Daisy Douglas Barr: From Quaker to Klan “Kluckeress”

Dwight W.Hoover”

In July, 1923, at the first annual meeting of the Grand Drag- ons of the Knights of the in Asheville, North Caro- lina, Daisy Douglas Barr, the only woman on the program, read a poem, “The Soul of America”: I am clothed with wisdom’s mantle; Age and experience are mine, Yet I am still in the swaddling clothes Of my existence. I am strong beyond my years; My hand typifies strength, And although untrained in cunning Its movements mark the quaking Of the enemies of my country. My eye, though covered, is all-seeing; It penetrates the dark recesses of law violation, Treason, political corruption and injustice, Causing these cowardly culprits to bare their unholy faces In the light of my all-seeing revelations. My vision is so broad That my daily meditations force upon me new problems, New situations and new obligations. My feet are swift to carry the strength of my hand And the penetrations of my all-seeing eye. My nature is serious, righteous and just, And tempered with the love of Christ. My purpose is noble, far-reaching and age-lasting.

Dwight W. Hoover is professor of history and director of the Center for Mid- dletown Studies, , Muncie, .

INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, LXXXVII (June, 1991) 1991, Trustees of 172 Zndiana Magazine of History

My heart is heavy, but not relenting; Sorrowful but not hopeless; Pure but ever able to master the unclean; Humble but not cowardly; Strong but not arrogant; Simple but not foolish; Ready, without fear. I am the Spirit of Righteousness. They call me the Ku Klux Klan. I am more than the uncouth robe and hood With which I am clothed. YEA, I AM THE SOUL OF AMERICA.’ Barr had come a long way to speak in Asheville, both literally and figuratively. Born Daisy Douglas Brushwiller in Jonesboro, In- diana, in 1878, she had become an evangelist at the age of sixteen and a recorded Friends minister two years later. This vigorous Hoosier Quaker was active also in Republican politics and became in the early 1920s the first woman to serve as vice-chair of the Indiana Republican party. In 1922, as the state’s key figure in women’s Ku Klux Klan activity, Barr organized the Queens of the Golden Mask and served as its Imperial Empress.2 Barr’s service as pastor of Muncie Friends Meeting and as or- ganizer of one of the Klan auxiliaries is not as disparate as might be assumed. Rather, her actions form part of one continuum. Her development as a Quaker took place amidst radical change in the Society of Friends, and Barr’s life is in many ways symptomatic of that change. Quakerism was becoming more and more a part of evangelical , as both pastors and revivals were in- creasingly accepted. Furthermore, many members, like Barr, were being drawn from non-Quaker background^.^ As for her Klan con- nections, contrary to the contention of at least one ~cholar,~Barr did not follow her husband into the Klan but instead led him. A strong woman in her own right, she did rely upon powerful men as patrons.

I Papers Read at the Meeting of Grand Dragons, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, At their First Annual Meeting held at Asheuille, , July 1923 . . . ([At- lanta, 19231), 135. 2Muncie Star, April 4, 1938; News, April 4, 1938; Indianapolis Star, April 4, 1938. None of these accounts of the auto accident that killed Barr mentioned her connection with the Ku Klux Klan. For her Klan membership see John Augustus Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1920-1930: An Historical Study (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Northwestern University, 1966), 141-44; Muncie Post-Democrat, January 2, 1924; Indianapolis News, July 26, 1923, January 3, 1924; Indianapolis Star, November 12, 1924. 3 See Thomas D. Hamm, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Ortho- don Friends, 1800-1907 (Bloomington, 1988). 4 For instance, Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku KlmKlan and the City, 1915-1930 (, 19671, 150. Daisy Douglas Burr 173

DAISYDOUGLAS BARR

Reproduced from Daisy Douglas Bar, Springs That Run Dry and Other Addresses (Noblesville, Ind., n.d.),facing xvi.

Although Daisy Douglas Brushwiller’s grandfather, George Douglas, was a Methodist minister, her father, John W. Brush- willer, joined the Society of Friends after service in the Civil War.5 Her mother, Sarah, who evidently made considerable impression upon her, dedicated Daisy as the seventh child to the ministry. In her early years Daisy attended both Methodist and Friends congre- gations, but at age eight she received her call to ministry during a

New Castle Monthly Meeting Membership Book, 191S1932, p. 19, Indiana Yearly Meeting Archives (Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana); Rolland Lewis Whitson, ed., Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 . . . (2 vols., Chicago, 1914), 11,830-31. Such service was by no means disqualifying as the Quak- ers in Indiana had more enlistments in proportion to their membership than any other denomination in the state. See Hamm, Transformation of American Quaker- ism, 68. Parenthetically, Muncie Friends Meeting was renamed Friends Memorial in 1912. 174 Indiana Magazine of History visit to the woodshed for solitude.6 Although Center Friends Meet- ing in Grant County was a traditional silent meeting with limited preaching, the style of worship evidently did not make enough of an impact to deflect her from her goal to be a minister. She was much influenced by one member, Sallie Winslow Stephens, a pub- lic schoolteacher who had later gone to India as a mi~sionary.~It is unclear how much education Daisy received, but it is doubtful that she attended college. She was working as a clerk in a Jones- boro department store and living with a woman friend before her marriage, although her job also was not to deter her from the min- istry. At sixteen she reportedly preached her first sermon, after which she was “saved” at a United Brethren service conducted by a traveling woman evangelist.8 On November 21, 1893, she wed Thomas Dean Barr of Fair- mount. Born in Saint Clair County, Missouri, in 1870, Barr had come to Fairmount with his mother, Elizabeth Dean Barr, who had relatives in the area, in 1874, shortly after the death of his father. In Grant County Thomas attended Fairmount Academy. After his mother’s death in 1876 Barr attended Indiana State Normal School at Terre Haute and then began a twenty-year career as a teacher in Grant and Henry c~unties.~On December 14, 1895, the couple’s only child, Thomas Raymond, was born. At the same time Daisy was becoming more active in Friends meetings. She had trans- ferred her membership from Upland Monthly Meeting to Marion in August, 1894, and less than a year later was recorded as a min- ister at the Marion Monthly Meeting.’O For the next few years Barr apparently followed her husband as he taught in various schools in ; frequently she pastored meetings and occasionally acted as a general evangel- ist for Indiana Yearly Meeting. In 1898, for instance, she held a series of revivals in Kennard, Indiana, and won a number of con- verts there. On April 18, 1900, she performed a wedding at Spice-

