Ku Klux Klan

“ I appreciate all these heroes and martyrs, including Lincoln, who was vilified as no other American statesman ever was by that cruel and relentless power that organized the Ku Klux Klan after the war, and which is now seeking to revive that fanatical institution for the persecution of the Negro.
I am on the colored man’s side as against all those that are attempting to keep him in servitude. (Applause.) And I am glad that the colored people are exercising self-restraint and facing this persecution with intelligence, which is commanding more and more respect. ”

“ It seemed to be the intent of the orders of the Ku Klux Klan everywhere throughout the South, to impress upon the people, the fallacy of attempting to entertain any opinion inimical to those put forth by the Klan. The attacks of the Klan were first directed to such of the people as were bold enough to declare themselves unionists and republicans. Scourging, banishment or murder were the measures adopted to enforce silence, and these terrible agents proved fully potent to accomplish the end. ”

“ Those dark days of the Reconstruction period rapidly followed the horrors of civil war, and the reign of the carpetbagger began, goading the people to desperation. For their protection the younger and more reckless men of the community now formed a secret society, which masqueraded at night in grotesque and grewsome character called the Ku Klux Klan. ”

“ Whatever excuse the original Ku Klux Klan may have had for its existence, it is impossible to conceive any situation arising in this country at the present time that calls for any extra-judicial organization, functioning in secret, and composed of men wearing robes and masks to conceal their identities. ”

“ In the first place this Klan is not an institution of violence, lawlessness and cruelty; it is not lawless; it is not aggressive; it is not military; it is not revolutionary.
It is, essentially, originally and inherently a protective organization. It proposes to execute law instead of resisting it; and to protect all good men, whether white or black, from the outrages and atrocities of bad men of both colors, who have been for the past three years a terror to society, and an injury to us all.
The blacks seem to be impressed with the belief that this Klan is especially their enemy. ”

“ Since the Ku Klux Klan was organized night outrages in which masked men are involved have increased to a frequency not known in the United States since the years just following the Civil War, when the original Ku Klux Klan was active in the southern states against "carpet baggers" and Negroes. ”

“ And the Ku Klux Klan is a strictly Gentile organization. It is necessary to be a native born American Gentile who believes in the tenets of the Christian religion to become a member of the Ku Klux Klan, just as it is necessary to be a Jew in order to join the B'nai B'rith, a Roman Catholic to join the Knights of Columbus, or a negro to join the African Brotherhood. ”

“ Ku Klux Klan was a secret organization which terrorized the freed negroes and not seldom the “carpet-baggers” and northerners during the five or six years subsequent to the Civil War. Its origin may have been directly out of the old patrol kept in slave-holding days; but it was excused chiefly by the violence of some negroes, unused as they were to their newfound freedom. But the Klan did not limit itself to the original attempt at playing upon the superstitious fears of the negroes. ”

“ It was maintained that "This is a white man's government," and regardless of numbers the white man should rule. "No Negro domination" became the new legend on the sanguinary banner of the sunny South, and under it rode the Ku Klux Klan, the Regulators, and the lawless mobs, which for any cause chose to murder one man or a dozen as suited their purpose best. ”

“ The Negro Militia now organized in this State threatens the extinction of civilization. They have avowed their purpose to make war upon and exterminate the Ku Klux Klan, an organization which is now the sole guardian of Society. All negroes are hereby given forty-eight hours from the publication of this notice in their respective counties to surrender 328 their arms at the courthouse door. Those who refuse must take the consequences. ”

“ Federal recognition that the Invisible Empire, whether it was the original Klan or not, was everywhere a real empire came in the spring of 1871, when a senate committee presented majority and minority reports on the result of its investigations of the white man's will to rule against the freedmen's militia in the south.
The majority report found that the Ku-Klux Klan was a criminal conspiracy of a distinctly political nature against the laws and against the colored citizens. ”

“ Those who join the order must pledge blind allegiance to Constitution. They do not see.
Blind and unconditional obedience to the "constitution, laws, regulations usages and requirements" of the Ku Klux Klan, even to the extent of indorsing the principle of secret mob violence, is accepted by every person who takes the oath of Grand Wizard Simmons' Invisible Empire. ”

“ Cobb’s report is indeed very encouraging since it deals with the progress we are making in territory outside of the South. The red-blooded American men of the North and West are accepting the Ku Klux Klan as an American institution, because it is such, and because it [Pg 57] is the only one hundred per cent American organization in the whole United States. ”

“ The attempt of the Ku Klux Klan to enlist the police authorities in its organization and bind them with its vicious oath is the most serious count in the indictment against the system. The potentialities are far-reaching, and unless the organization is checked in that direction, the consequences must necessarily be grave. ”

“ But the white people of the South rallied at last, asserted their supremacy, and seized the reins of government. The famous Ku-Klux Klan was organized and spread terror among the negroes, by its sure and swift administration of punishment—just and unjust. ”

