Baseball: A Ponderous and Elaborate Affair (Historical Guest Blog – Rev. J.T. Crane)

December 22, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

Today’s commentary is from the Rev. J.T. Crane, a writer without his own blog, most likely due to the fact that he’s been dead for well over a century. Here he mocks, condemns, and predicts the demise of what we today would call ‘professional baseball’, although his criticisms would apply equally well to any of the decadent sports – football, basketball, curling, etc. (Not hockey, of course – as the true Sport of the Gods, it alone is pure of intention and deed.)

I find this piece amusing in its own twisted little way, but in sharing it I have no intention of actually slandering baseball or any other sport. If you nevertheless feel slighted by the Reverend’s words, don’t take it personally – he was far harsher on the theater, novel-reading, and the ultimate time-waster and brain-killer, chess.

Chapter V: “BASE BALL” (From Popular Amusements by Rev. J.T. Crane, published 1869)

“And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Exodus xxxii, 6.

“…in the ancient and honorable way, carelessly, hilariously…”

Base ball may be made a very pleasant amusement, wholly unobjectionable either in regard to health or morals. Many of our readers well remember how it used to be played by the village school-boys. Two of the best players volunteered, or were elected by acclamation, to organize the two “sides.” The leaders tossed up a bat, with a mark on one side of it, to determine the first choice. The winner looked around the circle of boys and made his selection; then the other leader named a boy for his side, and so it went on, by alternate selections, till all were enrolled. The bat was again tossed up, to determine who should be “in” first, and then the play began.

How they knocked the ball, and ran and threw the ball at each other, and fell down in their eagerness to avoid being hit, and laughed and shouted, and grew hot, and red, and finally weary! No crowd of excited spectators were there to applaud special acts of skill, and thus spoil the sport; no “scorer” noted down in his book the number of “runs” or of “fly-catches;” no representative of the public press was there, to prepare an extended and eloquent report, confounding simple readers with his vocabulary of new terms; no body inquired which side was victorious, and all were happy.

And in these later days, if a score of young men or older men would provide a basket of refreshments, and go out into the fields by themselves and play two or three hours, in the ancient and honorable way, carelessly, hilariously, not even noticing who makes the most “runs,” they would all feel the better the next day; and the wit and humor elicited on the occasion would echo in twenty home circles for weeks to come.

“…base ball has become a ponderous and elaborate affair…”

But since it attained the dignity of being our “national game,” base ball has become a ponderous and elaborate affair. Rules as rigid as those which govern the proceedings of the Congress of the United States are fixed, by general councils of men learned in the art, and goodly volumes are published discussing the size, shape, and weight of balls and bats, and determining the proper distances between the bases. Associations are formed, who assume a name, devise a uniform, and have initiation fees and monthly dues.

The formation of the club, the selection of the members, is a very serious business, involving, as it does, the fortunes of the fame of the association in its future contests for championships and newspaper honors. Young men are in demand who are willing to devote their whole time and mental energies to the acquisition of dexterity in throwing a ball or catching it. Professional players are found, who are recruited from that idle, shiftless, and yet ambitious class of mortals who are ready to work with the energy of giants one day in the week at any useless task, provided they have the privilege of lounging about the other six days, boasting of their feats and basking in the admiration of all the little boys in the neighborhood.

These professionals train as carefully as prize-fighters, and are, in fact, the same style of men drawn mild. In some cases they hire themselves to the club for a single exhibition game; in others, they engage for the season. Their pay is ridiculously high, considering the service rendered. We hear of a club that secured one player for a thousand dollars for the season. Another player was induced to change his residence from one city to another, and was set up by his employers in a store, with a stock costing fifteen hundred dollars, by way of securing his valuable aid on great occasions.

When the club is organized, there must be daily practice for the benefit of the novices. This is done often to the neglect of every thing else, to the sore annoyance of parents and employers, and when a good degree of skill is supposed to be gained another club, fifty or five hundred miles away, is invited to meet in friendly contest. The newspapers announce that the Exotics have challenged the Cupids, name the time and the place, and express an ardent hope that the weather will be propitious.

