In response to the terror of the ‘Second Klan’, foreign-born (and some Black workers) in the Ohio Valley formed the Knights of the Flaming Circle to defend themselves (you did not want to be a klansmen who woke to a doughnut on your door). One site of near-constant warfare was the small industrial city of Niles, in Ohio’s Mahoning River Valley. After a year of terror, the Klan, with 7000 members locally, announced a major show of force in the city. On November 1, 1924 thousands gathered, armed, from both sides on its street. By nightfall four were dead, hundreds wounded, 1600 state militia called to restore order, and the Klan routed.

‘Circle Knights Wallop Klan in Big Battle’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 194. November 3, 1924.

NEW KLAN RIOTS IN NILES CAUSE DEATH OF FOUR

Many Others Wounded and Beaten Up

NILES, Ohio, Nov. 2.-About 1,600 state militiamen took over control of this city yesterday after the Ku Klux Klan had caused a general uprising by shooting down four men, at least three of whom were Knights of the Flaming Circle. These were murdered while standing on the side-walk by Klansmen firing from passing automobiles. More than a dozen others were wounded and many beaten.

Gun battles near meeting places of the hostile organizations and running fire between speeding automobiles were of frequent occurrence all day.

Klan Didn’t Parade.

The Kluxers who control the city administration, had gotten a permit to parade several thousand strong thru the city streets, and the anti-klan circle had been refused a similar permit. The circle then announced that it would not permit the Klan to parade if it couldn’t. They seem to have made good, even though it cost a few lives. But the Kluxers have received a wallop that, cost them great loss of influence and all their faint-hearted members who want to quit when rifles begin to crackle.

Bring Them From Other Cities.

Klansmen by the hundreds from many cities arrived over the Erie to take part in the parade. One trainload was not permitted to detrain by the troops. Klansmen who had been posted as “police” to guard the parade were rounded up by the sheriff and disarmed.

The police, known to be friendly to the Klan, were called out repeatedly. In each case the anti-klan forces, not trusting the “impartiality of the law,” would instantly fill automobiles and race away in hot pursuit. Some apprehension is felt that the state militia is also in cahoots with the Klan, as in Illinois under Governor Small. The sheriff, however, expects no further trouble.

CIRCLE KNIGHTS WALLOP KLAN IN BIG BATTLE

Governor Alleged to Be Member of Klan

NILES, Ohio, Nov. 3. The Ku Klux Mayor Harvey C. Kistler, finally showed up Monday morning after hiding out since rioting began over his refusal to permit anti-Klan forces to parade while giving a permit to the kluxers. It is thought that he was heavily guarded in hiding by klansmen.

Klan Mayor Welcomes Whitewash.

In cheerful indifference to the fact that four men were killed, dozens wounded and the city and country-side turned into a battleground, Kistler said that he had performed his “entire duty.”

The fact that Kistler invites an “investigation” by Governor Donahey, and even agrees in advance to abide by Donahey’s decision, indicates that the governor also is a member of the Ku Klux Klan. This is borne out by the reluctance of the governor in sending in troops, and in the action of the troops releasing kluxers who were armed and who had fired at crowds.

Workers Ready to Battle.

These events are stirring up the anger of residents, particularly the great number of foreign-born steel workers who have been the object of Klan persecution. Hungarian and Italian workers especially are done with trying to save themselves from insult, abuse, and intimidation by Klan bullies, by being humble and turning the other cheek to have it tarred and feathered. They stopped the Klan parade and are talking among themselves that the governor sent troops in to save the kluxers from deserved retribution.

The troops are still in possession of the city, and will be withdrawn, it is believed, very gradually, to allow the Klan to get out from under their responsibility for the murders and their resulting rout.

KLAN RIOT AT NILES, O., SHOWS FASCIST GROWTH

(Special to the Daily Worker) MINERAL RIDGE, Ohio, Nov. 18. It is a trite saying that out of evil some good must come. This saying is very applicable to the recent riots in Niles, Ohio, within a mile and a half of here.

