by Texas
But now came the vote, and white with anger, Reverend Teeder called for those who loved God and righteousness and an orderly church to stand up and show that they wanted Cobb and Lakarz expelled. The voting process was somewhat demoralized, because only twenty-six out of that entire multitude stood up, and when they saw how few they were, they tried to sit down. But at this
VOICC:
moment of victory, Adolf Lakarz shouted in a powerful 'Keep 'em standin'. I want the name and look of every man who voted against me.'
And with pencil and note pad he moved through the crowd, chin thrust out, blue eyes flashing as he stood before each man! taking his name and address. For the remainder of his life in Waxahachie he would never again speak to one of those twenty-six.
The scandal in Waxahachie over the dancing Sunday School girls was an amusing diversion which might have happened in any Texas town of this period and which could be forgiven as misguided religiosity. But the much more serious madness that gripped Larkin at about the same time was an aberration which could not be laughed away, for it came closer to threatening the stability of the entire state.
Precisely when it started no one could recall. One man said: 'It was patriotism, nothing more. I saw them boys come marchin' home from the war and I asked myself: "What can I do to preserve our freedoms?" That's how it started, best motives in the world.'
Others argued that it had been triggered by that rip-roaring revival staged in Larkin by the ranting Fort Worth evangelist J. Frank Norris, a type much different from the spiritual Elder Fry. Norris was an aggressive man who thundered sulphurous diatribes against saloon keepers, race-track addicts, liberal professors, and women who wore bobbed hair or skirts above the ankle. He was especially opposed to dancing, which, he claimed, 'scarlet women use to tempt men.'
His anathema, however, was the Roman Catholic church, which he lambasted in wild and colorful accusation: 'It's the darkest, bloodiest ecclesiastical machine that has ever been known in the annals of time. It's the enemy of home, of marriage and of every decent human emotion. The Pope has a plan for capturing Texas, and I have a plan for defeating him.'
He was most effective when he moved nervously from one side of the pulpit to the other, extending his hands and crying: 'I speak for all you humble, God-fearing folks from the forks of the creek. You know what's right and wrong, better than any professors at Baylor or SMU. It's on you that God relies for the salvation of our state.'
One man, not especially religious, testified: 'When ). Frank
;Norris shouted "I need the help of you little folks from the forks
>f the creek," I knowed he was speakin' direct to me, and that's
when I got all fired up. I saw myself as the right arm of God holdin' a sword ready to strike.'
A University of Texas historian later published documents proving that in Larkin, at least, it had originated not with Norris but with the arrival of three quite different outsiders who had not known one another but who did later act in concert. The earliest newcomer was a man from Georgia who told exciting yarns of what his group had accomplished. The next was a man from Mississippi who assured the Larkin people that his state was taking things in hand. But the greatest influence seemed to have been the third man, a salesman of farm machinery who drifted in from Indiana with startling news: 'Up there our boys are pretty well takin' over the state.'
From such evidence it would be difficult to assess the role played by religion, for while very few ministers actually participated, almost every man who did become involved was a devout member of one Protestant church or another, and the movement strenuously supported religion, with the popular symbols of Christianity featured in the group's rituals.
Whatever the cause, by early December 1919 men began appearing throughout Larkin County dressed in long white robes, masks and, sometimes, tall conical hats. The Ku Klux Klan, born after the Civil War, had begun its tempestuous resurrection.
In Larkin it was not a general reign of terror, and nobody ever claimed it was. The local Klan conducted no hangings, no burnings at the stake and only a few necessary floggings. It was best understood as a group of unquestioned patriots, all of them believing Christians, who yearned to see the historic virtues of 1836 and 1861 restored. It was a movement of men who resented industrial change, shifting moral values and disturbed allegiances; they were determined to preserve and restore what they identified as the best features of American life, and in their meetings and their publications they reassured one another that these were their only aims.
