The Modern Ku Klux Klan

by Henry P. Fry

The “Emperor” was on the stand for three days and his testimony before the committee with its accompanying exhibits fill over a hundred printed pages of the record of the proceedings. Analyzing his statements, I should say that in many respects he was an excellent witness who verified completely the charges made against his organization by the New York World and myself.

Denouncing me for repudiating my oath of allegiance to his “Invisible Empire” by exposing its secrets, he proceeded to go much farther than I had done, by turning over to the committee his ritual, oath and many other documents to which I had never had access.

His testimony can be classed partly as confession and avoidance; partly as denial of facts that were clearly proven by the World; partly as attempted cheap wit that had no element of humor whatever in it; considerable denunciation of the World and of myself; many wild and erratic statements without foundation of fact; and a great deal of praise both for himself and for the organization he represented.

Among his denials, for example, he stated that Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler had no connection with the organization except as an assistant of Clarke in his publicity work. This statement was made in the face of the fact that less than thirty days previously he had issued a “ukase” making the Queen of South Pryor Street his “Grand Chief of Staff.” He denied that the Klan at Beaumont, Tex., had perpetrated the outrages against Doctor Paul, when it had been proven under the official seal of that Klan that it had maltreated Paul. He denied responsibility in the Pensacola and Mobile cases, in spite of the fact that he had taken official action himself. He denied that he had given the interview to the Searchlight previously mentioned, in which he predicted direful things would happen to the enemies of the Klan. These are merely a few denials of previously established facts, facts so well established that any jury in the country would accept them.

He was particularly bitter against the World, and lost no opportunity of denouncing it. Included in some of his choicest attacks on the paper were the following:

“The attacks against the Klan were originated and started by the New York World, which is owned or controlled by a Jew, Mr. Pulitzer, whose main purpose is circulation and revenue. The circulation manager of this paper stated to one of the newspaper trade publications, the editor and publisher of New York which published this statement, that the Ku Klux attacks had added a hundred thousand circulation to the World and additional advertising.

“The World, according to their own statement, spent over four months, with unlimited resources at their command, in an investigation of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, using trained investigators, newspaper men, and covering every section of the country. In the face of this careful investigation the World has not been able to prove anything detrimental to the Klan except their own colored views of unfounded rumor and expressing the attitude of its Jewish ownership.

“The World saw that the Klan was the fastest growing purely Protestant, non-political organization in the United States. The World knew that when you strike at a man’s religious and fraternal organizations you are striking at the very fiber of his being and that then all political affiliations and party lines are forgotten.

“The World is the stronghold of the Democratic newspapers and the Democratic Party, and it has been said by those in a position to know that if the World could, by shrewd propaganda and untruthful slanders, force a Republican Congress and administration to throttle or destroy a purely local American Protestant fraternal organization, as is the Ku Klux Klan, that its hundreds of thousands of members, friends, and those who think as does the Klan, would at the polls three years from now forget party lines and preference and vote the Democratic ticket.

“I wish to notify the chairman of this committee that there are plans on foot at the present time whereby one of the representatives of the New York World is to be tarred and feathered in the name of the Klan, and that this plan has been originated and its details worked out by representatives of the New York World so that it will appear that the Klan did this in a spirit of revenge. Furthermore, through this plan the World hopes to be able to secure additional circulation and advertising for their paper in keeping alive this matter. The congressional investigating committee that I want to investigate the Klan will receive the sworn proof of this plan of the representatives of the World to further try to discredit or harm the Klan.”