KU KLUX KLAN

Hawera Star, Volume L, 21 February 1931, Page 16

KU KLUX KLAN

AMERICA'S once famous secret sociA ety, the Ku Klux Klan, is deadkilled “by a songr. . 4 . Five years ago the membership totalled 9,000,000. In the following year there was a drop of 7,000,000, and today there are a mere 34,694 Klansmen, whose meetings have taken on the character of social evenings enlivened with cakes, coffee, or perhaps, something out of a hip-flask. The Klan’s crash has been as spectacular as the tarring and feathering and lynching raids carried out by the white garbed members who galloped through the countryside at night to wreak vcngenancc on victims of their wrath. It was a caustically funny song which began—<'Now father's swiped our last clean sheet And joined the Ku Klux Klan," that startled the collapse. Disagreements in the high councils of the Cabinet followed when certain

Killed by a Song

members favoured opposition to “Al” Smith in his candidature for the United States Presidency, and there weTe many withdrawals when it was decided to spend large sums of money to provent. him reaching the Presidential chair.

The failure of tho campaign was the last straw, amt the comparatively few members left are no longer feared. Yet at one time the organisation was more dreaded than tho Russian Ogpu of the present day.

Anonymity was guaranteed to the Klansmen by a uniform consisting of white robes and a white cancHe t -cxtin iguisher cowl over the head. Tho raiders trooped off at the dead of night, to thrash, tar and feather or torture. persons against whom information had been laid. The Klan was formed in the bo.utn in the middle of last century. It is said the organisation was at one tune worth £20,000,000.