keeps its hold on power by suppressing, hiding or garbling the fundamental Christian revelation.

This is one of the reasons for the Klan's objection to parochial schools of any church. They very readily become mere agencies of propaganda. Another reason is that in many the teaching is in the hands of aliens, who cannot possibly understand Americanism or train Americans to citizenship. In many, even, the textbooks have been so perverted that Americanism is falsified, distorted and betrayed. The Klan would like to see all such schools closed. If they cannot be abolished, the Klan aims to bring them under control of the State, so as to eliminate these evils, insure religious volition, and enforce the teaching of true Americanism.

This, then, is the mental attitude, the purpose and the plan of the Klan today, and it is against this position of ours, and against nothing else, that charges of bigotry, narrowness, intolerance and prejudice can fairly be brought. Charges made on other grounds need not be discussed, but we of the Klan are prepared to admit that some of these charges are at least partly justified.

This does not mean merely that there are "bigots and fanatics" among us. There certainly are; we are weeding them out, but we have some left, and others will join in spite of our utmost care. The fault is serious but not fatal. Every such movement has them, as Roosevelt found when he dubbed the similar nuisances in his own movement "the lunatic fringe ".

Nor does this mean, either, an admission of the charges of those who deny to Americans the right-which every alien claims and uses-to speak his mind freely and criticize things about him. Jews or Catholics are lavish with their caustic criticism of anything American. Nothing is immune; our great men, our historic struggles and sacrifices, our customs and personal traits, our "Puritan consciences"-all have been scarified without mercy. Yet the least criticism of these same vitriolic critics or of their people brings howls of "anti-Semitic" or "anti-Catholic". We of the Klan pay no attention to those who argue with epithets only. They thereby admit their weakness. And we are still waiting for some one to try to answer us with facts and reasons. Aside from these things, however, we of the Klan admit that we are intolerant and narrow in a certain sense. We do not think our

intolerance is so serious as that of our enemies. It is not an intolerance that tries to prevent free speech or free assembly. The Klan has never broken up a meeting, nor tried to drive a speaker to cover, nor started a riot, nor attacked a procession or parade, nor murdered men for belonging to the Knights of Columbus or the B'nai B'rith.

And we deny that either bigotry or prejudice enters into our intolerance or our narrowness. We are intolerant of everything that strikes at the foundations of our race, our country or our freedom of worship. We are narrowly opposed to the use of anything alien-race, loyalty to any foreign power or to any religion whatever-as a means to win political power. We are prejudiced against any attempt to use the privileges and opportunities which aliens hold only through our generosity as levers to force us to change our civilization, to wrest from us control of our own country, to exploit us for the benefit of any foreign power-religious or secular-and especially to use America as a tool or cat's-paw for the advantage of any side in the hatreds and quarrels of the Old World. This is our intolerance; based on the sound instincts which have saved us many times from the follies of the intellectuals. We admit it. More and worse, we are proud of it.

(But this is all of our intolerance. We do not wish harm to any man, even to those we fight. We have no desire to abuse, enslave, exploit, or deny any legal, political or social right to any man of any religion, race or color. (We grant them full freedomexcept freedom to destroy our own freedom and ourselves.) In many ways we honor and respect them. Every race has many fine and admirable traits, each has made notable achievements. There is much for us to learn from each of them. But we do insist that we may learn what we choose, and what will best fit the peculiar genius of our own race, rather than have them choose our lessons for us, and then ram them down our throats.

The attitude of the Klan toward outsiders is derived logically from these beliefs. From all Americans except the racial and spiritual expatriates we expect eventual support. Of the expatriates nothing can be hoped. They are men without a country and proud of it,

The Negro, the Klan considers a special duty and problem of the white American. He is among us through no wish of his; we owe it to him and to ourselves to give him full protection and opportunity. But his limitations are evident; we will not permit him to gain sufficient power to control our civilization. Neither will we delude him with promises of social equality which we know can never be realized. The Klan looks forward to the day when the Negro problem will have been solved on some much saner basis than miscegenation, and when every State will enforce laws making any sex relations between a white and a colored person a crime.

For the alien in general we have sympathy, opportunity, justice, but no permanent welcome unless he becomes truly American. It is our duty to see that he has every chance for this, and we shall be glad to accept him if he does. We hold no rancor against him; his race, instincts, training, mentality and whole outlook of life are usually widely different from ours. We cannot blame him if he adheres to them and attempts to convert us to them, even by force. But we must see that he can never succeed.

