The age was ripe for a secret and seemingly all-powerful organization committed to reasserting traditional American values by force and intimidation if necessary. Such was the effect of World War I and the paranoia of the Red Scare. To millions of Americans in the postwar era, the country seemed beset with problems and on the verge of ruin. "The white, native-born Protestant American, as a member of the religious and racial majority, was usually incapable of doubting his native institutions. The blame for the maladies of his world must rest elsewhere. And so he looked to alien influences - Roman Catholics who supposedly challenged Protestant hegemony and the separation of church and state. Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish immigrants crowding onto American shores, Negroes seeking more equitable treatment, American Jews who kept living costs up while wages went down, and numerous other elements of frustration before which he felt helpless. Then the Klan entered his community and offered him a way to fight back." Now was the time to fight back, to reassert traditional values, or lose forever those qualities which had made America great.