These riots were and have been caused by members of the Ku Klux Klan and members of the Flaming Circle.

The Ku Klux Klan had been granted a permit to hold a parade in Niles, but the Flaming Circle as on the occasion of other attempts of the Ku Klux Klan, refused to permit them to go thru with the parade.

In the recent elections the klan had elected mayors, and other officials in Niles and other towns in the Mahoning Valley, and as a result of this the Klan has been carrying on a campaign of abuse and hatred against the Negroes, catholics, Jews and foreign born, threatening to run them out of the country, and campaigning against the hiring of catholic teachers and clerks in the stores and other places of employment.

So arrogant has this organization become that the press despatches have carried the story where the grand dragon of the K.K.’s interviewed the governor of the state on his appointments and how many were catholics, and whether he sent his children to a parochial school or not.

This grand dragon of the K.K.’s, a lawyer of Youngstown, O., before the recent election sent out a secret letter to all Klansmen to support Coolidge, and a prepared slate for the state of Ohio, and it is a current rumor that he aims to supplant the national head of the Klan, Imperial Wizard Evans.

Governor Has Klan Support. As a result of the trouble in Niles, the governor, who by the way, was one of the officials who received the indorsement of Dragon Osborne, had a special committee investigate the Klan and its activities. This committee in its report asks that the governor take notice “that a condition dangerous to the community exists” and they further report that it is brought about thru the criminal actions of some of the high officials of the Klan. Prosecutor Burgess of Trumbull Co. brings the charge that an organizer of the Klan by the name of Watkins, has organized a police force of his own, giving out police badges, guns and clubs, and representing to these men that they had the right of arrest and all, the powers of state appointed police officials.

These “fish” as the prosecutor dubbed them, paid to this Colonel Watkins, as he styles himself, the sum of $17.50, and this money the colonel must have pocketed, for no trace of it can be found. This E.A. Watkins has been posing in the organization as a minister of the gospel, and an American citizen, while the investigation has disclosed the fact that he is not a minister, nor an American, but a super-grafter and an agent provocatuer of the most slimy kind.

It seems that this man has been a super-spy of the British government in Egypt, during the late war, and that he is now carrying on his trade in this country in the interest of the same government, and the American capitalists,

He has the title in the Klan of kligraap, which is the super-spy department of the Klan, and as kligraap he is at the head of the “Black Hundreds” in the valley, and his department is only one of the many departments maintained by this organization, which boasts of having the best organized and largest secret service in the world.

Members of this secret service of the klan have boasted, when off their guard, that they would, if not able to run the foreigners, catholics, Jews and Negroes out of the country, join in with the capitalists and make it  sounpleasant for them that they would be glad to leave of their own accord.

Arm Klansmen in Secret.

This investigation has shown the Klan ready to arm their members in secret. It has also disclosed the fact that they maintain a wide-spread secret police force and spy system and that these spies are under the kligraaps, a special department of the klan, and that this British agent has been very active in its organization, his activity in the secret service of the British government giving his advice great weight in the secret councils of the Klan.

The investigation has also shown that they have a force of agitators who go about the country arousing religious hatred and bigotry and appealing to the whites against the blacks and if this is not enough they are ready, if they have not already, to join hands with the capitalists if necessary to further their ends.

It has also shown how easy it is to get the gullible workers to put up their hard-earned cash to go out and arrest other workers if some sharper I will come along and arouse their hatred and bigotry and national animosities and sell them guns. It has also shown a Fascisti of the most virulent type in formation in this country, and the capitalists not only of this country, but other countries as well, back of its formation and organization. It has also shown that a widespread secret service organization is at the beck and call of the big interests of the country, and that it is functioning at this moment in every state in the union and is fast becoming a menace to the organized workers of the country, and that these secret agents are under the kligraaps of the Ku Klux Klan.