BENEATH the SMOKE of the FLAMING CIRCLE: EXTINGUISHING the FIERY CROSS of the 1920S KLAN in the NORTH by JONATHAN A. KINSER Subm

BENEATH THE SMOKE OF THE FLAMING CIRCLE:

EXTINGUISHING THE FIERY CROSS OF THE 1920s KLAN IN THE NORTH

JONATHAN A. KINSER

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Dissertation Adviser: Dr. David C. Hammack

Department of History

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

May, 2017

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES

We hereby approve the dissertation of

Jonathan A. Kinser

Candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Committee Chair

David C. Hammack

Committee Member

John J. Grabowski

Committee Member

John H. Flores

Committee Member

Kevin C. McMunigal

Date of Defense

March 22, 2017

*We also certify that written approval has been obtained

for any proprietary material contained therein. iii

DEDICATION

To LP, who taught me how to finish projects.

And my parents, for all that they have taught me about life.

Table of Contents

List of Tables vi

Acknowledgments vii

Abstract xi

1. Introduction: Cutting Through the Smoke of the Flaming Circle 1

2. The Mahoning Valley’s Changing Demographics and the 29 Foundations of the Rival Factions

Changing Demographics in the Mahoning Valley, 1860 to 1920 43

Patterns of Crime and Criminality in the Mahoning Valley, 1880 to 1930 64

3. The Rise of the Mahoning Valley Klan and Its Curious Auxiliaries: 90 The Klan’s Perspective on Immigrants, African-Americans, and Crime, 1920-1925

4. The Rise of Anti-Klan Sentiment and Forms of Immigrant Resistance: 136 The Knights of Columbus, Slovaks, and Italians Challenge the Klan, 1923-1925

5. Smoke on the Level: The Hopeful Spark and Furious Spread of the 183 Flaming Circle

6. Williamson County: ‘Citizen Warriors’ or Generations of 201 Protestant on Protestant Violence

7. Niles, Ohio: Bootleggers and Burning Tires 232

8. Conclusion: ‘Behold, How Great a Flame a Little Fire Kindleth!’ 274 Outcomes of the Conflict Between the Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle

Appendix A Crime in the Mahoning Valley, 1880-1940 284

Appendix B Naturalization Statistics 1870 to 1930 296

Appendix C List of All Indictments from the November 1, 1924 Riot 305

Bibliography 308

LIST OF TABLES

1880 Trumbull County Population 47

1880 Mahoning County Population 48

Population Growth 1870 to 1920 57

1920 Mahoning County Population 61

1920 Trumbull County Population 62

Mahoning County Per Capita Property Crime Indictment Rates 1880-1930 70

Trumbull County Per Capita Property Crime Indictment Rates 1880-1930 71

Mahoning County Per Capita Crimes Against Persons Indictment Rates 1880-1930 72

Trumbull County Per Capita Crimes Against Persons Indictment Rates 1880-1930 73

Mahoning County Per Capita Homicide Rates Based on Coroner Inquests 1870-1930 76

Trumbull County Per Capita Homicide Rates Based on Coroner Inquests 1870-1930 77

Mahoning County Per Capita Crimes Against the Public Indictment Rates1880-1930 79

Trumbull County Per Capita Crimes Against the Public Indictment Rates1880-1930 80

Mahoning County Foreign-born % of Total Prisoner Population 1871-1916 82

Trumbull County Foreign-born % of Total Prisoner Population 1871-1916 84

vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I certainly owe a debt of gratitude to a number of people who have helped make this dissertation a reality. First, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. David Hammack, Dr. John Grabowski, Dr. John Flores, and Professor

Kevin McMunigal, for all of their guidance and time spent helping to refine my argument and conclusions. I would also like to thank the rest of the faculty and staff of the History

Department at Case Western Reserve University for helping to train me as a scholar and historian. I extend that same debt of gratitude to Dr. William Jenkins, Dr. Fred Viehe and the rest of the faculty and staff of the History Department at Youngstown State

University.

In graduate school financial assistance is a necessity and I was lucky enough to be supported by both the university and a number of other benefactors. Among them, I would like to thank the Terry Lynch Foundation and the History Associates for their generous fellowships, which helped immensely as I pursued my degrees. I also want to thank Dr. Miriam Levin for trusting in my research skills and employing me as her research assistant for a number of years.

Accumulating the research materials necessary for a defensible dissertation can be quite an onerous task, but it is made better by the assistance of the dedicated people working in the libraries and archives housing materials related to your subject. In this regard, I would like to thank the staff of the Local History and Genealogy Center at the

Warren-Trumbull County Public Library. Over the years they have always cheerfully assisted me in chasing down information and searching through countless reels of newspaper microfilms. Also in Trumbull County, I would like to thank the staff of the

viii

Trumbull County Record Center and Archives Department for their hard work helping

me to track down court documents related to the Niles anti-Klan riot and the rioters. They

were able to locate an enormous number of criminal case files for me and I am deeply in

their debt. Finally, in Trumbull County, I would also like to thank the members of the

Niles Historical Society and the Niles city government who aided me in my research and

allowed me access to archived city council records. Their help was greatly appreciated.

In Mahoning County, I owe a debt of gratitude to the staff of the Genealogy

and Local History Center at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.

Like their counterparts in Trumbull County, their knowledge of their collection helped

me to quickly find relevant source material. Also in Mahoning County, I would like to

thank the staff of the Mahoning Valley Historical Society for allowing me access to their

collection of materials related to the Klan in the region. I owe thanks as well to the staffs

of the Youngstown City Health District, the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office, and the

Mahoning County Microfilm Department who allowed me access to archived death

records and assisted me in researching historic homicide rates in the Mahoning Valley.

Outside of the Mahoning Valley, I also owe thanks to many people and

organizations. This includes the staff at the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council

Archives in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the staff at the Williamson County

Historical Society Genealogy Library and Museum in Marion, Illinois. Similarly, I owe

thanks to the staff of the Local History and Genealogy Department of the Public Library

of Steubenville and Jefferson County in Steubenville, Ohio. Lastly, I would also like to thank Dick Bly and Dennis Driscoll, of the Kane Historic Preservation Society in Kane,

Pennsylvania, for their help with collecting information on the town and its history and

their gracious hospitality when I spoke on the topic of my dissertation there last year.

The next group of people I would like to thank played an indispensable role in the

success of this project and without them Chapter Four would not have been possible. The

first two of these four individuals are Dr. John Grabowski and the late Joe Hornack.

Without their help it would have been far more difficult to find the people I needed to

translate the numerous articles from the Youngstown Slovak and Italian newspapers that I

had collected. Not to mention, Mr. Hornack provided me access to the archives at the

Slovak Institute and an afternoon filled with his recollections of the Slovak community in

Cleveland and Northeastern Ohio. To my translators, Dr. Constance Sanchetta of the

Italian American Cultural Foundation, and Paul Burik of the Czechoslovak Society of

Arts and Sciences, I am eternally grateful. The sheer amount of translations they

completed for me, the quality of their work, and the rapid turn-around they provided for

each document was nothing short of priceless. I am truly appreciative of their efforts on

my behalf.

Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family for putting up with me for all

of these years. Among this mix of people and personalities are my friends from grad

school at both Youngstown State and Case Western Reserve, as well as the people I

worked with outside of school. Within this group I would like to say a special thanks to

Ray Villers, for helping me to examine microfilms of newspapers on a number of

occasions, and Greg Horodyski for reading drafts of each chapter and offering helpful

critiques of each. I would also like to thank a few people who kindly listened to me discuss my dissertation project even though I may have been interrupting them as they

tried to do their jobs. To this end, I would like to thank my barber, the CWRU History

Department Office staff, and the CWRU Custodial Services staff who maintained Mather

House.

Members of my immediate family deserve credit as well for dealing with me throughout this process. This includes my nieces and nephews who have had to endure discussions of the 1920s at Thanksgiving dinners and at Christmas-time for more years than I would like to admit. I would also like to thank my siblings and their spouses for their input and observations during those same discussions. The same goes for my girlfriend’s family who have also graciously discussed my project and been supportive of my studies. Additionally, my parents have been, not only, strong supporters of my academic career, but they have helped me to navigate through the ups and downs of life by sharing their wisdom and their love. Last but not least, I would like to thank my girlfriend for enduring my bad habit of comparing everything to the 1920s and the duration of my time in graduate school. Without her encouragement and unwavering support none of this would have been possible.

It would be remiss of me if I did not include a disclaimer along with the thanks I

have offered those who I have listed above. To them goes all the credit for assisting me

with the undertaking of this dissertation, and any success it has for expanding our

historical knowledge, but none of the blame for any of its faults. Those are mine and

mine alone.

Beneath the Smoke of the Flaming Circle: Extinguishing the Fiery Cross of the 1920s Klan in the North

Abstract

JONATHAN A. KINSER

By the end of 1925, the Ku Klux Klan had lost most of its members across the

United States. This work examines opposition to the group from 1922 to 1926. It seeks to

understand the decline in membership the 1920s Klan experienced after its power peaked

in 1923 and 1924. To do so, it examines anti-Klan activity in Steubenville, Ohio;

Williamson County, Illinois; and in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley with a focus on Niles, Ohio.

Legal efforts to oppose the Klan by the Knights of Columbus and two foreign-language newspapers in the Mahoning Valley are explored. However, examining the role of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle, a rival organization, in opposing the Klan in these locations is the primary focus.

The Knights of the Flaming Circle emerged as an opponent to the Klan in August of 1923 and spread from Pennsylvania into Ohio and Illinois. Initially, the group, founded

in Kane, Pennsylvania, championed the causes of liberty and equality and announced its

intention to challenge the Klan in an orderly and legal fashion. However, as the

organization spread to the industrial cities of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio, the tone of

the organization’s rhetoric changed, and, the threat of violence between it and the Klan

loomed. The threat became a reality when the Flaming Circle movement reached the

coalfields of Williamson County in late 1923. Not long after, Niles, Ohio, joined

xii

Williamson County, as the other primary location of conflicts between the factions.

From August 1923 to early 1925, the Flaming Circle’s fierce opposition to the Klan resonated around the country due to numerous violent riots and because these incidents were covered by the local and national press. This ensured that even people not located in areas where the two groups were active had constant updates anytime there was trouble.

As a result of the conflicts, and a host of other complicating factors, Klan membership dropped significantly across the United States. This study seeks to understand what motivated both sides to engage in such violent behavior toward each other and to analyze why the Knights of the Flaming Circle were successful in helping to halt the Klan movement in the North.

Chapter One:

Introduction: Cutting Through the Smoke of the Flaming Circle

On the night of September 26, 1923, residents of Steubenville, Ohio awoke

abruptly from their sleep as a huge dynamite blast resonated off of the hills on both sides

of the Ohio River. Thousands of residents ventured outside to see what had happened.

They may have feared the explosion had emanated from one of the coal mines in the

vicinity. However, this fear was quickly replaced by an unsettling uncertainty at what

they actually saw across the river. Flames erupted on the West Virginia hillside facing

Steubenville. As residents gazed at the fiery night spectacle some claimed to see white- robed figures darting about in the flickering light of the towering flames. During the hot summer nights of 1923, it was not uncommon to be woken by a dynamite blast followed by burning symbols lighting up the night sky. The Ku Klux Klan had been burning massive crosses across the country to announce their presence and warn residents that they were watching the citizens of the town where the cross burning occurred. Usually, the town had been targeted because the residents were not felt to be adhering to laws governing moral behavior such as Prohibition and often contained a large number of

Catholic immigrants. However, something on that night did not fit the Klan’s modus operandi. It would not have taken long for the witnesses to the event to see that on this night, it was not members of the Ku Klux Klan who were sending a message to

Steubenville’s inhabitants. Instead, those present clearly saw that the burning symbol facing them was not a towering, fiery cross, but instead a colossal flaming circle that

burned for a full half hour. The white-robed figures shrouded beneath the smoke that night were not Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, but who were they? The next morning they would find out, and, over the next year and a half, so too would people across the United

States.1

In the eight decades since its masked knights stalked through the night burning

crosses and creating a storm of controversy on the front pages of newspapers across the

nation, historians have written numerous books and journal articles concerned with the

1920s Ku Klux Klan. Considerably less has been written about those forces that opposed

them directly. In particular, very little has been written about the Knights of the Flaming

Circle, an even more mysterious and secretive order that emerged during the hot summer

nights of 1923. Immediately after the first of numerous night spectacles, sometimes

marked by dynamite blasts and large burning circles, occurring in places like Kane,

Pennsylvania; Steubenville, Ohio; Niles, Ohio; and Williamson County, Illinois, this

organization briefly became something of a media sensation. For the first time newspaper

reporters had what could be described as a full-fledged opposition group to write about

rather than just unorganized citizens of different communities who opposed the Klan.

This made the group an attractive topic for reporters writing for a national audience, such

as those writing for the Associated Press, United Press Association, or for newspapers like the New York Times and New York Herald. People in New York likely had only marginal interest in the exploits of a dentist from Steubenville or the owner of a pool hall in Niles, but when these men became associated with a shadowy organization involved in violent clashes with Klansmen, the stories gained traction. The most likely factors behind

1 “Anti-Klux Ring Makes Debut Here: Dynamite Blast Introduces Knights of Flaming Circle,” The Steubenville Herald-Star, 27 September, 1.

3 the rise of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in violent opposition to the Ku Klux Klan in

Steubenville, Ohio; Niles, Ohio; and Williamson County, Illinois are twofold. On the one hand, the “organization” was possibly an attempt by Irish and Italian residents of these communities to strike back at the symbolism and scare tactics of the Klan by adopting their own oppositional version of the Klan’s nocturnal terror tactics. In this case, the burning cross was countered by the almost satirical flaming circle, which oftentimes was achieved by simply burning a tire on a sidewalk or on a Klansmen’s lawn. This may have led to the adoption of this symbol as a point of unity for an otherwise loose confederation of anti-Klan forces. With the symbol came the organization, even if, in a strictly defined sense, one never existed. Beyond the symbolism of the burning circles, the primary element of their activities, which led to an increase in newspaper accounts nationwide, related to the exploits of the Knights of the Flaming Circle was the extreme violence that occurred when the group clashed with the Ku Klux Klan. To be sure there had been anti-

Klan groups prior to the Knights of the Flaming Circle, but few of them had taken such a physical and aggressive approach to challenging Klan power at the community level. The actions of the Knights of the Flaming Circle reported in newspaper articles appearing across the country made for good copy, which undoubtedly encouraged reporters to invoke their name any chance they could do so.

The only problem is that the Knights of the Flaming Circle most likely never existed as a unified national organization.2 For a brief period in 1923 and 1924, recruiters

2 It is unlikely that there ever was communication between the most distant locations claiming allegiance to the Flaming Circle. This does not mean that there were not ties between locations that were closer together. In particular, it is almost certain that leaders of the chapters in the Mahoning Valley and Steubenville collaborated together.

did canvass parts of Ohio and Western Pennsylvania, but to this day, no tangible records

of the group’s existence have ever emerged. No secret rosters, no meeting minutes, no

uniforms, no by-laws, no constitution, little exists other than newspaper accounts of their

activities. On its face the lack of archival materials does not mean the Knights of the

Flaming Circle did not exist, but it does make a full-scale exploration of its members and

purpose much more difficult and explains the absence of such a work from the scholarly

record. Despite the difficulties listed above, this dissertation will attempt to fill this gap.

Even though limited information exists concerning the Knights of the Flaming

Circle, there have been some earlier works which have at least mentioned their existence.

However, the first reference to the Knights of the Flaming Circle, describing their opposition to the 1920s Klan, took decades to appear in a scholarly work. The earliest works dealing with the Klan, such as two by John Moffat Mecklin and Frank Tannebaum published in 1924, were focused entirely on the Klan and did not mention the only recently created Knights of the Flaming Circle.3 Similarly, the works of Richard

Hofstadter, John Higham, William Leuchtenberg, and John Hicks also failed to discuss

There is also evidence of recruiting efforts spearheaded by men from Youngstown occurring in locations in Western Pennsylvania. There was likely no intention of creating a long lasting organization, but instead there was simply a joint effort to combat the problem of the Klan’s existence in locations across the North and Midwest. Alleged members of the movement have made statements to this effect in oral histories recorded in the 1980s at Youngstown State University, but they have also made clear that their intention was to create disruptions for the Klan movement through cooperation between the disparate opposition groups located in various industrial towns in the locations discussed. For more on this see: Nicola Criscione, Interview by Dr. William D. Jenkins. Youngstown State University Oral History Program: Ku Klux Klan Project. Youngstown, Ohio, 8 May 1984. http://www.maag.ysu.edu/oralhistory/cd1/OH311.pdf Accessed 12 December 2016. 3 John Moffatt Mecklin, The Ku Klux Klan: A Study of the American Mind (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1924).Frank Tannenbaum, Darker Phases of the South (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1924).

the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the sections of their Consensus Era books dealing

with the Klan.4

The first book to mention the Knights of the Flaming Circle was Paul M. Angle’s

work from 1952 titled Bloody Williamson.5 Angle’s reference to the Knights of the

Flaming Circle was lost among the numerous violent calamities that he covered within his book. He mentioned the name had been employed by the opposition to the Klan, but focused primarily on the role of bootleggers within the movement and in this case the group’s name was overshadowed by the criminal activities of its members. Furthermore, the fact that Angle’s work covered such a long period of time and was not primarily focused on just the episode of Klan violence may have caused his contribution to the history of the 1920s Klan and its opposition to be overlooked.

Over a decade later, in 1967, Kenneth T. Jackson published the next work to mention the Knights of the Flaming Circle. Although to be honest, he did not have much to say about the group. In a section of his work, The Ku Klux Klan in the City, discussing the Niles anti-Klan riot, Jackson simply referenced the name and described them as a

“predominantly immigrant and Catholic organization.”6 Other works of the 1960s, such

as those by David Chalmers and Arnold S. Rice also failed to address the Knights of the

4 Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. (New York: Knopf, 1955); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1955); William Leuchtenberg, The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958); John D. Hicks, Republican Ascendancy, 1921-1933 (New York: Harper & Row, 1960). 5 Paul M. Angle, Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). The book was originally published in 1952. 6 Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967), 168.

Flaming Circle.7 In his work Chalmers discussed the decline of the Klan and numerous

riots across the country, but his was a fast-paced superficial look at large trends, not the specifics of each riot, and so the opposition, being that it was quite varied, was referred to as simply anti-Klan.

The scarcity of information about the Knights of the Flaming Circle undoubtedly

played a role in the essentially non-existent account of their membership, structure, and efforts against the Klan. However, it could also be possible that it might have been deemed too risky for an academic in the 1960s to investigate the negative marks that existed on the records of those who opposed the Klan.8 By the 1960s, the Ku Klux Klan

had undergone significant changes and had grown to be even more reviled as a terrorist

hate group. After the decline and fall of the 1920s Klan, and in light of the numerous

ultra-violent and murderous events connected to the later incarnation of the organization,

it should be no surprise that histories of the group contained no critical review of

opposition groups. Put another way, in the political climate of the 1960s it seems possible

that it would have been easier to publish a work condemning the Klan, now effortlessly

labeled a hate group, than it would have been to discuss the specific violent episodes that

occurred and risk placing any of the blame for the violence on the anti-Klan rioters. It is

easy to say the Klansmen represented nativist rhetoric and hatred of immigrants, blacks,

and Catholics. However, in order to fully understand the riots and their outcomes, one

7 David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1968. Original publication date was 1965). Arnold S. Rice, The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics. (Washington, D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1962). 8 It should be noted that Angle was not a professor at a university and therefore likely had more latitude in the manner in which he wrote about the Klan and its opposition. Angle, Bloody Williamson, xi.

must attempt to address the motivations of the organizations or people who opposed the

Klan. Any investigation of this sort did not occur until the 1990s.

Aside from Paul M. Angle’s Bloody Williamson, William D. Jenkins’s work, Steel

Valley Klan, contained the most comprehensive treatment of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle. Jenkins’s work was primarily focused on the Klan and its adherents, but because

he addressed the Niles anti-Klan riot in two chapters, he included much valuable

information related to the men affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle. Jenkins

first mentioned the Knights of the Flaming Circle as “an anti-Klan organization from

Steubenville” that sent members to disrupt a Klan Konklave in Niles, Ohio, which had

been planned for June 21, 1924.9 Jenkins then discussed what he believed was the

overall formation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle following the August 1923 riot in

Steubenville, but this was actually just the formation of that city’s chapter led by the

aforementioned dentist, Dr. W.F. McGuigan.10 The article that Jenkins cited appeared in

the Steubenville Herald on September 27, 1923 and it discussed the dramatic appearance

of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in Steubenville. However, this was not the earliest

mention of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in an American newspaper. Weeks earlier

on September 7, the New York Times ran an article titled, “’Red Knights’ Form to Oppose

Ku Klux: ‘Flaming Circle’ Admits Catholics, Jews and Negroes, but bars Protestants,”

9 William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 120-121. 10 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 122. “Anti-Klux Ring Makes Debut Here,” 1. “Flaming Circle: New Order Busy Organizing in Ohio Now,” The Warren Tribune, 1 October 1923, 18. Both of these articles have the dentist name listed as Dr. W. F. McGuigan, which differs from Dr. William Jenkins account in Steel Valley Klan. He had Dr. W. S. McGuigan, but for the sake of those who might attempt further research on the man in question I have decided to use the initials listed in his hometown newspaper.

which claimed the organization was formed “several weeks ago at Kane,

Pennsylvania.”11 The article also discussed how several branches of the organization had

been formed in the area in and around Youngstown, but it never mentions Steubenville

by name. Appearing a day later, also in the New York Times, was another article focused

on the Archbishop of Baltimore Michael Joseph Curley’s disapproval of the “Red

Knights,” because he figured that they, like the Klan, were a moneymaking scheme.

Despite his commentary to that effect, Archbishop Curley ended his discussion with a more approving tone, stating, “I might say, however, that if the opposing society is to be composed of Catholics, Jews, [and] Negroes its parts will make a beautiful whole.”12

Taken together, these two articles make a clear case that the Knights of the Flaming

Circle had begun before the September 27 incident in Steubenville. A series of articles

that appeared in the Kane Republican of Kane, Pennsylvania in mid-August 1923

confirm the creation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in that town.13 Additionally,

those articles provide insight into the founding principles and proposed purpose of the

organization. The Kane Republican even published the group’s manifesto, which had

been delivered to the newspaper’s office.14 The number of locations listed in just these

11 “’Red Knights Article’ Form to Oppose Ku Klux: ‘Flaming Circle’ Admits Catholics, Jews and Negroes, but Bars Protestants,” The New York Times, 7 September 1923, 17. 12 “Disapproves ‘Red Knights:’ Archbishop Curley Thinks They and the Klansmen Are After Money,” The New York Times, 9 September 1923, S8. 13 Although I reached this conclusion independently, by the time I began writing my dissertation, John Craig had published his work The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928, which correctly identified Kane as the first location where the Knights of the Blazing Ring, later the Flaming Circle, appeared. John Craig, The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928 (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 2015). 14 “’The Knights of the Blazing Ring’ Send Out Announcement: Circle of Fire Burned Near Kane Said To Be Insignia of Strange New Organization Claiming a World Wide Membership; Believes in Liberty For All Creeds,” The Kane Republican, 16 August 1923, 1.

9 articles suggests a larger organization than the one described by Jenkins in Steel Valley

Klan, but to date no authors have attempted to study the group’s activities across the country in any great detail.

In fact, most historians writing after Jenkins have consistently employed his information regarding the Knights of the Flaming Circle, and, as a result, the focus has remained on the Niles anti-Klan riot and the role of the Knights in that conflict. Despite this continued use of Jenkins’s materials and focus on the Niles anti-Klan activities of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle, later historians have created very little new material or offered much new analysis of even the Niles branch. In his 1991 work, Citizen Klansmen,

Leonard J. Moore made note of violent anti-Klan activities in Niles, Ohio and Herrin,

Illinois, but because his work focused on Klansmen in Indiana, where there were no such activities, that was the extent of his exploration of those groups.15 Similarly, Nancy

MacLean devoted only a few sentences of Behind the Mask of Chivalry to the discussion of the Knights of the Flaming Circle and the Red Knights, but she did mention that they were active in several parts of the country in 1923.16 MacLean’s failure to address the

Knights of the Flaming Circle, like Moore, was not surprising since both studies primarily focused on the Klan and not on resistance organizations. On the other hand,

David J. Goldberg’s journal article titled, “Unmasking the Ku Klux Klan: The Northern

Movement against the KKK, 1920-1925,” focused on resistance efforts and, therefore, seemed likely to add to the historiography related to the Knights of the Flaming Circle,

15 Leonard J. Moore, Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 24, 35. 16 Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry: The Making of the Second Ku Klux Klan (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 13-14.

but he too depended upon Jenkins’s earlier work and added no new material regarding the

Knights of the Flaming Circle.17

For the most part historians have continued to focus on understanding the Klan and its membership as studies in the decade and a half since the year 2000 still have not produced a work attempting to analyze the anti-Klan movement specifically. This is not to say that motivations of the anti-Klan movement have not been addressed in the works focused on the Klan, but these motivations still tend to be a secondary story to the motivations driving the Klan forward. Thomas Pegram’s 2011 work, One Hundred

Percent American, represents another work of this sort.18 Pegram effectively synthesizes the best available materials related to the rise and fall of the 1920s Klan, but he breaks no

new ground in regards to the actual men who opposed the Klan. In terms of the Knights

of the Flaming Circle, Pegram also relied heavily on Jenkins.

Perhaps the most in-depth new work in terms of its coverage of the Knights of the

Flaming Circle would be the 2015 publication by John Craig titled The Ku Klux Klan in

Western Pennsylvania. Craig not only utilized Jenkins’s work, but he noted differences

between his own view and that of Jenkins. Craig also elaborated on other instances where

the Knights of the Flaming Circle were mentioned in newspaper accounts of what he

termed “Klan-inspired violence” in Herrin, Illinois and in Western Pennsylvania.19 Even

with this additional attention, Craig, like those before him, does little more than mention

17 David J. Goldberg, “Unmasking the Ku Klux Klan: The Northern Movement against the KKK, 1920-1925,” Journal of American Ethnic History 15, No. 4 (Summer 1996), 43. 18 Thomas Pegram, One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2011). 19 John M. Craig, The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2015), 174.

the Knights of the Flaming Circle without attempting to identify any of its members or examine its activities in any detail, although he did trace the formation of the group back to Kane, Pennsylvania.20

Another analysis of anti-Klan forces building off of William D. Jenkins’s Steel

Valley Klan was a 2008 Master’s Thesis written by Ashley Zampogna, which again focused on those forces united in opposition to the Klan in the Mahoning Valley region of Ohio.21 Zampogna’s thesis titled, “America May Not Perish: The Italian American

Fight Against The Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley,” focused on her analysis of a

Youngstown-based Italian language newspaper, Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, and the

editorials it contained that discussed Italian opposition to the Klan. Although her work

also builds off of Jenkins’s work, she purposely avoided exploration of the Knights of the

Flaming Circle, instead choosing to focus on what she argued was the more influential

mainstream opposition found in the articles of Il Cittadino Italo-Americano. Zampogna’s

account opened the door to a new avenue for analyzing immigrant opposition to the Klan.

However, it added little to the study of the Knights of the Flaming Circle and left

unresolved a few important questions regarding the Italian newspaper’s role in fomenting

violence in Niles that this study will explore. Furthermore, Zampagno downplayed the

role of violence in defeating the Klan when it could be argued that violence against its

members was the primary cause of the collapse of the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning

Valley and elsewhere.

20 Craig, The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 96. 21 Ashley Marie Zampogna, “America May Not Perish: The Italian American Fight Against The Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley,” (Youngstown State University Master’s Thesis, 2008).

All of the numerous studies listed above may not have addressed the Knights of

the Flaming Circle directly, or only did so to varying degrees, but all offered explanations

for the stunning collapse of the 1920s Klan and the enormous decline in membership that

began in 1925 and continued through the remaining years of the decade.One such

explanation of the collapse of the Klan could be described as the internal decay

multicausal argument. This argument regarding the collapse of the Ku Klux Klan has

been around since the earliest studies of the group were completed. Emerson Hunsberger

Loucks advanced such an argument in his 1936 work The Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania.

Loucks focused on the internal decay of the Klan in Pennsylvania due to the financial

misdeeds of key leaders and the fading of nativist vigor as his explanation for the rapid

decline in Klan membership.22 Later works produced in the 1960s all employed some

form of the multicausal argument for the decay of the Ku Klux Klan. Charles C.

Alexander, David M. Chalmers, and Kenneth T. Jackson all employed some variant of

this argument. Of these three, only Charles C. Alexander placed the primary causes

outside of the organization. Alexander cited a general decline in the postwar hysteria that

had “provoked so much animosity toward Catholics, Jews, Negroes, foreigners, and

libertines,” a return to prosperity, and general indifference to social problems as the cause

for the decline of Klan membership.23 Also, because Alexander was examining the Klan as a nationwide phenomenon in his article “Kleagles and Cash: The Ku Klux Klan as a

Business Organization, 1915-1930,” he also mentioned the D.C. Stephenson scandal in

22 Emerson Hunsberger Loucks, The Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania (New York: The Telegraph Press, 1936). 23 Charles C. Alexander, “Kleagles and Cash: The Ku Klux Klan as a Business Organization, 1915-1930, The Business History Review Vol. 39, No. 3 (Autumn, 1965), 366. Charles C. Alexander, “Defeat, Decline, Disintegration: The Ku Klux Klan in Arkansas, 1924 and After,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 4 (Winter, 1963), 311-331.

Indiana as another major factor in the defection of members from the ranks of the Klan.24

Chalmers argued that the Klan failed to carry on in the United States “due more to its

own ineptness than any other factor” and placed the blame squarely on the organization

itself, claiming that the “decline of the Klan as a mass movement was its own fault,

nobody else’s.”25 Kenneth T. Jackson agreed that it was also the Klan’s own mistakes

that led to its collapse, citing “its lack of a positive program and a corresponding reliance

upon emotion rather than reason” as the cause of its decay.26 Two localized studies of the

Klan in Georgia and Wisconsin published in the early 1970s continued the trend of citing

internal decay as the primary cause of the decline of the KKK. The first, by Clement

Charlton Moseley on the Klan in Georgia, argued that financial scandals and a power

struggle that resulted in murder were the primary causes of the empire’s deterioration.27

Rounding out these earlier studies, Robert A. Goldberg argued that the death of the Klan

“was primarily self-inflicted” citing financial scandals and “dictatorial practices” that kept members from “participating in their own organization’s policymaking process and from choosing their local leaders” as the primary reasons members left in droves mid-

decade.28

The internal decay multicausal argument has continued to be employed in more

recent studies as well. Kathleen Blee in her important study of gender and the Klan,

“Women in the 1920s’ Ku Klux Klan Movement,” argued that the organization collapsed

24 Charles C. Alexander, “Kleagles and Cash,” 366. 25 David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 299. 26 Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 254. 27 Clement Charlton Moseley, “The Political Influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia, 1915-1925,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 57, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), 251. 28 Robert A. Goldberg, “The Ku Klux Klan in Madison, 1922-1927,” The Wisconsin Magazine of History Vol. 58, No. 1 (Autumn, 1974), 43-44.

as a result of “internal battles, and financial scandals” that were exacerbated by the

economic depression.29 In a work published in 1999, Glenn Feldman similarly claimed

that the mass exodus of members from the Klan in Alabama was due to financial

problems, ethical issues, and large political losses.30 Around the same time, Chris

Rhomberg argued that the collapse of the Klan in Oakland, California was not due “to the

decline of its socio-economic base nor to its ideological marginalism.”31 Instead,

Rhomberg argued the organizational form of the Klan failed to hold the movement

together and some “leaders succumbed to the corruptions of machine politics.”32 As a

result Rhomberg claimed reform-minded Klansmen shifted their allegiance elsewhere in

their efforts to combat machine politics. Similarly, another study of the Klan in Arkansas,

this time by Donald Holley in 2001, found that errors made by Klan leaders and a failure

“to define issues and benefits that could support a long-term movement” doomed the

organization.33 The collapse of the Klan in Maine was also explained as a result of internal conflicts, financial problems, and the “decline of the national Ku Klux Klan” in a study written by Mark Paul Richard and published in 2009.34 In 2011, Kelly J. Baker also argued that the primary cause of the disintegration of the unified Klan was internal, and

29 Kathleen M. Blee, “Women in the 1920s’ Ku Klux Klan Movement,” Feminist Studies Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1991), 72. 30 Glenn Feldman, Politics, Society, and the Klan in Alabama, 1915-1949 (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1999), 211. 31 Chris Rhomberg, “White Nativism and Urban Politics: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Oakland, California,” Journal of Ethnic History Vol. 17, No. 2 (Winter, 1998), 50. 32 Rhomberg, “White Nativism and Urban Politics,” 50. 33 Donald Holley, “A Look Behind the Masks: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Monticello, Arkansas,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly Vol. 60, No. 2 (Summer, 2001), 150. 34 Mark Paul Richard, “’This Is Not a Catholic Nation:’ The Ku Klux Klan Confronts Franco- Americans in Maine,” The New England Quarterly Vol. 82, No. 2 ( June 2009), 285.

the result of the scandalous behavior of leaders such as D.C. Stephenson in Indiana.35

Finally in 2012, Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt provided an economic analysis

of the national Klan sales structure and determined that in addition to scandals and other

similar issues, the organizational structure was unstable and created only “marginal

members” who left the organization when “the benefits associated with group

membership decline[d]” and because of the group’s “solely hate-based rather than civic- minded nature.”36

Not all historians who argue that the mass exodus of Klansmen from the

organization was due to multiple causes agree that the primary causes were internal.

Some authors instead claim that external causes played a primary role in the breakup of

the 1920s Klan. The earliest argument to this effect was Paul M. Angle’s account of the

collapse of the Williamson County Klan following the violence of 1924 and 1925 that

claimed the lives of leaders of both the Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle. In

this case, Angle was only commenting on the Williamson County Klan and did not

attempt to extend his analysis to the national organization. The first historian to argue that

both internal and external causes had brought on the demise of the national organization

was Arnold S. Rice in 1962. Rice claimed that by 1928 the Klan had experienced “a

sharp loss of membership as a result of popular disrepute at the height of its career.”37

This strain of the multicausal argument was also embraced by Leonard J. Moore who

35 Kelly J. Baker, Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011), 230-231. 36 Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt, “Hatred and Profits: Under the Hood of the Ku Klux Klan,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics (2012), 1888. 37 Arnold S. Rice, The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics (Washington D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1962), 92.

argued that the D.C. Stephenson scandal coupled with opposition from black, Catholic,

Jewish, and immigrant groups exposed the Klan as “useless as a vehicle for change or

reform” in Indiana.38 In another version of the external multicausal argument, Shawn Lay and John M. Craig have argued that anti-mask laws ushered in the rapid decline of the

Klan in both New York and Pennsylvania, because members found themselves vulnerable to attack by opposition groups who now knew their identities.39 David J.

Goldberg combined many of the internal and external causes mentioned above as reasons

why the movement collapsed in his article regarding opposition to the Klan in the North.

Goldberg, unlike most before him, paid special attention to direct actions taken against

the Klan by immigrant and Catholic organizations. One author who had written before

Goldberg, and had a similar argument, was William D. Jenkins. Jenkins first published an

article in 1978 that argued the Klan movement faded after failing to accomplish its

political goals and failing to produce complete enforcement of the law.40 However, when

Jenkins expanded the article into a monograph, published in 1990, he argued that scandals within the organization and opposition to the group culminating in the anti-Klan riot in Niles in 1924 led to its decline.41 Similarly, Michael D. Jacobs argued in his 2001

dissertation that Catholic efforts against the Klan led to its downfall.42 Another author

38 Leonard J. Moore, Citizen Klansmen, 186. 39 Shawn Lay, Hooded Knights on the Niagara: The Ku Klux Klan in Buffalo, New York (New York: New York University Press, 1995). John M. Craig, “’There is Hell Going On Up There:’ The Carnegie Klan Riot of 1923,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies Vol. 72, No. 3 (Summer, 2005), 339. Craig makes much the same argument in his 2015 work, The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928. 40 William D. Jenkins, “The Ku Klux Klan in Youngstown, Ohio: Moral Reform in the Twenties,” The Historian Vol. XLI, No. 1 (November, 1978), 93. 41 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 153. 42 Michael D. Jacobs, “Catholic Response to the Ku Klux Klan in the Midwest, 1921-8,” (Marquette University Dissertation, 2001).

expressing a similar view that forces within the Klan were not sufficient to retain

members against external forces, in this case forces of tolerance and understanding, was

Yvonne Brown. Brown’s 2006 study of the Klan and opposition to the group in

southwest Louisiana found that Catholic efforts toward tolerance eventually overcame

local Klansmen’s superficial connections to the bigotry of the Klan causing the group to

die out earlier in this part of the country than anywhere else.43 Rounding out those whose

works argue that the collapse of Klan membership was a combination of internal and

external causes was the 2011 work of Craig Fox. Fox reasoned that the usual suspects of

financial scandals, the D.C. Stephenson scandal, and a sense that the group had no lasting

purpose combined with Klansmen being repulsed by the recent violence associated with

the organization to drive down membership.44

Finally, two other groups of authors argued polar opposite views for why the Klan movement collapsed with one set of authors arguing it occurred when members became disillusioned with the group, because it failed to accomplish its tasks, and the other set arguing that momentum stalled because it successfully fulfilled its mandate. The earliest argument to this effect would be John Lee Maples 1974 Master’s Thesis, “The Akron,

Ohio Ku Klux Klan, 1921-1928.” Maples based his argument on the August 2, 1925 sermon of a pastor at the South Akron Church of Christ who lamented that he felt the

Klan had started as a force for good, but was now “controlled by politicians, not doing its

43 This was a rare instance where Protestants represented a minority within a community mainly made up of Catholic residents. Yvonne Brown, “Tolerance and Bigotry in Southwest Louisiana: The Ku Klux Klan, 1921-1923,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association Vol. 47, No. 2 (Spring, 2006), 168. 44 Craig Fox, Everyday Klansfolk: White Protestant Life and the KKK in 1920s Michigan (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011), 204, 207.

duty and he foresaw dissolution for it.”45 Along similar lines was the conclusion of

Thomas R. Pegram in his 2011 synthesis that argued political failures and scandals

exposed the Klan as a poor vehicle for legislative accomplishment and led to

disillusionment and cynicism among its members.46 The first to argue that the Klan faded

from existence after completing its self-appointed tasks was Brooks R. Blevins in 1993.

Blevins argued that the Klan in northwest Arkansas actually dissolved because it had successfully assisted in carrying out violence against labor radicals on the Missouri and

North Arkansas Railroad and stifled moonshining and prostitution operations occurring in the region. Upon completing those tasks, community support for further Klan interventions eroded and the group lost popularity.47 Along the same lines, Rory

McVeigh argued that even though the group “may not have achieved all of its goals, it

went into decline when its members felt their grievances were being adequately

represented within traditional political institutions.”48 Finally, in the most generalized

manner of those arguing that the Klan was a victim of its own success, Nancy MacLean

contended that:

In short, on most fronts, Klansmen could feel, if not triumphant, at least relieved by mid-decade. As sharp polarizations of the post-war years abated, their movement must have come to seem like overkill to all but the most devoted. Without extreme conditions, extreme measures enjoyed less legitimacy.49

45 John Lee Maples, “The Akron, Ohio Ku Klux Klan, 1921-1928,” (University of Akron Master’s Thesis, 1974), 115. 46 Thomas R. Pegram, One Hundred Percent American, 187, 217. 47 Brooks R. Blevins, “The Strike and the Still: Anti-Radical Violence and the Ku Klux Klan in the Ozarks,” The Arkansas Historical Quarterly Vol. 52, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), 424-425. 48 Rory McVeigh, “Structural Incentives For Conservative Mobilization: Power Devaluation And The Rise Of The Ku Klux Klan, 1915-1925,” Social Forces 77, No. 4 (June 1999): 1461-1496. 49 Nancy MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry, 186.

The argument that the collapse of the Ku Klux Klan at mid-decade resulted from

an accumulation of factors from both within and without is quite reasonable, but it does

not fully account for the rapidity with which people fled from the organization. The

contention of this dissertation is that the decline of the Ku Klux Klan was, both internally

and externally, multicausal, but the extreme violence done against the Klansmen in

locations like Steubenville, Ohio; Williamson County, Illinois; and Niles, Ohio, in the

period from the summer of 1923 through January of 1925, served as a watershed moment

ushering in a period of mass exodus from Klan membership in 1925. The violence, in particular the incidents that involved members of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, marked a shift in resistance efforts and also represented a coalescing of widely dispersed resistance into one body. Even if members of the body were only loosely affiliated with one another, it, in a fashion similar to the specter of organized crime, became a tangible identity of the resistance and gave the Klansmen a mysterious threat to their physical well-being to worry about, even if the group was not as organized as newspaper accounts may have made it seem. In many ways, perception is reality, and in the year 1924, the perception created by the national news coverage was that a band of anti-Klan enforcers calling themselves the Knights of the Flaming Circle were looking to engage in violent acts against Klansmen any time the Klan tried to parade through towns that did not appreciate their presence. The only question was, were the Klansmen committed enough to their organization to meet the challenge of the Flaming Circle?

This dissertation argues that for a number of reasons the Klansmen were not willing nor able to meet the challenge of the Flaming Circle and one of the primary reasons was economic self-interest. Simply stated, by 1924, Klansmen would have had

little economic interest in staying in the Ku Klux Klan once things became violent against

them. Meanwhile, those making violence against the Klan under the auspices of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle had incredibly strong economic motivations to pair with

their ideological hatred for the Klan and its ideology. The reason for this is that the vast

majority of Klansmen were average citizens; nearly every study mentioned above has

reached that conclusion. On the other hand, the men involved in violence as members of

the Knights of the Flaming Circle in locations like Steubenville, Ohio; Williamson

County, Illinois; and Niles, Ohio were often involved in bootlegging and other

racketeering enterprises. Looking at the rise of the Flaming Circle and tracing its path

within the three locations listed above will reveal how similar patterns of behavior

existed in both the Steubenville and Niles anti-Klan movements; how things differed in

Williamson County, Illinois; and also how violence in each location had a strong connection to men involved in the bootleg liquor trade and gambling rackets. By deconstructing the relationship between the Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the regions in which they appeared and fought, we learn that the Klansmen wilted when challenged by the Knights of the Flaming Circle, because they stood to lose by continuing their involvement with the Klan. This occurred because the Klan had now drawn the ire of the mass of American society and affiliation with the order now resulted in only economic disincentives, such as boycott campaigns led by non-violent resistance organizations and regular citizens against Klan-associated businesses. This contrasted sharply with the positive motivations for involvement that members of the Knights of the

Flaming Circle enjoyed. For a number of reasons, the Knights of the Flaming Circle were often embraced in the communities in which they fought against the Klan, and, because

21 many had ties to criminal enterprises, they were not afraid to employ violence to dissuade crusading Klansmen from trying to enforce the Klan’s moral code and Prohibition within the communities where violent opposition developed.

Other historians of the Klan have likely passed over the importance of the role of the violence of 1923, 1924, and early 1925, in the fall of the Ku Klux Klan, because they have so often overlooked the actual opposition forces, and, in particular, the Knights of the Flaming Circle. As mentioned above, few have actually examined the exploits of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle. Those like William D. Jenkins, David J. Goldberg,

Michael D. Jacobs, Thomas D. Pegram and John M. Craig who have written about them have noticed the strength that the movement possessed and have factored them into the their understanding of why the Klan collapsed. However, these authors have not explored deeply enough the connections the Knights of the Flaming Circle, in multiple locations, had with bootlegging and other vice crimes, which encouraged them to take their quarrel with the Klan to sometimes deadly levels of violence.

The authors who had no need to investigate the Knights of the Flaming Circle based on the geographical orientation of their studies have, more often than not, simply taken resistance for granted, and, therefore, sought out explanations for the collapse of the Klan based on issues of internal decay. Authors who have not mentioned the Knights of the Flaming Circle should not have been dismissive of the movement even though it may not have occurred where they situated their studies, because the media coverage of the exploits of the Knights of the Flaming Circle reached every corner of the United

States. One should be careful not to minimize the impact that the national news media’s coverage of the Knights of the Flaming Circle may have had on the psyches of Klansmen

even in locations that never had their night sky lit up by flaming tires. The reason for this

was that national coverage of the Flaming Circle-led anti-Klan riots focused on the extreme acts of violence that occurred when the rival factions fought. Stories about faraway boogeymen can create a sense of panic and fear just as powerful as that which is experienced first-hand, even when one never faces the threat detailed in vivid newspaper accounts or movie theater newsreels.50 This was initially the case for the Ku Klux Klan when the New York World ran its famous exposé on the organization, which created national furor and interest in the group. The same occurred when the New York Herald

and New York Times documented the aftermaths of anti-Klan riots involving the Knights

of the Flaming Circle. These stories were distributed to newspapers across the nation by

the Associated Press and the United Press Association and were read in locations where

the Knights of the Flaming Circle were never active. However, in this case, the real

Knights of the Flaming Circle proved to be every bit as scary as advertised unlike the

opposition usually offered by the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

The men who fled the Klan in 1925 in the Mahoning Valley, which made up the

bulk of its membership, likely did so because they feared for their lives and had too little

incentive to remain in the organization. The fact that a mass exodus at the national level

at this time paralleled the defections occurring in the Mahoning Valley, Steubenville, and

Williamson County, Illinois reinforces the argument that an important catalyst for this

change in Klan membership was tied to the violence of the previous year and a half. All

of the factors discussed by previous historians of the decline of the 1920s Klan, certainly

50 Apparently, film footage was recorded in Niles for the purpose of creating newsreel footage of the event. I have not seen this footage if it still exists. “Niles War was Pre- Advertised: Veteran Writers Expected It Would Be Averted, RARE OCCURRENCE, City Was Flooded With News Gatherers,” The Youngstown Telegram, 3 November 1924, 7.

were considerations that must have raced through members’ minds in 1925, but the fear

of physical harm likely was one of the most convincing factors that gave these men cause

for concern. This moment of clarity allowed the majority of Klansmen at the time, who

other historians have termed “honest, hard-working, and law-abiding men” to re-assess their commitment to the organization.51 Most of the members of better social standing in

the community left, leaving the organization to drag on with only radicalized members

and those who made up the Klan’s “immoral and irresponsible element.”52 This does not mean that the bigoted thinking that served as the foundation for the Klan’s ideology disappeared. The reality that Protestant versus Catholic animosities continued on can be seen in the 1928 presidential campaign of Al Smith and even the 1960 presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy. The later emergence of the Civil Rights Era Ku Klux Klan also attests to this point. The ideology had just gone underground, because to be a member of the 1920s Klan had become too physically and economically dangerous in much of the country.

It should also be stressed that not all opposition to the Klan was done by racketeers and bootleggers. This is not the argument of this dissertation. The majority of those opposed to the Klan had nothing at all to do with bootlegging or any other criminal endeavors. Some were world famous, like Trumbull County native Clarence Darrow, but, like most Klansmen, the majority of the anti-Klan movement was made up of average

51 The argument is mine, but the characterization of the majority of the Klansmen who made up the order in the 1920s was Robert A. Goldberg’s argument in his article “The Ku Klux Klan in Madison, 1922-1927.” Goldberg, “The Ku Klux Klan in Madison, 1922- 1927,” 44. 52 Ibid, 44.

people just trying to live their lives to the fullest in the United States.53 This dissertation

will examine the anti-Klan endeavors of the Knights of Columbus in the Mahoning

Valley and other parts of Ohio, as well as the efforts to challenge the Klan by two editors

of the foreign language newspapers for the Slovak and Italian communities respectively.

The men described in this section of the dissertation were not criminals or lawless

immigrants. They were pillars of the community trying to help their fellow citizens

navigate through tumultuous times. Their actions did help to lay a foundation for the

assimilation of a number of people from varied cultural backgrounds into a functioning

society and over time it could be argued that they were successful in their endeavors.54

However, the defeat of the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley did not come as a

53 Ironically, Clarence Darrow was born and raised in Kinsman, Ohio in northern Trumbull County, which was a devoutly Protestant, rural community that became home to a number of Klansmen in the 1920s, but did not become home to a store that sold alcohol until after the year 2000. Two towns south of Kinsman is the town of Brookfield, Ohio, which was the home town of Wayne B. Wheeler who many credit with the creation of the Volstead Act which provided for the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment. Darrow was also tangentially involved in the opposition to the Ku Klux Klan in Trumbull County. In 1928, Darrow served as defense counsel for a racketeer named James Munsene from Warren, Ohio. In 1925, Munsene had been accused by Trumbull County Sheriff J.H. Smith of offering the Sheriff a $500.00 a month bribe to allow Munsene to operate a gambling club in Warren. In his defense of Munsene, Darrow insinuated that the Sheriff was a former Klansman and targeted Munsene because he was an Italian immigrant. The defense was successful enough to earn hung juries in 1928 and 1929. Ultimately, before the case was set to go to trial for a then record fifth time, Darrow advised his client to accept a plea agreement, which he did. For more on Darrow’s role in that series of trials see: Jonathan A. Kinser, “The Racketeer and the Reformer: How James Munsene Used Clarence Darrow to Become the Bootleg King of Warren, Ohio,” (Youngstown State University Master’s Thesis, August 2007). 54 Donna M. DeBlasio and Martha I. Pallante have argued that the Italians of Niles and the Mahoning Valley were committed to education at an earlier time than in other locations in the US and embraced the opportunities afforded them by becoming American citizens. Donna M. DeBlasio and Martha I. Pallante, “Memories of Work and the Definition of Community: The Making of Italian Americans in the Mahoning Valley,” Ohio History Vol. 121 (Spring, 2014): 89-111.

result of some “ink stains that have dried upon some lines,” but, for better or worse, from

the blood that poured out into the streets of Steubenville, Ohio; Williamson County,

Illinois; Niles, Ohio; and a number of other cities across the United States when anti-Klan

groups like the Knights of the Flaming Circle took the law into their own hands, just as

they had learned to do from renegade members of the Ku Klux Klan.55

From a structural standpoint, this study will be focused primarily on the Knights

of the Flaming Circle who were arrested following the November 1, 1924 anti-Klan riot in Niles, Ohio. This is the same riot that played such a prominent role in William D.

Jenkins’s study and those that later mentioned the Knights of the Flaming Circle. This dissertation will build off of and move beyond Jenkins’s study by providing an in-depth analysis of those men who can be linked to the riot and the Knights of the Flaming Circle.

While Jenkins focused his attention primarily on the leaders and members of the Ku Klux

Klan, this study will focus primarily on the leaders and members of the anti-Klan riot in

Niles and also those who acted under the auspices of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in

Steubenville, Ohio and Williamson County, Illinois.

The study will necessarily explore a number of additional topics in order to set the stage for the creation and actions of the Knights of the Flaming Circle. In other words, one must first look at the social demographic conditions of the Mahoning Valley, more specifically Mahoning County and Trumbull County, over the course of several decades

55 Although “Gentle on My Mind” has nothing to do with this story, and it was written by John Hartford and used by Glenn Campbell for the theme song of his variety show, it was famously sung by Dean Martin who just happened to have been born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917 in Steubenville, Ohio where he was still living with his parents at the time of the anti-Klan riot in the city. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF- 8#q=gentle+on+my+mind+lyrics&* Accessed on 7 March 2017.

prior to the 1924 anti-Klan riot in order to understand why such a reactionary group as

the Knights of the Flaming Circle would have come into existence there in the first place.

As a result, this study will undoubtedly tread over some familiar territory in recounting

the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the region, but will seek to expand understanding of the

underlying conditions present in the region which gave rise to the Klan. To accomplish

this, it is necessary to consider links between changing demographics, changes in crime

rates, and also the role of Prohibition in creating an antagonistic relationship between

entrenched Protestant American citizens and Catholic immigrants and citizens.

Additionally, this study will examine some of the ways in which the Mahoning Valley

Klan differed from the national organization.

The study will also analyze editorials and articles from Mahoning Valley Klan papers like The Buckeye American and The Youngstown Citizen as well as articles from two of Youngstown’s foreign language newspapers the Italian language newspaper, Il

Cittadino Italo-Americano, and the Slovak newspaper, The Youngstownske Slovenske

Noviny. By looking at a selection of articles from each of these papers written before,

during, and in response to the Niles anti-Klan riot, it is hoped that a better understanding

of both sides of the conflict will be ascertained. Using these sources allows for increased

awareness of the primary differences between the Klan of the Mahoning Valley and the

national organization and its rhetoric. The comparison of these foreign language articles

aimed at two different immigrant groups’ reactions to Klan provocations sheds new light

on the differing levels of involvement in violent resistance to the Klan by each ethno-

racial group.

Having established the setting of the growth of the Klan movement and mainstream opposition to the Klan found in the two foreign language papers, the focus will shift to the onset of violent opposition to the Klan in the form of the Knights of the

Flaming Circle. In order to gain an understanding of this shadowy organization one must consult the numerous newspaper accounts of their exploits across the United States. As mentioned above, very little information exists concerning the Knights of the Flaming

Circle beyond the various newspaper articles that were published primarily in the years

1923 through 1925. Using these materials, as well as the limited amount of secondary works that discuss the group, a clearer picture of the group will emerge and a better understanding of their role in opposing the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s will be gained.

This analysis will be a composite of the Knights of the Flaming Circle as a regional entity, but in order to gain an even better understanding of the organization and the underlying motivations of its adherents, it will be necessary to focus on the men involved in the Niles anti-Klan riot specifically as that incident left behind a significant amount of documentary evidence.

Finally, in addition to newspaper articles related to the Knights of the Flaming

Circle and the anti-Klan riots occurring in Steubenville, Ohio in 1923, Niles, Ohio in

1924, as well as the liquor war between the Klan and bootleggers claiming involvement with the Knights of the Flaming Circle in Williamson County, Illinois, this dissertation will rely upon court documents and census data related to the men who were arrested following the Niles anti-Klan riot. The Niles riot and the 104 indictments and court proceedings that resulted from it provide one of the fullest rosters of men affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle. Using the names of the non-Klansmen indicted

28 following the riot, along with reports and oral histories identifying those who actively claimed membership in the Knights of the Flaming Circle in newspaper accounts of the riot, a list of suspected Knights have been compiled and allows for greater investigation of each alleged member. The criminal records of these men have been examined by analyzing the entire Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas Criminal Appearance

Docket from 1870 to 1940 in order to find out if any of the men had ever been indicted for any other criminal charges outside of the charges related to the Niles anti-Klan riot.

For the sake of comparison the names of the suspected Klansmen were also searched within the Trumbull County court records. Using information gathered from the court documents it will be possible to discuss some of the factors stimulating the Klansmen to target Niles, Ohio for a parade and also the motivations of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle for resisting that parade. Coupled with the information gathered earlier in the study, one will better understand the complexities that take the story of the 1924 Ku Klux

Klan parade in Niles beyond a narrative of simple racist nativism and the reciprocal immigrant reaction to the encroachment upon their liberty. With that being said, it is time now to look behind, beneath, and through the smoke of the Flaming Circle in order to explore the lives, similarities, and root motivations of these men who violently opposed the Ku Klux Klan in the peak years of its power in the 1920s. For the purposes of this exploration that story begins in Trumbull County, Ohio, decades earlier.

Chapter Two:

The Mahoning Valley’s Changing Demographics and the Foundations of the Rival Factions

Around two o’clock, on the afternoon of November 1, 1924, a shout of “lynch

them,” rose up from a crowd of citizens gathered in protest of a parade of radicals

through their town of Niles, Ohio. Moments earlier the two men who were the objects of

this rallying cry had been attempting to pass through a line of protesters blocking the

road when the crowd surrounded their car. Possibly in fear for their lives, and possibly

after being fired upon themselves, the two armed men opened fire on the crowd and made

their escape. Men from the crowd raced off in pursuit of the two shooters armed with

their own guns. These men fired numerous shots into the vehicle, which they were able to

overtake. Once the vehicle was stopped, the protestors kidnapped the men and brought

them back to the gathered crowd blocking the street. The men were then dragged from

the car, and one man was shot in the back, while the other was savagely beaten to within

an inch of his life. The wounded men were white, native-born citizens and members of the

Ku Klux Klan, which had obtained a permit to march through the city that day.1

At a different intersection of a road leading into town, another group of protestors

led by members of the Knights of the Flaming Circle had gathered. This group also

blocked the road and attempted to stop another carload of Klansmen. Again shots were

fired from the car. This time the bullets found their mark in the crowd and three men

1“Troops Ordered Out: Klan and Anti-Klan Hurt in Niles Trouble,” The Warren Tribune, 1 November 1924, 1.

30 affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle were struck and later rushed off to the hospital for treatment. These men too were white, but they were immigrants to the United

States. Oddly enough, on a day filled with racial and religious inspired violence, all of the participants were ostensibly considered white. Despite this commonality, these two groups of men and women were able to find enough difference and animosity toward each other to cause a riot that became so violent and volatile that the Ohio National

Guard had to be called out to restore order.2 To understand how this event came to pass, and how these deep-seated animosities exploded to the surface, one must first understand the stage on which the drama played out.

Although the Knights of the Flaming Circle were active for just a brief period of time, likely only from 1923 to 1925 in the Mahoning Valley, they were not created in an instant and their impact did not dissipate with the smoke of the flaming tires they burned during several chaotic nights in 1924. When attempting to understand the interplay of forces that created the Knights of the Flaming Circle, one must look back to the earliest years of white settlement in the region in order to analyze and understand the social forces that led to the creation of such an organization. Since the Knights of the Flaming

Circle were formed in opposition to the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, these were the same social forces that led to the widespread growth and influence of the Klan from 1921 to around 1925. Bearing this in mind, one can begin to understand how crucial the massive social demographic changes occurring across the United States, and specifically in the Mahoning Valley, were to the formation of the Klan and its opposition. Simply put, the Knights of the Flaming Circle would not have existed without the Ku Klux Klan of

2 “Troops Ordered Out,” 1.

31 the 1920s and the Ku Klux Klan would not have existed in the Mahoning Valley without the enormous changes to the region’s population, economy, and the personal economic interests of individuals within both competing factions. To understand the radicalism that led to the conflicts between the Ku Klux Klan and Knights of the Flaming Circle in 1923 and 1924, we must first understand the region in which these events occurred and the socio-demographic metamorphosis the Mahoning Valley underwent over the course of the nineteenth century and the first few decades of the twentieth century.

A helpful first step in analyzing the history of a region and the people residing there is to clearly define its geographic location. As its name implies, the Mahoning

Valley can best be defined as the land encompassing the basin of the Mahoning River.

The Mahoning River flows through several counties in Ohio before crossing the border into Pennsylvania, joining forces with the Shenango River, to form the Beaver River, and subsequently draining into the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania. Although it runs through portions of Columbiana, Portage, and Stark counties in Ohio, the primary counties that make up the Ohio portion of what is commonly referred to as the Mahoning

Valley are Trumbull and Mahoning. The two counties share similarities with each other in terms of socio-demographic conditions and both have a connection to the anti-Klan riot of November 1, 1924 in Niles, Ohio. Because Niles, where the riot occurred, is located in Trumbull County that county will be the primary focus of the discussions in this chapter. However, Mahoning County played such a large role in the build-up of tensions between the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle and other anti-

Klan forces in the period that comparisons and insights into its socio-demographic

32 conditions must also be explored to answer the question of why the riot occurred in Niles,

Ohio and not the larger nearby cities of Warren or Youngstown, Ohio.

It is important to understand that due to their proximity to each other, Niles,

Warren, and Youngstown were all originally part of the Connecticut Western Reserve and that connection helped to shape their early history and created many similarities between the three. For those unfamiliar with the Connecticut Western Reserve, it is best described as the remaining portion of lands that had been conveyed to the Connecticut colony by a decree of King Charles II on April 23, 1662. Charles II had designated “all the territory of the present state and all of the lands west of it, to the extent of its breadth, from sea to sea.”3 Essentially, according to the 1662 Connecticut Charter, Connecticut held title to land in parts of what would become Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,

Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and California.4 Of course at the time of

Charles II’s decree no one had any idea how wide the future United States happened to be, so the belief that the colony actually possessed a valid title to all of this land was bound to be challenged. This was especially the case following the revolution and the growing pains associated with creating the United States. Prior to the revolution

Connecticut had already given up its title to the land in New York and Pennsylvania, but it held fast to the land it had been promised west of the Pennsylvania border in the territory which would become northeast Ohio. In 1787 Connecticut’s Western Reserve claim was reduced to “the portion of land which was bordered on the north by the lake

[Lake Erie], east by the Pennsylvania line, south by the 41st parallel, and on the west by a

3 Harriet Taylor Upton, History of the Western Reserve, Volume 1 (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1910), 7. 4 Upton, History of the Western Reserve, Volume 1, 7.

33 line a hundred and twenty miles west of the Pennsylvania west line.”5 In 1791 and 1792, the Connecticut legislature ruled that within the Western Reserve a 500,000 acre parcel should be set aside as a reimbursement for those who had property destroyed by the

British in the war. Known as the “Fire Lands,” this property was placed on the far western edge of the Reserve, and allowed the remainder of what was thought to be the better land of the Reserve or at least that which was closer to Connecticut to be retained by the state legislature. 6 In 1795, the state of Connecticut decided the time was right to sell its Western Reserve holdings. A deal was reached with a group of wealthy investors who had formed the Connecticut Land Company and agreed to pay 1.2 million dollars for

2,841,471 acres of land.7 Those investors then sought pioneer families to settle in the

Western Reserve and the process of community building was begun.

In addition to the Connecticut families which moved to the Western Reserve, a number of residents from Washington County near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania also sought to put down roots in the expansive wilderness. Many of these Washington County residents, led by a man named Ephraim Quinby, founded the town of Warren in 1799.

Warren became an important town early on because it was designated the capital city of the Western Reserve. Because of this designation, given to the town by General Arthur

Sinclair in 1801, Warren became the cultural center of Trumbull County for the early decades of the nineteenth century. This is of some consequence, because at this time

Youngstown and the rest of Mahoning County was still a part of Trumbull County.

Mahoning County would not be created until 1846 from parts of Trumbull and

5 Ibid, 9. 6 Ibid, 10. 7 Ibid, 11.

Columbiana Counties. The actual act of designating Warren as the capital of the Western

Reserve also revealed the manner in which power structures developed in Connecticut

were continuing to influence the creation of the townships and towns within the Western

Reserve. This influence occurred despite the fact that the ongoing claim to ownership of

the Reserve by Connecticut after the revolution was itself something of a contentious

topic, which resulted in protracted legal wrangling.8 In regards to the capital city

designation, it was peculiar that Warren was designated the capital of the Western

Reserve despite the fact that Youngstown was already the largest town in Trumbull

County and had grown to be the commercial center of the region by 1800.9 That Warren

maintained its status as capital city occurred primarily as the result of the strength of

Warren’s leading citizens and their standing within existing power structures back in

Connecticut and in the nation’s capital. In the case of Warren, the fact that Judge Calvin

Pease, John Leavitt, and Ebenezer King, all formerly of Suffield, Connecticut, had land

interests in Warren resulted in Warren defeating Youngstown for the title of capital city

of the Western Reserve. The primary driver behind this was the fact that Calvin Pease’s

brother-in-law was the Honorable Gideon Granger, who at the time was the postmaster

general of the United States.10 Having secured the designation as the capital of the

Western Reserve, Warren became the administrative center of Trumbull County and

steadily grew in size on the strength of its administrative importance, but this was also a

8 For an in-depth discussion of the legal battle over possession of western lands following the revolution, see Harriet Taylor Upton’s History of the Western Reserve Volume I in which she describes the legal battle over control of land that had earlier been given to the colonies by English Kings. 9 History of Trumbull and Mahoning Counties, With Biographical Sketches, Volume I (Cleveland: H.Z. Williams & Bro., 1882), 65. 10 Upton, History of the Western Reserve, Volume 1, 161-162.

limiting factor. Warren’s leading figures were not industrial-minded like those in neighboring towns and instead created a quaint village filled with beautiful buildings and elm-lined streets, leaving the grittiness of industrialization for other communities to pursue. In this way, Warren became something of a Louis Hartz-like fragment of an

earlier, Connecticut village-styled way of life.11 It held on to the Yankee, Protestant

characteristics of its founding fathers and grew in political importance, but other towns in

Trumbull County began to grow and shift into an industrial-based economy at a faster

rate than Warren and began to outpace its population and economic importance.12

Although it retained its title as the Trumbull County seat, Warren continued to lag

behind its rival city Youngstown. By the time Mahoning County was formed from the

southern portion of what remained of Trumbull County in 1846, Youngstown was

moving in the direction of becoming the industrial center for the Mahoning Valley. By

1867 Youngstown had five thousand residents and showed no signs of slowing down, as

11 In his work, The Founding of New Societies, Louis Hartz proposed the “Fragment Theory” as a means to understand the manner in which the United States developed from a cultural fragment deposited by Great Britain during colonization. He contended that the fragment froze in time after it was deposited and developed at a different rate and in a different direction than did the mother country. Therefore, Hartz argued cultural elements that evolved out of the mother country were retained in the colony and featured more prominently in its later culture. This is applicable in the situation present in the Mahoning Valley as well because of the manner in which the Connecticut Western Reserve was populated by people from the East, but then isolated from the progression that was occurring in the East. I would argue that the religiosity of the Mahoning Valley was such a cultural fragment and the region retained strong ties with the earlier Calvinist traditions. On an interesting note Louis Hartz was born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1919. For more on the “Fragment Theory,” see Louis Hartz, The Founding of New Societies (New York: Mariner Books, 1969). Original publication 1964. 12 William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 56.

the number of blast furnaces in the city then numbered twenty-one.13 In contrast, Warren

did not embrace large-scale manufacturing until after the turn of the century and its

population, in particular the number of foreign-born, continued to lag behind

Youngstown.

The Mahoning Valley’s connection to the production of iron, and later steel, can

be traced back to its earliest white settlers. In 1802 a pair of industrious brothers, Daniel

and James Heaton, built the first operating blast furnace west of the Allegheny Mountains

along Yellow Creek in what is now Struthers, Ohio.14 The two brothers used the kidney

iron ore that lay along the creek bed and the plentiful hardwood in the area to make

charcoal for smelting crude iron. The brothers sold this furnace and built a second blast

furnace on Mosquito Creek in 1809.15 It was in the vicinity of this new furnace that

James Heaton laid out and founded the town of Niles in 1834.16 Within ten years, in

1844, Niles iron operations were expanded with the addition of the Ward Rolling Mill.

The resulting influx of workmen employed at the mills brought the town’s population to

around one thousand people by 1850.17

In addition to the geographical benefit of being near navigable waterways, the

Mahoning Valley also benefited from its wealth of natural resources, which led to sustainable industrialization from its earliest years onward. As mentioned above, the

region possessed iron ore deposits and enough hardwood nearby to make charcoal

fostering the creation of a fledgling iron industry. Coincidentally, the region also

13 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 17. 14 Upton, History of the Western Reserve, Volume 1, 206-207. 15 Ibid, 209. 16 Ibid. 17 Ibid, 209.

benefited from a bituminous coal deposit situated on Mineral Ridge near Niles, which

allowed for expansion of the iron industry.18 The coal mines in the region also aided in

the genesis of successful shipping channels as the coal was used to fuel the early

steamboats on Lake Erie.19 The fortunate combination of these natural resources sped up

the growth of the various industrial efforts ranging from mining to iron production to

shipping, which in turn attracted both native-born migrants and foreign-born immigrants seeking the employment opportunities available in the region.

The combination of the canal system and the fledgling iron and coal industries also brought the region’s first non-English immigrants in the form of Irish, German, and

Welsh workers who were attracted to the emerging industrial economic opportunities.20

The early Irish immigrants in particular stood out among these foreign-born residents and

were almost immediately surrounded by controversy. In fact, as far back as 1809, the

roots of ethno-racial and religious conflict were growing between the Protestant native

community and the Catholic immigrant community. Much like the difficulties of the

1920s which will make up the bulk of this work, the controversy surrounding the alien

question in 1809 had everything to do with native fear in the face of an electoral power

shift caused by the emergence of an immigrant voting bloc. In this case, the political elite

of Warren feared the “alien” Irish vote tipping the balance of power toward Youngstown

in the ongoing fight over the proper location of the Trumbull County seat.21 Even from

this early date the power struggle centered on an older more established group raising a

complaint against a practice, in this case the right of immigrant aliens to vote, which

18 Ibid, 618. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid, 618-619. 21 Ibid, 597.

38 formerly had never been a problem, but which had come under fire because the practice no longer served the interests of that established group which felt that its hold on power was growing tenuous.

The practice of allowing the alien vote had been the rule since the earliest elections held in the Western Reserve, but in 1809 the Protestant political class of Warren lodged a formal complaint against the practice because Youngstown had gained enough alien, Catholic immigrant votes to influence the outcomes of elections. This had been demonstrated in the last election cycle of 1808. In addition to the fact that this gave

Youngstown the upper hand in electing representatives to the lower house of the State

Legislature, it also had the potential to impact the location of the county seat. There were a number of reasons why this issue had become so volatile in 1809. The first related to the fact that the county still had no courthouse despite its formation in 1800. The building of a courthouse had commenced in 1802 in Warren, which would have essentially ended the argument over which town should be the county seat, but as it neared completion in

1804 it burned to the ground.22 Youngstown then served notice that it would not allow any new county buildings to be constructed in Warren. At the same time the townships surrounding Youngstown began to gain population as a result of the industrializing focus of that portion of Trumbull County, as opposed to the more agrarian pursuits in the northern portion of the county near Warren. Political operatives in Warren countered that argument by stating that it was most centrally located within the county and because of that it should retain its place as county seat. This argument was neutralized to a great

22 Suspiciously, a prisoner from Youngstown was believed to be the cause of the blaze. Joseph G. Butler, History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, Volume I (Chicago: American Historical Society, 1921), 413.

degree in 1807 by the removal of land from the northern portion of the county to create

Ashtabula, Geauga, and Portage Counties. Because of this, the outcome of the 1808

election became crucial to Warren’s desires to retain its place of prominence over

Youngstown. Prior to the elections in 1808, Warren won a temporary victory in regards

to the geographical location question when Trumbull County annexed the five

southernmost townships of the newly formed Ashtabula County.23 Despite that victory,

Warren suffered a huge setback in the 1808 elections when the two Youngstown-allied

candidates won re-election and defeated the Warren candidate Thomas J. Jones. Arguing

that Jones would have been the winner if not for the alien vote, Warren contested the

results and moved to have them thrown out. In order to prove their case, a court was

composed of Justices Leonard Case of Warren and William Chidester of Canfield for the

purpose of gathering testimony related to the alien vote, which would be presented to the

Legislature at proceedings being organized to protest the outcome of the election.24

The traveling court of Case and Chidester represents the earliest example in the

Mahoning Valley of a nativist effort to scapegoat an immigrant group for political purposes. The proceedings of the court also very nearly led to what would have been the

earliest example of an ethno-racial riot in the region as well. From the first stop of the

court, the atmosphere was charged with animosity between the Irish aliens and the pro-

Warren inquisitors. To be clear, the region was also home to English and Scotch-Irish

immigrants, but it is apparent from the recorded history of the event that the primary

23 Butler, History of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, 161. 24 Ibid, 162.

40 focus of the investigation was the recently arrived Irish Catholics.25 The first stop was

Hubbard, Ohio and it was here that an Irishman, Daniel Sheehy, worked the crowd into a frenzy with a fiery one and a half hour long speech that “questioned the legality of the whole proceeding, counselled the witnesses summoned to refuse to testify, and invited open rebellion against the court.”26 In the resulting chaos Sheehy was silenced by force but had so enraged the alien-born voters that they refused to testify until they were threatened with arrest. In the end the justices recorded nearly one hundred depositions before departing. The situation did not improve the next day when attempts were made by the court to depose witnesses in Youngstown. Again, Sheehy created a stir by adamantly opposing the proceedings and this time was placed under arrest in order to move the proceedings forward. According to one history of this incident, it was at the

Youngstown hearing that the people became aware that the motivating factor behind the whole affair was Warren’s opposition to Youngstown’s attempt to become the county seat rather than an attempt to suppress the right of aliens to vote.27 This seemed to calm the crowds to a degree and the final depositions were taken not long after in nearby

Poland, Ohio. The evidence collected by the investigative court was then taken to

Chillicothe, where it was presented to the House of Representatives who considered the

25 It is of interest to note that in Joseph Butler Jr.’s account of the incidents, published in 1921, he commented on how the entire affair was based on “a proposal that was unfair, since the voters of alien birth were English-speaking men, many of them property holders and substantial persons and some of them Revolutionary war veterans.” The subtext within this statement made when it was, in the years leading up to the Klan emergence in the Mahoning Valley, clearly delineates between what were considered acceptable immigrant aliens and those that were at the very least deemed less worthy. In this case, it seems apparent that non-English speaking, unskilled laborers, living in boarding houses would not have been judged in the same way that these early, presumably English and Scotch-Irish immigrants had been viewed by Butler. 26 Ibid, 162. 27 Ibid, 163.

41 evidence insufficient to alter the outcome of the election and the two representatives from

Youngstown were confirmed.28

The episode did little to settle the ongoing political rivalry between Warren and

Youngstown, but it is illustrative of the reception given to Catholic immigrants and the impact Catholic immigration had on politics in the Mahoning Valley even at this early date. The onset of frontier violence brought on by the alliance of the British and Native

Americans in Ohio in the lead up to the War of 1812 helped to put the question of the county seat to rest as both factions united against their common threat. However, the readiness of the people of Warren to oppose the inclusion of the Irish vote when the influx of foreign-born was but a trickle represents a harbinger of greater controversies to come during the latter half of the nineteenth century when the number of immigrants settling in the region became far greater.

Due to the presence of employment opportunities in the iron and coal industries, over the course of the nineteenth century there were other rather large influxes of foreign- born immigrants to the region. However, these groups were made up of predominantly

Protestant Welsh and a mixture of Protestant and Catholic Germans and were more readily accepted into the local power structures.29 In the case of the Welsh, many of the

28 Ibid. 29 It seems that the majority of the first Germans to the region were Protestant. The earliest German congregation was for the German Reformed church built in Boardman Township in 1816. The German’s later founded a Martin Luther German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Youngstown in 1859. Gen. Thomas W. Sanderson, ed., 20th Century History of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio and Representative Citizens (Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company, 1907), 180, 361. The German Catholic population seems to have arrived much later after the German Protestant population had been in the region for around fifty years. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in

42 men coming to the region were experienced miners whose skillset was in demand and who quickly rose to authoritative positions within the coal operations.30 In particular, the region comprising the old Western Reserve, with its industrial towns of Youngstown,

Cleveland, and Canton, became a magnet for Welsh immigrants beginning in the 1850s and continuing up through the 1890s.31 In fact, during this period, Youngstown was known to some as the “Welsh metropolis of America.”32 The Welsh were an ideal fit for the entrenched political class of the Mahoning Valley and were widely accepted as an assimilable immigrant stock due to their anti-slavery stance and Republican politics.33

Joining the Welsh immigrants moving to the Mahoning Valley in this period were

Germans, many of whom had lived in western Pennsylvania prior to resettling in northeast Ohio. Like the Welsh, these newcomers were also readily accepted into society.

Even common difficulties faced elsewhere by immigrant Germans in American society did not seem to be an impediment to the assimilation of those coming to the Mahoning

Valley. The stereotypical stumbling blocks related to many German immigrants’ aversion to public schooling or attempting to continue speaking the German language instead of

English were no longer practiced by the particular immigrants settling in the Mahoning

Valley.34 Additionally these German immigrants, like the Welsh, shared the majority of

Youngstown was a German Catholic church founded in 1869. The congregation had split off from the parish of St. Columba Catholic Church. http://ead.ohiolink.edu/xtf- ead/view?docId=ead/OCLWHi1960.xml;chunk.id=bioghist_1;brand=default 30 Ronald L. Lewis, Welsh Americans: A History of Assimilation in the Coalfields (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 6-7. 31 Ronald L. Lewis, Welsh Americans, 6-7. 32 Lewis, Welsh Americans, 7. 33 Ibid, 7. 34 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 19. In 1876, the Martin Luther German Evangelical Church did establish a parochial school, but it trained its students in both the German and

the local American citizens’ Protestant faith and, therefore, did not face the same

religious obstacle to acceptance within the community that the early Irish Catholic

community did. Perceived difficulties surrounding immigrants who were Catholic,

attended parochial schools, and spoke foreign languages would become a problem in the

period from 1880 to 1920 when the region received an influx of immigrants from Eastern

and Southern Europe.

Changing Demographics in the Mahoning Valley, 1860 to 1920

To better understand why, by 1920, the entrenched, Protestant, natural-born

American citizens would be concerned with the arrival of immigrants into their

community in ways that had not concerned them as much in the early and mid-nineteenth

century, one must examine the socio-demographic information available related to the period from at least 1860 to 1920. For the purpose of this study, information related to increases in the industrial manufacturing sector of the economy combined with census population data and also crime statistics from the period will serve to illustrate the wholesale changes that occurred in the Mahoning Valley during that period.

To better understand why the Ku Klux Klan was able to gain so many members and wield the power that it did over the Mahoning Valley in the first half of the 1920s, one must understand the manner in which immigration to the region in the period from

1860 to 1920 completely altered the demographics of the area. The best way to do this is to examine county level U.S. Census data from each decade of the period. This allows the reader to see exactly when, and how many, immigrants moved to the Mahoning Valley to

English language. Sanderson, 20th Century History of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Ohio, 364.

capitalize on the economic opportunities made possible by the region’s bountiful

agricultural and industrial opportunities. Since the focus of this study is on the Mahoning

Valley, census data for Trumbull County and Mahoning County will be examined.

Occurring before the Civil War and the increased importance of the iron industry

in the Mahoning Valley that resulted from the war, the 1860 United States Census also

contained useful data related to the number of foreign-born residents of the country.35

The combination of these factors makes the 1860 Census a useful baseline for beginning a discussion of the impact of immigration on the Mahoning Valley prior to the rise of the second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1920s. In Trumbull County in 1860 there were 30,656 persons, of that total 27,536 were native-born and 3,118 were foreign- born.36 Meanwhile in Mahoning County there were a total of 25,894 people, of which

22,673 were native-born and the remaining 3,221 were foreign-born.37 This means that

approximately eleven percent of Trumbull County’s population was foreign-born and

only a slightly higher twelve percent of the Mahoning County population was foreign-

born in 1860.

35 Earlier Census data from 1790, 1820, 1830, and 1850 contained some limited information regarding immigrants, but the 1860 Census seemed like a reasonable place to start because it represented the last Census before the rapid expansion of the iron industry in the North that resulted from the Civil War. The 1790 Census has no relevance for this study as data was not collected in regards to Ohio, which did not exist at the time. In the case of the 1820 and 1830 Census the information available related to those individuals who could be categorized as “Alien (foreigners not naturalized).” Of this number, in 1820 Trumbull County had 68 out of its total population who could be categorized as such. In 1830, that total rose to 97 persons within its total population of 26,153. Bear in mind that totals from 1820 and 1830 represent Trumbull County as well as Mahoning County, since the two had not been split yet. 36 1860 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 37 Ibid.

The 1870 United States Census also recorded the number of foreign-born, but it

took things one step further, by also noting how many people had one or both parents

who were foreign-born. This metric showed to a greater degree just how much immigrant

populations were beginning to climb within communities like the towns of the Mahoning

Valley. The overall population of Trumbull County had grown to 38,659, and that

number consisted of 30,568 native-born citizens, and 8,901 foreign-born residents.38

However, both of those numbers are somewhat misleading in terms of describing fully

the pace at which demographics were changing in the county, because they do not

account for the number of children born to either one or both foreign-born parents. In

Trumbull County that number was 14,802.39 This means that thirty-eight percent of the

population of Trumbull County was of foreign stock. Of the foreign-born in Trumbull

County the largest number, 4,462, had come from England and Wales.40 This makes sense as they were attracted to work in the local coal mining industry. Coming in a distant second were the Irish who numbered 1,676 according to the 1870 Census.41 In

Mahoning County, the numbers reveal similar trends. Out of a population of 31,001

people, 25,192 were native-born, 5,809 were foreign-born, and 11,432 had at least one

foreign parent.42 In this case, thirty-six percent of the population consisted of at least

mixed foreign stock. Also similar to Trumbull County, in Mahoning County the highest

number of foreign-born, 2,078 had been born in England and Wales.43 However, in

38 1870 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid.

Mahoning County, the number of Irish immigrants was a much closer second place at

1,897.44

Continuing with the 1880 Census, one can see more clearly how the Mahoning

Valley was being transformed by a combination of both a population explosion and a huge shift in the ethno-racial make-up of that population. In 1880, the population of

Trumbull County was 44,880, which continued to put it ahead of Mahoning County, which had a population of only 42,871.45 This makes sense in that Trumbull County encompassed more land and still had more population centers within its borders than

Mahoning County did at that time. In addition to Warren, Trumbull County also contained Niles, Girard, and Hubbard, which all were industrializing over the course of the nineteenth century and thus attracting new residents. Mahoning County on the other hand contained fewer auxiliary towns, but, in terms of population, its primary city of

Youngstown reigned supreme over all other cities and towns within the Mahoning

Valley. This was the result of Youngstown’s advanced industrial economy.

Youngstown’s population supremacy would only increase further in 1892 when the city’s iron industry began to convert over to the production of steel.46

Changes to the ethno-racial composition of the Mahoning Valley continued to

accelerate over the course of the decade and are apparent in the 1880 Census. For

instance, in that year, the number of native-born citizens in Trumbull County was 36,192

and the number of foreign-born was just 8,688. Of this number, the majority of those who

44 Ibid. 45 1880 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 46 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 17.

were foreign-born originated from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the German

Empire.47 In fact, only 753 foreign-born had not been born within one of those countries.

England and Wales topped the list with 4,569, followed by the Irish with a total of 1,665,

then 894 from the German Empire, followed by 807 from Scotland. 48 It is important to

note that in the 1880 Census there were still no Italians listed in Trumbull County.

1880 Trumbull County Population

Foreign-born 8,688 19%

Native-born 36,192 81%

In Mahoning County in 1880, these same patterns appear. Of the total population

in Mahoning County, 34,071 were native-born compared to just 8,800 that were foreign- born.49 In Mahoning County, the foreign-born population was primarily made up of the

same immigrant groups as those found in Trumbull County, but the numbers were more

47 1880 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 48 Ibid. 49 1880 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016.

48 evenly dispersed. The largest group of foreign-born citizens numbered 3,280 from

England and Wales, followed by 2,494 from Ireland, 1,471 from the German Empire, 705 from Scotland, and only 805 originating from some other foreign land.50 As in Trumbull

County, there were also still no Italians recorded by the census residing in Mahoning

County.

1880 Mahoning County Population

Foreign-born 8,800 21%

Native-born 34,071 79%

The 1890 United States Census revealed that for the first time Mahoning County had a larger population than Trumbull County. It also showed that both counties continued to see an increase in their foreign-born population as a percentage of total population. In addition to the steady increase in the number of foreign-born and their offspring, the 1890 Census also revealed that for the first time immigrants from Italy had made their way to the Mahoning Valley. The arrival of Italian immigrants was important,

50 Ibid.

because, coupled with the Irish in Niles, Italians became the primary targets of much of

the Klan’s bigoted rhetoric during the years of Klan ascendancy in the first half of the

1920s. In 1890, the population of Mahoning County rose to 55,979 compared with

Trumbull County’s population of 42,373.51 It is likely that some of the population loss

suffered in Trumbull County transferred over to Mahoning County as the city of

Youngstown’s industrial sector was growing much faster than anywhere else in the

Mahoning Valley. In addition to having a larger overall population than Trumbull

County, Mahoning County was also home to more foreign-born residents with a total of

12,135 compared to Trumbull’s 6,395.52

The 1890 Census represents the baseline for issues related to Italian immigration, because it is the first census documenting their arrival in the region. Even more than the arrival of Irish immigrants, who had been in the region since the earliest years of white settlement, the arrival of Italian immigrants stoked the fires of nativist rhetoric, because

Italians embodied so many things that the established Protestant population feared.

Italians were primarily Catholic, they spoke a foreign language, and most of those arriving at the time were seeking employment in non-skilled laborer positions in the local mills. Not surprisingly, the decade of the 1890s also marked a new phase in ethno-racial and religious conflict since it was during these years that the American Protective

Association came into existence and ran its course. Examining the census data beginning with 1890 and continuing up through 1920 will allow for better understanding of the role of Italian immigration in the increase of racial and religious conflicts that exploded into

51 1890 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 52 Ibid.

open violence in the summer of 1924. In 1890 the number of Italian-born immigrants in

Mahoning and Trumbull County was quite small. In Mahoning County, only 352 Italian

immigrants had made it to the region and were enumerated in the census.53 In Trumbull

County the number was even less with only 253 Italians having been counted amongst

the county’s population.54 While the Italian population in the Mahoning Valley had just

begun to build, the Irish population actually had become somewhat stagnant. In Trumbull

County, the number of Irish-born residents had shrunk to 1,347, while in Mahoning

County the number rose to 3,003.55

The 1880 Census also provided some insight into the arrival of the Mahoning

Valley’s Slovak population. According to a local history work on the Slovak community

in the Mahoning Valley, the first Slovak families arrived in Youngstown in 1878.56

Confirming this number through the 1880 Census is difficult because there is no easy

category enumerating the number of Slovaks. Instead, one is left to draw conclusions

from the categories related to “Persons Born In Bohemia” and “Persons Born In Austria.”

Obviously, assumptions based on these categories are at best imprecise for determining

the number of Slovaks in the region, but they remain useful for gaining an understanding

of the general demographic shifts taking place during the period under review. To this

53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid. 56 Hruska, Steve and Genevieve Novicky eds., The History of the Slovak People of the Mahoning Valley (Youngstown, OH: The Slovak Bicentennial Committee Of Youngstown and Mahoning County, 1976), 7.

51 end, the 1880 Census contained a listing for one “Person Born in Bohemia” making them possibly the first Slovak resident counted in the Mahoning Valley.57

The 1890 Census contained a number of other potential Slovak residents as it also had a listing for “Persons Born in Hungary.” According to the 1890 Census, Mahoning

County was home to 463 Hungarian-born residents, 67 Austrian-born, and 6 residents born in Bohemia.58 Trumbull County had fewer from all three categories registering just

133 Hungarian-born, 20 Austrian-born, and 1 person hailing from Bohemia.59 To be clear, not all of the people enumerated in these categories were necessarily ethnically

Slovak, but their regional proximity may have led some of them or their children to be readers of the Youngstown Slovak language newspaper, the Youngstownské Slovenské

Noviny, which will be discussed in Chapter Four.60 These numbers also reveal that the populations of Slovak and other individuals from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire were beginning to rise, and keeping pace with Italian immigration, in the last three decades of the nineteenth century.

57 It is also possible that the individual was an ethnic Czech. 1880 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 58 1890 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. It should be noted as well that some of this number may have been Jewish immigrants from Hungary. This applies as well for later census data referencing those born in Hungary. These numbers therefore do not represent the exact number of Slovaks immigrating to the Mahoning Valley during this period. Instead, they serve to give insight into the different immigration streams that contributed to the Slovak population. 59 Ibid. 60 There was also a Hungarian newspaper, the Amerikai Magyar Hirlap, in Youngstown during this period, which would be useful for further research into the reactions of the various immigrant groups to the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley. The paper was published from 1911 to 1942. Microfilm of the Hungarian newspaper is available at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County in Youngstown, Ohio.

The 1900 Census continued to show the massive increase in population occurring

within the Mahoning Valley. In terms of overall population, the populations of both

counties did increase in the last decade of the nineteenth century, but the increase was far

greater in Mahoning County than it was in Trumbull County. Mahoning County’s

population as recorded in the 1900 Census was 70,134, which was an increase of 14,155

from 1890.61 A smaller increase occurred in Trumbull County where the population

increased only 4,218 from 42,373 in 1890 to 46,591 in 1900.62 Unsurprisingly, the

number of foreign-born residents increased in both counties over the course of the decade

as well. In Mahoning County the number rose to 15,394, an increase of 3,259, while in

Trumbull County the number of foreign-born rose to 6,583, a modest increase of just 188 persons.63

In terms of the foreign-born population, the 1900 Census revealed an increase in

immigration from Italy and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire to the region, while also

showing a decrease in immigration from early immigrant providing nations like England,

Wales, Germany, and even Ireland. According to the 1900 Census, the Italian and Slovak

communities in the Mahoning Valley both enjoyed large increases in population, with

Hungarian growth slightly outpacing Italian growth in Mahoning County and the reverse

being true in Trumbull County. In Mahoning County the number of Hungarians rose to

1,616 and the number of Italians rose to 1,495.64 In Trumbull County the margin of

difference was larger with the Italian population rising to 999 and the Hungarian

61 1890 and 1900 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid.

population reaching only246.65 Declines were seen in all of the older immigrant populations in Mahoning County with the number of English-born residents dropping by

135 to 2,830, the number of Welsh-born dropping by 351 to 1,627, the number of

German-born also falling 230 to 2,182, and the number of Irish-born dropping the most,

shrinking by 559 to 2,444.66 In Trumbull County the situation was similar with the

number of English-born residents decreasing by 117 to 1,510, the number of Welsh-born

dropping by 165 to 1,205, the number of German-born falling by 101 to 652, and again

the number of Irish-born declining the most with a loss of 390 down to 957.67 These

numbers serve as a clear indicator of the shift away from the older Northern European

countries as the countries of origin of immigrants coming to the Mahoning Valley to

immigrant sending nations located in Southern and Eastern Europe.

The 1910 Census further illustrated the established pattern of rapid population

expansion in the Mahoning Valley, in particular that of Mahoning County, due to

increased industrialization. Much of the credit for Youngstown’s magnetic effect on

immigrant laborers was due to the formation of steel manufacturers like Youngstown

Sheet and Tube, which had been organized in 1900 and, by 1910, would have been well

on its way to its one-time title of largest employer in the state of Ohio.68 Bearing this in

mind, it is no surprise that Mahoning County’s population now far outpaced that of

Trumbull County. According to the 1910 Census Mahoning County was now home to

65 Ibid. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 With a peak labor force of 15,000 Youngstown Sheet and Tube stood out amongst the numerous other steel manufacturers organized during the period. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 17-18.

116,151 people, over two-times the population of Trumbull County, which had climbed

to just 52,766.69 Similar trends to those found in the 1900 Census regarding immigration

are also evident in the 1910 Census. The most important for our discussion are those

regarding the continued growth of the Italian and Hungarian/Slovak populations in

contrast to the decreasing numbers of foreign-born among older immigrant sending nationalities. In a somewhat surprising manner, the number of Hungarian-born residents

now living in Mahoning County had exploded over the course of the last decade and had

climbed to 8,765, which far exceeded the 4,652 Italian-born residents.70 The fact is, in a

single decade, the number of Hungarian-born residents in Mahoning County had

outpaced all other ethno-racial immigrant groups. Although there is no reliable method

for determining how many of the foreign-born immigrants from Hungary were Slovak, it

would be reasonable to posit that the number would be high since the Slovak people had

long been subject to oppression under Hungarian rule.71 In Trumbull County, the number

of Hungarian-born immigrants was only 918, which was well-behind that of the 1,781

Italian-born immigrants in the county.72

While the Slovak and Italian populations continued to grow many of the older foreign-born immigrant populations continued to decline. In Mahoning County, the number of Welsh-born dropped to 1,376 and the number of Irish-born fell again to

69 1910 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 70 Ibid. 71 June Granatir Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism: Slovaks and Other New Immigrants in the Interwar Era (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 23-27. 72 Alexander, Ethnic Pride, 23-27.

2,128.73 Moderate gains were made by the German-born community, which rose to

2,732, the Scottish-born at 1,035, and the English-born who numbered 2,967.74 In

Trumbull County the losses were even more pronounced with all old-stock foreign-born

immigrant groups experiencing significant declines. The number of Welsh-born dropped

precipitously, the population losing 442 members, and ending with just 763, and the

Irish-born population declining by 298, falling to just 659.75 In contrast to Mahoning

County, even the German-born, Scottish-born, and English-born experienced declines, all

falling to lower totals, with the German-born registering a total of 657, the Scottish-born

consisting of 292 people, and English-born residents numbering 1,328.76

The 1920 Census recorded the highest number of foreign-born immigrants

residing in the Mahoning Valley prior to the emergence of the re-born Ku Klux Klan in

the region in the first half of that decade. As a result, in-depth analysis of its contents will

solidify our understanding of the population and immigration trends described above and

set the stage upon which the Klan molded and refined its arguments regarding the

problem of immigration, which it used to attract members in the Mahoning Valley.

Again, the information revealed in the 1920 Census was not a radical departure from the

trends that had been occurring for the last several decades. However, its contents became

a lightning rod of controversy and led to the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 and

bolstered the xenophobic arguments of Klan Kleagles kluxing for members across the

country.

73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 1900 and 1910 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 76 Ibid.

In regards to the Mahoning Valley, the 1920 Census again showed massive

population growth occurring in the region and revealed that much of it was due to

increasing immigrant populations. Predictably, Mahoning County gained the most

population. Its population had now reached 186,310.77 This meant that the population of

Mahoning County had grown to six times its size in the fifty-year period beginning in

1870 when the county numbered only 31,001 residents. The story is similar, though on a

reduced level, in Trumbull County where the population swelled to 83,920 in 1920.78

This meant the population of Trumbull County had doubled over the course of the same period. Looking closer at the numbers though, one sees that most of the growth in

Trumbull County occurred in the last decade when the population grew by 31,154 new residents. This growth is accounted for by the efforts of leaders in towns like Warren,

Girard, and Niles to increase the number of manufacturing businesses within the county.

Mahoning County’s growth occurred more steadily over the fifty-year period. It grew at first because of the efforts of iron manufacturers expanding their operations after the

Civil War and later as a result of the shift to steel manufacturing in the 1890s. When steel ascended to its place of primacy as the economic driver of the region during that final thirty year period, from 1890 to 1920, Mahoning County’s population grew by an astounding 110,000 residents.

Breaking down the structure and composition of the large population gains that occurred in the Mahoning Valley, as a result of industrial growth at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, is a necessary step in the process of

77 1920 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 78 Ibid.

57 understanding just how much immigration had impacted the region’s demographic makeup. By 1920, in both counties, not only had an enormous number of foreign-born immigrants been added to the population, but over the years those same immigrants had produced a number of native-born American citizens. Therefore, one cannot simply draw a line between foreign-born residents and native-born residents when trying to assess the impact of immigration. Instead, in order to better gauge the impact of immigration on the

Mahoning Valley it is necessary to investigate the ethno-racial make-up of those counted as native-born, as well as those listed as foreign-born.

Population Growth 1870 to 1920 200,000

180,000

160,000

140,000

120,000 Trumbull County Population 100,000 Mahoning County Population 80,000 Population

60,000

40,000

20,000

0 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920

Breaking down the number of foreign-born counted residents in the 1920 Census reveals the widest diversity of immigrants yet present in the Mahoning Valley. It also revealed that, by 1920, Italians had grown to be the single largest group of foreign-born

citizens in both Mahoning County and Trumbull County. In both counties the number of

Italian-born residents had climbed to just under four percent of the population. In

Mahoning County that meant there were now 7,112 Italian-born residents.79 In Trumbull

County that number reached 2,962.80 However, the number of Italian-born present in the

Mahoning Valley represented just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the region’s burgeoning immigrant population. In particular, in Mahoning County large populations of

Hungarians (4,176), Yugoslavians (3,973), Poles (3,580), Czechoslovakians (3,226),

Russians (2,563), Rumanians (1,987), and Greeks (1,672) joined the earlier immigrant groups like the English (3,176), German (1,853), Irish (1,771), Scottish (1,223), and

Welsh (1,288).81 In Trumbull County the situation was similar with the Hungarians

(1,109), Yugoslavians (1,112), Poles (432), Czechoslovakians (506), Russians (302),

Rumanians (1,096), and Greeks (510) being joined by a large contingent from Finland

(723) as well. Meanwhile, the foreign-born of the older immigrant groups consisting of

the English (1,429), German (511), Irish (471), Scottish (359), and Welsh (660) held

steady, but were being outpaced by the newcomers.82

As impressive as these numbers are in terms of the number of foreign-born immigrants living in the Mahoning Valley at the time of the 1920 Census, the real number of immigrants that had cycled in and out of the region during the preceding period discussed above was likely even higher. For the last few decades of the nineteenth

79 1920 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 80 Ibid. 81 1920 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 82 Ibid.

century and even the first decade or so of the twentieth century, many immigrants arrived in the United States and returned to their native land without ever having been enumerated in an official census.83 Taking just the Italian experience as an example,

Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan pointed out that in the 1880s, the decade in

which Italians were first counted in the Mahoning Valley, 268,000 Italians had traveled

to the United States, but only 183,000 were accounted for in the 1890 Census.84 The unaccounted immigrants likely had returned back to Italy during the decade or were simply missed by the census workers in 1890. This pattern occurred twice more with

604,000 Italians being admitted to the United States over the course of the 1890s, while only 484,000 appeared in the 1900 Census, and a staggering 2,104,000 Italians arrived in country in the first decade of the twentieth century while only 1,343,000 were counted in the 1910 Census.85 The difference in the first decade of the twentieth century is sizable.

Nearly one million more Italian immigrants than were recorded in the census at the end

of the decade spent at least some amount of time in the United States. In addition to the

overwhelming nature of the sheer volume represented by these numbers, there were also

fears stirred up by the fact that the majority of the Italian immigrants prior to the 1910s

and 1920s were male laborers, who either were not family men yet, or, who had left their

83 For more on birds of passage and return migration see: Mark Wyman, Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996). 84Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City, 2nd Edition (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1970), 185. (Originally published in 1963.) 85 Glazer and Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot, 185.

60 families in Europe.86 However, a shift occurred in the 1910s when Italian immigrants began to settle permanently and establish families in the United States.87 This transition can be found in the Mahoning Valley as well. The Italian immigrant families joined the numerous other ethno-racial immigrant families in the region who were contributing to the native-born of mixed parentage or foreign-born parentage categories, which quickly emerged as a segment of the population that far outstripped the number listed as foreign- born.

Taking a closer look at the actual breakdown of parentage nativity statistics in the

1920 Census reveals that the older, Protestant native-born community was in fact quickly being replaced as the majority population in the Mahoning Valley. Mahoning County again led the way, with its “Native Whites of Native Parentage” segment falling to a historic low of just 75,547 which was just 38.94% of the county’s total population of

186,310. Meanwhile, the Foreign-Born White population swelled to 45,668, which made it 24.51% of the total. This, coupled with the 45,593 counted as “Native Whites of

Foreign Parentage” (24.47% of the total population), and the 13,887 “Native Whites of

Mixed Parentage” (7.45% of the total population), meant that 56.43% of Mahoning

County’s population was of at least partial foreign stock by 1920. The remaining 4.63% of the population was comprised of 5,083 “Male Negroes” (2.73%), 3,426 “Female

Negroes” (1.84%), and 106 “Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and All Other Races” (0.06%).88

86 According to Glazer and Moynihan, “The Italian migration had one of the smallest proportions of women and children, one of the highest proportions of returning immigrants.” Ibid. 87 Ibid. 88 1920 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016.

1920 Mahoning County Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and All Negro Females Population Other Races 106 3,426 Negro Males 5,083 0% 2% 3%

Foreign-born White Males 28,396 Native Born 15% Whites of Native- Foreign-born White born Parents Females 72,547 9% 39%

Native-born Whites of Foreign-born Parents 45,593 25% Native-born Whites of Mixed Parentage 13,887 7%

The demographic transition toward a more heterogeneous population continued in

a similar manner in Trumbull County. Unlike in Mahoning County, the “Native Whites

of Native Parentage” still clung to a slight majority in Trumbull County in 1920. The

1920 Census records show that out of Trumbull County’s total population of 83,920 a

total of 48,988 were “Native Whites of Native Parentage,” which gave members of that

segment a 58.37% majority.89 At the same time the number of “Foreign-Born White

Males and Females” reached 13,992, which accounted for 16.68% of the total population. 90 Again, as in Mahoning County, the number of foreign-born in 1920 now

lagged behind the number of those born to foreign parents or of mixed parentage. In the

case of Trumbull County, there were now 6,193 “Native Whites of Mixed Parentage”

89 Ibid. 90 Ibid.

(7.38%) and 13,623 “Native Whites of Foreign Parentage” (16.23%), which accounted for 23.61% of the total population in the county.91 When combined with the number of foreign-born in the county, the percentage of those with at least partial foreign ties accounted for 40.29% of the population. The remaining 1.34% of the population was made up of 436 “Female Negroes” (0.52%), 671 “Male Negroes” (0.80%), and 17

“Indians, Chinese, Japanese, and All Other Races” (0.02%).92

Negro Females 1920 Population Indian, Chinese, Foreign-born 436 Japanese, and All White Males 1% Trumbull County Other Races 17 8,934 Negro Males 671 0% 11% 1%

Foreign-born White Females 5,058 6%

Native-born Whites of Foreign Parents 13,623 Native-born Whites 16% of Native-born Parents 48,988 58%

Native-born Whites of Mixed Parents 6,193 7%

The economic and ethno-racial demographic shifts that occurred in the sixty year period dating from 1860 to 1920 in Trumbull and Mahoning County completely changed the two counties from predominantly agrarian counties to a mix of cosmopolitan industrial centers surrounded by rural townships. From the founding of the nation through

91 Ibid. 92 Ibid.

1860, Trumbull County had amassed a population that was incredibly homogenous in

which eighty-nine percent of the population was categorized as “Native-born Whites of

Native Parents.” In the sixty-year period after 1860, that population was transformed into

a far more heterogeneous mix with a slim majority of only fifty-eight percent of the

residents falling into the category of “Native-born Whites of Native Parents.” In

Mahoning County, the shift was even more drastic where the majority eighty-eight

percent “Native-born Whites of Native Parents” portion of the population of 1860

declined by 1920 to just thirty-nine percent. This sort of wholesale conversion of the

population and change in demographics rattled the century-old power structures in place within the two counties. The coming religion-fueled, racially-charged rise and fall of the second Ku Klux Klan, and its role in the struggle for political power in the first half of the 1920s, would harken back to the earlier incidents of fear-mongering over the introduction of a large voting bloc of immigrant or alien voters. The rise of the Klan certainly coincided with the uneasiness created by the combination of so many ethno- racial groups in one location. But the question remained what factors led so many people, especially in a former stronghold of the abolition movement, to join an organization that at least on its surface seemed to be nothing more than an anachronistic hate group originally born of the Reconstruction Era in the South? How could a group such as this flourish in the North at the close of the Progressive Era? Possible answers to these questions can be found by examining patterns of criminal activity during roughly the same period of time and the impact that changes in the incidence of crime had on public opinion.

Patterns of Crime and Criminality in the Mahoning Valley, 1880 to 1930

Riding on the wave of immigration and migration into the Mahoning Valley over

the course of the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth

century was an increase in incidents of crime and criminal behavior. Analyzing criminal

data along with changes in the ethno-racial makeup of the Mahoning Valley is useful when studying the rise of the 1920s Klan, because the Klan in that period placed so much emphasis on its belief in the need for better law enforcement. In fact, in the Mahoning

Valley and elsewhere, it has been argued that the primary recruitment tool for Kleagles seeking to enroll new members in the secret order was a belief that criminal behavior had risen within the community. According to William D. Jenkins, the Mahoning Valley

Klan in particular emphasized the need to enforce “already existent laws regulating the morals of the community.”93 Jenkins further argued that a commitment to the

enforcement of vice laws had been “a mainstay” of pietistic Protestant denominations

since at least “the temperance campaigns of the 1870s and 1880s to the vice commissions

established in 102 cities after 1900.”94 In the Mahoning Valley Protestants who became

affiliated with the Klan in the 1920s belonged primarily to Methodist congregations, but

some were also “Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Disciples of Christ.”95 This

should not be taken to mean that all members of these denominations joined the Klan, but

many did.

93 William D. Jenkins, “The Ku Klux Klan in Youngstown, Ohio: Moral Reform in the Twenties,” The Historian Vol. XLI, No. 1 (November, 1978), 78. 94 William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 93. 95 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 93.

Similarly, a study of criminal statistics should not be taken to mean that all groups

targeted by the Klan in their activities during this period were criminals. Many were not.

In fact, many groups were targeted based purely on Klan-accepted ethno-racial stereotypes and long held animosities between Protestants and Catholics. However, during the 1920s the Klan in locations across the United States focused much of its effort, both legal and extralegal, against criminal activities and moral enforcement. Because of the preoccupation of Klansmen with crime and behaviors that they felt were immoral, it is useful to examine trends in criminality and law enforcement to better understand the conditions present that gave rise to the Klan and the influence of the movement on political contests in 1923 and 1924.

Reported crime statistics absolutely do not give a complete picture of criminal trends present in any society for a number of reasons, and must be read as, at best, partial evidence to be considered along with a variety of other materials in an effort to better understand the motivations of historical actors.96 Understanding the phenomenon of

crime waves, whether they are a real tangible occurrence, or are simply persistent trends

that from time to time become the subject of intense public scrutiny in order to serve the

needs of a group or politician requires the reader to consider several factors. First, a crime

96 It should be remembered that reported crime reflects the preoccupations of those who report the crime, those who record it, and finally those that preserve the record of the crime. This can sometimes lead to limited or misleading data. The effort to compile criminal statistics undertaken for this project is in no way an attempt to create a complete and comprehensive study of crime in the Mahoning Valley during this period. Such an endeavor is not possible. This section is merely an attempt to examine some of the available information regarding criminal activities in the Mahoning Valley in the period before and during the rise of the 1920s Klan. This has been done to better understand why the Klan appeal to better law enforcement would have resonated as it did in the region.

wave can occur “independent of crime rates.97 Second, the media and police play a key

role in reporting criminal statistics and crime rates, actual crime is impossible to

suppress, “but reported crime can be suppressed with relative ease.”98 And finally, all

crime waves have a social reaction as a final component.99 What this means is that crime

waves do not necessarily reflect reality as much as they reflect perceived reality based on

stimulus provided to an audience based on a combination of actual conditions and

reported conditions. However, despite the limitations of available criminal statistics,

examining official records related to criminal prosecutions and reported crimes creates a

starting point for better understanding criminal trends and social conditions present in

communities, such as those in the Mahoning Valley, where Kleagles found men willing

to join the Klan, because of its claims regarding the need for better law enforcement.

Determining just how much crime rates changed during this period can be

difficult, because convenient databases of information simply do not, and cannot, exist.100

For instance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not begin compiling their Uniform

Crime Reporting statistics until 1930, so researchers must look to state and local records

97 Mary Holland Baker, Barbara C. Nienstedt, Ronald S. Everett, Richard McCleary, “The Impact of a Crime Wave: Perceptions, Fear, and Confidence in the Police,” Law and Society Review Vol. 17, No. 2 (1983), 319. 98 Baker, et al., “The Impact of a Crime Wave,” 319. 99 Ibid. 100 A number of historians have been involved in the debate over the difficulty of creating reliable crime statistics. Among these historians are Roger Lane, Eric Monkkonen, Randolph Roth, Robert Dykstra, Allen Steinberg, and E. J. Escobar. I am not attempting to weigh in on this debate or to say that I have supplied real crime statistics. I simply feel that a discussion of the indictment rates for the Mahoning Valley is relevant when considering the public perception of criminality within their community. Indictments are often reported on and therefore are brought to the attention of the public. As such, understanding changes in these rates provides insight into periods of time in which residents of the county may have been more aware of different crimes being prosecuted at different times.

67 for earlier information. In the state of Ohio, useful statistics for any year dating back to the 1860s are available within the yearly Annual Report of the Secretary of State, to the

Governor of the State of Ohio, Including the Statistical Report to the General Assembly.

These reports contain data based on the number of criminal cases brought forward by individual county prosecutors. Obviously, this means that these records do not track all crimes that were committed in a county in any given year as the records are only for those crimes for which the county prosecutors filed charges. As a result, these numbers should be viewed as low estimates for the amount of crime occurring in a given county for a given year. With that being said, these statistics do contain useful information in terms of providing a general sense of criminal activity within a county. These reports also provide insight into the prosecutorial tendencies within a county during different periods as different crimes were prosecuted more aggressively in some years than others. The criminal statistics contained in the Annual Report were collected into three general categories: “Prosecutions for Offenses Against Property, Etc.,” “Prosecutions for Crimes

Against the Person,” and “Prosecutions for Offenses Against Public Justice, Etc.” 101

101 The data included in this study covered these “Prosecutions for Offenses Against Property, Etc.”: Arson;, Burglary; Embezzlement; Forging Brand, Stamp, Etc.; Forging or Uttering Forged Instruments; Grand Larceny; Horse Stealing or Concealing a Horse or Horse Thief; Killing, Injuring, or Administering Poison to Domestic Animals; Making Fraudulent Transfers; Malicious Destruction of Property; Malicious Destruction of Trees and Crops; Obstructing Railroad Tracks; Obtaining Property or Signature by False Pretense; Petit Larceny; Receiving, Buying, or Concealing Stolen Property; Removing Mortgaged Personal Property Out of the County; Selling or Conveying Land Without a Title; and Stealing an Automobile and Operating Without the Owner’s Consent. For “Prosecutions for Crimes Against the Person” the following crimes were tracked: Administering Poison with Intent to Kill; Assault and Battery; Assault with Intent to Kill (Shooting, Stabbing, or Cutting); Assault with Intent to Rape or Robbery; Attempt to Procure an Abortion; Blackmail; First Degree Murder; Killing a Police Officer; Libel; Maiming or Disfiguring Another; Manslaughter; Manslaughter in Motor Vehicle Cases; Pointing Firearms at Any Person or Discharging Same and Injuring Thereby; Rape;

Unfortunately, prior to 1880, the crime statistics collected for inclusion in the Annual

Report contained little useful data, so those years have been excluded from this study.

Luckily, the Annual Report provided better and more uniform data beginning in 1880.

Therefore, the years 1880 to 1930 were chosen for this discussion as they allow the reader to examine the change in criminal prosecutions over time and provide insight into what conditions of criminality existed in the Mahoning Valley during the primary Klan years.102

Predictably, the number of criminal prosecutions occurring in the two counties was higher in the 1920s than in the 1880s. This should not be surprising as this chapter has clearly explained that the population of the two counties rose significantly from 1880 to 1920. In Trumbull County the population almost doubled and in Mahoning County the increase was even greater with the population expanding to over four times the size it was in 1880. Based only on this sort of population expansion, one would expect the number of crimes committed, and, therefore, those prosecuted to at least rise at a rate equal to the

Robbery; Second Degree Murder; Selling Wood Alcohol for Beverage Purposes, Death Resulting; and Sending Threatening Letters. For “Prosecutions For Offenses Against Public Peace, Public Health, Public Justice, Public Morality, Etc.” the following crimes were divided into five categories: Public Peace (Carrying or Wearing a Concealed Weapon; Challenging to Fight or Provoke Breach of Peace; Driving an Automobile While Intoxicated; and Riot); Public Health (I only tracked All Offenses Against Public Health.) ; Public Justice (Aiding Prisoners to Escape; Bribery; and Perjury and Subornation of Perjury); Public Policy (Betting on Elections; General Violations of Election Laws; Narcotics Possession and Sale of in Violation of Federal Acts; Offenses Against the Gambling Laws; Offenses Against the Liquor Laws; Violations of Prohibition Laws, When Felonies; and Violations of Prohibition Laws, When Misdemeanors) ; and Public Chastity and Morality (Bigamy; Cohabitating in a State of Adultery or Fornication; Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor; Incest; Indecent Exposure and Obscene Language; and Keeping a House of Ill Fame). 102 The data from the 1880 report is lacking, but there is some information and I figured it was enough to allow for its inclusion as a reasonable starting point.

increase in population. However, the upsurge in some of the categories of crimes

prosecuted in the two counties grew beyond what would occur based strictly on per capita

population increases. To better understand the role of the public perception of issues of criminality may have played in the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley it is

crucial to understand the trends that can be discerned from a closer look at the statistics

available in the Annual Report.

Property crime data from the Mahoning Valley in the period from 1880 to 1930

reveals different trends for Mahoning County and Trumbull County. In Mahoning County

the incidence of prosecution for any of the number of property crimes tracked by the

Secretary of State’s Annual Report shows a relatively static per capita rate. In fact, the highest per capita rate occurred in 1896 when the rate reached 194 per 100,000.103The

decade of the 1890s had the highest average for property crime rates (84 per 100,000)

based on the number of prosecutions of any decade during this period and was followed

by two decades of much lower rates (58 per 100,000 in the 1900s and 61 per 100,000 in

the 1910s). In the decade of the 1920s, a resurgence of property crime indictment rates

103 The discussion is based on my own Excel documents upon which I collected the data from every Annual Report from 1880 to 1930. I then used my spreadsheets to create per capita information using population estimates for every year during the period, which I created using a linear interpolation equation used by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development for Intercensal Population and Housing Unit Estimates. The equation I used calculates the difference between sequential census reports by spreading the difference between the two reports equally over the course of the decade. The equation is: Pt=[P3652*(t/3652)]+[P0*((3652-t)/3652)]. Pt=population estimate at time t; P3652= the later census count; t= time in days elapsed since the earlier census; P0= the earlier census count. http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/lpa/dmograph/est/2000- 2010_Intercensal_Estimates_Methodology.pdf Accessed 18 July 2016. My complete Population estimates and all of my crime data spreadsheets are included at the end of this dissertation in Appendix A. The numbers included in the narrative have been rounded to the nearest whole number.

70 occurred as per capita rates steadily grew to a rate of 77 per 100,000 and had peak years in 1922 and 1925 where the average climbed over 100 per 100,000. Based on this information, even though the trend for rates remained static across the fifty-year period, there had been a significant increase in the first half of the decade of the 1920s during which the Ku Klux Klan was attempting to recruit members based on the need for better law enforcement, which ranked high among its many recruiting messages.

250

200 Mahoning County Per Capita 150 Property Crime Indictment Rates

Rate Capita Per 100

0 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 Year

In Trumbull County the per capita property crime indictment rates worked even better to the advantage of the Ku Klux Klan Kleagles recruiting in the first years of

1920s, because they were most certainly trending upward. Like Mahoning County,

Trumbull also had a low rate in the 1880s (48 per 100,000), but unlike in Mahoning

County the rate did not peak in the 1890s (49 per 100,000). Instead, the property crime

71 indictment rate in Trumbull peaked in the first decade of the twentieth century at an average rate of 85 per 100,000 for the decade with the highest rate being 173 per 100,000 in 1904. However, like Mahoning County, the rate again dropped in the next decade to a much lower 49 per 100,000 before increasing again in the decade of the 1920s to a rate of

73 per 100,000. Again, like Mahoning County, the peak year of the 1920s also climbed over 100 per 100,000 and occurred as the Klan began to gain popularity across the nation.

200

180

160

140 Trumbull County Per 120 Capita Property 100 Crime Indictment

Rate Capita Per 80 Rates

0 1870 1880 1890 1900 Year 1910 1920 1930 1940

The situation was even more favorable for Klan recruiting efforts when one looks at the trends for “Prosecutions for Crimes Against the Person” in the Mahoning Valley.

In both counties, the per capita trends were moving upwards over the course of the fifty year period from 1880 to 1930. In Mahoning County, the decade with the highest average per capita rate based on prosecutions was the first decade of the twentieth century when

72 the average reached a mark of 70 per 100,000. Following the peak in that decade, the averages fell for the next two decades (63 per 100,000 in the 1910s and 57 per 100,000 in the 1920s), but remained higher than they had been in the two decades (64 per 100,000 in the 1880s and 32 per 100,000 in the 1890s) that had preceded the peak.

140

120

Mahoning 100 County Per Capita Crimes 80 Against Persons Indictment 60 Rates Rate Capita Per

0 1870 1880 1890 1900 Year 1910 1920 1930 1940

In Trumbull County, the trend was far more aggressively upward, especially in the twentieth century when the average rose from 27 per 100,000 in the first decade of the century to a 55 per 100,000 average in the second decade and peaked at 59 per

100,000 in the 1920s. These rates would have likely had even more impact on the psyches of local residents as crimes against the person represent the majority of the crimes most commonly viewed as violent crimes. Within this category are such crimes as assault and battery, assault with intent to kill, manslaughter, and both counts of murder.

These are the violent crimes that keep people up at night and this study likely undercounts their occurrence by a significant amount as it only represents those instances that resulted in criminal prosecution.

70 Trumbull 60 County Per Capita 50 Crimes Against 40 Persons

Rate Capita Per Indictment 30 Rates

0 1870 1880 1890 1900 Year 1910 1920 1930 1940

Out of all possible crimes to commit against a person, the one that stands out above them all as a popularly accepted indicator of violence and criminality within a society is homicide. As such homicide rates have historically been used to assess the relative violence of a given place. Of course, like all criminal statistics from the period, accurate homicide rates are difficult to formulate. Luckily, along with the criminal prosecution statistics, the Annual Report also contained statistics based on Coroner

Inquests from all of the counties in Ohio, and from this information it was possible to determine crude homicide rates for the two counties. These numbers, like the criminal

prosecution statistics, likely undercount the actual number of homicides occurring in the

counties. Randolph Roth, in his work American Homicide, pointed out that there were a

number of reasons why recorded homicide rates were traditionally reported lower than

what he believes to be the actual numbers.104 Along those lines, Roth contends that rates

based on court records alone “can be too low by a third or more.”105 Bearing this in mind,

examining the data provided in the Annual Report can help to further illuminate the

subject of increased criminality in the Mahoning Valley by allowing examination of at

least the trends recorded by the County Coroners and sent on to the Secretary of State.

In spite of likely being a low estimate of the actual homicides that occurred in the

Mahoning Valley in the period from 1870 to 1930, the Coroner Inquests for both counties

showed that homicides increased in both counties in a manner that outpaced population

increases. The increases were most pronounced in Mahoning County in the years

immediately prior to the formation of the local Ku Klux Klan. In the 1870s, when

Mahoning County had not yet switched from an economy dominated by agriculture and a

fledgling iron industry to a world class steel-based manufacturing economy, the homicide rate registered 1 per 100,000. As Eastern and Southern European immigration and internal migration to the county increased over the course of the 1880s the homicide rate increased to 3.5 per 100,000. Surprisingly, in the decade of the 1890s, which included the nativist movement of the American Protective Association, the homicide rate actually dropped back down to a per capita average rate of 1 per 100,000. The turn of the century would usher in a period of growth in the homicide rate that definitely could have led

104 Randolph Roth, American Homicide (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009), xii. 105 Ibid.

citizens of the county to feel that issues of crime were increasing at a frightening rate,

which local law enforcement might not be able to match. In the first decade of the

twentieth century the average homicide rate jumped to a rate of 4 per 100,000, but this

paled in comparison to the rates that would occur in the 1910s and 1920s. In the 1910s,

the rate more than doubled to 11 per 100,000 and in the next decade nearly doubled again

to an average of 21 per 100,000.106 To put these numbers in context, in 2015 St. Louis

became the murder capital of the United States with a rate of 50 per 100,000, which took

the crown from Detroit and its rate of 44 per 100,000, while the national average for 2015

was 4.5 per 100,000.107 Another comparison to the rates of Youngstown in the 1920s and

Detroit and St. Louis in 2015 is to the American colonies in the seventeenth century when

the homicide rates ranged from annual rates of “9 per 100,000 in New England to 20 to

106 The rate in the 1920s gives me pause as I noticed upon looking at the numbers in the Annual Report that in 1922 and 1923 there were listed extremely high numbers of homicides (104 and 118 respectively) that no other year came close to matching (The next closest year was 40 in 1924.). I decided to dig a little deeper, so I went to the Youngstown Health Department to review the death certificates for the two years and after examining the death certificates on file with the Health Department I was unable to come up with more than 12 for 1922 and 27 for 1923. This however, was also unsatisfactory for me, because Mahoning County has a bad reputation for retention of historical government documents and I was unable to ascertain whether or not all death certificates were actually located in the files. I also visited the Coroner’s office and sought out Inquest records there, but the microfilms were filmed in such a haphazard manner that it would have taken me months to satisfactorily review the documents. Unfortunately, at this time, I do not have that luxury, so I will have to leave that investigation to another time and utilize just the numbers present in the Annual Report. If the two outlier years are replaced with the numbers that I found through my cursory investigation of the death certificates, the average for the 1920s drops to 12 per 100,000. 107 “St. Louis Overtakes Detroit as Nation’s Murder Capital,” The Detroit News Online, 1 October 2015. http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit- city/2015/10/01/fbi-murder-rates/73139988/ Accessed 11 January 2017.

40 per 100,000 in New France, New Netherlands, and the Chesapeake.”108 The fact that the annual homicide rates in Mahoning County in the 1920s were comparable to the fledgling colonies in the seventeenth century and the modern day cities of Detroit and St.

Louis in 2015 does little to detract from the argument that crime had risen high enough to convince some reformers and radicals that the only remaining solution was to resort to the vigilante-style justice that an organization like the Ku Klux Klan offered to them.

50 Mahoning County Per

40 Capita Homicide Rates 30 Based on Coroner Rate Capita Per 20 Inquests

0 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940

-10 Year

108 Roth, American Homicide, 27.

12 Trumbull County Per 10 Capita Homicide 8 Rates Based on

Rate Capita Per Coroner 6 Inquests

0 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 Year

In Trumbull County, the homicide rates trended upward in a similar manner as to those in Mahoning County, but at a lower rate overall. In Trumbull County, the average homicide rate in the 1870s was a 1 per 100,000, and like Mahoning County, it remained relatively low through the rest of the nineteenth century reaching a 2 per 100,000 in the final two decades of the century. Again, as it had in Mahoning County, the rate rose more rapidly in the twentieth century beginning with an increase to 5 per 100,000 in the first decade of the new century. The 1910s saw an increase to 6 per 100,000 and like

Mahoning County the rate peaked in the 1920s at a 7 per 100,000. As with Mahoning

County, increasing crime rates, such as the increase which was occurring with homicides, likely aided savvy Klan Kleagles in their efforts to recruit members in Trumbull County as well. The region’s historic ties to New England may have also aided the Klansmen in

Inquests

their efforts to recruit within the two counties using crime rates as a starting point for

their recruitment efforts due to the strength of the Protestant church in the area and, more

specifically, their roots in Calvinist theology.

As mentioned above, William D. Jenkins argued that the Klan’s political success

in Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley rested “upon the efforts of the Klan to secure

more effective enforcement of already existent laws regulating the morals of the

community.”109 Jenkins agreed with Clifford Stephen Griffin’s view of the Puritan

influence on reformers of the early nineteenth century, as it appeared in Griffin’s work

Their Brothers’ Keeper. Jenkins felt Griffin’s conclusions could be applied to the later

reformers of the early twentieth century in Youngstown. Jenkins believed that the local

moral reformers, who supported the Ku Klux Klan, felt the “state could not remain

neutral in the war against sin” and therefore found it imperative that the local government

function like a “Christian Commonwealth based on a stern Protestant code of ethics.”110

In particular, these reformers felt that the non-Protestant immigrants arriving in the region from Eastern and Southern Europe had beliefs that were diametrically opposed to their own, and, as such, needed to be held accountable for their moral transgressions in order to prevent the loss of the cultural foundation of the region. Because of this, when the moral reformers of the Protestant churches in the Mahoning Valley felt that their influence on the local government was waning in the early 1920s, and that the elected officials and law enforcement agencies were not doing enough to enforce the blue laws along with various vice laws, they turned to the Ku Klux Klan as a means to reinforce of

109 William D. Jenkins, “The Ku Klux Klan in Youngstown, Ohio,” 78. 110 Jenkins, “The Ku Klux Klan in Youngstown,” 76. Based on Jenkins’s reading of Clifford Stephen Griffin, Their Brothers’ Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States, 1800- 1865 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1960), ix-xv.

79 moral tenets in the Mahoning Valley.111

300

250

Mahoning County Per 200 Capita Crimes Against the Public 150 Indictment Rates Rate Capita Per

100

0 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 Year

In terms of laws specifically targeted at moral behaviors, which were of such special interest to the Protestant citizens who filled out the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley, the Annual Report revealed that unlike Property Crimes and

Crimes Against Persons, prosecutions for Prosecutions For Offenses Against Public

Peace, Public Health, Public Justice, Public Morality, Etc. were actually decreasing over the course of the fifty-year period beginning in 1880. To be clear, this does not mean that

111 Based on my reading of newspaper articles from the Mahoning Valley at the time, I agree with Jenkins’s assessment that desire for better law enforcement was one of the primary reasons for the success of the Klan in recruiting members in the region. Jenkins, “The Ku Klux Klan in Youngstown,” 76.

instances of crimes against public justice were necessarily decreasing, but only that

County Prosecutors were not indicting as many people for said crimes. In fact, in

Mahoning County, the average per capita indictment rates for crimes in this category

were trending downward over the course of the fifty-year period under review. The 1880s

with an average rate of 94 per 100,000 had the second highest per capita rate of

prosecutions for crimes within this final category of criminal behavior tracked by the

Annual Report. The highest rate occurred in the first decade of the twentieth century with an average of 125 per 100,000, but the numbers dropped precipitously over the next two decades to a low of 59 per 100,000 in the 1920s.

250

200 Trumbull County Crimes 150 Against the Public Indictment Rates

Rate Capita Per 100

0 1870 1880 1890 1900 Year 1910 1920 1930 1940

The same situation prevailed in Trumbull County where the averages for

prosecutions for crimes in this final category remained stagnant across the fifty-year

period. In Trumbull County, the peak decade for per capita Prosecutions For Offenses

Against Public Peace, Public Health, Public Justice, Public Morality, Etc. occurred in the

1870s, when the number reached a mark of 78 per 100,000. This number depended on

particularly strict enforcement of the liquor laws that existed at the time, which exceeded

the total actual enforcement numbers of later decades despite the county having a lower

population than it had in later years. The middle three decades of the fifty-year period from 1880 to 1930 saw the lowest numbers of per capita prosecutions for all of the crimes in this category with a low of 26 per 100,000 occurring in the 1890s, followed by rising rates of 32 per 100,000 in the first decade of the twentieth century and a rate of 52 per

100,000 in the 1910s. By the 1920s, the average number of per capita prosecutions rebounded to a rate of 69 per 100,000, but still lagged behind the rate it had reached in the county in the 1880s.

These numbers in particular seem peculiar in that the addition of the Eighteenth

Amendment occurred in 1919, leaving little time for citizens to accustom themselves to a

world without legal liquor sales, but the numbers do not bear this out. The enforcement of

older local and state liquor laws had led to higher rates of prosecution in the 1880s than

in the 1920s. The reason for this may have had less to do with the will to enforce the law

and more to do with a lack of resources from local tax revenue. In the Mahoning Valley,

cities like Youngstown and Niles had difficulties paying their respective police forces

because of budget shortfalls.112 In Youngstown, the financial problems were so bad that

112 Jenkins, “The Ku Klux Klan in Youngstown,” 79.

82 the city’s vice squad was reduced from eleven to three members in 1923 at a time when the city was home to more than 132,000 residents.113 To illustrate how bad the situation in Youngstown was that works out to each officer being responsible for policing the vice crimes of 44,000 residents a piece. Despite that tall order, the local clergy were convinced that city officials were not doing enough and placed the blame on inept politicians and the influx of foreign immigrants.114

60 Mahoning County Foreign 50 Born % of Total Prisoner 40 Population

30 born % of Total Prisoner Population Prisoner Total % of born - 20 Foreign 10

0 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 Year

The Annual Report also offered some insight into the ethno-racial make-up of those individuals being arrested for the various crimes discussed above in a section focused on county “Jail Statistics.” These statistics tracked the nativity of prisoners and

113 Ibid, 76, 79. 114 Ibid, 79.

were collected from 1871 through 1916.115 There are a few years where data was

unavailable for certain categories and Trumbull County had a few years within the period

of study where they did not report their statistics, but enough data exists to identify

certain trends regarding the nativity of prisoners incarcerated in the Mahoning Valley. In

Mahoning County, the trend regarding the percentage of prisoners who were foreign-born definitely moves upward. However, the highest percentage of foreign-born prisoners actually occurred in 1874 when 66% of all prisoners in Mahoning County were foreign- born. This becomes somewhat less surprising when one considers that at that time the percentage of the overall population that was foreign-born was growing toward a peak recorded in the 1880 Census of 26% of the population.116 The number of foreign-born as a percentage of the total population would drop to approximately 22% for the next few decades before recovering to 25% of the population recorded in 1920.117 The percentage

of foreign-born criminals incarcerated in the Mahoning County Jail would follow a similar pattern, dropping in the 1880s before trending upward after the turn of the century and climbing to as high as 61% in 1906. Only once in the period did the number drop below 20%, so this meant that foreign-born prisoners almost always made up a larger

percentage of the prison population than the foreign-born did within the overall

115 The specific statistics that I consolidated from the series of Annual Report (Data was only available for the years 1871-1916.) were the number of prisoners from each given category: Ohio; Other States; Total Native-born; Austria; British America and Canada; Denmark; England and Wales; France; Germany; Holland and Belgium; Ireland; Italy; Russia; Scotland; Spain; South America; Sweden and Norway; Switzerland; Other Countries; Unknown; Total Foreign-born and Unknown; Total Native-born, Foreign-born, and Unknown; and Colored. This spreadsheet is also included in Appendix A. 116 1880 Census data from the University of Virginia website. http://mapserver.lib.virginia.edu/php/county.php Accessed 28 August 2016. 117 Bear in mind that the numbers end in 1916, so the final decade before the arrival of the Klan consists of incomplete data.

population during this period.118

50 Trumbull County 40 Foreign Born % of Total 30 Prisoner Population born % of Total Prisoner Population Population Prisoner Total % of born

- 20 Foreign 10

0 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 Year

The situation was quite different in Trumbull County where the percentage of foreign-born prisoners incarcerated in the county followed a downward trend from a high point in the 1870s. Like Mahoning County, the peak year of foreign-born prisoners as a percentage of all prisoners occurred in the 1870s, this time it happened in 1871 when the number reached 65%. Also like Mahoning County, the percentage of foreign-born present in the county in the 1870s was growing to a peak of 24% of the population, before it too trended downward. The percentage of foreign-born residents in Trumbull

County hovered in the mid-teens over the next few decades before rebounding slightly to

118 It should be noted that seven times foreign-born prisoners represented the majority of prisoners incarcerated in Mahoning County during the period from 1871-1916 (1872, 1874, 1901, 1906, 1907, 1908, and 1910).

17% of the population in 1920. Meanwhile over the course of the forty plus years from

1871 to 1916, the percentage of foreign-born criminals, although trending downward, only dropped below 20% twelve times. This means that for the majority of years the foreign-born in Trumbull County, like in Mahoning County, made up a disproportionally high percentage of the county’s jailed criminals.119

The Jail Statistics included in the Annual Report also allowed for investigation of

which nationality comprised the largest portion of each county’s foreign-born prison population. In Mahoning County the top three nationalities were Austrians, Italians, and

Irish. Of these, the designation of Austrian is the most nebulous, because, during the years under review, that could have meant any number of nationalities comprising the

Austro-Hungarian Empire.120 What is most impressive about those designated as

Austrians making up the largest total number of foreign-born prisoners in Mahoning

County (1,824) is that their totals come from one and a half decades. In the first decade of

the twentieth century 436 Austrians were incarcerated in Mahoning County but that

number exploded in the first six years of the 1910s when it totaled 1,388. These numbers

meant that Austrians made up over 6% of the total prisoner population in the first decade

and nearly 17% from 1910 to 1916. During those years, Austrians made up only an

approximate 2 to 8% of the total population of Mahoning County.121 The number of

Italians incarcerated in Mahoning County (1,101) followed a similar pattern. In their

119 It should be noted that three times the foreign-born made up the majority of the jail population in Trumbull County (1871, 1873, and 1875). 120 I cobbled together Austrians, Hungarians, Bohemians, and later Czechoslovakians in my census estimates for the sake of comparing the percentage of the general population with a nationalities percentage of the prison population. 121 These estimates may be low depending on what was actually meant by Austrian.

86 case, the prison population was consistently double their percentage of the general population of the county. For instance, when the Italian portion of the incarcerated population of Mahoning County peaked in the first decade of the twentieth century at 519 or around 8%, Italians made up around 4% of the general population of the county. The

Italians also hold the interesting distinction of registering a prisoner in the county before any Italians were officially enumerated in a census.122 Not to be outdone, the Irish may have come in third in terms of the overall number of their nationals imprisoned in

Mahoning County from 1871 to 1916 (846), but they did set a record for the largest portion of the overall prison population for a given decade and largest percentage of incarceration versus percentage of overall population. This occurred in the 1870s when

172 Irish landed in the Mahoning County jail, which consisted of 22% of the total number of prisoners for that decade while the Irish themselves represented less than 6% of the total population of the county. The number of Irish in jail remained consistent across the decades studied, but showed signs of declining in the 1910s when it had only reached 53 by 1916.

The situation in Trumbull involved two of the top nationality groups from the

Mahoning County list with the Irish (1,136) claiming the top ranking in Trumbull

County, followed by the English and Welsh (485), and Italians (398) in third. The Irish and the English and Welsh followed nearly identical paths with the two nationality categorizations (England and Wales was the listing used in the Annual Report) reaching their peak numbers before the turn of the century and fading quickly after. However, their paths diverge when one considers the vastly different percentage of the prison population

122 No Italians were enumerated in the 1880 Census, but one was incarcerated in 1877.

each group represented and the percentage of the overall population that the two groups

encompassed. In the 1870s when Irish prisoner rates peaked at 364, or 28% of the total

prison population in the county, they accounted for less than 4% of the county’s general

population. During the same decade the English and Welsh accounted for approximately

11% of the prison population (139) and just over 10% of the general population of the

county. The Irish continued to finish at the top of foreign-born prisoner rankings for the

next two decades accounting for 14% (309 prisoners) of the total prison population in

1880s and 12% (340 prisoners) in the 1890s.During this period their percentage of the

general population steadily declined to 2% in 1900. Meanwhile the percentage of English

and Welsh in jail, and, in the general population, also continued to decline at almost an

identical rate in relation to the community at large. In the 1890s, the grouping accounted

for 5% of the number of foreign-born in jail and 6% of the general population of the

county. The number of Italians in jail represented the third highest total in Trumbull

County, but unlike the two earlier groups the Italian rate was trending upward after the

turn of the century. The number of Italians in county jail reached its highest number in

the first decade of the twentieth century when 238 Italians were imprisoned. The number

represented a little over 6% of the total prison population while Italians made up just 3%

of the general population of the county. Finally, in Trumbull County, like Mahoning

County, although no Italians were enumerated in the 1880 Census the nationality was

represented in the number of criminals jailed in the county in the 1870s. This time two

Italian nationals found themselves incarcerated in 1879.

Despite the presence of a fair number of foreign-born nationals finding themselves in the county jail during the forty-five year span from 1871 to 1916 the

highest number of inmates was almost always native-born citizens. In fact, foreign-born

inmates outnumbered native-born inmates in only seven years of that span in Mahoning

County. In Trumbull County there were only three years where foreign-born nationals

outnumbered native-born U.S. citizens, but this would not stop the nativist Protestants

who made up the membership of the Ku Klux Klan from decrying the inherent

criminality of immigrants living in the Mahoning Valley in the early 1920s.123 Perhaps

this resulted from the all too common urge to scapegoat individuals who do not resemble

oneself. However, that argument should not be carried too far as the above analysis of

available crime data confirmed that increased criminality was a problem in the Mahoning

Valley as the Klan rose to power, and foreign-born immigrants as well as native-born citizens contributed to the increasing violence and criminal behavior. Nevertheless, the desire to enhance moral enforcement and police action were not the only motivating factors pulling average Protestant citizens into the ranks of one of the most famous hate groups in American history.

As illustrated above, the Mahoning Valley underwent extensive change during the latter half of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century. This resulted from changes to the economic structure of the region as it shifted from agriculture to mining and iron-making to an economy dominated by huge steel producing mills. Along the way these shifts brought in vast numbers of migrants to the area not only from other states in the United States, but also from countries around the world. This demographic shift was not unlike the changes being experienced in evolving cities across the industrial

123 It should be noted that the number of foreign-born in the general population never out-numbered the number of native-born in either county during the period from 1871 to 1916.

Midwest. Comparable changes had occurred in Buffalo, Cleveland, Akron, Pittsburgh,

Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago, and any number of other developing industrial cities. These changes to the demographic makeup of the community were viewed suspiciously by those who would later join the 1920s Klan.

Along with the shift in population and the ethno-racial makeup of that population, these cities also experienced significant difficulties associated with the hardships of both old and new residents adjusting to such sweeping change and the combination of so many diverse peoples into one ommunity. Among these difficulties were increases in the rate of criminal activity, which sometimes outpaced per capita growth. In the Mahoning Valley, even just a per capita increase in crime led to an increase in the number of stories related to criminal activities chronicled for the public in local newspapers. These papers not only carried stories of crimes from within their own communities, but, because of the

Associated Press and the United Press Association wire services, also carried stories of crimes committed all over the country. A fear of the perceived criminality of the population at large, and in particular newcomers to the region, became a primary selling point of Kleagles kluxing for new members within the Mahoning Valley. To understand how these push-pull factors helped the Klan increase its membership to unprecedented levels across the country one must examine the group itself more closely and, due to the nature of the organization’s recruitment strategies, that is most effectively done at the local level.

Chapter Three:

The Rise of the Mahoning Valley Klan and Its Curious Auxiliaries: The Klan’s Perspective on Immigrants, African-Americans, and Crime, 1920-1925

On November 1, 1924, as the steel blade of a six-inch knife plunged into G. E.

Victor’s chest, and a ricocheting bullet rebounded off the forehead of his companion

Harvey Brauchle, one can imagine that Victor was, at least for an instant, reassessing his decision to drive to Niles, Ohio to participate in a Ku Klux Klan parade. The self- righteous bravado that had inspired him and his companion to attempt to join in a parade which had been vehemently opposed since the idea for it had been announced weeks earlier, must have rushed out of him like the blood now staining his shirt. For his part, Victor allegedly handled his wound with a certain amount of swagger for a man whose lung had just been punctured by a knife. He did not fall to the ground screaming for help, or gasping for air. Rather he staggered across the street, asked his companions for a drink of water, and then had to walk for a distance in search of medical aid since the car he had been a passenger in had been rendered useless by a barrage of bullets fired by the same anti-Klan opponents who had moments earlier stabbed him in the chest.1 Victor would survive his injuries, but the Mahoning Valley Klan would be mortally wounded on that November day.

1 I use the name G. E. Victor in the same way that William Jenkins had also used it. At the Mahoning Historical Society I located an advertisement for the Farrell Auto Top Shop that had a photo of a man who might be Victor in Klan garb. The manager of the shop according to the card was a C. E. Victor. The ad also mentioned that they were the “Originator of the 100% Robe Bag for Klansmen, Klanswomen, and Klans Juniors.” The card also contained the phrase “Non Selba Sed Anther,” which according to the Anti-

The violent incidents of that fateful November day would indeed mark the

beginning of the end for the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley, but to understand the

story of the Ku Klux Klan in the region one must look back a few years before that fall

day in 1924. The earliest mention of kluxing activities in the Mahoning Valley dates to

1921. First, in September of 1921, members of the Youngstown City Council registered

their concerns over rumors of its presence in town.2 Then a few months later in nearby

Warren, one of the city’s newspapers, the Western Reserve Democrat, ran an article

claiming a Klan recruiter had been canvassing the town in December of that year.3 The

Western Reserve Democrat article explained how an agent of the Klan had allegedly been

approaching “prominent and well known citizens of Warren,” and in “a very adroit

manner sought to learn whether or not he had a willing prospect.”4 This initial insight

into who was being targeted for membership during the infancy of the Klan in the

Mahoning Valley is of value when considering the historiography of the 1920s Ku Klux

Klan and the various arguments over its membership and purposes. Understanding not

only how other historians have come to understand the second iteration of the Ku Klux

Klan that rose to prominence in the 1920s, but also how contemporaries understood the

Klan in their own time will help the reader to better understand how and why the Klan

Defamation League meant something akin to “not self, but others.” http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/hate-on-display/c/non-silba-sed-anthar.html My belief is that Jenkins would have gotten his name from a newspaper account. William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 130-131. The materials at the Mahoning Historical Society can be found in folder 1162.76 titled “Ku Klux Klan (From Bert Amy Estate). 2 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 31. 3 “Ku Klux Klan Seeking Members in Warren,” Western Reserve Democrat, 29 December 1921, 1. 4 “Ku Klux Klan Seeking Members in Warren,” 1.

92 was able to gain so much support in the Mahoning Valley in the three short years, 1922 through 1924, in which it rose to its peak level of power.

The 1920s Ku Klux Klan has attracted the attention of a number of historians and has inspired much disagreement over its role in American life during the short period of time in which it was ascendant. Arguments abound over whether or not the Klan had a monolithic structure, with the entirety of those who joined being in ideological lockstep with the national headquarters, or whether the numerous local Klans across the country were at best loosely bound together by ideological similarities, and more likely to be ideological free agents. Those treating the Klan as a more monolithic, ideologically homogenized organization tended to have been the first scholars to engage with the subject. Later in the 1970s, and continuing on through the 1990s, scholars began to more closely examine the Klan in localized studies and tended to argue that the various

Klaverns held different views suited to the location in which they existed. More recently, some studies have reverted back to applying a definition of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan that seems to skew toward the more homogenized view similar to the earliest works on the subject.5 The best available evidence gathered from the two conflicting historiographic schools of thought points to conclusions that probably fall somewhere in between the two. The national organization does have importance in that it was the financial foundation of the organization and its clever structure allowed it to rapidly proliferate across the country. However, the local studies have proven that strong ideological differences between the various regional Klan Realms existed to the point that rank-and-

5 For a more in-depth breakdown of the transformation of scholarship on the 1920s Klan see: Leonard J. Moore, “Historical Interpretations of the 1920’s Klan: The Traditional View and the Populist Revision,” Journal of Social History, Vol. 24. No. 2 (Winter, 1990): 341-357.

93 file Klansmen from different parts of the country cannot be assumed to be so similar that they would have been friendly to each other or approved of activities taking place in other Klan Realms. The Mahoning Valley in Ohio represented one such location where the Ku Klux Klan’s national program took hold, but, due to conditions present in the region, morphed into something distinctive. In addition to the more or less traditional Ku

Klux Klan, the Mahoning Valley was also home to a few exotic Klan auxiliary organizations, the Royal Riders of the Red Robes, the American Crusaders, later known as the Krusaders, and finally the Loyal Legion of Lincoln. Understanding the history of the Ku Klux Klan in locations like the Mahoning Valley, leads to the conclusion that one must seek to understand the 1920s Klan by examining both the Klan’s national activities, which were focused primarily on economic gain for its organizers, as well as local activities, which were focused primarily on a locally forged ideology.

The story of the resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan by Colonel William J. Simmons in Atlanta, Georgia in 1915 is well known to historians of the Klan. Simmons epitomized those in the era who were fascinated with fraternal societies. He had belonged to a number of fraternal orders and had found some success as a district organizer with the

Woodsmen of the World, before hatching a plan to charter a resurrected Ku Klux Klan with a handful of his friends after watching the controversial film Birth of a Nation.6 The fact that Simmons named his incarnation of the Klan the “Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Incorporated” and that he was granted an official charter from the state

6 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 2.

of Georgia says much about his intention to use the organization as a moneymaking

enterprise.7

The earliest years of the revived Klan have attracted little attention, because the

organization failed to gain much of a following outside of portions of Georgia and

Alabama until 1921.8 The explosive national growth of the Klan from 1921 through 1925

had little to do with Simmons. In fact, outside of giving the organization its initial rebirth

and weaving together his favorite elements of mysticism, symbolism, and ritual activities

borrowed from other fraternal organizations, Simmons contributed much less to the

growth of the reborn Ku Klux Klan than a pair of advertising professionals he met in

1920.9 The two advertising professionals were Edward Young Clarke and Elizabeth Tyler

of the Southern Publicity Association, and, by the time they were pushed out of the Klan

in 1923, they had turned it into one of the most profitable fraternal organizations of all- time.10

7 Charles C. Alexander, “Kleagles and Cash: The Ku Klux Klan As A Business Organization, 1915-1930,” The Business History Review, 39 No. 3 (Autumn, 1965), 349. 8 Thomas Pegram, One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2011), 7. 9 Simmons belonged to at least six fraternal organizations at the time that he developed the structure of the revived Ku Klux Klan. He also claimed that his father was a member of the original Klan, which explains some of his nostalgic fascination with the organization. His revived Klan in many ways resembled what one would expect from someone who grew up hero-worshiping the men of the original Klan in that it comes off in many ways as a bunch of Klan re-enactors. Simmons and his cohorts were devoted to the idea and the rituals, the outfits, the minutiae, but they were luckily not the real thing. This is not to say that the Klan did not evolve, in some localities, into something quite terrible, and quite violent, it is simply to state that its reformulation in the 1920s at the national level began as something more akin to other fraternal organizations of the time. Ibid. 10 Pegram, One Hundred Percent American, 18. See also Alexander, “Kleagles and Cash,”351.

Understanding the sales mechanism created by Clarke and Tyler to proliferate the

Klan across the United States may be the single most important component of

understanding not only how it grew so quickly and seemingly became so popular, but

also why the Klan fell apart even faster in 1924 and 1925.11 Roland G. Fryer Jr. and

Steven D. Levitt offered the easiest way to understand the second Klan’s financial

structure by explaining it in terms of being both a fraternal organization and essentially a

business structured in such a way that it benefited those who organized it far more than those who joined it. Along those lines one could go so far as to call it something like a hate-filled Amway or you could think of the local recruiters, known as Kleagles, as ultra- bigoted Avon ladies.12 The way the Klan was structured everything started with the

Kleagle as the initial point of contact. These men were essentially traveling salesmen

selling membership into the Klan. In much the same way that any traveling salesperson

must tailor their message to each individual, in each individual town, so too did the

Kleagles have to locate the social issues and prejudices that would inspire one to join his

organization. Once the Kleagle had won over enough adherents, they would petition to

set up a chapter and elect local officers. In each local Klavern, there were two paid

officers; they were the Exalted Cyclops and his secretary the Kligrapp. They were not

11 Tyler and Clarke had learned the art of “booster” campaigns while working for both the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) and the Salvation Army. It is likely that their experience dealing with people who would have been interested in the efforts of the ASL and the Salvation Army would have given them insight into how to tailor the message of their army of Kleagles to the interests and tendencies of politically active, Christian reformers. Alexander, “Kleagles and Cash,” 351. 12 Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt, “Hatred and Profits: Under the Hood of the Ku Klux Klan,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics (2012), 1908.

96 paid well-enough to support themselves on their earnings from the Klan, but it was enough to entice them to take on additional responsibilities.13

The Kleagles were the first layer of Klansmen who truly stood to profit from involvement in the Klan. Clarke and Tyler knew that the most important part of their sales structure was the point of sale and that in order for the organization to grow and make money the Kleagles had to be properly incentivized. To this end, they created a system wherein the initiation fee to join the Klan was set at ten dollars, which was a considerable amount of money in 1921.14 Of the ten dollar fee, the Kleagle received four dollars. In 1921 four dollars had the equivalent purchasing power of $53.78 in 2016, so it is easy to see how Kleagles would have been motivated to sign up new members.15 This structure, while being a massive success in the Klan’s early recruitment efforts, soon became the most glaring weakness in the Klan structure. Since the initiation fee was a one-time fee, and one of only two times the Kleagles were able to make money off of their recruiting efforts, it over incentivized the Kleagles to sign up any new recruits they could find.16 As a result, the Klan’s ranks swelled with any and all individuals who could pay the initiation fee including a number of individuals who were not likely to live up to the Klan’s espoused Christian mandates, but were more likely to be attracted to its more radical vigilantism. It must be remembered that even though many membership drives for

13 Fryer Jr. and Levitt, “Hatred and Profits,” 1907. 14 According to the Inflation Calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, this would be roughly $134.44 in 2016. http://data.bls.gov/cgi- bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=10.00&year1=1921&year2=2016 Accessed 25 August 2016. 15 I used the Inflation Calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website to make this calculation. http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=4.00&year1=1921&year2=2016 Accessed 25 August 2016. 16 Fryer Jr. and Levitt, “Hatred and Profits,” 1908, 1912-1913.

the Klan were undertaken with the blessings of Protestant churches in an area, this did not

guarantee that only kind-hearted, church-going men became members. This was

especially the case when Kleagles driven by greed extended membership to less than

upstanding individuals after making a few passes through a Realm.

The only other time the Kleagles could make money off of their recruiting efforts

was the sale of a robe to a member during their first year of membership. Robes cost

$6.50 and served multiple purposes for the national Klan organization. First, they kept

Kleagles honest by forcing them to divulge all new members. This was accomplished by

making all Klansmen purchase their robes through the national organization. In this way it was made more difficult for Kleagles to lie about initiation fee totals, because if the new member also bought a robe the national organization had to be informed of their existence, which kept any corrupt Kleagles from pocketing the full initiation fee and underreporting enrollment numbers. Secondly, the robes also allowed for another means of paying Kleagles and various other members of the sales team. Kleagles made an additional fifty cents off of each robe sale. Another dollar of the robe fee was split equally between the Grand Dragon of the State or Realm and the King Kleagle of the

State or Realm. The remaining five dollars of the robe fee was sent up to the national headquarters, where two dollars were taken to cover the cost of production and the rest went into the national Klan’s coffers, where its final use was primarily to line the pockets of those at the top of the pyramid.17

17 Examples of Klan finances being funneled into the hands of its leadership are legion. See both Charles C. Alexander’s “Kleagles and Cash,” and Roland G. Fryer Jr. and Steven D. Levitt’s “Hatred and Profits” for examples of how Realm and National Klan leaders became wealthy from Klan finances.

The money from the sale of exclusive Klan robes might have been the last means

for Kleagle’s to profit from their sales efforts, but it was the least of all the cash flowing

into the Realm and National Klan offices. In addition to the robe sales, there were annual

membership fees; Realm taxes; Imperial taxes; a variety of Klan produced goods such as

swords, candles, tablecloths, Bibles, and helmets; newspapers, magazines, and various

other publications, and like every other self-respecting fraternal organization of the time

the Klan even offered life insurance to its members.18 According to Fryer Jr. and Levitt,

the first year of membership in the Klan would cost each Ghoul, as Klansmen were

known within the Klavern walls, $23.80, and each additional year would cost them at

least $6.80 in fees and taxes.19 This number of course would increase anytime the local

Klavern raised money for charitable contributions to churches or schools, or for the local

poor, and it would also increase if a Klansman wanted to buy himself a robe bag or any

of the other numerous items of Klan memorabilia. Even if the Ghoul only paid his first

year costs it was still a substantial amount of money. Consider for instance that the

average farm laborer in 1923 made somewhere between $37.50 and $47.50 a month.20

That means that for the entire year a farm laborer earned approximately 450 to 570

dollars.21 On the low end of the earning spectrum for a farm laborer the first year costs of

joining the Klan would have been close to one entire month’s worth of wages. More

18 Fryer Jr. and Levitt, “Hatred and Profits,” 1891. 19 Ibid. In 2016 dollars first year costs were around $313.24 and renewal costs would have had $91.42 worth of buying power in 1921. Again these numbers are based on the results from the Inflation Calculator on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=6.80&year1=1921&year2=2016 Accessed 25 August 2016. 20 U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 1 (Washington, DC, 1975), 485. 21 Ibid.

likely to join the Klan were men at least earning wages similar or better to what could be

earned working in manufacturing or mining. For their part, men employed in

manufacturing jobs made an average of 1200 dollars per year and bituminous coal miners

earned an average of 1300 dollars per year.22 It would not be a stretch to say that

membership in the Klan was cost prohibitive, and points in the direction of a social class

of members that would have had to possess at least a reasonable amount of disposable

income. The fact that the average Klansman likely had to be of at least some sort of

middle class status will also be important to consider later when examining why the

Klansmen were ill-suited for the types of violent exchanges they would be subjected to

once the Knights of the Flaming Circle made it their purpose to oppose the Klan at all

costs. Furthermore, this same understanding of the Klansmen’s social standing will aid in

explaining how the organization collapsed so quickly in the Mahoning Valley and across

the nation. Before getting into any of that though it is important to further analyze the

means by which Kleagles kluxed, or recruited members, within the local community.

The Klan agent described in the Western Reserve Democrat article from

December of 1921 would have been following a carefully prescribed method of salesmanship created by Clarke and Tyler at the Southern Publicity Association in 1920.

Clarke and Tyler had structured their Kleagle sales pitch on a simple system of not having any particular national sales pitch, but rather playing “upon whatever prejudices―anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, racism, or moral zealotry―were most acute

22 U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employment, Hours, and Earnings, United States, 1909-90,” Volume I, Bulletin 2370 (March 1991), 23, 63. The document can be found at: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?item_id=5435&filepath=/files/docs/publications/e mpbmark/emp_bmark_1909_1990_v1.pdf Accessed 25 March 2017.

100

in the areas the Kleagles were ‘kluxing.’”23 What this means was that Clarke and Tyler

knew that what sold the Klan to potential Ghouls in Georgia was not necessarily what

would sell membership in Ohio or elsewhere. This meant that the actual message being

delivered on the ground and spurring formation of Klaverns around the country was not a

national, homogenized, monolithic ideology of hate, but rather a curated mixture of

specific prejudices, concerns with changes occurring in society, and Protestant moral

reforms for each locality. This is an important distinction, because it solidifies the

argument that although the national Klan was the headquarters of the movement, and

each local Klan had some obvious overlapping ideological beliefs, the primary function

of the national Klan was based more on its financial structure than on its ideological

structure.24

23 Thinking in terms of the Klan playing off of the existing prejudices and moral codes helps to illustrate that the Klan and its rhetoric was not so much inventing hate, prejudice, or a new moral code, but, rather it was acting as a magnet pulling together like-minded people within the community. In this way the Klan was able to capitalize on existing hatreds in order to monetize them by enrolling men into their secret order fraternal order, which benefited from the desire of these men to be a part of an exclusive group. Alexander, “Kleagles and Cash,” 352. 24 For an example of an overemphasis on the power and influence of the national Klan see Nancy MacLean’s work Behind the Mask of Chivalry. MacLean does a service to the study of the second Klan by deeply engaging with Klan publications in an effort to understand the ideological elements underpinning the rise of the organization, but she is less successful in her attempts to link these ideological elements to actual Klan activities. MacLean’s chapter titled “Paramilitary Paternalism: The Politics of Terror,” showcases some of the problems with her attempts to speak to the homogeneity of the 1920s Klan and its activities around the country. At the beginning of the chapter, MacLean opens with a series of visceral retellings of a handful of lynchings that occurred in Georgia in the period before the rise of the Second Klan. The way the chapter is structured reads like an attempt to tie the actions of the lynch mobs directly to the Klan organization even though, “one cannot say for certain whether the rosters overlapped.” Furthermore, in the northern states like Ohio and Indiana color race lynching was not a primary element of Klan activities. MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry, 150.

101

This distinction is most obviously apparent when one examines places like the

Mahoning Valley in comparison with places such as Athens, Georgia. This comparison is

particularly appropriate because of Nancy MacLean’s assertions regarding the

homogenous nature of the Ku Klux Klan. MacLean examined official Klan publications

from the national headquarters and records from Athens Klan No. 5 in her work, Behind

the Mask of Chivalry, in an attempt to illustrate that the beliefs and ideology of Klansmen

across the country were of a universal nature. MacLean did this in response to what she

felt was the erroneous interpretation of the Klan as more of “a popular social movement,

not an extremist organization,” that sought to combat “real social problems, not symbolic

or imaginary fears.”25 In this way MacLean sought to argue against a number of local

Klan studies that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s that contended that the Klan activities

were unique to the local Klaverns in the different regions in which it took hold and

prospered. In some ways, MacLean was correct that much of what Klansmen of the time believed had some amount of continuity and consistency across the wide geographic range the Klan covered. However, there are several instances wherein the beliefs of

Klansmen in a place like Athens, Georgia, and the beliefs of Klansmen in a place like the

Mahoning Valley in Ohio simply were not matched in intensity or purpose and were in fact at odds with each other.

The most obvious instances of this kind were the creation of the Mahoning

Valley’s peculiar Klan auxiliaries. In the Mahoning Valley there arose a movement to allow naturalized Protestant immigrants to join a Klan auxiliary known as the Royal

Riders of the Red Robes, which had become popular in the West. The Royal Riders’ local

25 MacLean, Behind the Mask of Chivalry, xiii.

102

membership later merged with an organization founded in Youngstown that was known

as the American Krusaders.26 The existence of these auxiliary groups, and the fact that

Colonel Evan A. Watkins, one of the primary leaders of the Klan movement in the

Mahoning Valley was foreign-born, and, therefore ineligible to join the Ku Klux Klan,

illustrated the place of prominence Protestantism held within the doctrine of the 1920s

Ku Klux Klan. So powerful were Protestant ties that the Mahoning Valley Klansmen set

aside their seemingly complete rejection of immigrants to the United States to extend a

welcome to certain immigrants. This mirrors the earlier waves of anti-Alien movements

in the region, which were not so much rooted in opposition to immigrants as much as

they were rooted in opposition to certain immigrants, primarily Catholics. This religious

focus concerned the men of the Ku Klux Klan for a number of reasons, and their opposition to Catholic immigrants can be easily found upon the pages of the numerous local and national Klan newspapers and magazines.

In the Mahoning Valley the primary local Klan paper was a formerly Republican newspaper called the Youngstown Citizen. In August of 1923 the editor of the

Youngstown Citizen, Web Brown, openly declared an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan by publishing on the paper’s front page a political cartoon welcoming in the Klan as a means to remove law breakers from Mahoning County.27 The curious thing about the transition

from being Youngstown’s Republican paper to the being the city’s Klan newspaper was

that in the early months of the switch, the paper seemed to have undergone very little

transition at all. Prior to coming out as a Klan newspaper, the headlines on the front page

of the paper were concerned with local elections, immigration, and law enforcement.

26 “Royal Riders of the Red Robes,” The Citizen, 15 January 1925, 1. 27“Get Out and Keep Out,” Youngstown Citizen, 23 August 1923, 1.

103

After the official endorsement of the Klan on August 23, 1923, the paper still carried

headlines on its front page concerned with law enforcement and the virtues of

Prohibition, but the tone had shifted. No longer was the paper’s editor simply recommending adherence to law and order, as he had done for the last few months; instead, the paper now seemed to be demanding conformity to a Protestant worldview which held blue laws and Prohibition in the highest regard and demanded that local leaders enforce them to the fullest extent.28

In addition to the shift in tone regarding law enforcement, the paper also carried

the first of a long line of articles, conspiratorial in tone, regarding the efforts of Roman

Catholics to undermine Protestant institutions and standing in the community. In this case

the editor railed against the Cleveland, Ohio-based Catholic Universe for publishing an article warning mothers against allowing their children to attend YMCA camps in the summer, because of the organization’s connections to Protestant hostility toward

Catholics and the negative effects it might have on their children’s Catholic faith. The overall tone of the article from the Catholic Universe seemed relatively restrained even if the author expressed a desire to avoid mixing with Protestants at summer camp. The response from the Citizen was anything but restrained. Instead, the editor attacked with overwhelming vitriol. At one point asking, “Does the bigoted ecclesiastical editor of the

‘Catholic Universe,’ of Cleveland think protestants [sic] in Ohio will lie down and permit itself [sic] to be a cleaning mat for the dirty boot of a depraved Catholic scribe?” The editor then explained how attacks on Protestantism such as those mentioned in the article were

28 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 37.

104

the kind of stuff which has given birth to Klanism, Orangeism, the A.P.A. and similar organizations, and as long as Rome flaunts such filthy and offensive statements and implications in the faces of protestants, she must expect reply and look for organized effort to combat a system of religion in America which will dare to be so arrogant, contemptible and grovelling [sic].29 This anti-Catholic tenor remained the tone of the paper over the course of its time as the

primary Klan organ in the Mahoning Valley. The employment of Colonel Evan Watkins

as an editor of the Youngstown Citizen led to some interesting editorial choices, one of

which was the use of the paper to advance the cause of Klan auxiliaries made up of

naturalized Protestant immigrants.

The formation of the naturalized citizen Klan auxiliaries in the Mahoning Valley

was likely a direct result of Colonel Watkins role in organizing and advancing the agenda

of the Klan in the region. Watkins’s personal history and story remain a mystery even

now, just as they had been in his own time. A first-rate storyteller and salesman, Watkins, a Welsh immigrant, understood that in order to assist kluxing activities in the region he would have to stand out as an accomplished and renowned man. To this end, Watkins fabricated an elaborate biography for himself that included service as an officer in both the British and Canadian armed forces.30 Unsurprisingly, as any successful con man must

be, Watkins was known as an incredibly charming man and he apparently had enough

fluency in foreign languages to bolster his claims of having served under British General

Edmund Allenby in the Middle East during World War I.31

29 “Roman Catholic Attack on Y.M.C.A.: The “Y” Considered Unfit For Catholic Boys,” Youngstown Citizen, 23 August 1923, 1. 30 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 144. 31 Ibid, 144-145.

105

The fact that Watkins had, or claimed, some connection to Canada actually makes sense when coupled with the actual formation of a branch of the Royal Riders of the Red

Robes in Youngstown. Based on the work of historian Mark Paul Richard, there seems to be a strong connection between the Royal Riders and Canadian immigrants.32 In his work, Richard pointed out that the Royal Riders of the Red Robes in the western states of

Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Colorado all had large numbers of Canadian expatriates within their ranks.33 Richard also argued that the Klan had widespread support within the New England states from naturalized Protestant citizens of Canadian birth due to their opposition to French-Canadian immigrants in the region.34 For its part, the Klan’s Ladies Auxiliary leadership in the state of Maine were so willing to look the other way regarding Canadian immigrants of the Protestant faith that some had been temporarily admitted to the actual order.35 Although the women were eventually forced out of the group, the willingness to even momentarily allow them membership speaks volumes about the primary importance of the Protestant faith to the Klan and its auxiliaries. Furthermore, the fact that anti-Catholicism aimed at French Canadian immigrants was the primary motivation of those naturalized Canadian immigrants who joined Klan auxiliaries illustrates the borderless nature of the hatred that existed between

Catholics and Protestants at the time. Richard even discussed the peculiar instance of Ku

Klux Klan organizers infiltrating parts of Canada.36 Again, this speaks to the popularity

32 Mark Paul Richard, “’Why Don’t You Be a Klansman?’ Anglo-Canadian Support for the Ku Klux Klan Movement in 1920s New England,” American Review of Canadian Studies 40 no. 4 (December 2010), 508-516. 33 Ibid, 509. 34 Ibid, 512-513. 35 Ibid, 513. 36 Ibid, 510.

106 of the Klan’s brand of hatred directed toward Catholics, since it was apparently even successful in other nations where everyone was barred by their birth in that nation from becoming a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Another group that sought to alleviate the problems of international borders in the proliferation of the Klan agenda was the Order of the Crusaders. The group arrived in the state of Ohio sometime in 1923 and by August of 1924 efforts were being made to locate its national headquarters in Youngstown.37 Like the Royal Riders of the Red Robes, the

American Crusaders allowed Canadians who migrated to the United States to join. The

American Crusaders was an affiliate of not only the United States’ Ku Klux Klan, but it also was a sister organization to another international group known as the Order of

Crusaders in England and the Canadian Crusaders. An article in Youngstown’s Klan newspaper from August of 1924 noted that the Order of Crusaders even claimed members in Australia.38

According to the article, the Order of the Crusaders had been formed in England and Canada and proudly represented itself as a militant Protestant organization led by

Brigadier General Edward Cecil Bethune, K.C.B. in England.39 As a Protestant organization, the group obviously barred Jews and Catholics from membership, but it also seems to have limited its membership in England to veterans of World War I.40 This was not the case in the United States, where the article claimed the group was initially organized for women, before opening its membership to men. The article’s author

37 “Order of American Crusaders,” Youngstown Citizen, 30 August 1924, 2. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid.

107 believed that the expansion of the organization into Canada and the United States was a clear “indication of the reawakening of patriotic Protestants the world over to the menace to civil government inherent in the power of the papacy.”41 Despite an apparent obsession with the secrecy of the group’s activities and rosters, the organization claimed that, “It has no element of hate, but preaches a gospel of love.”42 To further illustrate its benign intentions the group’s motto read, “Patriotism, Equality, Fraternity, and Justice.”43 Both their ideological claims and motto come off as somewhat contradictory when paralleled against their membership prohibitions and fearmongering over the inherent threat of the papacy. It seems that for members of the group concepts like “Equality” only applied to fellow Protestants.

The Crusaders militancy was evident in all aspects of the organization including their attire. In particular, the dress of the Canadian order sounded like something out of a medieval faire. The members allegedly wore a khaki cloak bearing the symbol of a sword in the shape of a “blood red” cross. Instead of the hood of their compatriots in the Klan, the Canadian Crusaders wore a “steel trench helmet.” The look was finished off with the addition of spurs, a girdle, and “a broadsword of the Crusader type.” Perhaps the

Canadians thought the “plumed hat of the English order” was just a little too over-the- top.44

The militant aspects of the organization did not stop with their apparel choices, because a list of the groups planned activities revealed similar interests. In addition to

41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid.

108 bringing Protestant veterans together for fraternal reasons the group also claimed, “Men will be instructed in drill, intelligence work, and other branches which will render them more serviceable to the State, particularly in emergencies.”45 One questions what State emergency would require average male civilian citizens to practice intelligence work, but policing the drinking habits of one’s Catholic neighbors might be one possibility that would have appealed to Crusaders. The international nature of the collaborative efforts of the Ku Klux Klan and the various Crusader entities does much to dispel any stereotype of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan being primarily an organization of backwards looking, hate- filled Southerners. More research on the activities of the Crusaders outside of the United

States is needed to understand how well aligned the efforts of the international group were with the Klan and its agenda, but the Mahoning Valley offers a chance to see how closely tied the two groups were within the United States.

By 1924, the American Crusaders joined the Royal Riders of the Red Robes as the second of two Klan auxiliaries in the Mahoning Valley. The fight over whether or not the group was the American Crusaders or Krusaders reveals a schism of a sort in the leadership of the group. Colonel Watkins, editor of the Youngstown Citizen, seemed to be in the camp of those who were closely aligned with the international order of the

Crusaders, but in nearby Summit County, Ohio the leadership leaned toward use of the spelling with a “K,” which leads one to believe local Klan leaders influenced the

45 Ibid. Another article discussing the American Crusaders talked about purchasing a ship, so that children could be drilled in naval maneuvers and to allow them to enjoy “all the advantages of fresh air and freedom from the polluting influences of the crowded city.” Additionally, foreigners would be “taught duty to the United States, [and] the responsibilities of citizenship.” “American Crusaders,” Youngstown Citizen, 20 September 1924, 4.

109 change.46 Initially, the only officially recognized and verifiable order of Crusaders in the

State of Ohio was the one which had been chartered in Youngstown. This organization seems to have been founded by Watkins, who took great offense to the recruiting activities of one O. S. Fowls in Akron. Watkins went to great lengths in an editorial to describe how Fowls was not affiliated with the Crusaders, was a native-born U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible for membership in the Crusaders, and was not authorized to solicit members for the organization. In regards to a claim that Akron was the headquarters of the organization Watkins argued that it was not and any claims to that effect would be vigorously contested. Watkins continued stating, “To spell the Akron product with ‘K’ instead of a ‘C’ will not help the situation any more than spelling coward with a ‘K’ will help the character of this type of person.”47 Obviously the

Crusaders, much like the Klan before them, jealously guarded their market-share and did not take kindly to others encroaching upon their sales territory.48

A peculiar thing occurred in the next issue of the Citizen after Watkins attacked the rival organizer in Akron―he announced that he was resigning his position as editor of the paper and taking some time off to rest. Watkins claimed that he and the stockholders of the Citizen were no longer ideologically aligned, as he feared that the paper was heading down a path far removed from his “conception of sane and safe journalism.”49 There exists no direct evidence that Watkins resigned his position at the

Citizen as a result of the insults he hurled at O.S. Fowls, the Krusaders organizer from

46 “The Real American Crusaders,” Youngstown Citizen, 2 October 1924, 4. 47 Ibid. 48 “American Krusader Movement: Klansmen Exerting Every Effort to Promote Clean Propagation Work in Ohio,” The Citizen, 1 January 1925, 1. 49 “E.A. Watkins Leaves the Citizen,” Youngstown Citizen, 9 October 1924, 4.

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Akron, but the timing lends itself to such speculation. The Summit County Klan had a

huge presence within the Ohio Realm and Watkins may have run afoul of its leadership

with his disparaging comments. Additionally, the fact that the American Crusaders in the

Mahoning Valley and elsewhere were soon known exclusively as the American

Krusaders made it apparent who lost control of the organization.50 Over the course of the

next several months, the Krusaders would appear frequently in articles in the Citizen describing their activities as regular guests of the Klan at local events. In fact, by January of 1925, the group would be the only officially-sanctioned naturalized citizen auxiliary in the region, as all members of the Royal Riders of the Red Robes were asked to transfer their membership into the renamed American Krusaders by March 1, 1925.51

The presence of American Krusaders at Klan events seemed to increase steadily throughout 1925, with mentions of the various activities of Krusader orders from different counties in Northeast Ohio regularly appearing in the Citizen’s columns. The increased attention paid to the activities and promotion of the Krusaders organization could simply mean that the order was gaining in prestige in the eyes of local Klansmen eager to expand their sphere of influence into Protestant immigrant communities.

50 “Important Meeting—Klansmen, Klanswomen and Krusaders at the Farm on Sunday: Matters of Great Importance Will Come Before This Meeting,” The Citizen, 23 October 1924, 1. This issue marks the first time the Krusaders were spelled with a “K.” The paper had also dropped the Youngstown from its name. My contention is that the paper was attempting to become the Klan paper of all of Northeast Ohio and chose to push out Watkins after his attack on the Akron organizer in order to gain the favor of the Summit County Klan. Removing the paper’s location from its title would have also helped with this process. One possible reason for this was the rate of attrition at which Klan membership may have begun to decrease at this time. The year 1924 had seen much violence between Klansmen and anti-Klan protesters and it is reasonable to infer that members may have begun rethinking their membership even before the riot in November of 1924 that hastened the collapse of the local Klan. 51 “Royal Riders of the Red Robes,” The Citizen, 15 January 1925, 1.

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However, the increased attention and openness to the order coincided with the rapid

decline of membership within the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley and elsewhere

in 1925, so it could be that the expansion of the Krusaders was merely an attempt to

bolster the ranks of those who remained affiliated with the Klan. This sort of rear-guard

action would make sense as the Klan hemorrhaged members shaken by the events of the

November 1, 1924 Niles anti-Klan riot. Even if that happened to be the case, the

willingness of the Klan in the Mahoning Valley to welcome in certain immigrants calls

into question any attempt to paint the organization as entirely opposed to immigration.

Rather, it seems obvious that the religious affiliation of immigrants was of primary

importance to members of the Mahoning Valley Klan.

Beyond the Royal Riders of the Red Robes and the American Krusaders

auxiliaries, in March of 1924 there was an even stranger attempt to create a Klan

auxiliary in the Mahoning Valley based on shared Protestant heritage, when membership

was offered to local African-Americans. It would be difficult to imagine Klansmen in

Georgia calling for solidarity with local African-Americans regardless of their shared

Protestant heritage. To allow African-Americans to attempt to publicly form their own

Klan affiliated organization seems downright preposterous and even less likely in the

South, but in the North there were attempts to do just that, and the first one ever was in

Youngstown, Ohio.

As shocking as it might be for one to consider the concept of an African-

American Klansmen in the year 2016, it actually makes more sense when the reader

examines items written by Klansmen during the 1920s, and when one considers the

Protestant foundation upon which the 1920s Klan was firmly built. Simply put, one of the

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primary issues concerning Klansmen in the 1920s was the large number of Catholic

immigrants arriving in the country. In Northern cities like Youngstown, with relatively

small populations of African-Americans, the Catholic invasion was far more pressing to

Klansmen than any issues related to racial differences. As with the formation of the

naturalized immigrant Klan auxiliaries, the ideological foundation of the attempt to form

an African-American Klan auxiliary can be found on the pages of the local Klan

newspapers.

Warren, Ohio’s Klan newspaper, The Buckeye American, took the argument of

Protestant solidarity preached by the editor of the Youngstown Citizen a step further in an

article titled “Colored Race Naturally Protestant,” which urged readers to maintain the

religious status quo with local African-Americans.52 In the article, the unnamed author implored that, “White Protestant people must save the negro from the rash steps of turning away from that faith.”53 The author of the article first claimed that Protestant institutions and free public schools provided African-Americans with their freedom, their educational and vocational training, and finally had created for them a place within the community. Then the author expressed concern that despite all of this, African-American

Protestants might be susceptible to conversion to Catholicism and the author expressed

52 The Youngstown Citizen was not the only Klan newspaper in the Mahoning Valley, in fact it may not have even been the first, as The Buckeye American, which was published in Warren, Ohio in Trumbull County seems to have been created several weeks before the Citizen came out in favor of the Klan. The only known existing issue of The Buckeye American, dated 11 September 1923, has a volume number of 1 and an issue number of 10. Since the paper called itself a weekly, one can posit that the paper was first published on Tuesday, July 10, 1923, putting it around six weeks before the Citizen’s public transition. To my knowledge, the only copy of this paper is on microfilm at the Warren-Trumbull County Library in Warren, Ohio. “Colored Race Naturally Protestant,” The Buckeye American 1, no.10, 11 September 1923, 1. 53 Ibid.

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hope that “colored leaders [would] not forget these facts and be induced to break away

from that faith.”54 On the surface the article reads like a run of the mill patriarchal article

reminding African-Americans that what little they had in the United States was given to

them by Protestants, but beneath that message lay a certain amount of fear that there

really was a chance African-Americans would seek to ally themselves to the growing

number of Catholics in the region. This fear evidenced itself in the advice the author gave

to his readers on how to convince African-Americans that they would not want to be a part of the Catholic faith. The author attempted in an awkward mix of condescending racial stereotyping and clumsy praise for the spirituality of African-Americans to inform them that they would never be able to assimilate into the Catholic religion. The author stated, “The colored man in his emotional makeup would never be at home within the papal fold and be submissive to the orders of the priest, for when he gets religion, it’s the kind which develops emotion, and talks, and talking is a thing the Catholic does not get to do.”55 Of course the author did not miss the opportunity to take aim at Catholic

spirituality, which at the end of the day was also a primary target of the rant. Beyond

attacking Catholics, another primary goal of the author was finding a way to keep

African-Americans under Protestant influence and within the Klan’s voting bloc in order

to combat threats to Protestant power from recently organized immigrant voting groups

within the rapidly changing communities of the Mahoning Valley.

A few months later, on the night of March 20, 1924, in what might be one of the

strangest episodes in the history of the 1920s Klan, an estimated crowd of three hundred

African-Americans gathered in Youngstown, Ohio to burn a large “L” in honor of the

54 Ibid. 55 Ibid.

114 formation of a “Colored Klan.”56 According to conflicting newspaper accounts of the event the group either chose the name the Knights of the Loyal Legion of Lincoln, or

Lincoln’s United Knights of Equality.57 The ceremony tried to have all of the trappings of a Ku Klux Klan rally, but had limited success in this regard despite the leader of the event, the Reverend R. Paul Russell, claiming that the group would conduct its public demonstrations “on the orders of those conducted by that organization.”58 In this case, this meant that before the featured speaker began his oration, a framed portrait of

President Lincoln, draped in an American flag was raised up in front of the speaker, a fusillade of rockets were fired off and torches set fire to a gigantic blazing “L.”59 Aside from the crowd of incoming “Klansmen” consisting of African-American men, the other glaring difference between this first meeting of the Loyal Legion and that of a Ku Klux

Klan rally was the fact that hooded figures in white robes were missing from the festivities. There was a photograph of the event in the Youngstown Vindicator which showed that those attending were not clad in robes. However, along with the photograph of the crowd there was an inset image of the movement’s founder, Rev. Russell, and in that image the Reverend was shown wearing a robe and some sort of pointed cap, but no

56 “Colored Klan Organized: Lincoln’s United Knights of Equality Formed Here,” The Youngstown Telegraph, 21 March 1924, 3. 57 The Youngstown Vindicator account of the initial event mentioned the most details of the actual “L” burning and claimed the name of the organization was the Loyal Legion of Lincoln; however, the other major paper in Youngstown at the time, the Youngstown Telegraph listed the organizations name as “Lincoln’s United Knights of Equality” and claimed they called themselves the “Lukes.” “Black Legion Burns Big ‘L’: New Organization Here, Similar to Klan, Holds Ceremony at North Ave.,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 21 March 1924, 3. And “Colored Klan Organized: Lincoln’s United Knights of Equality Formed Here,” The Youngstown Telegraph, (21 March 1924), 3. 58 “Colored Klan Organized,” The Youngstown Telegraph, 3. 59 Ibid.

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mask, and it is impossible to say whether the robe in question was Klan certified.60 It

seems likely it was not. However, the Vindicator account included a description of the

proposed official robes which were “said to outdazzle any other fraternal garb.”61

Following the initial excitement of the “L” burning, the crowd was introduced by

the Rev. Russell to the principles and proposed program of the nation’s first “Negro

Klan.”62 Based on newspaper accounts of Rev. Russell’s speech, one can hear the echoes

of Klan propaganda being presented to the crowd by the “tall minister from the South.”

First Russell stressed that the Knights were a “100 per cent Protestant organization and

that it was here to stay.”63 Then the speaker claimed, “We have a thousand members in

Youngstown already and will have 15,000 in three months’ time.”64 Continuing to align the organization with Klan values, Rev. Russell went on to criticize “the Catholic church for its attitude in regards to the Klan” and argued that “the Klan had been beneficial in the South.”65 Following that shocking assessment, Russell went further and declared himself against equality, which makes the group’s alleged Lincoln’s United Knights of

Equality moniker quite ironic.66 Finally, Russell “concluded his address by saying, “The

negro will develop by co-operating with his white Protestant brothers.”67 With that said,

60 “Lincoln United Knights, ‘Colored Klan,’ Foundation Here; Burn Big ‘L’ Thursday Eve,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 7. 61 “Black Legion Burns ‘L,’” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 3. 62 Ibid. 63 Ibid. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 For this reason I have chosen to use the Loyal Legion of Lincoln as the probable name of the organization. It just seems unlikely that the group would have placed the word “Equality” in their name and then announced their opposition to the ideal. Ibid. 67 Ibid.

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the event came to a close and the newspapers reported that there had been no

disturbances at the event.68

The fact that there were no disturbances at the Loyal Legion of Lincoln’s

inaugural “L” burning was impressive for a few reasons. The first was that only three

days earlier, on March 17, or St. Patrick’s Day, Ku Klux Klan cross burnings in

Youngstown ended in a riotous affair between the Klansmen and the targets of their

intimidating displays.69 As it turns out, the Klansmen were made to realize the poor

judgment they exercised in choosing to burn several crosses across the city of

Youngstown on such an important holiday to local Irish Catholics. Around ten o’clock

that evening crosses burst into flame at several locations across the city; including one on

the campus of a local Catholic school.70 Police officers and firemen were dispatched to deal with the various flaming crosses, but the real mess occurred downtown.

Not surprisingly violence erupted at the foot of a fifteen foot tall cross set ablaze in the city’s Central Square where an estimated two thousand people had gathered for the spectacle and accompanying speeches at midnight.71 Perhaps it had something to do with

the buildup of animosity over the course of the two hours’ time that passed between the

lighting of the first cross that night and the main event in downtown Youngstown, or

possibly it was simply due to the scheduling of the Klan event on a Catholic holiday, but,

for whatever reason, the local anti-Klan activists had had enough and fights broke out all

68 Ibid. 69 “Fights Follow Cross Burning: Police Called to Quiet Crowd in Central Square, Demonstrations Staged, Kluxers Oppose St. Patrick’s Day Observations,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 18 March 1924, 1. 70 Ibid. 71 Ibid.

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around the burning cross. The small contingent of officers present in the square to watch

over the gathering realized they were powerless to maintain order after the first fights

erupted and immediately called for backup. Soon officers from all over the city left their

regular beats in an attempt to restore order. Due to the chaos and large crowd, no arrests

were made, and efforts were primarily aimed at dispersing the crowd, which the police

were able to do by one in the morning.72

Violence of this sort associated with Klan rallies and anti-Klan reactions would become a recurring theme in the Mahoning Valley over the course of the year, so it truly was surprising that no trouble resulted from the rally held by the Loyal Legion. In addition to its close proximity to the St. Patrick’s Day riot, and the fact that it was such a provocative gathering, it would have seemed reasonable for a gathering of “Colored

Klansmen” to be either opposed by anti-Klan immigrants or even members of the Ku

Klux Klan, but neither occurred. Perhaps the Klan welcomed the activities of local

African-Americans for the reasons outlined in the Klan newspaper articles from the previous year. It seems possible that in the wake of the violence of the rally two days earlier, the Klan might have been momentarily supportive of others joining their cause, even when, as was the case with the Loyal Legion, the men seeking to ally with them were black. Even if they were not actively supportive, they were not so opposed that they hastily mounted a counter rally, or gathered a brute squad to break up the event.

Far from opposing the event, circumstantial evidence exists that the local Ku Klux

Klan actually facilitated the attempted creation of the Loyal Legion. An article appeared in the Youngstown Vindicator on Thursday March 27, 1924, only seven days after the

72 Ibid.

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burning “L,” which disclosed that as early as November of 1923, the Mahoning County

Klan had considered breaking off from the Atlanta-based national Klan organization and allying itself with the Independent Klan of Muncie, Indiana.73 This particular article,

paired with a later article from the Helena Independent, dated February 11, 1925, sheds

even further light on this situation. The Helena Independent article, titled “Negroes

Forming Independent Klan: Is Not Connected with Ku Klux,” discussed the recent

formation in Muncie, Indiana of a “negro klan organization to be known as the Abraham

Lincoln auxiliary to the Independent Klan of America.”74 Although the Mahoning

County Klan remained affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, the Independent Klan of

America did form in Muncie, Indiana in 1924.75 The “national code” of the Abraham

Lincoln auxiliary mirrored that of the Loyal Legion of Lincoln and outlined the objects

and purposes of the new group as follows:

…to unite in fraternal bonds Afro-American citizens who owe no allegiance of any nature or degree to any foreign government, institution, sect, ruler, person or people; whose morals and habits are good; whose reputation and vocations are of a respectable nature; who are sound in mind and above the full age of 18 years; who under a common oath form into fraternity of strict requirements to promote love for our country; to safeguard the sanctity of women; to so live and conduct ourselves that racial purity will be perpetuated on earth, as in our judgement God intended.76 Although the Abraham Lincoln auxiliary formed in Muncie, Indiana in 1925 was

allied with the Independent Klan and not the Ku Klux Klan, the roots of the organization

73 “Klan Here May Go Independent,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 27 March 1924, 11. 74 “Negroes Forming Independent Klan,” The Helena Independent, 11 February 1925, 1. Further north in that same year Gary, Indiana in May three black men allegedly won seats on the city council because they were “adherents of the Ku Klux Klan.” “Three Negro Klan Members Win at Polls,” The Sioux City Sunday Journal, 10 May 1925, 1. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid.

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were in Youngstown, Ohio with the Mahoning County Ku Klux Klan in 1924. This

stands in contrast to the argument that the Klan of the 1920s was a homogenized

organization with all Klaverns in ideological lock step with the national headquarters in

Georgia. It will never be known, but it seems unlikely that African-American men in

Atlanta would have been able to hold a similar rally to the one which occurred in

Youngstown, or to form an organization such as the one created in Muncie, Indiana.

Possibly because no violence had marred the proceedings of their first meeting, the Loyal Legion of Lincoln afterwards announced to the newspapers that there were two more local parades of their new Klan organization already planned. The first was to occur two days later on Sunday when the Knights planned to march to Girard for a meeting at the “Colored Baptist Church.” Following that they were to march again on April 14 in

Youngstown to commemorate the death of President Lincoln.77 However, due to the

actions of the new order’s founder, Rev. Russell, these planned events never occurred.

Immediately after the successful completion of the “Colored” Klan’s first public

meeting and “L” burning, Associated Press reports of the organization spread rapidly

across the rest of the country. From Indiana to Iowa, California to Mississippi, and from

Maryland to New York newspaper editors tried to make sense out of the story coming out

of Youngstown. Some editors just reprinted what was likely to have gone out across the

wire service, but others likely could not comprehend the concept of a “negro Klan” and

erroneously referred to the organization as being anti-Klan.78 This misreporting occurred

77 Ibid. 78 “Fiery ‘L’ Believed To Be Sign of Negro Anti-Klan Society,” The Republican Press, 21 March 1924, 1. “Organize ‘Fiery L’ To Combat K.K.K.: Negro Organization,” Olean Evening Herald, 21 March 1924, 1.

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in at least two locations in New York state, but most editors seemingly were able to

suspend disbelief enough to correctly note that it was a “Klan” organization and not anti-

Klan. Even the Baltimore newspaper The Afro American took notice of the rally and

published an article about the group’s formation.79

Ironically, the widespread newspaper coverage of the formation of the “Colored

Klan” led directly to its almost instant decline. Despite there being no local public

opposition to the group in Youngstown during their first meeting, there would be no

further parades of Lincoln’s Knights. In fact, the “Colored Klan” far exceeded the Ku

Klux Klan in the rapidity that marked its collapse. In Youngstown, at least, the burning of

the fiery “L” by the Loyal Legion of Lincoln was a one-time occurrence. Before the ink

had dried on the initial reports of the group’s formation, local editors began receiving

calls from officials in several eastern cities making inquiries regarding the identity of the

leader of the Loyal Legion. These officials were convinced that Russell was a con artist

who had recently been released from the Rochester Penitentiary after serving a one year sentence related to charges of petit larceny.80

Apparently, the Rev. Russell had gone to Watertown, New York the previous

April “representing himself as financial agent for the Covington Colored Orphanage in

79 Other African-American newspapers near Youngstown like the Pittsburgh Courier did not publish any account of the incident. “’Klan’ Leader Now in Philly: Black Ku Klux Klan Head Flees Youngstown Ohio After Burning of Fiery ‘L,’ Has ‘Pen’ Record, Leader Asked White Klansmen For Loan of Robes For Ohio Demonstration,” The Afro American, 28 March 1924, 1. 80 “Ask Identity of Dr. Russell: Eastern Cities Query If Head of ‘Black Klan’ Here Isn’t Ex- Convict,” The Youngstown Vindicator, 24 March 1924, 1.

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Bowling Green, Kentucky” and gotten himself into some legal trouble.81 The Reverend’s

troubles stemmed from an earlier incident in Elmira, New York where he had borrowed

twenty five dollars from a grocer by offering a typewriter as collateral for the loan.82 The

only problem was that the typewriter belonged to the owner of the town’s local office

equipment store. While in Elmira and the surrounding area, Russell had been claiming to

be a representative of the Traveling Music Conservatory of Nashville, Tennessee and

called himself the “Black Moody.”83 It seems that the Reverend’s propensity for misrepresenting himself ultimately was his undoing when he was arrested in the town of

Copenhagen, New York, near Watertown, “following charges that he was not as he represented himself to be.”84 In this case, the Reverend had again been claiming to be a

representative of the orphanage in Kentucky as well as a school for the blind in the same

state. Apparently, the townspeople had been warned by a clergyman in Tonawanda,

Pennsylvania that Russell was not the man he was claiming to be and had received word

from Kentucky that he was not known to anyone there.85 As a result, the Reverend’s

Hudson limousine had been pulled over and he was arrested. At the time of his arrest,

Russell was in the company of “a young colored man and wife and two colored girls,”

who were believed to be his adopted daughters.86 Little more was reported of this

81 Hearing this must have piqued the interest of the local editors in the Mahoning Valley since Russell had been identified variously in their own stories as having been a native of Atlanta, Georgia, or Roseland, Mississippi. Ibid. 82 “Black Moody in Toils of Police: Colored Evangelist Arrested in Watertown on Larceny Charge,” The Auburn Citizen, 2 May 1923, 9. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. Another article from the Interlaken Review in Interlaken, NY claimed that the Reverend also faced kidnapping charges related to the fifteen year old and three year old girls who were in his company when he was arrested. Contrary to the report in the

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incident, but it seems that the Reverend served his time and had been released from

prison in January, three months early, for good behavior.87

Whether or not the Reverend had a sense that he should not remain in

Youngstown after his successful “Klan” meeting, or possibly because he had actual

business elsewhere, Russell was not in town when news of his criminal record broke.

Instead, he was in Philadelphia, and according to articles published at the time his efforts

to obtain funds to return to Youngstown were refused and he was never reported to have

been in the city again.88 Like its founder, the Loyal Legion of Lincoln never again

marched in the Mahoning Valley either.

Unraveling the strange mixture of motivations that had to exist on both sides of

the color line in order for the creation of even a failed African-American Klan auxiliary

to have existed requires consideration of the ideological affiliation of the local African-

American population in the Mahoning Valley, as well as additional insight into the local

Klan’s attitude toward African-Americans. Only through the unpacking of these seemingly polar opposite thought streams does the aborted formation of the Loyal Legion

of Lincoln make any sense. When considering the ideological affiliation of local African

Americans in the Mahoning Valley, one must start with the fact that there was not a

chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in

Auburn newspaper, which claimed the two girls who sang in his choir were from the orphanage in Kentucky, the girls were possibly from Freehold, New Jersey. At least that was what the Interlaken article claimed. Since he had been found to be an imposter in regards to his connections to the Kentucky orphanage the New Jersey story could be a possibility. Unfortunately I have not been able to substantiate that possibility. “Interlaken and Vicinity,” Interlaken Review, 11 May 1923, 3. 87 “Ask Identity of Dr. Russell,” Youngstown Vindicator, 24 March 1924, 1. 88 “’Klan’ Leader Now in Philly,” The Afro American, 28 March 1924, 1.

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the region in the 1920s. Instead, African-Americans in Youngstown had created a chapter of Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).89 The fact that

African Americans in the Mahoning Valley supported this rival organization to the

NAACP actually makes sense when one considers the content of the Loyal Legion of

Lincoln speech given by the Rev. Russell. Like Russell, Marcus Garvey, the leader of the

UNIA, was also opposed to racial integration and social equality.

In order to comprehend the complex interplay of Garveyites and the Ku Klux

Klan one must begin with an understanding of Marcus Garvey and his vision of global

African redemption. Garvey’s meteoric rise to prominence within the African-American community in the United States began with his arrival in the country in 1916. Over the course of the next eight years, Garvey built the UNIA into one the largest African-

American and black cultural organizations of all-time. According to one recent historian

of Garvey, the UNIA boasted “tens of thousands of members, and millions of admirers”

and his “rhetoric of ‘Garveyism’ was carried by sailors, migrant workers, and other

mobile black subjects to nearly every corner of the African diaspora.”90 Garvey’s

message focused on uplifting the African race, not through collaborative efforts toward

social equality between white reformers and integrationists within organizations like the

NAACP, but rather through the formation of economic opportunities from within the

global black community. Garvey believed that whites would never respect or accept blacks as equals until blacks themselves controlled their own economic destiny and had built up a country or culture of admirable strength. To this end, Garvey and the UNIA

89 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 21. 90 Adam Ewing, The Age of Garvey: How a Jamaican Activist Created a Mass Movement and Changed Global Black Politics (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2014), 1.

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attempted to pool economic resources for a variety of black owned operations. These

ranged from an attempt to create black-owned industrial operations, factories, and small businesses to Garvey’s audacious efforts to raise capital from individual black investors to purchase and operate a fleet of steamships to be named the Black Star Line. The Black

Star Line ultimately led to Garvey’s downfall in the United States. Mismanagement of funds and poor business decisions led to the collapse of the corporation and the aftermath of the resulting legal struggles included Garvey’s conviction for mail fraud and eventually his deportation in 1927.91

Before Garvey went to jail in 1924, he had spread his message to a wide audience

and established a global following, but his greatest success had been in organizing

chapters of the UNIA in the United States.92 Although the UNIA headquartered its

operations in the less hostile environment of Harlem, chapters of the organization

emerged all over the country where African Americans lived including in the South and

the industrial Midwest. In Youngstown, Ohio Garvey’s message must have resonated

with the recently arrived African-American population where not only a chapter of the

UNIA formed, but so too was a chapter of the ladies auxiliary Black Cross Nurses established. Garvey himself even spoke at least two times in Youngstown.

Garvey’s first visit to Youngstown occurred in April of 1923 and attracted “[o]ne

of the largest crowds which ever visited the Booker T. Washington Settlement.”93 In his

address, Garvey laid out his plan for the global consolidation of all black people in order

91 Ibid. 92 See Ewing’s Chapter Three “Africa for Africans” for a more in-depth discussion of the breadth of Garvey’s global reach. Ewing, The Age of Garvey, 76-106. 93 “Interesting News Notes For Colored Folks,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 24 April 1923, 22.

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to bring about “a government for the protection of negroes throughout the world.”94

Garvey spoke as well of the militant edge of the UNIA, stating, “The stronger groups are

slowly pushing the weaker groups to the wall and this organization is for those who are

not afraid to fight, not afraid to work and not afraid to die.”95 He continued by describing the role of black soldiers in American wars and explaining that the UNIA now had

“6,000,000 who have already joined…who are not afraid to die to plant the flag of freedom.”96 Garvey walked back the tone of his rhetoric slightly in his closing remarks

by explaining that “the association was not organized to demoralize society or for

disturbance of the peace but for the things that are vital to the race.”97 Despite his efforts

to temper the rhetoric in his concluding remarks, Garvey had said enough to cause local

leaders to consider him dangerous to race relations in the community.

In October of 1923, the second time he visited Youngstown, a controversy erupted when Mayor George Reese initially threatened to block Garvey from speaking.

Before Garvey arrived in town for a scheduled October 2 address, Mayor Reese held a conference with “local colored citizens, including several pastors, who protested against

the proposed meeting.”98 Reese claimed that he was prohibiting the event and instructed

members of the police to forcibly block the proceedings, because he had been told that

Garvey’s “talks stir up racial hatred” and he felt that such talks were “uncalled for in this

94 Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid. 98 “Reese Forbids Garvey Speech: Mayor Tells Police to Prevent Meeting―Address Causes Protest,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 22 September 1923, 1.

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city.”99 Under public pressure, Reese relented, and, in fact, the mayor actually joined

Garvey onstage. 100 The speech delivered by Garvey on October 2, 1923 in Youngstown,

Ohio was actually important enough that it was preserved and included in the compilation of his works titled, Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey, which was edited by his

wife Amy Jacques-Garvey.101 The speech, titled “An Appeal to the Soul of White

America,” likely was tailor-made for this occasion because of the initial refusal of the mayor to allow Garvey to speak in Youngstown. Additionally, the topic became even more appropriate because Garvey was joined onstage by the city’s white mayor along with a highly respected local Judge, Joseph Heffernan, also a white man, who offered a

response to Garvey’s speech.102

In “An Appeal to the Soul of White America,” Garvey aimed his discussion at the

white leaders that joined him on the stage in Youngstown. To these white leaders and

more generally to all “liberal, philanthropic, liberty-loving” white Americans, Garvey

appealed for understanding and assistance in solving America’s “Negro problem.”103

However, Garvey’s words were not an appeal for assistance for a helpless race of people,

but rather were an argument against the current methods of the NAACP and its white

allies who he argued must “stop preaching and advocating the doctrine of ‘social

99 Ibid. 100 “Marcus Garvey Indicted Again,” The Youngstown Citizen, 9 August 1924, 3. 101 Amy Jacques-Garvey, ed. Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey: Volumes I & II. (New York: Atheneum, 1980) Vol. II, 1-6. 102 Judge Heffernan would later play a leading role in urging Governor Vic Donahey to send the Ohio National Guard to secure Niles during the 1924 riot. Additionally, Heffernan would go on to become the first Catholic Mayor of Youngstown in 1928. “Interesting News Notes For Local Colored Folks,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 3 October 1923, 23. 103 Jacques-Garvey, ed. Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Vol. II), 1.

