That same day, Vanzetti wrote to Nicola"s thirteen-year-old son, Dante, of how his father had "sacrificed everything dear and sacred to the human heart and soul for his fate." He hoped, he said, that Dante would understand that they had died for their principles, honor their memories, and perhaps one day take his father"s place "in the struggle between tyranny and liberty."
Last-minute appeals went unheeded. An editorial in the New York World New York World summed up the views of those who still hoped that eleventh-hour pardons might be issued. "The Sacco-Vanzetti case is clouded and obscure. It is full of doubt. The fairness of the trial raises doubt. The evidence raises doubt. The inadequate review of the evidence raises doubt. The Governor"s inquiry has not appeased these doubts. The report of his Advisory Committee has not settled these doubts. Everywhere there is doubt so deep, so pervasive, so unsettling, that it cannot be denied and it cannot be ignored. No man, we submit, should be put to death where so much doubt exists." summed up the views of those who still hoped that eleventh-hour pardons might be issued. "The Sacco-Vanzetti case is clouded and obscure. It is full of doubt. The fairness of the trial raises doubt. The evidence raises doubt. The inadequate review of the evidence raises doubt. The Governor"s inquiry has not appeased these doubts. The report of his Advisory Committee has not settled these doubts. Everywhere there is doubt so deep, so pervasive, so unsettling, that it cannot be denied and it cannot be ignored. No man, we submit, should be put to death where so much doubt exists."
At three minutes after midnight on the morning of Tuesday 23 August, Celestino Madeiros entered the execution room in Charleston prison. Nine minutes later he was dead. Nicola Sacco came in at 12.11, having refused the ministrations of a priest, and was strapped to the electric chair shouting, "Long Live Anarchy!" in Italian. He was p.r.o.nounced dead eight minutes later.
Finally Bartolomeo Vanzetti was brought into the room, having also refused the last rites. He declared his innocence one final time, expressed his forgiveness for those who had brought him to this point, and shook his warden, William Hendry, warmly by the hand, thanking him for all his kindness. For most of the past seven years this prison had been his home. Hendry was so overcome that he was barely able to confirm that Vanzetti was dead at twenty-six minutes past twelve. The three executions had taken less than half an hour.
As they had hoped, Sacco and Vanzetti"s demise set off a series of retaliatory demonstrations, riots and bombs targeting United States emba.s.sies in Paris, Rome and Lisbon as well as all across America. Five hundred Italian immigrants protested against the executions in Boston"s North End. Writers John Dos Pa.s.sos, Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay were among many arrested for picketing the Boston State House the day before Sacco and Vanzetti died.
Millay was not alone in crediting their deaths with awakening her social conscience. "It is impossible for me to be an Anarchist, for I do not believe in the essential goodness of man," she wrote afterwards, contrasting her own disillusionment with Sacco and Vanzetti"s unflinching idealism. "The world, the physical world, that was once all in all to me, has at moments such as these no road through a wood, no stretch of sh.o.r.e, that can bring me comfort. The beauty of these things can no longer at such moments make up to me at all for the ugliness of man, his cruelty, his greed, his lying face."
People involved in their conviction-the brother of the garage owner who had informed on them, Governor Fuller who had refused them clemency, one of their jurors, the executioner, Judge Thayer himself-were the focus of specific violent attacks. Thayer"s home was destroyed by a bomb and he spent the rest of his life living under permanent guard at his club in Boston.
It is still unclear whether or not Sacco and Vanzetti did commit the crimes for which they were killed. Upton Sinclair, whose novel Boston Boston was an attempt to place the events surrounding their purported crime and trial in a believable fictional context, was convinced that both were innocent-until his interview with their first lawyer, Fred Moore, who told him that although he had never heard them confess to it, he thought they were guilty. Sinclair considered Moore unreliable (he was sacked from the defense team because he was a cocaine addict) but his faith in his heroes was shaken. was an attempt to place the events surrounding their purported crime and trial in a believable fictional context, was convinced that both were innocent-until his interview with their first lawyer, Fred Moore, who told him that although he had never heard them confess to it, he thought they were guilty. Sinclair considered Moore unreliable (he was sacked from the defense team because he was a cocaine addict) but his faith in his heroes was shaken.
It seems unlikely that Vanzetti was involved either with the murders and robbery at South Braintree or with the attempted robbery at Bridgewater. Ballistics experts over the years have linked Sacco"s gun to the bullets fired at South Braintree, although others claim that the gun or the bullet-casings found in his pockets were tampered with at the time or afterwards. In the 1980s, the son of an anarchist a.s.sociate of the two men said everyone in their inner circle knew that Sacco was guilty but Vanzetti was not.
What they were clearly and proudly guilty of was political radicalism, but this was not the offense for which they were tried. Their trial was a shameful attempt by the Government to rid itself by the only means it knew how of two men who symbolized forces that it feared and would not try to understand. But much of America would have agreed with Judge Thayer"s unofficial verdict that Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds" who deserved to die, regardless of the means used to achieve that end. It was these people who rushed in their millions to join the revived Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan marches openly down Pennsylvania Avenue, 1926.
8.
THE Ku Klux KLAN REDUX THE POST-CIVIL WAR KU KLUX KLAN HAD FADED OUT OF PUBLIC consciousness in the late nineteenth century, but in 1915 the Kentucky-born director D.W. Griffith made a movie adaptation of Tom Dixon"s best-selling novel of a decade earlier, The Clansman The Clansman. The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation, starring Lillian Gish, showed the revival of the devastated post-war South as in large part due to the patriotism and loyalty of the Klan. Although Griffith claimed that his film merely reflected the period as he had read about it in history books-which it did; the history books of the time were uniformly racist-The Birth of a Nation served as inspiration to a new generation of fearful, prejudiced Americans who distrusted blacks as much as they resented immigrants. served as inspiration to a new generation of fearful, prejudiced Americans who distrusted blacks as much as they resented immigrants.
