Ussher-Davis Children's Orphanage
The Ussher-Davis Children's Orphanage was a San Bernardino fundraising scheme at the center of a 1944 criminal investigation involving Roy E. Davis, William D. Upshaw, and Lily Galloway, in which Davis allegedly posed as a federal agent to solicit wealthy donors while Upshaw and Galloway reinforced the deception; with Upshaw heading the orphanage's "department of Americanization," a term closely associated with Klan ideology, the operation connected temperance activism, orphanage charity language, financial manipulation, and white supremacist organizing, foreshadowing Davis's later move to Dallas and his rise as a leader in the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ussher-Davis Children's Orphanage was the focal point for a 1944 criminal investigation after an apparent financial scam created by Roy E. Davis and William D. Upshaw[1] in San Bernardino, CA. According to newspaper reports of court transcripts, Roy Davis posed as a Federal Agent in an attempt to persuade wealthy donors to contribute to the orphanage,[2] while William D. Upshaw and Lily Galloway (Upshaw's future wife) confirmed the false claims. Though Roy Davis was the primary target of the criminal lawsuit that followed, William Upshaw was also named. The orphanage scam took place at the same time Paul Kopp was in San Bernardino working as a temporary pastor for one of the churches hosting events for the Women's Christian Temperance Union led by Lily Galloway.
William D. Upshaw was head of the "department of Americanization" for the Ussher-Davis Children's Orphanage.[3] "Americanization" was a term used by the Ku Klux Klan to describe enforcing the Klan's views of a "pure" or "true" version of America. Upshaw, who had been previously exposed by the newspapers as a member of the 1915 Klan, appears to have been working with Roy Davis, who had been an official spokesperson for the Klan prior to William Joseph Simmon's ousting.
The scam resulted in a highly-publicized criminal trial. Davis won the trial, sued Los Angeles and the officials involved, and migrated to Dallas, TX to begin building a new sect of the Ku Klux Klan. Davis was later exposed as the Grand Dragon of the Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.