City of Tulsa v. Williamson, 36677

• Decision Date: 29 October 1954
• Docket Number: No. 36677,36677
• Citation: 276 P.2d 209
• Parties: CITY OF TULSA, Plaintiff, v. Mac Q. WILLIAMSON, Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, Defendant.
• Court: Oklahoma Supreme Court

Page 209

276 P.2d 209

1954 OK 290

CITY OF TULSA, Plaintiff, v. Mac Q. WILLIAMSON, Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, Defendant.

No. 36677.

Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Oct. 29, 1954.

Syllabus by the Court

1. By authority of the Constitution of Oklahoma, Section 27, Article 10, a municipality has the right, by proper vote at a legal election, to issue bonds for the purpose of purchasing and acquiring a designated valuable collection of American History and Art for public museum purposes.

2. The purchase of such property for public museum purpose out of bond issue properly approved by legal vote constitutes the purchase of a public utility within the meaning and the authority of the Constitution, Section 27, Article 10.

3. In a municipal bond election, when the ballot title states the proposition submitted to the voters in plain and comprehensive language, without contradiction, concealment or ambiguity, the inclusion therein of mere words of surplusage which could not confuse or mislead the voters, will not invalidate the election nor affect the bond issue approved by proper vote at such election.

4. Record examined, and held that the plan and purpose of the City of Tulsa to purchase and acquire the Thomas Gilcrease Foundation's Collection of American History and Art, for a public museum, is lawful; and that the bond election approving the issuance of negotiable coupon bonds in the sum of $2,250,000 for such purpose was legal and that such bond issue merits approval.

T. A. Landrith, Jr., City Atty., Edmund Lashley, John W. Hager, R. K. McGee and R. E. Lavender, Tulsa, for plaintiff.

Mac Q. Williams, Atty. Gen., Lynnie Clayton Spahn, Asst. Atty. Gen., for defendant.

WELCH, Justice.

This action presents the question whether the Attorney General as ex-officio Bond Commissioner of the State should be required in mandamus to approve a certain negotiable coupon bond issue of the City of Tulsa, Oklahoma

It was the overall purpose of the city to purchase from the Thomas Gilcrease Foundation a certain extensive collection of American History and Art then owned by the Foundation in the City of Tulsa, and to thereafter house and maintain the same as a Public Museum in the City of Tulsa.

The purchase price was $2,250,000, which the city intended to pay by a bond issue pursuant to authority granted by Sec. 27, Art. 10 of the Constitution of Oklahoma. By proper resolution and ordinance the matter of issuing such purported bonds was submitted to a vote of the people of Tulsa, and the election favored the issuance of such bonds by substantially more than the vote percentage required by law. There is no question on these points.

Three other questions, however, have arisen and it was the position of the Attorney General that he should not approve the bonds until these questions were judicially passed upon. This action commenced pursuant to proper resolution of the City of Tulsa presents for determination these three questions as follows:

'(1) Did the inclusion of the words 'operating and maintaining' in the ballot title render said proposed bond issue invalid?

'(2) Does the City of Tulsa have the right to issue bonds for the purpose of acquiring the collection of American History and Art owned by The Thomas Gilcrease Foundation?

'(3) Is the property to be acquired by the proceeds of the sale of these bonds a public utility within the meaning of Section 27 of Article 10 of the Oklahoma Constitution?'

The Thomas Gilcrease collection of American History and Art, among other things, contains the following:

'Priceless paintings--approximately 4000 of them. These are in many groups. For example--the documentary artists who lived with the Indians and painted them as they saw them, recorded their lives, customs and costumes, ceremonies and beliefs. Of this group is George Catlin, the first white artist to paint in what is now Oklahoma. Two hundred eighteen of his paintings, 42 pen and water color sketches and sketch book are in the collection. Other such artists who are well represented in the Gilcrease collection include Alfred Jacob Miller, John Mix Stanley, William de la Montagne Cary and dozens of others.

'Another group of painters are the Western Artists. The Gilcrease collections contain probably the finest, most selective collections in the world of paintings and sculpture of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell.

