Chapter III: My Withdrawal

It is doubtful if one could find anywhere in the country a finer, cleaner or better lot of men than those among whom I worked as an agent of Ku Kluxism. As individuals they were successful business and professional men, nearly all of them devout church members, married men with families, and just the sort of men to make up a prosperous community; yet, in spite of all this it seemed to me that the protection afforded by membership in an ultra secret movement like the "Invisible Empire" tended to inculcate lawlessness even among some of them. There is but little original law-breaking in this world. Most of it is due to precedent or suggestion. The power of suggestion is one of the most potent factors in every phase of human activity, and I believe that the mere fact of being a member of an organization that can go abroad in the land white-robed and masked is a suggestive force that encourages men to take the law into their own hands.

Two striking illustrations of this point recall themselves to my mind. In one case a man who stood very high in the Johnson City Klan was talking with me about a public demonstration. He stated that he was not in favor of making any show of strength until the Klan had at least five hundred members, then he wanted to have everybody put on their robes, pile into automobiles and parade the streets. I called his attention to the provisions of the Code of Tennessee in reference to wearing masks in public.

"Oh, that's all right," he replied, "when we are fully organized the Klan will control the politics of this town. We will apply for a permit, and if we don't get it, we will parade anyhow. Nobody will dare stop us."

The other instance was a conversation I had with a man with whom I was most friendly. He was a younger man than the one just mentioned, but is considered a person of responsibility and good judgment. It happened that the largest restaurant in Johnson City is owned and operated by Greeks, and this man seemed to be especially hostile to foreigners. In discussing them one day he said to me:

"I don't like to see these Greeks make such progress here. They are driving good Americans out of business. We've got twenty-eight robes in our lodge room, and I am in favor of getting a bunch some night, breaking open their restaurant and dumping all their fixtures and merchandise into the streets. That will serve as an object lesson that they are not wanted in Johnson City."

Now, from my knowledge of that man I do not believe that he would deliberately violate the law. In fact, if I were sheriff of his county and wanted a real man to head a posse, I would call on this man and swear him in as a deputy. I doubt very much if he would even lead a mob of masked men to tear up a Greek restaurant, but the mob spirit was there, and it was put there because he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The old Ku Klux Klan performed its functions, not so much by overt acts, as by creating the impression of what it could do and by inspiring terror in the minds of the people it desired to reach. It operated largely on the principle of suggestion. It soon began to appear to me that the modern movement began to plant evil suggestions in the minds of some of its members, almost from the time they became connected with the organization.

From the very first time that a Ku Klux organizer set foot in town, the _Johnson City Staff_ had fearlessly and vigorously condemned the movement and advised its readers to have nothing to do with it. As the movement began to grow, many of the leading business men became Klansmen. They were nearly all advertisers in the local paper. The attacks on the Klan by the _Staff_ were the subjects of many discussions, and it was decided to "put a muzzle on the paper." Accordingly many advertisers quietly suggested to the publisher of the paper that he "lay off" the Ku Klux Klan. Whether this advice was accompanied by threats or by the actual withdrawal of business, I do not know, but I do know that the _Staff_ suddenly "pulled in its horns" and remained muzzled up to the time I left the territory. This incident is cited to show the power of this ultra-secret system in effectively paralyzing the freedom of the press, and what has doubtless happened in other towns and cities where Ku Kluxism has thoroughly inoculated communities with its deadly poison.

While working among the different towns in my territory, we noticed in the papers occasionally a reference to some act of lawlessness or violence committed in other States by men disguised in white robes and masks. As the details, at the time, were very meager, and as the Atlanta headquarters denied that any of the members of the Ku Klux Klan were connected with them, the Klansmen in my field paid but little attention to these outrages. In fact, I, myself, did not believe that the organization could be guilty of committing such open and flagrant outrages, until I had a conversation with the King Kleagle some time around June 1, 1921. I had met him at Knoxville for the purpose of urging that the charters for three towns be immediately granted. He began talking about the work of the other Klans, and stated that in Houston, Texas, a young negro, charged with familiarity with white women, had been taken out into the country and mutilated. The King Kleagle said that this was done by the Houston Klan, which ran things its own way, as it had the mayor, the police force and practically all of the politicians.

During the months of May and the early part of June, 1921, while following a busy routine, I began studying the Ku Klux movement and going carefully into every detail that suggested itself. I had already become suspicious of the movement as a result of the apparent "one man power" of Simmons as exemplified in his scheme of employment of Kleagles; the questions that had been asked me had started a second line of investigation; and then a third cause of dissatisfaction arose from a feeling of disgust at the way in which the work was propagated. I jumped at no hasty conclusions in the matter, but a gradual feeling of revolt against the movement developed in my mind, which feeling I communicated to a few friends. I also asked several members of the organization, with whom I was intimately acquainted, what they thought of the organization, and I found that my own doubts and fears were shared by them. The leader of the Kingsport Klan was an out-and-out skeptic on the whole movement. Then again, from inquiries I had made as to the work in near-by towns outside my territory, I learned that Kleagles were selling memberships as they would sell insurance or stock.

Although I was supposed to canvass for members, I made it a rule, during my period of service as Kleagle, to do no soliciting whatever. My system was to establish a membership committee in each community in my territory and permit the committees to select their own material. This policy made the personnel in my territory very high, as each individual was elected to membership before he was invited to join the organization.

In addition to its field force, the propagation department of the Ku Klux Klan, I learned, uses motion pictures and paid lecturers to spread the germs of Ku Kluxism. There is a picture entitled, "The Face at Your Window" that is being used extensively as an aid to the canvassing Kleagles. The film company arranges with the local Kleagle to have this picture exhibited on a certain day, and each Klansman is requested to bring a friend with him to see it. At the close of the performance the Klansman hands his friend an application blank and through the psychological effect of the picture usually gets the other to join. The system of using lecturers seems to help considerably to swell the Ku Klux roster.

Still another method of winning members was by newspaper advertising. The Exalted Cyclops, the head, of the Knoxville Klan showed me the copy for a full page advertisement that his Klan intended inserting in the Knoxville papers to secure the five hundred membership necessary before their Klan could procure a charter. I saw that such wholesale solicitation of members could have but one result--inevitably the control of this secret organization would pass into hands least competent to exercise it.

As I became more familiar with the movement, as it was being propagated elsewhere, and from my own study and observation, I reached some definite conclusions. From the first, I had observed carefully the classes of men who were being enrolled, the motives for their enlisting, and the effect the organization had upon them. The result as a whole had been disturbing, but it was from my study of the organization itself that I finally turned in revulsion from it. It was not easy to get the real facts. I asked many questions, both in writing and orally, of the King Kleagle, some of which he could answer, but most of them he could not. The Constitution of the organization I could not get. The King Kleagle had no copy and had never seen a copy. It was not until a short time before my withdrawal that I was shown the constitution and the reading of the document confirmed all too well the suspicions I had already formed about the menace that lay in Ku Kluxism. That it was a political money-making scheme rather than a fraternal order, I began to comprehend from the sales-methods I saw around me. It also seemed to me that there were certain potential dangers inherent in it. When I had once asked the King Kleagle how a Klan should function when once it was organized, "Tell them," he had answered, "to clean up their towns." That "cleaning up a town" by illegal means could end only in mob rule was clear enough to any thinking man, and the fact that the newspapers had been reporting outrages in various Southern States--outrages committed by masked men--did not make me feel any more comfortable.

Oppressed therefore by its potential dangers, disgusted with a ritualistic work which really seemed to me a sacrilege, and revolted by the spirit of religious and racial hatred which it inculcated, I decided to resign my work as Kleagle, and accordingly mailed my resignation to the King Kleagle on June 15, 1921.

My resignation as Kleagle was reluctantly accepted by J. M. McArthur, the King Kleagle, who wrote me to that effect and asked me to meet him in Chattanooga for the purpose of securing my final release, which was given me the latter part of June, 1921. While my name was never mentioned, the exposure of the Klan which was made by the _World_ brought forth the statement from the Atlanta headquarters that "the individual responsible for the attack had been discharged from the propagation department for conduct and character unbecoming a gentleman." As a matter of fact, I have in my possession a letter from McArthur expressing "genuine regret" at my resignation, warmly commending me for "excellent work," and granting me "an honorable discharge from the propagation department of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan." Fortunately for the cause of decent Americanism, King Kleagle McArthur is one of these "ready letter-writers," and the letters written by him to me have all been filed away. Some of them were valuable pieces of documentary evidence to sustain the case made against the Klan by the _World_.

