RELIGIOUS PROPAGANDA
One of the strongest pieces of evidence that the Simmons monstrosity is
not "the genuine original Klan," and that its claim to being "a monument
to the Confederate soldier" is an insult to the cause headed by Jefferson
Davis and Robert E. Lee, is its propaganda of religious animosity and
prejudice, which is directed specifically at Catholics and Jews. While it
claims to be a great and "noble cause" for the "uplift" of humanity, the
protection of womanhood, the enforcement of law and order and the
maintenance of "white supremacy," I am firmly convinced that its
fundamental idea is the creation of a secret political Empire for the
purpose of totally eliminating Catholics and Jews from public life.
It is a rather surprising thing to me that a man who claims to have spent
a part of his life as a professor of history in any college should be so
strangely unfamiliar with the composition of the Southern Confederacy. I
wonder if Simmons ever heard of Judah P. Benjamin! One of the foremost and
ablest men in the cabinet of Mr. Davis was a Jew! I wonder if the Imperial
Wizard and Emperor of the Invisible Empire ever looked into the military
records of the Confederate Army and saw the large number of Jewish names,
and if he knows that among some of the best and bravest soldiers the South
ever had the Jew was very much in evidence. I wonder if Simmons ever heard
of Pat Clebourne, the fighting Irishman who gave a good account of himself
every time he went into action, or if he ever read the beautiful poems of
Father Ryan, a Catholic priest who followed the Stars and Bars into the
very jaws of hell to comfort the wounded and administer to the dying.
There was scarcely a company of infantry, a troop of cavalry or battery of
artillery, that did not have an Irish Catholic on its roster, and they
soldiered and suffered and fought and died for the South along with their
Protestant comrades. Yet, in the year 1915, is commenced the erection of a
"monument to the Confederate soldier" in the shape of a secret,
Jew-baiting, Catholic-baiting, Negro-hating, money-getting proposition
that has the effrontery to call itself the name of the "Ku Klux Klan," and
to presume with its white-robed and masked members, to interfere with the
administration of justice in the United States.
Along the lines of anti-Catholicism, the organization is working hard.
Among the very first consignments of printed matter I received from "The
Gate City Manufacturing Company" of Atlanta was a lot of cards, bearing no
imprint, but asking several questions about the Catholic Church. The
following is a copy:
"DO YOU KNOW?"
"That the pope is a political autocrat.
"That a secret treaty made by him started the war.
"That he is enthroned and crowned and makes treaties and sends and
receives ambassadors.
"That one hundred and sixteen princes of his government are enthroned
in our cities.
"That he has courts here enforcing the canon law.
"That he controls the daily and magazine press.
"That he denounces popular government as inherently vicious.
"That his canon law condemns public schools and forbids children to
attend them.
"That popery enthroned in great cities controls politics.
"That our war industries were placed exclusively in Roman Catholic
hands.
"That no sectarian body or fraternal order but Knights of Columbus
was permitted to do war-relief work in the army and navy.
"That Roman Catholics compose one-sixth of our population and hold
three-fourths of the public offices, being entrenched in national,
state, and city governments throughout the country.
"That they are pouring into our land as immigrants at the rate of two
millions a year.
"That Knights of Columbus declare they will make popery dominant in
the United States.
"Let us arouse the people and save our country as the beacon light of
constitutional liberty and the hope of the world."
Among the methods used by propagandists of the Ku Klux Klan in enlisting
recruits by means of attacks on the Catholic Church is a certain bogus
oath purporting to be the obligation assumed by members of the Fourth
Degree of the Knights of Columbus. This oath first made its appearance in
this country in 1912, and was widely circulated by anti-Catholics. In
1913, in a contested election case involving a seat in Congress from
Pennsylvania, Eugene C. Bonniwell, himself a Catholic, filed charges with
a Congressional Committee that this alleged oath had been circulated by
his opponent Thomas S. Butler, who denied that he had been responsible for
such circulation and had urged his followers that they refrain from
circulating the oath. Purely as a matter of a legal exhibit, a copy of
this "oath" was ordered printed in the Congressional Record, February 15,
1913. The document as given in the Congressional Record reads as follows:
"KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS OATH. FOURTH DEGREE
"I, -- ---- ----, now in the presence of Almighty God, the blessed
Virgin Mary, the blessed St. John the Baptist, the Holy Apostles, St.
