KKK Exposed by Randel and Chalmers as a Repeating
Menace, Use Anti-Semitism as Major Appeal to Hate

•

Congressional action leading to
an investigation of the Ku Klux
Klan places the limelight on the
hooded elements in the South.
Pressures from KKK ranks have
caused concern in many ranks. In
Bogalusa, La., threats from KKK
caused Ralph Blumberg of Station
WBOX Ai\I-FM to lose all but four
of a list of 74 station advertisers.
Blumberg states that his moder-
ate views on race issues caused
the boycott by the KKK. The
pressures exerted upon him and
his station brought counter-action
and a group of New Yorkers have
come to his aid by purchasing 100
commercial message periods with
copy consisting of the preamble to
the U.S. Constitution.
KKK's renewed threats to
American liberties are in evidence
and the Southern race hate move-
ment's status emerges in all its im-
plications in two new volumes,
"Hooded Americanism: The First
Century of the Ku Klux Klan:
1865 to the Present," by David
M. Chalmers, published by
Doubleday, and "The Ku Klux
Klan—A Century of Infamy," by
William Pierce Randel, published
by Chilton Books.
They are timely and emi-
nently valuable works and the
facts they reveal contain warn-
ings of possible repetition of
KKK acts of pressure accom-
panied by t h r e a t s from the
hooded elements. Both works are
illustrated to indicate the
actions of the KKK and to em-
phasize the menacing elements
of the movement.
Randel does not view the KKK
as un-American. He sees its spirit
as being "a constant in our na-
tional behavior . . . at times qui-
escent but not dead, only smoul-
dering between eruptions."
He shows that KKK activities
at times were directed against
different groups, "during Recon-
struction . .. against freedom and
Republicans" and in the 1920's it
opposed Catholics, Jews, Mormons
and aliens as well as Negroes. But
he also idicates that "the original
Klan evolved almost at once from
a purely social club into an active
terrotistic group . . . motivated by
a conviction that federal efforts to
give freedmen the rights of
American citizenship were in vio-
lation of the Constitution and of
divine plan."
Randel also contends that "in

the early years of the modern
Klan, Catholics, Jews and aliens
were higher than Negroes on the
list of hated minorities. But with
the resumption of federal action
to extend civil rights, Negroes
have regained their usual pri-
ority at the head of the list.
The Klan had its strength. In

•

1871 it impeached a governor —
William Woods Holden of North
Carolina. It caused frictions, was
responsible for lynchings, at one
point boiled a Negro's flesh and
hanged his skeleton, and at one
time, in a three-year-period, KKK

Frisco Jewish Group Calls
for School Integration

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — The
San Francisco Jewish Community
Relations Council called on the
city board of education to act on
the problem of racial imbalance in
the city's public school system "be-
fore the opening" of the school
year this month.
The Council made the appeal in
a statement issued after "a thor-
ough study of the public schools
integration problem." It sent the
statement to "all interested parties,
including civil rights groups, which
had called on the JCRC to join
them in their differing procedural
programs."

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
40 — Friday, September 3, 1965

;;.

