In order to first clear the way of the trivialities which have been placed there to clog our footsteps, I wish in this foreword to state most positively certain facts with reference to our organization. The Ku Klux Klan has not been organized or conducted in opposition to any religion or religious sect, or against the members of any race or language group, either within or without the borders of our country. Upon this point let no doubt be left in the mind of any American. It has been falsely stated that we are fanning the flames of hatred against the Negro race. Exactly the opposite is the truth. To our fellow citizens of the Jewish or the Roman Catholic faith, and to other groups too numerous to mention, we enter a flat denial to all those pure fabrications which have seemingly given them so much alarm. It is, indeed, quite true that our membership is restricted. It includes only citizens of the white race. So does the membership of the Clan-na-Gael and of B'rith Israel. If it may be truthfully said that our membership is also restricted to Christians and to Protestants, this is due purely to the fact that certain deductions may be made from certain paragraphs in our Constitution and By-Laws. We have not yet ceased wondering why attacks should be made upon us in the public press on that score. The membership of the Knights of Columbus is, I believe, restricted to members of the Roman Catholic Church. Is there anything especially dangerous or wrong about that? I should not say so. Catholic Churchmen have both a legal right and a moral right to organize and conduct a fraternal order by and for themselves alone. Moreover, the Knights of Columbus as an organization, and in the personnel of its individual members, would be well within their rights in demanding that they be saved from slander, villification and unjust attacks of every sort, because of the restriction of their membership to those of one faith. Since the end of the war various German organizations, such as fraternal orders, singing societies, etc., have begun to re-establish themselves. These organizations are fully protected by the law and their members do not lack the esteem of their English-speaking fellow citizens. Hence, I would most candidly ask--and would that my voice could be heard throughout the length and breadth of the land--since when has it become a crime for a body of American-born, English-speaking, white citizens to organize themselves into a fraternal order? What has happened in our country which seems to bring our particular racial and social group so much into disrepute? Since the House of Representatives in Washington has investigated us, why is not a resolution presented asking the House to investigate other institutions of a similar nature? However that may be, since we have been duly investigated, and the investigation has ended without the slightest accusation or criticism, so far as we know, on the