New in the collection: Sam Ervin’s first campaign poster

Campaign poster for Sam Ervin Jr for Solicitor

 

“Ervin got his first taste of corrupt politics in 1926 when he ran for district solicitor, the equivalent in most states of prosecutor. It was the first time he had sought elective office on his own, and the only time he was ever beaten. It was apparent to Ervin’s supporters that he lost the election to L. S. Sperling of nearby Lenoir because the ballot boxes in Caldwell County had been tampered with….”

— From “Just a Country Lawyer: A Biography of Senator Sam Ervin” by Paul R. Clancy (1974)

I obtained this poster many years ago from Senator Sam’s grandson, Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin.

 

‘Old country lawyer’ defends his ‘harassment’

On this day in 1972: In one of the most memorable phrases of the Watergate hearings, Sen. Sam Ervin refers to himself as “just an old country lawyer.”

Sen. Edward Gurney, a Florida Republican, accused Democrat Ervin of “harassment” in his persistent questioning of Maurice Stans, chief fund-raiser for President Nixon’s reelection campaign.

“I’m just an old country lawyer,” Ervin replied. “I have to do things my way.”

 

Pvt. Ervin took Gen. Pershing’s order to heart

On this day in 1918: Future senator Sam Ervin, in infantry training, writing his “Dearest Mamma” in Morganton:

“Today is Mother’s Day, and according to orders from General Pershing it is to be most fittingly observed by each member of the Amixforce [American Expeditionary Forces] writing a letter to his mother. No order heretofore given has, in my humble opinion, contained so vast a store of true wisdom….

“My hope and prayer is that I may be spared to come back in honor and safety in order that I may repay a small part of the great debt that I owe to you. No one can be under a greater obligation than I, for my mother is the most beautiful and self-sacrificing mother in the world.”

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Sam Ervin gave pocket Constitution its star turn

“Susan Herman, president of the ACLU, said the first instance she knows of when prominent politicians used pocket Constitutions for effect was during the Watergate hearings. Sen. Sam Ervin, a North Carolina Democrat, chaired the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices—also known as the Watergate Committee (or even the Ervin Committee)—and the hearings were televised. Ervin used to pull out his pocket copy of the Constitution during the hearings, and it made a powerful visual impact.

“ ‘That was really important, because Watergate was so much a moment of paying attention to the Constitution,’ Herman said. ‘The fact that there was this visual and personal symbol of somebody who was paying very careful attention to exactly what the Constitution said I think was really important in the history of the Watergate hearings.’ ”

–From “The History of the Pocket Constitution: How mini-Constitutions became popular long before the Tea Party” by Betsy Woodruff at Slate (Jan. 28)

 

Tallying Tar Heels on Time covers (cont.)

In addition to the previously mentioned  “Uncle Joe” Cannon (1923), Henry L. Stevens Jr. (1932) and Frank McNinch (1938), these Time magazine cover subjects are among those with various degrees of rootedness in North Carolina:

Wallace Wade, Duke football coach (1937). The cover line, noting the South’s newfound football prowess, was classic Timespeak: “Southward the course of history takes its way.”

Ava Gardner (1951).

Billy Graham (1954). Graham would repeat in 1993 (“A Christian in Winter: Billy Graham at 75”), in 1996 with son Franklin Graham (“The Prodigal Son”) and in 2007 (“The Political Confessions of Billy Graham”).

Althea Gibson, tennis player born in Silver, S.C., and reared as a teenager in Wilmington (1957).

Bowman Gray, chairman of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco (1960). Check out the illustration.

James Taylor (1971).

Sam Ervin (1973). The first of more than two dozen Watergate covers in coming months.

Jesse Helms (1981). “To the right, march!”

Stanley Pons of Valdese, supposed “cold fusion” discoverer, with colleague Martin Fleischmann (1989). “Fusion or illusion?”

Elizabeth Dole with Hillary Clinton (1996). “Who would be better First Lady?”

Michael Jordan (1998). “We may never see his likes again” — followed a year later by “The world’s biggest superstar calls it quits.”

John Edwards with John Kerry (2004).

 

FDR’s ‘concentration camp for all Americans’?

“The Nazi metaphors reached their zenith in May 1945, when a freshman North Carolina congressman called [FDR’s Fair Employment Practices Commission]  ‘a concentration camp for all Americans.’ Speaking for over an hour, Joseph Wilson Ervin warned that the FEPC  ‘would operate with the weapon of fear’ by hauling off employers to trial at the hands of ‘carpetbagger personnel.’

“Noting that the majority of FEPC employees were black, the younger brother of North Carolina judge and future senator Samuel James Ervin added that most of the agency’s white staff belonged to the ‘lunatic fringe.’ He read the FEPC employees’ names aloud, noting the preponderance of ‘interesting’ surnames such as Asepha, Castenada, Wazem and Zeidman. ‘How would you like one of these birds to try your case?’ he asked his colleagues.”

— From “Defending White Democracy: The Making of a Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965” by Jason Morgan Ward (2011)

Eight months later Joe Ervin committed suicide. Sam Ervin was elected to complete his brother’s term in Congress, but he did not run for election.

 

Segregationist cause welcomed ‘unreconstructed’ Ervin

“Weeks after the Brown [vs. Board of Education decision in 1954], the press hailed the latest poster boy for the ‘soft Southern approach’…. Samuel J. Ervin, a Harvard-educated state Supreme Court justice, arrived in Washington ready to lend his legal expertise and ‘country lawyer’  charm to the segregationist cause.

“Governor William Umstead tapped Ervin to complete the term of Clyde Hoey, who died in his office…. Ervin privately boasted that he was as ‘unrepentant and unreconstructed’ as Hoey, a Confederate captain’s son….

“Leaders of the Southern opposition saw in Ervin a fresh face that could elevate the segregationist defense above the white supremacist rhetoric of their fathers’ generation.”

— From “Defending White Democracy: The Making of a Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965” by Jason Morgan Ward (2011)

 

Ngram: Good old mountain dew? Not exactly

More phrase-frequency charts from Google Books Ngram Reader:

— mountain dew vs. Mountain Dew

— Michael Jordan vs. Thomas Wolfe, Andy Griffith and Sam Ervin

— Lumbee Indians vs. Catawba Indians

— Wilmington 10 vs. Chicago Seven

— Charlotte Hornets vs. Charlotte Bobcats

For Marshal Ney, life after death?

Still more phrase-frequency charts from the indefatigable Google Books Ngram Reader:

sweet tea

— Jesse Helms vs. Terry Sanford and Sam Ervin

— Old North State vs. Tar Heel State. Only now has Tar Heel State become the more common usage? There’s something here I’m not getting.

— redneck vs. white trash and hillbilly

Marshal Ney. His execution in 1815 apparently accounts for the first spike, his supposed reappearance as a North Carolina schoolteacher for the second.