Sheila, This probably isn't on the subject of genealogy, but the KKK in the 1920s was violently anti-catholic, anti-immigrant, anti-semitic, etc. They were also generally against the bootleggers, because they wanted control of the area, just like the Klan. The Klan also paid ministers to join to help them gain some measure of respectibility. Hamilton county was not a center of Klan activity, because there wasn't and isn't much diversity in the area, but there were lots of bad things going on around Herrin and Marion, as well as Evansville, IN, which even had a Klan-supported mayor, who turned out to be a distant cousin of mine named Herbert Males. The Indiana Klan broke up when their leader was convicted of murder. In Southern IL the Klan and gangster violence finally made regular people sick of both groups. Cindy Birk Conley White County GenWeb Coordinator Hamilton Co names--Savage, McClellan, Wheeler, Nance Sheila Cadwalader wrote: > > I think the Klan was revived in the 1920s to bring law and order to the > area. The criminals (bootleggers) had taken over and the honest citizens > were in a fervor. > > The KKK in southern Illinois (at least, in Hamilton, Franklin and > Williamson Counties) were not anti-black as in the southern part of the > US. Mostly they called on their neighbors...they might call upon a man > who had been unfair in a business deal, had sold liquor to under age > children, had a house of ill repute, beat his wife etc, etc, etc. I > don't think there were any cross burnings.