“…a supper, of which wine-bibbing generally forms a prominent feature…”

The eventful day arrives; “play is called,” and the contest proceeds with all spirit and vigor. They pitch, they bat, they run, they pant, they grow red in the face, they perspire, they strain their muscles and rend their garments in superhuman effort… There is no brain power to spare on pleasantries, no surplus breath to waste in laughter. Awkward episodes occur. A head is broken by an erring bat, or a finger by a ball, or two players, running with upturned faces and outstretched hands to catch the same descending ball, rush together with a fearful thump, and fall backward in collapse. Perhaps proceedings are still further diversified by the occurrence of a little fight.

The game in due time ends, and one party or the other is declared victors by so many “runs,” and the winners and the losers adjourn to a hotel and refresh themselves with a supper, of which wine-bibbing generally forms a prominent feature. Speeches, too, are made by the talking members of each club, expressive of the most intense admiration of each other’s prowess, and breathing unutterable friendship.

The reporter, who has been presented with a complimentary ticket for this very purpose, takes notes of what is said and done, and the next morning the newspaper lays before an admiring world the important intelligence that “the pitching of the Cupids was superb, the batting of the Exotics was magnificent, the fielding of Jones and Smith elicited universal applause, the supper was all that an epicure could desire, and the wit and eloquence of Mr. Brown’s speech were equaled only by the beauty and pathos of Mr. Jenkins’ reply.”

While an agitated world is laboring with this startling announcement, the principal performers stay at home and rest, or limp wearily out to the apothecary’s to make investments in pain-killers and strengthening plasters. And this, forsooth, is the great National Game. It has scarce a single feature of real recreation…

“…in due time the novelty of the whole thing will be gone…”

The game itself is not in fault. In its simple forms, pursued in moderation, with right associations, as a recreation, and not as an ambitious show, it can be heartily recommended to young men who need some active outdoor amusement. It may thus be made a very pleasant and not unprofitable thing. In its preposterous form, inflated into a “great national game,” it is very laborious, very expensive in time and money, and not altogether safe for soul or body. It is then not an amusement, but a pretentious and useless display, whose highest reward is the shallow applause of the idle and the vain.

It may be hazardous to one’s reputation for sagacity to predict the downfall of any fashionable thing on the ground that it lacks the basis of good sense; still, I will say that the modern bubble has been blown so big, that it seems to me that it must collapse before long… In due time the novelty of the whole thing will be gone, and then comes the end…

The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part III

December 17, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It pains me to say so, but we really need to wrap this one up.

I’ve been wandering through “The Blacks in Oklahoma,” from The New York Times, April 9, 1891. If you haven’t read Part I and Part II, well… I mean, you did notice this is called ‘Part III’, right?

The unnamed author has already set us up once, responding to rumors that black settlers were becoming a drain on their communities and – by implication – the hard working white citizens in the territory, by informing us that the opposite seemed to be the case everywhere HE went.

Having covered a touch of the past and some key features of the present, he’s about to conclude – logically enough – by considering the future. He starts by reminding us that white people are at best delusional, and at worst notorious fabricators – especially the politicians.

The Hon. David Harvey, delegate to Congress from Oklahoma, said to THE TIMES correspondent that the blacks were decreasing in Oklahoma and that they could not find an abiding place there. The observation made during the trip just finished will not verify his statements.

What a gentle way to phrase “liar, liar, pants on fire!”

In his own city – Oklahoma City – according to his statement, there were not over 100 negroes of all ages and kinds. A careful personal count revealed the existence of 157 families, averaging 4 to each family. He asserted that there were not more than four dozen negroes in Guthrie, while, in fact, there are at least 300 in the city.

Last time this reporter laid on the statistics, he was setting us up for a mid-article twist. We should be ready for wherever he’s going this time as well.

Mr. Harvey was especially positive that the black-jack country could not contain over 1,000 negroes, when the returns of the last election show that Mr. Harvey received at least 1,700 negro votes.

Again with the diplomatic approach.

I think this could just as easily have said, “He knows darn well that he’s full of $#%* because whatever else he does or doesn’t care about, he KNOWS his own electoral results!”

