Members are not actually required to possess a robe, but it is generally
the case that every man who comes into the movement is childishly eager to
acquire one, whether he can use it in public or not. The organization does
not "sell" the robes to members; it merely rents them, and members upon
leaving the organization are required to return them to the head of the
local Klan. The price charged a member for a robe is $6.50, while the
Kleagle must pay $12 as his robe has more trimming. Made in large
quantities, as they are being made, there ought to be a profit of at least
$5 per garment, although I believe a New York garment maker could show a
larger profit than that. According to "Emperor" Simmons, the present
output is about six hundred robes a day. Orders are taken for the garments
by Kleagles and Exalted Cyclops of the different Klans on measuring blanks
printed especially for the purpose. The order is made out and addressed to
the "Imperial Wizard," but it is filled by the "Gate City Manufacturing
Company" of Atlanta, Georgia. The records of Fulton County, Georgia, show
that application for charter for this corporation was filed June 9, 1920,
with C. B. Davis and Lottie B. Davis as incorporators. It shows a capital
stock of $25,000, and states that "more than $5,000 has been paid in." It
also asks the right to increase its capitalization to $50,000. Its powers
indicate that it is to engage in the manufacture and sale of lodge
supplies, paraphernalia and equipment of all sorts for the use of lodges,
secret societies, etc. The corporation apparently lay dormant for a year,
as an order of court allowing the petition was only allowed on August 19,
1921. Until the incorporators met and organized there could have been no
legal organization of the corporation. No reports as to business done had
been filed in Fulton County up to the date of the court order above
mentioned. This concern, however, has been doing business for several
months prior to that time, as I received several shipments from them in
April and May 1921. _Who owns the Gate City Manufacturing Company? What
connection has it with the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan? What becomes of
the enormous profit derived from the sales of robes?_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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