However, in 1918 he published the "Oxford Book of Australasian Verse" (revised, 1923, 1945) and in 1951, after many years' delay, with Henrietta Drake-Brockman, "Australian Short Stories", which was much better received than the verse anthology. In addition to his academic teaching and the benefits which the young university obtained from his extramural activities, Murdoch was to remain a member of its governing body after he resigned from his chair in 1939. Chancellor in 1943–48, he was appointed a Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in 1939 and raised to Knight Commander of the Order (KCMG) in 1964. The university awarded him an honorary D.Litt. in 1948. He had been president of the local League of Nations Union from its foundation in the early 1920s until 1936, was president of the Kindergarten Union in 1933–36, and supported movements for women's rights. A depression at the time did not stop his actively opposing the idea of secession from the Commonwealth as a solution to Western Australia's economic ills. Much later, in 1950–51, he vehemently and stalwartly opposed the attempt to outlaw the Communist Party of Australia. His prominent essay, "I am going to vote No", rebuked Robert Menzies' attempt to eliminate the CPA in the 1951 referendum on that issue. Murdoch wrote that his opposition rested on one principle:  The Government is asking the citizens of Australia to give it powers which I do not believe that any government ought to possess...The question turns on a very simple question. Have we the right to punish a person for his opinions? If we punish anyone for breaking the law of the land, or for conspiring with others to break the law, that is justice; if we punish anyone for holding opinions with which we disagree, that is persecution. Though the last years of Murdoch's long life were spent more or less as a recluse, with increasing deafness and declining eyesight, he remained mentally alert to the end. In 1964, he paid the last of several visits to his beloved Italy. When in the month of his death he was given a bedside message from the premier that the State government was to name its second university after him, he was able to send an appreciative acceptance. He added, sotto voce, "It had better be a good one!" He died on 30 July 1970, aged 95. In addition to Murdoch University and the suburb of Murdoch, there is a walk dedicated to Murdoch on South Wing Level 2 of the South Street Campus library of the university.