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 Copy 1 
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 OP 
 
 SENATOR LeROY PERCY 
 
 Before the Mississippi Legislature 
 and Resolutions Adopted l)y 
 the Legislature in Re- 
 gard to the Sena- 
 torial Election 
 
F3 4-I 
 
 Li:RoY Pkkcy 
 
 By trftOB'w 
 
 OCT 8 \9». 
 
mnitsA ^tatBS ^enatr 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 To the Voters of Mississippi: 
 
 I am sending you in this pamphlet the speeches 
 and resolutions, not because I think that there is 
 either literary excellence or oratorical ability 
 manifested by the speeches, but 
 
 First : Because I am personally unacquainted 
 with thousands of the voters of the State, many 
 of whom I will not have the opportunity of meet- 
 ing during the short time allowed for a canvass 
 of the State, and these speeches made at crucial 
 times during a heated contest before the Legis- 
 lature may assist you in forming some estimate 
 of me. 
 
 Second : I want every Mississippian to know 
 that the Legislature of the State, after a full and 
 complete investigation, has said by a practically 
 unanimous vote, concurred in by those who op- 
 posed as well as those who supported me, that 
 no shadow of dishonor rests upon the Legisla- 
 ture of the State, upon no one of its eighty- 
 seven members who voted for me, or upon the 
 commission which I received from that Legisla- 
 ture to represent the State of Mississippi in the 
 United States Senate. 
 
 If you are willing that I should represent the 
 State in the United States Senate, I ask your 
 support. If you are in doubt about it, I ask 
 that you withhold judgment until I have the op- 
 portunity of meeting you. 
 
 ^^ 
 
Speech Made to the Legislative Caucus in Re- 
 sponse to an Invitation to Speak Extended 
 by the Caucus to the Candidates for die 
 United States Senate. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, GENTLKxrEN of the Caucus and 
 Fellow Democrats : 
 
 ''Government is • a business — the business of 
 handHng the affairs of the nation and disbursing 
 the money collected by taxation in the manner 
 which best conduces to the happiness and wel- 
 fare of the people. We stand at the threshold 
 of an era of unparalleled material prosperity, and 
 the eyes of the whole country seem to be turned 
 toward the South, and toward no part of the 
 South more than toward Mississippi. 
 
 "We are only a partially developed State, and 
 stand sorely in need of government aid, govern- 
 ment aid for improving navigation of our great 
 river and making it capable of bearing in ocean- 
 going steamers the commerce of the great West. 
 Money is needed for cleaning out and making 
 navigable its many tributaries, for the improve- 
 ment of our magnificent ports on the southern 
 coast, for the reclamation of our swamp lands 
 by drainage, for the development of our agri- 
 culture in the study of soil and the protection 
 of this from noxious insects. And while in the 
 past Mississippi has received but scant aid from 
 the Government, the time is at hand when she 
 can receive all that may be due her. 
 
 sectional lines obliterated. 
 
 "Sectional lines have been obliterated, the peo- 
 ple of the Union, understanding each other bet- 
 ter, have drawn closer together in the bonds of 
 a common brotherhood. 
 
 "Not only an era of prosperity, but one of peace 
 and good will seems to have come to us, and 
 the man that you need in the United States Sen- 
 ate is the one that can best, honorably, obtain 
 for you that consideration to which you are fairly 
 entitled. This high office is not a bauble to be 
 lightly tossed to any man to gratify his personal 
 ambition. It is a trust to be bestowed upon him 
 who can best subserve the interests of the people 
 of the State of Mississippi, and upon j^ou de- 
 volves the responsibility of naming the man. 
 
 "But little can be accomplished through spec- 
 tacular statesmanship, engaged in an ill-advised 
 pursuit of fads and chimeras, through one who 
 is not in position to accept aid honorably prof- 
 fered, who permits vituperation, insult and abuse 
 to usurp the place of argument, who excites de- 
 rision abroad and discord at home. 
 
"In other States where there arc two parlies 
 these parties enunciate their respective platforms, 
 and on these platforms their candidates do battle, 
 but in Mississippi, where w'e have only one part}-, 
 the candidates fight only on the old Democratic 
 platform, unless some candidate hy his methods 
 and issues creates new questions, and if such 
 candidate is named, his methods and issues then 
 become the methods and issues of the Democratic 
 party of the State. And in this case the crisis 
 that has, in my opinion, come to the Democratic 
 party, arises out of the political methods and 
 issues enunciated by Governor Vardaman. 
 
 "We have come to the parting of the ways ; 
 we either follow the blazed path of established 
 Democratic principles or we wander off to strange 
 gods and commit ourselves to the advocacy of 
 unfamiliar doctrines, demagogic in nature and 
 hurtful in effect. 
 
 PROTEST AG.AIXST V.\RDAM.\N. 
 
