Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1905-10-27
STORY OF THE XII KLUX KLAN
Mysterious Night Riders Who Broke
Up Union League.
ORIGIN and OBJECT OF The ORDER.

ORIGIN and OBJECT OF The ORDER.
Started For the Purpose Of Preserving
Anglo. Saxon Civilization, II After
ward Became a Cloak BY Which
Ruffian Desperadoes Were Enabled
to Cover Up Dark Deeds of Pillase
and Blood, and the Grand Wizard Is
sued an Order For Its Extinction.
Written by Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr.,
Copyrighted by the Metropolitan
Magazine Company, and Published
In The Enquirer by special arrange
ment with the Standard Press Bu-
reau Of New York City.
IT cannot understand the pig-headed
persistence with which the south con-
tinues blindly to vote against her own
interests!" said an intelligent young
northerner to me just after the last
presidential election.
1T does look funny" I 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 1866 to 1870. Nor can
he understand this period until he has
mastered the story of the rise, growth,
degeneracy, and death of two secret
political societies. one Of the north
called "The Union League Of America" Z"
the other Of the south. known OFF,
cially by its members as "The Invis-
ible Empire" and, popularity, as the
"Ku Klux Klan."
The bitterness of the Civil War has
passed from the hearts Of men, but
the legacy Of the Black Plague which
secured the south during the period
of Reconstruction remains today a
brooding nightmare threatening with
sinister prophecies the future Of the
nation.
The northern conception of the Ku
Ku Klux Klan is voiced in a recent
criticism Of my last novel by an an
cient Boston newspaper thus:
"He reaches the acme Of his Sec
tional passions when he exalts the Ku
Klux K!an into an association Of south
ern patriots, when he must know, or
else be strangely ignorant Of Ameri-
can history, that its members we're as
arrant ruffians, desperadoes. and
scoundrels as ever went unhanged."
II this be true, moral miracles have
been wrought by rufflans. desperadoes
and scoundrels which require study.
The like Of 1t has never been recorded
In the history of the race. and II such
things were done by scoundrels the
basis Of ethics must be rebuilt by our
philosophers.
The question is not merely an his-
torical one, 1t 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. Its roots strike deep into
our history. spread wide into our
everyday life. and grip with power Of
fate the souls Of generations unborn.
If any man thinks this an academic
question of the past which must be
determined by experts in dates and
documents. let him ask the police Of
New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and
ST. Louis into whose crowded streets
and tenements the Black man Is push
ing his way.
The Ku Klux Klan was great Law
and Order League of mounted night
cavalryman called into action by the
intolerable conditions of a reign Of ter
ror under negro rule in the south. 1t
was the answer to. their foes of an in
domitable race Of men, conquered, be-
trayed, disarmed and driven to desper-
alton. 1t was the old answer of organ
lied manhood to organized crime mas
querading under the forms Of govern
ment.
It's rise was due to the mind Of no
leader 1t was an accident. 1t was a
case Of spontaneous combustion.
A group of college boys at Pulaski.
Tennessee organized 1t first as a local
college fraternity. They found a name
in the Green work "Kuklos," a band,
or circle, and to this they added Clan.
and then split the germ word into two
weird monosyllables. spelling the Clan
with a K, to heighten the appeal to
the superstitious and 10, the awe-in-
spring "Ku Klux Klan"
The terror of these silent ghosts.
riding In the night, reduced the negro
race to an immediate and profound
peace. The idea spread to an adjoin-
ing county and rapidly over the state
of Tennessee which was the first to
pass beneath the yoke of negro su-
premacy.
In 1857 a secret convention Of peace
loving, law-abiding, God fearing. pa
lllOliC SOulllelliclS lIcl III NdoHNhiS
and organized this society into "The
Invisible Empire" adopted a ritual,
and adjourned. They met in the ruins
Of an old homestead within the picket
lines of $4,000 troops sent there to en-
force the rule of the black slave over
his former master.
AS the young German patriots of
1912 organized their struggle for liber-
ty under the noses Of the garrisons of
Napoleon, so these daring men, girt
by thousands Of bayonets, discussed
and adopted under the cover Of dark
ness the ritual of 1.-THE Invisible EN-