USA > Oklahoma > Oklahoma County > Oklahoma City > The story of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma : "the biggest little city in the world" > Part 17
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For mayor the democrats nominated Henry M. Seales and the republicans J. H. Johnston. The charge of corporation influence against the republican candidate, a charge that had accomplished satisfactory results for the democrats in the con- vention campaign and during sessions of the convention, was effective in the city campaign and Mr. Scales was elected by a substantial majority.
Organization of the Oklahoma State Fair Association was
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perfected this year and it contracted for the use of state school land adjoining the city on the east as an exposition site. 1 temporary organization was perfected JJanuary 16th by the election of C. G. Jones as president and A. W. MeKeand as secretary. Two days later a meeting more largely attended was held and a committee consisting of Seymour Heyman. A. H. Classen, Dr. F. M. Jordan, Frank H. Shelley, E. Bracht, Weston Atwood, George Gardner and C. G. Jones was ap- pointed to apply for a charter. On February 21, the charter having been granted, officers and directors were elected as follows: C. G. Jones, president ; L. L. Land, vice president : Frank H. Shelley, secretary, and Seymour Heyman, treas- urer, and E. E. Alkire, V. L. Bath, Dr. J. M. Jordan, Oscar Lee, C. H. Keller, C. B. Sites, W. F. Young, J. L. Wilkin. C. F. Colcord, Samuel Finley and I. M. Putnam.
Chamber of Commerce activities during the year were largely of a business nature, except for entertainment re- quired by virtue of the political campaigns. It was a year of almost unprecedented growth. The business districts. wholesale and retail, were spreading so rapidly and inquiries from the world coming in such great numbers that the Cham- ber found it necessary to devote itself to taking care of what it had and what was in sight instead of reaching out for more. It was disappointed that the Federal census report showed the city to have a population of only 32,452, whereas figures above forty thousand had been expected. Reports of real estate transfers and building permits every month were an index to a development of magnitude beyond most sanguine expectations. Real estate transfers during some months went beyond the million and a half mark. Paving was being ex- tended rapidly and at the beginning of the year it was pre- dicted that over three million dollars would be expended dur- ing the year on paving. No incentive to all this was more influential than the guarantee of statehood.
The Chamber again induced real estate dealers to form an organization. Sixty dealers out of a total of 107 attended the organization meeting that was presided over by A. H. Classen and of which A. W. MeKeand acted as secretary. A committee consisting of Joseph Hess, Guy Blackwelder. . J. II. Johnston, O. P. Workman and R. V. Moran was appointed
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to draft a constitution and by-laws. Chamber officials were sponsor also for the organization of the Hundred and Fitty Thousand Club, the chief object of which was to increase the population of the city to that number by 1914. It was com- posed of one or more members from each of the several indus- trial and professional organizations. Mr. Classen was its first president and C. J. Pratt, G. E. Gardner, Robert Scott. J. W. Van Elm and J. H. Johnston constituted the executive committee.
At the annual meeting of the Eighty-Niners Association in April a committee composed of C. G. Jones, J. L. Brown and Sidney Clarke was appointed by President Walker to solicit funds with which to ereet a monument to the memory of Captain Conch. Another committee composed of O. A. Mitselier, Sidney Clarke and Asa Jones was appointed to assist a committee of a Territorial association that purposed erecting a monument to the memory of Captain Payne. Former Governor T. B. Ferguson attended the annual ban- quet and delivered the principal address. Dr. Delos Walker was reelected president. Sidney Clarke was elected vice president and J. A. J. Bangus, secretary.
A distinguished visitor of the year was James Bryce of Great Britain, formerly ambassador to the United States, who stopped here on his way to the Kiowa and Comanche Indian country where he was to visit Quanah Parker, noted Comanche chief, and Geronimo, the Apache warrior whom General Miles had captured and who was then a prisoner of war on the Fort Sill military reservation. He was aecom- panied by former Governor D. R. Francis of Missouri and some other men of lesser note. He delivered a brief address in the Overholser Opera House, being introduced by Doctor Bradford of Epworth University.
Selection of a site for the Federal Building was made in June, after a lively contest between property owners and real estate dealers interested in several sites proposed. Five lots were acquired at the corner of Robinson Avenue and Third Street. They were owned by John Burt, A. Ketcham and Mrs. E. Epstein, then of Lawton, and were appraised at $30,- 000. Burt, who owned the corner lot. was reported to have named a price of $5,000. but after the site selection was made Vol. 1-19
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he made a price of $25,000. When Burt definitely declined to negotiate, an appraisal committee was appointed consisting of Whit M. Grant, Newton Avey and F. J. Merrill, and there the matter rested for the time being.
A bond issue totaling $250,000 was voted in the September election for water and sewer extension purposes and to liqui- date some old city debts. Mayor Scales originally asked anthority of the council to call for an issue of $325,000.
The Oklahoma City Street Railway Company, which this year increased its capital stock from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000, announced that it was soon to-expend $200,000 in erecting a power house, and $180,000 in improving its park at Belle Isle, a small resort that had rapidly grown in popularity, and that it hoped before long to construct an interurban to Brit- ton and Edmond.
Ten thousand persons attended the first State Fair, which opened its gates October 5. Luther Jones, the eleven-year-old son of C. G. Jones, president of the fair association, pressed the button that flooded the exposition with lights and by that aet the exposition was officially opened. The first ticket, the number of which was 1001, was purchased by E. L. Gore, an Oklahoma City traveling salesman, and President Jones kept it as a souvenir of the occasion. Some formal ceremonies were indulged in. Graves Leeper presided over the little gathering of men and women at the gate and speeches were made by President Jones and C. N. Haskell, the governor- elect.
This was an era of experiments in government and what . was popularly known as the commission-form of city gov- ernment was gaining favor over the country. The progressive Chamber of Commerce therefore decided that the aldermanic- form had outlived its usefulness here and proposed to con- struct a city charter that would provide the commission-form. President H. Y. Thompson appointed a committee headed by O. D. Halsell to inquire into the feasibility of making a charter. Mr. Halsell appointed a sub-committee consisting of J. H. Johnston, Judge J. R. Keaton, C. G. Jones and S. J. Murphy, and on November 13 this committee reported that it found much to commend in the proposed reform. Soon thereafter President Thompson named a committee of fifty
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ST. LUKE'S M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH
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to inaugurate a campaign for a charter election. When the matter was first discussed by the city council in session, City Attorney T. G. Chambers told the council it was his opinion that a charter could not be adopted unless provision was made for such a government by an act of the Legislature. The Chamber of Commerce Committee of Fifty thereupon was instructed to draft a bill to be presented to the Legislature, but the committee was not convinced by the logie of Attorney Chambers and it proceeded also to the circulation of a pe- tition asking the mayor to call an election to choose a board of freeholders to write a charter. There the matter ended as a part of the chain of events of this year.
Simultaneously with the adoption of the constitution and the election of state officers, the voters of Oklahoma adopted as a separate proposition a prohibition article, and at the advent of statehood saloons were closed. Closing was a make- shift, however, on the part of some saloon keepers of Okla- homa City. Some keepers who consulted Sheriff George W. . Garrison were advised that he meant to enforce the law. A meeting attended by some four thousand persons was held on November 25 in celebration of the prohibition victory, and Governor Haskell, who had been a champion of prohibition in the constitutional convention, made a speech.
Some saloon keepers contested the act in the court of District Judge George W. Clark, who was the first man under statehood to fill that office in Oklahoma County. They con- tended that the article was not legal because it was not in- corporated in the constitution, because the convention was without authority to pass upon the subject, because the ar- ticle was not filed with the territorial secretary, and because it was in contravention of the Enabling Act. Judge Clark promptly denied them an injunction. Later, Yeatman Smith, a saloon keeper, under arrest charged with selling intoxicat- ing liquors, was denied a writ of habeas corpus by District Judge J. E. Lowe of El Reno, who upheld the prohibition act.
Capitol Hill, a village adjoining the city on the south that had acquired a population of nearly two thousand and devel- oped into a business community of considerable consequence, broke into the limelight during the latter part of the year when the board of trustees passed a resolution declaring H.
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C. Schilling, president of the board, president no longer, and proceeded to fill the vacancy with M. F. Rowlett. Schilling protested and deelared the act of the board illegal. Dr. W. R. Clement, town clerk, who was an influential leader in the village, gave it as his opinion that Mr. Schilling had been stripped of authority. Schilling applied to the court for relief, the board ordered his official telephone discontinued, and thereupon the controversy's confusion was lost in the din of ringing bells and tooting whistles that signalled the end of a year.
The arrival of the first flow of natural gas into the city was duly celebrated on December 7. Newspapers reported that 5,000 persons joined in a demonstration held at Tenth Street and Central Avenue that began when W. L. Tull. chairman of the advertising committee of the Hundred and Fifty Thousand Club, punctured the gas main. The roar of escaping gas was as welcome as had been the pop of a military gun on that memorable April day in '89, and the acclaiming chorus of the congregated populace simulated the howls and cheers of another day. The main was punctured with a touch of formality. Present were Dennis T. Flynn, president of the Oklahoma Natural Gas Company; V. Hastings, manager of the company: F. A. Tidman, manager of the Oklahoma Gas & Electric Company, and A. W. MeKeand, secretary of the Chamber of Commerce.
G. B. Stone was elected president of the Chamber of Commerce for the ensuing year and he and W. S. Guthrie. B. C. Housel. M. M. Moberly. F. A. Gross, W. M. Westfall, S. L. Broek, J. H. Johnston. J. D. Thomas, O. P. Workman, Homer Eiler, H. J. Miller, Weston Atwood, H. Y. Thompson, J. M. Owen. A. H. Classen and J. H. Everest constituted the new board of directors.
During this year Edward Dyche succeeded L. W. Baxter as territorial auditor: J. B. Thoburn took charge of an ex- hibit sent by Oklahoma to the Jamestown Exposition; a law school of Epworth University was established with C. B. Ames as dean and Harry G. Snyder, secretary of the faculty ; on September 2 the corner stone of St. Luke's M. E. Church, South, was laid; on October 5 the Chamber of Commerce announced that 866 buildings had been erected in the city
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within twelve months: C. G. Jones, who had been elected to a seat in the lower house of the first state Legislature, an- nounced that he had prepared a bill providing for the invest- ment in good securities of the $5,000,000 Congress had appro- priated for the state in the Enabling Act: Mayor Henry Scales at Muskogee was elected president of the Oklahoma Municipal League and George Hess of Oklahoma City was made a member of the committee on resolutions: Edward Overholser resigned as county commissioner and Governor Haskell filled the vacaney with George Carrico; W. C. Reeves and Mont F. Highley of Oklahoma City and George Henshaw of Madill and E. G. Spilhnan of Kingfisher, both of whom later were residents of the city, were appointed assistants to Attorney General Charles West ; E. L. Fulton, first con- gressman from the district, announced he would ask Congress to appropriate $1,000,000 for a Federal site and building; on December 30 the New State Brewing Association, amidst ex- citing and unusual scenes and much hilarity, emptied into the sewers 7,500 gallons of beer said to have been valued at twenty-seven thousand dollars.
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S PROCLAMATION
"By the President of the United States of America-A Proc- lamation:
"Whereas, the Congress of the United States did by an act approved on the 16th day of June, one thousand nine hundred and six, provide that the inhabitants of the territory of Oklahoma and of the Indian Territory might, under and upon the conditions prescribed in said act, adopt a constitu- tion and become the state of Oklahoma, and
"Whereas, by the said act provision was duly made for the election of a constitutional convention to form a consti- tution and state goverment for the said proposed state ; and
"Whereas, it appears from the information laid before me that such convention was duly elected and such constitution and state government were thereby duly formed, and
"Whereas, by the said act the said convention was further authorized and empowered to provide by ordinance for sub-
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mitting the said constitution to the people of the said state for ratification or rejection, and likewise for the ratification or rejection of any provisions thereof to be by the said con- vention separately submitted, and
"Whereas, it has been certified to me, as required by the said act, by the governor of the territory of Oklahoma and by the judge senior in service of the United States court of, appeals in the Indian Territory that a majority of the legal votes cast at an election duly provided for by ordnance, as required by said act, have been cast for the adoption of said constitution, and
"Whereas, a copy of the said constitution has been cer- tified to me, as required by said act, together with the articles, propositions and ordinances pertaining thereto, including a separate proposition for state-wide prohibition which has been certified to me as having been adopted by a majority of the electors at the election aforesaid, and
"Whereas, it appears from the information laid before me that the convention aforesaid after its organization and before the formation of the said constitution duly declared on behalf of the people of the said proposed state that they adopted the constitution of the United States, and
"Whereas, it appears that the said constitution and gov- ernment of the proposed state of Oklahoma are republican in form and that the said constitution makes no distinction in civil or political rights on account of race or color, and is not repugnant to the constitution of the United States or to the principles of the declaration of independence, and that it contains all of the six provisions expressly required by section 3 of the said act to be therein contained; and
"Whereas, it further appears from the information laid before me that the convention above mentioned did by ordi- marce irrevocable accept the terms and conditions of the said act, as required by section 22 thereof, and that all the provisions of the said act approved on the 16th day of June, one thousand nine hundred and six, have been duly complied with.
"Now. therefore, I. Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States of America, do, in accordance with the pro- visions of the said act of Congress of June 16, 1906, declare
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and announce that the result of the said election, wherein the constitution formed as aforesaid was submitted to the people of the proposed state of Oklahoma for ratification or rejection, was that the said constitution was ratified together with a provision for state-wide prohibition, separately sub- mitted at the said election; and the state of Oklahoma is to be deemed admitted by Congress into the Union under and by virtue of the said act on an equal footing with the original states.
"In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington this 16th day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seven, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and thirty-second.
"THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
"By the president : Elihu Root, secretary of state."
A feature of the ceremonies incident to the inauguration of the first state officials at Guthrie was the marriage of Mr. Oklahoma to Miss Indian Territory. C. G. Jones of Oklahoma City was selected to impersonate the bridegroom. The proceedings were related in a story in a Guthrie news- paper :
"The 'bridegroom,' not one whit abashed, took his place in the center of the platform and began his abbreviated wooing with a knowing nod in the direction of the spectators.
"'I have been asked,' he said. 'to perform the agreeable duty of proposing the marriage of Oklahoma to the Indian Territory. Permit me to say that nothing gives me greater pleasure, as the President advises us in his proclamation that the marriage will be strictly legal, without regard to age, condition or previous servitude. The bridegroom is only eighteen years old, but is capable of assuming all the mat- rimonial responsibilities of a stalwart youth. Though he was born in trouble, in tribulation, in the city of Washington in 1889, his life of eighteen years on the plains has been one of tremendous activity, and he has grown to the size of a giant. Like every well-regulated maseuline individual he
ยท has grown tired of being alone, though he was fairly capable
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of taking care of himself. Strange to say, on account of his youth and inexperience, he is possessed of an unconquerable modesty and he has asked me to propose marriage with the Indian Territory.
"'Out of sympathy for the young bachelor, I now propose to the Indian Territory, who I am assured is matrimonially inclined, that the proposal be accepted, and that the union be consummated here and now. It should be understood, how- ever, that nothing should be said about the age of the bride. It is a case when youth and age are to be blended together in harmonious union, and that under the constitution and laws a divorce can never be granted. This is not exactly a case of love at first sight. A lady by the name of Sequoyah at one time interfered with the courtship and at first tried to break up the match. But having failed to do so, and tired of the loneliness of single blessedness, she gracefully surrendered to the inevitable and has ever since been in favor of the marriage.
"'By authority vested in me by the high contracting par- ties, and in obedience to their request, I now call upon Rev. W. H. Dodson, of the First Baptist Church of Guthrie, to perform the marriage ceremony.'
"The response for the blushing bride was made by W. A. Durant, of Durant, Indian Territory, a fullblood Indian. His formal acceptance was as follows:
" 'To you, Mr. Jones, as the representative of Mr. Okla- homa, I present the hand and the fortune of Miss Indian Ter- ritory, convinced by his eighteen years of persistent wooing that his love is genuine, his suit sincere and his purposes most honorable. With pride and pleasure I present to him Miss Indian Territory, who was reared as a politician orphan, tu- tored by federal office holders and controlled by an indifferent guardian residing a thousand miles from her habitation.
"'Despite the mhappy circumstances of her youth, which have cast a shade of sorrow over a face by nature intended to give back only the warm smiles of God's pure sunshine, this beauteous maiden comes to him as the last descendant of the proudest race that ever trod foot on American soil: a race whose sous have never bowed their necks to the heel of the oppressor; the original occupants of the American continent.
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"'Although an orphan, Miss Indian Territory brings to her spouse a dower that, in fertile fields, productive mines and sterling and upright citizenship, equals the fortune of her wooer. To Oklahoma, into whose identity Indian Territory is about to be merged forever, must be entrusted the care of this princely estate. We resign it to you freely in the con- fident hope that it will be cared for, developed and conserved to the unending glory of our new state and the untold benefit of her people.
"'Oklahoma, your wooing has been long and persistent. For eighteen weary years you have sought the hand of our fair maiden in wedlock. If the object of your suit has at times seemed indifferent, believe it to have been but evidence of a maiden's proper modesty and not a shrinking from the union.
"'In winning the hand, you take with it the heart. Your bride comes to you without coercion or persuasion, as the loving maiden confidently places her hand in that of her hus- band of her choice. The love she bears for you, as the love you feel for her, arises from kindred interests, mutual aspi- rations and an unbounded admiration, one for the other.'
"Until she stepped to the front to accept the hand of her fiancee the identity of the bride was known to but few. She was Mrs. Leo Bennett, of Muskogee, a bewilderingly handsome matron, whose Creek lineage is evidenced in a dark complex- ion, heightened by the bloom of perfect health.
"As she came slowly forward to the front of the platform the crowd gallantly shouted an acknowledgment. With a huge chrysanthemum the young woman shaded her eyes as she looked out over the crowd. She smiled and bowed again and again as the applause continued.
"Then the Rev. Mr. Dodson offered a fervent praver on the union and the formal marriage of the 'twin territories' was consummated."
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1908-NEW JERUSALEM APPROVED
As has been intimated heretofore, many people of the state believed that the matter of the location of a permanent state capital was a prerogative of the people rather than a prerogative of Congress, yet there was no disposition on the part of a majority to override that provision of the Enabling Aet that fixed the capital at Guthrie for a term of years. But in the interim the matter was always a live subject of discussion. On February 11, I. M. Putnam, representative from Oklahoma County, introduced a resolution in the Leg- islature providing that the capital should be moved to Okla- homa City. Soon thereafter, Senator Campbell Russell of Warner introduced a resolution asking for appointment of a committee to inquire into the feasibility of locating the cap- ital as near as possible to the geographical center of the state. His idea contemplated the establishment of a capital on a virgin spot where other state buildings would be assembled. On February 28 the Chamber of Commerce gave a banquet in honor of the Legislature, which came down from Guthrie in a body, and made it clear to the members that in due time the city would openly demand capital honors.
Senator Russell's idea became popular in Guthrie and met the approval of many residents of Oklahoma City, although President Stone of the Chamber of Commerce and Mayor Seales warned the people against it. It met the open and pronounced approval of Governor Haskell who, no doubt, at the time had in mind a project whereby the Russell idea could be complied with and Oklahoma City's desires met by the same act. The New Jerusalem idea was disposed of in the Legislature as a proposition to be voted upon in the autumn election. In that election it received a comfortable majority of the votes cast but there was a doubt of its having received the constitutional majority. Subsequently in major acts touching the subject this vote was kept in mind and in- terpreted as the voice of the people and the last word with reference to location.
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The desires of the Chamber of Commerce formulated and expressed during the previous year that the city should have a new charter were realized this year to the extent of a char- ter being written by a board of frecholders, of which Warren K. Snyder was president. Mayor Scales was ontspokenly opposed to the charter and refused to call an election to submit it to the people. Charter advocates took the matter to court and on July 23 the Supreme Court held that there was no constitutional inhibition to a charter of this nature supplanting the aldermanie form of government, but it did not grant the request of the charter advocates for a manda- mus directed at the mayor. The latter, therefore, announced that he would in his own good time issue an election call. The date fixed eventually was August 29 and after the call was made charter advocates and opponents pitched into a lively campaign, the result of which was that the charter was defeated by a little over two hundred votes. Opponents said it would have given the city a monarchical form of govern- ment. Public utility owners declared it was a step backward. The leading advocate of the charter on the stump was John H. Wright, one of its authors. John Shartel said it was a freak. Henry Overholser and G. B. Stone were outspoken against it.
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