TH

HE Ku Klux Klan to-day is a very different organization from that of two years ago, which was investigated by Congress and found guilty by public opinion of serious crimes. This is the first fact about it which strikes an inquirer. It is different in It is different in leadership, in personnel, in purposes, and in methods. Its leaders, to be sure, declare that the difference is merely a change of emphasis, but this seems to be nothing more than an attempt on their part to hold traditional strength. In fact, there has been a deliberate overhauling. In it whatever of the old Klan seemed useful has been kept, but there have been important rejections and much that is new has been added.

These changes are carefully calculated by a shrewd and understanding mind. The new leaders recognized that the position of the Klan and its reputation were fatally weak for any great success. They had large ambitions, and set about to make the Klan at once less easy to attack and far more effective in its appeal to the average decent citizen. They developed new strategy and tactics. In short, the Giant in the White Hood attempted to clear the decks for action. How well it succeeded is partly proved by the growth that followed.

The first result is that the Klan to-day does stand far less subject to the kind of criticism which has a direct, simple, emotional appeal than it did two years ago. The Giant is wearing better armor. The old indictments for violence and graft have less and less truth; also they are less and less effective with those who know the new Klan-and it is taking pains to be known by those whom it wishes to enlist. It is putting out a strong propaganda, and with much success, to show that it is not in any way a champion or defender of lawlessness. Behind the propaganda is an effort to make sure that no such showing can ever again be made against it as was made before the Congressional investigating committee.

Moreover, it has adopted a rather different objective; at least a very different definition of its old objective. Though it has kept the fundamental idea un

changed "America for Americans"-it has attempted to formulate a propaganda which does not appeal to hate nor stimulate violent prejudice except as the idea itself does so, and a programme which is broader, more definite, and offers opportunity for lawful and satisfying action. It has tried to hold the most effective of its appeals, to make them proof against attack, and to widen their scope.

Finally, it is using very different methods. In place of the blacksnake whip and physical terrorism it has adopted new weapons far more subtle and more dangerous and far less open to simple and obvious criticisms. It has not abandoned terrorism, but refined it. It has added the most effective methods of a political minority and other methods, even more deadly and effective, which are not exactly new in American politics, but have never been employed by so tremendous an organization.

The first step in the reform was the simple and obvious one of removing the cause for attacks based on its reputation for graft, for fomenting disorder and violence, for being a menace to law and order, and for attempting to substitute itself for the government. It considers that this has been done.

When I asked H. W. Evans, the Imperial Wizard, how much success his reform campaign had achieved, he said:

"As much progress has been made as it seems to me could have been expected in the short time since the change in control of the Klan took place. The Klan is now on the whole as nearly free from those evils in personnel as can be expected, so far as we have definitely ascertained. Naturally failures on the part of members are continually occurring a situation which is perfectly sound may become unsound within a few weeks or a month-but whenever such a situation arises it is corrected as soon as the facts are learned.

"Failures on the part of men to live up to their teachings and convictions are always betrayals of trust. Klansmen are not free from them. But we have arrived at the point where the Klan recognizes all such actions as in direct conflict with its teachings and oath."

This statement, which admits the previous charges against the Klan and the fact of the house-cleaning, and which admits also that the organization is not yet perfect, is quite typical of Dr. Evans. Before taking up the story of what he has done to the Klan let us stop for a moment to look at the man himself. His position as Wizard makes him one of the most influential men in America to-day. On him depends largely whether the achievements of the Klan be good or bad.

Hiram Wesley Evans, then, is in the middle forties; of middle height, too, and tending to put on flesh. He is smoothshaven, round-headed, and rather roundfaced, with the slightly prominent eyes so commonly found in politicians.

He is a Texan born, a dentist by profession, an active member of the Christian or Disciples Church, a thirty-second degree Mason, as are many of the Klan leaders. He is a natural orator and speaks with the softness and peculiarities of the South and with something of the tang and rotundity of the old-fashioned political oratory. He gives the impression of tremendous activity, backed by great force. His address would lack appeal to an "intellectual" audience; it is extremely effective with "common people."

I was told before I saw him, by one of his intimates, that he was not a great man; that the strength of the Klan was in its ideas rather than in its leaders; but that he was decidedly efficient. My contacts with him confirmed this estimate. He described himself to me as "the most average man in America," and that cannot be improved as a thumb-nail sketch.

The story of what Dr. Evans has done to the Klan and for it came mostly from other people. He said little about it. except as to results, and he was always careful to identify himself with the mass, to appear no more than their leader and spokesman. Yet the evidence is that he has almost single-handed taken control of the organization and changed it to his purposes. There seems no doubt that these purposes include personal ambitions for power, probably for position and possibly for wealth, but there seems also no doubt that he expects to achieve these through carrying the Klan to power and

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success, and that he is too canny to risk the great triumph for any minor gratification.

