Dr. Armando Gutiérrez, vice-chairperson of the Texas Raza Unida party, was the featured speaker.

"For decades," Gutiérrez told participants, "immigrants to the United States have been branded ‘inferior.’ Their entry is speeded up or slowed down according to the economic needs of the U.S. Whenever the U.S. has gone through economic difficulties, it has always been blamed on the immigrants."

Gutiérrez refuted the myth that undocumented workers "use up" services like welfare and food stamps.

Gutiérrez said the government crackdown is based on fear: "They are afraid of a new mass movement in a few years created by the children of undocumented workers. So they want to shut the door against the millions of Mexicans who come to this country to try to find jobs."

Gutiérrez pointed out that the bosses have always welcomed the Mexican workers because they could get away with paying them near-starvation wages.

A minimum wage of $3.50 per hour for all workers--including domestic and farm workers--Gutiérrez said, "would take the pressure off the individual workers and put it where it belongs--on the bosses.

"Officials should not be allowed to go around to the employers asking, ‘Do you have any illegals working for you?’ Instead, they should be asked, ‘Are you paying all of your workers $3.50 per hour?’"  
 
June 23, 1952
While Republicans and Democrats maneuver for political advantage in the handling of the strike of 650,000 steel workers, the picket lines have held firm, refusing to back down an inch on union demands since the strike began over two weeks ago.

But the steelworkers’ struggle is entering a crucial stage. What CIO president Phillip Murray correctly branded as "making a political football" of the steel dispute can only result in either a Democratic-Truman or a Republican-Taft blow against the union’s right to strike.

This strike illustrates the fact, evident especially since the end of the war, that the powerful labor movement will not be allowed to use its economic power unfettered by government intervention. And the aim of government intervention has always been to rob the workers of their chance to beat down the corporations in direct struggle.

Preparations for the 1952 elections further complicate the problem for the strikers. On the one hand Truman, seeking to win labor support, refuses to invoke the Taft-Hartley injunction law. But he stands ready to use a plant seizure bill which he has asked Congress to give him, which in effect would also deprive the workers of their strike weapon, unless they are prepared to strike under conditions of government seizure.

On the other hand the Republicans, also seeking political advantage, want to stall any Congressional action, in order to force Truman to use the Taft-Hartley Act and thus confess it is "necessary" legislation. It is useless for the steel workers to look to either side in this cynical political maneuvering for a "friend."  
 
 
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