Harry F. Byrd | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Byrd,c. 1926–1930 | |
| United States Senator fromVirginia | |
| In office March 4, 1933 – November 10, 1965 | |
| Preceded by | Claude A. Swanson |
| Succeeded by | Harry F. Byrd Jr. |
| 50thGovernor of Virginia | |
| In office February 1, 1926 – January 15, 1930 | |
| Lieutenant | Junius Edgar West |
| Preceded by | Elbert Lee Trinkle |
| Succeeded by | John Garland Pollard |
| Member of theVirginia Senate | |
| In office January 12, 1916 – January 13, 1926 | |
| Preceded by | Frank S. Tavenner |
| Succeeded by | Joseph S. Denny |
| Constituency |
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| Personal details | |
| Born | Harry Flood Byrd (1887-06-10)June 10, 1887 |
| Died | October 20, 1966(1966-10-20) (aged 79) Berryville, Virginia, U.S. |
| Resting place | Mount Hebron Cemetery |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 4, includingHarry Jr. |
| Parent |
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| Relatives | Richard E. Byrd Jr. (brother) |
| Signature |  |
Harry Flood Byrd Sr. (June 10, 1887 – October 20, 1966) was an American newspaper publisher, politician, and leader of theDemocratic Party in Virginia for four decades as head of a political faction that became known as theByrd Organization. Byrd served as Virginia's governor from 1926 until 1930, then represented the state as aU.S. senator from 1933 until 1965 and is the longest serving senator from Virginia with his tenure lasting for over 32 years and 8 months.
He came to lead theconservative coalition in the Senate, and opposed PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt, largely blocking most liberal legislation after 1937.[1] His sonHarry Jr. succeeded him as U.S. senator, but ran as an Independent following the decline of the Byrd Organization.
Byrd succeeded to what had been theVirginia Democratic Party organization of U.S. senatorThomas Staples Martin, who died in 1919. Elected the 50thgovernor of Virginia in 1925, initially Byrd reorganized and modernized Virginia's government. His political machine dominated state politics for much of the first half of the 20th century.[2]
Byrd was vehemently opposed toracial desegregation of the public schools, and was the leader ofmassive resistance, a campaign of opposition to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions inBrown v. Board of Education that led to closure of some public schools in Virginia in the 1950s.[3] Students who were denied their education in several Virginia counties became known as the "lost generation".[4] According toClarence M. Dunnaville Jr., Byrd was aracist and avowedwhite separatist.[5] Although Byrd paid his black and white workers similarly, he was vehemently opposed to racial desegregation even early in theNew Deal, and later opposed PresidentsHarry S. Truman andJohn F. Kennedy as well as losing presidential candidateAdlai Stevenson, despite all being fellow Democrats, because unlike Byrd they opposed racial discrimination within the federal workforce. The Byrd Organization also benefited from limiting the political participation of blacks and poor whites in Virginia by means ofpoll taxes andliteracy tests, but managed to defeat opposition ranging from New Deal governorJames H. Price to gubernatorial and senatorial candidateFrancis Pickens Miller.[6]
Although Byrd never announced himself as a presidential candidate, he received votes in the1956 presidential election and 15 electoral votes in the1960 election. In 1966, Byrd died at the age of 79 from a brain tumor, after being in a coma for four months.
Harry Flood Byrd was born inMartinsburg, West Virginia, in 1887 (just two weeks after future fellow U.S. senatorAbsalom Willis Robertson was born in the same community). His parents, Eleanor Bolling (Flood) andRichard Evelyn Byrd Sr., moved the young family toWinchester, Virginia, the same year.[citation needed]
Young Harry Byrd's father became wealthy as an apple grower in theShenandoah Valley, and publisher of theWinchester Star newspaper. He represented Winchester in theVirginia House of Delegates, and served as that body's Speaker from 1908 until 1914. He was theUnited States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia from 1914 until 1920. Harry initially attended the public schools, but received most of his education from the privateShenandoah Valley Academy in Winchester.[citation needed]
Byrd's ancestors included theFirst Families of Virginia. His paternal ancestors included Col Benjamin Harrison ofBrandon Plantation,William Byrd II ofWestover Plantation (who establishedRichmond) andRobert "King" Carter ofCorotoman. His maternal ancestors includedJohn Rolfe andPocahontas. His ancestorWilliam Byrd III squandered the Byrd family's once vast fortune through gambling and bad investments.[7]
One younger brother wasNavalaviator and polar explorer AdmiralRichard Evelyn Byrd (1888–1957). His other younger brother, Thomas Bolling Byrd (1890–1968), became an infantry captain duringWorld War I. Their uncleHenry De La Warr Flood served in theHouse of Representatives of theU.S. Congress fromAppomattox County from 1901 to 1921. Another uncle from Appomattox County,Joel West Flood, served as that county's Commonwealth Attorney (1919 to 1932), in the U.S. Congress (beginning in 1932 to fill the vacancy caused by the death ofHenry St. George Tucker), and as a state appellate Judge (of the Virginia Fifth Circuit, based in Richmond, from 1940 to 1964).
Born only twenty-two years after the end of theAmerican Civil War, Byrd grew up in an era when "the Shenandoah Valley was still a place ofgenteel poverty ... Harry Byrd never lacked food, but he had no money for luxuries. No one had any money. If a man got into debt, there was small chance of getting out of it."[8]
Even worse in Byrd's eyes was the dilemma of the state itself, which was also heavily in debt during Byrd's youth. Before the Civil War, Virginia had taken on debt to help finance many internal public improvements (canals, turnpikes, and railroads) through theVirginia Board of Public Works. Most had been destroyed during the War, although the debt remained and the infrastructure needed to be rebuilt to get crops and goods to market. Virginia's first postwar legislature had affirmed those debts at original terms (highly favorable to bondholders, which by then were mostly out-of-state purchasers at rates a small fraction of par value). Some related to improvements in the area that separated during the war to form the newState of West Virginia; those were litigated for decades until theUnited States Supreme Court ruled in 1915 that West Virginia owed Virginia $12,393,929.50.[9] After theReconstruction period, most of Virginia's governors insisted upon paying state bondholders, rather than pay for public education (newly added inVirginia Constitution of 1869) or other government services. TheReadjuster Party, which briefly challenged theConservative Party of Virginia (the latter of which became the Virginia Democratic Party), advocated adjusting the terms of the prewar bonds, but had a relatively brief lifespan.[10] Thus, the issue of Virginia's public debt was far from resolved during Byrd's formative years.
Byrd married Anne Douglas Beverley, a childhood friend, on October 7, 1913. They lived with her parents in Winchester until 1916, when he built a log cabin, named Westwood, inBerryville at a family-owned orchard, and they moved there. The cabin was constructed from chestnut logs and remains one of the few examples of natural chestnut bark existing in the United States due to thechestnut blight. The Byrds had three sons:Harry F. Byrd Jr., Bradshaw Beverley Byrd, and Richard Byrd,[11] and one daughter, Westwood Beverly Byrd. In 1926, Byrd purchased Rosemont Manor, an estate outside Berryville, adjacent to the family apple orchards. The family moved into theantebellum mansion in 1929, at the end of Byrd's term as governor, after some renovations.[citation needed]
As a businessman, Byrd had several operations: publishing newspapers, running a local turnpike, and selling apples and apple products.[citation needed]
In 1903, Harry Byrd took over his father's newspaper, theWinchester Star. Under his father's ownership, it came to owe $2500 (equivalent to $87,000 in 2024) to itsnewsprint supplier, theAntietam Paper Company. The company refused to ship more newsprint on credit, so Byrd cut a deal to make daily cash payments in return for ownership. As Byrd would later say, "when you have to hunt for them that way, you get to know how many cents there really are in a dollar." He eventually bought theHarrisonburg Daily News-Record and several other papers in the Shenandoah Valley. His family operated these papers until April 1, 2018, when they were sold to theOgden Newspapers Inc. of Wheeling, West Virginia.[12]
