WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 Okay, I want you to imagine a politician. Just 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:05.240 for a second, close your eyes and picture the 00:00:05.240 --> 00:00:07.339 standard archetype. Right, the tailored suit, 00:00:07.500 --> 00:00:09.740 the big smile. Exactly. You're seeing someone 00:00:09.740 --> 00:00:12.039 kissing a baby, shaking hands. It's all very 00:00:12.039 --> 00:00:16.079 polished, very safe. Incredibly predictable. 00:00:16.179 --> 00:00:18.120 It's the clean image we're kind of trained to 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:21.199 expect. Yeah. Now, I want you to take that mental 00:00:21.199 --> 00:00:23.920 image, ball it up, and just throw it directly 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:27.649 into a wood chipper. Because today we are talking 00:00:27.649 --> 00:00:30.489 about a man who looks like he slept in his clothes 00:00:30.489 --> 00:00:33.729 for a week. And he probably did. A man who ran 00:00:33.729 --> 00:00:36.450 away from home at 12, who tried to start like 00:00:36.450 --> 00:00:39.469 a utopian dictatorship in the Bolivian jungle, 00:00:39.590 --> 00:00:42.909 and who, as a sitting governor, declared martial 00:00:42.909 --> 00:00:46.530 law not once, not twice, but nearly 50 times. 00:00:47.049 --> 00:00:48.969 And we're not talking about martial law for, 00:00:49.049 --> 00:00:51.250 you know, a natural disaster or an invasion. 00:00:51.469 --> 00:00:54.070 He was using the National Guard to enforce ticket 00:00:54.070 --> 00:00:56.170 sales at college football games. And to invade 00:00:56.170 --> 00:00:58.409 the border of Texas over a bridge toll. We are 00:00:58.409 --> 00:01:00.750 diving deep into the life of William H. Murray, 00:01:00.950 --> 00:01:04.290 better known to history as Alfalfa Bill. He was 00:01:04.290 --> 00:01:06.829 the ninth governor of Oklahoma, a key architect 00:01:06.829 --> 00:01:10.030 of the state's constitution. But, you know, looking 00:01:10.030 --> 00:01:12.609 at our source material today, calling him a governor. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:15.079 Feels like calling a hurricane a light breeze. 00:01:15.379 --> 00:01:18.019 It really does. He is, I mean, without a doubt, 00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:20.159 one of the most paradoxical figures in American 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:22.239 political history. You just have to understand 00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:25.640 this guy is a study in extremes. And that's our 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:28.439 mission for this deep dive. We're not just recounting 00:01:28.439 --> 00:01:30.319 a biography. We're trying to get at the mechanics 00:01:30.319 --> 00:01:33.480 of a populist strongman. How does a runaway kid 00:01:33.480 --> 00:01:35.959 become a political powerhouse? And how can someone 00:01:35.959 --> 00:01:38.560 simultaneously save people from starvation during 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:40.920 the Great Depression while trampling on the very 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:43.379 democracy he swore to protect? And crucially, 00:01:43.480 --> 00:01:45.659 how do we reckon with a legacy that's built on 00:01:45.659 --> 00:01:48.640 both, you know, economic salvation for the poor 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:52.140 and this deeply infringed systemic racism and 00:01:52.140 --> 00:01:54.420 anti -Semitism? Because you just cannot tell 00:01:54.420 --> 00:01:56.879 his story without both sides of that coin. It's 00:01:56.879 --> 00:02:00.280 impossible. It is a complicated, messy, and frankly, 00:02:00.379 --> 00:02:03.239 a wild story. But to understand the guy waving 00:02:03.239 --> 00:02:05.719 a revolver at the Texas Rangers in the 1930s, 00:02:05.719 --> 00:02:08.280 we had to go back to the beginning. We do. The 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:10.900 sources, they paint his early life almost like 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:14.599 a Charles Dickens novel, but set in the brutal 00:02:14.599 --> 00:02:16.800 heat of the Wild West. It's a really grim start. 