List of Klansmen in Dallas Police Department, 1923

[Andrej Stancak]

 

This is a list of 106 Dallas Police officers who were Klansmen. The list names one Chief, one Assistant Chief, three Captains and 10 Sergeants of police and the patrolmen. This list is stored as Mss0016, Earle Cabell: Family History, Box 1, Folder 41, Ben E. Cabell Ku Klux Klan. I am thankful to the staff of the DeGolyer library for finding this document based on my very approximate information. 

Although the list is undated, it is possible to identify the probable year based on the Chief of Police name, L.W. Brown. Chief Brown was the first man in Dallas police only for a short period of time in the year 1923. Chief Brown was preceded by J.H. Tanner and succeeded by C.W. Trammel (Partners in Blue. 100 Years of History of Dallas Police Department, by C. Stowers, 1983). It is not clear why was Ben E. Cabel associated with the list of Klansmen in DeGoyler collection. Ben Elias Cabell (father of Earle Cabell) was Dallas City Mayor in 1900-1904, and the list is clearly from a much later time than Ben E. Cabell’s his mayoral period.

There was a big Klan Day at the State Fair Park in 1923 which was attended by 75,000 Klansmen who were addressed by Hiram Evans, the Imperial Wizard. Chief Brown pioneered the installations of the traffic lights in Dallas. A big tower with traffic lights, man operated, was positioned at the intersection of Elm and Ervay street. However, KKK had a fiest in Dallas as flogging of black people and Jews in Trinity River and lynching black people (e.g., Alex Johnson) was blooming in Dallas during 1922-1924. On one occasion, a Dallas police officer took flogging into his own hands, and was indentified later by his victim Phillip Rothblum. The police officer was acquitted and returned to the force shortly.

There are couple of names which are relevant to the investigation of President Kennedy’s death, found by comparing each of 106 names with the Assistant Chief Batchelor list of Assignments, Commission Exhibit 5002.

W. Fritz, or Will Fritz – Captain in the Homicide and Robbery Bureau. Fritz joined the Dallas police force in 1921, and he was 27 years old in 1923.

Smith, B.B. – Deputy Chief of Police, Director, Civil Defence and Disaster Commission

Frasier, W.N. - Captain of Police

Doughty, M. – could probably be George M. Doughty, Captain of Police (not confirmed) ?

Abbott, R.E. – Forgery Bureau

The name “Curry, J.” is listed, however, this cannot be Chief Jesse Curry of fame as he joined the police department only in 1936, and he would be 10 years old 1923. Curry’s father was shortly a member of Dallas police before he became a minister for a Baptist church. Could he be the J. Curry in the list of Klansmen? 

The list of Klansmen in Dallas police refers to the period of the mid-20th when KKK enjoyed its resurrection, started by William Joseph Simmons and the film Birth of the Nation. The Klan 66 in Dallas was practically disbanded after 1928 and it would be a stretch to take for granted that the people in the list were Klansmen also in the fiftieth and sixtieth of the last century when the issue of integration engulfed another surge of KKK activities. However, it is certainly not impossible. The Dallas police counted 130 officers in 1920’ and the 106 names in the list means that almost every police officer was a Klansman during those times. In the overall US population, about 35% of white males of Christian religion and of non-immigrant status were members of KKK in the 20th of the last century. Thus, police officers were Klansmen more often than average population.

I always wondered why did Captain Fritz asked Lee Oswald whether Lee had believed in a “deity” during one of the interrogation sessions.  Lee answered : “What religion am I? I have no faith, I suppose you mean, in the Bible. I have read the Bible. It is fair reading, but not very interesting. As a matter of fact, I am a student of philosophy and I don't consider the Bible as even a reasonable or intelligent philosophy. I don't think of it. . . . “ (Mae Brussel, The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald, http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae Brussell Articles/Last Words of Lee Oswald.html). The reason for asking could be the Klansmen instinct which despised people who were black or Jews (especially in Dallas), immigrants (especially south-European) and were of other religion than south-protestant. Lee obviously blew it in the last item. Lee offered one more statement which had to enrage every true Klansman:  "Life is better for the colored people in Russia than it is in the U.S."

While it was normal to be a Klansman in the 20th of the last century, the KKK membership in the fiftieth and sixtieth was less open to an outside view. The scarce information we have, such as Joseph McBride’s interview with officer Brumley may be one of the few remaining bits of information about KKK in the Dallas Police in 1963, although archives may still contain valuable documents such as this list.

The attached document is of relatively poor quality because it was converted from a PDF to JPEG. Anyone wishing to see the original PDF, please drop me your email address via a private message.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 25, 2018 by Andrej Stancak