[1][4] After several crop failures, the Gillioms were forced to leave their Missouri home and go live with family in Berne, Indiana, when Arthur was just four years old.

Soon after graduating, Gilliom was admitted to the Indiana and Michigan bars, and he moved to South Bend to practice law.

[4] In 1923, Gilliom argued before the Indiana Supreme Court in a case involving the constitutionality of a new law regarding automobile licenses.

He won the nomination in an upset victory, defeating fellow Republican candidates Wilbur Ryman (a Klansman from Muncie who had the support of both the KKK and the Anti-Saloon League, another very powerful organization in 1920s state politics that allied itself with the Klan) and Edward M. White.

Edward J. Lennon, a lawyer from Fort Wayne, served as Deputy Attorney General under Gilliom.

Gilliom also revealed in the letter that Governor Jackson had approached him about illegally procuring alcohol for his wife, who was also suffering from pneumonia.

The KKK had already lost much of its power and influence following the widely publicized rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer by Indiana Klan leader D.C. Stephenson.

[4] Gilliom sought the Republican nomination in the 1928 U.S. Senate election in Indiana, but was defeated by the incumbent Arthur Raymond Robinson.