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To Iowa month ago Governor Murray went to address great gatherings of farmers, was cheered till the rafters rang. That this sentiment for him was not all noise was revealed this month by a presidential State-wide poll conducted by the Des Moines Register and Tribune. President Hoover got 14,778 out of 17,925 Republican straw votes. Out of 38,732 Democratic votes, Governor Murray led with 13,427; Governor Roosevelt followed with 13,401 and Alfred Emanuel Smith came third with 4,724.
To Toadsuck. About the country Governor Murray continued to stump, stirring rural multitudes with speech after speech.
Never was his rhetoric more abusive, his manner more forceful. Appealing to what he called the Mass Mind he poured out the vials of his political scorn on President Hoover and all G. O. Policies. Resounding popular demonstrations greeted him everywhere. Even in Washington the House Ways & Means Committee gave him its respectful attention while he flayed the present currency system. The citizens of Charlotte, N. C. shrieked with ignorant delight when he cracked an obsolete joke which the audience thought was an original Alfalfaism.* The South Carolina General Assembly listened in rapt attention while he outlined the economic and political dangers ahead.
But for sheer personal triumph none of these occasions compared with a demonstration last week when Governor Murray shot across the Red River bridge he had fought for last summer and led a motorcade of 300 cars back to his Texas birthplace. Along the 40-mi. route to Collinsville, Texas farmers turned out to cheer him in the rain. Col. William Easterwood came from Dallas to Collinsville to introduce him to a huge crowd as "our next President." About the streets "Murray-For-President" banners flapped in the drizzle. An Oklahoma band played "The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You." "We're All for Alfalfa Bill," said a scrawled note thrown out by the engineer of a Katy train speeding through Collinsville. Governor Murray was presented with a quilt on which had been embroidered his "Bread, Butter, Bacon, Beans" slogan. Unveiled was a 16-ft. monument in his honor, with a large photograph embedded under glass and inscribed: Born in Collinsville, 1870.*
Fiery Fury. Governor Murray spruced up for the occasion. His lean wrinkled face had been shaved. His mop of thick greying hair was carefully combed. He wore a clean white shirt and his blue suit was pressed. Those who went to Collinsville to see a rustic figure in mismatched clothes and red suspenders were disappointed. But there was no disappointment in the fiery fury of the Murray speech. He began, as usual, by harking back to his early days when he was "born in a cotton patch during a November snowstorm; rocked in the cradle of adversity; chastened by hardship and poverty." Then he quickly swung into his favorite economic theme—the wealth of the rich, the poverty of the poor. "The great middle class," he shouted, "is threatened with bankruptcy and extermination." He gave his audience the same platform of relief adopted in Oklahoma City.