This page is for a book-in-progress entitled "The Goodfather" by author Stephen Siciliano, a fictionalized account of Congressman Vito Marcantonio's life.
He represented East Harlem in the 1930s and '40s.
Born on Dec. 10, 1902, Marcantonio was a precocious child who gained fame as the "boy orator" in what was then America's largest Little Italy community. His early work for Fiorello LaGuardia's congressional campaigns left "Marc" in a good position to assume the seat his mentor abandoned upon becoming New York's first Italian-American mayor.
As a congressman Marc cut a unique figure in a House of Representatives run by southern gentleman born in the 19th Century. Pinstriped and fast-talking, the New Yorker refused to sit quietly and wait years for his seniority to kick-in. Instead he opted for a muscular, vocal, and progressive politics that surpassed Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in terms of generosity toward the downtrodden masses. Masses personified by those in his own working-class, slum-based district.
Marc's loyalty to the workers was unfailing as he resisted passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, fought for price controls, conducted rent strikes, and labored ferociously on behalf of the Depression-era Works Progress Administration.
Although a congressman, Marcantonio led many street demonstrations and was often jailed for his grass-roots activism.
He cast the lone vote in both houses of Congress against the Korean War.
On the House floor, he was an outsider who knew the rules better than the insiders that had written them. Legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn declared Marcantonio the second best parliamentarian he'd ever seen.
He practiced an extreme brand of retail representation never seen before or since, returning home weekends to sit in his storefront district offices crowded with people who had heeded the advice to "Go see Marc".
"What can I do for you?" he invariably welcomed them before dispatching cases to a hard-driven staff that understood every case required resolution and that nobody was "low" enough to get the "kiss-off."
The results of these unfailing efforts on behalf of a troubled constituency earned Marcantonio the sobriquet, "Bread of the Poor."
William Randolph Hearst's "Daily Mirror" abhorred Marc and attacked him relentlessly as a tool of international communism and a favorite of local mobsters. In spite of municipal, state, and federal investigations that spanned his entire career, he was found guilty of nothing.
"May I say this," he told a congressional investigator, "People come to me for help. People who are not in trouble do not come to you for help. The people who come to you for help are the people in trouble, and if anybody is in need of help, and if he can in a legitimate manner be helped, such as offering free legal counsel or anything like that, I have done it and I am going to continue to do it."
Marcantonio's popularity and power reached such heights that on two occasions he won primaries for the Republican, Democratic, and American Labor parties, leaving him unopposed in the general election.
A national spokesman for progressives, Marc refused to bend before the conservative tide of the late 1940s, and was finally defeated by a coalition of Democratic, Republican, and Liberal parties in 1950.
Two years later Marc announced that he would run anew for a seat he viewed as his own, but died of a heart attack on Broadway, in the rain, as he came up from the City Hall subway station. He was 52.
The years have forgotten this fascinating man, many of whose "extreme" positions, such as elimination of the poll tax in old Dixie, became law of the land a generation later.
In "The Goodfather," Marcantonio's rise and fall is charted through the experiences of an imagined Italian-American family, and primarily a daughter Rosina, whose fortunes intersect with his own throughout the course of the narrative.
The novel's goal is to recuperate Marcantonio's memory by accumulating the colorful anecdotal narratives that gave form to his unique legacy in a light-hearted and entertaining way.
In "Vito Marcantonio: Radical Politician," Dr. Gerald Meyer wrote, "No plaque commemorates the place of his birth, his political headquarters, his adult residence, or the spot where he fell dead. Nevertheless, his story deserves to be known, because it contradicts so many of the platitudes which pass for American history and therefore suggests new ways of thinking about the present."
This page represents a first tentative step in answering that call...in telling that story.
For now, the blog here is comprised of posts on Marcantonio from the author's highwayscribery page, but will eventually become a depository of polished novel chapters as they become available.
