The Modern Ku Klux Klan Part 16

June 13, 1921.--At Dallas, Texas, Edward Engers, filling station proprietor, was flogged by masked men and ordered out of town.

June 14, 1921.--At Houston, Texas, J. W. Boyd, a lawyer, was taken from his office by masked men and whipped. He was charged with annoying young girls.

June 17, 1921.--At Belton, Texas, James Collins, a negro, was given sixty lashes by masked men, and a placard, "Whipped by Ku Klux Klan,"

placed on his back, following his release from jail after a Grand Jury had failed to indict him on the charge of making insulting approaches to white women.

June 18, 1921.--At Goose Creek, Texas, E. L. Bloodworth and Olan Jones, oil field workers, were whipped, tarred and feathered by masked men, who charged their victims with being "undesirable citizens."

June 20, 1921.--At Goose Creek, Texas, W. Stewart, a jitney driver, was whipped, tarred, and feathered by twelve men after three pa.s.sengers had lured him to a lonely spot. He was then ordered to leave town.

June 25, 1921.--At West Columbia, Texas, an unknown man was tarred and feathered and ordered to leave town.

June 21, 1921.--At Wharton, Texas, Henry Schultz was whipped, tarred and feathered after being kidnapped by masked men.

June 26, 1921.--At Yoak.u.m, Texas, a white man, name withheld, citizen of the place for twenty years, was found on a lonely road, tarred, feathered and blindfolded.

June 27, 1921.--At Austin, Texas, Ku Klux Klan placards were posted warning against violation of moral codes.

July 1, 1921.--At Fort Worth, Texas, a white man whose name was not printed was taken from his home at 9 P.M. and given twenty lashes for alleged mistreatment of his wife.

July 4, 1921.--At Austin, Texas, Governor Neff, chief executive of the State in an address before the Rotary Club said that a crime wave had struck the State and that "the entire administration of the criminal code had broken down." On the same day warnings of the Ku Klux Klan were posted on the State Capitol grounds.

July 5, 1921,--At Fort Worth, Texas, Benny Pinto was tarred and feathered and ordered out of town. A woman found with him in his automobile was taken home by his abductors.

July 8, 1921.--At Glidden, Texas, Harry Adams, a gardener, was beaten and choked by masked armed men. Then found to be the wrong man, he was released.

July 12, 1921.--At Enid, Okla., Walter Billings, a motion-picture operator, was given a coating of cotton and crude oil, after being whipped by masked men.

July 14, 1921.--One hundred masked men gathered at the jail at Greeneville, Texas, and unsuccessfully attempted to lynch Matt Olizen, negro, charged with killing Orbie Standlee.

July 14, 1921.--A delegation from Duncanville, Texas, warned the Dallas authorities that if Archie Holsome, charged with attacking a white woman was released, he would be lynched.

July 16, 1921.--At Tenaha, Texas, Mrs. Beulah Johnson, a white woman, was seized from the porch of a hotel, taken to the woods, stripped of her clothing, tarred and feathered preceding which her hair was clipped. Masked men wearing white uniforms attacked her, the woman said. They drove up to the hotel in three automobiles. Mrs. Johnson had been arrested on a charge of bigamy at Center, Texas, and was out on bond when she was seized.

July 17, 1921.--At Nacogdoches, Texas, J. M. McKnight was beaten by masked men.

July 17, 1921.--At Miami, Fla. At the close of his evening services, eight masked men waylaid the Rev. Philip S. Irwin, archdeacon of the English Episcopal Church, and head of the work of that church among South Florida negroes, carried him into the woods, whipped him, and then applied a coat of tar and feathers to his body. He was placed in a sack and taken in an automobile to a spot in the center of the town and dumped into the street. The following Tuesday, in response to a telegram from Rev. R. T. Phillips, rector of Trinity Church, Right Reverend Cameron Mann, Bishop of Southern Florida reached Miami and conferred with several officials, also appearing before the Grand Jury in order to make a statement as to Archdeacon Irwin's work. In his report to the Presiding Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, Bishop Mann said:

"About the middle of the afternoon, while I was consulting with the mayor and the circuit judge, the commander of the local post of the American Legion came in and stated that he had reliable information that if Archdeacon Irwin remained in the city he would be lynched, and that in all probability church property would be burned and numerous lives lost. He therefore asked that Archdeacon Irwin should agree to leave the city that afternoon."

The charge made by the mob against the clergyman was that he had preached "race equality" and "intermarriage." Bishop Mann declares unequivocally that Archdeacon Irwin does not hold to social or political equality for negroes in the United States, has never taught it, and in his missionary work has incurred disfavor with some negroes by his opposition to societies and movements which upheld the doctrine.

