View source for Bascom N. Timmons

{{Infobox person
|name=Bascom Nolley Timmons<br>
(American newspaperman)
|birth_date=March 31, 1890
|birth_place=[[Amarillo]],<br>[[Texas]]
|death_date=June 8, 1987
|death_place=[[Washington, D.C.]]
|religion=
|spouse=
|party=[[Democratic Party|Democrat]]
}}
'''Bascom Nolley Timmons''' (March 31, 1890 &ndash; June 8, 1987) was an American [[newspaper]]man based in [[Washington, D.C.]], in a career that spanned all or parts of six decades. He was an advisor to [[U.S. President]]s [[Calvin Coolidge]] and [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], who had been competing opposite party candidates for [[Vice President of the United States]] in 1920. 

Oddly, like the late [[Governor]] [[Claude Kirk]] of [[Florida]], Timmons himself once sought to run for vice president, but the position is now selected by a party's presidential nominee. Timmons offered his candidacy in 1940, when his friend [[John Nance Garner]] declined to join President Roosevelt in seeking a third term. In 1968, the [[Republican]] Kirk "ran" with the understanding that he would complement a ticket headed by either [[Richard M. Nixon]] or [[Nelson A. Rockefeller]]. Nixon, the successful nominee, however, tapped Governor [[Spiro T. Agnew]] of [[Maryland]], for the second slot on the ticket.<ref>Billy Hathorn, "Cramer v. Kirk: The Florida Republican Schism of 1970", ''Florida Historical Quarterly'' (April 1990), pp. 409-410</ref>

A native of [[Amarillo]], [[Texas]], Timmons began his career in journalism at the age of sixteen with the former ''Fort Worth Record'' in [[Fort Worth]], Texas. He later worked for the defunct ''Dallas Times-Herald'', the ''Amarillo News'', and the ''Milwaukee Sentinel''. In 1912, he joined the ''[[Washington Post]]''. In 1920, Timmons created a bureau in the nation's capital, to serve newspapers in Texas, [[Oklahoma]], [[Louisiana]], [[Alabama]], and [[Ohio]]. In 1932, Timmons became president of the National Press Club; in that capacity, he worked thereafter to save the press club building in [[New York City]] from foreclosure. He persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to sign an amendment to the federal [[bankruptcy]] law that blocked the foreclosure and hence kept the building open.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/08/obituaries/bascom-timmons-97-washington-reporter.html</ref>

In 1944, Timmons hired Sarah McClendon as the Washington correspondent for the ''Philadelphia Daily News.'' Two years later when Timmons dismissed McClendon to provide jobs for returning [[World War II]] veterans, she started her own McClendon News Service and remained a Washington institution for decades to come.<ref>"Sarah McClendon, Veteran Washington Reporter, Dies at 92," by Adam Bernstein, ''[[The Washington Post]]'', January 8, 2003, retrieved July 31, 2006.</ref>

Timmons penned three books:<br>

*''Garner of Texas,'' a study of Vice President Garner, the country lawyer who retired in 1941 to his adopted hometown of Uvalde, Texas
*''Portrait of an American: A Biography of Charles Gates Dawes'', a look at the vice president [[Charles Dawes]]  under Coolidge
*''Jesse H. Jones: The Man and the Statesman,'' the study of the Texan Jesse H. Jones, who served as [[United States Secretary of Commerce]] under Roosevelt.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?author=Bascom+N.+Timmons&cm_mmc=sem-_-google-_-authors-_-na&mkwid=S567UT2lSI&cid=6476300409&mcid=6476300409&adwordsid=1072741340&gclid=CPablpft568CFUu4tgod51Ns1A|title=Books by Bascom N. Timmons|publisher=alibris.com|accessdate=May 4, 2012}}</ref>