A New Citizen Looks at America
SEGER, GERHART H.
A New Citizen Looks at America A Personal Record of a Transcontinental Trip By Gerhart H. Seger JltLATIONISlf ia not dead yet, but it ia definitely en the decline. The Midwest is still snore...
...Coiescutt said that auepenaioo pf the terroriatic order does not mean that the Klaa is dead...
...this distrust must not be confused with simple redkaiting...
...Organisera ware abducted and beaten by haa dad thaga, The Klan wag widely credited with kidnapping and killing Frank Norman, citrus worker organiser in Lakeland, Florida, during the early thirties...
...in fact, they are almost like ua white folks r Doaoaa of timea, on private occasion*, aa woH aa in public meetings, I waa told: "Wo know you are antiNest...
...however, America's participation in a world organisation kt betas...
...Russia's heroism makes a profound impression...
...For thirteen weeks I had to speak on Ruasia every day in tha course of the Rotary Institutes for International Undttstandtng, an adult education.project sponsored by Rotary International...
...When the reconversion will begin in full swing, it will be accompanied by a tremendous uprooting of the populace...
...Any future action will depend upon loadera who compose our government...
...often in conjunction with other civic organizations...
...Fiery crosses were burned ia front of anion meeting halls...
...Despite this, I was taken aback by the extent of distrust of Russia...
...they are quite decent people...
...We have authority to meet and reincarnate any time...
...few people make a distinction between measures which even a Republican administration would have taken, and what is generally called the bungling of the present administration...
...During this period the Ku Klux gained its peak strength...
...But don't you think Hitter waa quite right about the Jews...
...I found placea where the number of inhabitants had increaaed tenfold...
...lac, which ha is hoping will catch oa...
...On the other hand, it ia perfectly amazing the extent to which foreign policy is still discussed purely emotionally...
...Ia aueh instances I picked myself a fair-minded person and planted the question with him to be aaked during tha question period: "Why did Hitler persecute the Jews...
...Whoa the workers wont to work in the morning, they saw another empty lot...
...I have talked to hundreds of editors of little country papers who do not seem at all anti-labor on principle and are not pressed at all by the proprietor of the paper to take an anti-labor stand...
...Many students of the current situation In the South believe that tha Klan will be succeeded by a new streamlined organization baaed on the aame principles and agitating primarily for maintenance of "White Supremacy" with action taken against Negroes who have the temerity to present themselves at the polls in the Democratic primaries...
...There are so many Americana of German descent in almost every coiner of the country that the people realize the need to distinguish between the German people and Nazis...
...How to win the peace—that is a subjact alasset everyone haa a different idea about...
...The Imperial Wizard, James A. Coiescutt, former horse doctor, has sold his Atlanta home and moved to Miami...
...Officiate came for this meeting from as far away as Texas, Oregon and California...
...In the middle of the street he suddenly **•*•* at mo and nsked: . Soger, t understand you have been imprisoned » a concentration camp in Germany...
...Eugene Talmadga has sa or rani zation called Vigilante...
...A year ago it waa a little spot on the map, 160 souls living around a general store, and around it nothing but gray-green was tela ad...
...The other officials atill retain their titlea, although, of course, the functions of all of ua are suspended...
...If the unions would know how to handle public relations, they rould probably do something to alleviate the situation, but in many places no union official haa any contact with the local paper...
...After this tup, I am much less afraid of a tendency to "eliminate" Gerrasny, whatever that way mean, than 1 am afraid of some sort of a foolish "Badoglio" policy toward Germany, making a deal with German reactionaries who will sail themselves as not having been "real Nazis...
...Pie recognize the Russian development toward "atiunalism and imperialism...
...Perhapa the most aansational exploit of the Klan which hastened its ultimate downfall waa tha terror in Tampa, Florida, in 1936, resulting in tha torture death of Joseph Shoemaker, a crime for which five Tampa Ku Klux cops were convicted but later freed by a State Supreme Court ruling...
...it goes far beyond the Martin Dies crowd...
...There can at no doubt that President Roosevelt will have a stiff fight en his hands if and when he runs again...
...Already many Kluiers have joined the Kev atone Society, newly farmed "patriotic society.'* Ia addition...
...Tha Workora Defenae League waa organised aa a result of this case and aimilar acta of terror againt labor...
...This gave ma a chance to mt loose and tell the people: Aa soon as you hear eomeene making anti-Semitic remarks, you can be sure that he ia, consciously or not, on his way to becoming a Nasil Naturally, nobody wants to be a Nasi...
...The Klan ia dead but tha fight for democracy and decency havo just begun...
...recognised as a necessity far more now than It has been two or throe years ago...
