Publisher of Alabama newspaper calls for the Klan to ride on DC with "hemp ropes"

Goodloe Sutton is publisher of the Democrat-Reporter, a newspaper published in the small town of Linden, Alabama, and he is very upset about "Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats [who] are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama," so much so that he published an editorial calling on "the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again" to address the issue.

In his editorial, Sutton claimed, falsely, that freed slaves sometimes donned Klan robes to "frighten some evil doer."

The Montgomery Advertiser contacted Sutton to ask him about his editorial. Sutton elaborated that "cleaning up DC" was meant to suggest lynchings, saying "We'll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them." He defended himself against a charge of advocating for lynching Americans by denying that the politicians he opposed were Americans, saying "These are socialist-communists we're talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?"

Sutton went on to deny that the Klan was violent, and suggested that they were a community group comparable to the NAACP, saying "Well, they didn't kill but a few people. The Klan wasn't violent until they needed to be."

Sutton inherited the newspaper from his father.

In the newspaper editorial, Sutton wrote:

Democrats in the Republican Party and Democrats are plotting to raise taxes in Alabama. They do not understand how to eliminate expenses when money is needed in other areas. This socialist-communist ideology sounds good to the ignorant, the uneducated, and the simple-minded people.

Alabama newspaper editor calls for Klan return to 'clean out D.C.' [Melissa Brown/Montgomery Advertiser]

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)