There is no need to devote much space to the early history of the Klan. It was founded in 1915 in Atlanta by Colonel W. J. Simmons, a preacher, dreamer, and -even according to his enemies-something of an idealist, however warped. His imagination had been stirred by outbreaks of race and religious prejudice in Georgia and by the hyphenism which was already appearing; he felt that the law was failing to protect the rights either of America or Americans against organized conspiracies, and he set out to correct this. He founded his order along the lines of the Ku Klux Klan of reconstruction days, which many believe saved the South from Negroes and carpetbaggers. He won some immediate success in enlisting members through the appeal of the honor in which the South still holds the Klan of the sixties.

Whether he intended it or not, the tradition of the lawless methods of the sixties was also carried over, with far less justification. Many parts of the South and West take easily to night-riding, and a good many men took the cover of the new Klan to indulge this. The result was to bring the Klan into immediate

disrepute throughout the country. The story of these outrages is too well known to need repeating here.

Colonel Simmons, as has been said, is a dreamer; he is nothing of an organizer. The Klan grew very slowly. So, presently, he made a contract with E. Y. Clark, who had been highly successful as an organizer of drives, by which Clark was to get eighty per cent of the initiation fees of $10 each. Clark had considerable success, though his organizers are accused of appealing to the worst motives and prejudices and did the Klan great harm. After paying them, Clark's profits were considerable; he is said to have made as high as $40,000 a month. Charges of graft and corruption naturally followed.

The Congressional inquiry, the exposures in newspapers and magazines, and the storm of condemnation which followed nearly broke Simmons's heart. He understood it very little. Although the Klan was so organized that he could never have been ousted, he resigned, undoubtedly under pressure from the Evans crowd.

"Texas was the star Klan State, and we came to the meeting all ready to go ahead and do something," one man said. "But when we got here we found

the Klan was not going anywhere or aiming to do anything. So we got busy, and Simmons saw the need of a change."

About the first thing Evans did was to cancel Clark's contract. This precipitated a fight, which is still going on. Simmons stood by his friend and they were backed by the Atlanta Klan. The Evans group revoked its charter. Although the fight is hot in Atlanta, I have. found little evidence of it elsewhere, and none at all in the North. It is certainly having little effect on the power or growth of the Klan under Evans, and does not seem to threaten his control.

Its chief importance has been to bring out some facts about the Klan and to show how complete is the divergence between the old Klansmen and the new. Colonel Simmons declares that Evans has utterly betrayed and perverted the Klan and its ideals.

One result of the Evans régime was apparent at once: big personal profits were stopped. Clark had built a splendid home in Atlanta; Evans lived for a while in a $65-a-month flat, and his present home is a modest one. When Evans took charge, the Klan treasury held only about $100,000. The finances, by the way, are under complete control of the Wizard. By July 31, 1923, the treasury held assets of $1,087,273 and liabilities of $1,705 (balance, $1,085,568), as against assets of $403,173 and liabilities of $247,227 (balance, $155,946) a year before. Dr. Evans and his friends feel that they are pretty well clear of the charge of graft.

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This matter being attended to, Dr. Evans took up the question of lawlessness. His practical mind saw clearly that it not only accomplished nothing, but that it aroused opposition, gave enemies of the Klan their best ground for attack, and emphatically blocked all possibility of carrying the Klan into the Northern States or among the better classes anywhere, and so making it a real power. This is apart from his personal views on the morals of violence. On those he spoke to me as strongly as any enemy of the Klan could speak.

At first he gave his attention to specific instances of violence, often going to places where trouble was brewing. One story is told of a town in which the antiKlan forces had organized to break up a Klavern (Klan assembly). Evans managed to get to the meeting after it had assembled, and found some 140 men, all armed to the teeth, ready to go forth to battle. Around the house was a mob, not well organized but dangerous. Evans took his stand before the door and for four hours argued with his followers. In the end he induced them to leave their arms in the building and go out defense

less. Some were wounded, many were mauled, but not one struck a blow. By this and similar means he tried to establish the idea that a Klansman must not use violence.

But he soon found that this was not enough, and made an open and direct fight inside the order. This culminated in an Imperial Klonvocation (a meeting) of the Grand Dragons (State heads) with minor officials, at Asheville, North Carolina, last July. At this meeting he not only defined the new purposes and methods he had been perfecting, as will be told in a later article, but laid down the law on the subject of violence. In closing his address he said:

"We have not been appointed by Almighty God or any Imperial Wizard to go out meddling in other people's business. Our duty is to get behind the constituted officers of the law, as every one of you have sworn to do. Let's get a National law enforcement programme let's fix it so people will have to go to the penitentiary for violating law. You cannot enforce laws in the form of a super-government trying to force your will or your government on the law of the land. The first time one of your Klansmen violates the law, thus breaking his obligation, thus doing a thing in direct conflict with that for which we stand, let us administer on him as Klansmen for breaking his obligation. Let us then get them outside the Klan and let the judge and jury and the penitentiary take care of them. When we do this, the thing will fade like the morning dew.

