Theodore G. Bilbo

Theodore Gilmore Bilbo

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Theodore Gilmore Bilbo (* 13. October 1877 in Juniper Grove, Pearl River County , Mississippi , †  21st August 1947 in New Orleans , Louisiana ) was an American politician of the Democratic Party . Twice (from 1916 to 1920, from 1928 to 1932) he was governor and from 1935 to 1947 senator of the state of Mississippi.

"The Man" - as he was called by his followers - was a supporter of White Supremacy (the "superiority of the white race" ), who expressed his clearly racist views in speeches, legislative proposals, including literary products.

Life

Theodore Bilbo was born in 1877 to James Oliver Bilbo and his wife Beedy (née Wallace) on a small farm in Juniper Grove, a village near Poplarville . Bilbo grew up with seven siblings in very poor circumstances. In order to finance his college attendance and later his studies, he took all kinds of jobs, worked in laundries, mills, as a newspaper seller. After attending public schools he went to the Peabody College in Nashville ( Tennessee ) and studied law at the Law School of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. However, he left both institutions without a degree and initially worked as a school teacher, teaching at the Aaron Academy of Nicholson High School , then at schools in Bayou Encent, Anner, Kiln and Wiggins . He was admitted to the bar in Tennessee in 1908 and opened a law firm in his hometown of Poplarville. Then he decided to turn to politics.

Political career

Mississippi State Senator

Theodore Bilbo as a young politician

Bilbo had his first political success when he was elected to the Mississippi Senate in 1908 . He held this mandate until 1912.

Mississippi Governor

In 1912 he was elected lieutenant governor of Mississippi. He held this office until 1916. Bilbo was elected governor of Mississippi in 1915 and held this office from 1916 to 1920. Since the term of office of the Mississippi governors was limited to one term at the time, he was unable to run again in 1919. Because of this, he ran in the 1920 elections for the Mississippi House of Representatives . However, he failed to get a seat, so he went back to work as a lawyer.

In 1927 he ran again for the office of governor of Mississippi. During this election campaign, the incumbent Governor Dennis Murphree called on the National Guard to prevent the lynching of a black man . Bilbo exploited this incident to his advantage by repeatedly pointing out in his speeches that had he already been in office he would certainly have made a different decision. This appeal to racism helped Bilbo win the gubernatorial election. He became the first Mississippi governor since 1890 to hold this post for two terms. In 1932, Bilbo had to resign from the governor's post again because - as before - the Mississippi rule came into effect, which did not allow a governor to have two consecutive terms.

Senator in the US Congress

But already in the upcoming elections to the US Senate in 1934 he made another political comeback when he was able to beat the incumbent Hubert D. Stephens . As in the gubernatorial elections in 1927, the majority of his voters were drawn from the poor / impoverished white population of Mississippi. The New York Times described then-campaigner Bilbo in an article dated September 30, 1934:

"Hypnotic in his power, a master of invective, and making astute use of his familiarity with the Bible, he swayed the white tenants, small planters and the bankrupt with his assaults on Wall Street. […] Like Huey Long of Louisiana, his stronghold is the rural sections. There he is hailed as a courageous and unfailing defender, and his public appearances have the flavor of revival meetings. "

( “Mesmerizing by his energy, and a master of insulting [political adversaries], he makes astute use of his thorough knowledge of the Bible to defeat white land tenants, small or [already] bankrupt planters through his attacks on Wall Street As with Huey Long in Louisiana , Bilbo's following comes from the rural areas [Mississippi], where he is enthusiastically celebrated as a courageous and reliable defender [of their interests] and his public appearances give the impression of mass evangelism . " )

In the first few years of his time in the Senate, however, Bilbo was rather an inconspicuous "backbencher" and supported Roosevelt's New Deal policy , as the southern states benefited from it.

Opponents of the "anti-lynching bill"

Bilbo's notoriety increased in January 1938 when he, together with the other Senators from the southern states, fronted an anti- lynch bill.

