The Palmetto State: The Making of Modern South Carolina

9. A New Era Evolves

9 a new era evolves Few political figures anywhere could match the depth and quickness of mind, tartness of tongue, and innovative outlook that made Fritz Hollings a transitional figure for South Carolina. In preparing the state for the breaking of the color line, Hollings set a new direction, a clean break with the past. He already had moved the state on a new path of economic development. Elected lieutenant governor at the age of thirty-two, he won election as governor four years later in 1958 in a brutal campaign against Donald S. Russell , a political novice and Byrnes’s protégé who in many ways had served as a dynamic president of the University of South Carolina. Hollings believed political necessity forced him,as it had Olin Johnston in his race against Thurmond eight years earlier, to engage in racial rhetoric as a defender of segregation (he had declared the NAACP “both subversive and illegal.”) By the time Harvey Gantt enrolled at Clemson as the Hollings administration ended, however, the youthful governor had served as a creative leader in moving the state forward on an innovative two-pronged path of industrial development that continues into the twenty-first century. In preparing the way for Gantt at Clemson, Hollings fully understood that acceptance of social change without violence played an essential role in luring outside capital to invest in the state. He also never forgot an incident in his World War II military experience, seeing black American soldiers going to the rear of a restaurant in the South to get food from a window while German prisoners of war sat inside eating at a table and thinking to himself,“That ain’t right.”1 To understand fully the significance of the crucial, final speech Hollings made to the legislature calling for acceptance of the federal court order to integrate Clemson, understand that it occurred the same month that Alabama’s newly elected governor, George C. Wallace, established himself as the South’s new champion of segregation. In his inaugural address that January, Wallace declared to the people of his state, “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say . . . segregation now . . . segregation tomorrow . . . segregation forever.”2 in seeking economic development Hollings became the first southern governor to go abroad and personally court overseas corporations to invest in the American South. And he got results, setting an example many other southern governors would begin to follow. Hollings moved at the same time to create and develop a broad system of post–high school technical and vocational education. One component involved the state picking up expenses— even if it meant paying salaries for the new company’s training staff—to provide a trained workforce ready to start work when a new plant opened. A willing, inexpensive, and trained workforce, in combination with cheap land and cooperative state and local government officials, proved attractive to new industries. Hollings picked progressive legislative leaders such as future governors Robert E. McNair and John C. West to look at pioneering new programs in North Carolina and to propose a more innovative plan for South Carolina. The legislative group reported the state’s 50 percent school dropout rate and low percentage of college graduates—they represented fewer than 5 percent of their first-grade classes.A greatly expanded technical-vocational training program , however, would soon provide South Carolina workers more marketable skills that would attract new industry.3 Hollings understood from experience in the legislature that the institutional weakness of the office of governor left him with little more than the power of persuasion. After Hollings learned at the last minute that Edgar Brown had decided to oppose any funding for technical education, he sent an aide with a bottle of bourbon and paper cups to the critical final meeting of the Senate Finance Committee. Minutes later he walked into its committee room, insisting after a few swigs,“I’ve got to have my technical training.”Hollings outlined his case.An unimpressed Brown listened. Finally the frustrated governor declared,“Well you’re going to make me out a liar.” Brown seemed to mellow,asking,“How’s that?”The governor explained he had promised two firms that if they located in South Carolina, the state would pay the cost of training their workers. Brown said, “Well, we can’t make the governor a liar.” He finally agreed to $250,000, less than the governor sought, adding...