Otherwise the conflict, however violent, appealed mainly to the sense of speed.
So, in The Birth of a Nation, which could better be called The Overthrow of Negro Rule, the Ku Klux Klan dashes down the road as powerfully as Niagara pours over the cliff.

Finally the white girl Elsie Stoneman (impersonated by Lillian Gish) is rescued by the Ku Klux Klan from the mulatto politician, Silas Lynch (impersonated by George Seigmann).

The lady is brought forward as a typical helpless white maiden.

The white leader, Col.

Ben Cameron (impersonated by Henry B.Walthall), enters not as an individual, but as representing the whole Anglo-Saxon Niagara.