A throng of 800 angry, placard-bearing Chicanos had massed at the Crystal City courthouse for the hearing and 2,000 participated in a rally that night.

The community was particularly incensed since the election irregularities used to justify voiding the election had been committed not by Raza Unida, but by the losing Democrats!

In the election, the RUP had returned Judge Gutiérrez to office, elected several other county officials, and won a three-to-two majority on the county commission.

The Democrats then moved to steal back the RUP victory.

At a rump meeting of the outgoing county commission, on which they had a majority, the Democrats appointed a committee of three Democrats to recount the one commission election where the Democratic contender had come within 5 percent of the RUP winner. To the surprise of no one, they declared the defeated Democrat the winner.

There were charges that “aliens” had voted and that various other offenses had been committed. But even with these challenges, the Democrats couldn’t come up with enough to change the outcome. So the judge accepted testimony regarding election records that had been misplaced.

The most astonishing thing about this is that the election material was misplaced not by a Raza Unida person, but by a Democrat.  
 
March 1, 1954
Westbrook Pegler, that bred-in-the-bone McCarthyite, has voiced the true aim of McCarthyism. He has declared himself publicly for fascism—and that’s the exact word he uses.

Pegler put this in cold print, not mincing words. It is carried down a whole double-column in the Feb. 24 issue of the N.Y. Journal-American, one of the chief papers of the Hearst chain, and in a number of other newspapers, reaching millions, that feature his syndicated column.

“I am now convinced,” brazenly asserts Pegler, “that all that prevents us from smashing the AF of L, the CIO and the ‘independent’ predators is a sentimental fear on the part of lay citizens and public men that they would be charged with fascism if they advocate this desirable reform…. They are afraid to advocate anything like State management of unions, because that, they say, would be fascism.

“I agree. Yes, that would be fascism. But I, who detest fascism, see advantages in such fascism.”

These fascist elements have been emboldened above all by their latest victory in the Senate. They have seen how the Democrats—including the so-called “liberal” Democrats like Lehman—and the Republicans, including the so-called “liberal” Republicans like Morse—have abjectly capitulated under the lash of McCarthy’s whip.

The fascists have seen how these “liberal” cravens, whose only answer to McCarthy is that they are even better witch-hunters than he, have knuckled under and voted 85 to 1 for the appropriations McCarthy demanded to continue his smear-drive in Congress against them.  
 
 
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