fi Indianapolis Star, April 4, 1938; Indianapolis News, April 4, 1938; Muncie Star, April 4, 1938; and Daisy Douglas Barr, Springs That Run Dry and Other Addresses (Noblesville, Ind., n.d.), 19, which is a collection of Barr’s sermons that also contains some autobiographical material. It probably was published between 1912 and 1920. The recorded date for Daisy’s reception into Fairmount Monthly Meeting, which included the Center congregation, was 6th Mo. 16, 1886, using the Quaker dating system. Willard C. Heiss, ed., Abstracts ofthe Society ofFriends in Indiana (7 vols., Indianapolis, 1970), 111, 381. Whitson, Centennial History of Grant County, I, 266. In the first volume Barr is listed as the pastor of Fairmount Friends Meeting; in the second as pastor of Muncie Friends Meeting. Barr, Springs That Run Dry, 23-24. Whitson, Centennial History ofGrant County, 11, 830-31. He also took business courses at Indiana Business College to prepare himself for his second career as an auditor. See Grant County and Who’s Who (Marion, Ind., 1909), 14. In New Castle Monthly Meeting Book, 19; Whitson, Centennial History ofGrant County, 11, 830-31; Heiss, Abstracts, 111, 23. Daisy Douglas Barr 175

land, Indiana, and on May 24 her class address at Rich Square commencement was canceled because “the inclemency of the weather compelled her to remain home.” Between 1900 and 1903 Barr was pastor of the Friends Meeting in Lewisville (Henry County), which was included in Hopewell Monthly Meeting. In 1903 the Barr family took its membership from Hopewell to West- land Monthly Meeting, and in 1905 Barr and Edna Hill of Wichita, Kansas, held a revival in Fenton, , which reportedly con- verted fifty people and added twenty new members to the Friends meeting there. In 1906, while her husband was principal at Van Buren High School in Grant County, reports maintain that Barr “healed” a sick person at Portland during a revival. Thomas Barr served for a time as deputy sheriff but moved on to a succession of jobs, including meat inspector and deputy county clerk. In 1907 the Barrs returned to Fairmount where Daisy preached and Thomas taught, first at Fairmount Academy and then at the high school.ll Daisy was active in a variety of reform movements in Fairmount, usually dealing with temperance, but she also served as secretary of the Indiana Board of Charities and Corrections.12 At twenty- nine, she had already achieved a considerable reputation among Friends and even among social reformers beyond Grant County. Three years later, in 1910, Barr first appeared in Muncie as the minister of Muncie Friends Meeting, although Thomas, who had been teaching at Fairmount, had moved to Little Rock, Arkan- sas, to engage in business. By 1911, however, he had become dep- uty auditor of Grant County, and the family lived together in downtown Muncie at 215Ih West Main Street.13 Daisy Barr’s call to the Muncie congregation was not out of keeping with the history of that meeting in particular or of the Society of Friends in gen- eral; recall that Barr had served at least one congregation before. Moreover, from the beginning of the system in Indiana Yearly Meeting women had served as pastors. Esther Frame, for instance, a minister of great power, had exercised considerable influence in the Midwest and in beginning the Friends church in Muncie.14

“News from the Field,” American Friend, 1st Mo. 6, 1898, p. 11; Marriage Application Book 4, 1898-1901, p. 15, Clerk of Court’s Office, Henry County Court- house, New Castle, Indiana; New Castle Courier, May 24, 1900; Heiss, Abstracts, IV, 418; “Things of Interest among Ourselves,” American Friend, 12th Mo. 28,1905, p. 879; American Friend, 5th Mo. 3, 1906, p. 296; Whitson, Centennial History of Grant County, 11, 830-31. l2 Whitson, Centennial History of Grant County, I, 541. l3 Muncie Star, March 19, 1911. l4 Errol T. Elliott, Quakers on the American Frontier: A History of the West- ward Migrations, Settlements, and Developments of Friends of the American Conti- nent (Richmond, Ind., 1969), 264. Frame and her husband Nathan were representative of the holiness movement’s impact on midwestern Quakerism after the Civil War. A practicing Methodist, she became a Quaker in 1869 largely so she could become a recognized minister. The revival continued in the 1870s and 1880s MINISTERSOF THE INDIANA YEARLY MEETINGOF FRIENDS, 1904

DAISYDOUGLAS BARR IS CIRCLED AT LEFT

Courtesy Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends Archives, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana. Daisy Douglas Barr 177

Furthermore, Quakerism since the 1870s had been increasing its emphasis on social purity, which perfectly suited Barr’s growing zeal. Barr’s role in Muncie was in reforming the community through prohibition of alcohol, through creation of a Young Wom- en’s Christian Association (YWCA), and through the formation of a refuge for former prostitutes-all in keeping with Friends testi- monies. Yet her vigor, her political savvy, and her considerable organizational talents were gradually deemed excessive. Moreover, the tactics she used to promote her main cause-temperance-were often of questionable legality and bespoke a willingness to use al- most any means to achieve the desired end. Barr first became prominent in Muncie in the wet campaign of 1911. After a long struggle, Muncie had become dry in 1909. Indiana’s Proctor Law of 1908 allowed an election to vote on countywide prohibition if 20 percent of the voters signed a petition. Using the liberalized standards, Delaware County drys not only succeeded in obtaining an election in 1909 but in subsequently overwhelming Muncie’s wets.15 In the spring of 1911, wets counterattacked, circulating a pe- tition for another election and obtaining the requisite number of signatures. Even before the petition was presented, however, the drys had begun to organize in opposition. Foremost among the dry forces was the Dry League, whose president, Joseph A. Goddard, was a member of Muncie Friends Meeting. As his pastor, Barr an- nounced her intention to organize a group of women supporters whose activities would supplement those of the Dry League.16 The drys used the same strategy that had proven so effective two years earlier-mass meetings with both local and outside speakers and a highly organized campaign to get their message to residents. Barr played a leading role in influencing women. On April 6, she spoke at the Jackson Street Christian Church to an enthusiastic audience of women and got a resolution passed prom- ising that the women would not vote for anyone who supported saloons (since women could not vote, they would presumably influ- ence those who could). Four days later the women drys had organ-

and garnered nine thousand new members in Indiana alone, which created a prob- lem for orthodox Quakers because the holiness influence rejected plain dress, silent meetings, and pacifism, adopting a pastoral ministry. The first such meeting in Indiana was in Muncie in 1878; Esther Frame was pastor. Zbid., 254-57; Hamm, Transformation of American Quakerism, 75-76,83,85-86, 100, 124-25, 127; [Nathan T. Frame and Esther G. Frame], Reminiscences of Nathan and Esther Frame (Cleve- land, 1907), 85-88. 15 Charles E. Canup, “The Temperance Movement in Indiana (Continued),”Zn- diana Magazine of History, XVI (June, 1920), 140-47; Clifton J. Phillips, Zndiunu in Transition: The Emergence of an Industrial Commonwealth, 1880-1920 (Indiana- polis, 1968), 91-101; Muncie Evening Press, January 27, 1914. Muncie Morning Star, March 21, 22, 29, 1911. 178 Indiana Magazine of History