Thus started what would become Byrd's famous "pay-as-you-go" policy. He developed a lifelong aversion to borrowing money and any indebtedness. "I stand for strict economy in governmental affairs," Byrd proclaimed. "The State of Virginia is similar to a great business corporation ... and should be conducted with the same efficiency and economy as any private business." In a fifty-year political career, no statement of Byrd's ever more succinctly spelled out his view of government.[13]
In 1907, he foundedThe Evening Journal in nearbyMartinsburg, West Virginia. He sold the paper in 1912 to associate Max von Schlegell.[14]
In 1908, at the age of 21, he became president ofThe Valley Turnpike Company, overseeing the Valley Turnpike, a 93-mile (150-km)toll road between Winchester andStaunton. Earning $33 a month, he was required to drive the entire route at least twice a month to inspect it and arrange any repairs. As automobile traffic increased, he ensured road conditions were maintained within the available revenues. He held that office for seven years until his election to state office.[citation needed]
Byrd also owned extensive apple orchards in the Shenandoah Valley and an apple-packing operation which was among the largest on the East Coast. He later pointed out that he paid his African-American workers the same wages as his white farm workers.[15]
In the 1950s,Edward P. Morgan's assistant visited Byrd's Northern Virginia farm during the apple harvest and was outraged by the living conditions of themigrant workers. This prompted Morgan to take up the issue of migrant labor in hisCBS Radio Network commentaries. ProducerFred W. Friendly then prompted his close associateEdward R. Murrow to produce the television documentaryHarvest of Shame on this issue.[16]
In 1915, while still heading the Valley Turnpike Company, at the age of 28, Byrd was elected to theVirginia Senate. That election was to begin his 50 years of service in various roles in the state and federal government.[citation needed]
At theVirginia State Capitol inRichmond, as a new state senator, Byrd was initially a progressive with an early interest in road improvements. He was a member of the Senate Committee on Roads, the Finance Committee, the Steering Committee, the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and the Committee of Schools and Colleges. He advocated a tax on gasoline as a fair method of raising revenue for road construction.[citation needed]
However, he first came to prominence in 1922, when he led a fight against using bonded indebtedness as a method to pay for new roads. He feared the state would sacrifice future flexibility by committing too many resources to paying off construction debt. In 1923, Byrd was sued by the Virginia Highway Contractors Association because he said their activities "by combination and agreements may be very detrimental" to the State.[This quote needs a citation] The court dismissed the suit, stating the criticism was legal, imposing all costs upon the association. The publicity helped him to be electedGovernor of Virginia in November 1925, easily defeating RepublicanSamuel H. Hoge in the general election.[citation needed]
In 1923, he became a member of the Virginia Society of theSons of the American Revolution.[citation needed]
As governor, serving a term from 1926 to 1930, Byrd pushed through constitutional amendments that streamlined the state government and allowed for more efficient use of tax dollars. He also made property taxes solely a county responsibility. When it was obvious that increased spending on road construction was not enough to "get Virginia out of the mud," he pushed through a secondary roads bill that gave the state responsibility for maintaining county roads. These measures made Byrd seem like aNew South progressive at first. However, many of his measures were more to the benefit of rural areas more interested in low taxes than better services. He instituted a "pay as you go" approach to spending, in which no state money was spent until enough taxes and fees came in to pay for it. Highways and tourism were his primary pursuits, says his biographer. "He advocated building roads to state shrines such asJamestown andMonticello and called for historical markers along roadways, the first of which appeared inFredericksburg. He held regional meetings to bring about closer cooperation between state and county road officials, prophesying that the road system could be completed within ten years through such cooperation... A tour of the highway system convinced him of the progress being made in extending the arterial network. Indeed, over 2,000 miles would be added to the system during Byrd's governorship, 1,787 of these miles in 1928. Road building was one way to keep the voters happy and prove the efficacy of pay-as-you-go."[17]
While he was governor, Byrd built up contacts with the "courthouse cliques" in most of Virginia's counties. He curried support from the five constitutional officers in those counties (sheriff, Commonwealth's attorney, clerk of the court, county treasurer, and commissioner of revenue). This formed the basis of theByrd Organization, which dominated Virginia politics well into the 1960s. They carefully vetted candidates for statewide office, and Byrd only made an endorsement, or "nod," after consulting with them. Without his "nod," no one could win statewide office in Virginia. While he was governor, he shortened the ballot so that only three officials ran statewide: the governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. This limited opportunities to challenge the candidates that he wanted to run. His secondary roads bill in 1932, which became known as theByrd Road Act, did not apply to the state'sindependent cities.[citation needed]
