Чарльз Натан Хэскелл: Первый губернатор Оклахомы

American politician and 1st Governor of Oklahoma
the namesake of Haskell County, Texas

Charles Nathaniel Haskell (March 13, 1860 – July 5, 1933) was an American lawyer, oilman, and politician who was the first governor of Oklahoma. As a delegate to Oklahoma's constitutional convention in 1906, he played a crucial role in drafting the Oklahoma Constitution and gaining Oklahoma's admission into the United States as the 46th state in 1907. A prominent businessman in Muskogee, he helped the city grow in importance. He represented the city as a delegate in both the 1906 Oklahoma convention and an earlier convention in 1905 that was a failed attempt to create a U. S. state of Sequoyah. During Oklahoma's constitutional convention, Haskell succeeded in pushing for the inclusion of prohibition and blocking the inclusion of women's suffrage in the Oklahoma Constitution. As governor, he was responsible for moving the state capital to Oklahoma City, establishing schools and state agencies, reforming the territorial prison system, and enforcing prohibition. The constitution prohibited persons from having successive terms in the governor's office. Lee Cruce succeeded Haskell, who returned to his law practice and related business activities. Haskell died of a stroke in 1933.

Born in West Leipsic, Ohio on March 13, 1860, Charles Haskell was the son of George R. Haskell, a cooper, who died when the boy was three years old. His widowed mother, Jane H. Haskell ( Reeves), worked for the local Methodist church as a bell ringer and custodian to support her six children. At the age of 10, Haskell started working as a farm boy for a farmer named Miller in Putnam County, Ohio. He lived and worked there for eight years as he grew into adulthood. Miller was a school teacher, but the young Haskell did not have time to attend school because of his work. Instead, Miller's wife taught him at home, and Haskell earned a teaching certificate at age 17.

Haskell became a schoolteacher at age 18 and taught for three years in Putnam County. After "reading the law" as an apprentice with an established firm, on December 6, 1880, he passed the bar exam. He became a practicing attorney at age 20, setting up his practice in the village of Ottawa, Ohio. In his work as an attorney in Ottawa, he became one of the most successful lawyers in the county seat. He also became prominent in the Democratic Party in northwestern Ohio. In 1888, Haskell started work as a general contractor; for the next 16 years, his business career gave him an understanding of American industrialism. During this time, he lived part of the time in New York City and in San Antonio, Texas. The party primaries for governor were set for June 8, and Doyle and Cruce had already been campaigning; Haskell had little time. During his campaign, Haskell made 88 speeches in 45 days, and reached nearly every county. The lieutenants of the respective candidates were vigorously working in the school districts and securing support in every community. Haskell's hard working nature led him to win the Democratic nomination. Haskell won the Democratic primary by a more than 4,000 vote majority. Frank Frantz, the Republican territorial governor, was nominated as the Republican candidate at their caucus at Tulsa. Frantz was a former Rough Rider and a friend of U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who had appointed him. He was a very strong candidate for the Republican party. Haskell challenged Frantz to joint public discussions throughout the state; they discussed every problem facing administration of the new state during the campaign. In addition, two nationally prominent figures spoke at various locations: Republican presidential nominee William Howard Taft and Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan. Taft's disapproval of Oklahoma's proposed constitution and his recommendation that the people vote against it seemed to increase support for the Democrats. Haskell won the gubernatorial race by more than 30,000 votes on September 17, 1907. Prior to statehood, Kansas officials imprisoned individuals convicted of crimes in Oklahoma Territory. Oklahoma Commissioner of Charities and Corrections Kate Barnard, Oklahoma's first female state official, visited the Kansas prisons and reported to Governor Haskell on the horrible conditions. In response, in 1908, Haskell pushed a bill through the state legislature that transferred 50 Oklahoma prisoners detained in the Kansas penitentiary at Lansing to McAlester, Oklahoma. When the Oklahoma state militia marched the prisoners down to McAlester, they found no prison. Under military supervision, the prisoners built Oklahoma State Penitentiary, the state's first correctional facility (still in use today). The militia housed the prisoners in a tent city and were authorized by Haskell to use lethal force against any prisoner that tried to escape. A grandfather clause was also enacted by the 2nd Oklahoma Legislature by the state's Democratic leaders, effectively excluding blacks from voting. Haskell would spend the remainder of his term enforcing prohibition, regulation of railroads and other trusts, and the moving of the state capital to Oklahoma City. Haskell's dream came true on June 11, 1910, when Oklahoma City became the state's official capital. Throughout his term as governor, Haskell remained free from corruption. Though he was the leader in the deliberations of the committee on county lines and county seats, when hundreds of towns had committees attending the sessions with heavy purses, he left these deliberations lean and poor, and by the time he retired from the governor's office he had become utterly impoverished. In debate he ignored the graces of oratory and instead marshaled facts, arrayed statistics and piled up figures, using his cutting wit and grim humor to carry his point. At the end of his term as governor in 1911, Haskell stepped down from the governorship, happy to see his 1907 Democratic primary challenger Lee Cruce inaugurated as the second governor of Oklahoma. In 1912, Haskell unsuccessfully challenged incumbent U. S. Senator Robert Latham Owen in a hard fought Democratic primary for his U. S. Senate seat.

Not only a powerful figure in Oklahoma politics, Haskell's progressive roots and populist nature granted him national clout. In 1908, Haskell headed the Oklahoma delegation to the National Democratic Convention at Denver where he was appointed treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. He was the spokesman for William Jennings Bryan in writing the platform of the convention. Two months later, he was forced to resign his treasurer position after allegations were leveled against him of taking illegal contributions from the Standard Oil Company. In 1920, he again headed the Oklahoma delegation at the National Convention, which in that year met at San Francisco, and was committed to and faithfully labored for United States Senator Robert Latham Owen, of Oklahoma, for the United States presidential nomination. Haskell would serve in this post two more times: a third in 1928 to the National Democratic Convention at Houston, and a fourth time in 1932 to the National Democratic Convention at Chicago. At each convention and in his speeches and in articles appearing in the public press he disclosed an intimate understanding of the big money masters of America and ruthlessly exposed many of their venal practices and their corrupt usage of the public funds in their own interest to the detriment of the people.

Haskell entered the oil business after finishing his term as governor, a profession he would stay in until the end of his life. In 1933, Haskell suffered a major stroke, from which he would never recover. Three months later Haskell would die from pneumonia. Haskell lost consciousness on July 4, and died the next day, in the Skirvin Hotel in Oklahoma City at the age of 73. He is buried in Muskogee, Oklahoma.