"Trouble Shooter"

A runty little man with a pistol-butt scar on his hollow cheek pattered into an office in the Department of Agriculture last week. He undid a paper package, produced a pair of shears and two pots of paste. With these arranged neatly on his desk, Theodore Gilmore Bilbo, demagog extraordinary and twice (1916-20, 1928-32) Governor of Mississippi, inducted himself into a job announced officially as "having charge of assembling current information records for the Adjustment Administration from news, magazine and other published sources." Paper-clipper Bilbo's reported salary: $6,000.

Paper-clipper Bilbo's first official act was to send his assistant off for an after noon of browsing at the Library of Congress. His next was to admit a platoon of newshawks.

"You know," began the diminutive politician, once jailed, an admitted bribee,* who fired 179 State college professors in one swoop and refused to convene the Mississippi Legislature for fear it would impeach him, "you know, I'm a trouble shooter. If anything goes wrong with this Farm Relief Act, I'm supposed to know about it right away. I keep in touch with the way people are thinking. I'm going to read all kinds of newspapers and magazines."

"And clip them?" asked a reporter.

"That's right. And clip 'em."

"As Governor of Mississippi did you get any ideas about cotton?"

"Yes, I got an idea. We could take up the whole cotton surplus by selling the women of the United States on the idea of wearing cotton stockings. We might even get them to wear cotton lingery."

"Lingery?"

"Sure, lingery. You know, the stuff they wear for underwear. Just think -- the cotton surplus would be eaten up pretty quick, wouldn't it?"

There was a bustle as a photographer hurried in. He set up his camera, efficiently brushed the paste pots aside, stuck a pencil in Mr. Bilbo's hand. "Now, Governor." he briskly directed, "just try to look like you're busy."

*Not for bribery but for contempt of court Theodore Gilmore Bilbo was sentenced to 30 days, of which he served ten, in jail at Oxford. He had refused to testify in a $100,000 seduction suit brought by a Capital stenographer against his good friend Governor Lee Maurice Russell in 1921.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.