James H. Ashby spelled out his positions in newspaper ads. (Courtesy State Journal-Register)
James H. Ashby didn’t mention his Ku Klux Klan membership when he ran for a seat in the Illinois House in 1924. But it was no secret – Ashby had already been identified in two lawsuits as one of the local Klan’s top leaders. One of the suits even claimed the statewide Klan organization, perversely, had tried to force Ashby out of his legislative race.
If anything, by boosting his Klan associations, the controversies may have helped Ashby’s candidacy. Ashby (1893-1959), an insurance salesman and a Republican, easily won a seat in the Illinois House in November 1924. In fact, with 44,771 votes, Ashby came in first among the four candidates for three House seats. (The district, the 45th, took in Sangamon and Morgan Counties.)
Though they ignored his Klan affiliation, Ashby’s newspaper advertisements mirrored the Klan’s positions. Ashby, the ads said,
Absolutely Believes in and Stands for:
The Tenets of the Christian Religion.
Just Laws and Liberty.
Freedom of Speech and Press.
The Limitation of Foreign Immigration.
Free Public Schools, and the right to read the Holy Bible and to display the American Flag in same.
The 1920s Klan, both nationwide and in central Illinois, was less explicitly anti-Black than the original 19th-century, southern-based KKK. The second-generation Klan focused its ire on immigrants, Jews, Catholics, and especially the Catholic school system.
The Springfield Klan chapter – named, with blithe inattention to irony, Abraham Lincoln Council No. 3 – was founded in 1921, although financial controversies dogged the chapter from the beginning.
The Klan’s first Springfield recruiter, a traveling organizer named C.A. Wright, bounced a couple of checks and skipped town after only a few weeks. He left behind, the Illinois State Register said, a trunkful of clothes, including his “mystic robe.”
Another recruiter, James Brockman, owner of the Krispette Kandy Kitchen (the “KKK” initials appear to have been a coincidence) on East Adams Street, was more successful. He reportedly signed up hundreds of members for Abraham Lincoln No. 3. In 1922, however, statewide Klan officials had Brockman arrested, charging that he had kept almost $600 in initiation fees ($10 per recruit) for himself. In response, Brockman filed suit claiming the Klan owed him $800 in commissions.
Brockman’s lawsuit named more than a dozen officers of Abraham Lincoln Council No. 3. Charles Wanless (1884-1945) was exalted cyclops, the chapter’s top position. Ashby was klaliff, Abraham Lincoln No. 3’s second-ranking officer.
Wanless, undated (SJ-R)
The local Klan got entangled in another court dispute in 1924. Statewide Klan officials had decided to endorse Gov. Len Small for re-election and state welfare director C.H. Jenkins for a seat on the state Supreme Court. When Wanless and the local Klan objected – Jenkins “had opposed the Klan in every conceivable way,” they said – Illinois Grand Dragon Charles Palmer of Chicago expelled Wanless and revoked the charter of Abraham Lincoln No. 3.
Palmer also directed Ashby, who replaced Wanless as leader of the local Klan, to drop out of his legislative race. If Ashby withdrew, statewide officials added, “he would be taken care of in better shape than if he remained on the ticket and was elected.” A lawsuit filed by the Springfield chapter described that promise as attempted bribery.
The lawsuits, charges and countercharges, compounded by the Klan’s reputation for secrecy, got big play in Springfield newspapers in fall 1924, right in the middle of what turned out to be Ashby’s winning election campaign.
In 1925, however, an Indiana sex-and-murder scandal resulted in the virtual collapse of the Midwestern Klan. In 1926, with his Klan connections no longer a political asset, Ashby finished a poor third in the Republican primary election. His career in politics ended with a defeat in the 1927 Springfield City Council primary.
Ashby took another loss in court in 1926. A judge ordered Ashby and the former klabee (treasurer) of the local Klan, dentist J.B. Watts (1875-1941), to account for more than $12,000 that Abraham Lincoln No. 3 owed to the Klan’s Illinois “realm.” Ashby and Watts fought the ruling, but it dragged on until 1929. It isn’t clear if the two ex-Klan officers had to pay up.
Ashby apparently had little impact during his one term in the legislature. He sponsored a bill to remove a residency requirement for municipal officials, but it failed. And to no one’s surprise, he voted against a proposal, aimed specifically at the KKK, that would have required groups to provide membership rosters to the state. It also failed.
Ashby moved to Dallas, Texas, about 1940. He is buried there.
When Charles Wanless died in 1945, the Illinois State Journal described him in a page 1 obituary as a “prominent Springfield realtor for 40 years.” The newspaper noted his many distinctions in the realty industry – Wanless had been president of the Springfield Board of Realtors and a founder of the Home Builders Association of America, among other positions. Wanless also chaired a committee credited with selling $4 million worth of war bonds and played a major role in raising money locally for Red Cross war relief.
The obituary said nothing about Wanless’s stint leading the Springfield KKK.
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