DATE: Sunday, July 13, 1997                 TAG: 9707110204

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J6   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:   93 lines

IN MEMORIAM NORFOLK'S HENRY E. HOWELL: THE COMMON MAN'S FRIEND WON'T SOON BE FORGOTTEN

Dr. Larry Sabato, the Robert Kent Gooch professor of government at the University of Virginia and a nationally-acclaimed political analyst and author, gave the eulogy Friday at the funeral of Henry E. Howell.

Howell had inspired Sabato to study politics. The pair met when Howell was waging his first campaign for governor in 1969 and Sabato was a student at Norfolk Catholic High School. Sabato invited Howell to speak at the school, and a long friendship ensued.

Following are excerpts from Sabato's remarks:

We gather today to mourn a man but also to celebrate a remarkable life, one of the most consequential of twentieth-century Virginia.

There have been thousands of public officials over the decades, but only a few have truly made a lasting impact and helped to define their times. Henry Howell was one of these special few. His achievements during a long public life were impressive:

For a quarter-century he led the fight to replace a governing oligarchy with true representative democracy. The odds were daunting when he started, but he persevered and triumphed. Henry believed it was a disgrace that, in the words of V.O. Key, ``by comparison to Virginia, Mississippi was a hotbed of democracy.'' And Henry Howell was right.

When being for civil rights was enormously controversial and unpopular, Henry Howell stood up against Massive Resistance and the poll tax, and for simple justice for African-Americans. The odds were daunting when he started, but he persevered and triumphed. And Henry Howell was right.

Henry believed in another kind of equality, too, a sort that made him as beloved in rural country stores as in urban precincts. From the 1949 gubernatorial campaign of Frances Pickens Miller onwards, Henry Howell fought for a fair deal for working men and women, a square deal for the middle class, a new deal for those whose blood lines weren't pure blue. A son of a lumberman, Henry thought that the sons and daughters of lumbermen and teachers and factory blue-collar workers should have the same voice in their government as the sons and daughters of bankers and senators and country-club members. And Henry Howell was right.

Some said the urban areas, which had a large majority of the population, did not deserve their fair share of seats in Congress and the General Assembly. But Henry thought otherwise, took the issue to the Supreme Court, and won. The odds were daunting when he started, but he persevered and triumphed. And Henry Howell was right.

When Henry first came on the political scene, big business ruled the roost, with consumers often an afterthought if they were considered at all. Now consumerism is embraced by politicians of both parties, as is the eventual abolition of the regressive sales tax on food and medicine. Again, Henry Howell was right.

None of this came easy, and there was a lot of mileage and many dents on Henry's 76-year-old frame. At every opportunity the powers that be and the old order had lashed out at Henry Howell. They said Henry was out of step with Virginia - an admittedly accurate charge since Henry, unlike Virginia, was always walking forward. They called him Howlin' Henry, and they mocked his every move. The establishment hated and feared him - and oh, how we loved him for that! As former Governor Colgate Darden once remarked, ``Henry Howell was a stick of pure dynamite tossed into the placid pond of Virginia politics.''

Henry was a candidate in 17 primary and general elections, including six exhausting statewide campaigns. He served with great distinction and courage in the House of Delegates and the Senate of Virginia, as well as lieutenant governor from 1971 to 1974. Despite three energetic attempts, including an agonizingly close battle in 1973 when the lead see-sawed through the night, Henry never succeeded in being elected governor. Yet as he was fond of saying, he sued three governors and beat them all. And more importantly, he moved Virginia further forward from outside the governor's office than most governors have done from the inside. History will remember this unusual vox populi.

But no memory compares to that of Henry's impromptu sloganeering on the campaign trail. Can't you just see him, on the backstand of that Winnebago, barking into the microphone:

Keep the big boys honest and make the system work!

Get Virginia out of the Byrd cage!

Don't go along to get along; avoid the chloroform of conformity!

A liberal in Virginia is anybody who believes in life after birth!

There's more going around in the dark than Santa Claus, and hanky-panky is its name!

But the quality that separated Henry Howell from the crowd was that he never forgot why he was in politics. It was to seek power not for its own sake but to help others, to serve the people and not the political class, to aid the poor and the weak, not the rich and the powerful. How rare then, and even less common today.

And so I return to my point of departure. As we mourn Henry Howell's passing, we also have much to celebrate. A good and decent man, whose hopes and dreams and ideals and ambitions changed the face of a state, has left us a marvelous legacy. That legacy can and should be a comfort to Henry Howell's family and his legion of friends and admirers - many of whom, like me, were first swept into politics because of Henry's force and commitment. We can all give thanks that Henry passed our way; we can all pray that he is at this moment enjoying the otherworldly rewards he so richly earned in this world. ILLUSTRATION: File photo

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu