At the same time as the American Legion was unable to condemn the Klan explicitly at their national convention in San Francisco, some Salem Klan members were getting on an Oregon Electric Special to Corvallis for an initiation and parade. The morning paper seemed a little eager to help promote it.
 |
| October 18th, 1923 |
The language of "naturalization" and the pile-up of Ks are interesting in the Albany ad.
 |
| Albany Evening Herald Oct. 15th, 1923 |
There were no similar ads in Salem papers, but the morning paper did feature notices for the Oregon Electric special train, which they seemed to understand as a public service. The afternoon paper also mentioned it, but it was a short item buried in a list of similarly small items, and did not give it a full headline.
 |
| October 18th, 1923 |
Indeed, a few days later the morning paper started listing the Salem parade and meeting on November 10th in a daily calendar of events. They did not seem to find anything very objectionable about it.
 |
| Oct. 24th, 1923 |
Afterward the event, an Albany paper suggested a very large crowd. It repeated the "naturalization" theme.
 |
| Albany Evening Herald October 19th, 1923 |
Here in Salem, the morning paper only mentioned "initiation." It also said "only a small number boarded the train here [at Salem]."
 |
| Oct. 19th, 1923 |
The afternoon paper was full of sarcasm, parodying an early modern biblical style of rhetoric.
 |
| Oct. 19th, 1923 |
It noted that
...the simple ones who did not belong did mill about the train that they might better view the hordes as they did mount the special for Corvallis. And, in truth, they did see no less that 12 who did climb the steps in a hurried fashion and did slump behind newspapers...
Both papers agreed the number of Salemites going to Corvallis on the train was not large, but they do not say anything about the number of people driving cars to Corvallis. They afternoon paper also seemed to suggest there were people watching to see who got on, looking for an unmasking of sorts, but did not mention any counter-protest or anything.
 |
| September 16th, 1923 |
As context, even the morning paper had been reporting on the ongoing Klan crisis in Oklahoma. They seemed to find the Klan problematic elsewhere, but benign here. It's an odd disjunction in tone and approach.
The outcome of the Legion ruckus, which the morning paper, unlike the afternoon paper, had not much mentioned, was later in 2009 at the center of some hurt feelings and some bad faith.
 |
| Arizona Republic, April 25th, 2009 |
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano apologized to veterans during an April 16 interview on CNN, after The American Legion and other veterans service organizations objected to a report about right-wing extremism, issued by her office....
The full text of [Legion Commander] Rehbein’s letter to Secretary Napolitano follows...
I want to assure you that The American Legion has long shared your concern about white supremacist and anti-government groups. In 1923, when the Ku Klux Klan still yielded unspeakable influence in this country, The American Legion passed Resolution 407. It resolved, in part, that “ ... we consider any individual, group of individuals or organizations, which creates, or fosters racial, religious or class strife among our people, or which takes into their own hands the enforcement of law, determination of guilt, or infliction of punishment, to be un-American, a menace to our liberties, and destructive to our fundamental law ....”
The afternoon paper here had said in 1923
The substitute resolution offered by Charles Kendrick of San Francisco, calling for a complete denunciation of the Ku Klux Klan was voted down by the American Legion today by a vote of 815 to 142, absent and not voting 36. This brought back on the floor the original "resolution 407" which is termed "a mild denunciation of the klan."
They also noted, "Oregon's 13 votes and Washington's 18 were all cast against the Kendrick sub-resolution, which condemned the klan in no uncertain terms." Resolution 407 did not mention the Klan at all, and it would take extra interpretive work to understand it as a "mild denunciation." The intended interpretive work was likely to clear room for the Klan as an exception.
In 1923 the Legion had had a clear opportunity to denounce the Klan, and they chose not to. The Legion's retconning stress in 2009 on the "unspeakable influence" misses that the influence was quite speakable and popular among the Legion in 1923.
 |
| Retired Lt. General speaking, April 2nd 2022 |
In the decade and change following 2009, the Malheur Occupation of 2016, the periodic street brawling, the Capitol Putsch of January 6th, and the ongoing highly visible presence of a retired general, all confirm the DHS report on right-wing extremism was not so errant after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment