USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. I > Part 109
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efficient superintendent of schools, assisted by a corps of 13 teach- ers. The total average attendance of pupils is 450, and the total enrollment for 1906 was 471. Prof. Boyd has had charge of the Kosciusko schools for 12 years. An interesting feature of the high school is a weekly debating club, with a life of 10 years; the high school library contains 1,821 volumes, and is the largest high school library in the State.
The present city debt of Kosciusko is $15,000; assessed valuation of property $1,150,000; tax rate 10 mills ; population in 1900, 2,078; present population, 2,500 (estimated) 1906.
Kossuth, an incorporated post-town of Alcorn county, about nine miles southwest of Corinth, the nearest railroad, banking, express and telegraph town. It was named for Louis Kossuth, the Hun- garian patriot. It has an academy, two churches, a grist mill, a foundry and machine shop, a plough factory, and a steam saw mill. Population in 1900, 162.
Kossuth, Louis, the famous Hungarian patriot, visited Jackson, Miss., in the first year of the administration of Governor Foote, 1852, and was entertained with an elaborate dinner at the execu- tive mansion.
Kuhns, a postoffice of Bolivar county, situated on Bogue Phaliah, 8 miles west of Cleveland.
Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux movement is elaborately treated in the recently published history of reconstruction in Alabama, by Walter L. Fleming, who says: "The Ku Klux movement was an understanding among Southern whites, brought about by the chao- tic condition of social and political institutions between 1865 and 1876. It resulted in a partial destruction of Reconstruction and a return, as near as might be, to ante-bellum conditions. This understanding or state of mind took many forms and was called by many names. The purpose was everywhere and always the same: to recover for the white race control of society, and destroy the baneful influence of the alien among the blacks."
Before the Ku Klux there was a general sort of organization reviving in some degree the old patrol of slavery days, which had pretty wide powers in the treatment of the blacks, and in east Alabama the Black Cavalry, a secret, oath-bound, night-riding order, was very active. This, and the Ku Klux, and other orders were used industriously, to drive out negroes who attempted to own land where whites were wanted, and to drive out poor whites where negroes were wanted by the dominant element. They were also used for political purposes. But the original object was that of the ordinary "regulators" or "white caps.'
The Ku Klux proper had its origin in the efforts of some young men at Pulaski, Tenn., in May, 1866, to form a secret society. Among the names suggested was Kuklux, from the Greek work, kuklos (circle), and klan was added to carry out the alliteration. Rules and ritual were provided, in which the officers were called the grand cyclops, the grand magi, the grand Turk, etc., and the lodge the den. Absolute secrecy was required, and solicitation of
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members forbidden, in order to increase the mystery. Each mem- ber was to provide as a costume a fantastic robe, a white mask, and a sort of pasteboard extension under the mask to increase the apparent height. The whole thing was largely a reproduction of college mysteries. The meeting place selected was a partly ruined house on the outskirts of the town, and the boys proceeded to enjoyment of the initiation of those who sought knowledge of the mysteries. The newspapers gave it considerable attention, and about the time eligible material for initiation had been worked up in Pulaski, applications came in for the organization of other dens, and the klan began to spread over the country. Its growth was rapid during the fall and winter of 1866, and everywhere the baf- fling mystery of the "fantastic gentry" aroused the interest of the public. Soon the promoters of the enterprise were influenced by the popular idea that the klan had some important mission, that . was being concealed. They also discovered that they could exert a powerful social influence. When a passerby encountered one of the disguised sentinels of the Pulaski lodge, at night, occasionally there would be the question, "Who are you?" to which the senti- nel would reply in sepulchral tones, "A spirit from the other world. I was killed at Chickamauga." Such encounters, and the weird noises of the meetings, spread awe and terror among the superstitious negroes and "even the most highly cultured were not able wholly to resist the weird and peculiar feeling which pervaded every community where the Ku Klux appeared." Hence, by the beginning of 1867, "the Klan was virtually, though not yet pro- fessedly, a band of regulators, honestly, but in an injudicious and dangerous way, trying to protect property and preserve peace and order." The two classes toward which their efforts were directed were those whites known as "scallawags," who had played false during the war, professed to be Union men afterward, and were contributing more to discord than peace, and the negroes, who were manifesting their appreciation of freedom by disorder, insolence, and thievery. The negroes already had an organization known as the Loyal League (q. v.), guilty of "disorderly and un- provoked deeds of deviltry," under the guidance of the white ele- ment referred to. In some quarters the Ku Klux began to use ob- jectionable methods. In May, 1867, just after the Reconstruction act had been passed, there was a general convention of the order at Nashville, called by the grand cyclops of the Pulaski den, which adopted a thorough plan of reorganization. The region covered was known as the Invisible Empire; the States were realms, and congressional districts dominions, the counties provinces, and, to each of these, officers were assigned-The Grand Wizard of the Invisible Empire and his staff of ten Genii, with autocratic pow- ers ; the Grand Dragon of the Realm and his eight Hydras; the Grand Titan of the Dominion and his six Furies, the grand Giant of the province and his four Goblins; and the Grand Cyclops of the Den, and his two Night Hawks. "The body politic shall be known and designated as Ghouls." The grand councils of Yahoos
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and Centaurs were tribunals. The flag was a yellow triangle, with a red scalloped border, carrying a black dragon and the motto, "Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus." Candidates for membership were to be asked if they were members of the Radical Republican party, the Loyal League or the Grand Army of the Republic or the Federal Army; if they were "opposed to negro equality, both social and political ;" if they were in favor of a white man's government, constitutional liberty and a government of equitable laws instead of a government of violence and oppression ; of maintaining the constitutional rights of the South; of the resti- tution of the white men of the South to all their rights, and the inalienable right of self-preservation of the people against the ex- ercise of arbitrary and unlicensed power.
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest became the Grand Wizard. Gen. John B. Gordon, of Atlanta, was another very important member, and Gen. Albert Pike was the chief judicial officer. General For- rest, testifying before a congressional committee, estimated that the order had in the entire South 550,000 members, but afterward declared he meant the statement to embrace all similar organiza- tions. "The Ku Klux Klan extended from Virginia to Mississippi through the white country section-the piedmont and mountain region. It seldom extended into the black belt, though it was founded on its borders. There, a similar order-the Knights of the White Camelia-held sway." The latter order was more par- ticularly devoted to defense of white women from insult and pun- ishment of such offenses, though this was an important part of all the secret organizations. The worst conditions existed between the two races where the white population was greatest, compara- tively, the lower class of whites being partly at fault. "The im- portant work of the Klan was accomplished in regaining for the whites control over the social order and in putting them in a fair way to regain political control. In some States this occurred sooner than in others. When the order accomplished its work it passed away. It was formally disbanded before the evil results of carpet bag governments could be seen. When it went out of existence in 1869, there had been few outrages, but its name and prestige lived after it and served to hide the evil deeds of all sorts and conditions of outlaws. But these could be crushed by the government, State or Federal. In a wider and truer sense the phrase 'Ku Klux Movement' means the attitude of Southern whites toward the various measures of Reconstruction lasting from 1865 until 1876, and, in some respects, almost to the present day."
"The very class which the Klan proposed to hold in check and awe into good behavior soon became wholly unmanagable. Those who had formerly committed depredations to be laid to the charage of the negroes, after a brief interval of good behavior, assumed the guise of the Ku Klux and returned to their old ways, but with less boldness and more caution. In some cases the negroes played Ku Klux. Outrages were committed by masked men in
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regions far remote from any Ku Klux region." The Klan was formally disbanded by order of Gen. Forrest, as Grand Wizard, in March, 1869. Some of the dens had already disbanded, others continued independently until 1876. ("Ku Klux Klan," by Lester & Wilson, Nashville, with introduction by Walter L. Fleming, 1905).
In Mississippi the beginning of the Ku Klux is associated by tradition with Gen. Forrest's railroad-building operations in the eastern part of the State. In 1868 the negroes were terrorized and prevented from voting for the new constitution by the Ku Klux methods. Warnings were given out, of which the following, nailed on the door of a Freedman's bureau agent in Rankin county, is a mild sample. It was headed "K. K. K," dated "Dismal Swamp, 11th month," and read: "Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin. The bloody dagger is drawn; the trying hour is at hand, beware! Your steps are marked ; the eye of the dark chief is upon you. First he warns; then the avenging dagger flashes in the moonlight. By order of the Grand Cyclops, Lixto." (Garner, Reconstruction, p. 340.)
Gen. Alcorn, as a candidate for governor, promised in a pub- lished letter, that 'Society should no longer be governed by the pistol and bowie knife," and in accordance with his recommenda- tions the legislature of 1870 passed an act to make unlawful the wearing of masks and disguises, and prescribing heavy penalties for entering houses and committing assaults in disguise.
There was also a prevailing lawlessness regarding property, especially among the negroes, that made it almost impossible for farmers to get any profit from raising hogs or poultry. Under the head of Kukluxing there were many cases of summary punish- ment of negroes accused of such depredation. But the cases which attracted most attention were those in which the subjects of Kuk- luxing were men, and sometimes women, who were school-teachers generally those who who taught negro schools.
Superintendent Pease reported the following: Choctaw county -two churches and two school houses burned. School Director Lewis' life threatened, causing his resignation. Chickasaw county -two teachers of negro schools "terribly whipped;" three school houses built by colored people burned. Lowndes county-several teachers, white and Southern, visited by Kuklux; one Northern teacher compelled to leave, three colored schools compelled to close; Southern Congregational preacher ordered to cease preach- ing and teaching negroes until "election was over." The cause of these demonstrations is found in the tendency of the white teachers from the North to associate with negroes on terms of social equality, which struck a blow at the domestic and family institutions of the people.