One man observing the success of The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation with enraptured interest was Colonel "Doc" Simmons, a lonely thirty-five-year-old alcoholic recuperating in Atlanta after being hit by a car. Tall and impressive-looking, Simmons"s inflammatory oratorical skills (and zeal for the sound of his own voice) were reflected by his fiery red hair. One acquaintance described him as being "as full of sentiment as a plum is full of juice." with enraptured interest was Colonel "Doc" Simmons, a lonely thirty-five-year-old alcoholic recuperating in Atlanta after being hit by a car. Tall and impressive-looking, Simmons"s inflammatory oratorical skills (and zeal for the sound of his own voice) were reflected by his fiery red hair. One acquaintance described him as being "as full of sentiment as a plum is full of juice."
He had been a Methodist circuit preacher; he was also an inveterate joiner of churches and societies. In 1915 he wore the lodge pins of thirteen groups including the Masons, the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World, for which he worked as promoter. Simmons a.s.sumed his t.i.tle, Colonel, from the honorary rank he held in the Woodmen; the "Doc" came from a medical degree he claimed to have taken at Johns Hopkins University, but of which no evidence has been found.
On Thanksgiving night, 1915, just before the Atlanta premiere of The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation, Simmons took thirty-five men-including two former members of the Reconstruction Klan-up Stone Mountain, sixteen miles outside the city. Declaring that his society had "the same soul in a new body" as the post-Civil War Klan, Simmons lit a fiery cross, his symbol of the old Klan, and led his followers in an oath of allegiance to his new order. They swore to protect female chast.i.ty and uphold and promote morality, "Americanism," Protestantism and white supremacy.
Nothing in Simmons"s original aims would have jarred with a large proportion of "native-born" Americans at the time. He was simply expressing values that, to many, represented their existing ideas about their place in the world. Nor was he explicitly advocating violence against other races, although the use of the name, Ku Klux Klan, was in itself provocative. Evidence suggests that instead of using feathers for tarring and feathering miscreants Simmons would have preferred them to adorn a splendid head-dress that he could have worn at the head of a procession. What he loved was the Klan"s regalia, its secret ceremonies, grandiose t.i.tles and arcane rituals, all devised by him, and his own position as leader of the movement. In the Kloran (the Klan book of ritual), Simmons described his role, that of Imperial Wizard, as "a wise man; a wonder worker, having power to charm and control."
Although Simmons inducted ninety-two members in the first two weeks and by 1920 had about three thousand followers in the Atlanta area, he was vague and impractical and had little idea of how to mold or expand his "invisible empire." Noticing Simmons"s administrative difficulties, in June 1920 a young Klansman introduced Simmons to his mother-in-law, Bessie Tyler. The charismatic, determined Tyler had been married at fourteen and left widowed, with a baby, a year later. She and her lover, Edward Clarke, then formed the Southern Publicity a.s.sociation. Despite the fact that in 1919 Clarke and Tyler had been arrested inebriated and in a state of undress in a house owned by Tyler, they had previously promoted the Anti-Saloon League (the driving force behind the Prohibition movement) as well as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Soon their most important client was the Ku Klux Klan.
Clarke and Tyler had no compunction about using the Klan for their own personal financial gain; Tyler later admitted that she was in it for the money. In return for 25 percent of the fees collected from new Klan members, Clarke invested $7,000 of his own savings into putting the Klan on to the kind of profitable, business footing being used all over America by traveling salesmen. He divided the country into nine regions ruled by Grand Goblins and placed a King Kleagle in each state to oversee a troupe of local Kleagles, or Klan agents.
Each new Klansman who signed up paid $10. The Kleagle who had recruited him kept $4 and sent $6 to his King Kleagle; the King Kleagle kept $1 and sent $5 to his Grand Goblin; the Goblin kept 50 cents and sent the remainder to Klan headquarters in Atlanta where Clarke and Tyler pocketed $2.50 and put $2 into the Imperial Treasury. The members" requisite white robes and hoods, intended to resemble the ghosts of the Confederate dead, cost an additional $6.50 and were soon being made in factories run by Clarke.
Within less than a year of Tyler and Clarke being hired, over a thousand Kleagles were actively pursuing new members all over the United States. By 1923, when nationwide membership was approaching the million mark, the Klan"s annual income was $3 million-comparable to that of the Capone-Torrio organization in Chicago at the same time.
The Klan made a point of presenting itself as a force for social cohesion and improved morality and integrating itself into a community"s daily life. An elderly woman from Indiana who was interviewed in the 1980s by the historian Kathleen Blee remembered that "the good people all belonged to the Klan" in her youth and described it as a positive social force. Her testimony was, however, somewhat disingenuous (no doubt unwittingly) because in practically the same breath as she denied that the Klan was xenophobic she commended it for getting rid of Catholic influence in her area.
A cross would be burned on a hillside to signal the Klan"s arrival to the local population. Then a group of masked, robed men would appear at church services, bearing flowers and singing "Onward Christian Soldiers," and offering money to church charities. One of the Klansmen might be invited to preach. New members would be initiated in the glow of a ring of car headlights, kissing the American flag and swearing loyalty to the order. Meaningless generalities about "much needed local reform," "just laws" and "pure Americanism" were spouted.
Apparently innocuous Klan-organized barbecues, picnics, spelling-bees, concerts and rallies drew the local population in. Financial contributions would be made to local hospitals and schools. On Klan Day at the Texas State Fair in 1923 rodeo riders competed in full Klan regalia, a Klan-sponsored orphanage was declared open and, later on, fireworks blazed in the night sky above seven thousand masked marchers.
To demonstrate what they liked to think of as their paternalistic benevolence, the Klan even donated money to black causes. In 1921 a chapter in Memphis gave $500 to the black victims of an explosion. "Be it known and hereby proclaimed," read a Klan advertis.e.m.e.nt in a Dallas newspaper in 1921, "that no innocent person of any color, creed or lienage [sic] has just cause to fear or condemn this body of men. That our creed is opposed to violence, lynchings, etc., but that we are even more strongly opposed to the things that cause lynchings and mob rule . . . Your sins will find you out. Be not deceived. You cannot deceive us and we will not be mocked. This warning will not be repeated." The blues singer Bessie Smith was forcibly bundled into a car, driven off and horse-whipped in Dallas. She refused ever to go back to Texas.
