By the Associated Press
Oklahoma City, Sept. 24—Adjutant General B.H. Markham tonight was ordered by Gov. J.C. Walton to use all forces of arms necessary” to prevent the session of the lower house of the Oklahoma legislature called for noon Wednesday.
All citizen-soldiers of the state between the ages of 21 and 45 were directed in order to hold themselves in readiness “with such arms as they possess or can obtain to come to the assistance of the sovereign state of Oklahoma when ordered to do so by the governor.”
As a caution against any attempt of the legislators to meet elsewhere, should they be barred from the house chamber of the state capitol, the governor also directed Adjutant General Markham to disperse the meeting at any other time or place in the state of Oklahoma.
With the issuance of the military order all doubt was removed as to the executive’s determination to prevent the house session which has been called by his legislative opponents to consider his impeachment.
The adjutant general was ordered to use all military forces of the state if necessary to disperse the assembly.
Reiterate Charges
Governor Walton reiterated his charge that the proposed meeting would be an unlawful assembly “dominated and controlled by the so-called invisible empire, commonly known as the Ku Klux Klan.”
He declared that since the Ku Klux Klan was proclaimed an enemy of the state of Oklahoma under his martial law proclamation of September 15, the session therefore would be in defiance of the laws of the state and an attempt to break the peace.
“The troops will be ordered to shoot to kill if that is necessary to prevent the assembly.” Governor Walton told newspaper men. “I hope however that no such excessive measures will be necessary.”
From the front page of The Monroe Journal, Sept. 25, 1923
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