Percival Proctor Baxter - Anti-Klan Republican

Anti-Klan Republican

Baxter's term as Governor coincided with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan as a force in Maine and national politics. Although Baxter was an ardent foe of the Klan, it found a foothold in the Maine Republican Party through the influence of state senators Owen Brewster, Mark Alton Barwise, Hodgdon Buzzell, and others, who sponsored bills in the early 1920s which would have cut aid to parochial (Catholic) schools, thus creating a 'wedge issue' between Maine's Protestant and catholic communities. Brewster succeeded Baxter as governor in 1925 and, with the help of the Klan and Maine State Senate president Buzzell, sabotaged Baxter's candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 1926. In 1928, when Brewster made his own run for the U.S. Senate, Baxter publicly denounced him as a member of the Klan, helping to ensure the victory of incumbent U.S. Senator Frederick Hale.