The state would maintain racial segregation. A major turning point which sparked the organization lynns decline, came with massive resistance. A group of laws passed intending to prevent integration of virginias schools. And here to speak tonight is Michael Lee Pope hope, an Award Winning journalist whose reported for npr, the new new york daily news, the Northern Virginia magazine and the alexandria gazette packet. Michael holds a masters degree in american studies from Florida State university and is a former adjunct professor at Tallahassee Community college. Hes the author of several books, including a Hidden History of alexandria, d. C. Shotgun justice. And of course, most recently, the bird machine, the rise and fall of a conservative political organization. Please join me in welcoming Michael Lee Pope. All right. Well, this is a treat. This is a real honor to be asked to come speak here. So thank you so much to the Historical Society and to the museum of history and culture. I want to start by saying that my book, the bird machine of virginia, has no nefarious foreign influence. The communist Chinese Party had nothing to do with it. It was built for tough, though, so, you know, hopefully im thinking hopefully somebody will want to ban it. Im thinking the sales of the book could really skyrocket if someone were to threaten to ban it. So keep that in mind as we learn more about the bird machine. So this is the cover here. And you dont have to start out by saying, you know, my interest in the bird machine goes back about 20 years when i first moved to virginia and i started hearing about the bird machine over and over again. You know, people would say that that was the reason for the way things were working, the way that it did. The nefarious interests of the bird machine kept coming up. And so it was always kind of lurking around in the background as something as like an explanation for why things worked the way they work in virginia, sort of the back story. So, you know, virginia has only three statewide elected officials. Thats a legacy of the bird machine. Virginia has this long history of shortchanging Public Education. Thats the bird machine. Virginia is a place where unions just dont have the same kind of power and influence they have in other states. Thats the bird machine. So and then theres systemic racism, right . I mean, this is just straight up White Supremacy. This is probably what people know the bird machine most for. You know, this is perhaps the most notorious legacy of the bird machine is massive resistance closing the Public Schools rather than put the black children in the white children at the same classroom. So you know, all of these things are the legacy of the bird machine, and its an ongoing legacy because the bird machine may have fallen apart in the late 1960s, but in many ways, this is a system that is still with us, like a zombie machine aimlessly lumbering around. So i want to start by taking a look at political machines. So this is a famous editorial cartoon, 1871 editorial cartoon called the brains by thomas nast. So its about boss tweed and the tammany hall political machine in new york city. So this is, you know, probably the most famous political machine. If you if you know anything about machines at all, you probably know about this cartoon and the person at the center of it. If you think about machines, theres also James Pendergast in kansas city, James Michael curley and boston. So those were all big city machines in sort of urban areas. But this is the south things work a little differently in the south. So this is where we have, you know, the good Old Boy Networks of small town dixie, where they use the combination of patronage and electioneering to maintain power. So this is where the byrd machine kind of defied the odds, staying in power way longer than any of those other political machines, outlasting boss crump in tennessee and even huey kingfish long in louisiana. So from his perch as chairman of the Senate Finance committee in washington, d. C. , senator harry byrd controlled virginia politics with the kind of animal instinct that prevented anybody else from coming anywhere close to the reins of power. So as Time Magazine noted in 1958, describing the byrd machine this way, quote, the byrd machine is an oligarchy composed of the few chosen by the few to make decisions for the many. So the origins of the byrd machine are often traced to the day when this guy, harry byrd, became chairman of the Democratic Party in 1922. So this is a position he used carefully oversee the flow of money and power in virginia. So the byrd machine was a statewide operation, but it operated as a kind of network of courthouse rings. Sheriffs, judges, clerks of court. They all conspired to hold power by using the mechanics of elections to control the outcomes. So the New York Times explained it this way 1941, 1949, they were explaining the byrd machine, quote, it has become as much a fixture in the comfortable, cloistered life of people of the state as, say, their faith in the confederacy or their addiction to buttermilk biscuits or smithfield ham. To relate senator byrd to this palpable monolith is a little like debating the divine origin of scriptures. You know the answer, but just try to prove it. Interesting. The New York Times was associating virginia with like the faith and the confederacy and smithfield hams. So in our modern context, you know, we have to reevaluate some of these assumptions the New York Times is making in the 1940s. So the center of power and the byrd machine was the courthouse. Right. This is the alex andria courthouse. These large windows of the Circuit Court, one of the Circuit Courts, and then this top part