The Modern Ku Klux Klan

by Henry P. Fry

Rowland Thomas, appearing in behalf of the New York World, was the first witness examined. He placed before the committee the entire facts that had been collected by the paper, showing specifically that the Ku Klux organization in some portions of the country had been guilty of circulating anti-religious and anti-racial propaganda; that in some cases acts of violence had been admitted by the local Klans; and that the proposition was in all essentials a money-making scheme. Covering every phase of the system, Mr. Thomas concluded his statement as follows:

“We found also that they boasted or declared that they were setting up an invisible empire here in the United States. We found that their chief man had taken the title of emperor and that he issued imperial and secret decrees from an imperial palace. We found also, having secured a copy of their oath, that every man who joined this order pledged himself to obey without question all the instructions of the emperor, who had been elected for life. We found that severe penalties were threatened to him if he failed ever in obedience. We found that part of this oath was a pledge of impenetrable secrecy surrounding all the doings of the Klan. We found that each member promised to keep at all costs, even that of life, in the face of any coercion, persecution, or punishment, all secrets of the Klan and all knowledge of the Klan committed to him, with only four exceptions. He was not obliged to keep to himself a violation of the oath of the Klan, treason against the United States of America, malicious murder, and rape. Those four secrets, apparently, he could give up to other persons, three of them the crimes, supposedly, he was at liberty to reveal to peace officers and judicial officers of the United States Government. All others, as far as the phraseology of the oath can be read, he was to keep to himself. They belong to the Klan and to the invisible empire and not to the United States of America.

“We found them boasting that they had succeeded in securing as members bound by this oath and made citizens in this invisible empire many men who are also officials of the visible, constituted Government of the United States.

“‘Emperor’ Simmons more than once made statements that Members of the Congress of the United States—both Representatives and Senators—belonged to his invisible empire, and therefore were under his imperial orders. He boasted that governors, mayors, and other administrative officers, members of city councils, were citizens of this invisible government, and that sheriffs, policemen, police chiefs were citizens of the invisible empire and that judges on the bench were members of it.

“The statement has been made publicly in print that it amused a Klansman when he read in the press that a judge had charged a grand jury to investigate the Klan, because all Klansmen knew that a substantial part of the membership of that grand jury would be Klansmen; that the judge was a joke in making such a suggestion of investigation.”

C. Anderson Wright, who had formerly been a King Kleagle, was also examined and verified in many instances the facts that had been presented by the World, although his testimony in some respects lost its value by exaggeration of financial estimates of the Imperial Palace. He assisted, however, in verifying the fact that the Atlanta organization had never undertaken any charitable or public work, and appeared to be more of a financial scheme for the benefit of the insiders of the movement.

Post-Office Inspector O. B. Williamson furnished the committee facts and figures relating to the financial and business side of the organization. Mr. Williamson had been to Atlanta, talked with Clarke and Mrs. Tyler, and had gone through the books of the Klan. Among the first bubbles to burst was that of the purchase of Simmons $25,000 home on Atlanta’s fashionable Peachtree Street. It had been claimed by Simmons & Company that this home had been presented the “Emperor” by admiring members of the Klan, the money constituting the purchase price having been “donated” in small amounts ranging from twenty-five cents to one dollar. According to the real facts, Mr. Williamson showed the arrangements for payments to have been as follows:

“Ten thousand dollars was paid in cash, and one note maturing October 15, 1921, was given for $15,500. The deed was made in the name of E. Y. Clarke. The ten thousand dollar cash payment consisted of $1000 secured by subscription from Klansmen, $5000 from the Klan treasury, and $5000 advanced by Clark and Mrs. Tyler.”

It appeared from a statement of E. Y. Clarke, quoted by Mr. Williamson, that this use of Klan funds for private purposes was part of a press-agent scheme to add to the dignity and apparently high standing of Simmons, as the latter was living in an unpretentious part of the city in a house not in keeping with his important position as “Emperor,” and it was “therefore in the interest of the Klan to put him in a better home and one that would reflect credit on the organization.”

Mr. Williamson also showed how Klan funds were diverted for private purposes in the purchase of Lanier University, introducing a statement of Clarke as follows: