Stephenson Guilty, Aids Free

From The Indianapolis Star, Sunday, November 15, 1925:  Late yesterday afternoon after deliberating five hours and 35 minutes a Hamilton County Circuit Court jury found former Indiana Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Madge Oberholtzer.  A handful of spectators, including Madge Oberholtzer’s only brother Marshall Oberholtzer, were in the courtroom during the reading of the verdict; Stephenson, pale but smiling, listened intently.  Shortly after the verdict was read, Stephenson made the following statement, “Surrender, hell, we’ve only begun to fight….This has not been a law suit, but has been an expression of envy, jealously and malice interwoven with a campaign of propaganda which was pursued with feverish intensity and was designed for no purpose except to wield an unsavory influence upon the public mind”   Two of Stephenson’s aides were acquitted.

“Stephenson Guilty; Aids Free,” The Indianapolis Star, 15 November 1925, p. 1:2