Education was not on his agenda, and state spending for public schools remained very low until the late 1960s. Byrd became one of the most vocal proponents of maintaining policies ofracial segregation. He authored and signed the "Southern Manifesto" condemning the 1954U.S. Supreme Court decision inBrown v. Board of Education. His call for "massive resistance" against desegregation of public schools led to many Virginia schools closing rather than be forced to integrate.[18]
He helped draft a series of laws, known as theStanley Plan, to implement his "massive resistance" policy. This led to closure of some public school systems in Virginia between 1959 and 1964, most notably a five-year gap in public education inPrince Edward County, Virginia.[19]
In 1933 Byrd was appointed to fill a vacancy in theUnited States Senate; he won reelection as a Democrat in 1933, 1934, 1940, 1946, 1952, 1958, and 1964. Byrd and his colleagueCarter Glass invoked senatorial courtesy to stop President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's nomination ofFloyd H. Roberts to a federal judgeship in Virginia in 1939. Byrd broke with Roosevelt and became an opponent of theNew Deal, but he was an internationalist and strongly supported Roosevelt's foreign policy. As war loomed in 1941 Congress approved his proposal for a joint House–Senate committee to look into ways of eliminating nonessential expenditures. By late September, the Joint Committee on Reduction of Non-essential Federal Expenditures was in operation with Senator Byrd as chairman; it built his national reputation as an economizer.[citation needed]
By the 1950s Byrd was one of the most influential senators, serving on theArmed Services Committee, and later as chairman of theFinance Committee. He often broke with the Democratic Party line, going so far as to refuse to endorse the re-election of liberal PresidentHarry S. Truman in 1948. He also refused to endorseAdlai Stevenson in 1952. He voted againstpublic works bills, including theInterstate Highway System, and played a key role in the passing of the1964 Revenue Act. He had blocked the bill until PresidentLyndon Johnson agreed to decrease the total budget to under $100 billion. Subsequently, he helped push the Act through.[20]
Byrd retired from the Senate for health reasons in November 1965. His son,Harry F. Byrd Jr., was appointed his successor.[citation needed]
Having supportedAl Smith, the Democratic governor ofNew York, in the1928 U.S. presidential campaign, Byrd was selected by the Virginia Democratic Convention as afavorite son for the1932 presidential nomination. According to the American political historianSteve Neal, at one point during theDemocratic National Convention Byrd was offered the vice-presidential slot in exchange for instructing his 24 delegates to vote forFranklin D. Roosevelt, but declined because he believed he had a chance of winning the presidential nomination. Roosevelt won on the fourth ballot.[21]
Although Byrd never again formally sought the presidency nor became his party's candidate, Southern Democrats drafted him in several campaigns between 1944 and 1960. At the1944 Democratic National Convention, Southern delegates opposed to Roosevelt's New Deal and racial policies nominated Byrd as the party's presidential candidate. He was nominated by Ruth Nooney of Florida, who said she did so without his knowledge or consent. He won 89 delegate votes to Roosevelt's 1,086 (James Farley of New York got one vote).[22][23] All the convention delegates from Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia, and 12 of the 36 delegates from Texas voted for Byrd.[24] In1952, both theConstitution Party and theAmerica First Party nominated Byrd for vice president, andDouglas MacArthur for president, without the consent of either.[25] The slate got 17,205 votes nationwide.[26] In1956, the year that Byrd initiated the "massive resistance" campaign, the States' Rights Party of Kentucky named Byrd as a presidential candidate. He received 2,657 votes in that state; in South Carolina, in the same election, he received 88,509 votes as the choice of an independent (i.e.unpledged) slate of electors with the endorsement of former governorJames Byrnes and SenatorStrom Thurmond.[27][28][29][30]
In1960, Byrd received 15 votes in theElectoral College: eight unpledged electors fromMississippi (all of that state's electoral votes), six unpledged electors fromAlabama (the other 5 electoral votes from that state went toJohn F. Kennedy), and afaithless elector fromOklahoma (the other 7 electoral votes from that state went toRichard Nixon).[31][32]
Shortly after leaving office, Byrd died in 1966 from a brain tumor; he had been in a coma for four months.[33] He was 79 years of age and had been a senator for over 32 years. He was interred inMount Hebron Cemetery in Winchester.[34]
Byrd worked in public service for almost fifty years, becoming an influential figure in U.S. politics, and through hisByrd machine, the most powerful force in Virginia politics for much of the 20th century. His leading role in defying the U.S. Supreme Court decision inBrown v. Board of Education (1954) by devising themassive resistance strategy has come to dominate public memory of his career, leading to a mixed legacy.
