The Klan's political agenda also included support for bills to improve state roads and public education. Other successful bills with connections to the Klan banned teachers from wearing religious garb in the public schools and blocked public schools from using civics and history textbooks with negative remarks about the Founding Fathers and American heroes. A bill prohibiting the ownership of land by aliens, aimed primarily at Japanese immigrants, passed easily. Klansmen and their allies in the 1923 legislature resurrected controversial racial and religious issues rejected in earlier years. Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in 1925. The law was never implemented, and the U.S. As the only state to pass such a law, Oregon gained notoriety and faced numerous legal challenges. Pierce as governor and played a significant role in passing an initiative measure requiring all children eight to sixteen years of age to attend public schools. While targeting Roman Catholics, the compulsory school bill would have eliminated other private and denominational schools. The Klan helped elect LaGrande Democrat Walter M. From their Portland headquarters, Gifford and his associates, including Lem Dever, the colorful editor of the Oregon Klan's newspaper, The Western American, turned the organization into a powerful and controversial political machine during the elections of 19. In 1922, Klansmen won election to local and county offices throughout Oregon, and some Klansmen won seats in the state legislature. Gifford forced Powell from Oregon and became the Grand Dragon (head) of the state Klan. After his election as the first Exalted Cyclops (leader) of Klan No. Internal fighting and theft plagued it from the beginning. The Klan spread rapidly in Oregon, focused their racism on Catholics, and the Chinese laborers. Hundreds of other Oregonians joined the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, the Junior Order of Klansmen for teenagers, and the Royal Riders of the Red Robe for foreign-born Protestants. Historians estimate that the national Klan attracted more than two million members during the 1920s, and by 1923 Oregon Klan leaders claimed 35,000 members in more than sixty local chapters and provisional Klans. Powell, a gregarious Louisianan, swore in the first Oregon Klansmen in Medford while his fellow Kleagles recruited in Portland, Eugene, Salem, Astoria, Hood River, Eugene, Pendleton, Tillamook and other communities. The Klan was none existent until the it was formed again in Indiana, in the early 1920s and spread throughout the country. The Klavern died out in the mid 1920s and never returned. The Klan did have a chapter (Klavern) in Dallas in the 1920s.However, it did nothing to earn mention history books or even local paper accounts beyond a few rallies and a parade down Main street. Historically, the first Klan used terrorism, both physical assault and murder, against politically active blacks and their allies in the South in the late 1860s, until it was suppressed around 1872. Some robes were very colorful with big cone hats also designed to invoke fear. KKK started as a result of the Civil War and the freedom of slaves. Members made their own robes, mostly white with white hoods to disguise their identity and terrify African Americans and their allies.
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