“ Every statement made at any time that we would deny this right to others than ourselves is an absolute and unmitigated falsehood. In conclusion, let me emphasize that the Ku Klux Klan conducts its activities not only within the law, but in active support of the law. Our general organization would not tolerate for a moment any illegal act on the part of any of our local organizations. The Klan has not been formed to express little hatreds but to study crucial problems and aid in the execution of large national policies. ”

“ As I shall show further on, in discussing the history and structure of the original Ku Klux Klan, there is absolutely no racial condition in the South or anywhere in America today that warrants the existence of such an organization. It is even worse than folly to make the religious element figure into questions touching a section where racial matters are always in the acute stage. ”

“ Be it further enacted, That in addition to the oath prescribed by the constitution and oath of office, every public officer shall swear that he has never been a member of the organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, or other disguised body of men contrary to the laws of the State, and that he has neither directly nor indirectly aided, encouraged, supported, or in any manner countenanced said organization. ”

“ His forceful protest maintained that any modification of the test oath as then administered, having the purpose to bring about a general removal of political disabilities, would effect the subjugation of the loyal men of the South to the disloyal. It would, moreover, appear to the Ku Klux Klan to be an indorsement of their campaign of lawlessness, depredation, and crime, fostered and abetted by the men whose political disabilities it was then being sought to remove. ”

“ This organization through its press agency has issued statement after statement that has been eagerly taken up by the few papers that openly advocate Ku Kluxism, and used as effective propaganda in securing more members.
An examination of the list of field workers of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan throughout the United States reveals the fact that strong propaganda work is being carried on in cities where there is a large negro population. ”

“ In 1870, as the military power of the United States weakened its control over the nation, forces of opposition arose to pull down to the depths the black man, who had been exalted by the agencies of military government. The Ku Klux Klan, headed by the Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire, and the Grand Dragon of the Realm, with malignant fanaticism worshipped the lost cause. ”

“ It was stated in a previous chapter that the secret organization known as the Ku Klux Klan was a political movement intended to offset what was known as the Loyal League, an order whose draft was taken from the negro population, but which was controlled by, and in the interest of, a class of political harpies known as carpet-baggers. ”

“ III. I pledge aid to a brother of the Ku Klux Klan in sickness, distress, or pecuniary embarrassments; females, friends, and widows, and their households shall be the special object of my care and devoted protection.
IV. Should I ever divulge, or cause to be divulged, any of the secrets of this order, or any of the foregoing obligations, I must meet with the fearful punishment of death and traitor's doom, which is death, death, death, at the hands of the brethren. [65]
I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Invisible Circle ”

“ I never had any experience with the Ku Klux Klan. I seen white men riding horses and my mother said they was Ku Kluxes, but they never bothered us as I remember. They had two sets of white folks like that. The patrollers were before and during the War and the Ku Klux Klan came after the War. I can't remember how the Ku Klux I saw were dressed. The patrollers I remember. They would just be three or four white men riding in bunches. ”

“ In each state the law would be enforced by legal officials against any persons guilty of crime if public spirited citizens would make it their business to assist public officials to round up law breakers. The Klan, however, believes in its own method of punishment against those whom it opposes. It protects its own members and there is no case on record where a Klansman has been outraged. The Klan has one law for itself and another for its victims. ”

“ The old Ku-Klux Klan was a historical development. The new is a man's contrivance. The old Ku-Klux Klan movement was an outcome of conditions that prevailed in the southern states after the war. The present Klan, apparently, is an outcome of a group of men's desire to make money. ”

“ Twenty-one years ago there was privately printed in Nashville, Tennessee, a little book by J.C. Lester and D.L. Wilson, that purported to be an account, from inside information, of the great secret order of Reconstruction days, known to the public as Ku Klux Klan. It attracted little notice then; and since that time it has not been given the attention it deserved as a historical document. [1] At the time of writing, sectional feeling was still inflamed; the Northern people were not ready to hear anything favorable about the Ku Klux Klan, which they considered a band of outlaws and murderers ”

“ On the one hand, it is asserted that the Ku Klux committed no outrages. On the other, that they were the authors of all the depredations committed by masked and disguised men in the Southern States from 1865 to 1869. The truth lies between these two extremes. Great outrages were committed by bands of disguised men during those years of lawlessness and oppression. And the fact must be admitted that some of these outrages were committed, if not by the order and approbation of the Klan, at least by men who were members of it. ”

“ It is evident also in the development of extra-governmental organizations committed to a programme of violence actuated by religious bigotry, race-hatred, or inflamed chauvinism, such as the Hackenkreutzers and Fascists abroad—for the spirit of intolerance is not confined to the United States—and the Ku Klux Klan in this country ”

“ With but few exceptions the entire American press agreed with my position in the matter by endorsing the World’s exposure, and a vast number of the most prominent men and women in America publicly expressed themselves as gratified over the action of the World in showing up the Ku Klux Klan. ”

“ He was proprietor of a thrifty plantation, upon which he employed a large number of hands, and stood well generally in the community.
These essential requisites to a good citizen were altogether insufficient, in the eyes of the Ku Klux Klan in that vicinity, to balance the bad points (in their esteem) which characterized him, inasmuch as he was a Radical in principle. ”