In 1889 the government of the United States purchased from the Indians a large irregular tract of land not then occupied by them and erected it into a separate territory under the name of Oklahoma. When it was opened for settlement, April 22, 1889, a horde of settlers who had been waiting on the borders rushed in to take possession of the lands. Cities and towns sprang up as if by magic. The loose system of government exercised by the five civilized tribes became steadily more ineffective when the Indian Territory 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