The Roots of the Real Red River Rivalry

This Saturday the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas will play in a ball game the media calls The Red River Rivalry.  The game rattles the nerves and boils the emotions of people in Oklahoma and Texas. What most don't realize is that there was a real Red River Rivalry that has lasted for 150 years. The Oklahoma and Texas border dispute which involves the Red River began with a navigating error by a soldier who would become a Civil War general, necessitated a U.S. President calling out federal troops to clear the disputed land of Texans, and ultimately would only be resolved by a decision of the United States Supreme Court.

       In 1803 Thomas Jefferson purchased land from Napoleon in a transaction that became known as The Louisana Purchase. The southern most portion of the land, including modern day Oklahoma, formed the United States border with Spain. The 1819 Adams-Onis Treaty with Spain established the Red River, the river that now forms the border between Texas and Oklahoma, as the southern boundary line between the U.S. and Spain. In addition, the 100th Meridian, north from the Red River to the Arkansas River (a river in the territory that would eventually become Kansas), was established as the western boundary of the United States.  When Mexico became independent of Spain in 1821, the U.S. signed a treaty recognizing Mexico's boundaries as the same as the 1819 treaty. In 1837, Texas seceded from Mexico and proclaimed itself an independent nation. The following year the Republic of Texas concluded a treaty with the United States, and once again, the United States recognized the same boundaries.

Though the Red River and the 100th Meridian were considered the boundaries between the U.S. and Texas, nobody really explored the boundaries to set definitive markers until the summer of 1852. In that summer, two young U.S. soldiers stationed in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), Captain Randolph Marcy and Captain George B. McClellan,  were sent by the government to explore the upper Red River to find its source and mark the 100th meridian. Captain McClellan, who himself would later (1861) become a general and be appointed by President Lincoln as general-in-chief of the Union Army, used astronomical observations to establish the 100th meridian. However, McClellan made a mistake in his navigation. He placed the meridian one degree east of its actual location. This made the meridian intersect the Red River at a point near the mouth of the North Fork of the Red River. McLellan and Marcy followed the North Fork of the Red River north, falsely believing the North Fork to be the Red River.

          McClellan's mistake would not be discovered for five years, but by that time, Texans had already taken up residence in the area between the North Fork of the Red River and the real Red River (the light red colored land pictured in the map). On February 9, 1860, Texas called this land Greer County, named in honor of John A. Greer, the former lieutenant governor of Texas. The new county's boundaries were the area east of the 100th meridian and between the north and south forks of the Red River,  Texas recognized the true 100th meridian as the eastern boundary of the Texas Panhandle but claimed the North Fork as the main branch of the Red River. Texas argued that General McClellan had claimed the North Fork was the main fork of the Red River back in 1852. Based on McClellan's error, Texas would claim sovereignty over Greer County for almost forty years.

           In 1890 the United States sought to establish Oklahoma as a new Territory. A lawsuit was filed by the attorney general  the United States to recognize Greer County as part of Oklahoma and not Texas.  After hearing all the testimony and after examining all the documents, the Supreme Court held that the central issue was "what did the negotiators of the Treaty of 1819 believe the boundary to be at the time they were presenting the treaty for ratification by both national governments (Spain and the U.S.)." In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that the southern branch of the Red River was the main original border of 1819. As a result, the land between the North Fork River and the Red River belonged to the United States (and Oklahoma) and not Texas. In 1896 Greer County became part of Oklahoma Territory and in 1907 the new state of Oklahoma divided the 1.5 million acres into four counties: Beckham, Harmon, Greer and Jackson counties.

