Who knows what Arthur English was thinking
Who knows what Arthur English was thinking early on that Saturday morning on the last weekend in March as he climbed inside his 1925 model T runabout and headed up to Jamaica Avenue to run some errands. There had been rain, but the day was bright and full of all the warrants of spring.
It was a week before the Whiting Memorial Hall flag installation ceremony and dedication of the flagstaff. There were a few details to be taken care of and Artie was a details guy. This is how you get volunteered by others for service on the arrangements committee: be good at taking care of things. But Artie was no longer just the arrangements guy, or just the chairman of the building committee. He was the Post Commander. His tall frame and exceptionally broad shoulders allowed him to comfortably take on such a leadership role and he wore it like an old coat.
Artie was not long on Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven when passing the Roosevelt Theater he noticed a patrolman standing in front of the the ticket box, a police flivver parked up on the curb and mostly out of the street in front the theater.
Artie slowed to see what was going on and got a long stare from the young patrolman, whom he recognized as officer X of the Richmond Hill precinct. After a nod of his head and slight hand gesture, he received the same, breaking the stare.
In Richmond Hill, just a few blocks east of Woodhaven, he saw another police vehicle and a handful of uniformed patrolmen standing in the entrance of the Garden Theater. Just then Artie saw Officer Y coming around the corner, a man he knew from fraternal circles. Officer Y approached Artie, who was still in his car. Leaning in, he gave some advice to his friend.
“Small bit of trouble at the theater—this one and the one in Woodhaven, Roosevelt.” Taking a folded handbill out of his pocket, he showed it to Artie.
“Ah—” replied Artie, studying the paper.
It was a message written on letterhead of a Richmond Hill unit of the Ku Klux Klan. The message warned the theater not to show a Charlie Chaplin film, The Pilgrim, as planned on Sunday or risk violence.
It was a stunning note. Artie returned it to Officer Y, shaking his head.
“Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody yet,” Officer Y replied. “I would expect the newspapers to find out but until then, I don’t know who else knows.”
“That’s not Jamaica—that’s Richmond Hill letterhead.”
“I know, Artie, and that’s why I came over to keep you from coming any closer.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Do you still talk to them?”
Artie laughed, gave him a look, then asked: “You?”
The officer laughed and mumbled something, waving Artie away. Arthur English drove off, stunned for a moment. Something had changed, he thought. Something had happened.
He drove out of the area, traveling down Lefferts to Atlantic Avenue before turning west towards Woodhaven, trying to remember a time that his former brothers (many of whom were still friends) had done anything like what he had just witnessed.
He remembered campaigns to stir up Protestant parents to object to Catholic teachers saying anything out of line to their children at school. He remembered countless church visits, sometimes in civilian clothes but many times in full regalia.
He remembered a lot of stuff from meetings—speeches and arguments and solemn commitments sealed by eternal pledges of silence and loyalty.
He remembered the rallies out in the fields of Long Island, the quick trips to cross burnings just blocks from where he lived.
He remembered when their klavern’s exalted cyclops was picked for a regional leadership position, how when he first ran unopposed there were complaints because the bylaws had not been followed to the letter, and then how after they were followed to the letter, he was elected as before.
He remembered the conflict, the terrors who ruled from Atlanta and who kept a thumb on the scale of all the business conducted in Queens County, and everywhere else.
Artie remembered how it all turned out.
Driving on Atlantic Avenue over to Union Course, he tried to reconcile this new operation, the new attitude of the Invisible Empire.
But as he returned to the clubhouse on 90th Road he shook off those memories. It was time to finish the last bit of masonry work so there was time for it to set. The flag ceremony would not wait for concrete.