Marcus Garvey, leader of the separatist United Negro Improvement a.s.sociation (UNIA), went to Atlanta in the summer of 1922 to discuss possible Klan support for his "Back to Africa" movement with Edward Clarke, although nothing came of their meeting. According to his widow, Garvey believed that most white Americans were only prevented from demonstrating the racism that the Klan made explicit by hypocritical "culture and refinement." From his point of view, at least the Klan was honest.
Kleagles haunted showings of The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation and deliberately pandered to local fears and prejudices about illegal drinking, immoral behavior, striking workers or influxes of blacks and immigrants to the area. Advised by the weekly newsletters Bessie Tyler produced, Kleagles scapegoated local "enemies." In California they played on hatred of the j.a.panese; in New York, on anti-Semitism; in Texas, on fear of Mexicans. and deliberately pandered to local fears and prejudices about illegal drinking, immoral behavior, striking workers or influxes of blacks and immigrants to the area. Advised by the weekly newsletters Bessie Tyler produced, Kleagles scapegoated local "enemies." In California they played on hatred of the j.a.panese; in New York, on anti-Semitism; in Texas, on fear of Mexicans.
Once a local chapter had been established, Klansmen began targeting immigrants, blacks and political radicals. Cowed newspaper editors feared losing advertisers and readers if they spoke out against the Klan. Elections might be monitored and potential voters warned to stay away from the polls if they were not going to vote for a candidate sympathetic to the Klan; local businesses were bribed to boycott Jews, blacks and Catholics; non-Klan homes and shops were burned; bootleggers, immigrants, blacks, or even people sympathetic to them were flogged, acid-burned or occasionally killed. The Klan"s victims were just as often whites who had transgressed as blacks or immigrants, like the two young men who had criticized the Klan in Louisiana and were kidnapped and murdered by being run over again and again by a large road-grading tractor before being dumped in a lake, or the white divorcee beaten to unconsciousness in her own home.
The revived Klan was by definition racist and anti-black but its activities were far from limited to the persecution of blacks. As the black-owned Savannah Tribune Savannah Tribune commented in July 1922, no lyncher felt he needed to put on a hood to kill a black man: "They do not think it necessary to join a secret society, pay initiation fees and buy regalia when Negroes are the quarry." Southern chapters of the Klan did take part in vigilante violence because lynching was an established part of their culture, but nationwide the Klan did not promote it per se. Although Bessie Tyler recommended that blacks be sterilized, in many areas fears about Southern and Eastern European immigrants were stronger and more potent than fears about blacks. Tyler best summed up the Klan"s philosophy when she said that to be commented in July 1922, no lyncher felt he needed to put on a hood to kill a black man: "They do not think it necessary to join a secret society, pay initiation fees and buy regalia when Negroes are the quarry." Southern chapters of the Klan did take part in vigilante violence because lynching was an established part of their culture, but nationwide the Klan did not promote it per se. Although Bessie Tyler recommended that blacks be sterilized, in many areas fears about Southern and Eastern European immigrants were stronger and more potent than fears about blacks. Tyler best summed up the Klan"s philosophy when she said that to be for for the white race meant to be the white race meant to be against against all others-and that meant against anyone who was not Protestant and of Northern European descent. all others-and that meant against anyone who was not Protestant and of Northern European descent.
Catholics were a particular focus of Klan mistrust. According to one mid-1920s newspaper article, devotion to the Pope was evidence of Mediterranean people"s "servility," while "the spiritually-minded, chivalrous, and freedom-loving Nordic peoples have always been hostile to Rome."
Ironically, given this pervasive antipathy to Catholicism, the Klan"s secret rituals were strangely reminiscent of the Catholic Church (and of the Masons, with whom their membership often overlapped). Klansmen were baptized and anointed, made to swear oaths of fealty and introduced to a world of mysterious and complex symbolism. The mask, rendering members anonymous, represented altruism and the denial of the self; the fiery cross denoted members" n.o.ble self-sacrifice to a higher cause.
Lurid conspiracist tales of female enslavement and exploitation by gangs of perverted priests and Jews fed into the fears and prejudices of potential Klan members. In Muncie, Indiana, a woman claimed that Catholics had developed a powder that would bleach the skins of black men-so that they could trick unsuspecting white girls into marrying them.
Fundamentalist Protestants were seen as particularly sympathetic to the Klan cause. Kleagles were ordered to approach fundamentalist ministers when they arrived in new towns and Klan preachers promoted fundamentalism in their sermons. These men were deliberately non-intellectual inheritors of the "Know-Nothing" tradition of the Southwest. In the words of the evangelist Billy Sunday, "I don"t know any more about theology than a jack-rabbit knows about ping-pong, but I"m on my way to glory!"
Just as Bruce Barton"s best-selling book The Man n.o.body Knows The Man n.o.body Knows reinvented Jesus not as the mild lamb of G.o.d but as a manly, driven leader, so too did the Klan deliberately project to its members a virile Christian militancy very attractive to men who found themselves emasculated and excluded by the onward march of modern society. Parading around town in a sheet was seen as empowering. Klan discipline and its code of loyalty-and the severe punishments meted out to those who betrayed it-reinforced this sense of brotherhood and masculinity. reinvented Jesus not as the mild lamb of G.o.d but as a manly, driven leader, so too did the Klan deliberately project to its members a virile Christian militancy very attractive to men who found themselves emasculated and excluded by the onward march of modern society. Parading around town in a sheet was seen as empowering. Klan discipline and its code of loyalty-and the severe punishments meted out to those who betrayed it-reinforced this sense of brotherhood and masculinity.
