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JOHN
THREADGILL. The class of men who rule the business
and civic activities of Oklahoma is well typified in the person
of John Threadgill of Oklahoma City. He has been identified
with the territory and state since 1895, and in half a dozen
departments of affairs his connection has been of sufficient
importance to cause his name to receive prominent mention.
Mr. Threadgill was formerly a practicing physician, followed
his profession for many years in the state of Texas, and on
coming to the Oklahoma country came into prominence as the
organizer of the incorporated company that obtained the contract
from the territorial government for the care of the insane.
June 15, 1895, he formally opened the asylum at Norman, in
Cleveland county, and continued as its proprietor until June
1, 1901, when he sold his interests and transferred his activities
to Oklahoma City. Here he gave his attention to the promotion
and control of some enterprises that are considered among
the substantial interests of the commercial metropolis of
the state. Real estate investment has been a field of particular
in interest to him, and along with his professional activities
he has promoted the upbuilding of the city in some notable
ways. As owner of the splendid hotel property that bears his
name, and which is probably the best known hotel in the state,
and as organizer and incororator of the Commercial National
Bank, his name deserves special consideration in the history
of the city's business affairs.
In public life, Dr. Threadgill has taken an
active part wherever he has long been a resident. A veteran
of the Civil War on the Confederate side, he is now commander
of the Oklahoma Division of the Confederate Veterans Association.
In politics a Republican, he served during the territorial
regime as a member of the board of regents of the normal schools,
and his interest in education is extended to the city schools,
having been a member of the Oklahoma City board of education
four years, and for two years its president. In 1903 he was
sent to the lower house as representative of his district,
and in 1905 became a member of the territorial council. He
was author of the bill, which became a law, providing measures
for the prevention of bribery of public officials. Under the
new state government he is a member of the non-partisan board
of seven members, one of which is the governor, created by
the legislature, having for its object the promotion of the
election of United States senators by the popular vote of
the people. A public-spirited citizen, a man of substantial
means, and of recognized influence in his city and state,
Dr. Threadgill is one of the men with whom resides the responsibility
for the direction and development of the affairs of the state
of Oklahoma.
Dr. Threadgill is a southerner, having been
born at Wadesboro, North Carolina, September 28, 1847. The
Threadgill family is of English stock, founded in America
during colonial times by three brothers of the same name,
who made settlement in what is now known as Anson county,
North Carolina. The doctor's parents were James and Eliza
(Paul) Threadgill, his father being a planter at Wadesboro.
John Threadgill was educated for a professional career,
receiving his schooling at the common schools of his native
state. Dr. Threadgill married, in 1892, Miss Frances F.
Falwell, daughter of Samuel Falwell, of Memphis,
Tennessee. There are three children: Jennie E. is the
wife of Dr. W. P. Salmon, of Oklahoma City; Frances
is a student of Hardin College, Missouri; and John Falwell
is the son. Mrs. Threadgill besides being of social prominence
in the city, has twice been elected president of the Oklahoma
Federation of Women's Clubs. She is a member of the Presbyterian
church.
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cont.
THOMAS PEABODY MELLON
was truly a merchant prince of Oklahoma, and within less than
ten years had established and built up a business in Oklahoma
City that was a monument of commercial enterprise. The Mellon
Company which succeeds to the business direction of the concern
can do no more than continue the successful career of the
business that was founded by Mr. Mellon. With a small fund
of capital accumulated while in business at Temple, Texas,
Mr. Mellon came to Oklahoma City in 1898, and opened a store
with an assorted stock of novelties. He had the capacity for
developing and expanding business, and in keeping with the
rapid progress of the city he gradually extended his trade
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and his store accommodations until the Mellon
dry goods house has attained a reputation with shoppers in
all the country tributary to this city. Mr. Mellon's death
occurred December 27, 1907, and was lamented as the passing
of a strong and influential figure in the commercial affairs
of Oklahoma City.
At the time of his death, Mr. Mellon had little
more than begun to enjoy his success, being one of the younger
business men of the city. He was born September 16, 1869,
a son of Samuel and Angeline (Maund) Mellon. He comes
of a family of merchants, his father having been a prominent
business man at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, New Orleans, and
at Beaumont, Texas.
Mr. Mellon married, June 28, 1902, Miss Mary
E. Phelps. They had one daughter, Mary E. Mrs.
Mellon was born at St. Louis, Missouri, April 15, 1878, daughter
of Thomas H. and Alice (Lilly) Phelps. Her father for
thirty years was connected with the Frisco Railroad. Mrs.
Mellon was educated at the Brantford Young Ladies Seminary,
at Brantford, Ontario, graduating with the class of 1898.
Since her husband's death she had continued an active interest
in his business, and is one of the incorporators and an officer
and a director in the new company formed to carry on the store.
Mrs. Mellon formerly resided at Springfield, Missouri, and
since coming to Oklahoma City has identified herself actively
with its social affairs. She is a member of the Five O'Clock
Tea Club, and San Souci Literary Club, and the Chafing Dish
Club.
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cont.
WILLIAM C. BRISSEY.
In Oklahoma City may be found numerous instances of
what can be accomplished by enterprising real estate men in
connection with a city that is rapidly expanding under the
influences of natural growth. By the judicious exploitation
of adjoining lands, the encouragement of transportation lines,
the extension of business and residence districts, and by
lively advertising at home and in distant states, the real
estate men of Oklahoma City have taken a foremost part in
the upbuilding which is so marked a feature of the city's
history during the last decade and which is a subject for
constant pride to the citizens.
Reference has been made to the choice residence
sub-division known as Central Park, lying north of and adjoining
the Guernsey addition. One of the syndicate of twelve men
who have developed and sold this addition to home-builders
was William C. Brissey, who during the past five years
has established and built up one of the most profitable individual
real estate businesses in the city. Besides the Central Park
addition, he has promoted a number of the important real estate
transactions of the city. Central Park was originally a tract
of eighty acres of unimproved land, but is now divided into
sixteen blocks and 720 lots, and is quickly being brought
to the plane of improvement that characterizes the older portions
of the city.
Mr. Brissey was born near Owenton, in Owen county,
Kentucky, in 1863, and was reared and educated there. While
a youth he located in Kansas, in business pursuits, but some
time later he moved to Chicago and for four years was in the
office of the Carey-Lombard Lumber Company of that city. In
1893 this firm sent him to Edmond, in Oklahoma county, to
represent the house at that place, where they had a branch
lumber yard. For six years he had a successful business experience
in Edmond in the lumber and hardware trade. He was twice elected
town treasurer of Edmond. He came to Oklahoma City in 1902,
and has taken an energetic part in the development of his
city and state. At Edmond, Mr. Brissey married Miss Ora
Trotter, who was a student of the normal school there.
Her native state is Missouri. They have one son, Leland
C.
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cont.
KERFOOT
BROTHERS. The marvelous development of the southwest
is due to such men as the Kerfoot Brothers, whose indomitable
energy and progressive spirit have overcome all obstacles
and reached the goal of success. They allied their interests
with those of the city of Oklahoma in 1901, they having in
that year decided to enter the wholesale dry goods field,
and for that purpose chose this city as their permanent location.
John S. and M. M. Kerfoot, with Eugene Miller,
organized the firm of Kerfoot, Miller & Company, dealers
in wholesale dry goods, notions and furnishing goods, and
the new home of this enterprise, a large four-story brick
business block on Main street between Broadway and the Santa
Fe Railroad, owned by the firm, is a splendid monument to
their enterprise and public spirit, while their business has
been one of the potent factors in making Oklahoma City the
commercial and jobbing center of the new State of Oklahoma.
They employ several traveling salesmen who thoroughly
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cover
the field of the state and also northwestern Texas and New
Mexico.
