According to its “Emperor” it not only has a program, but at the proper time it will put it forth. He made a statement which was printed in the Searchlight on July 2, 1921:
“I am not at all surprised, at the progress of the work, but of course gratified. I have never for one moment doubted that if God gave me strength and ‘men’ with which to lay before America the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, that it would sweep the nation as nothing of the kind has ever done.
“The Ku Klux Klan has not started to work. The enemies of the organization have been howling and back-biting and snapping at everything they could see or hear, and lying slanders have been spread broadcast about the organization and leaders and proposed work and present activity.
“For the edification of those who do not know allow me to say that the Ku Klux Klan have not yet started to work and may not do so for a year. We are merely organizing at the present time and we do not intend to start any definite activity until we have sufficiently organized to make sure success.
“To those who love fireworks—rhetorical and otherwise—allow me to suggest that they wait quietly until the Ku Klux Klan passes through its organizing period and actually starts work. The attacks that have so far been launched will appear significant when the atmosphere becomes surcharged with the shrieks of the enemies of law and order, constitutional principles, and real Americanism, as these forces feel the tightening grip of the Klan around them and they come to the realization that they are whipped.
“It will be then, and not till then, that the real anathemas will be hurled at the organization and its leaders, but it will have as little weight and do as little harm as all the lies that have been spread broadcast up to the present time.
“And those who have deliberately maligned and slandered us are going to wake some day to a very unpleasant situation. We are keeping records and making plans. The day of our activity has not arrived.”
This intemperate language of Simmons was even exceeded at a meeting held on the night of August 25, 1921, in Philadelphia, which was reported in a press telegram as follows:
“A narrow pathway leading to a woodland glade, and every fifty feet a masked and white-robed sentinel. Within the little clearing an altar, and beside it the banner of the nation with the night wind rustling through the folds. Formed in hollow square around the glade rank on rank of masked spectres. A deep voice echoing through the darkness.
“‘Imperial One, the men who seek admission to our legions stand prepared!’