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equality,’ meaning thereby the intermingling of both races, intermarriages, and general

social co-relationship.”104 Garvey believed that if these efforts were not abandoned racial

unrest would follow and the black race would suffer the most. Garvey claimed, “The two

extremes will get us nowhere, other than breeding hate, and encouraging discord, which

will eventually end disastrously to the weaker race.”105 In his speech, Garvey examined

the problem of the rapidly increasing white population in America and warned that the

coming centuries would bring an over-crowded country, where competition for food would reach dangerous levels and that there would be “no room for two competitive races, one strong , and the other one weak.”106 Garvey then explained that the solution to

the problem would be the formation of a nation for the black race, or, stated another way,

making Africa for Africans.107

Based on the number of appearances Garvey himself made in the Mahoning

Valley, for he also visited nearby Sharon, Pennsylvania, it would appear that the region

must have been seen as having strategic importance for the UNIA, or possibly the

members of its local chapters were active and loyal enough to warrant the extra attention

from Garvey. Newspaper evidence from the period seems to support the idea that the

Youngstown UNIA kept an active schedule, reports of the UNIA and the Black Cross

Nurses regular meetings appeared in the Youngstown Vindicator in a column titled

“Interesting News Notes For Local Colored Folk,” and both groups were firmly

entrenched locally by 1924 when the Reverend Russell attempted to organize the Loyal

104 Jacques-Garvey, ed. Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Vol. II), 3. 105 Ibid. 106 Ibid, 4. 107 Ibid.

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Legion of Lincoln.108 In fact, the UNIA met the Sunday before that fateful Thursday

rally.109 One wonders if any of those present at that meeting attended the later rally, or if

the idea to form a black Klan auxiliary was a UNIA initiative? Further research will have

to be done to confirm any theories related to the possibility of the Youngstown UNIA

chapter’s possible involvement in the attempt to form the Loyal Legion of Lincoln, but

evidence does exist related to Marcus Garvey’s interactions with the Ku Klux Klan and

the common ground occupied by the Garvey and Klan leaders regarding social equality

and miscegenation.

Garvey’s particular brand of racial activism, like the rise of the second Ku Klux

Klan, seems to have fit well within the period in the early 1920s when it reached its peak

power under Garvey. However, also like the Klan, the organization and its efforts become

less easy to understand if considered outside of that period. For instance, it would be

reasonable to expect a passage titled, “Race Purity a Desideratum,” to come from an

author writing for a Klan newspaper like the Youngstown Citizen. However, it may be

difficult now for many to believe that such a thought piece could be the work of a man

fighting for the uplift of the black race, not just in the United States, but around the

world. Like his earlier speech in Youngstown, Garvey’s own words on the subject

illustrated the complexity of the importance of race to both members of the UNIA and the

Ku Klux Klan:

It is the duty of the virtuous and morally pure of both the white and the black races to thoughtfully and actively protect the future of the two peoples, by vigorously opposing the destructive propaganda and vile

108 Mentions of meetings of these groups can be found in issues of the Youngstown Vindicator, from at least 1924 and 1925, in this regularly occurring column. 109 “Interesting News Notes For Local Colored Folk,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 17 March 1924, 23.

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efforts of the miscegenationists of the white race, and their associates, the hybrids of the Negro race. Miscegenation will lead to the moral destruction of both races, and the promotion of a hybrid caste that will have no social standing or moral background in a critical moral judgement of the life and affairs of the human race. The lower animals, some of even similar but opposite species, do not mate, living voluntarily in keeping with the laws of nature; yet man, the highest type of creation, has to be restrained, in some cases by severe human laws and punishment, from mating with even other species of the lower animals. Something is wrong. The agitation for social equality is but a sham, and all self- respecting whites and blacks should frown upon the extraneous arguments adduced by its advocates. The Black race, like the white, is proud of its own society and will yield nothing in the desire to keep itself pure and ward off a monstrous subjugation of its original and natural type, by which creation is to be judged, as a race responsible for its own acts, and held accountable in the final analysis for the presentation itself, before the Judgment seat of God. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin; and we shall not.110

The title of Garvey’s thought piece and much of its content sounds quite similar to the earlier piece in this chapter taken from the local Klan paper. However, unlike the

Klan article, Garvey said nothing about the inferiority of blacks, nor did he advocate white supremacy. Instead, Garvey’s rhetoric was charged with an element of Black pride, but with enough understanding of the forces arrayed against African redemption in the

United States to make his statements acceptable to communities vehemently opposed to the advancement of black people.

In many ways, Garvey’s own organizing techniques mimic or parallel those of the

Ku Klux Klan. For instance, because organizing in the South represented such a

110 This passage was titled, “Race Purity a Desideratum.” Amy Jacques-Garvey, ed. Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Vol. II), 62.

130 precarious undertaking in the 1920s, Garvey’s recruiters, like Klan Kleagles, would canvas a targeted area, learn the tenor of local racial tensions, and create an UNIA platform particular to the needs and conditions of the specific location.111 As Adam

Ewing wrote in his history of the UNIA movement, the “strategy involved a careful appraisal of the forces arrayed against black political activism, and required a privileging of locally grounded, situational tactics over abstract appeals for shibboleths like ‘social equality,’ which both local Garveyites and national officials deemed dangerous and impractical.”112 This style of recruiting led to success in creating UNIA branches in extremely hostile environments, but it also led to an ostensible overlapping of UNIA goals with those of local white supremacists and to Garvey being ostracized by most of the black intelligentsia.113 The overlapping elements of “race purity, social separatism,

[and] African emigration,” however, were not just add-ons to please the local white population.114 Garvey’s global program did contain these elements, because at its foundation lay the desire to uplift the entire African race by re-creating an Africa for

Africans and by creating an economic movement not dependent upon white assistance and impervious to assault by whites who might oppose it. In some ways, the manner in which their goals aligned might have been convenient, but in other ways Garvey had created a system that, if it had been successful, would have outflanked the white supremacists who might have been lulled into not meddling with it, because of Garvey’s loud condemnation of dangerous sounding efforts like those of the NAACP toward social equality.

111 Ewing, The Age of Garvey, 137-139. 112 Ewing, The Age of Garvey, 137-138. 113 Ewing, The Age of Garvey, 138. 114 Ibid.

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Understanding the influence of Garvey on the UNIA’s social platform, the influence of the local UNIA chapter over the interests of the local black community in

Youngstown, and the overlap of Garvey’s views on certain issues with those of the Ku

Klux Klan, the seemingly bizarre attempt to create a “Negro Klan” becomes less strange.

Garvey himself had stated, “[t]he farmer is a Klansman, the policeman is a Klansman, the police captain is a Klansman, the Mayor of the city is a Klansman; the Governor is a

Klansman” and Garvey believed that the strength of the Klan network and white supremacy more generally was a force “that had real consequences.”115 Therefore,

Garvey took unconventional steps to deal with the Klan threat. For instance, he met with

Edward Young Clarke in June of 1922, though the meeting did little to help Garvey’s image, and led to W.E.B. Du Bois calling him “an open ally of the Ku Klux Klan.”116

Garvey responded to such criticism by doubling down on his interpretation of the Klan and the necessity of dealing with them. Garvey argued that blacks needed to stop believing anything their white “friends” or allies promised them, and instead needed to understand that “the spirit of the Ku Klux Klan is in 80 or 90 percent of white

Americans.”117

Understanding and defining what “the spirit” of the Klan represented is a critical element when considering the way in which the Garvey message matched up with that of the Ku Klux Klan, and in particular the Klan of the Mahoning Valley. Here one must remember the manner in which the Mahoning Valley Klan opposed immigration. Articles from the Youngstown Citizen and the political cartoons which appeared on its pages, even

115 Ibid. 116 Ewing, The Age of Garvey, 118. 117 Ibid.

132 before it had made the transition to the official Klan paper in the city, argued against easing immigration restrictions and claimed that the importation of workers was unnecessary for short term labor shortages and would only lead to having more people in need of unemployment benefits when production slowed.118 Similarly, Garvey spoke out against the importation of white laborers from Europe, because of the negative impact that it had on the economic lives of the black working class. In his thought piece “White

Man’s Solution for the Negro Problem in America,” Garvey outlined what he saw as the plan of white America to economically starve blacks so that they would either emigrate elsewhere or “die of themselves.”119 In order to speed up the process of minimizing economic opportunities for blacks, Garvey explained that a “hearty welcome is extended to white people from all parts of the world to come settle in America,” in order “to build up a vast white population in America, so as to make the white people independent of

Negro labor.”120

Obviously, rhetoric critical of white intentions for allowing white immigration such as this would not have been conducive to building alliances between working class blacks and immigrant whites. Instead, it likely perpetuated the idea of the groups being locked in a competition for wage labor and would have limited any efforts to unite along class lines. However, because an anti-immigrant stance, coupled with an anti-social equality position did not conflict with the views of local Klansmen, it is possible that local black leaders may have been approached by local Klan leaders to form a Protestant alliance against local Catholic immigrants. Unfortunately, the lack of available evidence

118 “Immigration Problems,” Youngstown Citizen, 10 May 1923, 1. 119 Jacques-Garvey, ed. Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey (Vol. I), 50. 120 Ibid.

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of any such alliance makes it impossible to confirm or deny this possibility. However, the

evidence that does exist in terms of the local Klan’s editorials regarding African

Americans, the UNIA and Marcus Garvey’s views on social-equality, and the public statements of the Rev. Ralph Paul Russell during the Loyal Legion of Lincoln’s lone rally seem to suggest that some form of collaboration was possible between the local Klan and local African-American leaders. Additionally, William D. Jenkins argued in his work

Steel Valley Klan that the Klan in the Mahoning Valley “did not take direct action against black residents, nor did it try to bring southern racial mores to Youngstown.”121

The only confirmed incident on public record involving any interaction between

the Klan and black residents, other than the attempted formation of the Loyal Legion of

Lincoln Klan auxiliary, also occurred in March of 1924.122 In that instance, an African-

121 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 159-160. 122 The only evidence I have located of Klan interference in the lives of black residents of the Mahoning Valley is the alleged case of the F.F. Armstrong Haberdashery. In this instance, it has been alleged that “Ku Klux Klan activities in and around Youngstown divested him of customers and in 1926, he was forced to close-out his business.” The story may well be true, but there also were extenuating circumstances that may also explain his need to close his business. First, the account of his story appeared in 1976 fifty years after the Youngstown business closed. It was included in the Afro-American Bicentennial Observance: A Rediscovery of Part of the Past. There is no evidence cited to back up the statement made in the small write-up, which appeared in a chapter of the booklet titled “Business.” It is my assumption that the story is based on oral tradition, but exactly who relayed the story is unclear from the version of the story included in the booklet. Additionally, the story itself casts doubt on the Klan being the primary cause of the demise of the F.F. Armstrong Haberdashery, because it explains that Fletcher Armstrong, who opened the Youngstown store in 1916, had also opened a store in Detroit, Michigan. Apparently, Armstrong had gone to Detroit and focused his attention on the Detroit store. Unfortunately, the financial panic of the 1920-21 led to a steady decline in business and he closed the Detroit store. Armstrong then returned to Youngstown where he tried to “save the local store,” but “he struggled under financial difficulties to maintain his business.” It is possible that the Klan may have encouraged adherents to purchase their hats elsewhere, perhaps from Klan-owned stores, but I have

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American man in the act of committing a robbery shot and killed a police officer and the

Klan acted as a funeral cortege for the slain officer.123 Although the officer was allegedly

a Klansman, the Klan’s involvement in the officer’s funeral may have occurred even if he

had not been a member since support for law enforcement was the other primary

component of the local Klan’s platform next to the restriction of Catholic immigration.

The fact that the man who shot the officer was African-American does not appear to have

been a factor in the Klansmen’s decision to participate in the officer’s funeral.124

Therefore, the fact that this is the only confirmed instance of Klan action in the Mahoning

Valley, outside of the attempted formation of the Loyal Legion, that involved any black

residents says much about where color-race figured into their local agenda.

The 1920s Ku Klux Klan did have a national headquarters and did spring forth

from the southern United States, but as a movement it was not monolithic. In each region

and location its message and purpose had to be presented in a way that was acceptable to

those in that community. The above examples of the Royal Riders of the Red Robes, the

American Crusaders (later spelled Krusaders), and the Loyal Legion of Lincoln illustrate

the importance of the Protestant faith to the movement, while revealing the pliability of

the movement in regards to issues of immigration and color-race. The history of the

1920s Ku Klux Klan is far too complex to reduce the story of its rise and fall to the words

not yet found evidence to this effect. In an odd twist, the Loyal Legion of Lincoln’s lone “L” burning was the only Klan activity I have found near his business address at 424 West Federal Street. The “L” burning occurred about a block away in an empty lot near the corner of West Federal Street and North Avenue. Dr. Herbert L. Armstrong, Afro- American Bicentennial Observance: A Rediscovery of Part of the Past (Youngstown: Afro- American Bicentennial Committee, 1976), 34-35. A copy of this booklet is on file at the Mahoning Historical Society in Youngstown, Ohio. 123 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 159. 124 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 159-160.

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and rhetoric of the national organization at the expense of investigating the nuanced

differences in thought that existed at the local level.

Additionally, the role of economics must be considered more thoroughly.

Kleagles kluxed, because based on the Klan sales structure they could make a considerable amount of money. Individuals joined the Klan for a number of reasons, but

economics played a role here as well, especially in regards to the issue of immigration.

Residents of all colors who occupied the lower rungs of the economic ladder knew that

more immigrants meant more competition for employment and many found Klan efforts

toward immigration restriction to be an alluring prospect for change. Even naturalized

immigrants found themselves drawn to the Klan and its promises of economic protections

through restrictive immigration policies and physical protections from criminal activity

by pressuring politicians to make better law enforcement a primary focus of local

government. The one characteristic that bound all of these disparate people together

though was their adherence to the Protestant religious faith. None, whether native-born

white citizens or not, would have been able to join or affiliate with the Klan if they had

been of another faith. In particular, the Klan of the Mahoning Valley stood opposed to

Catholics whether they were immigrants or not. Because of this local Catholics, both

native-born and of various immigrant stocks, mounted a variety of aggressive programs

to both legally and illegally challenge the Klan and its agenda.

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Chapter Four: The Rise of Anti-Klan Sentiment and Forms of Immigrant Resistance: The Knights of Columbus, Slovaks, and Italians Challenge the Klan, 1923-1925

On the evening of October 30, 1924, a number of the leading citizens of Niles held a mass meeting inside of the newly constructed President William McKinley Memorial.

There they pleaded with local political leaders and citizens to maintain a tenuous peace within the city by canceling both the scheduled Ku Klux Klan parade and an unsanctioned parade planned for the same day by the Knights of the Flaming Circle.

Some of those present had recently created a new civic organization, made up of neutral citizens and known as the Constitutional Defense League. The group’s purpose was “to enforce the peace, and to prevent further recurrence of the trouble” in Niles.1 The

Constitutional Defense League was joined by members of the Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis club in their effort to convince Mayor Harvey Kistler to revoke the Klan’s parade permit in order to avoid violence between the Klan and the Knights of the

Flaming Circle. Kistler, however, refused to revoke the Klan’s parade permit. In the previous weeks, the efforts of these groups had so far been unsuccessful, so all hope to suspend the Klan parade had been shifted to this massive public meeting. A committee was formed, consisting of Chairman Walter F. McQueen, a local attorney; “John

McDermott, a former state senator; Samuel Brown, the general manager of the Niles

Republic Iron and Steel Company; John Hosack, the manager of the Mahoning Valley

1 “Effort to Stop Klan Parade Futile: Defense League Failed,” The Warren Tribune, 23 October 1924, 1.

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Steel Company; John Sharkey, an official with the Empire Mill; and Joseph Pallante,”

who was affiliated with the Niles Firebrick Company.2 John Sharkey also had served

from 1919 to 1923 as the grand knight of the Knights of Columbus Niles, (OH) Council

1681, which was formed in 1913.3 Because the permit was lawfully applied for and granted, the majority of those representing the organizations present at the public meeting did not advocate for actions to be taken to block the Klan parade, instead they called for citizens to maintain peace despite the provocative nature of the proposed Klan parade.4 In many ways this reaction fit with that typical of immigrants and groups like the Knights of Columbus, who, at a time in which their values and principles were under attack, responded by reiterating their loyalty to America and its ideals. Among the things revered by these groups were the protections of the Bill of Rights, which included the freedoms of religion, speech, and peaceable assembly.

John McDermott dissented from the view of the majority. McDermott disagreed with the others who called for respecting the First Amendment rights of the Klansmen to hold their parade, even if they thought the Klan’s values and message reprehensible.

Instead, McDermott argued that the Klan parade must not be allowed to take place regardless of the Mayor’s decision to allow it to proceed. McDermott lamented that,

Years ago, Niles people were friendly. Englishmen, Welshmen, Irish, Italians and what not, they lived here together as good citizens. After the trouble at the Klan parade in the spring there have been enmities. Men, long friends, have ceased to speak to one another. We were just getting

2 William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 127-128. 3 State & Local Councils- Niles, (OH) Council 1681 Listing of Grand Knights, SLC-041-5- 01681-001 (Box 104). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT. 4 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 127-128.

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back to normal. Hatreds were beginning to heal. We don’t want to start these things up again.5 McDermott argued that, “For the protection of lives and property and for the good name of Niles it is the civic duty of the mayor to prevent the parade.”6 Unfortunately for the

city of Niles and for McDermott’s own son Frank, his words of warning went unheeded

and the last legal attempts to stop the Klan parade failed.

Years before the mass meeting to stop the proposed Niles Klan parade, the arrival

of the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley had not gone unnoticed by Catholics and

immigrants who found themselves the primary targets of the vitriol and hatred that the

organization disseminated through its public displays and on the pages of its newspapers.

The Klan’s provocations elicited a variety of responses in the Mahoning Valley and this

chapter seeks to explore the efforts of three local organizations to diminish the Klan’s

power in the area. The Warren, (OH) Council 620 of the Knights of Columbus is the first organization whose response to the Klan will be explored; followed by an examination of a number of articles published in the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, a local Slovak language newspaper; and finally several articles and a series of foreboding advertisements published in Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, the region’s Italian language newspaper. These three sources reveal a concerted effort by native-born Catholics, immigrants, and naturalized citizens in the area, to challenge the Klan from its earliest appearance in the region up through the violent summer of 1924. The sources also reveal that, at least in their public statements, the three organizations argued in favor of challenging the Klan electorally and for the most part without breaking the law.

5 “Klan Parade on Saturday,” The Warren Tribune-Chronicle, 31 October 1924, 2. 6 Ibid.

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However, with that being said, the evidence also points to the existence of a realist notion

held by some within the anti-Klan ranks that it would likely become necessary to venture

close to, and possibly across, the line between legal and extralegal activities in order to

suppress the threat presented by the Ku Klux Klan.

The Knights of Columbus were one of the first organizations in the country to

challenge the Ku Klux Klan and its activities on the national level in the 1920s and this

was true as well for the Knights in the Mahoning Valley. Incorporated in 1882 and based

out of its national headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, the Knights had been waging

extensive legal struggles against anti-Catholic publishers since at least 1912 when a

bogus oath first appeared. As a result of these past legal actions taken against anti-

Catholic publishers the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus was uniquely

prepared to challenge the activities of the Ku Klux Klan. Coincidentally, the bogus oath

again happened to be the flashpoint of controversy which spurred the Knights of

Columbus to action against the Ku Klux Klan in 1922 as it had ten years earlier.7 So what

7 Christopher J. Kauffman has twice written extensively about the “bogus oath” and the efforts of the Knights of Columbus to deal with publishers who printed and disseminated the materials during the first half of the twentieth century. His first work that included discussion of the subject was Faith and Fraternalism: The History of the Knights of Columbus. He followed that work with Patriotism and Fraternalism in the Knights of Columbus: A History of the Fourth Degree. Christopher J. Kauffman, Faith and Fraternalism: The History of the Knights of Columbus (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). Originally published in 1982. Christopher J. Kauffman, Patriotism and Fraternalism in the Knights of Columbus: A History of the Fourth Degree (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001). Recently, Richard Fossey published a journal article, “Lions for the Faith: The Knights of Columbus Battle the Bogus Oath in Texas During the Second Rising of the Ku Klux Klan.” Richard Fossey, “Lions for the Faith: The Knights of Columbus Battle the Bogus Oath in Texas During the Second Rising of the Ku Klux Klan,” Catholic Southwest: A Journal of History and Culture (2015), 3-36.

140 was the bogus oath and why did the Knights of Columbus go to such great lengths to halt its publication and dissemination?

The bogus oath was purportedly the Fourth Degree Oath of the Knights of

Columbus, but was in fact a fabricated slander of the organization which first came to national attention following a contentious election campaign between a Protestant candidate and a Catholic candidate in Pennsylvania in 1912.8 After being defeated in their congressional race, Eugene Bonniwell lodged a formal complaint with Congress claiming that his Protestant opponent, Thomas C. Butler, had distributed the bogus oath as a means to prejudice voters against Bonniwell, because he was a Catholic and a Fourth

Degree Knight.9 The congressional investigation yielded mixed results. The bogus oath was declared to be a fraudulent and defamatory document, but it could not be proved that

Butler had disseminated it to the people who had read it during the election. Furthermore, the investigation itself had the negative impact of causing the entire document to be entered as evidence and published in the Congressional Record. The problem with this was that disingenuous publishers pointed to its inclusion on the Congressional Record as proof of its veracity despite the only reason for its inclusion being that it was evidence in an investigation that proved it to be a fake.10

Upon reading the oath, one is overwhelmed by the baseness of its tone and rhetoric and it becomes immediately clear why facts like the truth behind its inclusion in the Congressional Record meant so little to those who circulated the document and employed it to defame their Catholic neighbors and political rivals. It is, simply put, an

8 Fossey, “Lions for the Faith,” 6. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid.

141 unbelievable document and anyone who would believe its contents would have to already possess such a deep-seated prejudice against Catholics that no facts could ever get in the way of their entrenched beliefs. In order to make clear why the Knights of Columbus would go to such great lengths to combat the bogus oath, it is necessary to read the oath and therefore it is included here in its entirety:

THE ALLEGED FOURTH DEGREE OATH OF THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS “I―――――, now in the presence of Almighty God, the blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed St. John the Baptist, the Holy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, and all the saints, sacred host of Heaven, and to you my Ghostly Father, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatious[sic] Loyola, in the pontification of Paul the III, and continued to the present, do by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ declare and swear that His Holiness the Pope is Christ’s viceregent and is the true and only head of the Catholic or Universal Church throughout the earth; and that by virtue of the keys binding and loosing given His Holiness by my Saviour, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical Kings, Princes States, Commonwealths, and Governments and they may be safely destroyed. Therefore to the utmost of my power I will defend this doctrine and His Holinesse’s [sic] right and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatever, especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended authority and Churches of England and Scotland, and branches of same now established Ireland and on the Continent of America and elsewhere, and all adherents in regard that they may be usurper and heretical opposing the Sacred Mother Church of Rome. “I do now denounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince, or State, named Protestant or Liberals, or obedience to any of their laws, magistrate or officers.” “I do further declare that the doctrine of the churches of England and Scotland, of the Calvinists, Hugenots [sic], and others of the name of Protestants or Masons to be damnable and they themselves to be damned who will not forsake the same.” “I do further declare that I will help, assist, and advise all or any of His Holiness’s agents, in any place where I should be, in Switzerland, Germany, Ireland or America or any other kingdom or territory I shall come to, and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant or Masonic doctrines and to destroy all their pretended powers, legal or otherwise.” “I do further promise and declare that, notwithstanding that I am dispensed with to assume any religion heretical or the propogation of the Mother

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Church’s interest, to keep secret and private all her agents, counsels from time to time, as they instruct me, and not divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, writing or circumstances whatever, but to execute all that should be proposed, given in charge, or discovered unto me by you, by Ghostly Father, or any of this sacred order. “I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion or will of my own or any mental reservation whatsoever, even as a corpse or cadaver (perende ac cadaver), but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ. “That I will go to any part of the world withersoever I may be sent, to the frozen regions North, jungles of India, to the centers of civilizations of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarious savages of America without murmuring or repining, and will be submissive in all things whatsoever communicated to me. “I do further promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly and openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Masons, as I am directed to do, to extirpate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex, or condition, and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics; rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women, and crush their infants against walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the same can not [sic] be done openly, I will secretly use the poisonous cup, the strangulation cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity or authority of the persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agents of the Pope or superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Father of the Society of Jesus. “In confirmation of which I hereby dedicate my life, soul and all corporal powers, and with the dagger which I now receive I will subscribe my name written in blood and testimony thereof; and should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the militia of the Pope cut off my hands and my throat from ear to ear, my belly open and Sulphur burned therein with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth, and my soul tortured by the demons in eternal hell forever. “That I will in voting always vote for a K. of C. in preference to a Protestant especially a Mason, and that I will leave my party so to do; that if two Catholics are on the ticket I will satisfy myself which is the better supporter of the Mother Church and vote accordingly. “That I will not deal with or employ a Protestant if in my power to deal with or employ a Catholic. That I will place Catholic girls in Protestant families that a weekly report may be made of inner movements of the heretics.

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“That I will provide myself with arms and ammunition that I may be in readiness when the word is passed, or I am commanded to defend the church either as an individual or with the militia of the Pope. “All of which, I ――― ―――, do swear by the Blessed Trinity and blessed sacrament which I am now to receive to perform and on part to keep, this, my oath. “In testimony hereof, I take this most holy and blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist and witness the same further with my name written with the point of this dagger dipped in my own blood and seal in the face of this holy sacrament.” ―From New York World, Sept. 15, 1921. The above oath can be found in the Congressional Record, Feb. 15, 1913. Page 3262.11

During the times in which the second Klan became the primary disseminators of

the bogus oath, the document was often circulated with a copy of what was allegedly the

oath of Ku Klux Klan. One example of this arrangement was a pamphlet titled, “The Ku

Klux Klan or The Knights of Columbus Klan: America or Rome,” written by Arthur Bell

and published by The Rail Splitter in Milan, Illinois. In order to fully grasp the magnitude

of the slander against the Knights of Columbus and the praise heaped on the Ku Klux

Klan in the pamphlet, the alleged Klan oath is included in its entirety below:

THE ALLEGED KU KLUX OATH You will place your left hand over your heart and raise your right hand to heaven. —OATH OF ALLEGIANCE— SECTION14. —*ISHNESS. (You will say) “I”—(Pronounce your full name―and repeat after me) “Most solemnly pledge, promise and swear―that I will never slander―defraud―or in any manner wrong― the **** ―a *sman―nor a *man’s family―nor will I suffer the same to be done―if I can prevent it. “I swear that I will be faithful―in defending and protecting―the home―reputation― and physical and business interests―of a *man― and that of a *man’s family.

11 Arthur Bell, “The Ku Klux Klan or The Knights of Columbus Klan: America or Rome,” (Milan, IL: The Rail Splitter, n. d.), 6-8. (Published after September 1921.) SC-11-142 (Box279). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives.

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“I swear that I will at any time ―without hesitating―go to the assistance or rescue―of a *man in any way―at his call I will answer―I will be truly *ish towards *man―in all things honorable. “I swear that I will never allow―any animosity―friction nor ill will―to arise and remain―between myself and a *man―but will be constant in my efforts―to promote real *ishness―among the members of this Order. “I swear to keep secure to myself―a secret of a *man―when same is committed to me―in the sacred bond of *smanship―the crime of violating THIS solemn oath―treason against the United States of America―rape―and malicious murder―alone excepted. “I most solemnly assert and affirm―that to the government of the United States of America―and any State thereof―of which I may become a resident―I sacredly swear―and unqualified allegiance―above any other and every kind of government―in the whole world―I here and now― pledge my life―my property―my vote―and my sacred honor―to uphold its flag―its constitution―and constitutional laws―and will protect―defend―and enforce same unto death. “I swear that I will most zealously―and valiantly [sic]―shield and preserve―by any and all―justifiable means and methods―the sacred constitutional rights―and privileges of―free public schools―free speech―free press―separation of church and state―liberty―white supremacy―just laws―and the pursuit of happiness―against any encroachment―of any nature―by any person or persons―political party or parties―religious sect or people, native naturalized or foreign―of any race―color―creed―linage or tongue whatsoever. “All to which I have sworn by THIS oath―I will seal with my blood―be Thou my witness―Almighty God―AMEN!” You will drop your hands. ―from N.Y. World, Sept. 17, 1921.12

Not surprisingly, because of its incendiary content, any time the bogus oath appeared in a town, local Knights of Columbus quickly sought to confront those publishing the oath and limit its circulation. It may be difficult for readers now to comprehend that anyone could take the content of the bogus oath seriously, but this was a major problem at the time. Quite simply, the bogus oath fed into latent feelings of hatred for the incoming masses of Catholic immigrants arriving in the United States. As this study has pointed out, earlier incarnations of religious bigotry had occurred throughout

12 Bell, “The Ku Klux Klan or The Knights of Columbus Klan,” 5-6.

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United States history and, by the 1920s, the sheer number of Catholic immigrants who

had moved to the country exacerbated these feelings once again, which, when combined

with the sense of anonymity associated with the Ku Klux Klan, allowed many to express

their deep-seated feelings of hate with no threat of reprisal.13 The Knights of Columbus

intended to address this problem head-on. To do so, the Supreme Council collaborated with leading Knights from the state of Texas in 1922 to devise a system that not only targeted publishers of the bogus oath, which the Knights had done since 1912, but also publicly challenged anyone to present proof that the oath was authentic.

This plan was as audacious and out-sized as one might expect coming from the state of Texas. The plan itself was quite simple. The Knights in Texas would deposit a sum of money in five banks across the state and then place advertisements in the major newspapers near the locations of each bank. The fact that each bank would have a reward of five thousand dollars placed in its vault meant that the sums of money involved in this operation in Texas and later mimicked by other Knights of Columbus councils across the country were quite impressive. To better understand how large the reward offer actually was at the time, consider that the average yearly income for a bituminous coal miner in

1923 was only a little over thirteen hundred dollars.14 Similarly, in 1923, production

workers in manufacturing made an average of just over twelve hundred dollars per year.15

13 The Klan masks at the time functioned in much the same way that the comments sections beneath news articles on the internet function today. 14 Production workers in bituminous coal mining operations had an average yearly income of $1321.32 in the year 1923. U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Employment, Hours, and Earnings, United States, 1909-90,” Volume I, Bulletin 2370 (March 1991), 23. The document can be found at: https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?item_id=5435&filepath=/files/docs/publications/e mpbmark/emp_bmark_1909_1990_v1.pdf Accessed 25 March 2017. 15 Ibid, 63.

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Therefore, the Knights of Columbus reward offer equaled four years of wages for men

employed in these industries and would have been quite enticing. Another way to

consider the value of the reward is to consider that the reward would be worth over

seventy thousand dollars in 2016 dollars.16 This means that the overall sum of money

being diverted to Texas by the Supreme Council would be equivalent to over a third of a

million dollars in 2016.17 That kind of money was sure to get the attention of people in

areas where the bogus oath was being circulated and thus clearly illustrates how seriously

the Knights took the affront to their organization that the bogus oath represented. This

was not simply an attempt to respond to a small annoyance presented by a couple of

naysayers, this was an issue of far greater significance. The publication and distribution

of the bogus oath was seen as a truly dangerous enterprise, and, as later events will

illustrate, the fomentation of hatred between working class Protestant men and Catholic

men could lead to deadly consequences. As such, anywhere these divisive documents

were being distributed in large quantities and causing unrest, the local Knights of

Columbus council would arrange for the Texas solution to be employed.

The advertisements themselves were planned out in meticulous detail and vetted

by many layers of Knights of Columbus leadership.18 These advertisements challenged

anyone in the state to testify in front of a panel of unbiased judges that the bogus oath

was actually the Fourth Degree Oath of the Knights of Columbus, or to prove that

Protestants or Masons were even mentioned directly in any part of a Knights of

16 The estimated total is $70,680.99. http://data.bls.gov/cgi- bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=5000&year1=1923&year2=2016 Accessed 20 November 2016. 17 Fossey, “Lions for the Faith,” 17. And http://data.bls.gov/cgi- bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=25%2C000.00&year1=1923&year2=2016 Accessed 20 November 2016. 18 See Fossey for an in-depth discussion of the drafting of the Texas plan.

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Columbus ceremony, or in any of their pledges.19 In a final clever step, the Knights also

challenged anyone to disprove that the actual pledge of the Fourth Degree was not as

follows:

I swear to support the Constitution of the United States. I pledge myself, as a Catholic citizen and a Knight of Columbus, to enlighten myself fully upon my duties as a citizen and to conscientiously perform such duties entirely in the interest of my country and regardless of all personal consequences. I pledge myself to do all in my power to preserve the integrity and purity of the ballot and to promote reverence and respect for law and order. I promise to practice my religion openly and consistently, but without ostentation, and to so conduct myself in public affairs and the exercise of public virtue as to reflect nothing but credit upon our Holy Church, to the end that she may flourish and our country prosper to the greater honor and glory of God.20 In this final step, the Knights were able to build upon earlier efforts taken over the course of the war years to showcase the strength of Catholic patriotism.21 In this volatile period,

publishing their own oath in respected daily newspapers across the country in order to

show non-Catholics the true intentions of Catholic faith-based organizations like the

Knights of Columbus stood in stark contrast to the secretive nature of the Ku Klux Klan.

Following the publication of the advertisements in five Texas cities in early 1923,

the Knights of Columbus instituted similar plans in locations across the United States.

Warren, Ohio was one such location where anti-Catholic sentiment was linked to the

growing influence of the local Klaverns of the Ku Klux Klan. As mentioned above, in

nearby Youngstown, the Knights of Columbus had been active in opposing the Klan

since its earliest days in the region. By June of 1922, the Youngstown Knights already

had petitioned a local Baptist church to remove a minister who strongly supported the

19 Fossey, “Lions for the Faith,” 16. 20 Ibid, 16-17 21 Christopher Kauffman elaborated on these efforts in several of his chapters in his work Faith and Fraternalism.

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Klan and its recruitment efforts in the area. The request was denied, but the Knights remained vigilant in their efforts to oppose the Klan.22 In August of 1923, Frank

Waldeck, a District Deputy of the Ohio State Council of the Knights of Columbus, wrote to William McGinley, the Supreme Secretary of the Knights of Columbus, to request literature from the Supreme Council repudiating the bogus oath.23 He informed the

Supreme Secretary that he would be running an advertisement in “all of our daily and weekly papers” offering a one thousand dollar reward for anyone who could prove that the Fourth Degree Oath printed at the top of the advertisement was not authentic.24 In this instance, the initial reward offer was made by Waldeck on behalf of the local Knights of

Columbus council, but in the coming weeks the Supreme Council would make its own contribution to the fight against the bogus oath in Ohio by depositing five thousand dollars in the People’s Commercial & Savings Bank of London, Ohio.25

The need to deposit five thousand dollars in London, Ohio stemmed from the fact that the Mahoning Valley was not the only region besieged by the Klan and the bogus oath. Beginning in 1922, a steady flow of letters had been sent to the Supreme Council from across the state of Ohio. One of the earliest was sent from Cincinnati in November

1922 and its author, District Deputy Edward T. Gorman, sought instruction from the

Supreme Council regarding the rising influence of the Ku Klux Klan. Gorman mentioned

22 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 32. 23 Letter from Frank Waldeck to William McGinley (18 August 1923). SC-11-1-246 (Box 283). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT. 24 “The K of C Oath,” The Warren Tribune, 18 August 1923, 10. 25 Letter from Supreme Advocate Luke E. Hart to P.J. Kirwin (1 September 1923), SC-11- 1-246 (Box 283). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT.

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that at a recent council meeting radical proposals had been entertained to pay a local

detective agency to acquire the local Klan roster in order to facilitate a boycott of Klan- owned businesses. According to Gorman, “cooler judgment” only prevailed after much discussion and the intercession of a respected priest, who “stemmed the tide of radicalism and counselled conservatism” helping to convince members to instead reach out to the

Supreme Council for advice.26 Local councils in East Liverpool and Hubbard, Ohio also

sought advice from the Supreme Council. The letter from East Liverpool was sent August

25, 1923 just nine days after a large-scale riot occurred in the neighboring city of

Steubenville and about a month before the Knights of the Flaming Circle emerged in the

region.27 The letter from the Hubbard Council was sent just five days later and came on

the heels of the publication of Frank Waldeck’s advertisement in the local newspapers

that would have circulated in Hubbard as well, since it was located in the same county as

Waldeck’s Warren Council.28

26 Gorman mentioned that the local Klan had been apparently organizing boycotts of local Catholic businesses. Letter from Edward T. Gorman to Supreme Secretary William McGinley (15 November 1922). SC-11-1-246 (Box 283). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT. Incidentally, the Klan roster for Trumbull County and Mahoning County was stolen in October of 1923 and was published and being sold in Warren by March 1924. This author has uncovered no connections between the Knights of Columbus councils in the area and this effort to undermine the Klan. “Youngstown Klan Safe Blown; Papers Stolen,” The Warren Tribune, 1 October 1923, 1. And “Sell Purported K. K. List,” The Warren Tribune, 31 March 1924, 1. 27 Letter from Thomas Doherty to Supreme Secretary William McGinley (25 August 1923), SC-11-1-246 (Box 283). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT. 28 Letter from E. A. Stanton to Supreme Secretary William McGinley (30 August 1923), SC-11-1-246 (Box 283). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT.

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The actions taken by the local Knights of Columbus did not go unnoticed and in

the case of Frank Waldeck’s advertisements in the newspapers around the Mahoning

Valley, the Klan itself voiced strong opposition to the Knights’ efforts and attacked their

leaders. Waldeck himself was targeted by the editor of Warren’s Klan newspaper, The

Buckeye American, who authored a scathing rebuke of Waldeck for placing his advertisement in the local newspapers. The article contained all of the dramatic language

one comes to expect from a Klan newspaper including phrases such as, “the challenge

was so worded that it contained the most offensive references to citizens who do not

happen to be Knights of Columbus or members of the Roman Catholic Church.”29 The

preceding admonition presumably resulted from Waldeck’s contention that, “This bogus

‘oath’ is but one of the many fabrications that certain enemies of our constitution have

invented in order to enrich themselves by hoodwinking credulous people into subscribing

funds to fight evils that do not exist.”30 While Waldeck’s phrasing attacked the

Klansmen’s contention that they were the ultimate protectors of the constitution and argued that the Klan was little more than an exploitative, moneymaking scheme, it hardly attacked all non-Catholics.

Speaking of money, the editor of the Klan newspaper aimed his primary attack on

Waldeck at the fact that Waldeck was an employee of the Warren Post Office. To the

Klan editor it seemed “entirely out of place for a government employee to flaunt his belief, his prejudices and his insults in the faces of American citizens whose contributions to the federal branch which Waldeck is supposed to serve makes it possible for him to

29 “Frank H. Waldeck,” The Buckeye American, 11 September 1923, 2. 30 “The K of C Oath,” The Warren Tribune, 18 August 1923, 10.

151 have a position and draw pay for the same.”31 It should be noted that in the advertisement in the newspapers Waldeck did not identify himself as a postal worker, but rather as a

District Deputy with the Knights of Columbus. However, this did not stop the Klan editor from allegedly sending a copy of the advertisement to the Postmaster-General in order to insure that Waldeck never again offended residents of Trumbull County with his personal views, and if satisfaction could not be had from the head of the post office then the editor claimed he would take the matter to the President himself.32 Not surprisingly, no record exists of the editor ever corresponding with the President regarding the matter, but

Waldeck wrote to Luke Hart regarding the success of the advertisement campaign in the

Mahoning Valley. Waldeck informed the Supreme Advocate that, “preceding the publishing of my advertisement the bogus oath was openly and brazenly circulated throughout the big industrial plants of this city, but have now disappeared and life to our men employed in these establishments is just a little more pleasant.”33 In this way, the

Knights of the Columbus challenged the unrestrained attacks being made on their organization and Catholics living in the Mahoning Valley.

The Knights of Columbus would be joined in their efforts to oppose the Ku Klux

Klan in the area by the editors of at least two foreign language newspapers. Since the city of Youngstown’s population had grown so diverse over the preceding decades, by 1920 it had a handful of foreign language newspapers. These papers are particularly useful for investigating how the different immigrant groups reacted to the rise of the Klan in the

31 “Frank H. Waldeck,” The Buckeye American, 11 September 1923, 2. 32 Ibid. 33 Letter from Frank Waldeck to Luke Hart (9 September 1923). SC-11-1-246 (Box 283). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT.

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Mahoning Valley and what, if any, concerted efforts the immigrant groups chose to take against the Klan. Because anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic rhetoric were such strong components of the Klan platform in the region, two primarily Catholic immigrant groups were chosen for this study. Each group, the Slovaks and the Italians, had begun to immigrate to the Mahoning Valley in large numbers at approximately the same time and each group had significant numbers of Catholics amongst them. In terms of this study, the primary difference between the two groups being examined was the number of individuals of either Slovak or Italian descent who were among those arrested in Niles following the riot in November 1924. The fact is that no Slovak was arrested or later indicted for crimes committed that day. In fact, only Italians and Irish residents of Niles, along with a contingent of Klansmen, were indicted following the riot. Therefore, it seemed necessary to examine the foreign language newspapers of the Slovaks and the

Italians in order to see if the contents of those papers might shed any light on why no

Slovaks were involved in the Niles riot. It seemed strange that this was the case, especially when one considers that Klan historians have argued that the Klan generally targeted all Catholic immigrants in much the same manner as the Niles Italians who came out in force against the Klan.34 Figuring out why the hostility between the Italians and the

34 Having no competency in either the Slovak or Italian language, my methodology for researching references to the Ku Klux Klan in the foreign language papers was relatively simple, but seemingly effective in that I simply looked for anything that resembled the words Ku Klux Klan, KKK, or any part of the name, such as Klux or Klan. I examined microfilm of the newspapers from late 1921 through 1925. I chose these dates as they corresponded with the arrival of the Klan in Youngstown and carried through to the end of the trials related to the riot in Niles. The Slovak paper contained at least sixty articles that explicitly mentioned the KKK, while the Italian paper contained only twenty articles that explicitly mentioned the KKK. The primary difference between the coverage the two papers committed to the Klan is that the Slovak paper began covering the Klan on a regular basis much earlier and that the coverage it gave to the 1923 election in

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Klan was stronger than it was between other Catholic immigrant groups in the Mahoning

Valley was a primary research question that led to the subject of this dissertation.

The first foreign language newspaper to recognize and address the threat of the

Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley was the Slovak language newspaper the

Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, which translates in English to The Youngstown Slovak

News. In 1922, when stories about the Klan first appeared on its pages, Matej Mráz was the editor of the paper which had been published since 1900.35 Mráz began his coverage

of the Ku Klux Klan in a spectacular manner by publishing the first picture ever taken of

a Klan rally in Youngstown on the front page of his paper.36 In the accompanying article,

Mráz held little back as he referred to the Klan as a “nasty” organization and listed

fourteen points which every Klansman allegedly honored in order to be a member. This

list was gleaned from a source in Nebraska and read as follows:

1. Support Reed-Norville language law. Against foreigners. 2. Support Smith-Towner education law. 3. Support of open bible in public schools in Nebraska. 4. Jim Crow laws, which correct black situation in Nebraska. 5. Prohibition of secret Negro organization in America.

Youngstown was wholly focused on the involvement of the Klan in the election. The Italian paper was essentially silent on the Klan issue until violence occurred in Steubenville in August of 1923. Coverage in the Italian paper remained limited at best even afterward. In order to translate the articles, I relied on the assistance of Dr. Constance Sanchetta, a volunteer with the Western Reserve Historical Society Italian American Collection, who translated the Italian documents, and Paul Burik, President of the Cleveland chapter of the Czechoslovak Society of Arts & Sciences (SVU) who provided the translations for the Slovak articles. 35 Susan J. Summers and Loretta Ekoniak, Images of America: Slovaks of the Greater Mahoning Valley (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2011), 8. 36 It is interesting to note that Mráz used the exact same picture that the Youngstown Vindicator used on its cover the day after the Klan rally photo was taken. The local Italian paper did not use the picture or even run an article about the occurrence. “400 Attend Ku Klux Meeting Here,” Youngstown Vindicator, 13 October 1922, 1. “KKK Already Exist in Youngstown,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 20 October 1922, 1.

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6. Government must investigate members of the Knights of Columbus. 7. Control election, so that it is impossible to put into office Jews, Catholics, and foreign born. 8. Do not buy from Jewish, Catholic, or foreign born businesses. 9. Immediately remove investment in stores of Jews, Catholics, and foreign born. 10. Employ Jews and Catholics only in worst case. 11. It is forbidden to employ Negroes in any instance. 12. Remove foreigners from the state of Nebraska. 13. Stop immigration. 14. Make Klan an obstacle to Catholic movement in Nebraska.37

By publishing items like this list, Mráz clearly intended to make sure that his readers

knew that the arrival of the Klan in Youngstown did not bode well for foreign born

residents.

Mráz did not hide his distrust of the Ku Klux Klan behind the language barrier

that allowed many foreign language newspaper editors to conceal their views from a

general public not literate in their language. Instead, in the same issue, Mráz published an

English-language editorial titled “Will American Christianity Tolerate Intolerance?”

which made clear that the editor was not afraid of his opposition to the Klan being known

beyond his Slovak subscribers. Before the close of 1922, Mráz would publish another

English-language editorial, this time titled “Nineteen Twenty-Two, Lincoln’s Principles

Challenged: Is the Foreign-born American Citizen an Asset to America or a Liability, or

Dangerous to American Institutions, as Heralded by the Self-Styled 100 Percent

Americans?.” Both articles sought to illustrate the value of the immigrants arriving in the

United States who were “responsible for the upbuilding of America,” while taking to task

37 “KKK Already Exist in Youngstown,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 1.

155 the “group of self-appointed renegade ‘saviours’[sic]” who sought to “ostracize the foreign-born American citizen.”38

In 1923, the first article that appeared in the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny related to the Ku Klux Klan was actually about the formation of a local chapter of the

Unity League, an organization that felt the most effective means to destroy the Klan was to expose its members publicly. P.H. O’Donnell, the president of the organization, had come to Youngstown on January 6, 1923 to address a crowd at the local Moose Temple.

In his address he explained how the publication of three thousand Klansmen’s name had resulted in the defection from the organization of over twenty thousand members.

O’Donnell’s words must have resonated either within the crowd who heard him speak that night or sometime later, because the local Klan roster for the Mahoning Valley was indeed stolen later that year in October. Predictably, the roster was then published and sold by the Unity League.39 Mráz, the editor, did not explicitly condone the idea of stealing the Klan roster or call for his readers to do so, but he did not oppose it either and made it clear that stopping the Klan would be in the best interest of all. This article continued to echo the sentiments expressed the previous year by Mráz and the editor’s intentions were clear that the Klan must be stopped because of the dangers that it

38 “Nineteen Twenty-Two: Lincoln’s Principles Challenged,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 29 December 1922, 3. And “Will American Christianity Tolerate Intolerance?,”Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 20 October 1922, 3. 39 The local Klan rosters were stolen on September 30, 1923, in a burglary at the Klan headquarters in downtown Youngstown. The burglars blew open the safe in which the documents were contained and made off with the rosters and six hundred dollars . “Youngstown Klan Safe Blown; Papers Stolen,” The Warren Tribune, 1 October 1923, 1. Six months later, the Klan rosters had been published by the Tolerance Publishing Co. of Chicago and were being sold across the Mahoning Valley in a pamphlet title, “Is Your Neighbor a Kluxer?” “Sell Purported K.K. List,” The Warren Tribune, 24 March 1924, 1.

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represented to not only newly arriving immigrants, but to the very fabric of American

society.

Mráz seemingly constructed his coverage of the Ku Klux Klan around a few basic

guidelines. He would report the local activities of the Klan, the involvement of the Klan

in local politics, and, finally, he exposed the inconsistencies of the Klan and its ideals by

illustrating the manner in which members of the group’s actions failed to reconcile with

the values and ideals associated with American patriotism. Like the Knights of Columbus

Fourth Degree, which was inaugurated in 1900 and devoted to the ideal of patriotism,

Mráz and other Slovak leaders and members of the press believed that understanding and

expressing the ideals that were foundational to the concept of American patriotism were

crucial to any attempts to suppress opposition to their fraternal organization or ethnic

group.40 Also, like the Knights of Columbus, who published a series of historical works

about the contributions of minorities and immigrants to the growth and prosperity of the

United States, Mráz often stressed the importance of immigrants to the United States in

the anti-Klan articles appearing on the pages of his newspaper.41

One such article following this formula appeared on the pages of the

Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny on March 9, 1923. In the article, Mráz combined events occurring in both the Mahoning Valley and nationally when he described an alleged local attack on a man named Hughes as a parallel to the recent national news story surrounding

40 For more on the efforts of the Knights of Columbus and Slovak Americans to engage in public and private displays of patriotism during the first decades of the twentieth century, see Kauffmann, Patriotism and Fraternalism, 1-21; and Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism, 15-43. 41 Kauffmann, Faith and Fraternalism, 284-287.

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the kidnapping and murder of two men opposed to the Klan in Louisiana.42 The

numerous national and international acts of violence attributed to the Ku Klux Klan

described to the readers of the newspaper was not meant simply “to give goose bumps to

anyone on their back,” but to warn them that the presence of the organization in the

Mahoning Valley could not be good.43 Mráz even argued that the Klan’s acts of tyranny and extralegal activities “spread anarchy in the land.”44 What was interesting about this

phrasing was the way that it flipped a popular narrative by arguing that Klansmen, not

immigrants, were spreading anarchy. In the years after the Red Scare of 1919 being

accused of being an anarchist was viewed as possibly the most un-American political

activity one could be involved in at the time and would have been quite an insult to a

Klansman. The article continued its discussion of the Klan claiming that the local Klan

was made up of “not only ordinary workers, but also distinguished citizens and even

priests [ministers].”45The article closed by making two calls to action. The first was for

all law-abiding citizens to organize and “face the anarchy.”46 The second call to action

was a slightly veiled threat to the Anglo-Saxon Klansmen to be careful what they wished for when it came to immigration restriction. Mráz wrote, “So let this KKK start to attack

42 What is interesting about the earlier kidnapping and murder that occurred in Louisiana is that the men involved on both sides, both the victims of the violence and the murderers were native-born, non-Catholic men. The incident in fact had nothing at all to do with religion, race, or ethnicity, but, rather had to do with “moralistic meddling in other people’s business” with an element of bootlegging on the side. Yvonne Brown, “Tolerance and Bigotry in Southwest Louisiana: The Ku Klux Klan, 1921-23.” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Spring, 2006), 156. 43 “Movement Against Immigration,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 9 March 1923, 2. 44 “Movement Against Immigration,” 2. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid.

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[work against] foreigners settled in Youngstown. It will give them the opportunity to prove that without them [immigrants] there is no life, no industry, no commerce, no life for anyone in the city at the time they put down their tools and leave work.”47 In each of these statements, the key factor was that the law-abiding and useful members of

American society were embodied by the immigrant―not the 100% American Klansman.

Matej Mráz continued to refine the paper’s argument against the Klan in an article titled, “KKK and American Freedom,” which ran two weeks after the riot in Steubenville in August of 1923. In this article, Mráz expressed dismay that local businesses openly allied themselves to the Klan through advertisements containing Klan slogans. This sign of overt acceptance of the Klan as a new normal compelled Mráz to discuss the Klan and its activities in relation to American ideals of freedom and patriotism. The editor’s words were simple and straight-forward, the arguments he made were not complex, but his words were compelling and aimed at insuring that the local Slovak community recognized the incongruent nature of Klan patriotism. Mráz wrote,

In America we have freedom, therefore everyone has free life unless they stand against the basic ideals of America; freedom, equality, and brotherhood. KKK spreads hatefulness of people, tries to make them unequal before law, assumes privileges, takes justice into their hands, orchestrates uprisings and fights and keeps the public in tension and insecurity.48 Mráz then counseled that no organization acting in such a manner could be good or patriotic, and warned that the Klan may appear to have humanitarian goals, but its means were destructive and anarchistic. In a profound recognition of the protections offered in America by the Bill of Rights, Mráz argued, “In America, everyone has a right

47 Ibid. 48 “KKK and American Freedom,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 31 August 1923, 2.

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to life and existence. So does the KKK organization as long as the KKK acts within the

law.”49 However, he felt the Klan’s popularity was only sustained by its use of

“sensationalism,” and he felt that people would tire of, or become used to their

sensationalism and the order would fade quickly into obscurity. Finally, he pointed out

that, no matter what the Klan claimed to the contrary in its “attractive slogans,”

“American ideals are close to the heart of every American,” and that these same ideals of

“freedom, equality, and brotherhood” were those of “Jesus Christ himself; and there is

not better.”50 For the editor of the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, the Ku Klux Klan

could not take these rights and beliefs away from immigrants and naturalized citizens

while the Klan itself was not living up to them in reality, even if the organization claimed to exemplify them in their recently formed local Klan newspapers.

Although the Klan provided no shortage of reasons for foreign language newspaper editors to denounce the organization, it is likely, based on the focus of his attacks, that Mráz was motivated to expose the Klan for two reasons. The first and primary reason was that Mráz had identified the Klan and its political machine as a danger to the rights of immigrants generally. The Klan and its role in local politics would make up the lion’s share of the articles about the Ku Klux Klan which appeared in the

Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, but there was a related topic that also caught the attention of the editor, Mráz―the political activities of the local Klan auxiliaries. It was

within this topic that one aspect appeared that possibly related to why no Slovaks were

arrested opposing the Klan in Niles in November of 1924.

49 “KKK and American Freedom,” 2. 50 Ibid.

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In 1923 and 1924, the Ku Klux Klan was quite capable of influencing elections

across the nation and especially in locations like the cities that were located in the

industrial Mahoning Valley and Matej Mráz worked to warn the Slovak community of

this danger within the pages of the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny.51 During the election cycles for both years, Mráz actively sought to mobilize the Slovak community against the Ku Klux Klan and the candidates that the organization endorsed. In addition to the numerous political advertisements for candidates specifically reaching out to the

Slovak community, Mráz helped to encourage fledgling political action organizations.

Perhaps the most intriguing of these political organizations appeared in an article dated

October 5, 1923. The article focused on the formation of the Lansingville Slovak

Women’s Political Club. According to Mráz, this organization was the first and only

Slovak women’s political club in America at the time. The editor heaped praise on the women, congratulating them for their efforts and appreciating their “critical eyes” for

51 For more on the role of the Klan in political contests in a number of states see: Arnold S. Rice, The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics (Washington D.C.: Public Affairs Press, 1962).; William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 1990).; Leonard J. Moore, Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991).; Chris Rhomberg, “White Nativism and Urban Politics: The 1920s Ku Klux Klan in Oakland, California,” Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Winter, 1998): 39-55.; Clement Charlton Moseley, The Political Influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia, 1915-1925,” The Georgia Historical Quarterly Vol. 57, No. 2 (Summer, 1973): 235-255.; Rory McVeigh, Daniel J. Myers and David Sikkink, “Corn, Klansmen, and Coolidge: Structure and Framing in Social Movements,” Social Forces Vol. 83, No. 2 (Dec., 2004): 653-690.; Rory McVeigh, “Power Devaluation, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Democratic National Convention of 1924,” Sociological Forum Vol. 16, No. 1 (Mar., 2001): 1-30.; and Thomas R. Pegram, One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2011).

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candidates and their programs.52 The women themselves contributed an article in the

same edition of the newspaper. In the article they issued a call to action stating, “now that

we have the right to vote we should use it.”53 The women announced an initial

membership of thirty women and asked any interested parties to join them at an

upcoming meeting to elect officers.

The women of Lansingville were not the only Slovaks in the Mahoning Valley becoming politically active or recognizing the importance of the upcoming elections.

Mráz provided coverage of the important races in Youngstown, and the paper paid

particular attention to the upcoming race for Mayor. The fact that one of the candidates,

Charles F. Scheible, was openly endorsed by and aligned with the Ku Klux Klan made

this a particularly important election for the many immigrants who had moved to the area

to find work in the numerous steel mills located there. Those who had become

naturalized citizens were encouraged to register to vote in order to make sure that “honest

men” and not members of “some secret group” would be elected to lead the city.54 Other

articles followed and would directly invoke the name of the secret group as well as laying

out the Klan’s plan to take complete control of city government. Mráz went to great

lengths to encourage Slovak citizens to register to vote and even endorsed a candidate,

52 “Our Women Get Politically Organized,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 5 October 1923, 1. 53 “Slovaks in Lansingville Founded Citizens Club,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 5 October 1923, 1. 54 “Citizens(Male/Female) Get Registered,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 5 October 1923, 1.

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William J. Williams, for the office all in the name of stopping the Klan from claiming

victory.55

For his part, Williams attempted to capitalize on the newspaper’s endorsement

and ran a series of advertisements in the paper touting not only his experience, but also

his opposition to the Klan and its ideals. Appealing directly to the foreign-born readers of

the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, Williams’s advertisements invoked comparisons to

Abraham Lincoln and promised that if elected Williams would “be fair and honest to all

citizens born abroad, and as mayor…conduct business for all people and for all time

without concern for nationality or religion.”56 In a catchy set of taglines Williams

exclaimed, “I fight for you as real red-blooded Americans should fight. This huge

America cannot allow religious preference in any form or kind.”57 Unfortunately,

Williams’s advertisement revealed little of what he planned to do as mayor and merely

argued that he was fit to serve, while his Klan-backed opponent Scheible was deemed

unworthy.

Despite his efforts to assure foreign-born voters that he stood in their camp,

Williams was among the defeated candidates for mayor that year as Charles Scheible

rode the Klan’s support into office. It helped that the high number of opposition

candidates split the non-Klan vote, but Mráz noted that amongst those who voted for the

Klan were a number of naturalized citizens which included some Slovaks.58 Because the

Slovak community in the Mahoning Valley consisted of both Catholics and Protestants,

55 “Call to Slovak Voters,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 2 November 1923, 1. 56 “To the Voters of Youngstown,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 2 November 1923, 2. 57 “To the Voters of Youngstown,” 2. 58 “Scheible Won,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 9 November 1923, 1.

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some of these naturalized citizen votes from the Slovak community and others can likely

be attributed to the growing number of naturalized, Protestant citizens who sympathized

with the Klan’s anti-Catholic stance and also believed in the need for better law

enforcement. Others likely agreed with Scheible’s nine-point plan for governing, which served as his stump platform as he campaigned for mayor. Scheible’s nine points consisted of:

1. civic and public improvements without adding to taxes; 2. honest and economical expenditures of monies; 3. strict law enforcement; 4. suppression of liquor trade and other immorality; 5. an honest, efficient police force and a “clean, fearless chief”; 6. equal treatment of all regardless of race, color, or creed; 7. no cabinet appointments based on political favors; 8. selection of employees based on fitness; 9. a promise to campaign “with malice toward none” and to “do my duty as God and man have a right to expect me to do it.”59

Klan-backed or not, Scheible had given voters a better understanding of what his intentions were if elected and many of the items listed in his nine-point plan likely resonated with voters. Even the primary newspaper in the city, the Youngstown

Vindicator, had endorsed Scheible, so his campaign was seemingly viewed by a majority of residents in Youngstown, not as the campaign of some sort of fringe fanatic, but, rather, as a sensible choice for the office.60

59 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 47. 60 In an interesting side note, the “surprise” endorsement of Scheible’s candidacy did not earn a rebuke for the editor of the Vindicator from Mráz, because both the editor of the Vindicator and Scheible were of German descent and Mráz stated, “When you consider that the publisher of the ‘Vindicator’ is a German, no one will blame him for supporting his own nationality.” This illustrates the tendency amongst immigrants to ally with one’s own ethnic group if possible in elections and daily life. This in many ways parallels the same attitude employed by those who were allying with each other within the Ku Klux Klan. When possible, like tries to stick with like, when not possible it seeks

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The election of Mayor Charles Scheible in 1923 provided a watershed moment of

realization for Mráz, for it was the first time his newspaper confronted the topic of

naturalized Slovaks allying themselves with the Klan movement. In the case of the 1923

election, the alliance between Slovak-American citizens and the Klan was tenuous at best, because it was based on their preference for one politician over another, which likely allowed for enough variables based on policy interests to allow the Slovak voters to separate the candidate and his policy proposals from his Klan endorsement. However, as articles appearing on the pages of the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny in the coming year would reveal, the connection between some naturalized Slovak-American citizens and the Ku Klux Klan went much further than casting a vote for Charles Scheible. For some Slovak-Americans it meant donning a crimson robe and participating directly in the activities of one of the Klan’s more peculiar auxiliaries―the Royal Riders of the Red

Robes.

Mráz first mentioned the Klan auxiliary known as the Royal Riders of the Red

Robes in an article titled, “KKK and Red Riders Joined,” which appeared in the

Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny on May 16, 1924. In this article Mráz simply noted that at a recent meeting of the local Ku Klux Klan in nearby Canfield, Ohio, the de facto capital of Mahoning Valley Klan activity, the Klansmen were joined by members of a group referred to as the Red Riders. Mráz mentioned that the Red Riders were an auxiliary of the Klan made up of foreign-born citizens. Allegedly, at this meeting the two groups agreed to work together in upcoming elections. The Klan claimed to have 485,000 members in Ohio and, therefore, felt that they could win any election in the upcoming

the next best alternative. “Scheible is Darling of the KKK,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 12 October 1923, 1.

165 cycle. Missing from the article was any description of the members of the Red Riders.

There was no discussion of what ethno-racial groups made up its membership, just a simple commentary on the fact that the group was operating in the Mahoning Valley in concert with the local Klan and nothing more.61 It was possible that Mráz had no other information about the Royal Riders of the Red Robes, but it was also possible that he did not quite know how to break the news that members of the Slovak community might have just made an alliance with the Ku Klux Klan through their membership in the

Klan’s auxiliary for naturalized, foreign-born citizens.

The next article published in the paper regarding the Royal Riders of the Red

Robes dealt directly and forcefully with the idea that some members of the Protestant

Slovak community in the Mahoning Valley had allied themselves with the Ku Klux Klan.

In the article, “Riders with Red Robes or R.R.R.,” which was contributed by an author with the initials R.B., the Red Riders were described as the Klan’s reserve army, and the author questioned whether there were any real differences between a reserve force and the regular army. Bearing this analogy in mind, the author then announced with shock that they had “learned from good sources that even Slovaks belong to the R. R. R.” essentially making some Slovaks into de facto Klansmen.62 Questioning the logic of those that had fallen into the Klan’s orbit, the author warned that as immigrants, they

61 “KKK and Red Riders Joined,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 16 May 1924, 1. To be fair, what is known about the membership in this organization points to much larger numbers of Canadian, Welsh, English, and German immigrants joining the Royal Riders of the Red Robes than Slovaks. 62 “Riders with the Red Robes or R.R.R.,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 4 July 1924, 2, 4.

166 were “bringing an ax” onto themselves.63 The author argued that the Klan and anyone associated with it were driven by “devilish selfishness.”64 In particular, this selfishness revolved around the Klan’s fight against immigration and their call for “America for

Americans.”65 The author argued that any Slovak joining forces with the Klan was essentially turning against their own brother and helping to exclude them and future immigrants from enjoying the economic opportunities available in the United States. The author sharply and passionately rebuked those who would support the Klan and its immigration stance,

Further I see in it devilish selfishness. And what is selfishness? Christian thought tells us that it is one of the primary sins. And is it not selfish when the KKK does everything possible to close the door for our brothers, so that they do not have access to the country to earn a piece of good bread? God gives. You are helping those who destroy your heart with hate like a hammer on sickle. Wake up from your dream and think! Who is primarily for this, that immigrants would be banned from this country! Those about whom I am writing and some of our brothers are helping them. Do you have a brother in the country, do you have family, I am writing to you: Dear Brother, my house burned, my farm was wrecked, money I don’t have, be so kind and help me so I can get to you and make some money so I can stand on my own legs. Likely you will answer: I cannot because the road is closed and entry to America is forbidden. And you agree with him who strongly holds with the idea to close the gates for your brother. Think you reader, is that not being selfish? The aforementioned organizations have evil foundations, and God given, he who belongs to a sinning group is a sinner.66 The stance of the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny against the Royal Riders of the Red

Robes was crystal clear. There would be no tolerance for the idea of Slovak immigrants selling out their brethren, either in the United States, or in the old country, in the name of

63 “Riders with the Red Robes or R.R.R.,” 2, 4. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid.

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political expedience gained through an alliance with the Klan. Furthermore, those who

did were characterized as not just risking their reputation on earth, but also their

everlasting soul. In a time of religious fervor, this argument may have given pause to

those slipping on a red robe in the dark of night.

Matej Mráz’s decision to run so many articles and editorials in opposition to the

Ku Klux Klan sets his newspaper apart from the dominant trends within the Slovak

community in the United States. In particular, this stands out when one considers that

within the Slovak community there were citizens who had allied themselves with the

Klan through their involvement with the Royal Riders of the Red Robes. June Granatir

Alexander pointed out in Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism that the Slovak press as a

whole was “hesitant to fire shots at the Klan.”67 Mráz seemed anything but hesitant to fire

shots. Mráz directly attacked the hypocrisy of the organization and if Frank Waldeck’s

carefully worded “bogus oath” advertisement had been received with such a firestorm of

rebuke from the editor of the Buckeye American in Warren, then one would expect

constant vitriol and organized boycotts to have been aimed at the editor of the Slovak

paper, but they never occurred. This was likely the result of most of the articles being

published in Slovak. True, the local Slovaks who joined the Royal Riders of the Red

Robes could have informed against him, but the fact that they did not calls into question

the depth of their connection to the bigoted organization. It could also be that the

67 Alexander also mentioned that the paper of the “conservative Slovak Synod,” Svedok, on occasion expressed sympathy with the Klan’s anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism. This suggests that there was a strong split among Protestant and Catholic Slovaks in regards to the issue of the Klan and hints at reasons why there were no Slovaks arrested or known to be involved in the anti-Klan riot in Niles in November 1924. June Granatir Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism: Slovaks and Other New Immigrants in the Interwar Era (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 83.

