Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-08-29
WHAT PURPOSES INSPIRE
THE NEWER FANATiClSM?
Is Current Propaganda Of 6Isotry and
Violence Being ShrewdIy Directed
for Practical Ends1

A GAIN. with the astonishing rumors of
"A midnight Ku Kux limitations, with
torches and secret oaths. in the region of
Philadelphia, it becomes apparent that,
through the war and its aftermath, we are
in some danger of losing at home the things
for which we fought abroad.
For the preposterous tramping and swear
ing of the Ku Klux organization and the
habit of mob violence which It's example in
spires in others are merely symptoms of a
larger and more deeply rooted evil. lntol-
erance and secret hate and the propaganda
of division and class enmity are combined
in fermcnt that tends to do enormous
harm to the social structures of the country.
Any citizen who refuses to recognize and
face the problem of the new fanatiCism is
guilty Of intellectual CowardiCc, The spec
tacle of white men engaged in rites that
seem appropriate only to the jungle is re-
voting enough. But it is q relatively small
detail in the general scene.
Something very much like civil war is
threatening in West Virginia because Of
class hatreds intensified by industrial con-
flicts long drawn out.
Under the eyes of the police masked mobs
have been burning and pillaging in some of
the southern States and swearing oaths
under which they are pledged to disregard
all law as It is administered with the au-
thority Of the Federal and State Govern
mentS.
Jury trial is no longer assured to defense
less people in some parts of the country.
And in the propaganda by which mob law
is being established and sustained and ex-
tended there is subtle but always dis
cernib,c appeal to the instincts of savugcry
which seem to lie dormant only little way
below the surface in many people.
1t has been said truthfully by observers
of the lynching fever in the South that
burnings and hangingS and jail-wrccking
by mobs represent an end and not a means
Such diversion is qualification for the bar
barous heart of mObs made more cruel by
the obvious helplessneSs of their victims.
Side by side with the propaganda of mob
violence runs nowadays the propaganda of
religious and racial Esotry. We passed
only recently through a national crisis in
which every race and creed and dcnomina-
tion proved eager to give its first devotion
to the flag and to the country. Never
before did the folly of religious prejudice
seem so cruel. So groundcss utterly
without justification as it did in the war
years, when all men became brothers in n
common cause of patriotism and SO suffered
and died and sacrificed together.
1t was not believed that religious differ
ences could ever again count for anything
in this country. Yet hate and suspicion
founded on sectarian antipathies are for
the moment threatening to become something
like mania in many quarters of the
country.
irresponsible and undisciplincd groups.
which include even some Of the men who
served most galIantly in the war, are ap-
pearing here and there and assuming TO
be n sort of morals police for all the people
Of the United States.
The general phenomenon is not explained
by any of its surface aspects. Behind II
clever minds and clever hands and men who
have little interest in morals or in patriot
ism are obviously at work.
There is hardly a day upon which there
is not in the news clear evidence of great
masses of excited opinion flung this way and
that in the interest of some hidden cause
that can only be guessed at.
And the men who are responsible for such
outrages against the principles of true
Americanism raise the flag of the country
above their mobs and denOunce as dis
loyalists any one who would call them to
order!
Whose are the directing minds behind the
movement which tends to turn the forces
Of intellectual and spiritual progress into
forces Of reaction and Savag"ry: Who are
making duDeS of the crowds and the or
ganzations that go out to do their bidding
at the pull Of invisible wires
That is a question for which Congress
ought TO seek an answer without further
delay.