Theodore G. Bilbo

Unites States Senator from Mississippi - In office (January 3, 1935 – August 21, 1947)

(This February 1, 1947 op-ed asks the question, “What moral and political duties to its constituents must a political party embrace?”) “For several months prior to the elections of last November which catapulted the Republicans into substantial majorities in both Houses of Congress, and particularly since the GOP-dominated Congress was convened on January 3, the Nation’s editors, and the news and radio commentators have fallen all over each other in pointing out the grave responsibilities which now face the Republican Party as a result of its decisive victory at the polls. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that literally millions of words have been both written and aired on this delicate subject; some spoken with the voice of authority, but the majority of them, just so many words.  Some writers, as was to be expected, have addressed themselves to the moral aspects of the situation.  And, inevitably, this has led to a multi-angled discussion of the victorious Republican Party’s moral obligation to the Negro American.  These points of view, mostly, have sprung from the premise that the GOP was in power when slavery was abolished, and it was the martyred Abraham Lincoln who affixed his signature to the Emancipation Proclamation as President of the United States. The nationally-syndicated columnist, Thomas L. Stokes, is numbered among those who have addressed themselves to this burning issue.  Mr. Stokes, be it said to his credit, does very well by the subject too, except that he, like many others, is inclined to give the Republicans too much credit for the abolition of slavery which, as every realistic student of history concedes, was abolished as a matter of political expediency, and was not prompted solely by humanitarian motives. But on the purely moral issues involved in the GOP victory, columnist Stokes treads upon high ground.  Says he:

‘The Republican Party, in assuming control of Congress, faces in the Senate a great moral issue on which it was created and on which it established itself nationally with Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860. It is the party that abolished Negro slavery. Its opportunity now, after all these years, is to re-establish the Negro’s right to a full exercise of his citizenship through the ballot.  It can make a start in what has come to be known as the Bilbo case. Senator Thomas G. Bilbo (D., Mississippi) has become the symbol before the nation of those forces of repression which would deny the Negro the right to vote in the South.  Furthermore, he is guilty as charged of trying by intimidation to prevent Negroes from voting, as is revealed in the public hearings before the Senate Campaign Expenditures Committee.  Beyond that he said repeatedly before that committee that he did not believe Negroes should have the right to vote. This is the simple issue.  It is enough. If Republicans would expel him from the Senate, they would perform an act of plain justice that not only would give great hope to one of our minorities, the Negro race, but would encourage many people of the South who have been trying to establish this essential right of its Negro citizens. The Negro voting issue is, in itself, sound and sufficient.  One could imagine, were Abraham Lincoln living, that he would brush aside any technicalities, and make his case on the moral issue. A contributory factor as to the Senator’s general fitness is, of course, the allegations of gifts and contributions from war contractors.  This, too, is a moral question, but the other, for its importance in our democracy, is the dominant moral issue.  There the main fight should be made. But the Negro, under our Constitution, is entitled to act himself to improve his lot through the right to vote for public officials.  He should not be the beneficiary of paternalism, however much that has done for him.  It is time for him to be able to stand on his own feet, in his own right.

Republicans have the opportunity to help him achieve that right.  They have the backing of the Supreme Court in its invalidation of the ‘white primary.’ Republicans, in the Senate, can provide the moral force to bolster southerners who are trying to drive out the evil spirit of Bilboism and Talmadgeism.  It is a simple matter of upholding the Constitution.  The issue is clear.  So is the party’s responsibility."

= Albert L. Hinton