Mr. ZUMBRUNN. When you say you strike out the words about the Deity, were the words in the original affidavit?

Mr. DICKEY. No, sir; there were blanks.

Mr. McLEAN. Senator Mayfield had an appointment to speak over at Graham. You learned that from this conversation?

Mr. DICKEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. McLEAN. Was the question of finances ever mentioned by McNamara to Mr. Mayfield in your presence?

Mr. DICKEY. No, sir.

Mr. McLEAN. Was money mentioned?
Mr. DICKEY. No, sir.

Mr. MCLEAN. Were campaign funds mentioned?

Mr. DICKEY. No, sir.

Mr. McLEAN. Was contribution to campaign funds mentioned? Mr. DICKEY. No, sir.

Mr. McLEAN. Senator Mayfield wanted the chamber of commerce not to hold its banquet at the same hour or on the same night he spoke there?

Mr. DICKEY. That is true, and that made him mad. It irritated him considerably.

Mr. McLEAN. Then he made this remark that you testify he did make?

Mr. DICKEY. I think that had been made a little bit before that; I forget the sequence.

Mr. McLEAN. They were discussing that, and had been discussing that?

Mr. DICKEY. That is correct.

Mr. McLEAN. When he used the words "kick in," was he trying to get them, from your understanding of the conversation, to call off the meeting and let him speak?

Mr. DICKEY. Oh, yes, sure; because that was the purpose of his visit there.

Mr. McLEAN. The question of money matters, "kicking in" money, was not mentioned?

Mr. DICKEY. There was nothing said about money.

Mr. McLEAN. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. You are excused, Mr. Dickey.

TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH K. MORRIS

(The witness was sworn by the chairman.)

Mr. NICKELS. Mr. Morris, you live at Dallas, Tex.?

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. NICKELS. Did you live there in 1922 throughout the year? Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. NICKELS. Were you a member of Dallas Klan 66 at that time? Mr. MORRIS. When?

Mr. NICKELS. In 1922.

Mr. MORRIS. I do not know whether I was or not. I joined the klan in 1921 and paid my dues to the last of the year in 1921.

Mr. NICKELS. State whether or not you were interviewed by a purported committeeman of the klan organization with reference to an assessment made upon the membership.

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir; I was.

Mr. NICKELS. Was that for the primary campaign?

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. NICKELS. What was the plan, as detailed to you, for the assessment, how much per member?

me

Mr. MORRIS. My recollection was that they came to me and told

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. He asked you how much he wanted. I object to hearsay.

Mr. MORRIS. In other words, he came to me and told me I had been assessed $1.45.

Mr. NICKELS. Did he or not tell you that the membership had been assessed that?

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. NICKELS. Who was the committeeman who came to you? Mr. MORRIS. His name was Mr. Ford-George Ford.

Mr. NICKELS. Did I understand you, from what you have told me about it, to say that you had nothing to do with any further assessments?

Mr. MORRIS. No.

Mr. NICKELS. Did you or not tell Mr. Ford at that time anything about whether you would meet future assessments?

Mr. MORRIS. I told George I would pay him this $1.45, but I did not care to pay any more, and if I was on his list, to get somebody else.

Mr. NICKELS. That is all.

Mr. MCLEAN. Was that when you had up your local campaign fight, between the local candidates there for district attorney and sheriff and district judge, on down, or on up, to justice of the peace? Mr. MORRIS. Yes; it was before the July primaries.

Mr. MCLEAN. You had a very bitter fight there locally, did

you not?

Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir.

Mr. McLEAN. The bitterest ever witnessed in Dallas County, was it not?

Mr. MORRIS. No; I would not say it was. It was pretty bitter, but I have seen some pretty bitter ones.

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. What is your business in Dallas?

Mr. MORRIS. Real estate.

The CHAIRMAN. Was that assessment in the nature of a voluntary payment on suggestion or was it an official and compulsory payment? Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Ford came to me and told me about the meeting and how they had arranged it, and said he had me and another gentleman I was associated with on his list, and he said, "To make mine 100 per cent, I paid for you, and knew I could come to you boys and get the money.

The CHAIRMAN. You yourself do not know anything about whether that was an official assessment or whether it was a voluntary payment on suggestion?

