Sam Ervin (l.) and Everett Jordan (r).
Bulla, Ben F., Textiles & Politics: The Life of B. Everett Jordan- From Saxapahaw to the United States Senate (Carolina Academic Press, 1992). ISBN 0-89089-486-8. A much-needed biography of the publicity-shy North Carolina senator, whose primary defeat in 1972 paved the way for the election of Jesse Helms to the U.S. Senate.
Son of a Methodist minister, Jordan was an Army Tank Corps soldier in World War I. After serving in the occupation of Germany in 1919, he returned home and got a job as a floor sweeper in a Gastonia textile mill. By 1923, he was a mill superintendent. In 1927, he bought an abandoned mill in Saxapahaw and built up a small empire of textile ventures. Tight as a tick, Jordan replaced his worn-out looms with newer used ones, and never replaced anything he couldn’t keep running with parts from an old machine.
He got involved with Democratic Party politics in the 1930s as a fundraiser. In 1948, his first cousin-in-law, Kerr Scott, was elected governor, and in no time Jordan was state party chair and a national party committeeman. When Scott died in 1958, Jordan was appointed to the seat, winning reelection in 1960 and 1966. He happily labored in the shadow of his larger than life colleague, Sam Ervin, until he lost the 1972 Democratic primary to Congressman Nick Galifianakis, whose name was so long it took two lapel buttons to support him.
Galifianakis, now 88, is mostly known as the uncle to actor Zach Galifianakis. He got thumped by Jesse Helms in the 1972 general election, and after losing the 1974 Democratic Senate primary, retired from politics.
Jordan, who was suffering from cancer when he ran for reelection, died in 1977.
Hardcover, unclipped dust jacket, fine condition. Octavo, 395 pp. HBB price: $30.
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Ervin, Senator Sam, Humor of A Country Lawyer (University of North Carolina Press, 1st ed., 1983). ISBN 0-8078-1566-7. Hardcover, unclipped dust jacket, good condition, inscribed “To Bruce Wofford, with all good wishes” and dated October 23, 1983. HBB price: $40.
Ervin (1896-1985) graduated the University of North Carolina in 1917 and was a combat soldier in World War I, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, and Two Purple Hearts. He graduated Harvard Law School in 1922 and while awaiting admission to the bar was drafted as a candidate for the NC House of Representatives. After service there, 1923-31, he was elected a criminal court judge (1931-37), and superior court judge (1937-43). In 1946 he won a special election to finish the congressional term of his brother Joe, and returned to private practice in 1947. In 1948 he was appointed an associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. After the 1954 death of Senator Clyde R. Hoey, he was appointed to the US Senate, where his he won early renown as a foe of Senator Joe McCarthy. His twenty-year career was capped by his chairmanship of the committee investigation of President Richard Nixon’s misdeeds (1973). Retiring in 1974, he practiced law and wrote several books. This is by far the best, a memoir of his life and tales he heard along the way.
Ervin’s son, Sam III, followed his dad’s footsteps, serving in the legislature, superior court and US Court of Appeals before his death in 1999. His grandson, Sam IV, was elected to the NC Court of Appeals in 2008 and the Supreme Court in 2012.
Ervin’s son, Sam III, followed his dad’s footsteps, serving in the legislature, superior court and US Court of Appeals before his death in 1999. His grandson, Sam IV, was elected to the NC Court of Appeals in 2008 and the Supreme Court in 2012.
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