3. KKK meets with Portland leaders, 1921

This photograph was published by the Portland Telegram on August 2, 1921, a day after reporters were summoned to the Multnomah Hotel in Portland by an enticing phone message. At the hotel (now Embassy Suites), the newspapermen entered a room crowded with some of the most influential men in the city, including the mayor and the chief of police, who had received the same phone call.

The calls had been made by members of the Ku Klux Klan, and at least two representatives of the Oregon chapter were there, dressed in the recognizable robes and hoods of Klan members. The Exalted Cyclops, standing on the right in the photograph, was Fred Gifford, a former line superintendent for the Northwestern Electric Company. Gifford had been named the chapter’s Grand Dragon in 1921 in an effort to recruit new members and gain influence in government. The "nameless officer" in the center of the photograph was King Kleagle, Luther I. Powell. He had called the meeting to counter the recent negative press against the KKK's activities and to document the supposed collaboration of Klan members and city officials in retaining "law and order."