354 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts , and Letters. 
pointed first governor of the territory of Oklahoma, and on the 
twenty-second he assumed the duties of his office. These com 
sisted at first in defining the boundaries of the counties, organ¬ 
izing county governments and appointing officers to carry out 
the provisions of the laws of Nebraska. A census enumeration 
was immediately taken which disclosed a population of over 
sixty thousand. On the basis of this, the territory was appor¬ 
tioned into districts for legislative purposes, and on the fifth of 
August 1890 an election was held for members of the first legis¬ 
lative assembly. This assembly met August 27th, and after 
spending the greater part of the session of a hundred days in 
quarreling over the location of the capital, finally enacted a 
fair code of laws to take the place of the Nebraska code. The 
organization of the government in this youthful territory was 
now fairly complete, and it continued to run with very little 
friction. 1 
Many things combined to make the first two years in Okla¬ 
homa especially hard ones for the farmers on their new claima 
Large numbers of them had already failed in western Kansas 
or northwestern Texas on account of drought or had been wait¬ 
ing on the borders of the country until their resources had been 
exhausted. When we add to all this the fact that the opening 
was too late for any crops to be raised in 1889, it can readily be 
seen how dependent the farming population must have been on 
the results of the harvest of 1890. But through some strange 
freak of fate an unexampled drought occurred in that year 
which was almost fatal to the first crops throughout the new 
territory. Under such circumstances it was but to be ex¬ 
pected that destitution and suffering would be prevalent 
among Oklahoma’s ill-fated citizens, and urgent measures of 
relief were necessary. The governor made an appeal to 
Congress, and on the first of September a resolution was 
passed (26 Stats., 679) appropriating a generous sum for ren 
lieving the destitute in the new territory. The Atchison, 
Topeka and Santa Ke, and the Chicago and Keck Island 
railroads did their share toward relieving the situation 
i Sfec. Int. Rept., 1891, vol. 3, pp. 449-450. 
