Volume 15 , Issue 30

One Hundred Years Ago - 5 August 1913

One hundred years ago, 5 August 1913, Tuesday, The Tulsa World reported on it's front page headline stories: "Blind Senator Visits Tulsa." Thomas P. Gore said tariff would be passed some time that month of August 1913. The news article was written by Glenn Condon.

As the write-up begins, the senate would pass the Underwood_Simmons tariff bill before the end of the month of August, 1913. T. P. Gore, the blind senator from Oklahoma, was in Tulsa on 4 August 1913 and said, "And we will then take up the currency reform bill, which, it appears at this time, will keep us busy until late in the fall."

Senator Gore stopped off in Tulsa for severel hours to "visit with the boys." Gore was on his way to Lawton, his home, where Wednesday he would deliver an address at the anniversary celebration which started the day before. He was taking a week's respite from his labors at Washington, just to attend the affair at Lawton.

The senator was found by the newspaper reporters on Main street, where he was surrounded by a bunch of Democratic politicians, all eager to grasp his hand. He had a smile and a word for them all. W. E. Rhode, ex-mayor of Tulsa, who had the senator in charge, spied the anxious scribes.

One by one the interview seekers were introduced to the nationally famous individual. Some of them he knew.

Gore smilingly replied when one of the gang grasped his hand, "Yes, I remember you, for you helped us serve punch at a reception in our Washington home last March 5th (1913)." When one of the more bashful news probes asked, "Can we talk with you a minute?" The innocent query brought forth affable, ingenious and vote-getting kind of reply that had twice sent Thomas P. Gore to the United States senate and may do so again in 1915. Gore replied, "Isn't a minute a mighty short time?" Gore retorted with one of those cute little gestures that he used on the lecture platform. "We can't get very far along in that length of time."

The Main street group of reporters trekked down the street to a barber shop where the distinguished citizen was to get his travel whiskers amputated. AS the barber shaved the senator talked. There was no question that he did not have an instant and clever reply for. Nobody asked him about the probability of the rejuvenation of the Sphinx, or the possibility of Sylvia Pankhurst becoming a candidate for the ambassadorship to Liberia, but if these questions had been propounded to him there was no the slightest doubt but what he would have answered them quicker than it took him to repudiate the charges of Mrs. Bond.

They asked him about the tariff. "It's going through with but few changes," he replied. "and will be passed some time in August. They (meaning the republicans) are doing a lot of useless debating, but we just sit quietly by and listen. When the time comes we will cast our votes and the bill bill be passed. We shall then immediately take up the currency question. My colleague, Senator Owen, is chairman of the currency committee, of course, so is naturally playing an important part in that forthcoming legislation. It will be a long hard battle, and we will still be fighting over it when the snowbirds come to the capital. The Republicans are holding off the action on the tariff matter now for the sole purpose of trying to debate us out of an early start on the currency bill. They do not want it to come up at this session."

When T. P. Gore was asked when his term expired, he replied, "Never!" And added the feigned correction, "Oh, you mean my present term. Well, it expires March 4, 1915."   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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