Daisy Douglas Barr:
From Quaker to Klan “Kluckeress”
Dwight W.Hoover”
In July, 1923, at the first annual meeting of the Grand Dragons of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Asheville, North Carolina, Daisy Douglas Barr, the only woman on the program, read a
poem, “The Soul of America”:
I am clothed with wisdom’s mantle;
Age and experience are mine,
Yet I am still in the swaddling clothes
Of my existence.
I am strong beyond my years;
My hand typifies strength,
And although untrained in cunning
Its movements mark the quaking
Of the enemies of my country.
My eye, though covered, is all-seeing;
It penetrates the dark recesses of law violation,
Treason, political corruption and injustice,
Causing these cowardly culprits to bare their unholy faces
In the light of my all-seeing revelations.
My vision is so broad
That my daily meditations force upon me new problems,
New situations and new obligations.
My feet are swift to carry the strength of my hand
And the penetrations of my all-seeing eye.
My nature is serious, righteous and just,
And tempered with the love of Christ.
My purpose is noble, far-reaching and age-lasting.
Dwight W. Hoover is professor of history and director of the Center for Middletown Studies, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana.
INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, LXXXVII (June, 1991)
1991, Trustees of Indiana University
172
Zndiana Magazine of History
My heart is heavy, but not relenting;
Sorrowful but not hopeless;
Pure but ever able to master the unclean;
Humble but not cowardly;
Strong but not arrogant;
Simple but not foolish;
Ready, without fear.
I am the Spirit of Righteousness.
They call me the Ku Klux Klan.
I am more than the uncouth robe and hood
With which I am clothed.
YEA, I AM THE SOUL OF AMERICA.’
Barr had come a long way to speak in Asheville, both literally
and figuratively. Born Daisy Douglas Brushwiller in Jonesboro, Indiana, in 1878, she had become an evangelist at the age of sixteen
and a recorded Friends minister two years later. This vigorous
Hoosier Quaker was active also in Republican politics and became
in the early 1920s the first woman to serve as vice-chair of the
Indiana Republican party. In 1922, as the state’s key figure in
women’s Ku Klux Klan activity, Barr organized the Queens of the
Golden Mask and served as its Imperial Empress.2
Barr’s service as pastor of Muncie Friends Meeting and as organizer of one of the Klan auxiliaries is not as disparate as might
be assumed. Rather, her actions form part of one continuum. Her
development as a Quaker took place amidst radical change in the
Society of Friends, and Barr’s life is in many ways symptomatic of
that change. Quakerism was becoming more and more a part of
evangelical Protestantism, as both pastors and revivals were increasingly accepted. Furthermore, many members, like Barr, were
being drawn from non-Quaker background^.^ As for her Klan con,~
nections, contrary to the contention of at least one ~ c h o l a rBarr
did not follow her husband into the Klan but instead led him. A
strong woman in her own right, she did rely upon powerful men as
patrons.
I Papers Read at the Meeting of Grand Dragons, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,
At their First Annual Meeting held at Asheuille, North Carolina, July 1923 . . . ([Atlanta, 19231), 135.
2Muncie Star, April 4, 1938; Indianapolis News, April 4, 1938; Indianapolis
Star, April 4, 1938. None of these accounts of the auto accident that killed Barr
mentioned her connection with the Ku Klux Klan. For her Klan membership see
John Augustus Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1920-1930: An Historical
Study (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Northwestern University, 1966),
141-44; Muncie Post-Democrat, January 2, 1924; Indianapolis News, July 26, 1923,
January 3, 1924; Indianapolis Star, November 12, 1924.
3 See Thomas D. Hamm, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodon Friends, 1800-1907 (Bloomington, 1988).
4 For instance, Kenneth T. Jackson, The Ku K l m Klan and the City, 1915-1930
(New York, 19671, 150.
Daisy Douglas Burr
173
DAISYDOUGLAS
BARR
Reproduced from Daisy Douglas B a r , Springs That Run
Dry and Other Addresses (Noblesville, Ind., n.d.),facing
xvi.
Although Daisy Douglas Brushwiller’s grandfather, George
Douglas, was a Methodist minister, her father, John W. Brushwiller, joined the Society of Friends after service in the Civil War.5
Her mother, Sarah, who evidently made considerable impression
upon her, dedicated Daisy as the seventh child to the ministry. In
her early years Daisy attended both Methodist and Friends congregations, but at age eight she received her call to ministry during a
New Castle Monthly Meeting Membership Book, 191S1932, p. 19, Indiana
Yearly Meeting Archives (Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana); Rolland Lewis
Whitson, ed., Centennial History of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 . . . (2 vols.,
Chicago, 1914), 11,830-31. Such service was by no means disqualifying as the Quakers in Indiana had more enlistments in proportion to their membership than any
other denomination in the state. See Hamm, Transformation of American Quakerism, 68. Parenthetically, Muncie Friends Meeting was renamed Friends Memorial
in 1912.
174
Indiana Magazine of History
visit to the woodshed for solitude.6 Although Center Friends Meeting in Grant County was a traditional silent meeting with limited
preaching, the style of worship evidently did not make enough of
an impact to deflect her from her goal to be a minister. She was
much influenced by one member, Sallie Winslow Stephens, a public schoolteacher who had later gone to India as a mi~sionary.~
It
is unclear how much education Daisy received, but it is doubtful
that she attended college. She was working as a clerk in a Jonesboro department store and living with a woman friend before her
marriage, although her job also was not to deter her from the ministry. At sixteen she reportedly preached her first sermon, after
which she was “saved” at a United Brethren service conducted by
a traveling woman evangelist.8
On November 21, 1893, she wed Thomas Dean Barr of Fairmount. Born in Saint Clair County, Missouri, in 1870, Barr had
come to Fairmount with his mother, Elizabeth Dean Barr, who had
relatives in the area, in 1874, shortly after the death of his father.
In Grant County Thomas attended Fairmount Academy. After his
mother’s death in 1876 Barr attended Indiana State Normal School
at Terre Haute and then began a twenty-year career as a teacher
in Grant and Henry c ~ u n t i e sOn
. ~ December 14, 1895, the couple’s
only child, Thomas Raymond, was born. At the same time Daisy
was becoming more active in Friends meetings. She had transferred her membership from Upland Monthly Meeting to Marion
in August, 1894, and less than a year later was recorded as a minister at the Marion Monthly Meeting.’O
For the next few years Barr apparently followed her husband
as he taught in various schools in east central Indiana; frequently
she pastored meetings and occasionally acted as a general evangelist for Indiana Yearly Meeting. In 1898, for instance, she held a
series of revivals in Kennard, Indiana, and won a number of converts there. On April 18, 1900, she performed a wedding at Spicefi Indianapolis Star, April 4, 1938; Indianapolis News, April 4, 1938; Muncie
Star, April 4, 1938; and Daisy Douglas Barr, Springs That R u n Dry and Other
Addresses (Noblesville, Ind., n.d.), 19, which is a collection of Barr’s sermons that
also contains some autobiographical material. It probably was published between
1912 and 1920. The recorded date for Daisy’s reception into Fairmount Monthly
Meeting, which included the Center congregation, was 6th Mo. 16, 1886, using the
Quaker dating system. Willard C. Heiss, ed., Abstracts ofthe Society ofFriends in
Indiana (7 vols., Indianapolis, 1970), 111, 381.
