The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY. MAY 1. 1928.

Hokitika Guardian, 1 May 1928, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. TUESDAY. MAY 1. 1928.

A BANOEH OUS OHGAXTSATIOX I iik ivu Klux Kinn is an organisation which has made America notorious in a very undesirable way. Its ramifications are remarkable. In tile course of an account of this dangerous or-

ganisation a writer in a northern paper explains it was originally formed after the American Civil War to protect the white population of the South against the negroes who had just been liberated from slavery and given the vote. The Kn Klux Klnn has now developed into a system of terrorism whose acts of violence are directed against all of alien blood or of religious persuasions other than Protestantism. The recent countersuits brought by various factions of the Ku Klux Klan before the Federal Court in Pittsburg showed that the Klan has now become an organisation outside the law and that it hn.s not hesitated to use machine guns against its opponents and. to burn victims at the stake. These victims have net bee" always negroes or persons sus--pocW. jf crime, but- on more than one oceasi .p tjiey have been merely tho°n

who for one reason or another had incurred tho displeasure of the Grand Dragon. Witnesses in these countersuits deposed that the Klan possessed a great society, the object of which was to obtain information about all manner of public officials which might lie used to control them if needed. One member actually obtained admission to the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago by posing as a priest. 11 is object in doing this was to obtain information for inllaniinatorv speeches against the Roman Catholic Church. Two Jews were mercilessly flogged in Oklahoma for no other offence apparently than the offence of being of the Jewish faith. The Klan exerciser complete control over its members, and anyone guilty of insubordination is liable to severe punishment. .Sometimes it has happened that Klansmon have lieen elected to some public office and they Juiv'e used their official positiojn to promote the interests of the Klan. Thus in 1921 during riots at Nile. Ohio, many Klansmen were sworn in as deputy sheriff's, and they ordered off' .the streets everybody who was ignorant. of the Klan’s password. On the same occasion they used machine guns to stop any rush by anti-Klans-men. The Klan boasts of being “a hundred per cent. American.” It: will be an evil day for America when organisations she'll as Ibis are held to be representative of the nation. Judge Thompson, of the Federal Court, declared the Klan to he an unlawful institution, and directly responsible Tor breaking down the fundamental principles upon which the Government of the United States is framed. Yet no strong measures have been taken to break u.p the Klan. When action has been taken witnesses have refused to give evidence and juries have refused to convict liccnu.se of the fear of reprisals, Probably nothing short of united Federal action will suffice for

breaking tip this .sinister organisation, unless some split in the ranks of the Klan itself causes' a kind of civil war ill the organisation which might ovenlmillv dostrov it.