Two important events took place on Easter Sunday, 1934. The first was
a huge mass meeting in the brand new reinforced concrete auditorium
of the Knights of Nordica for the double purpose of celebrating the
first anniversary of the militant secret society and the winning of the
millionth member. The second event was the wedding of Helen Givens and
Matthew Fisher, Grand Exalted Giraw of the Knights of Nordica.
Rev. Givens, the Imperial Grand Wizard of the order, had never
regretted that he had taken Fisher into the order and made him his
right-hand man. The membership had grown by leaps and bounds, the
treasury was bursting with money in spite of the Wizard's constant
misappropriation of funds, the regalia factory was running night and
day and the influence of the order was becoming so great that Rev.
Givens was beginning to dream of a berth in the White House or near by.
For over six months the order had been publishing _The Warning_, an
eight-page newspaper carrying lurid red headlines and poorly-drawn
quarter-page cartoons, and edited by Matthew. The noble Southern
working people purchased it eagerly, devouring and believing every
word in it. Matthew, in 14-point, one-syllable word editorials painted
terrifying pictures of the menace confronting white supremacy and
the utter necessity of crushing it. Very cleverly he linked up the
Pope, the Yellow Peril, the Alien Invasion and Foreign Entanglements
with Black-No-More as devices of the Devil. He wrote with such blunt
sincerity that sometimes he almost persuaded himself that it was all
true.
As the money flowed in, Matthew's fame as a great organizer spread
throughout the Southland, and he suddenly became the most desirable
catch in the section. Beautiful women literally threw themselves at his
feet, and, as a former Negro and thus well versed in the technique of
amour, he availed himself of all offerings that caught his fancy.
At the same time he was a frequent visitor to the Givens home,
especially when Mrs. Givens, whom he heartily detested, was away. From
the very first Helen had been impressed by Matthew. She had always
longed for the companionship of an educated man, a scientist, a man of
literary ability. Matthew to her mind embodied all of these. She only
hesitated to accept his first offer of marriage two days after they
met because she saw no indication that he had much, if any, money. She
softened toward him as the Knights of Nordica treasury grew; and when
he was able to boast of a million-dollar bank account, she agreed to
marriage and accepted his ardent embraces in the meantime.
And so, before the yelling multitude of night-gowned Knights, they
were united in holy wedlock on the stage of the new auditorium. Both,
being newlyweds, were happy. Helen had secured the kind of husband
she wanted, except that she regretted his association with what she
called low-brows; while Matthew had won the girl of his dreams and was
thoroughly satisfied, except for a slight regret that her grotesque
mother wasn't dead and some disappointment that his spouse was so much
more ignorant than she was beautiful.
As soon as Matthew had helped to get the Knights of Nordica well under
way with enough money flowing in to satisfy the avaricious Rev. Givens,
he had begun to study ways and means of making some money on the side.
He had power, influence and prestige and he intended to make good use
of them. So he had obtained audiences individually with several of the
leading business men of the Georgia capital.
He always prefaced his proposition by pointing out that the working
people were never so contented, profits never so high and the erection
of new factories in the city never so intensive; that the continued
prosperity of Atlanta and of the entire South depended upon keeping
labor free from Bolshevism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism, trade
unionism and other subversive movements. Such un-American philosophies,
he insisted had ruined European countries and from their outposts
in New York and other Northern cities were sending emissaries to
seek a foothold in the South and plant the germ of discontent. When
this happened, he warned gloomily, then farewell to high profits and
contented labor. He showed copies of books and pamphlets which he had
ordered from radical book stores in New York but which he asserted were
being distributed to the prospect's employees.
He then explained the difference between the defunct Ku Klux Klan
and the Knights of Nordica. While both were interested in public
morals, racial integrity and the threatened invasion of America by
the Pope, his organization glimpsed its larger duty, the perpetuation
of Southern prosperity by the stabilization of industrial relations.
