In many of his fiery populist speeches, Oklahoma's most colorful governor referred to a plot of land where he grew alfalfa.

He spoke of it so often a newspaper called him Alfalfa Bill, and the name stuck.

William H. Murray left an indelible mark on Oklahoma's history.

From his humble beginnings to his pivotal role in the creation of Oklahoma, Murray was defined by his passionate advocacy for agriculture and his controversial, often eccentric leadership.

Alfalfa Bill Murray is probably one of the most enigmatic characters in all of Oklahoma history.

Has all these sides unpredictable, charismatic in his own way, loud and boisterous and love chaos and showman.

As governor in the 1930s.

His bold actions cemented a reputation as a champion of the poor, even as his staunch opposition to the New Deal and increasingly radical views earned both admiration and disdain for Alfalfa Bill.

Some politicians are born in log cabins.

William Henry David Murray, the future governor, congressman and presidential candidate, claimed he was born in Toad Suck, Texas in 1869, but there was no toad suck, just a saloon by that name near the town of Collinsville.

Toad Suck, Texas, outside of Collinsville.

And he left home at the age of 12 along with a brother, and tried to make their way, you know, best they could, picking cotton and chopping wood.

raised in poverty and hard working young kid, ambitious, reads for the law.

At that time, you did not have to have a law degree.

In fact, there were probably more attorneys licensed in Texas.

in the 1890s, and it would be in the 1950s, because all you have to do is pass a little test, and you were licensed to be an attorney.

So he would work for some attorneys in northern Texas, and then he was able to pass the bar, get his license, set up a law office, but really never did very well as a lawyer.

He, ran a newspaper in Corsicana.

Ran for, the state Senate and was defeated, and couldn't quite make it with the newspaper.

And he migrated to Fort Worth.

But he couldn't make a living.

And so he kept hearing about Chickasaw Nation and migrated there in 1898. he moves just north of the Red River into the Chickasaw Nation, starts practicing law There is a legal system.

Chickasaws had brought constitutional government with them.

They had an executive branch, judicial branch, legislative branch.

Well, he starts operating in that community around Tishomingo, which is the capital of the Chickasaw Nation at the time, He meets, courts and weds the daughter of the Chickasaw chief, Douglas Johnston, giving him an inside position within tribal government.

Alice Murray was, a very traditional 19th century lady.

for the time, was well read, they were completely devoted to each other she kept him grounded.

now that's a bill in large part became the attorney for the Chickasaw Nation in dealing with the federal government, in dealing with other Indian nations.

So he's embedded himself in the Chickasaw Nation, in the early 1900s.

when it came time to discuss statehood, the dual statehood concept was being floated to Oklahoma would be two states, Oklahoma and the state of Sequoyah.

And so Douglas Johnston promoted Murray to help write the Sequoyah Constitution, Murray had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

As chairman, he deftly wove his political beliefs into the fabric of power and with a mind sharpened by his peculiar passion for reading constitutions.

He knew exactly how to draft one of his own.

Let's take this part of that Texas Constitution that I like.

Let's take part of that Nebraska Constitution that I like, or the Wisconsin Constitution of New Zealand, the Constitution of Australia, he looked for inspiration for all kinds of places.

was never considered seriously by the federal government.

Ignored Most business people, corporations, railroads, all wanted one state.

The Republican leaders in Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, the Congress, all Republican.

They wanted just one state because whoever it was was going to send Democrats to the Senate, they'd prefer to have two Democratic senators than four.

becomes the basis for the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention.

And so people like Alfalfa Bill Murray, Charles Haskell, Lee Cruz, along with R.L.

Williams from the Choctaw Nation, and other leaders all gather in Guthrie for the Constitutional Convention.

They say, hey, we've got a head start.

about 75% of the Oklahoma Constitution was in the Sequoyah Constitution.

very forward looking at the time, you know, regulation of, of railroads and regulation of, banks and, and, consumer protection, where people forget that one of the first consumer protection laws, in the country was, in the Oklahoma Constitution President Theodore Roosevelt made it abundantly clear he would never lend his support to Oklahoma statehood if segregation were enshrined in its constitution.

Throwing a bold challenge to the state's future.

Bill Murray had already decided that our Constitution was not going to allow African-Americans to vote.

Now he has to pass the Constitution, has to write the Constitution that allows African-Americans to vote as a matter of federal law, as a matter of national prominence.

when the dust clears, we have our first elections, when only men could vote in the first elections, he decides he's going to run for speaker of the House.

He realizes that whereas the Constitution set up a framework, the real work is going to be done in that first legislature establishing institutions, the basic law of the land that they could not put in the Constitution.

And guess what the first laws were?

They were Jim Crow laws.

He wrote many of them.

The laws that simply said, hey, African Americans, you can't ride in the same area of a street car as whites.

And by the way, you can't go to their bathrooms.

He believes staunchly in that.

That hierarchial view.

Let's keep women at home.

Let's have an Anglo-Saxon fundamentalist Christian community here.

Anybody that tries to intrude keep them out.

We need to seal our borders.

We need to keep government as small as possible.

Murray served two terms as speaker of the House under his leadership.

Oklahoma heavily regulated interests that he didn't trust railroads, banks, and corporations.

He ran for governor and was defeated in 1910, and by 1912 he decided to run for Congress.

Bill Murray was a great speaker, a fiery orator who could stir up a crowd because he was against big corporation, big companies.

He was against all the trust that were being created back in the eastern United States, like the Standard Oil Trust.

And he was against big government.

meeting hall where he was supposed to have a rally was too small for the crowd.

So he said, well, get me a wagon and I'll just go.

Well, the the the only wagon they could find at the time was a wagon.

Full manure.

And and it flies and all.

He was not fazed.

He got up on it and he said, I've never given a Democratic speech while standing on a Republican platform.

He goes out to a log cabin that's falling down, takes off his shoes, puts on overalls and has his photographer take pictures of him like he's a great commoner.

After two unremarkable terms in the U.S. House, Murray decided he'd had enough of Washington, D.C..

He ran for governor again in, 1918 and was defeated.

And at that point, kind of gave up on Oklahoma.

He gets disenchanted with government, with.

And he takes his family, extended family and some other investors to Bolivia.

He was going to start this business with this idea, an Indian idea of none of us are going to own the land, but we're going to work together.

We're going to produce what we need to eat.

We're going to produce what we need to manufacture, to export, to create some currency to make this work.

It didn't last very long, because the Bolivian government never lived up to their promises to give them food and to give them help.

It was a disaster.

The conditions in Bolivia for the for the settlers were pretty harsh.

so some of the original colonists that went with him decided to go back home When he and his family returned in 1929, Oklahoma was deep in the grip of the Great Depression.

when Bill Murray ran for governor in 1930, the fall of Wall Street had happened the year before, Oklahoma was suffering badly.

And so he he ran what he called the cheese and crackers campaign because he, went around the state campaigning, didn't buy any radio time, didn't buy any ads in the newspapers because he had no money.

he never owned a car.

He hitchhiked from town to town campaigning for governor.

Somebody along the way gave him, big, wheel of cheese that he carried in a pillowcase.

and, go into these stores and buy, you know, nickels worth of of crackers and sit and eat cheese and crackers.

And word would spread that Murray was in town and people would show up, and he'd get on the back of a hay wagon and give these stem-winding speeches and blame everything on, the bankers, the corporations Are these bankers taking your land, those railroads that are raising their rates?

These are the bad guys.

Simplifying a very complicated problem and saying, I will be your champion, elect me governor.

there's enough suffering and enough votes in rural Oklahoma that he's elected in 1930, As soon as he takes office, Murray is confronted with the limitations etched into the state constitution.

Limitations of the governor's power that Murray himself had drafted.

Here he is, governor changes his tune.

Oh, wait a minute.

My powers are are so weak and limited.

I'm going to expand.

I am going to push the limits on executive powers.

and so he relied on the one thing that he did have, and that was martial law.

