Mr. KINOY. I think, Mr. Chairman, you would find a beautiful insight into that problem in Judge Wisdom's original opinion, the one I have referred to, the U.S. against the original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, where Judge Wisdom points out, and the rest of the court, that acts which are in perpetration of, and part of a conspiracy to plan in the future, violence against citizens exercising fundamental constitutional rights, elementary constitutional rights, that these acts are overt acts in a conspiracy to violate Federal law, section 1971, Federal law, sections 1983 and 1985, and require immediate injunctive relief.

I think the greatest mistake that can be made at this moment is to sit back and say we don't know what these camps are going to do. We have to just sit and wait until they kill a thousand black people.

What has to be done now-there is no reason under the law why immediate injunctive action shouldn't be instituted against these paramilitary camps by the Department of Justice under existing statutes. And if they fail to do so, they have to explain to the Nation why they failed to do so. Then organizations, national organizations, representatives of this Congress who are sworn to enforce the Constitution of the United States, should institute such actions.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you.

Mr. Sensenbrenner?

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Yes.

Professor Kinoy, I would like to preface my question by saying that I find the activities of the Ku Klux Klan absolutely abhorrent and contrary to all of the principles on which this country was founded. I have no problem with your suggestion that grand juries be used with increasing frequency as an investigative tool into illegal activities of the Klan.

However, I do have a slight problem with your suggestion that injunctive relief be utilized. My question to you is this: Doesn't the use of the injunctive remedy present a greater risk of infringing upon first amendment rights than do specific criminal prosecutions against those who are responsible for violating the criminal statutes on the books?

Mr. KINOY. My answer to Mr. Sensenbrenner would be, again, exactly the answer that I gave to

Mr. CONYERS. I would like to interrupt the witness. Excuse me for interrupting my colleague. But there is a person sitting in the front row with a sign, and I would like to ask her to-I don't know what it says, but would you please remove that sign? No permission has been given for citizens to demonstrate or conduct themselves by advertising or other means at these hearings.

I would appreciate it if you would cooperate with that. Excuse the interruption.

Mr. KINOY. I was just saying, without taking the time of the committee, once again, the answer to your question about the appropriateness under the Federal Constitution and under the first amendment to the injunctive relief is fully spelled out and developed by Judge John Minor Wisdom in the opinion I have referred to. I should say this: There is no greater champion in the Federal judicial system over the last 30 years than Judge John Minor

Wisdom, no greater champion of the first amendment. He has defended the first amendment from one end of the country to the other.

What is the point that Judge Wisdom and the other judges make? That to defend the elementary democratic rights of the first amendment, it is necessary to stop conspiracies to use violence against people exercising those rights. And this was long established by the greatest defenders of the first amendment this country has ever seen, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Mr. Justice Brandeis, when they pointed out that any activity which is a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil within congressional or governmental power must be stopped in protection of first amendment values and rights. It would undermine the concept of the first amendment not to permit protection against those people conspiring to destroy the elementary democratic rights of people.

And I would suggest to the committee that the analysis which Judge Wisdom and the other members of the fifth circuit developed, fully explain why it is that injunctive relief is essential at this time if elementary democratic rights are to be protected.

There is not a single thing in the Wisdom opinion and the injunction issued-and for the committee's benefit I have attached as an exhibit a document people find very hard to find, the original injunction, the actual injunction issued by Judge Wisdom, and if you read it carefully, you will see there is not a single word in it that interferes with anybody's first amendment rights.

I would request, incidentally, because I think it would be helpful if the committee is able to, perhaps the committee would like to print as part of my testimony Judge Wisdom's opinion. I have a copy of the opinion here if the committee would like to see it. Thank you.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I do not think that all of the men and women who presently serve on the Federal bench, have the wisdom and foresight of Judge John Minor Wisdom. Other Federal judges might wish to use these injunctive remedies, not against the Ku Klux Klan in blatantly anti-democratic activities, as our last witness called them, but against other organizations that might be exercising first amendment rights.