ized and opened an office next to the Dry League’s headquarters and selected Barr as the group’s president. Barr organized the vot- ers of the first precinct using the Friends church as her headquar- ters and brought her sister, Mary McVicker, from Fairmount to speak at other area churches. She also recruited a former associate, Leora Bogue of Fairmount, an evangelistic singer, to provide music at prohibition meetings, which were held as often as four times a day. By campaign’s end, however, Barr had become the center of attention. The Muncie Star described Barr as “one of the foremost in the fight against the saloons.” On April 23 she attracted sixteen hundred women to a Sunday meeting held at the Wysor Grand, a meeting she choreographed and over which she presided.17 But the wets struck back. On April 27, one of Barr’s aides, Carrie D. Hageman, an executive committee member of the Dry League, was taken to city court on charges of libel, based on her statement, ‘(ASlong as policemen are blind to conditions there will be blind tigers.” Hageman’s defense was that the statement in question was a general one obtained from Barr, who had used it in a half-dozen cities. The explanation evidently placated the authori- ties, for Hageman was released.ls Nevertheless, the dry campaign ended with a spectacular parade the Saturday before the election. While Barr was not listed as a parade offlcial (Goddard was in charge), she had a prominent place, riding in a white carriage with Hageman and Reba Richy, chair of the press bureau of the Dry League’s a~xi1iary.l~The day before the election Barr spoke again at the Wysor Grand to her women’s group and received a “chautau- qua salute” for her stirring call to arms, saying I am in this fight for what I can do for the sake of humanity, for God, for my fellow- man. When the fight opened in Marion, I went there. I called out against the brew- ers and saloonists; I called on the soldiers, comrades of my father, to arise to the fight; I called on all who would like to arise. They did arise to it and the town went dry.20 All eyes were on Muncie May 2, 1911, the largest city in Indi- ana ever to have a special local option election. And although both sides were edgy, the election itself was relatively quiet. There were but nine arrests: seven for illegal voting, one for assault and bat- tery, and one for perjury. When the votes were counted, the wets had won, 3,108 to 2,632, which reversed the results of 1909. The

17Zbid.,April 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 24, 1911. ’”Zbid.,April 27, 1911. “Blind tigers” were establishments that sold beer, wine, or liquor in quantities of less than five gallons or allowed persons to drink inside without a license. See the discussion of the Baxter Law in Canup, “The Temperance Movement in Indiana,” 145. Muncie Morning Star, April 28, 30, 1911. Zbid., May 1, 1911. A chautauqua salute was a wave with a white handker- chief. Daisy Douglas Barr 179

city went wet while the surrounding townships went dry; six pre- cincts south of the railroad tracks won the election.21 The scramble for saloon licenses after the election was as un- seemly as the drys had predicted. Among those who applied were William McIlvaine, a police captain and an ex-saloon owner who had joined the force after the 1909 saloon-closing election, and Fred Puckett, another police officer who had several convictions for in- toxication and assault and battery.22Eventually Muncie had one ward where twenty-five saloons served most of downtown Muncie and the red-light district. In spite of defeat, Barr was still taking a leadership role in the larger community. One result of the dry campaign was formation of an institution for young people that would provide alternatives to the saloon. The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) got the nod, and in the summer of 1911 Muncie witnessed a major cam- paign, led by members of the Ball family, to fund a new YMCA building. The campaign raised two hundred thousand dollars, over half of it donated by the Balls, which culminated in a visit by President to congratulate the community on its spirited citizens.23Although there was an effort underway to build a corresponding institution for women, it had accomplished little. Barr changed all that. Using the same techniques she had wielded so effectively in the local option election, she held a series of meetings to publicize the YWCA. First named the Young Wom- en’s Social and Physical Betterment Association, Barr’s group met at the Friends church with the object of “improvement socially and physically of the young women of the city.” Any girl in the com- munity over fifteen was eligible to join. By the second meeting, three hundred women had become charter members, and twenty- five directors had been chosen, among them Barr and Elizabeth W. Brady Ball and Bertha Crosley Ball, representing virtually every Protestant church and every social class in Muncie. Before year’s end Muncie had a YWCA.24 Daisy Douglas Barr again became significantly involved in po- litical affairs in Muncie two years later when she had become president of the Humane Society. Although her sympathies lay with the Citizen’s party (representing drys) and the Republican party, she had abstained from participation in the exciting munic- ipal campaign. She had, however, been promoting the idea of add- ing a policewoman to the force and helped arrange a meeting

21 Zbid., May 3, 1911. The six precincts included the red-light district, rooming houses, and working-class neighborhoods. 22Zbid.,May 5, September 17, 1911. 23Zbid.,July 3, 4, 1911. Muncie’s YMCA dated from 1875 but had languished without proper facilities. 24Zbid.,June 19, 21, August 22, 1911. 180 Indiana Magazine of History between members of the Humane Society and mayor-elect Rollin G. Bunch to discuss the pos~ibility.~~Barr had pressed for the cre- ation of the post for several years because a policewoman would be, among other things, an instrument in transforming prostitutes into reformed citizens.26 The results of the meeting with Bunch were mixed; he agreed to appoint a woman to the force, but he would not tell his visitors her name. When he did announce his selection, the woman he chose was Alfaretta Hart, wife of a Muncie glass and automobile manufacturer. Hart, however, was not the kind of woman Barr and the drys wanted-she was Catholic and wet. Furthermore, Hart had supported Bunch in the campaign and, in a fiery speech at the Wysor Grand before the election, had at- tacked both prohibition and the “corrupt society’’ that controlled Muncie. Her appointment was announced two days after Barr and her group met with Bunch, although she would not take office un- til early January. Before she had a chance to do so, the reform coalition quickly attacked the appointment on two grounds: that the terms of her service made her only a matron in charge of fe- male prisoners and that her appointment should have been made by the Board of Public Works, which was charged with selection and supervision of police, after the receipt of twenty-five recom- mendations from local residents.27 Barr was not sufficiently disaffected, however, to refuse the invitation of Bunch to offer the invocation at the first meeting of the city council in January, 1914.2sLater that same week the may- or’s actions raised the hopes of Barr and fellow reformers. On Janu- ary 9, police staged huge raids on “blind tigers,” on drug stores selling illicit drugs, and on houses of prostituti~n.~~Barr had also become immediately involved. On the night of the raids, she tele- phoned members of the police board, offering to speak to the “fallen women.” The following night, she chaired a meeting of several re- formers, including Reverend Edward Mason and Frank C. Ball. All agreed that a refuge €or the women who wished to abandon prosti- tution was needed. Barr had convinced them that “it was up to the Christian people of Muncie to prevent the women deprived of home and means of support by the order of the board from being thrown on the streets, either to starve or infect the community with scat- tered evil instead of a segregated one.” The group decided to rent

Muncie Evening Press, November 15, 1913. The Progressive Republican can- didate, Harry Kitselman, had first broached the idea of a policewoman in his cam- paign speeches. 26 See Anne Szopa, “Images of Women in Muncie Newspapers, 1895-1915,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Ball State University, 1986), 126-27, 134, 162-63. 27 Zbid., 162-66; Muncie Evening Press, November 17, 20, 1913. ZH Muncie Morning Star, January 6, 1914. 29 Zbid., January 10, 1914. Daisy Douglas Barr 181

a home in an undisclosed location and name it the “Friendly Inn.” Because of Barr’s early involvement she became president and Ma- son became vice-president when the board was organized on Janu- ary 21. By that time the board had additional resources: Amos Whiteley, a local industrialist, had donated $300; Milford H. Lyon’s tablernacle collection had amounted to $175; and the Wom- en’s Club, true to its promise, had given $120.30 Despite early monetary support, the Friendly Inn was plagued with difficulties from the start; the board was even unable to hire a full-time matron. More seriously the founders had hoped that for- mer prostitutes would come into the refuge willingly but were soon disappointed. They also knew that there would be temptations to “backslide” on the part of those who did come. But they had hoped to avoid these temptations by hiring a matron to control the home, by placing the refuge in a secret location, and by close police su- pervision. They were unsuccessful, however. By February 10, the evening newspaper reported that the Friendly Inn was closed while the red-light district was again open.31 Barr did not admit defeat. While the inn was struggling, she had traveled to Chicago to interview a prospective candidate for matron. When she returned, she learned of the board’s action to close the refuge and tried to reverse it. The boards rationale was that since the town’s regulation of brothels was lax, the refuge could not succeed because of the temptations offered to its resi- dents. When called upon to explain the opening of the houses, city officials denied that any were open. Bunch even instructed two po- licemen to visit all the sites raided. They reported back that no house was open.32Given such reassurance by the mayor, Barr de- termined to reopen the refuge, although ultimately the inn sank quietly from public view. There is no further mention of it again in newspapers, nor is there evidence that it reformed any prosti- tutes. The Friendly Inn was one of Barr’s least successful endeav- ors. Barr’s attention was quickly diverted to another election. On February 7, 1914, the drys presented a petition for a local option election containing thirteen hundred names, one hundred more than required.33Two weeks later the drys began an intensive cam- paign, again utilizing the tactics from the previous election.

Muncie Evening Press, January 12, 16, 21, 1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,” 171-73. For information about Lyon see note 41. Muncie Evening Press, February 10, 1914. The Friendly Inn had probably closed at the end of January. 55 Muncie Morning Star, January 29, 1914; Muncie Evening Press, February 10, 11, 1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,” 140-41. There is no doubt that the town was “open” again; the resorts had merely moved. jJ Muncie Evening Press, February 7, 1914. 182 Indiana Magazine of History

In the dry campaign of 1914 Barr’s role was much less conspicuous than in 1911. While she spoke at meetings, she no longer was the organizer of women’s branches of dry groups. Fur- thermore, the wets ran a more aggressive campaign. Their most popular speaker was Hart, Barr’s former foe in the fight against prohibition. On March 4, Hart filled the Wysor Grand to overflow- ing, with an additional 350 listeners compelled to sit on stage, hun- dreds crowding the lobby, and others turned away. She delivered a scathing and sensational attack on the leaders of the drys and ac- cused them of being hypocrites who drank secretly, consorted with prostitutes, and seduced young girls.34 As the election neared, the drys stepped up their campaign, organizing women in various precincts, some to serve coffee and free lunches to those working the polls and others to check voter registration. Poll watching was in response to rumors that wets had imported over one hundred outsiders and settled them in room- ing houses to flood the The drys also countered the claims of wets that Muncie’s power elite wanted to vote the town dry while still imbibing. Prohibitionist lecturers spoke to employees of Warner Gear and New York Central, as well as to assembled ma- chinists whose employers had released them for the speeches. Barr spoke at to what was evidently a hostile audience.36 The situation in Muncie was complicated by the normal division in law enforcement between a largely wet city police force and a dry county sheriff. Election day was prickly as a near civil war erupted between the two law enforcement agencies. When the election was over, the drys had won, but each side was angry over the other’s strongarm Barr was not long in Muncie to savor the victory; two weeks afterward she entered a sanitarium in Madison, Tennessee. Ac- cording to a cryptic note in the evening paper, Barr was accompa- nied by a nurse to where another nurse from the institution escorted her the remainder of the way. The newspaper did not indicate the reason for the trip but said, “While Mrs. Barr’s condition is improved, the physicians decided that a few weeks of rest and quiet were absolutely essential for her re~overy.”~~

34 Zbid.,February 25, March 4,1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,” 178-90. Signifi- cantly, neither Muncie’s morning nor evening newspaper carried the text of the speech, although both ran editorials attacking Hart’s position. The Muncie Evening Press did print the speech she gave at the Municipal League convention at Colum- bus, Indiana, on July 9, 1914, which seems to have been identical with the one delivered in Muncie. 3s Zbid., March 3, 1914. Sfi Barr, Springs That Run Dry,145. She said, “it was the first religious meeting ever held in this shop, there being a large number of men who were agnostic so- cialists.” Zbid. 37Muncie Euening Press, March 9, 1914. The preliminary count gave drys a 441-vote margin; the final margin was 462 votes, 3,393 to 2,931. ““Zbid.,March 23, 1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,” 177. Daisy Douglas Barr 183

On July 22, Barr resigned her Muncie pastorate, giving poor health as the reason. At the annual meeting of the church board, she indicated that her problems were a weak heart and a general breakdown that prevented her from carrying out church routine. She promised to continue to preach until September 1 but planned to spend most of her time north at her Winona Lake summer home, commuting to Muncie only on weekends. In the fall she and her son would move back to Fairmount so that he could continue his education. Her husband, the newspaper reported, was a state ac- countant and was working in a northern county; presumably, he would join his family at Winona Lake.39 The Muncie accounts of Barr’s leaving commented on her successes in Muncie, specifically mentioning that she was the only woman member of the ministe- rial association and that she was a member of the boards of the Delaware County Children’s Home and the Humane Society. They failed to list her work as a dry, however, or as a founder of the YWCA or the Friendly Inn.40 Why had Barr left? Was it really because of ill health? That is difficult to believe; she was only thirty-seven and had been quite active with no hint of illness earlier that year. Furthermore, her later career showed no signs of invalidism, for despite her poor health, Barr had apparently already made future plans. On Sep- tember 13, she joined Reverend Milford H. Ly~n,~lwho also had a summer home in Winona Lake, on an evangelical crusade begin- ning in Chillicothe, . Barr was in charge of the newly created women’s department and was quoted as saying that she was well- acquainted with evangelistic work, having begun her career as an evangeli~t.~~Nevertheless, life on the evangelical trail surely was more strenuous than life in an old manse. If illness was not the reason, several explanations are possible. Historian Anne Szopa speculates that Barr’s brief association with Democrats (and wets) Bunch and Hart in the aftermath of the pros- titutes’ arrest may have ruined her credibility with dry leaders. Perhaps there was difficulty with church- leaders because of her

39 Muncie Evening Press, July 23, 1914; Muncie Morning Star, July 13, 1914. Fairmount was the home of one of the best-known and last of the Friends acade- mies. It closed in 1923 when the local township withdrew its support. See Elliott, Quakers on the American Frontier, 202; Edgar M. Baldwin, ed., The Making of a Township: Being an Account of the Early Settlement and Subsequent Development ofFairmount, Township, Grant County, Indiana, 1829 to 1917. . . (Fairmount, Ind., 1917), 339-45. 4o Muncie Evening Press, July 23, 1914; Muncie Morning Star, July 23, 1914. 41 Lyon, an ardent Ohio prohibitionist, had come to Muncie at the request of drys in November, 1913, to conduct an evangelical crusade. The community built Lyon a wooden tabernacle near the downtown business area’s saloons. Lyon evi- dently was also a powerful speaker, attracting 87,995 persons into his makeshift auditorium in November alone. Barr had become chair of the daily noon meetings. See Muncie Evening Press, July 23, 1914; Muncie Morning Star, July 23, 1914. 42 Zbid. 184 Indiana Magazine of History sponsorship of the refuge for prostitutes, or with business leaders because of her Sabbitariani~m.~~Barr herself gave another reason. In her book of sermons she indicated that she had become inter- ested in interdenominational evangelism in unconventional sites- garages, factories, and tabernacles-and had wanted to reenter the field.44But because her first duty was to her son, she remained in pastoral work. When he went away to college, and with her hus- band‘s consent, she felt free to become an evangelist again.45 In spite of her departure, Muncie was important in Barr’s de- velopment. There she had learned how to organize women into ef- fective pressure groups, how to align herself with powerful members of the community, and how to cross party lines to coa- lesce with erstwhile political opponents. Although cognizant of the power of her rhetoric, she had also learned how tough and resilient opposition could be. In one of her later sermons, she noted that politics had a bad name because mayors in some cities had been arrested for bad conduct and had not been impeached by irate citi- zens. She also claimed that in one city in Indiana four dry workers were slandered and beaten to near death. These are obvious refer- ences to the situation in Muncie where raw force often seemed to carry the day.46 The record of Barr’s life for the next few years is unclear. Evi- dently staying with the Lyon crusade only one year,d7 she then traveled extensively on her own evangelical trips, earning the nickname of “Mother” Barr. She is mentioned in the Indianapolis Star in 1916 in an article on pioneer women of Indiana. By 1917 the Barrs appear to have located to Indianapolis, where Thomas was employed as an examiner for the state board of accounts.4s

43 Szopa, “Images of Women,” 177-78. Members of Friends Memorial Church are very reticent to talk about Barr. Barr, Springs That Run Dq,26. It is difficult to date the book. The sermons are obviously written after Barr left Muncie; one sermon notes that World War I had been in progress for twenty-eight months, which would date it about 1917. There is also a picture of her son in uniform that would date from either 1917 or 1918. On the other hand, the book contains pictures of meetings held in a glass plant that looks like Ball Brothers and a frame tablernacle resembling the one in Muncie. 45Zbid., 102, 108. Note, however, that there was no college in Fairmount and Barr had said her son would enter the academy. Barr’s son later graduated from Earlham College in 1921. Who’s Who Among Earlhamites, 1847-1928 (Richmond, Ind., 19281, 25. 4 Barr, Springs That Run Dry, 102,108. Bunch was arrested in 1915 and again in 1916, and drys in Muncie were attacked during and after local option elections. 47 Zbid., 27. MIndianapolis Star, November 1, 1916. The evidence is contradictory on the latter point. Polk’s city directory lists a Thomas D. Barr at 628 E. Seventeenth Street. R. L. Polk 8z Co., pub., Indianapolis City Directory for 1917 (Indianapolis, 1917), 266. The letter written by Thomas D. Barr for Baldwin’s history of Fair- mount is dated May 9, 1917, and the place from which it was written was Indiana- polis. Baldwin, The Making ofa Township, 415. On December 20, 1917, the Barr Daisy Douglas Barr 185

By the 1920s Daisy Barr had become a powerful figure in the political life of the state, acquiring two significant positions: president of the Indiana War Mothers, a group whose sons had served in World War I and that was an adjunct to the newly formed American Legion, and vice-chair of the Republican State Committee, the first woman to fill the post. Her husband, mean- while, had become deputy state bank commis~ioner.~~And Barr’s political activity had not snuffed out her religious career. In July, 1920, she accepted a call to the New Castle Friends Church, which had been without a pastor for some time. Using her flashy tech- niques she had considerable success in increasing the size and fi- nancial position of the church. She even coined a motto for the church: “The Church for the Family and the Family for the Church.” She was pastor for almost two years, retiring on June 19, 1922, in a way quite similar to the manner done in Muncie ten years earlier. She declared that she had been ill with influenza and that she had never had a real vacation. After leaving New Castle she planned to tour Europe in July and spend the winter in Egypt. She then said she would eventually become an evangelist for the Five Years Meeting but would continue to live in New Castle.so Barr, however, did not “retire” but instead moved more ac- tively into politics. When Indiana Governor Warren T. McCray se- lected her for vice-chair of the Republican State Committee in 1922, he also appointed Lawrence Lyons as state chairman of the Republican party (previously McCray had appointed Lyons to the state highway commission in 1921). In 1923 Lyons and Barr em- barrassed McCray and the Republican party when it surfaced that they had joined the Ku Klux Klan; both then resigned their party posts.51 family joined the Friends Church in Indianapolis on a certificate from Friends Me- morial in Muncie. Heiss, Abstracts, VI, 250. On the other hand, the notice of Barr’s death in 1938 said she moved to Indianapolis fifteen years earlier. Muncie Morning Star, April 4, 1938. Finally, when Barr was sued in June, 1924, her residence was said to be Fairmount, and the petitioners filed suit in Grant Superior Court. It is of course possible that the Barrs kept two residences, one in Fairmount and one in Indianapolis, although the Indianapolis Star, September 11, 1925, said Fairmount was Thomas Barr’s legal residence. In any case, Barr’s crusades probably kept her away from either place much of the time. In fact, while living in Indianapolis, she apparently preached regularly for a time at the Friends Meeting in Mooresville. 49 Indianapolis News, September 11, 1925; Muncie Morning Star, April 4, 1938; Muncie Post-Democrat, April 20, May 25, 1923. 5o New Castle Courier, July 24, 1920, May 13, June 19, 21, 1922. It is of course highly probable that Barr’s nascent ties with the Ku Klux Klan were the reason for her leaving New Castle. Judge William 0. Bernard (1852-1939), a former congress- man, was a voiciferous critic of the Klan, and likely the meeting’s leading member. 51 James H. Madison, Indiana through Tradition and Change: A History ofthe Hoosier State and Its People, 1920-1945 (Indianapolis, 1982), 94; Muncie Post- Democrat, May 25, 1923; Indianapolis Times, March 31, April 2, 1923; New York Times, March 31, April 1, 2, 1923. See also Frank Marquis Cates, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana Politics, 1920-1925” (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Govern- 186 Indiana Magazine of History