Whitson, Centennial History of Grant County, I, 266. In the first volume Barr
is listed as the pastor of Fairmount Friends Meeting; in the second as pastor of
Muncie Friends Meeting.
Barr, Springs That R u n Dry, 23-24.
Whitson, Centennial History ofGrant County, 11, 830-31. He also took business
courses at Indiana Business College to prepare himself for his second career as a n
auditor. See Grant County and Who’s Who (Marion, Ind., 1909), 14.
I n New Castle Monthly Meeting Book, 19; Whitson, Centennial History ofGrant
County, 11, 830-31; Heiss, Abstracts, 111, 23.
Daisy Douglas Barr
175
land, Indiana, and on May 24 her class address at Rich Square
commencement was canceled because “the inclemency of the
weather compelled her to remain home.” Between 1900 and 1903
Barr was pastor of the Friends Meeting in Lewisville (Henry
County), which was included in Hopewell Monthly Meeting. In
1903 the Barr family took its membership from Hopewell to Westland Monthly Meeting, and in 1905 Barr and Edna Hill of Wichita,
Kansas, held a revival in Fenton, Michigan, which reportedly converted fifty people and added twenty new members to the Friends
meeting there. In 1906, while her husband was principal at Van
Buren High School in Grant County, reports maintain that Barr
“healed” a sick person at Portland during a revival. Thomas Barr
served for a time as deputy sheriff but moved on to a succession of
jobs, including meat inspector and deputy county clerk. In 1907 the
Barrs returned to Fairmount where Daisy preached and Thomas
taught, first at Fairmount Academy and then at the high school.ll
Daisy was active in a variety of reform movements in Fairmount,
usually dealing with temperance, but she also served as secretary
of the Indiana Board of Charities and Corrections.12 At twentynine, she had already achieved a considerable reputation among
Friends and even among social reformers beyond Grant County.
Three years later, in 1910, Barr first appeared in Muncie as
the minister of Muncie Friends Meeting, although Thomas, who
had been teaching at Fairmount, had moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, to engage in business. By 1911, however, he had become deputy auditor of Grant County, and the family lived together in
downtown Muncie at 215Ih West Main Street.13 Daisy Barr’s call
to the Muncie congregation was not out of keeping with the history
of that meeting in particular or of the Society of Friends in general; recall that Barr had served at least one congregation before.
Moreover, from the beginning of the system in Indiana Yearly
Meeting women had served as pastors. Esther Frame, for instance,
a minister of great power, had exercised considerable influence in
the Midwest and in beginning the Friends church in Muncie.14
“News from the Field,” American Friend, 1st Mo. 6, 1898, p. 11; Marriage
Application Book 4, 1898-1901, p. 15, Clerk of Court’s Office, Henry County Courthouse, New Castle, Indiana; New Castle Courier, May 24, 1900; Heiss, Abstracts,
IV, 418; “Things of Interest among Ourselves,”American Friend, 12th Mo. 28,1905,
p. 879; American Friend, 5th Mo. 3, 1906, p. 296; Whitson, Centennial History of
Grant County, 11, 830-31.
l2 Whitson, Centennial History of Grant County, I, 541.
l3 Muncie Star, March 19, 1911.
l4 Errol T. Elliott, Quakers on the American Frontier: A History of the Westward Migrations, Settlements, and Developments of Friends of the American Continent (Richmond, Ind., 1 9 6 9 ) , 264. Frame and her husband Nathan were
representative of the holiness movement’s impact on midwestern Quakerism after
the Civil War. A practicing Methodist, she became a Quaker in 1869 largely so she
could become a recognized minister. The revival continued in the 1870s and 1880s
YEARLY
MEETINGOF FRIENDS, 1904
Courtesy Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends Archives, Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana.
DAISYDOUGLAS
BARRIS CIRCLED AT LEFT
MINISTERSOF THE INDIANA
Daisy Douglas Barr
177
Furthermore, Quakerism since the 1870s had been increasing its
emphasis on social purity, which perfectly suited Barr’s growing
zeal.
Barr’s role in Muncie was i n reforming t h e community
through prohibition of alcohol, through creation of a Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and through the formation of
a refuge for former prostitutes-all in keeping with Friends testimonies. Yet her vigor, her political savvy, and her considerable
organizational talents were gradually deemed excessive. Moreover,
the tactics she used to promote her main cause-temperance-were
often of questionable legality and bespoke a willingness to use almost any means to achieve the desired end.
Barr first became prominent in Muncie in the wet campaign
of 1911. After a long struggle, Muncie had become dry in 1909.
Indiana’s Proctor Law of 1908 allowed an election to vote on
countywide prohibition if 20 percent of the voters signed a petition.
Using the liberalized standards, Delaware County drys not only
succeeded in obtaining an election in 1909 but in subsequently
overwhelming Muncie’s wets.15
In the spring of 1911, wets counterattacked, circulating a petition for another election and obtaining the requisite number of
signatures. Even before the petition was presented, however, the
drys had begun to organize in opposition. Foremost among the dry
forces was the Dry League, whose president, Joseph A. Goddard,
was a member of Muncie Friends Meeting. As his pastor, Barr announced her intention to organize a group of women supporters
whose activities would supplement those of the Dry League.16
The drys used the same strategy that had proven so effective
two years earlier-mass meetings with both local and outside
speakers and a highly organized campaign to get their message to
residents. Barr played a leading role in influencing women. On
April 6, she spoke at the Jackson Street Christian Church to an
enthusiastic audience of women and got a resolution passed promising that the women would not vote for anyone who supported
saloons (since women could not vote, they would presumably influence those who could). Four days later the women drys had organand garnered nine thousand new members in Indiana alone, which created a problem for orthodox Quakers because the holiness influence rejected plain dress, silent
meetings, and pacifism, adopting a pastoral ministry. The first such meeting in
Indiana was in Muncie in 1878; Esther Frame was pastor. Zbid., 254-57; Hamm,
Transformation of American Quakerism, 75-76,83,85-86, 100, 124-25, 127; [Nathan
T. Frame and Esther G . Frame], Reminiscences of Nathan and Esther Frame (Cleveland, 1907), 85-88.
15 Charles E. Canup, “The Temperance Movement in Indiana (Continued),”Zndiana Magazine of History, XVI (June, 1920), 140-47; Clifton J. Phillips, Zndiunu in
Transition: The Emergence of an Industrial Commonwealth, 1880-1920 (Indianapolis, 1968), 91-101; Muncie Evening Press, January 27, 1914.
Muncie Morning Star, March 21, 22, 29, 1911.
178
Indiana Magazine of History
ized and opened an office next to the Dry League’s headquarters
and selected Barr as the group’s president. Barr organized the voters of the first precinct using the Friends church as her headquarters and brought her sister, Mary McVicker, from Fairmount to
speak at other area churches. She also recruited a former associate,
Leora Bogue of Fairmount, an evangelistic singer, to provide music
at prohibition meetings, which were held as often as four times a
day. By campaign’s end, however, Barr had become the center of
attention. The Muncie Star described Barr as “one of the foremost
in the fight against the saloons.” On April 23 she attracted sixteen
hundred women to a Sunday meeting held at the Wysor Grand, a
meeting she choreographed and over which she presided.17
But the wets struck back. On April 27, one of Barr’s aides,
Carrie D. Hageman, an executive committee member of the Dry
League, was taken to city court on charges of libel, based on her
statement, ‘(ASlong as policemen are blind to conditions there will
be blind tigers.” Hageman’s defense was that the statement in
question was a general one obtained from Barr, who had used it in
a half-dozen cities. The explanation evidently placated the authorities, for Hageman was released.ls Nevertheless, the dry campaign
ended with a spectacular parade the Saturday before the election.
While Barr was not listed as a parade offlcial (Goddard was in
charge), she had a prominent place, riding in a white carriage with
Hageman and Reba Richy, chair of the press bureau of the Dry
League’s a~xi1iary.l~
The day before the election Barr spoke again
at the Wysor Grand to her women’s group and received a “chautauqua salute” for her stirring call to arms, saying
I am in this fight for what I can do for the sake of humanity, for God, for my fellowman. When the fight opened in Marion, I went there. I called out against the brewers and saloonists; I called on the soldiers, comrades of my father, to arise to the
fight; I called on all who would like to arise. They did arise to it and the town went
dry.20
All eyes were on Muncie May 2, 1911, the largest city in Indiana ever to have a special local option election. And although both
sides were edgy, the election itself was relatively quiet. There were
but nine arrests: seven for illegal voting, one for assault and battery, and one for perjury. When the votes were counted, the wets
had won, 3,108 to 2,632, which reversed the results of 1909. The
17Zbid.,April 3, 7, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 24, 1911.
’”Zbid.,April 27, 1911. “Blind tigers” were establishments that sold beer, wine,
or liquor in quantities of less than five gallons or allowed persons to drink inside
without a license. See the discussion of the Baxter Law in Canup, “The Temperance
Movement in Indiana,” 145.
Muncie Morning Star, April 28, 30, 1911.
Zbid., May 1, 1911. A chautauqua salute was a wave with a white handkerchief.
Daisy Douglas Barr
179
city went wet while the surrounding townships went dry; six precincts south of the railroad tracks won the election.21
The scramble for saloon licenses after the election was as unseemly as the drys had predicted. Among those who applied were
William McIlvaine, a police captain and an ex-saloon owner who
had joined the force after the 1909 saloon-closing election, and Fred
Puckett, another police officer who had several convictions for intoxication and assault and battery.22Eventually Muncie had one
ward where twenty-five saloons served most of downtown Muncie
and the red-light district.
In spite of defeat, Barr was still taking a leadership role in the
larger community. One result of the dry campaign was formation
of an institution for young people that would provide alternatives
to the saloon. The Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) got
the nod, and in the summer of 1911 Muncie witnessed a major campaign, led by members of the Ball family, to fund a new YMCA
building. The campaign raised two hundred thousand dollars, over
half of it donated by the Balls, which culminated in a visit by
President William Howard Taft to congratulate the community on
its spirited citizens.23Although there was an effort underway to
build a corresponding institution for women, it had accomplished
little.
Barr changed all that. Using the same techniques she had
wielded so effectively in the local option election, she held a series
of meetings to publicize the YWCA. First named the Young Women’s Social and Physical Betterment Association, Barr’s group met
at the Friends church with the object of “improvement socially and
physically of the young women of the city.” Any girl in the community over fifteen was eligible to join. By the second meeting,
three hundred women had become charter members, and twentyfive directors had been chosen, among them Barr and Elizabeth W.
Brady Ball and Bertha Crosley Ball, representing virtually every
Protestant church and every social class in Muncie. Before year’s
end Muncie had a YWCA.24
Daisy Douglas Barr again became significantly involved in political affairs in Muncie two years later when she had become
president of the Humane Society. Although her sympathies lay
with the Citizen’s party (representing drys) and the Republican
party, she had abstained from participation in the exciting municipal campaign. She had, however, been promoting the idea of adding a policewoman to the force and helped arrange a meeting
21 Zbid., May 3, 1911. The six precincts included the red-light district, rooming
houses, and working-class neighborhoods.
22Zbid.,May 5, September 17, 1911.
23Zbid.,July 3, 4,1911. Muncie’s YMCA dated from 1875 but had languished
without proper facilities.
24Zbid.,June 19, 21, August 22, 1911.
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Indiana Magazine of History
between members of the Humane Society and mayor-elect Rollin
G. Bunch to discuss the p o s ~ i b i l i t y Barr
. ~ ~ had pressed for the creation of the post for several years because a policewoman would be,
among other things, an instrument in transforming prostitutes
into reformed citizens.26 The results of the meeting with Bunch
were mixed; he agreed to appoint a woman to the force, but he
would not tell his visitors her name. When he did announce his
selection, the woman he chose was Alfaretta Hart, wife of a Muncie
glass and automobile manufacturer. Hart, however, was not the
kind of woman Barr and the drys wanted-she was Catholic and
wet. Furthermore, Hart had supported Bunch in the campaign and,
in a fiery speech at the Wysor Grand before the election, had attacked both prohibition and the “corrupt society’’ that controlled
Muncie. Her appointment was announced two days after Barr and
her group met with Bunch, although she would not take office until early January. Before she had a chance t o do so, the reform
coalition quickly attacked the appointment on two grounds: that
the terms of her service made her only a matron in charge of female prisoners and that her appointment should have been made
by the Board of Public Works, which was charged with selection
and supervision of police, after the receipt of twenty-five recommendations from local residents.27
Barr was not sufficiently disaffected, however, to refuse the
invitation of Bunch to offer the invocation at the first meeting of
the city council in January, 1914.2sLater that same week the mayor’s actions raised the hopes of Barr and fellow reformers. On January 9, police staged huge raids on “blind tigers,” on drug stores
selling illicit drugs, and on houses of p r o s t i t u t i ~ n Barr
. ~ ~ had also
become immediately involved. On the night of the raids, she telephoned members of the police board, offering to speak to the “fallen
women.” The following night, she chaired a meeting of several reformers, including Reverend Edward Mason and Frank C. Ball. All
agreed that a refuge €or the women who wished t o abandon prostitution was needed. Barr had convinced them that “it was up to the
Christian people of Muncie to prevent the women deprived of home
and means of support by the order of the board from being thrown
on the streets, either to starve or infect the community with scattered evil instead of a segregated one.” The group decided to rent
Muncie Evening Press, November 15, 1913. The Progressive Republican candidate, Harry Kitselman, had first broached the idea of a policewoman in his campaign speeches.
26 See Anne Szopa, “Images of Women in Muncie Newspapers, 1895-1915,”
(Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, Ball State University, 1986), 126-27,
134, 162-63.
27 Zbid., 162-66; Muncie Evening Press, November 17, 20, 1913.
ZH Muncie Morning Star, January 6, 1914.
29 Zbid., January 10, 1914.
Daisy Douglas Barr
181
a home in an undisclosed location and name it the “Friendly Inn.”
Because of Barr’s early involvement she became president and Mason became vice-president when the board was organized on January 21. By that time the board had additional resources: Amos
Whiteley, a local industrialist, had donated $300; Milford H.
Lyon’s tablernacle collection had amounted to $175; and the Women’s Club, true to its promise, had given $120.30
Despite early monetary support, the Friendly Inn was plagued
with difficulties from the start; the board was even unable to hire
a full-time matron. More seriously the founders had hoped that former prostitutes would come into the refuge willingly but were soon
disappointed. They also knew that there would be temptations to
“backslide” on the part of those who did come. But they had hoped
to avoid these temptations by hiring a matron to control the home,
by placing the refuge in a secret location, and by close police supervision. They were unsuccessful, however. By February 10, the
evening newspaper reported that the Friendly Inn was closed while
the red-light district was again open.31
Barr did not admit defeat. While the inn was struggling, she
had traveled to Chicago to interview a prospective candidate for
matron. When she returned, she learned of the board’s action to
close the refuge and tried to reverse it. The boards rationale was
that since the town’s regulation of brothels was lax, the refuge
could not succeed because of the temptations offered to its residents. When called upon to explain the opening of the houses, city
officials denied that any were open. Bunch even instructed two policemen to visit all the sites raided. They reported back that no
house was open.32Given such reassurance by the mayor, Barr determined to reopen the refuge, although ultimately the inn sank
quietly from public view. There is no further mention of it again
in newspapers, nor is there evidence that it reformed any prostitutes. The Friendly Inn was one of Barr’s least successful endeavors.
Barr’s attention was quickly diverted to another election. On
February 7, 1914, the drys presented a petition for a local option
election containing thirteen hundred names, one hundred more
than required.33Two weeks later the drys began an intensive campaign, again utilizing the tactics from the previous election.
Muncie Evening Press, January 12, 16, 21, 1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,”
171-73. For information about Lyon see note 41.
Muncie Evening Press, February 10, 1914. The Friendly Inn had probably
closed at the end of January.
55 Muncie Morning Star, January 29, 1914; Muncie Evening Press, February 10,
11, 1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,” 140-41. There is no doubt that the town was
“open” again; the resorts had merely moved.
jJ Muncie Evening Press, February 7, 1914.
182
Indiana Magazine of History
In the dry campaign of 1914 Barr’s role was much less
conspicuous than in 1911. While she spoke at meetings, she no
longer was the organizer of women’s branches of dry groups. Furthermore, the wets ran a more aggressive campaign. Their most
popular speaker was Hart, Barr’s former foe in the fight against
prohibition. On March 4, Hart filled the Wysor Grand to overflowing, with an additional 350 listeners compelled to sit on stage, hundreds crowding the lobby, and others turned away. She delivered a
scathing and sensational attack on the leaders of the drys and accused them of being hypocrites who drank secretly, consorted with
prostitutes, and seduced young girls.34
As the election neared, the drys stepped up their campaign,
organizing women in various precincts, some to serve coffee and
free lunches to those working the polls and others to check voter
registration. Poll watching was in response to rumors that wets
had imported over one hundred outsiders and settled them in rooming houses to flood the
The drys also countered the claims
of wets that Muncie’s power elite wanted to vote the town dry
while still imbibing. Prohibitionist lecturers spoke to employees of
Warner Gear and New York Central, as well as to assembled machinists whose employers had released them for the speeches. Barr
spoke at Ball Brothers to what was evidently a hostile audience.36
The situation in Muncie was complicated by the normal division in
law enforcement between a largely wet city police force and a dry
county sheriff. Election day was prickly as a near civil war erupted
between the two law enforcement agencies. When the election was
over, the drys had won, but each side was angry over the other’s
strongarm
Barr was not long in Muncie to savor the victory; two weeks
afterward she entered a sanitarium in Madison, Tennessee. According to a cryptic note in the evening paper, Barr was accompanied by a nurse to Cincinnati where another nurse from the
institution escorted her the remainder of the way. The newspaper
did not indicate the reason for the trip but said, “While Mrs. Barr’s
condition is improved, the physicians decided that a few weeks of
rest and quiet were absolutely essential for her r e ~ o v e r y . ” ~ ~
34 Zbid.,February 25, March 4,1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,” 178-90. Significantly, neither Muncie’s morning nor evening newspaper carried the text of the
speech, although both ran editorials attacking Hart’s position. The Muncie Evening
Press did print the speech she gave at the Municipal League convention at Columbus, Indiana, on July 9, 1914, which seems to have been identical with the one
delivered in Muncie.
3s Zbid., March 3, 1914.
Sfi Barr, Springs That Run Dry,145. She said, “it was the first religious meeting
ever held in this shop, there being a large number of men who were agnostic socialists.” Zbid.
37MuncieEuening Press, March 9, 1914. The preliminary count gave drys a
441-vote margin; the final margin was 462 votes, 3,393 to 2,931.
““Zbid.,March 23, 1914; Szopa, “Images of Women,” 177.
Daisy Douglas Barr
183
On July 22, Barr resigned her Muncie pastorate, giving poor
health as the reason. At the annual meeting of the church board,
she indicated that her problems were a weak heart and a general
breakdown that prevented her from carrying out church routine.
She promised to continue to preach until September 1but planned
to spend most of her time north at her Winona Lake summer home,
commuting to Muncie only on weekends. In the fall she and her
son would move back to Fairmount so that he could continue his
education. Her husband, the newspaper reported, was a state accountant and was working in a northern county; presumably, he
would join his family at Winona Lake.39The Muncie accounts of
Barr’s leaving commented on her successes in Muncie, specifically
mentioning that she was the only woman member of the ministerial association and that she was a member of the boards of the
Delaware County Children’s Home and the Humane Society. They
failed to list her work as a dry, however, or as a founder of the
YWCA or the Friendly Inn.40
Why had Barr left? Was it really because of ill health? That is
difficult to believe; she was only thirty-seven and had been quite
active with no hint of illness earlier that year. Furthermore, her
later career showed no signs of invalidism, for despite her poor
health, Barr had apparently already made future plans. On Sep~ l also had a
tember 13, she joined Reverend Milford H. L y ~ n , who
summer home in Winona Lake, on an evangelical crusade beginning in Chillicothe, Ohio. Barr was in charge of the newly created
women’s department and was quoted as saying that she was wellacquainted with evangelistic work, having begun her career as an
e v a n g e l i ~ tNevertheless,
.~~
life on the evangelical trail surely was
more strenuous than life in an old manse.
