The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-08-24

|eW 1orki Tor sale at Juddis, S1.50, Thomas Dixon. jr., has at length pub- Fhed "The Traitor" and thereby clos that famous "Trllogy of Reconstruc- |on" which he began with "The Leop- Ed's Spots" and continued with 'The |lansman." Perhaps it is a matter for |eneral congratulation that these pas [onate stories of race and sectional Etred in the South after the civil war Ire ended. "The Traitor" is a story |lll of life and action of the fall of the Invisible Empire'-that is to say, of he dissolution of the Ku KluX Klan tld of certain private feuds in North .arolina. MT. Dixon's Trilogy as has len well remarked, has been furiously |Ssailed both as history and as art, and ELoutly defended-especially in the ar Icle of fact-fby none more ably and sfectively than by the author himself, E[r. Dixon is an admirable pamphleteer. 0The Clansman,' moreover, has been | ade into play. and not even MT ,ernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Pro- E,ssion" has had wider advertisement E denunciation. Riots, even, have threatened on account of 1t, though one of them ever materiallzed, and ! any excellent people have been led to gard the author as a monster and a zrebrand. All most unnecessarily" I The book opens with a picturesque 'sscription of the dissolution of the Ku ! lux Klan in North Carolina by the rand Dragon of the state, who Is the ero of Mir. Dixon's story. A general rder for the dissolution of the Klan throughout the cities in which it exist n had been sent out by General Ma 8ian Forrest, the chief of the Klan, nown as the Grand Wizard, for this ysterious organization, otherwise nown as the Invisible Empire, had range titles for its officials The rand Wizard was the commander in \ lief, the Grand Dragon commanded a late, the Grand Giant a county and ale Grand Cyclops township. It was | fter the elections of 1869, when six puthern States had been wrested from segro rule, that the Grand Wizard felt hat the mission of the Klan had been Accomplished and issued his order for a 0sneral disbandment. In MT. Dixon's 4ory the Grand Dragon of North Caro- saa, after assembling a picked number E his band, who at his command had &lried their regalia, thus addressed hem:
 Boys, I thank you. You have help B me do a painful thing. But it is : East. Our work is done. We have res bed our state from negro rule. We EssolEe this powerful secret order in me to save you from persecution, ex- ! 3, Imprisonment and death. The na- 1 E6nal government is getting ready to Erike. When the blow falls it will be Nh the vanished shadow of a ghost. There's time to fight and time to etreat. We retreat from a field of &ictory'
 T But the order of "The Invisible Umpire" had no sooner been officially Issolved by order of General Forrest, 8hd solemnly disbanded with spectac-
 lar rites under the leadership of it's &gh chief-ths demigod, John Gra- hm-than 1t was resurrected as a E cal fraternity in the mountain re-
 on of North Carolina under the Y bmmand of villain, Steve Hoyle.
 murder of an unpopular federal : ldge is perpetrated by third set of | wless men who assume the we'll #nown disguise of the order. The Rautiful daughter of the murdered
 an vows vengeance upon his mur- brer. Stella Butler, who suspects #raham, arranges pretty plot to en-
 are him and to fix the crime upon
 m. When she finds that he is inno- knt of the crime, she having long bted that he was manly type of the
 utherner, strong, brave and goodly
 look upon, she falls in love with r m and goes to the other extreme in
 ectacular efforts to save his life
 ter he is arrested. Graham's in- x bcence of the murder Is easily prov
 by producing the real villain in burt, so mean an order of man that
 makes an excellent scapegoat and < one is offended. Johns high con- Niction with the kuklux klan is, how
 Ter. revealed to government author
 by Steve Hoyle. who thereby gets
 Immunity bath" and a bonus in
 e way of judgeship in the federal
 urt. This, by the way, is the most
 en slur upon the government which
 e author permits himself.
 There is very dramatic trial
 enc, during the course of which 1t
 evelops that Judge Butler was mur-
 bred by a carpetbagger, a rival in
 blitics and one whom Judge Butler < lid in his power. This man, with
 me accomplices, had donned cos
 mes of the kul1lux klan, and, after
 rcing their way through a secret
 trance, they had surrounded Judge
 utler in his dining room, where the
 dge's rival stabbed him to the '. art
 John Graham and some other mem
 IS of the Klan are convicted as such
 d sentenced to Imprisonment. In
 epilogue to the book, however, the . lies become bright, the atmosphere
 ears from that of a gloomy prison < M and the author says:
 Time slowly healed the poisoned
 punds left by the fierce struggles ol
 econstruction. John Graham's ease
 as never decided by the Supreme
 urt of the United States. As the
 V grew near for the test of It's ap
 al before the great tribunal whicl
 the last bulwark of American liber-
 es he was hastily pardoned, and ev'
 man with him who languished ir
 son pens for similar political of
 nces. The little politicians who had
 reed through Congress the venom