In February there was a special election in New York's 19th congressional district to fill the remainder of the term of Samuel Dickstein who had resigned after being elected to the Supreme Court. The 19th was on the Lower East Side of Manhattan from Whitehall Street up to East 40th. It had long been Tammany home turf. The Democratic candidate was Arthur G. Klein, who had lost his previous seat in Congress to redistricting. He also had the support of the Liberal Party. The New York chapter of the ICCASP, headed by Carl Van Doren, however, threw its weight behind the American Labor Party candidate, a left-wing radio commentator named Johannes Steel.
It is hard to see what the ICCASP had against Klein, a reliable supporter of the New Deal, which the group claimed was its main political mission. Steel was a German refugee and foreign affairs expert who consistently supported Soviet foreign policy. The Daily Worker and the Communist Party not only had endorsed Steel but also urged followers to volunteer to secure his election. Steel also had the endorsement of Fiorello LaGuardia and the left-leaning tabloid PM. Henry Wallace, still serving at this time as Secretary of Commerce, infuriated his fellow Democrats by endorsing Steel and commending him for his courage and determination in carrying on "the fight against worldwide fascism...on behalf of the common man," boilerplate rhetoric for the Front. Like many highly visible spokesmen of the "Common Man," Steel was born into wealth, in his case to a family that owned considerable land at the German-Dutch border.
The rest of the mainstream media was not impressed by Steel's credentials. The February 18 issue of Time called him a "balding, frenetic commentator" whose weekday "15 minutes of liverish news analysis" on WHN drew about one percent of New York's radio audience. The article quoted the World-Telegram, which called Steel "an all-out defender of Stalin's politics with a special bent for Soviet worship" and The New Leader, a leading publication of the non-Communist Socialist left, dismissed him as "a servile propagandist... a consistent fabricator ... of his personal life and history," whose news reporting had been praised by the Soviet newspaper Izvestia. Before the war, for instance, Steel had written that Britain was on its way to Fascism since the Labor Party, like the German Social Democrats, was a toothless entity that did not truly represent the interests of the "common man." After the election he would address a Russian War Relief meeting to condemn Truman's supposed betrayal of FDR's foreign policy and to praise Stalin's commitment to peace. Even his former employer, the liberal Post, for which Steel had served as foreign affairs bureau chief when he had first arrived from Germany, was hostile to his election bid. He had some newspaper support beyond the Daily Worker and PM ;jJust before the election Pravda hailed him as one of the few American journalists who had a proper understanding of Soviet foreign policy.
For the ALP , which usually supported the Democratic candidate, perhaps this special election in the 19th, where the left was particularly strong, was their best opportunity to elect someone to Congress under their own banner to join Vito Marcantonio, the ALP member who represented East Harlem. The New York Times speculated that some friction might have developed between Marcantonio and Tammany Hall and he was determined to show the ALP's muscle.
According to the 2000 book The Haunted Wood, the Communist Party had a special relationship with Dickstein who operated as a paid Soviet agent while serving in Congress. His role was to report back to his NKVD handlers on the House Un-American Activities Committee, of which he had been co-chairman until the early 1940s. In the Thirties the committee had focused largely on investigating Nazi and Fascist groups in the US. Author Allen Weinstein added that it was unclear how much intelligence, if any, Dickstein actually provided for his $1250 monthly stipend (about $14,000 in 2009 dollars). His NKVD handlers complained of his greed and gave him the code name "Crook." They eventually dropped him from their payroll.
Tammany predicted a big win for Klein but were sufficiently concerned about the election to file a petition with the State Supreme Court seeking to have Steel dropped from the ballot on a technicality. For one, they pointed out. his name was not Johannes Steel. According to immigration records he had entered the US as Herbert von Stahl and was naturalized as Herbert J. Steel. Since he had been naturalized in 1938. he would not have been a citizen long enough to be eligible when the current term of the office for which he was running had started. The court dismissed the case.
The Citizens Committee sponsored a rally at the National Theatre at 2nd Ave and Houston for Steel. John T. McManus, a strong supporter of the Soviet Union, presided. Steel spoke, denouncing attacks against him that he said were meant to confuse the issues. He declared himself a supporter of FDR. Marcantonio and ALP City Councilman Eugene P. Connolly also spoke in his behalf. Steel also addressed an ICCASP ladies luncheon at the Hotel Astor where Hazel Scott, jazz pianist and wife of Adam Clayton Powell, spoke in his behalf. According to an events listing in The Times other scheduled speakers at that luncheon were Mrs. Chase Going Woodhouse, a congresswoman from Connecticut; and the actresses Florence Eldridge and Jean Muir.
On election day, The Times reported, scores of volunteers, many from outside the district, rang doorbells to get out the vote for Steel. The Times also reported allegations that members of CIO unions, which had supported Steel, were required to report to shop stewards that they had voted before returning to their job. The get-out-the-vote effort came close to success. In a light turnout, Klein won a narrow victory with slightly less than half the total votes. The tally was 17.360 for Klein, 13,421 for Steel and 4,313 for the Republican, William S. Shea. The thin margin of Klein's victory was a surprise to many who noted that Steel was not Jewish, considered a prerequisite to represent the Lower East Side, or even a resident of the district.
For all the bitterness of the campaign, the ALP endorsed Klein in the November election which he won over his Republican opponent by the usual Democratic landslide although turnout was low, as it was in most Democratic leaning areas in 1946. Steel continued his role of radio commentator for awhile. In 1965 he was sentenced to prison, not for his political activities but for securities fraud. He later would become a financial reporter.