Crime and Klanishment

Last month, our Graphical History Tour dealt with jay-walking and reckless driving in the summer of 1925. Today we focus on more serious criminal behavior of the time.

"The Life of the Tree Depends on Its Roots" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. August 4, 1925

Dorman Smith may have had the previous year's case of the Bobbed-haired Bandit in mind when he gave "maudlin sympathy for crooks" such prominent placement among the roots of crime. Sensational newspaper coverage of murder, robbery, and kidnapping led to a certain romanticizing of some criminals; we still remember Bonnie & Clyde, Dillinger, or Pretty Boy Floyd — or at least the movie versions of them.

Not to be overlooked are the other roots beneath Smith's tree, including "easy purchasing of arms," "crooked politics," "loose morals," and "weak judges."

"The Alienist" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, August 22, 1925

Also coming for popular blame was the psychiatric profession — “alienists” — expert witnesses testifying for the defense. In a case grabbing nationwide attention, a Chicago jury found Russell Scott guilty of the murder of drug store clerk Joseph Maurer, only to have Superior Court Judge Joseph B. David rule that Scott was insane. Scott was then committed to a mental asylum.

"The Big Brother of Herrin, Illinois" by Billy Ireland in Columbus Dispatch, ca. July 5, 1925

When you hear Chicago and the 1920's, what comes to mind? I'll bet that gangland violence is high up on your list.

The Graphical History Tour has made several stops in Herrin, Illinois over the past few years. The southern Illinois mining town was notorious for its bloodshed over striking union miners and overzealous Prohibition agents in league with the Ku Klux Klan.

"Chicago As the Rest of the World Must Imagine It" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1925

Chicagoan John McCutcheon's cartoon defended against the caricature of his city by Billy Ireland and others. The perception that Chicago was a hotbed of violence and illegal booze was however serious enough that the federal government was pressuring Chicago to crack down on crime. The Justice Department was particularly focused on quashing rum running, an especially lucrative organized crime business.

"Now They Are Drinking Furniture Polish and Shooting Each Other" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 10, 1925

Daniel Fitzpatrick pairs gangland violence and turf wars with injury and worse from amateur distillers. Bathtub booze, homemade hooch from wood grain alcohol or other legal substances not meant for human consumption, was the cause of increased blindness and death.

"Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in Collier's, August 15, 1925

Disregard for Prohibition, now in its seventh year, crossed social classes.

The Feds showed less interest in another serious crime issue:

"How America Makes Criminals" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, August 22, 1925

Drawing for the Black press, Leslie Rogers cited lynch mobs getting away with murder, arson, and plunder when the victims were Black as inspiration for his cartoon criminal "believing that all criminals are protected."

The column running alongside Leslie Rogers's cartoon in the Chicago Defender further explained:

A comparison of the number of crime stories on the front pages of American and European newspapers is a terrible indictment of the United States. Statistics show that the city of Chicago alone has annually more holdups and murders than England and Wales put together.

From this there can be drawn but one conclusion: the present appalling prevalence of mob rule and lynching has bred wholesale disrespect for law and order. The fact that America is the home of lynching and mob psychology has much to do with her first place position in the crime line-up.

When a mob has lynched a black man, those who took part in this lawlessness are seldom, if ever, brought to justice. And should public indignation be aroused to the extent that an "investigation" seemed advisable, the result is always a verdict of "hanged by persons unknown."

That last quotation comes straight from the ruling that shut down investigation of a lynching in Excelsior Springs, Missouri. 

"Cant See for Looking" by Fred Watson in Baltimore Afro-American, August 22, 1925

The Afro-American had run a photograph of the lynching, attended by nearly 200 people, on its August 15 front page. An editorial accompanying Fred Watson's cartoon in its next edition provided details missing from the initial reporting:

Walter B. Mitchell was lynched by a mob in Excelsior Springs, Mo., last week on the charge of halting an automobile, beating up a white man and attempting assault upon his female companion.

Investigation afterwards proved that the white man attacked was in the cattle stealing business with Mitchell, and owed the later [sic] money. Mitchell stopped Utt's car and demanded his pay. They quarreled and fought. Utt was licked. His companion interfered. Mitchell threw her in the back seat and went home. Angered by the incident, Utt spread the talk about criminal assault and the mob got in its Ku Klux law enforcement.

"Better Watch Both Holes, Kitty" by Leslie Rogers in Chicago Defender, August 29, 1925

The Chicago Defender drew a straight line from Volstead Act enforcement to a lack of protection of Black American's rights to life and liberty:

Today we find the eye of law enforcement intently fixed upon the latest addition to the Constitution — the 18th or prohibition amendment. So concentrated are the efforts of the federal government upon apprehending the violators of this amendment that others more important, as far as national welfare are concerned, go unnoticed. 

The amendments receiving less attention of any are the 13th, 14th, and 15th. These three happen to deal with the citizenship and rights of 12,000,000 black people. Hence the enforcement of them is deemed unimportant!

"A Great Day" by Edmund Duffy in Baltimore Sun, Aug. 9, 1925

Meanwhile, the Klan marched 35,000 strong in the nation's capital on August 8, 1925. Klansmen and women paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Washington Monument. Festivities were interrupted by heavy rain. 

Edmund Duffy's cartoon, above, ran on the Baltimore Sun's front page instead of its usual place on the editorial page.

To Herrin Back

"Cleaning Up Williamson County" by Roy James in St. Louis Daily Star, Jan. 27, 1925

Our Graphical History Tour today returns to the bloody troubles of Williamson County in southern Illinois, the scene of years of clashes involving union miners, management goon squads, illegal drinking establishments, Prohibition agents, and the Ku Klux Klan. (Catch up with the Klan vs. Bootleggers war here.) One of the central characters of the story met his end on January 24, 1925.

"His Town" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, ca. Jan. 29, 1925

S. Glenn Young came to Williamson County on a mission to root out bootleggers, ostensibly as an agent of the federal government. A kleagle in the Klan, Young had no aversion to violence and acknowledged no limits to his authority: placing the mayor and sheriff of Herrin under arrest over the murder of a pro-Klan deputy, and also arresting the judge who tried to impanel a grand jury to investigate Klan violence.

"Their Standing as a Community" by Edward Gale in Los Angeles Times, Feb. 3, 1925

On January 24, S. Glenn Young and fellow klansman Homer Warner clashed with Deputy Sheriff Ora Thomas and his lieutenant, Ed Forbes, both known gamblers and bootleggers. There was a total eclipse of the sun visible in much of the midwestern and northeastern United States that same day, referenced in the Rollin Kirby cartoon above.

"The Arm of the Law" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Jan. 27, 1925

Deputy Thomas had returned to town after facing corruption charges in state court, and was with Forbes at a barber shop that served as an anti-Klan headquarters. Hearing of Thomas's return, Young gathered some fellow Klansmen and headed for the barber shop. The opposing groups faced off in the street outside the shop, and somebody fatally shot Forbes — accounts differ — and all hell broke loose.

"Bootleg" by Grover Page in Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 2, 1925

Guns blazing, Young and his men pursued Thomas as he retreated into the barber shop. Thomas returned fire from behind a counter, killing Young with a shot through the heart. Warner was also killed, and Thomas, wounded, was executed by one of the Klansmen at point-blank range. 

"Red All Over" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 4, 1925

Sadly, even without Young on the scene, the killing continued. A "mysterious stranger" entered the Ly-Mar Hotel in Marion in the wee hours of Sunday, February 1, claiming to have an arrest warrant for a Klansman named Glenn Foster. The man forced the desk clerk at gun point to phone Foster, then proceeded to threaten a number of other hotel employees.

He was fatally shot by police officer Rufus Whitson, who arrived on the chaotic scene. The dead man was found wearing a hat belonging to Sheriff George Galligan, who later offered no explanation for how the man came into its possession.