He condemns all allusion to the black strength in that Territory, believing that the importation of blacks only adds to the distress possibly existing there, and yet the blacks are the only ones of a mixed population self-sustaining in a Territory where the majority of the inhabitants so far have been living off of each other, gradually wasting their capital, and will do so until agriculture begins to be productive of results.

Thus revisiting the impact point made in the first half of the piece – despite claims to the contrary, the black settlers were the only ones NOT adding to “the distress.” Note how subtly the language employed here suggests a certain defensiveness – maybe even hostility – on the part of Mr. Harvey.

The cities are owned principally by speculators. They would be creditable to an older country, showing the indomitable energy and faith of their founders, as well as exemplifying their hopes in the future of Oklahoma.

Is there an implied ‘but…’ here?

In the meantime, almost every train brings in negroes from the South, who remain. Agents from Georgia and Arkansas have in vain sought to induce some of these blacks to return as laborers. They will not go. They send glowing accounts back to their friends of the new land, and the stream of immigrants constantly increases.

However difficult conditions in the new Territory, they apparently had nothing on the Old South. If you teach ‘push-pull’ factors in your classroom, here’s a prime example – plenty to drive a group of people OUT of one place; plenty to draw them IN to another.

So far there has been but little trouble; what the future may bring nobody even pretends to guess. In fact, nobody will not think of it, except the blacks themselves. The latter fondly cherish the idea that they may possibly found here a State in which they will predominate and have the controlling power.

Oh the possibilities! Surely most resisted the temptation to give hope too much leeway. History would insist that under no circumstances would that EVER be allowed to happen (see Part II).

Here comes the wrap-up. Stay with me now – this is a good one.

See, one of the things I love about humor and tone in a well-written piece is how much impact it gives the underlying message – the ‘serious’ parts – when they arrive. I have little use for droopy drama, but when the Guardians of the Galaxy resolve to sacrifice themselves to try to do one right thing, or Bill Murray realizes the “true” meaning of Christmas… snot’n’sobs. Every time.

If I were an English teacher, we’d have a fancy word for this use of tone and structure, and examples involving obtuse essays by dead Englishmen. But HISTORY teacher = movies movies movies.

The war of races in Oklahoma is sure to come, but it will not be fought with guns and knives. The weapons will be the plow and the hoe, which will be wielded by each race upon its own lands. It remains to be seen whether the hot sun of Oklahoma will favor the black cuticle of the cotton and tobacco grower or the white skin of the corn and wheat raiser.

*pause*

That’s it. That’s the conclusion.

I’ve read this numerous times, and I’m convinced the author fully expects the black settlers in Oklahoma to prevail – or to at least hold their own. Maybe he’s more concerned with dramatic effect than substance, but I don’t think it’s just that. I think he’s being idealistic.

Like most of us, his own experiences and assumptions about how the world works color his optimism. Inherent in that closing paragraph is the conviction that hard work, grit, and the human spirit determine winners and losers in the end. Helen Churchill Condee had the same assumptions when she wrote primarily of white homesteading.

That’s the American Dream – or it was, for a few centuries. It’s a bedrock of conservative social and political thinking – you get out of life what you put into it. Work hard, stay in school, live the dream – everyone may not start with the same advantages, but the overall system works the same for everyone.

The Black experience – in Oklahoma or anywhere else – didn’t usually hold that to be true. Much like the American Indians they were replacing, the terms of the deal kept changing based on what best served white predominance. They changed for individual farmers who found some success, and they changed for communities who prospered just a little too much.

The most glaring example exploded a short thirty years later in Greenwood, as white citizens of Tulsa burned down Black Tulsa, killed hundreds of innocents, and took their stuff home as presents for their wives and kids. The war of races become violently overt, fought with guns and knives.

But even when the mobs aren’t in the street, is it possible that the underlying system has always been there? How much would be different if it weren’t shaping policies and attitudes today?

I don’t want to sound negative, but a doctor unwilling to discuss a possible diagnosis with his patient just because he doesn’t want to be a downer isn’t a very honest doctor. Maybe we don’t like to think about such things because we’re enjoying our little plot of land, knowing we’ve worked hard, taken a few chances, and caught a few breaks along the way. Maybe it’s easier to condemn those who threaten our paradigm than to question our comfort.

