USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. II > Part 25
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46
The bill to locate and establish a Territorial Normal School in Greer County was so amended as to provide for its location in the southwestern part of the territory, and authorizing the governor to appoint a committee of five persons to select a location of the same, and then passed. The bill to locate and establish a university preparatory school at Tonkawa, in Kay County, was also passed. Both of these measures were approved by Governor Barnes.
APPOINTMENT OF JENKINS AS GOVERNOR
With the end of the session of the Sixth Legislative Assembly popular interest in Oklahoma was largely given over to speculation as to who would be appointed governor of the territory for the succeeding four years. Governor Barnes was known to be willing to continue in the position for another term. On the other hand, the factional troubles incident to his administration had been embarrassing and there was open opposition to his reappointment. Under these circumstances, President Mckinley decided to make a change and he selected William M. Jenkins,10 who, for four years,
10 William M. Jenkins was born in Stark County, Ohio, in 1856, of Quaker parentage. He was educated in the public schools and at Mount Union College. While teaching school he read law. He located in Arkansas City, Kansas, in 1888, where he engaged in the practice of law. In 1893 he secured a homestead in Kay County, when the Cherokee Strip was opened to settlement. He was appointed secretary of the territory by President Mckinley, in June, 1897. After filling that position for nearly four years, he was appointed by President McKinley to the governorship of Okla- homa, April 15, 1901. For a number of years after his retirement from public life Governor Jenkins was engaged in farming in Kay County.
709
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
had been secretary of the territory, to fill the place. The appoint- ment was regarded as entirely personal, Mr. Jenkins being a native of the home county of President Mckinley, in Ohio, and an old friend of the latter.
The most important event in the history of Oklahoma during the brief administration of Governor Jenkins was the opening of the Comanche-Kiowa-Apache and the Wichita-Caddo Indian reser- vations to settlement in August, 1901. The appointment of the county officers of the new counties fell to the governor of the territory, yet few if any of the appointments thus made could be considered as the personal selections of Governor Jenkins. Most of them were apparently selected by the party organization and, in a few instances, at the urgent solicitation if not the dictation of congressional influence outside of Oklahoma.
Although a partisan, Governor Jenkins was in no sense of the word a politician. He was the personal choice and appointee of the President of the United States for the governorship of the most populous organized territory yet known in the history of the Federal Union and, as long as that president lived, he was shown due consideration and respect as the chief executive of that terri- tory. The tragic death of President Mckinley, a few months after the appointment of Governor Jenkins, was the signal for the deliberate undoing of the latter. William M. Jenkins was a man of unblemished character and, in the minds of those who knew him best, no taint of official corruption ever attached to him, either before or during his term as governor of Oklahoma. Unfortunately, like some reputedly greater men in positions of even greater authority, he was not always as positive and as self-assertive as the governor of a territory should have been.
THE REMOVAL OF GOVERNOR JENKINS
During the administration of Governor Renfrow, there had been established at Norman a sanitarium for the care of the insane. It was built, equipped, owned and managed as a private business enterprise and to it was awarded a contract for the keeping of the insane persons who became public charges in Oklahoma. This contract was continued during the administration of Governor Barnes and it was reputed to be a very profitable one. With the change from the Barnes administration to that of Jenkins, powerful interests in the party organization insisted upon a change in the personnel of the company which operated the sanitarium at Nor-
.
710
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
man. In other words, stock in the operating company having been recognized as a profitable investment, the privilege of owning it was regarded as a part and parcel of the partisan patronage to be apportioned by the party organization or at its behest. In the course of this "reorganization" of the operating company, Gov- ernor Jenkins was importuned to request the reservation of a block of stock in the sanitarium corporation for a friend (pre- sumably a politician who for prudential reasons did not care to be known as being personally concerned in the matter at the time) and, whether or not it was against his better judgment, he acceded to the request. In doing this, he probably did not sidestep the pathway of official propriety any more than either of his imme- diate predecessors had done, for it was commonly regarded by the politicians of both parties at that time (and even at a much later date) as a legitimate means of paying political debts-if not for himself (for Governor Jenkins was assuredly not beholden to any- one in Oklahoma in that way), then it was as a favor to some one else who was acceptable to the party organization. Certainly there is no evidence that Governor Jenkins would have personally profited from the transaction, either directly or indirectly. But, be all that as it may, he did make the request and it was not only granted but made a matter of record.
