K. K. K. sketches, humorous and didactic

by James Melville Beard

Speed. G. W.

These titles were not always employed in the published orders; but where they were omitted, some descriptive term equally well understood was substituted.

The raiding force always moved in the night season, and members of the Order never exhibited themselves in the Ku-Klux rôle in the daytime. When the cock crew, no churchyard edition of the animal ever sought the friendly shadow of the daisies with greater precipitancy than did the individual K. K. K. the inner chambers of the Den.

Their imbroglios were in almost all cases with the organization known as the Loyal League; but though they bore arms, and waged a campaign whose avowed object was the annihilation of this hated enemy, yet in their dealings with its members their ultimatum rarely bore an emphasis strong enough to excite the opposition of the local authorities. And to their credit it must likewise be said (a fact that was considered by the State authorities at a recent date in promulgating pardons to members of the Klan), that they avoided collisions with the United States troops, and in no instance, though frequently pursued, and sometimes driven to the wall by the exertions of the latter when employed in behalf of their enemies, were they ever known to burn powder against their country’s armed servitors. Neither did they interfere with the courts of the country in administering the laws from a national standpoint, though in some instances criminals were taken from the county jails before “oyer” had been pronounced in their cases.

Members of the Order did not, nor could not, according to their construction of Klan government, belong to the jurisdiction of the courts, more especially the Federal courts. And though trials were never interfered with until their officers had satisfied themselves that it would be impossible to convict one of its members on a charge of complicity in its affairs, yet in the event of an unfavorable verdict and attempted sentence, it is certain that resistance of some character would have been offered. Ku-Klux trials were one of the weaknesses of the courts at this period, and while numbers were arraigned on this charge who were guilty, and merited discipline, it may be safely estimated that a majority of these prosecutions were conducted against persons who were not only innocent of collusion in its affairs, but who execrated the Klan as heartily as did their over zealous inquisitors. Members of the League were the informers, and not unfrequently the only witnesses in these trials; and when it is remembered that their zeal for justice, as the blind goddess was viewed by them, burned with about equal warmth against that portion of the white population who were symbolized in this way and those who were not, the farcical nature of these proceedings in numberless instances will be understood. But when it was known that testimony had been suborned against members of the Order, the Klan proceeded to extreme lengths in construing the statute for perjury, and in visiting its penalties on the offender. Not only so, but on the eve of these judicial examinations, the Dens, as well as individual members thereof, were particularly active in the work of destroying testimony by intimidating witnesses, a common form of the threats employed being the words memento mori written plainly on a blank sheet of paper, and clandestinely conveyed to the suspected party. To ignorant persons, the mystery of this latter proceeding alone went not a little way towards accomplishing the object in view.

While such precautions were taken, and no doubt proved of vast service in enabling the Order to resist that crusade of the ermined ranks to which we have referred, the leaders of the K. K. K. succeeded in obtaining, from the membership at large, a very important concession in morals affecting this subject, and one which we believe has been hitherto resisted by the draft of secret societies on this continent, viz., an obligation to disregard judicial oaths where they conflicted with the plans and policy of the Order. To illustrate this point, a leading form of the interrogatory propounded to witnesses in these trials was: “Are you aware of the existence of a secret political organization known as the Ku Klux Klan?” and though parties thus addressed were often possessed of the most incontestable evidence of the truth sought to be elicited, it was not deemed dishonest, nor in any sense immoral, to reply negatively. The oath of secrecy which members (voluntarily) took upon themselves when they entered the Klan was supposed to extinguish the guilt of this transaction, though we are not told precisely in what way the double entendres and tricks of evasion, practised by such witnesses at subsequent stages of the trial, were to be construed.

But as we shall have occasion to refer to this topic from time to time, as the work progresses, we will not at present allude further to the subject of Ku-Klux trials and their furniture of fiction.

The Klan was thoroughly organized. There were no patch-spots in its system of government. Its tactics of drill were in some sense peculiar, but it sufficiently resembled that adopted by the cavalry branch of the United States army to be mistaken for it in all the leading manœuvres. The men were perfect in company drill, and were required to attend all Den meetings, or be assessed onerous fines or other penalties. Absenteeism was not, however, one of the strong points of the brotherhood; and a Den rarely moved towards raiding territory without its full quota of men. The raids moved with astonishing celerity—a circumstance which was rendered necessary to the most perfect secrecy of these movements, and was also imperative in view of the long distances to be traversed. The hours between twilight in the evening and dawn, according to a Medean law of the K. K. K., as we have anticipated, could only be appropriated to this labor; and when it is explained that companies of men frequently left the Den rendezvous for raiding objectives forty miles distant, and returned to the former point without dismounting, our conclusion above will be seen to be authorized.

The Grand Cyclops was not only the chief of the Den Council and an absolutist in authority as to its domestic affairs, but was also the chief officer in command of a raid, and must have been looked to for all special directions regarding its conduct. The Exchequer possessed a similar prerogative, and became the orderly or adjutant on the march.

The Klan was the bitter enemy of those unorganized parties of ruffians who made war on their kind in the former’s name, and the sum of whose villanies never failed to be debited in this way. Hardly a week passed, during the excitement which gave rise to both, and which they, in turn, converted into a reign of terror whose strong points the Duke of Alva might have studied to advantage, in which the secret organization was not made to suffer under some such confidence arrangement; and to say that its adipose suffered under this bereavement of men’s regards which it could so illy spare, will not, we fear, adequately present the situation. It, however, had placed itself in a position by which its motives were liable to be misinterpreted; and as one of its professed foibles was its ability to cover up its tracks in the least mysterious of its transactions; and, as during the French Renaissance, times analogous to these, to wear a mask was esteemed a crime from which all other crimes might be inferred, we doubt whether its right to borrow sympathy on this exchange could be logically maintained.