Or perhaps at some point human nature dramatically changed, the system began to work equitably, and everyone should just be glad all the descendents of those who first claimed those best lands from the less-worthy (by nature of their color or culture) just happen to be the most honest, hard-working folks today.

You know, so no one has to adjust their social, political, or economic standing too much. Because that would be SO un-American.

Just make sure you don’t think it too clearly or ever say to yourself out loud what your forebears carried as a matter of fundamental faith – that you are where you are because that’s exactly how things were set up to be. Because the universe has decreed it your “birthright.”

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part I

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part II

RELATED POSTS: A Chance in Oklahoma, Parts I – II

RELATED POSTS: Boomers & Sooners, Parts I – V

The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part II

December 16, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

If you haven’t read Part I of this post, first of all let me say SHAME ON YOU! How can you let crucial learnifying SLIP like that? Second of all, I respectfully suggest you start there for, you know, context and stuff.

I was waxing history-nerdish over a column titled “The Blacks in Oklahoma,” published in The New York Times on April 9, 1891. It’s historically significant, and rhetorically rich. The reporter is addressing rumors that black homesteaders had been flowing into the recently opened territory without resources or a plan, and had become a drain on the community and perhaps a danger to others.

Imagine a time in which “others” were automatically treated with such suspicion and accusation. Oh, the good ol’ days…

Many have gone to that territory with nothing except the rags they wore, but they have never become public charges. They have been cared for by persons of their own race until they were in such condition that they could help themselves and help others.

It’s not unusual even today for immigrant groups (these weren’t technically ‘immigrants’ so much as ‘migrants,’ but the idea is the same) to settle in clusters where they can mutually support and assist one another. Some of this may be defensive, but it has an important proactive function as well.

Don’t scoff – you’d do it too if you were moving to a new world.

At this time there are eight families crowded into an old (over one year is “old” in that country) storeroom, which aggregates forty-five people. There they sit day after day, waiting until they can be scattered and settled temporarily upon some of their race’s claims. They have their rages and their bundles of household goods and probably $50 would prove a bonanza to the entire outfit. They are fed by their more fortunate brothers, and some way they will be kept alive until Summer, when they will show that they are self-sustaining, for they will work and exist upon almost nothing.

I wonder if the assertive confidence expressed here reflects the mindset of his subjects, or the convictions of the author himself? That would make an interesting document analysis activity.

I have some idea what it’s like to be poor, but I lack a real appreciation for the sort of soul-crippling poverty described here. Most of us couldn’t even imagine. And yet…

Humiliating as they confession must be and is, the appeals for aid coming from Oklahoma do not come from the negroes, but from the whites. They exemplify the workings of the co-operative plan, as on claims may be found two, four, and sometimes eight families, all working together and often living together, awaiting the time when more lands will be opened for settlement, when the surplus expect to find claims for themselves.

If there’s a sense of entitlement present, it makes sense it would come from those running to claim land promised to others for as long as the sun shines and the grass grows and so forth. There was little guilt about betraying our national oaths yet again, largely because of a deep conviction that white guys in some way DESERVED this in a way others could not.

Is it such a leap to realize some of those same claimants would ask for help while they wait for the rest of WHAT THEY DESERVE to become available?

Twelve miles northeast of Guthrie, on the eastern border of Oklahoma, was found the little “city” of Langston, the inspiration of E.P. McCabe, the only colored State officer Kansas ever had, who is now Treasurer of Guthrie County. McCabe proposes to establish at Langston a distinctively negro city, and has for months, through colonization societies, been working in the Southern States to secure a population for this new black Mecca.
He has secured a number of families and has sold many lots. Some thirty dwelling houses and a small store comprise the nucleus of what the negroes hope to make a great city. There are nearly two hundred persons already there, and not a white face is to be found in the place.
Black carpenters were at work on a dozen new houses in course of erection, while masons, bricklayers, and other mechanics were making preparations for their future work. They have a black doctor, a black preacher, and a black school teacher, the latter presiding in an unpretentious little building already dignified by being called “the academy.” Adjoining the town site eighty-three acres of land have been broken up, and will this year be used as a co-operative garden by the entire colony.

