Volume 10 , Issue 5

The Organizational "Organic" Act

From Vol. 2, A Standard History of Oklahoma, pp. 643-650, by Joseph B. Thoburn, we learn a bit more history of the agitation for territorial government -- The Organic Act.

In the latter part of May, a call was issued for a convention to meet at Guthrie, on the 17th of July, 1889, for the purpose of planning the organization of a territorial government.

Sentiment was divided along local lines, Guthrie and the contiguous section strongly supporting the movement, while Oklahoma City, Kingfisher and several other leading towns, in the main, were strongly opposed to it.

In order to counteract the effect of such a movement, another convention was called to meet at the Town of Firsco, in Canadian County.

The town of Frisco was situated in the valley of the North Canadian River, about two miles northwest of the present town of Yukon, Oklahoma. Frisco was abandoned after the building of the railroad led to the establishment of Yukon, to which most of its buildings and inhabitants afterward moved.

Back to the agitation for territorial government... Resolutions of protest against the proposed organization of the territory, without the authority conferred by an act of Congress, were adopted by the convention at Frisco. The Guthrie convention met at the appointed time and, after three days of wrangling, adjourned to meet again on August 20, 1889, with 96 delegates present.

When the territorial convention reconvened, 4 weeks after the first meeting, there were a hundred delegates present. A majority of the delegates were known to favor the proposed organization of a territorial government, but a large minority insisted that the convention should frame a memorial to Congress, setting forth the needs of the territory, and then adjourn.

One committee was appointed to frame an organic act, another was chosen to draw up a memorial to Congress, and a third committee was selected to divide the territory into counties.

There was a determined fight made against the adoption of the proposed organic act. In the end, the delegates who opposed the scheme succeeded in influencing the committee in charge of defining the limits of voting precincts, apportioning the delegates and calling the election, not to take any action.

The memorial to congress was a supposedly dignified statement of the needs and condtions of the territory had the effect of "pouring oil on the r=troubled waters," as it were, and laying the spirit of local jealousy and rivalry, for the time being at least.

The memorial was signed by 100 men who were then numbered among the leading citizens of the new territory, not to exceed fifteen of them could be recognized as leading citizens of Oklahoma ten years later. A few had died during the course of the decade but the majority of the rest had proven to be transient sojourners who stayed for a time and then drifted on, no one knows where, thus illustrating forcibly the lack of permanency on the part of many of the first settlers, and especially of the class that might be denominated as political adventurers.

When the 51st Congress convened at Washington, in December, 1889, the memorial of the Oklahoma convention was presented, and three different bills for the creation of a territorial government for Oklahoma were introduced -- Senate Bill No. 895, by Senator Orville H. Platt, of Connecticut, and House bills Nos. 6 & 7, respectively by representatives William M. Springer, of Illinois, and Charles S. Baker, of New York.

it was after extended debatee and with additions of several amendments, the Senate passed Senator Platt's Oklahoma bill February 13, 1890. Just one month later, March 13, the House debated the bill at length, amended it still further and then passed it. The Senate voted to non-concur in the House amendments and a conference was arranged. The Senate finally voted to agree to the conference report, April 21, 1890, An error in the enrollment of the bill caused a request for its return by the President. The bill received the approval of President Harrison, May 2, 1890 -- over a year after the authorized settlement of the territory.

In its main provisions, the organic act for the Territory of Oklahoma conformed closely to the various acts of Congress under the terms of which all other territories of the United States had been organized.

It defined the limits of the Territory of Oklahoma as including all of that part of the former Indian Territory except the tribal reservations, proper, of the the five civilized tribes and the reservations included in the Quapaw Agency; also the Public Land Strip (commonly called No man's Lnd) and also to include Greer County (which was in dispute between the untied States and the state of Texas) only in case the title should be adjudged to be vested in the United States.

The form of government prescribed for the new territory was republican in that it was to consist of three departments, namely (1) executive, 92) legislative and (3) judicial. The chief executive of the territory was to be a governor, appointed by the president of the United States for the term of four years. The Legislative Assembly was to consist of two houses, designated respectively as the Council, consisting of 13 members, and the House of representatives, consisting of 26 members.

The judicial department was to be vested in a Supreme Court, district and probate courts and justices of the peace; the Supreme Court was to consist of a chief justice and two associate justices, each of the three justices to be assigned to duty as a district judge as well as serving as a member of the Appellate Court.

There were to be seven counties, to be designated by number, the names of the several counties to be chosen by vote of the people. The county seats of the several counties designated by the Organic Act were:

(1) Guthrie

(2) Oklahoma City

(3) Norman

(4) El Reno

(5) Kingfisher

(6) Stillwater

(7) Beaver

The governor of the territory was authorized to apportion the members of the two houses of the Legislative Assembly among the several counties, to issue a call for an election and to appoint a date and place for the convening of the same. The governor was also empowered to appoint such county and township oficers as might be necessary.

Guthrie was designated as the seat of the territorial government until such time as the Legislative Assembly and the governor of the territory might see fit to establish it elsewhere.

Sections numbered 16 and 36 of each township were reserved for the endowment of the public schools of Oklahoma.
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