00:02:16.939 --> 00:02:20.819 Born in 1869 in Collinsville, Texas. His mother 00:02:20.819 --> 00:02:23.319 dies when he's just two years old. Oh, wow. His 00:02:23.319 --> 00:02:26.580 father remarries. And by all accounts, the home 00:02:26.580 --> 00:02:30.060 life was just toxic. There was tension. There 00:02:30.060 --> 00:02:33.629 was poverty. So in 1881, at just 12 years old, 00:02:33.750 --> 00:02:35.650 William makes a decision that really defines 00:02:35.650 --> 00:02:38.449 the rest of his life. He leaves. And let's just 00:02:38.449 --> 00:02:41.189 pause on that. 12 years old, most kids are worried 00:02:41.189 --> 00:02:43.050 about homework. He didn't just run away for a 00:02:43.050 --> 00:02:45.009 night. He went fully independent. He was on his 00:02:45.009 --> 00:02:47.250 own. He spent his entire teenage years picking 00:02:47.250 --> 00:02:49.569 cotton, chopping wood, working as a bricklayer. 00:02:49.669 --> 00:02:52.469 It is so hard to overstate the level of grit 00:02:52.469 --> 00:02:54.830 you'd need to survive that in the late 19th century. 00:02:55.030 --> 00:02:57.629 He had no safety net. None. If he didn't work, 00:02:57.689 --> 00:03:00.659 he didn't eat. And that kind of experience, it 00:03:00.659 --> 00:03:02.599 creates a very specific kind of personality, 00:03:02.879 --> 00:03:05.719 someone who believes fundamentally that they 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:08.699 owe nothing to anyone. Right. Total self -reliance. 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:11.639 But usually that kind of hard labor life doesn't 00:03:11.639 --> 00:03:14.219 leave room for intellectual pursuits. You're 00:03:14.219 --> 00:03:16.259 just too tired to read. But he was obsessed. 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:19.439 Obsessed is the right word. He had this insatiable 00:03:19.439 --> 00:03:23.180 hunger to understand how the world worked. He 00:03:23.180 --> 00:03:25.580 was selling books door to door just to pay his 00:03:25.580 --> 00:03:28.099 tuition at the College Hill Institute. And then 00:03:28.099 --> 00:03:30.500 he does something even more audacious. He teaches 00:03:30.500 --> 00:03:32.900 himself law. That part always blows my mind. 00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:34.719 He didn't go to some prestigious law school. 00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:38.159 No professors, no study groups. No. He sat down 00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:39.879 with the books. He read the law. He absorbed 00:03:39.879 --> 00:03:42.599 it. And then he passed the Texas bar exam in 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:45.819 1897. That self -taught thing seems so important 00:03:45.819 --> 00:03:48.120 for his psychology later on. Yeah. Like if you 00:03:48.120 --> 00:03:50.159 teach yourself the law, you probably feel like 00:03:50.159 --> 00:03:51.759 you understand it better than everyone else. 00:03:52.060 --> 00:03:55.390 Absolutely. It breeds a certain... intellectual 00:03:55.390 --> 00:03:58.030 arrogance. He felt he knew the true meaning of 00:03:58.030 --> 00:03:59.909 the law because he had wrestled with it alone. 00:04:00.270 --> 00:04:03.189 But the real turning point, the moment that launches 00:04:03.189 --> 00:04:05.789 the legend of Alfalfa Bill that happens in 1898, 00:04:06.030 --> 00:04:09.830 he crosses the river into Tishomingo, which was 00:04:09.830 --> 00:04:12.490 Indian territory at the time. Specifically, the 00:04:12.490 --> 00:04:14.849 capital of the Chickasaw Nation. Remember, Oklahoma 00:04:14.849 --> 00:04:17.649 isn't a state yet. It's a complex territory of 00:04:17.649 --> 00:04:20.129 tribal sovereignty. And this is where the runaway 00:04:20.129 --> 00:04:23.029 bricklayer makes a very, very strategic move. 00:04:23.189 --> 00:04:25.470 He meets Mary Alice Harrell. He does. And looking 00:04:25.470 --> 00:04:27.870 at her family tree, this isn't just a romance. 