opposition to the ku klux klan in the early 1920s: the beginnings of disaffection in richmond,...

8/13/2019 Opposition to the Ku Klux Klan in the Early 1920s: The Beginnings of Disaffection in Richmond, Indiana

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Opposition to the Ku Klux Kan in the Early 1920's:The BeF i nnings of r isaffection in Richmond, Indiana

To Americans of the latter-twentieth century, ideas of cultural pluralismand minority r ights are familiar and, generally1 accepted. In such an atmos-phere the Ku Klux Klan constitutes but a minor irruption of the u l t r a - c o n ~ e r vative fringe. Many acknowledge the past power of the Invisible Empire, butunderstand this as no more than an aberration. The group receives scant a ttention today. Ignore i t and maybe i t will go away apparently dominates

~ e n t sentiment among Americans, white and black.Yet as Richmond, Indiana, attorney George Sawyer declared, Of course the

power of the Klan diminished. But yet the Klan i s s t i l l here. I t is with us.• , • Not long ago, af ter the civil r ights m o v e m e n t ~ over, af ter Martin

lu ther King, Jr . ~ been kil led, af ter things are supposed to be • • • onan even keel, the •Black Robes,' the execution arm of the Klan, had ameeting- right down in Libertyeome fourteen miles south of Richmond and longa center of Klan act ivi t i ] That was 1976 - fiey have these r i tua lsi s t ic m t i n ~ t o stay sharp, and when i t comes time to get r id of somebody,they get rid of them s t i l l . . Sawyer's undisclosed sources reported thatmembership in Wayne County total led 2.56 Klansmen las t year.

More important than the continuing, attenuated existence of this groupis the underlying mentality which nurtures intolerance. This mentality fosters the growth of movements generally described as the radical r ight . 2Examples of contemporary significance can be found in the ant i - l ibertar ianappeals of segregationist George Wallace, governor of Alabama and former in -dependent presidential candidate, Anita Bryant, .who directs a powerful move-ment to deny civil r ights to homosexuals, or the bit ter ly anti-communist, a n ~t i l iberal John Birch Society.

In some respects, the twentieth-century Klan proves an important fore-runner of many subsequent movements in terms of ideology rather than spe-


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cif ic tactics or organization. Preying on common fears and antagonisms, theInvisible Empire perfected an ideology of hate admirable only for i t s thoroughinclusiveness. ' The Klan • • • almost ran the gamut of modern bigotry. 113 I'ur-ing the 1920 's,. actual membership may have reached four to five million, butmany sympathizers undoubtedly gave i t even greater s±rength. I t became a ma-jor polit ical power in several states: Alabama, California, Colorado, Geor-gia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Wisconsinand others. Unquestionably however, the Invisible Empire achieved i t s great-est polit ical success in Indiana, virtual ly controlling the dominant Republi-can party for several years.

Yet by the close of the decade, Klan strength had dropped precipitously.Although returning briefly to prominence during the civi l r ights era, in theNorth i t regained neither the influence nor the infamy achieved quring the' twenties. What accounted for this burgeoning growth and equally sudden de-cline? Was the Klan leadership responsible? Did the newspapers destroy i tho.v .Could the Klan's very activitiesJ'.promoted the collapse? Why did i t s appealsprove so beguiling in this era? What type of person comprised i t s rank and

After a brief consideration of the original, or Reconstruction, Klan and,iil6re :t:u:l.lY• ':.the : KJQ{ revival and growth during the twentieth century, th is inquiry will concentrate on the act ivi t ies of the KKK in · and aroWld Richmond.Emphasis will be placed on the ini t ia l period of th Klan's presence, from1922 to 1924, the time of ts greatest successes, which also clearly exposedthose factors, internal and external, which would prove i t s doom.

The Ku Klux Klan originally was foWlded as a fraternal organization bysix ex-Confederate officers in the small central Tennessee town of Pulaski,during December, 1865. The foWlders chose the name Ku IG.ux, a corruption of. 4

kyklos, Greek f.or circle, or cycle. They also devised elaborate r i tuals


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and ghostlike o ~ t u m e s for the organization. Originally intended to be str ic t -ly fraternal, the club soon focused on the problem of maintaining traditionalSouthern society> and Southern white ascendancy, in the face of Northern car-

etba.ggers and Southern scalawags.The men sought to prevent blacks from attaining poli t ical or social equal-

i ty . The 1G ansmen found that their mystic rituals and regalia had a te:ITify-ing effect on blacks, especially late a t night. The group's main funtion be-came intimidation, and t developed into a clandestine vigilante force. I tdrove out Northern schoolteachers and Yankee storekeepers and politicians,and 'took care of' Negroes who gained land and prospered, or ma de inflammat-

ory speeches or talked about equal rights..The organization spread quickly throughout the South with the ini t iat ion

of radical Reconstruction by Republicans in Congress during 1867. But the lackof central control prompted a meeting of local Klans in April of that year inNashville, which created a constitution and national leadership. The organ-ization divided the South into realms, based on state boundaries, composedof local sections called dens. The Klan created a s t r ic t hierarchy of officers,including Grand Dragons, Titans, Giants and Cyclopses. Ex-Confederate GeneralNathan Bedford Forrest was elected as the f i rs t Grand Wizard of the Ku KluxKlan. 7

For the next decade the Klan rode throughout the South enforcing i t s brandof justice. other organizations such as the Knights of the White Camellaalso advocated white supremacy, but none were as brutal and undisciplined asthe Klan. Many states organized anti-Klan militias, and Grand Wizard Forrestgrew increasingly troubled by the excesses performed in the group's name. In' 8January, 1869, Forrest ordered the Klan disbanded and i t s records burned.

