Volume 9 , Issue 39

1893 News - Oklahoma Delegate Denounces the Cherokee Strip Opening

It was Friday, September 22, 1893, in the Alva Pioneer, out of Alva, Oklahoma Territory, that we learned from the headlines that read: "Scored By Flynn" -- The Oklahoma Delegate Denounces the Cherokee Strip Opening.

Washington, Sept. 21, 1893 -- "At the opening of the house session yesterday morning, Mr. Flynn, the delegate from Oklahoma created a mild sensation by asking for the immediate consideration of a resolution bearing on the outrages said to have been committed by the United States troops at the Cherokee Strip last Saturday. The resolution recited that the press of the country had for several days contained accounts of the burning of vegetation and the killing of homesteaders by the United States troops in connection with the opening of the strip, and called upon the secretary of war to know by what authority the troops had acted. By unanimous consent Mr. Flynn was allowed to make a short statement.

He went to the clerk's desk and had read the accounts of the alleged depredations by the troops, and then in a passionate way he declared that all the regulations under which the strip had been opened were a disgrace to modern civilization. "The capstone of the whole infamous business," he shouted, "came when settlers who had stood for hours on the line famishing for water were heartlessly shot down by the military."

Colonel Oates of Alabama, objected to the present consideration of the resolution and it was laid aside."
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