Mr. MORRIS. I do not know, only what Mr. Ford told me-came to me and told me.

The CHAIRMAN. You may be excused, Mr. Morris.

Mr. NICKELS. We next offer in evidence the following excerpts from News Letter 62.

The CHAIRMAN. You need not read it unless the other side are not familiar with it.

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. I do not know what it is myself, Senator.

Mr. MCLEAN. Mark the part you want to introduce and we will look at it hurriedly.

Mr. NICKELS. The excerpt referred to is the pencil bracketed portion, being next to the last paragraph on page 1 of the news letter. Mr. McLEAN. I do not know that we have any objection to that. Mr. ZUMBRUNN. I do not see the materiality of it, but I think it would take more time to object to it than to let it in.

The CHAIRMAN. Hand it to the reporter.

(The excerpt from the Weekly News Letter of July 25, 1922, indicated by Mr. Nickels, is as follows:)

Election returns from Texas indicate without a shadow of a doubt that the Protestant ticket has won every important office. The antiklan press concedes a complete victory for us. Oklahoma has a primary within a short time and there is not the slightest doubt but what we shall win even a greater victory in that State.

Mr. NICKELS. We next offer the pencil bracketed portions of the Weekly News Letter No. 63 of August 1, 1922, in the same file: (The portions of the Weekly News Letter of August 1, 1922, last referred to are as follows:)

As in

Acting Imperial Wizard Edward Young Clarke addressed a monster klan ceremony at Tulsa, Okla., last week. Ten thousand alien spectators watched the proceedings. Primary elections in this State take place to-day. Texas, the Ku-Klux Klan has been forced into Oklahoma politics by its enemies. Mr. Clarke announced that there were 120,000 members in this State.

The greatest open-air ceremonial ever held in east Texas took place at Tyler recently, in which 15,000 klansmen participated. Nearly 500 new members were admitted to citizenship.

Mr. NICKELS. We next offer the document in this file as identified by the witness when on the stand, the same being a form letter purportedly explaining the news-letter service, it being dated November 12, 1921.

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. I want to object to that on the ground that it is immaterial. I do not want to press the objection, but I do not want to pass it, and I do not want the committee to understand that I waive the objection.

The CHAIRMAN. Hand it to the reporter.

(The form letter referred to is here printed in the record, as follows:)

[Imperial palace, Invisible Empire. Knights of the Ku-Klux Klan (Inc.), Atlanta, Ga. Department of propagation. Office of imperial kleagle. Post-office box 966. November 12, 1921]

To All Exalted Cyclops of the Invisible Empire:

MY FAITHFUL AND ESTEEMED KLANSMAN: The weekly news letters issued by the propagation department should be made a clearing house for klan activities everywhere. To make this possible, every cyclop is earnestly requested to send to the imperial kleagle, at post-office box 966, Atlanta, Ga., all items of news concerning his klan and the activities of his klansmen that would be suitable for publicity purposes. These items will then be sent out occasionally to the press and to the various klans in the weekly news letters. Klansmen like to know what their brother klansmen are doing, so let's make these news letters a storehouse of the best klan news.

Yours in the sacred unfailing bond,

EDWARD YOUNG CLARKE, Imperial Kleagle.

In the name of our fathers-for our country, our homes, and each other.

Mr. NICKELS. We next offer the pencil bracketed portions of the transcript of the speech delivered by E. Y. Clarke at Tulsa, Okla., on July 26, 1922, which was identified by Mr. Clarke when he was on the witness stand, the bracketed portions offered in evidence being set out on pages 9 and 10 of the typewritten copy of the speech, and in an excerpt beginning with brackets on page 11 and extending down to about the middle of page 12.

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. As to that, if the chairman please, I am basing my objection to that upon my recollection of the state of this record. I may be in error, but as I recall it, that is not the speech a portion of which Mr. Clarke was interrogated about or the portion that was read into the record.

Mr. NICKELS. No.