By 1877 President Rutherford B. Hayes withdi:ew the las t forces of militaryoccupation from the South, and Reconstruction official ly ended. Although local Klan activities had contlliued after the organization's official dissolution,


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with the end of Reconstruction, the Klan seemed to have died a natural death.But many years la ter , on a cold Thanksgiving night in 1915, atop Stone

Mountain (near Atlanta, Georgia), Colonel William Joseph Simmons disinter-red the Ku Klux Klan. Simmons, formerly a Methodist preacher, was a sales-man and enthusiastic joiner of fraternal orders. His t i t le of colonel stem-med, not from service as a private in the Spanish-American War, but from hisrank in the Wocd:men of the World. He claimed to be a fraternalist by profession. 9

IIn reviving the body, Simmons realized an old ambition. He described an

earl ier vision, 'On horseback n their white robes they rode across the wallin front of me. As the picture faded out I got down on my knees and sworethat I would found a fraternal organization that would be a memorial to theKu Klux Klan. ' ..t O

The country had been well prepared for a return of the Klan. A decadeearl ier Thomas Dixon, Jr . had published an immensely successful novel,Clansman: An Historic Romance of the Ku Klux Klan. The enthusiastic reception moved Dixon to adapt. h ~ book for the stage. Several touring com-panies resulted. Some ten years la ter , Biograph s talented young directorD W 'Griffith proposed to make a film version of The Clansman. Griffithset out to create · a m s t e r p w ~ e and util ized a broad range of cinema.tic tech-niques. The result , The Birth of a Nation, was a monumental contributionto creative cinematography, and a sympathetic and drama.tic portrayal of theglory of the Reconstruction Klan. After i t s release in 1915, The Birth ofa Nation attracted large audiences and drew condemnation in much of the Northand enthusiastic affirmation throughout the South. Detractors of Colonel Simmonsiilsinuate . that this film was the source of Simmons' mystical visions.

That night a top Stone Mountair\ Simmons and fifteen other hardy soulsbraved the cold, and ' under a . blazing, fiery torch the Invisible Empire


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was ca.lleo from i ts slumber of ha)f a cer.tury to take up a new task and tocall back to mortal habitation the good angel of practical fraternity amongmen • .., Simmons' advertisement announcing the revival of the Klan, The World 'sGreatest Secret, Social, Patriotic, Fraternal, Beneficiary Order, a]HIGHCLASS ORDER FOR MEN OF INTELLIGENCE ND CHARACTER, not surprisingly coin-cided with the opening of The Birth of a Nation in Atlanta. Ini t ial ly inthetended to be s m l ~ to,._Elks , the }iasons and the Odd Fellows , the Klan drew

. . 12solid)middle class members, despite the crudeness of i t s early advertising.Based on tenets of 100 per-cent Americanism, Protestantism and white

supremacy, the Klan attracted several thousand members by 1919. In a fatefulmeeting in 1920, Simmons entered a contractual agreement with two publicistsand organizational profiteers, Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler. Thesetwo were destined to transform the small club into one of the most powerfuland feared secret organizations in the twentieth-century United States.13

Clarke and Tyler created the Southern Publicity Association. Previously,Clarke had run a .Harvest Home Festival in Atlanta, and Tyler a Better BabiesParade. Joining forces, the pair had handled drives for the Anti-SaloonLeague, the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Fund and Near East Relief. In theKu Klux Klan, Clarke and Tyler detected the sweet scent of potential profits.Under the terms of the agreement reached that June, Clarke and Tyler were toreceive eight of every ten-dollar membership fee they brought in .14

The pair developed an ideology, i f the antagonistic appeals to commonprejudices can be so graced with the term, which shifted the Klan from givinglip-service to traditional racial values of the white South, to a pyrotechnically agressive defense of 100 per-cent Americanism. 15 The organizationeml:arked upon a period of phenomenal growth,. and suddenly attracted the attentionof the press. Contemporary observers' forebodings heightened as the Klan resorted to night-riding and violence. Yet more ominously, as Robert L. Duffusobserved n a 1923 series of art icles in The World's Work, Th& candid observer


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must admit t hat some of the porti ons of our population which followedin Mr. Roosevelt's t rain in his great days, and which have contributed manya progressive measure to the national programme, have also proved susceptible,

16in certain pivotal Northern states, to the Klan's siren song of hate.ruffus attended a huge demonstration a t Val:pa.ra.iso, Indiana, n May

1922, which attracted some 10,000 to 20,000 Klansmen and may have been thef i r s t public appearance of the legions of the Invisible Empire sans masks.Here, he asserted:

A closer inspection afforded opportunity for making, or ratherfor confirming, certain generalizations. The rank and f i le of theKlan at Valparaiso were sharply divided into ci ty members and country members. The farmers·; who arrived n automobiles, usually withtheir families, would have seemed perfectly a t home eleven years agoin a Progressive party ral ly -- bronzed, homely, good-natured personswho might have been selected a t random from the farming populationsof Indiana, Ohio , I l l inois Kansas, or Nebraska. No group of men,seemingly, could be further from· the savagries of which the Ku JG.weKlan has been guil ty in Louisiana, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, andOklahoma, and i t was a l i t t l e diff icul t to believe that they weretaking seriously the mummery they had come to witness • A more s t r i king evidence of the Klan's abil i ty tp7be - - or seem - - a l l thingsto al l men could not have been found.The Klan, under the tutelage of Clarke and Tyler, varied i t s appeal to

sui t the particular characterist ics of each region. In the Southli t contin-ued to be pimarily anti-black, but also fought union organization in the steeland texti le industr)e5• In the North, blacks, Catholics, Jews and foreignersdominated the Klan's propaganda. On the Pacific Coast . i t capitalized on fearsof Japanese, Chinese and Hindu minorities, as well as the Industrial Workersof the World and other radical organizations. n the Southwest,. Mexicans andAmerican Indians proved importan1sources of Klan· antagonism. In rural areas,the Klan decried the seething degeneTii.cy of the ci t ies. In the ci t ies theInvisible Empire proposed to clean up the government. Everywhere the JG.anpromoted i t s interpretation of moral decency, courted the favorable opinionof Protestant denominations. with public donations by robed Klansmen, andcombatted radicalism, or unorthodoxy of any kind. To the Negro, Jew, Orienta


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Roman Catholic, and al ien, were added dope, bootlegging, graf t , night clubsand road houses, violation of the Sabbath, unfair business dealings, sex,marital g o i n g s ~ o n ; and scandalous behavior, as the proper concern of theone-hundred per-cent American. The Klan organizer was told to find out

