Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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McCORMICK MESSENGER^ McCORMICK, S. C.. THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 1939 UncU PM £clu5: And Criticism, Too When you don’t know much about music, let someone 'else start the applause. Skepticism sometimes saves a man from being e\terybody’s fool. It takes a good deal of wit to perpetrate effective ridicule. Beyond Estimation About the weakest of statistics are those that purport to state what crime costs the country per capita. Occasionally we meet a man who asks for only half a chance, bat the majority prefer the chances whole. One born lazy is generally hap pily born without cupidity. Play the Game Don’t ask, “Is life worth liv ing?” You have been dealt the cards. The man who wants to be good has less opportunity than the man who wants to be great. A worm may turn, but a sheep never will. Perhaps the Darky’s Ducks Were Storks A salesman was rattling along a country road in Tennessee, when he came to a ford. A Negro was standing by the little stream where some ducks were swim ming. The salesman said: “Can I get through the creek with this car all right?” “Yes, suh, drive right through.” The salesman, thus encouraged, drove into the stream, only to find that the water was so deep that it flooded his engine. The salesman turned and said: “What do you mean by telling me that I could drive through?” “Well, boss, I never knew dat water was so deep. It only comes half-way up on my ducks!” Rave you noticed that In hot Weather your digestion and elimina tion seem to become torpid or lazy? Your food sours, forms gas, causes belching, heartburn, and a feeling of restlessness and Irritability. Your tongue may be coated, your com plexion biliaus, and your bowel action sluggish or insufficient. These are some of the symptoms of biliousness or so-called “Torpid Liver,’* so prevalent in hot climates. They call for calomel, or better still, Calotabs, the nausealess calomel compound tablets that make calo mel-taking a pleasure. Calotabs give you the effects of calomel and salts combined, helping Nature to expel the sour, stagnant bile and washing it out of the system. One or two Calotabs at bed time with a glass of water,—that’s all. Next morning your system feels clem and refreshed, your head is clear, your spirit bright, and you are feeling fine with a hearty appetite for breakfast. Eat what you wish and go about your work or pleasure. Genuine Calotabs are sold only In checker-board (black and white) pack ages bearing the trade mark “Calotabs.’’ Refuse Imitations. Trial package only ten cents; family package twenty-five cents, at your dealer's (Adv.) Impressive Thom One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.— Lowell. WHY 666 be miserable with M A L A -R1 A and COLDS when will check MALARIA fast and gives symptomatic cold relief. LIQUID, TABLETS, SALVE, NOSE DROPS Self-Inflicted Pain He who fears to suffer, suffers from fear. 'CessedRetief. RHEUMATISKCTbago WATCH *^POU con depend on the ^ special sales the merchants of our town announce in the columns of this paper. They mean money saving to our readers. It always pays to patronize the merchants who advertise. They are not afraid of their mer chandise or their prices. Jr THE SPECIALS Secret Club Formed by Six Fun-Loving Young Tennesseeans Became One of Most Powerful Organizations of 'Regulators' in U. S. History An illustration from Harper’s Weekly for February 19, 1868, showing two army officers posing in Ku Klux Klan uniforms captured at Hunts ville, Ala. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) O NE December evening in 1865 six young men were sitting around the fireplace in the law office of Judge Thomas M. Jones in the little town of Pulaski, Tenn., idly gossiping about the affairs of the day. Event ually the talk turned to how dull life seemed in this little town after the thrills and ex citement they had known as soldiers in the Confederate army. What could they do to amuse themselves and help pass away the time while ad justing themselves to the new order of things? Some one—it may have been Judge Jones’ son, J. Calvin Jones, or it may have been any one of the other five, Capt. John C. Lester, Capt. John B. Kennedy, Capt. James R. Crowe, Frank O. McCord or Richard R. Reed—suggested that they might organize a new club or society. In the absence of any better sug gestion, they decided to go ahead with that idea. The next evening they met again in Judge Jones’ office and formed a temporary organiza tion. They elected a chairman and a secretary, committees were appointed to select a name for the new organization and to draw up rules and a ritual for the initiation of new members. Then they adjourned, to meet a week later to perfect their or ganization. Thus was formed the famous Ku Klux Klan of the Reconstruction era, a secret organization that was at the same time lawless and law-preserving, that success fully defied the might of the fed eral government of the United States and that wrote into our history one of its most thrilling chapters. The ’Invisible Empire.