The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1913-03-21

In recent editorial in the Be
Transcript readers of the paper
instructed as to the history
meaning of the Ku-Klux Klan.
editor writes in part: "The New
glander of twenty-five or TIVE
three is pardonable if he asks, "V
was the Ku-Klux Klan?' 1t was
Black Hand in politics, used for
itics, though it never sank to
level of blackmail. Its purposes
to frighten negroes out of voting
Republican ticket, to paralyze
Freedmen's Bureau, to run out
petbaggers, Northern school teacl
and, in general, by terror to uns
the results of the war. In the be
ming it was little more than Sc
vigilance committee which kept
recently emancipated slaves in OF
enforced law, and in general,
the place of the old machiner,
justice which had not recovered
the war. 1t soon passed under
control of more brutal eler
which saw its political possibili
The founders dropped out and
Ku-Klux, stopping at nothing, n
itself felt by fire, blood and suffer
1t developed into an atrocious or
ization for whose suppression it
necessary to pass a Federal
known as the 'Ku-Klux Act"
Verify, the New England h
rians, great and small, have follo
the Biblican injunction: Feed
with food convenient for me-"
not time now, forty-seven years 8
the war, to strengthen the die
"the New Englander of twenty
or twenty-three," to give him +
nourishing food, and to cease
ding him with the broth that has
so many years been served uI
him? Would it not be safe nov
give him an insight into some of
horrors of Reconstruction in
Southern States and to tell him
facts?
The treatment accorded the So
ern States after the war showed
just and well grounded were their
prehensions when the Rpublican
ty in 1861 obtained control of
government. They felt the Begin
of their political extinction, and
saw with stupefaction that calm,
determined band of their enemie
their secret meetings at the Re
House in Boston-Dr. Howe, KIN
as a philanthropist; Frank Sank
an instructor of youth; Gel
Smith, also called "a philanthro,
and Theodore Parker discfpF
the meek and lowly Jesus -caln,y
ranging the details of Browns v
ture, furnishing him with arms /;
supplying him with money, and pl
ting an armed invasion. They S
that they were in the house of til
enemies, and they resolved to leaS
Of the four years of the War of
States, the young New Englander
fair idea, but it would be well
let him know that soon after the
ginning of the war a resolution
presented and passed both houses
congress almost unanimously to
effect that the sole object of the
was the preservation of the Un
and that when that object was acc
1lished the army was to be disban,
With this amount of information
start with we may omit the war
enlighten him on the subject of
Ku-Klux Klan.
The Ku-Klux Klan was largely
strumental in preserving civiliza
in the South, which thanks to
Thad Stevenses and Summers of
day, came near being engulfed in
unfathomable abyss of negro
The history of the passage of
Fourteenth Amendment would be
structiv reading. Our young fir
would see that it was fraudulent,
work of negroes and carpetbag
supported by bayonets. The W
people of the South being prost
and disfranchised and the negro
ing in supreme control, every ave
of hope was closed. The situa
was desperate. Helplessness and
spair were on every hand with
black shadow of the negro hove
over all.
At this iuncture a few Of the