Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 23 November 1923 — Page 1

THE

THE ONLY DEMOCRATIC NEWHPA^^ ^ ^

fOLUME a—NUMBER 45.

MUNCIE, INDIANA, FRIDAY, NDVEMBER 23, 1923.

SUBSCRIPTION PRICE $2.00 A YEAR IN ADVANCE

BERT MORGAN SPEAKS HIGHLY OF OUR OFFICERS

EDGE THREATENS PUNISHMENT FOR CONTEMPT WHEN WITNESS SAID WILLIAMS AIDED FEDERAL QUIZ

Aibetr Rees, former city detective, who was fired by the present board of safety because the Ku Klux Klan demanded it, was threatened with contempt proceedings tiie circuit court Wednesday after the klux prosecutor, Van Ogle, had aske dhim a number of sassy and irrevelaiit questions. Rees was testifying as a character witness in the Skip Beemer case. On cross-examination Prosecutor Ogle asked him if Gene Williams had not hung around feis, Rees’ detective agency a year or so ago. The question had nothing to do with the case, but was merely asked Rees if Williaams had not been in his office assisting ed to discredit the witness. On re-cross examination Attorney Walterhouse askfederal investigators to secure evidence against certain public officials. Mr. Rees answered “yes,” and Judge Dearth immediatelv threatened him with punishment for contempt. ATTORNEY MTHEE CATHOLIC MAJORITY ADDRESSES LITTER. IN QUEBEC SHOWS ' TO CITY COUNCIL GREAT TOLERANCE

Muncie, Indiana, Nov. 19-1923. Tfce Mfcror and Common Council, ifuacie, Indiana, Cteotlemen:— f am mot a constant complainer nor a o-hroeio kicker, but I believe a word concerning our Electric Light System atligM not be amiss. {gome few years ago the City caused be irsitoilfid a brndevacd . Ijjrhtin7 srstem covering the retail or business district of the city. The Liuht Cornmany agreed to install and operate tfce aystem for $34.18 per standard m«r year with lamps of 600 candle mfrwer. This system replaced the old arc lights suspended from poles at utreet intersections; and when first installed and for a couple of years thereafter, its intensity of illumination within the area was like “dancing rays of captured sunlight” and turned twilight into noonday. But all this seems to have changed, rtie lights seem to be about 100 •andle power and is like unto the days of “Rome” where common lamps were placed at the entrance of theatres and other public places, and the streets lighted bv means of candle* placed in lanterns and swung by means of cords and pulleys above the middle of the street. In fact the entire Service is “rotten.” Who knows what size lamps are used on those standards? No one but the Light Oampaay. We are paying $50.00 per year per standard now for less light khan before, on the theory from the Light Company’s standpoint, I asshroe the higher the price the lesser the light.” Lees crime, fewer traffic accidents Mid better business are only a few of the advantages that follow in the trmim of well lighted streets and city, lad the larger the citv the greater the meed for good lights; it is a protective agency almost equal to a police force. (Continued to Page Two.

Outnumber Protestants 25 to 1, but Give Andermanic Representation. A reader of the Post-Democrat has mailed us the following clipping from the Montreal (Canada) Star; “Quebec, Nov. IS.—To allow Protestant English-speaking rate-payers of this city, numbering about 5,000 people, to be rejresented in the City Council, an amendment to the City charter wil be presented at the next neesion of th LegisliAture providing for the election of an English elderman by a vote at large. This suggestion has been made by a number of city fathers in view of the fact that in recent years the English element being very small in each ward, no Protestant has run for civic honors, the last Protestant alderman having been Hon. Justice Gibsone, now of the superior court. The Irish Clement has, however, always been represented. There seemed to be litle opposition to the projected amendment. As a result the membership of the city Council will be increased from thirteen to fourteen.” Commenting on the spirit shown by the Catholic majority of the city of Qeubec, our correspondent says: “When one remembers that the City of Quebec having a population of 125,000 is overwhelmingly Catholic and French, the enclosed clipping excites interest. Of course, these benighted ‘furriners’ and papists know nothing of true liberty or fair dealing toward a helpless minority. Will you not kindly re-print the article for the enlightenment and edificatoin of narrowminded bigots of the Kant Keep Klean variety?”

