[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 19889]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     TRIBUTE TO CHESTERFIELD SMITH

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. KATHERINE HARRIS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, July 25, 2003

  Ms. HARRIS. Mr. Speaker, this nation lost one of its greatest 
lawyers, leaders, and statesmen last week. Chesterfield Smith was not 
only my neighbor and friend; he was a role model and an icon of 
probity, integrity, and decency.
  Chesterfield Smith set the bar for anyone who aspires to a legal or 
public service career. His model of leadership, vision, and strength of 
character had an enormous impact upon my family. He sought the truth, 
regardless of the political consequences. His dedication to our 
nation's justice system rightly earned him recognition as ``America's 
Lawyer'' and as ``the conscience of the legal profession.''
  Reared in the Southwest Florida town of Arcadia, Chesterfield Smith 
served his country heroically in World War II, earning the Bronze Star 
while fighting with General George S. Patton's 3rd Army in Europe. 
Following his discharge with the rank of major in 1945, he returned to 
his native Florida to attend law school at the University of Florida.
  He began his law practice with the firm of Treadwell & Treadwell in 
Arcadia, joining the firm of Holland, Bevis, & McCrae in the 
neighboring community of Bartow one year and one-half later. Achieving 
the status of partner in record time, Chesterfield Smith began to build 
what would become the nation's eighth largest law firm upon a 
foundation of skilled professionalism, unassailable ethics, and 
dedicated public service.
  In 1964, the Florida Bar recognized Chesterfield Smith's 
extraordinary leadership abilities by electing him its President. He 
was appointed Chairman of the Florida Constitutional Revision 
Commission in 1965, where he challenged and defeated the grip on power 
of the ``Pork Chop Gang,'' a group of rural Florida legislators who had 
dominated Florida's state government through the repugnant device of 
malapportionment.
  The entire nation became familiar with Chesterfield Smith's courage 
and unwavering commitment to principle during his presidency of the 
American Bar Association in 1973 and 1974. Stating his reasoning simply 
but powerfully through the words ``no man is above the law,'' he issued 
the first public call for an investigation of President Nixon's role in 
the Watergate break-in.
  While his potent sense of justice helped steer our nation through a 
period of great peril to our Constitution, Chesterfield Smith's 
fundamental sense of right and wrong helped guide his beloved Florida 
through the turmoil of the civil rights movement. He served as an 
outspoken opponent of segregation, while transforming his law firm into 
a model of diversity.
  In 1997, Governor Lawton Chiles formally recognized Chesterfield 
Smith as a Great Floridian. In 2002, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader 
Ginsburg presented Smith with the Laurie D. Zelon Pro Bono Award, 
describing him as ``among the brightest, boldest, bravest, all-around 
most effective lawyers ever bred in Florida and the USA.''
  Mr. Speaker, as we mourn the passing of this great American, may the 
light of his passionate commitment to the legal profession, to our 
nation, and to humanity at large continue to animate our dreams and 
aspirations as public servants.

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