In 1927 he was investigated and tried on bribery charges related to having tried to bribe the previous governor, but was not convicted as the statute of limitations had expired.

[2] His popularity in the Republican Party helped in winning the nomination to run for Indiana Secretary of State in 1916, which he won.

His time in office was brief however, as he resigned shortly after World War I broke out and enlisted in the United States Army.

He was soon moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, and then Lafayette, Indiana, where he was promoted to major and made commandant of a training facility.

In 1920 Governor of Indiana James P. Goodrich appointed Jackson as Secretary of State after the incumbent William Roach died in January 1920.

Jackson was interested in running for higher office, and began to seek out supporters for his coming bid for the governorship.

At the time, the public generally perceived the Klan members as defenders of justice, morality, and Americanism.

[7] Both McCray and his successor, Emmett Forest Branch, declined to run for governor in 1924, leaving Jackson as the Republican front runner.

Jackson's main opponent for the Republican nomination was Samuel Lewis Shank, the strongly anti-Klan mayor of Indianapolis who had banned masked parades in the city.

The Klan celebrated Jackson's victory by doing a march through the black areas of Indianapolis that may have attracted as many as 100,000 onlookers.

Stephenson declared at the march that "We must put over Jackson our very right to existence" and "The fiery cross is going to burn at every crossroads in Indiana, as long as there is a white man left in the state."

Irish Catholics counter-argued that an anti-Klan stance would attract the vote of not only African Americans, but also more tolerant white Protestants.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Carleton McCullouch, who wanted to take a neutral position on the Klan, compromised with anti-Klan Democrats at the state Democratic convention by agreeing to a "Freedom and Liberty" plank that did not technically mention the Klan by name, but declared that the Indiana Republican Party had "retired from the political arena", the Republican Party had "been delivered into the hands of an organization which has no place in politics and which promulgates doctrines which tend to break down the safeguards which the Constitution throws around every citizen" and that 1920s Indiana Republicans were "repungant to the principles of government" advocated by Civil War Indiana Republicans Abraham Lincoln and Oliver Morton.

The Klan issue nonetheless remained the unspoken elephant in the room that dominated the gubernatorial election and Indiana life as a whole.

The Indiana Dunes State Park and the George Rogers Clark Memorial were established with his support.

The Wright Bone Dry Law was passed by the General Assembly to increase penalties and jail time for prohibition violators.

[17] In the autumn of 1925, United States Senator Samuel M. Ralston died in office, and Jackson needed to appoint his replacement.

Many Republican leaders were upset with Jackson over the choice, as they had favored the appointment of former senator Albert J. Beveridge.

Angered, Stephenson started talking to reporters in 1927 from the Indianapolis Times and provided names of people who had been paid bribes by the Klan and taken part in other illegal activity.

Despite the final result of the trial, Jackson was widely criticized across the state; he left office disgraced and ended his political career.

That year he moved to a large farm he purchased near Orleans, where he raised cattle and maintained an apple orchard.