McCabe is a big deal in Oklahoma history. He was the driving force behind much of the territory’s black settlement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His goal of an exclusively ‘black state’ was within reach for a time. It could have happened.

White people, of course, freaked out at the possibility. Imagine if it had failed – all those poor, angry black folks concentrated in one place? What might they do?

Worse, imagine if it had succeeded? How many centuries of American history would have to be re-examined if it turned out black folks were perfectly capable of running their own lives and communities after all? What would that say about…?

Oh yeah – not gonna let that happen. No State For You!

When asked what they were going to live on until something was raised, the general reply was that they “did not come here as paupers,” and that they had brought some money enough with them to live on for some time.
The principal object in establishing this town on the eastern border was to be near the lands of the Iowas, which are expected to be open to settlement before Fall. When these lands are opened Langston will be the supply depot for all of the black race, and there will be repeated the experiment, already a success, that was made in the black-jack country in the northwest part of the Territory, but under much more favorable circumstances, as the new town in situation in a much more productive country.

Black settlers tended to gather in areas with the least desirable farm land, and the least convenient access. While this seems to have occasionally been a result of pre-opening regulations, it was primarily a strategic move on the part of the black community.

It didn’t take much extrapolation to suspect that land recently seized from red men would be unlikely to stay in the hands of black men if desired by white men. So, pick areas white people wouldn’t want. Sure – it would be harder to grow essential crops, and to provide other sustenance… but what else was new?

Apparently some were now hoping to grab some land a bit further east, where conditions weren’t QUITE so onerous.

Therein lies the inevitable tension for citizens of color, then OR now. Very real opportunity. Very real progress. Open doors and flashing arrows pointing the way towards very real dreams.

And yet… at any time, those rules can change. They change if you’re not successful enough in the game, and they change even more dramatically if you are. You won’t give up, and you don’t want to lose, you have to be careful how much you win.

I insist to my students that whatever else Oklahoma is, its history is rather unique among the fifty states. At the same time, our past repeatedly reflects larger truths about the nation as a whole. We study Oklahoma history not because we’re unique (even if we are), but because of the light it sheds on the bigger picture.

We’re like a historical funhouse mirror collection. Why can’t THAT be on our license plates?

We’ll conclude in Part III – I promise.

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part I

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part III

RELATED POSTS: A Chance In Oklahoma, Parts I & II

RELATED POSTS: Boomers & Sooners, Parts I – V

The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part I

December 16, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been on a bit of a primary-sources-related-to-Oklahoma spree lately. Haven’t we all, at one time or another?

Many of them are interesting, most are informative, and a few contain information which is simply incorrect, however passionately delivered. There are a handful, though, which are simply a joy to read – repeatedly!

Er… for me, at least. As I’ve said before, my life isn’t what you might call “rip-roaring.”

THE BLACKS IN OKLAHOMA – FLOCKING TO THE TERRITORY IN LARGE NUMBERS
The New York Times – April 9, 1891

It had been nearly two years since the first land run opened the ‘Unassigned Lands’ in what was becoming increasingly thought of as simply ‘Oklahoma’. A second opening was anticipated in a few months, and people up north were naturally curious how things were going down there in wild country.

Unlike today, when accuracy and perspective are editorial priorities as a matter of professionalism and respect, it wasn’t unusual in the late 19th century for stories about crazy events or bizarre behavior to capture the public imagination far more than the tedium of most real life. Sometimes news outlets even exaggerated a bit to keep readers entertained.

Of particular interest were stories feeding national preconceptions about race or culture. Were homesteaders at this late stage really such dirty, uneducated folks? Were Indians truly savages, or more like simple children, noble in their pathos?

And what about the Negro? (That was the polite terminology of the day.) Even approaching 1900, a substantial number of white Americans in the northeast rarely if ever interacted with citizens of color. Oh, there were the Irish and Germans, who were bad enough, maybe an Eastern European sporadically, but a black man?