"The Wizard is not responsible for any violation. I am going to tell you now, you go home and do your duty and the first time you have a bunch of Klansmen that break a law do not get behind them. Put your influence with the constituted officers of the law, and go with the law and act through the law, and thus once and for all and eternally end this accusation."

This, mind you, was to Klansmen alone, and not a public statement. Dr. Evans may have intended to make it public later, but the Klansmen gathered could not know that.

Dr. Evans soon succeeded in getting to the head of the Klan in various States men who supported this campaign. One such is General Nathan Bedford Forrest, Grand Dragon of Georgia, and son of the famous Confederate general, who was head of the Klan of 1866. General Forrest is an unusually high type of man, strong and clean, and he has made an open fight. His "realm" was one of the worst, since it was the first organized under the old methods. His record, however, is typical of several other Southern Grand Dragons.

General Forrest told me, with some bitterness, how people were continually calling on the Klan to redress grievances by beating up some neighbor. He denied vigorously that the Klan touched any such affairs, except to send all complaints to the regular law officers. "If they fail in their duty, then we tell the local Klan and let it bring pressure to bear in the next election," he added.

He admitted that there were cases in which people had used the Klan regalia to cover crime, and fewer cases in which Klansmen themselves had broken the law, always without sanction of the Klan. Wherever this is suspected to have occurred the local Klan is under orders to help bring the offenders to justice. General Forrest as Grand Dragon has offered a reward of $1,500 for the conviction of any offending Klansman, and in Macon, where some night-riders were on trial and Klansmen were suspected, he sent detectives to work under the sheriff. Men were finally brought to trial on their evidence, and he had a statement made in court that the Klan did not indorse, support, or protect the men. In at least four cases where local Klans have misbehaved he has revoked their charters and given his evidence against them to the courts.

He has got results. "The Klan used to be made up of riffraff-not criminals, but rowdies and low class folks," one of the best-known men in Georgia told me, and others agreed. "Now it is getting the reputation of being a decent organization and a lot of much better men are joining it. This is mostly since violence has been stopped. There has been very little for quite a while."

The final measure taken to stop violence is perhaps a good test of the sincerity of the reform. In many States no member is now permitted to take his. regalia from the Klavern without permission. All hoods and robes are checked with a doorkeeper, and are never in possession of a Klansman except for official business. This measure destroys the chief excuse of the Klan in case of outrages--the plea that the regalia was used without permission.

In every place where I investigated or from which I have reports this reform of the Klan has been made clear to every member and is insisted upon in all propaganda. Thus, officially at least, the Klan has cleared its skirts. The extent to which the change has been accepted by the members is another matter, which will be taken up later. But, since there are now so few reports of Klan violence, it seems clear that until new evidence appears the new orders must be accepted as a real position, fairly well maintained. So far as the leaders are concerned or

can make their orders effective, the Klan does not take the law into its own hands nor permit its members to do so.

Opponents of the Klan naturally deny the sincerity of this reform. They charge that it was forced by the exposures and the prospect of internal disruption, that it is purely hypocritical, a matter of tactics adopted for the expediency of the moment, which will be abandoned whenever some new expediency dictates.

There is, of course, no means at the disposal of a reporter to determine men's motives. I put the question to a leading Klansman.

"I can't prove to you that it isn't so," he smiled. "But I will point out two things. First, the Klan is absolutely committed, inside and out. If it fails to live up to the reform, it will be damned much more completely than before. Second, the great influx of members has come since the law-and-order programme was made clear. They prove that this programme is good policy. The Klan will not be foolish enough to change. Moreover, the new members agree with this principle; they now constitute a majority, and they will see that it is lived up to."

Whatever the motive, it is certain that the Klan must be handled on the basis of the reality of this reform, so far as any efforts go either to detach present members or to prevent its spread. Its propaganda is so unequivocal and its record so greatly improved that with these men the argument of lawlessness carries no weight.

This reform, then, is the first and most important step of the Klan in preparing for its great campaign. So far as it is successful and gains credence it will protect the movement from the charges which have been the only basis for most of the attacks on it. Dr. Evans calculates, with some reason, that the whole attack will fall if those charges become untenable. Certainly enemies of the Klan would be forced to a change of base-not a great hardship in view of the poor success of their efforts to prevent the growth of the Klan so far. Certainly also new attacks would have to be based on the new ideals, programme, and methods of the Klan, even though such attacks would be more difficult than the old, calling for argument and education rather than simple condemnation.

Violence and graft, however, are not the only things that have been charged against the Klan. There are certain features of the Order which are a part of its very growth and structure which are obviously dangerous, and which are far more difficult to reform. These will be taken up in the next article, "Old Evils in the New Klan."