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Era of Klan-destine bigotry

Colorado of '20s couldn't imagine today's leaders

By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 3, 2009 at 10:54 a.m.
Updated January 4, 2009 at 9:33 p.m.

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The Ku Klux Klan once was so entrenched in Colorado politics that some lawmakers brought their white robes and hoods to the gold-domed Capitol.

By day, the KKK dominated the inner workings of Colorado government.

By night, it held racist, anti- Semitic and anti-Catholic rallies - vowing to crush opposition both inside and outside the Capitol.

That unappetizing slice of state history stands in stark contrast to next week's opening of the 2009 session, in which two black men - House Speaker-elect Terrance Carroll and Senate President Peter Groff - will create a new chapter in Colorado politics.

The ascension of Groff and Carroll - coincidentally, the only two blacks in the legislature - is not lost on historians, who have documented the Klan's influence in Colorado during the 1920s.

For a short, convulsive period, Klan-backed candidates won state offices, legislative seats, local races and judgeships. But their victories were short-lived, and within two years, anti-Klan candidate Billy Adams replaced Gov. Clarence Morley, a Klansman who proposed in his 1925 inaugural speech bills to outlaw sacramental wine. Morley's move was a backdoor maneuver to make Catholic Mass illegal.

Morley later would order the University of Colorado president to fire all Catholics and Jews or face funding cuts.

"The Ku Klux Klan's descent from the pinnacle of power was even more abrupt than its rapid climb," wrote Robert Alan Goldberg, author of Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado.

Members across state

The Klan, according to Goldberg, began recruiting in Colorado in 1921 and enjoyed successes similar to those it experienced in California, the Midwest and, of course, the South.

Goldberg said the Klan sold itself as a patriotic, law-and-order organization and managed to infiltrate both major political parties.

It exploited the post-World War I climate, which included an increase in crime - much of it linked to bootlegging - and fear of "moral laxity," with the dawn of "suggestive" new dances and "titillating" motion pictures.

"The Klan promised to unite Protestants in a crusade that would combat the teaching of evolution and restore faith in God, the Bible and the Christian fundamentals," Goldberg wrote.

Soon the Klan was in every county in Colorado, population 939,629.

"Completely excluded . . . and depicted as threats to the nation's ideals and values were the Catholics, Jews, immigrants and blacks," Goldberg said.

"The Klan, despite Colorado's small black population, exploited white fears of a 'new Negro' emerging from World War I demanding political, economic and social equality."

Estes Park initiation

The KKK, which had held its first initiation at the Brown Palace, held its first public initiation in 1922 in Estes Park before 2,000 hooded Klansmen.

The Klan eventually acquired two properties where it could hold its meetings. Burning crosses on South Table Mountain could be seen in Denver.

In Denver's mayoral election in 1923, the Klan secretly supported Democrat Benjamin Stapleton, who beat the incumbent, Republican Dewey Bailey. Stapleton appointed Klansmen to a variety of offices, from clerks to justices of the peace. Soon juries were drawn from Klan membership lists and the KKK infiltrated the police.

The Klan's candidate in the 1924 gubernatorial race was Morley, a Denver district judge who had moved to Colorado from Iowa in 1890. Goldberg wrote that Morley "found escape from a mediocre law practice in Republican politics," and later fell under almost a hypnotic spell cast by John Locke, the leader of the Klan's Denver chapter.

Senators pushed back

Days after his own inauguration, Morley traveled to Washington to watch President Calvin Coolidge's swearing-in. While there, Morley attended a formal dinner hosted by the imperial wizard of the KKK, who had traveled to Colorado after the 1924 election to celebrate Morley's and other Klan members' victories.

The governor could appoint only about a third of the board or agency members; the rest were already in place when he took office.

So bills were introduced abolishing the agencies and creating new ones. At the state House, many of the Republicans and some of the Democrats had been elected with Klan support.

"The house is klan," a statehouse reporter noted at the time, "to the extent they sometimes carry their nightshirts in a package with them so they will not have to go back home . . . when a meeting is scheduled for that evening."

But the governor had a tougher time in the Senate, although Republicans had a 21-14 advantage. Democrats, led by minority leader Billy Adams, mostly held firm in voting against the administration, teaming with GOP members elected in 1922 without the help of the Klan.

The anti-Klan senators were able to take control of the Calendar Committee, which decided when to schedule bills for debate. When the legislature adjourned in April 1925, 85 percent of its bills were still in committee and thus dead.

The Senate, which had the authority to authorize gubernatorial appointments, had either rejected or tabled action on half of Morley's nominees.

"Begun with such great hopes, the Morley administration had utterly failed to achieve its goals," Goldberg wrote.

"The dream of a self-perpetuating Klan machine entrenched in government to safeguard Protestant rights was dead. With it went a large measure of confidence in the Klan and its leadership."

Comments

  • January 3, 2009

    11:13 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    kevinjjones writes:

    The Klan tried to burn a cross on my Irish Catholic great-grandpa's lawn back in the 20s.

    It'd be interesting to compare how many Catholics are teaching at CU-Boulder compared to back in the Klan days. Some people up there aren't very friendly to Catholics even nowadays.