20V Maryland Manual

ridden Baltimore City Court system. Services to
elderly citizens were greatly expanded.

Highlights of Governor Hughes's second term
included his campaign to save the Chesapeake Bay
from centuries of pollution and abuse. Mustering
widespread popular support for this program, he
successfully enlisted the aid of his fellow governors
from Virginia and Pennsylvania, the mayor of the
District of Columbia, and the federal government.
More than 700 leaders of government, environ-
mental groups, and the business community
packed the George Mason University auditorium
in Fairfax, Virginia, for a 1983 conference to unveil
the save-the-Bay program.

Also featured during the second Hughes term
were a year-long 1984 celebration of Maryland's
350th anniversary, the emergence of the University
of Maryland among the nation's top-ranked insti-
tutions of higher learning, a record increase in state
support of public education, and the establishment
of a National Institute for the Study and Preven-
tion of Violence and Extremism at the Baltimore
City campus of the University of Maryland.

Governor Hughes's concept for the institute on
violence and extremism began taking shape shortly
after his first inauguration. A group of leading
citizens had brought to his attention a report of an
upsurge in cross-bumings and synagogue desecra-
tions. Shortly thereafter, in an address to the
Montgomery County Bar Association, he publicly
deplored such acts and called on all elected
officials in Maryland to join him in speaking out
against them. Later he successfully proposed state
legislation providing more severe penalities for
racially or religiously motivated violence and ex-
tremism, and he directed education and law en-
forcement officials to set up programs to combat
the problem. Early in his second term he gained
endorsement by the National Governors' Associa-
tion of his proposal to establish the institute, and
he provided initial funding for it in his budget for
1985.

Throughout his administration, Governor
Hughes preserved Maryland's reputation for fiscal
responsibility. Despite a prolonged national reces-
sion and accompanying reduction of a federal
commitment to programs affecting less fortunate
citizens, he increased state funding for children's
day care, alcoholism and drug-addiction treatment,
the transfer of patients to residential settings from
institutions for the retarded and mentally ill, and
similar programs. In aid to families with dependent
children, the state rose from a national ranking of
thirty-sixth to twenty-ninth; in the level of benefits

for unemployed workers, it rose from forty-second
to twenty-sixth.

At the same time, Maryland retained its Triple-
A bond rating from Moody's and from Standard
and Poor's, a distinction that was shared by fewer
than a dozen other states and that saved taxpayers
millions of dollars through lower interest rates.
Throughout these developments, the economy
grew stronger.

Delegations headed by the Governor visited
China, Europe, California, New York City, and
Chicago to help attract new business and industry
to the state. A special program was devised to
familiarize local businesses with assistance avail-
able from the state for expansion within Maryland
borders or for development of export trade. These
efforts helped produce an average $1 billion a
year—four times the previous rate—in the com-
mitment of new capital for expansion or settlement
of business in Maryland. Thousands of new jobs
were created, especially among high-technology
firms, whose development in the Baltimore-Freder-
ick-Washington triangle brought to that area the
greatest concentration of electronic scientists and
technicians in the nation. The state unemployment
rate consistently ranged well below the national
average. To help prepare a new generation of
workers for the emerging computer and electronics
industries and to ease the transition of many
entering these industries from obsolescent crafts,
Governor Hughes obtained legislative approval for
the creation of a new Department of Employment
and Training. By mid-decade, Maryland had be-
come a leader in the rapidly developing field of
high technology.

Governor Hughes was born in Easton, Mary-
land, a few miles from the Denton home of his
parents, on November 13, 1926. He was educated
in the public schools of Caroline County.

Enlisting at seventeen, he served a year-and-a-
half with the U.S. Navy Air Corps in World War
II. He later entered the University of Maryland
and received a B.S. degree there in 1949. Before
entering the University of Maryland he had at-
tended Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg,
Pennsylvania, and Mount Saint Mary's College in
Western Maryland. After receiving his undergrad-
uate degree he entered the George Washington
University School of Law and received his LL.B.
degree in 1952. He was admitted to the practice of
law in Maryland the same year and started practic-
ing law in Denton in 1952.

Mr. Hughes was elected in 1954 to represent
Caroline County in the Maryland House of Dele-