After the May Election of 1924, the afternoon paper trumpeted the defeat of the Klan slate across the board.
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| May 17th, 1924 |
The terms they used were "invisible government," focusing on secrecy.
Earlier in May they had reported on a new Salem Klan, which had incorporated in March through Indiana rather than Atlanta, and was not affiliated with Frederick Gifford. They highlighted "secret political methods" rather than policy. They were ok with a lot of the nativism and racism. The afternoon paper's opposition to the Klan was more on style than substance, it has seemed.
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| May 8th, 1924 |
If there was enough interest to charter a new Klan group, the triumphalism of "crippling blow" may not be wholly warranted.
There was, in fact, a sense that Senator Charles McNary had struck a deal with the Klan for reelection.
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| May 14th, 1924 |
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| May 14th, 1924 |
Kaspar K. Kubli, "a notorious Klansman" the editorial observed, was soundly defeated in the race for Senator, but how much had McNary benefitted? And was any benefit contrary to any "crippling blow."
The entry on McNary at the Oregon Encyclopedia understands McNary as a foe of the Klan:
In the face of the growing influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Oregon, in 1922 McNary endorsed Governor Ben Olcott for reelection, a candidate the Klan opposed. He supported the governor despite warnings that his stand could endanger his own reelection in 1924. In fact, McNary considered not running in 1924 in lieu of a cabinet or district court appointment, but the prospect of Klan opposition helped him make the decision to run.But this newspaper evidence for the 1924 election looks less clear.
Maybe some historians have dug more deeply into this and we can update another time.
Largely parallel and overlapping with the Klan set of endorsements, and referenced as part of the "invisible government," was a slate of endorsements offered by the Christian Federation of Salem, a group of local churches. The afternoon paper didn't like this either.
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| May 14th, 1924 |
It was not until 1954 that churches were barred from political campaigning, so this was all ok in 1924.
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| May 17th, 1924 |
At the moment anyway "crippling blow" seems to overstate the case for the Klan's decline in Salem in May of 1924.
The morning paper hardly covered any of this. Though they covered the election and candidates, they did not discuss this subtext of Klan politics.
With daily updates, they were instead focused on a month-long Evangelical Revival, which culminated in the construction of a temporary tabernacle on the Willamette University campus, probably about where the old Post Office, Gattke Hall, is located today.
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| March 30th and April 27th, 1924 |
The morning paper at this time was animated by a real sense of Christian nationalism and Christian civics.
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| January 18th and February 8th, 1924 |
Earlier in the year they had lobbied hard for area churches to hire Billy Sunday for a revival. Sunday had asked for a large fee, and many of the churches balked.
Victoria Demarest, by contrast, does not appear to have asked for a large fee in advance or guaranteed and appears to have been content with receipts from offering plates and other giving after she had already arrived. This is not certain, but there is a real difference in tone about the finances between the two evangelists and their organizations. (There does not seem to be a good brief biography of Demarest online, and notes on her papers held at Harvard might be the best capsule biography. The March 30th article linked above has a longer biography, highlighting her family's lineage with the Salvation Army, but it is of course advance publicity and hype, not anything trying to be neutral.)
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| May 20th, 1924 |
At the conclusion of the revival the morning paper editorialized,
day after day the people of Salem and surrounding country hear plain spiritual gospel preached. The number of conversions was very satisfactory [1200 they reported separately]....It was a great series of meetings...Salem will never go back to where it was. It will go forward spiritually because of this impetus.
Along with the headline allusion to the Gospel of John, "it is ended," they also made particular effort to point out what they saw as a very positive bias:
The revival was reported by Charles J. Lisle, a trained reporter, whose sympathy was entirely with the effort being made by the evangelist. The report from day to day was not only fair but it was sympathetic. Mr. Lisle's work is so good that we are asking the public realize his responsibility.
This is a good reminder that nostalgia for some "golden age" of impartial journalism is generally not well founded!
Because of the overlap between the endorsements of the Christian Federation and the Klan, and because of the morning paper's lack of interest in reporting critically on the Klan, the interest in revival suggests a widespread sympathy with the Klan's politics in a milder form, an ostensibly genteel white Christian nationalism, even as there was concern about the Klan's secrecy and its politics in more extreme form. Any "blow" was only to the organization, incorporated and chartered entities, and not mainly to politics and sentiment.
This will be something we watch over the spring, summer, and into fall of 1924 as Klan's organization seems to continue its decline, but the sentiments behind it may not have declined so much.
Demarest also seems like an interesting figure, very much in a leadership position, seemingly neglected by historians, and maybe there will be more to say on her another time.
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