2,273 words
M. William Lutholtz
Grand Dragon: D. C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana
West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1991
The Second Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1915 by William J. Simmons, began as a small group of no more than 15 friends. Within a decade, it spread throughout the country and grew to include up to five million members. At its height, it was, as one journalist put it at the time, “the most vigorous, active and effective organization in American life.”[1]
The decline of the Second Klan was equally swift: It had already virtually evaporated by the late 1920s. A major contributing factor to this was the trial and conviction of the Grand Dragon of Indiana, D. C. Stephenson, for the abduction, rape, and murder of a young woman and the subsequent revelations concerning his tawdry political dealings. His downfall is a cautionary tale that should be heeded by White Nationalists today.
The Second Klan was the largest Right-wing movement in American history, but few Americans are familiar with it. It was more mainstream, less Southern, and less violent than both the Reconstruction-era and the civil rights-era Klans, and is portrayed less frequently in the media. Contrary to the popular conception of the Klan as a refuge for thuggish “white trash,” Klansmen of that time were upstanding ordinary citizens: farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, etc. The Second Klan grew out of fraternal lodges and focused on community-building and civic activism, sponsoring parades, picnics, athletic contests, weddings, and other family-friendly events.[2]
Stephenson was one of the Second Klan’s most powerful leaders. The Indiana Klan grew to be by far its strongest branch under his leadership: About 30% of native-born white men in Indiana were Klansmen. Stephenson was a talented political organizer and operated a highly structured and efficient political machine. During each election cycle, he oversaw the distribution of fliers listing Klan-backed candidates to white Protestant homes throughout all of Indiana. He also came up with the idea of polling all of Indiana to identify the Klan’s strongholds and weak spots, which is impressive considering that the practice of polling was then in its infancy.
Yet, Stephenson was also a narcissistic megalomaniac who brought about the demise of the Invisible Empire. It would be almost too trite to spin his story into a morality tale about the perils of avarice and hubris, but the inevitable lesson is that people who lack principles and have pathological personalities should be barred from leadership positions in the movement.
Stephenson was born in 1891 in Houston, Texas, the son of a poor sharecropper (though he later claimed to have been the son of a wealthy businessman). He got his start as a progressive socialist who traveled the countryside delivering political speeches, inspired by German-American socialist organizer Oskar Ameringer (who advocated for giving blacks the right to vote and helped elect an anti-Klan Governor). A speaker could earn up to $18 a week, and his room and board were provided for by other party members, so it was a lucrative job.
Stephenson married in 1915, though this did not stop him from engaging in numerous extra-marital affairs. When his adultery was at risk of being exposed, he abandoned his wife and their infant daughter (in the middle of winter at that), taking $800 he had stolen from his employer. His wife proceeded to filed for divorce. (Years later, when she approached him for child support, he denied that he knew her or the child.)
After his divorce, Stephenson joined the US Army. He was stationed at the armory in Boone, Iowa, where he was suspected of committing a break-in. He also borrowed money from fellow soldiers and failed to pay any of them back. The officers at Boone were so desperate to get rid of him that they promoted him to Second Lieutenant just so that he would be relocated.
Stephenson then became a traveling salesman and moved with his new wife to Evansville, Indiana, where he impressed locals with his claim that he had been a decorated soldier in the First World War (in reality, he never saw combat) and began working for a coal brokerage firm. It was around this time that he became involved with the Klan, whose popularity in Indiana was growing. He was probably enticed by the financial perks of being a kleagle, or Klan recruiter: New members of the Klan had to pay a $10 fee (“klecktoken”), of which $4 went to the kleagle responsible for the member’s recruitment. Stephenson became a rich man overnight and quickly rose through the Indiana Klan’s ranks.
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Stephenson’s wife divorced him in 1922 due to his violent, drunken outbursts, which included giving her a black eye and kicking her. This pattern of behavior persisted throughout his life. On one occasion, while staying at a hotel, he called for a manicurist to come to his room, upon which he assaulted and threatened to kill her. When a bell-boy returned to the hotel room, Stephenson punched him in the face. He again threatened to rape and kill a girl at a party in October 1924.
