Curiosities of Oklahoma Politics

Oklahoma's red flag.
The original Oklahoma flag, pictured at the top of this page, was adopted in 1911. It was our first official flag, even though we had already been a state for four years before it was adopted. It only lasted until 1925 when it was replaced by an early variant of our current flag. Opposition to the flag developed because of the large amount of the color red used in its design. 1925 was only a few years after the Russian revolution and people didn't like the association between the red flag of Oklahoma and the red flag of the USSR.

Early Oklahoma was a cradle of America populism.
Populism was a significant characteristic of early Oklahoma, and it was expressed in part through support for the Socialist Party. In fact, in 1914 the socialist vote for congressional candidates was higher in Oklahoma than in any other state in the country. During that period we had socialist members of the Oklahoma legislature, and a nationally prominent socialist magazine was published in Oklahoma City by Oscar Ameringer. Oklahoma socialism was rural socialism, however, and motivated by the grievances of small farmers. Socialists were not strong either Oklahoma City or Tulsa. The same profile of voter in early Oklahoma that supported the socialists now supports Donald Trump.

It was 50 years before a Tulsan was first elected Governor of Oklahoma.
1958 saw the first election of an Oklahoma governor from Tulsa. It was also the first election won through skillful use of television. Television only became widespread in Oklahoma in the early 1950s, and no candidate had ever used it with much effect. The successful candidate was a telegenic 32 year old County Attorney from Tulsa, J. Howard Edmondson. He tapped into a latent reform sentiment in the state and upset the candidate supported by most of the state’s political establishment (what Edmondson labeled the "Old Guard"). In the general election he carried every county and won by the largest margin in history. No candidate for governor ever again ignored the power of television ...but few have ever been as effective on the small screen as Edmondson. Since Edmondson's election, four more Tulsans have been elected governor and Oklahoma City has elected two (plus George Nigh, who was from McAlester but living in OKC at the time of his election as governor).

The decline of the Democratic Party in Oklahoma began with a rural-urban split.
Edmondson entered into office with an ambitious reform agenda. He succeeded in leading an effort to institute a merit system in state employment, replacing the old political patronage system in practice at that time. Competitive bidding was also introduced in state government, and prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages was ended by the voters after a colorful campaign orchestrated by Gov. Edmondson. Other reforms, mostly directed towards county government, were attempted at the ballot box but roundly defeated. The reforms produced a rural backlash and by the time Edmondson left office his popularity was low. He was succeeded as the Democratic Party nominee for governor in 1962 by the "old guard" political leader he had defeated overwhelmingly four years earlier. The reforms he won in state government were historically important, but one of the by-products of his reform administration was a rural-urban divide in Oklahoma that fractured and wounded the Democratic Party.

Racial calm in Oklahoma in the 1950's.
Sometimes the most significant news is that the dog didn't bark. Oklahoma's governor from 1955 to 1959 was Raymond Gary, a politician from the “Little Dixie” region of the state. In May of 1954, the year before he took office, the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education mandating racial integration of the public schools. Politics was roiled throughout the South and many demagogic public officials whipped the flames of racial animosity. In Little Rock, in Oklahoma's neighboring state of Arkansas, President Eisenhower called in the National Guard to assist in integrating the schools. In Oklahoma, however, we had none of the problems experienced in many Southern states. This was not luck. It was the product of quiet and firm leadership from Gov. Raymond Gary. His efforts never made headlines, but racial tensions didn't make headlines either. He made it clear we would follow the law of the land, though our state leaders didn't see any need to rush.

Will Rogers was a Democrat.
When Will Rogers was asked about his political affiliation, he replied, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat."

The Oklahoma House and Senate didn't always fight among themselves.
We are accustomed to fighting between the governor and the legislative leaders, but this has not always been the case. Up until 1961 governors picked the heads of the House and Senate. This did not guarantee harmony between the two branches of government, but it represented a level of influence by the executive branch over the legislative that long ago disappeared. This didn't mean that the legislators and the governors always got along well. Gov. Alfalfa Bill Murray's desk in the state capitol was chained to the floor. He explained that was to keep the legislature from stealing it.

We are the gubernatorial impeachment capital of the United States.
There have only been eight governors impeached and removed from office in all of American history. Two of the impeachments were in Oklahoma, 25% of the total. These both occurred in the 1920's, and both are revealing about the state at that time. One was Jack Walton. He was removed from office in 1923 because of his active opposition to the Ku Klux Klan. The other was Henry Johnston, impeached and removed from office in 1929. His crime? He campaigned energetically for Al Smith for president the year before. Smith was a Roman Catholic and an advocate for ending prohibition of liquor. Despite Oklahoma's Democratic leanings, Smith was bitterly opposed in Baptist Oklahoma. Both governors had other issues, of course, but these were the proximate causes of their impeachments and removal.

The metamorphosis of the State Capitol.
When I was first elected to the Oklahoma legislature in 1970 the Oklahoma State Capitol Building was like a run-down rural courthouse. The spittoons had only recently been removed when I got there. Today, and many, many millions of dollars later, it is an elegant showcase. It is worth a visit. These changes happened after the Republicans took power in the legislatures. Republicans are not as tolerant of shabbiness as we Democrats were.