However, the border dispute between Texas and Oklahoma did not end. In 1918 wildcat oil men found oil in north Texas. Wells were drilled by Texans as close to the Red River as possible, peven actually drilling into the river. Oklahoma land owners asserted that oil was being pumped from the Oklahoma side into Texas pocketbooks.   Oklahomans demanded royalty payments asserting that the middle of the Red River to the south bank was Oklahoma land. The State of Oklahoma filed suit in the U.S. Supreme Court against the State of Texas.  Eventually the courts decided that the entire Red River was in Oklahoma and the state of Texas only begins on the south bank. However, the bed of the Red River expands and contracts through the natural processes of erosion and accretion. The question eventually became "Where is the south bank of the Red River?"   Determining the exact location of the south bank required a great deal of legal work and surveying. In 1991 the state legislatures of Oklahoma and Texas created Red River Boundary Commissions and charged them with establishing a fixed and permanent boundary. In the spring of 1999 the commissions decided "the vegetation line along the south bank of the Red River extending on a line from the 100th Meridian east to Lake Texoma as the northern border of Texas."  The 1999 agreement required the Oklahoma/Texas border be marked with visible landmarks. Texas Gov. George W. Bush signed the resulting legislation into law on May 24, 1999 and Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating signed the agreement into law on June 4 of the same year. In Washington, D.C., Congress affirmed the agreement, which became federal law on August 31, 2000.  150 years of border dispute was finally resolved at the dawn of the 21st millenium.

The only remaining Red River battle will take place Saturday.

Escaped World War II POW's Owe a Great Deal to Monopoly

The following information was forwarded to me by my mother Mary Burleson and her brother Ronnie Cherry. Being a history buff myself, and having two grandfathers who served in World War II, I found the information (declassified in 2007) very interesting. Read on ...

"Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape… Now obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of 'safe houses' where a POW on-the-lam could go for food and shelter.

Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.

Someone in MI-5 (similar to America's OSS) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.

At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.

By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, 'games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into CARE
packages, dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.

Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were in a regional system. When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.

As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:

1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass

2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together

3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!

British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.

Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets.

Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war. The story wasn't declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honoured in a public ceremony.

It's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail' free card!

I realize most of you are (probably) too young to have any personal connection to WWII (Dec. '41 to Aug. '45), but this is still interesting."

Story verification:

The Informated Reader

ABC News

George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789.

(signed) G. Washington

Happy Thanksgiving one and all,

Wade Burleson

At Times It Seems Hard to Tell Who Really Won the War

HIROSHIMA, JAPAN in 1945 (black and white) and in 2009 (color).



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DETROIT, MICHIGAN IN 2009 (compare with Hiroshima)

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It is tough to tell who actually won WW II.

Wade

There is a Higher Aim than that of Mere Office

On March 6, 1857, exactly 152 years ago today, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks, both slave and free, were not - and could never be - United States' citizens. The edict, now known as The Dred Scott Decision, declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, and permitted slavery in all western territories of the United States. Chief Justice Taney, knowing that some would challenge the ruling by pointing to the language within The Declaration of Independence that specifically declares, "all men are created equal," defended the Court's decision by writing:

"(I)t is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration. . . ."

In Illinois, a local Springfield lawyer who had sworn off future involvement in poltics after serving a disappointing term as a U.S. Representative, was so disillusioned by the Dred Scott decision, he decided to run for 1858 Illinois U.S. Senate seat on an anti-slavery platform. Abraham Lincoln lost his Senate race to Stephen Douglas, but two years later he was astonishingly and unexpectedly elected President of a divided United States - running on the same anti-slavery platform. The majority of other Presidential candidates, including Stephen Douglas, were ambivolent on the issue of slavery. Lincoln, who had long admired the herculean efforts of English politician William Wilberforce to rid England of slavery, could not understand these "don't care" politicans who pretended indifference. Lincoln reminded his "do-nothing" political contemporaries:

In the Republican cause there is a higher aim than that of mere office.

Using even harsher, and possibly self-prophetic language, Lincoln wrote in a July 1858 letter that such do nothing politicians remind him of Wilberforce's opponents who "blazed," "flickered," and "died," whereas the memory of Wilberforce endured.

On this anniversary of the Dred Scott decision, we pastors, men with a cause even greater than that of the Republic, would do well to remember the words of Lincoln when we are tempted to clutch to the recognition that comes with an "office" and avoid the work necessary to see to it that those things which are good, and right, and true, and just are done through our ministries.

In His Grace,

Wade Burleson

P.S. The photograph is from Lincoln's swearing in ceremony at his first inauguration in 1861. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, author of the Dred Scott Decision, swore Lincoln into office. Nothing evil in God's world survives forever.