The Ku Klux Klan.
by Annie Cooper Burton.
The Ku Klux Klan
The great Ku Klux Klan sprang up like a mushroom, a Southern organization formed in a time when no other power in the world could have saved the suffering South from the utter disorder which prevailed during the awful period following the War between the States.
The stigma attached to the name Ku Klux Klan by the uninformed ma.s.ses has, at this late day, been practically removed, thanks to that Southern author, Thomas J. Dixon, who through "The Clansman" swayed public opinion the right way; and thanks again to that master director, David W. Griffith, another Southerner, who filmed this wonderful story and set the people to exclaiming, "Why, the Ku Klux Klan was a grand and n.o.ble order! It ranks with the best."
Every clubhouse of the United Daughters of the Confederacy should have a memorial tablet dedicated to the Ku Klux Klan; that would be a monument not to one man, but to five hundred and fifty thousand men, to whom all Southerners owe a debt of grat.i.tude; for how our beloved Southland could have survived that reign of terror is a big question.
The very name Ku Klux shows that the order was formed among men of letters. It is a Greek word meaning circle. Klan suggested itself; the name complete in turn suggested mystery. Originally the order was purely a social organization, formed in Pulaski, Tennessee, May, 1866, and gave diversion to the restless young men after the reaction of war. They found vast amus.e.m.e.nt in belonging to a club which excited and baffled curiosity; great sport, too, was found in initiating new members. But it was when the Klan realized that it had a great, vital work to perform that it rose majestically to the gigantic task.
When the order at the end of a year had grown throughout the South to such a size that a master hand was needed to guide it, Nathan Bedford Forrest, famous cavalry general of the Southern Army, he of the charmed life, a man who was in "more than one hundred battles and had twenty-seven horses shot under him," a leader famous for his military strategy, was elected Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire. Forrest always stressed the order that no fighting would be allowed. If they needed to fight they would throw off their disguise and fight like soldiers. Their purpose was to scare into submission the unruly free negroes and the trouble-making carpetbaggers; and this purpose they accomplished, without one drop of blood being shed, except in the most extreme cases. Whenever an undesirable citizen was not wanted, he generally found a note tacked to his door saying that if he did not move on within twenty-four hours he would be visited by the Ku Klux Klan.
Signed "K. K. K." The man generally "moved on" long before the stipulated time.
The negroes, being naturally superst.i.tious and imaginative, helped the order to gain power. In Nashville, Tennessee, among the five dens, there was one formed of medical students from the University. One of the favorite pranks of these young doctors was to ask a negro to hold their horse, and then place in his hand as he reached out to take the lines a finger or a hand taken from a corpse. The negro generally went a mile before he stopped running. Another effective trick practiced by the Klan was, when they had a negro on trial, to sprinkle beforehand a little powder on the floor--"h.e.l.l fire," they called it--and when the negro would be looking down at the floor one of the Klansmen would surrept.i.tiously run his foot over the powder line, and a fiery-looking trail would show. The negro would be paralyzed with fright, and was always careful in the future never to have cause to be brought before the Order again.
The Klan practiced numerous clever devices. Fancy the impression made on a negro when a robed Klansman asked him for a drink of water, to see a whole pail go down without any effort (a rubber bag concealed in the uniform aided in this deception), and then to hear a sepulchral voice say, "This is the first drink I have had since I was killed at Chickamauga!"
One never knew when nor where to expect a body of Ku Klux; they would spring up out of the ground, to all appearances; their ghostly figures multiplying like magic; they had a manner of forming their companies which made a band of one hundred men appear like a thousand. Their horses" feet were always m.u.f.fled, making their approach completely noiseless. But it was only the guilty who feared them; and fear was what the Klan worked to effect. To kill was not their aim, and only where absolutely necessary was it ever resorted to. A rare instance was that of the hanging of a Northern spy by the Pulaski Klan. This man came to Pulaski and took up carpentry; he made the people like him, and worked himself into the Klan; got their pa.s.s-words, everything in fact that they knew; then made ready to get away to the North and expose the secrets of the Order. They found it out before he got away, and when he boarded the train in Pulaski, a number of the Klan boarded the car as it turned out of the city, took the man off the train and hung him at the bridge, thus saving their Order a gigantic tragedy. It was never known who did it, the government could find out nothing. The matter was never discussed by any of the Klan, even long years afterward.
In preparing this sketch of the Ku Klux Klan, I have been most fortunate in having Capt. H. W. Head, 9th Tennessee Regiment, now a popular physician of Santa Ana, California, a former Grand Cyclops of one of the Nashville dens, to draw upon for material, and through his generosity in lending me his treasured Prescript, which has never been out of his possession since 1867, I am enabled to give a verbatim copy of their secret oath and ritual. When Mrs. S. E. F. Rose, Historian of the Mississippi Division, wrote her interesting booklet on the Ku Klux Klan, she was anxious to secure a copy of this oath. She wrote to a lady in Tennessee who had one in her possession and asked if she would, for the sake of history, give her a copy. The lady replied that she regretted not being able to comply with her request, as she was not able to write it herself, and prized it too highly to allow it out of her possession for even an hour to have a typewritten copy made. She said that her Ku Klux papers, together with her husband"s parole of honor obtained at Appomatox, Virginia, were to her treasures whose price was far above rubies. So you see what a treasure we have secured through Capt. Head"s gallantry and generosity. I am sure the Daughters appreciate the interest he has taken in helping compile this data. It was my aim to get information first-hand.