Nor was the Larkin Klan simply a rebellion against blacks, for after the first few days there were no blacks left in town. At the beginning there had been two families, offspring of those black cavalrymen who had stayed behind when the 10th Cavalry rode out of Fort Garner for the last time. At first these two men had kept an Indian woman between them, but later on they had acquired a wandering white woman, so that the present generation was pretty well mixed.
They were one of the first problems addressed by the Ku Kluxers after the organization was securely launched. A committee of four, in full regalia, moved through the town one December night and
met with the black families. There was no violence, simply the statement: 'We don't cotton to havin' your type m this town.' It was suggested that the blacks move on to Fort Griffin, where anybody was accepted, and a purse of twenty-six dollars was given them to help with the expense of moving.
One family left town the next morning; the other, named Jaxifer, decided to stay, but when a midnight cross blazed at the front door, the Jaxifers lit out for Fort Griffin, and there was no more of that kind of trouble in Larkin. The Klan did, however, commission four big well-lettered signs, which were posted at the entrances to the town:
nigger! do not let the setting sun-find you in this town.
WARNING!
Thereafter it was the boast of Larkin that 'no goddamned nigger ever slept overnight in this town.'
Nor did the Klan stress its opposition to Jews. Banker Weatherby, an old man now who had been among the first to join the Klan, simply informed three Jewish storekeepers in town that 'our loan committee no longer wishes to finance your business, and we all think it would be better if you moved along.' They did.
The strong opposition to Catholicism presented more complex problems, because the county did contain a rather substantial scattering of this proscribed sect, and whereas some of the more vocal Klansmen wanted to 'throw ever' goddamned mackerel snatcher out of Texas,' others pointed out that even in as well-organized a town as Larkin, more had drifted in than they thought. They had not been welcomed and their mysterious behavior was carefully watched, but at least they weren't black, or Indian, or Jewish, so they were partially acceptable.
The Larkin Klan never made a public announcement that Cath-Dlics would be allowed to stay, and at even the slightest infraction Df the Klan's self-formulated rules, anyone with an Irish-sounding name was visited, and warned he would be beaten up if he persisted in any un-Christian deportment.
When the town was finally cleaned up and inhabited by only -vhite members of the major Protestant religions, plus the well-behaved Catholics, it was conceded that Larkin was one of the inest towns in Texas. Its men had a commitment to economic Drosperity. Its women attended church faithfully. And its crime
rate was so low that it barely merited mention. There was some
truth to the next signs the Klansmen erected in 1920:
LARKIN
BEST LITTLE TOWN IN TEXAS
WATCH US GROW
If the Klan avoided violence against blacks or Jews or Catholics, who were its targets? An event in the spring of 1921 best illustrates its preoccupations, for then it confronted a rather worthless man of fifty who had been working in the town's livery stable when Larkin still had horses. He now served as janitor and polishing man at the Chevrolet garage, but he had also been living for many years with a shiftless woman named Nora as his housekeeper; few titles in town were less
deserved than hers, for she was totally incapable of keeping even a dog kennel, let alone a house. Jake and Nora lived in chaos and in sin, and the upright men of the Klan felt it was high time this ungodly conduct be stopped.
In orderly fashion, which marked all their actions, they appeared at Jake's cabin one Tuesday night carrying a lighted torch, which all could see, and in their clean white robes, their faces hidden by masks, they handed down the law: 'All this immoral sort of thing is gonna stop in Larkin. Marry this woman by Friday sundown or suffer the consequences.'
Jake and Nora had no need of marriage or any understanding of how to participate in one had they wanted to. By hit-and-miss they had worked out a pattern of living which suited them and which produced far fewer family brawls than some of the more traditional arrangements in town. The Klansmen were right that no one would want a lot of such establishments in a community, but Jake felt there ought to be leeway for the accommodation of one or two, especially if they worked well and produced neither scandal nor a horde of unruly children.
