Governorship
After serving as Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi for four years, Bilbo was elected to the office of governor in 1915. Cresswell (2006) argues that in his first term (1916–20) Bilbo had "the most successful administration" of all the governors who served between 1877 and 1917, putting state finances in order and supporting such Progressive measures as passing a compulsory school attendance law, founding a new charity hospital, and establishing a board of bank examiners.
In his first term, his Progressive program was largely implemented. He was known as "Bilbo the Builder" because of his authorization of a state highway system, as well as lime crushing plants, new dormitories of the Old Soldiers' Home, and a tuberculosis hospital. He pushed through a law eliminating public hangings and worked on eradication of the South American tick. The state constitution prohibited governors from having successive terms.
Bilbo chose to run for a seat in the House of Representatives. During the campaign, a bout of "Texas fever" broke out, and Bilbo supported a program to dip cattle in insecticide to kill the ticks carrying the fever. Mississippi farmers were generally not happy about the idea, and Bilbo was unable to win a seat in Congress.
Afterward, Bilbo caused controversy by hiding in a barn to avoid a subpoena in a case involving his friend, then-governor Lee M. Russell. He had served as Bilbo's lieutenant governor, and was being sued by his former secretary, who accused Russell of breach of promise and of seducing and impregnating her. She had undergone an abortion that left her unable to have children.
Russell asked Bilbo to try to convince her not to sue Russell. He was unsuccessful, but the woman was unsuccessful in her suit against Russell. Judge Edwin R. Holmes sentenced Bilbo to 30 days in prison for "contempt of court" and he served 10 days behind bars. He lost his run for re-election in 1923.
In 1927 Bilbo was elected Governor again after winning the Democratic primary in a runoff election over Governor Dennis Murphree. Bilbo criticized Murphree for calling out the National Guard to prevent a lynching in Jackson, declaring that no black person was worthy of protection by the Guard.
His second term was filled with controversy involving his plan to move the University of Mississippi from Oxford to Jackson. That idea was eventually defeated. During the 1928 presidential election, Bilbo helped Al Smith carry the state despite overwhelming anti-Catholicism, by claiming that Herbert Hoover had met with a black member of the Republican National Committee and danced with her. In a speech in Memphis on October 17, Bilbo asserted that during a visit to Mississippi in 1927, "Hoover insisted that his train be routed through Mount Bayou... in order that he might visit Mrs. Mary Booze, a negress, socially," and added, "Mary Booze is as Black as the ace of spades. And Hoover danced with her." Though widely reported, and followed by an anonymous political flyer featuring a doctored photo supposedly showing Hoover and Mrs. Booze dancing together, which was circulated throughout the South, the story did not prevent Hoover from being elected President of the United States the following month.
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