I must admit I was in an over-excited condition as Major Sinclair offered to show me the rest of the boat (‘since there’s a little time to kill’). The second deck, with tables and benches, was evidently a restaurant in the summer. Partly enclosed and partly covered by a canvas awning, it was deserted and there was plainly no intention to use it tonight. We descended to the first and largest deck, virtually one vast room, a miracle of ornament, of gilded scrolls and carved muses, of crystal and copper and silver filigree, of marbled columns and mirrors; all with the predominant theme of red, white and blue. Again the twin flags were prominently displayed everywhere in the hall, particularly on the good-sized stage at the far end. The Nathan B. Forrest had plainly once been a queen amongst the great showboats which in their heyday had plied the Mississippi for its entire negotiable length. Major Sinclair stood with arms folded, his back against a pillar, smiling a little as I marvelled at the opulence. ‘I used to come aboard as a boy,’ he said, ‘and watch the minstrels.’ His voice had a melancholy note. ‘But now the railroads and the movie theatres between ‘em have almost made this kind of transport, not to mention entertainment, a thing of the past. And men like ourselves are to blame, eh, Max? We’ll be putting a lot of the modern world into the past soon, I should think.’
I was sympathetic. ‘It’s ironic how we hurt ourselves with our own power of invention.’
My friend looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get out of here.’ Taking a short cut between the rows of widely spaced seats, he led me from a side door out into the open air, then up to third deck. It was dark now. I heard a muffled shout from the wheelhouse and saw sailors busying themselves with ropes and chains below. The steam whistle sounded a long, low moan. There came a rattle and a massive shudder, then the great stern paddle smashed into the water. Electric light glittered on white foam. The boat’s machinery was engaged. Her boilers boomed and growled, her pistons squealed. Suddenly we were free of the wharf. We moved with slow majesty out into a dark infinity that was the Mississippi River. The lights of Memphis fell away from us as we sailed steadily into midstream. From other parts of the boat I heard the tramp of feet. At this Major Sinclair hurried me inside our cabin. The whole vessel was filled with that regular beat, positive and military. It kept time with the sublime rhythm of oiled brass, rotating steel and trembling iron. My friend picked up a small bag, asking me to bear with him for a short while. He would be back to collect me as soon as he could. I poured myself a Coca-Cola and sat on the bunk, considering the prospect of meeting the Governor and his staff. Deciding to steady my nerve with cocaine, I was just able to return the packet to my pocket as the steam whistle sounded for the second time. The marching sound died away entirely. The boat was silent again, save for the vibration of the engines, the steady splashing and groaning of the paddle. I was tempted to go out on deck, but respected Major Sinclair’s wishes. A few moments later the pale-faced aviator opened our door, apparently more relaxed than before. He had something tucked under one arm and his body was covered from throat to feet by a long, blue silky robe. Upon the breast of the robe, over his heart, was embroidered a yellow Maltese cross in a blue circle. It was identical, save for the colours, to the one on his airship.
‘Are you ready, colonel?’ His voice was low, as serious as it had been when he first asked me those mysterious questions and issued his equally mysterious invitation. My immediate response was of relief. I was not to undergo the ordeal of meeting the Governor after all. I was to be inducted into a Society of Free Masons, in itself a useful honour. The long gown rippled in the breeze from the river and looked incongruous on the tall flyer as he stood aside to let me out onto the deck. Against the darkness he might have been a householder roused from his bed and caught accidentally wearing his wife’s housecoat. At his request I followed him back down the steps to the lowest deck. The water was black and the banks invisible. We could be drifting in space as easily as on the river, save for the spray from the paddle. He opened a small metal door in the stern and we passed through into dim electric light. We were evidently in a dressing-room area, where the coons had once blacked-up before going out to entertain their audience. The place had a musty smell to it and I thought I could still detect stale greasepaint.
Then Major Sinclair had raised his arms over his head, pulling material down to obscure his face before opening a door. Light almost completely blinded me as he lead me out onto the stage.
I blinked, trying to get my bearings. Gradually I saw that the stage was illuminated by a gigantic cross consisting of hundreds of tiny bulbs. In front of me curtains had been drawn back. In the gloom of the auditorium, lit only by the great crucifix behind me, was a mass of variously coloured hoods and robes, each robe bearing the bold insignia of encircled cross, each right hand raising a clenched, gauntleted fist in salute. There were other robed and masked figures around me on the stage. It was one of the most inspiring moments of my entire life. I gasped. Like some ancient, saintly hero in the presence of the Grail I had to resist an inclination to fall immediately to my knees. I knew now I was in the presence of those legendary Knights of the Fiery Cross, the Freedom Riders who had saved their land from total chaos, who until now I had seen only in news photographs or, of course, on the screen in Birth of a Nation. My legs began to tremble. Sweat formed on my skin. From these satin hoods stared several hundred pairs of eyes, as if in judgment on me. Ich war dort! I was under the steady gaze of the warrior-priests of America, the highest officiaries of the famous Ku Klux Klan!