18what was worrying a community ar.d to offer the Klan as a solution.By the summer of 1921, the Invisible Empire had drawn nearly one hun-

dred thousand new ci t izens. The high-pressure sales campaign offered finan-cial incentives to a l l . A new cut of the '°klectoken,' or in i t ia t ion fee, pro-vided that of the in i t ia l t n dollars, four went to the Kleagle, or recrui ter ,who enrolled the new member; one went to the King Kleagle, recrui t ing directorof the realm, or state; the Grand Goblin, or head of one of the larger salesdistr ic ts received f i f ty cents; two dollars and f i f ty cents constituted ImperialKleagle Clarke and Mrs. Tyler 's share; the remaining two dollars representedSimmons' cut. ·19

However, e d d ~ e s of discontent soon developed in the organization; eddiesbetraying a powerful undercurrent of factionalism and greed. St i l l theseseemed but minor lapses in the fraternal harmony within the Klan. A more ob-vious threat was posed by the growing host i l i ty in the press. In 1921, theKlan's recruiting act ivi t ies in Emporia. . Kansas, provoked that a.ble guardian ofthe nation's conscience, Emporia Gazette editor Wll1am Allen White

n organizer of the Ku Klux Klan was in Emporia the other day andthe men whom he invited to join his band a t ten dollars per join 1 turned him down •••• To make a case against a birthplace, a religion,or a r_ace, is wicked, un-American .and cowardly. The Ku Klux Klan isbased upon such deep foolishness that t is bound to be a menace togood government in any community•••• For a self-constitut:ed bodyof moral idiots who would substi tute the findings o the Ku Klux Klanfor the processes of law, to t ry to bet ter conditions, would be amost un-Arnerican outrage which every good cit izen should resent . • •••I t is to the everlasting credit of Emporia . that the organizer foundno suckers with 10 each to squander -here.20

Also in that year, the New York World launched a Puli tzer Prize-winning


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series exposing the act ivi t ies of the Ku Klux Klan. Syndicated throughoutthe nation, the crusade climaxed with an impressive tabulation of Klan vio-lence. Somewhat to their surprise, Klan leaders discovered, as the editorof the Imperial Knight Hawk, the KKK newspaper for the Southern jurisdiction,gloated, "The press of the country has, more than any one agency, increasedthe membership of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to what i t is today. Fromthe press the Klan has received gratis , and is s t i l l receiving daily, advertisement that is worth millions in cold cash. 121

The efforts of White and the World seemed but to fanthe flames of thefiery cross •. By: 1924; Emporia had a Ku Kl i.lx mayor, and in the primary elec-tions both Republicans and I'emocrats had nominated Klan-endorsed candidates.White, in disgust, announced his independent candidacy in the gubernatorialrace, as an alternative to the Klan. With some reluctance, le .eritered his · ·f i r s t · and only polit ical campaign with . the firm resolve to laugh the Klanout of Kansas. The Republican candidate, Ben Paulen, won the election, butWhite, al.m:>st singlehandedly, gained about 150,000 votes, approximately thesame number as the Democratic candid.ate .22

While this journalistic opposition proved beneficial to the Klan in theshort term, i t ultimately destroyed the power of the Invisible Empire. The po1ical, figures, federal, state and local, failed to become principal agents ofopposition to the order unti l events had created a tide of public outrage.The Klan's phenomenal growth and entry into local and state pol i t ics did notmake Klan membership necessary for electoral success, but did make outrightcondemnation polit ically inadvisable. The churches likewise do :.not deservecredit for informing the reaction to the Klan in the l t ter ' twenties. Many leaders of the Protestant denominations belonged to the KKK: Klan strategy in •any community sought the s i lent consent, i f not the direct approval, of the local


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Protestant clergy. Ca t holic, Jewish and othe r min or i ty group spokesmer onlyreached t he majority of Americans through thei r newspapers.

The newspapers became the public forums, pulpits and courts by which theInvisible m p i r ~ was tried. before the nation. However, i f the press representedthe m e a n ~ of i t s destrtiction, the Klan i t se l f proved the source of that de-struction. Journalists emphasized the contradictions within the order: betweeni t s professed i deals of patriotism, law and order and 1 r i s t i a n norali ty; andi t s violation of Constitutionally-guaranteed r ights to freedom of speech .and re l igion, . lawless polit ical manipulation and personal intimidation, and pa.tentmost basicdisregard for thef\.tenets of Christianity. Newspapers chronicled the variousnationwide act ivi t ies of the l G . a n l e a v i n g the readers to resolve the incon-sistencies between the sinister national intrigties of · th e ·hooded order,. · . .and the of imes ·benign functions of the local lG.avern.

Although the act ivi t ies of the Klan yielded suggestive evidence of thecontradictory nature of the order, due to i t s secrecy, the JG an could claimthat . any given incident represented the work of i t s opponents; t was a frame.Or, i f the deed could be traced to Klansmen, .Klan leaders could · deny that t .had official sanction. Another .common defense showed the guil ty person hadbeen previously banished from the Invisible . Empire. The most important

thesource of conclusive anti-Klan news w a s ~ e a d e r s h i p of the organization. Theseindividuals were of.ten ·highly visible, and seemed amazingly prone to publicscandals, and internal factional disputes, which publicized private scandals.

