"Most Conspiculonsly Despicable"

"Most Conspiculously Despicable"

A politician may blink demagogery, deception, bribery, waste, graft or outright thievery in his associates but, with sound reason, he regards ingratitude as the blackest and basest of crimes. Last week Mississippi's Theodore Gilmore ("The Man") Bilbo made his first real news as a U. S. Senator when he opened fire on a fellow-Mississippian as a double-dyed political ingrate.

Eugene Octave Sykes belongs to one of the few aristocratic Mississippi families which, curiously, has always added its support to the "redneck" Bilbo following. When he was Mississippi's Governor in 1916, The Man Bilbo appointed Eugene Sykes a justice of the State Supreme Court, successfully supported him for election when his appointive term expired. Going into eclipse with his patron, Judge Sykes was rescued therefrom in 1927 by Mississippi's Senator Hubert Durrett Stephens, who got him an appointment to the Federal Radio Commission. When the Radio Commission became the Communications Commission last June, Judge Sykes was continued as chairman of the new body. When Theodore Bilbo entered the Democratic primary against Senator Stephens last year, Chairman Sykes chose to side with his later rather than his earlier benefactor. He made trips from Washington to Mississippi to take part in the campaign, arranged for anti-Bilbo broadcasts, did all in his power "to prevent Theodore G. Bilbo from crossing the Potomac in 1935." In return, Stumpster Bilbo vowed eternal vengeance upon Stumpster Sykes when he did cross the Potomac to the Senate.

Considerably gentled has been Senator Bilbo since he arrived in Washington. Under Senator Pat Harrison's patronage he has been named the ranking new member of every committee he wanted--Agriculture & Forestry, Commerce, District of Columbia, Library. Since Senator Harrison is a friend of Chairman Sykes it was doubtful if Senator Bilbo's vindictiveness would accomplish its purpose. Nevertheless, The Man Bilbo began to make good on his campaign vow last week when he addressed a letter to the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee, urging that Judge Sykes's appointment as Communications Commissioner be denied confirmation. Some Bilboisms:

"The opposition of Judge Eugene 0. Sykes, were he stripped of authority and the glamour that goes with a gilded greatness by virtue of his position on the Communications Commission, would have been but as a pebble dropped into the turbulency of the political seas in Mississippi.

"Judge Eugene 0. Sykes as an uncrowned commissioner walking beneath the stately elms that grow along the sidewalks of his native city, Aberdeen, trying to influence the voters in his own precinct against me, would have exhibited that measure of effectiveness only that is so often blurred by the tears that laughter brings.

"Not so, however, when enthroned with all the power and pomp and prestige that executive authority bestows. ... So effective became his onslaught . . . that I seized upon his perfidious conduct and held it up before high heaven to the scorn and contempt of all good men and women. . . . Beginning in his home town and county I denounced him throughout the entire State as the most conspicuously despicable personifications of ingratitude that ever clouded the horizion of Mississippi politics. . . .

"I would not have the members of your committee for a moment to think that this protest is motivated by a spirit of retaliation, that I am unduly peeved and aggrieved at an injustice or an affront done me personally. To make objection to confirmation upon that unsound basis would be unworthy of a United States Senator. . . .

"The elements of character that go to make up the man, Eugene O. Sykes, are not, I affirm, those that bespeak for him the requisite qualifications for the duties of the office he seeks. A man not only utterly forgetful and at all times oblivious of the rungs in the ladder by which he has climbed, but also disposed to discredit and destroy the indespensable instrumentalities by which he has progressed-- to bite the very hands that formerly fed him--cannot be expected to do justice as between the interests of those placed before him for adjudication. That fine sense of fairness common to and inherent in minds of splendid judicial poise is obtuse in him, and cannot therefore point its way to ah unerring decree. . . ."

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