The Klan Unmasked

by W. J. Simmons

The Klanishness of The Klan

It is perhaps not only proper but also necessary, in view of the vigorous and persistent attacks made on the Klan, to discuss more fully the apparent exclusiveness of the organization. I desire to reiterate with emphasis that the Klan is a purely American organization assembled around the Constitution of the United States, to safeguard its provisions, advance its purposes, and perpetuate its democracy. This definition of the Klan in its organization necessarily carries the idea of exclusiveness. All men without respect to race, color and religion may not be organized into a democracy. Democracy can not be established by outside pressure. It is something which must be developed in the individual consciousness, and is of very slow growth. We speak loosely when we talk of the Anglo-Saxon having grown into a democracy through a thousand years of struggle. Five thousand years would be a more accurate statement of the fact. During all the slow processes of the development of the white man's civilization, there was something inherent in his life that slowly pushed its way up into the consciousness of the individual until it found expression in constitutional government, in freedom of thought and speech, and in all the elements of political and religious liberty. One of the most developed expressions of this growth into democracy is our American Government with all its complexities and intricacies. It should go without saying that all men, without reference to origin or history, can not be thrust into this country, and, under restraint and repression, be forced into our ways of thinking and living and so attain the true value of American citizenship. To begin with, a great many people, living under one form of autocracy or another, have never been awakened to a sense of and desire for democracy. In others the sense has begun to stir, but has not had the opportunity or the time for that sure growth that would transform them into a citizenship capable of pure self-government.

This fact has been demonstrated by the futility of the attempts in Russia, first under the administration of Kerensky and now under Lenine and Trotsky. The bolshevist camarilla attempted to take that nation, which has been subjected for ages to one of the simplest and meanest despotisms on earth, and organize it into a sort of democracy. This proposition is still further illuminated by the experience of Germany in her attempt to build a democracy on the ruins of her old autocracy. The best thinkers in the German nation, notwithstanding the superior intellectual, economical and industrial qualifications of the people, predict that a real democracy can not be established in Germany in less than fifty years. If these two nations, both white, the one having the most robust physical manhood in the world, and the other the most vigorous mentality, can not rise from autocracy into democracy, how absurd it appears that we should take great masses of the untaught, underfed, inferior people of all the lands and undertake to precipitate them, in masses, into our very peculiar and intricate national democracy.

The "Starry" Flag and the "Fiery" Cross Shall Not Fail

The Klan, organized to protect and advance the cause of our native institutions, is therefore exclusive in the restriction of its membership to white native-born Americans. We believe that only one born on American soil, surrounded by American institutions, taught in the American schools, harmonized from infancy with American ideals, can become fully conscious of what our peculiar democracy means and be adequately qualified for all the duties of citizenship in this republic.

In order to become a member of the Klan one must subscribe without reservation of any sort to the Constitution of the United States. Loyalty to the Constitution must be so thorough that no ultimate allegiance to any foreign institution, power or country can be retained. Committal to Americanism is so absolute that nothing is left uncommitted. The Ku Klux Klan is patriotic to the last and highest degree. We believe that the principles upon which this republic was founded, and around which the great War Between the States was waged, should be constantly reaffirmed and emphasized.

The American nation has acted as a great magnet. The American city in particular has been an irresistible lure to the unhappy and oppressed peoples of the world. From all shores great tides of immigration have flowed in upon us. The alien peoples have not been distributed over the vast area of our common country, but have, for the most part, been congested in our great centers. Many of them can not read and write their own language. On the average they are three times as prone to pauperism and nine times as prone to crime as our native-born Americans. Because of their numbers, as well as their nationalistic tendencies, they organize themselves into separate communities and often breed hostility to American institutions. How natural that such foreign communities should spawn all forms of social and political vices.

Of course this plethora of population violates the fundamental law of our social life. This nation grew strong and took on its peculiar virtues out in the open fields and under the gleaming stars. Granting that the possibilities of democracy are inherent in many of these aliens that have been admitted into our country, the possibilities can not now be realized in the great cities of the nation. We believe that one can never be wholly patriotic or thoroughly democratized until he obeys God's great first commandment and settles upon some spot of ground and subdues it and makes it yield its secrets and its wealth. Permit these people that have come to us to segregate in cities by race and tongue, and continue to live in squalor and dirt, often accursed by disease and ignorance, foreign in habit and thought and pursuit, understanding our country only as an unrestricted opportunity for license, and it presents the gravest problems that our nation was ever called upon to solve. This is especially true since these aliens have been permitted to qualify for citizenship and given suffrage within a space of time so short that they can not even become acquainted with the outward manners and customs of the American people, not to mention the basic intellectual and spiritual factors of our national consciousness.

More than fifty per cent. of the votes cast in the last presidential election were cast by cities. For the first time in the history of this country the urban population exceeds the rural. This vast alien population now holds and exercises the balance of political power. HERE IS A CHALLENGE WITH TRUMPET VOICE TO EVERY NATIVE-BORN AMERICAN TO FACE THE CRISIS AND PRESERVE OUR DEMOCRACY FOR THE GENERATIONS TO COME.