Everyone in the world, in one form or another, heard of the American Watergate scandal in which President Nixon was involved to the point that he was forced to resign his presidency.

Since then any scandal that a politician anywhere in the world is involved with, the media is quick to call it also Watergate.

We also had a Portuguese Consul in Providence, Rhode Island, who instead of serving the Portuguese Emigrants, exploited them to the point that he was dismissed from his official position.

This case became so severe that was taken into the Superior Court of Rhode Island and even reached the Supreme Court. It was also decided in three Portuguese Courts all the way up to the Supreme Court in Lisbon, Portugal.

But the lousy Portuguese Consul lost in all five Courts!

Because this historical case stinks so much, I decided to give to it a very descriptive name: Portuguese Merdagate!

This trial was the first in all the United States of America that reached the Supreme Court, in which the matter in question was written in a language different of the English, in this case Portuguese.

This court case is also a striking example that demonstrates three things very obvious:

(1) the rotten conditions which existed during many years, in the Portuguese diplomatic services by not giving the proper protection to its nationals scattered all over the world,

(2) and revealing the courage of an emigrant who fought boldly to defend the Portuguese emigrants and caused above all the truth and justice to triumph.