State

November 25, 1 933 THE STATE Page Nineteen LEGISLATIVE PERSONALITIES No. 7 EDWIN MAURICE GILL By Wade П. Lucas ★ SCOTLAND County sent one of its young Scotch lawyers to the 192!> House of Representatives ml ho did so well in his freshman rm that the canny Scots returned ini to the 1931 session, but in doing they lost him, for he was kept in lcigh us a part of the State's offi- ial family. He is Edwin Maurice (till, now State Commissioner of Paroles by ap¬ pointment of Governor Ehringhaus. Mr. Gill served for almost two years as private secretary to former Gov¬ ernor O. Max Gardner. Conscientious, able, painstaking and loyal, Commissioner Gill without doubt gives as much if not more time to his task as parole commissioner than did such men as Judge H. Hoyle Sink, N. A. Townsend, A. II. Graham, О. M. Mull and Tyre C. Taylor, who pre¬ ceded him in this office. Former Gov¬ ernor Angus Wilton McLean persuad¬ ed the 1925 General Assembly to es¬ tablish the office as an aid in discharg¬ ing one of the most disagreeable du¬ ties of the Governor of North Caro¬ lina; that of handling clemency mat¬ ters. As a newspaperman who has ob¬ served all six men discharge the duties of parole commissioner, I feel safe in saying that the office has never had a more conscientious commissioner than the bespectacled and slightly bald Mr. Gill, who is still in his thirties and a bachelor. It was Mr. Gill, who was generally ceredited with being the “daddy" of the celebrated “short ballot” legisla¬ tion that has provided legislators and the electorate of North Carolina with such choice morsels of conversation for he past four years. He stood his ground and exhibited the same kind f intestinal fortitude as did the cele¬ brated youth on the burning deck. And most of the time Mr. Gill had a hot eck under him in his unsuccessful fight to put his bill on the statute books. Due to the Hoover landslide in North Carolina in 1928, the 1929 House had 35 Republican members — more than it had had in over 3(1 years MR. GILL isn't given to fireworks or hulobaloo, but he has a lot of tenacity which has won for him the respect of everybody. At the present time, he's the state's par¬ don commissioner — and a mighty good one, too. ★ -and few people paid any attention to the young Democratic members sent to the House for their first terms in the 1929 session. To veteran legislators, Mr. Gill was just “another one of those young fel¬ lows with ideas in his head," as the gray beard solons are wont to refer to the first-term members if they hap¬ pen to be young men. It is bad busi¬ ness to buck the old masters and the less exercise a young member gives his tongue the better off he will lie. Rut Edwin Gill did not come to the Legislature to sit back and attempt, to ★ look wise so as to impress doting Women in the galleries of the House, Right here it might («• said that whon- even Mr. Gill has a “date" it is news, lie is not a "woman hater" by any means, but it is not stretching the truth to any appreciable extent in -tat ing that he had rather read English history or volumes on criminology than to have a date with a woman. When Mr. (Jill "Daddied" the “short ballot” bill in the 1929 House and went so far as to name the elective officers which ho would make appoint¬ ive by the Governor, a member of the self-styled tribunes of the “dear pee- pul" were horrified at such conduct on the part of the Scotland Scotchman. It was not democratic on the part of a Democrat to propose such a thing, so they saiil. Among those really horrified was Judge Francis D. Winston, of Rcrtio, then serving what in all likelihood Wa¬ llis last term as a memlier of the Gen¬ eral Assembly. The judge was almost ready to rharge Gill with being guilty of some form of treason because of his advocacy of a hill to concentrate power in the Governor's hands. Rut Scot¬ land's Gill stood his ground and never backed down, although he knew that he had become a most unpopular young man with some of the elective State officials. The fight over the Gill bill wont on. There came the afternoon in 1929 when Congressman Frank Hancock, then a member from Granville and chairman of the House’s election laws committee, called his committee to¬ gether to pass upon the Gill measure. It happened to be tin afternoon when several other committees were meeting and some of Mr. Gill's supporter- found it necessary to attend some of those sessions in order to look after some of their pet legislation. Whether Hancock, who was opposed to Gill’s bill, knew this and hoped to catch Gill taking n nap is problematical. Rut when the time опте for the committee to pass upon Gill’s bill, the Scotland Scotchman produced from his pockets the proxies of such legisla- Continucd on page twenty)