When President Mckinley was dead and buried, Governor Jenkins found that the favoring wind of political fortune had sud- denly shifted and grown to a hurricane, before which he soon drifted upon the rocks of disaster. Charges of malfeasance in office were preferred against him. President Roosevelt demanded to know whether or not he had requested the reservation of a block of the stock in the sanitarium for a party or parties to be named later, to which answer was made in the affirmative but, before any explanation could be offered as to the circumstances which might have extenuated or mitigated the seemingly glaring offense, Gov- ernor Jenkins was bluntly informed that he was removed from office, nor would the President listen to any representations on behalf of the deposed official thereafter. Thus was Jenkins ruth- lessly sacrificed on the altar of an ostentatious zeal for a higher standard in the administration of public affairs. Parenthetically, it may not be out of the way to remark that the impulsively prompt executive action in this instance is most strikingly contrasted with the more than indulgent refusal to consider charges equally as serious against one of the administration's own appointees in the neighboring territory, wherein the official thus accused, a year or
711
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
two later, happened to be a personal friend of the President. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the party favorites, at whose instance Governor Jenkins had directed a reorganization of the company which owned and operated the sanitarium at Norman, lifted neither hand nor voice in his behalf in the hour of his political extremity. On the contrary they merely shrugged their shoulders and complacently went their several ways. Indeed, his passing was regarded as a mere incident in the course of events, his exit making scarcely a ripple on the pool of "practical politics" in which he had no part. And so, sinned against more than sinning, William M. Jenkins disappeared from the public life of Oklahoma, pitied by the multitude who knew him not and still respected by the few who knew him as man to man. He now resides at Sapulpa, Okla- homa.
THE APPOINTMENT OF FERGUSON
To fill the vacancy created by the removal of Governor Jenkins, President Roosevelt appointed Thompson B. Ferguson,11 of Wa- tonga. Governor Ferguson immediately qualified and assumed the duties of his position without other formality than that of being sworn into office.
At the beginning of the political campaign of 1902, Delegate Flynn announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election. There was, of course, a scramble for the republican nomination to succeed him. Bird S. McGuire,12 of Pawnee, was nominated. The
11 Thompson B. Ferguson was born near Des Moines, Iowa, in 1857. His parents migrated to Southern Kansas, settling in Chau- tauqua County while he was a child. He was educated in the public schools and in the Kansas State Normal School at Emporia. He was engaged in educational work for a number of years. When the Cheyenne and Arapaho country was thrown open to settlement, in 1892, he settled at Watonga and established the Watonga Repub- lican. In 1897 he was appointed postmaster, and in 1891 he was appointed governor of Oklahoma. Since his retirement from that position he has been engaged in editing and publishing the Watonga Republican. In 1907 he was the republican nominee for represen- tative in Congress from the Second District.
12 Bird S. McGuire was born at Belleville, Illinois, in 1864. Most of his early life was spent in Northern Missouri, whither his parents had moved. Shortly afterward Bird S. McGuire went to the Indian Territory, where he followed the life of a stockman for three years. Returning to Kansas in 1884, he entered the State Normal School at Emporia. After two years in school he began teaching, reading law at the same time. He then attended the law
712
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
democratic nominee was William M. Cross,13 of Oklahoma City. The campaign was a warmly contested one. The democratic terri- torial platform declared for single statehood for the Indian Terri-
BIRD S. MCGUIRE
tory and Oklahoma. The republican platform, on the other hand, came out with a flat-footed declaration in favor of immediate
school of the University of Kansas. After his admission to the bar he was elected county attorney of Chautauqua County, a position which he filled for four years. In 1895 he came to Oklahoma, locat- ing at Pawnee. Two years later he was appointed assistant United States district attorney. In 1902 he was nominated and elected delegate to Congress and was re-elected in 1904. In 1907 he was elected to Congress as representative of the First Oklahoma District, and was re-elected in 1908, 1910 and 1912. Mr. McGuire is now practicing law at Tulsa.