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naturalized Slovaks allied with the Royal Riders did not want to bring attention to the

articles, because it would have portrayed their ethno-racial group in a negative light. At a time when most ethno-racial immigrant groups were clamoring to show how patriotic

they were this would have been a counterproductive move.68 Perhaps too, Mráz was

simply not seen as a real threat to Klan strength, or maybe the Klan actually possessed

less strength to impose their will outside of their own Anglo-Saxon Protestant

community.

The anti-Klan riot that occurred in Steubenville, Ohio on August 15, 1923 was

one such instance that revealed the possible weakness of the Ku Klux Klan to impose

their will within communities populated by large numbers of immigrants and in particular

Irish and Italian immigrants. The riot in Steubenville occurred after a group of one

hundred Klansmen had gathered in the town for a meeting and for dinner. The meeting

likely served as an attempt by the Klansmen to intimidate the local population after a vote

the day before for Mayor resulted in a loss by a narrow margin for the Klan-backed

candidate. As the Klansmen attempted to leave town they were attacked by a mob of an

estimated two to three thousand local residents and immigrants. In the melee numerous

Klansmen were beaten and many of their cars were overturned. Later that night, a second incident of violence took place when a local man, involved in Prohibition enforcement in the region and who was affiliated with Klan, was ambushed and shot by group of anti-

68 June Granatir Alexander does not explicitly discuss the efforts of Slovaks in Ohio to oppose the Klan, but she does speak about the Steubenville riot and the general efforts of Slovaks at the time to show how patriotic they could be in their new homeland. Alexander, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism, 84-86.

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Klan Italian immigrants. The violence in Steubenville received newspaper coverage

across the United States and especially in the Mahoning Valley.69

Matej Mráz included an article in the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny related to

the incident, and the local Italian language newspaper Il Cittadino Italo-Americano also

commented on the riot.70 This marked one of the earliest times the Italian paper had

mentioned the Klan on its pages.71 The article itself was a straightforward description of

the events that had occurred two days earlier in Steubenville. What was interesting about

the author’s re-telling was that there was no attempt to deny that Italians had been

involved in the most violent act which occurred that night. Instead, the names of the two

suspects, who had incidentally ambushed and shot an alleged Klansman in the head as he

got off of work at the rail yard, were listed. Additionally, a description of their injuries

and a mention of the fact that two others associated with one of the suspects were arrested

for illegally possessing firearms essentially completed the story.72

The only clues as to how the author felt about the incident were the last two lines

of the article and the title. The last two lines were reasonably straightforward, after

describing the violence of the riot and of the separate attack on Darwin L. Gibson the

author wrote,

69 “Pistol Duel Follows Mob Klan Attack,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 16 August 1923, 1. 70 “KKK Attacked,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 17 August 1923, 1. 71 The earliest article I know of in the Italian paper dates to December 1922, but its coverage of the Klan was much more sporadic compared to the Slovak paper. It began to publish more regularly in 1924 in the lead up to the Niles anti-Klan riot. 72 “Ku Klux Klan Parade Ended Badly like Mountain Flutes,” Il Cittadino Italo-Americano 18 August 1923, 1.

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These are the consequences of the stupidity of certain fundamentally subversive Secret Societies. They serve to demonstrate the incapacity of those who have power.73 Obviously, in the first line the author stated clearly that Klan’s subversive activities were the root cause of the violence that night and that the organization brought these retaliations onto itself. The second line was slightly more open to interpretation in that it could imply that the Klan lacked the power to protect itself or that the local authorities of the city of Steubenville lacked the ability to stop riots such as this one from occurring.

Either way the message in some ways reads like it might have offered encouragement to those people who sought to resist the Klan by utilizing whatever means necessary.74

The title of the article required a little more effort to understand, but it too seems

to point to the conclusion that the author of the article was arguing that the Klan brought

the violence upon itself and that the violence was therefore acceptable. The article was

titled, “Ku Klux Klan Parade Ended Badly like Mountain Flutes.” At first blush this title

seems to make no sense at all unless one is predisposed to dislike the sound of mountain

flutes. However, the title is actually a version of an Italian idiom, which essentially

means, “Who went to play and were played on.”75 In this case, the article’s author was

73 “Ku Klux Klan Parade Ended Badly like Mountain Flutes,” 1. 74 Ibid. See also: “Four Shot In Gun Battle Sequel to Anti-Klan Riot: D.L. Gibson, Local Klansman is Shot in Head; May Die,” Steubenville Herald-Star, 16 August 1923, 1, 3. 75 My translator, Connie Sanchetta, worked long and hard to get to the bottom of this particular title, because it seemed strange to us. She happened to know that an Italian newspaper in Milan ran a column explaining Italian idioms and she searched for the phrase “pifferi di montagna.” Luckily, the search returned a hit for that exact phrase and helped solve the mystery of what exactly was meant by the article’s peculiar title. This explanation from Connie Sanchetta offered further clarification of the saying: “There are very many variations of this saying that put in play the most disparate objects or topics, like that of the ‘pifferi di montagna’ that went to play and came back played on, or that of the proud man who left on horseback and returned on foot. Essentially the idiom

171 stating that the Klansmen, by joining the Ku Klux Klan, and by associating themselves with the hateful rhetoric espoused by the Klan at both the national and local levels had opened themselves up to physical attack, even if, as was the case in Steubenville, the violence was initially ignited by a mob of people stopping a procession of Klansmen from leaving the town.76 To be sure, the Klansmen should have known better than to drive their vehicles festooned with American flags and electric crosses into the town from the more Klan friendly confines of West Virginia for dinner that evening, but, in this case, the illegal beating and destruction of property that so many contemporary media reports and later historians have traditionally claimed were the hallmarks of Klan activity were not done by the Klan, but done upon them.77 Considered in this way, the title of the article seems most appropriate as the Klansmen likely believed they would show

Steubenville’s immigrant population how tough they were by driving into the town to have dinner, but this backfired when the local immigrants and residents decided to show them exactly how wrong they were.78

Following the report on the Steubenville riot, Il Cittadino Italo-Americano did not publish another article mentioning the Ku Klux Klan until June of 1924. This means that

meant to have great projects or hopes and realize none of them, or worse, to get from them only troubles and damage. Another popular version of the saying was ‘to go for wool and come back shorn.’ This involves a pun in Italian on the verb ‘suonare’, which generally means ‘to play [musically], to sound,’ but can also be used to mean ‘struck, or beaten on.’” A Google search for the newspaper and idiom can be found here: https://www.google.com/search?q=Corriere+della+Sera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf- 8#q=Corriere+della+Sera+pifferi+di+montagna. An English translation of this page can be found here: http://dizionari.corriere.it/dizionario_italiano/P/piffero.shtml. 76 “Four Shot In Gun Battle Sequel to Anti-Klan Riot: Visiting Klansmen Are Attacked and Beaten By Mob; Many Are Injured,” Steubenville Herald-Star, 16 August 1923, 1, 3. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid.

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unlike the Slovak paper, which devoted numerous columns to the 1923 elections, the

Italian paper did nothing to either warn its readers of the Klan’s political ambitions or to

encourage local Italians to become politically active. However, the overwhelming

number of victories enjoyed by Klansmen in the 1923 elections surely alarmed the editor,

E.A. Buonpane, of the Italian-language paper. He responded in kind in 1924 by

publishing a number of articles denouncing the Ku Klux Klan and emphasizing the

importance of citizenship and the right to vote. Ashley Zampogna studied the

contributions of Il Cittadino Italo-Americano to the fight against the Klan in her Master’s

Thesis, “America May Not Perish: The Italian-American Fight Against the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley.”79

Admittedly, Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, like the Youngstownské Slovenské

Noviny, encouraged its readers to embrace citizenship as a vehicle for attaining access to

political power in the community. The first article concerned with the formation of an

Italian-American political organization clearly addressed the goal of the group, stating

that the “principal goal of this new Club is to fight Klanism” and that this would be

achieved “by following the example of other anti-Klan organizations.”80 The article does

not state which other anti-Klan organizations the Italian American Citizen Political Club

would mimic, but its political activism bears a resemblance to that of the Slovaks and

other special interests groups as they would continue regularly meeting, signing up new

79 In her thesis, Zampogna concluded that the paper focused solely on the encouragement and political development of the local Italian-American voting bloc, but her study missed crucial advertisements and remarks that illustrated the belief that political action would not be enough to combat the Klan. Ashley Marie Zampogna, “America May Not Perish: The Italian American Fight Against The Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley,” (Youngstown State University Master’s Thesis, 2008). 80 “Italian American Citizen Political Club,” Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, 2 August 1924, 1.

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members, and they even adopted the “sacred motto” of: “All for One. One for All.”81 An

earlier study ably addressed the numerous articles appearing over the course of August

1924 through October 1924, which announced the creation of the Club and the efforts of

the editor to encourage political involvement as a means to appropriately challenge the

Klan. However, that study did not address several advertisements appearing in the

newspaper that foreshadowed and possibly contributed to the violence that would occur

on November 1, 1924 in Niles.82

The advertisements in question were a series of half page advertisements for mail order firearms that appeared in Il Cittadino Italo-Americano beginning on August 23,

1924 and running every week until the last issue of the month of September. The advertisements were laid out in a vertical half page arrangement that insured that firearms were pictured both above and below the fold, so that they would be impossible to miss.

The firearms pictured were a combination of run-of-the-mill police revolvers, full frame automatic pistols, a pocket-sized derringer, and even a broom-handled Mauser with detachable stock that touted its accuracy out to 1000 yards.83 Making the advertisements

81 “Italian American Citizen Political Association,” Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, 27 September 1924, 1. Note that by September the name of the organization had been changed to the more refined “Association” rather than the initial “Club.” 82 Zampogna focused her discussion on some of the aspects of the role of the Italian newspaper in helping Italians to mobilize politically, but it did not deal with the possible links the newspaper had to later violence and the editor’s approval of the methods of the Knights of the Flaming Circle. 83 The hand guns featured were certainly a mixture of the most cutting edge German engineered automatic pistols and older American revolvers, but all would have been quite capable of inflicting great harm to anyone who found themselves facing the wrong end of the gun. The 1000 yard accuracy claims for the Mauser are ambitious, but again illustrate the intensity of the firepower that was being advertised. These were not hunting rifles or shotguns; these were weapons for self-defense or offense against other human beings.

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more impressive was the fact that the entire section was composed in Italian, even though

the firearms company was based out of Texas. Obviously, the sellers wanted to be sure

that their potential customers would have no problem reading the text. Perhaps the most

amazing component of the entire process was that the buyer could order a fully-

functioning pistol and 100 round boxes of ammunition for just one dollar down with the

balance of the cost and shipping charges paid on delivery. It literally was a system of

cash on delivery arms sales with the only middle man being the postal worker.

Assuming that it would have taken at least a few weeks for a mail-order-firearm transaction to be completed to the actual delivery of the goods, the timing of the advertisements’ appearance and disappearance from the paper is curious. The advertisements first appeared after the violence of the summer of 1924 culminated in the brandishing of weapons in early August in Niles and ended just over one month before the full-scale riot of November 1.84 It seems possible that the appearance of firearms at

the August riot likely influenced the decision to run the advertisements and that the need

for there to be enough time for the firearms to arrive before November may have meant

the editor had advance knowledge of a possible upcoming showdown between members

of the Italian community and the Klan. It should be noted that during the same period the

Slovak paper never ran any firearms advertisements.

It is also noteworthy that a U.S. Representative from Youngstown, John G.

Cooper, had earlier introduced a bill prohibiting the interstate shipment of firearms in an

84 “Niles Seethes in the Aftermath of Riot,” The Warren Tribune, 5 August 1924, 1.

175 attempt to block sales such as those advertised in the Italian paper.85 The argument in favor of the bill was “that local legislation [could] not be effective unless it [was] backed up by interstate control of the shipments of firearms.”86 In a foreseeable twist, much like the mail-order-firearms company, the opposition for the bill was also based out of Texas.

It came in the form of Representative Thomas L. Blanton who argued that “as long as state laws permit carrying of revolvers any prohibition on shipment would ‘override’ the constitution of the United States.”87 As a result of Blanton’s argument the bill stalled in committee. In this case in particular, it makes sense that once the mail-order advertisement began appearing in the local Italian paper, the local Klan paper ran the story about outlawing the practice. Obviously, the Klan would not have supported the idea of Italians, either naturalized or non-citizen being able to easily obtain handguns through the mail.

Perhaps it was merely a coincidence that the Italian paper ran an advertisement for mail-order-firearms for two months before a riot led by Italians wielding handguns that were handed out by a local racketeer from the trunk of his car. 88 However, coincidence cannot explain the explicit references in the paper to not only an acceptance of violence as a means to challenge the Klan, but of the necessity of such violence that appeared in the paper after the riot in November. In an article titled “The K.K.K. and the

85 “Hits Ban on Mailing Guns,” Youngstown Citizen, 20 September 1924, 7. For further information on other legislative efforts and gun control during this period see: Barrett Sharpknack, “Firepower by Mail: Gun-Toting,’ State Regulation, and The Origins of Federal Firearms Legislation, 1911-1927,” (Case Western Reserve University Master’s Thesis, 2015). 86 “Hits Ban on Mailing Guns,” 7. 87 Ibid. 88 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 134.

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Order of the Sons Italy: A Twin Case to that of Niles, Ohio,” the editor, E.A. Buonpane, wrote that there was a need…

for ad hoc organizations, composed not only of Italians, but of conscientious Americans, Jews, Poles and even blacks, so that at every moment they may be ready to refute every insult and every provocation. At Niles, O. the “Flaming Circle” acting alone was able to hold the front against the arrogance of the hooded ones, not permitting at any cost that these could march through the streets of the city. And they had the Mayor against them, who also belonged to the shadowy association. There were injured and dead, the city was occupied by the militia, but the parade did not take place.89 Quotes like this reveal that the editor of the newspaper must have shared some of the views of the Knights of the Flaming Circle and also happened to advocate naturalizing and becoming politically active alongside its calls for violent intervention if necessary..90

It seems the editor of the felt that political action alone was a losing proposition in the

“battle” against the Klan. To further drive that point home, Buonpane wrote, “It is already seen that political propaganda alone is ineffective, but coupled to an energetic and decisive action, it would not fail to give its beneficent fruits.”91 Certainly, Buonpane knew that for sustained advances into the power structures of local politics the Italian community would have to naturalize and adapt to American society, but for the obstacle presented by the Klan a stronger physical response was needed. A poem published in Il

Cittadino Italo-Americano in September titled “To a Klansman,” just over a month before the riot, clearly stated so much in its final stanza which read,

89 “The K.K.K. and the Order of the Sons of Italy: A Twin Case to that of Niles, Ohio,” Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, 15 November 1924, 1. 90 Despite quotes like that from footnote 88, Zampogna wrote, “The tactics utilized by Il Cittadino Italo-Americano and the Knights of the Flaming Circle were opposite in almost every way. Obviously, they were not, they were remarkably similar if not the same. Zampogna, “America May Not Perish,” 81. 91 “The K.K.K. and the Order of the Sons of Italy: A Twin Case to that of Niles, Ohio,” 1.

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And may it please God that your deaf ferocity, camouflaged with love of national gods, may be extinguished by the rope.92

The Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny also published an article about the

November 1, 1924 anti-Klan riot in Niles. The article began with a plethora of incorrect information about particulars of the riot. Errors such as these are not unexpected because newspaper publishers often rushed to get the story out before the facts of the event had become clear.93 One of the more incredibly misconstrued elements of the riot described in the Slovak paper was the shooting of Frank McDermott, which the paper claimed occurred as “he spoke to a group to keep peace.”94 In reality, Frank McDermott, the son of former state senator John McDermott, had actually been out at 3:00 A. M. searching for trouble with his fellow associates from the Jennings Athletic Club, a known haven for bootleggers and racketeers.95 The three toughs found the trouble they were looking for when they ambushed a car driven by Rex Dunn as it pulled up to Rummell’s Pool Hall, which was a known Klan gathering spot. Upon seeing the car the three men, who were members of the local movement of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, opened fire on the car. It should be noted that these shots were the official first shots fired in the November

1 anti-Klan riot in Niles. After firing the shots that set off the violence and drew first blood from Rex Dunn who was hit, McDermott leapt onto the running board of Dunn’s

92 “To a Klansman,” Il Cittadino Italo-Americano, 13 September 1924, 1. 93 With that being said, the Slovak article came out six days after the riot, so one would hope for more accurate coverage of the event, but one could argue that the particulars of the riot are not known to this day. Rumors and myths persist about the event and claims of deaths on both sides are still repeated as truth in the region. The possibility of proving these claims true or false is quite limited. The official report by the Ohio National Guard claimed that there were no deaths. 94 “About Bloody Fight in Niles,” Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny, 7 November 1924, 1. 95 This is the same John McDermott whose call for peace was discussed in this chapter’s opening sequence.

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car. Here he was met by shots fired from within the car by Rex Dunn. Dunn and his

brother Willard had armed themselves earlier in the night before they headed to the pool

hall after they had been awakened by the sound of an explosion. McDermott was struck

near the ear and in the shoulder and tumbled from the car as it sped away.96 McDermott

survived his injuries and later testified against Dunn at his trial following the riots.This

sequence of events follows a pattern exposed by numerous scholars of the 1920s Klan

that in most instances of violence attributed to the Klan, in this period, it was usually the

opposition who struck first.97 Of course the newspapers that reported on the incidents never printed retractions to clarify such things, as facts became available, because it would not fit the popular narrative regarding the violent nature of the Klan. To be fair, the

Dunn brothers were likely just as interested in finding trouble that night as they sought the source of an alleged explosion while armed with handguns. This incident encapsulates the dangers of radicalization that existed in this period of intense polarization.

The article in the Youngstownské Slovenské Noviny pointed out the radicalization

of both sides involved in the anti-Klan riot in Niles. The editor wrote,

When people decide to do something, they will do it even at the cost of life. The Klan chose to meet and hold a parade in Niles, and the anti-Klan decided that they will oppose it no matter what, and that is what they did.98

96 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 128-129. 97 One of the strongest arguments to this effect was made by Michael D. Jacobs in his dissertation “Catholic Response to the Ku Klux Klan in the Midwest, 1921-28” which he completed in May 2001. Michael D. Jacobs, “Catholic Response to the Ku Klux Klan in the Midwest, 1921-8,” (Marquette University Dissertation in History, 2001). 98 “About Bloody Fight in Niles,” 1.

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Following the description of the riot the Slovak editor revealed his abhorrence for the

conduct of both sides in the confrontation by stating,

With pleasure I can report that in this shameful and bloody event neither the Slovaks nor Slovenians participated. Among the injured and arrested only Americans, Irish, and Italians were found. The last mentioned were one quarter of the anti-Klan camp. Even one woman was injured and when she came to she yelled “me fight too.” It is said on the side of the anti- Klan there was a lot of drinking.99 Comments such as these reveal that it was not exactly a united front of Catholics, immigrants, and newspaper men when it came to matters of facing down the threat of the

Klan. Regardless of the difference of opinion between the two newspaper editors over the actions of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, the actions of the group seemed to have had a greater impact on the collapse of the Ku Klux Klan than anything the two editors wrote.

In terms of their political endeavors, the two editors were successful in their attempts to foster the long term growth of naturalized immigrant voting blocs through their efforts to encourage naturalization and political mobilization as a means to combat the Klan. One way to examine whether or not the rise of the Klan and the efforts of the two editors had any impact on the naturalization rates of various immigrant groups can be accomplished by examining the records available in the yearly Annual Report of the

Secretary of State, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, Including the Statistical Report to the General Assembly. As seen in Chapter Two, these reports contained an assortment of statistical data tracked in the eighty-eight counties of the state of Ohio. One of the categories tracked in the Annual Report were the naturalizations of immigrants in each county. In order to track changes within this data in regards to the impact of the Ku Klux

Klan provocations of the years 1922 to 1925 on immigrant naturalization rates, this study

99 Ibid.

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collected and analyzed data from the years 1871 to 1929.100 In this way, patterns of

naturalizations can be examined in order to see if the rates were affected by the

combination of the Klan provocations and the newspaper-led campaigns to naturalize and

politically mobilize specific immigrant groups to challenge the Klan.

Examining the naturalization rates for Italians and Slovaks, the two immigrant

groups whose foreign-language newspapers were examined in this chapter reveals that

the period during and after the rise of the Ku Klux Klan did in fact represent a time of

substantial growth in terms of the numbers of immigrants who became naturalized

citizens in the period from 1871 to 1929. In Mahoning County, 38% of all Italian

naturalizations occurred in the years 1924 to 1929 and 31% percent of all Czecho-

Slovakian and Austrian naturalizations occurred in that time.101 To clarify what that

means, consider that in the entire fifty-nine year period 3,808 Italian immigrants became naturalized citizens in Mahoning County. Out of the 3,808 Italian immigrants who naturalized 1,464 immigrants did so in the five-year period after the anti-Klan riot in

1924. Likewise out of the 3,575 Austrian and Czecho-Slovakian immigrants who naturalized in the period, 1,113 did so after the anti-Klan riot. In Trumbull County, the situation was similar where 26% of the Italians and 37% of the Austrian and Czecho-

Slovakians who naturalized did so in the last five years of the fifty-nine year period. In other words, in Trumbull County, out of a total of 939 naturalized Italian immigrants 244

100 A spreadsheet of data compiled from the Annual Reports can be found in Appendix B at the end of this dissertation. 101 I combined both Austrian totals, which date all the way back into the 1870s, with the Czecho-Slovakian totals, which only began being tracked in 1926 in the Annual Reports. Therefore these numbers may be less precise than I would like, but the two immigrant groups likely had enough contact and connections with each other that they may have experienced similar difficulties during the Klan years.

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naturalized in the five years after the riot. Similarly, out of the 492 total Austrian and

Czecho-Slovakian naturalized citizens in the county, 180 completed the process in the

period of years from 1925 to 1930. Considering that at this time the naturalization

process could be completed in a minimum of five years, and that both immigrant groups

began arriving in relatively large numbers in both counties as early as the 1880s, it does

not seem that naturalizing had been a priority for many immigrants before the appearance

of the Klan.102These numbers show a significant increase in the number of immigrants

who completed the naturalization process after the Klan riot and after the concerted

efforts of the two newspaper editors to raise awareness about the importance of becoming

naturalized citizens.

This pattern of naturalizations by immigrants in the wake of Klan violence

mirrors trends within the Catholic community toward Americanization and patriotism

discussed by Michael D. Jacobs in his dissertation “Catholic Response to the Ku Klux

Klan in the Midwest, 1921-8.” Jacobs concluded that by 1928, the Catholic Church had

become a far more accepted institution in America, precisely because of how publicly

and openly patriotic it attempted to be during the period, which stood in stark in contrast

to the secretive and intolerant actions of the Ku Klux Klan.103 However, efforts to

Americanize and naturalize did not defeat the Ku Klux Klan. These efforts may have positioned the immigrants and Catholic Church well in the period after the fall of the

1920s Klan, but they were not the primary cause of the organization’s demise. In the

102 General information regarding the five-year, two-step naturalization process that prevailed at the time can be found on the National Archives website. https://www.archives.gov/research/naturalization/naturalization.html. Accessed 25 March 2017. 103 For more on this read Jacobs’s “Conclusion: Americanization” within his dissertation.

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Mahoning Valley the primary cause of the Klan’s collapse was the violent resistance of the Knights of the Flaming Circle and in particular it was the Niles anti-Klan riot.

Unfortunately, the letters and advertisement campaigns of the Knights of

Columbus and the patriotic articles appearing in the two foreign language papers do little to aid in our understanding of the Knights of the Flaming Circle. For the most part, neither paper covered the group and its activities in any great detail. Therefore, in order to better understand the Knights of the Flaming Circle one must cast a wide net, from at least Pennsylvania to Illinois, to examine the group in the handful of spots where the flames burned so hot that they extinguished the widespread power of the 1920s Klan in less than two years.

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Chapter Five: Smoke on the Level: The Hopeful Spark and Furious Spread of the Flaming Circle

Following the anti-Klan riot in Steubenville in August 1923, state Klan officials immediately made plans to retaliate against their opposition in the city by holding a state

Konklave and parade there on September 28. A headline in the Steubenville Herald-Star announced the plan and claimed the affair would attract at least forty thousand

Klansmen. The state Klan officials went on to brag that the event would be the biggest gathering of its kind ever held in the state of Ohio. Claims were made that the meeting had been scheduled to occur even before the riot, but, due to the riot, the Konklave was expanded and Klaverns from every city in the state made plans to send delegates. The article also contained a denial that the group had planned on organizing a surprise rally on August 28 in response to the riot. Klan leadership claimed there would be only the normal monthly meeting scheduled to occur in Barnesville prior to the upcoming state

Konklave at the end of September.1

Meanwhile, a Klan rally in the Western Pennsylvania town of Carnegie on

Saturday, August 25, garnered attention in Steubenville and across the nation as it resulted in deadly violence. While attempting to march in Carnegie, the Klan had been met with stiff resistance, but refused to halt their parade. In the ensuing chaos a

Klansmen named Thomas R. Abbott was shot in the face and died. The shocking news of

Abbott’s death circulated in not only regular newspapers, but was also told and retold in

1 “Klan To Hold State Conclave Here Sept. 28,” Steubenville Herald-Star, 22 August 1923, 1.

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Klan newspapers and special pamphlets claiming to tell the true story of the Carnegie

riot and Klansman Abbott’s death. It was also reported in the Steubenville Herald-Star

account of the Carnegie riot that twenty Klansmen from Steubenville had been at the

Klan rally. Apparently, none of them were injured in the riot, but participating in the

deadly conflict may have given the Klansmen cause for concern and second thoughts

about hosting the state Konklave in Steubenville in September.2

A sure sign that the deadly riot in Carnegie had affected members of the

Steubenville Klan was evident in a headline that appeared on September 20, 1923 on the

front page of the Steubenville Herald-Star which simply read, “Ku Klux Postpone Their

Conclave.”3 It seems that the Klan committee tasked with finding a suitable location outside of town for the Klan festivities was having a difficult time locating the requested three hundred acres of pasture land to accommodate the expected “50,000 automobiles from all parts of the state.”4 Talk of such extravagances and the inability to find a worthy

location may have served as a convenient excuse for the decision to postpone the event. It

is likely that the real reason that the Steubenville Klan decided not to attempt another

march into the city was that they feared for their lives. To this effect, the article also

stated that,

the only field that could be found here is one three miles from the city. To enter the main streets for the proposed parade, Klansmen would have been forced to march down the hill, directly across from a thickly wooded hill which would provide ample protection for ambushing snipers or others who might desire to injure persons taking part in the gathering.5

2 “Probing Riot at Carnegie,” Steubenville Herald-Star, 27 August 1923, 1. 3 “Ku Klux Postpone Their Conclave,” Steubenville Herald-Star, 20 September 1923, 1. 4 “Ku Klux Postpone Their Conclave, 1. 5 Ibid.

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The Klansmen’s concerns over possible violence in Steubenville were well-founded. In the very near future their fiery cross would find its position as the most effective fear-

inspiring nocturnal symbol challenged by a new burning symbol illuminating the night

sky in that city, and elsewhere across the North. The appearance of the flaming circle

would herald the rise of a new challenger to the Klan and a frightening period of

vigilante violence that would leave numerous casualties in its wake.

Accounts of the resistance movement against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s have

been limited in terms of details regarding who it actually was that resisted the Klan and

the Klan’s efforts at forcing the population of the United States to conform to its view of

America. Most accounts actually tend to focus almost entirely on the manner in which the

Klan itself brought about its own demise, rather than addressing the fact that there were

people organizing a resistance to the group. One of these overlooked organizations was

the Knights of the Flaming Circle, whose actions, more than any other factor, brought

about the demise of the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley. Not only did they end the

Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley they were a major factor in stopping the Klan

movement in Steubenville, Ohio, and also in Williamson County, Illinois.6 Many of the

earliest studies that mentioned the Knights of the Flaming Circle have mistakenly

6 The first studies to deal in depth with the Knights of the Flaming Circle and some of its members were Paul M. Angle’s Bloody Williamson and William D. Jenkins’s work Steel Valley Klan. Angle did not investigate the Knights of the Flaming Circle as an organization. Instead, he seemed to think of it as simply the name applied to a group of bootleggers opposed to Klan-backed liquor raids. It is unclear from his work if he knew the organization had chapters elsewhere. Unfortunately, Jenkins also did not extend his study of the organization beyond the borders of the Mahoning Valley and the local chapter that opposed the Klan in that location. He mentioned “the formation” of the organization under the control of Dr. W. S. McGuigan in Steubenville, but in this regard he was incorrect. John M. Craig had correctly traced the group to Kane, Pennsylvania in his 2014 work The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928.

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identified Steubenville as the original home of the organization, but this incorrect.

Instead, the organization came into existence in August of 1923 in Kane, Pennsylvania

weeks ahead of its appearance in Steubenville.

Following their appearance in Kane and Steubenville, the Knights of the Flaming

Circle recruited members across the North. The group was active in Pittsburgh and other

locations in Western Pennsylvania, as well as Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Along with the group’s rise to prominence in national newspapers came a wave of violent opposition to the Klan. Some of these incidents explicitly involved men calling themselves Knights of the Flaming Circle, while other occasions did not. One thing that did seem to

accompany these incidents of violence against Klansmen was an active fight in those

locations over the enforcement of Prohibition. Again in most cases the members of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle were in some way connected to men involved in the illicit

liquor trade. However, this had not always been the case.

Examining the original manifesto of the organization, from August of 1923,

reveals how the intentions of the group had evolved, or in some ways devolved, a great

deal by the time the Italians and Irish in Niles formed their local chapter in June of 1924.

These changes, along with the lack of newsworthy violence in Kane, may have led to the

town long being overlooked when studying resistance to the 1920s Klan. Despite the fact

that there were substantial changes to the tone and rhetoric of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle’s message, and even an alteration of the name once it crossed the border from

Pennsylvania into Ohio, the group’s roots were in the timber country of McKean County,

Pennsylvania. There in the borough of Kane the Knights of the Blazing Ring, as they

initially called themselves, made their first appearance on the night of August 14, 1923.

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In order to fully grasp the evolution of the anti-Klan organization as its ideology spread across the industrial North, and its often violent efforts allowed it to successfully combat the Ku Klux Klan, an examination of the Knights of the Flaming Circle must begin with the founding of the group in Kane not in Steubenville.

On that August night, just outside of town near the Kane Ice Company’s plant a strange glow caught the eye of travelers along Kane-Mt. Jewett state road, who went to investigate. What they found was probably quite perplexing. There in a field near a railroad line was a large “ingeniously constructed hoop made of heavy wire in which railroad signal lights had been fastened in a perfect circle” and which “when ignited they burned with a lurid glow for fully half an hour.”7 For the next day and a half, no one

could explain the strange phenomenon, but then on Thursday, August 16, 1923, a letter

was received by a newspaperman working for the Kane Republican, which explained the

fiery ring’s origin. The letter which was unsigned and typewritten read:

You are selected as the recipient of this letter because you will give it the publicity we desire. Last night the Knights of the Blazing Ring were organized and the insignia of the order displayed upon a level plain. Kane is on the Big Level and the Knights of the Blazing Ring are on the level, therefore Kane is selected as the starting point of a movement that will ring the earth with blazing justice to all. We are enemies of all clans or klans. We believe in liberty for every human being, black, white or yellow, regardless of race, religion or creed. We work within and without the Blazing Ring and do not cover our faces. Our light is never burned on a hill but will soon be visible to the whole world. If you give this letter your best attention you will hear from us again soon, but within six months the world will know the Knights of the Blazing Ring.8

7 “’The Knights of the Blazing Ring’ Send Out Announcement: Circle of Fire Burned Near Kane Said To Be Insignia of Strange New Organization Claiming a World Wide Membership; Believes in Liberty For All Creeds,” The Kane Republican, 16 August 1923, 1. 8 “’The Knights of the Blazing Ring’ Send Out Announcement,” 1.

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For their part the publishers of the Kane Republican were not sure how to handle the

news and wondered aloud if the whole episode was an elaborate joke, but they still

published the story and awaited further contact from the mysterious group.

The investigation into the perpetrators of the initial circle burning went cold for a

few days, as no further events occurred in the town. However, a reporter from the New

York Herald arrived in Kane on August 22 and revived interest in the event when he began asking questions regarding the formation of the group. The reporter’s trip to Kane proved to be fruitless, as far as shedding new light on the organization, but the actual cause of his visit provided some detail as to the manner in which the new order’s myth had already begun to spread. It turned out that while the reporter was in Steubenville,

Ohio covering the August 15 anti-Klan riot, he asked a Klan official about resistance to the group and was told that “the most serious opposition was the starting of an order called “The Knights of the Blazing Ring” at Kane, Pa.”9 Upon hearing this, the reporter

informed his editors who dispatched him to Kane to investigate the order.

The most interesting thing about the circumstances of H.W. Johnson, the New

York Herald reporter, being told about the existence of the Knights of the Blazing Ring was the speed at which the Klansmen had been made aware of the new order. If one considers that the anti-Klan riot in Steubenville occurred one day after the initial

appearance of the Knights of the Blazing Ring, but the event in Kane was not reported on

until the day after the Steubenville riot, then it would be unlikely that there was any

knowledge of the new group in Steubenville at the time of the riot. However, the fact that

9 “N.Y. Herald Man Looks Kane Over: After ‘Blazing Ring’ Story But Finds Others,” The Kane Republican, 23 August 1923, 1.

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the Herald reporter filed a dispatch with his paper on August 19, positing that a series of

anti-Klan meetings occurring around Jefferson County, Ohio, where Steubenville is

located, were likely “all prompted by the same directing head,” and may be “affiliated

with the Knights of the Blazing Ring, reported to have been organized in Pennsylvania”

makes one less certain that was the case.10

Further credence can be lent to the idea that the Blazing Ring was known to the anti-Klan men in Steubenville at the time of the riot, when one considers the direct connections between the two cities as stops on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Considering that the original blazing ring was constructed of railroad lights, next to the Pennsylvania

Railroad line running into Kane, it would be reasonable to think the person or persons responsible for its construction may have been affiliated with the railroad. The fact that the Pennsylvania Railroad continued down to Steubenville, and that part of the riot in

Steubenville occurred in the railyard, and involved the ambush of a Klansman, who worked as a conductor for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Pan Handle Line lends itself to further speculation that the initial spread of the Blazing Ring may have been along the railroad lines linking the cities involved in the later actions of the order.11 This

connectivity extended all the way to East St. Louis, Illinois, a city which was linked with

10 “Feeling Grows Tense After Attack on Klan: Klansmen and Enemies Meet Secretly in Ohio,” The New York Herald, 20 August 1923, 2. 11 “D.L. Gibson, Local Klansman is Shot In Head; May Die: Three Alleged Assailants, Two of Them Wounded, One Seriously, In Custody–Fourth Man Wounded in Gun Play at Pan Handle Railroad Being Sought–Gibson at Gill Hospital Tells His Version of Shooting Which Occurred Early This Morning–Klansmen Claims Three Men Were Shooting at Him,” Steubenville Herald-Star, 16 August 1923, 1. For more on the railroad line into Steubenville see: http://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=ohio/steubenvillerr2/ Accessed 16 January 2017.

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the most violent anti-Klan fighting taking place in nearby Williamson County, Illinois

where the Flaming Circle name was also invoked by those opposed to the Klan.12

Regardless of whether the rioters in Steubenville initially knew of the formation of the

Knights of the Blazing Ring in Kane the day before their riot, by the nineteenth of August the name was spreading around the city and into the surrounding county.

After August 24, when the New York Herald published its article on Kane and the mysterious formation of the Knights of the Blazing Ring, widespread attention was drawn to the town and its new anti-Klan group. Among other things, the article claimed that an anti-Klan organization in Philadelphia and a secret order of prominent New York

City Jews had already reached out to the editor of the Kane Republican seeking some way to contact the Knights, but no connection could be made as the group remained cloaked in secrecy.13 In the meantime, the town’s newfound fame brought with it a fair

share of negative attention as well. On August 30, local Klansmen made their presence

known by igniting a “Huge Flaming Cross” on a hilltop “in the vicinity of the Swedish,

Forest Lawn, and St. Callistus cemeteries.”14 The editor of The Kane Republican

assumed that this spectacle was meant as a challenge to the mystery members of the

Knights of the Blazing Ring and wondered if Kane might become the first “theater of

12 For more on the railroad lines and locations linked by the Pan Handle Line see: http://rnetzlof.pennsyrr.com/corphist/pcc_stl.html Accessed 16 January 2017. 13 “Anti-Klan Meeting Leaves No Traces,” The New York Herald, 24 August 1924, 7. The organization in New York was known as the Knights of Liberty and they were led by a former Klansman, A. J. Padon Jr. and had a number of prominent New York politicians and judges in its ranks. “Knights of Liberty Unite to Fight Klan,” The New York Herald, 25 August 1923, 18. 14 “Huge Flaming Cross Burned on Hilltop May Be Challenge: Ku Klux Klan Symbol Which Flamed Last Night May Mean Defiance To Knights of Blazing Ring, Alleged To be An Opposing Organization; Klan Is Active In This Part of the Country,” The Kane Republican, 31 August 1923, 1.

191 action” between the two shadowy organizations.15 He also pointed out that the Klan had been “showing great activity in this part of the state” including having “openly held” meetings which were “always orderly gatherings,” with one exception being the disorder in Carnegie.16 Ironically, the editor of the Republican had no idea what terrible violence would come to dominate the future interactions between the Knights of the Blazing Ring and the Ku Klux Klan across the country when he remarked that the public in Kane

“eagerly awaited” further performances by each organization.17 He even claimed, “As long as the participants direct their activities in peaceful directions and burn circles and crosses the public will stand on the sidelines and applaud but Kane is a community that will not tolerate for a moment any ‘rough stuff.’”18

Only a few days later on September 3, the editor and the anxious public audience had its wish fulfilled when another Klan cross blazed against the night sky. This time the spectacle was even more grandiose and theatrical with three large explosions used to signal its appearance. The cross itself was estimated to be an impressive thirty-five feet tall and burned for a substantial period of time behind the Kane Manufacturing plant in town. Although residents arriving on the scene saw no Klansmen slipping into the night, they did discover a note near the base of the cross. The note read, “We were here yesterday, we are here today, and we will be here forever. America for Americans.”19

15 “Huge Flaming Cross Burned on Hilltop May Be Challenge,” 1. 16 Ibid. For more on Carnegie see: John M. Craig, The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928 (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh University Press, 2015). 17 “Huge Flaming Cross Burned on Hilltop May Be Challenge,” 1. 18 Ibid. 19 “Three Explosions Announce Burning of Ku Klux Cross: Mammoth Emblem of Masked Order Flamed Again Last Night In Northeastern Part of City; Stirring Letter From Knights of Blazing Ring,” The Kane Republican, 4 September 1923, 1.

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However, unlike after the cross burning in August the Knights of the Blazing Ring did not remain silent.

The morning after the cross was burned a letter arrived at the Kane Republican.

This time the letter was handwritten and read:

Dear Sir:― It is with pleasure that we announce that many leading citizens of the world have approved of and will soon join our order. This order is entirely antagonistic to the Ku Klux Klan and opposed to all its principles. We believe that every person has the right to his creed whether he be Jew, Negro or Mohammedan. Man was put upon this earth supposedly to be equal with all his fellowmen. One of the greatest principles of this country and the world is that all men are created equal. Any person, government or order who denies this right of equality is committing one of the greatest crimes man ever heard of. Hoping that we have enlightened you and the world at large on the principles of our order we remain, Yours sincerely, Knights of the Blazing Circle (P.S.) You can expect to see one of our blazing circles in the vicinity of Kane in the near future.20

For his part, the editor quipped that the promise of more burning emblems guaranteed to be “just one thrill after another for this community.”21 But alas, it was not meant to be, because the note would actually be the last time in 1923 that the fledgling Knights of the

Blazing Ring would be heard from in Kane. In fact, it was the last time that the group would be heard from under that moniker. Instead, as the ideology of the Blazing Ring spread west into Ohio, and elsewhere, it would change its name and rhetorical tone.

Operating under its new name, the Knights of the Flaming Circle, the liberty-loving,

20 “Three Explosions Announce Burning of Ku Klux Cross,” 1. 21 Ibid.

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secret organization transformed into a fierce and violent publicly active opponent of the

Ku Klux Klan, and never backed down from a fight.

On September 15 the Knights of the Flaming Circle, as they were now being

called, held a meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to recruit new members into the Hill

Top Chapter of their organization. This marked at least the second such recruiting drive

in the vicinity of Pittsburgh in little over a week, since one hundred fifty recruits were

signed up in Jeanette, Pennsylvania on September 4.22 Present at the Hill Top meeting was an unnamed recruiter for the Knights of the Flaming Circle from Youngstown, Ohio, who provided much insight into the purpose of the organization and the manner in which it intended to challenge the Klan. The recruiter asked the assembled media men, “If one hooded organization is permitted by law, why not two?”23 In a self-assured manner, the recruiter then announced that there would be no need for three such organizations

“because our by-laws permit us to admit everybody barred by our rival organization.”24

To contrast their organization with that of the Klan and its Invisible Empire, the Knights

of the Flaming Circle were actually calling themselves an “Invisible Democracy” and

explained how “color and creed” would be “no test of eligibility for membership with

us.”25 To drive that point home, the recruiter remarked,

Among these white-hooded and draped citizens you see here are two of the most substantial negroes [sic] of Pittsburgh, and they have been authorized tonight to organize chapters for men of their own race as soon

22 “Knights of the Flaming Circle Initiate 150,” The Pittsburgh Press, 6 September 1923, 1. 23 “Asserts Klan Rivals Back Law and Peace: ‘Flaming Circle’ Leader Says They Will Fight Only When They Are Compelled,” The New York Times, 16 September 1923, S5. 24 “Asserts Klan Rivals Back Law and Peace,” S5. 25 Ibid.

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as they can do so. Catholics, Jews―in fact, anybody who wants to join our organization and aide by our rules―will be given a chance.26

In terms of the group’s purpose in organizing, the Youngstown-based recruiter claimed that the men were coming together for common defense, but also hinted at the possibility that the group would be proactive if necessary. He claimed, “We are sworn to uphold the law―all laws―that is, as good as any organization upholds them.”27 Finally, when asked if the group was a militant organization, he replied,

We expect to be militant, but not pugnacious. We do not intend to start fighting. We have already been slapped on the cheek and we are turned for the other slap. We expect to get it soon. By the time they are ready to crack us on the nose we will be ready for them. We won’t go down without a battle and any ‘submerged or invisible empire’ that attempts to take away our rights is courting trouble―of a kind that it is not pleasant to talk about.28 Despite the remarks of the recruiter from Youngstown, the reputation of the newly minted anti-Klan organization had already strayed from its promises of orderly, law- abiding opposition to the Klan.

Before the month of August 1923 had ended, and before the recruiter from

Youngstown had traveled to Pittsburgh, anti-Klan violence had erupted in a number of northern cities. It was the start of a violent year that saw opposition to the Klan escalate to physical assaults, stabbings, shootings, and bombings leaving a number of people horribly wounded and even some dead. Beginning with the incident at Carnegie on

August 25, mentioned above by the editor of the Kane Republican, Klan parades were now often being met with violent resistance. As mentioned above, in Carnegie the

Klansman named Thomas R. Abbott met an untimely end from a gunshot wound to the

26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid.

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head while participating in a march into the contested city.29 Like Kane, Steubenville,

Youngstown, Niles, and East St. Louis, Carnegie was an important transportation hub

with a large number of residents employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad.30 This again

makes one wonder if the genesis of the organization had any links to the men employed

by the railroad.

The Carnegie rally was originally planned for Steubenville as a way for the Klan

to retaliate for the earlier anti-Klan riot, but after days of secret meetings the city was

deemed too dangerous for the Klansmen to parade within.31 Apparently, secret meetings

were occurring all over Jefferson County where Steubenville was located. According to

newspaper reports of the time, the anti-Klan movement in the county had started in the much smaller town of Dillonvale, Ohio. Like Steubenville, Dillonvale had an ethno-

racially diverse population that included a number of southern and eastern Europeans.32

Amongst the families in Dillonvale were the Sustiks who had recently moved to the area

from Oklahoma, because Klan activities in Oklahoma had become too volatile.33 Henry

Sustik’s wife was the former Minnie Ricchetti, which is noteworthy because her brother was Adam Ricchetti, who would later be the partner of bank robber and murderer “Pretty

29 Hiram Evans, himself, had given the orders to march into Carnegie during a rally held before the anti-Klan riot.Craig, The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 70. 30 Ibid, 65. 31 “Klansmen Abandon March in Ohio City: Say They Do Not Want to Be ‘Targets for Gunmen’ in Steubenville. Rival Body Is Organized,” The New York Times, 22 August 1923, 16. 32 “Feelings Grow Tense After Attack on Klan: Klansmen and Enemies Meet Secretly in Ohio,” The New York Herald, 20 August 1923, 2. 33 This information is from a family history of the Sustik family. http://www.fredsustik.com/Sustiksv2.html Accessed on 28 January 2017.

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Boy” Floyd.34 Familial connections to later criminal activity were not the only connection to criminal behavior in which the Sustiks were engaged during the period in the early 1920s when the Ku Klux Klan attempted to re-establish its view of American morality in the region. Apparently, in addition to working in the local coal industry,

Henry Sustik made extra money selling bootlegged alcohol in the county.35 Bootlegging and the role of Klansmen in assisting with the enforcement of Prohibition had played a key role in the most violent moments of the anti-Klan riot in Steubenville when Darwin

Gibson was shot at the railyard. Gibson had been moonlighting as a dry agent out of nearby Richmond, Ohio and it was believed that was the reason he had been targeted for assassination.36 The connection to bootlegging enterprises and later criminal activities in

Dillonvale and Steubenville helps to establish a baseline for local criminality and the importance of disagreements over Prohibition enforcement that existed within locations where the Knights of the Flaming Circle appeared to combat the Klan.37

A strong argument could be made that the enforcement of Prohibition became the primary issue over which violence between the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the

Flaming Circle occurred, but the very creation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle

34 Floyd would later be gunned down in 1934 by law enforcement agents in East Liverpool, Ohio near Steubenville. Adam Ricchetti would later be executed for his crimes in 1938 in Missouri. http://fredsustik.com/AdamLifePrison.html Accessed 28 January 2017. 35 “The Sustik’s.” http://www.fredsustik.com/Sustiksv2.html Accessed on 28 January 2017. 36 “Gibson,” Steubenville Herald-Star, 16 August 1923, 3. 37 Another similarity between the situation in Steubenville and that of the Mahoning Valley was the involvement of naturalized Protestant citizens in the activities of the local Ku Klux Klan. In Steubenville, an attempt was made to the national Klan headquarters for a special dispensation to allow for naturalized Protestants from England and Wales to join the local Klan in 1923 around the time of the anti-Klan riot. “Klan is Building Up Power to Dictate Candidates in 1924,” The New York Herald, 22 August 1923, 1.

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seemed to ignite violence across the country in the late summer of 1923. One such event

occurred in Perth Amboy, New Jersey where, on August 30, a crowd estimated at 5,000

people overran police blockades, the high-powered streams of water from firehoses, and

tear gas in order to attack a meeting of Klansmen in an Odd Fellows Hall in the city.38

The group of attackers was led by men from the “local Knights of Columbus and Hebrew

organizations,” many of whom screamed “that they would kill every member of the Klan

that they found inside.”39 This anti-Klan riot occurred after the Klan had announced their intention to meet on this night, because they had days earlier had another meeting of theirs disrupted by anti-Klan activists.40 The decision to schedule another meeting only

days later backfired terribly and many were injured in the resulting melee.

Ironically, an article published in the same newspaper column as the story about

the anti-Klan riot in Perth Amboy reported that Jews were being “counseled against

joining anti-Klan organizations in the [latest issue of] American Hebrew.”41 The author

of the article urged that in areas where the authorities were Klansmen they “should be

ousted and men without taint should be appointed or elected.”42 This would seem to

comport with the message of both the Italian and Slovak papers in Youngstown that

urged immigrants to naturalize and use the power of the vote to bring about the end of the

Klan. The author of the American Hebrew article was not unrealistic in his view that the

fight against the Klan would be a protracted affair if conducted only through legal means,

38 “Mob of 5,000 Beats Off Police; Routs Jersey Klansmen,” The New York Herald, 31 August 1923, 1. 39 “Mob of 5,000 Beats Off Police,” 1. 40 Ibid. 41 “Jews Told Not Join Anti-Klan Societies,” The New York Herald, 31 August 1923, 5. 42 Ibid.

198 but felt that “a counter organization is apt to intensify class feeling and group hatred.”43

The truth in that statement had already revealed itself by the time the New York Herald ran its story about the American Hebrew article.

Also taking up the mantle of those opposed to the formation of anti-Klan organizations like the Knights of the Flaming Circle was Archbishop Michael Curley of

Baltimore, but he perhaps had misunderstood the group’s purpose. Curley’s confusion was apparent from his remark that he had little knowledge of the group and thought that like the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan those of the Flaming Circle were simply out to make money.44 In some ways, Curley was so wrong he was actually right in his assessment of the group. Although he likely thought the leaders of the Flaming Circle were attempting to enrich themselves through membership dues, in the same manner as the Klan, the

Archbishop’s feeling that economic interests served as the foundation for those most violently opposed to the Klan was not wrong. The Archbishop had simply mistaken wherein the economic interest of the Knights of the Flaming Circle lay. It was not through membership dues that a number of men affiliated with the Knights of the

Flaming Circle sought to gain wealth; it was through the protection of their illicit trade in bootleg alcohol, gambling, prostitution and other forms of vice, from the extralegal reform efforts and interference of the Ku Klux Klan.

On September 5, 1923, the state prohibition commissioner of Ohio, B.F.

McDonald filed a report claiming that prohibition enforcement conditions were not

43 Ibid. 44 “Disapproves ‘Red Knights:’ Archbishop Curley Thinks They and Klansmen Are After Money,” The New York Times, 9 September 1923, S8. Curley did state, “that if the opposing society is to be composed of Catholics, Jews, negroes its parts will make a beautiful whole.”

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satisfactory in almost every large city in the state.45 The commissioner specifically drew

attention to “Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Columbus, Youngstown, Steubenville,

Akron, Lorain, Hamilton, Niles, and Portsmouth,” because in those cities the

commissioner claimed “local authorities are not enforcing the law as they should.”46

Instead, the commissioner, found that the local officials were “influenced by a

dominating wet sentiment and politics, rather than by their obligation to uphold the

constitution and the law which they have sworn to support.”47 This designation

undoubtedly played a role in the November election in Niles and Youngstown, where the

incumbent mayors were replaced by Klan supported candidates primarily on the strength

of their commitment to increased law enforcement. In the Mahoning Valley, only Warren

escaped being named to the list of lax law enforcers.48

Later in September of 1923 Steubenville, which had been named to the list of cities that had a poor record of enforcement of prohibition statutes, became the first city outside of Pennsylvania to experience the burning of a “Flaming Circle.” Although there had been recruitment drives around the state, and newspapers had reported its existence over the course of the month, it was not until the night of September 26 that the Knights of the Flaming Circle publicly declared their existence in Ohio. The group did so in spectacular fashion when they set off a large dynamite blast, followed by the burning of a huge flaming circle on a hillside in West Virginia across the Ohio River from

45 “Charges Dry Laws Not Well Obeyed: State Commissioner Cites Youngstown, Niles and Other Ohio Cities,” The Warren Tribune, 6 September 1923, 1. 46 “Charges Dry Laws Not Well Obeyed,” 1. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid, 2.

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Steubenville.49 The next day, a dentist in Steubenville, Dr. W. F. McGuigan announced that he would be in charge of the central division of the organization and hold the title of grand supreme monarch.50 The almost satirical use of such a grandiose title could lead

one to think the Knights of the Flaming Circle had a sense of humor about their efforts to

challenge the Klan.51 However, it would be a mistake to assume that their humor implied a lack of seriousness in their efforts to halt the spread of the Klan. The gravity of the situation would be made apparent in the next major flare up of violence after

Steubenville, when confrontations between those claiming to be Knights of the Flaming

Circle and the Ku Klux Klan had deadly consequences and shocked the entire country.

49 “Anti-Klux Ring Makes Debut Here: Dynamite Blast Introduces Knights of Flaming Circle,” The Steubenville Herald-Star, 27 September, 1. 50 “Anti-Klux Ring Makes Debut Here,” 1. “Flaming Circle: New Order Busy Organizing in Ohio Now,” The Warren Tribune, 1 October 1923, 18. Both of these articles have the dentist name listed as Dr. W. F. McGuigan, which differs from Dr. William Jenkins account in Steel Valley Klan. He had Dr. W. S. McGuigan, but for the sake of those who might attempt further research on the man in question I have decided to use the initials listed in his hometown newspaper. 51 Along similar lines, another organization formed to fight the Klan in Buffalo, NY used similarly outrageous phrasing for the name of their group. They were known as the Knights of the Invisible Jungle of the Tiger’s Eye. However, because the anti-Klan activities in Buffalo also grew violent it would be a mistake to assume that their goofy name represented a lack of seriousness in their efforts to break the Klan movement. Shawn Lay, Hooded Knights on the Niagara: The Ku Klux Klan in New York (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 48.

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Chapter Six: Williamson County: ‘Citizen Warriors’ or Generations of Protestant on Protestant Violence

As the story goes, the famous rogue Prohibition Raider of Williamson County’s

Klan War, S. Glenn Young, was in the midst of arguing with a coal miner in a cigar shop the night he was murdered. The fact that the argument started because the miner had allegedly slandered Young by claiming that Young had been a strikebreaker had particular importance because the argument was occurring in Williamson County,

Illinois in 1925. Only a little over two years earlier, the county was the scene of one of the deadliest labor riots in American history. It was during this event, the Herrin

Massacre, that Young had allegedly been hired as a strikebreaker. In the United Mine

Workers of America (UMWA) stronghold that was Williamson County this was a serious allegation, and, if untrue, a serious slander. In this county men had died for lesser slights, but the gunfight that resulted in Young’s death did not take place between he and the miner. Instead, while focused on the miner, Young failed to notice the arrival of his arch nemesis Deputy Sheriff Ora Thomas. Spinning around just in time to utter his last words, Young shouted, “Don’t pull that gun Ora.”1

Whether or not this account is accurate will likely never be known, since all of the witnesses to the violent episode inside the cigar room were also its victims and all of the men died instantly or shortly after the shooting started. That the men died in a violent shootout between Prohibition enforcers affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan and an anti-Klan

1 Paul M. Angle, Bloody Williamson: A Chapter in American Lawlessness (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 188-189. Originally published in 1952.

202 leader of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, who was a bootlegger turned deputy sheriff, are characteristic aspects of the larger story of the Williamson County Klan War. Here, more than possibly any other location in America, the line between law enforcer and law breaker was indistinct at best and had been for a considerable time in the region.

However, one of the more distinct facts about the four dead men that night was that, unlike other locations that witnessed violence between Klansmen and Knights of the

Flaming Circle, in this instance and most others that occurred in Williamson County the combatants were all Protestant, native-born citizens. Contrary to the doctrine of the original Knights of the Flaming Circle, which barred Protestants from membership, when the movement reached Williamson County it was made up almost entirely of

Protestants in that location. Also, unlike the origins of the organization in Kane,

Pennsylvania, the struggle between the Knights of the Flaming Circle and the Klan was fought almost exclusively over the issue of Prohibition and not over such values as liberty and equality being infringed upon by the Ku Klux Klan.

After Steubenville, the next location claiming to have a chapter of the Knights of the Flaming Circle present in the midst of their own Klan-led Prohibition enforcement drive was Williamson County, Illinois. This county and its liquor war stands alone as something of an outlier, because of the deadly intensity and protracted nature of the violence which beset the county during the years in which the Knights of the Ku Klux

Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle fought each other. In Williamson County, the focus of the violence was directed at lawlessness and the liquor racket. Certainly, issues of immigration and anti-Catholic rhetoric played a role in the conflict, but these were secondary to other far more influential determining factors present exclusively in

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Williamson County that led to numerous violent confrontations. In particular, these key

factors in the Williamson County experience do not fit a narrative that Prohibition and its

enforcement were almost exclusively a racist, nativist attack directed at lower class

citizens and immigrants.2 Instead, a fifty-year period of vigilante violence dating back to

the 1860s, combined with union solidarity so strong that violent murders that had been

condemned by the state legislature of Illinois, and later the President of the United States,

for which no one was punished led to widespread public concern in Williamson County

for the enforcement of laws and a sense of order in their community.3 Instead of

addressing this long history that was earlier laid out by Paul M. Angle in his respected

work Bloody Williamson, recent accounts have argued that the violent events that

occurred during the Klan War in Williamson County represented a

novel fusion of law and order with perceived threats to ‘100 percent Americanism’ by immigrants, Catholics, religious modernists, ‘new women,’ and urban African-American communities [that] produced a citizen’s army―the first incarnation of the formidable twentieth-century grassroots religious right.4

2 Lisa McGirr, The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 121-123. 3 The importance of the lengthy and complicated history of violence in Williamson County is given little attention in McGirr’s chapter titled “Citizen Warriors.” As a result, McGirr failed to account for the fact that the role of religion or ethno-racial differences had little to do with the series of violent events that occurred when the Knights of the Flaming Circle clashed with the Klan over Prohibition enforcement. Instead, the enforcement of Prohibition served as a catalyst for an attempt to restore the image of the county in the eyes of a nation that saw it as a region that did not respect the law. Although there were incidents involving immigrant homes and businesses that were raided by Klan liquor enforcers these were few when compared with the primary incidents and raids. Additionally, all of the violence that ended in the deaths of various members of the warring factions involved Protestants fighting other Protestants. Finally, all of the dead from the Williamson County Klan War were Protestants. 4 McGirr, The War on Alcohol, 122-123.

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While it is reasonable to imply that this may have been the case in some instances related

to the enforcement of Prohibition and more obviously with the actions of the Ku Klux

Klan in the 1920s this was not the case in Williamson County. In Williamson County

there were strange circumstances that allowed for a far more complicated situation to

erupt. As such a re-analysis Paul M. Angle’s famous account of the Williamson County

episode, along with a discussion of a number of contemporary newspaper articles related

to the long history of violence in the county, sheds light on the complexity of the

motivations that brought both sides of the liquor question to blows in a region of Illinois,

which for a period of a half century had endured a mixture of violence and death like few

other locations in America in its entire history.

The Knights of the Flaming Circle from Williamson County shared little in the

way of ideological foundations with the Knights of the Blazing Ring from Kane,

Pennsylvania. While the original Kane Knights presented a manifesto of their ideas

related to liberty and tolerance, the Knights of the Flaming Circle leaders in Williamson

County mainly stood in opposition to the Klan, because Klansmen were the primary force

behind a vigorous anti-vice campaign in the county. Broken down to the simplest level of understanding, the Knights of the Flaming Circle universally opposed the Klan, and so too did men like Ora Thomas in Williamson County. As such, these men then labeled themselves Knights of the Flaming Circle and the press made sure that the name was featured prominently in headlines about the confrontations in which they were involved.

However, the Williamson County iteration of the group led by Ora Thomas was more closely linked to the simplified focus of those fighting the Klan in locations where liquor raids had incensed local bootleggers and others opposed to Prohibition. These aggrieved

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parties had formed chapters of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in places like

Steubenville, Ohio and the Mahoning Valley, but their actions were likely motivated

more by economic interests then principles of tolerance. Clearly, the Klan and local law

enforcement agencies that worked together to raid the private homes of immigrants and

other citizens looking for Prohibition violators stretched the boundaries of legal search

and seizure. Stories of “blank name” warrants, over-enforcement in immigrant neighborhoods, and rough treatment of suspects abound. These instances added to the growing resentment of the Klan and added fuel to the fire of those opposing the group.

In locations such as Niles, Ohio this led to the ranks of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle being dominated by immigrants and first generation children who were in some way linked to the liquor trade.5 However, the situation in Williamson County was

somewhat different than this, because both sides of the confrontation were dominated by

native-born Protestant men. Furthermore, the issues that led to the explosion of violence

in Williamson County in the early 1920s had their roots much earlier in the region.

Williamson County’s past was dominated, at least in the latter half of the nineteenth and

the first quarter of the twentieth century, by violence which had more to do with ongoing

labor strife, and the fact that the region had been settled by migrants from Kentucky,

5 This was certainly the case in Niles, Ohio where the Knights of the Flaming Circle movement emerged from the Jennings Athletic Club. The situation in Steubenville cannot be confirmed at this time, but the opposition to the Klan certainly involved those in the liquor trade as evidenced by the decision to attack Darwin L. Gibson, the Klan- affiliated liquor raider, during the riot. The members of the original movement in Kane, Pennsylvania are currently still unknown, so one cannot make claims regarding their backgrounds.

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Tennessee, the Carolinas, and Virginia, than it did with the recent influx of a relatively

small number of Italian immigrants and Catholics.6

The violent reputation that hung over Williamson County had its origins in a fight

over a game of cards in 1868. A seemingly trivial incident that has occurred innumerable

times in the history of drinking and leisure culture became anything but trivial when

members of the Bulliner family viciously beat a man named Fred Henderson. Henderson

had called one of the Bulliners “a damn lying son-of-a-bitch,” and thus set off a deadly feud between the families that would last for almost a decade.7 Without getting too

deeply into the specifics of the feud, which are explained in great detail in Paul Angle’s

work, Bloody Williamson, for the purposes of this paper it is important to note that

neither family was Catholic or made up of Southern or Eastern European immigrants.

The men involved were primarily from Tennessee and Kentucky and brought with them

some of the stereotypical elements of their honor-bound culture that would not allow either side to settle down and let the bad blood from the card game go away. Instead, over the course of the next five years, animosity between the two families led to the inclusion of two more prominent local families in the feud that would, after the first murders in

1873, become known as the Bloody Vendetta. The hostility led to six murders, the imprisonment of several members of the two families, and the execution of one of the men tried for murder.8 Aside from the physical loss of life, the Bloody Vendetta tarnished

the reputation of the county and caused it to be labeled for the first time by people across

the state as a lawless region. A bill was even debated by the state’s General Assembly to

6 Angle, Bloody Williamson, 72-73. 7 Ibid, 74. 8 Ibid, 279-281.

207 make funds of up to ten thousand dollars available to assist those attempting to bring order to the region and to aid in the prosecution of the accused.9 The bill failed, but succeeded in bringing widespread attention to the lack of order in Williamson and left its reputation in tatters.10

Williamson’s reputation only worsened at the turn of the century when the first major instances of labor strife eclipsed the death tolls and violence resulting from the

Bloody Vendetta and which carried the county forward to its lowest points during the extreme violence of the 1920s. Beginning in the summer of 1899, labor unrest between the mining operations owned by Samuel T. Brush, who operated the St. Louis and Big

Muddy Coal Company, and the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) led to full- scale rioting and the first occupation of the county by state militia soldiers.11 Over the course of this particular episode of labor violence, Union miners killed five black miners who had been brought in to replace striking white and black miners, and the wife of a black miner who had been earlier killed during an attack on the rail cars that had brought the strikebreakers to town.12 There were two trials that resulted from this unrest. The first trial dealt with the riot that led to the death of Anna Karr, who had been shot on the train cars filled with the strikebreakers and their families. In that case nine men, seven of

9 To get an idea of the value of the ten thousand dollars asked for in the bill, consider that in 1913, the furthest back the Bureau of Labor and statistics inflation calculator will go, that sum would currently be worth $243,866.67. That is obviously a substantial amount of cash. Even the reduced total of three thousand dollar that passed the House would have been worth over seventy thousand dollars in 2016 dollars. The governor must have felt strongly that the situation in Williamson County needed resolved. http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=10000&year1=1913&year2=2016 Accessed 13 November 2016. Angle, Bloody Williamson, 80-81. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid, 101. 12 Ibid, 101-103.

208 whom were black and two who were white, one of those an Italian man, were found not guilty of all crimes related to the deadly attack.13 In the second trial, twelve white men were accused of murdering five black miners. Following on the heels of the exoneration of the black defendants in the earlier trial, it surprised few that the white union men were also found not guilty.14 It seems that the mixed ethno-racial composition of the defendants in these cases mattered less than union solidarity, which had a more powerful influence on the outcomes of the trials. As a result, despite a number of men being brought to trial for the shootings, no one was ever convicted for the deaths of those slain and Williamson County established a reputation for being one of the strongest union strongholds in the nation.

