DOINGS OF THE
LAWMAKERS
/
A Brief Summary of the Oklahoma
Legislature for a Week—Im-
portant Bills Treated at
Length in Editorials
Tliurtday, February 5
In committee of the whole today the
house passed the quarantine measure,
making the outer boundaries of Okla-
homa the oattle quarantine line. The
vote was 18 to 8. The measuro was
then placed on its passage. It has con-
sumed practically live days' debate.
Amendments will be proposed making
the Oklanoma quarantine rules uniform
with those of the secretary of agricul-
ture, and allowing cattle to be brought
to cotton oil mills for feeding purposes.
The house committee of the whole
also passed Speaker Bowles' bill pro-
viding for the taxation of property in
unorganized counties, and Edgar Jones'
bill regulating the letting of public con-
tracts.
House bills were reported favorably
oreating county depositories, paying
eleotion officials, incorporating the Sa-
cred H6art Catholic school, regulating
municipal officers' salaries and regulat-
ing the inclosing of large tracts of land
for cattle grazing.
The senate today passed the measure
preventing the employment of child la-
bor and working children between 14
and 18 over eight hours daily.
The measure to give the bank exam-
iner an increased salary and a deputy,
and to limit banks of $5,000 capital
stock to towns of less than 1,000 inhab-
itants, met with strong opposition. Al-
though a majority report favored its
passage, the minority report was adopt-
ed. President Alexander introduced a
measure providing for the erection of a
schoolhoueu on the Fort Supply military
reservation. The rules were suspended
and the bill passed immediately with-
out debate.
The senate turned down the measure
providing for additional statements be-
fore bills wore reported favorably; en-
forcing attendance of children at sohool;
a fellow servant law; creating offiioe of
road commissioner and providing for
the weekly cleaning of jail premises.
House bills were introduced as fol-
lows :
By Mr. Nesbitt—Protecting birds and
their nests; encouraging horticultural
interests of Oklahoma.
By Edgar Jones—Relating to duties
and liabilities of county commissioner;
providing for extension of streets and
alleys.
The following senate bills were intro-
duced :
By Senator Gore—Making ten per
cent legal rate of interest; providing
for high schools in country districts.
By Senator Winkler—Preventing rid-
ing bicyoles on railroads.
By Senator Campbell—Providing that
no probate court or justice judgment
ihall be a lien on realty.
Friday, February 6.
The house committee on railroads re-
ported favorable the fellow servant
measure. From other committees, a
measure, relating to the time of printing
legal notices, as well as one to build a
bridge across the South Canadian river
and making an appropriation, were re-
ported favorably. So were bills author-
izing cities to build sewers, legalizing
the incorporation of four towns in Gar-
field county, and requiring registration
of voters in cities of the first class. An
adverse report was made on bill num-
ber 128, a sidewalk and paving measure.
In the oouncil the committee 011
quarantine reported favorably the bill
to make it a misdemeanor to misrepre-
sent the pedigree of a breeding stock.
From the railroad committee a favor-
able report was made on the bill re-
quiring railroads running within five
miles of a county Beat, to run into such
towns. While the report was favorable.
It was reoomraended that the distance
be increased to eight miles. This
adopted.
Haturday, February 7th.
Both houses of the legislature ad-
journed at noon until 2 o'clock next
Monday. Mr. Frauds in the house ob-
jected to the "free and easy life the
legislature was leading" and wanted all
railroad passes withdrawn until some-
thing was done. At the request of Secre-
tary Grimes concurrent resolution waB
offered in the house appointing a oom-
mittee to investigate the office of the
territorial secretary. A bill was intro-
duced by Representative Decker mak-
ing the smoking of cigarettes on the
streets and in public places a misde-
meanor punishable by a fine of not less
than $10 nor more than $50. The pos-
session of cigarette paper or a substitute
is to be considered as prima faoia evi-
dence of guilt. A bill to appropriate
$5,000 for a bridge across the C&eadian
at Bridgeport was introduced.
Monday, February 0
Council Bill No. 64, entitled "An act
to establish and locate a normal school
at Southwestern Oklahoma and to pro-
vide for the selection of a site, oonstruc«
tion of building and for the maintenance
of said school," was taken up by the
council as a committee of the whole and
the session this afternoon was a heated
one. This was the bill to repeal the act
of 1891 for the location of a normal
school at Weatherford. Under this act
Gov. Barnes appointed a committee whc
located the school at Weatherford.
