THE NEW KU KLUX KLAN
_Must Every Citizen be a Slave of Fear Spread by Masked
Night-Riders, or Will He Live under the Protection of the
Constitution of the United States?_
Are you a citizen of the United States? If you are it is to your
interest to inform yourself about the Ku-Klux Klan. As a citizen you
are under the protection of the constitution of the United States. The
Ku Klux Klan has set itself above the constitution. It has made laws
of its own. Its members have inaugurated a reign of lawlessness that
may drag you out of your bed at midnight and submit you to a coat of
tar and feathers through the whims of some neighbor who does not like
the country in which you were born, or who objects to your religion,
your color, your opinions, your personal habits or anything else about
you that does not suit his fancy.
The constitution guarantees that your house, your person and your
papers and effects are free from unlawful search and seizure; that you
cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of
law, which law must be publicly enforced in God's sunshine by persons
legally chosen; that when you are accused of any delinquency or crime
you shall have a speedy, public trial before a judge and an impartial
jury; that you may be a member of any religious denomination or sect
with whom you may worship as you please; that you have the right of
free speech; that you cannot be held in involuntary servitude except
as a punishment for crime, for which you have been found guilty in a
legal way; that you cannot be denied the right to vote on account of
your color.
MASKED MEN DEFY CONSTITUTION
Masked riders of the night disagree with these guarantees of freedom.
They break into your house under cover of darkness unlawfully seize
your person and ride away with you, depriving you of liberty without
due process of law. They accuse you of charges that may or may not be
true, without giving you the opportunity of knowing the identity of
your accusers, because they are masked. They try you without giving
you a chance to defend yourself. They make themselves accuser, judge,
jury and executioner. They deny that you have the right to worship God
as you please. They deny your right to free speech, because they
forbid you to criticise what they do.
The Ku Klux Klan clamps involuntary servitude on its own members by
making them take oaths to uphold their leaders, even when they violate
the constitution. It aims to place those whom it opposes under its
heel. It openly defies the article of the constitution that guarantees
race equality, by binding its members to put the black race under the
supremacy of the white.
The American constitution says that if you were born abroad, but have
become a naturalized citizen of the United States, you have as many
rights here as though you were actually born here. The Ku Klux Klan is
against the constitution on that point. The Ku Klux Klan wants to make
the foreigner a serf.
The Ku Klux Klan has set itself up as a regulator of morals. Persons
against whom there has been neighborhood gossip have been tarred and
feathered. Thanks to the _New York World_, court records have been
published showing that some of the highest persons in the Ku Klux have
been involved in proceedings as disgraceful as those for which tar and
feather parties have been organized by the Klan or persons
masquerading as Ku Klux.
MISTREAT WHITES AND BLACKS
Men and women, white and black--have been mistreated by masked men.
The number of these attacks grows as the Klan increases in size. At
present the Klan has branches in all states of the union except
three--New Hampshire, Montana and Utah. In each state the law would be
enforced by legal officials against any persons guilty of crime if
public spirited citizens would make it their business to assist public
officials to round up law breakers. The Klan, however, believes in its
own method of punishment against those whom it opposes. It protects
its own members and there is no case on record where a Klansman has
been outraged. The Klan has one law for itself and another for its
victims. The revelations of scandal among its leaders have not
resulted in any movement on the part of its members to "clean house."
Its motto seems to be "A Klansman can do no wrong." The lesson to be
drawn from the revelations is that those in high places in the Klan
have played on the gullibility of tens of thousands of otherwise
sensible Americans. These leaders have become rich by dealing in the
hocuspocus of mysticism, secret rites and high sounding phrases and by
inflaming the passions of dupes by false stories involving religions
and races.
In the south they have preached and conspired against the negroes.
This hatred also has been carried into certain sections of large
cities of the north where there are large negro populations. In some
states they have played upon the feelings of those who might be drawn
into the Klan by a crusade against Catholics. They have made use of
counterfeit documents in secret bids for membership on this score. In
cities like New York and Chicago, where the populations are largely
Jewish, they have fanned the flames of religious hatred by propaganda
against the Jews. Where foreign-born residents are living in large
numbers the Klan has secretly intrigued against them. On the Pacific
coast this propaganda is made against the Japanese; on the eastern
seaboard it has been against persons born in European and Asiatic
countries.
A GOLD MINE FOR PROMOTERS
Those who have investigated the Klan are convinced that its principal
promoters are not inspired by a zeal for the welfare of the United
States, but on the other hand they are certain that the promoters are
in the Ku Klux Klan business to make money out of it; that they have
profited by millions of dollars and that for this filthy money they
have spread loose seeds of discontent and disorder that must be raked
out of the body politic by the united action of all patriotic
organizations and individuals. As far as its chief protagonists are
concerned the Ku Klux is a huge money-making hoax--a gold mine. The
poor dupes who have been "soaked" for regalia and dues will wake up
some time and discover how they have been deluded and misled. In the
meantime, however, it is the duty of every true American to inform
himself about the Klan so that in whatever way may come to his lot he
may counteract the terrible consequences of its teachings and
practices.