1934 political cartoon

[snopes]

Comment: This purports to be a cartoon from the Chicago Tribune in 1934;
the copyright date can be seen in the lower right corner, when you zoom in.
Can you verify that it is original, or a hoax. Amazing coincidence, if it
is an original cartoon.. And from Chicago, yet.

The e-mail I received simply says:

Cartoon from 1934 Chicago Tribune

AMAZING! - Sure looks like déją vu all over again!

[Lainie]

It's no secret that the New Deal was labeled socialism by some critics.

[Cowboy Joe]

The drawing style looks to be from the period, and certainly there were people who were afraid that the New Deal would lead to Communism in the U.S. The Copyright date seems out of place. I have reviewed a lot of old printed material, and the copyright was not usually placed on things the same way it is now. That alone does not make it an automatic fake, but it does seem suspicious to me.

[Mr. Furious]

Sanity checking the names, Stalin was well established in power by 1934, and I'm assuming that's Trotsky in the lower left corner. Harold Ickes served as Secretary of the Interior under FDR starting in 1933. Rexford Tugwell (the guy riding the horse) was a key advisor, as was Henry Wallace, the guy with the shovel. Donald Richberg was the second head of the National Recovery Administration.

The signature is that of Pulitzer Prize winner Carey Orr, who was working for the Chicago Tribune in 1934. This cartoon does match his style, both artistically and politically.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by Mr. Furious

Rexford Tugwell (the guy riding the horse) was a key advisor, as was Henry Wallace, the guy with the shovel.

Wallace was Secretary of Agriculture, and later vice-president during FDR's third term.

[A Turtle Named Mack]

I agree that the copyright seems wrong - my guess is that this probably was from the time stated, but the actual copy was a reprint, probably from a book of collected political cartoons, or something along those lines.

[Tarquin Farquart]

I know it's a cartoon, but that's the worst picture of Stalin I've ever seen. He looks more like the Kaiser.

ETA: And hasn't Trotsky been expelled by then?

[FullMetal]

Trotsky was exiled i believe, but I don't think he was entirely silenced by that. especially since he thought the only way communism would work was if the entire world revolted. iirc, it's been almost 20 years since I studied Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, and co.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by FullMetal

Trotsky was exiled i believe, but I don't think he was entirely silenced by that. especially since he thought the only way communism would work was if the entire world revolted. iirc, it's been almost 20 years since I studied Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, and co.

Well that was the cause of the falling-out between Stalin and Trotsky - Trotsky wanted international revolution, Stalin went for socialism in one country.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by Lainie

It's no secret that the New Deal was labeled socialism by some critics.

Yes, I wonder what the coincidence is? That it was wrong then and is still wrong now?

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Well that was the cause of the falling-out between Stalin and Trotsky - Trotsky wanted international revolution, Stalin went for socialism in one country.

In his death bed, Lenin wrote a letter censuring Stalin and naming Trotsky as his successor but Stalin hid the letter in order to usurp power by teaming up with Politburo members Kamenev and Zinoviev who slammed Trotsky. Stalin was less knowledgeable than Trotsky regarding Communist theories but he could outwit his opponents in a power struggle.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C01122...vstrotsky.html

[WildaBeast]

Originally Posted by Richard W

Yes, I wonder what the coincidence is? That it was wrong then and is still wrong now?

I guess you can look two ways depending on your point of view. If you support Obama's recovery plan you can look at it and say "Look at that. FDR's opponents labeled the New Deal 'socialism', just like Obama's opponents are doing with his recovery plan. I guess conservatives haven't changed much."

If you oppose the recovery plan, like you say, you can say the New Deal was really a bad idea, of at least that it wasn't as popular as we think it was.

Although I would think that this would actually weaken the arguement of those who say "we're becoming a socialist nation." We clearly didn't become a socialist nation after the New Deal.

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by WildaBeast

Although I would think that this would actually weaken the arguement of those who say "we're becoming a socialist nation." We clearly didn't become a socialist nation after the New Deal.

Well, quite. Perhaps I was wrong in my initial assumption that this must be being forwarded by those trying to discredit Obama, though. As you say, it works either way.

[snopes]

Originally Posted by WildaBeast

Although I would think that this would actually weaken the arguement of those who say "we're becoming a socialist nation." We clearly didn't become a socialist nation after the New Deal.

We also didn't "junk the Constitution" or "declare a dictatorship."

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Originally Posted by snopes

We also didn't "junk the Constitution" or "declare a dictatorship."

Well, a lot of people seem to believe we did. Tim McVeigh comes to mind...

Originally Posted by WildaBeast

I guess you can look two ways depending on your point of view. If you support Obama's recovery plan

As long as we remember that the first 1.5 trillion (or so) was supported by the Bushites.

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: This purports to be a cartoon from the Chicago Tribune in 1934;
the copyright date can be seen in the lower right corner, when you zoom in.
Can you verify that it is original, or a hoax. Amazing coincidence, if it
is an original cartoon.. And from Chicago, yet.

The e-mail I received simply says:

Cartoon from 1934 Chicago Tribune

AMAZING! - Sure looks like déją vu all over again!

It's on the Trib website, but the modification date on the page is April 29, three weeks after your original post, so this page (ot at least this version) could not be the original source:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health...,7114709.photo

[Sebbenth]

I'd say that the figure of Stalin in the picture is pretty telling. Back then, at the time of recession, Soviet economy was growing at a rate similar to China, for the reasons similar to China: overinvestment into means of production and underinvestment into human capital. While, overall, the system was more rigid in the West, due to the rapid expansion it presented more opportunities for growth to ambitious young people (same with China). Stalin bought on the cheap a bunch of high-tech industries from US, including power generation, car manufacturing and armor technologies (similar to what China does now).

The point is that sometimes it makes sense to abandon the dogmas to fix the system, or that other totalitarian guy over the fense suddenly starts looking a whole lot more attractive to everyone else.

[fitz1980]

Originally Posted by snopes

We also didn't "junk the Constitution" or "declare a dictatorship."

We're not doing that now either. But it hasn't stopped town hall protesters, Fox 'News' on-air personalities or other assorted nuts from saying that's what's happening.

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Well that was the cause of the falling-out between Stalin and Trotsky - Trotsky wanted international revolution, Stalin went for socialism in one country.

Socialist? Stalin's government was more fascist than anything else. He used communist and socialist rhetoric but his government was anything but. Hitler's party was called "National Socialist" but it wasn't Socialist either. To this day people use the USSR and Nazi Germany as examples of socialism because it was in their names but saying that the represent socialism because of what's in a name is like saying that The People's Republic of China is actually a Republic by and for the people simply because it says so in the name rather than the totalitarian regime that it is.