When section 4 of the bill was reached,
Webster got the floor and made a thirty
minute speech against the adoption oi
the section and gave data as to causes
why his town should have the normal.
Webster is a man of strong voice and in
a few moments visitors from the lower
house began to fill up all spare room,
many ladies being among the number.
The council adjourned without having
reached a decision, but an interesting
time is promised when the bill is called
up again.
A memoranda was introduced in the
council today by Senator Hickain giv-
ing an estimate of expenditure neces-
sary to the making of a proper exhibit
at the St. Louis World's Fair. The
statement shows that $64,200 will be re-
quired to do this The memoranda was
read and referred to the committee on
ways and means.
The house had a number of bills un-
der discussion, but there was little
progri ss made,
Tuesday, February 10.
The lower house convened with all
members present except four. The
speaker announced that after this date
he will grant no excuses except for sick-
ness, After an absence of two days the
pay of employees will stop. A com-
mittee was appointed to examine the
books and records in ";he office of th)
territorial secretary. A petition from
hardware merchants in Anadarko pray-
ing for relief from curbstone dealers in
I u Tgies was presented and referred to
the ways and meaes committee. Mr.
Robinson introduced a petition from
the teachers of Greer county asking
that their claims be allowed for teach-
ing school after Greer county had be-
come a part of Oklahoma. Mr. Robin-
son said that warrants amounting to
between $2,000 and $3,000 were still
outstanding and ha would introduce a
bill looking towards the payment of
same. After the introduction of this
bill the house resolved itself into a com-
mittee of the whole, and the best day's
work of the sessioh was done.
Only one bill was introduced in the
council, council bill No. 143, by Mr.
Hickam, providing that the territorial
superintendent of public instruction,
the president of the normal school at
Edmond and the president of the uni-
versity of Oklahoma at Norman, and
one county superintendent to be named
by the governor, shall constitute the
territorial board of education, prescribes
their term of office, and defines their
duties. It was read the first time by
title.
Both houses adjourned until Thurr-
day. Tomorrow will be spent in a visit
to the Stockman's association at Okla-
homa Git/,
INDIAN TERRITORY.
*********
News Happenings in One of the Richest Sections on Earth.
AN OLD CLAIM REVIVED H. L. DAWES DEAD
lrban ai Wants i Hit Strip of th« lu-
diau Territory
Washington : Representative McRae
Introduced in the house a bill pertinent
io the agitation in the Indian Territory
md Oklahoma for single statehood. It
provides for the annexation to the west-
?rn part of Arkansas of a strip of land
forty miles wide and about 300 miles
long, in all about 12,000 square miles or
7,000,000 acres. Arkansas claims the
land in question and alleges that it was
Illegally taken and given to the Indians.
That the land once belonged to Arkan-
sas there is no question, but the legality
of its transfer is another matter The
act by which the transfer was made is
in interesting chapter in the history of
the state.
Arkansas was organized as a territory
In 1819. The boundaries at the time
were the present boundaries of the state
In 1824, by act of congress, the western
boundary was extended forty miles,
thus ceding to the territory a strip of
land forty miles wide and 300 miles
long. In 1828 the then secretary of war,
James Barbour, by a treaty with the
chiefs of the Cherokee nation, abolished
the boundary line established by con-
gress and gave this strip to the Indians.
This treaty was ratified by the senate.
It caused an acrimonious debate, in
which the contention was made that
congress had the sole right to dispose of
United States territory and that the sec-
retary of war had no power under the
constitution to dispose by treaty of land
previously disposed of by congress.
Senator Benton bitterly opposed the
ratification of the treaty upon the
ground that it was a flagrant violation
of the constitution of the United States.
Mr. Benton wrote a chapter on this
transaction in his "Thirty Years in the
Senate." After assailing the treaty as
violating the rights of Arkansas and
contrary to the constitution, he com-
plains that the amazing feature of the
affair was that it was done by southern
senators who at that time were active in
opposing every measuro which sought
to limit the area of the slave territory.
Mr. Calhoun was president of the sen-
ate at the time Secretary Barbour, a
southern man, and nineteen slave sena-
tors voted for the ratification of the
treaty as against five slave senators who
voted against it, thus transferring 12,-
000 square miles of slave territory to
free territory.
