Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This session is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. In October 1918, the Tulsa Council of Defense summoned Andrew J. Smitherman, editor and publisher of The Tulsa Star. The council was the most vigorous arm of Governor Robert Lee Williams’s State Council of Defense, the wholly extralegal “supreme law of the land” in Oklahoma during the World War. The summons grew out of the Tulsa Star headline, “Whites Adopted Slavery Methods,” and an accompanying article “Let Us Have Democracy,” which reported an instance of peonage in Tulsa and its dramatic resolution.
This presentation will review events reported in “Let Us Have Democracy,” including underappreciated instances of interracial cooperation and respect for the rule of law. The session will also explore the historiography and failure of Oklahoma historians to preserve the extensive documentation of the State Council of Defense, and conclude with the confrontation between the Tulsa Council and the newsman.
Randy Hopkins is a retired trial lawyer residing in Portland, Oregon. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas School of Law. His article “Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917,” was published in “The Chronicles of Oklahoma.”
This session is part of “Perspectives in History,” the 2021 Oklahoma History Conference. In October 1918, the Tulsa Council of Defense summoned Andrew J. Smitherman, editor and publisher of The Tulsa Star. The council was the most vigorous arm of Governor Robert Lee Williams’s State Council of Defense, the wholly extralegal “supreme law of the land” in Oklahoma during the World War. The summons grew out of the Tulsa Star headline, “Whites Adopted Slavery Methods,” and an accompanying article “Let Us Have Democracy,” which reported an instance of peonage in Tulsa and its dramatic resolution.
This presentation will review events reported in “Let Us Have Democracy,” including underappreciated instances of interracial cooperation and respect for the rule of law. The session will also explore the historiography and failure of Oklahoma historians to preserve the extensive documentation of the State Council of Defense, and conclude with the confrontation between the Tulsa Council and the newsman.
Randy Hopkins is a retired trial lawyer residing in Portland, Oregon. Born and raised in Oklahoma, he is a graduate of Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas School of Law. His article “Birthday of the Klan: The Tulsa Outrage of 1917,” was published in “The Chronicles of Oklahoma.”
