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Last fortnight the arraignment in Detroit of twelve "Wolverine Republican Club" members for the murder of a young Catholic WPA worker (TIME, June i) gave the U. S. its first word of a nebulous, black-cloaked, Klan-like organization called the Black Legion. Following a slim lead the Press and police last week splattered over U. S. newspapers an incredible blood-&-thunder story which had liberals sincerely worried, psychologists intensely interested, the average citizen bewildered.

First Black Legionary of note to be arrested after the twelve "Republicans" was balloon-eared, tight-lipped Ray Ernest, Jackson State Prison guard, reputedly a "brigadier general." With four others he was accused of lashing another WPA worker, of fatally flogging a fellow prison guard who had tried to withdraw from the Legion. While newspapers painted the complicated ritual in which a Legion neophyte was asked whether he believed in a Supreme Being, could ride, shoot, drink and lie, police announced that they had raided Ernest's Jackson home, found a metal-studded whip. Mrs. Ernest, claiming to have played Little Eva in a presentation of Uncle Tom's Cabin, said the whip was merely a stage prop. "What were you trying to do," asked a wry policeman, ''kill Uncle Tom?"

Also found in Ernest's home was correspondence to Virgil Harry Effinger of Lima, Ohio. The, newshawks found, is a ponderous, big-nosed salesman with a foghorn voice who quotes extensively from the Bible, addresses everyone as "Brother." Seated in his basement office, which contains a plaster statuet of a hooded klansman and framed pictures of Paul Revere and George Washington, Effinger neither admitted nor denied that he was the Legion's commander-in-chief. The 6,000,000 members, he stoutly asserted, did not believe in violence, worked solely for the furtherance of "Americanism."

Another Detroit clue pointed to Bellaire, Ohio's $25-a-month Health Commissioner, squint-eyed Dr. William Jacob ("Dr. Billy'') Shepard as commander-in-chief. To citizens there "Dr. Billy" was a "harmless old coot." incurably hipped on the preservation of Southern chivalry. Eleven years ago he appeared at a Ku Klux Klan meeting dressed in black, attended by "Black Guards," stirred up Klan resentment. He withdrew with his Black Guards, who apparently burgeoned, without his assistance, into the Legion. Refusing to define his position, "Dr. Billy" said: "You have to have mystery in a fraternal thing to keep it alive; the folks eat it up."

Michigan and other states investigating the Legion found its odor distinctly unpleasant. Outraged Pontiac. Mich, citizens, hearing that many of their city officials were connected with Legion activities, began an inquiry of their own. The appearance of Wayne County Prosecutor Duncan C. McCrea's name on a Legion membership blank caused a fine furor in Detroit. To Washington went frantic wires from the Midwest begging the G-Men to step in. Introduced in the U. S. House and Senate was a joint resolution demanding a Congressional investigation.

On the trail for "big names'' behind this Catholic-hating, Negro-hating, Communist-hating group and other floggings and murders which could be pinned on it, newshawks discovered that there was a defunct women's division. "I'm the colonel and proud of it," disclosed a Mrs. Grace Lupp of Highland Park. "The auxiliary was organized two years ago, solely for political purposes. . . . We tried to keep it a clean organization, but we found it was very difficult. . . ." Willingly "Captain" Geraldine Nankervis explained the Legion's virtues: "It keeps our husbands out of beer gardens for one thing. Then, too, we know that when they're at their secret meetings they're not running around with other women."

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