 ■"I protest against the Democracy of the State 
 of Mississippi being committed to the political 
 methods used and issues created by Governor 
 Vardaman. They can bring to the State no good 
 from abroad, but over and above and beyond 
 everything else, I want the Democracy of the 
 State of Mississippi to put the brand of its dis- 
 approval now and forever upon any man who 
 seeks, for the purpose of political gain, to breed 
 discord and strife between the two races, which, 
 under the fiat of an Almighty God, have been 
 placed on Alississippi soil for tlie purpose of there 
 working out their common destiny. 
 
 "I am not one of those who say that there is 
 no negro problem. He who fails to see it is 
 blind. He who fails to admit it is imtrue to him- 
 self and to his people. There is a problem, 
 the greatest probably that ever confronted an 
 Anglo-Saxon race — that of endeavoring to admin- 
 ister government so as to preserve harmony and 
 conduce to the happiness of two races as dissim- 
 ilar in their character, habits and conditions as 
 the Caucasian and the negro. How is it to be 
 solved? How- have Mississippians treated the 
 problem that confronted them in the past? Her 
 illustrious leaders — Lamar, George, Walthall, 
 Lowry, Stone, Street and others — with the solid 
 yeomanry of the State at their backs, snatched 
 law and order from the chaos of carpet bag rule 
 and built and created government and civilization 
 out of the anarchy of negro domination. To 
 •whom did they call for assistance? To the God 
 that rules over the destinies of nations. By 
 His aid and with their own courage and char- 
 acter they met and conquered those dangers, 
 creating a constitution that has been the model 
 for the constitution of every other Southern 
 State — one that answered, when it was created, 
 every purpose for which it was intended and to- 
 day." twenty years after its creation, is in first- 
 
class working order and requires no tinkering 
 with by would-be statesmen. 
 
 "There never was an hour in the history of the 
 State when the constitution of this State was 
 better performing the purposes for which it was 
 designed than now. Not only is white supremacy 
 absolutely established in every office, from that of 
 constable to Supreme Court judge, but is recog- 
 nized and acquiesced in by the negroes, as every 
 man of you know. If any danger should arise of 
 which the present gives no promise those dangers 
 must be met. Those problems, whatever they 
 may be, must be solved by Mississippians for 
 themselves, without any aid from beyond the 
 State, by State legislation and without aid by 
 national legislation. 
 
 "Twice has the Federal Government taken part 
 in the race question in Mississippi; once when it 
 issued the proclamation of emancipation, and once 
 again when it passed the amendments giving the 
 negro the right of suflfrage. Do you want aid of 
 that kind? No, my fellow-countrymen. Do as 
 you see fit with your office of Senator, but, for 
 God's sake, go home taking with you in your 
 breast to your people and to your children the 
 truth that the negro question must be handled 
 by us alone, and let them not lay awake like a 
 child crying in the night for assistance which 
 will never come to their aid. « 
 
 NO NEGRO SUFFRAGE. 
 
 "There is today no such thing as negro suffrage 
 in Mississippi, and never will be as long as the 
 white men of the State stand together. What is 
 the cost of white supremacy? It is simply that 
 the white people of the State are compelled to 
 stand shoulder to shoulder, driven together and 
 held together by a common danger. The problem 
 is great in itself, but is one which can be handled 
 day by day as it develops, if freed from the agi- 
 tation and discord created by demagoguery. 
 
 "What is the principle to which Governor Var- 
 daman means to commit the Democracy of the 
 State of Mississippi, when he says that his un- 
 ending fight shall be for the repeal of the fif- 
 teenth and modification of the fourteenth amend- 
 ment? Unless this is intended for home con- 
 sumption alone, for vote-getting and his politi- 
 cal use, to be pigeon-holed in Washington, it 
 means that he advocates the ceaseless agitation 
 of this question by the people of the South until 
 the end is accomplished. 
 
 "There is nothing new in the question itself. 
 For the past twenty years measures of this sort 
 have been introduced into either branch of the 
 houses of Congress. The novelty consists only 
 in the commitment of the South to the general 
 and untiring agitation of the question. I shrink 
 back affrighted from the consequences of such 
 a policy. However monumental may be the ego- 
 tism of any advocate of this plan, no one prom- 
 
ises or hopes that the resuU shall be attained 
 within a generation. It means then that through 
 the days and through the months and through the 
 years that are to come it is to be continually 
 agitated, abuse and vituperation is to be heaped 
 upon the negro in order to prove what every man 
 in Mississippi knows, that he should not be al- 
 lowed to exercise the right of suffrage. The pas- 
 sions of both races are to be appealed to, the 
 negro is to be rendered discontented and mor- 
 bid, dissatisfied and restless. 
 
 DANGER OF DISCONTENT. 
 