* A complete history of the Ku Klux Klan would fill volumes (it took 13 of them to hold all the testimony given before the joint congressional investigation of the Klan that began in 1870) but a present-day historian has com pressed into one volume most of the essential facts about it. He is Stanley F. Horn of Nashville, Tenn., editor of the Southern Lumberman, whose “Invisible Empire—The Story of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866-1871,” based upon years of research, was pub lished recently by the Houghton Mifflin company. It is easy to understand how difficult was his task of piecing together the frag ments of the story into an authen tic and interesting narrative. For the Klan had no written records and the surviving Klansmen— even years later when there was little, if any, reason to fear re prisal—refused to talk. “The objects of the new soci ety being purely amusement and relaxation all of the original plans and arrangements were de cidedly on the burlesque and gro tesque side,” says Mr. Horn in his chapter on the origin of the Klan. “The names of the offi cers, as specified in the report of the rules committee, were unusu al and unique, the prime consid eration being to get as far as possible away from familiar mil itary or political titles.” Having decided to call their meeting place a “Den,” they gave their chief officer a name appropriate to that—the “Grand Cyclops.” The next important of ficial was called a “Grand Magi” and there was a “Grand Turk” to greet all candidates for admis sion. The secretary was called the “Grand Scribe” and there were two messengers called “Night Hawks” and two guards called “Lictors.” Ordinary mem bers were referred to as “Ghouls.” “The titles had no meaning or significance, being selected arbi trarily and solely for their weird and supposedly impressive sound,” writes Mr. Horn. “It was just another local secret so ciety of fun-loving young men looking for an outlet for their unemployed energies such as has been formed hundreds of times in the past without any particular purpoSe. In all probability it would endure but a short time until the attention of the mem bers was directed along other channels. Aside from the condi tion of affairs and other factors involved, the thing that caused the new organization to attract attention and later to spread be yond any dream of its organizers was unquestionably the impres sion created and the curiosity aroused by its mysterious, sonor ous name. It was the kind of name people liked to repeat, just to hear the sound of its sinister syllables. Even the initials, in their alliterative attractiveness, were an asset.” Curiously enough, this name, which was to help the society be come historic, was chosen quite by chance. In those days Greek- letter fraternities were becom- ing popular in the colleges and universities of the country so it was only natural; perhaps, that the founders of the Klan should turn to the Greek vocabulary for a suggested name. It was Rich ard Reed who first suggested the name “Kuklos,” from a Greek word from which our “circle” and “cycle” are derived. His companions liked that name but Kennedy, who had an ear for al literation, suggested that another “K” sound be introduced into the name by adding the word “clan.” So, at first, it was spelled “Ku- kos Clan,” then “Kuklux Klan” and finally it emerged as “Ku Klux Klan.” Although there are GEN. N. B. FORREST various other versions of the ori gin of the name, this is the story “as told by surviving charter members and its authenticity seems beyond question,” declares Mr. Horn. Just as the name of the organi zation was chosen by chance, so was its official costume. Concern ing it the author of “Invisible Empire” says: “Bubbling over with the excitement of their new found plaything, the young mem bers of the new Ku Klux Klan decided to make a public mani festation of themselves; so, bor rowing the familiar idea of the easy Hallowe’en disguise, they wrapped themselves in sheets, mounted their horses and gal loped through the streets of the little town, greatly enjoying the sensation they created—particu larly the alarm and dismay of the Negroes, to whose supersti tious minds the sight of white- sheeted figures suggested nothing but spirits risen from the grave, and who accordingly fled to their homes in panic-stricken terror.” In a short time this terror that was created among the Negroes began to create considerable talk around Pulaski. “It was noticed that prowling freemen who en countered the ghostly horsemen at night were afterwards more inclined to stay at home after dark; and this gave birth to the idea that perhaps the Klan might be used as a means of subduing the undue bumptiousness and the nocturnal prowlings of some of those who seemed incapable of using their new-found freedom discreetly.” It must be remembered that these were uneasy times in the South. Its traditional social struc ture had been overturned by the liberation of the slaves and these freedrrwen, suddenly