Back when the Speaker of the United States House Representatives was an Okie.
Carl Albert achieved the highest federal government rank of any Oklahoman He served as Speaker of the House, succeeding Sam Rayburn whose district was on the Texas side of the Red River, across from Albert’s. He was Speaker when Richard Nixon's vice-president, Spiro Agnew, resigned and left the vice presidency vacant, and again when Nixon himself resigned, making Albert first in line behind the president in line of succession on two different occasions. Albert was known as "The Little Giant from Little Dixie", a reference to his small stature and his birthplace in Pittsburg County in southern Oklahoma. Jokes were told about his size. One joke was about the time when Wilbur Mills, a prominent congressman from Arkansas, got into a scandal at the Tidal Basin in Washington with a local stripper who went by the stage name of "Fannie Fox, the Argentine Firecracker". According to the story Carl Albert was present, but when the police arrived but he hid in the glove compartment of the car.

Fake polls? We had one!
Nowadays we hear about “fake polls”, but we once had a real fake poll that actually determined the winner of a gubernatorial election in Oklahoma. This was in 1938 and Alfalfa Bill Murray was attempting a return to the governorship. Unlike in most years before or after, in 1938 Oklahoma did not provide for a runoff in the gubernatorial primary. Whichever candidate got the most votes was going to be the winner regardless of the percentage of the vote that he won. There were three major candidates, each running neck and neck. Antipathy against Murray was strong and voters were seeking to figure out which of the alternative candidates had the best shot at beating him. The Daily Oklahoma newspaper, which was strongly supporting Leon Phillips for the post, put out a poll late in the campaign that showed that Phillips was the one most likely to be able to defeat Murray. The paper had the biggest circulation in the state and the influence of the poll was tremendous. Anti-Murray voters flocked to Phillips and he emerged victorious. Later investigative work showed that the poll was fictitious, but it accomplished the Daily Oklahoman’s purpose.

Once upon a time politics was community entertainment.
By the 1970’s television entertainment had become king, dooming the community gatherings that once were the staple of politics in rural Oklahoma. In small towns political events were local entertainment during the campaign season. These gatherings would take the form of "pie suppers", where pies would be auctioned off for some charity, or simply as “speakin’s”, and they gave folks an opportunity to get together in a social setting and enjoy the free entertainment offered by the politicians. Life was slower in those days, but politics was much more of a community participatory activity than it is today. With the decline of personal participation in political activities, the importance of TV advertising grew. With the increased dependence of campaigns on television, the cost of campaigns has gone up. The political power and influence of the interest groups that provide the money for the TV ads has increased as the dependence of the politicians on TV has grown.

John Steinbeck and the Okies.
Counties west of Oklahoma City are the part of the state most influenced by the decline in rural population. Many of the counties were settled by farmers whose land exhausted itself after a few years. Ranching, more appropriate to the region, has now mostly replaced farming in the dryer areas. The Dust Bowl also played a big part in de-populating large areas of western Oklahoma. John Steinbeck's book about the Dust Bowl, The Grapes of Wrath, created the national image of the Okie. Needless to say, Steinbeck became persona non grata in our state. People hated his book, and they hated the movie based on it even more. A couple of years ago New York Times columnist David Brooks spoke in Tulsa and made reference to Steinbeck by name. He was from back East and didn't know any better. It was the first time I had ever heard anyone dare to speak John Steinbeck's name out loud in a public setting in Oklahoma in my whole life, but there were no gasps and nobody booed. Times have changed. Or maybe people have just forgotten.

Indian Territory, Oklahoma Territory.
The first newspaper published in Oklahoma was bilingual, English and Cherokee. It was published in Indian Territory, of course. The first institution of higher education in Oklahoma was Cherokee, also in Indian Territory. Indian Territory had a head start in education, but Oklahoma Territory soon took the lead, and has held it ever since thanks to support from state government. OU and OSU (Oklahoma A&M in those days) were opened in Oklahoma Territory in 1890. The old Oklahoma Territory still receives dramatically more money from state government for education than the eastern half of the state. Oklahoma Territory got the better part of the bargain in higher education, as well as getting the state capital and most of the major state institutions. The state seal symbolizes the coming together of Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory to form the State of Oklahoma by the handshake of of a White man and an Indian, but I believe one side came out of the handshake with a better deal than the other. This was not the first time Indians have had this experience, of course.

Cowboys and Indians.
The symbols of OU and OSU mirror the symbolism in the state seal. OSU is the proud home of the “Cowboys”, and for most of its history OU used Indian symbols. Up until 1970, the football team mascot was “Little Red”.

County names tell stories.
The names of Oklahoma counties reveal a lot about our history. Indian tribal names, of course, are common. We have also have county names that reference the economic activity predominate in its region: Alfalfa County, Coal County, and Cotton County. In the northern part of the state, settled mostly by people from the North who brought their Republican politics with them, we have counties named after Republican presidents: Grant County and Garfield County. Blaine County was names after a defeated Republican candidate for president, James G. Blaine. A county along the Red River was named after a defeated Democratic candidate for president, William Jennings Bryan, and two counties were named for successful Democratic candidates: Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson.

