1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA (see ). The pop. of Oklahoma in 1920 was 2,028,283; in 1910 it was 1,657,155; an increase of 371,128 or 22.4% as compared with 866,764 or 109.7% in the preceding decade. The urban pop. increased from 19.3% of the total in 1910 to 26.6% in 1920. During the same period the density of pop.

increased from 23.9 per sq. m. to 29.2. Indians decreased from 74,825 to 57.337. Negroes increased from 137,612 to 149,408. The pop. in 1920 of the larger cities of the state was:&mdash;

History.&mdash;In 1910 the state capitol was moved from Guthrie to Oklahoma City. In 1913 an effort to move it back to Guthrie was defeated by popular vote. The state adopted in 1910 an election law designed to keep negroes from voting. This law contained the &ldquo;Grandfather Clause,&rdquo; but was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1915. In 1918 an amendment to the constitution was adopted granting equal suffrage to women. The state steadily maintained a law guaranteeing depositors in state banks against loss. This law has been so far successful that not a single depositor has met loss through the failure of a state bank. At the time of its admission in 1907 Oklahoma contained more than one-third of the Indian population of the United States. These Indians came from numerous tribes that had been moved to Oklahoma in the 19th century. The

absorption of the Indians into the general body of citizens has gone on increasingly since 1910. The Indians of Oklahoma had by 1920 practically no separate history, and such tribal organizations as were maintained were not for governmental purposes but were business corporations for the control of tribal property. The great mineral wealth of Oklahoma has made many of the Indians extremely wealthy. The Osage tribe in particular continued to hold much of its land as tribal property, and its members receive very large royalties. This was not true of certain other tribes, as the lands assigned to them are valuable only for grazing purposes, and the individual allotments under such circumstances bring small incomes.

The governors of Oklahoma after 1910 were:—Lee Cruce (Dem.) 1911-5; Robert L. Williams (Dem.) 1915-9; James Brooks Ayres Robertson (Dem.) 1919-.

(Author:Roy Gittinger)