NYC Mayor Hylan on the KKK

“The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually runs the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, using leading men of private organizations and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public offices only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.
“They connive at centralization of government on the theory that a small group of handpicked privately controlled individuals of power can be more easily handled than a larger group among whom there will most likely be men sincerely interested in public welfare....
"I cannot escape the feeling that the most recent movement (Ku Klux Klan) inspired by the worst kind of bigotry is another attempt engineered by the ruling minority or money lenders of America to create dissension among the different creeds and races of our people, thus diverting attention from their own sinister machinations.
"The regrettable feature of this unwholesome situation is that there are some among us who are unwittingly mislead into fellowship with such pernicious organizations.  Even a few clergymen who are supposed to extol before the world the virtues of charity and forgiveness and to stand out as living exemplars of these humane doctrines have been found susceptible to the clink of dirty gold which such membership places upon their palms.”    -NYC Mayor John Hylan at Chicago on 12-10-1922
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NY, Nov. 23, 1922.  Mayor John F. Hylan has sent to Police Chief Enright a scathing telegram of denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan as follows:   "Dispatches this morning indicate that the Ku Klux Klan is getting busy in our city.  If this is so I desire you to treat this group of racial and religious haters as you would the Reds and the bomb throwers.  Drive them out of our city as rapidly as you discover them.  Assign your most expert detectives to this work, and as you secure the name of organizers or members be sure that their names are given to the press so that the citizens of our city may know who are supporting this vicious and destructive secret society."   -N Y Times
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Harry Benson/Stringer/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

KKK Name:

The name combines the Greek word for "circle," κύκλος, with "clan." It was invented by its founders.
Founded in:
1865
The first KKK was founded in 1865 in Pulaski, Tennessee as a charitable organization to help widows and orphans. It turned to violence in 1870.  Outlawed by Congress in 1871.  Membership max around 1920 of ~5 million; now has ~8000.   
http://terrorism.about.com/od/groupsleader1/p/Ku_Klux_Klan.htm
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