00:04:28.129 --> 00:04:30.370 No, it's a political merger. It is. Mary Alice 00:04:30.370 --> 00:04:33.329 was the niece of Douglas H. Johnston, who was 00:04:33.329 --> 00:04:36.730 the governor of the Chickasaw Nation. So by marrying 00:04:36.730 --> 00:04:39.569 her, Murray didn't just get a wife, he got legitimacy. 00:04:40.170 --> 00:04:42.850 He gains status within the tribe and, crucially, 00:04:42.949 --> 00:04:45.310 the right to practice in Chickasaw courts. So 00:04:45.310 --> 00:04:47.629 he leverages this connection, becomes a legal 00:04:47.629 --> 00:04:50.269 advisor to the governor. It's so ironic, isn't 00:04:50.269 --> 00:04:52.269 it? He builds his foundation on indigenous sovereignty 00:04:52.269 --> 00:04:55.149 and tribal law. Which, as we'll see, he has no 00:04:55.149 --> 00:04:57.069 problem discarding when it doesn't suit him. 00:04:57.389 --> 00:05:00.160 That's a recurring theme with Murray. He uses 00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:02.439 structures, the Chickasaw Nation, the Democratic 00:05:02.439 --> 00:05:05.300 Party, the U .S. Constitution as tools. When 00:05:05.300 --> 00:05:07.379 the tool works, he uses it. And when it doesn't, 00:05:07.379 --> 00:05:09.079 he breaks it. Before we get to the state building, 00:05:09.220 --> 00:05:12.079 I have to ask about the name. Alfalfa Bill. It 00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:13.980 sounds like a caricature. Was he just really 00:05:13.980 --> 00:05:16.000 into farming or was this like a marketing gimmick? 00:05:16.269 --> 00:05:18.730 A bit of both, really. He was a farmer and he 00:05:18.730 --> 00:05:21.370 was an early proponent of cultivating alfalfa 00:05:21.370 --> 00:05:24.189 in the region. It restores nitrogen to the soil. 00:05:24.350 --> 00:05:26.110 It was actually very progressive agriculture. 00:05:26.410 --> 00:05:28.769 If it wasn't random. No, but the name was a branding 00:05:28.769 --> 00:05:32.269 exercise. Around 1902, he was campaigning and 00:05:32.269 --> 00:05:35.189 he developed this unique stump speech style. 00:05:35.410 --> 00:05:39.290 He would pivot seamlessly from like complex political 00:05:39.290 --> 00:05:42.810 theory to a lecture on the best soil conditions 00:05:42.810 --> 00:05:45.850 for growing alfalfa. That is incredible. Incredibly 00:05:45.850 --> 00:05:48.149 specific. I mean, can you imagine going to a 00:05:48.149 --> 00:05:49.930 rally today and the candidate starts explaining 00:05:49.930 --> 00:05:52.949 how to compost? But it was genius. A reporter 00:05:52.949 --> 00:05:56.149 caught one of these species and dubbed him alfalfa 00:05:56.149 --> 00:05:59.709 bill. And it stuck. It stuck because it signaled 00:05:59.709 --> 00:06:02.569 to every rural voter. This guy is one of us. 00:06:02.589 --> 00:06:05.350 He knows the dirt. It was his outsider card. 00:06:05.509 --> 00:06:07.589 So he's got the brand. He's got the legal chops. 00:06:07.670 --> 00:06:11.769 He has the connections. Now we hit 1906. Oklahoma's 00:06:11.769 --> 00:06:14.250 gearing up for statehood. They need a constitution. 00:06:14.810 --> 00:06:17.009 And Murray manages to position himself as the 00:06:17.009 --> 00:06:19.189 president of the Constitutional Convention. And 00:06:19.189 --> 00:06:21.470 he didn't just preside over it, right? He dominated 00:06:21.470 --> 00:06:23.529 it. Oh, completely. He was the force of nature 00:06:23.529 --> 00:06:25.649 in that room. He worked with Charles Haskell, 00:06:25.689 --> 00:06:27.589 who became the first governor. But everyone knew 00:06:27.589 --> 00:06:30.050 Murray was the intellectual engine. He wrote 00:06:30.050 --> 00:06:32.689 huge chunks of that document himself. And this 00:06:32.689 --> 00:06:34.430 is where we have to peel back that founding father 00:06:34.430 --> 00:06:36.790 mythology. Because while he's writing the laws 00:06:36.790 --> 00:06:39.829 for a new state, he is actively hard -coding 00:06:39.829 --> 00:06:42.120 racism into the system. We have to be really 00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:44.019 clear about this. This wasn't just a man of his 00:06:44.019 --> 00:06:46.300 time prejudice where he quietly held bad views. 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:49.139 Murray was an active architect of segregation. 