Stephenson reached the height of his power in 1923, when he was crowned Grand Dragon of Indiana at its legendary July 4th rally (“klonklave”) in Kokomo, which was the largest Klan rally in US history. Stephenson later claimed that he had arrived late due to a meeting with President Warren G. Harding and that he had been welcomed by an adoring crowd who showered him with money and jewelry. Both claims were fabrications, though his speech was warmly received.
Stephenson was fabulously wealthy by this point. He used his wealth to create a near-exact replica of Klankrest, the Klan’s Imperial Palace in Atlanta, and spent $22,000 (about $400,000 today) remodeling his house. He also bought many luxury items, including expensive oriental carpets, a grand piano, several cars, diamond engagement rings, and a $55,000 yacht similar to the one owned by Al Capone, which he used for entertaining prominent politicians. He was the Al Sharpton of white supremacy.
Stephenson did not actually believe in the ideals he promoted. His views “were as changeable as a fancy suit of clothes. In Oklahoma, he had been a socialist. In Evansville, he was a Democrat. In Indianapolis, he would be a Republican” (p. 56). The policies he advanced had little to do with preserving white Protestant hegemony. Instead of promoting bills that would require religious instruction and the display of the American flag in public schools (like one of his rivals, Walter Bossert), Stephenson supported a seemingly random array of bills pertaining to things like margarine, highways, and pollution. The common denominator was financial extortion and self-interest.
A rift began to develop between Stephenson and Hiram Evans, the Imperial Wizard. Suspicious of Stephenson’s vast wealth, Evans hired an accounting firm to go through his books. Nothing untoward was found, but Stephenson had possibly covered up his financial misdemeanors. Evans likely sensed Stephenson’s megalomania and feared he had his sights set on deposing him. Evans, in cahoots with Stephenson, had in fact deposed Simmons in the national “klonvocation” of 1922.
After the split between Stephenson and Evans, the former convened an open press conference in which he publicly accused Evans and the Atlanta Klan of a laundry list of sins. He discarded his enigmatic public persona: “the hood was off” (p. 132). The accusations included “[mishandling] funds,” “[lying] repeatedly,” and “[abusing] women” — which was ironic coming from Stephenson (p. 135). He also accused Evans of being a “money-mad” traitor who wanted nothing but a “fancy salary” (p. 133). (He claimed the Grand Dragon — i.e., himself — ought to receive no salary, but this was all for show, because he earned most of his money from commissions.) In response, Evans invited the leaders of every klavern in Indiana to a meeting and turned away Stephenson loyalists at the door. This naked power struggle alienated rank-and-file Klansmen.
At the inaugural dinner of the Klan-backed Governor Edward Jackson in January 1925, Stephenson met Madge Oberholtzer, a 28-year-old state education official. The two went on several dates, and Oberholtzer helped write a book for him. On the night of March 15, Stephenson called her and asked her to come and see him about something “very important.” Madge did not return that night or the next day. Stephenson’s men finally returned her to her family’s home on March 17, severely injured. They claimed, thinking she would soon die, that she had been in a car accident, but she lived long enough to write a statement and tell her side of the story. She claimed to have been attacked and brutally raped by Stephenson aboard an overnight train to Chicago, leaving her with multiple bruises and bite wounds. The doctor who testified during Stephenson’s subsequent trial said it appeared as though she had been attacked by a cannibal. During the incident, Madge had attempted suicide by ingesting mercury bichloride tablets; she died a month later from kidney failure caused by mercury poisoning.
Stephenson’s lawyers claimed he had been framed by Evans and argued that he was not responsible for Madge’s suicide. The first claim is highly unlikely, but the charge of second-degree murder is indeed dubious. State attorneys portrayed Madge as a pure, innocent woman who committed suicide in response to the violation of her chastity. The reality was probably more complicated, as she had had an affair with a married man in the past. Lutholtz speculates that she may have committed suicide as an act of revenge against Stephenson, or that perhaps her death was the result of an attempted abortion gone awry (mercury bichloride was used to perform abortions during the 1920s). Regardless of the specifics, the evidence suggests that Stephenson was indeed guilty of Madge’s horrific rape.