The Jew is a more complex problem. His abilities are great, he contributes much to any country where he lives. This is particularly true of the Western Jew, those of the stocks we have known so long. (Their separation from us is more religious than racial. When freed from persecution these Jews have shown a tendency to disintegrate and amalgamate. We may hope that shortly, in the free atmosphere of America, Jews of this class will cease to be a problem. Quite different are the Eastern Jews of recent immigration, the Jews known as the Askhenasim. It is interesting to note that anthropologists now tell us that these are not true Jews, but only Judaized Mongols-Chazars. These, unlike the true Hebrew, show a divergence from the American type so great that there seems little hope of their assimilation.

(The most menacing and most difficult problem facing America today is this of the permanently unassimilable alien. The only solution so far offered is that of Dr. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard. After admitting that the melting pot has failed-thus supporting the primary position of the Klan!-he adds that there is no hope of creating here a single, homogeneous race-stock of

the kind necessary for national unity. He then suggests that, instead, there shall be a congeries of diverse peoples, living together in sweet harmony, and all working for the good of all and of the nation! This solution is on a par with the optimism which foisted the melting pot on us. Diverse races never have lived together in such harmony; race antipathies are too deep and strong. If such a state were possible, the nation would be too disunited for progress. One race always ruled, one always must, and there will be struggle and reprisals till the mastery is established-and bitterness afterwards. And, speaking for us Americans, we have come to realize that if all this could possibly be done, still within a few years we should be supplanted by the mere force of breeding" of the low standard peoples. We intend to see that the American stock remains supreme.

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This is a problem which must shortly engage the best American minds. We can neither expel, exterminate nor enslave these low-standard aliens, yet their continued presence on the present basis means our doom. Those who know the American character know that if the problem is not soon solved by wisdom, it will be solved by one of those cataclysmic outbursts which have so often disgraced and saved!-the race. Our attempt to find a sane solution is one of the best justifications of the Klan's existence.

Toward the Catholic as an individual the Klan has no "attitude" whatever. His religion is none of our business. But toward the Catholic Church as a political organization, and toward the individual Catholic who serves it as such, we have a definite intolerance. We are intolerant of the refusal of the Roman Church to accept equality in a democracy, and resent its attempts to use clerical power in our politics. We resent, too, the subservience of members who follow clerical commands in politics. We are intolerant, also, of the efforts of the Roman Church to prevent the assimilation of immigrant members. We demand that in politics and in education the Roman Church abandon its clutching after special and un-American privileges, and that it become content to depend for its strength on the truth of its teachings and the spiritual power of its leaders. Further than this we ask nothing. We admit that this is intolerant; we deny that it is either bigoted or unjust.

The Klan today, because of the position it has come to fill, is by far the strongest movement recorded for the defense and fulfillment of Americanism. It has a membership of millions, the support of millions more. If there be any truth in the statement that the voice of the people is the voice of God, then we hold a Divine commission. Our finances are sound as they have been for years; we permit no great accumulation, but have reduced our fees when we found them producing more than enough to carry on our crusade.

Our ritual is still incomplete. We have been too busy getting our army into shape and our crusade started, to perfect the higher degrees, but this is being done. Our first, and so far only largely used degree, inculcates and symbolizes loyalty to America, to Protestantism, to law and order and to the Klan. The second, just coming into use, emphasizes patriotism. The third will center around Protestantism, and the fourth and last around race pride, loyalty and responsibility. It may be added that members of other orders who have seen such ritualism as we already use, agree that it is unexcelled in solemnity, dignity and beauty.

One of the outstanding principles of the Klan is secrecy. We have been much criticized for it, and accused of cowardice, though how any sane person can allege cowardice against men who stood unarmed while rioters beat and shot them down, as Klansmen were beaten and shot at Carnegie and other places, we cannot understand. Our secrecy is, in fact, necessary for our protection so long as the bitter intolerance and fanatic persecution lasts. Until the Klan becomes strong in a community, individual members have often found themselves in danger of loss of work, business, property and even life. There is also the advantage in secrecy that it gives us greater driving force, since our enemies are handicapped in not knowing just what, where or how great is the strength we can exert.

Both these reasons for secrecy will grow less in time, but it can safely be predicted that the Klan will never officially abandon its secrecy. The mask, by the way, is not a part of our secrecy at all, but of our ritual, and can never be abandoned. The personal secrecy occasionally disappears, as the Klan gains strength,