The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-08-30
KENTUCKY KU KLUX
A VIGILANCE COMMITTEE IN
 MOUNTAIN COUNTIES.
Morgan Reynolds Organizes a Fear full oath-Bound Band of 1900.

full Oath-Bound Band of 1,2OO. Brooklyn Eagle.
 'I swear by God Almighty; by Heaven, His home; by the earth. His footrest and by hell, His nrison house. to befriend and hold in the sacred bonds of brotherhood all members of the band. l swear that
 l will lie for them, steal for them, die for them. will be burned in oil. cut to pieces and salted rather than inform on them And if tney are in trouble will give up everything I have to save them even to the killing of my kinsfolk. And | if in any way I break the oath, l hope God may strike me dead in my tracks. And if He lets me live, may 1 be cut to pieces by the members of the band and may my whole life be damned" In the heart of the Kentucky Moun- tains, in the counties of Knott and Let cher, 1,20O men have secretly taken the | the fletcher Ku Klux, or White Cap | Band" owning for their leader Morgan Reynolds, singular character of more than ordinarily good antecedents; | schoolmaster. a soldier in the Spanish American war. and now notorious out | law. hiding in the mountains, with ! price on his head by the Governor of Kentucky.
 | The Ku Klux movement, that has now assumed such remarkable proportions in | this section of the State. was started two | and d half years ago. It is claimed that, | as originally planned, the purpose of the l organization was, in a sense, good one, | the intention being to drive out of the | county such people as deserved but did | not receive the penalties of the law for | evil doing. There is always an appre- | ciable amount of lawlessness in the Ken | lucky mountains that the authorities are either powerless or unwilling to reach, | and it was to eradicate this that the ku 1 Klux leaders originally declared they had | themselves, | If it was ever a sincere one, never bore | fruit that aided in the well being of the | community. On the contrary, the whole | movement, from first to last, became l growing menace to the law it pretended | to serve. and was speedily turned into an organized system of shameful whip ! pings, highway robbery; and. finally. murder that won for the two counties | involved a reputation that has resulted | il. .. ....1r travellers give the entire section ln ..lol, County very little has been l G0ne 10 night the ku kluX organization, and it is said that the opposition to it
 there is restricted from the fact that | number of the county officials are either
 members of the band or else secretly fa- vor it. In Letcher County the war com | menced in earnest a year ago under the leadership of John Wright. and although
 the Ku Klux still holds it's own, still | terrorizes the neighborhood with it's dep redations and murders, 1t is believed that this famous detective of the Kentucky
 Mountains wild finally succeed in putting an end to this formidable demonstration of outlawry.
 Whatever his fame may be elsewhere, there are few people in Virginia, West Virginia or Tennessee, and certainly none in Kentucky, who have not heard of John
 called, but that is by those who have had
 reason to fear him. The law abiding peo-
 pie of the mountains pin their faith to him and dread the time when some en- | yIy- IL. with whom he Is continually at war, may prove his last
 John Wright's operations here com | menoed with the Civil War. During that conflict he was on the Confederate side and engaged in a number of desperate exploits among the mountains that soon attracted attention to his fearless char acter and the deadly earnestness with which he could handle a gun. In one of these war experiences he and another Confederate made a raid on twenty-three Union soldiers. His companion was kill ed. but Wright escaped unscathed after killing nine of his assailants. With the close of the war he commenced his ca reer as a mountain detective. running down outlaws for rewards, and exercising a sort of protectorate over the wild re- zion in which he still lives. In this way he has figured in a good many "scrapes," | one of the worst being known as the 'Clabe Jones and John Wright War" an affair that took on the dimensions of
 
 ties some years ago.
 Generally John Wright has borne the title and exercised the powers of a deputy sheriff Of Letcher County. Whether in this capacity or as a private detective, he admits that he has killed as many as eighteen outlaws among his native mouEtains. So sanguinary record is far from being a matter of reproach among
 his neighbors. Indeed the statutes gov
 erning the killing of outlaws in the noun
 tains of Kentucky are altogether pecu- liar and characteristic. A somewhat ec- centric judge. in giving his instructions
 recently to a grand jury assembled in the Whitesburg Court House, summed the
 matter up as follows:
 If civil citizen kills another civil cit iZen and it is clearly in self defense, don't
 indict him. If a civil citizen kills an out
 law, don't indict him, no matter whether he killed in self defense or not. If one
 outlaw kills another outlaw indict him without questioning the motive for kill ing. In such case it would be well to sentence the outlaw for life and so get rid of him as well as his victim. If
 civil citizen takes bag of provisions on his back and pursues an outlaw all , week, and even into the next week, anu
 then kills him as he would wild game, don't indict him. If you want to do any thing. give him a better gun and more
 ammunition so that 1e can get the next outlaw more easily. If YOU do indict such
 a man. be sure that l will file the indict-
 ment away as soon as l reach it."
 
 counties of Kentucky has a more dan gerous organization been formed than this fletcher Ku Klux Band" that John
 Wright is at present fighting In order to learn more about 1t the writer recent ly made pedestrian trip through the in fested region; that is, from the Big Sandy River in Pike County up Elkhorn to Boone Creek, the home of John Wright and thence down the Kentucky River to Whitespurg
 Like most of the mountain regions in Kentucky. there are very few houses to oe seen along the road and not half dozen travellers during a days walk i Those that I met carried long army re- VOlVers attached to weIl-fled cartridge belts at their waists. and appeared to be on the alert for hidden dangers. It re- sembed trip through some region where martial law has been declared and hos tilities are expected to break ont at any
 moment. Very few greetings were eX- changed along the road. and my some what foreign appearance seemed to eX- cite suspicion. One Of the mountaincers however, hearing an old shotgun over his shoulder. Instead of the customary side
 arms. walked with me for several miles
 He was. as I discovered afterwards. one
 of the bad ones.' hut thoroughly pictur-
 esque and harmless in his badness and
 most enjoyable as a companion. Bad Lewis Hall he is called, and the shot
 gun that he carries is famous through
 out the mountains for its exploits. Most
 men of his type carry riiest but Bad
 T.aUis'' will trust nothing hut this old