About the time this business was established
at Oklahoma City in 1901, George
H. Kerfoot, while still retaining a financial interest
in the business here, went to Shawnee and individually established
the Mammoth Department Store, which has grown into one of
the largest and most notable mercantile establishments in
the southwest. It is one of the show places of Shawnee, and
is one of the principal factors in furthering the interests
of the city. The Kerfoot Brothers are also large owners besides
their immediate mercantile interests of valuable improved
real estate in Oklahoma City and Shawnee. They are enterprising
and generous in supporting all public-spirited movements.
Born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, they were reared
to mercantile pursuits and have always been engaged in this
line of trade. After spending about four years in the northwest,
beginning in 1885, they came into the new territory on its
opening day, April 22, 1889, and opened the first stores at
Kingfisher and El Reno. The first of these to begin selling
goods was the Kingfisher store, which was opened in a tent.
They had bought "knock-down" material for store
buildings, and these were erected at the two towns as soon
as the brothers had time to do the work. They were practically
the founders of the now flourishing city of El Reno, and in
addition to building the first store there they also built
the well remembered Kerfoot Hotel, which remained for some
years the leading hostelry in the entire state of Oklahoma.
The three brothers also built up a large and successful retail
business at Kingfisher, but finally consolidated their mercantile
interests at El Reno, where they remained until removing to
Oklahoma City in 1901, and entering the wholesale field. The
lives of the Kerfoot Brothers have been characterized by energy,
perseverance and hard work, and to these principles they owe
their success in life, while as citizens of the great state
of Oklahoma they command the respect of all and enjoy the
high honor of being conceded the acknowledged peers of wholesale
mercantile dealers in the southwest.
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cont.
PIONEER TELEPHONE COMPANY.
Naturally, Oklahoma City has been a center for telephone
development, especially since this city gradually gained pre-eminence
as the commercial center of the new territory and later of
the state. It is said that within the corporate limits over
8,000 miles of telephone wires are now operated, and that
fifty toll circuits connect the city with every part of the
state. The city alone has nearly four thousand telephones
in service. Both in its capacity as a great public utility
and as a business institution, the Pioneer Telephone and Telegraph
Company is one of the most important in the state. The new
office building of the company in Oklahoma City is one of
the largest and most modern in the new business district,
and is in harmony with the importance of the institution for
whose use it was built.
The Pioneer Telephone and Telegraph Company
is associated with the Bell interests, but originated as an
independent company. The first exchange in Oklahoma City was
operated in 1895, and the growth and extension of this means
of communication in Oklahoma makes a record that is not less
remarkable than the economic and business development of Oklahoma
itself. By the close of the century only about three hundred
telephones, so it is said, were in use in Oklahoma City, and
only three toll lines reached the city. The man who has been
most active as an organizer and developer of the telephone
interests of Oklahoma is John M. Noble, at present
vice-president and general manager of the Pioneer Company.
A specialist in telephone construction and promotion, equipped
by technical training and business experience in telephone
and electrical engineering, he came to Oklahoma in 1898 and
began the organization of independent telephone lines. He
was the organizer of the Pioneer Telephone Company, which
was the immediate predecessor of the present company, and
which was later affiliated with the Bell interests.
The rapid development of the country and the
remarkable increased use of telephones, together, have made
necessary several complete reorganizations of telephonic service
and facilities, and even the present splendid equipment would
soon become antiquated without constant improvement in keeping
apace with the general growth of the country. As the present
time the company maintains over 27,000 miles of telephone
toll lines, and operates about a hundred exchanges in the
principal towns and cities of Oklahoma. Many of the exchanges
located in the different parts of the state have recently
been rebuilt and re-equipped. Southwestern Oklahoma, in particular,
has benefited from these changes, new ex-
-22-
changes and increased service having been furnished
a number of towns in Caddo, Custer, Kiowa, Comanche and other
counties of this section.