 "Gentlemen, the prosperity of no country can 
 bear the burden of a discontented peasantry ; with 
 the passions of both races inflamed, lawlessness 
 is sure to be encouraged and if allowed to run 
 rampant clashes will occur. Unless we would 
 deliberately make a bad matter worse we ought 
 to plan no campaign of discord and dissension, 
 leaving behind its trail of evil, struggling for 
 what no sane thought holds can be attained. If 
 the repeal of this amendment could even come 
 to us it will come from without, not within the 
 South. It will come from the knowledge that 
 the other sections of the Union have of the negro, 
 by their own troubles with him, and the coming 
 of it would only be delayed and retarded by agi- 
 tation here. 
 
 "Furthermore, he who believes that doing away 
 with the right of suffrage solves the race question 
 has no conception of the magnitude of the ques- 
 tion. You might as well lather the negro's head 
 to cure a case of Asiatic cholera — it is but skin 
 treatment. The problem lies in the very exist- 
 ence of the two races in equal numbers on com- 
 mon soil, and the problem exists with or without 
 the right of suffrage. 
 
 "If the relief is only to come to the people of 
 the South through the repeal of the fifteenth and 
 the modification of the fourteenth amendment 
 brought about by ceaseless agitation from the 
 South through the years to come of this ques- 
 tion, then, my fellow-countrymen, we shall go 
 through an era of chaos, disorder, ruin and de- 
 spair, by which even the horrors of reconstruc- 
 tion will pale into insignificance. 
 
 "The illustrious statesmen of Mississippi, 
 George, Walthall, and more than any of them. 
 Lamar, have all advocated in the past the policy 
 of developing and bringing out the best that is 
 in the inferior race by just, conciliatory treat- 
 ment. Can it be that when we held them great 
 we worshipped idols with feet of clay? Has 
 there never been but one great tree in the Mis- 
 sissippi forest of statesmen? 
 
 SOLUTION OF THE QUESTION. 
 
 "No, fellow-Democrats, foreign help and na- 
 tional legislation will bring you no relief. The 
 burden of solving this question is with you. The 
 
burden itself rests on your shoulders, and on your 
 brains and your intelligence and your character 
 you must rely for the handling of it, for the solu- 
 tion of the question. And unless you are degen- 
 erate sons of great sires you need not be afraid 
 of the result. 
 
 "The question is not one to be settled today, 
 nor tomorrow, but is with us through the years 
 as far as the eye of mortal man can reach. It 
 must be handled conservatively, not radically; 
 patiently, not hastily; justly, not harshly; but, 
 above all, in kindness and in charity for the 
 race which is condemned always to live under 
 the white man's rule and the white man's govern- 
 ment, administered by the white man. 
 
 "While T am no dreamer of dreams, yet, look- 
 ing into the future, I believe I can see the twO' 
 races working out their common destiny in peace, 
 good will and harmony — the negro race satisfied 
 and industrious, the white race grown by the 
 greater danger which it has encountered, by the 
 constant exercise of its noble qualities, to be the 
 highest and best product of the Anglo-Saxon 
 civilization that has come down the river of time."' 
 
 Reply to an Attack Made by Governor Varda- 
 man in the Issue Upon the Senatorial Can- 
 didates and the Legislature. 
 
 It has been a cause of congratulation not only 
 among the members of the legislature, but 
 throughout the State, that the fight for the sena- 
 torial succession has been singularly free from 
 acrimony and personalities. 
 
 Ex-Governor Vardaman, however, in The Issue 
 of January 29th, publishes an article entitled 
 "Some Reasons Why the Conservatives Are 
 Fighting Vardaman for the Senate," in which, 
 after enumerating his virtues, he claims that he 
 is being opposed for "that one act of fidelity to 
 the people" evinced by his veto of the bill au- 
 thorizing the Mobile and Ohio and the Southern 
 Railroads to merge, and proceeds to state : "Every 
 railroad attorney, the representatives of the lum- 
 ber trust, the oil trust, the whiskey trust, and 
 every other trust that does business in the State 
 of Mississippi have their agents in Jackson fight- 
 ing his nomination. Let a man deny it, and I 
 will give him the names and let the people judge 
 for themselves." 
 
 He further states : "After the senatorial con- 
 test is over I am going to write a full historj^ 
 of the contest, giving every man's record as it is 
 understood." This is mere empty vaporing, or a 
 deliberate charge that all of the trusts and cor- 
 porate influences in the State of Mississippi are 
 actively engaged in corrupting the legislature in 
 order to 1)ring about Vardaman's defeat ; that 
 only the pure in Iieart arc supporting him, and 
 
only such legislators are to be found opposing 
 him as have been corrupted and debauched by 
 trust and corporate iniiuence. 
 
 As in announcing my candidacy I plead guilty 
 to the charge of making a living practicing law, 
 accepting individual or corporate practice, and 
 did not boast of being a briefless barrister de- 
 pendent upon the charity of my friends or the 
 forbearance of my creditors, it may not appear 
 presumptuous or egotistical in me to assume that 
 I am referred to as one of the opposition em- 
 ploying such improper influences to defeat Var- 
 daman's nomination. 
 
 I emphatically deny that any improper influ- 
 ence is engaged in forwarding my candidacy, and 
 so far as the article applies to me, I challenge 
 the truthfulness of the statement and call for the 
 proof. 
 
