The 1920 Election

Having dominated the political landscape since statehood, the Democratic Party in Oklahoma was upended by a Republican landslide in 1920. In this episode, Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn examine the conditions that led to the changing of the guard including a tepid response to the League of Nations proposal from President Wilson, the economy after World War I, and the first national election women for women to participate. Their guest is Dr. Sunu Kodumthara, history professor at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
(upbeat music playing)

(00:04):
(TRAIT THOMPSON)Hello, and welcome to "A Very OK Podcast."
My name is Trait Thompson. I'm executivedirector of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
With me as always is Dr. Bob Blackburn.
Bob, it's great to see you again
as maybe fall is starting to sort ofmake its way into Oklahoma.
(DR. BOB BLACKBURN)Well, it is beautiful out,
and I, and you actually look differentthan you normally do.

(00:25):
You must have been somewhere or done
something that changed your latitudeand attitude.
(THOMPSON)Yeah, I definitely want to talk about that a little bit.
But first,I want to bring our guest into the podcast
we have with usDr. Sunu Kodumthara,
who is professor of historyat Southwestern Oklahoma State University.
If you have been a long-timelistener of the podcast, you know

(00:48):
sinew from being our guest in the "Votesfor Women" episode
where we talked about women's suffrage,and that was such a great episode.
So Sunu,
I am so glad to have you with us today.
(DR. SUNU KODUMTHARA)I'm glad to be back.
It's been a long time,so it's always good to see you guys
and goodto have a conversation about history.
(THOMPSON)Yeah, well, in many cases we'll be picking up where we left off

(01:09):
on that last women's suffrage podcast,
so I'm excited about that.
But yes, Bob, getting backto what you were talking about,
I recently returned from a trip to China,
and it was an honorfor me to go over there.
I was invited by the Gansu province,the Foreign Affairs office there, to

(01:30):
go over there and help commemoratethe 40th anniversary of our sister
state and province relationshipwith the Gansu province.
And, they,they sent a delegation over here in May,
and I had the honor of giving thema tour of the State Capitol.
And I guess they liked their tour
well enoughthat they decided to invite me over there.

(01:53):
And I spent a week.
We flew into the city of Dunhuang,which is,
first of all,the Gansu province is way out there.
It is not, it's not on the east coast,sort of north central or northwest China.
And Dunhuang was a stopon the ancient Silk Road trading route.
And we had an opportunity to,

(02:15):
attend the 8th Silk RoadInternational Cultural
Expo there, which brought people togetherfrom many different countries.
We went out into the Gobi Desert
and rode camels, which was a first for me.
I enjoyed that quite a
bit, although there was a little bitof a sandstorm the day that we were there.

(02:36):
And we toured the Mogao Caves, which,
folks, if you ever have a chance to dothis, it is so well worth it.
These are caves that were carved into
a mountain by Buddhist travelersstarting in the three hundreds,
and then they decorated the caveswith all of this beautiful Buddhist art.

(02:58):
This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
and it has been preservedthroughout the years.
These caves are 1,500 years oldnow or more,
and it's been preserved because of theclimate out there in the desert.
So it's one of the neatest thingsI got to see.
And then we traveledover to the lot to Lanzhou,

(03:18):
which is the capital cityof the Gansu province,
and at the provincial museum there,which was an incredible museum with,
you know, when they're showing youartifacts there, Bob, from
that are 1,500, 2,000, 3,000years old,
I thought about our artifacts, which areslightly, slightly newer than that.

(03:40):
But, we also had a ceremony thereto commemorate the anniversary.
And at that ceremony, they were showingvideo of George Nigh and Donna Nigh
riding camels in the desert,just like we did.
And we got to commemorate that.
And then they put together a photo exhibitconsisting of photos

(04:01):
from the past 40 yearsthat talked about this relationship
and how we have engagedin cultural exchange, everything
from business to medicine to the economy.
And that was really, really special,
and especially with George Nigh having passed away recently,
just thinking about him and his memoryand thinking,

(04:22):
I bet he would be proud of us
for being over here and for doing thisand continuing this legacy.
And I was personally gratifiedbecause about 30 of my own personal photos
were put in the exhibit
of different Oklahoma landscapesand scenes from across the state.
So, for a couple more weeks,my photos will be on exhibit

(04:42):
while that while that exhibitis still going on at the museum.
And then we got to go to George Nigh's friendship tree,
and that's the tree he
planted in 1985when he was there at a park in Lanzhou.
And so it was very,it was wonderful trip.
I was on the trip with KyleDillingham and his band, Horseshoe Road,

(05:04):
which Kyle's been goingto Gansu for 10 years now.
And he is such a wonderful ambassadorfor Oklahoma and such a,
he's so good at making connectionswith the Chinese people.
It was just really nice to see the typeof work he does upfront or up close.

(05:26):
And then we also had eight UCO students
with us on the trip,who were music students
and their professor, Dr. Danielle Harrington, who is an opera singer.
And boy, she can sing. She's incredible.
She sang at George Nigh's funeral.
I don't know if you remember that.
And the students were

(05:49):
so wonderful.
You know, Sunu,
I know you live in college student world,but when I found out I was going
to be traveling with eight college students,I wasn't quite sure what to expect.
(KODUMTHARA)A little nervous. (THOMPSON And a little bit nervous for sure,
but they were so professional.
They were polite.
They were, of course,some of them were singers.

(06:10):
Some of them played instruments,
but they were all just sucha good representation of our state.
And it made me so proud to bewith a group of students who were
so good at representing not only UCObut the state of Oklahoma.
And it was,it was a trip that I will never forget.
And I felt very, very honored

(06:31):
and privileged to be a part of it.(BLACKBURN) Well, you should.
And that reminds me of,
of course, of George Nigh,who always reached out to other people
and like one of my heroesin popular culture, Rick Steves,
he always sayswe need to go beyond politics
and what governments may be arguing aboutand get to know the people.
I'll never forgetI was giving a speech one year for town hall,

(06:53):
and Rick Steveswas there the night before me.
I had dinner,
and he gave a speech about howwe should reach out to the Iranian people.
Yeah, we have problems with Iran,you know, political issues, but
the Iranian people like Americans.
So if you get to know them, you like, yousaid, we got to we got to do better
than just let governments tell uswho the enemy are, with quote marks around it,

(07:15):
and really get to know people.
And we have more in commonthan we think oftentimes.
And you experienced that.
That's good.
(THOMPSON)Yeah, you're exactly right.
And when you're travelingthrough a foreign country like that,
you see people that are goingabout their lives, they're families
raising children, they're peoplerunning their businesses.

(07:37):
They're trying to give the next generation
a better life,just like we're trying to do here.
And, in many cases, perhaps we shouldn'thold the people responsible
for some of the things that their governmentdoes because, just like here,
we don't have all the controlover the things that our government does.
And, it's the same way over there.

(07:58):
I found the people that I met both,you know, the official,
the official people that we dealt withfrom the government,
but also
the people that you would just runinto in the stores and in the shops and
and in the restaurantsjust to be incredibly nice.
Incredibly outgoing.
They were very forgiving of the fact

(08:20):
that we spoke zero Mandarin.
And I will say Google Translateand Google Lens were very,
very important to us on this trip,even though we had, we had translators
along the way reading the signs,you know, in the museum.
I like to read a good plaque, you know.(KODUMTHARA) Same.

(08:40):
(THOMPSON)And, I couldn't read them.
So I would hold up my Google Lens andget the translation so I could read it.
I will say one thing
funny that happened with translation.
There were several things.
But when we were in the Mogao Caves,one of the, there's over 470 caves
with this Buddhist artthat was carved over a thousand years,
and one of the cavesis the most prominent.

