National Affairs: Bilbo Bridled

Fourteen years ago U. S. District Judge Edwin Ruthven Holmes of Mississippi sentenced Theodore Gilmore (“The Man”) Bilbo to 30 days in jail for refusing to testify at the trial of his political mate, Governor Lee Maurice Russell, on charges of seducing a State Capitol stenographer. Last week Theodore Gilmore (“The Man”) Bilbo had his chance to get even, with Judge Holmes. His nomination to be United States Circuit Judge, Fifth Circuit, was up for Senate confirmation.

For five hours Senator Bilbo ranted, repeated verbatim a lengthy tirade he recently mailed to all Senators, in which the Judge was compared unfavorably to Lord Chancellor Jeffreys of the Bloody Assizes. Those few Senators who stuck it out paid little attention. In cloakrooms they had previously settled the matter. To aid their popular colleague, Mississippi’s senior Senator Pat Harrison, who was backing the nomination, to show “The Man” Bilbo that neophyte Senators should not make nuisances of themselves on the floor, they swamped (59-to-4) his motion to recommit the nomination to committee, confirmed Judge Holmes’s upping.