Horace A. Demarest, Deputy New York State Motor Vehicle Commissioner, and one of the organizers of the Ku Klux Klan in this state, was dismissed yesterday as the result of an investigation into the organization and activities of the Klan by Attorney General Nathaniel L. Goldstein.
Proceedings to revoke the charter of the anti-Jewish, anti-Negro, anti-Catholic, and anti-labor Klan were started last week after a resurgence of the organization’s activities were brought to light by Dorothy Langston, executive secretary of the New York Committee for Justice in Freeport, who received a threatening letter from the Klan. Goldstein revealed that the Klan had first been organized in 1923, when it applied for and received a state charter as the Alpha Pi Sigma. Two years later it changed its name to Knights of Ku Klux Klan.
Demarest’s dismissal was recommended by Goldstein after his testimony to the Attorney General’s office was found to very from earlier statements made to the New York County District Attorney. Goldstein estimates that it will take about six weeks before the Klan’s charter is legally revoked.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
