[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 15653-15654]
[From the U.S. 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,

[[Page 15654]]

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 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.

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