Ku Klux Klan Rides Again!

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 14 September 1940, Page 5 (Supplement)

Ku Klux Klan Rides Again!

SECRET societies have always existed. Ancient Rome had them, more ancient Egypt and the still more unthinkably ancient Vedic civilisations. The Aztecs and the Incas, the Greeks and the Goths, proud Venice and royal Paris—they all knew the peculiar persecution which seems an essential part of the conduct of secret societies.

In more recent times the centuries-old Mafia, dreaded semi-political secret terrorist organisation of Sicily, has been effectively crushed by Mussolini's police —at least, Mussolini says so. If nothing else, it has been checked, driven underground—if it is possible for an underground organisation to go still further underground.

Queensland has its "Black Hand" terrorist organisation, whose unsolved murder list totals well over a score. That is to say, the Australian police know of at least 25 or 30 murders among the Italian cane sugar workers of Queensland and the Italian colony in Sydney, but have not solved them. One cannot even guess at the number of murder cases not known to the police* Their Strange Appeal Most dreaded of them all in its day, however, was the "Ku Klux Klan." They are hooded men. And therein lies their appeal. An ingrained mass fear, you might call it, or the everlasting lure of the mysterious. The Klan, from its very inception in the "sixties," when defeated Confederate veterans rode, hooded, by night to wreak ghastly vengeance on terrified negroes and wrongdoer* in that /

time of chaos which followed the Civil invoked all the tricka: of costume, * incantations, gestures and staged sur- • roundings which could lend it an air j of 'mystery—and horror. J The Klan wrote, its brief but terrible page in America's history, then died, j At least, it appeared to have died; in i reality, it lingered in mortal pains so j long that before its essence departed i from America's soil it arose, Ptoenixlike, t® a second period of internal 1 activity, prosperity and terror. Again it flashed like some fearful meteor aeross the nation's horizon, then faded so completely that it was once more believed to have died. To-day it is very obviously alive, far too alive, preaching its ancient doctrines and conducting its time-dishonoured rite*. What peaee-loving Americans, reft between National and international politics, anxiously ask themselves is this: "Will the heoded Klansmen ride again T Will they, jm they did of yore, adjudge—and execute—evildoers ? In short, will they re-establish their secret tyranny!" K.K.K:S Modern Chapter The modern chapter of the "K.K.K." began on October .15, 1915, when one William Joaeph Simmon*, an emotional Southerner 'who had been a preacher, commercial traveller and organiser of friendly societies, applied to the Supreme Court of Georgia for a charter to form a body to be called the "Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. 1 * Soaked in the traditions of the old Ku Klux Klan, Simmons used the same watchwords —100 per cent. Americanism and oppostion to Jews, negroes, Roman Catholics and immigrants. In short, he glorified, the old native-born Anglo-Saxon Protestant stock. Simmons was granted his charter. On the summit of Stone Mountain, near Atlanta, Georgia's capital city, he held his first meeting. He said of it: "On the mountain-top at the midnight hour, while men braved the surging blasts of wild —intry winds and endured a temperature far below freezing, bathsd in the sacred glow of the fiery the Invisible Empire w«a called from its slumber of half a century." Sporadic terrorism, none involving the victim's Vdeath, and poor organisation by Simmons prevented the Klan fr°™ growing as its founder had hoped it would. By 1920 it was dying out. Then two high-powered organisers appeared. Edward Clarke Young and Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler put it on a corn-

Mf-oSSL""*. tolrtcM by Nail aetata ma wapcaen, Americans ate to-day wonnnVTif \ ■ % w »nderin« . . . about a puregr American menace. The dreaded .VLr !? Ktan _ te »■»*« its head tor the third time. They wonder if ita motto, Americanism," will cover the same sins Rj\'fflf T * d *"* r the cIT « War and the Great War. Already It Is listed as hayinr Fascist leanings.

By Frank Curley.

mercial footing. They gave 16/ out of every £2 subscription to their recruiters, who began a terrific drive. Favoured by a nation-wide wave of resentment against negroes, who had returned from France with new ideas of their importance, and by acute religious differences, the Klan swept to a pinnacle of power and wealth in one short year. Between October, 1920, and October, 1921, masked men were responsible for four murders, one mutilation, an acid branding, five kidnappings, 41 floggings and 27 Congress decided to investigate. "Emperor" Simmons blandly denied the Klan's guilt. And none of these outrages was ever sheeted home to hif "fraternal and patriotic organisation."

Recruiting went on apace, first orders to each branch being: "Clean up your community!"

One organiser, David Curtis Stepheneon, using a _ spectacular aeroplane, obtained several hundred thousand members in Indiana and later put up candidates for mayoralties and other public posts, for whom his followers had to vote whether they liked it or not. He signed his peremptory orders to vote for his nominee thus:

"Done by me, the great klaliff of this province, in the holy glavern on the weird day of the woeful week of the dreadful month of the bloody moon in the weeping year of the Klan . .

Like many another organiser, or klaliff, Stephenson built a luxurious hot|6e -and; Jived extravagantly, giving parties not jnoted for tHeir- pUlrity of purpose. It was on the latter score that the Klan eventually discharged Stephenson from its ranks. He went on running the local branch in defiance of headquarters, but in 1925 went to gaol for a life sentence as a result of the suicide of a. girl named Madge Oberholtzer, whom he had kidnapped and illtreated. Many other outrages shocked America and the world, but meanwhile changes were coming within the Klan. Simmons was virtually deposed (with compensation of £45,000!) and a dentist who held the rank of "Imperial Wizard," Hiram Wesley Evans, of Dallas, Texas, was chosen "Emperor." The tales of outrages went on. Hundreds of fiery-cross meetings took place throughout the United States, and floggings, brandings, beatings and kidnappings of men and women —even of clergymen —became more and more frequent. The tale of murders was a terrible one. In a Pittsburgh Court in 1928 an exmember of the Klan said he had seen seven people burned at the stake. "In Terrell, Texas," he added, "a white man convicted by a 'court' of the Klan was taken to a secret spot, where paraffin w a s poured over him. A match was then applied to him. "Evans ordered a white man who was found guilty of not supporting his family to undergo 'justice.' First, he was tied over a barrel and whipped. Then he was suspended over the barrel, his hands tied to a stake in front of him, his feet held by two klansmen. Naked to the waist, he was Covered all over with heated tar, to which feathers were added." That was tarring and feathering, as the K.K.K. did it. It Died—Bat Lives Agmn . All these atrocitiea were, of course, , denied. The Klan countered opposition by sending bags of gold to churches M» 1 clergymen of whom it approved, but ! public opposition grew too strong. Several clashes had occurred between , townsmen and klansmen in Pennsylvania ! and Oklahoma, and when in 1928 the ' Klan threw all its resources into the campaign to defeat A 1 Smith (a Roman Catholic) in his bid for the Presidency, e it found itcelf on the wane. Evans kept I it simmering for a while, but tha depresII slon killed it most effectively. t To-day, Imperial Wizard - Emperor Evans has new backers. He has pubs liclv stated the fact bf its revival on a d platform of "Americanism." What Now is Its Purpoee?