This thesis has traces the legal encounters of a crusading newspaper editor by the name of George R. Dale in Muncie, Indiana, during the 1920's. The influence a revived Ku Klux Klan had upon the local courts was explored in detail. This study explored in depth the legal harassment suffered by one who challenged Klan supremacy in Indiana.Local court records were diligently researched in an attempt to properly analyze the charges of criminal libel, carrying a concealed weapon, violating the liquor laws held against the independent editor in the local circuit court. In addition, the work dealt specifically with the contempt citations received by the fiery newspaperman while defending the above mentioned charges. Moreover, the costly and tortuous course of appeal was discussed as most of these proceedings were appealed to the Indiana and United States Supreme Courts.Moreover, the latter portion of the paper attempts to predict the changes that might result in our Anglo-American system of jurisprudence as a result of this series of cases.

This thesis contains a descriptive study of antiCatholic/alien content in The Fiery Cross and Dawn. In addition, the paper includes a history of anti-Catholicism to put the study period into perspective and discusses the sociological reasons for the upsurge in anti-Catholicism during' the early 1900s.Not only was a list of traditional anti-Catholic/The so was a group of themes peculiar to the times, e. g., the massive immigration to the United States of unlettered foreigners, most of whom happened to be Catholic.Although slurs against Negroes were printed in Fiery Cross and Dawn, it is quite clear that both newspapers were predominantly vehicles for anti-Catholic/alien propaganda from 1922-1924.

My Daddy's Farm is a work of fiction about Clement J. Jones, a man, my great-grandfather, who committed suicide on November 19, 1924. In the early nineteen-twenties, this family man was a well respected, wealthy citizen of his county who--like one-third of his peers--had an active membership in the Indiana Ku Klux Klan. The story is narrated in part by a slightly sympathetic omniscient narrator, but mainly by Hazel Louise Jones, his daughter, who was in her teens when the Klan swept across Indiana in the nineteen-twenties; she was sixteen when her father committed suicide on November 19th, 1924.I have used three variations in this writing, based loosely on the style Gloria Naylor uses in Mama Day. These variations are characterized by the titles of their respective sections: "Our Spring," "Our Farm," "Our Family," and "Our Shame" are all narrated in first person, past tense, by Hazel Jones, Clement's sixteen year old daughter who is speaking as a representative of her family; "Clement J. Jones" and "Hazel Louise Jones" are written in third person, limited omniscient narration; and, "To Margaret," and "To Daddy" sections are present tense, with second person narration from Hazel Jones. Starting with "Our Shame," the story is punctuated by "Document" selections posted at the close of each chapter. These documents are nonfiction: they are news articles taken directly from the Indianapolis Star, the Williamsport Review-Republican, and the Williamsport Pioneer dated 1922, 1923, and 1924; and, they are papers taken out of the "United Klans of America" collection located in the Archives and Special Collections department of Bracken Library, Ball State University.Among sources listed on page 71 of this document, there are a few that were most helpful in providing details about the Indiana Klan: Anti Movements in America, edited by Gerald N. Grob, which reprints "Papers Read at the Meeting of Grand Dragons Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at their First Annual Meeting held at Asheville, North Carolina, July 1923"; and Women of the Klan, by Kathleen M. Blee. Exceptionally helpful was William Lutholtz's Grand Dragon, a well researched work of non-fiction about D.C. Stephenson's rise to power in the Indiana Klan and the development of the Indiana Klan.Three works of fiction especially provided creative direction for this thesis: Mama Day, by Gloria Naylor; Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood; and, In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim OBrien. / Department of English