Ku Klux Kulture
Page 22
The response from the Ku Klux Klan and the Klannish public was immediate. A “tremendous gathering of Klanspeople” in Michigan, for instance, resolved to support the Forum’s radio project in every way possible, including enlisting a hundred thousand new subscribers. In the newspaper’s first published list of donors, contributions from thirty states were listed, with an overwhelming majority sent by Klan members and affiliates. In at least one state, the Women’s Klan circulated a bulletin informing members that “no unit is in any way compelled to contribute,” but they would “miss an opportunity to help make history” by failing to donate.28
The national head of the Women’s Klan, Imperial Commander Robbie Gill Comer, wrote an open letter to the Forum to inform readers, “I very much favor this project and believe that a Broadcasting Station would be of infinite value.” To that end, she pledged to “cooperate in any way possible” and would push a “hearty response” from her members. In June, a similar letter arrived from Imperial Wizard Hiram Evans to “heartily endorse this movement” and underline “the urgent need of such an instrumentality.” The Klan’s head also donated a thousand dollars to the cause, and encouraged “every sincere American” to give “every possible financial assistance.”29
Despite this impressive show of support, the Forum’s publisher and editor, James Vance, soon realized that he had overestimated how quickly the newspaper would be able to raise the necessary funds. As 1927 began, the Forum had raised over $110,000—short of the $160,000 needed. Nor was the lack of funds the only problem. In late January 1927, the newspaper announced that Congressman Henry Rathbone (R-Illinois) had agreed to become the head of the new radio station’s advisory board. In the wide publicity that followed concerning “the radio broadcasting station to be erected by the Ku Klux Klan,” Rathbone quickly denied any affiliation with the Invisible Empire and distanced himself from the Forum. Then, in April, the newspaper was informed by experts that a transmitter tower on a downtown D.C. property would be unworkable. As such, extra funds had to be raised to buy land outside of town as a dedicated site for the radio station. Vance’s hectoring letters took on a new tone of urgency for a “great 60-day drive,” a “regular CYCLONE OF ACTION,” to raise the money. The initiative was spearheaded by a contribution from the Klan’s favorite broadcaster, Franklin Ford.30
The most serious blow came in June. The prospective broadcasters had found a site in Virginia, near George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, and purchased it. On June 11, the cornerstone of the radio building was finally laid, almost a year behind schedule. A few days later, the Fellowship Forum received word that a broadcast permit was required to begin construction. Not only did the Forum still not have a permit, but it was not likely to receive one any time soon. If they had been able to raise the funds in 1926, the transmitter would likely have been completed in short order, but the extended fund-raising meant that construction had not begun before Congress passed the Radio Act of 1927. Previously, under the Radio Act of 1912, stations had operated under license from the Department of Commerce with minimal oversight. Now, a newly formed Federal Radio Commission (FRC) had the power to decide whether to grant a station a broadcast license based on “public interest, convenience or necessity,” as well as to regulate broadcast frequency and power.31
This legislation effectively transformed broadcasting into a federally regulated public arena, as some forms of radio were deemed more worthy than others. Although the FRC was explicitly prohibited from directly censoring broadcasters, its licensing power meant that it was able to wield considerable power over programming. As well as the ability to deny a license to a new station, it could also refuse to renew an existing station’s license. Since these licenses normally expired within six months of issuance, broadcasters the FRC deemed unacceptable could soon find themselves off air. John R. Brinkley of Klan-friendly KFKB had his right to broadcast removed in 1930 after the FRC found that the station “no longer met proper standards” and Brinkley’s dubious medical advice was not “in the interest of the listening public.” Outspoken broadcasters like Norman Baker of Iowa’s KTNT and Reverend Bob Shuler of Los Angeles’s KFEG met similar fates. New York City’s WEVD, a Socialist station, was forced into a lengthy appeal to retain its license.32
