Evening star., 1944-02-06
Bibo Rose to Senate Post
From Mississippi Log Cabin
Career Demonstrates
He Has Never Been
Afroid to Fight

During long and sometimes
stormy career in the rough-and
tumble of politics, Senator Bilbo,
Democrat, of Mississippi has been
accused by his political enemies of
many things-but there is no rec
ord Of any one saying he wouldn't
fight.
Indeed, "scrappiness" seems the
dominant characteristic of the
diminutive new chairman of the
Senate District Committee. He is
only feet inches tall. He
fought his way up from the obscur-
ity Of Mississippi farm to the
Senate, from the little red school,
house" to Vanderbilt University and
the University of Michigan and from
poverty to comparative affluence.
And in these fights no holds were
barred.
Neither does he lack a strain of
vindictiveness, as some of his politi-
cal foes have come to know.
1t long had been the cherished
ambition of Senator Bilbo's COL
league from Mississippi, the late
Pat Harrison, to be Democratic
leader in the Senate. The oppor-
tunity seemed bright in 1897, when
the death of Senator Robinson of
Arkansas left the post open. But
the vote of Senator Bilbo-the de-
Gliding ballot in close division
gave the job to Senator Barkley.
~. Clashed Over Judgeship.
Earlier. Senator Harrison had in
CURED Senator Bilbo's deep resent
ment by influencing President
Roosevelt to appoint Judge Edwin
R. Holmes to the United States
Circuit Court. Judge Holmes. 1t
developed, had once sentenced Sem
ator Bilbo to Jail for contempt in
Mississippi.
The two Mississippians also had
clashed over the re-appointment of
Judge o. E. Sykes of their State to
the Federal Communications Com
mission.
So Senator Harrison paid for his
colleagues resentment by the loss
of one of the highest honors his
party could bestow
Senator Bilbo is a study in con-
trasts. In the turbulent political
battles of his native State he has
been extremely colorful, even fam
boyant. Calling himself "the man
Bilbo," he has resorted to many
political exhibitions. When he first
ran for the Senate in 1894 he
boasted to country crowds that he
had made the campaign on $40, liv-
ing solely on sardines and crackers,
and thriving on the diets He was
lavish In his promises to redistribute
wealth and tear the veil from around
the invisible forces that control the
Government" His highly oratorical
speeches were in the idiom of the
dirt farmer.
Changed Completely.
But once seated In the austere
atmosphere of the Senate his man
ner changed completely. He fol-
lowed meticulously the unwritten
law that during his first year a
Senator shall be often seen but
seldom heard" When, occasionally,
he spoke to the Senate his phrases
were couched in the best English.
Senator Bilbo, now 66, was born
in 1877 near Poplarville in Pearl
County, Miss. After attending the
public schools, he went to Peabody
College in Nashville, to Vanderbilt
University in the same city and
later to the University of Michigan
Between his elementary and ad-
vanced education lay five years of
teaching. during which he saved
money carefully to prepare for his
career as lawyer, on which he
decided after rejecting an appoint
ment to the Naval Academy, which
he had won in competitive exami-
nation.
The Senator entered politics in
1908, after service in the law Office
of the well-known Gov. Bob Taylor
Of Tennessee. and was elected to
the Mississippi State Senate where
he served until 1912.
In the same year he became
lieutenant governor and in 1915 ad-