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53-490: Betrayed by an informer in their midst, the country rebels met with a well-armed posse of townsmen. Shots were exchanged and three people killed. In the aftermath of the incident, scores of arrests were made and the Socialist Party of America, which had been strong in the region, was discredited in the public eye for allegedly having attempted to foment revolution. The incident became a pretext for national reprisals against

106-457: A money loop also called a kickback . Informers in some countries receive a percentage of all money recovered by their government. The ancient Roman historian Lactantius described a judiciary case which involved the prosecution of a woman suspected to have advised another woman not to marry Maximinus II : "Neither indeed was there any accuser, until a certain Jew , one charged with other offences,

159-565: A Catholic (or Christian or "white") form of Freemasonry . Other critics label Opus Dei as "Holy Mafia" or "Santa Mafia" The National Christian Association (1868–1983) is an example of an organization opposed to secret societies. Because some secret societies have political aims, they are illegal in several countries. Italy ( Constitution of Italy, Section 2, Articles 13–28 ) and Poland, for example, ban secret political parties and political organizations in their constitutions. Many student societies established on university campuses in

212-623: A few hours, and mass arrests of participants were begun. A total of three people were killed in the Green Corn Rebellion in August 1917, one of whom was Clifford Clark, a black tenant farmer. Nearly 450 people were detained in connection with the incident, 266 of whom were released without charges being filed. Charges were levied against 184 participants, about 150 of whom were convicted or pleaded guilty and received jail and prison terms ranging from 60 days to 10 years. Those identified as leaders of

265-685: A major role in Chinese affairs for centuries. They were a key aspect of the Anti-Qing sentiments of the 20th century. After the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, they were tacitly supported by and actively collaborated with the Nationalist government. Having played prominent roles in history, they were targeted by the anti-secret society campaigns of the newly established government of the People's Republic of China during

318-647: A margin of 373–50 in the House of Representatives and 82–6 in the Senate . The US government's decision to enter World War I was backed up with additional legislation imposing military conscription in America to staff the nation's wartime Army and Navy. On May 18, 1917, a draft bill became law. The bill called for all eligible young men nationwide to register for the draft on a single day, June 5, 1917. Isolated hotspots of anti-conscription activity occurred in some urban centers, but

371-453: A person or organization to an agency, often a government or law enforcement agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informants are officially known as confidential human sources ( CHS ), or criminal informants ( CI ). It can also refer pejoratively to someone who supplies information without the consent of the involved parties. The term is commonly used in politics, industry, entertainment, and academia. In

424-696: A secret society as an organization that: Historian Richard B. Spence of the University of Idaho offered a similar three-pronged definition: Spence also proposes a sub-category of "Elite Secret Societies" (composed of high-income or socially influential people) and notes that secret societies have a frequent if not universal tendency towards factionalism, infighting, and claiming origins older than can be reliably documented. Spence's definition includes groups traditionally thought of as secret societies ( Freemasons and Rosicrucians ) and other groups not so traditionally classified such as certain organized crime cabals (

477-490: A usurious credit system practiced by stores and substantial crop liens inflicted by landlords. The depleted condition of Oklahoma's land forced the input of twice as much labor as the sharecroppers of Mississippi and Louisiana to generate comparable yields. Disaffection was rife, and proposals for radical solutions found ready ears. The draft would have depleted much needed farm labor, and many farms would have been foreclosed, which would leave women and children destitute. There

530-400: A website to archive both historical and current interpretations of the event. Informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a " snitch ", " rat ", " canary ", " stool pigeon ", " stoolie " or " grass ", among other terms) is a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information intended to be intimate, concealed, or secret, about

583-423: Is an informant. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies may face criticism regarding their conduct towards informants. Informants may be shown leniency for their own crimes in exchange for information, or simply turn out to be dishonest in their information, resulting in the time and money spent acquiring them being wasted. Informants are often regarded as traitors by their former criminal associates. Whatever

