The Klan gets their robes handed to them in the heavily immigrant and first generation working class city of Perth Amboy, New Jersey in 1923. Earlier that summer 2500 protestors had offered their rebuke to a Klan gathering, who vowed to return in force. At the end of August, 500 Klansmen from across New Jersey, which had one of the strongest Klans on the East Coast, descended on the city for a meeting at the Odd Fellow’s on Smith St. Perhaps 6,000 anti-Klan protestors took the downtown area for nearly twenty-four hours and administered a severe ass-whopping that the Jersey Klan never recovered from, their automobiles fired or pushed into the Raritan River, and surviving only by police protection.

‘Besieged Klansmen Rescued from Mob by Officers’ from The Producers News (Plentywood). Vol. 6 No. 22. September 7, 1923.

MANY HURT WHEN ATTACK IS MADE ON MEETING PLACE AUTOS CARRYING MASKED MEN ARE UPSET.

Perth Amboy, N.J., Sept. 4. Battling between Ku Klux Klansmen and mobs was resumed on the streets of Perth Amboy this morning as members of the order tried to escape from Odd Fellows’ Hall where they had sought refuge during an attack on a Klan meeting last night in which more than 100 persons are reported to have been injured.

A hundred men armed with clubs and stones attacked 30 Klansmen who dashed from the hall this morning. The Klansmen were severely beaten before they escaped their pursuers.

Many Injured

It was impossible, early today, to ascertain the number of persons on both sides who had been more or less severely injured in last night’s fighting. Every physician in the city had treated one or more case while a considerable number of injured had been attended to in hospitals.

Battling started shortly before midnight when a crowd estimated at more than 5,000 men broke up a widely-advertised Klan meeting in the Odd Fellows’ Hall. The entire police force of 75, with drawn guns and clubs, and reinforced by the entire fire department, made a desperate effort to protect the Klansmen whose meeting had been surrounded by the clamoring mob

Tear bombs and well directed streams from fire hose dispersed the surging thousands after a first attack but, returning with renewed fury, they swept the force aside, hacked the hoses to pieces and charged into the meeting hall. Klansmen withstood the onslaught until greatly outnumbered, when many of them fought their way to doors, windows and fire escapes only to be engulfed in the crowd below. Those who had not the foresight to remove their klan regalia were easily distinguishable, and received rough treatment before they escaped into the woods bordering the city.

Bricks and Stones Fly

A small contingent of Klansmen was unable to leave the hall, which the police succeeded in clearing of the attackers. These joined their companions on the outside, who bombarded the building with bricks and stones defying both policemen and Klansmen to come out.

Police Chief Tonneson had summoned a detachment of state troopers whose arrival was greeted by renewed activities of the muttering mob. Aided by the state troopers, the police began the removal of the imprisoned Klansmen. Several of them were loaded into three automobiles which the crowd immediately overturned, administering severe beatings to the occupants. A patrol wagon load of rescued received similar treatment. The crowd intercepted a number of escaping Klansmen who were being led to safety over adjoining roofs. They also were beaten.

By 2 o’clock all the klansmen had fled, leaving behind them the threat that they would return with a force of 10,000. This called for the answer that they would be met with 20,000. Remnants of the crowd remained on the streets throughout the night until dawn but no more disturbance occurred.

No One Killed

In the general confusion it was impossible to ascertain the night’s causalities. Although the police used their guns, discharging them into the air, no one was killed. It is believed, however, that a number of combatants on both sides were severely injured. Several injured klansmen were treated at hospitals and later sent to their homes.

The police said that the majority of the klansmen who assembled to hold the meeting were from other New Jersey cities and towns.

The city settled back to normal conditions during the forenoon and police said they anticipated no further trouble.

Producer’s News was a radical rural voice that became a Communist publication in the late 1920s. First published in Plentywood, Montana in Sheridan County, one of the few places to elect Communists in the 1920s. as the organ of the Montana Non-Partisan League beginning in 1918, took a left turn and passed into the hands of Communist editor Charley Taylor and then the Montana Farmer-Labor Party in 1924. In the late 1920s the paper became the voice of the United Farmers League before becoming the organ of the Communist-dominated Farm Holiday Association in 1935, ending its nearly twenty year run in 1937.

PDF of full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85053305/1923-09-07/ed-1/seq-4/