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, 1998.