THE KU KLUX KLAN IN AMERICA. F OR many months there
has been throughout the United States a storm of excited protest over the Ku Klux Klan. It will not last a great while longer, but to-day the wind still blows with unabated fury. Scarcely a newspaper is printed that does not daily blaze with editorial indignation over the iniquities of the Klan. It is denounced in the halls of Congress, in political campaigns and by civic and religious bodies in all sections of the country. The din is deafening. It rings from coast to coast, and is far out of proportion to the actual im- portance of the organization. Thousands of impression- able persons have become tremendously stirred over what has been pictured as a dreadful menace to the safety of the Republic and the liberties of the people. All of which is bosh. The truth is the Klan is such a sordid and unsound thing at the core that, if not continuously stimulated by the hysteria of the Press and fostered by the duplicity of the politicians, it will ultimately fall of its own weight. It has grown to its present pro. portions largely because of the unprecedented amount of free publicity given its " principles " through the violent denunciations of the metropolitan news- papers.
As the Klan has officially announced its purpose to establish itself in England, it may be of interest to set forth the basic facts concerning this curious association of men which, in three years, has jumped from a few thousand to nearly a million members. Primarily, the proposition is a money-making scheme, cleverly conceived to capitalize the racial and religious prejudices of the more or less simple-minded people whom it attracts. Its sole point of similarity to the old Ku Klux Klan which, as a bulwark against negro domination and " carpet hag " rule, briefly flourished in the South in the days following the Civil War, is its name. There is not the remotest connexion otherwise. The present plan sprang from the brain of a certain Colonel William J. Simmons, a large red-headed resident of Atlanta, a curious mixture of sentiment and shrewdness with a remarkable talent for the invention of sonorous ritualistic phrases, blood- curdling oaths of allegiance, mysterious passwords and cryptic countersigns, carrying with them an almost irresistible appeal to a class of Americans who revel in secret orders and are what we call " natural joiners."
The thing the red-headed Simmons had in his mind was to found such an order exclusively for white, Pro. testant, native-born Americans. In other words, it was to be anti-Catholic, anti-Jew, anti-alien and anti-negro. That there is in America deep and widespread prejudice against all these classes is an obvious and conceded fact. Simmons believed lie could organize it, and he dressed his idea up in the most amazing and absurd ritualistic garments. He gave to its creed and constitution a strong religious and patriotic flavour, and wrapped the thing in a cloak of mysterious solemnity. In a way, he is a genius, but he lacks real business sense, and he was unable to float his idea after he had arrayed it. It was in a fair way to languish and die when he met one Edward Young Clark, a real estate operator and Press agent. An interesting contract was made between them, by which Clark took over the entire business management of the concern. Under the contract Simmons was to confine himself wholly to the ritualistic end and leave the rest to Clark. At once Clark put into the field a unique selling organization. Each State was put in charge of a sales manager known as a King Kleagle. Simmons invented the name and Clark picked the men. Under the King Kleagles were numerous Kleagles, who arc the actual salesmen. Members pay an initial fee of $10 upon joining the Klan. This $10 is divided as follows : $4 goes to the Kleagle obtaining the new member, $1.50 to the King Kleagle of the State, and the balance of $4.50 goes to the headquarters at Atlanta. The plan worked. In a few years Clark had put the Klan on a paying basis, and it had a steadily but slowly increasing membership of about 50,000.
And then one of the great New York newspapers made an investigation, and in a series of thunderous articles exposed the Klan, printed its creed and constitu- tion, assailed it as sinister and un-American, and denounced Clark and Simmons. So far from de- stroying the Klan, the assault actually made it. Clark followed the publication of the articles with a recruit ing drive in each State where they were printed. The membership grew by leaps and bounds. The Klan was given the very advertisement it needed, and was enabled to reach in every community the people who arc preju- diced against Catholics, Jews, or negroes to an extent not possible before. The Kleagles and the King Kleagles reaped a golden harvest, and the dollars began to roll into Atlanta so fast that Clark and Simmons became alarmed. Simmons now has a beautiful home on Peach- tree Street, Clark is a substantial capitalist, and the Klan has erected an imposing " Imperial Palace " where its business affairs are managed. It claims to-day more than a million members and unquestionably it is organized in every State. The widespread belief that the purpOse and. policy of the Klan is violently to take the law in its own hands and run the country is not well founded. There have been some instances of Klan violence in isolated sections, and Klansmen undoubtedly participated in an unusually revolting murder recently in Louisiana, but there. is no reason to think that these things would not have occurred had there been no Klan. It is also true that in some States—particularly Georgia, Texas and Arkansas—a number of State officials have joined the Klan, and it is also true that in these States the politicians are seizing the opportunity which secret membership gives them to array on their side the religiously prejudiced voters. But it is also true that the business men who are running the organization are actively and earnestly interested in keeping its skirts free of lawless- ness. Obviously, it is to their selfish interest to do so. Ultimately the kind of policy attributed to the Klan by the more violent of the newspapers would involve it with the Federal Government in such a way as to break it up.
The fact is, the meetings of the Klan are of a deeply religious and patriotic character, and the rank and file of its membership is made up of narrow-minded but well-meaning men, who believe they are helping to " save the country." There is, in the vast bulk of them, no more possibility of violence than there would be in so many rabbits. Mostly, they are members of the same evangelical churches that support the Anti-Saloon League, and the Klan ritual, the fiery cross; the mask and' the gown, the solemnity and secrecy of their gatherings, give them a veritable glow of self-righteousness, a smug feeling of rectitude, a cheap and entirely safe thrill. The wearing of the mask at the meetings is a part of the Simmons ritualistic tomfoolery, and its only sinister feature is the opportunity it affords ruffians in rural districts to use the Klan as a cloak and commit outrages in its name.
If there were space, I would like more deeply to analyse the psychology of the average Klan member and show exactly how the Kleagle baits the hook for him. All that can be done in this article, however, is to give certain conclusions, based on a somewhat thorough investigation, of the Klan situation made in a number of Southern States where it is strongest. They are these : First, the men who run the Klan in Atlanta are an exceedingly " hard-boiled" set of fellows who have placed it on a well- camouflaged but wholly commercial basis and are making a great deal of money out of it. They operate a non- sentimental selling organization and sell the Klan to " prospects " just as they would sell safety razors, insurance policies, garters ior any other article. Second, the membership of the Klan is composed largely of well- meaning persons, who feel very much more deeply than they think, who have no sense of humour, but who are neither • vicious nor dangerous. Third, the danger of the thing lies not so much in the Klan itself as in the screen it affords to politicians to profit through the religious issue and the temptation it offers to rough elements outside, and sometimes inside, to use the mask in violent outbreaks. Fourth, if the newspapers would cease daily denouncing the Klan, and if the Catholics and Jews were less excited and apprehensive concerning it, the organization would break of its own weight, because it is unsound at the bottom and uninformed and ignorant at the top.
FRANK R. KENT, Vice-President of the Baltimore Sun. •
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