Our Daily News Letter

The excitement caused by the recent elections, which has subsided everywhere else, still prevails to some extent in Ohio. The voters of this state will not calm down so soon, for they were so disgracefully betrayed in the gubernatorial elections that they will not get over it for a long time. Here is the story of the betrayal:

The two candidates who ran for governor of Ohio were: Harry L. Davis, former governor of the state, and governor Wick Donaheigh. Donabeigh was the candidate of the Ku Klux Klan and no one made a secret of it, for the Klan openly endorsed his candidacy. This was not without reason, for under Donaheigh’s administration as governor the members of the Invisible Empire in Ohio prospered in their secret activities and their organization enjoyed a great deal of freedom and prestige socially and politically. Donaheigh had gone so far in his friendship of the Klan that he permitted them to perform their “initiation” ceremonies on the steps of the capitol in Columbus.

But Donaheigh’s opponent, Harry L. Davis, Republican, ran on an anti-Klan platform and he made elaborate promises to the Jews, Catholics and Negroes that once he were elected it would mean the end of Ku Kluxism in Ohio. To many Davis’ pledges sounded somewhat suspicious, because they were made during the primaries, whereas in the course of the general elections no mention of the Klan was made by Davis and his men. However, the majority of voters believed Davis implicitly. They said: Why drag the religious issue into politics more than is absolutely necessary?

The result of the elections, as is known, was a victory for the Klan candidate Donaheigh. The “pride” of the Republican machine lost and he instructed his campaign manager to come out with a statement explaining to the public the reasons for his defeat. In this statement the public was informed that whereas the Democrats were in close alliance with the Klan and appealed to race hatred, etc., the Republicans felt that under these circumstances they would rather accept defeat than victory! Very well. But it was not long before we discovered that this was merely a political trick of the meanest order on the part of the Republicans. It has been disclosed that in the last weeks of the campaign the anti-Klan candidate, seeing that his prospects were rather dismal, approached the Klan chief of Ohio for support, assuring him that everything would be “all right.” The Klan chief, however, refused to office the Republican candidate any assistance, explaining that be preferred Donaheigh, who has a “good” pro Klan record and has proven himself a staunch friend of the Invisible Empire.

In this manner the Republican politicians aimed to perpetrate an unscrupulous outrageous swindle on the electorate of Ohio-and they might have succeeded!

Will the millions of voters in Ohio remember this experience in future?

In the meantime the victorious candidate and the Klan that elected him are reaping their “rewards.” The riot which occurred a few weeks ago in Niles, Ohio, is symptomatic of the trend of affairs. This was the result of a conflict between the Klan and an anti-Klan organization, the Knights of the Flaming Circle, both of whom wanted to parade at the same time through the streets of Niles. The Knights of the Flaming Circle promised to stop their parade if the permit of the Klan organization would likewise be recalled, but the latter refused to yield and all appeals made to Governor Donaheigh proved of no avail, for obvious reasons. . . . Only when the clash of the two antagonistic organizations had turned into a riot on the day of the parade and several persons were killed the state troops arrived on the scene.

The Klan is now demanding that an investigation of this affair be instituted, but the Klan chief has ordered the governor to appoint a “special prosecutor” because, he says, the regular prosecutor of that country is “partial.” . . .