Labor Disputes

A Wounded Striker and the Soldier

by Hugo Gellert

Known for his politically charged lithographs of the 1920s and 1930s, Gellert focused on workers issues, racial tension, and fascism.  He published three books. A Wounded Striker and the Soldier is a lithograph that appears in his 1936 book, Aesop Said So.  The text, combined with this image offers the subtitle, The Eagle and the Arrow and these words,

An Eagle was mortally wounded by an Arrow. As he turned his head in the agonies of death, he saw that the Arrow was winged with his own feathers.

“How much sharper,” said he, “are the wounds made by weapons which we ourselves have supplied.” 

(Hugo Gellert, Aesop Said So,
Covici Friede, New York 1936)

What do you think Gellert intended by combining this parable with his image A Wounded Striker and the Soldier?