of the building here is called the crows nest, where the chief judge had his had his office courtroom and office. So the courthouse was where all the organization functionaries kept the engine humming along for the bird machine. And election after election. County seats from across south side, virginia, and up and down the Shenandoah Valley to the Eastern Shore competed with each other to see who could provide the most lopsided victory for the machine candidates. The old confederate statue guarding the courthouse was a not so subtle hint that the retrograde forces were at work here. So few people held as much power and influence over the local situation there. The local machine. As the clerk of court, the clerk of court was sort of key to your local political machine. So he was welcomed in the back room of the senators Washington Office and the hotel suites here in richmond. Historian Harvey Wilkinson put it this way, quote, there has always been a certain mystique surrounding the manner in which the organization picked its candidates for governor from the informal give and take of the courthouse preference. The senators own wishes and the choice of the senators closest advisers. A preferred candidate usually emerged and proceeded to an almost certain victory in the forthcoming democratic primary and the general election. So you see there the encryption of the local courthouse ring is central to how the machine sort of used its power and maintained its power over a long period of time. So the courthouse clerks organize the local elections from the local organizing candidate, aided by the sheriff and the commonwealths attorney members of the local board of supervisors worked as the public face of the campaign team, as did the delegation to the General Assembly here in richmond. So behind the scenes, the chief judge who had this top office, top courtroom here, the chief judge of the Circuit Court, would encourage support for the organization candidate by offering to use his power to appoint key positions in the jurisdiction. So this is the appointment. Power is very important to the maintenance of the machine. Patronage, the bread and butter of any political machine is patronage. And so the byrd machine, it flowed through the courthouse during the election season as judges named members of everything from the electoral board to the school board to the welfare board, to the board of assessors, all named by your local judge. So the historian wilkinson explained it this way, quote, candidate appearances also featured handshaking. A handshaking tour near the courthouse, followed by impassioned eloquence before a small but sympathetic courtroom crowd. Large fans eyes hanging from the ceilings to break the heat in a july afternoon. Light green courthouse walls broken only by the faded picture of county fathers and former Circuit Court judges. Harry byrd grimly warning of a grasping federal government. Such was a classic snapshot which would soon take its place beside the new england town meeting and the president ial whistle stop and the gallery of fond politics cool memories sets wilkinson, explaining kind of how the byrd machine would have not just work, but actually looked if you were in the courthouse like the to see the machine in action. So how did any of all this happen . In order to answer that question . We need to go all the way back to the end of the civil war and meet this guy. This is a confederate general, william mahone, kind of. He later ends up being a really key figure in virginia history. Its sad that we dont know more about this guy because he was a really interesting figure. You see him here in his confederate outfit. But, you know, after the civil war, he transformed himself from a confederate general to a railroad executive. And ultimately a United States senator who created virginias First Political machine in the 1880s. So his meteoric rise to power was matched only by his breakneck fall from grace. This is probably why we dont know too much about him today, because it was a very brief period of time that he was in power. But mahone was so exacting with his wardrobe that his tailor said he would rather make dresses for eight women than suit than one suit for the senator. So i think if you look at this image here, you can tell hes a puts a lot of care and attention into what he was wearing. So senator mahoney spoke with a squeaky voice. He stood about five foot six, weighing in at about £100, soaking wet. But dont let that fool you. He ran a cutthroat operation that seized power after reconstruction and kept its steely grip on virginia politics as long as possible. So historian Stephen Woodward put it this way, quote, in the whole gallery of southern figures of his generation, he stands out as one of the boldest and most enigmatic. Mahoney was a selfmade man, not to the men or born, yet possessed of an imperviousness of will and manner, and an over winning confidence in his own destiny. So this is one, of course. Not only did mallon make an impact in politics, but he also left a lasting impression on virginias place names. So his wife was a big fan of the novel ivanhoe. And so several place names along the railroad from norfolk to petersburg. And that line actually bear the names reflected in the literature from ivanhoe. So this is the waverley train station. So its one of the many place names of virginia that still bear the memory here of mrs. Mahoneys love of place names inspired by ivanhoe. Other place names that we can thank for mrs. Brown include wakefield, windsor, ivor. So at the end of the line, the end of the line, there was a famous argument between the maroons that led to a curious name. So apparently they got into an argument. And