My father, Capt. James C. Cooper, was Grand Cyclops of a den in Mt.
Pleasant, Tennessee, but I never saw his uniform, as it was burned when the Klan disbanded. Capt. Head buried his uniform, and thus saved it. He obliged me by posing for a photograph in this interesting outfit. It was strange how the old feeling came back to him. He felt, he said, as if he were breaking his secret oath in thus displaying his uniform. Certainly he did look guilty and a little self-conscious as he emerged from the funny-looking garment. The b.u.t.tons you see so generously distributed are made of tin; the cloth is of black calico with white tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs; the only color used is a touch of red around the mouth and over the eyes. A woman, who was sworn to secrecy, was generally appointed by the dens to make their uniforms, so that they would all be alike.
As in Masonry, no one was asked outright to join the Klan. If a man happened to be talking to a Klansman and showed a kindly interest in the Order and a desire to join it, the Klansman would talk around the subject, and if the man was of good character, would suggest that they might find out something about it, the Klansman hinting that he thought he knew some one who belonged to it, and who might get them into the Order. Capt. Head had a funny experience with his own father. They were talking one day about the new Order when the father asked: "Do you know who these people are who call themselves the Ku Klux Klan?" The son replied that he might be able to take him to a place where they could find out. At the next meeting of his den, Capt. Head asked his father to go with him, an invitation which was accepted. The old gentleman was blindfolded and plied with the regulation questions, all of which he answered satisfactorily. When the blindfold was removed he was greatly surprised and pleased to see two of his own sons members of the den, Capt. Head himself taking his father into the Order.
The Ku Klux Klan lasted for three years; they disbanded as quietly and as quickly as they formed. When martial law was declared, and the work was done, Forrest sent out this order, through word of mouth, from den to den, throughout the vast Empire:
"The Invisible Empire has accomplished the purpose for which it was organized. Civil law now affords ample protection to life, liberty and property; robbery and lawlessness are no longer unrebuked; the better elements of society are no longer in dread for the safety of their property, their persons, and their families. The Grand Wizard, being invested with power to determine questions of paramount importance, in the exercise of the power so conferred, now declares the Invisible Empire and all the subdivisions thereof dissolved and disbanded forever."
Uniforms, oaths, and rituals were ordered burned, because it meant death to a Klansman to have them found in his possession, so strong had grown the feeling against the Order, due to unscrupulous outsiders who committed horrible deeds in the guise of the Klan. But the grand old Order had accomplished what it set out to do. Its work was n.o.bly done; and our rescued South still sings her grat.i.tude to her heaven-sent protectors, the mysterious K. K. K.
Exact Copy of the REVISED AND AMENDED PRESCRIPT of the ORDER of the *
=d.a.m.nant quod intelligent=
(First page of The Ritual of the Ku Klux Klan.)
(The cover of the book has no writing, a simple, cheap, yellow paper back; the book measures 3-1/2 by 5-1/2 inches.)
APPELLATION
This Organization shall be styled and denominated, The Order of the (then follows three stars; no other name given).
CREED
We, the Order of the * * *, reverentially acknowledge the majesty and supremacy of the Divine Being, and recognize the goodness and providence of the same. And we recognize our relation to the United States Government, the supremacy of the Const.i.tution, the Const.i.tutional Laws thereof, and the Union of States thereunder.
CHARACTER AND OBJECTS OF THE ORDER
This is an inst.i.tution of Chivalry, Humanity, Mercy, and Patriotism; embodying in its genius and its principles all that is chivalric in conduct, n.o.ble in sentiment, generous in manhood, and patriotic in purpose; its peculiar object being,
First: To protect the weak, the innocent, and the defenseless, from the indignities, wrongs, and outrages, of the lawless, the violent, and the brutal; to relieve the injured and oppressed; to succor the suffering and unfortunate, and especially the widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers.
Second: To protect and defend the Const.i.tution of the United States, and all laws pa.s.sed in conformity thereto, and to protect the States and the people thereof from all invasion from any source, whatever.
=Nec seire fas est omnia.=
Third: To aid and a.s.sist in the execution of all const.i.tutional laws, and to protect the people from unlawful seizure, and from trial except by their peers in conformity to the laws of the land.
ARTICLE I.
t.i.tles
Section 1. The officers of the Order shall consist of a Grand Wizard of the Empire, and his ten Genii; a Grand Dragon of the Realm, and his eight Hydras; a Grand t.i.tan of the Dominion, and his six Furies; a Grand Giant of the Province, and his four Goblins; a Grand Cyclops of the Den, and his two Nighthawks; a Grand Magi, a Grand Monk, a Grand Scribe, a Grand Exchequer, a Grand Turk, and a Grand Sentinel.
Section 2. The body politic of the Order shall be known and designated as "Ghouls."
ARTICLE II.
Territory and Its Divisions
Section 1. The territory embraced within the jurisdiction of this Order shall be coterminous with the States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee; all combined const.i.tuting the Empire.
Section 2. The Empire shall be divided into four departments, the first to be styled the Realm, and coterminous with the boundaries of the several States; the second to be styled the Dominion, and
=Amiei humani generis.=