Hearing the number of "millions of members", Monet was taken aback: "Why did it suddenly resurgence and expand so quickly?" ”

"Have you seen a movie called 'The Birth of a Nation'?" Sheriff Klein asked rhetorically without answering.

Monet nodded and replied, "I've seen it, starring Lilian!" Then he reacted: "Oh, I see, this is a movie that reacts and can even be said to glorify the Ku Klux Klan, so these people with this tendency start to live after watching this movie?" ”

The movie "The Birth of a Nation" is mainly about the American Civil War, when the Cameron family, the owner of the Southern manor, originally lived a comfortable life. Cameron and the Stoneman children attended the same boarding school, and the young Benjamin Cameron (Henry Cameron) came into contact with him. B. Vosio) and Elsie Stoneman (Lillian Gish) have feelings for each other. Soon after, however, the Civil War broke out. Benjamin joins the Confederate army and goes to the front, where he becomes an enemy of his former friend Stoneman (Ralph Leeves) in the North. After the war, blacks burned, killed and looted. Benjamin organized the Ku Klux Klan to take revenge on blacks and crush the plot to establish a so-called black kingdom. Benjamin and Elsie, a distressed couple, have finally come together. Their union heralded the birth and unification of a new nation.

Sheriff Klein nodded in agreement, "That's right, that's it. And many whites at the bottom of the social ladder after watching this film believe that their poverty is caused by blacks or Jewish bankers, a propaganda tactic similar to that of Germany. The film led to the popularity of the Ku Klux Klan across the United States. At a test screening in Los Angeles, actors dressed as members of the Ku Klux Klan were hired as advertising pitchers, and then at the official premiere in Atlanta, regrouped Ku Klux Klan members took to the streets to cheer. In some places, rabid southern audiences even fired at stage screens.

Another important event that led to the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan was the lynching of Leo Frank, the owner of the Jewish factory. The local newspapers of the time reported a sensational news: in a Jewish-run factory, the owner Leo Frank had sexually committed a sexual crime against his employee Mary Phagan and murdered her. In a questionable trial in Georgia, Frank was convicted of murder (the defendant and defense attorney were not present when the jury announced the verdict due to the presence of violent people in the courtroom). Frank's appeal was also dismissed (High Court Judge Oliver Wendell Helms dissented because he considered the trial to be in accordance with due process). The consuls commuted Frank's sentence to life imprisonment, but a group of men calling themselves "Knight Mary Pagan" kidnapped Frank from prison and hanged him in a lynching.

For many Southerners who believe Frank is guilty, the case has an unusual connection to The Birth of a Nation. Because they associate the victim "Pagan" with Flora, a female character in the film who jumps off a cliff to avoid being raped by a black man. After this incident, the Ku Klux Klan, who had regrouped, added "anti-Semitic", "anti-Catholic" and "anti-immigrant" to their demands.

The affair was then exploited by William Smith, a Georgia politician and publisher, who led a 34-person team to Stone Hill in northwestern Georgia. There, they burned a cross, a ritual that appeared in the film "The Birth of a Nation", although the original Ku Klux Klan never did so, and it was there that Smith declared himself the "Great Wizard" of the new Ku Klux Klan. ”

"It seems that this movie does play a bad role as an example, but even so, it is difficult to scale to a scale of millions, right?" Monet asked.

This is because the Ku Klux Klan used a very creative propaganda tactic this time, hiring a public relations company--- the "Southern Propaganda Association" to promote member recruitment.

The incentives indicated in the contract by the Southern Propaganda Association are very tempting. Because there is a $10 initiation fee per member, the Southern Advocacy Association receives 80 percent of the initiation fee for each new member joined.

This means that the Southern Advocacy Association is able to pay very attractive commissions to salespeople while retaining a considerable amount of rebates.

The Southern Propaganda Association soon hired more than 1,000 salespeople (the Ku Klux Klan called them commission-paid salesmen), and they formed a sales network that spread across the country. The Kleagles earn $4 of the $10 entrance fee for each new member (named "Ghoul", meaning ghoul). Initially, the Southern Propaganda Association gave $2 of the remaining $6 to Simmons, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan, earning $2.5 for himself and giving the remaining $1.5 to the regional director known as the "Great Goblin."

Later, the Southern Propaganda Association also introduced a new tier, "King Kleagles," to oversee recruitment in each state. King Kleagle will eventually get $1 out of $6, Great Goblin will get 50 cents, and the "Imperial Kleagle" national sale will get $1.25. Another state-level position, called "Grand Dragon," is more of a charge than a recruit, and he gets a share of $2.5. The two leaders of the 3 Klux Klan, the Grand Wizards, Simmons, and another member of the Executive Committee of the Imperial Wizard, split the remaining $0.75 equally. ”

"Isn't this a pyramid scheme?" Monet couldn't help but blurt out.

"What does MLM mean?" Sheriff Klein asked curiously.

After Monet explained, Sheriff Klein suddenly realized: "Well, MLM is a very accurate word, which is why the Ku Klux Klan was able to expand rapidly this time, and in addition, they not only make money on initiation fees, but no new members are allowed to make their own robes privately." All members' robes must come from a Ku Klux Klan-approved factory. The cost of producing a robe is $2, but when sold to members it is $6.5 (equivalent to $88 in 2015). The Ku Klux Klan similarly forced his members to buy other items with racist symbols: life insurance, robes and dry cleaning services, helmets, Bibles, swords, and "even candy with the Ku Klux Klan logo on them." ”

Hearing this, Monet couldn't help but murmur in his heart: "This is all starting to play around?" Of course, this time he didn't dare to blurt it out again, otherwise he would have to explain......

PS: In 1924, even Truman paid ten dollars to join the Ku Klux Klan, you can imagine how huge the power was at that time, of course, he quit not long after.......