The Walton Impeachment's Klimactic KlonKlusion

"Around and Around" by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, Oct. 17, 1923

Today's Graphical History Tour makes one last stop at the impeachment of Oklahoma Governor Jack C. Walton in 1923.

"That Creepy Feeling" by W.K. Patrick in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oct. 31, 1923

As you of course recall, progressive Democrat Walton was elected Oklahoma's fifth Governor by a plurality in 1922, a year and a half after the Tulsa massacre, and soon began working to wrest local government and law enforcement from the clutches of the Ku Klux Klan. In September of 1923, he declared martial law in Tulsa and Okmulgee Counties, censoring the press, suspending habeas corpus, and authorizing a military tribunal to investigate and prosecute assaults and intimidation of citizens the Klan deemed less than "100% American."

This upset members of the Oklahoma legislature, some of whom were themselves members of the Klan; and on October 23, the Oklahoma House voted to impeach the Governor.

"When Night-hood Was in Flower" by Butler in Oklahoma Leader, Oklahoma City, Oct. 19, 1923

As I have noted before, it's a shame that Oklahoma's newspapers had no local editorial cartoonists in their regular employ, relying instead on syndicated cartoons from out-of-state. Some of those cartoonists supported Walton at first, but by the time he was impeached, nearly all agreed that he had overreached his authority. Several national editorial cartoonists ignored Oklahoma politics entirely, which probably suited Walton's censors just fine.

So one ends up with trifles such as Butler's "When Night-hood Was in Flower" series in the leftist Oklahoma Leader— a series which disappeared from that weekly newspaper after the issue carrying the above cartoon.

Ad in Jack Walton's Paper, Oklahoma City, Nov. 1, 1923

Responding to his impeachment, Walton and his allies published a newspaper of their own: a four-page broadsheet filled with bold, lurid headlines over accounts of Klan atrocities. This advertisement for a book appeared in some editions of the short-lived Jack Walton's Paper.

The cartoon Klansmen on Walton's book cover (assuming that this is an accurate depiction of it) certainly appears to have been inspired by a "Ding" Darling cartoon.

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

The beaten woman in the ad also reminds me of another cartoon, but I have not been able to place it. Louis Raemaekers, perhaps?

Back at the impeachment proceedings, Gov. Walton demanded that his accusers in the legislature confess whether they were Klan members or not; but he was ruled out of order. Walton eventually stormed out of the Senate chambers, complaining that the trial was unfair.

"Well, Walton Is Out" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 26, 1923

On November 19, 1923, Walton was convicted on eleven of the House's 22 charges against him, and removed from office. Lieutenant Governor Martin Trapp, a conservative Democrat serving in that office under Walton and two previous governors, succeeded Walton as Governor for the remainder of his term. (State law limiting governors to a single term prohibited Trapp from running for a term of his own.)

Daniel Fitzpatrick may well have been the last editorial cartoonist paying any attention to Oklahoma politics. His cartoon notes the ouster of Governor Walton without approval or condemnation; but with a great deal of contempt for Oklahomans in general. Right down to their dogs.

There were plenty of issues with the Klan elsewhere, of course.

"The Sinister Hand" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Nov. 8, 1923

On the same Memphis Commercial Appeal front page with this Alley cartoon about the Atlanta Grand Wizard's potential for influence in Memphis government were two unrelated reports about Klansmen on trial — in Houston, Texas, and Balstrup, Louisiana — and two more about warrants issued against Klan officials in Birmingham, Alabama, and the case in Atlanta of a Klan spokesman arrested for the murder of an attorney working for deposed Klan Wizard William Simmons.

"Is the Ku Klux Question Solving Itself" by Wm. C. Morris for Geo. Matthew Adams Service, ca. Nov. 19, 1923

Alley's cartoon appeared on the Commercial Appeal's front page on the date of municipal elections in Memphis. The Commercial Appeal supported the reelection of the incumbent mayor, Rowlett Payne, over two rivals, one of whom was allied with the Klan. As an Commercial Appeal editorial put it, challenger Joe Wood's ticket "runs on an issue imported from Atlanta, the leaders thereof now being engaged in a bloody feud among themselves."

"Poison" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Oct. 18, 1923

Payne would win reelection, with Wood coming in second.

I checked, and found that the doings of the Klan never piqued the interest of Atlanta Journal editorial cartoonist A.W. Brewerton at any point that November. Here's his cartoon on the same day (a Thursday) as Alley's "Halt, Memphis" cartoon above.

"Here and There in the News" by Alfred W. Brewerton in Atlanta Journal, Nov. 8, 1923

At the same time that the intra-Klan murder in Atlanta gave some like William Morris hope that the Klan was in deKline, the Texas State Fair devoted an entire day to the hate group. Imperial Wizard Hiram W. Evans gave a keynote speech to a crowd numbering upward of 75,000 Dragons, Klaybees and Cyclopses, decked out in their finest gold, purple, and scarlet robes and "100% American" buttons at the fair.

Evans charged that Black Americans were infested with tuberculosis and venereal disease, that Jews were an "unblendable" element in American society, and that "Do you realize, my friends, that the illiteracy of Europe is practically confined to Catholic countries?"

"The Hooded Cobra" by Al Frueh in New York World, ca. Nov. 16, 1923

I wonder if Frueh didn't mean "Klobra."