The fascist Right uses this exact same language, word for word, today. Targeting labor in general, and often the I.W.W. in particular, as the second Klan began to rise this editorial separates factions from fiction in the Klan’s claims in Stockton, California newspaper advertisement.

‘The Klan: Claims vs. Facts’ from Industrial Worker. Vol. 5 No. 78. December 5, 1923.

It would be hard to imagine a more shameless gang of cutthroats than the outfit calling themselves the Ku Klux Klan. In a recent issue of a Stockton, California, paper there is an advertisement of that outfit in which the “principles” they advance are set forth. These are as follows:

“Do you believe in Public education? The tenets of the Christian religion? White supremacy? Protection of American womanhood? Closer relation between capital and labor? Limitation of foreign immigration? Free speech and press? Protection and aid to the weak and innocent? Separation of church and state? Will you take an oath to Help, aid and assist the duly constituted officers of the law in the proper performance of their legal duties? Will you consent to use your influence in prohibiting unwarranted strikes by foreign Labor Agitators? Mob violence and lynchings? Do you believe in the Golden Rule, and will you practice same toward even those who are not eligible to this great order?”

The things they say and the things they do should be set forth for comparison. Here are only a few facts among the many that could be named:

“White supremacy.” The ancestors of the great majority of the present members of the Ku Klux did their best to maintain chattel slavery of the Negro race in America and the directors of the present Klan are heartily in favor of “keeping the N***r in his place,” which is in the fields of the plantation owners at slave conditions. They do not advocate any form of freedom for anyone except themselves, of whom they are building an oligarchy of slave drivers.

“Protection of American womanhood.” There are several million American women working in American industries for American and foreign owners of those industries. There has never been any effort made by the Ku Klux Klan to gain better conditions for those women. The bosses are driving those American women as low as those same women will permit themselves to be driven.

“Limitation of foreign immigration.” Had the American Indians done this from the first, the present members of the Ku Klux Klan would be in Europe knuckling down to the feudal lords today, helping those tyrants to prevent freedom just as they are now doing for the industrial lords of this country. Not one of the Ku Klux Klan members but is of foreign descent.

“Protection and aid to the weak and innocent.” There are several million children under fourteen years of age working on the plantations of the South and in the textile mills of that part of the country. There has never been any effort of the Ku Klux Klan to relieve those children of their burdensome labor of ten to fourteen hours a day. Many members of the Ku Klux Klan are profiting from that child labor. Until they make an honest effort to advance the interests of those children no person who is honest and intelligent will have any faith in their claims of “protection.”

“Will you take an oath to help, aid and assist the duly constituted officers of the law?” That sounds fine. But in view of the indisputable fact that the Ku Klux Klan is out to elect all the officers of the law for their own purposes, it is but an oath of fealty to a gang of highbinders. It is not an honest offer of aid to an impartial legal tribunal of the people.

“Unwarranted strikes by foreign labor agitators.” What is a “warranted” strike? All strikes are unwarranted in the view of the bosses against whom the strikes are called. Every person born outside California is a “foreigner” in the eyes of the “Native Sons of the Golden West.” The Ku Klux Klan has never yet stood for a higher standard of living for the workers. Every effort of the workers for better conditions must be crushed, if the Klan is to rule.

There are many other things in which the tenets and actions of the Ku Klux Klan are at variance with economic equality. Space does not allow a full review of their character and purpose. They are not the main enemy which we have to fight, but they are among the forces of opposition which the working class movement must overcome before we can establish industrial democracy. We doubt if they are at present the most dangerous force we have to meet, but they are making a bid to be the chief flunky for capitalism. The contest is on between the Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion for that doubtful honor. Which one is to be that flunky will depend on which can prove itself the meanest and most subservient.

The Industrial Union Bulletin, and the Industrial Worker were newspapers published by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) from 1907 until 1913. First printed in Joliet, Illinois, IUB incorporated The Voice of Labor, the newspaper of the American Labor Union which had joined the IWW, and another IWW affiliate, International Metal Worker.The Trautmann-DeLeon faction issued its weekly from March 1907. Soon after, De Leon would be expelled and Trautmann would continue IUB until March 1909. It was edited by A. S. Edwards. 1909, production moved to Spokane, Washington and became The Industrial Worker, “the voice of revolutionary industrial unionism.”