To Stephenson’s chagrin, none of his friends in high places got him out of prison. He bragged to reporters that Jackson would soon pardon him, but this never occurred. Enraged, Stephenson decided to expose his political connections in revenge. He produced checks drawn for Jackson’s campaign, revealed a contract with Indianapolis Mayor John Duvall in which the Mayor had pledged loyalty to Stephenson, and exposed Jackson’s attempted bribery of the former Governor. Jackson and his co-conspirators were indicted for bribery, while Duvall was jailed for 30 days and barred from holding office for four years. Some Republican commissioners of Marion County were also charged with bribery.
A similar scandal unfolded in Colorado at the same time: The state’s Grand Dragon, John Galen Locke, committed tax evasion and also threatened a teenaged Klansman with castration. The investigation of Locke’s tax evasion uncovered Klan corruption throughout the state. This led to the downfall of the Klan in Colorado, formerly a Klan stronghold.
In the aftermath of Stephenson’s conviction and the bribery scandals, Klansmen across the nation left the Klan in the hundreds of thousands. This was the final death knell for the Second Klan, which was already reeling from debacles at the Democratic and Republican national conventions, failed attempts to influence national legislation, and the erosion of its communitarian ethos.
Stephenson was the archetypal narcissist. His tall tales about being a decorated war hero and being showered with money and jewelry by adoring fans evince an overweening need for “narcissistic supply.” His boasts about being “the law in Indiana” and becoming “the biggest man in the United States” also suggest an unhealthy appetite for power. It’s healthy and natural to have some desire for power and recognition, but a leader’s foremost goal should be to serve his people or cause. Most truly great leaders do not set out to become leaders; they set out to advance their cause, and leadership is thrust upon them because no one else is fit for the job. A strong desire to be a leader paired with a lack of ideological commitment is a massive red flag.
Evans should have impeded Stephenson’s rise from the start, but his all-encompassing fantasies of a Klan-controlled Senate, and even a hooded President, probably blinded him to Stephenson’s flaws. Like Evans, Stephenson wanted to transform the Klan from a fraternal organization into a serious political force. It’s a reminder that narcissists are a ticking time bomb, even if they profess high-minded principles and appear to share our goals.
The contemporary White Nationalist movement offers few financial rewards compared to the Klan, but the movement’s decentralized nature and the allure of being a “big fish in a small pond” have enticed a raft of self-proclaimed “leaders,” many of whom have dubious motivations. Nick Fuentes’ recent claim that he is the “number one dissident” in the country, will one day be President of the United States, and will execute his enemies is disturbingly reminiscent of Stephenson. His most recent rally was titled not “America First,” but “Fuentes.” This is particularly damning in light of Fuentes’ mockery of devout Christians, which points toward the likelihood that he is merely capitalizing on a trend for personal gain. The movement need not be entirely comprised of true believers (rank-and-file Leftists who are insincere social climbers and conformists still bolster the prestige of their worldview among normies), but it is imperative that those who occupy leadership positions be principled and honorable.
The story of the Second Klan is genuinely tragic. The Klan was a robust grassroots organization that actually had a shot at influencing national politics. Ordinary Klansmen were decent white Americans who truly believed in “100% Americanism” and put their faith in the Klan. They were failed by greedy, corrupt leaders whose fall from grace cemented the Klan’s irreversible decline.
* * *
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Notes
[1] Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 10.
[2] Giles Corey’s article on the Second Klan provides a good overview of the organization.
27 comments
Well this certainly looks to be worth a look! The 1915 Klan was swiftly turned into controlled opposition, and therefore became an ineffectual, often comical movement. It was inspired by the D W Griffith movie, of course, but went off the rails. The original Klan was set up to fight the scalawags and carpetbaggers of Reconstruction, as well as any uppity freed negroes who had hijacked local politics. It was not anti-Catholic or even (per Bernard Baruch) anti-Jewish.
