Broadside: No Man Can Serve Two Masters! All Americans: Protestants, Jews, Catholics Unite!

Brooklyn: International Catholic Truth Society, [1938]. Broadside, 18-1/2" x 9". Printed recto-only on newsprint. Text in single column beneath cartoon graphic signed "Doc Rankin". Single horizontal fold; paper slightly toned and eroded at margins (not approaching text); complete and Good. Right-wing broadside attacking Simon Gerson, who had recently been appointed Assistant to Manhattan Borough President Stanley Isaacs. Gerson (1909-2004) was the first openly Communist politician to hold an appointed office in New York; despite vicious attacks such as this from various right-wing groups he succeeded in holding on to his post for three years. Following WW2 (in which he served honorably), Gerson returned to politics, once again becoming embroiled in controversy when the Tammany machine blocked his appointment to fill deceased communist City Councilman Pete Cacchione's seat.

The graphic, reproduced from the Brooklyn "Daily Eagle", shows Gerson conducting city business while a placid Josef Stalin oversees his work from the shadows. The drawing is signed by Doc Rankin, a freelance editorial cartoonist who, in addition to his long service on the Eagle, is widely believed to have been the real-life figure behind the anonymous "Mr. Prolific," one of the most-published illustrators of pornographic "Tijuana Bibles" in the 30s and 40s.