An overlooked attempt to take over America

There have been a few times since the Civil War when the rise of Right-wing extremism threatened the country.

And workers. And unions.

The first, of course, followed the Compromise of 1877. That shameful, backroom deal between Southern Democrats and ambitious Republicans still claiming a link to Lincoln’s anti-slavery actions – which had led to the 13^th amendment (outlawing slavery), the 14^th amendment (defining U.S. citizens as anyone born or naturalized here), and the 15^th amendment (prohibiting states from denying voting rights based on skin color) – resolved a disputed presidential election between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford Hayes. The parties approved Hayes as the 19^th President and agreed to remove federal troops from ex-Confederate states.

Giving those states the right to deal with Black Americans without interference by the North, the deal ended Reconstruction and ushered in the first open reign of terror by the Ku Klux Klan.

The third, arguably, is happening now, with groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys fomenting fear and hate of minorities, government, education, personal liberties, etc.

Between, an often-forgotten period arose in the 1920s, also with the Klan, which took terror to a different level, and it’s chronicled in chilling detail in Timothy Egan’s “A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning author – whose books include “The Worst Hard Time” (about the Dust Bowl) and “Pilgrimage to Eternity” (a memoir about Catholicism) – focuses on con man, abuser of women, family deserter and deviant D.C. Stephenson.

Stephenson also could be charismatic, so two years after coming to Indiana he became the state KKK’s Grand Dragon and the source of a strategy to topple the government and upend society.

He tapped into lingering resentment at the Confederacy’s defeat and enfranchised ex-slaves, but also economic inequality by offering a movement. By uniting the angry against minority voters, Jews, immigrants, organized labor and Catholics – plus bribing church leaders and public officials – he sought to ensure white Protestant male dominance, in the culture and in business.

His message and influence extended far beyond the Deep South, into the Midwest but also throughout the continent, and Egan’s tale is as gripping and thrilling as a horror yarn or a true-crime title – which it is.

His campaigns were unlike the Reconstruction-era Klan, which, as Egan writes, “burned houses and churches, stole crops and food, dragged men from their farms and whipped them until they fell, ripped teachers from schoolhouses and branded their foreheads, raped women in front of their children, and shot their husbands at point-blank range.”

Stephenson’s KKK was modernized.

“The Klan here are not the nightriders of the late 19th century, but a retooled special-interest group and unusually potent political power,” commented historian and filmmaker Ken Burns. “The influence they wielded over states and policy should put a chill in every American.”

In the ’20s, the Klan became bolder, and Stephenson used his growing power and “states’ rights” as blunt instruments against millions of people. He attracted (or paid off) businessmen and judges, lawyers and clergy, plus public officials, and the Klan became acceptable, if not respectable.

Some Klan successes resulted in Stephenson’s increased arrogance, an unbridled ambition to become a dictator, and a sense he could be a predator to women without consequence.

That led to his fall, and the United States escaping that menace, at least momentarily.

“The woman who stopped him” in the book’s subtitle was an early 20^th century “Me Too” heroine: Madge Oberholtzer.

After Stephenson ruthlessly assaulted Oberholtzer, her deathbed account of the incident was crucial to his prosecution and conviction for her abduction, rape and murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The fallout resulted not only in related prosecutions of politicians for complicity in Klan activities, but the KKK itself dwindling from some 5 million members in the 1920s to about 30,000 in the early 1930s, fading into the shadows and shame, if not nothingness.

Although the scandal helped bring the Klan to its knees, it didn’t serve to bring the South to its senses, so domestic terror revived in the Civil Rights era. Nevertheless, despite shocking acts of violence, by the early 1970s the FBI estimated that there were fewer than 2,000 active Klansmen in the nation.

Finally, the riveting book is a troubling read made more so by its relevance now. It’s easy to see parallels between Stephenson and Donald Trump, and the exploitation of fear and hate during the last seven years to the early ’20s. The feeling that history repeats itself is less frightening than the realization that democracy can be so vulnerable.