William H. Murray: 1869-1956

Alfalfa Bill. Cocklebur Bill. Bolivia Bill. A Vaudeville Act. Liberator of the Poor.

Incompetent Braying Machine. Prophet of Better Times.

On a dusty Oklahoma street, a man climbed up the shaky steps of a temporary platform. He wore a baggy, wrinkled, white cotton suit, tobacco juice drizzled from one corner of his mouth, and a long black cigar protruded from under his large, drooping walrus mustache. He roared to the crowd that the people's enemies were "Corporations, Carpetbaggers, and C**ns." The crowd cheered and chanted, "Alfalfa Bill! Alfalfa Bill!"

In 1869, William H. Murray was born in Toadsuck, Texas, and there he lived in a one-room house with undressed pine for walls. His father was a poor farmer, and his mother died when he was 2. His father remarried a religious zealot who regularly whipped him and his two brothers. At the age of 12, he and his brothers escaped. He worked chopping cotton, cutting wood in a brickyard, and anything else available. Attending school when he could, he became a voracious reader, a trait that lasted a lifetime.

He enrolled in College Hill Institute and was mentored by two instructors who saw his potential. After graduation, he became a popular public school teacher and orator, and was soon involved with Texas politics. While working at a newspaper in Fort Worth, he studied law with a judge and passed the Texas bar exam in 1897.

He moved to the Chickasaw Nation in Indian Territory and joined a small law firm. Again he jumped into politics and helped Douglas H. Johnston win the governorship of the nation. Soon he married Johnston's niece, who was 1/16 Chickasaw. This gave him the right to work in Indian courts and to own land. He bought 1400 acres and started farming. He was the first in the state to raise alfalfa, of which he was a great proponent, thus earning the nickname "Alfalfa Bill." He made considerable money in court helping white men prove their "affiliation" with a tribe so they could buy land. Murray charged them 25% of the land's value.

His career and connections grew and when Oklahoma was to be admitted as a state, he was elected president of the constitutional convention. There he helped craft a deeply segregationist constitution. He was then elected Speaker of the House of the new legislature. In 1910, he ran for governor but lost. He was elected for two terms in the U.S. House but lost his try for a third. He ran for governor again in 1918 and again lost.

In his disillusionment, he decided to fulfill an old dream. In 1922 he went to Bolivia and secured the right to create a private colony of farmers. In 1924, he led his group of pioneers to begin the great adventure. The colonists were greeted by hordes of insects that infected them and destroyed their crops. It was a life of drudgery for them. By the end of the first year, all the colonists had left but Murray and his family. In 1929, Bolivia was on the brink of war with Paraguay, and Murray's land was in between. He returned to Oklahoma and dove directly back into politics.

Yet again, he ran for governor, and this time he won. Some say he performed and promised his way to the governorship. He began by breaking nearly every campaign promise he had made. Oklahoma was in the depth of the Great Depression. Drought created dust storms called black blizzards, animals and people died—people left in droves for the West. 300,000 out of 800,000 people were jobless. Murray ruled by executive orders, ignoring the constitution he had helped craft. The National Guard became his private army, and he activated them 47 times. He declared martial law 30 times. His faithful supporters still adored him. He did all this while maintaining a circus-like atmosphere in the capital. His antics brought him national attention and notoriety.

He decided to run as a Democratic nominee for President of the United States. He crisscrossed the country making bombastic speeches. His campaign slogan was, "Bread, Butter, Bacon, and Beans." At the convention in Chicago, a reporter described his speech as "a vaudeville act that served to pass an hour away." He lost soundly to FDR, whom he supported for some time, then turned vehemently against. He claimed that FDR did not have polio but syphilis, which was eating away his brain.

He ran for governor— lost. He ran for the U.S. Senate — lost. He ran for the Senate again — lost. He spent his last years writing books, many outrageously racist — he recommended that the Jews be sent to a colony on Madagascar. The bright light for him in these times was his son, Johnston Murray, who was elected governor of Oklahoma in 1951. Largely blind and deaf and suffering from a stroke, double pneumonia ended his life in 1956. Now Oklahoma is wrestling with the problem of what to do with all the places throughout the state that are named in honor of William H. Murray, including a state college.

Mark Wyatt McGinnis, Emeritus Professor of Art, Northern State University, Aberdeen, South Dakota, now resides in Boise. His interdisciplinary approach to art has included paintings, books, sculpture, printmaking, installation, video, performance, essays, and interviews. The research orientation of his work has led to series and projects of exploration and inquiry on a range of subjects including demagogues, neo-modernism, extinction of species, the Snake River basin, science and philosophy, literature of Asia, world religions, religious elders, economics, foreign policy, nuclear weaponry, American Indian history, and explorers of the “New World.” His projects have been featured in over 120 solo exhibitions and he has numerous publications. markwmcginnis@gmail.com, markwmcginnisart.com.