THE KU KLUX KLAN A PARADOX

BY REV. DR. JOSEPH SILVERMAN

Rabbi Emeritus, Temple Emanu-El, New York

In his address at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Lincoln declared "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

The Ku Klux Klan, existing in these United States in this year 1926, and which has for the past six or seven years been clandestinely conducting its nefarious practices, was organized in contravention of the great principle so succinctly, justly and eloquently pronounced by Abraham Lincoln. The Ku Klux Klan, established ostensibly in the name of and in behalf of the American people, is in reality an invisible government of a self-appointed clique, by that clique, and for that clique. To be explicit, the Klan assumes the authority to proclaim that this Republic shall be a government of, by and for White Protestant Americans. So constituted, the Klan becomes a paradox in American life.

Government has been defined as the authoritative administration of the affairs of a city, State, or nation. In a democracy, such as these United States resolved to create, the authority of Government can come only from the consent of the people, who first freely elect their representatives to devise laws and then also freely elect the proper persons to execute said laws. Government thus becomes the legally organized will of the people.

During the one hundred and fifty years that this American Republic has existed, those sound principles of our Federal Constitution have seldom been seriously questioned. In 1852 occurred a rift in the lute, when, in consequence of an unprecedented increase in immigrants, alarm seized hold of some of the people lest the American-born element of the country be overwhelmed by aliens. A secret political party, popularly known as the "Know Nothing Party," was organized in several States upon a platform that America should be reserved for American-born citi

zens.

The avowed purpose was to discriminate against aliens holding office; but the real objective was the elimination of Catholics from political affairs in order to prevent the Catholic Church from gaining any strong influence or foothold in this country. The movement was not popular and burned itself out within three years. It was not popular because it was conceived in a prejudice that ran counter to the sense of fair play and justice of the average American and to the spirit of the Constitution.

The first real test of the United States in upholding the authority of a duly constituted representative government came with the Civil War in 1861, brought about by the secession of seven Southern States in defiance of the Constitution. The Republic stood the test. Of thirty-four States, twenty-three remained loyal to the Union and the Constitution, and only eleven, all of them slave States, seceded. It was not the army alone; it was the might of right, the invincible force of a government of law, that led to a great victory for the Republic.

And this victory for the preservation of the Union and the majesty of the law was coupled with the emancipation of the slaves, as a war measure, by proclamation of President Lincoln.

The rebellion was ended, but the rebellious spirit was still alive, and soon after the war, in 1866, manifested itself in a secret organization called the Ku Klux Klan, whose ostensible purpose was to uphold the Constitution, but whose hidden sinister design was to hamper the progress of the freed slave, to nullify his emancipation, deprive him of suffrage, and to weaken him and his supporters by intimidation, violence and assasination. This organized conspiracy became an imperium in imperio, defied all law and legal authority, acted as an invisible super-government, first to control elections and then the office-holders. Its excesses of brutality and murder outraged the finer feelings of the nation, and led to the calling of the troops and the enforced dismemberment of the Klan in 1869. Again the words of Lincoln came true "that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

For fifty years the octopus of rebellion was dead, or at least so quiescent as not to manifest any evidence of vitality. Within the last few years, however, it has again lifted up its ferocious head.

The hooded knights of the white kimono have reappeared after their death-like sleep of a half century; they stalk again through the land in their spectral disguises; they hold mysterious conclaves; ride forth like brigands in their nocturnal raids; burn their fiery crosses; resort to slander, boycott, flogging, torture and even murder, in order to frighten the unwary, strike terror into the superstitious, and wage a guerrilla warfare against the Constitution, against city, State and national authorities, as well as against those elements of the American people whom it is their declared policy to deprive of citizenship, even of peaceful residence, in these United States.

Can sedition be more atrocious? Here we have a recrudescence of the Ku Klux Klan of 1866-1869, under the same name and standard, but with larger numbers, spread over a wider territory, greater in impudence, more sinister in motives, more bestial in conception of vicious methods, more pernicious in corruption, and more deadly in execution of their illegal, immoral, irreligious and un-American designs against innocent and unoffending citizens and residents of this Republic.

