JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A former Mississippi lawmaker known for his skills as a policymaker and his lively interpretation of a speech about legalizing liquor has died.
Ed Perry was found unresponsive Tuesday at his home in Oxford, according to Mississippi Democratic Party chairman Bobby Moak. He said Perry was supposed to join friends to socialize, and they checked on him after he didn’t arrive.
Perry was 76.
Waller Funeral Home says services are at 2 p.m. Friday at First Presbyterian Church of Oxford.
Perry served as a Democrat in the Mississippi House from 1968 to 2000 and was chairman of several committees, including the budget-writing Appropriations Committee and the Judiciary A Committee, which handles bills that change civil and criminal laws.
He ran for speaker of the 122-member House in 1988, losing to Democratic Rep. Tim Ford of Tupelo.
Perry was an attorney and a powerful orator. He was known for reciting the “whiskey speech ,” written in the 1950s by a predecessor in the Mississippi House, Noah “Soggy” Sweat. The speech shows how a politician can advocate both sides of an issue - in this case, the legal sale of liquor where it had been prohibited.
The speech says that if whiskey is “the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty,” then the person is against it; but if whiskey is “the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies” and that pours millions into treasuries for “tender care for our little crippled children,” then the person is for it.
Democratic Rep. Steve Holland of Plantersville, who has served in the House since 1984, said Wednesday that the whiskey speech is “worldwide famous,” partly because of Perry’s full-throated performance of it at public events.
Holland said Perry was “one of the most brilliant legislators that ever served.”
“He knew how to run a program, make public policy and make you like it,” Holland said.
Perry’s House district included the University of Mississippi, and he pushed fellow lawmakers to put more money into higher education. A collection of his legislative papers and memorabilia is housed in the library at Ole Miss.
After he finished serving as a House member in 2000, he worked four years as House clerk, which is the top administrative job in the chamber.
Perry’s survivors include two daughters, his sister, his brother and two grandchildren.
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