Superman versus the Ku Klux Klan

by Richard Bowers

  In the spring of 1915—just about the time Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, and Stetson Kennedy were born—a twist of fate gave Simmons the time he needed to plan the resurgence. After being injured in a car accident, Simmons spent a three-month recuperation period remaking the secret order as a modern association of white, native-born, protestant men. He saw nostalgia, romance, and dollar signs in the prospect and threw himself into the task.

  Simmons tracked down a copy of the original Klan Prescript and repackaged it as a 54-page, novel-size handbook entitled The Kloran. He embellished the standard white robe and redesigned the hood to be less showy and more menacing, down to two narrow slits for the eyes. He reworded the membership oath, revised the initiation ceremony, devised hand signs and code words, restored old titles, and devised new ones. He began concocting a language that emphasized the infamous K sound. The local meeting place became the Klavern, the regional convention became the Klonvocation, and the art of being a Klansman became Klancraft.

  The new Klan would charge $10 for membership and $6.50 for a cheap robe and hood, and it would even offer optional life insurance policies. Finally, with the flair of an artist, the diminutive promoter added the pièce de résistance—the final flourish. Borrowing a literary device from the pro-Klan novel The Clansman, he created a central role for the burning cross. The original Klan had not used the flaming cross, but it would become the ever-present, fiery symbol of the new one.

  After lining up more than a dozen influential men to serve in the upper ranks, Simmons copyrighted his enhancements and secured an official charter from the state of Georgia. The new Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was established as a benevolent, nonprofit, fraternal organization—at first more of a force for uniting white protestant men than for attacking their perceived enemies. With the pieces in place, the founder—now known as the Little Colonel—set out to dramatize the mystery of his restored empire.

  On the eve of Thanksgiving 1915, Simmons invited a group of his influential friends to a meeting at the Piedmont Hotel in Atlanta. Afterward, 16 believers climbed into a tour bus and set out on an eight-mile drive to Stone Mountain, a slab of pure granite that climbs 800 feet above the surrounding area. Brandishing flashlights, the expedition party made its way to a ledge near the summit. There, as a cold night wind whipped, the robed and hooded men built a makeshift altar from flagstones, draped it with an American flag, and decorated it with a Bible, a canteen of baptismal water, and a sword. Simmons and his followers erected a rag-covered wooden cross, doused it with kerosene, and set it ablaze. In the light of the ceremonial fire the Ku Klux Klan was called back from the dead.

  THE CEREMONY on Stone Mountain reawakened the sleeping giant. Now it was time to fire up the masses. Simmons had that figured out too. He planned the public announcement to coincide with the Atlanta premier of The Birth of a Nation, a two-hour silent-film spectacular set in the South during the tumultuous aftermath of the Civil War. Filmmaker D. W. Griffith had used state-of-the-art cinematic techniques to drive home his controversial message that white vigilantes had saved decent white families. Simmons reserved space for ads introducing “The Greatest Fraternal Organization on Earth” adjacent to the movie promotions in the Atlanta Constitution. Then he waited.

  On December 6, 1915, at 8 p.m.—two weeks after the Stone Mountain ritual—The Birth of a Nation debuted to a standing-room crowd at the majestic, red-carpeted Atlanta Theater. The love scenes were presented in dramatic close-ups. The epic battle scenes appeared in sweeping panorama. A 30-piece orchestra performed a swelling musical score. The audience was spellbound. A graying Civil War veteran wiped a tear as the camera scanned the desolate, smoldering wasteland of his defeated homeland. A middle-age woman cringed as a band of lustful, ravenous Negroes clawed at the door of a remote cabin in pursuit of an innocent, terrified white girl. A teenage boy slapped the back of a man in front of him as a bugle blast rose from the orchestra pit and a long line of hooded riders thundered onto the screen, their path illuminated by a burning cross.