unrestrained, were inclined to make the most of their new irresponsibility, es pecially since they were encour aged by Northern Carpetbaggers, who had swarmed into the South to take advantage of its demor alized condition, and by Southern Scalawags. It must be remem bered, too, that for years the dread of a slave insurrection had been the secret fear of nearly every Southerner. Now with dis orders increasing the minor transgressions of the newly lib erated blacks seemed to be only a prelude to something infinitely worse. So anything which could hold them in check and avert that possible disaster was not to be lightly dismissed without a trial, at least. The Klan’s First Stage. “But all this innocent frolic and horseplay on the part of a few small-town youths constitut ed merely the first stage in the existence of the Ku Klux Klan,” writes Mr. Horn. “Throughout the winter of 1866-67 the Ku Klux Klan outgrew the confines of Pu laski and Giles county. Also it began to take on a more serious purpose wherever it had been established. It had grown out of its swaddling clothes and, almost before its organizers realized what was happening, they found it on the eve of branching out as a force of regulation which was to affect the destiny of the whole South. Pulaski, however, re mained the nerve-center of the Ku Klux movement. Here was dropped into the pool the pebble whose ripples spread so far.” Just as Pulaski remained the nerve-center, so did the state of Tennessee become the “brain” of the movement. This was due largely to the genius of one man —Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, known as the “wizard of the sad dle,” when he was leading Con federate cavalry during tne late war. He became the “Grand Wiz ard” of the Ku Klux Klan and un der his direction the Klan was used as the only weapon which the prostrate South had left to prevent itself from being ground into the dust by the hatred of the Northern Radicals. Then when the control of the Klan began to slip away from the original lead ers and thieves and other des peradoes began to use its masks and robes to cloak their own evil designs, it was disbanded. The story of all this turbulent period is told in “Invisible Em pire” whose author concludes his book thus: “So lived and so died the Ku Klux Klan. It made its name a symbol of terror and despera tion. There are today many thou sands of Americans who think of it as an indefensible gang of out laws and murderers. But ask any person who lived in the South during that wild nightmare called the Reconstruction and who saw the Klansmen as they went about their self-appointed, task, ask such a one and from the light in his eyes it will be easy to see that the Klan in his memory is clad in shining armor, sans peud et sans reproche.” “Tiie theory that the Ku Klux were Confederate ghosts was readily accepted by the Negroes generally as being entirely rea sonable and credible, and when the Klansmen started to making moonlight visits of a regulatory nature they took their cue from this,” says Mr. Horn. For in stance, the leader of the Klans men, after calling the Negro out of his cabin, would complain that he was thirsty and ask the black man to bring him a bucket of water. Usually he would bring the bucket and a gourd dipper, thereupon the ghostly figure would throw the gourd aside and, raising the bucket to his lips, drain it to the last drop. (The Negro didn’t know, of course, that the Klansman had a funnel in side his mask and from its end a rubber tube ran down to an oil cloth bag under his flowing robe.) Having drunk, the white-robed figure would smack his lips ap preciatively and exclaim, . “My, but that’s good. That’s the first drink I’ve had since I was killed at the Battle of Shiloh; and you get mighty thirsty down there in Hell.” A Standard Joke. “This became the favorite and standard joke of the Ku Klux everywhere during those early days; it was almost the hall mark of a Ku Klux raid—none genuine without it,” declares Mr. Horn. But it was not the only stunt which the Klansmen tried to frighten the superstitious Ne groes. Sometimes the leader would put a false head, made of a gourd with a mask attached, on top of his head and wear his robe up over this false head. Dur- ^ ing the interview, he would thrust the masked gourd at the Negro saying “Here, hold my head a moment.” The terror which this request inspired is easily imag ined. Sometimes he would ask the Negro to shake hands with him and when the black man reached out he would be met with a hand made of wood and paint ed white so that it looked exactly like that of a skeleton. During one such visit in Missis sippi the Negro was asked, > “Have you got a mattock?” Upon replying that he had, he was told by the ghostly visitor, “Well, come along with me to the grave- hm piiilii >• , ' ■ . ■ .. : m ' ' • ' V • At -few *w ****/?> /?H )*.***•< Dost 18<*ar! Slov* Kvww;>>1 i i M Sxttfi. i *ifc**i Y<* WSCE A«AI% .*4 Hy, fettlf X; ^ I gp&p • m '''"X V.>x- • OTcijoPe**.