(09:03):
It has a statue of Buddha in itthat was probably 40 or 50 feet tall.
It's massive.
You walk in,and you're as big as Buddha's foot is.
And I asked our translator,I said, how long would
this have takento build this statue in here?
And she said, oh, probably about 12 hours.

(09:25):
And I was kind of confused,and she saw the confused look on my face.
And then she said,oh no, no, no, wait, 12 years, 12 years.
(laughter)(BLACKBURN) Something lost in translation.
(THOMPSON) Yeah.(KODUMTHARA) Twelve hours is extremely efficient.
(THOMPSON) I just thought those aresome people who could build a statue.
(BLACKBURN)The Chinese had 3D printing very early on.

(09:47):
(THOMPSON)But I will say their English was
much, much, much, much,much better than my Chinese was.
So, but, a lot of fun, and a good trip,
and just such a great learning experiencefor me.
And I hope I get to come back,
go back againbecause it was such a rewarding time.

(10:08):
So, a big thank youto our folks, over there
in, in the Gansu province forfor showing us
a little bit of their country, andhelping us to understand them.
And, I hope they get to come back too.
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah, that would be amazing.
(THOMPSON) Well, I suppose we should jump into ourtopic this week because we have a really,

(10:28):
I think, a really exciting topicto talk about this time.
And it's the 1920 election
in Oklahoma and, Sunu,when you were here last,
we talked about women's suffrage,and women had gotten the right to vote,
but we didn't have time reallyto get into that 1920 election,

(10:49):
which is the first electionthat women can vote in.
(KODUMTHARA)Right.
(THOMPSON)And this election turns the tables in so many ways.
It's the first election
where Republicans take the Oklahoma Houseof Representatives.
It's the first elections where two womenare elected to the legislature.
It is an election in which a senator,a US senator,

(11:10):
who had held the office since statehood,was turned out in favor of a Republican.
And so many things were going on.
And it was such a tumultuous timeafter World War I,
that I thought we should really devotesome time just to talking about this.
(KODUMTHARA)You know, and
Bob can talk about this as well.

(11:31):
But I think if you look at thisfrom a national lens,
the whole country is going througha lot of political upheaval at this point,
because keep in mind,we've spent the first 20 years
of this centurygoing through Progressive Era politics,
where everything has changed,change, change,

(11:51):
hold everybody accountable, whether it'spoliticians or corporate America.
Then you have World War I, and WorldWar I is something that no one
had been planning for, expecting,even though the signs were always there.
And it is a traumatic event.
Right?
And let's not forgetthe Spanish flu that starts in Kansas.

(12:12):
So there's all of this tumult,
and there's all of thischaos, and Republicans
actually see this as an opportunity,a political opportunity for themselves
because, quite frankly,with the death of Theodore Roosevelt,
which is in 1919, there is no real heir

(12:33):
to a Progressive Era–politician.
Right?
If there were, it'd be Theodore Roosevelt,because he had resurrected himself from
the dead.
There's really no nobody else.(THOMPSON) Yeah.
(KODUMTHARA) And so Republicanssee this as an opportunity for themselves
to sort of reinvent who they areas a party and figure out, okay,
let's reclaim this as, as an opportunityfor us as a party and as leaders.

(12:57):
Let's find out who can take the lead now.
As for Democrats, you've got Woodrow Wilson, who secretly wants a third term
because he can't believe thatnobody really loves him.
And then there's, there is a lotof division within their party as well.
And so because of that, it's an excellent

(13:17):
opportunity for Republicans everywhereacross that country.
And that includes Oklahoma,
where it's a disasterto be a Republican up until this point.
(THOMPSON)Right.
(KODUMTHARA) So yeah.(THOMPSON) Bob, can you give us a sense,
you know, after World War I
and leading into the 1920s,what are we experiencing

(13:38):
not only as a state and a countrywhen we're talking about our economy,
the labor movement,
agriculture, which was so importantto the state of Oklahoma, oil production?
What are we facing?
(BLACKBURN)We're really, this was a watershed period
in Oklahoma historyas well as American history,
and I would say thatit's close to the 1950s and 1960s.

(14:00):
So a lot of us Baby Boomers who were,you know, growing up in the 1960s
with all of the division in Americaand the Nixon versus the,
you know, the hippies, and you go onand on with all the dramatic tension.
You kind of get a little bit of thisat that time.
And it started earlier,
of course. Most movements in Americanhistory and Oklahoma history evolve.

(14:21):
Nothing happens overnight.
But typically wartime and dramatic eventslike that will focus change.
And that'swhat happened during World War I.
So some of the thingsthat have been happening
is that we're making a transitionfrom a largely rural state.
Agricultural-based farmersand ranchers are making the decisions.
They're driving the economy,mainly a male community at the time.

(14:44):
And that begins to change.
The first big oil strike, 1905,followed by a series of strikes elsewhere
throughout the state.
So oil wealth is comingin, bringing people in from the Mid-Atlantic,
not your old populist agrarians who came
from Kansas and Illinois and Missourior Texas.
Here you're getting it a little different.
So politics is changing,reflecting the changes in the economy,

(15:10):
going to more of an urban. OklahomaCity goes from 10,000 people in 1900
to 64,000 peopleby 1910 and keeps growing.
And so you get thegrowth of Oklahoma City.
Tulsa becomes "the Oil Capital of the World"during these days and will emerge
in the 1920s as a dominant citywithin the oil patch in the country.

(15:30):
Oklahoma, one of the top three leading oil–producing states in the country.
Well, that's bringing in new wealth.The railroads have built
and connected all these little communitiesthat had been isolated
for the first decade, some in some cases,first two decades of settlement.
Suddenly here comethe railroads connecting.
You get social changes,like the movies are coming.

(15:54):
Suddenly, every littletown has a movie theater.
So you're seeing what people in New YorkCity are thinking, and seems alien.
You get a time when it's William Jennings Bryan and the Populist Movement,
very fundamentalist religion
is exploding around the country
versus a Theodore Roosevelt,who was almost a secular kind of a leader

(16:16):
and a progressive in his own way.
But these divisions within our communityare evolving and changing,
and things are speeding up in these,in these decades.
So women voting, with the warconcentrating
all the changes, the racism that was herein the very beginning, flares, no accident

(16:36):
that across the countryyou have the race riots
and race wars of 1919, 1920.
And then, of course, in Tulsa, 1921is an outgrowth of all of this change.
People expecting somethingbetter than what they've had before.
African Americans are expectingsomething better.
Women are expecting something better.
Farmers and ranchers are expectingthe good times that they've had since 1898

(17:00):
to continue, and it's not.
Then you have the growingmiddle class in the towns
who are wanting their own voice.
And then you get the warand the political
factionalism that startseven within the Democratic Party.
So you still have the William Jennings Bryan pacifists, isolationists

(17:20):
who don't want to get involved.
"America First" would be
you know, their mottoat that time, as it is today among some.
And they are saying,no, we need to stay out of the war.
Then Woodrow Wilson
kind of sees the reasons to get involved,and there were good reasons
to get involved.
But yet they're still the isolationists,like Senator Gore and Oklahoma,
one of the few senatorsto vote against entering World War I.

