Two striking illustrations of this point recall themselves to my mind. In one case a man who stood very high in the Johnson City Klan was talking with me about a public demonstration. He stated that he was not in favor of making any show of strength until the Klan had at least five hundred members, then he wanted to have everybody put on their robes, pile into automobiles and parade the streets. I called his attention to the provisions of the Code of Tennessee in reference to wearing masks in public.
“Oh, that’s all right,” he replied, “when we are fully organized the Klan will control the politics of this town. We will apply for a permit, and if we don’t get it, we will parade anyhow. Nobody will dare stop us.”
The other instance was a conversation I had with a man with whom I was most friendly. He was a younger man than the one just mentioned, but is considered a person of responsibility and good judgment. It happened that the largest restaurant in Johnson City is owned and operated by Greeks, and this man seemed to be especially hostile to foreigners. In discussing them one day he said to me:
“I don’t like to see these Greeks make such progress here. They are driving good Americans out of business. We’ve got twenty-eight robes in our lodge room, and I am in favor of getting a bunch some night, breaking open their restaurant and dumping all their fixtures and merchandise into the streets. That will serve as an object lesson that they are not wanted in Johnson City.”
Now, from my knowledge of that man I do not believe that he would deliberately violate the law. In fact, if I were sheriff of his county and wanted a real man to head a posse, I would call on this man and swear him in as a deputy. I doubt very much if he would even lead a mob of masked men to tear up a Greek restaurant, but the mob spirit was there, and it was put there because he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
The old Ku Klux Klan performed its functions, not so much by overt acts, as by creating the impression of what it could do and by inspiring terror in the minds of the people it desired to reach. It operated largely on the principle of suggestion. It soon began to appear to me that the modern movement began to plant evil suggestions in the minds of some of its members, almost from the time they became connected with the organization.
From the very first time that a Ku Klux organizer set foot in town, the Johnson City Staff had fearlessly and vigorously condemned the movement and advised its readers to have nothing to do with it. As the movement began to grow, many of the leading business men became Klansmen. They were nearly all advertisers in the local paper. The attacks on the Klan by the Staff were the subjects of many discussions, and it was decided to “put a muzzle on the paper.” Accordingly many advertisers quietly suggested to the publisher of the paper that he “lay off” the Ku Klux Klan. Whether this advice was accompanied by threats or by the actual withdrawal of business, I do not know, but I do know that the Staff suddenly “pulled in its horns” and remained muzzled up to the time I left the territory. This incident is cited to show the power of this ultra-secret system in effectively paralyzing the freedom of the press, and what has doubtless happened in other towns and cities where Ku Kluxism has thoroughly inoculated communities with its deadly poison.
While working among the different towns in my territory, we noticed in the papers occasionally a reference to some act of lawlessness or violence committed in other States by men disguised in white robes and masks. As the details, at the time, were very meager, and as the Atlanta headquarters denied that any of the members of the Ku Klux Klan were connected with them, the Klansmen in my field paid but little attention to these outrages. In fact, I, myself, did not believe that the organization could be guilty of committing such open and flagrant outrages, until I had a conversation with the King Kleagle some time around June 1, 1921. I had met him at Knoxville for the purpose of urging that the charters for three towns be immediately granted. He began talking about the work of the other Klans, and stated that in Houston, Texas, a young negro, charged with familiarity with white women, had been taken out into the country and mutilated. The King Kleagle said that this was done by the Houston Klan, which ran things its own way, as it had the mayor, the police force and practically all of the politicians.
During the months of May and the early part of June, 1921, while following a busy routine, I began studying the Ku Klux movement and going carefully into every detail that suggested itself. I had already become suspicious of the movement as a result of the apparent “one man power” of Simmons as exemplified in his scheme of employment of Kleagles; the questions that had been asked me had started a second line of investigation; and then a third cause of dissatisfaction arose from a feeling of disgust at the way in which the work was propagated. I jumped at no hasty conclusions in the matter, but a gradual feeling of revolt against the movement developed in my mind, which feeling I communicated to a few friends. I also asked several members of the organization, with whom I was intimately acquainted, what they thought of the organization, and I found that my own doubts and fears were shared by them. The leader of the Kingsport Klan was an out-and-out skeptic on the whole movement. Then again, from inquiries I had made as to the work in near-by towns outside my territory, I learned that Kleagles were selling memberships as they would sell insurance or stock.
Although I was supposed to canvass for members, I made it a rule, during my period of service as Kleagle, to do no soliciting whatever. My system was to establish a membership committee in each community in my territory and permit the committees to select their own material. This policy made the personnel in my territory very high, as each individual was elected to membership before he was invited to join the organization.