****^ 'Mp. SSEsMi' " " " A rare Ku Klux broadside warn ing, printed and posted in Tusca loosa, Ala. yard. My headstone is so close to my head I can’t rest good in my grave. I want you to help me move it.” * • • “It is particularly interesting to observe the frequency with which the unsung and anonymous but prolific poets of the Recon struction era were moved to lyr ical composition in connection with the rise and fall of the Ku Klux,” observes Mr. Horn. He then cites the case of a Carpet bag preacher, named Reverend A. W. Cummings, who became tax assessor and collector in Spartanburg, S. C. When Presi dent Grant sent Federal troops to Spartanburg in 1871 to sup press the Klan, the local news paper, named the Spartan, print ed the following “impious gibe” at Reverend Cummings, which it called “A Reverend Gentleman’s Evening Prayer”: Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray thee, Grant, my body keep. Just let the soldiers round me stand And drive away the Ku Klux band. That I may have one night of rest With consciousness of safety blessed. And though my conscience sting no more, I think I may make out to snore. A grateful song I then will raise. Thy soldiers and thy grace to praise. Amen. When Gen. George Meade, the victor of Gettysburg, was placed in command of one of the mili tary districts in the South, he is sued a general order calling for the suppression of the Ku Klux Klan and forbidding the news papers to print anything “fur thering the Ku Klux cause.” Thereupon some unknown poet printed in the Augusta (Ga.) Reg ister and Chronicle the following: GENERAL ORDER NO. 30,721 Let every Ku Klux Klansman heed The General Order of General Meade. His Highness has received a fright And can not sleep by day or night. He sees in every Southern man A member of the Ku Klux Klan, And every time a ram’s horn toots (Poor fellow) trembles In his boots. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! how they annoy him. Hence his orders to destroy ’em. So let every Klansman heed The General Order of General Meade; And all observe this General Rule, Signed and sealed by Meade DAMPHO* Impossible Aunt Martha went to a -sports meeting for the first time. The pistol went off, and the men sprinted. Aunt Martha turned to her neph ew—And do these men really think they can catch up with that bullet? At His Post The taxi was going v^ry slowly and the passenger was in a hurry. “I say,” he shouted, “can’t you go any faster?” “Course I can,” came the re tort; “but I ain’t allowed to leave + he taxi.” SKIMMING THE SURFACE “Beauty is skin deep.” “That’s enough. Nobody wants an X-ray photograph of his sweet heart’s physiognomy.” Goes Without Saying Sergeant—If anything moves, you shoot. Sentry—Yes, sir. And if any thing shoots, I move. Rejected Suitor—No, no, Joan, don’t give me back the ring. After all, what’s $6.75 to a man with a broken heart. Or Wash Your Face? Teacher—Remember, Jimmy, a job done well never wants doing again. Jimmy—Did you ever mow a lawn? Not to Blame “Darling,” said the young hus band, “what a peculiar flavor this stewed steak has!” “I really cannot account for it,** replied his wife. “Indeed, in or der to take away the unpleasant taste of the onions I scalded them in eau-de-Cologne.” MALARIA! If you are run-down and “no good** due to Malaria, try Winter* smith’s Tonic! Thousands of people all over the South “swear by it’’— millions of people, for over 70 years, haVfe said it’s the thing foe Malaria. • • • The small bottle costs only 50 cents—yet may convince you that it’s what you need. TRY, Wintersmith’s. That’s all we ask. WINTERSMITH’S TONIC Greater Need Just now there is a great clam or and demand for “culture,” but it is not so much culture that is needed as discipline.—W. G. T. Shedd. KILL ALL FLIES Placefl anywhere. Daisy Fly Killer attracts and hills flies. Guaranteed, effective. Neat, convenient — Cannot spill— WUlnot sollorlnjure anything. Lasts all season. 20c at all dealers. Harold Somers. Inc., 150 De Kalb Ave.,B'.klyn,N.Y. DAISY FLY KILLER Supply the Mind A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as for the body. CONSTIPATED? Here Is Amazing Relief for Conditions Due to Sluggish Bowels It you think all laxatives act alike. Just try this invigorating. Dei headaches, bilious spel elated with constipation all vaqatabla laxatlva. So mild thorough, re adable relief from tired lecling when l' ..x. n:_|, get a 25c"box of NR from your nOUt KISK druggist. Make the test—then ot delighted, return the box to us. We will nd the purchase :e. That’* fair, NR Tablets today, ALWAYS CARRY QUICK RELIEF FOR ACID INDIGESTION Give a Thought to MAIN STREET • For, in our town... and towns O like ours clear across the country V ; . . there’s a steady revolution q going on. Changes in dress styles and food prices ... the rise of a hat crown . . .the fall of furni ture prices—these matters vitally affect our living ... And the news is ably covered in advertisements. • Smart people who like to be up-to-the-minute in living and current cvt^its, follow advertise ments as closely as headlines. • They know what’s doing in America . . . and they also know where money buys most!