The Montgomery Advertiser
- EVERYTHING SET FOR LARGEST SHOW STAGED IN CAPITAL
- STEPHENSON AFRAID TO TALK FREELY IS COMMITTEE REPORT
- Saturday Night Movies Given Trial On Woman's College Campus by Societies
The Montgomery Advertiser of October 24, 1926, announced that the Montgomery State Fair would open its gates at noon on Monday, boasting that its exhibits, all already in place, were probably the most elaborate and varied ever seen at such an event in the county. An Associated Press dispatch from Michigan City, Indiana, reported that publisher Thomas H. Adams and a committee spent more than two hours questioning D. C. Stephenson, the former Indiana Klan grand dragon serving a life sentence for murder, in search of evidence for Adams's corruption charges; they came away with few admissions and the impression that Stephenson was afraid to talk freely. Closer to home, student societies at the Woman's College tried out Saturday night movies on campus, opening with Colleen Moore in "Irene" in Flowers Hall, with piano accompaniment.
Translation
EVERYTHING SET FOR LARGEST SHOW STAGED IN CAPITAL
With an elaborateness, completeness and diversity of exhibit probably never before equaled by any similar event in the history of Montgomery county—and with all exhibits in place, ready for inspection of thousands, the Montgomery State Fair will throw wide its gates Monday at 12 o'clock noon.
STEPHENSON AFRAID TO TALK FREELY IS COMMITTEE REPORT
MICHIGAN CITY, IND., Oct. 23.—(AP)—The request of Thomas H. Adams, publisher of the Vincennes, Ind., Commercial, that he be permitted to enter the Indiana state prison to seek from D. C. Stephenson evidence to substantiate charges of political corruption that Adams has made, was granted today. After spending more than two hours with Stephenson, Adams and a committee that accompanied him, left the prison and prepared a statement setting forth that some questions they had put to the prisoner were unanswered. They obtained few admissions and said that they had gained the impression that he was ill at ease and apparently afraid to talk freely. Stephenson is in the prison serving a life sentence for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer of Indianapolis. He was convicted of the crime almost a year ago. In 1924 he was grand dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan and reputed to be a power in republican politics. Adams and
Saturday Night Movies Given Trial On Woman's College Campus by Societies
Saturday night won't be just Saturday night at the Woman's college any more. It's to be movie night with the movie show right on the campus to make Saturday night more interesting for the college girls. The initial cinema showing was last night. Colleen Moore in "Irene" was there for the tryout and the college girls flocked to the show. The screen was on the platform in the auditorium of Flowers' hall, which seats about five hundred persons, and during the picture piano music was played.
Context
Why Stephenson was in the Michigan City prison
The AP dispatch finds D. C. Stephenson in the Indiana state prison at Michigan City, serving a life term for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer after a conviction "almost a year ago." The trial record bears out that timing: a jury convicted him of second-degree murder on November 14, 1925, on its first ballot, and he was then delivered to the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, so by October 1926 he had been there just under a year. The paper's line that he was grand dragon "in 1924" is accurate but compressed. Stephenson had been appointed Grand Dragon of the Indiana Klan in 1923, together with control of Klan recruiting in seven other states; his relationship with the national leader Hiram Evans soon deteriorated, and a trial chronology records that he was reinstated as Grand Dragon in May 1924. His standing in that election year is what made him a potential witness to political corruption.
What political dealings lay behind the corruption charges
Stephenson's value to an investigator lay in the deals he had made while the Klan was a force in Indiana Republican politics. When Ed Jackson ran for governor in 1924, he cut a deal in exchange for Stephenson's assistance, and in that year's election Stephenson-endorsed candidates, including Jackson, won by significant margins. An earlier episode showed how far such arrangements went: in 1923 Jackson offered Governor Warren McCray a $10,000 bribe on behalf of Stephenson if McCray would fill several public offices with Klan members. That dealing took place behind the scenes and had not been made public when Adams visited the prison. The dispatch leaves the content of Adams's own charges unspecified, but a prisoner with first-hand knowledge of this kind of bargaining was the obvious person to ask for proof.
How Stephenson's reluctance gave way the following year
The guarded prisoner Adams met in October 1926 began talking the following year. Stephenson demanded that Governor Jackson pardon him, and the governor refused. Angered, Stephenson started talking in 1927 to reporters from the Indianapolis Times, and the information he released led to the indictment of Governor Ed Jackson and other officials. Jackson's own trial ended in a hung jury, and the statute of limitations precluded any conviction. Read against that later record, the committee's impression that Stephenson was "afraid to talk freely" catches him at a point before he had decided to make his records public.
Where the Montgomery state fair came from
The fair opening on Monday belonged to a tradition reaching back to the 1850s. A state fair was established in Montgomery in 1855; it was held every year for five years and paused in 1861 after the Civil War began. By the turn of the twentieth century the Alabama State Fair was held at a fairground just north of the city. The fair also reflected the segregated state around it: at the 1906 fair the Alabama Agricultural Association started encouraging African American entries. The Advertiser's claim that the 1926 displays were probably unequaled in county history was the paper's own promotion on the eve of the opening.
The Woman's College and Flowers Hall
The "Woman's college" of the movie story was the Woman's College of Alabama, a Methodist liberal-arts school in Montgomery that is now Huntingdon College and that originally served only white women. Flowers Hall, whose auditorium served as the makeshift cinema, opened in 1909 and housed the college's administrative offices, classrooms and several other functions; that same year the school took the name Woman's College of Alabama. The college admitted its first male student only in 1934 and became Huntingdon College the following year, so in 1926 its students were still all women, the "college girls" the article describes.
Original
EVERYTHING SET FOR LARGEST SHOW STAGED IN CAPITAL
With an elaborateness, completeness and diversity of exhibit probably never before equaled by any similar event in the history of Montgomery county-and with all exhibits in place, ready for inspection of thousands, the Montgomery State Fair will throw wide its gates Monday at 12 o'clock noon.
STEPHENSON AFRAID TO TALK FREELY IS COMMITTEE REPORT
MICHIGAN CITY, IND., Oct. 23. - (AP) - The request of Thomas H. Adams, publisher of the Vincennes, Ind., Commercial, that he be permitted to enter the Indiana state prison to seek from D. C. Stephenson evidence to substantiate charges of political corruption that Adams has made, was granted today. Atfer spending more than two hours with Stephenson, Adams and a committee that acompanied him, left the prison and prepared a statement setting forth that some questions they had put to the prisoner were unanswered. They obtained few admissions and said that they had gained the impression that he was ill at ease and apparently afraid to talk freely. Stephenson is in the prison serving a life sentence for the murder of Madge Oberholtzer of Indianapolis. He was convicted of the crime almost a year ago. In 1924 he was grand dragon of the Indiana Ku Klux Klan and reputed to be a power in republican politics. Adams and
Saturday Night Movies Given Trial On Woman's College Campus by Societies
Saturday night won't be just Saturday night at the Woman's college any more. It's to be movie night with the movie show right on the campus to make Saturday night more interesting for the college girls. The initial cinema showing was last night. Colleen Moore in " Irene " was there for the tryout and the college girls flocked to the show. The screen was on the platform in the auditorium of Flowers ' hall, which seats about five hundred persons, and during the picture piano music was played.
Source: Holding institution