Arizona republican., 1902-04-04

The Republican has often suggested
 that one of the best investments AriZo- na could make
 EASTERN would be the eX-
 IGNORANCE penditure necessa-
 AND THE ry to bring q large TERRITORIES. and representative delegation of east
 ern congressman to this territory, in or
 der that they might see for themselves
 situation of which they are so igno-
 rant. But until this is done. the next best thing is to keep up the campaign
 of education and point out the errors
 of eastern newspapers from which the congressman of that section get much
 of their "informa tion." But there are occasionally instances of such crass ig-
 norance that it is difficult to deal with them in patience. For instance, one
 would think that the census figures,
 which are open to everybody, would be
 a sufficient guide to prevent learned ed- itors in the east from solemnly putting forth statements concerning the pcpu- lation of the territories so wide of the | truth as to be ludicrous: For example.
 what excuse is there for stating that
 Oklahoma, with it's half million of peo- pie, is not equipped for statehood. We must express our appreciation for the manner in which the St. Louis Globe Democrat calls a Baltimore paper to book:
 The Baltimore American takes an
 original view on the Oklahoma admis-
 sion question. That paper opposes the admission of all three of the territories Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma which are trying to get in, but its
 principal hostility is to the last named
 territory. New Mexico" it remarks, | has, perhaps. the requisite population
 to elect a single congressman. and it is
 not probable that she will relapse into
 a rotten borough in one generation, but
 Oklahoma is entirely too previous It is true that New Mexico has popu- lation enough to come up to the con-
 gressional representation unit in the states. She ought to be admitted at once. But Oklahoma has twice as many inha as New Mexico. At
 the time the census count of 1900 was made Oklahoma had 39S. 900 inhabitants. With the gains which have been made since on account of the opening of the Indian reservations to settlement, cou- pied with the natural increase in the rest of the territory. Oklahoma's pres ent population is probably over 4500O0. That territory's increase between 1890 and 1900 was 544 per cent, and. though the expansion has necessarily been much slower since then, it has un- doubtedly been at least as rapid as that of any other community in the coun- try.
 | Is our Baltimore contemporary aware | of the fact that Oklahoma in 1900 had | more inhabitants than any one of these | states-Vermont. North Dakota, Utah. | Montana, Delaware, Idaho, Wyoming.
 and Nevada? That territory has prob ably gone above several other states | South Dakota. New Hampshire, Ore
 gon and Rhode Island-in the past two
 years. It has far more inhabitants
 than had any other territory at the | time of it's admission to statehood. It's
 area is three times as great as Mary
 lands. It is greater than that of Maine
 or Indiana, and greater than all of New England outside of Maine. The three | territories which are seeking admis-
 sion ought to be let in. There is not l the shadow of an excuse for keeping l Okla homa out any longer.