2,273 words

M. William Lutholtz
Grand Dragon: D. C. Stephenson and the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana
West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1991

The Second Ku Klux Klan, founded in 1915 by William J. Simmons, began as a small group of no more than 15 friends. Within a decade, it spread throughout the country and grew to include up to five million members. At its height, it was, as one journalist put it at the time, “the most vigorous, active and effective organization in American life.”[1]

The decline of the Second Klan was equally swift: It had already virtually evaporated by the late 1920s. A major contributing factor to this was the trial and conviction of the Grand Dragon of Indiana, D. C. Stephenson, for the abduction, rape, and murder of a young woman and the subsequent revelations concerning his tawdry political dealings. His downfall is a cautionary tale that should be heeded by White Nationalists today.

The Second Klan was the largest Right-wing movement in American history, but few Americans are familiar with it. It was more mainstream, less Southern, and less violent than both the Reconstruction-era and the civil rights-era Klans, and is portrayed less frequently in the media. Contrary to the popular conception of the Klan as a refuge for thuggish “white trash,” Klansmen of that time were upstanding ordinary citizens: farmers, craftsmen, shopkeepers, etc. The Second Klan grew out of fraternal lodges and focused on community-building and civic activism, sponsoring parades, picnics, athletic contests, weddings, and other family-friendly events.[2]

Stephenson was one of the Second Klan’s most powerful leaders. The Indiana Klan grew to be by far its strongest branch under his leadership: About 30% of native-born white men in Indiana were Klansmen. Stephenson was a talented political organizer and operated a highly structured and efficient political machine. During each election cycle, he oversaw the distribution of fliers listing Klan-backed candidates to white Protestant homes throughout all of Indiana. He also came up with the idea of polling all of Indiana to identify the Klan’s strongholds and weak spots, which is impressive considering that the practice of polling was then in its infancy.

Yet, Stephenson was also a narcissistic megalomaniac who brought about the demise of the Invisible Empire. It would be almost too trite to spin his story into a morality tale about the perils of avarice and hubris, but the inevitable lesson is that people who lack principles and have pathological personalities should be barred from leadership positions in the movement.

Stephenson was born in 1891 in Houston, Texas, the son of a poor sharecropper (though he later claimed to have been the son of a wealthy businessman). He got his start as a progressive socialist who traveled the countryside delivering political speeches, inspired by German-American socialist organizer Oskar Ameringer (who advocated for giving blacks the right to vote and helped elect an anti-Klan Governor). A speaker could earn up to $18 a week, and his room and board were provided for by other party members, so it was a lucrative job.

Stephenson married in 1915, though this did not stop him from engaging in numerous extra-marital affairs. When his adultery was at risk of being exposed, he abandoned his wife and their infant daughter (in the middle of winter at that), taking $800 he had stolen from his employer. His wife proceeded to filed for divorce. (Years later, when she approached him for child support, he denied that he knew her or the child.)

After his divorce, Stephenson joined the US Army. He was stationed at the armory in Boone, Iowa, where he was suspected of committing a break-in. He also borrowed money from fellow soldiers and failed to pay any of them back. The officers at Boone were so desperate to get rid of him that they promoted him to Second Lieutenant just so that he would be relocated.

Stephenson then became a traveling salesman and moved with his new wife to Evansville, Indiana, where he impressed locals with his claim that he had been a decorated soldier in the First World War (in reality, he never saw combat) and began working for a coal brokerage firm. It was around this time that he became involved with the Klan, whose popularity in Indiana was growing. He was probably enticed by the financial perks of being a kleagle, or Klan recruiter: New members of the Klan had to pay a $10 fee (“klecktoken”), of which $4 went to the kleagle responsible for the member’s recruitment. Stephenson became a rich man overnight and quickly rose through the Indiana Klan’s ranks.

