Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., of North Carolina, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities. November 1, 1973.

Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr., a North Carolina Democrat, was the chairman of the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, popularly known as the "Watergate" Committee. Ervin, seventy-five years old at the time and a senator for eighteen years, had been the author of the resolution that proposed the investigation into the Watergate affair. He quickly became a household name as a result of his manner and approach, and developed such a following that spectators would applaud when he entered the room. There is nothing that beats a wise old man. Before coming to the Senate he had been a lower court and state supreme court judge for a total of fourteen years. When he banged his gavel, to many, he embodied the conscience of the nation.
-FJM