vigilantes murdered 153 people in
a single county.
There were Southern press re-
actions against the Klan, and an
editorial in 1924 in the Oklahoma
Leader is quoted by Randel as
having asserted that the Klan is
"a fraternal order for the promo-
tion of strife; an empire for the
promotion of democracy, a crimi-
nal conspiracy for upholding the
law; a peace crusade by violence,
and a new sort of Christianity
that would flog Christ for being a
Jew and a foreigner."
The KKK, Randel believes, "has
enough appeal to idealistic 'real'
Americans to warrant the predic-
tion that it will be with us for a
long time to come," in spite of its
current "disreputable image." He
states: "Special privilege is so at-
tractive that all too many people,
once they have gained it, find a
particular enjoyment in flaunting
it, and looking down on others
who have yet to achieve it. The
Klan capitalizes on this tendency."
Randel enters into an inter-
esting discussion of the matter
of "passing," related to Negroes
who have won the struggle on
an individual basis and do not
wish to pursue the flight, and
he even makes the point that "in
roughly the same way, grand-
children of Jewish immigrants
who changed their names by
legal action and joined Pro-
testant churches can be forgiven
for a disinclination to stir up
dying embers." And he suggests
that Negroes who have "passed"
may have become Klansmen,
adding: "T hough this seems
highly improbable, what present
K l a n s m a n, especially in the
South with its antebellum con,
cubinage system, can be abso-
lutely sure that he has no Negro
blood?"
Randel insists that the myth of
race purity has been demolished,
that while die-hard Klansmen will
not be convinced, "prejudice burns
hot and long, but it does burn
out." Yet, he concludes:
"Conflict, it has seriously been
suggested, is the best climate for
productive change. The challenge
posed by the Klan to other groups
making up the population should,
sooner or later, produce a valuable
examination of what the majority
of us think Americanism really is,
and what it should be. Weather
without turbulence, by this reason-
ing, is dangerous as an invitation
to apathy. But there is slight pos-
sibility of unbroken calm. The
Klan can be counted on to provide
the right sort of weather: con-
tinued turbulence." -
* * *
Just as Randel believes that the
KKK spirit is a constantly re-
peating e 1 e In e n t in furthering
racism, Chalmers, in "Hooded
Americanism," believes that "the
Klan persists because the stuff of
which Klansmen are made is a
part of American society." There-
fore he quotes the Klan's boast
that it will continue to live "as
long as the WHITE MAN liveth."
Chalmers points to Southerners
who opposed the Klan. He refers
to one case, Andrew Erwin, a for-
mer mayor of Athens, Ga., who
appealed "in the name of the Con-
federacy's Father Ryan and Judah
P. Benjamin, and of the Americans
who died in France .. . to erase
the stigma of the Klan." And
Chalmers also states that "Mc-
Adoo, representing both the lib-
eralism and the Klan forces of the
South and West, was no bigot,"
and "his chief strategist, Bernard
Baruch, was a Jew . . ."
The anti-Semitism of the Klan
is reviewed by Chalmers who -re-
fers_ to one KKK woman leader
who said the Jews were upset be-
cause they knew the Klan "teaches
the wisdom of spending American
money with American men."
During Ma Ferguson's campaign
for the Senate in 1924, Chalmers

writes that "in desperation the
Klan appealed for Jewish - votes
and modified its opposition to
Catholicism, dropping all but the
`jug' from its former 'Jew, jug
and Jesuit' cry."
In 1923 the Klan made a Con-
gressional roundup to show that
Jewish members of Congress in-
cluded two Republicans and five
Democrats. Charges were made
that Jews dominated 85 per cent
of vice in the nation and were
out to dominate in law and fi-
nance, and the KKK conducted
campaigns against Jews in New
Jersey summer resorts. Jews left
Long Beach "in large numbers"
and "in the Asbury Park area, the
Klan attempted to discourage
Jewish and Roman Catholic visi-
tors and to stem the influx of
New York vacationers."
Chalmers reports that in 1934
"a Westchester rally in a
wooded glen, near the Hudson
River, praised Hitler and was
critical of the New Deal and the
`communism of F.D.R. and the
Jews.' "
Describing the KKK policies, in
the early 1920's, Chalmers writes:
"Although the Klan revival slight-
ly preceded the rising vogue of
anti-Semitism, there was always
enough around to get involved
with things. The Klan was a move-
ment designed for native-born,
white Protestants of northern
European descent. This left the
Jew out, and if he was on the out-
side, then he constituted a prob-
lem and probably ought to be
treated as an enemy. If the citizen
was hit by hard times, the manipu-
lations of the Jewish bankers in
the Eastern cities were at fault. If
the citien's business was not doing
well, then it was because of the
competition from his Jewish com-
petitor who was being aided by
his clannish New York bankers.
If he were alarmed over the cost
of the war or the absence of peace,
then it was either the fault of the
international branch of the Jewish
monetary conspiracy or the push-
Mg, quarreling, Jewish immi-
grants who brought with them
their communistic conspiracies
from eastern Europe."
The involvements of Henry
Ford and Charles Bowles in De-
troit is alluded to, and Chalmers
recalls the claim that was ad-
vanced that because Ford was for
John Smith for - mayor, Bowles
surely was the friend of the
Jews.
Chalmers states that "the
success of anti-Semitism
stemmed from the patness of
the explanation it offered for
the Klansman's anxieties: his

Hebrew Corner

Israel Museum

Several months ago the Israel Museum
was opened at a festive ceremony. 1,600
important guests from Israel and abroad
came to the festive opening.
The building of the new museum
which is regarded as one of the most
beautiful in the world cost over 15,000,-
000 pounds. Its art treasures are worth
150,000,000 pounds. But their artistic
value cannot be valued in money at all.
- The Israel Museum campus is situated
on an area of 84 dunams and is built
in the form of a series of small build-
ings. In the area of the city stands out
the Shrine of the Book in which are
exhibited the (hidden) Scrolls which
were discovered about 20 years ago in
the Qumran cave.
In Bible and Antiquities museums are
exhibited objects discovered in the
many archaeological excavations con-
ducted in Israel. In the Bezalel wing
there will be held exhibitions of the
arts of Jewish painting and sculpture
from Israel and abroad.
In the Kennedy building an exhibi-
tion of the Bible in Art is being held.
Important museums in the world lent
the most valuable pictures for this
exhibition. Among the paintings is Rem-
brandt's Moses. Near the buildings is
the Billy Rose garden of art containing
dozens (literally "tens") of sculptures,
the most famous sculptures in world
civilization. When they told Billy Rose
that Israel is in a dangerous area he
answered: "If there are 2,000,000 Je.vs
who are not afraid to live there then
I should not be afraid on account
of the sculptures." When they asked
him what should be done with the
sculptures should a war break out, he
said: "Take the metal statues and
make bullets of them."
Translation of Hebrew column, Pub-
lished by Brit Ivrit Olamit, Jerusalem.

fears of racial mixing, his fi-
nancial and social insecurity,
and his xenophobia . • The ex-
planation of a Jewish conspir-
acy proved most illuminating,
and Klan speakers found that it
often took such a note to warm
up their audiences."
Chalmers states "one of the
pronounced aspects of the present
Klan has been its violent anti-
Semitism. While this has long
been a Klan theme, it has become
increasingly strong. Without the
resources to turn out their own
propaganda, the Klaus found a
ready, inexpensive supply of lit-
erature available from profession-
al anti-Semites such as Conde
McGinley and Gerald L. K. Smith,
and other propagandists on the
Citizens Council lists . . . As the
Klan turned more and more to
anti-Semitic arguments and in-
spiration, the leadership of the
two movements became more and
more intertwined. Integration was
denounced as a "Communist-Jew-
ish conspiracy plotting to over-
throw white-Christian mankind."
Temple and synagogue bombings
were described as attempts on the
part of the Jews to gain sympathy;
Eichmann didn't really do it—and
good for him if he did. Hitler had
the right-idea. Arrested Klansmen
were victims of Jewish persecu-
tion, and the `Jew-N' was to blame
for the troubled state of the
world."
Chalmers reproduces the in-
signia borrowed from the Third
Reich by way of the Columbians
now used by the anti-Semitic Na-
tional States Rights party.
Thus we have an expose of the
KKK's bigotries, its anti-Semi-
tism, its menacing existence as a
threat to our democratic way of
life.
Randel's and Chalmers' vol-
umes complement each other and
together serve as warnings against
the continued threats from the
Southern extreme rightists.

Weekly Quiz

BY RABBI SAMUEL J. FOX

(Copyright, 1965, JTA, Inc.)

Why is it customary to recite
the Songs of Songs on Friday
afternoon before the Sabbath?

A number of reasons are offer-
ed for this practice. Some explain
it by saying that the Sabbath is
welcomed as a Queen (according
to the Kabbalists), and the Song of
Songs is a love song sung to a
bride (in a higher spiritual sense).

It is also claimed that a Jew is
supposed to show his love for the
Sabbath and to the Almighty, Who
gave it to him with love. He thus
chants this song as the Sabbath
approaches him, just as a lover
would welcome his lover. The Zo-
har explains it by saying that the
117 verses of the Songs of Songs
correspond to the 117 hours of
the week during which period he
wicked are judged in hell. Chant-
ing the Songs of Songs is thus a
means of endearing one's self to
the Almighty and escaping the pun-
ishment of Gehenna. Another kab-
balistic source draws an inference
from the experience of the Great
Tanna who became sick on Friday
afternoon and delved into the
mysteries of kabbala where he
learned the 216 notes of the Song
of Songs. Thus, it is claimed that
the heavens of mysticism are open
on the eve of the Sabbath, and
one can experience them through
reciting the Song of Songs.
Why does Jewish tradition
urge one to pray in the syna-
gogue especially on Friday eve-
ning?

Two reasons are advanced. One
is because the Friday evening serv-
ice contains testimony to the fact
of creation, and this testimony is
to be given in public (a quorum of
10 adult male Jews is the require-
ment for any public service in
Jewish tradition). Others claim
that because the Sabbath is wel-
comed as a bride and its coming
symbolizes the union of the Al-
mighty with its people, a quorum
of 10 adult Jewish males is re-
quired as it is for a wedding cere-
mony.

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