Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 301, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1912 — TO ELECT GOVERNOR [ARTICLE]

TO ELECT GOVERNOR

Richest Indian Tribe to Name Successor to Kopay. Wealthy Osage Nation May Choose Full-Blooded Brave Who Was Appointed by Secretary of the Interior. 4 Oklahoma City, Okla. —While the election of a governor of the Osag# nation, the richest nation on earth, is eighteen months away, the Osage citizens are beginning to discuss the matter of a successor to Governor Harry Kopay,, a full-blood, who holds the office by the good graces of the secretary of the interior. That Kopay expectß to be a candidate seems to be a foregone conclusion, and that he will inject into the campaign much of the white man’s strategy and ginger is probable. Being a graduate of Carlisle, Kopay has the advantage of many other men of the tribe in political ability. Kopay has been on the pay roll of the United States government as an employe in a clerical capacity in the office of the Indian agent at Pawhuska for several years. When the last biennial election was held last June, Kopay was selected as secretary of the council. Bacon Rind, one of the sage men of the Osages, was elected governor. His alleged activities in the interests of the Uncle Sam Oil company caused his removal by the secretary of the Interior, and Kopay was appointed acting governor to fill the unexpired term. Bacon Rind succeeded Alf Brown, a part-blood Osage, who was one of the wisest men that has filled the executive chair in the history of the nation. The Osages are divided, to some extent, fey a line that marks the western boundary of the 700,000 acres of land held under lease by the Indian Territory Illuminating Oil and Gas company. Bacon Rind was accused of hobnobbing with an oil company in their effort to get a lease on the western half of the nation. The most important of these is a law that will permit the Indian to transfer with his title a full title to the mineral value of the land. Under present laws, an Osage, under certain conditions, may Bell his land, but the title tOk the oil and gas resources is held in the government, and the royalties derived from the sale of these prroducts are credited to a fund regularly distributed among the Indians. It Is held by those demanding a new law that the development of the country is being retarded because of this restriction. The lands are held to be worth, on an average, $25 an acre for agricultural purposes. Another demand is for a law that will protect the streams of the Osage nation from the pollution that necessarily arises from the hundreds of oil and gas wells. The waters of many streams are unfit for stock to drink and fish cannot live In them. Sometimes oil covers the surface of an otherwise beautiful stream for a distance of ten to twelve miles, and thousands of cattle and horses are deprived of water from that source. Sometimes the oil on these streams catches fire. These fires cannot be checked, but must.be left to burn themselves out. In actual cash and lands the 2,200 Osages are wciCtfa $60,000,000. Each

given $5,000 in cash by the United States government when the lands were segregated into allotments. Each was given 670 acres of land, and this is worth approximately $40,000,000, the acreage being about 1,500,000.