(17:43):
And yet here in Oklahoma,where we have a warrior society
among American Indiansespecially, African Americans would join
the armed services in greater numbersthan the white population.
And then, you know,this was a very physical,
male dominated society, militant.
Let's go fight. Let's go kill.
You know, the idea of a good timeon a Saturday night,

(18:05):
get drunk and get in a fight.
Today, we don't,
we don't quite think that. There may bea few who still do, but typically not.
But at that time,that was a dominant culture.
So yeah, let's get in there.
Let's fight and win this war.
And then the pacifists,
so once the Democrats split on that issueand the Socialist Party
that had been persecutedduring the war as anti-American,

(18:27):
and you see new laws passed to tryto suppress freedom of speech,
putting people in jail without due cause
in clamping down on the Labor Movement.
Then the war ends and labor says,now we need our fair share.
So you get a series of strikes.
You still have the anti-labor movement,very strong.

(18:49):
And you get all this churningat the very same time
when the Democratic Party is split,and it provides that opening.
And we have to remember too,that even though Republicans had not won
many statewide electionsor any statewide elections at that time,
the Republicans always werejust a little under the Democrats.
It was not a vast majority.(THOMPSON) That's right.

(19:10):
(BLACKBURN)The Republicans would do pretty well.
But just enough Democrats,especially in eastern Oklahoma
and the land of the Five Tribes, wherealmost everyone was a Democrat,
could outvote the Republicansin the Cherokee Outlet
and Republicans in Tulsaand the Republicans in Oklahoma City.
And what changed in 1920is that the farmers and ranchers
that had been voting a populistkind of Democratic

(19:32):
ticket up to this pointstart splitting their vote.
And so the hardcore Republicansare still going to vote the way they are.
Hardcore Democrats are going to vote.
But you split some of that rural vote,and it tips it
the other direction.(THOMPSON) Sunu,
I don't think that that peoplereally understand how much
the League of Nations and this whole ideaof creating the League of Nations

(19:54):
really did hurtthe Democratic Party here in Oklahoma.
You know, there was this idea ofwe have to stick with Wilson.
We have to, everything that Wilson issaying is what we have to abide by,
and if Wilson's going down the road
of the League of Nations,and we're going to go down.
But I think it's a classiccase of Wilson

(20:15):
leading a paradeand then looking back behind him going,
not many people were backers.(KODUMTHARA) That's absolutely right.
(THOMPSON) And the Democrats had atough job here in Oklahoma
to try and convince people like, no,we got to do this League of Nations thing.
I think people did not want to buy it.
(KODUMTHARA)That's right.
I mean, you know, with Woodrow Wilson,his struggle
is trying to maintain a connection

(20:37):
not just to the Democratic Party,but to the American people in general.
Right?
And so I think he had convinced himselfprimarily that wherever I go,
the people will follow because I'mthe smartest one in the room, whatever.
And if that's what Wilson said,whatever Wilson believed, good for him.
But a part of the problem,though, is that when you spend that
many months in France negotiating thesetreaties and you're disconnected from

(21:01):
what's going on in the United Statesand the country, as Bob points out,
there is so much going on in the country
that he's left behindwhile he's negotiating this treaty.
And it's not great for Wilson anywaywhile he's negotiating the treaty.
Right? Things aren't going great for him.
So when he comes back and he realizesthat Congress doesn't agree with him,

(21:23):
I think he just chalks that upto, well, this is just Republicans
being angry with me,and Republicans disagreeing with me,
and he doesn't quite realizethat the American people don't
want to engage in what they arenow describing as a European war.
(THOMPSON) I think too, and this is notto denigrate all three people sitting in this room.

(21:45):
Wilson was an academic.
(KODUMTHARA) I just came out of,like I told a friend of mine this morning,
I said,
academics are the worst,and I fully embrace that as an academic.
Academics really are the worst.
We are. I'm so sorry.
(THOMPSON)I think what Wilson really thought, when I, when I explain this to everybody,

(22:07):
everybody's going to say, "Thatmakes a lot of sense,
and they're going to buy into this."(KODUMTHARA) Yes.
(THOMPSON)And I think,
I don't think Wilson understoodthat he couldn't explain this away.
(KODUMTHARA) No. And this is a part of the problemwith being an academic is that we have
a very specific way ofunderstanding things and reading things

(22:27):
and then communicatingthose things is very difficult,
because if you only see thingsfrom a very narrow point of view,
then trying to explain that to a broaderaudience is almost impossible.
Trying to sell his
14 points, for example, to the British,
the French, and the Italians,they weren't going to buy it.

(22:48):
So how was he going to sellthe League of Nations
to an American publicwho had no interest whatsoever
in participating in an international body?
They didn't want anything to dowith anything international at that point.
(BLACKBURN)You know, one thing
that you've just reminded me of,really what he was doing was his ideology.

(23:08):
He was an idealistin a lot of ways,
and ideologues tend to see itonly one way.
And you get a lot of ideologues
in American historycoming out of World War I.
And so you, the Eugene V. Debs,you know, Labor Movement and Socialist,
and you see others, and everyone'scoming up with their own ideological.

(23:30):
And then you get the evangelicals again,just as today, that's part of this mix.
You know, some people want,you know, Christian nationalism.
They want a theocracy running the country.
Well, at that time,some of the old followers,
and you still see it with the Scopes trialtrying to deny evolution.
Just as today you say, let's denythat vaccines really work.

(23:53):
And when there is so much proofthat they do,
but ideologues will plow through thatand not believe it,
and they don't listen.
And so when you geta lot of different factions all moving
at the same time, not listening, ideologuesfollowing their own path,
it's easy for things to break down.
And that'swhat was really happening at the time.
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah.
(THOMPSON) Well, where the bigfracture occurs and Bob,

(24:16):
you mentioned it just a couple of minutesago, was in the Thomas Gore Senate seat,
and Gore had been elected since statehood.
You know, remember we talked aboutin our Robert Owen episode,
there was an agreementthat there would be one senator elected
from old the Indian Territory,
one senator elected from old OklahomaTerritory, east and west.

(24:38):
And so, Gore wins the western,the western seat.
He was from Lawton at the time.
And it really when it came to World War I,
he did not think the United Statesshould be involved in the war.
He did not support many of Wilson'spolicies during the war.
He felt like the League of Nationswould bind the US

(24:59):
to future wars, and he wasn'twilling to go along with that.
And then he also called for voting downthe Treaty of Versailles.
So, Oklahoma Democrats
said, what good isthis guy? He's not supporting,
you know, todayit's a little bit different.
We have the parties, but there's not,I feel like there's the party

(25:21):
devotion isn'tmaybe as fervent in some areas.
I could be wrong about that.
But back then,if you didn't toe the party line,
then you, at the convention,you know, you had to,
it was pretty rough sledding.
And when they got to the Democraticconvention at the at the state level,
they censured him.(KODUMTHARA) Right.

(25:43):
(THOMPSON) And the newspapers throughoutthe state, especially those
that were Democratic newspapers,they filleted him.
It was not pretty.(KODUMTHARA) Yeah.
I mean, here's the thing thatI don't think a lot of people know about
Wilson at the time of his leadershipof the Democratic Party.
And a friend of mine and I weretalking about it just before I came over.

(26:05):
And that is Wilson has a sort of leadership over the party
to where there are people
who are completely devotedto Wilson's leadership and vision.
So whatever
Wilson believed, whatever Wilson wanted,that's what was going to happen.
And that's what they weregoing to support 100%.
So the idea that a Democratwould dare to voice an opinion

(26:27):
that was different fromWilson was sacrilege.
It was considered abetrayal to the party.
So a betrayal to Wilson was a betrayalto the Democratic Party.
And of course, this was very problematic
and would ultimately costthe Democratic Party.
Right?
But at that time, that's the kind of

(26:47):
control, I guess, isthe word I would use here.
But that's the kind of control that Wilsonhad over the Democratic Party at that,
at least at that moment.
(BLACKBURN) And there's anemotional element here, too.
Everything is more dramatic.
We've seen thatin the last couple of years
in American history.Everything is so dramatic.
You know, people ready to fight over,you know, a few words.
But it was the samethen. And an example of that

(27:10):
coming out of World War I were the councils of defense
that were not government related,but they were voluntary organizations
by county, councils of defenseto ensure patriotism.
So if we're going to fight this war,everyone is going to be patriotic.
And if you voiced an opinion,
your house might be burned down,you might be lynched.
There were white people being lynchedin World War I in Oklahoma

(27:31):
because they weren't fervent enoughin their support of the war.
So you get that emotion
during those war years,and you don't turn that off overnight.
So basically, you're almosthonoring vigilante justice.
(THOMPSON)Yeah.
(BLACKBURN) And the vigilante justicecarries over into the postwar years.
I've always thought that that was a bigpart of the Tulsa Race Massacre.