The Arkansas legislature, in asking
its senators and representatives to get
this territory back, sets forth that Ar-
kansas has for more than seventy years
slept upon her rights, thus depriving
her citizens of the use and benefit of
7,000,000 acres of valuable and fertile
land; that the state has lost millions of
dollars which would have been collect-
ed in taxes; lost additional representa-
tion in congress and in the electoral col-
lege, and that it is desired before any
action is taken toward making a state
of the Indian Territory that this laud
may be called back.
McRae's bill looks to the recession of
this strip of valuable land to his
state. The difficulty that seems to
bo in the way is that the treaty
which took the land away from Ar-
kansas may have been unconstitutional
as Mr. Benton asserted when Arkansas
was admitted in 1836, the enablin
act fixed the boundaries of the state in
accordance with the provisions of the
Barbour treaty, thus in effect validat-
ing the provisions of the treaty. This,
it is believed, will prove an obstacle to
the efforts of the Arkansas delegation
in congress to get the land back. Thi>-
land in question is the most valuable
part of the Indian Tesrilory and, if Ar-
kansas could acquire it, something like
Y0 million dollars of values would be
add 4 to the state's wealth, while its
area would bo increased by nearly 20
per c>ent.
Man Iu Whoso Honor the Indian Com-
million Was Named l'ai et Away
Pittsfikld, Mass. : Ex-United States
Senator Henry Laurens Dawes died at
his home here, age eighty-six years.
When President Roosevelt visited Pitts-
field last fall, he called upon Mr. Dawes
and it was while returning from a visit
to Dawes' house that the trolley accident
occurred in which the president figured.
Mr. Dawes was born at Ounnington,
Mass., and graduated at Yale. He taught
school and edited the Greenfield Gamette
and Adams Transcript. Later he prac-
ticed law. He was a member of the
Massachusetts legislature for many
terms, and served iu the lower house of
congress for eighteen years. Following
that long period of service in the lower
branch he served eighteen years in the
United States senate, voluntarily retir-
ing in 1893, at which time he accepted
the chairmanship of the Dawes commis-
sion and served actively on the oonauis-
sion for several years in Oklahoma aud
Indian Territory. Ho was still a mem-
ber of the commission at the time of his
death. His long servioe in behalf of the
Indians being considered ample justifi-
cation for retaining him on the rolls
after old age had unfitted him for active
duty. 
THE SURVEY IS COMPLETE
The Men Kmployed tu Locating aud
Making l*lat  Are l>i in inxinl
Muskogee: All the surveying parties
in the field service in the Dawes com-
mission have been called in, and F. T.
Marr, chief of the department of engin-
eering, stated that the work of the sur-
veyors uinler the Dawes commission had
been completed. Four camps were at
at work in the Cherokee nation and one
in the Creek nation. There were 100
men in the party and they have been
working in the fields for three or four
years. The task was a big one. Map«
anil plats were made showing every sec-
tion of land and the improvements on
it, including the fences and the amount
of land in cultivation. This was neces-
sary iu making the allotments iu order
that each citizen might file upon the
land upon which he had improvements.
Nearly all of the tillable land in the In-
dian Territory was surveyed in this
way. Their work completed, nearly all
the surveyors aud engineers employed
will be dismissed except a few retained
as locating clerks for the land office.
NEW TERRITORY ROADS
Map Filed H'ltli Indian Agent Showing
Routes of Two Proposed lioad*
Vinita: Two maps have been filed
with the United States Indian agent for
the Iudifin Territory, showing the line
of two new railroads in the Indian Ter-
ritory. The first map filed shows the
proposed route of the Muskogee South-
ern from Muskogee northeast. It has
been the idea of the people generally
that the new line went direct from
Muskogee to Tulsa, but the maps indi-
cate that it will be built to Red Fork
instead of Tulsa. The new road fol-
lows the Arkansas river on the south
side nearly the entire distance from
Muskogee to Red ?brk, touching Stons
Bluff and Weleetka. A great many
people think the new road is a Santa Ft
line and others think it a Frisco and
still others say the Missouri Kansas St
Texas railway is not asleep on the sub-
ject. At any rate, it is an important
Indian Territory line aud will strike the
oil fields of the Indian Territony at Red
Fork. The other map filed shows the
proposed line of the Rock Island from
Haileyville to the northwest. This man
only covers a distance of twenty-fivl
miles of the new Rock Island,
Twin Virtues.
When a man makes a very lon|
prayer In church, sonAhow his hear-
ers get the impression that when ha
scolds in the privacy of his family h«
keeps a long time at it.—Atchisoj
Globa