I do not think that you have answered my specific question on whether the vast injunctive power that the courts have in this kind of a situation poses a greater danger to the exercise of first amendment rights than a specific criminal prosecution against people who are conspiring to commit acts of violence.

Mr. KINOY. Many of us have been spending the last 30 or 40 years in the courts fighting against excessive use of injunctive power, labor situations, and other kinds of situations.

What happens when some member of the Federal bench goes overboard on this? Well, that is what the Constitution of the United States is there for, to stop them up. We get up; there we fight against them; we argue against them, and we win over and over again. What do you do? You can always say-anything can be turned upside down and used to excess.

If the anti-Klan statutes were distorted totally, if any statute is distorted totally, if the grand jury, itself, as often it is, and I have

gotten up before courts and argued against the use of grand juries in certain circumstances, you argue against the distortions.

We have a written Constitution. The written Constitution provides for both; and the most dangerous thing in the world would be to permit a paralysis of the enforcement of statutes and enforcement of the Constitution on the fear that the use of these statutes might at another time hurt somebody else. That plays right into the hands of the Klan and the conspiracies developing all over the country.

The answer to this problem is found in the answer of this Congress, itself, in 1866, when the statutes were first passed. This Congress said what? And this Congress in 1866-people may disagree with that Congress in a lot of ways, but it was the Congress of the United States-they had just written the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It had written what it said was a universal charter of freedom. It was more dedicated than any Congress in many years had been to the elementary democratic and first amendment rights of people. Yet it said to protect the exercise of these rights we have to stop up conspiracies which are designed to destroy the most elementary protections of equality and freedom, because, without that, the first amendment, itself, means nothing.

So what we must do is enforce the rights of equality and freedom, enforce them with all the weapons available now. If anybody chooses to use that in a distorted way, not against the Klan and violence-prone organizations, but against labor unions or other people exercising their first amendment rights, you will find me as the first person out there fighting against that injunction, and you will find loads of other people fighting against that injunction. So let's not paralyze ourselves by fear at this moment. Thank you.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. Mr. CONYERS. We appreciate your testimony and will look forward to the attempts to implement the strategy that you have so cogently outlined.

Thank you.

Mr. KINOY. Thank you, Mr. Conyers.

Thank you, Mr. Sensenbrenner.

Mr. CONYERS. The next witness is Mr. Irwin Suall, Director, FactFinding Department, Anti-Defamation League, B'nai B'rith, New York. He is responsible for the investigation of organized antiSemitism and other extremist and hate movements in the United States. Working with the league's 26 regional offices, his job is that of uncovering the facts about the promoters of bigotry, and antiSemitic and hate-mongering extremists.

Mr. Suall is a graduate of Oxford University in England, which he attended on a Fulbright scholarship, and for many years has been involved in Jewish community relations as the author of numerous studies and articles on the above-mentioned topics.

We welcome you, Mr. Suall, on behalf of the Subcommittee on Crime. We know that you will be shortly furnishing us a more formal statement, but we welcome you here for the first of a series of hearings on organized violence.

77-590 0-81-6

TESTIMONY OF IRWIN SUALL, DIRECTOR, FACT-FINDING DEPARTMENT, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE, B'NAI B'RITH, NEW YORK

Mr. SUALL. Thank you very much, Mr. Conyers. It is good to be here, Congressman Sensenbrenner.

The Anti-Defamation League is a national human relations agency founded in 1913 with the purpose of combating anti-Semitism, racism, and anti-democratic extremism of the far right and the far left.

As part of that general purpose, ADL monitors and counteracts the Ku Klux Klan. The present Klan is an outgrowth of the Klan of the 1960's, which all of us remember with such revulsion because of its violence and extremist activities.

Toward the end of the 1960's, the Klan began to decline in membership and influence and power for various reasons, which we can go into later if you like, Mr. Conyers. Their peak was in 1967, when the Anti-Defamation League estimated they had a nationwide membership of some 55,000 members.