Minstrel shows were losing their popularity as Vaudeville became a thing, but the caricatures were well-instilled. On the other hand, there were those who insisted the Negro deserved the same rights and opportunities as white men – maybe not all of them, or to the same extent, but more than they seemed to be getting in the south, if what the papers wrote were true.

And then there was Oklahoma Territory. Formerly ‘Indian Territory’, it was gradually beginning to open its ‘surplus’ lands to white – and black – settlement. Social Darwinism at its purist – run in, hold your claim by any available means, and start from scratch along with everyone else to see what you can make out of these last few remnants of American opportunity.

That was the idealized version, at least. But it was about as close to starting on a ‘level playing field’ as most alive in that generation would ever see for Black Americans, however illusory the ‘level’ part of the equation may have been.

Topeka, Kan., April 8.- Is Oklahoma really overrun with negroes, and has there been an influx of pauper negroes from the South? So many conflicting answers have been given in response to these two questions that it was impossible to arrive at the truth.

In class, this is where we’d talk about ‘making good inferences’. What seems to be motivating this particular foray into the territory by this NY Times reporter? Why does he open with these questions?

Good times, those inference discussions.

The census taken there last Summer was of no use in aiding one to arrive at conclusions, for, while Guthrie enumerated, so it is said, the horses, dogs, and chickens as well as the “regular” population, Oklahoma and Kingfisher failed to count the men, women, and children, while Edmund, El Reno, and Lincoln are still in doubt as to what and who were counted, and Langston was not in existence.

My students have this weird idea that in 2015, all computers and institutions everywhere are neatly connected and speak the same ‘language’. I assume they get this idea from bad action movies and federal health care legislation.

But why they apply this assumption backwards through history is beyond me. Most of written history is an absolute mess. We make educated guesses – some fairly supportable, others just… the best we’ve got.

It’s somewhat reassuring to know that as recently as 1891, at least one contemporaneous observer realized they really had no idea what was going on with who, or where.

In order to determine the truth, THE TIMES’s representative determined to visit the Territory and see what was to be seen, and to learn from interested persons as much of the truth as they could be prevailed upon to surrender.

He’s setting us up with tone. I respect that.

Those who have never attempted to draw the truth from an Oklahomaite can hardly realize the difficulties that are presented. The Territory was born in falsehood, was baptized in falsehood, and falsehood has been the principal article of diet ever since that fateful 23rd day of April, 1889, when the “sooners” became the leading citizens of a country opened to settlement too late in the year for the planting of crops, and to which the poverty-stricken were invited by speculators and impecunious lawyers who had been permitted to enter beforehand by a pig-headed Administration, which could see nothing good outside the ague-stricken Wabash bottoms of Indiana.

I can’t tell you how often this bit cracks me up.

After basking in the pithy slander of early Oklahomans, don’t overlook the wonderful jab at President Benjamin Harrison. “{A}gue-stricken Wabash bottoms” just drips with disdain.

Harrison, of course, had made his way up the political ladder from Indianapolis, where he’s now buried. They’re rather proud of him up there – understandable, I suppose, since they really don’t have much else to boast on. I mean, you’ve seen the Colts in action, and their legislators are doing all they can to make Oklahoma’s current public education system look passionately committed to excellence compared to theirs.

But at least they have Ben Harrison’s corpse. That’s something, right?

I don’t really mean that last bit about Indy. It was simply an example of the sort of inflammatory writing popular among some readers in the time period under discussion. I do it solely to help bring HISTORY to YOU.

You’re welcome.

Guthrie, being the headquarters of the Afro-American Colonization Company, has naturally been the objective point of the negroes who have been induced to migrate to Oklahoma. It is impossible to ascertain how many of the black race have arrived in that city, the estimates vary so largely.
Those who are opposed to negro settlement declare positively that there are not fifty in the city. Those who favor the movement insist that there are more than two thousand in and about the capital. The latter is probably more nearly the correct figure, as an inspection of the city revealed many black faces, and an examination of many of the little houses in the suburbs showed a number of colored families comfortably situated.