In his message of January, 1871, Governor Alcorn said, "By public proclamation, I have offered rewards, varying from $500 to $5,000 for such information as shall lead to the conviction of parties concerned in the midnight bands that have prowled recently through a certain district to the intimidation and outrage of good
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citizens of the State." He asked authority to offer rewards as high as $25,000, and suggested throwing the expense upon those counties in which the Ku Klux Klan appeared. He had also taken measures to organize the militia in the counties afflicted. In May he reiterated his requests. Yet he was quoted in April, by the New York Democrat, as saying: "I have no doubt that there is such a thing as Kukluxism in the Southern States, but there is none in Mississippi unless the bands of desperadoes along the Alabama line can be called Kuklux." (See Meridian Riot.)
The year 1871 was the culmination of the movement. President Grant called for the action of congress, in March, and April 20 the Enforcement act was passed, which extended the jurisdiction of the United States courts to cases of Kukluxing. In November of the same year a sub-committee of congress visited Macon and Columbus, taking testimony regarding the subject, which was printed in two volumes of 1,200 pages. The committee took evi- dence regarding about fifty cases of killing and a large number of whippings and warnings, and various forms of intimidation, by masked bands. Wells, the United States attorney for the north- ern district, began prosecutions under the Enforcement act in May, and said in November that he had between two and three hundred persons under indictment. On Tuesday, June 28, 1871, the first important trial in the United States under the KuKlux act began at Oxford before Hon. R. A. Hill, United States district judge. The case was entitled Ex parte Walton et al., and was a proceeding by writ of habeas corpus upon application of 28 per- sons charged with the killing of a negro in Monroe county on the night of March 29. Forty odd witnesses were examined, their testimony covering 61 pages of the printed record. Able counsel were employed on both sides, and rarely has a criminal trial in Mississippi been conducted with more ability. The trial lasted eight days and was attended with great interest and excitement. A company of United States infantry and one of cavalry were on hand to maintain order." (Garner's Reconstruction.) The argu- ment went into the constitutionality of the Ku Klux act which the court sustained. The accused were bound over to the next term of court, six under bonds of $5,000 each, and sixteen on their own recognizance in a small sum. On their arrival at Aberdeen they were greeted with popular applause and the firing of cannon. At the next term they pleaded guilty, but the sentence was not executed. The first trial in the southern district was at Jackson, in February, 1872, of L. D. Belk, a participant in the Meridian affair. District Attorney Wells, in April, 1872, reported 490 persons in- dicted, of whom 172 had been arrested and bound over, 28 had pleaded guilty and 14 had turned State's evidence. In 1872 there were 262 convictions ; in the following ycar there were 184 convic- tions, and 171 cases were pending July 1, 1874. District Attorney Jacobson, of the Southern district, reported in February, 1872, 152 cases under indictment, mainly for invasion of the right of free specch ; 12 persons had confesscd, but there had been no convic-
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tions. Arrests were made by United States marshals, often accompanied by bodies of United States troops. There was much complaint of oppression under the guise of these prosecutions. L. Q. C. Lamar wrote to a friend in Georgia, "We are grievously persecuted under the Ku Klux law."
The Klan seems to have been more active in Union, Tippah, Leake, Lee, Pontotoc, Prentiss, Alcorn, Tishomingo, Itawamba, Monroe, Lowndes, Noxubee, Oktibbeha, Choctaw, Winston and Kemper. Other testimony indicated that the disturbances in Lowndes and Noxubee were largely attributable to the invasions of Alabamians. Gen. Forrest, himself, before the congressional committee, gave very little information. Hampton L. Jarnagin, of Noxubee county, thought all the disguised men were from Alabama, that they had no hostility to the negroes, and he could think of no explanation "unless it is just a kind of rest- less, unhappy disposition." (See Order of '76.) Col. Charles Baskerville, of the same county, had never suspected anybody of being a Ku Klux, and thought some of the stories orig- inated in mere pranks to have some fun with the negroes. His plantations were rented to negroes, he had left his wife at the country home with no protection but the negroes. "I be- lieve that a great many wrongs are perpetrated under the name of Ku Klux by various parties who are merely carrying out their malicious purposes." Kemper county was noted over the United States by the bloody incidents of a feud centering about W. W. Chisolm, a Confederate soldier and conscript officer who had joined the Republican party and was county sheriff. It had its historical monuments in two books: "The Chisolm Massa- cre," by J. M. Wells, an ex-Union soldier, describing the killing of Chisolm and his daughter and son in 1877, and "Kemper County Vindicated," by James D. Lynch. In the light of recent research the origin of the Klan was due to negro suffrage, and was a pro- test against the effort to fix black supremacy over white people.
Kyle, John Curtis, of Sardis, Miss., was born July 17, 1851. He was educated at Bethel college and Cumberland university, gradu- ating in law in 1874. He began his practice at Sardis and was elected mayor in the town of 1879. He was elected to the State senate in 1881, and was appointed a member of the railroad com- mission in 1886. He was chairman of the State Democratic ex- ecutive committee, and in 1890 was elected to the 52d congress, serving till 1897.
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