Opinion

Part 2: Fort Scott and the Ku Klux Klan

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

The Klan targets immigrants in Southeast Kansas

By Fred Campbell Jr.

Special to The Tribune

Editor's note: This historical article is the second in a four-part series by local historian and retired educator Fred Campbell Jr. Future articles in the series will be published as space is available.

In May of 1922 Ku Klux Klan organizers came to Kansas and openly and clandestinely recruited members for a Klan organization in the state. They came to Arkansas City, Wichita, Emporia, Kansas City, and Pittsburg and many, many smaller towns to make contact with men of all stations of life for membership in the Klan. They courted both the Masonic Order and American Legion for their favor, but both organizations soundly rebuked them.

However, some individual members of both organizations did join the Klan.

On Aug. 23, 1922, a mining engineer from Pittsburg came to Fort Scott to recruit members for the Klan. Crawford County was a "hot bed" for the Klan with their target being the Catholic, foreign-born miners and railroad workers while in Bourbon County it was the "scabs" that took the jobs of the striking shop men of the railroads. After a few days it was rumored that more than 200 men had joined the Klan. To become a Klan member you had to go through the initiation ritual and on Sept. 7, 1922, twenty men from Fort Scott went to Pittsburg for that purpose.

The first overt activity of the Klan on the Kansas side of the state line took place on Sunday Oct. 3, 1922, in Prescott where a church trial was being held in the Methodist Church for two women who were in a dispute with the minister. Twenty-seven hooded and robed men arrived in front of the church and entered it walking up the aisle to the front of the church where the church judge sat behind a table and the leader placed a $2 bill on the table and said, "We demand justice." The other 26 men followed him and each placed a half dollar on the table and left the church without saying another word. They got into their cars and sped west out of town never to bother Prescott again. As there was no Klan activity in Linn County, it was assumed the Klansmen came from Fort Scott.

The first Klan meeting to initiate local members took place on Oct. 26, 1922, in a pasture nine miles south of Fort Scott with about forty cars in attendance. Pittsburg Klansmen performed the ritual work. About 40 cars were in the closely guarded field with a giant electrically lighted cross about 30 feet high illuminating the ritual area. Batteries powered the electric cross. The pasture was owned by Mrs. Ada Files who had not given permission for the Klan to use the field, nor did her renter, Harry Russell, whose herd of cattle stampeded through the fence when the giant electric cross was turned on.

On the evening of Nov. 3, 1922, a second Klan recruiting meeting was conducted in Bourbon County on the Sam Ridge farm, three miles south of Garland. About 75 men attended with the recruiter, Dr. H. Bullard of Kansas City, giving the recruitment lecture. The huge lighted cross was not present nor any Klansmen from Fort Scott in evidence.

While this Klan meeting was under way down by Garland, the same evening a debate was being conducted between the upper grades in East Victory School No. 111, two and one half miles east of Fort Scott on the question: "The Value of the Ku Klux Klan." When the negative side began deriding the Klan, four hooded and robed Klansmen came into the school, marched down to the front, each one laid a switch on the teacher's desk and the leader said," We demand justice." Then left. The debate was stopped immediately, and the judges ruled in favor of the affirmative team.

On Nov. 17, 1922, Bourbon County Sheriff Clarence Armour publicly announced that any citizen had the right to defend himself if he were attacked by any robed and hooded individual or gang, including the Ku Klux Klan.

On Dec. 31, 1923, a number of strange men attended the United Brethren Church's evening service and left a $25 offering in an envelope with a letter for the Pastor, Reverend I. B. Prather. The letter stated that the money was a reward for the good work he had done in the community. The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan signed it.

As Klan activity increased throughout Kansas, Gov. Henry J. Allen ordered that action be brought before the state supreme court to oust the organization from the state. This action was necessitated when the Klan moved in to support the striking railroad workers in Arkansas City against the railroads. Their fury was directed at the men who did not go out on strike, most of them black. The conflict resulted in one man being tarred and feathered and two others run out of town.

The governor worried that this type of lawless behavior by the Klan could spread throughout the state.

Attorney General Richard K. Hopkins was instructed by Gov. Allen to begin investigations in the larger cities through out the state including Wichita, Kansas City, Topeka, Independence, Fort Scott, Pittsburg and Coffeyville to determine the level of Klan activity.