The Bigot They Are

The career of a bigot is by nature a devious one. The story of John Kasper does little to reaffirm one's faith in the people's judgement. Kasper has now gone the way of Father Coughlin and Father Feeney, but his little-mourned departure from the segregationist ranks is not the result of a popular reaction against his views or his tactics. These views and tactics simply turned on him.

Even before Kasper entered Florida in early March, his cohorts were at work. Fred B. Hockett, a White Citizens Council Organizer in Miami, had been arrested and fined for cross-burning. Moreover, testimony was offered to the effect that Hockett possessed 100 boxes of dynamite, to be exploded at Kasper's orders.

When Kasper himself came to Miami for Hockett's trial and two segregationist rallies, he announced his intention of forming a white youth organization as a subsidiary to the Citizens Councils. Four days after his arrival, he was in Tallahassee, the state capital, to testify before a committee investigating anti-Negro activity in the state.

The story Kasper told the committee brought the wrath of his own faction down on him, but his activities have so far incurred no censure from the responsible citizens of Florida. Kasper admitted to a crime which is an affront to the segregationist ethic: he had danced, traveled, and corresponded with a Negro girls, whom he had met in his Greenwich Village bokstore: to the Ku Klux Klan, of course, all this equals miscegenation.

Immediately following his testimony, Kasper was denounced by Hockett and the officials of the K.K.K. in Florida. He was last heard of in Wetumpka, Alabama, where the White Citizens Council had forbidden him to speak.

Kasper will probably never recover the prestige he lost among segregationists through his revelations. He is not powerless, however, and is a sufficiently adept opportunist to make a comeback of sorts. If the segregationist tack falls through, Kasper has anti-Semitism, an old stand-by of his, to work from. Unlike his mentor, Ezra Pound, the insane poet who is now confined in a mental hospital, Kasper is not deranged.

Pound, one of the all-time greats in the anti-Semitic fields, was only one of many influences in Kasper's life. Through Pound, Kasper learned only the language of hate; the sense of timing he already possessed. He has not lost his reputation as a speaker or an organizer; all he needs is the proper field in which to utilize his peculiar talents. The public has shown no signs of concern; unless his past again catches up with him, he will doubtless have an active future.