so now virginia actually has a place called disputed hania, which is because the maroons had an argument and couldnt decide what the what the name it. So, you know, mahoney is a man of contradictions, hero of the lost cause, who but who also helped black people get elected to the General Assembly. A Railroad Tycoon who became a hero to the working man, enemy of the establishment, who became a political boss. So his machine, the mahoney machine, ended the poll tax. They abolished the whipping post. They boosted funding for asylums. They forced railroads to bear a larger share of the taxpayer. And they repudiate did about a third of the virginias debt. So, you know, in all of that, they also increased the appropriation for Public Education by 50 , 50 , and opened a scores of new schools across virginia. So, i mean, this is one heck of a legacy here for the 1880s, for the mahoney machine to abolish the poll tax and abolish the whipping post and fund Public Education. So thats a you know, that was there. Those were their issues today. We would call them a progressive set of issues. But it was also a ruthless and autocratic organization. So he demanded that his Office Holders contribute a fixed percentage of their salaries to the party, to the war chest of the readjust our party. 5 for state employees. 2 for federal employees. If youre a federal employee, you got to get a little bit of a discount. If youre a state employee, you got to pay the full 5 . So businessmen who scored state contracts were expected to share the wealth and help finance party activities. Registers who held office were required to sign pledges agreeing to support specific bills and specific candidates approved by the register caucus. So, you know, progressive list of issues, some accomplishments. And that list that i mentioned. But then these hardball tactics really give him, you know, kind of a not a stellar reputation today. So his political machine fell apart after the danville riot, the socalled danville riot, which prompted a wave of White Supremacy and ultimately a jim crow constitution that limited who could vote and consolidated power and wealthy white elites who hated mahone and his machine. So around this time, the new rules about voting swept into power, as did this guy, thomas staples. Martin this is the portrait of thomas staples. Martin that used to hang in the capitol. Its now gone, replaced by like a landscape or something. But this is a one of two portraits youll see tonight that no longer hang in the capitol building. So thomas staples martin is a lawyer from scottsville, who was counsel for the chesapeake and ohio railroad. So he led the second political machine in virginia, which was largely created as a reaction to the mahoney machine. So this is a machine that was created to vanquish the previous machine, and it was all done with Railroad Money and really important to remember the source of this guys wealth and power is Railroad Money. So this was an era of concerns about election integrity. So between 1874 and 1900, no fewer than 20 Congressional Elections had been officially contested. That led to talk of a Constitutional Convention to write new rules and progressives were clamoring for election reform, tightening the rules to prevent against what they perceived as voter fraud. So this was kind of coming on the heels of a time when mahoney and his machine had all these black elected officials. And so there was a distrust about all of that, which is how we come to this guy, carter glass. So, you know, like many people from this era, carter glass was a newspaperman. He left school early to become a reporter with the lynchburg news. And within a few years, he owned the newspaper. So when delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in 1901 to craft a new system for voting, carter glass was there with a plan to purify politics. And when he said purity came at White Supremacy, right. So its disturbing today to read these documents from this area era to see how freely people threw around racial slurs at this time period. Although its also important to know the language that was acceptable at the time and get a sense of sort of what they were thinking or why they were thinking it. So the official record of the convention includes this quote from carter glass, this plan quote, this plan of popular suffrage will eliminate the as a political factor in this state in less than five years. And he was right. So the new constitution of 1901, 19 oh, to dramatically reduce the number of voters. If you take a look at the number of voters from the 1905 election for governor and compare it to the election before the new constitution, youll see there were about 88,000 fewer votes. Thats one third fewer voters. And the you know, that came that were able to vote in the election for governor after this new constitution versus the one before one third fewer voters. So in 1901, before that change, progressive governor Andrew Jackson montagu was elected governor with 200,000 votes. And the next election cycle, after this new constitution, 70,000 fewer voters were able to purchase two space. So thats a drop of like a significant number of voters who were recorded in that first election that did not vote in that second election. Right. So these are the new rules. The new numbers here were vastly smaller or scale of voters participating in the election. So progressives were the ones who pushed for election reform as Good Government movement that ended up handing the keys to the kingdom to the machine. So theres an irony here, too. The machine initially resisted this idea and the progressives were pushing it, not really knowing kind of how would actually work when they implemented these rule