The Fire in the Flint

the darkness cast by the trees. The pungent odour of burning resin and the thick stifling smoke were blown by vagrant breezes into the faces of the hooded figures, causing a constant accompaniment of coughs, sneezes, and curses to the mumbled words. A recent rainstorm had left the low-lying ground soggy and damp and mightily uncomfortable underfoot. The crowd shifted uneasily as their feet grew cold with the dampness. Moths, mosquitoes, and other flying insects, attracted by the flaring lights, swarmed, getting beneath the cowls and robes and adding to the discomfort of the wearers. Even the imperfect illumination showed the cheap material of which the disguises were made, exhibited the wrinkles and dirt around the hems, revealed every aspect of the ill-fitting garments. Once from a spluttering torch there fell a bit of blazing resin on the hand of the man holding the light. With a yell he dropped the torch, danced and howled with pain, a ludicrous figure, until the agony had subsided. The torch, flung hastily away, set fire to the underbrush into which it had been cast. An unlooked-for intermission in the ceremonies followed as a score of the figures, holding the skirts of their robes aloft like old maids frightened at the appearance of a mouse, stamped out the fire, circling and yelling like a band of whirling deryishes.

Stodgy, phlegmatic, stupid citizens by day, these by night went through the discomforts of so unprepared a meeting-place, and through the absurdities of the rites imposed upon them by clever rogues who extracted from them fees and donations for the privilege of being made to appear more silly than is usually apparent. Add to that gullibility a natural love of the mysterious and adventurous and an instinct towards brute action restrained only by fear of punishment, by a conjuring of bogies and other malevolent dangers, and one understands, at least in part, the presence of these three hundred “white, Gentile, Protestant” citizens of Central City at this meeting.

The initiation ended, the Exalted Cyclops ordered the Kligrapp or secretary to read several communications from the Imperial Klan Palace at Atlanta. This he did, struggling manfully through the weird and absurd verbiage that would have made any of the men present howl with laughter had he heard his children using it in their play. Instead it was listened to attentively, seriously, and solemnly.

Then followed a recital of the work to be done by the local Klan. The Kligrapp consulted a sheet of paper in his hand.

“The eye that never sleeps has been seeking out those in our city who have acted in a manner displeasing to the Invisible Empire. There is in Central City a nigger wench named Nancy Ware who has been saying evil things against our brother, George Parker. In the name of our sacred order, and in the furtherance of our supreme duty of preservation of white supremacy, she is being watched and will be treated so as to end her dangerous utterances.”

At this statement a robed figure that, even under the disguise, seemed to resemble him who had been “defamed” by Nancy Ware’s tongue nodded approvingly. The Kligrapp continued after a pause:

“Word has also come to us from Brothers Ed Stewart and Taylor that there’s a young nigger named Tom Tracy out this way who’s going around among the niggers saying that they have got to stop white people from robbing them on their crops. Tracy hasn’t done anything but talk thus far, but we will keep our eye on him and stop him if he talks too much.” Cowled heads nodded approvingly.

“And then there’s a nigger doctor who came in my office I mean, he went into the office of Health Commissioner Lane⁠—and had the gall to repo’t the death of a nigger bootlegger and say that a white man had killed him for fooling around with the nigger’s wife. This nigger’s daddy was one of the best niggers that ever lived here in this town, and this boy’s keeping away from the other trouble-making niggers, but we’ve got to watch all these niggers that’s been spoiled by goin’ to school.” He added, as an afterthought: “… up Nawth.”

And so he droned on. Negroes, two Jews, three men suspected of Catholic leanings⁠—all were condemned by the self-appointed arbiters of morals and manners. One or two men were singled out as violating the code of morals by consorting with Negro women. There was not much to report on this score, as those who were violating this rule in Central City had rushed, on formation of a Klan there, to join the order, that they might gain immunity from attack and yet continue their extralegal activities without check or interference. With the conclusion of the Kligrapp’s report, the meeting dispersed, the members silently entered the woods and there disrobing, and scattering to their various homes. Some went towards “Factoryville,” some towards the country districts, others climbed into automobiles parked near the road and drove towards the residential section of Central City where lived the more affluent merchants and other upper-class whites of the town.

The place was soon deserted. The ceremony had been a strange mixture of the impressive and the absurd. There was underneath the ridiculously worded language, the amusing childlike observance of the empty ceremonies, the queer appearance of the robes all designed alike with little regard for fatness or thinness of the prospective wearers, a seriousness which betokened a belief in the urgent need of their organizing in such a manner. They had been duped so long by demagogues, deluded generation after generation into believing their sole hope of existence depended on oppression and suppression of the Negro, that the chains of the ignorance and suppression they sought to fasten on their Negro neighbours had subtly bound them in unbreakable fashion. They opposed every move for better educational facilities for their children, for improvement of their health or economic status or welfare in general, if such improvement meant better advantages for Negroes.

Creatures of the fear