Peekskill Rioting Attacked as Step Toward Fascism

Three speakers at a Young Progressives' meeting in Kirkland House last night asserted that the Peekskill riots this summer were among many incidents in the "path to Fascism."

Peekskill saw the first mobilization of the American storm troopers," said William Patterson, executive secretary of the Civil Rights Congress.

"Like Hitler"

Patterson further asserted that "the men who rule us are bent on fascism. They brought about the anti-Negro and Jew demonstrations at Peekskill just to see how the people would react to their big step to fascism."

Miss Ray Lev, a concert planist who was at the second Peekskill riot, told the audience that the rioting reminded her of her youth in Germany under Hitler. Miss Lev spoke of "the state troopers using four letter words before 'Jew.'"

Father Clarence Duffy, of the Diocese of Kilmore, Eire, who has been in this country speaking on civil rights, said that "no ecclesiastical authority in the United States can suppress me in the fight for Roman freedom, despite what the press has been claiming."