(27:51):
You still have a lot of these peoplethinking vigilante justice is good,
and these young Black men have come overinto the "white section of town."
We got to punish them, andwe have to take justice into our own hand.
That was the emotion of that time.
So things are emotional, polarized,and it was so much in flux.
It creates an opportunityfor the Republican Party.

(28:13):
(THOMPSON) Well, I went on The Gateway toOklahoma History, which is a fantastic resource.
(KODUMTHARA) A treasure trove.(THOMPSON) Diving into old newspaper
articles amongst, you can look up all kindsof other things as well.
These are a few of the editorialsthat I found about Thomas Gore.
This is the "Daily Oklahoman."
"When the history of these
Times is written, it will have to recordthat Senator Gore of Oklahoma

(28:37):
was never caughtstanding by the president."
That was a tame one.
(BLACKBURN)And always,
why you get that in political.(THOMPSON) Another one.
And this is from "Renfrew's Record" outof Alva, which was a Democratic newspaper.
"Had Germany won, you would have won."

(28:57):
(KODUMTHARA) Oh, wow.
(THOMPSON) Talking about Senator Gore."Germany lost,
And when the kaiser abdicated, he mightwell have taken your Senatorial seat
and placed it by the side of his wood pile."
Oh, the "Daily Oklahoman"
also published a front page
editorial in which they allegedthat the German kaiser

(29:19):
would have voted the same way inwhich Gore voted on a series of war
time bills and amendments.
So folks,
I mean, this is like,goodness,
this is not just, hey, we don't likesome of the policy decisions.
They're equating himwith being in league with the enemy.

(29:39):
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah. Wow.
That's fun.
(THOMPSON) As Johnny Cash would say, "Weird, wild stuff."
(KODUMTHARA)That's good.
(THOMPSON)Or maybe Dana Carvey's impression.
(BLACKBURN)Either one will work.
(THOMPSON)So the person who runs against Gore is Scott Ferris.
Ferris had served in the Oklahoma,or I'm sorry, in the US House

(30:00):
of Representatives from statehood, 1907,all the way from 1921.
And he unseats Gore, andhe does it, he does it
pretty handily, 106,000 to 80,000 votes.
So it's not even a close election.
And once again, you wouldthink it's an incumbent senator
that it would be a dog fight,but it wasn't a dog fight at all.

(30:23):
The person who runsfor the Republican nomination and gets
it is John Harreld, who was an oil man,an attorney.
He had run for an unexpired seatand won that in 1919.
So he was still,
he had been involved in politics,but he was new to elected politics.
He ends up getting the nomination.
Well, the people when the election comes,

(30:47):
the socialists are disaffected and they,
they end up swinging to the Republicans,
which is hard to believe,but that's what actually happens.
There were Democrats who were loyalto Gore, who either sat the election out
or who decided to votefor the Republican candidate.
And so by the time thatit's all said and done,

(31:10):
Gore loses the election,
and he loses it pretty handily.
The, he
gets 25 rural counties,but it's really.
Harreld runs away with the urban areasand with the rest of the state.
And so this is the big,this is the big election where,

(31:34):
that really showed the weaknessof the Democrats in this particular year.
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah.
And I, I think I should also add here,and I'm sure you were going to add,
you know, say this,but I'm going to steal your thunder.
This is also the first election
where Oklahoma votesfor a Republican president,
And this is unheardof for Oklahoma

(31:57):
as a typically Democratic state.
When I say Democratic,I want to emphasize here
that we tend to goSouthern Democrat at this point.
Right?
But voting for a guy like
Warren G. Harding, who is verymuch a compromise candidate
for the Republicans,that does not make sense for Oklahoma.

(32:19):
But in 1920, it does. Right?
Because it just,that's the opportunity for Republicans,
and he's that opportune candidate.
And so yeah,the fact that there, Oklahoma's
going to lean Republican that wayand then send in
a Republican senator on the state's
behalf is eye opening.(BLACKBURN) I think it's pretty revealing too

(32:43):
that Harding's,you know, statement, return to normalcy,
you know, wanting to get awayfrom the contentious politics of the war
years and get away from the social dividesbetween evolution and,
and and,you know, higher education academy.
And I think a lot of peopleare responsive to that.
Hey, let's calm down.

(33:03):
Let's get back to, you know,just making sure we have food on the table
and some money in the pocket.
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah.
(THOMPSON) I mean, was there ever a better sloganfor that particular time in history?
Because that iswhat people wanted to get back to.
They wanted, after going through a world war, after, you know, commodity prices,
wheat, cattle, agriculture was in the toilet

(33:24):
and it was because, you know,we had ramped up production
to help cover the needs of the worldduring World War I,
when so much of Europe was offline.Farmers had bought land on credit.
And now commodity prices were coming
way down because Europewas getting back online.
And so this idea of returning to normalcy,

(33:46):
boy, that must have been so comforting.
(KODUMTHARA)Right.
And, you know, Republicans also pushthis idea that Americans were suffering
from what they described as moral fatigue,
and that embraces all sorts of ideas.
We were tired of doing the right thingwhen it came to progressivism,
but we were also tiredof being the world's superheroes

(34:08):
when it came to democracy, which is whatWilson wanted the Americans to be.
And now it was just time for us to sitand be and live our lives
and do what we can with what we hadand as you pointed out, Bob,
just to be able to feed ourselvesand get by and succeed
as best as possible, that was the goal.(THOMPSON) We have to remember too.

(34:32):
Oklahoma had ten electoral votes.
We had eight congressmen and two senators,
so that that was ten electoral votes.
So that made Oklahoma not nothingwhen it came to campaigning.
And so, before wejump into the presidential race
for just a minute, I do want to closethe book on Gore for just a second.

(34:54):
He was fairly magnanimous in his defeat.
And he said, "As for my defeat,I prefer to spend time in remembering
what the people of Oklahoma have done forme, rather than what they have done to me.
Out of office, as in office,I shall cherish
no other ambitionthan to serve my state and country."
That's a letter he wrote in March of 1921to his constituents.

(35:17):
And it would not be the end for Gore.
He would be reelected to the United StatesSenate in 1930,
so he would have a political resurrectionafter a few years
in the private sector.
So with that, let's take a quick breakand we'll be right back.
(ANNOUNCER) Mark your calendars for two bigevents happening in November

(35:38):
at Honey Springs Battlefieldand the Oklahoma History Center.
The biennial Battle of HoneySprings is November
8 and 9 at Honey SpringsBattlefield in Checotah.
Guests can take self-guided toursthrough the Union, Confederate, and
civilian camps while learning about lifeduring the Civil War.
There will be militarydrills, demonstrations, and so much more.

