Evening Star Newspaper, September 13, 1937, Page 5

'I!HE\ EVENING STAR. WASHINGTON, D.'C., MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, BLACK'S DENIAL QUOTED BY BORAH New lJustice Said He Is Not a Member of Klan, Sen- ate Told. During the debate August 16 on eonfiming the appointment of Hugo L. Black to the Supreme Court, Sen- ator Borah, Republican, of Idaho, told the Senate that Black had said in private conversation that he was not a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Senator Borah's remarks, as pub- “lished by the Congressional Record, | follow: Rrarm or “Mr. President, the Committee on | the Judiciary had this matter before | it, and I do not see any reason why it | should be sent back to the committee. | There has never been at any time one fota of evidence that Senator Black Wwas & member of the Klan. No one | has suggested any source from which such evidence could be gathered. The members of the committee have had hundreds of telegrams, even running into the thousands, from people over | the country sent upon the theory that the Senator is a member of the Klan. But in no telegram that I have seen has there been a suggestion as to any evidence or facts sustaining that prop- osition, and, for myself, I am not willing to go about hunting for the possibility of something which may Teflect upon a member of the Senate. Borah Called for Evidence. “We know that Senator Black has #aid in private conversation, not since | ~this matter came up but at other | times, that he was not a member of | the Klan, and there is no evidence | to the effect that he is. What is there to examine? Of course, the country seems to proceed upon the theory that | there is something to examine, but there is not. There is no fact or facts | even indicating it. It is rumor or| hearsay. For- myself, I am not, de- sirous of entering upon any investi- gation regarding it, unless some re- sponsible person is prepared to make the charge, not based upon hearsay, but upon knowledge of some facts tending to sustain the charge. If it | goes back to the committee, upon | ‘whose charge or upon what facts shall Wwe begin investigation?” Senator Copeland of New York »asked whether Senator Borah would oppose the nomination if Seaator | Black was or had been a Kansman, Hits Racial Intolerance. Senator Borah replied: “Mr. President, for myself, if I knew that a man was a member of a secret association organized to spread racial b antipathies and racial intolerance s through this country, I should cer- “ tainly vote against him for any posi- tion. There is one thing we ought to be very careful about in this country, | and that is not to start the flames ,of intolerance; and I have no sym- pathy and no respect for any effort along that line. But that is a wholly | different proposition from taking an associate here who has been with us for 11 years and, because of mere | rumor, putting him under the hu- miliation of a trial as to whether or not he is a loyal American citizen, If any one has any facts, let him pre- ” sent them here and then we will talk about the nomination going back to the committee.” A few minutes later Senator Borah voted against confirmation, but pre- | sumably on the basis of certain legal | objections he had raised. . WALSH IS QUOTED IN CASE OF BLACK Holds Resignation Should Be Asked if Klan Charge Is Proved, Paper Says. B the Associated Press. BOSTON, September 13.—The Bos- | ton Transcript today quoted Senator David I. Walsh, Democrat, of Massa- \ chusetts as saying President Roose- | velt should demand the resignation of Hugo Black as & Supreme Court jus- | tice if it could be proved the Alabaman was a member of the Ku Klux Klan The Transcript said Senator Walsh, interviewed at his Clinton home, de- | clared: “If it is true that Senator Black is | & member of the Ku Klux Klan, Pres- | ident Roosevelt ought to ask his im- | mediate resignation from the Supreme | “Furthermore,” the quoted Walsh as saying, * Black was a member of the Klan at the time the Senate confirmed his nomination, his confirmation by the Senate was under false represenia ~ tion.” The Transcript says Senator Walsh chairman of the Naval Committee of the Senate, commented after pub- lished reports had appeared alleging documentary evidence was available to show Black became & life member of the Klan in 1926, FAROUK’S CROWNING SET Coronation Rites for New Ruler of Egypt February 11. CAIRO, Egypt, Septe Egypt's new ruler, K be crowned Fe i 18th birthday anniversary under the Occidental calendar Public subscriptions have been cc lected to provide funds for giving erown to the first ruler of a free Egypt n four centuries The young King was invested as ruler on July 29—his 18th birthday an- niversary under the Moslem calendar He took the oath of office in simple ceremonies before the Egyptian Par- liament. There was no coronation then, and Farouk himself objected to elaborate rites. @ ESTABLISHED 1865 @ 7 SERVICE That Never Fails That's the foundation of Bar- ker success over a period of 7 72 yeors. Speciolly trained operators take your orders; experts fill them; the ond gold” fleet of trucks arrives on time alwoys; Borker prices for quality materials are the lowest in Washington! Transcript nber 13, (#).