“With Filthy Hands"

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 329, 14 April 1928, Page 9

“With Filthy Hands"

KLAN COMES TO COURT Bitter Attack By Judge (United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian Press Association) Reed. 10.10 a.m. PITTSBURG, Friday. DISMISSING the Ku Klux Klan suit against the five so-ealled rebel members, Federal Judge W. H. S. Thomson bitterly scorned the Klan and its principles.

TJE held that the organisation “came to the court with filthy hands, and therefore deserved no consideration from the court.” He also held it “an unlawful institution,” and charged the Klan with being “directly responsible for the breaking down of the fundamental principles upon which our Government is framed.” A Pittsburg message of Monday read as follows: In the Federal Court, counter suits of varous factions of the Ku Klux Ivlan have been called here for trial, on testimony presented from D. C. Stevenson, a former Grand Dragon, who is serving a life term of imprisonment for the murder of a girl, which offence, he claims,

was placed on his shoulders by the Klan. He and other witnesses testified that officers of the Klan were guilty of a variety of crimes, of the brutal intimidation and use of women to “frame” members who had refused to obey Dr. Simmons, the Klan’s founder. Testimony was offered that the socalled National Klonvocation was merely an apparent gathering of members to pass on the actions of their superiors and decide further actions, for in reality H. W. lDvans, Emperor and Imperial Wizard, held complete control of the gathering, under the understanding that officers and members who did not support him jeopardised their own safety. At Washington, Evans told a United Press representative that the Klan’s sole activity in the Presidential campaign would be to fight against the nullification ist, Governor Al. Smith.