Richard Lloyd Jones
Richard Lloyd Jones
“He was a rare combination of liberal and conservative; liberal in advocating human rights and protecting the weak; conservative in his attitude toward government bureaucracy and curtailment of individual rights and freedoms.”
Biography
Richard Lloyd Jones was born in Wisconsin and received his bachelor and law degrees from the University of Chicago. He moved to New York and became a Broadway stage actor and short-story writer before accepting a position as editor of the Telegram at Stamford, Connecticut, in 1899. He was the editorial writer of the Washington Times in 1900 and became editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine and Colliers around 1902. He came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1919 and bought the Democrat-Tribune, changed its name to The Tulsa Tribune, and within several years doubled the circulation of the newspaper, where he served for four decades as its owner and editor. Jones was also the author of several books and essays.
Fun fact
In his earlier years, Richard Jones’ newspaper masthead carried the identification “liberal Democratic” in politics, but in his later years it was changed to “independent Republican.”
Oklahoma connections
Jones came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and bought the Democrat-Tribune in 1919.