Spessard Holland
| Spessard Lindsey Holland, Sr. | |
 | |
| In office September 25, 1946 – January 3, 1971 | |
| Preceded by | Charles O. Andrews |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Lawton Chiles |
| In office January 7, 1941 – January 2, 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Fred P. Cone |
| Succeeded by | Millard Caldwell |
Florida State Senator for District 7
| |
| In office 1932–1940 | |
| Preceded by | John J. Swearingen |
| Succeeded by | Harry E. King |
| Born | July 10, 1892 Bartow, Polk County, Florida |
| Died | November 6, 1971 (aged 79) Bartow, Florida |
| Resting place | Wildwood Cemetery in Bartow |
| Political party | Democrat |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Agnes Groover Holland (1896–1975) (married 1919–1971, his death) |
| Children | Spessard Holland, Jr. (1921–1989)) Mary Groover Holland William Benjamin Holland Ivanhoe Elizabeth Holland Craney |
| Alma mater | Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia) University of Florida (Gainesville) |
| Religion | Methodist |
Military Service
| |
| Allegiance | United States |
| Service/branch | United States Army Aviation Section of the |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | Coast Artillery Corps 24th Flying Squadron |
| Battles/wars | World War I |
| Awards | Distinguished Service Cross |
Spessard Lindsey Holland, Sr. (July 10, 1892 – November 6, 1971), was an attorney and politician who was the 28th governor of Florida from 1941 to 1945, and a United States Senator from 1946 to 1971. A Democrat, he was a member of the congressional Conservative Coalition.
Contents
Background
Holland was born in Bartow in Polk County in south central Florida, named after his mother, the former Fannie Virginia Spessard (1861–1930), an educator. His father was Benjamin Franklin Holland (1846–1925). He attended the Summerlin Institute (since known as the public Bartow High School). In 1909, Holland graduated from Emory College in Atlanta, Georgia, and then taught high school for four years in Warrenton in eastern Georgia.
In 1916, Holland began attending law school at the University of Florida at Gainesville, where he also taught in the university's high school. He was elected the first student body president and joined the debate club. During his time at Emory and the University of Florida, he participated in various sports football, basketball, baseball and track and field. He was offered the chance to become a pitcher for the Philadelphia Athletics by the legendary Cornelius Harvey McGiilicuddy, known as Connie Mack, I (1862–1956), the grandfather of Connie Mack, III, a Republican who was elected to Holland's former U.S. Senate seat in 1988 and 1994.[1]
Military service
A Rhodes Scholar, Holland was a junior partner with R. B. Huffaker in the firm Huffaker & Holland, since Holland & Knight. During World War I, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Coast Artillery Corps. He was sent to France and served in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He was an aerial observer and a gunner. At various times he took part in battles at Meuse-Argonne, Champagne, St. Mihiel, and Lunéville, where he managed to down two enemy planes. On one mission, Holland's plane crash-landed in a crater; on December 11, 1918, Holland was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, signed by General John J. Pershing. After the war, he was promoted to captain and back in the United States resumed his law practice and participated in the Victory Loan Drive.[2]
Career
His return to law was soon interrupted by his appointment as the Polk County prosecutor, a post he held for two years prior to his election in 1920 to the first of his two four-year term as the county judge. Holland left the county judgeship in 1929 to join the international law firm of Holland & Bevis, since Holland & Knight. He was elected to the Florida State Senate in 1932, where he was influential in the drafting of the Florida School Code and supported increased teacher pay and retirement benefits. Holland also supported worker's compensation, tax cuts, and unemployment insurance. He was strongly opposed to both the sales tax and the poll tax, which he helped repeal in Florida in 1937.[2]
Florida governor
An alternate delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention, which nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt for a third term, he was elected that same year as governor of Florida. Governor Holland worked to reform the state tax system. He supported taxes on tobacco products to reduce his state's then $4 million debt. He pushed for uniform real estate assessments. He pushed too for four state constitutional amendments, including new gasoline taxes to build highways and the establishment of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. After Pearl Harbor, Governor Holland in 1942 encouraged the establishment of new military bases in Florida. In 1944. he arranged the purchase of what three years later became the Everglades National Park.[2]
U.S. Senate
On September 25, 1946, Holland assumed the U.S. Senate seat vacated by fellow Democrat Charles O. Andrews, who died in office a week earlier. In November 1946, he defeated Republican John Harry Schad (1893–1948), a native of Baltimore, Maryland[3] to win a full six-year term.
