"We Are Going to Run This Goddam Country" Boast of Ku Klux Klan Organizer, Oct. 19, 1923

“We Are Going to Run This Goddam Country”. . . Such Is Boast of Ku Klux Klan Organizer Who Tries to Kluckerize a Reporter on This Newspaper

I wish I could share this article, but the first column of this page of the newspaper was pretty unreadable. The story is continued on page 2, and that text is clear, so here is the end of the story:

…and Catholics were trying to run ever run across, and he said he had been all over the United States. He had considerable difficulty in keeping on his feet. “I think I will have to go to bed,’ he confessed.

Judging from this latest emissary of the Ku Klux Klan, that organization will not make much of a favorable impression as a result of his visit to Elizabeth City. More especially since Elizabeth City is supplied with secret orders enough, judging from the lodge man’s viewpoint. It is a town with one of the strongest Masonic lodges in the state, one of the largest tribes of Red Men in the entire south, and what is probably the largest Oddfellow’s lodge in this section, and a half dozen other orders well-organized.

The impression of this man Moore will make on Elizabeth City people may be no more favorable than the one he made on Judge E.L. Sawyer, clerk of the Superior Court. “I tried to get Judge Sawyer to join,” he said. “He may be a good fellow, but he ran me out of his office.”

Moore is the same bird who was in Edenton recently and whose activities there caused the citizens to hold an anti-Ku Klux mass meeting. Finding cold comfort in Edenton, Moore came to Elizabeth City.

The country, and that the Klan could never get to the point where it could handle the whole country without keeping the work secret.

“We’ve got ‘em right in Washington, in every Government office,” he declared. “We’ve got ‘em in the courthouse, and some of the judges are members. You needn’t be afraid of getting into trouble if you belong to the Klan. The biggest men in the country are members and you can find friends where ever you go.”

“And that’s all I can tell you unless you join the Klan. If you mean business, then I’m with you.”

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, October 19, 1923