 I ask that the names of all corporate represen- 
 tatives who are endeavoring to accomplish the 
 defeat of Vardaman be given, that it be stated 
 for whose nomination thev are working and the 
 methods employed by them ; what legislators 
 have been debauched bv them, and the honesty of 
 what legislators is being undermined by them. 
 
 In the supreme contentment of his marvelous 
 egotism the radical candidate apparently believes 
 that only debauchery of the legislature can ac- 
 count for opposition to him. But, passing over 
 the fact that many conservative legislators re- 
 gard him as a reckless agitator and a demagogic 
 strife-breeder, can not there be found in his 
 vituperation and vicious abuse of people high in 
 church and state sufficient reasons for a conser- 
 vative legislator, even though uncorrupted, to 
 hesitate about naming him as the senatorial 
 spokesman for the State of Mississippi? 
 
 No man, however loved he might be, or ever 
 exalted was his position, has been shielded either 
 by the dignity of his office or the esteem of his 
 fellow man from this coarse abuse, nor has wo- 
 man been spared. Illustrative of this, speaking 
 of Dr. Bailey; the editor of the Baptist Record, 
 in his paper, the Greenwood Commomvealth of 
 August 15, 1902, this language is used : 
 
 "This strange mingliii!: of pretended piety and 
 piss-aiit malevolence of the stupid parson and the 
 unscrupulous politican of unfathomable ignorance 
 and asinine wisdom, of the dirty tool in their 
 dirtier hands of the stili dirtier manipulator, and 
 OTcr and above all, as high as the sparkling 
 Pleiades hang above the groveling earth, the cheap, 
 pusillanimous qualities of this Christ but * * * 
 discrediting real eighteen carat fraud but for one 
 of these little nubbin-stud, self-sanctified theologi- 
 cal runts of the type who edits the Baptist. I have 
 not the language to express the depth of my 
 commiseration and contempt." 
 
 In referring to Dr. Quincy Ewing, a most 
 highly esteemed and Iclovcd pastor of the Epis- 
 copal Church at Greenville, Mississippi, who had 
 
preached a sermon which did not suit the radical 
 candidate, he said : 
 
 "The lurid and hell-belching utterances of the 
 Greenville clergyman and other sprightly mis- 
 takes of his class will not reduce the number of 
 lynchings in Mississippi, or anyzvhere else, but 
 they will give this gentleman a little notoriety 
 which after all seems to be the great desideratum. 
 I think this clerical Don Quixote would like to 
 have a better paying job in a northern city and 
 fell upon this plan as the cheapest and most ef- 
 fectual zvay of advertisement for it. I hope to 
 God he may get it." 
 
 He has never denied that in referring to the 
 lamented Bishop Galloway he mentioned him as 
 "chasing around the country with a belly full of 
 hot air and yellow legged chickens airing his 
 views on the negro question." 
 
 And referring to the unfortunate accident which 
 happened at The Coliseum in Jackson when 
 Bishop Galloway was injured by the falling of the 
 platform while attending a lecture of Booker 
 Washington, in The Issue of October 10, 1908, he 
 said : 
 
 "At the conclusion of Booker's speech at the 
 Coliseum in the city of Jackson the jim crow 
 apartment which was occupied by some select 
 white folks fell in. I am glad that no one was 
 killed or seriously wounded, but especially the 
 negroes. The white people who attended were 
 out of place and a few scratches and bruist^s, lest 
 liats and torn coattails, and being sat upon by a 
 few rancid negro women were no more than they 
 deserved. I am opposed to zvhite folks and ne- 
 groes associating even on such occasions as this. 
 The negro can't stand it and I am in favor of pro- 
 tecting the negro in his racial rights." 
 
 Three dififerent presidents of the United States 
 in recent years have passed through the State 
 or visited it as honored guests. Referring to the 
 expected visit to the State of William McKinley, 
 probably the most beloved president since the 
 war, and the one who first undertook to obliter- 
 ate sectional lines and who endeavored to secure 
 legislation providing for the care of Confederate 
 graves by the National Government, when Mc- 
 Kinley had been invited by the Governor of the 
 State to pass through the State in the day time 
 in order to see it, he expressed the wish through 
 his paper that "he zvould pass through the .'itate 
 on an August night in a box car filled zvith 
 szveaty negroes zvith the crezices stopped up so 
 that the effluvia from the negroes might not 
 escape." 
 
 On a very recent occasion when President Taft 
 was to be the guest, by request, of the city of 
 Jackson, he referred to him as follows : 
 
 "He is addicted to golf, guff and gab. He Jias 
 a face zvith a smile which is his largest political 
 asset and which he has cultivated until it has 
 become as fast set as the grin about the mouth 
 
 10 
 
of a defunct feline. He has little twinkling por- 
 cine eyes and a dew-lap under his chin. His ut- 
 terances are ponderous platitudes and the apo- 
 theosis of the obvious." 
 