The reasons for Barr’s and Lyon’s involvement in the KKK lie in the history of the ; Indiana was the first state north of the Ohio River to establish a Klavern, on August 13, 1921,52after which the Klan spread rapidly through the state. In 1922, 6.4 percent of all Klan members lived in Indiana, Ohio, and ; two years later the percentage was 40.2. The total number of Klan members in Indiana is a matter of dispute; some estimate the total at about 125,000, while others place it at 500,000, one- half the adult male p~pulation.~~ As it became one of the most powerful political groups in the state, the Indiana Klan soon attracted many drys and minsters to its ranks. Historian John Augustus Davis has indicated that a ma- jor attraction was the problem of prohibition enf~rcement.~~The cooperation between drys and the Klan operated in the state leg- islature. Edward s. Shumaker, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League and a dominant force in the in the early 1920s, cooperated with the Klan to push old-time religion and bone-dry prohibition among state 1egislato1-s.~~The enrollment of ministers was a calculated move by David C. Stephenson, who instructed Kleagles to send him lists of ministers in the commu- nity. He would then make them honorary members and tell them that he would require Klan members to attend. If the sermons were favorable, donations would be forthcoming. As a result nine of ten Klan lecturers were introduced as “re~erend.”~~Because of this emphasis the Klan enrolled many Protestant ministers, partic- ularly Baptists, Methodists, and Disciples of Christ. In turn, notes ment, Indiana University, 1971), 79-83. Lyons claimed to have only been a member of the Klan for six weeks and announced his resignation from the KKK by a tele- gram to Tolerance, an anti-Klan newspaper. The circumstances of both leaving were not made public, so the pressure exercised by the Indiana Republican Committee was not measured. George R. Dale, Muncie’s anti-Klan editor, said it best “In the case of Daisy Barr, the political she-preacher, klucker, the committee also remains discreetly silent.” Muncie Post-Democrat, May 25, 1923. McCray does not appear to have been a Klansman. Indeed, he was brought out of jail in 1928 to testify as a prosecution witness against Governor Ed Jackson, who was on trial. McCray claimed Jackson offered him ten thousand dollars to appoint a Klan member as county prosecutor and he refused. Madison, Indiana through Tradition and Change, 51. McCray, interestingly, appointed Barr’s husband to be deputy bank commis- sioner in March, 1923, the same time Daisy was becoming active in the Klan. In- dianapolis Star, September 11, 1925. 52 Carol A. Elrod, “A Descriptive Study of the Ku Klux Klan’s Anti-Catholic Propaganda from 1922-1924 in Two of Its Publications Distributed in Indiana: The Fiery Cross and Dawn” (M.A. thesis, Department of Journalism, Ball State Univer- sity, 1979), 16. 53 Zbid., 30-32; Jackson, Ku Klur Klan and the City, 15; New York Times, De- cember 9, 1922. s4 Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 36. SSEdward A. Leary, Indianapolis: The Story of a City (Indianapolis, 1971), 191. 5 Wyn Craig Wade, The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klur Klan in America (New York, 1987), 223. Daisy Douglas Barr 187 historian David M. Chalmers, the Protestant pulpits supplied the respectability, the orators, and a good part of the local leadership of the Klan.57The Klan also succeeded in fundamentalist chapels and tabernacles; one of the centers of the Indianapolis Klan was the . Indiana Friends, both pastors and members, were also often deeply involved with the Klan. According to historian Leonard Moore, even Richmond’s large Quaker community, “one of the old- est and most influential in the state, showed no special immunity to the Klan.” There, for example, 6.6 percent of the Klan members were Quakers, while they represented 12.2 percent of the Klan members who indicated religious rnember~hip.~~The organizer and most significant leader of the Klan in Wabash, for instance, was Ira C. Dawes, pastor of the Wabash Friends Church and president of the local Rotary club. Dawes became the pastor in 1921, but resigned in 1923 to go to Texas to head the KKKs national speak- er’s The Klan’s appeal to Barr is obvious; liquor, political corrup- tion, and prostitution were old enemies. Her Methodist and Quaker heritage and her evangelical experience also must have influenced her. In addition, she had always had a nativist strain, manifest in her sermons, despite showing compassion for foreign workers in her Muncie pastorate. Apparently, however, her Quaker back- ground did not cause her to reflect upon the Klan’s deserved repu- tation for coercion and intimidation. When it became publicly known that she was a Klan member, Barr was forced to resign from the Indiana War Mothers in early 1923 as well as from her position with the Republican party. In the announcement of her resignation as head of the former no mention is made of her Klan attachment.60George R. Dale, a Klan-fighting Muncie editor who disliked Barr, claimed that she had said that her evangelical du- ties and a planned trip abroad made her too busy, although he believed that opposition to the Klan had forced the move.61 In spite of public reservation, Daisy Douglas Barr deepened her Klan activity. In December, 1922, she apparently joined the Queens of the Golden Mask. Stephenson had organized the women’s

57 David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan (New York, 1965), 111. Davis says that twenty of the Indiana Klan’s Imperial Lec- turers were ministers. Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 306. 5R Leonard Joseph Moore, “White Protestant Nationalism in the 1920s: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana” (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of California at Los Angeles, 1985), 114. 59 Dorothy A. Squires, “History of the Ku Klux Klan in Wabash County, Indi- ana” (Graduate Paper, Social Science Department, Ball State Teacher’s College, 1964), 13-14, 22. The War Mother, I1 (April/May, 1923), 6. 61 Muncie Post-Democrat, April 20, 1923. Recall that Barr was supposed to have gone to Europe in July, 1922. WOMEN OF THE KU KLUXKLAN, NEW CASTLE, INDIANA, 1923

