Elite civic and business leaders, many future Klan opponents among them, continued to push municipal reform proposals in the face of a stiff popular resistance. Some future Klansmen, for their part, rallied opposition to the measures. Thus, while mayor in 1914, Wiley Doolittle spoke out against a plan for commission government. Klan alderman W. R. Tindall took the offensive in 1924, putting forward a proposal to make the Civil Service Commission elective rather than appointive so that the body would "belong to the people." O. M. Martin, an elected official and Klan leader, likewise condemned a
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