During the first session of the Oklahoma Legislature, Harrison Sterling Price “Stump” Ashby, Marshall County’s first State Representative, played a prominent role in intensifying the rivalry between Madill and Kingston in the battle to be named the county seat.
During that first session, Ashby drafted legislation to split Marshall County into two separate county court divisions, awarding one to MadillandtheothertoKingston. His legislation, if passed, would grant each town onehalf of all court proceedings. His legislation also provided for the construction of courthouses in both Madill and Kingston. Ashby’s bill also applied to Johnston County by creating courthouses in Tishomingo and Mannsville.
WhileAshby’sbillwaswell intended and would offer an olive branch to both factions in the Madill vs. Kingston rivalry, the bill's announcement made the dispute even worse. Ashby’s bill created more friction between Madill and Kingston, and the fallout from that fiction quickly jeopardized Ashby’s brilliant political career.
The legislation's fallout came from multiple sources, one of which happened to be Marshall County’s first State Senator, William Monroe Franklin. Before further examining the fallout from Ashby’s bill, it is crucial to meet Senator Franklin as he would soon become a very influential and powerful force in the First Legislature and Oklahoma politics. As the smallest county in the State, Marshall County has played a much more significant role in the political landscape of Oklahoma than her size would suggest.
WilliamMonroeFranklin, the oldest child of Marida Melvin “Mel” and Malissa Jane Franklin, was born in Cooke County, Texas, on December 9, 1874. Franklin hadayoungerbrothernamed Albert Jesse, born in 1877.
Thefamilyhomesteadwas ontheboundaryofCookeand Montague counties. In 1884, when Franklin was just ten years old, his mother died. Followinghismother'sdeath, Franklin’s father married Annie E. Browning, also of Cooke County. Together, they had one daughter, Vollie Homer Franklin. Franklin spent his first fifteen years on the family farm and attended school between as his farm duties allowed. He learned early about the difficulties facedbyfarmers,and this had a significant impact on his later life. Franklin’s father died in 1896.
At fifteen, Franklin left hometoattendMineralWells College in Mineral Wells, Texas. While there, Franklin showed an exceptional talent for extemporaneous speaking, and he gained a reputation and several prizes for this talent. While in college, Franklin did farm work around Mineral Wells to help pay for his schooling. After he finished his education, Franklin moved to the ChickasawNationandbegan teaching school.
After his father died in 1896, Franklin began his political career by participating in William Jennings Bryan's presidential campaign. As part of that effort, he traveled to New England, where he worked both as a journalist and a speaker, stumping for and reporting on Bryan's campaign. William Jennings Bryan(March19,1860–July 26, 1925) was an American lawyer, orator, and politician. In 1896, he emerged as a dominant force in the Democratic Party, running three times as the party's nominee for President of the United States in the 1896, 1900, and 1908 elections. Bryan served in the United States House of Representatives from 1891 to 1895 and as the Secretary of StateunderWoodrowWilson from 1913 to 1915. Because of his faith in the wisdom of the common people, Bryan was often called 'the Great Commoner,” and because of hisrhetoricalpowerandearly fame as the youngest presidential candidate, the “Boy Orator.' These attributes of Bryan drew Franklin to join his campaign and were principles guiding Franklin’s future political career.
After the 1896 presidential election ended, Franklin traveled to Ireland and Scotland by working on a “cattle ship” transporting cattle to Europe. After spending a year traveling around England, Franklin returned to Texas, where he farmed for about two more years.
Then, around 1898 or 99, Franklin moved to Ardmore, Indian Territory, where he began studying law with the law firm of Potter & Bowman until he passed the bar examination in Judge Townsend’s court in Ardmore. Then, on establishing of the Commissioner’s Court in Madill, Franklin moved to Madill, where he became a partner in the law firm of Hardy, Franklin and Slough, which later became Hardy & Franklin. Franklin’s partner was Summers T. Hardy. They practiced together until 1910, when Hardy was elected to the District Court.
While practicing law in Madill, Franklin handled several high-profile civil cases involving Chickasaw Tribal citizenship and land allotments. These cases were tried before Government agencies and were conducted in Washington, D.C. One of those cases was Archardvs.McGahey,known as the Chickasaw Contest, Number 1. It was a case involving the consolidation of twenty cases. The contest was over about 5,000 acres of land near Madill, known as the “Government Farm,” because litigation took so long to complete. The battle was fought for four years in the United States District Court and three more years before the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes and departments of ultimate jurisdiction in Washington.
Franklin and Hardy reprsented the plaintiffs and won the case, propelling both Franklin and Hardy to prominence. During this time, Franklin served four yearsastheMarshallCounty Bar Association president.
For several years, Franklin was an earnest advocate for Oklahoma's statehood. This position was in stark contrast to the efforts of the Indian Nations to establish the State of Sequoyah. Still, Franklin believed combining the Indian Territory with the Oklahoma Territory would result in a more robust state and better outcomes for the people of the two territories.
In December 1905, Franklin was selected as a member of the delegation that traveled to Washington to urge Congress to pass the Enabling Act. Then, on June 16, 1906, after months of political wrangling, Congress passed the Act enabling the people of the Indian and Oklahoma Territories to form a state constitution and government and be admitted into the Union on equal footing with the existing states.
Following the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, Franklin ran for senator for Marshall County. Although Oklahoma had yet to be admitted to the Union, the first Oklahoma Legislature elections were held in September before the state's admission on November 16, 1907. Franklin won the election by the largest majority of any member of the First Legislature.
The first elections were for the short term of one year, but Franklin was easily reelected in 1908 to a second term of four years. In that second election, he carried the county by an even higher percentage than in the first election a year earlier.
During his time as a senator, beginning at statehood until1913,hesatthroughfive sessions of the Legislature. He had a remarkable record of faithful attendance while in the Legislature, missing roll call on only three days, andthatwasduetoanillness.
During his service in the Senate, he was the chairman of the Committee on Commerce and Labor during the First Legislature, chairman of the Legal Advisory Committee during the Third Legislature, and a member of theSteeringandSiftingCommittee as well as a member of the Judiciary and other committees during his last few years in the Legislature. He was also recognized as the labor leader in the Senate.
While in the Senate, he was known as a watcher and worker, and he secured the passage of eleven bills and two resolutions, which bolstered the State Constitution, with four of his measures especially noted by the Governor. He was also the author of the “Anti-Bucket Shop” Bill, a bill to outlaw businesses that allow gambling based on the prices of stocks or commodities. A 1906 U.S. Supreme Court ruling defined a bucket shop as 'an establishment, nominally for the transaction of a stock exchange business, or business of similar character, but really for the registration of bets, or wagers, usually for small amounts, on the rise or fall of the prices of stocks, grain, oil or other commodities. He also sponsored legislation to define the duties of the commissioners of the Oklahoma Department of Labor, creating the board of arbitration and conciliation, providing laws about labor protecting workers employed in mining, transportation, mechanical and manufacturing industries, and acts relating to the teaching of agriculture.
He also promoted educational values and provided additional resources for Oklahoma Agricultural and MechanicalUniversity,today known as Oklahoma State University. In addition, Franklin prepared most of the health and medical practice acts that the Legislature consideredduringhisyearsof service. He also wrote legislation regarding an inheritance tax. The Associated Press declared his inheritance tax bill to be “more unique and equitable than any law of the kind in the United States.”
He also joined forces with Kate Bernard to pass a child labor law, one of Oklahoma's mostadvancedandbeneficial pieces of legislation. Marshall County’s Stump Ashby had previously fought for the passage of Bernard’s child labor law during the First Legislature. Still, it was vetoed by the Governor, and Ashby’s sponsorship of that bill hurt him politically. But a year later, Franklin and Bernard were successful, in getting a child labor law passed, and it helped propel Franklintomoreprominence and power, proving the old proverb that “politics makes strange bedfellows.”
Franklin also wrote and sponsored a general labor law, an industrial education law, and several other measures for human rights and economic administration. Some of his friends pointed out a unique characteristic of his polity: he has always 'opposed going at an automobile speed on a wheelbarrow income.”
At the close of the 19081909 session, Governor Haskell appointed Senator Franklin a delegate to the Southern Conference on Child Labor Laws, which met in New Orleans. During 1911-1912, Senator Franklin was also president of the State Conference of Charities and Corrections and was a member of its executive committee.
