Jay H. Reigner. In
the election of November, 1914, Mr. Reigner was elected
representative of Pushmataha County in
the fifth general assembly of the Oklahoma Legislature, and this
preferment came as a consistent recognition of his loyal and earnest
labors as an advocate of the principles of the democratic party and
in behalf of measures and enterprises tending to advance the best
interests of the state of his adoption. He is one of the
representative newspaper publishers and editors of Oklahoma, and he
came to Oklahoma in 1905, well fortified in experience in the domain
of journalism, so that his ability, independence and vigorous
policies have enabled him to make of the Antlers News-Record one of
the model weekly papers of the state. As a progressive, liberal and
public-spirited citizen he is entitled to definite recognition in
this history of Oklahoma.
Jay Harlin Reigner
was born in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, in the year 1870, and is
a son of William and Elizabeth Reigner, both likewise natives of the
old Keystone State, where the original American progenitor of the
Reigner family settled upon his immigration from Alsace, France, in
1730, representatives of this sterling old family having been found
aligned as patriot soldiers from that commonwealth or colony in the
war of the Revolution. William Reigner was the eldest in a family of
nine children and was the first of the number to be summoned to the
life eternal, all having attained to advanced age and thus far their
death having occurred in respective order of their births. William
Reigner died in 1889. His wife had died a number of years before.
Jay H. Reigner was
reared to adult age in Pennsylvania
and afforded t he advantages of the public schools. In 1890 he became
a student in the Westchester Normal School, at Westchester,
Pennsylvania, but he withdrew from this institution within a short
time and removed to the Middle West. He finally entered the law
department of the great University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, in
which he was graduated in 1893, and from which he received the degree
of Bachelor of Laws. Prior to this Mr. Reigner had become effectively
identified with newspaper work and had virtually decided to make the
same his permanent vocation. In 1887, when but seventeen years of
age, he became a reporter on the staff of the Intelligencer at
Wheeling, West Virginia, and later he assumed the position of editor
of the News-Democrat at Canton, Stark County, Ohio, the home of the
late and lamented President McKinley. While the incumbent of this
position Mr. Reigner was able to wield no little influence in
supporting the cause of the democratic party in the national campaign
of 1896, when William Jennings Bryan first appeared as the party’s
candidate for the presidency. He was a loyal supporter of Bryan in
that memorable campaign, and later he became editor of an independent
democratic weekly paper, the Sunday Herald, at Canton. In 1897 he
went to the city of Alliance, in the same county, where for several
years he was editor of the Daily Critic.
With an assured
reputation for successful work as a representative of the profession
of his choice, in 190j Mr.
Reigner came to Oklahoma Territory and established his residence at
Antlers, the judicial center of Pushmataha County, where he purchased
the plant and business of the Antlers News, a weekly paper. Later he
purchased the plants of the Antlers Record and the Kiamichi Roporter,
the latter at Albion, in the same county, and in 1908 the three
papers were by him consolidated under the
present title of the Antlers News-Record.
Aside from his
influence in political affairs as a newspaper editor Mr. Reigner had
individually taken an active part in several campaigns in Ohio, where
in 1898 he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional
Committee of the Sixteenth Congressional District of the state and
where he served several times as chairman of the Democratic Central
Committee of Stark County. Upon coming to Oklahoma Mr. Reigner
forthwith manifested a lively interest in political and governmental
affairs and soon became a recognized leader in the local councils of
his party. He is a firm believer in the basic principles of the
democratic party and in an independent and courageous way always
advocates for it policies that should make it justify in a generic
way its title of democratic, his standard of the theory of government
being that power should be given to the whole people rather than to
the few. Thus it is that in his direct, earnest and well taken
editorial utterances he is duly conservative and falls short of undue
or ultra radicalism.
In 1914, as
previously noted, Mr. Reigner was elected representative of
Pushmataha County in the lower house of the Oklahoma Legislature, in
which he has made an admirable record of conscientious, effective and
loyal effort to conserve good government, wise legislation and the
promotion of the best interests of the state and its people. he was
made chairman of the committee on judicial and senatorial
apportionment, and was assigned also to the committees on elections,
on fees and salaries, on retrenchment and reform, on initiative and
referendum, and on congressional apportionment. Mr. Reigner
introduced and ably championed a bill relative to senatorial
apportionment and another providing for the reduction of
district-court districts from thirty-one to twenty-one. As a
unfaltering advocate of the fundamental principles of the democratic
party he has consistently opposed any movement or legislation tending
to abrogate
in the least the
power and authority of the people, and thus it was but natural that
he should be found earnestly supporting measures providing for the
preferential primary ballot and also presidential primaries.
Mr. Reigner is a
popular and appreciative member of the Oklahoma Press Association; is
an active and enthusiastic member of the Antlers Commercial Club; is
affiliated with the Masonic Lodge, Chapter and Council in his home
city, with Hugo Commandery, No. 30, Knights Templar, at Hugo,
Choctaw County, and with Bedouin Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of tho
Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, at Muskogee. At Antler he served as
thrice illustrious master of Zabud Council, No. 20, Royal and Select
Masters, and he has held other official chairs in the time-honored
Masonic fraternity.
At Canton, Ohio, in
1902, Mr. Reigner wedded Miss Emma E. Shroyer, and she was summoned
to eternal rest on the 3d of November, 1911, leaving no children.