Oscar Callaway

Francis Oscar Callaway (October 2, 1872 – January 31, 1947) was a three-term U.S. Representative from Texas' twelfth district from 1911 to 1917.

Biography Born on October 2, 1872, in Harmony Hill (Nip-and-Tuck), Rusk County, Texas, Callaway moved with his parents to Comanche County in 1876. He attended the University of Texas at Austin from 1897 to 1899 and graduated from its law department in 1900. He was admitted to the bar the same year and served as prosecuting attorney of Comanche County from 1900 to 1902. On December 29, 1904, he married Stella Couch. He served as delegate to Democratic State conventions in 1896, 1898, 1900-1916, and 1920-1926.

Callaway was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-second, Sixty-third, and Sixty-fourth Congresses, serving March 4, 1911 - March 3, 1917. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1916.

He returned to his ranch near Comanche, Texas, where he engaged in agricultural pursuits and stock raising, and also in the practice of law in Comanche. He died in Comanche, Texas, January 31, 1947, and was interred in Oakwood Cemetery in Comanche. In 1917 he charged that leading business interests were purchasing newspapers to advance the preparedness campaign, which led his colleague J. Hampton Moore to call for an investigation. His opposition to preparedness was a major factor in his loss of the renomination bid to James Clifton Wilson, and he retired to Comanche on March 3, 1917.