Stephenson’s wife divorced him in 1922 due to his violent, drunken outbursts, which included giving her a black eye and kicking her. This pattern of behavior persisted throughout his life. On one occasion, while staying at a hotel, he called for a manicurist to come to his room, upon which he assaulted and threatened to kill her. When a bell-boy returned to the hotel room, Stephenson punched him in the face. He again threatened to rape and kill a girl at a party in October 1924.

Stephenson reached the height of his power in 1923, when he was crowned Grand Dragon of Indiana at its legendary July 4th rally (“klonklave”) in Kokomo, which was the largest Klan rally in US history. Stephenson later claimed that he had arrived late due to a meeting with President Warren G. Harding and that he had been welcomed by an adoring crowd who showered him with money and jewelry. Both claims were fabrications, though his speech was warmly received.

Stephenson was fabulously wealthy by this point. He used his wealth to create a near-exact replica of Klankrest, the Klan’s Imperial Palace in Atlanta, and spent $22,000 (about $400,000 today) remodeling his house. He also bought many luxury items, including expensive oriental carpets, a grand piano, several cars, diamond engagement rings, and a $55,000 yacht similar to the one owned by Al Capone, which he used for entertaining prominent politicians. He was the Al Sharpton of white supremacy.

Stephenson did not actually believe in the ideals he promoted. His views “were as changeable as a fancy suit of clothes. In Oklahoma, he had been a socialist. In Evansville, he was a Democrat. In Indianapolis, he would be a Republican” (p. 56). The policies he advanced had little to do with preserving white Protestant hegemony. Instead of promoting bills that would require religious instruction and the display of the American flag in public schools (like one of his rivals, Walter Bossert), Stephenson supported a seemingly random array of bills pertaining to things like margarine, highways, and pollution. The common denominator was financial extortion and self-interest.

A rift began to develop between Stephenson and Hiram Evans, the Imperial Wizard. Suspicious of Stephenson’s vast wealth, Evans hired an accounting firm to go through his books. Nothing untoward was found, but Stephenson had possibly covered up his financial misdemeanors. Evans likely sensed Stephenson’s megalomania and feared he had his sights set on deposing him. Evans, in cahoots with Stephenson, had in fact deposed Simmons in the national “klonvocation” of 1922.

After the split between Stephenson and Evans, the former convened an open press conference in which he publicly accused Evans and the Atlanta Klan of a laundry list of sins. He discarded his enigmatic public persona: “the hood was off” (p. 132). The accusations included “[mishandling] funds,” “[lying] repeatedly,” and “[abusing] women” — which was ironic coming from Stephenson (p. 135). He also accused Evans of being a “money-mad” traitor who wanted nothing but a “fancy salary” (p. 133). (He claimed the Grand Dragon — i.e., himself — ought to receive no salary, but this was all for show, because he earned most of his money from commissions.) In response, Evans invited the leaders of every klavern in Indiana to a meeting and turned away Stephenson loyalists at the door. This naked power struggle alienated rank-and-file Klansmen.

At the inaugural dinner of the Klan-backed Governor Edward Jackson in January 1925, Stephenson met Madge Oberholtzer, a 28-year-old state education official. The two went on several dates, and Oberholtzer helped write a book for him. On the night of March 15, Stephenson called her and asked her to come and see him about something “very important.” Madge did not return that night or the next day. Stephenson’s men finally returned her to her family’s home on March 17, severely injured. They claimed, thinking she would soon die, that she had been in a car accident, but she lived long enough to write a statement and tell her side of the story. She claimed to have been attacked and brutally raped by Stephenson aboard an overnight train to Chicago, leaving her with multiple bruises and bite wounds. The doctor who testified during Stephenson’s subsequent trial said it appeared as though she had been attacked by a cannibal. During the incident, Madge had attempted suicide by ingesting mercury bichloride tablets; she died a month later from kidney failure caused by mercury poisoning.