MY CONTRIBUTION TO LIBERTY

GEO. R. DALE, Editor Post-Democrat, Muncie, Indiana. Enclosed find $ , my contribution to the Post-Democrat defense fund. Use this in your great legal battle to defend the right of free speech and to expose the hidden hand of the Invisible Empire. Signed Address This is For Your Defense as Well as Mine.

THE EUX ON PARADE

Last Saturday night a Ku Klux parade was held in Muncie. By actual count there were 687 of rhe hooded varmints in line. The next day the Star turned a few mathematical flip flops and said there were between two and th^ee thousand kluckers in the idiotic performance. The majority of those in line we re from surrounding cities. In the Muncie section there were a number of little figures draped in the foolish habiliments of their elders. Not content with making monkeys out of grown people th ) klan has turned its attention to infants. Children from twelv • to eighteen are now taken in and are taught to hate other child en who do no belong. Unscrupulous grown up organizers, who ought to be in the penitentiary for life for contributing to the delinquency of infants, are now working among the sc 100I children of Muncie, soliciting them to join a criminal org nization, for which they charge these children three dollars a head membership fee. Before us we have the membership card of Roy McDonald, age fifteen, a pupil enrolled at the Gar leld school. The card shows that his registration date was August 15,1923, and that his number is 383 in “Muncie Klan No. 5,” th name of the children’s department of the local klan. The data on the card further si ows that his father is dead and that he is the son of a widowed mother. The boy’s weight, heigh th and descriptive marks are gr en and his birthplace named. His signature appears at the bot :»m together with the name “Haines.” The latter probably being ae one who took this boy’s three dollars and made him a full fle* ged member of the society which expects to grow big by teachS its members to hate andi destroy aii who Oppose its teaching. The klux advertised a big meeting here for that day, which was also the date of the great battle between the high school football team and the celebrated Gary eleven. Nearly seven thousand spectators watched the great game at the ball park and not one in that great audience stopped to enquire whether these twenty-two young battlers were Catholic or Protestant. The heart of Muncie beat only for eleven boys, fighting like demons for something that was worth a million dollars to each one of those embattled youngsters—the state high school championship. Here was a clean exhiibion of something worth while- The boys were fighting for their city, their school and for the thousands who poured out to witness the game. While this great contest waged ,a sneaking bunch of masked and sheeted killjoys lurked somewhere in the brush on the outskirts of Muncie listening to the treasonable utterances of a few cheap grafters who call themselves kludds and kleagles. There was no sporting blood in that gang. Their blood had turned to vinegar. One of them was heard to snarl out that the Gary team ought to be run out of town because they were “nly thirty percent. American.” When Curley Walsh was carried off the field, apparently in a critical condition, a klansman remarked that Curly was only a Patholic, anyway, so what was the difference ? Capitalizing the crowd attracted here by the football game, the hypocritical and lying klan put out the story that “fifteen thousand klansmen were here for the big klan celebration.” This disloyal gang had the impudence to add the football crowd to their own congregation of traitors. The ghoul-like gang paraded the streets of Muncie Saturday night. There was no enthusiasm—only disgust, on the sidelines. No attempts was made, as on a previous occasion, to assault bystanders who refused to take off their hats to the invisible empire. It was just as well. If it had been attemped there would have been a mussed up mess of dragons and goblins. The patience of Muncie has been tried to the limit by the ku klux klan and its silly demonstrations. Some day we may have h police force that will arrest men who appear in public with their faces covered with masks. The man or woman who prowls the streets with his or her face covered with a mask, evidently has something to hide.

But Approbation From Such a Source Not Regarded Official by a Darned Sight-Official Who Went Blind When Brewery Truck , Passed in Anderson Speaks for Muncie’s Ku Klux Konglomeration Of Kludders. S After the “law enforcement” meeting, held in the Methodist church which was busted up by Mayor Quick's well timed remark that politicians at Indianapolis and the republican county chairman here “fixed” things for gan put out a public statement which was published by law breakers in Muncie, Prohibition Director Bert Mormistake on a Star news page instead of in the comie supplement. According to Mr. Morgan all of the police and sheriff’s officers and all law enforcing agencies of Muncie are beyond reproach. He stated that he had received soime complaints directed at local officials, but in every instance they had been run down and were found to be groundless.