(35:59):
The reenactment of the battletakes place at 1 p.m.
on November 8 and 9.
The Battle of Honey Springs
was the largest Civil War battleto take place in Indian Territory.
And on November 15,
Join the OHS to celebrate20 years of the Oklahoma History Center.
this free community celebrationwill feature special programing,

(36:19):
including hands-on activities,guided tours, and historical interpreters.
The celebration will take placefrom 10 a.m.
to 2 p.m. on November 15.
For more informationabout these events and others, visit
okhistory.org/events.
(THOMPSON)Welcome back.
We're talking about the 1920election in Oklahoma.

(36:40):
We're going to talkabout the presidential election that Sunu
just mentioned. This election pittedJames Cox, who had been governor of Ohio,
against Warren Harding and,
who had also been involvedin politics in Ohio.
If I have my notes here correctly,he was elected to the US Senate in 1914

(37:01):
and then served as in state capacityin the Ohio Senate
and also served as lieutenant governor.
Nobody in the world
thought Warren Hardingwould come out of the maelstrom
as the Republican nominee.(KODUMTHARA) Least of all Warren Harding.
To be fair,let's just be honest there.
Warren Harding did not know that he wouldcome out of this as the candidate.

(37:23):
I think it well, for him,it took ten ballots to become
the Republican nominee,and he wasn't supposed to be.
I think it was supposed to be Calvin Coolidge,
because that'swho the people wanted.
But the party wanted Warren G. Harding.
Harding's the guy who could be easilymanipulated and controlled,
quite frankly, by the party.

(37:43):
And, you know, while he was in Senate,he didn't really do anything.
I mean, he showed up every once in a whileand voted the way he was told to vote,
and he was a newspaperman.
He knew the right people.
He was connected with the right people.
And Calvin Coolidge, on the otherhand, was a man who knew his mind.
He knew his politics.
And so he had to settlefor being the vice president.

(38:04):
And so, Harding was a guy who,you know, just wanted to
if he was going to be in office,he'll just sit in office and not do
a whole lot more than that, which is whatthe American people wanted at that time.
(THOMPSON) Well, interestingly enough,one of the men who helped Harding
get the nomination was a man from Ardmorenamed Jake Hamon.

(38:24):
And at some point, I want to doan entire episode just on him,
because he lived a very wildand scandalous life.
(KODUMTHARA)As did Warren G. Harding.
(THOMPSON) Yes, as did Warren G. Harding,which we find out a little bit later on.
(BLACKBURN) Oklahoma connections there.(THOMPSON) But Jake Hamon helps arrange,
he kind of puts the pieces togetherfor this to happen.

(38:46):
And some of the ways that Jake Hamonin arranges for this directly leads
to the Teapot Dome scandal,which will impact Harding's life,
which there's a great series of episodeson the "American Scandal" podcast
about this whole episode,
which you should go and check outif you ever have a chance to do that.
But, James Cox wasthe presidential nominee.

(39:09):
Now Cox excited nobody.
And Cox was sort of the dutiful warrior
to try to keep on Woodrow Wilson's policies.
But nobody, once again, we're talking the League of Nations
was a dud, and carryingthis on was a nonstarter.
The American people, as Bob mentioned,were ready for something different,

(39:30):
and they turned their attention.
Now, the, the good thingabout the Cox candidacy
was his vice-presidential running mate.
And that was, a little known fellowwho was assistant secretary
of the Navy namedFranklin Delano Roosevelt.
And so that would set up
Roosevelt for future political success,as we're all aware of.

(39:50):
But, ultimately, Warren Hardingwould win, and it wouldn't even be close.
He won by a vote of 60% of the popularvote to 34% of the popular
vote to Cox, 404 electoral votesto 127 electoral votes.
And he got Oklahoma's ten electoral votes.

(40:11):
As Sunu mentioned, thefirst Republican to be voted
to be voted in by Oklahomasince statehood in 1907.
Also, fun fact
Cox started a string of newspapersin Ohio
that later became the, media empire of,

(40:31):
what we now know as Cox Communications.
(KODUMTHARA)Is that right?
So when you pay your rent,when you pay your Cox cable bill,
you can think back to the Democraticpresidential nominee
for 1920, because he'sthe guy who started it all.
(KODUMTHARA) And this is whyhistory matters, folks.
(THOMPSON)That's exactly right.

(40:52):
(BLACKBURN) Well, and if he had, won theelection, we might be paying our bills
to Harding Communications.(THOMPSON) That's right.
(BLACKBURN)Someone was going to do it.
(THOMPSON)Someone would. That's right for sure.
So that's the presidential electionin Oklahoma.
And, let's jump into,we have some, Alice Robertson,
the first female electedto Congress from Oklahoma.

(41:17):
And she would hold that titleall the way until the
21st century,when Mary Fallin is elected to Congress.
She would also be the first personto, first Republican
to be elected from the second district.
Yeah, and that would be the caseall the way
until Tom Coburn is elected in the mid 1990s.

(41:38):
So, you know, it's,she's blazing some ground there
and I know, Sunu, you've donequite a bit of research into Alice
Robertson and, you want to tell usa little bit about her?
(KODUMTHARA) Alice Robertson is afascinating, fascinating woman.
So she and her family have a long history

(41:59):
of working among Native Americansin terms of education.
Her parents were missionaries.
She and her sister have beenraised to sort of, work,
as you know, missionaries and educatorsand that sort of thing.
And then, of course, as she got older,
she started getting involved more in,

(42:21):
causes to help, quote unquote, save,
Native peoples, which is how she met
people like Theodore Roosevelt and others.
She would, because of her friendshipwith Theodore Roosevelt,
become involvedas the postmaster of Muskogee,
and she had really prominent positions.
But I think what makes her uniquehere is that she would also serve

(42:44):
as the vice president of the OklahomaAnti-Suffrage Association.
And so she actively campaignedagainst the woman's right to vote,
which is why I find her so fascinating,because she was then approached
about running for office after Oklahomawomen were granted the right to vote.
And she, you know, for all of hercampaigning against the right to vote,

(43:07):
saying that women were incapable of votingor should not have the right to vote,
she was really well-versedin Oklahoma politics.
And she immediatelysaid, to the Republican Party.
She said, listen, you know,this is not a Republican district.
I have no chance of winning here.
This is, this is a Democratic stronghold.

(43:28):
But she's also someonewho was a savvy businesswoman.
She was popular locally.
People really liked her.
They were drawn to her.
She was in her early 60s at that point.
And she used her restaurant and adsin the newspapers to help her campaign.
And that's what sends her into Congress.

(43:48):
It's not some really
savvy political campaign.
It's just her being herself.
And that's what makesher our first congresswoman.
(THOMPSON)Bob, what are your thoughts on Alice Robertson?
(BLACKBURN)She's always fascinated me, and Kate Barnard is the same.
Yeah. I mean, against womenhaving the right to vote.

(44:09):
(THOMPSON)Yeah.
(BLACKBURN)You had two of our most prominent women in the first part of the 20th century,
but Alice fascinates mebecause she was a business person as well.
Of course, I've always been drawnto free enterprise and the story of it.
Well, she not only had the restaurant,she had a photo gallery,
took probably thousandsof photographs of people in the area.
And so kind of like Dr. Coburn later,who delivered a lot of babies,

(44:31):
she took photographs of a lot of babies.
And so she had that connectionwith the people,
and she was sympathetic to American Indiantraditions and preserving way of life.
Her collections, for example,are here at the historical society.
So whenever she, you know, gave up heror her career, we got those materials.
She had a sense of history,a sense of community, and American Indians.

(44:53):
And you really have to
to study tribal politicsto understand running in the eastern
part of the state is so differentfrom the western part of the state.
It's like two states just, you know,
glued together almost.
But she understood tribalpolitics as well, and she understood
how to get outand then work and make things happen.