00:06:49.560 --> 00:06:52.939 He explicitly pushed for it. He did. He pushed 00:06:52.939 --> 00:06:55.360 for Jim Crow laws to be written directly into 00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:57.980 the Constitution itself. He wanted the separation 00:06:57.980 --> 00:07:01.279 of races to be the supreme law of the state from 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:03.680 day one. There's a story from the convention 00:07:03.680 --> 00:07:06.420 records that just illustrates his mindset so 00:07:06.420 --> 00:07:08.779 perfectly. It involves the staff at the convention 00:07:08.779 --> 00:07:12.579 hall. It's so petty. But it says so much. It's 00:07:12.579 --> 00:07:15.019 a chilling detail. Murray looked at the staff 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:17.459 and decided to rearrange them based on his racial 00:07:17.459 --> 00:07:20.079 hierarchy. He fired all the black clerks and 00:07:20.079 --> 00:07:22.079 all the white janitors. And then just switched 00:07:22.079 --> 00:07:23.839 them? Then he switched them. He hired the white 00:07:23.839 --> 00:07:25.920 men to be clerks and the black men to be janitors. 00:07:26.160 --> 00:07:29.879 That is such a deliberate display of power. He's 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:32.560 physically rearranging human beings to fit his 00:07:32.560 --> 00:07:35.439 worldview that black people belong in servitude 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:38.339 and white people belong in administration. Exactly. 00:07:38.339 --> 00:07:40.420 He's on record stating that he believed African 00:07:40.420 --> 00:07:42.879 -Americans were failures in professional roles 00:07:42.879 --> 00:07:45.740 like law or medicine. He advocated for segregated 00:07:45.740 --> 00:07:49.360 schools, strict anti -miscegenation laws. He 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:51.519 saw the state constitution not just as a legal 00:07:51.519 --> 00:07:54.019 document, but as a mechanism to preserve a white 00:07:54.019 --> 00:07:56.620 supremacist social order. So you have this paradox 00:07:56.620 --> 00:07:59.959 forming. To the white tenant farmer, he's a hero 00:07:59.959 --> 00:08:03.019 fighting the banks. To the black Oklahoman, he 00:08:03.019 --> 00:08:06.279 is a tyrant solidifying their oppression. And 00:08:06.279 --> 00:08:09.019 that duality, it follows him everywhere. But 00:08:09.019 --> 00:08:11.360 before he takes the governor's office, there's 00:08:11.360 --> 00:08:14.879 this weird interlude. A really weird interlude. 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:16.899 The Bolivian Adventure. This is the part of the 00:08:16.899 --> 00:08:18.459 research where I had to double check that we 00:08:18.459 --> 00:08:21.360 weren't reading a fiction script. I know. Because 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:23.899 it sounds like the plot of a movie that got rejected 00:08:23.899 --> 00:08:26.439 for being too unrealistic. It does sound made 00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:29.899 up. It's the 1920s. Murray has lost a run for 00:08:29.899 --> 00:08:32.299 Congress in 1916, lost a run for governor in 00:08:32.299 --> 00:08:35.399 1918. He's bitter. He thinks the U .S. is going 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:38.299 to hell. So he decides to build his own society. 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:40.500 Naturally. If you can't win the election, just 00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:43.500 start a new country. Essentially, yes. He negotiates 00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:45.299 with the government of Bolivia to lease about 00:08:45.299 --> 00:08:49.399 42 ,000 acres of land. He calls the colony Aguarenda. 00:08:49.500 --> 00:08:51.600 And he recruits families from Oklahoma to go 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:54.120 with him, selling it as this paradise where the 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:56.759 common man could live free. But it wasn't a democracy. 