Harold the Klansman

by George Alfred Brown

"He was only a sixteenth negro."

"I don't blame her then if she loved him."

"What! You don't mean to say that you would have had her marry a man with negro blood in his veins, do you?"

"Why not, if she loved him? Isn't love the greatest thing in the world?"

"Yes, love that is rightly directed, is the greatest thing in the world; but love that violates the great racial instincts, that runs counter to the experience of mankind, that does violence to the highest social standards—is love run wild and does not lead to the greatest good."

"I don't see that it would do any harm if the man was so white that the girl did not know it when she fell in love with him."

"It would violate the racial instincts within her as well as the social standards of the race. The white race, even if it desired to do so, could not absorb the negro race in the United States through intermarriage. There is an inevitable reversion to type. If you had a race seven-eighths white and one-eighth negro you would have a race that was essentially negro in its physical structure and racial tendencies."

"Ruth, I believe you must be getting ready to become a lecturer on the race question. Of course, I don't believe intermarriage would be a good thing for the country, but I don't think we should try to keep the negro down. I heard my father say last night that one objection he had to the Ku Klux Klan is that one of its purposes is to oppress the negro."

"The Klan advocates the supremacy of the white race. I do not understand that that means to oppress anyone that is a member of another race. I recently read a good article on 'The Necessity of Keeping the White Race Supreme in the Affairs of the World.' Anyone of average intelligence who would read that article would certainly believe that there is need of the white race presenting a solid front against the rising tide of the dark skinned races. This article stated that in insisting on the maintenance of white supremacy the Klan is insisting on the preservation and propagation of the ideals and institutions that experience has shown to be the best for the race. Democracy is born of the white race. It has found its greatest advocates among the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It has reached its greatest development in America. It was spread to Europe, dethroning kings, and is now making inroads into the caste system of Asia. The great mass of the dark skinned races are subservient to kings and emperors and are of such a temperament that autocratic governments have flourished among them, consequently we cannot trust our democratic institutions in their hands. He states that white men should rule in democracies because they have shown the greater capacity to govern themselves and establish democratic institutions. The American home is a home that is based on the love of one man for one woman and requires a freedom of choice in marriage which is seldom found among the dark races.

"Christianity was born of the white race and promoted by them, and while it is destined to become universal, yet if the institutions which support it should be controlled by pagan people the source of the supply of missionaries and Christian teachings would be destroyed.