 John Leonard Pilcher Papers, Series III: Miscellaneous File
Collection DescriptionBiographical NoteJohn Leonard Pilcher was born in a two-room log cabin near Meigs, Georgia on August 27, 1898. Although Pilcher's father died when he was five, and Pilcher had to support his mother and two young sisters, he completed seven grades of public school and graduated from Massey Business College. In 1922, he married Dorothy Covington of Moultrie, Georgia. They had two sons: John Leonard, Jr., who in 1946, at the age of seventeen, was killed in a plane crash while serving as an ROTC air cadet at the University of Georgia; and Charles, who handled the family business while his father was in Washington. Pilcher started working at the age of fifteen, and by the time he was twenty he was operating a small business. Involved in agricultural pursuits most of his life, Pilcher not only owned a farm, but expanded his holdings to include a general mercantile business, a fertilizer manufacturing plant, feed mill, corn elevator, cotton gins and warehouses, and a syrup canning plant. He was involved in many business organizations, such as the National Cotton Council and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, and served as the director of the Thomas County PEA (production and marketing). He also became president of the Bank of Meigs, Georgia. At the age of twenty--one, Pilcher was elected mayor of Meigs. During the years 1921 through 1940, he also served as a councilman and a public school trustee. In 1940, he was elected to represent the Seventh District in the Georgia State Senate. After his term expired in 1943, he returned to Meigs and was elected to the post of county commissioner of roads and revenue for Thomas County, a position he held from 1943 to 1947. During this same period he also served as a member of the Agricultural and Industrial Board for the county (1944-1948). From 1948 to 1949, Pilcher was the Supervisor of Purchases for the state of Georgia, serving under Governors Thompson and Arnall. In 1953, Edward Eugene Cox, the congressman representing the Second District, died and a special election was held to fill his seat. In spite of a large field of candidates and his late entrance into the race for the position, Pilcher won the seat in a hardworking campaign by a 2,000 vote margin over his nearest competitor. Pilcher was a member of Congress from February 4, 1953 to January 3, 1965. He started on the House Committee on Government Operations, serving on the committee from 1953 to 1954. After an attempt to gain a seat on the House Agriculture Committee failed, he accepted a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee where he served from 1955 to 1964. He was a member of the Subcommittee on the Far East and the Pacific and became chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Economic Policy. Twice, in 1959 and 1961, Pilcher went abroad with other members of the subcommittee on Special Study Missions to oversee U.S. economic and technical assistance programs. Pilcher did not run for reelection in 1964. Instead, he retired from his congressional career and took the post of Southeastern Regional Director of the Office of Emergency Planning. Pilcher died on August 20, 1981, at the age of 82. Scope and ContentThe Miscellaneous File acts as a partial name cross-reference file for Series I. Legislative, IV. Personal, V. Political, and VI. Post Office. It is a partial cross-reference file because not everything that is in the Miscellaneous File is in the series it cross-references, and vice versa. The Miscellaneous File may only have a copy of Pilcher's reply to a letter, the letter but no reply, or both the letter and its reply together. Individuals may be found under their own names or under the organization they represent. The files in the series reflect constituent opinions on the topics of the day, their requests for information and assistance, various projects for the benefit of the Second District that Pilcher undertook, and Pilcher's relationship with both federal and state agencies. Items of special interest include letters to and from U.S. and state legislators such as Richard B. Russell, Herman Talmadge, Carl Vinson, E. L. Forrester, Iris Blitch, and J. Willis Conger (State Senator, 8th District); material from Pilcher's Executive Assistant, John W. Ellis; a 1958 letter from Pilcher to the National Historical Wax Museum in Washington, D.C., detailing an anecdote about Carl Vinson; the Griffin Bell file, concerning his appointment to the 5th Circuit judgeship--he later became Attorney General (1977-1979) under President Jimmy Carter; and material about the Atlantic Union, a plan to create a commonwealth including North America and Western Europe in which Pilcher was interested, and about one of its most ardent advocates, Mrs. Chase S. Osborne. Organization and ArrangementThis series is divided into two subseries, 1953-1960 and 1960-1964, arranged alphabetically by name, corporate name, and subject. These dates are bulk dates only; items carrying later dates were sometimes inserted into earlier files, and earlier material was often brought forward into the later files if the file remained active or was reactivated at a later date. Administrative InformationAccess RestrictionsVII. Academies and VIII. Case Files are closed. Restricted files have been removed from II. Meigs Office, III. Miscellaneous File, and VI. Post Office and are housed separately from the rest of the collection. Preferred CitationJohn Leonard Pilcher Papers, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Georgia 30602-1641 Processing NotesScrapbooks, photographs, and artifacts were physically separated from the papers for preservation. Photographs were removed from scrapbooks wherever possible and replaced with Xerox copies. User RestrictionsLibrary acts as "fair use" reproduction agent. Copyright InformationBefore material from collections at the Richard B. Russell Library may be quoted in print, or otherwise reproduced, in whole or in part, in any publication, permission must be obtained from (1) the owner of the physical property, and (2) the holder of the copyright. It is the particular responsibility of the researcher to obtain both sets of permissions. Persons wishing to quote from materials in the Russell Library collection should consult the Director. Reproduction of any item must contain a complete citation to the original. Finding Aid PublicationFinding aid prepared on: September 2008. Related Materials and SubjectsSubject TermsRelated Collections in this Repository
S. Ernest Vandiver, Jr. Papers August H. Turnbull Collection of Carl Sanders Speech/Press Files Stephen Pace Post Office Files Richard B. Russell, Jr. Collection Democratic Party of Georgia Records Related Collections in Other RepositoriesGriffin Bell Papers, School of Law, Mercer University | ||||||||||||||||||||