With Williams regularly in public service, she ran the family farm for much of her life—a three thousand acre spread in the central part of Indiana.

He was a member of several local and regional farm organizations and regularly won first place in many of the Indiana State Fair competitions.

He supported the Greenback political movement that began in the 1870s, making paper money more readily available to the public through inflationary measures.

During this time he served as chairman of the committee on accounts and was responsible for considerable reform, and significant saving by cutting business costs.

"Dressed always in the plainest of plain Kentucky blue jeans, he is a standing reproach to the more luxurious livers of his own party.

[6][7] Williams owed his nomination for governor to a deadlocked Democratic convention and he ran against future Republican President Benjamin Harrison and Greenback candidate Anson Wolcott.

"Blue Jeans Williams would never think that it was necessary to set about his day's work with his hair parted in the middle and his beard trimmed like a row of tree box," a reporter gibed; "the other emerges from his toilet with the appearance of one who used considerably the hairbrush and the oil bottle.

Williams is an open, warm-hearted, horny-handed farmer, with broad acres to which he can point as the result of long years of patient struggling with nature.

Although he wanted to run the government with economy, he sought increased funding for the state assistance programs for war veterans.

City and business leaders demanded that Williams call out the militia and end the strike by force, but he refused, fearing it would hurt his standing in the Democratic party.

Since Williams refused to engage the workers, Benjamin Harrison and Walter Q. Gresham, the state's leading Republicans, formed a commission to meet with business leaders and end the strike.

[14] In addition, many parts of the nation were experiencing rapid industrial growth during Williams' term, but he did little to emulate their success in Indiana, leading to some criticism.