13 William Macklin Cross (popularly called Bill Cross) was born at Purdy, McNeary County, Tennessee, July 4, 1847. At the age
713
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
statehood for Oklahoma alone, regardless of the future disposition of the Indian Territory. The results of the campaign turned largely on this issue and there was much independent thinking and voting, especially in those communities in which the statehood question had been acute ever since the passage and executive dis- approval of the Public Building Bill, a year and a half before. In the election which followed, McGuire won by a narrow margin of less than 500 votes out of a total of 94,303. The democrats elected fourteen of the twenty-six members of the lower house of the Legislative Assembly, while the republicans elected seven of the thirteen members of the upper house.
The session of the Seventh Legislative Assembly was compara- tively uneventful, the tedium being broken for a time by the devel- opment of a small flurry of excitement over an alleged school text- book scandal, however. Most of the business transacted consisted of the making of the necessary appropriations for the territorial government and its institutions, the amendment of existing laws and the enactment of new statutes of minor importance. A bill was introduced in the lower house for the purpose of creating two new counties of territory to be taken from Comanche counties and modestly proposing to name the counties, thus created, in honor of two members of that body.
The campaign for the election of a delegate to Congress and members of the Territorial Legislative Assembly in 1904 was des- tined to be the last one. Delegate McGuire, who was anxious to secure the endorsement of his party for the separate statehood legislation then pending in Congress, insisted upon an early con- vention. There was no active opposition to his renomination. The
of fourteen he entered the Confederate military service as a drum- mer in Company K, One Hundred and Fifty-fourth Tennessee Regiment, of which his father (who was killed in action at the battle of Shiloh) was colonel. Young Cross was wounded and cap- tured the same day his father was killed. He was subsequently exchanged and returned to the front, serving in the army of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. After the end of the war he entered Ken- tucky University, at Lexington, but only remained one year on account of the financial condition of the family. He entered a dry goods store and eventually became a traveling salesman, in which capacity he came to Oklahoma. He was nominated for delegate to Congress in 1902, but was defeated. He was nominated as the democratic candidate for secretary of state and was elected in Sep- tember, 1907, when the constitution was ratified. He died August 4, 1910.
Vol. 11-18
-
714
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
democratic convention placed J. Frank Matthews, of Greer County, in nomination. The populist party, which had not had a candidate in the field since 1900, held a convention and nominated Horace E. Staughen, of Lincoln County.
As in the preceding campaign, the alignment between the two leading parties was chiefly determined by their respective attitudes with regard to the issue of single or separate statehood. As in 1902, the democratic platform contained an unqualified declara- tion in favor of the creation of one state from the two territories.
BOONE TOWNSHIP CONSOLIDATED RURAL SCHOOL, APACHE, CADDO COUNTY
The republican platform, as before, was committed to the two- state program. National policies and the personality of national candidates also entered more largely into consideration than they had in any previous campaign since 1896. McGuire was re-elected by a plurality of 1,586 over Matthews, the total vote cast for all candidates being 109,145. The republicans also succeeded in electing a majority of the members of each branch of the Legislative Assembly.
The Eighth Legislative Assembly was also a comparatively uneventful one. A bill providing for the consolidation of rural school districts was passed; although rather in advance of the time, it was to be regarded as indicative of the trend of intelligent senti- ment among educators and served as the basis of further pro- gressive legislation along the same line under the state government.
715
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
A bill providing for the creation of a Territorial Railway Commis- sion was introduced in the House, passed by that body and sent to the council, where it was considered, amended and finally tabled.