The sense of power emanating from the men in that room was tremendous. It was psychic energy so enormous I momentarily imagined that floating hall, unable to contain it, must burst like an exploding sun and bring sudden daylight to the shores of Mississippi and Arkansas. In the eery brilliance of the fiery cross, amidst the rustle of robes - white, green, grey, crimson, black and blue - and the growing murmur of deep, manly voices, Major Sinclair led me to a seat at the side of the stage. An impressive banner hung behind the cross, a flying dragon with the legend Quod Semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, red and black, framed by an isosceles triangle. My senses were profoundly affected by all this and especially by the vibrant presence of the mysterious figure which now stepped forward, his shining purple outlined against the cross, a ripple of light and shadow. It dawned on me how tremendous a privilege had been granted me as it was sonorously announced that we were graced by the presence of the Imperial Wizard himself. Then the opening ritual began.
They bowed visored heads in prayer, led by the firm, musical tones of their Grand Kladd: a simple yet heartfelt plea to God to help them maintain and uphold at all times the most holy ideals of their Klan. The prayer completed, the Imperial Wizard raised flowing sleeves to bring complete and reverential silence upon the gathering.
‘All Genii, Grand Dragons and Hydras. Great Titans and Furies, Giants, Exalted Cyclops and Terrors, and all other citizens of the Invisible Empire, in the name of the Valiant and Venerated dead. I affectionately greet you and welcome you to this most Special and Secret Klonverse. Ye have been summoned from every Realm of our Empire on a matter of great and terrible import, to discuss the very future of these United States of America, to which ye have all sworn undying loyalty unto death.’
I remember only hazily the rituals which followed. There were chants and counter-chants, declarations and revelations, most of which were conducted in the secret language of the Klan. It was impossible to follow the cries of ‘Ayak!’ and ‘Akia!’ or ‘Kigy!’ and ‘San Bog!’, but the chant of The Klansman’s Creed will never leave my memory, for I was to hear it more than once in the time which followed.
I believe in God and the tenets of the Christian religion and that a godless nation cannot long prosper. I believe that a church not grounded on the principles of morality and justice is a mockery to God and to man. I believe that a church that does not have the welfare of the common people at heart is unworthy. I believe in the eternal separation of Church and State.
> I hold no allegiance to any foreign government, emperor, king, pope or any other foreign, political or religious power. I hold my allegiance to the Stars and Stripes next to my allegiance to God alone. I believe in just laws and liberty. I believe in the prevention of unwarranted strikes by foreign labour agitators. I believe in the limitation of foreign immigration.
I am a native-born American citizen and I believe in my rights in this country as being superior to those of foreigners.
The sound of those heartfelt voices moved me almost to tears. It was as if I was in the Alexander cathedral in Kiev again, listening to the chanting of the priests, hearing the names of the Heroes of Kiev pronounced in holy memory, though now they spoke of the Knights Kamelia, the Knights of the Midnight Mystery, the Order of American Chivalry, the Knights of the Great Forest. Pyered bogom klyanus klyalvoy vyernoyu: Klyatvoy tyazhkoyu, klyatvoy strash-noyu: Pyered bogom klyanus klyatvoy strashnoyu na Rusi Gosu-daryu, kak pyos sluzhit Spasi, gospodi, lyudi tvoya! O Lord, save thy people! God Save The Tsar! How we wept and kissed that sacred book. And they called out the days, weeks and months according to the Klan: Deadly, Wailing, Hideous and so on. Even the years they dated from the first year of the third reincarnation of the Klan, which was 1915, only a short while after Birth of a Nation itself was first released as The Clansman. Here was religion and morality become militant and glowing with a just anger. O, the Greek has taken up his sword. Christ has risen! Christ has risen! Those noble, valiant men stood and listened in awed silence as the Imperial Wizard began to speak. It was a statement of the Klan’s ethic, a reminder to all present, of the noble ideals and true purpose of the Order. He quoted Colonel Winfield Jones who was not, he said, a Klansman, but an objective outsider who had written The Story of the Kit Klux Klan. The Imperial Wizard stressed the importance of winning and maintaining such friends.
