DAN DANIEL Hardcover - 1997

From the publisher

Dan Daniel and the Persistence of Conservatism in Virginia portrays a Horatio Alger hero who helped mold modern Virginia, exemplified Southern conservatism, and strengthened America's national defense. After spending the first third of his life in poverty and surviving a near-fatal bout of tuberculosis, Wilbur Clarence (Dan) Daniel (1914-1988) rose to become a textile executive, president of the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce, national commander of the American Legion, member of the General Assembly of Virginia, and a twenty-year member of the U.S. House of Representatives. As a Democratic state legislator and a member of the powerful Byrd Machine in Virginia, he helped lay the foundation for Virginia's economic, cultural, and educational renaissance under governors Albertis S. Harrison, Jr., and Mills E. Godwin, Jr., while at the same time opposing the spread of social equality and political democracy.

For twenty years, Daniel was one of the most conservative members of Congress from any political party. He was a Southern Democrat who admired Richard Nixon, played golf with Gerald Ford, opposed Jimmy Carter, and supported the Reagan Revolution. While not always consistent, his political philosophy combined many elements of agrarian and business conservatism with Darwinist and Burkean traces. As an influential member of the House Armed Services Committee, Daniel specialized in military readiness and often proved the importance of congressional backbenders in molding history. In the 1980s, for example, he fought to insure sufficient appropriations for maintaining military hardware with such success that three years after Daniel's death, owing much to his efforts, the military couldperform effectively in the Desert Shield/Desert Storm operation.