A century ago, a charismatic charlatan in Indiana by the name of D.C. Stephenson \u201cset in motion the [Ku Klux] Klan\u2019s takeover of great swaths of America.\u201d Stephenson \u2013 who was a fraud, a huckster, a braggart, a bootlegger, a sex predator, and a serial liar – was the Klan\u2019s Grand Dragon who, along with millions of his compatriots, hated immigrants, Blacks, Catholics, and Jews. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was pretty far along with his scary takeover plan, which was enormously successful for a while and included a scheme to run for the White House – when a \u201cseemingly powerless\u201d woman stopped him. (First, though, he murdered her.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can read all about it in a new gripping thriller titled \u201cA Fever in the Heartland\u201d by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Timothy Egan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephenson was eventually stopped and sent to prison in 1925 for the grisly murder of that \u201cseemingly powerless\u201d woman, who was 28-year-old Madge Oberholtzer. Her deathbed testimony led to his conviction which, in turn, led to the downfall of the Klan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for years, Egan writes, Stephenson was able to spread Klan poison and power throughout the Midwest (especially Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) and some of the West (notably California, Colorado, and Oregon) because \u201cministers did not give up their Klan robes or turn on their leader in Sunday sermons. Elected officials did not distance themselves from their political master. Most newspapers did not condemn. Cross burnings did not stop. All the right people did not turn down invitation to parties\u2026Many chose selective amnesia in service to the greater good of the Invisible Empire and what it stood for. Some were even impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
George Dale, a crusading newspaper editor in Muncie, Indiana, was not impressed. He was beaten and served several stints in jail for taking on the Klan in print. (At the time, the Klan infested Indiana; all but two counties out of 92 had Klan chapters.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My grandfather, William S. Mellus, a crusading newspaper editor in Michigan during that era, also was unimpressed when an offshoot of the KKK called the Black Legion resurfaced in the Detroit area in the mid-1930s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grandpa printed the names of the Black Legion members on the front page of his weekly newspapers\u2014they included lawyers, doctors, sheriffs, police officers, city officials, and important businessmen — in the summer of 1936, condemning \u201cthe insidious workings of the cult\u201d and continuing to highlight the story of \u201cmurders and bombings\u201d and \u201ckidnappings and floggings\u201d in the area. As a result, the Black Legion twice put a contract out on his life. Happily, both failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides being a terrifying page-turner, \u201cA Fever in the Heartland\u201d, to my mind, is a warning about what happens in a democracy when good people don\u2019t pay attention. In Indiana, many of the good folks apparently were distracted by other things as Klan supporters took over the state legislature and the governor\u2019s office, sent several supporters to serve in Congress, and installed Klan members in sheriff\u2019s offices, police departments, and courts across the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of those good folks apparently didn\u2019t vote either. They were likely scared away by Klan threats and violence, while Klan supporters hurried to the polls to vote for Klan-backed candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Late in his prison term, Stephenson was visited by an old adversary who asked him if he\u2019d been serious about running for the White House.\u00a0 Stephenson said the plan was real although \u201cyou wouldn\u2019t have called it President.\u00a0 The form of government might have changed.\u00a0 You might have had a dictator.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A century ago, a charismatic charlatan in Indiana by the name of D.C. Stephenson \u201cset in motion the [Ku Klux] Klan\u2019s takeover of great swaths of America.\u201d Stephenson \u2013 who was a fraud, a huckster, a braggart, a bootlegger, a sex predator, and a serial liar – was the Klan\u2019s Grand Dragon who, along with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":504,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions\/504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}