Wednesday, February 09, 2011
West Virginia won't come back
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Wade Gilley
Gilley, who is retired in Reston, grew up in Carroll County, attended Virginia Tech and served as Virginia's Secretary of Education in the Dalton administration. He was named a Distinguished West Virginian by Gov. Cecil Underwood in 1999.
I read Michael Abraham's column "Is West Virginia necessary?" (Jan. 30) with great interest because I was born in the mountains of western Virginia and have lived on several occasions in West Virginia as well as eastern Virginia. However, I have a very different perspective from Abraham on the Civil War and the creation of West Virginia as an independent state.
During the three times my wife and I lived in West Virginia over a 40-year period, I never heard one West Virginian suggest he would rather be a part of Virginia.
We lived in Bluefield twice, in the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, and then we lived for eight years in Huntington during the 1990s. At times, I did hear some wishful thinking that it would be great if the West Virginia economy were more like Virginia's than like western Pennsylvania's or eastern Kentucky's, but not one person expressed a wish to return to the commonwealth in those years.
I must admit a personal sentiment toward West Virginia. My second daughter was born there, I played hooky to go see Ted Williams in a preseason game in Bluefield in the early 1950s, and my dad, a Democrat, took me to Ronceverte in 1960 to see and speak to Sen., soon to be President, John F. Kennedy. So my ties to the Mountain State are long and positive.
Further, I do not believe coal was the determining factor in West Virginia's decision to become a state and certainly not the driving force behind the act.
The C&O railroad from Hampton through Greenbrier County and on to Huntington was not completed until the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and even then it was not primarily based on coal but rather connecting the Chesapeake Bay to the Ohio River and beyond. That was more than 60 years after national fermentation over slavery boiled over in the 1840s and '50s, leading to the Civil War.
While the presence of coal in West Virginia, Southwest Virginia and eastern Kentucky was recognized at that time, the demand was not what it became once the industrial revolution hit America full force beginning in the late 1800s.
The Civil War certainly was a divider in both Southwest Virginia and West Virginia. Many mountain residents in both states were divided on the questions of race and leaving the United States of America. During the Civil War, members of my family were divided. Some favored separation and later became Southern Democrats. The others supported the U.S. and became Lincoln Republicans. That divide was still firmly in place in Carroll County when I was growing up.
It was a bitter divide, and in another branch of my family there were two brothers who fought in the Civil War with one being for the South and one for the North. Both died in battle and were buried by their parents side by side.
The difference carried on for 100 years or more. While both states had segregated educational institutions for a long time, after the Supreme Court ruling in 1954, West Virginia immediately integrated its schools and colleges.
Virginia, on the other hand, resisted integrating her state-owned colleges and universities by fighting in federal courts long after 1954 to maintain the historic split. It was only when John Dalton, a Lincoln Republican from Radford, was governor of Virginia (1978-82) that the commonwealth dropped the fight.
If one looks at West Virginia today, it looks a lot like mountainous Southwest Virginia or eastern Kentucky, where one finds a heavy influence of coal, beautiful mountains, declining manufacturing, declining populations, good institutions of higher education and an independent spirit. However, West Virginia's western border is defined by the mighty Ohio River, a huge economic factor back then as it is now.
Today, Southwest Virginia and West Virginia have a lot in common as both are increasingly dependent on government spending from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, schools and colleges, and government contractors. There are more similarities between southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia than ever in the past.
So while one might dream about West Virginia wanting to rejoin the commonwealth, I doubt there is much sentiment for that over there. But it is interesting to speculate about it.
