Thomas Pryor Gore (December 10, 1870March 16, 1949) was an American politician who served as one of the first two United States senators from Oklahoma, from 1907 to 1921 and again from 1931 to 1937. He first entered politics as an activist for the Populist Party, and continued this affiliation after he moved to Texas. In 1899, just before moving to Oklahoma Territory to practice law in Lawton, he formally joined the Democratic Party and campaigned for William Jennings Bryan. In the Senate, his anti-war beliefs caused him conflict with Democratic presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Gore lost his eyesight during his youth. He was the maternal grandfather of noted author Gore Vidal.
Early life
Gore was born on December 10, 1870, near Embry, Mississippi in Webster County, the son of Caroline Elizabeth (née Wingo) and Thomas Madison Gore. The Gore family was one of the nineteen original families who owned farmlands in what later became the capital of the United States, the District of Columbia. The Gores were Anglo-Irish from Donegal and arrived in North America at the end of the seventeenth century and tended to intermarry with other Anglo-Irish families, particularly in Virginia. When the District was established in 1790, the families that had been dispossessed to make way for the capital city, including the Gores, reaped significant financial rewards. The Gores who remained either sold their land in lots, built homes or hotels, and all became rich. The Gores who moved away, including the branch of Thomas Pryor Gore, moved to the far West, which in those days was Mississippi. Young Thomas and his family moved to Walthall, the county seat, when his father was elected Chancery Clerk of Sumner County.
He went blind as a child through two separate accidents but did not give up his dream of becoming a senator. Despite his blindness, he excelled in school and showed special talents in debate and oratory.
Career
He taught school briefly after graduation. In 1882, he served as a page in the Mississippi Senate. He moved to Lebanon, Tennessee in 1891, and received a law degree from Cumberland University Law School in the following year. He was admitted to the Mississippi Bar and joined his father's law firm in Mississippi.
Populist Party politics
The Gore family had been prominent members of the Southern Farmers' Alliance. Young Thomas was addressing Alliance meetings as early as 1888. The Alliance nominated him for the state legislature, but he had to withdraw because he was still a minor. Instead he served as a presidential elector for the Populist party in 1892. This experience expanded his reputation as an orator. In 1894, the Populist party of Navarro County, Texas invited him to come to Corsicana to help them win elections. He and his brother, Ellis, moved there in December, 1894, where they opened a law office. Meanwhile, he returned to Mississippi to run for the legislature in 1895, a race which he lost. He campaigned vigorously from Utah to New York for William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic candidate for president in 1900.
Returning to Texas, he ran as a Populist candidate for the 6th Congressional District in 1898, but lost because the party was already in decline. He served as a delegate to the Populist convention that year, but in 1899, formally joined the Democratic Party.
Democratic Party politics
After marrying Nina Kay in December 1900, the Gores moved to Lawton, in Oklahoma Territory. In 1902, he entered and won an election for the Oklahoma Territorial Senate. He declined an opportunity to run as a territorial representative for the U. S, Congress, but became an adviser to the 1907 Constitutional Convention, then was elected to the U. S. Senate in 1907.