‘Colonel Jones, fellow Klansmen, has told us that the Anglo-Saxon is the typeman of history. To him must yield the self-centered Hebrew, the cultured Greek, the virile Roman, the mystic Oriental. The Psalmist must have had him in mind when he struck his soundless harp and sang: “O Lord, thou has made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, thou hast put all things under his feet.” The Ku Klux Klan desires that its ruling members shall be of this all-conquering Blood. The Ku Klux Klan stands for the noble, the true and the good, for the majesty of the Law, for the advancement of the human race. Our most mystical order, fellow Klansmen, now numbers millions. It has come to speak for the great mass of Americans of the old pioneer stock who are opposed to the intellectually mongrelised “Liberals”. A blend of various peoples of the so-called Nordic race, the race which, with all its faults, has given the world almost the whole of modern civilisation, these Americans have found themselves increasingly uncomfortable and distressed. The sacredness of our Sabbath, of our homes, of chastity, and finally even of our right to teach our own children in our own schools fundamental facts and truths were torn away from us. Those who maintained the old standards did so only in the face of constant ridicule. We suffered economic distress. The assurance for the future of our children dwindled. We found our great cities and the control of much of our industry and commerce taken over by strangers, who stacked the cards of success and prosperity against us. They came to dominate our government.’
The Imperial Wizard’s speech was one of the most moving, one of the most truthful I have ever heard. He went on to say how native Americans were discriminated against in business, legislation and administrative government. He pointed out how the World War revealed that millions who had been allowed to share the Nordic American heritage actually had other loyalties. At last we realised an alien usually remains an alien no matter what is done to him, what veneer of education he gets. The melting-pot was a ghastly failure. The very name was coined by a Jew; a member of the race most determinedly refusing to melt. The American could outwork the alien, but the alien could underlive the American. Aliens from Eastern and Southern Europe were accustomed to squalor. And alien ideas were as dangerous as the aliens themselves no matter how plausible such ideas sounded.
‘The Klan goes back to the American racial instincts, to the common sense which is their first product. Modern research finds scientific backing for these convictions. Three of these racial instincts are vital to our Order’s intention of building an America fulfilling the aspirations and justifying the heroism of the men who made the nation. These are: Loyalty to the white race, to the traditions of America, and to the spirit of Protestantism. They are condensed in the Klan slogan: Native, white, Protestant supremacy!’
Then, like a tidal wave, the response roared from the floor: ‘Native, white, Protestant supremacy!’
As if lifted by this wave, the Imperial Wizard swept his arms above his head. He spoke of patriotism, of keeping pioneer stock pure. ‘Racial integrity means good citizenship. Races and stocks of men are as distinct as breeds of animals. One does not train a bulldog to herd sheep!’
As the applause went on, the Imperial Wizard made a gesture for silence. The cheering stopped at once. ‘The Klan is not opposed to aliens, only to aliens who attempt to rule Americans!’ The Western Jew had great abilities, but his separation from the Nordic race was religious even more than racial. Far worse were the Eastern Jews of recent immigration, known as Askhenazim, the Judaised Mongols called Chazars. They show a divergence from the Nordic denying any hope of assimilation. ‘The white race must be supreme, not only in America but in the world!’ The idea of white and coloured races living in harmony was absurd. The whole of history had been one of racial conflict. This fact disagreed with maudlin theories of cosmopolitanism, but it was a truth.
‘The Klansman says whites will not become slaves! The Negro is a special duty and problem of white Americans, the Negro is here through no fault of his own. Nevertheless, we should not make promises of social equality which can never be realised. The Klan looks forward to the day when the Negro problem will be solved on a sane basis, when every State enforces laws making sex relations between white and coloured a crime! The Wizard again dampened the applause. He spoke of Rome’s attempt to rule America. ‘Our first Colonies were settled for the purpose of wresting America from the control of Rome.’ He explained how Protestantism and the Nordic people were the same thing. All other peoples wished to destroy it, particularly the Catholics. ‘As the biggest, strongest, most cohesive of all the alien blocs they frequently form alliances with other alien groups against American interests, as with the Jews in New York today. It is a Klan duty to make as many people as possible aware of all this. It is our duty to use the democratic system to ensure Klansmen are candidates in every possible type of election and that Klansmen win! That is how we shall save America. Not through violence or mob rule, but through the purity of our ideals. To this end we are already working!’