GORE, Thomas Pryor (1870-1949)

Democrat of Oklahoma

0th congressional district

Served in Senate 1907-1921 , 1931-1936

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Biography

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.
Courtesy of Biographical Directory of the United States Congress

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