The Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan: A study of the American Mind. By JOHN MOFFATT MECKLIN, Ph. D., Professor of Sociology, Dartmouth College. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1924.
This book makes a notable contribution to a fascinating subject—the genealogy of the American mind. We hear a great deal at the present time about good stock and the importance of pedigrees, but there is a line of inheritance, subtler than the legacy of flesh and blood, which we are too much disposed to take for granted. The pedigrees of ideas and of attitudes are indispensable to the understanding of national traits and the behavior of social classes. A religious convulsion like the Reformation and the religious dissensions which followed, can generate attitudes of mind which pass down the generations, for centuries under stress of strong emotion—fear playing a central role—and today still lie just below the surface of the popular mind like half-believed tales of witches, fairies and goblins, ready under favorable circumstances of passion, ignorance, or credulity to resume their ancient role. It is against such a background of inherited emotional and intellectual lega- cies, largely detached from present facts and elaborately rationalized, that the tragi-comic history of the Klan unfolds. It is to be hoped that Professor Mecklin will on another occa- sion enlarge his objective and utilize for the interpretation of other phases of American character, this same historical-psychological method, employed with such telling effect ® the analysis of the Klan.
It is from a somewhat different point of view, however, that the present reviewer wishes to approach the subject matter of this book. The Klan is not only a characteristically American phenomenon; it is a characteristically human phenomenon. Its central attitude possesses a universal significance. That attitude may be said to be a fondness for direct action, involving a surprising readiness to suspend legal and even constitutional arrangements (always on high moral or patriotic grounds) in favor of some sort of passionate short-cut to welfare. From this point of view, it will be perceived that much beside the Klan is on trial, at least by implication, in this book.
Man, says a recent writer, is "a being motivated very little by logic, but mainly by emotions, wills to power, 'drives,' strange likes and dislikes"—most of whose acts "are unreasonable and occur merely because he is built that way." It is for this reason that civilization proves time and again so fragile. The Klan as portrayed in Professor Mecklin's pages is an impressive example of reversion to the primitive sanction of force in an age when it seemed that coercion and dictation were giving way to deliberation and government by law.
The Klan however, is far from being the only example of this atavistic ethical attitude; militant labor groups wish to improve their situation by direct action; disfranchised women seek to intimidate or shock into alert attention a public too indifferent to political justice; exasperated conservatives in Italy, getting their cue from the metal workers and other radical groups, take the law into their own hands and affront their country with a dictatorship of a type dating back to the Diaz regime in Mexico. The quick way and the rough way is still presumed to be the best way.
American reactionaries are or were recently m favor of curing radicalism by means of Lusk Committees, Palmer-Daugherty methods, and the firing squad. The asperities of the cave w ill no doubt always be more natural to us than the amenities of the conference table. We display a curious proneness to resort to elemental vengeance in preference to the hardly wor| guarantees of the law and the constitution. The reviewer recalls a conversation with a citizen of the back parts of Southern Indiana some years ago in which the opinion was expressed in regard to a local lay preacher who was reputed not to be a good provider for his family, that he "ought to be whipped good with withes, and jest hung up and left till he was all withered away." Out of the soil of such sentiments, white-capping and the Klan spring exuberantly.
Since he is but a half-hearted believer in the long-range, indirect and orderly methods sanctioned by the law, the Klansman is prone to impute a similar preference for direct action to the groups which he fears and disapproves of. They are believed to be aboutto take action in some sudden and illegitimate fashion in behalf of a bad cause; "Let us," runs the logic of Force, "forestall their meditated illegalities by prompt and effective illegalities of our own in a good cause." Here is the secret of much of the fouling in social and political relationships. One might formulate THE FOULING FALLACY: "Our opponents have handled the rules carelessly or are about to do so; therefore it is clearly to our advantage to checkmate or forestall them by taking even more drastic liberties with the rules ourselves."
A profound skepticism of the basic process of democracy breaths in these words of "Emperor" Simmons: "My friends, your government can be changed between the rising and the setting of one sun. This great nation with all it provides can be snatched away from you in the space of one day. . . . When hordes of aliens walk to the ballot box and their votes outnumber yours, then that alien horde has got you by the throat. . . . Americans will awake from their slumber and rush out to battle and there will be such stir as the world has never seen the like. The soil of America will run with the blood of its people." (Quoted, page 102.)
Law and order and democracy from this point of view are principles which can be accepted only for so long as we are the majority and are certain of control. In marked contrast to this limited acceptance of law and order, such things as Protestantism and Nativism are conceived as being above the law and deserving not a relative but an absolute loyalty. We find then this interesting situation: The Kl&nsman criticizes the Catholic citizen on the ground that in some future contingency, loyalty to his church may conflict with loyalty to his country; yet all the while and now, not in the future, the Klansman himself is ready to exercise his own discretion as to applying even the constitution of the United States, one of whose provisions reads that of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury." As Professor Mecklin well says; (p. 82) "The modern Klan, judged by its methods, is a glaring historic anachronism. The ends it claims to seek and the means it uses to attain those ends are fundamentally incompatible. The ends are 'law and order', and yet the Klan makes use of lawlessness and disorder to maintain law and order."
Among these stimulating and ■ constructive chapters three may be selected for special mention, those entitled: "Concerning Klan Psychology," "The Klan and Nativism" and "Secrecy and Citizenship." To a quite unusual degree this study combines constructive scholarship, a fluent and readable style, and a courageous and aggressive handling of a problem of serious public import. It deserves a wide reading by thoughtful citizens everywhere.
The April, 1924, issue of The PsychoanalyticReview contains an article by Mr. Malcolm M. Willey entitled "Sleep as an Escape Mechanism."
The January, 1924, issue of Mental Hygiene contains an article, "Dartmouth Charts Mr. Bryan's Arguments," written by Messrs. Stuart A. Rice and Malcolm M. Willey. This originally appeared in The New York Times and is reprinted here by permission of the editors of that paper.
The March number of the Classical Journal contains an article entitled: "The Roman World of Caesar, Cicero and Vergil" by Professor Wm. Stuart Messer.
Professor John H. Gerould is the author of "Inheritance of White Wing Color, a SexLimited (Sex-Controlled) Variation in Yellow Pierid Butterflies," which has been reprinted from the November, 1923, issue of Genetics.
The issue of the Philosophical Review for March, 1924, contains an article by Professor William Urban, "The Intelligible World," part 2.
The issue of School and Society for April 19, 1924, contains an article entitled "Psychological Tests and Rating Scales" by the late Professor R. W. Husband.
Mr. Eric P. Kelley is the author of an article "The Heart of a Democracy" in the March issue of Poland.
The American Organist for April, 1924, contains an article by Mr. Homer P. Whitford entitled "Dartmouth's Organ Work."