Their decline began soon thereafter and continued throughout the early 1970's. It was not until 1975 that ADL, in the course of its routine work of monitoring the Klan and other extremist groups, began to notice some blips on our radar screen, indicating that the Klan was once again coming out of hiding and becoming active. There was some growth of membership; there was an increase in the amount of visibility; there was increased activity.

Our survey in 1975 indicated a nationwide membership, and I am talking now of all the national Klans combined. We speak of the Klan, but, in fact, there is no single Klan; there are many national Klan organizations, each competitive with the other.

But the combined membership of the various national Klans in 1975 we estimated was approximately 6,500. By 1978, our survey indicated that that figure had risen to about 8,000.

Our most recent survey was conducted in November 1979, approximately 1 year ago, and we found at that time that the Klan had about 10,000 members throughout the country.

We are now conducting a further survey which we are not yet ready to make public because it is not completed. This survey is being conducted in connection with a contract which has been given us by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to do a study of the Klan and other violence-prone racist organizations. That report will be presented to the Commission, I believe, sometime in the early spring, and it will include our most recent figures on national Klan membership.

I said before that there is not one Klan, but several competing Klan organizations. The largest single group is the United Klans of America, which also happens to be the organization that was largest in the 1960's. It is headed by Robert Shelton and is headquartered in Tuscaloosa, Ala. In the late 1960's, you may recall, Robert Shelton served a term in a Federal penitentiary after he was found in contempt of Congress in connection with a request by the House Committee on Un-American Activities for him to submit membership information to that committee. He and two other national eaders of the UKA served time in a Federal penitentiary.

Another national organization is called the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, whose grand dragon, Bill Wilkinson, was outside the door a few minutes ago.

The third Klan organization is called the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. It was founded by David Duke, of Metairie, La., who not long ago resigned and turned over the imperial wizardship to Don Black, of Tuscumbia, Ala., who is now the leader of this organization.

The fourth national Klan organization is called the Confederation of Independent Orders, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, headquartered in Indiana. Its imperial wizard, Robert Chaney, is presently serving time in a Federal penitentiary on a fire bombing charge.

In addition to these four organizations, there are a number of other competing Klans, miscellaneous Klans-the California Klan, Ohio Klan, the National Knights of the KKK, Federated Knights of the KKK, et cetera.

Above and beyond the growth in membership which we have traced, the fact is that the Klan is not a substantial organization in terms of numbers. This is important, Mr. Chairman.

It is true the Klan has grown, but we are a country of some 230 million people. When one considers we are talking about an organization of approximately 10,000 members, it is a fairly small organization. It poses serious problems, in my judgment, but the problems it poses are not the result of mass membership; it is not a mass organization in a country, as I say, of 230 million people.

One of the problems posed is that it does have a fairly substantial number of sympathizers, that is, people who have what has been called a Klan mentality. That can be a quite serious problem. We estimate that the number of sympathizers across the country at between 75,000 and 100,000, and we judge active sympathizers by the kinds of activities in which they engage, that is, those who attend Klan rallies and crossburnings, those who contribute money to the Klan, those who subscribe to Klan publications.

Beyond that inner core of active sympathizers there is another layer to this Klan union, which is even more significant. I refer to that segment of the American population which found it possible to vote in the most recent elections for publicly-identified leaders of the Ku Klux Klan for Congress.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, there were several elections in 1980 in which publicly-identified Klansmen ran for public office. In the San Diego area Tom Metzger, who is the imperial wizard of the California Knights of the KKK, ran for Congress and won the Republican nomination for Congress-I am sorry, the Democratic nomination for Congress.

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you.

Mr. SUALL. Correction. I will come back to the Republicans in a minute, though.

Mr. Metzger then ran in the general election, and while he was overwhelmingly defeated-I want to make that quite clear-he garnered only 14 percent of the total vote; but that 14 percent happened to consist of 35,000 voters in the congressional race, and they were voting for this man for Congress, not for dogcatcher; they wanted him to represent them in Washington-35,000 people