The Newark star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1909, 1909-04-17
Whltes laundering 5NdAaNs
Gut q 70 900, 900 Acres
81 RICH Oklahoma SAND
Amazing Story of Graft Behind Notorious Maskogee
7oqyn Lot Scandal Richest Loot IN America hvolved
in 24,000 Alleged Land Fraud Gases Now Pending In
Federal and State Courts.
BY EMERSON HoUGH;


- EHIND the indictment of Governor Charles NJ Haskell and six other
leading citizens of Oklahoma, alleging a conspiracy to defraud the gov
ernment in the Muskogee town lot cases is a story Of alleged whole
proximateiy twenty-four thousand cases are w pending in the courts Con-
corning them Emerson Hough writes in Hanptons Magazine for May that
not only is Oklahoma honey-combed with small graft but "big graft has
been constantly worked fol a dozen years The big graft has taken out
If America. The big graft can be spelled in me little word of four letters
LAND. Coal land. Oil land. Gas land Asphalt land. Lumber land. Nine
teen million acres If it-and all in the hands OF a MISUNDERSTANDING. dis
heartened body Of M hundred thousand American Indians, unettered, heed
less as children, broken down, utterly disconsolate and bewldered.
How did the great land graft start? 1t started with the advent of the
Dawes Commission and the idea of anottng to each Indian certain num-
Der O acres Of land in Indian Territory. Som of this land he a COM
PEELED to kep rs his homestead; the rest of it he could SELL rs
The Indianw vas forced to take hiss allotment whether he wanted it Of not
by the Federal laws confirming the agreement with the Five Nations. Also
by the san law, an bis n ould eventually come onto1 the market 1T Is lot
right to SAL that the indian rae ever voted FOR that act. 1t "a passed by the
Whitley vote 1t was ratified by the white blood, and lot by the red
~ IL understand IN last stand of a vanishing race re must keel certain
historical facts in mind At the time the Five Civilized Tribes were moved
rom the Eastern Southern States across the Mississippi river to the section
we 10Y know as Oklahoma, they ownedvast funds, paid them for their land il
the interest rolling up coninuany-so much interest that sometimes me
family has had due it 5000 Or $4,000 in interest alone. They owned also IN
lands contain immensely valuable natural riches, the royalties on the. leases
alone being enormous-for 1905 about s17Ooooo Asphalt lands timber lands
and railway lands are alsoc classified revenue producers
Suppose" say Mr. Hough, going to the heart of the graft system, II
i'm a CRATER, and hat / know where the good agricultural lands are 1 also
a good farm 200 miles west Of him, which he never saw n never intends to
see. That means that when thu restrictions are removed from that surplus
land, it will conn M the market under conditions 10 very favorable to my
indian tut mighty iavoraple 10 me- Perhaps1 already W. a lease IN it, be-
freth he Indian gets it, To make the Indians moreh helpless, they were often.
by INSCRIPTIONS grafters posing as friends scattered a widely as possible to
their notment; this being something with which the Dawes Commission had
nothing to do r 9sss~
"Do these things seem rather coarse and aw? They are all true and
names. chapter and verse a be given. for each and every statement made
allotted Oklahoma-the most part SO FAR as relations with the Indians are con
cerned-is coarse and raw Money is easy in Oklahoma The margin between
two dollars a acre and thirty dollars an acre. between N hundred and fifty
dollars a lot and eve thousand dollars a lot, is very wide" 1oak