Harlow's Weekly (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 4, No. 14, Ed. 1 Saturday, December 13, 1913 Page: 4 of 24
This newspaper is part of the collection entitled: Harlow’s Weekly and was provided to The Gateway to Oklahoma History by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
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HARLOW’S WEEKLY
cused of usurping powers of the court and
framing rulings without jurisdiction, with
appraising lands unfairly, particularly by
reducing the value of improvements at the
rate of 10 per cent per year and allowing
only the original cost price on fruit trees
regardless of the age. It was charged that
appraisers had endeavored to and have se-
cured appraisements signed in blank, and
that the rights of the agricultural lessees
were being encroached upon by the oil and
gas lessees. They have been advised by
Senator J. Elmer Thomas, their attorney,
to not allow mineral lessees to occupy
lands being held by them under agricul-
tural leases until the former had made
terms with the agricultural lessees, even
if it was necessary to secure injunctions
from the courts. It is contended that lessees
have been compelled to take land at the
appraised value without other bids having
been made upon them or forfeit their pref-
erence right.
The other speakers have followed Sec-
retary Hyde and the discussion of the school
land subject with a general appeal to join
the movement to unite the forces of the
farming and laboring interests for the pur-
pose of renewing the hold upon public af-
fairs that existed at the time of the making
of the Oklahoma constitution. The plan is
to enlist the support of these various or-
ganizations for the purpose of amassing a
sufficient power to force candidates for of-
fice—particular those for the legislature—
to unalterably pledge themselves to work
and vote to enact into law measures that
will relieve and benefit these classes. Mr.
Fields speaks as the representative of the
organizations of railroad employes. He
states that the laboring interests have been
badly treated in recent legislatures, and
that a lack of unity has dissipated the po-
tent influences wielded during the consti-
tutional convention and with earlier legis-
latures. He says that if the farmers and
lessees will stand with union labor in its
demands, that union labor will do a like
service for these organizations.
The state
again drawing
Protesting
School Land
Matters
school land department is
fire. A wave of protest is
going up over the recent
sale of school lands in
northwestern Oklahoma.
Among other things crit-
icised, the lands were sold
at the most inopportune time since state-
hood—when a financial depression was at its
worst. In the next place the land was sold
for much less than it was appraised in 1908,
without being reappraised according to law
— on a lead pencil appraisement made in
the Oklahoma City offices of the depart-
ment. Further than that these sales were
not generally attended and much of the
land was purchased on powers of attorney
by A. M. Van Meter, former business asso-
ciate of Secretary John R. Williams, who
conducted the sale, and Williams’ successor
in the famous defunct Oklahoma Brokerage
Company. Land that was appraised in 1908
at as high as $10 and $15 per acre was sold
at from $2 to $4, and the complaint is freely
made that it was gobbled up by a combina-
tion of cattlemen through Van Meter, and
that the state will receive less money out
of the sale than it would have received from
leasing the land during the period covering
payments, and then still have had the land
left. The people of this district have been
anxious that this land be sold in the hope
that it would be bought by people who
would become actual settlers, while the
manner in which the sale was conducted has
wholly disappointed this purpose.
There have also been many complaints
about the manner in which the farm loan
business of the department is being conduct-
ed. The Miami Record-Herald recently
went after the department hard, charging
that the actual farmers of that county had
never been able to get loans from the de-
partment, but that land speculators had pro-
cured practically all the money loaned in
that district. John Fields in the current
issue of the Oklahoma Farm Journal prints
the following arraignment of the depart-
ment :
I have been astonished at the number of let-
ters which have come telling of delays in closing
five per cent farm loans from the state’s perma-
nent school fund. If they are typical of the man-
ner in which this loan business is handled, this
fund of more than $5,(H)0.000 isn’t making very
serious competition for the loan companies who
handle their business in a business-like manner.
Since giving the name and location of any who
have written might possibly cause further delay,
they will not be mentioned. But here are a few
quotations: “I sent in an application in October.
They reported my abstract O. K. and said they
would order my land appraised immediately. I
have heard nothing from them since. They were
quite prompt in answering until they got my $20
deposit, 1 suppose they are so crowded with
business now that they have no time for little
things like closing up farm loans.” Another says:
1 rote for application blanks about, two weeks
ago and have not heard from them yet.” One
*ho has been trying to get a loan through since
September writes: “1 am anxiously waiting
waiting, waiting. If there is such a thing as
hurrying them up. 1 wish it could be done.” An-
other says. ‘I have written to John R. Williams,
secretary to the commissioners of the land office
Mercantile building, Oklahoma City, and have re^
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Harlow, Victor E. Harlow's Weekly (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 4, No. 14, Ed. 1 Saturday, December 13, 1913, newspaper, December 13, 1913; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1600385/m1/4/?q=War+of+the+Rebellion.: accessed July 4, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.