The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-11-05
I, IL CANNOT understand the pig
headed perslstenee with which the


1T does look funny" l replied, for
otherwise the thing seems to have been
unanimous. But did you ever study the
period OF reconstruction?
i don't know what the word means,
he answered with a laugh.
No man can understand current poll
tics or the conditions of the race prob
lem unless he knows the history OF the
awful years of 1865 10 1870. Nor can
he understand this period until he has
mastered the story of the rise. growth
degeneracy, and death of two secret po-
htical societies. one of the north called
The Union League OF America. the
other of the south. known officially by
its members as THE Invisible Empire"
and, popularity, as the Ku i[lux Khan"
The bitterness of the civil war has
passed from the hearts of men, but
the legacy of the black plague which
ScOurged the south during the period
of reconstruction remains today a
brooding nightmare for the southerner.
threatening with sinister prophecies the
future Of the nation.
The northern conception of the Ku
kluX Khan is voiced in a recent criti-
cism of my last novel by an ancient
Boston newspaper thus:
lie reaches the acme Of his sectional
passions when he exalts the Ku I<luX
Khan into an association Of southern
patriots, when he must know. or else
De strangely ignorant Of American his
tory, that is members were as arrant
ruffians, desperadoes and scoundrels as
ever went unhanged."
II this be true. moral miracles have
been wrought by ruffians. despera Goes
and scoundrels which require study.
The like of il has never been recorded
In the history of the race and IL such
things We're done by scOundrels the
basis of ethics must be rebuilt by our
philosophers.
The question is not merely an his
torical one. il is woven with the most
vital and hopeless problem of Ameri-
can life. Disinterested foreign critics
declare with one accord that the negro
problem of America is the one appar-
emily insOluble riddle which shadows
our future. It's roots strike deep into
our history, spread wide into our every
day life, and grip with power of fate
the souls Ct generations unborn. If any
man think this an academic C9estion
of the past which must be determined
by experts in dates and documents let
him ask the police of New York. Phila-
delphia, Chicago and St. Louis into
whose crowded streets and tenements
IiiS bietth llA<tll II PUSHING lRlN way
The ku kluX was gree law and
order league of mounted night cavalry
men called into action by the intoler-
able conditions of a reign OF terror I'M
der negro rule i'm the south. 1t was the
answer 10 their foes of an indomitahle
race of men, conquered, betrayed, dis
armed and driven 10 desperation. IL was
the old answer of organized manhood
10 organized crime incorporating under
the forms of government
Its rise was due 10 the mind of no
leader. IL was an accident. 1t was a
case OF spontaneous combustion.
a group OF college boys at Pulaski,
Tennessee, organized it first as a local
college fraternity. They found a name
IN the Greek word "Kuklos," a band,
or circle and to this they added elan.
and then split the germ word into two
weird monOsyliables, spelling the elan
with X to heishtcn the appeal to the
superstitious, and 10, the awc-inspif-
ing "ku KluX KAN
The terror of these silent ghosts, rid
ing i'm tho night, reduced the negro race
To an immediate and profound peace.
The idea spread TO an adjoining county
aud rapidly over to the state of Ten
nessee which was the FIRST 10 pass be-
meath the yoke of negro supremacy.
In 1867 d secret convention of peace
loving, law-abiding, Godfearing, pa
triotic SOutherners met in Nashville and
organized this society into The Invis-
ible Empire" adopted a ritual and ad-
journed. They met in the ruins of all
old homestead within the picket lines
of $4,000 troops sent there TO enforce
the rule OF the black slave over his
former master.
As the young German patriots OF 1872
der the noses OF the garriSOns OF Ma
\ uoieon. 50 these daring men. grit by
thousands of bayonets, discussed and
adopted under the cover OF darkness
the ritual Of The Invisible Empire
Within a few months this empire had
Overspread a territory larger than mod
ern Europe and brought order out of
chaos. The triumph which they
achieved was one OF incredible grand
eur. They snatched power out of de-
feat and death, and tore the fruits OF
victory from twenty million conquer
ors. Such achievements have never been
wrought by arrant rutians, scoundrels
and desperadOes. The sheer moral
grandeur OF such a deed gives the lie
TO the assertion.
The truth of history is that, as or
iginally organized and led, the Ku hlux
Khan was the sole guardian of civil
ization in the south from 1857 TO 1870
and its members We're the salt of the
earth.
Every hope of relief for the south
had been crushed. The assassination of
Lincoln had so crdzed the masses OF
the north that the radical wing OF the
party la power could propose no out
rage too mOnstrous for the considera-
ton OF congress. Even a bill 10 tear
a. q h.. Ia H.
remnant of their property left by the
war and give IL 20 the negroes ana
carnD followers of the army was intro
duced i'm the house of representatives
bv Thaddeus Stevens, the responsible
leader of the government, and boldly
championed by this great man with the
audacfty of genius and the faith OF a
fanatic
The negro had been made the ruler
of his former master who was dlstran-
ohised and disarmed. The hand OF the
thief and ruffian Clutched at every
mans throat. The negro controlled the
state. county. city and town govern
ulents. Their insolence grew apace.
heir women were taught To insult
Their old misTcsSes and mock their
poverty as they passed in their faded
dresses. \ black driver i'm a town near
mine. struck a white child OF six with
a whip, when the mother protested she
was arrested by a negro policeman and
fined SO by a negro magistrate for
insulting a freedman,
Thieves looted the treasury of every
state and county, and taxes mounted
until as many as $500 h0mesteads OF
white men, many of whom could not
vote were sold for taxes in d single
county
The negro and his ally the carpet
bag adVenturer had attained undis-