Accept whatever your mind finds to be true; and whatever your conscience determines to be right, and whatever your heart declares to be noble, even though your act in doing so may drive a hoary prejudice from its throne. And, above all things, meditate often upon the words and deeds of Him who died on Calvary for, by so doing, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
-- Senator Sam Ervin, Jr.
Senator Sam Ervin, Jr. is one of my all-time favorite people. I loved his folksy manner; I admired his knowledge of the bible; I loved his storytelling; I admired his brilliance, but most of all, I admired his integrity.
In 1732, a band of Scotch-Irish settlers migrated from Ulster to Belfast and finally to the coast of South Carolina to escape the religious persecution of the King of England. Among them was James Ervin, who settled in Williamsburg County, South Carolina. In 1776, he died leaving a son, John, who owned a plantation and twenty-nine slaves.
John Witherspoon Ervin, teacher, newspaper publisher, and poet, gave up writing after the Civil War, accepting an offer to teach in Morganton, North Carolina, in 1874. His, Samuel James Ervin, took the North Carolina bar exam, in 1878, and later became one of the states most prominent lawyers.
In 1886, Samuel Ervin married Laura Theresa Powe. She bore ten children: Lauta, 1888; Catharine, 1890; Margaret, 1892; Edward, 1894; Sam, 1896; Hugh, 1898; Joseph, 1901, Eunice, 1903; John, 1906; and Jean, 1909.
Samuel James Ervin, Jr. was a Representative and a Senator from North Carolina. He was born in Morganton, Burke County, N.C., September 27, 1896, in Morganton, shortly before William McKinley, a Scotch-Irishman, from Canton, Ohio, defeated William Jennings Bryan for the Presidency. As a young boy his favorite pastime was playing baseball and playing marbles. He attended his first year of public school in 1903. He was an above-average student, excelling in history and reading, but he disliked science and math. An omnivorous reader, Ervin was taught by his grandfather to read at the age of four. "I don't remember so much his teaching, but when I didn't learn right quick he'd thump me on the head with his finger and say, 'Mighty thick, mighty thick.' That's the only conversation I recall having with him." His father had a sizable home library, including works by Shakespeare, Dickens, Scott, and Kipling. Years later, as Senator, Sam, Jr. estimated his own library to contain 25,000-35,000 books.
Like most boys, Sam was not immune to mischief. "I used to have to answer the roll call every morning with a quotation from the scriptures. On one occasion I had just looked through the Bible and I found a verse that said, 'I have more understanding than all my teachers.' Of course, the class was hilarious. And the teacher kept me in, said there was no such verse in the Bible. And I showed it to him. I've forgotten where it is now. I think it's in King Solomon that said that. I pointed it out to him, and he said, 'Well, you didn't say it in the right spirit of reverence'"
Tragedy struck the Ervin family on several occasions. Edward suffered a bad case of whooping cough when he was a child and then developed an agonizing asthmatic condition, spending his nights sitting in a straight chair. He died when he was 39.
Margaret, four years older than Sam, died of tuberculosis when she was 19. Before it was diagnosed she lost one lung and was not expected to recover. She spent her final days in her bedroom where only her mother was permitted to see her.
Catharine contracted Hodgkin's disease and died when she was 50.
Surely, the most tragic of all was the suffering and extraordinary treatment Joseph endured, resulting from a fall from a tree in the family apple orchard, at the age of 6. Joseph developed osteomyelitis, a painful inflammation of the bone marrow. Before the discovery of "wonder" drugs, one of the treatments of osteomyelitis involved planting maggots, worm-like insects, near the infected bone, place a small cage over the incision so the maggots could not escape, and leave them there to eat away at the diseased bone tissues. It worked, at least provisionally, but it was a horrible, disgusting experience for the patient.
Ervin went to see his brother one day at the hospital and Joe confided in him: "This is the greatest agony I've ever undergone; feeling a live maggot wandering around inside my body. I don't know how I can stand it much longer." He committed suicide at the height of a promising political career. He had endured a series of operations, spending time in between on crutches. "He took the notion that his osteomyelitis was coming back on him and it was just too much for him."
