“I shall at any and all times be faithful and true in all things, and most especially in preventing and suppressing any factions, cisms or conspiracies against him or his plans and purposes for the peace and harmony of the Society which may arise or attempt to rise. I shall discourage and strenuously oppose any degree of disloyalty or disrespect on the part of myself or any klansman, anywhere and at any time or place, towards him as the founder and as the supreme chief governing head of the Society above named.
“This pledge, promise and guarantee I make as a condition precedent to my appointment stated above, and the continuity of my appointment as a Kleagle, and it is fully agreed that any deviation by me from this pledge will instantly automatically cancel and completely void my appointment together with all its prerogatives, my membership in the Society, and I shall forfeit all remunerations which may be then due me.
“I make this solemn pledge on my Oath of Allegiance and on my integrity and honor as a man and as a klansman, with serious purpose to keep same inviolate.”
It will be noted in studying the foregoing document that the pledge is not to the organization, but to William Joseph Simmons.
In addition to this “pledge of loyalty” to “Emperor” Simmons, I was also required to sign an application for an indemnity bond, which was an agreement, not to indemnify the organization from loss, but to indemnify William J. Simmons in the sum of one thousand dollars. The application for employment, which in my case, was made after I was employed, was also directed to the “Emperor.”
CHAPTER III
My Withdrawal
It is doubtful if one could find anywhere in the country a finer, cleaner or better lot of men than those among whom I worked as an agent of Ku Kluxism. As individuals they were successful business and professional men, nearly all of them devout church members, married men with families, and just the sort of men to make up a prosperous community; yet, in spite of all this it seemed to me that the protection afforded by membership in an ultra secret movement like the “Invisible Empire” tended to inculcate lawlessness even among some of them. There is but little original law-breaking in this world. Most of it is due to precedent or suggestion. The power of suggestion is one of the most potent factors in every phase of human activity, and I believe that the mere fact of being a member of an organization that can go abroad in the land white-robed and masked is a suggestive force that encourages men to take the law into their own hands.