I was invited by McArthur to attend two meetings of the Klan in Chattanooga, where I found the movement strongly organized. At one of these meetings the leader of the local Klan, a physician, made one of the most incendiary speeches I have ever heard, a speech that was vociferously applauded by a large gathering of Klansmen. He made a violent attack on Jews, Negroes and Catholics, and stated that: "the Knights of Columbus have 2,000 rifles stored in the Catholic church; they will before long march down Market Street armed with their rifles; and the Ku Klux Klan must organize and arm itself for the purpose of protecting the city from the designs of this murderous organization."

Having resigned from the propagation department, I then withdrew from "citizenship" in the "Invisible Empire," and denounced it in the _World_ and its associated newspapers. Although my letter was registered and mailed to _William J. Simmons_ personally, I never received any reply. The letter read as follows:

"You are hereby notified that I have this day voluntarily withdrawn
as a 'citizen' of the 'Invisible Empire,' Knights of the Ku Klux
Klan, Inc., and shall no longer consider myself in any way connected
with the organization. After five months of 'citizenship' in the
'Invisible Empire,' three months of which were spent as a Kleagle, I
have reached the conclusion that your proposition is a historical
fraud; that it is a money-making scheme run for the benefit of a few
insiders; that it is engaged in an evil propaganda in promoting
unwarranted religious and racial hatred against Jews, Roman
Catholics, negroes, and foreign-born American citizens; that your
entire scheme is a dangerous public menace that will inevitably lead
to bloodshed and if successful must result in revolution; and that,
in the interests of decent Americanism, it should be suppressed by
the Federal and State authorities.

"I further notify you that I utterly repudiate and refuse to be bound
in any way by any and all portions of the 'oath of allegiance' to the
'Invisible Empire' formerly taken by me, excepting that portion
pledging allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and of
my State, with which portion you have camouflaged the real purport
and meaning of the oath. The remainder of the oath conflicts with a
higher obligation I have previously assumed as an officer of the
Reserve Corps of the United States Army. I therefore denounce said
remaining portions of said oath as illegal, and detrimental to the
fundamental principles which underlie the entire legal structure of
this country. I further decline, any longer, to keep secret any part
or parts of your scheme to establish in free America an 'Invisible
Empire' fraudulent in its conception, vicious in its nature,
political in its objects, and subject to the will of a
self-constituted 'Emperor' who seeks to exploit the American people
for his own personal aggrandizement.

"In defiance of your threats of 'dishonor, disgrace, and death' as
contained in your ritual--written and copyrighted by yourself--I
denounce your ritualistic work as an insult to all Christian people
in America, as an attempt to hypocritically obtain money from the
public under the cloak of sanctimonious piety; and, I charge that the
principal feature of your ceremony of 'naturalization' into the
'Invisible Empire' is a blasphemous and sacrilegious mockery of the
holy rite of baptism, wherein for political and financial purposes,
you have polluted with your infamous parody those things that
Christians, regardless of creed or dogma, hold most sacred.

"I further charge that when in your printed literature you claim that
your organization is the 'genuine original Klan,' this statement is a
fraud historically and a fraud in principle. While you have--without
any right whatever--appropriated to yourself the name, regalia, and
certain nomenclature of the original Klan, your scheme is radically
different in conception, in organization, and in purpose. A careful
study, which I have made, of the Prescript of the original Klan and
all available history and literature on the subject, reveals the fact
that there is little, if anything, in common between the two
organizations. Your false pretenses of 'genuineness' are therefore
insults to the history, the traditions, and the entire record of the
South.

"Ever since your scheme has been actively propagated, there has been
a wave of crime in the Southern States, consisting to a large extent
of 'private regulations' of the public peace, committed by men who
have gone about their respective communities wearing disguises and
taking into their own hands the functions of prosecuting attorney,
witnesses, judge, jury and executioner, in direct contravention to
the Bill of Rights of the Federal and State constitutions. Men have
been dragged from their beds at night, forcibly abducted on the
streets and in their homes, arrested without warrant on the public
streets, conveyed to secluded places, there to be flogged, tarred and
feathered. In two instances helpless women, after being stripped of
their clothing, have been similarly maltreated. In nearly every
reported case, the perpetrators of these acts of lawlessness have
worn disguises, described as 'masks and white robes,' which
description correspond convincingly with the official regalia of the
'Invisible Empire.' In three specific cases, acts of lawlessness have
been so openly and flagrantly committed by members of the 'Ku Klux
Klan,' that you have been compelled to take official cognizance. In
these three instances where responsibility has been fixed, it was
very evident that the illegal oath and the secret teachings of your
'Invisible Empire' were construed by your dupes as granting a license
to engage in secret regulation of the peace by means of anonymous
warnings, threats, intimidations, abduction, the whip, and the use of
tar and feathers. Having studied your scheme, both from the inside
and the outside, I have no doubt whatever that practically all of
these reported outrages were committed by members of your
organization. If it were proven, however, that your 'citizens' were
not _prima facie_ responsible, at the same time there exists a moral
responsibility, because when one group of people is permitted to go
about in disguise, it places the community at the mercy of any group
which cares to adopt similar tactics.

