Thomas Lunsford Stokes

Thomas Lunsford Stokes, Jr. (November 1, 1898 – May 14, 1958) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist.

Biography

Thomas Stokes was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on November 1, 1898, to Thomas Lunsford Stokes and Emma Layton, both descendants of colonial families. His father was a co-founder of Davison-Paxon-Stokes, a major department store chain in the southeastern United States. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1920, after 3 years.

He began his journalism career working as a reporter for Georgia newspapers and then moved to Washington in 1921, where he took dictation from reporters at United Press. He later worked as a copy editor and then as a reporter covering all aspects of Washington politics. He greeted the New Deal with enthusiasm and his coverage of the early days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration brought him to the attention of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, which hired him as its Washington correspondent in 1933.

In 1937, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America reprinted a series of his articles under the title ''Carpetbaggers of Industry'' to indict businesses that relocated to the South in search of lower-earning workers.

His coverage of FDR's administration grew more critical over time. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939 for investigating how Kentucky politicians had corrupted the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to advance their own careers. He concluded the Kentucky WPA was "a grand political racket in which the taxpayer is the victim." Stokes and WPA Administrator Harry Hopkins traded charges for several days. Stokes explained why the WPA's investigation found fewer problems that he had:

The Kentucky politician implicated was Senator Alben Barkley. The affair led indirectly to the passage of the Hatch Act.

He authored an autobiography, ''Chip Off My Shoulder'', in 1940. A reviewer described him: "He is irreverent but not flip, ironic but not bitter, a hater of pretense and arrogance but not of people.

Some of his 1941 reporting on the awarding of construction contracts provoked a contentious debate in the U.S. Senate in which Senator Claude Pepper accused Stokes of "perfidious falsehood."

Stokes became a columnist for United Features Syndicate in December 1944. More than 100 newspapers ran his column. He withdrew his column from the syndicate in late 1946 because of what he perceived as too much editorial interference.

In 1947, he won the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award for general excellence in Washington reporting and crusading. He was honored again by the Raymond Clapper Memorial Association just before his death.

His second book, ''The Savannah'', a study of the river's role in the South, appeared in 1951.

He died of a brain tumor in Washington, D.C., on May 14, 1958. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His wife Hannah survived him.

The Thomas L. Stokes Award is given annually for reporting on the development, use, and conservation of energy and other natural resources.

Notes

References

*''New York Times''
"Thomas L. Stokes, Newsman, 59, Dies," May 15, 1958
accessed December 13, 2010
*Heinz Dietrich Fischer, Erika J. Fischer, ''Complete biographical encyclopedia of Pulitzer Prize winners, 1917-2000'' (2002)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stokes, jJr., Thomas Lunsford
1898 births
1958 deaths
American male journalists
American reporters and correspondents
Pulitzer Prize for Reporting winners
American autobiographers
American political writers
University of Georgia alumni
Writers from Atlanta
Journalists from Atlanta
Burials at Arlington National Cemetery