00:08:57.399 --> 00:09:00.360 He wasn't starting a republic. Oh, no, no. He 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:03.179 went there to be a feudal lord. He wrote the 00:09:03.179 --> 00:09:05.879 Murray Code for the colonists, a list of laws 00:09:05.879 --> 00:09:08.120 they had to sign. And these are people who sold 00:09:08.120 --> 00:09:10.720 everything to follow him to South America. What 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:13.379 was in the code? Well, some of it was standard 00:09:13.379 --> 00:09:16.559 puritanical stuff. No brothels, no saloons. But 00:09:16.559 --> 00:09:18.840 then you get the micromanagement. Murray owned 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:21.799 all the agricultural equipment. All of it. All 00:09:21.799 --> 00:09:24.240 of it. He had to personally approve any transfer 00:09:24.240 --> 00:09:27.080 of land. And my favorite detail, which is just 00:09:27.080 --> 00:09:31.720 so bizarre, every colonist was required to build 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:34.320 a poultry shed within two years. A mandatory 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:36.879 poultry shed. Mandatory. It shows you his mindset. 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:39.320 He wasn't just setting broad policy. He wanted 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:42.000 to control how you farmed, where you lived, and 00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:44.019 where you kept your chickens. Total control. 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:46.820 So how did the kingdom of Murray work out? Disastrously. 00:09:47.259 --> 00:09:49.980 Just disastrously. The environment was brutal, 00:09:50.120 --> 00:09:52.299 insects like you wouldn't believe, oppressive 00:09:52.299 --> 00:09:55.059 heat, rain that washed everything away. But the 00:09:55.059 --> 00:09:57.960 biggest failure was Murray's own arrogance. What 00:09:57.960 --> 00:10:00.700 happened? He had leased this empty land only 00:10:00.700 --> 00:10:03.039 to arrive and find it was already occupied by 00:10:03.039 --> 00:10:05.639 indigenous people who, surprisingly, didn't want 00:10:05.639 --> 00:10:08.019 to be evicted by a guy from Oklahoma in a rumpled 00:10:08.019 --> 00:10:10.600 suit. It's that colonial mindset again. Just 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:12.840 assuming the land is there for the taking. The 00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:15.440 colonists were miserable. The reality just did 00:10:15.440 --> 00:10:18.379 not match the brochure. Most left within months 00:10:18.379 --> 00:10:21.720 feeling scammed. By 1928, the Bolivian president 00:10:21.720 --> 00:10:25.179 canceled the lease. Murray came home broke. So 00:10:25.179 --> 00:10:28.000 picture this. It's 1929. The stock market has 00:10:28.000 --> 00:10:30.419 just crashed. The Dust Bowl is starting to turn 00:10:30.419 --> 00:10:33.960 the sky black. Murray is 60 years old, penniless, 00:10:34.019 --> 00:10:37.460 a failed colonizer. And he says, I'm going to 00:10:37.460 --> 00:10:39.279 run for governor. And the establishment just 00:10:39.279 --> 00:10:41.159 laughed at him. The newspapers treated him like 00:10:41.159 --> 00:10:43.000 a joke. They called him eccentric, washed up, 00:10:43.019 --> 00:10:45.460 a relic. But Murray understood something they 00:10:45.460 --> 00:10:47.899 didn't. He understood the sheer desperation of 00:10:47.899 --> 00:10:49.879 the people. The Dust Bowl wasn't just bad weather. 00:10:49.980 --> 00:10:52.620 It was apocalyptic. Exactly. And Murray launched 00:10:52.620 --> 00:10:55.299 a campaign that was visceral. His slogan was 00:10:55.299 --> 00:10:58.259 bread, butter, bacon, and beans. It wasn't abstract 00:10:58.259 --> 00:11:01.159 economic theory. It was, I will feed you. But 00:11:01.159 --> 00:11:03.019 we have to look at the other side of that populism. 00:11:03.500 --> 00:11:05.919 Because while he was promising bacon and beans, 00:11:06.120 --> 00:11:08.720 he was also using a very different slogan to 00:11:08.720 --> 00:11:11.799 identify the enemies. Right. This is the Three 00:11:11.799 --> 00:11:14.639 Cs slogan. He told voters he was fighting against. 