Table of Contents

Index

Volume List

Search All Volumes

Home

Page 886

In this issue of the Chronicles appear the resolution adopted by the Senate of the Fourteenth Legislature concerning the death of the Honorable Charles N. Haskell, the first governor of the State of Oklahoma. It was but fit and proper for the representatives of the people to pay this tribute to the memory of the man who had been identified for thirty years with our state's politics, as well as its business and industrial development.

Haskell was a man of action, not a mere dreamer, but a doer. He was a man of business before he became a politician. His thoughts were comprehensive, and no proposition was too big for his consideration. He had built a railroad across Ohio, before he was thirty years of age. In politics, as in business, he listened to the advice of everybody, but always took his own.

He never let small things stand in the way in the accomplishment of his objectives, in business or in politics. His decisive actions in both business and politics often made him enemies, but the successful attainment of his plans usually justified his sometime arbitrary methods. In the broad sense of the word he was not a statesman. He did not endeavor to conform every act of his official life to certain broad principles of government but rather he was a business man who used the methods of business to accomplish his political ends. He did not practice the blandishment of the professional politician but his direct methods and the prominent part he had taken in the constitutional convention had so inspired the confidence of the people in him, that he was elected governor—the first governor of the State of Oklahoma and the first elected governor of Oklahoma.

On November 16, 1932 he delivered an address in the auditorium of the Historical Society Building before the Memorial Society. This speech was published in full in the December 1932 Chronicles of Oklahoma. While this address was historical, yet disclosed the human, lovable side of our first governor. It had not a tinge of hatred or bitterness toward any man.

The writer at that time regarded this as his farewell address. When we read the resolutions of the senate, it would be well to read this speech delivered last November.

Return to top

Electronic Publishing Center | OSU Home | Search this Site