On Wednesday the Klansmen who had handed Jake and Nora their ultimatum watched to see what corrective steps the couple proposed taking, and when nothing seemed to have been done, two of the more responsible Klansmen decided to visit the couple again on Thursday night, and this they did in friendly fashion: 'Jake, you don't seem to understand. If you don't marry this woman . . .'
'Who are y'all? Behind them masks? What right . . .?'
'We're the conscience of this community. We're determined to wipe out immoral behavior.'
'Leave us alone. What about Mr. Henderson and his secretary?'
The boldness of this question stunned the two Klansmen, each of whom knew about Mr. Henderson and his secretary Rut it was not people like Henderson whom the Klan policed, and for someone like Jake to bring such a name into discussion was abhorrent. Now the tenor of the conversation grew more ominous: "Jake, Nora, you get married by tomorrow night or suffer the consequences.'
Jake was prepared to brazen the thing out, but Nora asked in real confusion: 'How could we get married?' and the two hooded visitors turned their attention to her: 'We'll take you to the justice of the peace tomorrow morning, or if you prefer a church wedding, Reverend Hislop has said he'd do it for us.'
'Get out of here!' Jake shouted, and the two men withdrew.
The next day passed, with Jake sweeping at the Chevrolet garage and showing no sign of remorse for his immoral persistence. Those Klansmen in the know watched his house—or was it Nora's house?—and saw that nothing was happening there, either, so at eight that Friday evening seven Ku Kluxers met with the salesman from Indiana, and after praying that they might act with justice, charity and restraint, marched with a burning cross to Jake's place. Planting the cross before the front door, they summoned the two miscreants.
As soon as Jake appeared he was grabbed, not hurtfully, and stripped of his shirt. Tar was applied liberally across his back, and then a Klansman with a bag of feathers slapped handfuls onto the tar. He was then hoisted onto a stout beam, which four other Klansmen carried, and there he was held, feet tied together beneath the beam, while the moral custodians tended to the slut Nora.
Around the world, in all times and in all places, whenever men go on an ethical rampage they feel that they must discipline women: 'Your dresses are too short.' 'You tempt men.' 'Your behavior is salacious.' 'You must be put in your proper place.' This stems, of course, from the inherent mystery of women, their capacity to survive, their ability to bear children, the universal suspicion that they possess some arcane knowledge not available to men. Women are dangerous, and men pass laws to keep them under restraint. All religions, which also deal in mysteries, know this, and that is why the Muslim, the Jewish, the Catholic and the Mormon faiths proscribed women so severely and why other churches ran into trouble when they tried belatedly to ordain women as ministers.
The men of the Ku Klux Klan were as bewildered by sex as any of their reforming predecessors, and on this dark night they had
to look upon Nora-with-three-teeth-missing-in-front as a temptress who had seduced Jake into his immoral life. But what to do with her? There was no inclination at all to strip her, but there was a burning desire to punish her, so two men dragged her out beside the flaming cross and tarred her whole dress, fore and aft, scattering feathers liberally upon her.
She then was lifted onto the rail, behind her man, whereupon two additional men supported it, and in this formation the hooded Klansmen paraded through the streets of Larkin behind a sign which proclaimed:
EMORALITY IN LARKIN WILL STOP
Jake and Nora did not respond as the Klansmen had hoped. They did not marry, and when the long parade was over they returned home, scraped off the tar, and said 'nothin' to nobody.' Early Saturday morning Jake was at the garage, sweeping as usual and saying hello to any who passed. He had no idea who had disciplined him, and at noon he walked home as usual for his lunch. Nora went to the store late Saturday for her weekend supplies, and on Sunday, Jake fished as always, up at the tank, which contained some good-sized bass, while Nora sat on her front lawn where scars from the burned cross still showed.
Such behavior infuriated the Klansmen, who convened after church on Sunday a special meeting at which it was discussed with some heat as to whether the two should be flogged. The Indiana man was all for a public whipping in the courthouse square, but the Georgia man argued against it: 'We found it does no good. Creates sympathy. And it scares the womenfolk.'