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636-462: Is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla warfare insurgencies, that hide their activities and memberships but maintain a public presence. The exact qualifications for labeling a group a secret society are disputed, but definitions generally rely on

689-710: Is in pretrial detention , usually in exchange for sentence reductions or other inducements, have been the focus of particular controversy. Some examples of their use are in connection with Stanley Williams , Cameron Todd Willingham , Thomas Silverstein , Marshall "Eddie" Conway , and a suspect in the disappearance of Etan Patz . The Innocence Project has stated that 15% of all wrongful convictions later exonerated because of DNA results were accompanied by false testimony by jailhouse informants. 50% of murder convictions exonerated by DNA were accompanied by false testimony by jailhouse informants. Slang terms for informants include: The term "stool pigeon" originates from

742-716: Is over with Germany if you don't go and J.P. Morgan & Co. is lost. Their great speculation is the only cause of the war. Unfortunately, no documents written by WCU members have survived, and the mentality of those taking up arms must be considered speculative by historians. The historian Garin Burbank argues that the coming of conscription threatened to decimate family economies by removing able-bodied young men, who were needed to harvest cotton. Burbank argues also that socialist ideas had found its mark in Oklahoma, with many poor farmers earnestly believing from their experiences in daily life in

795-592: Is that of The Philomaths , which is now a legitimate academic association founded on a strict selection of its members. While their existence had been speculated for years, Internet-based secret societies first became known to the public in 2012 when Cicada 3301 began recruiting from the public via Internet-based puzzles. The goals of the society remain unknown, but it is believed to be involved in cryptography . The following contemporary and historic secret societies formed in Africa, by country: Secret societies played

848-669: Is the secret society of the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers . Notable examples in Canada include Episkopon at the University of Toronto 's Trinity College , and the Society of Thoth at the University of British Columbia . Secret societies are disallowed in a few colleges. The Virginia Military Institute has rules that no cadet may join a secret society, and secret societies have been banned at Oberlin College from 1847 to

901-600: The Industrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party of America. On April 6, 1917, US President Woodrow Wilson , who had recently sworn into a second term of office for which he had run behind the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War," appeared between a joint session of the US Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Imperial Germany . Congress readily obliged Wilson's request by voting to declare war on Germany by

954-446: The Industrial Workers of the World , an organization that barred membership by tenant farmers. Tenant farmers were predominantly young, the age group that was most impacted by conscription. Some 76% of Oklahoma farmers under 24 rented their land, and 45% of those between 25 and 33 were tenants. Most tenant farmers were white or black. Many of the young "dirt farmers" found their economic prospects hopeless since they were squeezed between

1007-575: The United States , a confidential informant or "CI" is "any individual who provides useful and credible information to a law enforcement agency regarding felonious criminal activities and from whom the agency expects or intends to obtain additional useful and credible information regarding such activities in the future". Informants are extremely common in every-day police work, including homicide and narcotics investigations. Any citizen who provides crime-related information to law enforcement by definition

1060-676: The secret-police force Okhrana and later the Soviet militsiya or KGB . Officially, those informants were referred to as "secret coworker" ( Russian : секретный сотрудник , sekretny sotrudnik ) and often were referred by the Russian-derived portmanteau seksot . In some KGB documents has also been used the designation "source of operational information" ( Russian : источник оперативной информации , istochnik operativnoi informatsii ). [REDACTED] Media related to Informants at Wikimedia Commons Secret society A secret society

1113-707: The 1950s. Examples of Chinese secret societies include: Secret societies in India include: Secret societies in Japan include: Secret societies in Malaysia include: Secret societies in the Philippines include: Secret societies in Australia include: Several secret societies existing across Europe, including: Other organizations are listed by country. Secret societies in Canada that are non-collegiate include: Secret societies in

