Kevin Boyle, who teaches history at Ohio State University, reviewed a couple books on the Klan in the New York Times yesterday. The KKK of the 1920s is a fascinating story. But it is a difficult one to tell in an interesting or accurate way without ever using the words “Democrat,” “Wilson,” or “Progressive,” which is why Boyle’s review is so lame. Here’s his opening:
Imagine a political movement created in a moment of terrible anxiety, its origins shrouded in a peculiar combination of manipulation and grass-roots mobilization, its ranks dominated by Christian conservatives and self-proclaimed patriots, its agenda driven by its members’ fervent embrace of nationalism, nativism and moral regeneration, with more than a whiff of racism wafting through it.
No, not that movement. The one from the 1920s, with the sheets and the flaming crosses and the ludicrous name meant to evoke a heroic past. The Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, they called it. And for a few years it burned across the nation, a fearsome thing to behold.
In “One Hundred Percent American,” Thomas R. Pegram, a professor of history at Loyola University Maryland, traces the Invisible Empire’s meteoric rise and equally precipitous fall. The ’20s Klan was born, he explains — or more precisely was reborn — on Thanksgiving evening 1915, when 16 Southerners trooped up Stone Mountain, in Georgia, for a bit of ritual bunkum inspired by D. W. Griffith’s incendiary film “The Birth of a Nation.” The group’s leader, a one-time Methodist minister named William Simmons, hoped to turn the men into a fraternal organization that night: sort of a Rotary for white supremacists. But he had no idea how to do it. So for five years the Klan stagnated, until Simmons handed the operation over to a couple of publicity agents, Elizabeth Tyler and Edward Young Clarke, who knew a thing or two about the dark art of marketing.
Tyler and Clarke kept the costumes and crosses and secret signs that Simmons loved. But they broadened his bigotry. No longer would it be enough to target African-Americans, not when there were Catholics, Jews and immigrants to hate as well. They also added an aggressive political pitch, seizing on the hyperpatriotism of the recently concluded World War to turn the Klan into the champion of “one hundred percent Americanism,” staunch defender of law, order and traditional values. It was a brilliant appeal, tapping as it did into long-running prejudices, the war’s overwrought rhetoric and fears of a changing America. In the early 1920s, the K.K.K. became a national phenomenon, more popular north of the Mason-Dixon line than south of it. At its peak in 1924 there were probably 35,000 Klansmen in Detroit, about 55,000 in Chicago, 200,000 in Ohio, 240,000 in Indiana and 260,000 in Pennsylvania: a veritable army of proud Anglo-Saxons kluxing in their local klaverns. Ten bucks a head for membership, another six and a half for those fine flowing robes.
Klan leaders used that stunning success to insinuate the Invisible Empire into public life. On the local level, Klansmen turned themselves into moral watchdogs: beating drunken husbands, whipping wayward wives, chasing down bootleggers and purifying public schools, mostly by demanding that Catholic teachers be fired. In Indiana, Oregon, Colorado, Texas and Arkansas they built political machines strong enough to put their hand-picked candidates into governors’ offices. Indiana’s K.K.K. took control of the State Legislature, too, while Texas sent a Klansman to the United States Senate. There was even talk in the highest circles of trying to elect a Kluxer president.
Let’s leave aside what I take to be an utterly lame and asinine assault on the tea parties (indeed, the lede is so lame I had to read it twice to realize the editors even let him go there).
The average reader with no specialized knowledge and an unhealthy faith in the wisdom and accuracy of the New York Times might find in all of this reinforcement of the conventional liberal tale of the KKK as a quirky and extremist conservative organization.
But that’s simply not the story of the second Klan. I don’t expect Kevin Boyle to hammer home the Klan’s progressive and Democratic ties. But he manages to make them all sound conventionally conservative. He doesn’t acknowledge that Woodrow Wilson was Birth of a Nation’s most famous booster. Nor does he mention that World War One was the Progressives’ war and that “100% Americanism” was touted and promoted by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson — our two progressive presidents. He doesn’t mention that evil spirits of World War One were orchestrated by progressive wordsmiths, activists, and artists.
