“They wanted you to know they were Christians, but they could still hate,” presenter Betty Plombon said Sunday, Sept. 17 from the Stanley Area Historical Society.

With local media in attendance and an attendance head count of 25, Plombon presented on a little known subject: 1920s era Ku Klux Klan activity in the Stanley area. Before starting, however, there was something to make known.

“I want to explain, that for reasons unknown, there are absolutely no photos of the Ku Klux Klan taken in this area,” she said. What was known on the subject came from interviews with area residents and newspaper items from the Klan’s active period in the mid-1920s. Different from the original Klan, but sharing its use of scapegoating and secrecy, the 1920s Klan in Stanley and across the nation was a nativist organization, beginning to come into its own around 1921.

“It began to flourish about 1921,” Plombon said. Wanting to return America to what it had started as in their understanding, Plombon said that the group was rooted in predominantly Protestant communities, attacking the Pope (among others) and spreading fears of a Vatican takeover while stressing “Loyalty to America, the traditions of America, and the Spirit of Protestantism.”

That said, they weren’t anti-Catholic, at least in their own eyes.

“They would say ‘not against Catholics, but for Protestant Christianity,’” Plombon shared of the organization. Catholicism in turn was one of the few ‘other’ groups in the area, making it a Klan target. So why did the 1920s Klan flourish when it did?

In a word, change. Plombon shared that the era of flappers and gangsters made many uneasy, with the Klan presenting itself as a moral guardian that would protect the nation. Meanwhile, a glimpse of the Klan as it first existed in the South post-Civil War can be found from old newspaper reports, and includes such things as anti-Union ferment, closing down schoolhouses for freed slaves and sending their teachers packing, as well as terrorizing those who would use their voting rights in a manner unapproved by the organization. But the Klan as recorded in old news reports and then suppressed by the Enforcement Acts under President Grant had undergone a change in its image by the mid-1910s, in line with changes to North-South attitudes to one another.

The film “Birth of a Nation” by filmmaker D. W. Griffith also helped.

Used for recruitment, the film using placards in place of dialogue portrayed the historically hooded terrorist organization portrayed instead to moviegoers as a patriotic and pro-America group that had restored law and order across the South from post-war chaos, its Confederate protagonist pardoned by Abraham Lincoln before returning home to found his chapter.

With a new patriotic backdrop, the new Klan’s motto was “one flag, one school, one language,” with efforts made to sell swords, Bibles, and other merchandise inscribed with the organization’s insignia. Everything was associated with the letter ‘K,’ from Klecktokkens (a fee to join) to just about anything, including group officer titles.

Using the film “Birth of a Nation” to help it recruit members, the Klan rode north, this time with automobiles. Expanding its  range of targets for scapegoating from Southern blacks and pro-Union men to Blacks, Latinos, Catholics, Jews, Asians, Atheists, Native Americans and Homosexuals.

Making inroads into Indiana and fostering a sense among members that they were special while also keeping an atmosphere of secrecy, the Klan then made the jump from Indiana to the Stanley area, through Worden, Plombon shared of a since deceased Edson resident who was willing to talk about the local history. According to this resident, family visits to Worden from the Hoosier state had brought up the Klan, which then sent a recruitment agent north, things coming to a head in 1924.

With enough interested people to start a chapter, the Klan held rallies, both in town at the auditorium and Soo Line Park as well as in Worden on farms. Rallies at Augusta and Cornell drew attendees in the thousands, while ladies aid church organizations provided lunch. A letter showed up in the paper regarding a rally that had happened with 300 automobiles, asking why there hadn’t been coverage. The supposed author later denied writing same, while bad police interference from previous publicity making the Klan choose not to advertise in the paper, asking ministers not to announce their gatherings as well. Helped nationally by what were deemed “crusading editors” while also having their own newspapers and taking to task those editors who didn’t support the organization, the Klan made rounds of the local Protestant churches to try and raise support, saying that they were Christian men looking to awaken others, and even singing “The Old Rugged Cross.”

In Chippewa County they made known who their preferred candidates were for office and even influenced elections, but met their match with the church ladies of Our Savior’s Lutheran, who chased them out  of the sanctuary when the Klan showed up one Sunday in January 1925.

“It was definitely the women who closed down the Klan in this area,” Plombon said as she shared how high Klan officials from elsewhere being involved in scandal and arrested led to wives pressuring their husbands to resign. In addition, anti-Klan mayor George Hipke was elected in Stanley. While at its height, meanwhile, a total of 40,000 ministers were estimated to be members, even urging others to join the group in their sermons.

In the end, the Klan’s resurgence died down but with many wounds left behind, especially in Jump River. Plombon closed out her presentation by saying that other organizations still exist that share Klan ideas, with pictures of contemporary groups. But of Stanley and the Klan in 1920?

“They saw through it,” she said of the end result, with periodic attempts to revive the organization in the area falling flat. People still had their differences (like which church they attended), but didn’t let these differences stop them from living a common public life in peace.

Now done with researching and presenting on the past local Klan, Plombon is working on other history projects.