President Harding was popularly known as "the Force bill." Under congressional passage it was entitled "An act to enforce the Fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States and for other purposes." President Grant approved it April 20, 1871.

It is aimed at two or more persons who conspire to use force and intimidation "outside the law." It forbids them to go in disguise along a public highway or upon the premises of another person for the purpose, either directly or indirectly, of depriving that person of equal privileges under the law. Punishment for the offense may be imprisonment from six months to six years, a fine not less than $500, nor more than $5,000, or both.

The act took particular action against the practice of the Klanists of protecting each other in court. It provides that every man called for service on a jury in a Klan case shall take oath in open court that he is not a member of nor has ever aided or advised any such "unlawful, combination or conspiracy."

DISGUISE IS BARRED

That individual was declared a violator of the law who shall "go in disguise upon the public highway or upon the premises of another for the purpose, either directly or indirectly, of depriving any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges or immunities under the laws, or by force, intimidation or threat to prevent any citizen lawfully entitled to vote from giving his support or advocacy in a lawful manner toward the election of any lawfully qualified person for office."

The act states further: "That in all cases where insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combinations or conspiracies in any state shall so obstruct or hinder the execution of the laws thereof, and of the United States, as to deprive any portion or class of the people of any rights, privileges or immunities or protection, and the constituted authorities of such state shall either be unable to protect, or shall fail in or refuse protection, it shall be unlawful for the president, and it shall be his duty, to take such measures by the employment of the militia or the land and naval forces of the United States for the suppression of such insurrection."

"KU-KLUX" FILLS RECORDS

Pages of the Congressional Globe, as the present Congressional Record was then called, were filled during the months before the passage of this act with the word "Ku-Klux."

The verb "Kukluxed" became in the mouths of senators and representatives arguing over the bill a synonym for "intimidated." Friends of the nightriders termed them "modern knights of the Round Table," and "conservators of law and order." Opponents on the floor of the house advocated a policy of "amnesty for every rebel, hanging for every Ku-Klux."

Black and white victims of the gun-toting ghosts were brought from Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and other states where the Klan rode to recount before the congressional committee the details of their persecutions. Their accounts as the government documents preserve them might well have been a primer, it has been said, for the acts of later Lenines and Trotzkys.

REPORT OF OFFENSES VARIES

The report of the congressional committee is a recital varying from mirth to murder. In one county the victim of the hooded Klan might be an itinerant minister who had offended by teaching a negro mammy to pray. Next door a Ku-Klux sign, with a coffin painted in blood, might be hung over the dead body of a "bad" negro whose freedom had made him officious.

One negro was whipped for stealing a beef. Another was tarred and feathered because his daughter ran away from the white man who had employed her.

Colored cooks were beaten for talking saucily to their southern mistresses. Northern white women were threatened for hiring colored cooks.

IGNORES NOTE, DIES

When a negro ignored a note carrying the Ku-Klux skull and cross bones and voted "republican" instead of "conservative," his body, ornamented with skull and bones in blood, might be found the next morning in the middle of the road—lifeless.

The congressional minutes report a bold, public display of the Klan's official orders. They might appear in a whisk of the wind on the post office window. They might be pinned on a tree or pole or building. On one occasion, when a member of the Klan was on trial in a county court, a band of white masquers, riding through the courtyard on horse, dropped a note addressed to the court, grand jury and sheriff.

"Go slow," it commanded. At the bottom was a drawing of a coffin and on each side a rope. The signature was "K.K.K."

Ku-Klux rule in the south half a century ago was an attempt to govern by masque.

Secret covenants arrived at by a sheeted brotherhood, veiled signs, orders written in blood and posted at midnight on the victim's door—by such means did the Klan substitute the masque for the ballot.

Congressional investigating committees who stripped the night-riding organization of secrecy during the administration of President Grant, were entertained during a session of congress by tales of lares and lemures howling at night in fields or on crossroads, bad luck omens for the negroes.

UNDER MARTIAL LAW

In organization the Klan was military, and its town, county and state rule, as recorded in the Congressional Globe, operated as under martial law.

As the revolt of the white southerner to colored and northern domination reared itself into giant-size, towns under Klan domination came to take their rule and law from the K.K.K. note, flapping in the wind on a tree or fencepost, with the coffin on its signature, urging that it be obeyed.

WARN CARPET BAGGERS

In South Carolina, according to the report of the federal committee, townsfolk journeyed to the postoffice, not to get their mail, but to read the daily Ku-Klux bulletin. One such, reprinted in the ten-volume report of the committee which examined southern outrages, was a warning against further "carpet bagger" administration. It is as follows:

THREATEN NEGROES FOR FIRES

Another "special order," this one warning that the colored race in general would be punished for all malicious fires in particular, was made public in the Charleston News, Jan. 31, 1871.

Headquarters, K.K.K.
January 22, 1871.

Resolved: That in all cases of incendiarism, ten of the leading colored people and two white sympathizers shall be executed.

That if any armed bands of colored people are found hereafter picketing the roads, the officers of the company to which the pickets belong shall be executed.

Southern speakers on the floor of the house in the debates which preceded the passage of the "act to enforce the fourteenth amendment," traced the origin of the Ku-Klux to the Union league, an association in the south composed chiefly of northerners. Charges were also made by statesmen once in the