7

RESISTANCE TO THE WOOD COUNTY KU KLUX KLAN

Reverend Nelson B. Martin of the Prairie Depot Church of Christ announced to his congregation on June 17, 1923, that there would be a surprise visitor for the following Sunday’s evening service. Members of the congregation should “expect to have a speaker present who is a stranger to many of you.” Reverend Martin hinted that “a crowd will greet him” when the speaker arrived at the church.¹⁷⁰

Reverend Martin did not inform his congregation in the announcement that he was a Klan member and that the “special guest” was a recruitment agent for the Wood County Ku Klux Klan.

Unfortunately for Reverend Martin, word of the Klan visit leaked out, and outraged members of the congregation attempted to use physical force to prevent the arriving Klansmen and recruitment speaker from entering their church during the Sunday evening service on June 24, 1923. The planned meeting occurred, albeit with reduced attendance, and in apparent retaliation to anti-Klan members of the church, the Klan burned a cross and set off an explosive device outside the church at approximately 10:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 27.¹⁷¹

It is perhaps not surprising that one week later, the church board announced the resignation of Reverend Martin as minister of the Prairie Depot Church of Christ.¹⁷²

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan did not meet with universal approval in the 1920s in Wood County, Ohio. Resistance to the group’s recruiting efforts and public activities was at times somewhat sporadic, but an analysis of government records and newspapers from the decade reveals significant opposition to the Klan by residents of Wood County.

Part of the reason for the less intense opposition to the Klan in Wood County was simply a general lack of awareness of the group’s connection to violence in post–Civil War history. School textbooks and history courses typically did not cover topics such as lynchings and other terror-related activities of the Klan during Reconstruction, and as discussed earlier, some forms of American popular culture actually glorified the Ku Klux Klan.

In addition, to some casual observers at the time, the Ku Klux Klan was just the latest in a long series of fraternal organizations in the county. The Klan’s emphasis on structured hierarchy, exotic rituals, organizational secrecy and social gatherings may have seemed—at least to the uninitiated—not particularly different from those of fraternal groups such as the Masons, Woodsmen, Elk, Moose or Odd Fellows.

Certainly, Klan propaganda worked favorably to limit criticism and opposition to the group. In the case of Wood County, the Klan benefited from having virtual control over one of the local newspapers, the Wood County Republican, as the publisher, editor, reporters and even the printer of the paper were Klansmen. It appears that by March 1923 Republican owner Harvey Sherer was at least extremely sympathetic to the Klan, and at some point in that year, Sherer became one of the Wood County Klan’s charter members. Several other newspapers in Wood County, especially the North Baltimore Times and the Perrysburg Journal, frequently ran articles that placed the Klan in a positive light.

Finally, the role of terror and intimidation as tools to reduce direct resistance to the Klan cannot be ignored. Church visits—termed “invasions” by some irritated parishioners—suggested that even the most sacred religious spaces were not free from the influence of the Klan. Cross burnings directly communicated the potential for violence inherent in the Klan, and public spectacles such as Klan parades, Klan funeral possessions and outdoor Klonvocations demonstrated the numerical power that the county Klansmen held.

The newspaper that consistently demonstrated antagonism toward the Klan was the Wood County Democrat. This newspaper frequently ran editorials expressing contempt of Wood County Kluxers, and news stories covering Klan-oriented events tended to either mock the participants or sound rhetorical alarms to the community about the dangers of the Klan.

In the January 19, 1923 edition of the Wood County Democrat, the newspaper printed an article on a speech by the Reverend John Cavanaugh, former president of the University of Notre Dame. The paper quoted Cavanaugh about what he referred to as the “anarchy of religious bigotry” in reference to the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, according to Cavanaugh, seemed to have “derived its name from a stuttering idiot and its principles from an unfragrant [sic] voodoo philosophy.”¹⁷³

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The Democrat ridiculed Klan participants in a vigilante action designed to track down would-be burglars of a bank in the village of Cygnet. A small posse of Klansmen stood watch over the bank until repairs could be made to its safe, and Klan volunteers—though ultimately unsuccessful in capturing the burglars—assisted the county sheriff in hunting the criminals.

The Wood County Democrat reporter, however, could not resist poking fun at the Kluxers, derisively inventing nicknames and suggesting that the Klan members were not the heroes they claimed to be:

Never again will the writer of this column speak slightingly of the Cygnet Klan…in this battle, “Clissy” is said to have covered himself with glory (and mud) by falling out of the path of a small cannonball shot by one of the robbers. “Cappy” performed the remarkable stunt of making himself thinner than the body of a four-inch sapling in protecting himself from the bullets. Earl Adams…proved to the world he is a brave man by arming himself with two young cannons and guarding the bank through Friday night, and Secretary Callan, not to be outdone in bravery, worked in the post office this week, right where the robbers’ guards were giving battle to the citizens.¹⁷⁴

Klan leaders frequently expressed a sort of perplexed shock at the animosity that their organization fostered in Klan opponents. Whether this response was feigned or genuine—or some combination of the two—the rhetorical reaction inevitably fell back to depicting the group as misunderstood by its opponents.