The Klan used its connections with the Church as a way of sanctifying and justifying its actions. Klansmen were constantly reminded that the movement was "not a lodge" but "an army of Protestant Americans" fighting to protect their birthright. "The Klan is engaged in a Holy Crusade against that which is corrupting and destroying the best in American life," declared its newspaper, the Searchlight Searchlight.
While the Church was pa.s.sive, the Klan saw itself as an active force for moral reform: the defender of America"s traditional values against modernity, urbanization, secularization, divorce, immigration and the sinful influence of the movies and jazz. "The Klan stood for the same things as the Church, but we did things the Church wouldn"t do," said one Pennsylvania Klan"s Exalted Cyclops (local leader). "They talked about morals in the churches, but if some young fellow got into trouble or some couple was about to get a divorce, the churches wouldn"t mess in it. We acted."
Local chapters of the Klan posted signs reading, "Fooling around the other fellow"s home is not wise" and "Wife-beaters, family deserters, home-wreckers, we have no room for you." The Denver Grand Goblin placed his Klan recruits at the disposal of the Chief of Police to aid the local fight against crime. Klansmen conducted "Clean Up Your Town" campaigns and worked closely with the Anti-Saloon League. Enforcing Prohibition (despite its leaders" private fondness for the bottle) became one of the Klan"s most important functions.
Although people recognized that the Klan was "commercializing" prejudice, in general its appeal to "their patriotism and their moral idealism" was more potent than its appeal to "their hates." Membership promised not just mystery and excitement, but valuable opportunities for networking and a sense of community. For many, joining the Klan was a positive decision, not a negative one.
Promoting this Babbittish idea of Americanism-small town, Protestant, white, clean, sober, hard-working, family-minded-meant promoting cultural conformity, a humorless cult of "oneness." In Middletown, observed Robert and Helen Lynd, "being "different" is rare, even among the young." Middletown high-school students overwhelmingly agreed with statements such as "The white race is the best race on earth" and "The United States is unquestionably the best country in the world."
The Lynds described the Klan coming "upon Middletown like a tornado," spreading tales of Catholic, Jewish and black plots to take over the world, and recruiting 3,500 (or one in ten) locals by 1923. Most Middletown Klansmen were more anti-Catholic than anti-black, probably because only about 6 percent of Middletown"s population was black. They blamed immigrants for violating Prohibition, s.e.xual license, for introducing worrying new political trends and challenging their own prosperity and control of their area, and saw the Klan as a way of eradicating these evils from their society.
"The true story of the 1920s Klan," writes Kathleen Blee, "is the ease with which racism and intolerance appealed to ordinary people in ordinary places . . . These citizens, comfortable in daily lives in which racial, ethnic and religious privilege were so omnipresent as to be invisible to their possessors, found in the Klan a collective means to perpetuate their advantages." It might be argued that they also found there other forces than themselves to blame for the changes that were transforming American society.
Not every American was seduced by the Ku Klux Klan. The journalist William Allen White described the Klan to a colleague as "a self-const.i.tuted body of moral idiots." The trouble with the Klan, he said, "is that it is based upon such deep foolishness that it is bound to be a menace to good government in any community." In a similar vein, a professor of sociology a.s.serted that "the most dangerous weakness in a democracy is the uninformed and unthinking average man." Even Thomas Dixon, author of the novel that had inspired D.W. Griffith"s The Birth of a Nation The Birth of a Nation, spoke out against the revived Klan (albeit from the perspective of a paternalistic racist): "If the white race is superior-as I believe it is-it is our duty as citizens of a democracy to lift up and help the weaker race."
Steps were taken in some places to combat the Klan"s rising popularity, often using vigilante techniques that reflected those of the Klan. Klan meeting houses were torched and Klan parades met with mobs wielding rocks and bottles. Catholics organized themselves into groups like the Red Knights or the Knights of the Flaming Circle, intending to defend themselves and their homes from Klan aggression. A bomb destroyed the offices of Dawn Dawn, the Chicago Klan"s newspaper. Spies infiltrated Klan meetings and exposed Klan members" ident.i.ties to the press.
Local politicians might also resist the Klan"s appropriation of their area, for example by banning the wearing of hoods or masks in public, but in many cases resistance was futile. When the governor of Oklahoma inst.i.tuted martial law to remove the Klan from his state, the Klan-dominated state legislature impeached him and removed him from office. In Dallas the Citizens" League, while in agreement with the Klan about white supremacy, questioned its religious intolerance and restrictions on freedom of conscience. Seeking to restore peace to the community, the mayor asked the Klan to disband. This it refused to do. In 1922 Klan membership in Dallas was nudging 10,000.
On tour in North Carolina, the singer Bessie Smith formed her own anti-Klan league. One of her performers went outside during a show and found six Klansmen trying to collapse the tent-in the South, black artists traveled on their own trains and performed in their own tents, rather than in public halls, from which they were banned. Hearing what had happened, Bessie came out and confronted the men, one hand on her hip and shaking the other at them. "What the f.u.c.k you think you"re you"re doin"? I"ll get the whole d.a.m.n tent out here if I have to. You just pick up them sheets and run!" The Klansmen would not move at first, but as Smith continued to scream obscenities at them they faded into the night. She turned back to the watching prop boys: "I ain"t never doin"? I"ll get the whole d.a.m.n tent out here if I have to. You just pick up them sheets and run!" The Klansmen would not move at first, but as Smith continued to scream obscenities at them they faded into the night. She turned back to the watching prop boys: "I ain"t never heard heard of such s.h.i.t. And as for you, you ain"t nothing but a bunch of sissies." of such s.h.i.t. And as for you, you ain"t nothing but a bunch of sissies."