The principal officials of the Pioneer Telephone
and Telegraph Company, all well known business men, are: E.
D. Nims, president; John M. Noble, vice-president
and general manager; E. E. Westervelt, auditor; and
Henry E. Asp, general solicitor.
John M. Noble,
whose executive abilities have become so well known in Oklahoma
through his work as a telephone organizer, was born in Pana,
Illinois, and is younger in years than his achievements in
business would seem to indicate. He was reared in Kansas,
to which state the family removed while he was a boy, and
he was educated at the University at Lawrence, where he studied
from 1887 to 1891, making a specialty of the technical course
which fitted him for his career in telephone engineering.
He began telephone construction work as soon as he left college,
and his interests have increased, been increasing each year
until he now ranks as one of the leading telephone promoters
and capitalists of the west.
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cont.
DENNIS T. FLYNN.
During eight of the seventeen years while Oklahoma
existed as a territory, its chosen representative at the federal
capital was Dennis T. Flynn. In the important relations
of Congress and the territory in the period when Oklahoma's
chief interests were under the guardianship of the national
administration, Delegate Flynn was so persistently active
and was so long the official spokesman for the territory that
the record of his career contains in epitome the larger events
and movements of Oklahoma's political history.
To the pioneers of Oklahoma probably the most
vital problem pressing for solution during the nineties was
that of "free homes." With the solution of this
in a manner satisfactory to the settlers of Oklahoma, Mr.
Flynn accomplished what may be regarded as his greatest public
service for his territory. All citizens of the present generation
also remember his efforts for the cause of statehood.
Actively identified with the Republican party
from the organization of Oklahoma Territory, Mr. Flynn was
first signally honored when he was chosen in 1892 as delegate
to Congress. Almost with the beginning of his term, the "free
homes" issue led in importance, and it is a part of the
history of Oklahoma to recite the circumstances and principal
steps in the solution of the problem.
Under the old homestead law in effect at the
time Oklahoma was opened in 1889, the domain was subject to
settlement by homesteaders with the privilege of receiving
free titles to quarter sections after a residence thereon
for five years. Soon after the opening of old Oklahoma, treaties
between the government and the Indian tribes who owned the
land provided that twelve million acres, which were in reservations,
should be subject to homestead entry with the proviso that
the homesteader should live five years on his quarter section
and in addition should pay one dollar to two and a half an
acre for his landone-half of this amount being payable
two years after the entry was made, and the other half at
the expiration of five years.
The first payments from the homesteaders of
1890, according to the treaty above referred to, were due
in 1892, while Dennis Flynn was campaigning for election
as delegate. Drouths and crop failures had borne heavily on
the Oklahoma farmers. Obligations that now, in the era of
industrial prosperity for the southwest, would hardly be noticed,
at that time made a burden on the people, individually and
collectively, so heavy that relief from it assumed first importance
as a political issue. During his campaign Mr. Flynn promised
to do his best to get the time of payment extended. He also
stated his conviction that the settlers had been discriminated
against and that they ought to have their lands without payment.
His attitude on this question had much to do with his election,
and true to his promises, during the special session of Congress,
called by President Cleveland in August, 1893, he introduced
a bill for the extension of the time of payment on the Oklahoma
lands. The secretary of the interior, Mr. Hoke Smith,
when the bills were referred to him, reported adversely on
the extension of payments, nevertheless Congress passed it
and the first efforts of Mr. Flynn for the relief of his fellow
citizens succeeded. About the same time he introduced the
"Free Homes" bill with which his name was so long
associatedthe first measure of the kind introduced in
the American Congress since the passage of the original homestead
measure of Galusha A. Grow. The bill received un-
-23-
merited neglect, and was never reported out
from the committee on public lands.