The North Baltimore Times reported that a traveling actor known for Broadway roles addressed a 1923 gathering at the Knights of Columbus. John F. Webber spoke at a luncheon organized by the group, and he discussed the fate of “Catholics, Hebrews, and Negroes” who served in the First World War. While not directly naming the Klan as the object of his condemnation, it is clear that the KKK was among the groups Webber included in this speech.

American veterans, argued Webber, were entitled to return home to a country grateful for their willingness to serve the country during wartime. Instead, Catholics, Jews and African Americans found that “the poison of hate and prejudice held sway.” Hate mongering fanatics like Klansmen, Webber argued, gave “no heed to the great commandment in the Bible beneath their arms: ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’”¹⁷⁵

Hints at growing resistance to the Klan can be discovered in some of the group’s propaganda. A 1924 editorial in the pro-Klan Wood County Republican—highly likely to have been penned by a Wood County Klan member—noted that whenever “a secret order of Protestant Americans tries to hold a peaceable open-air meeting, it automatically becomes the target for abuse, ridicule, brick bats, and bullets.” The author sarcastically argued that “you would think from the actions of the opponents of this order that the Klan is a combination of man-eaters out to dine on Catholics, Jews, and negroes.”¹⁷⁶

The local Klan chapters faced vigorous anti-Klan opposition at a Klonklave held in the city of Fremont on May 24, 1924. Fremont is about thirty miles east of Bowling Green across the county line, and the Wood County Klan made up a significant amount of the “2,000 unmasked robed Klansmen” parading through the streets of the city. In particular the hundreds of Klan members in eastern Wood County were just a short drive from Fremont, and newspaper accounts documenting the event note the heavy presence of the Wood County KKK.

During the parade the Klansmen were confronted by some “unpatriotic American citizens” who made it “difficult for those parading to take the obscene language that was handed out.” Even worse, the “anti-Americans and others began to throw rotten eggs at them on the edge of town.” The pro-Klan Wood County Republican editorialized that the “egg brigade did not have the nerve to attack the front ranks of the parade” and that the protesters used a hedge for cover because they were “cowards.”¹⁷⁷

One of the difficulties in documenting resistance to the Klan is that the Klan itself worked hard to limit exposure of successful anti-Klan activities, most likely out of a fear of being perceived less powerful. It is apparent from editorials in the Wood County Republican, though, that numerous public Klan meetings faced significant resistance, up to an including attempts to shut down Klan events.¹⁷⁸

One Klan-backed meeting that was successfully broken up by protesters involved a speaker from Toledo, Helen Jackson, who toured on Klan circuits as an “escaped nun.” Jackson would recount dubious stories of infanticides in convents, physical and sexual abuse, torture and poison of nuns and other salacious tales intended to discredit the Catholic Church.¹⁷⁹

The Republican declared that police “committed an outrage on the free American people” when they stepped in and ended Jackson’s speech. Protesters had successfully pressured local officials into enforcing fire code regulations in the packed hall, and Jackson was later arrested for disorderly conduct when she continued her rant against the Catholic Church outside the hall.¹⁸⁰

While many non-Klan politicians were reluctant to openly attack the KKK, a few political candidates directly denounced the Klan. The North Baltimore Times reported that a 1923 candidate for village marshal, Perry Weber, “tossed his glove in the face of the hooded order” in his political campaign. Weber, unlike his Klan-backed opponent, vowed that “when he makes an arrest he wants the prisoner to know who he is,” unlike his presumably masked counterpart.¹⁸¹

A few Klan “visits” to local churches in Wood County did not meet with the enthusiasm for which KKK members had hoped. The Klan attempted to enter a Fostoria church, but the Reverend Wilford Lyons “refused to sanction the use of a mask in the church.” The rest of the Klan members waited outside, and one unmasked Kluxer walked into the church; gave the minister a cash donation, a Bible and an American flag; and walked out. However, the North Baltimore Times noted that a “short time after the presentation a cross was burned outside of the church,” suggesting that Klan members were less than pleased about being instructed to remove their masks by Reverend Lyons.¹⁸²

The Daily Sentinel-Tribune reported a similar reprimand of a Klan invasion by a member of the clergy at a Methodist church in October 1923. A group of “nine hooded and robed members of the Ku Klux Klan” interrupted the Sunday evening sermon of a Methodist minister named Francis McConnell. The minister not only refused the cash offering proffered by the Klansmen, but also chastised the group for arriving at a religious meeting “with masks on your faces.” Moreover, declared Reverend McConnell, the Klansmen “have no right to interrupt a religious service.”¹⁸³

THE WOOD COUNTY KLAN’S PARTICIPATION IN THE NILES RIOT

Wood County Klan members were present at one of the most notorious and violent confrontations between Klan members and anti-Klan forces. The events took place in and around the city of Niles, Ohio, over the course of several months in 1924.

