One other condition is imposed on all men who would be associated with
the Klan, and that is subscription to the tenets of Christianity.
We are in no sense a religious organization. There is no purpose
of founding what has been suggested by our critics, a new American
church. The Klan does not interfere, through membership, with any man's
interpretation of religious truth or his connection with any branch or
denomination of the Christian church. In fact, the Klan has nothing to
do with dogma, creed, or ritual. Yet the Klan does insist that every
man becoming a member shall strive to carry himself by the code of
conduct promulgated by Jesus Christ. It is a high standard of living
that the Klan undertakes to maintain, and at the very threshold of the
organization one must accept this highest standard of ethics and morals
that the world has ever known.
There are many who can not accept these stern conditions. But certainly
it is not an arbitrary discrimination against any class, or sect,
or race. We believe that, interwoven into the entire fabric of real
Americanism, are the principles of Christianity. Reverent recognition
of this fact has been made in the Bills of Right and in nearly every
state constitution of the Union. In 1895 the Supreme Court of the
United States, in a decision on the Alien Labor Contract Law, declared
this to be a Christian nation, and the Court was very careful to
establish its decision by referring explicitly to the principles and
declarations of Christianity which run through all the organic laws of
the country. So, believing as we do, that our patriotic principles and
Christianity are inseparable and indivisible, we hold steadfastly to
the Constitution and the Sermon on the Mount. It goes without saying
that men who repudiate either can not look for fellowship in the Klan.
CHAPTER V
Is The Klan Anti-Semitic
Referring to the exclusiveness of the Klan, I am not quite prepared to
admit that the conditions stipulated for membership in the organization
set up the insuperable barrier that some people suspect. It has been
pointed out in many hostile criticisms that the Semitic race is
excluded from membership in the Klan. It is not true, for instance,
that the Klan has set up arbitrary barriers to the admission of the
Hebrew; but it is true that the orthodox Hebrew has established around
himself barriers that preclude his admission into the organization.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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