In the meantime, September 16, 1893, the six
million acres comprising the Cherokee Strip were opened to
settlement. The lands were disposed of under three classifications,
geographically termed the eastern, middle and western. The
settlers in the eastern division were to live five years on
the land and in addition pay for the same two dollars and
a half per acre; those in the middle division were to pay
one dollar and a half an acre in addition to five years residence,
and those in the western section one dollar an acre. Being
re-elected to the Fifty-Fourth Congress, which was Republican
and presided over by Thomas B. Reed, Mr. Flynn again
introduced his free homes bill and for the first time was
appointed a member of the committee on public lands. This
committee reported favorably on the bill, and having been
allowed to come up for consideration before the house on March
17, 1896, the bill was passed under a suspension of rules.
During the debate in the house on this bill, within the very
hour of its passage, a decision was rendered by the Supreme
Court which gave Greer county to Oklahoma, and the free homes
bill was amended so as to include Greer county in its provisions.
Congress adjourned its session for the summer without further
action on the bill except that the senate committee on Indian
affairs had given a favorable report, it being impossible
to get a report from the senate public lands committee. In
the meantime overzealous action on the part of the citizens
of Greer county almost spoiled the chances of the free homes
bill. Representatives from this former Texas county proposed
to the administration at Washington and the committee on public
lands that if their settlers were permitted to enter the 160
acres on which they had resided they would gladly pay the
government one dollar per acre. During his absence this was
accepted by a bill reported favorable by the committee on
public lands. Mr. Flynn threw all his energy into opposition
of such a measure, and finally succeeded in amending the bill
in the house so that the settlers in Greer county who were
already occupants of homesteads could have their original
quarter sections free at the expiration of five years and
also an adjoining 160 acres at one dollar per acre, without
interest, payments to be made in five annual installments.
In 1896, being renominated by the Republicans
for the third time delegate to the Fifty-fifth Congress, Mr.
Flynn failed of election through the fusion of the Democratic
and Populist forces in the territory. His opponent, J.
Y. Callahan, not only promised to carry out the free homes
program, but to legislate for free silver as well, and on
this basis was chosen in the election of November, 1896. At
the short session of 1896-87 Mr. Flynn was unable to secure
the decisive action on his bill, and his successor, Mr. Callahan,
was equally unsuccessful in his efforts to get favorable action
on the bill.
In 1898, six years after he had begun his campaign
on the issue of free homes for the settlers, Mr. Flynn was
returned to the Fifty-Sixth Congress, and in the face of opposition
from three-fourths of his colleagues in the public lands committee,
re-introduced the free homes bill. In the meantime public
opinion in various western states had been directed to the
matter of free homes, with the result that instead of being
a lone advocate for a measure of local importance in one territory,
Mr. Flynn found himself reinforced by active aid from such
states as Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, and
particularly North and South Dakota. The bill that had been
drawn in the particular interests of Oklahoma was extended
and made to embrace the public domain in general. At this
point, after having led the fight alone for so long, Mr. Flynn
placed the good of his constituents above personal pride,
and at a caucus of the senators and representatives from the
states whose settlers and representatives from the states
whose settlers were being compelled to pay for Indian lands,
he generously dropped the advocacy of his own bill and on
his motion Frank Eddy of Minnesota was instructed to
introduce a general free homes bill which would apply to all
the Indian lands in the United States. The bill, under this
authorship, passed the house, and finally the senate, and
on May 17, 1900, was signed by President McKinley in the presence
of all the senators and congressmen from the states interested.
The bill involved a saving to settlers, in the states affected,
a total of about sixty-five millions, in Oklahoma alone between
sixteen and twenty million dollars being released for homesteaders.
The president presented to Mr. Flynn the pen with which the
bill was signed and Mr. Flynn in turn gave it to the Oklahoma
Historical Society, in whose archives it is now a treasured
relic. He introduced the first
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Statehood bill favorably reported in 1902, passed
the lower house favorably, reported in Senate, but was filibustered
against during the entire short session of 1903.
