Representative James Vernon McClintic

James Vernon McClintic (September 8, 1878 – April 22, 1948) was an American politician and a Democratic U.S. Representative from Oklahoma who served ten consecutive terms in Congress from 1915 to 1935. His long tenure in the House of Representatives spanned a transformative period in American history, including World War I, the Roaring Twenties, and the early years of the Great Depression, during which he participated in the legislative process and represented the interests of his Oklahoma constituents.

McClintic was born near Bremond, Robertson County, Texas, the son of George Vance McClintic and Emma Clay Proctor McClintic. In 1880 he moved with his parents to Groesbeck, Texas, where he attended the local public schools. He later pursued higher education at Add-Ran University in Fort Worth, Texas, an institution that subsequently became Texas Christian University. On November 23, 1904, he married Emma May Biggs; the couple had two daughters, Mary Vance and Olive Erle, and established a family life that paralleled his emerging business and political career.

Before entering public office, McClintic worked in commerce and agriculture on the expanding southwestern frontier. In 1901 he accepted a position with a wholesale dry-goods company in St. Louis, Missouri, and the following year became a traveling salesman. Also in 1902, he moved to Snyder in the Oklahoma Territory, where he opened a mercantile business known as the Texas Store. In 1906 he homesteaded a farm in Texas County, Oklahoma Territory, reflecting his engagement with the region’s agricultural development. After a period on the homestead, he returned to Snyder and increasingly turned his attention to local public affairs.

McClintic’s political career began at the municipal and county levels in Oklahoma. In 1908 he was elected city clerk of Snyder. The next year, in 1909, he became clerk of Kiowa County, Oklahoma. When the southern portion of Kiowa County was separated to form Swanson County, with Snyder designated as the county seat, McClintic was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives as the new county’s representative. He served in the Oklahoma House from January 3, 1911, until June 27, 1911, when Swanson County was dissolved and its territory returned to Kiowa County. He continued his rise in state politics by serving in the Oklahoma Senate in 1913 and 1914, gaining legislative experience that would prepare him for national office.

In 1914 McClintic was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-fourth Congress and to the nine succeeding Congresses, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from March 4, 1915, to January 3, 1935. Over these ten terms, he contributed to the legislative process during a period marked by U.S. involvement in World War I, postwar readjustment, and the onset of the Great Depression. During the Sixty-fifth Congress (1917–1919), he served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures on Public Buildings, overseeing matters related to federal construction and public facilities. While serving in Congress, he undertook legal studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and in 1928 he was admitted to the bar and licensed to practice in all the courts of Oklahoma. Despite his long incumbency, he failed to receive the Democratic Party’s nomination for re-election in 1934, ending his continuous congressional service.

After leaving Congress, McClintic remained active in public service at both the state and federal levels. From 1935 to 1940 he served as executive assistant to the Governor of Oklahoma, advising on administrative and policy matters during a challenging economic era. In 1940 and 1941 he worked in the District of Columbia Department of Vehicles and Traffic as an administrative assistant, participating in the management of transportation issues in the nation’s capital. He also sought to return to elective office, attempting to secure the Democratic nomination to fill a vacancy in the Sixty-seventh Congress, but this effort was unsuccessful.

McClintic nonetheless returned to Washington in an appointed capacity. From 1941 to 1944 he served as special assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, a role that placed him within the federal administration during World War II, when the Interior Department was involved in resource management and wartime mobilization. In 1944 and 1945 he worked in the War Department as a member of the Readjustment Division, contributing to policies and programs related to the transition from wartime to peacetime conditions, including issues affecting returning servicemembers and postwar planning. After completing this service, he resumed the practice of law, drawing on the legal training he had begun during his congressional years.

James Vernon McClintic died of a heart attack on April 22, 1948, while traveling by train en route to Los Angeles, California; he passed away near Chicago in Cook County, Illinois. He was interred at Rose Hill Burial Park in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His papers and photographs are preserved in collections such as the James V. McClintic Collection and Photograph Collection at the Carl Albert Center, documenting the career of a long-serving Oklahoma Democrat who participated in state and national governance over more than three decades.