00:11:16.250 --> 00:11:19.269 corporations, carpetbaggers, and coons. And just 00:11:19.269 --> 00:11:21.470 to clarify for everyone listening, carpetbaggers 00:11:21.470 --> 00:11:24.250 is an old derogatory term for northerners who 00:11:24.250 --> 00:11:27.309 came south to profit after the Civil War. And 00:11:27.309 --> 00:11:29.629 the third C is, of course, a horrific racial 00:11:29.629 --> 00:11:32.830 slur. It was a strategy of punching up and punching 00:11:32.830 --> 00:11:35.750 down at the same time. How so? He attacked the 00:11:35.750 --> 00:11:38.009 big banks and oil companies, punching up, which 00:11:38.009 --> 00:11:40.629 thrilled the poor. But he also attacked black 00:11:40.629 --> 00:11:42.990 people punching down, which consolidated his 00:11:42.990 --> 00:11:45.330 right base. And it was effective. He won the 00:11:45.330 --> 00:11:48.149 1930 election in a lambslide. So now the man 00:11:48.149 --> 00:11:50.309 who tried to play king in Bolivia is actually 00:11:50.309 --> 00:11:52.250 in charge of a state during the worst economic 00:11:52.250 --> 00:11:54.549 crisis in modern history. And he doesn't govern 00:11:54.549 --> 00:11:56.710 like a normal politician. He doesn't wait for 00:11:56.710 --> 00:11:59.210 committees. He governed like a general. He realized 00:11:59.210 --> 00:12:01.870 the legislature was too slow, so he just bypassed 00:12:01.870 --> 00:12:04.970 them. He used the National Guard as his personal 00:12:04.970 --> 00:12:07.529 enforcement arm. The numbers here are staggering. 00:12:07.870 --> 00:12:11.519 He declared martial law over 30 times. Most governors 00:12:11.519 --> 00:12:14.320 go their whole careers without doing it once. 00:12:14.360 --> 00:12:16.000 He was doing it every other week for everything. 00:12:16.200 --> 00:12:18.720 And the most famous incident, the one that really 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:21.480 captures the madness of the era, is the Toll 00:12:21.480 --> 00:12:24.779 Bridge War. This story is wild. It feels like 00:12:24.779 --> 00:12:27.059 an action movie standoff. So walk us through 00:12:27.059 --> 00:12:29.799 it. Okay, so... Oklahoma and Texas are separated 00:12:29.799 --> 00:12:32.879 by the Red River. A private company owned a toll 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:35.799 bridge. But the states were building a new free 00:12:35.799 --> 00:12:38.779 bridge nearby. To help commerce. Right. But the 00:12:38.779 --> 00:12:41.539 toll bridge company sued to stop the free bridge 00:12:41.539 --> 00:12:44.360 from opening. A federal judge agreed and ordered 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:46.419 the free bridge closed. Okay. Standard legal 00:12:46.419 --> 00:12:48.799 dispute. The courts rule, you follow the ruling. 00:12:48.960 --> 00:12:52.019 Usually, yes. But the governor of Texas, he responds 00:12:52.019 --> 00:12:54.840 to the court and barricades the Texas side of 00:12:54.840 --> 00:12:56.960 the free bridge. While Murray didn't care about 00:12:56.960 --> 00:12:59.159 the court order, he declared martial law. Over 00:12:59.159 --> 00:13:01.879 a bridge. Over a bridge. He sent the Oklahoma 00:13:01.879 --> 00:13:04.879 National Guard to the river. The reports say 00:13:04.879 --> 00:13:07.200 they were armed with old revolvers looking pretty 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:10.379 ragtag. Murray himself went down there, allegedly 00:13:10.379 --> 00:13:12.879 wearing a gun on his hip, and he ordered the 00:13:12.879 --> 00:13:15.500 bridge forced open. He literally invaded the 00:13:15.500 --> 00:13:19.039 Texas border. Invaded Texas and Texas retreated. 00:13:19.039 --> 00:13:21.740 The public loved it. Here's a guy ignoring the 00:13:21.740 --> 00:13:24.120 federal courts, ignoring the neighboring state 00:13:24.120 --> 00:13:27.519 just to save them a few cents on a toll. It cemented 00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:30.100 his image. But that sets such a dangerous precedent. 00:13:30.179 --> 00:13:32.980 If you can ignore the courts for a bridge, what 00:13:32.980 --> 00:13:35.519 else can you ignore them for? Exactly. And he 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:37.360 applied that same logic to the oil industry. 