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‘Please, Sir, he called me “Jimmy!”’ Political Cartooning before the Law: ‘Black Friday’, J.H. Thomas, and the Communist Libel Trial of 1921

2011; Routledge; Volume: 25; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13619462.2011.623862

1743-7997

Samuel S. Hyde,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

Abstract In April 1921, J.H. Thomas, the Labour Party MP and National Union of Railwaymen (NUR) leader, initiated libel proceedings against the Communist—journal of the Communist Party of Great Britain. He cited defamation in the form of cartoons and words depicting the events of 'Black Friday'—when he allegedly betrayed the locked-out Miners' Federation by leading the withdrawal of NUR solidarity. To Thomas, the framing of his image by indigenous Bolsheviks threatened to fatally define his character and career within popular imagination, and undermine Labour's rise. In this paper, I argue that during the domestic and international crises surrounding the First World War, innovative left-wing editors and cartoonists tested the boundaries of newspaper cartooning, and gave dissident cartoons renewed menace before the Law. The case was the first for over a century in which graphic satires of a national political figure were successfully prosecuted. Keywords: Political CartoonsNewspapersLabour PoliticsJames Henry ThomasLibel LawCommunism Acknowledgements A version of this paper was presented at the University of Liverpool in May 2007. I am grateful to Dr Matt Houlbrook, Professor John Belchem and Dr James Thompson for their generous advice on previous drafts. I am also indebted to Professor Kevin Morgan and Francis King of CPGB Archive Trust for permission to reproduce the cartoons enclosed. Notes [1] Hope, 'I Claim the Right to Lay the First Wreath—I Killed Him!', Communist, 16 April 1921. [2] Bagwell Bagwell, P. 1971. "The Triple Industrial Alliance, 1913–1922". In Essays in Labour History, 1886–1923, Edited by: Briggs, A. and Saville, J. London: MacMillan. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], 'The Triple Industrial Alliance, 1913–1922', 120–2. [3] Thomas quoted in The Times, 7 February 1922. [4] The National Archives (hereafter TNA), Records of the Supreme Court of Judicature, J 54/1788/868, 'Statement of Claim, J.H. Thomas v. 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