[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 92 (Friday, June 20, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8319-S8320]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HAPPY 140TH BIRTHDAY, WEST VIRGINIA
Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, today is the 140th birthday of West
Virginia:
West Virginia, how I love you!
Every streamlet, shrub and stone,
Even the clouds that flit above you
Always seem to be my own.
Your steep hillsides clad in grandeur,
Always rugged, bold and free,
Sing with ever swelling chorus:
Montani, Semper, Liberi!
Always free! The little streamlets,
As they glide and race along,
Join their music to the anthem
And the zephyrs swell the song.
Always free! The mountain torrent
In its haste to reach the sea,
Shouts its challenge to the hillsides
And the echo answers ``FREE!''
Always free! Repeats the river
In a deeper, fuller tone
And the West wind in the treetops
Adds a chorus all its own.
Always Free! The crashing thunder,
Madly flung from hill to hill,
In a wild reverberation
Makes our hearts with rapture fill.
Always free! The Bob White whistles
And the whippoorwill replies,
Always free! The robin twitters
As the sunset gilds the skies.
Perched upon the tallest timber,
Far above the sheltered lea,
There the eagle screams defiance
To a hostile world: ``I'm free!''
And two million happy people,
Hearts attuned in holy glee,
Add the hallelujah chorus:
``Mountaineers are always free!''
It is that time of year again.
It is that time when the flowers are in full bloom and birds are
chirping the sweetest and the loudest. It is that time when you feel
most like breathing the clean, fresh air blowing in from the
Appalachian mountains. The time of year when you feel most like taking
your loved one by the hand and strolling, arm in arm, through your
favorite park knowing that all is right with the world--and all is
right with the world because it is West Virginia Day!
June 20 is West Virginia Day. I am celebrating this glorious day. It
was 140 years ago that West Virginia became a State. It was on June 20,
1863, the Reverend J.T. McLure offered the State's inaugural prayer.
Referring to the fact that the State was created in the middle of the
American Civil War, he prayed:
We pray Thee, almighty God, that this State, born amidst
tears and blood and fire and desolation, may long be
preserved and from its little beginning may grow to be a
might and a power that shall make those who come after us
look upon it with joy and gladness and pride of heart.
I am pleased and proud to say, 140 years later, that I can look upon
my West Virginia with ``joy and gladness and pride of heart.'' On this
West Virginia Day, I again want to speak about the people of West
Virginia, the hardest-working and most patriotic people in the United
States. They have endured hardships, poverty, and floods of biblical
proportions, but have remained loyal to their State and our Nation.
Whenever the country has needed them, in war or in peace, they have
always been there, and I have always been so proud to represent them in
the United States Senate.
On this West Virginia Day, I again speak about the splendors of my
State--truly one of the most beautiful states in the Nation. With its
rushing, trout-filled mountain streams, its majestic rolling green
hills, picturesque villages and towns, magnificent forests, scenic
state parks--no wonder the State has been depicted in song and verse as
being ``almost heaven.'' There are the State's natural beauties like
Seneca Rocks and the New River Gorge. I hope the pages will go and see
these scenic beauties in this State that is almost heaven. There are
the State's natural wonders like Cranberry Glades, Hawks Nest, and
Berkeley Springs.
You can go camping in West Virginia's beautiful parks like Cooper's
Rock State Forest, Babcock, Pipestem, or Watoga. You can go fishing in
the Greenbrier River, Holly River, and Tygart Lake. You can take a ski
trip in the wondrous Canaan Valley, or go white-water rafting down the
magnificent Cheat River, go hiking along the awesome Appalachian Trail.
Simply drive around the State and enjoy a pace and a view far
different than the drives most of us suffer through daily. I invite my
colleagues, I invite the media, I invite the people in the galleries,
people everywhere, to take a drive in West Virginia. You will love it.
You will never forget it. There is nothing like it elsewhere in the
world. West Virginia. Almost heaven.
I invite the Democratic pages and the Republican pages, our staffs. I
have often spoken enthusiastically of the ``wild and wonderful''
scenery of West Virginia. Therefore, on this, the 140th anniversary of
my great and glorious State, I want to tell you about its history.
Some of my State's history is well-known and well-documented; like
the fact that it is the only State created from another State without
the parent State's permission, and that it is the only State to achieve
statehood by the proclamation of a president, Abraham Lincoln. It can
be argued that the first battle of the American Revolution took place
at Point Pleasant and that the last battle of the Revolution was fought
at Fort Henry, in Wheeling. The State is rich in Civil War history; at
Harpers Ferry, John Brown began the bloody quest to finally eliminate
the scourge of slavery from this nation, and the first significant land
battle of the Civil War took place at Phillipi, on June 3, 1861.
But there is another, lesser known, side to my State's history that I
want to talk about today--a history that shows what a unique,
diversified, and fascinating state West Virginia really is.