 Referring to President Roosevelt, in The Com- 
 fiionwcaltli of January 10, 1903, he uses the ex- 
 pression (that is the paper was being edited by 
 him, and I have heard of no public denial being 
 made of the authorship) : 
 
 "It is said that men follow the bent of their 
 genius, that pre-natal influences are often potent 
 in shaping thoughts and ideas of after life. Prob- 
 ably old lady Roosevelt during the period of 
 gestation was frightened by a dog and that fact 
 may account for the qualities of the male pup 
 which are so prominent in Teddy. I would not 
 do either an injustice, but I am disposed to apolo- 
 gise to the dog for mentioning it." 
 
 This was written about a Southern lady. Is 
 the boasted spirit of Southern chivalry so dead 
 that a brutal utterance of this nature is to be 
 stamped with the approval of the men of Mis- 
 sissippi? 
 
 Does the indecency of these utterances furnish 
 no reason for a conservative legislator and Mis- 
 sissippi gentleman, even though uncorrupted by 
 corporate wealth to hesitate about naming the 
 man who uttered them as United States Senator, 
 realizing that thereby his ability to wield any 
 influence for the good of the State has been de- 
 stroyed ? 
 
 Whether I be named as United States Senator 
 is a matter of trivial importance to the State of 
 Mississippi. But Governor Vardaman is known 
 to the people of the United States only by his 
 utterances, and the legislature of the State of 
 Mississippi should bear well in mind the fact that 
 the attention of the entire South is focused upon 
 it, and that the selection of Vardaman for the 
 Senate will be held to indicate sympathy with and 
 endorsement of his many shocking utterances. 
 
 Speech to the Caucus Upon Being Elected to 
 the United States Senate. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Fellow Democrats : I have 
 prepared so many speeches of withdrawal, so 
 many speeches of resignation, and have been 
 so much engaged in the canvass which has ended 
 tonight that I have really had no time to pre- 
 pare the speech I am now called upon to make. 
 
 No more stubborn fight has ever been made 
 by a braver foe in the history of Mississippi than 
 has been waged in this senatorial contest (ap- 
 plause), and if discouragement and gloom have 
 sometimes been with him in the past weary 
 weeks I assure you they have been familiar com- 
 panions with us. 
 
 11 
 
He would have been an optimist indeed who 
 believed that out of this canvass he certainly 
 foresaw victory. 
 
 The long weeks of struggle are over. You 
 have made your choice, and the fight has been 
 made, I believe, I trust, I hope so as to leave 
 as few heart burns behind it as a fight of such 
 intensity and duration could ever leave. 
 
 The members who voted against me and have 
 worked against me, I want to thank for the uni- 
 form, unfailing courtesy, kindness and consid- 
 eration which they have ever shown me. 
 
 For the men who stood by me, words absolutely 
 fail me to tell them one hundredth part of the 
 affection and the love that the companionship 
 of this struggle has kindled in my breast (ap- 
 plause). As long as life lasts, and wherever I 
 may be, I am ready to do their bidding and their 
 call wherever honor and duty do not stand in 
 the pathway. 
 
 In going to the Senate, the exalted position 
 to which you have by your votes selected me, 
 the responsibility it places upon me absolutely 
 destroys any feeling of elation over the vic- 
 tory that you have brought to me, because I 
 know that struggle as I may, I can add nothing 
 to the luster that the statesmen who have gone 
 before in the years gone by have brought to 
 the name of Mississippi in the national council 
 (applause). 
 
 I can only say to you with all my manhood, 
 with all my courage, with all my character I 
 will strive to discharge the high duties you have 
 imposed upon my shoulders, and if I cannot 
 bring distinction to the State of Alississippi, 
 gentlemen, I will not bring shame to it. 
 
 For the time you have chosen me I con- 
 secrate my life to the service of my State. I 
 take it that this is a mandate to represent with 
 what ability, with what dignity I can the sov- 
 ereign State of Mississippi in the councils of the 
 Nation. I take it, too, that it is a mandate from 
 this legislature for me to justify and defend the 
 choice they have this day made for the State of 
 Mississippi, and I pledge you now, God giving 
 me health and strength, to preach face to face 
 to the people of Mississippi in every county in 
 this State the principles of what I believe to be 
 sane, old-fashioned, time-honored democracy (ap- 
 plause). 
 
 Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart for the 
 great honor you have bestowed upon me, and 
 I hope you will never have cause to regret your 
 choice. 
 
 T thank you, gentlemen. 
 
