Henry Simpson Johnston (December 30, 1867 – January 7, 1965) was an American lawyer and 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 would become the second governor in Oklahoma history to be impeached and removed from office.
As governor, Johnston successfully proposed the establishment of a crippled children's hospital and a large increase to school aid funds. His trouble began with complaints about his private secretary holding too much power and making executive decisions that he should be making. After an unsuccessful and unconstitutional special session to impeach the governor in 1927, a new group of state lawmakers impeached the governor in 1929.
Johnston died in 1965 and is buried in Perry, Oklahoma.
Early life
Born in a log cabin on December 30, 1867, Johnston was a native of Evansville, Indiana. At age 24, Johnston would move to Colorado where he studied law and passed the bar exam in 1891. After a few years in Colorado, Johnston would move to Perry in Oklahoma Territory where he would become a powerful and popular figure throughout the area of Noble County.
Upon announcement that Oklahoma and Indian Territories were to combine into one state, Johnston was elected in 1906 to represent Noble and the surrounding counties at the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention. During the convention, Johnston would be elected to serve in the body's number-two office as the President Pro Tempore of the Convention. Johnston met future governors Charles N. Haskell, William H. Murray and Robert L. Williams. These men would work together to write one of the most progressive Constitutions of any U.S. state, as well as the longest governing document in the world at the time.
On November 16, 1907, the United States Congress accepted the Oklahoma Constitution. On the same day, Charles N. Haskell was inaugurated as the state's first governor. Before the state constitution was approved, Johnston ran and was elected to the Oklahoma Senate to serve in the 1st Oklahoma Legislature. A popular figure, Johnston was selected to serve as the first President Pro Tempore of the Oklahoma Senate, the state senate's highest official behind the Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma, who serves as President of the Oklahoma Senate.
Among Johnson's most powerful supporters were prohibitionists, Protestant churchmen, and Freemasons. Johnston himself would serve as the Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge of Oklahoma.
1926 gubernatorial election
In 1926, Johnson ran for governor of Oklahoma as a Democratic candidate to replace outgoing governor Martin E. Trapp. Trapp (who had taken office after the 1923 impeachment of Governor John C. Walton) 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. Winning the general election, Johnston was inaugurated as the seventh governor of Oklahoma.
Governorship
On January 10, 1927, Johnston was inaugurated as the seventh Governor of Oklahoma with all the hopes of a successful administration. Immediately, the Oklahoma Legislature approved Johnston's appropriation proposals to establish a crippled children's hospital and increased school aid funds to over $1,500,000 a year. As one observer cited, it was the "highest public school subsidy in state history at the time".
Johnson entered office with fierce opposition from several political camps. This included camps with representation in his own party, including those aligned with the losing gubernatorial contenders, the anti-Klan camp, and political adversaries of his personal secretary O. O. Hammonds. Disapproval of Mrs. Hammonds would ultimately prove a prime motivation behind later efforts to impeach Johnston.