ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an understanding of the relationships among changes in Oklahoma’s agricultural structure, its voting patterns, and its economic interests. It examines voting patterns and immediate interests of the state of Oklahoma’s gubernatorial elections of 1930, 1934, 1938 and 1942. Every class society is organized around both fundamental and immediate interests. Fundamental interests involve issues that call into question the social relations of a society. Capitalist democracy is thus an ideal setting for examining the potential conflicts between fundamental and immediate interests. The disappearance of small independent farmers was not limited, of course, to the cotton counties of Oklahoma, but it was concentrated in those areas. Tenancy was more rare in the wheat areas of Oklahoma because of the methods of wheat farming. Petroleum was the basis of Oklahoma’s industry until World War II, and the entire industrial base of Oklahoma was dependent on the well-being of the petroleum industry.
