Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/117



ITHIN two weeks Steve Hoyle's new Klan was organised and in absolute control of the Piedmont Congressional District.

John Graham saw that his defeat was a certainty and gave up the political fight in disgust. But he determined to prevent at all hazards the degradation of the Klan into an engine of personal vengeance and criminal folly. There was but one way to do it. He dreaded the undertaking, yet there was no help for it. He must again fight the devil with fire. The reign of terror inaugurated by the Black Union League had made necessary the Ku Klux Klan. There must be a power to hold in check Steve's irresponsible gang.

He immediately organised in each county a vigilance committee composed of the bravest and most reliable members of the old Klan who had refused to follow Steve. Over these men he sought to exercise only a moral influence as their former Commander-in-chief, save in his own county where his word was accepted as law by