congressional_record: CREC-2004-12-20-pt1-PgS12093
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| CREC-2004-12-20-pt1-PgS12093 | 2004-12-20 | 108 | 2 | TRIBUTE TO SENATOR ERNEST ``FRITZ'' HOLLINGS | SENATE | SENATE | TRIBUTETO | S12093 | S12093 | [{"name": "Paul S. Sarbanes", "role": "speaking"}] | 150 Cong. Rec. S12093 | Congressional Record, Volume 150 Issue 140 (Monday, December 20, 2004) [Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 140 (Monday, December 20, 2004)] [Senate] [Page S12093] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] TRIBUTE TO SENATOR ERNEST ``FRITZ'' HOLLINGS Mr. SARBANES. Mr. President, with the retirement of Senator Fritz Hollings, the Senate is losing its fourth most senior member, an extraordinary and important repository of institutional history. The people of South Carolina are losing an outspoken and respected spokesperson for their needs and concerns. All of us who have served with him are losing an effective colleague, a wise counselor, and a good friend. Friz Hollings has spent well over half a century in public service, beginning with nearly 3 years of military service during World War II in the North African and European theaters. He returned to civilian life, received his law degree at the University of South Carolina, and in 1948 was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives, where he served three terms, two of them as the House speaker pro tempore. In 1954 he was elected lieutenant governor, and 4 years later he was elected Governor. He was then 36 years old--the youngest governor of South Carolina in the 20th century. Over many years and on many issues, Fritz Hollings has shown himself to be a public servant with solid common sense. He is also a visionary. Very early he foresaw the need for technical education, and as Governor nearly 50 years ago, he established South Carolina's system of technical colleges. In the late 1950s, when other Governors in the South were setting out plans to preserve legal segregation notwithstanding the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the young Governor of South Carolina rallied the people of South Carolina to comply with the law. ``He managed the peaceful integration of Clemson University back when other Southern Governors were fighting to keep their universities all-white,'' Mike Wallace has observed. The people of South Carolina, the Members of this body, and people in every corner and region of the United States have seen Fritz Hollings' forceful combination of common sense and vision at work on issues like hunger, the environment, jobs, and fiscal policy. Soon after coming to the Senate, he helped focus the Nation's attention on hunger; WIC, the Women, Infants and Children's Special Supplemental Food Program, was modeled on a pilot program in South Carolina. For more than three decades he has played a major part in the vital movement first to establish, then to maintain and strengthen the legislative framework for protection of the natural environment. It was Fritz Hollings who wrote this Nation's first land-use law to protect coastal wetlands. Admiral James Watkins, USN (Ret.), who chairs the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, recently recognized his efforts saying: ``Senator Hollings' tireless work on behalf of this Nation's ocean and coasts will help preserve and protect our precious marine and coastal resources for generations to come. . . . (including) his work to establish the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) over 30 years ago. . . .'' It was his concern for jobs in South Carolina that led him to establish the State's technical colleges while Governor, and in recent years has made him a forceful critic of policies that facilitate outsourcing. ``In South Carolina,'' according to the Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court, Jean Toal, ``we have heard him talk about the debt and outsourcing jobs for 30 years, and all of that is now what the American public is so focused on. He was always ahead of his time.'' Fritz Hollings believes in the good that government can accomplish. In a recent interview on ``Sixty Minutes,'' he said: ``We believe in feeding the hungry, and housing the homeless, and educating the uninformed and everything else like that . . . in `We the people' in order to form a more perfect Union.'' In his many years of service to the people of South Carolina and of this Nation, Fritz Hollings has faithfully honored that principle. His common sense, his vision, and his great humor will be missed, but surely not forgotten. ____________________ |