confederate army that "Tammany Hall" in New York furnished arms to the Klanists, in order that they might murder southern republicans.

SUPPRESSED IN 1871

When the act suppressing the Klan was approved by President Grant on April 20, 1871, it was estimated that the night riders were operating in eleven states of the south. Six months later, in October, President Grant issued a proclamation calling on members of illegal associations in nine counties in South Carolina to disperse and surrender their arms and disguises in five days.

Five days afterwards, another proclamation was issued suspending the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus in the counties named. More than 200 persons were arrested within a few days. It is believed that the Ku-Klux Klan was practically overthrown by the middle of the following January.

CHAPTER II

THE NEW KU KLUX KLANToC

Are you a citizen of the United States? If you are it is to your interest to inform yourself about the Ku-Klux Klan. As a citizen you are under the protection of the constitution of the United States. The Ku Klux Klan has set itself above the constitution. It has made laws of its own. Its members have inaugurated a reign of lawlessness that may drag you out of your bed at midnight and submit you to a coat of tar and feathers through the whims of some neighbor who does not like the country in which you were born, or who objects to your religion, your color, your opinions, your personal habits or anything else about you that does not suit his fancy.

The constitution guarantees that your house, your person and your papers and effects are free from unlawful search and seizure; that you cannot be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, which law must be publicly enforced in God's sunshine by persons legally chosen; that when you are accused of any delinquency or crime you shall have a speedy, public trial before a judge and an impartial jury; that you may be a member of any religious denomination or sect with whom you may worship as you please; that you have the right of free speech; that you cannot be held in involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime, for which you have been found guilty in a legal way; that you cannot be denied the right to vote on account of your color.

MASKED MEN DEFY CONSTITUTION

Masked riders of the night disagree with these guarantees of freedom. They break into your house under cover of darkness unlawfully seize your person and ride away with you, depriving you of liberty without due process of law. They accuse you of charges that may or may not be true, without giving you the opportunity of knowing the identity of your accusers, because they are masked. They try you without giving you a chance to defend yourself. They make themselves accuser, judge, jury and executioner. They deny that you have the right to worship God as you please. They deny your right to free speech, because they forbid you to criticise what they do.

The Ku Klux Klan clamps involuntary servitude on its own members by making them take oaths to uphold their leaders, even when they violate the constitution. It aims to place those whom it opposes under its heel. It openly defies the article of the constitution that guarantees race equality, by binding its members to put the black race under the supremacy of the white.

The American constitution says that if you were born abroad, but have become a naturalized citizen of the United States, you have as many rights here as though you were actually born here. The Ku Klux Klan is against the constitution on that point. The Ku Klux Klan wants to make the foreigner a serf.

The Ku Klux Klan has set itself up as a regulator of morals. Persons against whom there has been neighborhood gossip have been tarred and feathered. Thanks to the New York World, court records have been published showing that some of the highest persons in the Ku Klux have been involved in proceedings as disgraceful as those for which tar and feather parties have been organized by the Klan or persons masquerading as Ku Klux.

MISTREAT WHITES AND BLACKS

Men and women, white and black—have been mistreated by masked men. The number of these attacks grows as the Klan increases in size. At present the Klan has branches in all states of the union except three—New Hampshire, Montana and Utah. In each state the law would be enforced by legal officials against any persons guilty of crime if public spirited citizens would make it their business to assist public officials to round up law breakers. The Klan, however, believes in its own method of punishment against those whom it opposes. It protects its own members and there is no case on record where a Klansman has been outraged. The Klan has one law for itself and another for its victims. The revelations of scandal among its leaders have not resulted in any movement on the part of its members to "clean house." Its motto seems to be "A Klansman can do no wrong." The lesson to be drawn from the revelations is that those in high places in the Klan have played on the gullibility of tens of thousands of otherwise sensible Americans. These leaders have become rich by dealing in the hocuspocus of mysticism, secret rites and high sounding phrases and by inflaming the passions of dupes by false stories involving religions and races.

In the south they have preached and conspired against the negroes. This hatred also has been carried into certain sections of large cities of the north where there are large negro populations. In some states they have played upon the feelings of those who might be drawn into the Klan by a crusade against Catholics. They have made use of counterfeit documents in secret bids for membership on this score. In cities like New York and Chicago, where the populations are largely Jewish, they have fanned the flames of religious hatred by propaganda against the Jews. Where foreign-born residents are living in large numbers the Klan has secretly intrigued against them. On the Pacific coast this propaganda is made against the Japanese; on the eastern seaboard it has been against persons born in European and Asiatic countries.

A GOLD MINE FOR PROMOTERS

Those who have investigated the Klan are convinced that its principal promoters are not inspired by a zeal for the welfare of the United States, but on the other hand they are certain that the promoters are in the Ku Klux Klan business to make money out of it; that they have profited by millions of dollars and that for this filthy money they have spread loose seeds of discontent and disorder that must be raked out of the body politic by the united action of all patriotic organizations and individuals. As far as its chief protagonists are concerned the Ku Klux is a huge money-making hoax—a gold mine. The poor dupes who have been "soaked" for regalia and dues will wake up some time and discover how they have been deluded and misled. In the meantime, however, it is the duty of every true American to inform himself about the Klan so that in whatever way may come to his lot he may counteract the terrible consequences of its teachings