Whenever a crisis arises in the affairs of the Nation, there are always men to meet it, and while the forces of evil have conspired against the Indian, there have arisen a few champions, and we should not forget the service such persons have rendered. Some of them have gone down to honorable defeat induced by hatred, treachery, malice and the love of gain. Others continue in office, escaping the wiles of the enemy, not through a miracle, but through the arousing of the public conscience. Today there are some 2,000,000 people in the State of Oklahoma, and as in every other State, the great majority of them are upright citizens. They have not taken a firm stand for the Indian in the past, for the reason that they did not realize what was going on in the eastern part of their State. The grafters controlled a tremendous and effective propaganda. The extent of this is surprising, and I have received scores of circulars, copies of speeches, etc., as evidence of the determined action of those who covet the oil, coal, gas, asphalt, farm lands, and timber tracts of the Five Civilized Tribes. Every person who is endeavoring to bring about fair play in eastern Oklahoma was charged with being “perniciously active in politics”, if he lived in the State of Oklahoma. If he happened to reside in the East, he was either a “sentimentalist”, unfamiliar with Indian affairs, or guilty of besmirching the fair name of the State of Oklahoma. The better class of citizens in the State of Oklahoma became, at last, aroused to the deplorable conditions obtaining among these Indians and they succeeded in influencing not only the members of Congress but also the Secretary of the Interior and Commissioner of Indian Affairs to call a halt.
The lengths to which a few people went in order to despoil the Indians seems incredible in this day of Christianity and civilization. Some men made contracts with Indians on a basis of fees of high percentage and sought to secure control of Indian moneys in the United States Treasury. Others made contracts with thousands of Indians to represent them in the sale of vast tribal estates—tens of millions of dollars—on a liberal commission basis. Others became guardians and administrators of estates; and there were thousands of these professional guardians. The thing became a national scandal. Covetousness overwhelmed eastern Oklahoma. Now and then some man sought to stem the tide. A judge was assaulted in court by a grafter. He called upon his court officers. They, sympathizing with the assailant, did not aid his honor, but merely looked on while the grafter beat the judge into insensibility.