Thomas M. Storke

Thomas More Storke ( born November 23, 1876 in Santa Barbara, California, † October 12, 1971 ) was an American politician who represented the state of California for a short time in the U.S. Senate.

Life

Thomas More Storke was the only son among four children of Charles A. Storke and his wife Martha. He grew up in prosperity, as his father worked as a lawyer and served as mayor of Santa Barbara in the period 1899-1902.

After attending compulsory schools to Storke wrote at Stanford University in Stanford, where he received his degree in 1898. Then he began to work as a journalist and editor at various newspapers before he the Santa Barbara Daily Independent newspaper acquired in early 1900. In 1913 he bought on the Santa Barbara Daily News, and founded by the merger in the same year the Santa Barbara Daily News & Independent. In September 1932, he acquired the Morning Press, and called the company, following the successful merger in 1938, the Santa Barbara News -Press. Parallel to his work in the media landscape of Santa Barbara Storke also worked as a farmer and farmer of citrus.

Thomas Storke was not a professional politician. His first public office he held from 1914 to 1921, when he was elected postmaster of Santa Barbara. Following the resignation of William Gibbs McAdoo in November 1938 recommended McAdoo Governor Frank Merriam his friend Thomas M. Storke as successor in the Senate of the United States. Storke, the party was a member of the Democrats, the Congress belonged to only two months. In early January 1939 he was replaced by Sheridan Downey.

After retiring from the Senate in 1947, he founded the radio station KTM. 1951 appointed him Governor Earl Warren in the California Crime Commission, a before he was elected in 1955 by his successor, Goodwin Knight in the Supervisory Board of the University of California, Santa Barbara. This gave him an honorary doctorate in 1960, the 1963 was followed by another honorary doctoral degree from Colby College in Waterville (Maine).

In the 1960s, Storke also wrote articles against the strengthening of the anti-communist right-wing John Birch Society, in particular against its founder Robert Welch. For this he received in November 1961 the Lauterbach Award from the Nieman Foundation, in May 1962 Pulitzer Prize in the same year the Elijah Lovejoy Fellowship for his outstanding journalism.

Thomas M. Storke died in October 1971 at the age of 94 years.