The call of the North. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1923-1924, 1923-12-12
By DIR. H. w. EVANS
Imperial Wizard, Knights of the Ku Klux Khan

| COM, Leu reverence IOr law DeCOme
the political religion of the nation"
The world is today in a chaotic state.
Throughout history as a result of
great wars, there have been upheavals
in society and thus the trend of civ
ilization has been changed from age
to age. The Great War, the greatest
of all wars, the one through which we
have just passed, has wrecked the
foundation of our Christian civiliza-
ton until today there is no stability.
The nearest approach to stable gov
eminent and a conservative people is
the government of the United States
of America and its people.
It behooves the Christian men and
women who move after careful
thought and consideration to study
the primary causes of disturbances
in our part of the world today. My
mind goes back to the year 1916,
as speak, and l remember that this
country reelected President and
continued the government because
the President and his government
had kept US out of the great strug-
gle then going on between the other
great nations. Almighty God, in the
working out of His great purposes
brought soon after that marvellous
expressions of the peoples will a
mind and purpose to the American
people to make the world safe for
democracy, which meant to assure to
the people of the world liberty of
thought and action.
The war is long since over. The
opportunity to make the world safe
for democracy is still with US, but
is rapidly passing from US. If the
people of the world are to be free
they must come to recognize and to
know that freedom is not license, but
that freedom carries with it as it's
hand-maiden, responsibility, in a
country where all men are free and
equal. The responsibility of each
thoughtful citizen to his country and
to his brother is serious one. After
democracy has expressed it's will
in the setting up of constitution, a
government and a code of laws, the
primal responsibility of the God-fear-
ing, contract-keeping, honest citizens
is to obey the contract or law which
they set up one with another and
thus to give by combined might of
their individual, whole-hearted sup
port, real strength to righteous gov
eminent.
There is abroad in the land today
a growing disregard for law. That
growing disregard for law, if allowed
to continue and to grow is real
menace to freedom, to liberty, and
to our people. What is law? In
human government, law is the Or
ganic rule establishing and defining
conditions in state or community.
In the history of the world there
is no record of the enactment or pas
sage of a law which met the approval
of every citizen who was required to
live under and obey the law thus
enacted. The great danger today is
that too many reasonably honest,
reasonably conscientious, reasonably
good citizens are now willing to set
at naught some parts of the consti-
tuition and certain of the laws enact
ed under the constitution because
they either do not meet or 60 beyond
their personal beliefs and likes. The
message I am bringing to you today
is that nobody gives you, and each of
you, any right to violate law or to
wink at its violation because of your
personal disbelief in it's Brightness or
it's operation.
| When a law has been legally en-
acted, all law-obeying citizens obey
the law. And why has it come to be
the mind of many citizens that the
infraction of certain other laws does
not involve moral turpitude? If we
are to serve our country and to bring
back to our people a reverence for
law as the political religion of our
nation, we must come to see and
know that the violation of any law
involves moral turpitude, and is a
distinct violation of sacred con-
tract with the other citizens of our
country to which contract we are a
distinct party. When contract-break-
ing becomes universal, the stability
of any kind of contract on earth be-
comes less secure. To my mind, the
greatest need of the American peo-
pie is, first, that they come to that
place where they are willing to obey
all law because it is law, and to make
it their business to see that laws that
do not measure up to their highest
standard which duty requires of con-
scientious, God-fearing men, be
changed to meet the requirements of
the times.
Our forefathers, when they builded
this government, builded it wisely
and we'll. For many years, the prin-
cipal duty of the citizens of the thir-
teen COLONIES was to think and talk
to commune and pray, and then to
act in accordance with their recogni-
ton of their responsibility to their
country and their God. The Christ's
civilization, the fairest fruit of mans
efforts that Gods support up to to-
day, depends not upon the enactment