(See front cover)
Last week Will Rogers, flying to his old home at Claremore, Okla. paused in Kansas City to talk politics. Who was his choice for the Democratic presidential nomination? Why, his good Texas friend. "Jack" Garner, Speaker of the House of Representatives. But what did he, as one famed Oklahoman, think of the prospects of that other famed Oklahoman and good Rogers friend, Governor William Henry Murray? Will Rogers grinned, ducked his head, replied: "I guess he ain't got much chance."
But a thousand other Oklahomans last week packed into Oklahoma City's Shrine Temple as delegates to the Democratic State convention. And they thought differently. With one unanimous whoop they acclaimed Governor Murray as their candidate for President, pledged him Oklahoma's 22 delegates to the Chicago Convention. Declared Governor Murray: "I stand in awe of the responsibility of the Presidency but I will undertake it. ... I am willing to shorten my life, perhaps lose it, in an effort to stem the powers now crushing the American people. . . . No man is fit to be President who hasn't worked for $1 a day and lived on it. ... I don't get puffed up with praise but if America is going to be saved from despotism, it's going to take a platform that will mean something."
Mopping his forehead and unbuttoning his vest Governor Murray then proceeded to give the State convention his platform which he would carry to Chicago and try to get the national Democracy to accept. It was, he said, "a new song—the song of the people," which would have to be backed by the people's dimes rather than large campaign donations.
Chief points in the Murray platform:
1) "less taxes, more trade and no trusts";
2) a banking system with State currency issued against cotton and wheat; 3) abolition of ad valorem taxes on homes and farms; 4) maximum income taxes on "excess salaries of corporation managers"; 5) impeachment for Federal judges who abuse the power of jurisdiction; 6) conscription of money as well as men in the next war; 7) full payment of the soldier bonus; 8) coinage of "enough gold and silver to meet normal demands"; 9) tariff reduction. Adopting this platform, delegates loudly declared that "the great battle of 1932 is America against Wall Street, special interests and predatory wealth." Governor Murray loosed a savage political attack upon President Hoover after which a quartet sang a new Murray campaign song entitled "Hoover Made a Soup Houn' Outa Me."* Already in wide circulation were "Murray-For-President" buttons and the Murray campaign slogan: "Bread, Butter, Bacon, Beans."
In North Dakota, George Murray, farmer, filed his brother's name in the State's preferential primary March 15 against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Brother George announced that Brother Bill would come into North Dakota early in March to campaign.