Fritz Hollings--What a Great Leader Looks Like

 courtesy of flickr

Today, April 16, we laid to rest one of the great leaders of our time. Senator Fritz Hollings was not just a politician. He was one of those rare leaders who helped make his state and country better for everyone.  He served as South Carolina Governor from 1959 to 1963. He was a South Carolina Senator from 1996 to 2005. He was 36 year old when he began serving as Governor and was the youngest Governor in the twentieth century.

He was from Charleston and anyone who heard him knew where he was from. That slow Southern downstate drawl. His fingerprints remain all over this country.

*  He served in World War II as an officer in North Africa and European campaigns.
*  He worked hard to lure business to our state.
*  He improved education in South Carolina.
*  As a Senator he pushed for assistance for those in poverty and hunger.
*  He advocated environmental policies and economic growth.
*  He received the Bronx Star and seven campaign ribbons.
*  He is the father of the state's technical college system.
*  He entered politics as a segregationist but changed during the Civil Rights era.
*  As Governor he oversaw the integration of Clemson University in 1963.
*  He opposed attempts to weaken the Voting Rights Act.
*  He co-authored the bill that created the Special Supplement for Women, infants and children.

Jean Toal, former Chief Justice of the SC Supreme Court said, "Fritz Hollings was the first state figure who literally dragged South Carolina kicking and screaming into the 20th century. He was one of those young men who went through the fires of World War II and emerged with the leadership and determination to change his own world."

I remember his defense for the importance of government I read somewhere: 

"A veteran returning from Korea went to college on the GI Bill; bought his house with an FHA loan; got electricity from the TVA, and later from an EPA project. His parents retired to a fam on social security, got electricity from the REA and soil testing from the USDA. When the father became ill, the family was saved from financial ruin by Medicare and a life was saved with a drug developed through NIH. His kids participated in the school lunch program, learned physics from teachers trained in an NSF program and went through college on guaranteed student loans. He drove to work on the Interstate and moored his boat in a channel dredged by Army engineers. When floods hit, he took Amtrack to Washington to apply for disaster relief, and spent some time in the Smithsonian Museums. 

Then one day he wrote his Congressman an angry letter asking the government to get off his back and complaining about taxes for all those programs created for ungrateful people."

Fritz Holdings understood the meaning of public servant. And this state, country and world is better because he passed our way.

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com