The death this week of David Levine prompted me to sort through the work of another favorite political cartoonist. The Daily Worker wasn’t generally noted for its jocularity, but when Syd Hoff (1912-2004) took on the nom de plume “A. Redfield and drew The Ruling Clawss cartoons for the Worker, the paper was — at least momentarily — good for a sardonic smile. As you’ll see, subtlety was not Hoff’s strong point but his portrayal of America’s economic upper crust was dead on; in part because his anger at the suffering caused by the Great Depression was so palpable in his drawings, and he took great glee in pointing his pen at those who were to blame.
Despite Hoff’s efforts, the proletarian revolution never did come to fruition, but we still have his great cartoons. Here are a few of my favorites. Sad to say, they could have been drawn in 2009:
Hoff was also the author of several classic children’s books like “Danny and the Dinosaur.” Apparently my repeated exposure to Hoff’s “Stanley” in second grade was secretly indoctrinating me into a leftist-communist mindset!
He was a great guy. There’s a terrific Web site about him and his work that his niece maintains: http://www.sydhoff.org
imagine any other ref in there and what they would’ve done?