(45:14):
So she is an amazing woman.
I wish I had met her.(THOMPSON) Yeah.
Wouldn't that have been something.You know,
but I think what impresses meher impresses me about her,
she's sneaky political.
So you see this picture of her,and she looks like your grandmother,
and she looks likeshe would bake you some cookies,
which, since she owned a cafeteria,she was probably good at baking cookies.

(45:36):
I'm just guessing.
I have no firsthand knowledge of that.
(KODUMTHARA) Sure.(THOMPSON) But she put herself in the right places.
You don't get,
you don't get appointed postmaster
of Muskogee,
which she was the first female
postmaster of a First Class post office.
She was the highest paidwoman in government at one time.

(45:59):
You don't get thatwithout having good relationships,
without having some politicalsavvy to do it.
So we hear this story as,oh, she stood behind her cash register,
and she didn't really campaign, but sheshe was smarter than she's given credit.
(KODUMTHARA)No, she knew how to connect with people.
And I think she did it in a waythat made sense for her

(46:21):
and in a way that she feltpeople would be most comfortable with.
And I'm using comfortable in quotes herebecause she's
doing this at a timewhere there are people who are coming in
with all sorts of assumptionson what people
on what women should look like,how women should behave.
And she, too, is coming inwith some of those traditional thoughts.

(46:43):
Right?
So she is trying to fit into that sort
of thinking,but also work outside of that thinking.
She's doing double time here,
and she does it really well,and that works in her favor.
(BLACKBURN)And let me repeat,
her connection to tribal politics,I think, was really important
because American Indians weremaster politicians.

(47:03):
They kept statehood,you know, retired for years.
And from 1866 to 1898,
basically, they keep allotment awaybecause they have their lobby groups.
They're campaigning.They're running against it.
It's hardball politics.
And she's growing up among those Indians.
She learns those systems, andshe understands how to make things happen.

(47:25):
Of course, today you have to have a lot ofmoney and the big checks behind you.
You didn't at that time.
You could run a campaignif you had the press.
People in Edmond, public education,especially superintendents
and principals and county commissioners.
And if you had those connections,you had an advantage.
You didn't have to get out and make TVcommercials. You didn't have to.

(47:47):
(THOMPSON) Yeah.
(BLACKBURN) To send a postcardevery other day to every eligible voter.
It was a much more subtle game,
and she understood that.
(THOMPSON) And by the way,if you go to the University of Tulsa
or you are an alumof the University of Tulsa,
you can thank Alice Robertsonbecause in 1885,
she becomes the leader of the Minerva Boarding School for Girls

(48:09):
from the Five Tribes,and that later becomes
Henry Kendall College, which later becomesthe University of Tulsa.
And so she was one of the leaderswho started that school.
And you, you have her to thank.I'm really interested
to in her campaign slogan,because as I looked at it,
this could be a campaign sloganfor a Republican in today's election.

(48:31):
And her campaign slogan was,"I am a Christian, I am an American,
I am a Republican."(KODUMTHARA) Yeah, yeah.
(THOMPSON) I mean, tell me that wouldn't be,I mean, I'm surprised I don't see that
on some campaign signs for Republicans,and maybe in some forms you do.
But that that was her campaignslogan, and

(48:53):
she was someone who,
out of 27 million American women,
18 ran for Congress in 1920,
and only Alice Robertson was victorious.
So you have to give her creditwhere credit was due.
The "Oklahoma Times"editorialized and said,

(49:14):
"W. W. Hastings,representative of the second district,
who was defeated by Miss Alice Robertson, was considered by many
to be the most abled manin the Oklahoma delegation,
yet he was beaten bya political novice.
Alice Robertson is a good woman, and herrecord for constructive work is fine.
Yet as far as congressional
caliber is concerned,she is not to be classified with Hastings."

(49:37):
So she had, she had a big hill to climb
to try to impress people.
The "Harlow's Weekly"on January 6, 1921, said
"Miss Robertson is probablythe first candidate to make an extended
use of the want ad department of newspapersto feature her campaign,
and practically every largedaily in the state and nation

(49:58):
has commented upon this new and successfuluse of advertising."
And why did she use the want ads?
Because they wouldn't let her advertisein the regular advertised spot.
So smart when she was, and she ends up
serving a two-year term.She becomes the first woman
to preside over a session of Congresswhile she is there.

(50:19):
So, certainly left her mark.
And as we mentioned before,
it would be a long time before Oklahomaelected another woman to Congress.
So and currently we have onein our congressional delegation,
and that's Stephanie Bice,who was our guest
just a couple of episodes ago on our episode about alcohol in Oklahoma.

(50:39):
So, moving on,I want to cover a couple of the women
who were elected to the legislaturefor the very first time.
And once again, this is a groundbreaking,groundbreaking moment here.
We had Lamar Looney.
Lamar Looney waselected to the state Senate.
She was born in 1871 in Alabama.

(51:00):
She was elected the Harmon County
Register of Deedsand then the county clerk in 1916.
And "Harlow's Weekly" in December of 1920
said, "For six years before her electionto the present position, she has been
in the Harmon County Courthouse,first as Register of Deeds, then when
that office,
when that office
was combined with the county clerk,she served two terms in that capacity."

(51:23):
She unseated the male incumbent,George Wilson of Mangum,
to become the first women.
And she was apart of the Democratic Party.
And she actually servedfrom 1921 to 1929.
So it wouldn't bejust one term for her.
She served for eight years,introduced 28 bills
during that time, and chairedthe state and county affairs committee.

(51:45):
And then she later ran for the
US House and the US Senatebut didn't get those positions.
(KODUMTHARA)You know what's remarkable about Lamar Looney is
she was a widow, a mother of,I think, six kids.
And she was,
you know, giving piano lessons to try andmake sure she could support her family.
So she's doing whatever she can.

(52:06):
And so in the middle of all of that,what she realized is, is that
there's not enough support for women,not enough support for her children.
They don't have enough from governmentthat she believes that
that children should haveor that widow should have.
And that's what she, that'swhat starts her up in politics.
And she starts not on a national level,

(52:26):
she starts locallylike all progressives do.
She starts right there in her hometown.
And before you know it,she runs for office, and she wins.
And it's
the same sort of thing that we see oftenis based on name recognition.
She goes out, and she meets people,
and they know her by name,and they know who she is.
They know how she struggles.

(52:47):
She's the lady who gives piano lessons.
And it is a remarkable political career
that she has, at least locally for sure.
(BLACKBURN) I think the fact that she got started incounty government is significant,
because county governmentwas more important to the people
of Oklahoma in 1920, 1910,at least than any other statewide office,

(53:09):
because that's where most of the servicescame from that affected your own lives.
Building the the farm-to-market road,
making sure that there's a schoolhousein every township, making sure
that poor people have something to eator commodities or the county poor farm.
The county commissionersand county officials,
like her position,were doing the job that people wanted.

(53:33):
And so she was serving the people.
(THOMPSON)Yeah, absolutely.
The other woman electedis Bessie McColgin.
And I have to admit,I did a little bit of a deep
dive down the rabbit hole on Bessiebecause she just was fascinating me
when I was reading articleson The Gateway to Oklahoma History.
The things that she
overcame to get towhere she was in her life.

(53:55):
Just fascinating.
First of all, when she was three years old, her parents died, and she was sent
to, Illinois to be raisedby members of the family there.
She was born in Kansas.
She attended the Wesleyan Schoolof Oratory
in Bloomington, Illinois,and was known to give a good speech
when she was out on the stump.I saw that in several newspaper articles.

