Protectors of Womanhood

One night last week, in the little east Georgia town of Swainsboro, 189 hooded and bed-sheeted Ku Klux Klansmen burned a ten-foot cross on the lawn of the Emanuel County Courthouse. Their leader klarioned: "We rededicate our lives to the protection of white womanhood."

Two hundred and forty miles northwest, in the town of Lakeview, other Klansmen demonstrated how such an organized mob can be directed to the ends of personal and local vengeance. Lakeview High School's athletic coach, Walter Bowland, a 200-lb. exmarine, had had a fight with an ex-student. Both the coach and John Burks, the school's principal, were at outs with the Klan.

One night, when Bowland was away, 18 hooded Klan bullies set up a fiery cross in front of his house. Bowland's pretty wife, Bertha, who is pregnant, came out, kicked the burning brand over, and shouted at the gang: "Get out, you yellow cowards!" Ten days later Bowland came home after a basketball game and found his wife crouched behind a hedge, a shotgun at the ready, while another gang--unhooded this time--milled about the house.

Bowland called on Sheriff Jim Moreland of Catoosa County. The sheriff stroked his chin and said: "I'm just as scared of the Ku Klux Klan as you are." He advised Bowland to conduct himself in a manner more pleasing to the Klan.

That decided Bowland. He collected three shotguns, an automatic rifle and two pistols. He might get shot, he said, but if they came into his yard again, he was going to account for a couple of Klansmen first.

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