Boyle writes, “There was even talk in the highest circles of trying to elect a Kluxer president.”
Yes there was! Particularly at the 1924 Democratic Convention, famously known as the “Klanbake.” Boyle also fails to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that enforcing Prohibition laws was a Progressive priority.
Boyle then ends the piece with this clump of poo:
At the end of the book, though, Baker steps back from her texts. Suddenly her analysis becomes more pointed. Yes, the Klan had a very short life. But it has to be understood, she contends, as of a piece with other moments of fevered religious nationalism, from the anti-Catholic riots of the antebellum era to modern anti-Islam bigots. Indeed, earlier this year, Herman Cain declared that he wouldn’t be comfortable with a Muslim in his cabinet. It’s tempting to see those moments as Pegram does the Klan: desperate, even pitiful attempts to stop the inevitable broadening of American society. But Baker seems closer to the mark when she says that there’s a dark strain of bigotry and exclusion running through the national experience. Sometimes it seems to weaken. And sometimes it spreads, as anyone who reads today’s papers knows, fed by our fears and our hatreds.
I think Cain’s statements on Muslims have often been indefensible or indecipherable, but is it really tempting to see Herman Cain as an inheritor of the Klan tradition? Really? That’s an interesting argument! Tell me more! No, wait, he takes it back. That the Times lets him do this in a throw-away sentence is astounding, even when grading on the usual curve.
One last, albeit familiar, point. I’ve long argued that there’s an infuriating tendency among mainstream liberal historians to take two approaches to evils in American history. Sins are always either the result of conservatives doing conservative things or they’re the product of America’s fundamentally bigoted nature. It’s just never, ever, the case that liberalism or progressivism has something to apologize for. Liberalism is never wrong, because essential to the concept of liberalism is the idea that it must always be right. The fact that racism and other evils were commonplace, even central, to much of the progressive project is simply too jarring to contemplate and so we get either a whitewash or blame-shifting. And with Boyle, we get both.
"Sins are always either the result of conservatives doing conservative things or they’re the product of America’s fundamentally bigoted nature. It’s just never, ever, the case that liberalism or progressivism has something to apologize for. Liberalism is never wrong, because essential to the concept of liberalism is the idea that it must always be right. "
Heck, we didn't need you to tell us that. The most persistent liberal posters at NRO would have been happy to.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe lede is incredibly lame. Sitting down with the NYTBR yesterday, I quit reading this review after the first graf, assuming the rest would get no better if this was the best he could do to kick things off. It's the laziest trope: Pretend you're alluding to A, even though you're actually alluding to B, when it's perfectly obvious that you're referring to B. And the shot at the Tea Party is absurdly misplaced. I'd say the NYTBR should be ashamed of itself, but any newspaper that publishes Gail Collins is clearly beyond shame...
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIn the summer of 1933, shortly after Roosevelt's "First 100 Days," America's richest businessmen were in a panic. It was clear that Roosevelt intended to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Roosevelt had to be stopped at all costs.
The answer was a military coup. It was to be secretly financed and organized by leading officers of the Morgan and Du Pont empires. The plotters attempted to recruit General Smedley Butler to lead the coup. They selected him because he was a war hero who was popular with the troops. The plotters felt his good reputation was important to make the troops feel confident that they were doing the right thing by overthrowing a democratically elected president. However, this was a mistake: Butler was popular with the troops because he identified with them. That is, he was a man of the people, not the elite. When the plotters approached General Butler with their proposal to lead the coup, he pretended to go along with the plan at first, secretly deciding to betray it to Congress at the right moment.