Dennis T. Flynn has been identified with
Oklahoma from the date of its opening until the present, and
has always held a position of leadership, in public life,
in business and in his profession. He was born at Phoenixville,
Pennsylvania, in 1862, was reared in Buffalo, New York, where
he began the study of law, and in 1882 moved to Iowa and a
little later to Kiowa, in southwestern Kansas, where he continued
his law studies and was admitted to the bar in 1885. At the
time of the Oklahoma opening, he was well equipped with a
knowledge of the law, was familiar with real estate values,
was interested in public affairs, and was eager to identify
himself actively with the new territory. Accordingly he well
merited the distinction that came to him in his appointment
as the first postmaster of Guthrie, the appointment being
made April, 1889, before Guthrie or any other town in Oklahoma
had a real substantial existence. He arrived in Guthrie on
the first train from the north, April 22, and on April 26,
received telegraphic order (his commission not having arrived)
to take possession of the office at once. Securing a tent,
ten by fourteen, he began his work under this shelter, and
was the executive upon whom devolved the difficult task of
organizing a postal system in the capital city. A few months
later a postoffice building was erected, and the regular routine
has continued uninterrupted from that time to this. The Commercial
block was completed in the fall of 1889, and the postoffice
was given quarters in that building. He was the first member
of the first National Committee from Oklahoma, and served
until the fall of 1892.
Mr. Flynn lived at Guthrie from 1889 until the
fall of 1903, when he moved to Oklahoma City, forming a partnership
with Mr. C. B. Ames in the practice of law, under the
firm name of Flynn and Ames. Their practice has grown to large
proportions and is one of the most profitable in the new state.
As corporation lawyers, they represent the St. Louis and San
Francisco Railway company, for which company they are general
solicitors for Oklahoma and Indian Territory. Mr. Flynn, assisted
by Mr. Ames, has also become largely interested in extensive
industrial enterprises in Oklahoma, particularly in the development
of oil and gas properties. They reorganized the Oklahoma Gas
and Electric Company from a capitalization of $300,000 to
two million dollars, and more recently again reorganized in
on a three million dollar basis. Mr. Flynn and associates
were until recently the owners of the Shawnee Electric Light
Company, which owned the lighting plant in that city. They
are also part owners of the Fort Smith Traction, Light and
Power Company, and of the Arkansas and Territorial Oil and
Gas Company, which latter company supplies gas to Fort Smith.
Early in 1907 they incorporated the Oklahoma Natural Gas Company,
of which Mr. Flynn is president. This company is engaged in
the task of laying four hundred miles of pipe mains from the
natural gas field of old Indian Territory to twenty-one towns
in Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City. Mr. Flynn is also president
of the Muskogee Gas and Electric Company. Mr. Flynn was married
at Kiowa, Kansas, to Miss Addie Blanton, daughter of
Captain N. B. Blanton, a prominent pioneer and free-soil
advocate of early Kansas. They have three children: Mrs. Dorothy
Richardson of Washington, D. C., Streeter and Olney
Flynn.
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cont.
L.
ERNEST PHILLIPS, who after the San Francisco earthquake
transferred his to Oklahoma City, is a lawyer of broad experience,
of special learning and practice, and besides a varied and
successful career in his profession, is a man of prominence
as a newspaper writer, a political reformer, a world traveler,
and a student and active worker for the solution of sociological
problems affecting the poor and laboring classes. His legal
practice in Oklahoma City has been largely confined to estates,
a legal specialty in which he gained distinction a number
of years ago. He has extensive business interests in Oklahoma
City and in the east. His fellow citizens esteem him highly
for his talents and ability as a valuable addition and working
force in their city.
Mr. Phillips was born at Speedsville, Tompkins
county, New York, January 11, 1862, a son of Robert and
Annie Elizabeth (Boyer) Phillips. His mother died many
years ago, but his father is still living, his home being
in Washington, D. C. Mr. Phillips honors a sterling Scotch-Irish
ancestry on his father's side, Sir John Shaw of Ireland
being one of forebears, as also Sir William Tennant,
while the American branch of the family includes Wendell
Phillips. Mr. Phillips' father was
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born in New York, and his mother, who was of
French Huguenot ancestry, being descended from the De Boyers
of France, was born in Maryland.