In October 1921 one former Klansman from east Tennessee, Henry Fry, revealed his experiences as a member of the Ku Klux Klan to the New York World New York World. Over the past twenty years, Fry said, he had joined the Masons, the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, the Red Men, the United American Mechanics, the Royal Arcanum, the Woodmen, the Elks, the Eagles, the Owls, and the Theatrical Mechanics" a.s.sociation. In January 1921 he had added one more society to his list: the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
At first Fry found his fellow Klansmen normal, churchgoing, prosperous family men, but he quickly noticed that the Klan gave them a license to lawless behavior which he could not condone. "The mere fact of being a member of an organization that can go abroad in the land white-robed and masked is a suggestive force that encourages men to take the law into their own hands." As time went by, he began to realize that the organization was less fraternal than political, masking its profit-making objectives with badly written, pseudo-religious ritual and seeking to achieve its aims locally by stirring up prejudice and hatred.
After watching a local Klan leader, a doctor, make a speech attacking blacks, Jews and Catholics, and urging the Klan to "organize and arm itself for the purpose of protecting the city" from the "murderous" designs of the Catholics, Fry resigned his membership. He found the rhetoric overblown and deluded. Not only were there very few Jews or Catholics in his area, but the black population was hard-working and well respected. Klan a.s.sertions that white supremacy was a "sacred const.i.tutional right" sat uneasily with him.
Fry listed a series of Klan crimes to the New York World New York World. These included, at random: "April 1, 1921-Alexander Johnson, a Negro bell boy, of Dallas, Texas, was taken out by masked men, whipped, and the letters "K.K.K." burned on his forehead with acid. He was said to have a.s.sociated with white women . . . April 26, 1921-At Houston, Texas, J. W. McGee, an automobile salesman, was whipped by masked men for annoying high school girls...July 12, 1921-At Enid, Okla., Walter Billings, a motion-picture operator, was given a coating of cotton and crude oil, after being whipped by masked men."
In all, the World World reported that "four killings, one mutilation, one branding with acid, forty-one floggings, twenty-seven tar and feather parties, five kidnappings, forty-three individuals warned to leave town or otherwise threatened, fourteen communities threatened by posters, sixteen parades of masked men with warning placards" had taken place during the period from October 1920 to October 1921. reported that "four killings, one mutilation, one branding with acid, forty-one floggings, twenty-seven tar and feather parties, five kidnappings, forty-three individuals warned to leave town or otherwise threatened, fourteen communities threatened by posters, sixteen parades of masked men with warning placards" had taken place during the period from October 1920 to October 1921.
The World World also exposed the corruption at the head of the Klan, revealing very un-Klan-like behavior on the parts of Edward Clarke and Bessie Tyler. Clarke"s previous investigation for embezzlement was revealed, as was his having abandoned his wife for Tyler and their having been arrested together by the police for disorderly conduct. Loyal Klansmen in Atlanta bought all 3,000 copies of the also exposed the corruption at the head of the Klan, revealing very un-Klan-like behavior on the parts of Edward Clarke and Bessie Tyler. Clarke"s previous investigation for embezzlement was revealed, as was his having abandoned his wife for Tyler and their having been arrested together by the police for disorderly conduct. Loyal Klansmen in Atlanta bought all 3,000 copies of the World World in an effort to prevent the story from spreading. The Klan"s own weekly newsletter declared that the attacks upon Tyler showed that America"s pure womanhood was "unsafe from the millionaire newspaper owners." in an effort to prevent the story from spreading. The Klan"s own weekly newsletter declared that the attacks upon Tyler showed that America"s pure womanhood was "unsafe from the millionaire newspaper owners."
Tyler showed her true mettle in response to the World World articles. Clarke, frightened, tried to resign his Klan post but his furious mistress denounced him as "weak-kneed" and persuaded him to brave it out at her side. She argued that any publicity was good publicity -and she was right. Although the articles. Clarke, frightened, tried to resign his Klan post but his furious mistress denounced him as "weak-kneed" and persuaded him to brave it out at her side. She argued that any publicity was good publicity -and she was right. Although the World World had belittled the Klan as "nightie Knights" and described them as a cancer destroying American society from the inside out, its articles intrigued as many readers as they horrified. A rash of fresh membership enquiries across the country followed the two-week long expose. had belittled the Klan as "nightie Knights" and described them as a cancer destroying American society from the inside out, its articles intrigued as many readers as they horrified. A rash of fresh membership enquiries across the country followed the two-week long expose.
Even satire bounced off the Klan. The American Journal of Sociology American Journal of Sociology published the following parody of Klan beliefs in 1925 but, commented a French professor, it still seemed "to express to the letter the att.i.tude of the ma.s.s of Americans in the middle West": "We are the greatest people on earth. Our government is the best. In religious belief and practice we (the Protestants) are exactly right, and we are also the best fighters in the world. As a people we are the wisest, politically the most free, and socially the most developed. Other nations may fail and fall; we are safe. Our history is a narrative of the triumph of righteousness among the people. We see these forces working through every generation of our glorious past. Our future growth and success are as certain as the rules of mathematics. Providence is always on our side. The only war we Americans ever lost was when one-third of us was defeated by the other two-thirds. We have been divinely selected in order to save and purify the world through our example. If other nations will only accept our religious and political principles, and our general att.i.tude toward life, they soon will be, no doubt, as happy and prosperous as we are." published the following parody of Klan beliefs in 1925 but, commented a French professor, it still seemed "to express to the letter the att.i.tude of the ma.s.s of Americans in the middle West": "We are the greatest people on earth. Our government is the best. In religious belief and practice we (the Protestants) are exactly right, and we are also the best fighters in the world. As a people we are the wisest, politically the most free, and socially the most developed. Other nations may fail and fall; we are safe. Our history is a narrative of the triumph of righteousness among the people. We see these forces working through every generation of our glorious past. Our future growth and success are as certain as the rules of mathematics. Providence is always on our side. The only war we Americans ever lost was when one-third of us was defeated by the other two-thirds. We have been divinely selected in order to save and purify the world through our example. If other nations will only accept our religious and political principles, and our general att.i.tude toward life, they soon will be, no doubt, as happy and prosperous as we are."
