Oklahoma's Choice

In Oklahoma last week were 15 assorted Democrats who wanted to be the State's next Governor.* Primary voting had hardly started before three candidates drew away from the rest of the field.

One was Ernest Whitworth Marland. As a Pittsburgh law clerk he watched the Mellons found their fortune. In 1908 he emigrated to Oklahoma, struck oil on one Willie-Cries-For-War's land, piled up a $65,000,000 fortune, built Ponca City, married his ward when his wife died, gave his State Bryant Baker's "Pioneer Woman," and then went bankrupt. He always felt that he had been euchred out of control of his Marland Oil Co. by unscrupulous financiers and when in 1932 he was elected to Congress, he kept up a steady racket against "the wolves of Wall Street." His gubernatorial platform: "A New Deal for Oklahoma," a State police system. State subsistence homesteads, wildlife conservation.

Grey, gangling Governor William Henry ("Cocklebur Bill") Murray, by law prevented from succeeding himself, staked his political poke on Tom Anglin, Speaker of the State House of Representatives.

Also ahead of the ruck was a candidate with an astonishing record. He was John C. ("Iron Jack") Walton. Engine driver for Mexican President Porfirio Diaz in revolutionary times, he and a jazz band in 1922 got a larger majority of votes for Governor than had ever before been received. Thereupon "Iron Jack" became embroiled in a Ku Klux Klan scandal and was thrown out of office for corruption ten months after he was inducted. In spite of a mail fraud indictment three years ago, a repentant citizenry elected him State Corporation Commissioner.

In just that order the picturesque field of candidates finished. Oilman Marland got 146,000 votes; Speaker Anglin. 95,000; Commissioner Walton, 81,000. A run-off primary was avoided and the Governorship was practically handed to Mr. Marland when Candidate Anglin withdrew. Growled "Cocklebur Bill" Murray: "I've often said that men would take a cussing or a cold or a rail off your fence, but would not take good advice. They [the voters] refused my advice."

*No Republican has ever been Governor of Oklahoma.

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