If illness was not the reason, several explanations are possible.
Historian Anne Szopa speculates that Barr’s brief association with
Democrats (and wets) Bunch and Hart in the aftermath of the prostitutes’ arrest may have ruined her credibility with dry leaders.
Perhaps there was difficulty with church- leaders because of her
39 Muncie Evening Press, July 23, 1914; Muncie Morning Star, July 13, 1914.
Fairmount was the home of one of the best-known and last of the Friends academies. It closed in 1923 when the local township withdrew its support. See Elliott,
Quakers on the American Frontier, 202; Edgar M. Baldwin, ed., The Making of a
Township: Being an Account of the Early Settlement and Subsequent Development
ofFairmount, Township, Grant County, Indiana, 1829 to 1 9 1 7 . . . (Fairmount, Ind.,
1917), 339-45.
4o Muncie Evening Press, July 23, 1914; Muncie Morning Star, July 23, 1914.
41 Lyon, an ardent Ohio prohibitionist, had come to Muncie at the request of
drys in November, 1913, to conduct an evangelical crusade. The community built
Lyon a wooden tabernacle near the downtown business area’s saloons. Lyon evidently was also a powerful speaker, attracting 87,995 persons into his makeshift
auditorium in November alone. Barr had become chair of the daily noon meetings.
See Muncie Evening Press, July 23, 1914; Muncie Morning Star, July 23, 1914.
42 Zbid.
184
Indiana Magazine of History
sponsorship of the refuge for prostitutes, or with business leaders
because of her S a b b i t a r i a n i ~ mBarr
. ~ ~ herself gave another reason.
In her book of sermons she indicated that she had become interested in interdenominational evangelism in unconventional sitesgarages, factories, and tabernacles-and had wanted to reenter the
field.44But because her first duty was to her son, she remained in
pastoral work. When he went away to college, and with her husband‘s consent, she felt free to become an evangelist again.45
In spite of her departure, Muncie was important in Barr’s development. There she had learned how to organize women into effective pressure groups, how to align herself with powerful
members of the community, and how to cross party lines to coalesce with erstwhile political opponents. Although cognizant of the
power of her rhetoric, she had also learned how tough and resilient
opposition could be. In one of her later sermons, she noted that
politics had a bad name because mayors in some cities had been
arrested for bad conduct and had not been impeached by irate citizens. She also claimed that in one city in Indiana four dry workers
were slandered and beaten to near death. These are obvious references to the situation in Muncie where raw force often seemed to
carry the day.46
The record of Barr’s life for the next few years is unclear. Evidently staying with the Lyon crusade only one year,d7 she then
traveled extensively on her own evangelical trips, earning the
nickname of “Mother” Barr. She is mentioned in the Indianapolis
Star in 1916 in an article on pioneer women of Indiana. By 1917
the Barrs appear to have located to Indianapolis, where Thomas
was employed as an examiner for the state board of accounts.4s
43 Szopa, “Images of Women,” 177-78. Members of Friends Memorial Church are
very reticent to talk about Barr.
Barr, Springs That Run Dq,26. It is difficult to date the book. The sermons
are obviously written after Barr left Muncie; one sermon notes that World War I
had been in progress for twenty-eight months, which would date it about 1917.
There is also a picture of her son in uniform that would date from either 1917 or
1918. On the other hand, the book contains pictures of meetings held in a glass
plant that looks like Ball Brothers and a frame tablernacle resembling the one in
Muncie.
45Zbid., 102, 108. Note, however, that there was no college in Fairmount and
Barr had said her son would enter the academy. Barr’s son later graduated from
Earlham College in 1921. Who’s Who Among Earlhamites, 1847-1928 (Richmond,
Ind., 19281, 25.
4 Barr, Springs That Run Dry, 102,108. Bunch was arrested in 1915 and again
in 1916, and drys in Muncie were attacked during and after local option elections.
47 Zbid., 27.
MIndianapolis Star, November 1, 1916. The evidence is contradictory on the
latter point. Polk’s city directory lists a Thomas D. Barr at 628 E. Seventeenth
Street. R. L. Polk 8z Co., pub., Indianapolis City Directory for 1917 (Indianapolis,
1917), 266. The letter written by Thomas D. Barr for Baldwin’s history of Fairmount is dated May 9, 1917, and the place from which it was written was Indianapolis. Baldwin, The Making o f a Township, 415. On December 20, 1917, the Barr
Daisy Douglas Barr
185
By the 1920s Daisy Barr had become a powerful figure in the
political life of the state, acquiring two significant positions:
president of the Indiana War Mothers, a group whose sons had
served in World War I and that was an adjunct to the newly
formed American Legion, and vice-chair of the Republican State
Committee, the first woman to fill the post. Her husband, meanwhile, had become deputy state bank commis~ioner.~~
And Barr’s
political activity had not snuffed out her religious career. In July,
1920, she accepted a call to the New Castle Friends Church, which
had been without a pastor for some time. Using her flashy techniques she had considerable success in increasing the size and financial position of the church. She even coined a motto for the
church: “The Church for the Family and the Family for the
Church.” She was pastor for almost two years, retiring on June 19,
1922, in a way quite similar to the manner done in Muncie ten
years earlier. She declared that she had been ill with influenza and
that she had never had a real vacation. After leaving New Castle
she planned to tour Europe in July and spend the winter in Egypt.
She then said she would eventually become an evangelist for the
Five Years Meeting but would continue to live in New Castle.so
Barr, however, did not “retire” but instead moved more actively into politics. When Indiana Governor Warren T. McCray selected her for vice-chair of the Republican State Committee in
1922, he also appointed Lawrence Lyons as state chairman of the
Republican party (previously McCray had appointed Lyons to the
state highway commission in 1921). In 1923 Lyons and Barr embarrassed McCray and the Republican party when it surfaced that
they had joined the Ku Klux Klan; both then resigned their party
posts.51
family joined the Friends Church in Indianapolis on a certificate from Friends Memorial in Muncie. Heiss, Abstracts, VI, 250. On the other hand, the notice of Barr’s
death in 1938 said she moved to Indianapolis fifteen years earlier. Muncie Morning
Star, April 4, 1938. Finally, when Barr was sued in June, 1924, her residence was
said to be Fairmount, and the petitioners filed suit in Grant Superior Court. It is of
course possible that the Barrs kept two residences, one in Fairmount and one in
Indianapolis, although the Indianapolis Star, September 11, 1925, said Fairmount
was Thomas Barr’s legal residence. In any case, Barr’s crusades probably kept her
away from either place much of the time. In fact, while living in Indianapolis, she
apparently preached regularly for a time at the Friends Meeting in Mooresville.
49 Indianapolis News,September 11, 1925; Muncie Morning Star, April 4, 1938;
Muncie Post-Democrat, April 20, May 25, 1923.
