Addresses, Letters And Papers Of Clyde Roark Hoey, Governor Of North Carolina Part Two
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Addresses, Letters And Papers Of Clyde Roark Hoey, Governor Of North Carolina Part One
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
Clyde Roark Hoey was an American politician from North Carolina. He served in both houses of the state legislature and served briefly in the U. S. House of Representatives from 1919 to 1921. He was North Carolina's governor from 1937 to 1941. He also entered the U. S. Senate in 1945 and served there until his death.
Background
Clyde Roark Hoey was born in Shelby, New York City, United States. He was the son of Samuel Alberta and Mary Charlotte Roark Hoey. His father, a planter, had organized and commanded a company in the Confederate army during the Civil War; the family lost its economic security during the Reconstruction. When his father's health failed, Hoey quit school and at the age of twelve began working as a printer's devil on the Shelby Aurora before becoming a full-fledged printer on the Charlotte Observer. He then began work for the Shelby Review, and when that journal became bankrupt, Hoey asked if he might work off its debts. He thus, at the age of sixteen, became owner of the paper, which he renamed the Cleveland.
Education
Hoey attended the public schools and learned the printing trade and later became, at the age of sixteen, owner, editor and publisher of the Cleveland Star; and graduated from the law department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Career
In 1899 Hoey became licensed to practice law and gave up journalism, although he retained ownership of the Star for nine more years. At twenty Hoey was elected as a Democrat to the North Carolina House of Commons and five years later, in 1902, he became a state senator. (In both cases he reached the minimum legal age for serving in the office between the election and the swearing-in date. )
Hoey was elected to the United States Congress in December 1919, but declined renomination for a second term. He resumed the practice of law until elected governor in 1936, and became the only person to have pleaded legal cases in all 100 counties of the state. In the first Democratic primary in 1936, one of Hoey's opponents advocated the repeal of the state sales tax. In statesmanlike fashion, Hoey contended that the repeal of the tax, adopted as an emergency measure in 1933, would mean disaster for the schools, since local taxes were inadequate.
Nonetheless, in 1937, when he was governor, he secured the repeal of the tax on eleven basic foods. His approach was thus both liberal and conservative, as it remained throughout his career. Hoey realized a state that rejected financial aid from the federal government would suffer in many ways. In his inaugural address he elaborated: "Government must keep pace with human progress and the spirit of humanity is finding universal expression in the functions now performed by the government which were formerly confined to benevolently inclined people, the church, and religious organizations. Those who would serve today must have a civic conscience, must visualize the humanitarian needs, the claims of childhood and youth, and lend a listening ear to the plaintive appeal of the prisoner in bonds, the unfortunate and underprivileged, and the old and dependent. "
At the expiration of his term of office in 1941, Hoey resumed the practice of law until he was elected to the United States Senate in 1944. Reelected in 1950, he was the only person to serve as a member of each house of the state and United States legislature and as governor of North Carolina.
Hoey was chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate that investigated the so-called 5 percent activities of influence peddlers who claimed to be able to secure government contracts for a commission. During presentation of evidence of such activities Hoey avoided sensationalism, asserting that the committee "sought only to find the facts and disclose them without regard to whom they affected. " The subcommittee also made an extensive report on the security risks and general suitability of employing homosexuals in federal positions.
Achievements
Under Hoey's governorship the legislature rejected the proposed federal child-labor constitutional amendment but raised the minimum age for the employment of children to sixteen. Statewide local option was established, together with a state board of alcoholic control. Other measures passed during his tenure included free textbooks for elementary grades, expanded expenditures for schools and charitable institutions, an enlarged state highway system, and modern health programs. Two state-supported black colleges were authorized to establish graduate and professional schools. Cooperation with the federal government helped develop the Social Security system, while a large building program for state departments and agencies and for state educational and charitable institutions was carried out with federal aid.
He was given honorary Doctor of Law degrees by Davidson College (1937), The University of North Carolina (1938), and Duke University (1938).
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
Religion
Hoey was the best-known North Carolina Methodist layman of his time and attended his religious principles with dedicated seriousness. For many years he taught a Bible class in his home church at Shelby.
Politics
As a senator Hoey may be characterized as a forward-looking conservative. In foreign affairs he supported international cooperation and aid to less developed countries. To him the Marshall Plan was as "simple" as it was "sensible. " The United States, he believed, was the steward of its material resources and should respond to the needs of other countries in "accord with the finest Christian traditions. " In domestic affairs he was a fiscal conservative with humanitarian convictions.
His voting record was criticized by organized labor because he supported the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and by blacks because he opposed President Harry S. Truman's civil-rights program. Hoey said he believed in "the development of individual opportunity for the Negro through voluntary state and local efforts, rather than from legal compulsion from any source. "
Membership
Hoey was a Mason and a member of the Odd Fellows, Woodmen of the World, Knights of Pythias, Junior Order, and Omicron Delta Kappa and Sigma Chi fraternities.
Personality
Hoey was the last of the Old Guard, wearing a long cutaway coat of Confederate gray, with stiff collar and cravat and with a red rose or carnation in his lapel.
One North Carolina leader said that Hoey "looks like a Methodist bishop, he speaks like an old school orator, he goes among the people like an expert politician, he settles differences like a diplomat, but when the time comes that soft words and friendly smiles are no longer of avail, he fights to the end and never pulls a punch. " Hoey was extremely gregarious. When riding the streetcar to the Capitol he often would strike up a conversation with a seatmate. Then, arriving at the Senate chamber, he would greet a close associate, "How are you, beloved?"
Connections
Hoey was married twice. On March 22, 1900, Hoey married Margaret Elizabeth "Bessie" Gardner, who died in 1942; they had three children. His second wife was Ruth Moore.