With new federal oversight that looked unfavorably on stations that were “undesirable and obnoxious to . . . religious organizations” and that outright forbade the airing of “obscene, indecent, or profane” material, some newspapers simply reported that the Fellowship Forum had been denied a license to broadcast. The reality was somewhat more complicated. Construction had been halted because the newspaper did not yet have a permit. A letter from Commissioner Orestes Caldwell of the FRC to Vance noted that while the Forum was welcome to apply, “the commission has on file 300 applications for new stations, for which it is unable to find wave lengths.” No new permits could be issued until other stations ceased broadcasting, to prevent overcrowding of the airwaves. Thus, Caldwell wrote, he could give “very little encouragement looking toward a wave length on which to operate on in the future.” Numerous publications reveled in the Klan’s lack of foresight.33
Caldwell’s letter elided the fact that the Forum had actually registered an application for a broadcast permit in April.34 After receiving the Klan publication’s request, local radio supervisor G. E. Sterling wrote to the Department of Commerce to strongly recommend denying the Forum a permit:
Confidential inquiries concerning this publishing company indicate that the above concern is connected with the Ku Klux Klan and that it is their policy to denounce in their publication, the Catholic Church. . . . It would seem on the strength of the above that it is safe to assume that this applicant, should a broadcast station be erected and licensed, would carry on religious propaganda to the extent that it would be questionable whether such a station would be in the interest of public convenience, interest and necessity.35
To support his point, Sterling wrote, he was “endeavoring to obtain a copy of its most radical publication in which religious attacks are published” and would forward his findings to the department. He also recommended that if “a station of this class” were to be licensed, it should be placed in a band wave “consistent with the type of material to be broadcast,” with an emphasis on the minimizing of interference with the “more desirable class of programs”—a common practice, in which favored stations (generally those owned by large corporations) were given access to the 400-meter band, while others were relegated to the crowded 360-meter band. In May, Sterling sent several issues of the Fellowship Forum on to his superiors, highlighting what he considered the most egregious religious attacks. Almost all the pieces were reprints of Franklin Ford’s radio addresses over WHAP.36
It was only with this information in hand that Caldwell wrote to Vance in June to inform him that the Forum should not expect a broadcast permit any time soon. Contrary to what many anti-Klan publications around the country gleefully reported, the Invisible Empire had not technically been “denied a license.” The FRC had nonetheless effectively postponed the Forum’s debut indefinitely. The Klan would have to take its turn in the glut of applications.
Vance was not one to take this news peacefully, and began to look for alternatives to speed the process along. By July, he had found his answer. In an effort coordinated by the Forum’s attorney, ex-Congressman Charles I. Stengle (D-New York), the Forum agreed to buy station WTRC in Brooklyn—and the station’s broadcasting license—from the local Republican club that operated it. If the FRC would not grant the Forum a permit until another station freed up a portion of the broadcast spectrum, then Vance would simply buy an existing permit.37
The Forum quickly filed the necessary paperwork to have ownership of WTRC’s bandwidth officially transferred. In the application, Vance stated that the Forum’s primary mission would be to broadcast lectures on “Religious, Educational, Fraternal, Agricultural, and Patriotic” subjects. This would be supplemented by musical pro
grams intended to foster “higher moral, spiritual, educational, and patriotic standards.” The station, Vance boasted, “is asked for by 100,000 American citizens.” Asked how the station would be financially supported, Vance coyly named “fraternal and patriotic services.”38
At the end of July, the Department of Commerce finally issued a permit for the Fellowship Forum to begin construction of its new transmitter and studio. Although the Forum was “a recognized organ of the Ku Klux Klan” and “members of the commission regard the new station as having Klan leanings,” the FRC also decided to issue a permit that would allow broadcasting to begin on August 15 under the name WTFF. The Forum’s new station would retain WTRC’s power restrictions and undesirable frequency. The Klan would be broadcasting at 1,470 kilocycles, and with only 50 watts of power, so listeners would have to tune their radios to “the extreme lower end” of the dial where “squeals will probably be heard” unless the rheostats were properly adjusted. Nonetheless, the Klannish movement now had its own radio station—and with it the imprimatur of the federal government.39