The Klan of today is more reprehensible than that of a half century ago, because then there existed in the South the frenzy of a bitter civil war, the anguish of an ignominious defeat, the resentment over Lincoln's sudden emancipation of the Negro, chagrin at the new status of freed slaves become equals, with the possibility, through franchise, of becoming superiors. Americans, though not sympathizing with, at least can understand the attitude of disappointed, defeated and enraged slaveholders, endeavoring to salvage something from the effects of the war by neutralizing or weakening the power of the freed slaves. But today, more than fifty years after the war; today, when it is acknowledged that the South, as well as the whole country, has been benefited by the abolition of slavery; today, when the Negro is an integral part of this American nation, when he has actually made good and taken his place in the industrial, educational, cultural, religious and political life of the people, what excuse, what scintilla of justification can there be for the reconstruction of such a barbarous machinery, as is presented by the Ku Klux Klan, for forcibly wresting from our colored fellow citizens their inalienable rights under the

Constitution to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness? None whatsoever. Not only is there no justification for such a prostitution of Americanism to the vilest of purposes; there can only be on the part of intelligent and liberal minded Americans abhorrence and disgust for and condemnation of any and every attempt to array the white people against our respected colored population.

It should be the policy of all true Americans to discourage rather than foment race prejudice; to discountenance all ill feeling between the white and black races.

On what plea can the Ku Kluxer continue to engender animosity against the Negro in this country? On the ground that the Negro is inferior in race? If so, why should the superior Ku Kluxer be so exercised about the presence of an inferior people? If the white man is the better man, he is in no danger of being injured or supplanted by a lower species. Does the Klan perhaps fear the vote of the colored citizens? That vote has not proved to be formidable, nor is it confined exclusively to any one party. Or is the Klan so clannish that it cannot tolerate the proximity of the colored race, even when segregation, voluntary or enforced, creates barriers that are almost impassable? It behooves the American to be tolerant of that race which some of his own forefathers brought to this country from Africa and enslaved for several hundred years. Let the American be tolerant and repentant and, above all, let him be kind to a people that only asks to be permitted to work out its own salvation in peace under the protection of the Stars and Stripes. And it must be said in all justice to the great majority of real Americans, that they have no grievance against the colored population, that they are in sympathy with the Negroes' strenuous efforts to dig themselves out of the slough of slavery and, under freedom, to emancipate themselves both physically and spiritually from the ill effects of the enforced bondage that was for many years their undeserved and unhappy lot.

The Ku Kluxer by unjust, bigoted, almost superstitious opposition to our colored citizens, proves himself to belong to an inferior class of the Homo sapiens; convicts himself of being unworthy of the great privileges and rights of American Citizenship.

The head and front of the offending on the part of this underground conspiracy are directed, not only against Negroes, but also against Catholics, Jews and aliens, the fixed policy of the organization being based on the "Know Nothing" principle of "America for Americans only", with the modification that America shall be restricted to a citizenry of white Protestants. The Klan also maintains that all other people in America shall only be tolerated, shall be deprived of the right of suffrage and of holding office, and that all further immigration shall be entirely cut off.

On the Klan's efforts for further restricting immigration, or cutting it off altogether, I shall here offer no extended criticism. Immigration comes under the political and economical policies of a country, and its regulation is subject to fluctuating internal conditions. Restriction of immigration, even when justified, may sometimes work injustice to certain classes of foreigners who seek entrance into our shores. The immigration phase of the Klan's policy is, however, to be censured because it is not coupled with a national political or economic policy, but is part of the Klan's general scheme for placing this country under the control of white Protestants. We resent the reasons and the motives for the Klan's restrictive measures because they are not associated with the best interests of the Nation.

It is not difficult to infer that the programme of the Ku Klux Klan includes religious propaganda for the purpose of repressing and oppressing members of the Catholic and Jewish faiths. Indications have already been given in no uncertain terms by local sections that the plan is to Christianize America, to Christianize the public schools, to elect only white Protestants to office —that is, to enforce everywhere the teachings and the practices of the Protestant Church and to place the Government under the control of that branch of Christianity.

This is, in truth, an ambitious programme, and it is well that the country is aware thereof, for to be forewarned, in this respect, is certainly to be forearmed. The Klan had deserved condemnation and punishment for its political and other secret machinations against the Negro, for instigating racial prejudice; and now that it has entered upon a religious crusade against Jews and