Hoodwink in Alabama

Many an Alabama newsman and politician was startled at the vote-getting power of Attorney General John Patterson, 36, running for Governor in the primary three weeks ago. His 34,000 plurality in a field of 14, segregationists all. made him odds-on favorite to win the June 3 runoff for Democratic nomination, which means election. Last week one powerful reason came to light: Patterson is the candidate of the Ku Klux Klan. now making its boldest bid for public power and approval since the corn-pone days of the '20s.

The Montgomery Advertiser, tracing ties between the K.K.K. and Patterson campaigners, turned up a form letter which was a signal to Klansmen to back him for Governor. On his official Attorney General stationery, Candidate Patterson wrote to the K.K.K. hate-sheet mailing list quoting "A mutual friend, Mr. R. N. (Bob) Shelton." To anybody on the list, that was enough, for, as every Kluxer knows, Tuscaloosa Rubberworker Shelton is the Grand Dragon.

Questioned about the letter. Patterson denied, then last week admitted that he had met Shelton "a number of times during the campaign." Later Patterson said publicly that he "would appreciate" the Klan vote, refused even to condemn Klan-style synagogue bombings. Thus the state's chief law-enforcement officer stood up with the violence-preaching organization that recently castrated a convenient Negro as part of an initiation ritual.

Ripping off Patterson's sheet should help the cause of his opponent, George Wallace, stormy 39-year-old circuit judge who only threatens to toss FBI agents into the jug if they come in his district investigating civil rights cases. But rare was the Southerner who did not shiver at the new high stakes in next week's runoff. "The election of John Patterson will be interpreted by the Klan as a major victory," warned Greensboro Watchman Editor Hamner Cobbs, Antiviolence White Citizens' Councilman. "In that event, for the next four years the escutcheon of Alabama will proclaim the bedsheet and the burning cross."

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