Biography
Art Young was a Wisconsin-born socialist cartoonist for Puck, Life, The Masses, and later The Liberator and The New Masses. Indicted in November 1917 along with editor Max Eastman, John Reed, and the staff of The Masses — the radical New York socialist literary magazine — under the Espionage Act of 1917 for conspiracy to obstruct military recruitment. The Post Office had already revoked the magazine's second-class mailing privileges, effectively shutting it down. The first trial (April 1918) and second trial (October 1918) both ended in hung juries; the government declined a third prosecution and the charges were dismissed. The Masses re-emerged as The Liberator under Eastman's editorship. His famous anti-war cartoon "Having Their Fling" — depicting an editor, capitalist, politician, and minister dancing to a chord struck by the Devil — was specifically singled out in the prosecution.
In the February 6, 1934 New Masses, Michael Gold reviews Art Young’s Inferno, published by Delphic Studios, as a major work of American socialist satire. The review describes Young’s imagined revisits to Hell in 1892, 1900 and 1933 and reads the latest book’s financiers, propaganda and labor exploitation as a critique of contemporary capitalism. These are literary devices, not actual travel or imprisonment. A portrait drawing by Jose Clemente Orozco accompanies the review on printed page 26 and is enlarged in the PDF; the existing profile photograph is retained. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1934/v10n06-feb-06-1934-NM.pdf#page=36
Waldo Tell’s review of Art Young’s Inferno describes the book’s industrialized Hell as a satire of capitalist exploitation and places it beside Hell Up to Date (1892) and Through Hell with Hiprah Hunt (1901). It recalls Young’s work for The Masses, The Liberator and New Masses. The imagined inmates and journeys are literary devices, not actual imprisonments. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n030-feb-03-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=7
Socialist Call, January 16, 1937, page 4: In criticizing the New Masses' refusal of a Debs Column advertisement, the editorial recalls Art Young facing trial in connection with the original Masses during World War I. It specifically recalls Young caricaturing himself asleep during court proceedings. This is retrospective corroboration of the existing antiwar-publication prosecution, not a new detention or a measured imprisonment term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/socialist-call/call%202-96.pdf