The next instance involving labor unrest and a huge loss of life in Williamson

County resulted from the mismanagement of a mine by its owner, who did not take necessary safety precautions at his mine. In this case, a millionaire investor, Joseph

Leiter, convinced his father that they could master the coal mining industry and maximize profits by increasing efficiency through the use of machinery in place of more miners. In

July 1904, within months of establishing production at the mine, and within a month of his father’s death which left him in full control of the mine, Leiter announced a reduction in wages for his workers, because of the use of mechanized mining equipment.15 In the defense of Leiter, his mining operation and the company town, which he and his father built was one of the most modern in existence at the time and afforded its workers

13 Ibid, 105-112. 14 Ibid, 112-115. 15 Ibid, 283.

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luxuries that most other mining operations did not.16 However, Leiter and his father still

anticipated that their plan to mechanize their mine would lead to labor problems, because

the union laborers opposed mechanization as it reduced the number of men needed to

operate a mine. As such, they had purchased the land over top of the mine and much of

the surrounding area in order to alleviate the dangers of strike violence by creating a large

enough perimeter around the mining operation that they could kick striking workers off

of the property and continue operations without interference.17 The combination of

machine gun nests, high fences, blockhouses, and Pinkerton guards helped to secure the

mining property, but over the course of the next several months Leiter struggled to

maintain a non-union mining workforce. The primary cause of this was the ominous

threat of striking workers who met the railway cars that brought in potential

strikebreakers. Initially, these meetings consisted of warnings and pleas not to work at the

Leiter mine, but soon the efforts turned into violence and a combination of rocks and bullets were fired at the approaching rail cars. Miraculously, there were no deaths until an

Austrian worker was shot and killed on his way to Zeigler, the company town.18 After continued attacks on company officials, the state militia again made its way to

Williamson County and would remain in place until February of 1905.19

During the period under which the mining town of Ziegler lay under siege by the

striking miners, operations continued at the mine. These operations were carried out by

non-union miners and the conditions of unrest surrounding the mine led many workers to

quit their jobs. As such, the workforce at the mine was continually overturning and

16 Ibid, 119-120. 17 Ibid, 121. 18 Ibid, 124. 19 Ibid, 125-128.

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lacking any stability. The absence of continuity had devastating consequences in April

1905 when an explosion at the mine claimed the lives of fifty-one men.20 Blame for the

disaster was laid squarely at Leister’s feet as it was determined that improper ventilation

had led to a buildup of marsh gas in the mine. This gas then burst into flames when lit by

a miner’s lamp and ignited forty-one kegs of powder that had been illegally stored within

the mine shaft.21 In a classic example of how little the loss of life mattered to those in

charge of enforcing safety regulations at the time, work was immediately begun to ready

the shaft for a new crew of workers to again descend into the earth to harvest its bounty

of fossil fuels.

By July of 1905, the mine was back up and running with a workforce of black

miners brought in from Kentucky to replace the mostly Hungarian miners who had died

in the explosion.22 This situation seemed to work, and for the next three and a half years

the mine rose to be one of the top four producing mines in the state of Illinois. However,

disaster again struck the mine in November of 1908 when a fire broke out and caused the

mining inspectors to conclude that the mine must be sealed for ninety days to allow the

fire to extinguish itself by exhausting its supply of oxygen.23

Unfortunately for twenty-six miners, Leiter defied that order, and on January 10,

1909 they lost their lives in another explosion at the mine. In open disregard for the agreement to keep the mine sealed, Leiter and the mine’s management had attempted to extinguish the fire more rapidly by pumping water, steam and sulfur into the mine. This

20 Ibid, 128-129. 21 It should be noted that the threat of sabotage had led to the deadly decision to store the powder within the mine. Ibid, 130. 22 Ibid, 130. 23 Ibid, 131.

211 effort, combined with the ill-advised decision to open the mine entrance to allow the doomed work crew to enter the mine to make repairs had led to enough oxygen being introduced to the smoldering fire to again result in a deadly explosion.24 Only three weeks later, despite another forced closure of the mine by inspectors, a crew of workers had been sent into the shaft to continue repairs, which resulted in yet another explosion.

Three more miners died instantly, and, soon after, Leiter was forced by his mother to lease the mine to the Bell and Zoller Mining Company which ran the lucrative mine until it closed for good in 1949.25 The labor war and mining disasters that occurred at the

Zeigler Mine set the stage for the next chapter in Williamson County’s continuing march toward the peak of its lawless reputation which occurred in the 1920s when labor unrest and the struggle to enforce Prohibition at all costs would lead to murder and mayhem on an unprecedented level.

The next episode in Williamson County’s violent past followed the same pattern as the last two major instances before it had, and resulted from labor unrest at a local mining operation. This time another novice mine operator, William J. Lester, made a dangerous and dishonest decision, fueled by financial stress and greed, to defy the

UMWA and ship coal using scab workers. Lester’s decision broke with an agreement he had earlier made with the union and, unfortunately, resulted in extreme consequences for both sides including the loss of several lives.

Initially, Lester’s mine operated without incident, but this period of normalcy lasted for only eight months after he opened the strip mine in September of 1921. The

24 Ibid. 25 Ibid, 132-133.

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mine was actually only shipping coal for about six months before all of “the soft-coal miners of the country went on strike” in April of 1922.26 This turn of events placed

Lester under financial hardship, because he had taken on heavy debt to purchase

equipment for the mine and needed revenue to pay for it before his loans defaulted.27

Through negotiations with the UMWA, Lester had been able to convince the union to

allow his workers to continue the process of stripping coal from the mine even though the

union was on strike. Lester had to agree to not sell and ship any of the coal uncovered

during the strike. The need to make loan payments and to turn a profit on the sixty

thousand tons of coal that his workers had uncovered during the first months of the strike

proved irresistible for Lester and in June of 1922, he decided to break his agreement with

the UMWA.28 To do so, Lester fired his union workers on June 13 and made arrangements to bring in strikebreakers from Chicago. Using his out-of-town workers, the first shipments of coal left the mine on June 16. Word spread fast of Lester’s decision to ship coal using strikebreakers and UMWA miners from across the region massed in solidarity against Lester and his Southern Illinois Coal Company.29 Horrific and deadly

repercussions for Lester’s deceit followed with them.

In the week after Lester replaced his union workforce, tension mounted in the

town of Herrin, Illinois to a crescendo level that, without the intervention of National

Guard troops, threatened to explode into chaos. Due to the volatility of the situation, the

26 Ibid, 11. 27 Although Lester had been involved in strip mining ventures for eight years prior to the opening of the mine in September of 1921, this operation was his first solo venture. Ibid, 11-12. 28 Ibid, 12. 29 Ibid, 12.

213 mine guards suspected any person who came near the mine to be a threat and responded harshly. Even a local deputy sheriff was treated sharply by guards when his car broke down due to a flat tire.30 Behavior on both sides quickly decayed into a mixture of extremes, which left little room for a peaceful resolution to the situation. National Guard investigators were dispatched to Herrin during the height of the dispute, but, despite their presence, a series of miscommunications and failure on the part of local law enforcement and union leadership to carry out negotiations between the striking workers and the strikebreakers destroyed all hope of a peaceful resolution.31 Unfortunately, due to these failures, the National Guard troops would not be called for in time to save many of the fifty strikebreakers holed up at the Lester strip mine.

By the time National Guard troops were even called to respond to the situation in

Herrin, the majority of the damage had been done and twenty-five men had been killed or mortally wounded. The circumstances of their deaths reverberated across the United

States and were reported around the world. Beginning on the morning of June 21, the

UMWA miners struck the first blow against the strikebreakers when they ambushed a truckload of reinforcements traveling between Carbondale and Herrin. Three of the strikebreakers were taken to the hospital in Carbondale to be treated for gunshot wounds.32 Oddly, Sydney J. Morrison, one of the first victims of the violence and paralyzed in the attack, held on to become the final casualty of the Herrin Massacre on

30 Ibid, 14. 31 Ibid, 14-27. 32 Ibid, 20.

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January 13, 1923 when he finally succumbed to his injuries.33 Around 3:30 P.M., hours after the UMWA attack on the strikebreakers truck, three UMWA miners were shot and mortally wounded by mine guards as they and upwards of five hundred miners and other sympathizers laid siege to Lester’s strip mine and barraged the fifty men hiding within with rifle and pistol shots.34 Truce talks and agreements broke down over the course of the day of June 21 and at approximately six in the morning on June 22, 1922 the union miners forced the surrender of the guards and strikebreakers defending themselves at the mine. Promises of safe passage were instantly reneged upon after the besieged strikebreakers had been disarmed and begun a forced march back to Herrin. Along the way men were beaten, shot, lynched, and had their throats cut by a frightening combination of white and black men, and women, as children joined in the chaos screaming “scab” while the adults committed further violence against the prisoners.35 By the end of the day nineteen strikebreakers had been torturously murdered, while another would later succumb to his wounds.

In the aftermath of the Herrin Massacre, two factions emerged within the town; those who wished to see justice served to the men who committed the murders of the strikebreakers and guards, and those who felt that the dead had gotten what they deserved for endangering the financial gains that the UMWA had won for the miners of the county.36 Newspapers around the United States, and some of the most prominent men in

33 Nick Mariano, “Victims of the Herrin Massacre,” The Southern Illinoisan (23 November 2013) http://thesouthern.com/victims-of-the-herrin-massacre/article_1aa559fa-54cb- 11e3-b019-001a4bcf887a.html Accessed 15 November 2016. 34 Angle, Bloody Williamson, 4. 35 Ibid, 4-8. 36 Ibid, 30-31. Also, McGirr, The War on Alcohol, 144.

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America including General John J. Pershing and President Harding condemned the

violent outburst.37 For those looking to see someone punished for the murders of the

strikebreakers in the Herrin Massacre the two trials of local men for the murders must

have been quite disappointing. Beginning in November 1922, the first trial ended with

not guilty verdicts for five men accused of leading the deadly march of the prisoners from

the mine. The defendants in this first trial included Otis Clark, Bert Grace, Peter Hiller,

Joseph Carnaghi, and Leva Mann.38 The argument of the defense centered-on the fact that the men of Williamson County acted in self-defense against a mercenary army brought into the Lester mine to rob them of their daily bread.39 The argument proved

successful as all of the men were found not guilty.

In the second trial, which began in February 1923, some of the original

defendants faced new murder charges along with a few other UMWA miners from

around the county. This time joining Otis Clark and Bert Grace were Hugh Willis, Phillip

Fontanetta, Oscar Howard, and James Brown.40 In his closing statement for the prosecution, Otis Glenn pointed to the irony that throughout the trial the defense consistently argued that the killings of the strikebreakers was justified, but then it brought

37 Angle, Bloody Williamson, 28-34. 38 Ibid, 45. 39 Ibid, 55. 40 In both trials, all of the accused were UMWA miners and all were represented by lead defense counsel A. W. Kerr, no issue was made over Carnaghi’s Italian heritage, or over the fact that James Brown was a black man. Ibid, 57. A reason for the lack of racial strife surrounding the mining riots likely is linked to better race relations existing in Williamson County due to the strength of the UMWA in the region. According to Herbert G. Gutman, as early as 1899, the U.M.W.A. had begun accepting blacks into the union and was one of the earliest unions to accept Southern and Eastern European Catholic immigrants as members. Herbert G. Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America: Essays in American Working-Class and Social History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976), 122-123, 158.

216 forth scores of witnesses to prove that the men on trial had no part in that “which they said was the right thing to do.”41 Glenn closed with an emotional plea to the jury stating,

You have an opportunity to strike at murder and lawlessness. If this crime is endorsed murder will grow upon the community and assassination will increase. Life, home and family will not be safe. You have the opportunity of stamping this out and I believe you will do it.42 Glenn’s closing argument failed to sway the jury, which again found all of the defendants on trial not guilty. However, his words would prove ominously accurate in forecasting the intense feelings that resulted from the not guilty verdicts. The verdicts drove the wedge even deeper between the two factions in Williamson County and, because these events coincided with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan nationally, the region unfortunately provided opportunistic Kleagles, kluxing for new members, a vast number of willing recruits.

The rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan could not have occurred at a better time for its organizers to capitalize on the turmoil surrounding the not guilty verdicts in the case of the miners charged in the aftermath of the Herrin Massacre. As Paul M. Angle pointed out in his study of Williamson County, the population of this region of southern Illinois consisted primarily of people adhering to the “old-style, fundamentalist Protestantism of the hill people of Kentucky and Tennessee.”43 Angle further described the residents of the county as fervently patriotic and from a stock whose relatives had “lived in the New

World since Colonial days,” making many of them particularly agreeable to “the Klan’s

41 Angle, Bloody Williamson, 61. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid, 137.

217 slogan, ‘one hundred percent Americanism.’”44 Angle even argued that the most “bitter anti-Klansman” in the county felt that the Klan slogan “seemed a laudable rule of life.”45

The split opinion of the Klan in Williamson County developed over the issue of better law enforcement. This was the same place it had emerged following the trials of the men accused of murdering the strikebreakers in the Herrin Massacre. Because of the failure to hold anyone accountable for the deaths of the strikebreakers in the massacre, a significant number of people in Williamson County “suffered from a sense of shame.”46

This sense of shame had developed as a result of the manner in which newspaper editors across the country had characterized residents of the county as subhuman and indifferent to American law.47 This situation precipitated a massive overcorrection among those citizens who resented the reputation their community had been given after the trials.

Additionally, many residents of the county felt that the county sheriff, George Galligan, did not do enough to enforce liquor laws, because he had become too friendly with local bootleggers and gamblers.48 To remedy this, prominent citizens of the county formed the

Marion Law Enforcement League, quite similar to the Civic League in Youngstown,

Ohio, which had a “purpose of stamping out bootlegging and gambling” in the county.49

Organizations such as these were generally formed by, or infiltrated by, Klansmen in order to pressure local politicians and law enforcement agencies to better enforce vice

44 Ibid, 138. 45 Ibid, 138. 46 Ibid, 139. 47 Ibid, 139-140. 48 According to Angle, Galligan was of Irish-Protestant descent and his force of deputies was understaffed. The problem of understaffing parallels the law enforcement problems occurring at the same time in Youngstown and Niles in the Mahoning Valley. Ibid, 139. 49 Ibid.

218 laws. These organizations quickly morphed into fronts for Klan activity and helped the members of the Klan infiltrate community power structures.50 Once entrenched in the legitimate power structures of a community, the Klansmen could then use the issue of better law enforcement or participation in civic leagues to garner support for, and acceptance of, extralegal efforts to stamp out vice in the community.

This was certainly the case when the Marion County Law Enforcement League and the Ku Klux Klan co-opted the Williamson County board of supervisors and began using its authority to conduct liquor raids in August of 1923.51 By the end of August, the board had conducted eleven liquor raids, which led to two arrests. At an August 30 meeting, the board passed resolutions calling for increased enforcement of liquor laws and chastising local law enforcement officials for failing to already do so.52 On August

31, 1923, a shipment of hundreds of cases of beer bound for Williamson County was confiscated and stirred up enough angry feeling within those opposed to the Klan-backed liquor enforcement campaign that the National Guard was placed on notice.53 Tensions eased, but the public fight over increased liquor law enforcement in Williamson County changed immensely over the course of those few days in August, because August 30 also marked the foundation of the local chapter of the Knights of the Flaming Circle based in the town of Herrin.54

The fact that the formation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in Williamson

County occurred in August of 1923 is significant, because it shows that the resistance to

50 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 35. 51 “Klan and Anti-Klan Issue In Williamson,” The Daily Pantagraph, 31 August 1923, 1. 52 Ibid. 53 “Conditions in Mining Field to be Probed,” Springfield Republica, 1 September 1923, 1. 54 “Anti-K.K.K. At Herrin Now,” Carbondale Free Press, 30 August 1923, 1.

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the anti-liquor efforts of the local Klan began well before the December and January raids

that would lead to a year of chaos in 1924. Furthermore, one of the first alleged actions of

the Knights of the Flaming Circle in Williamson County involved two instances of arson

that occurred on September 8, 1923. In the first, someone attempted to burn down the

home of a Klansman named Carl Neilson.55 In the second act of arson, the grocery store

of Marshal McCormick was targeted as a result of his role in “obtaining search warrants

for bootleggers” that led to the confiscation of a large quantity of illegal alcohol.56 These

two acts shed light on why the Klan sought outside assistance in its fight against the local

bootleggers and also why the actions of the Klan raiders escalated in their later activities.

On one hand, the actions of each of these men at this point were within the scope of legal

activities. Neilson had run for Mayor the previous year as a dry candidate, and

McCormick had provided information to federal agents that led to the discovery of large

quantities of alcohol that were then confiscated or destroyed.57 However, in the case of

Carl Neilson, the attempt on the lives of himself and his family may have pushed him further into the Klan movement. Neilson later became the Exalted Cyclops of the

Williamson Klan and was involved in many of the future incidents of violence that accompanied the Klan efforts against local bootleggers and gamblers.58 One wonders if

the two incidents of arson employed against these two temperance advocates ushered in

55 “Home and Store of 2 Klansmen Fired in Herrin,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, 9 September 1923, Part 1, 14. 56 “Apply Torch in Herrin After Beer Seizure,” Carbondale Free Press, 8 September 1923, 1. 57 Ibid. 58 Neilson would later be convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in September of 1924. “Two Men Found Guilty in Herrin Riot Case,” Cook County Herald, 5 September 1924, 10.

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the deadly phase of the law enforcement campaign in Williamson County that began in

February 1924.

In response to the increasing danger presented by the successful opposition to

their efforts to stamp out vice, the Klan and its public front organization, the Marion Law

Enforcement League, sought out hired enforcers of their own to take on the bootleggers

of the Knights of the Flaming Circle. In November of 1923, the Marion Law

Enforcement League welcomed an ambitious “former agent of the [Federal] Prohibition

Unit, S. Glenn Young” to the county “to conduct the clean-up they were determined to

undertake.”59 S. Glenn Young’s arrival in Williamson County sparked a new explosion of violence in the county, which, due to the length of time that it lasted and the number of lives it directly cost, may have exceeded anything that had occurred in the county’s troubled past.

Beginning in December of 1923, Young along with members of the local Ku Klux

Klan set to the task of raiding and closing down all operations in the county which

violated the Eighteenth Amendment. Initially, Young had the support of federal

authorities who deputized approximately five hundred volunteers who participated in a

massive raid of hundreds of roadhouses and private residences on the night of December

22, 1923.60 Incidentally, one of the men arrested in this first raid by Young, and his federally deputized Klan liquor agents, was none other than Otis Clark, who had been found not guilty twice in the trials that resulted from the Herrin Massacre.61 Two more

59 Angle, Bloody Williamson, 141. 60 Ibid, 142-143. 61 “Klansmen Assist in Raiding Alleged Dry Law Violators,” Alexandria Daily Town Talk, 24 December 1923, 1.

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federally supported raids occurred in the early days of January and, in all, these three

raids resulted in two hundred fifty-six arrests.62 The raids were a success in that among

those arrested in the first raid were men like Charlie Birger, the leader of one of the

largest bootlegging outfits in the region.63 However, the raids came at a cost to

community cohesion and further incensed anti-Klan forces mobilizing against the raiders.

The opposition to the raids resulted from the decision to move beyond invading just

roadhouses and speakeasies and to also raid private homes. Many of these were occupied

by Italian and French immigrants living in the region.64 This parallels the process by which the Klan also lost favor in Steubenville and the Mahoning Valley when the group shifted its primary focus from strict law enforcement campaigns to an increased use of angry rhetoric and actions taken against immigrants and Catholics.65 In all of these

locations, the combination of reckless enforcement of Prohibition statutes by Klan-

backed raiding parties and nativist attacks on Catholicism and immigrant populations at

large diminished community support for the law enforcement campaigns and led to the

merger of legal and extralegal efforts to oppose the Klan and its agenda.

In Williamson County, the opposition to the Klan-led campaign to clean-up the

county’s tarnished image and to close down the roadhouses forged a peculiar alliance

62 Ibid, 144. 63 Charlie Birger’s real name was Shachna Itzik Birger and his Jewish family emigrated to the U.S. from Russia around the turn of the century. Approximately one month before the raids, in a roadhouse called Halfway, Birger shot and killed a man, which was ruled self-defense by the county coroner. Only days later, he was the prime suspect in yet another deadly shoot out at the same establishment, but the county coroner’s jury ruled it could not be established that Birger was the murderer. Gary DeNeal, A Knight of Another Sort: Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1981 and 1998), li, 1. 64 McGirr, The War on Alcohol, 150-151. 65 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 120.

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between the county Sherriff George Galligan and a handful of reputed bootleggers who

had formed the local branch of the fledgling Knights of the Flaming Circle. A local miner

named Ora Thomas led the Knights of the Flaming Circle in Williamson County. This

fact is peculiar, because Thomas was a Protestant which, according to the original

manifesto published in Kane, would have precluded him from membership. Little

occurring in Williamson County adhered to the norms and customs of other parts of the

country, so it should be no surprise that the Knights of the Flaming Circle in Williamson

were led by a Protestant. In fact, one of the ways in which Williamson County is unique

is that the majority of those who made up the violent opposition to the Klan were

Protestant.66

What was similar to other areas where the Knights of the Flaming Circle formed

to challenge the Klan was the involvement of bootleggers and racketeers in the

organization. Both Paul M. Angle and Lisa McGirr pointed out that Ora Thomas had

been arrested in two of the earlier Klan-led liquor raids, so in this way the Williamson

66 In his memoir, Sheriff George Galligan claimed that in all of the violence associated with the Klan war in Williamson County, allegedly only one of the men killed in the violence was Catholic. The Catholic victim named by Galligan was Frank Zigmont, who died in April of 1922. This is a problem, since this means that Zigmont died before the Herrin Massacre, and before the Klan liquor raids, which did not occur until December of 1923 and ended in January 1924. Therefore, it is possible, that during the entire Klan liquor war, which Lisa McGirr and others use to illustrate that the Eighteenth Amendment was designed to attack immigrants, not a single immigrant Catholic died in one of the most violent episodes of Prohibition enforcement violence in the country. All eighteen men killed during the Klan years were Protestant men fighting both for and against the Klan. George Galligan and Jack Wilkinson, In Bloody Williamson: My Four Years Fight With the Ku Klux Klan (Williamson County, IL: The Williamson County Historical Society, 1985), 108. Originally published in 1927. Angle, Bloody Williamson, 151, 173, 180-181, 188-189, 199-203. For more information on the date of death of Frank Zigmont see: http://williamson.illinoisgenweb.org/deaths-Z.html and http://www.wcihs.org/records/indictment-record-index/indictment-x-y-z-index-1906- 1950/ Accessed on 12 February 2017.

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County version was similar to the chapter in the Mahoning Valley which also had local

bootleggers among its leaders.67 The fact that the Knights of the Flaming Circle were the

physical enforcers for those opposed to the Klan in Williamson County mirrors the

situation elsewhere, but what makes the state of affairs in Williamson County so different

from that in other locales was the violent resolve of the Klan faction led by S. Glenn

Young.

The Williamson County Ku Klux Klan represents another strange iteration of the

Klan and further complicates our understanding of the motivations of Klansmen and

those who supported them. As mentioned above, the foundation upon which Klan

rhetoric rested in Williamson County was the need for better law enforcement and to

atone for the sin of not bringing to justice those responsible for the murders of the

strikebreakers in the Herrin Massacre. As a result, the Klan in Williamson County

attracted the support of “prominent citizens and business men” within the community, not

just the stereotypically envisioned fanatical white supremacists.68 In fact, during the Klan

war Sheriff Galligan claimed that one of the bondsmen responsible for providing bail for

the Klansmen, including S. Glenn Young, was a Jewish merchant named Jake Pfeffer

from the town of Marion.69 Shockingly, Galligan, who exchanged deadly gunfire with

Klansmen on more than one occasion, actually confessed that despite not agreeing with the Klan’s methods toward better law enforcement, he was “willing to admit that the

67 Thomas had been linked to a St. Louis criminal gang called Egan’s Rats in Angle’s more detailed account. Angle, Bloody Williamson, 185. McGirr, The War on Alcohol, 151. On the formation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the Mahoning Valley and its connections to bootleggers, see: Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 122. 68 Galligan, In Bloody Williamson, 23. 69 Ibid.

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rallying together of these men gave a tone of respectability and honest intention to the

klan organization.”70 Galligan also explained how the Kleagle in Williamson County had

been primarily interested in initiation fees and as such had “embroiled the klan

membership with a predominance of the radical and the riffraff element.”71

The diminishing ratio between prominent business men and riffraff within the

Williamson County Klan became a problem for two reasons, which led to the group becoming far and away the most vicious and effective Klan in the nation when it came to facing the violent opposition offered by the Knights of the Flaming Circle. The first problem was that, once things became violent and the better sort of Klansmen abandoned the organization, it left the group “without a balance or restraining guidance.”72 This

meant that the group did not cease to exist when those with disincentives to be Klansmen

left, instead, there were enough radicalized members remaining to sustain the group and

these men were all too willing to reciprocate the violence of the anti-Klan forces.

Elsewhere, such as in the Mahoning Valley, when violent opposition arose the Klan

organization collapsed, because membership plummeted to unsustainable levels. In

Williamson County, this did not happen, because so much of the membership of the Klan

was made up of unsavory individuals who were not concerned with the repercussions

related to their continued involvement with the Klan. The second reason the

predominance of radicalized zealots among the membership of the Williamson County

Klan was a problem centered-on the fact that these fanatics rallied around an

indefatigable leader in the person of S. Glenn Young. Young’s personality and desire to

70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid.

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be a famous Prohibition crusader pushed him to engage in open warfare with the anti-

Klan forces in a way that not only further sullied Williamson County’s reputation, but

also left in its wake a number of dead on both sides of the fight.

Understanding the role of S. Glenn Young in the Williamson County Klan War is

crucial to understanding how the conflict between his Klan liquor raiders and the anti-

Klan Knights of the Flaming Circle compares with other episodes of violence between

Klansmen and the Knights of the Flaming Circle in other cities. As mentioned above, and

will be discussed in detail below, in most locations around the country, the Klansmen

wilted in the face of the physical opposition offered by anti-Klan forces, in particular when faced by members of the Knights of the Flaming Circle. The situation in

Williamson County did not match this pattern, because, unlike in places like Niles, Ohio, the Klan faction led by Young actually had economic incentives similar to those of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle. In Williamson County, the ratchet effect that increased the violence of each encounter between Young and his Klansmen and the Knights of the

Flaming Circle resulted from Young’s ability to inspire his followers and his willingness to match or exceed the murderous intensity of the actions of the anti-Klan element in the county.

The first incident in the Williamson County Klan War that resulted in murder occurred in February of 1924. On that night a large gathering of the Knights of the

Flaming Circle took place in the Rome Club in Herrin. The men had come together to discuss how to respond to the latest, and largest, night of Klan-led liquor raids that had

226 resulted in the arrests of one hundred twenty-five men accused of liquor violations.73

During the meeting, two Klansmen, the police chief of Herrin and one of his deputies arrived at the gathering. A scuffle broke out and Sheriff Galligan’s deputy who had started a fight with the Herrin officers was shot in the chest. It seems likely that the shot was not intended for him, but was fired by a Knight of the Flaming Circle at the two

Herrin Klansmen, but missed its mark and struck the anti-Klan deputy.74 The wounded man and the two Herrin officers were whisked away and the men from the meeting poured out into the streets looking for Klansmen. They found a local constable, Caesar

Cagle, and shot him three times.75 Cagle died minutes later at the Herrin Hospital where

Galligan’s deputy had been transferred for treatment. Upon hearing of Cagle’s death, S.

Glenn Young rallied together a group of Klansmen and laid siege to the hospital, because a group of Knights of the Flaming Circle were trapped inside with the wounded deputy.

By morning the hospital had been riddled with bullets, the Sheriff and the Mayor imprisoned by Young and the Klansmen and the National Guard had arrived and imposed martial law. Amazingly, only Cagle had perished in all of the gunfire.76

Tensions flared again on May 23, 1924, when S. Glenn Young and his wife were ambushed on a lonely stretch of road by several anti-Klan bootleggers. The anti-Klan group riddled the Young’s car with bullet holes and forced it off the road. When the shooting subsided, Young’s wife had been shot in the face and would lose her eyesight,

73 Angle, Bloody Williamson, 150. 74 The two Herrin Klansmen had been disarmed by Ora Thomas. Ibid, 150-151. 75 Cagle had allegedly been a bootlegger himself before becoming a Klansmen and constable. Ibid, 151. 76 Inside the hospital a boy recovering from surgery died due to complications from his surgery. His death may have been avoided but for the war-like conditions in which he convalesced. Ibid, 151-154.

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and her husband had been shot in the leg. A description of the would-be assassins’ car

was relayed to Klansmen in town who located the car and fired upon its occupants. In the

shootout that followed one of the occupants of the automobile, Jack Skelcher, would be

killed, and the other, Charles Briggs, would be wounded and arrested.77 The situation in

Williamson County would calm down for a few months, because S. Glenn Young had

been wounded and was receiving treatment for his injuries outside of the region, but even

in his absence violence would soon flare-up again.

In late August 1924, two notorious anti-Klan bootleggers, Earl and Carl Shelton, were brought into court to face murder charges for the death of the Klan constable Caesar

Cagle. However, the day after jury selection had been completed, the State’s Attorney moved to dismiss the case, because the only witness in the case had disappeared.78

Furthermore, the father of the victim did not believe the Shelton’s were involved and

pleaded for a peaceful resolution to the fighting between the two factions. Tim Cagle

recalled the history of the deadly conflicts in Williamson County all the way back to the

Bloody Vendetta, which he admitted he had been involved in, and claimed that men on

both sides of both the old conflict and the new were good men and needed to stop the

fighting. Cagle closed his plea passionately stating, “We have a great country here and

my God, let’s be great in it!”79 Cagle’s plea fell on deaf ears, for only one half hour after the case was dismissed, Williamson County would be plunged into chaos again and six men would fall victim to gunfire.80

77 Ibid, 172-173. 78 Ibid, 179. 79 Ibid, 179-180. 80 Ibid.

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Emboldened by their victory in the courthouse, the anti-Klan faction led by

Sheriff George Galligan and Carl Shelton decided to reclaim the automobile used in the ambush attack on S. Glenn Young from the Klan-controlled service garage where it was impounded. The garage owned by a Klansman named John Smith had become a regular hang out of local Klan members. Predictably, the arrival of the sheriff and the other members of the anti-Klan movement received a cool greeting. Tempers flared when one of the men in the sheriff’s party pulled a gun and threatened violence if the men in the garage did not hand over the car. During the ensuing argument, a car filled with

Klansmen slowly drove by and was stopped by members of the anti-Klan group. The men were forced out of the car and lined up on the street. A shot rang out and immediately men on both sides drew weapons and began firing wildly at each other. Killed in the melee were three Klansmen, one of the sheriff’s “special” deputies, and two innocent bystanders. Again, the National Guard came to place the county under martial law and restore order.81

In the wake of the six deaths in the shootout at John Smith’s garage the fight

between the Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle underwent some changes,

because the Illinois Klan officially expelled S. Glenn Young from its ranks. Apparently,

by September of 1924, the Klan had become convinced that Young had an agenda that no

longer fit within that of the Klan.82 The decision of the Klan to expel Young made practical sense as the reckless behavior of the Williamson Klan had brought an enormous

81 Ibid, 180-181. 82 Ibid, 184.

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amount of negative attention upon the Klan at the national level.83 Newspapers around

the country carried every detail of the violence that threatened to tear the county apart

and the coverage did not shine a favorable light on the Klan and its actions.

The story would take one final dark turn for Young and Ora Thomas of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle a few months later in January of 1925, when the two men

were involved in a shootout with each other that left them both dead. Along with the two

leaders of the warring factions, two Klansmen who served as Young’s bodyguards would

also die. The violence followed a familiar pattern, with Thomas, the Knight of the

Flaming Circle, firing first, followed by returned fire from the Klansmen, and parties

unknown finishing up the carnage by firing from outside of the building. The fact that no

convictions ever resulted from investigations of the shootout also followed the

established pattern of justice, or lack thereof, in Williamson County.84

In the aftermath of the deadly encounter between Young and Thomas in January of 1925, Williamson County hosted a series of religious revivals that sought to cleanse the community of the hard feelings and animosities that had built up between the two warring factions.85 The success of the revivals in helping to bring together members of

the community spoke to the strangeness of the Williamson County version of anti-Klan

violence, because it indicated that the primary groups at war with each other were

Protestant based. Elsewhere, the battle lines between the Klan and anti-Klan forces,

83 One interesting fact about Young’s involvement with the Klan was that his time as an official member of the Klan was very brief. Young had not been a Klansman at the time of the large liquor raids, and had only joined the group in the spring of 1924. Essentially, Young’s time in the Klan amounted to less than six months. Ibid, 170. 84 Ibid, 188-189. 85 Ibid, 196-197.

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especially where violence occurred, tended to involve Protestant Klansmen versus

Catholic anti-Klan forces. The peace between the two sides would last for just under a year, until one final fit of violence would purge Williamson County of the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle.

On Election Day, April 13, 1926, John Smith and the remaining local members of the Ku Klux Klan reignited the fight with the Knights of the Flaming Circle in

Williamson County by challenging Catholic voters at a polling station.86 Anti-Klan poll

watchers engaged in a fight with Smith and after deputies broke up the fight Smith left

for his home. Later that day, anti-Klansmen ambushed Smith outside his automotive garage. The first shot fired only grazed Smith and he successfully retreated into his garage. For a full fifteen minutes, men who had been stationed in nearby cars, and in the

European Hotel in which Thomas and Young had killed each other, fired upon the garage. Miraculously, despite the incredible amount of shots fired, no one inside the building, and no bystanders, were struck. In the meantime, National Guard troops began to arrive and the shooters fled. On their way out of town, the anti-Klan force stopped by the polling place and attacked a number of Klansmen that were stationed there. The anti-

Klansmen were chased off again by the National Guard, but not before three more

Klansmen and three more anti-Klansmen lost their lives.87 These casualties brought the

death toll for the Williamson County Klan War to eighteen men, of which ten were

affiliated with the Klan, six with the anti-Klan Knights of the Flaming Circle, and two

innocent bystanders.

86 Ibid, 200. 87 Ibid, 199-203.

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The deadly attack on John Smith and the Klansmen at the polling station also served as the final major incident of violence occurring between the Klansmen and the

Knights of the Flaming Circle in Williamson County. It also marked the end of the 1920s

Ku Klux Klan’s time as a dominant part of the Williamson County landscape. The group was left leaderless and adrift following the death of S. Glenn Young and once John Smith decided to leave the area, after the second attack on his garage, the rest of the Klan membership slunk back into obscurity. The same cannot be said for the likes of their adversaries from the ranks of the Flaming Circle. The Shelton brothers and Charlie Birger in particular would enter into a protracted battle for control of the liquor and gambling trade in the region that would continue to drive Williamson County’s body count even higher.88 However, any further discussion of the fight for control of Williamson County’s illicit economy is outside of the scope of this dissertation. Returning instead to the manner in which the Knights of the Flaming Circle rose to fight the Ku Klux Klan in

Niles, Ohio will further illustrate the complexity of the motivations driving each side and the outcomes of the battles that occurred between the two groups over the course of the violent year of 1924.

88 For more on the post Klan years in Williamson County continue reading Paul Angle’s Bloody Williamson or Gary DeNeal’s A Knight of Another Sort. Both works give detailed accounts of the liquor war between the Shelton’s and Charlie Birger.

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Chapter Seven: Niles, Ohio: Bootleggers and Burning Tires

Tensions were reaching the boiling point in the Mahoning Valley between the

Klan and anti-Klan forces in March of 1924, after men in Youngstown, Ohio had begun

selling copies of a list containing the names of local Klansmen.1 A few weeks’ later Niles police chief Lincoln Rounds’s home was wrecked by a bomb. Luckily no one was injured, but many believed the attack occurred because of increasing enforcement of the local liquor laws under newly elected Niles Mayor Harvey Kistler, who had been supported by the Ku Klux Klan.2 The first major struggle between Klan and anti-Klan opponents took place on May 9, 1924, during an attempted Klan march in Niles that nearly led to a riot.3

Violence would again descend upon Niles in June when the Klan again tried to parade in

the city. Like the previous attempt, riot-like conditions prevailed and the parade was

canceled, but not before the first appearance of a burning tire, which would become the

calling card of the local Knights of the Flaming Circle. 4 This event represented a turning

point, as it revealed that forces were consolidating against the Klan and were now taking

the form of an organized group whose name and use of fiery symbols had begun to strike

1 “Sell Purported K.K. List,” The Warren Tribune, 24 March 1924, 1. 2 “Niles Police Chief’s Home Is Wrecked: Family Escapes Injury, The Warren Tribune, 17 April 1924, 1. “Niles Elects Klan Candidate by 462: Harvey C. Kistler, Democratic Entry, Defeats Mayor Charles Crow,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8 November 1293 [Actual date 1923], 9. 3 William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 119. 4 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 122.

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fear into the hearts of Klansmen across the Midwest.5 Violent outbursts occurred again

in August and were followed in September by a break-in at the Rummell Sporting Goods store, in which several shotguns, revolvers, and one thousand rounds of ammunition were stolen.6 The fact that the owners of the sporting goods store had been associated with

Klan activity leads one to believe that the burglars were likely allied with the anti-Klan

movement. Accompanying the outbursts all summer long had been burning crosses and

burning tires, which lit up the night skies as tensions rose to dangerous levels. The

violence that had smothered the city for much of the year had finally abated after the

chaos of the first week of August. However, the peace did not seem destined to last long,

because the Klan announced plans for another parade scheduled to occur in Niles on the

first day of November.7 Finally, after repeated attempts to force his hand, Mayor

Kistler’s refusal to ban the parade led to the appearance of mysterious posters in and

around downtown Niles that undoubtedly put everyone on edge.

The posters read, “Flaming Circle. Tri-State Meeting, Niles, O., November 1. All

eligibles are welcome. Come and give the Steubenville delegation a rousing welcome.

Please avoid bringing the women and children.”8 The subtext of the message would have

been clear to the people of Niles who saw these flyers posted around their city the

weekend before a much anticipated, and for many a much maligned, Ku Klux Klan

parade. The hint of the potential for violence within the message also would have been

5 Ibid. 6 Ibid, 125. “20 Shotguns are Stolen from Niles Store,” Niles Daily Times, 8 September 1924, 1. 7 Ibid. 8 “Dangers Seen in 2 Meets: Both Klan and Circle Orders To Mass For Big Celebrations,” The Warren Tribune, 27 October 1924, 1.

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foreboding and frightening for residents on either side of the debate over the upcoming

Klan parade. The city had already been the scene of several violent altercations between

the two organizations over the course of the year and these posters arrived in town like a

harbinger of disaster lurking on the horizon. Due to the events of the June riot, and the

appearance of the burning tires of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, the presence of

their flyers ahead of the scheduled November Klan parade had many residents fearing

the worst. They knew exactly what it would mean for the city of Niles if the two rival

factions massed their forces and both marched in Niles on the same day in November―it

would be nothing short of open warfare.

The large-scale, riot-based Protestant versus Protestant violence in Williamson

County, Illinois, was at best an outlier in the history of Prohibition enforcement and the

role of the Ku Klux Klan in that effort. Likewise the majority of those opposing the Klan

in Williamson County, and who made up the membership of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle were also Protestant, which also was not the norm. Meanwhile, the situation in the

Mahoning Valley was an example of a location that epitomized the creation of “citizen

warriors” working to enforce a Protestant moral code in the 1920s.9 The reason for this would be that in Mahoning County and Trumbull County the division between the supporters of Prohibition and those opposed to it did in fact tend to break more or less

9 Instead of anchoring the chapter of her book, The War on Alcohol, on citizen enforcers of Prohibition in Williamson County, Illinois, Lisa McGirr could have used the Mahoning Valley as a better example of a location that epitomized the creation of “citizen warriors” working to enforce a Protestant moral code in the 1920s. The Williamson County experience involved a far more nuanced set of circumstances that resulted in the sustained and extreme violence that occurred there over the course of over fifty years.

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along the lines of the older, entrenched Protestant community versus the more recently

emigrated Catholic immigrant population. This is not to say that there were no

exceptions, or that all people who supported Prohibition were Klansmen, or that all

Catholic immigrants were against it, but it certainly followed that pattern more closely

than Williamson County. Nowhere is this division more clear than in the buildup to the

Niles anti-Klan riot of November 1, 1924 and its aftermath. The riot also represents one

of the clearest examples of why the 1920s Klan collapsed so rapidly in 1925. Finally,

because the Trumbull County Grand Jury issued one hundred four indictments following

the riot, it also offers one of the best opportunities to examine the lives and criminal

records of the men who fought against each other on that fateful day. Using the names of

those who were indicted, which incidentally are split relatively evenly between the two

groups, it is possible to piece together details about both the Klansmen and the anti-Klan

rioters fighting as members of the Knights of the Flaming Circle.10

The rise of the Klan in Niles occurred in much the same manner as it had in other

northern towns. As outlined in Chapter Two, the Mahoning Valley had experienced a

substantial demographic shift and this resulted in, among other things, a substantial difference of opinion over the importance of the enforcement of Prohibition. By

November 1923, Niles had gained enough of a reputation as a city with lax enforcement

10 According to newspaper accounts, the Grand Jury handed down 104 indictments. Based on my research using a combination of newspaper accounts and court documents, I found that there were 38 Klansmen indicted and 49 Knights of the Flaming Circle indicted after the Niles Anti-Klan Riot on November 1, 1924. After gathering the names of the indicted, I then cross-referenced their names against the Criminal Appearance Dockets for Trumbull County from 1870 to 1940 to see which, if any, of the men indicted after the riot had faced other criminal charges in Trumbull County where the riot occurred.

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of Prohibition and other vice laws that Harvey Kistler, a Klan supported reformer running

on the Democrat ticket, was able to defeat the incumbent Republican Mayor Charles

Crow. One raid in particular that had occurred in January 1923 made clear that the local

police had grown too friendly with the local bootleggers situated within the Italian neighborhood on the East Side of the town. On this night of raids, led by Sheriff John

“Brickey” Thomas, the son of Niles police chief Lincoln Round was arrested, as well as

Jim Jennings, one of three brothers who operated the most notorious speakeasy in the town.11 As William D. Jenkins pointed out in Steel Valley Klan, the arrest of Joseph

Round “served to verify the growing conviction that the failure to shut down bootleggers

lay at the feet of lax or corrupt public officials.”12 The fact that the city’s sole Italian

councilman provided the bonds for both Round and Jennings did little to dissuade

Protestant reformers in town of this opinion.13 A few months later, in April 1923, the first cross burning in Niles staged by the Ku Klux Klan occurred and by the time of the

November election the Klan had firmly entrenched itself in town.14 Riding the wave of

reform-centered voting Kistler defeated the popular incumbent Mayor Crow in every

ward except the Third Ward, which contained the bulk of the East Side gambling and

bootlegging activity taking place in town.15

Once elected, Harvey Kistler wasted little time beginning his promised assault on

vice crimes in Niles. He appointed his cousin O. O. Hewitt as his director of public safety

11 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 67. 12 Ibid. 13 Councilman Vincent Lapolla had been supported by the Jennings family in his effort to win a city council seat. Ibid. 14 Ibid, 71. 15 Ibid, 72.

237 in order to maximize his control over the public safety forces in town and allowed Chief

Round to remain in place. In a move that served two purposes, Kistler increased the fine for liquor charges from $500 to $1000. On the one hand, this would discourage people from entering into the bootlegging business, and, on the other hand, it would ensure that those operations in town that could pay the fines levied against them would be helping to enrich the city’s coffers. This point in particular deserves closer scrutiny as it sheds light on Kistler’s later determination to permit the Klan to operate within his city in ways that other Klan elected mayors in the Mahoning Valley did not necessarily allow.16 Kistler certainly had financial motivations to crack down on the bootleggers and gamblers in town in order to secure a financial windfall for the city. One must remember that cities across the nation had lost income previously derived from the Saloon Tax and had to find ways to replace it. It should also be remembered that these cities were expanding at a rapid pace and the infrastructure needs were like nothing ever seen before. The loss of the tax revenue from the Saloon Tax, which was specifically earmarked for the police fund, could not have come at a worse time.17 Perhaps Kistler felt he had found a means to

16 In 1923, five mayors in the Mahoning Valley were elected with Klan support. These Klan supported candidates were the mayors of Youngstown, Warren, Struthers, Girard, and Niles. The populations of Warren, Struthers, and Girard allowed for the Klan to operate without much opposition and activities there were never violently opposed. In Youngstown, the Klan did face opposition and after the St. Patrick’s Day 1924 anti-Klan riot the group kept located its events outside of the city or within insulated locations like Idora Park. Niles stands alone in terms of the number of violent episodes that occurred there over the course of 1924. The demographics of Niles set it up as a likely flashpoint for opposition to the Klan and Kistler’s possible economic motivations for the increased number of liquor raids set the stage for the protracted fight that occurred. Ibid, 76. “Fights Follow Cross Burning: Police Called to Quiet Crowd in Central Square, Demonstrations Staged, Kluxers Oppose St. Patrick’s Day Observations,” The Youngstown Daily Vindicator, 18 March 1924, 1. 17 In 1906, the Saloon Tax increased from $350 to $1000 annually for a license to operate. The ratio of distribution for the Saloon Tax as spelled out by section 4364-17 of

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replace some of those lost funds through strict enforcement of Prohibition. The fact that

he willingly drew the ire of the bootleggers in town by pushing for strict enforcement and

increased the amount of the fines for charges related to liquor offenses lends credibility to

this theory.18 Kistler’s strict enforcement campaign pleased local Klansmen, but angered the anti-Klan faction that would become the local chapter of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle and set the stage for later trouble. As a result of the increased attempts by local

police to enforce liquor and gambling laws, the anti-Klan faction sought to discourage the

enforcement campaign by striking back at the local police chief. The bootleggers of the

anti-Klan faction’s effort to stymie Kistler’s campaign attracted more Klan attention to

Niles and served as the kindling for the violent conflagrations that occurred over the

course of 1924.

the Revised Statutes of Ohio allotted thirty percent of all county saloon tax revenue to the general revenue fund of the state. Fifty percent of the total collected county Saloon Tax revenue was returned to the corporation or township in which the tax was collected. Of that portion half, or twenty-five percent of the whole Saloon Tax collected, was allocated to the police fund. Obviously this became a huge problem when the saloons were forced out of business by the Eighteenth Amendment and this created a massive revenue shortfall for local governments across Ohio. In particular it precipitated a crisis in terms of funding for police departments and officer salaries. This then created an increased incidence of attempts to bribe police officers, and, because the officers were paid little and oftentimes at irregular intervals, these attempts were often successful. Niles and Youngstown both faced these problems in regards to their police departments. “Editorials: A State Tax for Schools,” The Ohio Teacher Vol. XXVII, No. 7 (February, 1907), 291; Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 118. 18 The bottom line is that liquor law enforcement fines presented a lucrative means for cities to recoup lost tax revenue. Undoubtedly, Kistler had paid attention to the controversy that erupted after the arrest of Joseph Round and Jim Jennings in January of 1923. In the aftermath of the arrests, which were made by county law enforcement officials instead of city officials, all of the money collected as fines went to the county instead of the city. This had drawn a significant amount of criticism against then mayor Charles Crow, because, as one local judge believed, the city “could have been $10,000 richer, and the policemen and firemen would not have to go begging for their justly earned salaries.” Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 67-68.

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In the early morning hours of April 17, 1924, a time bomb exploded outside the home of Niles police chief Lincoln Round. According to newspaper accounts, the explosion hurtled the police chief and a number of his family members from their beds and tore a large hole in the side of the home and its foundation.19 Luckily no one was

seriously injured, but the threat to life had been real. Theories at the time centered on the

recent increase in the enforcement of liquor laws in Niles. This theory seems plausible

when considered in light of the fact that this was not the first time the house of a law

enforcement official had been bombed in Niles. Only a year earlier the home of

Constable John Williams had been targeted by bombers, as a means to encourage him to

cease and desist in his efforts to enforce Prohibition. In that case, Constable Williams

decided that he “valued his life more than his job.”20 Williams resigned his post and left

town. Chief Round refused to be frightened out of town, but he likely required even more

encouragement and pressure from O. O. Hewitt and Mayor Kistler to continue raiding the

East Side bootlegging establishments of the men who had bailed his son out of jail only a

year earlier.

The descent into extreme violence, such as the use of time bombs on the homes of

law enforcement officials in Niles mirrors the situation occurring in a number of cities

across Ohio and elsewhere in the years since Prohibition took effect. For instance, in

Jefferson County, home to Steubenville and the first Knights of the Flaming Circle

chapter in the state, the home of a dry agent had exploded on October 10, 1923, only

19 “Bomb Niles Chief’s Home: Family Hurled From Beds,” Youngstown Telegram, 17 April 1924, 1. 20 “Bomb Home of Niles Chief,” Youngstown Telegram, 17 April 1924, 2.

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weeks after the first flaming circle lit up the night sky in September.21 As mentioned

above, in Williamson County the home of one man and the business of another man

involved in the earliest liquor raids and the seizure of a truckload of illegal beer had been

targeted by arsonists. That those arsonists struck at night while a family was sleeping in

the home escalated the physical threat of the attack. One of the most interesting attacks of

a similar nature occurred in Dover, Ohio in June of 1921.22 In that instance, the home of a

local prosecutor had been struck in the middle of the night by a substantial dynamite

blast. Luckily, out of a sense of concern that an attack might be imminent, the prosecutor,

his wife, and their infant child had recently switched rooms, because the blast occurred

directly outside of the room in which they had been sleeping until only a few days

earlier.23 The fact that this bombing occurred before the rise of the Klan in the state is

important to note, because it shows that violent opposition to dry politicians and law

enforcement personnel had been occurring before the Klan arrived on the scene. What is

more important about this particular bombing is the fact that one of the convicted

bombers was a man by the name of Chauncey Nigro.

21 “Blast Wrecks Home of ‘Dry’ Agent; 4 Hurt,” The Daily Independent (Murphysboro, IL), 10 October 1923, 1. 22 The fact that the attack occurred before the rise of the Klan in Ohio and only miles from New Philadelphia the place of residence at the time of future Ohio Governor Vic Donahey possibly sheds light on why Donahey, a “Dry,” was rumored to be Klan- friendly. Although he was not their first choice in the 1924 election Donahey did receive the endorsement of the Klan that year. Although it would be unfair to claim that he courted the support of the Klan just because they endorsed him. In Donahey’s defense he did publicly deny that he had made a deal with the Klan to gain their support. “Donahey Not in K. K. Deal,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 21 October 1924, 5. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 152-153. 23 “Bowers’ Home Dynamited: Police Trail Auto; Two Arrested,” The Daily Times (New Philadelphia, OH), 10 June 1921, 1.

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Convicted bomber Chauncey Nigro’s family relationship to Frank Nigro, the

stepfather of Tony Nigro (alias Anthony White) is important, because Tony Nigro was

one of the leaders of the faction of the anti-Klan movement in Niles that became the local chapter of the Knights of the Flaming Circle. Interestingly enough, Frank Nigro and his family had moved from Dover, Ohio to Niles the year that their relative was convicted of the bombing of the prosecutor’s home.24 Coincidentally, both Chauncey Nigro and Tony

Nigro were both known for their exploits as bootleggers.25 In fact, Chauncey had been

fined in November 1920 for liquor law violations and his mother had subsequently been

denied a soft drink license in February 1921.26 Whether the two shared a penchant for using explosive devices will never be known, but as the events in Niles in 1924 would reveal, Tony Nigro, like his cousin, was violently opposed to Prohibition enforcement.

By May of 1924, in the Mahoning Valley, and in many locations across the country, if one chose to be against the enforcement of Prohibition that automatically put him at odds with members of the Ku Klux Klan. Tony Nigro was one such person and his allies on the East Side of Niles, including his bodyguard Anthony Sherro, were decidedly against both. This reality became all too apparent on May 9 when Trumbull Klan No. 70 decided to conclude its spring Konklave by marching through the city of Niles.27

24 “Hold Former Doverite on Charge of Murder,” The Daily Times (New Philadelphia, OH), 29 May 1925), 1. 25 In regards to Tony Nigro see: Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 119. Jenkins made no mention of the Nigros’s family connections in Dover, Ohio or the earlier bombing. In regards to Chauncey Nigro’s conviction on liquor charges see: “5 Are Refused Dover License,” The Daily Times (New Philadelphia, OH), 1 February 1921, 1. 26 Incidentally, Ralph Herzig, the other man convicted of bombing the prosecutor’s home also had been denied a soft drink license in February. “5 Refused Dover License,” 1. 27 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 119.

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Undoubtedly, the ongoing struggles of the Klan-backed mayor, Harvey Kistler, to bring the residents of Niles into compliance with liquor laws had made it a point of pride for both the Klan and the anti-Klan factions to seek conflict within the city to prove which

group could overpower the other. If conflict represented a positive outcome, then both the

Klan and its opposition got their wish that fateful night. An estimated three thousand

Klansmen and two hundred cars drove the parade route in Niles, but they would not make

it through town. Instead, after lighting a cross in front of the city’s Central High School, a

scuffle broke out and the cross fell to the ground. Under a hail of bricks, stones, and even

gunshots, the Klansmen recovered their cross and took two of the anti-Klansmen captive.

Both men, Michael Naples and Anthony Sherro, were tied to the Jennings’s family and

the illegal liquor trade in town. The two men were tormented and forced to kiss an

American flag, but, by this time, the anti-Klan opposition had successfully halted the

Klan parade. As William D. Jenkins pointed out, this conflict marked the point in time

when the East Side Italian community, and, in particular, those affiliated with

bootlegging and gambling activities in the city, took control of the movement to combat

the Klan.28

The situation would continue to degrade over the course of the next month as the

Klan redoubled their efforts to intimidate the immigrant citizens of Niles and the anti-

Klansmen worked to resist them at every opportunity. The Klan planned a massive

Konklave for June 21 and again promised to march through Niles. Jenkins argued that the

Klan miscalculated by shifting the battleground from a Klan-backed vice enforcement

28 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 119-120.

243 campaign to an unpopular fight for their constitutional right to march through Niles.29

Jenkins explained that this was taken as an “affront to the honor of the Italian community because of disparaging remarks about the Catholic religion made by Klan members during the previous parade” and allowed the vice offenders to “muster broad-based support.”30 During this time Mayor Kistler also dismissed requests by concerned citizens asking him to require the Klansmen to march unmasked. Kistler claimed as mayor he had no authority to prevent members of any organization from wearing masks.31 The Klan committed a further error by celebrating the fact that Sam Rich, the Grand Dragon of

Pennsylvania, would be the featured attraction of the day. Rich’s inclusion in the event coming on the heels of the deadly riots that had occurred in the two Pennsylvania towns of Carnegie in August 1923 and Lilly in April 1924 unnecessarily raised the threat of violence to levels, which to this point, the Klan had consistently been unable to handle.32

Bringing in Rich, the notorious provocateur, inspired the anti-Klansmen in Niles to bring in their own special guests―the Knights of the Flaming Circle from Steubenville, Ohio.33

On the day of the proposed parade, the Klansmen again found the disruptive efforts of the anti-Klansmen to be too great to overcome. Despite having a force of some ten thousand Klansmen present, the march, which had been switched to the daytime because the power to the downtown streetlights had been cut during the last attempted parade, never even had a chance to begin. After several carloads of Klansmen were

29 Ibid, 120. 30 Ibid. 31 “Oppose Niles Klan Parade,” The Youngstown Telegram, 10 June 1924, 2. 32 For more information on the riots at Carnegie and Lilly see: John Craig, The Ku Klux Klan in Western Pennsylvania, 1921-1928 (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 2015). 33 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 120-121.

244 assaulted with flying objects and American flags torn from their cars, Klan leadership decided not to attempt a parade.34 The “presence of a flaming tire doused in kerosene in front of Central High School,” was likely the reason for this decision.35 Rumors had circulated that an entire trainload of Steubenville Knights had arrived in town and were lying in wait to attack the Klan.36 As it had in September of 1923, the idea of facing the

Steubenville Knights of the Flaming Circle, this time fighting alongside the equally foreboding Niles contingent of anti-Klan enforcers, did not appeal to the Klansmen.

Apparently, there were few men within the Klan’s ranks willing to cross the threshold of intensely violent actions necessary to face the threat presented by the

Knights of the Flaming Circle. Local Exalted Cyclops, Dr. B. A. Hart of Warren, admitted that the Klansmen who had gathered for the parade were disappointed, but he thought it was wise not to march, because of the threat of violence.37 Instead of a triumphant parade, the Klansmen were reduced to giving speeches and launching fireworks from the relative safety of the Klan field north of town and closer to the friendlier confines of Warren.38 The fact that the loudest cheer of the night was a response to the lighting of fireworks attached to a set piece that was emblazoned with the

34 There were conflicting stories about the treatment of the American flags removed from the Klansmen’s cars. The Klansmen claimed they were torn from their cars and desecrated, while the anti-Klan rioters claimed that they had removed the flags from the cars, because “they were out of place on cars after sundown.” Fighting over American flags presents an interesting aspect of these conflicts, because in many instances, the anti-Klan immigrants actually were more respectful of the flag than the “100% American” Klansmen. “Seek Arrest of 18 After Niles Riots,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 24 June 1924, 1. 35 Ibid, 120. 36 Ibid, 121. 37 “Disorder Follows Attack on Klan,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 23 July 1924, 1-2. 38 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 121.

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words “Down With the Rotten Politicians” says something about the focus of Klan

disappointment at this event.39 However, the focus of Klan vitriol would shift over the course of the next month, bringing to the surface tensions over religious differences that had been lurking beneath the surface and would ultimately lead to violence from both sides as the more radical elements of both groups gained power.

Before the next flare up of violence could take place in the fight between the East

Side Niles residents and the members of the Ku Klux Klan, the Niles anti-Klan contingent made it official that the Knights of the Flaming Circle were present in town. In an announcement appearing in the largest daily newspaper in Trumbull County, the creation of a local chapter of the Knights of the Flaming Circle was publicized along with an open invitation to join for any interested parties.40 The meeting was scheduled to

occur on June 29 at the East Side Athletic Club. Incidentally, the East Side Athletic Club

was owned and operated by the Jennings brothers, who happened to be prominent figures

in the local bootleg liquor and gambling rackets. However, to make the organization

seem more legitimate and law abiding, local attorney Patrick Fusco chaired the meeting

instead of the Jennings brothers or Tony Nigro, even though those men were the leaders

of the anti-Klan activities in Niles.41 The newspaper announcement claimed several

“speakers of note” would appear at the meeting and explain the principles of the order.42

The fact that the organization formed immediately after a riot made claims of the order’s

desire to stand for “observance of law and order” and its stated aim of conducting “its

39 “Disorder Follows Attack on Klan,” 2. 40 “Flaming Circle Holds Open Meeting,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 28 June 1924, 2. 41 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 122. 42 “Flaming Circle Holds Open Meeting,” 2.

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actions along orderly lines” all the more ironic.43 The next few months in Niles would reveal just how disingenuous the leaders of the Flaming Circle were when it came to their belief in the importance of law observance and conducting their activities in an orderly fashion.

Over the next several weeks, the Flaming Circle involved itself in a number of less than orderly actions against those it opposed. First, in late July, a police officer, who during the riot in June had defended the right of Klan marchers to parade, was lured into a trap that resulted in the officer receiving a severe beating. His assailants ambushed him after posing as travelers in distress with a broken down car. The attackers then used a broken bottle to carve his face and scalp in order to send a message to anyone who dared take the side of the Klan.44 Next in early August, both sides participated in a series of burnings and counter-burnings of each groups chosen symbols. In the midst of one such burning, this time of a tire near the McKinley Memorial in downtown Niles, a crowd of

Flaming Circle members severely beat a man with whom they had provoked an argument.45

Within the aftermath of the series of cross burnings and circle burnings that

occurred in the month of August, the religious hate nestled within the Klan agenda and

the negative influence of professional provocateurs rose to the forefront and further

minimized the local Klan’s efforts at strict law enforcement. In particular, outsiders

within the Klan movement, such as a Kleagle named Colonel C. A. Gunder, had a strong

43 Ibid. 44 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 122-123. 45 “Klan Argument Said to Have Caused Niles Fight,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 4 August 1924, 2.

247 negative impact on public perceptions of the local Klan. Gunder had been one of the first

Kleagles in Youngstown, but had left to continue his kluxing efforts in Massachusetts.

Gunder had returned to area to speak at a gathering of Mahoning County Klansmen at

Idora Park. Gunder stirred up the emotions of the crowd by claiming he had returned to lead a parade through Niles. Gunder claimed that, “We treated the antis up in

Massachusetts different than you treated that gang of thugs up in Niles. We filled them full of salt.”46 Gunder then attacked the crowd for “letting a bunch of Wops scare you out.”47 Despite his incendiary tone and disparaging remarks aimed at the Italians of Niles,

Gunder returned to the law and order theme that dominated the mindset of the Ku Klux

Klan in the Mahoning Valley when he declared that there was “a way by law that you can meet the situation” and reminded the crowd that they had once successfully petitioned the governor to remove the chief of police in Youngstown.48

Despite Gunder’s late attempt to redirect his message back to locally acceptable methods of rectifying the perceived problems of Niles, his speech was met with disappointment by local Klan leaders. In fact, Mahoning County Cyclops, Web Lentz, and Trumbull County Cyclops, Dr. B. A. Hart, both roundly criticized the speech and rejected its content. Lentz stated, “The Mahoning county Klan does not subscribe to any such doctrine as preached by Col. Gunder at Idora Park and as reported by the press.”49

Dr. Hart agreed with Lentz and reiterated the primacy of law and order to the Klan agenda when he stated,

46 “Seek Martial Law to End Klan War,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 9 August 1924, 1. 47 “Seek Martial Law to End Klan War,” 1. 48 Ibid. 49 “Klan Chiefs Hit Talk of Niles Parade,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 11 August 1924, 1.

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We stand by authorities and by the law. We believe in obeying the law and that is one of the principles of the order. The true Klansman is one who stands by the law and does not advocate violations of it.50 Hart also expressed his belief that there would be no more trouble in Niles and that

leaders on both sides were “anxious to prevent such trouble and want radical adherents

who have been responsible for clashes to be subdued.”51

To this end, after the trouble in early August, leaders of both the Klan and the

Knights of the Flaming Circle attended a peace conference arranged by Trumbull County

Sherriff John Thomas. At this point Thomas was the only local official that both sides had any confidence in, and so he presided over the proceedings, which were held in

Mayor Kistler’s court room. The names of the men in attendance from both sides were not made public, but the agreement that they signed was published for the public to read.

It read as follows:

Be it known that on this 11th day of August, 1924, the undersigned persons hereby agree to use our good offices and influence to see that there is no more burning of fiery crosses or flaming circles within the limits of Weathersfield township. It is further agreed that all charges and counter charges now existing against alleged Klansmen and alleged anti-Klansmen will be withdrawn and dismissed. This agreement is made for the purpose of attempting to restore good will between the aforesaid factions and for the good of the city of Niles.52 Optimism abounded after the peace conference and Thomas expressed his belief that the attendees were sincere and would do all in their power to avoid further trouble.53 In a

50 “Klan Chiefs Hit Talk of Niles Parade,” 1. 51 Ibid. 52 “Klan and Anti-Klan Leaders Meet: Plan to End All Trouble,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 11 August 1924, 1. 53 “Klan and Anti-Klan Leaders Meet,” 1.

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final effort to stabilize relations in the town, Mayor Kistler also instituted a thirty-day

moratorium on Klan parades and for a time afterwards peace prevailed in Niles.54

Despite the positive feelings felt by those in attendance at the peace conference,

the period of calm in Niles would last only until mid-October, when Kistler announced

that the Ku Klux Klan had been granted a new parade permit and would attempt yet

another march through the city this time on the first day of November. Several attempts

were made to block the parade, but Mayor Kistler would not oblige. Kistler insisted that

since they had applied for the appropriate parade permit the Klan had the constitutional

right to march through the city. The constitutional argument did little to calm the anger of

those affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle and more generally those who did

not wish to see the Ku Klux Klan march through Niles. In addition to the Knights of the

Flaming Circle, numerous civic organizations came out in opposition to the planned

parade in Niles. Many business leaders felt it was unwise to subject the city to potential

violence for the sake of proving a constitutional point and allowing a parade of outsiders

in the city.55 Alongside attempts to ban the Klan parade outright, efforts were also made to at least prevent Klansmen from parading in masks and while carrying firearms.56

Again the mayor claimed he had no legal standing to do so. Those within the

Constitutional Defense League who were making the request recommended that he

54 “Klan and Anti-Klan Factions Mix at Niles,” Western Reserve Democrat, 7 August 1924, 1. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 123. 55 “Effort to Stop Klan Parade Futile: Defense League Failed,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 23 October 1924, 1. 56 “Effort to Stop Klan Parade Futile,” 1.

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consult with other cities that had faced similar circumstances and found legal means to

make such requests, but Kistler would not budge.57

For their part the local Klan did agree to make some concessions based on the

requests of the local citizen activist groups allied against its planned November parade.

For instance, Clyde Osbourne, Grand Dragon of the Ohio Ku Klux Klan, issued orders

that all Klansmen would march unmasked in Niles and would not carry firearms.58 Dr. B.

A. Hart of the Trumbull Klan reiterated the remarks of the Grand Dragon and added that

Klansmen were instructed to march with arms folded and to refrain from conversation with spectators.59 Niles Klansmen were given the option to march, but were not required

to do so in order to allow them to remain in good standing within the organization, while

also helping them to avoid retaliation from oppositional forces in Niles.60 Despite statements to the contrary, the Klansmen would end up armed on the day of the parade in

Niles. Although the Klansmen did not live up to their promise to march unarmed the actions of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the days leading up to the parade likely influenced their decision to renege on that promise.

The actions and words of the men of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the days prior to the Klan parade illustrate the fact that they were never serious in their attempts to make concessions, or had any intention of allowing the Klan to march through their city.

While one of the leaders of the anti-Klan faction claimed that the Klan would be welcome to march if they did so unmasked, another claimed that “there would be trouble

57 Ibid. 58 “Osborne Won’t Check Parade,” Youngstown Vindicator, 29 October 1924, 1. 59 “Niles Trouble,” Youngstown Vindicator, 29 October 1924, 4. 60 “Niles Trouble,” 4.