— g 7 'GEO. M. BARKER | ° COMPANY e LUMBER and MILLWOR 649-651 N. Y. Ave. N.W. 1523 Tth St. N.W. Nat. 1348, “The Lumber NM-:’% i ‘ K | evidently does not wish for the mo- A Jacsimile of the commu (secretary) of the Ku Klux Kla It was written on the stationer Realm of Alabame. The “I. T. “In the Sacred Unfailing Bond.” Black (Continued From First Page.) States attended. That was the oc- | casion of the presentation to Black of the gold life membership card. Proceedings Recorded. The proceedings of that meeting were taken by the official Klan sten- of the records of the Alabama Klan These records, according to the Pos Gazette, show that Black, in accept- | ing the gold membership card, said: “I realize that I was elected by men | who believe in the principles that I have sought to advocate and which are the principles of this organization.” There is no official record in the files of the Alabama Klan of Black’s resignation, the newspaper says. So far as the official files indicate, the | gold card vresented to him when he | was made a life member has never | been returned. ‘When Black joined the Klan on that September evening in Birmingham, the newspaper says, he went through the usual ceremony, standing before the white-robed brethren, his left hand | over his heart, his right hand raised. Crossed swords lay on the Bible on the altar as he intoned the long oath of allegiapice, swearing never to divulge, not even under threat of death, the secrets of the Invisible Empire. A por- | tion of the Klan oath follows: “I swear that I will most zedlously and valiantly shield and preserve by any an? all justifiable means and methods * * * white supremacy * * *. | “All to which I have sworn by this | oath, I will seal with my blood, be Thou my witness, Almighty God Amen.” Written in Longhand. Black’s resignation was submitted a year before the primary election of | 1926, and was apparently written in | his own hand on a sheet of stationery | of the grand dragon of the realm of Alabama. The text of the resignation | follows: “Mr. J. W. Hamilton. “Dear Sif and Klansman: Beg to tender you herewith my resignation as a member of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, effective from this date on. “Yours I. T. S. U. B, UGO L. BLACK.” “Yours in the sacred unfailing bond” is the translation of the capitals with which the letter of resignation was closed. In connection with the resignation, it is pointed out that Hamilton was not addressed properly, his Klan fitle being “Kligrapp,” not “Kligraph,” as written. Apparently never coming to the at- tention of Hamilton, the resignation lay dormant and Black stayed out of | the Klan until the meeting at Klan headquarters in 1926, when he was given the life membership, the news- paper says. BLACK DODGES QUERIES, Supreme Court Justice Evades An- swer on Klan Three Days. PARIS, September 13 (N.AN.A).— Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black ment to give any explanations or make any comment on his connections with | the Ku Klux Klan, With Mrs. Black, he ha® been stay- ing for some time mn Paris and ony hursday they were guests of honor | at a luncheon given at his Chantilly | Chateau by Ambassador William C. Bullitt. Late Friday evening, the New | York Times called Mr. Black at his| apartment in the Hotel George V to | inform him of the intention of pub- | | lishing a series of articles copyrighted | ;h\' the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and | the North American Newspaper Al- |1 , relating how Mr. Black esigned from the Klan | er the primary of 1926, accepted life membership in the or- ization Mr. Black did not answer the tele- phone, which was answered by Mrs. aying her husband was sleap- | western and southern coasts Resignation Attributed to Black GRAND ALABAMA nication sent to the Kligrapp n in Birmingham, Ala., in 1925. 'y of the grand dragon of the S. U. B.” is an abbreviation for ing and could not be disturbed. In- formed of the message the New York Times wished to deliver, she said her husband would make a statement in the morning. On Saturday, Mr. Black absented himself most of the day from the hotel. When it was found impossible {to obtain an appointment with him, a letter outlining the facts set forth : | in the series of articles was left at the | ographer, transcribed and made a Dart | pote and later it was stated that the letter had been delivered Black’s hands. This same evening a man's voice, answering over the phone from Mr. Black's room, declared Mr. Black was out, and, when he heard the New York Times desired a statement from Mr. Black, said he would deliver the message and have Mr. Black tele- phone. Mr. Black did not telephone the New York Times. He did not answer the letter. s On leaving the hotel, left no forwarding address. (Copyright. 