In late 1921, four of the top Northern regional sales managers decidedthat certain i rregulari t ies in the personal l ives of Clarke and Mrs. Tylerdemanded their removal from the JG.an. When Imperial Wizard Simmons failed toact, the dissat isfied Goblins informed the papers. The scandal seldom le f tthe front pages for the next month. Tyler l e f t the organization, but Clarkeremained. r issat isfact ion with Clarke and Simmons mounted again late the fol-lowing year, and a coup lead by Dallas dentist Hiram Wesley Evans, ousted the pa


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Among the handful of insurgents who ousted Simmons was ravid Curtis Ste-phenson, Grand Dragon of Indiana. Stephenson received control of twenty-twoNorthern states for his pa.rt in placing Evans in control of the Klan. Simmonsstruggled to regain control and ini t ia ted a sui t against Evans. The storyreached i t s ghastly climax when Evan's chief public-relations officer, PhilFox, shot and kil led Simmon's attorney, William S. Coburn. Not unti l Febru-ary, 1924, was a final settlement reached, and Simmons entered a bi t ter re t i re ment with a lump sum of $146,500 from the Evans-controlled Klan coffers. 24

Indiana's Grand Dragon Stephenson, meanwhile, ' had grown immensely power-ful in the state , Stephenson resigned as Grand Dragon late in 1923, to be re placed by Walter Bossert, soml time Republican Sixth District chairman of..Liberty, Yet in the campaign of 1 924 , Stephenson had assumed the dominantrole, Friction increased between Evans and Stephenson, culminating w1 th Ste-phenson's banishment by a Klan tribunal ln Evansville, Indiana, on June 23,Eighty per-cent of the Indiara Klahsmen ·broke ·and followed Stephenson. 25

The extent of Stephenson's power in Indiana justif ied his claim that "Iam the law " Yet by April of the following year Stephenson was t r ied and con-victed of second-degree murder in the abduction and sexual assault of MadgeOberholtzer. Sent to prison with a l i fe sentence, Stephenson expected to begranted a pardon by the Klan's governor Ed Jackson. Instead, he languishedn the state penitentiary in Michigan City. In July of 1927, Stephenson ful-f i l led his threat to te l l al l . Thus emerged the biggest and messiest IQanscandal of al l . The Richmond Palladium editor, Rudolph G. Leeds, declared,What the people of Indiana are interested in today i s the purging of their

State from the ·disgrace which attaches to i t . No1fnly should these \en bebrought to the b r of · justice w1 thout delay, but i f impeachment proceedings. 26can be brought against the Governor, that step should be ta.ken a t once."

Stephenson's revelations led to the removal of Gov. Jackson, Indianapolis'


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(11)Mayor John L. Duvall , the sheriff of Marion County and other officials .score of prominent e p u b l i c n s went to ja i l . 27 The scandal broke the back·of the Invisible F:mpire in Indiana. The Klan .boasted 500,000 members in1924. I t was estimated that there were fewer than 7,000 paid-up membersin the state on February 22, 1928, when, by decree of Imperial Wzard Hiram W. Evans, the Klan was unmasked and disbanded • • • • 28

The universal condemnation of the hooded o r d e r ~ f t e r the Stephensonscandals of 1925 and 1927 was hardly surprising. Of much greater importancewere tqe responses i t found during the early period of i t s greatest sue-cesses, from 1922 to 1924. Considering the dynamic of community and news- ·paper reactions in Richmond, Indiana, allows a ful ler understanding of theultimate fate of the Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan f i r s t entered the state late in 1920, crossing theOhio River to establish i t s f i rs t Klavern in the r iver town of Evansville. 29

rSpreading throughout the s tate, the ordensoon appeared in the Whitewater RiverIValley, in the east-central portion of Indiana, and i t proved especiallystrong in the rural areas and small towns l ike Liberty . Grant Spears, currently a y n ~ o w n s h i p trustee and a resident in the area since his birth in1904, recounted . ·the local · importance of the Invisible Empire, The Ku KluxKlan was not only present here, but they dominated the poli t ical structure.• • • Klan activit ies dornina ted the Republican party • JO

Republican opposition to the KKK remained minimal during the period; men,ordinarily unsympathetic_ o : i ts ,_appeals ' joined because of i t s importance as ·a source of loeal business trade and, especially, poli t ical success. Spearsrecalled: I was speaking to a man • • ·• in the .1940 's , who was a t thattime head of the Republican county committee. And he said .• • • , ' I had a shoe store up in Hagerstown, Indiana (JeffersonTownship), and I wanted to ge t into polit ics . ••• And I had tojoin them. And I said, Join what? He said, Well, the Ku KluxKlan. And I said, I didn t believe in i t when you joined i t ,but i f you were going to get any place in politi:31., you had tobe a member of the Klan.: That s the way t was.


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While Wayne _County Democrats condemned the 1.'1.an, this apparently yieldedl i t t le advantage. Traditionally Republican, the county evidenced no great conversion. to the r emocra t ic ranks. An exception to this generalization provesparticularly suggestive. In the 1922 Senatorial election, Democrat Samuel M.Ralston defeated the G.O.P. candidate, Albert J. Beveridge. · Ralston outdistanced his opponent even in such Republican strongholds as Wayne, Marion andPutnam counties.32 But in this instance, Beveridge had attacked the robed le -gion; Ralston remained quiet; and the Klan had supported the Democrat.

The response of the clergy can only be traced through the newspapers.Although no positive information was found, certain observations again seemsuggestive. No firm public condemnations of the Klan by the local clergywere noted in the pages examined. In three instances, robed Klansmen visitedProtestant churches; undoubtedly other instances could e found. On July 3,1922, the Palladium and Sun-Telegram reported that eight Klansmen had presented Rev. A.L. Stamper of the i rs t Christian Church with a donation of 100.On October 3, 1923, the Item described a visi t by thi r ty Klansmen to theSecond Presbyterian Church. They were dressed in ful l uniform and createdquite an impression ...33 Rev. George Mitchell received an envelope containingmoney which he said would be applied to the church treasury. A story in theOctober 19th issue of the Item mentioned a contribution · of ten dollars bythirteen robed Klanswomen a t the United Brethren service. On none of theseoccasions·: were the contributions refused.· Elsewhere such donations .had :some-. imes been' thro:wn back.,in ·the faces of too . surpi:'ised 'Klansmen :

, .Ini t ia l responses of - the community n newspapers mixed surpriseand curiosity •. n June J0,-:1922, the Palladium reported, A crowd tl:at threatened to block the roadway on the Richmond-Liberty pike made an effort toness the ini t iat ion held by the Ku Klux Klan Thursday night on the Smith Mit- ·cheli farm, about three-quarters of a mile north of Liberty . · Passers-bywere able to discern a large gathering of men in the center of the l ighted areaand above them a flaming white cross and an American f lag. An estimate places