5o New Castle Courier, July 24, 1920, May 13, June 19, 21, 1922. It is of course
highly probable that Barr’s nascent ties with the Ku Klux Klan were the reason for
her leaving New Castle. Judge William 0. Bernard (1852-1939), a former congressman, was a voiciferous critic of the Klan, and likely the meeting’s leading member.
51 James H. Madison, Indiana through Tradition and Change: A History ofthe
Hoosier State and Its People, 1920-1945 (Indianapolis, 1982), 94; Muncie PostDemocrat, May 25, 1923; Indianapolis Times, March 31, April 2, 1923; New York
Times, March 31, April 1, 2, 1923. See also Frank Marquis Cates, “The Ku Klux
Klan in Indiana Politics, 1920-1925” (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Govern-
186
Indiana Magazine of History
The reasons for Barr’s and Lyon’s involvement in the KKK lie
in the history of the Indiana Klan; Indiana was the first state
north of the Ohio River to establish a Klavern, on August 13,
1921,52after which the Klan spread rapidly through the state. In
1922, 6.4 percent of all Klan members lived in Indiana, Ohio, and
Illinois; two years later the percentage was 40.2. The total number
of Klan members in Indiana is a matter of dispute; some estimate
the total at about 125,000, while others place it at 500,000, onehalf the adult male p ~ p u l a t i o n . ~ ~
As it became one of the most powerful political groups in the
state, the Indiana Klan soon attracted many drys and minsters to
its ranks. Historian John Augustus Davis has indicated that a major attraction was the problem of prohibition e n f ~ r c e m e n t The
.~~
cooperation between drys and the Klan operated in the state legislature. Edward s. Shumaker, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon
League and a dominant force in the Indiana General Assembly in
the early 1920s, cooperated with the Klan to push old-time religion
and bone-dry prohibition among state 1egislato1-s.~~
The enrollment
of ministers was a calculated move by David C. Stephenson, who
instructed Kleagles to send him lists of ministers in the community. He would then make them honorary members and tell them
that he would require Klan members to attend. If the sermons
were favorable, donations would be forthcoming. As a result nine
of ten Klan lecturers were introduced as “ r e ~ e r e n d . ”Because
~~
of
this emphasis the Klan enrolled many Protestant ministers, particularly Baptists, Methodists, and Disciples of Christ. In turn, notes
ment, Indiana University, 1971), 79-83. Lyons claimed to have only been a member
of the Klan for six weeks and announced his resignation from the KKK by a telegram to Tolerance, a n anti-Klan newspaper. The circumstances of both leaving were
not made public, so the pressure exercised by the Indiana Republican Committee
was not measured. George R. Dale, Muncie’s anti-Klan editor, said it best “In the
case of Daisy Barr, the political she-preacher, klucker, the committee also remains
discreetly silent.” Muncie Post-Democrat, May 25, 1923. McCray does not appear to
have been a Klansman. Indeed, he was brought out of jail in 1928 to testify as a
prosecution witness against Governor Ed Jackson, who was on trial. McCray
claimed Jackson offered him ten thousand dollars to appoint a Klan member as
county prosecutor and he refused. Madison, Indiana through Tradition and Change,
51. McCray, interestingly, appointed Barr’s husband to be deputy bank commissioner in March, 1923, the same time Daisy was becoming active in the Klan. Indianapolis Star, September 11, 1925.
52 Carol A. Elrod, “A Descriptive Study of the Ku Klux Klan’s Anti-Catholic
Propaganda from 1922-1924 in Two of Its Publications Distributed in Indiana: The
Fiery Cross and Dawn” (M.A. thesis, Department of Journalism, Ball State University, 1979), 16.
53 Zbid., 30-32; Jackson, Ku Klur Klan and the City, 15; New York Times, December 9, 1922.
s4 Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 36.
SSEdward A. Leary, Indianapolis: The Story of a City (Indianapolis, 1971),
191.
5 Wyn Craig Wade, The Fiery Cross:
The Ku Klur Klan in America (New
York, 1987), 223.
Daisy Douglas Barr
187
historian David M. Chalmers, the Protestant pulpits supplied the
respectability, the orators, and a good part of the local leadership
of the Klan.57The Klan also succeeded in fundamentalist chapels
and tabernacles; one of the centers of the Indianapolis Klan was
the Cadle tabernacle.
Indiana Friends, both pastors and members, were also often
deeply involved with the Klan. According to historian Leonard
Moore, even Richmond’s large Quaker community, “one of the oldest and most influential in the state, showed no special immunity
to the Klan.” There, for example, 6.6 percent of the Klan members
were Quakers, while they represented 12.2 percent of the Klan
members who indicated religious r n e m b e r ~ h i pThe
. ~ ~ organizer and
most significant leader of the Klan in Wabash, for instance, was
Ira C. Dawes, pastor of the Wabash Friends Church and president
of the local Rotary club. Dawes became the pastor in 1921, but
resigned in 1923 to go to Texas to head the KKKs national speaker’s
The Klan’s appeal to Barr is obvious; liquor, political corruption, and prostitution were old enemies. Her Methodist and Quaker
heritage and her evangelical experience also must have influenced
her. In addition, she had always had a nativist strain, manifest in
her sermons, despite showing compassion for foreign workers in
her Muncie pastorate. Apparently, however, her Quaker background did not cause her to reflect upon the Klan’s deserved reputation for coercion and intimidation. When it became publicly
known that she was a Klan member, Barr was forced to resign
from the Indiana War Mothers in early 1923 as well as from her
position with the Republican party. In the announcement of her
resignation as head of the former no mention is made of her Klan
attachment.60George R. Dale, a Klan-fighting Muncie editor who
disliked Barr, claimed that she had said that her evangelical duties and a planned trip abroad made her too busy, although he
believed that opposition to the Klan had forced the move.61
In spite of public reservation, Daisy Douglas Barr deepened
her Klan activity. In December, 1922, she apparently joined the
Queens of the Golden Mask. Stephenson had organized the women’s
57 David M. Chalmers, Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan
(New York, 1965), 111. Davis says that twenty of the Indiana Klan’s Imperial Lecturers were ministers. Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 306.
5R Leonard Joseph Moore, “White Protestant Nationalism in the 1920s: The Ku
Klux Klan in Indiana” (Ph.D. dissertation, Department of History, University of
California at Los Angeles, 1985), 114.
59 Dorothy A. Squires, “History of the Ku Klux Klan in Wabash County, Indiana” (Graduate Paper, Social Science Department, Ball State Teacher’s College,
1964), 13-14, 22.
The War Mother, I1 (April/May, 1923), 6.
61 Muncie Post-Democrat, April 20, 1923. Recall that Barr was supposed to have
gone to Europe in July, 1922.
