890 OKLAHOMA 



On October 21, 1912 Dr. Stratton Duluth Brooks (b. 1869), who had been superintendent of 

 schools in Boston since 1906, was inaugurated president of Oklahoma University. For the 

 school year ending June 30, 1911 there were 556,852 children of school age, an enrollment 

 of 443,227 (37,354 negro) and an average daily attendance of 260,018. The average length 

 of the school year was 6.5 months. The receipts for school purposes were $8,076,310 and 

 expenditures, 6,759,413. At the election of November 1912 the people adopted (100,042 

 to 65,436) a constitutional amendment for state aid to districts in which the local tax of 

 5 mills is not enough to keep school for 5 months. 



In 1910 of the whole population 10 years of age and over 5.6% (12.1 in 1900) was illiter- 

 ate: of whites, 3.6% (7.9 in 1900); of negroes, 17.7 (37 in 1900). 



Penal and Charitable Institutions. The penal and charitable work suffers from the 

 newness of organisation and the lack of buildings for the institutions; and in 1911 large 

 appropriations were made for new buildings. An act gave to the commissioner of charities 

 and corrections the authority to appear as "next friend" before a county court having 

 probate jurisdiction for minor orphans, defectives, dependents and delinquents in public 

 institutions. The state commissioner of charities and corrections is a woman, Miss Kate 

 Barnard, to whom the success and efficiency of the department are largely due. She was 

 largely responsible for constitutional and statutory provisions in regard to compulsory 

 education, child labour, prison laws, etc. The department has a "public defender" who 

 appears in cases for orphans and minors, whom the peculiar status of land-holdings, espe- 

 cially of Indians, in the state makes singularly likely to be defrauded of their property. A 

 farm colony for discharged prisoners is proposed. 



History. In 1911-12 the legislature was Democratic (by 57 on joint ballot) and all 

 the administrative officers were Democrats. Lee Cruce (b. 1863), Democrat, in 1910, 

 was elected governor for 1911-15 by 120,218 votes to 99,527 for McNeal (Rep.) and 

 24,707 for Cumble (Socialist) ; in 1907 a much larger total vote was polled, but only 9,303 

 votes were cast for the Socialist candidate for governor. In the elections of November 

 1912 the Democrats were successful. Woodrow Wilson received 119,156 votes, the 

 Republican electors 1 90,786 and Debs 42,262 (in 1908, 21,734). The reapportionment 

 of 1910 gave the state 8 representatives in Congress, instead of 5. Of the five in the 

 62nd Congress, two were Republicans and three Democrats, and these five were re-elected 

 from districts in 1912, but the three chosen at large were Democrats. In the 4th and 

 5th districts the Socialist candidates received only a few less votes than the Republican 

 candidates 100 (out of 46,000) in one and less than 1,000 (out of 52,000) in the other. 

 Robert Latham Owen (b. 1856), Democrat, United States senator in 1907-13, carried 

 the senatorial primary (Oregon plan) by 126,418 to 83,429 for his Republican opponent 

 Judge H. B. Dickerson, and was the choice (Tan. 21, 1913) of the strongly Democratic 

 legislature (senate: 36 Democrats, 8 Republicans; house: 80 Democrats, 18 Republi- 

 cans). The other senator from the state is Thomas Pryor Gore (b. 1870), senator since 

 1907, whose term ends in 1915; he is totally blind . 



The adoption of the " grandfather " clause, August 2, 1910 (by 135,443 to 106,222), 

 tending to disfranchise negroes, seemed likely to provoke a contest between Federal 

 and state authorities. Under instructions from the attorney-general election officials 

 refused to register negroes in certain districts or to allow them to vote, and in 1910 some 

 election officers were indicted by Federal grand jury. The only conviction was of two 

 officials 2 for fraudulently hindering a voter this was not a test of the constitutionality, 

 of the " grandfather clause," which the state supreme court (27 Okla. 292) upheld, but 

 which Federal judges in the eastern and western districts in obiter dicta denied. In the 

 eastern district there were prosecutions for enforcing the " grandfather clause " in 

 registration and at the primary of August 6, 1912, and several officials were bound over 

 to await the action of the grand jury. In the western district the Federal attorney be- 

 fore the general election of 1912 warned election officers that the " grandfather clause " 

 was unconstitutional and the enforcement a violation of the laws of the United States. 



There were several lynchings in the state in 1911: a negress and her son, accused of 

 murder, at Okameh, May 25th; a negro, shot and burnt for rape at Durant, August 

 i3th; another accused of rape, burnt at the stake at Purcell, August 23rd, when sheriffs 



1 Of the Republican electors 7 were for Roosevelt and 3 for Taft. 



1 Frank Guinn and J. J. Beal, convicted September 1911 and sentenced to I year in the 

 penitentiary at Leavenworth and to pay a fine of Sioo, appealed. 