The parents moved to North Arlington, in Alexandria
county, Virginia, while Ernest Phillips was a child,
and he was reared there without important incident until the
age of seventeen. At that time he enjoyed a trip around the
world, including the notable places of Europe, Egypt, Indian,
Australia, China and Japan, and on returning home began his
professional preparation in the National University at Washington,
where he was graduated as a member of the law class of 1886.
During a brief period of practice in Washington he was appointed
a United States commissioner, and in 1887 took an important
step in his legal specialty when he went to England to settle
up an estate. He had already become identified with the newspaper
profession, as a member of the staff of several newspapers
at the national capital, and while in England acted as foreign
correspondent of the Washington News.
Mr. Phillips located in San Francisco in 1889,
and as a reporter on the San Francisco Call became
a favorite of its able editor, Loring Pickering. He
was active in producing special articles, many of them illustrated,
and these he contributed to several well known California
papers. As a prominent member of the San Francisco Press Club
he served as a delegate from that club to the International
League of Press Clubs which met at New Orleans. Almost from
the beginning of his residence in California he concerned
himself actively in political reform, though without participation
in practical politics to any considerable extent. Clean politics,
the elimination of graft from municipal affairs, and a settled
hostility against bossism and machine politics have been working
principles with Mr. Phillips, for many years before these
subjects came to be so vitally familiar to the general public.
With the stirring reform movements begun in San Francisco
during the early nineties he was closely identified, especially
as president of the thirty-second assembly district of San
Francisco and later as president of the board of assembly
district presidents. In 1892 he was attorney for the independents
before the board of election commissioners, and rendered splendid
service in the effort to overthrow bossism in that city, condemning
that feature of city politics in his own party equally as
much as in the opposite party. In 1894 he received the endorsement
of the anti-graft element in the Republican party for the
nomination to Congress. His interest in political and sociological
reform has been the most constant and active influence of
his entire career, and while his profession has allowed more
or less active participation in this cause, he has likewise
given much individual time and money in promoting reform.
That a few unprincipled men should get together and fix up
a ticket and then ask the people to vote for it, instead of
giving the latter an opportunity to say who their nominee
should be, is a feature of American politics that excites
his most persistent and strenuous hostility. As an active
citizen of the new state of Oklahoma, being president of the
already famous Good Government Club of Oklahoma, his influence
can be definitely counted upon in securing the free and untrammeled
vote for everyone. The social condition arouses his interest
even more than the political. Although now a resident of a
state where the problems of society are not acute, he is at
the same time definitely committed to all movements for the
amelioration of the living conditions surrounding the poor,
is a believer in equal and exact justice for all, upholds
the basic principles of labor unionism, and favors the opening
of all doors of opportunity to those who would get ahead in
the world and provide for their families and for old age.
In 1891 Mr. Phillips entered the government
service at San Francisco as captain of inspectors of internal
revenue, but resigned in 1893 and entered upon the practice
of law. He soon gained prominence in his specialty as attorney
for estates and in damage cases, and this practice took him
abroad several times in the interests of English estates.
His extensive travels have given him unusual opportunities
for observation and sociological study, the results of which
he has contributed in many articles to the American press.
Mr. Phillips has twice been married, his first
wife dying in California. Before her marriage she was Miss
Florence Jeanette Bradley, of Clinton, Rock county,
Wisconsin. There are two children of this marriage, Anita
Boyer Phillips and Wendell Phillips. For his present
wife he married Miss Anne M. Lubnow, of Norfolk, Nebraska.
Their two children are Roberta Virginia and Robert
Montgomery. Mr. Phillips is a Mason, affiliated
-26-
with the Knights of Templar and is a member
of the Mystic Shrine.
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