Books in Brief: The Byrds of Virginia

The Byrds of Virginia, by Alden Hatch (Holt, $10).

The most casual student of American colonial history knows something of the first two William Byrds of Westover; every observer of the recent political scene has remarked on the influence of the late Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Rosemont; and in every youthful catalogue of boy’s heroes must stand the name of Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd of the polar explorations. The first Byrd dynasty came to an end through the extravagant living and Tory sympathies of William Byrd III, not to be revived again in the national eye until the twentieth century when the Byrds built a fortune on journalism and apples, as in the seventeenth century they had done on trade and tobacco. Despite Hatch’s comprehensive treatment of his fascinating subject, his chatty, essentially anecdotal writing leads him away from interpretative conclusions. What, for instance, led the Byrds to be loyalists when most of their friends supported the colonial cause? Or what was the importance of Senator Byrd Sr. in keeping alive, through the days of the New Deal, the conservative ideas of limited government, local responsibility, and noblesse oblige. Hatch has nothing to say on these points. The weakening, and subsequent collapse, of the Byrd machine following the death of the Senator in 1966 leads Hatch to suggest that liberal reform is finally coming to Virginia. But rather than an end to Virginian conservatism, his death hastened the transfer of conservative power from the Democratic to the Republican Party, as the national Democratic Party moved even farther from the Byrd standard. w. c. Dennis

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William C. Dennis

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The Byrds of Virginia, by Alden Hatch (Holt, $10).

The most casual student of American colonial history knows something of the first two William Byrds of Westover; every observer of the recent political scene has remarked on the influence of the late Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Rosemont; and in every youthful catalogue of boy’s heroes must stand the name of Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd of the polar explorations. The first Byrd dynasty came to an end through the extravagant living and Tory sympathies of William Byrd III, not to be revived again in the national eye until the twentieth century when the Byrds built a fortune on journalism and apples, as in the seventeenth century they had done on trade and tobacco. Despite Hatch’s comprehensive treatment of his fascinating subject, his chatty, essentially anecdotal writing leads him away from interpretative conclusions. What, for instance, led the Byrds to be loyalists when most of their friends supported the colonial cause? Or what was the importance of Senator Byrd Sr. in keeping alive, through the days of the New Deal, the conservative ideas of limited government, local responsibility, and noblesse oblige. Hatch has nothing to say on these points. The weakening, and subsequent collapse, of the Byrd machine following the death of the Senator in 1966 leads Hatch to suggest that liberal reform is finally coming to Virginia. But rather than an end to Virginian conservatism, his death hastened the transfer of conservative power from the Democratic to the Republican Party, as the national Democratic Party moved even farther from the Byrd standard. w. c. Dennis