The phrase "Invisible Empire" means that the Ku Klux Klan undertakes to establish and maintain a nation-wide organization in the thought of our people. It plans a conquest only in the realm of the invisible where men do their thinking. The mentality of the American people is to be awakened, stimulated, and directed. It means the sovereignty of Americanism, of the democratic idea, in every American mind. We plan no system of coercion or outside pressure by which the American people are to be forced into this "Invisible Empire." I may modestly, and not irreverently, say that the idea underlying the establishment of the Klan and its principles in America was taken from one of the leaders in the early Christian Church, who said that the propagation of Christianity was without force, noise, or violence, without army or treasury, but that the Great Leader had established an everlasting kingdom by taking captive the thoughts of men. So the Klan holds that anything constructed by force may be destroyed by a superior force. Anything impressed upon unwilling subjects by outside effort may be rejected and thrown off in the springtime of returning power. Anything and everything that is established by such exercise of force is marked and destined for decay and return to the dust. But that which is once established in the deeper thought, from the spiritual need, of mankind is indestructible because there is no manner of force that can lay hold of it. Alexander said, "Philip, my father, gave me life, but Aristotle taught me to think." It is not the blood of Philip, through Alexander, that pulses in the arteries of the world's civilization of to-day; but it is rather the thought of Aristotle, which, despite all the Alexanders of history, runs through the story of the world's civilization in all the lands and all the centuries. It is the idea possessing the spirit which vitalizes all our basic institutions and movements toward human freedom which animate the noblest endeavors of human life. It is in the thought of the American people that the Ku Klux Klan undertakes to establish its "Invisible Empire," mighty in its ultimate consummations, indestructible and glorious forever.
Symbolism of The Klan
Much ado has been made about the strange symbolism of the Klan. I stated at the beginning that the regalia now in use by the organization, like the terminology, was selected as a memorial to the original Ku Klux Klan. It has been generally regarded as grotesque and ghostly, designed to intimidate and terrify persons against whom the displeasure of the Klan might be directed. But the only purpose in adopting the white robes and incidental trimmings was to keep in grateful remembrance the intrepid men who preserved Anglo-Saxon supremacy in the South during the perilous period of Reconstruction.
The regalia of the Klan, however, expresses something more in the present organization than a mere memorial. Its symbols convey to the initiated the highest sense of patriotism, chivalry and fraternalism. These symbols were designed by myself during the years that I pondered a revival of the old order, and contemplated the endangered position of the native-born American throughout our commonwealth. Every line, every angle, every emblem spells out to a Klansman his duty, honor, responsibility and obligation to his fellow men and to civilization. None of it was wrought for mere ornamentation, and none of it designed as mere mysticism. All of it was woven into the white robes of the Ku Klux Klan for the purpose of teaching by symbolism the very best things in our national life.
Emblematic robes are not uncommon to organizations of men banded together for either religious or fraternal purposes. My affiliations with the church and my connection with a number of fraternal orders have convinced me that the impelling truths which grapple and hold the loyalties and convictions of men are taught better by symbolism than ritualism. The Roman Catholic church proclaims the authority of its mission to the world through the insignia of its clergy and its rulers; while its service of sacrifice and sanctity, of separation and consecration, is expressed in the robes of its nuns and its celebrants. In that colossal pile, St. Peter's at Rome, the most splendid edifice of Christianity in all the world, is to be found a vast collection of stones and gold, an array of art so magnificent that it dazzles even the imagination, an amazing accumulation of trophies torn by conquest from pagan temples—all symbolizing the universal dominion of the church not only over all things material but also over all things religious. The robes of the cathedral are elaborate and impressive throughout all the grades and ranks of service, from the drab garb of the keeper of the portals to the flashing parti-colored uniforms of the Swiss guard, and on through the white, red, and black trappings of the attendants in the inner courts to the vivid scarlet of the cardinals and the gorgeous purple of the pope. All are designed to express some function, or mission, or doctrine of the church in its vast system of evangelism.
The Anglican church of Great Britain and the Protestant Episcopal church of America, as well as various other Protestant organizations have found it to be impressive and inspiring for the clergy and the sisterhood to wear robes designed to mark them as men and women set apart for service to humanity. Perhaps the Greek Catholic Church has the most elaborate system of teaching great religious truths by symbolism of any other religious organization. It undertakes to convey to the world the idea of its virility as a Christian organization by an extensive and artistically wrought out symbolism in its robes and insignia.
It goes without saying that nearly all, or perhaps all, of the great fraternal organizations of the world are characterized by the robes they wear. There are different robes of different orders and various robes for the same order in different degrees. These carry the message of fraternalism in the garments that are worn. Why should we, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, be singled out and condemned for adopting a symbolism altogether unique, to represent our particular service to the age in which we live?