Holland was reelected in 1952 and in his second term joined with most senators from the states of the former Confederacy in signing the Southern Manifesto,[4] which condemned the United States Supreme Court for its legal opinion, Brown v. Board of Education, which struck down continued segregation in southern public schools. He opposed and voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1957,[5] 1960,[6] 1964,[7] as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.[8] Holland was among the the Southern Bloc[9] which filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act until the obstruction was broken up by a 71–29 cloture vote.[10]
In 1958, Holland was challenged for renomination in the Democratic primary by U.S. Representative Claude Pepper, a former U.S. Senator who was the leading voice in Florida for liberalism at that time. In 1962. Pepper was elected to the U.S. House and served until his death. After he easily turned back the challenge of Pepper, Holland easily defeated in a heavily Democratic year his Republican opponent, attorney and Wisconsin native Leland Hyzer (1896–1967),[11] and hence secured his third term. He pushed successfully for the 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution to forbid the states from requiring the payment of poll taxes in order to vote.[1]
He won a fourth term in 1964 by defeating the Democrat-turned-Republican-returned Democrat-returned Republican Claude Kirk, who two years later won the Florida governorship over Miami Mayor Robert King High. Kirk was the first member of his party to have prevailed in a gubernatorial race since Reconstruction. Late in 1969, two years before his death of a heart attack at his home in Bartow, Holland announced that he would not seek a fifth term in 1970. Instead, he was succeeded by his fellow Democrat, Lawton Chiles, also a native of Polk County. Chiles defeated Republican U.S. Representative William C. Cramer, whose party was divided after Cramer defeated George Harrold Carswell (1919–1992), a Supreme Court nominee not confirmed by the Senate. Chiles said that Cramer can bring "Nixon, Agnew, Reagan and anybody else he wants. ... I'll take Holland on my side against all of them."[12]
The Spessard L. Holland Elementary School in Polk County is named in his honor.[13]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Spessard L. Holland Dies Suddenly at 79. Polk County Democrat through freepages.rootsweb.com (November 8, 1971). Retrieved on February 22, 2021.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Spessard Lindsey Holland. findagrave.com. Retrieved on February 22, 2021.
- ↑ John Harry Schad. Findagrave.com. Retrieved on February 22, 2021.
- ↑ Southern Manifesto. African American Civil Rights Movement. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
- ↑ HR. 6127. CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1957.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
- ↑ HR. 8601. PASSAGE OF AMENDED BILL.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
- ↑ HR. 7152. PASSAGE.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
- ↑ TO PASS S. 1564, THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
- ↑ 1964 Civil Rights Act. Spartacus Educational. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
- ↑ HR. 7152. MANSFIELD DIRKSEN MOTION THAT THE SENATE INVOKE CLOTURE ON THE SOUTHERN FILIBUSTER.. GovTrack.us. Retrieved February 22, 2021.
- ↑ Leland Hyzer. findagrave.com. Retrieved on February 22, 2021.
- ↑ Billy Hathorn, "Cramer v. Kirk: The Florida Republican Schism of 1970," Florida Historical Quarterly (April 1990), p. 419.
- ↑ Welcome to Spessard L. Holland Elementary (Home of the Spessard Gators). slhe.polkschoolsfl.com. Retrieved on February 22, 2021.
External links
- Profile at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
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