Oklahoma Farmers Union - American Farmers & Ranchers

the State of Sequoyah. While the proposed constitution was ratified by voters of Indian
Territory, Congress refused to grant the area statehood.
This convention would later impact the writing of Oklahoma’s constitution in that
it reflected the Progressive Era. It featured strict corporate regulation, humanitarian
measures allowing the government to assist the underprivileged and almost every demand
of the growing progressive cause. Farmers Union member William H. Murray was at the
table serving as a vice president of the Sequoyah Convention.
Congress settled the issue by combining both territories into a single state. On
June 16, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Oklahoma Enabling
Act. The Act stipulated the Twin Territories were to begin preparation for admittance
into the Union as a single state.
Following the direction of statehood, in 1907, the two unions became one and
were re-chartered as the Oklahoma State Union, allaying the bitterness and strife that had
existed between members during the state debate. A compromise was forged when
officers from both unions formed the new union board at the Aug. 20, 1907, state meeting
in Shawnee. Membership totaled 50,000.
State Constitution Influence
Farmers Union was at the table during a meeting in Shawnee when the “Shawnee
Demands” were drafted, reflecting membership goals to be included in a state
constitution.
Shawnee Demand provisions included: (1) initiative and referendum; (2) recall;
(3) vast authorization for the government to involve itself in industry; (4) limited workday
(eight hours) for certain professions; (5) government regulation of railroads; (6)
elected officials to regulate labor and agriculture; (7) election of all state officials; (8)
government ownership of utilities; (9) antimonopoly statutes; and (10) a ban on child
labor.
Many of the demands were the basis of the Farmers Unions beginnings in fighting
corporations.
Most successfully elected delegates adopted the Shawnee Demands.
The delegates assembled in Guthrie on November 20, 1906. Demographically, of
the 55 Oklahoma Territory seats, 30 were Farmers Union members. Thirty-four of Indian
Territory’s 55 were supporters of the Sequoyah Convention. These numbers combined
with the fact that 98 were staunch Democrats, producing a vote which Murray had
figured to the man well in advance of the convention.
Murray also served as draftsman and leader in the writing of the by-laws of the
Oklahoma Farmers Union and went on to become the first Speaker of the Oklahoma
House of Representatives and the state’s ninth governor.