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Alfalfa Bill Murray

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

THE FORMATIVE YEARS

SOME POLITICIANS prefer to have been born in log cabins. William Henry David Murray had to settle for a crude, one-room, slab-sided house of undressed pine. The future governor, congressman, and Presidential candidate was born on November 21, 1869, in the Texas frontier village of Toadsuck. The third son of Uriah Dow Thomas Murray and Bertha Elizabeth Jones Murray would be known as "Alfalfa Bill" during most of his adult years. The environment in which this child was born and reached maturity shaped the man who would become a leading figure in his adopted state of Oklahoma.

In the years before his birth, north central Texas was changing from an Indian-harassed frontier to an agricultural region, and the vast acres of black-dirt prairie beckoned settlers like Uriah Murray. A Scotsman, Uriah had left his native Tennessee to seek opportunity in the West. He arrived in Texas in 1852 and several years later married Elizabeth Jones. Uriah worked for his father-in-law at a gristmill in the town of Collinsville, a few miles from Toadsuck. Economic advancement eluded Uriah, but his family grew with the arrival of John Shade in 1862, George Thomas in 1867, and William two years later. Sorrow came to the family in 1871, when Elizabeth died in childbirth.

After the death of his wife Uriah took his sons to Collinsville to live with their maternal grandparents. William Henry would remember the next few years as a happy time, and he expressed great devotion to the Jones family. Yet he missed the maternal love and care that he lost so very young, and when the quiet interlude with his grandparents ended, four-year-old William's world was further disrupted.

The three Murray brothers were taken from the love and security of their grandparents' home in February, 1873, when Uriah married the widow Mollie Green, of Montague. The Murrays moved to Montague, where Uriah worked in a mill and farmed a few acres. Something of a ne'er-do-well, Uriah became a sawyer and then a butcher and grocer.

The boys resented Mollie from the beginning. A deeply religious woman, she also believed in strong punishment for her undisciplined stepsons. She restricted their activities and often whipped them. These whippings were among William's most enduring memories of his boyhood. Uriah and Mollie ultimately had seven children of their own. Displaced by stepsisters and stepbrothers, William later recalled his early years as an unhappy time. He remembered pretending to be lost and having "stomach worms."

The only education the boys received at this time was their father's efforts to teach them their letters and numbers. Many years later William would speak often of his father and would tell his own sons how his respect for their grandfather grew after he left home. His view of his stepmother never changed, and their relationship was, at best, one of mutual toleration.

In 1880 John Shade, the oldest son, left home to escape the unpleasantness of the household. Upon his return a year later he found his younger brothers extremely restive under Mollie's domination. On the evening of September 18, 1881, after telling Uriah they were going to church, the three boys ran away. Alienated from his family, William Henry would now try to find a place in the world and the acceptance and acclaim he so desperately needed. He would eagerly search for a substitute for the close family relationship he had been denied.

At first, running away was a great adventure for the twelve-year-old boy. Henry, as he was generally known, and his two brothers rode their pony and an old horse a few miles south to Wise County. There they picked cotton, felled trees, and wandered from place to place seeking employment. They obtained work from Ed Loper and his family, and here for a time young Henry had a home. Mrs. Loper became the only mother he was to know. After a few months with the Lopers he left to work in the brickyard at the nearby town of Aurora. He was dismayed to discover that some of the workmen were horse thieves. He decided to move on to Keeter, where he cut wood for a cotton-gin furnace.

While living at Keeter, he attended the local one-room school and lived with the teacher, Mr. Merrill. William Henry struggled to overcome the deficiencies in his education and took part in the literary society and its debates; oratory and debate appealed to a boy seeking acceptance and praise. His early education was quite limited. He skipped McGuffey's First Reader and failed to finish the Second or Third. The school terms were erratic, and he could attend only between crops or during the summer months. Much of Henry's education was received in Sunday School, where aMcGuffey or a Blueback Speller was used as the text. Longing for family life, he returned occasionally to the Loper home, where Ed Loper urged Henry to "pay your debts, treat your neighbors right, tell the truth, vote the Democratic ticket, and drink your whiskey straight."