Mischief in the counting of the ballots.
The electronic voting system used in Oklahoma today is quite secure. Back in the days when we used paper ballots opportunities for mischief were much greater. There were lots of tricks of the trade. Paper ballots were hand counted. A woman counter, for example, could hide a piece of pencil lead under her long fingernail and mark votes for any offices that had been left blank on the ballot. This could be done without other counters noticing. More frequently, there were alleged cases of counters colluding among themselves. Especially in the poorer counties of the state politics was a serious business because many patronage jobs depended on the outcome of the voting. There was lots of motivation to push the vote counting to a desired outcome. Back in the days when Democrats tended regularly to win state elections, Republicans complained that in Little Dixie, the Democrat stronghold of the state, they wouldn’t start counting their votes until after all of the Republican counties had announced their totals and the Democrats knew how many votes they needed to come out ahead.

High emotions in the Oklahoma legislature.
Thinking of House members and Senators reminds me of the time in the late 1940’s (before my time) when a House member came over to the Senate and shot a member point blank in the Senate Chamber during session. Nowadays that might happen because a member got emotional over a piece of legislation, but not in those days. Back then shootings only happened for good reason. In this case the reason was a woman: the Senator was carrying on with the House member’s wife. No greater indignity for a House member than to have his wife dallying behind his back with a Senator. You can understand why the man got upset.

Another Alfalfa Bill Murray story.
Alfalfa Bill Murray, one of the most colorful of early Oklahoma political figures, was an inveterate racist and he was not shy about sharing his views. He served as governor in the early 30s, and his son, Johnston, was elected in 1950. When his son was governor the size of the governor’s staff was much smaller than today and the long hallway leading to the governor’s office was open to the public. Down the length of the hallway there were several benches, and on the bench right outside the governor’s office Alfalfa Bill would spend many of his days sitting with a selection of racist pamphlets he had written, available for sale to visitors who had come to see his son, the Governor.

Oklahoman Legislators are Skilled at Gerrymandering.
Oklahoma, like many other states, has always been a skilled practitioner of gerrymandering. For many years we had a Republican congressman from Enid, Page Belcher. This was in the days when Democrats held all of the congressional seats in Oklahoma but his, and Belcher’s district was carefully drawn to include almost all of the Republican voting counties in Oklahoma. These were all in northern Oklahoma. Belcher’s district included Tulsa (the center of Oklahoma Republicanism in those days) and, using Pawnee County as a bridge, connected to the Republican counties extending all the way from Tulsa to the borders of Colorado and New Mexico.

High Drama on the Floor of the Oklahoma Senate.
Thinking of House members and Senators reminds me of the time in the late 1940’s (before my time) when a House member came over to the Senate and shot a member point blank in the Senate Chamber during session. Nowadays that might happen because a member got emotional over a piece of legislation, but not in those days. Back then shootings only happened for good reason. In this case the reason was a woman: the Senator was carrying on with the House member’s wife. No greater indignity for a House member than to have his wife dallying behind his back with a Senator. You can understand why the man got upset.

No liberals or moderates, please.
It has been nearly 50 years since Oklahoma has had a truly liberal US Senator representing the state in Washington. Fred R. Harris was the last. He was elected to a partial term in 1964 and to a full term in 1966. He left office in 1972, unpopular because of his opposition to the Vietnam war and because of his support for the Great Society programs of Pres. Lyndon Johnson. He was not seen as a liberal at the time he was first elected, so Oklahoma did not “knowingly” elect a liberal when it voted him in office. Our politics has always tended conservative. Henry Bellmon, a Republican former governor, was elected to the US Senate In 1968 and served two terms. He was respected on both sides of the aisle in the Senate, and worked well with members of both parties. He did not seek reelection in 1980 fearing that his fame in Washington as a political moderate would cause him to be defeated in the Oklahoma Republican primary. Bellmon returned to office as governor in 1986.

Why the President Pro Tem is the top dog of the Senate.
The top officer in the Oklahoma State Senate is the President Pro Tempore. In the news, we usually see the position referred to as “President Pro Tem”, or just “Pro Tem”, but the real title is “President Pro Tempore”. “Pro Tempore” is Latin for “for the time”, and herein lies an interesting story about the State Senate. Constitutionally, the Lieutenant Governor is the President of the Senate. Governors and lieutenant governors, however, take office in January. The legislature, on the other hand, is sworn in at the end of November following the elections earlier that month. When the Senate meets in November it needs to elect officers that will serve “for the time” until the Lieutenant Governor takes office in January and can begin functioning as President of the Senate. During this period of time the President Pro Tem hires the Senate staff and names the committee chairs and members and generally gets everything organized for the coming legislative session. By the time the President of the Senate, the Lieutenant Governor, is ready to start work as President of the Senate there is nothing left to be done. If he shows up at the Senate expecting to run things, he (or someday “she") is courteously told that he is not needed and should go back to his own office and find something useful to do with his time.

OU Center for Studies in Democracy and Culture