"Human Values in Alaska and Herrin" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Feb. 4, 1925

Fitzpatrick contrasted the situation in Herrin with the 674-mile delivery of antitoxin by dogsled in -50F temperatures to address an outbreak of diphtheria in Nome, Alaska. (The extent of the epidemic in Alaska is unknown; while there were no more than seven deaths in Nome itself, its only doctor supposed that hundreds of Eskimo children may have been lost to the disease.)

"All The World Is Waiting..." by Roy James in St. Louis Daily Star, Feb. 4, 1925

Sheriff George Galligan and Illinois State Attorney Arlie Boswell met in Marion, Illinois, in an effort to draw up a peace plan for Herrin. Galligan asked that the state stop judges from deputizing ordinary citizens and issuing firearms to them.

The view from Springfield was that Galligan was part of the problem, not part of the solution. In the month ahead, Illinois Governor Lennington Small, Attorney General Oscar Carlstrom, and Adjutant General Carlos Black, joined by five Williamson County supervisors friendly to the Klan forced him to resign. The sheriff's department was then under complete control of the Klan, which immediately placed hundreds of bootleggers, beer runners, and moonshiners under arrest and seized thousands of gallons of liquor, wine, and beer.

Galligan wrote a book about his tenure as Williamson County sheriff a few years later, published by Leader Press in Oklahoma City.

Bread and Poseurs, Bread and Poseurs

All aboard the Graphical History Tour! Our destination today is Labor Day weekend, 1924.

"Boss of the World Today" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., August 30, 1924

Labor Day had been an official U.S. holiday since 1894, although I suspect it would have come as news to American workers in the 1920's that they were "boss of the world." 

Dorman Smith may have been looking at things from the perspective of the U.S. workforce being less affected by the lingering aftermath of the Great War than their European counterparts. But in this Republican-dominated era, organized labor was under assault by determined anti-union industries and their allies in state and federal government.

"One Must Push and One Must Pull" by Jesse Taylor Cargill in Sacramento Bee, September 1, 1924

Coming a little closer to the mark, Jesse Cargill at least gets it half right.

"The Cyclone Center" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, September 2, 1924

Labor Day weekend was marred by a new flare-up of violence in the strife-prone mining town of Herrin, Illinois, described by the Chicago Tribune as the "sanguinary center of Bloody Williamson County." The site of a massacre when striking miners attacked strike-breaking workers in 1922, the ensuing years saw a deadly feud between a reckless, Klan-backed prohibition enforcer named S. Glenn Young came to town and was met by anti-Klan folks who appreciated a drink or two after work.

"In Williamson County" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, September 3, 1924

Violence flared up again on August 30 started after charges were dismissed against the Shelton brothers, accused of the murder in February of Constable Caesar Cagle, a Klansman. In spite of the inevitable hostilities boiling under the surface, Sheriff George Galligan, backed by deputies and others, went to the garage owned by J.H. Smith, a known Klan headquarters, in an attempt to take possession of a car. The car had been held there for months because the Klan accused its owner of shooting at Young during an earlier riot. 

In the shooting that ensued Sheriff Galligan's confrontation with Smith and his Klan buddies, a deputy sheriff, a court bailiff, four Klansmen, and one man described as a by-stander were killed. Adjt. Gen. Carlos E. Black immediately mobilized the Illinois National Guard to restore order in the town.

"Open the Gate" by O.C. Chopin in San Francisco Examiner, ca. August 27, 1924

One of organized labor's goals in 1924 was passage and ratification of a constitutional amendment banning child labor. Supreme Court rulings in 1918 and 1922 ruled that federal laws regulating goods produced by children under 14 and 16 were unconstitutional. The House of Representatives approved the amendment on April 26, 1924, and the Senate followed suit on June 2, 1924 to send it to the states.