"Everywhere the promoters of your scheme have gone, they have sought
to enlist as 'citizens' the white, Gentile, Protestant public
officials, especially those having in charge the enforcement of the
law. No matter how capable, how efficient, and how conscientious a
public official may be, if he chances to be a Jew or a Catholic, you
not only do not want him, but your organization is now planning
actively to cause all the Jews, Catholics, and foreign-born
naturalized Americans in this country to be removed from public life.
Aside from vicious politics, and in view of the fact that your oath
is an accessory before the fact to mob violence, this tampering and
meddling with the law-enforcing machinery of the country--under the
alleged plea of 'law and order'--is a direct blow at the entire legal
machinery of the United States, a condition that, in its nature,
approaches anarchy.

"At a time when peaceful relations are existing between the white and
black races, you are disrupting the industrial conditions of the
South, by your anti-negro propaganda and causing a state of unrest
that can result only in dangerous and mischievous consequences. In
your anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish propaganda, your organization is
scattering broadcast over this country wicked, malicious, and
inflammatory lies about American citizens of those religious beliefs,
lies that brand your movement as being far more vicious than the
insidious German propaganda in this country prior to our entrance
into the recent war. You are publishing, for example, the statement
that the Jews are seeking to promote a race war between white people
and negroes, and the intimation that the Catholic Church was
responsible for the murder of President Abraham Lincoln. In public
statements, you and your paid speakers give expression to wordy,
sanctimonious and high-sounding platitudes, while secretly your
propagandists, in a sneaking and contemptible manner, are spreading
poisonous and vicious lies they dare not give voice to in public.

"Your 'Invisible Empire' is furthermore a money-making scheme! You,
yourself, an individual of little, if any, means prior to your
becoming an 'Emperor' have so far received from 'friends' a $25,000
residence completely furnished! Your connection with the organization
is either bringing you large sums of money at present, or the promise
of the same in the future! You are allowed to appropriate to your own
use all of the ten dollars "donated" by any person whose application
you personally solicit! All of the rituals and other printed
publications of your organization are copyrighted in your name, and
it is presumable that you have either received royalties for their
use or a cash consideration for their sale! Your organization has
recently bought Lanier University, of which you have been made the
head, and college presidents are usually paid salaries! While orders
for robes at $6.50 are taken in your name, they are filled by the
Gate City Manufacturing Company, at a substantial profit, and the
public has not been informed as to the disposition of this huge
amount of funds! The Searchlight Publishing Company, headed by your
Imperial Kleagle is no doubt a big revenue producer! Your Imperial
Kleagle is also the head of the Clarke Realty Company, in whose
operations, I have no doubt you are also interested! These varied
financial operations indicate to me that spreading religious and
racial hatred is a lucrative business for you and your associates.

"Your whole 'Invisible Empire' is a cancer in the body politic! It is
like some foul and loathsome thing that grows and flourishes in the
dark, away from the sight of honest men and women. It was conceived
in avarice, sired in ignorance, and dammed in greed. It is now being
nurtured in cunning and false pretense, and fed upon an unholy lust
for gold, by means of passion, hatred, and the prejudice of religious
and racial fanaticism. And, day by day, with your oily assurance, you
say that these devilish devices of discord are being developed in the
name of 'pure Americanism'! If this is your idea of America, you
haven't the slightest conception of what pure Americanism means!

"There is no place in America for an 'Invisible Empire' of hate and
venom; and there is no provision in the laws of this country for an
'Emperor'! The 'Invisible Empire' should be made visible! It should
be held up to the light so that honest men can see its ugly structure
and analyze its nefarious potentialities, and then, having seen this
monstrosity, the people should demand of their legally constituted
forces of government that Ku Kluxism and the Ku Klux Klan be outlawed
and barred forever from operating in this free Republic.

Yours truly,
HENRY P. FRY."