RHODE ISLAND HISTORY - Rhode Island Historical Society

60 PROVIDENCE VlSlmRthe Manual of Inst ructions issued to army medicalexaminers. It also rebuked the American Legion- an organization it usually approved ­when the legion took the law into its own handsagainst radicals. With its record of concern overprejudice and extralegal activities. the Visitor naturally viewed the Klan - an organization thatcombined vigilantism, anti-Semitism. arni-Catholicism,and racism with a heaping amount ofxenophobia - as its mortal enemy/ 'The church as a whole vigorously condemnedthe Klan. and the Catholic press circulated Klanstories far and wide. The first major Klan storythe Visitor printed concerned the organization'sgrowth in Illinois. Alt hough rather small inRhod e Island and the rest of New England. theKlan provided just enough of a threat to justifythe bitter attacks upon it. In 1921 only one kleaglerecruited in all of New England. but in 1922 NewEngland Grand Goblin A. J. Padon claimed thatR hode Island contained 2.000 Klansmen. HistorianKenn eth Jackson estimates total R hod e IslandKlan membership for the period 1915 to 1944 at5.000 with about 3,000 members residing in theP rovid ence metropolitan area durin g thoseyears."The frenzied attacks of the Visitor are easilyunderstood when one examines the Klan's propaganda.An undated broadside was typical of Klanviews: "Every crimina l. every gambler, everythug, every libe rti ne, every gi rl ruined. everyhome wrecker, every wife beater, every dope peddler,every moonshine r, every crooked politician.every papist pri est, every shyster lawyer , every K.of C., every brothel madam, every Rome controlled newspaper, every black spider - is fightin gthe Klan. Think it over . Wh ich side are you on ?")OQuoting William Allen White. the famous Kansaseditor, the Visitor ca lled the Klan "moral idiocy"and an "un-Arnerican invisible gov ern ment: 'In response to Imperial Wizard William j. Simmons'sstatem ent that all Catholics were excl udedfrom the Klan, the paper ret or ted that "Catho licsare no t payin g $10 for the privilege of wearin g afool's cap and ma king mock of the Co nstitution oftheir country : ' It snicke red at the Klan's sex scandalthat involved the organization's chief promoters,Edward Y. Cla rke and Elizabeth Tyler. It alsotr embled at the opening of "the door to dangerouspossi bilities" tha t the Klan posed for Catha-Ku Klux K lJon In ProV>drncrlies, Jews, and blacks alike."T he Visitor took com fort from the Klan's poorsho wing in Rh od e Island but underestimated theorganization it feared so greatly. "The strikingfeature of th e Klan in Rhode Island is that thereisn't such an an imal," the paper stated late in1923. " Abo ut one per cent of our citizens are saidto be fit subjects for membership," it report ed ­certainly a gross oversight of the old Yankeestock in the sta te . A 1924 editoria l represented thepaper's contradictory view of the Klan in thestate: "Catholics have no thing to fear. But wemust be eve r on th e alert. We must not misjudgeor underestimat e th e powe r of ignorance and pr e]­udice.?"D urin g the election campaign of 1924. both partiesin the state denounced the Klan by na me, asu re sign that the organization's appeal hadpeaked in Rhode Islan d. By this time there wereclear signs that the Klan's grip on areas it had