The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-09-16

- Catholics and Jews. 4
 Black Hurried His Oath
 Charles Elmer Cropley, clerk of the supreme court, said that Black had taken the specific oath re- quired of supreme court justices sometime between Aug. 24 and Aug. 29. It had been known that Black took the general oath swearing to uphold the Constitution, which is required of all government employees on Aug. 19. By custom. new su- preme court justices take the speci- fic court oath in the courts robing room just before going onto the bench for the first time. It is GUS. tomarily administered by the chief justice.
 Black took a combined oath be- fore Charles F. Page, financial clerk of the Senate, which satis- fled all requirements of law, Crop ley said. The justice department said that Blacks oath was filed with the departments appointment clerk just before black sailed for Europe. He now is on the govern ment payroll as a member of the supreme court.
 Cropley said that the justice de- pertinent had a prepared form in which the two required oaths were combined. It was this form that Black signed. The disclosure came as a surprise. Blacks friends had intimated that he would not take the specific oath until the court convened.
 International Aspect
 Meantime the controversy assumed an international aspect. The Lon- don Daily Express, after a trans Atlantic telephone conversati ton with imperial wizard Evans in Atlanta. quoted him as having said that he had told President Roosevelt that Black was not member of the klan. In Atlanta, Evans said that he had been miSquoted. He said he had not told the president anything about Black
 The Pittsburgh Post -Gazette's fourth article quoted what it said was a Stenographic record of Evans speech, delivered at the klan's Mont- gomery, Ala, klorero at which Black and Bibb Graves, now governor of Alabama, allegedly accepted life memberships. Evans purportedly said, in part:
 "The fact that we are native born, white, gentle Protestants entities us to supremacy and to lead.
 So let's get the country into the hands of that kind of people, but not certain mana type of men. And we want to go back to our fore- fathers slogan, that this was to be a country where 0 man might wor- ship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
 There has been no statesman able up to now to suggest in the form of a government a single im- provement upon the government laid down by our Protestant fore- fathers.
 Attack on Catholics
 Do you know they vote the Roman Catholic in New York? They vote him exactly like you number horses out here.
 DO you know what they could dop Why, they could brand them and cut their ears like we cut the ears of cattle and hogs in Texas. If they wanted to, they could mark them so they could look on the ear and see whether or not he was a Catholic. They could do 1t in New York without Q word. They could do 1t in Chicago without a word.
 We are going to see whether the progress through the succeeding years of this century will be a prog ress toward centralized heirarchial control of government and religions or whether we will have the great open spaces continue to provide the thought and the direction for this great free nation.
 That is the klan program. We are here to preserve America and to do 1t Is a genuine fight and l don't mean maybe. It Is a genuine hard fight. Well, you say, 1t isn't here in Alabama.
 No Catholic Controls Alabama
 No, the Catholic hasn't any chance to control Alabama. And the negro hasn't any chance to con- trol Alabama. There isn't a negro in Alabama that dares open his mouth and say he believes in social equality of the black man and make public that he wants social equality. That is, not here.
 But, bless our soul, up in New York that National Association for the Advancement of the Colored Race adopts as its slogan that 1t be- lieves in social equality.
 They can preach that into the ears of those northern people as much as you please but the first thing you know there are not going to be any negroes north of the Ma son and Dixon line except those headed in this direction, and just behind them will be the Yankees.
 Down here we don't hate the negroes as negroes. But up north they hate all negroes. We haven't got a bit of that down here, for we control the situation. But that Is a problem that must be met. And you |.