The first and
only pause in
Goldstein's
government
career came
shortly after
Pearl Harbor,
when the
29-year-old
legislator
enlisted in the
United States
Marine Corps |
Louis L. Goldstein served as President of
Photo by M.E. Warren
The Louis Goldstein political
legend started in 1938, when the 25-
year-old law school graduate ignored
Democratic party officials who told
him he was too young to run for
offiice and launched a grass roots
campaign for a Maryland House of
Delegates seat representing his native
Calvert County in rural southern
Maryland. He sowed the seeds of
victory by knocking on virtually every
door in the county. When the votes
were counted, Louis Lazarus Goldstein
was headed for Annapolis.
The first - and only - pause in
Goldstein's state government career
came shortly after the attack on Pearl
Harbor, when the 29-year-old legislator
enlisted in the United States Marine
Corps. His service in the Pacific
Theater included a stint on General
Douglas MacArthur's staff investigat-
ing Japanese war crimes in the
Philippine Islands after the war ended.
Louis Goldstein resumed his political
career with a victory in the 1946 state
Senate election, the start of a 12-year
career which included four years as
2 |
the Maryland Senate from 1955-1959.
majority floor leader and four years as
senate president.
But it was as comptroller, a job
with statewide visibility and unique
responsibilities, that Goldstein
found his calling - and his job for life.
Most state comptrollers handle
accounting and payroll functions, but
the Maryland comptroller does that
and more, serving as state revenue
commissioner, managing state
government's largest data processing
center that serves most state agencies,
and regulating the sensitive alcoholic
beverage, cigarette, and motor fuel
industries. Maryland's comptroller
also serves with the governor and state
treasurer on the Board of Public
Works, Maryland's highest administra-
tive body, and as chair of the Board of
Revenue Estimates, overseeing revenue
tracking and forecasting. It's a huge
job, one that Louis Goldstein tackled
with what Marylanders would soon
come to know as his trademark energy
and enthusiasm. He won the first often
elections to the post in 1958. |
