344 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,, Arts, and Letters. 
in criminal cases punish able by death or hard labor, and of the 
newly established United States court of Indian Territory with 
jurisdiction in other 1 offences and civil cases) where the amount 
involved was one hundred dollars or more. Under the act of 
March 1, 1889 (25 Stats., 784), which created this court, an 
attorney and United States marshal had been appointed for it, 
and the latter had been given power to appoint deputies. 
Under this very defective system there was no law and no one 
with executive power but a marshal of a distant United States 
court. 1 In spite of all this:, the President and the Secretary of 
the Interior felt that it would be far better to open up the ter¬ 
ritory as it was and trust to the innate sense of justice in the 
American people, than to postpone the opening until proper 
government could be provided by the' next session of Congress 
and thus disappoint and entail great hardships upon the thou¬ 
sands of people already gathered on the borders of the prom¬ 
ised land. 
The President’s proclamation of March 23rd 2 provided for the 
establishment of two land offices for Oklahoma, one at Guthrie 
and one at Kingfisher Stage Station, and registers and receiv¬ 
ers for these were immediately appointed. Inspector 1 Pickier 
was detailed from the General Land Office and proceeded to 
make arrangements for establishing the Oklahoma offices. 
The buildings for these offices were made in sections, conveyed 
into the territory on wagons, and there put together, and on the 
stated day the land officers were in their places and the offices 
opened ready for business. 3 The United States marshals ap¬ 
pointed a large number of deputies in anticipation of the 
crowds to come and made arrangements for 1 preserving order 
among the settlers, and a military force was also detailed by the 
Secretary of War to keep out the: people: on the border until the 
stated time and to assist in preserving order during the 
opening. 
Word had gone forth throughout the United States that 
Oklahoma was at last to be opened to the homeseeker, and 
long before the opening day her future population began to 
1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1889, vol. 1, pp. iv-v. 
2 Ibid., pp. 95-103. 
a Ibid., p. v. 
