In Oklahoma

On a farm near Tecumseh, 40 miles from Oklahoma City, lived James Harris. With him one day last week was his brother-in-law, Oscar Lowery. Both under 40, they had been in the Army during the War. Suddenly they looked up to see four men, all armed, coming across the field to the house. . . . When the four men left, Harris and Lowery were dying and the Treasury Department in Washington had another dry shooting on its hands.

W. W. Thomason, U. S. Prohibition officer for Pottawatomie county, veteran chaser of 'leggers among the Osage Indians, headed the procession that marched upon the Harris farm. With him were three "friends," not regular agents but deputized for this raid. They fingered their gun triggers menacingly. Farmer Harris, mistaking them for bandits, lifted his shotgun down from behind the stove, prepared to defend his home. One of the unofficial raiders was snooping under a chicken coop for a still when he caught sight of Harris and Lowery. He pulled the trigger on his revolver. Harris dropped. Lowery started to run. Shots followed him, brought him to the ground. Both men were dead by sunset.

No liquor was found on the Harris farm. Raider Thomason had no search warrant to look for any.

Oklahoma officers arrested Thomason's "friends," lodged them in jail without bail on a charge of murder. Thomason himself "disappeared" for a day or so, only to give himself up, to explain that he had been "across the road" when the fatal shooting took place and knew nothing about it.

Bee Demonbru, Prohibition administrator for Western Oklahoma, hurried to the scene, made investigations, interviewed neighbors on Harris's reputation.

In Washington Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Seymour Lowman, in charge of Prohibition, was sorely troubled. He "supposed" that the agents had shot in self-defense. Within four weeks U. S. dry bullets had killed six persons.

The Oklahoma shooting did not resound throughout the land as had those before it largely because Congress was not in session and the forum for bitter complaints against U. S. dry police was temporarily lacking.