"They Can Stop Him" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, September 2, 1924

Opposed by business groups, the only state to have ratified the amendment by this point was Arkansas. California, Arizona and Wisconsin would follow in 1925, but the effort stalled out in the 1930's after only 28 of the necessary 36 states had approved ratification.

Since there was no time limit set on the amendment by Congress, it could still be ratified (it would need ratification by 38 states now that Alaska and Hawai'i have joined the union); but the earlier Supreme Court decisions were overruled in 1941. Still, renewed interest by some Republican-ruled states in authorizing child labor might render the issue un-moot again.

"His Day" by Tom Foley in Minneapolis Daily Star, September 1, 1294

Returning to 1924: the Child Labor Amendment was a key plank in the presidential platform of Progressive Party candidate Robert LaFollette — to whom cartoonist Tom Foley dedicated the entire holiday.

"The Hypnotist" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, September 3, 1924

Cartoonists who favored the established political parties were not so easily enthused. LaFollette's campaign and its appeal to Labor were ridiculed by his erstwhile fellow Republicans ...

"Have a Bite" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, August 30, 1924

... and also by Democrats. 

Both accused him of being a stooge for the Communists, despite his being roundly condemned by them as well.

"Until He Bursts" by K.A. Suvanto in Daily Worker, Chicago, August 23, 1924

All three major candidates courted the American proletariat on Labor Day. The Republicans countered their candidate's strike-breaking record by touting the current prosperity and their "full dinner pail." The Democrats sent vice presidential nominee Charles Bryan out to reassure workers that the candidate at the top of his ticket would represent the working class in spite of his Wall Street background.

"The Day after His Holiday" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, September 2, 1924

And then the holiday was over, and the candidates moved on to other issues.

My Country, White or Wrong

Today's Graphical History Tour returns again to the Roaring 20's just in time to check in with the war between the Ku Klux Klan and bootleggers in Williamson County, Illinois.

"Active Again" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, April 17, 1924

The mining community of Herrin had been the scene a few years earlier of a violent strike, and more recently of raids against taverns, speakeasies, and private homes. The raids were led by S. Glenn Young, a former guard at the Herrin mine who had gone on to work for — and get fired from — the U.S. Treasury Department's Prohibition Unit. Young enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the local Ku Klux Klan in his mission to wipe out every trace of alcoholic beverages in the county.

There were union miners on both sides of the "booze war" that ensued, and local law enforcement, which had quietly ignored violations of the Volstead Act, was caught in the middle. Klan sympathizers accused the the area's Italian immigrants of wantonly disregarding Prohibition, so the divide fell primarily between the county's Catholic and Protestant citizens.

Violence between the two sides resulted in at least two deaths, a hospital placed under siege by armed klansmen, and Young placing Herrin Mayor C.A. "Mage" Anderson, Williamson County Sheriff George Galligan, and 38 others under arrest for the murder of a pro-Klan police constable. Sheriff Galligan declared, "I'm through being the goat." He told the media that he had discharged all his deputies, replacing them with klansmen. "I turned the reins over and concentrated on my coming trial. As far as I am concerned, they can dig trenches and fight it out."

Local elections in Herrin on April 15 were marred by fist fights and gunfire, allegedly sparked by a Klan poll watcher challenging several Catholic voters, including a nun who had lived in Herrin for two decades. Klan candidates swept the election, and over the next several days, three klansmen and three anti-Klan combatants were killed.

Young and Herrin Police Chief John Ford placed under arrest Judge E.M. Bowen, who had called a grand jury before the election to indict over 20 klansmen for their booze war activities. Bowen was charged with election fraud.

"State Konvention Kostume" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 18, 1924

The issue of denouncing the Klan was brought before both major party state conventions in Missouri that April. An anti-Klan plank was rejected by Missouri Democrats, who also failed to take any position on other controversial issues of the day such as Prohibition and the League of Nations. Nor could they agree on endorsing any of the Democratic presidential candidates, falling back instead on long-winded, generally vague criticism of Republicans.