  The entire audience cheered as the Ku Klux Klan rode to the rescue of white womanhood, white power, and white supremacy. Finally the crowd breathed a final sigh of relief as the robed avengers dispensed with the threat by castrating and lynching the black villain. And the show did not end with the final scene. As the audience filed out of the theater, a bonus scene awaited them on Peachtree Street. More than a hundred men in white robes and hoods stood in military-style formation, rifles raised into the air. Thanks to the Little Colonel, the Ku Klux Klan was back—and this was no movie.

  * CHAPTER 9 *

  A BOLD NEW MESSAGE

  IN THE SPRING OF 1920 Simmons walked into the offices of the Southern Publicity Association in Atlanta. The leaders of this pioneering firm had built its reputation by devising successful publicity and fund-raising programs for clients ranging from the Anti-Saloon League to the Red Cross. The firm’s inseparable male and female partners were also becoming known for their creativity, connections, and can-do spirit—even if their close personal relationship was raising eyebrows.

  Bessie Tyler provided the passion for the company. She stood close to six feet tall, swore like a sailor, and usually dressed in black, from her patent-leather pumps to her broad, flowing cape. Tyler knew how to make people sit up and take notice—and how to turn adversity into advantage. Her partner was Edward Young Clarke, the business brains of the outfit. Clarke was a spin doctor before the term existed, a master of deception who never let the truth get in the way of his clients’ needs. Clarke knew how to turn negative publicity into positive headlines—and how to turn controversy into cash.

  After hearing out Simmons, Tyler and Clarke made a round of calls to newspaper and magazine editors across the country to test the waters. To their happy astonishment, most of the newsmen were more than open to running stories about the new Ku Klux Klan. Even better for the publicity mavens, the interest from the press was not limited to the South. Editors from the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast asked for regular releases about the revived Klan too. Tyler and Clarke were confident that a bold new message—coupled with an aggressive membership campaign—could drive growth nationwide. Their challenge was to make the job lucrative enough for themselves—particularly since going to work for the Klan would mean the loss of their Jewish clientele. Over a two-week period in 1920, Tyler and Clarke worked out an astounding contract with Simmons. The public relations duo would get four of every five dollars in new membership fees plus profits from merchandise sales for the life of the campaign. Seeing dollar signs, Tyler and Clarke went to work.

  THE FIRST STEP was to refocus the Klan’s message for the modern world. It was the aftermath of World War I, and change was in the air. Immigrants were pouring into the country and taking good jobs at low wages. Women had won the vote and were demanding more influence in public affairs. Black men were mustering out of the military and pressing for equality in their own country. Morals were changing too, as the focus of American life shifted from the small town to the city. Young people flocked to nightclubs and speakeasies, whiskey flowed like water, jazz played on the radio, and divorce became more of an option for unhappy couples. Many white men feared that their traditional place atop the social order—even their status as heads of their own households—was endangered. The Klan had to speak to those people and tap into their fear.

  So, to the well-known goal of stamping down blacks and Jews, Tyler and Clarke added new targets: Catholics, Asians, Mexicans, labor unionists, socialists, and greedy Wall Street tycoons. To the Klan’s historic opposition to racial integration and religious tolerance, they added the evils of dope, booze, sex, corruption, nightclubs, roadhouses, and violations of the Sabbath. Seeking to differentiate the Klan from other fraternal organizations, they positioned it as the most militant enforcer of morality and decency in communities across the country. Then they pushed the new message through the media.

  The PR team persuaded newsreel producers to m
ake short, pro-Klan films for movie theaters. They hired a Chicago advertising agency to design newspaper ads and billboards and placed them coast-to-coast. They organized elaborate Klan ceremonies, speeches, and rallies that drew hundreds of new recruits and thousands of onlookers.

  Tyler coached Simmons to talk less about white brotherhood and more about black inferiority, Jewish greed, and the plans of the Roman Catholic Church to dominate America. Simmons delivered the expanded message in interviews with major newspapers and in crowded meeting halls full of potential members. At one event he stepped forward to deliver his message to a group of influential men who could serve in important roles in his organization. Standing behind a bare table in the front of the room, Simmons at first said nothing. Then he placed his Colt automatic on the table. Then he placed his revolver on the table. Then he placed his ammunition belt on the table. Then he plunged his bowie knife into the tabletop. Then he said, “Now let the Niggers, Catholics, [and] Jews … come on.”

