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a legal counselor as well as a prosecuting attorney. He represented many of the
larger clients in Western North Carolina, both in civil and criminal courts. He
was especially effective as a speaker before a jury and there was scarcely an
equal to him anywhere in the State.

In 1898, before he was old enough to vote, he was elected to the State House
of Representatives from Cleveland County and served his County and his State with
honor and distinction for two terms. He is best remembered during these years
for his introduction of the bill amending Chapter 113 of The Public Laws of 1887;
which created the Department of Labor and Statistics under the Department of
Agriculture. Mr. Hoey's amendment to this law created the Department of Labor
and Printing and provided for a Commissioner of Printing. (This Department has since
been divided into the Department of Labor and the Division of Purchase and Con-
tract.) During his second term as Representative he was particularly active in
behalf of the North Carolina Institute for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind.

In 1903 Mr. Hoey represented his district in the General Assembly as State
Senator; and from 1903 to 1909 he served as Chairman of the Democratic Executive
Committee for Cleveland County. In 1913 he was appointed Assistant United States
District Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, a position he held
until 1919, when he resigned to run for Congress. Following one term in the
Congress of the United States, he returned to North Carolina to practice law.

Mr. Hoey's election to the governorship of North Carolina in 1936 was
followed by four years (1937-41) of enlightened and unselfish service to the
people of the entire State. As ex-officio chairman of the Board of Trustees of
the University of North Carolina, he forever stressed the need for a great
university which might serve the needs of all the people. After his tenure as
Governor he served as a member of the Board of Trustees for the remainder of his
life, continually emphasizing the need for excellence and expansion in the
services rendered by the University. Planning with such discernment characterized
all of Mr. Hoey's relations with this institution.

As Governor, Clyde Roark Hoey sponsored the first permanent revenue law in
North Carolina. He also sponsored an expansive building program, which included
educational and charitable institutions throughout the State, as well as the
Education Building, the Justice Building, and the Unemployment Compensation
Building in the capitol. Likewise, he encouraged the establishment of the State
Bureau of Investigation, the creation of the Officers' Benefit Fund, an increase
in the size of the highway patrol and the inauguration of a highway safety
campaign. In addition, he stimulated expansion of the forestry service, advanced
the agricultural program, provided free textbooks in the State's elementary
schools, and created the State Advertising Department in the Department of Con-
servation and Development. Under his leadership as Governor, North Carolina's
fame for good government was further extended.

Upon his retirement as Governor, Clyde Roark Hoey resumed his law practice
in Shelby. In 1944 he was elected to the United States Senate, a position he
held with great dignity and influence until his death in 1954. In Washington, Mr.
Hoey became the first North Carolinian in fifty years to serve on the Committee
on Agriculture. He was also the eminent and forthright chairman of the Sub-
Committee on Investigations. In these responsibilities, as in all others, Clyde
Roark Hoey's "words had power because they accorded with his thoughts; and his
thoughts had reality and depth because they harmonized with the life he had
always lived."

In whatever capacity he served on Capitol Hill, he was universally admired
for his enthusiastic and generous spirit, for his sincereity of purpose, and
for his genuine respect for his fellow man. Chaste and expressive language was
always characteristic of his oratory; there was a naturalness in the unfolding
of his subject matter which gave his messages logic and effectiveness. His
eloquence had a convincing quality which allowed him to treat "humble subjects
with delicacy, lofty things impressively, and moderate things temperately," and
if, indeed, speech is the index of the mind, one must conclude that the mind of
Clyde Roark Hoey was well-disciplined in clarity, earnestness and forthrightness.

Mr. Hoey was a member of the Central Methodist Church in Shelby, where he
taught a Sunday School class for fifteen years prior to the time he was elected
Governor. During his term of office as Governor, he taught the Men's Bible Class
in the Edenton Street Methodist Church in Raleigh; and after he moved to
Washington to serve in the United States Senate, he continued to teach Sunday
School. His superior knowledge of the Bible and his understanding of his fellow
man gave him an incomparable background for sound teaching.