Letters: Oklahoma's Haskell

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Sirs:

If yon are interested in fair play you will do the State of Oklahoma the honor of publishing a corrective reply to your recent article in which you publicized the life and reputation of the Honorable C. N. Haskell the first governor of the State of Oklahoma. You do Oklahoma and its people an irreparable injury when you make such comment Upon the State its people and its first governor as that published in your magazine of recent day. The Oklahoma State Senate in special session has prepared and adopted a reply to that article . . . in the hope that you will publish the same giving the people of the nation a corrective reply to the article recounting the death of our beloved first governor. Here is the article and we sincerely trust you will publish the same:

"A weekly magazine published with a slender circulation in Oklahoma and other States in the Mid-West has made a bid for subscriptions by one of its numerous resorts to yellow journalism. "In its issue of July 17, 1933, TIME went out of its way to libel and defame the name and reputation of Charles N. Haskell, the first state governor of Oklahoma. As a delegate to the constitutional convention, as a governor of the State and as one of its delegates to four national conventions, as the publisher of a great newspaper and as a city, community and State builder, Governor Haskell's name towers like a giant rock rises in gigantic majesty which carries a sense of security in matters clear to the heart of every patriot.

"We have no way of knowing the cause of antipathy animating the writer and publisher of the magazine. . . . But as to Governor Haskell's relation to the public and to the State of Oklahoma, it was wholesome and constructive. He was a fighter, and like every advanced thinker, was misunderstood by many, and understood by many. His life was closed with nothing substantial showing against his character and many of his most ardent enemies including the great and illustrious Theodore Roosevelt, withdrew his criticism and sent a personal apology. . . .

"TIME does not know that not a single delegate to the constitutional convention came on the floor of the convention or even appeared in the territorial Capitol with either a belt of cartridges or pistol upon his person, or gun in his baggage.

"TIME does not know that Governor Haskell neither borrowed money from the State nor asked so to do.

"TIME does not know that Governor Haskell never owed the State a dime in his life.

"TiME does not know that the people of the State at an election called for the purpose determined the location of the Capitol and that Oklahoma City outran the combined votes of all its competitors and that Oklahoma City won the Capitol by an election so decisive that it was incontestable.