Evening star., 1924-01-07
ANT|-KLAN PLANK
UNDERWOOD PLAN
Alabaman to Wage Cam
paign on Lines That Swept
Buchanan Into Office.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.
Senator Oscar W. Underwood of
Alabama expects to be nominated and
elected President of the United States
on the issue that carried James
Buchanan into the White House In
1856. Buchanan made opposition to
know-nothingism his battle cry. I'm
derwood has adopted .hostility to
the Ku Klux Klan as his campaign
slogan. He will elevate 1t almost to
the dignity of his paramount issue
He and his friends believe that the
country will rally around 1t as
enthusiastically as they supported
Buchanan of Pennsylvania in his
crusade against the know nothing
party sixty-eight years ago
Alabama's favorite democratic son
VIII inaugurate his real pre-conven-
tlon campaign at Cleveland on Janu-
airy 22 and continue 1t next day at
Akron; Underwood will wade into the
south. in the region where 1t is
strongest. 1t was in Texas that the
Alabaman first proclaimed his war
rare on the Klan. and his guns next
with the single exception of Indiana.
the ku klux is more powerful than In
any other state in the Union, not
excepting even Texas. Klansmen rate
their strongholds nowadays as In
third.
Underwood purposes not only fight
ing the Klan In his own campaign
FOR nomination. but will demand the
insertion Of a categorical anti-Klan
platform Of 1924. 1t was at James
Buchanan's direct insistence that the
democratic convention of 1856 put an
anti-know-nothing plank in its plat
form.
Asks Party BE Courageous.
Underwood will refer to that his
toric and triumphant precedent and
will ask the democratic party to be
as courageous as its forbears of pre-
civil-war days were The Buchanan
piank's language. in Underwood's
opinion, is dramatically applicable 10
present-hour conditions as far as the
klan agitation is concerned. 1t called
for unqualified freedom of civic and
religious liberty. specifically mem
tioning Roman Catholics and foreign
to either Jews or negroes, because
Jewish immigration was not a factor
at that time and the negroes had not
been emancipated.
Al All .esseHLiAis bucnanan charged
the know-nothing party with the
same attacks on American liberties
and constitutionalism as Underwood
charges the Ku Klux Klan with.
Many democrats Of the 1865 era
thO1ght euehanaps ma ssnp program foplishly
nothings were more strongly in
trenched. politically. than the Khan is
today. They campaigned as a party
and won elections in states as far
apart as Massachusetts, and Kentucky
They were especially formidable in
Maryland. and gave Baltimore the
current nickname Of the Mob city"
1t was said that no less than two
thirds of the Union was more or less
under their influence. But Buchan-
persuaded his party to combat know
nothingism. and won the presidency.
At the time in the Thirty-Fourth
Congress U855-185O the know
nothings had five representatives in
the Senate and forty-three In the
House.
See McAdoo Perplexity.
Underwood's friends make no secret
Of their belief that their candidates
open hostility to the Klan will put
an increasingly embarrassing Ailem-
ma. McAdoo is not yet publicly COM
mitted on that Issue. He occupies
the famous position assumed by Rob-
ert G. Ingersoll when the great athe-
ist was asked If he expected to go to
heaven or hell. 1--WE friends in both
believer. Underwood's political ad-
Visers have convinced themselves
that straight rom- the shoulder op-
position to the Ku Klux Is the win
ning democratic strategy.
Iney think it will harness New
York, New Jersey, and the most popu-
lous New England states to the I'm
derwood chariot certainly at the
convention and probably for the cleo
Underwood expects his Klan stand
70 De as embarrassing to Coolidge, If
tney are rival candidates for cleo
tion, as 1t will be to McAdoo in the
pre-convention campaign. Indiana
and ohio contain tens of thousands
OF republican klansmen. Underwood
ate them by an anti-Klan attitude.
II he straddles or sympathizes. I'm
derwood's hackers say, the President
Will endanger himself in the very
citadel Of his normal strength =
Massac achGsests,Iwhich holds 10000.
hundreds of thousands of Irish
Americans. What the Catholics and
Jews Of New York state between
them win do about Klan or anti-KIan
candidates. the Underwoodites point
out, needs no mention
In addition to "swatting the KIan."
Senator Underwood intends to swat
the bonus" He will unlimber his
swat stick In Ohio later in the month.
Another thing at which II will he
Welded is the Fordney-McCumbe
tariff. Underwood will plead for
sweeping reductions in that law
along with the reductions in taxa
ton for which the Coolidge Mellon
plan calls.
On prohibition Underwood will ad-
yocate law enforcement.
Copyright. 1s24)