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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

100 years ago in Spokane: The KKK was ‘flooding’ Legislators with propaganda, a House member testified across the state

 (Spokane Daily Chronicle archives)
By Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

A member of Spokane’s state legislature delegation returned from Olympia with this shocking revelation: The Ku Klux Klan had made a concerted effort to control the legislature.

Every legislator was “flooded” with Klan literature and membership blanks.

“Everyone in the legislature received a membership blank,” State Rep. Arthur L. True of Spokane said. “I still have mine in my pocket.”

He believed that there was a “fairly strong following of Klan sympathizers in the legislature,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported. That was one reason an anti-Klan bill died on the calendar. That bill would have required that all organizations file their membership roster with the county auditor. The Klan was notorious as a secret, hooded organization.

From the Spokane Valley beat: Spokane Valley residents were pushing for a new, “central” high school. There were three small school high schools in the valley, in different school districts, and nearly all were at or near capacity

“The valley has needed a large high school for some time, and with the district growing as rapidly as it is, the need is becoming more acute,” a Greenacres resident said.

From the court beat: Bert Hughes was employing an unusual defense in his trial for assault, in which he was accused of cutting Margaret Cannon with a razor and then partially cutting his own throat.

His attorneys cited “amnesia,” as the result of excessive use of alcohol. He had been on a “protracted moonshine spree” right before the attack.

The jury did not buy that story. They took less than an hour to find him guilty of first-degree assault.