was thus brought into contact with white settlers. By
1893 affairs had become so confused that Congress decided to take steps
toward the ultimate admission of the territory into the Union as a
State. A committee of the Senate reported that the system of government
exercised by the Indians cannot be continued, that it is not only
non-American but it is radically wrong, and a change is imperatively
demanded in the interest of the Indians and the whites alike, and such
change cannot be much longer delayed, and that there can be no
modification of the system. It cannot be reformed; it must be abandoned
and a better one substituted.

Gradually the five tribes--Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Chickasaw, and
Seminole--were shorn of their governmental powers. Lands were allotted
in severalty, certain coal, oil, and asphalt lands being reserved. A
public school system was established and maintained by general taxation.

In his message to Congress, 1905, President Roosevelt recommended the
immediate admission of Oklahoma and Indian Territory as one State and
Arizona and New Mexico as another. A statehood bill embodying this
recommendation was passed by the House, but was amended in the Senate so
as to strike out the provision relative to the admission of New Mexico
and Arizona. Opposition to the admission of the last two territories as
one State came principally from the great mining companies of Arizona
supported by the railroad corporations. They were in practical control
of the territory with hundreds of millions of dollars in property. They
were fearful of the loss of control and an increase of taxation under
such a combination. Finally an act was passed by Congress, in 1906,
enabling the people of Oklahoma and Indian Territory to form a
constitution and State government and be admitted into the Union. The
enabling act provided that all male persons over the age of twenty-one
years who were citizens of the United States or who were members of any
Indian nation or tribe in said Oklahoma and Indian Territory, and who
had resided within the limits of said proposed State for at least six
months next preceding the election, should be entitled to vote for
delegate or serve as delegates in a constitutional convention. A number
of Indians were delegates in this convention. The constitution, which
was adopted by the voters, September 17, 1907, was greatly criticised on
account of its radicalism. The new State, the forty-seventh, was
forma