Oyler: Ku Klux Klan staged massive rally in Carnegie in August 1923

We have written frequently about ethnic tolerance in this area and reflected on its success as a “melting pot” in which people of different religions, nationalities and cultures were able to live together in harmony.

We still take pride in that perception, although we acknowledge that the route to this state was not always a smooth one.

At a recent octogenarian brunch, Bob Toney loaned me a book entitled “The Trail of the Serpent.” Published in 1928, it is a powerful condemnation of the post-World War I version of the Ku Klux Klan by William Likins, a Uniontown journalist. A major portion of the book is devoted to a massive Klan rally in Carnegie on Aug. 25, 1923.

The original Ku Klux Klan was founded in Tennessee in 1865 by veterans of the Confederate Army to provide opposition to northern carpetbaggers and freed slaves in the early days of Reconstruction. It thrived throughout the South until President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Enforcement Act of 1871 which empowered the federal government to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

In 1915, a second Klan was founded in Atlanta. It was a formal fraternal organization with chapters throughout the country. Based on “nativism,” a political position demanding favored status for established citizens of a nation at the expense of newcomers or immigrants, it initially found significant support in major cities where urbanization, industrialization, and immigration had generated new issues.

The movement was only marginally successful until two professional publicists were hired in 1920. Their presentation of the Klan emphasized its opposition to immigrants, Communism and the Roman Catholic Church.

This version of the Klan employed modern business practices. Likins, in his book, claimed that its motivation was strictly financial and that its success was based on $10 membership fees and the sale of Klan-related accessories. The principles that its leaders espoused were those that conveniently exploited the fears of a major portion of the population. By the mid-1920s, it is believed that the Klan had five million members.

In 1922, a Texas dentist named Hiram Wesley Evans became the Imperial Wizard, the overall leader of the Klan. According to Likins, Evans' actions in this area in 1923 were typical of his approach. He planned a massive rally close to Carnegie, a community with a large immigrant (Roman Catholic) population.

Likins also reports that Evans planned to have a prominent Klansman, Harry MacNeel, murdered by the Klan and blamed on their enemies, to provide a martyr. Evans is reported to have said that one martyr will produce more Klan members.

The rally was held on a farm on the hillside east of Carnegie. Estimates of the crowd vary – certainly there were at least 10,000 Klansmen threatening to parade through the town after dark. Opposition to the Klan produced a large crowd of protesters in Carnegie; borough officials refused to issue a parade permit to the outsiders.

After dark, fireworks were set off, and a 60-foot high cross was set on fire. Late in the evening the march began in Glendale, with MacNeel in the lead. After it crossed the bridge over Chartiers Creek and entered the main part of town, rioting began.

Thomas Abbott, a young man who had just been initiated into the Klan, was fatally shot. The parade quickly dissolved as the Klansmen fled back to the area where the rally had taken place. The Klan had its martyr, although the assassin killed the wrong man. A local undertaker, Patrick McDermott, was accused of the murder by the Klan and briefly incarcerated. Eventually, a coroner's jury exonerated him.

This event occurred at the peak of the Klan's popularity. Scandals and widespread adverse publicity from writers like Likins resulted in declines in membership in the late 1920s and its temporary disbanding in 1944.

John Oyler is a columnist for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-343-1652 or joylerpa@icloud.com.