A mining of the ETV Tape Vault yielded this ETV Classic from 1967, where we visit the venerable Edgar A. Brown in his law office, home, and the streets of his hometown.
We find Senator Brown having endured the 1967 legislative session, the longest and what may have been the most difficult in modern times. Some weeks before the adjournment, the Senator experienced a heart ailment, which prompted the doctors to confine him to the hospital for several days. In the very last days of the session, he was at a point of exhaustion; nonetheless, the Senator handled the final chores as the presiding officer of the Senate where matters of redistricting and reapportionment were on the table. No man in SC history has served as long in the legislature, dating back to his first term in the House, which started in 1921. After serving as Speaker of the House from 1925 to 1926, he came to the Senate in 1929 and remained there until he retired in 1972. To learn more about Senator Brown's storied career, read more in Side Notes.
Side Notes
- Edgar A. Brown (1888 – 1975) - Politically, Brown was considered one of the most powerful men in state government through his position as president pro tempore of the Senate and chair of the Senate finance committee. As such, he played an instrumental role in state financial matters. A fiscal conservative, Brown helped to create the South Carolina Budget and Control Board and was credited with keeping the state on a sound financial footing with a triple “A” credit rating. He was a strong proponent of a good road system, especially in rural areas. He was a major supporter of the public school system as well as higher education. While he never attended the institution, he was chair of the Clemson University Board of Trustees and played a significant role in the peaceful integration of Clemson in 1963. Brown retired in 1972, ending a legislative career that spanned fifty years.
- Barnwell Ring - When Strom Thurmond ran for governor in 1946, he ran against the Barnwell Ring, which referred to politicians from Barnwell County, including Edgar Brown, who held prominent positions in the General Assembly. In addition to Brown, who held the most powerful position in the Senate, it included Speaker of the House Solomon Blatt, and House Ways and Means chair Winchester Smith. These Barnwell legislators had an inordinate influence in state government, but the “Ring” was more of an election ploy than a description of political decision-making in the state. While Brown and Blatt were the two most powerful legislators in the state, they did not necessarily agree on policy and insisted that there was no such ring.
- W.D. Workman, Jr., The Bishop From Barnwell. Biography of Edgar Brown. Published by R.L. Bryan Company, Columbia, 1963, LCCN 63022368. Biography of Senator Edgar Brown [1888-1975, who served South Carolina as Speaker of the House of Representatives and as President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
- Strom Thurmond (1902 – 2003) coined the term "Barnwell Ring" during his bid for governor in 1946. He campaigned on a progressive platform, which put him squarely at odds with the conservative legislators of the Barnwell Ring. They threw their support to James C. McLeod of Florence and they used every device at their disposal to prevent a victory by Thurmond in the Democratic primary election. The so-called "Barnwell Ring" was a group of influential Democratic South Carolina political leaders from Barnwell County. The group included state Senator Edgar A. Brown, state Representative Solomon Blatt, Sr., Governor Joseph Emile Harley, and state Representative Winchester Smith, Jr. Together, the four occupied the most powerful positions of South Carolina government in 1941.
- Redistricting. US District Court for the District of South Carolina - 254 F. Supp. 708 (D.S.C. 1966) - February 28, 1966 - South Carolina's Constitution of 1895, in its Article III, provided for a Senate composed of one member from each county and for a House composed of 124 members apportioned among the counties on a population basis, with a requirement of periodic reapportionment to accommodate population changes. The South Carolina Legislature is presently constituted in strict conformity with the state constitution. After Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 84 S. Ct. 1362, 12 L. Ed. 2d 506, however, it was obvious that the apportionment of South Carolina's Senate did not comport with the requirement of the federal constitution that both houses of a bicameral state legislature be apportioned on a population basis.
