Father Walsh, pointing a finger at the building in which the Klan had holed themselves up, said: "I know that if I told you boys to go back there and show the Klansmen of what stuff you are made, you would tear that building apart, leaving no stone upon a stone!" There was almost an instinctive surge toward the building, a movement which Father Walsh stopped in his next sentence. "But I know, too, that you have confidence enough in me, so that if I tell you to go back to the college, you will obey me, and you will leave to my judgment what is best to be done. And so, I tell you: Go back to the college!" With a roar, the students formed ranks and in columns of four, marched back to Notre Dame.

Father Walsh was made extremely uneasy by many anonymous letters and telephone calls. He was well aware that among the Klan members there were many whose threats were more than idle words. One postcard, enclosed in an envelope, told him that "he better keep his students to home, or there would be hot-lead waiting for them in South Bend." Another letter, from Winamac, a bit amusing now, but full of portent at the time it was written, said :

...You can thank your lucky stars that you have your buildings intack (sic ) , for if the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan assembled in South Bend last Saturday (May 17th) had been as lawless as your bunch of Anarchist students, they would have wiped the Notre Dame Buildings off the earth.

...You will see that the Klan will grow by leaps and bounds in and around South Bend. Your Mackerel Snapping hoodlums couldn't have done anything to help along the cause of the Klan any better. ...We showed you a few tricks at the recent Primary, now we are going to show you several more at the election in the Fall. I say down with Catholic dominition ( sic) of every kind in AMARICA ( sic) .

          Sincerely,
          A KLUXER.

There was never a night that the faculty at Notre Dame did not speculate on the possibility of some catastrophe overtaking them before morning. The grounds were patroled with a nervous sense of some impending danger. In the dark, every shadow was regarded with breath. less suspicion. Often, two would draw close together, each planning on how he might overpower the other, only to find themselves on the same side. There would be a suppressed chuckle, and each would go his way, eyes peeled for enemies. That this was no idle fear was well brought out years later when the Klan was being investigated. One Pat Emmons, who had been the Exalted Cyclops of the Valley Klan, No.53, testified in February, 1928, that at one of the meetings in 1924 a Klan member had volunteered to "blow up" Notre Dame if the Klan would but furnish him with the dynamite. Emmons said that he squelched the proposal. On that same occasion, Emmons confessed that of all the money collected in this vicinity between 1923 and 1927, ostensibly for charitable purposes, not a dime of it went to charity, but all of it to politics.

The crusade of hate finally exhausted itself. "Kluxer" became a term of opprobrium except in the most unenlightened circles. Almost everyone expressed indignation if it were suggested that he had been a member of the Klan. Without exception, former members blushed at their gullibility. Catholics, who had been waving the flag of tolerance for generations, learned the irony of their belief that "it can't happen here." If the action of the students that May day, 1924, did more, as was alleged, to bring an upsurge in favor of the Klan, it must be admitted that the Klan's actions achieved a great success in welding the Catholic Church into a strong and striking unit. At Notre Dame, too, the students and faculty grew closer. The whole episode forced everyone to reflect on the treasures of friendship and faith fostered on the campus.