1937. by New York Times and North Amefican Newspaper Alliance.) into Mr. Mr. Black TYPHOON TURNS BACK TO JAPANESE ISLANDS 10 More Lives Claimed as Storm Strikes Inland at Northern End of Honshu. By the Associated Press, TOKIO, September 13.—The de- structive typhoon which killed at least 60 persons yesterday along Japan’s before swinging into the Sea claimed 10 ‘more lives today by strik- ing inland again through Aomori Prefecture, at the northern tip of the main island, Honshu. “Two_thousand houses were inun. dated, 25 small boats swept out to sea, railroad embankments washed out and train service was dLSPURted. Fire added to the havoc in some il- lages. Four were missing in Aomor! and many others were unaccounted for in sections where the 75-mile-an-hour storm, accompanied by torrential rain, struck earlier, of Japan | BLACK'S KLAN AID KNOWN AT HOME All Political Candidates in| 1926 Needed Its Backing, Is’Explanation. BY RUSSELL B. PORTER. BIRMINGHAM, Ala, September/ 13 (Special).—Some people in this| “steel city of the South,” 10 years| |ago one of the strongholds of ‘he‘\ Klu Klux Klan, will be surprised to | ber of the Klan and still is, accord~ ing to the series of articles by Ray | | Post-Gazette and the North Amer- | ican Newspaper Alliance, Inc. Few | | will be astonished to learn that he| | had Klan support for his nomination | as United States Senator in the 1926 | | Democratic primaries, equivalent to election in the deep South. | In those days the Klan was at its | peak of popularity. It was credited | with from 80,000 to 80,000 members | throughout. the State, and really had from 35,000 to 40,000 dues-paying members, including 10,000 in the Rob- ert E. Lee Klan, No. 1, of Birming- ham, according to persons then high in the Klan hierarchy. It was the | Robert E. Lee Klan, No. 1, as as- | serted in the Sprigle articles, to which Justice Black belonged before | he received a life-membership card | after his 1926 nomination, which, ac- cording to a former Klan official here, transferred his allegiance to | the State Klan. That Justice Black had Klan sup- port in the 1926 primaries has been common knowledge here and that ne addressed Klan meetings during his | campaign is often aserted. One | realistic viewpoint heard expresscd! | here is that Justice Black had to| cater to the Klan, or give up his| | ambition to hold public office at that | time. It is recalled that former United States Senator Oscar W. Un- derwood of Alabama, afier he cams out against the Klan in the 1924 | national election, had to leave pub- lic life. Klan Was Strong in '26, The Klan was so strong in 1926 that practically no one coiild hold or keep public office unless he joined it or made some kind of deal with it. | Its numbers were greatly expanded | that year as word spread that Klan membership would be an indispensable | requirement for appointment to jobs after elections. State, county and city offices were filled with Klansmen. The police and fire departments, the prosecutors’ offices and even some of the courts were packed with Kluxers. Both Justice Black, as candidate for the Senate, and Col. Bibb Graves, as candidate for the governorship | (he is now serving nis second term as Governor) were swept into office at the head of a horde of Klansmen. After the Klan began to slip, its vast and secret power led to greater and greater abuses against civil liber- ties. There were too many floggings, | and it became apparent that many | | were affairs of revenge that had{ | nothing to do with Klan “principles.” | | Instead of an indispensable asset, | | Klan membership then became a lia- | hility in Alabama politics, How this | i worked in practice is illustrated by a | story of a minor local politician who | | rode into office in the Klan sweep Mi | 1926. Seeing the handwriting on the FIAKD | EARS OfceuhT® B U e g, vt Pl |14 ‘,afl | terday at his home in the exclusive | 1937, wall change, he secretly organized some of his political henchmen and fellow-Klansmen in a masked and hooded automobile raid on his own home, causing them to throw a fiery cross on to the front lawn, in order to convince his constituents that he was now “anti-Klan.” On top of a reaction in public opin- ion, came the depression, which swept away dues-paying members by the thousand, and left the highly paid leaders stranded without their revenue | from dues or from their various “side | issues” which depended on the trade of “loyal” Kluxers. Membership Declines. By 1931, according to a former Klan | official, the actual dues-paying mem- bership throughout Alabama had shrunk to about 2,000. Now the Klan | . |of the Klan in Alabama. that Supreme Court Justice 5 mearly extinct, although the im- | Of . ;T;o LhaBlncl:mwns actually a mem- |Perial wizard, Dr. Hiram W. Evans,| ¥as & traveling organizer for the the Atlanta, Ga., dentist, and a den- | st lieutenant here are trying to re- | Sprigle copyrighted by the Pittsburgh | VIVe it. Tt still has local units in this | %3S born in Tennessee and was edu- city and elsewhere in the State which | hold regular weekly meetings and are | trying to urge formexr Klansmen to | become reinstated and to attract new | members from among the younger | generations. Still a secret organization, its mem- bership is not a matter of public record, but probably is only a few hundred throughout the State, accord=- ing to former Klan officials. In the same quarters, the Robert E. Lee Klan, No. 1 of this city—to which Justice Black is supposed to have belonged, according to the Sprigle articles—has only 75 or 100 dues-paying members today. Active Klans are still kept up in Georgia and Florida, and it is under- stod here tohat a Capt. Garcia of Jacksonville, who had some success in reorganizing the Klan in Florida, was recently sent here to try to re- vive it in Alabama. The grand dragon of the realm of | Alabama, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, referred to in Mr. Sprigle's finst article, was James Esdale, a well-! known Birmingham lawyer, until he withdrew from the Klan in 1931. Ac- cording to the Sprigle series, Justice Black, after joining the Klan in 1923, resigned in a note written on the grand dragon’s stationery on July 19, | 1925, so that he would be able to dis- | claim membership in the Klan if | challenged on that score during the | 1926 primaries. The Sprigle article says that Justice Black decided in| conference with Klan officals to resign | after getting their pledge of support | for him as a Klan candidate in the | primaries, but that the resignation was kept in the Klan archives and was never presented to J. W. Hamilton, “kligrapp” or secretary of the Robert E. Lee No. 1, to whom it was ad- dressed, or made known to the Klan rank and file. Declines to Discuss Records. Interviewed by this reporter yes- Red Mountain residential district over- | looking the city, former Grand Dragon Esdale declined to discuss the Klan | records cited in the Sprigle articles showing Justice Black’s original join- ing of the Klan, his 1925 “resigna- tion,” or his renewal of allegiance at the Klan meeting in this city on Sep- | RADIATOR _ System 9 GIFT PREMIER “102” Biectrio Vacuum vleaner ($14.95 value) if you act now to modernize any existing home with American_Radiator System, For details wee your Heating Contractor—or write— AMERICAN RADIATOR ; COMPANY s e AMERICAN RADIATOR ¢ 41 Wast 40th i D. J. KAUFMAN, Inc. 1005 Pa. Ave Spark 14th and Eye Sts ling New FALL SUITS TOP and O' COATS COATS *25 Authentic fashion garments—rich in appearance, with splendid wearing qualities. 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Radio His Bunch Joe and Budget WMAL, 3 AIR COOLED STORES Parking (3 | tember 2, 1926, at which, according to the writer of the series, Mr. Esdale presided, and Justice Black accepted | a gold “grand passport” or life mem- | bership card in the Klan. Mr. Esdale | also declined to talk about the alleged | deal between Justice Black and himself for Klan support in the 1926 primaries. The former grand dragon did not deny any of the statements which linked his name with that of Justice Black. Mr. Esdale is now practicing law in Birmingham. He is no longer inter- ested in the Klan, but is still inter- ested in “patriotic” organizations. He had a share in promoting the Cru- saders of America after leaving the Klan. He belongs to various fra- ternal organizations. As grand dragon he was State head | i He also | g Klan -in Tennessee, Virginia, Illinois and Wisconsin. He is 40 years old, cated at Auburn, Columbia and the | University of Alabama. When he quit the Klan he turned over some of the | official records to his successor, Bert | Thomas, but kept others, including | the stenographic records of State meetings, in his own possession. | Former Kligrapp, or Secretary, Ham- ilton of Robert E. Lee Klan, No. 1, to | whom the 1925 “resignation” was ad- dressed ,according to the Sprigle ar- ticles, is now tax collector of Jeffer- son County, of which Birmingham is | the county seat. He was not at home yesterday. (Copyright. 10:7. by New York Times and North: American Newspaper Alliance.) *+ A-S Cardinal Segura, who fled from Spain SPAIN CARDINAL NAMED e G S St b ARCHBISHOP OF SEVILLE | abdicated, had been in insurgent ter= ritory for some days studying the By the Associated Press. situation there. d been CASTEL GONDOLFO, Italy, Sep- Cardinal Segura, who ha temb:rle —Pope Pius today ymmfd‘ archbishop of Toledo and head of the the cardinal primate of Spain, Pedro | Spanish hknrchy b?for;dAl'{;r‘l‘:w'; Segura y Saenz, archbishop of Seville | Tegime was D\!flhfozn'-‘o o to succeed Cardinal Ilundain, who | France and later wen! B e died in August. has been living there as a meml Prelates disclosed yesterday that | of the curia. M La) 7 al [-iIII;Ii?flflAN V. Quality Food With Service and Savings We have been serving particular housekeepers for over 46 years. 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