Konklave in Kokomo: A look back at the infamous 1923 KKK rally

Jul. 5—Independence Day is a day marked by a day off work, grilling, fireworks, outings with family and friends and commemorating the day the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence.

Independence Day in Howard County 100 years ago was celebrated similarly. There were games, fireworks, a parade, live music and more.

By all accounts, it was a hot and humid summer day on July 4, 1923.

Weather data from the National Weather Service has the high in Kokomo that day at 85 degrees — not exactly a cool summer day, but for residents, it would have felt like sweet relief, especially since the city experienced a 101 degree day a little more than a week before on June 23.

But little else was normal that day, for there was one major difference that year: thousands of in-town and out-of-town residents visited the City of Firsts to crown the Indiana Grand Dragon, or the leader of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan.

'BACK TO THE CONSTITUTION'

D.C. Stephenson was late in arriving to Kokomo, but that wasn't going to stop him from making a grand entrance. It was a big day for him after all.

As excited Klan members from all across the Midwest gathered on the grounds of Melfalfa Park (present day Camp Tycony), just west of Kokomo, Stephenson was up in the air.

It was late morning or in the afternoon, when a small biplane with "Evansville K.K.K. No. 1" inscribed on the side and carrying Stephenson came into view in the clear blue sky. As the plane descended, preparing to land, it nearly crashed, according to reports, causing the white-robed crowd to gasp.

When Stephenson did land safely, the crowd cheered. He was subsequently crowned the Grand Dragon of Indiana by Hiram Wesley Evans, the Imperial Wizard, or national leader, of the Klan.

Afterward, he gave a rousing speech entitled "Back to the Constitution" in which he ordered the crowd to fight for "one hundred percent Americanism," and fight against "foreign elements," criticized the "inflexible" Constitution, called for amendments to all Congress to overrule Supreme Court decisions and railed against American imperialism abroad and political corruption.

He ended his hour-long speech with "Where there is no vision, the people perish!"

The following evening, a parade through the city was held. At the end of the parade, people moved to Foster Park, where they sang hymns around a 60-foot fiery cross. The night finished with a fireworks display back at Melfalfa Park.

Stephenson that evening went back to his Kokomo hotel and began drinking. Drunk, he ordered his secretary, who had made the trip from Indianapolis, into his car to run an errand with him. He drove a short distance, found a hideaway and tried to rape her.

"He tried to have intercourse with me," she would later tell investigators. "He's a beast when he's drunk."

KLAN'S POWER IN THE 1920s

The now-well-known rally in Kokomo was a major event in both Indiana and Kokomo Klan history.

The Fiery Cross, the Klan's weekly newspaper published in Indianapolis, estimated the crowd size to be 200,000, though that figure is considered an exaggeration by historians.

How many did attend, though?

Locally, the Tribune and other newspapers did not even attempt to gauge the attendance.

A reporter with the Indianapolis Star estimated the crowd that day between 100,000 to 200,000.

That number was called into question later by Indianapolis Times reporter John Niblack in his autobiography. In the book, Niblack wrote that the Star reporter on the day of the rally "got hold of a quart of bootleg white mule whiskey, and after sipping quite frequently on it, got into a shape where he couldn't get out to the grounds to see the proceedings."

Another Hoosier reporter Ross Garrigus said there were no more than 8,000 people.

Both those estimates seem low to now-retired Indiana University history professor Alan Safianow, who told the Tribune his best guestimate is in the several tens of thousands, possibly between 50,000 to 100,000.

Whatever the attendance, the konklave in Kokomo was a PR success story for the Klan. National publications, such as the New York Times, covered the event and repeated the high attendance figures.

"It put the Klan on the map," Safianow said.

The former professor in his 1988 essay "Konklave in Kokomo Revisited" surmised the Klan chose Kokomo because of the amenities of Klan-owned Melfalfa Park — a swimming pool and lodge — and the city's two k's in its name as possible reasons why Kokomo was chosen for the July 4 rally.

To this day, the rally is still being written about.

It's been mentioned in numerous books, most recently in the New York Times bestselling "A Fever in the Heartland," by Timothy Egan, and articles in both countless news and scholarly publications.

Kokomo native Robert Caughlan famously wrote about the rally and his experience with the Klan as a young Catholic boy living in Kokomo in the article "Konklave in Kokomo," published in 1949 in the essay collection "The Aspirin Age."

