Robert was on his way to Chicago, with his credentials as Grand Bogey
of the Trick Track Tribe secure in his breast pocket. In a large, black
leather bag were his propaganda supplies, booklets and cards about the
black peril, the yellow peril, the political activities of the Knights
of Columbus, the Jewish problem, the menace of foreign immigration. He
had scarcely time to look at them. Most of his supplies had, of course,
been sent by express directly to the office of the Dearborn Statistical
Bureau.
Before leaving Corinth, Griffith and Lister had both given him a new
conception of the scope of the Trick Track Tribe. Its sphere had been
called the Fourth Dimension, because like the fourth dimension it was
to be invisible to outsiders, yet it was to form a part of the entire
political, economic and social fabric of the country. It was to support
good government against bad, combat radicalism and immorality, uphold
the best traditions of Anglo-Saxon civilization. The Bogeys were to go
forth like knights of old, except that they were to work unseen, in the
Fourth Dimension, fighting for God and their country.
Robert had been provided with a number of cards to distribute among his
prospects--cards resembling those which he had received, with the motto
_Non Silba Sed Anthra_ on them. Griffith had suggested that he begin
proselytising on the train, and accordingly Robert studied his fellow
passengers.
“Get the young fellows,” Griffith had advised. “As many of the
ex-service men as you can and of fellows who weren’t drafted, but who
would like to get in with men who were in the army. In the cities, of
course, you’ll have to work systematically. First, get a few of the big
guns: a big minister, a public official, a prominent business man. Then
you can use their names in getting the rest. But on the train I’d try
the young fellows.”
In the smoking car Robert tried to manipulate the conversation so as
to sound the feelings of the men with whom he conversed. Everyone, of
course, approved of such a generalization as Americanism, although each
had his own solution of his idea of what that problem constituted.
“What we need is to get down to work and do less shouting,” was one
choleric old gentleman’s rather vague recipe.
A drummer from Chicago--big cigar, diamond stickpin, dominant joviality
and a talent for smutty stories--denounced the Bolsheviki--but his nose
was Semitic and his name was something with a “son” on the end of it.
The thin, blond man with horn-rimmed spectacles--an advertising
copywriter on his way back to Chicago from a vacation--said business
was unusually good, it was simply a problem of going after it. None of
them, in fact, had felt that the integrity of the American nation was
being subverted. They were hopelessly optimistic.
When he referred to the Negro question, two men who were from the South
began to take interest. One was an old gentleman--he seemed at least
seventy-five--the other, a young man, perhaps Robert’s junior by three
years, on his first trip north--to Louisville.
“That’s a real problem,” said the young man, taking part in the
conversation for the first time that evening. “Some times I think they
should all be shipped over to Africa--the whole bunch of ’em. Send ’em
to Liberia. Africa’s the place for ’em all.”
He related an incident of how a Negro had stolen a hen from an uncle’s
roost. A policeman, with a sense of humor, saw the darkey waddling down
the street, suspiciously fat.
“Good-evening, Rastus,” said the policeman. “Nice evening.” It was the
first time in his life that a policeman had ever said “good evening” to
him, or, in fact, any white man.
“Yes, sah, pow’ful fine evenin’,” said the nigger uneasily, trying to
conceal the hen, make a getaway and be polite to the guardian of the
law at the same time.
“You’re looking fine,” said the policeman, playfully prodding him.
“Wife’s cooking must agree with you.”
“Yes, pow’ful fine cooking. I gain thuty pound in one week. But I must
be going home. I heah de poke chops frying on de pan and a-calling me.
Good-night.”
At this moment the hen began to cackle.
“What’s that?” cried the patrolman.
“Tuck-tuck-a-wack!!”
“I’se just imitatin’ a chicken clackin’. (Tuck-tuck, tuck, tuck
awah’)--hear dat? Folks says I’se de bes’ natural bo’n animal imetator
in de--(Tuck, tuck, a wack.) Some folks say it’s a gift to imetate
an animal so natural. Folks say I imetate better than the animal
itself.--(Tuck, tuck a wack.)”
“I think if you unbuttoned your coat you could give a much better
imitation.”
“No, _sah_! I must have it tight around my abdomen to get de true,
natural soun’. (Tuck, a, luck.)”
