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Pittsburgh Trial Bares Some of Ku Klux Klan’s Anti-Jewish Outrages

April 13, 1928
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(Jewish Daily Bulletin)

The testimony presented in the Federal Court here during the trial of the two hostile factions of the Pennsylvania Klan, in addition to unmasking the hideous activities of the hooded order, disclosed some aspects of the Ku Klux Klan’s anti-Jewish acts during the period of its reign.

The courtroom was kept at a high pitch of interest as an Oklahoma "Black Rider," Frank S. Lanham of Sand Springs, formerly an Exalted Cyclops and Great Titan, told how two young Jews had been compelled to lash each other. Lanham spoke of the two Jews as "Jew hat salesmen from New York."

"These two Jews came into Tulsa and flirted with some girls. They were arrested and then turned over to the night riders," he said. "Night riders took them to the out skirts of the town, and about 500 feet off the Hominy Road. They were given whips and were told to beat each other. That’s what we call ‘lapjackin.’ When they let up on each other or did not strike hard enough blows one of the riders stepped in and supplied the punishment," he testified.

A ruling by Judge W. H. S. Thomson dismissed the suit of the five banished members who sought an injunction restraining the Klan from doing business in Pennsylvania and asking an accounting of the twenty million dollars paid to the Klan by its members in the State. The judge ruled that the Federal Court has no jurisdiction in the case and that to obtain the injunction the plaintiffs must appeal to the State Attorney General for a revocation of the license.

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