What the businessmen proposed was dramatic: they wanted General Butler to deliver an ultimatum to Roosevelt. Roosevelt would pretend to become sick and incapacitated from his polio, and allow a newly created cabinet officer, a "Secretary of General Affairs," to run things in his stead. The secretary, of course, would be carrying out the orders of Wall Street. If Roosevelt refused, then General Butler would force him out with an army of 500,000 war veterans from the American Legion. But MacGuire assured Butler the cover story would work:
"You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President's health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second…"
The businessmen also promised that money was no object: Clark told Butler that he would spend half his $60 million fortune to save the other half.
And what type of government would replace Roosevelt's New Deal? MacGuire was perfectly candid to Paul French, a reporter friend of General Butler's:
"We need a fascist government in this country… to save the nation from the communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America. The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize a million men overnight."
Indeed, it turns out that MacGuire travelled to Italy to study Mussolini's fascist state, and came away mightily impressed. He wrote glowing reports back to his boss, Robert Clark, suggesting that they implement the same thing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI suppose I could do some research myself, but it would be interesting to read Jonah's reaction to the above comment. (Just in case you're reading the comments Jonah.)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm sure Jonah and others could bother responding, but I think Jim Downey has the most succinct answer.
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The Business Plot (also the Plot Against FDR and the White House Putsch) was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler as leader of that organization. In 1934 Butler testified to the McCormack–Dickstein Congressional committee on these claims. In the opinion of the committee, these allegations were credible. No one was prosecuted.
Veterans of Foreign Wars commander James E. Van Zandt stated to the press that, "Less than two months" after General Butler warned him, "he had been approached by 'agents of Wall Street' to lead a Fascist dictatorship in the United States under the guise of a 'Veterans Organization' "
James E. Sargent, reviewing The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer, wrote: "Thus, Butler (and Archer) assumed that the existence of a financially-backed plot meant that fascism was imminent, and that the planners represented a widespread and coherent group, having both the intent and the capacity to execute their ideas. "
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd all of this has what to do with what?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBy the way, seeing as you copy/pasted directly from Wikipedia with no attribution, and you cherry-picked paragraphs you thought were convenient for . . . well, whatever point you're trying to make, I thought I'd provide the paragraphs immediately preceding the second one you copied:
"Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. said, "Most people agreed with Mayor La Guardia of New York in dismissing it as a 'cocktail putsch'[51] In Schlesinger's summation of the affair, "No doubt, MacGuire did have some wild scheme in mind, though the gap between contemplation and execution was considerable, and it can hardly be supposed that the Republic was in much danger".[2]
Robert F. Burk wrote: "At their core, the accusations probably consisted of a mixture of actual attempts at influence peddling by a small core of financiers with ties to veterans organizations and the self-serving accusations of Butler against the enemies of his pacifist and populist causes." [3]
Hans Schmidt wrote: "Even if Butler was telling the truth, as there seems little reason to doubt, there remains the unfathomable problem of MacGuire's motives and veracity. He may have been working both ends against the middle, as Butler at one point suspected. In any case, MacGuire emerged from the HUAC hearings as an inconsequential trickster whose base dealings could not possibly be taken alone as verifying such a momentous undertaking. If he was acting as an intermediary in a genuine probe, or as agent provocateur sent to fool Butler, his employers were at least clever enough to keep their distance and see to it that he self-destructed on the witness stand."[4]
Many years later, McCormick continued to vouch for Butler: "General Smedley Butler was one of the outstanding Americans in our history. I cannot emphasize too strongly the very important part he played in exposing the Fascist plot in the early 1930s backed by and planned by persons possessing tremendous wealth."[22]
In a book about art collector Robert Sterling Clark, art historian and non-profit executive Nicholas Fox Weber wrote: "Butler's testimony to the House Committee, which was played down in the newspaper and magazine accounts at the time, and made to seem largely specious by influential commentators, seems credible about the attempt to overthrow FDR, and Robert Sterling Clark's role in it. Butler's Claims, moreover, were supported by the committee's subsequent investigations and conclusions."[6]"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd Dickstein was a Soviet spy.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere's mine:
"Franklin Delano Roosevelt: America's Supposed Anti-Fascist Leader!"