Courtesy Center for , Ball State University,Muncie, Indiana Daisy Douglas Barr 189 adjunct to the Klan even before Imperial Headquarters had formed its auxiliary. Barr was one of the charter members, if not the leader, and soon became the Imperial Empress. The Queens of the Golden Mask was quite successful. Officials reported that “women are proving the best supporters of the organization after having suggested their joining.” In addition, the Queens formed what Ste- phenson named his “poison squad,” an information network ex- tending across the state staffed by women and used to spread rumors about his opponents.62On February 24, 1923, Barr signed an agreement with King Kleagle Stephenson in Indianapolis to form a women’s auxiliary under his spon~orship,~~although the agreement did not assure her of complete control over all women Klan members in the state, because other Klan members were forming their own women’s auxiliaries. Among them were Impe- rial Wizard , whose organization was known as the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, and Grand Dragon William J. Simmons, who called his group the Kamelia~.~~ By July, 1923, Barr also became head of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, having made an accommodation with Evans. But that was not the limit of her authority. On July 17, 1923, she signed a contract with the Klan to organize Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, , Ohio, Michigan, New Jer- sey, and Minnesota. By terms of the contract she would receive one dollar for each woman initiated as a member after July 9, 1923.65 The initiation fee was not her sole reward. Because she headed the Women of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana she also received four dol- lars for every member recruited, acquiring the title of “State.” In return, she was supposed to act as the conduit for requests for robes sent to national headquarters.66The sale of robes was a Klan monopoly that provided a considerable portion of the organization’s funds.

62 Wade, The Fiery Cross, 225, 230. fi3 Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 139. 6* Zbid. By 1924 feuds between these men resulted in the splitting of the Klan into three different groups in Indiana. Zbid., 80. Another source claimed Stephenson broke with Barr when she met with Evans. Edgar Allen Booth, The Mad Mullah of America (Columbus, Ohio, 1927), 72. Indianapolis News, June 3, 1924. This account came to light after a suit was named against Barr by the Women of the Ku Klux Klan. 66 Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 141. Barr received the same amount that the Kleagle who recruited a member earned. Each candidate paid a $10.00 fee, the Klecktoken. Of that, the Kleagle got $4.00, the King Kleagle of the state re- ceived $1.00, the Grand Goblin got 50$,the Imperial Kleagle got $2.50, and the Grand Dragon $2.00. Elrod, “Anti-Catholic Propaganda,” 18-19;Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 34. Why Barr would get $4.00 for each recruit is puzzling. Perhaps she did all the recruiting. The funds earned would be considerable as Kenneth T. Jackson estimates the number of Klanswomen in Indianapolis alone at the end of 1923 to be ten thousand. Jackson, Ku Klw Klan and the City, 150. 190 Indiana Magazine of History

Barr plunged into her Klan activities with considerable vigor. She was present in Richmond May 25, 1923, when the Klan spon- sored a naturalization ceremony, a march with two hundred women, and an appearance by the Muncie Girl’s Band. On July 25, 1923, she led a march of three hundred Klanswomen through Ko- komo. After the march four hundred women were initiated into the Klan, although Barr lamented that one thousand more members were present but lacked the proper regalia. On August 25, 1923, the northern convention of the Klan met in Marion’s Goldthwaite Park, and Barr was present representing the national organzation. Three months later, on November 17, 1923, the Klan held its most spectacular parade in Wabash; at its terminus on the courthouse lawn Barr pleaded for women to hold on to their right of equal suffrage and reprimanded a local officer for his uncouth remarks.67 Later that year rumors circulated that Indianapolis would become the national headquarters of the Women of the Klan. In part, this was a move to boost the claims of Stephenson for ultimate control of the Klan,6s but it also reflected Barr’s ambition for greater things. The ceremonial aspect of Klandom was not an aberration, nor was Barr’s participation new for her. She had learned the value of such performances in Muncie temperance campaigns. As for the Klan, Moore says, “Ostentatious demonstrations, parades, and holiday celebrations, as well as more mundane social events, were in fact the most frequent activities of individual Klan chapters, the means through which the average member participated in the or- gani~ation.”~~But Barr sometimes overstepped the bounds. At the end of the year, she and four Klansmen, including her son, tried unsuccessfully to crash the annual Ambulance Chair banquet at the Marion Hotel in Grant County in order to convert members of that group to the Klam70 This incident injured her reputation much less than a damage suit filed by a Muncie woman, Mary Ben- adum, for defamation of character on January 2, 1924.71Once more, Hoosiers were treated to a fight by the dynamic minister. Muncie was a hotbed of Klan activity. Leading businessmen had brought the Klan to town in 1922 “to cope with a corrupt Democratic city g~vernment.”~~Among those who joined the Klan

67 Fiery Cross, August 10, 1923; Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 142; Moore, “White Protestant Nationalism in the 1920s,” 203; Squires, “History of the Ku Klux Klan in Wabash County,” 13, 17.

@ Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 142. If Stephenson had gained con- trol, Barr would have dominated the women’s auxiliary nationally. Moore, “White Protestant Nationalism in the 1920s,” 152. 70 Muncie Post-Democrat, January 4, 1924. 71 Indianapolis News, January 3, 1924; Muncie Post-Democrat, December 7, 1923; Muncie Morning Star, January 3, 1924. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 35. Daisy Douglas Barr 191 were Clarence Benadum, prosecuting attorney of Delaware County and a dry, and Mary Benadum his wife, a Muncie s~hoolteacher.~~ Barr had come to Muncie in 1923 to address Klanswomen. At a meeting of five hundred members, Klan spokeswomen repeated a charge by Barr that Mary Benadum, who had been organizing Klan activity in Ohio, had stolen three thousand dollars. Because Mary Benadum was not permitted to answer these charges at the meeting, she called a caucus of her supporters at a local hotel, but the accusers intruded and repeated the charges. Later, when the Women of the Ku Klux Klan met at Campbell’s Auditorium, Barr spoke to the two thousand assembled members and again repeated the claims. When Benadum again was not allowed to speak, she thereupon sued for damages in the amount of fifty thousand dol- lar~.~~Mary Benadum’s suit never came to court, even though in- fighting continued. Clarence Benadum left the county prosecutor’s office in January, 1924, to be the Kleagle of Columbus, and Mary Benadum went to Alliance, Ohio, to continue her Klan or- ganizing early in January. Rival factions of the women tangled in Alliance, however, and she ended her trip in the hospital suffering from nervous exhau~tion.~~Neither she or her husband pursued the matter. On November 14, 1924, Benadum’s charges were dis- missed after Barr filed an answer of “confession and avoidance,” saying the slanders were uttered by Judge James Comer and Im- perial Wizard Evans and that she had merely repeated them.77The charges could have been refiled but were not. Soon Barr’s charges of stolen money backfired. Dale described her as “a woman Quaker preacher who forsook the pulpit to grab off the blood-drenched, filthy dollars of the Ku Klux Klan,” who had gone to visit Imperial Wizard Evans in and had re- ceived the title of “Quaker Queen Quince of the Giosticuticus of the Jimpelcute.” There, Evans had given her the franchise to sell robes in the realm for $6.50 each, with the understanding that she buy the robes from him. Instead, she contracted with a company in Anderson to make the regalia for 77q and allegedly pocketed the difference. Daisy “Doodle” Barr (Dale’s name for her) had, Dale claimed, made over one million dollars and was considering retir- ing to Germany after having her diamond reset in platin~m.~8 The newspapers reported a second suit on June 3, 1924, filed by the Women of the Ku Klux Klan in the Grant-Delaware Supe-

