Queen of the Hills by Evelyn Craig Pattiani

The Ku Klux Klan was not just in Piedmont during this time, however, this website is highlighting the KKK's influence in Piedmont from our Police Department to the members who dressed in hoods and protested at Sidney Dearing and his family's home. In dogged pursuit, District Attorney Warren first sent Commissioner Parker and the combine leader and then Sheriff Becker and his graft collector to jail Street Commissioner Parker organized his payoffs from a powerful combine of Oakland’s paving contractors.

Elected on the promise of strict “law enforcement,” Sheriff Becker boldly accepted payoffs from bootlegging, prostitution, and slot machine and Chinese lottery interests. Both were soon objects of concern for Alameda County’s District Attorney, Earl Warren. Klan leader Burton Becker was elected Sheriff of Oakland’s Alameda County and his Klan under-sheriff became Oakland’s street commissioner. Happily, however, the Klan journal commented, Oakland was friendlier and the small towns around Los Angeles remained active Klan areas. San Francisco was particularly disappointing, the National Kourier complained, primarily because a hostile press refused him publicity and advertising room. When the Imperial Wizard made his grand postelection tour of his western provinces, he found his welcome a weak one. In 1924, however, the state passed an anti-mask law, and the Klan’s political influence continued on the decline. Notes on Writing the History Of the Ku Klux Klan, 1866-1954 by DAVID CHALMERS:

Queen of the Hills by Evelyn Craig Pattiani