Robert Burns

Robert Burns (1874–1950) was an American attorney and politician from the U.S. state of Oklahoma. He served as the fifth lieutenant governor of Oklahoma.

Early life William Robert Burns was born in Izard County, Arkansas, on August 13, 1874, the son of James Logan Burns and Caroline Garner. In his youth he worked as a tenant farmer but began to seriously educate himself in local schools at the age of 17. In 1899 he was admitted to the Bar and afterward attended Nashville Law School, graduating in 1900. That year he came to Oklahoma but returned to Izard County to teach. He married there on October 31, 1901, to Effie May Harber (1879–1958). They became the parents of eleven children.

Political career In 1902 Burns moved to Cordell, Oklahoma, where he practiced law. Two years later he had moved to Gold Beach, Oregon, where he was elected to one term in the Oregon House of Representatives representing Coos and Curry Counties. During that time he fought against strongarm tactics by the fishing industry. He then returned to Oklahoma and upon statehood in 1907 was elected the first County Attorney of Stephens County. In 1913 he moved to Oklahoma City and in 1916 was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate from Oklahoma and Canadian Counties where he led a successful fight to establish University Hospital in Oklahoma City.

In January 1919 he began a two-year term as County Attorney of Oklahoma County, but resigned after sixteen months to return to private practice. He made an unsuccessful bid for Oklahoma Attorney General in 1922. In 1930 he was elected Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma, winning against Republican O. O. Owens in a landslide. Serving during the term of William “Alfalfa Bill” Murray, he and Governor Murray were not always in agreement. On May 20, 1932, while the governor was away from the state campaigning for president, he dismissed the governor’s nine-month martial law proration of the state’s oil field production. He set a $1,000 reward for the capture of Pretty Boy Floyd. Floyd wrote a letter to the governor threatening to rob him if he did not withdraw the reward.