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PEOPLE VS. KLAN                            KATZ

met with men he recognized as "members of local Jewish organizations and others active in the Knights of Columbus." He refused their request to enter the hall and confront the Klan, and as the Time reporter recounted "as if some secret call for reinforcements had been sent over the city" the crowd swelled to 6,000. Disorder then broke out-the "wildest disorder incident to Ku Klux Klan activities yet known in the East" reported the Times. Police charged the demonstrators with night clubs and then unleashed tear gas, but the crowd reformed and kept coming. The fire department turned out 150 strong and tried to turn their hoses on the mob, but the hoses were cut. The Times correspondent wrote: "...a mob of 6,000 persons in Perth Amboy, N.J., last night overcame the combined police and fire departments of the town and broke up a meeting of 'Invisible Empire' subjects." The Governor finally had to send in National Guard troops to retake the town from the crowd.

Other New Jersey communities braced to meet the Klan and, in some instances at least, Blacks and whites united. In Atlantic City, the parish meeting hall of St. Nicholas Church hosted a gathering of 4,000 black and white citizens. Mayer Bader, white ministers and two Blacks shared the platform and a vigilance committee was formed to halt Klan threats to law and order in the seaside community. This conspicuous display of brotherhood may indicate that even during the bigoted twenties brotherhood marked these anti-Klan coalitions.

In Massachussetts, anti-Klan activities mushroomed, perhaps inspired by the actions in New Jersey. In Worcester County, Norfolk and Essex crowds, infuriated by Klan cross-burnings, attacked their gatherings. In Lancaster, 200 Klansmen were besieged by a crowd for nine hours until rescued by police. In Groveland the next night, three Klansmen received hospital treatment for buckshot wounds and 21 were arrested after a Klan initiation was attacked by citizens. In Worcester, a college town with a mixed population, 10,000 KKK men arriving for a meeting encountered determined opposition. Gunfire shattered the quiet of the town and a Klan-rented airplane was brought down by rifle fire. Klansmen in cars and on foot were stoned as they left their meeting. In Northbridge, Berlin, Burlington, Westwood, Framingham and North Brookfield, crowds assaulted Klansmen who often fled leaving their wounded behind. In the summer of 1925, the KKK National Kourier singled out Massachussetts' "foreign mob" for attacking its members.

By November, 1924, the anti-Klan forces had organized in Ohio. When Klansmen from three states converged at Niles for a convention, citizens from Youngstown, a mixed community that included many Catholics, announced a counter-demonstration. They called

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