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. You will recall that my original objection went to the fact, as I said, that they were not indicating what portions they wanted to offer, if any, and therefore we were not in position to interrogate a witness in regard to those portions. They were not offering anything in evidence but simply having the matter marked for identification. Mr. Clarke has been excused and has gone. I want, therefore, to object to this now on the ground that we are not privileged at this time, unless the committee wants to recall the witness to the stand to cross-examine him. I think the matter is wholly incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial; and, further, it is objectionable because if this matter was properly identified and opportunity offered to cross-examine the witness Clarke the alleged speech is a collateral method of proving the case, and is incompetent in that it tends to make, or relate to, an investigation of the klan that is in no way connected with or relating to the Texas contest of Senator Mayfield.

The CHAIRMAN. Is this a quotation from the speech at Erie, Pa.? Mr. NICKELS. No, sir; it is not.

The CHAIRMAN. What speech is it?

Mr. NICKELS. It is the speech at Tulsa, Okla.; and counsel is right in saying that he was not specifically asked about the excerpts we now offer; but if I may, I think I can state a good reason why it is admissible.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.

Mr. NICKELS. We think it would be admissible under two or three of the well-known rules of evidence. One would be that on crossexamination counsel sought to impeach the witness by questions which would carry with them the intimation of possibly bad character, and intimating also that the testimony as given might be a recent fabrication. Now, wherever that is done, under the rules, without exception that I know anything about, the party offering the witness has a right to corroborate him by showing generally corresponding statements made back at a period when the circumstances were such that it would indicate that the witness was telling what he knew about the subject matter, and without bias or prejudice. I do not know of any exception to that rule, where one party offers a witness and the other side seeks to impeach him upon any of those grounds or in any method proper to that end, and we offer it, therefore, as a corresponding statement in corroboration of Mr. Clarke and against his attempted impeachment by contestee.

101521-24†-PT 2-21

The speech was identified and marked here for identification, and counsel, if they had cared to do so, could have questioned him before Mr. Clarke left the witness stand. We think it is relevant. It must be, because it is a declaration made by the supreme officer of the organization on an official occasion.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Clarke at that time was the imperial wizard pro tem of Texas, and he testified here as to his understanding of the activities of the klan at the time in question, and identified this speech as correctly reporting what he had said as imperial wizard, and he gave his version upon the stand as to the general outline of what he had said. The committee accepted his testimony as bearing upon the allegations of the contest and protest, and this statement from his speech which he identified is competent for the same reason, in addition to the reason Mr. Nickels has outlined.

Mr. MCLEAN. It appears that he himself was supporting another

man.

The CHAIRMAN. That may affect the weight of the testimony. There can not be any doubt that what the imperial wizard, the highest officer of the klan, said is competent evidence on the allegations of the protest and notice of contest regarding the activities of the klan in Texas.

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. That does not get the objection that I raised. I am more especially urging the absolute unfairness of it. Counsel would not introduce that evidence when Mr. Clarke was on the witness stand. I asked specifically, and the record will show that I asked him to indicate at the time the portions of the speech that he wanted to introduce so that I would be in a position to cross-examine Mr. Clarke about it, and he did not introduce any portion of it. He introduces it now, this morning, when Mr. Clarke is no longer available for cross-examination. I asked him when Mr. Clarke was on the stand what portions of the speech he meant to offer and he said that he did not know; and now he offers this when Mr. Clarke is no longer available for cross-examination.

Senator KING. My understanding of it was that Mr. Nickels examined the speeches and then read a portion of one speech, and I understood from Mr. Nickels that that was all he would offer.

Mr. NICKELS. At that time, Senator.

Mr. ZUMBRUNN. That is all that he did offer at that time.

Senator KING. I would feel, Mr. Chairman, if when the witness was on the stand he did not offer this, which he does offer now, counsel for contestee would have a right to have Mr. Clarke recalled for crossexamination.

Mr. NICKELS. We would have no objection to that.

The CHAIRMAN. The fact of the matter is that at the time counsel for contestant called the attention of the witness to several speeches, including the one that we are now discussing?

Mr. NICKELS. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Clarke said that that speech correctly represented what he said of the interest of the klan in the election in Texas.

Mr. McLEAN. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. And Mr. Nickels said that he wanted the speech identified, but did not offer it at that time. The speech, however, was before the committee, and Mr. Nickels said that a part of it