It was reported in the papers that the judge who brought the case to the attention of the Grand Jury told that body that, while the right of free speech is guaranteed, strangers should not defy the sentiments and traditions of the public.

July 16, 1921.--At Bay City, Tex., W. M. Hoopengarner, a banker, was tarred and feathered and beaten. The reason alleged was domestic infidelity.

July 18, 1921.--G. C. Benson beaten at d.i.c.kinson, Tex.

July 18, 1921.--E. H. Peters, of Athens, Tex., was dragged from his room, beaten, dumped out of an automobile and seriously hurt.

July 19, 1921.--At Tenaha, Tex., J. W. McKnight was seized a second time by masked men.

July 19, 1921.--Declaring that he had information that fifty per cent of the members of the Oklahoma City police department belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, Mayor John C. Welton directed Chief Glitsch to investigate and to discharge every police officer who did not resign immediately from the Klan. On July 24, Mayor Welton was called on the telephone, and was told: "We warn you to lay off the Ku Klux Klan, or we will have to wait on you." The mayor paid no attention to the warning.

July 22, 1921.--At Hillsboro, Tex., a note from the Ku Klux Klan was received and published in the local paper as a "warning to some married men who should spend more time with their own wives."

July 26, 1921.--At Topeka, Kan., a warning was sent to Senator Capper's newspaper to "leave the Ku Klux Klan alone."

July 29, 1921.--Ben Wiley, of Lufkin, Tex., was put into a sack and tarred and feathered.

In the State of Missouri, a farmer aged sixty-eight years, was taken from his bed at night, removed out of doors and severely beaten by masked men; and a woman in Birmingham, Ala., was also maltreated by a mob composed of the same sort of individuals.

In most cases local sentiment appears to have been strongly with the perpetrators of the outrages, this being especially true at Waco, Tex. A man was a.s.saulted by masked men at that place, but the victim succeeded in escaping from his attackers, recognizing three of the men who had seized him. He had them arrested, and they were bound over to await the session of the Grand Jury. Five preachers and the President of a Texas University signed the bonds of the men accused of mob violence.

In some parts of Texas, however, the depredations of masked individuals brought into being a counter movement, and the _Dallas News_ notes the receipt of the following anonymous communication:

"To the citizens of North Texas and the Ku Klux Klan:

"The Anti-Ku Klux Klan of North Texas announces its being in the form of a mob.

"We intend and will do no violence unless the Ku Klux Klan shows violence. We are in being and in force. If necessary we will travel in force to do business in the form of open warfare.

"The law will have its chance to show that we have laws against mobs, white-capping, and acts of violence. But we warn that being in Rome we do as the Romans do.

"We are unknown and unknowable. We will remain that way. We hope that we will not have to resort to populating lamp posts and using cold steel, but if so, Oakland and Greenwood will boast of much activity and the price of black crepe will rise. 'Anti-Ku Klux Klan of North Texas.'"

A similar organization was announced from southeast Texas. In an a.s.sociated Press dispatch from Beaumont, under date of July 27, 1921, it was reported:

"Organization is said to have been effected of a band of men to combat the alleged activities of the Ku Klux Klan, in South East Texas, with the announced intention of conducting open warfare against the members of the Klan if necessary 'because officers have not the nerve or desire to place under arrest its members who have violated the law.'

"First announcement of the new organization was set forth yesterday in a communication addressed to the Ku Klux Klan and sent to a local newspaper for publication. 'Squads of special service men,' the notice stated, 'have been appointed to locate members of the Klan.'

It added that summary punishment would be inflicted upon any who are found. The communication said in part:

"'We have formed a club, or mob, you may call it, of more than one hundred fearless men and we are going to stop you people with hot lead and hot steel at the first opportunity, and that will not be far off. We have sworn vengeance on such people and will shoot down like a mad dog men whom we learn to be members of the Klan.'"

Some of the newspapers of Texas have fearlessly taken a stand against the widespread epidemic of masked violence, even going so far as to charge them directly to the Ku Klux Klan. Notable among these has been the _Houston Chronicle_. In an editorial printed in August, 1921, under the heading "Law, or Secret Cult," it said:

"Once more the nation comes to a parting of the ways.

"The issue is clearly defined. No one but the unimaginative can misunderstand it.

"Const.i.tuted authority must prevail, or we are in for a reign of masked and irresponsible terror.

"The fine phrases with which apologies for the Ku Klux Klan defend it fall flat before what happened to that woman in Tanaha and that other woman in Birmingham.

"'Law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear,' they declare, but what does that amount to when any citizen can be accused, seized and violently used without a hearing?

"Why do we bother about trial by jury, if the evidence of an angry and impulsive mob is sufficient to convict?