The Bed-Sheet Bulletin

I've been digging in some family history items and updating the family tree.  For those of us who have an Iowegian lineage, the "Old Iowa Press" site is a wonderful resource.  As I searched for some day to day background on one of my great-grandfathers, I came upon a delicious news morsel from the LeMars Globe-Post of August 6, 1925.

The article is entitled, "Bed Sheet Meeting Takes in Some Money."  The article reports on a KKK rally "held on the old city dump grounds, across the street from the tourist park" in greater LeMars.  This was apparently a weekly event of the time, since the writer compared the current week's attendance unfavorably to the previous week's gathering.  Because of the lowered admission fees, revenue was up, "it being found that many of the most violent klan adherents could not raise more than ten dollars."

The article rightly drips with disdain and disgust for the whole affair.  This writer takes no back seat to any current cable news commentator in offering backhanded criticism and bitter critique.  The admission fee was redeemed, for example, by the fact that forty cents of every dollar stayed with the local event organizers, "so most of the money remains in LeMars, after all."

There was fine entertainment at the gathering.  "The bed-sheet parade, participated in by 28 kluckers, was one of the first events.  A newly organized band played and the spectators gave generously.  One LeMars man, who never gave a nickel to the LeMars Municipal band, clanked in with a half dollar."

How I wish I could have met this snarky journalist!  The writer reports that there was singing as well as band music.  A men's quartet sang a catchy little ditty:

"I'm a member of the kluklux klan,

kluklux klan, kluklux klan,

I'm a member of the kluklux klan,

so why should you be too?"

"Or words to that effect," the writer scoffs.  Then came the keynote speaker, a woman who focused on the Catholic menace in the LeMartian metropolis.  There were no people of color to bait or scapegoat, but Catholics abounded.  "She said Columbus never discovered America; only South America, and that the latter country is 90 per cent Catholic, degenerate and illiterate."  That must have gone over well with the folks at St. Joseph and St. James Catholic parishes in town!

The writer notes that the klan could do some good by serving as "a sink...to catch the cranks, radicals, and fanatics.  If the klan is extreme enough then it will be no different from other organizations in LeMars.  It will be harmless, and worth the money in a social way."  Just how many people can a writer offend in two sentences?  I want to know more about this social rebel!

In an unrelated article, I learned that my great-grandfather had been the secretary of a local township board at the time.  I wonder what he thought, if anything, of the events in the county seat?  He was not one of those hated Catholics, but he was a recent immigrant, nonetheless.  Did he connect the dots? 

Less than a hundred years ago in my home town, bed-sheet parades took place with impunity.  Such events could be ridiculed with roistering rants.  But they could not be stopped.  The fear of the stranger, the other, the alien and enemy, runs deep.  Thank God for the truth tellers in every age!