Roosevelt's election victory in 1932 had raised hopes among the black population that decisive steps would now be taken against the ever-increasing number of lynchings by whites of blacks. Mary McLeod Bethune and Walter Francis White , general secretary of the NAACP , two staunch opponents of the lynchings, had supported Roosevelt's election campaign and it was hoped that they would be able to use their influence. On January 3, 1935, an anti-lynch law, the so-called Costigan-Wagner Bill - named after its two main initiators, the Democrats Robert F. Wagner ( New York ) and Edward P. Costigan ( Colorado ) - was actually passed in the US Senate introduced. The law should punish lynching as such, as well as punish police officers who tolerated, participated in, or failed to prosecute such crimes. Above all, however, the criminal proceedings should be drawn from the jurisdiction of the individual states at the state level ( Federal Trials ). As part of the discussion on the bill Smith, was of the opinion that the lynching was simply necessary "to protect the sanctity of our woman-hood" ( "to defend the sanctity of women" ). Despite the submission of thousands of petitions from the black population and civil rights activists, the law failed due to opposition from the Democratic Senators of the southern states, especially since President Roosevelt refused to use his influence because he feared the support of the southern state Democrats in Congress for his new deal Program and to lose in the upcoming elections in 1936.

Another attempt to make lynching a criminal offense was made in 1937/38. A new bill was introduced by Joseph A. Gavagan , a New York Congressman , and Senator Frederick Van Nuys of Indiana . Bilbo and the other Senators of the Southern States did not want to let this bill pass either and started one of the longest filibusters in the history of the United States. The "permanent speeches" began on January 6, 1938 and did not end until January 27, 1938. Bilbo covered those who supported and supported the draft law with swearwords such as "Mulattoes, Octoroons, Quadroons" (see keywords in the wiki ), called Walter Francis White - in an obvious allusion to his black ancestors - an "Ethiopian" ( "Ethiopian" ), and explained (with regard to White) his (real or even simulated) fears:

"When once the flat-nosed Ethiopian, like the camel, gets his proboscis under the tent, he will overthrow the established order of our Saxon civilization."

( "If this flat-nosed Ethiopian should ever succeed, like the camel once did, to stretch his trunk under the edge of the tent, he will overturn the existing order of our Anglo-Saxon civilization." )

And:

“If you succeed in the passage of this bill, you will open the floodgates of hell in the South. Raping, mobbing, lynching, race riots, and crime will be increased a thousandfold; and upon your garments and the garments of those who are responsible for the passage of the measure will be the blood of the raped and outraged daughters of Dixie, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes that the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon white Southern men will not tolerate. "

( "If you get this bill through [the Senate] they will open the floodgates of hell in the southern states. Rape, assault, lynching, racial unrest, crime will multiply a thousand fold; and on your clothes and on the clothes of those who responsible for passing this law, the blood of the raped and molested daughters of Dixie will pour out, as well as the blood of the perpetrators of these crimes, which are not tolerated by the red-blooded Anglo-Saxon white men of the southern states. " )

After almost a month of filibuster, the political opponent was worn down and the law failed.

"White supremacy" ( "superiority of the white race" )

From Bilbo's perspective, on his own scale of values, his, the white race, was clearly superior, the "Negro race" inferior - and inevitably:

"It is the height of folly, to assume that environment, discipline, education, and all other external devices can affect the blood, smooth down inequalities between individuals of the same breed, much less between different breeds, or transmute racial qualities."

( "It is the height of stupidity to claim that the [social] environment, discipline, upbringing and all other external measures can influence the blood and compensate for the inequalities between individuals of the same race, or even between different races, or transform racial characteristics." ) ( Speech on May 24, 1938 / Cong. Rec., 75 Cong., 3 Sess., 7363 )

Obviously, he recognized intellectual relatives in the German National Socialists and saw the ideal of the purebred Aryan master man propagated by the Nazis as a model worth striving for :

“The Germans appreciate the importance of race values. They understand that racial improvement is the greatest asset that any country can have. [...] They know, as few other nations have realized, that the impoverishment of race values ​​contributes more to the impairment and destruction of a civilization than any other agency. "

( "The Germans correctly assess the importance of racial characteristics. They understand that racial improvement is a country's greatest asset. [...] They, like some other nations, have recognized that the deterioration of racial characteristics is more to damage and destruction contributes to a civilization than anything else. " ) ( Speech on May 24, 1938 / Cong. Rec., 75 Cong., 3 Sess. 7361 )

"Greater Liberia"

Nevertheless, he saw the supposedly superior white race threatened by the "Negro race" and demanded racial segregation or, if this could not be carried out, the deportation of the entire black population of the USA to Africa. Bilbo had already put forward these absurd ideas in the US Senate in connection with his rhetorical attacks against the "Anti-lynching Bill" :

