Now, from my knowledge of that man I do not believe that he would deliberately violate the law. In fact, if I were sheriff of his county and wanted a real man to head a posse, I would call on this man and swear him in as a deputy. I doubt very much if he would even lead a mob of masked men to tear up a Greek restaurant, but the mob spirit was there, and it was put there because he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The old Ku Klux Klan performed its functions, not so much by overt acts, as by creating the impression of what it could do and by inspiring terror in the minds of the people it desired to reach. It operated largely on the principle of suggestion. It soon began to appear to me that the modern movement began to plant evil suggestions in the minds of some of its members, almost from the time they became connected with the organization. From the very first time that a Ku Klux organizer set foot in town, the _Johnson City Staff_ had fearlessly and vigorously condemned the movement and advised its readers to have nothing to do with it. As the movement began to grow, many of the leading business men became Klansmen. They were nearly all advertisers in the local paper. The attacks on the Klan by the _Staff_ were the subjects of many discussions, and it was decided to "put a muzzle on the paper." Accordingly many advertisers quietly suggested to the publisher of the paper that he "lay off" the Ku Klux Klan. Whether this advice was accompanied by threats or by the actual withdrawal of business, I do not know, but I do know that the _Staff_ suddenly "pulled in its horns" and remained muzzled up to the time I left the territory. This incident is cited to show the power of this ultra-secret system in effectively paralyzing the freedom of the press, and what has doubtless happened in other towns and cities where Ku Kluxism has thoroughly inoculated communities with its deadly poison.