page_title: Martin E. Trapp
section_title: Governor of Oklahoma
hierarchical_section_title: Martin E. Trapp / Governor of Oklahoma
caption_attribution_description: Theodore Roosevelt (1904) English: President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing front. Deutsch: Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten von 1901 bis 1909, Friedensnobelpreisträger des Jahres 1906.
context_page_description: Martin Edwin Trapp was an American state auditor, governor and lieutenant governor of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Oklahoma's third lieutenant governor, he was the first to become governor not through an election but instead due to the previous governor's impeachment and removal from office.
  Trapp served as the first state auditor and third lieutenant governor of Oklahoma. When Governor Jack Walton was impeached and removed from office, Trapp became the sixth governor of Oklahoma. As governor, he was responsible for the establishment of a state bureau of investigation, conservation programs, and his attempts to abolish the Ku Klux Klan. He began his political career serving as the county clerk of Logan County in Oklahoma Territory.
  Trapp died in 1951 and is buried in Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City.
context_section_description: Becoming the first lieutenant governor to assume the office of governor in the state's history, Trapp was Walton's opposite. Whereas Walton had been progressive and aggressive, Trapp was quiet and conservative. Top on the new governor's to-do list was trimming the state's budget to provide for a more efficient state government. Immediately upon coming into office, Trapp called the Oklahoma Legislature into special session to address the issue. An investigation of many state offices, commissions, and departments soon followed. In true conservative form, Trapp removed many state organizations that were, in his opinion, of little use to Oklahoma and provided much needed reorganization of the inflated state government.
  Trapp succeeded in having the state legislature repeal over $10,000,000 in expenditures that Walton had set up, thus restoring the state's credit. This also meant repealing the state's new free textbook program and a one-third reduction in the funds spent on school aid. Through the use of a three cent gasoline tax, Trapp raised enough funds to finance Oklahoma's first Highway Commission. This commission oversaw Oklahoma's much needed highway construction program.
  Following a growth national trend started by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, Trapp began a program of conservation. Trapp created the Oklahoma Forestry Commission, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission, and the Oklahoma Fish and Game Commission out of his desire to preserve the environment. Trapp expanded the term lengths of county offices from two years to four, enacted a state drainage law to protect the state from floods, and raised the cost of licenses in the state.
  Trapp also proved to be an effective law enforcement officer. For the first time in the state's history, a State Bureau of Criminal Investigation was established in 1925 from pressure from Trapp's administration. Trapp asked the Legislature for harsher punishment and stricter enforcement of prohibition, which he received. Trapp also tackled the growing power of the Ku Klux Klan by passing an anti-mask law which eventually reduced the group's power.
caption: Like Theodore Roosevelt, Trapp was a pioneer of conservation programs.
exif: {}