(54:18):
She married Grant McColgin in 1895.
They came to Oklahoma Territory in 1901,
and they bought a relinquishmentin Roger Mills County in 1903.
Now, when they got to Roger Mills County, this is
I read this quotein a newspaper interview with her.
And when they went to Roger Mills County,it wasn't by automobile,

(54:43):
which, it probablywould have been difficult anyway.
I suspect the roadswouldn't have been up to par.
So it was in horse and wagonwith her kids.
And this is what she said, recountingthat trip,
"I drove the team of one ofour two covered wagons.
The three little children were in my wagonand on Cotton Creek, west of Cheyenne,

(55:03):
one night, we hurried across the streambefore an approaching rainstorm.
On a high slope,
one of my wagonwheel slipped into a deep rut,
and the wagon rolled slowly over,breaking an axle.
Buckets of milk, water, and molasses
were sitting on the sides and pouredtheir contents over the red hills,
and the cries of the three childrenbroke the lonely prairie."

(55:25):
(BLACKBURN)That is poetic.
(THOMPSON)I mean, just think of that.
Now, she goes on to talk about how by the timethey got to their homestead, where
there was supposed to be a houseand a little bit of furniture,
that they bought, a prairie firehad moved through the area and burned it
completely to the ground,and they had to start all over.

(55:46):
And if you want to talk about
tough pioneer life,
I mean, this is Bessieand her family and spades.
She goes on to become the first postmasterof Ridgeton, Oklahoma.
She becomes the first countypresident of the
Women's Christian Temperance Union,which, as we talked about in previous

(56:07):
episodes, many of the WCTU
were heavilyinvolved in the suffrage movement.
She is the midwife
for the county.She delivers over 40 babies,
and that is her passionfor women's health.
And that's one of the things, the torchesshe carries in the legislature

(56:27):
when she gets there.
She becomes the first womanelected to the Oklahoma House. She said,
"Whenever I've been asked to doany public work, when any community
interest has called for my help,I have always answered yes.
So although the proposal came as a greatsurprise, and I felt perfectly incompetent,
it did not enter my head to refuse."

(56:48):
She,
when she got to the legislature,she introduced a bill to create the
Bureau of Child Hygiene within the stateDepartment of Health because she saw
how many mothershad poor nutrition and,
leading up to their baby's birth,which led to complications in pregnancy.
And it led to, babies being stillborn.

(57:09):
And she also wanted babiesto have proper care after they were born.
And that was her motivation for suggestingthat, and then I love this.
She was asked, she had eight children,and she was asked, well,
what are you going to do?
Several of them were grown by this time.
But what are you going to dowith your children
while you're in the legislature,which is questions women still get today.

(57:31):
And I can only imagine the side eyethat she must have given them because she
basically says,
I was a midwife, I was the postmaster.
I was, you know, whenever you were sick,
I never failed to,you know, come to your aid.
All of you know what I've been doing.
Nobody ever asked during all those times.

(57:52):
What are you doing with your kids?
They basically said, hey,
I'm here and I'm ready to serve.
She said, Oklahoma Cityhas all the modern conveniences of life.
I think I'll be just right.
And she was. When Governor Robertson
began his messageaddressing the legislature,
during that first session in 1921,he said, "When I spoke to former

(58:14):
sessions of the legislature,I addressed them as gentlemen.
I can't do that now.
I am happy to say I address you as ladiesand gentlemen."
(KODUMTHARA) Oh that is cool.(THOMPSON) So that is Bessie McColgin.
And I must say I was fascinated.
(BLACKBURN) There's something about Roger MillsCounty and strong women because
Augusta Metcalfe, another womanwho made her own way as a pioneer,

(58:38):
you know, Grandma Moses of the American West
and then Melvina Heisch, our own statehistoric preservation deputy director
here for many yearsfrom Roger Mills County.
So strong women come from the that time.
(THOMPSON)That's right.
Well, and if you've driven through thatarea before, you've seen that landscape.
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah.
(THOMPSON) Can you imagine what it must have beento live out there miles from
any town, miles from civilization,and just knowing that you had to make it.

(59:03):
You had to be tough out there, right?
(KODUMTHARA)Absolutely, absolutely.
Especially if you're on your own,and you've got to work.
Yeah, absolutely.
(THOMPSON) So the last guy I want to talk aboutis the Eighth District congressman.
And this is, I don't want to spend
too much time on this,but we can't not mention it.
Emanuel Herrick, called Manuel Herrick,

(59:24):
he had run
as an Independent for Congress in the 1918
election and garnered all of 56 votes.
(KODUMTHARA)Sure.
(THOMPSON) And he changes he runs asa Republican in the 1920 election.
And the congressman is Dick T. Morgan.
Now, have we had a whole podcastearlier this year on Dick T. Morgan.

(59:46):
And we know he was a, he was awell-liked, well-respected congressman
who accomplished as much as he could beingin the minority in the
US Congress.
But, the only person that daredto run against him was Manuel Herrick.
Now, ManuelHerrick had done several stints in the,
what used to be called the insane asylum.
Today, we call itthe mental institution in Norman.

(01:00:09):
And he was raised by his motherto believe he was the Christ.
(KODUMTHARA) Quick question.(THOMPSON) Sure. Yeah.
(KODUMTHARA) So sorry to interrupt. Was hismother ever in the mental institute?
I'm just curious.
(THOMPSON)I couldn't find anything on his mother.
(KODUMTHARA)It's just out of curiosity.
(THOMPSON) His mother's name was Belinda,if anybody wants to look it up.

(01:00:31):
(KODUMTHARA) All right,that's an assignment for the listeners.
(THOMPSON) Do some research.
But he was raised to believethat he was the Christ.
And so in many cases,they would go visit churches.
And in the middle of the sermon,Manuel would stand up
and tell the preacherall the things he was wrong about,
and he was banned from most ofthe churches in the Cherokee Outlet.

(01:00:53):
(KODUMTHARA)Well, sure.
(THOMPSON) And in fact, his parents would walkbehind him to show the proper reverence.
(KODUMTHARA) What?
(THOMPSON) Yeah, for the Christ.(KODUMTHARA) Trait.
(THOMPSON)No, I read this, I promise.
I read this in my research.
(KODUMTHARA) Somebody look it up andsee if his parents were in the mental institute.
(THOMPSON)Dick Morgan dies, leaving Manuel Herrick as the Republican nominee.
(KODUMTHARA) Because he was the, oh.(BLACKBURN) It was after filing.

(01:01:18):
Probably.(THOMPSON) Yes.
So Dick Morgan dies.
Manuel Herrick is the Republican nominee.
And because all these were,because it was such
a Republican sweep that year, Manuel Herrickgets elected to Congress.
(KODUMTHARA)Well, sure.
(THOMPSON)And he publishes this notice in the,
on February 22, 1921,before he leaves for Washington.

(01:01:42):
Before leaving,he stated that "All newspaper reporters
who are wise and value their good healthwhile they have it
will stay away from him,'Daily
Oklahoma' and the 'Daily News.'"
While he was in office,as you can imagine,
he didn't accomplish much,and he was just in for the two years.
But he did hold,he invited the women of America

(01:02:05):
to write to him on the subject of whyI want to be Mrs.
Manuel.(KODUMTHARA) Oh, well, that's nice of him.
(THOMPSON) And then there were lawsuitsbecause women actually did,
and he didn't marry them.(KODUMTHARA) Oh.
I have so many questions!
(BLACKBURN) Yeah, this soundslike more fiction and reality.
(THOMPSON) Oh, that was our, our Republicancongressman from Oklahoma.

(01:02:29):
(BLACKBURN) Yeah, that you can writea screenplay now for Netflix
about this weirdo.(THOMPSON) 1921 to 1923.
So, in the aftermath
of this election, every Republican
nominee for statewide officein Oklahoma won their election.
The GOP took a Corporation Commission post.