“It is essential to the perpetuation of our Anglo-Saxon civilization that white supremacy be maintained, and to maintain our civilization there is only one solution, and that is either by segregation within the United States, or by deportation of the entire Negro race to its native heath, Africa. "

( "It is vital to the survival of our Anglo-Saxon civilization that we maintain the superiority of the white race, and to maintain our civilization there is only one solution, and that is either racial segregation within the United States or deportation of the whole Negro race to their original area of ​​origin, to Africa. " ) ( Speech on May 24, 1938, Cong. Rec., 75th Cong., 3rd Sess., 881 )

With his deportation plans he saw himself on a divine mission, ultimately as God's vicarious agent:

"It is further a plan of the almighty that the Negroes may be transferred back to the land of their forefathers."

( "Incidentally, it is the Almighty's plan that the negroes are returned to the land of their forefathers." ) ( Speech on May 24, 1938 / Cong. Rec., 75 Cong., 3 Sess. 4671 )

While his first remarks were rather vague about the deportation of the black population to Africa, by the time he put his ideas back to the Senate in April 1939 he had already worked out more concrete plans. A “Greater Liberia” was now the destination to which the black population of the USA should be deported according to Bilbo's ideas. The European colonial powers Great Britain and France should - against cancellation of their debts with the USA - be induced to make parts of their surrounding colonies available.

Bilbo's racism was not discussed in the media and he was still valued as an election campaigner within the Democratic Party. Senator Joseph F. Guffey ( Pennsylvania ) called him "tops among Southern statesmen as a campaigner" ( "one of the greats among the election campaigners of the southern states" ). And so Bilbo had no difficulties in keeping his senatorial post in the upcoming Senate election in 1940.

Beginning opposition

It was only in the course of the Second World War and the associated greater awareness of racism - also within one's own country - that public attitudes changed. Bilbo's racist attacks attracted increasing attention. When he said in a speech to Mississippi Congress on March 22, 1944:

“When this war is over and more than two million Negro soldiers, whose minds have been filled and poisoned with political and social equality stuff, return and 'hell breaks out' all over the country, I think I'll get more help in settling the Negroes in Africa. "

( “Once this war is over and [then] more than 2 million Negro soldiers [to the US] come back with their heads filled and poisoned with this stuff of political and social equality, and hell in this country breaks out, then, I suspect, I will get more support [for my plan] to relocate the negroes to Africa. ” ) ( Washington Post, March 23, 1944 )

... wrote the Washington Post the following day:

“Dr. Goebbels himself could not have hewed more faithfully to Nazi racial doctrines ” ( “ Even Dr. Goebbels could not have described the racial doctrine of the Nazis more carefully. ” ) And she asked: “ Is there any possible reason then for keeping at the head of the District of Columbia a man who is using Hitlerian doctrine to disrupt national unity and sow seeds of discord and make our democracy appear ridiculous before the world? "

( "Is there any reasonable reason for a man who uses Hitler's teachings, who sows discord and makes our democracy around the world ridiculous, to stay at the head of the District of Columbia?" ) ( Washington Post, March 23rd 1944 )

anti-Semitism

When debates about the Fair Employment Practices Committee ( FEPC ) took place in Congress in the summer of 1944, anti-Semitism was added to Bilbo's racism .

( The FEPC (later: Fair Employment Practices Commission / FEPC) was set up by President Roosevelt to end discrimination in the world of work based on race, creed, color, or nationality. )

In the debate leaving Bilbo a letter from a "old friend" ( "an old friend of mine" ). This "old friend" supposedly wrote him the following:

"I continuously travel the United States and give my word from close examination that the birds behind all this social race equality stuff are Jews."

( "I travel around the United States constantly and upon scrutiny, I give my word d 'on that the knickers behind all this social and racial equality stuff are Jews." ) ( Cong. Rec., 79 Cong., 1 Sess., 6809 )

Bilbo then turned to the ethnic makeup of FEPC workers and asked:

"Do Senators propose that we spend $ 446,000 of the people's money for 66 Negroes, 12 Jews, a few gentiles, and two Japs, just to be 'lollypops' for this country, 'sugar boys' going around pacifying?"