Yet we are faced with the phenomenon of a Second Klan that didn’t do much in the way of fighting degeneracy or race-mixing; rather it was steered, particularly in Indiana, toward pointless anti-Catholic antics. I’m reminded of the “social conservatives” of the 1980s and 90s, who picketed abortion clinics and hollered against the queers, but wouldn’t touch the Israel-firsters subverting our foreign policy, or even go after race-hustlers pushing “Diversity.”
My first instinct is to suspect this Stephenson was railroaded, made into a poster-boy for the Evils of Klanistry. But…I haven’t read the book.
Yeah the Klan’s anti-Catholicism was incredibly short-sighted.
There was a Jewish journalist named Harry Golden. From the ghettos of New York originally, but he was famous in adulthood for editing a paper in NC (Charlotte, I think) called the Carolina Israelite. Harry liked to say there wasn’t much anti-semitism in the South because the Jews used Catholics as a sort of lightning rod to deflect prejudice. For me, that’s always been the explanation for the 2nd Klan’s anti-Catholicism. It was controlled deflection.
Ron Unz currently has an article up about Leo Frank, deflating the old canard that Frank was lynched because of anti-semitism. Not only was there little of that around Atlanta, but 5 of the jury members who convicted Frank were Jewish themselves.
I’m a life long Hoosier and had never heard this story before. I didn’t even know the Klan had such a large presence in my state.
Now you do.
It was the BIGGEST presence…which adds to the irony!
The Klan’s growth was driven by it’s Midwest populism. Unlike other fraternal organizations, it attracted working stiffs instead of the people who employed working stiffs. But it was killed by ‘Americanism’ which is a zero-content concept that is easily steered whatever direction money and elite power want it to go. I had forgotten how big the ‘bounty’ was on new members. $4 in the early 1900s was nothing to sneeze at. And getting working folks to fork over $5 to join a new fraternal organization meant they had a hell of a sales pitch.
In Only Yesterday, Frederick Lewis Allen describes the technique of Kleagling in the 1920s. People actually did it as a remunerative job. I believe Kleagles worked in a pyramid scheme. The Kleagles on the ground kicked some money upstairs and their bosses did the same, all the way to the top.
“This is particularly damning in light of Fuentes’ mockery of devout Christians”
What? I thought he was himself a devout Catholic.
He pretends to be, but a while ago he privately mocked people who pray. As a general rule I never make claims like that without citing them but it felt too important not to include. If anyone remembers the source for this, please link it here.
Nick’s “catholic” shtick was fake from the beginning, I never fell for it for a second.
Yeah I would like some documentation here as well?
As a general rule I never make claims like that without citing them but it felt too important not to include.
If it was that important, you should have followed your “general rule” to the hilt. And when asked for a citation, you either should have provided one or removed the relevant passage. This is basic shit.
When Jaden McNeil—Fuentes’s right-hand boy after the previous right-hand boy, Patrick Casey—resigned from giving him right-hand handjobs, McNeil gave a bunch of interviews saying Fuentes doesn’t pray, doesn’t go to mass, and is a homosexual:
In the same interview, McNeil and another former employee of the America First Foundation, Simon Dickerman, made numerous other claims about Fuentes, accusing Fuentes of having “brainwashed” his followers, faking his Catholicism, and secretly being homosexual.
Both Patrick Casey and Jaden McNeil—who were both, for prolonged stretches, as close to Fuentes as they could be without being literally up his ass, which is not out of the question—went public with claims that Fuentes repeatedly lies to his audience about all manner of things.
I question the judgment of anyone who fell for the “devout Catholic” song-and-dance. I question the judgment of anyone who fell for anything about Fuentes for even a moment. He is zooming in on age 25 while bragging he’s never had sex with a woman and that “having sex with women is gay.” And he apparently he wants you to believe it’s because he’s a “devout Catholic.” Holy hell, what an deep dark ocean of gullibility exists out there.
Former (and now current?) CC writer Travis LeBlanc finally had the scales fall from his eyes after coming to the conclusion that Nick’s tantrums over Jaden McNeil’s departure signaled that Nick was as gay as a fresh sprig of mistletoe on a festive winter’s vest.
I don’t think we should be too hard on people who saw something in Fuentes. He clearly has some very real talents and he deserved a shot. He got his shot and he kinda blew it. I think this cycle is quite common in politics.
