Weekend Book Review: A Fever in the Heartland

By Guest Contributor Marc S. Friedman

Timothy Egan, an author, journalist and former op-ed writer for the New York Times, has produced a fascinating book entitled A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND: The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot to Take Over America, and the Woman Who Stopped Them. It offers a fascinating look at the rise and fall, and the later rise and fall of the Ku Klux Klan. 

Immediately following the Civil War, the KKK was formed by six disillusioned Confederate soldiers from Tennessee. Their aim was to reinstitute slavery in the South and to terrorize the population of Black “Freeman” as they were then called.

Being supportive of the Black population that the KKK was targeting, and wanting to see emancipation in all corners of the United States, President Ulysses Grant dispatched a large number of troops that effectively ran the KKK out of business. However, like a hydra-headed monster, the KKK sprung back to life in the early 1920’s, largely under the leadership of D.C Stephenson, a 30 year-old  charmer in Indiana, who had a brilliant talent for organizing, leading and inspiring White racists and bigots. 

Stephenson was the consummate snake-oil salesman, lying about his background, prior employment, education and purported accomplishments. He was the personification of charisma, and quickly built the revitalized Klan into an “Invisible Empire”. This time, however, the Klan not only directed its terror and activities against  Black Americans, they also took dead aim at Jews, Catholics and other groups whose profiles were different from the White KKK members and their families, and sympathizers.

Stephenson hatched a scheme, starting in Indiana (described by Egan as “the Northernmost Southern State”) and spreading across other Northern States, to occupy not only State and Local Government positions. He also planned to capture both Houses of Congress (where he would be a Senator) and then The White House where Stephenson saw himself as a future President.

Though the KKK purported to promote “Christian Values” like abstinence from alcohol and premarital sex, the promotion of chastity and church attendance, purity of the White race and so on, Stephenson had a very dark side. He was a sexual predator of the worst kind - a serial rapist and a pedophile. He was an embezzler, chronic drunk, and extortionist.  

Sexual assaults abounded. But his reputation was continually being protected by his victims’ fear of speaking up lest they suffer reprisals from the KKK. In addition, local police departments, and county and state prosecutors were in many if not most instances Klan members or sympathizers who protected Stephenson.

How did this end? In 1925, Stephenson abducted, brutally raped and murdered a young woman named Madge Oberholzer. Egan tells a gripping story of how Oberholzer was kidnapped by Stephenson and other KKK members, raped in the lower berth of a train car while another KKK member slept in the upper birth. While she was dying at her bedside, Oberholzer signed a “dying declaration” which described the whole sordid affair in great detail.

At the time, a“dying declaration” was an exception to the rule against hearsay evidence and, in addition to live witnesses, was used by a courageous prosecutor to indict Stephenson. He was sentenced to a lengthy prison term in a highly-publicized trial.

Once Stephenson’s true character and despicable acts were revealed, many Klan members resigned and other Klan sympathizers abandoned their support for the Klan. As Egan contends, the Klan began to lose its enormous national influence. The KKK’s “Invisible Empire” across the northern belt of America began to wither away. While the KKK continues to exist, it is not the “Invisible Empire” it was under Stephenson’s leadership and its influence today is far from what it was in the 1920’s. 

This is why Egan includes the subtitle: “The Ku Klux Klan’s Plot To Take Over America, And The Woman Who Stopped Them.” While you can argue that Oberholzer did not “stop” the KKK, there is no doubt that she helped to destroy its plans to take over Congress and, ultimately, the Presidency.  With her “dying declaration”, she shot a bullet into the heart of the “Invisible Empire.”

This is really three books in one. The first describes the fascinating and deeply troubling history of the KKK. The second describes the legal proceeding inspired by Oberholzer’s “dying declaration” leading to Stephenson’s conviction and imprisonment. 

The third story is how a group of people, many of who were highly educated, were lured in by Stephenson, who essentially claimed “Only I can save you from Blacks, Jews and Catholics” who want to rule America and displace you. He lied about his background,  his credentials, and his education. He lied about his character. 

We see this in America today where a charismatic ex-President, again running for office, repeatedly lies and claims only that he can save those Americans who fear they are being displaced by Blacks, Jews, Muslims, immigrants and others. We see an ex-President who by his own admission on tape, and by a verdict of sexual assault in the E. Jean Carroll case, is a sexual predator though clearly not to the same degree as D.C. Stephenson.  It is a warning to all of us.