A political candidate once gained traction in the Kansas governor’s race running on only a single issue.
That political outsider — to put it in today’s terminology — was Emporia’s own William Allen White, and he wanted to ensure the Ku Klux Klan did not gain a foothold in Kansas, much as it had in several other states at the time.
Author Beverly Olson Buller, who has published several books on White and chairs the William Allen White Children’s’ Book Awards, presented on White’s 1924 run for governor Monday at Emporia State University.
The talk addressed the attempted rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas and what White did to help shut it down.
The owner, publisher and editor of The Emporia Gazette began speaking out against the Klan in 1921. He wrote scathing editorials about them in his newspaper, while around the state Klan members attempted to pass the KKK off as a charitable organization and to infiltrate communities such as Emporia.
Measures taken included the attempted publication of a list of guests at the Broadview when the hotel hosted a Klan convention and persistent mockery of the Klan, its members and its uniforms.
Buller said she believes a fear of foreigners is what caused the Klan’s resurgence in the 1920s.
Whatever the cause, this resurgence ultimately resulted in White running for governor as an Independent candidate in the 1924 election. He came in last, but according to Buller he chose to campaign for three other candidates for office while he traveled the state, trying to garner votes for himself. Those three anti-KKK candidates all won their races, including incumbent Attorney General Charles B. Griffith.
Griffith ultimately denied the Klan a charter in the state, effectively banning them. According to Buller, Kansas was the first state to bar the Klan from meeting.
White ran because he was dissatisfied…
