The Klan Unmasked

by W. J. Simmons

The Catholic colony of Maryland, under the Calverts, was composed of a most excellent type of freedom-loving Englishmen. Cardinal Gibbons, who recently passed to his reward, was a fine example of this type. These people were seeking, as were so many others who then came to America, liberation from tyranny, bigotry, and intolerance. They brought with them a spirit not unlike that of the Cavaliers to the south of them, to whom their destiny was to be indissolubly linked by ties that remain unbroken to this day. These brave Catholic settlers in the wilderness, many of whom were people of refinement and education, invested themselves wholeheartedly in the early development of our country. No well-informed student of American history doubts that their large contributions to our American nation have seldom enough been sufficiently recognized.

Klankrest—Home Donated to William Joseph Simmons by Klansmen of the Nation "As a Token of Love and Esteem."

In the great battle of Long Island, in the summer of 1776, Washington stood upon an eminence and watched the Maryland brigade as it strove to cut its way through the encircling forces of the British. "Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose," he said, as he observed their desperate position. Later in the day, when he saw them fall, like the leaves of Autumn, he is said to have wept over the loss of the very elite of his army. Of such stuff as this were the Maryland Catholics in the American Revolution. The historian, John Fiske, describes that terrible and unhappy day (Battle of Long Island, 1776) as follows: "In this noble struggle, the highest honors were won by the brigade of Maryland men, commanded by Smallwood, and throughout the war we shall find this honorable distinction of Maryland for the personal gallantry of her troops fully sustained, until in the last pitched battle, at Eutaw Springs, we see them driving the finest infantry of England at the point of the bayonets."

Just a word more with reference to this sort of American Catholic. In the spring of 1921 a distinguished assembly of educators and savants, representing nearly every country, assembled with the University alumni to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the University of Virginia. The opening prayer of the first public meeting was offered by the Catholic Bishop of Richmond. In that invocation the Bishop returned thanks to Almighty God for that great deed of Thomas Jefferson which led to the separation of Church and State in Virginia.

To such Catholics as these all true Americans, whatever their religious beliefs, are bound by ties so indissoluble as to make perfect our fellowship in Americanism. It is to this section of Roman Catholic believers, no matter what their ancestry may be, that the Klan makes especial appeal for understanding and co-operation.

Catholic Maryland won for herself the high distinction of being among the three colonies which permitted and protected religious freedom. So we can acclaim the Catholic colonists as among the very first to realize the full meaning of Americanism, not only as to the outward things of government, but also as to the inner things of the human soul. It should not be forgotten, too, that these same advocates of political liberty and freedom of conscience were themselves grossly offended and injured for a time in their own colony by a period of Protestant oppression. American history is a strange, strange story. To understand our America of the present, and her problems, we must look deep into the records of the past. With an unbiased mind we must set ourselves to seek out the truth.

In the State of Maryland one still finds in remote hamlets the original Catholic edifices, with their sacred symbols, gracing the countryside. Wherever we find such an American Catholic church, the American public school is seen in the immediate vicinity. When the American Catholic in Maryland, or in any other state, goes to the ballot-box, he votes as an American citizen, not being under ecclesiastical control. We members of the Ku Klux Klan, positively insist upon making this distinction among Catholics. We ask, and who can say that we ask too much, that our whole Catholic population bring its American citizenship up to these high standards set by the original American Catholics. When this is done, we shall surely find the greatest pleasure in rendering to the Catholic Church that full measure of esteem which shall be its due.

During the past two generations great submerging waves of European immigrants have rolled in upon us. One wave brought with it loyalty to the German Kaiser and treason to America. Another wave threatened to smother our working people with the noxious poison of Bolshevism. Still another sought to make a bitter animosity toward England and the British Empire the main-spring of all its political and social activities in America. Is there anything remarkable, anything inexplicable, about the fact that millions of illiterate peasants from the more backward parts of Europe, if they happen to be Roman Catholics, should continue among us their backward European methods? The peasantry of Poland were, until the Great War, practically a serf population. Why deny the most evident facts? They are still, in general, verminous and insanitary, illiterate and stupid. The theory that they can quickly be made into Americans is the thought of a fool. The view that their church can conduct itself like the American Catholic church in Maryland is equally ridiculous.

This immigrant element has been misused in two ways. Its clergy has kept it ignorant of America by keeping its children out of our public schools; and it has been used in our elections as a mass vote by those who exercise control over its votes through the political power of the church.