Buncombe Bob, won’t you please go home?

“The accomplishments of North Carolina’s Senator Robert (‘Buncombe Bob’) Rice Reynolds are varied. He has been married five times, sired four children, kissed the late Jean Harlow on the Capitol steps, and is the only U.S. Senator to shoot an enraged bull walrus at 20 feet.

“For 10 years he has been a labor-baiting, immigrant-hating demagogue, an implacable isolationist with Fascist trimmings and Fascist friends….. This week Senator Reynolds announced he would not run for re-election next year. No tears fell.”

— From Time magazine, Nov. 15, 1943