Speech Made Before the Joint Session of the 
 Mississippi Legislature on Friday, April 
 15, 1910. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, ]\Iembers of the Mississippi Legis- 
 lature and Fellow Democrats : 
 
 T am glad to be with j-oii again. (Applause.) 
 Much water has flowed by the mill since last I 
 stood here and looked in your faces, and it is 
 good to have a chance to talk with you again. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 Coming from the National Capital, I can bring 
 you glad tidings for national democracy. The 
 great party that scarce more than a year age 
 was swept into power by an overwhelming ma- 
 jority, with a Chief Executive entering his high 
 office under brighter auspices than ever attended 
 the inauguration of any previous President, to- 
 day is like a rudderless ship wallowing in an 
 angry tempest. Already from Massachusetts has 
 come the triumphant note of democracy. (Ap- 
 plause.) The Republican Speaker has been bat- 
 tling for his life before a Republican House. The 
 President has abandoned the quiet and digni- 
 fied seclusion of his great office, and is now going 
 hither and thither pleading and imploring with 
 the Republicans not to destroy their party. The 
 leader of Indiana democracy has already defied 
 and taunted the established leaders of the Re- 
 publican party for their broken pledges. Under 
 the curse of its broken tariff pledges, the Re- 
 publican party realizes it is foredoomed to go 
 down in ignominious defeat, and the reason they 
 make that defeat so certain are the reasons that 
 give value and worth to it. Why, the bewildered 
 leaders of Republicanism ask, is this storm swept 
 down upon us out of a cloudless sky because we 
 have broken a pledge given the people in the 
 National Republican Convention ? Why, in all 
 of the years gone by, we have never kept a party 
 pledge and such a visitation as this has never 
 come upon us. Why now are we assailed, not 
 only by our enemies from without, but those 
 who have hitherto yielded to the party cry from- 
 within ? They do not know that the blight of sec- 
 tionalism has swept over the country without 
 the people viewing the acts of their rulers with un- 
 prejudiced eyes, not dimmed by poison, nor 
 blinded by prejudice, and that the intelligence 
 of the manhood of America is asserting itself 
 politically as never in the history of this coun- 
 try, and that this party or any other party is- 
 going to be held to a stricter accountability to- 
 party pledges than ever before in our history ; 
 and that is what spells triumphant democracy. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 The party that lives close to the people and 
 carries out the pledges made by it in order to 
 
 13 
 
secure an election, vindicates them when that 
 election has been secured. But, fellow Missis- 
 sippians, great papers have flashed this glad 
 intelligence abroad to buoy up the hopes of 
 democracy in our entire country. Those same 
 great papers have carried an intelligence which 
 has stained her name and cast the blush of 
 sliame on the brow of every Mississippian. The 
 shameless story has been spread broadcast over 
 the land that a Mississippi legislature has been 
 debauched and corrupted by a son of Missis- 
 sippi. Among strangers, seeking as best I could 
 to uphold the dignity of the State, whose com- 
 mission I bore, knowing that that commission 
 had been won as fairly and as honorably as any 
 ever held by a son of Mississippi (loud ap- 
 plause), knowing that I had entered the political 
 struggle through no desire to gratify personal 
 ambition ; that I had cast my lot in it with those 
 who had fought because they believed that Mis- 
 sissippi was threatened with a grave disaster 
 in the election of James K. Vardaman (loud ap- 
 plause), knowing that I had forbidden those 
 who left me at home to bear one cent of the ex- 
 pense incident to the campaign here and said to 
 them that there is no expense except the legiti- 
 mate expenses that attended the prolonged stay 
 in the Capital City; thank God no money has been 
 spent on a Mississippi legislature (loud ap- 
 plause) : knowing that not a cent of my money, 
 nor of anybody else's money for my benefit 
 has been used to influence the result, it seemed 
 tliat the cup was a bitter one for me. I had 
 come from no race of ofiice seekers (applause), 
 but from men who always held honor above life, 
 country above self. (Loud applause). An un- 
 tarnished name had been handed to me by my 
 forefathers, and it was made bright and has made 
 me brighter with the thought that that untar- 
 nished name should go from me to those who 
 should bear it hereafter. But the indignation that 
 sprang from personal feelings was swallowed up 
 in the indignation that aroused in me when I 
 realized that the name of the State of Missis- 
 sippi was sought to be dragged in the mire of 
 degradation for political aggrandizement. The 
 telegrams grew thicker, the air was full of ru- 
 mors of foul deeds done, lies and slanders, and, 
 worse than that, the intimations, the suggestions, 
 the innuendoes, the unfathered questions, for 
 which no man would stand, by which it was 
 sought to break down the names of those that 
 Mississippi has held in reverence, Anderson, 
 Critz, Alexander, Byrd, Kyle, as pure and able 
 patriots as the State of Mississippi has ever pro- 
 duced and whose characters put no shield to the 
 doors of calumny. Nay, how could Dulaney hope 
 to go unscathed, when a new filled grave afforded 
 no shield to the character of one who has gone 
 from you to his last reward since I last heard 
 from you ? The name of Heslep, he who only 
 
 14 
 
lately filled a place here, and then a grave in 
 the cemetery, was to be besmirched, because 
 through earnest effort, he had been able to lift 
 a mortgage that had been pressed down upon him, 
 with means which it has been asserted must have 
 come into his hands from polluted sources. 
 Honest men looked into each others faces and 
 their hearts seemed heavy and the stain of 
 shame mounted to their cheeks as they asked 
 each other in wonder, can it be that the sons of 
 Mississippi have stained, for political gain, the 
 name of Mississippi? 
 