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if the klan paraded at all.”61 More telling than these statements were the actions taken by

the Knights of the Flaming Circle and some of its adherents in the days leading up to the

Klan parade. First, there was the burning of a flaming circle on the night of October 23,

which defied the mayor’s ban on burning crosses and circles.62 It seems this was likely a

response to the mayor making the unpopular decision to award a parade permit to the

Klansmen. By October 27, the Knights of the Flaming Circle had also posted flyers

around town alerting the public that they too would be marching in Niles on November 1.

The flyers explained that the Steubenville delegation would again be in town and warned

that it would be best for no women or children to be present for the festivities.63

Obviously, the Knights of the Flaming Circle had no intention of conducting a legal gathering in town that day. Nor were they going to allow, under any circumstances, the

Klansmen to march through their town either masked or unmasked. However, the blowback from the mayor’s decision did not end with the lighting of a tire at the old central schoolyard, or hanging suggestive flyers around town. In fact, the anti-Klan retaliation would literally hit closer to home for the mayor of Niles when his house was bombed while he and his family slept inside in the early morning hours of October 29.64

Fortunately no one was injured in the blast, but the effort to employ extreme violence

against the mayor and his family further hardened the resolve of both factions. While the

anti-Klan forces of the Knights of the Flaming Circle wanted to make clear to the Mayor

that they would willingly commit violence to prevent the Klan parade, their radical

61 “Call Niles Peace Parley,” The Youngstown Telegram, 28 October 1924, 1. And “Governor Acts in Bombing,” The Youngstown Telegram, 29 October 1924, 7. 62 “Burning Circle Revives Anti-Klan Sentiment,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 24 October 1924, 2. 63 “May Have State Militia at Niles,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 27 October 1924, 1. 64 “Crisis Looms in Niles Warfare,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 29 October 1924, 1.

252 actions had the unintended effect of provoking Kistler to double down on his support of the Klan parade even though he had to know it would lead to certain violence.

The bombing of his home was the last straw for Harvey Kistler. If before the blast he had been willing to err on the side of caution and cancel the Klan’s parade permit, after the blast his actions showed he wanted nothing more than to prove the point that such lawless behavior was unacceptable. Instead of considering the complaints of residents in town who felt that the actions and comments of the Klansmen who had marched into the town on previous occasions were unnecessarily provocative, Kistler was determined that the Klan march would occur no matter what negative outcomes might result.65 To this end, the mayor released a statement defending his decision to allow the

Klan march to proceed. In his remarks, he claimed that the Knights of the Flaming Circle had never approached him requesting a parade permit, but that he would have granted them a permit if they had, just not for the same day as the Klan parade.66 Kistler closed his statement reassuringly by claiming,

Up to the present time I do not feel that any condition has arisen that should cause me as mayor of Niles to revoke the permit granted the Klan for a parade between 2 P.M. and 4 P.M. Saturday, November 1. If the citizenship of this and surrounding communities will be cool headed and tolerant, no unpleasantness need arise. We are all Americans whether of the Klan or Flaming Circle or of the great group of our citizenship that holds beliefs in neither. Let us be law abiding and broad minded and willing to extend constitutional rights and prerogatives to every group of whatever race, color or creed.67

65 ‘Klan Parade on Saturday,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 31 October 1924, 2. 66 “Mayor’s Statement Permitting Parade,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 31 October 1924, 1. 67 “Mayor’s Statement Permitting Parade,” 1.

253

Regardless of the claims in his statement published in the newspaper, Kistler’s

own actions on the morning of November 1 erased any doubt as to whether he actually

believed that the parade was going to proceed without incident. Instead of remaining in

town and overseeing the activities in town that day, Kistler chose to travel out to the Klan

field north of town early that morning. Once there, Kistler deputized one hundred fifty

Klansmen on the day of the proposed march, so that they could act as armed guards for

the Klan parade.68 Kistler’s decision to deputize Klansmen and legitimize their right to

carry weapons into Niles contributed to the ratchet effect taking place on both sides of the

issue, raising the possibility of real and protracted violence to levels not reached at any

time in the earlier conflicts of 1924. Unfortunately for all parties involved, once Kistler

authorized these civilians to act in a semi-official capacity as armed guards for the Klan

parade it meant that both sides had been radicalized enough to resort to deadly violence.

Mixing the two factions together was all that remained to set off a full-scale riot the likes

of which Trumbull County had never experienced before.

The morning of November 1, 1924, started out in the most peaceful manner, but

the day would not end that way.69 On that morning, an estimated 1,700 Italian Catholics

gathered for 6:30 mass at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church.70 After mass those

who had congregated there went off in groups to separate locations around the city. Some of those who had been in attendance went with Leo Jennings over to St. Stephen’s

68 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 117. 69 The events of the November 1, 1924 Niles anti-Klan riot have been effectively recreated in William D. Jenkins’s work Steel Valley Klan, but even though I do not challenge his narrative of the events of that day, I must also retell the story of the riot in order to offer a more complete history to my readers. As such, I will be employing much of what Jenkins already wrote about the riot with only minor additions to the narrative, but do so in the interest of clarity. 70 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 130.

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Catholic Church in order to take up a post for the day at the convent for the Sisters of the

Humility of Mary.71 Others went with another member of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle named Peter Greco over to the corner of Robbins Avenue and Linden Avenue.72

These forty or fifty men created a blockade on the road in order to stop any cars coming

into the city on that road. Elsewhere on the corner of Main Street and Federal Street and

in a nearby field in front of the General Electric Glass Works an even larger crowd of

people gathered. Like those at Robbins and Linden, this group was also led by a number

of Circlers, as the Knights of the Flaming Circle were colloquially known in Niles. This

blockade was of the utmost importance to the anti-Klan protesters that day as it blocked

the main route into downtown Niles from the Klansmen gathered further north of town at

the Klan field.73

Essentially, the Knights of the Flaming Circle situated themselves in these two

primary locations and engaged in a series of skirmishes throughout the morning until the

National Guard was called to place the city under martial law. It should be noted that the

Knights of the Flaming Circle enforced checkpoints at these locations and suspected Klan

vehicles were stopped and, on several occasions, the cars were searched and the

occupants were beaten. However, some of the men whose cars were stopped and illegally

searched were not lucky enough to escape with just a beating. Instead, these men received

life threatening wounds. For instance, G. E. Victor was stabbed through the chest and his

companion Harvey Brauchle was shot.74 More brazen than the attack on Victor and

Brauchle was the wounding of Klansmen Ellsworth Kaiser and Earl E. Cope at the anti-

71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid, 132. 74 Ibid, 130-131.

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Klan base in front of the General Electric Glass Works. What made this incident more

indicative of the lack of concern the Knights of the Flaming Circle had for the presence

of legitimate law enforcement officials was that these acts of violence occurred in front of

several deputies. In this instance, Kaiser and Cope had driven through the anti-Klan barricade and made it into Niles, but were overtaken and taken into custody by a group of anti-Klansmen. The men had gone willingly, because a number of deputy sheriffs were also present and one even accompanied them in the car that drove them back to the

Glassworks. However, the cries of “Let’s lynch them!” that rose from the crowd at the time of their return gave the captives pause when exiting the car.75 Their concern was

well-founded as Kaiser was shot in the back as soon as he stepped from the vehicle. Cope

received a beating for his troubles and both were left for dead. All of this happened in

front of the police.76 Certainly, this behavior showed that the Knights of the Flaming

Circle were not concerned with the legal ramifications of their actions and would stop at

nothing to halt the Klan parade.

The most egregious instances of Klan violence against the anti-Klan forces had

occurred earlier in the day at the blockade on Main Street around 12:30 in the afternoon

when a Ford pickup truck with a shooter positioned on the bed of the truck fired on the

crowd. A reporter from the Youngstown Vindicator claimed that the Klansman was armed

with a machine gun, but these claims were not substantiated by any other source.77 Even

during the National Guard’s inquiry into the event, no one else corroborated this account,

so it was possible the reporter was making his account more exciting for the purpose of

75 Ibid, 135. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid, 133.

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selling more newspapers with a more shocking headline. Regardless of what kind of rifle was used, the shooter was either not particularly accurate or was not trying to be for none of those wounded in this attack were accounted for in the official list of the wounded that

day.78

Shortly after the pickup truck tried to break through the anti-Klan blockade from

the direction of the Klan field north of town on Main Street, another vehicle tried to leave

the town through the same blockade in an attempt to head out to the Klan field. This

green Willy-Knight was driven by W. E. Hillman of Niles and carried two other

Klansmen as passengers. As they approached the blockade they were stopped and the

situation devolved into both sides firing shots at each other at close range. The two

Klansmen, Paul Barkhurst and George Skaggs, were far more accurate than the Circlers

and after they burst through the blockade they left three wounded men in their wake.

Among these were Dominic Perone, Albert Davis, and Joseph Mohan. All three survived,

even Mohan who had been shot in the mouth. After the riot, Hillman, Barkhurst and

Skaggs would face charges for the incident.79

Other Klansmen also involved themselves in extralegal behaviors that day, but

they were prevented from launching an attack that could have ended in a catastrophic

firefight by the daring police work and diplomatic efforts of Sheriff John Thomas. When

a call came in reporting a large group of Klan “police” marching toward town, Thomas

and Chief Round drove out to intercept the men. When the sheriff arrived he stopped the

men from marching toward an angry group of Circlers and arrested twenty-five men for

78 Ibid. 79 Ibid.

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Carrying Concealed Weapons. The majority of these men were Klansmen from Toledo.

William D. Jenkins pointed out that the Sheriff arrested only the Klansmen, despite the

fact that a number of the anti-Klansmen toward whom the Klan “police” force were

marching also were carrying firearms. Jenkins posited that it could not be known whether

the Sheriff sympathized with the Circlers or simply acted to avoid bloodshed when he

chose to only arrest the armed Klansmen, but later actions of the Klan and the police

attempting to control the anti-Klan rioters provides insight into this decision. In the first

case, the fact that many actual policemen patrolling within the anti-Klan crowd had

removed their badges after being intimidated by anti-Klan forces leads one to believe that

the local police force felt they could not hope to contain the unruly crowd in town.

Meanwhile, the Klansmen, despite their ill-advised decision to keep attempting to parade

in Niles, were known throughout the violent incidents of 1924 to defer to law

enforcement officials once problems arose.80 This would be the case on this day as well,

when the Klansmen accepted the fact that the governor had sent troops and ordered that

the parade be canceled. Despite some bickering, the Klan obeyed the order of the

governor because, as Jenkins noted, “The fact that the order came from proper

authorities…convinced most of the Anglo-Saxon Klan members that their duty lay in obedience.”81 Clearly, when faced with police intervention, the Klansmen were more

80 Following the arrest of six members of the Flaming Circle for the disturbance at Mineral Ridge in August, a crowd of Circlers surrounded the jail and demanded the release of the suspects. The tactic worked as the men were given “a quick hearing and bonded releases.” Ibid, 123. The police then went out that night and arrested six Klansmen for carrying concealed weapons. The Klan staged a similar effort to pressure the mayor to and police chief to release the men that night. It failed and the suspects spent the night in jail. The Klansmen accepted the decision and went home disappointed. Ibid, 123-124. 81 Ibid, 138.

258 likely to avoid doing anything that would get them arrested. This was the case during the

November 1 riot, which represented the furthest the Klan would go in violently responding to the opposition of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the Mahoning

Valley.

A handful of Klansmen did use deadly force on November 1 and were later charged for their actions. For their part, three Klansmen were charged with Shooting with

Intent to Kill.82 However, figuring out who fired first was more difficult to determine. In the case of Rex Dunn, who was charged for his role in the first instance of violence that occurred in the early morning hours of November 1 when he shot Frank McDermott, it appears that Dunn fired in self-defense.83 McDermott later admitted that he and his friends had fired first and that he lied on the stand during Dunn’s trial.84 In the other instances, there was gunfire from both sides and conflicting accounts as to who fired first.

Regardless, in the later instances, the Klansmen had put themselves in a dangerous situation by attempting to break through the anti-Klan barricades in Niles, so an argument of self-defense would have been difficult to make.

It should also be noted that men were not the only ones involved in the rioting in

Niles on that November day, as both sides had women involved in the disturbance as well. On the Klan side, the men of the Ku Klux Klan were joined by a number of

Kamelias, as the local ladies of the Ku Klux Klan were called, who were busy preparing hot coffee and a variety of picnic foods for themselves and the Klansmen who were

82 The three Klansmen were Paul Barkhurst, George Skaggs, and Rex Dunn. No one was ever charged in regards to the alleged machine gun pickup truck attack. 83 Ibid, 129. 84 Ibid, 146-147.

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gathered in Niles.85 The situation was different on the side of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle and the other anti-Klan residents of Niles who were assembled to prevent the Klan

parade. On the anti-Klan side women actually took part in the violent exchanges with the

cars stopped at the roadblocks. A reporter from the Vindicator claimed, “Women and

children were mingling with the menfolk―some pleading, some weeping, but the

majority urging them to stand their ground.”86 Among these women was an older woman

who “pointed out her three sons” among those gathered at the Main Street roadblock and

told the Vindicator reporter,

They’ll never go back on their traditions and their God, they’ll go to hell first. And if they are killed, daddy and I are still here and we’ll carry on.87 Another elderly woman present at the roadblock on Main Street had been knocked unconscious after one of the skirmishes and did not wake up for a full hour. When she awoke, the little old Italian woman, who was still clutching her meat cleaver, shouted,

“Me fight, too!”88 Regardless of her desire to be involved in the combat, by the time the

elderly woman woke from her head injury, there was no need for her to return to the

roadblock, because by mid-afternoon the first National Guard troops had arrived and

martial law was declared in the city.89

Once the National Guard arrived, the riot ended and the Klansmen admitted defeat and dispersed. So too had the Knights of the Flaming Circle. In fact, the Circlers had made clear as far back as August 9 that their goal was to have martial law declared in

85 Ibid, 132. 86 “Reporter’s Story,” Youngstown Vindicator, 2 November 1924, 4A. 87 Ibid, 4A. Jenkin’s also included part of this account in his work. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 132. 88 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 133. 89 Ibid, 137.

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Niles so that the Klan could not march.90 This intention had been earlier reported on the

front page of local newspapers. As such, when martial law was declared the Circlers

dropped their weapons and fled the scene.91 Left in the wake of the violence were a

number of injured people, the worst of whom were in the hospital, and were mostly

Klansmen. An incident that occurred at the hospital where G.E. Victor was recuperating

from his stab wound revealed yet another frightening indication of the lengths to which

the Knights of the Flaming Circle were willing to go in order to intimidate the Klan.

Allegedly, a man, who identified himself as the Reverend Matthews of Struthers, offered

Victor candy, but his primary nurse would not allow him to eat it. Afterwards the candy

was found to be laced with arsenic.92 Regardless of whether the poisoned candy story

was true, the Knights of the Flaming Circle had done more than enough to show the Klan

that they faced a deadly opponent that now had popular support within the community.

The Klan had lost its reformer edge and now was more easily associated with religious

intolerance and unnecessary violence. As a result, the Ku Klux Klan would never again

attempt to parade in Niles.

In the aftermath of the riot, the Trumbull County Grand Jury handed down one

hundred and four indictments charging thirty-eight Klansmen and forty-nine Knights of the Flaming Circle with a variety of crimes.93 Forty-eight men were charged with rioting,

90 “Seek Martial Law to End Klan War,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 9 August 1924, 1. 91 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 137. 92 Ibid, 132. 93 I compiled my list using a variety of sources including newspaper articles; court documents, including a recently rediscovered group of Secret Indictments that had been missing; the Transcript of Evidence of the Military Investigation of the riot; Census data; and telephone directory information. The full lists of those indicted and the charges they faced are included in Appendix C.

261 forty-two with carrying concealed weapons, one man with perjury, and thirteen men faced the charge of assault with intent to kill, which was the most serious charge filed.

Essentially, the cases were divided along partisan lines in order to accelerate the court proceedings. For the more minor charges of rioting and carrying concealed weapons the defendants were grouped together and encouraged to plead guilty. On Wednesday, March

25, 1925, thirty-eight men pleaded guilty to the charges they faced in Common Pleas court in Trumbull County. On this day, the court dispensed with the vast majority of the charges against the men affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle. This meant that all of those being sentenced that day were from Niles and many of them were either the children of foreign-born parents or themselves foreign-born. The occasion moved the presiding judge to offer some advice to the men whom he was sentencing. Judge J. S.

Thomas, who had been brought in from Portsmouth, Ohio to preside over the riot cases, made this statement to the men who pleaded guilty that day,

It is very commendable of counsel on both sides to advise their clients to plead guilty if they really believe their clients are actually or technically wrong. The clients are to be commended for coming in like true Americans should and pleading guilty, if they really believe they are guilty. The Court has already intimated that such a course would result in lighter sentence being imposed. The comments that the Court is about to make may be beyond the scope of judicial propriety. No doubt there are those who will believe that it is beyond the function of the Court. We cannot refrain, however, from making some comments. It is our conception that a Judge of the Court is not merely a brass ornament. This is a public tribunal and the Judge is a peace officer of the State and interested in the welfare of the people. In looking over those who have appeared this morning, and entered their pleas of guilty the Court observes that a great many are foreigners. Many came from Italy, or are descendants of Italians. They have their own ideas of religion; they are not responsible for their religious convictions, like all others they receive their religious actions while they are still children.

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One of the fundamental principles of the American Constitution is that, everyone shall have the right to worship as he pleases. This country was colonized on that theory. English and French colonists and others from different parts of Europe came to this country to escape from religious oppression. William Penn founded Pennsylvania, Roger Williams colonized Rhode Island, and Lord Baltimore established the Catholic church in Maryland because of religious intolerance in their native countries. They came here where they could enjoy religious freedom. Going back a little farther history tells us that Christopher Columbus, an Italian, and a Catholic discovered this country, else we may not have been here today. No doubt, when you observe an organization which, at least by hearsay, is believed to be established for the purpose of religious discrimination, that such organization violates the Constitution of the State and Nation and challenges a right inherent in all free peoples, and that you have the right to resent it. However, I want you to go home and live peaceably. You have no idea how much the City of Niles, not only in prestige as a town, but in property values, has suffered by reason of these riots. You should do all you can for your town. If these men want to parade, let them do so. They have a legal right to parade. It may look foolish to sensible people, but if they want to do it, you should not violate the law trying to prevent it. It will wear out after a while and don’t take the law into your own hands. The Court fines you individually $300 and the cost of the prosecution; on payment of $50 and the costs of prosecution, $250 will be suspended conditional on good behavior. This is the first time I ever have seen you and perhaps is the last time I ever shall see you. It is hoped that you will appreciate the clemency that has been shown.94

Just like the members of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, the members of the

Ku Klux Klan who pleaded guilty in Judge Thomas’s court received what might seem to be light sentences. In fact, everyone charged as a result of the anti-Klan riot in Niles paid minimum fines and, out of all of those charged, only three served time in prison as a result. Among this number was a Klansman, Rex Dunn, as well as Dude Murphy and

Marty Flask, both members of the Knights of the Flaming Circle and part of the Jennings

94 “38 Plead Guilty, Sentenced,” Niles Daily Times, 25 March 1925, 1, 8.

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bootlegging operation.95 All of the cases resulting from the November 1, 1924 riot were

settled by the end of the day on April 1, 1925, just five months later, and with that the

clash of the Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the Mahoning Valley

essentially came to an end.96

From the list of names of the men indicted for crimes committed during the

November 1, 1924 anti-Klan riot in Niles, it is possible to examine certain aspects of the lives and criminality of the Klansmen and anti-Klansmen of the Knights of the Flaming

Circle who participated in the riot in Niles. For instance, knowing the place of residence of each rioter can shed light on why the situation in Niles escalated as far as it did on

November 1 as opposed to other earlier incidents between the Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle. Along with the place of residence of each rioter, investigating the criminal records of each rioter beyond the charges stemming from the riot can illuminate much about the resistance movement against the Klan in the Mahoning Valley. In particular, because of the Mahoning Valley Klan’s obsession with law enforcement, examining the criminality of these men can shed some light on why parading in Niles meant so much to both sides that they were willing to engage in open warfare over the issue. Finally, after examining the information related to both sides, combined with an understanding of the history of the 1920s Klan, circumstances make clear why the movement lost so many followers in the wake of the Niles anti-Klan riot.

The first crucial element to consider concerning the men involved in the

November 1 riot is their place of residence at the time of the riot. In this case, the

95 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 150. 96 “Twenty Seven Found Guilty: Court Clears the Docket of Niles Riot Cases,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 1 April 1925, 1.

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difference between the two sides is quite apparent. On the Klan side, the men came from

at least seven different towns. Of these, the largest number, fifteen, lived in Niles. This

should not be a surprise as the riot took place in Niles, but the second largest group came

from Toledo and numbered twelve men. Furthermore, these twelve men from Toledo

made up just under half of the contingent of twenty-five men who were arrested as they

marched toward what could have been a catastrophic shoot-out with anti-Klan forces. It is

highly likely, that if these men were willing to travel across the state to march on Niles,

then they would have been more fully committed to radical action like violently forcing

their way through a town. Also, they would have been less aware of the very real danger

that the men of the Niles chapter of the Flaming Circle represented. Had they been more

aware of the backgrounds of the men they were marching toward, they may have decided

it was not worth the risk. Luckily, Sheriff Thomas did the risk assessment for them and

disarmed them. The next largest number of five men hailed from nearby Youngstown.

Finally, the towns of Girard and Sebring, both in the Mahoning Valley, contributed two

men each, while Akron and Waynesburg, Ohio contributed one man apiece. None of the

Klansmen charged with a crime greater than Carrying a Concealed Weapon was from

Niles. Every one of the more serious offenses was committed by an outsider. For their

part, every single man affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle that was arrested

on charges stemming from the November 1 riot was a resident of Niles. The motivation

for violence for some of the anti-Klan forces fighting against the Klan parade in Niles likely came from a sense of protecting their homes. However, at least in some of the men who were the primary instigators of violence against the Klansmen, the urge to use

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extreme force likely had origins in their desire to protect the vice rackets of Niles in

which many of the men were intimately involved.

The criminality of the participants in the Niles anti-Klan riot of November 1, 1924 is the clearest difference between the Niles Klan battles and the Klan war in Williamson

County, Illinois. In Williamson County both sides of the Klan war had a number of members that had criminal records and were willing to commit great violence against each other, but this was not the case in Niles. By comparing the list of names of those indicted with the criminal appearance dockets from 1870 through 1940 at the Trumbull

County Courthouse, it was possible to determine, at least at a county level, which of the rioters had criminal records beyond their involvement in the riot. Examining the

Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas records helped to specifically pinpoint who among the rioters had most often run afoul of law enforcement in Trumbull County, and, therefore, represented an ongoing threat to the communities within the county where the riot occurred. The results of this inquiry showed that the men affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle had far more criminal indictments than the men who had attempted to march through Niles as members of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan. This is not to say that every member of the Knights of the Flaming Circle had a criminal record. Many did not have any criminal indictments filed against them at the county level. This is also not to say that these men did not have criminal charges against them at the municipal level where many liquor charges would have been handled in the Mayor’s Court during this period. It should also be considered that this study only accounts for charges filed in

Trumbull County, so if the rioter was a non-resident, as was the case with many of the

Klansmen, it is not surprising that they never faced any other criminal charges once they

266 left town. This does not necessarily mean that the Klansmen from out of town did not have criminal charges filed against them elsewhere, just that they did not have any additional indictments in Trumbull County.

The reputed leaders of the Knights of the Flaming Circle efforts against the Klan in Niles were the Jennings brothers and their associates at the Jennings Athletic Club and

Jennings Hall. Among these men were the bulk of the criminal indictments for crimes other than those associated with the riot.97 Predictably, the vast majority of the criminal actions involving the Jennings’s associates were bootlegging and gambling activities.

Among the known members of the Jennings Athletic Club or men who were connected to the Jennings Hall who were indicted for crimes committed during the November riot were Joe Jennings, Jim Jennings, Leo “Shine” Jennings, Tony Nigro, Anthony “Curley”

Sanfrey, Martin “Marty” Flask, James Muche, Dennis “Dude” Murphy, Angelo Fusco,

Peter Greco, John Sundie, James Tauffara, and Pasquale “Patsy” Ross.98 What stands out the most about this list is that every single act of anti-Klan violence that involved an actual physical assault against a person can be traced to at least one of the men on this list.99 This means that every act of physical violence against the Ku Klux Klan on

November 1 can be traced back to the bootlegging rackets on the East Side of Niles, meaning not one single incident of violence that resulted in a charge of assault occurred independent of a local racketeer.

97 Jennings Hall was the pool hall operated by the Jennings family that also served as a speakeasy and gambling facility. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 69, 122, 129. 98 Ibid, 119, 129. 99 Ibid, 147.

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Of the men listed above and the others arrested for their role in the anti-Klan riot

on the side of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, at least six had prior criminal cases

brought against them in Trumbull County. Of these, the most serious was a charge of

second degree murder against a juvenile offender who had killed his step-brother in

1916.100 This same young man would be arrested in 1921on charges of carrying a

concealed weapon and robbery. He had an accomplice in the robbery and after the

November anti-Klan riot the same two men would both be charged with rioting. 101

Among the other Knights of the Flaming Circle charged with crimes prior to the

November riot, one man was charged with assault and battery against a female in

1917.102 Another man was charged with breaking, entering, and stealing; and carrying a

concealed weapon in 1918.103 Both of these men were charged with rioting after the anti-

Klan clash in November. Finally, two of the Jennings brothers, James and Joe, also had

criminal records at the county level before the riot. James Jennings, as mentioned earlier,

had been caught up in the liquor raids on December 23, 1922 in Niles that also led to the

100 On Christmas Day 1916, Sam DeAugustine, a 16 year old resident of Niles, killed his step-brother Sam Flora. He was later found guilty of manslaughter. He was represented by Attorney Patrick N. Fusco. Trumbull County Clerk of Courts Criminal Files, File 1886 (1917) DeAugustine, Sam. 101 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2723 (1921), DeAugustine, Sam. ; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2724 (1921), DeAugustine, Sam.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2725 (1921), Scarnecchia, Sam. The robbery was committed with Sam Scarnecchia as an accomplice. Scarnecchia was also arrested after the riot on a charge of rioting. 102 According to court documents, the assault and battery against a female appears to have been a case of rape of a fourteen year old minor by a nineteen year old man. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1975(1917), Muche, Jimmie. 103 The breaking and entering case involved theft from a railroad car at night while armed with a revolver. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2182 (1918), Spano, Frank.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2184 (1918), Spano, Frank.

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arrest of police Chief Round’s son.104 James Jennings was charged with rioting following

the conflict on November 1. Meanwhile, his brother Joe Jennings had previously been

indicted in 1915 on a charge of assaulting Louie White, who at the time was the mayor of

Niles.105 In the November anti-Klan riot, Joe Jennings played a primary role in the violence, because he allegedly provided the bulk of the firearms used by the Knights of the Flaming Circle participants in the riot. A witness described how Jennings had been driving around that morning dispensing firearms to Circlers from the trunk of his

Studebaker.106

The list of criminal charges faced by anti-Klan rioters in Trumbull County’s Court of Common Pleas prior to their involvement in the November riot does not represent a full assessment of the criminal careers of these men, but it does allow for a baseline comparison with those men who were arrested while attempting to parade as part of the

Ku Klux Klan. What might be surprising to some is that of the thirty-eight Klansmen indicted after the November anti-Klan riot only one had a prior criminal record. This particular Klansmen, Clyde “Ted” Croft, had an extensive juvenile record, including an indictment for larceny in 1915, and two charges from a violent robbery with two other juvenile accomplices, that resulted in the death of a man named John Hibler.107 For his

role in the crime Croft ultimately was indicted for first degree murder.108 However, as

104 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1072 (1922), Jennings, James. 105 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1659 (1915), Jennings, Joe. 106 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 147. 107 “Local News Items: Gathered in Town, County, and Neighborhood,” The Mahoning Dispatch, 29 June 1917, np.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1730 (1915), Croft, Clyde.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1930 (1917), Yarnell, David; Parfitt, David; Croft, Clyde. 108 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1946 (1918), Croft, Clyde.

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bad a record as Croft had, he was the only Klansman whose name appeared in the

Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas Criminal Appearance Dockets covering the

years from 1870 to 1940.

Meanwhile, in addition to the six anti-Klan rioters that had faced indictments in

the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas before the riot, at least seven more anti-

Klan rioters faced indictments in the county criminal court after the riot for unrelated

charges. Additionally, three of the earlier offenders, Jim Jennings, Joe Jennings, and

James Muche faced new indictments for additional criminal actions after the riot. If one

also adds in the men who were listed by Jenkins as known bootleggers in Niles at the

time of the riot, namely Tony Nigro and Anthony “Curley Sanfrey, then the number of

anti-Klan rioters who had a history of criminal behavior grows even larger.109 A

conservative estimate, based just on the county court records, and the mention of the

bootlegging reputations of the two men referenced in Steel Valley Klan, would be that

fifteen of the forty-nine anti-Klan rioters affiliated with the Knights of the Flaming Circle

had additional criminal careers. This means that, at least in terms of incidents handled by

the Trumbull County Court of Common Pleas, the anti-Klan rioters had far more

unrelated charges filed against them in the seventy-year period between 1870 and 1940 than did the Klansmen with whom they fought on November 1, 1924.

More disconcerting than the fact that every violent incident in the Niles anti-Klan

riot involved a local racketeer was the manner in which local police officers testified on

behalf of these men when their assault cases went to trial. The case of Peter Greco was

the first case in which Niles police officer John Jones testified on behalf of the

109 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 119.

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defendant.110 Jones would also testify on behalf of Joe Jennings in his assault trial, and, in

a surprising twist, so would Niles Police Chief Round.111 This would not necessarily be

so disconcerting except for the manner in which two later crimes involving a number of

the Jennings associates revealed the ways in which the Jennings operation later sought to

further corrupt the legal institutions in Niles. The first incident took place in 1927 when

Anthony “Curley” Sanfrey was indicted on two counts of inducing and abetting false

registration for two men in the Third Ward, Precinct “A” in Niles.112 In this instance, the

defense attorneys filed a Memorandum in Support of Demurrer that argued the county

prosecutor’s indictment did not “allege that the registration held in Niles City on the 8th

day of August was authorized by law or that it was even for the purpose of registering

electors to vote at elections authorized by law.”113 The judge agreed with the defense

arguments and sustained the demurrer and discharged the defendant. On its own this

would seem to be a vindication of Sanfrey, but the fact that in 1930 he would be indicted

for bribing Niles police officers hints at a deeper involvement in a pattern of corrupt

behavior emanating from the Jennings Hall.114

Notably, the 1930 bribery case against Anthony Sanfrey also involved other

former members of the Knights of the Flaming Circle, including James Jennings and

Marty Flask. The most bizarre aspect of the bribery case against Jennings, Flask, Sanfrey and a number of other Jennings’s associates was that the group had implicated

110 “Verdict of Guilty in Niles Case,” The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 18 March 1925, 2. 111 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 150. 112 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 4432 (1927), Sanfrey, Anthony.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 4452 (1927), Sanfrey, Anthony. 113 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 4432 (1927), Sanfrey, Anthony. 114 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5309 (1930), Sanfrey, Anthony.

271 themselves in the crimes. They did so by confessing that they had been bribing Niles police officers over the course of the last five years in an attempt to force the removal of seven police officers from the Niles Police Department for accepting bribes.115

Apparently, this counterintuitive method had been employed in 1927 by two other Niles bootleggers and had resulted in the dismissal of three policemen.116 The trick might have worked in 1927, but by 1930, there was a new, determined Prohibitionist prosecutor in the county named George Birrell, who showed his gratitude to James Jennings for revealing the depths to which the Niles police department was corrupted by indicting

Jennings and eight of his associates.117 In the end, James Jennings and Marty Flask were found guilty and sentenced to prison.118 The conviction of Jennings and Flask in their bribery trials would have certainly been cause for the Trumbull Klan No. 70 to celebrate, but by 1931 the Klan had long since faded into obscurity in the Mahoning Valley.

After the Niles anti-Klan riot of November 1, 1924, the Klan in the Mahoning

Valley began hemorrhaging members at an incredible rate. In Mahoning County, by

February of 1925, the Mahoning Klan could only muster one hundred ninety-three

115 Apparently, Lt. Gilbert who had been attacked during the summer of 1924 was one of the officers dismissed from the force. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 191. 116 Ibid. 117 Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5301 (1930), Jennings, James.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5302 (1930), Mollica, Anthony.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5303 (1930), Mango, Thomas.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5304 (1930), Ciminero, Dominic.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5305 (1930), Corano, Tony.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5306 (1930), Flask, Marty.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5307 (1930), Gumino, Frank.; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5308 (1930), Jones, V.W..; Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5309 (1930), Sanfrey, Anthony. 118 Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan, 191.

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members together to elect a new Exalted Cyclops. 119 In Trumbull County the situation

deteriorated at a similar rate with the organization having its charter rendered inoperative

by December of 1925.120 The Klan would never again rally together the thousands of

local and out-of-town Klansmen concealed beneath white hoods and robes. Instead, many

of those robes had been ripped out of the local Klansmen’s automobiles and confiscated

by the rowdy crowds of Irish and Italians in Niles. Joe Jennings grew so emboldened

after the riot that he had driven around town for a week with a Klan robe stuffed into the

grill of his automobile and no one dared to remove it or challenge him to a fight. The

Knights of the Flaming Circle and their army of bootlegger enforcers had won.121

Essentially, in the Mahoning Valley, the Klan’s fiery cross had been extinguished before the close of 1925 and the organization ceased to wield any real power either politically or in terms of its extralegal efforts to intimidate Catholics, immigrants, or bootleggers.

Certainly a number of negative aspects of the Klan’s program had surfaced by this

time, but no single factor had a greater impact on the membership rolls in the Mahoning

Valley than the violence performed upon the bodies of the victims of the Knights of the

Flaming Circle in attacks within and around Niles. This trend extended beyond the

borders of the Mahoning Valley and all the way to Williamson County, Illinois.

Williamson County was different in that the Klansmen in the hardscrabble coal fields

were initially every bit as willing to risk life and limb as the anti-Klan Circlers, but once

the body count began to grow, and upon the death of S. Glenn Young, the bonds of Klan

loyalty disintegrated and the organization in that region faded into oblivion by mid-year

119 Ibid, 152. 120 Ibid. 121 Ibid, 149.

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in 1926.122 Paul M. Angle offered a sound assessment of one of the greatest problems

associated with the Klan’s efforts to enforce Prohibition and its ultimate defeat when he

stated,

Worst of all was the effect of the Klan warfare on the hard core of the lawbreakers who had constituted themselves the gun-fighting opposition. Constant conflict gave this group solidarity, discipline, and contempt for orderly living. These qualities, in these men, would soon exact a heavy price.123 Angle was referring to Williamson County’s next nightmarish fight between the

victorious bootlegging factions of the Shelton brothers and Charlie Birger that would

litter southern Illinois with still more murder victims. However, Angle could have easily

been talking about the Mahoning Valley and its victorious racketeers. In the years that

followed the collapse of the Klan the bootleggers benefited from the manner in which

their reputations were built and the goodwill that had been accumulated by them for

successfully repelling the Klan and its do-gooder moral enforcers, who had worn out their

welcome due to their bigoted ways and their continued efforts to march through Niles.

The ill-advised attempts by the Klan to impose their beliefs and social mores on the population of Niles, and around the Mahoning Valley, had pushed the local law enforcement community to regard them as more of a problem than a solution and their defeat was welcomed after the Niles anti-Klan riot. All of this impacted individual

Klansmen’s decisions to either remain in the order or to abandon it, which many did in

droves in the first half of 1925, handing victory to the newly minted folk heroes of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle.

122 Paul Angle, Bloody Williamson, 199. 123 Ibid, 205.

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Chapter 8:

Conclusion: ‘Behold, How Great a Flame a Little Fire Kindleth!’

Outcomes of the Conflict Between the Klan and the Knights of the Flaming Circle

Ultimately, the violent period from late 1923 through early 1925 served as a watershed moment for the movement against the 1920s Ku Klux Klan, and it did so, because of the actions of the men claiming allegiance to the Knights of the Flaming

Circle. In places like Steubenville, Williamson County, and Niles the violence itself served to chase numerous Klansmen from the organizations ranks, but the impact of the conflicts in these locations did not end at their geographical boundaries. Instead, with the help of the wire services of the Associated Press and the United Press Association, people around the country had virtual front row seats to each of the various riots in these places and were able to read sensationalized accounts of each grisly murder. The cumulative effect of the actual actions against the Klansmen involved in these riots, and the influence of the newspaper accounts on those located in various states around the country, seems to have been a reassessment, by individual Klansmen, of the benefits of remaining affiliated with the 1920s Ku Klux Klan. Based on the fact that membership totals dropped precipitously in 1925 in the regions where the riots occurred, it seems that many

Klansmen decided the risks of continued membership outweighed the rewards. The actual cause of the membership decline or the reason individual Klansmen left the group after 1924 is undoubtedly the result of numerous factors. However, the actions of the

Knights of the Flaming Circle during the violent period from late 1923 through early

1925 likely induced many of those Klansmen to at least take stock of the various internal

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and external scandals and problems facing the Klan movement and to decide whether or

not to remain affiliated with the group.

Similarly, resistance to the Ku Klux Klan in the Mahoning Valley and elsewhere

in the North did not begin with the Knights of the Flaming Circle, but it certainly

intensified and became more effective anywhere the group appeared. Before the

formation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in the summer of 1923 in Kane,

Pennsylvania, Catholic organizations did their part to oppose the Klan and its brand of

religious bigotry. The Knights of Columbus campaign to fight the publication and

distribution of the bogus oath was one such example of these Catholic-led efforts. The

reward offer by Frank Waldeck in Trumbull County did result in an end to the

distribution of the bogus oath in the factories of Trumbull County, and this possibly made

the lives of the Catholic men employed in those establishments, as Waldeck hoped, “just a little more pleasant.”1

Another Catholic-led attack on the Klan was the publication of Tolerance from

1922 to 1925 by the American Unity League based in Chicago.2 As mentioned in Chapter

Four, the American Unity League was active in the Mahoning Valley and did print the

Mahoning Valley Klan roster in March of 1924.3 The outing of Klan members may have been less of a deterrent for Klansmen than it is often portrayed to have been in works on

1 Letter from Frank Waldeck to Luke Hart (9 September 1923). SC-11-1-246 (Box 283). From the Collection of the Knights of Columbus Supreme Council Archives, New Haven, CT. 2 Thomas R. Pegram, One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2011), 81. 3 William D. Jenkins, Steel Valley Klan: The Ku Klux Klan in Ohio’s Mahoning Valley (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 77.

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the 1920s Klan. Consider, for instance, that during the negotiations leading up to the

November anti-Klan riot, the local Klansmen had agreed to march unmasked. In locations

like the Mahoning Valley, the Klansmen were not engaged in night riding vigilantism,

although their inclusion in liquor enforcement operations certainly blurred the lines of

extralegal behavior, but for the most part their activities were done in full view of the

public. The stabbing victim, G. E. Victor, sold Klan apparel out of his auto shop and had

his picture on an advertisement card with his personal contact information.4 These were

not particularly secretive members, because they likely were not afraid of people

knowing they were affiliated with the Klan. On several occasions there were Klan-

sponsored circuses and picnics all over the Mahoning Valley. These events were

advertised in all of the major local newspapers, and oftentimes occurred in the daytime or

over the course of an entire day. None of this leads one to believe the publication of the

Klan rosters had much of an impact on Klan membership and certainly did not cause the

rapid collapse that followed the Niles anti-Klan riot.

In addition to the efforts of the Catholic organizations there were also the political

action campaigns of the two foreign language newspapers. In each paper an effort was

made to combat the Klan by encouraging their readers to become naturalized citizens and

to mobilize politically. Based on the analysis of naturalization numbers for Mahoning and

Trumbull County in Chapter Four, an argument could be made that the efforts of the two newspapers, combined with fear over the actions of the Klan, did indeed lead to an increase in the number of immigrants completing the naturalization process in the wake

4 The materials at the Mahoning Historical Society can be found in folder 1162.76 titled “Ku Klux Klan (From Bert Amy Estate).

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of Klan activities. However, this does not explain the collapse of the Klan in the

Mahoning Valley. Instead, it illustrates an unintended consequence of the bigotry of the

Klan and the fact that the organization had set in motion a process that would certainly have an impact on the electoral strength of the different ethno-racial groups in the

Mahoning Valley over the next several years. But again, it does not explain why from

November of 1924 to as early as February 1925 a huge decline occurred in both interest and involvement in the local Ku Klux Klan.

The numerous scandals of the national organization also do not explain the rapid collapse of the Klan in 1925. Consider for instance that the ousters of Colonel William

Simmons and Edward Clarke Young had commenced as early as March of 1923 and were completed by January of 1924.5 The elections in the fall of 1923 represented the pinnacle

of Klan influence on elections in places like the Mahoning Valley and elsewhere.

Obviously, the internal conflicts within the national Klan that had already occurred by

that time did not negatively impact local Klan membership or the electoral prospects of

their preferred candidates like Harvey Kistler and Charles Scheible. Furthermore, over

the course of 1924, thousands of American citizens repeatedly marched in cities across

the United States while donning the regalia of the Klan. In the Mahoning Valley they had

done so several times, even though public resistance to their marches had increased so

much that they never successfully paraded through Niles. Even the notorious scandals of

D.C. Stephenson in Indiana do not explain the collapse of the Klan nationwide. Certainly,

it drove a final nail in the coffin of the organization, but because it did not occur until

5 Thomas Pegram, One Hundred Percent American: The Rebirth and Decline of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2011), 18.

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March of 1925, it does not explain the massive decline in membership in areas outside of

Indiana, which occurred before that time in places like the Mahoning Valley.6 In fact, by

March of 1925, the 1920s Klan was already on life support and it had been put there by

brute force.

The most likely cause of the collapse of Klan membership in the Mahoning

Valley can be traced directly to the involvement of the Knights of the Flaming Circle in

the altercations in Niles. The same is true of the collapse of the Klan in Williamson

County, Illinois. In both locations, legal efforts did not derail the Klan. In fact, in some ways the Klan had infiltrated the legal mechanisms of the state and had made itself, at least for a time, somewhat above the law. Once the Klansmen crossed over into the realm

of extralegal behavior, in particular in their attempts to enforce Prohibition, they opened

themselves up to counter-attacks from the bootleggers that they targeted with their raids

and flaming crosses. The Klansmen were wholly unprepared for such a fight and quickly

learned that they did not have the capacity for violence that the men filling out the ranks

of the vice rackets possessed. In both locations, ongoing fights escalated the tensions

between the two groups and in the case of Williamson County the conflicts became

deadly. If not for the efforts of Sheriff John Thomas, Niles too would likely have been the

scene of a number of deaths in the name of Ku Klux Klan and the Knights of the Flaming

Circle. Aside from the differing level of success of each county’s sheriff in keeping the

peace, differences in the membership of the Klans in each location likely also accounted

for the greater incidence of violence in Williamson County. Williamson County

Klansmen, in some cases, had themselves been involved in bootlegging activities, or, in

6 Pegram, One Hundred Percent American, 206.

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the case of their leader S. Glenn Young, had economic incentives to keep the fight with

the bootleggers of the Knights of the Flaming Circle going even after it had turned

violent.7

In Niles, the situation was different, because once the violence went beyond fistfights and involved stabbings and shootings the Klansmen backed off. The men who made up the Klan membership in town were for the most part law-abiding citizens who

had never before faced or would later face criminal indictments. The men who made up

the violent element of the anti-Klan forces in Niles, namely the leaders of the Knights of

the Flaming Circle, were in many cases men with criminal records. These men also had

all of the economic incentives to escalate the fight with the Klan to a level of deadly

violence. Simply stated, the Klan threatened the livelihoods of the men involved in the

vice rackets in Niles. Therefore, the men involved in these rackets took advantage of the

unpopularity of the Klan’s racial and religious bigotry, which allowed them to openly

attack and intimidate the Klansmen with the popular support of much of the community.

Once the bootleggers’ efforts against the Klan were wed to those of normal Catholics and

immigrants in the city, they made sure to strike fear into the hearts of the rival Klansmen

by employing parallel nocturnal threats in the form of their own burning symbol.

Additionally, they took every opportunity to physically attack and beat Klansmen until

those men had no further interest in policing the drinking or gambling habits of the

7 Before his death, S. Glenn Young was preparing a personal account of his fight with the bootleggers of Williamson County. It was later completed “by a friend and admirer” and published by his widow. The work was titled Life and Exploits of S. Glenn Young: World- Famous Law Enforcement Officer. Unknown Author, Life and Exploits of S. Glenn Young: World-Famous Law Enforcement Officer (London: Forgotten Books, 2015). Original publication occurred in 1925.

280 people of Niles. What lurked beneath the smoke of the flaming circle might not have always been a group of altruistic crusaders as it was initially intended to be, but they were an effective force for combating the Ku Klux Klan and struck fear in the hearts of even the most determined vigilante moral enforcers. In essence, the Knights of the Flaming

Circle out-Klanned the K.K.K. and turned the Klan’s terrifying nocturnal tactics against itself with shocking success.

In October of 1923, the Freeport Journal Standard in Freeport, Illinois ran an article under the title of “Anti-Klan” that spoke to the nervousness that greeted the formation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle. In the article, the author described how the new group’s leaders explained that they had “been driven to it by illegitimate and intolerable Klan activities” and having been “struck at in the dark, they prepare to strike back in the dark.”8 The author then explained the problem posed by the creation of a new organization attempting to address the threat of the Klan stating,

It would be very well to say ‘Let them fight it out!’ if that could be done without danger. But fires spread. Passion begets passion. There is no telling where this sort of thing will end. To the Fiery Cross and the Flaming Circle there may be added next a Blazing Square or some other appropriate symbol, with nocturnal assemblages and secret violence and private administration of justice―all making the same virtuous and patriotic professions. ‘Behold how great a flame a little fire kindleth.’ It grows plainer every day that the fire should never have been started.9

As the author noted, this danger existed from the moment Colonel William Simmons decided to resurrect the Ku Klux Klan in an attempt to make some money and raise an

8 “Anti-Klan,” The Freeport Journal-Standard (Freeport, IL), 9 October 1923, 4. 9 The concluding lines of this passage are based on the Biblical verse James 3:5, which reads, “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth.” https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/James-3-5/ Accessed 8 March 2017. “Anti-Klan,” 4.

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army of Protestant citizen soldiers to police the morality of their neighbors, and to ensure

that power remained vested in the hands of 100% Americans. Unsurprisingly, the

religiously homogenized, good old days mentality of Simmons and the men who filled

out the membership rolls of the Ku Klux Klan was not in step with the cosmopolitan

realities of American life in the 1920s and it stirred up trouble between people across the

United States. Many different organizations and individuals attempted to oppose the Ku

Klux Klan, but none was quite as effective in demoralizing and bringing about the end of

the movement as were the Knights of the Flaming Circle. Over the course of just over a

year from late 1923 to early 1925 these two organizations battled for control of the hearts

and minds of people in cities and towns across the North.

The impact of these conflicts resonated well beyond the borders of the towns in

which the conflicts happened to occur. This was due in part to the widespread coverage

given to these incidents by local and national newspapers. The Associated Press and

United Press Associates wire services ensured that readers around the country learned of the latest violent spectacles in Williamson County and Niles as they happened. In the case of Niles, reporters from around the country were actually camped out in the city days ahead of the scheduled parade in hopes of witnessing a violent confrontation.10 The

reporters were not disappointed in their hopes for a good scoop. Nor were their readers,

“[w]ithin a few minutes after the first disturbance Saturday afternoon the name of Niles

was in headlines in nearly every city thruout [sic] the country.”11 Even moviegoers were

10 “Niles War was Pre-Advertised: Veteran Writers Expected It Would Be Averted, RARE OCCURRENCE, City Was Flooded With News Gatherers,” The Youngstown Telegram, 3 November 1924, 7. 11 Ibid.

282

able to view the riot, because footage of the Niles riot was captured by camera crews that

had gathered in the city. Aerial film footage was allegedly even captured by a cameraman

in a plane circling overhead throughout the day.12 This coverage created an outsized perspective of the anti-Klan efforts of the Knights of the Flaming Circle and likely inspired fear of similar actions being possible in cities around the country. Tangible fear, and the perception that it could happen to you, is the sort of thing that ends social movements and this is what the media coverage of the exploits of the Knights of the

Flaming Circle during the Williamson County Klan War and the Niles anti-Klan riot provided.

Another early article discussing the creation of the Knights of the Flaming Circle that appeared in the Daily-Times Enterprise in Thomasville, Georgia had laid out the purpose of the Knights of the Flaming Circle and accurately predicted the troubles that would occur in towns where the two groups met. The author of the article claimed that the new organization had formed “for the sole and only purpose of offsetting, preventing or destroying the effects of the lawlessness of the Ku Klux Klan.”13 Going further the

author stated, “Its chief qualification is opposition to the Klan and a willingness to ‘fight

the devil with fire.’”14 In the end the Knights of the Flaming Circle lived up to their

mandate, because the numerically superior and massive Invisible Empire of the Knights

of the Ku Klux Klan was reduced to a shadow of its former self. Although internal decay

certainly afflicted the Ku Klux Klan and many organizations sought to end its reign, the

12 Ibid. 13 “The New Masked Organization,” Daily-Times Enterprise, 20 September 1923, 2. 14 Ibid.

283 violence and the threat of even greater violence embodied by the Knights of the Flaming

Circle did more than anything or any other group to extinguish the Klan’s fiery cross.

284

Appendix A:

Criminal Data Charts

My discussion on crime and criminal trends was based on my own Excel

documents upon which I compiled the data from every Annual Report of the Secretary of

State, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, Including the Statistical Report to the General

Assembly from 1880 to 1930. I then used a spreadsheet to create per capita information

using population estimates for every year during the period, which I created using a linear

interpolation equation used by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce

Development for Intercensal Population and Housing Unit Estimates. The equation I used

calculates the difference between sequential census reports by spreading the difference

between the two reports equally over the course of the decade. The equation is:

Pt=[P3652*(t/3652)]+[P0*((3652-t)/3652)]. Pt= population estimate at time t; P3652=

the later census count; t= time in days elapsed since the earlier census; P0= the earlier

census count. http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/lpa/dmograph/est/2000-

2010_Intercensal_Estimates_Methodology.pdf Accessed 18 July 2016. My complete

population estimates and all of my crime data spreadsheets are included below in

Appendix A. The numbers included in the narrative were rounded to the nearest whole

number. Hopefully, these charts can serve as a leaping off point for others seeking to

gather additional crime statistics related to the Mahoning Valley during this period.

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8 4 8 6 7 9 9 3 3 6 0 56 12 13 12 10 20 21 65 44 46 68 57 40 46 53 82 33 50 47 39 27 47 16 20 30 95 84 27 21 51 56 90 43 491 539 281 1402 NA Total Number Total of Convictions Number Total of Convictions 15 22 24 16 24 20 29 24 23 32 82 83 80 20 58 92 78 41 82 79 59 92 111 113 100 104 138 127 142 671 150 151 121 131 151 192 128 182 140 3135 1214 1109 NA Total Number of Persons Total Number of Persons 12 86 15 22 24 16 20 17 28 22 20 31 19 30 24 32 11 23 39 65 35 33 34 26 79 67 58 90 77 40 63 81 59 82 93 112 113 100 104 138 120 136 964 663 140 144 199 121 298 132 169 162 134 3298 1174 Total Crimes Crimes Total PersonsAgainst Prosecuted 16 PJ Not Report Crimes Total PersonsAgainst Prosecuted 0 2 4 7 1 2 5 1 1 1 2 0 6 6 3 6 2 2 4 3 2 0 0 0 5 8 0 0 7 21 10 12 14 28 26 63 50 41 33 33 24 16 26 12 18 12 10 31 34 37 56 630 265 170 138 All Other Other All Crimes Against the Person All Other Other All Crimes Against the Person 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Manslaughter in Manslaughter VehicleMotor Cases Manslaughter in Manslaughter VehicleMotor Cases 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Killing a Police Police a Killing Officer Police a Killing Officer 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Selling Wood Wood Selling Alcohol for Purposes, Beverage ResultingDeath Wood Selling Alcohol for Purposes, Beverage ResultingDeath 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA Sending Threatening Letters Sending Threatening Letters 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA Libel Libel 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Attempt to Procure Abortion Attempt to Procure Abortion 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 5 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 5 Maiming or or Maiming Disfiguring Another or Maiming Disfiguring Another 2 6 4 2 2 1 1 2 5 3 2 1 5 4 0 1 2 5 4 5 1 7 2 7 4 3 4 6 4 0 4 0 1 14 38 30 22 31 23 20 22 25 16 37 11 31 27 12 18 42 18 39 486 239 157 Robbery Robbery 3 2 1 1 3 2 3 1 1 2 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 2 5 4 2 0 3 8 8 2 0 2 9 6 9 3 8 4 7 7 3 4 8 18 86 12 13 76 45 11 10 11 11 11 17 227 Rape Rape 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 8 0 1 0 0 1 6 1 2 1 4 2 0 2 5 1 2 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 0 30 10 Prosecutions For Crimes the Against Person For Prosecutions Crimes the Against Person For Prosecutions Pointing Fire-arms at at Fire-arms Pointing Any Person or Same and Discharging Injuring Thereby at Fire-arms Pointing Any Person or Same and Discharging Injuring Thereby 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 1 3 2 0 0 2 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 15 10 1880-1925 Crime Statistics for Mahoning, and Trumbull Counties and Mahoning, for Crime Statistics 1880-1925 NA Blackmail Blackmail 1 1 6 7 7 9 8 7 7 4 4 5 9 9 5 9 2 2 7 9 9 42 61 10 12 12 10 17 27 10 28 12 15 45 12 25 11 97 22 14 11 16 15 31 34 11 11 79 41 33 20 735 109 263 187 Assault and Assault and Battery Assault and Battery 0 1 5 0 2 2 0 1 0 1 0 5 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 2 3 0 1 1 1 8 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 5 2 64 17 11 23 10 11 Assault with Intent to Rape or Robbery Assault with Intent to Rape or Robbery 1 3 4 3 8 1 2 6 6 6 1 1 0 8 0 0 1 1 3 6 3 4 1 9 9 12 10 12 16 31 33 25 24 28 30 33 24 22 19 22 18 31 13 28 16 25 45 45 43 46 16 713 256 296 120 Assault with Intent (Shooting, Kill to Stabbing) Or Cutting, Assault with Intent (Shooting, Kill to Stabbing) Or Cutting, 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA Administering Poison with Intent Kill to Administering Poison with Intent Kill to 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 7 6 0 6 0 7 8 0 7 9 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 2 1 6 2 1 5 6 8 5 1 18 79 28 11 117 Manslaughter Manslaughter 5 0 1 0 0 0 2 8 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 7 0 0 0 9 1 5 0 9 0 4 1 1 0 5 2 2 4 2 2 1 2 0 3 2 6 1 0 8 9 7 8 1 10 66 10 43 19 134 2nd Degree Degree 2nd Murder Prosecuted Degree 2nd Murder Prosecuted 2 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 2 0 2 1 1 0 3 0 1 5 0 5 0 4 2 0 7 1 7 5 4 3 4 0 4 2 2 7 4 8 3 1 1 3 5 2 44 45 18 12 114 1st Degree Murder Prosecuted 1st Degree Murder Prosecuted 1905 1893 1894 1897 1899 1901 1903 1904 1895 1896 1898 1900 1902 1892 1891 1890 1929 1887 1888 1889 1928 1886 1927 1926 1885 1925 1884 1924 1923 1883 1922 1882 1921 1913 1914 1880 1881 1906 1910 1911 1912 1915 1918 1920 1907 1909 1916 1917 1919 1908 Total: 1920s 1910s 1900s County and and County Year Mahoning County Totals: 1880s 1890s Mahoning

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3 6 6 9 8 8 5 5 2 6 9 6 4 0 6 9 8 8 9 7 12 14 10 14 38 10 47 26 32 44 16 36 41 31 19 31 75 17 25 12 19 82 21 35 12 676 346 173 NA Total Number Total of Convictions Number Total of Convictions 8 17 18 20 19 24 17 12 12 20 10 10 65 16 83 61 48 63 31 49 83 76 63 57 57 42 32 26 42 71 10 23 21 20 30 34 25 630 403 159 115 1307 NA Total Number of Persons Total Number of Persons 8 9 7 9 7 7 8 18 10 19 10 27 22 24 19 10 65 16 14 19 80 20 57 28 59 48 31 45 72 14 65 54 49 47 11 42 32 26 13 42 12 71 10 14 17 28 33 19 33 21 593 372 132 171 153 1421 Total Crimes Crimes Total PersonsAgainst Prosecuted Crimes Total PersonsAgainst Prosecuted 0 0 0 3 1 4 6 6 1 1 0 1 0 1 5 2 0 0 0 6 2 0 2 1 1 1 2 2 4 5 1 8 1 3 1 8 0 0 0 4 6 5 1 6 2 11 11 26 64 17 34 12 16 147 All Other Other All Crimes Against the Person Other All Crimes Against the Person 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Manslaughter in Manslaughter VehicleMotor Cases in Manslaughter VehicleMotor Cases 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 Killing a Police Police a Killing Officer Police a Killing Officer 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Selling Wood Wood Selling Alcohol for Purposes, Beverage ResultingDeath Wood Selling Alcohol for Purposes, Beverage ResultingDeath 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Sending Threatening Letters Sending Threatening Letters 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Libel Libel 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Attempt to Procure Abortion Attempt to Procure Abortion 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 Maiming or or Maiming Disfiguring Another or Maiming Disfiguring Another 0 1 2 1 4 2 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 6 1 6 1 0 0 1 5 0 1 2 6 1 6 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 7 2 1 2 2 0 6 2 11 10 13 13 81 14 12 26 27 11 147 Robbery Robbery 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 3 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 5 5 0 5 7 4 0 4 4 0 7 6 0 3 0 4 1 1 2 1 1 0 0 3 0 5 12 11 14 10 11 10 90 26 10 138 Rape Rape 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 2 7 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 8 3 3 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 1 3 3 3 39 12 13 Prosecutions For Crimes the Against Person For Prosecutions Crimes the Against Person For Prosecutions Pointing Fire-arms at at Fire-arms Pointing Any Person or Same and Discharging Injuring Thereby at Fire-arms Pointing Any Person or Same and Discharging Injuring Thereby 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1880-1925 Crime Statistics for Mahoning, and Trumbull Counties and Mahoning, for Crime Statistics 1880-1925 Blackmail Blackmail 7 8 3 4 8 4 8 6 3 8 4 3 6 2 4 9 4 7 3 9 9 2 6 6 5 7 8 13 10 11 30 17 12 17 29 11 17 22 12 15 24 16 11 12 20 62 12 16 10 24 74 514 168 106 104 Assault and Assault and Battery Assault and Battery 1 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 2 3 0 0 0 0 7 2 2 0 9 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 4 0 0 0 1 6 5 28 Assault with Intent to Rape or Robbery Assault with Intent to Rape or Robbery 0 0 0 0 2 2 8 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 5 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 4 3 2 1 0 0 1 0 4 1 3 4 2 15 20 29 16 18 15 12 68 17 13 15 11 10 13 16 10 10 18 267 155 Assault with Intent (Shooting, Kill to Stabbing) Or Cutting, Assault with Intent (Shooting, Kill to Stabbing) Or Cutting, 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 0 0 0 0 10 17 11 Administering Poison with Intent Kill to Administering Poison with Intent Kill to 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 1 0 0 0 1 5 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 0 6 1 3 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 5 31 18 Manslaughter Manslaughter 0 2 1 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 1 3 4 0 0 0 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 5 3 46 15 12 11 2nd Degree Degree 2nd Murder Prosecuted Degree 2nd Murder Prosecuted 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 3 8 2 2 0 5 0 3 2 0 0 6 2 0 0 1 0 1 1 2 1 0 0 3 43 16 18 1st Degree Murder Prosecuted 1st Degree Murder Prosecuted 1893 1894 1899 1900 1902 1903 1895 1896 1897 1898 1901 1904 1905 1929 1891 1892 1906 1928 1890 1887 1888 1889 1927 1925 1926 1886 1924 1923 1922 1921 1920 1919 1885 1918 1884 1917 1916 1915 1883 1914 1882 1913 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1907 1881 1880 Total: 1920s 1910s 1900s County and and County Year Trumbull Trumbull County Totals: 1880s 1890s

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3 84 85 95 89 93 27 47 75 66 33 81 75 96 88 61 56 31 66 34 28 52 36 31 20 40 66 30 19 19 15 18 16 19 32 22 11 19 14 13 13 694 616 328 154 1805 Total NumberTotal of Convictions Convictions Total NumberTotal of 82 79 63 77 59 88 67 61 36 66 41 28 34 37 41 30 96 88 28 19 19 128 126 152 157 237 146 198 265 197 136 172 122 147 152 113 116 132 574 415 3816 1742 1066 of Persons of Persons Total Number Total Number Total 0 68 67 52 74 56 77 67 57 37 66 38 22 28 36 34 26 92 79 23 14 52 32 47 36 18 50 65 43 40 31 37 12 128 126 152 157 237 123 181 204 176 110 138 118 118 128 105 107 125 924 535 524 332 3909 1594 Total NumberTotal of Prosecutions NumberTotal of Prosecutions 0 0 5 8 8 3 7 9 6 1 7 9 4 8 3 3 8 2 0 1 5 1 1 0 0 0 7 3 3 1 26 46 36 51 67 34 28 21 24 13 14 26 17 23 70 96 56 10 11 81 35 782 293 133 240 Against Property Crimes All Other Other All Crimes Against Property Other All 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Selling or Conveying Conveying or Selling Title a Without Land Conveying or Selling Title a Without Land 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 administering poison animals domestic to administering poison animals domestic to Killing, injuring, or or injuring, Killing, or injuring, Killing, 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 County Personal Property Out of Property Out of County Mortgaged Removing Mortgaged Personal Removing 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 Trees and Crops Trees and Malicious Malicious Destruction of Crops Trees and Malicious Destruction of 0 0 0 0 4 2 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 1 3 0 0 0 3 0 0 4 15 Obstructing RR RR Obstructing Tracks RR Obstructing Tracks 1 4 4 2 6 5 7 5 6 2 5 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 4 0 2 0 0 0 2 2 3 4 0 7 0 14 20 11 74 22 10 116 Property Receiving Buying or Concealing Stolen Receiving Buying or Concealing Stolen Property 8 6 8 8 6 6 6 4 2 2 1 2 2 0 0 0 1 2 1 3 1 1 2 2 0 3 1 1 1 0 3 8 1 3 2 0 0 1 3 3 0 1 0 11 26 19 20 12 20 31 13 21 10 213 138 Prosecutions for Crimes Against Property Prosecutions for Crimes Against Property or Signature by False Signature or Pretense by False Signature or Pretense Obtaining Property Obtaining Property Obtaining Property 0 1 0 0 2 2 2 2 0 1 2 0 3 0 4 0 0 0 7 3 2 2 6 1 0 1 3 0 1 1 0 2 0 1 1 3 4 0 0 0 1 2 2 1 0 1 7 14 11 12 10 30 41 13 101 Property Malicious Malicious Destruction of Malicious Destruction of Property 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 0 0 0 7 0 1 0 6 0 0 0 1880-1929 Crime Statistics for Mahoning, and Trumbull Counties and Mahoning, for Crime Statistics 1880-1929 Transfers Making Fraudulent Making Fraudulent Transfers 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 5 4 0 3 3 1 1 1 3 1 1 0 2 0 2 6 0 3 3 4 1 1 2 1 3 3 3 2 2 2 0 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 4 74 22 18 22 10 Horse Thief Horse Horse Stealing or or Concealing Horse a Horse Stealing or or Concealing Horse a Thief Horse 4 8 5 1 4 5 2 8 4 3 8 6 1 0 8 8 0 6 7 0 17 21 15 23 25 13 10 20 12 13 13 23 13 14 30 13 35 13 36 74 15 15 10 13 14 14 23 18 14 72 96 657 141 118 230 Larceny Larceny Petit Petit 1 9 9 2 7 4 9 3 9 7 4 6 5 8 4 8 8 8 7 4 2 9 0 4 5 2 7 4 5 10 12 12 25 31 25 21 46 31 15 10 10 18 13 11 10 12 11 12 65 76 10 46 505 155 163 Grand Grand Larceny Grand Larceny 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 3 1 1 4 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 12 10 Forging Brand, Stamp, Etc Forging Brand, Stamp, Etc 7 3 7 7 6 8 2 7 9 7 2 4 8 6 3 9 1 0 0 2 1 1 1 2 2 3 1 2 1 4 1 3 0 1 0 0 2 2 1 1 0 2 2 12 13 15 12 11 12 90 68 20 18 10 206 Forging or Uttering Forged Instruments Forging or Uttering Forged Instruments 7 6 6 9 7 8 1 4 6 6 2 2 3 1 1 4 4 2 0 0 2 2 1 0 1 0 0 3 1 6 3 0 0 1 0 0 3 3 1 15 11 15 26 25 10 10 13 10 10 59 19 32 11 251 130 Embezzlement Embezzlement 8 7 2 2 7 7 4 9 7 5 5 6 4 6 8 1 4 0 5 2 8 6 37 51 53 43 58 18 16 25 40 15 25 18 36 52 28 25 18 10 11 14 12 10 12 11 15 14 74 65 18 72 798 356 231 Burglary Burglary 2 0 1 2 0 1 9 7 2 0 0 3 5 1 1 4 4 6 5 0 0 1 1 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 1 1 0 6 66 24 24 11 Arson Arson 39 24 37 31 38 169 169 Automobile and Without Operating ConsentOwner's Automobile and Without Operating ConsentOwner's Stealing an Stealing an 1929 1928 1927 1926 1925 1924 1923 1922 1921 1920 1919 1918 1917 1916 1915 1914 1913 1912 1911 1910 1909 1908 1907 1906 1905 1904 1903 1902 1901 1900 1899 1898 1897 1896 1895 1894 1893 1892 1891 1890 1889 1888 1887 1886 1885 1884 1883 1882 1881 1880 Total: 1920s 1910s 1900s 1890s County and and County Year Mahoning Mahoning County Totals: 1880s

