National Affairs: Old Head Up?

The hooded head of the Ku Klux Klan was raised in Alabama last week as the State held its Democratic run-off primaries, tantamount to election. Bibb Graves, onetime (1927-31) Governor, became the first man in 33 years to succeed to that office a second time. Defeated by 20,000 votes, Major Frank M. Dixon, Birmingham lawyer, loudly cried that Graves’s victory was a triumph for the long dormant Klan. Not only did Bibb Graves deny the accusation, but the Grand Dragon of the State assured one & all that only six of his Klaverns are now active, none for Graves.

Race feeling ran sufficiently high in one judicial district to defeat Judge James E. Horton for renomination. Last year Judge Horton gained nation-wide fame by setting aside on grounds of insufficient evidence the death verdict rendered in his court against Negro Heywood Patterson, one of the “Scottsboro Boys.”