Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1894 — Oklahoma’s Progress. [ARTICLE]

Oklahoma’s Progress.

Gov. A. B. Seay, of Oklahoma Territory, has made his annual report to the Secretary of the Interior, and it is * most interesting document. The approximate population of the Territory ia '.38,100, an increas* of 77,674 over 1800, This does not Include the Indians, who still maintain their tribal relations. Oi this population 86 per cent, are white, 10 per cent, are colored, and 5 per cent are Indians. School lands and Indian allotment* deducted, the report gives us a conservative estimate of the property, real and personal, in the Territory as $40,000,000. There are live national, four incor porated, and fourteen private banks in the Territory, and all are doing a good business. The total school population is 31,926, against 21,337 in 1891, being an increase of over 10,000 in a single year. Public schools and a State University are being erected. Settlements of lands for homesteads have been made rapidly and, Oklahoma is fast being oonverted into an agricultural country. The first Legislature the report says, was not a success. There were towns and localities contesting for the capital, and for the mo.*i part enlisted enough of the working members of both houses in their various capital-removal schemes to leave but a few whose mind could be concentrated on the work of making a systematic set of laws. The result is that the statutes are incongruous and in some cases conflicting and wrong and need amendment ind revision. The last year is said to have been one of general prosperity for the farmer. The soil of Oklahoma has demonstrated •a capability of producing large i rons •f all the staple cereals, vegetables and uit. The Governor estimates that the -i-acre farms In the Territory will vnrage fifty acres each in cultivation.