The darky’s coat was agitated by the struggling hen, a button popped
off and the bird suddenly thrust its head into view. Rastus slowly
scratched his head.
“Now whare do you t’ink dat come from? I _thought_ I was givin’ an
onusually fine impersonation.”
Everyone laughed.
“They’re awfully funny, those coons,” said the young man. “You-all
ought to see them jigging in the moonlight, playing on their banjos and
dancing, all impromptu. It beats any minstrel show you-all ever saw.
And they have beautiful voices. But they will lie and steal.”
He became serious.
“Of course, every race has its good sides, but the nigger has got to
go, or else there won’t be any white America. In the meantime, he’s got
to be kept in his place. He’s got to learn to respect the white man.
Why, I read just the other day where they’re four million mulattoes in
this country.”
“Well,” remarked the advertising man, dryly, “you know where they come
from.”
He winked at the other Northerners, with a slight feeling of belonging
to a superior group.
“What d’ye mean?”
“Well, the mulattoes come from either black mothers or white mothers.
Therefore--”
The young Southerner grew very red.
“Sir, do you mean to insinuate that any white woman of the South--”
“Certainly not. I must say that I found the standards of morality in
the South higher even than in Chicago or in the little Northern village
where I was born. No, sir, the mulattoes are born in the South of black
mothers. They are born among the purest, highest type of Anglo-Saxon
manhood, upholding its traditions of race, religion and womanhood. I
haven’t the least idea who their fathers are.”
The young man’s eyes blazed. Hamilton felt himself growing angry, but
before he could say anything, the young man had half risen and was
striking his palm excitedly with his fist.
“Sir,” he was crying, “you’ve made an insinuation against an entire
class.”
He sputtered, he became unintelligible. He was going to make the other
man eat his words. He denied that any respectable Southerner had ever
begotten a mulatto child. Poor whites, perhaps. White trash! A white
gentleman would never touch a colored woman.
“Well,” said the advertising man, with the least bit of a twinkle, “I
hadn’t the least idea that I was insulting you. But what is your idea
of the phenomenon?”
The youth glowered. The choleric old gentleman thrust in his oar.
“Why! Why! I observed that it was quite common for young gentlemen to
‘touch’ black women. In fact, I got the idea that it was one of your
Southern traditions. Why, look here, young man, I’ve talked to twenty
overseers if I’ve talked to one, and they all told me the same thing.
They certainly extended true Southern hospitality to me.” He went into
details. “Why, damn it, they admitted doing it themselves, not with any
feeling of making a confession, either. One overseer said he always
went to another plantation so as not to spoil the morale of his help!
“Now, I don’t give a whoop what you do. Black, brown, red. It’s none of
my business. But what I do hate is this damn hypocrisy, all this bunk
about your splendid manhood and high morality. Doggone it, I’ll bet you
can’t show me a single white man south of the Mason-Dixon line--”
The young man flung his cigarette on the floor and walked out of the
smoking car, muttering that if the Northerner weren’t old enough to be
his grandfather he’d mop the car up with him.
Hamilton rose. “Here’s one, right here!” he said, looking the choleric
gentleman in the eye.
“An exception, all right. But without getting mad about it and without
putting on a high and mighty pose, tell me truthfully, aren’t you an
exception? Take your own set!”
Hamilton wavered. The standards in Corinth had not been very high.
Perhaps the set he knew was not a fair group. In general, it had not
been considered particularly immoral. It had been the attitude of Greek
or Roman gentlemen to their slaves.
“Well,” he said, “perhaps the white man is to blame. To be frank, I
guess we are. Yes, it is a serious situation, and that’s exactly what
we must combat.” He wished that the Jewish drummer were out of the
car. It was a fine opening to talk Tribe. He could tell what the Tribe
was going to do to raise moral standards and prevent the mingling of
white blood with black by rigid enforcement of the code. Why were Jews
excluded from membership, anyway?
The old Southerner coughed.
“I haven’t taken any part in your little argument, yet,” he said,
stroking his long white beard, “for I reckon that’s something for
younger and fightinger folks. But they say: Young men for fightin’ and
old men for counsel. I sort o’ figgered that you fellows was sort of
teasing this youngster that got mad.”
