KU KLUX KLAN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 96, 24 April 1928, Page 6

KU KLUX KLAN.

Originally formed after the American Civil War to protect the white population of the South against the negroes who had just been liberated from slavery and given the vote, the Ku Klux Klan has now developed into a system of terrorism whose acts of violence are directed against all of alien blood or of religious persuasion other than Protestantism. The recent countersuita brought by various factions of the Ku Klux Klan before tho_ Federal Court in Pittsburg showed I that tlio Klan lias now become an organisation outside the law and that it has not hesitated to use machine guns against its opponents and to burn victims at the stake. These victims have not been always negroes or persons suspected of ciime, but on more than one occasion they have merely those who for one reason or another had incurred the displeasure of the Grand Dragon. Witnesses in these countersuits deposed that°the Klan possessed a secret society, the object of which was to obtain information about all manner of public officials which might be used to control them if needed. One member actually obtained admission to the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago by posing as a priest. His object in doing this was to obtain information for inflammatory speeches against the Roman Catholic Church Two Jews were mercilessly flogged in Oklahoma for no other offence apparently than the offence of being of the Jewish -faith. The Klan exercises complete control over its members, and anyone guilty of insubordination is liable to severe punishment. Sometimes it has happened that Klansmen have been elected to some public office and they have used their official position to promote the interests of the Klan. Thus in 1924 during riots at Niles, Ohio, many Klansmen were sworn in as deputy-sheriffs, and they ordered off the streets everybody who was ignorant of the Klan s password. On the same occasion thev j used machine guns to stop any rush bv antiKlansmen. The Klan boasts of being "a hundred per cent American." It will be an evil day for America when organisations -such as this are held to be representative of the nation. Jud"e Thompson, of the Federal Court, declared the Kl&n to be an unlawful institution, and directlv responsible for breaking down the fundamental principles upon which the Government of the United States is framed. Yet no strong .measures have been taken to break up the Klan. When action has been taken witnesses have refused to give evidence and juries have refused to convict because of the fear of reprisals. Probably nothing short of united Fedcral action will suffice for breaking up this sinister organisation, unless some split m the ranks of the Klan itseif causes a kind of civil war m the organisation which might, eventually destroy it.