Dorn will be buried with military honors

August 17, 2005

These days, despite the occasional heroic stances at all levels of government, few lawmakers have the word "legendary" preceding their names. Yet that is how most reports referred to William Jennings Bryan Dorn, who died Saturday at 89 and will be buried today with full military honors at the Bethel United Methodist Church Cemetery near Callison.

Mr. Dorn, whose career began at an age when most of us are just beginning to learn where we might want our lives to go, was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1938, when he was but 22 years old. After one term, he moved to the state Senate representing Greenwood County. He entered the U.S. House in 1947, leaving briefly for a shot at the U.S. Senate. He returned to the House in 1951 and served 12 terms for the 3rd District.

His own military service in World War II started a lifelong dedication to service for those who have served their country. He believed returning military deserved more than a mere thank you from their nation and contributed to the creation of the G.I. Bill. That legislation served not only to advance the lives of thousands of veterans and their families but the economy itself, as education bettered the prospects of many who might have settled for lower-paying jobs without government assistance for college.

Like many of his time, Mr. Dorn’s stances on civil rights must be observed in context. A lifelong and loyal Democrat, he felt the national party’s intense pressure on the South during a turbulent time. He would come to be known as an advocate for equality for all in his home state, but believed that federal intervention was in truth intrusion into what should be a state issue. He believed, according to a report in The State, that "Christian love and brotherhood was a better remedy to secure minority rights than the intervention of the federal government." In Congress, he maintained that lawmakers should follow the examples he cited, that at the local level, "education, brotherhood and understanding" were more effective in the attainment of racial accord.

Yet Mr. Dorn was able and willing to move with the times, before such attitudes were commonly accepted, to encourage his fellow South Carolinians to forget the past, the long-ago conflicts between North and South, and take South Carolina into her future.

Mr. Dorn did not retire after his second unsuccessful run for the governorship of South Carolina in 1978. He was elected chair of the state Democratic Party in 1980 and, said current Democratic Party head Joe Erwin: "Congressman Dorn was a leader and statesman. He helped lead South Carolina into the modern age and he did it with class, honor and integrity."

Mr. Dorn knew and loved his state’s ordinary citizens, seeing the working men and women of South Carolina as the people who would be the state’s greatest promise.

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called Mr. Dorn a "noble statesman." But more importantly, he spoke of the gentleman’s character and dignity in service. U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said Mr. Dorn "was one of those rare political figures who grew in and into the office. His conduct in office did him and South Carolinians proud."

William Jennings Bryan Dorn will be remembered today in services at the First Baptist Church in Greenwood. In attendance will undoubtedly be familiar names in politics and his public life. But also there will be family and friends who will celebrate the life of the private man they knew. And there will probably be more than a few of those ordinary South Carolinians he loved and respected, whose private lives were forever enhanced by Mr. Dorn’s public service. They may not speak publicly, as the notables do. But they will be there to show their respect for the man so many others in public life have spoken of in such admiring terms.

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