OKGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of OKGenWeb State Coordinator. Presentation here does not extend any permissions to the public. This material can not be included in any compilation, publication, collection, or other reproduction for profit without permission. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only. ===================================================================== HON. W. MILTON BICKEL Vol. 3, p. 1230 The Fifth Senatorial District in 1914 sent its first democratic representative to the State Senate. At the November election W. Milton Bickel overcome a normal republican majority between 700 and 900 in the district and went into office with a plurality of twenty- one votes. While this election has brought to the Senate a valuable member and a lawyer of broad experience, his election was also a high tribute to his personal standing and his commendable record as county judge in Woods County. He held that office four years, and during that time only two of his decisions were reversed by higher courts. As county judge too Mr. Bickel was a democrat in a county that is normally republican, and it was his popularity associated with his services as county judge that undoubtedly enabled him to seek with success the higher official honors which brought him to the State Senate. W. Milton Bickel was born in McPherson County, Kansas, in 1877, a son of H. M. and Elizabeth Bickel. There is an interesting bit of family history that may be noted here. Michael Bickel, the paternal grandfather, of German extraction, lived in the southern states before the war, practicing his profession as civil engineer. When the war broke out he became a member of the Confederate regiment formed in Mississippi. At the same time his son, H. M. Bickel, was living in the North, having been reared in Iowa, joined an Iowa regiment for service in the Union army. These two soldiers, on opposing sides in the great conflict, fought against each other in the battle of Shiloh. H. M. Bickel afterwards became prominent in McPherson County, Kansas, was one of the leading democrats there and in 1884 was candidate for Congress in the Seventh Kansas District, but was defeated by the republican nominee. From 1884 to 1888, during Cleveland's administration, he held the office of receiver of the United States Land Office at Larned, Kansas, and after that was engaged in the practice of law. He moved to Alva, Oklahoma, in 1893, soon after the establishment of the town. Senator Bickel received most of his education in Kansas, attending the public schools and graduating from the high school at Larned, and after completing a course in shorthand and typewriting in a business college at Wichita took up the study of law in his father's offices and for some time was his father's secretary. He was admitted to the bar at Alva in 1898. Three years previously, at the age of eighteen, he had been appointed journal clerk in the office of United States Judge J. L. MCATEE, a position he held four years, until he retirement in 1899. For the following two year he was deputy county treasurer of Woods County. In 1910 he was elected county judge of Woods County, and in 1912 was re-elected to that office. Mr. Bickel is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. He was married in 1902 to Rose B. FRANCE of Woods County. Their two children are named Marshall, aged twelve, and Beryl, aged five. As a member of the Fifth Legislature Senator Bickel was chairman of the Committee on Senatorial and Judicial Apportionment, and a member of the committee on Legal Advisory, Constitution and Constitutional Amendments, Judiciary, Appropriations, Municipal Corporations, Banks, and Banking and State and County Affairs. As part of his legislative record, he advocated a repeal of the county tax assessor law, offering instead a measure providing that only counties expressly so voting should possess that office. He introduced and championed a measure amending the constitution so as to provide that women should have equal suffrage with men in case that at an election held for that purpose, in which only women voted, a majority of all women otherwise qualified should declare a favor of such amendment. Typed for OKGenWeb by Charmaine Keith, October 17, 1998.