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Senator Beaty, who had previously voted against it, voted for it, but this new support was neutralized by Senator Fishburne's going over to the opposition. Senator Jeter, who had been absent during all previous voting, appeared on the scene and tipped the scales our way.
I do not know how this impresses you all, but, from an experience of 20 years in the legislature, I doubt if any measure ever had a closer shave than that Bill to re-establish the Citadel. In the first place, only some inadvertence on the part of its opponents, who had just shown a majority, allowed it to be resurrected in the House. Then, in the Senate came the tie-vote—something that hardly occurs once in several sessions. I know that it has not happened in the House more than three or four times in the last ten years.
Yesterday I told Assistant Clerk Fowles, of the Senate, about this, and he was greatly surprised and interested, stating that during the last six years there had been only two tie-votes in that body, one of which was cast last year by Brother E. B. Jackson (whom I do not see here tonight), who for two years has presided over the Senate, and who, I am glad to say, has been re-"sentenced" by the unanimous vote of the people to serve again.
An examination of the records shows that General Kennedy cast only one other vote during his term (the President of the Senate voting only in case of a tie), his second vote being to defeat a Bill to amend the General Stock Law by appropriating $10,000 to build a fence on the boundary line separating Orangeburg and Barnwell counties from Charleston, Colleton, Beaufort and Hampton counties between the Santee and Savannah Rivers.
To cap it all, and to show that the careers of you and me trembled in the balance on that memorable day, if President Kennedy had been absent the Bill would have failed to pass, as President Pro Tem Witherspoon is recorded as voting against it, and accordingly it would have been defeated by a vote of 15 to 14.
