# The Klan's weekly makes its case for closing the door, August 1923 Page two of The Imperial Night-Hawk, the Ku Klux Klan's Atlanta weekly, for 29 August 1923 carries an article credited to the Grand Dragon of South Carolina calling for an immigration halt, a ban on foreign-language newspapers, and Japanese exclusion. - Home - Archive - The Klan's weekly makes its case for closing the door, August 1923 The Imperial Night-Hawk, 29 August 1923, page 2: 'Poorly Restricted Immigration is One of The Greatest Perils Confronting America' The Klan's weekly makes its case for closing the door, August 1923 A 1923 article in the Klan weekly The Imperial Night-Hawk urges an immigration halt, an English-only press, and Japanese exclusion. Internet Archive scan. ## Techniques named on the archive record ScapegoatingFear appealCard stacking DateAugust 29, 1923Made byKnights of the Ku Klux Klan (The Imperial Night-Hawk, Atlanta), article credited to the Grand Dragon of the Realm of South CarolinaMediumNewspaper pagesCountryUnited StatesRegimeCoolidge AdministrationSourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceInternet Archive (item 1923August29ImperialNightHawk; scan watermarked authentichistory.com) , retrieved October 2, 2026SourcePublic domain (published in the US in 1923, before 1931; the IA item page states no rights) The Imperial Night-Hawk, Atlanta, 29 August 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 22), via the Internet Archive Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records. Full record at propagandaarchive.org Page two of The Imperial Night-Hawk, the Ku Klux Klan's Atlanta weekly, for 29 August 1923 carries an article credited to the Grand Dragon of South Carolina calling for an immigration halt, a ban on foreign-language newspapers, and Japanese exclusion. ## What the page prints The article fills three columns of page two. Its byline is a Klan office, not a person: "the Grand Dragon of the Realm of South Carolina." It asks the order to take the lead on immigration and lays out a program in subheads. Excerpts from the FRAME transcription: The time has now come when the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan should take the leadership in this great fight, to prevent America from becoming the melting pot or dumping ground of the world for the heterogeneous element seeking admission to our shores. [...] Eliminate Foreign Press We must insist that a law be enacted prohibiting the printing of any newspaper or magazine not printed in the English language; and to require all aliens within our borders to speak English within a limited period of time. [...] America is saturated with aliens, and some of our great States will soon be populated entirely by aliens, unless a law is enacted restricting immigration to the United States for a period of years. Excerpts from the transcription in the FRAME record. Full record at propagandaarchive.org. Content note: the article uses demeaning language about Jews, Italians, Armenians, Greeks, Japanese, Chinese and Finns. It is quoted here only as far as needed to show the argument. ## Who published it The Imperial Night-Hawk was the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan's weekly, published in Atlanta; this is Vol. 1, No. 22. The archive's scan comes from an Internet Archive item watermarked by authentichistory.com, retrieved 2 October 2026, and is public domain as a 1923 U.S. publication. ## What was wrong with it Immigration levels are a fair subject for a free people to argue about. This article does something else. It sorts residents by ancestry, treats their keeping their own churches, schools and languages as a peril, and wants the law to decide which of them may print a newspaper. That last demand is a direct attack on the freedom of the press, aimed at citizens and immigrants alike. Its figures, such as 53,524 "Hebrew aliens" arriving against 18 leaving for Palestine, come with no comparison that would make them mean anything. The argument was wrong in principle, and its numbers did not support it even on its own terms. The case study A hooded order paid its salesmen by the head quotes this page. From the same decade and the one before, the archive holds a Black weekly's answer to the Klan in St. Louis and a 1916 advertisement for The Birth of a Nation. ## Sources - FRAME object record, "The Imperial Night-Hawk, 29 August 1923, page 2: 'Poorly Restricted Immigration is One of The Greatest Perils Confronting America'." Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (Atlanta), article credited to the Grand Dragon of the Realm of South Carolina. Internet Archive (scan watermarked authentichistory.com), retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain (published in the US in 1923). Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/imperial-night-hawk-immigration-1923/