HENRY S. JOHNSTON, AMERICAN LAWYER

 As most of you know my maiden name is Johnston.  I used to do a lot of family research.  So when I see familiar last name from one of the branches of my family, I try to connect them to my family tree.  I haven't done much researched on Henry S.  Johnston, so I do not know if he is a relative.  

Henry Simpson Johnston was born December 30, 1867 in Evansville, Indiana U.S.A in a log cabin.  At the age of 24 he moved to Colorado and studied law.  He passed the bar exam in 1891.  After a few years in Colorado he moved to Perry, Oklahoma Territory where he practiced law and became a powerful and popular figure throughout the area of Noble County.  His spouse is Ethel Littleton. There is no mention of children.  He died January 7, 1965 in Perry, Oklahoma at the age of 97.  

Johnston was a lawyer and a politician who served as a delegate to the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, the first president pro tempore of the Oklahoma Senate, and the Seventh Governor of Oklahoma.  He became the second governor in Oklahoma history to be impeached and removed from office.  He was in the Governor's office from January 10, 1927 to March 20, 1929; He was a member of the Oklahoma Senate in the 10th District from November 16, 1907 till November 16, 1908.  Also in office from November 16, 1932 to November 16, 1936.  Member of the Oklahoma Territorial Council from the 2nd District in office from 1897 to 1899.  He was of the Democratic Party.  His spouse is Ethel Littleton.  He attended Baker University and Southwestern College.  

Upon the announcement that the Oklahoma and Indian Territories were to be combined in the state of Oklahoma, Johnston was elected in 1906 to represent Noble and surrounding counties at the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention.  During the convention, Johnston was elected to serve in the body's number-two office as the President Pro Tempore of the convention.  Johnston, governors Charles N. Haskell, William H. Murray and Robert L. Williams worked together to write one of the most progressive Constitutions of the United States, as well as the longest governing document in the "world" at the time.

In 1907 Johnston ran and was elected to the Oklahoma Senate to serve in the first Oklahoma Legislature.  This is when he served as the first President Pro Tempore of the Senate.  Among his supporters were prohibitionists, protestant church-men, and Free Masons.  Johnston served as the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of Oklahoma.

In 1926, Johnston ran for the Governor's Office of Oklahoma, as a Democratic Candidate to replace outgoing Governor Martin E. Trapp.  Trapp took office after the 1923 impeachment of Governor John C. Walton.  He was prohibited by State courts from running for a full term after it had been held that the state constitution's prohibition on election to multiple consecutive gubernatorial terms applied to him and the partial term he was serving as governor.  During the campaign, Johnston was supported by the Ku Klux Klan, which publicly aligned himself with.  Johnston won the Democratic Primary Election by a narrow margin in a multi candidate race, and went on to win the general election.  Johnston was inaugurated as the Seventh Governor of Oklahoma, on January 10, 1927.  Immediately, the Oklahoma Legislature approved Johnston's a propitiation proposal to establish a crippled children's hospital and increased School aid funds to over $1,500,000 a year.  This was the highest public school subsidy in the state history at the time.

Johnston entered the office with fierce opposition from several political camps, including representation in his own party, and political adversaries of his personal secretary, O.O. Hammonds.  The opposition of his personal secretary would ultimately prove a prime motivation behind the later efforts to impeach Johnston.  Before the state legislature adjourned in May of 1927, complaints were raised against Johnston's private secretary. The legislative leaders believed Mrs. Hammonds held to much power over the governor.  It was even believed that she went to so far as to make executive decisions and appointments in her own right.  Believing that Johnston was neglecting his duties, the leaders of the state legislature demanded that she be immediately discharged from the governor's services.

In December of 1927, the leaders were determined to impeach Johnston for neglect of his duties, so they met in special session under the newly adopted incitive proposition.  This measure was introduced to deal with Governor Jack C. Walton's impeachment four years earlier.  In the special session, the state legislature announced its plan to investigate the governor.  Before they could act, the Oklahoma Supreme Court intervened to the benefit of Johnston.  The court ruled in the case of Simpson V. Hill, that the legislature's actions were unconstitutional and that they could only meet during regular sessions or at the call of the governor in special session.  Following the Supreme Court's example, Oklahoma City's district court issued an injunction against the Oklahoma Legislature, preventing state law-makers from convening.  They convened on December 13, 1927, in the Huskins Hotel in Downtown Oklahoma City.  The House of Representatives raised charges, which the Oklahoma Senate as the Court of Impeachment agreed to, against Governor Johnston and many members of his administration.  Realizing that the judicial branch sided with the executive branch on this matter and that the courts were concerned over the legality of their session, the State Senate dismissed the issues and the State Legislature adjourned.  This event only made Johnston more popular and powerful.  The people loved him for suing the courts to decide the issue, rather than martial law.

Johnston returned to serve for several months without any harassment from the State Legislature.  But everything changed toward the end of 1928.  That year the Democrats selected Al Smith as their U.S. Presidential nominee to challenge the Republican nominee Herbert Hoover.  Supporting his Democratic ally, Johnston campaigned in the state on Smith's behalf.  Hoover won the Presidency in an over-whelming national landslide.  Many Oklahoma Republicans won state offices including seats on the Oklahoma Supreme Court, a near majority in the Oklahoma Houses and large gain in the Oklahoma Senate.  Johnston was left alone as the only Democratic figure in the state.

When the State Legislature met in regular session in 1929, both Democrats and Republicans crafted as second wave of impeachment charges.  There were thirteen articles of impeachment presented by the Oklahoma House of Representatives, the State Senate accepted eleven.  On January 21, 1929 Johnston was officially suspended from office and Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma William J. Holloway became acting Governor.  Johnston's impeachment trial began on February 6, and lasted over six weeks.  It came to an end on March 20, with the State Senate removing Johnston from office on the eleventh charge of general incompetence.  The other ten charges were dismissed.  

Following impeachment, Johnston returned to practice law in Perry.  Four years later, he won a term in the State Senate, serving from 1933 to 1937.  After leaving the Senate he again returned to Perry, Oklahoma to practice law.  He was the longest-lived governor in Oklahoma History, before or since.  Johnston is buried in Perry. 

This was copied from Wikipedia.

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