Before developing a plan to issue bonds to pay for the Interstate Syst — Harry F. Byrd

"If we can organize the Southern states for massive resistance to this order... the rest of the country will realize that racial integration is not going to be accepted in the South."

"I construe my election as a mandate to me as a businessman to institute the best methods of efficiency and economy in State affairs, so that the people may obtain in the public service a dollars value for every dollar spent. Useless offices must be abolished, duplicated services must be consolidated, and the manifold activities of the State systematized and directed with the efficiency of a great business corporation."

"The Byrd machine is a highly efficient organization; it runs the Commonwealth as effectively as Pendergast ever ran Kansas City or Kelly-Nash Chicago, though with much less noise. In fact, from the point of view of its adhesive power in every Democratic county, its control over practically every office, no matter how minor, it is quite possibly the single most powerful machine surviving in the whole United States. Virginia, I heard it said, is the only "aviary" in the country; it is a cage the netting of which, though almost invisible to outsiders, is extremely close spun; the commonwealth is, so a friend in North Carolina told me- the remark is somewhat bitter- not only the cradle of American democracy, but its "grave." Byrd has never forgtten his Virginia interests. He pays as intimate and inflexible attention to state affairs as to federal. The machine works something like this. Its major instruments are, as always, jobs and patronage, plus the Virginia poll tax. First, through the Democratic National Committee, Byrd controls federal patronage. Next, he pretty well decides the choice not merely of governor, who in Virginia today cannot be other than a Byrd man, in turn controls the appointment of some thousands of state employees, and circuit court judges are chosen- for substantial eight-year terms- by the legislature; these in turn appoint the school trustees, county electoral boards, and trial justices. In each county there is a fixed ring of six or seven machine men. Some county officers like sheriff and tax assessor are elected but their salaries and expense allotments are, within limits, established by the State Compensation Board, also appointed by the governor under Byrds control. The pattern makes a full interlocking circle. Nothing could be neater or more complete."

"Byrd entered the Senate at a time when his America of farms and small towns, formerly insulated from the shocks of world affairs and modernization, was dying. Rather than adjust to the revolutionary changes that occurred over the course of his lifetime, he chose to contest their inroads, becoming a cipher whose predictable negativism and welfare legislation revealed a parochialism that bordered on meanness and miserliness. Driven by a desire to preserve the old order, Byrd spent over thirty years fighting ever-increasing federal bureaucracies and budgets, protecting states rights from intrusions by Washington, and defending racial segregation. Focusing attention on waste in government and pressing for reductions in federal spending, he won some minor skirmishes, but he lost most of the battles. His political philosophy of unregulated individualism and limited government was no longer appropriate for the modern world. Much of his personal value system remained sound- hard work, thrift, initiative, and responsibility- but the demands of the highly technological, mass consumer, global society called for modifications to this individualistic ethic through community planning, resource management, public assistance for the dependent, aid to education, and international commitments. Without a political opposition that might have forced him to reevaluate his position, Byrd could not overcome the limitations of his upbringing and his experience. He remained caught in the time warp of the early twentieth century when the nation was still closely tied to the libertarian principles of the old yeomanry."

"Byrd was born out of his time and into the wrong political party."

"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."