Olin D. Johnston – Wikipedia
Olin DeWitt Talmadge Johnston or I was D. Johnston (Born November 18, 1896 near Honea Path, South Carolina, † April 18, 1965 in Columbia, South Carolina) was an American politician from the state of South Carolina and a member of the Democratic Party. Between 1935 and 1939 and between 1943 and 1945, he was a US governor of South Carolina. Furthermore, from 1945 until his death in 1965 he was South Carolina.
Johnston wrote on the Textile Industrial Institute , Today Spartanburg Methodist College, one and graduated there a year later. Then he visited the Wfford College. After the American entry into the First World War, Johnston interrupted his studies and joined the army. After the war, Johnston returned to Wfford College and graduated there in 1921. He then studied at the University of South Carolina Jura. Between 1923 and 1924 and again from 1927 to 1930, Johnston was a member of the South Carolina state parliament. As a young member, he was a advocate of the state textile factory workers. His main performance was in an introduction to the law, which resulted in the factory owners had to build a sewage network in the factory villages.
Johnston contested his first election campaign for the governor of South Carolina in 1930. Already then he led the inner party list of candidates in the area code. However, he suffered a defeat in the following runoff election. The lead of his competitor Ibra Charles Blackwood was around 1,000 votes. Four years later, he was able to prevail against the former governor Coleman Livingston Blease within his party. He then won the elections on November 6, 1934 without opposing candidates. Right at the beginning of his term, a law was issued that regulated the sale and trade in alcohol after the end of the prohibition in South Carolina. A welfare program was also adopted. The governor campaigned for a better educational policy and banned child labor for children under the age of sixteen. In October 1935 there was a conflict with his Ministry of Transport (Highway Department). Originally, it was about a dispute about the occupation of the offices in this authority. After the matter could not be regulated to the governor’s satisfaction, he mobilized the National Guard and had the Ministry occupied, which he has now accused of irregularities. In the end, however, it was found that his allegations were unfounded. As a result, Johnston lost his authority to appoint Highway Commissioners, a power of attorney that the governor’s authority has never regained. Johnston also proposed a number of laws that should support state textile workers. As a passionate New Dealer, Johnston was promoting his law program by the House of Representatives to fail in the Senate. It became the most famous struggle between a governor and legislation in South Carolina’s story. During his tenure, the first State Ministry of Labor and the first industrial commission was also formed. Furthermore, an important large rural electrification project was started under his leadership.
Since the constitution at the time excluded a direct re-election of the governor, Johnston applied for a seat in the US Congress in 1938. In 1942 he then returned to the governor’s office. This second term was shaped by two special events. On the one hand, the governor had to support the Federal Government’s efforts to war, organize mobilements and convention in military service and boost war production. The other topic was the attempt to submit a judgment of the US Court of Justice of April 3, 1944, Smith v. Allwright , who allowed the Afro-Americans in Texas to participate in primary (primary). In order to deal with the transfer of this judgment to South Carolina, the state provisions were abolished on primary elections and the parties were transferred as private organizations. These in turn were not bound to the judgment and blacks were still excluded from participating in primary elections.
On January 3, 1945, he announced his resignation as governor of South Carolina to compete in the US Senate. He kept this post until his death in 1965. For several years he was the chairman of the no longer existing Post Office Committee. Johnston was not as conservative as most other southern sensors. He always kept a populist attitude on many economic issues. Unlike most of the South State Democrats, Johnston was against the 1947 Taftley, anti-union Taftley. Johnston was against civil rights laws. He signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto, a protest letter that was against the racial integration and thus equal rights of the blacks. However, Johnston was not an outstanding figure nationwide, but was very well established in his home state. Regardless of the challenge of Strom Thurmond in 1950 and Fritz Hollings, he retained its headquarters in the democratic primary elections in 1962. In both cases, Johnston was the free candidate. Hollings, then governor, attacked the senator with the criticism “The tool of the northern economic bosses”.
Olin Dewitt Talmadge Johnston died on April 18, 1965 in Columbia, South Carolina. He was buried on the Barkers Creek Baptist Church Cemetery in Honea Path, South Carolina.
Johnston’s daughter, Elizabeth Johnston Patterson (1939–2018), represented the fourth congress district of South Carolina in the US House of Representatives between 1987 and 1993. In 1994 she was also a democratic candidate for the office of Vicegouseur from South Carolina.
- Dictionary of American Biography; Huss, John. Senator for the South: A Biography of Olin D. Johnston. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961.
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