“I further charge that when in your printed literature you claim that your organization is the ‘genuine original Klan,’ this statement is a fraud historically and a fraud in principle. While you have—without any right whatever—appropriated to yourself the name, regalia, and certain nomenclature of the original Klan, your scheme is radically different in conception, in organization, and in purpose. A careful study, which I have made, of the Prescript of the original Klan and all available history and literature on the subject, reveals the fact that there is little, if anything, in common between the two organizations. Your false pretenses of ‘genuineness’ are therefore insults to the history, the traditions, and the entire record of the South.
“Ever since your scheme has been actively propagated, there has been a wave of crime in the Southern States, consisting to a large extent of ‘private regulations’ of the public peace, committed by men who have gone about their respective communities wearing disguises and taking into their own hands the functions of prosecuting attorney, witnesses, judge, jury and executioner, in direct contravention to the Bill of Rights of the Federal and State constitutions. Men have been dragged from their beds at night, forcibly abducted on the streets and in their homes, arrested without warrant on the public streets, conveyed to secluded places, there to be flogged, tarred and feathered. In two instances helpless women, after being stripped of their clothing, have been similarly maltreated. In nearly every reported case, the perpetrators of these acts of lawlessness have worn disguises, described as ‘masks and white robes,’ which description correspond convincingly with the official regalia of the ‘Invisible Empire.’ In three specific cases, acts of lawlessness have been so openly and flagrantly committed by members of the ‘Ku Klux Klan,’ that you have been compelled to take official cognizance. In these three instances where responsibility has been fixed, it was very evident that the illegal oath and the secret teachings of your ‘Invisible Empire’ were construed by your dupes as granting a license to engage in secret regulation of the peace by means of anonymous warnings, threats, intimidations, abduction, the whip, and the use of tar and feathers. Having studied your scheme, both from the inside and the outside, I have no doubt whatever that practically all of these reported outrages were committed by members of your organization. If it were proven, however, that your ‘citizens’ were not prima facie responsible, at the same time there exists a moral responsibility, because when one group of people is permitted to go about in disguise, it places the community at the mercy of any group which cares to adopt similar tactics.
“Everywhere the promoters of your scheme have gone, they have sought to enlist as ‘citizens’ the white, Gentile, Protestant public officials, especially those having in charge the enforcement of the law. No matter how capable, how efficient, and how conscientious a public official may be, if he chances to be a Jew or a Catholic, you not only do not want him, but your organization is now planning actively to cause all the Jews, Catholics, and foreign-born naturalized Americans in this country to be removed from public life. Aside from vicious politics, and in view of the fact that your oath is an accessory before the fact to mob violence, this tampering and meddling with the law-enforcing machinery of the country—under the alleged plea of ‘law and order’—is a direct blow at the entire legal machinery of the United States, a condition that, in its nature, approaches anarchy.
“At a time when peaceful relations are existing between the white and black races, you are disrupting the industrial conditions of the South, by your anti-negro propaganda and causing a state of unrest that can result only in dangerous and mischievous consequences. In your anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish propaganda, your organization is scattering broadcast over this country wicked, malicious, and inflammatory lies about American citizens of those religious beliefs, lies that brand your movement as being far more vicious than the insidious German propaganda in this country prior to our entrance into the recent war. You are publishing, for example, the statement that the Jews are seeking to promote a race war between white people and negroes, and the intimation that the Catholic Church was responsible for the murder of President Abraham Lincoln. In public statements, you and your paid speakers give expression to wordy, sanctimonious and high-sounding platitudes, while secretly your propagandists, in a sneaking and contemptible manner, are spreading poisonous and vicious lies they dare not give voice to in public.
“Your ‘Invisible Empire’ is furthermore a money-making scheme! You, yourself, an individual of little, if any, means prior to your becoming an ‘Emperor’ have so far received from ‘friends’ a $25,000 residence completely furnished! Your connection with the organization is either bringing you large sums of money at present, or the promise of the same in the future! You are allowed to appropriate to your own use all of the ten dollars “donated” by any person whose application you personally solicit! All of the rituals and other printed publications of your organization are copyrighted in your name, and it is presumable that you have either received royalties for their use or a cash consideration for their sale! Your organization has recently bought Lanier University, of which you have been made the head, and college presidents are usually paid salaries! While orders for robes at $6.50 are taken in your name, they are filled by the Gate City Manufacturing Company, at a substantial profit, and the public has not been informed as to the disposition of this huge amount of funds! The Searchlight Publishing Company, headed by your Imperial Kleagle is no doubt a big revenue producer! Your Imperial Kleagle is also the head of the Clarke Realty Company, in whose operations, I have no doubt you are also interested! These varied financial operations indicate to me that spreading religious and racial hatred is a lucrative business for you and your associates.
“Your whole ‘Invisible Empire’ is a cancer in the body politic! It is like some foul and loathsome thing that grows and flourishes in the dark, away from the sight of honest men and women. It was conceived in avarice, sired in ignorance, and dammed in greed. It is now being nurtured in cunning and false pretense, and fed upon an unholy lust for gold, by means of passion, hatred, and the prejudice of religious and racial fanaticism. And, day by day, with your oily assurance, you say that these devilish devices of discord are being developed in the name of ‘pure Americanism’! If this is your idea of America, you haven’t the slightest conception of what pure Americanism means!
“There is no place in America for an ‘Invisible Empire’ of hate and venom; and there is no provision in the laws of this country for an ‘Emperor’! The ‘Invisible Empire’ should be made visible! It should be held up to the light so that honest men can see its ugly structure and analyze its nefarious potentialities, and then, having seen this monstrosity, the people should demand of their legally constituted forces of government that Ku Kluxism and the Ku Klux Klan be outlawed and barred forever from operating in this free Republic.
Yours truly,
Henry P. Fry.”