https://www.nprillinois.org/post/history-1920s-saw-kkks-rise-illinois#stream/0
The second-generation Klan was a self-proclaimed morality police, according to the book, The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics. It was reacting to repercussions from World War I and Prohibition, including wariness of immigrants and what it saw as looser morals represented by speakeasies, bootlegging and, ironically, political corruption.
The Klan said it stood for “America.” Anything that wasn’t red, white, and blue — with an emphasis on “white,” was wrong. For the Klan, that was a long list:
“African-Americans, Catholics, immigrants, and Jews. We support Protestants, whites, Prohibition… and law and order.”
A Chicago Klan newspaper called, “Dawn: A Journal for True American Patriots,“ encouraged members to recommend candidates and run for office.
The June sixth, 1923 Rockford paper, the Republic, reported:
“The klan is said to have been active in Springfield elections since last fall, supporting candidates backed by (Republican) Governor Len Small.”
Tension over the Klan’s involvement with Illinois government peaked that year. Chicago Representative Thomas J. O’Grady, a Democrat, requested an investigation into Statehouse employees’ Klan membership.
That same day, O’Grady was arrested in Springfield under false pretenses and roughed up, reported the Rockford paper.
His Statehouse investigation went nowhere, but its proposal caused aftershocks.
“Alarm has spread through the state capitol since Representative Thomas O’Grady announced he would seek to turn the spotlight on the state pay roll to search out klan members…If membership in the klan is going to jeopardize their jobs, many of the plum gatherers probably will be ready to sell their robes and masks.”
That was the January twentieth, 1923 Chicago Daily Tribune. It listed several avowed or alleged Klansmen on the state payroll.
Yet, the group grew bolder. That May, the KKK held a huge initiation at the state fairgrounds in Springfield. The Illinois House of Representatives held hearings to find out who authorized the bash, which lasted until 4 a.m.
The KKK reacted swiftly. A former Springfield Klan official was going to name names and spill secrets, but the Klan had his testimony barred, reported the June sixth, 1923 Illinois State Register. Some members were still outed…
“…including the assistant secretary of the Senate.”
All of the witnesses, including Governor Small, said they had no idea who okayed the massive Klan initiation. Small even claimed he didn’t have the authority to okay it.
The committee grilled the fairground custodian, decided he was to blame, and had him fired.
But the Klan didn‘t stop. The next year it held another mass rally in Springfield. Klansmen marched from the Statehouse to the fairgrounds, where they lighted crosses, had a parade, gave speeches, and shot off fireworks.
“A couple weeks later, at a Klan rally in the Chicago armory, sample ballots were distributed with Small’s name marked for governor, according to the book, Len Small: Governors and Gangsters. “
Small was re-elected in 1925, but his popularity, like the Klan’s, was running out. By this time, the KKK had largely disappeared from Chicago, thanks to the American Unity League. The Encyclopedia of Chicago says it outed city Klansmen by printing their “names, addresses, and occupations.”
https://daily.jstor.org/history-kkk-american-politics/
As W. E. B. Du Bois reminds us, political activism was a key goal of this KKK. The historian David Chalmers, author of Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan, has called the 1920s Klan a “great fraternal lodge” with “nationwide political power.” The Illinois Klan newspaper, Dawn: A Journal for True American Patriots, encouraged members to recommend and become candidates for office to accomplish their aims.
Illinois was a prime example. Its governor, Len Small, was elected with help from the Klan, which was allowed to use the state fairgrounds in the capital at least twice for large-scale events, including an initiation of thousands of new members. “We know we’re the balance of power in the state,” proclaimed Charles G. Palmer, an attorney and “grand dragon of the Illinois Ku Klux Klan,” in the October 24, 1924, Chicago Daily Tribune. According to Palmer, the Klan controlled elections and could get whatever it wanted from the Prairie State.
Illinois newspapers and a state investigation into the Klan’s use of the fairgrounds turned up Klan members in government: a legislator, possibly the governor’s secretary, many in its highways department, the assistant secretary of the Senate, and fairground workers. While Klansmen proclaimed they got Governor Small re-elected (one appeared with him at a campaign rally), Small claimed that he was not a member.
Many other states’ leaders were. According to a 1976 report by the Illinois Legislative Investigating Commission, “governors in 10 states and 13 senators in nine states were elected with Klan help. At least one senator, Hugo Black, who was destined to become a United States Supreme Court Justice, had been a Klansman.”
https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/when-kkk-ruled-colorado-not-so-long-ago
The Ku Klux Klan had no presence in Colorado in 1920. By 1925, Klan members and sponsored candidates controlled the Colorado State House and Senate, the office of Secretary of State, a state Supreme Court judgeship, seven benches on Denver District Court, and city councils in some Colorado towns. Mayor Ben Stapleton of Denver and Governor Clarence Morley (Republican) of Colorado were also Klansmen. The Klan was stronger in Colorado than any other state. How did the Klan gain power so quickly and absolutely?
William Joseph Simmons of Georgia called for the resurrection of the Klan in 1915. By 1920, only 5,000 or so members had joined in Alabama and Georgia. Clearly, the old organizing prejudices weren’t enough to mobilize a respectable membership. The Klan developed a new recruiting message focused more on the menace that Catholics and Jews posed to the “nation’s Protestant ideals” than on Blacks. According to the excellent history Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado by Robert Goldberg, the KKK posed as saviors of “Old Time Religion” and Americanism. As adherents to the Pope and their “polytheistic” religion of saints, Catholics were seen as completely excluded from such Americanism. Colorado was predominantly Protestant, and this message played well here. Conspiracy theories about a secret Catholic government of overlords abounded, much as such stories about Jews make the circuit today. The Klan also stood for fair elections, for law and order against the backdrop of Prohibition bootlegging and rampant crime, and against the loosening of morals brought by new music, new dances, and Hollywood, things the general public could get behind.
While Catholics, Jews and Blacks spoke out against the Klan in newspapers such as Denver Express, Denver’s major papers were silent or neutral. The Klan infiltrated both political parties. Local Klan chapters preyed on local prejudices and divisions. Business owners proudly displayed Klan stickers, and protestant elites and working people, men and women, were quick to join. Barring a few exceptions, such as Denver District Attorney Philip Van Cise, a fierce Klan opponent, few politicians or Protestants spoke out against the Klan, allowing them to consolidate influence and power rapidly.
Strangely, part of the Klan’s appeal was that it functioned as a social outing for many Protestants. In fact, members in Grand Junction flocked to the KKK not so much from prejudice, but because they thought of it as another Elk’s lodge, except with hoods and weird cross burning ceremonies out in the desert. Even Dalton Trumbo tried to join because it was the hot “thing to do.” In Denver, the Klan held picnics (one drew 100,000 people), auto races (a Catholic won. See photo), and had many other events. Of course, the old Klan sometimes reared its ugly head, driving Blacks from white neighborhoods and discriminating against Italians and Mexicans. Beginning in 1925, the Klan’s power in Colorado waned. The Colorado Grand Dragon was investigated for tax evasion, and corruption scandals rocked Klan office holders. But for those few short years, the Klan ruled Colorado.
It's a difference with a distinction. The ‘10 guys from 7-11 are powerless. I have no doubt racists in Illinois or Indiana wanted in on the power of the KKK in the Jim Crow South but they never had that power. Two Nazis in Podunk would NOT have the power of a Nazis working under Hitler either.
If I change my name to ‘George Soros’ I don't have his money or influence... Wrap your mind around the reality - not the names.
Senator Robert Byrd (democrat) was a Kleagle, a Klan recruiter, in his 20s and 30s.
Politicians who were active in the Klan at some time
Robert Byrd
Senator Robert Byrd was a Kleagle, a Klan recruiter, in his 20s and 30s.
Robert C. Byrd, was a recruiter for the Klan while in his 20s and 30s, rising to the title of Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of his local chapter. After leaving the group, Byrd spoke in favor of the Klan during his early political career. Though he claimed to have left the organization in 1943, Byrd, wrote a letter in 1946 to the group’s Imperial Wizard stating “The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia.” Byrd attempted to explain or defend his former membership in the Klan in his 1958 U.S. Senate campaign when he was 41 years old.[1] Byrd, a Democrat, eventually became his party leader in the Senate.
Byrd later said joining the Klan was his “greatest mistake.”[2] However, in a 2001 incident Byrd repeatedly used the phrase “white niggers” on a national television broadcast.[3]