Senator Fritz Hollings Dies

Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings (January 1, 1922 – April 6, 2019) was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from South Carolina from 1966 to 2005. A Democrat, he was also the Governor of South Carolina and the 77th Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. He served alongside Republican Senator Strom Thurmond for 36 years, making them the longest-serving Senate duo in history. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living former U.S. Senator.

                                                              Senator Fritz Hollings
Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Hollings graduated from The Citadel in 1942 and joined a law practice in Charleston, SC after attending the University of South Carolina School of Law. During World War II, he served as an artillery officer in campaigns in North Africa and Europe. After the war, Hollings successively won election to the South Carolina House of Representatives, as Lieutenant Governor, and as Governor. He sought election to the Senate in 1962 but was defeated by incumbent Olin D. Johnston.

Johnston died in 1965, and the following year Hollings won a special election to serve the remainder of Johnston's term. Though the Republican Party became increasingly dominant in South Carolina after 1966, Hollings remained popular and continually won re-election, becoming one of the longest-serving Senators in U.S. history. Hollings sought the Democratic nomination in the 1984 presidential election but dropped out of the race after the New Hampshire primary. He declined to seek re-election in 2004 and was succeeded by Republican Jim DeMint.

Hollings served as an officer in the U.S. Army's 353rd and 457th Artillery units from 1942 to 1945, during World War II, and was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service in direct support of combat operations from December 13, 1944 to May 1, 1945 in France and Germany. He received the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with five Bronze Service Stars for participation in the Tunisia, Southern France, Rome-Arno, and Central Europe Campaigns.

As governor of South Carolina from January 20, 1959, to January 15, 1963, Hollings worked to improve the state's educational system, helping to bring more industry and employment opportunities to the state. His term in office saw the establishment of the state's technical education system and its educational television network. He also called for and achieved significant increases in teachers' salaries, bringing them closer to the regional average. At the 1961 Governor's Conference on Business, Industry, Education and Agriculture in Columbia, S.C., he declared, "Today, in our complex society, education is the cornerstone upon which economic development must be built—and prosperity assured."

He sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1962 but lost to incumbent Olin D. Johnston.

Johnston died on April 18, 1965. Hollings' successor as governor, Donald S. Russell, resigned in order to accept appointment to the Senate seat. In the summer of 1966, Hollings defeated Russell in the Democratic primary for the remaining two years of the term. He then narrowly won the special election on November 8, 1966, against the Democrat-turned-Republican Marshall Parker, and was sworn in shortly thereafter. He gained seniority on other newly elected U.S. senators who would have to wait until January 1967 to take the oath of office. In 1967, he was one of eleven senators who voted against the nomination of Thurgood Marshall to become the first black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. The following year, Hollings won the Senate seat for his first full term when he again defeated Marshall Parker but by a much wider margin.

For thirty-six years (until January 2003), he served alongside Republican Strom Thurmond, making them the longest-serving Senate duo. This also made Hollings the longest-serving junior senator, even though he had more seniority than all but a few of his colleagues. Thurmond and Hollings generally had a good relationship despite their sometimes sharp philosophical differences, and frequently collaborated on legislation and projects to benefit South Carolina. Their combined seniority gave South Carolina clout in national politics well beyond its relatively small population. Only Thurmond, Robert Byrd, Ted Kennedy, Daniel Inouye, Carl Hayden, John Stennis, Ted Stevens, Pat Leahy, Orrin Hatch, and Thad Cochran have served longer in the Senate than did Hollings.

Later Life and Death

In retirement, Hollings wrote opinion editorials for newspapers in South Carolina and was a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. His opinion editorials were also published every week in EconomyInCrisis.org, an independent protectionist news blog. In 2008, the University of South Carolina Press published Making Government Work, a book authored by Hollings with Washington, D.C., journalist Kirk Victor, imparting Hollings' view on the changes needed in Washington. Among other things, the book recommended a dramatic decrease in the amount of campaign spending. It also attacked free trade policies as inherently destructive, suggesting that certain protectionist measures built the United States and that only a few parties actually benefited from free trade, such as large manufacturing corporations.

Hollings started the Hollings Scholarship in 2005. It gave over 100 undergraduates from around the country a 10-week internship with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a monetary scholarship for the school year.

Hollings helped to establish the Hollings Center for International Dialogue, an organization which promotes dialogue between the United States and Turkey, the nations of the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, and other countries with predominantly Muslim populations in order to open channels of communication, deepen cross-cultural understanding, expand people-to-people contacts, and generate new thinking on important international issues.

Hollings was also on the board of advisors as a distinguished visiting professor of Law with the Charleston School of Law. He delivered the commencement address to the first graduating class there on May 19, 2007.

On April 6, 2019, Hollings died at the age of 97 at his home in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, following a period of declining health.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Hollings