A Ku Klux Klan rally held in the Illinois State Fairgrounds Coliseum in October 1922 became a political flashpoint when Len Small sought a third term as governor six years later. The anti-Small Chicago Tribune published the photograph above on April 7, 1928, claiming it proved the governor had colluded with the Klan while in office.
The Tribune said the original photo bore the legend “Degree staff of Abraham Lincoln Klan No. 3, showing class of candidates in background, initiated at state fair grounds, Springfield, Ill., Oct. 14, 1922.”
The Tribune’s own caption read (boldface and capitalization in original):
WHEN KU KLUX KLAN USED ILLINOIS STATE FAIR BUILDINGS AT SPRINGFIELD FOR INITIATION SERVICES WHILE LEN SMALL WAS GOVERNOR OF STATE AND COULD HAVE PREVENTED MASKED GATHERINGS
After years of denial by Gov. Small and his cabinet of Klan affiliations or sympathies this picture showing the initiation of Abraham Lincoln klan No. 3 in the main building at the state fair grounds was obtained by William Harrison, … colored lawyer, who is an assistant attorney general. The picture, captioned “Len Small, the Klan’s Friend,” is being sent to voters who had previously received Gov. Small’s denial of friendship for the klan.”
Tribune reporter James Doherty wrote that the photo was included in a mailing to Black voters in Chicago.
“‘Our people think he should be called Len Small, the klan’s friend,’ read the caption in the literature sent to colored voters displaying the klan initiation picture,” according to the Tribune.
Doherty’s story suggested the photo had never been seen before outside Klan circles. Actually, the Illinois State Register in Springfield had published the same photo the day after the Klan ceremony in 1922. Unlike the Tribune, however, the Register, which had racist sympathies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, treated the Klan respectfully.
For one thing, the unidentified Register reporter seems to have accepted the Klan’s unlikely explanation for how the Coliseum ended up hosting the initiation.
According to the Register, Klan officials had planned to hold the ceremony at “a lonely spot on the hard road north of town,” but heavy rainfall disrupted its plans. As a result, the story said, the Klan motorcade – some 200 cars – rerouted to the fairgrounds, supposedly on a moment’s notice. Another 200 carloads of Klansmen somehow also found their way to the “new” location, the story said.
Ultimately, the Register reported, about 2,000 Klan members helped initiate 700 fledgling Klansmen.
Grouped in the rear of the ring with the installing team of the Klan gathered in front the novices were lined up and photographed. …
The photographer then rushed down town to develop the print and the serious work of the evening was started with the candidates taking the oath in groups while the others waited in a nearby barn. …
With electric lights off and the huge coliseum lighted only by the gleam of the cross, the rites presented an appearance to be long remembered by the Klansmen and by newspaper men who had been taken to the coliseum to witness the services. …
Members of the Klan say that the ceremonies were the best yet conducted by the Springfield lodge of Klansmen which is known as Abraham Lincoln Klan, No. 3, Realm of Illinois.
If the Klan really did move its 1922 initiation on the spur of the moment, it’s a remarkable coincidence that the same thing happened again a year later. This time, in May 1923, the Illinois State Journal reported the ostensible change of scenery. “The meeting,” the paper said, “had been planned to be held twelve miles north of Springfield in an open field but these plans were changed by the rain.”
Even more people – 6,000 Klansmen, according to the Journal – watched the 1923 ceremony, which was overseen by three dozen “exalted cyclops,” top officials of local klans from around Illinois. This second allegedly impromptu ceremony also went off without a hitch. If anything, it was even more elaborate than the 1922 ritual.
All members were in full regalia, forming an army of men in white robes, hoods and pointed masks.
Two hundred and fifty guards, some of whom were wearing sidearms, were stationed at various points on the grounds while the ritual was performed in the coliseum about an altar in the center of the building.
This formed the “klavern.” A flaming cross of Cavalry (sic), fourteen feet high and six feet wide, burned above the altar. This light was supplemented by a small burning cross carried by the “knighthawk” who lead the candidates in single file.
Those initiated marched in this fashion in an open square formed by the members. Certain persons were designated as “stations” and from each of these the prospective received his instructions in Klandom.
The altar was draped with a large American flag and upon it was an open Bible.
“A small gathering of curious boys gathered outside the gates was the only approach to a disturbance reported,” the newspaper story ended.
Anti-Klan legislators forced the Illinois House to investigate the two Klan events at the Coliseum. In testimony to investigators, however, a variety of Klan officials and fairgrounds employees all said they had no idea how the Klan managed to take over the Coliseum.
Springfield Klan leader Charles Wanless repeated the story that rain forced the relocations, but said another officer organized the ceremonies.
The special committee ultimately recommended that fairgrounds custodian Charles Muttera be fired – the committee called him “wholly incompetent” – and that permits be required for all future events on the grounds.
The recommendations were ignored. Muttera (1874-1948), a former Springfield alderman, stayed on the job – it was a patronage position under the control of Gov. Small – and the Klan was back at the fairgrounds, using a whole new subterfuge, in October 1924. That rally, which featured a speech by Dr. Hiram Wesley Evans of Atlanta, Ga., the national Klan’s imperial wizard, was held at the Grandstand.
“State officials said this afternoon that no permission had been given to the Ku Klux Klan to use the fairgrounds,” the Register reported the day of the 1924 rally. “Permission for a picnic was asked by the ‘Springfield Progressive club’ and was granted. The Klan is either using the fairgrounds without consent or is going under the name of the ‘Springfield Progressive club.’”
The Klan continued to hold gatherings at state-owned property in Springfield for at least two more years – at the state Arsenal in 1925 and at Camp Lincoln in 1926 – although KKK activity seems to have tailed off in central Illinois following sexual and financial scandals surrounding the national Klan.
When quizzed later about use of the Arsenal, Illinois Adjutant General Carlos Black said the building was open to any group, whatever their political, religious or racial connection, “so long as the assemblage was orderly.”
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