'Still another group is the contemporary Indian artists. More than 100 artists are represented by more than 500 paintings, including the finest work of the best artists, such as Acee Blue Eagle and Woodrom Crumbo. Other artists include Wimar, Bierstadt, Blakelock, Moran, Schreyvogel, Berninghaus, Eakins, Deming, Henri, Jarvis, Sharp, Audubon, King and a group of early colonial artists including Copley, Sully, Vanderlyn, Peale, etc., and later Healy, Homer, Whistler, etc.,

'A related collection of more than 150 pieces of sculpture by leading artists of America, in bronze, marble and wood, including work by Hoffman, Proctor, Kauba, Dallin, Shrady, Fraser, Borglum, MacNeil, Humphrise, Manship and MacMonnies, etc.,

'A priceless collection of more than 10,000 pieces extending in time from 3500 years ago to today, from claymodeled fetish figures of the pre-historic peoples of Central America and Old Mexico, through almost 100 pieces of rare Mayan clay figurines, Tarascan figures and folk art, Aztec and Totonac sculpture, etc., to the Mound cultures of our own continent and down to works of art of modern Indians of today. This represents the finest handiwork created by ancient and modern Indians of the entire Western Hemisphere--giving the truest picture of the real nature of our land's first inhabitants, their way of life, their beliefs, their aspirations and highest accomplishments.

'A fabulous collection of hundreds of pieces of pre-Columbian gold and jade from Old Mexico and Central America. Rarest artifacts in existence today, since only a few pieces of the most exquisite handiwork of these natives were salvaged from the Spanish conquest and destruction.

'There is also a large collection of pottery from pre-historic times to the present, including rare Mound and Mimbres examples. There are hundreds of authentic costumes and tribal ornaments. There are implements and weapons and arrows, arrowheads and tomahawks, but these last are included more as examples of fine handiwork rather than weapons. Everything connected with the American Indian in the field of artifacts is represented.

'A fine collection of rare worth and interest is the peace medal group, those marks of esteem and appreciation given the Indian leaders by the English rules and the Presidents of the United States.

'The library of the Gilcrease collection is almost beyond anyone's imagination. There are approximately 85,000 items in the library, of which an estimated 20,000 are extremely rare and precious. Included in this are the tremendously important Spanish conquest documents, original accounts of those little-recorded times. Also, there is a great collection of the material from the Five Civilized Tribes of American Indians. These and other groups offer limitless untapped resources for research material, causing one university authority to say he could see '100 doctorates' in the library's offerings.

'In addition to the manuscripts, there are books ranging from the first edition of the first complete book ever printed in the New World to early printings of Indian Territory and fine works of today. A listing of these is an introduction in history itself and a fabulous record. Folios, maps, prints, all the handiwork of man in the recorded word are in the Gilcrease collections, and add to the story of the paintings, artifacts, sculpture, etc.

'Manuscripts totaling over 10,000 pages, dating from 1526 and covering the Cortes period in Mexico.

'A few of the rare items in the manuscript and book collection is the letter signed by Diego Columbus, Christopher's son, which is his first letter ever to be sent from the New World, sent from Santo Domingo, in January 1512.

'Letters signed by Diego Columbus and Bartholome de las Casas, dated in 1519, written from the New World concerning the Christianization of the Indians of the land.

'A document signed by Hernando Cortes, an original manuscript of the first decree made by Cortes the day after capture of Mexico City, August 14, 1521.

'A document signed by Hernando De Soto, companion of Pizarro in Peru, and discoverer of the Mississippi River, issuing orders to fellow conquistador, Hernan Ponce de Leon, June 27, 1535.

'A letter from Thomas Jefferson expressing his concern over the State of the Union, July 1 and 2, 1776.

'The only original certified copies of the Articles of the Confederation and the Declaration of Independence outside the Library of Congress in Washington. These were ordered by the Continental Congress for the King of Prussia and are signed and attested by Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane.

'The only known copy of the rarest book on Virginia, a poem by Christopher Brooks on a massacre there, it is a first edition and the first book of English poetry written about America, published in London in 1622.

'A copy of the first Bible printed in English, in the New World, published in Philadelphia by Robert Aitken, 1781. Bartholome de las Casas--complete set of the First Editions of his rare American Tracts, published in 1552. Bernaldez Codex, written by a friend of Columbus from the explorer's own account of his discovery of America, dated 1508-1510.

'Constitutions of the Thirteen United States of America, the most important of all of Benjamin Franklin's political publications. This book has been called the Magna Carta of Europe, unsurpassed as a legislative code in both the practical organization of a government and in the principles on which it rests. This was Franklin's own personal copy, and bears his coat of arms, dated 1783.

'The original document appointing Paul Revere...