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1166-839: The 19th century. British universities have a long history of secret societies or quasi-secret clubs, such as The Pitt Club at Cambridge University , Bullingdon Club at Oxford University , the Kate Kennedy Club , The Kensington Club and the Praetorian Club at the University of St Andrews , and the 16' Club at St David's College . Another British secret society is the Cambridge Apostles , founded as an essay and debating society in 1820. Not all British universities host solely academic secret societies; both The Night Climbers of Cambridge and The Night Climbers of Oxford require both brains and brawn. In France, Vandermonde

1219-617: The American socialist movement and fueled the First Red Scare . The Industrial Workers of the World shared the brunt of popular indignation although the organization had taken no part in the Green Corn Rebellion and had been related to the WCU only by the latter group being formed in response to the IWW's refusal to organize tenant farmers. The IWW was still blamed for every action of the WCU, however, and

1272-566: The Exam Ethics Project lobby group estimated that 115 students and teachers had been killed between 1993 and 2003. The Mandatory Monday Association is thought to operate out of a variety of Australian universities including the Australian Defence Force Academy . The Association has numerous chapters that meet only on Mondays to discuss business and carry out rituals. The only secret society abolished and then legalized

1325-614: The Mafia ), religious groups ( Order of Assassins and Thelema ) and political movements ( Bolsheviks and Black Dragon Society ). Historian Jasper Ridley says that Freemasonry is "the world's most powerful secret Society". The organization " Opus Dei " ( Latin for "Work of God") is portrayed as a "secret society" of the Catholic Church . Critics such as the Jesuit Wladimir Ledóchowski sometimes refer to Opus Dei as

1378-554: The Pontotoc County Attorney early in 1916. Conservative voices declared the action to be an act of political terrorism, but radicals charged the shot to be a provocation as "part of a concocted plan on the part of the officials and two or three newspapers to wreck the Socialist Party by pulling off a fake attempted assassination." Town dwellers, who had been subject to perennial attacks as "robbers, thieves, and grafters" by radical public speakers, were thoroughly convinced that

1431-595: The Socialists and the secret WCU were part of a single radical conspiracy to launch a long-desired revolution in their own locale. The Muscogee Creek Nation during the rebellion was controlled by only 61 mixed blood Creek and intermarried white individuals. August 3 marked the end of the Muscogee Creek Green Corn Ceremony . In early August 1917, before the rebellion, large numbers of African-American, European-American, and Native American men gathered at

1484-598: The United States have been considered secret societies. Perhaps one of the most famous secret collegiate societies is Skull and Bones at Yale University . The influence of undergraduate secret societies at colleges such as Harvard College , Cornell University , Florida State University , Dartmouth College , Emory University , the University of Chicago , the University of Virginia , Georgetown University , New York University , and Wellesley College has been publicly acknowledged, if anonymously and circumspectly, since

1537-559: The United States that are non-collegiate include: The Catholic Church strongly opposed secret societies, especially the Freemasons . It did relent somewhat in the United States and allowed membership in labour unions and the Knights of Columbus , but not the Masons. Some Christian denominations continue to forbid their members from joining secret societies in the 21st century. Others example,

1590-416: The accuracy or veracity of information provided. Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and others should be aware of possible motivations so that they can properly approach, assess and verify informants' information. Generally, informants' motivations can be broken down into self-interest, self-preservation and conscience. A list of possible motivations includes: Corporations and

1643-610: The antiquated practice of tying a passenger pigeon to a stool. The bird would flap its wings in a futile attempt to escape. The sound of the wings flapping would attract other pigeons to the stool where a large number of birds could be easily killed or captured. A system of informants existed in the Russian Empire and was later adopted by the Soviet Union . In Russia , such people were known as osvedomitel or donoschik , and secretly cooperated with law enforcement agencies, such as

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1696-477: The area since in 1916, a radical tenant farmers' organization, the "Working Class Union (WCU)," claimed a membership of as much as 20,000 in Eastern Oklahoma alone. The group's ideology blended what one historian has called "a muddled industrial unionism with traditional southern forms of countervigilantism, self-defense, and opposition to conscription" and arose as a complement to the radical syndicalism of