Vance exulted that the FRC had “granted us everything which we asked for.” Despite the station’s limited range, the commission’s decision made national news. To head off any potential backlash, the newspaper’s executives told reporters that the station would “not be Klan controlled” or “dominated by the Klan,” despite the fact that “many Klansmen read the Forum.” Vance similarly contended that the Forum was not “primarily a Ku Klux Klan organ.” He could not deny that the newspaper and its radio station “could properly be described as ‘pro-Klan.’”40
Any doubts about where the Forum’s allegiances lay would be quickly assuaged by an examination of who had contributed to the construction of the radio station. Of the more than two thousand organizations that had donated to the newspaper’s campaign, over 90 percent were local Klans or Klan affiliates, including the Women’s Klan, the Junior Klan, and the Krusaders, the association for foreign-born Klansmen. Among the more than twenty-eight thousand individuals who donated, the Klan represented a similar proportion among those who declared an affiliation. Certainly, other fraternal groups sympathetic to the Forum had contributed—including the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Malta, and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. It is also important to remember that by this point the Klan’s organizational power had waned significantly on a national level. This did not alter the fact that the new radio station’s executives, particularly Vance, knew their greatest strength and support lay with the Invisible Empire.41
At the end of August 1927, WTFF began broadcasting experimentally until the Forum’s new transmitter was fully operational. “Test programs of sacred and patriotic music” were aired for an hour every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evening. In October, after more than a year of fund-raising and months of bureaucratic wrangling, WTFF, “the Patriotic American Radio Broadcasting Station,” formally began broadcasting. The Forum claimed that properly tuned radios had managed to receive WTFF as far north as Ontario, as far west as Cleveland, and as far south as Georgia. The Klan movement finally had its own radio station on the air. Even so, this was not enough for Vance. By the end of the month, the station’s manager had applied to the FRC to boost WTFF’s power from fifty watts to a fantastic fifty thousand, which would make the station one of the three most powerful in the United States. As the Washington Post noted, “The request for so great an increase in power” indicated “the desire of the pro-Klan organization to be heard over a large portion of the United States.”42
In November, Caldwell wrote to Vance to inform him of the FRC’s decision. Although WTFF would remain in the undesirable portion of the spectrum, moving to 1,480 kilocycles, the station’s transmitter was approved to start broadcasting at ten thousand watts. Vance used the front page of the Forum to declare that WTFF would switch to the new power level as soon as possible, so as to best serve “the militant Protestant American army.” The editor also devoted no little space to celebrating the station’s triumph over “the bitter opposition of our enemies.” The minor opposition that WTFF met, however, was far from bitter. The FRC reported that “few protests had been received” about the power increase. The Kourier exulted that “all liberty-loving Americans” were behind the station.43
The power increase transformed WTFF from a fairly minor local broadcaster to a national outlet. The station began transmitting at ten thousand watts at the beginning of 1928. WTFF was now the fifth most powerful radio station in the United States. It was by far the most powerful station in the mid-Atlantic region. Letters praising its programming arrived from as far north as Nova Scotia, as far south as Havana, as far west as California, and as far east as England. The Klan movement had become a pioneer in high-powered low-frequency broadcasting. Not only had the FRC found nothing obscene, indecent, or profane in allowing the Ku Klux Klan on air, the movement was now broadcasting coast-to-coast under government imprimatur. Hilmes has argued that early radio’s position as a federally regulated entity made it a semipublic institution, responsible for education on a par with schools, churches, and government. The Invisible Empire now had not only the cultural weight of government regulation behind its message, but also the ability to create both local and national publics, potentially reaching millions of American homes.44
