Projects Kampus Klan: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Ku Klux Klan, in the Early 1920sProject Editor: Ryan Treick, History 470: Digital History, Spring 2008 Editorial Note:
This letter to the editor from Clifford Rein, a Lincoln citizen who defends the Klan and criticizes the continued negative press that it recieves. The outrage over negative press indicates that the news media in Nebraska did not hold the Klan with favor, which was influential in shaping public opinion in the state about the Ku Klux Klan.
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CHARGES UNFOUNDED
LINCOLN, Neb., Sept 19 — To the Editor of The Star: Much has been lately spoken and written in criticism of an alleged secret society, termed the Ku-Klux-Klan.
It is safe to assume that the critics of the Klan are not members, and that the society being secret, the objectors know nothing of the institution they assail. The adverse verdicts are therefore the result, not of legitimate inference and justifiable opinion, but of fear, prejudice, conjecture and speculation.
The early extinction of the Ku-Klux-Klan has been sagely predicted on the theory that the order being entirely secret, it cannot publicly and effectively combat the attacks made upon it.
To this it may be said that the home — the association of husband and wife and their — is in all essential respects secret and confidential. Is made and kept so by law and is sanctioned by public opinion and survives as an institution.
From the wide and largely unfavorable publicity which has been given the alleged Klan, it does not appear as established that this society authorizes or directs its members to commit acts of lawlessness, or in any case to take law enforcement into their own private hands.
Neither has it been proven that the recent out-breaks of mob violence in various sections of the country are directly or indirectly traceable to Klan influence or
The conduct of Americans is very largely affected by volatile and expressive public opinion. In view of this fact, a proper concern for the stability of the public mind in the present period of social and political unrest, should lead all thinking people to refrain from expressing judgements of the Klan until the evidence of its perniciousness is out.
The presumption is still in favor of the Klan's entire innocence and commendability.
CLIFFORD L. REIN.
Source:
Author: Clifford L. Rein
Title: "CHARGES UNFOUNDED"
Periodical: Lincoln Star 21 September 1921
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