| 1998.OKGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of OKGenWeb State Coordinator. Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This material can not be included in any compilation, publication, collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. ===================================================================== TOM G. TAYLOR Vol. 3 p. 1115-1116 In the vital little City of Idabel, judicial center of McCurtain County, Tom G. Taylor is editor and publisher of the Democrat-Record, one of the vigorous newspapers of the state and one which he has made an effective exponent of local interests as well as of the cause of the democratic party. That he is a liberal and progressive citizen, popular and influential, needs no further voucher than the statement that he figured as representative of McCurtain County in the lower House of the Oklahoma Legislature in the Fifth General Assembly, that of 1914-15, his re-election for this session having come after he had impressed a distinct influence upon state governmental affairs during his previous term as a member of the Fourth Legislature. His high civic ideals and broad views of economic and governmental policies have been definitely vitalized and matured through his long and active association with the newspaper business, and he is well equipped for leadership in popular sentiment and action. Successful in private business activities, he proved loyal and successful as a legislator, and his record in the latter connection redounds to his credit and reflects honor on the county and state of his adoption. The fine old Empire State of the South has given a due quota of valuable citizens to the new commonwealth of Oklahoma, and Mr. Taylor takes due pride in claiming that state as the place of his nativity, besides which he is a scion of one of the fine old families whose name has long and worthily identified with the annals of the South. Mr. Taylor was born in Cobb County, Georgia, in the year 1875, and is a son of Alfred P. and Alice (HALES) Taylor, the other surviving children being: Arthur P., who is a prosperous fruitgrower at DeQueen, Sevier County, Arkansas; W. H. Taylor, with his brother Arthur; Charles E., who is identified with railway service at Shreveport, Louisiana; Alfred W., who is attending school at DeQueen, Arkansas; Mrs. William W. ROBINSON, whose husband is in the United States mail service at DeQueen; and Miss Jessie, who is a successful teacher in the public schools at DeQueen. The father of Mr. Taylor was born in South Carolina, and became a successful farmer, horticulturist and contractor, his operations having been successively in the states of Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas. He was a boyhood friend of the late Hon. Henry W. GRADY, the distinguished Georgia statesman and orator, was himself a man of fine intellectuality and was influential in public affairs. He served two terms in the Legislature of Alabama, during a period of stormy conflict between the old-line democrats and the political organization of the Farmers' Alliance of which latter he was a prominent representative. The career of Tom G. Taylor has signally shown the consistency of the statement that the discipline of a newspaper office is equivalent to a liberal education, and he attributes quite as much to such discipline as to that received in the public schools for the broad scope of his concrete information as well as for the reinforcement of his opinions concerning business affairs and public policies. By attending school a portion of the time in his boyhood and youth and in the interim finding employment in newspaper and printing offices he completed what may well be termed a liberal and practical education. At the age of eleven years he entered upon a virtual apprenticeship to the printer's trade, in the office of the Edwardsville Standard at Edwardsville, Alabama, and when but seventeen years of age he established at Cullman, that state, a paper to which he gave the title of the People's Protest, the same being made an organ and mouthpiece for the Farmers' Alliance. In the meanwhile his father had purchased the plant of a paper known as the Plowboy, in Cleburne County, Alabama, and after remaining a year at Cullman the subject of this review assumed the practical charge of the paper of which his father had become the owner. In 1905 the family removed to Sevier County, Arkansas, and there Mr. Taylor became associated with his father in the manufacturing of lumber, in farming and fruit-growing and in the general merchandise business. They were pioneers in the development of the fruit industry in that section of the state and produced fine varieties of pears, plums and peaches, on their exhibition of which they received premiums at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in the City of St. Louis. Through their efforts and pronounced success great interest in horticulture was aroused in Sevier County, and within its borders is now to be found probably the largest peach orchard in the world, the same comprising 4,700 acres. In 1907 Mr. Taylor purchased the DeQueen Democrat a weekly paper published at DeQueen, Sevier County and in 1910 he removed the plat to Idabel, Oklahoma, and utilized the same in the founding of the Idabel Democrat-Record, of which he has since continued publisher and editor. With his original plant he later consolidated that of the McCurtain County Record, which had been published at Valliant, and still later assimilated in a similar way the plant and business of the Idabell Beacon-Times, with the result that, with his policy of keeping his printing and newspaper office up to high standard in all departments, he now has one of the largest and most modern printing plants in the southeastern part of the state. In 1912 Mr. Taylor was elected a representative of McCurtain County in the Fourth General Assembly of the Oklahoma State Legislature, after having made a somewhat vigorous campaign against the socialist party contingent in his county, and that without assistance on the part of other democratic candidates. In the Fourth Legislature Mr. Taylor was the joint author of a bill for the granting of pensions to former soldiers in the Confederate armies, but though this bill passed the house it was defeated by remaining on the calendar of the senate until the close of the session. He was the author also of a bill revising the fish and game laws of the state, and after its enactment this measure was vetoed by Governor CRUCE, though most of its important features were embodied in measures enacted by the Fifth Legislature. The estimate placed upon the services of Mr. Taylor were significantly shows in 1914, when he was re-elected to the Legislature by the largest majority ever given to a candidate for that office in McCurtain County. In the Fifth Legislature Mr. Taylor was made chairman of the committee on public printing, and assigned to membership also on the following named committees of the House: State and school lands, public buildings, state militia, relations to the Five Civilized Tribes and other Indians, fish and game, retrenchment and reform, and capital building. At this session Mr. Taylor was the author of a bill establishing the landlord's lien, of a bill creating a poll tax, and of a bill segregating the funds derived from taxes received from white and negro tax payers and prorating them according to the respective white and black elements of population, this measure being in harmony with laws now in effect in Mississippi, Alabama and Texas. Representative Taylor also gave special attention to the championship of a bill requiring all boards handling public money to publish monthly statements of their receipts and disbursements, as well as of a bill requiring persons applying for articles of incorporation to publish a statement of the object of the proposed corporation in newspapers in the county where it was to transact business. He also supported vigorously a bill providing that all state printing shall be done in the state and authorizing the State Board of Public Affairs to fix the prices for printing. During the period of his residence in Oklahoma Mr. Taylor has been an ardent worker in behalf of the cause of the democratic party and has attended as a delegate each of its successive state conventions in Oklahoma during this period. He had previously been active in political affairs in Arkansas, and he is well fortified in his convictions as to economic and governmental policies. He is the very incarnation of the spirit of progress and takes a lively liberal interest in all that tends to advance the civic and material welfare of his home city, county and state. Mr. Taylor is a member of the Idabel Retailers' Association and is actively identified with the Oklahoma Press Association and the Southeastern Oklahoma Press Association. He is affiliated with both the lodge and encampment bodies of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in the latter of which he has served as high priest, and he holds membership also in the Woodmen of the World, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Improved Order of Red Men, and the Woodmen's Circle. Typed for OKGenWeb by: Earline Sparks Barger, November 4 | |
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