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and maybe keep kicked?
Thank You
note: any typos are my own. my dear Uncle found this burried in his basement. take from it what you like, my Grandmother was one hell of a woman (especially for her 'time'). i typed it word for word as was written.
-thank you. Matcom
An Open Letter to My Fellow Americans in Utah
Salt Lake Tribune
Sunday, November 4, 1956
By way of introduction, I am a native-born Utahn, daughter of former Congressman Jacob Johnson, a lifetime Republican. I am married to W**** C***** who was born in Ohio, but has spent the last 32 years of his life as a resident of Utah.
My husband and I have spent about 6 years abroad in various countries where he was affiliated with the Information Division of the State Department. Our work consisted of fighting communism and all forms of dictatorship by means of counter propaganda. In 6 years time one learns quite a lot about such a subject, regarding its beginning, the course it follows and always the inevitable end. As American taxpayers you helped send and keep us there in order that we might help accomplish this purpose and as such you are entitled to know something of what we have learned in order to prevent its happening here.
I feel that we are witnessing a form of dictatorship being born here in our own state and it becomes my painful duty to point out to you the earmarks that we have learned to distinguish in order that you, as Americans, can stamp it out before it gets out of hand, as it always does, if allowed to go unchecked.
An officer of the Republican Party told me the other night that ALL office holders had been INSTRUCTED to get out and work and vote for Mr. Clyde – or else. By whom, I ask you? Who in this state dares to infringe on your God-given right to vote as you please? In Communist countries you are given one name or one party only to vote for and you are INSTRUCTED to vote for them only and them alone – or else. Do you begin to see the similarity?
In Communist countries, if you fail to support and vote for the hand-picked candidate that is presented to you, you are “liberated” or “liquidated” by either assassination or sent to a concentration camp. Do you begin to see the similarity? Incidentally, I also, am familiar with this particular form of intimidation because my family’s lives were threatened when we were in Salonika, Greece, by the same band of Communists that killed our American correspondent, George Polk, whom you may have read about.
You have been told that only Mr. Clyde and his cohorts represent the true Republican Party. What happens to Mr. Lee and the thousands of Republicans like myself who voted for him because we believe that he represents the Americanism we were taught and brought up to believe in? Are we to be liquidated, too? In Communist countries it is a crime against the State to deviate in belief from the precepts set down by the party leaders. Those few, who do, become “enemies of the people” and are promptly dealt with. Do you begin to follow the pattern?
These are only a few of the samples of similar tactics that are being used, but time and space do not permit me to go further. But don’t ever say it can’t happen here. Don’t forget that, for instance, Czechoslovakia at one time had just as much freedom and democracy as we have ever had, but she, too, fell behind the Iron Curtain once these same methods were employed. And many a dictator has had a far more humble beginning that a united states Senator.
Actually, this scheme was “brewed” or “cooked up” long before Governor Lee ever announced his candidacy. How far back I can’t tell you, but we became conscious of it as far back as last February. And how do I know this? Because my husband, W**** C*****, who was executive secretary of the Republican State Committee, was the first victim. But that does not matter. He was simply a paid employee and I am glad he got out of it. But what does matter is that their purge even reached out to include a high official, a man who has given a lifetime of work and valuable advice and a fortune to the cause. Yes, he was given the choice to resign – or be fired. So you see, the hit and run was on. Then when Governor Lee announced his candidacy the grand purge was on in full force, because they knew that as long as J. Bracken Lee was Governor of the State of Utah, no form of political “bossism” or dictatorship, would be tolerated by him.
And those, my friends, are the facts. Weigh them carefully and after weighing them carefully if you still feel that you would like to risk voting for a man who is completely “beholden” to another man for his election to office, go out and vote for him and defy any man to tell you that you have no right to do it. But by the same token, after weighing the facts, if you feel that you would rather trust your State and its affairs to a man who is “beholden” to nobody except his State and the people, a man whom speaks for itself and a man who has the courage to gamble his entire political life and future on the American principles he believes in, then dare to go to the polls and cast your votes for him. Because, my friends, to quote George Gobel, that kind of man “is something you can’t hardly find no more.”
/s/ G***** J****** C*****
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