( "Are the [gentlemen assembled here] senators really suggesting that we should spend $ 446,000 in taxpayers' money on 66 Negroes, 12 Jews, a few Christians and 2 Japs? And all just to be the 'lollipops' of this country , the 'sugar tubs' that run around to ensure peace [in the world of work]? " ) ( Cong. Rec., 79 Cong., 1 Sess., 6812 )

In light of these failures, The Nation newspaper wrote :

"Senator Bilbo's exhibition last Thursday made it appear that at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives we had destroyed Hitler's racial obscenity in Europe only to have it parade in all its shameless arrogance at the very center of our democracy."

( "The appearance of Senator Bilbo last Thursday gives the impression that we have obviously destroyed Hitler's racial madness in Europe, at the cost of thousands of lives, only so that we can now bring him here with us, at the center of democracy, to be able to see marching in all his shameless arrogance. " ) ( The Nation, July 7, 1945 )

The Nation added:

“Perhaps we should warn the other nations that Bilbo is an atavistic survival and not an effective symbol of American democracy. [...] The challenge is nothing less than to extirpate from American public life all the evil intolerance that Bilbo and Rankin personify. "

( "Perhaps we should warn the other nations that Bilbo is [just] a long-lived evolutionary holdover, and is not a symbol of current American democracy. [...] The challenge is all this vicious intolerance that Bilbo and Rankin personify, exterminated from the public life of the United States. " ) ( The Nation, July 7, 1945 )

(Rankin = John E. Rankin * 1882; † 1960, Democratic Party of the USA / Congress / House of Representatives Mississippi 1921–1953 (67th - 82nd congr.) - see wiki)

The amalgamation of racism and anti-Semitism became clear again in a letter he wrote to the Secretary General of the National Committee to Combat Anti-Semitism , Leonard E. Golditch :

“There are five million Jews in the United States and the majority of them are fine public citizens, but if Jews of your type don't quit sponsoring and fraternizing with the Negro race you are going to arouse so much opposition that they will get a very strong invitation to pack up and resettle in Palestine, the homeland of the Jews, just as we propose to provide for the voluntary resettlement of the American Negro in West Africa their fatherland. Now do not pop-off and say I am in favor of sending the Jews to Palestine. What I am trying to say to you is that there are just a few of you New York 'kikes' that are fraternizing and socializing with the Negroes for selfish and political reasons and if you keep it up you will arouse the opposition of the better class of your race. "

( “There are about 5 million Jews in the United States, and the majority of them are all really fine citizens, but if Jews of your kind don't stop supporting and fraternizing with the Negro race, you will face so much resistance cause that you will be asked to pack your things and move to Palestine, the homeland of the Jews, just as we propose to support the voluntary relocation of the negroes to West Africa, their homeland. Now don't switch off right away, because you think I would be in favor of sending the Jews to Palestine. I'm just trying to make it clear to you that there are very few of you New York Kikes who fraternize with the Negroes for selfish and political reasons, and that if you go on like this you will incite opposition from the better part of your race. ” ) ( Newsweek, Dec. August 1945 + Time August 6, 1945 )

Last election campaign

In January 1946, Bilbo announced that he would seek re-election in the upcoming Senate elections. Among other things, he continued to assure the Fair Employment Practices Commission that he wanted to fight the Anti-lynching Bill :

“I call on every red-blooded white man to use any means to keep the niggers away from the polls; if you don't understand what that means you are just plain dumb. "

( "I call on every red-blooded white man to do whatever it takes to keep the niggers off the ballot box. [And] if you don't see what I'm trying to tell you, you're just stupid." ) ( Time, July 1, 1946 )

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, this language was common to southern politicians. Many of them - such as James Eastland , Richard B. Russell , Strom Thurmond or George Wallace - won their elections on the racism ticket until the 1960s. However, they did not proclaim their racism as bluntly as Bilbo, but rather described their views with sentences like "the southern states have to be protected from agitators who come from outside" or similar. Openly defamatory words like "niggers" or "kikes" but very seldom escaped her lips.

There were three developments - closely linked to World War II - that Bilbo now opposed:

First of all, it was the war against Nazi Germany and the accompanying exposure of the Holocaust that made a significant contribution to sensitizing the white elite to racist attacks - also in their own country.

