The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1924. THE STATE’S, AUTHORITY.

Southland Times, Issue 19332, 26 August 1924, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1924. THE STATE’S, AUTHORITY.

In condemning the activities of the Ku Klux Klan, Mr Charles G. Dawes, the Republican candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the United States, is attacking an organisation which evidently leans more in the direction of the Democrats than toward the party he represents; but the arguments he advances are based on the sound principle that good government is impossible where there exists within the State any organised body which takes the law into its own hands. An appeal to racial, religious, or class prejudice is always to be condemned, but when it is supported by the application of force it becomes dangerous, because it is, in effect, an incipient revolution. Where Democratic government exists the use of physical force, directly or by threat, is a defiance of the State’s authority which must make sooner or later for the advance of disruptive influences. In Italy the Fascisti revolt may have been excused by the need for an active counter to the “Red” organisations in the country; but it is impossible to overlook the fact that Signor Mussolini, after gaining power through the use of force has been able to maintain himself only through legislative jugglery which makes the Italian Parliament the very negative of democratic representation. While Signor Mussolini is able to control the Fascisti and he is in power at the head of the Government some semblance of order may be maintained, but the system is a tryanny and unless there is a return to true democratic methods the end of the tryanny in a revival of force is always imminent. In Russia the position is no different, and it is astonishing that in Italy, in Spain and in Russia, political forces differing so widely in aims, should have employed similar methods for th’e attainment of their ends. The Fascisti developed as a force which challenged the State by taking the law into its own hands, and the Bolsheviks did the same thing. In the United States the Ku Klux Klan, which first was taken lightly, has been working along similar lines and already its power has been seen in the Democratic conference. So far the organisation has not been unified in its ideals. In some States, the Klan is engaged in terrorising the negroes, in others it operates against bootleggers, while in others it takes a hand in religious or social squabbles, setting the law at defiance when it wishes. The dangers of these methods can be seen when the utterances of the “Red” extremists are considered. In London one speaker at the Red International of Trade Unions boldly declared that if the workers wanted anything they could get it only by the use of “massed brute force.” The implication here is obvious, but what can be said against this doctrine by any community which encourages by applause or tolerates in silence the lawlessness, however benign it may appear, of the Fascisti or the Ku Klux Klan. Today, the urgent need in democratic communities is the maintenance of democratic methods of representation, and a sturdy condemnation of any movement to challenge the State’s authority by the use of force. This requisite for the maintenance of orderly government magnifies the importance of electoral reform in order that the people as a whole may secure representation without artificial impediment. Any system which puts obstacles in the way of the free expression of the people’s will and aims at the aggrandisement of a section is unsound and must lead to disorder. Mr Dawes is attacking the Democratic Party sharply, and possibly party advantage is his immediate concern, but the arguments he uses should be carefully considered, because they take their rise in the fundamentals of democratic rule.