Peter and St. Paul, and all the saints, sacred host of Heaven, and to
you, my Ghostly Father, the superior general of the Society of Jesus,
founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, in the pontification of Paul the III,
and continued to the present, do by the womb of the Virgin, the
matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that
His Holiness, the Pope, is Christ's vice-regent and is the true and
only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth;
and that by virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given his
Holiness by my Saviour, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose
heretical kings, princes, States, Commonwealths, and Governments and
they may be safely destroyed. Therefore to the utmost of my power, I
will defend this doctrine and His Holiness's right and custom against
all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatever,
especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden,
and Norway, and the now pretended authority and Churches of England
and Scotland, and the branches of same now established in Ireland,
and on the Continent of America and elsewhere, and all adherents in
regard that they may be usurped and heretical opposing the sacred
Mother Church of Rome.
"I do now denounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical
king, prince, or State, named Protestant or Liberals, or obedience to
any of their laws, magistrates, or officers.
"I do further declare that the doctrine of the Churches of England
and Scotland, of the Calvinists, Huguenots, and others of the name of
Protestants or Masons to be damnable, and they themselves to be
damned who will not forsake the same.
"I do further declare that I will help, assist, and advise all or any
of His Holiness's agents, in any place where I should be, in
Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Ireland, or America, or in any other
kingdom or territory I shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate
the heretical Protestant or Masonic doctrines and to destroy all
their pretended powers, legal or otherwise.
"I do further promise and declare that, notwithstanding that I am
dispensed with to assume any religion heretical for the propaganda of
the Mother Church's interest, to keep secret and private all her
agents' counsels from time to time, as they instruct me, and not
divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing, or circumstances
whatever, but to execute all that should be proposed, given in
charge, or discovered unto me by you, my Ghostly Father, or any of
this sacred order.
"I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will
of my own or any mental reservation whatsoever, even as a corpse or
cadaver (perinde ac cadaver), but will unhesitatingly obey each and
every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of
the Pope and of Jesus Christ.
"That I will go to any part of the world whithersoever I may be sent,
to the frozen regions North, jungles of India, to the centers of
civilization of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarous
savages of America without murmuring or repining, and will be
submissive in all things whatsoever is communicated to me.
"I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity
presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against
all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to
extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will
spare neither age, sex or condition, and that I will hang, burn,
waste, boil, flay, strangle, and bury alive these infamous heretics;
rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crash their
infants' heads against the walls in order to annihilate their
execrable race. That when the same can not be done openly, I will
secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of
the poniard, or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank,
dignity, or authority of the persons, whatever may be their condition
in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed
so to do by any agents of the Pope or superior of the Brotherhood of
the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus.
"In confirmation of which I hereby dedicate my life, soul, and all
corporal powers, and with the dagger which I now receive I will
subscribe my name written in my blood in testimony thereof; and
should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my brethren
and fellow soldiers of the militia of the Pope cut off my hands and
feet and my throat from ear to ear, my belly opened and sulphur
burned therein with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me
on earth and my soul shall be tortured by demons in eternal hell
forever.
"That I will in voting always vote for a K. of C. in preference to a
Protestant especially a Mason, and that I will leave my party so to
do; that if two Catholics are on the ticket I will satisfy myself
which is the better supporter of Mother Church and vote accordingly.
"That I will not deal with or employ a Protestant if in my power to
deal with or employ a Catholic. That I will place Catholic girls in
Protestant families that a weekly report may be made of the inner
movements of the heretics.
"That I will provide myself with arms and ammunition that I may be in
readiness when the word is passed, or I am commanded to defend the
church, either as an individual or with the militia of the Pope.
"All of which, I, ---- ----, do swear by the blessed Trinity and
blessed sacrament which I am now to receive to perform and on part to
keep this, my oath.
"In testimony hereof, take this most holy and blessed Sacrament of
the Eucharest and witness the same further with my name written with
the point of this dagger dipped in my own blood and seal in the face
of this holy sacrament." (Excerpts from "Contested election case of
Eugene C. Bonniwell against Thos. S. Butler," as appears in the
Congressional Record ---- house, Feb. 15, 1913, at pages 3215, etc.,
and ordered printed therein "by unanimous consent." Attached thereto
and printed (on page 3216) as a part of said report as above.)"
