A Stillness at Berryville

As former Senator Harry F. Byrd lay dying in Berryville, the organization he had built up during his four decades in public life in Virginia suffered its most serious setback. The patriarch of the “fellowship of likeminded men” which has governed Virginia so well since the early Thirties never knew that his son Harry Byrd Jr. had barely squeaked to victory in the July 12 Democratic primary; or that Howard W. Smith, the eighty three-year-old dean of the state congressional delegation and chairman of the House Rules Committee, had been retired; or that Senator A. Willis Robertson had apparently lost his final political fight.

Though the campaign may have proved an instructive one for the organization, its results give conservatives little reason for comfort. Indeed the Democratic primary results demonstrate decisively the cohesion and the new power of urban voting blocs and the increasing fragmentation of the numerically superior conservative strength.

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James Fletcher

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As former Senator Harry F. Byrd lay dying in Berryville, the organization he had built up during his four decades in public life in Virginia suffered its most serious setback. The patriarch of the “fellowship of likeminded men” which has governed Virginia so well since the early Thirties never knew that his son Harry Byrd Jr. had barely squeaked to victory in the July 12 Democratic primary; or that Howard W. Smith, the eighty three-year-old dean of the state congressional delegation and chairman of the House Rules Committee, had been retired; or that Senator A. Willis Robertson had apparently lost his final political fight.

Though the campaign may have proved an instructive one for the organization, its results give conservatives little reason for comfort. Indeed the Democratic primary results demonstrate decisively the cohesion and the new power of urban voting blocs and the increasing fragmentation of the numerically superior conservative strength.