Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-11-18
fore she can be called a complete success -Bty
falo Commercial Aduertiser Of SATURDAY..
The south Carolina ESukiux.


| district attorney is usually, You 20 home and
| stay there, and mind your own business, and
| when you're wanted you'll be sent for. lfyou
| haven't told all you know ii will be the worse
| for you, for it will all come out before we ret
| through" The troubled kukluX is usually much
| relieved at this. He says, "Thank you, Mayor"
| and Shuffies to the door, iumblng his dirty old
| sOuched hat and starts for home with great
weight OFF his mind. When he left his log
cabin in the morning, he feared he might sleep
| in the jail that night, and many nights to come,
| and he goes back to his slattemy, snuidppng
| wife, and troop Of ragged, dirty, ycllow-aced
| children, with a lighter heart than he has had
| for the past three weeks.
| Occasionally man does not escape so easily.
! Previous confessions show that he has not told
| the truth, and that instead of having been only
| passive member of the ORDER Obliged to join
for his own protection, he has been actively en-
! gaIed in raiding. The major says, quietly, 81
! am very sorry, sir, but shall have to send you
| to ail. know more about your doings than
| you seem to YOURSELF and he steps TO the door,
| calls guard, and says, Corporal take this
man to Jail and deliver him to Capt. Ogden"
| The kukluX is marched off, and visible gloom
| comes over the counenances of his friends
| waiting outside, as he passes through their
midst. 1t sometimes happens that man who
! comes in with a plausiblY made up story is as
tonshed to find that Major Merrill knows his
| whole history the names of all his acquaint
| ances, and of every member of the khan 10 which
| he belonged. No sooner has he told his name
than the major talks to him somewhat in this
way: You are the man | have been wanting
to see for some time You live on the HowelPs
| ferry road, and belong TO the Rattlesnake khan.
You were in the road when jim Williams was
| killed Now | don't ask you 10 tell me any
thing or make any promises, but if You wish
to make a statement you can do so.' The poor
devil forgets the lies he has invented and burtS
out the truth.
There are hundreds of men, however, who
were forced into the order against their will.
Some were brutally whipped before they could
be made TO join. One man was set dstride
steer and whipped for five miles along the road
to the gathering place of the khan. BY the time
he arrived there he was ready to take the oath.
A great many of the confessions are like this:
"Ihe whippings and killings were goin' on all
about our part OF the country, and it jiS 'peared
like as if no man was safe. | was mighty
Skeered for fear they'd come on me, for there'd
been threats made agin me, and one night Jim
Brown he come to my house and said as how if
| didn't join the lukluX they was agoin' to
make a raid on me, and I'd git used mighty
rough; so | done Joined so as could live in
peace. But major, never believed in it nohow,
and | never went on no raid. Pears like as
though they didn't trust me or want me along
when any deviment was goin' on"
They are a hard looking set of men, these
sclEconvicted kuklLX that throng about the post
commanders Office; but they are not near as
i'll looking as their comrades in jail, who will
not confess; who insist that they are 'as inno-
cent us the dead" and who never heard there
was any such thing as the kukluX until they
were arrested. The average white man of South
Carolina is the poorest specimen OF the Caucas-
sian race | have ever seen ON either side of the
Atlantic. The most discOuraging feature about
him is that he shows no desire to improve his
condition. What can be expected from man
| who VIII not take the trouble to put window
in his house, and who keeps his door shut by
putting "chunk" of wood against it, because
he is too shiftlcsS to whttlC out a latch or but
ton. Brutal cowardly, and incOnceiyably gnO
rant he is a kukluX by nature. There are. Of
course, Il few intelligent and worthy men
sprinkled over the country, or the scmblancc of
civilized society would not have been possible;
and these men in the Old time controlled the
lower orders as absolutely as did the Scottish
chiefs their clans. Whenever, in this state,
such men have opposed the kukluX Organiza-
tiOn il has never had any Roadway. Unlortu-
nately, in this county, and in Spartanburg,
Union and Chester, these men, with exceptions
SO few as not to be worth mentioning, all joined
the order-some from choice, Others through
fear. OF the latter class we had good exam
pie, yesterday in old Squire Hope, a venerable
and sensible man of seventy, who was initiated
by his brother justice of the peace, Squire
Brown, who told him that the old men must
Join to control the young, who were get ting too
wild. Brown however is shown to have been
himself raider, and one his sons the chief of
a khan.
1t is scarcely an eXaggeration to say that the
organization embraced the whole white voting
The murders were generally done by large
force, as the conlessing kukluX express it, by
"a right smart drove of men," Sixty men
killed ii negro named ROundtree in the northern
part of the county, two or three klans coming
from North Carolina to help. In the case
where four men killed a negro by ORDERS it
was thought safe to implicate the whole
khan, and the chief summoned them all
led them to the place where the body
had hung for three days. and had it sunk in
Broad river. Whites as well as blacks were the
victims of raids-one man for talking of the
kuklux indiscreetly, another for teaching ne
gro school, and Others because they were I'D
radicals" The bakers dozen of white republi-
cans in the county were naturally jubiant at
the turning of the tables on their cowardly enc
| mics They say that no such terrorism existed
for them even during the war as for republicans
during the past year One of these men, "Big
Bill Wilson he is called, after having been
Graded" two or three times, had to leave to
save his life. He came back not long
ago, and published a card in the village paper,
saying he had not returned to prosecute the ku-
kluX, but to live in peace till he could get his
family away. Before he was ready to move the
arrests commenced. The other day Chg Btll''
rode by the commandments house, and seeing a
crowd of kukluX in the yard come to confess,
when he got near them he sang;
1.-THE year of Jubilee has come,
Return ye ransomed sinners home
| Aud aint going to novel!
To the colored people, this instant and thor
ough crushing of the kukux Yillainy is a re-
lief long prayed for and dispaired of. No one
can imagine the sufferings these poor creatures
have endured in the past year the terrible anx-
iety, the constant fear of scourging and murder,
| the sleeping in the woods during the cold win
ter nights and in the rains of spring, and the
actual torture that hundreds endured whose
flesh was so horribly mangled by the blows of
their brutal assailants that they will never fully
recover. 81 tell you, sab" negro said to me-
| to-day, eve was nightly broken up. Hun
dreds of us didn't dare sleep in our houses for
five months. We jes' about guy it up, and done
thought there was no help Tor us. We was allus
on de side of the norf, but it 'peared like as if
de norf didn't know it and wasn't goin' to do
| unfin for rs -