“Sure, that’s all I was doing, dad, having a little fun with him,” said
the ad man. “Have a cigar?”
“No, thanks. Had enough. Too much tobacco bad for my heart. I sort-a
liked the spunk o’ that young fella at that. Although nobody would a
got mad at a thing like that in my day. But he’s right and you, too,
young man. The nigger problem is a coming one. It’s been under cover
for many years, but it’ll bob up again, sure as you’re born. Now, you
might not know it, but I fit with the boys in gray; ’listed in ’65. I
was a youngster, but I got in. I got a wound in my right thigh by a
Yank musketball, I can show you, in the last engagement of the war--but
I’ve no feelings against the North for that. Not any more. No, the
South has forgotten the war. We’re all one country now.”
He went into a circumlocutory account of his experiences in the Civil
War, of his home-coming and of the first post bellum days, while the
rest listened respectfully and asked questions from time to time to
show that they were still interested.
“You’re wondering where all this is leading to, well, you were talking
about the nigger problem. But I saw a real nigger problem, compared to
which this one isn’t a hill o’ beans. No, sir, not a hill o’ beans.
Although this one may get to be like it. But we had a real problem.”
It was after the war. The Southern States had been compelled
reluctantly, not merely to liberate, but to enfranchise the Negroes.
Yankee carpetbaggers had descended from the North, both to invest money
in enterprises and real estate that could be bought for a song and to
obtain political control.
“Well, I lived in Tennessee, little town of Pulaski. When we got back,
a few of us young bucks got together one May day in 1866, and formed a
secret society, just for the dickens of it. I don’t know if you ever
heard of it--”
“You don’t mean them Ku Kluxers?” broke in the Jewish drummer.
“That’s right!” exclaimed the old gentleman joyously. “How did you
know? Knights of the Ku Klux Klan we called ourselves. Kuklux was a
Latin word, meaning circle, and one of the boys who’d been to college
thought it’d be appropriate.”
“Oh, ‘kuklos’! That’s Greek for circle,” said Hamilton.
“Oh, everyone has heard of the Ku Klux Klan,” put in the advertising
man. “We even read about it in our histories, dad.”
“Well, that’s the same Klan, and I was one of the first members. Well,
our first object was just to have a little fun, a little mystery to
keep the other folks guessing. Then, by accident, someone discovered
that if you wanted to scare a nigger into doing what you wanted him to
do, all you had to do was to dress up in a sheet like a ghost.
“We scared a few bad niggers. You should have seen our rigs. White
masks, high cardboard hats, long white robes. And we had a white cover
for our horses and padded their feet. The best fun, of course, was the
initiations. But that’s all secret.” He chuckled at the memory.
“Soon other Klans were started around Pulaski. By an’ by Tennessee,
and then the entire South was covered with them. So by the time the
reconstruction acts o’ ’67 were passed, we had a right smart of a
military organization. Why, sir, the niggers, the old slaves, were in
the state militia and we had to walk between rows of their bayonets to
get at the voting polls. They and the Northern carpetbaggers stuffed
the ballot boxes and won over the state and city government. And there
were a few scalawags from the South that joined ’em. We had organized
just for fun. But as soon as the niggers and carpetbaggers began making
our laws and robbin’ the public treasury, the Klan spread like wildfire
over the entire South. And like organizations were also formed. Knights
of the White Camellia was one, Pale Faces, White Leaguers.”
“Trick Track Tribe,” suggested Hamilton.
“Yes, that was one of ’em. But they all had one purpose--to uphold the
supremacy of the white race.”
“Well, you made a good job of it,” said someone. The old gentleman was
getting winded.
“Yes, we did. Tar and feathers. Public hangings. A few judicious notes
o’ warnin’. We put the fear o’ God and respect for law and order in
their souls. It might not of been strictly ethical, but it worked in
its day, and if ever the niggers start kickin’ up a rumpus, the same
thing can be used against ’em again.”
The Jewish drummer took out another cigar and cut off the end with a
little gold cigar-cutter attached to a chain and Robert knew that he
would have to bide his time. The old gentleman’s words had given him
moral confirmation. Not that he needed it, exactly, but it established
the Tribe as of honorable tradition, an institution of which any
Southerner could be proud. He wished that the Jewish drummer would go,
or at least that he would get a chance to talk to the old Klansman
alone. When the latter, therefore, excused himself to return to his
seat because the smoke was getting too thick for his lungs, Robert
followed him.