It’s hard to know when facts are being willfully fabricated to serve an agenda, or when the perceptions of those gathering them are simply so colored by preconceptions that they see what they expect and intend to see.

Back then, I mean. Not today, when we have science. And numbers. And ALL THE FACTS.

That these negroes are not all paupers is shown by their bank deposits, where they have sums ranging from $200 to $1,000. In one bank alone sums aggregating over $15,000 have been deposited by the negro settlers.

I’d pause at this point in class and ask my students to speculate where the author is going with this. You should as well.

I’ll wait.

He may be simply refuting existing criticisms, point by point, in defense of Black settlers. Perhaps his point will be that they’re doing fine – just look at the evidence!

But we’ve already had a taste of the author’s tone. The news may be valid, but it’s swaddled in snark and personality. We should be suspicious. Is he setting us up for… something?

RELATED POST: The Blacks In Oklahoma, Part II

RELATED POST: The Blacks in Oklahoma, Part III

RELATED POSTS: A Chance In Oklahoma, Parts I & II

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A Chance In Oklahoma, Part II

December 9, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

I may have mentioned how giddy I was to come across a wonderful piece by Helen Churchill Condee in Harper’s Weekly, from way back on February 23, 1901. When you combine insight, knowledge, and pithy writing, you have my heart forever.

Even if you’re long-dead, I suppose.

Condee is actually Helen Churchill Candee, but from time to time the ‘a’ becomes an ‘o’ in her writing credits. (I kept the ‘wrong’ spelling with the document since that’s how it appeared in Harper’s originally.)

Helen was a New York girl who grew up in Connecticut, eventually marrying a successful but abusive man. After their separation, she began writing articles for several ladies’ magazines to support herself and her two children.

Women’s magazines in the late 19th century tended to focus on household tips, womanly etiquette, and taking care of your man, but over time she went a bit Hillary Rodham and wandered into women’s rights, raising children, and even local politics.

Give them a pen and a paycheck, and it’s all over, boys.

Candee moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma, for several years, writing regularly for periodicals back east. It was around this time she published her first two books – How Women May Earn A Living and An Oklahoma Romance. The first became a landmark in women’s literature (a subject for another time) and the second – her only work of fiction out of the many successful books she’d continue to write – helped publicize and glorify life in the recently opened territory.

It may have been based on personal shenanigans as well, but it used to be a lady didn’t come out and confess such things, so…

Somewhere in the midst of this she wrote the piece with which I’m so enamored, along with numerous others I’m currently tracking down.

She went on to become an expert on world travel and, um… tapestries… and served as a volunteer nurse in the Great War overseas. She passed just short of her 91st birthday in 1949.

The event for which she’s most remembered is not one directly related to her writing, however glorious. She was on the Titanic when it sank on April 15, 1912. Her written recollections are some of the most memorable and quoted of various survivor accounts, and her unpublished memoirs seem to have inspired a few of the key scenes in that DiCaprio film some of you may recall.

There was this younger man, see, and a love triangle, and this glorious epiphany standing on the bow…

None of which, in my humble opinion, compare to the glory of her account of opening the Unassigned Lands in O.T. I mean, that flashy stuff is all fine and well, but anyone can break their ankle leaping onto a lifeboat. Few can capture so much humanity in so few words as a passage like this:

The lands about to be opened are some that have long been coveted by the white men. Greed of land grows on those who hold it.

Oooohhhh… do you feel the truth tickling your innards? I sure do.

The Wichita Mountains have long been like the promised land to the people of the Southwest, and as a rider reaches a hill-top of the rolling prairie, he exclaims, with extended arms: “See! That’s the Wichita range! Beautiful mountains, and they say they’re full of gold and silver, copper and zinc, with some outcroppings of coal and traces of oil.”

‘Full of gold and silver’ might have been a bit optimistic, but copper and zinc was spot on. Can’t believe she didn’t work in something poetic about lead as well. Hello!

Ironically, it would be coal and oil – here almost afterthoughts – which would soon thereafter drive the mineral boom in Oklahoma.

But not yet.

At that moment, it was still all about land – farming, growing, raising, living land. And this was it. Everything else was pretty much taken. The bar was closing and the men outnumbered the women 3 to 1. Time to make your play.

