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Senate Years of Service: 1907-1925 Party: Democrat
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OWEN, Robert Latham, a Senator from Oklahoma; born in Lynchburg, Campbell County, Va., February 2,
1856; attended private schools in Lynchburg, Va., and Baltimore, Md.; graduated from Washington
and Lee University, Lexington, Va., 1877; moved to Salina, Indian Territory, and taught school
among the Cherokee Indians; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1880 and commenced practice;
federal Indian agent for the Five Civilized Tribes 1885-1889; member of the Democratic National
Committee 1892-1896; organized the First National Bank of Muskogee in 1890 and was its president
for ten years; upon the admission of Oklahoma as a State into the Union in 1907 was elected as a
Democrat to the United States Senate for the term ending March 3, 1913; reelected in 1912 and
1918 and served from December 11, 1907, to March 3, 1925; declined to be a candidate for
renomination in 1924; chairman, Committee on Indian Depredations (Sixty-second Congress),
Committee on the Mississippi River and Its Tributaries (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Pacific
Railroads (Sixty-second Congress), Committee on Banking and Currency (Sixty-third through
Sixty-fifth Congresses), Committee on the Five Civilized Tribes (Sixty-sixth Congress); resumed the
practice of law in Washington, D.C.; organized and served as chairman of the National Popular
Government League from 1913 until his death in Washington, D.C., July 19, 1947; interment in Spring
Hill Cemetery, Lynchburg, Va.
BibliographyDictionary of American Biography;
Brown, Kenny. A Progressive From Oklahoma: Senator Robert Latham Owen, Jr. Chronicles of Oklahoma 62 (Fall 1984): 232-65; Keso, Edward. The Senatorial
Career of Robert Latham Owen. Gardenvale, Canada: Garden City Press, 1938.
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