1749-606: The banks of the South Canadian River and made plans to head east and to live off the land as they marched. They would eat roasted "green corn" and barbecued beef on the way, it was later said, and eventually join up with countless thousands of likeminded comrades, who would together march on Washington, DC, where they would overthrow "Big Slick" Wilson, repeal the Draft Act, and end the war. The plans were instantly betrayed to local authorities by an informer. A posse of townsmen

1802-564: The bogey Green Corn Rebellion was ultimately used as a justification for further national measures against the IWW. An elderly Seminole-Muscogee Creek woman relayed to Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz that her uncle had been imprisoned after the rebellion: "The full moon of late July, early August it was, the Moon of the Green Corn. It was not easy to persuade our poor white and black brothers and sisters to rise up. We told them that rising up, standing up, whatever

1855-561: The concept of the Männerbund, the all-male "warrior-band" or "warrior-society" of pre-modern cultures (see H. Schurtz, Alterklassen und Männerbünde , Berlin, 1902; A. Van Gennep , The Rites of Passage , Chicago, 1960). A purported "family tree of secret societies" has been proposed, although it may not be comprehensive. Alan Axelrod , author of the International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders , defines

1908-593: The consequences, would inspire future generations. Our courage, our bravery would be remembered and copied. That has been the Indian way for centuries, since the invasions. Fight and tell the story so that those who come after or their descendants will rise up once again. It may take a thousand years, but that is how we continue and eventually prevail." A fictionalized account of the abortive revolt can be found in William Cunningham's novel, The Green Corn Rebellion , which

1961-416: The degree to which the organization insists on secrecy , and might involve the retention and transmission of secret knowledge, the denial of membership or knowledge of the group, the creation of personal bonds between members of the organization, and the use of secret rites or rituals which solidify members of the group . Anthropologically and historically, secret societies have been deeply interlinked with

2014-625: The detective agencies that sometimes represent them have historically hired labor spies to monitor or control labor organizations and their activities. Such individuals may be professionals or recruits from the workforce. They may be willing accomplices, or may be tricked into informing on their co-workers' unionization efforts. Paid informants have often been used by authorities within politically and socially oriented movements to weaken, destabilize and ultimately break them. Informers alert authorities regarding government officials that are corrupt. Officials may be taking bribes or be participants in

2067-595: The draft lottery in Washington, DC, an armed gathering assembled near the adjoining borders of Pontotoc, Seminole, and Hughes Counties, in southeastern Oklahoma. The uprising seems to have been spurred by the agitation of the Working Class Union, which was reported in one newspaper as having called its supporters to arms with a manifesto: Now is the time to rebel against this war with Germany, boys. Boys, get together and don't go. Rich man's war. Poor man's fight. The war

2120-676: The farm of Joe and John Spears in Sasakwa , at Roasting Ear Ridge, to plan a march upon Washington, DC, to end the war. The so-called Green Corn Rebellion may be said to have started on Thursday, August 2, 1917, when a Seminole County sheriff, Frank Grall, and a visiting deputy sheriff, Bill Cross, were ambushed near the Little River , a tributary of the Canadian River. Raiding parties followed this action, cutting telephone lines and burning railroad bridges. On Friday, August 3, exactly two weeks after

2173-662: The leading organized forces in opposition to conscription and the war was the Socialist Party of America , whose April 1917 National Convention had declared its "unalterable opposition" to the war and urged the workers of the world to "refuse support to the governments in their wars." Although it was a young state and had been admitted into the union only in November 1907, there was already a strong radical tradition in Oklahoma , whose impoverished tenant farmers of its southeast seized upon

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2226-519: The millenarian fervor of the early Socialist Party in an attempt to improve their lives. In the 1916 election, despite Wilson's siphoning a portion of the anti war vote for the Democratic ticket, the Socialist Party garnered more than a quarter of the votes cast in the 1916 election in Seminole County and 22% in neighboring Pontotoc County . The Socialist Party was not the only active organizers in

