The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #105650 Message #2177468
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
23-Oct-07 - 02:28 PM
Thread Name: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
Subject: RE: BS: 'Poor Whites' in the Southern States
WYSIWYG is correct. This is digression, but it may add to the picture of pre-WW2 KKK activity.
In the 1930s the KKK was very strong, especially in western U. S. and western Canada. As implied somewhere in a post above, members included prominent men in business in the towns and cities, who became card-bearing members. In the mines, disputes rose between miners originally from the British Isles, and new immigrants from eastern Europe. Mine owners and investors fought union activity, and these two conflicts fueled KKK organizers. This had very little to do with the earlier actions of the KKK in the South, but rose to combat perceived threats from non-English-speaking immigrants, and threats from organized labor.
I am most familiar with KKK-related activity in Alberta, western Canada, and the following relates to that smaller area. In western Canada, even church ministers railed against foreign-born who were threatening "all British institutions." Many of the immigrants were Ruthenian, Ukrainian and others from eastern Europe and perceived as communists. It was widely believed that the Crowsnest Pass (coal-mining region) was infested with Bolshevik agents and the Anglican priest Parkington trumpeted that the coal-mining areas were "fertile soil for the athiest movement." The KKK provided a magnet for the anti-immigrant forces, and crosses burned on the hills. Not only in the mining areas, but in almost every facet of labour union activity, police involvement on the side of employers added to the discord (Introduction by Reg Baskin to "Alberta Labour."*). Adding to the turmoil was the appearance of Tim Buck and other Communist leaders. Unlike Montana, Colorado and other western areas, the violence in Alberta seldom got out-of-hand.
Large areas of farmland was being settled by "Ukes," Poles and other eastern Europeans who belonged to Ukrainian and Russian Orthodox churches and spoke very little English. There was only the most necessary communication with the English-speaking settlers and resentment was strong on both sides (at a later time, the Hutterites, Anabaptists speaking low German, were also received with distrust- and now the Muslim peoples).
In the capitol city of Edmonton, a KKK meeting in 1932 filled to overflowing the very large Memorial Hall; some prominent Albertans can be recognized in the front rows in the photograph* taken at the time. Business men agreed not to hire the foreigners and not to recognize unions. *W. Caragata, 1979, "Alberta Labour, A Heritage Untold," p. 115.