At the age of 25, Williams, in 1893, moved west to the Cherokee Outlet section in the Indian Territory following its opening where he briefly practiced law in Orlando.

[citation needed] Williams was fiercely conservative, possessed an assertive personality, and held a high sense of duty.

[citation needed] Williams' Republican opponent was John Fields, the editor of a farm-related newspaper based in Oklahoma City.

[citation needed] Williams faced a difficult fight for the governorship with Fields' paper granting him the majority of the farm-related voters' vote.

[citation needed] The next year on March 18, 1918, the Oklahoma Legislature would hold its first sessions, meeting in the two elaborately decorated chambers of its new permanent home.

[citation needed] Despite the state's adoption of the building, it was not actually really totally completed until two years later in 1919, because of wartime conditions and supply problems.

[3] Williams and state legislators amended the laws regarding the impeachment of state officials, provided for the aid of agriculture, created oil and gas divisions within the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, and changed the composition of the Oklahoma Supreme Court from six to add three more totalling nine justices, similar to the U.S. Supreme Court.

[3] This prompted Williams to call the state legislature into special session in 1916 to determine constitutional methods of black suffrage.

[3] The second major event in his gubernatorial term was when the United States was forced to deal with the approaching possible American involvement in the First World War (1914/1917-1918), in his first year of 1916.

[3] The Oklahoma military was swelled through the efforts of local draft boards that were quickly established, the maximum food production was encouraged to feed United States citizens, along with foreign overseas Allies, the promotion of fuel and food conservation was enacted, and Williams acted as a moderator between the pro-war and anti-war factions of the state's population.

Judge Williams was confirmed by vote of the United States Senate on January 7, 1919, and received his commission the same day.

His service on that federal bench terminated 18 years later on April 21, 1937, due to his following nomination on March 25, 1937, and elevation to the higher level United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, appointed by another fellow Democrat, 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945, served 1933-1945).

[9] [9] Williams died at his home in Durant, Oklahoma, on April 10, 1948, after a stay in Wilson N. Jones Hospital in Sherman, Texas.