The Old Rugged Cross

An Auxiliary robe

 Maybe it was the music. I'd like to think it could have been. After all, some old preachers claim that when Satan was cast out of heaven, he fell directly into the choir loft. I'd like to think it was the music.

Imagine it this way, you're sitting behind the pulpit in a big church in rural Iowa in the 1920s. One hyper member has suggested a new version of  "The Old Rugged Cross," as a way to make room for the fittest symbol of the fancy new patriotic organization you and maybe half the town didn't join, even though a whole lot of the town's muck-a-mucks did. You didn't sign on, even though joining up cost only $24, and, shoot! the hood and the robe and the whole ball of wax come with a membership. And it's become clear why people are with them: this new bunch of righteous men and women want like nothing else to keep America Christian. 

You're skeptical. 

But you're pastor of this fair-to-middlin' church, and you want to tell your congregation that things you've read about the organization aren't exactly endearing. In the South, you know it's African-Americans they're after, and blood's been spilled. But here in town, way up north of the Mason-Dickson, there is only one Black man around and he's, well, special--he just polishes shoes at the hotel downtown. 

And Jews? a couple, not near enough for a temple, a couple of businessmen who came ashore at the turn of the century when a bunch of Russians arrived in northwest Iowa--Sioux City.

Catholics are here though, lots of them, and you know what people say about Catholics--they're the ones peddlin' all the hootch even though the good Christian people of this country finally made a law--Prohibition, you know. They're the ones taking over our jobs.

Could have been any number of things that made him do it, I suppose. But I'd like to think it was the music that got to him, those new lyrics to the old favorite. And even though he probably wasn't the old-fashioned hard-nosed Dutch Reformed dominie of the era, no angry pulpit pounding for him, he can't help turning his face away from those lyrics because they just plain stink. 

What's more, membership is getting to be a thing throughout the whole region--shoot, throughout the entire state of Iowa. More than 40,000 registered Klan members claimed membership in Iowa cities and towns, east to west, north to south. In 1924, 25,000, they say, showed up right here in Sheldon, Iowa--25,000 Klan members right here. This is just a part of it.

"Oh, my, what a wholesome gathering," so many people said, because they wanted to believe that the men and women of the Klan truly love America (yes, women, there's even an auxiliary). They do. They just plain love America. They're patriots. Like the others, people in your church can't help but believe that the dump of immigrants on our shores is soon to destroy our beloved way of life. Shoot, they LOVE America, even say it all the time, won't let you forget it. They do. They love the flag.

Here's what they claim!

 

And you're the Dominie in a good-sized church that, thank the Lord, isn't yet overrun with Klansmen and women. But there's been this request for "The Bright Fiery Cross, and you've got to deal with it so you determine, prayerfully, to take it head on. On the next Sabbath morning, you stand up before them and tell your congregation, from the pulpit, that, in their own best interests, it's good and pleasing in the sight of the Lord to stay more an arm's length away, if not more, from those people who hate, even though some of the town's most outstanding citizens have signed up because they claim that all of this is borne from their immense love of America. "You best stay away," you tell your congregation, quietly and sincerely, from the pulpit of First Reformed Church, Sheldon, Iowa, before you point at the hymnal and tell the people to sing the old hymn, the old way. 

He warned them. He told them, from the pulpit, to be very wary--that's what he said, that's what he told his congregation.

And just a night or two later, a bright fiery cross burned on the church lawn.

______________________ 

I'm greatly thankful for the help of Millie Vos, at the Sheldon (IA) Prairie Museum for the story, the pictures, and the anecdotes. 40,000 Iowans were members of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.