Anything Goes_ A Biography of the Roaring Twenties - Lucy Moore [77]
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 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 documents 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 entitled 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 scrapped the recruitment incentives from which they had made their fortunes.