Franklin lived close to the people and showed absolute sincerity in his position concerning labor. A report by a committee of the Oklahoma Federation of Labor said of him in part as follows: 'Senator Franklin, who lived in the midst of an agricultural community, did not need for political reasons to line up with the laboring people, but had the greatest desire for humanity's sake to help us along in establishing those protective laws which our people so much need. Franklin came through the session with the grandest record for legislation to his name of any man in either house.'
Franklin was also free from corporate influence or control. As one Oklahoma paper would later say about Franklin during his campaign for Clerk of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma, “Senator Franklin is one of the most earnest, sincere advocates of economy, honesty, and efficiency in government. He has been an ardent supporter of labor issues and has stood close to the farming interests. He is an able lawyer and would fill the office of clerk of the Supreme Court in the most efficient manner. He has the additional advantage of legal knowledge and thorough official training.'
At the democratic primary election in 1912 for the nomination of a congressman at large, with three to elect, Franklin stood fifth in a race among twenty-eight candidates. He went into the fight without special organization and money and made a splendid showing, although circumstances were against him. After the primary, he organized and was president of the Marshall County Wilson-Marshall Democratic Club. He was also an active factor in rolling up a good majority for the general ticket in his section of Oklahoma.
Franklinwasalsoinvolved in fraternal matters and, up to 1913, was head consul of the Woodmen of the World. He was a member of the WoodmenCircle,theMasonic Order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. He has also served as brigadier general of the Chickasaw Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
On December 20, 1908, Franklin married Mattie Louise Young of Berwyn (now Gene Autry) in Carter County. Their marriage was a social event that attracted significant attention throughout the state, particularly in the social circles of Guthrie, the state capital. Themarriagebroughtoutthe story of an exciting romance. The story is told that Senator Franklin first became interested in his future wife when he heard her father speak of her many accomplishments. Her father was G. W. Young, a well-known rancher, capitalist and politician. Young was a county commissioner in Carter County.
Franklin met Mattie she was while teaching in a schoolhouse her father had built on their farm with his own money to benefit the children of the Berwyn area. Mattie Franklin’s mother was one-eighth Chickasaw and related to Chickasaw Governor Douglas H. Johnston. She was also related to William H. “Alfalfa Bill” Murray, who, like Franklin, was an educator, lawyer, and politician. Interestingly, Murray became active in Oklahoma politics as a legal adviser to Chickasaw Governor Douglas H. Johnston before statehood. Although notAmericanIndian,Murray was appointed by Johnston as the Chickasaw delegate to the 1905 Convention for the proposed State of Sequoyah. Later, he was elected as a delegate to the 1906 constitutional convention for the proposed state of Oklahoma. Murray, also like Franklin, was elected to the First Oklahoma Legislature and served as the first Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. He also served as a U.S. Representative between 1913 and 1917 before eventually being elected as Oklahoma’s ninth governor in 1931.
Mattie was educated at theBloomfieldSeminaryand graduated from Hargrove College at Ardmore. After their marriage, Mattie became a social favorite in the capital.
After their marriage, Franklin and Mattie moved to Oklahoma City; however, they kept a residence in Madill for many years. Their marriage produced two sons: Prentiss Orville Franklin, born June 4, 1910, and Melvin Granville Franklin, born July 30, 1913.
Franklinwouldlaterserve four years as a Securities Commissioner for the State of Oklahoma, was the president of the Southern Group of Securities Commissioners, which consisted of fourteen states, and was elected the president of the National Association of Securities Commissioners.
Franklin was also elected as the Clerk of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, where he served for twelve years. In that election, he won by the largest margin of votes of any candidate running for office inOklahomathatyear. Inhis later years, Franklin was the Oklahoma Farmers Union managerandwasanattorney for the Farmers Union.
Franklin worked for the Farmers Union for twentythree years. During that time, he never took a vacation and did not miss one day of work due to illness. He was a dedicated public servant.
On November 16, 1956, William Monroe Franklin was voted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
In 1908, during the county seat battle between Madill and Kingston, Franklin tried to remain neutral. In a letter to local newspapers in Marshall County, Franklin wrote “I would not do anything… that would discriminate against or hurt…sections of the county and I do not believe that you or anyone who is a friend mine would demand such. I shall act fair and impartially with all sections of the county.”
However, the rivalry intensified despite his efforts to stay above the fray. Lines began to be drawn in the sand, and a war of words, if not more, would soon start. And political futures were at stake.
More to come in “The Rivalries.”