Political Quotes

“It is with mixed emotions that I stand in the well here this evening with my colleagues from South Carolina. We are here because our State and our Nation has lost a giant of a man, one whom I call a one-of-a-kind statesman, Ernest ``Fritz'' Hollings. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, he graduated from The Citadel in 1947, and the very next year, 1948, he was elected to the South Carolina Legislature. There, he served until being elected Lieutenant Governor in 1954. I am pointing out some years here because I want to make a statement about the man Fritz Hollings. He was elected Governor in 1958. Now, in 1947, some interesting things were taking place in South Carolina at the time Ernest Hollings graduated college; and, in 1948, when he was elected to the legislature, a very significant court decision was handed down. The court case was Elmore v. Rice, the 1948 court case that opened up the South Carolina Democratic primary to people other than Whites. This was the atmosphere within which Fritz Hollings was first elected. And, of course, in 1954, when he was elected Lieutenant Governor, I need not tell anybody what Court decision came down that year. That was the year that the Supreme Court ruled that school desegregation had to take place. That was the atmosphere. So, 4 years later, Fritz Hollings gets elected Governor. I was a student on the campus of South Carolina State when he was elected, and in 1960 is when I first met Fritz Hollings.…”