In the months and few years after the rally in Kokomo, the Indiana KKK reached its apex in both membership and power, boasting control of numerous state political offices, including the governorship and state legislators, and countless local political offices.

That was due in large part to Stephenson, who, along with Joe Huffington, started Indiana's first Klan chapter in Evansville by 1921. Kokomo's Nathan Hale Den No. 11 was established within the following year and officially chartered in 1922, according to Tribune archives.

The Klan had been resurrected in 1915 by William J. Simmons in Atlanta, Georgia, and was inspired by the popular movie "The Birth of a Nation."

This second iteration of the Klan kept the white supremacist views of the original Klan that existed for a number of years after the end of the American Civil War and resisted Reconstruction. But the new Klan added anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic views and generally was not as violent as the original Klan.

The new Klan also added cross burning and the white costumes that are well-known today.

The second iteration of the Klan found great success in Indiana thanks to Stephenson and the state's large Protestant population. He was a successful recruiter, selling the Klan as a civic organization and finding welcoming in many of the pastors in the state's Protestant churches (the Klan gave free memberships to Protestant ministers who then preached positively about the Klan to their congregation.)

At its peak, the Klan had some 250,000 dues-paying members in the Hoosier State alone, the most of any state in the Union.

The group also wielded a great deal of influence and power in Kokomo.

In his article, Coughlan famously writes that "literally half," or around 5,000, of the city's able-bodied white males were members of the Klan between 1923-25. The exact number of Kokomo Klan members in 1923 is not known for sure, but Coughlan's numbers are probably not too far off.

According to the internal Klan membership counts, Howard County's Nathan Hale klavern had 3,998 members in 1925, though by that time the Klan's popularity had already begun to wane.

The county's population for males over the age of 18 (the eligible age to join the Klan) was approximately 15,000, including minorities.

If going by the 3,998 membership number — which would include county, Russiaville and Greentown residents who were members — that would equal about one-fourth of the county's male population. If Coughlan's number of 5,000 is correct, that would equal about one-third.

Though Kokomo is considered the "most Klannish town," due in large part to the July 4 rally, Klan membership records in 1925 show that at least seven counties — White, Hamilton, Hendricks, Tipton, Rush and Montgomery — had more Klan members than Howard County.

Though maybe not claiming "literally half" of the county's male population, the Klan still had considerable political power in Kokomo.

Taking advantage of economic turmoil caused by the Haynes and Apperson automobile companies folding, in 1925, Klan-backed mayoral candidate and Klan member Silcott Spurgeon beat Republican incumbent James Burrows in that year's primary. Spurgeon went on to win the general election.

Klan-backed City Council candidates also swept the elections. The Klan also had loyalists in the county government as well and in the city's police and fire departments.

One of the most headline-making initiatives of the Klan and its allies was the attempt in 1924 to ban the showing of movies on Sunday. During a visit to Kokomo by the then popular evangelist Bob Jones Sr., Jones called the movie theater business as one "largely controlled by Jews and is organized to destroy the Sabbath," according to Tribune archives.

The problem with that, though, is Kokomo's movie theaters were not owned by Jews. Thus, a major debate ensued over the ban proposal.

Eventually, an ordinance threatening to fine movie theaters between $25 to $50 per offense if they showed movies on Sunday made its way to the City Council. The measure passed after Burrows broke a tie.

"You will expect me as a Christian to take the stand against Sunday shows. I accordingly will vote 'yes,' " Burrows said during the City Council meeting.

The law was short-lived, however. A local judge soon struck down the law, ruling that Burrows had no right to vote in legislative measures.

Many local Protestant churches embraced the Klan, or at the very least didn't criticize it much.

Most vocally pro-Klan were the Rev. Everett Nixon, a Kokomo city councilman and Kokomo Klan's exalted cyclops, or highest official, and the Rev. P.E. Greenwalt, of South Main Street Methodist Church, who, according to Coughlan "whipped a homemade Klan flag from his pocket as he reached the climax of his baccalaureate sermon at the high-school graduation exercises."

The primary opposition to the Kokomo Klan in the 1920s came from Black organizations and the city's Catholics, who were the primary targets of the Kokomo Klan.

The Klan viewed Catholicism as anti-democratic and subject to foreign influence through the Pope, and, thus, not following the "100 Americanism" creed of the Klan.