And so, to get these lands, a bill was formed, but it stuck in the process at Washington. Then one day, as a surf-boat rolls safely up the beach on a big comber, the bill went through as a “rider” on a greater bill, and the opening of the new lands was made a certainty.

If there’s one thing that resonates with Oklahomans, it’s a good boating metaphor. Must be a Northeasterner thing.

And imagine a time period in which major acts of Congress were unable to get passed the traditional way, so they were stuck onto completely unrelated legislation no one could afford to vote against and passed without some even realizing what they were supporting!

Back in the day, I mean. Long, long ago.

Surveyors have been all over their surface now, and it is marked off into a checker-board of squares miles, each one containing four farms of one hundred and sixty acres – or a quarter-section, after the manner of the West.

The allotment size was consistent with the Homestead Act from way back in 1862, signed by Lincoln during the Civil War. This was considered a sufficient spread to allow a homestead and plenty of planting land. A free man working without modern equipment would be unlikely to cultivate more than this productively.

It was this same Homestead Act which the ‘boomers’ had repeatedly referenced as evidence they deserved a shot at the ‘surplus’ lands in Indian Territory.

The size of the Kiowa and Comanche tract is 2,968,893 acres. This, as the merchants say, is gross: the net number of farms which are offered to those who wish to make a hazard for new fortunes is about 10,000 of a quarter-section each. That means the redemption of ten thousand men, their fortune assured if they are made of the stuff that can labor and struggle for two or three initial years.

Redemption. That’s what it was all about for many.

Three-quarters of a century before, Mexican Texas had been the land of new beginning – escaping your own past, whether it meant legal entanglements, failed relationships, or political embarrassment, and starting anew in a seemingly unlimited Eden. The glories of Manifest Destiny had carried others to California, Oregon, and gradually filled in even much of the Great Plains.

Now the frontier was ‘closed’, or at least not nearly as frontier-ish as it had been, and hungry homesteading eyes turned to Oklahoma.

How many others in that generation and prior had taken their shots, staked their claims, virtually everywhere else in the West? Those waiting now were the also-rans, the coulda-beens, desperate for one last chance at stepping into the role of Yeoman Farmer in the most democratic manifestation of the ideal. Redemption? Maybe so.

‘Their fortune assured’? The American Dream was immutable law still at this late date. Perhaps some of this faith was galvanized by desperation, but it guided both policy and personal choices well into the 20th century.

It won’t last – at least not in the same form. The Dust Bowl and Great Depression would contradict all holy truths about hard work and good choices leading to independence and relative prosperity. But not yet.

They still believed.

The remaining acres of the reservation, amounting to nearly half, are disposed of in a way which treats considerately both Indian and white settler. Each of the 2,900 Indians is to have an allotment of one hundred and sixty acres, and these Indians are to choose themselves before the gates of the country are opened for the rush. In addition, 480,000 acres are allowed for Indian pasture. Fort Sill has a front lawn and back yard of 60,000 acres out of the tract, and about three hundred and thirty thousand acres make up the amount of land set aside for the support of schools and colleges. This disposes of the Kiowa and Comanche country.

‘Disposes’ is right. The issue of land allotment among the tribes deserves a separate post. It is difficult for Anglo minds to fully process why this was effectively the final wave of cultural genocide. “Oh my god – they gave the Indians title to their own property! How horrible!”

Yeah, yeah, white boy. Your culture is awesome, Indians were stupid, you were doing them a favor, blah blah blah. More on that next time.

Note, that ‘these Indians’ get to ‘choose themselves’ before everyone else – almost like it’s an unfair advantage of some sort. Hey – what can go wrong when you have a choice?

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“It’s the Stay Put Landalot Man.”

Everything is now in readiness, and awaits the proclamation of the President, which is to declare the gates open, and which will say in effect, “Run in, my children, and help yourselves, but remember that only one grab is allowed for each.”

*pause*

Cynical as I am, I’m not entirely immune from the gilded glory inherent in a good land run. Condee gives me chills with this one.

Then reality comes back.

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