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the number present a t approximately 1,000, and i t is stated that a large num-ber of candidates were inductedwere Richmond citizens ...34

I t is unknown how many of the number

beIn a story _announcing a lecture to given by Dr. C. Lewis Fowler, founder/"\.

of lanier University and a national speaker for the Ku .Klux Klan, the Palladi-E noted on July 12th, Frequent act ivi t ies of the Qan in this section of thestate indicate that the membership in this body is increasing. The public dem-ons:trations to date have been largely in the form of the presentation of moneyto churches and needy part ies. Outdoor ini t ia t ions a t night also have beenreported ,.35

Two days la ter the Palladium report estimated that 1,500 people had beenpresent for Fowler's address. One wonders i f perhaps ~ i U. Johnson, sev-enty-two year-old Richmond attorney and former U.S. congressman, attended theprogram, to hear Fowler's declaration, "'We are the instruments of a movementrather than members of an organization and have secretly banded ourselves to-gether to support the tenets of the Protestant Christian rel igion, to upholdthe constitution of the United States, to protect the chastity of our pure Am-erican womanhood, to maintain the separation of church and state and to supportthe free public school system e don't have any ta r or use any feathersbut we mean business. You might just as well try to stop the flow of Niagra asto endeavor to check us in our purpose. ' ..36

Could one have detected the concerned expression on Johnson's face amongthe throng of people leaving the Richmond Coliseum that cool Thursday evening?Or perhaps noted. a s i lent frown as he read a page-five report 1n ·S;a.turday's··.Pal-

'ladium, describing yet another large local Klan init iation? Seven days l a terJuly 22nd, the Palladium published Johnson's impassioned plea for condemnationof the Invisible Empire. Do the citizens of Richmond who are joining an or-ganiza.tion known as the Ku Qux Klan realize just what they are doing?The Ku Klux Klan is an organization which is founded in race prejudice and un-


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/ (14)just discrimination; i t is undoubtedly antagonizing and is aimed a t certaincitizens of a particular religion. This is indeed but a small part of i t s offending, but t i s enough, ' twil l serve • .,,37

Continuing, .he asserted:The delivery by men with masked faces and white garments of petty contributions and let ters replete with high sounding moral sentiments, to a pastor, in the uresence of his wondering congregation,will not atone for the needless and cruel blow dealt to the peaceand happiness of a whole community, nor will a beast of one hundredper-cent Americanism by men who use the national f lag for a nightshir t and claim a monopoly of patriotism, blind the eyes of in te l -l igent and just citizens to the iniquit ies and unpatriotic purposesof this night-veiled organization. • • • ·And where in this juncture of local affairs is the voice and conscience of the Christian ministry of Richmond? .And what is the view

entertained by the newspapers of this ci ty • • • • Assuredly the timehas come for men of a l l conditions in the community to speak out andto speak out fearlessly and emphatically, against th is order, which,despite i t s loud protestations of virtue, religion and patriotism,is real ly defying al l of these quali t ies, and is seeking to discredi t both in3aetter and in sp ir i t , the noblest and holiest Americant radi t ions.Richmond supported two rlaily newspapers during this period. The morning

Item, published by F.S. I'od.d, did not print regular editorials; in fact , aneditorial comment on current local affairs proved so rare as to 1:e extremelynotable P a l l a d i u m and Sun-Telegram, owne.cr . d i t O : r R u d o l : f G L e e d s fered daily editorials . : commenting on sal ient topics a t the national and state ,as well as local levels. Four days af ter Johnson's le t te r , Leeds attacked thedaynan n his editorial column. The n e x t ~ p p e a r e d another anti-Klan editor ialin the Palladium. From this point, Leeds' policy can 100 :cle.arly :discerned.The paper downplayed the l o c ~ l nan act ivi t ies, publicized opposition to theKlan and printed national stories on the Klan's meaner act iv i t ies .

For example, on August 2nd, the paper reported, Anti-KU .Klux candidateleading in Oklahoma • • • . On the seventh, a page-one item neted, 1 r i s h

40A4opt Resolution Opposing Ku Klux Klan. The following day a f i rst-pagestory declared, Johnson Flays Klan in Kiwanis Address; Urges Brotherhood. 41The n e w s : . ~ ptesenrtat i .on · and editorial policy proved consis tent .


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What consequences stemmed from the courageous opposition of men l ikeJohnson and Leeds? Their h i ~ h standing and popularity i n the communitycould have accounted for the apparent absence of any Klan retal ia t ion.This cursory analysis determined_ that paid Klan advertising, of ra l l iesor presentations, appeared only n the Item, which had taken no stand onthe KKK This feeble sanction may have been accompanied by more intenseefforts; h o w e v e ~ this appears unlikely, due to the character of the Klan•sfollowing in Richmond.

As Grant Spears explained:There were no instances of violence at a l l -- not rea l ly.

They just made themselves highly noticeable -- to attract a t- tention. They marched up and down the st reet on occasion, toshow their strength. They did ~ v a great deal of poli t icalstrength, and they were, as theLhead of the Republican county. committee j_n the 1940 s la e i / me , • • • leaders in thecommunity. This was quite t rue.However, in areas where the Klan was more aggressive, the price of

condemnation could be high indeed. George R. Dale founded The Post-Demo-crat in Muncie, Indiana, in 1921, after concluding that t was the mostiniquitous town south of Chicago ,and that the Ku Klux Klan not only con-trolled the ci ty ' · but held most of the important offices in the county aswell. He gained sufficient evidence by 1922 to launch his campaign forreform. He openly charged that the Klansmen had ful l control, that thepolice fostered crime, that prostitutes driven from other ci t ies were un-hindered n plying the ir trade and that gamblers shared the ir profi ts withcity offic ia ls .

43When i t e c ~ r n e apparent that Dale intended to e r s i s t his accusations,

the Klan approached local businessmen, and soon The Post-remocrat found i t self without the benefit of a line of pa.id advertising -- save for an occasion-a l legal notice from the few local off icials free from Klan control. In fiveyears, rale lost 15,000, his home and controlling interest n the pa.per.


