In 1925, 25,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. Never before had so many men in white sheets descended on the nationÃÛèÖÊÓƵ capital, their “invisible empire†becoming visible. The KlanÃÛèÖÊÓƵ far-flung ranks are estimated to have numbered 4 million.

Fourteen years later, a pro-Nazi rally at New YorkÃÛèÖÊÓƵ Madison Square Garden drew 20,000. The hosting organization, the German American Bund, actively supported Hitler and his “leader principle,†or Führerprinzip, by which a single leader has absolute power. Though not explicitly pro-Hitler, the isolationist America First Committee was also surging. In 1941, America First found a spokesperson in the famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, who accused Jews of conspiring to lead the U.S. into World War II.

Otho Eskin, a playwright and retired diplomat, is the author of the forthcoming novel “Black Sun Rising.â€

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