Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240097
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LAWRENCEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Harrison, who had heart problems, died at his Lawrenceville home, said former Gov. Mills E. Godwin Jr., a close friend and political ally.
``He was a gentleman in the truest and best sense of that term and was a most distinguished governor and public official,'' Godwin said. ``His years as governor brought calm and progress to Virginia during a period of great transition.''
Gov. George Allen said state flags would be flown at half staff for 30 days.
Harrison's term as governor was characterized by his efforts to recruit industry to the state and respond to the struggle over school desegregation.
At the end of his term, Harrison said he had spent $3 million to attract industry and had obtained more than $900 million in new manufacturing plant investment, 150,000 new jobs with $750 million in new payrolls, more than 300 manufacturing plants and more than 325 major plant expansions.
Harrison also had to wrangle with the Prince Edward County school dilemma. The mostly black county's public schools had been closed in 1959 after the U.S. Supreme Count ordered them integrated.
The Democratic governor was unwilling to force the schools to reopen but made efforts to help a private foundation that was set up to provide schooling for the Southside Virginia county's black children.
``I don't think the governor should apply pressure'' to reopen the schools, he said at a 1964 news conference. ``I think Prince Edward will do what is right and proper.''
In his final message to the General Assembly, Harrison urged the passage of a state sales tax, laying the groundwork for the measure's success under Godwin.
Godwin appointed Harrison to the Virginia Supreme Court in September 1967. He retired from the court in December 1981 but was still hearing a few cases as recently as last year, said Robert Baldwin, the court's administrator.
In 1968, Godwin named Harrison to head an 11-member commission to recommended changes in the Virginia Constitution. Their work led to the first systematic overhaul of the state constitution since 1902.
The Harrison family included a signer of the Declaration of Independence and two U.S. presidents, but Harrison's beginnings were modest. His father was a farmer, and his mother taught school.
Harrison was born on Jan. 11, 1907. He obtained a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1928 and two years later was elected commonwealth's attorney of Brunswick County.
``I was not `urged by countless friends' to become a candidate, as politicians sometimes claim. The only people who asked me to run were my parents, who thought it was high time that I made some money,'' he said years later.
Harrison kept the prosecutor's post, without opposition, for the next 16 years, except for World War II service in the Navy. In 1947, he was elected to the Virginia Senate, where he quickly became a rising star in the Democratic political organization headed by U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd Sr.
In 1957, Harrison became the party's candidate for attorney general. After his election, he was responsible for handling in court the state's massive-resistance strategy, a plan devised by Byrd to prevent federally ordered integration of the state's public schools.
However, in a letter to Byrd in August 1958, Harrison said admission of blacks to white schools probably was inevitable. The next year, after federal and state courts overthrew massive resistance, Harrison aided then-Gov. J. Lindsay Almond Jr. in developing a school integration plan.
Harrison, in a speech at the midpoint of his term as governor, told a group of law school students that the job wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
A governor's ``every word and every action - or inaction - is duly noted, and the citizen has no hesitancy about letting his reactions be known. There is no doubt that the citizen carries with him a highly idealized picture of what his governor ought to be, and sometime the occupant of the office must go to elaborated lengths in an attempt to live up to it.''
Harrison is survived by his wife, Lacey Harrison; a daughter, Antoinette H. Jamison; and six grandchildren.
A graveside service will be held at noon Wednesday at Oakwood Cemetery in Lawrenceville.
by CNB