His role going forward seems to be that of an online streamer and not a political leader.
Thank you for putting this into plain language, Mr. Goad. It was obvious, a long time ago, Fuentes has “issues”.
‘Hamburger Today’ maintains that because White Nationalism is a fringe political movement, it too often attracts fringe personalities.
The fictional 1915 D.W. Griffith film presented a case for a national synthesis to the Civil War that manifested the importance of Race, and Southern-born President Woodrow Wilson was highly impressed ─ in spite of the internationalist messianism in his second term of office.
Mr. Lincoln believed in lancing a long-festering boil for good, and he believed in nothing short of Divine inspiration in so doing. That he was willing to kill millions of Americans to execute his crusade should give us pause for thought and how well conceived the rebirth of the nation actually was. It is always a bad idea to mix Theology and Statecraft.
Internationalist and Universalist forces are less impressed with national histories and national borders, however, and Mr. Wilson’s Democrat progressivism was only the first to yield to Yankee exceptionalism and crusading for world-redemption.
The Second Klan directly addressed the burgeoning immigration problem at the turn of the 20th Century. This ultimately failed and went off into meaningless directions.
D.C. Stephenson was most-certainly guilty of the brutal rape. I think the article sums the known facts and all the Movement caveats pretty well.
It was not just old demographic fears taking shape, but actual anarchists and radicalinskis getting off the boat. Although the WASPS have much to answer for, especially when on some kind of crusade, I think the fears of unchecked Papist and Slav immigration were not unfounded.
The time to “fight the Joos” and fellow-travelers was in the early 20th century when the character of the nation, and which elites would control its governance, was being determined by deciding who would be allowed to get off the boat.
I don’t agree with those who think that the seeds of destruction were baked into the Republic from its inception ─ that it was a Masonic conspiracy or any such nonsense ─ but I do think that it is hard to understand what is really at stake and what is in danger of being lost until the stark reality sets in.
Today people blame the Boomers for not being able to imagine what the nation would actually look like without “White supremacy,” but the die was cast long before their generation was even born.
🙂
Without Papist and Slavic immigration, the US probably would have ended up about 50% black. Or at least close to it.
Negroes mainly stayed in the South. I don’t see them settling the Frontier or the midwestern plains. Sorry.
Apart from New York City, Negroes did not really migrate up North much either until World War I.
And Negroes mostly did not come out West at all other than perhaps to the Left Coast after the Civil War.
As late as the mid-1960s you rarely saw any Negroes in places like Las Vegas, Nevada or Tucson, Arizona, or Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the early 1970s, I remember a few Negroes in Ogden, Utah which had an Air Force Base and the Defense Depot, etc. but there were still not many. They did make a big impression with a particularly vicious robbery and multiple murder at a Hi Fi shop a couple of years after our family lived there. And other than Boise, one rarely sees Blacks in Idaho today.
I’m not saying that Slav and Catholic immigration was necessarily bad. Germans, Irish, Poles and others assimilated pretty well. It became more of a problem when the waves of immigration came from Southern and Eastern Europe, notably Russian Jews near the turn of the 20th century.
In fact, most states have majority-German roots now, and the only states that still have majority-English roots are Maine, Idaho, and Utah ─ the latter two because of Mormon or LDS immigration (because their missionary work concentrated on the Anglosphere and to a lesser extent NW Europe).
🙂
Compelling story aside, the Klans klommitment to its klearly klunky and ridiklulous klolloquialisms gives me klonniptions.
Exactly! Yeah, that kind of crap really gilds the lily; be creative with content, never spelling.
That was a tremendous loss – millions of members in an organization that was pretty effective for a hot minute and had some real infrastructure, and everything fell apart because one sociopath managed to climb to the top. It’s entirely possible that history might have worked out at least a little differently if he’d been screened out before he could do any damage.
