The Greensboro Daily News, which is given somewhat to praying and prophesying, under the caption, “Will Test the Klan,” utters his prognosis of the Carolina Jeffersonian and philosophically awaits that great and interesting ultimately to see what shall befall us. They have the following to say editorially:
“Judge Henry A Grady’s opinion that the Ku Klux Klan could elect anybody to office that it chose to espouse will get no test before the electorate for the very good reason that even the Grand Dragon of the Klan did not tell the people of his own district that he was a functionary in the invisible empire and therefore gave them no chance to say who well they liked to be subjects of the Simmons-Clarke-Evans kingdom.
“But the Klan is going to have soon its opportunity to test both its loyalty and its power. If the reports are true, there is a weekly paper in Raleigh which is backed almost solely by the Klan. Its editorial policy generally is creditable, so citizens of Raleigh say, and its manifesto is somewhat impressive. But we are going to guess that the paper will not be able to run as a Klan organ and that it cannot get an editor of the caliber necessary to make it go.
“The history of North Carolina papers which have been built on factional feeling, race hatreds, religious bigotry would not require a big book in the writing, but the State has been poor ground for them. The Raleigh paper may find itself; if it does, it will discover that it cannot run as a klan organ. It may talk independency in politics; if it does it must be as independent if race antagonism and religious violence as it is in matters political. It cannot exist half-free and half-fettered. It must depend in the end upon literate, intelligent people, who will insist that the Jews, the Roman Catholics and the negro are not exploited.
“The Raleigh paper furnishes the first concrete illustration of what the Klan can do. It is not enough to say that the Klan voted for A.W. McLean and against J.W. Bailey. The State had many people who did that. It is not right to suppose the Klan can elect Judge Grady—he gave it no chance to prove its power. The organization seems to have a newspaper now Let us see what it is going to do with itself.”
There are many times when we feel moved to say that this great Greensboro paper doesn’t know what it is talking about, but this occasion is an exception. We agree with it perfectly that the Carolina Jeffersonian will not live, cannot live, and will not deserve to live if it is merely the expression of the “Klan” or the Klan spirit.
The Carolina Jeffersonian is not a Ku Klux Klan organ It is grinding out sweet tunes for nobody nor for any institution except the great American Government, to which it is passionately dedicated. Sometimes when North Crolinians who have lost all sense of proportion magnify this Klan into a political paramount, when it is not even an incident in government life, save as an organization to promote law and order, we do resent such unfairness. But the Carolina Jeffersonian is no more a Ku Klux Klan organ than the Greensboro Daily News is an anti-Ku Klux publication, existing solely for purposes of making war against this order.
Wherefore we are minded to prophesy: When the Greensboro Daily News becomes merely the rabid exponent of anti-Klan spirit and in its one-sidedness sees nothing else, it will not only have forfeited the primacy in newspaperdom in the State, but it must assume a fourth-rate position, if indeed it does not die outright.
From the editorial page of the Carolina Jeffersonian, Aug. 26, 1924
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073001/1924-09-05/ed-1/seq-4/
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