Thomas Pryor GORE, Congress, OK (1870-1949)

GORE, Thomas Pryor, a Senator from Oklahoma; born near Embry, Webster County, Miss., December 10, 1870; lost the sight of both eyes as a boy; attended the public schools; graduated from the normal school at Walthall, Miss., in 1890; taught school in 1890 and 1891; graduated from the law department of Cumberland University, Lebanon, Tenn., in 1892; admitted to the bar in 1892 and commenced practice in Walthall, Miss.; moved to Corsicana, Tex., in 1895; unsuccessful Populist candidate for election in 1898 to the Fifty-sixth Congress; moved to Lawton, Okla., in 1901 and continued the practice of law; member, Territorial council 1903-1905; upon the admission of Oklahoma as a State into the Union was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate for the term ending March 3, 1909; reelected in 1908 and again in 1914 and served from December 11, 1907, to March 3, 1921; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1920; chairman, Committee on Railroads (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Agriculture and Forestry (Sixty-third through Sixty-fifth Congresses), Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice (Sixty-sixth Congress); member of the Democratic National Committee 1912-1916; appointed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913 as a member of the Commission to Investigate and Study Rural Credits and Agricultural Cooperative Organizations in European Countries; again elected to the United States Senate in 1930 and served from March 4, 1931, to January 3, 1937; unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1936; chairman, Committee on Interoceanic Canals (Seventy-third and Seventy-fourth Congresses); practiced law in Washington, D.C., until his death on March 16, 1949; initially interred at Rosehill Cemetery, Oklahoma City, Okla; reinterred on July 19, 1949 in Fairlawn Cemetery in Oklahoma City.

Bibliography

American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Billington, Monroe. Thomas P. Gore: Blind Senator From Oklahoma. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1967; Travis, Paul D. ”Gore, Bristow, and Taft.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 53 (Summer 1975): 212-24.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present