Instead, the men found an old wagon and a worthless horse, and these they drove to Jake's place on Monday evening. Throwing the two adulterers into the back, they piled the wagon with as many of their household goods as possible, then drove west of town till they were beyond sight of the beautiful courthouse tower which bespoke order and justice for this part of Texas. There the Klansmen plopped Jake onto the driver's bench and gave him the reins: 'Straight down this road is Fort Griffin. They'll accept anybody.'
The hooded posse returned to Larkin after sunset, and two hours later Jake and Nora, driving the old horse that Jake had often tended in the livery stable, came back to town. With no fanfare they rode down familiar streets to their home, unpacked their belongings, and went to bed.
That was Monday. On Wednesday night Jake was found behind the garage, shot to death.
No CHARGES WERE EVER FILED AGAINST THE KLANSMEN, AND FOR
the very good reason that no one knew for sure who they were, or even if they had done it. At least, that was the legal contention. Of course, everyone knew that Floyd Rusk—who could not hide his size even under a bedsheet—was one of the leaders, perhaps the leader, because he was obvious at all the marches and the cross burnings, but no one could be found who could swear that yes, he had seen Floyd Rusk tarring Jake.
It was also known that Clyde Weatherby was an active member, as were the hardware merchant, the doctor, the schoolteacher and the druggist. Some four dozen other men, the best in the community, joined later. With an equal mix of patriotism and religion, these men of good intention began to inspect all aspects of life in Larkin, for they were determined to keep their little town in the mainstream of American life as they perceived it.
They forced six men to marry their housekeepers. They lectured, in an almost fatherly manner, two teen-aged girls who seemed likely to become promiscuous, and they positively shut down a grocer against whom several housewives had complained. They did not tar-and-feather him, nor did they horsewhip him; those punishments were reserved for sexual infractions, but they did ride him out of town, telling him to transfer his shop to Fort Griffin, where honesty of trade was not so severely supervised.
By the beginning of 1922 these men had Larkin in the shape they wanted; even some of the Catholics, fearing that reprisals would next be directed at them, had moved away, making the town about as homogeneous as one could have found in all of Texas. It was a community of Protestant Christians in which the rules were understood and in which infractions were
severely punished. Almost none of the excesses connected with the Klan in other parts of the nation were condoned here, and after two years of intense effort the Klansmen, when they met at night, could justifiably claim that they had cleaned up Larkin. With this victory under their belt, they intended moving against Texas as a whole, and then, all of the United States.
In 1922 they got well started by electing their man, Earle B. Mayfield, a Tyler grocer, to the United States Senate, but this triumph had a bitter aftermath, because for two years that august body refused to seat a man accused of Klan membership, and when it did finally accept him, he was denied reelection. The Larkin members assuaged their disappointment by achieving a notorious victory in the local high school, where the principal, an enthusiastic Klansman, inserted in the school yearbook a well-drawn full-
page depiction of a nightrider in his regalia of bedsheet, mask and pointed hat astride a white stallion under a halo composed of the
WOrds GOD, COUNTRY, PROTESTANTISM, SUPREMACY. At the bottom
of the page, in a neatly lettered panel, stood the exhortation like
THE KLAN, LARKIN HIGH WILL TRIUMPH IN FOOTBALL.
In the growing town, however, the Klan suffered other frustrations. The editor of the Defender, an effeminate young man from Arkansas, had the temerity to editorialize against them, and in a series of articles he explained why he opposed what he called 'midnight terrorism.' This unlucky phrase infuriated the Klansmen: 'We have to guard the morals of Larkin at night because during the day we have to run our businesses. Terrorism is shooting innocent people, and no man can claim we ever done that, and live.'
They handled the newspaper with restraint. First they approached the editor, in masks, and explained their lofty motives, pointing out the many good things they had done for Larkin, like eliminating vice and increasing church membership, but they made little impression on the young man.