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When his l i fe was threatened, he began carrying a handgun for protection.This lead to his arrest for carrying a concealed weapon. A Klan jury convictedthe editor. Next, he was arrested on a trumped-up liquor charge. He pouiltered,in The Post-remocrat, that the charge was a frame, that the Klan was respon-sible and that the judge, prosecutor, sheriff, grand jury, jury commissionersand police department belonged to that body. Charged with contempt, Dale re -ceived a 500 fine and a sentence to ninety days in the s tate penal farm from

44Judge, and rousing Klan orator, Clarence W. rearth.Upon his release, Tale resumed the attack. When he published information

suggesting that Dearth had acted as his own lawmaker in selecting juries andconducting some t r ia l s the judge ordered ·the newspaper suppressed. A peti-t ion of two hundred and f i f ty Muncie cit izens provoked the s tate legislatureto bring ar t ic les of impeachment against rearth in March, 1927. Even in th isera of waning IQan strength, the seven ar t ic les of impeachment could not besustained -- although on five separate counts a majority of the legislatorsvoted for conviction. With sufficient provocation, the Klan proved a ven-omous enemy . indeed. But among Richmond Klansmen, greater restraint prevailec.

During 1923, two issues consistently ·dominated · the pa.ges.,of the press:prohibition and the Ku Klux Klan. Few other topics equalled . these in theirsensationalism, or wove so intricate a pattern of local , r e g ~ o n l and nationalsignificance. Thi'ee · of , many major Klan scandals, representative of the generalcoverage accorded the Invisible Empire, were: the Simmons-Evans factional dis-pute, culininating '··with Phil Fox .s ' murderrof Simmons' lawyer in November and,.on December 22nd, the report of his sentence to l i fe imprisonment: second, thel ively bat t le in Oklahoma between the agressively anti-Klan governor, Jack Wal-ton, and the lawless, night-riding Klansmen, intensifying with Gov. Walton's

i m p o ~ i t i o n of martial law in several centers of Klan violence and his eventualimpeachment and removal from office on November 20th by a Klan-controlled leg-islature: and f inal ly 7 the sinister Mer Rouge murders. Mer Rouge in the


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northern bayous of Louis iana. On August 24, 1922, masked members of the KuKlux Klan had whipped several men in a woods near the town. When one of themen, Wa t t I'aniels, a young , white ex-serviceman, managed to escape his bondsand pull off one of his assailants masks, he and his friend Tom Eichards, whoalso had glimpsed the face behind the mask, were tortured ,and rUII ._ ove:t wi.th aroad grader. Then the Klansmen mutilated and dismembered the pulped bodies,f inal ly dumping them in the lake. Late in the fa l l of 1922, a company ofinfantrymen.ordered in by the governor, found the hideously mangled torsoesfloating on Lake Lafourche; i ronical ly, the corpses were dislodged by a dynamite

6charge someone exploded in the hope of destroying the evidence.Needless to say such national controversy seriously affected the Invisible

Empire. Al though i t continued to burgeon, a g r d u l c h a n g e o c c u r r e d in theKlan's membership. In general, the quality of i t s membership, and leadership,declined. Firs t , the group sheltered a growing "roueh element." Second, unsus-pecting rank and f i le members questioned the profit-making which motivated i t sleaders, as successive e x p o s ~ s . in . the press revealed the Empire's financialstructure. Ibe · leaders often gave but l ip service to the professed ideals ofthe order. This tendency can be observed on the local level as well:

The two gentlemen down ih Liberty, Indiana, who were lawyers,who benefi tted{the most from the Klari/were cynical. T h ~ y werein t for the money •••• That was Walter Bossert and£his younge Jbrother named Elmer Bossert•••• rhe Klai/was a secret organization, like the Masonry, ••• based on a l i t t l e differentsor t of ideal , but ••• the reason their name was mentioned inconnection with t a ~ because they had . the commercial end of i t .They sold the regalia the big deal ••••The{local organization of th lUnited Negro Improvement Association,£1:.he Garvey movemeniJ •• han been approached y fa l t e rBosser-g. • • • He a p p r o a c h e d [ G r ~ e n D a n i e l ~ w h o l e a a ~ing black figure in town and said, "After a l l , look a t these people. They are against you•••• e can organize the blacks against them and we '11 cal l them the 1 J > a n ~ Lincoln.• Insteadof white robes, they l l have black robes and be counter to theKlan. You {poulaJ defend yourselves.,.Well, they never got to f i r s t base with i t . . Even though a tthat time while i t c o s t t 5 t o j o i n the KlarC°and buy the costumi/, the organization was just half price for the Negroes;they didn' t have ·qui47 as much money •••• There was a charterissued by the s tate.


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The Richmond .press offered a confusing assortment of stories on the KuKlux •Klan. The Item covered Klan act ivi t ies locally as i t would any socialorganization. The Pallai:lium maintained, in general, a sense of i r r i a.teafisdain towarc the antics of the f ichmond-area Klansmen. Both included themajor scandals mentioned above, and such state events as S t e p h e n s o n ' ~ inaugur-ation as Grand Iragon, before a crowd of over 100,000 t Kokomo's Melfalfa Park 1on July 4 923: the Klan's unsuccessful attempt to purchase Valparaiso Univer-'si ty for a Klan college: and the great Hoosier schism in the Invisible Empire

· 48between Stephenson's dissidents and the loyalists under Bossert.The pages also chronicled a growing l i s t of organizations publicly condem-

enn tning the Klan, and n i o n i t o ~ e a : those courageous individuals such as e • • ~ U,Johnson, Rudolph G. Leeds, George R. rale, and Indiapolis ' mayor Lou Shank,who personally challenged the order. The American Legion, ~ h e American Fed-eration of Labor, Indiana's state Episcopal church conference and the Federal

49Council of Churches l l denounced the Klan.during 1923.In October, Richmond witnessed a memorable Klan ra l ly. This proved too

big an event for the Palladium to ignore, or, apparently, for the Item to ac-cept. The d i f f e r e n c e t h e i r a c c o u n t ~ 1 J l d e t s c o r e s t h e impact of the com.mi t ted ,l'l.ewspa.per. UPrl tbe .·.oullgct±ve :·.awa:reness of_· the community.

