Ghosts of Crook County by Russell Cobb

Author:Russell Cobb [Cobb, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2024-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

“A MOST UNSAVORY MESS”

Before 1917, Page had contended that Tommy’s existence, or lack thereof, was irrelevant to the legal basis of his lease. That should have been all Judge Campbell needed to know. But Judge Campbell seemed to be changing his mind. Now he wanted to hear evidence about whether Tommy existed. Campbell had found nothing precluding the government from reexamining tribal rolls. If someone’s claim to a piece of land was based on a fraud, it seemed reasonable that the fraud in question should be examined.

The Tulsa World, which had mostly sympathized with Page during the receivership trial of 1915, had begun to evince skepticism by 1917. That was when the lawsuit to entirely cancel the patent finally came to trial in Muskogee. As the trial dragged on, the paper started to view philanthropist Page as more like mob boss Page. The Tulsa World published a host of stories about Page being the cause of a multitude of public nuisances and scandals. On March 3, 1917, to cite one example, the paper published an article titled “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” in which a Sand Springs resident recounted “how Page robs his own town.” The paper often illustrated stories about Page with cartoons of him as a fat tycoon loaded down with bags of money and chomping on an old stogie. Another cartoon presented Page as an octopus. It was a familiar metaphor for the Standard Oil Company that captured the public’s fear of resource giants and captains of industry controlling government policy, fixing the price of a valuable commodity, and squeezing out competition.11

When it came to the Tommy Atkins federal court case, the Tulsa World’s story dispensed with any charade of objectivity, noting that “slowly but surely, and with evenly directed blows, the government has torn down his house of cards.” Then the writer went in for the coup de grace: “Few remain . . . who believe that he even has a ‘fighting chance’ in the Tommy Atkins case. Great surprise is expressed by many that Page should have become so seriously involved in what appears to be a most unsavory mess.”12

A pro-Page newspaper, the Tulsa Morning Times, countered the Tulsa World’s attacks on Page with some cutting prose of its own. On June 11, 1917, in a boxed inset on the front page, the Morning Times said the World was printing “libel” to which “Charles Page would be justified in responding with a shotgun.”13

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.