Thomas Pryor Gore was an American politician and statesman.
Background
Gore was born on December 10, 1870, in Webster County, Mississippi, the first son and second of four children of Thomas Madison Gore and Caroline Elizabeth (Wingo) Gore. One of his father's English ancestors had come from Ireland before the American Revolution and had settled in Maryland; other members of the family moved to South Carolina and later to Alabama before arriving in Mississippi prior to the Civil War. Gore's father was a farmer and lawyer in the poor north-central section of Mississippi. In an accident at the age of eight, Gore lost the sight of one eye and severely injured the other. Three years later blindness was already overtaking the damaged eye, and, at the age of twenty, Gore was totally blind.
Education
Resisting his father's suggestion that he attend a school for the blind, Gore continued in the public schools of Walthall, Mississippi, while classmates and members of the family read his lessons to him. After graduating in 1888 from high school, he studied two additional years, took a "scientific course, " obtained a license to teach, and in 1890-1891 assisted his sister as a public school teacher. He then entered the law school of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, where a close friend took the course with him and acted as his amanuensis; he received his law degree in 1892.
Career
Following the lead of his father and other relatives, Gore became an active Populist, one of that protest party's ablest and best-known stump speakers. When the Mississippi Populists were soundly defeated in 1895, the "Blind Orator" moved to Corsicana, Texas, where he struggled to make a living as a lawyer. Opportunistic enough to appreciate the declining fortunes of populism, he joined the Democratic party in 1899. With the change of allegiance a change of scene seemed to offer a better hope, and with the encouragement of his wife, he determined to join those pioneers who were moving northward to the new territory of Oklahoma. In 1902, a year after he settled in Oklahoma Territory, Gore was elected to the territorial council. Rising rapidly through his driving ambition, his superb oratorical ability, and the support of the powerful Daily Oklahoman in Oklahoma City, he became the territory's leading politician; in 1907, when the Oklahoma and Indian territories joined to form the new state of Oklahoma, Gore was one of its first two senators. He was also the first totally blind man to sit in the United States Senate. Gore aligned himself with the Senate's progressive members in the pre-World War I period, attacking the trusts, the tariff, and monopolies, especially the railroads. One of the important early supporters of the presidential candidacy of Woodrow Wilson, he helped elect Wilson in 1912 and endorsed his domestic legislative program. With the coming of World War I, however, Gore revealed a growing pacifism, economic conservatism, and isolationism. During the controversy over American neutral rights in 1916 he sponsored a Senate resolution warning American citizens that they traveled on armed belligerent ships at their own risk. This precipitated a serious legislative revolt against Wilson's foreign policy, which was quelled only with difficulty. Gore opposed American entry into the war in 1917, although illness prevented him from voting against the war resolution in Congress. During the war he was against military conscription and pensions, the food administration, emergency governmental control of transportation and communication facilities, and deficit financing. His stand against Wilson's wartime policies, coupled with his opposition to the League of Nations, resulted in his defeat by a Wilson supporter in the Democratic primary of 1920. Gore was returned to the Senate for a final term in 1930, during which he opposed the policies of both a Republican and a Democratic president. After assisting with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Gore found himself out of step with the New Deal. He was a strong advocate of a balanced budget in a period when the administration was moving toward deficit spending, and he was a vigorous opponent of Roosevelt's social measures, which he felt stifled private initiative and enterprise. For the second time in his public career his opposition to the program of a popular president was responsible for his defeat in his 1936 reelection bid. As he had done in the 1920's, Gore practiced law in Washington, D. C. , during the final thirteen years of his life, specializing in tax matters and Indian affairs. Stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage in late February 1949, he died in his Washington apartment three weeks later. He was buried in Oklahoma City's Rose Hill Cemetery.
Achievements
Gore is best remembered as United States Senator, who contributed greatly to the welfare of the state. More broadly, perhaps his greatest single contribution was the inspiration his successful career gave to persons with a similar handicap.
Religion
In religion he was a Methodist but was not a regular churchgoer.
Politics
Although best known for the Gore Resolution of 1916, Gore made his most tangible legislative contributions in the areas of agriculture, Indian affairs, and oil. As chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee during the Wilson administration, he played an important role in passing agricultural appropriations and other proposals (including the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916) to aid the farmers and rural areas of the country. Throughout his career, he was a persistent advocate of soil conservation. He gave considerable attention to his large Indian constituency, especially during his early years in the Senate. Interested in the welfare of the oil industry so prominent in Oklahoma, Gore was the author of an amendment to the Revenue Act of 1918, which provided oil companies with exemptions from income tax on a stipulated portion of the proceeds from oil that represented capital. Known as the discovery-depletion allowance, this concept was later revised, but the basic principle has been retained and has been applied to scores of other mineral industries.
Connections
Thomas married Nina Belle Kay (1877-1963), a Texas plantation owner's daughter, on December 27, 1900. They had two children.
Father:
Thomas Madison Gore
Mother:
Caroline Elizabeth Wingo
Spouse:
Nina Belle Kay
Grandson:
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
He was an American writer and public intellectual known for his patrician manner, epigrammatic wit, and polished style of writing.
Daughter:
Nina S. Olds
She was a socialite known for her three marriages.