Alerted by the World World articles to the Klan"s mushrooming popularity, Congress opened an investigation into their activities. It found that Bessie Tyler had "a positive genius for executive Direction" combined with courage and determination. "In this woman beats the real heart of the Ku Klux Klan today," it admitted with grudging respect. articles to the Klan"s mushrooming popularity, Congress opened an investigation into their activities. It found that Bessie Tyler had "a positive genius for executive Direction" combined with courage and determination. "In this woman beats the real heart of the Ku Klux Klan today," it admitted with grudging respect.
Doc Simmons was called to the stand. Although he did not wear his favorite spangled purple silk robe, the Imperial Wizard milked every ounce of drama from his moment in the spotlight. Appearing polite and sincere, he denied the World World"s accusations and compared himself to Julius Caesar, George Washington and Jesus Christ. The Klan, he insisted, was a "purely fraternal and patriotic organization," motivated not by racial hatred but by racial pride. He said that the mask and robe his members wore were mere costumes and "as innocent as the breath of an angel."
Towards the end of his three-day session he was asked, "Has it occurred to you that this idealistic organization that you have given birth to and have fostered so long is now being used for mercenary purposes by very clever people or propagandists who know how to appeal to people in this community or that for membership?" "Nothing has come to my view that would prompt me to have such an opinion," Simmons replied. He concluded with a rhetorical crescendo. "I cannot better express myself than by saying to you who are persecutors of the Klan and myself, "Father, forgive you, for you know not what you do," and "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Mr. Chairman, I am done." Then, rendered unconscious by his own eloquence, Simmons collapsed on to the table in front of him.
Afterwards he declared that "Congress gave us the best advertising we ever got." Apparently even Warren Harding, like Simmons an inveterate joiner of fraternal societies, was impressed. Former Imperial Klokard Alton Young boasted on his deathbed of being one of the Klan"s five-member "Imperial Induction Team" led by Simmons who had initiated Harding into the Klan in a secret meeting at the White House, after which the President gave each of them a special War Department tag for his driving license, allowing them to violate traffic regulations. If this is true, Harding, who responded to allegations that he had black blood with a casual, "one of my ancestors may have jumped the fence" and was the first president to call for an end to lynching, seems, like many other Americans, to have seen in the Klan only what he wanted to see: a patriotic Christian fellowship. The next few years would demonstrate how naive that view of the Klan was.
One misapprehension about Klan membership in the 1920s is that it attracted princ.i.p.ally poor, downtrodden Americans who felt marginalized by the forces of modernity and urbanization sweeping through the country and eradicating the steady, modest rural lives they valued. These people, it is argued, joined the Klan because it offered them a sense of belonging. As the saying went, "a n.o.body in the world became somebody in the Klan." "You think the influential men belong [to the Klan] here?" asked a non-Klan member in Indiana. "Then look at their shoes when they march in parade."
However, new studies have shown that although these men did join the Klan, just as often Klansmen were middle-cla.s.s middle Americans, members (like Simmons) of other, respectable clubs like the Kiwanis. The typical Klan member in Athens, Georgia (where, unusually, membership records survive), was married and probably a father, and lived in his own home. There were a few local grandees-men who sat on committees or partic.i.p.ated in local government-and a few more unskilled laborers, but most were owner-managers of small businesses.
That the Klan was an exclusively rural, Southern organization was another popular misconception. In fact, during the early 1920s when recruitment was at its peak, Southern and Southwestern membership leveled off while membership in the North Central states (Indiana, Ohio and Illinois) went up by five times. Kleagles even had real success in pockets of the traditionally tolerant, progressive North Atlantic states, for example around Portland, Maine, and in Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, and on the West Coast.
In the spring of 1921 Doc Simmons paid a private visit to Denver, Colorado, where he initiated the area"s first few Klansmen. A few months later, the Klan officially announced its arrival there. Denver was a city of just over 250,000 people, predominantly white and Protestant, with few blacks and hardly any immigrants. The one worrying section of the population-or encouraging, from the Klan"s point of view-was the rising proportion of Catholics who by the mid-1920s const.i.tuted nearly 15 percent of Denver"s population.
Initially, against the national background of the New York World New York World expose and the Congressional investigation into Klan activities, local opposition to the Klan was strong. The regional tax office began looking into the Klan"s failure to pay taxes on its initiation fees; Denver"s liberal newspaper published revelations of Klan secrets. The Klan seemed to fade away. expose and the Congressional investigation into Klan activities, local opposition to the Klan was strong. The regional tax office began looking into the Klan"s failure to pay taxes on its initiation fees; Denver"s liberal newspaper published revelations of Klan secrets. The Klan seemed to fade away.
But in January 1922 it resurfaced, this time using more aggressive tactics. It donated to the Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation; it gave an impoverished widow $200; it made visits and contributed to Denver"s churches. At the same time a warning was sent to the president of the local branch of the National a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Colored People and a black janitor was accused of having had "intimate relations with white women" and told to leave town (which he did, before the charges against him were proved).
The unwillingness of the local government to condemn these acts, and the pa.s.sivity of the majority of the population, meant that almost by default the Klan survived and began to regain strength. Denver was a prosperous city, but it had a high crime rate. Violent crime, trafficking in illegal drugs and alcohol, and prost.i.tution were relatively commonplace. The Klan seized on this as a way to appeal to Denver"s citizenry, promising that it would succeed in cleaning up Denver where its own leaders had failed.
Chicago was another major city where the Klan made surprising inroads. Unlike Denver, Chicago"s population was richly diverse, made up of immigrants, Catholics, Jews and blacks as well as "Nordic" Protestants. Despite this multiplicity of races-or perhaps because of it-in August 1921 4,650 people were initiated into the Klan in a single day and by the end of the year Chicago had the largest Klan membership of any American city.
