This Way Out

Georgia's Grand Dragon Samuel Green, the demagogic Atlanta physician, had branched out and set up a Klavern of 25 or 30 members in the growing cotton town of Thomson (pop. 5,000), Ga. Last week an ad, signed by 104 residents of Thomson (including most of the members of the city council and the chief of police), appeared in the town's weekly newspaper, the McDuffie Progress. What Thomson's leading citizens had to say was that their Ku Klux neighbors had better put away their bed sheets.

"The original Ku Klux Klan of Reconstruction days," the ad said, "was an organization of heroes [which] served to protect life and property at a time when there was a complete breakdown of decent government. That condition does not now exist ... In our opinion, we do not need an organization which operates in concealment and ... is destructive to our democratic way of life.

"We disagree with the Klan in method. We believe their method is too much like the old adage of 'burning down the house to get rid of the rats'. . . We regret deeply that some of our fellow citizens, our friends and neighbors, have seen fit to organize a Ku Klux Klan in Thomson ... it is our earnest hope that these our friends will soon come to see the Klan idea for what we honestly believe it to be, a dangerous mistake . . ."

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