While I was engaged in the work as Kleagle of the "Invisible Empire," I
was given copies of this "oath" by four travelling men who had previously
identified themselves to me as Klansmen, and was informed that it had been
and was being widely circulated, not only in their home towns, but all
through the South by workers in the Ku Klux cause. I had not previously
seen this oath, and without investigating its authenticity permitted it to
be reprinted and circulated in my territory, although the men who became
members of the Klan under me did not attach any genuineness to the
document. There was, therefore, but comparatively little use made of it in
my territory, but I learned that in Knoxville and Chattanooga it was
freely and industriously circulated. Among the ignorant classes of people,
I learned, the oath was accepted as genuine, and was the means of securing
a large number of members for Ku Kluxism. In Chattanooga, in May, 1921,
the convention of the Southern Baptists was held, and as a great many
speeches were made against Romanism, the public mind was in a very
responsive mood to accept the alleged oath as the real obligation of the
Knights of Columbus. I made inquiry of my King Kleagle as to whether or
not the Atlanta people were printing and distributing the "oath."
In a letter written to me from Chattanooga, dated May 25, 1921, the King
Kleagle, said:
"The Imperial Palace does not get out copies of the K. C. oath but I
find it of value among a certain few.
"I find papers like the _Protestant_ that I suggested your
subscribing for to be the most valuable dope that I can use for it
brings home in a concrete form to them the things we have to guard
against."
Having been, in a limited way, a party to the distribution of this oath, I
feel that it is my duty to print the result of my investigations as to its
nature and also to give in full the real obligation of the Fourth Degree
Knights of Columbus which was made public in the summer of 1921. It
appears from my investigations that several times the authenticity of the
"oath" has been brought into the courts by the Knights of Columbus, and
each time it has been proven to be a fraud. An instance occurred, however,
that is so strongly convincing that every American who believes in fair
play, especially every Mason in the country, should know about it. In Los
Angeles, California, in 1914, the State Deputy of the Knights of Columbus
submitted the entire work, ceremonies and pledges of his order to a
committee of Masons made up of Messrs. Motley Hewes Flint, thirty-third
degree, Past Grand Master of California, Dana Reid Weller, Past Grand
Master, William Rhodes Hewey, Past Master, and Samuel E. Burke, Inspector
of the Los Angeles Masonic District. These gentlemen made a careful
examination of the entire subject, and rendered the following report:
"We hereby certify that by authority of the highest officer of the
Knights of Columbus in the State of California, who acted under
instructions from the Supreme Officer of the Order in the United
States, we were furnished a complete copy of all the work, ceremonies
and pledges used by the Order, and that we carefully read, discussed
and examined the same. We found that while in a sense the Order is a
secret association, it is not an oath-bound organization and that its
ceremonies are comprised in four degrees, which are intended to teach
and inculcate principles that lie at the foundation of every great
religion and every free state. Our examination of these ceremonials
and obligations was made primarily for the purpose of ascertaining
whether or not a certain alleged oath of the Knights of Columbus,
which has been printed and widely circulated, was in fact used by the
Order and whether if it was not used, any oath, obligation or pledge
was used which was or would be offensive to Protestants or Masons, or
those who are engaged in circulating a document of peculiar
viciousness and wickedness. We find that neither the alleged oath nor
any oath or pledge bearing the remotest resemblance thereto in
matter, manner, spirit or purpose is used or forms a part of the
ceremonies of any degree of the Knights Of Columbus. The alleged oath
is scurrilous, wicked and libelous and must be the invention of an
impious and venomous mind. We find that the Order of Knights of
Columbus, as shown by its rituals, is dedicated to the Catholic
religion, charity and patriotism. There is no propaganda proposed or
taught against Protestants or Masons or persons not of Catholic
faith. Indeed, Protestants and Masons are not referred to directly or
indirectly in the ceremonials and pledges. The ceremonial of the
Order teaches a high and noble patriotism, instills a love of
country, inculcates a reverence for law and order, urges the
conscientious and unselfish performance of civic duty, and holds up
the Constitution of our country as the richest and most precious
possession of a Knight of the Order. We can find nothing in the
entire ceremonial of the Order that to our minds could be objected to
by any person."
The real oath or pledge of the Fourth Degree of the Knights of Columbus
reads:
"I swear to support the Constitution of the United States. I pledge
myself as a Catholic citizen and Knight of Columbus, to enlighten
myself fully upon my duties as a citizen and to conscientiously
perform such duties entirely in the interest of my country and
regardless of all personal consequences. I pledge myself to do all in
my power to preserve the integrity and purity of the ballot, and to
promote reverence and respect for law and order. I promise to
practice my religion openly and consistently but without ostentation,
and to so conduct myself in public affairs, and in the exercise of
public virtue as to reflect nothing but credit upon our Holy Church,
to the end that she may flourish and our country prosper to the
greater honor and Glory of God."
