Conditional Conservatism: Evansville, Indiana’s Embrace of the Ku Klux Klan, 1919–1924

WINTER 2011 3 Conditional Conservatism Evansville, Indiana’s Embrace of the Ku Klux Klan, 1919–1924 Dana M. Caldemeyer W hen twenty Ku Klux Klansmen dressed in full regalia silently marched down the aisle of Evansville’s Central Methodist Episcopal Church during a March 1922 Sunday evening service not a single congregation member stirred. After silently praying at the altar, the lead Klansman handed Reverend A. M. Couchman an envelope containing twenty-five dollars and said, “In the interest of the work that you are doing in the church, we present you with this sum of money.” As the leader and his hooded companions exited the building, the church service resumed with no mention of the mysterious visitors. The event was one of the local Klan’s many attempts to alter its image in the community . With the region caught in an ongoing debate about the merits of vigilante organizations, members of the Secret Order strove to separate their revitalized organization from vigilantes of the past. The Klan’s new concern for public relations prompted local klaverns to try and convince locals that they represented the interests of the community and contributed to the greater good. Klansmen hoped Main Street, Evansville, Indiana, c. early 1900s. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY CONDITIONAL CONSERVATISM 4 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY to show that their organization consisted of good men and honest churchgoers who genuinely wished to improve the city. The appeal transformed the organization , enhanced its prestige, and attracted new members from various classes who joined in the name of civic improvement and native white supremacy.1 Historians of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan often begin their studies in 1915, when William Simmons re-established the Klan in Atlanta, Georgia, and then fast-forward to the 1920s when the Klan reached its zenith. Most dedicate a portion of their work to the Indiana Realm of the Ku Klux Klan because the state was home to one of the strongest Klan movements in the 1920s. Scholars who study the Indiana Klan have focused on Evansville during the early spring of 1921, when Klan organizer and future Exalted Cyclops Joe Huffington arrived in the city. Seemingly overnight, the organization took root, making Evansville the first northern city to join the Invisible Empire. Current historiography credits the Klan’s instant popularity to the impact of World War I. The war increased anti-German sentiment and fears of socialism, while helping spark the Great Migration, the movement of tens of thousands of southern African Americans to northern cities. These factors played an important role in the Klan’s rise, but dating the organization’s birth to 1915 obscures the reasons for its broad appeal in many northern states. Certainly, the Klan’s popularity in southern Indiana can only be understood by examining the region’s pre-World War I history and traditions—and particularly the region’s long experience with vigilante groups. For many Evansville citizens, the Klan’s arrival and the 1925 trial and conviction of Indiana’s Grand Dragon David Curtis Stephenson for murder did not constitute watershed moments, as historians have argued. J. C. Kerlin, an Evansville native and editor of the Evansville Courier in the 1920s, recalled that the Klan’s arrival in Evansville followed naturally from earlier events. The rise of the Klan, he asserted, was “the next episode in the story of Evansville . . . something of an interlude when related to what had gone before and what followed.” The organization’s establishment and popularity arose from “a variety of influences and interests and ambitions” that in the early 1920s coalesced into a powerful if short-lived social and political organization.2 Located on the northern bank of the Ohio River, Evansville served as the regional and commercial hub for the cluster of Indiana’s southernmost counties known as the “Pocket.” The region’s producers shipped corn and coal directly to Evansville via the dense railroad network that wove through the countryside. The railroad also carried coal, “Black Patch” tobacco, and laborers north from Robe of Grand Dragon, from Catalogue of Official Robes and Banners,Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (Atlanta: Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, 1925). RARE PAMPHLETS, THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY...