100 years ago today: Women’s KKK tries to organize in Spokane; S-R declares group `repugnant’

Ladies of the Invisible Empire – a female version of the Ku Klux Klan – was coming to Spokane.

“All white Protestant women are eligible for membership in Ladies of the Invisible Empire,” said P.H. Green, a Klan deputy grand counsel. “Women will be accepted in the organization whether their husbands are members of the KKK or not.”

Green was from Portland, which was selected as national headquarters of the women’s organization. He was in Spokane to organize a local chapter.

Green described the mission of the organization in shockingly explicit terms: “Protection of homes, pure womanhood, innocent children, creation of public schools which will fix a barrier to the intermarriage of white people with the black, yellow, brown and other related races of the world, and the purification of civil and political conditions, too long dominated by alien minorities, under the direction of old-world masters.”

The Spokesman-Review ran an editorial two days later calling the Invisible Empire “intolerable.” It and the Klan were “repugnant to the spirit and ideas expressed by Americanism.”

Also from the Klan beat: Frank H. Kinsell, a candidate endorsed by the Klan, edged into the lead for the Republican nomination for Spokane County prosecuting attorney. He was ahead of Arthur Hooper by 44 votes, although counting continued.

From the strike beat: Spokane’s railroad shop workers were skeptical of the national “separate peace” plan, which would allow the unions to make separate deals with each railroad in order to end the long strike.

“We will abide by any action taken by our national officers, but I can say that our men are far from overjoyed over the reported separate peace plan,” said the local union head.