"The first demonstration of the character of leadership of Missouri Democracy," opined the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "does not presage a winning battle nor results that are worth while if the battle should be won by default."

"Mouse" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, April 29, 1924

Meeting later that month, Missouri Republicans also presented themselves with a proposed anti-Klan plank. It passed, but without any mention within it of the Klan by name.

Considering that there were a number of splinter groups rivaling the Klan primarily on the basis of leadership squabbles and what sorts of violence they condoned, not adding credence to any of them might have been the most prudent tactic.

"Left at the Dock" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. April 26, 1924

Race played a significant role in congressional passage of Johnson-Reed Immigration Act of 1924. Placing draconian new limits on immigration into the U.S., especially from Italy and Eastern and Central Europe, it included the Asian Exclusion Act, which barred all immigrants from Asia.

Japan's Ambassador to the U.S., Masano Hanihara, conveyed to President Coolidge his government's strong objection to the bill, predicting "grave consequences" to relations between our two countries.

"Exclusion Laws and Japanese Pride" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 15, 1924

"And So the Board Is Nailed On" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 17, 1924

Ambassador Haniharo's letter backfired badly. Senators who had expressed skepticism about the bill took umbrage at what they viewed as foreign interference with U.S. domestic affairs. The bill passed with a veto-proof majority.

"No Discrimination Whatever" by Douglas Rodger in San Francisco Bulletin, April 18, 1924

There wasn't much sympathy for Japan's position among editorial cartoonists of the day. Orville Rodger, himself an immigrant from Scotland, appears to have dismissed Japanese complaints against the Asian Exclusion Act by pointing out that it excluded Chinese, the "Hindoo," and other Asians as well. (Chinese immigration and naturalization were already forbidden by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1887.)

The Supreme Court had ruled in 1923 that Asians were not eligible for naturalization in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind. Congress used the language of the Court's ruling, quoted in Rodger's cartoon, to achieve racist aims without actually referencing race or nationality in its bill.

"The Face at the Window" by Orville Williams for Star Company, ca. April 24, 1924

Orville Williams communicated the Hearst chain race-baiting against the "Yellow Peril" in this and other cartoons. In this instance, Hearst was uncharacteristically in league with the isolationist Chicago Tribune, too.

"Our Neighbor's Dog" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, April 16, 1924

Why, no, Mr. McCutcheon. I cannot imagine why Ambassador Haniharo's pride would have been hurt.

"Keep the Flag Waving, Charley" by Robert Minor, in The Liberator, Chicago, May, 1924

Taking a different tack to the Japan-as-dog motif, Robert Minor's cartoon seems to depict "Jap Immigration" to a loud, yapping pup on a leash held by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Hughes in fact opposed the Japanese Exclusion Act, but the political reality was that President Coolidge could not veto the bill without risking having his veto overridden. With the presidential election well underway and his nomination assured, Coolidge's main advantages were incumbency and, in contrast to the Democrats, party unity.

(Editor and cartoonist for the socialist The Liberator Robert Minor packs an awful lot of extraneous stuff into this cartoon. He includes Mexico — location of the Standard, Pan-American Petroleum, and Sinclair oilfields  — within Secretary Hughes's Japanese Exclusion Line. Oilmen connected to the Teapot Dome scandal encourage Hughes to keep waving his flag while they shelter in a teapot replacing the Capitol dome. James Pierpoint Morgan demands that Europe repay his wartime loans.

(Swimming off the coast of Florida, Washington Post publisher Ned McLean, a friend of disgraced former Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall, calls out "Yoo hoo! I haven't testified yet!" McLean had used his newspaper to defend Fall and counter other media's reporting of the Teapot Dome scandal.)

"An Ever Increasing Problem" by Sam Armstrong in Tacoma News Leader, April 21, 1924

Sam Armstrong lumped Japanese Exclusion in with another host of issues related only in the sense that our integrity of national borders lacked a force field keeping out undesirables. "The Excluded Jap" is encouraged by Mr. "Chinese Coolie Smuggler" to join the convoy of Mexican Peons, European Immigrants, The Dope Smuggler, Booze Smuggling, and Rum. His news note ominously predicts that smuggled Japanese would for some reason bring dope with them.

