BLACK LEGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22428, 26 May 1936, Page 9

BLACK LEGION

AMERICAN TERRORISTS MURDER RITUAL PRACTISED DETROIT. May 24 The Detroit police have exposed a strange masked and hooded organisation known as the "Black Legion," the leaders of which are charged with practising ritual murder. On May 13 Charles Poole, a young worker on a Federal relief project, was found shot near a suburban road. The organisation, apparently follows the principles of the Ku Klux Klan in attempting to enforce morality through "vigilante" tactics. Investigations bv the police have brought to light almost incredible details of its methods of operation and the extent of its activities. It is announced that at least 16 members of the hooded organisation will be indicted for the murder of Poole who, it is alleged, was killed because he was a Roman Catholic and because he had learned -about the organisation's ritual. His widow denied an allegation that he had. ill-treated her. ' Since the publicity given to the Poole case, scores of people have reported to the police that they have been threatened with death or otherwise intimidated. It is believed that numbers of murders may have been committed by members of the Black Legion. Furthermore, the police believe that the organisation is a direct offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan which terrorised parts of the United States ten years ago. The regalia and ritual closely resemble those of the Klansmen. The police believe there are at least 10,000 members of the organisation in Detroit and perhaps thousands more in other parts of the country. Like the Ku Klux Klan, the programme of the organisation is directed against Roman Catholics, Jews and negroes, and it appears to pursue this policy even more vigorously than did the Klan.