When one pauses to examine into the history of the old Ku Klux Klan, and
the objects for which it was organized, it seems almost incredible that
any organization claiming to be the "genuine original Klan" would stoop to
belittle the memory of the old Klan by making capital of religious
prejudice. As will be shown further along in my narrative, there were
absolutely no restrictions in the old Klan as to religious belief, the
Precept clearly setting forth the qualifications for membership. Nothing
whatever was said about a Jew, a Catholic or a person who happened to be
born in a foreign country. While I was working in Johnson City, I took
into the organization an old gentleman who had been a member of the
original Klan at Morristown. There is a rule that "original Klansmen" are
not required to make any "donations" or pay any dues. When this old
ex-Confederate soldier was taken in, it was at the end of my career as
Kleagle, and as I swore him to the un-American obligation, I could not
help feeling ashamed and disgusted. I had several conversations with him
afterwards, and asked him specifically as to the regulations of the old
Klan in reference to members. He stated positively that there were no
rules whatever prohibiting Catholics and Jews from becoming Klansmen, and
that one of the best men in his Den was a German who had been born in
Germany. On account of the fact that he had associated intimately with
Jewish and Catholic Confederate soldiers, the old gentleman expressed
himself as being amazed that, in an attempt to revive the Klan, any such
discrimination should be practiced.
I received a number of copies of the _Protestant_, for which the King
Kleagle McArthur, advised me to subscribe because, he wrote, "It brings
home in concrete form to them the things we have to guard against." This
paper is published in Washington, D. C., and is of the usual type of
rabidly anti-Catholic publication. An examination of some of its headlines
shows the character of its attacks. This paper was eagerly read by Ku
Kluxes wherever it circulated and was indeed a valuable agency in securing
recruits.
I also heard other Kleagles attack Catholicism, most of the attacks
appealing to me as being ridiculous, one especially which stated that the
Catholic Church was financially backing the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored Peoples. It was gravely stated that the Catholics
were arming the negroes of the South and that at the "right time" would
join in an armed uprising to seize the country.
Considerable anti-Catholic propaganda has been and is being published in
the columns of the _Searchlight_ the official organ of the Ku Klux Klan.
Among the statements I have seen was an intimation that the Catholic
Church was responsible for the murder of President Abraham Lincoln. Copies
of the _Searchlight_ are sent to each Kleagle for distribution among his
Klans, and I received a number of copies in my connection with the
organization. In every town there is a Klansman, either paid for his
services or who renders same gratuitously, who makes a speciality of
getting subscribers for the _Searchlight_ and of placing the publication
on the news stands.
In the issue of August 6, 1921, the _Searchlight_ printed on its first
page an article by Rev. Caleb A. Ridley, a Baptist preacher of Atlanta,
part of which stated:
"Some people seem to think that the Ku Klux Klan is a body of men who
have banded together simply to oppose certain things they do not
like--that they are anti-Jew, anti-Catholic, anti-negro,
anti-foreign, anti-everything. But real Klansmen have no fight to
make on any of these. I can't help being what I am racially. I am not
a Jew, nor a negro, nor a foreigner. I am an Anglo-Saxon white man,
so ordained by the hand and will of God, and so constituted and
trained that I cannot conscientiously take either my politics or
religion from some secluded ass on the other side of the world.
"Now, if somebody else is a Jew, I can't help it any more than he
can. Or, if he happens to be black, I can't help that either. If he
were born under some foreign flag, I couldn't help it, and if he
wants to go clear back to Italy for his religion and his politics, I
cannot hinder him; but there is one thing I can do. I can object to
his un-American propaganda being preached in my home or practiced in
the solemn assembly of real Americans."
The propaganda against the Jew is being carried on as viciously as against
the Catholic. In the _Searchlight_ of July 30, 1921, there appeared on the
front page a typical anti-Semitic article in the nature of a letter
written from New York, and signed "American," of which the following is an
extract:
"The Jew is interested in creating war between blacks and whites, not
to benefit the negro, but to destroy our government. For the same
reason, the Jew is interested in overthrowing Christian Russia. But
remember, he does not intend to stop at Russia. Through his Third
Internationale of Moscow he is working to overthrow all the Gentile
governments of the world. I am enclosing an editorial clipped from
the _New York World_ of Saturday, July 23. You will keep in mind that
the _World_ is Jew-owned (as is also every newspaper in New York City
except the _Tribune_).
"My investigation proved to me beyond a doubt that the negro
situation is being made increasingly dangerous by Jewish agitators.
"In all my twenty-five years travelling over this continent, I have
never met a disloyal American who failed to be either foreign born or
a Semite.
"With the best wishes for the success of the Ku Klux Klan."