“Oh, of course,” began Robert, “our chief purpose is to preserve the white race—”
“Preserve! You mean pickle it! Kill it and pickle it in embalming fluid! So you’re going to preserve it by splitting it up. In ’67 we tried to preserve it from the unruly blacks and the renegade whites. If you’d been there, young man, you’d of known how important it was to have the best of the white element united—instead of dividing it along religious lines.”
Robert attempted to point out the need of having a homogeneous organization of native-born, white Protestants to carry on these ideals, but the old man swore that “there had been Protestant, white-born native sons of Belial among the scalawags.”
“There’s no race or creed that’s got a monopoly on all the scoundrels. And I notice you slipped in a new one about native-born. That, sir, is an insult! I’m Scotch born! Came over as a boy of six—but that excludes me, too, me a member of the first Klan. Why, Jesus Christ himself couldn’t have gotten into your Tribe, according to the revised rules, because: First, he was a foreigner, and, second, because he was a Jew.”
Robert was becoming angry. If he wasn’t so old a man and so vehement, one could argue with him, but when Robert thought of something to say, he interrupted. He had been more than picturesquely profane. He had been positively sacrilegious. It would have been a feather in Robert’s hat to have obtained the membership of one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan—but he wasn’t eligible, anyway. He had never known the Scotch to be so vehement. He talked like an excited Irishman. Robert would not tolerate it any more. He got up and walked back to the smoking car.
XXIX
Robert went over his propaganda material. There was no time to read all of it carefully, but enough to give him a clearer idea of the Tribe’s purpose and to present, in more clear-cut fashion, arguments for joining it. Its objects had not appeared very plain. At the initiation, in Griffith’s office, in talking with Lister, there seemed to be a simple enough mission—Americanism, supremacy of the white race, the maintenance of law and order, the avoidance of unnecessary strikes, the protection of womanhood. Yes, undoubtedly all this was a glorious task. But when one came to analyze these general propositions their meaning became vaguer. It was like founding a society to uphold the Constitution. In 1787, before it was certain whether a nationalistic sentiment would crystallize, there might be some meaning in founding such a society. But no one would think of forming such an association now. And then Robert remembered that upholding the Constitution was part of the Tribe’s creed. It was like establishing an organization to uphold the foundation of our government. It was like forming a government—only a secret government—within a government.
Once, in his senior year at prep school, Robert had attempted to become a debater. He joined a debating society and was assigned to a team which was defending the merits of a certain plank in the platform of the Bull Moose party against a similar plank of the Democratic party platform. He had entered the preparation of the arguments full of enthusiasm. The Progressive platform was so much broader, so much more constructive. Then, on the night of the debate, his enthusiasm had suddenly vanished. He had forgotten his arguments, or rather they seemed petty. Each party was trying to solve the same problem. There was merely a slight difference in the phrasing. Each party had tried to word it as broadly as possible without committing itself too definitely. Robert had rattled off the words he had memorized, sat down in confusion for a moment and then walked out without waiting for the verdict, which was, of course, against him. That had ended his career as a debater. He had long forgotten what the plank was—the handling of the trust problem, relations between labor and capital, or what; but the sense of mortification, mingled with one of his superiority to persons who spent their time in trying to prove things, remained.
The Tribe, he knew, was definitely opposed to the entry of the Knights of Columbus in politics. Fair enough. He was happy to be in that fight. But some of the questions on the “Do You Know That” card seemed to be beside the mark. They aimed at Catholics en masse, just like the debaters at prep school had aimed questions and set traps for their opponents, not to clarify the issue, but to win. Granted that no religious organization ought to enter American politics, why denounce the Catholics because the Pope is enthroned and crowned, sends and receives ambassadors and has 116 “princes” (bishops and higher ecclesiastical officers presumably), in the United States? That was begging the question. That was accusing the Catholics of being Catholics, condemning them because of the organization of their church. There was no proof that the 116 papal princes had the remotest connection with American politics. The suggestion was conveyed, of course, by innuendo. Then there was a statement that the Knights of Columbus had been the only sectarian or fraternal body permitted to do war relief work in the army and navy. That was a plain mis-statement. Any soldier knew better than that. There were the Y. M. C. A. and Salvation Army. And didn’t the Jews and the Lutherans have some sort of organization? Yes, he was sure of it. If the Y. M. C. A. and the Salvation Army were not considered sectarian or fraternal organizations, then that was only getting back to a debating society quibble on words. Well, when he got to Chicago, he would talk it over with the man in charge of the Dearborn Statistical Bureau. Together they would work out a better, yes, a fairer, set of cards and circulars, some that actually pointed out the menace of the Knights of Columbus in politics.
So far Robert had been fairly successful. At least five of his fellow passengers had expressed a desire to join. He had their names and addresses and would have cards sent to them, one every week or so, so that it would not seem that they were being rushed. One of the converts had handed Robert a copy of a violently anti-Catholic publication with a chuckle.