As in Denver, at first the Klan had to combat local resistance. The City Council officially condemned its activities; the American Unity League was formed as an opposition group and published the names, addresses and jobs of Klan members in its magazine. But the Klan still thrived, fueled by the deep-seated insecurity and nostalgia of its members who felt, as blacks and immigrants encroached on their jobs and neighborhoods, that only the Klan could restore their dignity and place in society. For these northern, urban Klansmen, the Klan was a "salve for [their] wounded pride."
By contrast, the Klan never managed to gain a foothold in New York City, perhaps because the black and immigrant communities were too well-established there. In 1922 the Catholic Irish-dominated police were ordered to deal with Klan gatherings as they would with "Reds and bomb-throwers." In the suburbs, though, where concerns about bootleggers and immorality ran higher, the Klan made better progress. The New York Times New York Times estimated that there were 200,000 New York State Klan members, mostly in provincial centers like Rochester, Syracuse and Albany. estimated that there were 200,000 New York State Klan members, mostly in provincial centers like Rochester, Syracuse and Albany.
In Pennsylvania, the Klan exploited the traditional friction between Catholics and the descendants of the original Dutch settlers, whose militant Protestantism merged easily with the Klan"s philosophy. Here, as elsewhere, Klan preachers presented the "true" American as a victim, robbed of his birthright by interlopers and liberals. Official records don"t survive but based on doc.u.ments concerning an accusation of embezzling Klan membership funds it seems that over 250,000 men may have joined the Pennsylvania Klan by 1923.
The population of Carnegie, Pennsylvania, was almost evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants. Its mayor forbade the Klan from marching through the city, but this was exactly the kind of opposition that spurred the Klan into defiant action. Robed Klansmen went ahead with their procession, and in the riots that ensued a young Klansman was shot. This tragedy was a public relations triumph for the Klan; its leaders rubbed their hands together with glee and speculated that the young marcher"s death would mean 25,000 new members. It published an incendiary pamphlet ent.i.tled The Martyred Klansman The Martyred Klansman, beginning, "This is the story of the murder of a native-born American in his native land, at the hands of a ruthless mob . . ."
Just as the Klan"s tentacles stretched widely out across the country in the early 1920s, so too did it deepen its hold on American society by extending its reach beyond its existing members to their wives and children. Entire families were invited to Klan picnics and days out; members were encouraged to have Klan weddings, funerals, and baptisms. Boys and girls joined the Junior Klan and the Tri-K Klub, respectively.
Before the Women of the Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) was formed in 1923, informal auxiliary groups sprang up to cater for women interested in supporting Klan activities. Bessie Tyler was a member of the Ladies of the Invisible Eye (LOTIE), which inducted over a thousand members in a single month in 1922. Members proclaimed their racial, religious and political allegiances, and swore fealty to "pure Americanism."
When the Klan was reaching its peak in terms of membership and profitability Simmons"s leadership was challenged. In 1922 Hiram Evans, a dentist from Dallas, was made Kligrapp (secretary of the order). In a dramatic coup at the Thanksgiving Klonvocation (nationwide gathering) later that year, Evans replaced Simmons as Imperial Wizard. He sacked Clarke and Tyler (who had apparently been keeping Simmons drunk in order to maintain control over the organization; Clarke had been arrested for possession of alcohol two months earlier) and sc.r.a.pped the recruitment incentives from which they had made their fortunes.
A vicious struggle for leadership of the Klan continued well into 1923, played out perhaps most clearly over the issue of the WKKK. Fighting for support, both Simmons and Evans attempted to bolster their positions within the Klan by appealing to women. In March 1923, Simmons appointed Bessie Tyler head of a short-lived women"s Klan group, the Kamelia; Evans retaliated by founding the Women of the Ku Klux Klan which numbered perhaps half a million members by 1925.
Eventually, in February 1924, Doc Simmons was bought off, agreeing to cede all his rights over the Klan to Evans for $145,000. Edward Clarke, facing charges of mishandling church funds, transporting liquor and white slavery, briefly fled the country; Bessie Tyler, already suffering from ill health, died later that year.
Evans saw the Klan not as a money-making venture, but as a political party with five million potential voters. He encouraged Klansmen to elect local officials, congressmen, governors and senators and led a procession of 40,000 hooded Klansmen down Washington"s Pennsylvania Avenue in August 1925.
The man who had engineered Evans"s takeover was the energetic and unscrupulous Grand Dragon of Indiana, David Stephenson, known as Steve. After helping oust Simmons, Stephenson claimed as his reward the lucrative position of head of promotion in twenty-three Northern states. Under his regime, from 1923 recruitment standards fell and meetings were held monthly, not weekly, eroding the cohesive spirit Tyler and Clarke had worked so hard to instill. Membership continued to grow, complained a Pennsylvania Klan leader to Evans, "but the old spirit wasn"t there."
Stephenson"s main area of influence was Indiana, where perhaps a third of the male population were Klansmen who proudly walked the streets in their robes with their hoods thrown back to show their faces. Klansmen had elected Indiana"s governor and both its senators as well as most of its local officials; there was no county that did not have its own Klavern (local branch). On parade nights policemen directed traffic in their robes.
Steve had grown rich and powerful since his appointment as Indiana"s King Kleagle in 1921, traveling everywhere in an airplane and wearing a purple robe like the one favored by Simmons. He established a band of vigilante policemen called the Horsethief Detectives who broke up "petting parties" and raided bootleggers, all the while acting as his own private police force; he created an elaborate network of spies who kept him informed of everything that went on in Indiana.
Concerned, like Simmons and Evans, with the role women might play in tightening Klan control, Steve formed a society called the Queens of the Golden Mask made up of Klan wives and daughters. These women planned Klan functions like fundraisers and picnics, lobbied schools to get rid of non-Klan-sympathizing teachers and organized consumer boycotts; they also acted as informal "poison squads," spreading rumors about people who opposed the Klan and gathering information that the power-hungry Stephenson might find useful. During the 1924 elections Stephenson distributed cards to voters reading "Every criminal, every gambler, every thug, every libertine, every girl ruiner, every home wrecker, every wife beater, every dope peddler, every moon-shiner, every crooked politician, every pagan papist priest, every shyster lawyer, every K. of C., every white slaver, every brothel madam, every Rome-controlled newspaper, every black spider is fighting the Klan. Think it over. Which side are you on?"
But despite his professions of morality Stephenson was everything he pretended to abhor, except Catholic: crooked to the core, a violent, hard-drinking abuser of women. He held wild, drunken orgies in the mansion and on the yacht he had bought with Klan money. In 1924 a secret Klan trial found him guilty of attempted rape and banished him from the organization, but he refused to accept the ban.
In early 1925, Stephenson turned his attentions to Madge Oberholtzer, the wholesome twenty-eight-year-old Superintendent of Public Instruction in Indianapolis. Steve had saved her job from being abolished and expected some thanks. He invited Madge to his house but when she found him there drinking with his henchmen, she tried to leave; he had her bundled into a car and on to an overnight train heading for Chicago. That night he raped her violently and repeatedly, biting her all over her body. A witness said it looked as though she had been "chewed by a cannibal."
The next morning they disembarked at Hammond, Indiana, and Oberholtzer, pretending she needed medicine for her visible injuries, bought and took an overdose of mercury tablets. It took Stephenson two days to return her, suffering terribly, to Indianapolis and her parents. By that time it was too late for doctors to help her although she was able to give a full statement to the police before she died.
In the sensational trial that followed, Stephenson was convicted and sentenced to life. People were horrified by the savagery of his crime, his contempt for the judicial system "and his smug belief that he would escape punishment" because he was so close to the center of Indiana"s government. The governor he had brought to power, Ed Jackson, refused to pardon him and in revenge Stephenson blew the whistle on Klan activity in Indiana. His evidence brought the mayor of Indianapolis, a Congressman, a county sheriff, several other local officials and very nearly Jackson himself to jail.
After this public outrage, the Klan could no longer claim to be the guardian of America"s morals and its decline was dramatic. Other scandals erupted, including the imprisonment of Colorado"s Grand Dragon for tax evasion, although he was also tried for threatening to castrate a high-school student if he didn"t marry his pregnant girlfriend. In Buffalo, New York, where a local policeman and a Klan member had been shot during a gun battle in 1924, a local Klan leader was arrested for illegally selling contraceptives.
It was clear that once in power, the Klan had licensed the very evils it had promised to eradicate. Its leaders had shown themselves weak and corrupt. More importantly, as America grew more prosperous, immigration was restricted and relations between the races improved in the mid-1920s, and the social and political fears the Klan had played on to achieve power seemed less urgent. Klan membership in Pennsylvania, which had peaked at about 300,000 in early 1925, was down to 5,000 five years later. Indiana had less than 7,000 Klansmen in 1928. In Middletown, according to the Lynds, the Klan had all but disappeared by 1925, "leaving in its wake wide areas of local bitterness."
Caresse Crosby at a typically bohemian picnic at the Moulin de Soleil, 1928; the donkeys at the Moulin de Soleil, 1928; the donkeys were used for donkey-polo. were used for donkey-polo.
9.
IN EXILE.
THE PETTY XENOPHOBIA THAT FED THE REVIVED KU KLUX KLAN was anathema to one small but vocal section of American society: its writers and artists. Feeling themselves and their T values stifled by what they saw as the jingoism, philistinism and repression of their parents" generation, these self-conscious rebels turned their backs on what the poet Harry Crosby called "all this smug self-satisfaction."
"Red drug-stores, filling stations, comfort stations, go-to-the-right-signs, lurid billboards and automobiles swarming everywhere like vermin . . . How I hate this community spirit with its civic federations and its boyscout clubs and its educational toys and its Y.M.C.A. and its congregational Baptist churches," wrote Crosby during a visit home to the U.S. from Paris in 1926, inadvertently describing the Klan"s heartlands. "Horribly bleak, horribly depressing."
Harry Crosby had left America four years earlier, running from his respectable banking job and the expectations of his fond parents-all the pressures of what one of his contemporaries called "the American high bourgeoisie." The family into which Crosby had been born in 1898 was American aristocracy. His uncle and G.o.dfather, J. P. Morgan Jr. (the financier John Pierpont"s son, known as Jack), epitomized the values of the American Establishment in all its "worldly Puritanism, cla.s.s-consciousness [and] self-righteousness." Jack Morgan was scrupulously Protestant, Republican, Anglophile, loyal to company and government and morally conservative. His staff at the Morgan bank were not permitted to divorce; money (despite his profession) he looked upon with a certain lofty disdain; brilliance and individualism he distrusted-even in his nephew, of whom he was very fond. But Harry wanted nothing in life but brilliance.
Like so many young men of his generation, he had spent the last year of the war driving ambulances in northern France. It was a b.l.o.o.d.y initiation into adulthood for a protected boy. By the time he arrived back in Boston in the spring of 1919 Harry had watched two of his closest friends die in action, as well as numerous others. Narrowly evading death himself had left him convinced that he had been saved by his already idiosyncratic faith in G.o.d.
Returning home, Harry reluctantly got back on to the time-honored treadmill where he had left off. Harvard was the accepted next step after prep school, and to please his parents Harry took a two-year wartime degree, honoris causa- honoris causa-the kind of diploma Jay Gatsby claimed to have received from "Oggsford." In 1921 he moved to New York to start work at the Morgan bank, but the seeds of his flight had already been sown.
Two years earlier, soon after his return to Boston, Harry had fallen in love with Polly Peabody, a married woman seven years his senior. For both it was love at first sight, the kind of pa.s.sion that sweeps away every consideration before it. Polly was struck at their first meeting by the vividness of Harry"s personality and his combination of wisdom and naivete: "He seemed to be more expression and mood than man...he was taut as a tangent, his eyes blazed like mica, his mouth was large and it quivered ever so slightly when he was nervous, and his hands were like a musician"s hands, sensitive, compelling."