According to Coughlin, rumors swirled around town that the Klan had plans to tar-and-feather Father Robert Pratt, of St. Patrick Catholic Church, and burn the church down as part of the July 4 konklave, but none of that happened.

THE KLAN'S FALL

As quick and meteoric was the Klan's rise in Indiana and across the country, its fall from popularity was just as steep.

In the spring of 1925, Stephenson was charged with the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer.

In the months before the crime, Stephenson and Oberholtzer had become acquainted. On March 15, 1925, Stephenson asked Oberholtzer to join him on a trip to Chicago, telling her, "I love you more than any woman I have ever known."

Soon after the train left Indianapolis, a drunk Stephenson attacked the woman, raped her and chewed all over her body.

Shortly after the attack, Oberholtzer attempted to kill herself with mercury chloride tablets. On April 14, she died from a staph infection from the bites and kidney failure from the mercury poisoning.

Stephenson was indicted on charges of rape and second-degree murder. In a highly publicized trial in a Noblesville courtroom, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison (he was eventually paroled in 1950, again arrested in 1951 and paroled again in 1956).

Expecting a pardon from Indiana Gov. Edward Jackson, a Howard County native, who Stephenson helped bankroll, and not receiving it, Stephenson released evidence showing that years earlier Jackson, as secretary of state of Indiana, had attempted to bribe then-Gov. Warren T. McCray with $10,000 of Klan money in hopes McCray would fill state public offices with Klan members.

The release of the information damaged Jackson politically and led to his indictment, Jackson was later acquitted under the statute of limitations.

Stephenson's trial severely hurt the Klan, which promoted itself as anti-alcohol, for justice and for Christian morality. But the trial laid bare that its leaders were clearly not following what they preached.

The Klan's membership numbers are reported to have plummeted to just 4,000 statewide by February 1928, compared to 250,000 in 1925.

In Kokomo and Howard County, Stephenson's trial and conviction certainly hurt the Klan and its membership numbers, though a number of other local scandals also contributed.

In 1926, the Republican county treasurer was arrested for extortion. Republican county auditor Orville Butcher was indicted on charges of negligence for failing to report expenditures by the county commissioners for the first five months of the year and extortion for illegally being paid a total of $1,844.40 ($32,423 in today's money) under the guise of county voter registration.

That same year, the chairman of the Howard County Republican Party, which had close ties with the Klan, was found guilty of operating illegal slot machines and sentenced to 30 days in jail and a $25 fine (equivalent to $430 in 2023).

The following year, the bank American Trust Company, the so-called "Klan bank," whose founding president William H. Arnold also owned the farm the Klan met at before purchasing Melfalfa Park, was closed by the state examiner and its current officers, including Arnold, were indicted on a collection of embezzlement and grand larceny charges.

According to Tribune archives, the grandy jury was under the belief that the bank operated "largely as a means for supplying (Arnold) and his family with money for speculative purposes." The American Trust Company held the deposits of the local Klan.

No one was convicted in the bank seizure and closure, though. The real loss occurred to depositors of the bank, who only got back 40% of their deposits, according to Tribune archives.

Another embarrassment for the Klan was the failure of the hate group to garner enough funds to build another county hospital other than the Good Samaritan Hospital, which was run by local Catholics.

Klansman sought the building of a new hospital because they did not want to be treated by Catholic nurses.

While championed by the Klan, the need for a second county hospital was also recognized by many others in the community as the city was growing. This included Elwood Haynes, who donated to the project.

The campaign fell short, however, and the county had to take over the project in 1926.

A hospital was built on West Sycamore Street, and it opened in December of 1926. But the onset of The Great Depression dealt a fatal blow to the hospital, and it closed.

Ironically, in 1935, the Good Samaritan Hospital Association, an affiliate of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Tipton, purchased the hospital at auction for $20,000.

They operated it as St. Joseph Memorial Hospital for decades. In 1994, The Sisters of St. Joseph transferred sponsorship of the hospital to the Daughters of Charity. The hospital is now known as Ascension St. Vincent Kokomo.

Small groups of Klan members continued to meet at Melfalfa Park until the mid-1930s, but by the 1940s, the park had been "reverted to the wilderness stage," according to the Tribune. The Kokomo YMCA began offering youth recreation programs at the site in 1953. A year later, Campy Tycony formally began.

Tyler Juranovich can be reached at 765-454-8577, by email at tyler.juranovich@kokomotribune.com or on Twitter at @tylerjuranovich.