Most of my colleagues are aware that West Virginia's political
history includes providing the Senate's Majority Leader, the Senate's
Minority Leader, the chairman of the Senate Appropriation's Committee,
and the second longest serving Senator in American history--and that
was all one person--who? Me. But I proudly point out that my State's
political history includes the first African American woman, Minnie
Buckingham Harper of Welch, to ever serve in a State legislature. That
was in 1928. In 1934, West Virginians elected one of the youngest
persons ever elected by popular vote to the United States Senate--Rush
D. Holt. His son, Rush Holt, now represents the State of New Jersey in
the House of Representatives.
Most people are aware of the importance of coal to West Virginia, and
the
[[Page S8320]]
importance of West Virginia coal to the Nation. For nearly a century,
West Virginia coal helped fuel America's industries, heat our homes and
power our battleships. But West Virginia's natural resources have also
included America's first natural gas well, in 1815, near Charleston,
and the world's largest gas well, ``Big Moses'' in Tyler County, which
was drilled in 1894 and produced 100,000,000 cubic feet of gas per day.
In 1941, the first and largest synthetic rubber plant in the United
States began operation near Charleston.
There is so much to see and do in West Virginia. Come on down. Come
on down to West Virginia. There is nature. There is beauty. There is
history. And the State's modern highway system. I can remember when,
while serving in the West Virginia Legislature in 1947, seeing that
State as a State without a single mile of divided 4-lane highway on the
1947 highway map. Think of that. A 1947 highway map shows not a single
mile, not one in the whole State, of divided 4-lane highway. Oh, but
what a change.
With the State's modern highway system, you can drive to Weirton, WV,
and see the only city in the United States that stretches from a
State's eastern border all the way to its western border.
At Grafton, WV, you can visit Andrews Church, which, on May 10, 1908,
was the site of the first celebration of Mother's Day. Just a few hours
away, near Thomas, WV, is a unique, picturesque little church, Our Lady
of the Pines, once considered the smallest church in the United States.
You can travel to Charles Town, WV, and see where rural free mail
delivery began in 1896 and see the Court House in which more than 500
coal miners went on trial for treason and insurrection in 1922.
Speaking of labor history, drive over to Martinsburg and see where
the great railroad strike of 1877 began, or down to Logan County, WV,
and view the site of the largest labor uprising in American history,
the Battle of Blair Mountain.
West Virginia also has a fascinating business history. The first
trust in the United States was the salt trust organized in 1817 by the
salt manufacturers along the Kanawha River.
The first patent for a soda fountain--if you have ever taken your
girl to the soda fountain? What a great memory that is. I used to walk
3 miles to take my girlfriend at that time--she's my wife now, after 66
years--I took her to the soda fountain. And I would buy a quart of ice
cream. It just cost 5 cents in those days.
The first patent for a soda fountain was granted to George Dulty, of
Wheeling, WV, in 1833 and outdoor advertising had its origins in that
same city in 1908. The first municipally owned parking building in the
United States opened in Welch--that is in Dowell County. The very
Southern point of West Virginia--in 1941.
Sports history, West Virginia has that too. Colliers, WV, on June 1,
1880, was the site of the first barenuckles heavyweight championship
fight. At Burnsville, in 1960, Danny Heater scored 135 points in a
single basketball game, for which he is in the Guinness Book of World
Records. Can you believe that, 135 points in a basketball game?
Finally, let me invite you to drive over to Ritchie County, WV, and
see where history was made when a Mountain was made from a Mole Hill--
literally. It actually happened. It happened when the good people of
the town of Mole Hill, WV, decided to change the name of their town to
Mountain. They changed it from a ``molehill' into a ``mountain.''
On this the 140th anniversary of West Virginia, we will welcome you.
On this, the 140th anniversary of West Virginia, I say happy
birthday, West Virginia. Come on down to West Virginia.
Congratulations, West Virginia.
``Born amidst tears and blood and fire and desolation,'' in the words
of Reverend Mr. McLure, from a ``little beginning'' you have grown ``to
be a might and a power'' that has made us look upon you `` with joy and
gladness and pride of heart.''
This was no land for lily-fingered men
Who bowed and scraped and danced a neat quadrille,
In towns and cities far beyond the ken
Of mountaineers--who loved each rock and rill.
It was a place for lean, tall men with love
For freedom flowing strongly in their veins,
For those attuned to vagrant stars above,
To rugged peaks, deep snows and June-time rains.
And so our State was whelped in time of strife
And cut its teeth upon a cannon ball;
Its heritage was cleaner, better life,
Within the richest storehouse of them all.
With timber, oil and gas and salt and coal,
It bargained in the world's huge marketplace.
The mountain empire reached a mighty goal;
It never ran a pauper's sordid race.
And best of all, it sired a hardy flock
Whose fame will grow with centuries to be,
Tough as a white-oak stump or limestock rock,
The mountaineers--who always shall be free.
____________________