The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-12-27
WEE BLUE-EYED BABE IS BEHIND
 WAR ON KHAN
(Continued from Page D

rage
 She is back of the march and coun- ter march of armed troops which maintain virtual martial law in More house parish today. She is back of rifles and shotguns on the arms of scores of North Louisiana citizens She is back of the half ton of dyna- mite, mysteriously exploded that Fourche, the headless, wire bound bodies of Thomas Richards and Watt Daniels after their four months rest in the ooze of the lake bed. She is back of the legal and medical talent being assembled by Gov. Parker to place the responsibility for that double murder and the torture men say preceded it. She is back of the two centuries of Louisiana history when on January fifth, men will gath CT in the machine gun ringed court house at Bastrop to thresh out the case.
 This little girl is Leota Richards, daughter of Thomas F. Richards. one of the men tortured and murdered by the Mer Rouge mob which Gov members of the. Ku KluX klan, and which daily developments substan- fate.
 Wanted Daddy Horle Xmas.
 The machinery which started the the clean up drive against the Klan in this State was put in motion after Gov. Parker heard a tale of mid night murder of a mothers grief of supine local authority and at last swore mighty oath when the little child climbed on his knee in his of flee at Baton Rouge and pleaded:
 Wont you please bring my daddy home for Christ T7as?'
 Tt was the Klan that killed my husband" she exclaimed bitterly. They'll do nothing about it in More house Parish. They killed h4<s and they killed Watt Daniels and their bodies are somewhere in Warehouse Parish today
 Little Leota, used to her mothers crying for days and nights, look-d curiously about the room of the an cient feudal ike building with it's great mirrors, and as her mother sobbed she ran up to the man with kindly eyes and quiet manner had won her confidence. He lifted her to his knee. It was then Daota ask ed the governor to bring her daddy back. There were tears now in the
 spnrred to Action by Child. That was all. But within his heart he swore mighty oath to keep home comforted. Had not the man with the kindly eyes and comfort inc hands and lined face said he would see to it that her father would
 
 Details did not bother Leota She Hid not l,nOw that tho e+a+n ~ov-o---7- nent provided only meager funds for 'pecial investigation sucn as LLe -tse | required She did not know that Gov. | Parker, out of his own pocket spent thousands of dollars to make the in yestigation thorough. She did not | lnow that in her native parish, under cover, Investigators searched out the l ;lues that special diver was brought | rom St. Louis, that special guards | nen were sent to Warehouse parish l with orders to kill anyone who in- ! .erfered in the search, that a body of nen crept forth one night and ex- ,loded nearly half a tone of dyna- | Fourche. and that the two bodies | brought up were identified as those 1 if Daniels and Richards, her daddy. | Leota just played about, wondering | what Christmas would bring and crawling pencil lines which her mother knew were words to the Ku llux Klan to bring her daddy back. rave man with the kindly eyes. But he man had not forgotten.
 They brought Daddy Richards home or Christmas They brought him in
 gray, metallic coffin, that shrouded aercifully from the eyes of Leota the earful evidence of what men will do nder the lash of prejudice and hate 'roops fired the last salute over his rave. He rests in peace; widow oubts are quieted.
 But in Baton Rouge a man with a ned face and cares innumerable, eeps up the fight he has begun, con- ent on one point-that with a little irl, he kept faith.