00:13:37.580 --> 00:13:40.000 Oil prices had crashed because of overproduction. 00:13:40.259 --> 00:13:42.860 Oil was selling for pennies a barrel. The economy 00:13:42.860 --> 00:13:45.200 was collapsing because oil was too cheap. So 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:47.240 what does Alfalfa Bill do? Does he ask for a 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:49.940 subsidy? No. He declares martial law in the oil 00:13:49.940 --> 00:13:52.580 fields. He sends in the troops and orders 3 ,000 00:13:52.580 --> 00:13:55.139 oil wells to shut down at gunpoint. He literally 00:13:55.139 --> 00:13:57.340 told them nobody pumps a drop until the price 00:13:57.340 --> 00:14:00.320 hits $1 barrel. That is massive government intervention. 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:03.299 It sounds almost communist, which is so ironic 00:14:03.299 --> 00:14:05.460 given his politics later. It's deeply ironic 00:14:05.460 --> 00:14:08.940 because Murray hated socialism and despised the 00:14:08.940 --> 00:14:12.539 New Deal. But here he was, manipulating the global 00:14:12.539 --> 00:14:16.179 oil market with the military. And again, it worked. 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:19.059 The shortage drove the price up. He saved the 00:14:19.059 --> 00:14:21.840 independent oil men. It raises this really difficult 00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:24.240 question, doesn't it? The democratic institutions, 00:14:24.620 --> 00:14:27.620 the courts, the legislature were failing. People 00:14:27.620 --> 00:14:30.419 were starving. Murray stepped in and broke the 00:14:30.419 --> 00:14:33.460 law to fix the problem. Can you be a hero and 00:14:33.460 --> 00:14:36.129 a tyrant at the same time? That is the central 00:14:36.129 --> 00:14:38.649 tension of his life. We have to remember he donated 00:14:38.649 --> 00:14:41.330 his own salary to feed the poor when the legislature 00:14:41.330 --> 00:14:43.809 wouldn't pass a relief bill. Right. He lived 00:14:43.809 --> 00:14:45.470 in the governor's mansion, but the place was 00:14:45.470 --> 00:14:47.750 a mess full of people asking for help. And he 00:14:47.750 --> 00:14:49.549 was literally emptying his pockets for them. 00:14:49.690 --> 00:14:52.370 But he destroyed the concept of the rule of law 00:14:52.370 --> 00:14:55.070 to do it. And eventually that strongman act stops 00:14:55.070 --> 00:14:57.289 being charming and starts getting alarming. He 00:14:57.289 --> 00:14:58.870 had his eyes on the White House, didn't he? He 00:14:58.870 --> 00:15:01.950 did. In 1932, he ran for president. He thought 00:15:01.950 --> 00:15:04.309 the country wanted what Oklahoma had, a dictator. 00:15:04.620 --> 00:15:06.700 got things done. But he was running against Franklin 00:15:06.700 --> 00:15:09.639 D. Roosevelt. That's a tough matchup. And this 00:15:09.639 --> 00:15:11.919 is where Murray's nastiness really backfired. 00:15:11.940 --> 00:15:14.279 He didn't just debate policy. He launched a smear 00:15:14.279 --> 00:15:17.559 campaign claiming that FDR had syphilis. Which 00:15:17.559 --> 00:15:20.159 was a complete fabrication. Pure lies. It just 00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:23.629 showed how unhinged he was becoming. And the 00:15:23.629 --> 00:15:26.590 country looked at Murray, this guy in rumpled 00:15:26.590 --> 00:15:28.950 clothes shouting conspiracy theories, and then 00:15:28.950 --> 00:15:31.549 they looked at FDR, who projected calm and confidence. 