WAR ON KLAN IN ALL STATES IF NOW BEGUN BY A NEW GROUP National Vigilance Association Formed in Washington in the Fight. NOTED MEN AND WOMEN ARE IN ORGANIZATION # W.-II; ; l - science and Work for New Laws.

Washington,—Unmasked and unhooded and sounding a clarion cafi to battle, in glaring contrast to the secret midnight meeting on stone Mountain when the Ku Klux Klan was formed a few years ago, the National Vigilance Association came into being today with the avowed purpose of destroying the klan. Behind the war on the klan is declared to he a notable array of educators, business men and professional men, clergymen and laymen in all sections of the country. Among those listed as memebrs of the national committee, which is the governing body of the association, are Dr. R. B. von Kleinsmid, president of the University of Southern California; Judge Francis K. Mancuso of the General Sessions Court of New York; Rust Rheas, president of the University of Rochester: Ellen F. Pendleton, president of Wellesley College; E. P. Tivnan, president of Fordham University; Professor H, S. Graves of Yale; Dr. Stephen L. Penrose, president of Whitman College, Washington state; Pauline Kelp, Mills College, California and Thomas H. Cannon of Chicago. Women on Committee Others are Clara D. Maxwell, pres(Continued to Page Two.

Morgan was also responsible for the utterance that these complaints in every instance had been made by law breakers who were seeking to injure the usefuness of law enforcement officials here. Considering the fact that there are now in the neighborhood of one hundred sworn statements in the hants of the department of justice, officials at Indianapolis, which directly Involve the honor of a number of city and county officials, the reckless statement made by the prohibition officer is ill-timed-Federal officers spent two months here interrogating scores of peope and if all the informaton they received were made public at this time there wpyd on tne part of {he people to know what Morgan is trying to put over. There was plenty of evidence secured showing that the sheriff, prosecutor, one jury commissioner and many others were in canoot; with notorious lawbreakers. Morgan knows about these affidavits, yot he impudently presumes to tell the people here that these officials are above reproach and are doing their duty in all things. His statment that complaints were made only by law breakers is in line with the campaign which has long been in progress here to discredit the efforts of those who have sought to have a fair and inpartial investigation of existing conditions in Muncie. Mayor Quick certainly cannot be classed as a law breaker, yet his open charge, publicly made at the “law enforcement” meeting presided over by Mr. Morgan, must perforce have been one of the “complaints’' which had been investigated and found to be groundless. If the charge made by Mayor Quick was investigated, the investigation must have been made in a hurry, for the Morgan statement was put out immediatey after the mavor’s bombshell busted up the harmony gathering in the Methodist church. As a matter of fact Mr. Morgan knows that there has been no Investieatlon made and he k**ws

(Continued to Page Two.

MARION FBTOS FAVOR KLAN

Marion, Ind., Nov. 23—The Post corsespondent after a short visit to Marion this week, is constrained to comment on the attitude of t^e Marion newspapers. It appears that both the Chronicle and the Lpader-Trihune are giving Preacher Bulgln favorable mention at every turn of the road and it is presumed that the advertising is free so if it does come without price then we have our former convictions in the attitude of G. A. Lind-'ey editor of the Chronicle, co-firmed in other words he has bereft himself of the customarv ten spot and stands with the night gowned aggregation or they have the goods on him in such a way that he must do the bidding of the one hundred per cent home breakers. But this is not the end of a perfect Ku Klux camp meeting. Carlton L. Houston of the Leader-Tribune paddles out in the mire somewhat over

his depth it appears and underta to compare this Bulgin, w^o e drinks and preaches the seditious traitorious doctrine of the invls empire to the Immortal Emancipi of the black race. Of course, Bu" would Klux and preen his featl after such a comparison regardlesi how big a traves f y the writing i It Is well known by all the pop tion of Marion and Grant Ccuntv ; what Is done down at the taberm and just who are back of the th which is hid under the cloak of i vion and just whv Carlton f^ho ■ once democratic county chaimianl furthering the Ku Klux Interests have but two solutions, either he 1 member like Tip Boxell of the K or he is currving favor with the* rrder to protect a few of his past i well known escapades. (Continued to Page Two.