Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 9 · column 1 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
Once upon a time the word
‘Democrat’ had a golden ring to it in our Old Dominion.
In those days in most regions of the state Democratic primaries held in June far overshadowed federal and state legislative elections in November.
If you were a candidate and won the Democratic primary, generally speaking you were in like the proverbial Flynn.
The first hint of change came in 1952 when Republican Dwight Eisenhower ran for FVesident against Democrat Adlai Stevenson.
A number of rock solid Byrd Democrats decided Stevenson was much too liberal for their tastes and endorsed Eisenhower. Among them was my uncle G.O’Conor Goolrick, a staunch Democrat who had once been a State Senator.
Eisenhower carried the state and to top it off in Northern Virginia Republican Joel Broyhill became the first Republican member of Congress in modern times.
Democrats, however, maintained solid control of both the executive and legislative branches of state government.
That started to unravel a bit in the 1960s with the death of Senator Harry F. Byrd Sr.
In 1969 Republican Linwood Holton defeated Democrat John Battle to become Virginia’s first
92.1%