Virginia Transformed
From: bernhard1848@att.net
One of the goals of Reconstruction was to plant the seeds of New England’s superior civilization and industrialization in the conquered Southern States. Newcomers would transform politics and Southern children would be taught from Northern books and forget their own history. In comparison, the Japanese forcibly annexed Korea in 1911 and began a program of ethnic cleansing whereby the country was renamed, the native tongue was forbidden, and Korean children became ignorant of their own history. This ended in 1945 when Korea became an political and economic colony of the US, and today American depraved culture and fast-food restaurants emanate from Seoul.
Bernhard Thuersam, Director
Cape Fear Historical Institute
www.cfhi.net
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Virginia Transformed:
“The steady stream of Virginians and non-Virginians into the State’s urban areas reflected the changing nature of the Commonwealth’s economy. By 1960, fewer than one out of ten citizens were employed in agriculture. Nearly twice that number worked for the federal government. Manufacturing industries were the single largest employer and accounted for 20 percent of the State’s labor force. Virginia, like the other Southern States, was benefiting from corporate decisions to decentralize and move production and warehousing facilities nearer to eastern markets.
Labor-intensive industries from the North and Midwest were also attracted by the comparatively cheap labor in the South, where unions were weak and agricultural mechanization left many people in search of work.
The ruling [Senator Harry F.] Byrd [political] organization drew its strength from, and geared its policies toward, rural Virginia. The people who accompanied new industry – business executives, plant managers, and factory workers – came with varied backgrounds and political inclinations. Some were moderate or liberal Democrats; others were moderate or conservative Republicans – but few had much in common with the rural, conservative Byrd Democrats.
Though the middle-class suburbanites tended to be conservative in their outlook, and central-city blacks typically were liberal, both quickly became dissatisfied with the low level of public services provided by the State’s conservative leadership.
The State government had carefully safeguarded its own fiscal integrity; “pay-as-you-go” had kept Virginia out of debt. But the State’s unwillingness to tax, borrow, or spend sufficiently to relieve urban pressures had left local governments in dire financial straits. Gross county debt in Virginia had soared from just over $20 million in 1947 to more than $165 million in 1956. The largest expense was for new school construction, and the fast-growing urban localities bore the heaviest burden.”
(The Dynamic Dominion, Realignment and the Rise of Virginia’s Republican Party Since 1945, Frank B. Atkinson, George Mason University Press, 1992, pp. 108-109)