...BeCAUSE of the practice of moat newspapers to play up even a brief and unimportant strike, labor is very much in disfavor all ever the country...
...Ten men, aeveral of them deputy sheriffs, were convicted of being members of a whipping gang in East Point, Ga., accused of beating scores of Negroes, union organisers and man charged with moral delinquency...
...In various parts of the country I found that war plants have begun to dismiss people, and in Detroit I waa told that some automobile factories have already started preparations for retooling to go back to peacetime production...
...American people love a good fight, and Soviet Russia haa become a very much admired country...
...One of the wonder-towns I visited was Richland, Washington...
...Cyclops, Kleagles, Kludds, Kladds, giants, genii, Nighthawks and terrors have folded their bloodstained sheets and hoods and sorrowfully abandoned their lash and tar bucket...
...AhTTI-SEMITISM is terribly on the upgrade...
...New Klaus for Old By FRANK McCALUSTER ATLANTA, Georgia.—The Invisible Empire has disappeared...
...Evidence waa made public by the Workers Defense League that textile mill owners hi Georgia aad Sooth Carolina had contributed funds to the Klaa to finance a diaplay of Violence against anion organiaera...
...Coiescutt disclosed to Moon over the telephone that suspension of the hooded order waa unanimously voted at a secret Klonvocation at the Henry Grady Hotel, Atlanta, April 23...
...The Midwest is still snore ieolation^ist than any other part of tha country but it ia aaaaj there far leas vociferous...
...miles and miles of trailer camps stretching out alongside the approaches to these cities...
...In every meeting the same question came up: "Don't you think wawill have to fight Ruasia eventually...
...Four speakers are sent out lecturing at an interval of a week, during daytime before the high school students of each community (mostly in small towns which Otherwise would not get outside speakers) and In the evening before a public meeting arranged by the local Rotary Club...
...But with the shortage of help, they cannot send out reporters to the union headquarters except In big places, and I found almost everywhere that many unions miss a chance to make friends and present their side of the story...
...He atated that tha effort of the decision waa to release all local chaptera from all obligations, financial and otherwise to the imperial headquarters...
...Lota of persons tell us that the Klan is needed now more than ever in its history...
...Aggravated by the war, the trend toward the right is very noticeable...
...I do not know what we will do...
...WellBMOMing "liberals" therefore often take the attitude that anyone who ia critical of Russia's policy is against the unity of the United Nations...
...a regard to Germany's position in the postwar world I am happy to aay—and this is not wishful thinking— tha gnat majority of the people who think about it sis apposed to Vanaittartiam...
...In a ***H town down South, a Rotary Club president picked up at the bus depot and walked with me over to I tho hotel...
...You are not '•*»•*., by any chance, are you T" . 1 replied: "No...
...People from all walks of life and of all political leanings, on the whole, agree that it ia equally Important to win the peace as it is as win tha war...
...But what difference would that fcekef ' «*» stated: "That wouldn't make any difference to **• Don't got me wrong—I havo nothing against the Jews, Wo have a few Jews fax our town...
...they are worried about lusiia taking over England's century-old balance of power policy on the European continent, still keeping ¦o^aa* a house divided and thus laying the ground*•** for a possible World War III...
...Rumors have been current for some time that Uncle Sam had demanded that the Klan pay some $600,000 in corporate taxes for the period from 1915 to 1927...
...There waa never really a successful comeback but efforts were made at revival around a campaign to fight unionisation, especially in tba South...
...Coiescutt declared: "I am still imperial wltard...
...On the home front the pinch of the war has resulted in blaming the administration for everything which in wartime is inevitable...
...returning from work in the evening, the walla of a pre manufactured house wore thrown together, and the next day the paint was dry and people moved in...
...Nobody tolls anything about what it produces, but the concern engaged a planning architect to lay out a new city—and ha did...
...The imperial wizard has stepped down from the throne...
...Powerful enough to control elections in many states in the South and Middle West, it attracted hundreds of public officials who winked at the violence and depredations committed by the wrecking crews...
...Today it is a city of U,000 people, with a modern hotel, a modern hospital, a modern movie theatre, excellent school buildings, line solid houses that literally grow overnight: a duPont plant, very secretive, attracted these workers...
...This disclosure was made by Fred D. Moon, City Editor, Atlanta Journal, in a copyrighted article in the Sunday Journal, June 4. National headquarters of the Klan are closed and empty...
...In brief, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan has officially ceased to exist...
...Further aetbaeks which gave the death blow to tha Klan were successful prosecution of flogging crews in Fulton County, Ga., and a joint meeting which the Klan held in New Jersey with tha Nasi Bund...
...The decline set in around 1928...
Vol. 27 • June 1944 • No. 24
