Alfalfa Bill Murray

Author : Keith L. Bryant
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 080615439X
Total Pages : 313 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alfalfa Bill Murray written by Keith L. Bryant and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-02-08 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William H. (Alfalfa Bill) Murray is the most important figure in the political history of Oklahoma. No other individual contributed so greatly to the formation of its political institutions—and there was never a more colorful or controversial character on the state’s political scene. Flamboyant, unpredictable, and stubborn, Alfalfa Bill became a legend. President of the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, speaker of the first House of Representatives, two-term congressman, and governor of Oklahoma, the Texas-born Murray made an indelible mark on his adopted state. But he also made enemies. During the struggle for statehood he waged a hard battle over the constitution, taking on President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of War William Howard Taft. As Oklahoma governor, Murray challenged the oil industry, newspaper interests, and the state of Texas. To enforce his programs, he relied on the National Guard. While governor, Murray called out the guard forty-seven times for duties ranging from policing ticket sales at University of Oklahoma football games, to patrolling oil fields, to guarding the Red River Bridge during the infamous Bridge War with Texas. In 1932 he ran for the Democratic nomination for president, and his fame spread across the nation. When candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt offered a program for national recovery, Murray countered with “Bread, Butter, Bacon, and Beans.” In describing Murray’s frustrated efforts to preserve the agricultural American of the nineteenth century, Bryant has written a perceptive biography presenting the first clearly defined portrait of this determined but inflexible man.

Author : Robert L. Dorman
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806162201
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.01/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alfalfa Bill written by Robert L. Dorman and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this masterful biography, Robert L. Dorman traces the career of William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray from his hardscrabble childhood in post–Civil War Texas to his remarkable ascendancy as a nationally known political figure in the mid-twentieth century. The first comprehensive portrait of Murray to be published in fifty years, Alfalfa Bill is both the exploration of a larger-than-life personality and an illuminating account of the birth of political conservatism in Oklahoma. As Dorman reveals, no political label readily fit Murray. The core conservatism of his Texas years was caught up in the ferment of three major periods of American reform—the Populist uprising, the Progressive Era, and the New Deal. Over his long career, Murray strongly advocated for states’ rights, limited government, and strict constitutionalism, yet he was also a consistent foe of corporations and concentrated wealth. The society he sought was small-scale, decentralized, agrarian—and racially segregated. Although he claimed to represent high principles, Murray as a politician was an opportunist, loved a good fight, had a flair for the theatrical, and hungered for power. Dorman depicts Murray from his days as a political operative in the Chickasaw Nation to his leadership of the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, and from the Speaker’s chair of the Oklahoma legislature to the halls of Congress. The book follows Murray’s quixotic attempt to found an agricultural colony in Bolivia, and chronicles his amazing Oklahoma comeback in the 1930 gubernatorial election. The final chapters detail Murray’s legendary term as state governor, his failed candidacy for president, and his emergence as a fierce critic of New Deal liberalism and racial desegregation. Unlike earlier biographies of Murray, Alfalfa Bill brings issues of race, class, and gender to the forefront, often in surprising ways. On the surface, the Murray saga was an American success story, yet his rise came at a price for Murray himself, his family, and the people of the state he helped to create. An indelible portrait emerges of an ambitious, domineering, relentless, and unapologetically racist figure whose tarnished legacy seems painfully relevant in America’s current political climate.

Author : Gordon Hines
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alfalfa Bill written by Gordon Hines and published by . This book was released on 1932 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biography of William Henry (Alfalfa Bill) Murray.