  THE TACTICS PROVED a stunning success. A year into the campaign, more than 100,000 men had paid their ten-dollar Klecktoken (initiation fee)—and all the takings were tax-free because the KKK was chartered as a charitable organization. Traveling promoters called Kleagles were offered a cut of the dues to sign up new members. Driven more by the money than the message, most Kleagles targeted any white protestant man willing to part with ten dollars. As one journalist put it, the prospect list included “the poor, the romantic, the short-witted, the bored, the vindictive, the bigoted and the ambitious.”

  As dues poured into Klan bank accounts, merchandise poured out of its warehouses. The new mandate was sell, sell, sell. The product line included more than 40 newsletters, bottles of initiation water, and a pocketknife—“a 100-percent knife for 100 percent Americans.” Sell more! For the romantic Klansman there was even a gift for the wife or girlfriend: a jewel-studded pendant in the form of a fiery cross. Sell more! The demand for robes and hoods became so great that a dedicated robe factory had to be set up in Atlanta to fill the orders. Sell more! Within a few short years of the Tyler-Clarke campaign, more than four million Americans had joined the KKK, and revenues topped $75 million. Despite the success, Simmons would soon be ousted in a contentious coup led by his number two man, Hiram Evans. In exchange for grudgingly turning the organization over to Evans, Simmons retired with a $146,500 buy-out and a house dubbed Klan Krest. Now that the Klan had the muscle of a huge membership and vast income, Evans wanted to make the organization more than just a hate-mongering money machine. By staking out positions on political issues and placing Klansmen in government offices, the KKK could become a political powerhouse. In August 1925, 40,000 Klansmen marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., as a show of strength during the Democratic National Convention. By then the KKK controlled dozens of mayors, judges, police chiefs, state legislators, congressmen, and senators.

  Surprisingly, the biggest growth of the KKK did not occur in the South. The smooth-talking Grand Dragon of the Realm of Indiana, David Curtis Stephenson, built membership in his state to more than 450,000, and the organization tapped him to recruit new followers in 20 other states. Stephenson increased the ranks to more than 300,000 in neighboring Ohio, where he owned a vacation home on Buckeye Lake in rural Licking County. More than 75,000 people turned out to hear him speak at a KKK Konklave on the lake in 1923, and an equal number came back for the 1925 gathering. The Klavern in Akron, Ohio, claimed 52,000 members, making it the largest local chapter in the country. This meant that at age ten, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—sheltered from any direct contact with the Klan in peaceful Glenville—were nevertheless living in proximity to tens of thousands of dedicated Klansmen.

  By expanding the ranks of the Invisible Empire in the Midwest, Stephenson amassed a personal fortune of more than $3 million from his cut of dues and merchandise sales. In short order he owned a lavish mansion outside Indianapolis, a yacht on Lake Michigan, a private railroad car, and an airplane. Backed by his own private police force—the Horse Thief Detective Association—Stephenson virtually took control of Indiana’s state government. “I am the law in Indiana,” he liked to brag. In his public speeches he defended Prohibition and the sanctity of womanhood. In private he was an alcoholic and a womanizer.

  BUT THE WEALTHY ORGANIZERS at the top had a problem. Rank-and-file members in cities and towns across the country were taking the vicious, antiblack, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic rhetoric to heart. As had happened during the first rising of the Klan after the Civil War, violence was drawing negative attention to the organization. Klan raiding parties flogged black political candidates in North Carolina, harassed Jewish businessmen in New Jersey, attacked Catholics in Oregon, and used acid to burn the initials KKK into the foreheads of victims in Texas. And not all the victims were black, brown, Jewish, or Catholic. KKK members also targeted white protestant families for alleged immoral behavior or supposedly betraying their race or gender. In Alabama perpetrators flogged a white divorcée with two children for the crime of remarrying. In Oklahoma Ghouls lashed teenage girls for riding in cars with young men. When newspapers exposed the violence, public support began to wane. Political leaders condemned the attacks, and antimask laws went on the books to deter hooded gatherings. By the late 1920s Klan membership was falling as fast as it had risen.

