KU KLUX KLAN

Evening Star, Issue 18158, 26 December 1922, Page 6

KU KLUX KLAN

THE MISSING MEN. SENSATIONAL DENOUEMENT. DEAD BODIES DISCOVERED, Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright, NEW YORK, December 22. At Morrougo (Louisiana) the bodies of Walt Daniels and Thomas Richards, the two men who were believed to have been kidnapped, were found at the bottom of a lake. Pieces were fastened to their feet, indicating that tho bodies were weighted. The discovery of the bodies was made under amazingly sensational circumstances. Convinced that the bodies lay at the bottom of Lake Lafourche, detachments of troops and divers encamped on Thursday night preparatory to dragging the lake. During the night they were startled by a terrific explosion. Simultaneously other troops twenty miles away at the other end of the lake saw mysterious flares on tho water, revealing a number of hooded men wading in a swamp. The troops opened fire, whereon the men vanished. Tho next morning the two decomposed bodies were found floating. Tho theory is that the murderers. fearful of the discovery of their victims, shot tho flares in order to attract tho soldiers’ attention and then exploded dynamite in the hope of burying the bodies in the mud.

With troops _ pouring into the neighborhood tho inhabitants became panicstricken by their fear of the Ku Klux Klan. Mr J. L. Daniels, father of one of tho dead men, was so terrified that he refused to identify his son’s body. While the residents were inflamed against the Ku Klux Klan, they were afraid to aid the_ troops on account of the threats that their closest friends might be Klansmon.

Governor Parker, who recently conferred with President Harding regarding the Ku Klux Klan menace, is determined to get to the bottom of the crime and to drive out the Ku Klnx Klan. He has announced his intention to send sufficient troops to ensure justice being done. —A. and N.Z. Cable. AN ARREST MADE. NEW YORK, December 2S. A message from Merrouge states that the first arrest was made to-day as a result of tho Ku Klux Klan murders. The man apprehended has been charged with murder and will appear before the Federal Court. Secret service men worked for months before they secured enough evidence to start proceedings openly. Troops continue to pour into the territory, and now number nearly 1,000. The scenes which occurred after the civil war when the Ku Klux Klan operations assumed Die proportion of a national menace, are being repeated in the Southern States. —A. and N.Z. Cable.