Klandestine Kartoons

Since reminding anyone about this sort of thing is verboten in Florida, our Graphical History Tour turns once again to the rise of the Klan in the U.S. in the wake of World War I.

"There's Nothing Else to Do About It" by J.T. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, August 23, 1923

Memphis, Tennessee cartoonist James Alley often drew cartoons critical of the Klan. (The day after the above cartoon appeared on the Commercial Appeal's front page, he followed up with the cartoon I posted here last week showing himself threatened by a hooded klansman and other cartoon targets.) 

"I'm Unworthy" by J.T. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, August 28, 2023

In real life, this veteran would have been unlikely to live to see another day with that attitude. Black veterans quickly found that their uniform bought them no respect at home. 

White Americans felt entitled to take their prejudices with them when traveling abroad, too. As reported in Time magazine (August 13, 1923):

"Some American tourist threw from a bus a French Negro, a War veteran, who was touring the battlefields. The French Foreign Office issued a communiqué, directing the police to protect Frenchmen at all costs, regardless of color, and threatening offensive tourists with expulsion if they tried to import Jim Crow tactics. France needs the loyalty of her colored colonies even more than she needs the cash of American tourists."

"Evolution" by Frank "Spang" Spangler in Montgomery Advertiser, August 20, 1923

Editorial and Political Cartooning by Syd Hoff describes Frank Spangler as having joined Alley as having "loathed groups attempting to spread doctrines of race hatred"; but looking back on this cartoon a century later, one realizes he wasn't a paragon of wokeness.

Granted, Spangler was a creature of his time and space. His point, as I see it, is that wars between European peoples (France and Germany, certainly; Italy and Greece were also threatening hostilities that summer) worked to the advantage of darker peoples. Those in the foreground certainly do not appear at all benign. It's the same sort of racist cartoon we saw from Harry Murphy and other Cassandras of the "yellow peril," and cartoons leading up to and after the Civil War mocking the very idea that Blacks could be part of civilized society.

"Evolution of the Dunce Cap" by Al Frueh (?) in New York World before August 27, 1923

It is difficult to make out the signatures, but I believe this cartoon and the next are by Al Frueh, who was better known for his caricatures of celebrities than for his editorial cartoons.

"The Klanited States of Klamerica" by Al Frueh in New York World, September, 1923

Frueh may have been making light of the Klan's obsession with the letter K and the shape of the their hoods, but he made a point that the Klan's influence was not restricted to the states of the former Confederacy. 

• In March, Oregon Governor Walter Pierce joined the mayor of Portland in speaking on the topic of "Americanism" at a Ku Klux Klan dinner given in honor of that state's Grand Dragon.
• The Klan marched in New York City, in New Jersey, and even in the nation's capital. One of their biggest "konklaves" was in (but of kourse) Kokomo, Indiana over July 4, 1923. 
• The mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, was formally named a "grand lictor" of the "Fascisti of America," organized by a former Klan official.

"Americanism" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, before August 23, 1923

Speaking of former officials of the Klan, Rollin Kirby takes a dig "Col." William Simmons's Knights of Kamelia (see also Roy James's cartoon here). Simmons, ousted as leader of the Klan earlier in the year, attracted thousands of members to his so-called fraternal society, also called the Knights of the Flaming Sword, but it never truly rivaled the original terrorist group in numbers.

"Frankenstein Simmons" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, August 28, 1923

In August, Simmons accused this successor, Hiram Wesley Evans, of leading a riot in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, "bristling with guns and daggers, and his very presence was an offense against peace and order, and a challenge to peaceful and loving and law-abiding citizens to either intercept or expel him and his followers." Klansmen had gathered in the town near Pittsburgh on the night of Saturday, August 26 to initiate new members and to intimidate Carnegie's Catholic and Jewish residents.

"A Change in the Wind" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, ca. Aug. 25, 1923

When police stopped the Klan parade at a bridge over Chartiers Creek, Carnegie residents began throwing bottles at the intruders, and a riot quickly ensued. One klansman, Thomas Abbott, was killed in the melee; the national Klan offered to pay a $7,500 reward for the capture of Abbott's killer. Patrick McDermott, a local mortician, was soon arrested for the murder, but was eventually acquitted at trial.

"Mob Lawlessness Breeds Mob Lawlessness" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 1, 1923

There was, indeed, pushback against the Klan, although,  Rep. Leonidas C. Dyer (R-MO) toured the country speaking on behalf of his anti-lynching bill, defeated in the previous session of Congress. We have previously discussed Minneapolis Mayor George Leach's campaign against the Klan.

"Biting the Hand that Feeds Him" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Sept. 1, 1923

As suggested by the cartoons at the top of this post, some of this reaction came as the Klan expanded its terrorism to white citizens. A jury in Tulsa, Oklahoma, convicted three klansmen in August of flogging Ben Wagner in October, a farmer living near Broken Arrow, who had supposedly torn up a Bible. (I plan to return to the situation in Oklahoma next week.)

"Masked Outlaws" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 18, 1923

Lawmakers seeking to do something about the Klan took inspiration from New York's legislation prohibiting mask-wearing in public.  Following Daniel Fitzpatrick's logic that no good came from hiding one's face, several states and municipalities passed similar laws and ordinances in the 1920's, and again during a resurgence of the Klan in the 1950's.

Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 8, 1923

Courts have since ruled that anti-mask laws infringe upon the individual's constitutional right of free association. (This right of anonymity would also be extended to corporations when the Supreme Court ruled the McCain-Feingold campaign financing laws unconstitutional.)