A northerner, Carey E. Gregory, seeking a healthier climate, settled in western North Carolina. Prior to Sam's departure for college he told him, "There's no royal road to learning.: Sam may have taken the comment to heart, as indicated by an excerpt from Paul R. Clancy's "Just a Country Lawyer":
"To those who did not know young Sam well, he frequently seemed to be going through life in a fog. He had the ability, even then, to crawl inside his mind and hide. He was collecting, storing, sorting out, and valuating knowledge. And, in so doing, he could shut out the rest of the world. Friends and family could go into his room where he was studying, even dust around his feet, and he wouldn't know it"
"There were always lots of books in that family. You read books and you developed yourself."
"Before leaving for Chapel Hill, the studious remote young man walked his sister Eunice to school on her first day in the first grade. He read a book all the way."
Sam extolled the virtues of reading when he addressed the class of '73, on October 12, at the Memorial Auditorium at the University of North Carolina:
"Let books be your friends, for by so doing you summon to your fireside in seasons of loneliness the choice spirits of all the ages. Observe mankind through the eyes of clarity, for, by so doing, you will discover anew the oft forgotten fact that earth is peopled with many gallant souls. Study nature, and walk at times in solitude beneath the starry heavens, for, by so doing, you will absorb the great lesson that God is infinite and that your life is just a little beat within the heart of time. Cling to the ancient landmark of truth, but be ready to test the soundness of a new idea.
Accept whatever your mind finds to be true; and whatever your conscience determines to be right, and whatever your heart declares to be noble, even though your act in doing so may drive a hoary prejudice from its throne. And, above all things, meditate often upon the words and deeds of Him who died on Calvary for, by so doing, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
In 1913, Ervin entered the freshman class, of only 200 students, at the University of North Carolina, graduating, in 1917. Thomas Wolfe, from Asheville was two years behind Ervin at Chapel Hill. They met through Sigma Upsilon, the campus literary society. Ervin made the observation that Wolfe was "normally a very taciturn person, but when he got with some friends he could speak almost as fluently as he wrote."
After serving in France in the First World War, with the First Division (1917-1919), Ervin was admitted to the bar in 1919 and commenced practice in Morganton, in 1922, after graduating from Harvard University law school , the same year. He became a member of the North Carolina general assembly (1923, 1925, 1931); judge of the Burke County criminal court (1935-1937); judge of the North Carolina superior court (1937-1943); elected on January 22, 1946, as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of his brother, Joseph W. Ervin, and served from January 22, 1946, to January 3, 1947. Choosing not to run for re-nomination in 1946; Sam resumed the practice of law; and was associate justice of the North Carolina supreme court 1948-1954; appointed on June 5, 1954.
On November 2, 1954, Ervin was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy brought about by the death of Clyde R. Hoey, for the term ending January 3, 1957. Re-elected in 1956, 1962, and again in 1968 and served until his resignation December 31,1974. "I've seen too many Senators remain there too long," he once said.
In addition to being well-read and having a prodigious memory, Senator Ervin was an unbending moralist who possessed a rapier wit, often quoting Biblical scripture. On President Gerald R. Ford's pardon of Richard M. Nixon, he said: "The pardon power of the president of the United States is greater than the pardon power of the Almighty. The Almighty, according to religious teachings, can't pardon a poor sinner for his sins, unless the poor sinner first confesses his sins." He counseled his peers with the admonition: " The Constitution and the Bible are suggested readings for public officials."
Ervin chaired the Committee on Government Operations (Ninety-second and Ninety-third Congresses), and the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (Ninety-third Congress). Resuming the practice of law, after retirement, Sam engaged in literary pursuits in Morganton, N.C., continuing to work an 8-hour day because "I prefer to wear out rather than rust out."
Senator Sam, as he was referred to affectionately, was an avuncular figure--he was a Bible scholar, an intellectual, and a warm-spirited gentleman. He possessed a gift of story-telling, His down-home, down-to-earth manner endeared him to, not only North Carolinians, but to the nation, as exemplified by his folksy demeanor when asked to head the Senate Watergate Committee investigation. "This self-proclaimed country lawyer with the bottomless barrel of aphorisms from Shakespeare, the Bible, and the North Carolina mountains, became a national symbol of decency and fairness in politics, the embodiment for many of wisdom, a genuine American folk hero."
Senator Sam Ervin, Jr. died in Winston-Salem, N.C., on April 23, 1985. He was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery in Morganton, N.C.
Bibliography
American National Biography; Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives; Clancy, Paul. Just A Country Lawyer: A Biography of Senator Sam Ervin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974; Ervin, Sam. Preserving the Constitution: An Autobiography of Senator Sam Ervin. Charlottesville, Va.: Mitchie Co., 1984.
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