464                   Ohronicles of Oklahoma
"We the undersigned members of the students of the Harley Institute,
so most respectfully petition your honorable body to pass a law pro-
hibiting the attendance upon this institution of any and all boys who smoke
Cigarettes, and to exclude and expel any and all students who use or smoke
Cigarettes who shall not quit and abstain from the use of the sams while
In school, within teu days from the passage and approval of said law."
The bill was recommended by Mr. Newberry but was killed in the
Senate on October 30, 1900.
An act typical of the character of Joe Newberry is the following:
In the early part of the 1904 Legislature, a bill was passed appropriating
$600 for school books to be used In the neighborhood schools of the
Chickasaw Nation. On November 19, 1904, the Chickasaw Legislature
passed a law, known as the General School Law, which voided the one
passed a few days before. During the time between the passage and the
repeal of the bill, Mr. Newberry purchased $141.00 in books for the
neighborhood schools and paid for them out of his own funds. On March
6, 1906, when the final curtain was being drawn on the tribal affairs, some-
one found the Invoice which had never been mentioned by Mr. Newberry.
As a result the following act was passed: "We deem it unjust to the said
Joe Newberry should lose anything. personally, on account of the trans-
action from which the Nation received all the benefit."z Mr. Newberry's
money was refunded. The period just prior and during the administration
of Joe Newberry as tribal Superintendent of Schools was the most difficult
In the history of Chickasaw education. Under the rules of the Curtis Act,
the Indian Bureau was to assume control of all the educational affairs
of the Five Civilized Tribes. J. B. Benedict, a school man from Illinois,
had been appointed by the Bureau Superintendent-at-large for schools of
the Five Civilized Tribes, and J. . Simpson was elected as the Chickasaw
Superintendent. The Chlkasaws resented the plan so bitterly that the
Bureau of Indian Affairs withdrew their representative to the Chickasaw
Nation, and at the same time, withheld all payments of royalties. This
forced the Chickasaw Nation to support their schools out of their other
limited tribal funds. Without the locome from the royalties the Chickasaw
educational system could not function efficiently. It was not long until
much of the school equipment and supplies needed replacement. Only the
teachers, who remained loyal to their profession, were unchanged. Re-
ports were made throughout the United States of the poor conditions of
the Chickasaw schools during this period. However true some of these
were yet the majority of the derogatory reports were given by men who
wished to force the close of the Chickasaw government.
The financial affairs of the Nation's educational department rapidly
grew worse. The teachers, if they were fortunate enough to obtain Cash
for their school warrants, were paid from thirty to eighty cents for every
dollar represented on their warrant. Then, In 1901, when education was
at a     very low  level, the leaders of the Chickasaw Nation, under the
guidance and leadership of Governor Douglas H. Johnston, decided they
could hold out no longer and they agreed to the regulations made by the
Indian Bureau. As a result, the warrants were paid out of the accumulated
coal and asphalt royalties.
Just before Oklahoma Btatehood, while Mr. Newberry was still Super..
intendent of Chickasaw Schools, the United States Congress enacted a
law providing rural schools In the Indian Territory, day schools for whites
and Indiana, and separate Bchools for Negroes. The Chickasaw Legis-
lature passed an act to suspend all the Chickasaw National Schools after
the date of January 31, 1906, from which time they were operated by the
t Miscellaneous School Papers of the Chickasaws, Indian Archives, O.H.S.