The Knights of Nordica, favored by increasing membership, was in a
position to keep down all radicalism, he said, and then boldly asserted
that Black-No-More was subsidized by the Russian Bolsheviks. Would
the gentlemen help the work of the Nordicists along with a small
contribution? They would and did. Whenever there was a slump in the
flow of cash from this source, Matthew merely had his print shop
run off a bale of Communistic tracts which his secret operatives
distributed around in the mills and factories. Contributions would
immediately increase.
Matthew had started this lucrative side enterprise none too soon.
There was much unemployment in the city, wages were being cut and
work speeded up. There was dissatisfaction and grumbling among the
workers and a small percentage of them was in a mood to give ear to the
half-dozen timid organizers of the conservative unions who were being
paid to unionize the city but had as yet made no headway. A union might
not be so bad after all.
The great mass of white workers, however, was afraid to organize and
fight for more pay because of a deepset fear that the Negroes would
take their jobs. They had heard of black labor taking the work of white
labor under the guns of white militia, and they were afraid to risk it.
They had first read of the activities of Black-No-More, Incorporated,
with a secret feeling akin to relief but after the orators of the
Knights of Nordica and the editorials of _The Warning_ began to portray
the menace confronting them, they forgot about their economic ills and
began to yell for the blood of Dr. Crookman and his associates. Why,
they began to argue, one couldn't tell who was who! Herein lay the
fundamental cause of all their ills. Times were hard, they reasoned,
because there were so many white Negroes in their midst taking their
jobs and undermining their American standard of living. None of them
had ever attained an American standard of living to be sure, but that
fact never occurred to any of them. So they flocked to the meetings of
the Knights of Nordica and night after night sat spellbound while Rev.
Givens, who had finished the eighth grade in a one-room country school,
explained the laws of heredity and spoke eloquently of the growing
danger of black babies.
Despite his increasing wealth (the money came in so fast he could
scarcely keep track of it), Matthew maintained close contact with the
merchants and manufacturers. He sent out private letters periodically
to prominent men in the Southern business world in which he told of
the marked psychological change that had come over the working classes
of the South since the birth of the K. of N. He told how they had been
discontented and on the brink of revolution when his organization
rushed in and saved the South. Unionism and such destructive nostrums
had been forgotten, he averred, when _The Warning_ had revealed the
latest danger to the white race. Of course, he always added, such work
required large sums of money and contributions from conservative,
substantial and public-spirited citizens were ever acceptable. At the
end of each letter there appeared a suggestive paragraph pointing out
the extent to which the prosperity of the New South was due to its
"peculiar institutions" that made the worker race conscious instead
of class conscious, and that with the passing of these "peculiar
institutions" would also pass prosperity. This reasoning proved very
effective, financially speaking.
Matthew's great success as an organizer and his increasing popularity
was not viewed by Rev. Givens with equanimity. The former evangelist
knew that everybody of intelligence in the upper circles of the order
realized that the growth and prosperity of the Knights of Nordica was
largely due to the industry, efficiency and intelligence of Matthew.
He had been told that many people were saying that Fisher ought to be
Imperial Grand Wizard instead of Grand Exalted Giraw.
Givens had the ignorant man's fear and suspicion of anybody who was
supposedly more learned than he. His position, he felt, was threatened,
and he was decidedly uneasy. He neither said nor did anything about
it, but he fretted a great deal to his wife, much to her annoyance. He
was consequently overjoyed when Matthew asked him for Helen's hand,
and gave his consent with alacrity. When the marriage was consummated,
he saw his cup filled to overflowing and no clouds on the horizon. The
Knights of Nordica was safe in the family.
One morning a week or two after his wedding, Matthew was sitting in
his private office, when his secretary announced a caller, one B.
Brown. After the usual delay staged for the purpose of impressing
all visitors, Matthew ordered him in. A short, plump, well-dressed,
soft-spoken man entered and greeted him respectfully. The Grand Exalted
Giraw waved to a chair and the stranger sat down. Suddenly, leaning
over close to Matthew, he whispered, "Don't recognize me, do you Max?"
The Grand Giraw paled and started. "Who are you?" he whispered
hoarsely. How in the devil did this man know him? He peered at him
sharply.