"He'd Better Look After that Back Fence" by Harold Talburt for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. April 21, 1924

You didn't think Mexican immigrants were going to be overlooked, did you?

"We All Have Our Problems" by William C. Morris for George Matthew Adams Service, ca. April 24, 1924

At least Canada was happy to help stop the influx into the United States of Canadians, apparently.

I skimmed weeks' worth of Montreal Gazette front pages in search of help explaining William Morris's cartoon. The U.S. Asian Exclusion Act was front page news almost every day. Canadian worries about emigration to their south? Not so much.

"America, I Love Your" by Harold Wahl in Sacramento Bee, April 29, 1924

The Gentlemen's Agreement cited by Harold Wahl dated from 1907 and the Theodore Roosevelt administration. In it, Japan voluntarily agreed to limit the number of workers allowed to emigrate to the U.S. Since the Asian Exclusion Act rendered the Gentlemen's Agreement moot, the idea that renewing it would mollify Japan is ridiculous on its face.

"America of the Melting Pot Comes to an End," crowed the banner headline of an April 27, 1924 New York Times column by Immigration Act sponsor Senator David Reed (R-PA). Thanks to passage of his bill, Reed confidently predicted that “The racial composition of America at the present time thus is made permanent.”

Checking Under the Hood

This week's Graphical History Tour circles back to February, 1924 to catch up on the big news stories of the day:

"Another Victory for the Miners" by Fred Ellis in Daily Worker, Chicago, Illinois, Feb. 15, 1924

First, let's check back in at the violence-prone mining town of Herrin, Illinois, where one Glenn Young and A.J. Armitage had led a series of raids against businesses and private homes where booze was served in violation of the Volstead Act. Young and Armitage were backed by a mob, many of whom admitted membership in the Ku Klux Klan. An anti-Klan group calling itself the Knights of the Flaming Circle rose up to battle Young and his Klan Kohorts; others fighting the Klan were the "Shelton gang" of bootlegging outlaws.

When we last left Herrin in Williamson County, Sheriff George Galligan had called in the National Guard in an attempt to restore order. He sent them home when he thought tempers had cooled, but tempers flared back up immediately. On February 8, pro-klan police officers burst into an anti-klan meeting, and in the violence that ensued, one klansman was killed and another injured. 

"The Unanswered Challenge" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, Feb. 11, 1924

Sheriff Galligan took two police officers into protective custody in another county and called for the National Guard to return. 

After a police constable named Caesar Cagle was shot on a Herrin street and died at a hospital where a wounded anti-klan member was also being treated, klansmen from miles around converged on Herrin, laying siege to the hospital. Firing shots into the hospital, they set up roadblocks around the town, took over City Hall.

Young declared himself Chief of Police and had Herrin Mayor C.A. "Mage" Anderson, Sheriff Galligan, and 38 others arrested for complicity in Cagle's murder. The town council named Carl Nall to replace Anderson at request of the military. A coroner's jury the next day found that Cagle had been killed by members of the Shelton gang.

Young would be charged with "injury to property" and forced to quit his usurped office and leave town. Charges were also brought against klansmen, including some prominent Herrin and Marion businessmen, for firing upon the hospital.

Cartoonist Ellis's declaration of victory would not stand for long. Klan candidates would sweep Williamson County elections in April.

"The Newest State Capitol Decoration" by Roy James in St. Louis Star, Feb. 15, 1924

Meanwhile, in Missouri, the Klan held a rally inside the state capitol. The official who granted the permit for use of the capitol building claimed that he had no idea that the persons who made the request, an engineer with the State Highway Commission and a labor commissioner, were acting on behalf of the Klan. "However," Commissioner of the Permanent Seat of Government Harry Woodruff told the press, "it would have made no difference if I had known the meeting was a gathering of the Klan, for I would not have denied them use of the hall."