The Item for the morning of October 4th ,announced the event in a f i rst-pagestory enti t led, Ki.an Will Stage Big Celebration; J0,000 Members Expected toAttend Meeting; Four Bands in Mammoth Parade. In glowing terms the story ~ E r n c r ibed .:'

Five thousand robed men and womPn members of the organizationwill be in the line which, i t is expected, will at tain a lengtho a mile and a half The parade will include 5 horsesand 25 floats, the l t te r intended to give in symbolic fashionthe tenets and aims of the Klan. The parade which t i s assured,will assume every phase of the thr i l l ing an.d spectacular as ·wellas the awe-inspiring , will be dotted with a number of bands•• •Concluding the program will be a beautiful display of fireworksand as an additional novel feature, an airplane from Day58n willcircle the city af ter night bearing loft a f iery cross.The ~ a l l a d i u m characterist ical ly buried their report on page sixteen of that


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evening's issue. ·The item avoids any n tion of t he numbers of people expected.ts restained ·description ··revealed a heal thy skepticism. The conclusion of

the celebration will consist of a dispiay of fireworks and the f l ight overthe grounds of an airplane bearing a ' f iery cross '"5i · The story concludedwith the pointed observation that, The police department will have a largeforce out to handle t raff ic and exercise supervision over the park and the down-town dist r ic t during the parade. Ten special officers will supplement the regular . force.1152

After the parade, the paper's reports further evidenced t h e i : t d i f f e r ~ n gattitudes towards ·' the Invisible Empire. The Item headlined the first-pagestory, "Spectacular Array Presented by Klan in Mamoth ~ ) Parade; Over30,000 Persons Witness Ku Klux Klan remonstrationt City Traffic Is SuspendedI'uring Parade • It. declared ,, 'Fuily: 6 ,000 · nembers . tjle .. Klan :p rt i cipa.ted Unthe . monster parade: • · ' which in magnitude and impressiveness has had fewequals in this ci ty. The best of order was preserved by police and special. \)Dl\c..e,details of K l a n s m e n • and nothing occurred to disturb any phase of theevenings program.1153

H o w e v e r ~ on the evening of the sixth, the Palladium's account a p p e a r e ~ o nthe ninth pa.ge and d i f ~ e r e d significantly i t s interpretation. A parade throughthe business dist r ic t 6f. between 1,000 and 1,100 .Klansmen • • • was the chief(' . -public feature of the Ku Klux Klan ceremonial held a t Glen Miller and Exhibi-tion Parks Friday night.". Pointedly, the ar t ic le concluded, An attempt torope off one of the roads and .keep automobiles from passing through was madeearly in the evening by a Richmond Klansmen who 'deputized' several others as'special officers ' The chief of police was notified of this action and im

54mediately pa.id a visi t to the park and ordered the ropes removed.Something about the parade, or perhaps merely the general course of Klan

act ivi t ies reaching the news, must have proved unsettling to Item owner F.S.Dodd. For only one week la ter he printed an edi tor ia l , which he signed. In


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bold-face type on the f i rs t page, Dodd sadly observed, Yesterday we celebra-ted Armistice Day -- not hilariously, but with solemnity. • . • Catholic, . Jewand Protestant, white or black, were brothers in w r ~ but in the brief space offive years, str i fe and enmity has arisen among these same brothers. Organizationhave been formed, there have been attacks and counter-attacks, only to widen thebreach We have forgotten that the Constitution of the United Stated giveseach of us the privile ge to exercise our chosen religion and equal rights toa lL To be 100 Americans, we must believe and follow our Cons t i ut i on. ,.55

Thus clearly can be seen, in this community and in the nation, growing op-position to the Ku Klux Klan. As early as 1923, the seeds of the hooded order 'ssubsequent, virtual destruction had been sown. The source of the decline can be·,tsfound in the inherent contradictions of the Klan: f i r s t b e t w e e n i d e l s and actionand, second, between i t s conniving leadership and the rank and f i le . By bring-ing these contradictions forcibly before the eyes of the American public, journali s t s and a few courageous individuals informed a growing tide of opposition amongwhite Protestants whose approval, or silence, permj.tted the Invisible Empire'sgrowth. Yet a t this time, the greatest Klan successes s t i l l lay ahead.

As was ironically apparent in the Palladium's pages, the r is ing s tar ofKlan fortunes had not ,yet reached i t s zenith. In early November, 1924, a Demo-cratic speaker made a final i f rui t less appeal for Democratic victory in the com-ing election before an assembly of the ci ty s black voters, Hell would be a pie-nic beside America i f the Ku Klux Klan gained control, for down there you areonly punished for your sins while here· i t would be a punishment for your creedand color as well. 56 But the '24 elections gave the Klan greatest powerin Indiana. And five days later , an advertisement heralded the arr ival ofA Picture Every Real American Should See -- 'The Birth of a Na t i on. ' ..57


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1. r v i e J i th Geo r gs 30, 1978 by J . J . Carpenterand C. Sel lman. Tape ava l i b l e from auth or s .2. Bel l Oanie_ . Th e Rad ic a l Ri gh t .Doubleday Company Inc. Garden Ci t y Je rsey . 196 4, P• - 2703 . Mowry, George E. The Twent ies : Fords , f1appers Fana_ i c s. .Prent ice -Ha l l I n c ~ E n g l e w o o d Cl i f f s NeLu Jersoy . 1963. ifil•' 136.4 . The American Colleoe Dict ionary .Kaiidom House, Inc. f w York, Je >J York. 1964. p.427.S. ~ h a l m e r s David m Hooded Americanism.Doubleday Com ? a ny, Inc . Garden ~ i t y New Jersey. pp. 8-21.6. Oo. c i t . p. ' 10._._7. QQ c i t • pp. 8-21.a. Ib id .9. Qp_. c i t . pp. 20-38.