He was able to order the National Guard around, He declared martial law more than 30 times.

He called out the National Guard more times than all the other governors in history.

Now, he called out the National Guard one time to close down the oil fields because he wanted to raise the price of oil.

Oklahoma City oil field is discovered.

The first discovery well, in December of 1928.

And it turns out to be the biggest of all of the oil fields in Oklahoma.

production goes up, starts flooding the market.

so the state passes laws to say, let's limit that.

So yeah, you're well, my flow 500 barrels a day, but you can only produce 200 barrels today.

Try to get production down to support the industry.

Well, people found a way to have hot oil.

What 200 was coming out legally, 300 was going through the back door illegal there were all sorts of shenanigans to try to get around the, the, the martial law declaration to you know, some wiser producers had reversed the valves on some of the tanks that would show that oil was still in it, but flowing out instead of flowing in.

Alfalfa Bill, champion of the people.

Simple solution to a simple problem in his mind.

Since then the National Guard tell those, oh man, we're going to shut them down at the end of a gun.

He relied on the National Guard for almost everything from enforcing segregation to overseeing ticket sales at the University of Oklahoma football games.

How can he make the governor's office more powerful?

Well, he does that as an advocate of chaos.

And, going into all the colleges, firing presidents of the colleges, is it legal?

Well, who knew?

When he came in, he fired almost all of the university presidents and put his friends in.

He even put in one guy as a, president of a major university who only had a high school education.

as long as he had the people behind him, he could expand that power A reaction to that.

Oklahoma said, wait a minute, we don't want chaos like that.

Again, that set back higher education in Oklahoma.

And so we have a constitutional amendment, 1940, creating the Regents for a Higher Education.

It's a direct result of the abuses that alfalfa Bill used in the colleges.

The Constitution of the United States shall be violated.

Feeling that I feel that I should uphold the power of the state.

I feel also that the salvation of this country depends upon returning the constitutional government.

In four years as governor, Murray declared martial law 30 times and called out the National Guard.

47.

One of the most famous incidences of Governor Murray calling out the National Guard was when that the governor of Texas tried to make a new bridge across the Red River, a toll bridge.

Farmers from Oklahoma are being, abused and having to pay to go across the river and sell their produce and taxes by these toll bridges.

So free bridges have been built.

But now this corporation, the Texas Bridge Company, has got a, federal judge to issue an injunction to prevent the free bridge from opening until, the Texas Bridge Company is paid what they think is due them.

the Supreme Court.

And all right ruled that the border of Oklahoma goes to the south line of vegetation on the Red River.

So to Bill, if you see water now, that's Oklahoma water to Bill Murray.

So what does he do?

He doesn't negotiate.

He doesn't send a delegation down there to solve this problem.

He sends the National Guard and he show he appoints his brother to be head of the of the National Guard.

Here comes Alfalfa Bill in his white suit, white hat, walking around in front of these troops.

when the Texas Rangers.

Occupied the south end of the bridge, Murray said, don't kill him, boys.

Just go down there, kick them in the ass, steal their tobacco and bring it to me.

we could have had a border war Fortunately, The rule of law prevailed, and a federal judge said, hey, Oklahoma, you own the entire river!

Governor of Texas.

Go back to Austin.

So the Red River War was over.

As governor, one of the things that really endeared him to people were these symbolic gestures, like plowing up the lawn of the governor's mansion and planting potatoes.

You know, it's a it's a great gesture, but it's hardly a plan.

For, for fighting the depression.

But it it rural folks really appreciated it, the symbolism.

The president he disagreed with the with the New Deal on many levels, In 1932.

At the height of his notoriety, Murray ran for the Democratic nomination for president.

the two most famous governors at the time would be FDR and Alfalfa Bill.

But Alfalfa Bill was more infamous than he was famous for the bridge war and martial law and the oil fields and And so Roosevelt was his chief rival, for, for president, if you consider Alfalfa Bill to be a serious political force, which he wasn't.

He wanted to be the favorite son from Oklahoma.

and he hates Franklin Roosevelt, the son of rich people, the elite, the highly educated, the people who think they know better than we do, the common people.