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9 8 2 5 7 9 9 9 9 9 42 47 51 26 28 34 38 42 32 15 30 27 15 26 25 11 20 17 13 26 16 25 11 14 16 10 18 17 18 18 795 349 164 168 105 Convictions Convictions Total NumberTotal of NumberTotal of 85 88 66 47 47 70 82 87 69 50 38 23 42 31 34 36 13 46 67 61 62 64 54 45 19 20 24 17 24 15 26 27 30 31 31 115 116 803 382 433 122 1771 of Persons Total Number Total of Persons Number Total 9 4 85 88 53 46 46 59 69 77 58 45 37 23 42 31 28 30 11 32 53 42 41 55 72 85 19 17 19 20 24 18 24 34 35 15 30 14 15 31 28 21 18 23 15 16 29 26 108 101 732 337 423 218 211 1921 Prosecutions Prosecutions Total NumberTotal of NumberTotal of 4 7 3 1 2 7 5 1 2 0 1 0 2 3 3 2 3 4 9 6 2 1 3 5 2 6 0 5 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 0 0 3 0 0 3 7 0 19 14 30 20 16 18 92 48 37 32 216 Property Property Against Against All Other Other All Crimes Other All Crimes 3 2 3 0 8 8 0 0 0 0 Selling or Conveying Conveying or Selling Title a Without Land Conveying or Selling Title a Without Land 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 25 27 26 to domestic animals domestic to administering poison animals domestic to Killing, injuring, or or injuring, Killing, or injuring, Killing, administering poison 5 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 5 0 County Mortgaged Mortgaged Personal Property Out of County Personal Property Out of Removing Removing Mortgaged 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Destruction of Crops Trees and Malicious Malicious Destruction of Crops Trees and Malicious 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 5 0 1 0 3 4 12 Tracks Obstructing RR RR Obstructing Tracks RR Obstructing 3 3 4 5 4 2 0 4 7 9 2 4 3 0 1 0 1 0 4 4 4 8 4 5 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 1 2 12 41 15 38 100 Property Concealing Stolen Receiving Buying or Concealing Stolen Property Receiving Buying or 9 8 1 1 0 0 3 6 3 4 1 2 0 0 0 1 8 9 0 0 0 3 0 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 9 8 7 1 0 0 0 2 0 2 12 15 14 10 43 37 33 27 142 Prosecutions for Crimes Against Property Prosecutions for Crimes Against Property Pretense Obtaining Property Obtaining Property by False Signature or Pretense Obtaining Property by False Signature or 3 2 2 3 2 1 1 0 0 2 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 9 2 1 5 3 1 0 0 5 0 0 1 0 0 0 3 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 7 1 4 0 58 16 14 17 Property Destruction of Destruction of Property Malicious Malicious Malicious 2 2 2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1880-1929 Crime Statistics for Mahoning, and Trumbull Counties and Mahoning, for Crime Statistics 1880-1929 10 10 Fraudulent Transfers Transfers Making Making Fraudulent 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 3 3 2 1 2 7 2 1 0 1 3 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 1 3 1 2 0 1 8 2 1 6 0 2 15 65 17 22 12 Horse Thief Horse Horse Stealing or or Concealing Horse a Horse Stealing or or Concealing Horse a Thief Horse 2 2 8 0 1 3 7 6 8 8 6 7 6 7 3 2 4 2 4 5 8 8 8 5 8 6 8 7 8 2 5 7 4 7 7 7 3 8 5 3 2 6 16 16 13 15 10 10 53 49 98 62 17 58 320 Petit Larceny Petit Larceny 6 4 8 8 7 3 9 1 0 5 3 0 1 1 8 5 5 7 1 0 2 0 0 0 1 2 3 1 1 1 1 5 4 3 3 3 0 0 1 1 18 16 26 15 14 11 12 15 15 30 55 25 20 256 126 Grand Grand Larceny Grand Larceny 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Forging Brand, Stamp, Etc Brand, Stamp, Etc Forging 6 5 4 8 2 4 5 2 4 5 0 1 0 8 8 7 2 3 2 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 3 13 10 10 11 10 11 10 88 31 33 162 Uttering Forged Instruments Forging or Uttering Forged Instruments Forging or 2 2 4 4 1 5 4 2 1 3 1 1 0 2 1 0 1 0 1 2 2 2 2 5 6 5 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 9 0 0 6 0 0 2 68 28 23 Embezzlement Embezzlement 5 9 6 6 5 1 2 3 8 4 3 2 5 5 8 6 4 4 6 1 4 7 1 4 6 1 5 2 13 22 28 31 28 12 22 19 17 11 10 12 16 12 19 14 10 10 14 12 10 88 65 75 40 465 197 Burglary Burglary 4 1 4 0 0 1 2 3 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 3 0 1 1 3 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 4 0 1 5 0 8 0 2 0 0 5 38 18 Arson Arson 9 6 8 8 0 0 0 0 11 42 42 Stealing an Automobile and Without Operating ConsentOwner's Stealing an Automobile and Without Operating ConsentOwner's 1929 1928 1927 1926 1925 1924 1923 1922 1921 1920 1919 1918 1917 1916 1915 1914 1913 1912 1911 1910 1909 1908 1907 1906 1905 1904 1903 1902 1901 1900 1899 1898 1897 1896 1895 1894 1893 1892 1891 1890 1889 1888 1887 1886 1885 1884 1883 1882 1880 1881 Total: 1920s 1910s 1900s 1890s County and and County Year Trumbull Trumbull County Totals: 1880s

289

0 4 2 3 1 3 9 8 32 73 19 64 14 25 66 22 36 52 40 21 48 70 11 39 35 61 25 29 83 88 73 55 13 545 734 369 120 120 106 108 134 1680 Number of Convictions Number of Convictions ? 3 28 28 67 94 49 93 99 13 44 95 75 18 10 81 61 71 48 54 23 90 87 134 118 109 145 100 150 195 117 141 200 204 195 177 156 174 237 3688 1234 1355 1004 People People Involved People Involved 0 3 22 89 53 40 37 25 89 58 94 44 93 34 33 31 15 99 12 13 96 40 77 78 75 17 10 79 40 71 42 54 23 90 86 447 157 136 219 140 143 185 117 127 205 180 169 193 152 174 233 4135 1186 1245 1100 Total Indictments Total Indictments 7 0 3 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 3 4 5 3 2 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 7 1 0 9 0 7 0 1 0 45 36 17 14 11 18 19 414 191 135 168 110 All Other Other All Offenses Other All Offenses 5 6 1 1 2 8 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 2 0 0 0 2 0 8 1 0 0 0 1 4 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 5 2 9 1 0 2 2 51 39 12 11 44 113 All Other Offenses Offenses Other All Against Chastity and Morality Offenses Other All Against Chastity and Morality 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Contributing to to Contributing the Delinquency of Minor a to Contributing the Delinquency of Minor a 2 5 7 3 3 3 1 0 0 4 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 3 9 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 6 0 0 0 0 3 52 16 12 12 Keeping House of Ill Fame Keeping House of Ill Fame 0 1 1 5 2 5 3 1 1 0 1 3 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 29 12 11 Indecent and Exposure Obscene Language Indecent and Exposure Obscene Language Public Morality and Chastity Public Morality and Chastity 3 1 0 3 1 0 0 0 1 1 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 12 Incest Incest 0 1 6 0 3 0 2 0 5 0 0 3 0 3 0 5 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 2 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 38 13 14 Cohabitating inCohabitating a State of Adultery or Fornication Cohabitating inCohabitating a State of Adultery or Fornication 6 0 1 0 0 0 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 3 0 2 0 0 2 4 0 0 0 3 1 0 1 0 23 12 Bigamy Bigamy 0 2 0 1 0 0 8 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 8 3 0 8 7 9 2 2 9 8 0 2 2 2 0 5 1 5 4 2 74 66 23 75 79 29 11 26 11 19 62 91 721 571 104 106 All Other Other All Offenses Against Public Policy Other All Offenses Against Public Policy 9 Suspended?9 2 0 8 1 0 5 4 9 0 0 6 5 1 7 2 6 5 8 1 0 1 0 1 0 9 83 44 84 65 13 19 81 22 24 17 16 11 12 68 38 19 39 14 83 54 10 11 31 12 889 342 273 110 102 Offenses Against the Liquor Laws Offenses Against the Liquor Laws 0 0 0 0 34 34 34 Violations of Prohibition Laws, When Misdemeanors Violations of Prohibition Laws, When Misdemeanors 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Violations of Prohibition When Laws, Felonies Violations of Prohibition When Laws, Felonies 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Public Policy Public Policy Public Narcotics- Posession and in of Sale Violation of Acts Federal Narcotics- Posession and in of Sale Violation of Acts Federal 4 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 7 0 0 2 0 0 3 0 0 18 41 79 12 11 17 66 13 144 Offenses Against the Gambling Laws Offenses Against the Gambling Laws 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 General General Violation of Laws Election General Violation of Laws Election 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1880-1929 Crime Statistics for Mahoning, and Trumbull Counties and Mahoning, for Crime Statistics 1880-1929 Betting On Elections Betting On Elections 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 5 2 0 2 0 0 4 4 9 5 4 3 0 4 4 5 0 4 3 2 0 1 32 52 18 11 30 104 All Other Other All Offenses Against Justice Other All Offenses Against Justice 3 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 7 0 1 1 0 0 0 76 57 35 20 20 18 16 11 136 Bribery Bribery 0 1 3 0 8 1 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 1 1 1 5 3 3 1 0 2 1 0 2 4 0 2 4 0 0 3 2 0 3 1 0 1 2 0 2 0 17 48 21 10 12 11 12 11 10 107 Public Justice Public Justice Perjury and Perjury and of Subornation Perjury Perjury and of Subornation Perjury 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Aiding Prisoners to Escape Aiding Prisoners to Escape 4 3 5 0 1 8 1 2 2 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 6 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 42 22 14 Public Health Public All Offenses Against Public Health All Offenses Against Public Health Public Health Public 5 0 3 7 0 0 3 6 1 2 0 5 4 2 0 0 0 6 1 0 0 1 9 3 2 0 0 3 5 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 5 3 2 0 1 0 3 1 3 3 25 22 28 36 11 11 116 All Other Other All Offenses Against Public Peace Other All Offenses Against Public Peace 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 4 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 76 43 11 22 22 37 Riot Riot 2 2 0 0 1 0 0 8 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 3 0 1 61 11 17 23 33 22 15 18 58 57 368 693 141 147 127 162 161 1073 Carrying or Wearing Concealed Weapons Carrying or Wearing Concealed Weapons 0 4 3 0 0 7 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 67 53 49 Public Peace Public Peace Challenging to ProvokeFight or Breach of Peace Challenging to ProvokeFight or Breach of Peace 3 3 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 Driving an Automobile While Intoxicated Driving an Automobile While Intoxicated 1881 1880 1882 1883 1887 1888 1884 1885 1886 1889 1903 1904 1905 1890 1891 1892 1893 1906 1907 1894 1895 1908 1909 1910 1896 1912 1924 1925 1926 1922 1923 1897 1898 1913 1911 1927 1928 1899 1914 1929 1900 1916 1915 1901 1917 1918 1919 1902 1920 1921 Total: 1920s County and Year and County Mahoning County Totals: 1880s 1890s 1910s Mahoning 1900s

290

0 2 1 4 3 1 5 0 0 6 4 5 4 2 1 6 7 9 7 26 60 10 28 10 10 54 17 28 10 14 15 23 22 24 25 87 25 36 52 43 162 352 600 Number of Number of Convictions Convictions 1 9 4 3 1 8 52 52 45 20 11 14 11 10 10 54 28 14 20 37 42 90 30 43 17 16 25 47 50 49 40 37 58 55 92 153 367 751 113 121 136 1368 People People People Involved Involved 1 5 1 8 6 4 1 8 9 45 86 55 46 41 14 18 29 10 30 18 15 16 16 14 27 10 52 27 14 20 36 41 72 30 43 17 15 23 44 45 49 40 36 40 54 89 345 115 166 341 724 113 122 136 1691 Total Total Indictments Indictments 0 3 0 0 0 4 2 8 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 8 5 1 0 3 0 14 10 22 36 54 129 158 All Other Other All Offenses Other All Offenses 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 2 3 3 4 6 5 2 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 43 80 21 68 125 All Other Offenses Offenses Other All Offenses Other All Against Chastity Against Chastity and Morality and Morality 0 0 0 0 32 32 32 Contributing to to Contributing to Contributing the Delinquency of Minor a the Delinquency of Minor a 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 6 3 3 14 14 Keeping Keeping House of Ill House of Ill Fame Fame 4 0 1 0 4 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 2 1 0 0 1 0 1 11 23 Indecent Indecent Exposure and and Exposure Exposure and and Exposure Obscene Language Obscene Language Public Morality and Chastity Public Morality and Chastity 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 0 2 1 2 2 0 0 2 0 0 14 Incest Incest 2 4 2 6 0 0 2 0 0 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 9 9 0 1 0 1 0 4 6 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 26 47 Cohabitating inCohabitating inCohabitating a State of a State of Adultery or Fornication Adultery or Fornication 1 2 0 2 0 0 2 2 1 5 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 13 Bigamy Bigamy 0 9 0 3 0 0 1 1 0 5 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 4 5 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 0 8 8 1 0 0 6 7 1 1 5 12 21 61 19 21 106 All Other Other All Other All Offenses Offenses Against Public Policy Against Public Policy 0 7 4 0 2 6 3 4 7 2 0 2 1 3 1 5 9 8 2 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 73 45 76 40 27 82 10 95 11 80 18 25 12 13 40 19 11 26 15 31 17 16 20 23 231 564 Offenses Offenses Against the Against the Liquor Laws Liquor Laws 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Violations of Violations of Prohibition Laws, Prohibition Laws, When When When Misdemeanors Misdemeanors 0 0 0 0 13 13 13 Violations of Violations of Prohibition Prohibition When Laws, When Laws, Felonies Felonies 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Public Policy Public Policy Public Narcotics- Narcotics- Posession and Posession and Sale of in in of Sale Violation of in of Sale Federal Acts Federal Violation of Acts Federal 8 3 4 1 0 0 7 0 8 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 2 0 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 4 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 2 9 0 16 40 Offenses Against the Gambling Laws Offenses Against the Gambling Laws 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 General General General Violation of Violation of Laws Election Election Laws Election 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1880-1929 Crime Statistics for Mahoning, and Trumbull Counties and Mahoning, for Crime Statistics 1880-1929 Betting On Betting On Elections Elections 3 1 4 1 1 7 0 7 0 1 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 22 All Other Other All Other All Offenses Offenses Against Against Justice Justice 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 2 0 1 3 1 1 11 10 13 25 Bribery Bribery 3 1 1 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 3 2 2 0 1 4 1 0 0 0 5 0 5 3 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 15 12 36 Public Justice Public Justice Perjury and Perjury and Perjury and Subornation of Subornation Perjury of Subornation Perjury 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Aiding Prisoners to Escape Aiding Prisoners to Escape 5 0 0 5 0 1 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 All Offenses All Offenses Against Public Health Against Public Health Public Health Public Public Health Public 9 4 1 3 0 0 0 7 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 3 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 3 4 4 2 0 2 4 1 8 0 0 10 25 54 All Other Other All Offenses Against Public Peace Other All Offenses Against Public Peace 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 32 32 28 Riot Riot 7 0 1 4 1 0 0 1 0 3 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 1 3 4 4 1 1 0 1 2 4 6 4 9 7 6 3 2 4 15 76 13 20 17 14 26 20 15 50 147 249 Carrying or Wearing Carrying or Concealed Weapons Wearing Concealed Weapons 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 6 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 Public Peace Public Peace Challenging to ProvokeFight or Breach of Peace Challenging to ProvokeFight or Breach of Peace 0 0 0 0 6 5 5 6 6 28 28 Driving an Automobile While Intoxicated Driving an Automobile While Intoxicated 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 Trumbull County and Year Year and County Trumbull County Totals: 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s Total:

291

5 8 8 9 2 2 2 5 3 1 2 1 9 4 5 7 5 8 6 0 2 4 2 0 0 69 87 97 95 51 35 49 48 29 21 44 38 10 10 13 78 53 35 255 149 157 114 100 931 474 1571 NA Colored Colored 90 66 84 62 59 70 35 921 995 609 614 602 418 228 249 220 191 151 179 137 120 147 106 119 159 133 108 134 138 222 218 279 203 192 133 135 136 125 772 1489 1106 1208 1141 1041 1475 1415 1420 8381 1442 1717 6770 19082 Foreign Born and and Foreign Born Unknown Total Native, Total Native, and Foreign Born Unknown 0 82 86 54 49 67 49 27 21 34 34 50 51 18 28 36 52 88 65 60 51 39 67 30 44 32 41 19 36 10 654 365 363 492 449 420 811 678 792 611 310 288 290 150 144 131 436 529 318 8268 3554 3431 Total ForeignTotal and Born Unknown Total ForeignTotal and Born Unknown 0 0 0 3 0 5 1 0 1 3 5 2 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 5 0 0 0 0 0 6 1 0 0 0 6 7 7 41 19 14 18 14 57 63 201 118 Unknown Unknown 9 8 3 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 83 13 72 25 37 41 16 39 23 14 10 18 21 67 170 439 226 503 302 119 839 2198 1292 Other Countries Other Countries 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 36 62 99 147 252 151 NA NA NA Switzerland Switzerland 5 0 5 5 1 4 5 1 4 6 1 3 7 2 3 1 0 0 0 2 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 6 0 68 25 28 NA NA NA Norway Sweden and Sweden and Norway 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 42 43 43 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA America South South South South America 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Spain NA Spain 0 1 0 1 1 0 4 3 5 6 2 6 5 2 1 8 2 1 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 7 6 4 2 0 1 0 1 2 0 1 0 7 7 5 10 92 48 25 NA NA Scotland Scotland 9 6 6 9 4 5 9 3 2 1 2 0 0 2 1 3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 59 26 24 10 10 45 159 344 289 NA NA Russia Russia 5 7 6 4 2 2 7 8 5 4 0 4 3 2 4 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 76 56 54 68 80 48 97 80 44 60 44 29 15 15 13 11 73 18 108 138 490 519 1101 NA Italy NA Italy Foreign Born 1 0 2 0 8 2 8 9 9 1 4 8 9 0 5 9 5 14 28 11 50 41 20 10 49 31 18 19 10 14 28 24 20 40 75 31 31 35 21 32 18 28 13 24 16 15 53 846 115 255 251 172 Nativity of Prisoners of Nativity Ireland Ireland 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 7 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 107 122 112 NA Belgium Holland and NA Holland and Belgium 9 5 9 7 1 6 4 0 4 6 6 3 0 7 5 8 1 4 7 2 6 3 6 3 5 0 5 1 15 22 17 24 20 21 29 32 41 37 22 21 12 10 10 10 13 10 54 50 39 489 148 198 Germany Germany 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 6 0 19 29 21 France France 3 2 4 6 8 7 9 8 1 2 5 7 4 9 2 0 9 6 8 3 4 12 10 11 37 21 26 17 22 18 22 16 11 10 15 18 28 33 23 15 13 11 25 10 10 16 45 73 93 557 156 190 England and Wales and England From 1871-72 this also included Scotland England and Wales and England 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 34 37 34 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Denmark Denmark 1 3 2 3 1 0 0 0 2 4 6 6 3 2 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 2 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 9 6 1 10 60 10 34 British British America and Canada British British America and Canada 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 31 29 69 59 18 223 138 239 286 251 151 100 108 122 436 1824 1388 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Austria NA Austria 88 93 72 85 82 72 92 98 69 36 81 52 21 40 34 25 835 556 743 716 692 621 664 737 628 384 299 326 312 268 146 106 134 137 102 112 126 109 108 106 104 170 135 148 138 132 456 1006 3340 1205 4827 10834 Born Total Native Total Native Born 6 31 70 28 76 43 36 23 30 15 20 28 45 13 10 14 17 16 16 18 48 18 34 17 25 19 16 41 297 117 172 191 213 157 248 293 220 172 135 145 113 263 223 3205 1283 1395 NA NA NA NA NA Other States NA Other States Native Born 76 67 58 94 66 89 58 78 41 40 96 72 58 91 90 86 87 67 69 53 30 538 439 571 525 479 464 416 444 307 164 127 191 167 155 106 152 130 104 115 740 980 152 7060 1756 3432 NA NA NA NA NA Ohio NA Ohio 1916 1915 1914 1913 1912 1911 1910 1909 1908 1907 1906 1905 1904 1903 1902 1901 1900 1899 1898 1897 1896 1895 1894 1893 1892 1891 1890 1889 1888 1887 1886 1885 1884 1883 1882 1881 1880 1879 1878 1877 1876 1875 1874 1873 1872 1871 1900s 1890s 1910s 1880s 1870s Year Total: Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning County Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning

292

9 3 3 4 8 0 4 2 0 4 0 0 0 2 6 0 8 0 0 0 4 5 3 7 7 1 0 0 5 0 5 2 4 5 2 0 3 2 10 12 46 37 21 38 30 42 24 100 234 Colored NA Colored 1 66 75 450 360 348 217 483 524 277 575 513 211 216 397 226 260 327 328 393 261 722 207 166 167 235 180 157 186 287 260 267 238 255 169 175 203 348 329 367 193 208 482 126 2224 1294 2254 3723 2940 12435 Total Native, and Foreign Born Unknown Total Native, and Foreign Born Unknown 8 1 43 35 42 80 61 93 66 56 14 29 21 43 96 33 27 71 53 79 89 77 93 59 36 73 77 47 92 99 45 54 16 28 129 114 123 101 108 118 106 134 113 183 438 623 632 544 828 3065 Total ForeignTotal Bornand Unknown Total ForeignTotal Bornand Unknown 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 2 0 0 1 1 0 2 0 6 0 26 21 28 23 101 101 158 Unknown Unknown 1 0 3 4 0 3 0 0 6 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 8 2 3 0 42 32 32 25 30 21 36 73 14 161 251 Other Countries Other Countries 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 6 0 1 8 NA NA Switzerland Switzerland 0 1 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 4 3 4 4 3 11 25 NA NA Sweden and Norway Sweden and Norway 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA South South America NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA South South America 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Spain NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Spain 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 4 1 6 5 4 0 3 5 3 1 1 2 1 4 1 1 4 3 1 10 11 36 14 21 75 NA Scotland Scotland 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 5 6 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 31 24 39 11 37 32 74 122 198 NA Russia Russia 0 0 7 5 0 6 0 0 0 2 2 3 1 6 0 1 0 2 0 0 4 2 0 1 6 0 0 3 2 36 13 32 21 26 37 16 54 17 16 36 16 15 12 78 16 64 238 398 NA Italy Italy Foreign Born 2 4 0 3 0 1 5 2 0 2 1 40 12 17 10 49 25 11 48 64 17 78 54 17 33 39 41 51 32 18 11 33 36 81 32 36 31 27 19 46 13 10 85 36 87 309 340 364 Nativity of Prisoners of Nativity 1136 Ireland Ireland 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 2 2 0 1 9 0 2 6 0 Holland and Belgium NA Holland and Belgium 1 1 0 8 9 5 0 0 0 2 4 0 0 5 0 0 1 0 4 5 7 2 3 3 2 7 5 4 4 2 4 4 3 9 20 10 18 14 10 11 18 11 11 26 25 64 59 53 227 Germany Germany 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 2 1 1 0 0 1 2 0 4 5 8 1 18 France France 0 0 0 9 3 0 0 0 5 4 0 2 0 0 7 0 9 1 5 5 0 5 11 10 12 13 29 23 27 18 33 28 13 13 20 12 28 23 14 28 20 17 38 12 32 485 167 135 139 England and Wales and England In the 1871-72 this also included Scotland England and Wales and England 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Denmark NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Denmark 5 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 6 0 1 1 3 1 3 1 0 0 0 0 2 1 6 0 0 0 0 2 7 0 2 5 43 14 11 11 NA British British America and Canada British British America and Canada 7 3 0 0 0 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 11 10 41 29 12 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Austria NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Austria 0 23 96 98 79 98 444 317 313 175 321 482 447 212 203 216 160 369 231 306 227 626 133 285 140 274 143 101 101 109 104 107 198 183 174 177 219 156 148 237 268 154 235 299 671 9388 1620 2132 1786 3179 Missing from the from AnnualMissing Report Total Native Born Total Native Born 0 6 85 18 17 23 60 61 11 40 54 49 39 26 46 64 74 30 55 30 38 45 87 56 61 76 24 23 44 50 72 27 24 36 60 91 114 356 146 115 481 566 710 346 2218 Other States Other States NA NA NA NA NA Native Born 39 87 76 66 88 68 66 62 11 55 62 299 296 152 261 421 436 212 197 176 222 106 113 270 320 192 280 139 200 127 113 101 195 133 104 187 196 117 175 208 6406 1029 1566 1076 2513 Ohio Unavailable Ohio NA JailApparently no had in 1872. NA NA NA NA 1901 1909 1910 1911 1900 1902 1903 1904 1907 1908 1912 1913 1915 1916 1899 1905 1906 1914 1896 1897 1898 1871 1872 1877 1878 1879 1880 1873 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1874 1875 1876 1888 1894 1895 1889 1890 1891 1893 1892 1870s 1880s 1890s 1910s 1900s Year Totals: Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull County Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull

293

0 0 0 0 0 0 2.2 1.9 4.2 2.06 4.08 2.01 6.44 2.19 1.99 1.92 3.93 5.82 7.67 1.69 6.44 4.39 4.02 5.96 4.02 1.93 8.38 9.88 9.81 1.05 6.07 7.55 14.64 12.87 13.61 12.52 Trumbull County 0 0 0 0 1.62 1.52 5.96 5.37 2.91 2.85 3.78 6.14 4.48 1.95 3.74 7.63 7.68 8.93 5.17 7.94 9.66 3.03 10.16 11.66 10.11 13.31 17.41 17.85 19.34 19.39 10.42 10.18 13.56 52.99 58.63 15.47 Mahoning Mahoning County 1895 1894 1896 1897 1898 1903 1904 1905 1899 1900 1901 1902 1906 1909 1907 1908 1914 1912 1913 1911 1910 1916 1915 1917 1918 1919 1921 1920 1924 1925 1926 1927 1922 1923 1928 1929 Year

8 5 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 22 41 68 151 2.47 2.32 7.29 2.24 2.25 4.53 2.29 4.56 2.28 14.16 Trumbull County Trumbull County 4 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 17 41 4.8 2.2 1.7 166 433 668 2.54 2.71 2.33 2.14 3.84 9.37 3.48 3.94 11.32 Residents Mahoning Mahoning County Mahoning County 1873 1871 1872 1879 1877 1878 1876 1875 1874 1880 1881 1882 1883 1885 1884 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1886 1893 Per Capita Homicide Rates All Totals are Averages Per 100K 100K Per Averages are Totals All 1880s 1890s 1870s 1900s 1910s 1920s Total: Totals: 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 3 3 3 3 Females 3 1 6 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 4 4 5 8 2 1 2 7 1 4 6 2 4 6 8 10 11 Males 3 1 7 1 3 1 1 2 1 1 2 0 4 5 1 5 3 3 3 9 1 4 9 2 7 9 Trumbull County 10 11 11 11 Total 1 3 1 1 2 1 4 1 5 7 1 2 1 3 3 2 7 1 6 45 51 12 12 Females 2 2 2 4 5 5 8 3 5 2 7 9 9 6 16 11 13 23 31 20 15 34 59 67 28 20 15 23 24 Males 2 0 3 5 4 5 6 9 5 6 2 7 11 10 12 16 11 18 30 32 22 16 37 40 22 22 35 30 Mahoning County Mahoning 104 118 Total 1900 1901 1911 1902 1903 1908 1909 1910 1904 1905 1906 1907 1912 1915 1913 1914 1920 1918 1919 1917 1916 1922 1921 1923 1924 1926 1925 1928 1929 1927 Year 1 4 N/A Females N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 Coroner InquestsCoroner Ruled Homicides N/A Males N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 3 0 0 1 1 1 2 2 6 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Trumbull County Total 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 N/A Females N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 3 1 4 1 2 1 1 1 1 N/A Males N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 0 0 0 0 2 1 5 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 5 0 2 2 1 2 0 1 0 0 2 1 Mahoning County County Mahoning Total 0 No0 data listed at all Mah. Co. 1870 1871 1872 1873 1878 1879 1880 1881 1874 1875 1876 1877 1882 1885 1883 1884 1890 1888 1889 1887 1886 1892 1891 1893 1894 1896 1895 1898 1899 1897 Year

294

Mahoning Population by Linear Interpolation Trumbull Population by Linear Interpolation Days Days Census Estimated Since Census Estimated Since Year Population Population Census Year Population Population Census 1870 31001 0 1870 38659 1871 32187 365 1871 39281 365 1872 33376 731 1872 39904 731 1873 34562 1096 1873 40525 1096 1874 35748 1461 1874 41147 1461 1875 36934 1826 1875 41769 1826 1876 38124 2192 1876 42392 2192 1877 39310 2557 1877 43014 2557 1878 40496 2922 1878 43635 2922 1879 41682 3287 1879 44257 3287 1880 3653 1880 3653

1880 42871 0 1880 44880 1881 44181 365 1881 44629 365 1882 45491 730 1882 44379 730 1883 46801 1095 1883 44128 1095 1884 48115 1461 1884 43877 1461 1885 49425 1826 1885 43627 1826 1886 50735 2191 1886 43376 2191 1887 52045 2556 1887 43125 2556 1888 53359 2922 1888 42874 2922 1889 54669 3287 1889 42624 3287 1890 3652 1890 3652

1890 55979 1890 42373 1891 57393 365 1891 42794 365 1892 58812 731 1892 43217 731 1893 60226 1096 1893 43639 1096 1894 61640 1461 1894 44060 1461 1895 63055 1826 1895 44481 1826 1896 64473 2192 1896 44904 2192 1897 65887 2557 1897 45325 2557 1898 67301 2922 1898 45747 2922 1899 68716 3287 1899 46168 3287 1900 3653 1900 3653

1900 70134 1900 46591 1901 74733 365 1901 47208 365 1902 79332 730 1902 47825 730 1903 83932 1095 1903 48442 1095 1904 88543 1461 1904 49061 1461 1905 93143 1826 1905 49679 1826 1906 97742 2191 1906 50296 2191 1907 102341 2556 1907 50913 2556 1908 106953 2922 1908 51532 2922 1909 111552 3287 1909 52149 3287 1910 3652 1910 3652

295

Mahoning Population by Linear Interpolation Trumbull Population by Linear Interpolation Days Days Census Estimated Since Census Estimated Since Year Population Population Census Year Population Population Census 1910 116151 1910 52766 1911 123161 365 1911 55879 365 1912 130190 731 1912 59000 731 1913 137201 1096 1913 62113 1096 1914 144211 1461 1914 65226 1461 1915 151221 1826 1915 68339 1826 1916 158250 2192 1916 71460 2192 1917 165260 2557 1917 74573 2557 1918 172271 2922 1918 77686 2922 1919 179281 3287 1919 80799 3287 1920 3653 1920 3653

1920 186310 1920 83920 1921 191290 365 1921 87832 365 1922 196271 730 1922 91744 730 1923 201251 1095 1923 95656 1095 1924 206246 1461 1924 99579 1461 1925 211226 1826 1925 103492 1826 1926 216206 2191 1926 107404 2191 1927 221187 2556 1927 111316 2556 1928 226181 2922 1928 115239 2922 1929 231162 3287 1929 119151 3287 1930 3652 1930 3652

1930 236142 1930 123063

296

Appendix B:

Naturalization Statistics 1870 to 1930

In order to assess the influence of the 1920s Ku Klux Klan on the rate of naturalizations in the Mahoning Valley, I compiled data on the subject from the Annual

Report of the Secretary of State, to the Governor of the State of Ohio, Including the

Statistical Report to the General Assembly from the year 1870 to 1930. From this data I was then able to establish naturalization rates for the numerous different ethno-racial groups tracked by the reports. I was also able to then create estimates of the naturalization rates for each of these groups and break them down by decade for the period under review. Having done this I was able to compare the rates for the different groups during each decade to see if there were any discernible patterns. In particular, I was looking to see if naturalization rates had increased for Italian immigrants and Slovak immigrants in the Mahoning Valley following the political activist efforts of the two foreign-language newspaper editors to encourage immigrants to naturalize. I have included my worksheets in this appendix in order to allow others to build off of and improve this data for future research.

297

23 37 68 65 91 32 93 78 22 73 104 233 450 116 138 259 109 327 100 291 283 360 191 275 239 350 292 208 392 453 221 195 430 306 889 204 205 125 114 149 133 208 300 218 281 187 156 318 497 603 577 812 877 745 1383 1045 1071 Totals 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Unknown NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 0 0 0 0 0 3 3 3 0 1 1 0 2 0 5 0 2 4 2 2 3 3 7 6 8 3 2 6 9 8 3 4 3 6 11 14 19 29 10 14 11 65 69 12 10 12 16 24 13 46 41 303 252 124 251 198 186 Other Countries 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 South South America NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 0 3 3 3 3 0 84 Serbia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Portugal NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 0 43 68 77 78 81 131 Poland 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Cuba NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 8 9 0 8 3 1 0 0 2 0 3 1 0 3 4 0 4 8 5 3 8 4 3 8 2 15 Wales 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 4 4 3 2 7 9 5 67 52 25 17 32 26 26 27 38 15 Turkey 1 1 0 0 6 0 1 1 5 0 3 4 2 2 2 2 8 3 7 4 7 4 3 6 4 1 6 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 4 3 1 3 2 1 1 Switzerland 0 1 0 0 3 0 0 3 2 3 1 1 2 0 6 7 9 9 9 7 7 4 2 1 5 5 8 7 9 3 5 9 6 6 7 8 7 8 19 27 14 15 16 39 16 20 17 10 15 20 10 13 17 12 13 Sweden and Norway 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 2 3 3 5 Spain NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 6 4 6 7 2 5 9 4 9 4 8 0 6 7 0 4 4 1 1 2 2 1 5 4 9 7 6 9 7 6 9 16 40 13 18 22 20 22 13 37 12 14 11 26 17 11 17 12 20 18 11 20 13 12 34 Nativity Scotland 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 2 1 1 3 0 0 0 0 2 7 6 7 5 7 6 7 2 7 1 6 Naturalizations 1870-1930 10 19 10 13 13 15 14 21 26 45 17 22 19 16 32 32 44 54 37 45 26 40 28 39 Russia 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 4 0 2 1 6 2 2 8 2 7 23 21 23 22 23 46 10 82 48 14 29 70 61 53 35 11 12 15 35 19 26 33 30 90 69 181 110 613 100 112 107 186 182 181 442 319 340 Italy 6 9 4 8 7 6 2 2 5 8 2 6 6 9 8 6 9 10 14 23 22 95 36 27 47 72 11 19 25 70 13 46 48 65 54 49 43 74 43 26 68 51 30 10 26 11 11 18 15 15 18 14 15 12 17 12 198 Ireland 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 2 4 Holland and Holland and Belgium Only Holland after 1926 4 7 7 6 9 6 9 3 1 6 1 3 9 5 7 7 6 8 5 0 2 2 9 3 8 4 5 12 22 30 60 14 19 29 51 18 11 42 15 28 62 74 30 55 38 43 14 10 26 49 25 15 23 12 13 21 14 Germany 0 0 0 0 6 1 1 0 2 1 2 2 6 0 1 0 5 1 7 2 3 1 2 0 3 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 0 1 6 2 2 1 0 France 8 6 4 8 3 1 2 7 9 13 18 32 28 48 85 26 50 36 91 38 51 61 91 58 91 88 88 99 11 39 30 67 19 10 13 16 10 13 17 40 30 31 35 17 20 24 30 40 45 29 124 162 155 129 129 167 133 England (and Wales England Until 1902) inIncluded Scotland 1871-1872 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 3 2 0 1 1 2 1 4 3 4 0 2 1 1 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 Denmark 0 2 1 1 2 4 7 4 4 2 7 1 1 1 8 1 3 1 3 4 1 1 5 3 5 3 2 0 2 2 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 2 1 0 5 3 3 6 6 4 2 4 4 1 13 British America America British Canada and 1 0 3 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 3 1 8 9 9 7 8 6 5 13 17 16 23 39 78 32 32 75 23 77 41 56 35 55 36 63 59 71 12 96 83 76 68 61 117 179 128 163 290 271 286 115 135 Austria 1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 Year County Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning

298

5 6 8 7 9 9 1 8 0 3 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 3 1 0 12 96 71 59 36 63 32 32 75 23 77 41 56 35 55 39 78 16 23 13 17 237 255 296 190 135 115 290 271 286 163 179 128 117 Czecho- Slovakia Austria/ 0 0 0 0 USA Repatriation 0 0 0 0 Syria 0 0 0 0 Rumania 0 0 0 0 Mexico 0 0 0 0 Lithuania 0 0 0 0 Latvia 0 0 0 0 Jugo-Slovic 0 0 0 0 Finland 43 55 96 40 Greece 176 187 220 107 Czecho- Slovakia 0 0 0 0 Bulgaria 0 0 0 Belgium 0 0 0 0 Armenia 1929 1928 1927 1926 1925 1921 1922 1923 1924 1920 1918 1919 1916 1917 1915 1913 1914 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1896 1897 1898 1893 1894 1895 1892 1890 1891 1889 1887 1888 1885 1886 1884 1882 1883 1880 1881 1879 1877 1878 1874 1875 1876 1870 1871 1872 1873 Year Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning County Mahoning Mahoning Mahoning

299

0 5121 7928 2490 1705 1992 2699 1187 8368 3370 6073 1325 18001 12880 10391 44.042 71.55158 11.06605 14.99361 13.83256 9.471696 28.44842 Totals Totals 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Unknown Unknown 0 9 67 17 28 10 186 112 818 415 324 149 1011 1438 1829 44.7238928 0.92946966 6.12356479 10.1694915 3.66320394 78.6221979 55.2761072 Other Countries Other Countries 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 100 South South America South America 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 93 96 96 100 3.125 96.875 Serbia Serbia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Portugal Portugal 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 43 435 478 478 100 91.004184 8.9958159 Poland Poland 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 100 100 Cuba Cuba 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 32 29 13 60 70 46 29 102 31.3725 68.6275 28.4314 12.7451 58.8235 Wales Wales 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 111 145 202 251 167 362 145 55.8011 30.66298 69.33702 40.05525 4.143646 Turkey Turkey 8 4 2 0 9 45 29 18 99 90 87 85 41 10 107 7.476635514 92.52336449 27.10280374 42.05607477 3.738317757 1.869158879 16.82242991 Switzerland Switzerland 0 4 7 48 68 80 72 93 82 146 415 463 379 290 229 10.36717 89.63283 15.55076 31.53348 14.68683 17.27862 20.08639 Sweden and Norway Sweden and Norway 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 16 16 100 6.25 93.75 Spain Spain 0 74 31 56 92 133 152 139 529 473 603 408 384 256 110 23.05141 12.271973 87.728027 25.207297 22.056385 5.1409619 9.2868988 Scotland Scotland 9 0 2 2 66 71 84 11 178 186 377 533 366 711 148 9.2827 25.03516 74.96484 1.265823 9.985935 26.16034 53.02391 Russia Russia 0 1 1 61 70 305 188 437 1464 1225 2028 2344 1870 3808 1592 38.4454 61.5546 1.60189 8.00945 32.1691 4.93697 53.2563 Italy Italy 0 65 76 80 447 126 416 431 901 478 1511 1458 1576 1304 1370 4.124365 95.87563 26.39594 28.36294 4.822335 5.076142 7.994924 Ireland Ireland 9 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 2 0 0 1 2 11 13 69.23076923 30.76923077 7.692307692 7.692307692 84.61538462 Holland and Holland and Belgium Holland and Belgium 0 34 50 76 81 299 336 175 983 938 541 204 825 886 1017 3.3431662 96.656834 33.038348 29.400197 7.4729597 4.9164208 7.9646018 Germany Germany 1 7 8 0 8 11 19 17 19 60 71 55 28 47 53 15.49296 84.50704 26.76056 26.76056 9.859155 1.408451 23.94366 France France 0 168 903 127 148 301 822 424 460 2557 2725 2454 1304 2179 2297 6.165137615 93.83486239 30.16513761 33.13761468 5.431192661 4.660550459 11.04587156 England (and Wales England Until 1902) (and Wales England Until 1902) 1 4 5 2 6 2 0 2 8 18 36 37 35 27 31 2.7027027 97.297297 16.216216 48.648649 13.513514 10.810811 5.4054054 Denmark Denmark 6 0 15 26 19 38 28 25 27 81 98 57 127 142 109 10.56338028 89.43661972 19.71830986 18.30985915 13.38028169 4.225352113 26.76056338 British America America British Canada and America British Canada and 5 0 5 33 38 423 828 239 399 277 676 1481 2562 2985 1504 14.1708543 85.8291457 1.10552764 8.00670017 13.3668342 27.7386935 49.6147404 Austria Austria % 1910s 1920s 1890s 1900s 1880s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1870s 1870s 1925-1929 By1930 By1880 By 1925 By 1920 By 1900 By 1910 By 1890 Riot % of Total Mahoning Total Totals: Naturalization to Up Post-Klan By decade: By By decade: By % of Total Naturalization After Riot

300

5 0 6 33 51 828 399 239 676 309 1113 2171 3575 2562 1600 31.13286713 71.66433566 60.72727273 23.16083916 11.16083916 6.685314685 0.923076923 Austria/ Czecho- Slovakia Austria/ Czecho- Slovakia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 USA Repatriation USA Repatriation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Syria Syria 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Rumania Rumania 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Mexico Mexico 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Lithuania Lithuania 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Latvia Latvia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Jugo-Slovic Jugo-Slovic 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Finland Finland 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 234 234 100 234 Greece Greece 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 690 690 100 690 Czecho- Slovakia Czecho- Slovakia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Bulgaria Bulgaria 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Belgium Belgium 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Armenia Armenia % 1920s 1910s 1900s 1890s 1920s 1880s 1910s 1900s 1890s 1880s 1870s 1870s 1925-1929 By1930 By1880 By 1925 By 1920 By 1910 By 1900 By 1890 Up to Riot to Up Mahoning Total Totals: % of Total Naturalization Post-Klan By decade: By % of Total Naturalization After Riot decade: By

301

0 27 27 41 35 23 45 60 42 35 43 28 40 81 36 83 10 14 18 15 14 25 30 52 89 16 35 56 71 68 43 68 60 47 49 195 235 138 137 173 397 111 117 269 205 177 144 146 145 106 181 104 358 147 281 191 101 Totals 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Unknown 6 0 0 2 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 2 3 0 70 71 38 17 41 36 Other Countries 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA South South America NA 0 1 0 0 1 0 1

Serbia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Portugal 8 0 0 10 51 12 10 Poland 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Cuba 0 1 3 2 3 3 1 4 0 2 4 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 11 Wales 2 3 4 2 2 5 0 1 3 0 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 13 12 Turkey 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 1 2 1 0 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Switzerland 0 2 1 1 0 2 6 1 1 2 1 4 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 1 1 6 8 1 4 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 4 0 1 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 Sweden and Norway 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA Spain NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 1 1 2 3 3 2 2 4 3 6 4 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 0 1 1 2 4 2 2 1 4 4 5 7 0 3 3 7 8 5 3 5 7 3 1 2 12 13 11 14 19 16 Nativity Scotland 1 4 4 8 7 7 7 4 4 1 3 0 3 6 1 0 0 6 1 5 3 1 2 1 1 9 5 4 6 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 Naturalizations 1870-1930 21 10 Russia 0 0 7 9 8 9 6 3 2 1 2 2 5 8 9 2 0 1 0 2 2 7 5 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 33 56 71 38 87 34 24 53 24 32 25 18 26 23 61 11 125 106 Italy 5 2 2 2 5 0 0 0 3 1 2 0 2 0 4 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 8 3 7 5 2 5 1 4 8 8 5 7 6 61 17 20 66 18 15 13 32 71 26 14 18 12 37 124 122 Ireland 1 0 0 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 20 Holland and Holland and Belgium Holland only after 1926 3 1 0 2 5 5 2 1 1 5 0 1 0 1 2 0 0 1 3 0 1 3 0 1 3 0 2 1 2 4 1 4 7 3 3 8 0 6 4 7 9 1 8 3 6 3 9 16 16 12 22 22 19 10 10 19 Germany 2 0 0 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 3 0 0 2 1 1 6 6 3 France 2 5 5 7 6 3 8 8 7 5 5 4 0 0 5 2 3 7 11 10 17 12 24 12 10 66 14 16 10 18 39 14 40 47 95 16 14 26 45 11 17 24 48 24 29 24 62 37 79 22 22 48 40 178 165 103 England (and Wales England Until 1902) inIncluded Scotland 1871-1872 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 8 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Denmark 0 2 7 0 1 1 2 1 1 0 2 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 4 0 0 0 1 0 0 3 0 4 0 0 1 0 1 3 0 0 2 6 1 1 2 0 8 2 6 0 2 5 0 0 3 5 14 12 11 10 British America America British Canada and 1 0 5 2 4 2 2 0 4 6 1 6 2 1 6 5 6 8 3 5 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 54 18 12 37 41 16 19 55 58 12 11 14 No Listing in the 1916 Annual Report Annual No Listing in the 1916 Austria 1925 1926 1927 1923 1924 1928 1920 1921 1922 1919 1929 1918 1915 1916 1917 1870 1871 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1895 1896 1897 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1872 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 1873 1882 1883 1884 1885 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 Year Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull County Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull

302

5 5 3 8 6 2 6 6 1 4 0 2 2 4 2 5 6 1 4 3 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 14 37 42 12 35 41 54 58 37 19 55 11 Czecho- Slovakia Austria/ No Listing in the 0 0 4 0 USA Repatriation 0 0 0 0 Syria 0 0 0 37 Rumania 0 0 0 0 Mexico 0 0 0 0 Lithuania 0 0 0 0 Latvia Nativity 0 0 6 39 Naturalizations 1870-1930 Jugo-Slovic 0 0 6 4 Finland 21 46 72 22 Greece 0 25 26 17 Slovakia Czecho- 0 0 2 32 Bulgaria 0 0 1 0 Belgium 0 0 0 0 Armenia 1916 1915 1914 1913 1912 1911 1909 1910 1908 1907 1905 1906 1904 1903 1902 1901 1900 1899 1929 1898 1897 1896 1895 1894 1928 1893 1892 1891 1890 1889 1887 1888 1886 1927 1884 1885 1883 1882 1881 1880 1879 1925 1926 1878 1924 1877 1923 1921 1922 1876 1920 1874 1875 1918 1919 1870 1871 1872 1873 1917 Year Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull County Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull Trumbull

303

0 686 660 502 200 1560 2161 2847 3307 3618 5484 4240 1459 1439 1977 12.50912 9.153902 3.646973 12.03501 26.23997 36.05033 77.31583 Totals Totals 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 4 100 100 Unknown Unknown 0 0 5 0 2 3 10 15 15 17 37 10 304 150 224 284 1.64473684 0.65789474 0.98684211 73.6842105 93.4210526 49.3421053 Other Countries Other Countries 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 100 100 South South America South America 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 3 0 0 0 0 100 100 Serbia Serbia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 15 15 15 100 100 Portugal Portugal 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 59 91 40 91 100 43.956044 64.835165 Poland Poland 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Cuba Cuba 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 4 4 12 26 39 14 31 10.2564 10.2564 79.4872 35.8974 66.6667 Wales Wales 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 6 0 0 0 1 4 16 52 75 39 47 7.692308 1.923077 90.38462 30.76923 Turkey Turkey 0 3 6 3 2 3 7 1 3 2 13 14 17 17 19 15.78947368 36.84210526 15.78947368 5.263157895 10.52631579 10.52631579 89.47368421 Switzerland Switzerland 0 3 3 9 5 5 12 35 39 45 52 63 13 22 19 14.28571 34.92063 7.936508 7.936508 30.15873 20.63492 82.53968 Sweden and Norway Sweden and Norway 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 100 100 Spain Spain 0 3 73 66 21 61 23 13 36 127 151 153 170 182 202 30.19802 10.39604 90.09901 11.386139 6.4356436 1.4851485 17.821782 Scotland Scotland 0 0 1 1 1 0 55 77 23 50 26 21 43 102 122 141 35.46099 14.89362 18.43972 30.49645 16.31206 86.52482 Russia Russia 0 0 7 0 5 43 177 500 577 695 939 244 149 346 396 15.8679 4.57934 0.53248 36.8477 42.1725 25.9851 74.0149 Italy Italy 0 4 71 14 459 536 606 620 433 624 636 769 102 135 145 9.23277 0.520156 13.26398 1.820546 18.85566 17.55527 82.70481 Ireland Ireland 0 0 0 0 1 0 4 0 0 0 5 26 26 26 26 27 31 26 83.87096774 16.12903226 12.90322581 87.09677419 Holland and Holland and Belgium Holland and Belgium 0 9 9 67 35 10 25 142 199 235 244 132 254 270 278 12.589928 3.2374101 24.100719 3.5971223 8.9928058 3.2374101 97.122302 Germany Germany 0 8 3 1 4 1 6 14 27 27 31 32 35 38 18 2.631579 2.631579 47.36842 10.52632 15.78947 7.894737 92.10526 France France 0 50 57 41 815 767 328 270 108 1106 1375 1422 1487 1526 1571 17.18650541 2.609802673 20.87842139 3.628262253 6.874602164 3.182686187 97.13558243 England (and Wales England Until 1902) (and Wales England Until 1902) 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 15 16 16 16 16 17 15 5.8823529 88.235294 5.8823529 5.8823529 94.117647 Denmark Denmark 0 5 3 39 84 36 47 13 20 17 103 108 113 116 128 15.625 90.625 2.34375 3.90625 36.71875 13.28125 10.15625 British America America British Canada and America British Canada and 0 0 0 0 0 0 26 55 26 29 47 102 312 424 153 322 6.13207547 11.0849057 75.9433962 6.83962264 36.0849057 73.5849057 Austria Austria % 1880s 1890s 1910s 1920s 1900s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1870s 1870s 1925-1929 By 1880 By 1890 By 1900 By 1910 By 1920 By 1925 By 1930 Riot Riot Trumbull % of Total % of Total Total Totals: Naturalization to Up Naturalization After By decade: By By decade: By Post-Klan

304

0 0 0 0 0 0 47 29 26 55 28 180 390 492 312 121 36.58536585 63.41463415 79.26829268 9.552845528 5.894308943 5.284552846 Czecho- Slovakia Austria/ Austria/ Czecho- Slovakia 0 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 100 Repatriation Repatriation USA USA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Syria Syria 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 37 37 37 100 100 Rumania Rumania 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Mexico Mexico 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Lithuania Lithuania 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Latvia Latvia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 45 45 45 100 100 Jugo-Slovic Jugo-Slovic 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 10 10 100 100 Finland Finland 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 161 161 161 100 Greece Greece 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 68 68 68 100 100 Czecho- Slovakia Czecho- Slovakia 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 34 34 34 100 100 Bulgaria Bulgaria 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 100 100 Belgium Belgium 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Armenia Armenia % 1920s 1910s 1900s 1890s 1880s 1920s 1910s 1900s 1890s 1880s 1870s 1870s 1925-1929 By 1930 By 1925 By 1920 By 1910 By 1900 By 1890 By 1880 Trumbull Up to Riot to Up After Riot Total Totals: % of Total Naturalization % of Total Naturalization Post-Klan By decade: By By decade: By

305

Appendix C:

Indictments from the November 1, 1924 Niles Anti-Klan Riot

In this appendix I have included the full list of those indicted after the November 1924

Niles anti-Klan riot. I was able to figure out the full list of those indicted by consulting a variety

of sources. A number of newspaper articles about the indictments, arrests, and the trials were

useful in figuring out the names of many of those who were involved. However, I also searched

through the appropriate Common Pleas Criminal Appearance docket at the Trumbull courthouse

archive and was able to recover many of the trial documents related to the proceedings against

those involved in the riot. The staff at the archive also located a lost series of secret indictments related to these cases, which had apparently been misfiled years ago. Combining the information contained in these various documents I was able to put together a list of all of those arrested following the riot. I then looked at census data for as many of those on my list for whom I could locate information and used that and the newspaper accounts to determine who among those on my list were either Klansmen or Knights of the Flaming Circle. I include my lists here to again encourage future research on this topic.

306

Anti-Klan and Knights of the Total Flaming Circle Charge 1 Charge 2 Charge 3 Charges Place of Residence Burns, Owen Rioting 1 Niles, OH Davis, Leo Rioting Shooting w/ Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH DeAugustine, Sam Rioting 1 Niles, OH Dennick, Peter Rioting 1 Niles, OH Desmond, John Rioting Shooting w/ Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH Flask, Martin "Marty" Rioting Assault With Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH Fusco, Angelo Rioting Assault With Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH Greco, Peter Carrying Concealed Weapons Rioting Assault w/ Intent to Kill 3 Niles, OH Jennings, James Rioting 1 Niles, OH Jennings, Joseph Rioting Assault With Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH Jennings, Leo "Shine" Rioting 1 Niles, OH Katta, Dominick Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Kearney, Paul Rioting 1 Niles, OH Kearney, Thomas Rioting 1 Niles, OH Kearney, William Rioting 1 Niles, OH Kelley, Emmett Rioting 1 Niles, OH Logan, Simon A. Rioting 1 Niles, OH Loro, Gene Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Mahoney, James Rioting 1 Niles, OH Mahoney, Joseph Rioting 1 Niles, OH Mahoney, Patrick Rioting 1 Niles, OH Marso, Harry Rioting 1 Niles, OH Matash, Anthony Rioting 1 Niles, OH Mazeo, Vincent Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH McBride, Roy Rioting 1 Niles, OH McCauley, William T. "Boots" Rioting Shooting w/ Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH McGinley, Thaddeus "Pat" Rioting 1 Niles, OH McGowan, Lawrence Rioting 1 Niles, OH Moran, Owen Carrying Concealed Weapons Rioting 2 Niles, OH Muche, James Rioting 1 Niles, OH Murphy, Dennis "Dude" Rioting Shooting w/ Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH Nigro, Andrew Rioting (Dropped) 0 Niles, OH Nigro, Anthony "Tony Nigro," "Tony White" Rioting 1 Niles, OH Nigro, Frank Rioting 1 Niles, OH O'Connell, Thomas L. Rioting 1 Niles, OH Perna, Vincent Rioting 1 Niles, OH Rogers, Thomas Rioting 1 Niles, OH Rose, Andrew Rioting 1 Niles, OH Ross, Pasquale "Patsy Flanagan" Carrying Concealed Weapons Rioting 2 Niles, OH Sandfrey, Anthony R. Rioting 1 Niles, OH Sandfrey, Anthony R. "Curley" Rioting 1 Niles, OH Scarnecchia, Sam Rioting 1 Niles, OH Soda, Joseph Rioting 1 Niles, OH Spano, Frank Rioting 1 Niles, OH Sundie, Dominic John (Sundae) Rioting Assault and Battery 2 Niles, OH Sundie, Frank (Sundae) Rioting 1 Niles, OH Tauffaro, James Rioting Stabbing w/ Intent to Kill 2 Niles, OH Tauro, Louis Rioting (Dropped Juvenile) 1 Niles, OH Walsh, Harry Rioting 1 Niles, OH Total Indictments: 61

307

November 1, 1924 Riot Indictments

Total Ku Klux Klan Charge 1 Charge 2 Charge 3 Charges Place of Residence Ague, Verner (or Vernon) Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Ames, Clarence Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Baldwin, Frank Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Barkhurst, Paul Carrying Concealed Weapons Shooting w/ Intent to Kill 2 Girard, OH Brock, Russell Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Burns, C. A. (or C. S.) Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Akron, OH Cessna, Clyde Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Clapp, Charles H. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Youngstown, OH Cope, Earl E. Rioting 1 Sebring, OH Croft, Clyde "Ted" Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Crouch, Edgar Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Dell, Theodore Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Doughty, Samuel Carrying Concealed Weapons Rioting 2 Sebring, OH Dunn, Rex Shooting w/ Intent to Kill 1 Niles, OH Eicher, Robert Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Ellerbush, Clarence Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Gibson, George Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Gifford, Charles E. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Goodhart, Bert A. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Hauger, John C. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Henry, C. R. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Youngstown, OH Hillman, William E. Perjury 1 Niles, OH Hughes, Robert Carrying Concealed Weapons Rioting 2 Youngstown, OH Kaiser, Clarence Ellsworth Carrying Concealed Weapons Rioting 2 Youngstown, OH Klappich, Louis Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Luckert, Otto Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Marcellus, F. E. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH McIntyre, Robert Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Meredith, Emmett C. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Ringwald, Fred Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Schroeder, F. A. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Seitz, Harry Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Girard, OH Skaggs, George Carrying Concealed Weapons Shooting w/ Intent to Kill 2 Waynesburg, OH Summers, Richard Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo, OH Tompkins, W. Floyd Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH White, C. H. (or C. A.) Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Niles, OH Wire, John C. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Youngstown, OH Withrow, R. P. Carrying Concealed Weapons 1 Toledo,OH

Total Indictments: 43

Combined Total November 1, 1924 Riot Indictments: 104 Total Number of Indictments the Newspapers Claimed 104

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Bibliography: Primary Sources: Ohio Newspapers:

The Akron Beacon Journal, 1919-1923

The Cincinnati Enquirer, 1923

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1920-1930

The Chronicle Telegram (Elyria), 1924

The Coshocton Tribune, 1924

The Daily Times (New Philadelphia), 1919-1925

The Evening Gazette (Xenia), 1924

The Evening Independent (Massillon), 1924

The Evening Review (East Liverpool), 1923

The Lima News, 1924

The Mahoning Dispatch (Canfield), 1917

The Mansfield News, 1924

The Niles Daily Times, 1900-1930

The Newark Advocate, 1927

The Portsmouth Daily Times, 1923-1924

The Star Journal (Sandusky), 1924

The Steubenville Herald Star, 1900-1930

The Times Recorder (Zanesville), 1923

The Warren Tribune Chronicle, 1900-1930

The Washington Courthouse Herald, 1924

The Western Reserve Democrat (Warren), 1900-1930

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The Youngstown Telegram, 1900-1930

The Youngstown Vindicator, 1900-1930

Newspapers from Other States:

The Ada Evening News (OK), 1924

The Alexandria Daily Town Talk (LA), 1923

The Alton Evening Telegraph (IL), 1924

The Amarillo Daily News (TX), 1927

The Anniston Star (AL), 1924

The Appleton Post-Crescent (WI), 1924

The Auburn Citizen (NY), 1923

The Bakersfield Californian (CA), 1924

The Bakersfield Morning Echo (CA), 1924

The Bee Danville (VA), 1924

The Belvidere Daily Republican (IL), 1923

The Biddeford Daily Journal (ME), 1923-1924

The Billings Gazette (MT), 1924

The Binghamton Press and Leader (NY), 1923

The Bode Bugle (IA), 1924

The Bradford Era (PA), 1924

The Brownwood Bulletin (TX), 1924

The Burlington Gazette (IA), 1924

The Carbondale Free Press (IL), 1923

The Centralia Sentinel (IL), 1924

The Charleston Daily Mail (WV), 1924

310

The Chicago Daily Tribune (IL), 1923

The Constitution (Atlanta, GA), 1924

The Cook County Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), 1924

The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), 1923

The Cumberland Evening News (MD), 1924

The Daily Ardmoreite (OK), 1924

The Daily Democrat (Greenville, MS), 1923-1924

The Daily Herald Biloxi-Gulfport (MS), 1924

The Daily Independent (Murphysboro, IL), 1923-1924

The Daily News (Frederick, MD), 1924

The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 1923

The Daily Republican (Rushville, IN), 1923

The Daily Times-Enterprise (Thomasville, GA), 1924

The Davenport Democrat and Leader (IA), 1924

The Decatur Herald (IL), 1923

The Decatur Review (IL), 1924

The Democrat-Forum (Maryville, MO), 1924

The Detroit Free Press (MI), 1924

The Detroit Online News, 2015

The Evening Leader (Corning, NY), 1922-1924

The Evening Tribune-Times (Hornell, NY), 1923

The Emporia Daily Gazette (KS), 1923-1924

The Fayetteville Democrat (AR), 1924

The Freeport Journal-Standard (IL), 1923

The Fort Wayne Sentinel (IN), 1923

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The Hamilton Journal (NY), 1924

The Harrison Daily Times (AR), 1924

The Hattiesburg American (MS), 1924

The Helena Daily Independent (MT), 1924

The Houston Post (TX), 1923

The Indiana Gazette (PA), 1924

The Interlaken Review (NY), 1923-1924

The Iola Daily Register (KS), 1923-1924

The Iowa City Press-Citizen (IA), 1924

The Jacksonville Daily Journal (IL), 1924

The Joplin Globe (MO), 1924

The Kane Republican (PA), 1923-1954

The Kingsport Times (TN), 1924

The Kokomo Daily Tribune (IN), 1924

The Laurel Daily Leader (MS), 1924

The Lawrence Daily Journal (KS), 1923-1924

The Lebanon Daily News (PA), 1924-1925

The Lethbridge Daily Herald (Alberta, Canada), 1924

The Lincoln Star (NE), 1924

The Linton Daily Citizen (IN), 1924

The Lock Haven Express (PA), 1924

The Logansport Indiana Pharos-Tribune (IN), 1924

The Logansport Morning Press (IN), 1924

The Manitowoc Herald News (WI), 1924

The Marion Daily Republican (IL), 1923-1925

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The Marion Weekly Leader (IL), 1923-1925

The Mexia Daily News (TX), 1924

The Moberly Evening Democrat (MO), 1923-1924

The Monmouth Review (IL), 1924

The Muncie Evening Press (IN), 1923

The Nevada State Journal (Reno, NV), 1924

The New York Herald (NY), 1923

The New York Times (NY), 1900-1930

The New York World, (NY), 1921

The News-Herald (Franklin, PA), 1923

The Oakland Tribune (CA), 1924

The Oelwein Daily Register (IA), 1924

The Ogden Standard Examiner (UT), 1944

The Olean Evening Times (NY), 1924-1925

The Oskaloosa Daily Herald (IA), 1924

The Philadelphia Enquirer (PA), 1923

The Pittsburgh Press (PA), 1923

The Port Arthur News (TX), 1924

The Provo Daily Herald (UT), 1924

The Republican Press (Salamanca, NY), 1924

The Roswell Daily Record (NM), 1924

The San Antonio Express (TX), 1924

The San Antonio Light (TX), 1924

The Scranton Republican (PA), 1923

The Sioux City Journal (IA), 1924

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The Springfield Republican (MO), 1923

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO), 1923

The St. Louis Star (MO), 1923

The Stevens Point Daily Journal (WI), 1924

The Steuben Courier (NY), 1922-1924

The Titusville Herald (PA), 1924

The Twin Falls Daily News (ID), 1924

The Waterloo Evening Courier (IA), 1924

The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune (WI), 1924

The Wichita Daily Times (KS), 1924

The Washington Herald (IN), 1924

Klan Newspapers:

The Buckeye American (Warren, Ohio), 1924

The Fiery Cross (Indianapolis, IN), 1923-1925

The Kourier (Atlanta, GA), 1923-1925

The Youngstown Citizen (Youngstown, Ohio), 1923-1925

Youngstown Foreign Language Newspapers:

The Youngstown Cittadino Italo-Americano, 1922- 1925

The Youngstownske Slovenske Noviny, 1923-1925

African-American Newspapers:

The Afro American (Baltimore, MD), 1924

The Pittsburgh Courier (PA), (1924)

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Court Documents:

Trial documents related to the 104 indictments stemming from the November 1924 Niles Klan Riot. Additionally I have documents and files for over 130 other court cases related to the 104 rioters and their family members ranging from 1870 to 1947. These files all are from the Trumbull County Courthouse archive.

Those cited in this dissertation were:

Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1659 (1915), Jennings, Joe. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1730 (1915), Croft, Clyde. Trumbull County Clerk of Courts Criminal Files, File 1886 (1917) DeAugustine, Sam. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1930 (1917), Yarnell, David; Parfitt, David; Croft, Clyde. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1975(1917), Muche, Jimmie. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2182 (1918), Spano, Frank. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2184 (1918), Spano, Frank. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1946 (1918), Croft, Clyde. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2723 (1921), DeAugustine, Sam. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2724 (1921), DeAugustine, Sam. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 2725 (1921), Scarnecchia, Sam. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 1072 (1922), Jennings, James. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 4432 (1927), Sanfrey, Anthony. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 4452 (1927), Sanfrey, Anthony. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5301 (1930), Jennings, James. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5302 (1930), Mollica, Anthony. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5303 (1930), Mango, Thomas. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5304 (1930), Ciminero, Dominic. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5305 (1930), Corano, Tony. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5306 (1930), Flask, Marty. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5307 (1930), Gumino, Frank.

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Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5308 (1930), Jones, V.W. Trumbull County Clerk of Court Criminal Files, File 5309 (1930), Sanfrey, Anthony.