10. Q.e.. c i t . p. 28.11 • .Q.£. c i t . pp. 22-27.12. ·.0p. c i t . p. 30. ,

13 • .Q.£. c i t . P. 31.14 • .Q.£. c i t . P?• 33-34.

16. The J o r l d s Work. V.46, . ~ 3 6 3 .The Ku Klux Lan in the flliddle L ~ e s t byRobert L. Duffus .


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/ ;17. Q£ c i t . p.52 8 .

18 Chal mers PD 28-38·, Duf fus , p.363., .190 Ch a l me r s , pp. 33-34.20. White, ~ i l l i Allen. Th e u t c i o r p h l _ of LJ i l l iam Allen White .

The macmi l l i an Company. Ne w York, New York. 1 946. p . 3 6 0.21 • oar e , Samu e l Tay 1or • A K1a n King d om Co11 a ps e s •The Indedend e nt . V 113, 19 24. P• 47 4 .2 2 o h t e , p 6 3 1 •23. Chal.mers, Pl >• 100-108.2a, Ib id .25. Chal me r s , pp. 1 68 -169; Harr ison , filor ton . Gent le men fromIndiana . At lan t i c ·month ly . V. 141, 1928. p. 677.26 •.•Richmo rrd a l l ad um. Fro m t bhe L it e rary i g ~ ~ ·

V-... 95 October 1, 1 927. p . 14.27 • . Chalmers, p. 174.28. marten, p. 584.

29. Chalmers, p. 163.

30. Interview with Grant Spears , may 30, 1978 . by J .B. Carpenterand J.C. Sellman. Tape ava l i b le from au t hors .31 • . Ib id .-32. Chalmers ,. p •. 167 . ,33. Richmond Item. October 3 , 1923, p . 2 c . 4.34. Richmond PaLl..adium, June 30, 1922. p. 7. c . 2.


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j5· Q.Q.. c i t July 12' 192 . • p. 3 • c. 2.36. Cl ;:L ci...t_. Ju i y 14' 1922. p . 2 c . 1 •37. D. a.. c.il.. July 22, 1922. p. 1 c . 4 ; p.5 c. J-4.38. lb;i.d,,,

39 •. Richmond l a d i u m August 2, 1922., p.4 c.1 ..40. QE c i t August 7, 1922 •. p. 1 c 5.41 • .Q_e. C i t • AUg8 s t 8 , 1 9 22 • p • 1 C • 4 t o p • 8 C . 4 •420 Interview ·with ·Grant . p e a r s ~43. The Literary Digest. V. 90 (August 14, 1925.) p ~ 9.44. Ibid.45. Ib dj Harrison, QE c i t pp. 683-684.46. Richmond Item; ao9 Palladium, 1923; Chalmers pp. 100-108,4 9 ~ 5 5 60-63.47. Interview with Grant p e a r s ~48, Richmond Palladium; R:ichmond Item, 1923.49, Ibid.50, Richmond Item. October 4, 1923. p. 1 c 5 ; · p. 2 c 1 •51. Richmond Palladium, October 4, 1923. p. 16 c 1 •52. Ibid .. . • . • •i .

.:


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53. Rich mond Item. Octob e r 6 1923. p . 1 c 2-4. p. 2 c. 4.54. Rich mond Pa l l ad ium. October 6 ~ 9 2 3 p. 9 c 155 ~ i h m o n d I t e m October 13 1923. p. c 4-5.56. Richmond Palladium. Novgmber 4 1924. p. • ·c •

357 • Q £ c i t November 1 1924. p. 18 c 1-4 .


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BI9LIOGRi\PHY

Bohn, Franko "The Ku Klux < lan In te rpre tedThe American Journal of Sociology. V. 30, n '.J. 30, January , 1925pp. 3 85- 4U 6 •.Chalmers, David m. Hooded Americanism.Doubleday & Company, Inc . New York, New York. 1i:J_65.This book i s probably the f i nes t work ov 9 r done on the Klan.As t he reader wil l see , t h i s wor k i s quoted from of t en . ·Du Bois , Ll. E. B. "The Shape of Fear"North l\me r i can Review •. V 223, rna rch - l l ay, 1926 •. p p . 291-308.Duff us, Robert L "The Ku Klux Klan in The fl idd le Wes t

o r l d s lllork. v ·. 46, fi ay-October , 1923 .. pp. 363-372 ..Evans, Hira ri I J e s l e y . "The Bal lo t s Behind The Ku Klux Klan"

J o r l d s d ork. V ·60, no 3 . January, 1928. pp. 243-252.

•

Evans, H:iram Wesley. "The Klan 's F ight For Americanism'North American Review. V •. 223. ( March-Apri l - rnay, 1926.) pp. 33-63.Har r i son, fllorton ·. "Gentlemen From Indiana"At lan t i c Monthly. V. 141. (1928) pp •. 676-636 ..Li te ra ry Diges t , The •. V. 78 •. September 15, 1923. pp. 12-14.1 The Klan "Backs · A Col lege . 'Op. c i t . V. 90. August 14, . 1926. p •. 9 •.A r i g h t For Freed om of The p·r e s s9£.• c i t •. V · • 94 •. August 13,. 1927. p. 10.Indiana ' s P o l i t i c a l Scand a l Q e • c t • V• 9 5 • Oc t o b e r 1 ,. 1 9 2 7 • p • 1 4 •.Indiana ' s Pol i t i ca l House Clean,;ng"Op .. c i t . V. 97 • . Apri l 28,. 1928 •. pp • . 8-9 •.A - J.udic ia l Spanking For The Klan"Op. c i t .: v·. 124. October 9 , . 1937 •. pp. 15-17.II K K KLoucks, Emerson H•. The Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania •.The Telegraph Press:-Harr isburg- ;- -pB"nnsylvania . 1936 ..OriQinal ly wri t ten as a doctora l t h s i ~ t h i s book i s.an in-deoth s tudy of the Klan 's ac t ivl ' t1es in Pennsy lvan iaduring the 1920's •.

opposition to the ku klux klan in the early 1920s: the beginnings of disaffection in richmond,...

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