Oil on canvas, Betty Blaumont Brown, 1971, Collection of U.S. House of Representatives

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.