Transcribed by Spessard Stone from the Polk County Democrat of Monday, November 8, 1971
Spessard L. Holland, Sr., Florida’s No. 1 statesman, died suddenly Saturday afternoon at his
home.He had been resting and listening to a football game on the radio in his bedroom, after having worked for several hours in his study.
Mrs. Mary Holland, his wife of 52 years, found her husband slumped against the radio when she went to tell him that it was time to get ready to keep a dinner engagement with friends.
Unable to rouse him, Mrs. Holland called a nurse and family friend, Mrs. Flossie Martin. A doctor who examined the body at 5:30 said that Senator Holland apparently died of a heart attack about 5 o’clock.
It was two years ago that Senator Holland announced that he would retire from the United States Senate at the end of his term. He revealed then for the first time that he had been suffering with angina-a form of heart ailment-and had been cautioned that he must slow his activities.
The 79-year-old retired senator had been in his office here almost daily since he and Mrs. Holland returned to Bartow last January. He served as a consultant to younger lawyers in the law firm of Holland & Knight, and was writing a book about political and social life in Washington.
He was soon to have joined the faculty of Florida Southern College as a visiting lecturer.
Messages of grief, admiration and condolence began pouring into the family home from notables of state and nation as news of the senator’s sudden death flashed on the news wire.
A native of Bartow, Senator Holland had lived here all his life. Even though his official duties for many years kept him in Tallahassee or Washington, he and Mrs. Holland came to their home at 1005 South Broadway whenever they could.
Among many marks of distinction he compiled in more than 50 years of public service was one extremely rare in political circles-he never lost an election.
Appointed to his first public office as Polk county prosecutor in 1919, Senator Holland was elected county judge in 1920. He served two terms, and retired to concentrate on the private practice of law in 1929.
He returned to active politics in 1932 when he was elected to the Florida Senate from Polk county, and won re-election in 1936.
He was elected Governor after a grudging campaign in 1940, and had been in office less than a year when the bombing of Pearl Harbor thrust the United States into World War 11.
After four years-Governors were not eligible for re-election at that time-he again returned to private life, but in 1946 was persuaded to seek the U. S. Senate seat from which Sen. Charles O. Andrews would soon retire.
He won that election, too, and each succeeding six years the only question was the size of the margin he would roll up at the polls as his fellow Floridians consistently returned him to represent them at Washington.
At his retirement, he had served 24 1/4 years in Washington, and was the eighth ranking senator in seniority. (He picked up his extra quarter year when he was appointed to the Senate in September, 1946, after the sudden death of Senator Andrews.)
Although Senator Holland’s last campaign for personal votes was in 1964, he campaigned actively during last year’s general election for Democrats Lawton Chiles for senator and Reubin Askew for Governor.
The strong support given them by Florida’s senior statesman was reflected in the size of the margins by which Chiles and Askew swamped their opponents.
Generally labeled a conservative, he singlehandedly fought both conservatives and liberals for 13 1/2 years to gain one of his cherished objectives-adoption of a Constitutional amendment to outlaw the poll tax in federal elections.
It was under his leadership that Florida dropped the poll tax-often used as a device to keep Negroes from voting-many years earlier.
The Holland Amendment-the 24th to the U. S. Constitution-is conceded to be the only one to be adopted as the result of the work of a single individual.
Funeral services for Sen. Spessard L. Holland scheduled at 4 p. m. today in First United Methodist Church, with Rev. Lee R. Van Sickle officiating.
The body lay in state in the church from 9 a. m. until 3 p. m., with a uniformed honor guard in attendance.
Members of the law firm of Holland & Knight were to serve as pallbearers. Interment was to be in the Holland family plot in Wildwood cemetery.
There, under a towering oak tree, his parents were buried-his father, B. F. Holland, in 1925; his mother, Fannie Spessard Holland, in 1930. The senior Holland helped to organize First United Methodist Church, of which their distinguished eldest son was a lifelong member.
December 31, 2001