"This is an exact copy of the original Prescript printed in the office of the Pulaski (Tennessee) Citizen, L. W. McCord, proprietor, in 1868. I was a printer boy, and with John H. Kirk, the father of the Rev. Harry Kirk, recently of Nashville, set the type. My brother, L. W. McCord, received a communication one day, delivered to him by means of a hole in the wall near the door, in which the Ku Klux deposited all their communications for the paper, asking for an estimate for printing this pamphlet, describing it. He delivered his reply in the same hole, and the following morning the copy in full, the money, and minute directions as to the disposition of the books when completed, were in the hole. We did it all under seal of secrecy and concealment, hid the galleys of type as they were set up, stitched them with our own hands in a back room over Shapard's store, and trimmed them with a shoe knife on the floor. When finished they were tied into a bundle and deposited late at night just outside the office door, whence they were immediately taken by unseen hands. I knew personally

all the originators of the Ku Klux Klan, and the history of its origin, its deeds, purposes and accomplishments.

"LAPS D. MCCORD." 1

It will be noticed on comparing the two Prescripts that there are some considerable differences between the two. The Revised and Amended Prescript is eight pages longer than the other; the name of the order is longer; the poetical selections that introduce the first are omitted from the second; the second has Latin quotations only at the top of the page; and the second Prescript throws much more light on the character and objects of the order; the register is changed, and important changes in the administration are provided for.

The imperfect Prescript printed in Appendix III was used in the Carolinas and was evidently written out from memory by some person who had belonged to the genuine Klan. The members were widely scattered and to many of them the entire contents of the Prescript were never known.

When the Klan was disbanded strict orders were issued that all documents

1 American Historical Magazine, Vol. 5, p. 4.

relating to the order should be destroyed and few Prescripts escaped. At present only one copy of the original copy is known to be in existence. That one was used by Ryland Randolph, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, formerly Grand Giant of a province of the order, and was given to me by him. It is a little brown pamphlet of sixteen pages, and is reprinted in Appendix I. Randolph stated that he never saw the Revised Prescript. There are two copies of the Revised and Amended Prescript, one in the library of the Southern Society of New York, which is now deposited with the Columbia University Library; the other belongs to Mr. J. L. Pearcy, formerly of Nashville, now of Washington, D. C. From the latter copy the late Dr. W. R. Garrett, of Nashville, had the plates made that are now used in reproducing the Revised and Amended Prescript in Appendix II.

The curious orders and warnings printed in Appendix IV had several purposes. They were meant to warn and frighten evil-doers, to mystify the public, and to give notice to members. Parts of the orders were written in cypher which could be interpreted by the initiated. The rest

was gloomy sounding nonsense calculated to alarm some obnoxious person or persons. The cypher used is found in the Register of the Prescript. All orders that I have seen were written according to the Register of the first Prescript. This may be accounted for by the fact that in 1868 it was generally forbidden by law or by military order to print or distribute notices from the Ku Klux Klan. About all that the cypher was used for, I have been told, was to fix dates, etc. There are thirty-one adjectives in the Register, one for each day of the month, the first twelve for the morning hours, the last twelve for the evening hours, and the seven in the middle for the days of the week. The last word-"Cumberland" is said to have been a general password. At first the orders were printed in the newspapers, and during the winter of 1867-1868 and the spring of 1868 many of them appeared. As to the significance of the orders printed in Appendix IV, Ryland Randolph wrote: "I well remember those notices you saw in The Monitor for they were concocted and posted by my own hand, disguised, of course." "You ask if any of the notices you saw in The Monitor had any

real meaning. Well, they had this much meaning: the very night of the day on which these notices made their appearances, three notably offensive negro men were dragged out of their beds, escorted to the old bone-yard (34 mile from Tuscaloosa) and thrashed in the regular ante-bellum style until their unnatural nigger pride had a tumble, and humbleness to the white man reigned supreme."

Some of the illustrations used are of historical interest. The cartoon opposite p. 192 is taken from the Independent Monitor of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a Ku Klux newspaper. The hanging carpetbagger was Rev. A. S. Lakin, of Ohio, a Northern Methodist missionary to the negroes, who had succeeded in getting himself elected President of the University of Alabama. The other hanging figure represents Dr. N. B. Cloud, the scalawag superintendent of public instruction who was assisting Lakin to get his position. They were both driven from Tuscaloosa by the Klan. The wood-cut from which this picture was printed was fashioned by Randolph himself in The Monitor office. The picture was eagerly welcomed by the Reconstruction