2279-668: The nature of a group, it is likely to feel strong hostility toward any known informers, regard them as threats and inflict punishments ranging from social ostracism through physical abuse and/or death. Informers are therefore generally protected, either by being segregated while in prison or, if they are not incarcerated, relocated under a new identity. Informants, and especially criminal informants, can be motivated by many reasons. Many informants are not themselves aware of all of their reasons for providing information, but nonetheless do so. Many informants provide information while under stress, duress, emotion and other life factors that can affect

2332-473: The present, and at Princeton University since the beginning of the 20th century. Confraternities in Nigeria are secret-society-like student groups within higher education, some of which have histories of violence and organized crime. The exact death toll from confraternity activities is unclear. One estimate in 2002 was that 250 people had been killed in campus cult-related murders in the previous decade, while

2385-405: The radical rural supporters of the WCU and the conservative forces of the towns of the region ran high, with dynamite used against cattle dipping vats late in 1915 in protest of a mandatory use of costly insecticide , which some felt was as lethal to dipped cattle as to the ticks and other parasites that they carried. The controversy was punctuated by a shotgun blast fired through the window of

2438-461: The reality of "exploitation" and accepting the notion that the European war was little more than capitalist business enterprise writ large. The country people in short saw military conscription as an invasion of their rights and rebelled in an attempt to keep the government from taking away their sons. Arming themselves, an estimated 800 to 1000 rebels, "the vast majority of old American stock," met on

2491-543: The registration process was generally an orderly affair, with the vast majority of young American men accepting their fate with what has been characterized as "a calm resignation." On July 20, 1917, a blindfolded Newton D. Baker , the Wilson administration 's Secretary of War , drew numbers choosing certain registered young men for mandatory military service. Opponents of the war continued their efforts to change America's course by holding meetings and distributing pamphlets . Among

2544-518: The uprising received the heaviest sentences. Most were soon paroled or pardoned, but five men remained in the federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas , in February 1922. The so-called "rebellion" was used as a cudgel against the Socialist Party of Oklahoma , which was blamed for the incident, whose origins were, however, largely spontaneous and external. That was one in a series of events that undermined

2597-400: Was fixed to a gibbet, and then he disclosed the whole secret contrivance; and with his last breath he protested to all the beholders that the women died innocent." Criminal informant schemes have been used as cover for politically motivated intelligence offensives. Jailhouse informants, who report hearsay (admissions against penal interest) which they claim to have heard while the accused

2650-409: Was formed and headed to the river banks to meet the ostensible revolutionaries. The so-called rebellion proved anticlimactic, as the historian Garin Burbank notes: Catching sight of the advancing townsmen, the country people fired a few desultory shots and fled in disorder. This was the pathetic end of their overt resistance to the incursions of outside political authority. The incident was over within

2703-405: Was induced, through hope of pardon, to give false evidence against the innocent. The equitable and vigilant magistrate conducted him out of the city under a guard, lest the populace should have stoned him... The Jew was ordered to the torture till he should speak as he had been instructed... The innocent were condemned to die.... Nor was the promise of pardon made good to the feigned adulterer, for he

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2756-453: Was no oil boom, little alternative work, and no welfare system. Despite the WCU's highly-questionable membership claims, ballooning to 35,000 for the whole state of Oklahoma, it had by 1917 clearly established a solid foothold among the tenant farmers of Oklahoma. The organization was not tame and took the form of secret society , with activities including night riding and the use of physical violence against its opponents. Hostilities between

2809-460: Was published by Vanguard Press in 1935. The novel was republished by University of Oklahoma Press in 2010. Sam Marcy , the founder of the Workers' World Party , upheld the Green Corn Rebellion as the ideal working-class antiwar struggle in his book "The Bolsheviks and War," which was published in 1985. In 2017, the centennial of the Green Corn Rebellion was marked by media coverage and the launch of

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