The city of Niles in eastern Ohio’s Mahoning Valley had been an area of significant conflict between chapters of the Ohio Ku Klux Klan and anti-Klan forces. The city and surrounding areas were heavily Catholic, with large numbers of persons with Irish and Italian heritage. Klan leaders in Ohio had long viewed with alarm the “un-American” tendencies of residents of the Mahoning Valley. The KKK also noted that some individuals in the anti-Klan movement had connections to bootlegging, and they used this information in an attempt to add moral legitimacy to their campaigns in Niles and the surrounding areas.

The animosity generated by public Klan displays in the region boiled over in Niles in May 1924 during a Klan parade. Angry local residents knocked down a burning cross at the high school, and Klan members were pelted with rocks and bricks, and several shots were fired by unknown gunmen.¹⁸⁴

In response to the disrupted parade, Klan officials put out a call to state and regional Klan members for a major Konklave to be held in Niles on June 21, 1924. Event organizers confidently predicted a Kluxer turnout of fifty thousand knights, but perhaps ten thousand Klan members made the journey to Niles.¹⁸⁵ This second major Klan event met with even greater resistance from local opponents of the Klan, and Klan officials were forced to call off the June 21 Konklave due to the rioting associated with the cancelled Klan event.

Tensions in the Mahoning Valley remained high between Klan and anti-Klan forces in the summer of 1924. There were sporadic violent incidents between the two groups, and regional Klan opponents coalesced into an umbrella group they called the Knights of the Flaming Circle, which adopted the use of a gasoline-soaked burning tire as a symbol to counter the Klan’s burning cross. The mayor of Niles enacted a ban on public parades for a month to try to cool off the warring factions, but he inexplicably lifted the ban and issued a permit for the Klan to march in Niles on November 1, 1924.

Klan members around the state began to make preparations for the event. The Klan fervor was especially fueled by speeches given by C.A. Gunder, a charismatic Klan Kleagle who urged Klan members to defend their honor in light of the “injustices” suffered by the Niles Klan. Gunder chastised Klan members, sarcastically arguing that Kluxers “were a fine lot for letting a bunch of Wops scare you out.” While state Klan leaders officially urged Klan members to obey the law, many frustrated Klan members began to consider extra-legal measures to rein in perceived lawlessness by Irish and Italian factions.¹⁸⁶ Tensions were further raised in the city when the home of the pro-Klan mayor was bombed by unknown assailants on October 29.

Among the attendees at the Niles Konklave on November 1, 1924, were “nine brave and fearless Klan members from Wood County,”¹⁸⁷ according to the pro-Klan Wood County Republican newspaper. From the newspaper account, it appears that the group of Klansmen principally drove along what would become U.S. 20, though the road did not bear that official designation until 1926. The group traveled from Bowling Green to Fremont, then took a Clyde-Norwalk-Medina-Kent route and finished with a Warren-to-Niles leg on the journey.

According to the Republican, Wood County Klan members were told that they would be “knocked off” by Italian gunmen if they attempted to make it to Niles and that their mission was “suicide.” The parade, the Wood County Kluxers were told, was fraught with danger, as “the Italians had imported thousands of gunmen.” The Klansmen, according to the newspaper account, “all the time were being watched by the dagoes in little squads.”¹⁸⁸

Coverage of the Niles riot by the Republican was highly sympathetic to the Klan cause. According to the paper, the planned Klan parade was much more than a mere public spectacle to city dwellers: “Protestant residents of Niles told the visitors that if this Klan parade was not carried out they would have to move out of Niles, as the Dago foreigners were so mean and dangerous they could not live there.”¹⁸⁹

The Republican reporter claimed that “none of the Klan members were armed when they went to Niles,” but most contemporary accounts from the event indicate that many of the approximately one thousand Klan members who made it to the staging grounds brought firearms with them. Interestingly, in the next paragraph the Republican account acknowledged that “the Klan grounds were guarded by sworn in armed men at all times.” Later in the news story, the reporter noted that the “first trouble started” when a carload of Klan members from Youngstown was stopped by “two disciples of Hades” and a Klan member fired a pistol in self-defense.¹⁹⁰

City officials in Niles canceled the Klan parade in light of the impending showdown between Klan and anti-Klan forces. At the Klan grounds on the edge of the city of Niles, an “announcement came that troops had arrived and the city was under martial law.” The Wood County Klan contingent was “not allowed to leave until six [p.m.] as the enemies had all the roads guarded to do harm to anyone attempting to come in or leave the city.”

In spite of the widespread gunfire during the eighteen hours in which Klan and anti-Klan forces battled, only 12 people were injured in the rioting, and no one was killed. A total of 104 people were indicted for their roles in the fighting, most of whom paid small fines after pleading guilty to misdemeanors.¹⁹¹

Only three defendants spent any significant time in prison, and all of the Wood County Klan members returned safely home.

Yet despite the significant opposition to the Ku Klux Klan in Wood County, resistance alone could not bring an end to the power of the white supremacist group. The Klan in Wood County proved to be rather resilient in the face of antagonism, and other forces would ultimately prove to be more damaging to the KKK in Wood County than anti-Klan opponents.