Then Henry heard of a new school at Springtown, about ten miles from Keeter. He sold his few possessions and departed to enroll at College Hill Institute. The institute had been founded in 1884 by John McCracken and D. P. Hurley. By present standards it was a country high school. Built through donations of money and labor, the school afforded Henry his longest period of formal education. McCracken took the awkward backwoods boy into his home. The ragged student did not impress his classmates. They ridiculed his manners, his clothing, and his poverty. Encouraged by his teachers, William Henry studied, read, and absorbed as much learning as he could.

At the end of the school term Henry and John Shade became traveling salesmen, selling books and atlases to the farmers of central Texas. The Murray boys could speak the language of the poor farmers they called upon and yet present themselves as "college men." After saving a little money, Henry returned to the Loper home, where he spent most of his time reading; the habit of voracious reading would continue throughout his life. Two and one-half years would pass before he returned to College Hill.

The Loper family now resided at Buffalo, in Leon County, and it was here that Henry Murray first entered practical politics. He joined the Farmers' Alliance, a movement which was protesting the economic conditions of Texas farmers. The farmers were unhappy about usurious interest rates, low prices for agricultural products, and high railroad rates. In 1888 the state of Texas witnessed an intensive effort by the Farmers' Alliance to defeat the entrenched Democratic party structure, which refused to respond to their needs. The Leon County alliance was endeavoring to oust the local officeholders, and young Henry attended the meetings of the Farmers' Political Club at Sand Hill Church. In his political debut he became one of the club's leaders. Even though, at nineteen, he was still ineligible to vote, Murray was elected by the Buffalo caucus as a delegate to the Leon County Democratic convention. He gained a reputation as a speaker and scholar among the farmers, many of whom had had no formal education and therefore respected a man who had spent a year in college.

After this initial flirtation with politics Henry returned to College Hill with his brothers John Shade and George. His instructors, Hurley and McCracken, made a profound impression on him. Years later Murray wrote that McCracken taught him to reason but Hurley taught him how to teach himself. Henry called his teacher "Old Hundred and Plus," in honor of a grade he had received on an examination. While in school Murray became a local correspondent for the Fort Worth Gazette. He signed his copy "W. H. Murray" or "William Henry Murray."

At the end of the school year he looked for employment. After another brief stint as a book salesman he took the teacher's examination at College Hill and secured a teaching position at Millsap, in western Parker County. Armed with his teaching certificate and some stout switches, he presided over the rough one-room school for the next year.

During this time he made his first trip out of north central Texas, when he accompanied Hurley and McCracken to the state teachers' convention at Galveston. Both men continued to take an interest in their backwoods prodigy, and Murray repaid them with intense loyalty. For the rest of his life he used College Hill as a measuring rod to evaluate higher education.

Murray returned to Springtown in 1890 and entered politics again. He was elected by the district Democratic convention at Weatherford to serve as a Parker County delegate to the state convention in San Antonio. He won minor recognition at the meeting when he nominated Hurley for superintendent of schools. The San Antonio Daily Express and the Dallas Morning News reported that Murray stressed Hurley's principles and complete candor with the public. The young orator castigated the Express for refusing to publish Hurley's views — the first but certainly not the last time the metropolitan press would rouse Murray's ire. Despite Murray's eloquent plea Hurley received only a small vote.

Far more significant than Murray's speech was his meeting withJames S. Hogg, the man who became his political idol. From this meeting until he left Texas in 1898, Murray campaigned for Hogg and the reform faction of the Democratic party. Throughout his political career in Oklahoma he repeatedly referred to Hogg, maintaining his hero worship for more than fifty years.

After the convention Murray accepted a position at County Line School at Cade, on the Navarro-Limestone county line. He soon acquired a reputation as a teacher and was invited to present his philosophy of education in the columns of the local press. In an editorial for the Messenger, the Jewett paper, he wrote that teaching was based entirely on the definition of the word "education." Though lacking in profundity, the article apparently impressed the local readers.

While living in this community, Murray joined the Campbellite church. Although he remained a member of this denomination, he would never attend any church regularly. He had a deep and abiding interest in religion and kept three sacred books close at hand throughout his life: the King James Version of the Bible, the Roman Catholic Vulgate, and the Koran. Refusing to accept any single interpretation of religious questions, he consulted all three. His independent approach to theology meant that he would never find a minister or a church with which he could completely agree. Yet, while his religious convictions prevented him from becoming a regular churchgoer, they did not prevent him from giving his children a strong religious faith. He gave to his political life some measure of the dedication that other men give to organized religion.

