Page:The Socialist Party and the Ku Klux Klan.pdf/1



The Ku Klux Klan is a secret organization which assumes that the American Republic is in danger and unable to defend itself by its own legal agencies. The Klan therefore appoints itself as the Republic's defender—particularly against Roman Catholics, Jews, Negroes, foreigners and radicals.

The attitude of the Socialist Party toward the Klan is easily understood, but it can be understood only in the light of the main fact that the Socialist Party sets for itself one task. That one task is the freeing of the workers from industrial domination under the capitalist system of industry. In taking its attitude of opposition to the Klan the Socialist Party is guided by the following facts:

1—For hundreds of years the majority working class has been dominated and exploited by a minority ruling class,—and it is so dominated and exploited now.

2—The minority ruling class has been able—and is able now—to rule and exploit the majority working class chiefly by preventing the workers from combining their entire power for their common defense; and the exploiters have accomplished this by over-emphasizing minor issues or by raising irritating false issues among the workers, thus engendering factions