Opening new X11 windows without grabbing focus

[Amos Shapir <amos083@gmail.com>]

Hi KDE people,

Is there a way to start new X11 applications (e.g. xmessage) in the
background, so they would not steal the keyboard focus from the one
currently holding it (e.g. xterm)?  There must be some X11 resource to
do this, either for KDM or (preferably) the background application
itself.

(FWIW, I'm running X11R7 under Debian wheezy/sid)

Thanks much in advance,

-- 
Amos Shapir