Millions of white Americans in the 1920s were scared that the way of life of their fathers was soon to be a thing of the past. What frightened them was the emboldened nature of newly enfranchised women; the excitement of young people testing their freedom in the jazz age; waves of immigrants coming to seek a better life; and African Americans, restive after their service in the Great War.

Into this caldron of fear and resentment stepped a fast-talking con man, David C. (D.C.) Stephenson, who promised a safe haven for their hatred and a way to punish their enemies. A secret society gave them a feeling of comradery with like-minded citizens. Clergy were bribed to provide “moral cover.” Members rose to their feet and cheered speakers who called Jews “un-American parasites.” Catholic priests and nuns were harassed. These white Americans believed in the absolute superiority of one race and one religion and the inferiority of all the others.

The society took over the party of Abraham Lincoln and many newspapers ran regular columns written by Stephenson (who preferred to be called Steve) and his cronies. Terrorist gangs of armed vigilantes were sent out to intimidate and kill those who were perceived as less than human. Although liquor had been outlawed with prohibition, the “law” didn’t apply to Steve and his friends in power. He threw wild parties at his mansion where the booze and sex flowed freely. Paid-for policemen and judges protected the powerful and punished the outsiders.

Sound familiar?

There’s a reason we need to study the “warts and all” version of history. Understanding the full scope of our past helps us combat those who are banning books today as they weaponize an interpretation of history that supports their agenda. Pushing a return to the politics of fear, resentment, and hatred is all part of the fascist strongman playbook that we’ve seen before in America.

A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them (2023) by Timothy Egan is a page-turning true-life historical thriller of the rise and fall of the powerful Indiana chapter of Ku Klux Klan and the charismatic, ethically unmoored con man at its helm. This is not the KKK of the post-Civil War South. Instead, it is a retooled all-purpose hate and special interest group seeking to take over American democracy. As Egan’s deep detective work uncovers, they did succeed in taking over much of the state and local governments in Indiana, Colorado, and Oregon. They came close to infiltrating the nation’s government in Washington.

The predatory and murderous D.C. Stephenson, a salesman who could “talk a dog off a meat wagon,” had his sights set on the presidency. To bring him down, it took a small but determined band of newspaper editors and reporters, James Weldon Johnson and other members of the NAACP, aging Civil War veterans who remembered why the war was fought, a boyish looking yet fearless prosecutor, and a courageous young woman whose dying declaration led to the “trial of the century.”

Stephenson had failed many times in life and left behind a string a unpaid bills and broken marriages. He had no education beyond high school, was an ardent fan of Mussolini, and at various times claimed to be a lawyer, psychologist, and businessman. Yet he understood people’s fears and their need to blame others for their failures. At this venture he was wildly successful. The Klan reached millions of white Americans in the 1920s and the Indiana chapter was the largest.

The book turns on Steve’s kidnapping, beating, drugging, brutal rape, and murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a twenty-eight-year-old unmarried educator who was living with her parents. Stephenson was, to put it simply, a monster. After Egan’s compelling description of the trial, where Steve clearly figured he would walk free, the monster is found guilty of second-degree murder and goes to jail.

Yet he is never repentant. As Egan writes, Stephenson broke parole and was re-imprisoned but he ultimately died a natural death, in 1966, at age 74. His pattern of cheating, leaving his wives, and sexually assaulting women never ended.

Egan’s work helps us understand the madness of our time.

The call to make America great again has a long history. Many in the 1920s were thoroughly taken in by nationalist rhetoric and “circus-like spectacle.” Today, millions of our fellow citizens are caught up in the same fever of rhetoric and spectacle. The villainy and hypocrisy of those who preach law and order and freedom and justice the loudest is the 21st century version of a deep-seated American sin. Followers of men like Stephenson will forgive any Big Lie, because they believe what they want to believe. D.C. Stephenson called his trial “a hoax and a witch hunt,” predating our former president’s use of those exact same words by a century.

Egan is a gifted writer who for a number of years was the sole Western voice on the New York Times op-ed page. His National Book Award winning account of the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time remains to my mind the best work on the country’s largest environmental disaster. In A Fever in the Heartland he looks at a disaster of another kind — a huge failure of human empathy and compassion — that is repeating itself in the early 21st century.

Egan summarizes the message of Stephenson’s story in a way that fits our challenges today.

Democracy was a fragile thing, stable and steady until it was broken and trampled. A man who didn’t care about shattering every convention, and then found new ways to vandalize the contract that allowed free people to govern themselves, could do unthinkable damage.

The fight for democracy has been part of American history since its founding. It never, ever ends, which is why we have to study our history and keep on fighting in this generation.

Timothy Egan has reminded us yet again of the scope and depth of that challenge. Given the shocking revelations in last week’s news about boxes of stolen national security secrets, it is also very timely.

More to come…

DJB

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Image: Main Street in Indiana