March 27, 1925
Below is a more detailed news report of the Klan ceremony -- it was NOT the school's official dedication, which would happen two months later, without the Klan -- at Hicksville High School. Compared to the author of the Eagle report, who evidently was much moved by the "beautiful spectacle," the Long-Islander reporter (John Puvogel, a former Hicksville Board of Education member) was restrained and objective. One can only speculate as to how hard the Klan had to work to persuade the Board to host this event.
Huntington Long-Islander, March 28, 1925
I have been able to learn only a little about those named in this article.
Paul F. Lindner (spelled above as Linder)
In the daytime, the Exalted Cyclops of Hempstead (also described elsewhere as the Cyclops of Nassau County) was a well-known farmer in Malverne, who also dabbled in politics. In 1913, he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Hempstead Town Supervisor. Afterward, the IRS prosecuted his campaign chairman because of financing irregularities in the campaign.
Less than a week before appearing in the ceremony at Hicksville High School, Lindner was in the news again. A cross had been erected and ignited on his property. The blaze was extinguished by the local fire department, but about an hour later, the same thing happened again. This time, as the firemen were preparing to extinguish the burning cross, four sticks of dynamite attached to it exploded. The resultant crater was described as being "the size of an automobile." The news report stated that the firemen who were trying to extinguish the flames, unaware of the dynamite, barely escaped serious injury.
Police ascribed the incident(s) to unknown members of the Klan, who likely were celebrating the day's victories of three KKK-supported candidates in a primary election. Surprisingly, there was no mention of whether or not the police knew that Lindner was the highest-ranking Klan official in the Town of Hempstead. No arrests were made.
Several years later, a newspaper article noted that Lindner had become the "Superintendent of Malverne Protestant Sunday Schools."
Frank H. Smith
Censuses do not seem to show any Frank H. Smith living at this time in Rockville Centre (or anywhere else on Long Island), nor have I found any other reference to him. Miss Olindt also has left behind no record of her existence. The same is true for the mother and father whose son was christened at the Klan rally in Hicksville; neither his name nor his parents' names seem to appear on any records I have been able to check.
One suspects that KKK members sometimes adopted noms de guerre when speaking to the press, much as they often used hoods to conceal their identities.
George A. Duke
Duke had had a long career with the Pennsylvania Railroad, where he gradually advanced from an entry-level brakeman position to his final position, Manager of Baggage Handling at New York's busy Pennsylvania Station (a demanding and prestigious job, comparable to someone's today being responsible for all baggage handling at LaGuardia Airport). Duke had been a resident of Hicksville for less than ten years when his fellow residents and Board members were so impressed by him that they chose him as the successor to the retiring long-serving incumbent Board President, William Duffy.
Huntington Long-Islander, July 21, 1922
As a candidate, Duke's main platform plank appears to have been a promise to discover the cause of high faculty turnover at the School. His supporters argued that his daughter's being a Hicksville student would mean a commitment to his work at Board, and that his being retired would give him time to devote to the job. His other qualifications are now forgotten. We do know, however, that like many other Americans who were born in the 1870s, his personal experience with formal education was limited. According to the 1940 U.S. Census, he had left school after 7th grade. Ironically, this means he had less formal education than the members of Hicksville's Board of Education who served under him.
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