Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1922-12-27

any meeting or movement DE- me-
Koin was elected.
He seemed to have been under a
strain. In his pocket while he talked,
was a telegram from the Snerl1l Oh
Morehouse parish ordering him 70 re-
turn and be witness.
Himself the foremost champion OF
law and order in Mer Rouge II ms
time. he seemed hostile now to the au-
thorit,es that professed to be trying
TO do the same thing and that wanted
him to come back.
"Governor Parker didn't send any
troops into Mer Rouge when the h0g
thieves and cattle thieves and crooks
were trying to overrun the town, ne
said. "But he is sending troops now
because some men seem, at one Jlme
or another, to have taken the law
into their own hands. Of course l
suppose the Governor knows what ne
is doing, We seldom got any heIp,
however, at enforcing the law.
Again and again this thought recur
red to DR.. McKoin, as ne told his
story. 1t seemed to rankle in nm.
Yet he denied fatty that he belong
ed to the Ku Klux Khan, although ne
admitted helping to organize ana
maintain the "Ark-La Law Enforce
ment League" and exhibited a letter
head of that organization with ms
own name in the list of directors. ms
league had been organized by outrag--
ed private citizens, he said, convinced
f;nallv that there would be no enforce
ment of the law unless the good,
church-going people of the commun-
ity demanded it.
Why, when he was a leader IN TINS
movement and the forces OF clvlc de-
cency seemed. to be winning, mad ne
fled. from Mer Rouge where ne was a
chief citizen?
81 was elected Mayor to begin
with" he said. Everybody down there
virtually, is Democrat, and there
are no Republican-Democratic cam
paigns. When l ran the issue was be-
tween law and order and lawlessnesS
and disorder. Houses of prostitution
were springing up; a young man had
been shot in the back for no other
reason, apparently, than that his au.
tomobile had broken down IN front OF
a moonshine still, where nobody knew
a moonshine still existed. The town
seemed to be full of gunner. White
men lived openly with negro women.
The decent element in the town was
outraged. =. sE.
when became Mayor we tried to
clean these things up. When my
term expired l did not want to run
again, but the better people OF the
town made me run and elected me.
"Then mana farmer-was
burned to death in his bed. 1t was
one of the most brutal crimes | ever
heard of. He was churchgoer and a
good man. All he had done was buy
piece of land and fence it off and try
to start peaceable, decent farming,
and these cattle thieves and hog
stealers" -
Here the voice Of the Louisiana
Baptist deacon, who had killed a
man, broke with anger. DR.. McKoln
fought to get grip on himself. He
protested that he wasn't meaning to
be unduly harsh with any of his old
townsmen and neighbors Che was born
and raised in that part of the coun-
try), but his blood boiled when he
thought of that crime.
After they tried to kill me | want
ed to stay and fight the lawless ele-
ment worse than ever, but my friends
urged me to leave. Trey argued that
it was my duty to get my children
and my wife to some place of safety
and / agreed to that. All this was
last September and August. The at
tempt was made on my life in August.
"But | don't want to go back
there now" he repeated. "There is
nothing | can tell them. If go | shall
go under protest. If | leave here now
it will ruin all the opportunities l
have, it will break up my studies"