00:15:31.789 --> 00:15:34.750 He was crushed. Crushed at the convention. And 00:15:34.750 --> 00:15:37.470 after that loss, he seems to spiral. He's no 00:15:37.470 --> 00:15:40.450 longer the fun populist who opens bridges. He 00:15:40.450 --> 00:15:43.629 becomes bitter, extremely toxic. He turned on 00:15:43.629 --> 00:15:46.049 FDR in the New Deal. Yeah, viewing them as federal 00:15:46.049 --> 00:15:48.870 overreach, which again, so ironic given his own 00:15:48.870 --> 00:15:51.509 record. But his later years were defined by his 00:15:51.509 --> 00:15:54.039 writing. He published books that were essentially 00:15:54.039 --> 00:15:56.840 screeds of hate. We have titles like The Negro's 00:15:56.840 --> 00:15:59.179 Place and The Call of Race. Yes. He tried to 00:15:59.179 --> 00:16:01.820 use pseudoscience to justify segregation. He 00:16:01.820 --> 00:16:03.679 was writing about how Jewish people should be 00:16:03.679 --> 00:16:05.700 deported to Madagascar. I mean, he wasn't just 00:16:05.700 --> 00:16:07.919 a politician anymore. He was a propagandist for 00:16:07.919 --> 00:16:10.659 white supremacy and anti -Semitism. It's important 00:16:10.659 --> 00:16:13.700 to sit with that. Because for a long time, the 00:16:13.700 --> 00:16:16.200 history books in Oklahoma just treated him as 00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:19.120 this colorful character. Oh, that's just Alfalfa 00:16:19.120 --> 00:16:21.000 Bill, the Kirky governor. Right. They focused 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:24.000 on the Bridge War and the Alfalfa speeches. There's 00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:26.840 a Lake Murray. There was a Murray Hall at Oklahoma 00:16:26.840 --> 00:16:29.580 State University. The state celebrated the action 00:16:29.580 --> 00:16:32.039 hero and conveniently ignored the architect of 00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:34.419 segregation. But that is changing now. It is. 00:16:34.500 --> 00:16:37.539 In 2020, Oklahoma State University removed his 00:16:37.539 --> 00:16:40.460 name from Murray Hall. We are in a period of 00:16:40.460 --> 00:16:44.019 reevaluation. We're realizing that you can't 00:16:44.019 --> 00:16:46.879 separate the man who fed the poor from the man 00:16:46.879 --> 00:16:49.620 who institutionalized Jim Crow. They're the same 00:16:49.620 --> 00:16:51.519 person. They're the same person. You can't have 00:16:51.519 --> 00:16:53.519 the bridge without the racism. It's the cost 00:16:53.519 --> 00:16:56.159 of populism, isn't it? When you empower a leader 00:16:56.159 --> 00:16:58.720 to break the rules because you like the outcome, 00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:01.100 like opening a bridge, you are handing them the 00:17:01.100 --> 00:17:03.860 sword they can use to cut down anyone they don't 00:17:03.860 --> 00:17:07.099 like. Precisely. Murray shows us the seduction 00:17:07.099 --> 00:17:09.599 of the strongman. It feels good when they're 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:12.200 fighting for you. When he was fighting the banks, 00:17:12.339 --> 00:17:14.900 the poor whites loved him. But that power is 00:17:14.900 --> 00:17:17.440 never contained. His efficiency came at the cost 00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:19.859 of democracy and human rights. So when we look 00:17:19.859 --> 00:17:22.140 at the legacy of Alfalfa Bill today, it's not 00:17:22.140 --> 00:17:24.839 just a history lesson. It's a warning. It's a 00:17:24.839 --> 00:17:27.039 warning about the tradeoffs we accept in moments 00:17:27.039 --> 00:17:29.759 of crisis. Murray saved lives with his economic 00:17:29.759 --> 00:17:32.400 policies. There's no doubt about that. But he 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:34.440 also left a stain on the state's constitution 00:17:34.440 --> 00:17:37.640 and culture that took... decades to even begin 00:17:37.640 --> 00:17:40.799 to scrub out. A fascinating, dark, and essential 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:43.940 deep dive into American history. It leaves you 00:17:43.940 --> 00:17:47.220 wondering, if a politician showed up today promising 00:17:47.220 --> 00:17:49.619 to fix everything by ignoring the courts and 00:17:49.619 --> 00:17:52.119 mobilizing the military, would we cheer them 00:17:52.119 --> 00:17:55.000 on? Or would we see the ghost of Alfalfa Bill? 00:17:55.079 --> 00:17:56.940 That is the question. Something to mull over. 00:17:57.740 --> 00:17:59.799 That's it for this deep dive into William H. 00:17:59.819 --> 00:18:01.480 Murray. Thanks for listening, and we'll catch 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:01.940 you next time.