Archives & Manuscripts #14 - International League of Antiquarian ...

13 (Klu Klux Klan). 10 Letters En Route to a 1927 Ku Klux Klan Convention. Fort Worth, Texas: 1927.
$1400
A collection of 10 letters during a trip to a 1927 Texas Fort Worth Ku Klux Klan Convention consisting of handwritten letters from “Beulah” and
“Hayes” [no last name revealed] of Hagerstown, Maryland addressed to family back home whilst on the road through Oklahoma, Fort Worth, San
Antonio, El Paso, California, and Chicago. The letters are written on various ornate hotel stationary and are well preserved with minor toning and
faint spotting, else near fine or better.
This convention occurred at a crucial time in Klan history, when the Second Generation of the KKK, originally formed in Stone Mountain,
Georgia, was dealing with desertion and ill-feelings towards the organization. The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s had seen a decline in membership
and interest that prompted them to reinvent their image from demonstrably violent and hateful to a “kinder, gentler” fraternity bent on protecting
white Protestant Americans. They pledged to “reform politics, to enforce prohibition, and to champion traditional morality.” Events such as the
1927 Fort Worth convention brought members and curious parties from all over the country. In these letters Beulah boasts of the event, “The
hosts have left nothing undone. The convention work is equal to the U.S. Senate from all that I’ve heard. Business from start to finish. I never
knew there were so dam many laws.”
Throughout these letters, Beulah and Hayes discuss the numerous activities provided including marching bands, rodeos, and watermelon eating.
“The bands and drum corps fellows are dressed up in all kind of costumes from ladies pajamas to robes and parading the sheets.” The festivities
included delegates coming together to agree on statutes and making tasteful jokes like, “What did the Rabbi say as he picked up the knife, it won’t
be long now.”
Beulah recounts a visit in Dallas to the grave of dead Klan member, Prince Weiland, led to an emotional moment between the company where
“Harry Vice made some lovely remarks and talked to the grave as if the man was lying there listening to him.” This was followed by a watermelon
feast and the closing ceremonies which involved more dressing in drag and racist jokes by “such an educated body of men.”
“To see the boys leaving today with their civilian clothes and the wives with them. It looked sad, just as though they had been to war - won their
victory and was returning home looking different and not as jolly as when they came.” After the meetings had ended Beulah and Hayes continued
on to San Antonio where they toured the Alamo and experienced the city of “50,000 Mexicans.” They would continue to the West Coast before
returning home.
According to the Texas States Historical Association and historian Charles Alexander, after the campaign to change their image “the Klan, in the
Southwest, became an instrument for restoring law and order and Victorian morality to the communities, towns, and cities of the region.” Despite
all their efforts the KKK would diminish in stature again until after WWII. These letters provide an interesting insight into a lighthearted romp
through a joyous jamboree of hate mongering at the beginning of the end of the second resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan. [BTC #382030]