Anything Goes_ A Biography of the Roaring Twenties - Lucy Moore [75]
Tyler showed her true mettle in response to the 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 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 exposé.
Even satire bounced off the Klan. The 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 attitude of the mass 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 attitude toward life, they soon will be, no doubt, as happy and prosperous as we are.”
Alerted by the 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.
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’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