WRONG WAY

Northern Advocate, 25 August 1924, Page 5

WRONG WAY

LAW ENFORCEMENT. MINORITY METHODS. I KU KLUX KLAN OPPOSED. (Received 10.20 a.m.) I NEW YORK, August 23. At Augusta, Maine, General Charles Dawes, Vice-Presidential nominee, in an address, declared that he was opposed to the Ku Klux Klan, although h.e realised that. many had become members in the interest of law and order. Appeals, to racial and religious class prejudices by minority organise tions were opposed to the welfare of all peaceful, civilised communities. He asserted that the Ku Klux Klan in many localities and among many people.: represented only an instinctive groping for leadership moving in the interest of law enforcement which they did not find in many cowardly politicians and office-holders, but it was not the right way to forward enforcement.

General Dawes recounted the effect of Klan activity in Oklahoma, where Governor Walton finally called out the militia. He was removed from office and quiet was restored by the orderly process provided by constitutional law. Attempts by the Klan to restore order after the Herrin massacre in Illinois had nearly brought civil war and in the sanguinary murders in Chicago where the Black Hand prevented conviction by the intimidation of witnesses. The same thing always happened when minority organisations took the law into their own hands.—Eeuter.