The Ku Klux Klan in Frémont County

Article by LaDonna Gunn

Ku Klux Klan - April 2003 - Colorado Central Magazine - No. 110 - Page 25

Copyright © 2003 by LaDonna Gunn and Central Colorado Publishing Co. All rights reserved.

This article is condensed from an essay written by LaDonna Gunn, director of the Local History Center at the Cañon City Public Library, as a graduate student of history at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. The full version, along with historic photos, source notes, and two audio clips, is available at <http://ccpl.lib.co.us/KKK/KKK.html>

DURING THE 1920S, Colorado had the largest and most influential Knights of the Ku Klux Klan following west of the Mississippi. In the 1924 elections, the Klan gained control not only of state government with the election of Governor Morley, but also of many local governments, and Frémont County had a particularly large Klan following.

In Cañon City and Florence, two local Klaverns claimed that they organized to improve the schools, end the liquor problem, stop crime, and promote the state and national Klan agenda. Like its national and state brethren, the Cañon City Klan embraced a pro-Protestant, native-born American, white- supremacist philosophy, and its underlying ethos was the preservation of Protestant beliefs and traditions.

When the Roman Catholic Church announced its intent to build the Holy Cross Abbey in Cañon City in 1923, Klan leaders recognized the event as a direct threat to its "100% American" and Protestant ideals.

On May 10, 1923, Father Cyprian Bradley, Prior of the Benedictine Society of Colorado, announced that the order had purchased 90 acres of orchard land east of Cañon City, in order to make Cañon City a "center of educational activities" for the Roman Catholic Church. The Benedictines planned to build an Abbey and a boys' school in addition to the Mount Saint Scholastica Academy for girls which had been in the community since 1890.

An editorial in one of the local newspapers praised the order for its decision "to make Cañon City their headquarters." The Benedictines would "stand for the highest moral and educational ideals," the editorial stated, "and their coming [would] add prestige to the community in many ways."

But the Klan disagreed. Established as a "provisional organization" in 1923 by Reverend Fredrick G. Arnold and other influential converts, the Cañon City Klan opposed anyone holding allegiance to the "pope, or any foreign, political or religious power."

In the "Klan Kolumn" of the Frémont County Daily News, the new local Klan newspaper, the unidentified author explained that the Klan was the epitome of religious tolerance because Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists refused "to interfere with each other's religious convictions." But religious intolerance was standard Klan behavior toward Catholics.

Klansmen claimed that they were justifiably intolerant of Catholics because the church had "murdered" thousands of Protestants, and the organization feared Catholics because the "infallibility of the Catholic church cause[d] Protestants to dread its power." Furthermore, the Klan maintained that Protestants were responsible for the "establishment of the American commonwealth," and it regarded Catholics as un-American because they held allegiance to a foreign ruler. Consequently in Cañon City and across the nation, Klansmen asserted that Protestantism was the only true religion and that "100 per cent American men" were the supreme children of God.

By 1923, many southern European Catholic immigrants had come to Frémont County to work in the region's 43 coal mines. According to U.S. census records, Italian immigration, and to a lesser degree Slovenian immigration, in Frémont County rose steadily from 1900 to 1930 -- until those two ethnic groups made up about 11 percent of the county's total population -- and the number of Catholics in Frémont County tripled between 1916 and 1926.

BUT THERE WERE ONLY 254 "Negroes" in the county in the 1920 census (many of which were members of the Mt. Olive Baptist Church in Cañon City, to which the Klan gave $25 in 1925), and there was only one "Jewish family" living in Cañon City in the '20s, so the "colored Baptists" and Jews obviously were not a threat. But Klansmen viewed the demographic changes caused by the influx of Catholic immigrants as a serious danger to the Protestant majority.

Pro-Protestant and anti-immigration sentiments were growing nation-wide, and Cañon City Klan leaders capitalized on the situation. Editorials in the Cañon City Daily Record revealed both the national attitude and local thoughts about Catholic, southern European immigrants.

Americans who felt threatened by such foreigners fretted about immigration trends. Southern European countries, like "Italy and the Slavic states," constantly exceeded their immigration quotas while northern European countries, like "Germany, Denmark, Sweden, [and] Norway," frequently fell below their allowed quotas. According to the Klan, "real Americans" wanted immigration restrictions extended to include southern Europe. By restricting immigrants from specified countries, the United States could "attract desirable citizens" rather than "throw[ing] open its doors to the least desirable class of men from the Balkans and southeastern Europe."

How else would the "land and government our fathers won for us ... be preserved?" an editorial asked. What "this country and especially Colorado need" are northern European immigrants, preferably young people since they "make far better citizens" than older immigrants who "never wholly adapt ... to a new country and new ideals." If the government did not control immigration, then "America's future would be imperiled by mental and physical inferiors" from southern Europe.

BY THE TIME Klan leaders were recruiting members in Cañon City in 1923, the organization's message spoke directly to Protestant fears that the United States was being overrun by foreign Catholics. Klansmen opposed immigration and represented "true Christianity," and they encouraged the "best men in the community" who believed "in God" and "in our native land" to join the "Invisible Empire."

Consequently, when the Cañon City Klan, claiming well over 500 members, debuted on Saturday night, January 26, 1924, at a swimming pool owned by Dr. E. R. Fulkerson, a Methodist minister and missionary, their sense of urgency was unmistakable. In their estimation, Protestant values were in jeopardy.

After that introduction, the Klan began working the political system to make its local agenda known, and it took control of the county Republican party on July 30, and the Democratic party on August 1.

"As an organization ... born of God," the Klan's political ideology was to protect the "interest of Christian Americanism" so that it could "save America." But the Frémont County platform supported numerous issues, ranging from civic to social: to improve schools, housing, parks, streets, and sanitation; attract new industry; restrict immigration; prevent crime, including enforcing prohibition; support the Y.M.C.A., fraternal organizations, and local military units; teach patriotism; respect the sanctity of the home; and "handle" the African American community.

When the November elections drew near and an independent party formed in opposition, the Klan touted its successes during its short public life. First, in March 1924 a school bond issue passed in Cañon City for a new high school and a new elementary school, and since the bond issue had failed twice before, the Klan took credit for the win. The Klan also claimed responsibility for passing water bond issues to extend the water mains to East Cañon, and it claimed that its superior Christian values had provided "moral and financial support" to the Frémont County Red Cross and Y.M.C.A. Furthermore, in supporting a second term for Sheriff Clifford R. Glasson, who was one of the organization's prominent leaders, the Klan alleged that it had helped curb crime and bootlegging in the county.

But for the Catholic Slovenian families living in Prospect Heights just south of Cañon City, prohibition flew in the face of a culture where wine was accepted and used in religious ceremonies. Years later, William Adamic recalled that when he was a child his mother sold wine to help support her children, but Sheriff Glasson "knocked their barrels out of the God-damn basement, break[ing] them with an axe [and leaving] ... wine all over [the] yard." When the Klan came up the road to burn crosses on the "First Street hill," Adamic's mother "took the kerosene lamp and took us down in the cellar [because] she [was] so afraid of them... . Everybody was afraid."

Obviously, the Slovenian immigrants in Frémont County did not agree with the Klan's agenda nor view its members as morally superior. But the Klan contended that "Christianity [was] for ... the welfare of all people" and that it was doing the "will of God."

IN 1924, the Klan publicized its support for a four-week evangelical revival which started on Sunday, September 7th, two days before the primary elections. At the revival, Cañon City's Klan leader, the Exalted Cyclops Reverend Arnold, sat with leaders from the Y.M.C.A. and the Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Presbyterian, and First Christian churches at the opening ceremonies. The visibility of Arnold at the revival, and the Klan's moral and financial support, clearly revealed that the Klan's political power came from Protestants.

But many of the Klan's political opponents were also Protestants -- even though the Klan claimed that such opponents were corrupt and unworthy of their Protestant affiliations. When the Klan took control of both political parties during the summer of 1924, they did so by ousting Protestant men who were anti-Klan, but the disenfranchised men formed the Independent party to fight the Klan's position.

One of the more notable anti-Klan political leaders, however, was Republican Congressman Guy U. Hardy, the publisher and owner of the Cañon City Daily Record. Hardy had moved to Cañon City in 1893 and accepted a job at The Record, which was one of three local newspapers. Two years later he bought the newspaper and became its publisher.

Elected to congress in 1918, Hardy was proud of his political record; he voted for "prohibition, law enforcement, restriction of immigration, child labor amendments, educational measures, President Coolidge's economic program and lower federal taxes. Yet he was against the Klan, as were many steadfast Protestants.

The Klan, in turn, responded by attacking the moral integrity of political leaders who disagreed with their agenda -- especially Hardy -- by branding them as "Wobbling Protestants" who fell to the "misrepresentations" of the press which was "strongly under the influence" of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

THE KLAN contended that such men were both corrupt and politically ineffective, and compared them to "old Chicago's State street or Tammany." Unable to trust the men "sent to Washington City to represent us," Col. McKeever announced at a rally on October 23, 1924, that the Klan had come "with its high ideals, drifting away from old party lines, reaching up towards God for guidance to find men white, with honest hearts, clean brains and that could not be bought."

Despite strong Klan opposition in Pueblo and Frémont Counties, however, Hardy carried all of the other counties and won the general election. Other anti-Klan candidates were not so lucky, though.

In addition to using organized Klan meetings to broadcast his message, Exalted Cyclops Arnold also used the pulpit. A relative newcomer to Cañon City, Arnold moved to the community in 1920 to accept the pastorate at the First Baptist Church. Prior to his death in 1928, he served as the first Exalted Cyclops of the Cañon City Klavern, and in 1925 he became the Grand Dragon of the Colorado Realm. On November 2, 1924, Arnold preached to a church "filled to capacity" on "Why the Ku Klux Klan Kame to America and Frémont County," and subsequently, many in that congregation became his foot soldiers.

THE MESSAGE that Benedictines, Catholic immigrants, and unbelieving Protestants were threatening their way of life deeply affected many Cañon City and Frémont County Protestants. Protestant men formed influential Klaverns in Cañon City and Florence in 1924, and women followed their lead in January 1925 with a membership of over 400.

John Molletti, the son of a French immigrant, was a member of the Junior Klan, and marked his "bib overalls" with "KKK" to contrast with the Catholic children who had marked their "bib overalls" with "KC" [for Knights of Columbus]. Hundreds of Protestants -- men, women, and children -- joined the Invisible Empire.

But those that did not, like May Wilson, thought the Klan was "a mess ... [breaking] up lots of homes, ... friendships and the church."

Whether the threat to them was real or fabricated, Klan-supporting Protestants firmly believed that their country, their religion, and even their very existence were all under attack. For them, the Klan provided a means to fight everything that seemed evil in their world. Thus, in Cañon City and Frémont County and other places nation-wide, citizens embraced the Klan and its philosophy in order to preserve a belief system and a way of life that they believed God had sanctioned. ¨