Later on, when the legislature came to consider bills providing for a severance tax, the great Rockefeller educators were at the state capital, advising the legislators that these bills were objectionable. And so, the next time you read about the abundant generosity of Mr. Rockefeller, the greatest educational philanthropist of all time, don’t forget this little story from Union County, Arkansas. By paying out a few thousand dollars for the improvement of Arkansas education, Mr. Rockefeller’s industries expected to save a million dollars a year in one single bill! I am sorry I have not access to the complete files of the General Education Board and of the Standard Oil Company, so that I can tell you how many tens of millions a year have been added to Mr. Rockefeller’s income by this simple little scheme of paying the salaries of educational politicians! When you question our great captains of industry about proceedings such as this, they make one defense—they have to do it, because the other fellow is doing it. We must give Mr. Rockefeller the benefit of this plea; the rivals of the Standard Oil Company have also been buying up educators and state governments. Especially they have done this in order to get school lands which have been discovered to contain oil. I have before me a copy of the Oklahoma “Leader” for July 1, 1922, telling the story of Robert H. Wilson, then candidate of the Black Hand for governor of Oklahoma. It appears that Wilson had been a member of the School Land Commission, and he had awarded a lease for a hundred and eighteen thousand acres of school land to an oil operator by the name of Marland, who made sixty-seven million dollars out of this lease and others. The scandal became so great that the legislature took up the matter and prescribed terms for releasing; but the School Land Commission met and solemnly took the stand that the act of the legislature was unconstitutional, and proceeded to continue Marland’s holdings on the old terms. In the court battle which ensued, the state of Oklahoma obtained $1,400,000 from the Marland interests—a sum which the School Land Commission had endeavored to throw away. If the school commission had held on to the lands and leased them upon proper terms, the schools of Oklahoma would have had not less than thirty million dollars. It is interesting to note the outcome of the gubernatorial election. Mr. Wilson, the candidate of the Black Hand, was beaten by “Jack” Walton, hero of the Farmer-Labor party. Immediately afterwards it was discovered that all Walton’s campaign expenses had been met by the oil interests, and he proceeded to kick over his party and run the state of Oklahoma for these oil interests—among other things, turning out of office a radical educator, president of the Agricultural College. Governor Walton would still, no doubt, have been running the state for the oil men, if he had not made the mistake of attacking the Ku Klux Klan.