Woodruff's protestations of innocence were disputed by Heber Nations, the labor commissioner. According to Heber, Rev. Z.A. Harris, a national representative of the Klan, had heard that "a lecturer for a secret religious organization, speaking in the House chamber two weeks before, had made slurring remarks about the Klan and its principles. I mentioned the request to Mr. Woodruff, who wanted the hall and what for, and he gladly granted it."

According to press reports, a crowd estimated in the hundreds listened to Harris preach on "Americanism and the Ku Klux Klan," calling for limiting immigration "in order to prevent an influx of ideas of the ideas of internationalism."

"Knights of the Double-Crossed" by J.P. Alley in Memphis Commercial Appeal, Feb. 28, 1924

If you've been following these Graphical History Tours, you may recall that the Klan was split between factions led by self-styled "Colonel" William J. Simmons, founder of its 1920 iteration, and the more radical Hirman Wesley Evans, whose supporters dumped Simmons from their leadership. Simmons then founded a rival group, the Knights of Kamelia.

The latest offshoot was the Knights of the Mystic Clan, launched in Atlanta but establishing its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. The KMC forswore masks and secrecy, and declared that it "the order is not connected in any manner with the Ku Klux Klan, Hiram Wesley Evans, or William Joseph Simmons."

Like that of the Klan, KMC membership was limited to qualified men who are "white and of the Protestant Christian faith." John R. Jones of Kansas City was elected temporary chair of the splinter group, and chapters were set up in Atlanta; Kansas City; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Tulsa, Oklahoma; El Dorado, Kansas; Durham, North Carolina; and Russell, Kentucky.

I'm finding that by April, KMC headquarters had moved to Muskogee, Oklahoma under the leadership of one H. Tom Kight. In February, 1925, someone claiming to represent the KMC left a letter on the doorstep of the Tallequa, Oklahoma Arrow Democrat — anonymously. "To protect our order and to make our enterprise possible, we maintain the utmost secrecy in our operations."

Their secrecy was pretty darned utmost; I have yet to find any mention of the Knights of the Mystic Clan after that.

Turning now to other major news:

"Every Day Is Washday for Some" by Dorman Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Feb. 29, 1924

Teapot Dome was not the only scandal coming out of Washington in February, 1924, but it was by far the most prominent. Every day seemed to bring new revelations, including against at least one of the senators making hay of the scandals. Interior Secretary Albert Fall at the center of the Teapot Dome scandal was already out of office; the scandal also ensnared Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby and Attorney General Harry Daugherty.

"His Nice New Cowboy Hat" by Burt Thomas in Detroit News ca. Feb. 14, 1924

Republican-leaning cartoonists played up the involvement of Pan-American Petroleum and Transport Company founder Edward Doheny in a separate oil leasing deal with Interior Secretary Fall at Elk Hills, California. Doheny was a benefactor of Democratic presidential candidate James McAdoo (McAdieu in Thomas's cartoon), which was enough to fuel a lot of Whataboutism.

"Can't Stem the Flood" by Orville P. Williams in New York Evening Graphic, ca. Feb. 27, 1924

Roosevelt in this cartoon is not FDR, but Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr. (the son of the late president, obviously). Smoot would have to be Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Reed Smoot (R-UT), better known for the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act of 1930 that worsened the Great Depression.

"Thank Goodness, They're Not All Like That" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Tribune, Feb. 23, 1924

Finally, amid a flurry of cartoons on the theme of They’re All Crooked (They’re Politicians, Aren’t They?), “Ding” Darling’s stands alone for offering readers a list of government officials he thought they could still look up to.

Darling was an admirer of Herbert Hoover and Agriculture Secretary Henry C. Wallace; he approved of the statecraft of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, who did not share the isolationism of many other Republicans. President Coolidge allowed the investigation into the Teapot Dome scandal to proceed without interference, effectively inoculating himself from any taint of corruption.