I’m especially interested. My grandfather attended a Klan rally in my home state of Missouri. He was a miner, WWI vet (combat medic…and he was there), and was a simple, honest man. I don’t know if he actually joined, but in his hometown there was a Klan march downtown. Everyone joked about it, since the Klan bought their sheets from Miller’s, and Miller was Jewish. I read of the Klan, and it’s a bit sad seeing how it fell, due to its leadership. You almost think ‘controlled opposition,’ but also Stephenson reads like a lot of 1920’s ballyhoo. Graham’s good essay here recalls Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry. The sex abuse is very typical of the 1920’s. As Harold Covington said, Americans are a very sleazy people, and the sleaze balls really rise to the top, like evil weeds pushing through the soil. I’m reminded of the National Alliance, how Pierce built up a credible, strong WN movement, died, and his successor helped himself to the coffers. This is very typical of such movements and kingdoms. Marcus Aurelius was one of Rome’s greatest emperors, but left it to his son Commodus, who was one of the worst. Biden is simply the latest sleaze ball…may he be the last. May it all fall. Please.
I also think of the playwright Preston Jones, whose Texas trilogy begins with the play The Last Meeting of the Knights of the White Camilla, where a Klan-like organization meets, desperate for new members. They mostly drink beer and play dominos, and the one fanatic they have, the leader, a provincial, opinionated ex-WWI officer, gets so ranty he scares off their one young applicant. It seems so typical of fringe groups.
Vauquelin: The ‘K’ stuff was very period, and has a certain American flavor,
from Kozy Kitchen, to Donuts (not Doughnuts), and E-Z Loans. We seem born to simplify the language as much as possible. Internet talk is its latest manifestation.
Scott: There was much distrust and fear of Jews and immigrants in that period, and the immigration act was a result, which put a lid on things and increased ‘Americanism.’ Naturally, it’s biggest and most opponents were the Jews, who finally won in 1965. A major fault of these groups like the Klan is, as has been pointed out, leadership, and not giving a cosmic sweep to the cause, understanding this is a continual battle. It might have been asking too much of men like my grandfather, but it could be tried.
What’s annoying now are the ‘conservatives’ who badmouth Woodrow Wilson in every way (and there’s a lot to badmouth), but they REALLY get angry about his supporting Birth of a Nation and re-introducing segregation in D.C. When I hear them on the radio go on about ‘he supported slavery, and SEGREGATION,’ I think controlled opposition, or simply the usual dunderheads who miraculously think if they keep ranting like this, millions of blacks will vote republican, and hooray! We’ll keep winning forever! They’re true conservatives, you know!
This is far more delusional than anything the Klan might have favored.
When I hear them on the radio go on about ‘he supported slavery, and SEGREGATION,’ I think controlled opposition, or simply the usual dunderheads who miraculously think if they keep ranting like this, millions of blacks will vote republican, and hooray! We’ll keep winning forever! They’re true conservatives, you know!
Don’t forget: “I haven’t seen Demonrats this upset since the Republicans took their slaves away, lololololololololol!!”
Amazingly, those appeals to blacks and equality have totally worked and have resulted in 93% of black Democrat voters defecting to the GOP.
So the entire Klan disbands because of this one (admittedly terrible) incident, but a similar one (the Leo Frank affair) is the genesis of the ADL?
What a perfect picture of stark racial differences. No wonder they’re calling the shots.
I was thinking earlier “Funny how this type of thing never happens with left-wing organizations.” It’s the difference between working hard and working smart. Also, not constantly in-fighting (at least publicly) over issues like optics and who is the most ideologically pure probably helps too.
The perfect way to deliver the benefits of the Klan to the Cuckservatives, who were indeed its primary beneficiaries and…its primary members, much to their contemporary chagrin, is to shoehorn the DR3 into black crime stories on Breitbart, Gateway Pundit etc and then turn it on its head.
‘The Klan/Jim Crow/slavery was the only thing the Democrats did right.’
Besides, contrary to the Cuckservative claim, the Klan was not entirely Democrat. Calvin Coolidge was heavily lobbied by the women of the Klan in Ohio to sign the Johnson Immigration Act.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7455592
Hilariously enough, the rabidly—or is it vehemently, or maybe even virulently?—anti-Catholic KKK was using the slogan “America First” way back in the 1920s.
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