed critical of the government. Wilson hopes to include a provision for direct censorship of newspapers, but Congress denies his request. Congress, the next year, however, passes an amendment known as the Sedition Act, which makes it a crime to use disloyal or profane language that could encourage contempt for the Constitution or the flag. The Espionage Act and the Sedition Act become the tools used by the Wilson administration to silence anti-war progressives and the populist forces. The Postmaster General, Albert Burleson, empowered by the Espionage Act, cancels the special mailing privileges of the journals he condemns as unpatriotic, instantly hiking their postal rates, and putting about a hundred, including the socialist journal The Masses, out of business. A few thousand people, including Debs, are arrested for their continued denunciation of the war and calls for draft resistance and strikes.
Vigilante groups such as the American Protective League, roused by the inflamed war propaganda and nationalist call to arms, physically attack and at times lynch, war opponents. The golden era of American journalism and social reform comes to an end. The Dissidents tells this story through the experiences of radical political cartoonists, including Art Young, Boardman Robinson, Robert Minor, Maurice Becker, and Cornelia Barnes, and journalists such as Max Eastman and John Reed, as well as socialist luminaries such as Emma Goldman and Debs. The cartoonists he writes about are swiftly caught up in Wilson’s dragnet. They are indicted for sedition and put on trial with 20-year sentences hanging over their heads. Two flee into exile, another is incarcerated by the U.S. Army and scheduled for execution.
Backderf, who began his career as a journalist and political cartoonist, masterfully captures this momentous moment in American history, one that in many ways mirrors what we are experiencing under the presidency of Donald Trump. Joining me to discuss his book, The Dissidents, is Derf Backderf.
Okay, I’m not going to gush too much, but I love this book and as I said, Derf, before we went on the air, because I’m friends with Joe Sacco, I know how incredibly labor-intensive it is for really great cartoonists like yourself. And so, it’s not just the dialogue, it’s not just the words, but it’s the intricacy of the drawings and the detail which speak almost as much, I think, as the dialogue itself.
It’s extremely important just to give a caveat to readers of graphic novels that they spend a lot of time looking at what you drew. So, let’s explain. I did a little bit in the introduction, but let’s explain why this moment in American history is so important. What drew you to it? And then, although I knew about the suppression of The Masses, I did know until I read your book about the individual suffering or persecution that was meted out on cartoonists.
Derf Backderf: That’s right. And they were at the center of it and is often overlooked for the usual reasons in America, comics don’t count. But in 1917, they very much counted. And the Wilson government was absolutely terrified of these images. So, they moved against them. And these guys were big celebrities, Art Young and Boardman and Minor, especially. Very famous around the country and very influential. So, they had to be silenced. And the government went to extraordinary efforts to do that.
Chris Hedges: Well, what’s interesting, and this is the way totalitarianism always works, is that it was incremental. They didn’t just show up at their door, eventually they showed up at their door.
Derf Backderf: No. They did it in the usual ways. It’s a lot like COINTELPRO, a lot of it was behind the scenes. People didn’t realize it was happening or suspected it was happening but didn’t know for sure. And then finally when the government made their move, they had already put in a year’s worth of surveillance and dirty tricks to get to that moment.
Chris Hedges: Well, they’d also crushed a lot of the outlets that they were able to publish in.
Derf Backderf: Yeah, well, they got banned from newsstands, for example. And that was done very much behind the scenes and through other entities. They went through local entities to get them banished from newsstands or subway stands. And this is the way things were distributed back then. They had to be sold person to person. And then they banned them from the mail, which just crushed a lot of these publications. They all went under when that happened because how are you going to get the thing to your subscribers?
Chris Hedges: Let’s talk abou