groups, liberals and Communists. Then the genuine liberals discovered that it and they were being used as fronts or tools of the Communists, and, as the gentleman from New York is well aware, they broke off and established the Liberal Party." In 1948, Marcantonio was an avid supporter of former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, who ran for President on the Progressive Party ticket. A campaign film by Carl Marzani shows Marcantonio's district and his efforts on its behalf. Marcantonio was reelected. In 1949, Marcantonio ran for Mayor of New York City on the ALP ticket but was defeated. In 1950, Marcantonio was defeated by the Democrat James G. Donovan for his House seat, after a particularly vociferous campaign against him because of his refusal to vote for American participation in the Korean War. In that election, Donovan had the broad-based popular support of the Democratic, Republican, and Liberal parties. The passage of the Wilson Pakula Act in 1947 also played some part in Marcantonio's defeat. The law prevented candidates from running in the primaries of parties with which they were not affiliated. It was widely perceived as being directed against Marcantonio. As the sole representative of his party for most of his years in Congress, Marcantonio never held a committee chairmanship. After his defeat in 1950 and the withdrawal of the Communist Party support for the ALP, the party soon fell apart. Political ideology Marcantonio was inspired politically by his Roman Catholic faith. He had always identified himself as a Catholic. In 1939, while speaking at the National Conference of the ILD, he described himself as "a Roman Catholic who has not deserted the faith of his fathers." Marcantonio, who was arguably one of the most left-wing members of Congress, said that party loyalty was less important than voting with his conscience. He was sympathetic to the Socialist and Communist parties, and to labor unions. He was investigated by the FBI in the 1940s and 1950s because of his extensive affiliation with members of the Communist Party and known Communist front groups. Civil rights In 2010, historian Thaddeus Russell described Marcantonio as "one of the greatest champions of black civil rights during the 1930s and 1940s." He sponsored bills to prohibit the poll tax, used by the Southern United States to disenfranchise poor voters, and to make lynching a federal crime. Foreign policy In 1940, Marcantonio helped form the