He also would he would have associated Franklin Roosevelt with big bankers in New York City, Wall Street.

Like other populists, he believed in conspiracy.

If he could help spin a story that might be believe this conspiracy out there, that something happened, such as FDR, polio, maybe it wasn't polio after all.

Maybe there's something much more sinister.

he puts out the rumor, hey, FDR has syphilis.

And you could say a lot of things in those days, you know, as you can now.

But he got by with that He was never called out by the national press.

But the Democratic National Convention elected FDR as the nominee, and the rest is history.

pledge myself to a new deal for the American people.

The sage of Tishomingo received 22 votes from Oklahoma and one vote from North Dakota.

That vote was from his brother, who he had run away from home with at the age of 12 and hadn't seen in years.

In 1935, his term as governor was over.

Murray ran for office again and again, but his political career was over.

basically times did pass him by and he became a bit bitter later in life because he realized he did not fit with the changes, especially after World War two He and and Alice moved to Broken Bow, where they lived.

Classic pioneer life.

No electricity.

You know, they they, had a small farm, he, carried on as a 19th century farmer would have He runs for for governor again.

In 38, and was defeated, and also in that period, his wife died, so the one thing in his life that kind of kept him semi grounded was, was gone.

And he, thereafter was increasingly erratic.

When Alfalfa Bill was elected in 1931, his father, Uriah Murray, swore him in.

In 1950, Alfalfa Bill's son Johnston Murray was elected governor, and alfalfa Bill swore him in Johnston Murray's campaign for governor was solely built on the popularity of his father.

At one point, he was living in the governor's mansion with Johnston and Johnston second wife, Willie.

Johnston couldn't keep him.

Couldn't keep him at the governor's mansion with him.

He lived in these transient hotels, and, eventually, when Johnston is, is governor, he's living in a transient hotel and in downtown Oklahoma City.

Not long after Johnston Murray was governor.

Bill Murray in the middle of the 1950s has a stroke and dies from the results of that.

He's buried.

In Tishomingo, along with, His son Johnson.

It's two governor's, of Oklahoma buried in the Tishomingo cemetery, along with Douglas Johnston, the governor of the Chickasaw.

Families that have lived in the governor's mansion say Murray may be gone, but his spirit still lingers and sometimes makes his presence known.

we moved into the governor's mansion, and the night before Frank's first state of the state right?

Goes around the house at night, turns all the lights off to save money, and I'm walking down the front steps.

And on the third step, I lose my footing and I go down on the steps on my foot wrong.

The next morning I wake up.

My ankle is just throbbing.

And Doretha, who had been with the governor's mansion for 14 years through several governors, She said, everybody falls on that third step.

I don't know what in the world is wrong with it.

I think I fell for Bill Murray is up to no good again.

Mrs. Keating had an alfalfa bill doll made and set it on the third step as a warning to all to hold on to the rail.

Was having Lunch with Sarah Stitt.

Last week, and she talked about when she tripped and fell, and I said, was it the third step?

And she said, I believe it was, but I don't know.

And, so I don't know if she believes in ghosts or not, but I do.

there's several things have been named for Alfalfa Bill.

There's Murray County, sulfur area.

And then there's Alfalfa County, And then, like Murray, Murray State College, You don't want to celebrate the racism of an Alfalfa Bill Murray, but at the same time, you have a man who helped shape the DNA of the state that has helped shape the way that we have rule of law, the way our institutions work Good or bad.

Murray was a towering figure, larger than life, a flamboyant force in Oklahoma politics.

He blended fiery rhetoric with a deep understanding of government.

A showman.

He captivated audiences with his speeches, commanding attention and admiration.

Few individuals have ever wielded as much influence over the state as the complex and controversial Alfalfa Bill.

If we do not adhere strictly to the spirit of the Constitution, the United States, we shall have no chance whatever of government.

We will go so far afield until we become a centralized despot, a and a despotism by judicial control is as bad on the liberty of the people as a military despotism.