HARDWICK— Brutal. Painful. Those are the feelings generated by Timothy Egan’s recounting of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States in the 1920s. “A Fever In The Heartland” focuses on Indiana and its Grand Dragon, D.C. Stephenson, but the book is a broader, historic display of a terrible time in America.
The KKK marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. in 1926, 25 members to a line. Over 50,000 hooded Klansmen, women and children, 90 percent from northern states, and a good 200,000 people lined the sidewalks to cheer and watch.
Although the Klan came to be seen as an aberration, that time left its mark, visible to this day. The Ku Klux Klan was evident in most states in the 1920s, including Vermont (see Fiery Crosses In The Green Mountains, by Maudean Neill, 1989), and controlled several state governments, including Colorado and Oregon, and, most notably, Indiana. At its height, it claimed six million members nationwide. Even Vermont native President Calvin Coolidge refused numerous requests to condemn the hate organization.
The Klan of the 1920s in Indiana rose quickly and generated wealth, which led to bringing more everyday people to don its white robes and support politicians who played on fears of the other. The Klan targeted Black people, Jewish people and Catholics. Ministers in Protestant churches were given cash by Klan members and then preached of the “good deeds” of the Klan.
Those seeking elected office roared their disapproval of those who were not white Protestants. They vilified immigrants, and Black and Jewish people of plotting to undermine true Americans. As a result of Klan influence, and outright membership in the hate organization, power brokers in companies, newspapers, schools, universities, local and state governments and the U.S. Congress pushed eugenics, restrictive immigration laws and voter suppression.
Those who were the “other” found new measures passed that restricted who and where people could live, where people could shop, who could own and run a successful business.
And when acceptable means of keeping order were insufficient, cross burnings and terrorism, including beatings and lynchings, were used. Police and judges, who were Klan members, turned their heads and dispensed the law based on race, ethnicity and religion.
D.C. Stephenson, the Indiana Grand Dragon, made up stories about himself and his background when he came to the state. He claimed to be a university graduate from a well-off family, a lawyer, a combat veteran of World War I. In reality, he was born into poverty in Texas, quit school in eighth grade, came from a dysfunctional family and enlisted in the Iowa National Guard to avoid the draft. After being discharged, he claimed he had been an officer and a hero. He was neither and had never been sent overseas.
He drifted from job to job at small newspapers, didn’t pay his bills, lied about his life and married. He was a womanizer, soon beat his pregnant wife, deserted her and refused to provide any support for their child after she tracked him down. The truth of who he was did not matter to the crowds of people who gathered to hear his impromptu rants about the threats of the other. The truth had no chance against his gifted speaking ability and his appeals to hatred, bigotry and fear.
Stephenson found favor with the national Klan headquarters in Atlanta and arranged to receive a portion of each new membership fee in Indiana and a cut from the purchase of each white robe. The rolls swelled as did his wealth. He bought a mansion in one of the best neighborhoods in Indianapolis and a 98-foot yacht he moored on Lake Erie. He threw parties attended by top officials, from a governor to a U.S. Senator, Congressmen, judges, mayors, city council members and legislators.
He was also a vicious abuser, beater and rapist, from his many wives to young women who appeared at his parties for the pleasure of the white men who attended. And he was an alcoholic.
His personal behavior was protected by well-armed thugs who served as non-questioning bodyguards. He preached abstinence, respect for women, monogamy, the sanctity of the family, the importance of the Protestant religion, but practiced none of that. He was a fraud but had the support of everyday people because of their own fear, bigotry and hatred of the other. The populace was blind to who he was.
Egan provides a thorough, compelling, chilling and readable recounting of Stephenson’s arrival in Evansville, where the first Klan chapter in the state was organized. His rise to power is documented as is his quest to be appointed to the U.S. Senate and then to be elected to the White House. Although he failed in the latter two aspirations, he had a betting chance to succeed had he not kidnapped, drugged, raped, mutilated and murdered a young woman who lived with her family not far from the mansion. Although not a public figure, Madge Oberholtzer was a proud, strong woman of the Jazz Age. College educated, well-traveled, the holder of a professional job, she came naively into Stephenson’s lair. She hoped to persuade him to make sure the Legislature did not cut the funding for the state government department where she worked. She died trying, but not before her deathbed attestation of what he did to her was admitted into a court. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The trial and scandals it revealed led to the eventual decline of the Klan in Indiana and other states. The parades of white-sheeted terrorists, their control of various state and municipal governments, newspapers, many judges and law enforcement officers and other official and unofficial organizations declined. But, as Egan points out, its influence remained. Eugenics practices, including in Vermont, lasted until the 1950s. Jim Crow laws lasted into the 1960s and forced sterilization was practiced until the 1970s. Immigrants today remain the targets of an unceasing narrative. Hatred and bigotry of the other has never left.
Egan documents and posits bigotry and hate are out in the open in America of the 2020s, 100 years after the KKK’s stranglehold on elected officials, police, judges and one’s neighbors.
The Klan may not be a player on the country’s stage today, but domestic militia and terrorist groups are touted by the FBI and other entities as the greatest threat to the country’s internal security. They made themselves known on Jan. 6, 2021, with the encouragement of the then and now elected again president. Over 1,000 of those terrorists were convicted and imprisoned for their effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and prevent the certification of Joe Biden as president. The new president has pardoned the January 6 prisoners, leaving them free to rebuild their organizations of hate.
A convicted felon and abuser of women now occupies the White House.
The U.S. Congress is controlled by a Republican Party that bows to the wishes of the new president, who lies and preaches hate and bigotry.
A fundamentalist purveyor of white evangelical Protestantism, who voted against certifying the 2020 election, is the Speaker of the House and third in line to become president.
The new vice president reportedly questions whether the rule of law as interpreted by federal courts should always be followed.
An un-elected billionaire, the richest man in the world who openly supports a neo-Nazi party in Germany, and others of extraordinary wealth are poised to hold sway and lead departments of the federal government.
Today, people don’t need to wear white sheets, pointed head coverings and masks. Bigotry and hate are normalized today, from local governments, to states to the federal government.
The country remains with a heartland fever. Egan’s book is a stark reminder that what was is also what is, writ large. To paraphrase Sinclair Lewis, it can happen here.
Ross Connelly is the former publisher and editor of the Hardwick Gazette.