William Meyers COLMER, Congress, MS (1890-1980)

COLMER, William Meyers, a Representative from Mississippi; born in Moss Point, Jackson County, Miss., February 11, 1890; attended the public schools and Millsaps College at Jackson, Miss.; taught school at Lumberton, Miss., 1914-1917; studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1917; during the First World War served as a private in the Quartermaster Corps, advancing through the ranks to regimental sergeant major, and served from July 24, 1918, to March 17, 1919; commenced the practice of law in Pascagoula, Miss., in 1919; county attorney of Jackson County, Miss., 1921-1927; district attorney of the second district of Mississippi from 1928 until his resignation in 1933, having been elected to Congress; elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-third and to the nineteen succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1933-January 3, 1973); chairman, Committee on Rules (Ninetieth through Ninety-second Congresses); unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in 1947; was not a candidate for reelection in 1972 to the Ninety-third Congress; was a resident of Pascagoula, Miss., where he died September 9, 1980; interment in Machpelah Cemetery, Pascagoula, Miss.

Bibliography

Schlauch, Wolfgang. “Representative William M. Colmer and Senator James O. Eastland and the Reconstruction of Germany, 1945.” Journal of Mississippi History 34 (August 1972): 193-214.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present