Investigating The K.K.K. No Easy Task

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30895, 30 October 1965, Page 18

Investigating The K.K.K. No Easy Task

(From FRANK OLIVER. N Z.P.A. Special Correspondent)

The House Un-American Activities Committee now investigating the Ku Klux Klan will have plenty of spotlight on its activities now that a dramatic session of Congress has just ended. This is all to the good, many people think, both for the sake of the committee as well as the general public.

The committee is on trial as well as the klansmen. It has been in existence many years and has investigated almost everything well to the left of centre. Until now its vision has never strayed as far as centre, let alone to the far right. It has seen the “enemy” clear and it has seen it single—communism. It has seen Communist under every bed and in every organisation—provided it was left of centre.

Some of its investigations have made it look silly in the eyes of fair-minded men but until now it has never investigated the klan which, throughout its history, has been noted for racial and religious bigotry, for floggings of people it disliked, for lynchings and murder and for spreading terror among men. women and children during its notorious night-raiding and cross-burnings—all things regarded by the fair-minded as utterly “un-American.” But change comes even to the H.U.A.C., as the committee is familiarly known. Its personnel has changed constantly as death and the electors have changed the make-up of the House of Representatives but the general character and direction of the committee has changed little until recently. Serious Attempt There is no ready explanation for the change and, consequently, there were gasps of astonishment earlier in the year when it was announced that the klan would be investigated. The general assumption was that this was window-dressing and that not much would come of tt. But now the investigation has actually started the general impression is that this is a serious investigation and that the committee has

accumulated a vast amount of information about the klan, its membership, its organisation, its finances and its activities. The question which can not be answered yet is whether all this will appear on the public record. The committee hopes it will be, for this is clearly one of the biggest tests it has faced. The reason for the doubt is the difficulty of getting witnesses to testify about the facts the comAJttee has in its possession. All investigating committees work in the same manner. They investigate through every corridor open to them and amass a vast ! amount of material believed to be fact. It then becomes necessary during the public hearings' to get this material into the record through the mouths of witnesses. The committee members are like a group of cross-examining attorneys. A witness is subpoenaed, sworn—-to guard against perjury—and then treated to the “Is it not a fact that . . system in an effort to get the facts in the committee’s “brief” in evidence and to produce even more damaging admissions if possible. “Taking The Fifth” Unhappily, the system is not working too well so far. Important klan figures (and the klan has more than once scoffed at “Taking the Fifth” as a Communist trick) have sat in the witness chair and taken the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination again and again. One klan “wizard” took the fifth 143 times while the frustrated committee stared at the facts in the “brief” it could not get out of his mouth. Committees, and this one is no exception, hesitate to spread what they know bn the public record on their own account because it inevitably looks as if a witness or his organisation is being smeared. Unhappily, committee members are seldom the equivalent of good cross-examining attorneys. Each member wants to get into the act and in turn asks questions. Thus many topics are raised and almost none followed through to its logical conclusion, and confusion reigns in the mind of the public, which in a sense constitutes a jury. So far the committee has met almost nothing but frustration. Its aim and purpose is clear. Its attack is launched, at this stage, not against the klan’s public activities, but against its secret organisation and particularly its financial activities. Clearly the committee is anxious to show that some leading klansmen are making a “good thing” put of the klan subscriptions and siphoning money off for various personal expeditures. State Witness The hope appears to be that such revalations, if they can • be obtained, would outrage a number of klansmen and per-

suade them to turn State's witnesses and “tell all." It just could be successful —if the admissions can be got from the mouths of prominent klan leaders sitting in the witness chair. The committee has often before this been accused of seeking exposure for exposure’s sake, but some Congressmen behind this investigation insist that the full exposure of the klan record in all its ugly brutality is the right way and the best way to kill the klan. The committee, of course, is not entirely helpless if the klan leaders sit silent except to “take the Fifth.” It is possible for the committee’s investigators to be put on the stand and asked to tell the results of their investigations. This could be another method of persuading embittered former klansmen to come forward to tell what they know. Such men are known to exist but at present they are not coming forward in any large numbers. The klan is still powerful and revenge on a defector from the klan is just as easy to arrange as an attack on a Civil Rights worker. So far the committee has not behaved with any noticeable skill. Members are too inclinded to use innuendo against klan leaders who appear. But the evidence is that this is a serious investigation and will be pursued relentlessly, even if it takes months to get where the committee is aiming to go.