Indestructible Man

MISSISSIPPI Indestructible Man

Theodore Gilmore ("The Man") Bilbo of Mississippi, a chunky fighting cock who campaigns in a red necktie tastefully embellished with a diamond horseshoe stickpin, is probably the most indestructible man in U. S. politics. For one thing, he has been in jail (in 1923, for refusing to testify at the trial for seduction of his hand-picked successor as Governor). In 1932, when he finished his second gubernatorial term, which had been enlivened by an episode in the Governor's office involving a blonde and a pistol shot, he and Mississippi were both practically bankrupt. Shelved in Washington by kindly fellow Democrats with a $6,000-a-year job clipping newspapers, The Man two years later bounced into the U. S. Senate.

This year, when The Man's turn came to run for renomination. he was swimming up to his big ears in more political hot water than usual. He had raised the hackles of his stooped, shambling, shrewd colleague, Pat Harrison, by backing onetime Governor Martin Sennett ("Mike") Conner against Harrison for the Senate in 1936, and of Mike Conner, by helping to beat him for the Governorship last year. Worse, his fat, bespectacled ex-wife Linda publicly denounced him for cruelty and infidelity. Opposed by popular onetime Governor Hugh Lawson White for the

Democratic Senatorial nomination (i.e., election), embattled Theodore Bilbo returned from Washington a fortnight ago to face his many enemies. For two weeks, he tramped the State in his red necktie and howled. When the votes were counted last week. Theodore Gilmore Bilbo, still indestructible at 62, was headed back to Washington for six more years.

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