Late in the session, Representative Wesley Taylor, of Noble County, introduced a bill (House Bill No. 345) for the purpose of enabling "the people of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory to form and adopt a state constitution and organize a state govern- inent and to secure the admission of said state into the Union." By unanimous vote, the rules were suspended, the bill was imme- diately read a second time and referred to a special Committee on Constitutional Convention. A few days later, it was called up and killed by a strict party vote, the democrats voting solidly for the motion to accept the report of the Sifting Committee which would have brought the bill to a vote on its passage in the House, while republicans voted solidly to except this measure from the report of the Sifting Committee, thus killing the measure.14
ANOTHER CHANGE IN THE GOVERNORSHIP
As the end of Governor Ferguson's four-year term drew near, it became evident that there would be some opposition to a re- appointment. Taken altogether, his administration had been counted a success. It had certainly occasioned less criticism and complaint than any of the preceding administrations in the history of the territory. He had conscientiously endeavored to carry out the instructions given to him at the time of his appointment by President Roosevelt, namely, to give the people of the territory all honest and economical administration and, if fidelity to the trust that had been delegated to him could be counted for auglit, he was plainly entitled to a reappointment. But trying to make official actions square with the requirements of such an obligation and pleasing all of the politicians, even in one's own party, would have been to attempt the impossible. And so, though the mass of the Oklahoma people, regardless of political affiliations, would have
14 In the report of the aye and nay vote (House Journal, Eighth Legislative Assembly, page 396) Representative Taylor, who had introduced House Bill No. 345, was reported as absent and not voting. The writer hereof was present in the lobby of the House when the vote by which this bill was killed was taken and particu- larly noted that Representative Taylor was present and voted with the other republican members to kill his own bill. The journal of the House was evidently "corrected" later.
716
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
been glad to see Governor Ferguson continued for another term, a few of the active politicians in his own party started a fight against his possible reappointment. They centered their support upon Capt. Frank Frantz, of Enid, who had been an officer in a volunteer cavalry regiment of which President Roosevelt had been colonel during the war with Spain-not that Captain Frantz was himself a factionist, for this same faction had defeated him in his candidacy for delegate to the national republican convention only a year and a half before, but rather because, being a personal friend of the President, he was regarded as the most available man to encompass the retirement of Governor Ferguson. Without hav- ing intimated or indicated in any way that Governor Ferguson's services had been other than satisfactory, or that tenure in that position should be limited to a single term of four years, President Roosevelt saw fit to make the first announcement that he would not be reappointed to the very men who had been making the fight against him, at the same time stating that Captain Frantz would be appointed to succeed him.
Frank Frantz was the youngest man ever appointed to the governorship of Oklahoma.15 His brief administration of less than two years was terminated by the change from the territorial to the state form of government. There were no more sessions of the Territorial Assembly, so his duties were not as varied as those of his predecessors.
15 Frank Frantz was born at Roanoke, Illinois, May 7, 1892. He was educated in the public schools of his native state and spent two years as a student at Eureka College. He settled at Enid, Okla- homa, in September, 1893, at the opening of the Cherokee Strip. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American war he was in Arizona, from which territory he entered the military service as a first lieu- tenant in the First United States Volunteer Cavalry. He was pro- moted to the rank of captain before the close of the war. In 1901 he was appointed postmaster at Enid. Two years later he was named as United States Indian agent at the Osage agency. He was appointed governor of Oklahoma, his term beginning January 5, 1906, and running until the end of the territorial regime, November 16, 1907. He is now (1916) a resident of Bartlesville.
-
CHAPTER LXX INDIAN LAND CESSIONS AND ADDITIONAL LAND OPENINGS
During the spring of 1890, the members of the commission to treat with the Cherokee Nation and other tribes and nations of Indians, for the relinquishment of unoccupied lands situated west of the Ninety-sixth Meridian, spent much time in negotiating with the Iowa, the Sac and Fox, the Pottawatomie and the Absentee Shawnee, and the Kickapoo tribes. In May, of that year, General Fairchild resigned his membership on the commission and former governor George W. Jerome, of Michigan was appointed to fill the vacancy thus created. In June following, negotiations were opened with the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. As the result of the work of this commission, all of the tribes above mentioned, with the ex- ception of the Kickapoo, agreed to accept allotments of land in severalty and permit the opening of the surplus lands of their respective reservations to settlement by white people.
