The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-06-18

First attack of the Birmingham mittee against the Ku Klux Klan Is launched today in lengthy state ment, setting out the principles of the committees stand and attack ing in part the speech made by Rev. William Joseph Mahoney, imperial klokard, at 8 meeting of the klan held in Birmingham three weeks ago today and published exclusively in the Age-Herald.
 The statement declares the bar as- sociation does not want to destroy the klan, but wants the members to take off the masks and disclose their names. The lawyers have no quar- rel with members of the klan as in dividuals, the statement reads, but charges the klan with being po- litical party dealing in prejudices in barring Catholics, aliens and Jews, although they profess TO am floggings and yioltne attacks on in-
 The association committee admits that there are many good citizens in the k1an in Birmingham, but points out that only since the k1an appeared here have there been any floggings and violet attacks on in- dividuals.
 The committee makes clear that It's entire membership is made up of Gentle Protestnts and that it fla vors suitable laws forbidding the wearing of masks by any secret so- ciety or organization.
 The statement as issued by the .@nV s,.ff fnn 2f 4x& follows:
 Above all other professions and classes, of men, lawyers should stand for human rights, for justice, for law, for orderly and constitutional government. This responsibility is the sole occasion for this address and 1t Is to thoughtful men and wom- en we direct this appeal.
 Since the organization of the Ku Klux Klan many outrages, with which we have been long unfami- far have taken place. Men and wom- en, white and black, mostly white. of high and low degree, have been deprived of their constitutional rights. They have been accused and condemned without being allowed to face their accusers or witnesses against them. Without right oi counsel, witnesses or trial by jury, severe and cowardly punishment has been inflicted upon them. Private trials have been substituted for pub lie ones. Convictions have been had not upon the sworn testimony of men in open court, tested and sifted by cross examination, but by hear say evidence. without their pres- ence or knowledge. The opinion of the mob has been substituted for the judgment of the court and jury Anonymous threats have been sent to our Judges, and litigants have been secretly flogged for their te- merity in seeking relief in the courts of our county. As already said, with crimes of this kind we have long been unfamiliar. Only since the Ku klux Klan began doing business have they occurred.
 Responsibility for these crimes has not been fixed. The deeds have been done in darkness and. in some in- stances, under the protection of the mask, and these devices have thus far proven an effeetual mask against detection. 1t is not of first import ance whether the Ku Klux Klan committed them. We only know that such offenses. long unpraoticed among our people, have suddenly been renewed. In this crisis, under these circumstances. the organized lawyers of Jefferson county have reached the deliberate conclusion that masks, whether covering the in nocent or guilty, should come off. Ii innocent, they have become the alib and the hope of the guilty If gull ty, they represent the lowest degra- dation of law and order. We there fore propose the passage of laws forbidding the continued use by any society of secret masks. If the Ku Klux xlan are, as they claim, who'll ly innocent of these things; If they have had no part or parcel in them they must know by this time that they have been the melting and moving cause for events which have brought ineffacable disgrace upon this county If the purposes of the klan are what. and only what, are