Humor as a Gauge of Public Opinion

Flipping through the pages of the Spokesman review in the early 1920’s a reader would find themselves passing the headline news and as they got deeper into the paper seeing opinion pieces and eventually compilations of almost nonsensical gatherings submitted to the paper by the editorial staff aptly titled “Facetious Fragments”.  Within this section of the paper as well as in nearby columns, stories were less than serious and often times no more than small jokes and poems. The humor published naturally relied on the context of the historical moment and often times referenced events that would have been on the consciousness of readers. Examining the rhetoric of these fragments offers some light on public opinion of the Klan.

            The Klan was first mentioned in this fashion as early as 1921—around the time the organization was first starting to move into the Pacific Northwest as well as when the Klan was receiving national attention from congress. As information began to leak of the Klan’s strict adherence to ritual and complex practices—newly manufactured traditions—the Spokesman Review ridiculed the names of Klan positions reacting to a perceived ridiculousness of the Klan’s customs. Titles such as Hush! Maybe Baby’s a Kleagle painted the Klan as a pointlessly assembled group of hooligans wrapped up in nothing more than a fancy boys club. These publications show a reaction to increased awareness of Klan presence during a time when the organization was hosting early promotional talks. The fact that the Klan would be a viable topic for humor points to its notoriety in the conscience of the people of Spokane. It is important to note that the bias of the Spokesman cannot be taken point blank as a poll of local opinion towards the Klan as over the years, the paper stated an explicit opposition to the Klan multiple times and thus was not a neutral party in the community.

While the Klan was portrayed in these cultural expressions as blundering and ineffective, there was also often times a mention of the less than harmless activities of the organization. While during the 1920s, the Spokane Klan was genuinely nonviolent, there were many places across the nation where this was not the case. Especially in the early part of the decade, it was common for the readers of Spokane to see stories of Klan violence in other parts of the country ranging from tar and featherings to murder—usually over breaks with traditional Klan morals. This violence was addressed somewhat nonchalantly in these sections. One fragment published gave a dialogue with a fictional man of color in which he expressed a fear of the Klan to the point he would leave town at first contact from the order. This, paired with many off-handed references to tar and featherings and Klan mob violence.

While the Klan was referenced as committing very real acts of violence elsewhere, the humor of the Spokesman Review during this period—being pandered to the readership—suggests the Klan was perceived to some degree as ineffective and in many ways useless. Articles criticized the Klan as lacking in real directive. This evidences an inconvenient truth about the Klan during the 1920s—the organization was in many cases scoffed at because the society they sought to create was largely already in existence in terms of US power structures. While the United States of the 1920s was an amalgamation of ever increasing multiculturalism, those in power remained those who had been in power since the inception of the country—white male protestants. The Klan resistance against immigrants took place during possibly the most restrictive period of US immigration history with strict quotas set from Southern Europe and immigrants from Asia barred completely. The creed of one hundred percent Americanism preached by the Klan was a common concept popularized with the nationalist fervor of the first world war. While Americanism was almost always a term used to describe a classical white America, it was also used in criticism of the Klan and their non-democratic practices. One of the major differences between the Klan and the broader ideology of Americans in power during the 1920s was the ease at which the Klan was willing to obtain its goals of public morals through non-democratic and extralegal means. It should come as no surprise that the Klan was often compared to rising Fascist movements in Italy and later Spain and Germany.

            As Klan presence continued to rise, the amount of less than serious articles about the order did as well. With Klan membership in Washington peaking 1923-24, it can be assumed that this was also the height of visibility of the organization and the time at which it existed most heavily in a public conscious. This is reflected by fragments published in the Spokesman about the Klan criticizing the organization’s rapid growth without firm footing or goals. Eventually, publications began to criticize the Klan as simply a monetary scheme. This criticism was quite valid as Klan revenues relied on the membership fees of new members which were between five and ten dollars per person. This top leadership of the Klan made substantial amounts of money off of organizing and recruitment—often working on commission of new members. By 1924, according to some leaders, the Klan in Washington was already beginning to lose membership—in many cases over members feeling swindled into paying the order for a lack of delivery. Those who joined the Klan were seen as foolish and imprudent spending their money on something they would later realize as hollow.