This suggests that other motives must enter in, that something else in the small-town American must have made the Klan congenial. That something else is monotony, standardization (the “Main Street” attitude), and the appeal of the Klan to these people lay largely in its glamor of mystery, secrecy and hidden power. The rise of fraternal orders is one of the note-worthy movements in American life; there are now over six hundred of these societies in the United States, of which four hundred ninety were organized between 1880 and 1895. Over seven per cent. of our population is affiliated with these orders, and their greatest strength is precisely in the small town, where they are a bright spot in the dull social life, and give a factitious importance to their “nobles” and “exalted rulers,” as well as to the many who are permitted to enter into their secrets and to parade in their regalia. Professor Mecklin[73] classifies secret societies in three groups: the beneficial societies, with whom secrecy is merely protective; the social organizations, devised to give “variety and interest to our poverty-stricken American life”; and finally, militant societies with a general program which affects the entire nation, like the old Ku Klux Klan, the Mafia, and the Fenians. He concludes that the present Klan, while undoubtedly furnishing for many of its members the release from monotony, the sense of power, the revolt against repression, that is characteristic of the second class of organizations, has also the characteristics of the third type and is therefore a public problem. As he points out elsewhere in his book, the disguise of the mask is a further danger, as it may be adopted by members to persecute non-members in nameless ways, and even presents an opportunity for non-Klansmen to indulge in violence practically without fear of detection. Professor Mecklin’s analysis of Klan psychology in Chapter IV of his book presents several suggestive points. He says: [74]The strength of the Klan lies in that large, well-meaning, but more or less ignorant and unthinking middle class, whose inflexible loyalty has preserved with uncritical fidelity the traditions of the original American stock. [75]Membership in a vast mysterious Empire means a sort of mystic glorification of his petty self. The Klan insists on like-mindedness, in the sense of adopting the Anglo-Saxon ideals as the norm for America. Finally, [76]The Klan has literally battened upon the irrational fear psychology that followed on the heels of the war. Father John A. Ryan contributes an additional motive, [77]There is a particular manifestation of public opinion which deserves emphasis as a cause of the recent intolerance. This is the conviction which seized large and numerous groups of individuals that they were justified in becoming extra legal agents for law enforcement.... Either the spirit or the letter of the law is violated in the name of the law itself.