In addition, if racial segregation still prevailed in the US armed forces at the beginning of the Second World War, this was largely repealed by 1942 at the urging of the civil rights movement. The war experiences in particular - there were numerous highly decorated war heroes with black skin - led to a strengthening of the self-confidence of the colored soldiers (by the end of the war, their number was over 1 million) and, of course, to a clearer perception of the unchanged persistent racial segregation in their home country, the USA . Because while the colored soldiers in Europe and Asia fought for the United States, the black population in the United States itself, especially in the southern states, continued to face the same difficulties.

On the occasion of his return to the United States at the end of the war, one colored army member from Alabama said:

“I spent four years in the Army to free a bunch of Dutchmen and Frenchmen, and I'm hanged if I'm going to let the Alabama version of the Germans kick me around when I get home. No sireebob! I went into the army a nigger; I'm coming out a man. "

( "I spent four years in the army freeing a bunch of Dutch and French people, and I'll be damned if I go back home and let that Alabama version of the Nazis keep pushing me around. No Sirrr When I joined the army, I was a nigger. But I'm leaving the army [now] and I'm a man. " )

Thirdly, after the end of World War II, the USA claimed to be the leading power of the so-called “free world” . Racism in their own country turned out to be an obvious contradiction and Achilles heel. The Cold War was still in its early phase at that time, but Soviet propaganda was already increasingly picking up on racism within the USA, especially the numerous lynchings that occurred in 1945/46.

"Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux ..."

The growing, constantly expanding opposition allowed Bilbo to “step out of himself” completely : In August 1946 he boasted on the radio program “Meet the Press” that he was and still is a member of the Ku Klux Klan :

“No man can leave the clan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux. " (New York Times, August 10, 1946)

( "No one can ever leave the Klan. He swears not to do so. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux." )

The end

In 1946, Bilbo was elected US Senator for the third time. He beat his four rival candidates in the Democratic primary with 51 percent of the vote. In the actual election in November, as in 1934 and 1940, he had no opposing candidate. But his problems grew steadily. In September 1946, civil rights groups filed complaints against Bilbo with the US Senate. Two special committees then investigated the allegations made against Bilbo. With regard to its campaigning practices, the first committee came to the conclusion that it had conducted a crude and tasteless campaign and that it should therefore resign. The second committee revealed that he had poured thousands of dollars donated to his election campaign into his own pocket.

The reports of the two committees were already available when the 80th Congress met for the first time on January 3, 1947. At this opening session, the new - Republican - majority prohibited Bilbo from taking his seat. Bilbo should never take it again. He went to New Orleans to have surgery in a hospital for his esophageal cancer. Six months later - on August 21, 1947 - Theodore G. Bilbo died in this hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana.

"Racial segregation or bastardization"

Notes on Bilbo's 1947 book: Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization.

Private

Theodore G. Bilbo married Lillian S. (née Herrington) on May 25, 1898. The daughter Jessie W. (married Smith) was born from the marriage. Lillian Bilbo (Herrington) died in 1899. Theodore G. Bilbo married Linda R. (nee Gaddy). The marriage was divorced again in 1938. From this marriage the son Theodore G. Bilbo, Jr. was born.

statue

In the Capitol in Mississippi's capital Jackson, a statue of Bilbo, designed in 1953 by the German sculptor Fritz Behn , stood in the center of the rotunda for several years . Today the statue has been moved to a conference room of the Capitol and is occasionally used as a coat hook.

literature

• Reinhard Luthin: H. Theodore G. Bilbo: 'The Man' of Mississippi. In: American Demagogues: Twentieth Century. 1954, pp. 44-76. (Reprint: Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA 1959)
• Adwin Wigfall Green: The Man Bilbo. 1963. (Reprint. Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut 1976)
• Jerry A. Hendrix: Theodore G. Bilbo: Evangelist of Racial Purity. In: Cal M. Logue, Howard Dorgan (Eds.): The Oratory of Southern Demagogues. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge 1981, pp. 151-172.
• Chester M. Morgan: Redneck Liberal: Theodore G. Bilbo and the New Deal. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge 1985.
• Theodore Gilmore Bilbo: Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization. Dream House Publishing, Poplarville, MS 1947.

Web links

Commons : Theodore G. Bilbo  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Theodore G. Bilbo  - Quotes

• Theodore G. Bilbo in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Theodore G. Bilbo in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• Theodore G. Bilbo in the National Governors Association (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ from Smith's speech
2. ↑ article in the Southeast Missourian (Engl.) ( Memento of 4 July 2013, Internet Archive )