 And then came your investigation, the most 
 searching that a legislature has ever made, where 
 neither time nor expense was spared, and then 
 at the end of it there is left standing on the 
 stage a mark for the scorn and contempt of 
 all honest men (applause) only one figure, a char- 
 acterless man, a self-confesed liar, a self-accused 
 bribe-taker (applause) and for his only ally a 
 poor, broken-down, shameless woman of the 
 streets (applause) ; for every reputable witness 
 named by Bilbo who would corroborate his story 
 shrank back affrighted as if from a contamina- 
 tion or pestilence that would follow the touching 
 of this moral leper. 
 
 High above the odor of calumny and shame, 
 as the star in the sky, flaunts the honor of Mis- 
 sissippi above reach of the things that would 
 break it down for political gain. And your in- 
 vestigation has shown to the world that no stain 
 rests upon the commission that you have given 
 me (applause) ; that no suspicion or reproach 
 rests upon the integrity of the State of Missis- 
 sippi, or upon a single one of the eighty-seven 
 votes that were cast in my favor (applause). 
 
 I know my commission was fairly won. The 
 legislature of the State of Mississippi knows 
 that the commission was honestly won, the peo- 
 ple of the State of Mississippi have not been 
 thwarted, and the expressions of their choice 
 has not been prevented. I deny that the will of 
 the people has been thwarted. I say that the 
 same reason that made the legislature of the 
 State of Mississippi repudiate Vardamanism 
 makes the people of the State of Mississippi will- 
 ing and desirous of repudiating Vardamanism 
 because they are weary of his senseless agitation 
 and strife-breeding, and I say that I am pre- 
 pared to maintain that before the people of the 
 State, and I say furthermore that I am anxious 
 for the opportunity of maintaining it and assert- 
 ing it at the earliest possible moment before the 
 people of my State (applause). No man prizes 
 more highly the honor of representing Missis- 
 sippi in the Senate of the United States than I 
 do, and it is an honor because I believe that I 
 have the trust and confidence of the people of 
 the State of Mississippi behind me. 
 
 Whenever I find that I have not that trust 
 and confidence, then I no longer desire to serve 
 
 15 
 
the people in an official capacity. Every dictate 
 ■of patriotism calls for an early settlement of this 
 senatorial question by the people of Mississippi. 
 It is not for the welfare of Mississippi that this 
 %ht, which promises to be a bitter fight, shall 
 he long drawn out, arraying the good people 
 in hostile camps against each other along sec- 
 tional lines, which it will take generations to 
 obliterate and to efface. 
 
 Whatever advantage in this fight might come 
 to me personally through delay, naught but harm 
 could com.e to the welfare of my State through 
 a protracted campaign, and never shall it be 
 said that my personal fortunes weighed aught in 
 the scale against my State's well being. 
 
 I want to say that instead of making this 
 primary come off in August, 1911, I invite and 
 ■challenge Mr. Vardaman to co-operate with me 
 and have this primary come off in November of 
 the present year (applause). 
 
 For fifteen full years Vardaman has sung the 
 song of the office seeker to the people of Missis- 
 sippi, and he is familiar with every nook and 
 corner of the State, and naught can come to him 
 through a longer canvass. I am unknown to 
 thousands of the people of Mississippi, but I 
 am prepared to go before that people and de- 
 fend the integrity and honor of the legislature 
 ■of the State of Mississippi (applause) and to 
 vindicate their intelligence when they said 
 through their votes that the people of Mississippi 
 are weary of Vardamanism (applause). 
 
 I would have been before this legislature at 
 an earlier date and made this proposition, when 
 it could have been framed into a resolution, as 
 •can be done now for that matter if the body would 
 hold until the middle of ne.xt week, but I could 
 not come here with this investigation progress- 
 ing, because I wanted the truth brought out 
 without any claims that I, by my presence, swayed 
 or influenced those who were conducting the 
 investigation. But I ask of this legislature a 
 joint resolution requesting the Democratic State 
 Executive Committtee to fix a primary to be held 
 between the first day and the last day of No- 
 vember of the present year to name the Senator 
 whom they desire to fill the long term be- 
 ginning on March 4, 1913. 
 
 Ex-Governor Vardaman. of course, will have 
 to concur in this request, for it will be a primary 
 held by consent, and binding on those who con- 
 sent to it, but when the primary is ordered 
 % the Democratic State Executive Committee, 
 and the Democrats of the State of Mississippi cy- 
 press their choice in 1910, the ratification of 
 that choice in the primary of 1911 will be but 
 a simple formality. No one can doubt this state- 
 ment. 
 
