Letter Attorney General to James E. Markham, 1921 November 2

              SPF/MS
 November 2, 1921.
 Honorable James E. Markham,
 Assistant Attorney General,
 St. Paul, Minnesota.
 Dear Mr. Markham:
 This is in answer to your letters of recent date with regard to the  situation at Tulsa, Oklahoma, concerning which a requisition has been  asked for the return of a defendant charged with participating in a riot  there.
 I investigated this entire matter before the Grand Jury of Tulsa County,  and I think you may rely upon the following as a brief statement of facts:
 A negro boy was charged and arrested, with making an assault upon a white  girl in an elevator, and delivered to the custody of the Sheriff of Tulsa  County. The assault was not one of that serious nature which the mind  usually associates with such an offense when such a charge is made. An  article appeared in an afternoon paper, stating that the charge had been  made and that the defendant was in custody.
 Various black men living north of the Frisco tracks in Tulsa, phoned the  Sheriff, asking if there would be mob violence, and were told that there  would not be. Later, in the evening, a crowd of white people, consisting  of curiousity seekers, and parties driving cars, stopped in the vicinity  of the jail. The crowd was orderly, and there was not the slightest sign  of any attempt at mob violence on their part. The negro population became  inflamed, and marched upon the scene armed with pistols and rifles. The  Sheriff had some conversation with one or two of them, but no effort was  made to disarm any of the belligerents. They left the scene, however, returning  later in great numbers, flurishing revolvers and guns, and intimidating  white people, and marched on the principal streets of the city in military  formation, and armed to the teeth. This enraged the white population,  who had made not the slightest attempt to lynch anyone, nor to disturb the  negro population; but this action of the negroes, undoubtedly precipitated  the action of the white people and as the white population began to fire, it  gave opportunity to the lowest elements of the white population to pillage  and murder.
 I sought, before the Grand Jury, to indict every negro who precipitated  the riot and every white man who took advantage of the situation to violate  the law, and commit not only robbery