favorable 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 elicite