The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-09-02
Mississippi Surrenders
Up from Florida came blowing a stranl

And from Mobile Bay to Maurepas Lake the Gulf
Coast awoke, stirring out Of sleep Of centuries.
The wild beauty of this wooded, winding shore
became suddenly a reproach reminding its people
how long they had taken pleasure and neglected
profit.
These friendly, happy homes, scattered haphaz-
ardly through pine and oak they must be made from
rustic retreats into millionaire mansions. These mile
long, rottng piers along which little groups at dawn
and dusk went bathing they must be made into con-
crete causeways And these dangerous laughing waters
Of the Sound must be so flied with tourists and in
vestors that would porpcises come rollck-
Ing at sunrise
There must be progress and prosperity, and the
soil must be thing not to own. but to SELL
And So Theodore G.. Bilbo has been elevated for
the second time in his tempestuous life to the COVER
norship of Mississippi
There can be little doubt that this mans return
to power against such bitter opposition, due in
part to the new culture along the coast Nor
there doubt that his vicory is fraught with novel
possibilities
Until James K. vardaman, once Blbos master.
led the political revolt Of 1870 Mississippi was con-
trolled automatically by ante-bellum regime by
an aristocracy of planters centerng in the courtly
Delta, Of which John Sharp Williams the last
elegant warlock. For in Mississippi alone Of south
ern States, the Old South fingered
vardaman drew his support from what the planters
were pleased to call Cow Country his followers being
a rabble Of small farmers, strengthened here and
there by little bands OF artisans in the miniature
Mississippi cities
Such was the political machinery inherited by
Bilbo. and, even as it had not prevented Vardaman
from going to defeat in 1918, it unable to
Bibo in 1929 Seeking to return in 1923, Blbo was
2anquished quite completely Vardaman. The
Did regime, though battered bit, still ruled.
But new Bilbo went up and down the State in
1927, and he spoke new language. Was Mississippi
the last State in the South to feel the crushing might
Of industrialism? Then Mississippi must change
Was Mississippi still pioneer land? 1t must be no
longer. Mississippi. land Of opportunity, beckoned
through Bilbo to the wealth of the world for Misss-
sippi good place for millionaires to live in and
would be better place to die it, There would
be few restrictions on pleasures and no inheritance
tax upon wealth.
This, in State that had limited by law the amount
Of soil foreign corporation could own, in a State
whose largest city numbered only $4,000 souls this
was something new. And when the ballots were
gone for Bilbo enthusiastically.
To the North it victory for tolerance, proving
that governor of New York might yet carry the
South for Bilbo won despite bitter attempts of his
opponents to make him appear servant of Cath
olicism.
To the South is something more. 1t was, per-
maps the passing of the last fragment of civilization
that was elsewhere gone forever. 1t was, perhaps
the final bow of arstocracy of song and story to
an aristocracy of production and profit