Author : Keith L. Bryant
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780598207333
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alfalfa Bill Murray written by Keith L. Bryant and published by . This book was released on with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : William Henry Murray
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 866 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Memoirs of Governor Murray and True History of Oklahoma written by William Henry Murray and published by . This book was released on 1945 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Keith L. Bryant
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806154381
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Alfalfa Bill Murray written by Keith L. Bryant and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-02-08 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William H. (Alfalfa Bill) Murray is the most important figure in the political history of Oklahoma. No other individual contributed so greatly to the formation of its political institutions—and there was never a more colorful or controversial character on the state’s political scene. Flamboyant, unpredictable, and stubborn, Alfalfa Bill became a legend. President of the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, speaker of the first House of Representatives, two-term congressman, and governor of Oklahoma, the Texas-born Murray made an indelible mark on his adopted state. But he also made enemies. During the struggle for statehood he waged a hard battle over the constitution, taking on President Theodore Roosevelt and Secretary of War William Howard Taft. As Oklahoma governor, Murray challenged the oil industry, newspaper interests, and the state of Texas. To enforce his programs, he relied on the National Guard. While governor, Murray called out the guard forty-seven times for duties ranging from policing ticket sales at University of Oklahoma football games, to patrolling oil fields, to guarding the Red River Bridge during the infamous Bridge War with Texas. In 1932 he ran for the Democratic nomination for president, and his fame spread across the nation. When candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt offered a program for national recovery, Murray countered with “Bread, Butter, Bacon, and Beans.” In describing Murray’s frustrated efforts to preserve the agricultural American of the nineteenth century, Bryant has written a perceptive biography presenting the first clearly defined portrait of this determined but inflexible man.

Author : William Henry Murray
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Speeches of William Henry Murray ... written by William Henry Murray and published by . This book was released on 1931 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : William Henry Murray
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781494055370
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Speeches of William Henry Murray written by William Henry Murray and published by . This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a new release of the original 1931 edition.

Author : Rusty Williams
Publisher : Texas A&M University Press
ISBN 13 : 1623494052
Total Pages : 285 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Red River Bridge War written by Rusty Williams and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-20 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, 2017 Oklahoma Book Award, sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for the Book Winner, 2016 Outstanding Book on Oklahoma History, sponsored by the Oklahoma Historical Society At the beginning of America’s Great Depression, Texas and Oklahoma armed up and went to war over a 75-cent toll bridge that connected their states across the Red River. It was a two-week affair marked by the presence of National Guardsmen with field artillery, Texas Rangers with itchy trigger fingers, angry mobs, Model T blockade runners, and even a costumed Native American peace delegation. Traffic backed up for miles, cutting off travel between the states. This conflict entertained newspaper readers nationwide during the summer of 1931, but the Red River Bridge War was a deadly serious affair for many rural Americans at a time when free bridges and passable roads could mean the difference between survival and starvation. The confrontation had national consequences, too: it marked an end to public acceptance of the privately owned ferries, toll bridges, and turnpikes that threatened to strangle American transportation in the automobile age. The Red River Bridge War: A Texas-Oklahoma Border Battle documents the day-to-day skirmishes of this unlikely conflict between two sovereign states, each struggling to help citizens get goods to market at a time of reduced tax revenue and little federal assistance. It also serves as a cautionary tale, providing historical context to the current trend of re-privatizing our nation’s highway infrastructure.

Author : Danney Goble
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 080615375X
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Progressive Oklahoma written by Danney Goble and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Progressive Oklahoma traces Oklahoma’s rapid evolution from pioneer territory to statehood under a model Progressive constitution. Author Danney Goble reasons that the Progressive movement grew as a reaction to an exaggerated species of Gilded Age social values—the notion that an expanding marketplace and unfettered individualism would properly regulate progress. Near the end of the territorial era, that notion was challenged: commercial farmers and trade unionists saw a need to control the market through collective effort, and the sudden appearance of new corporate powers convinced many that the invisible hand of the marketplace had become palsied. After years of territorial setbacks, Oklahoma Democrats readily embraced the Progressive agenda and swept the 1906 constitutional convention elections. They went on to produce for their state a constitution that incorporated such landmark Progressive features as the initiative and referendum, strict corporate regulation, sweeping tax reform, a battery of social justice measures, and provisions for state-owned enterprises. Goble is keenly aware that the Oklahoma experience was closely related to broader changes that shaped the nation at the turn of the century. Progressive Oklahoma examines the elemental changes that transformed Indian Territory into a new kind of state, and its inhabitants into Oklahomans—and modern Americans.