Requiem for a Mountaineer

The state of West Virginia has a motto that more than speaks for its better citizens: “Montani Semper Liberi”. For those of us who do not speak Latin, that simply means “Mountaineers are always free.” Certainly, no one ever exemplified the meaning of that motto more than the senior U. S. Senator from West Virginia, Robert. C. Byrd.



That is not to say that Sen. Byrd was perfect; no one is. As a young man, Sen. Byrd made what can only be described as a series of puzzling decisions. For instance, he joined the Ku Klux Kan in 1942 at the age of 24, and expressed some very racist viewpoints, such as those in a 1944 letter to a segregationist, Miss. U. S. Senator Theodore Bilbo, wherein he said he would rather die and see “Old Glory trampled…never to rise again…(before seeing the country) degraded by race mongrels…” .



Although by his own admission, he left the Klan within a year, Sen. Byrd held some very conservative viewpoints at the outset of his Congressional career, and for many years afterwards. He even joined the Republicans in a filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and was an ardent supporter of the Vietnam War.



But his way of thinking and his ideology underwent dramatic changes during his congressional career. Of his more racist statements, Sen. Byrd said in 2005: “I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times ... and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened.”



And the Senator that was so pro-war during the Vietnam era was almost a lone voice of reason when President George W. Bush proposed going to war in Iraq. His attempt at a filibuster was rejected, even by members of his own party. But Byrd predicted that such a war would require two victories, the quick military victory, and a second victory for peace which would take many years and require hundreds of billions of dollars. Considering how quickly the President declared victory after the onset of hostilities, and yet how long the military has been tied up in Iraq, it would seem the Senator knew what he was talking about.



No matter what he ever did or thought, there was one group from his home state of West Virginia that Sen. Byrd always cared deeply for, and that was the state’s miners. After the death of 29 miners at Upper Big Branch in Montcoal, WV, Sen. Byrd made a rare appearance at a Senate subcommittee hearing, where he blasted claims by Massey’s CEO that it never let profits trump safety by noting: "I cannot fathom how (Massey) could practice such disgraceful health and safety policies while…boasting about its commitment to the safety of its workers".



To Don Blankenship, the Senator made the following statement: "Twenty-nine men are now dead. Dead. Dead, simply because they went to work that morning.” He then read the list of Massey’s many safety violations to its recalcitrant CEO, to refresh Mr. Blankenship’s memory.



Sen. Byrd’s senatorial career ended on June 28, 2010, when he passed away at the age of 92. At his death, he was the longest serving U. S. Senator/Member of Congress in the Legislative Branch’s history