Ten Dollars to Hate: The Texas Man Who Fought the Klan: 23 (Sam Rayburn Series on Rural Life) Paperback – Import, 30 July 2018

I enjoyed this book very much. The author has obviously researched the details very well and left no stone unturned through the investigations of this powerful organisation. Sometimes I was left dumbfounded by the actions taken by people who literally thought they had the power of life and death. I am grateful that people saw sense and some even had the bravery to stand up to these bullies despite threats and intimidation by many powerful people connected to this regime. Thankfully the organisation has more or less completely imploded due to its own greed and hypocrisy. I pray we never see it rise again to anywhere near the heights of its popularity particularly at the start of the 20 th century.Although very informative I did find some of the political background and the many names to remember in addition to the affiliations etc slightly tedious, and I was forced to skip a few pages. This is not a criticism if the book nor the author as II do appreciate that this was necessary for the framework of how people got to the positions that they reached. Over all a tremendous effort to catalogue the series of events to describe the rise and fall of this organisation.

This book is a true-crime, adventure narrative of a youthful, courageous Texas District Attorney who takes on a sinister and politically powerful, multi-state gang-- the second Ku Klux Klan. Reading this engaging saga, you are tempted to wonder: who will play Dan Moody in the Steven Spielberg movie?With methodical, well-footnoted accuracy, author Patricia Bernstein produces a vivid portrait of a real hero who fights and defeats Goliath and his gang. Perhaps, more importantly, Bernstein paints a political-cultural diorama of Texas and America in the early 20th century explaining how bias, fear and hatred can become so virulent and ubiquitous. She explains how this second incarnation of the KKK was far more broadly focused than an anti-Negro or anti-Catholic group of bullies. The author also shows how the Klan actually operated as an opportunistic movement capable of hating and targeting anyone who displeased it.This book is also fascinating because it presents a nuanced context from which other political heroes arise. There is a poignant vignette of a courageous twenty-seven- year-old, first-time member of the Texas House from deep East Texas who delivers fiery orations against the Imperial Wizard and his representatives and introduces legislation to criminalize law enforcement officers who conspired with the Klan. Young John William Wright Patman would go on to become nationally prominent as the dean of the U.S. House of Representatives and Chair of its powerful Banking and Currency Committee.Young Wright Patman was joined in his opposition to the Klan by his deskmate in the Texas House, Sam Ealy Johnson. In his Hill County district, many German Americans and Mexican Americans were vilified and intimidated by the Klan. Sam’s son, Lyndon became President of the United States and was responsible for the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.LBJ proudly explained in 1965: “My father fought them [the Klan] many long years ago in Texas and I have fought them all my life because I know their loyalty is not to the United State of America but instead to a hooded society of bigots.”The protagonist hero, Dan Moody, goes on to become the youngest Attorney General in the history of Texas and later its Governor. Perhaps the blockbuster movie should end here. The rest of Patricia Bernstein’s book is a rich and detailed chronicle of the rough and tumble of Texas politics including colorful figures such as Ma and Pa Ferguson and “Pappy” Lee (Pass the Biscuits) O’Daniel and the Hillbilly Boys.This story of the anti-corruption, crime fighter ends with irony. Dan Moody becomes the attorney for Coke Stevenson in his legal battle contesting the election of “landslide” Lyndon Johnson who wins the 1948 U.S. Senate seat in Texas by 87 votes. Moody focuses on the now infamous Box 13 in Alice, Texas and the influence of George Parr, “The Duke of Duval.” The case ends in an injunction hearing in the chambers of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.Lyndon Johnson is represented by five lawyers, including Abe Fortas; Coke Stevenson is represented by one, Dan Moody. Justice Black orders the injunction lifted, LBJ won and the rest is history.---------------------This review was originally written for the Journal of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society.

Patricia Bernstein, in "Ten Dollars to Hate," performs a valuable public service in recounting the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and the courageous reaction of Texas prosecutor (later Texas governor) Dan Moody against it. Her synthesis of Klan history is a reminder of how "nice" folks can be demagogued and intimidated into attacks on innocent minorities. Her recalling Moody's resistance reassures us that wiser, braver -- nicer -- folks can prevent poisonous groups from imposing their warped views on society at large. But they have to stand up and do it. Patricia is a treasured friend of mine, a dogged researcher, a talented writer and a passionate, remarkably energetic advocate for justice. She is an expert on the Klan. Her previous works include "The First Waco Horror," an account of a horrific 1916 Waco lynching. (The title spins off a second Waco horror, the Branch Davidian tragedy.) As Patricia recounts, the events described in "Ten Dollars" and "First Horror" happen when America loses its way in struggling toward freedom and justice for all, a struggle that continues today. Her passion shows in the adjectives she attaches to crimes that speak for themselves -- heinous, hideous and savage. She also helps us remember that hate is multi-dimensional. It is not a cancer of the right-wing alone. It can be found on the left, too, and "enlightened" Americans need to guard against contempt for the "less enlightened," an attitude that is itself a form of hate and fed the rise of Donald Trump. Patricia demonstrates her own respect for the need to educate the unaware by retelling these stories.

With this book, Patricia Bernstein has given us a sweeping, meticulously researched and gripping account of the second reign of terror of the Ku Klux Klan in America, and particularly in Texas, in the early 1920s. (The first came in the aftermath of the Civil War.) She focuses her story on the charismatic, fearless Dan Moody, a young prosecutor in Williamson County who doggedly fought, and eventually conquered, the seemingly all-powerful, above-the-law Klan, securing the first ever conviction and imprisonment of Klansmen for the savage beating of a young travelling salesman in 1923. Decency, and the rule of law, had finally prevailed, and the Klan melted quickly into the shadows. The 29-year-old Moody was hailed as a hero, and in short order became the attorney general of Texas and then, at 33, its youngest governor. But, as Bernstein reminds us, and as our current political and social climate illustrates all too starkly, “the lingering tragedy of the Klan…. is that just as the Klan did not introduce violence and bigotry into American life, the demise of the bloated Klan of the of the twenties did not eradicate these aspects of American society, either.”

Great story about an amazing Texas prosecutor.