Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring, 1997 Page: 26
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A crowd of 25,000 witnessed the Klan initiation ceremonies at the State Fair in October 1923.
enhanced the News s financial stability and thus
strengthened it as an institution.53
In the fall of 1923 former Dallasite Hiram
Wesley Evans, now the Imperial Wizard of Klan
activities across the nation, arrived triumphantly
in Dallas to attend Ku Klux Klan Day at the State
Fair of Texas. Interviewed by a Dallas Morning
News reporter, Evans surprisingly offered praise
instead of condemnation for the News's crusade
against the Klan. The "co-operative expose" of the
Klan by the New York World and the News, he said,
had helped "considerably to cleanse it of the
impure element." Beyond that, he continued, the
criticism "did us $1,000,000 worth of good and
gave advertising that we could not have bought."54
The 1923 KKK Day at the State Fair
marked an apogee for Dallas Klan No. 66.
Attendance, approximately 160,000, was among
the highest weekday totals in the Fair's history. A
crowd of some 25,000 gathered that evening at the
football field to see the largest Klan initiation
ever. A total of 5,631 men took the membership
oath, while 800 women joined the auxiliary. In its
coverage of the spectacular ceremony, the News
uncritically described it as "the most colorful and
unique event ever seen in the city of Dallas."55
The opportunity for the News once again to
combat the Klan came in the summer of 1924
when it appeared that the Invisible Empire might
take over the Texas governor's mansion. The occasion
was the Democratic primary run-off between
Felix Robertson, a Dallas judge who was the
acknowledged Klan candidate, and Mrs. Miriam
Ferguson, running in lieu of her husband, former
governor James E. Ferguson. G. B. Dealey's son,
26Ted, a roving correspondent for the newspaper,
suggested in a memo to his father than the News
once again aggressively attack the Klan. "Now is
the time for us to REAP THE BENEFITS of the
seeds we planted two or three years ago," he
wrote.
We [should] make a vigorous attack on
the Klan and all Klan candidates, editorially
and in any other legitimate way. For
several years we got out against the Klan
and fought it. ... The persons who were
alienated will always continue to hate
us as long as they feel the way they do
about the Klan. We will not hurt ourselves
now by taking up the fight against
the Klan once more. All the hurt that
could come to us has already been felt. .
. . Felix Robertson is an avowed
Klansman .... Now is the time to wop
him where it will do the most good.56
Once more the News began an editorial
campaign; once more many of the city's leading
elected officials took an opposite position.
Endorsing Robertson were the mayor and all four
city commissioners, former mayor Francis
Wozencraft, and a host of county officials. Dallas
voters preferred the Klansman, Robertson, by a
two-to-one margin, but Ma Ferguson won the
state-wide race and went on to serve as governor.
Robertson's failure, combined with the
accumulation of Klan transgressions that were
more and more recognized, signaled the beginning
of a decline of the organization in Texas and in
Dallas. Membership rolls began dropping precipitously.
By 1926, Klan No. 66, once boasting
13,000 members, had declined to 1,200. The New
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Dallas County Heritage Society. Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 9, Number 1, Spring, 1997, periodical, 1997; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth35106/m1/28/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Historical Society.