Indiana Klan - Scandal

Scandal

In 1925 Stephenson met Madge Oberholtzer, the head of the state's commission to combat illiteracy. The night of the inaugural ball of Governor Edward L. Jackson, she was abducted from her home, taken to the Indianapolis train station, and held in a private car. On the train to Hammond, Stephenson raped her repeatedly and attacked her. In Hammond, she pleaded the need to get to a drug store, where she secretly ate mercury tablets and bi-chloride. Using the illness brought on by the poisons as an excuse, she begged Stephenson to release her. He took her back to Indianapolis and held her at his place. After Oberholzer refused to marry him several days later, he had her returned to her home and secretly placed in bed. When her parents found her, the young woman was nearly dead. Taken to the hospital, Oberholzer died about a month later. She told her story in detail to several witnesses. Stephenson was immediately arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The attending doctor, who testified in the trial, said that Oberholtzer's wounds appeared as if a cannibal had chewed on her. The prosecution held that the wounds and mercury together caused the death of Oberholzer. Stephenson was convicted and the State Supreme Court upheld the decision. He remained in prison until 1956, when he received parole.

Denied a pardon by Governor Jackson, whom he had supported, Stephenson in 1926 began to talk to reporters from the Indianapolis Times and expose many of the high-profile members of the Klan. Stephenson gave the reported names of politicians and officials whom the Klan had bribed, and who had accepted money. The mayor of Indianapolis, John Duvall, was jailed for thirty days and later convicted of bribery. Numerous commissioners and other local leaders across the state were forced to resign on bribery charges, stemming from acceptance of support from the Klan. Governor Jackson was charged with bribery for his role in attempting to influence McCray. The court found the charges against Jackson true, but judged him not guilty, as the statute of limitations had expired on his crimes. He ended his term and did not seek re-election. He was disgraced and never held public office again. Many other leaders of the Klan were arrested and tried on charges of conspiracy to bribe public officials.

The press investigation, which won a Pulitzer Prize, revealed that more than half the members of the Indiana General Assembly were Klan members. The Stephenson case and bribery scandal destroyed the Klan's image as the defenders of women and justice. Members abandoned the organization by the tens of thousands.

The historian James Madison cautions that the Klan

"cannot be dismissed as either an aberration or as simply the insidious appeal of a fanatical few. Nor should the Klan be seen as thoroughly dominating the state and accurately reflecting racist, violent, or provincial beliefs shared for all time by all Hoosiers."

Some people tried to revive the Klan in the 1960s and 1970s, when changing social values, the Vietnam War, urban riots and industrial restructuring caused widespread disruption. The organization never regained the members or power it held during the 1920s.