“I was interested in what you said about the Trick Track Tribe,” he
said, falling into the seat opposite him.
“That’s because you’re a Southerner. Every loyal Southerner is.”
“Perhaps you’ll be glad to know that we--that the Tribe is being
revived.”
“Revived? Well, well, well. But you know it was run out of business
by the law, the whole shooting match of ’em--Klan, Tribe and all, by
Congress.”
“No, I didn’t know that. Let’s see! There was something like that in
our American history. Let’s see, the Force bill.”
“Sure thing. The damn Yankee general, Grant, done it. So I wouldn’t say
much about it. I suppose it’s still illegal.”
“Oh, no, this has been reorganized and incorporated, although it’s got
the same name and the same traditions. Here, let me show you some of
our cards.”
The old Confederate soldier puzzled over the Latin motto and demanded
why all those questions were being asked.
“We didn’t ask all them questions about religion and where a man was
born. An’ what’s this card?”
It was a card the size of a playing card, headed “Do You Know?” and
containing a list of “that’s”:
_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 116 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 were
permitted to do war relief work in the army and navy._
_That Roman Catholics compose one-sixth of the 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._
The old soldier scowled.
“D’you take me fer a fool, young feller? And what’s this other card
there, some more anti-Catholic stuff, eh? What in the devil has this
rigmarole got to do with the old Tribe or the Klan or with any of those
other organizations? How d’you know _I’m_ not a Catholic?”
“I thought because you belonged to the Ku Klux Klan you couldn’t be. I
thought Jews and Catholics were barred.”
“Jews. Catholics barred.” His eyes blazed and he shook his fist. “Now
where do you get that? I want you to know that some of the finest
soldiers among the boys in gray was Irish Catholics. A lot of the
officers, too. And don’t you know that a Jew, Judah P. Benjamin, was
secretary of war of the Confederate States? And the Pope of Rome was
the only power that recognized our president and government? You’re a
fine Southerner! No, we didn’t discriminate because of religion. Didn’t
you hear me tell you that we had just come back from the Civil War and
that we all united to save the South from ignorant, licentious niggers
and from crooked Yank carpetbaggers and our own Southern scalawags?
There wasn’t any question of Catholics or Protestants or Jews in the
old Tribe. There wasn’t any question of Catholic or Jew in the Ku Klux
Klan. I’m not a Catholic, but if you’re a friend of the old Tribe or
the old Ku Klux Klan don’t show me any more of that stuff.”
Robert put his cards back in embarrassment. The old gentleman kept
mumbling “Catholic, Jews, Klan” under his breath.
“Oh, of course,” began Robert, “our chief purpose is to preserve the
white race--”
“Preserve! You mean pickle it! Kill it and pickle it in embalming
fluid! So you’re going to preserve it by splitting it up. In ’67 we
tried to preserve it from the unruly blacks and the renegade whites.
If you’d been there, young man, you’d of known how important it was to
have the best of the white element united--instead of dividing it along
religious lines.”
Robert attempted to point out the need of having a homogeneous
organization of native-born, white Protestants to carry on these
ideals, but the old man swore that “there had been Protestant,
white-born native sons of Belial among the scalawags.”
“There’s no race or creed that’s got a monopoly on all the scoundrels.
And I notice you slipped in a new one about native-born. That, sir,
is an insult! I’m Scotch born! Came over as a boy of six--but that
excludes me, too, me a member of the first Klan. Why, Jesus Christ
himself couldn’t have gotten into your Tribe, according to the revised
rules, because: First, he was a foreigner, and, second, because he was
a Jew.”
Robert was becoming angry. If he wasn’t so old a man and so vehement,
one could argue with him, but when Robert thought of something to say,
he interrupted. He had been more than picturesquely profane. He had
been positively sacrilegious. It would have been a feather in Robert’s
hat to have obtained the membership of one of the founders of the Ku
Klux Klan--but he wasn’t eligible, anyway. He had never known the
Scotch to be so vehement. He talked like an excited Irishman. Robert
would not tolerate it any more. He got up and walked back to the
smoking car.