73 Indianapolis News, January 3, 1924; Muncie Morning Star, January 3, 1924. 74 Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 139. 75 Muncie Post-Democrat, December 29, 1923. 76 Muncie Morning Star, January 8, 1924. 77 Muncie Post-Democrat, November 14, 1924. 7*Zbid.,December 7, 14, 1923. Dale was prone to exaggeration and inventive names. He also claimed that she had made a speech in Wabash where she said that if Christ were on earth, he would be a Klansman. 192 Indiana Magazine of History rior Court in Marion, which claimed Barr had failed to account for one hundred thousand dollars she had obtained in fees from the Klan. According to the suit, Barr had “naturalized” five thousand members, had reported their entry into the Klan, but had failed to pay the Klan its dollar for each. An additional forty thousand members had been enrolled but not reported, adding another forty thousand dollars to the debt. Finally, the Klan estimated Ban- owed between fifty-four and sixty-seven thousand dollars for robes that she had supplied from a non-authorized source.79 The news apparently did not trouble Barr; according to friends, she was not “worried the least bit.” Although out of state, she said the suit was the result of a dispute over leadership.80The news did delight Barr’s foe, Dale, who composed a poem for the occasion, “Daisy kept the Nighty Money”: Daisy Doodle’s sued again By Hi this time and and not by Ben. Perhaps you think that Daisy’s flighty But she’s got it all at ten per nighty. A million bucks she got, tis said And gave the wizard nary a red. So the goblins cussed and the dragons swore They’d get the dough or a bucket of gore. Dale philosophized that “Whenever one klucker or one kluckeress begins to make a lot of dough the rest of ’em gang up on him, or her, as the case may be, and try to get it away from him, or her.”*l Three weeks later, Dale reported that Barr was again in trouble. Under a headline entitled “Dizzy Daisy Barr and Mrs. Shinn Grabbed the Korn,” he recounted how Josephine Shinn of Indiana- polis, acting under Barr’s orders, organized a chapter of the Queens of the Golden Mask in Zanesville, Ohio. Later the Queens discov- ered their treasury was missing. As a result, a grand jury indicted the two principals for embezzling the funds.82 As the Klan’s fortunes in Indiana and the Midwest ebbed, so did Barr’s, who soon slipped from the public limelight. Her hus- band became state bank commissioner in 1925, appointed to that position by Governor Ed Jackson, who reputedly had Klan connec-

79 Muncie Morning Star, June 3, 1924; Indianapolis News, June 3, 1924; Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 143; New Castle Courier, July 2, 1924; Hartford City News, July 2, 1924. Indianapolis News, June 3, 1924; New Castle Courier, June 6, 1924. Barr was in California selling land in the Sutter Basin. Her son, who was living in Marion, was the Indiana representative of the land company. R1 Muncie Post-Democrat, June 6, 1924. R2 Zbid., June 27, 1924. Daisy Douglas Burr 193

ti on^.^^ While her husband remained in Indianapolis, Barr left In- diana sometime after her legal difficulties and went to where she apparently ran for Congress in 1926.s4 She soon re- turned to Indianapolis, however. Barr died April 3, 1938, of a broken neck suffered in an auto- mobile accident on US.Highway 31, between Speed and Memphis, while riding to Indianapolis with a family friend, William E. Rider, a Waynetown banker. She was sixty years old and died the day before she was to serve as hostess of a silver tea of the Meridian Women’s Christian Temperance Union at the Banner-Whitehill Auditorium. She was buried at her hometown of Fairmo~nt.~~ A woman in a man’s world, Daisy Douglas Barr consistently allied herself with the rich and powerful: Frank C. Ball, Joseph Goddard, Milford H. Lyon, Warren T. McCray, David C. Stephen- son, Hiram Wesley Evans. At the same time, there was no doubt that she was her own woman. While men aided her in gaining the public forum she needed, her success was in large part due to her skill as an adroit organizer, an eloquent orator, and a symbol ma- nipulator. Her major concerns were always the same: ending the liquor traffic and protecting and nurturing young women. These concerns came from a genuine religious conviction, not just from her Friends background but also from her Methodist heritage. How much she was corrupted by materialism in her later career is a moot question. Like some twentieth-century television evangelists, she claimed she became rich through God‘s efforts. Furthermore, her Klan episode is not as startling as it appears at first glance. The Klan’s emphasis upon prohibition and on social purity, though mocked by actual practice, must have appealed to Barr’s own ide- als. The nativism espoused by the Klan also struck a familiar chord in Barr. Even the tactics-the public marches, the torchlight parades, the mass meetings, the coercion, and the violence-had been anticipated by the dry campaigns in Muncie. Only the sheets and hoods were new.

R3 Indianapolis Star, September 11, 1925. By 1927, Barr was deputy state bank commissioner again. He and Luther F. Symons, the bank commissioner, were in- dicted by a Howard County grand jury in Kokomo on charges of negligence in con- nection with the failure of the American Trust Company. The grand jury claimed Barr and Symons knew the bank was insolvent in March, 1924, but did nothing about it. Zbid., December 27, 1927. Symons was a Quaker and a banker from Lew- isville, where Daisy had been pastor from 1900 to 1903. R4 Booth, The Mad Mullah of America, 73. He also says she withdrew her name before the election, which may have been possible. When she died twelve years later, she left a son in Ft. Pierce; and in 1927, when her husband was indicted for negligence, he was unavailable for comment because the family was vacationing in Eau Gallie, Florida. There is no record in Florida that Barr ever ran for office. RS Indianapolis News, April 4, 1938; Muncie Star, April 4, 1938; Indianapolis Star, April 5, 1938. Indiana Biography Series, XVII (1937-1938); Minutes of the Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1938, p. 57.

Daisy Douglas Barr 195

Ultimately the qualities that made Barr a success also caused her to fail. Her conviction, her ego-strength, and her willingness to use almost any means to achieve her goals led her to an intoler- ance that was the antithesis of her Quaker faith. That she failed to see and understand this cannot completely erase her genuine achievements in social reform.