 I said that I only valued the commission from 
 the State of Mississippi when the confidence 
 and trust of the people who honored me with that 
 
commission is behind me. And I want to say- 
 to you now that if the people of the State of 
 Mississippi in the primary, shall say that James 
 K. Vardaman, or any other son of Mississippi, is 
 their choice for the long term, the commission 
 that I hold from the State at the first legislature 
 that convenes after that primary, will be placed 
 with my resignation, in their hands. (Applause.) 
 And my support, and the support of my friends, 
 -will be given in that legislature for the election 
 of the choice of the people for the short and un- 
 expired term in the United States Senate. If ex- 
 Governor Vardaman concurs in this request, and 
 I have no desire to force any vote on the sub- 
 ject until his friends have had an opportunity 
 to confer with him, I shall request him, and 1 
 do it now, tliat I shall expect him to meet me 
 in joint discussion before the people of the State 
 of Mississippi. (Applause.) I will there defend 
 before the people of the State the commission 
 which the people have honored me with, or I will 
 place that commission at the disposal of the 
 State (Applause). 
 
 When I represent the state of Mississippi hi the 
 Senate of the United States, I not only wane to 
 know that the commission is stainless, and the 
 legislature of the State of Mississippi not only 
 wants to know it, the people of the State of 
 Mississippi not only want to know it, but I want 
 the world to know that I hold on the floor of the 
 United States Senate a stainless commissitn. And 
 I now challenge ex-Governor Vardaman to the 
 acceptance of this primary in 1910, or any other 
 son of Mississippi to enter it, and who will agree 
 to be bound by it, and support the nominee of 
 it (long and continued applause), to enter the 
 campaign and we will fight it to the finish. 
 
 Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention. 
 
Resolution Introduced in the Senate on Friday, 
 April 18, 1910, for the Expulsion of Sena- 
 tor Bilbo, Upon Which the Vote Was 28 
 to 15. 
 
 EXPULSION RESOLUTION. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate, That after hearing 
 
 and considering all the testimony in reference to 
 the Bilbo-Dulaney bribery charge, it is the judg- 
 ment of the Senate that such testimony demon- 
 strates that Senator T. G. Bilbo is unworthy of 
 belief, and he is therefore hereby expelled from 
 membership in this bod}-." 
 
 Resolution Introduced in Senate on Friday, 
 April 15, 1910, Requesting the Resignation 
 of Senator Bilbo Upon Which the Vote 
 Was 28 to 1. 
 
 DEMAND FOR RESIGNATION. 
 
 "Resolved, That Theo. G. Bilbo claims to have 
 played the role of decoy bribe-taker and informer 
 by prearrangement with prominent friends of ex- 
 Governor Vardaman, and claims in this role to 
 have secured complete evidence of bribery weeks 
 before the senatorial nomination, but admits that 
 he failed to disclose the information he is alleged 
 to have obtained to ex-Governor Vardaman, or 
 to any of the Vardaman leaders until weeks after 
 the nomination had lieen made and a Senator 
 had been elected. The conduct on his part is ut- 
 terly unexplained. 
 
 "Resolved, in view of the unexplained incon- 
 sistencies and inherent improbabilities in the tes- 
 timony of Senator Theo. G. Bilbo, his established 
 bad character and lack of credibility, and his 
 failure to corroborate his statement on any ma- 
 terial point, by any of the reputable witnesses in- 
 troduced by him, that the Senate of Mississippi 
 does hereby condemn his entire bribery charge 
 and his statement of the role played by Iiimself 
 as detective and decoy as a trumped-up false- 
 hood, utterly unworthy of belief. 
 
 "Resolved further. That as the result of the 
 conduct of Theodore G. Bilbo in this matter, and 
 the testimony introduced in this investigation, 
 the Senate of Mississippi pronounces the said 
 Bilbo as unfit to sit with honest, upright men in 
 a respectable legislative body, and he is hereby 
 asked to resign." 
 
 18 
 
Resolution Introduced in the Senate on Friday^ 
 April 15th, and the House on Saturday, 
 April 16th, in Regard to the Senatorial 
 Election, Which Resolution Was Passed 
 by the Senate and House by a Unanimous 
 Vote. 
 
 "In view of the scandalous rumors which have 
 been circulated touching the recent Senatorial 
 contest, the House of Representatives takes pleas- 
 ure in saying to the people of Mississippi that we 
 are convinced that the conduct of every candidate 
 in the Senatorial contest was dignified and honor- 
 able and upright, and that no vote in the caucus 
 nomination was procured by anj^ improper means 
 or corrupt influence, and that the election of Sen- 
 ator Percy is free from fraud or corruption. And 
 regardless of whether we have supported Senator 
 Percy in the recent contest, or will support him 
 in the approacliing primary, we record with pleas- 
 ure our confidence in the chivalrous honor and 
 personal and political integrity and our desire to 
 hold up his hands in the performance of his high 
 duties as a representative of this great Common- 
 wealth in the Senate of the United States." 
 
 19 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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