With an introduction by Robert Forsythe, NY, Daily Worker, Subscription Edition, December 1935, Prompt Press

I was fascinated to read the captions of the social and political cartoons by Redfield, who, according to his quasi-biographer, Robert Forsythe, developed his hatred for the “ponderous-paunched females” of the ruling class while working as an elevator operator in a Park Avenue Apartment building.

Of course, the working class cartoons poking fun at the rich shine through even in Forsythe’s introduction as “the arrogance of the proletariat,” by which those dupes of government and industry and politics assume that they are smarter than those whom they envy. The worship of communism as the answer to the working man’s woes shows a deep ignorance of the actual workings of the Soviet Union of the time, where tens of millions were being starved to death and executed by their ruling clawss.

That said, the humor in these early 1930s political satires demonstrates that the working Joe of the Depression was much more astute and intelligent than his counterpart today, who sits at home or at work very much like the “ruling clawss” of industrial antiquity, having the same “foodie” tastes, the same ponderous soft build of this earlier ruling class of over-domesticated humans and ironically sharing the worldview of the ruling class of today.

At least the working Joe of the 1930s held a different worldview than his masters, now his descendants look like the master class of his grandfather’s age, even as the present ruling class that he worships attempts to cut the physical figure of the working man and woman of industrial antiquity.

Some observations as to how cucked the working class of industrial antiquity became after 1945, when the herd was temporarily elevated to middle class merchant status, can be gleaned from the subject matter of the cartoons.

-Police are always goons and primarily strike-breakers. Modern right wing and conservatives are deluded that the “Policeman is your friend,” that he was put there to protect against criminals, when it is the 1930s perception that the cop was only there to workover working men, not crooks.

-The plight of the dishonored, discarded, maimed and unpaid soldier of WWI was still a nagging concern in 1935.

-The ruling class was seen as warmongering, as today’s ruling class is, though the workers of today, since they fancy themselves part of the ruling class via the delusion of democracy have almost zero objection to for-profit wars fought by the working class for the ruling class.

-It was a common assumption in the early 1930s that the battleship was obsolete, the aircraft carrier would drive it to extinction, and that a general world war was on the way, pushed by the industrialist of the ruling class. This is contrary to our current belief that Americans had no clue that their nation as headed to war with the Axis powers.

Thanks to Yeti Waters for the loan of this book, that bookends the collective delusions of the creature called man who, “all have to act as God,” as Forsythe states.