WOMEN OF THE KU
INDIANA,
1923
Courtesy Center for Middletown Studies, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana
KLUXKLAN,NEWCASTLE,
Daisy Douglas Barr
189
adjunct to the Klan even before Imperial Headquarters had formed
its auxiliary. Barr was one of the charter members, if not the
leader, and soon became the Imperial Empress. The Queens of the
Golden Mask was quite successful. Officials reported that “women
are proving the best supporters of the organization after having
suggested their joining.” In addition, the Queens formed what Stephenson named his “poison squad,” an information network extending across the state staffed by women and used to spread
rumors about his opponents.62On February 24, 1923, Barr signed
an agreement with King Kleagle Stephenson in Indianapolis to
form a women’s auxiliary under his s p o n ~ o r s h i p ,although
~~
the
agreement did not assure her of complete control over all women
Klan members in the state, because other Klan members were
forming their own women’s auxiliaries. Among them were Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans, whose organization was known
as the Women of the Ku Klux Klan, and Grand Dragon William J.
Simmons, who called his group the K a m e l i a ~ . ~ ~
By July, 1923, Barr also became head of the Women of the Ku
Klux Klan in Indiana, having made a n accommodation with
Evans. But that was not the limit of her authority. On July 17,
1923, she signed a contract with the Klan to organize Indiana,
Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, New Jersey, and Minnesota. By terms of the contract she would receive one
dollar for each woman initiated as a member after July 9, 1923.65
The initiation fee was not her sole reward. Because she headed the
Women of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana she also received four dollars for every member recruited, acquiring the title of “State.” In
return, she was supposed to act as the conduit for requests for
robes sent to national headquarters.66The sale of robes was a Klan
monopoly that provided a considerable portion of the organization’s
funds.
Wade, The Fiery Cross, 225,230.
Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 139.
6* Zbid. By 1924 feuds between these men resulted in the splitting of the Klan
into three different groups in Indiana. Zbid., 80. Another source claimed Stephenson
broke with Barr when she met with Evans. Edgar Allen Booth, The Mad Mullah of
America (Columbus, Ohio, 1927),72.
Indianapolis News, June 3, 1924.This account came to light after a suit was
named against Barr by the Women of the Ku Klux Klan.
66 Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 141.Barr received the same amount
that the Kleagle who recruited a member earned. Each candidate paid a $10.00 fee,
the Klecktoken. Of that, the Kleagle got $4.00,the King Kleagle of the state received $1.00,the Grand Goblin got 50$,the Imperial Kleagle got $2.50, and the
Grand Dragon $2.00.Elrod, “Anti-Catholic Propaganda,” 18-19;Chalmers, Hooded
Americanism, 34.Why Barr would get $4.00for each recruit is puzzling. Perhaps
she did all the recruiting. The funds earned would be considerable as Kenneth T.
Jackson estimates the number of Klanswomen in Indianapolis alone at the end of
1923 to be ten thousand. Jackson, Ku K l w Klan and the City,150.
62
fi3
190
Indiana Magazine of History
Barr plunged into her Klan activities with considerable vigor.
She was present in Richmond May 25, 1923, when the Klan sponsored a naturalization ceremony, a march with two hundred
women, and an appearance by the Muncie Girl’s Band. On July 25,
1923, she led a march of three hundred Klanswomen through Kokomo. After the march four hundred women were initiated into the
Klan, although Barr lamented that one thousand more members
were present but lacked the proper regalia. On August 25, 1923,
the northern convention of the Klan met in Marion’s Goldthwaite
Park, and Barr was present representing the national organzation.
Three months later, on November 17, 1923, the Klan held its most
spectacular parade in Wabash; at its terminus on the courthouse
lawn Barr pleaded for women to hold on to their right of equal
suffrage and reprimanded a local officer for his uncouth remarks.67
Later that year rumors circulated that Indianapolis would become
the national headquarters of the Women of the Klan. In part, this
was a move to boost the claims of Stephenson for ultimate control
of the Klan,6s but it also reflected Barr’s ambition for greater
things.
The ceremonial aspect of Klandom was not an aberration, nor
was Barr’s participation new for her. She had learned the value of
such performances in Muncie temperance campaigns. As for the
Klan, Moore says, “Ostentatious demonstrations, parades, and
holiday celebrations, as well as more mundane social events, were
in fact the most frequent activities of individual Klan chapters, the
means through which the average member participated in the org a n i ~ a t i o n . ”But
~ ~ Barr sometimes overstepped the bounds. At the
end of the year, she and four Klansmen, including her son, tried
unsuccessfully to crash the annual Ambulance Chair banquet at
the Marion Hotel in Grant County in order to convert members of
that group to the Klam70 This incident injured her reputation
much less than a damage suit filed by a Muncie woman, Mary Benadum, for defamation of character on January 2, 1924.71Once
more, Hoosiers were treated to a fight by the dynamic minister.
Muncie was a hotbed of Klan activity. Leading businessmen
had brought the Klan to town in 1922 “to cope with a corrupt
Democratic city g ~ v e r n m e n t . ”Among
~~
those who joined the Klan
67 Fiery Cross, August 10, 1923; Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 142;
Moore, “White Protestant Nationalism in the 1920s,” 203; Squires, “History of the
Ku Klux Klan in Wabash County,” 13, 17.
Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 142. If Stephenson had gained control, Barr would have dominated the women’s auxiliary nationally.
Moore, “White Protestant Nationalism in the 1920s,” 152.
70 Muncie Post-Democrat, January 4, 1924.
71 Indianapolis News, January 3, 1924; Muncie Post-Democrat, December 7,
1923; Muncie Morning Star, January 3, 1924.
Chalmers, Hooded Americanism, 35.
@
Daisy Douglas Barr
191
were Clarence Benadum, prosecuting attorney of Delaware County
and a dry, and Mary Benadum his wife, a Muncie s~hoolteacher.~~
Barr had come to Muncie in 1923 to address Klanswomen. At a
meeting of five hundred members, Klan spokeswomen repeated a
charge by Barr that Mary Benadum, who had been organizing
Klan activity in Ohio, had stolen three thousand dollars. Because
Mary Benadum was not permitted to answer these charges at the
meeting, she called a caucus of her supporters at a local hotel, but
the accusers intruded and repeated the charges. Later, when the
Women of the Ku Klux Klan met at Campbell’s Auditorium, Barr
spoke to the two thousand assembled members and again repeated
the claims. When Benadum again was not allowed to speak, she
thereupon sued for damages in the amount of fifty thousand doll a r ~Mary
. ~ ~ Benadum’s suit never came to court, even though infighting continued. Clarence Benadum left the county prosecutor’s
and
office in January, 1924, to be the Kleagle of Columbus,
Mary Benadum went to Alliance, Ohio, to continue her Klan organizing early in January. Rival factions of the women tangled in
Alliance, however, and she ended her trip in the hospital suffering
from nervous e x h a u ~ t i o n Neither
.~~
she or her husband pursued
the matter. On November 14, 1924, Benadum’s charges were dismissed after Barr filed an answer of “confession and avoidance,”
saying the slanders were uttered by Judge James Comer and Imperial Wizard Evans and that she had merely repeated them.77The
charges could have been refiled but were not.