(01:02:50):
They got a seat on the Courtof Criminal Appeals, and they all four
vacant slots on the stateSupreme Court went Republican.
The Democrats lostthree incumbent congressmen,
and the Oklahoma House
went Republican forthe first time in state history.
It would stay that way for two yearstill everything swung back again.

(01:03:14):
Fifty-five of the 92 seats
in the Oklahoma House of Representativeswere Republican.
And that was the bloodbathfor the Democrats.
And then,
talking about sort of the Mondaymorning quarterback.
I found some nice quotesin "Harlow's Weekly"

(01:03:36):
talking about trying to analyzewhat happened,
and as one of themsaid, "It is generally recognized that
the disaffection of the Gore votein the recent election played
an important part in winning the electionfor other Republicans."
They also said, "Those Democratsand socialists
who registered their protestsagainst the League of Nations
and the senatorial situationas created by the Democratic primary

(01:03:58):
carried with their votes the Republican,judicial, and state tickets into office."
And then the "Oklahoma Times"wrote, "A glance at the map of Oklahoma
showing the countiescarried by Republicans
gives a good indication of the extentto which the wheat farmers,
sore at the condition of the wheat market,and the cotton farmers disappointed
at the big breaks in the cotton market,

(01:04:20):
hit out hard against theonly thing in sight and voted
against the representativesof the administration in retaliation."
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah.
(THOMPSON) And the socialist paper,the "Oklahoma Leader," said, "There was never
a party worse
fooled by an election than the Democratswere in Oklahoma last Tuesday.
They started out by claiming everythingand awakened to find

(01:04:41):
that they had won nothing.
And they thought of their machineas unbeatable
so long that theycould not conceive of defeat."
So what can we learn from this election,
our illustrious historians, Dr. Blackburn
and Dr. Kodumthara?
(KODUMTHARA)I think there's a lot to learn, right?
I think one of the thingsthat party leadership can learn,

(01:05:05):
no matter what is, is that it'sthere's no such thing,
is that partyloyalty is not actually the goal here.
Because if you put party loyaltyover connection to people,
then then you're going to loseevery single time.
There has to be an understandingof what the people are going through.
Right?
And in Oklahoma in particular, as we'vediscussed before, there's a lot happening.

(01:05:28):
There's a lot of change going on,and there's a lot of disillusionment,
and there has to be an honest conversation
about where those struggles are,where their frustrations are.
And there has to be a real conversationabout real solutions
and not just rhetoric.
And in 1920,especially from the Democratic Party,

(01:05:50):
it's just rhetoric that we're goingto continue on with Wilson's vision.
Well, the problem is, is Wilson's visionwasn't what they wanted.
They had real issues with Wilsonand his vision.
So I think what we can definitely carry
on from that or learn from that is
if a party wants to be successful,if a politician wants to be successful,

(01:06:12):
and then there has to bea genuine connection with the
voting public, first and foremost, for sure.
(THOMPSON)Yeah.
(BLACKBURN)I think another thing we can learn
is that in turbulent times,where things are changing so rapidly
and the reasons behindthe changes are so complex.
It provides an opportunityfor someone who has a simple solution,

(01:06:35):
a simple slogan or two, and they can come in
with promises without ever intendingto keep them and sway
public opinion because people are tiredof the what had been.
They said, we're not happywith the way it is.
So the people who were in herelast, we're going to vote out, and
we're going to go inand believe these promises.
And I think that'swhat we're dealing with right now,

(01:06:57):
and people were worn out.
The woke movement, so-called woke movementthat keeps being referred to,
even though that's kind of a continuationof progressive attitudes
to me, goes back 100 years.
It was so, so aggressive for a while.
There was a reaction to that.
People said, oh,we don't want to hear anymore about that.
We're tired of all of this.
Let's get back to a simpler times.

(01:07:19):
And the idea of making Americagreat again, as if America was great
in the 1950s.
It's not if you're an African American.It's not if you're a woman. It's not if
if you're at the bottom of the totempole, but, you know, it's a slogan.
It's a simple answer to a very complexset of issues.
(THOMPSON) Returning to normalcy.(BLACKBURN) Return to normalcy. Exactly.

(01:07:40):
And that's what I think we're seeing now,
and they won't last.
(KODUMTHARA) One of the things that I want to add onto that, I think is important here,
and it kind of connects back to your tripto China here as well,
and that is we have anextraordinary opportunity
if we, if we make the choice to take it,and that is to see each other's humanity

(01:08:01):
and we very rarely take that chance,because I think
we only see our own issues.We only see our own circumstances.
And then we hear the slogans,and then we latch on
to those simple slogans and we think, oh,that's the solution, right?
And instead, rather than seeing,okay, this is a very complicated issue,

(01:08:22):
maybe that's going to require some timeand some complicated thinking.
Rather than
see you as a humanbeing who's trying to raise your kids
and trying to put food on the table,and then you see me in the same way that
we'd rather just put all of that asideand just see the easy solution.
And I think this is one of those election,the 1920 election,

(01:08:44):
and that whole time period is a reminderthat there is no simple solution,
that it doestake time, and it's complicated.
But if we sit down together
and actually see each otheras people who are in this together,
it would be worth the effortand the time.
(THOMPSON) I think a lesson that I take awayfrom this is that the pendulum always swings,

(01:09:07):
and in politics we can start to thinkthat it'll never change.
But it will.
You know, you look at Oklahomaand the Democratic Party domination,
and this was a little hiccup in that.Democrats would go back to dominating
the political landscape upinto the, really into the 1980s

(01:09:27):
and the in the StateHouse up until the 1990s.
But the pendulum will swing.
And it's important for parties,and it's important to politicians
to really keep their ear to the groundabout what's going on with the people.
And you can't rely,you can't just rely on the fact
that we won elections in the past,or they bought our message in the past.

(01:09:51):
You have to look at what are the peoplegoing through right now, because just like
the Democratic Party in Oklahomagot surprised in this 1920 election,
if you're not really paying attentionto the situation on the ground,
it can sneak up on you,
and people have shownthat they are going to vote with the

(01:10:11):
the people who most identifywith their values and also most identify
with solving the problemsthat they're facing on a daily basis.
And I think if there's anything,if there's any reason both parties
have really just failedto connect with the people right now is I
feel like that they're not,
it's more about
talking points than it is actually solving them.

(01:10:34):
(KODUMTHARA) Solutions. Yeah, I'd agree.(THOMPSON) And I think that that sets up,
you know, that sets us up for change.
Now when that's going to happen,I have no idea.
But it's out there,and it could happen.
(KODUMTHARA)Yeah. I agree.
(THOMPSON) T this has been a wonderful conversation.(KODUMTHARA) We had so much fun.
(BLACKBURN) Thank youfor joining us today.
(KODUMTHARA)Thank you so much for having me.

(01:10:54):
Thank you so much.
(THOMPSON) Well, we always appreciatehaving you on.
And, I could count on the fact thatwe'll be doing it again.
(KODUMTHARA) You better!I will be here.
(THOMPSON) Well, friends. Thanksfor listening to us today.
We look forward to seeing you in a future episode.
You've been listening to "A Very OK Podcast,"hosted by Trait Thompson and Dr. Bob Blackburn.

(01:11:19):
The podcast is produced bythe Oklahoma Historical Society.
Visit us at okhistory.org, and findus on social media by searching
for @okhistory. I encourage you topurchase a membership to OHS
to help us continue our mission tocollect, preserve, and share
Oklahoma's unique and fascinating history.(upbeat music playing)