Failure at the Top  

   
 
 By the end of 1924, the Indiana Klan had more than proven its ability to shape the outcome of both local and state elections. Steering the course of state government was another matter, however, for in this area the Klan would have to depend on the ability of its leaders. When the legislature convened in Indianapolis in January 1925, it soon became apparent that those leaders were not up to the task.  

   
 
 While the majority of state senators and representatives had been elected with the support of the Klan, it was clear almost immediately that they would not act in concert to adopt legislation.51 The lack of unity among Klan legislators became evident when the senate killed a number of anti-Catholic bills that had been passed by the assembly. The first had been a proposal to require daily Bible readings (without comment from the reader) in the public schools. Other  

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 measures would have required that no person wearing religious garb be allowed to teach in the public schools (nuns had been teaching in public schools in some counties), all public school teachers themselves be graduates of public schools, and parochial schools use the same textbooks as public schools. Klan representatives in the lower house also attempted to restructure the State Board of Education and to adopt a plan that would permit public school students to be released from classes for the purpose of religious education. None of these bills reached the governor's desk. Only one Klan proposal, requiring that students in all Indiana schools study the U.S. Constitution, was enacted into law. 52  

   
 
 The Klan's "Americanization" program failed primarily because the men who stood at the center of Indiana's Klan-dominated political arena were not sufficiently committed to its passage. Had Ed Jackson received the anti-Catholic bills, he would have been forced either to undermine a central concern of his Klan constituents or, by signing the bills, to invite a storm of controversy over an obvious attack on religious liberty. A politician, not a Klan ideologue at heart, Jackson probably used his influence to block the potentially controversial legislation.53  

   
 
 D. C. Stephenson, who had riveted himself to Ed Jackson, also had sufficient reason not to favor the anti-Catholic bills and to help arrange their legislative death.54 One reason he opposed the bills was that their passage would have represented a victory for Walter Bossert and the Klan legislators who had proposed them. Even though Stephenson's revolt against the regular Klan organization had failed, he still attempted to present himself as the true leader of the Indiana Klan and continued to regard Bossert as an archenemy. Stephenson also had another reason to oppose the bills. A protracted battle over religion could easily interfere with his primary goal during the legislative session—to seize control of the Indiana Highway Commission. Ever watchful for opportunities to make money, Stephenson hoped to restructure the commission so he would be in a position to sell patronage and influence within the state's rapidly expanding road-building program. The plan crumbled when, in a dispute over seating a new legislator, Democrats and Republicans who opposed Stephenson broke a quorum and fled across the state border to Dayton, Ohio. The anti-Stephenson insurgents refused to return until  

 

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 they had been satisfied that the power of the former Grand Dragon would be limited. 55  

   
 
 Even Walter Bossert, the official leader of the Indiana Klan, appeared only superficially interested in transforming Klan ideology into law. Like Jackson and Stephenson, Bossert's main concern was political gain. Although he supported the anti-Catholic legislation, he did not fight for its passage. Even the Klan's enemies were surprised by how quickly the order's legislative program evaporated and by the Klan's relatively small impact in the assembly.56 Bossert later admitted that the only reason he had ever become involved with the Klan was that he thought it would be his vehicle for election to the U.S. Senate.57  

   
 
 On the one issue where support from the public was assured, Indiana's Klan politicians had little difficulty acting with unanimity. The Wright "Bone Dry" bill, which had been initiated by the Indiana Anti-Saloon League to create greater barriers to Prohibition violation, easily gained Klan support. The bill passed both houses of the legislature with only one dissenting vote and represented the only real accomplishment of an elected body that had been brought into office by a powerful wave of White Protestant nationalism but showed itself to be more devoted to political opportunism.58  

   
 
 As the legislative session drew to a close in the spring, the first Klan scandal erupted, placing the lackluster assembly in the background and raising fundamental questions about the men who had ascended to the top of Indiana's Invisible Empire. D. C. Stephenson, the most renowned leader of the Indiana Klan, apparently reached the breaking point after three years of inebriating power, first in the Klan and then in state politics. One evening in April 1925, he boarded a train in Indianapolis, accompanied by one of his lieutenants and Madge Oberholtzer, a twenty-eight-year-old clerical worker. During the overnight ride to Chicago, Oberholtzer would later tell Indianapolis police, Stephenson sexually assaulted her, inflicting her in the process with numerous and severe bite wounds. The next day, Oberholtzer attempted suicide using mercuric chloride tablets. While the poison did not immediately kill her, it made her terribly sick, burning her throat and causing her to convulse and vomit blood. In spite of her condition, Stephenson refused to seek medical help, sequestering her in a hotel room until he returned her 

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 to her home in Indianapolis the next day. She died about a month later as a result of the poison and the bite wounds, which had become infected. 59  

   
 
 The horrible details of Oberholtzer's assault and death, combined with Stephenson's arrogant, unremorseful statements to the press during his trial, repelled citizens throughout Indiana and badly damaged the Klan's reputation. Politicians acted quickly to distance themselves from Stephenson and the Klan movement. Governor Jackson severed all contact with Stephenson and in the newspapers downplayed his association with the former Grand Dragon. Old Guard Republicans, acting through the Indiana Republican Newspaper Association, launched a campaign in 1926 to discredit the Klan's involvement in state and party politics. Later that year, a congressional investigation of electoral corruption produced testimony linking both of Indiana's senators with the state Klan movement.60  

   
 
 Other events in 1926 added to the wave of negative publicity. In Muncie, a judge sympathetic to the Klan issued a contempt-of-court citation against George R. Dale, editor of the Muncie Post Democrat, and halted sale of the newspaper because Dale had run a series of articles examining the Klan's role in the Delaware County courts. A number of groups—both inside and outside Indiana—protested this attack on the press and donated money for Dale's legal fees. In the fall of 1926, a grand jury met in Indianapolis for twelve weeks to investigate more charges against Stephenson and his lieutenants. No indictments resulted, but the public perception of the Klan continued to suffer.61  

   
 
 In the following year, the Klan political machine in Indianapolis dissolved in scandal as corruption destroyed Mayor John Duvall and the Klan city council. Duvall was convicted of accepting illegal campaign contributions and was forced to resign his office. Several members of the city council were found guilty on a variety of other charges. Throughout 1927 and 1928, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and the Indianapolis News kept up a steady campaign against the Klan school board, charging its members with misuse of public funds, corrupt practices in the awarding of construction contracts, and a number of other offenses. The negative publicity had the intended affect. In 1929, when the Citizen's School Committee regained control of the school board, it promised to cut ''extrava- 
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 gance" in the school construction program, vote down proposed pay raises for teachers, end "free" kindergarten, and look into the possibility of repealing the mandatory school attendance law. Only George Coffin survived the counterattack by the Old Guard Republicans. Because he had maintained his ties with the political establishment throughout the Klan era, Coffin held onto his post as Republican county chairman until his death in 1938. 62  

   
 
 The ultimate disgrace came when the Klan governor himself was brought before the court. Unwilling to suffer alone, and furious that Ed Jackson had not pardoned him within a few months of his conviction, D. C. Stephenson began to hint in the summer of 1927 that he was ready to release information about Jackson's political dealings. After Stephenson testified before a Marion County grand jury, Governor Jackson was indicted for bribery. At the trial in September, Stephenson revealed that he had given illegal campaign contributions to Jackson and that, together, the two men had tried to bribe former governor Warren McCray.63 Jackson escaped conviction and completed his gubernatorial term, but by that time, Indiana, which had once represented the Klan's greatest success, now symbolized its most embarrassing failure.