Soon Barr’s charges of stolen money backfired. Dale described
her as “a woman Quaker preacher who forsook the pulpit to grab
off the blood-drenched, filthy dollars of the Ku Klux Klan,” who
had gone to visit Imperial Wizard Evans in Atlanta and had received the title of “Quaker Queen Quince of the Giosticuticus of
the Jimpelcute.” There, Evans had given her the franchise to sell
robes in the realm for $6.50 each, with the understanding that she
buy the robes from him. Instead, she contracted with a company in
Anderson to make the regalia for 77q and allegedly pocketed the
difference. Daisy “Doodle” Barr (Dale’s name for her) had, Dale
claimed, made over one million dollars and was considering retiring to Germany after having her diamond reset in p l a t i n ~ m . ~ 8
The newspapers reported a second suit on June 3, 1924, filed
by the Women of the Ku Klux Klan in the Grant-Delaware SupeIndianapolis News, January 3, 1924; Muncie Morning Star, January 3, 1924.
Davis, “The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 139.
75 Muncie Post-Democrat, December 29, 1923.
76 Muncie Morning Star, January 8, 1924.
77 Muncie Post-Democrat, November 14, 1924.
7*Zbid.,December 7, 14, 1923. Dale was prone to exaggeration and inventive
names. He also claimed that she had made a speech in Wabash where she said that
if Christ were on earth, he would be a Klansman.
73
74
192
Indiana Magazine of History
rior Court in Marion, which claimed Barr had failed to account for
one hundred thousand dollars she had obtained in fees from the
Klan. According to the suit, Barr had “naturalized” five thousand
members, had reported their entry into the Klan, but had failed to
pay the Klan its dollar for each. An additional forty thousand
members had been enrolled but not reported, adding another forty
thousand dollars to the debt. Finally, the Klan estimated Banowed between fifty-four and sixty-seven thousand dollars for robes
that she had supplied from a non-authorized source.79
The news apparently did not trouble Barr; according t o
friends, she was not “worried the least bit.” Although out of state,
she said the suit was the result of a dispute over leadership.80The
news did delight Barr’s foe, Dale, who composed a poem for the
occasion, “Daisy kept the Nighty Money”:
Daisy Doodle’s sued again
By Hi this time and and not by Ben.
Perhaps you think that Daisy’s flighty
But she’s got it all at ten per nighty.
A million bucks she got, tis said
And gave the wizard nary a red.
So the goblins cussed and the dragons swore
They’d get the dough or a bucket of gore.
Dale philosophized that “Whenever one klucker or one kluckeress
begins to make a lot of dough the rest of ’em gang up on him, or
her, as the case may be, and try to get it away from him, or her.”*l
Three weeks later, Dale reported that Barr was again in trouble.
Under a headline entitled “Dizzy Daisy Barr and Mrs. Shinn
Grabbed the Korn,” he recounted how Josephine Shinn of Indianapolis, acting under Barr’s orders, organized a chapter of the Queens
of the Golden Mask in Zanesville, Ohio. Later the Queens discovered their treasury was missing. As a result, a grand jury indicted
the two principals for embezzling the funds.82
As the Klan’s fortunes in Indiana and the Midwest ebbed, so
did Barr’s, who soon slipped from the public limelight. Her husband became state bank commissioner in 1925, appointed to that
position by Governor Ed Jackson, who reputedly had Klan connec79 Muncie Morning Star, June 3, 1924; Indianapolis News, June 3, 1924; Davis,
“The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana,” 143; New Castle Courier, July 2, 1924; Hartford
City News, July 2, 1924.
Indianapolis News, June 3, 1924; New Castle Courier, June 6, 1924. Barr was
in California selling land in the Sutter Basin. Her son, who was living in Marion,
was the Indiana representative of the land company.
R1 Muncie Post-Democrat, June 6, 1924.
R2 Zbid., June 27, 1924.
Daisy Douglas Burr
193
ti on^.^^ While her husband remained in Indianapolis, Barr left Indiana sometime after her legal difficulties and went to Florida
where she apparently ran for Congress in 1926.s4 She soon returned to Indianapolis, however.
Barr died April 3, 1938, of a broken neck suffered in an automobile accident on US.Highway 31, between Speed and Memphis,
while riding to Indianapolis with a family friend, William E. Rider,
a Waynetown banker. She was sixty years old and died the day
before she was to serve as hostess of a silver tea of the Meridian
Women’s Christian Temperance Union at the Banner-Whitehill
Auditorium. She was buried at her hometown of F a i r m o ~ n t . ~ ~
A woman in a man’s world, Daisy Douglas Barr consistently
allied herself with the rich and powerful: Frank C. Ball, Joseph
Goddard, Milford H. Lyon, Warren T. McCray, David C. Stephenson, Hiram Wesley Evans. At the same time, there was no doubt
that she was her own woman. While men aided her in gaining the
public forum she needed, her success was in large part due to her
skill as an adroit organizer, an eloquent orator, and a symbol manipulator. Her major concerns were always the same: ending the
liquor traffic and protecting and nurturing young women. These
concerns came from a genuine religious conviction, not just from
her Friends background but also from her Methodist heritage. How
much she was corrupted by materialism in her later career is a
moot question. Like some twentieth-century television evangelists,
she claimed she became rich through God‘s efforts. Furthermore,
her Klan episode is not as startling as it appears at first glance.
The Klan’s emphasis upon prohibition and on social purity, though
mocked by actual practice, must have appealed to Barr’s own ideals. The nativism espoused by the Klan also struck a familiar
chord in Barr. Even the tactics-the public marches, the torchlight
parades, the mass meetings, the coercion, and the violence-had
been anticipated by the dry campaigns in Muncie. Only the sheets
and hoods were new.
R3 Indianapolis Star, September 11, 1925. By 1927, Barr was deputy state bank
commissioner again. He and Luther F. Symons, the bank commissioner, were indicted by a Howard County grand jury in Kokomo on charges of negligence in connection with the failure of the American Trust Company. The grand jury claimed
Barr and Symons knew the bank was insolvent in March, 1924, but did nothing
about it. Zbid., December 27, 1927. Symons was a Quaker and a banker from Lewisville, where Daisy had been pastor from 1900 to 1903.
R4 Booth, The Mad Mullah of America, 73. He also says she withdrew her name
before the election, which may have been possible. When she died twelve years
later, she left a son in Ft. Pierce; and in 1927, when her husband was indicted for
negligence, he was unavailable for comment because the family was vacationing in
Eau Gallie, Florida. There is no record in Florida that Barr ever ran for office.
RS Indianapolis News, April 4 , 1938; Muncie Star, April 4, 1938; Indianapolis
Star, April 5, 1938. Indiana Biography Series, XVII (1937-1938); Minutes of the
Indiana Yearly Meeting of Friends, 1938, p. 57.
Daisy Douglas Barr
195
Ultimately the qualities that made Barr a success also caused
her to fail. Her conviction, her ego-strength, and her willingness to
use almost any means to achieve her goals led her to an intolerance that was the antithesis of her Quaker faith. That she failed
to see and understand this cannot completely erase her genuine
achievements in social reform.