Representative of the continuities that marked the cultural landscape of the 1920s, the Klan broadcaster was largely unremarkable in its programming. A special New Year’s Day lineup to mark the power shift was listed by the Washington Evening Star as the best radio programming of the day, offering the usual mix of “musical entertainment, religious sermons, and patriotic addresses.” Although clearly Klan-approved, the broadcasts varied little from those of the majority of other broadcasters. Most consisted simply of suitable musical selections and lectures by a variety of individuals, rather than singularly Klannish programming. The newspaper editor estimated that the station spent roughly four hours each week on “entertainment,” four hours on religious material, and two hours each on educational, agricultural, and fraternal matters. The only significant variation from a growing norm was that WTFF did not air commercials.45
The average station filled its programming with music and variety acts. Dance bands, transmitted live from hotel ballrooms, became a staple of the airwaves. Classical music and “old-time” tunes remained popular. Radio was soon a key arbiter in determining “popular” music. As one longtime Tin Pan Alley writer lamented, “The gal in Kalamazoo don’t buy sheet music any more.” Increasingly, she didn’t buy phonograph records either. Radio was becoming the primary means of musical consumption for many Americans—and the Klan movement was no exception.46
According to the schedule published by the Forum at the beginning of 1928, WTFF dedicated Sunday evenings to musical numbers “specially suited to a Sunday,” climaxing in a gospel sermon. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings saw “varied selections” of music, “serious and humorous readings,” and “patriotic addresses.” Vance also offered up the station to any members of Congress who wished to take advantage of its services, free of charge. Many accepted, happy to take advantage of the high-power transmitter’s ability to reach both their home state and a national audience. A bipartisan parade of politicians passed through the studio, from the progressive Senator William Borah (R-Idaho) to Senator “Cotton Tom” Heflin (D-Alabama) to Congressman Albert Johnson (R-Washington), cosponsor of the 1924 Immigration Act. Broadcasts might range from a local monologist to vaudeville acts to an outline of the current political situation by a sitting senator. The diverse musical offerings gave listeners both “Old Time melodies” and novelty acts cashing in on the craze for Hawaiian music, and much more.47
At the same time, WTFF did not shy away from its Klan connections. Every Friday night was set aside as a special “Fraternal Night.” The Invisible Empire’s local music troupes, particularly the choirs of the Fairfax County, Virginia, Klan and its Women’s Klan affiliate, appeared
frequently. Klan lecturers and lectures approving of the Klan’s activities and ideals were popular mainstays of the station’s programming. Imperial Commander Robbie Gill Comer’s portrait was hung in the WTFF studio, the first picture to adorn the new facility’s walls, to mark the notable contribution of Klanswomen to the Forum’s fund-raising campaign. The Kourier printed lengthy paeans to WTFF’s “great patriotic fraternal program” and “important mission.” After the power increase, Klan leaders from around the country, including the head of Indiana’s Women’s Klan, made pilgrimages to Virginia to appear on the station. A fairly typical evening on WTFF saw talks from Congressman Ewin Davis (D-Tennessee) on farm relief and from Gail S. Carter, Grand Dragon of Illinois, on public schools.48
Yet WTFF would ultimately falter and fail. In large part, that was because even as the station reached the airwaves, it was already outdated. The problem was not the programming, which seemingly successfully appealed to a broad audience. The problem was revenue. As radio audiences had become more sophisticated and discerning in their entertainment choices, many companies quickly learned how to monetize their broadcasting. An AT&T station aired the first “commercial” in 1922. The company introduced sponsored programming in 1923. By 1925, an increasing number of stations used short commercial “spots” to finance their operations. By 1928, the practice of selling a minute of airtime had become common.49
This commercialization of the airwaves had made radio broadcasting big business. As such, it had begun to attract heavier investment and greater corporate involvement. Even before WTFF had received its license, independent radio broadcasting was in decline. In 1926, as the Forum had struggled to raise the money to build a transmitter and studio, David Sarnoff and his fellow executives at RCA had been building a new, permanently connected radio system using the AT&T telephone network. That year, the new corporate conglomerate of NBC hit the airwaves. In a process hastened by the 1927 radio legislation, the widely varying voices of independent stations began to disappear in the “public interest.” In their place came the general-purpose programming of the network, centralized in New York and distributed across the country.50