National Affairs: Governor for Mississippi

During the last four years there has hung an almost life-size picture of a skeleton in the office of Mississippi’s short, wry-faced Governor Theodore Gilmore Bilbo. Across the skull was written large: MIKE CONNER. Last week the Democratic voters of Mississippi nominated Mike Conner to enter the executive mansion at Jackson next January, rip down the skeleton, replace his foe, Governor Bilbo.*

Three weeks ago Mississippi held its primary with some 7,000 local candidates on the ballot. High men for Governor were Hugh White, rich lumberman, Mayor of Columbia, and Martin Sennett (“Sure Mike”) Conner, smiling lawyer-farmer of Seminary. Completely turned out then was the Bilbo faction of Mississippi Democracy. In last week’s run-off primary, with 2,000 names on the full ballot, Candidate Conner defeated Candidate White handsomely. “People v. Money” was the campaign issue, with Conner harping on White’s wealth. A typical Conner campaign speech in which the Jackson Daily News, supporting Candidate White, was repeatedly called the Jackson Daily Liar:

“Listen, you high-combed roosters, don’t you goaway from here and say I’m a Socialist because I’m not. . . . You wouldn’t go get a sawmill man and have him perform an operation for appendicitis on you, would you? Well, nobody ever claimed Hugh White ever had a minute’s training in governmental affairs. . . . It’s a money campaign. . . . Everything I am today I owe to my mother and father. . . . Hugh White has spent his whole life in the pursuit of wealth. He says a man should not be elected to office unless he can pay his own campaign expenses. We have 13 millionaires in Mississippi. I don’t see why the people must select their officials from that little group. … I hope the good God above will deliver me from ever running again in a campaign with a ‘big business man.’ “

But chubby-faced Governor-elect Conner is more than a windy swamp politician. Born near Hattiesburg 40 years ago, he was educated at the University of Mississippi, graduated from the Yale Law School at 22. He married his boyhood sweetheart, Alma Graham, now has one daughter. At 23 he was elected to the State House of Representatives and, with the aid of Governor Bilbo during a previous term, elevated to the Speakership where he served eight years. Later he and Governor Bilbo quarreled politically, which accounts for the skeleton. Off the stump Mr. Conner is a good-natured, well-to-do, cultured gentleman, a member of the Methodist Church, owner of the finest private law library in the State.

*Mr. Conner is as good as elected, the November balloting being a mere formality in Democratic Mississippi.