Weaving a Crime Wave
By December 31, 1920, the Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton’s newspaper of record) echoed the recruitment language of the Klan. The editor, William C. Edwards, wrote of a general sentiment that a crime wave existed in Denton County and mused about its causes. Edwards settled on the inability of law enforcement to take care of crime because each person arrested was accused of so many crimes that the judicial system did not seem to punish them correctly. The Fort Worth Klavern 101 was in operation by 1921, as was Dallas Klavern 66. Because the order of establishment dictated a Klavern’s charter number, when the nearby small city of Gainesville's Klan no. 151 was announced twelve days into January of 1921 to “combat [the] possible increase of [a] crime wave” it is clear that Denton Klavern 136, too, was in operation. The countywide “crackdown on vags” (vagrants) began on January 14, 1921, but with eighteen prisoners in jail at the time, only three were Black (17% of the prison population).
As if asked by an unknown source, the Denton Record-Chronicle denied the existence of a Klan again on June 29, 1921, regardless of “unverified statements that an organizer has been here and has discussed an organization in Denton.” Ten days later Edwards reiterated the message stating, “so far as outward indications go,” there was still no Klan in Denton. Through the Klavern numbering convention, it is certain that a Klan did exist in Denton County on both June 29th and July 9th, 1921. Therefore, the statements regarding the lack of KKK in Denton were likely written with the intent of heightening the drama and/or increasing public support before the Klan’s formal reveal.
On July 1, Edwards published an editorial which criticized a senatorial candidate for his anti-Klan stance stating, “He must have mistaken the ‘sign of the times.'” This sentiment was echoed later the same week by Governor Pat Morris Neff who told the state house that “murder, theft, robbery, and holdups are hourly occurrences that fill the daily press. The spirit of lawlessness has become alarming.” Neff went on to bemoan the growth of “technicalities'' that have “sucked the lifeblood out of the penal code.” Edwards responded in print, “The Ku Klux Klan has been called into being largely in those communities where the existing authorities have demonstrated either their inability or their unwillingness to enforce the laws.” “The KKK typically justified vigilantism by charging that the police were not doing their jobs.” Because this offended police officers, Hiram Evans shifted the narrative from criticizing inept police to engaging police and thereby legalizing or legitimizing extralegal action. The Sheriff’s office responded in arrests -- twenty-three men and women were held in the county jail in August 1921, of which forty-eight percent were of color. But, Edwards and his pen did not find Sheriff Goode's increase in arrests sufficient. On August 8, 1921, Edwards printed an editorial in the Denton Record-Chronicle which asserted the benefit of the KKK was its emphasis on the miscarriage of justice once a criminal is brought before the court. His prime complaint was that appeals rendered judgements moot and criminals went free 50% of the time.
Out of the Wave, a Storm Emerges
By October, the Klan in Denton was overt in its activity while still shrouded in its existence. On October 11, 1921, the Denton Record-Chronicle printed the complete article titled "Letter Signed K.K.K. Warned Mustang Negro" on the front page of its publication. Therein, the DRC reports Gus Fowler, a Black man living four miles south of Pilot Point in the Mustang Community, received a letter from the Ku Klux Klan via the postal service. The writing was uncannily similar to letters received twenty years before, signed by 'THE COMMITTEE' or 'WHITECAPPERS'.
Ten days later, a group of members from the Ku Klux Klan of Denton kidnapped two Black teenagers from the Pilot Point city jail and murdered them on Joe Burke's pasture, north of Pilot Point.
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