The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1922-05-26
CRUSH 1T ONCE AND FOR ALL


recent national history has been
the open and, unblushing revival
of mediaevalism as pretended
feature of American patriotism.
The dominating spirit OF the
Dark Ages was religious .intoler-
ance, race hatred and human
suspicion. The blood shed in
those centuries of demoniac pos
session was almost sufficient to
have created red sea of human
agony.
When the American colonies
came together intellectually and
spiritually in the Declaration OF
independence they did something
far more important than to
swear a solemn oath to battle
against outward and visible
forms of foreign oppression.
They made covenant with each
other to respect the higher law
of spiritual liberty, the freedom
and equality of every mans
soul, the right of every man to
think and choose for himself his
own religious code. This was
the,first American Creed, and it
is the only creed to which any
true American can subscribe.
To say that all men were born
free and equal and had the right
to the enjoyment of life, liberty
and happiness would have been
a hollow mockery had it been
intended to refer only to the
things of the body and to the
physical life. The significance
of the Declaration of Independ-
ence- and of the Constitution
which followed the successful
revolt against England was that
it was a reputation of Old World
religious and racial hates and a
proclamation of emancipation
from the spiritual bondage of a
dark and narrow path.
The men who evolved this new
creed represented lines of de-
scent from hitherto hostile faiths
and nationalities. They came
together on the new day of a
great political Pentecost, when
under the inspiration of a divine
enlightenment they were en-
abled to understand each other
and to speak the same language.
That was the most glorious
achievement in American his
tory. It was the triumph of spir-
itual brotherhood. 1t was the re-
iteration of the Gospel message
of good will, it was a formal cove
nant to outlaw religious perse-
cution and to establish a lasting
peace of God with ones neigh
boris beliefs.
Until the fifties the old SER
pent of intolerance did not raise
his head in our new Eden in any
widely organized and threaten
ing form. In the Know North
ing movement of those days he
appeared again and for a time
made a formidable appeal to hui
man prejudice. He masquerad-
ed as a champion of Ameri-
canism and of liberty, but
America was too American
in those days to suffer
him long. His first attempt to
lead us astray ended in his expos
ure and discontinue.
1t is a most lamentable ref1ec-
tion upon American intelligence
and American ideals that nearly
seventy-fve years later, and just
after a war in which Jew and
Gentle, Catholic and Protestant
white and black, battled should
er to shoulder for the principles
of freedom, this old spirit of hell
should reappear in the shape of
the so-called Ku Klux Khan.
When the New York World
published it's startling series of
articles describing the purposes
and methods of this organization
we hoped that little more would
be heard of it and that it would
die of exposure to the light of
sane public sentiment. We be-
lieve those articles did much to
curb it's growth wherever they
were read and to make it hate
full to all decent people, but it's
rise to political influence in Ore
gon under the false name of
patriotism and the occasional re-
cruits which it is making else
where render it important that
everyone should understand ex-
actly what this new Ku Kluxism
stands for. If it were simply in
tended to operate in the South
and keep unruly negroes in order,
it would be bad enough, because
there is absolutely no excuse
for such an outlaw order in that
section now. The time has long
passed when such an organiza-
tion was needed there for white