Yeah, Frankliln Delano, that devout anti-Fascist, who sent an entire boatload of Jewish kids to their death, and who pretended he had no choice because the female dog he was married to ordered him to do it.
He'd be an anti-Fascist, I suppose, if he wasn't such a sheep.
Earth to the Clueless:
Fascism is a societal construct that seeks to have the public sector totally commandeer the decisions of the private sector, and confiscate more and more of its profits (which diminish precipitously as the public sector fails to run private businesses efficiently).
Like, say, telling a small property owner in the middle of nowhere how much wheat he could grow in his backyard for his own family's consumption.
Or, having the President hand-pick the CEO of a private company.
Or, like telling a private company they CANNOT perform business in South Carolina.
That is typically what we mean by Fascism, and as a model of consistency, the best one is Japan, whose economy is almost purely fascist.
That's exactly how the political left designs its leadership of America.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUh, no, that's not what fascism is. Fascism is formally defined as "the Republican Party platform." That's why Republicans can never avoid being fascists.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDon't bother with the research.
1.) The coup never happened.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse2.) It couldn't have happened, because whatever it was was nothing but a bunch of yappers yapping about something they could never pull off.
Kind of like Occupiers taking down the system.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseUmm ... point?
I'm guessing we're supposed to recoil in shock, horror and shame that such a thing - taking your story at face value - was contemplated by the enemies of your demi-God, FDR? This is sort of a natural reaction to a class of powerful citizens who were demonized and blamed for everything from unemployment to cancer by a ruthless demagogue.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAnd the leaders of those businessmen were named:
.
.
.
Koch.
(you knew this was coming, right???)
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTry Rothschild.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTry Rothschild.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis "plot" was never proved. If you learn more about General Smedley Butler, it seems more likely that he made it up. By the 1930s he had become disillusioned with the military and was a pacifist. He traveled the country lecturing about the collusion of big business and the military and warning of the dangers of fascism. His work was reprinted in socialist magazines during that era.
What makes more sense -- that businessmen would approach a self-proclaimed anti-fascist and anti-big business campaigner and ask him to organize a coup? Or that a frustrated, disillusioned general, feeling ignored or desperate to convey his anti-fascist message, would make up a plot against the government organized by the very bugbears he regularly denounced?
Even if, for the sake of argument, we grant that the plot actually was pursued as Butler claimed, weigh it against the manifold deep ties, both philosophical and real, between fascism and progressivism. I'd lay out the evidence here, but I don't think Jonah would appreciate me cutting and pasting his entire book in this post.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBefore even going into any detailed research, the premise alone is absurd. I'll leave aside the obvious point that the plot is hare-brained, and utterly unlikely to have been the brainchild of a number of powerful and wealthy financiers. The conclusion is nonsensical. Fascism would not at all have been advantageous to the businessmen, quite the contrary. And to suggest that they would have sought to replace FDR with a fascist dictatorship is to use inverted logic. One of FDR's first initiatives was the NRA, which was a nakedly fascist enterprise, and one in which industry leaders colluded. To unseat a democratically elected President promoting fascist initiatives in order to replace the government with a fascist one is illogical, self-defeating, and a tremendous waste of time, resources, and potential personal safety. The proposition that 500,000 WWI veterans, by then in their late 30s and 40s and deeply entrenched in private life, could have been mustered at the time (active duty military at the time numbered somewhere around 130,000) and for this purpose is a bewildering flight of fancy. At least one party in this process had a very vivid and unrealistic imagination. I've no doubt accusations were made and some plans were laid out in a couple of very imaginative heads, but to take the notion of such a conspiracy seriously requires a belief that some very successful and highly educated individuals were woefully ignorant and wildly speculative. The proposition stretches credulity.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI'm so tired of partisan shills trying to push their grand unified theories of all political history. It's ridiculous to assert that modern "Conservatives" and "Liberals" have easily identified counterparts in the 1920s that line up along party lines. Back then racism was more prevalent, among both Republicans and Democrats. The end.
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