OPENING OF THE FIRST INDIAN RESERVATIONS
The first of the surplus lands thus thrown open to settlement were those of the Iowa, Sac and Fox, and Pottawatomie-Shawnee reservations, all of which were located east of the country which had been thrown open to settlement in April, 1889. The aggregate area of these reservations was 868,414 acres and the date set for their opening to homestead settlement was September 22, 1891. From the lands thus opened to settlement, two new counties were formed, in addition to which Logan, Oklahoma and Cleveland counties were enlarged by the addition of lands lying east of the Indian Meridian and the area of Payne County was increased by the addition of that part lying south of the Cimarron River. One of the new counties was officially designated as County "A" and the other as County "B." In the general election of the following year (November, 1892), the people of these counties by popular
717
718
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
vote chose the names by which they have since been known. County "A" voted to be called Lincoln County,1 while County "B" chose the name of Pottawatomie.
The next land opening of surplus Indian lands to homestead settlement was that of the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation which occurred on the 19th of April, 1892. This reservation had an area of 3,500,562 acres and from it six new counties, respectively designated as "C," "D," "E," "F," "G," and "H," were formed. These counties were subsequently named Blaine, Dewey,
Fox Oklahoma Soddy Copyrighted by DERRICK no. 5.
SOD HOUSE IN WESTERN OKLAHOMA, DEWEY COUNTY
Day, Roger Mills, Custer and Washita, respectively. Kingfisher and Canadian counties were enlarged also by the addition of con- siderable areas from the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation. County scat townsites were chosen in advance of the opening and were reserved from homestead entry.
No land districts were established for either of these land open- ings. The lands thrown open September 22, 1891, were apportioned
1 In the campaign in County "A" the nominations for county names were made by the several political parties. The republican county convention proposed the name of Lincoln; the democratic convention advocated the naming of the county Sac and Fox; the populists proposed to call it Weaver, for Gen. James B. Weaver of Iowa, then the populist nominee for President. The name of Lincoln was most popular.
719
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
to the Guthrie and Oklahoma City land districts and all the lands of the Cheyenne and Arapaho country were likewise apportioned to existing districts, to the great inconvenience of settlers who lived far from the district land office. Indeed, every time new lands were to be thrown open to settlement, some of the land office officials, whose perquisites and fees were running below the maximum, were wont to hie themselves to Washington and scheme for an enlargement of the bounds of their respective districts.
There had been much complaint of "sooners" taking the best lands in the first opening, in April, 1889. There was still more complaint in the land openings of September, 1891, and April,
WELCOME
ONE OF THE FIRST SCHOOLS IN BLAINE COUNTY, 1893
1892, so much, in fact, that it was expected that there would be some modification of the plans for future land openings.
THE CHEROKEE OUTLET
After nearly four years of negotiation, the Cherokee Nation, through its principal chief and legislative council, ceded its claims to the Cherokee Outlet (more commonly called the Cherokee Strip) to the Government, May 19, 1893. Great interest was manifested throughout the West in the proposed opening of the lands thus secured for homestead settlement. On August 22, 1893, President Cleveland issued a proclamation, giving due notice that the lands of the Cherokee Outlet, together with the surplus lands of the
720
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
Pawnee and Tonkawa reservations, would be thrown open to settle- ment at noon on the 16th day of September. Elaborate rules were prescribed for the proposed land opening and were said to have been designed for the especial purpose of preventing "sooners" from entering the Outlet in advance of the prescribed hour. Four new land districts were to be established, with offices respectively at Perry, Enid, Alva and Woodward. In order that there might be some means of keeping "sooners" out of the country, for those intending to file on lands in the Outlet, nine registration booths were established at different points around the border. At these
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.