Oklahoma's Governor

Who is the Governor of Oklahoma? According to the last vote and the general impression of people outside of Oklahoma, he is Henry S. Johnston, a slim, long-nosed lawyer-man with dark-rimmed spectacles. Mr. Johnston and his wife moved into an Oklahoma City apartment last January, when Mr. Johnston started functioning at the Governor's desk in the State House.

But Mr. Johnston has a secretary, a small, attractive, dark-haired Mrs. O. O. Hammonds, who sits at a desk outside the gubernatorial sanctum and asks people their business when they come in. Mrs. Hammonds and her husband, a physician whom Mr. Johnston appointed State Health Commissioner, moved into an apartment adjoining the Johnstons' last winter. Later the Johnstons took a house, with the Hammondses on the ground floor. Here, too, Mrs. Hammonds inquires the business of callers.

Some callers have been vexed by Mrs. Hammonds' firmness in denying them audiences with Mr. Johnston, have called her a "Mrs. Colonel House." State Senator W. M. Gulager of Muskogee has even called her a "she-Rasputin." And recently State Representative H. Tom Kight of Claremore, spokesman for 69 colleagues, addressed Mr. Johnston publicly on the subject of Mrs. Hammonds, as follows:

"You should know that it is common talk throughout the State that she is Governor in fact. And this situation is alleged to be a daily humiliation to the citizens of Oklahoma." Representative Kight and his 69 colleagues were holding in abeyance a petition demanding that a special session of the Legislature be called to investigate Mrs. Hammonds and other features of the Johnston administration.

Retorted Governor Johnston: "Rather than see her leave here because of some of the things those fellows are saying, I would just put on my hat and coat, and walk right out that door with her.

"No sir, I won't get rid of Mrs. Hammonds. She is as capable, honest, clever and energetic as any person I ever met in the world. The only ones who really want her to leave here are a bunch of fellows who know they can't get everything that's loose, while she is out there in the outer office, keeping watch.

"Oh, I do say she might be a little aggravating at times, just like most people who are nervous and high strung. But when you have learned how to understand her incisive way of speaking and her determined manner of saying 'No, I won't stand for that,' or her way of declaring 'That won't do at all,' you will find Mrs. Hammonds is a real adjunct to the efficiency of this office."

Last fortnight, Representative Kight and three others handed Governor Johnston their petition. The names of the 65 other malcontents were withheld until Dec. 6, the day set for the proposed meeting of the Legislature. It was said that they feared "embarrassment."

Humming a little tune, Governor Johnston received the petition and read it through. Mrs. Hammonds stood at his elbow listening, then moved briskly back to her desk. Governor Johnston frowned at the incomplete list of signatures and said: "This is peculiar conduct for men who claim to be in good faith. . . . Well, boys, I'm much obliged to you and I'll look it over."

Representative Kight and colleagues represented themselves as desiring merely to "protect" Governor Johnston from Mrs. Hammonds. But the Johnston regime has been attended by something besides the anti-Hammonds talk. Governor Johnston has been accused of being a Rosicrucian.* He has been suspected of trafficking in the supernal with Mrs. Hammonds' uncle, one James R. Armstrong, who is said to study the Yogi philosophy. Oklahomans embellish their stories about Governor Johnston with sarcastic references to gnomes, nymphs, sylphs, salamanders, crystal-gazing, mystic numbers. Newsgatherers relate how Governor Johnston once said he would sign a certain bill at a certain time "because the signs of the Zodiac will be favorable then." Was he joking? Or was he serious?

Governor Johnston has denied being a Rosicrucian or "taking stock" in spiritualism. He explained his election-time dealings with a woman spiritualist in Oklahoma City. "She is from my home town,"/- he said. "She predicted my nomination and election. I just jollied with her. . . ."

Rosicrucian or spiritist or whatnot, Governor Johnston had to deal this week with the petition of Representative Kight and colleagues to investigate himself.

*The Society of Rosicrucians (Rosenkreuzer) dates from early in the 13th Century, when it was more a class of isolated individuals than an organized cult. The members were Europeans, mostly Germans. During the Reformation they favored Lutheranism as opposed to Roman Catholicism. The "society" was popularly supposed to take its name from one Christian Rosenkreuz, who was supposed to have discovered Oriental secrets on a pilgrimage. Writers, such as Poet Pope in The Rape of the Lock and Poet Adamson in The Muses' Threnodie used Rosicrucian paraphernalia--supernatural beings, alchemic formulae, astrological signs--to embody moral teachings. The ritual of Rosicrucianism today is guarded from uninitiates. There is in the U. S. a "Rosicrucian Fellowship" whose president, a Mrs. Max Heindel of Oceanside, Calif., lately declared Governor Johnston was no Rosicrucian. If he were, and should reach the sixth or "Adept" degree, he could build a new body for himself and live many a century, according to the doctrine. Five Brothers of the order live entirely without bodies, in the Temple, which is an "inner" world.

/-Perry, Okla.