The author of the most comprehensive biography of Byrd (as of 2025), Dr. Ronald L. Heinemann, Squires Professor of History atHampden-Sydney College from 1969 to 2007, assessed Byrd's life and career inHarry Byrd of Virginia (published in 1996). Heinemann concluded that although Byrd was a greatly-talented and intelligent politician, one who came to dominate Virginia politics and substantially impact U.S. politics for decades, he frequently overlooked many other issues he could have helped address in favor of defendingwhite supremacist policies and resisting the changing of the times, consequently squandering his long-term reputation on a doomed battle to preservede jure racial segregation in the U.S.
ANew York Times editorial following Byrd's retirement from the U.S. Senate in 1965 gave a similar assessment: "A talented man, Byrd chose to stand outside the broad currents of his time and to set his face against the future... He began as a force and ended as an anachronism."[citation needed]
Possibly Byrd's greatest and most enduring achievement in public life was his strong advocacy for the creation ofShenandoah National Park, as well as theSkyline Drive, theBlue Ridge Parkway, and the Virginia state park system.[35] Byrd's influence kept Shenandoah National Park segregated during its construction by the CCC,[36] at its initial establishment,[37] and even a year after the Truman Administration mandated full desegregation in all national parks.[36] Shenandoah National Park's main visitor center is named in his honor.[38]
The Blue Ridge Parkway bridge over the James River inBig Island, Virginia was named and dedicated to him in 1985.[39]
On November 26, 1968, theVirginia State Highway Commission namedVirginia State Route 7, a historic road which travels fromAlexandria past Berryville to Winchester, as "Harry Flood Byrd Highway" between Alexandria and Winchester.[40] In 2021, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted to rename Route 7 within the unincorporated areas of Loudoun County, "Leesburg Pike".[citation needed] Byrd's home from 1926 until his death, Rosemont Manor, still exists and is surrounded by about 60 acres. Although many acres of Byrd's former orchards are now commercial and residential properties, Rosemont is now open to the public as a bed and breakfast, as well as event venue.[41]
Astatue of Byrd was installed in Richmond's Capitol Square in 1976. The statue became controversial after Virginia began to reconsider its historical monuments, and the Byrd statue was subsequently removed in 2021.[42]
In 2016, forty-five years after its 1971 founding, Harry F. Byrd Middle School, aNational Blue Ribbon School in a suburb ofRichmond, Virginia, was renamed toQuioccasin Middle School. In response to a campaign in the local community, theHenrico County School Board agreed that "having a school named after a man who supported school segregation was inappropriate."[43][44] "Quioccasin" is both the name of the road on which the school is located as well as the name of a black village that had once been located in the immediate vicinity.[45]
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forGovernor of Virginia 1925 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Democratic nominee forU.S. Senator fromVirginia (Class 1) 1933,1934,1940,1946,1952,1958,1964 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Governor of Virginia February 1, 1926 – January 15, 1930 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chairman of theSenate Finance Committee 1955–1965 | Succeeded by |
| U.S. Senate | ||
| Preceded by | U.S. senator (Class 1) from Virginia March 4, 1933 – November 10, 1965 Served alongside:E. Carter Glass,Thomas G. Burch,A. Willis Robertson | Succeeded by |
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| Rules (1870–1947) | | |
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| Rules and Administration (1947–present) | ||
Chairs of theUnited States Senate Committee on Finance | ||
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| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
