National Affairs: Four Letters

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Dear Mr. Allen—In reply to your letter, which has been brought to my attention, I answer the question in the same direct manner you put it; by saying that I am not, never have been and will not become a member of the Ku Klux Klan. I trust that in my coming speech of acceptance I shall make my position on the great question of religious toleration too plain for any misunderstanding or dispute. Yours sincerely, (Signed) JOHN W. DAVIS. Devere Allen, Esq. 396 Broadway, New York, N. Y.

Mr. Robert P. Scripps, New York City. Dear Mr. Scripps—Your letter of Aug. 1 received. You ask where I stand on the Ku Klux Klan. Similiar inquiries have come to me from others. I take the liberty of making my answer to you public. This will inform all those interested in knowing my attitude on this question. . . . I am unalterably opposed to the evident purpose of the secret organization known as the Ku Klux Klan, as disclosed by its public acts.

It cannot long survive. . . .

Abraham Lincoln, nearly 70 years ago, set forth his views on this question in a letter to his friend Mr. Joshua F. Speed, dated Springfield, Ill., Aug. 24, 1855:

"You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist.

"I am not a Know-Nothing; that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of Negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal, except Negroes.'

"When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read: 'As men are created equal except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.' When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where depotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. "Your friend forever, "ABRAHAM LINCOLN.'

With this statement from Abraham Lincoln I would join also a passage from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Edward Dows in 1803:

"I never will, by word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."

Upon these statements of Jefferson and Lincoln, expressing the sentiments which I am happy to believe the vast majority of our citizens cherish and to which they will ever rigidly adhere, and upon my own views expressed in this letter, I am content to stand without qualification or evasion.

Sincerely yours,

(Signed) ROBERT M. LAFOLLETTE.