Stephenson’s lawyers claimed he had been framed by Evans and argued that he was not responsible for Madge’s suicide. The first claim is highly unlikely, but the charge of second-degree murder is indeed dubious. State attorneys portrayed Madge as a pure, innocent woman who committed suicide in response to the violation of her chastity. The reality was probably more complicated, as she had had an affair with a married man in the past. Lutholtz speculates that she may have committed suicide as an act of revenge against Stephenson, or that perhaps her death was the result of an attempted abortion gone awry (mercury bichloride was used to perform abortions during the 1920s). Regardless of the specifics, the evidence suggests that Stephenson was indeed guilty of Madge’s horrific rape.

To Stephenson’s chagrin, none of his friends in high places got him out of prison. He bragged to reporters that Jackson would soon pardon him, but this never occurred. Enraged, Stephenson decided to expose his political connections in revenge. He produced checks drawn for Jackson’s campaign, revealed a contract with Indianapolis Mayor John Duvall in which the Mayor had pledged loyalty to Stephenson, and exposed Jackson’s attempted bribery of the former Governor. Jackson and his co-conspirators were indicted for bribery, while Duvall was jailed for 30 days and barred from holding office for four years. Some Republican commissioners of Marion County were also charged with bribery.

A similar scandal unfolded in Colorado at the same time: The state’s Grand Dragon, John Galen Locke, committed tax evasion and also threatened a teenaged Klansman with castration. The investigation of Locke’s tax evasion uncovered Klan corruption throughout the state. This led to the downfall of the Klan in Colorado, formerly a Klan stronghold.

In the aftermath of Stephenson’s conviction and the bribery scandals, Klansmen across the nation left the Klan in the hundreds of thousands. This was the final death knell for the Second Klan, which was already reeling from debacles at the Democratic and Republican national conventions, failed attempts to influence national legislation, and the erosion of its communitarian ethos.

Stephenson was the archetypal narcissist. His tall tales about being a decorated war hero and being showered with money and jewelry by adoring fans evince an overweening need for “narcissistic supply.” His boasts about being “the law in Indiana” and becoming “the biggest man in the United States” also suggest an unhealthy appetite for power. It’s healthy and natural to have some desire for power and recognition, but a leader’s foremost goal should be to serve his people or cause. Most truly great leaders do not set out to become leaders; they set out to advance their cause, and leadership is thrust upon them because no one else is fit for the job. A strong desire to be a leader paired with a lack of ideological commitment is a massive red flag.

Evans should have impeded Stephenson’s rise from the start, but his all-encompassing fantasies of a Klan-controlled Senate, and even a hooded President, probably blinded him to Stephenson’s flaws. Like Evans, Stephenson wanted to transform the Klan from a fraternal organization into a serious political force. It’s a reminder that narcissists are a ticking time bomb, even if they profess high-minded principles and appear to share our goals.

The contemporary White Nationalist movement offers few financial rewards compared to the Klan, but the movement’s decentralized nature and the allure of being a “big fish in a small pond” have enticed a raft of self-proclaimed “leaders,” many of whom have dubious motivations. Nick Fuentes’ recent claim that he is the “number one dissident” in the country, will one day be President of the United States, and will execute his enemies is disturbingly reminiscent of Stephenson. His most recent rally was titled not “America First,” but “Fuentes.” This is particularly damning in light of Fuentes’ mockery of devout Christians, which points toward the likelihood that he is merely capitalizing on a trend for personal gain. The movement need not be entirely comprised of true believers (rank-and-file Leftists who are insincere social climbers and conformists still bolster the prestige of their worldview among normies), but it is imperative that those who occupy leadership positions be principled and honorable.

The story of the Second Klan is genuinely tragic. The Klan was a robust grassroots organization that actually had a shot at influencing national politics. Ordinary Klansmen were decent white Americans who truly believed in “100% Americanism” and put their faith in the Klan. They were failed by greedy, corrupt leaders whose fall from grace cemented the Klan’s irreversible decline.

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Notes

[1] Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 10.

[2] Giles Corey’s article on the Second Klan provides a good overview of the organization.