In 1890 Murray began to satisfy his ambitions when he entered the turbulent political life of central Texas. The first People's party or Populist organization in Texas had been formed in Navarro County, and the third party soon rivaled the Democrats in strength. Murray's oratorical abilities were tested in a series ofdebates with Populist speakers. He opposed the Populist subtreasury scheme, which called for action by the federal government to meet the needs of the farmers. The plan proposed for subtreasury offices to be established in every agricultural county. These offices would accept farm commodities as collateral for low-interest loans. The farm products could be redeemed by the farmers within a year, but if they were not, they would be sold by the subtreasury office. The Populists claimed that the plan would provide farm loans at low interest rates, lower elevator and warehouse costs, support farm prices, and stimulate currency inflation. Murray debated the subtreasury proposals with the leading third-party orator in Texas, Harry Tracy.

Their debates became the main event in the Populist-Democratic campaign in Navarro County. The budding politician must have presented a stirring case to the gatherings of farmers and their families. One reporter wrote that "for two long hours [Murray] held the audience spellbound, frequently bringing forth an avalanche of applause." The story referred to Murray as "Roger Q. No. 2," comparing him to Congressman Roger Q. Mills, the local Democratic leader. Murray put down Tracy at a picnic by endorsing free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver, reduced governmental expenditures, elimination of national banks, and tariff reform. Another newspaperman commented, "[Murray is] a talented young man and is a fluent speaker, and is, I think about the best material the opposition could get up." A local editor wrote, "If Mr. Murray were not too young he would be good timber out of which to construct a state senator." The young orator extended his speaking engagements from the small communities to the county seat of Corsicana. There, in the city park, he warned voters against third-party schemes and attacked the subtreasury plan.

At last William Murray was receiving the attention he needed. Not yet a voter, he had taken on the best Populist speaker and won public acclaim. Heady with success, the young man began to over-estimate his political prowess and his qualifications for public service. He had accomplished much in a very short time, but in the next few years he would learn the lessons of humility and patience and recognize the need for further education. Rising from poverty and insecurity, Murray would later romanticize these years as a time of idyllic bliss.

Murray began to devote more time to politics, but he continued to teach in one of the rural schools. The local people expressed satisfaction with his position on the leading political issues of the day as well as his classroom performance. John McCracken admired Murray and asked him to speak at a College Hill commencement exercise. After College Hill was destroyed by fire, McCracken established a new school at Mineral Wells, which awarded Murray the degree of bachelor of science. Although he achieved success in the classroom, public life seems to have fascinated the young teacher even more, causing him to abandon the rural schools temporarily and return to the robust personal politics of the 1890's.

Like other states of the South and Middle West during the summer of 1891, Texas was the scene of a desperate battle among the farmers. Both the Farmers' Alliance and the Democratic party were sorely divided by the subtreasury question and by the alliance platforms adopted at Ocala, Florida, in December, 1890, and at Omaha, Nebraska, in January, 1891. The alliance Democrats of Texas, led by Jim Hogg, bitterly attacked the entrenched oligarchy, which opposed the reforms advocated by the insurgents.

Murray stood with Hogg against the People's party on the left and the Bourbon Democrats on the right. On June 23, 1891, he spoke to the "grand rally" of the alliance and defended his views. At this all-day picnic in Thornton, the twenty-one-year-old speaker addressed his audience at length, arguing that he could be both an alliance member and an opponent of the subtreasury. He and other Hogg Democrats had been attacked as traitors to the alliance and had been threatened with expulsion. The alliance was a nonpolitical organization, and Murray took the position of Leonidas Polk, the national alliance leader, that members were free to support any political party or take any position on an issue.

The pro-Hogg faction of the Farmers' Alliance organized a convention of anti-subtreasury men, which met in Fort Worth on July 10, 1891. The Fort Worth Gazette reported the activities of the meeting and printed biographical sketches of the leaders. One sketch described Murray as a self-made man who left home at the age of twelve, illiterate and penniless. The paper described him as a staunch Democrat: "He is true as steel to his convictions and has the reputation of being a fine speaker who always 'hits the nail on the head'; and is always ready to support any parliamentary position he takes on any question." The convention elected Murray its secretary, and he urged the alliance men to "let their successes be achieved only under the shield of honor."

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Excerpted from Alfalfa Bill Murray by Keith L. Bryant Jr.. Copyright © 1968 University of Oklahoma Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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