  But the kiss of death proved to be the hypocrisy of their leadership. Newspapers were having a field day with stories of the duplicity. After all, how could a fraternal organization that stood for law and order resort to vigilante violence? How could a handful of promoters become rich while the rank and file worked for nothing? How could people with questionable morals run a militant enforcer of strict morality? That question arose following news accounts of sexual escapades by Klan leaders. Even the intrepid Clarke and Tyler, the PR duo who had sparked the membership spike, made salacious headlines. The two were arrested—with alcohol on their breath and their clothes on the floor—in a suspected house of prostitution.

  The most infamous sex scandal involved the high-flying Grand Dragon in Indiana, David Curtis Stephenson, who had not responded well to a young woman’s rejection of his marriage proposal. Stephenson had his thugs kidnap the woman from her home and deliver her to his waiting train. As the train sped toward his hideaway in Chicago, Stephenson viciously beat, raped, and mauled her. Then his henchmen took her, near death, back home to Indianapolis. Two weeks later, the battered woman died from an overdose of pills, and Stephenson was charged with murder. In a highly publicized trial he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. KKK membership went into a nose dive.

  * PART THREE *

  JUGGERNAUT

  By 1939 the Great Depression was showing signs of easing up and America was ready for a new day. Great movies like The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind were drawing crowds to the theaters, jazz was pouring out of radios, and nylon stockings were all the rage for women. Preferring to remain neutral on the subject of war, most Americans didn’t even want to think about the troubles in Europe. Business was ready to boom, and Superman was ready to soar. In due time German troops and tanks would roll over Austria and Poland, and the German Luftwaffe would rain bombs on London and South Hampton. As the United States began facing up to a war it had hoped to avoid, the creators of Superman began preparing for battle too.

  * CHAPTER 10 *

  THE BIG BLUE MONEY MACHINE

  THE SUPERMAN CHARACTER was growing by leaps and bounds. In the summer of 1939, Superman No. 1 hit the newsstands as the first stand-alone comic book devoted to a single character. This feat was followed by the launch of the “Superman” newspaper strip, which provided the hero’s growing legion of fans with daily adventures and a more complete picture of his origins on Krypton and his mission on Earth. Despite these successes, the new print products were just the beginning. An ambitious young man named Robert Maxwell Joffe was about to help make Superman a thriving business in the modern world.

  Born around 1908 Robert Joffe
grew up in middle-class comfort in one of the boroughs of New York City. In time his family did well enough to move from their home in a Jewish enclave of Brooklyn to a series of bigger and better houses in more affluent communities in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Flatbush. Bob’s parents had thrived in those comfortable neighborhoods, far from the brutal government programs that had led to the oppression, imprisonment, or even death of tens of thousands of Jews back in the Joffes’ native Russia. Bob’s father had attended New York’s Hebrew Technical Institute and the New York College of Dentistry and had gone on to establish his own practice. His income was high enough that he began thinking about giving something back to the world that had given him so much. While he wholeheartedly embraced the opportunities he found in America, he also clung to the traditional Jewish culture of his forebears, including the mandates to serve the broader community and to repair a broken world. He set up free dental clinics to care for children in poor neighborhoods and supported community organizations that provided health care to the needy. Bob’s mother took care of the three children as she raised money for charities and volunteered for community organizations.

  Bob himself had little problem juggling the twin imperatives of honoring the old culture and embracing the new. He craved the new. Like many of the sons and daughters of first-generation immigrants, he was ready to embrace the fast-paced, sky’s-the-limit opportunities of New York City. In the shadows of Manhattan, his life had been one long lesson in change, and he had learned it was usually for the best. Modern synagogue centers with basketball courts and swimming pools were built on streets where ragtag kids once played kick the can. Pleasant single-family homes with front porches and green lawns sat on lots where old tenements once housed gaggles of immigrants who didn’t speak English.