Where the Klan Comes Sweepin' Down the Plain

Today's Saturday Graphical History Tour returns to 1923 Oklahoma. 

Just a year and a half after the Tulsa Massacre wiped out that city's thriving Black community, progressive Democrat Jack C. Walton was elected governor of the state (having won his party's nomination by a plurality at a time when that practically guaranteed a victory in November).

Walton had campaigned on opposition to the Ku Klux Klan. Within months of assuming office in 1923, he declared martial law in Tulsa and Okmulgee Counties, where the Klan had effectively taken over the government, law enforcement, courts, and schools.

"The Latest State Song" by Ed Gale in Los Angeles Times, Sept. 19, 1923

Heading the military court investigation into the Klan in Tulsa, Aldrich Blake reported dozens of cases of unchecked whippings, floggings, and beatings there: 

"No arrests had ever been made until the military court convened. Except in one or two instances were the police called and immediately returned to the station. No investigation has ever been made of any one of these and dozen of other cases now under investigation."

Cases of the Klan's reign of terror cited in Associated Press reports included: 

"A mother, roughly dealt with when a band of twenty men raided her home and beat her husband — a child born prematurely as the result; a member of a township school board abducted by floggers and coerced into voting for a school head whom he opposed; an elderly man lashed because he opposed the way the school was run; a man and woman taken out of their beds and taken to the whipping field where the strap was applied to both because the whippers charged that they had been selling beer — these are among the cases related by Blake from the testimony."

"Oklahoma Improves the Klan Regalia" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, August 25, 1923

Out-of-state media offered measured approval of this crackdown on Klan rule and the promise of prosecutions to come. New York World editorialized, "The choice in Oklahoma is unfortunately between a spectacular enforcement of the law and an acquiescence of mob rule — abdication, in effect, to the invisible empire. It is a choice of evils, but the first is bearable, the latter impossible."

"Impotent White Caps" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 17, 1923

St. Joseph News-Press, noting (September 4) that "For more than a year these self-appointed regulators have been terrorizing the community of which Tulsa is the center. Women have been included among their victims under circumstances suggesting a licentious purpose. Whippings have been arranged in advance, with definite time and place, and invitations to attend them have been issued and accepted; and throughout all of this, the 'law' looked on with silence that gives consent," agreed, 

"The governor of Oklahoma was justified in placing the city of Tulsa under martial law. It is an extraordinary measure invoked to correct an extraordinary condition."

"The Duel" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Sept. 18, 1923

Closer to home, Oklahoma City Times, not a fan of the new governor, complained that out-of-state media misunderstood the situation in Tulsa:

"Eastern metropolitan newspapers have bestowed much praise on Governor Walton for his firm stand against the invisible empire. ...

"But it is the scope of its influence and activities of which the eastern writers have an exaggerated notion. It did not generally dominate affairs of government. Most counties have had no outrages at all. Many klan candidates were defeated in the last election. The vast majority of the people were untouched by its machinations."

The Oklahoma legislature rebelled against Governor Walton's actions and established a grand jury in Oklahoma City as the basis of formulating charges against him. Walton doubled down, extending "absolute martial law" over the entire state and ordering military censorship of the press.

"Making the Citizens of Oklahoma Over into 100% Americans?" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, Sept. 18, 1923

It took a while for the implications of Governor Walton's declaration of "absolute martial law" to become clear to editorial cartoonists who had drawn against the Klan.

"Military or Masked Government?" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Globe-Dispatch, Sept. 23, 1923

After all, nearly every cartoonist in the country had accepted a role in demonizing dissent during U.S. involvement in World War I. And what practical difference was there to the safety and security of a democratic republic between bomb-throwing anarchists and whip-wielding fascists?

"Anyway It's a ___ch of a Black Eye" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, Sept. 28, 1923

(Note: A mailing label covered all but the last two letters of the fourth word in Ed Gale's caption above. "Bitch" would have made the most sense to me, but I'm fairly certain that was not the word on the Los Angeles Times's front page. Patch? Stitch?)*

"The Wrong Plug, Governor" by Harold Talburt for Scripps Howard, ca. Sept. 26, 1923

When members of the Oklahoma legislature proposed to convene in special session to pursue the Governor's impeachment, Walton threatened to summarily enforce the state constitutional clause that only the governor could call a special session:

"In my effort to return the government to the hands of properly constituted authorities, and secure equal justice for all of our citizens, I do not intend to brook any interference. An attempt to convene the legislature in such an unlawful as has been suggested would be an interference with my efforts, and if they come in here and try such a thing, I will put them all in jail and keep them there as long as I am in office."

The banner headline over the Oklahoma News's front page editorial the next day read "WE WANT NEITHER KLAN NOR KING!"

The editorial urged Gov. Walton to take a little time off to familiarize himself with the state and federal constitutions — as well as the Magna Carta and the Articles of Confederation.

"Has Oklahoma's Governor Been Bitten by That European Bug" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Sept. 28, 1923

It's a shame that Oklahoma had no editorial cartoonists in the employ of any of its homestate newspapers. Out-of-state cartoonists, however, had begun to catch on.

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* P.S.: I have since run across this cartoon in another newspaper. The fourth word is indeed "peach."