On November 16, 1907, five minutes after it was known that Oklahoma had officially become a state, "Guthrie Leader" editor Leslie G. Niblack administered the oath of office to Haskell. The ceremony took place privately in Haskell's hotel apartments in the presence of his immediate family, Robert Latham Owen, United States Senator-elect, and Thomas Owen of Muskogee, Haskell's former political manager. Haskell's inaugural address at Guthrie, delivered on the south steps of the Carnegie Library, quickly lifted him into national prominence.