THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 22, 1995 TAG: 9504220291
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
When, in the 1950s, a government agency declined to release facts to Rep. Porter Hardy Jr.'s committee investigating fraud, Hardy had the House of Representatives empower Congress to cut off the agency's salaries.
But Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had the measure gutted. Later, placing his big, clammy hand on Hardy's back, Johnson said, ``We took care of your resolution, Portah.''
``The hell you did!'' Hardy said. ``Take the knife out of my back!''
Craggy face flushed, eyes narrowed, anvil jaw set, he looked like a rogue elephant about to charge.
Believing during 22 years in Congress that its greatest power is to investigate, Hardy kept two dozen aides defrocking those bent on defrauding the government.
He directed probes into everything that seemed tainted, from foreign aid to military housing.
At Hardy's death Wednesday, a former aide to another congressman of that era said, ``No matter who we worked for, Porter was our hero.''
Born in Bon Air, the son of a circuit-riding Methodist minister, Hardy once recalled: ``It seemed to me that we were almost always settling down or getting ready to move. I figured one time that, except for one period, I never went a whole year to one school.
``On one circuit he had eight churches - two a Sunday - and it took him a month to get around it. I traveled with him a whole lot in a little two-wheeled cart and rode between his knees. I was getting sermonized almost continuously on those trips.
``You couldn't ask for anybody more aware of his children's needs than he was. How in the name of the Lord all of us went through college I'll never know. It was quite a do.''
As a youth, during the Depression, he held more jobs than his father had churches. After graduation from Randolph-Macon College, he farmed near Portsmouth.
His wrath was rare. More often there was a grin. When he laughed, he'd give himself so thoroughly to mirth that tears came to his eyes and, still laughing, he'd wipe them with the backs of his large hands.
He organized groups for potato and vegetable growers and then for peanut farmers in Southside Virginia. They backed him as a candidate for Congress in 1944. He lost a three-way race narrowly, but two years later he took an early lead.
Two weeks before the election, Hardy got a call from Sidney Kellam, boss of Princess Anne County and a top lieutenant in Harry Byrd's dominant Democratic organization. Kellam invited him and his campaign manager to come to his office.
``Sidney, if you want to see us, come up here,'' Hardy replied. But his campaign manager, George Bowers, insisted they go jaw with Kellam and his henchmen.
Kellam said his people would like to come along with Hardy.
``Sidney,'' Hardy said, ``we don't need you, but if you want to come along, you're smarter than I thought you were, because we're going to take you.''
``If you don't mind,'' Kellam said, ``we'd like to make that announcement.''
``It doesn't make any difference to us whether or not you make any announcement,'' Hardy said.
Some of Kellam's group wanted the visitors to have a drink. ``Come up to our place tomorrow night for a drink - and bring your own liquor!'' Hardy said.
Right from the start in Congress, when his constituents' rights were slighted, Hardy rose like a breaching whale to their defense.
During his first hearing as a member of the House Armed Services Committee, he defied its imperial chairman, Georgia's Carl Vinson. Near the close, Vinson asked veteran Democrat and Republican members if they had any questions for witnesses, and then, ignoring freshmen members, said time was up.
Hardy arose. ``Mr. Chairman, I didn't come up here just to sit and listen. I was elected to represent just as many people as you do!''
He stormed out. Vinson caught up with him. ``Let's talk this over,'' he said.
``If you want to talk to me,'' said Hardy, ``come to my office.''
Hardy strode into his office, and when executive aide Thad Murray stood up, Hardy told him, ``Vinson's coming here. I'm going to sit in back and wait until he comes.''
Vinson came hurrying in. Murray went to the inner office and said, ``He's here.''
And Hardy said, ``Send him in.''
Hardy once conceded that he probably had been more persistent than most in trying to get proper answers out of administrative officials. ``Most of 'em,'' he said, ``were pretty reasonable when they found out you were not going to turn them loose until they got the answer for ya.''
Determined not to overstay his time in office, he retired at the top of his power in 1968. Immediately the people of Hampton Roads began drafting him for causes.
He led a fund drive for Eastern Virginia Medical School. He directed an investigation of Portsmouth police. When the Maritime Administration declared the old Army Depot on the Elizabeth River as surplus property, he rallied friends in Washington to release it to Norfolk. It became the site of Norfolk International Terminal. He and U.S. Sen. A. Willis Robertson teamed to get $37 million in federal funds for Scope and Chrysler Hall.
All those years the only bosses to whom Hardy answered were the people of Virginia. His votes were attuned, without regard to party, to Virginia's and the nation's needs. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
For 22 years, Porter Hardy Jr. regarded the people of Virginia as
his only bosses.
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